End of Issue #39


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Editorial and Rants

Your typical Eurosavage $ocialist greed.  Sanctions?  What sanctions?  Those month long vacations don't come cheap!

German Magnetic Train for Iranian Pilgrims

May 29, 2007 - From: www.spiegel.de

Germany's high-tech railway manufacturer Transrapid could have a new international customer: Iran.  Tehran wants to build a rail link to an important pilgrimage site, and has asked a Munich-based engineering company to prepare a feasibility study for the project, Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reports Tuesday.

The company, Regierungsbaumeister Schlegel, is to look into whether it will be possible to build the 800-kilometer track, director Harald Spath told the newspaper.  He said he had met with the Iranian ambassador, Mohammad Akhondzadeh, and his economics attaché in Berlin last Tuesday.

The Iranian government is prepared to finance the project to the tune of $1.5 billion in start-up capital.  The new train line would transport between 12 and 15 million pilgrims a year from the capital to Mashhad in the north east of the country.  A Transrapid link would make the 800-kilometer journey possible in between two and three hours.

The Transrapid elevated monorail train is propelled at speeds of up to 450 km/h (270 mph) by a frictionless electromagnetic system.  It was developed by Transrapid International, a joint venture between Siemens and ThyssenKrupp.

The Iran project's origins lie in business contacts that were struck during a visit to Tehran by the former Bavarian economics minister Otto Wiesheu in May 2004, Suddeutsche Zeitung reports.  Wiesheu, who is now a member of the management board at Deutsche Bahn, said the Iran project is still at a very early stage.  "Iran is undoubtedly a difficult country," he told the newspaper.  "But I hope that the circumstances and the international relations will improve once more," referring to the country's controversial nuclear program.

Wiesheu feels the Transrapid project has a shot and is convinced economics sanctions against Tehran won't get in the way.  "The transport of pilgrims in Iran is certainly not a project that is covered by the political boycott measures."

The Bavarian economics ministry confirmed that it had supported Schlegel in its bid to secure the feasibility study contract.  The engineering firm has previously been involved in planning a new Munich airport and a high-speed ICE rail track linking Munich and Nuremberg.


Old, but interesting read.

We are Biased, Admit the Stars of BBC News

October 16, 2006 - From: www.dailymail.co.uk

By Simon Walters

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity.  Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

'Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it.'

In one of a series of discussions, executives were asked to rule on how they would react if the controversial comedian Sacha Baron Cohen - known for his offensive characters Ali G and Borat - was a guest on the programme Room 101.

On the show, celebrities are invited to throw their pet hates into a dustbin and it was imagined that Baron Cohen chose some kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a Bible and the Koran.

Nearly everyone at the summit, including the show's actual producer and the BBC's head of drama, Alan Yentob, agreed they could all be thrown into the bin, except the Koran for fear of offending Muslims.

In a debate on whether the BBC should interview Osama Bin Laden if he approached them, it was decided the Al Qaeda leader would be given a platform to explain his views.

And the BBC's 'diversity tsar', Mary Fitzpatrick, said women newsreaders should be able to wear whatever they wanted while on TV, including veils.

Ms Fitzpatrick spoke out after criticism was raised at the summit of TV newsreader Fiona Bruce, who recently wore on air a necklace with a cross.

The full account of the meeting shows how senior BBC figures queued up to lambast their employer.

Political pundit Andrew Marr said: 'The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people.  It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias.  It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.'

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports.  Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'.

Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a 'very senior news executive', about the BBC's pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: 'The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.'

Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: 'You can't do that, that's like the National Front!'

Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'.

There was another heated debate when the summit discussed whether the BBC was too sensitive about criticising black families for failing to take responsibility for their children.

Head of news Helen Boaden disclosed that a Radio 4 programme which blamed black youths at a young offenders', institution for bullying white inmates faced the axe until she stepped in.

But Ms Fitzpatrick, who has said that the BBC should not use white reporters in non-white countries, argued it had a duty to 'contextualise' why black youngsters behaved in such a way.

Andrew Marr told The Mail on Sunday last night: 'The BBC must always try to reflect Britain, which is mostly a provincial, middle-of-the-road country.  Britain is not a mirror image of the BBC or the people who work for it.'











Ever wonder why Canadians are so stupid?  Here's proof!

Failure is not an Option

June 9, 2007 - From: www.thestar.com

By Louise Brown

She has skipped 30 classes in a row and hasn't handed in an assignment all term, but the principal wants her teacher to cut this Grade 12 student some slack.

"He told me, 'Look, the student says she's finally willing to hand in all her work, so I want you to mark it and don't take off points for being late,'" sighs the English teacher at a west Toronto high school.

"Whatever happened to deadlines?  We bend over so far for kids these days, it's a joke."

With the school year almost done, the pressure for marks is on - and not just for students, but also teachers.

A growing chorus of educators say Queen's Park's new drive to keep kids in school to 18 is pushing them to coddle students with inflated marks, too many second, third and fourth chances and too few flunking grades, adding to an already lofty sense of entitlement.

In a new survey of nearly 1,000 high school teachers in Durham Region, four out of 10 say they feel principals push them to drop standards so more students will pass.  One in four feels pressured not to give an F.

Yet some say it's time to bring back the F-word - Fail - to a school system that has shunned it for a generation.

"Everyone wants what's best for the student, but teachers are asking, `Have we gone too far?'" says math teacher Ken Coran, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation.

"I can't say every principal is pushing teachers to raise marks, but the buzz we're hearing in staff rooms is, 'Are we making it too easy to get a credit?'"

Worried about the true value or integrity of school credits, a new provincewide teachers' work group on "credit integrity" has called for sweeping steps to lock in standards, including letting teachers give a "zero," something discouraged by the province in lieu of giving teens another chance.

The group is planning a symposium this fall to address mounting teacher complaints, and will meet June 19 with the Ontario Principals' Council to discuss the hot-button issue.

"One teacher ran into a student last summer who thanked her for a final mark of 50," said Oshawa math teacher Rudy Schmidt, "but the teacher was confused because she had given the girl 30-something.  The principal had raised it to a pass.

"Many schools want teachers to keep failure rates below 10 per cent, but how is that possible when kids skip more than 15 classes with no consequence?"


Following the murder of Jordan Manners at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate, complaints about inflated marks have been swept into a larger debate about the shifting power balance between students and teachers.

Coran says many teachers feel increasingly powerless to keep schools safe because the office won't back them up on report cards or behaviour.   Indeed, Ontario's new focus is to help at-risk kids, not crack the whip over their heads.

The McGuinty government has spent $1.3 billion on a smorgasbord of new supports, from summer literacy camps and free tutoring to "credit recovery" programs that let teens who fail a subject redo just the parts they flubbed, not the whole course.

While kids still fail courses, especially Grade 9 math, schools throw sinking students more and more remedial lifelines, and few are ever held back in grade school.  Last year, for example, the York Region District School Board failed only six Grade 8 students out of 8,064 across the board.  The year before that?  One.

Together with Ontario's near-ban on deducting marks for late work - brought in by the Harris government so marks reflect what you know, not how you work - even some students ask if schools dole out too much help.

"It's not fair to good kids when no one gets marks off for being late," complained one Grade 10 student who handed in a final project by the May 3 deadline, only to be told to take it back because no one else was ready.  "I don't think it's a good way to teach us to meet deadlines at work."

While Education Minister Kathleen Wynne says this kinder, more thoughtful approach to schooling helps more children learn, others charge it can drag standards down.

"Whatever happened to being allowed to fail?" asks Durham Region music teacher Jeff Pighin, who says he is one of a vanishing breed of teachers who fails several students each year in his Grade 9 music course and hands out exactly the marks he believes students deserve.

"I gave one student 8 per cent on his interim report card because he hadn't done a single assignment," said Pighin.  Yet rather than let the student fail, the school is looking for alternate ways for the teen to earn this arts credit, he says.

"No wonder kids come to school thinking they're getting a free ride.  There's some sense that you just can't fail," said Pighin.  "We hand out credits like tic tacs."

Toronto student trustee Nick Kennedy thinks Ontario is right to let teachers deduct marks for lateness only as a last resort, and mark tardiness on a report card under "learning skills" instead.

"It's good because it doesn't confuse your work habits with your knowledge," says the Grade 12 student at North Toronto Collegiate.  "School isn't there to teach you all life's lessons."

Jon Cowans disagrees.  The Pickering English teacher has called for the return of the F as an educational form of tough love, and says the theory that 'failure is not an option' produces students who simply aren't prepared to move on.

"I call it Credits Lite, the whole byzantine apparatus teachers must go through before you're allowed to fail a student."  Principals ask how often a teacher called parents before failing the student, he says, and whether the teacher modified the work enough.

"But I teach a class of students, not just one.  I'm not a tutor.  If I work only with some students, the others will be climbing the wall," said Cowans.

"You don't dare give a student a mark between 45 and 49 because the school will push you to raise it to 50."

On the other hand, does failing work?

Research by Queen's University shows students who fail more than one Grade 9 course are more likely to drop out.

"I've been teaching long enough to remember those 15-year-old boys who were held back with 12-year-olds.  It was horrible for their self-esteem," recalls Lynn Sharratt, York Region's curriculum superintendent.  "I don't think we knew what to do with them."

York schools lead Ontario's remediation wave.  The four weakest readers in every Grade 1 class get 12 to 20 weeks of daily tutoring through a program called Reading Recovery.  And the board tops the province in reading and writing scores.

Nancy Vail agrees that failing students fails to help kids.

"The teacher used to say, 'Look, I taught it, you just didn't learn it.  My job's done: you try again," said Vail, instructional co-ordinator for the Peel District School Board.

"Now we know if it didn't work the first time, more of the same won't work.  The onus is on the educator to find a way to reach every student."

With what we now know about the different ways people learn - auditory or visual?  male versus female?  left brain/right brain? - Education Minister Wynne says there's pedagogical bedrock under this whole new focus on help.  She points to the 6,000 more high school graduates every year as proof.

"It's true, we're going to extraordinary measures to help kids who are at risk, but I won't apologize for that.  It's what we need to do to reach all kids who have been struggling on the fringes."

Wynne says she's open to teachers' suggestions about ensuring the value of a high school diploma, but said she trusts they're not lowering standards to help students at risk.

To principal Blair Hilts, president of the Ontario Principals' Council, it's simple: "There's no such thing as giving a student too much help."













"The Daily Gut" is a website ran by the people from the FOX News show "Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld."

Does 'Do No Evil' Include Their Customer Support?

February 15, 2007 - From: www.dailygut.com

By Jim Treacher

The other day I told you guys about my attempt to get the Daily Gut listed as a source at Google News (pictured).  Go here if you need to catch up.  And now... the rest of the story (e-mails)!

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

   From: Google
   To: Me

   We currently only include articles from sources that could be
   considered organizations, generally characterized by multiple writers
   and editors, availability of organizational information, and
   accessible contact information. When we reviewed your site we weren't
   able to find this evidence of an organization.

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

   From: Me
   To: Google
   
   Multiple writers and editors:
   http://dailygut.com/Contributors.php

   Accessible contact information:
   http://dailygut.com/Contact.php

   Availability of organizational information:
   Could you be more specific? What sort of information?

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

   From: Google
   To: Me

   Thank you for your reply and for providing us with this additional
   information about your contributors. As we mentioned in our previous
   email, we currently only include sites that could be considered
   organizations. We currently characterize organizations by multiple
   writers and editors, general information about the organization, and
   easily accessible contact information. We were still unable to find
   the necessary information on your site.

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

   From: Me
   To: Google

   I understand. Could you give me a hint as to what this "general
   information about the organization" would be? That still seems vague.
   I'm hoping we can comply, but do you mean an organizational chart,
   some sort of bio page, a scan of a personal check from George
   Soros...?

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------  

   From: Google
   To: Me

   Thank you for your message. Although we're unable to provide specific
   information at this time, we sincerely appreciate your interest in
   Google News and your willingness to provide us with your articles. As
   we mentioned in our previous email, we'll log your site for future
   consideration.

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

   From: Me
   To: Google

   You bet! It's been a pleasure, but then I get a big kick out of Kafka.

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

   From: Google
   To: Me

   Can you help us improve Google News support? We welcome feedback about
   your recent experience so that we can improve the way we serve you.

   Share your thoughts by answering five quick questions via the link
   below. [Link removed]

   Your thoughts will help us to serve you better in the future.

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

   From: Me
   To: Google

   LOL
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Earth warns starving third-world trash to stop having 15 babies each.

U.N. Warns it Cannot Afford to Feed the World

July 15, 2007 - From: www.ft.com

By Javier Blas & Jenny Wiggins

Rising prices for food have led the United Nations programme fighting famine in Africa and other regions to warn that it can no longer afford to feed the 90m people it has helped for each of the past five years on its budget.

The World Food Programme feeds people in countries including Chad, Uganda and Ethiopia, but reaches a fraction of the 850m people it estimates suffers from hunger.  It spent about $600m buying food in 2006.  So far, the WFP has not cut its reach because of high commodities prices, but now says it could be forced to do so unless donor countries provide extra funds.

Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, said in an interview with the Financial Times: "In a world where our contributions are holding fairly steady, this [cost increase] means we are able to reach far less people."

She said policymakers were becoming more concerned about the impact of biofuel demand on food prices and how the world would continue to feed its expanding population.

The warning could re-ignite the debate on food versus fuel amid concerns biofuel production will sustain food inflation and hit the world's poorest people.

The WFP said its purchasing costs had risen "almost 50 per cent in the last five years".  The UN organisation said the price it pays for maize had risen up to 120 per cent in the past sixth months in some countries.

Biofuel demand is soaking up grain production as is rising consumption in emerging countries for animal feed.

"We face the tightest agriculture markets in decades and, in same cases, on record," Ms Sheeran said.  Global wheat stocks have fallen to the lowest level in 25 years, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Ms Sheeran added: "We are no longer in a surplus world."