Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

Rouge Forum Conference Schedule is linked here rougeforum2012.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/rouge-forum-2012-schedule-draft.pdf

Chicago Teachers Union to Hold Strike Vote Karen Lewis and the officers and members of the Chicago Teachers Union announced at a packed press conference on Friday afternoon, June 1, 2012, that the union will conduct its strike authorization referendum during the week of June 4, with full results expected by June 8. Under the terms of the law known as “SB7” (for Senate Bill 7), the union is required to get approval from 75 percent of its members in order to move towards a strike. (Retiree members are not part of the union that participates in strike votes).   www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=3310&section=Article

National Union of Education Workers marched in Oaxaca Mexico to celebrate Teachers’ Day as well as protest and demand the answers regarding missing persons and political prisoners from during the current administration.

UESF Members Vote 97% Yes in First Strike Vote At the General Membership meeting last night, 97% of the 1880 UESF members who participated voted to authorize a second strike vote. The overwhelming vote is a strong rebuke to the San Francisco Unified School District, which is attempting to take advantage of the budget crisis by extracting tens of millions of dollars from our pockets, and permanently eliminating a fair chunk of our contract.
Last night we sent a message loud and clear to the San Francisco Unified School District. It is time for the district to stop seeking unilateral cuts and sweeping program changes, and to start treating us with respect and to recognize what we have done to keep this district afloat.  Al Qaeda “are our Islamic brothers,” Mr. Boumana said.   A spokesman for Ansar Dine in Timbuktu angrily rejected the picture drawn by residents and said that if people were fleeing the town, it was because they feared the United States might bomb the Islamists who now controlled it.

Corporate State Unionites Crushed by Christian Fanatic Cheesehead: Wisconsin’s Scott Walker credited god, prayer, and family for his election victory over the inept thugs of the Democrat Party and their opportunistic allies from charlatan grouplets like the Democratic Socialists of America, home to far too many dishonest “education leaders.” Union bosses wasted millions of member dues dollars in Wisconsin, disarming workers with the belief that corporate state fascism can be defeated in a ballot box. It cannot, no matter if it is represented by the Democrats or Republicans–two heads of the same snake that is the executive committee and armed weapon of the rich: US government. Industrial unions were never won by popular votes, but by direct action like the Great Flint Strike Against GM. Craft union of the AFL were frequently won with employer assistance, and now the entire AFL-CIO is little more than a Trojan Horse for the bosses. But, in the absence of a mass class conscious movement organized and disciplined to win equality and justice–barbarism rises. Come to the Rouge Forum Conference to help build a serious alternative.

Congratulation on the Publication of

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Because every Kid is a Dollar Sign in Capitalist Schools: Harsher Truancy Laws On [Tuesday], May 15, 2012, deputies assigned to Lancaster Sheriff’s Station’s Target Oriented Policing (TOP) and Community Oriented Response and Enforcement (CORE) teams, made twenty-four arrests during a four hour “Truancy Sweep” operation.
Of the twenty-four people arrested, nineteen were juveniles, (16 truants and 3 warrants) and five were adults (4 misdemeanor violations and 1 Parole violation). The juveniles who were found to be “truant,” were all issued citations and released to their parents or guardians.
The operation was conducted in an effort to combat property crimes that occur during school hours.
Parents are reminded that during normal school hours, all school aged children must be on a school campus, or if not attending school that day, then they must be at home.
This includes those children who are being “Home Schooled” or who are on “independent study”.  http://www.theavtimes.com/2012/05/16/lancaster-truancy-sweep-nets-24-arrests/

Hot damn! New Reading Method! Sounding out Words, phonetically! In a hotel conference room near Flint, a room full of teachers and reading specialists are learning anew how to teach children to read.
They’ve traveled from across the state to get here. They’ve paid hundreds of dollars, some out of their own pockets, to receive wisdom from a nurse frustrated by an education system she describes as “a big hot mess.”
Ten years ago, that nurse, Nora Chahbazi, didn’t understand why her otherwise gifted daughter, whose parents had four college degrees between them, couldn’t read at grade level. For months, Chahbazi researched methods, pored over data and devised a strategy. Within a few hours, she helped her daughter leap from a struggling reader to an engaged one.
Her method, Evidence Based Literacy Instruction (EBLI), a synthesis of existing strategies and techniques first described by Diane McGuiness, a British psychologist, is gaining steam. Grand Valley University’s charter school network is training its teachers in the method, and bringing it to its Detroit schools in the fall. More than 3,000 teachers, most in Michigan, have been trained by Chahbazi.
EBLI uses simple strategies that enable students to break words into syllables and predict how they’ll sound. Results come quickly, helping motivate struggling readers to keep practicing. English is idiosyncratic, but there’s reason behind its madness: EBLI teaches how letters combine to form sounds (for example, the nine combinations of letters that produce the sound “sh”) — it’s not magic, but it’s surprisingly helpful.  http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120531/OPINION03/205310402/1026/schools/Reading-method-proven-help-struggling-readers

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Obamagogue: Assassin

Nothing else in Mr. Obama’s first term has baffled liberal supporters and confounded conservative critics alike as his aggressive counterterrorism record. His actions have often remained inscrutable, obscured by awkward secrecy rules, polarized political commentary and the president’s own deep reserve.
In interviews with The New York Times, three dozen of his current and former advisers described Mr. Obama’s evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda.
They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was “an easy one.”    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?_r=2

TomGram on the Killer-in-Chief The distance we’ve traveled in a decade can be measured by the Times’ description of the equivalent of that “personal scorecard” today (and no desk drawer could hold it):
“It is the strangest of bureaucratic rituals: Every week or so, more than 100 members of the government’s sprawling national security apparatus gather, by secure video teleconference, to pore over terrorist suspects’ biographies and recommend to the president who should be the next to die. This secret ‘nominations’ process is an invention of the Obama administration, a grim debating society that vets the PowerPoint slides bearing the names, aliases, and life stories of suspected members of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen or its allies in Somalia’s Shabab militia. The nominations go to the White House, where by his own insistence and guided by [counterterrorism ‘tsar’ John O.] Brennan, Mr. Obama must approve any name.”
In other words, thanks to such meetings — on what insiders have labeled “terror Tuesday” — assassination has been thoroughly institutionalized, normalized, and bureaucratized around the figure of the president. Without the help of or any oversight from the American people or their elected representatives, he alone is now responsible for regular killings thousands of miles away, including those of civilians and even children. He is, in other words, if not a king, at least the king of American assassinations. On that score, his power is total and completely unchecked. He can prescribe death for anyone “nominated,” choosing any of the “baseball cards” (PowerPoint bios) on that kill list and then order the drones to take them (or others in the neighborhood) out.   He and he alone can decide that assassinating known individuals isn’t enough and that the CIA’s drones can instead strike at suspicious “patterns of behavior” on the ground in Yemen or Pakistan. He can stop any attack, any killing, but there is no one, nor any mechanism that can stop him. An American global killing machine (quite literally so, given that growing force of drones) is now at the beck and call of a single, unaccountable individual. This is the nightmare the founding fathers tried to protect us from.   www.tomdispatch.com/post/175551/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_assassin-in-chief/?utm_source=TomDispatch&utm_campaign=56245bc397-TD_Engelhardt6_5_2012&utm_medium=email#more

Islamofascists Capture Timbuktu (blowback from fake Libyan CIA Revo) Rebels who captured the city in northern Mali in April have imposed a form of hard-edged Islamic rule, prompting many residents to flee in fear and changing the face of what had been a tolerant and easygoing destination that drew tourists from around the world.
Women are now forced to wear full, face-covering veils. Music is banned from the radio. Cigarettes are snatched from the mouths of pedestrians. And the look of the ancient mud-brick town is changing. A centuries-old monument, the shrine of a 15th-century saint, has been defaced; bars have been demolished; and black flags have been hung around town to honor Ansar Dine, or Defenders of the Faith, the radical Islamist movement that emerged from the desert and turned life upside down. “We have bad memories of you because of Falluja and Afghanistan,” the spokesman, Sanda Ould Boumana, said by telephone. “You are not well placed to talk about liberty, when we see what is happening in Guantánamo, Iraq and Palestine.” www.uesf.org/uesf-members-vote-97-yes-in-first-strike-vote/   www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/world/africa/in-timbuktu-mali-rebels-and-islamists-impose-harsh-rule.html?ref=global-home

Obamagogue Touts Bogus Spitting Image of Vietnam Vet to Build Support for Endless Wars Incessantly echoed by Hollywood and Washington since the concurrent successes of the Rambo and Reagan franchises, this legend was the central theme of President Obama’s Memorial Day speech kicking off the government’s commemoration of the Vietnam conflict.
“You were often blamed for a war you didn’t start, when you should have been commended for serving your country with valor,” he told veterans. “You came home and sometimes were denigrated, when you should have been celebrated. It was a national shame, a disgrace that should have never happened.”
It’s undeniable that chronic underfunding of the Veterans Administration unduly harmed Vietnam-era soldiers. However, that lamentable failure was not what Obama was referring to. As the president who escalated the Vietnam-esque war in Afghanistan, he was making a larger argument. Deliberately parroting Rambo’s claim about “a quiet war against all the soldiers returning,” he was asserting that America as a whole spat on soldiers when they came home — even though there’s no proof that this happened on any mass scale.
In his exhaustive book entitled “The Spitting Image,” Vietnam vet and Holy Cross professor Jerry Lembcke documents veterans who claim they were spat on by antiwar protestors, but he found no physical evidence (photographs, news reports, etc.) that these transgressions actually occurred. His findings are supported by surveys of his fellow Vietnam veterans as they came home.   www.creators.com/liberal/david-sirota/the-legend-of-the-spat-upon-veteran.html

This is what multiculturalism looks like: Female US Praetorian Guard Want to kill more People Two female soldiers asked a federal judge to throw out the U.S. military’s restrictions on women in combat, claiming the policy violates their constitutional rights.
U.S. Army reservists Jane Baldwin and Ellen Haring, in a lawsuit filed today in Washington, said policies excluding them from assignments “solely because they are women” violate their right to equal protection guaranteed by the Constitution’s 5th Amendment. The complaint names Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Army Secretary John McHugh as defendants.
“This limitation on plaintiffs’ careers restricts their current and future earnings, their potential for promotion and advancement, and their future retirement benefits,” the women said in the complaint filed by Christopher Sipes of Covington & Burling LLP in Washington.
The Pentagon in February announced a change in policy that opened more than 14,000 additional positions to women across the armed services, most of them in the Army. Still, it stopped short of allowing women to serve in so-called ground combat assignments, including special forces and long range reconnaissance operations.
George Little, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on the lawsuit. He said in an e-mail that Panetta “is strongly committed to examining the expansion of roles for women in the U.S. military, as evidenced by the recent step of opening up thousands of more assignments to women.” Women on Duty
Women make up about 14.5 percent of active-duty military personnel, according to Pentagon figures, and the Army is continuing to review whether infantry positions should be open to women in the future. It is also considering whether to let female soldiers attend its elite Ranger School.    mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-23/two-female-soldiers-sue-u-s-defense-secretary-on-combat-polic

Those Wacky Bilderbergers, Trapped in a World they never Made, (and hiding behind cops) A dull office park near Dulles International Airport took on the sheen of a Hollywood thriller this week, when an invitation-only cadre of global leaders gathered for a secretive meeting known as the Bilderberg conference.
Henry Kissinger and Bill Gates were chauffeured in. Fairfax County police established a security perimeter around the Westfields Marriott and prohibited a Washington Post photographer from snapping pictures from a public street.   www.washingtonpost.com/local/is-bilderberg-a-conference-on-world-affairs-or-a-powerful-global-cabal-depends-on-who-you-ask/2012/06/01/gJQA5uqx7U_story.html?tid=pm_pop

Naming the Bilderberg Conspirators (participants) www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31172

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Ireland Votes: “Screw Us! Beat Us! Make Us Write Bad Checks!” Irish voters backed the European Union’s fiscal treaty, endorsing the German-inspired budget rules as the debt crisis rages around the euro region.
Led by Prime Minister Enda Kenny, the yes side won by about 60 per cent to 40 per cent, according to figures published today on the referendum count officer’s website. Treaty supporters were ahead by 326,000 votes.  http://www.smh.com.au/world/irish-voters-back-austerity-pack-20120602-1znw3.html

Who Lost the Eurozone? As Spain’s economic crisis deepens and uncertainty swirls over Greece’s future in the euro zone, the guardians of the increasingly fragile European monetary union are near a moment of truth: Can they muster the will and resources to keep the euro zone from breaking apart?  The question has grown more urgent since the release of data Friday showing a record-high rate of unemployment in the euro zone, poor job creation in the United States and a manufacturing slowdown in China. Combined, those signals have fueled fears of a second global recession.
On consecutive days last week, two of the most powerful figures in Europe — Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, and Olli Rehn, the most senior economic official in Brussels — warned that the future of the euro zone was in doubt. In the words of Mr. Rehn, the union might well disintegrate unless policy makers took steps to bind the euro’s 17 nations closer together.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/business/global/euro-zone-nears-moment-of-truth-on-staying-together.html?ref=global-home

The Jobless Eurozone The jobless rate in the 17-nation euro zone reached 11 percent in March and April, the highest since the start of the data in 1995, Eurostat, the European statistical agency, said in Luxembourg. The previous record had been 10.9 percent in February, Eurostat said, after it revised the March figure upward from the 10.9 percent initially estimated.
“We have an economy that’s freezing up, it’s clearly not creating jobs,” Peter Dixon, global equities economist at Commerzbank in London, said. “But right now policy makers’ main concern is to ensure that the peripheral countries’ governments and banks can stay afloat. Given that, the real economic data is taking a back seat.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/business/global/daily-euro-zone-watch.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

The Jobless USA Another bad month for the U.S. job market is lengthening the list of perils facing the global economy.
American employers added only 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year and not even close to what economists expected. For the first time since June, the unemployment rate rose, to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent. It was the third month in a row of weak job growth and further evidence that, just as in 2010 and 2011, a winter of hope for the economy has turned to a spring of disappointment.
“This is horrible,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, a consulting firm.
The job figures, released Friday by the Labor Department, dealt a blow to President Barack Obama at the start of a general election campaign that will turn on the economy.
They also deepened the pessimism of investors, who even before the report was released were worried about a debt crisis in Europe with no sign of solution and signs of a slowdown in the powerhouse economy of China.
“The U.S. is not an island, and what happens abroad matters here,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. “The weakness in Europe, in particular, has a global reach and is affecting us.”
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 275 points, its worst day of the year,  http://newsandtribune.com/local/x1647294590/Bleak-U-S-jobs-report-a-danger-to-global-economy

These should be the only Living Monarchs

What a funny lot we are. One summer, there are riots in the streets and talk of “Broken Britain”; 10 months later, there’s bunting everywhere and almost everyone’s declarig how marvellous the Queen is, and, by extension, that we’re pretty good, too. Small wonder no one since the Normans has been able to get to grips with us.
Yesterday, the only explosions heard in London were fusillades from the 41-gun salute fired by the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery in Horse Guards Parade, which began the day’s festivities. Then, for the Queen, it was off to the Derby, riding down the straight at Epsom in an open-top limousine as an estimated crowd of 150,000 looked on and cheered as mightily as if she’d won the race itself   www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/diamond-jubilee-street-parties-bunting-is-this-broken-britain-7813558.html

Solidarity Fornever

Dickens’ Pickwick helps define Opportunism (that those who oppose high stakes tests, because of merit pay, and refuse to note the social context of corporate state schooling-of course many of them sup on NEA’s money)

“Slumkey for ever!” roared the honest and independent.
“Slumkey for ever!” echoed Mr. Pickwick, taking off his hat.
“No Fizkin!” roared the crowd.
“Certainly not!” shouted Mr. Pickwick.
“Hurrah!” And then there was another roaring, like that of a whole menagerie when the elephant has rung the bell for the cold meat.
“Who is Slumkey?” whispered Mr. Tupman.
“I don’t know,” replied Mr. Pickwick, in the same tone. “Hush, don’t ask any questions. It’s always best on these occasions to do what the mob do.”
“But suppose there are two mobs?” suggested Mr. Snodgrass.
“Shout with the loudest,” replied Mr. Pickwick.

What does NEA urge Rep Assembly Delegates to Visit in DC at the Rep Assembly? The Memorial to the Bogus “War on Terror”–that would be war for empire and profits.

Former San Diego EA Prezzie on the CTA as Frenemy For the past six years, SDEA has intentionally deemphasized our relationship with our state affiliate CTA (the California Teachers Association) and focused on doing things our own way. Here’s why.
SDEA employs our own staff, who work directly for us and not for CTA. This is big deal because CTA’s staffers tend to be very conservative in their advice to local unions. Theirs is a traditional union model where “expert” staff provide services to “grateful” members (remember, we pay their very large salaries!). They see state lobbying instead of local organizing as the most important role of the union. CTA staff analysis of school districts’ budgets also tends to line up with the districts’ own analysis, which as we know is wrong every single year.
Here’s an example of how SDEA sees the world fundamentally differently than CTA: When we were bargaining our current contract, then-SDEA Executive Director Steve Johnson met with CTA budget analyst Angela Su to get some help costing out parts of our contract proposals. Angela Su advised us that we were crazy to be seeking a three-year contract, and that our best bet was to take a one-year deal with concessions. We ignored her advice and fought for a three-year contract that gets our concessions paid back in the third year. And we won. We won doing it our way, not theirs.
Now CTA is at it again, trying to convince SDEA leadership that our members should accept concessions as inevitable.   thebreakfastclubsandiego.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/the-bell-curve-why-cta-is-really-our-frenemy/

For those Who Really, Really Believe they are Members of PBS
Tom Karlo, the general manager of public broadcasting operation KPBS, owned and operated by San Diego State University, makes $215,262 a year, according to state salary records obtained by the Sacramento Bee under the California Public Records Act. That’s a little less than the $218,004 made by his predecessor, Doug Myrland, who retired in 2008 on a generous state pension following a 2007 tempest that arose after KPBS cancelled Full Focus, a news show popular with local political cognoscenti.
According to its most recent financial statement, KPBS received $6,894,767 in “San Diego State University transfers,” but Myrland was always adamant that the cash didn’t give the citizenry any say in how he ran the TV and FM stations. “KPBS has been in existence for 46 years, and NEVER has it been a collective, or even a participatory democracy,” he famously announced. “I make decisions in the same way every General Manager before me did. We aren’t elected officials — every budget line item and every personnel decision and every bit of information we collect is not everybody else’s business. Just because you give a contribution or pay taxes doesn’t give you the right to decide — or even influence — what goes on the air and what doesn’t.”   www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2012/may/30/radar-Tom-Karlo-KPBS/

Emerging Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

Barbarism Tearing at Mexico–the US Colony Pink and baby blue flags representing the 49 victims of the 2009 daycare fire that spread grief across Mexico were held aloft by demonstrators during a solemn protest commemorating the third anniversary of the tragedy. Parents marched from Mexico City’s main plaza, or Zocalo, to the Angel of Independence monument Sunday, led by rows of small children pushing baby carriages in honor of the dead.
The June 5, 2009, fire at the ABC daycare center in the northwestern city of Hermosillo also left more than 70 toddlers and infants with serious burns. In the three years since, outraged and still-grieving parents have held emotional protests calling for justice for their children.
Correspondent Ken Ellingwood reported in The Times in July 2009 that the “incident and its aftermath reveal much about what is wrong with Mexico,” and are widely seen as a low point under President Felipe Calderon.
“Impunity. Corruption. Lack of transparency. Aloof politicians who are most nimble when ducking blame. Bureaucracies that bury you in red tape,” Ellingwood wrote, describing the tell-tale traits that leave many residents disenchanted.
Three years on, the owners of the ABC center and high-level public officials in the state of Sonora — some with reported ties to First Lady Margarita Zavala — remain free (link in Spanish). Suspicions remain that the fire may have been intentionally set among boxes of tax records at a state government-leased warehouse next door to the daycare center.  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/06/mexico-abc-fire-protest-corruption-hermosillo-parents-justice.html

Spy versus Spy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fifItoMPTw

The Endless Ties between Journalists and US Spies Alice A. Thuermer, a former Associated Press journalist who accompanied her husband on CIA postings around the globe, died May 6 at her home in Middleburg. She was 92…During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, she accompanied her husband, a clandestine CIA officer, to postings in India, Germany and Ghana.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/2012/06/01/gJQAsgsj7U_story.html

Blackwater Mercs Say the CIA Made them do it Five ex-Blackwater executives, facing federal firearms charges in connection with a gift of weaponry to a Middle Eastern monarch, have come up with a new explanation for how it occurred: It was a CIA operation.
In court papers filed last month in Raleigh, the defendants say the gift of five guns to King Abdullah II of Jordan during a royal visit to Blackwater’s Moyock, N.C., headquarters in March 2005 was requested, directed and authorized by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Attorneys for the five have filed declarations from two retired CIA officials, including a former Jordan station chief, who say they are familiar with the circumstances of the king’s visit and would be willing to testify about it. hamptonroads.com/2012/06/exblackwater-executives-finger-cia-weapons-trial

China Arrests American Spy Reacting to what could be the biggest intelligence breach in China in years, the Chinese government detained a security official early this year who is suspected of passing information to the United States, a person with knowledge of the case said Friday.    The official is believed to be an employee in the Ministry of State Security, China’s main intelligence agency. The United States and Chinese governments have not given any hint publicly of the discovery of the spying suspect. If the case were to be brought into the open, it could become another point of friction in a year of sharp diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing.   www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/world/asia/china-is-said-to-detain-official-spying-for-united-states.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

Oopsie Moment–US General Removed After announcing secret invasions of N. Korea The Pentagon announced the replacement of the commander of United States Special Operations in South Korea after a media report quoted him as saying that American and South Korean troops had been parachuting into North Korea on spy missions, a statement denied by Washington and the government in Seoul.   www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/world/asia/american-general-in-south-korea-replaced-after-spy-report.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

The Magical Mystery Tour

Monsignor William Lynn, who in his 12-year job as secretary of the clergy supervised hundreds of priests, is accused of conspiracy and child endangerment and, if convicted, faces the possibility of 28 years in prison.
Prosecutors say Lynn, 61, the highest-ranking U.S. clergyman to go to trial in the church pedophilia scandal, covered up child sex abuse allegations, often by transferring priests to unsuspecting parishes.
“Keep the priest in the ministry, keep the congregation in the dark,” said assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington in his closing statement in Common Pleas Court. “That was the plan. You saw it over and over again.”
Lynn’s motive was to protect the church from scandal and avoid any potential loss of money, the prosecutor said.

Vatican, Opposing Safe Sex with Boys, Also opposes Safe Sex For Girl Scouts Should there be any doubt left about how the Vatican views women after clamping down on American nuns late last month, the leaders of the billion-strong Catholic Church have now set their sights on the devilish Girl Scouts. No, it’s not about the sinful cookies, but a claim that the Girl Scouts are associating with “questionable” groups that the church believes do not strictly adhere to their tenets. In particular, the Vatican believes that several groups the Girl Scouts endorse, including Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam, both of which cater to the poor but also advocate safe sex and condom use to stop the spread of AIDS, might be a bad influence on the impressionable young women.   www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/15/vatican-investigating-girl-scouts-for-links-to-safe-sex-education-groups.html

Snake Bit Mack Wolford, a flamboyant Pentecostal pastor from West Virginia whose serpent-handling talents were profiled last November in The Washington Post Magazine, hoped the outdoor service he had planned for Sunday at an isolated state park would be a “homecoming like the old days,” full of folks speaking in tongues, handling snakes and having a “great time.” But it was not the sort of homecoming he foresaw.
Instead, Wolford, who had turned 44 the previous day, was bitten by a rattlesnake he had owned for years. He died late Sunday.  If the reason you are guilty is an untrustworthy snake, why trust that new snake?  http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/serpent-handling-pastor-profiled-earlier-in-washington-post-dies-from-rattlesnake-bite/2012/05/29/gJQAJef5zU_story.html?hpid=z5

Christian Zombie Eats Man’s Face; Martyred On the Saturday morning before he would make headlines for chewing off a man’s face – before he would come to be known tragically as the “Miami Zombie” – Rudy Eugene held his Bible and kissed his girlfriend goodbye.
Eugene’s on-again, off-again girlfriend said he woke her up at 5:30 a.m. to say he was going to meet with a “homeboy.” She said she found it strange he was rummaging the closet so early in morning. He didn’t name the friend or say where he was going.
He planted a kiss on her lips and said, “I love you.” Shortly after, he left the central Broward apartment he shared with her.  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/30/150625/girlfriend-recalls-unusual-start.html

After Two Imperialist World Wars, let us not have #3

So Long

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdUrg2Cqxdw&feature=relmfu

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