Banton Guestbook


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 3:10:17 AM

Name:

Benjamin

Email Address:

Stewart@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Bruce Welcome to First Look, our daily roundup of early-bird news: ??In case you missed it, the head of the International Monetary Fund is facing charges of sexually assaulting a maid at a ritzy New York City hotel. (AP) ??The United States is expected to hit its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling today, the legal limit it's allowed to borrow. Treasury officials will being raiding pensions (which they are required to reimburse) to fund the government. (Washington Post) ??More than half of Americans say a college education isn't a good value, but most college grads say it was worth it. (Reuters)


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 3:09:52 AM

Name:

Elwyn

Email Address:

Zackery@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Jessie AP110215149987 Schools are closed in Madison, Wisconsin today after an estimated 1,000 teachers called in sick to protest Gov. Scott Walker's bid to limit unions' right to collective bargaining. Walker's proposal would limit unions'? collective bargaining power to salary and force government workers to pay more for their benefits and pensions. Madison Teachers Inc. union director John Matthews told the Wisconsin State Journal that the sickout is the first coordinated absence in Madison schools in 16 years. Teachers are asked to attend protests at the state capitol instead of going to school. Madison superintendent Dan Nerad?told Channel 3000 that teachers who were absent will have to prove they were sick.


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 3:06:53 AM

Name:

Jedidiah

Email Address:

Andrew@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Myles On Tuesday, the New York Times published a critical story on K12 Inc, the largest player in the for-profit K-12 online learning industry. Today, the publicly traded company's stock is?down more than 20 percent from where they were at Monday's market close. But will the negative reaction last? Education expert Andrew Rotherham doubts it, pointing out that for-profit colleges' shares plunged after media reports focused on their agressive recruiting techniques and debt-ridden graduates earlier this year, but have since largely recovered. (The for-profit college industry also benefited from the news that the Education Department would be?backing away from the toughest of its planned new regulations governing its business model .) The Times story revealed that only a third of K12 Inc.'s online students are making adequate yearly progress on state standardized tests--a measure set by the federal No Child Left Behind law. Teachers told the paper that they felt pressured to pass students who did little or no work so that the company could continue to collect public money for the students it enrolled. Some teachers also said they were forced to take on as many as 70 to 100 students in each of their classes. (We wrote about the problem of online classroom size earlier this year.)


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:58:25 AM

Name:

August

Email Address:

George@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Silas Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: AP Photo/J. Scott ApplewhiteA major piece of President Obama's jobs plan has been defeated in the Senate, thanks to a GOP filibuster. Fifty-one senators voted for a measure to promote job growth by providing $60 billion to fund transportation projects and create a new infrastructure bank. The bill would be paid for by raising taxes on those making over $1 million. But because Republicans mounted a filibuster, 60 votes were needed to begin debate. Two Democratic senators joined all 47 Republicans in opposing the bill.


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:56:20 AM

Name:

Allan

Email Address:

Neal@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Cody wisc protests In a surprise move, Wisconsin Senate Republicans last night used some legislative maneuvering to pass a bill stripping most public-sector workers of collective bargaining rights. But it looks like the skirmishing over the bill--a forthright challenge to the power of organized labor, that in recent weeks had brought throngs of protesters to the state capitol--isn't over by a long shot. After the jump, you can read the rundown on the next steps on the battle over the Wisconsin union legislation.


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:54:02 AM

Name:

Rodger

Email Address:

Elijah@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Arnold AP110110023113Gov. Rick Perry has left some perplexed in Texas this week after he issued a vague directive to the new legislature that "sanctuary cities" need to be eliminated in the state. Perry wouldn't say, though, which cities he considered to be in violation of federal immigration law. The term typically refers to a city that provides safe haven to undocumented immigrants, directing local employees and police not to alert federal immigration agents about their presence. San Francisco, California, for instance, has a sanctuary-city ordinance on its books. The practice became popular during the El Salvador civil war in the 1980s, when thousands of Central American immigrants fled to the United States. But Texas immigration advocates say sanctuary cities don't actually exist in their state.


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:39:21 AM

Name:

Peregrine

Email Address:

Abner@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Rayner AP10082318815 The nation's leading spokeswoman for education reform Michelle Rhee is lashing out against a USA Today investigation that found unusually high erasure rates, from wrong answers to right ones, in some of her students' standardized tests. In one D.C. school under Rhee's purview, Noyes Elementary, the wrong-to-right swaps were so extensive that "the odds of winning the Powerball grand prize were better than the erasures occurring by chance," according to the newspaper. Rhee, the chancellor of D.C.'s school system until last year, rewarded the principal of Noyes with a bonus for improving the scores. She now says she welcomes the District of Columbia Board of Education's?call for their own investigation into the erasures.


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:38:54 AM

Name:

��֧էߧ֧ӧ֧�

Email Address:

Terance@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Virgil Stock image: ThinkStockA new study out of Baylor University finds that people with mentally ill family members find little help at their churches. Baylor Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Matthew Stanford examined the results of a survey given to nearly 6,000 adults who attend 24 Protestant churches in 10 states. Twenty-seven percent of churchgoers said they had at least one family member suffering from mental illness. Those affected reported more financial trouble, stress, and family conflict. They also experienced more difficulty?practicing?their faith, saying they prayed less than churchgoers who were unaffected by mental health problems. Surprisingly, these respondents reported that their struggles went largely unnoticed by their fellow congregants. Churchgoers who did not report any mental illness in their families ranked helping depression and other mental illness 42nd on a list of priorities for their church. The 27 percent of their peers affected by these issues ranked church assistance second on their list of priorities, right after "knowing what we can do together to make a difference for others." Stanford called the gap "staggering," adding: "These data give the impression that mental illness, while prevalent, is also nearly invisible within the congregation." Previous research shows religious activity is a powerful method of coping with psychological disorders. A meta-analysis of 100 studies found consistently positive correlations between religious involvement and well being.


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:31:45 AM

Name:

Bruce

Email Address:

Duane@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Aaron Robots, though not those referred to in this article. AP Photo/Itsuo InouyeA new book argues that increased automation is reducing the number of jobs available to human workers--and it is only likely to get worse in the coming years. We interviewed one of its authors last month. Now comes news that bolsters that notion. Big-name retailers like Staples, Amazon, and the Gap are using robots to help stock warehouse shelves, CNNMoney.com reports. Using a grid system, the machines travel around the warehouse and pick up shelves of goods to bring to human workers. The good news: The robots help companies reduce costs. The bad: They also take jobs away from flesh and blood workers, at a time when unemployment is at 9 percent, and workers are already having to compete with lower cost foreign labor.


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:27:33 AM

Name:

Timothy

Email Address:

Britton@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Archibald dead dolphinLast month?dolphin corpses began washing up on the Gulf Coast in alarming numbers. Well, more dead dolphins continue to be found, bringing the total this year up to 114 -- 100 more than the average number of dead dolphins that washed ashore during the first three months of any year between 2002 and 2007. So, naturally, there are quite a few people interested in what might cause such dramatic increases in marine mammal mortality. But?Mississippi's WLOX reported recently that government testing on the animals has been slow to commence, and?Reuters reported over the weekend that a gag order has been put into place forbidding wildlife biologists at the National Marine Fisheries Service to talk to the media about their findings.


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:23:54 AM

Name:

Mervyn

Email Address:

Andrew@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Enoch The Houston Chronicle has found that at least 3,000 more rape kits may be untested in the city's troubled crime lab, which already has a backlog of 4,000 kits. The huge processing backlog delays justice for rape victims and may have resulted in mistaken convictions, since DNA evidence from the kits has helped exonerate suspects in the past, the Chronicle reports. "The great odds are that there is someone innocent in that group," Bob Wicoff of the Harris County Public Defender's Office told the paper of the untested kits, some of which date back to 1990. New Yorkers to visit 30 U.S. mosques in 30 daysBy Liz Goodwin, Yahoo! NewsNational Affairs ReporterPostsEmailRSSBy Liz Goodwin, Yahoo! News | The Lookout �C Thu, Aug 11, 2011The route (Google Maps)During the month of Ramadan, two Muslim-American New Yorkers are visiting 30 mosques around the country and writing about their experiences on a blog. As part of their tour, Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq?stopped by the Corvallis, Oregon, mosque where Mohamed Osman Mohamud?occasionally?worshiped before he was arrested on charges of plotting to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon, last November. (Someone set fire to the mosque two days after Mohamud's arrest.) "He was very good friends to a lot of people who felt betrayed," Ali told The Lookout. "We wanted to?focus on the psychological pain these people are dealing with."


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:22:55 AM

Name:

Victor

Email Address:

Isaiah@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Roger Graduates of Emory's School of Theology in May 2011. (David Goldman/AP) Thousands of student loan borrowers wrote occasionally heartbreaking complaints about dealing with their debt burden to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is soliciting comments from people who have taken out private student loans to finance their education. "My own children will not be able to get the help they need to go to college because I will STILL be shackled to my debt," one woman wrote. [Related: Wiping out $90K in college debt in 7 months] "I want to work hard, marry my girlfriend, buy a house, and start a family. I am barely treading water right now," a young lawyer said of his $130,000 loan burden. The consumer protection group asked the public for responses to help the Department of Education conduct a study on the private student loan market, and it published nearly 2,000 comments and complaints on its website. The group also released a?student loan complaint system, where borrowers can report their grievances. [Related: How cities can keep young


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:19:20 AM

Name:

Magnus

Email Address:

Ebenezar@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Harold AP110516057251 Since HIV was discovered 30 years ago this week, 30 million people have died from the disease, and it continues to spread at the rate of 7,000 people per day globally, the UN says. There's not much good news when it comes to this devastating virus. But that is perhaps why the story of the man scientists call the "Berlin patient" is so remarkable and has generated so much excitement among the HIV advocacy community. Timothy Ray Brown suffered from both leukemia and HIV when he received a bone marrow stem cell transplant in Berlin, Germany in 2007. The transplant came from a man who was immune to HIV, which scientists say about 1 percent of Caucasians are. (According to San Francisco's CBS affiliate, the trait may be passed down from ancestors who became immune to the plague centuries ago. This Wired story says it was more likely passed down from people who became immune to a smallpox-like disease.)


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:18:50 AM

Name:

Abner

Email Address:

Randal@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Lewis Courtroom sketch of Dr. Lynne Fenton and shooting suspect James Holmes (Bill Robles) CENTENNIAL, Colo.��A University of Colorado therapist testified Thursday that she last saw James Holmes on June 11, nearly six weeks before he allegedly killed 12 people and wounded 58 others during a midnight screening of the new Batman movie in Aurora. But his defense attorneys argued that their professional relationship continued beyond the last therapy session and that prosecutors should not have access to a package he mailed to Dr. Lynne Fenton on July 19, the day before the movie theater massacre. The package, viewed by many as a crucial piece of evidence, reportedly contains a notebook with violent descriptions of an attack. Prosecutors want access to the notebook, but the shooting suspect's lawyers maintain that the package is protected under doctor-patient confidentiality and should be returned to Holmes. The package remains sealed away in an Arapahoe County court clerk's office until Judge William Sylvester can rule on the relationship. Fenton, a psychiatrist at the school


From Colombia

	5/31/2013 2:17:44 AM

Name:

Everard

Email Address:

Benedict@gmail.com

Website :

Comments:

Jerrold AP101019018304State lawmakers from Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Oklahoma, and South Carolina announced today their plan to pass laws to deny citizenship to children of illegal immigrants born in their states. The legislators introduced two model bills as part of the new coordinated effort. One measure (pdf) says a person cannot be a citizen of the state unless he or she has at least one parent in the country legally; the other asks other states and Congress to agree to that definition of U.S. citizenship, the National Journal reports. The second bill, called a compact, would not take effect unless Congress passes it, which seems unlikely right now. But if Congress were to pass the states' compacts, U.S. citizenship could be defined differently in different states. "State citizenship" laws would likely have no effect on people, since the question of defining U.S. citizenship is up to the federal government, not the states. If it seems confusing, that's because the lawmakers admit they are mainly using the proposed bills as a kind of leverage -- hoping to provoke lawsuits so that the Supreme Court will be forced to hear their arguments that citizenship should be defined more narrowly. Specifically, the lawmakers say they're looking to get the Supreme Court to review the issue of whether the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to all children born on U.S. soil. (You can read more about that debate here.)

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