Wednesday, December 31, 2014


Women With Troubles - December 2014

Here is a compilation of women with troubles reported in news stories during December 2014. Each name is linked to an Interested-Participant blog entry displaying details.

For a more comprehensive listing, check the Women With Troubles category link.

(AL) Wendy Wood Holland, 35,
neighbor - Convicted of sodomy, sexual abuse, sexual torture, and child endangerment,

(AZ) Nicole Renee Wooten, 37,
teacher - Guilty of sex crimes with child, 12. Sentencing in January 2015,

(CA) Annette Banda (aka Annette Vink), 50,
neighbor - Gets suspended prison and probation for sex with boy, 14,

(CA) Elizabeth Ann Brewer, 39,
teacher - Accused of molesting a female student, 16,

(CT) Sabrina Destiny Melendez, 21,
neighbor - Guilty of sex with boy, 13. Sentencing in February 2015,

(CT) Grisselle Pizarro, 36,
neighbor - Accused of killing her boyfriend,

(CT) Danielle Watkins, 32,
teacher - Guilty of sex assault and risk of injury to minor. Sentencing January 2015,

(DE) Stephanie Seabury, 22,
teacher - Gets probation for raping a boy, 13,

(FL) Gabriella Shea Martinez, 18,
neighbor - Accused of doing the illegal nasty with boy, 15,

(FL) Shauna Miratsky, 38,
school bus driver - Accused of engaging in sex with teen,

(FL) Angela Stoldt, 42,
neighbor - Gets life sentence for strangling and cooking her neighbor,

(IL) Paulina Marie Suess, 37,
teacher - Pleads guilty to drug charges,

(IL) Kristy J. Wines, 37,
child care worker - Gets eight years prison in child molestation case,

(KS) Brooke Dinkel, 33,
school counselor - Convicted of rape of boy. Sentenced to 14 years in prison,

(LA) Delisha Barg, 34,
neighbor - Accused of sex with boy, 16,

(MN) Mary Gilles, 28,
teacher - Guilty of sex with student. Sentencing in March 2015,

(MO) Valisa Ebberson, 24,
neighbor - Accused of killing her son, 19 months,

(MS) Kristen Damon, 23,
teacher - Accused of sexual battery of student,

(NC) Aisha Monica White, 33,
neighbor - Accused of sex with boy, 14,

(NE) Tera Stewart (aka Tera Spahn), 39,
neighbor - Accused of sex with teen boys,

(NJ) Linda Hardan, 21,
teacher - Accused of sex with multiple students,

(NV) Laura Droemer,
teacher - Faces drug charges,

(NV) Dina Palmer,
neighbor - Gets 16 to 40 years prison for seven-year-old son's death,

(NY) Stephanie Fletcher, 29,
teacher - Guilty of sex with students. Sentencing in February 2015,

(NY) Nicole E. Hargis, 31,
neighbor - Guilty of predatory sexual assault. Sentencing in February 2015,

(OK) Heather Cagle,
teacher - Fired for poor judgment,

(OK) Stephenie Ringwald, 31,
teacher - Hammered for providing alcohol to a minor. Additional charges in a different county,

(PA) Beverly Duck, 25,
neighbor - Accused of dropping her newborn on the floor causing skull fracture,

(PA) Iris Gibney, 42,
neighbor - Accused of inappropriate relationship with boy, 17,

(PA) Erica Ann Ginnetti, 34,
teacher - Pleads guilty to sex crimes with 17-year-old. Awaits sentencing,

(PA) Emily L. Nesbit, 32,
teacher - Sentenced to probation for sex with student,

(TN) Wendy Bargery, 36,
neighbor - Indicted for sex with boy, 14,

(TX) Krista Young, 35,
teacher's aide - Admits to sex with male student, 16. No sentencing date announced,

(VA) Erica Lynn Mesa, 27,
teacher - Awaits trial for felony sex with two male students,

(WI) Laura Bates, 45,
teacher's aide - Guilty of sex with student. Sentencing in February 2015.

Thanks to the tipsters.

NYC Fur Sellers Allegedly Attack Protesters


Fur Protesters

(New York City)
Three New York City fur sellers have been charged with dousing anti-fur protestors with trash bags filled with bleach.

Police said that Luis Justino, 40, and Lawrence Andrews, 35, were found in a stairwell in a building in lower Manhattan on Dec. 20 after at least three adults and a baby were hit with bleach thrown from the roof. Both men were carrying empty trash bags and Justino had a tell-tale bleach stain on one shoe, the complaint said.
Usually it's the anti-fur crowd that causes mischief.

MORE

Economy grows in spite of Obama




California Teacher Faces Sex Crimes


Elizabeth Ann Brewer

(West Los Angeles, California) A 39-year-old teacher formerly at Notre Dame Academy for girls, Elizabeth Ann Brewer, has been accused of sexually molesting a 16-year-old female student.

Brewer faces counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object, counts of oral copulation and forcible oral copulation.
Brewer was a teacher at Notre Dame Academy, a Catholic college-prep school for girls in West Los Angeles, during the time in question.

Brewer faces up to 21 years in prison if convicted as charged.
Details on booking not provided.

Monday, December 29, 2014


Florida Woman Accused of Sex with Boy


Gabriella Shea Martinez

(Palm Coast, Florida) A local woman, Gabriella Shea Martinez, 18, has been accused of doing the illegal nasty with a 15-year-old boy.
Martinez of Palm Coast was arrested early Friday after a deputy found her and the unnamed boy in the van parked at the library on Palm Coast Parkway, the report states. She was charged with sexual battery.

The deputy on patrol told dispatchers shortly before 3 a.m. that he would make contact with the occupants of the van, according to the report. He shined his flashlight in the rear driver’s side window, saw them together and “instructed them out of the vehicle.”

When the deputy learned the boy was under the age of 16, he called for a medical unit to check on his welfare, the report states. the boy was medically cleared on the scene.
Martinez was booked into custody at the Flagler County Detention Facility and later released on $10,000 bail.

This seems amusing indeed

The report below seems to be about conversations rather than any written report so it is a bit hard to zero in on what exactly is being claimed. But it seems that the central England temperature record is being referred to -- which goes back about 400 years.  And if this year will be only a tenth of a degree hotter out of 400 years of readings, that is surely a huge affirmation of temperature STABILITY.  There were indeed some big peaks in that record about 1830 and 1920 so it seems likely that this year will be little different from those years

It may be cold now, but 2014 is set to be the warmest year EVER.  With snow blanketing swathes of the country and icy conditions on their way, balmy summer temperatures seem a distant memory. But while the wintry weather grips the North, forecasters reveal that 2014 has in fact been the warmest year in history.

Records dating back to the 17th century show that Britain has been a tenth of a degree hotter this year than in any other for more than 400 hundred years.

The same can be seen in other parts of the world, with the change attributed to global warming.

While official confirmation can't be given until the end of the year, Met Office scientist Mike Kendon told the Times: 'We have seen continuous warmth throughout the year.'

In 2013, winter months were stormy but warm, with the average temperature 1.5C above what is normal.

Spring was 1.3C hotter, while autumn saw a 1.4C increase in temperatures too.

It surpasses 1998 and 2010, two of the hottest years on record, experts said, with almost all of the warmest years belonging to the 21st century.

While no one month has seen a record temperature, a slight increase on average throughout the year has contributed to the data.

Earlier this month the Met Office predicted it would be the warmest year on record, but urged caution when dealing with figures.

Colin Morice, a climate monitoring scientist at the Met Office, said: 'Record or near-record years are interesting, but the ranking of individual years should be treated with some caution because the uncertainties in the data are larger than the differences between the top ranked years.

'We can say this year will add to the set of near-record temperatures we have seen over the last decade.'

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).


Guidance Counselor Arrested

(Putnam County, Somewhere in the USA)
A woman who works as a guidance counselor for the Putnam County School System has been arrested twice within three days on alcohol-related charges, and one of those incidents involved a traffic accident with injuries.

Susannah Akers was charged with DUI and violation of implied consent after the car she was driving hit another vehicle on Tuesday morning, Dec. 23, causing non-critical injuries to a mother and her 3-year-old child in that other vehicle.

Akers was arrested again for public intoxication in the early afternoon on Christmas Day.
One might surmise that Ms. Akers is the one needing guidance counseling.

Notably, there are a dozen or more Putnam Counties in the United States and the website prompting this report assumes that all readers will know in which of 50 states the crime occurred. The website architects are wrong.

Sunday, December 28, 2014


Social psychologists attack the "denier" accusation levelled at climate skeptics

Almost  any Leftist writing with a pretense at scholarship is conspicuously marred by its one-sidedness.  Only "facts" that support Leftist prejudices will be considered.  This of course can only be considered as propaganda and will do little to persuade anybody with some knowledge of the field concerned.  Jonathan Haidt and a few others have come to realize that such writing is largely pointless.  It will only persuade those who are already believers.

So in an effort to upgrade the standards of scholarship in the social sciences, Haidt has spoken the unspeakable.  He believes that conservative viewpoints should be included in social science debates. He is swimming against the huge tide of suppressing conservative thought that pervades Leftist discourse. The huge efforts at censorship emanating from the Left are not for him.

I actually feel rather sorry for Haidt and his lieutenants.  Haidt has not considered WHY Leftist discourse is so selective in its consideration of the facts.  Leftists are selective because they HAVE to be.  Reality is so at variance with central Leftist assertions that it just cannot be confronted in full. The historic  Leftist assertion about the malleability of human nature, for instance, flies in the face of the whole discipline of genetics.  And, as time goes by, the findings in genetics move ever more strongly towards showing an overwhelming influence of genetics on human behaviour. Human beings are NOT a "blank slate".

But Leftists need to say that people are blank slates in order to justify their authoritarianism.  Leftists want to CHANGE people (can you get more authoritarian than that?).  They even once dreamed of creating a "New Soviet Man".  But if they are up against genetic fixity in people, attempts at change will be futile.  They may say that it is not people but "the system" that they want to change but "the system" consists of what people do --  so that is a detour that leads nowhere.

So as he lets fact-based conservative ideas into his head, I think Haidt will himself become a conservative.  And that will ditch his career!

At any event, I reproduce below a journal abstract of an excellent paper by Haidt and his associates that puts the case for intellectual diversity in science.  I also reproduce one example from the body of the paper about Leftist bias rendering research unable to show what it purports to show.  The example concerns the common Warmist accusation that climate skeptics are "deniers"


Political Diversity Will Improve Social Psychological Science

Jos L. Duarte et al

Abstract:

Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity - particularly diversity of viewpoints - for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diver sity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: 1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years; 2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike; 3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias m echanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority's thinking; and 4) The underrepresentation of non - liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self - selection, hosti le climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology.

One closely reasoned example of bias from the paper

Denial of environmental realities: Feygina, Jost and Goldsmith (2010) sought to explain the "denial of environmental realities" using system justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994). In operationalizing such denial, the author s assessed the four constructs listed below, with example items in parentheses:

Construct 1: Denial of the possibility of an ecolog ical crisis ("If things continue on their present course, we will soon experience a major environmental catastrophe," reverse scored).

Construct 2: Denial of limits to growth ("The earth has plenty of natural resources if we just learn how to develop them. ")

Construct 3: Denial of the need to abide by the constraints of nature ("Humans will eventually learn enough about how nature works to be able to control it.")

Construct 4: Denial of the danger of disrupting balance in nature ("The balance of nature is s trong enough to cope with the impacts of modern industrial nations.")

The core problem with this research is that it misrepresents those who merely disagree with environmentalist values and slogans as being in "denial." Indeed, the papers Feygina et al (2010) cited in support of their "denial" questions never used the terms "deny" or denial" to describe these measures. Clark, Kotchen, and Moore (2003) referred to the items as assessing "attitudes" and Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, and Jones (2000) characte rized the items as tapping "primitive beliefs" (p. 439) about the environment.

The term "denial" implies that 1) the claim being denied is a "reality" - that is, a descriptive fact, and that 2) anyone who fails to endorse the pro - environmental side of these claims is engaged in a psychological process of denial.  We next describe why both claims are false, and why the measures, however good they are at assessing attitudes or primitive beliefs, fail to assess denial.

Construct 1 refers to a "possibility" so that denial would be belief that an ecological crisis was impossible . This was not assessed and the measure that supposedly tapped this construct refers to no descriptive fact. Without defining "soon" or "major" or "crisis," it is impossible for this to be a fact. Without being a statement of an actual fact, disagreeing with the statement does not, indeed cannot, represent denial.

Similar problems plague Construct 2 and its measurement. Denial of the limits of growth could be measured by agreement with an alternative statement , such as "The Earth's natural resources are infinite." Agreement could be considered a form of denial of the limits of growth. However, this was not assessed. Absent a definition of "plenty ," it is not clear how this item could be refuted or confirmed. If it cannot be refuted or confirmed, it cannot be a descriptive fact. If it is not a fact, it can be agreed or disagreed with, but there is no "denial."

Even strongly agreeing with this statement does not necessarily imply denying that there are limits to growth. "Plenty " does not imply "unlimited." Moreover, the supposed reality being denied is, in fact, heavily disputed by scholars, and affirming the Earth's resources as plentiful for human needs, given human ingenuity, was a winning strategy in a famous scientific bet (Sabin, 2013) .

Construct 3 is an injunction that we need to abide by the constraints of nature. Again "constraints of nature" is a vague and undefined term. Further, the construct is not a descriptive fact - it is a philosophical/ideological prescription , and the item is a prophecy about the future, which can never be a fact. Thus, this construct might capture some attitude towards environmentalism, but it does not capture denial of anything. It would be just as unjustified to label those who disagree with the item as being in denial about human creativity, innovation, and intelligence

Construct 4 is similarly problematic. "Balance in nature" is another vague term, and the item assessing this construct is another vague prediction. One can agree or disagree with the item. And such differences may indeed by psychologically important. Disagreement, however, is not the same construct as denial.

Whether some people deny actual environmental realities, and if so, why, remains an interesting and potentially scientifically tractable question. For example, one might assess "environmental denial" by showing people a time - lapse video taken over several years showing ocean levels rising over an island, and asking people if sea levels were rising. There would be a prima facie case for identifying those who answered "no" to such a question as "denying environmental realities."

However, Feygina et al. (2010) did not perform such studies . Instead, they simply measured support for primitive environmentalist beliefs and values, called low levels of such support denial, and regressed it on the system justification scores and other measures (a third, experimental study, did not assess denial ).

None of Feygina et al's (2010) measures refer to environmental realities. Thus, the studies were not capable of producing scientific evidence of denial of environmental realities. Vague environmentalist philosophical slogans and values are unjustifiably converted to scientific truths even though no data could ever tell us whether humans should "abide by the constraints of nature."

It is not just that people have different environmental attitudes; the problem is the presumption that one set of attitudes is right and those who disagree are in denial. This conversion of a widely shared political ideology into "reality," and its concomitant treatment of dissent as denial, testifies to the power of embedded values to distort science within a cohesive moral community

Much more HERE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).



Saturday, December 27, 2014


Some desultory post-Christmas thoughts on Christianity versus Islam

I first read the Koran in my teens and, over 50 years later, I still have a copy handy -- in the Pickthall English translation.

You cannot read the Koran without noticing what a hostile document it is.  It is filled with anger and commands to attack unbelievers.  A small excerpt from the very angry Surah 9:

"Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush.... Fight the disbelievers! Allah is on your side; he will give you victory"

In the Koran people are sharply divided into believers and unbelievers.  And only believers deserve any respect or goodwill.  Contrast that with Luke 2:14:  "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men". Christianity is a much kinder, more peaceful and more universal religion, with very little hostility in it.

And Christians have absorbed that Gospel of kindness and gentleness.  A few lines from a very famous Christmas carol -- "Away in a manger":

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay
Close by me for ever and love me, I pray.
Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care
And take us to Heaven to live with Thee there.

And to this day both sets of scriptures are influential.  Not all Muslims are Jihadis and not all Christians are kind but the  bloodthirsty attacks by Muslims on those they disagree with are just as their Koran commands -- while Christians extend forgiveness to Muslims who attack them, as advised in Matthew 5:39.

I think I prefer an older code of justice:  "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".  Be kind to begin with but, if kindness is mocked, give the mocker back some of his own medicine

"William Dalrymple" is normally most erudite but he has an article here that suggests he has not read Surah 9.  He points to the old Mogul empire in North India as a place where Muslims practiced tolerance and respect for Christianity and concludes  from that that "Christianity and Islam are not far apart".

In so concluding he is overlooking the sharp distinctions that Sura 9 makes between what Muslims can do when they rule the roost and what they can do before that.  There can be a modicum of civilization and condescension once you are in a supreme position (which the Moguls were) but until then conquest and slaughter is what is commanded. When the conquest is still going on there is no pity or mercy for unbelievers.

There is a sense in which Jihadis are Muslim Protestants:  They take their holy book seriously.  That their holy book serves the evil side of human nature is the pity.  Freud was not far out in saying that there is a "Thanatos" (death) instinct in human nature.  Lucifer?  I think a Christian could well make a case that Islam is the work of the Devil.


Friday, December 26, 2014


Unions Recruit Immigrants



(Chicago, Illinois)
Unions across the United States are reaching out to immigrants affected by President Obama’s recent executive action, hoping to expand their dwindling ranks by recruiting millions of workers who entered the U.S. illegally.

Labor leaders say the President’s action, which curbs deportation and gives work permits to some 4 million immigrants, will give new protection to workers who have been reluctant to join for fear of retaliation.

“I think we’ll see very positive changes” because of the action, said Tom Balanoff, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1. “One of them, I hope, is that more workers will come forward and want to organize.”

SEIU, whose more than 2 million members include janitors and maintenance workers, recently announced a Web site where immigrants can learn about the action.

Labor unions have struggled over the last decade to maintain their membership and political muscle.
Heh.

Louisiana Woman Accused of Sex with Boy


Delisha Barg

(Baton Rouge, Louisiana) A 34-year-old local woman, Delisha Barg, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 16-year-old boy.

Barg has been charged with carnal knowledge of a juvenile.
Deputies said the boy told them the woman was very drunk, stumbling as he walked her to her house. He said Barg came onto him and had him take her to her room and help her get undressed.

The boy said she kissed him, and after he got her undressed he had sex with her. He told deputies he left when Barg's son woke up and started banging on her door to find out what was going on.

Detectives said Barg refused to answer questions without a lawyer present. They arrested her later Monday, and said she told them she didn't remember the boy even being at her house.
Barg was booked into custody. Details not reported.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

The Man Who Just Murdered Two Police Officers In Brooklyn Is A Muslim Jihadist

So Ismaaiyl Brinsley the killer of the two cops in Brooklyn, NY, has two Muslim names "Ismaaiyl" and a middle name "Abdullah"  which means "servant of Allah," is a fan of sheikh Yusuf Estes, who is not only neck deep in the Muslim Da'wa movement (the call to convert westerners to Islam) but Estes meets with both ISIS and Hamas financiers, and Brinsley loved the Koran, specifically Surah 8 on his own Facebook page, which calls for arming for preparation for Jihad war; it says all on what we need for motive as to why Brinsley shot the two officers.

Brinsley is a jihad sympathizer who used the racial turmoil as an excuse to kill Americans.

Brinsley admitted himself that he was "Muslim" and also frequented Al-Farooq Mosque which had a long history of terror support going back more than 20 years which hosted Al-Qaeda co-founder, a Palestinian named Abdullah Azzam.

More HERE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Wednesday, December 24, 2014


Christmas Memories




Christmas Past ...
On Christmas Day two hundred thirty-seven years ago, Captain James Cook guided H.M.S. Resolution to anchor at a coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean just north of the equator. He claimed the island as a discovery of the British Empire and named it Christmas Island after the date, Christmas Day 1777. The island was a tropical paradise.

Weeks later, Cook would discover more tropical islands and these he would name the Sandwich Islands after a prominent benefactor, the Earl of Sandwich. They would later become known as the Hawaiian Islands.

At the same time as Captain James Cook was enjoying tropical trade winds, General George Washington, along with 11,000 soldiers of the Continental Army, were fending off harsh winter winds in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The British had captured Philadelphia and defeated the Americans at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown.

Washington's army was bedraggled, beaten, and some were barefoot. They were underfed, underclothed, and low on ammunition. Christmas 1777 was a time of desperation at Valley Forge. And, within weeks, fully half of the Continental Army was lost due to death, disease, and desertion.
Just a little history of two major world events occurring at the same time, a mere 237 years ago.

Merry Christmas!

Previous

Study: Most US Gun-Related Deaths Are Suicides



Reportedly, suicides consistently outpace homicides in the U.S.
The people most affected by gun violence in the United States don’t look much like the images of shooting victims on television, movies or the news, according to a recently released study from UC Davis.

They’re old. They’re white. And they haven’t fallen victim to a violent crime – nearly two-thirds all Americans who died from gunshot wounds in 2012 killed themselves.

“People think of firearm violence as a crime problem, but the most fatal firearm violence is self-inflicted,” Garen Wintemute, the director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, told The Sacramento Bee. “And when it comes to suicide, firearm violence is an old, white guy problem.”

His study, which analyzed firearm deaths from 2003 through 2012, found that while gun-related deaths have remained fairly constant for years, homicide rates have dipped while suicide rates keep climbing.

Since researchers began keeping track of how people die, suicides have always outpaced homicides in the United States, Wintemute said. As of 2012, an average of 82 people died every day as a result of gunshot wounds, the study showed. Of those, 50 were suicides.
Frankly, this is news to me. However, I wonder whether the reported practice of making sure every youngster gets a medal and nobody keeps score in sports contests contributes to the inability of some individuals to cope with failure.

The holy day has dawned

It's dawned in Australia where I live, anyway.  Because of international time zones America is nearly a day behind.

So today Christians celebrate something very implausible -- the incarnation -- when the great God over all poured himself into the body of a baby and subsequently lived a life as a normal human being.  It takes a lot to believe that and the whole thing was a matter of great dispute among the early Christians. Jesus himself did after all say: "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28).

But along came Athanasius' Egyptian doctrine of the Trinity to quell disputes and to make some  sense of it all:  The doctrine of three persons in the one God. It's not a doctrine mentioned anywhere in Christian scripture  -- as I often point out -- but perhaps it is needed to make sense of the implausible.  That we cannot hope to understand Godhead is after all a reasonable claim.

I attended a service at my local branch of the Church of England yesterday evening: Holy Trinity Anglican Church Woolloongabba.  It's a nice-looking church, and well-maintained



To my amazement, the church was full with a good cross-section of people . I rather liked that as I see Christianity as a civilizing influence.  I thought initially that most came simply for the Xmas carols  -- which were promised and delivered -- but it seems I was wrong.  It was a Communion service and almost all of the congregation went forward to get the biscuit.

Rev. Paschke's sermon  was pedestrian, with God "rolling up his sleeves" rather a lot  -- an image I could not get with at all.  But one expects an Anglican sermon to be inoffensive junk.  I just went there for the carols.

Given my very fundamentalist early life, there was a lot more Popery in the service than I liked but I guess that I am a bit of a dinosaur there.  "Popery" is probably condemned only in Northern Ireland these days

Tuesday, December 23, 2014


Illinois Woman Gets Prison in Child Sex Case


Kristy J. Wines

(Urbana, Illinois)
A Thomasboro woman who admitted that she knew her live-in boyfriend was sexually molesting young children in their care has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

Judge Heidi Ladd said Kristy J. Wines, 37, allowed and enabled the "acts of depravity" to continue in the home she shared with Lyn Niemann, 39, who is currently serving a life sentence for predatory criminal sexual assault of three young boys.

"All she had to do was intervene. ... Instead, she played on her (electronic) tablet. It is unimaginable how an adult could be so depraved and so callous," Ladd said.
OK

Oklahoma Teacher Fired for Poor Judgment


Heather Cagle

(Catoosa, Oklahoma) Math teacher at R.J. Wells Middle School, Heather Cagle, has been fired after she made a snack run with 11 students in her car — including two in the trunk.
Cagle's fuzzy math and poor judgment led to her dismissal by the Catoosa School Board after she was suspended with pay Oct. 23, two days after her ill-advised snack run, the Tulsa World reported.

"No parent or grandparent or guardian should ever expect that any teacher, particularly not an experienced teacher, will take their children off campus in the trunk of a personal vehicle," school district attorney Karen Long said.
Cagle cried as she admitted her mistake.

Texas Teacher Admits to Sex with Student


Krista Young

(Lewisville, Texas) A 35-year-old teacher's aide with the Lewisville School District, Krista Young, has admitted to engaging in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old male student.

Young has been charged with improper relationship between educator and student, a second-degree felony
Police say they were notified Tuesday by Lewisville Independent School District officials that one of their employees — 35-year-old Krista Young of Little Elm — “may have had inappropriate contact with a student.”

That same day, police say, a detective in the Crimes Against Children division interviewed Young, who works at the Purcell Support Center. During that interview, she admitted that she “had engaged in sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old male student on several occasions in the last couple of months,” according to a release from the department.
Young was booked into custody with bond set at $10,000. No sentencing date was reported.

In re Michael Brown and Eric Garner

In the wake of the two deaths above, relations between American police and African-Americans have plummeted to a new low -- in part because of anti-police rhetoric from the likes of far-Leftist Bill de Blasio.  De Blasio has since tried to pull his horns in but the damage has been done.

Conservatives have cautiously exonerated the police involved in the deaths above but blacks have become fired up by the Leftist pot-stirring and two NYC police have now died as a result.  So I feel moved to say what little I can that might help the situation.

What I want to do here is to offer a couple of anecdotes in support of the view that civility towards the police will generally engender civility from the police.  When the Ferguson and NYC police were both confronted by two huge and un-co-operative blacks, the result was always going to be perilous but could have been much ameliorated by a more civil response from the blacks concerned.

My contact with American law enforcement is very minor but I do think my contact with the California Highway Patrol -- not exactly a much praised body of men  -- is instructive.  My contact occurred in the 1970s, when Jimmy Carter's reviled 55 mph speed limit still applied on American highways.  I was bowling along a Los Angeles freeway in my hired Ford Pinto at about the speed I would have used in Australia  -- 65 mph. And I had with me my then-wife, a very fine Scottish woman aptly named "Joy"

A CHP patrol detected me and pulled me over.  The trooper approached me very cautiously, sticking close to the side of the Pinto and standing behind me instead of beside me.  He was obviously very tense.  But when he found that I was unaggressive and perfectly civil to him, he untensed rapidly.  The fact that I speak with an accent that Americans usually perceive as British may also have helped.  It helped explain my unawareness of California rules.  (For the phoneticans, my accent is Educated Australian).  We had a perfectly genial conversation at the end of which he waved me on my way without even giving me a ticket.

White privilege?  Not exactly.  Because something similar happened recently to me where I live in Brisbane, Australia -- a place where blacks are too few to influence policy.

I was approached by a Queensland cop when I had unwittingly made an illegal turn.  And Queensland cops are not exactly fragrant.  There are many bad apples among them.  Even the police Commissioner was sent to jail for corruption not long ago.

So the cop was initially brusque and supercilious with me.  When I showed that I was listening to him carefully by asking him to repeat something I had not understood, however, he became much more relaxed and we had a fairly genial conversation.  He saw it as his duty to give me a ticket but we ended up with him wishing me a Merry Christmas and pausing other traffic to facilitate my driving off.  Once again a civil and co-operative approach from me got exactly the same back.

These are only anecdotes but I think they feed into a general perception of what might have saved the lives of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.  There is an old saying that people are a mirror of ourselves.  There is a lot of truth in it.



Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).


Kids Urged to Steal Guns



SOURCE:
A provocative public service announcement released by a San Francisco-based production company encourages children to put themselves at risk and commit a slew of crimes by stealing their parents’ guns from home and turning them in at school.

In the anti-gun ad, published Dec. 13 by Sleeper 13 Productions, a boy who appears to be in his early teens is shown walking up the stairs of his home and wandering into his mother’s bedroom.

The boy is shown opening the drawer to his mother’s dresser, where a handgun is hidden.

The boy takes the gun from the dresser and leaves the room. The ad then flashes to his school. Sitting in a classroom, the boy ventures up to his teacher’s desk after the rest of his classmates have left.

The tension building in the scene breaks, and the boy produces the gun from his backpack, slamming it on his startled teacher’s desk.
The author of the public service announcement, Rejina Sencic, apparently isn't aware that she is promoting criminal activity.

Monday, December 22, 2014


Forget glycemic index

The glycemic index of foods has been much promoted as important in diet.  A recent study (excerpt below) has however debunked most of the claims concerned

Effects of High vs Low Glycemic Index of Dietary Carbohydrate on Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors and Insulin Sensitivity

Frank M. Sacks et al.

ABSTRACT

Importance

Foods that have similar carbohydrate content can differ in the amount they raise blood glucose. The effects of this property, called the glycemic index, on risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes are not well understood.

Conclusions and Relevance

In this 5-week controlled feeding study, diets with low glycemic index of dietary carbohydrate, compared with high glycemic index of dietary carbohydrate, did not result in improvements in insulin sensitivity, lipid levels, or systolic blood pressure. In the context of an overall DASH-type diet, using glycemic index to select specific foods may not improve cardiovascular risk factors or insulin resistance.

SOURCE


NYC Mayor Under Fire


NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

SOURCE:
Mayor Bill de Blasio sat in the front pew at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Sunday, head bowed at times, with his wife on his left and the police commissioner on his right.

The crowd had come, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan said, to mourn the two officers killed in an ambush in Brooklyn on Saturday.[…]

“We pray for our leaders as well,” the cardinal said, looking toward the mayor’s row. “You’ve done what so many New Yorkers do in times of trial. You’ve come to St. Patrick’s.”

At the helm of a grieving New York, still raw from weeks of protests amid a national reckoning over law enforcement and race, Mr. de Blasio faces his biggest test yet.

The mayor, who does not attend church regularly, did not speak publicly on Sunday. His administration said he hoped to convey, in subdued terms, the need for unity in the city.
Many folks believe that Mayor de Blasio is decidedly anti-law enforcement, ready to throw cops under. Expect his response to be uninspiring pablum, just squishy mayoral huffy-puffy horse manure.

All the while, de Blasio has been silent about the murders of two New York City policemen.

'Allahu Akbar' Attack in France



(Dijon, France)
A driver shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) injured 11 people when he ran into pedestrians in the French city of Dijon on Sunday, just a day after a man yelling the same words was killed in an attack targeting police officers.

Two of the people injured in the car attack in the eastern city of Dijon were in serious condition, a police source said. The driver has been arrested.

"The man, born in 1974, is apparently unbalanced and had been in a psychiatric hospital," a source close to the investigation told AFP, adding that "for now his motives are still unclear".

The man had targeted groups of passersby at five different locations in the city Sunday evening in a rampage that lasted around half an hour, the police source said.
The driver said he was "acting for the children of Palestine" according to a witness.

Arguably, we are seeing more and more of this kind of lone idiot violence.

Sunday, December 21, 2014


Cops tell de Blasio: Stay away from our funerals

The article below is from a couple of  days ago but it has now become more relevant than ever in the light of the latest killing of police in NYC. De Blasio just drips hate and his refusal to back up his cops in their often difficult encounters with blacks just legitimates black resentment.  That resentment has just killed two cops who were clearly doing nothing wrong so De Blasio  must share the blame for that.  We see once again that racism can kill and Leftist anti-white agitation is no exception

Not over their dead bodies.  Cops are warning Mayor de Blasio and Council Speaker Melissa ​Mark-​Viverito to stay away from their funerals should they be ​killed in the line of duty.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association distributed a flier to members, blaring: “DON’T LET THEM INSULT YOUR SACRIFICE!” Cops were encouraged to sign and submit the “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” waiver to ban the cop-bashing pols from their funerals.

“I, as a New York City police officer, request that Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito refrain from attending my funeral services in the event that I am killed in the line of duty,” the waiver states.

“Due to Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito’s consistent refusal to show police officers the support and respect they deserve, I believe that their attendance at the funeral of a fallen New York City police officer is an insult to that officer’s memory and sacrifice.”

Officers can download the form on the PBA’s Web site and drop off a signed copy to their PBA delegates.

The mayor traditionally attends funerals for fallen officers.

“This is deeply disappointing,” the mayor and the council speaker said in a joint statement.  “Incendiary rhetoric like this serves only to divide the city, and New Yorkers reject these tactics.

“The mayor and the speaker both know better than to think this inappropriate stunt represents the views of the majority of police officers and their families.”

Sources say the revolt was sparked by the mayor’s lack of support for the NYPD following the grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer involved in the death of Staten Islander Eric Garner.

De Blasio added fuel to that fire in a press conference about the grand-jury vote where he said he had warned his 17-year-old, mixed-race son, Dante, to be careful around police officers.

“We’ve had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him,” the mayor said.

PBA President Patrick Lynch reacted to that by accusing the mayor of throwing cops “under the bus.”

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).


Saturday, December 20, 2014


Climate skepticism is racist



The hysterical Naomi Klein says so. Too silly to be worth fisking.  A mountain of argument built entirely on false premises.  Some background on the brainless braying bimbo here.  Her dream is to become a revolutionary leader ("Fuehrer" in German) and her rhetoric matches that

The annual United Nations climate summit is wrapping up in in Lima, Peru, and on its penultimate day, something historic happened. No, not the empty promises from powerful governments to finally get serious about climate action—starting in 2020 or 2030 or any time other than right now. The historic event was the decision of the climate-justice movement to symbolically join the increasingly global #BlackLivesMatter uprising, staging a “die-in” outside the convention center much like the ones that have brought shopping malls and busy intersections to a standstill, from the US to the UK.

“For us it is either death or climate justice,” said Gerry Arances, national coordinator for the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice.

What does #BlackLivesMatter, and the unshakable moral principle that it represents, have to do with climate change? Everything. Because we can be quite sure that if wealthy white Americans had been the ones left without food and water for days in a giant sports stadium after Hurricane Katrina, even George W. Bush would have gotten serious about climate change. Similarly, if Australia were at risk of disappearing, and not large parts of Bangladesh, Prime Minister Tony Abbott would be a lot less likely to publicly celebrate the burning of coal as “good for humanity,” as he did on the occasion of the opening of a vast new coal mine. And if my own city of Toronto were being battered, year after year, by historic typhoons demanding mass evacuations, and not Tacloban in the Philippines, we can also be sure that Canada would not have made building tar sands pipelines the centerpiece of its foreign policy.

The reality of an economic order built on white supremacy is the whispered subtext of our entire response to the climate crisis, and it badly needs to be dragged into the light. I recently had occasion to meet a leading Belgian meteorologist who makes a point of speaking about climate change in her weather reports. But, she told me, her viewers remain unmoved. “People here think that with global warming, the weather in Brussels will be more like Bordeaux—and they are happy about that.” On one level, that’s understandable, particularly as temperatures drop in northern countries. But global warming won’t just make Brussels more like Bordeaux, it will make Haiti more like Hades. And it’s not possible to be cheerful about the former without, at the very least, being actively indifferent to the latter.

The grossly unequal distribution of climate impacts is not some little-understood consequence of the failure to control carbon emissions. It is the result of a series of policy decisions the governments of wealthy countries have made—and continue to make—with full knowledge of the facts and in the face of strenuous objections.

I vividly remember the moment when the racism barely under the surface of international climate talks burst onto the world stage. It was exactly five years ago this week, on the second day of the now-infamous United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen. Up until that point, the conference had been a stultifying affair, with the fates of nations discussed in the bloodless jargon of climate “adaptation and mitigation.” All of that changed when a document was leaked showing that governments were on the verge of setting a target that would cap the global temperature rise at 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, more than double the amount of warming experienced so far). This was defined as a strategy for averting “dangerous” levels of warming.

But the temperature target—pushed by wealthy nations in Europe and North America—would likely not be enough to save some low-lying small island states from annihilation. And in Africa, where drought linked to climate change was at that time menacing many lives in the eastern part of the continent, the target would translate into a full-scale humanitarian disaster. Clearly the definition of “dangerous” climate change had more than a little to do with the wildly unequal ways in which human lives are counted.

But African delegates weren’t standing for it. When the text was leaked, the dull UN bureaucracy suddenly fell away and the sterile hallways of the conference centre came alive with shouts of, “We Will Not Die Quietly” and “2 Degrees is Suicide.” The paltry sums rich countries had pledged for climate financing were angrily dismissed as “not enough to buy us coffins.” Black lives matter, these delegates were saying—even if this corrupted forum was behaving as if that was far from the case.

The highly racialized discounting of certain lives does not just play out between countries but also, unfailingly, within them—perhaps most dramatically within the United States. I was reminded of this while reading about Akai Gurley, the unarmed 28-year-old black man who was “accidentally” shot and killed last month in the dark stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project. Like the dilapidated elevator, the lighting system in the building had been left unrepaired, despite complaints. And when that neglect of a public institution that disproportionately serves African-Americans intersected with armed fear of black men, the result was lethal.

More twaddle HERE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).



Friday, December 19, 2014


Nebraska Woman Accused of Sex with Boys

(Omaha, Nebraska) A 39-year-old local woman, Tera Stewart (aka Tera Spahn), allegedly seduced teen boys doing homework with Stewart's daughter.
According to court records, the mother of one of the boys called police in September, when she discovered text messages from Stewart on her son's phone.

Investigators said the boy told police he had sexual relations with Stewart in her home and in Omaha's Orchard Park when he was 15 years old.

A second boy told police Stewart started touching him when he was in the 8th grade. The boy, who was 12 or 13 at the time, told police he had a sexual encounter with Stewart in a child's bounce house in the backyard of Stewart's home.

The boy also told police Stewart suggested the other boy should join them.

The affidavit cites another incident, where the boy said Stewart invited both boys to Orchard Park in June 2014, where they had a sexual encounter in the tree line.
Details on booking not reported.

Tip: Jawa Howie

Thursday, December 18, 2014


Pennsylvania Woman Accused of Felony Child Endangerment


Beverly Duck

(State College, Pennsylvania) A 25-year-old local woman, Beverly Duck, has been accused of felony charges after injuring her newborn child and failing to seek medical attention.
According to court documents, Beverly Duck, 25, had recently given birth at Mount Nittany Medical Center on August 15 when Children and Youth Services (CYS) staff received a call that Duck had dropped her newborn on the floor, causing a skull fracture.

CYS was reportedly aware of several text messages Duck had sent during her pregnancy about not wanting her baby, leading CYS to plan to remove the child from Duck's care.
Duck was booked into custody at the Centre County Correctional Facility with bail set at $5,000.

Florida School Bus Driver Troubles


Shauna Miratsky

(Indian River, Florida) A 38-year-old school bus driver for Indian River County Schools, Shauna Miratsky, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 17-year-old teen.
"The husband of the bus driver actually did catch her kissing the juvenile at a local park,” said Sgt.Thomas Raulen.

Detectives said Miratsky met the teen last year, and began messaging him on Facebook, saying she had a background as a trauma advocate.

“He had trusted her to sort of act in a mentor capacity and she took advantage of that and turned that into a sexual relationship,” said Raulen.

According to the arrest affidavit, on Nov. 29, the teen said he needed to talk and Miratsky suggested a park in Sebastian. That’s when she kissed him, and that’s when her suspicious husband showed up after a warning from the couple’s teenage daughter. But the affair didn’t stop there, according to the arrest report.
Miratsky faces a charge of unlawful sexual contact with a minor.

WHY do the old swing Right?

Back in 1985, I reported, in one of the academic journals, the results of a large body of attitude surveys that showed what beliefs were characteristic of older people.  Both in what they favoured and in what they rejected, old people were shown to be very conservative.

Most people do swing rightwards as they get older, with the best-known examples being, of course, Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill.  Reagan was even a union official in his early days and yet became arguably the most beloved conservative leader of all time.

And there are other examples.  The person may not always change party loyalties but their views may evolve within that loyalty.  A good example comes from my home state of Queensland, in Australia.  Following is a brief excerpt from his Wikipedia entry:

Edward Michael (Ned) Hanlon (1887 - 1952) was Premier of Queensland from 1946 to 1952. After leaving school, he worked in the railways, and soon became a union official. In the 1912 Brisbane General Strike he played a prominent part as a militant....  Over the years Hanlon's outlook mellowed, and he shifted to the political right. He ended up, as [Labor Party] Premier, sending the police to suppress union demonstrations during the 1948 Queensland Railway strike.

So, again, why?   It couldn't be simpler: The essence of conservatism is caution.  And underlying that caution is a perception that the world is an unpredictable place.  So change has to take place in small steps if its objectives are to be achieved.  Massive changes such as Obamacare are to be avoided in case large unforeseen negative consequences emerge -- consequences  of the sort that emerged rapidly in the case of Obamacare.

And as we get older that unpredictability of the world is forced upon us -- and that makes us cautious.  Experience conservatizes us.  And that is why the young tend to be Leftist:  They lack experience.  Shielded by their parents, they have yet to realize that the world is full of surprises -- many of which are unpleasant.  As the great Scottish poet Robert Burns put it so memorably (and prophetically):

"The best-laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley

and leave us nought but grief and pain for promised joy".

Apologies for quoting the less-known next line of the verse. But it is undoubtedly apposite.

The transformation wrought by experience is only part of the reason for the differences I found, however. The world has undergone large changes in the last couple of hundred years or so, with a big swing towards socialism in many countries in the middle of the 20th century, ending in a decisive swing worldwide back to broadly free-market economic policies after that.

The large economic upswing   -- greatly increased prosperity -- that began with the abandonment of socialist economic policies in the Reagan/Thatcher years, however, had consequences as well.  As economic concerns became less pressing for most of the population, the policies and attitudes that accompanied economic struggle became less pressing too.  People could afford to reduce greatly the strategies they saw as needed to put bread on the table.  So there was an upsurge in permissiveness all-round.  Survival was no longer a harsh master.  So social (non-economic) attitudes liberalized  -- reaching rather absurd lengths as time went by -- as with the idolization of homosexuality in the early 21st century.

So the age-related attitude differences noted in my research also partly reflected the era in which the individuals concerned were born.  People who grew up in times of economic stringency acquired attitudes appropriate to that.  Homosexuality, for instance, had to be anathematized because it threatened the survival of the family.  And the family is of course the original social security safety net.

And so people who grew up in times of economic ease formed the more permissive attitudes allowed by that.  People acquire attitudes in their youth which tend to last for the rest of their life  -- unless powerfully contra-indicated by life-experiences  -- which is the sad fate of many who enter adulthood with socialistic ideas.

A FOOTNOTE:  The USA is a very successful country economically and yet also has large pockets of social conservatism.  Why?  It's at least partly because many Americans don't FEEL economically secure.  And why is that?  Because the only way many Americans can find to keep their families reasonably safe is to engage in "white flight".  They need to get away from the extraordinarily high rate of violent crime that pervades black or partly black neighborhoods.

But the only presently legal (post-segregation) way to get away from such neighborhoods is to move to the more expensive suburbs that blacks can rarely afford.  And that takes money, rather a lot of money.  So Americans are economic strivers at a huge rate.  The pursuit of money is America's biggest religion.  It's a great pity that their society makes Americans so unrelaxed

The truth of all that can be seen in Australia.  Australia's largest non-European minority is hard-working and law-abiding East Asians  (mostly Han Chinese) -- at about 5% of the population.  And Australia is also an economically prosperous place with very conservative economic policies.  Australian Federal governments even bring down surplus budgets on some occasions!  Contrast that with the trillions of debt run up by the Obama administration.   So a prosperous but safe country should have a very relaxed population.  And that is exactly what Australia is known for.

Apropos of that, I remember reading about 30 years ago (in "The Bulletin", I think) that Australia had at that stage the world's highest proportion of half-millionaires.  Once they had accumulated that much, smart  Australians tended to hop off the treadmill and retire to more recreational pursuits.  Americans, by contrast, stayed on the treadmill for much longer -- because money is at least part of their religion.  They reject St. Paul's view that the love of money is the root of all evil.  They know money as the root of all safety.  Even in their churches, Americans are often subjected to a prosperity gospel that would do Calvin proud.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014


Oklahoma Teacher Rape Case Dismissed - Update

(Tipton, Oklahoma) Former Tipton teacher Laura Cowan's student sex case has been dismissed.
Online court records confirm Laura Cowan's case has been dismissed in Tillman County District Court. That's after witnesses did not show up for a hearing.

Tipton police say Cowan told them she had sex with one student once in her classroom and again in her car in the country outside of Tipton during spring break.

In January, she says she had sex with another student in a Frederick motel and again in her car.
No reason was reported for the dismissal.

* * * * *

Oklahoma Teacher Accused of Raping 2 Students
[Previous 8/5/14 post]
(Tillman County, Oklahoma) A former Tipton Public Schools teacher, Laura Cowan, has been accused of engaging in sex with two students.

Cowan has been charged with three counts of rape.
The affidavit prepared on July 21, and filed on July 23 in the Tillman County District Court, documents an interview that Tipton Police had with Cowan. “The document states that she admitted having sex in her classroom with a high school student (name withheld).” The affidavit further states, “Cowan also described having sex with (the same student) in her car, in the country outside of Tipton, during spring break 2014.”[…]

Affidavit which further states that Cowan also admitted to having sex with another un-named high school student in January 2014, in a Frederick motel and in her car outside Tipton. OSBI agent Sadler further documented, “Both students verified that they did have sex with Cowan when they were students at Tipton High School.”
Cowan was booked into custody then released on $150,000 bail.

California Teacher Charges Dropped - Update

(San Bernardino County, California) All charges against Amy Bramlett have been dropped due to lack of evidence. Reportedly, Bramlett's alleged victims recanted their accusations.

* * * * *

California Teacher Accused of Sex with 2 Minors
[Previous 9/15/14 post]
(San Bernardino County, California) A 46-year-old teacher at Indian Springs High School, Amy Corinne Bramlett, has been arrested for engaging in sex with two male minors, one a former student.

Bramlett faces two counts of oral copulation with a person under 18 years old and one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor more than three years younger.
On Thursday detectives assigned to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Highland station contacted the detectives in the Specialized Investigation Division/Crimes Against Children Detail about an investigation into an inappropriate relationship between a 17-year-old male and Bramlett.

Sheriff’s Department detectives believe Bramlett had unlawful sex with the minor, a former student of hers, between January and June of this year, at her home on 7200 block of Sunrise Court.

On Friday, detectives found a second alleged victim during the course of their investigation, a student of hers who would have been 16 at the time of the alleged crime.
Bramlett was booked into the Central Detention Center with bail set at $1 million.

California Mom Sentenced in Sex Case - Update


Annette Banda, aka Annette Vink

(Salinas, California) Annette Banda has been sentenced.

On Tuesday she received a suspended prison term of five years and eight months. Banda will also be required to register as a sex offender for life and receive counseling.
In addition to probation, Banda was sentenced to a year in county jail with good time and actual credits of 288 days.
If Banda violates her probation terms, she'll likely go to prison.

* * * * *

California Mom Guilty of Unlawful Sex with Student
[Previous 4/17/14 post]
(Salinas, California) A 50-year-old local mother, Annette Banda aka Annette Vink, has pleaded no contest to charges of unlawful sex with an underage boy hundreds of times.

In accordance with a plea deal, Banda was convicted on four felony lewd acts and one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.
"Starting in 2010, Banda, initiated and continued a sexual relationship with a then 14-year-old boy for three years," prosecutor Jeannine Pacioni said Wednesday.

Investigators described Banda as a housewife who is married and has two daughters. Banda met the boy because he hung out with her daughter, according to prosecutors.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 16.

Another example of the famous "fact-checking" that the MSM claim they do

Sixteen-year-old Mohammed Islam wants you to think he's a big shot. On his website, Ettaz Financial, he wears a pair of fogged-over glasses, expression serious, sporting a red tie on a snowy day. The New York high-school junior says he got interested in the financial industry "at the tender age of eight", quickly fell into the third-rate world of penny stocks before graduating to the futures market after finding "a love for risk and volatility". How much has he made? Millions, he said. His net worth has soared into the "high eight figures".

The world is filled with teenagers like Mo Islam, who now says he never made a dime on the stock market. They play fast and loose with facts. But they don't usually get the treatment Islam just got in Sunday's issue of New York Magazine.

The article, reported and written by staff writer Jessica Pressler, begins with a rumour. Someone - it's unspecified who - said Mo had pocketed $US72 million ($87.6 million) by trading penny stocks. "An unbelievable amount of money for anyone, not least a high school student, but as far as rumours go, this one seemed legit," Pressler wrote. The original headline: "A Stuyvesant Senior Made $US72M Trading Stocks on His Lunch Break."

Coming on the heels of Rolling Stone's disastrous story of a University of Virginia gang rape, though nowhere near as serious in its consequences, the story unravelled almost as quickly as it went viral. While the New York Post, the Daily Mail and the Guardian did their versions, New York Magazine's was getting pounded in its comments section: "How dumb do you have to [be] to believe that this kid made $US72 million trading stocks during lunch?"

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).


Pennsylvania Teacher Walks in Sex Assault Case - Update

(Carlisle, Pennsylvania)
Emily L. Nesbit, 32, of South Middleton Township, was sentenced by Cumberland County Judge Albert Masland to 4 years of probation. The sentence follows a plea agreement struck with the district attorney's office.
Nesbit must also undergo sexual-offender treatment and register in accordance with Megan's Law.

* * * * *

Pennsylvania Teacher Pleads Guilty to Sex Assault - Update
[Previous 9/16/14 post]
(Cumberland County, Pennsylvania) Former Cumberland Valley High School teacher Emily L. Nesbit pleaded guilty today to institutional sexual assault.
Silver Spring Township Police said they began their investigation after associate principal Rob Martin was informed by an 18-year-old female student that she was looking through a male student's cellphone, with his permission, and found a conversation between the male student and Nesbit she thought was sexual in nature.

When police interviewed the male student, he told officers he would meet with Nesbit in her classroom at the end of the school day, and said they had held hands, kissed and had sexual contact, police said. The two had been communicating regularly for about two months, police said.

Police indicate the student and Nesbit had exchanged provocative photos of each other, and messages from Nesbit on the student's phone indicated her desire to have sex with him, and inferred past sexual activity, police said.
In accordance with a plea deal, Nesbit was preliminarily sentenced to probation. Formal sentencing will occur on December 16 after a review by the Pennsylvania sexual offender assessment board.

* * * * *

Pennsylvania Teacher Accused of Sex Assault
[Previous 3/14/14 post]
(Cumberland County, Pennsylvania) A 31-year-old English teacher at Cumberland Valley High School, Emily Nesbit, has been accused of engaging in sexual act with an 18-year-old male student in her classroom.

Nesbit has been charged with institutional sexual assault.
At a press conference this morning, Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said Nesbit and an 18-year-old male student engaged in sex acts on school grounds, not outside of school.

The student involved broke no laws, just maybe school regulations, Freed said.
Nesbit remains free as of this report.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014


ISIS Launch Scorpion Bombs



Frankly, I'm skeptical. However, anything is possible.
Islamic State militants are launching bombs containing live scorpions as the latest terror weapon in Iraq.

Canisters of the creatures are being blasted into towns and villages, according to a British military expert who has just returned from the country.
For one thing, wouldn't the scorpions die when the bomb exploded?

Sydney siege

Some notes about the Sydney siege by a now dead Muslim nut on AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Monday, December 15, 2014


New Age Education by Planned Parenthood



(Lafayette, California)
Students at one northern California high school are learning more than just the birds and the bees.

Along with local area groups, some parents are irate that their children’s sex ed class at Acalanes High School in Lafayette is being taught by employees of Planned Parenthood without their prior knowledge.

They are also fuming over the methods and materials being used, including a checklist that asks students if they are “ready for sex” and another worksheet that describes how to give and obtain consent, as well as a diagram that uses a "genderbread" person for lessons in gender identity.

“[Parents] are very concerned,” Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, a non-profit legal organization that is assisting the concerned parents, told FoxNews.com. “Planned Parenthood is not exactly the best when it comes to putting young people first.
OK, so 13/14-year-olds are subjected to the genderbread crap. Frankly, I think the parents should complain loudly and repeatedly.

The Lima climate  junket: Do as I say, not as I do

John Kerry, the US Secretary of State delivered an impassioned plea to the summit on Thursday. “It was in Rio, as far back as 1992, when I heard the secretary-general declare, 'Every bit of evidence I’ve seen persuades me that we are on a course leading to tragedy,’ he said. 'This is 2014, 22 years later, and we’re still on a course leading to tragedy’.”

Ironically, the conference has remained overtly reliant on fossil fuels, in the form of diesel generators. The talks are taking place in a vast temporary village constructed on the site of the Peruvian military headquarters.

Organisers rejected powering the village with solar panels on the grounds they were too unreliable, while efforts to hook the site up to the national grid – which is half-fed by renewable energy – failed due to technical problems.

Experts say the Lima talks will have the biggest carbon footprint of any UN conference to date at more than 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

As well as the diesel generators, the footprint has been enlarged by the jet fuel burned by the estimated 11,000 people who flew in from abroad to attend – including roughly 4,000 from non-governmental organisations – as well as the emissions from the fleet of coaches that crawl through Lima’s gridlocked streets to shuttle delegates to and from the venue.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

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