Women With Troubles - March 2015

Here is a compilation of women with troubles reported in news stories during March 2015. 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) Kristina Kelly, 42,
substitute teacher - Sentenced to 18 months prison for sex assault of three boys,

(AL) Jennifer Marie Perry, 27,
teacher - Accused of sexual contact with student,

(AR) Jessyca Hoskins, 26,
neighbor - Accused of prostituting girl, 14,

(AZ) Lindsey Ann Radomski, 32,
neighbor - Accused of sex crimes on boy, 15,

(CT) Danielle Watkins, 32,
teacher - Gets five years jail for being naughty,

(DE) Jennifer Suarez, 28,
teacher - Gets six months prison for sex with student,

(FL) Lindsey Judith Griffith, 19,
school lunch lady - Accused of sex with two students,

(FL) Tara Roberts, 28,
teacher - Sentenced to probation for child cruelty,

(FL) Cara A. Ryan, 45,
teacher - Accused of killing her ex-husband,

(GA) Kayla Emily Zittrouer, 22,
special ed teacher - Accused of inappropriate sexual contact with student,

(IA) Carissa Bryant, 33,
teacher - Accused of being drunk while teaching,

(IL) Nicole Jacobsen, 43,
teacher - Sentenced to probation for sex abuse of student,

(IN) Crystal R. Caswell, 33,
neighbor - Accused of sexual misconduct with a minor,

(IN) Paige E. Mostella (aka Paige Groves), 29,
special education teacher - Gets probation for child seduction,

(IN) Angela Neal, 26,
neighbor - Accused of molesting young children,

(KY) Jessica Boyers, 26,
teacher - Pleads guilty to sex with student, 13,

(KY) Lara Paige Conley, 37,
neighbor - Accused of stabbing her mother to death,

(LA) Kaylyn Huval, 27,
school employee - Accused of molesting a juvenile,

(LA) Lori Lesaicherre, 51,
neighbor - Accused of making meth in a hotel room,

(MA) Rachelle N. Gendron, 28,
teacher - Sentenced to 2 1/2 years incarceration for child rape,

(MI) Angela Renee Kelsey-Mahoney, 28,
neighbor - Charged with murdering husband,

(MI) Jordann Nicole Lockhart, 33,
PTO treasurer - Guilty of embezzling from PTO. Sentencing is scheduled for April 7,

(MI) Kathryn Ronk, 30,
teacher - Gets 6 to 15 years prison for sex with student,

(MN) Mary Gilles, 28,
teacher - Sentenced to probation for sex with student,

(MO) Megan Blair Baker, 25,
teacher/wrestling coach - Accused of sex with student on school bus,

(MO) Janice L. Rusk, 43,
teacher's aide - Gets seven years prison for rape and sodomy of student, 16,

(NC) Savannah Pittman, 20,
neighbor - Accused of being the getaway driver in an armed robbery,

(NE) Caitlin Stavropoulos, 28,
neighbor - Accused of several burglaries,

(NJ) Pamela Dziminski, 29,
neighbor - Accused of performing sex act on a boy, 4,

(NJ) Jenna Leahey, 33,
teacher and coach - Indicted for sex with male student, 16,

(NJ) Nicole McDonough, 32,
teacher - Indicted for improper relationship with three male students,

(NY) Christina (aka Christine) M. Jewell-Bellucio, 32,
teacher's aide and cheer coach - Accused of sex with student, 16,

(OH) April Corcoran, 30,
neighbor - Indicted for trading a girl, 11, in exchange for heroin,

(OH) Hannah Heekin, 23,
teacher - Indicted for sex with male student, 17,

(OH) Sheila Kearns, 58,
Spanish teacher - Gets 90 days jail for showing inappropriate movie to students,

(OH) Jennifer Kuhlman, 30,
teacher - Guilty of attempt to commit sexual battery. Sentencing April 28,

(OH) Deasia Watkins, 20,
neighbor - Accused of murdering her baby,

(PA) Geraldine Alcorn, 28,
teacher - Accused of nasty with female student, 11,

(PA) Jessica Streeper, 34,
teacher - Pleaded guilty to sex with boy, 14. Sentencing date not reported,

(PA) Padge-Victoria Windslowe, 45,
former madam - Convicted of murder in butt injection case. Sentencing June 11,

(SC) Meghan Colleen Dougherty, 36,
teacher - Accused of inappropriate relations with female student, 14,

(TN) Shelley Lott Brown,
phys ed teacher - Accused of sex with male student, 14,

(TN) Sylvia Hoffstetter, 51,
neighbor - Faces federal charges for operating a pill mill,

(TX) Amanda Brenneman, 31,
neighbor - Accused of sex assault of boy, 15,

(TX) Kaitlyn Granado, 20-something,
teacher - Accused of improper relationship with male student, 15,

(TX) Michelle Lee Kiesel, 21,
teacher - Accused of sex assault of boy, 16,

(TX) Andrea Sandoval, 32,
teacher's aide - Gets probation for having sex with one of her students,

(TX) Shannon Rae Spradlin, 32,
teacher - Convicted teacher on the lam,

(UT) Kayla D. Goodrich, 27,
teacher's aide - Sentenced to 90 days jail for burglary of other teachers' homes,

(VA) Erica Lynn Mesa, 27,
teacher - Admits to sex with four students. Sentencing in May,

(VT) Nicola Smith, 35,
teacher - Accused of sexually assaulting a student.

*****

(Wales, UK) Kelly Richards, 36,
neighbor - Given suspended sentence for sex with boy, 15.

Thanks to the tipsters.

More scientific brains fried by political correctness

One hopes that the authors below knew what was really going on in their data but they show no sign of it.  Their basic finding is that kids from rich families have bigger brains -- and they claim that wealth somehow has a direct effect on brain size.  Researcher Dr Kimberley Noble is quoted as saying:

"The brain is the product of both genetics and experience and experience is particularly powerful in moulding brain development in childhood.  This suggests that interventions to improve socioeconomic circumstance, family life and/or educational opportunity can make a vast difference."

It does nothing of the sort.  What is being ignored is that naughty IQ again.  The findings were entirely predictable from what we have long known about IQ.  IQ is both hereditary, tends to be higher among successful people and is associated with larger brain size.  All that the stupid woman has discovered is the old old fact that IQ is hereditary.  And no "interventions" will change that
.

Family income, parental education and brain structure in children and adolescents

By Kimberly G Noble et al.

Abstract

Socioeconomic disparities are associated with differences in cognitive development. The extent to which this translates to disparities in brain structure is unclear. We investigated relationships between socioeconomic factors and brain morphometry, independently of genetic ancestry, among a cohort of 1,099 typically developing individuals between 3 and 20 years of age. Income was logarithmically associated with brain surface area.

Among children from lower income families, small differences in income were associated with relatively large differences in surface area, whereas, among children from higher income families, similar income increments were associated with smaller differences in surface area.

These relationships were most prominent in regions supporting language, reading, executive functions and spatial skills; surface area mediated socioeconomic differences in certain neurocognitive abilities. These data imply that income relates most strongly to brain structure among the most disadvantaged children.

Nature Neuroscience, 2015

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

BBC Dropping Jeremy Clarkson Leads to Death Threats

Tony Hall
(UK) Following up on the controversy regarding The BBC's most popular program:

BBC director general Tony Hall has allegedly received death threats after the network announced it is parting ways with Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson.

CNN reports that police were informed Wednesday of the alleged threats to Hall's life. The threats came via email.

"Police in Westminster are investigating an allegation of threats to kill," Metropolitan Police told CNN. "The content of the message suggests [it was sent] from outside the U.K."

A major controversy, no doubt.

Arkansas Women Accused of Prostituting Girl, 14

Jessyca Hoskins
(Fayetteville, Arkansas) A 26-year-old local woman, Jessyca Hoskins, has been accused of introducing a 14-year-old to prostitution and filming a sexual encounter.

Hoskins faces counts of possessing and distributing child pornography and involvement in the sexual exploitation of a child.

Police were called to the Washington County Regional Medical Center on March 23 after a 14-year-old girl reported she had been raped.

She said that she had told her mother she was going to friend's house for the weekend, but went instead to Hoskins' apartment in the same complex. There, she had sex with multiple men, and Hoskins allowed her to use alcohol and marijuana. Hoskins also introduced her to a pimp who goes by the name "Allstar."

Police later located a witness who had a cell phone video of the girl and a man having sex.

After arrest, Hoskins was booked into the Washington County Detention Center.

Harmless pesticide still used in Australia -- ozone "hole"  regardless

In their role as sand in the gears of civilization, Greenies constantly find reasons to ban useful chemicals,  making pest and weed control difficult and raising costs.  We need therefore to look at where a ban is really needed.  In this case the reason for the ban is a laugh.  Methyl bromide was banned because it allegedly harmed the ozone layer.

But even though the ozone layer "protections" were put in place long ago, the "hole" in the ozone layer waxes and wanes as it always did.  The "protections" have protected nothing. The ozone "hole" is now properly regarded as just another failed Greenie scare.  Although  official meteorological records of the "hole" are no doubt still available, nobody I know even bothers to track it anymore.

So the ban on Methyl bromide should in fact now be lifted completely -- giving farmers and others a colorless, odorless, nonflammable fumigant to use, where appropriate

About 70 per cent of Australian strawberries are being grown on runners that have been fumigated with an environmentally damaging pesticide that has been banned around the world.

Methyl bromide is an odourless and colourless gas which was banned under the United Nations Montreal Protocol in 1989 because it depletes the ozone layer.

Australia agreed to phase it out by 2005 but a decade later, nine strawberry runner growers at Toolangi, in Victoria's Yarra Valley, are still using nearly 30 tonnes a year.

They produce 100 million strawberry runners annually, which in turn generate about 70 per cent of Australian strawberries.

Each year they apply to the UN for a critical use exemption from the ban, claiming the alternatives are financially crippling.

The co-chair of the UN Methyl Bromide Technical Options committee, Dr Ian Porter, said the situation was frustrating.

"Internationally, we've gotten rid of 85 per cent of methyl bromide, and it's a great win for mankind — in fact it's the best environmental gain that's been made," he said.

"[The strawberry runner growers] want to get rid of it, but there's a responsibility to provide high-health runners for the industry.

"It's frustrating ... but we don't want industries to fall over economically or technically. We don't want more disease or pests in Australia."

Environmental Justice Australia said it was concerned the growers were using a loophole to continue their use of methyl bromide.

"I think if people did know more about this issue, they'd be very concerned that the strawberries they're consuming are contributing to this significant environmental issue," chief executive Brendan Sydes said.

"There was a commitment to phase out this chemical by 2005 and yet, despite that, we're continuing to use it in this industry. It's a real concern.

"I think it's a real failure of the industry to come up with some alternative methods of producing strawberry runners, but also of the government to insist on compliance with this important regulatory regime."

Prices would increase to $10 a punnet: industry

The strawberry growers said if they were forced to stop using methyl bromide, the viability of the $400 million strawberry industry would be "compromised" and 15,000 jobs jeopardised.

The industry estimated their costs could soar by 500 per cent if they were to switch to soilless growing systems, similar to those used in parts of Europe.

The runner industry has invested more than $700,000 on research and development to find alternatives to methyl bromide.

That cost would be passed on to consumers, and a punnet of strawberries could end up costing more than $10.

"You imagine turning 100 hectares immediately into glass houses, and the impact that would have," Dr Porter said.

"It's just not the least bit economical at this stage.

"It's tough to weigh up economics, it's one of our challenges. Will consumers pay $10 a punnet? I don't know."

SOURCE

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

Spring Break Shootings

David Jamichael Daniels
(Panama City Beach, Florida)

Seven people were wounded, several critically, in a shooting at a Spring Break house party early Saturday.

David Jamichael Daniels, 22, of Mobile, Ala., has been charged with seven counts of attempted murder and was in the Bay County Jail awaiting first appearance.

So far, police don't have a motive for the shootings.

Are people who distrust troublesome minorities wrong in the head?

I would have thought it obvious that people who TRUST troublesome minorities are wrong in the head -- but I am just  a cautious old conservative so I guess my views don't count in the fairytale world of Left-dominated academe.

The New York Times does push the view that  people who distrust troublesome minorities are wrong in the head.  But they do so amid such a flood of words that is difficult to pin down any clear claims.  I am referring to the article "The Brain’s Empathy Gap" of March 19, 2015.  It was so difficult to pin down any clear assertions in it that I initially gave up any attempt to write some sort of critique of it.  Answering it seemed like doing battle with a giant marshmallow.  So, initially, I simply referred readers to what the excellent Steve Sailer had to say about it.  I do think however that I have a few things to add to Steve's comments so I am going to tackle the challenge after all.

The article moves from stories about gypsies in Romania to a disquisition on brain scanning and then back to stories about gypsies in Romania. Romania is a poor country and Romanian gypsies are apparently the poorest of the poor.  And it's all caused by "discrimination", of course.  The jump between brain scans and  Romanian gypsies is rather startling -- but whatever floats your boat, I guess.

What the brain scans showed were some clear patterns but the article itself admits that interpreting such patterns is still speculative.  Here is a typical sentence from the article:

"And in both groups, a small region of the brain, the medial precuneus, which may be associated with the theory-of-mind network, responded more strongly"

And it also may be associated with airborne pork, I guess.  I have been writing about such scans for some time and, at least among Leftist writers, they seem to be little more that a Rorschach Ink Blot test:  What you see in the thing before you tells us more about you than it tells about the display before you.  The NYT writer, Jeneen Interlandi, who is said to be a frequent contributor to the NYT magazine, soldiers on anyhow and proceeds to interpret the brain scans. She relies on some work by Emile Bruneau  of MIT.  It was he who found the enigmatic patterns in brain scans.

It was however an anomaly in the brain scans that caused the excitement. Three Israeli peace activists showed scans similar to Arabs.  I can't imagine any Israeli being surprised by that but surprise it apparently did.  The article goes on quite rightly to concede that the non-random and tiny sample precludes any generalizations from the findings but then goes on to make some mushy generalizations anyhow

When we get back to the gypsies  there is a reasonably fair account of how the gypsies are in part the authors of their own problems.  Their high level of petty crime and their unsavoury lifestyle are repellent to other Romanians.  And the article admits that government programs designed to uplift the Gypsies have failed.  We also read however that "racial prejudice was thwarting efforts to assimilate the Roma" -- where "Roma" is the politically correct word for Gypsy.

And, despite all its admissions, the article ends with a claim that by studying people's brain scans we might somehow be able to see where all that nasty prejudice is coming from and stop it -- presumanbly by sending the people with "bad" brain scans to Siberia or some such.  That the main problem with gypsies is their known very low IQ is not of course mentioned.  Leftists often give me cause to point out pachyderms in rooms.

And a final point I would like to make is that in elite thinking both inside and outside traditional gypsy lands, gypsies have long been appreciated. Despite their general intellectual limitations, many gypsies are brilliant musicians and their music is a substantial source of income for them.  It is undoubtedly a rather eerie talent.  There have been accounts of gypsies graduating from high-level music schools without being able to read a note of staff notation.  They just memorize everything.

And in classical music circles, there have been many expressions of admiration for gypsies by reason of their musical talent.  In the most famous opera of all time -- "Carmen" -- the leading lady is a gypsy, and she is certainly portrayed with overall admiration.  And the gypsy lifestyle is also portrayed as admirable.  And another well-known opera is "La Boheme", where "Boheme" is a French term for a gypsy. And the "Bohemian" lady is treated sympathetically there too.  And in Lehar's operetta Zigeunerliebe, the gypsy lifestyle is again admired. And Kalman's operetta Graefin Maritza is one extended hymn of praise for gypsy music. And Kalman was a Hungarian -- and Hungary has a substantial population of Gypsies -- so it is unlikely that he had any illusions about them.

You can see the Moerbisch performance of Graefin Maritza online here. It's infinitely more entertaining than the NYT and the expressive Dagmar Schellenberger in the title role is a pleasure to watch and hear.  She is both a most accomplished soprano and a superb actress.

So I would argue that in elite European opinion at least there has been much favourable disposition towards gypsies.  That gypsies have been unable to parlay the favourable disposition towards them into any general uplift at all suggests that their own limitations are the problem  -- rather than something bad in the heads of others.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). 

Christian identification with Israel

I went to a hymn-singing service at Wynnum Presbyterian church today.  I am deeply moved by music and hymns are meant to be moving so I love to hear and sing the great old Protestant hymns.

A famous hymn that I enjoyed was "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah", sung to the marvellous "Cwm Rhondda" tune.  It's been sung on many great occasions in England. Here it is being sung on a very great British occasion indeed. The last verse of it is below.  At the link you can hear that verse sung by everybody who is anybody in Britain:

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death and hell’s Destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to Thee;
I will ever give to Thee.

So the identification with the Children of Israel is deep into Christian culture.  God's gift of the land of Irael to the Jews is equated with salvation.  For Christians not to love Israel makes them very dubious Christians indeed

Secular people sometimes say that the Jews of today are totally different from the people who came up out of Egypt -- but to say that is to disbelieve all the promises that the Lord made to the Children of Israel.  Only pseudo-Christians or unbelievers could say that.  There are however a lot of pseuds around.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). 

Carolina Teacher Accused of Sexual Misconduct

Meghan Colleen Dougherty
(Simpsonville, South Carolina) A 36-year-old teacher at Hillcrest Middle School, Meghan Colleen Dougherty, has been accused of engaging in inappropriate relations with a student.

Dougherty has been charged with criminal sexual misconduct with a minor in the 2nd degree.

The arrest resulted from an investigation that revealed Dougherty and a 14 year old female student had engaged in sexual acts as far back as January of this year.

Dougherty was a physical education teacher at Hillcrest Middle School during the time of the alleged crimes, and also coached the girl's soccer and volleyball teams.

Dougherty awaits arraignment.

Convicted Texas Teacher on the Lam - Update

Shannon Rae Spradlin
(Seguin, Texas) Last August, former Seguin High School teacher Shannon Rae Spradlin was convicted of improper relations with a 17-year-old student and sentenced to probation.

Subsequently, Spradlin violated the terms of her release.

A new motion to adjudicate Shannon Rae Spradlin’s guilt filed on Feb. 9 shows the woman ran afoul of the conditions of her probation by living in motels or trailer parks in Live Oak and in Canyon Lake, by failing to remain out of contact with her victim and failing to notify her probation officer within 24 hours of allegedly being caught in a vehicle with her victim by New Braunfels police on Feb. 6.

OK

* * * * *
Texas Teacher Arrested for Misconduct with Male Student
[Previous 3/10/14 post]
(Seguin, Texas) A 31-year-old teacher at Seguin High School, Shannon Rae Spradlin, has been accused of engaging in inappropriate conduct with a student.

Spradlin was arrested for improper relationship between an educator and student. According to Seguin Police Detective Lt. Eric Jiminez:

“Our investigation revealed Spradlin had participated in inappropriate misconduct with a 17-year-old male student at Seguin HS,” he said. “As of now, there is nothing that has led us to believe that any of the inappropriate misconduct occurred on school property.”

Jiminez declined to go into detail about the conduct.[…]

The district received a report about two weeks ago about alleged inappropriate conduct and contacted the Seguin Police Department to investigate the claims, according to a a release from the district.

“Spradlin was immediately placed on administrative leave and subsequently resigned her position,” it said. “District officials worked closely with law enforcement and Child Protective Services throughout the process.”

Spradlin was booked into custody and subsequently released on $50,000 bail.

Missouri Teacher Accused of School Bus Sex

Megan Blair Baker
(Urich, Missouri) A 25-year-old teacher/wrestling coach at Sherwood Cass High School, Megan Blair Baker, has been accused of engaging in sex with a student on a school bus.

The 17-year-old student and wrestler allegedly bragged about his encounters to his teammates on the wrestling team.

Baker, who is also a wrestling coach, was suspended from Sherwood Cass High School and was placed on paid leave pending an investigation into the sex allegations.

Baker was booked into custody and released on $7,500 bond.

Top Gear Cans Jeremy Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson
(UK)

Following reports of an "unprovoked physical and verbal attack," BBC has officially dropped Jeremy Clarkson as host of Top Gear. (Technically, BBC simply decided not to renew his contract, which ends this month, but the reasons are clear.)

Top Gear is a global sensation. Though it first aired in 1977, the show as it's known today launched in 2002 after Clarkson and producer Andy Wilman pitched a new format to the BBC. The show now airs in over 200 countries and is one of BBC's most profitable shows, according to Reuters. The BBC itself estimates a worldwide audience of 350 million.

Frankly, I suspect the jettisoning of Clarkson heralds the demise of Top Gear as a highly-rated program.

Toe Sucker Case

Joey Leaphart
(Augusta, Georgia} A 45-year-old local man, Joey Leaphart, has been arrested for "simple battery and robbery by sudden snatching. He was placed in the Richmond County detention center, where he remained Friday afternoon with two additional holds on him."

Leaphart has a history of approaching women and attempting to suck their toes.

Leaphart pleaded guilty in 2000 to an incident in which he sucked and licked the toes of an 11-year-old girl and was in prison from March 2004 to October 2009, according to previous reports.

Before going to prison in 2002, Leaphart was also in court facing charges that he kissed a woman’s foot without her permission while she was in the parking lot of the Aiken County Department of Social Services.

Leaphart seems to have a problem which warrants locking him up.

Important Thinker

Russell Brand

Comedian Russell Brand has been voted the world’s fourth most important thinker by readers of intellectual magazine Prospect.

Brand has been called the spiritual leader of anti-capitalist youth.

The latest IQ study

The latest IQ study (below) has a slightly defensive air.  Despite ferocious efforts by Leftists to suppress findings that pop the bubble of Leftist claims, it seems that the genetic contribution to IQ has now become well-known and generally accepted.  So the effort nowadays seems to have moved towards proving that there are environmental influences too.  Previous IQ researchers have never doubted that and usually estimate that around one third of IQ is determined by environmental factors.

And the conclusions below disturb nothing.  Both genetic and environmental influences on IQ were found.  The main interest of the findings in this study therefore is *how much* influence  environment had.  The researchers report that a wealthy childhood environment gave the kid an extra 4 points of IQ -- about a quarter of a standard deviation -- over a kid brought up in a poor family.

If anything, that figure is perhaps a bit low. But the study is not a strong one anyhow.  It used adopted full-brothers rather than twins so genetic differences could be only roughly controlled for.  And assessing IQ in the late teens is not optimal either.  The influence of genetics is not fully revealed until about age 30  -- after the influence of early environmental factors has largely worn off.

Family environment and the malleability of cognitive ability: A Swedish national home-reared and adopted-away cosibling control study

By Kenneth S. Kendler et al.

Significance

Individual differences in cognitive ability result from a complex admixture of genetic and environmental influences. Adopted children are one way to estimate the degree of malleability of cognitive ability in response to environmental change in the context of a scientific design that can control for genetic differences among individuals. Sibling pairs in which one member is adopted away and the other reared by biological parents are a particularly powerful research design. In a large population-based sample of separated siblings from Sweden, we demonstrate that adoption into improved socioeconomic circumstances is associated with a significant advantage in IQ at age 18. We replicate the finding in a parallel sample of half-siblings.

Abstract

Cognitive ability strongly aggregates in families, and prior twin and adoption studies have suggested that this is the result of both genetic and environmental factors. In this study, we used a powerful design—home-reared and adopted-away cosibling controls—to investigate the role of the rearing environment in cognitive ability. We identified, from a complete national Swedish sample of male–male siblings, 436 full-sibships in which at least one member was reared by one or more biological parents and the other by adoptive parents. IQ was measured at age 18–20 as part of the Swedish military service conscription examination. Parental educational level was rated on a 5-point scale. Controlling for clustering of offspring within biological families, the adopted siblings had an IQ 4.41 (SE = 0.75) points higher than their nonadopted siblings. Each additional unit of rearing parental education was associated with 1.71 (SE = 0.44) units of IQ. We replicated these results in 2,341 male–male half-sibships, in which, controlling for clustering within families, adoption was associated with a gain of IQ of 3.18 (SE = 0.34) points. Each additional unit of rearing parental education was associated with 1.94 (SE = 0.18) IQ units. Using full- and half-sibling sets matched for genetic background, we found replicated evidence that (i) rearing environment affects IQ measured in late adolescence, and (ii) a portion of the IQ of adopted siblings could be explained by the educational level of their adoptive parents.

 SOURCE

Interesting that one of the co-authors above is Eric Turkheimer. Turkheimer is much loved on the left for  his demonstration -- using a group of poor 7-year olds -- that genetics is not an important determinant of IQ among poor kids -- where "poor kids" is probably rightly interpreted to mean "blacks".


Turkheimer

 What he found was probably little more than a restriction of range effect but he has repeatedly refused to release his raw data so we may never know.  Refusing to release raw data is a breach of all scientific protocols. We see it in Warmist researchers too.  It is pretty close to an admission of fraud.

The reason Leftists hate IQ tests is that they contradict the Leftist "equality" creed.  The application of that creed to blacks is however relatively recent.  Introductory psychology textbooks in the early '60s presented the black IQ findings without hesitation.  I remember it well. It was presented as one of the accepted findings in psychology.  As the great fantasy revolution of the '60s rolled on however, fact came to be replaced by righteous indignation.  The fantasists said that blacks COULD NOT be less intelligent so therefore the tests were bunk.

Equality has always been a silly but seductive dream.  It goes at least as far back as the "Levellers" of Cromwell's time.  And the Cromwellian era was undoubtedly much loved among America's founding fathers.  So Jefferson's "created equal" phrase in the Declaration of Independence is no surprise. But it is a pretty foggy phrase.  Are there many acts of creation or is normal childbirth an act of creation?  Or is it meant that God created Adam in such a way that all his descendants would be equal?  If so "The Fall" has clearly disrupted that intention.

But we should not take that part of the Declaration too seriously, however. The Declaration, like most political documents, was a product of much debate and compromise so Jefferson's ambiguous  phrase was just a device to keep  happy both those with Leveller beliefs and those with more realistic beliefs.

However you look at it, however, equality is a faith-based belief, not a fact.  It has no basis in fact.  Rejection of IQ tests is therefore a faith-based act. And the low average IQ scores of blacks are in fact powerful validation of the tests as measures of intelligence.

From the test results we would hypothesize that blacks would be at the bottom of just about every heap  -- and they are -- in income, education, status, health, lifespan and crime-incidence etc. What we know of black behaviour is powerful PROOF that the tests get it right.  Leftists can only reject the tests by closing their eyes to black behaviour. But they are very good at that

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

Ohio Woman Accused of Trading Girl for Drugs

April Corcoran
(Cincinnati, Ohio) A 30-year-old local woman, April Corcoran, has been indicted for trading an 11-year-old girl in exchange for heroin.

Corcoran, 30, of Pleasant Plain, Ohio was indicted on 27 felony counts that included complicity, corrupting another with drugs, endangering children and trafficking in persons.

Corcoran's dealer, Shandell Willingham, 41, has been indicted for performing sex acts with the girl.

Corcoran is in custody with bond set at $50,000. Willingham awaits extradition from Indiana.

Carolina Woman Accused of Abetting Armed Robbery

Savannah Pittman
(Onslow County, North Carolina) Savannah Pittman faces charges for being the getaway driver during a home invasion.

Pittman, 20, of Trenton Street in Richlands, was charged Friday by the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office with aiding an abetting an armed robbery, felony conspiracy and possession of stolen goods.

Pittman is accused of assisting Kelvin Burney, 22, of Pinetown Road in Jacksonville, Delshawn James, 23, of Murrill Hill Road in Jacksonville and Antwon Jones, 26, in a Jan. 29 home invasion, according to warrants.

She was found in possession of goods allegedly seized during the break-in, including three cell phones, two video game consoles, a car key and a semi-automatic pistol worth $2,060, as well as an additional pistol, all according to warrants.

Pittman was booked into custody at the Onslow County Jail with bond set at $100,000.

Georgia Teacher Accused of Student Sex

Kayla Emily Zittrouer
(Effingham County, Georgia)

A special education teacher at Effingham County Middle School was arrested today and accused of having inappropriate sexual contact with a student.

Kayla Emily Zittrouer, 22, of Guyton, provided a 14-year-old student with obscene pictures and had “inappropriate sexual contact” with the student, according to Sgt. Don White with the Effingham County Sheriff’s Office.

The Effingham County school system notified the Sheriff’s Office of the allegations on Thursday. Zittrouer was put on administrative leave on Thursday and resigned on Monday, according to School Superintendent Randy Shearouse.

Zittrouer turned herself in to the Sheriff’s Office and was charged with three counts of computer pornography, cruelty to children first degree, sexual assault by a teacher or other administrator engaged in sexual contact, enticing a child for indecent purposes and child molestation.

Zittrouer currently is in custody at the Effingham County Jail.

Why do Climate Denial and Racism go Hand in Hand?

Once again Warmists are abusing the messenger rather than discussing the facts. And they attempt to link only two individual climate skeptics to racism.  So even if all they say is true and relevant, they have no statistically sound basis for any generalization.  A sample of two is most unlikely to yield accurate generalizations. It would certainly fail a test of statistical significance.  Two swallows don't make a summer any more than one does.  So the post below is yet another example of the low intellectual level behind most Warmist writing

Famously climate denying Senator Ted Cruz announced for  President this week.

Above, see   Senator Cruz’s extravagant praise for one of the 20th century’s most prominent Southern racist segregationists, Jesse Helms. There’s a little well-documented history there for those too young to remember.

I’ve posted before on the link between racism and climate change denial, and I’ve noted that Senator Jim Inhofe is to climate denial as Strom Thurmond was to civil rights.  Both clung to outmoded and terribly destructive irrational prejudice, long beyond what reason would dictate. Even Thurmond softened his racial rhetoric in later years – while Inhofe has grown only more bombastic and shrill.

Here is yet another example, in Senator Cruz open admiration for Jesse Helms. Maybe there’s an answer to this in the way the denialist brain functions, that’s an area for further research.

SOURCE

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

ISIS Child Soldiers

ISIS Child Terrorist

The Islamic State (ISIS) group has trained more than 400 children in Syria as fighters in 2015 alone, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said Tuesday.

Calling them "Cubs of the Caliphate," the jihadist group provides intense military and religious training to children throughout its areas of control in Syria, the Britain-based monitor said, according to AFP.

Sleek videos published by ISIS-affiliated accounts show boys - some appearing to be as young as eight years old - loading and firing guns and crawling through sandy brush as part of military training.

The footage also shows children gathered around a table studying religious texts.

Once the boys turn 15, they are given the option to become full-fledged fighters with salaries, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

"ISIS officials try to woo children with money, weapons and teaching them how to drive cars," he said.

He said the children aren't forced to fight, but "since there are no (non-ISIS) schools, no work, this is what kids do during the day."

Reportedly, some children are recruited for more violent assignments.

Michigan Woman Accused of Murder

Angela Renee Kelsey-Mahoney
(Muskegon, Michigan) A 28-year-old local woman, Angela Renee Kelsey-Mahoney, has been accused of stabbing her husband to death.

Kelsey-Mahoney faces a charge of murder.

The stabbing occurred on Saturday morning, March 21.

Police had said the stabbing occurred while the couple was having a verbal dispute that apparently escalated.

Bond for Kelsey-Mahoney has been set at $5 million. She currently resides at the Muskegon County Jail.

Ohio Teacher Indicted for Sex with Student

Hannah Heekin
(Cincinnati, Ohio) A 23-year-old teacher at Roger Bacon High School, Hannah Heekin, has been indicted on charges for having sex with a student.

Heekin faces three counts of sexual battery.

Police say Heekin began an affair with a 17-year-old male student back in December. Police say the two were caught together earlier this month before school in a car in Ludlow Grove Park.

Officers say the two had sex twice before, once in her classroom.

Reportedly, Heekin will not be returning to school.

An odd thing

I have watched on video many American patriotic occasions and noted the songs sung.  But I have never seen "I vow to thee my country" sung on such occasions. Have I missed performances of it?   It is both intensely patriotic and intensely Christian.  It basically says how unreservedly the singers love their country but also goes on to say that the Kingdom of God is better still.  I welcome email from readers to enlighten me about it.  It is of course massively popular in Britain, where it originated just after WWI.  Below is a video of a beautiful young British soprano singing it. And the wonderful music was written by Gustav Holst, an eminent British composer.



There is also a choral performance here where just about everybody who is anybody in British politics can be seen.

The words:

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

I heard my country calling, away across the sea,
Across the waste of waters, she calls and calls to me.
Her sword is girded at her side, her helmet on her head,
And around her feet are lying the dying and the dead;
I hear the noise of battle, the thunder of her guns;
I haste to thee, my mother, a son among thy sons.

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.


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

British Woman, 36, and Boy, 15

Kelly Richards
(Wales, UK)

A married woman has been given a two year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to having sex with her son’s 15-year-old friend.

Kelly Richards, 36, began the month-long affair after being comforted by the boy and her son after an argument with her husband.

The relationship was exposed by the mother of the 15-year-old.

Tip: JR

Race And The American Millennial’s Brain Rot

Ilana Mercer is an expert at writing scarifying prose. She is supreme at ripping people to pieces verbally.  So what she writes below seems rather exaggerated to me. She grew up in Israel so may be more critical because of that. I am also in no doubt however that there is a large element of truth in what she writes below.  The Left have been dumbing down and distorting American education for so long that any other state of affairs could hardly be  expected.

I am more optimistic than she appears to be, however.  And I am optimistic because of one thing:  IQ.  IQ is largely hereditary so is not readily susceptible to destruction by the Fascists that American "liberals" have become. So I think that, as they grow up, the brighter part of the Millennial cohort will work things out pretty well for themselves.  That will be assisted by the large gap that always exists between Leftist beliefs and reality.

And societal progress is not strongly dependant on the mental state of the masses.  It very largely depends on the "smart fraction" of society.  As long as the top 5% of any population are on the ball, the society as a whole will do well.

Israel is a prime example of the centrality of the smart fraction.  Largely because of the Sephardi and Mizrachi element in the overall population, the average IQ in Israel is just that:  average, around 100 IQ points.  But the Ashkenazim are another matter.  They average out roughly half a standard deviation above the mean, which is a lot. And it is primarily they who have made Israel into the brilliant society that it is

So I think that, where it exists, American talent will continue to thrive

“Silence; We’re Studying for Our Pregnancy Test” (2008), “Your Kids: Dumb, Difficult and Dispensable” (2010), “Higher Education Is A Hard Row To Ho” (2014): The author of such titles is well aware of how stupid, on average, American millennials are. She has been for some time.

The 2010 piece aforementioned warned that “the electronic toys our dim, attention-deficient darlings depend on to sustain brain waves are made, for the most, by older people,” and that “the hi-tech endeavor consist in older Americans and Asians uniting to supply young, twittering twits with the playthings that keep their brainwaves from flatlining.”

According to my sources in the high-tech industry, for every useless, self-aggrandizing Gen Yer, a respectful, bright, industrious (East) Asian, with a wicked work ethic, waits in the wings. The millennial generation will be another nail in the coffin of the flailing American productivity.

Encounters over the years with a relatively smart cohort, through this column, have solidified these impressions. Oh yes: I did my patriotic part. I attempted to employ a Millennial or two. I found them to be incapable of following simple written instructions. Their interactions were, moreover, pathologically personal, never professional.

Now, confirmation of these anecdotal impressions comes courtesy of researchers at the Princeton-based Educational Testing Service (ETS). Sponsored by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the ETS researchers found that, “Not only do Gen Y Americans trail their overseas peers by every measure, but they even score lower than other age groups of Americans.”

Millennials in the U.S. lag in literacy, “including the ability to follow simple instructions, practical math, and—hold on to your hat—a category called ‘problem-solving in technology-rich environments.’” Worse yet: “Even the best-educated Millennials stateside couldn’t compete with their counterparts in Japan, Finland, South Korea, Belgium, Sweden, or elsewhere. … Altogether, the top U.S. Gen Yers, in the 90th percentile, scored lower than their counterparts in 15 countries.”

This includes millennials with masters degrees and doctorates. Our best and brightest managed to best their peers in only three countries: Ireland, Poland and Spain. Much as Charles Murray has documented in his seminal “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010,” the results obtain irrespective of class and race.

Rejoice! America is becoming an egalitarian Idiocracy.

Let us anchor these general findings about the nature of the Gen Y Beast in particular examples from the passing week.

A few students at the University of Oklahoma were caught in flagrante, singing a racist ditty while white. The cretins of cable were in high dudgeon. CNN’s Brianna Keilar crisscrossed a black student, Meagan Johnson, about her experience with racism on the UO campus.

Oh yes, replied the girl. She had indeed endured the indignities of racism at the UO. “We experience forms, different forms of racism on our campus all the time. It wasn’t shocking at all.” Keilar requested examples. Right away, the student replied that her “overall experience at OU has been a great one.” It was vital, she added, for “the University of Oklahoma … to focus on diversity across our campus. … it needs to be a campus wide effort to make OU [a] more diverse and more inclusive place.”

Here was an example of an educated lass who was incapable of comprehending and answering a straightforward question. Encouraged by Keilar’s effusive praise—”I love your perspective on this Meagan,” she gushed—the girl went on to cop to experiencing “racial microaggression”: She had been asked for lessons in twerking and complimented on her weave.

A pedagogue, presumably, had taught the girl about “microaggression.” Race Robocop Keilar responded with compliments. Thus was this Millennial’s mindlessness reinforced.

Millennials have been pre-programmed and praised for stupidity. They’ve acquired an education yet they remain uneducated. For an educated young American would know that racist speech, too, is constitutionally protected speech. And an educated young American would know that, as professor Eugene Volokh teaches, “It’s unconstitutional for the University of Oklahoma to expel students for racist speech.”

It would appear that when the neocortex is underused, the reptilian brain takes over.

Hysteria and heightened emotions are the hallmarks of the Millennial Mind. They can “whip up a false sense of mass outrage” with ease. The Spectator’s Brendan O’Neill calls these walking dead dodos “The Stepford Students.” They sit “stony-eyed in lecture halls or surreptitiously police beer-fueled banter in the uni bar. They look like students, dress like students, smell like students. But their student brains have been replaced by brains bereft of critical faculties and programmed to conform. To the untrained eye, they seem like your average book-devouring, ideas-discussing, H&M-adorned youth, but anyone who’s spent more than five minutes in their company will know that these students are far more interested in shutting debate down than opening it up.”

Black, liberal and bright—oops; I committed a “microaggression”—comedian Chris Rock recently confessed that he avoids doing his stand-up routine in front of millennial audiences. “You can’t say ‘the black kid over there.’ No, it’s ‘the guy with the red shoes.’ You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.”

In the Orwellian universe in which your kids are suspended, words speak louder than actions. Drunken youths sang a nine-second ditty while white—they did not defraud, steal, vandalize, beat, rape or murder anyone; they merely mouthed ugly words.

Unkind cuts, however, called for an exorcism. On cue, a petrified Waspy man, OU President David Boren, proceeded to perform the rituals that would soothe his unhinged charges. While Boren failed to fumigate the fraternity, tear his clothes; rub earth and ashes on his noggin and dress in sackcloth—he did shutter the doors to the dorm and board up its windows. A vice president of diversity was appointed. Soviet-style investigations launched, and summary expulsions sans due process carried out.

Tyranny, as we know, strives for uniformity.

In synch with their pedagogic pied piper, University of Oklahoma students gathered for prayer vigils, marches, demonstrations and lamentation. Burly athletes wept. One Oklahoma football lineman “decommitted,” or was committed.

This menagerie of morons—this institutionalized stupidity—would be comical were it not so calamitous, as shown by the research commissioned by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

SOURCE

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

Louisiana Hotel Room Meth Lab

Lori Lesaicherre
(Kenner, Louisiana) A 51-year-old local woman, Lori Lesaicherre, has been accused of making methamphetamine in a Contempra Inn hotel room.

Lesaicherre faces a charge of operating a clandestine lab to manufacture a controlled dangerous substance.

All items located are precursors or equipment to manufacture methamphetamine, police said.

Investigators said Lesaicherre confessed to making meth and disposing of the precursors in the dumpster.

Jefferson Parish Hazmat responded to the scene and disposed of the items.

OK

Which was worse, WWI or WWII?

I understand that the death toll in WWI was greater than WWII but I am not going to base anything on that. Instead I want to submit that the major tragedy of WWI was the Bolshevik revolution and that the major tragedy of WWII was the holocaust.  That is of course arguable but, given that, I think the answer is clear.

But first let me spell out why the Bolshevik revolution was attributable to WWI.  There are two reasons.  The first is that Germany deliberately and with malice aforethought transported the exiled Lenin in a sealed train across Europe to Russia.  The German High Command rightly assessed Lenin as a major threat to the Russian war effort and therefore facilitated his trouble-making in that country as part of their own war effort.

Secondly, before the Bolshevik takeover, Russia had become a real parliamentary democracy.  The Mensheviks were democrats who believed in elections.  The overthrow of the Mensheviks during the war  by the Bolsheviks was therefore a violent overthrow of democracy -- which resulted in many millions of deaths both then and across the next 70 years -- and also condemned the world's largest country to tyranny and poverty for  all that time.

I am the last to minimize the death of 6 million Jews. But it seems clear to me that the Bolshevik revolution was much more widely harmful.

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

Texas Woman Accused of Sleeping with Friend's Son

Amanda Brenneman
(Cypress, Texas) A 31-year-old local woman, Amanda Brenneman, has been accused of sleeping with her friend's 15-year-old son.

She was charged with sex assault of a child.

Brenneman was having marital problems so she went to live with a friend in July 2014.

Police said that three weeks after moving in she started having sex with her friend's teenage son at least 20 different times.

Brenneman was booked into custody with bond set at $100,000.

A GMO fruit that "organic" freaks could love?

After years of research and extensive field testing, the Okanagan’s own GMO apple is going to the big leagues.

Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) are routinely attacked by urban organic activists in spite of the fact that not a single ailment has ever been linked to this technology. And now, as a testament to the baselessness of such attacks, the rights to the GMO Arctic Apple have been purchased by the U.S. biotechnology company Intrexon (owners of GMO salmon), for the princely sum of $41 million.

This acquisition stands as a textbook example of how to stand up to organic activists.

Rather than compromise, Neal Carter, the Summerland developer of this non-browning apple, stood firm as organic activists claimed falsely that a GMO apple threatened organic orchards. The only question that remains is whether the organic industry will take former U.S. president Bill Clinton’s advice from 1997 and include the Arctic Apple in organic production.

Unlike some GMO crops that incorporate pesticides, the GMO Arctic Apple could, in theory, be grown under organic management with composted fertilizer and holistic pest management, according to the original version of the world’s most-widely adopted organic standards – the USDA National Organic Program.

I grew up on an organic farm and worked for five years as a USDA-contract organic inspector. I left when the organic movement became a bureaucratic scam designed to propel an anti-GMO, anti-scientific political agenda.

I still support the true principles of organic production. But with three-quarters of organic food being imported from countries like China, and with 46 per cent testing positive for prohibited pesticides — pesticides that do cause harm and can lead to death — it has long been my position that the organic industry has a massive problem on its hands, a problem that has nothing whatsoever to do with GMOs.

Organic crops are not tested. Record-keeping and record-checking are all that’s required to get a crop certified.

Imagine if we quit testing athletes at the Olympics. Do you think maybe athletes might take this as a licence to cheat? This is how the anti-GMO organic industry runs.

No wonder multimillionaire organic execs like John Mackey (Whole Foods) and tax-subsidized activists like Ronnie Cummins (The Organic Consumers Association) pretend GMOs threaten organic farms. By maligning this field of science, they’ve carved-out a sizable niche for themselves, giving consumers the false hope that they’re eating a better diet when they purchase premium-priced, certified-organic food, all based on the fact that it’s non-GMO.

The reality is quite the opposite.

The lack of organic field testing not only results in 46 per cent of organic food testing positive for prohibited pesticides, but also in un-composted fecal matter making its way into the organic food chain.

As Carter and his new corporate masters at Intrexon will surely attest, this causes serious illness, and can lead to death. How is this “organic” exactly?

GMO Golden Rice, papaya and brinjal are all examples of non-proprietary (no patent) GMO crops that could be grown organically. The time is long overdue for the organic industry to follow Clinton’s advice and embrace GMOs. And what better place to start than with Carter’s GMO Arctic Apple?

By standing up to organic “pseudo-science and naysaying fearmongers,” Carter proves that when the enemies of science can’t beat you, they might someday be forced to join you.

SOURCE  

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

Texas Teacher and Male Student

Kaitlyn Granado
(Irving, Texas) A 20-something teacher at MacArthur High School, Kaitlyn Granado, has been arrested for engaging in an improper relationship with a student, a felony.

She admitted to police that she kissed a 10th grade male student, who was 15 year old, and allowed him to rub her breasts during April of last year.

The investigation is ongoing. Meanwhile, Granado has been placed on administrative leave.

Texas Woman Accused of Sex with Boy

Michelle Lee Kiesel
(Leander, Texas)

A Leander woman has been accused of having sex with a 16-year-old boy, according to an arrest affidavit. Michelle Lee Kiesel, 21, was charged Wednesday with sexual assault of a child.

The boy told police he met Kiesel when he was 13 years old behind a Dollar General Store in Leander and had been having sex with her for the past seven to eight months, the affidavit said.

Police began to investigate when Kiesel’s stepmother told them in January that she found a teenage boy sitting by her front door in November, the affidavit said. The stepmother asked the boy how old he was and he said he was 15, according to the affidavit.

Kiesel was booked into custody at the Williamson County Jail and released on $10,000 bail.

Virginia Teacher Admits to Sex with Students - Update

(Stafford, Virginia) Former math teacher at Colonial Forge High School Erica Lynn Mesa pleaded guilty to electronic solicitation of a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

She admitted to having sex with four students.

Mesa faces a possible 22 years in prison when sentenced in May.

* * * * *
Virginia Teacher Indicted for Sex with Student - Update
[Previous 12/4/14 post]
(Stafford, Virginia) Arrested last September, 27-year-old Erica Lynn Mesa has been indicted on felony charges for allegedly engaging in sexual relations with two students.

According to court records, Mesa later admitted to police of having sexual relations with at least four students starting in 2012 and continuing until about a week before her arrest.

Most of the encounters took place in her home, while at least one occurred in her vehicle, court records state.

Court records list the students’ ages as ranging from 16 to 18; some of them were in her classes.

A trial date hasn't been reported.

* * * * *
Virginia Teacher Accused of Sex with Student
[Previous 10/1/14 post]
(Stafford, Virginia) A 27-year-old teacher at Colonial Forge High School, Erica Lynn Mesa, has been accused of engaging in a sexual relationship with a student.

Mesa faces counts of custodial indecent liberties and solicitation of a minor using a computer device.

Stafford County police say that Mesa, a teacher and coach at Colonial Forge High School, had a sexual relationship with a male student aged 16-17 in February, May and September of this year.

Mesa also allegedly sent nude photos of herself to the male student.

Mesa was booked into custody at the Rappahannock Regional Jail without bond.

Tennessee Teacher Accused of Sex with Student, 14

Shelley Lott Brown
(Nashville, Tennessee) A physical education teacher at Goodlettsville Middle School, Shelley Lott Brown, has been accused of engaging in repeated sex with a 14-year-old male student.

Brown faces two counts of statutory rape by an authority figure.

The PE teacher allegedly met the victim through her class and their relationship turned physical in the summer between the boy’s middle school and high school years.

A five-month investigation into the allegations against Brown culminated with her surrender Tuesday.

Brown was booked into custody with bond set at $75,000.

Minnesota Teacher Gets Probation for Sex with Student - Update

Mary Gilles
(Austin, Minnesota) Former Pacelli High School teacher Mary Gilles, 28, has been sentenced to 15 years of probation for having sex with a 17-year-old student.

Gilles must also register as a sex offender.

* * * * *
Minnesota Teacher Guilty of Sex with Student - Update
[Previous 12/23/14 post]
(Austin, Minnesota) Former Pacelli High School math teacher Mary Gilles pleaded guilty last week to two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

The criminal complaint said that Gilles became sexually involved with a 17-year-old male student last February. The complaint says school officials found incriminating emails sent to the student from Gilles that sparked an investigation.

After she was arrested, Gilles was fired from Pacelli High School.

The complaint goes on to say she admitted the sexual relationship to police and said she knew he was 17-years-old.

The criminal complaint also said that Gilles is suspected to be carrying a baby conceived from the relationship with the teenager.

Sentencing has been scheduled for March 2015.

* * * * *
Minnesota Teacher Accused of Sex with Student, 17
[Previous 10/9/14 post]
(Austin, Minnesota) A 28-year-old teacher formerly at Pacelli High School, Mary Gilles, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 17-year-old male student.

Gilles faces six counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

According to the criminal complaint, a school administrator told police she had seen an email correspondence between 28-year-old Gilles and a 17-year-old male student that contained sexual content. The administrator also reported that she saw Gilles and the boy in the school auditorium at a late hour.

The administrator said she had a “gut feeling” that something inappropriate was happening, so she accessed the student’s school email account. There was nothing there, but she found a password for the student’s Yahoo email account and found many emails “containing sexual relationship content.”

The criminal complaint said some of the most recent emails talked about the possibility that Gilles might be pregnant.

Authorities met with the student after collecting more evidence. The complaint states the student told authorities he and Gilles were very close, and they started having sex in February 2014, and it continued through September.

Details on booking are unavailable.

Geese Story

Dead Geese
(Mud Lake and Market Lake Wildlife Management Areas, Idaho)

About 2,000 snow geese migrating from Mexico to their Alaskan nesting grounds were found dead in Idaho, the state's Department of Fish and Game announced Monday. Although testing is still in progress, officials believe that the deaths are consistent with avian cholera.

The suddenness in which the birds died is part of the reason that experts suspect avian cholera, which kills acute sufferers in as little as six hours.

The carcasses of the dead birds are being collected to prevent transmission of the disease.

Lobster Story

(Augusta, Maine)

Some 30,000 pounds (1.4 tons) of live lobsters from Canada survived for several hours after a truck carrying them slid off a highway in central Maine on Wednesday, but the crustaceans were quickly back on their way to New Hampshire and Rhode Island markets, police said.

The truck, fully loaded with about $300,000 worth of lobsters from Nova Scotia in seawater, slid into the median and landed on its side after swerving to miss a vehicle that had spun out on a stretch of Interstate 95 north of Augusta, Maine's capital, according to state police reports.

Although the truck was irreparably damaged, the lobsters survived and were loaded onto other trucks and carted off to their intended destination.

Florida Teacher Gets Probation for Child Cruelty - Update

Tara Roberts
(Fort Myers, Florida) Former River Hall Elementary School teacher Tara Roberts has pleaded guilty to sending racy pictures of herself to students.

For child cruelty and obscene communication, Roberts was sentenced to 5 years probation and designation as a sex offender.

* * * * *
Florida Teacher Accused of Child Cruelty
[Previous 11/19/14 post]
(Fort Myers, Florida) A 28-year-old teacher at River Hall Elementary School, Tara Roberts, has been accused of cruelty towards a child and transmitting information harmful to minors.

Roberts has been arrested for sending scantily clad pictures of herself to a student whose age has not been reported.

The messages started off as friendly but soon turned into more sexual in nature.

The student knew it was Tara Roberts because he recognized her white iPhone.

According to the investigation, Tara Roberts told the student not to tell anyone because she would get in trouble.

Roberts was booked into custody at the Lee County Jail.

The disgusting Leftist media again -- campaigning hard against the Prime Minister of Israel  -- but Bibi had the last laugh

MSNBC Denounces Netanyahu as a 'Panicking' 'Racist'



Reporting live from Tel Aviv and campaigning hard against the re-election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on her MSNBC show on Tuesday, host Andrea Mitchell invited on one guest after another to denounce the Likud party leader.

Turning to New York Times Tel Aviv bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, Mitchell declared of Netanyahu: "He's clearly fearing that this center-left coalition and the prominence of, for the first time, a united Arab voting policy, Arab-Israelis who can vote, might make a difference."

Rudoren replied: "This morning he posted on his Facebook a video saying that Arabs were flocking to the polls and he called on right-wing supporters to come out and block them. And the left came and said that that was a racist remark, sort of comparing it to suppressing African-American votes in the United States. So it's been a very provocative and ugly last few days..."

Moments later, Mitchell spoke to former Congresswoman and president of the liberal Wilson Center Jane Harman:

Let's talk about what Netanyahu has done in the last forty-eight hours, which is to reverse decades and decades of U.S./Israeli policy, which is negotiations towards a two-state solution. A Palestinian homeland and of course Israel. And by reversing that, if he sticks – let's say he wins – and he sticks with his commitments of the last forty-eight hours, there'll be hell to pay.

Harman said of the Jewish leader: "I would call it a Hail Mary pass."

In a separate segment later on the program, Mitchell brought on former Israeli General Danny Yatom and touted his opposition to Netanayhu: "You are one of more than a hundred retired generals who came out against Netanyahu because you don't think that his positions are good for security....You just said to me he's panicking."

Yatom argued: "Yes, it looks to me that he feels as if the polls that were published until two days ago are real, realistic, and that he's going to lose....So it looks as if I don't have any other explanation but to say that probably he's caught in panic."

Mitchell then teed up James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute: "I know that you've been a long proponent of having a two-state solution....What is going to be the reaction in the Palestinian community – let's say that Netanyahu is elected or is in part of a unity government, a coalition government – to the end of any hope of having their own state?"  Zogby ranted:

"In the animal kingdom there's nothing more dangerous than a panicked politician and Netanyahu is panicking. And so he's scaring people about foreign conspiracies, about security threats, and about the Arabs. And if you take his words about the Arab vote and translate it into American politics and call it "the black vote," you see how racist this is. And it's – it's, I think, a very difficult problem right now for Israel is to deal with this bigotry towards the Arab population, which is just 20% of the country"


Not a quote but maybe a thought

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