I’m not sure who won, but here are my quick thoughts:
Not sure what it means in the context of the election, though.
The FBI has a new program to spy on high school students:
Under new guidelines, the FBI is instructing high schools across the country to report students who criticize government policies and “western corruption” as potential future terrorists, warning that “anarchist extremists” are in the same category as ISIS and young people who are poor, immigrants or travel to “suspicious” countries are more likely to commit horrific violence.
Based on the widely unpopular British “anti-terror” mass surveillance program, the FBI’s “Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools” guidelines, released in January, are almost certainly designed to single out and target Muslim-American communities. However, in its caution to avoid the appearance of discrimination, the agency identifies risk factors that are so broad and vague that virtually any young person could be deemed dangerous and worthy of surveillance, especially if she is socio-economically marginalized or politically outspoken.
This overwhelming threat is then used to justify a massive surveillance apparatus, wherein educators and pupils function as extensions of the FBI by watching and informing on each other.
The FBI’s justification for such surveillance is based on McCarthy-era theories of radicalization, in which authorities monitor thoughts and behaviors that they claim to lead to acts of violent subversion, even if those people being watched have not committed any wrongdoing. This model has been widely discredited as a violence prevention method, including by the U.S. government, but it is now being imported to schools nationwide as official federal policy.
………
According to the FBI’s educational materials for teenagers, circulated as a visual aide to their new guidelines, the following offenses constitute signs that “could mean that someone plans to commit violence” and therefore should be reported: “Talking about traveling to places that sound suspicious”; “Using code words or unusual language”; “Using several different cell phones and private messaging apps”; and “Studying or taking pictures of potential targets (like a government building).”Under the category of domestic terrorists, the educational materials warn of the threat posed by “anarchist extremists.” The FBI states, “Anarchist extremists believe that society should have no government, laws, or police, and they are loosely organized, with no central leadership… Violent anarchist extremists usually target symbols of capitalism they believe to be the cause of all problems in society—such as large corporations, government organizations, and police agencies.”
Similarly, “Animal Rights Extremists and Environmental Extremists” are placed alongside “white supremacy extremists”, ISIS and Al Qaeda as terrorists out to recruit high school students. The materials also instruct students to watch out for extremist propaganda messages that communicate criticisms of “corrupt western nations” and express “government mistrust.”
………
At the surface level, the FBI’s new guidelines do not appear to single out Muslim students. The document and supplementary educational materials warn of a broad array of threats, including anti-abortion and white supremacist extremists. The Jewish Defense League is listed alongside Hizbollah and Al Qaeda as an imminent danger to young people in the United States.But a closer read reveals that the FBI consistently invokes an Islamic threat without naming it. Cultural and religious differences, as well as criticisms of western imperialism, are repeatedly mentioned as risk factors for future extremism. “Some immigrant families may not be sufficiently present in a youth’s life due to work constraints to foster critical thinking,” the guidelines state.
BTW, the science also shows that these programs do not work, but that doesn’t stop lazy cops, and lazy school administrators, from using bigotry as a justification.
I was reading an article about how France is looking into creating a reusable rocket engine powered by Lox/CH4. (Methane)
I was wondering why they would go with Methane as a fuel, so I did some reasons.
These days, there are 4 basic options for launcher fuel, Liquid Hydrogen, Kerosene (RP-1), Hydrazine, and Methane.
Hydrazine has fallen out of favor for boosters, though it is still used in thrusters of various sorts. It has low impulse, and it’s toxic, but the fact that it can be used as a monopropellant means that it is convenient to use for orbital maneuvering, since it requires half the parts, and you don’t need to make sure that the flow of a separate fuel and oxidizer are synchronized for short the “blip” that would be needed for an orbital rendezvous or station keeping.
The commonly used propellants are LH2 and RP-1 each have distinct advantages:
Methane falls in between Hydrogen and RP-1. It’s less dense than RP-1, and more dense than LH2, and is more fuel efficient than RP-1 and less so than LH2.
Methane is also a lot easier to handle than LH2, with hydrogen condensing at -252.9°C, while liquefies at a relatively balmy -161.6°C, much closer to the boiling point of LOX. (-183°C)
Additionally, for reusable and restartable engines, Methane has the advantage that it does not coke up, so recycling the engine for another use is more straightforward than RP-1.
Additionally, if you want to go to Mars or the outer planets, it is relatively trivial to manufacture or extract Methane, while manufacturing LH2 would be extremely difficult, and manufacturing RP-1 would be nigh impossible.
So, now you know more than you want to about why a number of rocket manufacturers are looking into Methane as a propellant.
The police chief for the San Francisco police has announced new policies that are geared toward cops deescalating conflicts, and the President of police union’s head is exploding.
The response of the union encapsulates everything that is wrong with the current trend of military oriented policing:
San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr — already under attack from Black Lives Matter activists over the shooting death of Mario Woods — is now facing criticism from his own rank and file for what they see as appeasement of department critics.
At issue: a proposed policy change being drafted by Suhr and the Police Commission that emphasizes “de-escalation” of force when officers confront someone wielding a gun or knife. Of particular concern to the cops are instructions that officers “seek cover” and “engage in thoughtful communication” before doing anything else, unless there is an imminent threat.
The idea is to create enough “time and space” so police won’t need to open fire.
“I’m not happy with that or other provisions in the draft, because it could put our officers in harm’s way and at the same time jeopardize the safety of the community we serve,” said Martin Halloran, president of the Police Officers Association.
The union called an emergency meeting Thursday night at the Irish Cultural Center that was attended by about 200 cops — some of whom were calling for a vote of no confidence in the chief.
How can a cop object to not having to shoot someone?
It appears that Donald Trump’s shenanigans have blown up Netanyahu’s alliance with Republicans:
In their Super Tuesday speeches, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio tried to use an Israel hammer to bash Donald Trump. Cruz sneeringly lambasted him for saying he would remain “neutral” while Rubio trounced Trump for trying to stay “impartial”, as his audience booed accordingly. And Trump? Trump was racking up victories, amassing delegates and laughing all the way to the top of the Republican presidential field.
In this way, the New York billionaire is decimating the conventional wisdom, one of many, that in 2016, total and unconditional support for Israel is a prerequisite for any aspiring GOP candidate wishing to run for president; that such a pledge of allegiance to Israel, in general, and to Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular, is a threshold requirement for gaining the support of Evangelicals, who set the tone during primary season; and that the flow of sympathy for Israel from liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans is inevitable, perhaps even desirable, and in any case unstoppable.
But exactly a year after Netanyahu took this logic to its extreme and stood on the podium of Congress as Leader of the Republican opposition to President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, the conception is falling apart. The notion that the Republican Party is a monolithic bastion of support that will withstand the test of time is evaporating. The belief that any Republican president who will follow Obama will be better for Israel is eroding with each passing day. Faced with the Trump phenomenon, Netanyahu’s Fortress GOP strategy is collapsing like a house of cards.
………
Trump not only diverts the Republican leadership from uniform automatic support for Netanyahu, he is destroying the internal coalition that was the lynchpin of the party’s strong pro-Israel stance. Evangelical support for Trump has already sparked an internal rupture, which has some experts declaring the death of America’s Religious Right. Evangelical leaders and many of their supporters in the media are heartbroken that so many Believers are flocking after the thrice married, dirty-talking reality star. They are less perturbed by his deviation from the strict pro-Israel party line, however, and more by the sinful ways for which he has not asked forgiveness.
If Trump becomes their candidate, the GOP will lose its most hawkish, most neoconservative and most pro-Israel secular elements as well. They are repelled not only by his indecipherable positions on Israel but also by his harsh criticism of George Bush and the Iraq War, his undisguised adulation of dictators for Vladimir Putin to Bashar Assad, his all round belligerence and his neo-isolationist vision of making America great again within its hermetically sealed walls. “As president, he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe, and which would diminish our standing in the world” according to public letter signed by 50 GOP national security stalwarts, many of them known for their pro-Israel positions. “We commit ourselves to working energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office.”
Sometimes, I worry about the future of Israel.
The two things that worry me the most is Netanyahu, who sees no further than the next election, and the Necons whose every action for at least the past two decades has served to diminish the safety and security of Israel, notwithstanding their declared support for the Jewish state.
Iraq, and Yemen, and Libya, and Syria, etc. have all been foreign policy disasters that have been created or worsened by Neocons, and all of these have been disasters for Israel.
It has not been working right in tests, and even when it does, it means that there is effectively an off switch for any foreign buyer’s aircraft located in the United States.
Now we learn that they are intending to go live with the system before testing its vulnerability to hackers: (Paid subscription required)
The F-35’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) will deploy its next major software release—2.0.2—in July, but concerns remain about performance and security. A report by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) released in January suggests delayed ALIS software may push back U.S. Air Force initial operational capability (IOC) and that the network’s cybersecurity has become a key concern.
Lockheed Martin’s ALIS program manager, Jeff Streznetcky, says a U.S. Marine Corps exercise at Twentynine Palms, California, in December and an ongoing Air Force test program at Mountain Home, Idaho, offer more representative indications of ALIS’s readiness than the report.
“By all accounts, ALIS performed exceptionally well” at Twentynine Palms, he says, “and the reports I’m getting out of Mountain Home are similar. ALIS is doing its job supporting the warfighter and ultimately turning jets.”
………
Leaked National Security Agency briefing documents confirm China obtained F-35 engine schematics and radar designs after compromising program systems in the mid-2000s. Less attention has been focused on the kind of information routinely moving through ALIS, which may represent the program’s biggest threat surface.
“The Chinese see ALIS as a fantastic opportunity to enhance and improve their own fighter-aircraft capabilities,” says Bill Hagestad, a retired Marine Corps colonel and expert on Chinese cyber competencies. “But ALIS data would also be of considerable operational and strategic value to the Chinese if they were able to take a look at the disposition and laydown of deployed combat aircraft.”
According to a 2015 report by cybersecurity vendor FireEye, it takes 205 days on average for network breaches to be detected. Even if all data are encrypted, content could be inferred through analysis of network traffic patterns. Attackers can remain undetected longer if they are leveraging previously unknown vulnerabilities.
ALIS’s security is not just dependent on Lockheed’s own software and network defenses deployed on the different national and corporate systems ALIS data transits. The system incorporates a number of off-the-shelf component programs to handle logistics management and other functions: This has cut development timescales and lowered costs, but any vulnerabilities in those products become ALIS vulnerabilities.
………
A comprehensive, ongoing cybersecurity testing regime would appear to be a necessity. Yet the DOT&E report states: “The program currently does not plan to conduct cybersecurity penetration testing during the development of this ALIS release [2.0.2], or any future developmental releases, but will instead rely on previous, albeit limited, cybersecurity test results.”
This has not gone over well with cybersecurity experts. “Suggesting that this should be deployed before it’s properly tested and then tested after it’s deployed is backward security,” says Adriel Desautels, founder of penetration-testing specialist Netragard. “I don’t have a word strong enough to describe the level of absurdity involved with that. You can’t possibly deploy something that’s this sensitive and just have blind faith that you won’t get hacked.
Of course, Lockheed-Martin and the Pentagon maintain that they will deal with any potential vulnerabilities as soon as they get a round to it.
They want to get the aircraft into the field and have a large captive market before people realize that the aircraft is an unaffordable dog.
Ship, then fix.
As any computer gamer knows, there is a a whole world of grief that comes from this arrangement.
We have a new development in the Flint water crisis, the Michigan Governor has retained private counsel, including a prominent criminal defense attorney:
Gov. Rick Snyder has hired two outside attorneys in connection with the Flint drinking water crisis, including a criminal defense attorney retained to serve as “investigatory counsel,” a Snyder spokesman confirmed Thursday.
Eugene Driker, a civil defense attorney, and Brian Lennon, a criminal defense attorney, were each awarded a contract worth $249,000 through Dec. 31, after which those contracts can be extended, Snyder spokesman Ari Adler told the Free Press.
The contracts, which are to be paid with state funds, are just below the $250,000 threshold for contracts requiring approval from the State Administrative Board, which meets in public to approve state contracts and grants. Adler said that was by design because the governor wanted to hire the attorneys quickly in early February. The administration will be going to the State Administrative Board on March 8, seeking approval for additional spending on the contract with Lennon, he said.
They are claiming that this is about processing documents, but this sounds an awful lot like hizzoner is lining up a defense team in the event of a criminal prosecution.
The most evil thing in America this doesn’t come from the Republican Presidential campaign.
It came from immigration judge Jack Weil, who has asserted that 3 and 4 year old children are qualified to represent themselves before an immigration judge:
A senior Justice Department official is arguing that 3- and 4-year-olds can learn immigration law well enough to represent themselves in court, staking out an unconventional position in a growing debate over whether immigrant children facing deportation are entitled to taxpayer-funded attorneys.
Jack H. Weil, a longtime immigration judge who is responsible for training other judges, made the assertion in sworn testimony in a deposition in federal court in Seattle. His comments highlighted the plight of thousands of juveniles who are forced to defend themselves each year in immigration court amid a surge of children from Central America who cross the southwestern U.S. border .
“I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds,” Weil said. “It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience. They get it. It’s not the most efficient, but it can be done.”
He repeated his claim twice in the deposition, also saying, “I’ve told you I have trained 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in immigration law,” according to a transcript. “You can do a fair hearing. It’s going to take you a lot of time.”
Legal and child psychology experts ridiculed Weil’s assertions, noting that key milestones for 3- and 4-year-olds include cooperating with other children, saying simple sentences and building towers of blocks.
“I nearly fell off my chair when I read that deposition,” said Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University, who is a witness for the plaintiffs in the Seattle case. “Three- and 4-year-olds do not yet have logical reasoning abilities. It’s preposterous, frankly, to think they could be taught enough about immigration law to be able to represent themselves in court.”
………
Lauren Alder Reid, a spokeswoman for the department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), said in a statement: “At no time has the Department indicated that 3 and 4 year olds are capable of representing themselves. Jack Weil was speaking in a personal capacity and his statements, therefore, do not necessarily represent the views of EOIR or the Department of Justice.”
………
Weil is not just any immigration official. As an assistant chief immigration judge in EOIR’s Office of the Chief Immigration Judge — which sets and oversees policies for the nation’s 58 immigration courts — he is responsible for coordinating the Justice Department’s training of immigration judges.
………
Ahilan Arulanantham, deputy legal director at the ACLU of Southern California and the attorney who questioned Weil in the deposition, said he initially thought the judge had misspoken “because what he said was so outrageous. As I asked further questions, he obviously meant what he said.”
“This is the person in charge of training immigration judges about how to treat children? And this is the witness the government puts forward to present their views as to how this is supposed to happen? That is horrifying,” said Arulanantham. He added that Weil’s assertions “are going to be a significant issue in the case.”
Unlike in felony criminal cases in federal court, children charged with violating immigration laws have no right to appointed counsel, even though the government is represented by Department of Homeland Security attorneys.
Although a network of pro bono organizations and a Justice Department program try to help children find attorneys — some paid for by the government — many children are forced to fend for themselves. According to Justice Department figures, 42 percent of the more than 20,000 unaccompanied children involved in deportation proceedings completed between July 2014 and late December had no attorney. It is unclear how often children 5 or under are forced to defend themselves, but attorneys and advocates for immigrants said it does happen.
This is a level of outright malice inherent in his statements that leaves me dumbstruck.
Weil should not be an Immigration Judge. I’m not sure that he should be trusted as a pastry chef.
Yes, I am a Bernie supporter, but I’ve always felt that the whole Benghazi/Email with Clinton is 6 pounds of sh%$ in a 5 pound bag.
I guess I have to start taking it kind of seriously, because the IT guy who set up Clinton’s email server has cut an immunity deal with the DoJ:
The Justice Department has granted immunity to a former State Department staffer, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s private email server, as part of a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information, according to a senior law enforcement official.
The official said the FBI had secured the cooperation of Bryan Pagliano, who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009.
As the FBI looks to wrap up its investigation in the coming months, agents are likely to want to interview Clinton and her senior aides about the decision to use a private server, how it was set up, and whether any of the participants knew they were sending classified information in emails, current and former officials said.
I still think that the email server thing is complete crap, and the Benghazi pearl clutching is such dense crap that it risks collapsing into a bullsh%$ black hole.
Still, with the grant of immunity, this stinking sack of sh%$ just got real.
The San Bernardino District Attorney told a federal judge late Thursday that Apple must assist the authorities in unlocking the iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the two San Bernardino shooters that killed 14 people in a killing rampage in December. The phone, which was a county work phone issued to Farook as part of his Health Department duties, may have been the trigger to unleash a “cyber pathogen,” county prosecutors said in a brief court filing.“The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network. The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino’s infrastructure,” according to a court filing (PDF) by Michael Ramos, the San Bernardino County district attorney.
The development represents the first time any law enforcement official connected to the investigation provided an indication, other than links to possible co-conspirators, of what the authorities might discover on the phone. The district attorney’s position comes a week after Jarrod Burguan, the San Bernardino police chief, said there was a “reasonably good chance that there is nothing of any value on the phone.” James Comey, the FBI director, said Feb, 21 that “Maybe the phone holds the clue to finding more terrorists. Maybe it doesn’t.”
The county declined to directly comment. A spokesman, David Wert, told Ars in an e-mail that “The county didn’t have anything to do with this brief. It was filed by the district attorney.” The DA’s office, which did not immediately respond for comment, followed up with a statement to Ars, saying that there is a “compelling governmental interest in acquiring any evidence of criminal conduct, additional perpetrators, potential damage to the infrastructure of San Bernardino County, and in protecting the California Constitutionally guaranteed due process rights of the victims, deceased and living, arising from state crimes committed on December 2, 2015.”
Jonathan Zdziarski, a prominent iPhone forensics expert, said in a telephone interview that the district attorney is suggesting that a “magical unicorn might exist on this phone.”
OK, it might not be an apocalyptic computer virus, it might just be a “magical unicorn”, or some other mythical beast, like a moderate Republican or a humble Frenchman.
This is a level of mendacity that should have the judge issuing sanctions against the DA. (Some jail time would be nice)
It looks like the the FBI is finally going after people who threatened federal officers at the Bundy ranch:
FBI agents have been busy today. Another one (possibly two) of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s sons was arrested, this time in Utah. According to what David ‘Davey’ Bundy’s wife told The Salt Lake Tribune today, her husband was arrested just after 7:00 a.m. Thursday at the site of the house the Millard County contractor is building for his family just south of Delta.
Marylynn Bundy said she was told of her husband’s arrest by a worker who was blocked from getting to the house by law enforcement.
“I think they are just trying to get all the Bundy men locked up, so they can raid their homes,” Marylynn Bundy said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nevada confirmed to the paper that a charging document had been filed against Bundy, but said that it was sealed and the feds did not confirm his arrest.
The feds are busy making arrests today. After his role in the armed standoff in Nevada almost two years ago at the Bundy ranch, tea party activist Jerry DeLemus was arrested on nine federal charges today. He’s also the husband of Rep. Susan DeLemus, a crazy-time New Hampshire Republican lawmaker and co-chair of the state’s “Veterans for Trump” coalition.
………
UPDATE: The Idaho Statesman just reported that, “Eric James Parker, 32, and Steve Arthur Stewart, 36, both of Hailey, O. Scott Drexler, 44, of Challis, and Todd Engel, 48, of Boundary County were taken into custody, U.S. Attorney for Idaho Wendy Olson said.”
“This investigation began the day after the assault against federal law enforcement officers and continues to this day,” U.S. Attorney for Nevada Daniel Bogden said in a release. “We will continue to work to identify the assaulters and their role in the assault and the aftermath, in order to ensure that justice is served.”
The wheels of justice do grind slowly, but it appears that they grind sure.
And he wonders why no one supported his Presidential run.
I think that being a clueless narcissistic asshole, even by the standards of politics, might have had something to do with it:
Former Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb won’t be voting for Hillary Clinton, but he hasn’t ruled out casting his ballot for Donald Trump.
………
“I would not vote for Hillary Clinton,” Webb said on MSBNC’s “Morning Joe.”
When asked whether he’d vote for Trump, Webb said he wasn’t closed to the idea. “I’m not sure yet. I don’t know who I’m going to vote for,” he said.
He said Clinton would simply continue President Barack Obama’s policies, but that with Trump, things would change — but he’s not convinced it would be for the better.
“If you’re voting for Donald Trump, you may get something very good or very bad,” Webb said. “If you’re voting for Hillary Clinton, you’re going to be getting the same thing.”
There is something seriously wrong with that guy
First, note that the primaries are structured that all of Clinton’s strong states will be done by mid March.
Basically, the southern states, the ones that won’t vote for a Democrat, are relatively early in the process:
I’m keeping this short to put a very simple idea into your head. Because of the way the Democratic Party voting calendar is structured this year, Clinton’s largest lead will occur on March 15. After that, most of Sanders’ strongest states will vote.
What this means is simple:
- Hillary Clinton will grow her lead until the March 15 states have voted.
- Bernie Sanders will erase that lead — partly or completely — after March 15.
- How much of Clinton’s lead he will erase depends on your not buying what the media is selling — that the contest is over.
- In most scenarios where Sanders wins, he doesn’t retake the lead until June 7, when five states including California cast their ballots.
March 15 is the Ides of March; a good way to remember the date. The message — gear up for a battle after the Ides of March, and don’t let the establishment media tell you what to think. They won’t be right until the last state has voted.
If you want to stop reading here, this is all you need to know.………
Bottom line — Super Tuesday is upon us, and what’s bad for Sanders supporters on March 1 is going to look worse for a few weeks. Stay heartened. Whatever the result in March, this isn’t over until June, after Sanders’ best states have voted as well.
(Emphasis Original)
This is not surprising. Both of the party establishments have attempted to front load the the south, the Republicans because they double down on racism, and the Democrats because they want to forestall the liberal wing of the party. (Super Tuesday was largely a product of the right wing of the right wing of the Democratic Party.)
This raises an interesting question, “Does Sanders have the resources go to distance?”
The answer is clearly, “Yes.”
In fact, it is very likely that Sanders has more Cash on Hand than Clinton does: (Note that this does not include Super PAC money, but that money does not go as far, because it cannot be targeted as flexibly)
Hillary Clinton raised $30 million in February and has $31 million on hand, her campaign announced on Wednesday — far less than Bernie Sanders.
………
Her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, raised $43 million in February, with $6 million of that coming on Monday. Sanders’ campaign has not announced its cash on hand, but as of the end of January, he had nearly $15 million in the bank.
Sanders Raised $20 million to Clinton’s $15 million in January.
So, Sanders raised $63 million in the first two months of the year, and Clinton raised $37 million, and she has $31 million cash on hand, and we can be reasonably certain that the Sanders campaign has a lower burn rate than Clinton, because she is employing a lot of high powered consultants, and has a far more extensive fundraising apparatus.
Assuming the same spending rates, and Hillary and Bernie would be neck and neck in cash on hand.
My guess is that Bernie is a few million ahead, and Hillary’s big donors are running into campaign finance limits, so the Sanders campaign can take this to the convention.
You Can’t Buy an Election, but You Can Rent It.
No citation, because this one is a Matthew G. Saroff original.
Simon Newman, the Mount St. Mary’s University president who astonished many with a brutal remark, inspired some to a new vision for the university, and set off an intense national debate about academic freedom, will step down effective immediately.
Karl Einolf, the dean of the Richard J.Bolte, Sr., School of Business at the university will serve as acting president, the board of trustees announced Monday night.
The change came after weeks of turmoil at the country’s second-oldest Catholic university, which faced questions from its faculty, alumni and national groups — including the organization that provides the crucial accreditation for the university — over its future direction and leadership. Some saw it as a clash between those open to change and those mired in tradition. Others felt it had become a debate over the very soul of the university: Catholic or corporate?
………
Newman came to the Maryland campus in 2015 with plans for sweeping changes, such as boosting enrollment, shoring up the university’s finances and raising its national profile. His blunt business manner — he had been in the financial industry for his entire career — was welcome to some and jarring to others. Several people were abruptly fired and escorted off campus, and retiree benefits were cut in the fall. But the real turmoil began this year after the student newspaper, the Mountain Echo, reported that Newman had planned to cull struggling freshmen early in the semester, before a federal reporting deadline, to improve the university’s retention rate.
No students left the school as a result of the survey, but Newman’s remarks after some faculty members expressed concerns about the plan shocked many; he said a professor was thinking of the students as cuddly bunnies but that they had to drown the bunnies, “put a Glock to their heads.”
When two professors were subsequently fired — one with tenure, one who had been the adviser to the Echo — many interpreted it as retaliation for opposing Newman’s policies despite the administration’s denial that it was retribution.
………
There was another fear, as well: The Mount’s accreditation was just reaffirmed in June, with its next scheduled review report in 2020. But this month the Middle States Commission on Higher Education requested “a supplemental information report, due March 15, 2016, addressing recent developments at the University which may have implications for continued compliance with Requirement of Affiliation #9, Standard 4 (Leadership and Governance), Standard 6 (Integrity), Standard 8 (Student Admissions and Retention), and Standard 10 (Faculty).”
This sh%$ is what happens when you hire someone whose qualifications basically consist of being a parasite from the finance industry.
JR at the Stellarparthenon BBS came up with the following to turn it off:Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdate]
"DisableOSUpgrade"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsGWX]
"DisableGWX"=dword:00000001
I haven’t tried it myself, but feel free to try this out.
You past this into a text document, and give it the .reg extension, and it will run when you double click on it.
Marco Rubio’s jokes about Trump’s dick size are not a low point in Presidential campaigning. It turns out that it it goes all the way back to Thomas Jefferson:
………
As a matter of fact, Jefferson was well aware of the political salience of the well-timed tiny-dick joke because he used them himself, in the ferocious campaign of 1800.As the challenger in 1800, his goal was to topple the incumbent. His critique of President John Adams included the accusation that he was “a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
And, of course, old Martin Van Buren campaigned by accusing William Henry Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe, of being “a man who wore corsets, put cologne on his whiskers, slept on French beds, rode in a British coach, and ate with golden spoons from silver plates.” Which is sort of an implied dick joke from a more civilized time. And thus do we discover that, in yet another vital element of being a political candidate, Marco Rubio comes up…well…short.
I loves me some history.
But Washington is freaking out about Trump in a way they never did about Bush. Why? Because Bush was their moron, while Trump is his own moron. That’s really what it comes down to.
Read the rest of the article, but this bit is the synthesis of all that the Republicans fear about Trump.
Right now, he appears to have won Vermont, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Oklahoma, and Clinton won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and Vairginia.
She also got about twice as many delegates.
Trump won all but four of the states on the ‘Phant side, with Cruz winning Texas and Oklahoma, and Rubio winning Minnesota, and Vermont being too close to call.
We are no hearing a clamor for Bernie to leave the race from the pundits, despite the fact that the Democratic side of the Race is closer than the Republican side, and no one is suggesting that other Republicans capitulate to Trump.
I just love our punditocracy works.
As an aside, Sanders is crushing it on fundraising, raising $20 million in January and $42 million in February, and appears to be outpacing Clinton, with a far lower burn rate, so he can continue to run until the convention.