Tuesday, January 13, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/video-montana-cop-breaks-down-after-killing-unarmed-man/

VIDEO: Mont. cop breaks down after killing unarmed man
By CRIMESIDER STAFF CBS/AP
January 13, 2015

BILLINGS, Mont. - Newly released police dash cam footage shows a Montana police officer breaking down in tears after shooting and killing an unarmed man high on methamphetamine during a traffic stop last April.

The video shows Billings Police Officer Grant Morrison sobbing and putting his head in his hands as other officers try to console him.

"I thought he was going to pull a gun on me," Morrison is heard saying through tears.

A jury at a coroner's inquest determined last week that Morrison was justified in the fatal shooting.

The ruling came after Morrison testified he feared for his life when he fired the three shots that killed 38-year-old Richard Ramirez.

The five-year police veteran said he became convinced that Ramirez had a gun after the man reached for his waistband during their 30-second encounter last April in a high-crime area of Montana's most populous city.

"I knew in that moment, which later was determined to be untrue, but I knew in that moment that he was reaching for a gun," Morrison said. "I couldn't take that risk. ... I wanted to see my son grow up."

The seven-person jury deliberated about an hour before delivering its decision in the officer's favor.

Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito said he does not expect to file any charges given the jury's decision.

Coroner's inquests are mandatory under Montana law whenever someone is killed by law enforcement or dies in custody.

The inquest was held as police killings of unarmed suspects in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City have heightened scrutiny of law enforcement nationwide.

Ramirez family members said they were disappointed by the ruling and intend to file a lawsuit against Morrison and the Billings Police Department alleging excessive use of force, said Julie Ramirez, a sister of Richard Ramirez.

Billings Police Chief Rich St. John said it was the fifth officer-involved shooting in his eight years as head of the department. Each shooting was ruled to be justified, he said.

"That tells us we're doing the right thing in the right way," St. John said.

Police video showed Morrison repeatedly ordered Ramirez and other occupants of the vehicle to raise their hands. Ramirez's actions were largely obscured in the video. But Morrison said Ramirez dropped his left hand to his side - out of the officer's view - and "started to jiggle it up and down" just before he was shot.

Morrison shot and killed another man in 2013. He was cleared of any wrongdoing in that case as well.

Ramirez's family wanted criminal charges against the officer and said Ramirez was a victim of racial profiling. Morris is white, Ramirez was half-Mexican.

Another sister, Renee Ramirez, criticized the inquest as one-sided. She said testimony that her brother was a drug user was irrelevant.

All but three of the 15 people called to testify during the two-day inquest were from law enforcement. Several police officers spoke at length about their prior dealings with Ramirez and others in his family.

"I don't care what things my brother did in the past," Renee Ramirez said. "What does that have to do with shooting my brother?"

Billings Police Detective Brad Tucker, who investigated the case, testified Tuesday that Ramirez might have been trying to stash something when he was shot. A small amount of methamphetamine and a syringe were later found near Ramirez's seat.

An autopsy determined Ramirez had enough methamphetamine in his bloodstream at the time of the shooting to kill a person not accustomed to the drug, forensic pathologist Tom Bennett testified.

Prosecutor Twito defended the proceedings as a fair presentation of the facts.
"The videos speak for themselves," he said.

Morrison was placed on paid administrative leave immediately after the shooting and has since been assigned to a task force investigating prescription drug crimes, Chief St. John said.




Police officers are definitely not all alike. As some enter a burning building to save someone, in this case the pure humanity of this officer comes through. He does care about the fact that he killed an unarmed man. We need more people like him on the police forces, so they can go into the communities and make human level contacts with the people there. This is a hopeful story to me, and helps to counterbalance the recent run of violent and unjustified cases. This report, as will all the others, quotes Morrison as saying he was afraid for this life.





http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26769-huge-circle-in-antarctic-ice-hints-at-meteorite-impact.html#.VLRS-IFdVkl

Huge circle in Antarctic ice hints at meteorite impact
by Catherine Brahic
09 January 2015

During a routine flight over the Antarctic ice shelf on 20 December last year, geophysicist Christian Müller spotted something strange: a huge, 2-kilometre-wide circle on the ice.

Müller, a contractor with research consultants Fielax from Bremerhaven, Germany, was in Antarctica as part of a polar survey conducted by the German Alfred Wegener Institute. Six days after spotting the weird ice-ring, he and his colleagues returned and flew over the site at two different altitudes, to photograph and scan it. Their working theory is that the ring marks an ice crater left by a large meteorite that slammed into Antarctica in 2004.

Two previous studies seem to back up this theory. First, a trail of dust was seen 30 kilometres above Antarctica on 3 September 2004. An Australian team speculated at the time that this was the remnants of one of the largest meteoroids to have entered Earth's atmosphere during the decade (Nature, 10.1038/nature03881).

Second, in 2007, another team used global infrasound (low-frequency sound) data to triangulate the location of a big bang that was picked up by remote sensors on that same date (Earth, Moon and Planets, 10.1007/s11038-007-9205-z. They pinpointed the Antarctic ice shelf, very close to where Müller spotted his ice crater and speculated the bang had been made by a meteoroid the size of a house.

Müller and his colleagues say their theory still needs to be carefully checked out, and will be conducting further studies.




Another close call. This is one of the few things besides spiders that I am overly fearful about. A few years ago when the movie Deep Impact was showing there were news stories on what science is prepared to do to protect the earth from the really big one, capable of causing dust in the air to the degree that it would block out much of the sunlight. That is what is thought to have caused the death of the dinosaurs. Interestingly, warm blooded creatures survived and thrived after that strike. I do think we would have a very severe crop failure, perhaps worldwide, if that were to occur again. Every few years we get an announcement on the news that a large asteroid is “on a collision course” with the earth, only to find that it, while close, is not going to hit us. This one in Antarctica and the one in the early 1900s in Siberia do show that there are such events from time to time. Usually they are small in scope, thank goodness, as was this one. There was a wonderful documentary made about the Russian event in which several very elderly people talked about their memory of the event. They spoke with awe about the sounds, which was basically a sonic boom, and the flash of light. No asteroid was found at the site, though the bog was explored by teams of diggers, and it was concluded that it was actually a comet which exploded several thousand feet above the ground. A large part of the forest was felled in a large area with a butterfly pattern due to winds from the blast. That's one of my favorite videos. See the search term Tunguska event in Widipedia to read more about it. Great bedtime watching.





http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/01/the_biggest_myth_about_debunking_myths.html

The Biggest Myth About Debunking Myths
Posted by Ross Pomeroy 
January 12, 2015

Sugar doesn't make you hyper. A penny dropped from the top of the Empire State Building won't kill you. We don't just have five senses. Napoleon wasn't short. Caffeine doesn't dehydrate you. The Great Wall of China is not visible from space.

Everything you know isn't wrong. But a lot of it is.

Myths are everywhere: on the Internet, at your work, in your head. Even worse, they're difficult to dislodge. Psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky at the University of Bristol has made a career out of trying to loosen their extensive hold. After decades of effort, he's learned a lot. His biggest discovery, perhaps, is that attempting to debunk a myth can backfire, resulting in the myth being strengthened instead of removed.

He also disproved a huge myth about debunking myths: "that removing [a myth's] influence is as simple as packing more information into people's heads."

It's simply not that easy.

"This approach assumes that public misperceptions are due to a lack of knowledge and that the solution is more information - in science communication, it’s known as the 'information deficit model'," Lewandowsky wrote in The Debunking Handbook. "But that model is wrong: people don’t process information as simply as a hard drive downloading data."

Often, the problem is not a lack of information, but too much of it. With such a bounty now available, both of credible and dubious origins, people can pick the "facts" that fit their preferred ideology or worldview. How is the layperson to tell truth from untruth?

Lewandowsky has some recommendations.

"To successfully impart knowledge, communicators need to understand how people process information, how they modify their existing knowledge and how worldviews affect their ability to think rationally. It’s not just what people think that matters, but how they think," he says.

To the human mind, facts are minutiae. What matters most is the overarching narrative. For a single fact or even a group of facts to topple a mindset is an immense task, like David facing off against Goliath... if Goliath was twice as tall and encased in graphene body armor.

So to help dispel a myth, use these three steps. First, emphasize the core facts of the topic without even mentioning the misinformation. Take the 10% brain myth, for example. Simply say, "humans make complete use of our brains, this is clearly demonstrated with brain scan technology." Second, state the myth, but first preface it with an explicit warning. "There is a lot of pervasive misinformation about the brain. For example, 65% of the public falsely believes that we only use 10% of our brainpower." Third, present an alternative explanation for why the myth is wrong. Neuroscientist Barry Beyerstein can help here: "Brain cells that are not used have a tendency to degenerate. Hence if 90% of the brain were inactive, autopsy of adult brains would reveal large-scale degeneration." Yet we don't see this.

One myth down, a multitude to go.

Source: The Debunking Handbook, by Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook




"This approach assumes that public misperceptions are due to a lack of knowledge and that the solution is more information - in science communication, it’s known as the 'information deficit model'," Lewandowsky wrote in The Debunking Handbook. "But that model is wrong: people don’t process information as simply as a hard drive downloading data."... With such a bounty now available, both of credible and dubious origins, people can pick the "facts" that fit their preferred ideology or worldview. How is the layperson to tell truth from untruth?... It’s not just what people think that matters, but how they think," he says. To the human mind, facts are minutiae. What matters most is the overarching narrative. For a single fact or even a group of facts to topple a mindset is an immense task, like David facing off against Goliath.”

To root out a myth, state the core facts, then the myth, then prove the myth wrong with clearcut fact. That is Lewandowsky's method, but I think even that won't work if you are talking to people who literally “don't believe in science” and “do believe” in every word of the King James Version of the Bible. Proving global warming or the need to lower our population by having fewer babies is very hard to do. Those same people believe in “spare the rod, spoil the child,” so they do harshly punish their children, creating a fearful and angry generation of young people. They also believe that humans have been placed by God in dominion over animals, so what difference does it make if they are starving or otherwise abusing their dog? Dog fighting to many of them is harmless, and shouldn't be a crime. There are more things like that if had the time to sit here and think of them, which all in all makes us a pretty ignorant bunch of people in my view, and not because there aren't enough schools, either. I get tired just thinking about it. On to the next article.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/paris-terror-attack-victims-honored-charlie-hebdo-cell-hunt-expands/

Hunt for Paris terror cell expands as victims mourned
CBS/AP
January 13, 2015

Photograph – Fritz-Joly Joachin, 29, a French citizen of Haitian origin, appears in court in the town of Haskovo, southeastern Bulgaria, Jan. 12, 2015.

The bodies of four Jewish victims of a Paris terror attack on a kosher supermarketwere brought to Israel on Tuesday for a solemn funeral ceremony as the investigation into that, and a seemingly linked attack, expanded in Europe.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other public figures were to attend the rites in Jerusalem for Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, Francois-Michel Saada and Phillipe Braham, who died on Friday during a tense hostage standoff at the market on the eastern edge of Paris.

The four were among 17 people killed in a wave of terror attacks carried out over three days last week by militants claiming allegiance to al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Meanwhile, the search continued in France for at least six members of a suspected terror cell linked to the men who carried out the massacre which initiated the three-day nightmare; an attack on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's Paris office which left 12 people dead.

French police believe the brothers, who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack on Wednesday and were killed two days later in a raid on a business northeast of Paris, were part of a cell of eight to 10 people with possible links to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The French-Algerian brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, said they were members of the al Qaeda affiliate, based in Yemen, and the group released a video statement after the attacks claiming responsibility.

CBS News has learned that Said Kouachi returned from Yemen in 2011 with $20,000 from AQAP to finance the operation in Paris.

Bulgarian prosecutors said Tuesday, meanwhile, that a Frenchman with suspected links to one of the Kouachi brothers was to be extradited back to France, according to the Reuters news agency.

Fritz-Joly Joachin, 29, was arrested on Jan. 1, before the first Paris attack, as he prepared to leave Bulgaria and enter Turkey, Reuters reported, adding that he was apparently a Muslim convert whose wife was worried he might take their child to Syria.

Joachin "was in contact several times with one of the two brothers -- Cherif Kouachi," before he left France for Bulgaria on Dec. 30, according to Bulgarian prosecutor Darina Slavova, who was quoted by French news agency AFP.

Another person connected to the Paris attacks suspects has already made it safely into Syria. Hayat Boumeddiene, the common-law wife of the man who killed the hostages inside the Jewish grocery store, managed to travel from Paris to Madrid and then on to Turkey without raising any alarm before crossing the border into Syria.

She was listed on an arrest warrant along with her partner, Amedy Coulibaly, the day before he was killed in the police raid on the grocery store, but Turkish officials say they were not warned she was a potential danger by anyone in France or Spain before she landed on Jan. 2 in Istanbul.

As CBS News' Holly Williams reported Tuesday, Boumeddiene wasn't traveling alone. In surveillance video from the airport in Istanbul, you can see a man who Turkish officials have identified as 23-year-old Mahdi Sabri Belhoucine, another French citizen. His role in the attacks in France, if he had one, remained a mystery Tuesday morning.

Turkish authorities believe after arriving in Istanbul, Boumedienne stayed two nights in a hotel. After she left Istanbul, Boumedienne spent four days in another city close to the Syrian border before crossing into the war zone on Thursday -- the same day Coulibaly fatally shot a policewoman on the southern edge of Paris -- according to Turkish officials.

Officials confirmed to CBS News on Tuesday that Coulibaly himself was on a U.S. terror watch list, but that his name does not appear on an official list of people barred from flying into the U.S.

In Paris on Tuesday, French President Francois Holland met the grieving families of the three police officers killed in the terror attacks at a solemn ceremony at a police headquarters.

CBS News' Elizabeth Palmer reports that all three were awarded the nation's highest decoration, the Legion of Honor, posthumously. Hollande offered what comfort he could to the officers' bereft family members, greeting each personally and offering his condolences.




“CBS News has learned that Said Kouachi returned from Yemen in 2011 with $20,000 from AQAP to finance the operation in Paris.... Fritz-Joly Joachin, 29, was arrested on Jan. 1, before the first Paris attack, as he prepared to leave Bulgaria and enter Turkey, Reuters reported, adding that he was apparently a Muslim convert whose wife was worried he might take their child to Syria. Joachin "was in contact several times with one of the two brothers -- Cherif Kouachi," before he left France for Bulgaria on Dec. 30, according to Bulgarian prosecutor Darina Slavova, who was quoted by French news agency AFP.... She was listed on an arrest warrant along with her partner, Amedy Coulibaly, the day before he was killed in the police raid on the grocery store, but Turkish officials say they were not warned she was a potential danger by anyone in France or Spain before she landed on Jan. 2 in Istanbul.... Officials confirmed to CBS News on Tuesday that Coulibaly himself was on a U.S. terror watch list, but that his name does not appear on an official list of people barred from flying into the U.S.... In Paris on Tuesday, French President Francois Holland met the grieving families of the three police officers killed in the terror attacks at a solemn ceremony at a police headquarters.”

Do Western societies need to start arresting all Islamists who are known to them? By Islamist, I mean one who espouses a radical fundamentalist viewpoint and the desire for jihad. I'm thinking of those radical Imams in mosques around Europe and the US, especially, who preach a doctrine of hate. These people are keeping a low profile for the most part, and our freedom of religion tends to protect them unless they initiate an attack here, but when they are caught in an attack the press then says they either are on the US no-fly list already or are known to associate with a guilty party. Unfortunately they are not being picked up by the authorities until there is a tragedy.

If they were put into prison en masse, of course, there would be an outcry of inhumane treatment, and rightfully so, but maybe those who are most dangerous could be isolated and incarcerated with no access to the Internet. Much of that psychological contagion is being spread over the Internet. One of these suspects, Joachin, was described as a “Muslim convert,” so apparently his wife married him before he was a Muslim. I would never, ever marry a Hindu or a Muslim, as both cultures are frequently cruel to their women and girls, and prone to radical politics in general.

I never worried about any of those cultural groups until the last 15 or so years, because though they were dangerous in more ways than one, primitive in my opinion, they stayed in India or Pakistan or wherever, and didn't bother Europeans. I have no problem with freedom of religion, in fact I almost always approve of it, but when a group is so violent that they are ruled by hate, and as in the case of ISIS, they are actually trying to take over Western culture and bring in their anti-feminist and misogynistic religious laws, I am prepared to keep them out of the country. No more visas. I know most liberals wouldn't say that, but I may not always be liberal in every way. With these attacks in France and the threat of more to come, I am ready for Western governments to oppose and control them rather than appeasing them. Still, I hope for peace in the streets here, and a return to the “peaceful” form of Islam of which I hear from time to time. Unfortunately that hasn't been any time lately.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mistrial-in-murder-case-of-white-ex-police-chief-who-shot-unarmed-black-man/

Mistrial in murder case of white ex-police chief who shot unarmed black man
CBS/AP
January 13, 2015

ORANGEBURG, S.C. -- A South Carolina judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a white ex-police chief charged with murder in the shooting death an unarmed black man.
Jury members deliberated for 12 hours before telling Circuit Judge Edgar Dickson early Tuesday morning that they were deadlocked.

Former Eutawville Police Chief Richard Combs was charged after shooting Bernard Bailey three times in May of 2011. Prosecutor David Pascoe says he will try Combs again.

But, reports CBS Charleston, S.C. affiliate WCSC-TV, it was unclear when that would happen.

The shooting occurred as Combs was trying to arrest Bailey on an obstruction of justice warrant that prosecutors contended was trumped up.

The defense said the shooting had nothing to do with race and argued that Combs fired in self-defense when he was caught in the door of Bailey's moving truck.

Prosecutors said it was murder because Bailey had stopped his truck and had his hands up, WCSC adds.

In closing arguments Monday, Pascoe told jurors Combs must be convicted because the killing happened after he delayed serving an arrest warrant for seven weeks in an effort to show off for his law enforcement friends.

But a defense attorney said Combs feared for his life thinking he was about to be run over, and was authorized to use deadly force when he shot Bailey.

Pascoe said Combs frequently changed his story to match the evidence and was confident he would never be held responsible for killing Bailey because he was a police officer.

"He thought he got away with it because he wears a badge. Prove him wrong," Pascoe said in a passionate, hour-long argument during which he slammed the gun used in the killing on a table and had an assistant sit in the witness chair so he could carefully recreate the shooting.

Defense attorney Wally Fayssoux said the case hinged on the three seconds in which Combs was trapped in the door of Bailey's pickup as it rolled in reverse, not the seven weeks it took Combs to serve a warrant on Bailey.

"Does he want to go home to his family?" Fayssoux said of Combs. "Or does he hope the truck doesn't roll over the top of him?'

Fayssoux said he expected theatrics from the prosecutor because his case was weak and the facts were in Combs' favor.

The murder charge carried a sentence of 30 years to life in prison without parole.

The seeds of the fatal confrontation were sown seven weeks earlier when Combs stopped Bailey's daughter for a broken taillight. The daughter called her father, and Bailey came to the side of the road.

Sometime later, the chief secured a warrant for obstruction of justice, but waited several weeks to serve it until Bailey came to Town Hall the day before his daughter's trial. Pascoe asserted that Combs wanted to make a display of arresting Bailey, when he could have instead asked for help from sheriff's deputies.

After Combs told Bailey he was being arrested for obstruction of justice, witnesses said Bailey left Combs' office and went for his truck. Combs followed.

Pascoe said Combs could have stepped away from the truck door, but instead stood there and fired three shots into Bailey. The prosecutor said several things made it clear the truck was stopped and Bailey was trying to give up: The victim's foot was on the brake, and three shell casings were found close together along with Combs' dropped handcuffs.

But Combs' lawyer said all that mattered was that the chief feared for his life during the three seconds it took to shoot. He said Combs had no pepper spray or Taser, and had no option but his gun. Fayssoux urged jurors to have courage and go against a zealous prosecutor who was seeking his own revenge and not the truth.

Jurors on Monday afternoon asked to view video of the taillight incident. They also asked to hear a recording of a radio call that Combs made after the shooting, and asked for definitions of murder, manslaughter and malice. The judge granted the requests.

Eutawville suspended Combs after the shooting and dismissed him several months later. The town reached a $400,000 wrongful death settlement with Bailey's family.

When Combs was indicted last month, the case drew comparisons to the deaths of blacks at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri and New York.

But race wasn't been front and center during the trial. Pascoe contended Combs was angry at Bailey for just trying to show him up.

"If I'm wrong, find him not guilty," Pascoe said. "Give him back his badge, give him back his gun and let him pull somebody else's daughter over.




“The shooting occurred as Combs was trying to arrest Bailey on an obstruction of justice warrant that prosecutors contended was trumped up. The defense said the shooting had nothing to do with race and argued that Combs fired in self-defense when he was caught in the door of Bailey's moving truck. Prosecutors said it was murder because Bailey had stopped his truck and had his hands up, WCSC adds.... Pascoe said Combs frequently changed his story to match the evidence and was confident he would never be held responsible for killing Bailey because he was a police officer.... Jurors on Monday afternoon asked to view video of the taillight incident. They also asked to hear a recording of a radio call that Combs made after the shooting, and asked for definitions of murder, manslaughter and malice. The judge granted the requests. Eutawville suspended Combs after the shooting and dismissed him several months later. The town reached a $400,000 wrongful death settlement with Bailey's family.

Another case of the officer “fearing for his life” as result of not having asked for help beforehand. He also “could have stepped away” from the truck. The result is that another unarmed (happens to be black) man was shot three times at close range. There is a certain lack of personal wisdom and professional expertise in these cases. I've seen the claim that the officer feared for his life three times now over several months. Yet they still pursue a suspect without getting any backup, and without having a means of escape. Then, predictably, they aren't convicted when they go to trial. No wonder many black people are distrustful and hostile toward the police. It happens to white suspects, too, but not as often. I can't wait for Obama's DOJ file to be set up which will count these cases as they occur so reliable statistics can be produced.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/anti-muslim-hate-fuels-large-rally-in-germany/

Anti-Muslim hate fuels large rally in Germany
By MARK PHILLIPS CBS NEWS
January 12, 2015

Photograph – An anti-Muslim rally in Dresden, Germany

DRESDEN, Germany -- Long before the terror attacks in Paris, anti-Muslim prejudice was on the rise in Europe. It was underscored Thursday during an anti-Islamic rally in Dresden, Germany.

"We are the people," they chant. But this isn't a chant about a society being united. This is a chant of exclusion.

They're part of a movement protesting what they see as the threat to German culture from rising numbers of Muslim immigrants to their country. Chancellor Angela Merkel may have said Islam is part of Germany now, but not to these people.

They point to the events in France as justification. Felix Menzel runs a right-wing magazine that supports the anti-immigrant cause.

"Is there an 'I told you so' quality to this?" I asked.

"Yes that's the scenario that they spoke about in the last weeks," Menzel answered.

The weekly demonstrations have grown over the past months from a few hundred to somewhere around 20,000. But so has opposition to them. Other demonstrators tried to block the path of the anti-immigrant marchers, saying Germany should welcome Muslim refugees.

"Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here," they chanted. But the marchers simply moved around them.

There were calls for this demonstration to be canceled out of deference to the victims in France and to let passions cool. But it went ahead anyway and it was big.

Werner Patzelt of Dresden University says the marchers' sentiments are misguided.

"They stir up un-delicious opinions and feelings," Patzelt told me. "Ugly is maybe the proper expression for what can be seen and felt."

The police crowd estimate for Monday's crowd was 25,000 which would make it the biggest of the anti-immigrant demonstrations so far, but still smaller than the numbers of pro-immigrant demonstrators who have been out on the streets across Germany. This is a battle of ideals, but also, a battle of numbers.




“They're part of a movement protesting what they see as the threat to German culture from rising numbers of Muslim immigrants to their country. Chancellor Angela Merkel may have said Islam is part of Germany now, but not to these people. They point to the events in France as justification. Felix Menzel runs a right-wing magazine that supports the anti-immigrant cause. "Is there an 'I told you so' quality to this?" I asked. "Yes that's the scenario that they spoke about in the last weeks," Menzel answered. The weekly demonstrations have grown over the past months from a few hundred to somewhere around 20,000. But so has opposition to them. Other demonstrators tried to block the path of the anti-immigrant marchers, saying Germany should welcome Muslim refugees.... "They stir up un-delicious opinions and feelings," Patzelt told me. "Ugly is maybe the proper expression for what can be seen and felt." The police crowd estimate for Monday's crowd was 25,000 which would make it the biggest of the anti-immigrant demonstrations so far, but still smaller than the numbers of pro-immigrant demonstrators who have been out on the streets across Germany. This is a battle of ideals, but also, a battle of numbers.

This article doesn't say whether the Muslims in Germany are largely peaceful or are agitating in favor of jihad. Anti-Jewish sentiment has been high recently in Germany and other European countries, too. Unfortunately, if radical mosques are active there, they may be in for a difficult time with these German citizens. Right wing Christians are prone to be active against anyone whose religions is different. In France there was hostility among the Islamic people over the fact that France banned the hijab. I can see a problem with the garment because it does cover the face to such an extent that the person's identity is obscured. Especially in times like these that it dangerous. Sometimes women in hijabi have been suicide bombers with their weapons hidden underneath. I don't think the garment should be allowed, given that.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/should-community-colleges-really-be-free/

The high cost of free community college
By LYNN O'SHAUGHNESSY MONEYWATCH
January 13, 2015

President Obama generated a huge amount of press recently when he unveiled an ambitious proposal to make community college free for tens of millions of Americans.

The proposal has generated accolades from those who support greater college access and skepticism from those who predict much of the money will be wasted.

It's worth examining what kind of job community colleges have been doing in educating Americans. Unfortunately, the statistics aren't encouraging. For too many students, the community college has become the higher-ed equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle.

According to the Digest of Education Statistics, only 19.5 percent of first-time, full-time students graduate within 150 percent of when they should receive a degree. For a two-year associate degree, that would mean fewer than one in five students graduate within three years. A report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center concluded that just 20 percent of community college students graduate to four-year schools.

Access versus capacity
Making community college free could actually hurt access to these institutions that have traditionally served as a higher-ed gateway for lower income and nontraditional students. A spike in community-college popularity could make enrolling in classes for current and new students more difficult. California provides a recent example of how access can be threatened when classes are free or close to it.

California community colleges, which educate roughly one out of every four community college students in the country, have historically offered the cheapest tuition among all 50 states. To encourage access to all comers, California has kept tuition extremely low, which has helped create a huge demand.

For years, this demand and low tuition wasn't able to generate enough revenue to support the massive system. This led to a crisis that manifested in courses being canceled, long waiting lists for classes and campuses that could no longer afford summer classes.

The California crisis was at least temporarily averted in 2012 when taxpayers approved a four-year sales tax increase, as well as a temporary higher tax on the wealthiest Californians.

While California represents an extreme case, community-college capacity is an issue throughout the country. It's a problem that a study by the American Association of Community Colleges explored in its report, Reclaiming the American Dream: Community Colleges and the Nation's Future. With tuition kept low to encourage access, "community colleges are not funded at a level permitting them to perform the monumental tasks expected of them."

Rather than directing more students to attend community colleges, the money could be better spent helping students already in the system to succeed. It's not sexy, but meaningful academic support, career and transfer counseling and more class availability would help reduce the dropout rate among students who want an education.

Also extremely helpful would be a national focus on what's arguably the biggest hurdle for community college students: losing their hard-earned college credits when they transfer to four-year institutions. In a 2014 study funded by the Gates Foundation, researchers from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York concluded that lost academic credits are the prime obstacle for community college students hoping to obtain a bachelor's degree.




“The proposal has generated accolades from those who support greater college access and skepticism from those who predict much of the money will be wasted.... According to the Digest of Education Statistics, only 19.5 percent of first-time, full-time students graduate within 150 percent of when they should receive a degree. For a two-year associate degree, that would mean fewer than one in five students graduate within three years. A report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center concluded that just 20 percent of community college students graduate to four-year schools.... California community colleges, which educate roughly one out of every four community college students in the country, have historically offered the cheapest tuition among all 50 states. To encourage access to all comers, California has kept tuition extremely low, which has helped create a huge demand. For years, this demand and low tuition wasn't able to generate enough revenue to support the massive system.... With tuition kept low to encourage access, "community colleges are not funded at a level permitting them to perform the monumental tasks expected of them." Rather than directing more students to attend community colleges, the money could be better spent helping students already in the system to succeed. It's not sexy, but meaningful academic support, career and transfer counseling and more class availability would help reduce the dropout rate among students who want an education.... Also extremely helpful would be a national focus on what's arguably the biggest hurdle for community college students: losing their hard-earned college credits when they transfer to four-year institutions. “

When I went through college, two year schools weren't as common as they are now. It never occurred to me to try to attend such a college, as I wanted a four year degree, and two year colleges even now often don't give all the different courses to attain an English or science major. They were for getting a marketing, office skills or paralegal certificate which would produce a limited job at the end of the two years. That is still the most sensible use of a two year degree to me. Most four year degrees aren't full preparation for a career, nowadays, except maybe in the health sciences. Teachers and librarians are encouraged to get a Masters.

Our Jacksonville, FL community college is now called Florida State College at Jacksonville, and offers four year degrees as well as two year. Their website giving information is at http://www.fscj.edu/academics/degrees-certificates. An interesting non-credit program here is called “Workforce Certificates (non-credit) – Workforce Certificates are non-credit programs providing practical hands-on training in technical fields from auto repair to health care to electrician. All programs take less than two years and some can even be completed in eight weeks or less. Many programs include internship so you receive real working experience.”

The description of their “Associate in Arts/University Transfer Degree” states that the credits will provide an AA certificate which is guaranteed to transfer to four year colleges across the country and even internationally. This, to me, would be a program well worth attending as it is flexible in that way. The problem with most two year colleges is that their credits don't always transfer. This would be good for students who either aren't sure how successful they will be academically, or who don't know where the rest of the tuition will be coming from.

If the program is actually free, that would make great headway toward improving the education of “the masses,” giving them greater job security hopefully. With the shocking wealth gap which exists now between the rich and the poor, we need this to make our citizens more able to make a living wage, get a job, and make better citizens. Citizens who read widely are better thinkers and therefore voters, in my viewpoint, than those who didn't make it through high school or whose actual reading and mathematical ability are well below average.

This is not, to me, grounds for looking down on any person, but rather simply a great disadvantage, and almost a guarantee that their children will also tend to do poorly in school and then join a gang or worse. Children who do not hear a reasonably high level of English spoken in their home, are not likely to find reading and writing easy. Many teenagers who go straight to prison after school do it because they can't read.

See this website on that issue: http://www.begintoread.com/research/literacystatistics.html. It states – “Two thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare. 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate.
More than 60 percent of all prison inmates are functionally illiterate.
Penal institution records show that inmates have a 16% chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help, as opposed to 70% who receive no help. This equates to taxpayer costs of $25,000 per year per inmate and nearly double that amount for juvenile offenders.
Illiteracy and crime are closely related. The Department of Justice states, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." Over 70% of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.

According to the literacy fast facts from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), literacy is defined as "using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one�s goals, and to develop one�s knowledge and potential."

"One measure of literacy is the percentage of adults who perform at four achievement levels: Below Basic, Basic, Intermediate, and Proficient. In each type of literacy, 13 percent of adults were at or above Proficient (indicating they possess the skills necessary to perform complex and challenging literacy activities) in 2003. Twenty-two percent of adults were Below Basic (indicating they possess no more than the most simple and concrete literacy skills) in quantitative literacy, compared with 14 percent in prose literacy and 12 percent in document literacy."

So how do they end up in crime? They don't all. Some work as a garbage collector, chicken processor or other very low skilled job all their lives. That can't be a happy life. If they end up with a drinking or drug habit it doesn't surprise me. If they are strong church-goers, family members and kind natured people, they will stay out of prison and hopefully rear good children. Maybe they will push their kids to study hard all the way through and do much better in school than they did. I believe most kids start off bright enough to do well in school. They don't all have equal backgrounds financially, educationally and socially, however, with a strong desire to learn. That's where our additional help from teachers can help. According to this article above, those who improve their reading by the end of their fourth grade year may not be perpetually behind the other kids. There is always hope for the next generation.

Unfortunately, sometimes they and their kids do move from a poor high school career to making their money by selling drugs, theft or prostitution, on the other hand. If President Obama can do something to stop that negative flow from childhood to a criminal career, I approve of it. One of the things I worry a lot about in this country is the abject poverty and ignorance that exists here. In addition, the children of the working poor, who can probably afford only a modest outlay for food and housing, also may not be much better readers than their parents were. A free community college program, would be a valuable step up for these people. A government investment in this would “raise all boats” in our economy. The wealthy should understand that they would make more money, too, if the situation of the poor were improved significantly. Poor people who can't pay for goods and services don't make good consumers, and that makes our economy stagnate as it did in 2008. I hope the Republicans don't vote this Community College plan down. We need it.