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British Government wants the military to run state schools

The Armed Forces will be drafted in to run state schools under plans to drive up discipline and respect in classrooms.

Ministers are in talks with defence chiefs about taking over a handful of schools and turning them into military academies.

Alongside daily lessons, pupils would be expected to take part in activities such as drills, uniformed parades, weapons handling and adventure training.

The first state schools set to gain ‘military academy’ status are understood to be based in Portsmouth and Colchester.

The controversial scheme will initially be in areas where there are a large number of military families, but is set to be rolled out across the country.

Ministers believe that children in failing schools would particularly benefit from a military-style education because it would give them role models and a more structured existence.

But the plan is likely to raise fears among teaching unions that the academies could turn into tough ‘boot camps’ or recruiting stations.

Last year, union leaders accused the Army of giving children ‘misleading propaganda’ about life in the Armed Forces.

The National Union of Teachers also vowed to back any teachers who wanted to boycott the services’ recruitment drives.

The latest idea comes as the Government prepares to launch a major extension of the ‘school cadet force’ scheme in deprived areas.

via Right then, fall into line you ‘orrible little pupils! Government wants the military to run state schools | Mail Online.

Students protest surveillance of two girls kissing

Dozens of Gig Harbor High School students demonstrated outside the school Monday to protest an official’s decision to show parents surveillance video of their daughter kissing another girl.

The controversy arose after the school’s dean of students, Keith Nelson, saw the two kissing and holding hands and found video of it on the surveillance system. He showed it to the parents of one of the girls because they had asked to be kept apprised of her behavior.

The parents moved the girl to a different school district after watching it.

One student reporting the demonstration for the school paper, Amber Critchley, said the protesters believe it was an improper use of the surveillance video, which is primarily a security feature.

Classes continued during the disruption, said Principal Greg Schellenberg. He said he congratulated the students on holding a peaceful demonstration. The protesters wore T-shirts that said “free love” and waved peace signs.

Schellenberg agreed that it was wrong to show the surveillance video to the parents, and said that from now on school officials may only use the surveillance for security monitoring and discipline for actions such as trespassing, vandalism and fighting.

via Students protest surveillance of two girls kissing | KOMO News – Seattle, Washington | Local & Regional.

Man gets 7 years for using forged check to buy prized comic book

The purchase of a rare 1963 Spider-Man comic book with a forged check has resulted in a 7-year prison sentence for a former Naperville man.

Scott Meherg, 28, pleaded guilty to theft Thursday in DuPage County court. Records show Meherg used a $980.99 forged bank check to obtain Spider-Man #2, the second book in the original series, from Graham Crackers Comics in Naperville in 2007.

Assistant DuPage County State’s Atty. Louisa Nuckolls told Judge Peter Dockery that Meherg has three convictions on deceptive practices and forgery charges.

The first-edition comic book has never been recovered, and Dockery ordered Meherg to pay $980.99 in restitution.

via Man gets 7 years for using forged check to buy prized comic book — chicagotribune.com.

Statue of Liberty’s crown to reopen July 4

The National Park Service is planning a lottery for those wishing to climb the narrow, circular staircase of 168 steps inside the statue to its crown, which has been closed since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The lofty crown of the Statue of Liberty, closed to the public since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, will reopen July 4, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced this morning.

Salazar announced the reopening, with the National Park Service planning a lottery for those wishing to climb the narrow, circular staircase of 168 steps inside the statue to the crown, in an appearance inside the crown this morning on NBC News’ “Today” show.

Admission will be “egalitarian,” the secretary said of a planned lottery for visitors wishing to make the staircase climb.

The reopening of the crown atop the statue, a gift to the United States from France in 1885 and a symbol of freedom standing on its island in New York City’s harbor since then, will take place on Independence Day — the anniversary of July 4, 1776, the date inscribed on the tablet that Lady Liberty holds in her hand.

Salazar, acknowledging that standing in the crown this morning gave him “goose bumps,” said Park Service employees are being trained on ways to usher selected visitors up and down the single narrow stairway inside the statue.

He acknowledged that this would entail “risks” but also said that everyone allowed inside would have undergone “double screening” for security purposes at a national monument whose pinnacle has been closed to the public since terrorists attacked the World Trade Center towers in New York with hijacked airliners.

Although the crown has remained closed, the base, pedestal and lower observation deck have since been reopened.

via Statue of Liberty’s crown to reopen July 4 – Los Angeles Times.

Quiz: ‘Star Trek’ character, NPR personality or food additive?

I don’t listen to NPR much. See if you can do better than my 80% on this quiz.

On a daily basis “Star Trek” doesn t bother me much. We live in a state of mutual disinterest. But when asked about “Star Trek ” for reasons beyond me my nose crinkles and I mumble how it s dull and I could never get in it. But the other night I saw the new “Star Trek” picture and in the days since I have realized “Star Trek” is not so different from what I encounter during my daily routine. Indeed the names–intergalactic or otherwise–sound familiar. Which led me to devise the following quiz Guess if each of the following is a “Star Trek” character a food additive or a NPR personality.

Take the quiz here: ‘Star Trek’ character, NPR personality or food additive? — chicagotribune.com.

Scientists find undersea volcano has grown a massive cone

Marine scientists, on an expedition to an erupting undersea volcano near the Island of Guam, have discovered that it appears to be continuously active, has grown a new cone during the past three years, and its activity supports a unique biological community thriving despite the eruptions.

The international science team on the expedition, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), captured dramatic new information about the eruptive activity of NW Rota-1.

“NW Rota-1 remains the only place on Earth where a deep submarine volcano has ever been directly observed while erupting,” said Barbara Ransom, program director in NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research.

Scientists first observed eruptions at NW Rota-1 in 2004 and again in 2006, according to Bill Chadwick, an Oregon State University (OSU) volcanologist and chief investigator on the expedition.

This time, however, they discovered that the volcano had built a new cone 40 meters high and 300 meters wide.

“As the cone has grown, we’ve seen a significant increase in the population of animals that lives atop the volcano. We’re trying to determine if there is a direct connection between the increase in the volcanic activity and that population increase,” Chadwick said.

Animals in this unusual ecosystem include shrimp, crab, limpets and barnacles, some of which are new species.

“They’re specially adapted to their environment, and are thriving in harsh chemical conditions that would be toxic to normal marine life,” said Chadwick. “Life here is actually nourished by the erupting volcano,” he added.

via Discoveryon: Scientists find undersea volcano has grown a massive cone.

CafeTerra: Inter-stellar Star Trek-type travel possible?

Nearby stars could one day become your weekend getaways if researchers are to be believed. Physicists say that the warp drive, one of Star Trek’s hallmark inventions, could someday become a reality.

Faster-than-light travel technology could enable humans to jet between stars, but the trick is to ditch the rockets. The science is complex, but not strictly impossible, according to some researchers studying how to make it happen.

The trick seems to be to find some other means of propulsion besides rockets, which would never be able to accelerate a ship to velocities faster than that of light, the fundamental speed limit set by Einstein’s General Relativity.

Luckily for us, this speed limit only applies within space-time (the continuum of three dimensions of space plus one of time that we live in). While any given object can’t travel faster than light speed within space-time, theory holds, perhaps space-time itself could travel.

“The idea is that you take a chunk of space-time and move it,” quotes Marc Millis, former head of Nasa’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, as saying. “The vehicle inside that bubble thinks that it’s not moving at all. It’s the space-time that’s moving.”

One reason this idea seems credible is that scientists think it may already have happened. Some models suggest that space-time expanded at a rate faster than light speed during a period of rapid inflation shortly after the Big Bang.

Already some studies have claimed to find possible signatures of moving space-time. For example, scientists rotated super-cold rings in a lab. They found that still gyroscopes placed above the rings seem to think they themselves are rotating simply because of the presence of the spinning rings beneath. The researchers postulated that the ultra-cold rings were somehow dragging space-time, and the gyroscope was detecting the effect.

via CafeTerra: Inter-stellar Star Trek-type travel possible?.

NICK REDFERN: Snaking Around the Cemetery…

Well, yet again there is high-strangeness afoot in the woods of Britain’s Cannock Chase – and specifically in the vicinity of its German Cemetery.

As regular readers will know, the cemetery in question has been a veritable hotbed of weirdness for years: Bigfoot, werewolves, hairy-sprites, ghosts, marauding black-cats, and spectral black-dogs have all been seen roaming amongst the old war-graves.

But, now there’s a new player in town: a giant snake that has been seen slithering around the area. As the story shows, this is not the first time that similar beasts have been seen on the Chase (I investigated a case myself a number of years ago that reportedly occurred in the blisteringly hot-summer of 1976).

So, what are people seeing? Are they regular snakes or something else? From the descriptions, they could perhaps be pythons. However, the problem is that such creatures would not last long when the cold, harsh winter sets in.

And yet such creatures have been seen for years on the Chase, which begs the questions: if they are regular snakes, how are they surviving those aforementioned harsh winters year-after-year? And why are the snakes (like all of the other odd beasts seen on the Chase) now homing in on the German Cemetery?

via CRYPTOZOOLOGY ONLINE: Still on the Track: NICK REDFERN: Snaking Around the Cemetery….

Orange stars may have planets having life

A new analysis has suggested that the best bet that scientists have in finding life in the Universe may be around stars a little less massive than the sun, called ”orange dwarfs”.

According to a report in New Scientist, these stars live much longer than sun-like stars, and have safer habitable zones – where liquid water can exist – than those of lighter red dwarf stars.

Stars similar in mass to the sun, categorised as a yellow dwarf, have received the most attention from planet hunters.

Edward Guinan of Villanova University in Pennsylvania, US, leads a team that has been studying how the properties of stars vary with mass.

But, recent research suggests orange dwarfs may provide an even better hunting ground for life-bearing planets.

The team is using observations from a variety of sources, such as archival measurements from the ROSAT X-ray satellite, and more recent measurements from ground-based telescopes.

The results confirm that red dwarf stars, which weigh between 10 and 50 percent as much as the sun, are far more prone to unleashing powerful flares that can deliver deadly radiation to nearby planets.

This activity declines as the red dwarfs age, and scientists have not ruled out red dwarf planets as potential abodes for life, but any such life would certainly face some big challenges. …

The odds of intelligent life arising may be better on planets around orange dwarfs than sun-like stars, given the extra time available for it to evolve.

That makes orange dwarfs not only good targets for habitable planet searches, but for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) as well, according to Guinan

via Refreshing News: Orange stars may have planets having life.