Emily Goes To The Movies

March of the Penguins
Review by Emily Trosprel 8th Grade BHMS

Beautiful, charming, and heart-warming, March of the Penguins is the must-see family movie of the summer. Being a film which can not depend on special effects or performances to elevate it, this documentary relies almost solely on the story. And what a story it is. It ranges from funny and sweet to tender and heart-breaking. Morgan Freeman's deep voice narrating and beautiful classical music are the final perfect touches to this perfect film. March of the Penguins receives four out of four stars.

Vacation Planner

As this summer comes to a close not to early to start planning next year's vacation. Don't get skin cancer broiling on the Jersey Shore or get eaten by a bear in the mountains. Get away from the maddening crowds and take a monsoon vacation.

Pack light T-shirts, thin cotton shirts and light trousers. The operative
word is light, thin and plenty. You can have fun while getting wet, only if you
have dry clothes to change into. Other than the bare essentials, don't expect to
wash your clothes too often. Overcast skies make for unsightly clotheslines,
both inside and outside the house. Thick turkey towels are out. If you don't
have any, purchase the thin towels in India. Only when your haversacks and kits
emit a rich musty smell, with all the damp clothes in it, may you call your wet
vacation, a success

Connecticut challenges No Child Left Behind

HARTFORD, Conn. - The state of Connecticut filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging President Bush’s No Child Left Behind school reform law, arguing it is illegal because it requires expensive testing and programs it doesn’t pay for.
The lawsuit, which officials said was the first of its kind to be brought by a state government, asks a federal judge to declare that the federal government cannot require state and local money be used to meet federal testing goals. More

Decline In Educational Software

Educational software for the PC once thought to have the promise to make all the little rug rats smarter faster has suffered a serious decline. The internet delivering rich content, stand alone gadgets like Leap Pad and the realization that flash cards work just as well has made the market in 2000 of $498 decline to $152 million by 2004. Article

Hey Did you hear about ...

If you can believe the studies gossip overall is actually a good thing. It enforces group rules and helps give new members a sense of belonging. Often giving them the information they need to succeed.

People find it irresistible for good reason: Gossip not only helps clarify
and enforce the rules that keep people working well together, studies suggest,
but it circulates crucial information about the behavior of others that cannot
be published in an office manual. As often as it sullies reputations,
psychologists say, gossip offers a foothold for newcomers in a group and a
safety net for group members who feel in danger of falling out.

"There has been a tendency to denigrate gossip as sloppy and
unreliable" and unworthy of serious study, said David Sloan Wilson, a professor
of biology and anthropology at the State University of New York at Binghamton
and the author of "Darwin's Cathedral," a book on evolution and group behavior.
"But gossip appears to be a very sophisticated, multifunctional interaction
which is important in policing behaviors in a group and defining group
membership
...
Adept gossipers usually sense which kinds of discreet talk are most likely
to win acceptance from a particular group. For example, a closely knit corporate
team with clear values - working late hours, for instance - will tend to embrace
a person who gripes in private about a colleague who leaves early and shun one
who complains about the late nights. Article

Just remember that this was published in a newspaper whose main business is spreading formal gossip.

This Week Movie Review

The Dukes of Hazzard
Reviewed By Emily Trosprel 8th Grade BHMS

The Dukes of Hazzard is exactly what you would expect it to be, a fun movie filled with cars and beautiful women. The casting is pretty much on target, and the acting was quite good, yes, even from Jessica Simpson. Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott, the lead actors in the film, were terrific together. While the plot was simple and very predictable, it still managed to be entertaining. That is, if your idea of entaining is watching cars jump over highways. "Dukes" gets two and a half stars out of four.

There Ar Bonuses And Then There Is Just Plain Hihghway Robbery

This makes the legislature pay raises chump change. How many deserving students could have gotten a free ride to college with this money. This article was in the Morning Cal State Briefingl.

Lump-sum bonuses of more than $100,000 were awarded to each of the top
seven executives of the state's student-loan agency in July, according to a
published report.The combined bonuses and salaries make the Pennsylvania Higher
Education Assistance Agency executives the highest-paid state government
officials, The Patriot-News of Harrisburg reported Sunday, citing agency
records.

PHEAA spent more than $1 million on executive bonuses, the records show.
PHEAA president and chief executive officer Richard Willey received the largest
bonus, $163,964. His base salary is $273,639, making his total compensation of
$437,603. Willey's salary and bonus also amount to more than 21/2 times Gov. Ed
Rendell's $155,572 salary.The six executive vice presidents, each of whom earns
a $206,241 salary, received bonuses ranging from $101,610 to $103,518, according
to agency records.

The agency is the largest originator of student loans in Pennsylvania, with
21 percent of the market, or $661 million in fiscal 2003. It also provides
need-based grants of up to $3,500 annually, which are funded by taxpayers and do
not need to be repaid. More than 150,000 students are expected to receive the
grants in the coming year. (AP)

John P. Curtin Ed. D. Weclome back letter

Dear Parents:

As superintendent of schools, I am committed to our students’ success. I pledge that the Brandywine Heights Area School District will stand as a model of excellence in education and maintain high expectations for classroom achievement and behavior, while providing assistance to those students who need alternative approaches.

As parents, please understand that you play an absolutely essential role in your children’s academic success. We ask you to set high expectations for your children’s academic success. A parent’s expectation of success becomes a propelling force to motivate a child. When children aren’t expected to do well, most often they don’t. So please don’t accept mediocre grades and poor study habits; rather, get involved and demand better. There are many ways to do this, such as by supervising homework, fostering reading more at home, limiting TV and video games, and talking with your child about the importance of education.

You must also set high expectations for our schools. We welcome your involvement, support, and even your criticism, which, when constructive, can help us to improve. Specifically, get involved with your children’s schoolwork and tell us right away about any possible problems—for example, whether work is too easy or too difficult. Get to know your child’s teacher and form a partnership.

At Brandywine, we look forward to working with you to achieve educational excellence. Please don’t hesitate to speak with me or another administrator about how we can improve.

Yours truly, Superintendent of Schools

The Root Cause of Educational Problems In The US

Single-adult households have displaced two-parent families with children as the most common kind of U.S. household, the Census Bureau reported yesterday. The change demonstrates "the growing complexity" of American households, researchers said in a new report, "Examining American Household Composition: 1990 and 2000." "It's breathtaking how many people still think that the 'mom, pop and two kids' is the majority of households," said Peter Francese, the founder of American Demographics magazine. Nuclear-family households -- two married parents and a child -- were the most common as recently as 1990, when there were 25 million such households. But by 2000, nuclear-family households fell to second place, both because there were almost a half-million fewer of these type of homes and because the number of single-adult households surged past 27 million. More

Catasauqua Dist. About To Bounce Checks

Seems remdial math may be in order in the Catasauqua School District. After much debate this summer on the proper size of the district fund balance, everyone agreeed it should be positive. In Catasauqua they had had $1,100,000 balance used $880,000 for one project and $500,000 for another resulting in a major oopsie.

Faced with a need to reduce spending by nearly $500,000, Catasauqua Area
School District officials are taking the unusual step of cutting programs and
services already approved in this year's budget.The unexpected budget deficit
comes at a time when the district has an estimated $31 million high school
opening next month, and a $9 million middle school renovation project soon to
begin. More

From The People That Gave Us Builder Bob

School board criticizes its president
Northampton Area School Board President Richard Zuercher came under fire at the school board meeting Monday for requesting a legal opinion on rezoning of district property, after the board had voted to support the rezoning.In response to his critics, board member Debra Liebenguth accused them of trying to begin looking for a new board solicitor without telling other members of the board. More

People Trampled for $50.00 Door Stops

This could be in Kutztown future when they change out computers

What started as a sale turned into a mob scene as thousands of people
pushed their way through the Richmond International Raceway gates to buy a $50
iBook laptop computer from Henrico County Schools Tuesday morning.

Dustin Coppinger, who attended the sale, said he saw an older man run over
by anxious buyers, "An old man in a walker was trampled to the ground.
Trampled to the ground... walked all over," he said.

Alice Jemerson was one
victim who got trampled." Look at my knees. They ran on top of me. I
just starting kicking the people," she said.
There were also heat problems as
17 people were treated for heat exhaustion. Four were taken to the hospital. More

The school may have some old furniture up for grabs soon hope everyone behaves.

New Mixers of Mystery Meat

Since Sodexho is a French company does that mean frog legs and snails will be added to the universal mystery meat? Bon Appetit.

Since Sodexho already runs the food service at area colleges like KU . several local companies like Air Products and the Lutheran Home. A person in this area can go from almost the cradle to the grave eating their food. Seems like a French plot.

The management fee mentioned in the article is based on their meeting cost savings goals, less savings less of a fee. Mr. Mabry was present for the discussion and made his approval known before he had to leave.

The Brandywine Heights School Board has voted 5-0 to begin negotiations to
turn management of cafeteria operations over to an outside firm that has
guaranteed savings of at least $30,000 for the 2005-2006 school year.

Steven E. Fischer, the district's business manager, said Wednesday that
Sodexho School Services Inc., Gaithersburg, Md., would not increase cafeteria
prices and would retain the district's 17 unionized cafeteria employees.

The board authorized Fischer to negotiate with Sodexho for a one-year
management fee not to exceed $69,655. Article

New Feature Movie Reviews

To aid parents in selecting movies for their children we are now featuring movie reviews written by a Brandywine middle school student and future movie producer. This week


Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

A darker version of the first film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a surprisingly fantastic remake that is just as entertaining as the original. It is visually stunning with its elaborate sets and breathtaking special effects. The acting, led by a bizarre yet brilliant performance by Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, is high quality. Even the children give an admirable performance. The truly unique plot is much more similar then the first film was to the book by Roald Dahl. In the end this movie deserves three and a half stars out of four.

"Dinner Ready" Is Always Understood

LONDON (AFP) - Men who are accused of never listening by women now have an
excuse -- women's voices are more difficult for men to listen to than other
men's, a report said.

The Daily Mail, quoting findings published in the specialist
magazine NeuroImage, said researchers at Sheffield university in northern
England discovered startling differences in the way the brain responds to male
and female sounds.

Men deciphered female voices using the auditory part of the brain that
processes music, while male voices engaged a simpler mechanism, it
said.

The Mail quoted researcher Michael Hunter as saying, "The female voice is
actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and
shape of the vocal cords and larynx between men and women, and also due to women having greater natural 'melody' in their voices.

"This causes a more complex range of sound frequencies than in a male
voice."

The findings may help explain why people suffering hallucinations
usually hear male voices, the report added, as the brain may find it much harder
to conjure up a false female voice accurately than a false male voice.

The real reason is that men learn to tune out their mother at an early age.

With November Approaching A New Campaign Idea

ISLAMABAD - A candidate in Pakistan’s Northwestern Frontier Province gave away his 11-year-old daughter to his opponent in exchange for latter’s withdrawal from next week’ local elections, a news report said on Sunday.

Is The Housing Bubble Deflating

Since this site has evolved (or maybe ignorantly designed) into also covering local real estate, here is Usually Wrong Krugman in today's NYT on current housing prices.

This is the way the bubble ends: not with a pop, but with a hiss.

Housing prices move much more slowly than stock prices. There are no
Black Mondays, when prices fall 23 percent in a day. In fact, prices often keep
rising for a while even after a housing boom goes bust.

So the news that the U.S. housing bubble is over won't come in the form of
plunging prices; it will come in the form of falling sales and rising inventory,
as sellers try to get prices that buyers are no longer willing to pay. And the
process may already have started.
...
Then there are the numbers. Many bubble deniers point to average prices for
the country as a whole, which look worrisome but not totally crazy. When it
comes to housing, however, the United States is really two countries, Flatland
and the Zoned Zone.

In Flatland, which occupies the middle of the country, it's easy to
build houses. When the demand for houses rises, Flatland metropolitan areas,
which don't really have traditional downtowns, just sprawl some more. As a
result, housing prices are basically determined by the cost of construction. In
Flatland, a housing bubble can't even get started.

But in the Zoned Zone, which lies along the coasts, a combination of
high population density and land-use restrictions - hence "zoned" - makes it
hard to build new houses. So when people become willing to spend more on houses,
say because of a fall in mortgage rates, some houses get built, but the prices
of existing houses also go up. And if people think that prices will continue to
rise, they become willing to spend even more, driving prices still higher, and
so on. In other words, the Zoned Zone is prone to housing bubbles.

And Zoned Zone housing prices, which have risen much faster than the
national average, clearly point to a bubble. ...

More Debate On Intelligent Design

Good article in the Boston Globe "God Vs. Darwin" on the controvesy of teaching intelligent design, instead of science.

Just Wait Till Next Year

The other day an official with a British teachers' union proposed that the concept of "failing" exams should be abolished. Instead of being given a "failing" grade, she said, the pupil would instead be given a "deferred success."

The incomparable Mark Steyn on the reason your kid is out of shape is because President Bush runs too much.

Dr. Curtin Should Protest Notre Dame Mascot

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The NCAA banned the use of American Indian mascots by sports teams during its postseason tournaments, but will not prohibit them otherwise. The NCAA's executive committee decided this week the organization did not have the authority to bar Indian mascots by individual schools, committee chairman Walter Harrison said Friday. Nicknames or mascots deemed "hostile or abusive" would not be allowed by teams on their uniforms or other clothing beginning with any NCAA tournament after Feb. 1.

So they are letting this year's big money making bowl games slide. Guess you can only take political correctness so far. On a related topic does the dichotomy of Brandywine's bullet mascot and the baby deer on the school logo just seem wrong to anyone else? Don't want to be PC but the combination just doesn't seem right. Maybe we should keep the mascot and put a 12 point buck on the logo.

Sometimes people from across the political spectrum can work together on issues other then giving each other a raise. Who would have thought that National Review would ever give "atta girls" to Rep. Maxine Waters.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) probably won't take her place among the
great economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman as a conservative hero.
Actually, she never will. But the famously fire-breathing left-wing
congresswoman from Los Angeles has emerged in recent weeks as one of the
nation's most outspoken defenders of property rights. "Government should be in
the business of protecting private property," she told me in an interview,
sounding every bit a member of the free-market group the Club for Growth.
"Private property is precious in America."

What has galvanized Waters and a surprising
left-right coalition in defense of private property is the Supreme Court's
instantly notorious Kelo decision in June saying government can use its
eminent-domain power to take property from one private owner and give it to
another.

...

"It's not a partisan issue at all," explains Dana Berliner of the
Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice, which is leading the crusade
against the abuse of eminent domain and maintains a website devoted to the cause.
"Everyone either owns a home or hopes to own a home, and nobody likes the idea
that their home could be taken away from them because someone wealthier wants
it." She says that the Court has done the property-rights cause an unintentional
favor by highlighting takings for private use that have been going on for a long
time without much public notice.

The Court has also got Maxine Waters's back up, which is never
advisable. More

Great Granny Grasshoppers

The federal Govt. gives Longswamp $40,000 for economic development and they can't find a way to spend it to better the community? That is the story at least in this week's Patroit. No use spending money just to be spending it but surely some use could have been found for the funds.

New Model For Car Insurance

Soon you can receive a break on your auto insurance if you let the insurer ride with you. New technology lets you decide to send your driving history to your insurance company. If your driving habits meets the insurance company's criteria receive a 12% break. If you have watched two many episodes of the Dukes of Hazard don't download the data and pay the piper. Could be very helpful if you have teen drivers that drive responsibly.

The monitoring seems to be getting people to drive more safely — not
because they're afraid of repercussions, but because they're motivated to get
bigger discounts. So instead of red light cams and state troopers with radar
guns, maybe the way to get people to obey the rules of the road is to pay them
to do it.
Big insurer Progressive launched its trial, dubbed TripSense, in
Minnesota last August. Customers who sign up are mailed a device the size of a
Tic Tac box with instructions on how to plug it into the electronics under the
steering column. The gadget tracks only two things: speed, and the day and time
a car is being driven.
Customers know upfront what behavior brings discounts.
For instance, the less the car's speed is above 75 mph — the top speed limit in
Minnesota is 70 — the bigger the rate cut. The discount also is bigger if you
don't drive at the most dangerous times, such as right after the bars close on a
Saturday night. Article

New Study: Dropouts are Unprepared For Unemployment

WASHINGTON, DC—A Department of Labor report released Monday finds that America's high schools are not sufficiently preparing emerging dropouts for the demands of unemployment.
In a letter introducing the report, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao explained that schools routinely fail to impart dropouts with the critical lying- and sitting-around skills they need to thrive in today's jobless market.

"Our public high schools place too much focus on preparing kids for professional careers," Chao said. "This waste of resources leaves our dropouts, the majority of whom have no chance of ever finding a job, wholly unprepared to sleep till 1 p.m., or watch daytime television while eating ramen noodles out of an upturned Frisbee."
...
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings defended the nation's public-school system.
"Educators do a lot to ensure that the most hopeless students slip through the cracks," Spellings said. "Arbitrary rules, irregularly enforced discipline, and pointless paperwork are just the first things that come to mind."

She added: "Easy grading encourages students to be sloppy and late handing in homework—a skill that makes future deadbeats very competitive in stonewalling landlords and bill collectors."
...
Susan French, a spokesperson for the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, said educators are superb role models for the unemployed dropouts of tomorrow.

Said French: "Students spend seven hours a day surrounded by adults who despise their low-paying jobs. If the critics out there know a better way to discourage a young person from entering the work force, I'd like to see it." MORE

Another Idiotic Judge

Despite a guilty verdict, a federal judge acquits a Mission Hills, Kansas
man of using the Internet to try to entice a child into sex. The defense attorney
successfully argued that breaking federal law required actually enticing a minor
— not enticing a Platte County deputy pretending to be a minor. Article (Requires registration just use Bob@happy.com as the ID and happy1 as
the password. Courtesty of Bug Me Not)

If this ruling stands could provide job opportunties to minors. They could work for the police department enticing perverts. Not good for their mental health but about time those rugrats pulled their own weight.

Web Tip

If you are interested in a story linked to some obscure newspaper with an aggravating registration form try http://www.bugmenot.com/ . Just copy the URL of the requsting site and Bug Me Not will give you an ID and password to enter. Don't know who these sites are fooling? How many people give the right information or bother with registering with the Bismarck SD Times for one story.

Reassessment

In Today's Reading Eagle

Information being circulated by angry taxpayers is likely to cause a rift
between senior citizens living in older homes and young families building new
homes, a Berks County commissioner said Tuesday.

“This is going to heat up,” Commissioner Mark C. Scott said. “This has
the potential to polarize taxpayers along income lines and age lines.”
Scott
pointed to one flier that states: “Most senior citizens' home values have
soared. They have old assessments, and they don't have a mortgage to pay.”
Senior citizens don't have mortgages to pay because they worked to pay them
off, Scott said.
“This literature is demeaning to senior citizens,” he said.
Amity Township residents made statements similar to others in the flier at a
commissioners meeting last week, Scott said.
The residents who live in new
homes complained they are paying up to twice as much in taxes as people who own
older homes of equal value because older homes have not been reassessed since
1992.

...

They said they would start working on it next year but that new assessments
would not be implemented until 2009 because time would be needed to evaluate all
properties and allow owners to appeal the results.

Seems like older properties value should be escalated every year by a school district area percentage. That would keep the taxes between the new and the old in the same ballpark till a costly reassessment could be done.

More SUV's Fewer Cows

A lot of non-dinner talk in the discussion board about sewage in Longswamp. All those millions for a treatment system but they are going to leave the cows alone. Why do we have to pay to have our car's emission inspected while the area cows continue to flatulate at will. Where is the courageous lawmaker that will take on this challenge. Farmers should be required to feed their cattle a daily dose of alpha-galactosidase at the very least.

California's San Joaquin Valley for some time has had the dirtiest air in
the country. Monday, officials said gases from ruminating dairy cows, not
exhaust from cars, are the region's biggest single source of a chief
smog-forming pollutant.

Every year, the average dairy cow produces 19.3 pounds of gases,
called volatile organic compounds, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control
District said. Those gases react with other pollutants to form ground-level
ozone, or smog.With 2.5 million dairy cows — roughly one of every five in the
country — emissions of almost 20 pounds per cow mean that cattle in the San
Joaquin Valley produce more organic compounds than are generated by either cars
or trucks or pesticides, the air district said. The finding will serve as the
basis for strict air-quality regulations on the region's booming dairy industry. More

Kids to College Or We Could Go To the Spa

A recent Morning-Call Editorial pointed out the trips the agency in charge of student loans spends on boondoggles. 16 members of the board are lawmakers that gave themselves a 16% raise and gave us Act 72 calling school board members irresponsible for rejecting it. Have these people no shame?

A report last year by the National Center on Public Policy and Higher
Education found that even with financial aid, Pennsylvania families spend ''a
very large share'' of their income on both public and private four-year colleges
and universities. In fact, Pennsylvania is among 36 states that got
failing grades for college affordability.It is particularly
troublesome, then, that the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance
Agency spent nearly $136,000 on a three-day retreat in June. It was
business as usual for PHEAA, including 10 of 16 lawmakers who serve on the
student loan agency's 20-member board. Gourmet dining, a spa and a 36-hole golf
course were among the amenities at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Fayette
County.Holding retreats away from Harrisburg helps members focus on the task at
hand, PHEAA's board chair, Rep. Elinor Taylor, R-Chester, told the Associated
Press. But obviously, there are less-pricey locations. The agency
actually has spent $884,687 since 2000 on board trips to resorts in California's Napa Valley, Maryland's Eastern Shore, Virginia and West Virginia. Rep. Taylor said the recent retreat was covered by earnings from the loan business, not tax dollars. Yet, these are public funds.

The Wired Generation

Teens use home computers more then adults according to a study by Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Educators who have yet to do so might have to re-evaluate their current instructional strategies in light of a new survey compiled for the Pew Internet & American Life Project; it indicates internet use is nearly ubiquitous for today's teens. Of those youngsters surveyed, 87 percent said they use the internet.

About half of the young people who have online access say they go on the internet every day, up from 42 percent in 2000.

Three-quarters of wired teens use instant messaging (IM), compared with 42 percent of online adults who do so. Teens most often reserve IM for friends. They use eMail for adults, including parents and teachers, the study found.

The survey's results have broad implications for educators, who must re-evaluate their pedagogy to ensure it is relevant for a new generation of students with different expectations for how they will learn and communicate

...
At the same time, he says he and his friends also have honed their internet use--seeing it more as a tool for communication or research than "a novelty."
Amanda Lenhart, a Pew researcher, says that tracks with the findings of the survey. "Teens are very selective--they're smart about their technology use," she says. "They use it for the kinds of things they need to do."
As one teen in a focus group told her: "If you're asking for your parents to extend your curfew, you don't send an eMail."

Parental Involvement Through Online Grades

NEW YORK - Debbie Karl's after-school chats with her two sons are typically brief: How was school today? Fine. Anything going on? Nothing.

The Internet now lets the Texas college professor find out when her kids are hiding something such as the fact her younger son, Derek, is failing.

"My sixth-grader has not bothered to tell me he is failing math for the first time in his life," Karl said. "I was just perusing (the Web site) and he's got one, two, three, four, five zeros. I have immediately put a call in to that teacher." More

President Bush On Education

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Monday he believes schools should discuss
“intelligent design” alongside evolution when teaching students about the
creation of life.

During a round-table interview with reporters from five
Texas newspapers, Bush declined to go into detail on his personal views of the
origin of life. But he said students should learn about both theories, Knight
Ridder Newspapers reported.

“I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,” Bush said. “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.” More

The "intelligent" part of "Intelligent Design" is discredited when looking at what comes out of Washington, Harrisburg and Longswamp.

Gurard Your Wallet and Protect Your Child

The first board meeting for the 2005-06 school year is tonight at 7:30.

2 Billion Left Behind

America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing
ones.” That was the conclusion of the 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy. For
a country whose foreign policy in the 20th century was dominated by the
struggles against powerful states such as Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union,
the U.S. assessment is striking. The Failed States Index .

They also have a map that shows the areas that have either failed or in the process of failing . This is one of the problems when technology becomes cheap and readilly available. Creates more bang for the buck.

Seen A Few That Would Have Been Perfect

Studio chiefs at Twentieth Century Fox are hunting for the perfect
demonic child to play the coveted role of evil DAMIEN, the son of SATAN, in THE
OMEN 666. Apply Here

Looks like some people were right Harry Potter is in league with SATAN.

HARRY POTTER casting director SUSIE FIGGIS is on board to find a very
different child to the ones she selected for the wizardry saga.

Fighting Terrorism with Math

Article on how an obscure branch of mathematics can be used to combat terrorism.

"Dr. Jonathan D. Farley realized that experts could make potentially grave
errors by overestimating their effectiveness at breaking up terrorist cells.
"They're asking the wrong question and getting the wrong answer," Farley
explains."
....
"Opening line in the movie ' A Beautiful Mind' about John Nash:
"Mathematicians won the war." And, he remembered Palestinian leader George
Habash's words: "Terrorism is a thinking man's game."

The current results of U.S. math scores show that we could be in big trouble.