Christians Leaders Respond to Anti-ICE Protest During Minnesota Church S...

Celebrate National Internet Safety Month

NOT FOR NOTHING, BUT, DID YOU KNOW IT WAS NATIONAL INTERNET SAFETY MONTH? 

Yes, right on time for the PRISM surprise (oops) leak.  Celebrate!

Well, just in case you didn't know here's a delightful story for you:

Get ready to post your party photos on Instagram because The National Cyber Security Alliance is recognizing June as National Internet Safety month.

This is no big deal for teachers and students living in the virtual school world because they celebrate Internet safety every day. However, for the rest of you, I offer up a few helpful tips to keep you safe online (tips courtesy of the new Social Media course offered by Florida Virtual School).

Tip #1 – Evaluate your sources.

• Cross-check the information. Ensure that you are able to find it in more than one place.
• Locate the copyright. Examine when the information was last updated.
• Seek out the creator of the information. Identify his or her credentials.
• Find clues in the domain. Sites ending in .org, .gov, or .edu are the most credible. Sites ending in .com or .net require additional evaluation.
• Trust your instincts. Information that sounds too good to be true usually is. Would you share this information with others?
• Judge a book by its cover. If a website appears sloppy and unorganized, that’s a clue the information may not be up to par. Proceed with caution.
• Identify traces of bias. Does the author have an agenda? Take bias into account when evaluating and sharing information.
• Understand the context of the story. Without context, there can be no credibility.
• Listen to your gut. If it sounds too good to be true…

Tip #2 – Say no to cyberbullying!

If you or someone you know is dealing with a cyberbully do the following:

• Identify the cause. See if you’re able to talk to the bully face to face to sort the issues out.
• Ignore or block the bully. Don’t give them the attention they want.
• Ask for advice. Students should talk to a trusted adult, parent, or teacher.
• Save the evidence, in case you need to prove you’re being bullied.
• Change contact information, such as your phone number, email address, or screen name.
• Report the bully. Tell a parent, a teacher, or in severe cases, the police.
• Don’t fight back. If you retaliate, you may also be at fault for cyberbullying.
• Think before you type. Never say anything on social media that you wouldn’t be comfortable seeing printed on a 100-foot billboard.

If you or someone you know is being cyberbullied, take a stand. Here’s how you can report it: http://www.cyberbullying.info/resources/report.php

Tip #3 – Consider the content you share.

What you put out there on social media tends to stay put. So it’s wise to think before you post, consider your audience, and avoid any negative off-the-cuff comments.

Pixels aren’t biodegradable. So chances are that embarrassing photo will be hanging around long enough for your future grandchildren to eventually find.

While it’s easy to upload and delete your own posts or photos, it’s nearly impossible to delete what others post about you (unless you’re a password hacker). So think twice about how you interact with others and whom you let interact with you.

Please feel free to share any Internet safety tips you might have.

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Obama on Jobs Bill: No Games, No Politics, No Delays

September 12, 2011

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

ON THE AMERICAN JOBS ACT

Rose Garden

*Please see below for a correction (marked with an asterisk) to a typo in the transcript.

10:58 A.M. EDT


THE PRESIDENT: Please, everybody, have a seat, on this beautiful morning. It’s wonderful to see all of you here.


On Thursday, I told Congress that I’ll be sending them a bill called the American Jobs Act. Well, here it is. (Applause.) This is a bill that will put people back to work all across the country. This is the bill that will help our economy in a moment of national crisis. This is a bill that is based on ideas from both Democrats and Republicans. And this is the bill that Congress needs to pass. No games. No politics. No delays. I’m sending this bill to Congress today, and they ought to pass it immediately. (Applause.)

Standing with me this morning are men and women who will be helped by the American Jobs Act. I’m standing with teachers. All across America, teachers are being laid off in droves — which is unfair to our kids, it undermines our future, and it is exactly what we shouldn’t be doing if we want our kids to be college-ready and then prepared for the jobs of the 21st century. We’ve got to get our teachers back to work. (Applause.) Let’s pass this bill and put them in the classroom where they belong. (Applause.)

I’m standing here with veterans. We’ve got hundreds of thousands of brave, skilled Americans who fought for this country. The last thing they should have to do is to fight for a job when they come home. So let’s pass this bill and put the men and women who served this nation back to work. (Applause.)

We’re standing here with cops and firefighters whose jobs are threatened because states and communities are cutting back. This bill will keep cops on the beat, and firefighters on call. So let’s pass this bill so that these men and women can continue protecting our neighborhoods like they do every single day. (Applause.)
I’m standing with construction workers. We’ve got roads that need work all over the country. Our highways are backed up with traffic. Our airports are clogged. And there are millions of unemployed construction workers who could rebuild them. So let’s pass this bill so road crews and diggers and pavers and workers – they can all head back to the jobsite. There’s plenty of work to do. This job — this jobs bill will help them do it. Let’s put them back to work. Let’s pass this bill rebuilding America. (Applause.)

And there are schools throughout the country that desperately need renovating. (Applause.) We cannot — got an “Amen” over there. (Laughter and applause.) We can’t expect our kids to do their best in places that are literally falling apart. This is America. Every kid deserves a great school — and we can give it to them. Pass this bill and we put construction crews back to work across the country repairing and modernizing at least 35,000 schools.

I’m standing here with small business owners. They know that while corporate profits have come roaring back, a lot of small businesses haven’t. They’re still struggling — getting the capital they need, getting the support they need in order to grow. So this bill cuts taxes for small businesses that hire new employees and for small businesses that raise salaries for current employees. It cuts your payroll tax in half. And all businesses can write off investments they make this year and next year. (Applause.) Instead of just talking about America’s job creators, let’s actually do something for America’s job creators. We can do that by passing this bill. (Applause.)

Now, there are a lot of other ways that this jobs bill, the American Jobs Act, will help this economy. It’s got a $4,000 tax credit for companies that hire anybody who spent more than six months looking for a job. We’ve got to do more for folks who’ve been hitting the pavement every single day looking for work, but haven’t found employment yet. That’s why we need to extend unemployment insurance and connect people to temporary work to help upgrade their skills.

This bill will help hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people find summer jobs next year — jobs that will help set the direction for their entire lives. And the American Jobs Act would prevent taxes from going up for middle-class families. If Congress does not act, just about every family in America will pay more taxes next year. And that would be a self-inflicted wound that our economy just can’t afford right now. So let’s pass this bill and give the typical working family a $1,500 tax cut instead. (Applause.)

And the American Jobs Act is not going to add to the debt — it’s fully paid for. I want to repeat that. It is fully paid for. (Laughter.) It’s not going to add a dime to the deficit. Next week, I’m laying out my plan not only to pay for this jobs bill but also to bring down the deficit further. It’s a plan that lives by the same rules that families do: We’ve got to cut out things that we can’t afford to do in order to afford the things that we really need. It’s a plan that says everybody — including the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations — have to pay their fair share. (Applause.)

The bottom line is, when it comes to strengthening the economy and balancing our books, we’ve got to decide what our priorities are. Do we keep tax loopholes for oil companies — or do we put teachers back to work? Should we keep tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires — or should we invest in education and technology and infrastructure, all the things that are going to help us out-innovate and out-educate and out-build other countries in the future?

We know what’s right. We know what will help businesses start right here and stay here and hire here. We know that if we take the steps outlined in this jobs plan, that there’s no reason why we can’t be selling more goods all around the world that are stamped with those three words: “Made in America.” That’s what we need to do to create jobs right now. (Applause.)

I have to repeat something I said in my speech on Thursday. There are some in Washington who’d rather settle our differences through politics and the elections than try to resolve them now. In fact, Joe and I, as we were walking out here, we were looking at one of the Washington newspapers and it was quoting a Republican aide saying, “I don’t know why* we’d want to cooperate with Obama right now. It’s not good for our politics.” That was very explicit.


THE VICE PRESIDENT: It was.

THE PRESIDENT: I mean, that’s the attitude in this town — “yeah, we’ve been through these things before, but I don’t know why we’d be for them right now.” The fact of the matter is the next election is 14 months away. And the American people don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 months for Congress to take action. (Applause.) Folks are living week to week, paycheck to paycheck. They need action. And the notion that there are folks who would say, we’re not going to try to do what’s right for the American people because we don’t think it’s convenient for our politics — we’ve been seeing that too much around here. And that’s exactly what folks are tired of.

And that’s okay, when things are going well, you play politics. It’s not okay at a time of great urgency and need all across the country. These aren’t games we’re playing out here. Folks are out of work. Businesses are having trouble staying open. You’ve got a world economy that is full of uncertainty right now — in Europe, in the Middle East. Some events may be beyond our control, but this is something we can control. Whether we not — whether or not we pass this bill, whether or not we get this done, that’s something that we can control. That’s in our hands.

You hear a lot of folks talking about uncertainty in the economy. This is a bit of uncertainty that we could avoid by going ahead and taking action to make sure that we’re helping the American people.

So if you agree with me, if you want Congress to take action, then I’m going to need everybody here and everybody watching — you’ve got to make sure that your voices are heard. Help make the case. There’s no reason not to pass this bill. Its ideas are bipartisan. Its ideas are common sense. It will make a difference. That’s not just my opinion; independent economists and validators have said this could add a significant amount to our Gross Domestic Product, and could put people back to work all across the country. (Applause.) So the only thing that’s stopping it is politics. (Applause.) And we can’t afford these same political games. Not now.

So I want you to pick up the phone. I want you to send an email. Use one of those airplane skywriters. (Laughter.) Dust off the fax machine. (Laughter.) Or you can just, like, write a letter. (Laughter.) So long as you get the message to Congress: Send me the American Jobs Act so I can sign it into law. Let’s get something done. Let’s put this country back to work.

Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. (Applause.)

END 11:10 A.M. EDT



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WikiLeaks Reveals U.S. & EU Climate Bullying, Bribery, Espionage

Written by Alex Newman
Monday, 06 December 2010 00:00

A series of secret U.S. diplomatic cables released in recent days by the whistle-blower group WikiLeaks shows the American and European governments used monetary incentives, threats, and even espionage to advance their “climate” agenda at the COP15 global-warming summit in Copenhagen last year and beyond.

Only a fraction of the more than 250,000 cables have been released so far, and just a few of those were related to the “climate” negotiations last year. But even what little has come out thus far — analysts are calling it the “tip of the iceberg” — is raising eyebrows and generating more anti-U.S. sentiment around the globe. And the revelations certainly won’t help the COP16 “climate change” negotiations in Cancun right now, either.

It turns out that, at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency and the American “intelligence” apparatus, the U.S. State Department sent out secret diplomatic cables seeking intelligence on United Nations bosses, foreign officials, and others. News reports claimed such an operation — basically using diplomats with immunity as spies — could be considered a violation of international law.

The State Department, while conceding that its staff does gather information around the world, was insistent that American diplomats should not be considered spies. But among the information they were collecting was data such as credit card numbers, frequent flyer numbers, telephone records, internet passwords, biometrics data, "vulnerabilities," and other “biographical” information. It was also looking for dirt on other governments and officials.

In terms of the climate shenanigans revealed in the cables, the U.K. Guardian reported: “Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.”

The newspaper described some of the revelations in the diplomatic cables, saying they show “how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial ‘Copenhagen accord.’”

Some of the comments in the cables reviewed by The New American would seem to indicate that, for the U.S. goverment, this sort of “negotiating” is simply business as usual. Discussing the Dutch government’s ploy to “solicit support” for the climate “Accord” by sending messages to countries receiving “development assistance,” a cable signed by ambassador Fay Levin at the American embassy in the Netherlands to the U.S. State Department in D.C. is very revealing. “This is an unprecedented move for the Dutch government, which traditionally recoils at any suggestion to use aid money as political leverage,” it said.

At a meeting of Dutch negotiators, ambassadors were apparently “clamoring” for guidance on how to sign poor countries up to the agreement, the cable reported. “However, [Dutch Foreign Ministry climate negotiator Sanne] Kaasjager said the Netherlands would find it difficult to make association with the Accord a condition to receive climate financing.” In other words, using so-called “climate financing” as a bribe to third-world regimes — even if it meant they would agree to the climate deal — was not something Dutch climate bosses were too excited about.

Judging from the cable, some developing-country governments were still not totally on board with the so-called “accord.” Mainly this was because they weren’t getting enough say in where the loot would be spent, and because some of the climate plunder was apparently coming out of existing foreign-aid budgets. So, the Dutch government thought of a possible solution — meet with the “recipients (sic) countries to address these issues head-on rather than wait for them to surface as a PR disaster later,” the cable explained.

Of course, U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands Fay Levin was not happy about the leak. “I cannot vouch for the authenticity of any one of these documents. But I can say that the United States deeply regrets the disclosure of any information that was intended to be confidential. And we condemn it,” she said in a statement posted online. “Diplomats must engage in frank discussions with their colleagues, and they must be assured that these discussions will remain private.”

Levin strongly condemned WikiLeaks and said the U.S. regime was moving “aggressively” to prevent a similar mishap. “Honest dialogue — within governments and between them — is part of the basic bargain of international relations,” she claimed. “In the United States, [diplomats’ internal reports] are one element out of many that shape our policies, which are ultimately set by the President and the Secretary of State.” Congress, apparently, gets no say.

Then there was a cable from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a country that generally mocked the warmists in Copenhagen. “Saudi officials are very eager to obtain investment credits for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and other technology transfer projects that will only become available once an agreement has been reached,” the embassy cable boasted. The document also discussed more technology transfers, more foreign investment, and “a U.S. commitment to help Saudi Arabia with its economic diversification efforts” as goodies that might make the Islamic regime come onboard with the “climate” agreement.

Cables dealing with “climate change” and the island-nation of the Maldives basically show the Maldivian regime promising to support the “Copenhagen Accord” in exchange for U.S. taxpayer money. The “tangible assistance,” as the regime referred to it, would allegedly be used to finance various pet projects such as a deeper harbor.

Why a nation supposedly on the brink of disappearing under the waves needed a deeper harbor was not explained. How the depth of a harbor is related to “climate change” was not mentioned either. But either way, once the money started to flow, other nations would realize "the advantages to be gained by compliance" with the climate agreement, a Maldivian official promised U.S. climate negotiator Jonathan Pershing.

When Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed spoke to The New American magazine at the Copenhagen summit last year, he was asked about his alarmist claims regarding the disappearance of his nation due to alleged warming and rising seas. However, one of the world’s foremost experts on sea levels, Swedish oceanographer and Stockholm University Professor Niklas Morner, had recently been in Copenhagen to discuss his findings from a trip to the Maldives. He had been measuring the sea levels there for decades. And he reported no unusual or dangerous rise in ocean levels.

President Nasheed’s response to Morner’s studies consisted mostly of inaccurate statements about a Pope killing Galileo, an attack on the Swedish expert’s methodology, and a reference to the moon landing. Finally, at a loss for words, Nasheed simply said: "[Morner’s] attacks are not even worthy of a response." But “climate funds” in exchange for supporting the U.S. position on “global warming,” evidently, are worthy of a response.

In a cable about a conversation with European Union climate boss Connie Hedegaard, the prospect of bribing nations to support the agenda was revealed even more clearly, though this time, it was the EU making suggestions. Hedegaard wanted to know, first of all, if the United States would need to engage in "creative accounting" to meet its climate-financing pledges.

Next, EU climate chief Hedegaard “suggested the AOSIS (Alliance of Small Island States) countries ‘could be our best allies’ given their need for financing,” according to the cable. And indeed, given the AOSIS’ vocal and aggressive demands for more money, the analysis is probably correct. But the deal really would work both ways: The island regimes agree to the deal based on bribes offered, and the “rich” countries’ regimes get to impose all sorts of economy — killing taxes and regulations on their populations. A win-win situation for everyone — except, of course, for the people.

If a private American company (that wasn’t well connected) was caught discussing espionage, bribery, and extortion so candidly in an effort to further its agenda, the firm and responsible individuals would almost certainly be prosecuted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But for governments, including those ruling from D.C. and Brussels, such practices seem to be normal and acceptable. To add just a little more irony, government apologists and officials are now calling for the prosecution of WikiLeaks for exposing the scandals. So much for the purported “consensus,” anyway.

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Cry-Baby Congressmen/women; Shame on you!

"They called me the 'N' word".

"They spat at me".

"I received a life-threatening telephone call".

All these lame complaints from cunning, but childish Congresspeople become irrelevant when compared to the vast number of adolescents, children that are regularly bullied and abused in America's schools. How can these shrewd politicians pretend to be more "valuable" than the constituents they serve? How can they have the FBI, and the Capitol Police, etc., provide them with protection that our children don't get, or are able to receive?

How do you justify this disparity? Career political opportunists warrant iron clad protection? While school children have to rely on the PTA, 911, or face more hazing and violence?

Which brings to mind the latest case of school bullying which tragically led to 15-year-old Phoebe Prince's suicide in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Prosecutors launch criminal crackdown on mean Massachusetts teens

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1243567&srvc=rss

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Arsenio.

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