TSA and the new regulations

In last year's attempted "Christmas bombing," America's Transportation Security Administration implemented new procedures requiring extra screening for people coming from or travelling to fourteen countries. On Friday, Janet Napolitano, America's top homeland security official, announced the end of that policy. The temporary rules that kicked in this January will be replaced with more nuanced rules that utilize real-time, threat-based intelligence along with multiple, random layers of security, both seen and unseen, to more effectively mitigate evolving terrorist threats.

Civil liberties groups had criticized the temporary measures as discriminatory and too broad. But there seemed to be broad consensus that the new measures represented a step in the right direction. "American Muslim organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union, airline and travel industries," and even a Republican senator, Maine's Susan Collins, expressed support for the changes to the Obama administration's policies, the Washington Post reported. To make up an example, that if the National Security Agency picks up chatter that a young man from Yemen who has traveled recently through France plans to crash an airliner, that information, properly vetted and sourced, would be passed along. And individuals who fit that particular category—young men from Yemen who've traveled recently through France—will be subject to any number of secondary security checks, ranging from full-body scans to physical pat-downs to a few individual questions. Even the best conceivable TSA procedures aren't going to catch every potential terrorist. Some of the most important counter-terrorism work happens well before a bomber shows up at the airport.

Single-sex classes

The single-sex format creates opportunities that don't exist in the coed classroom. Teachers can employ strategies in the all-girls classroom, and in the all-boys classroom, which don't work as well (or don't work at all) in the coed classroom. If teachers have appropriate training and professional development, then great things can happen, and often do happen. On this page you can learn about the experience of schools such as Woodward Avenue Elementary in Deland, Florida; Foley Intermediate in Foley, Alabama; Jefferson Middle School in Springfield, Illinois; the Cunningham School for Excellence in Waterloo, Iowa; and many other schools which have seen a dramatic improvement in grades and test scores after adopting single-sex classrooms. But those schools did much more than simply put girls in one room and boys in another. In each of the schools just mentioned, teachers received training from NASSPE in practical gender-specific classroom strategies and best practices for the gender-separate classroom.

The single-sex format creates opportunities that don't exist in the coed classroom. Teachers can employ strategies in the all-girls classroom, and in the all-boys classroom, which don't work as well in the coed classroom. If teachers have appropriate training and professional development, then great things can happen, and often do happen. On this page you can learn about the experience of schools such as Woodward Avenue Elementary in Deland, Florida; Foley Intermediate in Foley, Alabama; Jefferson Middle School in Springfield, Illinois; the Cunningham School for Excellence in Waterloo, Iowa; and many other schools which have seen a dramatic improvement in grades and test scores after adopting single-sex classrooms. But those schools did much more than simply put girls in one room and boys in another. girls in coed classes: 59% scored proficient

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In June 2005, researchers at Cambridge University released results of a four-year study of gender differences in education. The researchers investigated hundreds of different schools, representing a wide variety of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, seeking to identify strategies which improved performance of both girls and boys while narrowing the gender gap between girls and boys. What makes this study really unique is that the researchers did not merely observe and document what they found; they then intervened, and attempted to graft those strategies onto other, less successful schools. A total of 50 schools were involved either as originator schools (schools which had successfully improved student performance while narrowing the gender gap) or partner schools (less successful schools onto which the "originator" strategies were grafted). One of those strategies was single-sex education. These researchers found that the single-sex classroom format was remarkably effective at boosting boys' performance particularly in English and foreign languages, as well as improving girls' performance in math and science. Most of the studies comparing single-sex education with coeducation focus on grades and test scores as the parameters of interest. Girls in all-girls schools are more likely to study subjects such as advanced math, computer science, and physics. Boys in all-boys schools are more than twice as likely to study subjects such as foreign languages, art, music, and drama. Those boys might not get better grades in those subjects than comparable boys get in more gender-typical subjects. Studies which focus only on grades and test scores won't detect any difference in outcome. 
Returning to grades and test scores: There are three categories of evidence:
1. Major nationwide studies- involving tens or hundreds of thousands of students, in countries such as Australia or the United Kingdom where single-sex public education is widely available;
2.Before and after studies- examining a particular school or schools before and after the introduction of single-sex classrooms. Because these studies usually involve no change in resources -- the facilities and student-teacher ratios are the same before and after the switch -- the school serves as its own control;
3. Academic studies- in which investigators study coed and single-sex schools while attempting to control for extraneous variables.

Helmets for Safety

Adding the issue to its Most Wanted list,the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has called on all states to adopt laws requiring all motorcycle riders to wear government-approved helmets.The most wanted list is the federal government initiative to encourage state governments to adopt laws and programs the NTSB believes will significantly improve transportation safety.

In its latest annual update of the Most Wanted list, the NTSB added motorcycle safety, while dropping recreational boating safety; an area in which it found substantial progress has been made.
From 1997 through 2008, the number of motorcycle fatalities more than doubled during a period when overall highway fatalities declined. Although the number of motorcycle fatalities fell in 2009, the 4,400 deaths still outnumber those in aviation, rail, marine and pipeline combined, stated the NTSB in a press release.

According to the Department of Transportation (DOT), head injury remains the leading cause of death in motorcycle crashes. As a result, the NTSB recommended that all states require all persons riding on motorcycles - drivers and passengers - to wear helmets that comply with DOT's Federal Motor Vehicle Standard 218.

This standard establishes minimum performance requirements for helmets designed for use by motorcyclists and other motor vehicle users. The purpose of this standard is to reduce deaths and injuries to motorcyclists and other motor vehicle users resulting from head impacts. Currently, 20 states, the District of Columbia and 4 territories have universal helmet laws that apply to all riders. Twenty- seven states and one territory have partial laws that require minors and/or passengers to wear helmets. Three states - Iowa, Illinois and New Hampshire - have no helmet laws. I feel that this is a good law that will protect individuals that ride motor vehicles. This will prevent plenty of head injuries and traumas. Certain federal parties would agree or disagree with these facts. No matter what is said, the law is now that motorists are required to wear helmets.

http://www.autoevolution.com/news-image/ntsb-calls-for-universal-helmet-law-26707-1.html

http://www.truckaccidents360.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/NTSB.jpg

Tax Cuts in America

        Obama said he was committed to working with Democrats and Republicans during the lame duck session to guarantee the extension of middle class tax cuts, but denied that meant he was necessarily willing to cave on the matter of extentding those cuts for wealthy Americans. He says his number one priority is making sure that we make the middle class tax cuts permanent and that we give certainty to the ninety-eight percent of Americans who are affected by those tax breaks. He denied that he will accept extensions of the Bush- era tax cuts. He might be willing to accept the extensions for all tax brackets, not just the middle class.


         President Obama proposes to let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire as a way of saving $700 billion over the next 10 years. He says that our nation cannot afford those cuts, given the unsustainable outlook for the federal budget and the threat it poses to both our short-term and long-term economic health.
But that savings is just a fraction of the $2.2 trillion cost of the generously defined middle-class portions of the Bush tax cuts, which President Obama does want to extend. I think having a tax cut will be a great decision and will result in a better america and better things going on in the near future.We cannot afford to extend the Bush tax cut if we are going through with it. If we did extend the Bush tax cut, we will also have looming deficits. These affects of tax cuts deals with the fact that after the new election, the fact that their are many more Republicans in office means that the tax cuts are more likely to stay.

Music Censorship

Because the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, some opponents of music censorship believe that the courts can force a store to sell albums its management deems objectionable or forbid groups from burning records. The Supreme Court, however, can only step in if someone appeals a government decision, rather than a community one, to censor music; such appeals rarely reach the highest court in the land, since individual state governments can devise their own obscenity laws and penalties for violating them. Fighting censorship thus poses a catch-22, as musicians and concerned citizens can’t deny a school’s right to ban a concert on its premises and would face an uphill battle overturning a state’s mandates on decency.

Music censorship first reared its head in the 1950s, when rock and roll’s growing influence threatened white, middle-class values. The 1960s saw the FBI’s involvement in musician’s personal and political lives, as officials began keeping tabs on Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and John Lennon. Song references to sex and drugs tormented censors throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, eventually giving way to hysteria over lyrics promoting suicide and devil worship in the 1980s.

In 1985, the Parents Music Resource Center, led by a cadre of politicians’ wives, called for the recording industry to place Parental Advisory stickers on potentially offensive albums. Instead of quelling concerns, the stickers unleashed a barrage of state laws that required retailers to regulate distribution or pay the price (a hefty fee or even jail time). In the meantime, the banned albums benefited from the notoriety. Ultimately, community and federal censors have threatened civil liberties while entangling their organizations in a costly fight to maintain an ambiguous definition of decency. My opinion is that there should be no law to require music to be censored but it should just be an option to either the artist or the label.

Gays in the Military

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2010/10/19/ac.choi.nicholson.gay.military.cnn


Discharged gay military Dan Choi and Alexander Nicholson join to react to a reaffirmation allowing gays to serve. Pentagon's "Dont ask, Dont tell" policy reuired gays to serve in the military.
The federal judge of California denies the request to strike down her own ruling that makes the policy unconstitutional. Is it right to discharge soldiers just because of their sexual preferences?

Testing