Kevin at Lowering the Bar updates us on the Lego Gun Incident, wherein a six-year-old boy was punished for bringing a tiny, Lego-sized gun onto his Springfield, MA school-bus. The school initially demanded that the boy write a letter of apology and serve detention because the gun "caused quite a disturbance on the bus and that the children were traumatized." However, the same zero-tolerance-obssessed nutjobs at the school board also put CCTVs on their buses, and a review of the footage therefrom reveals that nothing bad actually happened. This has occasioned a small miracle in the form of the school board simply dropping the matter, rather than doubling down and, say, accusing the six-year-old of using a tiny, Lego-sized computer to hack into the CCTV and swap out the footage or similar. "This is a student-specific matter," the spokesman said, in case anyone thought they had suspended every student in the district, "and our school system is not going to have any comment on it, except for this: This is a matter between the school, a student and his parents. It's not, and it should not be, fodder for a publicity stunt by an attorney who seems to believe that his young client's best interests are somehow served by trying this case in the media." News flash: this has been in the media since long before they ever had an attorney, and that is not their fault.Lego Gun Incident Ends Better Than Pastry Gun Incident
The next step was said to be an appeal to the superintendent of schools, so the battle continues.
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ABC News | Attack Casts Spotlight on Radical Preachers ABC News The slaying of a British soldier in southeast London cast a spotlight on radical preachers that influenced Michael Adebolajo, the attacker seen in videos with bloody hands holding a butcher knife. It also raised questions about the reach of the terrorist group ... and more » |
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The bad design of the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act has led some businesses to look at cutting part-time employee’s work to just under the 30 hour threshold, but that is not the only loophole business could exploit. Because the new law does not apply the same standards to large businesses and self-insured companies they may theoretically avoid the mandate by offering what is basically just insurance in name only. From the Wall Street Journal:The Rube Goldberg nature of how people are supposed to get insurance under the Affordable Care Act creates a huge amount of bureaucratic waste and the potential for many to fall through the cracks. The maddening lack of consistent standards could end up causing much more damage.But a close reading of the rules makes it clear that those mandates affect only plans sponsored by insurers that are sold to small businesses and individuals, federal officials confirm. That affects only about 30 million of the more than 160 million people with private insurance, including 19 million people covered by employers, according to a Citigroup Inc. report. Larger employers, generally with more than 50 workers, need cover only preventive services, without a lifetime or annual dollar-value limit, in order to avoid the across-the-workforce penalty. [...]
Administration officials confirmed in interviews that the skinny plans, in concept, would be sufficient to avoid the across-the-workforce penalty. Several expressed surprise that employers would consider the approach.
Five years ago, MSNBC host Chris Matthews famously declared that then-presidential candidate Barack Obama gave him a "thrill up my leg." Now, amid two ongoing scandalous situations at the White House, Matthews said that the Obama presidency no longer has any "thrust."Actually, there IS a thrust to the Obama presidency, Chris. Unfortunately, Obama’s thrust would, if allowed to continue, transform America into third-world, failed state stuck in a quagmire of tyranny and failed Marxist principles, administered by anti-American liberal bureaucrats!
For the last two days, Matthews has delivered blistering critiques of Obama. Matthews has combined his own frustration at Obama's inability to pass any of his agenda with the flap over the IRS and AP phone scandals that have developed over the past week.
"There's a reason the President's an easy target tonight," Matthews said on Tuesday, opening his show "Hardball."
"He's a ship with the engine off. He can go play golf, take Marine One up to Manhattan, but none of that matters. None of it. What matters is that he commands no big cause. There's no thrust to his presidency right now."
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left a message for America in the boat where he hid. 
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