And in Borno state, more women are grabbed and enslaved.
Suspected Boko Haram militants have abducted at least 20 women close to where 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped in northern Nigeria, eyewitnesses say.
The women were loaded on to vans at gunpoint and driven away to an unknown location in Borno state, they add.
The army has not commented on the incident, which occurred on the nomadic Garkin Fulani settlement on Thursday.
A gunman has shot dead a student at a school in the US state of Oregon, and he is also dead, police said.
“The student has died. I’m very, very sorry for the family,” said Troutdale police chief Scott Anderson.
Shots were reported at Reynolds High School in Troutdale on Tuesday morning when the suspect opened fire using a semi-automatic weapon.
A well-regulated militia.
The BBC has a rather opaque story on the “Trojan Horse” thingummy.
Head teachers claim there was an organised campaign to impose a “narrow, faith-based ideology” at some schools in Birmingham, Ofsted has said.
The watchdog has placed five of the city’s schools in special measures after “deeply worrying” findings.
It inspected 21 schools after an anonymous letter alleging a Muslim takeover plot was circulated.
It’s too bad they don’t just require state schools to be secular.
Sir Michael said teachers at some of the schools inspected had reported being unfairly treated due to their faith and gender.
He said inspectors had “uncovered evidence of unfair and opaque recruitment practices, including examples of relatives being appointed to unadvertised senior posts”.
“Although exam results are often good, the curriculum has become too narrow, reflecting the personal views of a small number of governors, rather than the wider community in Birmingham and beyond,” he said.
Funny, isn’t it, an opaque story talking about unfair and opaque recruitment practices in carefully opaque language. It’s opacity all the way down, and not very conducive to understanding.
Ofsted’s key findings at five inadequate schools
- Nansen Primary was criticised for the leadership of the school as well as pupils’ behaviour. Ofsted said: “The governing body has removed some subjects, such as music, from the timetable.” It added that the school “does not prepare pupils adequately for life in modern Britain”.
- Inspectors recommended Oldknow Academy was put in special measures despite being rated outstanding in some categories. The report said a small group of governors was “making significant changes to the ethos and culture of the academy without full consultation”. “They are endeavouring to promote a particular and narrow faith-based ideology in what is a maintained and non-faith academy,” it said.
- Saltley School, previously rated good, was criticised in every area, including governance, teaching standards, pupils’ achievement, safety and leadership. Inspectors also criticised financial management at the school and relationships between senior staff and governors.
- Ofsted found Park View School did not do enough to alert students to the risks of extremism. It said speakers invited to the school were not vetted and pupils were not taught about the safe use of the internet. Pupils are not given adequate preparation for living in a multi-cultural society, it said.
- At Golden Hillock, inspectors concluded leaders and governors were “not doing enough to mitigate against cultural isolation”. Ofsted concluded it “could leave students vulnerable to the risk of marginalisation from wider British society”.
Yet more opacity.
Bhupinder Kondal, principal of Oldknow Academy, said she was removed from her post in January against her will.
Anderson Park head Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson said “none of the contents of the Trojan Horse letter came as a shock”.
Another head teacher, speaking anonymously, told the BBC they had been “bullied” into employing a senior member of staff with no experience.
Arshad Malik, whose son, Imran, attends Park View School, said he believed people were “trying to use this school to push their own agendas”.
“Inspectors came with loaded questions…This issue is a political football,” he said.
Gaafar Tariq, a taxi driver and father-of-five, has two children who attend Nansen Primary School.
The 47-year-old said: “I don’t think there’s any concern about extremism in this area and these reports prove it. I don’t see any problem with this school.”
They said they said they said.
Opaque.
A Twitter conversation with Improbable Joe that touched on collecting papers reminded me of Ensign Pulver, looking for marbles all day long, so I Googled to see if I could find a YouTube clip of that bit but no luck, there’s only the more famous last scene where Pulver throws the Captain’s palm tree overboard. So then I Googled the phrase itself and found several things including…a ten-year-old post by me. It’s kind of interesting so I’m just going to recycle it.
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One thing (but not the only thing) that prompted this train of thought (or perhaps bus of rumination or minivan of woolgathering or rollerskate of idle daydreaming) was something I read a few days ago in another of Dwight Macdonald’s letters, this one from January 1946, when Macdonald was editing his own magazine Politics.
I suppose you’ve read by now Simone Weil’s article on The Iliad. The response to it has surprised me; I thought it was a great political article, dealing with the moral questions implicit in the terrible events one reads about in every day’s newspaper, which was why I played it up so prominently in the issue…Nothing I’ve printed yet seems to have made so deep an impression. The only people who didn’t understand how such an article had a place in a political journal were – and I think this is profoundly significant – all of them Marxists. To a Marxist, an analysis of human behavior from an ethical point of view is just not ‘serious’ – even smacks a little of religion.
I think the Marxists who didn’t understand must have had a fairly crude understanding of Marxism, but that’s another subject. The relevant aspect is the question of what has a place in a particular kind of journal and what doesn’t – and the fact that Macdonald was thinking about that question. I was already thinking about it when I read that – well in fact I’m always thinking about it, really. Not every second, but every day, usually several times a day. Every time I link to a News item, in fact every time I look for a News item, which in a sense is every time I read anything at all, other than perhaps package ingredients or addresses on envelopes. As Ensign Pulver was looking for marbles all day long, I’m looking for News items all day long. [Read more…]
The Washington Post has some information on yesterday’s installment of the required daily mass shooting that has become such a hallmark of the US summer as well as autumn and spring.
The shooters who killed a pair of police officers and a bystander who tried to stop them on Sunday in Las Vegas had expressed anti-government views, according to police, who are working to officially determine a motive in the violent episode.
“There is no doubt that the suspects have an ideology that’s along the lines of militia and white supremacists,” said Kevin C. McMahill, assistant sheriff of Clark County, during a news conference Monday.
WAIT WAIT WAIT WHAT ARE YOU SAYING THAT IS BESIDE THE POINT IT IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT THEY WERE CRAZY NEVER MIND THEIR VIEWS. [Read more…]
I generally try to find other sources for items reported by Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch, because I’m leery of his allies and fans. But I could find only Spanish news sources for this one, so I’m going with it, hoping English language sources will pick it up later. I’m going with it because it’s horrendous.
Spain to deport Pakistani ex-Muslim refugee for criticizing Islam
“Spain to Deport Pakistani Refugee for Criticizing Islam,” by Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute, June 6, 2014:
The Spanish Supreme Court has ruled that a political refugee should be deported because his criticism of Islam poses “a danger to the security of Spain.”
The May 30 ruling, which upholds an earlier decision by a lower court to revoke the refugee status of a Pakistani ex-Muslim named Imran Firasat, showcases how the fear of Muslim rage continues to threaten the exercise of free speech in Europe.
Firasat obtained political asylum in Spain in October 2006 because of death threats against him in both Pakistan and Indonesia for leaving the Islamic faith and marrying a non-Muslim.
Originally a comment on Asking a question.
Others have already said much that I would have about the content and attitude of this missive, but I found this remark the most concerning:
The Global Secular Council “launched” only its website and social media at the behest of many involved, mainly donors,
As I mentioned previously, many of these organizations seem to have a real transparency problem concerning donations and finances. It was a big issue at RDF, Rogers’ recent firing appears to have something to do with embezzlement at SCA, I can’t get anyone from the Harvard Humanists to give any information about donors,* and the course of the JREF looks at this point to be determined by one guy.
To the extent that an organization or sub-organization is dominated by one or a handful of donors with outsized influence, it tends to reflect their politics, priorities, and personal animosities and agendas rather than those of the community. [Read more…]
Wow! An 11-year-old kid did today’s Google doodle, which is one brilliant doodle – I jumped when I saw it and then looked for information about it, as one does – I thought it was perhaps a variation on John Tenniel, creator of the brilliant illustrations of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-glass. I was not thinking “probably an 11-year-old kid.”
Credit: Google [Read more…]
EllenBeth Wachs @BlameEllenBeth Jun 6
Holy mofo crap how do you not see your hypocrisy Ophelia?-> Why do they think they are above being questioned?
https://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2014/06/why-do-they-think-they-are-above-being-questioned/
I’m not an organization.
A forthright piece in the Irish Independent on the death rate in the Tuam mother and baby home.
It didn’t just happen. It wasn’t just bad management. It took years of organisation, strategies of intimidation and control. And, let’s face it, it took a citizenry steeped in fear and reverence.
A population that was deferential. People who did what they were told. People who didn’t dare ask questions.