What’s interesting in the news today?
1. Boko Haram continues it’s rampage. I guess #hashtag diplomacy isn’t working.
From NBCNews “More than 2,000 people are unaccounted for after radical Islamist sect Boko Haram torched more than 10 towns and villages in Nigeria, a local lawmaker told NBC News. Ahmed Zanna, a senator for Borno state where the attack happened, said the militants razed the town of Baga as well as “10-to-20” other communities in the country’s rural northeast over the past five days. “These towns are just gone, burned down,” he told NBC News via telephone. “The whole area is covered in bodies.”
Zanna said he had spoken to residents who fled the towns. They reported that the spree had been ongoing since Boko Haram overran a nearby military base Saturday. During the days-long assault, the militants chased people out of Baga before returning to kill those left and torch the buildings to the ground, according to survivors who contacted Zanna. Some of those who survived fled on foot the 100 miles south to Maidurguri. The BBC spoke to Musa Alhaji Bukar, a senior government official in the area, who also said that 2,000 people had been killed in the raids. “This is one of the worst attacks I’ve seen because so many people are unaccounted for and feared dead,” said Zanna, who was elected in 2011.
Nigeria will hold general elections on February 14, a ballot many expect Boko Haram will attempt to disrupt. The group, whose name roughly translates to “Western education is sinful,” has slaughtered and kidnapped thousands and wants to establish a state in northern Nigeria based on strict Islamic law.”
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2. Bill Maher is upsetting his liberal friends again with some uncomfortable truths.
From HotAir “It’s not what he’s saying that’s novel — he’s made this point before, and seems to be making it more often lately — but the forum in which he’s saying it. I wonder if there was anyone else featured across the four broadcast networks’ news/current events programming yesterday to raise the point that the “tiny minority of extremists” isn’t so tiny when you consider the raw numbers. Kimmel is uncomfortable from the start, partly because Maher went out there with a point to make rather than engage in the usual dreary late-night banter and partly because he’s violating a liberal taboo in noting that jihadi fanatics are sustained by a larger, decidedly illiberal culture. Criticizing the tiny minority on TV is okay provided that you emphasize their tiny-minority-ness. When, however, you try to connect up the actions of the worst offenders to the cultural fishbowl they swim in — a practice the left not only engages in but insists upon in every other context except Islamic fanaticism — then you’re over the line. Watch Kimmel scramble for a commercial break as Maher tries to get going on that point. Listen to how silent the audience is throughout, as if they dare not disrespect their host, ABC, by encouraging him. No wonder Maher had to move his own show from broadcast TV to pay cable.”
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3. Not shocking.
From CNSNews “Nine of the 10 countries with the worst records for persecution of Christians have populations that are at least 50 percent Muslim, according to the assessment of persecution in the Open Doors USA’s World Watch List (WWL) 2015 and population information published by the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.
The WWL is an “annual survey of religious liberty conditions for Christians around the world” that was released Wednesday.
Communist North Korea topped the list for the 13th consecutive year for the regime’s extreme persecution of Christians.
But the other 9 countries among the 10 worst had Muslim populations of 50 percent or greater and were cited for “Islamic extremism” as a main cause for the persecution of Christians.
“Approximately 100 million Christians are persecuted worldwide, making them one of the most persecuted religious groups in the world,” said an Open Doors statement announcing the report. “Islamic extremism is the main source of persecution in 40 of the 50 countries on the 2015 World Watch List.””
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4. Also, not shocking.
From HotAir “Did anyone actually think Cuba would release all 53 political prisoners whose release Barack Obama demanded for normalized relations? Outside of the White House and John Kerry’s State Department, that is?
The Cuban government is resisting the release of several of the 53 people the U.S. government has said were to be freed as part of a thaw in relations, linking them to acts of violence, a congressional aide told Reuters.
“We’ve been told that the Cuban government has agreed to release all but several of the political prisoners on the list,” the aide said.
“The government in Havana believes that the smaller group has committed acts of violence,” the aide said.
No specific number of prisoners was provided.
“All but several”? What exactly does that mean? Five, fifteen, twenty-five … fifty-two? At this point, we might do better to ask for the list of those whose release the Obama administration has confirmed. It’s likely to be shorter than the alternative.”
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5. Why? Is it because they’re unprepared for college when they leave high school?
From Politico “President Barack Obama will need the approval of Congress to realize his proposal for making two years of community college free for students. So far, that plan doesn’t have an official price tag — other than “significant,” according to White House officials. If all 50 states participate, the proposal could benefit 9 million students each year and save students an average of $3,800 in tuition, the White House said.
“What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said in a White House video posted Thursday evening. “It’s something we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world.”
The president’s proposal would make two years of community college free for students of any age with a C+ average who attend school at least half-time and who are making “steady progress” toward their degree.
To be eligible, community colleges would have to offer academic programs that fully transfer credits to local public four-year colleges and universities or training programs with high graduation rates that lead to in-demand degrees and certificates. Community colleges must also adopt “promising and evidence-based institutional reforms” to improve student outcomes.
Federal funding would cover three-quarters of the average cost of community college, and Obama is asking states to pick up the rest of the tab — assuming Congress agrees to the plan in the first place.”
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Wandering Views 
How much does Community College cost where you live? If you’re instate or illegal in my community, it costs about $700 a semester. Plus $55 a semester IF you win the parking lottery, otherwise you can ride the bus for free.
Books are another matter. Let’s just round it off to $1000 a semester, or $2000 a year to carry 14 units. In state, it’s $46 a unit.
If you’re one of the few that are out of state and actually paying what you owe, your number skyrockets to $197 a unit–putting you in the neighborhood of $7K+ a year.
Which is about what my entire BA degree, earned in three years, cost at UCLA back in the dark ages.
Our JC, by the way, is a feeder to UC Berkeley–one of the easiest ways to get in to that elite school.
Of course, chances are good you won’t be able to get all the general requirement classes you need in two years, so, if you’re like most kids we know, plan to be at the JC four years before transferring. 😦
(And why SHOULD they add extra classes to accommodate kids who need to take, say, Anatomy so they can go to medical school? We’re not elitist here. You have to go into the lottery, even if you are willing to pay extra to take a class using the lab at odd hours. Get real!)
I’m going to suggest that if you can afford an Iphone, and if you have any sort of a job–minimum wage here is $10 an hour–you can pay your own way through the local community college.
And if you live in my community, which boasts one of the best junior colleges in the country, and you graduate from high school in this county or the one north of us, you are eligible for a generous scholarship (set up by one of the financiers of the Golden Gate Bridge) that essentially pays all your costs.
The trick?
You have to graduate with a B average.
At our high schools you can get that pretty much by just showing up for class and turning in your homework.
So, can you people who live in other parts of the country please explain to me why we need this new program?
Especially given that President Obama (who never attended a public school and I’m not sure anyone in his family did either), insists that you should have this opportunity if you work hard.
I say, if you are willing to work hard, you’re already taking this opportunity without yet another tax-funded hand out.
It may be hard, yes, but isn’t that part of the learning process when you’re in your late teens and early twenties? Learning to become an adult and assuming responsibility for yourself?
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(I’ll remind you that 2015 will be the first time in 16 years no one is paying college tuition in my family.)
Let me tell you why I think it’s important young people pay for some of their own schooling.
A wonderful young woman in our acquaintance came from a family that didn’t have a lot of money, but they had put something aside for her to go to the JC. She started working in high school and putting money aside for college.
I saw her regularly and advised her when she asked, about college.
She’s a smart girl who didn’t have to work particularly hard in her classes in high school and, unfortunately, she took that same, “what can I get away with not doing,” attitude with her to the JC–her education paid for, in part, by that aforementioned scholarship.
She was telling me about what she had done in writing a paper, getting away, basically with cliff notes and I stared before asking a question.
“Why are you working so hard at your job to fund an education you’re not taking advantage of? I know you didn’t pay in high school, but now you are. So why waste your money to pay for classes if you’re not going to apply yourself?”
Her eyes widened.
Her attitude changed.
She graduated in three years from the JC and went to the local state college–from which, in a truly amazing act of God during the last semester–she graduated debt free.
How do you think she looks at education now?
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#1 I thought Obama promised that if we just sit down and be reasonable with these people, we could all get along just fine. What happened to that?
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I suspect that a large part of this has to do with how “uneducated” some young people are when they graduate high school. Most are completely unprepared to go to college. This will bring them up to speed, or at least they hope it will, so they will be college material.
It’s a way to skirt around public school failures without actually addressing those failures. And let’s face it, Obama isn’t going to rock that boat. Democrats take too much money from teachers unions to try and actually address the real problem.
And hey, we can just print more useless money to pay for it all. 🙄
Or tax all those evil rich people some more…. 🙄
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Linda,
Reality happened.
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donna j: Thank you for the link to Mohler’s piece that you posted yesterday. I think that is a very important article for “those who have ears to hear.”
Do you receive regular Mohler articles, or do you simply go to his website?
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And things just got worse in Paris.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_FRANCE_MARKET_ATTACK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
“A police official says the man who has taken at least five people hostage in a kosher market on the eastern edges of Paris Friday appears linked to the newsroom massacre earlier this week that left 12 people dead.
The official, who was not authorized to speak about the situation, said the man opened fire in the kosher market, near Paris’ Porte de Vincennes, and declared “you know who I am.”
Paris police released a photo of Amedy Coulibaly as a suspect in the killing Thursday of a policewoman, and the official named him as the man holed up in the market. He said the man is armed with an automatic rifle and some hostages have been gravely wounded.
He said a second suspect, a woman named Hayet Boumddiene, is the gunman’s accomplice.”
More here,
Via Daily Mail:
“Amedy, 32, is now known to have been a close friend of the Kouachi brothers [suspects in the Charlie Hebdo attack] and police now fear they’re dealing with an organised terror network and not a lone wolf.
Known to the police, nine years ago he was a frequent attendee at the Djamel Beghal in Cantal, seeking advice on entering ‘religious orders.’”
“The gunman in Vincennes [kosher market siege] is believed to be the one responsible for shooting a policewoman dead in south Paris on Thursday, said police sources.”
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Here’s more on the community college story too.
http://dailysignal.com/2015/01/09/free-community-college-anything-free/
“And what is to prevent community colleges from escalating tuition and fees once the federal government – via taxpayers – begins paying the tab? The White House says the federal government will pay three-quarters of the costs of “average” tuition at community colleges, but we’ll most certainly see the cost of “average” increase in the years to come thanks to this new federal largesse.
Then there is the impact on the K-12 system. More than one-third of students have to take remedial courses when they enter college, as they leave high school unprepared for university-level work. Free community college would put even less pressure on high schools to produce graduates who are prepared for college-level work, as they could expect the new free community colleges to fill-in what the high schools are failing to do. The proposal is more likely to produce a six-year high school system than a two-year gratis workforce preparation experience.
The administration’s proposal is another step toward the White House’s goal of a “cradle-to-career” education system, starting with free preschool and now free community college. And then, even if a student does accrue debt in this new federally funded free-for-all, the administration has capped loan repayments at 10 percent of discretionary income, and any remaining balance is forgiven by the taxpayers after 20 years. And those benefits are even more generous for individuals who work in “public service,” largely defined as government jobs.”
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Oh my. Life news presents a LiveAction video. NOT graphic, but horrifying all the same. How do these people sleep at night?
http://www.lifenews.com/2015/01/08/this-viral-video-is-changing-peoples-minds-about-abortion/
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Tychicus, if I haven’t already seen anything by Mohler, I usually hunt down his comments on events like these — but I also follow him on Twitter so will often spot the links to his latest pieces there. His is an important voice in the Christian community, I think, at this particular time. Along with the folks at Breakpoint, he is able to write with such clarity — and is always, first and foremost, biblically based in the views he expresses.
The piece I posted yesterday (? or the day before?) on the Paris shootings I thought especially hit the mark.
(And regarding Linda’s tongue-in-cheek remark about how Obama thought we could just talk this out, Mohler addresses in that same column how the elites really don’t “get” that so much of the world simply doesn’t operate on a rational basis; so they’re somewhat stunned and without much of a coherent response — they’re pretty much at a loss — when things go so terribly wrong.)
Seems that every generation raises up social commentators within the church who are particularly gifted at providing clarity and biblical direction on current events, as Chuck Colson often did in his day.
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PARIS — French police on Friday killed the two brothers suspected of massacring 12 people at a Paris newspaper on Wednesday and freed a hostage they had been holding unharmed, the authorities said. The police launched a simultaneous raid on a kosher supermarket in Paris where an alleged associate of the brothers was holding an unnamed number of hostages. That hostage taker was also killed, according to a senior French police official, and at least five hostages were freed.
I really suspect this week may have been something of a tipping point in Europe when it comes to truly grasping the very real dangers of terrorism — with its intent to kill innocents and to intimidate entire societies when it comes the free speech that is so central to democracy in the West.
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I have a brochure from Blue Ridge Community college. It has under “Learning for Work” a food manager course for $70, a Heating and Air course for $130, And a truck driving course for $131.50 (? not a typo).
Stuff like that. They also have learning for leisure courses.
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just went and looked online at the catalog for the local jc to see if they had anything I might want to take. Nothing that I could find.
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Mollie @MZHemingway ·
Media are terrified of extremists in Islam. So are politicians. This trajectory is not good for the future of Western Civilization.
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I stopped at one of our last standing brick-and-mortar bookstores tonight on the way home from work to pick up a retirement gift for a friend. An older, regular customer was talking to the young gal manning the cash register, saying that the (anti-muslim) cartoons (from the publication in France) would make your hair curl — sounded like he was suggesting the magazine brought this on themselves.
So after he was gone, she was ringing my stuff up & I told her we can’t be intimidated … it’s a matter of free speech, a principle in western democracies … She said yeah, then told me that a young girl was in the store the other day, wearing an NRA t-shirt, and other customers started giving her a bunch of grief about it.
She (rightly) said, well, it’s in the constitution …
Interesting how the traditional political liberal voices (once again) are saying, hmm, must be our fault for being so insensitive … “it’s the video!” … Argh.
As a Christian, I often see things about my faith that are offensive and, yes, outright blasphemous (remember the crucifix in a jar of urine as “public art” a few years back?).
Tough. I have a spine.
And my God will take care of that in His time. Christ was openly mocked, and we were told that we would be, too. I am to love and pray for my enemies.
I sure don’t want anyone, let alone government, telling me what I (or others) can or can’t say or print or publish.
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