Tyson was one of four people charged with second-degree trespassing after they interrupted the board’s meeting, locked arms and sang songs.

Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter of the NAACP, Nancy Petty, a pastor at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh and Mary Debbin Williams, a Wake County parent staged what Barber called a “non-violent conscientious objection,” disrupting the meeting for about an hour to draw attention to a move by the board they believe will serve to re-segregate Wake County schools.

College professor Tyson is protesting the school board’s decision to go back to a community schooling model.  According to wral professor Tyson have the following words of wisdom regarding the matter:

“If the anti-diversity coalition of the school board thinks I’m a pain in the neck wait ‘till they meet my mama who taught fourth grade for 40 years and knows what to do with people who don’t do their homework,”

According to Rafael Reuveny, a professor at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Bloomington, the entire negotiation in Congress is “politics as usual” and meant to stall or defeat vital climate change legislation.

“We are trying to win this fight for our lives through consensus. Such compromise will never materialize — not in this country and not internationally,” said Reuveny, co-author of Complex Transformations: Democracy and Economic Openness in an Interconnected System (Cambridge University Press, 2009). “No matter how often President Obama pleads for it, bipartisanship has become a joke. So, while the two sides continue this ridiculous game, Rome — read: the planet — is burning.”

Reuveny said it’s imperative that President Obama bypass this unproductive haggling. “He must issue an Executive Order to the Environmental Protection Agency to immediately implement a system that will cut greenhouse emissions of the American economy by meeting the goals set by the Waxman-Markey bill passed by the House in 2009,” he said. “He should also order the EPA to design an all-inclusive command and control system of greenhouse emission quotas and monitoring to be backed by severe and immediate penalties on units that would emit more than their allotted amount.

“During his State of the Union address, President Obama made a bold move calling out Supreme Court judges, declaring their decision could enable U.S. and foreign corporations to determine our elections,” Reuveny said. “Surely, the president realizes that his opportunity to affect this crisis is coming to an end as energy-consuming corporations gain even more political power. An executive order is the only solution.”

Reuveny’s research focuses on political conflict and how it interacts with international trade, democracy, migration, and the environment. He is the co-author of “Climatic Natural Disasters, Political Risk, and International Trade” (Global Environmental Change, forthcoming) and the author of “Exploring the Link between Climate Change and Migration” (Human Ecology, 2008) and “Climate Change Induced Migration and Violent Conflict” (Political Geography, 2007).

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(Daily 49er) In the past week, psychology professor Kevin MacDonald had his class interrupted by an organization claiming his views and recent involvement in political organization the American Third Option party are seen as racist and anti-Semitic.

MacDonald, a tenured professor at Cal State Long Beach, has been making headlines on the matter since he was investigated by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2006. The SPLC tracks hate crimes and groups across America.

“I’m used to being harassed,” MacDonald said. “I expect to be harassed because people on the left don’t like what I think. So what? We should be allowed to teach.”

Senior English major Doug Kauffman was one of the students who led the demonstration in MacDonald’s class last Tuesday.

“We planned this [demonstration] at least a month in advance; the goal would be to have every student just get up and walk out,” Kauffman said.

Marylou Cabral, a senior art education major and participant in the demonstration, commented on the student’s reactions.

“Many seemed appalled, and I think a few even left,” Cabral said. “Our goal is to let students know about [MacDonald’s] involvement in Freedom 14 and other neo-Nazi groups. We feel that the students need to know what they’re getting into.”

Both Kauffman and Cabral are students at CSULB and members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a Marxist and Leninist organization that advocates revolutionary change and progressive reform.

MacDonald is a member and listed as a director of the American Third Option party, or A3P. The A3P — whose slogan is “Liberty. Sovereignty. Identity.” — is said to be rooted in white nationalism. The A3P is currently on the list of non-qualified political parties but is intending to qualify as a ballot-accessible party by June.

“Any third party is a long shot,” MacDonald said. “My view is not so much that it would get people elected, but to raise consciousness on issues like immigration that should be discussed honestly.”

Several faculty members at CSULB are involved in politics and have no guilt about showing their political radicalism, MacDonald said.

“If you look at professors, they are far to the left of the average voter; they are far to the left of people who are similarly educated but go into different fields,” MacDonald said. “All the surveys show that they’re way to the left of just about any identifiable group that you can imagine, and so that’s an important historical question that has to be discussed.”

The Department of Psychology issued a statement on its Web page in 2008, saying that they “respect and defend his right to express his views, but we affirm that they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the Department of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach.”

The department has since disassociated itself from MacDonald and his writings and is not alone, as other departments, including anthropology and history, have done so as well.

In 2008, the Academic Senate approved a written document disassociating itself. The document stated: “While the Academic Senate defends Dr. Kevin MacDonald’s academic freedom and freedom of speech, as it does for all faculty, it firmly and unequivocally condemns and disassociates itself from the anti-Semitic and white ethnocentric views he has expressed.”

Some called on the university to do the same.

In an April 11, 2008, e-mail sent to the Daily 49er, CSULB President F. King Alexander wrote that “despite the fact that I personally disagree and even find deplorable some beliefs and opinions expressed by a few individuals on our campus, particularly those ideas are hurtful of certain groups, I believe as Thomas Jefferson stated that ‘errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.’”

Alexander further explained that the university is a forum itself, “Universities should also be firmly committed, even at times when it is against popular opinion, to freedom of thought, and when we act to restrict opinions from the far right or the far left, then it will not be long before we can no longer call ourselves a university.”

And in his most recent statement to the Daily 49er, on June 20, 2008, Alexander said that “[MacDonald's] views and opinions in no way represent the views of this university in any aspect whatsoever.”

The thesis of MacDonald’s books and papers claims that conflicts in society are based in ethnic interests and activism.

“The idea is that the construction of culture has been influenced by ethnic activism,” MacDonald said. “And I of course focus on Jewish groups. Jews tend to be elite; they tend to be involved in intellectual movements.”

After becoming A3P director, MacDonald resurfaced as the subject of several articles by OC Weekly’s Ask a Mexican columnist Gustavo Arellano, who discussed MacDonald’s views and gathered reactions from students and members of the Associated Students Inc.

The articles led to a one-hour radio program on KPFK last Thursday, during which Arellano spoke of MacDonald’s work that claims that “Jews are undermining western civilization” and the A3P’s “primary plank is to deport all non-whites and that homosexuality should be suppressed.”

MacDonald responded to Arellano in his own blog Friday morning saying:

“Arellano begins by baldly asserting that A3P and I advocate deportation of all non-whites, including African-Americans and every other group, legal or illegal, no matter how long they or their ancestors have been here.

“Not only that, he claims that A3P advocates suppression of all LBGT’s (lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender, for those not in the loop of leftist acronyms). (For the record, my position is that gays and other sexual minorities have ethnic interests just like everyone else). For these supposed crimes, he advocates that I be fired from my academic position.”

Arellano also spoke by phone to ASI President Chris Chavez and former ASI presidential candidate Raul Preciado during the program, discussing what action CSULB is taking regarding MacDonald.

“This has been a perennial thorn in the side of the university,” Chavez said. “This has been an issue, but primarily a faculty issue.”

Chavez went on to discuss the difficulty of firing a tenured professor. However, his move to the directorship of the A3P may have “upped the ante,” Chavez said. “Now you’re going from belief to action.”

While no plan is in motion at this time, the message from ASI was made clear.

“We want to let him know that we don’t want people who are spreading his views on campus,” Preciado said.

The placement of MacDonald to his new position also works into the goals of the PSL to remove MacDonald from campus.

“We’re going to re-start a petitioning campaign to get him off campus. One of the key elements will be this recent development,” Kauffman said. “One petition to support his dismissal and one to support the nonparticipation in his class; we would like to get students groups and faulty to pressure him to leave campus. This is going to take a strong effort to remove him from class.”

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Prof Hamilton said he did not doubt the science behind climate change and it was only for political reasons people refused to accept the science.

“The verdict is in and there isn’t any doubt that global warming is occurring and humans are causing it,” he said.

“I don’t think any serious person doubts that.

“If we don’t accept it, it will bring about dire consequences.”

According to NSW Farmers’ Association president Charles Armstrong the agricultural sector is already being severely impacted by ill-considered laws.

“The ban on development of farming land is impacting on the livelihood of farmers and their ability to supply the food required to meet growing demand,” he said.

“This ban has directly affected people such as Mr Spencer.”

NSW farmer Peter Spencer continues a 45-day hunger strike as he demands the Federal Government hold a Royal Commission into land-clearing laws that prevent him from felling native vegetation on his property.

According to agricultural minister Tony Burke the Government has taken action in relation to climate change that has resulted in any variances in the way farmers can use their land.

If anything, Prof Hamilton believes the association’s request will only jeopardise the future of primary producers.

“It is damaging to the people in rural and regional Australia as it will do nothing more than delay action,” he said.

“It is a bit rich for farming groups to want to be exempt from the costs of green house policy and call for measures so they’ll get greater

benefits, such as the carbon credits.

“You can’t have it both ways.”

According to the Bureau of Meteorology’s (BOM) annual climate statement released on Tuesday, last year was Australia’s second-hottest year on record

and closed the warmest decade on file.

The BOM states this temperature data “is consistent with global warming.”

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Here are some highlights from an interview regarding Pierson’s book Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy extracted from globetrotter.berkley.edu.

• “I’m not going to pretend that I would be ecstatic about a government that was pursuing conservative policies”

• “By off center we mean that there is a disconnect between where public opinion seems to be and where public authority seems to be headed. That’s why the subtitle of the book is The Erosion of American Democracy. It’s not just because liberals object to what the conservative majority might be doing, but because it seems to reflect a breakdown of responsiveness and accountability.”

• It’s important to set the stage that in 2000 and 2001 there was no evidence in public opinion polls that people were chomping at the bit for a big tax cut.

• The impeachment of President Clinton, which it’s very clear public opinion did not favor. Public opinion had settled strongly on a way to resolve that clash, which was a vote of censure. Republicans were quite aggressive on the issue and simply refused to allow — this is an example of agenda control — they refused to allow a vote of censure to come to the floor of the House. They instead pursued a different course which every poll showed was not what the American public wanted.

• The core argument of the book, which I think broadly has been pretty well accepted, is that neither Reagan or Thatcher really succeeded, although there was a lot of hue and cry around the time. [Neither] of them succeeded in fundamentally changing the structure of social policy because of the political challenges that they faced in doing that, and the fact that when they were very aggressive about it there tended to be a pretty strong popular outcry. In the Unites States, for example, Reagan is elected, begins to talk about cuts in Social Security, and there’s such a strong outcry against it that it plays an important role in the fact that Republicans lost twenty-six seats in the 1982 midterm elections, and that pretty much ended the conversation of a radical reform of Social Security.

Now, who says College professors ever push liberal indoctrination?

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You can also click here to view Professor Coates tell us why socialized medicine is a great choice.

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For many researchers, the funding will help them hire or retain employees and purchase equipment.

The funding includes:

* $603,633 in National Science Foundation grants for Mohammad Younis, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Younis works to understand the vibrations and mechanics of miniscule electro-mechanical systems. Applications for research include protecting the hard disk of a laptop computer to deploying a side-impact air bag.

* $550,584 in National Science Foundation grants for Eriks Rozners, associate professor of chemistry. Rozners studies ribonucleic acids, or RNA, and seeks a way to chemically modify RNA. The research could lead to new therapeutic measures such as antibiotics or anticancer drugs.

* $360,120 in National Institute of General Medical Sciences grants for Koji Lum, associate professor of anthropology and biological sciences. Lum studies how the malaria parasite evolved resistance to the once-effective medication chloroquine.

* $191,250 in National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grants for Michael Nizhnikov, a postdoctoral associate in the psychology department. He studies why infants exposed to alcohol have a higher incidence of alcohol abuse later in life.

* $126,226 in National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke grants for Lisa Savage, professor of psychology. Savage is studying the brain’s cortex, including how it adapts to damage to other regions of the brain. Research could help with treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

* $156,922 in National Science Foundation grants for Adrian Vasiu, associate professor of mathematics. Vasiu is a numbers theorist who studies Shimura varieties, and will write several papers and two books to be used by graduate students.

* $233,427 in National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders grants for Patricia Di Lorenzo, professor of psychology. She studies how neurons communicate with each other in the brain. Her research could help with treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and could also help in the development of brain-machine interfaces like artificial limbs.

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UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof told KGO-TV late Friday afternoon more than 40 people, at least some of them students, had been arrested and the protest appeared to be coming to a “safe end.”

Demonstrators had occupied Wheeler Hall on Friday morning to protest a 32 percent increase in student fees and job and program cuts. Campus police had said earlier in the day the demonstrators were barricaded behind fire doors on the second floor.

A group of students also rallied outside the building.

The occupiers were demanding laid-off custodial workers be rehired and amnesty for anyone arrested in the protest.

——

Information from: KGO-TV

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — Students barricaded themselves inside buildings on University of California campuses to protest a 32 percent increase in student fees and budget cuts that have led to slashed programs and lost jobs.

Demonstrators at UC Berkeley occupied Wheeler Hall on Friday and hung a sign from a window that read “32 Percent Hike, 900 layoffs,” with the word “Class” crossed out in red. A group of students also rallied outside the building.

Campus police said they had arrested three of the demonstrators inside.

Police would not say how many protesters remained in the building. University police Lt. Alex Yao said demonstrators were barricaded behind fire doors on the second floor, but police had control of the rest of the building.

The Daily Californian student newspaper said it received a text message from a protester in the building who put the number still inside at 60 undergraduates and graduate students.

The occupiers were demanding the university rehire laid-off custodial workers and give amnesty to anyone arrested in the protest.

At UC Santa Cruz, Provost David Kliger said a group of students was blocking exits at Kerr Hall, which houses science departments and administrative offices.

Kliger said he would not consider the students’ demands until they cleared the obstructions.

About 30 to 50 protesters staged a takeover of Campbell Hall at UCLA on Thursday, as regents met across campus to approve the fee hike. More than 50 students were arrested during protests at UC Davis.

Regents say they had to raise fees because the cash-strapped state government can’t meet the university’s funding needs.

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Charles North’s analysis offered a substantially higher savings estimate for the state thanThe Arizona Republic’s estimate of $8.3 million over a period of nine years, published in an article last month.

North said his analysis was based on information that was “speculative” but was reasonable enough to allow him to reach his conclusions. He was paid to conduct the study by the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative research and advocacy group that supports school choice.

He appeared at a state House committee hearing chaired by state Rep. Rick Murphy, R-Glendale, to consider changes to the private-school individual tax-credit program.

Under the law, individuals can donate up to $1,000 a year to fund tuition scholarships and take a dollar-for-dollar credit off their state tax bill. The money is collected by school-tuition organizations, which then disperse it in the form of private-school scholarships.

Murphy’s committee is considering changes to the individual tax-credit law but does not plan to discuss suggestions until its next meeting, which has not yet been scheduled. A second House committee has met twice on the same issues but, after taking testimony, does not plan to meet again.

How to estimate savings

Supporters of the tax credits argue that the program saves the state substantial money because it enables students who normally would attend publicly funded district or charter schools to attend private schools. The cost of the tax credits to the state budget is more than offset by the savings from not having to pay per-student funding, supporters say.

A key to estimating savings is to determine how many students would not attend private schools without the tax credits. These students represent savings for the state. Students who get tax-credit scholarships, but who would have attended private schools regardless of the credits, represent a cost to the state.

North, the Baylor professor, estimated that in 2008, at least 11,697 students attended private school solely because of the tax-credit scholarships. He reached this number by first checking the Web sites of tuition organizations to see which ones placed a heavy emphasis on awarding scholarships based on students’ need. Then, he assumed that half of the students getting scholarships from those groups went to private school only because of the scholarships. He assumed the same for a quarter of students from the other tuition groups.

North made the assumptions despite the fact that there is no uniform standard to determine need among school-tuition organizations, or STOs. The Republic reported Sunday that although the 12 largest organizations say financial need is a factor, many also considered other factors, such as recommendations by those who made tax-credit donations. Parents of private-school students often seek donations from friends and relatives, who can request their gifts be directed to those students; many STOs say they honor at least some of these requests.

“This is admittedly speculative, but it seems reasonable to me based upon my own perceptions of families with financial need from my own service as a board member at a private school in Texas,” North said after the meeting.

By contrast, The Republic’s analysis assumed that no more than 7,530 students went to private school because of the tax-credit incentive. The number represents the entire growth in private-school enrollment from 1999, when the first tuition tax credit took full effect, to 2007.

The Republic showed its analysis to economists from Arizona State University, the Arizona Department of Revenue, an accounting professor at Northern Arizona University, the finance director of the Department of Education and an analyst for the Goldwater Institute. None expressed concerns with the methodology.

North, who supports tax-credit scholarships, said that relying on private-school enrollment growth to calculate the financial effects of tax credits understates the savings. The reason is that the growth of public charter schools during that time likely drained many students from private schools. In addition, the national trend for most of the past decade was a decline in private-school enrollment. Despite those factors, he said, Arizona’s enrollment still grew thanks to the scholarships.

In addition to issues such as cost savings, the committee sent a survey to 53 tuition organizations asking nine questions. Among them was whether the organizations have ever helped parents “swap” tax-credit donations to help reduce the tuition costs for their own children.

The law bars parents from taking a tax credit that benefits their own children. But in a swap, groups of parents agree to earmark donations for one another’s children. Each of the STOs said they never “arranged, facilitated or otherwise encouraged” the practice.

Tom Chabin, a Flagstaff Democrat and committee member, said the practice exists and jeopardizes the non-profit status of the STO because it runs counter to IRS requirements to remain a tax-exempt organization.

“As soon as we want to roll up our sleeves and work together, as I think we want to do, I’m ready to get down to the truth of this, so we can save the STO program and save the scholarships for poor kids and stop the practices that threaten the whole program,” Chabin said.

by Ronald J. Hansen and Pat Kossan – Nov. 17, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Ernest B. Moore, who taught political science under the name of Bernard Moore at the college, plead guilty to one count of student aid fraud, one count of bank fraud, and one count of Social Security fraud in federal court in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

According to news reports, the fraud was in excess of $800,000, and included defrauding the federal government, banks and credit card companies.

Besides using the alias of Bernard Moore, he also went by the name of Bernard Glenn-Moore, and was a senior policy fellow for U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.).

Moore faces up to 41 months in prison, and is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 17, 2010.
In a letter sent to the Williams College Community on Wednesday, Interim President William Wagner said the college learned of Moore’s guilty plea through a media report Tuesday evening, and Moore confirmed to the college he was the person the charges were brought against.
“We informed him that he was suspended from the college until we can understand the situation more fully,” Wagner said.
James G. Kolesar, assistant to the President for Public Affairs, said Moore, 51, was in his second year at Williams College as a visiting professor, and declined to state if Moore had been suspended with or without pay.

Wagner said the Political Science Department has made arrangements to continue instruction for the course Moore was teaching this semester — “Black Leadership” — and the Congressional Black Caucus Symposium Moore was helping to organized will go ahead on Monday, Nov. 16 as planned.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus including founding member John Conyers, and other distinguished African-American figures including Bill Cosby, are expected to participate in the symposium at 8 p.m. in Chapin Hall.

The symposium is titled, “Leadership in the Black American Community: Reflections on the Past, Analysis of the Present, and Visions for the Future.”

Moore’s credentials including his education have also come into question following the guilty plea.

When asked if the college was looking into the validity of Moore’s background, Kolesar said the college is currently focusing on the charges.

“The current situation is most relevant,” he said.

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