This Weeks Survey

Going quietly into the night

Plea Deal In Mifflin Case

A case that made national headlines has come to a quiet end in a Columbus courtroom, with a plea bargain in the attack on a Mifflin student. Two teenagers, Brandon Hobbs and Timothy Armistead agreed to plead guilty to felonious assault, not rape, charges.

Did you predict this one would quietly go away with a slap on the wrist for all concerned? You were right. All charges were dismissed except for one count of a lesser charge.

On a related note: Sexual assault on the rise in Ohio’s public schools
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Pat Robertson is in the news again. First, though, he’d have to make the case that “Intelligent Design” teaching = God and His Word
…then the statement might follow that: “You just rejected him from your city”. But accuracy is not Robertson’s strong point, just making media jump. It is too bad that schools are on the front line, in many cases, of shutting down dialogue and holding a party line. That is not real science, but exploration of thinking is the last thing the public schools wish to encourage. They like their bureaucracies, their monopoly on future minds. The very idea of teaching “Intelligent Design” in any capacity leaves them shaking in their boots. It is a religious matter with many of them.

Which I suppose is how Robertson can garner press from the same. Such fun with the cat and mousie games.

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The French riots are sparking talk about the culture war, on all sorts of levels. It is of widespread interest in the Middle East, as they debate the actual cause, and seek to predict the possible outcomes and solutions. Will it quiet down before people can grasp the core lessons, only to reignite on another front?

Islam under the microscope.

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This is interesting: Finding Said to Boost Proof of Goliath – Yahoo! News

Finding Said to Boost Proof of Goliath

JERUSALEM – Archaeologists digging at the purported biblical home of Goliath have unearthed a shard of pottery bearing an inscription of the Philistine’s name, a find they claimed lends historical credence to the Bible’s tale of David’s battle with the giant.

…”What this means is that at the time there were people there named Goliath,” he said. “It shows us that David and Goliath’s story reflects the cultural reality of the time.”

News tidbits like that always interest me.