..And what is this? Ungrateful state workers bitching

February 28, 2013

I find it rather interesting to hear complaints from well compensated state union workers who have ability to make personal decisions that haven't been lost.  These well paid public servants needn't be concerned with the simple things in life such as regaining their freedom.. Instead they want to scream for more money, bigger pension funding and more bloated government. Typical isn't it? Shut your traps and get your lazy asses to work for your taxpayer funded paychecks. Maybe you should be incarcerated a few montha while you await trial so we can see what your concerns are then, huh?

Inmates' heavy usage of Right to Know Law becoming problematic

Inmates account for 31 percent of the nearly 2,300 appeals of record denials that made their way to Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records over the past year.

Terry Mutchler, executive director of the Office
of Open Records, is asking for more money to run
her office that has been deluged with record
denials from inmates.

Coincidentally, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Adolph, R-Delaware, noted at today’s budget hearing for that office, its executive director is asking for a 31 percent increase in state funding to run its operation next year.

Adolph quipped changing the state's Right to Know Law as it relates to inmates might eliminate the need for a funding increase.

“Seriously, we have to amend that law to get it back to its original purpose,” Adolph said.

With that, he was the first of several Republican and Democratic lawmakers who spoke in favor of tweaking the 5-year-old law that brought greater transparency to government to address issues that have come to light since its implementation.

Mutchler said since the office opened, it has seen an 89 percent increase in the record appeals it receives and each month seems to bring more appeal cases than the one before.

Bringing Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln universities more fully under the Right to Know law’s disclosure requirements, another change to the law under consideration, will surely add to her office’s six attorneys’ workload, she said.

Mutchler asked lawmakers to up her office's appropriation to $1. 8 million next year to do its job more effectively, instead of the $1.4 million that Gov. Tom Corbett proposed in his budget.This year, it receives $1.37 million.

The additional money will help cover rising pension costs, the cost of hiring another attorney, and costs associated with the office's move to a permanent location within the Keystone Building, she said.

Adolph pledged that the committee would try to do its best in finding more money for the office. But he also was interested in hearing more about what records inmates are requesting.

Mutchler said their requests ranged from wanting to know the type of material used to make inmates’ underwear versus that of the guards, the ingredients in prison food, sentencing orders and records related to their convictions, among other records.

House Democratic Appropriations Committee Chairman Joe Markosek of Allegheny County said, “It sounds like these inmates have too much time on their hands.”

Mutchler said other states have separate process for dealing with inmates’ record requests. She said Texas, for example, has the Department of Corrections handle inmates' requests and the appeals arising out of record denials.

She said initially she didn’t favor different rules for inmates. Having them become the most frequent of the records’ appeal process has caused her to rethink her position. It impacts the amount of time and consideration her office can devote to other cases.

What's more, she said, "there’s also this to consider, inmates aren’t allowed to do a lot of things other citizens can do.”


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185K emails with sensitive information sent to Aaron's rental computers, lawsuit claims

February 28, 2013

PITTSBURGH — Spyware installed on computers leased from furniture renter Aaron's Inc. secretly sent 185,000 emails containing sensitive information — including pictures of nude children and people having sex — back to the company's corporate computers, according to court documents filed Wednesday in a class-action lawsuit.

According to the filings, some of the spyware emails contained pictures secretly taken by the rental computers' webcams or other sensitive information including Social Security numbers, social media and email passwords, and customer keystrokes, the Federal Trade Commission determined last year.

The attorneys also claimed Atlanta-based Aaron's hasn't properly notified at least 800 customers allegedly targeted by spyware made by DesignerWare, a company located in North East, Pa.

"Because Aaron's has been so uncooperative in agreeing to give proper notice and assistance to its customers, we've had to ask the court to intervene and order them to do it, so that people can protect their most private kinds of rights and property," said Maury Herman, a New Orleans attorney who was one of several to file the documents.

Aaron's officials have previously said the company never installed the spyware on computers rented out of 1,140 company-operated stores and blamed individual franchisees for installing it. But the new filings claim Aaron's nonetheless received the secretly recorded data.

Attorneys for DesignerWar didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Aaron's said it was preparing a statement in response to the lawsuit that would be released later Wednesday

The new allegations grew out of a Federal Trade Commission settlement last year and are contained in documents filed in U.S. District Court in Erie. That's where a Casper, Wyo., couple, Brian and Crystal Byrd, have sued DesignerWare, Aaron's, the local franchise from which they rented a computer in 2010, and 45 other unidentified franchises they believed were using the spyware.

The filings seek court permission to file a new complaint adding 54 franchisees based on the 185,000 emails since traced to Aaron's computer servers.

"Aaron's, like the proverbial ostrich, has buried its head in the sand, hoping this litigation would just go away without having to do anything to protect its customers," the Byrds' attorneys wrote.

The couple's May 2011 lawsuit claimed the manager of the Casper store showed Brian Byrd a webcam picture of himself operating a rental computer after the manager activated the spyware in the process of trying to repossess the computer, which the manager mistakenly believed the Byrds hadn't paid off under their rent-to-own agreement.

Attorneys for DesignerWare have since said in court documents its PC Rental Agent software is benign and simply helps rental companies track computer use and shut down the devices if customers don't pay.

But the FTC found, in a settlement publicized in September, the software could do much more when "Detective Mode" was activated: Capturing screenshots, taking webcam images, logging keystrokes and forwarding that information to Aaron's by email.

The FTC settlement bars DesignerWare, the Aaron's franchise that operated the Wyoming store, and six other businesses that operated rental stores from using any location-tracking software without customer consent and from deceptively collecting information.

On Wednesday, attorneys for the Byrds also filed a new lawsuit in Fulton County, Ga. — where Atlanta is located — on behalf of a customer who claims an Oregon Aaron's franchise tracked her physical location by having Detective Mode trace her WiFi use of the computer.

That lawsuit, and the new documents filed in the Byrd's federal lawsuit, contends Aaron's corporate officials condoned the widespread use of the spyware on franchise rental computers.

source

BREAKING LOW INFORMATION NEWS!!!

February 27, 2013

The low information crowd will be ecstatic when they hear the great news. So please pass this along. Share this with everyone you know so they don't miss out



Honey Boo Boo Is Going International: Europe, Australia, Latin America

TLC takes “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” international, is positive it will be a major hit

Many TV critics say that shows like TLC’s “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” are the mark of the end, that America or even civilization as a whole is dead or on its way there. Be that as it may, but Honey Boo Boo is still one popular (reality) kid.

TLC has announced that its newest and most successful reality series, which follows Alana Thompson (Honey Boo Boo) and her family around as she continues to be involved in the kiddie beauty pageants circuit, will be opening in more markets soon, the New York Post reports.

It’s already airing in certain countries in Eastern Europe, but will premiere in Italy, The Netherlands, Australia and Latin America as well.

Moreover, TLC is convinced it will be a hit here as well.

“In Poland, where it just started airing, it’s already No. 3 in terms of viewers,” says Luis Silberwasser, executive VP and chief content officer for Discovery Networks International, says for the NY Post.

“This is a slice of Americana — not typical America, but of a particular family in the South, and the international audience knows that there are many facets to American lives,” Silberwasser adds.

A “no one is safe” joke comes to mind…



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Former Pennsylvania Republican Governor Tom Ridge: 'Climate change is a national security threat'

February 27, 2013

The true colors of the republican elitists have again exposed themselves. Another one of their so called "electable" establishment candidates has, rather than fade away, continues to run his mouth about issues that only our opposition (NOT his) regularly embrace. 


Former Gov. Tom Ridge joined 37 prominent political figures at that U.S. Capitol Monday calling for policymakers to figure climate change into national security strategy and budget considerations.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. and former Homeland Security
Secretary Tom Ridge. DAN GLEITER, The Patriot-News

“The U.S. national security community, including leaders from the military, homeland security, and intelligence, understand that climate change is a national security threat,” Ridge said.

“They're not talking about whether or not it is occurring – it is," Ridge said. "They're talking about addressing the problem and protecting the American people. It's time Washington does the same.”

Ridge, a former Homeland Security secretary, appeared in Washington as part of an effort by the Partnership for a Secure America, a bipartisan foreign policy group. The 38 foreign policy leaders signed an open letter arguing the national security threat of climate change.

“It is in our national interest to confront the risk that climate change in vulnerable regions presents to American security,” the letter read. “We must offer adaptive solutions to communities currently facing climate-driven displacement, support disaster risk reduction measures and help mitigate potential future impacts through sustainable food, water and energy systems.”

Also among the dignitaries signing the letter were former secretaries of state George Schultz and Madeleine Albright, as well as former U.S. Rep. James Greenwood, R-Bucks County.


pennlive

CPAC: Chris Christie’s not invited this year

February 27, 2013

Christie either chose to sell out his own personal values OR was blackmailed into a RINO position like many others have by the corrupt Chicago-Washington D.C. organized crime machine that IS the Obama administration. However by his seemingly very comfortable and relaxed composure while seated in the "Guest of Honor" chair at the Obama table during the Governor's Dinner Saturday night, It is my opinion he has become the Republican brands very own version of Bart Stupak. How a man abandons his moral values for personal favors is beyond me.  -KC

Photo By Susan Walsh

(Hot Air) - I have my issues with him just like you do, but c’mon. Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are conservative enough to speak at CPAC but not Christie? He’s the current vice chair of the RGA and will be chairman next year for the midterms. He’s headed for a landslide reelection victory in a deep blue state, where his approval rating is currently the highest for a New Jersey governor in the 17 years since Quinnipiac started tracking that. He’s one of the few members of the party with a national profile who’s reasonably well liked by voters across the board. Leverage his popularity, if only for a day.

I understand wanting to punish him for slobbering all over Obama after Sandy, but how do you find a spot for Chris Hayes and not for this guy? For cripes sake, Joe Scarborough’s spoken at CPAC. David Frum could probably get on a panel if he really tried. Their definition of “conservative” isn’t strict.

At least eight potential presidential contenders will be speaking at CPAC: Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

There will also be five former presidential candidates attending: Romney, Perry, Santorum, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and former Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin of Alaska…

One potential 2016 hopeful who won’t be there, however — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Despite being the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention and having a sky-high approval rating in the Garden State, CPAC officials told First Read Christie was not invited.

Christie rankled some on the right with his public support for President Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy in the weeks leading up to the 2012 election.

All they’re doing here, whether they realize it or not, is throwing him into the briar patch. Christie was never going to run as the conservative choice in 2016 and lord knows he’s not going to run as a conservative to get reelected in New Jersey. That’s how Democrats will try to paint him, of course, but now he has fresh evidence to rebut the charge — he’s unwelcome at the preeminent gathering of American conservatives. CPAC’s unwittingly helping him burnish his brand as the country’s most formidable centrist Republican. Expect him to gets lots of mileage out of it in interviews over the next month.

Maybe Netroots Nation will snap him up for this year’s gala instead. Exit question: Was last night’s photo op with FLOTUS the last straw?

Sequestering Convenience: Big Sis releases illegal immigrants BEFORE sequester

February 27, 2013

And of course when the sequester is over or if the sequester never happens at all, they'll gladly return to the tax funded country club... right?


WASHINGTON (AP) — A week before mandatory budget cuts go into effect across the government, the Department of Homeland Security has started releasing illegal immigrants being held in immigration jails across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday.

Gillian Christensen, an ICE spokeswoman, said ICE has reviewed "several hundred cases" of immigrants being held in jails around the country and released them in the last week. They have been "placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release," she said.

Christensen said the agency's "priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety." She did not say how released immigrants were selected or what jails they were released from.

Tuesday's announcement of jail releases is the first tangible impact of the looming budget cuts for DHS.

The Obama administration has been issuing dire warnings about the impact of the sequestration and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters at the White House Monday that across-the-board cuts would impact the department's core operations, including border security and airport screening operations.

She also warned that DHS might not be able to afford to keep the 34,000 immigration jail beds mandated by Congress. On average last week, there were 30,773 people being held in ICE jails.

"I don't think we can maintain the same level of security at all places around the country with sequester as without sequester," said Napolitano, adding that the impact would be "'like a rolling ball. It will keep growing."

According to the National Immigration Forum, it costs the government about $164 a day to keep an illegal immigrant facing deportation jailed. In a report on immigration detention costs last year the advocacy group said costs for supervised release can range from about 30 cents to $14 a day.

Republicans lawmakers decried the releases Tuesday.

"It's abhorrent that President (Barack) Obama is releasing criminals into our communities to promote his political agenda on sequestration," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte. "By releasing criminal immigrants onto the streets, the Administration is needlessly endangering American lives. It also undermines our efforts to come together with the Administration and reform our nation's immigration laws."

The administration asked for about $1.96 billion for immigration jail operations in the last budget. It amounts to about $5.4 million a day, according to the National Immigration Forum's report.

Christensen said Tuesday that released immigrants will still face deportation proceedings.

Source: Washington Examiner

Obamanomics Update: Woman stabs roommate with spear over electricity argument

February 27, 2013

Rift over electricity use led to confrontation

The effects of the Obama administration's new economic norm, in conjunction with the potential disarming even the most innocent of American citizens has begun to spark some very creative ideas of weaponry. Leaving the entrepreneurial capitalist piggish spirit in us a wide array of opportunity! Inspiring indeed...

Nicole Marie Wagner

An East Lampeter Township woman stabbed her roommate Monday night during an argument about wasting electricity, police said.

Nicole Marie Wagner, 32, assaulted her roommate with a decorative spear and threatened to kill her, township police Lt. Robin Weaver said.

The assault occurred around 7:15 p.m. as the pair argued about electricity use in their apartment in the 2000 block of William Penn Way. Wagner had accused her roommate of wasting electricity by not turning off lights.

The roommate, a 31-year-old woman, sustained stab wounds on her back and hand, Weaver said. She was taken to Lancaster General Hospital, where she was treated and released.

Police arrested Wagner on charges of aggravated assault and terroristic threats. She was committed to Lancaster County Prison in lieu of $50,000 bail.


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Pope Benedict XVI's final papal address

February 27, 2013

Gallery: Faithful Bid Farewell To The Pope

The Pope holds his final general audience, the day before he becomes the first pontiff in 600 years to step down.

The Pope has given his last general audience before stepping down as Pontiff.

The Pope stunned the Catholic Church earlier this month when he announced he no longer had the mental or physical strength to carry on in the role.

He will officially stand aside on Thursday evening, the first pope to do so in 600 years.

Pope Benedict XVI greeted pilgrims in St. Peter's Square for the final time before retiring, and waved to tens of thousands of people who have gathered to bid him farewell.

Benedict was driven around the square in an open-sided vehicle, surrounded by bodyguards. At one point he stopped to kiss a baby handed up to him by his secretary.

The crown fell silent as he started to speak.

He began by saying he will keep the faithful in his prayers and he has "great trust" in the future of the church.

He said his Papacy had faced joy, but also had undergone 'difficult moments'.

Drawing on a Biblical analogy, he said: "The Lord gave us days of sun and of light breeze, days in which the fishing was good. There were also moments when there were stormy waters and headwinds."

Pope Benedict XVI stopped to kiss a baby

But, he said, God would not let the church sink.

He said he had resigned not for his own good, but for the good of the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday said he was aware of the "gravity and novelty" of his decision to resign and would "accompany" the Church in prayer even after his resignation the following day.

"I took this step in full awareness of its gravity and novelty but with profound serenity of spirit," he said.

Pope Benedict told the 50,000-strong crowd he was not "coming down from the Cross", but would remain in the service of the Church through prayer.

He asked the faithful to pray for the cardinals as they faced a weighty task choosing his successor and for whoever they chose.

After he had finished speaking the crowd gave a rousing round of applause that lasted nearly a minute.

Many in the audience have been chanting "Benedetto"

He went on to give his address in other languages.

Tens of thousands of people, some toting banners saying "Thank you!" had earlier began filling St. Peter's Square in preparation for his appearance.

Spontaneous chants of "Benedetto" erupted every so often and the mood - even hours before Benedict was to arrive - was one of excitement.

Jan Marie, a 53-year-old Roman, said: "It's difficult - the emotion is so big. We came to support the pope's decision, and feel the air of the church."

"I came to thank him for the testimony that he has given the church," said Maria Cristina Chiarini, a 52-year-old homemaker who traveled by train early Wednesday from Lugo, near Ravenna, with some 60 members of her parish.

"There's nostalgia, human nostalgia, but also comfort, because as a Christian we have hope. The Lord won't leave us without a guide."

Many of the cardinals who will choosee the next Pope were among those waiting to hear Benedict XVI speak.

The Pope will leave the Vatican and fly by helicopter to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, until renovations have been completed on a monastery inside the Vatican walls.

Cardinals await the final public appearance of the Pope

The Pope will live out the rest of his days in the new monastery in prayer and meditation.

At precisely 8pm (Rome time) the villa gates at Castel Gandolfo will close and the Swiss Guard will withdraw - a symbol that Pope Benedict XVI's papacy is over.

Benedict will then be known as Emeritus Pope and wear a simple white cassock and brown shoes rather than his trademark red loafers.

After the general audience today, the Pope will meet a select group of heads of state and make final preparations for his departure.

On Thursday morning, he will bid farewell to his cardinals who will begin a series of meetings to determine his successor.

The date for the conclave - when eligible cardinals vote in secret in the Sistine Chapel - has yet to be announced.

Sky News

Video Link to Pope Benedict XVI delivers a sermon in his final public address in St. Peter’s Square>>

NBC 

10 Reasons I Wish George Washington Were Still Alive (Part 2)

February 27, 2013
By Chuck Norris

10 Reasons I Wish George Washington Were Still Alive (Part 2)

READ Part One HERE

Dallas, TX - -(Ammoland.com)- To commemorate Presidents Day and Washington’s Birthday, last week I highlighted the first four of the top 10 reasons I wish George Washington were still alive:

10) Washington was a role model for many, even as a youth.

9) Washington epitomized courage.

8) Washington wasn’t afraid of public opinion or challenging the status quo.

7) Washington was a man of integrity and character yet just as human as the rest of us.

Here are a few more of the reasons I wish Washington were still alive and why I believe the model of his life is still worthy to shadow today (These are also the reasons I cited in my New York Times best-seller “Black Belt Patriotism,” which has an expanded paperback edition.)

6) Washington was a first-class servant leader who walked what he talked. He believed so firmly in our newly founded but poor republic that he took no pay for his service during the Revolutionary War (besides official expenses). And after eight long years of leading the war and retiring to his peaceful estate at Mount Vernon, he re-enlisted rather than stay retired. It is amazingly commendable — if not astonishing — that Washington came out of military retirement to serve two terms as president. He even had to borrow money to pay off debts and travel to his own inauguration.

5) Washington didn’t allow personal obstacles to hinder his service to God, his country and his family. Among other sicknesses, according to Fox News, beginning at the age of 17, Washington suffered multiple malaria attacks throughout his life. He even had a case of smallpox and dysentery and struggled with depression and hearing loss.

In 1779, during the middle of the Revolutionary War, Washington “feared for his survival,” not from bullets but from an abscess of the tonsils. And after all he had been through, at 57 years old, with his war-torn body and reportedly only a single real tooth in his mouth, Washington left behind the comfort of his estate on the edge of the Potomac River and traveled eight days to New York, where he was sworn in as president.

4) Washington was a devoted family man. In 1759, at 26 years of age, Washington married widow Martha Dandridge Custis. Though Martha and George had no children, he adopted her daughter and son from her former marriage. They also provided personal and financial support to nephews, nieces and other extended family members.

If it’s true that behind every great man is a great woman (and it is, as evidenced by my wife, Gena, who does more for me and others than the world will ever know), then Washington’s wife, Martha, is definitely to be credited for part of the power behind the myth of the Father of Our Country.

For example, for each of the eight years of the Revolutionary War, Martha came to Washington’s winter encampments (including Valley Forge) to boost his morale, as well as the other officers’ morale.

No doubt Martha’s initial struggle to support Washington’s departure as president must have had some emotional connection to her finally having him home at Mount Vernon after his service in the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention and his eight years of leading the war. Though Martha refused to attend his inauguration, she stood by her man by living with him at the temporary U.S. capitals New York and Philadelphia.

Though Martha and George had a strong relationship, there’s no doubt he had a lifelong love interest in the beautiful and intellectually astute Sally Fairfax — the wife of his friend George William Fairfax — whom he met when he was just 16. Sally’s father never would have allowed her to marry someone other than a man from a wealthy family like theirs, and Washington didn’t fit the bill.

Mount Vernon historians noted how Sally “remained ever faithful to her marriage” yet a good friend of the Washingtons’. In 1773, she moved with her husband to England, where he died in 1787. In 1798, just a year before Washington’s death, he wrote to Sally, urging her to return to Virginia. He added, “(Nothing has) been able to eradicate from my mind the recollection of those happy moments, the happiest in my life, which I have enjoyed in your company.” Sally never returned and died alone in England in 1811.

No man is perfect, and that included George Washington. He himself confessed: “We must take human nature as we find it. Perfection falls not to the share of mortals.” Remembering that was likely the key to his humility, service and mercy to others. Maybe his own struggle to receive the Holy Eucharist when he attended services at an Anglican church was born from his wrestling with his own humanity and possibly even the human toll that incurred when he was leading the war.

George was married to Martha for roughly 40 years. Just before her death in 1802, Martha destroyed nearly all of Washington’s letters to her, though three did survive.

Next week, I will finish my top 10 and discuss how some people today view Washington as yesteryear’s presidential billionaire mogul. For more on the monumental figure, I recommend the amazing book “George Washington’s Sacred Fire,” by Peter Lillback and Jerry Newcombe.

About: Action hero and Second Amendment activist, Chuck Norris is one of the most enduringly popular actors in the world. He has starred in more than 20 major motion pictures. His television series “Walker, Texas Ranger,” which completed its run in April 2001 after eight full seasons, is the most successful Saturday night series on CBS since “Gunsmoke.”In 2006, he added the title of columnist to his illustrious list of credits with the launch of his popular Internet column. Now Chuck is a regular contributor to AmmoLand, click the following link to See more of Chuck Norris on AmmoLand Shooting Sports News.

Distributed to you by - AmmoLand.com – The Shooting Sports News source.

Automatic ASSault Deception: Mooch Obama Caught Lying – ABC Edits Claim To Cover Her Sorry Butt

February 27, 2013

(Im41.com) In an interview with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts aired this morning, First Lady Michelle Obama recalled the tragic death of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton who was shot and killed in Chicago after performing during the President’s Inauguration celebration in Washington D.C.#### “She was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need,” the First Lady explained. “I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.”#### Chicago police reported, however, that Pendleton was shot by a man who “opened fire with a handgun before fleeing in a waiting car… KEEP READING

War profiteering, racial discrimination and a 'financial sham': The allegations that cloud Jim Crane, Democrat donor and Obama's golfing buddy

February 26, 2013

Multimillionaire Houston Astros owner, Crane, hosted the President's secretive golfing weekend in Florida

Freight company he founded has paid millions in settling sexual and racial discrimination cases

Department of Justice charges of price-fixing military shipments to Baghdad only dropped after executives were sacked and multi-million dollar fines paid

Crane accused of 'domination and manipulation' of Board for his own 'significant financial benefit'

Obama's 'boys weekend' cost tax-payers an estimated $989,207

Barack Obama has described it as proof ‘I’d better keep my day job.' According to Tiger Woods, it was ‘just a great round of golf with Ron and Jim.’

Much has been made of Obama’s President’s Day golfing weekend in Florida – from it's cost to his questionable choices over his playing partners- but little has been reported about the questionable background of Democratic donor Jim Crane who hit the links alongside the President and Woods.

Obama and the ‘boys’ – among them Woods, US trade representative Ron Kirk and Houston Astros owner Crane - have done their best to downplay the trip. Like Tiger said, it was ‘just a great round of golf.’ No doubt for him it was. But there is no such thing as ‘just a round of golf,’ for Jim Crane.

From Club house to White House: Barrack Obama back at work after his 'boys weekend' in Florida

Houston Astros owner, Jim Crane at the MLB National League Opening, 2012. A man with his eyes on the future...and a distinctly murky past

Woods is a more eye-catching choice of presidential golf-partner with his dazzling skill and whiff of personal scandal. But dig a little deeper and Crane, 58, is arguably the more interesting, and controversial, of the two.

This is a man who was named best CEO golfer in the world and promptly had himself removed from the rankings because, ‘Nobody likes to be tracked and traced. I mean..you may not want people to know wherever you’re at.’

This is a man who advised his salespeople to, ‘get somebody out of their element, out of that boardroom..in a golf cart,’ because, ‘If you can’t sell something in four hours, you can’t sell it.’

This is a man whose company’s business practices have been the subject of several investigations, costly legal suits and eye-watering settlements and whose own methods have drawn excoriating criticism.

Playing the game: Crane and his wife Francine are generous
sponsors of sports and the arts as well as political donors.

This is a man who doesn’t slice shots he cuts deals. His partner on the course was Milton Carroll, Chairman of utilities company CenterPoint Energy and, along with Crane, boardmember of Western Gas Holdings.

Superficially, of course Crane's presence makes sense. For a start the Texan owns the Floridian National Golf Club where the men played.

Obama and his group, which included Chicago friend Eric Whitaker rented out all eight of the club's private cottages, with his security detail spilling over into many nearby hotel rooms.Then there’s the fact that since 2002 Crane has been an active and generous democratic donor and fundraiser. Last year he gave the maximum $5,000 to Obama’s campaign and $30,800 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

In 2010 he gave to the Democratic Texas candidate, Bill White, with $125,297 in donations.

But before 2002, when he began pouring his money into Democrat coffers, he was a similarly generous Republican donor.

His contributions included $5,000 to the Republican National Committee, (RNC) in 2000 and several to candidates including former Texas Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn.

Back then, Crane was CEO of Eagle Global Logistics. He built the freight company and with it his fortune.

Inspite of intense interest in the President's golfing weekend and game with Tiger Woods, the weekend was off-limits to photographers

The Floridian National Golf Club opened in 1996 - a year later Crane's company was under EEOC investigation

Focused on relaxation: Obama is an avid golfer who met Woods in 2009 but President's Weekend was the men's first game together.

Balzac wrote that at the root of all ‘fortunes without apparent cause,’ is ‘a crime forgotten.’ Crane’s personal wealth is in excess of $500million and his history is long.

His path to building his wealth is punctuated with charges of racial and sexual discrimination, profiteering from the war in Iraq and breaches of fiduciary duty.

In 1997 Crane’s company, Eagle Global Logisitcs, was investigated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

According to the lengthy report published by the commission Crane’s company paid, ‘female and minority employees less than white men who do similar work; did not investigate employee complaints of sexual harassment; and destroyed evidence that the company was instructed to retain as part of the two-year EEOC investigations.’

While Barack golfed Michelle took to the slopes at Buttermilk ski area, Aspen, Colo. She was joined by daughters Sasha and Malia.

Two hundred and three cases were upheld.

Eagle’s General Counsel, Judith Robertson testified against the company and was later sued by them for revealing privileged information.

It was reported in the Houston Chronicle that Crane instructed executives not to employ ‘blacks because once you hire blacks you can never fire them.’

As a boy Crane dreamed of owning a Baseball Team and a
Golf Club. As a man he's used to getting what he wants

In 2000 Eagle was forced to pay $9million in back-pay and damages. Six years later the company was once again attracting official opprobrium – this time with allegations of war profiteering.

In 2006 Eagle paid $4million to settle a civil suit brought by the Department of Justice alleging that the company had inflated the cost of military shipments to Iraq, allegedly adding $0.50 per kilogram of freight from Dubai to Baghdad.

They paid a further $300,000 in 2007 and $750,000 in 2010 to settle allegations of kickbacks. Ultimately Eagle paid a fine of $4,486,120 and fired two senior executives – conditions made by the Department of Justice for dropping the case in which Eagle was one of several companies charged with price-fixing shipments to Iraq.

According to Crane the fault lay with ‘two rogue executives’ both of whom were sacked.

As for those Breaches of Fiduciary Duty, in 2007 Apollo Management LP entered into a merger with Eagle Logistics for $38 per share.

But the deal quickly soured with Apollo claiming that the Merger Agreement was ‘the produce of a sham process, controlled and manipulated by Crane, with the tacit or express connivance of the remaining defendants’ – among them Milton Carroll also on the President’s recent boys weekend.

Apollo argued that Crane dominated and manipulated board members, excluded them from key meetings and with-held vital information.

Ultimately Crane cut ties from the company he founded and went onto set up Crane Global Logistics.
This is not a man who accepts defeat.

Though no doubt he took the President’s win on the course in good grace. But then that was ‘just a round of golf,’ wasn’t it?


Source: Daily Mail UK

Is Obama Using Anti-Gun Spambots?

February 26, 2013
PowerLine


Texas Congressman Steve Stockman has blown the whistle on President Obama’s anti-gun Twitter campaign. Stockman says that hardly any of Obama’s anti-gun tweets come from actual human beings, while most are computer-generated spam:

“Obama’s anti-gun campaign is a fraud,” Stockman said. …

Stockman said that in response to Obama’s call for people to tweet their congressman in support of gun control legislation, he received just 16 tweets. But he said all of these messages were identical, and that a closer look at them revealed that only six were from real people.

“The other 10 are fake, computer-generated spambots,” his office said in a press release. As evidence, he said these 10 tweets use default graphics and names, and have not engaged in any interaction with other people. Two of the tweets were sent at nearly the same time, and both follow just one person: Brad Schenck, Obama’s former digital strategist.

I like Stockman’s concluding snark:

Stockman said Obama’s anti-gun activists “are trying to defraud Congress using the same scam that sells ‘male enhancement pills.’”
Still, I guess it makes sense: the Democrats like to use fake voters, so why not fake tweeters?
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Common Sense Prevails: Obama´s gun strategy falling short in Senate

February 26, 2013

Obama hasn't threatened to send his own bill to Congress, unlike with immigration reform. | AP Photo

(POLITIFAIL) - President Barack Obama’s legislative strategy for gun control may be the reason he gets no deal at all.

Obama’s team has been working a delicate inside game to reach out to otherwise combative Senate Republicans: The White House conveys messages to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who develops strategy with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the gun-friendly moderate who is tasked with whipping GOP support.

But as things often go in Washington, the last step is the hardest — and is beginning to seem impossible.

The group has reached a breaking point over how to address records of private sales receipts, even after Schumer and Manchin, along with Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), reached an agreement on the broad framework for universal background checks for gun purchases – itself a fraction of the expansive package of new laws Obama called for after the Newtown massacre.

The four didn’t meet last week while the Senate was out but are expected to speak Monday night.

Coburn, the group’s ambassador to gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association, won’t accept a record-keeping requirement on the grounds that it could lead to government overreach. Schumer and Manchin, who are in regular contact with gun control groups, say any bill without a records provision would be as toothless as an honor system.

Manchin’s search for Republicans to replace Coburn — he’s had conversations with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) has so far come up short.

The administration may have painted itself into a corner: This sticking point has the potential to sink the only gun control negotiations the White House has been actively trying to shape, on the part of the president’s legislative package that has the widest support. And though there are other potential vehicles for legislation, the White House would have to start from scratch, now more than two months after the Newtown shooting, in rallying support.

While stressing that he remains optimistic, Schumer admitted that the situation has gotten tricky.

“Any negotiation on guns is bound to be very hard,” he said. “We’ve made significant progress, but there are still a handful of difficult issues. We are continuing to talk and remain hopeful.”

The state of affairs has gun control advocates worried that time is running out.

“Obviously we’re fighting the clock to some extent,” said Mark Glaze, the director of New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. “Our polling shows that after a mass shooting public support attention wanes.”

Flake’s staff is reviewing the draft language, though he has not yet read it himself, said spokeswoman Genevieve Rozansky.

Two months after Obama pledged at Newtown to use “whatever power this office holds” to push gun control, the teetering talks on background checks — which polling shows has broad public support — have become the most serious effort at bipartisan legislation.

Other efforts at Obama’s gun control deals remain at square one. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) assault weapons ban has no GOP sponsors. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Kirk introduced a gun trafficking bill but it’s yet to attract gun-friendly Republicans. There have been no real talks in the Senate about limiting the size of ammunition magazines.

And unlike comprehensive immigration reform, Obama has not threatened to send his own bill to Congress.

The White House declined to comment about the state of the Senate talks.

Still Gillibrand said she is optimistic about the trafficking and background checks proposals. The New Yorker, a vocal gun control proponent since joining the Senate, allowed she has less hope for an assault weapons ban as long as it fails to attract GOP support.

“I don’t believe anybody should have access to military style weapons, but even if we don’t get that passed, my personal view is that it’s important to have the vote,” Gillibrand said. “I think that should be part of the national debate, making sure we have a vote is highly meaningful.”

“You can win a vote on magazine size,” she added. “But I haven’t heard any Republicans that are willing to support the assault weapons ban. Only bipartisan proposals have a hope of passing.”

Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is holding hearings Thursday on Feinstein’s assault weapons ban and has been putting pressure on the Schumer-Coburn group to finish a deal by then. Leahy on Monday released a series of bills for committee markup, including a “placeholder” version of a background checks legislation.

The crux of the divide is over whether private sellers would be required to keep receipts of gun sales, as dealers have long been required to do.

Coburn is arguing that such a requirement would be too invasive to pass the House or Senate and would be seen by pro-gun lawmakers as a “gun grab” steps away from a federal gun registry, which the NRA has also been warning against.

Coburn’s position is that the threat of a federal agent posing as a gun buyer would be enough of a deterrent to stop people from selling to felons or the mentally ill.

”There absolutely will not be record keeping on legitimate, law-abiding gun owners in this country,” Coburn said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And if they want to eliminate the benefits of actually trying to prevent the sales to people who are mentally ill and to criminals, all they have to do is create a record keeping, and that will kill this bill.”

For Schumer and the gun control groups to whom he has to sell any deal, Coburn’s position is a distortion. The federal government, they say, must be able to track guns used in crimes through sales records as it does now though dealers, even though such records would not be kept by the federal government, which existing law prohibits from centralizing records of gun purchases.

“They’ve tried to mix the dealer records with the background checks and create the bogeyman of a national registry,” said James Pasco, the executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, saying that Coburn “blocks us on every reasonable thing.”

“To somehow suggest that that is a step toward a registry is at variance with common sense,” Pasco added.

Coburn spokesman John Hart said Pasco should “spend less time on political commentary and more time on law enforcement.”

Another advocate with close ties to the White House effort expressed frustration with the inability to create the bipartisan consensus Obama has praised in public.

“There is a sort of nativist craziness from a sort of number of people who never want any of their information about their gun ownership in the hands of the government,” the advocate said. “Those things are hard to deal with because it is essential that those records are kept somewhere.”

The NRA declined to speak in detail about the state of the Senate talks but dismissed the entire gun control effort.

“For the White House, it’s exclusively a political issue,” NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said. “What we’re trying to do is to make sure that good public policy is put in place so that people are safer, our children are safer when they go to schools and the general public is safer so we have systems in place that address the mental health problem.”

Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, who is pushing his own gun control laws in his statehouse, said Obama has done well to delegate the mechanics of the gun talks to Vice President Joe Biden and the Senate. He predicted Congress will eventually put forward a gun control package but was skeptical that direct outreach to Republicans would be helpful.

“Listen, who does he talk to on the Republican side?” Malloy said Friday after meeting with Obama. “I think the president is fully engaged. … On the other hand, he’s got a full time job, so he goes to his No. 2 guy and says, ‘Take this one and run with it.’”

Hearing for Bruce Johnston Jr. stirs memories of notorious gang

February 26, 2013

Bruce Johnston Jr.

Years ago, Bruce Alfred Johnston Jr. was known as "Little Bruce" — perhaps an appropriate moniker only when weighed against the wicked company he kept.

His father, Bruce Johnston Sr., and two uncles were heads of the notorious Johnston Gang of the 1960s and '70s. All three brothers eventually were locked up for life for numerous murders and thefts in Chester and Lancaster counties and beyond.

"Nothing in my experience ever compared to what they were," Ray Solt, a since-retired police officer who tracked the gang, said this week. "They were damn good at what they did."

Bruce Jr. operated, under his father's watch, the "Kiddie Gang," a group of teen thieves.

Ultimately, it was Little Bruce's powerful testimony that put away the three brother bosses.

Following sensational trials that included tales of paid hits, stolen John Deeres and Corvettes and drugs by the ton, Bruce Jr. was placed in the witness-protection program. He lived in Wisconsin and North Carolina, seemingly off the grid.

His departure from a life of crime, however, proved only temporary.

Now 55, he's facing a lengthy prison sentence for felony drug-dealing here. A district judge on Tuesday ordered he stand trial for selling methamphetamine to an undercover officer at a McDonald's in Gap.

Bruce Jr. only avoided a long prison term decades ago after taking the stand against three of the most dangerous criminals in our region's history: Bruce (Sr.), David and Norman Johnston.

"Nothing was comparable to them," recalled Lancaster County President Judge Joseph Madenspacher, a prosecutor back then.

Bruce Jr.'s return to prison reminded local legal experts of the profitable gang initially presumed to be a group of clueless "country bumpkins."

"That's probably one of the reasons they got away with it for so long," recalled Judge Dennis Reinaker, a defense attorney then who represented a Johnston Gang affiliate.

"They were basically hillbillies," Solt said. "I don't remember any of them ever holding a real job."

Although the killings happened in Chester County, two of the gang's most infamous heists happened here: sophisticated, high-reward jobs at Dutch Wonderland amusement park and Meadia Heights Golf Club.

Solt estimated there were "hundreds" of other heists.

Said Reinaker, "In fact, they were one of the most cunning and sly groups of criminals I've ever encountered or heard about. One of the most cold-blooded as well.

"It's still probably the most compelling account of organized criminal activity in Lancaster County during my tenure."

TROUBLED PAST

Recently residing in Christiana, Bruce Jr. now lives on Block 3-1 at Lancaster County Prison, locked up since Jan. 16 on $1 million bail.

On Tuesday, he hobbled into District Judge Isaac Stoltzfus' courtroom in an orange prison jumpsuit, shackled at the wrists and ankles. Portrayed by Sean Penn in a 1986 movie version of the Johnston story, he's now a slight man with graying hair and a gray beard, sporting faded tattoos on both forearms. Two armed constables watched over him as he walked gingerly.

In the mid-70's, Bruce Jr. was a teenager getting his first taste of the criminal path cut by his senior relatives.

The "Kiddie Gang" specialized in stealing farm equipment and cigarettes, locals recall. The offspring operation eventually got the Johnston brothers booked for life, locals say.

"It worked pretty well for a while," Bill Wheatly, a retired Lancaster defense lawyer who represented Norman Johnston, recalled this week. "Then they got greedy. They'd steal anything, and that's when it all fell apart."

Bruce Jr. was one of the few affiliates with the nerve to take the stand against the bosses, who were known to ruffle potential trial witnesses.

Reinaker learned that in the late 1970s while representing James Lee Dotson, a gang associate charged with stealing tractors in Adamstown.

Reinaker advised Dotson that providing information about the Johnston brothers would only help his cause.

But Dotson wanted no part of it.

"He told me I had no idea what these people were capable of," Reinaker recalled.

"They were all scared," Solt recalled. "With good reason."

Bruce Jr. became a state witness in 1977 only after hearing that his father had raped his girlfriend, 15-year-old Robin Miller.

"They never rolled over on each other," Wheatly said. "That's what Little Bruce did that was so terrible and earned him a death sentence from the guys."

CUTTING TIES

The leaders of the infamous Johnston Gang are led into court in West Chester in this March 1979 file photo. Bruce Johnston Sr., front right, and his brother David Johnson, rear middle, were convicted of numerous killings.

Four other members of the "Kiddie Gang," plus Robin, were killed after the senior Johnstons learned they were talking to police.

Bruce Sr. personally ordered the execution of his son, according to published reports. The plan was to "croak Little Bruce" and "blow (his) brains out," according to trial testimony.

In August 1977, law-enforcers had Bruce Jr. stashed at the Oh Shaw Motel, Wheatly recalled.

On Aug. 30 of that year, Bruce Jr. started getting antsy.

"He wanted to see Robin," Wheatly said. "And that's when he was ambushed."

According to reports, Bruce Jr. and Robin had returned home from Hersheypark when bullets bombarded their Volkswagen Rabbit.

Bruce Jr. was hit at least eight times, but miraculously survived. Robin was killed by a single bullet to the throat, according to reports.

Bruce Jr. recovered enough to enable the ultimate vengeance: convictions and life sentences for all three Johnston brothers.

Locals provided these portraits of the brothers:

Bruce Johnston Sr: The believed founder and leader of the gang, Bruce Sr. also earned a reputation as a skilled getaway driver.

"He was known to be absolutely fearless behind the wheel," Wheatly said. "It drove the cops crazy."

He was serving consecutive life sentences for six murders when he died in 2002 at a state prison in Graterford. He was 63.

In 1985, he was tried for — and acquitted of — killing a prison inmate by setting fire to the man's cell. According to reports, he smiled when the not-guilty verdict was announced in court.

David Johnston: Known as the brains of the operation, he often cased burglary targets for alarm and surveillance systems. He also knew how to bypass them, Solt said.

Now 65, David is serving consecutive life terms at a state prison in Waynesburg for four murders.

Locals recall his menacing demeanor.

"That guy could look at you and scare the hell out of you," Wheatly said.

Norman Johnston: Described as a "nitwit" and a "party guy," he returned to the media spotlight when he escaped from prison in 1999. He was free for 20 days until he was caught in Kemblesville, Chester County. Police were tipped off to his whereabouts after Johnston asked a gas-station clerk how to operate a fuel pump.

"He was, in my opinion, the follower of the group," Solt said. "I don't think he had the brain power to be the leader."

"Norman was the real dunce," Wheatly said of his former client, now 62. "They referred to him as a screw-up, pure and simple."

In the days after the Meadia Heights burglary in 1975, police stopped Norman in Avondale — wearing a shirt with the club's logo.

source

Enemy of the State UN, calls for independent inquiry into Palestinian death

February 26, 2013

Palestinian mourners carry the body of Arafat Jaradat, an inmate who died in an Israeli prison, during his funeral in the West Bank village of Saair on February 25, 2013. The United Nations called Monday for an independent inquiry into Jaradat's death, warning that mounting tensions risk an eruption of violence in the occupied territories.

AFP - The United Nations called Monday for an independent inquiry into the death of a Palestinian in Israeli custody, warning that mounting tensions risk an eruption of violence in the occupied territories.

UN Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry made the call in a statement after talks with Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad on the death of Arafat Jaradat at the weekend.

Serry noted that Israeli and Palestinian experts had examined the body. "The United Nations expects the autopsy to be followed by an independent and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Mr Jaradat's death, the results of which should be made public as soon as possible," the envoy added.

Jaradat was detained on February 18 and died five days later.

Israeli prison authorities said Jaradat appeared to have died of a heart attack. But the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, Issa Qaraqaa, citing the preliminary findings of the joint autopsy, reported bruises on Jaradat's body, muscle damage and broken ribs.

Thousands attended the man's West Bank funeral on Monday and some militants have threatened revenge for his death.

Serry's statement said "mounting tensions present a real risk of destabilization".

UN leader Ban Ki-moon expressed concern last week about the deteriorating state of Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli jails and said that the rights of all Palestinian detainees must be fully respected.

Temptations singer dies at 62

February 26, 2013

The Temptations perform at half-time as the San Antonio Spurs take on the Detroit Pistons at the 2005 NBA Finals on June 14, 2005 in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Otis "Damon" Harris, who as first tenor of the Motown ensemble The Temptations sang on such 1970s hits as "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone," has died at the age of 62, US news media reported Monday

AFP - Otis "Damon" Harris, who as first tenor of the Motown ensemble The Temptations sang on such 1970s hits as "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone," has died at the age of 62, US news media reported Monday.

Prostate cancer was the cause of death, a family spokesman told the Sun newspaper in Harris's hometown of Baltimore, Maryland.

Harris joined The Temptations in 1971 when he was 21 and the group was looking for a new tenor. He stayed on for four years, during which time it won four Grammy awards -- including three for "Papa."

He took the stage name Damon to avoid confusion with Otis Williams, who to this day remains leader of the chart-topping group and its only surviving founding member.

Later in life Harris devoted himself to the fight against cancer, establishing his own non-profit foundation to raise awareness of the illness among African-American men even as he battled it himself.

China turns to all-boys classes as girls progress

February 26, 2013

School boys listen to their teacher at the government-run
Number Eight High School in Shanghai, on October 15, 2012.
The city's school system topped the Organisation for
Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD) worldwide
assessment tests of 15-year-olds in 2009

AFP - Teenage boys in a Shanghai school are on the front line of teaching reform after the world's top-scoring education system introduced male-only classes over worries they are lagging girls.

Rows of white-shirted boys are put through their paces as they are called up individually to complete a chemical formula by teacher Shen Huimin, who hopes that a switch to male-only classes will help them overcome their reticence.

"We give boys a chance to change," she said.

The Shanghai school system topped the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD) worldwide assessment tests of 15-year-olds in 2009, the most recent available, ahead of Korea, Finland, Hong Kong and Singapore.

But even so officials are concerned that some male students may be slower than their female counterparts in development and certain academic areas, such as language, and the shift towards single sex classes aims to boost boys' confidence.

A prominent Chinese educator, Sun Yunxiao, found the proportion of boys classed among the top scholars in the country's "gaokao" university entrance exams plunged from 66.2 percent to 39.7 percent between 1999 and 2008.

Across the developed world, girls do better than boys in secondary school, the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) found in a 2009 report on the educational performances of 15-year-olds.

"There are significant gender differences in educational outcomes," it said, adding that high school graduation rates across the OECD were 87 percent for girls but only 79 percent for boys.

In response, Shanghai's elite Number Eight High School is halfway through the initial year of an experiment, putting 60 boys into two classes of their own -- a quarter of its first-year students -- and teaching them with a special curriculum.

"This is a big breakthrough," said principal Lu Qisheng. "There's lots of hope -- hope that boys will grow up better.

"Boys when they are young do not spend enough time studying," he explained. "Boys' maturity, especially for language and showing self-control, lags behind girls."

China shut most same-sex schools after the Communist Party came to power in 1949, and the only all-boys junior high schools in the country are privately run.

Shanghai does have an all-girls state-run high school, the former McTyeire School for Girls, which marked its 120th anniversary last year and counts the three Soong sisters -- Qing-ling, Ai-ling and Mei-ling -- among its former pupils.

Between them they married two leaders and an industrialist. Qing-ling married Sun Yat-sen, the first President of the Republic of China, while Mei-ling wed Chiang Kai-shek, who would also later become president.

Student Li Zhongyang, 15, said he felt less shy about answering questions in his all-boys class, but drew hoots of laughter from his fellows by suggesting an absence of girls let them concentrate more on study.

"We lack confidence," he said. "The teachers like girls, who answer more questions in class. This programme lets us realise we are not worse than girls."

It is something of a contrast to males' traditionally dominant roles in Chinese culture, but principal Lu said the programme "doesn't have much relationship to equality in society".

The scheme was launched after China's government called for more "diversification" in educational choices within the state system.

A Peking University professor has called for an even bolder reform, suggesting in September that boys should start school one or two years later than girls.

"The Chinese education system needs to improve and allow various education methods," Wu Bihu said on his microblog.

Now Lu hopes to create China's first all-boys school one day.

"Ten or twenty years ago, there was no need for an all-boys class -- just put everyone together," he said.

In an increasingly aspirational society, he added, some families saw the new programme as having connotations of top overseas private schools, and so promising an advantage in the highly competitive gaokao.

"The parents know: England has Eton," he said.