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Mr.
Monroe’s Grading and Assignment Structure 2011-2012
A
(90-100) B (80-89) C (70-79)
D (60-69)
History: Tests - 55%
Religion: Tests 55%
-Quizzes
20%
-Quizzes 20%
-Class
Work/Homework 25% -Class
Work/Homework 25%
Weekly
and Daily Headlines
News Ticker……
Ø JACKSONVILLE,
Fla. - The Florida primary may not be over just yet. Newt
Gingrich's campaign gearing up to challenge the primary based on the Republican
National Committee's rules.
Ø
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The
Senate has approved a bill promoting student-initiated prayer and other
"inspirational messages" at public school assemblies.
Ø
Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- The
supreme leader of Iran issued a blunt warning Friday that war would be
detrimental to the United States -- and that Iran is ready to help anyone who
confronts "cancerous" Israel.
Panetta believes
Israel could strike Iran this spring
By Barbara Starr
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has
come to the conclusion there is a growing likelihood Israel could attack Iran
sometime this spring in an effort to destroy its suspected nuclear weapons
program, according to a senior administration official. The official declined
to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the information. Panetta's
views were first reported by the Washington
Post's David Ignatius, who wrote Panetta "believes there is
strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June - before
Iran enters what Israelis described as a 'zone of immunity' to commence
building a nuclear bomb."
Asked by reporters in Brussels, where
Panetta is attending NATO meetings, the defense secretary refused to comment.
But Panetta told reporters the U.S. has "indicated our concerns" to
Israel, according to the Agence France Presse news agency. But the official
also noted that Israel goes through cycles of making aggressive statements
about its intentions toward Iran in an effort to pressure the United States and
the West to take more action.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Thursday that Iran may be close to
the point "which may render any physical strike as impractical,"
according to Reuters. But just a few weeks ago, Barak suggested things were not as urgent, saying an
Israeli decision on whether to strike Iran's nuclear program was "very far
off." A "confluence' of intelligence has led Panetta to this
conclusion, the official told CNN, but declined to offer any specifics except
noting that the United States conducts intelligence operations aimed at Israel
as it does with many other allies. The senior administration official also
noted that there is a general understanding in the administration that Israel
may have come to the firm conclusion Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.
Just last week, the recently retired chief of
Israeli military intelligence told CNN's David McKenzie that the
"Iranians have already decided that they want nuclear weapons," he
said. But he added they haven't decided fully to go through with creating
the weapons. The official U.S. assessment is that Iran has not yet made that
decision, the source said.
At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Central
Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus, who said he has regular
discussions with Israel's leadership and intelligence head, noted that
"Israel does see this possibility as an existential threat to their
country, and I think that it is very important to keep that perspective in
mind." At the same hearing, Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper noted the United States works closely with the Israelis and said the
notion that Israel could strike is "a very sensitive issue right
now." "This is an area that we are very, very concerned about,"
Clapper said. Panetta's press secretary, George Little, declined to comment on
the report. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
recently said it would be premature for the United States to consider striking
Iran.
Zakaria: The
end of an era for Japan
By Fareed
Zakaria, CNN
Wherever you are in the world, you've
probably used or coveted some Japanese product - a Honda four-wheeler; a Toyota
Prius, a Sony, a Panasonic TV, a Nikon camera. Since the 1950s, Japan's exports
have flooded the world and fueled an economic miracle at home, making that
country one of the wealthiest in the world. Well, this week marks a turning
point - one of the world's great export engines has run out of gas.
What in the world is going on?
For the first time in 31 years, Japan has
recorded a trade deficit. In simple terms, that means Japan imported more than
it exported last year. Now this is not that unusual for some rich countries:
the U.S. has had a trade deficit since 1975, and yet we've grown. But the U.S.
economy is not built on exports. Japan's economic rise on the other hand, has
been almost entirely powered by exports.
So what has changed in Japan?
The Japanese government would like to blame
one-off events: Last year's earthquake and tsunami crippled factories and shut
down nuclear energy reactors. The offshoot of that was decreased economic
output, plus they needed to import expensive oil from the Middle East. But
natural disasters have only highlighted and accelerated existing trends in
Japan: A decline in competitiveness and an ageing work force. China and other
East Asian countries can now produce cheaper products and in greater
quantities. Add to that a rising Yen, and Japan's exporters have been at a
disadvantage globally. Toyota's chief perhaps said it best last year: "It
doesn't make sense to manufacture in Japan." Then add to this Japan's
demographics. Between 1990 and 2007, Japan's working population dropped from 86
to 83 million. At the same time, the number of Americans between the ages of 15
and 64 rose from 160 million to 200 million. In a global marketplace, this is a
major handicap for Tokyo. Between 2001 and 2010, Japan's economy grew at
seven-tenths of one percent - less than half the pace of America's. It was also
well behind Europe. Contrast that with growth per person - or GDP per capita -
and Japan actually outperforms America and the Euro Zone. So while Japan's
economy in aggregate has been hurt by this lack of workers, for the average
Japanese worker income is still up and quality of life is still very high.
That's partly why the country has not felt the pressure to reform. Now it's
easy to extrapolate from the data that Japan's low growth is not a failure of
economic policy, but just a reflection of its demographics. But that's too
simple. In reality, Japan's industry is becoming less competitive and even per
capita incomes will start slowing down. Tokyo's policymakers have failed its
people - they could have opened up many of its closed sectors to competition,
reformed its labor laws to make Japanese labor more attractive, cut pension
benefits, and allowed more immigration. Its government could have put the
country on a path to reduce its massive debt burden. Instead, we're now entering
an era where one of the great manufacturing nations of history faces a looming
current account deficit. With its debt at 211% of its GDP, if the cost of its
borrowing increases, Tokyo would face an even greater crisis: A default.
Keeping a rich country competitive is very hard, especially in a democracy
where interest groups keep asking for more - more benefits, more subsidies,
more protections. They want to be shielded from competitive forces. It is
happening in America, just as it happened in Japan. It's easy to forget how
powerful a growth engine Japan was in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.
But eventually, it was unable to change its
ways, reform, and get less rigid. The result was decline.
Complete Civil War submarine
unveiled for first time
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Confederate Civil War vessel H.L. Hunley,
the world's first successful combat submarine, was unveiled in full and
unobstructed for the first time on Thursday, capping a decade of careful
preservation. "No one alive has ever seen the Hunley complete. We're going
to see it today," engineer John King said as a crane at a Charleston
conservation laboratory slowly lifted a massive steel truss covering the top of
the submarine. About 20 engineers and scientists applauded as they caught the
first glimpse of the intact 42-foot-long (13-meter-long) narrow iron cylinder,
which was raised from the ocean floor near Charleston more than a decade ago.
The public will see the same view, but in a water tank to keep it from rusting.
PhotoBlog: More images of the H.L. Hunley
"It's
like looking at the sub for the first time. It's like the end of a long
night," said Paul Mardikian, senior conservator since 1999 of the project to
raise, excavate and conserve the Hunley. In the summer of 2000, an expedition
led by adventurer Clive Cussler raised the Hunley and delivered it to the
conservatory on Charleston's old Navy base, where it sat in a 90,000-gallon
tank of fresh water to leach salt out of its iron hull.On weekdays, scientists
drain the tank and work on the sub. On weekends, tourists who before this week
could only see an obstructed view of the vessel in the water tank, now will be
able to see it unimpeded.
Heartbreak of the Hunley
Considered the Confederacy's stealth
weapon, the Hunley sank the Union warship Housatonic in the winter of 1864, and
then disappeared with all eight Confederate sailors inside. The narrow,
top-secret "torpedo fish," built in Mobile, Ala., by Horace Hunley
from cast iron and wrought iron with a hand-cranked propeller, arrived in
Charleston in 1863 while the city was under siege by Union troops and ships. In
the ensuing few months, it sank twice after sea trial accidents, killing 13
crew members, including Horace Hunley, who was steering. "There are
historical references that the bodies of one crew had to be cut into pieces to
remove them from the submarine," Mardikian told Reuters. "There was
forensic evidence when they found the bones (between 1993 and 2004 in a
Confederate graveyard beneath a football stadium in Charleston) that that was
true." The Confederate Navy hauled the sub up twice, recovered the bodies
of the crew, and planned a winter attack. On the night of Feb. 17, 1864, its
captain and seven crew left Sullivan's Island near Charleston, and hand-powered
the sub to the Union warship four miles (6.4 kilometers) offshore. From a metal
spar on its bow, the Hunley planted a 135-pound (61-kilogram) torpedo in the
hull of the ship, which burned and sank. Some historians say that the submarine
showed a mission-accomplished lantern signal from its hatch to troops back on
shore before it disappeared.
What scientists have found
Mardikian has the lantern, which
archaeologists found in the submarine more than a century later, in his
laboratory. Scientists removed 10 tons of sediment from the submarine, along
with the bones, skulls and even brain matter of the crew members, Mardikian
told Reuters. They also found fabric and sailors' personal belongings. Facial
reconstructions were made of each member of the third and final crew. They are
displayed along with other artifacts in a museum near the submarine. In a
nearby vault is a bent gold coin that archaeologists also found in the
submarine. It was carried by the sub's captain, Lieutenant George Dixon, for
good luck after it stopped a bullet from entering his leg during the Battle of
Shiloh in 1862. "The submarine was a perfect time capsule of everything
inside," said Ben Rennison, one of three maritime archaeologists on the
project. The Hunley Project is a partnership among the South Carolina Hunley
Commission, Clemson University Restoration Institute, the Naval Historical
Center and the nonprofit Friends of the Hunley. The nonprofit group raised and
spent $22 million on the project through 2010, a spokeswoman told Reuters. The
next phase of the project will be to remove corrosion on the iron hull and
reveal the submarine's skin, preserve it with chemicals, and eventually display
it in open air, Mardikian said.
Surprisingly sophisticated
Scientists have found the vessel to be a
more sophisticated feat of engineering than historians had thought, said
Michael Drews, director of Clemson's Warren Lasch Conservation Center. "It
has the ballast tanks fore and aft, the dive planes were counterbalanced, the
propeller was shrouded," Drews said. "It's just got all of the
elements that the modern submarines have, updated." There were previous
submarines, Drews said, but the Hunley, designed to sail in the open ocean and built
for warfare, was cutting-edge technology at the time. "Dixon's mission was
to attack and sink an enemy ship and he did," Drews said. "At that
particular time, the mindset of naval warfare was, basically, big ships sink
little ships. Little ships do not sink big ships. And the Hunley turned that
upside down."
John 6:47 “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes
has eternal life.”