Daily Archives: 12 March 2013

Anti-Euro Party Appears in Germany

I hope the 65% of Germans who oppose the Euro support these guys, but I doubt it.

open quote Well, it was probably only a matter of time: a German anti-euro party has just come onto the scene.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reports that the new party will launch in April under the name “Alternative for Germany”. The party appears to be an offspring of “Wahlalternative 2013” (Election Alternative 2013) – a group consisting mostly of academics but also including Hans-Olaf Henkel, the well-known and outspoken former head of Germany’s employers federation BDI. close quote (Read more)

Guaranteed Employment, say EU Ministers!

open quote

Young people without a job will be guaranteed the offer of employment, training or further education under a new decision agreed yesterday (28 February) by EU national ministers.

The new scheme, to be introduced by each EU country according to its individual need, will apply to young people who are out of work for more than four months. It aims to give them a real chance to further their education, or get a job, apprenticeship or traineeship.
One in five young Europeans is jobless. In countries such as Greece and Spain, half are unemployed.

“Too many young Europeans are asking if they will ever find a job or have the same quality of life as their parents,” European Commission President JosÃ© Manuel Barroso said, welcoming the ministers’ decision. close quote (Read more)

‘Toaster Pastry Gun Freedom Act’ proposed in Maryland

Who says politicians don’t create anything worthwhile? This is damn good comedy:

open quote A Maryland state senator has crafted a bill to curb the zeal of public school officials who are tempted to suspend students as young as kindergarten for having things — or talking about things, or eating things — that represent guns, but aren’t actually anything like real guns.

Sen. J. B. Jennings, a Republican who represents Baltimore Harford Counties, introduced “The Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013â€³ on Thursday, reports The Star Democrat.

“We really need to re-evaluate how kids are punished,” Jennings told The Star Democrat. “These kids can’t comprehend what they are doing or the ramifications of their actions.”

“These suspensions are going on their permanent records and could have lasting effects on their educations,” he added.

A nationwide flurry of suspensions seemed to reach an absurd level recently when Josh Welch, a second-grader at Park Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland, was suspended for two days because his teacher thought he shaped a strawberry, pre-baked toaster pastry into something resembling a gun. (RELATED: Second-grader suspended for breakfast pastry)

“I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top of it and kind of looked like a gun,” the seven-year-old told Fox News.

“But it wasn’t,” he astutely added.

As Reason’s Hit & Run blog noted, Park Elementary School officials later offered counseling to other students who may have been traumatized by the pastry. close quote

Keep in mind, this counseling for a gun-shaped pastry is being offered in a country where kids used to bring rifles to school, leave them in their lockers, then walk home along the corn fields shooting vermin.