Eeyore's News and view

Profound shift in kind of families who are home schooling their children
Parents who home-school children increasingly are white, wealthy and well-educated — and their numbers have nearly doubled in a decade, a new federal government report says.
What else has nearly doubled? The percentage of girls who are home-schooled. They now outnumber home-schooled boys by a wide margin.
As of spring 2007, an estimated 1.5 million, or 2.9% of all school-age children in the USA, were home-schooled, up from 1.7% in 1999.
The new figures come from the U.S. Department of Education, which found that 36% of parents said their most important reason for home schooling was to provide "religious or moral instruction"; 21% cited concerns about school environment. Only 17% cited "dissatisfaction with academic instruction."
Perhaps most significant: The ratio of home-schooled boys to girls has shifted significantly. In 1999, it was 49% boys, 51% girls. Now boys account for only 42%; 58% are girls.
That may well be a result of parents who are fed up with mean-girl behavior in schools, says Henry Cate, who along with his wife home-schools their three daughters in Santa Clara, Calif. "It's just pushing some parents over the edge," says Cate, who writes the blog Why Homeschool.
Home schooling has grown most sharply for higher-income families. In 1999, 63.6% of home-schooling families earned less than $50,000. Now 60.0% earn more than $50,000.
Cate says many highly educated, high-income parents are "probably people who are a little bit more comfortable in taking risks" in choosing a college or line of work. "The attributes that facilitate that might also facilitate them being more comfortable with home-schooling."
Among the other findings:
• 3.9% of white families home-school, up from 2% in 1999.
• 6.8% of college-educated parents home-school, up from 4.9% in 1999.
Michelle Blimes home-schools her three daughters in Orem, Utah. Initially it was for academics, and now she sees social benefits. "They should be able to enjoy playing and being kids before being thrown into the teen culture," Blimes says.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-05-28-homeschooling-report_N.htm

WHO chief says world should prepare for severe flu
By Laura MacInnis and Stephanie Nebehay Laura Macinnis And Stephanie Nebehay
Sun May 24, 1:26 am ET
GENEVA (Reuters) – Countries should be ready for more serious H1N1 flu
infections and more deaths from the newly discovered virus, World Health
Organization chief Margaret Chan said on Friday.
The highly contagious strain must be closely monitored in parts of Asia,
Africa and South America where the winter season is beginning in case it
mixes with seasonal flu and mutates in "unpredictable ways," Chan told the
closing session of her United Nations agency's annual congress.
"In cases where the H1N1 virus is widespread and circulating within the
general community, countries must expect to see more cases of severe and
fatal infections," she said. "We do not at present expect this to be a
sudden and dramatic jump in severe illness and deaths."
In the WHO's latest tally, the strain has infected more than 11,000 people
in 42 countries and killed 86.
Chan told the end of the week-long World Health Assembly that poorer
countries need to quickly improve their monitoring for the new flu, which
has caused mainly mild symptoms in most patients but could become more
serious as it spreads.
"This is a subtle, sneaky virus," she said. "We have clues, many clues,
but very few firm conclusions."
Another senior WHO official, Keiji Fukuda, later told a news conference
the United Nations agency was rethinking its criteria for declaring a full
H1N1 pandemic is underway to factor in its severity as well as its
geographical spread.
"What we are looking for and what we will be looking for is something,
events, which signify a really significant increase in risk of harm to
people," said Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director-general.
The WHO's global flu alert is currently at level 5 out of 6, meaning that
a pandemic is "imminent."
Officials from the WHO's 193 member states have been pushing this week for
an altered definition of a Phase 6 pandemic to reduce the risk of
unnecessary public panic.
"The bottom line here is we are trying to walk a very fine line between
not raising panic but also not becoming complacent," Fukuda said, adding
that criteria would be reviewed now that the assembly had ended.
The WHO's current rulebook requires a full pandemic to be declared once
the air-borne virus is spreading in a sustained way in two regions of the
world. The H1N1 strain has been most prevalent in North America and has
also caused growing pockets of infection in Japan, Spain and Britain.
Chan said there was little real difference between the WHO's current
pandemic alert level of 5 and the highest of 6 in terms of preparedness
measures taken, and she would consult experts before opting to raise it
again.
"The decision to declare an influenza pandemic is a responsibility and a
duty that I take very, very seriously," she said. "I will consider all the
scientific information available. I will be advised by the emergency
committee."
The WHO expects that by the end of May, laboratories will be able to send
candidate viruses to drug companies to be tested as vaccine viruses,
according to Fukuda.
"We are hopeful that by the end of June, by the beginning of July, this
will be the time when commercial companies will be in the position of
beginning to, or being able to make H1N1 vaccine," he said.
While the new flu virus dominated their meeting, officials also passed
resolutions on the need to improve treatment of multi-drug-resistant
tuberculosis and prepare for a surge in diseases including mosquito-borne
malaria due to global warming.
http://frc4u.org/phpbb/index.php?topic=1280.msg3266#new

Zoellick Warns Stimulus ‘Sugar High’ Won’t Stem Unemployment
May 30 (Bloomberg) -- World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned policy makers that fiscal-stimulus plans are insufficient to turn around the “real economy” and rising joblessness threatens to set off political unrest across the globe.
“While the stimulus has given an impulse, it’s like a sugar high unless you eventually get the credit system working,” Zoellick said in an interview yesterday with Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.” “When unemployment increases, that’s probably the most political combustible issue.”
Zoellick’s caution is a contrast with private economists, who are raising their outlooks for growth from India to China as stimulus measures take effect. The biggest developed and emerging nations have committed spending increases and tax cuts totaling 2 percent of their combined economies, a level the International Monetary Fund recommended to end the recession.
The World Bank is monitoring private companies’ abilities to roll over “a lot” of debt in the developing world, Zoellick said. At the same time, he played down risks to the global recovery posed by rising U.S. Treasury yields, saying that “in terms of absolute levels, rates are still pretty low for most players.”
Zoellick also said that the dollar will remain the world’s main currency “for a long time,” and noted that investors flocked to the dollar as a haven during the worst parts of the financial crisis.
Reagan, Bush Terms
Zoellick, 55, took the helm of the World Bank in 2007, and served as U.S. deputy secretary of state and chief trade negotiator in the Bush administration, and in positions at the Treasury Department under President Ronald Reagan. At State, he played a central role in formulating policy toward China, before departing government for a stint at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Chinese officials’ comments calling for a new international currency have been “over-read” and may be more of an indication of the nation’s desire to free up its capital flows, Zoellick said. He added that China’s stimulus has helped stoke growth In the nation that “may even beat expectations a little bit.”
China this year approved a $585 billion (4 trillion yuan) stimulus plan, and the U.S. is now implementing a $787 billion package of tax cuts and spending that President Barack Obama signed in February.
“Right now, the international system appears to have a sufficient amount of stimulus,” Zoellick said. “The danger is if you spend too much government money, you create a different problem.”
Yields Climb
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields have climbed about 1.25 percentage point so far this year to 3.46 percent, reflecting in part some investors’ concerns at faster inflation and record budget deficits. Rates on 30-year fixed mortgages exceeded 5 percent. Still, Zoellick noted that in recent days there’s been “unwinding” of some of investors’ concerns.
“In terms of financial markets, I think people have broken the fall,” Zoellick said. What’s needed now is to “focus on how to recapitalize banks and deal with the bad assets -- that’s a story that’s still going forward.”
In the U.S., Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner aims to use money from the $700 billion financial-rescue fund to help kick-start a $1 trillion effort to remove devalued loans and securities from banks’ balance sheets. The first transactions for mortgage securities aren’t expected to start for months.
Eastern Europe is one region in particular danger of a further economic decline, the World Bank president said.
Eastern Europe
“The nature of integration over the past 20 years has been unwound somewhat,” Zoellick said. He warned about “the danger of unemployment leading to protectionism as politicians sort of feel they run out of different levers.”
Eastern European nations have received more than $90 billion in international aid since September to prevent the countries shaken by the financial crisis from defaulting. Nations that have received bailouts include Romania, Hungary, Belarus, Serbia, Latvia and Ukraine.
Credit ratings companies have downgraded the outlooks for banks in the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
Foreign lenders in Romania and Hungary pledged this month to keep doing business there to help the economies weather the economic turbulence. Romanian banks, about 90 percent foreign- owned, agreed to boost their capital by a total of 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) by March 2010 as overdue debt rises, the IMF said on May 22.
Protectionist Threat
Another threat is trade protectionism, which nations may resort to in order to protect their industries from the global slump, Zoellick said.
“The real danger is that you get into a cycle of retaliation,” he said. He estimated that 17 of the Group of 20 emerging and developing nations are considering or imposing restrictions on trade, breaking a pledge they made during an April 2 summit in London.
The World Trade Organization in March predicted a 9 percent drop in global commerce this year.
China and Brazil are researching how they can conduct trade in the yuan and real, in a signal they’re seeking to reduce their reliance on the dollar.
“You could -- and you’ve already seen this over the past 20 years -- have multiple currencies” used in the global system, Zoellick said. “You will see China and India playing a larger role, including in financial markets.”
Still, he added that “I just don’t believe it’s going to supplant the U.S. as a reserve currency.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZMsPVTXn9I8&refer=worldwide

New Solar Cycle Prediction
May 29, 2009: An international panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle. Solar Cycle 24 will peak, they say, in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots.
"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," says panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.
Right: A solar flare observed in Dec. 2006 by NOAA's GOES-13 satellite.
It is tempting to describe such a cycle as "weak" or "mild," but that could give the wrong impression.
"Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather," points out Biesecker. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013."
The 1859 storm--known as the "Carrington Event" after astronomer Richard Carrington who witnessed the instigating solar flare--electrified transmission cables, set fires in telegraph offices, and produced Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages to society's high-tech infrastructure and require four to ten years for complete recovery. For comparison, Hurricane Katrina caused "only" $80 to 125 billion in damage.
The latest forecast revises an earlier prediction issued in 2007. At that time, a sharply divided panel believed solar minimum would come in March 2008 followed by either a strong solar maximum in 2011 or a weak solar maximum in 2012. Competing models gave different answers, and researchers were eager for the sun to reveal which was correct.
"It turns out that none of our models were totally correct," says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA's lead representative on the panel. "The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting way."
Researchers have known about the solar cycle since the mid-1800s. Graphs of sunspot numbers resemble a roller coaster, going up and down with an approximately 11-year period. At first glance, it looks like a regular pattern, but predicting the peaks and valleys has proven troublesome. Cycles vary in length from about 9 to 14 years. Some peaks are high, others low. The valleys are usually brief, lasting only a couple of years, but sometimes they stretch out much longer. In the 17th century the sun plunged into a 70-year period of spotlessness known as the Maunder Minimum that still baffles scientists.
Right now, the solar cycle is in a valley--the deepest of the past century. In 2008 and 2009, the sun set Space Age records for low sunspot counts, weak solar wind, and low solar irradiance. The sun has gone more than two years without a significant solar flare.
"In our professional careers, we've never seen anything quite like it," says Pesnell. "Solar minimum has lasted far beyond the date we predicted in 2007."
In recent months, however, the sun has begun to show timorous signs of life. Small sunspots and "proto-sunspots" are popping up with increasing frequency. Enormous currents of plasma on the sun’s surface ("zonal flows") are gaining strength and slowly drifting toward the sun’s equator. Radio astronomers have detected a tiny but significant uptick in solar radio emissions. All these things are precursors of an awakening Solar Cycle 24 and form the basis for the panel's new, almost unanimous forecast.
According to the forecast, the sun should remain generally calm for at least another year. From a research point of view, that's good news because solar minimum has proven to be more interesting than anyone imagined. Low solar activity has a profound effect on Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to cool and contract. Space junk accumulates in Earth orbit because there is less aerodynamic drag. The becalmed solar wind whips up fewer magnetic storms around Earth's poles. Cosmic rays that are normally pushed back by solar wind instead intrude on the near-Earth environment. There are other side-effects, too, that can be studied only so long as the sun remains quiet.
Meanwhile, the sun pays little heed to human committees. There could be more surprises, panelists acknowledge, and more revisions to the forecast.
"Go ahead and mark your calendar for May 2013," says Pesnell. "But use a pencil."
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm

Obama Lifts Ban on Lobbyists! Back to Business as Usual
By Warner Todd Huston Saturday, May 30, 2009
Roll Call is reporting that during the typical Friday afternoon document dump — a practice used to hide actions that might prove somewhat embarrassing to the White House — the administration quietly announced that some of the former restrictions on lobbying ballyhooed about during the late campaign have been lifted.
Let special interests ring!
Roll Call (see here, but subscription is required) says that the administration lifted bans on lobbyists that have some part of spending “stimulus” funds. So now getting hooks into bloated federal spending is open season for the very lobbyists that Obama pretended to disdain only months ago.
So much for hopinchange.
The ban on oral communication now applies only to competitively bid applications on the stimulus package and it applies equally to lobbyists as well as non-lobbyists, according to a White House blog post written by ethics official Norm Eisen.
Additionally, the administration is still also pretending at “transparency” because one of the new rules is that there be “immediate internet disclosure” of this renewed contact that lobbyists are to have with federal agencies. Not that such a thing is anywhere near de rigueur at this point… but, um, you know how hard The One is working, right?
So why the reverse? According to Roll Call:
The decision to change the policy follows the 60-day review period that the Obama administration set for the Office of Management and Budget to review the new lobbying rules. Several watchdog groups and lobbying entities, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American League of Lobbyists and the AFL-CIO, raised concern over the recently imposed rules.
So, I guess the hopinchangieness wasn’t as hopey and changie as it was once imagined?
http://frc4u.org/phpbb/index.php?topic=1531.msg3286#new