Study hard, readers!
"Ga. sanctions educators in cheating scandal" October 14, 2011|Associated Press
ATLANTA - A state commission decided yesterday to revoke the teaching licenses of eight teachers and three school administrators in Atlanta’s public school system, imposing the first sanctions in one of the nation’s largest school cheating scandals....
Investigators said that educators gave answers to students or changed answers on tests after students had turned them in. Teachers who tried to report the cheating were retaliated against and punished, creating a culture of fear and intimidation in the district, investigators reported.
The investigation also has led to one by the US Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General and the Georgia Department of Education, which says the district could owe thousands in federal money for low-income schools that have high test scores.
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Related: Skipping School Series: Angry in Atlanta
Lot of anger down there:
"Suspected Ga. militia members charged in domestic terror plot; 4 senior citizens targeted FBI, ATF, prosecutors say" November 03, 2011|By Greg Bluestein, Associated Press
GAINESVILLE, Ga. - In the violent underground novel “Absolved,’’ right-wing militia members upset about gun control make war against the US government. This week, federal prosecutors accused four Georgia men of plotting to use the book as a script for a real-life wave of terror and assassination involving explosives and the highly lethal poison ricin.
The four suspected militia members allegedly boasted of a bucket list of government officials who needed to be “taken out’’; talked about scattering ricin from a plane or a car speeding down a highway past major US cities; and scouted offices of the Internal Revenue Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, with one man saying, “We’d have to blow the whole building like Timothy McVeigh.’’
So who was their FBI handler?
Investigators had the suspects under surveillance for at least seven months -infiltrating meetings at a Waffle House, in homes, and at various other locations - before arresting them Tuesday, days after discovering evidence that they were trying to extract ricin from castor beans....
The four gray-haired men....
At that point I began laughing so hard I couldn't finish the article.
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"Ga. man convicted in plot to seize courthouse" October 26, 2011|Associated Press
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - A jury convicted a Georgia man yesterday of a federal firearms charge in what authorities said was a plot to take over a Tennessee courthouse and force President Obama out of office.
Darren Wesley Huff, 41, was stopped by Tennessee officers in April 2010 and he told them he was bringing guns into the state from Dallas, Ga., to support efforts to arrest Monroe County officials who refused to indict Obama.
Huff belonged to a Georgia militia and the “birther’’ movement that disputes Obama’s US citizenship....
Related: Obama the Love Child
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Also see: Around AmeriKa: The Devil Went Down to Georgia
He left his mark:
"Ga. factory worker sues, saying he was fired for refusing to wear ‘666’ sticker" November 19, 2011|Associated Press
ATLANTA - A Georgia factory worker said in a federal lawsuit that he was fired after he refused to wear a “666’’ sticker he feared would doom him to eternal damnation.
Billy E. Hyatt said he was fired from Pliant Corp., a plastics factory in northern Georgia near Dalton, after he refused to wear a sticker proclaiming that his factory had been accident-free for 666 days. That number is considered the “mark of the beast’’ in the Bible’s Book of Revelation describing the apocalypse.
Hyatt, who said he’s a devout Christian, had worked for the north Georgia plastics company since June 2007, and like other employees wore stickers each day that proclaimed how long the factory had gone without an accident.
But he grew nervous in early 2009 as the number of accident-free days crept into the 600s.
As the company’s safety calendar approached day 666, Hyatt said he approached a manager and explained that wearing it would force him “to accept the mark of the beast and to be condemned to hell.’’
He said the manager assured him he wouldn’t have to wear the number.
When the day came on March 12, 2009, Hyatt sought a manager to discuss his request.
He said he was told that his beliefs were “ridiculous’’ and that he should wear the sticker or serve a three-day suspension.
Hyatt took the three-day suspension and was fired at a human resources meeting several days later.
He then filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and his lawyer, Stephen Mixon, said the agency granted him the right to sue the company in August.
The lawsuit, which seeks punitive damages and back pay, said the company forced him into a terrible situation: keep his job or “abandon his religious beliefs.’’
The company, now known as Berry Plastics Corp., did not return several calls and e-mails seeking comment.
It has yet to respond to the complaint in court.
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There are other signs that Satan is near:
"Ga. wildfire has cost $52.7m; After six months, keeps smoldering underground" October 29, 2011|By Russ Bynum, Associated Press
SAVANNAH, Ga. - A wildfire that scorched hundreds of square miles since last spring continues to creep through the Okefenokee Swamp as it burns underground fueled by dead and decaying plants, and the cost to taxpayers so far is $52.7 million.
It has been six months since a lightning strike ignited the Honey Prairie fire April 28, deep within the boundaries of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge near the Georgia-Florida line. There is little if any active flame, and the smoke that once smothered much of southeast Georgia has been reduced to sporadic puffs wafting from the swamp’s surface. “It’s burning down mostly underground,’’ said Arthur Webster, supervisory ranger for the 402,000-acre refuge. “It’s burning deeply enough where occasionally a tree will just fall over because all the peat is burned out around it.’’
The fire continues to slowly consume acreage and to cost money, and officials say its nearly dormant state belies concerns that the fire could come roaring back to life and threaten nearby communities....
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