Thursday, April 21, 2005
School suspension figures for last year are slightly down on 2003 and the trend shows a steady reduction, says the Government. There were 4774 suspensions last year, compared with 4885 in 2003. Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope says suspension cases appear to involve a very small fraction of school students - close to half of 1 per cent. He said suspensions were concentrated in a small number of schools - less than 3 per cent of schools were responsible for 43 per cent of suspensions.
Eat your heart out Dr Don - in the USA you can actually debate the merits of school choice. The Heritage Foundation has launched a new School Choice website.
Pokie numbers will be slashed, porn magazines will be pushed behind the counter and tolls could be scrapped from the Scoresby link if Australia's Family First party gets the balance of power in next year's state election. The fledging party has laid out its vision for the state.
Same-sex civil unions have become law in Connecticut, after Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell signed landmark legislation making Connecticut the first state to recognize same-sex civil unions without court pressure.
Meanwhile, Americans appear to be more negative towards same-sex marriage. Support for an amendment to the US Constitution that would define marriage as "being between a man and a woman, thus barring marriages between gay or lesbian couples," has risen to 57% in a recent Gallup Poll. This is the highest measured across seven times the question has been asked using this wording since the summer of 2003. About two-thirds of Americans also believe more generally that same-sex marriages should not be recognized by law as valid.
Dozens of US Episcopal parishes have broken off from the national denomination since an openly homosexual priest was elevated as bishop in 2003.
There are hundreds of articles about the new Pope on the internet. But this one in Christianity Today is short, yet gives a penetrating look at what sort of person Benedict XVI is, and what we might expect from his papacy.
Tail-out: By the time Cardinal Ratzinger assumed the papacy on Tuesday, it was already too late for the Vatican to buy the corresponding dot-com Web address. A Florida man, Rogers Cadenhead, registered the address BenedictXVI.com on April 1. To cover his bases, Cadenhead also registered ClementXV.com, InnocentXIV.com, LeoXIV.com, PaulVII.com, and PiusXIII.com.
Eat your heart out Dr Don - in the USA you can actually debate the merits of school choice. The Heritage Foundation has launched a new School Choice website.
Pokie numbers will be slashed, porn magazines will be pushed behind the counter and tolls could be scrapped from the Scoresby link if Australia's Family First party gets the balance of power in next year's state election. The fledging party has laid out its vision for the state.
Same-sex civil unions have become law in Connecticut, after Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell signed landmark legislation making Connecticut the first state to recognize same-sex civil unions without court pressure.
Meanwhile, Americans appear to be more negative towards same-sex marriage. Support for an amendment to the US Constitution that would define marriage as "being between a man and a woman, thus barring marriages between gay or lesbian couples," has risen to 57% in a recent Gallup Poll. This is the highest measured across seven times the question has been asked using this wording since the summer of 2003. About two-thirds of Americans also believe more generally that same-sex marriages should not be recognized by law as valid.
Dozens of US Episcopal parishes have broken off from the national denomination since an openly homosexual priest was elevated as bishop in 2003.
There are hundreds of articles about the new Pope on the internet. But this one in Christianity Today is short, yet gives a penetrating look at what sort of person Benedict XVI is, and what we might expect from his papacy.
Tail-out: By the time Cardinal Ratzinger assumed the papacy on Tuesday, it was already too late for the Vatican to buy the corresponding dot-com Web address. A Florida man, Rogers Cadenhead, registered the address BenedictXVI.com on April 1. To cover his bases, Cadenhead also registered ClementXV.com, InnocentXIV.com, LeoXIV.com, PaulVII.com, and PiusXIII.com.
