Ted Heiks was born in Columbus, Ohio, on January 21, 1962, the son of two poor as church mice college students at Ohio State. When Ted Heiks' father graduated with his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering with Nuclear Option in June 1963, the family headed to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where Ted's dad worked for the Atomic Energy Commission and did further studies at the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology. In 1966, Ted's dad took a summer job in Connecticut and then moved the family to Michigan in order to take a position with Consumers Power Company, now known as CMS Energy. That position lasted until August 1978, when Ted's dad took a vice-presidency at Plateau Resources Limited in Grand Junction, Colorado, a concern wholly owned by CMS Energy. While residing in Grand Junction, Ted Heiks graduated Fruita Monument High School on May 19, 1980 and began his collegiate studies at Mesa College, now known as Mesa State College. When Ted's advisor retired, Ted transferred to Western State College of Colorado www.western.edu, where he completed his BA in History and Political Science on August 3, 1984 and did further studies toward an MA in Social Studies with History Emphasis (but did not complete his graduate studies). Ted Heiks also did some work toward an MA in Mediaeval History at the University of Colorado Boulder www.colorado.edu (but did not graduate). Ted Heiks then resided in the Greater Seattle area from August 1986 to August 2001. During this time he completed an MBA in Entrepreneurship (1992) and an MBA in Marketing (1993) at City University www.cityu.edu, now known as City University of Seattle. Mr. Heiks also attempted a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies at Faith Evangelical Lutheran Seminary www.faithseminary.edu in Tacoma, Washington (another incomplete attempt at graduate studies). Mr. Heiks then attempted studies towards an MA in Humanities with History Emphasis at California State University Dominguez Hills www.csudh.edu and an MA in Civil War Studies at American Military University www.apus.edu (but dropped out of both simultaneously). Ted Heiks has lived in Ottawa County, Ohio, since August 2001. Ted Heiks acquired his first copy of Bears' Guide in 1992 and has been a member of degreeinfo.com since February 2005.
Ted Heiks Wrote:Ted Heiks is now a Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member.
Is it just me or did Ted include entirely more than I needed or wanted to know about him (and in the third person)? (Thank God he didn't feel obligated to once again discuss his lack of wood. I'm generally not squeamish but that is a topic best left between the unfortunate soul and his doctor.)
When the Fayetteville, Ark., Gay Pride Parade steps off on East Street Saturday on its way to the Walton Art Center parking lot, it will be led by a young man who has made a career out of fighting for gay rights.
Make that a young boy. Will Phillips, the grand marshal, is 10 years old, and his presence has thrust Fayetteville's Gay Pride Parade into the national spotlight.
Ordinarily, the annual parade is pretty low-key, residents say. The mayor issues a proclamation, the police close a few streets and a few hundred people show up, something that Skip Descant, who covers the city for the Northwest Arkansas Times, says is a lot for a Saturday morning in the summer.
Booths are set up in the Wal-Mart parking lot; people linger to hear a few speeches in the hot sun; sometimes there are a few jeers; and then everyone goes home early. It is a pretty low-key affair.
But the selection of young Will, who last November refused to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school to show his support for gay rights, has changed all that. This year the parade has drawn national attention, and it's promising to tread the line between farce and confrontation.
The American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Miss., has called Will's selection to be grand marshal “a form of child abuse,” and it has called on the city’s mayor to “cancel his plans to issue a proclamation celebrating homosexual behavior and gay pride.”
“We believe that it goes beyond the pale for adults to exploit a 10-year-old child for dark political purposes,” said Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis at AFA. “He is too young to understand. There is nothing about homosexual conduct to be proud of and much to be ashamed of.”
The AFA, according to Fischer, has sent an “action alert” to its members in Arkansas, and he says they have deluged the mayor’s and city council’s office with e-mails “asking him to stop this charade.” Though there are no plans to actively protest at the parade, Fischer said, “as of noon Thursday our records show that the mayor and city council had received 12,300 e-mails asking them to stop the parade.”
It is an argument that young Will Phillips doesn’t accept. The boy has begun a media blitz of local and national television stations, explaining that he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance because it says “all men are created equal,” but gays don’t have the same rights as everyone else. That, the boy says, is why he has become an ambassador of gay rights.
Efforts to reach Will and his father were unsuccessful.
Will, who in March received the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) award for his stand, has complained that his support of gay rights has caused him trouble at school and that he has been called a “gay wad” by other students. That prompted comedian newscaster Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, to hire professional wrestler Mick Foley to protect Phillips this weekend.
“If I find out that anybody has hassled this young man or teased him or called him a wad of any sort, I and perhaps a few of my friends will come to his school and bring a world of pain,’ Foley warned.
Even within the gay alliance in Arkansas, Will's role has sparked tension. In reaction to the AFA’s charges that children who attend the parade would be in danger, organizer Joney Harper said: “We are not San Francisco ... New York ... we’re pretty much a family affair, so it is pretty safe to be there.”
That remark prompted other gay groups to attack him for implying that children might not be safe at Pride gatherings in San Francisco or New York.
As one city hall worker remarked in taking a message for the mayor, “This year’s parade is going to be different.”
Envoy Rashad Hussain says U.S. will work with Organization for the Islamic Conference in the UN to stop "defamation of religion."
BY Stephen Schwartz
June 24, 2010 10:18 AM
Rashad Hussain, America’s special envoy to the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Saudi-based body formed in 1969 to “protect” Jerusalem from the Israelis, announced a new title this week for President Barack Obama. According to Hussain, Obama is America’s “Educator-in-Chief on Islam.”
Hussain so designated Obama in a keynote speech Wednesday, June 23, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The occasion was another “post-Cairo” conference, following on the event that welcomed Islamist ideologue Tariq Ramadan to Washington in April. Hussain also declared that Obama is “Educator-in-Chief” on the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which has produced diplomatic and political events around the capital for some years. Hussain affirmed with satisfaction that presidential iftar dinners, where the fast is broken after sundown, and which had formerly been limited to diplomats from Muslim countries, now welcomed American Muslims from throughout society.
In his remarks, Hussain also congratulated Obama for sending Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser, to last year’s annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, a notorious front for Saudi-financed Muslim radicalism. Worse, Hussain has now divulged that the U.S. will support the OIC in the latter’s United Nations effort to criminalize “defamation of religion” – widely perceived as a measure to suppress criticism of Muslim practices that violate human rights. "The OIC and the Obama administration will work together in the UN on the issue of defamation of religion, especially in Europe," said Hussain. He had previously said, at the above-mentioned April “post-Cairo” conference, that the U.S. would work with the OIC to defend the Muslim head-scarf against prohibitions on its display in schools and governmental offices – a measure common to secular France and now Islamist-ruled, but still legally-secular Turkey, as well as Muslim-majority Tunisia and Kosovo.
Obama, Hussain declaimed, has created an “overarching framework” for relations between Muslims and non-Muslims that is lacking in Europe. The problem, according to the president’s man at the OIC, is that a once-favorable relationship between the West and the Muslim countries has turned negative in the past decade – presumably, since 9/11. Put plainly, Obama’s desire to educate Americans about Islam is founded on nostalgia for a warm and reliable friendship that rarely existed.
As noted by Hussain, Obama has called for references to “Islamic terrorism” and “jihadism” to be expunged from the official vocabulary employed by his administration, and has pronounced last year’s Fort Hood massacre to be unrelated to Islam. As the president has assured the world, terrorism is anti-Islamic and the term “jihad” has been misused. Thus Obama presumes not only to act as “educator” on Islam to non-Muslim Americans, but to define the religion for its own adherents.
Hussain addressed his comments to an event assessing the impact of Obama’s Cairo speech. But Hussain employed a phrase that must have been chilling to those who heard in it an echo, saying “Islam is a solution” to the current global challenges emerging from Muslim ranks. A “post-Cairo” phrase indeed: “Islam is the solution” is the slogan of the radical Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Are we learning yet?
Dr. Jerroll Dolphin has filed a substitution of attorney in his federal action against Gollin and U of Illinois, replacing Thaddeus Culpepper as plaintiffs' attorney with himself pro se.
In a related document he asserts lack of communication by Culpepper. This phenomenon often occurs in tandem with lack of payment by the client, although there is no specific indication that is the situation here.
This is a very bad sign for future success of his action. As typically happens, well-heeled parties try to deny their less affluent opponents their day in court by filing motion after motion until somebody runs out of money.
Not surprisingly, motions to dismiss by ECFMG, FAIER, U of I, Oregon and Gollin are all pending. Ultimately we might expect them to be granted, not because they have any merit, but because the plaintiff isn't likely to be opposing them effectively.
This is a shame because the clone spin on this then will be how the evil diploma mill failed to prove its case, rather than just another instance of people with money and political power steam-rolling those without it.
The gay boy pornographer's 'team" now includes some fresh meat. Apparently their asses were determined to be sufficiently cavernous to earn a promotion.
They all must be so very proud to know that their names are now forever associated with all manner of pedophilia and perversion.
Assume the position lads....
Chip Wrote:Please Welcome our New Moderators
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It's been a while since we've added new moderators and with the post traffic (as well as the spammer traffic) increasing, it will be helpful to have some additional help in ensuring that moderated posts get approved more quickly and questions and problems get resolved.
So... Please show your appreciation for
Ted Heiks
Airtorn
MichaelOliver
Maniac Craniac
who have all agreed to help out with moderation responsibilities.
DegreeInfo relies on the volunteer moderators to help keep the site spam-free and (relatively) flame-free, and to keep things organized.
I and the rest of the team really appreciate the help of not only our newest moderators, but particularly Kizmet, who has almost single-handedly kept things well organized, Randell, who has helped out quite a bit, and Bruce, who has been a moderator since the site first opened.
At present, it is perfectly legal to operate a diploma mill. It is perfectly legal to outright sell someone a credential from your institution. There are no legal bans against such a practice.
Do you know why? It's not because it's hard to define what's meant by "diploma mill". It's because idiots at the CHEA are also trying to include substandard and alternative schools into the definition of "diploma mill". And the federal government isn't ever going to ban something which may just be substandard or subjective. Thus, diploma mills are allowed to operate.
When George Gollin, Allen Ezell, and the CHEA use the phrase "little or no" instead of just saying "sells degrees," they are telling us that they want degree sellers to exist. They want businesses which sell credentials. It's not because "people want them," it's because they want them. They're the unethical ones here. They know very well when they include substandards and alternative schools into the definition, "diploma mills" will never be banned or hunted down.
When the United States Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs puts up Kennedy Western as an example of a "diploma mill," and show us interviews and testimonials of people who claim to have done substantial work for their degree, it just leaves one to scratch their head on what a diploma mill is. People begin to jump in and defend their institution.
If anyone truly cared about banning the sale of credentials, a ban could be put in easily. A law could easily be written up banning the sale of credentials. With such a law, authorities could go after places which sell degrees, even if they're located abroad, as they already do with drug trafficking.
But due to someone's unsuccessful attempt to knockout the competition, out and out diploma mills continue to exist and operate legally. No crackdown will ever take place. By including substandard and alternative schools into the definition of "diploma mill," they are telling us that they would like the worldwide sale of credentials to continue.
People like George Gollin and the CHEA are to blame for not creating appropriate definitions for the government to ban and outlaw. Thus, buying a PHD is, has, and always will be, perfectly legal. I can count dozens of degree selling diploma mills operating on the internet which have operated for at least ten years straight with impunity.
Truly, college degrees are things to be bought and sold, here and forever, all thanks to the CHEA.
Pedophile-pandering porn peddling perverts like Thomas "Chip" White, degreeinfo owner and moderator, take notice. Your gay boy filth empire is about to be flushed down the sewer.
Briefing: Children in danger
By Rachel B. Duke THE WASHINGTON TIMES
7:15 p.m., Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Congress must ensure that obscenity laws are enforced so that children are not exposed to pornography on the Internet, researchers and advocates of Internet safety said Tuesday.
Speaking at a briefing at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, researchers said because obscenity laws have not been upheld or enforced, illegal adult pornography has flooded and polluted the Internet.
"Today we are calling on Congress and the Department of Justice to ensure that the enforcement of our current obscenity laws is a priority," said Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough Is Enough, a Virginia-based nonprofit that works to make the Internet safer for children and families. "Our children's innocence is worth fighting for."
Under the law, illegal adult pornography is known as obscenity. Obscenity is defined as graphic material that focuses on sex or sexual violence, and it includes lewd exhibition of the genitals, close-ups of graphic sex acts and deviant activities such as group sex, bestiality and incest.
"It continues to grow and to spread and has reached epidemic proportions," Mrs. Hughes said. "We are facing a national crisis that is every bit as damaging to our citizens and our culture as the oil spill is to the Gulf and the Gulf community."
Statistics show that seven in 10 children have accidentally accessed pornography on the Internet and one in three have done so intentionally. Forty percent of children accidentally access Internet pornography through innocent word searches such as "water sports."
Statistics show that the average age of exposure is 11 years old - some start at 8 years old. Any child is too young, Mrs. Hughes said.
"Imagery definitely affects children," said Dr. Sharon Cooper, a forensic pediatrician and faculty member at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine. "Adult pornography is a good example of giving children unhealthy sexual images."
Pornography normalizes sexual harm, Dr. Cooper said. It shows children a lack of any kind of emotional commitment or relationship between two consensual partners, shows unprotected sexual contact and visual examples often of violent rape.
"When a child sees this image of adult pornography, the mirror neurons that are in their brain will convince them that they are actually experiencing what they are seeing," she said.
Children are very vulnerable as compared to adults because of the presence of mirror neurons in the brain, Dr. Cooper said. Mirror neurons are part of the brain that convince us that when we see something we are actually experiencing it.
According to the American Psychological Association, over the past 12 years, girls have changed in their thinking. They are beginning to see themselves as having their only value in sexuality.
"When a child sees herself only as a sexual object, she is no longer able to demand the kind of respect she deserves," Dr. Cooper said. "The new definition of 'love' these days is sending a sexually explicit picture."
Enough Is Enough President Donna Rice Hughes joined other leading experts including Dr. Mary Anne Layden. Forensic Pediatrician Sharon Cooper M.D., Internationally acclaimed speaker and author Gail Dines, Attorney Laura Lederer, former porn star Shellly Lubben and former head of Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice Pat Trueman, to discuss the harms of pornography and what Congress can do to enforce existing laws.
Statement of EIE President Donna Rice Hughes
Pornography Harms: What Congress Can do to Enforce Existing Laws
It is a great honor to address you this morning and to be part of this distinguished panel of experts to discuss The War on Illegal “Adult” Pornography, known under the law as obscenity. In layman’s terms, obscenity is graphic material that focuses on sex and/or sexual violence. It includes close-ups of graphic sex acts, lewd exhibition of the genitals, and deviant activities such as group sex, bestiality, incest and excretory functions. For clarification, obscenity is not to be confused with soft-core pornography, known under the law as harmful to minors/indecent content. This material is protected under the constitution for adults, yet not for children in print and broadcast. Such laws have not successfully been upheld by the Supreme Court to protect minor children online. Nor is obscenity to be confused with child pornography, which is illegal.
Because obscenity laws have not been enforced, illegal “adult” pornography has flooded and polluted the Internet. It continues to grow and spread and has reached epidemic proportions. As you will hear today, we are indeed facing a national crisis that is every bit as damaging to our citizens and our cultural environment as the oil spill catastrophe is to the environment in the Gulf.
For fifteen years, children have been spoon-fed a steady diet of pornography. Kids can easily access a wide variety of free pornography in the privacy of their home or through any Internet-enabled device. “Portable porn” via PDAs, mobile phones, gaming devices and laptops now provide kids, as well as adults, “anywhere access” to this drug of the new millennium.
Statistics show that 7 in 10 kids have accidentally accessed pornography and 1 in 3 youth who viewed pornography viewed it intentionally. Internet pornographers are great innovators and use clever and deceptive marketing tactics to push their drug to anyone and everyone. The majority of porn sites have free teaser images and videos on their home pages and do not require any age verification. The content on this XXX site contains graphic sex acts and lewd exhibition of the genitals. For the purposes of this presentation, we have blurred the images on the slides I will be showing you.
40% of kids accidentally access pornography through innocent word searches. What do you think of when you hear the term, “watersports’? Here you see a captured screen of “watersports” which is explicit urination pornography with women being treated as toilets.
12% of kids accidently see pornography through misspelling a word. Boys.com is a wholesome site for boys. Boyz misspelled, however is a hard-core porn site. This is the homepage for boyz.com, which contains graphic close-ups of homosexual acts. As you can see, many porn sites also contain pornography advertised as “teen sex” or “barely legal”.
Pornographers also misuse popular cartoons. Children can easily stumble upon “DisneyPornland” where they can see their favorite Disney characters engaging in graphic sex acts. Of course, kids can always easily find pornography intentionally. This next slide is a captured screen from a Google search on bestiality. This search yielded over 2,550,000 results. Kids can see men and women engaging in sex acts with any animal on Noah’s ark.
The average age of first exposure is 11 years old, with some researchers saying first exposure is as young as 8 years old. 79% of unwanted exposure is occurring in the home. Parents, who should be the first line of defense, are forced to be the ONLY line of defense to shoulder the entire burden of protecting their children from prosecutable obscenity. This is unprecedented.
Does pornography harm children? Yes it does. Pornography is not just harmless fun. I am now going to show you a short excerpt from our Internet Safety 101 DVD teaching series where you will hear from teenagers who share the damage that pornography has had on their lives.
We have sacrificed an entire generation’s innocence on the altar of a misperception that prosecutable “adult” pornography is protected under the First Amendment. It is NOT. How many kids and how many more generations will be destroyed by the unintended consequences of our inaction to keep kids safe from this toxic drug? No child is immune.
We cannot undo the extensive damage already done, which you will learn more about today. But we can continue doing what we have been doing all along. Cry out “Enough Is Enough”! Today we are calling on Congress and the Department of Justice to ensure that the aggressive prosecution of our current obscenity laws is a priority. Our children’s innocence is worth fighting for. Thank you.
I'm sure we'll be seeing George Brown and his world wide consortium of busy bodies (i.e., Contreras and Gollin) speaking out about this embarrassing international scandal.... Don't worry, I won't hold my breath waiting.
Quote:By Keith Moor From: Herald Sun June 10, 2010 1:35AM
FOREIGN students are cheating and getting special treatment to ensure they get their degrees, according to evidence gathered in a secret investigation by the Ombudsman.
Victorian universities chasing a bigger slice of Australia's $17 billion a year foreign students industry have also been accused of pressuring staff to "dumb down" courses.
Some international students who failed tests at Royal Melbourne Institite of Technology were allowed to keep sitting the same exams until they passed, the Ombudsman's investigators allegedly found.
RMIT's 26,000 international students bring in almost $204 million a year to the university.
An RMIT whistleblower sparked the Ombudsman's investigation early this year. Investigators have found evidence suggesting:
- A teacher allowed students to cheat in aerospace and aviation exams.
- At least one Middle Eastern student suspected of cheating spent months in a detention centre while intelligence agencies checked his background.
- An international student graduated from RMIT despite turning up drunk, missing lectures, failing exams, abusing staff and students, and sparking sex assault accusations.
The university, and the individuals accused of wrongdoing, will be able to respond to the allegations in the Ombudsman's draft report before the final report was tabled in State Parliament.
RMIT Vice-Chancellor Margaret Gardner said the Whistleblowers Protection Act prevented her from commenting on the allegations until after the report is tabled.
She said she would be happy to answer questions when she was legally able to do so.
An RMIT teacher, who asked not to be named, said some staff were concerned foreign students were getting preferential treatment. "RMIT is falling over backwards to make sure these fee-paying international students don't fail," he said.
"A big slice of RMIT's income is generated by international students and they don't want to jeopardise it."
Leading Monash University researcher Bob Birrell claimed some international students who got degrees didn't have enough English to to get a job in Australia in their chosen fields.
Dr Birrell said he couldn't comment on the Ombudsman's report as he was not aware of its contents.
But he said competition between Victorian universities was so fierce that evidence suggested some were cutting corners as they desperately pursued the lucrative international student dollar.
"In order to deal with the students who were being recruited, they had to dumb down the curriculum," he said.
Investigators from the Ombudsman's office are believed to have discovered the cheating during an investigation into other damaging claims against RMIT.
They found evidence suggesting a long-serving teacher handed out an exam paper to a Middle Eastern aerospace student several days before the exam.
The student allegedly allowed other Middle Eastern students to use the exam paper to cheat.
Telephone records of the teacher and several aerospace students allegedly reveal late-night contact in the days before a test on the stress on aeroplane components.
![[Image: islam_for_dummies.png]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HzAiNO4H5OE/R8sMjJ0iu9I/AAAAAAAAAkw/QSgdyRbQJHs/s400/islam_for_dummies.png)
