08:16 – Reading about the Norwegian mass murderer, there’s something I don’t understand. He thinks muslims are invading and taking over Europe, forcibly spreading their hateful beliefs to a previously civilized part of the planet. Okay, I get that. He’s right. If Europe has any sense, it’ll expel muslims with extreme prejudice, as should the US and other civilized countries. Muslims are nothing more than Nazis in drag, and the proper response to a muslim is the same as the proper response to a Nazi.
What I don’t understand is why he set off his truck bomb next to government offices, in an area presumably largely populated by ethnic Norwegians, and then shot up a youth camp presumably largely populated by ethnic Norwegian young people. Why not park the truck next to a mosque during services and then shoot up the survivors? Or, since he apparently had enough ammonium nitrate to make five or six more truck bombs, why didn’t he park truck bombs outside five or six more mosques during services? What was the point to slaughtering a bunch of ethnic Norwegians, most of whom were presumably non-believers, and most of whom presumably weren’t much happier about the spread of islam than he is?
11:34 – I’m always leery when calls of racism are made against ordinary people or institutions, but if this article is correct this is a pretty blatant case. This young woman earned the highest GPA in her graduating class, and yet was denied her position as sole valedictorian. Furthermore, her mother’s appeal to the school authorities was denied on questionable grounds, and delayed until the question became moot. The young woman in question is black and a single mother, and the school district in question is in the Deep South. If the facts stated in this article are correct and complete, it’s reasonable to ask if this young woman was denied her rights simply because the authorities didn’t believe she was the right kind of person to represent her school.
Now, it’s possible that there were extenuating circumstances. For example, the article mentions that she took a heavy load of AP classes, but does not mention which ones. Let’s face it, an A in AP History or AP Literature or AP Foreign Language shouldn’t have the same weight as an A in AP Biology, Chemistry, Physics, or Calculus. Many school districts award 5 points on a 4-point GPA for an A in any AP course, but if an A in one of those non-rigorous AP courses is worth 5 points, then an A in a rigorous AP subject should be worth at least 6. So, although the article doesn’t give details, it’s possible that the students in second and third place had only slightly lower GPAs and had taken a boatload of rigorous AP courses. In that case, they probably deserved the valedictorian and salutatorian positions. Or they would have, had the school district made those changes to the way GPAs were assigned. As it stands, the only justification I can see for their position is that the other students may have had a wider range of extracurricular activities, which in any event should not be given any weight for academic honors. And, of course, as a single mother, the student in question probably had more limited opportunities to engage in such activities.