Entire Maryland School District Goes Batshit Crazy

Maryland School District Bans Hugs, Party Invitations And Birthday Cake In Post-Sandy Hook Overhaul Of Security Policies – Daily Mail

As schools across the country tighten security in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, one Maryland school district is taking it to the extreme, banning everything from hugs to birthday cake.

St. Mary’s County adopted the new security measures in its 17 public schools in the aftermath of the shooting in Newtown, Conn. that left 20 school children dead as well as six adults.

The new policy is meant to protect against a number of potential threats to children’s safety, including food allergies, inappropriate contact between adults and minors, and even hurt feelings.

‘We think it’s the right balance between safety and parental involvement,’ Kelly Hall, the district’s executive director of elementary schools, told Southern Maryland Newspapers.

Specifically, the rules ban hugs between children and adults who aren’t their parents, limit sibling visits during the school day, and prohibit kids from sharing baked goods or giving out birthday invitations at school.

Impromptu teacher-parent conferences are also banned in the new policy.

Referring to the rule regarding party invitations, Hall said, ‘If there are 20 individuals in the class and someone brings in seven birthday invitations, it was creating an academic disruption. People were getting their feelings hurt.’

School board member Cathy Allen said she thinks the new rules are ‘horrible’ and will have the unwanted effect of discouraging parents from volunteering at the school.

‘The idea that you can’t go into a school and be hugged by a child, or go in [to] have lunch or be out on the playground and that you can only push the swing for your child and no one else’ is unacceptable, she told NBC News.

But in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, ‘everybody’s anxiety is high’ and the rules help to assuage parent’s worst fears when they send their kids off to school every morning, said school board member Mary Washington.

‘We are entrusted to protect all our students,’ Washington said.

The school board was considering the new guidelines prior to the Sandy Hook tragedy, and then decided to implement them in its aftermath. School officials say they are not final – even though they are already in place – and that they are looking for feedback from parents.

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Batshit Crazy North Koreans Nullify Armistice That Ended Korean War

North Korea Scraps Armistice That Ended Korean War – ZeeNews

In what could escalate the already situation, North Korea on Monday scrapped an armistice that ended Korean War of 1950-53 even as the US and South Korea carried out annual military drill.

The North Korean Army has declared as invalid the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953, an article in Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said Monday as per a CNN report.

An agitated North also snapped hotline with South Korea as it had threatened last week, South Korea’s unification ministry said.

The ministry said North Korea seems to have cut the emergency link set up to deal with any contingency along the demilitarized zone of Panmunjom, which separates the two Koreas, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Tensions have been running high since North Korea conducted its third nuclear test Feb 12, and the UN agreed to impose tougher sanctions on the country for its renewed provocations.

Pyongyang has launched a bombast-filled propaganda campaign against the drills, which involve 10,000 South Korean and about 3,000 American troops, and last week’s UN vote to impose new sanctions over the North’s nuclear test. Analysts believe that much of that campaign is meant to shore up loyalty among citizens and the military for North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong Un.

Pyongyang isn’t believed to be able to build a warhead small enough to mount on a long-range missile, and the North’s military has repeatedly vowed in the past to scrap the 1953 armistice. North Korea wants a formal peace treaty, security guarantees and other concessions, as well as the removal of 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.

Still, South Korean and US officials have been closely monitoring Pyongyang’s actions and parsing the torrent of recent rhetoric from the North, which has been more warlike than usual.

North Korea regularly claims South Korea-US drills are a preparation for invasion, but Pyongyang has signaled more worry about the drills that began Monday. The drills follow UN sanctions that the North says are the result of US hostility aimed at toppling its political system.

North Korea has also warned South Korea of a nuclear war on the divided peninsula and said it was cancelling nonaggression pacts.

Despite the threats, South Korea and the US began the 11-day war games as scheduled Monday. The allies have repeatedly said the drills and other joint exercises are defensive in nature and they have no intention of attacking the North.

A US military statement said the exercise is not related to current events on the Korean Peninsula.

The drills are part of larger war games that began March 1 and are set to go on for two months.

US troops in South Korea are meant to prevent North Korean aggression, U.S. and South Korean officials say, and are a legacy of the Korean War, which ended with the peace treaty that leaves the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war.

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Batshit Crazy Congresswoman: Global Warming ‘Will Destroy’ Maryland

Congresswoman: Global Warming ‘Will Destroy’ Maryland – CNS

A group of House Democrats labeling themselves the Safe Climate Caucus held a press conference today to warn that if Congress does not address global warming, the country could face dire consequences, including detrimental effects to California wines and an end to Vermont skiing.

One Democratic representative even worried that global warming could destroy the state of Maryland.

“If we do nothing about what is happening, it will destroy our economy, it will destroy our state, and it will have a broad impact not just here in this country but around the world,” Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) said at a press conference on Capitol Hill on Friday.

Representative Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) feared that global warming could damage the ancient forests and vineyards in his district.

“Climate change is going to impact my coastal district not just in terms of coastal communities and infrastructure but also the health of our oceans and coastal fisheries,” Huffman said.

“It will impact the great ancient forests in my district [and] it will even threaten to impact the world-class quality of the wine produced in Sonoma and Mendocino counties,” he said.

Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) worried there might not be any skiing in Vermont and that the state’s famous maple trees could also be threatened by global warming.

In introducing Vermont Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Blumenauer said Welch “comes from the state of Vermont that climate change is going to have – there will no longer be skiing and even the maple trees will be threatened.”

Despite the dramatic claims, Rep. Edwards insisted that she and her colleagues were not alarmists.

“The fact is that those of us who are here are not alarmists, we are not eco-hystericals, we’re not socialists,” she said. “We care about our climate and we want to do something about it.”

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