Candidates Trade Shots in Race for To Education Post

The general election campaign for South Carolina superintendent of education is underway with the three candidates agreeing Sunday improvements are needed but exchanging gibes and disagreeing over who can get the job done.

"One of my colleagues up here has been the director of School Administrators Association for nine years and I'm not seeing school improvement in those nine years," American Party candidate Ed Murray told about 300 people attending a forum held by the South Carolina School Boards Association.

Sitting next to him was Republican Molly Spearman of Saluda, the former director of the school administrators group who emerged from an eight-way June primary to win the GOP nomination.

"Party matters" in public education said Democrat Tom Thompson, a former dean of graduate studies at South Carolina State University who bested three other Democrats in the primary.

"You can have the state superintendent of education say one thing but the party behind that person has to be consistent with what the state superintendent says," he added, in a comment directed at Republicans, some of whom favor taxpayer vouchers for private school students.

Spearman, meanwhile, said the way to improve education is for people to work together.

"The job and our efforts are too important for us to squabble and not get along," she said. "I have worked hard over my career never to burn bridges."

The American Party was founded by former Superintendent of Education Jim Rex as a way of getting things done without the ideological barriers of being Republican or Democrat, said Murray, the athletic director and an assistant principal at Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School.

Read more here: http://www.islandpacket.com/2014/08/24/3273470/election-race-for-sc-education.html#storylink=cpy

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Fitsnews: Brian White to Raid Local Goverment Fund

South Carolina “Republicans” led by Brian White – the top budget writer in the S.C. House of Representatives – are secretly plotting to eliminate the state’s local government fund so that they can spend this revenue at the state level.

Multiple sources familiar with the fiscal maneuvering tell FITS the local government line item – which totaled $229 million in the current (FY 2014-15) budget – was put on the chopping block by White at a recent meeting of “Republican” lawmakers in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

“We have forty-six counties and umpteen city governments,” one lawmaker familiar with the discussions tells FITS.  ”You know the saying – a million here, a million there.  That’s why (the fund) needs to end.”

Yet while some claim the $229 million will be appropriated toward “tax relief,” it’s far more likely the revenue will wind up being dumped into the same bloated bureaucracies, needless programs and politically motivated, pork barrel projects lawmakers always seem to have enough money to fund.

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Mark Driscoll Steps Down from Seattle Megachurch

In Mark Driscoll's first public statement since Acts 29 rebuked and removed him from the church planting network he founded, the embattled Seattle pastor announced he will temporarily step down as leader of Mars Hill Church while charges submitted by 21 former pastors against him are investigated.

He offered his church a list of eight next steps he plans to take [see bottom of this post, along with video link], acknowledging that some charges are "simply my fault, and I will own it, confess it, and move on from it as God continues to redeem me."

"I have requested a break for processing, healing, and growth for a minimum of six weeks while [Mars Hill leaders] conduct a thorough examination of accusations against me," Driscoll told his congregation today. "I believe that review can best be performed without me being in the pulpit or in the office."

The decision by Driscoll, whose current challenges made the front page of The New York Times yesterday, echoes past sabbaticals by two other popular Reformed pastors—John Piper and C. J. Mahaney—amid concerns not of sexual or financial sins, but of pride and other character flaws.

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Beautiful Weather Expected for Early Week

Skies overnight will continues to clear up as temperatures fall into the upper 70s across the Upstate and mid 60s in western North Carolina. Winds will be light across the mountains which will allow patchy fog to develop overnight.

Monday will see mostly sunny skies throughout the day with temperatures peaking in the mid 80s and upper 70s. Winds will be gentle out of the North and East between three and 11 miles per hour with a few gusts reaching the teens at times.

High pressure will continue to dominate the forecast this week as sunny skies and pleasant temperatures continue throughout the work week. Typically during the end of August we see highs in the upper 80s across the Upstate and lower 80s in the mountain towns.

Look to see temperatures approach normal by weeks end with sunny skies continuing. Rain chances will return as we approach the following weekend.

Strong Earthquakes not Unknown in S.C.

South Carolina Meteorologist John Farley lived in Northern California for several years and has spent a lot of time studying earthquakes.

He says South Carolina could see a powerful earthquake that causes widespread damage.

"Yes, we could," Farley said. "The major earthquake that happened here in the late 1800s happened in Charleston. That was, they estimate, roughly a magnitude seven."

Early Sunday morning, a magnitude 6 earthquake struck Northern California causing damage to structures and sent many to the hospital.

"The way you talk about earthquakes is very much like hurricanes," Farley said. "If one has happened there, it will happen again, and on the same range of size. So that's a situation that we need to be concerned with. And remember the Lake Murray Dam was fortified for that very reason, because we see earthquakes here, not very often, but we do."

Seismologists say that we could roughly see a five, Farley said.

"That Edgefield earthquake remember that we had on Valentine's Day, just a couple months back, that was around a four," Farley said. "So, in Columbia, it would be ten times stronger. So it's a reasonably strong quake, and we would have some damage here. Especially on buildings that are un-reinforced concrete. Buildings that are primarily made of brick. Or structures, anything that's primarily made of concrete that doesn't have any metal going through it. That's the problem."

South Carolina has a lot of older buildings, and a lot of older bridges, and a lot of older infrastructure, Farley said.

"So that when this happens, we just hope that it happens, you know, in the spring or the fall," Farley said. "Not when people need heating or air conditioning, because it will be months, in some cases, before power is restored."

Earthquakes happen without notice.

"The only notice that we get from seismologists is that they can say, in the next, you know, decade or hundred years or something on that order, we will see one," Farley said. "Other than that, they are not very predictable."

Low-Nicotine Cigarettes Could Help Smokers Quit

A new study published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention shows that individuals who use reduced-nicotine cigarettes do not, in fact, smoke increased amounts to make up for the lower levels of nicotine in a single cigarette. Nicotine is the main addictive property of cigarettes, making it extremely difficult for smokers to quit. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Waterloo, in Canada, and was funded by Health Canada and the Canadian Cancer Society.

The unblinded study involved 72 smokers from ages 18 to 65, who were asked to smoke cigarettes with varying amounts of nicotine for a one month period. They smoked regular cigarettes, with nicotine emission levels of 1.2 milligrams (mg) each for one week to obtain a control data set, then switched to Quest, types of reduced-nicotine cigarettes for the duration of the remaining three weeks. The nicotine content of the cigarettes reduced gradually by week, containing 0.6 mg of nicotine in week two, 0.3 mg in week three and 0.05 mg or less in week four.

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State Rep. Gilliard Calls for Body Cameras for All Police

State Rep. Wendell Gilliard, D-Charleston, says he will pre-file a bill in the Legislature requiring every police department in the state - at their local expense - to have body-mounted cameras for their officers.

Gilliard had no estimate of what the requirement would cost but said "cameras don't lie." He pointed to statistics indicating that body cameras reduce use of force instances by police and also lead to a drop in the number of citizen complaints.

"Look at what it's going to prevent," he said. Gilliard is among those interested in running for mayor of Charleston next year.

Study: Neither Liberals or Conservatives Blind Followers

Neither liberals nor conservatives are more or less likely to demonstrate blind obedience to authority, a new study finds. One of the authors of the study wrote that he used to believe that conservatives suffered from blind obedience while liberals were open minded.

Jeremy Frimer, professor of psychology at the University of Winnipeg, believed that the source of conservative political views was "slavish obedience to authority and tradition," he wrote in a Thursday op-ed for The Huffington Post.

"If only conservatives would think for themselves — like liberals do — the war would be over and we could get on with life, governance, and progress. Or so I thought," he recalled.

Those views began to change, however, on a trip to Cuba in 2012. In a conversation with a Brazilian couple touring the many shrines to famed Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara on the island, Frimer discovered that even questioning why there should be so many shrines was considered offensive.

Frimer also recalled a conversation with a liberal schoolteacher who believed it was important for his students to become "dedicated liberals," and a conservation with a liberal aid worker who would have preferred living under a liberal dictatorship to living under a democratically elected conservative government.

Previous studies showing conservatives are more likely to show blind allegiance to authority figures only used examples of figures that most would consider conservative, such as a police officer or religious authority, Frimer noted. But what if, he thought, these experiments included authority figures that liberals look up to?

So in his experiment, Frimer, along with fellow University of Winnipeg researchers Dr. Danielle Gaucher and Nicola Schaefer, asked respondents about their obedience to liberal authority figures as well, such as environmentalists. They found that liberals showed more obedience to liberal authority figures, conservatives showed more obedience to conservative authority figures, and when the authority figure was neutral, liberals and conservatives were about the same.

"Rather than thinking of liberals and conservatives as being fundamentally different psychological breeds, I now think of them as competing teams. Liberal versus conservative is like Yankee fans versus Red Socks fans. Each has its own flag to which it pledges allegiance. And each side has its own authorities to which it demands obedience," he wrote.

The study, "Political Conservatives' Affinity for Obedience to Authority Is Loyal, Not Blind," is published in the September issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Charter Internet Outtages Include Anderson Area

Charter Communications said the company is working to restore service after an internet outage affected customers across the country on Saturday.

According to DownDetector.com, a website dedicated to real-time availability of internet services, outages were reported since Saturday afternoon.

Outages were reported in the Asheville and Anderson/Greenville/Spartanburg area, along with several other metropolitan areas across the country, according to the website.

Charter spokeswoman Kim Haas said the company is working to restore service and says the cause is unknown. She said the issues were "intermittent across parts of our footprint."

Haas said she could not provide any further details.

Stamford, Connecticut-based Charter is the fourth largest cable operator in the U.S., according to its website. It also provides phone services and serves customers in 29 states.

S.C. Parks Generating Record Revenues

South Carolina's state parks are experiencing record attendance and generating record revenues. And the chief of the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism says the parks are well on their well to paying for themselves.

Duane Parrish says park revenues have increased $4 million over four years. For the fiscal year that ended in June, the 47 parks and state historic sites in the system brought in $24 million - enough to pay for 90 percent of ongoing operations.

Parrish says the parks have a blueprint to become self-sustaining by adding attractions to boost revenue.

Among the plans are a splash pad water feature opening next summer at Sesquicentennial State Park near Columbia, expanding the Dreher Island State Park Marina and adding cabins and campsites at other parks.

WorkReady Taking Applications for Employer Grants

WorkLink Workforce Investment Board is now accepting applications for the Incumbent Worker Training (IWT) program. IWT grants are available for businesses in Anderson, Oconee, and Pickens counties.  

Incumbent Worker Training grants allow employers that have at least one employee and are current on
all South Carolina state tax obligations to upgrade the skills of their current workforce through
reimbursable training services and expenses. In addition, employers who are awarded training funds
must recognize SC WorkReady Communities Initiative by being a “recognizing level” business, as well as
pay wages of at least $10.50 per hour. 

All approved trainings must be completed by April 30, 2015.   

Guidelines and applications are available by contacting Reneé Murdock, WorkLink Business Services
Representative, at (864) 646-1468 (TTY: 711) or rmurdock@worklinkweb.com. Applications and
guidelines can also be accessed online at http://worklink.scworks.org/news.php#247.   Completed
applications should be mailed to Reneé Murdock, SC Works Clemson Comprehensive Center at East
Park, 1376 Tiger Blvd., Suite 102, Clemson, SC  29631 All applications must be postmarked or received via email by the deadline of September 15, 2014.

Clemson Part of $10 Million "CloudLab" Project

Clemson University is part of a consortium of universities that will receive $10 million to fund the development of a flexible scientific cloud architecture that will support the national research community.

The National Science Foundation-funded project, “CloudLab: Flexible Scientific Infrastructure to Support Fundamental Advances in Cloud Architectures and Applications,” is designed to be a large-scale, distributed facility that can support hundreds of different experimental cloud environments for researchers simultaneously. Further, this environment is designed to be a testing and proving ground for researchers who will ultimately develop the next generation of cloud architectures.

The project’s collaborating institutions are led by the University of Utah and include Clemson, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the University of Wisconsin, Raytheon BBN Technologies and the US Ignite project.

It is focused on providing the necessary resources for researchers to build their own cloud environments specifically tailored to their scientific and research applications that enable the exploration of fundamental science in the cloud. The cloud architecture research enabled by CloudLab will empower a new generation of applications and services that bring direct benefits to the public in such critically important fields as medicine, smart electric grids and natural disaster early warning and response.

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S.C. House to Return for One-Day Haley Veto Session

South Carolina House members are returning to Columbia next week to take up two of Gov. Nikki Haley's vetoes.

A spokesman for House Speaker Bobby Harrell said Friday the House will hold a special, one-day session next Wednesday. The chamber will decide whether to override vetoes left over from the session that ended in June.

One bill is intended to help South Carolina's public libraries keep out disrupters. The other is a local bill allowing a tax hike for firefighting in coastal Murrell's Inlet and Garden City.

Both are Senate bills. The Senate voted overwhelmingly to override Haley's opposition. But those votes occurred in the last days of an extended legislative session, after the House already had gone home. An override requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers.