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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (798482)	7/31/2014 1:12:58 PM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579900

Oak Ridge National Lab Cancels “Southern Accent Reduction Training” – ie. Re-education Camps To Get Southern Workers To Sound Like Northeast Liberals… Posted on July 30, 2014 by sundance [ Makes me wonder about some things. Shep is a hillbilly from Appalachia - a coal miner's son. Bentway is a cracker raised in Mississippi. Koan is an Okie. Have they done their own private hick accent reduction program? Is their liberalism their escape from their roots and a way to keep their liberal overlords from despising them? ] I would like to see the liberal team who came up with this concept try to give a class in: “Lose Your Urban Dialect” for inner city black people. Do you think that would go over ? Yeah, me neither. TENNESSEE – It’s OK to talk Southern and work at a national lab — after all. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has cancelled plans for a “Southern Accent Reduction” class because of objections from lab staff members, some of whom said they were offended by the training opportunity. ORNL’s human resources department early last week distributed a registration notice for the six-week course to be taught by Lisa Scott, “a nationally certified speech pathologist and accent reduction trainer.” Here was the pitch to get employees to sign up for the speech rehab program: “Feel confident in a meeting when you need to speak with a more neutral American accent, and be remembered for what you say and not how you say it.” The notice said the class would cover “some of the most common pronunciation and grammatical differences between Southern dialects and standard American English.” It added: “In this course you will learn to recognize the pronunciation and grammar differences that make your speech sound Southern, and learn what to do so you can neutralize it through a technique called code-switching.” Carolyn Ward of ORNL’s Learning and Development Services said the lab simply offered the class in response to an employee request. “We try to provide whatever requests we have,” she said. ORNL spokesman David Keim said managers quickly cancelled the class after staff members complained. “Given the way that it came across, they decided to cancel it,” Keim said. “It probably wasn’t presented in the right way and made it look like ORNL had some problem with having a Southern accent, which of course we don’t. That was not the intent at all.” Oak Ridge National Laboratory has one of the region’s most diverse work populations, with employees from all parts of the United States and many different countries of origin, as well as visiting scientists from around the globe. “We’ve offered accent reduction training to foreign nationals for years,” Keim said. “But this one obviously surprised some folks.”

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (798482)	7/31/2014 1:48:56 PM
From: one_less	1 Recommendation Recommended By steve harris Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579900

Seventy-two killed resisting gun confiscation in Boston! Boston – National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw. Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement. Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the group’s organizers as “criminals,” issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government’s efforts to secure law and order. The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed wide-spread refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons. Gage issued a ban on military-style assault weapons and ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting in early this month between government and military leaders at which the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms. One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that “none of these people would have been killed had the extremists obeyed the law and turned over their weapons voluntarily.” Government troops initially succeeded in confiscating a large supply of outlawed weapons and ammunition. However, troops attempting to seize arms and ammunition in Lexington met with resistance from heavily-armed extremists who had been tipped off regarding the government’s plans. During a tense standoff in the Lexington town park, National Guard Colonel Francis Smith, commander of the government operation, ordered the armed group to surrender and return to their homes. The impasse was broken by a single shot, which was reportedly fired by one of the right-wing extremists. Eight civilians were killed in the ensuing exchange. Ironically, the local citizenry blamed government forces rather than the extremists for the civilian deaths. Before order could be restored, armed citizens from surrounding areas had descended upon the guard units. Colonel Smith, finding his forces over matched by the armed mob, ordered a retreat. Governor Gage has called upon citizens to support the state/national joint task force in its effort to restore law and order. The governor also demanded the surrender of those responsible for planning and leading the attack against the government troops. Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, who have been identified as “ringleaders” of the extremist faction, remain at large. And this fellow Americans, is how the American Revolution began, April 20, 1775. On July 4th, 1776 these same extremists signed the Declaration of Independence, pledging to each other and their countrymen their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. Many of them lost everything, including their families and their lives over the course of the next few years. Lest we forget…