Editor's note: This article was originally published in the March 2006 edition of Whistleblower magazine, titled "PREDATORS: What's really behind today's epidemic of teacher-student sex?"
It was a bizarre and emotional courtroom scene, but one occurring with disturbing frequency these days. A popular middle school teacher, 43-year-old Pamela Diehl-Moore, had tearfully pleaded guilty to having sex with a child – a 13-year-old male student who had just completed 7th grade – and now stood before a Hackensack, N.J., judge awaiting sentencing.
And what would that sentence be? Considering all the intense media coverage of male sexual predators victimizing female children, one might expect a stiff prison term, accompanied by a withering rebuke.
But when New Jersey Superior Court Judge Bruce A. Gaeta opened his mouth, the words that came out did not express criticism of the teacher, nor acknowledge any damage she had done to her victim.
"I really don't see the harm that was done here," the judge proclaimed, "and certainly society doesn't need to be worried. I do not believe she is a sexual predator. It's just something between two people that clicked beyond the teacher-student relationship."
"Clicked"? With a 13-year-old?
"Maybe it was a way for him, ...   more »

FORT WAYNE, IND. — When Mark Studler was renewing his specialty license plate recently, which touts his support of environmental issues, he expected to pay the annual premium of $40 to the state.
After all, he wanted to express his love of the great outdoors every time he hit the highways — and liked that $25 of the fee was donated to the Indiana Heritage Trust, a state conservation group.
But he objected to a new license plate that he felt also qualified as a specialty plate — one with the motto "In God We Trust" — but didn't require a premium. Not even the $15 extra fee that usually goes to the state for administrative costs.
"I don't have any problem with people expressing their religious beliefs, whether it's on a bumper sticker or their license plate," said Studler, 49, a construction worker. "But folks should be treaed in the same way — and charged the same fees by the state — as Hoosiers who prefer that their custom tags promote education or the environment."
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a lawsuit, on behalf of Studler, in state court against the Indiana Bureau of ...   more »

SCHAGEN, Netherlands (April 28) - The massive central door in the side of Noah's Ark was thrown open Saturday - you could say it was the first time in 4,000 years - drawing a crowd of curious pilgrims and townsfolk to behold the wonder.
Talk About It: Post Thoughts
Of course, it's only a replica of the biblical Ark, built by Dutch creationist Johan Huibers as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.
Reckoning by the old biblical measurements, Johan's fully functional ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That's two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house.
Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold.
"The design is by my wife, Bianca," Huibers said. "She didn't really want me to do this at all, but she said if you're going to anyway, it should look like this."
A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine - biblical scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been.
Huibers did the work mostly with his ...   more »

The IDF on Thursday held intensive training maneuvers in preparation for a feared Syrian attack on the Golan Heights.
Hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers, backed by helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, massed in the Judean Desert to drill simulations of war. The training exercise focused on Brigade 401 and its utilization of Israel's most advanced tank - the Merkava Mark 4 - against the Syrian advanced Russian-made T-72.
Since the Second Lebanon War, Military Intelligence has claimed that war with Syria is now closer than ever, and the IDF is on heightened alert in the North in preparation for the possibility of a surprise attack.
Analysis: Weak Assad could be a loose cannon
The second Lebanon war: JPost.com special report
President Bashar Assad, analysts have said, was empowered by Hizbullah's surprise success while fighting the IDF. The assessment is that he might be motivated to launch hostilities in an effort to retrieve the Golan Heights, either by initiating a surprise attack to capture one or two Israeli communities or by firing long-range ballistic missiles at the home front.
The assumption within the defense establishment is that while war with Syria would definitely be of a conventional nature, Damascus ...   more »

US, Israel prepare for Iran strike in wake of new intelligence information
Washington: The intelligence information gathered by the Unites States regarding Iran's technological breakthrough that could lead Teheran to an atom bomb in less than three years bodes well with President George Bush's political desperation.  
The new intelligence indicates that Iran is making accelerated progress in acquiring the required amount of enriched uranium for assembling its first nuclear bomb.  
Until recently, American intelligence estimated that this would only happen in 2015. Now US intelligence is falling into line with its colleagues in Israel and is estimating that an Iranian bomb can be expected as early as 2010.
Contrary to the war in Iraq, the American public does indeed view Iran as a real threat. The combination of a radical religious regime and weapons of mass destruction is America's worst nightmare. Publication of the information is part and parcel of the imminent beating of war drums: On the one hand the Bush Administration is building a significant naval force along the Iranian coast, and on the other it is signaling to the public that the Iranian threat is approaching in great strides.  
When the information was revealed ...   more »