Cheating on tests is not criminal.

It is when money is tied to it like it was in this case. You are acting as if it was the students that were cheating. It was the teachers changing wrong answers on the tests after the students were done. They did it for the money plain and simple since they got bonuses based on those test results.

There was a joke on NPR the other day it went like this:

3 economics statisticians went deer hunting. The first just missed the back end of the deer while the second just missed the front. The third yelled, "We got him!"

What this shows is there is always a margin of error and as long as the numbers are within that range they got it.

How on earth does cheating on some tests in any way compare to racketeering?

Because their salaries, bonuses and the school's reputation (hence more funding for being a "good school") were based on the test results and they all colluded to change the scores to achieve the higher salaries and bonuses. In short, they colluded to illegally enriched themselves.

We've been obsessing over test scores for a while now and it doesn't seem to improve the quality of education.

That is the fault of the No Child Left Behind Act. The act that tied teacher / administrator salaries to the test results. Public schools across the nation stopped worrying about a kids learning and worried about their bottom line. That leads to doing whatever it takes to make sure the test results are positive.

Only by people like me who are constituents....

Earl Ray IMO is a "company man" from Logan County (the county where the most mountain top removal is happening). He was the president of the Senate here for ages before taking over for Manchin. It needs to be stated that this year was the first in over 3 decades that both houses went Republican in WV and they have done nothing but passing idiotic laws to include getting rid of the conceal-carry laws and gutting the above ground storage tank law that was passed after the Freedom spill that affected 300,000 residents and businesses for weeks.

The problem is that even though the governor has line item veto all it takes is a simple majority to override that veto.

I too started on a Coco 3. And worse, I recently found this:

http://www.coco4.com/vcc/

High pressure commission sales staff

It is great fun when they mob yo at the door with, "Can I help you?" to answer, "No thanks. Just shoplifting." They then follow you real close after that...

Many states, including my home state of WV, have "stand your ground" laws where the bar to use deadly force is very low. In WV all that is required is a notice posted "Private property. No trespassing. Violators will be shot" notice. It is quite silly really. Our stand your ground law puts Florida's to shame!

Oh it gets worse...

In order to download this you are required to sign up for their spam newsletter AND their forum as well as register it. So in exchange for your personal email and other personal info they are giving you this "free" tool...

Protected ones are race, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation isn't one of the "protected species". Sex (meaning mostly female) is though. Disability also isn't enumerated in the Constitution however there is the Americans with Disability Act that covers them. So to restate it they are race, religion, age, national origin and sex.

Geolocated of course...

So in other words you are saying someone should die because of an exploit before something should be done? Sounds reckless to me. The car companies have been warned by many of these studies and still haven't done anything about it. Maybe this suit will get them off their asses. I won't hold my breath though...

I absolutely agree.

This might just be coincidence but since the net neutrality decision, my night time speed has gotten way better. Ever since I started the service at about 6:00 PM until midnight the service would slow to a crawl making it almost totally unusable. This has been going on now for the 5 years I have been on Suddenlink. Now, I am getting the 20 MB/s all day long. Granted, 20 MB isn't blazingly fast but it beats the drop to roughly 1 MB/s I was getting between those times.

US==3.806,000 sq miles (9.857 million square km)
Japan==145,925 sq miles (377,944 square km)

Therein lies the problem with comparing the US to very small (in area) countries. Also, the population of Japan is far denser than the US which makes it more profitable to offer the higher speeds at a much lower cost. That is why you are seeing the better speeds as well as more choices in provider in metropolitan areas in the US. While us in the boonies may have at most 2 providers and they both suck.

The solution is to get rid of the corruption.

That will never happen since our whole society is based on personal greed. As long as people do it for their own pocket, the rest of society be damned, you will always have those that will do what it takes to get even more whether it is legal or not.