Thursday, September 26, 2002

Check out the comments on http://www.sammydman.com/ - this 15 year old was almost expelled for the horrible crime of having a Weblog, and only escaped that punishment by signing a full confession of what an on-line journal is and providing a list of all other students that he happened to know of that were also doing the same kind of thing.  Apparently any use of school computers for a purpose that the school administrators do not understand, is a serious academic crime, and soon there will be a mass trial of all the children who are suspected of the felony of being Internet Literate, who will also escape being expelled by naming names of others they know of.  Does that remind you of something?  Can you get out of this by naming top officials of the government?  That's how the McCarthyism was stopped - someone named top Generals of the Army and top officials of the White House.  Sammy is now doing his weblogging from home. 11:19:51 PM

[Chicago Sun Times] shares a couple stories about Zero Tolerance of Modern School Administrators: A Nebraska 7th grader found some marijuana in his classroom and turned it into to the office.  He was suspended because, the act of picking it up and carrying it to the authorities constituted possession of marijuana. A Florida sophomore honor student saw a bag of pills on school grounds and did not follow the example of the Nebraska student because she was afraid of getting in trouble for possession of the contraband in the short distance of carrying it to the authorities.  She has been told she will be expelled for failure to do so. This reminds me of in Illinois where youngsters are encouraged to clean up the environment, but it is illegal for them to remove beer cans and alcohol bottles from the road side, because that means that those empty containers inside their garbage bags constitutes possession of those containers by a minor. The lesson for these kids is to Do not touch the illegal substance - drugs, guns, whatever. Carefully write up a statement of where you saw this illegal substance, in a report to the authorities. Make sure your report is addressed to the authorities before you leave the scene, so that if an undercover officer sees you seeing the illegal whatever and not picking it up, your statement is part of your defense. Make a copy of your statement before you turn it in, so that if you later get hassled, you can take your statement to a lawyer, the news media, or where ever your parents think will most embarrass the school authorities into backing down. 3:45:52 PM

[Chicago Sun Times] mentioned that Shaw's Crab House now offers its menu in Braille and various languages of international clientele.  I am wondering how many restaurants have menus in Braille to make themselves accessible to Blind and visual impaired customers. 1:35:56 AM

Safety of Nuclear Power Plants Again Questioned. VOA Sep 24 2002 9:33PM ET [Moreover - Science news]  We are living in a different world today.  In recent years it made sense to Build a nuclear power plant right next to a major city, because nothing serious likely to go wrong, but now power plants are potential terrorist targets, so we do not want them right next to major cities. Build an airport in the middle of a major interstate interchange so easy to bring passengers real close to check in counters, but now a truck bomb can take out an airport, so we need a different kind of transportation infrastructure to unload the passengers from ground transport further away from the air tranport, and run everyone through screening suitably distant from buildings that might be major targets of terrorists. VOA = Voice of America ... there's links here to what headlines VOA is sharing in various places in the world ... an interesting site worth revisiting occasionally. Africa Amnesty International protests torture of child prisoners in Burundi Intervention in Ivory Coast Uranium Security in Africa - is that an Oxymoron? Asia - Pacific China ultimatim to Iraq North Korea gets special envoy from Pres Bush a lot of stories I had not seen on local national news Asia - South and Central US Troops in Afghanistan discover another chilling al Quaida site. Dutch and Germans to take over NATO command in Afghanistan when Turkey time runs out. Iran nervous about US troops near their border with Afghanistan Suicide terrorists seized an Indian temple, leading to another gunfight. Terrorists attack a Christian Charity. Americas Argentina and Brazil economies still in bad shape Chilean Appeals court throws out 7 cases against Pinochet Colombian President visits USA President Mexican Banker gets record bail That storm in the Carribean Middle East Britain and Iraq China and Iraq Kuwait hosts USA military exercises Lebanon scandal with Israel Palestinians USA politics and Iraq USA and Pakistan cooperation USA Brushfire in Western USA Iraq and Partisan Politics Various legislation 12:49:28 AM

© Copyright 2002 Al Macintyre.