Several random images

Limits to free speech

[via]

Culture of Violence

[via dorkly]

6-Year-Old Handcuffed After Throwing Tantrum

Updated: Tuesday, 17 Apr 2012, 10:18 AM EDT

Published : Monday, 16 Apr 2012, 9:47 PM EDT

By MYFOXATLANTA STAFF/myfoxatlanta

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. - Police in Georgia handcuffed a kindergartner after the girl threw a tantrum and the police chief defended the action. The girl's family demanded Tuesday that this central Georgia city change policy so that other children aren't treated the same way. They say the child was shaken up by being put in a cell at the police station. 

Salecia Johnson, 6, was accused of tearing items off the walls and throwing furniture in an outburst Friday at Creekside Elementary School, Macon television station WMAZ-TV ( http://on.wmaz.com/HPb7nr ) reported. Police said the girl knocked over a shelf that injured the principal.  The school called police. The police report says when an officer tried to calm the child in the principal's office, she resisted and was handcuffed. The girl was charged with simple assault and damage to property. 

Police Chief Dray Swicord says the department's policy is to handcuff people in certain situations. "Our policy states that any detainee transported to our station in a patrol vehicle is to be handcuffed in the back and there is no age discrimination on that rule," Milledgeville Police Chief Dray Swicord told WMAZ. 

The girl's aunt, Candace Ruff, went with the child's mother to pick her up from the police station. She Salecia was by herself in a holding cell and complained about the handcuffs.  "She said they were really tight. She said they really hurt her wrists," Ruff told the Associated Press. "She was so shaken up when we went there to pick her up."  Officials at Creekside Elementary did not immediately return calls Tuesday.  "We would not like to see this happen to another child, because it's horrifying. It's devastating," Ruff said.

Information from: WMAZ-TV, http://www.wmaz.com/

If...

If:
a) It wasn't boiling hot outside.
b) A bean-bag wasn't put in the bin, necessitating me to remove it from bin and redistribute the overflowing rubbish from three other bins.
c) My neighbours hadn't spent the last hour drilling into concrete.
d) Every time I go outside for a cigarette, my creepy and overweight neighbour didn't also come outside - Shirtless.
e) The media didn't just blindly regurgitate bollocks about politics, which the public then blindly follows.


I would be having a quiet, peaceful, relaxing Sunday

A Famous Person Has Died

Student suspended indefinitely for "Billie Jean" dance

By Amy Pearson | amy.pearson@winonadailynews.com | Posted: Saturday, February 4, 2012 12:00

A 9-year-old boy at St. Stanislaus was immediately and indefinitely suspended Thursday night at a school lip-sync fundraiser after mimicking Michael Jackson’s famous groin grab during a rendition of “Billie Jean.”

Mindy Boberg said St. Stan’s principal Pat Bowlin approached her and her son, Lenny, during the event and told her the performance — specifically the handful of times Lenny reached for his groin area to imitate Jackson’s notorious dance move — constituted gross misconduct and that Lenny was suspended.

Bowlin declined to comment Friday, saying the situation was an internal issue.

He said he plans to meet with the Boberg family Monday morning to discuss the suspension.

Boberg said Lenny has performed similar Michael Jackson routines the past two years without incident at the St. Stan’s event, and that the Winona Area Catholic Schools’ Parent-Teacher-Partnership approved all event performances during a Tuesday rehearsal.

Boberg said she is upset with how Bowlin handled the situation and doesn’t understand why her son was singled out, particularly because some students at the fundraiser performed acts wearing boxer underwear and others shook their “tail feathers.”

At about 10:30 p.m. Thursday, Bowlin sent an email to all WACS faculty, staff and families titled “Thank you/ apology.” It read:

“On behalf of the Winona Area Catholic Schools, I would like to thank all the students, teachers, parents, and friends of our school for your support of our Lip Sync contest. So many people worked incredibly hard to make it a great event. We did have one act that was clearly inappropriate. I want to extend my apology for that situation.”

The WACS student/parent handbook states that a school principal may immediately suspend a student for gross misconduct. It defines gross misconduct as an action that “creates a substantial and unjustifiable risk of harm to another person or serious damage to the property of the school or another person, or conduct which substantially impairs the discipline and order of the school environment.”

Read more: http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/article_5c29e9b4-4ee6-11e1-ad1f-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1lTLOlgAX

See the video:http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/video_60e7dbdc-4edc-11e1-8b51-001871e3ce6c.html

I shall remain silent

Several film-goers in Liverpool demanded a refund after seeing award-winning throwback film The Artist because they were “unaware that The Artist was a silent film.” Patrons of the Odeon Liverpool One reportedly asked for their money back upon realizing the film contains no spoken dialog and is presented on a smaller screen. The Artist, which just landed 12 BAFA nominations after picking up a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Comedy/Musical), pays homage to the silent-era films of the 20s. A Daily Telegraph source says Odeon Liverpool One ushers are now required to ask paying customers walking into The Artist if they are aware the film is silent.

[telegraph.]

School has student arrested for burping in class

via Daily What by Cheezburger Network

A lawsuit filed against Cleveland Middle School in Allbuquerque alleges that a 13 year old student was arrested and sent to a youth detention facility without due process for for “burping audibly” in class


The 13-year-old’s parents were not notified, according to the lawsuit, and he was also suspended for the rest of the school year without being given a chance to refute the allegations.

"Criminalizing of the burping of a thirteen-year-old boy serves no governmental purpose,” reads a passage from the suit. “Burping is not a serious disruption, a threat of danger was never an issue."

In fact, he was given a risk assessment test at the detention center and scored a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being “extremely dangerous."

he suit goes on to note a separate incident wherein the school accused the boy of selling marijuana to classmates because he had $200 in his pocket. The kid claimed he was going shopping after school, but was still forced to strip to his skivvies “while five adults watched."

He was not charged with a crime in either incident.

Aspokeswoman for  Albuquerque Public Schools declined to comment.


More: [abqjournal / cbs+ap

SOPA condemned by web giants as 'internet blacklist bill'

from The Guardian by Dominic Rushe

Google, Twitter and eBay say controversial Stop Online Piracy Act would give US authorities too much power over websites. Internet giants went on the attack on Wednesday, claiming legislation aimed at tackling online piracy would create an "internet blacklist bill" that would encourage censorship, kill jobs and give US authorities unrivalled powers over the world's websites. Internet firms including Wikipedia owner Wikimedia, eBay, Google, Twitter and others protested as Congress discussed the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) now passing through Washington. The act aims to tackle online piracy by giving the US Justice Department new powers to go after websites, both domestically and abroad, that host disputed copyright material. The act would allow the US to effectively pull the plug on websites and go after companies that support them technically or through payment systems. A vote on the bill could come as early as next month.

Maria Pallante, register of copyrights, told the committee: "As we all know, the internet harbours a category of bad faith actors whose very business models consist of infringing copyright in American books, software, movies, and music with impunity.” She said these "rogue" sites were the "dark side of the internet", and that while American authors, publishers, and producers had been asked to invest in online commerce, "in critical circumstances we have left them to compete with thieves." SOPA would redress the balance she claimed by "ensuring that our law keeps pace with infringers." She said the act would requires "all key members of the online ecosystem, including service providers, search engines, payment processors, and advertising networks, to play a role in protecting copyright interests".

Mel Watt, a North Carolina Democrat and one of the bill's sponsors, dismissed as "hyperbolic" charges the bill "will open the floodgates to government censorship." He said the comments belittled "the circumstances under which true victims of tyrannical governments actually live." The act has powerful support from the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild and drug companies keen for a crackdown on online pharmacies undercutting US sales. But it has met with almost universal criticism from the tech community. Mozilla, maker of the Firefox web browser, blacked out its name on its home page in an anti-SOPAprotest, as did Reddit, the social news site. Tumblr launched a page attacking the act, and firms including AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Zynga criticised SOPA in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. "We support the bills' stated goals – providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign 'rogue' websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting. Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding US internet and technology companies to new and uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of websites," the firms wrote. "We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cyber-security."

In a blog post, Google said: "We strongly support the goal of the bill – cracking down on offshore websites that profit from pirated and counterfeited goods – but we're concerned the way it's currently written would threaten innovation, jobs, and free expression." Art Bordsky, spokesman for Public Knowledge, a Washington-based public policy group, said SOPA was "the proverbial bull in the proverbial china shop" and that the bill as it stands would have "terrible consequences" for the internet. "The international aspects alone are very worrying," he said. "It appears that the US is taking control of the entire world. The definitions written in the bill are so broad that any US consumer who uses a website overseas immediately gives the US jurisdiction the power to potentially take action against it."

At present, if Facebook, YouTube, or other leading websites are found to be holding copyright material without permission, then they are told to take it down. SOPA would make it possible for the US to block the website. Such far-reaching powers could kill smaller firms and put off investors from financing new companies, said Holmes Wilson, co-founder of Fight For The Future, a lobbying group. "Everybody uses the internet every day, these days. Everyone realises how important freedom is online. This isn't just for geeks anymore," he said. "The worst part of this bill is that the vast majority of the damage will be invisible – it will be all the companies that never start because this bill has effectively killed them."

Many of you have heard of a bill that may be passed in the U.S.A. that will effectively take away many of the privileges of the internet.

What does this mean for you?

Well basically, if this bill goes through, you can say goodbye to this blog.

I won’t fill up your dashboard with another lengthy explanation about what this bill does, but you can read about it here and read it in full here.

For more information:

American Censorship Day
The White House Petition 
Tumblr’s Protect The Net
Change.org

Rebecca McKinnon in NYT: SOPA will strengthen the Great Firewall of China

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

James Losey from New American Foundation says, "Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Beijing Bureau Chief and now a researcher focusing on the intersection of the Internet, human rights, and foreign policy warns that the Stop Online Piracy Act introduces Chinese style censorship to the United States in a New York Times op-ed:"

China operates the world's most elaborate and opaque system of Internet censorship. But Congress, under pressure to take action against the theft of intellectual property, is considering misguided legislation that would strengthen China's Great Firewall and even bring major features of it to America.

The legislation (the Protect IP Act, which has been introduced in the Senate, and a House version known as the Stop Online Piracy Act) has an impressive array of well-financed backers, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild. The bills aim not to censor political or religious speech as China does, but to protect American intellectual property. Alarm at the infringement of creative works through the Internet is justifiable. The solutions offered by the legislation, however, threaten to inflict collateral damage on democratic discourse and dissent both at home and around the world."

Stop the Great Firewall of America

Officials Use Ruse At Wolcott High To Clear Halls For Drug Search Say There's An Intruder In Building, But It's Just A Drill

By Mark Frauenfelder at 1:30 pm Monday, Oct 24 via boingboing.net

[Video Link] Police and school administrators Wolcott High School in Connecticut tricked students and teachers into believing a dangerous intruder had come into the school building and ordered a lockdown. It was a ruse for a drug sweep of the lockers. No drugs were found. In the video, the police and Wolcott school superintendent Joseph Macary serve a large pile of steaming horseshit to defend their reckless stunt. As kehfysik says in the comments: "The teaching point here is that they can not trust the people into whose care they are given. The authorities will lie to you and try to use fear to control you. I hope the kids learn this."

At Wolcott High School one morning this week, an urgent announcement crackled over the intercom: a threatening intruder was in the building and students were told to immediately take refuge in classrooms. Doors were locked and police, with dogs, moved in. Students stayed huddled in classrooms where they were told to stay away from the windows.

But what sounded like a frightening situation was just a search for narcotics. Drug-sniffing dogs combed the school while students stayed in locked classrooms, believing that an attacker was roaming the halls.

Officials Use Ruse At Wolcott High To Clear Halls For Drug Search (Via The Agitator)

Here's another version:

Officials Use Ruse At Wolcott High To Clear Halls For Drug Search

Say There's An Intruder In Building, But It's Just A Drill

October 22, 2011|Rick Green articles.courant.com

At Wolcott High School one morning this week, an urgent announcement crackled over the intercom: a threatening intruder was in the building and students were told to immediately take refuge in classrooms. Doors were locked and police, with dogs, moved in. Students stayed huddled in classrooms where they were told to stay away from the windows. But what sounded like a frightening situation was just a search for narcotics. Drug-sniffing dogs combed the school while students stayed in locked classrooms, believing that an attacker was roaming the halls. Drug-free schools are an admirable goal but I wonder when we reached the point where the war on drugs justifies police searches under the ruse of a Virginia Tech-style attack. What on earth could authorities in Wolcott be thinking?

School officials told me it was a routine lockdown drill, the kind that schools are required to do. "We wanted to practice,'' said Superintendent of Schools Joseph McCary. "We said there was a lockdown with an intruder inside. Doors are locked, shades are drawn and the lights are turned off and students are told to move to a corner of the room." "After 10 minutes we say this is a drill and at that point we started a search for drugs,'' McCary said. "We are providing a safe and secure nurturing environment." [my emphasis] No drugs turned up in the search. An email from the high school to parents explained the event, without mentioning the intruder story. It was described as a "lockdown intervention drill" where "two police dogs swept the hallway lockers, locker rooms and the student parking lot.''

Bringing in police dogs to search for drugs in student lockers, while not common, isn't the real outrage here. It's understandable why adults feel they must do something about drug abuse. It's the trickery and tactics that seem more suited to a police sting operation than a public school. "I don't think the school administration and police department have any right to mislead these kids, under any circumstances, to conduct a public safety drill," said Carl Glendening, a parent of two high school students. "The kids are told there is an intruder and there is a lockdown and then they see cops coming in with dogs." "Some kids were freaked out by it. The notion of Columbine was in the back of their minds,'' Glendening said. "We didn't think this through clearly." "They are kids. They are students. They are not there to be used."

Andrew Schneider, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, called it a "terrible policy. It will cause more trouble in the long run. Young people will learn not to trust the police." "It's a terrible civics lesson." While state law requires schools to have regular emergency drills, drug-sniffing-dog searches are up to the individual school district. Canton schools recently attracted attention for surprise drug searches using dogs. "The whole issue of search and seizure, you have to have reasonable suspicion, such as if they have had other issues in where the administration feels there's a drug problem in the school,'' said Vincent Mustaro of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. "This is one of those policies we consider optional."

School officials say it's not as if they think there's a drug problem in Wolcott. Bringing the dogs in "is precautionary," said school board Chairwoman Patricia Najarian, who added that she didn't see a problem with the fake intruder story. "Maybe there's a few people who get nervous. When we say it's a surprise drill, it's a surprise drill,'' she said. "We have a very active group of citizens against substance abuse." The drug search is "something that is good to do periodically. It says we don't have drugs in the school,'' she said. "Either way it's a win-win. I know people get concerned … there seems to be an overreaction." McCary, the Wolcott superintendent, said they want to teach students to take their safety seriously, so making them think it was real was essential. "If you say it's just a drill, would you move as quickly?" He makes a point, except that we don't set fires to get students to take fire drills more seriously. There's also another issue. If you say something important to teenagers and you want them to trust you, it's better not to lie.

Hair Coloring of the Day

The mother of an East Texas junior high school student is furious after Marshall Junior High administrators “corrected” her son’s haircut with a permanent marker. Sheldon Williams says he was told that the school’s dress code only allowed for a single part and that the second part would have to go. An administrator then took a Sharpie and colored in the offending part.

“If a parent gives you permission then, ok, do that,” says Sheldon’s mom Philleniea. “But to just take the initiative and say, ‘I’m just going to color in his hair with permanent marker?’ Very disrespectful.”

CBS19 says Marshall’s “dress and grooming” code doesn’t expressly prohibit Sheldon’s haircut, and the school’s principal told the station this was her first time dealing with this issue — although similar action had been taken in the past.

[via cbs19.]  

Colbert Report: Norwegian Muslish Gunman's Islam-Esque Atrocity

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Norwegian Muslish Gunman's Islam-Esque Atrocity
www.colbertnation.com
Monday July 25, 2011 Just because Norway's confessed murderer is a blond, blue-eyed, Norwegian-born, anti-Muslim crusader doesn't mean he's not a swarthy, ululating madman. flashvars='autoPlay=false' allowscriptaccess='always' allownetworking='all' bgcolor='#000000'>
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Phone Hacking Scandal News Update of the Day:

What You Need To Know:

• Main Event: Rupert Murdoch and his son James testify before the Commons select committee on culture, media and sport; the Murdochs apologize to phone hacking victims in opening statement they weren’t allowed to read; Rupert Murdoch calls today “the most humble day of my career” (see video below), but refuses to accept responsibility for scandal; Murdoch says he “seldom” speaks with his editors, isn’t very involved, but has no plans to resign; News International’s legal fee aid to convicted phone hackers Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire,alleged to be hush money, surprises James Murdoch; are Glenn Mulcaire’s legal fees still being paid? Possibly; James Murdoch admits paying to settle out of court with phone hacking victim Gordon Taylor, stands by his decision; Rupert Murdoch says PM Cameron invited him to Downing Street to thank him after election, asked him to use back door.

• From Rebekah Brooks’ testimony: The former News of the World editor and News International chief executive “clarified” her 2003 statement on having “paid the police for information,” saying she never “knowingly” sanctioned payments to police for information, but “was referring to various crime editors on Fleet Street discussing payments to police officers”; claims to have had no knowledge of Milly Dowler phone hack until two weeks ago (despite strong evidence suggesting otherwise); said the use of private investigators was/is widespread in the British newspaper industry.

• From earlier testimonies: Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Paul Stephenson: “Damnably unlucky” that former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis worked for spa; former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner John Yates: received “categorical assurances” on potential embarrassments before hiring Wallis. (The Guardian reported today that, according to a Tory Party statement, Wallis provided “informal advice” to PM Cameron’s former communications director Andy Coulson prior to last year’s election.)

Further Reading:

• Elsewhere: A misrepresentation of a passage from CNN host Piers Morgan’s book The Insider by Conservative MP Louise Mensch during Brooks’ testimony suggests that Morgan admitted to phone hacking; Morgan took to Twitter to blast Mensch: “She clearly hasn’t read my book.”

• #humblepie: Rupert Murdoch gets a face full of shaving foam during his testimony, courtesy of "comedian" Jonnie Marbles; James Wolcott is not amused: “this guy has made Murdoch senior look vulnerable and sympathetic and Wendi heroic. Well done, fool“; Related: Wendi Deng’s Five Best Enraged Expressions.

• Counter-Hacking: LulzSec: We have a large cache of News Corp. emails, will be releasing them tomorrow; Sabu: “New York Times, Forbes, LA Times, we’re going in“; how LulzSec hacked The Sun‘s website.

• Misc: Interactive Infographic: Phone-hacking scandal: Who’s who;Mad Magazine: Rupert Murdoch’s Apology Letter.

Rupert Murdoch is The Devil

School suspends student for refusing to remove personal animation from YouTube, threatens other students for petitioning on his behalf

Jack Christie, is a grade 12 student at Donald A. Wilson Secondary School in Whitby, Ontario, who has been indefinitely suspended for posting surreal, crude, humorous videos to YouTube. The videos were first shown in his Economics and Politics classes, where they were thoroughly enjoyed, but when he posted them to YouTube, the school principal gave him a one-day suspension and ordered him to take the videos down. When he refused, he was given an indefinite suspension. Gavin Russell, the student government's prime minister and members of the school's student government took up a petition for Christie's reinstatement, but were ordered to stop collecting signatures or face punishment.

"They've unfairly judged me and judged my character based on something I made for entertainment," Christie said on Wednesday. "I have the right to post videos on the Internet on my own time." A spokeswoman for the Durham District School Board refused to discuss the case, citing confidentiality laws, but obliquely explained the school's actions: "If something is considered detrimental to the positive moral tone of the school, it doesn't necessarily have to happen inside the school [for us to get involved]," said Andrea Pidwerbecki.

Christie has made an appropriately funny and profane rebuttal to the student council, which I have embedded above for your viewing pleasure.

Student cites freedom of speech after suspension for online videos