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Reuters reports, “a 14-year-old student opened fire on faculty and students Friday morning at the alternative school he attended [in Monroe, Louisiana], authorities said. The large-calibre handgun misfired after four shots and no one was injured, authorities said. The boy was disarmed and arrested after two police officers rushed him, said Kelly McGee, spokeswoman for the Monroe School District.”
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Posted on Monday, April 23 @ 20:26:37 EDT
Jeremy Laurence (UK Independent) reports, “The US government has ordered 40 million doses of smallpox vaccine from a British company in a sign of the growing alarm that terrorists could unleash lethal viruses in future battles against Western states. The astonishing size of the contract worth $343m (200m) highlights the fears on both sides of the Atlantic about the threat of biological terrorism. If a virus such as smallpox was released, the speed of modern communications could spread the infection all over the world in days.”
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Ben Fenton (UK Telegraph) reports, “A PERUVIAN air force jet that shot down a light aircraft carrying American missionaries, killing a woman and her seven-month-old daughter, was directed on to its target by a US intelligence aircraft that mistook it for a cocaine smuggler, Washington officials said yesterday.”
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James Allan (UK Telegraph) reports, “An American missionary and her seven-month-old daughter were killed by the same bullet when a Peruvian military plane shot down their light aircraft over the Amazon jungle, in the mistaken belief that it was carrying drugs.
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The Associated Press reports, “The longer young children spend in day care away from their mothers the more likely they are to be overly aggressive by the time they reached kindergarten, according to the largest study of child care and development ever conducted.”
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Slashdot is reporting, “Last week Sean, a 16-year-old computer geek and gamer who has never been in serious trouble, was thrown out of a Texas school and ordered into “alternative education” for responding to a year’s worth of bullying and harassment, some verbal, some physical. His crime was to fantasize out loud about revenge. He got as much due process as Chinese dissidents get. His father, a Slashdot reader and graphic designer, has pulled his son out of the system and into home schooling. He asks for help and advice. This is a story about life in America’s schools these days for people who are “different,” who live at the mercy of jerks and cover-your-butt administrators.”
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The ad, appearing in the April 15 issue of The New Yorker and the April 16 issue of The New York Times Magazine, features a large photo of a cell phone, with the headline: “Now equipped with 3-way calling. You, whoever you’re dialing, and the government.”
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‘Esclarmonde’ writes, “Independence Hall in Philadelphia, one of the most important symbols of American freedom and sovereignty, has been placed under the United Nations jurisdiction as a “World Heritage Area.” It’s one of at least 17 historic sites in the U.S. now controlled — to one extent or another — by the U.N. Others include the Statue of Liberty, Yellowstone National Park, Everglades National Park, Yosemite National Park, the Grand Canyon and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”

Dave Duffy (Backwoods Home Magazine) writes, “When our federal government caused the deaths of 76 people at Waco, Texas, April 19, 1993, exactly two years before McVeigh struck, the Internet was aflood with heated chatter about how horrible and unjust our government was. And when the government acquitted its agents of all wrongdoing, and convicted the surviving Branch Davidians of minor offenses but sentenced them to 30 and 40-year prison terms anyway, there was Internet outrage once more. [..] Now that McVeigh is about to be executed on closed-circuit TV in the first federal execution in 38 years, there is relative silence on the Internet. Very little e-mail, very little discussion pro or con. Why is that? We can’t quite put our finger on it, can we, or we dare not express the horror in our heart at the coming moment, and the implications for freedom in this country.”
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ABC news reports, “A bunch of Oregon high school seniors posed for pictures at a local playground, wearing their Seaside High School cheerleader uniforms. Then, some of the girls began revealing what they were wearing and what they were not wearing underneath.”
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Hopi Chief Dan Evehema writes, “We Hopi believe that the human race has passed through three different worlds and life ways since the beginning. At the end of each prior world,h uman life has been purified or punished by the Great Spirit “Massauu” due mainly to corruption, greed and turning away from the Great Spirit’s teachings. The last great destruction was the flood which destroyed all but a few faithful ones who asked and received a permission from the Great Spirit to live with Him in this new land. The Great Spirit said, “It is up to you, if you are willing to live my poor, humble and simple life way. It is hard but if you agree to live according to my teachings and instructions, if you never lose faith in the life I shall give you, you may come and live with me.” The Hopi and all who were saved from the great flood made a sacred covenant with the Great Spirit at that time.”
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, “A Riverside County [California] high school teacher allegedly threatened her students with violence Tuesday when they wouldn’t quiet down. “She said, ‘If you all don’t shut up, I’m going to get a gun, and I’m going to shoot all of you,’” a female senior, who preferred to remain anonymous, told CBS 2 News Wednesday. “She was frustrated because we wouldn’t stop talking and do our work.”
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Christine Reid writes, “A 16-year-old [Broomfield, Colorado,] high school student may be charged with a felony after school officials found an unloaded BB gun in his car. [..] The BB gun was discovered shortly after 9 a.m. when the boy parked his car in a lot not designated for student parking, police reported. An adult monitor at the school told the student to report to the office and then searched his car without his permission, according to reports. She reported finding what she thought was a real handgun to police. It turned out to be an unloaded BB gun.”
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Web site hosting for anybody: $10/month and up
Threatening letters to people who satirize you, hoping they won’t know the law: $500
Reputation as giant corporation required to intimidate small publishers: $billions
Supreme court decisions protecting parody and satire from accusations of copyright and trademark infringement… Priceless
There are some rights money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s Mastercard’s lawyers.
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“One of the most spectacular events [at Western Winter Blast ‘96] was the Anvil Firing. Yes. Anvils. Small ones, 95 pounders. Shooting. Into the air. About 30 feet or so. The two gentlemen who were showing off explained that they were reviving an old tradition: back in the gold rush days, miners would test their powder by shooting anvils. It evolved into something of a competition. Maybe that was true, or perhaps the miners just needed to burn off some excess testosterone. Either way, here’s what the revivalists did…”

Salon reports, “A fifth-grade girl at Cincinnati’s Mount Airy School says at least 15 boys have been trading soda and cash for sex with at least five girls, according to WLWT Eyewitness News. Police and school officials are looking into the allegation, which claims the students — some as young as 10 — were sneaking into closets to do it.”
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You answer the door before people knock. / Juan Valdez named his donkey after you. / You get a speeding ticket even when you’re parked.
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If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to; expect an answer you do not want to hear./ Sometimes, we are not thinking about you. Live with it. / Do not ask us what we are thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as navel lint, the shotgun formation and paintball.
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Debra Johnson reports, “A fourth-grader at Bunnell Elementary School (Florida) received a 10-day suspension for drawing a picture of himself shooting another pupil with a laser gun.”
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The Jersey Journal reports, “that on March 2, the students in teacher Debbie Noone’s class gathered in a circle while the young girl performed oral sex on the boy and allowed at least two other boys to kiss and fondle her breasts, among other acts.”
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