Sunday, November 16, 2003

Dept. of Zero Tolerance For Common Sense Random: Girls Suspended for Kissing in Cafeteria. Two high school girls were suspended for publicly kissing on top of a cafeteria table as part of a protest of homophobia. [Morons Dot Org] Yet another tin-pot school dictator puts the slapdown on tolerance and free thinking. You've seen Britney and Madonna. You've seen it on "All My Children." Now a Howard County high school has seen senior Katherine Pecore and junior Stephanie Haaser lock lips on top of a lunch table. The result? Two-day suspensions, a school protest and 15 minutes of fame. .... The two girls climbed on top of a lunch table and shouted, "End homophobia now!" Then the girls, both heterosexual, made out. Estimates for the length of the kiss range from 10 to 15 seconds. "It was full on," Pecore said. "It was intense." There was stunned silence in the crowded cafeteria at first. But soon staff and students at River Hill could talk about little else. The two girls were suspended from school the following two days for being disruptive, Principal Scott Pfeifer said, not for the kiss itself. There is no policy against kissing in the cafeteria. "I'm confident I made the right decision," Pfeifer said. "Anybody who would stand up and do a disruptive act, I would treat them the same way." The fact that it happened to be two girls "is totally meaningless to me." I bet anything involving independent thought is totally meaningless to Mr. Pfeifer. But then, there's nothing more threatening to repressed little men like Pfeifer than those people who don't fit their narrow definition of what a human being should be. So, they have to get all Medieval on their "deviant" asses. Across the country, students who cross traditional gender lines have made news. Two years ago in Boulder, Colo., students threatened to stage a "kiss-in" when a local high school banned a picture of two girls kissing from the yearbook. On Halloween in Connecticut, a 15-year-old boy was suspended after he showed up at school in an "inappropriate" costume: a floral skirt, matching scarf and lipstick. The boy and his father, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, are suing the school. Yeah. A real threat to learning. Bullshit. Just garden variety oppression and coercion, pretending to be a commitment to "education." The only lessons taught are in mindless obedience, groupthink and intolerance. 10:37:19 PM     leave/read comments []

It's always nice to find someone else who talks some sense. Source: The Slat Rat Chronicles; 11/16/03; 10:12:08 PM The 9/11 Terrorists' Real WeaponAn excellent short essay by Bruce Schneier on just what the real threat is when it comes to airplane hijacking. Bruce is a brilliant and pragmatic security analyst. Too bad the Bush Administration doesn't take advantage of his skill set. We all know that the new airline security procedures are silly. Baggage screeners taking away pocket knives and box cutters doesn't improve airline security, even after 9/11. People who think otherwise don't understand what allowed the terrorists to take over four planes two years ago. It wasn't a small knife. It wasn't a box cutter. The critical weapon that the terrorists had was surprise. With surprise they could have taken the planes over with their bare hands. Without surprise they couldn't have taken the planes over, even if they had guns. And surprise has been confiscated on all flights since 9/11. It doesn't matter what weapons any potential new hijackers have; the passengers will no longer allow them to take over airplanes. I don't believe that airplane hijacking is a thing of the past, but when the next plane gets taken over it will be because a group of hijackers figured out a clever new weapon that we haven't thought of, and not because they snuck some small pointy objects through security. [The Slat Rat Chronicles] 10:26:14 PM     leave/read comments []

12:40:46 PM     leave/read comments []

Dept. of "Drift Again?!?" Attention wannabe Tokyo Drifters! Help Wanted: Yakuza (Mainichi). Japan's largest organized crime family is recruiting. Here is your chance to loose a pinkie finger or two. [Nippon Goro Goro] 12:13:23 PM     leave/read comments []