Daylight Savings Time Puts Kid in Jail for 12 Days 881
Jherek Carnelian writes "Cody Webb was jailed for calling in a bomb threat to his Hempstead Area high school (near Pittsburgh). He spent 12 days in lockup until the authorities realized that their caller-id log was off an hour because of the new Daylight Savings Time rules and that Cody had only called one hour prior to the actual bomb threat. Perhaps it took so long because of the principal's Catch-22 attitude about Cody's guilt — she said, 'Well, why should we believe you? You're a criminal. Criminals lie all the time.'"
Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Informative)
k.charlton@hempfieldarea.k12.pa.us
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
What horrible parents! You're absolutely right, every parent should have at least 100 grand in their pocket to hire attorneys or bail money to rescue their children from the "legal" system when the police make a little boo-boo.
In my wonderful state you can only sue for twice your loss income or 20 grand, whatever is greater [mo.gov]. So this kid could get a whopping 20 grand from this mess from the police. Yippy! I'm sure that'd make the police think twice.
I'm tired of the illegal justice system in the US. The one that lets the rich go free and throws the poor in jail because they can't afford lawyers and don't want to sit in jail for a year for minor offenses while their public defender argues in court for months. Better to plead guilty to something you never did and get a few weeks in jail and probation and be labeled for life than wait in jail to see what happens only to find out they still found you guilty and you're getting even more jail time.
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Time is the one resource that is impossible to make up, regardless of how much money he could have earned if he were free there are somethings that are priceless. If I were in jail during any of the above listed times for something I was truly innocent for I would want so much monetary compensation that it really hurt those who wrongfully accused me.
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Informative)
What makes you think they didn't? If you look the case up almost anywhere [pittsburghlive.com] other than the crappy source linked in the summary, you'll find that they did indeed have an attorney. It still took twelve days to get the charges (of threatening to use weapons of mass destruction, no less) dropped, and then the state authorities tried to have him held for a psychiatric evaluation because he had refused to admit to the charges.
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
More details are out (Score:5, Informative)
Not according to this article [pittsburghlive.com]. They did have a lawyer, who managed to get him released to their custody before charges were dropped. It's not clear why it took 12 days to do it, but they didn't believe the principal over their son.
The family's lawyer is quoted a number of times in the article as well.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Informative)
When he was initially being accused his parents came to the school and the tape of the bomb threat was played for them. According to them, they both told the principle that the voice on the recording was not that of their son. The principle disregarded them and called the police. So pretty much from the get go the parents believed that their son was not guilty.
http://kdka.com/topstories/local_story_094135948.
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. For example, Bisher al-Rawi was arrested while on a business trip to the Gambia: [bbc.co.uk]
Furthermore, Bush long refused to accept that the Guantanamo detainees should be considered prisoners of war, until the Supreme Court told him otherwise. [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
he's not a US citizen, so he doesn't get the same protections and access to a legal trial that a citizen of the US does. It sucks, but nothing about war is ever great.
Actually that is not true. Not only does the 14th Amendment [cornell.edu] to the U.S. Constitution, which also defines what a citizen is protect all persons within the States
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
but there are several treaties which we have signed which would likewise require due process. This notion that non-citizens do not have rights has been perpetuated as fact in order to justify the mistreatment of non-citizens. In any case, some of the people who are in GITMO are citizens of the United States, and many other have been citizens of countries with which we are not at war, including the UK.
This country was founded on the principal that all men are created equal and thus have equal rights under the law. Until recently we were in a business of perpetuating that idea. Now some people are trying to change our mission and justify activities that most people would normally consider un-American with bogus legal arguments that anyone with a 7th grade education should not be making, much less the Attorney General of the United States.
This guy has actually proposed completely reinterpreting the Constitution such that anything not specifically spelled out in the Constitution is not a protected right. Not only is that backwards, he has even made that argument about things that are spelled out in the Constitution. How a lawyer gets anywhere by saying "this is the law because I say so" as a legal argument is beyond me, but this is what we have now.
Anyway, I know you have a bunch of White House officials suggesting and talk show hosts outright saying that you can do whatever you want with non-citizens because they don't have rights. I know that this message is being trumpeted loud and clear on every channel, especially some particular ones. But it is not true, has never been true, and people only believe it because it is a lie that has been repeated enough.
There are a whole lot of false messages in the media which tend to have common threads. You're supposed to think for yourself and maybe wonder "why are they telling me this, particularly this way?" Like all the time spent covering the story that Obama was substituted for Osama in a CNN news story. Or the endless repeating of the word "madrassa" without a single mainstream journalist (John Stewart was the only person on a major television series who brought it up) pointing out that this is the word for school in Arabic. Followed by tape of people saying they thught Obama was a terrorist. When you see a news story you need to realize there is always an idea for sale here. And sometimes you have to learn not to buy it.
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Informative)
Enter the sheeple...
Guantanamo Bay does not have a prison, it is a detention facility for enemy combatants.
If you're locked up in a cage and can't leave, the semantics are irrelevant from your point of view.
Guantanamo Bay had released more than half of those who have come through its doors and is one of the most transparently operated detention facilities in the world.
What you just wrote should have scared you after you proof read your post. Some of these innocent "detainees" or "guests of the US government" have been imprisoned for years before release. Some were as young as 12 [google.com]. Is that the behavior of a just and open society?
The people in Guantanamo weren't just picked up off of the streets as suspects in criminal investigations...
Wrong, some were "Jerry Springers" as the troops call them. The US was paying bounties for terrorism suspects [google.com] and some people just turning in guys they had grudges against.
Maybe you need to stop consulting the military on the rationale for their own wrong-doing. Guantanamo will go down in history as a blight on our record for protecting freedoms just like Japanese detentions. I just hope the Japanese weren't being tortured [pitt.edu].
Re:Can you say... (Score:4, Informative)
Really? Did the US Congress make a declaration of war at some point that I missed out on? Because my reserve unit seems to have forgotten to call me up to say, "We're goin' to war, Devil Dog, oorah! Report for duty in 24 hours. Semper Fi." If you're speaking of Bush's "War on Terror" that he begins and ends every other sentence with, that's called a figure of speech and has no legal backing no matter how many times he repeats it. Even if it did, it wouldn't suddenly make it acceptable to indefinitely detain people with no known connection to terrorist groups, including foreign nationals who were simply visiting some area where we happen to have some troops stationed, or in some cases were kidnapped from an adjacent area and turned in by others.
You should probably watch something besides Fox News every now and then. You might become a little less ignorant yourself. The established facts (as reported by crazy, liberal, non-Fox News stations like NPR and the BBC) are that the US military/government has been in the habit of offering rewards for the capture of "terrorists". Many of the people who have languished in the black box called Guantanamo (not allowing any communication or even access to a lawyer does not rhyme with the word "transparent") were simply random people scooped up off the street by Afghani warlords and such and turned in to the local US military posts for cash money. What makes this infinitely worse is that the military has already admitted many times that a large portion of the inmat--sorry, "detainees" have no actual evidence against them whatsoever beyond someone saying, "this guy is a terrorist, gimme some money". None, zip, zero, nada, el zilcho. They weren't keeping the evidence under wraps for security reasons, they simply didn't have any in many cases. That's already been established, from their own mouths. And yet they "detained" these people for literally years, and continue to do so, EVEN AFTER running their own investigations and finding no evidence with which to place charges. Worse yet (I know, how could it get worse!), they have done their level best to block all attempts at providing these unaccused (unaccusable!) persons with any due process, even though many have never been proven to be terrorists or enemy combatants or even that they were ever present near a location that any combat took place. The worst serial murderer/bomber/rapist/child molester gets at a minimum a chance to talk to a lawyer and due consideration by a court of law. These people got nothing. For years.
You admit yourself that they have already released many people, finally, after really having no choice due to continuing public and legal pressures. Obviously they aren't going to be releasing actual proven terrorists anytime soon, so who are all those people? There are hundreds of people in Gitmo, yet more than half have simply been released? Do you even have a functioning brain beyond the part that regulates your automatic
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Informative)
There are over 1,000 lawyers for the 300 or so people being detained. And for the record I don't watch Fox news.
Feel free to check out her website: (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Feel free to check out her website: (Score:5, Funny)
I'll assume the second <HTML> section for the footer is due to using Microsoft FrontPage 5.0.
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why tell the principal about it when you can be the principal?
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Funny)
We homeschool too, but I hope I never have to deal with a student calling in a bomb threat!
"Hello... yes, this is he... you've done what?"
(covers telephone mouthpiece)
"Honey? Have you seen the kids this morning?!?"
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can you say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Feel free to tell his principal how you feel about the whole guilty until proven innocent thing she has going on.
Email address removed
...so that you, too, can try, convict and punish on less than complete evidence.
Sheesh. Leave it to the lawyers and courts, please.
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps someone was going to email her a go directly to jail card.
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can you say... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can you say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, really, I do hope that happens. It's going to suck for her, and she is going to have a much harder time of things, but we need to stop this "creeping fascism" in all sectors of USian life. This principal needs to be made to pay, for the same reason a student who behaves badly in school needs to be punished: to stop all the other principals from thinking that they can get away with the same thing. That's why the *one* that we do catch being so insanely STUPID in a situation with GRIEVOUS CONSEQUENCES for one of her pupils needs to be punished so very severly.
And if she receives a few hundred chiding e-mails, so be it as well. A few hundred chiding e-mails is NOTHING compared to twelve days in jail.
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Leave it to the lawyers and courts, please.
Because that's what they do best!!!
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
If however you are put in jail for a crime that you did not commit based on "evidence" that was not fully investigated, and denied your right of innocent until proven guilty, it violates your constitutional rights. While sending emails could be considered harrassment if done excessively, by giving false information as to the origin of the email, or including threats. Putting someone in jail just does not compare. People in public offices can be convicted if they bread the law, but more importantly, can be removed from office if they go against public wishes. These wishes need to be known, and I think that sending an email is a good means to that end.
Right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Informative)
Dr. Terry J. Foriska
Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education
E-mail: terry.foriska@hempfieldarea.k12.pa.us
Office Phone: (724) 850-2232
Fax: (724) 850-2089
Dr. Terry J. Foriska has more than 25 years of experience in public education. He is in his fourth year as Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education for the Hempfield Area School District. Prior to joining Hempfield, he was Assistant Superintendent for the Gateway School District in Monroeville. He has held administrative posts in several other school districts in Allegheny, Washington and Westmoreland counties. He began his education career as a teacher in the Mt. Pleasant Area School District.
About Dr. Foriska
Dr. Foriska holds a master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a second master's degree from Duquesne University. He earned his doctorate of education degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1991. He conducted his doctoral research on the topic of student learning styles and received national recognition for his work. He went on to specialize in the areas of curriculum, instruction and assessment, and is frequently invited to share his expertise at the state and national level.
He has served on the Learning Styles Network, a national board of educators devoted to raising awareness of how students learn. Over the years, Dr. Foriska has also served on several committees and task forces formed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to share successful processes, products and philosophy for improving education.
Dr. Foriska has published numerous articles in both state and national education publications. He is also the author of four books.
He has received many awards for his work, including the "Outstanding Research and Publication Award " presented by the Pennsylvania Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. He is the only two-time recipient of this award.
Please knock it off. (Score:3, Insightful)
"The Slashdot effect" is bad enough. We can all individually look this information up, but when people start posting it with requisite "tee-hee, let THIS guy know" comments, it's an attempt to incite an electronic flashmobs and that is totally irresponsible, abusive and in the end pointless.
Re:Please knock it off. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to say 'Don't do that, it's rude'. It's a lot harder to come up with means of civil expression that AREN'T rude. And if rudeness is the only the public has left of expressing our disgust at the actions of authorities, then I say bring on the rudeness.
Re:Please knock it off. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Timezones get British man wrongfully extradited to US for threatening E-mail"
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and get mixed up with another email that emailed her a threat and end up sitting in jail for 11 days?? No thanks!
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Informative)
Jeez, what a troll. If you actually care at all about this case then look it up somewhere that has a tad more credibility and journalistic competence [pittsburghlive.com] than the kind of sub-blog news source given in the summary:
Wrongful impronment indeed - but who is to blame? (Score:5, Insightful)
Article doesn't contain too much information, but the reg (byo grain of salt) sez [theregister.co.uk]:wtf? WMDs? I guess they just can't be found anywhre huh?
Re:Wrongful impronment indeed - but who is to blam (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wrongful impronment indeed - but who is to blam (Score:5, Interesting)
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wrongful imprisonment?
Not to mention slander, liable, defamation of character and abuse of process. The kid's 12, imagine the parade of child psychologists you could put together to go on about how expensive it's going to be to treat his self-image problems and damaged reputation.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you to put yourself in this child's place. Innocent of wrong doing and accused by this man (points at principle at defense table) in a most callous and vile manner and being a criminal
Re:Can you say... (Score:4, Interesting)
I could put this another way. Without the right to a public jury trial, the state is free to implement a revolving door policy whereby a person could be arrested, be held for a few days while they are encouraged to "help with roadside landscaping", released when charges are dropped only to be re-arrested and have the process repeat itself.
The filing of charges is the first step in a criminal prosecution. It is up to both the prosecutor and defendant to agree to have charges dropped. The defendant is not required to agree with this. The state cannot arbitrarily drop charges once a criminal prosecution begins without ignoring their 6th amendment obligations.
The civil suit is generally a red herring displayed before people as a solution. The fact of the matter is that most of the agencies that might be affected by such a civil suit have insurance policies that help cover losses brought about by the civil suits. This is a planned and acceptable alternative that favors those that are being sued, therefore it is promoted as the primary tool to use in these circumstances.
However it is not always the best way to fix the problem. A grand jury has all of the authority and right to order investigations, subpoena witness and actually indict capital crimes. In fact one of the very next steps in the criminal prosecution, in this case since the kid was charged with a felony, is the district attorney presenting evidence before the grand jury in order to actually indict the kid for that felony.
After saying all of this, states laws vary and the structure of the grand jury may be modified by the state constitution. My advice on the grand jury may only apply in certain states. My stance on the right to public jury trial applies over all the states.
Be careful what you wish for (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, we should be able to, within less than two hours, have an overly aggressive "lock down" a 700 building, 2600 acre, 30000+ person city-like area because of an isolated domestic incident in a dorm, but we shouldn't have an overly aggressive response against this kind of possible school violence?
To anyone who thinks Virginia Tech has ANY culpability here,
1. Remember what your response would be to ridiculous "zero tolerance" tactics on any topic, and
2. Read the below first.
Commentary included from here [slashdot.org], here [slashdot.org], and here [slashdot.org].
And yes, I believe this is "on topic" and highly related given the accusations that are being levied against VT.
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When what is believed to be a single, isolated shooting in a dorm happens on a 2600 acre public, open campus with hundreds of buildings, you can't assume that you're about to have the worst shooting incident (of any type) in US history.
Yet, people are already blaming Virginia Tech.
Would we close or "lock down" a city of 40000 people if there was a shooting? Because that's exactly what a campus of this size and type is (including students and faculty/staff).
No, but people are already calling for siren/PA systems in EVERY of HUNDREDS of buildings, of varying ages and constructions, centralized door locking/control and camera systems for not just outer building doors, but ALL doors.
The University reacted in a reasonable way. Yes, a shooter was "on the loose". Someone who had shot a person in a dorm, and the University immediately sent out notifications that such an event occurred; to be cautious and aware, and to report any suspicious activity to campus police. The area was "locked down", but after over two hours elapsed, there was no reason to believe that a madman was about to go on a random killing spree across campus.
This is not an elementary school. This is not a high school. This is a massive, open research campus with tens of thousands of people spreading over 2600 acres, with private, residential, and other buildings intermixed.
The only person to be blamed here is the shooter. And yes, he's dead. But Virginia Tech is not at fault.
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Colleges and universities do have the same kinds of procedures.
But a hospital is typically one building. Virginia Tech is hundreds of buildings - I believe close to 700 - of varying types, purposes, and ages. There is no central PA system or door locking system. Most of the buildings are wide open. They're intermixed with non-university lands and buildings, and span 2600 acres. Some of the buildings are over 50 and 100 years old. Do we retrofit literally tens of thousands of doors with centralized locking and cameras and install central warning/PA systems in all buildings, just because you might be the site of a madman's rampage?
There's security and prudence, and there's waste and ridiculousness.
And the area in the vicinity of the shooting was locked down and blanketed with police. It was determined to be a domestic-type, targeted incident. And by the time VT had a handle on the situation, thousands of students were already on their way to campus. Nothing happened for over two hours. Then what do you do when you have no means of directly communicating with everyone? Should the university have had a knee jerk to a shooting in one d
Re:Be careful what you wish for (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a morning show radio personality here in Tampa said it best: "These kinds of things (referring to the shootings at VT) happen in a free society. And that's that unless we all want to live in a police state."
It's along the same lines as the infamous, possibly misquoted, possibly misattributed Ben Franklin quote: "They that would trade essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither."
So what is it? Do you want free society, where safety is sometimes an issue, or do you want a police state, where you might possibly be safer, but have no rights? Because those are your choices.
Re:Be careful what you wish for (Score:4, Insightful)
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The problem is that people think a gov't is more than the sum of its parts, that it's somehow more responsible, more honourable, and less corruptible than the people that make it up. Watch the news for five minutes about the current US admin (or any
Re:Be careful what you wish for (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I call "bullshit." I am a boring person. I don't do anything illegal. I don't even speed (55 means 55) unless not speeding means creating a hazardous situation on the road. I don't do drugs. I don't drink much and if I do I don't drive. I have paid for every single piece of mu
Monday morning quarterback (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Luby's in Texas (Score:4, Funny)
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A proper response is quick, not clumsy. This is both quick and clumsy. VT was slow and clumsy (though clumsy seems unavoidable given VT's size).
Re:Be careful what you wish for (Score:4, Insightful)
So, you think you should have been emailed that something happened 15 minutes after it occurred, when chances are the police themselves didn't even have a handle on what happened yet, much less University administrators? Acting without thinking, right? Just like the school officials did in this case.
And if they'd emailed out something, it wouldn't have been to close the university because there was by all appearances a domestic shooting in a dorm - which do happen at universities, by the way. Hell, it probably takes a minimum of 15 minutes to even coordinate a mass email, knowing the bureaucracy of a campus that size. Within a couple of hours of what is believed to be an isolated incident with no real reason at the time to believe otherwise is perfectly reasonable.
A proper response is quick, not clumsy. This is both quick and clumsy. VT was slow and clumsy (though clumsy seems unavoidable given VT's size).
Your parenthetical statement at least shows some understanding of the situation here. Even IF they'd decided to cancel classes and close the University, that email probably wouldn't have been able to go out in any practical sense, and after having a very minimal handle on the situation, for at least 45 minutes to an hour. And even then, many students, and even faculty, would either never see it that morning, or already be on their way to class. And even if you could muster enough police presence to start going around locking buildings, how do you, in one hour, lock several hundred buildings, clear them, and then what do you do with the thousands of students already on campus?
Even in the best case lockdown scenario, if we're playing the "should have, could have, would have" game, what if there was then an outdoor shooting that killed 5 instead of an indoor one killing 32? 5 is better than 32? Except all we'd know about is the 5, and Virginia Tech would get raked over the coals for having a lockdown without thinking about it. Not to mention that we can't live in a state where we think that the worst shooting in US history may be about to occur, so we'd better react accordingly.
That's why I'm saying be careful what you wish for. We look at a daylight savings time story like this and scoff at its ridiculousness, and at the same time, believe that Virginia Tech should have made the same kind of reactive knee-jerk decisions without thinking and full consideration.
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I'm glad you clearly don't grasp anything I said and just latched onto "2600", though.
But if you think that a campus of this size and scope could have been, or, rather, should have been "locked down", it would require a pretty comprehensive (and much larger) police and central monitoring/camera/locking and build
Re:Be careful what you wish for (Score:5, Insightful)
A lockdown is something you do with elementary school kids so they don't wander off before their parents show up. It's a measure to control the students, not a perpetrator.
Let the lawsuit commence! (Score:4, Interesting)
These are the people we want teaching our children? Or we want our children to become/emulate? I'm not sure which is more shocking -- the fact that they jumped to conclusions based on a couple of pieces of evidence or the fact that it took 12 days for some bright person to remember the switch in Daylight Time.
Money! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Money! (Score:5, Insightful)
He should, and I hope he does.
I'm about as anti-lawsuit as you can get, but the kid was in jail for 12 days because someone screwed up royally. Jail. An innocent kid. For no reason whatsoever. I hope he gets so much money from them that the school is absolutely freaking paranoid about ever accusing someone again in the future.
Give the Students More Credit (Score:5, Interesting)
I like to believe that, in America at least, we avoid this "Catch-22" wherein we assume from the get go that the alleged criminal is innocent until proven guilty. Which gives them no motive to lie. After the fact, it may be revealed they were lying but you have to prove it first. Most of the time, they are caught within their lies and their guilt is exposed that way.
Relying on one instance of evidence that relies heavily on technology, is a pretty shaky case in my opinion. The principal has graciously illustrated why this is a risky assumption to make. I don't think I need to expound on my general feelings of how the RIAA uses the same techniques in their settle out of court cases but there is definitely a direct relationship here.
I feel that, as a society, we don't give our children enough credit. I've posted about this before [slashdot.org] and I'm sure I'll post about it again. If you don't apply the same ideas of justice & freedom to children, how can you expect them to grow up with those same virtues instilled? You can't, really. Once they turn 18, they still remember a lot prior to being 18. Any injustices they suffered are probably not forgotten.
While I have not raised a child, I have volunteered at local grade schools to teach the children about engineering. I go and set up some sort of challenge that involves engineering with limited resources. One of my most horrific experiences wasn't watching some child verbally or physically assault another child, it was actually a teacher/student exchange. The challenge was to build a tower out of cards and after several failures and few successes, I decided to wrap up with some basics in mechanical engineering. I asked the class why they chose a square structure to build their tower in. One particularly energetic imp told me it was clearly the most stable. I corrected him and said that actually a dome is a more stable structure. But he persisted and asked why were 99% of buildings made in a square formation. I really didn't have an answer
I pretty much blame myself for not encouraging the kid to research it on his own. But I thought about it a lot afterwards and wondered if we don't give our children enough credit. Does this happen often? Do children get stereotyped as "the problem child" with no possible second chance? Are they doomed once teachers look for this type of behavior. I hope not but this story with the principal assuming the kid was wrong is just another example, though my personal example is probably a case of no exoneration.
Re:Give the Students More Credit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Give the Students More Credit (Score:4, Funny)
Before anyone suggests making the furniture round, consider that you'd need custom furniture for every size of room.
Re:Give the Students More Credit (Score:5, Funny)
Your remote will find that "approximate" rounding error and fall behind the couch every time.
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Re:Give the Students More Credit (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Give the Students More Credit (Score:4, Interesting)
But seriously: track that kid down. Whatever the cost. He deserves vindication. This isn't a matter of which building is best. (Though I'd recommend the geodesic dome article on Wikipedia for why they're not used.) It's a matter of whether you've taught this kid to suppress his own reason.
I have raised a child, two actually (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm your wife, you insensitive clod!!!
All too true (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't apply the same ideas of justice & freedom to children, how can you expect them to grow up with those same virtues instilled? You can't, really. Once they turn 18, they still remember a lot prior to being 18. Any injustices they suffered are probably not forgotten.
Too true my friend, too true. A good example from my own past is cops.
I was a teenager and I got pulled over for having a crappy car. Twice in two different cities. I wasn't speeding, I wasn't playing loud music - I was just trying to get to work. How do I know that's what I was pulled over for? Both times the cop said so.
I was searched. My car was searched "for drugs". One cop told me to get my "piece of shit car out of his city and not come back".
That was close to 20 years ago. I'm now nearing 40, have a nice job, and drive a brand new Prius. Or my minivan. I am invisible to cops, and haven't had any reasons given in the last 20 years to dislike them.
But still every time I pass one on the road I think "motherfuckers".
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More details (Score:5, Informative)
When did the RIAA... (Score:5, Funny)
When did the RIAA go into the education business?
But what does the principal have to do with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why wasn't he interviewed by the police in the prescence of an adult immediately? Isn't there meant to be some advocate protecting the accused rights, especially with a 15 year old?
Surely a decent investigation should have gone something like:
cop: We have this recording of the threat.
Defender: Uhm. That doesn't sound much like this kid. Are you sure you got the right guy?
Defender and cop disappear. Re-appear later.
cop: Sorry about that. You're free to go.
Re:But what does the principal have to do with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
You've had no run-ins with police have you?
The principal didn't put him in jail (Score:5, Insightful)
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I bet the video games made him do it! (Score:4, Funny)
Damn, we coulda got a gold medal for sure... (Score:5, Funny)
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That's no Catch-22 (Score:4, Informative)
That's no catch-22. A catch-22 is a situation whereupon two actions are dependent on one another. A chicken-or-the-egg sort of thing. This quote is close, but it's not a catch-22.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22_(logic) [wikipedia.org]
Sorry to pick a nit.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's an example from the article you linked: "[O]ne cannot get a job without work experience, but one cannot gain experience without a job."
Here's the current situation: One cannot prove one's innocence to the principal without giving trusted evidence, but one cannot give trusted evidence without being considered innocent by the principal.
It's parallel to th example I always think of for Catch-22: you need a permit to get into a secure building, but the only office where yo
Principle should still be held accountable (Score:3, Interesting)
Guantanamo anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
begging the question, not catch-22 (Score:4, Informative)
using the fact that someone was accused of a crime to discredit their defense of that crime is a prime example of begging the question.
the example of "a catch-22" from the book catch-22 is the following: if a pilot is crazy, he will not have to fly more missions (since he will be placed on medical leave). if a pilot does not want to fly more missions, he is not crazy (since he values his own life, therefore he has to fly more missions). so if you're not crazy, you fly more missions. if you say you are crazy, the army assumes you are just trying to save your own life, therefore you are not crazy, and therefore you still fly more missions. that's the quick summary, anyway.
The Real WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
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We was calling to see if school had been canceled due to weather. He called an hour before or after the bomb threat. When they matched the phone records versus the actual time of the call they found his number erroneously because of DST problems and the time difference.
Re:I'd laugh, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in my HS days I found a VCR in a locker. The VCR had been stolen from a classroom. I reported it to the administration office. The VP promptly accused me of getting "cold feet" about the theft and called the cops on me, even though I was in class when the supposed theft occurred two days prior (there was an exam, thus I had a reasonable alibi). None of my explanations mattered, nor apparently did the B&E that I committed in opening the locker. She was fixated that I (or my buddy who was with me) had stolen the VCR. Cops were called and we were separated and interviewed by the sheriff.
Funny thing, we both told the sheriff the same story, but when pressed we both confessed to the B&E portion (which was a crime as there was a lock on the locker). I actually did it, but out of some sense of loyalty he confessed to it. Ultimately the VPs single mindedness that we stole it was in our favor, as once the unit was dusted for prints, ours were nowhere to be found. No charges on the B&E because the VP continued to insist that we must have stolen it somehow, and simply wiped our prints off it. You can't argue with people like that. They're nearly as fanatical as those FSM creationist folks
-nB
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Sarcasm is the highest for of wit.
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Re:Stupid Time Change! (Score:5, Interesting)
First. Let a tax be laid of a louis per window, on every window that is provided with shutters to keep out the light of the sun.
Second. Let the same salutary operation of police be made use of, to prevent our burning candles, that inclined us last winter to be more economical in burning wood; that is, let guards be placed in the shops of the wax and tallow chandlers, and no family be permitted to be supplied with more than one pound of candles per week.
Third. Let guards also be posted to stop all the coaches, &c. that would pass the streets after sunset, except those of physicians, surgeons, and midwives.
Fourth. Every morning, as soon as the sun rises, let all the bells in every church be set ringing; and if that is not sufficient?, let cannon be fired in every street, to wake the sluggards effectually, and make them open their eyes to see their true interest.
The essay was either sharp social commentary regarding man's (and government's) attempts to rule everyone's lives by the clock (even going so far as to mandate daylight should only occur during certain hours of the day!), or Franklin was at least half off his rocker when he wrote it. I choose to believe the former.
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These sorts of incidents (wrongful arrest) are usually worth about $20,000 if the person is NOT held for any significant time and NOT charged inappropriately with a crime. This is very likely to be a mid six-figure settlement against the city, due to the length of time he was incarcerated, the charges that were filed and maintained, and the appalling lack of evidence in the first place. The high school may not
Re:Guilty until proven innocent has CONSEQUENCES (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago, in Pontoise (a small town near Paris), several men (about 15 if I remember well) were put to jail after someone anonymously reported them to have raped their own children. Of course, they've lost everything and their wifes got whatever was left at the divorce. Until one policeman noticed that all those divorced were initiated BEFORE the anonymous report and that all the wifes had the same lawyer, who was eventualy identified as the anonymous source. Those people were released, but most of them were already destoyed.