Category: News
Republishing of exerpts from news sources.
White House Sealed
Police sealed off the front gates of the White House this morning because of a suspicious package found near the northwest gate, news reports said. Neither President Bush nor Vice President Cheney were at the White House at the time.
Could you, would you save a life?
Yesterday a 13 year old girl, Megan, on Sarah’s Bearden Middle School bus fell over with a heart attack. The girl beside the victom screamed. The bus stopped, students evacuated the bus, paramedics brought in a AED, rushed the girl away, and that’s all we know.
Poor Sarah. Bomb threats, lock downs, and possibly death. Too much reality for a 12 year old. The sad thing is Sarah keeps everything locked inside of her and I can’t get anything but stoic, short answers from her. I was the same way at her age and it pains me because I know that keeping things bottled up can only last so long and eventually it all has to come out; the longer she waits, the harder it will be to deal with the bottled up emotions. I bet she thinks she is being strong; strength would be talking. At least she has caught blog fever and perhaps we can communicate that way. She shared more information about the incident in her blog than I could have dragged out of her with any other means.
Taking advantage of the situation we had this dialog:
Dad: "So Sarah, would you have liked to known CPR to be able help?"
Sarah: "They taught us CPR at camp."
Dad: "So did you try to help?"
Sarah: "She didn’t need CPR. She needed those paddle thingys."
Dad: "An AED? A defibrillator?"
Dad takes a moment to explain CPR, the functions of the heart, lungs and brain, and why CPR saves lives until an AED can be brought on the scene.
Sarah glazes over and tunes Dad out.
Dad asks: "Would you like to be trained in CPR?"
Sarah, exasperated: " I don’t want to learn that medical stuff!"
Dad, starts to explain how she could have helped the girl today, or perhaps her grandparents or even parents.
*Ring ring*
Saved by the bell. The phone rings to end the conversation.
I have to say I found the conversation a little disheartening. More people should be trained with the American Red Cross.
DIY Abortion – Janes Clinics
This is not a topic I usually comment on but Continue reading DIY Abortion – Janes Clinics
Previous Post Retracted
Seeking more info. Bearden High School does not appear to be in lock down.
The shooting occurred at The Cove in West Knoxville. Looks as if a woman is a hostage of two hispanic males and an officer was shot. The officer’s name rings a familiar bell.
1:35 p.m. Authorities have closed the gates at Bearden High School while the suspects are still at large. The school has not been officially locked down.
See WBIR for more info.
More thoughts on the marijuana cave
So, when building a 47 meter tunnel to a cave from your garage, do you:
- buy a house that happens to sit on a cave, discover the cave, construct the tunnel, then sell pot
- Ask a real estate agent for a house that sits on a cave with a tunnel already built from the garage to the cave, then sell pot
- Find a cave, pay off local contractors/inspectors, build house on cave, sell pot
- Grow up playing in cave, smoking pot in cave as a teenager, have a marijuana induced vision of a house ontop of the cave to make smoking pot more convenient, fulfill dream but take it too far
- Wish that you had purchased your property in Denver
And do you think, just perhaps, the ususual amount of electricity that this house used might have helped investigators figure out something wasn’t right? It still amazes me that one, people go to this much trouble to take such great risk, and two, that with so much thought put into this that they ever get found out. I suppose they bragged to the wrong person. "Duuuude! I am the Potman! Wanna see my cave?" It’s not a secret if you tell anyone.
Updated (4/4/07): Pictures are circulating the Internet again.
Bearden Middle School Bomb Threat – Update
Since the school was given the all clear, normal classes began at 11am. Any student checked out received an unexcused absence. Words exchanged amongst parents in the office were:
"the school declared this a drill and a normal day,"
"originally they were claiming it would be an excused absence,"
"all parents should call downtown to the administrative offices and complain to get this switched to an excused absence."
Overheard of the students:
"half my team is gone,"
"we aren’t going to do anything but sit around,"
"half the school checked out at the church."
I reiterate: All parents of Bearden Middle School (BMS) students should call downtown, not the school, to protest this day as an unexcused absence. All checkouts should be excused.
Central office information: 865-594-1900
Middle School Coordinator 865-594-1619
Bearden Middle School Bomb Threat – Update
Bomb threat was a false alarm. Parents can now go pick their children up at the Church the school.
Bearden Middle School Bomb Threat – Update
The students have been moved to Middlebrook Pike United Methodist Church. (Google Maps marks this wrong. The church is at the intersection of Vanosdale and Middlebrook. My earlier post misquoted the students as being moved across Vanosdale when they were really moved across Francis.
Bearden Middle School Bomb Threat
Bearden Middle School (BMS) evacuated students to the other side of VanosdaleFrancis due to a bomb threat.
This information is unconfirmed.
No more cashiers at fast food restaurants!
I’ve been saying we should be doing this for years!
As for the people that will cry out, "what will those people do for a living?!" Capitalism is not wellfare so it is not McDonald Corp’s (or in this case, Taco Bell’s) responsibility to see those people employeed. The U.S. Department of Labor – Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that automation will cause job declines through 2014.
productivity gains, job automation, and international competition will adversely affect employment in many other manufacturing industries. Employment in textile mills and apparel manufacturing will decline by 119,000 and 170,000 jobs, respectively. Employment in computer and electronic product manufacturing also will decline by 94,000 jobs through 2014.
Automation will cause job declines.
Desktop publishers will be among the fastest growing occupations in this group, increasing by 23.2 percent over the decade. However, due to rising productivity and increased automation, office and administrative support occupations also account for 11 of the 20 occupations with the largest employment declines.
…
The majority of the 20 occupations with the largest numerical decreases are office and administrative support and production occupations, which are affected by increasing plant and factory automation and the implementation of office technology that reduces the needs for these workers.
…
Office automation will significantly affect many individual office and administrative support occupations. Overall, these occupations are projected to grow more slowly than average, while some are projected to decline. Office and administrative support occupations are projected to create 7.5 million job openings over the 2004-14 period, ranking third behind service and professional and related occupations.
The report also has positive numbers complete with an indication that food service will grow.
Accommodation and food services is expected to grow by 16.5 percent and add 1.8 million new jobs through 2014. Job growth will be concentrated in food services and drinking places, reflecting increases in population, dual-income families, and dining sophistication.
…
Jobs will be created for many production occupations, including food processing workers…
I wonder if such automation as shown in the Taco Bell picture was considered in this report.
Benefits of a job?
In today’s economics, businesses continue to cut job perks:
SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. – The sheriff said Friday he will no longer allow detectives to receive sexual services while investigating suspected prostitution after they spent $1,200 at massage parlors last month.
…county detectives allowed women at Moon Spa to perform sex acts on them — once leaving a $350 tip
I can see the candidates at their interview. "See, we don’t pay great, but…"
Curious Murder
Why? I’ll reprint in full:
Two men have been charged with the first-degree murder of CURIOUS GEORGE co-author ALAN J SHALLECK in Florida.
The 76-year-old writer was found stabbed to death under a pile of garbage bags outside his home in Boynton Beach on Tuesday (07FEB06).
Police found a trail of blood leading from Shalleck’s body to his trailer home and found blood splattered all over the master bedroom, as well several knives and broken glass.
REX SPEARS DITTO, 29, and VINCENT PUGLISI, 54, were arrested on Wednesday (08FEB06) and have confessed to home invasion, murder and robbery, according to police.
Shalleck co-wrote the popular Curious George books with MARGARET REY since the 1970s, after the death of original creator HA REY in 1977.
The big screen version of Curious George, which features the voices of DREW BARRYMORE and WILL FERRELL, hit US cinemas today (10FEB06).
Web developers open your eyes!
Web developers should expect that companies will be asking if their work is section 508 compliant. That is, can people without sight, hearing or other challenges use the website? A blind UC Berkley student has sued Target for committing a civil rights violation because its website is inaccessible to those without sight. Oh, and programmers, I’d expect that the companies wanting to be compliant probably don’t want to pay any extra for it.
Advocates for the blind said the lawsuit is a shot across the bow for retailers, newspapers and others who have Web sites the blind cannot use. They chose Target because of its popularity and because of a large number of complaints by blind patrons.
“What I hope is that Target and other online merchants will realize how important it is to reach 1.3 million people in this nation and the growing baby-boomer population who will also be losing vision,” said plaintiff Bruce Sexton Jr., 24, a blind third-year student at UC Berkeley.
Of note, Section 508 is specific to government agencies and federally funded organizations. I’m pretty sure Target is not federally funded.
Once married, you don’t get any!
“Sleep is something everyone needs and wants,” said Melanie Wells, senior editor of Forbes. “We have to have it, and we have trouble getting it these days. And increasingly people are paying a lot of money for relief.”
