Brian Schroeder, a 26-year-old 2009 graduate of Harvard Law School, has been reportedly charged in the arson of the Sept. 11 memorial in Manhattan. Schroeder turned himself in on November 1st. He is accused of breaking into the chapel and setting it on fire. While the remains of victims are housed in the structure, the fire did not affect those remains but did destroy mementos and other property.
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The University of Akron has taken the radical step of demanding that all faculty and employees submit a DNA sample — causing one adjunct professor Matt Williams (who teaches four communications and continuing education courses) to resign. Williams notes “It’s not enough that the university doesn’t pay us a living wage, or provide us with health insurance, but now they want to sacrifice the sanctity of our bodies.” He’s right.
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Dan Delong, an English teacher at Southwestern High School in Piasa, Illinois has been suspended for allegedly allowing students in his English classes to read an article about homosexuality in the animal kingdom. The article that Delong allegedly had his class read was published in a 2006 edition of “The Gay Animal Kingdom” and is available at http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_gay_animal_kingdom.
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The dangers of drunk Ewoks is a little known danger for costume parties. However, the Today Show became the unwitting focus of inebriated Ewoks, including Al Roker who appears have a claim for sexual assault.
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I give you a cat in zero gravity.
Continue reading “Cats in Space”
I give you (as promised) the Turley Trebuchet.
Continue reading “The Turley Trebuchet”
Harvard University is reeling from a uniquely bad business gamble. The school lost at least $500 million when it bet that interest rates would rise. The money went to investment banks this year due to $1.1 billion of interest-rate swaps intended to hedge variable-rate debt for capital projects. The loss will likely grow considerably. It also agreed to pay $425 million over 30 to 40 years to offset an additional $764 million in swaps.
Continue reading “Ivy League Clipping: Harvard Loses Half a Billion Dollars in Bad Investment Gamble”
Here is today’s column in USA Today on the Obama Administration’s decision to join the U.N. Human Rights Council and support Egypt in recognizing limits on free speech for those who insult or denigrate religion. While the exception was included in a resolution heralding free speech, it was viewed as a major victory for Muslim countries seeking to establish an international blasphemy law.
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There has long been tension between animal activists and religious adherents over the sacrificing of live animals. Jewish and Muslim leaders have long argued that the sacrifices are not any more painful than what occurs in slaughter houses. Now a study is challenging that assumption and leading to calls in England for a ban on live sacrifices.
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Professor Ellen van Wolde, a world acclaimed Old Testament scholar, may have introduced a considerable problem for creationists. What if the Bible never actually said God “created the Heaven and the Earth”? Van Wolde has issued an intriguing paper suggesting that a mistranslation is responsible for an error in the first sentence of Genesis and that in reality the Bible says that God merely rearranged things on the pre-existing Earth. Much of this turns on the Hebrew verb “bara”, which she says did not mean “to create” but to “spatially separate.” That would require Creationists to rename themselves as “separatists.” “Baristas” may cause trademark issues with Starbucks.
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The same week as the horrendous story of a six-year-old cub scout being suspended and sent to reform school for bringing his cub scout mess kit to eat lunch (here), New York educators have added another ridiculous case out of the “zero tolerance” madness gripping schools. Matthew Whalen is a 17-year-old senior at Lansingburgh High School who has just completed basic training to be a soldier. He kept a 2-inch keychain pocketknife locked in his car with other camping equipment. When the school learned about the knife, they suspended him and, when he appealed, they added 15 days for the Eagle Scout.
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School officials in Newark, Delaware have given the nation another example of mindless “zero-tolerance” abuse. In this case, officials suspended 6-year-old Zachary Christie because the boy brought his new cub scout camping utensils to school to eat his lunch. Because the utensil had a small knife, he was suspended and ordered to spend the next 45 days in the district’s reform school.
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Here is this week’s column from Roll Call. It explores the interesting selection of cases this term for the Supreme Court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s colleagues could not have selected cases more carefully to address areas of uncertainty from her confirmation hearing. Whether by accident or design, this docket is front-loaded with cases that will force Sotomayor to show her true colors in the first few months of her tenure as an associate justice.
Continue reading “Simply Sonia: Sotomayor’s Colleagues Pick Docket Virtually Tailored To Force Her To Choose Sides”
Given our earlier story of how English parents are no longer allowed to buy alcohol with their teenagers present at the store, this may be a bit of a mixed message. A study has concluded that parents should supply alcohol to their teenagers at home rather than have them venture out for more dangerous liaisons. The researchers propose a weekly alcohol allowance for teens.
Continue reading “Teen Happy Hours: Study Proposes a Weekly Alcohol Allowance for the Children”
Texas parents are complaining that a program to distribute free Gideon Bibles at schools may have backfired. So many Bibles were distributed to students in Plano and Frisco that students reportedly began to use them as weapons, sold them, or even uses the pages to roll joints. In one particularly disturbing account, a Jewish boy was attacked by Christian students throwing the bibles at him.
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