BA’ATHIST SYRIA IS IN TROUBLE: How do I know? The French are cozying up. That’s always a sign that your days are numbered. . . .
The first incident occured when the words “Black Bitches” was scrawled across the door of a fifth floor Village at Centennial Hall apartment on Sept. 14 or 15. Student Allison Jackson filed a report with the University Police claiming that her neighbor was a possible suspect in the vandalism. […]
Due to an ongoing and escalating feud with her roommates, Jackson wrote the words in an attempt to get relocated to another room. According to the report, when told she was a suspect, she explained why she did it.
“I was requesting a roommate move, and I was given that advice that in order for the roommate move to be taken seriously, things needed to occur … issues needed to occur, and that if I really wanted, I could go ahead and pursue those issues, so the issue was basically that I wanted a roommate change.” […]
A similar seemingly unrelated incident occured in Mary Park Hall. After a supposed hate crime involving a watermelon in early September did not receive enough attention by campus authorities, freshman Leah Miller decided to write the word ‘NIGG’ on fellow resident Brandi Parr’s door on or around Sept. 20, according to a police report. Then she wrote a note bearing the same slur and claimed to her residential adviser that it was slipped under her door.
Miller said she was pressured into doing this by an older student, who claimed that she “had” to do it in order for the University to recognize racism in the community and that things like this had been done before. […]
According to the police report, both Miller and Jackson have submitted written statements to University Police admitting to charges of vandalism and tampering with evidence to implicate a suspect.
No charges were filed, of course. Lesson - why not try it, since there’s no penalty if it doesn’t work out.
Any hope that the report produced by an independent panel headed by for Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari on the August 19 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad would lead to some rethinking of the way that the UN secretariat in New York operates is now a thing of the past.
This is the opinion of many diplomatic observers in New York, as well as of a number of senior UN staff. In his report, Ahtisaari, a no-nonsense administrator indebted to no one, not only qualified the UN security system as “dysfunctional” but also referred to major shortcomings regarding “qualified professionals … internal coordination … threat assessment .. discipline … and accountability”. It was a damning indictment, not only of the way that security threats were addressed in Baghdad, but even more so on how Secretary General Kofi Annan runs his shop.
Many at the UN hoped that, confronted with this indictment, the secretariat would rise to the challenge and launch a process that would open the door to major reforms of the institution. It was not to be. On November 4, Annan decided to appoint a “team” to determine “accountability at all managerial levels” as it regards the Baghdad bombing. Many UN staff members, well versed in the art of reading between the lines of UN communiques, had one word to describe the decision: whitewash.
Just one more piece of evidence on how much sense it makes to turn Iraq over to Kofi’s Krew.
Mr. Baur says the idea to cross-breed tomatoes and tobacco came from an episode of The Simpsons that first aired in 1999.
He grew both plants, then cut the tops of each and switched them around. Both promptly died. Undeterred, and without a source of plutonium handy, Mr. Baur grew the plants again, this time hollowing a portion of each out and grafting them together. The plant took form, and after weeks of pruning, he now has a large tobacco root that has sprouted a tomato branch. The branch has yielded one ripe fruit, and tests have shown the leaves contain nicotine — the fruit will be tested for nicotine tomorrow. The scientist says he expects the fruit will contain much higher levels of the addictive ingredient. […]
But Mr. Baur is having a Dr. Frankenstein moment, noting that nicotine, when ingested orally, can be fatal to humans at levels higher than 150 milligrams. He fears his tomacco plant contains “multiple fatal doses”. […]
“Actually, it has no peaceful purposes”.
When the first person is poisoned, can they sue Matt Groening?