(Image is used under the Pixabay license)

Someone actually thought this was a good idea? How stupid do you have to be?

Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables. ... "The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

Update: Here's a link to the school's press release on the topic. Their account of what happened is completely opposite of what was reported on CNN.

Most of the students stood up and said, "That was a good one." "Yeah, you got me." High fives were exchanged.

Either the school is totally downplaying this or CNN has got some serious problems with their accuracy. But something about this press release bothers me and apparently I'm not the only one:

"The children went to sleep and did not discuss it the following morning." The absurdity of that statement is staggering. They are trying to convince people that in a class of over 60 students, after teachers pulled a 'prank', that not one of these ~60 students said anything about it the next day? Not one of them teased another one about falling for the 'joke'? Really? Not one?

The person who posted this comment on the Slashdot forums is right on.

NSA

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Verizon, who I was pretty certain hadn't handed over any customer records according to them, is now saying that it's ok for them to do it, it's free speech.

Essentially, the argument is that turning over truthful information to the government is free speech, and the EFF and ACLU can't do anything about it. In fact, Verizon basically argues that the entire lawsuit is a giant SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit, and that the case is an attempt to deter the company from exercising its First Amendment right to turn over customer calling information to government security services.

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This stuff drives me crazy. I really, really hate companies who target kids in this way.

Hmm, I've always wanted one of these.

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So they don't have cameras watching the TSA employees as they check the luggage? It's no wonder abuses like this keep happening.

Don't check valuables! You have to assume that anything worth more than 5 bucks that you check is going to be stolen. It's not pretty, but it's the world we live in.

This is unacceptable. When there's a string of employee thefts and in particular done by security personnel, there's no justification for ignoring the problem.

Debt is the pitts

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In clever application of the law, debt collectors have started to garnish wages from debtors. To stop the garnishment, you have to pay to file the case in district court.

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Assuming the bill is written well, this is a very good thing. Congress is pushing through a law that would prevent discrimination based on genetics. If you don't understand what this means, check out Gattica, a movie that explains the risks better than any other I've seen.

Darn those hackers... so clever.

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This is so, so stupid. It's not weak security, its that you data-abused us for all our customer data that we didn't want you to keep anyway. If you hadn't stored all the data on us, you couldn't have lost it.

In addition to pilfering over 45 million—and possibly as many as 200 million—credit card and debit card numbers, the hackers were also able to obtain other personal data from over 450,000 customers. This included driver's license numbers and Social Security numbers.

I already know they don't need to store our credit cards, but licenses and SSNs?

Bullies

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Here's an interesting discussion of how RICO might (or might now) apply to the RIAA. For those who don't know, RICO is a special statute that provides for harsher penalties and triple damages for plaintiffs as long as it can be shown that the defendant is a member of organized crime (look it up on wikipedia for a better description).

Anyway, I have always thought that the RIAA counted under RICO. They're an organization that is purposefully breaking laws, extorting innocent people, and has been doing it for years and years.

DHL

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In a continuing effort by the Bush administration and the ridiculous Department of Homeland Security to make sure there's not a country left in this world that supports us, the DHS has suddenly abandoned talks with Canada about traveler pre-screening.

"It's unacceptable to say it can't be figured out," former U.S. ambassador Gordon Giffin said Thursday from Calgary. "The U.S. can't just throw up its hands. It's almost childish, like they're taking their marbles and going home," said Giffin, who served in Canada from 1997 to 2001. "It's just not productive. For Pete's sake, we're working with Canada. We're not working with some Third World country."

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If you have an outstanding debt that you eventually decide to make good on, you may get penalized. The "Date of Last Activity" field on your credit file will get updated if you make a single payment making it appear as if your delinquency was yesterday instead of 3 years ago.

This practice has been challenged and it seems that the consumers are winning.