Coppin' some 'tude? That's a cuffin'

A Colorado television station reports:

ADAMS COUNTY - Children who cop an attitude at school might want to think twice. Eleven-year-old Yajira Quezada, a sixth-grader at Shaw Heights Middle School, was handcuffed and taken to a holding facility for disobeying the orders of an assistant principal during lunch and being "argumentative and extremely rude," 9Wants to Know has learned.

An Adams County Sheriff's Office incident report says the assistant principal found Yajira walking in the hallway during lunch because the girl claimed she was cold and needed to get a sweater from her locker.

The report says the assistant principal was in mid-sentence when Yajira, "turned and walked away saying, 'I don't have time for this.'"

When intervention efforts with a counselor failed, Yajira was handcuffed and put in the school resource officer's patrol car and taken to a juvenile holding facility called "The Link."

"She told me that I need to quit giving her my attitude. Why would they handcuff me? I'm not the type of girl to get arrested," Yajira said.

Sheesh. Things sure have changed since I was in sixth grade. Back then, if every kid with attitude had been cuffed, the Sheriff would have had to bring the big jail transport bus to the school.  So I guess after all the studies and seminars and mountains of Ed.D. degrees handed out in the last 50 years, they've done away with detention, suspension, or calling dad to come pick up his mouthy kid.

Babies are Stupid

From Deadspin:

This is the baby's idea of a game: He keeps trying to throw himself off the couch, headfirst. It's completely intentional. I sit him upright, and he looks me in the eye, holds my gaze, grins—and then pitches over sideways. I grab him, reel him back in, and straighten him up, and he grins again and takes another dive.

[snip]

I had forgotten how incredibly stupid babies are, over the four years since we'd last had one. The previous baby had become a child, a wholly recognizable human being, someone you could have a conversation with. ("I gotta pee," he says. "So go pee," I say. And he goes to the bathroom and pees.) This ability to communicate seemed, when we didn't think very hard about it, to have been there all along. We had always understood each other, child and parents. We'd gotten more fluent about it over time, was all. His infancy, in retrospect, was a puzzle we had all solved, working together.

[snip]

But then this baby arrived, and he was much, much stupider than that. His brother was born weeks early, tiny and puny, and so it had made sense that it took him a while to be able to do anything. But this one was a full-term baby, a sturdy eight-pounder, and he was unbelievably ignorant and helpless. He knew nothing, understood nothing. He was soft and warm, he had that going for him. His eyes were big and bright; his head was a handsome shape. And yet behind those eyes, or inside that head—a roaring void. For weeks, his mind consisted of one thought: "NIPPLE...? NIPPLE...? NIPPLE...?" I would hold him and he would nuzzle at me, blindly, trying to drink from my collarbone. He would bang his face against my chest over and over, with as much affection as a moth has for a windowpane.

Read the whole thing.

Living in a fantasy world

Here's a clip of Representative Ron Paul from 1984. He's railing about computer surveillance by the Government. At the time, of course, it was just one more example of what a kook he is. Unless, of course, you happened to have read William Gibson's debut novel, also published that year.

Never Forget

That's not a bug, that's a feature!

With several thousand all-electric Nissan Leaf cars now on the road, we were interested to see this survey data released by the company. Among the revelations: "Leaf owners drive less than 60 miles a day."

Which is a really good thing, since the car's range is only about 73 miles.

The Country's in the Very Best of Hands

DHS Secretary Napolitano demonstrates new security technology.

By now you've no doubt heard about TSA security personnel who required a 95-year-old woman to remove her adult diaper. It happened last weekend, and since then TSA has issued one of those non-denial denials we're used to from The Suits:

We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally, according to proper procedure and did not require this passenger to remove an adult diaper . . . .

So I guess since it wasn't "required," and TSA doesn't deny the diaper came off, this elderly passenger must have volunteered; makes sense to us.

What's notable is that on the very same weekend TSA was protecting America from diaper-bombs, they permitted Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi to fly cross-country with fake ID, an expired (day-old) boarding pass, and a pocket-full of other boarding passes. He was finally arrested when he tried a similarly document-deficient return trip -- but only after he'd already boarded the plane, and it was in the air:

A foreign national who flew from New York to Los Angeles last week with a stolen boarding pass and ID card has been arrested at Los Angeles International Airport, according to federal authorities.

Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi, a Nigerian-born man who was found with the stolen ID and up to 10 old boarding passes containing various names, was arrested Wednesday after attempting to board a flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta; five days after passing through layers of airport security at New York's JFK airport to board a plane with a day-old boarding pass, officials said.

Noibi was charged with being a stowaway aboard an aircraft, according to FBI Special Agent Kevin R. Hogg. He is being held at a Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center and is expected to be in court Friday.

Noibi allegedly managed to get through every layer of security with a fake ID and numerous boarding passes, at least one of which came from another passenger's pocket, ABC News has learned.

The arrest came after Noibi allegedly boarded a plane Saturday under similar circumstances at JFK and travel to Los Angeles. Noibi boarded Virgin America flight 415 at JFK bound for L.A., according to an FBI affidavit.

He was found on the plane after it had taken off and was in flight, in a seat in the aircraft's "main cabin select" area. When asked for his boarding pass, Noibi produced a boarding pass and ticket for a Friday flight that was not in his name, authorities said.

In the interest of fairness, we're obliged to point out that even if TSA had rooted around in Mr. Noibi's underwear, they'd not have discovered his lack of documents.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

It's amusing when the cops set up a phony pawn shop to bust burglars trying to fence stolen merchandise. We figure they got what they deserved when a prospective john learns that he's just solicited a vice cop.

But we have to ask why the Department of Homeland Security is trolling the internet for pedophiles. Is all incoming cargo inspected, all borders secured, and all airports safe from bomb-laden grandmothers so that DHS has to cast about for something to do?

The Smoking Gun reports:

MARCH 9--In an aggressive bid to entice prospective “sex tourists,” the Department of Homeland Security last year launched an undercover web site that purported to arrange trips from the U.S. to Canada, where clients could engage in sexual activity with minors, The Smoking Gun has learned.

The “Precious Treasure Holiday Company” web site was active until a few weeks ago when its Massachusetts-based web hosting firm removed the site from its servers, apparently in response to a complaint about its content. Now, visitors to precioustreasureholidaycompany.com are greeted with the message, “This site has been suspended.”

After a year online, the DHS undercover site may have fallen victim to its own sleazy, overt come-on. As seen at right, the site’s front page carried three symbols that an FBI intelligence bulletin has identified as being used by pedophiles. Additionally, the site’s acronym, PTHC, is an allusion to “preteen hardcore” pornography. The site’s carefully misspelled motto--“We Help Make Your Fantasy’s Come True!”--also does little to mask its illicit intentions.

An account executive with the hosting firm, who appeared unaware that “Precious Treasure Holiday Company” was a government operation, said that following a site’s suspension an internal investigation is launched. Upon the review’s completion, a site is either reinstated or terminated. The executive, Jason Crawford, added that if a customer’s site is found to contain illicit material like child pornography, the FBI is contacted.

We're Offended

It is a mark of cosmopolitan sensitivity to refrain from uttering the potentially offensive greeting "Merry Christmas." Not everyone, after all, celebrates the Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord, and there are some who go so far as to eschew the Winter Celebration of the Stimulation of Retail Sales. A casual "Merry Christmas" delivered in a public place might find its way to the ears of a Scientologist, a Mohammedan, or even a devout atheist, causing them to feel different, left out, and sad. No right-thinking person would mention rib roast in mixed company, where a vegetarian might be within ear-shot.

Fortunately, that's all behind us for another year. But it occurs to us that very little thought has been given to the widespread, casual greeting "Happy New Year." That greeting is at least as Eurocentric and culturally insensitive as "Merry Christmas." While January 1 may be the beginning of the New Year for the Internal Revenue Service, it is not a new year for most of the world. The first day of the Islamic year 1432 AH was December 7; the Chinese Year of the Rat -- the year 4708 -- does not begin until February 3; Rosh Hashanah was September 8, marking the Jewish new year of 5771. And we leave it to our readers to figure out where January 1, 2011, falls in the last few pages of the Mayan calendar.

We thus conclude that it is just plain wrong to thoughtlessly toss around "Happy New Year" in public places where Mohammedans, Chinese, Jews or Mayans may hear you. What you do in the privacy of your own home is your own affair, but even there you ought to be circumspect: think of the children.

All Your Kids Are Belong to Us

Attention parents who are black, gay, Jewish, Hispanic, or atheists: if you are angry at your child's teacher, or at the nice folks from Child Services, please avoid the following words (respectively): honky, breeder, goyim, gringo, and Christer.

Because if you're angry, and you use those words, we just might take your kids away from you.