Where is balance? -- Re: Academic priorities
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From: Charlie Gibbs on 6 May 2005 17:17 In article <1b1x8k8o11.fsf(a)cs.nmsu.edu>, pfeiffer(a)cs.nmsu.edu (Joe Pfeiffer) writes: > And, of course, my son always has a small screwdriver in his clarinet > case (a screwdriver which was confiscated as a potential weapon once > when the band was getting on an airplane). Ha-ha, and they thought they eliminated the threat. Now take me to Cuba or I'll start playing this clarinet. And I'll make it squeak REALLY badly... -- /~\ cgibbs(a)kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs) \ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way. X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855. / \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
From: rpl on 6 May 2005 17:57 Joe Pfeiffer wrote: > Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis(a)SystematicSW.Invalid> writes: > > >>On 05 May 2005 20:38:07 GMT in alt.folklore.computers, Casper H.S. Dik >><Casper.Dik(a)Sun.COM> wrote: >> >> >>>Norman Yarvin <norman.yarvin(a)snet.net> writes: >>> >>> >>>>In article <d5a5rr$tms$1(a)osl016lin.hda.hydro.com>, >>>>Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen(a)hda.hydro.com> wrote: >>> >>>>>Besides, who needs a sharp knife when a broken whiskey bottle is handy? >>> >>>>Me. Bottles are not as easy to break as the movies show; and once broken >>>>they're liable to break further, likely shattering in the wielder's hand. >>> >>>And which part of a plane can you hit with a bottle that wouldn't >>>break before the bottle breaks? >> >>Crew hostages? > > > What airline do you fly that has large glass bottles? I suppose you could ask the pilot
From: Bill Leary on 6 May 2005 20:51 "Kevin G. Rhoads" <kgrhoads(a)alum.mit.edu> wrote in message news:427B6EFC.9EBFC056(a)alum.mit.edu... > >Intent is irrelevant, only results matter. > > Close: Intent is irrelevant, results are also irrelevant, only appearances matter, > and only in the minds of the officials enforcing the ZT policies. I think we mean the about same thing. What I was getting at is it didn't matter if the intent of having the banned object was "oops" or "I'm coming to school armed." All that matters is if the banned object is present. - Bill
From: Stan Barr on 7 May 2005 01:05 On Fri, 06 May 2005 21:14:28 +0200, Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen(a)hda.hydro.com> wrote: >Morten Reistad wrote: >> In article <d5dhod01pjg(a)news4.newsguy.com>, >> Norman Yarvin <norman.yarvin(a)snet.net> wrote: >> >>>In article <d5a5rr$tms$1(a)osl016lin.hda.hydro.com>, >>>Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen(a)hda.hydro.com> wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Besides, who needs a sharp knife when a broken whiskey bottle is handy? >>> >>>Me. Bottles are not as easy to break as the movies show; and once broken >>>they're liable to break further, likely shattering in the wielder's hand. >> >> So you wrap something around the nect of the bottle that will protect you. >> thick leather, canvas, linen will do pretty well. The you make a small incision >> in the glass, and try to hit it right there. >> >> This was taught in the navy. Don't boys learn such stuff there anymore? > >In the scouts we learned to wrap some twine around it, soaked in >spirits: Put a match to it, let it burn for a short while, then hit the >glass. > >Relatively often, this results in a nice cut where the twine was. I learned that trick from an American blues guitarist - it's how you make bottlenecks for playing slide guitar! Of course smoothing the sharp edge in a gas flame is also recommended... -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb .at. dial .dot. pipex .dot. com (Remove any digits from the addresses when mailing me.) The future was never like this!
From: Morten Reistad on 7 May 2005 06:31
In article <Rv2dnZ-JnpbVkuHfRVn-rg(a)giganews.com>, Bill Leary <Bill_Leary(a)msn.com> wrote: >"Kevin G. Rhoads" <kgrhoads(a)alum.mit.edu> wrote in message >news:427B6EFC.9EBFC056(a)alum.mit.edu... >> >Intent is irrelevant, only results matter. >> >> Close: Intent is irrelevant, results are also irrelevant, only appearances >matter, >> and only in the minds of the officials enforcing the ZT policies. > >I think we mean the about same thing. What I was getting at is it didn't matter >if the intent of having the banned object was "oops" or "I'm coming to school >armed." All that matters is if the banned object is present. There is also a huge mission creep here; where what was a search for portable guns were extended to knives, and then to mundane tools. The cost to society goes up dramatically. In such a society, where can you legally transport knives after you bought them? What cost having to make arrangements for tools? They even mess with telecom eqipment (coax cutters, plint tools, small pliers) at the airport security, even though these have been explicitly certified for carry-on. I have had to be curt with airport saftey personell at more occasions than one. And, it adresses a problem we really don't have. We have had a culture of responsible use of guns and knives. The Norwegian native attach weapon is the axe, even featured in the coat of arms. The axe featured as the top murder weapon in all decades we have trial records for, and that goes back to the early 1200's. Knives overtook the axe in the 1990's, but only slightly, and if you exclude immigrants [1] the axe was on top. But is there any limit on carrying axes? Noooooo. You may be towed in for disorderly conduct if you display it very prominently in public though. -- mrr [1] Non-western immigrants tend to use guns, westeners use knives. There are more of the latter. |