"Maybe principals and school superintendents are cretins and morons in your district."

oh, they are. and i'm sure there's good school districts out there. the wauwatosa public school system, where the incident in question occurred, was a very good district when i attended wauwatosa west. i'm sure the neighborhood, especially on the east side of town, has declined somewhat, but wauwatosa is not and will never be the deep hood.

"But if it does say "call the cops at the first sign of student misbehavior""

again, the complete disconnect between somebody on this thread and the facts of the story.

the only cop that was called was the one permanently assigned to the school. the school cop was called because teachers are no longer allowed to physically remove anything from a student's posession. whether it's a cell phone, a boom box or a bag of weed, some things are forbidden in class. and to call the school officer to physically separate a student from a forbidden item, i can state with a high degree of certainty, is a practice that is very widespread indeed.

the school cop wasn't called "at the first sign". the student was told more than once to put the phone away. she didn't. she was told to give the phone to the teacher. she didn't. the student chose civil disobedience. the situation escalated. the teacher, administrators, and police spent the better part of a DAY giving her every opportunity to act like a normal human being. "at the first sign?" please.

you know, i can't imaging a similar situation in a courtroom would go any differently.

ME: [texting]
JUDGE: sir, cell phones aren't allowed in court. please stop texting and put the phone away.
ME: no. [continues texting]
JUDGE: seriously. there's a big sign right outside the door. no cell phones. i need you to stop.
ME: make me. [continues texting]
JUDGE: bailiff, confiscate that man's phone.
BAILIFF: give me the phone, sir.
ME: [shoves phone into asscrack] what phone?
JUDGE: [mouth agape] congratulations einstein, you're being held in contempt of court.

if you haven't already, read the police report.

i think the issues of abortion and capital punishment make it pretty clear that the morality of everything legal is considered extremely dubious...

personally, i like simple games that are more about puzzle solving than memorizing combos and lots of cut scenes (for instance, i'm going to exchange "force unleashed" asap). if you can find a place to let you demo it, i'd give it a whirl.

"and leave a complete dimwit in control of the country." ...again...

i mostly agree with you. i'm gonna godwin myself, though, and say that

"But when the President and Vice President are ordering torture, renditions, and even assassinations, the chain of command is simply doing it's job."

is exactly what all the nazis said at nuremburg. "i was just following orders." well, some orders are just evil. and it's every human being's responsibility to know that. if i showed up tomorrow and my boss said, "lock this guy up. don't let him see a lawyer. don't tell him what he's done wrong. then beat the crap out of him and pour water down his throat until he's starting to die a little" i would NOT DO IT. neither would you. THAT's the real issue.

FWIW, i *highly* recommend lego star wars. addictive to the nth degree.

ok, i'll bite. what country has more gun violence than the US?

also, re: crime and gun laws... maybe the gun laws are because of the crime, not the other way around... also, most organized crime centers around prohibition of various sorts. legalize drugs, prostitution and gambling and street gangs would disappear overnight.

i still think the two antidotes to crime are police and schools. call me old fashioned. also, i kinda hate how our local cops are getting lazier and lazier. i can't help but wonder if they'd be more inclined to apprehend violent criminals if there wasn't a chance some citizen would do it for them...

mario kart is a effing blast.

i don't understand. you say that people won't commit violent crimes against people they think are armed. why is that? it doesn't matter if your victim is armed or not as long as you draw your gun first.

of course, if your victim is armed, then when you DO get the drop on them you should probably kill them right away.

i live just outside of a city with a very high murder rate. we also have legalized concealed carry, and a very high rate of handgun ownership in the city. the only thing that's changed is that now, once the burglar gets into your house, he assumes you have a gun.

so he shoots you in your sleep.

you see, back in the good old days when only outlaws had guns, once they pulled them on an unsuspecting victim they could be relatively sure they had the upper hand. no more. now there is no such thing as an unsuspecting victim. every criminal on the street regards every victim as a potential vigilante. victims who could have escaped a horrible crime with their lives are now murdered out of hand, with no more thought than you or i would give to buckling our seat belts as soon as we got into a car.

speaking of cars, my car was broken into a couple years ago. they smashed my window in my driveway (and this is out in the boonies, almost across the state line). they also smashed the windows of every other car on the street. at the time of the break-in, my car was filled with very expensive musical equipment. they didn't touch it. guess what they went for?

the glove compartment. same with every other car on the street. all they wanted was guns.

the ubiquity of guns, in this case, actually generated more crime. thanks, concealed carry laws! that window cost me over $700. and thanks also for that criminal who came to my driveway in the suburbs, no doubt armed to the teeth, because the odds were simply in his favor that my car would have a gun in it.

thank God he didn't think i had one in my house.

perhaps you can explain why the united states has the highest rate of private gun ownership AND the highest violent crime of any nation in the world? surely, if guns always made people safer, this would not be the case...

look, you're obviously biased. you've got your mind made up, and you're going to jump through whatever hoops you have to in order to rationalize the bad behavior of a teenager. you can call it "passing notes" if you want to - if you're going to bend logic that much you may as well call using a computer "passing notes", or shooting a flare gun "passing notes". (incidentally, the first thing that happens when you're busted passing notes is that the teacher takes the note. i suppose you consider that a moral outrage as well)

the facts are very clear. a teenager broke public school rules. when confronted, the teenager chose to pursue civil disobedience, even when presented with multiple opportunities to comply with the rules. the teenager was aware of the permanent presence of a police officer in the building she chose to pursue civil disobedience in. the teenager was cited and arrested, exactly like any similarly obstinate and petulant adult who used a cell phone in a courtroom and then refused to surrender it to the bailiff would have been.

public schools, courtrooms, city halls, libraries, police stations, and the like are all government entities, charged by citizens with special and important missions, and as such have regulatory powers not enjoyed by private schools, businesses, and residences. in other words, if you act against any of these institutions, you're acting against the government and, therefore, against the citizenry, and will likely be treated accordingly. if i were to engage in political protest at city hall, in violation of their rules, i would expect to be arrested. if i lit a cigarette in a courtroom, and refused to put it out, i would expect to be held in contempt of court. if you can't understand the difference between government entities and private homes or businesses then i feel sorry for you. and if, as i suspect, you simply choose to stomp your feet in ironic parody of your noble tosa east heroine, then i can only shake my head and wish you the best of luck making your way in the world.

either way, i'm done with you.

please explain how me having a gun in my pocket does me any good when somebody else already has theirs out, in their hand, and pointing at me.

you have apparently never been the victim of a violent crime.

being in possession of a handgun does not equate to self defense unless you walk around everywhere pointing it straight ahead of you. any gun takes a second or two to unholster and draw, especially if it's concealed, and a LOT can happen in a second or two.

when you feel the cold steel of somebody else's gun in your back, or when they pull their gun in front of you before you can pull yours, what are you going to do? ask them to be sportsmanlike, let you draw your weapon as well, take 20 paces?

no. you're going to give them your wallet and watch them run away. and if you shoot them in the back then YOU are going to jail.

there is no easy answer to violent crime. many people who are uneducated and poor WILL be criminals in the same way that water WILL flow downhill. vigilante justice is impractical and ineffective, and there is no deterrent that will stop a crackhead.

no, this escalated because a teenager decided to embark on an unswerving course of civil disobedience. she wound up with a citation. and that sounds very educational indeed.

oh, btw, your criminal record is expunged or sealed when you turn 18. so don't let that keep you up at night.

did you read the part of the police report where the girl wouldn't give them the correct phone number for her mother? you probably should read the whole thing.

BUT THEY DON'T. because if they suspend a student, and the student's parents complain to the superintendent, guess what? the student's back the next day. at least in my part of the country, principals hardly ever back up the teachers, just because they know the parents have all the cards.

it's sad how out of touch with modern public high school education so many people here are.

my parents are both public high school teachers. they are in the trenches. at their school district, supensions are only ever given for proven physical violence against another student. physical violence against the teacher is blamed on the teacher. if it's the teacher's word against the kid's, the kid wins. expulsions simply never happen. kids have been caught bringing guns to school and not been expelled.

send a kid to the principal's office, the principal asks what happened, the kid says "the teacher's mean and doesn't like me", and then the TEACHER gets reprimanded for being mean. i am not making this up. this happens, literally, every week.

this teacher was going 100% by the book to call the school cop.

the police officer demanded she surrender the cell phone in accordance with school rules. school rules, in a public school, carry the force of law. so, technically, she was breaking the law right there.

when she refused to obey a police officer, she was definitely breaking the law. if she wants to engage in civil disobedience, that's her right - but she should expect to be arrested and charged.