Virginia Tech, Abortion, and the Dow

Hey folks,

Do you have any idea what today is? Let me give you a hint. 365 days, 471 posts. Ring a bell? That’s right! It is the one year anniversary of the launch of the OPNTalk blog. One year today folks. One year of your voice of simplicity in a complicated world. Your voice of reason and logic in all the insanity that surrounds us. Your gateway to truth. I want to thank you all for making it possible and contributing from time to time. May we have many more to come.

So how am I going to celebrate this milestone? Same way I do this everyday. Report and analyze the news. There are three topics I want to discuss today. First up, AP -Va. Tech gunman sent material to NBC, By MATT APUZZO,

Two days after the worst killing spree in modern U.S. history, the shooter again assaulted Virginia Tech — though this time it was in videos and photographs.

In the images, mailed to NBC midway through his rampage, 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui delivered a snarling, profanity-laced tirade about rich "brats" and their "hedonistic needs."

Link to video removed.

Earlier in the day, authorities disclosed that more than a year before the massacre, Cho was accused of sending unwanted messages to two women and was taken to a psychiatric hospital on a magistrate's orders and was pronounced a danger to himself. But he was released with orders to undergo outpatient treatment.

The disclosure added to the rapidly growing list of warning signs that appeared well before the student opened fire. Among other things, Cho's twisted, violence-filled writings and sullen, vacant-eyed demeanor had disturbed professors and students so much that he was removed from one English class and was repeatedly urged to get counseling.

So why was more not done? So far, NONE has really answered the question I first asked, now many more are following. Why was the school NOT locked down after the first two killings? The latest excuse, and that is what it is, an excuse, is that they thought it was a domestic dispute. OK, SO? He was unstable, make that ANYONE who was unstable enough to kill two people in broad day light, in the middle of a school, is not one to assume just went away. He decided that he would take innocent lives and then himself, so why not take out any and everyone that you can?

According to AP -Schools review safety after Va. massacre, By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER, now after the fact.

Cell phone text messages. Loudspeakers on towers. Cameras that detect suspicious activity. Colleges and universities are considering these and other measures in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, seeking to improve how they get the word out about emergencies to thousands of students across sprawling campuses.

The University of Washington in Seattle is weighing whether to use warning sirens. Clemson University in South Carolina recently installed a similar system for weather-related emergencies and now may expand its use.

"You're going to see a nationwide re-evaluation of how to respond to incidents like this," said Jeff Newton, police chief at the University of Toledo.

Chuck Green, director of public safety at the University of Iowa, said school officials were discussing a new outdoor warning system just a day before the Blacksburg shootings. The technology would allow for live voice announcements as well as prerecorded messages.

"We'd like the option to hit one button to reach large numbers of people at one time," he said.

Then you should LOCK DOWN the school. But these schools are trying to learn from this. That is a good thing. Look at this.

Virginia Tech officials did not send an e-mail warning about a gunman on campus until two hours after the first slayings, drawing criticism that they waited too long and relied on e-mail accounts that students often ignore.

OK this was an OK attempt. However, one, if they were not on the computer? Two, didn’t check their emails? Three, two hours later is just a tidbit too late, don’t ya think? The school should have been locked down immediately. Noone in, noone out. But they failed to do this.

They still have a lot of question to answer for. They will need to start answering them. This is not about protecting yourselves from lawsuits. This is about being honest in what went wrong and how we can fix it in the future. One psycho did this. But you hold some of the blame because you failed to act in an appropriate manner. How will you avoid this in the future? It is time to be honest. Time to find a better way of dealing with something like this.

OK, I took a lot of time discussing that, so these will be brief, well, for now. {Smile} It is a GREAT day in America today. A great day for innocent lives. AP -Court Backs Ban on Abortion Procedure By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

I can guarantee you this will be getting a lot more attention. I am sure we will be talking about this more in-depth this Weekend. But right now, this very little victory, makes for a GREAT day in America.

Then you have this for all those that continue to preach to you how bad the economy is? The headline says it all. Reuters -Dow ends at record high, By Caroline Valetkevitch

The Dow ended at a record 12,803.84 eclipsing a previous record set on February 20, a week before a global sell-off hit equities markets. On Wednesday, the blue-chip Dow average also climbed to an all-time session high of 12,838.46, surpassing the previous intraday record high, also reached on February 20.

That’s it for right now, because and only because I’m out of time. See you all tomorrow for the FRIDAY edition. Happy anniversary to us. {Smile}
Peter

Sources:
AP -Va. Tech gunman sent material to NBC
AP -Schools review safety after Va. massacre
AP -Court Backs Ban on Abortion Procedure
Reuters -Dow ends at record high