[Quote:]

This is Part 2 of a five-part series. Link to Part 1.

A great read. Summary: “We shouldn’t defend against specific tactics, but against the larger threat. So we’ll keep defending against specific tactics.”

[Quote:]

Two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, according to letters from county election officials to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner.

The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.

Oh, shocking.

What are Paris and Lindsay up to today?

[Quote:]

Music-industry litigation tactics against suspected online music pirates face a challenge in Tennessee, with an Army sergeant arguing that record labels have engaged in a “conspiracy” to defraud courts and violate privacy rights.

The claims come in response to a lawsuit against Nicholas Paternoster of Clarksville, Tenn., 33, soldier at nearby Fort Campbell, who is accused of infringing copyrights by using the peer-to-peer file-sharing program Kazaa to distribute songs online.

[..]

In the response, Paternoster denies the allegations of copyright infringement and responds with a counterclaim charging that the record labels are abusing copyright law.

The labels, “ostensibly competitors in the recording industry, are a cartel acting together in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy,” allege Paternoster’s attorneys from the Nashville law firm Beam & Rogers.

The countersuit points out that although the recording industry singled out only six songs whose copyrights were infringed, the complaint includes screenshots of more than 4,600 files from Paternoster’s personal computer, including hundreds of apparently pornographic pictures and movies.

According to another document filed in the case, Paternoster was unaware that the Kazaa software was installed on his computer. While on a tour of duty in Germany from 2004 to 2005, the document says, another soldier downloaded the software and set up a Kazaa account under Paternoster’s name.

Last summer Paternoster discovered the software and “thousands of files downloaded on his computer by the soldiers he housed,” and he uninstalled the software and deleted the files, according to the document.

Kazaa and other file-sharing networks often make a computer’s files available for download by other network users, which allows the RIAA’s investigators to document instances of copyright infringement. The file-sharing option can be disabled, but many users never realize they are making their files available.

By including the full list of Paternoster’s files in the public record, the record labels invaded his privacy and are trying to “shame” him into accepting their demands, his attorneys argue.

“Such actions by the Counter-Defendants are a blatant misuse of their right to investigate potential copyright infringement and violate public policy,” the countersuit reads.

[..]

Attorneys for the record labels from the Nashville law firm Bowen Riley Warnock & Jacobson would not comment on the case, referring questions to the RIAA.

“We try to be fair and reasonable in resolving these cases,” said RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth. “Our aim is not to be in court, but to seek appropriate retribution for the damage done to the industry.”

Interesting choice of words, right? They don’t care about compensation, they want retribution. If they could ask for blood, they would.

It reminds me of a passage in the latest Harry Potter (yes, I’ve read it – mock me if you want):

“You don’t understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have lived with the goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is its maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs.”

“But if it was bought —”

“—then they would consider it rented by one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard.

[..]

“I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, that it ought to have been returned to the goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft.”

[Quote:]

Stichting de Thuiskopie heft haar fonds op dat geld doneert voor de audio(visuele) cultuur in Nederland. Zij zal voortaan alle geïnde gelden doorsluizen naar de rechthebbenden, zoals muzikanten, componisten en producenten. Die kunnen eventueel zelf een cultuurfonds optuigen.

En software fabrikanten kunnen ook in de toekomst dus gewoon barsten: wel geld moeten besteden aan een heffen op de media die ze nodig hebben, maar nog steeds gewoon als dief behandeld worden.

[Quote:]

CNN.com has slowly been moving to an all-ad format over the past few years, but the former news giant hasn’t abandoned their legacy of news reporting completely.

The company has named Tommy Rickey head of the new “advernewsment” division, to find innovative ways to place news in advertisements on the site.

Rickey said, “While the website might be entirely ads and promotions for our television shows, we still have the ghostly soul of a news organization, and that will remain as long as I’m here.”

Rickey was formerly executive producer at Entertainment Tonight where he honed his skills on their all-ad format. He highlighted some innovative techniques that CNN.com would be taking.

“A recent flash ad we ran for Coca-Cola featured Condoleeza Rice handing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki an icy cold Coke. It was informative and refreshing,” said Rickey. Other innovative ads he showed included a “Punch the Sarkozy” banner ad and a advernewsment story about GM’s new plug-in hybrid car which had a sentence about global climate change.

[Quote:]

An RAF typist who injured her thumb at work is to be paid almost half a million pounds by the Ministry of Defence.

The civilian’s award is almost 30 times the amount a serviceman would receive for the same injury.

It is eight times more than a soldier would receive for losing a leg and almost double the amount he could expect if he lost both legs.

The £484,000 payout was condemned by former soldiers, politicians and servicemen’s charities who fear it will severely damage morale.

The woman, believed to be in her 20s, developed a repetitive strain injury while typing computer data.

She claimed it left her unable to work and caused her to become depressed, and she started legal action against the MoD.

Tory defence spokesman Liam Fox said: “I think it is indicative of a very weird set of priorities that those who are injured carrying out orders are less well compensated than those who are typing up the orders.”

[Quote:]

“They never connect the dots,” says Jill June, president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa. But her organization urged voters to do just that in the last gubernatorial election, in which the Republican contender believed abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest. “We wanted him to tell the women of Iowa exactly how much time he expected them to serve in jail if they had an abortion,” June recalled. Chet Culver, the Democrat who unabashedly favors legal abortion, won that race, proving that choice can be a winning issue if you force people to stop evading the hard facts. “How have we come this far in the debate and been oblivious to the logical ramifications of making abortion illegal?” June says.

[Quote:]

Cinema Guzzo, a leading Quebec movie chain, is being sued for a rough search of some of its patrons (Guzzo searches has been the subject of some online discussion here, here, and here).  La Presse reports that a Montreal woman is seeking $60,000 in damages for the way the theatre chain searched her bags.  The woman’s lawyer argues that there are less invasive ways to search for camcording equipment, such as x-ray detectors.  Vincent Guzzo responds that such machines cost $70,000 each (though he also claims that the issue costs the theatre one million dollars annually) and that the theatre typically prefers to target its searches to males between 18 and 35 with backpacks.  He adds that the theatre includes clear signage indicating that they reserve the right to search bags.  Bill C-59, the new anti-camcording law, creates new penalties for camcording, but does not grant theatre owners any new rights to search patrons.

Yep, here’s another one…

The more I think about this equation, the more it makes sense… sort of.

[Quote:]

An Iraqi who was a key source of intelligence for MI5 has given the first ever full insider’s account of being seized by the CIA and bundled on to an illegal ‘torture flight’ under the programme known as extraordinary rendition.

In a remarkable interview for The Observer, British resident Bisher al-Rawi has told how he was betrayed by the security service despite having helped keep track of Abu Qatada, the Muslim cleric accused of being Osama bin Laden’s ‘ambassador in Europe’. He was abducted and stripped naked by US agents, clad in nappies, a tracksuit and shackles, blindfolded and forced to wear ear mufflers, then strapped to a stretcher on board a plane bound for a CIA ‘black site’ jail near Kabul in Afghanistan.

He was taken on to the jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before being released last March and returned to Britain after four years’ detention without charge.

[..]

But al-Rawi alleged that the CIA told him they had been given the contents of his own MI5 file – information he had given his handlers freely when he was working as their source. He said an MI5 lawyer had given him ‘cast iron’ assurances that anything he told them would be treated in the strictest confidence and, if he ever got into trouble, MI5 would do everything in its power to help him.

When al-Rawi was in Guantanamo, he asked the American authorities to find his former MI5 handlers so they would corroborate his story but, because he did not know their surnames, MI5 said it could not assist.

[Quote:]

Looking for new ways to trim the fat and boost workers’ health, some employers are starting to make overweight employees pay if they don’t slim down.

Others, citing growing medical costs tied to obesity, are offering fit workers lucrative incentives that shave thousands of dollars a year off healthcare premiums.

In one of the boldest moves yet, an Indiana-based hospital chain last month said it decided on the stick rather than the carrot. Starting in 2009, Clarian Health Partners will charge employees as much as $30 every two weeks unless they meet weight, cholesterol and blood-pressure guidelines that the company deems healthy.

Behold the wisdom of the sheep, quietly accepting to have its life owned lock, stock and barrel, and thus being entirely run, by company/corporate decree:

“At first, I was mad when I thought I would be charged $30 for being overweight,” said Courtney Jackson, 28, a customer service representative at Clarian. “But when I found out it was going to be broken into segments — like just $10 for being overweight — it sounded better.”

[Quote:]

The U.S. troop casualty figures in Iraq that jumped this spring have been gradually dropping because U.S. and Iraqi forces are stabilizing volatile and dangerous areas, a U.S. commander said Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commanding general of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, called the development in recent weeks “an initial positive sign.”

“This is what we thought would happen once we get control of the real key areas that are controlled by these terrorists,” Odierno said at a press conference.

At the same time, he said, “I need a bit more time to make an assessment of whether it’s a true trend or not.”

How about you just check a bit more than only the last few months?

[Iraq Coalition Casualty Count :]

July 2007: 77
July 2006: 46
July 2005: 58
July 2004: 58
July 2003: 49

[Quote:]

The Washington State Supreme Court issued an opinion today that is rocking the insurance coverage attorneys.  The case is Woo v. Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company and can be found here and the dissent here.  Dr. Woo, a dentist, had a patient who was also an employee, under a general anesthetic while he extracted two teeth and replaced them with two temporary teeth on a devise called a “flipper’ (like a bridge).  Before he did that however, he had a “flipper” with two boar’s teeth or fangs if you will and he inserted those first.  Then he had an assistant prop the patient’s eyes open while Dr. Woo took a picture. Then he took the boars teeth out and finished the job with the real teeth. This was all done as a practical joke.  The patient/employee raised pot-bellied pigs.

Later they gave the patient/employee a present.  When she opened it she found the picture inside.  Well, she freaked out.  She went home and never returned to work and sued the doctor for emotional distress under a number of theories.

Fireman’s Fund, Dr. Woo’s professional practice provider, refused to defend Dr. Woo as they believed what he did did not constitute the practice of dentistry.  He hired an attorney and ended up settling with the plaintiff for $250,000.  Then the doctor turned around and sued Fireman’s fund for bad faith and violation of the state’s consumer protection laws.  To define “the practice of dentistry” the policy referred to a state statute which defined the “practice of dentistry”.  In that definition was included the phrase “a person who owns or operates a dental office”.  The Court ruled that since, at the time he played the practical joke, he was operating a dental office they concluded that he was practicing dentistry. It is a bit more complicated than that and the opinion was 5-4 so read the case if you want to follow the ends and outs of the Court’s reasoning.

I’m blogging about the case because Fireman’s Fund was ordered to pay the dentist  $250,000 as reimbursement for the money he paid the plaintiff and was further ordered to pay the dentist’s attorney fees and damages for emotional distress which totaled $750,000 making his total recovery $1,000,000.  So the victim gets $250,000 and the perpetrator gets $1,000,000!  And now the good part.  On the ballot in Washington this fall is a provision that would provide for treble damages against insurance companies for bad faith.  It is being opposed by the insurance industry who are running the usual “greedy trial lawyers” advertisements on TV.  If the proposed new law had been in effect Dr. Woo would have been awarded $3,000,000.  My oh my that is going to get a lot of air time in the next few months.

[Quote:]

New Zealand’s Parliament has voted itself far-reaching powers to control satire and ridicule of MPs in Parliament, attracting a storm of media and academic criticism.

The new standing orders, voted in last month, concern the use of images of Parliamentary debates, and make it a contempt of Parliament for broadcasters or anyone else to use footage of the chamber for “satire, ridicule or denigration”.

The rules apply any to broadcasts or rebroadcasts in any medium.

What a bunch of tossers. Since I don’t plan on visiting NZ any time soon, I might as well break that rule right away:

[Quote:]

#import <CoreFoundation/CoreFoundation.h>
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import <UIKit/CDStructures.h>
#import <UIKit/UIPushButton.h>
#import <UIKit/UIThreePartButton.h>
#import <UIKit/UINavigationBar.h>
#import <UIKit/UIWindow.h>
#import <UIKit/UIView-Hierarchy.h>
#import <UIKit/UIHardware.h>
#import <UIKit/UITable.h>
#import <UIKit/UITableCell.h>
#import <UIKit/UITableColumn.h>
#import "HelloApplication.h"

@implementation HelloApplication

- (int) numberOfRowsInTable: (UITable *)table
{
    return 2;
}

- (UITableCell *) table: (UITable *)table cellForRow: (int)row column: (int)col
{
    return row ? buttonCell : pbCell; 
}

- (UITableCell *) table: (UITable *)table cellForRow: (int)row column: (int)col
    reusing: (BOOL) reusing
{
    return pbCell; 
}

- (void) applicationDidFinishLaunching: (id) unused
{
    UIWindow *window;

    window = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithContentRect: [UIHardware
        fullScreenApplicationContentRect]];
   
    pbCell = [[UIImageAndTextTableCell alloc] init];
    [pbCell setTitle: @"Hello world!\n"]; 

    UIPushButton *button = [[UIThreePartButton alloc] initWithTitle:
        @"Touch Me"];
    buttonCell = [[UITableCell alloc] init];
    [buttonCell addSubview: button];
    [button sizeToFit];

    UITable *table = [[UITable alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(0.0f, 48.0f,
        320.0f, 480.0f - 16.0f - 32.0f)];
    UITableColumn *col = [[UITableColumn alloc] initWithTitle: @"HelloApp"
        identifier: @"hello" width: 320.0f];

    [window orderFront: self];
    [window makeKey: self];
    [window _setHidden: NO];
 
    [table addTableColumn: col]; 
    [table setDataSource: self];
    [table setDelegate: self];
    [table reloadData];

    UINavigationBar *nav = [[UINavigationBar alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(
        0.0f, 0.0f, 320.0f, 48.0f)];
    [nav showButtonsWithLeftTitle: @"Foo" rightTitle: @"Bar" leftBack: YES];
    [nav setBarStyle: 0];

    struct CGRect rect = [UIHardware fullScreenApplicationContentRect];
    rect.origin.x = rect.origin.y = 0.0f;
    UIView *mainView;
    mainView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame: rect];
    [mainView addSubview: nav]; 
    [mainView addSubview: table]; 

    [window setContentView: mainView]; 
}

@end

[Quote:]

A dozen Christian men were convicted Thursday and sentenced to up to 14 years in jail for beating to death and beheading two Muslims to avenge the government executions of three Christians in Indonesia last year.

Five other Christians received eight-year terms for burying the pair, who were set upon by a mob as they drove though a Christian neighborhood on Sulawesi island a day after the Sept. 22, 2006, executions of Fabianus Tibo and two other Christian militants.

The three executed Christians had been found guilty of leading a militia that killed at least 70 Muslims during a 1999-2002 religious war on the island that led to the deaths of at least 1,000 people from both faiths.

[Quote:]

If you’re the type to just write the checks and throw away the paperwork when bills come in, you may want to take another look at your July Comcast bill.

According to Jane Lawton, Montgomery County’s cable administrator, Comcast changed the terms of your subscription agreement.

Customers who do not opt out within 30 days of receiving the Comcast Arbitration Notice will relinquish their right to pursue any legal remedies against Comcast in court, including claims for negligence, fraud or intentional wrongdoing. This means you lose the right to sue Comcast, while Comcast retains the right to sue you.

“On the surface, arbitration sounds like a good thing, but Comcast’s proposed change is one-sided,” Lawton says. “We are concerned that subscribers will unknowingly give up some of their consumer rights by failing to opt out in time.”

Amazing. There is not one European country where something like this would not be laughed out of court.

[Quote:]

The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.

The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.

I’m surprised that nobody asks what companies are going to score orders worth 50 billion. And how is dumping 50 billion worth of weapons into the middle east going to make that region safer?

[Quote:]

Oh, you’re gonna love this. Home Depot is now telling its customers that if you have the audacity to complain about BillOReilly.com’s death threats against Hillary Clinton and suggestions of a terrorist attack against the US Capitol then YOU are the problem.

Here is the letter Home Depot is sending its customers:

Our advertising campaigns have one simple objective to communicate with audiences in the most effective way possible. The Company is receptive to many forms and styles of media as we seek a balanced representation of programming to reach our customer base. Unfortunately campaigns like this one cause us to take time away from our sustainability goals and address a variance of political views.

Get it? If you complain about Home Depot sponsoring Bill O’Reilly’s hate, then YOU are hurting the environment because you’re wasting their precious time.

Somebody in corporate communications is going to get fired.

[Quote:]

“Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.” CBS News said, let’s give Oscar the Grim Reaper Cat 349% more ink than FBI Director Mueller contradicting Attorney General Gonzales’s testimony. Media Matters asks, “There are very real and very serious questions about whether the United States is currently a fully functional republic…. Isn’t it time news organizations devote more resources to exploring these issues — even if it means fewer stories about cats and cleavage?” Has Stupor Killed the Fourth Estate? Was James Fallows that the Media Undermine[s] American Democracy?

A few days ago, Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London screamed “A catastrophe with mankind’s footprints stamped on it.” The Times’ more conservative rival, The Telegraph, was more dispassionate, with its headline reading “Man-made global warming increases rainfall.” Of course, the left-leaning Guardian also covered the story. Japan’s leading daily, Yomiuri Shimbun, had a similar headline. So did the Toronto Star, the Vancouver Sun and The Hindu.
What did The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today have to say about the story? Absolutely nothing. While news organizations around the world were reporting about the “first evidence that human activity has altered rainfall patterns,” the vast majority of US news outlets ignored the story.

This is what they should be learning from:
TPM Muckraker: Alleged Discriminator Nominated to Employee Discrimination Panel

NYT: nothing
Washington Post: nothing
AP has nothing either.

[Quote:]

(Jivester News, Lmtd.) In a breathtaking announcement today, Rabbi Soyvitch Goldberginsky told a slightly confused gathering of End Timers at a How to Dress for the Rapture: Boxers, Briefs or Dangler’s Puffery seminar in Las Vegas, Nevada that the basis for their religion, the founding gospels of the New Testament were in fact part of an elaborate gag perpetrated by “…a few wisenheimers back in the day. The guys were sitting around, tossing shrimp at pigs for who-knows-why, when one of them says “Hey, what if we say that God shtupped a zaftig and Jr. will give everyone a Get Out of Hell card? And they will have to sing ass-kissing songs and feel bad a lot of the time, just like us.”

The audience, who stopped breathing as they scratched their heads, were a bit confused by the announcement. Added Goldberginsky, “What, you didn’t know that? You didn’t maybe suspect a little something was up with all the David Blaine stuff? Millions of people in the “I’m With Stupid” line and still you don’t know? It was a giggle. A zoo. We made it up. What, you thought Yawheh was real too? If I slap your face does wind come out?”

Ed Handlebarb of Grunting, West Virginia, who was attending the conference as part of God’s Plan to place him “…near tall, naked white women” did not understand what Goldberginsky was saying. “Did he say Jesus was a Jew? Everybody knows he was a Christian–I mean, yeah, He was a Jew, but His dad was a Christian. Well, His dad was a Jew–no, He did business with the Jews and made a baby with a Jew, but then he became a Christian. He was baptized and everything…they made that shit up? Holy mother of daddy, what the hell am I supposed to pray to now?”

A slight digression vis a vis the Punking of the Gentiles Story: after his stunning public admission to Jewish complicity in the World’s Longest Running Gag, a crowd of angry men in long coats and hats began to taunt Soyvitch upon his arrival back in Los Angeles–the Orthodox men wore hats that had been blocked with an attention to detail that should shame anyone who ever tried to block a hat and then charged someone else–i.e. the paying customer for what was obviously substandard work…I mean, so many so-called haberdashers charge for work that is garbage–their so-called craft should stumble and die and rot in a dump. Lousy work that should be loudly condemned and people should dance and laugh at how dumped it all is. But I digress. You would too, if you paid for a hat to be blocked and then it came back like a rhombus. A rhombus. I kid you not. Anyway…

Well, I’ve had my say. The crowd of Orthodox Jews gathered around and started yelling and making those loud grunting sounds they are famous for. One man with a beard like a wolverine with a mouthful of bear fur who just ate a hair pie during a full moon in a barbershop called out, “Shut your trap, Soyvitch. What, you want the gentiles to get wise? Are you a crazy person? Everything was fine. They were sending cash to the Likkud with great regularity, and now you want they should feel stupid? We should stone you where you stand. Wait, move a little to the left…not my left, your left. Good: that is where we should stone you.”

Spokesmen for various Christian groups responded to this story, each adding a unique perspective. Pope German Guy With a Weird Rat Like Face seemed resigned to the whole brouhaha. Pausing while loading gold bars into his VW van, the Pope told this interviewer, “I knew this day would come. I had it in the pool. Das tut mir leid.” After loading the van up the Pope jumped in the back as his driver started the engine. It lunged a little, made a grinding sound, stopped short, and then was blown apart by normally cautious bazooka-wielding Bishops who were concerned that the gold bars might not be used for God’s Greater Glory or whatever.

“We felt the Holy Spirit,” said one Bishop who asked that we don’t ask any questions about the Holy Spirit’s age. I’d say the lad was eight or nine, ten tops. And I’m sorry, but those were tears in that little boy’s eyes. Big Catholic tears.

American Christian Fundamentalists remained non-plussed by the announcement. “Look-the Jews control Hollywood, know what I mean?” said Reverend G. Happy “Doc” Doolittle of the Very First Baptist Church in Little Vapors, Mississippi. “Hollywood is Entertainment, you understand? Show folks a good time, maybe make them think a little–maybe not. And if they invented Christianity the way Soyvitch contendeth, they must have had a good reason for what they have done. Surely, they will die and reside in everlasting fire, but where will that fire come from? I ain’t gonna pay for it. You gonna pay for it? They made up Satan, too–think he’s gonna pay for it? I don’t think he’s gonna pay for it. Hallelujah. Lost at last, lost at last, thank them Jew Boys, we are lost at last!”

CNN, unsure of just about everything except how many pharmaceutical companies are coming to their summer picnic, has decided to not cover this story. Wolf Blitzer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said (anonymously, of course), “Dick Cheney doesn’t give a shit about God. Why should I? Dick? Anyone? I got a situation here. Which is good, because I’m in the Situation Room. I’m dying.”

Deepak Chopra has been giggling incoherently for about a week and could not be channeled for comment.

Well, that does it for tonight. Tune in later this week when Jivester News goes undercover to reveal the truth about some other once sacred, now discarded, pile of utter nonsense.

Go with God.

On what teachers make:

The Impotence of Proofreading:

Like, you know?

[Quote:]

It has come to this in the quest for safe schools: Cloth backpacks, for decades a fixture in the lives of most high school students, will be banned from the hallways of Montgomery County’s Wissahickon High School starting this fall.

If students walking between classes want to use a backpack, it must be made of clear plastic or mesh so its contents can be seen at a glance. Cloth backpacks can be carried into the school in the morning but must be stored in lockers.

Wissahickon is the most recent district to mandate see-through backpacks, joining several other area suburban districts and private schools as they look to avert tragedies like the 1999 gun killings at Columbine and last December’s gunshot suicide by a student inside Montgomery County’s Springfield Township High School.

Yeah, like that’s going to make a difference.