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While I know you are just being funny, you might also like to know that such sensitivity training is being pursued for people way down here in the deep south.

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20111114/NEWS01/111114016/-1/7daysarchives/Southern-Miss-students-sorority-probation-after-blackface-incident

There are other articles that explain the sensitivity and cultural education sanctions against these students, the story is starting to get too old to browse as easily as last week, so I only post a single link.

While I indeed thought that you made a good "Funny", I thought that you might also like to know that these things do actually occur and that some people do actually face the threat of "sensitivity training" for painting the face. I don't think that these students took the time to add the little white parts around the mouth, but I can't be certain, as the news media here doesn't seem to be revealing any photographic evidence.

Fingerprints, when used without secondary means of identification, are HORRIBLE for identification. I seem to recall that 1 in 27,000 have practically identical markings. It's not uncommon in law enforcement for fingerprint searches to return multiple matches. Granted it can usually be narrowed down by obvious elimination, "Well, this person lives two states over, while this person lives next door to the murder victim. Let's see the victim's neighbor." You will never see a conviction in an honest court on fingerprints alone! After all, it's possible for the fingerprint to be there under normal circumstances.

This also means a court case can't hinge on a single piece of forensic evidence. If it's possible for a hair fiber of one person to make it to a crime scene by direct content with the scene, then it's possible for it to make it there by indirect means. If you don't believe this, put some invisible-to-normal-light UV reactive ink on your hands, and shake the hand of someone else. Before long, others will have that UV ink on them, even if you don't touch them.

Granted, that's when someone's life and liberty is on the line. For other situations, I still wouldn't trust a biometric identifier. After all, where do I get a new set of fingerprints when mine or compromised? Financial institutions have had a horrible time with customer data. I don't see how biometrics make that any easier. Even if it did, the criminals would just steal the damned hard drives.

That sucks.

That said, there are groups of people who DO help these cats. The USM Feral Cat Society did this for a while when USM had a ton of feral cats. They had an agreement with a local vet who helped them spay and neuter a few thousand cats. Today, the feral cat population is down, no cats were killed, and mice on campus are relatively rare.

Bring LOTS of water. Its still summertime down here regardless of it being October already. we hit a high of 99 this week(i am in Hattiesburg,MS which is 1 hour north of Gulfport and was hit hard by Katrina. we had a 99 degree record high on Tuesday and thats not counting the 90-95% humidity. So the heat index was about 105 or so.

Also if you have never heard of love bugs and you are driving here in your own car you might want to bring plenty of cleaning stuff for your car or plan to buy some when you get down here. to find out why and more you can find out more about them(love bugs) here , here , here , and here its hard to get them off short of pure muscle and car washes. when i am driving to work on the interstate you can see them in black clouds.. sorta like a black plague.

That was the University of Southern Mississippi. Coincedentally, the president tendered his resignation yesterday.

See here
and here

An article on the attempted termination is here

Yeah, you're right, it's not like Scalia apologized for the incident or anything. He probably didn't even know it happened until well after the fact (considering he was speaking at the time).

The US Marshal, on the other hand, may be up for the award...

You mean conservatives don't protest?

That's called a Truancy Law, already in effect:

According to the Mississippi Compulsory School Attendance Law, minors 17 years old and younger are required to be in a public or private school or a homeschool setting from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday during the school term.

In addition, under the city's curfew law, all minors age 17 and under must be off the streets from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.