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Apparently, the teacher has now spoken and is disputing what the law enforcement departments have said. For example, they claimed he built a scale model of the school. Ominous sign of attack planning, right? Well, not once he adds the context of him having studied architecture, having an interest in building models, and having built a cruise ship and house model also. By picking and choosing which facts you focus on and removing all context, you could probably make anyone out to be a threat.

Even though he hasn't been arrested, he's still been taken in for medical treatment and apparently the doctors are being fed bad information about him to give him an incorrect diagnosis. One would hope that the doctors would look at the patient for evidence of a mental health issue and not just information given to them about the patient. Then again, if the police wanted to get a diagnosis on someone, I'm sure they know which doctors would play along with them and which wouldn't.

I'd like to see the letter that he wrote that "caused concern."

Finally, commenters never fail to make me roll my eyes. On that linked news story, one commenter said (with spelling mistakes intact): "That is just too many coinsidences. Crazy ppl don't know they are crazy. Keep him away from our precious children. Go be weird somewhere far away, all by yourself." Yes, because we wouldn't want any teachers to vary one iota from normal in any way. Some of my best teachers in school were the ones that were far from normal. If his only "crime" winds up being "he's just not normal" then that's no reason to "keep him away from our precious children."

The original story at http://www.wboc.com/story/2636... is dated 8/25 with an update on 8/26,5 days ago. From the today's Baltimore Sun at http://www.wboc.com/story/2636... indicates this is a mental health matter and nothing to do with his books. HIPPA laws kick in to protect Mr. McLaw's privacy.

The original story at http://www.wboc.com/story/2636... is dated 8/25 with an update on 8/26,5 days ago. From the today's Baltimore Sun at http://www.wboc.com/story/2636... indicates this is a mental health matter and nothing to do with his books. HIPPA laws kick in to protect Mr. McLaw's privacy.

Early last week the school board was alerted that one of its eighth grade language arts teachers at Mace's Lane Middle School had several aliases. Police said that under those names, he wrote two fictional books about the largest school shooting in the country's history set in the future. Now, Patrick McLaw is placed on leave.

Dr. K.S. Voltaer is better known by some in Dorchester County as Patrick McLaw, or even Patrick Beale. Not only was he a teacher at Mace's Lane Middle School in Cambridge, but according to Dorchester Sheriff James Phillips, McLaw is also the author of two books: "The Insurrectionist" and its sequel, "Lillith's Heir."

Now:

"It didn't start with the books and it didn't end with the books," State's Attorney for Wicomico County Matt Maciarello told The Times. "It's not even a factor in what law enforcement is doing now."

OK, WTF do (did) the books have to do with it? It's not McLaw's fault or my fault that I think the police might have arrested him over the books -- it's obviously the police's fault I think that. And it's also their fault that they have a lot of credibility to recover, and saying that it's not about the books rings hollow.

Also, note the careful phrasing -- it didn't start or end with the books, and the books are not a focus now. So, at one point they were obviously the focus, and merited enough focus to be the only thing that was disclosed to the news organizations.

If you read the new articles, its interesting to note that there is no mention that he was forcibly taken to an evaluation. Also, there are curious descriptions of his situation, such as "inability to travel anywhere", which in no way actually states that the police are restricting his travel. It appears that he is simply restricted from entering school properties while on administrative leave and someone is playing this up. As I looked it over, I am suspect there are facts that are intentionally left out fo subsequent stories for the purposes of hype. They evidently did a 'sweep' of the school and a 'search' of his house while he was not present, but only the person interpreting the news article uses the word "raid", clearly not someone with any more knowledge than you or I at this point.

http://www.wboc.com/story/2636...

Perhaps I'm just a nutty conspiracy theorist, but the fact that the mainstream media has not covered it bears no small significance to me. I think that the number of places it has been reported though means that the event actually did happen. The only news source I can find with it mentioned is the tiniest of footnotes in this article:
http://www.wboc.com/Global/story.asp?S=7996749

We are so close to agreement that I am amused by the missing last five feet. You admit that a dollar in the bank if virtual because it is nothing more that bits that reflect an obligation. That's all that a purchase of virtual property is: recording the ownership of an obligation. The fact that it can be lost in many more ways than your bank account doesn't change the nature of both types of "property": a bunch of bits that have value because someone says they do.

Meanwhile, you think that people would laugh at a proposal to tax transactions in the virtual world, and yet there is a tax proposal on the table to tax the transfer of adult materials:

http://www.wboc.com/Global/story.asp?S=3653007&nav =MXEFcglk

How is that different from proposing a tax on online gaming revenue? (Probably based on "funding anti-violent gaming enforcement or some nonsense). If that revenue comes from selling $26,500 in virtual property, what does that matter? I'm taxed for talking on my digital cell phone, and all that represents is timely delivery of bits. I'm taxed on my capital gains, and it only represents the movement of peoples opinions of the stocks I own.

The difference is in the degree to which one obligation is protected *at the moment*. We think money is "magic" somehow, but look at any crashed currency to see how "pretend" money really is. In fifty years, I imagine that people will "own" all kinds of virtual property that is convertible to monetary value easily and is protected by law. Today that mostly describes copyrighted items, but that's just an artifact of the immaturity of the online property markets.

To sum up: there is "real property"... my cars, my homes, my business equipment, my jewellery. It is the stuff that even if the world goes Mad Max on us we probably can still derive value from. Everything else is "imaginary/virtual". The idea of "virtual" perhaps is confusing because we associate it bits, but money has been a virtualization of wealth (per the definition virtual(a): being such in essence or effect though not in actual fact) since the days that we stopped direct bartering. If the world goes Mad Max, your stock certificates, savings account, credit cards and cash in your wallet are useless relics.

... he wants his lack of sense of humor back!