Apparently Purses Are Dangerous

An Indiana high school has decided to no longer allow girls to carry purses.

(Students) say the principal made an announcement on the first day of school notifying students that all purses -- and backpacks, for that matter -- would have to be left in lockers.

"They said that it was a threat to the students," Goetz said. "And that they needed to stay in the lockers."

"People even got yelled at for carrying fanny packs and too big of a pencil holder, which is ridiculous," said sophomore Emily Brown.

So now carrying a purse is a threat to students. When are schools going to realize that banning purses is not going to deter murderers from bringing a weapon on campus? If someone is planning on murdering someone else, they are not going to care if purses are not allowed in the classroom.

Why We Shouldn't Listen

In my last post, I mentioned a poll telling us that the world wants us to elect Barack Obama, but I also mentioned another poll. This time a poll conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org says that a majority of people around the world have the same opinion of 9/11 as these guys:

The survey of 16,063 people in 17 nations found majorities in only nine countries believe al Qaeda was behind the attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people in 2001....On average, 46 percent of those surveyed said al Qaeda was responsible, 15 percent said the U.S. government, 7 percent said Israel and 7 percent said some other perpetrator. One in four people said they did not know who was behind the attacks.

So 54% of the world either blames someone besides Al Qaeda, or claims they do not know who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Maybe since the world is now in the same league as the truthers, we can dismiss their opinion on who to vote for.

The World Speaks

Two interesting polls are out today. The first one is a poll by GlobeScan which says that the world wants Barack Obama to be President.

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be struggling to nudge ahead of his Republican rival in polls at home, but people across the world want him in the White House, a BBC poll said.

The margin in favour of Senator Obama ranged from 9 per cent in India to 82 per cent in Kenya, while an average of 49 per cent across the 22 countries preferred Senator Obama compared with 12 per cent preferring Senator McCain. Some four in 10 did not take a view.

"Large numbers of people around the world clearly like what Barack Obama represents," GlobeScan chairman Doug Miller said.

Quite frankly, I don't care at all about who the world wants us to pick. If the American people elected this guy as President, it would be our choice, and there's nothing the world can do about it.

Of course, I think it's over the top to say the whole world wants Obama when you take a look at how many people were polled:

A total of 23,531 people in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Turkey, the UAE, Britain and the United States were interviewed face-to-face or by telephone in July and August 2008 for the poll.

I doubt that 23,531 people out of 6.6 billion coming from 22 out of close to 200 nations worldwide can really be called an accurate depiction of the world's view.

Bob Barr Invites Ron Paul to Join Ticket

Strange news reported on Below the Beltway, and confirmed on the official Bob Barr campaign website, is that he has apparently invited Ron Paul to replace Wayne Allen Root as his running mate.

Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party nominee for president, has invited GOP Congressman Ron Paul to be his running mate in the upcoming election. In a letter sent to Paul, Barr called Paul one of the “few American patriots” who exist in today’s society, and asked him to “seriously consider this final offer as an opportunity to show true, lasting leadership beyond party politics.”

I would be surprised if Paul accepted the offer.

Bob Barr Denied WV Ballot Access

The drive for ballot access for Libertarian candidate Bob Barr hit a bump in the road today, as a federal judge dismissed the campaign's lawsuit today.

Libertarians can't blame anyone but themselves for failing to qualify their presidential candidate for West Virginia's statewide ballots, a federal judge said.
...

"It seems clear enough the Barr/Root campaign would have satisfied the two requirements had they commenced their efforts just two to three weeks earlier," Copenhaver wrote.

This despite the fact that Democrats and Republicans have a different deadline (something the judge declined to comment on).