Kp th arth r. Pas rcyc. Brht t y by th RHHS Spyass Ta.
In December o 2008, three emale employ-ees at a KFC ranchise in Anderson, Caliornia werecaught taking a bath in the dishwashing machine.Even better: they took pictures o themselves, andposted them on MySpace with the caption ‘good timesat KFC’. I you’re wondering what kind o womenbathe in KFC dishwashing tubs...well, the picturebelow says it all.
Osama bin Laden has run out o money! Good news or America; the terrorist in chie is making requests or fnancial aid, which is a sure sign that he’s almost out o unds (he’s never asked anyone or anything beore), and his latest press release was a terrible-sounding audio fle in lieu o the high-quality videos he usually produces.
Amazing, as a word, is generally used in apositive way. However, a certain Chicago man is also‘amazing’; in court or his latest charge o drivingwithout a licence (his 13
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, mind you), his judge sen-tenced him to serve 13 days in jail (coincidence?),and this man was not to drive until he completedthose 13 days. Immediately ater leaving the court-room, the same man spent a ew minutes cleaningand dusting o his car, ater which he climbed in anddrove away. Amazing. He was stopped and broughtback to the courtroom 22 minutes later, in ront othe same judge, who sentenced him to jail startingimmediately. Throughout the entire proceedings, thisman was wearing a ull-length purple aux-ur coatand a uzzy purple edora-and his car was purple.Amazing.
A 23-year-old man was apprehended by Australian customs ater the latter discovered two live pigeons in the ormer’s pants. The pigeons were wrapped in paper and padding, and stued in his tights. Suspicion arose ater two eggs,several seeds, and an eggplant were discovered inthe man’s luggage ater disembarking a 10 hour ight rom Dubai to Melbourne. The man in ques- tion could be fned $71,000 US and sentenced to, at most, 10 years o prison or smuggling. The pigeons were not injured in the process, at least not physically.
In the last three months, a porta-potty pyrohas set more than 20 portable toilets ablaze. Thearsonist, or possibly group o arsonists, has causedapproximately $50,000 US worth o property damage.Although the frst ew incidents took place at night,recently they have been happening in the aternoon.Police are still looking or those behind the trail oburning plastic and waste. The lack o witnesses hasmade the investigation much more difcult. Luckily,nobody was injured.
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n recent years, piracy has been on the rise. And thisisn’t about a tanned Johnny Depp or storeowners withboxes lled with ake DVD’s though. Tese are Somalipirates o the coasts o Arica, armed to the teeth with AK-47’s and rocket launchers; what once were groups o disgruntled shermen, by taking advantage o the chaos inan unstable country, have now become organized feets o marauding bandits.Over the last couple o years, these pirates haveevolved and developed various ship-capturing tactics. Lar-ger ships, usually hijacked vessels called “mother ships”,are being used as mobile bases, rom which smaller boatsare released, enabling them to reach greater distances romthe coasts o Somalia. Small boats or “skis”, disguised ascoast guard or ocials, then board ships. Unsurprisingly,the crews are more than happy to surrender to the pir-ates, due to the latter’s weaponry, which includes semi-automatic pistols, assault rifes, explosives, and yes, eventhe occasional axe.Within the last year alone, there have been 293reported incidents, 49 hijacked ships and nearly a thou-sand hostages taken. With over $150 million US collectedby these pirates last year, no wonder anti-piracy has be-come such an important issue, taught at many maritimeacademies in North America.Without the massive black powder cannons o theearly modern era, ships have been let deenceless againstautomatic weapons and explosives. Since arming the shipsis illegal in most countries and leaves crew members earulo mutiny, ships have turned to non-lethal deence. Tepirates move ast on small boats, boarding massive ships with grappling hooks and rope ladders. Once on board,they either raid it or goods or hold it or ransom. One o the most eective ways to stop these modern high sea pir-ates is to keep them rom boarding in the rst place.At the Maine Maritime Academy, students arebeing taught non-lethal ways to deend ships and preventpirates rom boarding. Tese techniques include the use o high-power water hoses, lights, observation methods andevasive manoeuvres. Although these techniques are notnew, there is now a new sense o urgency to teach them.
TDSB aDminiSTerS a more ‘DiverSe’ curricu- lum in SchoolS
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t has been over a year since the rst suggestion o an Aricentric alternative school, and in the midst o thecontroversy, the oronto District School Board has takenits rst step to combat the 40% dropout rate among black students.DSB, the largest school board in Canada, hasprepared a new Social Studies curriculum or elementary school students, which includes units that go beyond a “Eu-rocentric ocus” to meet the needs o a diverse population.Late in January, about 120 teachers and principalsacross the GA, o many who were o Arican descent, at-tended an all-day training session or the new curriculum.Despite the act that the curriculum is still in itsprimary stages o development, the educators have t in thesmallest details such as using the term ‘enslaved Aricans’rather than ‘slaves’ to avoid more negative connotations andstereotypes.Te curriculum, which is already in eect in someschools, covers units or all levels o elementary school.In kindergarten, where children rst learn to communicateeectively by listening and speaking, a new Aricentric cur-riculum could mean learning about the storytelling tradi-tions in West Arica. Te teacher will have the opportunity to share Arican legends or olklore, and later expand on thetopic to cover other subject areas such as geography and sci-ence by locating Arica on a world map, or teaching about aparticular animal introduced in the story.Students in Grade 2 may learn about Arican nam-ing traditions and how people o Arican descent who hadlost their names due to enslavement have tried to reclaimtheir names.Built into the Grade 3 curriculum o studyingearly settlements in Canada, students will also learn about Arican-American communities which were ounded by those who escaped slavery rom the United States.Early Arican civilizations will also become a part o thecurriculum, and students in Grade 5 will have a chance tocompare and contrast them with early European and South American civilizations.In Grade 8, students will study rom a new history curriculum which has integrated Aricentric aspects, such asthe Anti-Slavery Act passed in 1793 and the development o Arican-American settlements such as Drummondville.Te new curriculum will be used whether or notan Aricentric alternative school is built, and it is the schoolboard’s goal to reduce the dropout rate to 15% among black students by 2014.
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n an age where excessive garbage and the usage o un-natural chemicals is rowned upon, companies are mak-ing an eort to introduce new technology aiding us inthe upkeep o a healthier liestyle. Recently introduced in Japan by the Aqua Power System is a rechargeable battery,capable o running o o various liquids- including water,soda pop, juice, saliva and surprisingly, even urine.Tis environmentally-riendly battery has beennamed the “NoPoPo” (Non-Pollution Power) aqua battery,appropriately named considering that using these “natu-ral” substances reduces the harmul chemicals producedcompared to a standard battery. Available in AA and AAA sizes, these batteries can be recharged using a small pipette,essentially causing small amounts o carbon and magne-sium to react with the liquid to produce a charge, in turnproducing power. Especially interesting is that unlike con-ventional batteries, these batteries can keep their charge upto ten years, although having a nite amount o times thatthey can be recharged.Unless you plan on travelling to Japan anytimesoon, you’re out o luck getting your hands on one o theseecient on-the-go batteries. A European release is in the works, but the date has not yet been ocially released.
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