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Sunday, November 23, 2008

A Pembroke Pines, Florida teenager killed himself Wednesday, November 19, while broadcasting on the live video site Justin.tv. After making suicide threats and being encouraged by Justin.tv viewers and Bodybuilding.com forum members, Abraham K. Biggs, 19, committed suicide by taking an overdose of opiates and benzodiazepine, which had been prescribed for his bipolar disorder.

Biggs first began blogging about his planned suicide 12 hours before the actual event. He died after taking pills and lying on the bed in front of the webcam. After the broadcast, viewers who apparently thought it was a hoax posted messages such as “OMG”, “LOL”, and “hahahah”.

Hours later, after being alerted by viewers who had noticed that Biggs had stopped breathing, law enforcement and paramedics arrived, discovered his body, and covered the camera. The Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office has reportedly confirmed Biggs’ death.

According to Montana Miller of the Bowling Green State University, the circumstances of this case were not shocking: “If it’s not recorded or documented, then it doesn’t even seem worthwhile. For today’s generation it might seem, ‘What’s the point of doing it if everyone isn’t going to see it?'”

Biggs’ sister Rosalind was angry that neither the website nor its viewers reacted soon enough to save him. “They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours,” she said. She described him as “very happy” and “friendly and outgoing.” “On a normal day, you couldn’t really tell that he got as low as he did.” However, he did have relationship problems with his girlfriend, according to a friend.

Mental health professionals have warned about the possibility that other mentally troubled people would copy his actions. According to Dr. David Shaffer of Columbia University, “Any video showing it as heroic or romantic or glamorous could reduce the anxiety people might feel about suicide. It becomes a respectable behavior and lowers the threshold of suicide.” He and other psychiatrists recommend that potentially suicidal teens talk to others and “tell what’s going on.”

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Bramalea-Gore-Malton-Springdale Member of Provincial Parliament Dr. Kuldip S. Kular invites “everyone” to his community barbecque.

The event lasts from 1 until 4 pm in the northwest corner of Chinguasousy Park, at 9050 Bramalea Road in Brampton. The BBQ is free.

Kular was elected into office in 2003, having come to Campbellton, New Brunswick in 1974 to set up a family medical practice.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

A recent study led by Dr. Drew Westen, a Professor of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia has concluded that political partisans use an “almost entirely emotional and unconscious” thought process when digesting damaging information about a favored political candidate.

The experiment used fMRI scans of 30 men who self-identified as either a committed Republican or Democrat. The subjects were given a series of conflicting quotes by either President Bush or Senator Kerry, and covered such topics as the Enron scandal and the current state of Social Security. The quotes were doctored to maximize the apparent contradiction, but were presented as factual.

The results suggests that many seemingly rational political decisions are strongly influenced by unconscious emotional reactions. Such conclusions match well results from advertising psychology which say that purchases are also not as rational as people believe. Past fMRI studies have found that Democrat and Republican partisans tend to experience different emotions when shown an image of a preferred candidate.

Westen will present his results next month at a meetings of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Palm Springs, CA.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Pascal Lamy, suspended negotiations in the Doha round of trade talks on Monday, after a meeting of six “core” negotiators India, Brazil, the United States, European Union, Japan, and Australia in Geneva failed to make any headway in reconciling differences over agricultural trade liberalisation. The US wanted cuts in import tariffs for farm products, which were rejected by EU, Japan and India, who asked for cuts in agricultural subsidies.

Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, told the Financial Times: “If the US continues to demand dollar-for-dollar compensation in market access [cutting tariffs] for reducing domestic support, no one in the developing world will ever buy that and the EU will not either.” Brazil also identified the US stand on subsidies as the reason the talks failed.

Susan Schwab, the US trade representative, said that the other countries sought exemptions from tariff cuts for a wide range of goods and that such exemptions would defeat the object of the talks – to expand trade. “As we went through the layers of loopholes . . . we discovered that a couple of our trading partners were more interested in loopholes than market access,” she said.

The Indian Commerce and Industries Minister, Kamal Nath said that developing countries could not allow their subsistence farmers to lose their livelihood and food security to provide market access to agricultural products from developed countries.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

At least one person is seriously wounded and one dead after a 17 year-old male opened fire and shot his ex-girlfriend, Jessica Forsyth, 17, four times outside the Herbert Henry Dow High School located in Midland, Michigan before turning the gun on himself. The shooter was pronounced dead on the scene and according to Midland Police Chief, James St. Louis, the shooter died in the parking lot of the school while the girl is in a local hospital. She is said to be in stable but serious condition at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan.

Chief St. Louis says that the boy pulled out a gun and began to shoot the girl after the two had a conversation. He then shot himself. St. Louis also said that the mother of the girl, who had dropped her daughter off at school for the day, tried to stop the incident from happening by driving her car in between the girl and boy, but was not successful. The boy, whose name is not known, apparently had stored the gun inside his backpack.

According to Midland Deputy Chief, Bob Lane, the boy was not a student at the school and was not granted access into the school. Lane also stated that the boy then placed a phone call to Forsyth telling her to meet him outside the school just before 11:00 a.m. [EST].

The school hosts nearly 1,500 students. The school was in lockdown, but according to a statement on the school’s website, the lockdown was cancelled.

“This morning a shooting incident took place at Dow High outside the building near the cafeteria. A Code Red lock-down was issued, but has been lifted,” said the statement.

Friday, November 28, 2008

An Iranian-born British soldier has been jailed for ten years after being convicted of “communicating information useful to an enemy”. Forty-five year-old Daniel James from Brighton had been the personal translator for the head of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, General Sir David Richards.

After joining the Territorial Army, Britain’s army reserve, James was sent to Afghanistan in May 2006. He was arrested in December 2006, two months after he made contact with Colonel Mohammed Hossein Heydari, an Iranian military attaché in Kabul. The court heard allegations that James believed he had been denied promotion because of racism and jealousy, and also that he had debts of £25,000 and had mortgages on four properties in Brighton.

The jury at London’s Central Criminal Court was unable to agree on verdicts on two other charges under the Official Secrets Act, relating to his possession of sensitive documents on a USB memory stick, and a second of misconduct in a public office.

See the discussion page for instructions on adding schools to this list and for an alphabetically arranged listing of schools.Thursday, September 15, 2005

Enrollment dates for many schools have passed, and will be indicated next to the school’s entry under the by-state list. Update will take place in the next few days.Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Due to the damage by Hurricane Katrina and subsequent flooding, a number of colleges and universities in the New Orleans metropolitan area will not be able to hold classes for the fall 2005 semester. It is estimated that 75,000 to 100,000 students have been displaced. [1]. In response, institutions across the United States and Canada are offering late registration for displaced students so that their academic progress is not unduly delayed. Some are offering free or reduced admission to displaced students. At some universities, especially state universities, this offer is limited to residents of the area.