Austin road sign warns motorists of zombies

BY DAN X. McGRAW / The Dallas Morning News
dmcgraw@dallasnews.com

An Austin road sign meant to warn motorists about road conditions instead read: "The end is near! Caution! Zombies ahead!"

Vandals broke off a lock on the sign in central Austin early Monday and then hacked into the computer to change the words, said Sara Hartley, a city spokeswoman.

When they were done, the sign read: “The end is near! Caution! Zombies ahead! Run for cold climate!”

Before leaving, the vandals reset the password so the city could not easily change the sign. The sign's humorous warning stayed up for several hours before the manufacturer of the computer could reset the password.

Austin officials aren’t taking the spoof lightly, noting it is a criminal act.

“The sign’s content was humorous, but the act of changing it wasn’t,” Hartley said.

Austin police are investigating the situation, and the vandals could face a Class C misdemeanor charge of tampering with a road sign, Hartley said.

It is the first time Hartley said she has had heard of the stunt.

School district to let teachers have guns

Reuters

updated 4:33 p.m. ET, Fri., Aug. 15, 2008

HOUSTON - A Texas school district will let teachers bring guns to class this fall, the district's superintendent said on Friday, in what experts said appeared to be a first in the United States.

The board of the small rural Harrold Independent School District unanimously approved the plan and parents have not objected, said the district's superintendent, David Thweatt.

School experts backed Thweatt's claim that Harrold, a system of about 110 students 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth, may be the first to let teachers bring guns to the classroom.

Thweatt said it is a matter of safety.

"We have a lock-down situation, we have cameras, but the question we had to answer is, 'What if somebody gets in? What are we going to do?" he said. "It's just common sense."

Board members estimate it would take first responders nearly 30 minutes to get to the rural school in an emergency.

Teachers who wish to bring guns will have to be certified to carry a concealed handgun in Texas and get crisis training and permission from school officials, he said.

Recent school shootings in the United States have prompted some calls for school officials to allow students and teachers to carry legally concealed weapons into classrooms.

The U.S. Congress once barred guns at schools nationwide, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck the law down, although state and local communities could adopt their own laws. Texas bars guns at schools without the school's permission.

Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

URL: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26225072/?GT1=43001

Oh what the good Goddamn is this? Are they serious? I have never believed the BS that the pro-gun lobby sells that more guns mean less crime. The logic they use is that if criminals think everyone is packing they will think twice before pulling a gun themselves. But that logic is dubious for a number of reasons--too many to go into here. Instead I will use an example: El Salvador is a nation with more guns per capita than the US as well as the highest homicide rate in the western hemisphere. When I was there in 2004 a frequent news story was that several people had been killed in an attempted hold up of a minibus. What usually had happened was that a group of bandits (e.g. gang members) had stopped a bus at gun point and demanded money. However, one or more people on the bus had their own guns and dcided to "defend" themselves from the robbers by firing at them. The ensuing exhange of fire often results in several innocent people being caught in the crossfire and then being deador seriously injured. This is the most likely scenario people. Not that miscrants will decide not to initiate violence, but that innocent people die in a crossfire.