| Wis. College to Give Bikes to Freshmen
(AP) RIPON, Wis. - A tiny liberal arts college here hopes it has found an answer to a nagging shortage of campus parking: a bicycle giveaway. If incoming freshmen promise not to bring a car to campus for a full year, Ripon College will give them a Trek 820 mountain bike, a helmet and a lock _ a $400 value. "We're a residential college with a beautiful, historic campus in the middle of a small town," said President David Joyce, an avid cyclist. "Paving it over was not an option I was willing to consider." He hopes the 1,000-student campus' "Velorution Program" will protect it from building more parking lots. "We obviously live in a car culture. That's not about to change," Joyce said. "But if a significant number of students learn that a car isn't a necessity at this stage of their lives, that's good enough for me." Last fall, for the first time in Ripon College history, the number of parking permit applications exceeded the 400 permits available, Joyce said.
Aquaduct gets the medal for its pedal-powered idea
A few months back, I pointed in this blog to the call for entries for the "Innovate or Die" contest for a pedal-powered machine (aka bicycle). Right now, I'd be hard-pressed to ride a bike here in New Jersey, for fear of wind-burn and on account of the slight snow we had today, but I AM walking the two miles to the train station routinely. (Reduces the energy stored in my body, too.) But, anyway, the contest co-sponsors — Google, Specialized Bicycles, and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners — actually have announced the winner. The winning entry, schemed up by five students in California, is the Aquaduct, which transports and filters water. Their idea is that women in third world countries would be able to use the vehicle both to collect water (which they often have to travel a large distance to find) and to purify it.
PALESTINIANS CLAIM WMD CAPABILITY
The Fatah terrorist faction has claimed the capability of chemical and biological weapons and has threatened Israel with a WMD attack, according to the Jerusalem Post. Leaflets distributed in the Gaza Strip state that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade has spent the last three years developing the capabilty, the start of which seems oddly coincidental to the fall of Saddam Hussein (via Reliapundit): The Aksa Martyrs' Brigades group announced on Sunday that it its members have succeeded in manufacturing chemical and biological weapons to be used against Israel. In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip, the group, which belongs to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, said the weapons were the result of an effort that has lasted for three years. The statment was a response to an Israeli Security Cabinet decision to give the IDF the green light to prepare all the forces necessary for a military operation against Gaza terror cells.
Co-defendant's sentence gives hope to Corrales' kin
But he has warned Shore not to talk with them unless he is at his side, and he said his client would invoke the Fifth Amendment to protect against facing new charges. "They could offer him clemency, but I don't know how much clemency they can give him," Waddington said. "If they came to him and said, 'We will wipe out his federal conviction,' he's still going to say what he remembers. I don't honestly see any kind of clemency. I don't see anything like that coming down." Corrales' civilian lawyer, Frank Spinner, said the division's commander could grant clemency to Shore if he agrees to be a prosecution witness. Spinner, a St. Mary's University School of Law graduate, didn't know whether Waddington and his client would accept a plea deal but said he would focus on the premeditated murder charge, explaining, "If I take care of that, I think the others will take care of themselves." Shore told an investigative hearing last fall that Corrales shot the prisoner after ordering his troops to kill all the military-age males they encountered during a raid in Shaheed, near Kirkuk.
Might Some Women Boycott Elections if Hillary Loses the Nomination?
The thought of this sort of thing happening has never even crossed my mind. I can't imagine women would be so shallow (excluding, of course, a handfull of radicals out there who might indeed "boycott," but these are called "statistical outliers"). It's not as if Obama was being imposed upon them by the Taliban. If you're going to ask this question, then I'm afraid you have to pose the following question as well: "Might Some African-Americans Boycott Elections if Barack Loses the Nomination?" .
Delhi cleans up for Commonwealth games but leaves locals without ...
When Baldev Singh arrived to open his car parts showroom last September he found not customers but officials from Delhi's municipal council at his doorstep. Part of a drive to clean up Delhi in advance of the 2010 Commonwealth games, Singh was forced to close his business - sacking 12 of his staff. Officials told him that zoning laws, previously ignored, were now to be zealously enforced. "They said I was operating illegally in a residential colony. But for seven years I had paid taxes and customers had been coming," says Singh, whose half-a-million pound property remains impounded by the city. The 60-year-old says he lost 20m rupees (£260,000) in sales before renting a space on a grimy petrol forecourt. "I had a luxury showroom. Why have they killed my business? Just for 15 days of the games.
Proposed plan would protect Iowa Counties from bicyclist lawsuits
A proposal that would provide some protections to counties when bicyclists use those county roads is making its way through the Iowa Legislature this session. The proposal is receiving a rather high profile after one family sued Crawford County over a bicycling accident. In that case, the bicyclist was competing in RAGBRAI, an annual, multi-day bicycle event that travels from border to border and attracts thousands of participants. If a bill offering counties some sort of protection is not passed, some have openly wondered about the future of the event, sponsored by the Des Moines Register. “The truth of the matter is I haven't even seen it [the bill] yet," said Rep. Lance Horbach, R-Tama. “I'm working on some other things that are taking a lot of my time." RAGBRAI will be making an overnight stop in Horbach's hometown this year.
Al-Qaida trains kids, video suggests
The U.S. military said videos seized from suspected al-Qaida in Iraq hideouts show militants training children who appear as young as 10 to kidnap and kill. It's viewed as a sign that the terror network hungry for recruits may be using younger Iraqis in propaganda to lure a new crop of fighters. .
Make NRA pay when someone kills with gun
3/5 of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun."21 * 74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."22 * 57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."23 " .
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