The Weird, Random, and Interesting things that Fit Nowhere Else Thread

[ShadySands]

Supposedly they were throwing it for the guy on the left so he could leave with some money because he hadn't won up to that point

 

And they are all veterans

[Bartimaeus]

Thanks for the context. Suddenly, the host's question to her about her choice of letters doesn't seem so innocuous. She had good composure, if so (and based on the amount of money she had and her previous level of play, it does seem so). I would've probably cracked trying to sell somehow missing three turns.

 

(edit) O' Lord, why did I even glance at the YouTube comments? Wretched hive of scum and etc.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[ShadySands]

To be fair I should have included that tidbit in my original post

[Raithe]

Heh, an old school-friend turned lawyer posted this earlier in regards to the upcoming EU referendum in the UK and I thought I'd share it for those who like to discuss the broad politics these days..

 

 

For the very few remotely interested, here's why I will likely vote to exit the EU (much to my sadness).

 

1) None of Cameron's 4 proposal deal with the democratic deficiency of the EU;

 

2) Cameron's proposals do not secure British Sovereignty in lieu of point 1. Instead it is Sovereignty light - if enough, unspecified members agree there can be an opt out to some unspecified element;

 

3) Unlike our ancestors (who did not vote for the EU in its current, undemocratic form), we, in this referendum, will be. The EU as far as Britain is concerned lacks a democratic mandate. Post the referendum it will have that mandate;

 

4) Similarly, the EU has proven it will, if unchecked, gift to itself ever greater powers. A vote to stay endorses that attitude. Whatever follows will not, unlike in the 1970s, be unexpected. You will know what you are doing if you vote Yes

 

5) We may never again get to vote on compelling the EU to respect democracy. By leaving however, the EU may reform to invite us to re-join;

 

6) There is no persuasive non-partisan evidence that it will (a) have a detrimental effect on the economy or (b) that any such effect will be so great a price to pay that it's worth sacrificing our democracy;

 

and finally and most importantly

7) I find EU cases names impossible to remember!

[JadedWolf]

To be honest I really wonder if even if Cameron would get what he's asked for, you lot wouldn't just vote against staying in the E.U. anyway. Then again the E.U. may just manage to blow itself up even before you have a chance to vote, the way things are going right now.

[Raithe]

On the flip side of events, to help distract folks..

 

Republican Candidates attend Rally where Pastor advocates death penalty for gay people

 

 

On Friday, three Republican presidential candidates — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — attended an event in Des Moines, Iowa, hosted by a controversial Colorado pastor who has frequently advocated against gay people, including that the government should put them to death.

 

The event, dubbed the National Religious Liberties Conference, was hosted by pastor Kevin Swanson, who delivered a fiery speech in which he said Biblical law calls for "homosexuals" to be executed.

 

"Yes, Leviticus 20:13 calls for the death penalty for homosexuals," he said. Swanson said he was "willing to go to jail for standing on the truth of the word of God."

Swanson then invited Jindal, Cruz and Huckabee on stage for a Q&A session with the 2016 presidential candidates.

 

Before Swanson began interviewing Cruz, Cruz joked, "You're not going to ask about fantasy football, are you?" Instead, Swanson asked Cruz how important he thinks it is for a United States president to fear God.

 

"Any president who doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander-in-chief of this country," Cruz responded.

 

When the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law of the land in June, Cruz urged states to ignore the legislation in an interview with NPR. "On a great many issues, others have largely acquiesced, even if they were not parties to the case," Cruz said of the same-sex marriage law during the interview. "But there's no legal obligation to acquiesce to anything other than a court judgement."

 

When asked on CNN Thursday before the rally whether or not he felt it was appropriate to attend Swanson's conference given what many have called the pastor's extreme anti-gay beliefs, Cruz said he "doesn't know what this gentleman has said and what he hasn't said."

 

Jindal and Huckabee took the debate stage at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday for the undercard portion of the fourth Republican primary debate, hosted by Fox Business Network and the Wall Street Journal. Cruz was expected to participate in the 9 p.m. Eastern main event among the other top-polling candidates.

 

Watch Rachel Maddow address the conference below:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBDbGyv6SIQ

[Leferd]

 

Now why couldn't this have happened during Mayweather v Pacquaio?

[Gromnir]

 

Now why couldn't this have happened during Mayweather v Pacquaio?

am not a fan of mma, and our appreciation for boxing has waned over the years.  is a shame too as we were a genuine boxing fan from time we were young and throughout our university years.  am thinking that ppv kinda backfired for boxing as a whole.  sure, for those fighters that can get a big ppv payout, the money is better now than ever before, but there were a time when boxing were in the conversation when speaking o' the most popular spectator sports in the USA.   back in the day when abc wide world o' sports (and the other networks too) would have boxing on tv just about every saturday, it were easy to be a fan.  typical, during spring and summer, saturday afternoon sports on tv were either boxing or bowling... and maybe a baseball game.  

 

then again, our appreciation o' boxing began to wane before ppv.  

 

 

had kinda a big impact on us.  we continued to watch the major heavyweight battles up through tyson and holyfield years, but the whole sport seemed a bit too barbaric after the duk-koo kim fight. that is the reason we dont like mma.  is even more obvious bloodsport than boxing.  

 

in any event, we always kinda chuckled when we heard rousey claim that she could beat mayweather in a fight, but most o' the elite athletes is supreme self-confident.  didn't know much 'bout mma, but we saw positives from such a popular female athlete getting worldwide recognition. good on her if by trading barbs with mayweather she could increase her own legend.  however, after ronda rousey's recent comments regarding domestic violence, coupled with revelations from her biography (am not gonna call it an autobio when somebody else did all the writing) am admitting that we couldn't suppress our schadenfreude when we heard she were ko'd in the fight yesterday.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps mayweather is such a dirtbag that we were amused when he got involved in a twitter battle with rousey.  given his domestic violence history, mayweather were metaphorical fighting with one hand tied behind his back when verbal fighting rousey.  

Edited November 15, 2015 by Gromnir

[Leferd]

Hubristic payback is a biotech.

[Raithe]

While I'm tempted to throw this in the funny things thread, the question of art vs porn and censorship on tv seems more suitable here...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkJS0IzZREk

[Raithe]

And further on the Schooling system and Education front...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0jQz6jqQS0

[Gfted1]

Congress Says Yes to Space Mining, No to Rocket Regulations

[Raithe]

Engineering, it can be fun...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCxco6227xo

[Raithe]

Oh yes.. here's one for Bruce to jump on and consider..

 

Columbia student in anguish because she has to read books by white people

 

White privilege. It's everywhere, I tell you. You can't escape its smothering influence -- even at one of the finest (and most expensive) schools in the land.

Take the case of this poor, wilting flower. Nissy Aya is now in her fifth year of undergraduate study at Columbia University. She was supposed to graduate last year with the rest of her class, but finds herself -- totally not her fault -- on track to graduate next year.

 

Ms. Aya says that she has experienced much angst and anguish while taking Columbia's Core courses, studying the greatest, the most powerful, the most tolerant civilization in the history of the human race -- Western civilization. It seems that Ms. Aya has feelings of inadequacy when reading all these books by dead white males.

 

 

 

Daily Caller:

 

Aya attributed some of her academic troubles to the trauma of having to take Columbia’s current Core Curriculum, which requires students to take a series of six classes with a focus on the culture and history of Western, European civilization. Aya says this focus on the West was highly mentally stressful for her.

 

“It’s traumatizing to sit in Core classes,” she said. “We are looking at history through the lens of these powerful, white men. I have no power or agency as a black woman, so where do I fit in?”

 

As an example, Aya cited her art class, where she complained that Congolese artwork was repeatedly characterized as “primitive.” She wanted to object to that characterization but, in the Spectator’s words, was “tired of already having worked that day to address so many other instances of racism and discrimination.”

Roosevelt Montás, Columbia’s associate dean for the Core Curriculum, didn’t exactly offer a spirited defense, instead saying Aya was showing the troubling racism that may lurk inside the Core.

 

“You cannot grow up in a society without assimilating racist views,” he said, according to the Spectator. “Part of what is exciting about this conversation is that it’s issuing accountability for us to look within ourselves and try to understand the way that racism shapes how we see the world and our institutions.”

 

This isn’t the first time students have complained about the mental anguish of studying the Western canon. Last spring, four students published an editorial for the Spectator complaining that a student was triggered by having to read Ovid, and proposed replacing his offensive works with those of Toni Morrison.

 

When Toni Morrison's work lasts 2,000 years, they can sub out Ovid for her.

 

Getting mad at the little whelp doesn't do any good. She is now in her "safe space" where, as Jonah Goldberg writes in his newsletter this morning, she is free to play with her "conceptual" toys:

 

The campus Huns pillaging higher education these days only want to talk about “white privilege” -- unimpeded by debate, facts, reality, or anything smacking of an opposing point of view -- because it is psychologically comfortable and politically empowering. Contemplating that your problems don’t have all that much to do with systemic bigotry is discomfiting. So they want safe spaces to play with their conceptual Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys.

 

This is why so many liberals are far, far, far more comfortable calling tea-partiers “terrorists” than they are talking about actual, you know, terrorists. This is why in the wake of the Paris attacks we hear so much about “Christian terrorism” and why so many lefties have raced to arguments about gun control. That is why the supposedly smartest argument among the supposedly smart set these days is to build a time machine and stop Bush from invading Iraq.

 

The hysterically exaggerated hypersensitivity to anything -- anything -- that can vaguely be construed (or dishonestly promoted) as racist or "proving" white privilege is making a mockery of the term "higher" education. It's as if the Visigoths are sacking Rome all over again. Intellectually raping and pillaging across campus, they have normal students terrified and the grown men and  women who are running the school groveling in the dust.

 

Momma, don't let your baby grow up to be a college student.

 

Edited November 21, 2015 by Raithe

[Raithe]

Just to throw this out there...

 

 

Edit: Okay, for some reason the picture squishes.. but if you click on it you get a readable version open up.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Raithe

[Raithe]

But for the slightly more serious.. 

 

The 2 year old who threw a tantrum in front of the president? She was my daughter.

 

 

 

My 2-year-old daughter Claudia cannot articulate r’s or l’s properly and falls asleep sucking on the ear of a putrid stuffed sheep. She’s usually easygoing by toddler standards, except in the mornings when she demands to strip off all her clothes and don nothing but a fitted dinosaur sheet. (“It’s not a sheet!” she screams. “It’s a sheet-dress! I wear my sheet-dress!”) Somehow, over the course of a few strange days last spring, this unassuming little person became the star of the Internet news cycle.

 

It was precisely her determination to transform inappropriate household items (not just fitted sheets but also dishrags, washcloths, even Chinese-takeout napkins) into eveningwear that rocketed Claudia to Internet fame. It was early April, and we had for once negotiated her into a dress-dress and escorted her to the White House to have her picture taken with the president before the annual Passover Seder that he has held since his first year in office.

 

Claudia, thoroughgoing 2-year old that she is, had no interest in this ritual. She didn’t want to be in the White House, whatever that was. She wanted to be in her bedroom, emptying out the drawers of her changing table in search of more sheets.

“I take off my shoes,” she told me.

“No, sweetie, not right now.”

“I take off my dress,” she suggested next.

“Claudia, if you could just wait one second—”

“I wear a sheet-dress.”

“I’m so sorry, sweet girl, but we didn’t bring any sheets tonight!”

My lack of preparation outraged her. That same instant, the hush associated with the entrance of the chief executive fell over the Red Room, but Claudia didn’t care. Claudia wanted a sheet, and she wanted one now. In her fury, she threw herself at the feet of the most famous man in the world. That same instant, Pete Souza, the chief official White House photographer, walked into the room.

 

I will say that I have met the president before. My husband was among the handful of campaign staffers who held an impromptu Seder in a conference room of a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Sheraton during the 2008 Pennsylvania primary. I have attended these Seders every year since I was pregnant with my now–6-year-old son. Also, not unimportantly, I follow the news, and like many news-following Americans I am sufficiently aware of Obama’s temperament to know that he’s not going to expend much energy judging the 2-year old at his feet or, for that matter, her parents. The explosion ended, my father (brought here for that express purpose) whisked Claudia and her brother off, and that was that. We thought no more of the tantrum until almost two months later when the White House photo office emailed me a photograph of the incident “for personal use only.”    

    

The photograph was wonderful, obviously, but it didn’t for an instant occur to me that it would interest anyone beyond my circle of family and friends when I posted it on my Facebook page, as I do with every year’s Seder pictures. I then went off to the grocery store—my usual Thursday afternoon ritual. While I was there, my brother tweeted the photo, saying, “This really might be the best picture ever: my niece Claudia throwing a fit at Passover.”

 

By the time I returned with dinner, Claudia’s tantrum was all over the Internet. Entirely unrelated celebrities (Judd Apatow, Joyce Carol Oates) had retweeted my brother. By dinnertime, the picture was on the top of the Reddit home page, with 1 million views.

 

Over the course of the weekend Claudia’s tantrum was featured in Salon, the Daily Mail, the Huffington Post, CNN, the Washington Post, Yahoo Parenting (FYI, those moms are angry), the Telegraph, the New York Daily News, Time—I could go on. She was written about in Macedonia, China (and Taiwan), Argentina, New Zealand, Peru. Saturday morning, while shepherding my kids to a birthday party, I answered the phone from an unknown 212 number; it was Good Morning America. I declined to bring Claudia on the show, but they still ran multiple segments about her. She was on Sky News and the Today Show and the local station in the small French town where my brother was staying. And everywhere, everyone had a lot to say about Claudia.

 

I’m mostly disciplined enough to avoid the comments section of pieces I’ve written; what good can come of reading about how annoying/glib/uninformed I am? But with the Claudia picture, I couldn’t resist the comments, precisely because they seemed so completely disconnected from reality. Most people—the ones who’ve actually raised kids—were amused and sympathetic. They understood that my 2-year-old doesn’t care if the president of the United States has just entered the room. This contingent offered the same dorkily good-natured ripostes over and over again: “Guess she voted Republican?” and “So this is what it’s like dealing with John Boehner!” The Jews liked to joke that someone else had found the Afikomen.

But if the Internet has taught us anything, it’s that crazy people have a great deal of free time on their hands. And I was shocked by what they read into the picture. They saw my political beliefs and the pride I took in my inability to raise a child. (“The ‘she’s just a kid’ excuses are the excuses liberal parents make for their lack of parenting skills.”) They saw my income and my ethnic background: I was a “wealthy Jewish donor”—don’t I wish!—and my daughter a spoiled brat: “She doesn’t act like the sort of child that has ever heard the word ‘No’ let alone felt anything other than expensive clothes on her backside.” One commenter recommended thyroid medication to bring my daughter back in balance, but no one said a word about fitted sheets.

 

Perhaps these hecklers would’ve been satisfied if my face, in that split-second captured by the photographer, had conveyed more dismay, or I’d been in some way publicly chastised? Or maybe the president should’ve taken charge of the situation. I mean, he’s supposed to be a leader, right? “The kid has obviously used this to get her way before,” observed one Daily Mail reader. “Maybe POTUS should paddle her butt!” He was among many who endorsed beating the crap out of my child.

 

And speaking of Obama—I already knew, of course, that Obama, like any other president, has his professional haters. But Obama doesn’t have to be speaking out against gun violence or praising equal pay for women to provoke his opponents’ ire; just standing calmly above a distraught toddler is sufficient. Many commenters opined that Claudia was upset about the president’s reckless tax-and-spend ways (“She just learned that her FOOD STAMPS are going to be cut by 10%,” “She knows she won’t have Social Security,” “Obama took her Binky and gave it to someone he deemed more entitled to it,” etc.) and/or the First Lady’s healthy-eating initiatives (“The little girl thought she would be eating food from the First Diva’s school lunch program”). This cohort scorned me but felt sympathy for my daughter, because after all, who wouldn’t throw a tantrum in the presence of the “Prince of Darkness”? In short: “Only a truly innocent child can say what the entire World thinks of Obama & get away with it!”

 

As I pored over the comments, I was reminded that Internet stars are less humans than tropes: of heroism (black cop helping white racist) and villainy (Minnesota dentist posing next to Cecil the Lion) and everything in between. Actual living humans—in this case, my baby girl—are reduced to Grumpy Cat memes as every day the Internet offers up new canvasses where other people can project their fears and loathings. For almost an entire week, my daughter provided this grist.

 

For the meme herself, the most significant outcome of her brush with the big time may have been that, on Memorial Day morning, three days after my brother’s tweet, she woke up and announced that she was done with diapers. It was as if, as an international Internet celebrity, she suddenly felt compelled to up her game. And that was news I could use.

 

 

[Amentep]

Just to throw this out there...

 

 

Edit: Okay, for some reason the picture squishes.. but if you click on it you get a readable version open up.

 

I've always thought that Pursuit Predation made humans the Jason Voorhees of the animal world.

[Raithe]

For that reminder about being careful with social media apps..

 

That Most Used Words Facebook quiz is a privacy nightmare

 

 

Over 16 million people have agreed to give up almost every private detail about themselves to a company they likely know nothing about just to play a quiz.

Lately, you’ve probably seen a couple of your Facebook friends post the results of a quiz app that figures out your most-used words in statuses. Or maybe you posted it yourself. It looks something like this:

 

 

The “quiz,” created by a company called Vonvon.me, has risen to over 16 million shares in a matter of days. It’s been written about in the Independent, Cosmopolitan, and EliteDaily. Sounds fun, right?

 

Wrong. That’s over 16 million people who agreed to give up almost every private detail about themselves to a company they likely know nothing about.

 

“ooo! if i click here and auth in with facebook it’ll scan my entire year of posts, store the data and tell my most used words. sign me up!”

— Saved You A Click (@SavedYouAClick) November 19, 2015

The app, like many Facebook quiz apps, is a privacy nightmare. Here’s a list of the info quiz players have to disclose to Vonvon.me:

• Name, profile picture, age, sex, birthday, and other public info
• Entire friend list
• Everything you’ve ever posted on your timeline
• All of your photos and photos you’re tagged in
• Education history
• Hometown and current city
• Everything you’ve ever liked
• IP address
• Info about the device you’re using including browser and language

The oxymoronic privacy policy

 

Even if you take the “I have nothing to hide” approach to privacy, the app also collects a fair bit of info about your friends. Vonvon’s privacy policy leaves a lot to be desired. Let’s walk through it to see why you should steer clear of this quiz or any of the dozens more on Vonvon’s site. First off, for those who have already played the quiz, there’s no take backs:

 

[…] you acknowledge and agree that We may continue to use any non-personally-identifying information in accordance with this Privacy Policy (e.g., for the purpose of analysis, statistics and the like) also after the termination of your membership to this WebSite and\or use of our services, for any reason whatsoever.

 

Your information could be stored anywhere in the world, including countries without strong privacy laws. A Whois search reveals Vonvon.me was registered in South Korea, but it operates under several languages including English, Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Korean:

 

Vonvon processes Personal Information on its servers in many countries around the world. Such information may be stored on any of our servers, at any location.

 

Vonvon is free to sell your data to whomever it pleases for a profit. Vonvon says it will not share personal information with third parties without permission, but just by playing the quiz you’ve technically given it permission because it assumes you’re a responsible person who reads the privacy policy. Of course, most people who play the quiz are not that responsible.

 

[…] We do not share your Personal Information with third parties unless We have received your permission to do so, or given you notice thereof (such as by telling you about it in this Privacy Policy) […]

 

Yes, it actually says that. Worst of all, Vonvon skirts responsibility after it has sold your data to third parties, who can do whatever the hell they want with it:

 

[…] this Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of entities Vonvon does not own or control, or to individuals whom Vonvon does not employ or manage, including any third parties to whom Vonvon may disclose Personal Information […]

 

Companies who you have never met can now access your entire Facebook profile–friends, photos, statuses and all–and use them in ways you never directly agreed to. By the way, if you edit the permissions before authenticating the app with Facebook, Vonvon won’t allow you to play the quiz. Edit: You can remove all permissions except your public profile and Facebook timeline posts, and still play the quiz. Most people that play probably won’t bother, though.

 

 

Abstinence is the best privacy policy

 

We’ve singled out Vonvon because it recently went viral, but it’s far from the only shady data dealer to masquerade behind a viral quiz mill. Facebook is a haven for a large number of these companies and, frankly, hasn’t done enough to educate or warn users about the risks. Social Sweethearts, a similar company based in Germany, creates quiz apps that are so bold as to collect your email address. Hope you like spam, suckers!

 

So how can you protect yourself? The easiest way is to avoid online quizzes that require Facebook authentication altogether. Go to the apps section of your Facebook profile–where these data miners often reside–and remove anything you don’t 100 percent trust. Many of them can even hijack your Facebook and post on your behalf. Stick to quizzes that just let you share the results without logging in with your Facebook account, such as the ones on Buzzfeed.

 

If you insist on authenticating a Facebook quiz app, be sure to check the permissions and read the privacy policy or terms of use.

 

[Hurlshort]

Yeah, I feel like people don't read the part where they ask for all your information.  Although I have a flashlight app, and the other day I was stumbling around in the dark, and when I tried to turn on the app it said it had been updated and I needed to give them access to my contacts.  Why does a flashlight app need my contacts?  So I was torn between stumbling around in the dark or giving up all my contacts.

[Malcador]

Is why I fill my Facebook profile with lies.

[Ineth]

This is a very worthwhile read on the recent student protests at Yale, Missouri, etc.:
 

A Little-Understood Engine of Campus Unrest: Racial Admissions Preferences

 

 

It makes quite a convincing case I think.

[Raithe]

This might entertain a few folks...

 

Nerdist - Vin Diesel plays Dungeons and Dragons with the Nerdist team

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlWt07l_pvI

 

 

Hold on to your butts and roll for initiative, because this might be the greatest game we’ve ever played. Together with our sister site, Geek & Sundry, we invited the one and only Vin Diesel to come play Dungeons & Dragons with us… and not only did he accept, he may have become our new best friend.

 

It’s no secret that our offices are filled with diehard D&D players — Dan Casey, Jessica Chobot, and Malik Forte have each shared why they love the 5th edition, and of course, Geek & Sundry has their beloved D&D series, Critical Role. So when Dan suggested we invite Vin Diesel to our studio for a rousing game of D&Diesel to promote his upcoming supernatural thriller, The Last Witch Hunter, we thought that would be the coolest thing ever. And then he said yes, and it 100% was.

 

For those in the dark, The Last Witch Hunter stars Vin Diesel as Kaulder, an immortal witch hunter who must team up with a modern day witch (Game of Thrones‘ Rose Leslie) to stop an ancient plague from ravaging New York City. The story was largely inspired by Diesel’s own Dungeons & Dragons character, so what better way to hang out with the action star than by embarking on an epic quest inspired by the film?

 

Led by our Dungeon Master, Critical Role‘s Matt Mercer, Vin Diesel joined Dan Casey, Jessica Chobot, Laura Bailey, and Travis Willingham for the quest to end all quests. The campaign debuted last Thursday exclusively on Geek & Sundry’s Twitch channel, and now you can watch the best moments from the game in our latest Nerdist Presents.

 

Make sure you catch the full campaign over on Geek & Sundry, and stay tuned for our in-depth interviews with Vin Diesel, covering everything from The Last Witch Hunter to Marvel to The Fast and the Furious and beyond, coming to Nerdist later this week!

[Malcador]

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/hacked-toymaker-leaked-gigabytes-worth-of-kids-headshots-and-chat-logs/

 

Pays to just assume anything you upload is leaked already, I guess.

[Darkpriest]

@Raithe

 

I watched an episdoe or two, and damn I wish I had such a talented DM with such a great voice play :D

[Raithe]

Well, I suppose false threats are one way to drum up support for any activist...

 

Black Alum and Protest Leader at Kean University allegedly behind shocking tweets that threatened to kill black students

 

 

UNION TOWNSHIP, N.J.—The person who repeatedly threatened to kill  African American students at the state university here was actually an African American, according to investigators.  They've charged Kayla-Simone McKelvey, 24, a former homecoming queen at Kean University, with anonymously sending a series of tweets two weeks ago that threatened en masse bodily harm to students of color.

 

McKelvey graduated last spring from the university, but had remained politically active there past graduation.  She had been one of the leaders of a days-long demonstration on the center of campus that sought to show support to black student protests at other universities, including Missouri and Yale.

 

Investigators said that, during the first evening of the demonstration in which she had participated at Kean, on November 17th, McKelvey left the event, and went to the college library, a few steps away, where she set up a Twitter account under a handle meant to conceal her identity.

 

Using the handle Keanuagaistblk, she tweeted some potentially homicidal messages, including, "I will shoot every black woman and male I see at Kean University," and "I will kill all the blacks tonight tomorrow and any other day if they go to Kean University," among other, similarly violent tweets.  One had even threaten to explode a bomb on campus.

After making the posts, investigators said, McKelvey returned to the demonstration and made reference to the posts, in an apparent attempt to increase the urgency of her event.  It had had the desired effect at the time, but took a turn for the far worse, when, the next day, more than half of the student body chose not to go to class out of concern for their safety.

"It makes the people who are active in what we're doing here, it discredits them," said Xavier White, a Kean University sophomore.

 

Like many students on the campus of 16,000,  White knows of Kay Simone, as McKelvey refers to herself on social media, without knowing her well personally.  She was a homecoming queen in 2014, according to her LinkedIn page, and, as an officer of the Pan-African Student Association, she was a well known leader of on campus protests.  She was particularly well know. among African American students.

 

"For the most part, she was kind of respected" as a student leader, White said.

 

"She just plotted this whole thing," said sophomore Gina El Wassemmi.  "All us skipped class the next day, but it was for nothing, really."

When the tweets went out, university officials notified federal authorities, as well as law enforcement at the state and local level. Federal agents at the time were working five different fatal shooting incidents on college campuses nationwide that had occurred within five months of the Kean University incident.   They, and university officials, said they have taken the threat very seriously.

 

Kean's president, Dawood Farahi, on Tuesday made a public statement about the new developments, at a previously scheduled forum on ethnic diversity.

"As a diverse academic community, we wholeheartedly respect and support activism," Farahi said in prepared remarks.  "However, no cause or issue gives anyone the right to threaten the safety of others," he said.

 

"We hope this information will begin to bring a sense of relief and security to the campus community," Dr. Farahi added.

McKelvey has now been charged with third degree creating a false alarm. She'll make her first appearance before a judge for the charge on December 14th.