Friday, July 20, 2012

Aurora Shooter Was PhD Dropout.

Aurora Shooter
James Holmes, 24.
from Yahoo.com

Colorado shooting suspect James Holmes was in the process from withdrawing from a doctorate program in neuroscience at the University of Colorado-Denver, according to university spokesman Dan Myers. Holmes began the program last year.

This photo, obtained by ABC News, reportedly shows the 24-year-old Holmes. Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said Holmes' apartment is booby trapped with a "sophisticated" maze of flammable devices. It could take hours or days for authorities to disarm it. Five nearby buildings have been evacuated. Oates said Holmes had no criminal record in the state.

Holmes' family, who live in San Diego, released a statement expressing their sadness for the victims and asking for privacy. Holmes is suspected of walking into an Aurora theater's midnight showing of "Dark Knight Rises" wearing a gas mask and bullet proof vest and shooting at at least 50 people. Twelve are reported dead.

19 comments:

  1. Execute the SOB. And don't wait fifteen years to do it. Next week will be fine.

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    Replies
    1. ....but then we can't get work out of him. Give him to me, and I can work him to death in Siberia in the space of six months.

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  2. It would be interesting to see the emails being sent today from the UC Denver neuroscience program to its prospective students.

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  3. I've heard rumours of a number of scientists in my life sciences subdiscipline going insane, attributable to the psychotrophic effects of the various solvents, reagents etc that they worked with every day in the lab.

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    Replies
    1. "Mad As A Biologist" is the new "Mad as a Hatter"?

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  4. The Washington Post says he didn't do well on his comprehensive exams earlier this spring. Is it common for UC-Denver PhD students to take their comps 9 months after starting the program?

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    1. The cops think he was "playing" the Joker because his hair was dyed red.

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    2. Shows how much they know. The Joker's hair is green.

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    3. As to the comp exams, at my uni, in my discipline, you had three comp exams given per year, and you had two years to pass three of them. So maybe it was his first attempt.

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    4. Grade Inflation: The Life You Save May Be Your Own....

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    5. "Shows how much they know. The Joker's hair is green."
      - introvert.prof

      Actually our lunatic called himself "the Joker" when he spoke to the cops who captured him....his red hair thing is his own. So yeah, I screwed up.

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  5. All the more reason to boost our student retention efforts. It's not just about getting our hands on their tuition money, it's about life and death.

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  6. I've always held that grad students are mostly one inch away from going postal.

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    1. I still remember the engineering grad student in the '90s who shot up his dissertation committee at UCSB. The California news story noted that police considered his behavior a warning sign; trouble was, it was pretty typical behavior for a grad student.

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    2. Sorry, not UCSB, but San Jose State.

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  7. Do you mean the San Diego State shooting in August of 1996? Frederick Martin Davidson shot three assistant professors: Chien Liang, D. Preston Lowrey III, and Constantinos Lyrintzis in a dissertation defense meeting in the engineering building. Davidson felt that there was a conspiracy against him by the engineering department and thought his thesis would be rejected again.

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    Replies
    1. Should be "Chen" not "Chien."

      My condolences.

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