Another Bad Day for Scott Peterson

Well, no doubt, you have already heard. Scott Peterson gets the State sponsored (and tax payer dollar supported) trip to the chemical drip.

That is, until he exhausts the appeals process.

I'm wondering: Do you think the good Christians in favor of artificially feeding Terri Schievo are jumping for joy on this news?

Got Job?

Found a nice bumber sticker slogan on the following url:

"Osama still has his job, do you still have yours?"

This is paradoxically funny and sad given that the jobs created underneath W, Rove and Co. is unacceptably low. Not only that, but W, Rove and Co have setting new records: 1, 2. The cost of oil is making them richer, and us poorer at the gas pump. How nice - so much for your 400 dollar tax credit/rebat courtesy of W, Rove and Co. - ours went right into the gas tank several times over - and right into the big oil pockets.

Hemingway was No Dummy Either

Found a nice Hemingway quote:

"We have come out of the time when obedience, the acceptance of discipline, intelligent courage, and resolution were most important, into that more difficult time when it is a person's duty to understand the world rather than simply fight for it."

The Only Thing to Fear

Dusting off some high quality '80s tunes, I came across REM's Life's Rich Pagent album. Clicked play on the RioPlayer. Turns out Michael Stipe isn't always just pretentious, but can be insightful.

This set of lyrics from Hyena is rather powerful:

The only thing to fear is fearlessness
The greater the weapons the bigger the fear

Two Lumps Eradicated

For those of you who follow my posts, you know that a close friend's family was confronted by breast cancer earlier this monthg. Good news.

She had two, small millimeter sized lumps removed this past Friday. No traveling down the lymph system that they could find. However, they did find some pre-cancerous cells lingering about that also need to be removed. She goes in for more surgery tomorrow. This should eliminate the immediate threat of malignancy, but she will have to be under constant survelance and vigiliance.

Her Mother-in-law is in town to support, so they have family about, which is great.Hopefully we will get over there for a play date for the kids this afternoon, post nap, to insert some normalcy to their otherwise disrupted situation.

Who da April Foo?

Found another great link via SheaNC. 1 April 2005 is going to be a special day: I love my country, but I am still embarrassed by the President Day.

Don't forget to wear your brown ribbon.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are aggressively taking care of their own, while screwing the rest of us

This just in from the Move On email list serve:

The Republican budget that's on the table cuts gives huge tax breaks to the rich, cuts education and health care for middle class folks and the poor, and sends the debt burden for future generations through the roof....

• Republicans are pushing through the budget this week before critics and the media can point out huge program cuts and corporate giveaways.
  
• The Republican budget explodes the deficit—adding more than $400 billion to our national debt, when you include the extra money requested for the Iraq War. According to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, the deficit is due mostly to the gigantic tax cut legislation and Iraq spending—two things Congress and the president want to make worse, not better.
  
• The Republican budget gives the wealthiest Americans permanent tax breaks, while cutting programs for the middle class and poor.
  
• The Republican budget would make gigantic cuts in health care—especially for Medicaid—which are unconscionable. Medicaid principally serves two groups: senior citizens and the working poor. Most seniors in nursing homes count on Medicaid.
  
• The Republican budget slashes education funding, especially funds for middle class and low-income Americans. The budget leaves out the needed funding for No Child Left Behind and funds to help moderate-income Americans afford college. Pell Grants are dramatically hurt in the budget.

Send a letter to the editor using a form from move on, or do it yourself.

Batter up

Now that they spanked Bernard Ebbers, it is time to go after Kenny Boy Lay.

Let these capitalist pigs cook till they are super crispy.

Biased Treatment

While not original, this quote has been bouncing around my brain for the AM.

"There is nothing more inherently unequal than the equal treatment of unequals."

Lots out there if you google the phrase (eg. 1, 2, you get the idea)

Would the PC world have us believe that this is an overly biased simplification of many a complex problem?

Why Can't Kids Learn?

The NYTimes editorial section had an interesting post and view point shared about the trouble with high schools. The tendency to want to shift blame away from the learner is endemic to the whole of our troubles. That is, college and university faculty members tend to blame the high schools. This person wants to blame the junior high schools. No doubt, the junior high school faculty members will want to blame the middle and elementary school systems.

In the end, the parents are responsible for instilling a strong desire to learn and a learning ethic in their children. And, fundamentally, it is the individual that is responsible for their own learning. With all the support you can give kids, the best school systems in the world will have some students fail.

What we need is a shift from rote memorization of "facts" & test preparation toward a curriculum that centers on expeditianary exploration of topics until the students tire of the subject matter or move on to another more powerfully interesting topic. Having taught math to ninth graders before, I know how boring fractions can be if the relavence is not transparent. It is very challenging to teach fractions to anyone, let alone those who have failed mathematics courses in the past. Another shift that might present a fix is twisting the promotion and tenure process to shuffle new teachers away from the difficult courses to teach and put them into honors or high level classrooms. This would leave the general or remedial courses to the most experienced and skilled teachers and disciplinarians. The reason why I don't teach at the High School level any more is because I was given five courses (four preparations) in my first year of teaching. These four preps were all but one general or remedial courses. So, I spent the better part of my day disciplining some one else's children rather than teaching. Students were so disruptive and disrespectful that it was very difficult to maintain a line of thinking on the subject at hand without getting side tracked. Secondly, I know for a fact, that instead of doing the homework, these students were out on weekends, doing drugs, or simply watching television all evening. Parents were completely disengaged from the child's educational process, and in more than one case, I caught parents out right lying to make excuses for their children's poor performance.

I can go on, but will save more on this for either comments or another post should folks be interested.

Here's the slice from the article mentioned above:

To understand why, you have to consider what the high schools are dealing with. When American students arrive as freshmen, nearly 70 percent are reading below grade level. Equally large numbers are ill prepared in mathematics, science and history.

It is hardly fair to blame high schools for the poor skills of their entering students. If students start high school without the basic skills needed to read, write and solve mathematics problems, then the governors should focus on strengthening the standards of their states' junior high schools.

And that first year of high school is often the most important one - many students who eventually drop out do so after becoming discouraged when they can't earn the credits to advance beyond ninth grade. Ninth grade is often referred to by educators as a "parking lot." This is because social promotion - the endemic practice of moving students up to the next grade whether they have earned it or not - comes to a crashing halt in high school.

It makes no sense to blame the high schools for their ill-prepared incoming students. To really get at the problem, we have to make changes across our educational system. The most important is to stress the importance of academic achievement. Sorry to say, we have a long history of reforms by pedagogues to de-emphasize academic achievement and to make school more "relevant," "fun" and like "real life." These efforts have produced whole-language instruction, where phonics, grammar and spelling are abandoned in favor of "creativity," and fuzzy math, where students are supposed to "construct" their own solutions to math problems instead of finding the right answers.

Sadness and Humor

Found these on Not Polite to Point.

Site one are some very well done photos taken in Iraq: By Farah Nosh.

Second, unrelated, but fun nontheless: Shredding video clips.

One for sadness, the other for humor.

Capitalism is Racist

I was on the bus, heading home about an hour ago. Catching a movie without the kids. Spotted some interesting graffiti (I take no credit for the tag):

"Capitalism is Racist"

Any thoughts?

Good news on Protecting Marriage

Finally some good news on the same-sex marriage front.

As the concerns over interracial marriage failed in stoping marriage between people of different colors, so too will the bigotry and fears associated with the reichwinger's attempt at stopping same sex marriage.

Slice:

In a victory for gay rights groups, a California Superior Court judge ruled on Monday that the state's voter-approved ban on homosexual marriage is unconstitutional....

...
"The denial of marriage to same-sex couples appears impermissibly arbitrary," wrote San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer. "Simply put, same-sex marriage cannot be prohibited solely because California has always done so."

Referring to California legal code, Kramer added: "This court concludes that both sections are unconstitutional under the California Constitution."

In his ruling, the judge said creating benefits for same-sex couples without allowing marriage was insufficient and referred to the landmark 1952 Brown v. Board of Education civil rights decision. "The idea that marriage-like rights without marriage is adequate smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts: separate but equal," he wrote.

INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE

The judge's tentative decision also cites a 1948 decision striking down California's ban on interracial marriages.

Condi not running...at least not now, but 2008 is a bit away.

Obviously, this is not new news. Anyone want to bet Condi is a part of some 2008 ticket on the reichwing side of our dualistic democracy?

Get you Condi Bobble Heads here - 3 for 59.97 (Who prices these things, by the way?)

Another witness for Stronger Environmental Protection than W, Rove and Co. deliver

"There used to be rivers of butterflies, but now there are years when there are no butterflies at all. This is a village full of ghosts, not of people, but of nature, a paradise lost."HOMERO ARIDJIS, a naturalist in Contepec, Mexico.

Halliburton is being watched

Found a nice link via SheaNC. If you want to have a look at what the watchdogs are viewing, you may want to click on over to Halliburton Watch.

Slice:

Halliburton admits it 'may have' criminally rigged bids on contracts

2 March 2005

WASHINGTON, March 2 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- The U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal inquiry into possible bid-rigging on foreign contracts by Halliburton, the company revealed Tuesday.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company said "information has been uncovered" that former employees of KBR "may have engaged in coordinated bidding with one or more competitors on certain foreign construction projects and that such coordination possibly began as early as the mid-1980s...."

End Slice:

Ahh, now, is this a perfect ethical and moral training ground for a Vice President of the USA or not?

Unleash the hounds and sic 'em:

WHISTLEBLOWERS

The source or sources of information received by HalliburtonWatch.org from Halliburton employees or subcontractor employees shall always remain confidential.

Information about Halliburton which would be useful to law enforcement or investigative journalists can be sent to:

HalliburtonWatch.org
c/o Essential Information
P.O. Box 19405
Washington, DC 20036.

You can also send information via fax to (202) 234-5176, or via email to info@halliburtonwatch.org.

Smokin'

How fast can you run 400 meters?

Surfing the web today and found that some 19 year old kid running for Florida bested Michael Johnson's world best by .06 seconds...which is a lot at that rate of speed.

Slice:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Kerron Clement has struck down a world record held for a decade by one of the greats of track and field. And he's only 19. The Florida sophomore seemed as surprised as everyone else when he ran 44.57 seconds at the NCAA Indoor track and field championships Saturday night, breaking the mark of 44.63 set by Michael Johnson in 1995.

"Winning is never having to say, I quit."

The latest post by Joe Henderson offers more insight from the legendary Dr. George Sheehan. Although Doc passed away a fair while ago, his wisdom still speaks. While I am not a huge fan of Henderson's writing, he was good friends with the Doc, and some times shares things we cannot always get from Sheehan's long list of writings.

Here are two from Henderson's post 562:

1) One of the last races George ran was the Crim 10-mile in Michigan. He ran along in last place with another man, a younger one who was injured. That runner turned to George and complained, "You know, Doc, we used to be good."

George came right back with, "We're as good as we ever were. We're doing the best we can with what we have. You have an injury, and I have an illness. But we're still out here, giving our all. No one can do more, or should do less..."

2) "Winning is never having to say I quit."

Do Christians and the NRA Mix Well?

I don't think so. This is tragic; Slice:

The victims were all in the same room at the hotel, Tushaus said. The suspect, a man of about 45 who was armed with a handgun, was affiliated with the church, which had been meeting at the hotel every Saturday morning for four or five years.

Tushaus did not identify the victims but gave approximate ages. Two boys ages 15 and 17, a 72-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman died at the hotel. Three men ranging in age from 44 to 58 died later at a hospital.

Four other people were hospitalized in serious condition.

End slice:

What is the NRA saying about this incident?

Nothing on their front page.

Nothing on any of the first five most pominent posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Drunk and Stupid or Vice Versa

Saw an interesting quote in the NYTimes this AM:

"It wasn't fun for me. I was stupid. I could have died."
HOLLY GODBEE, who downed 17 drinks on her 21st birthday in a tradition called "power hour."


End slice:

Drinking and College students are so synonymous that there is a perennial joke told by college administrators: "What makes a great College President? Plentiful parking, good football teams, and beer for the students."

The sad state of affairs is that many campuses are host (inadvertent or not) to a wide array of celebrated "party" weekends (e.g. Spring Weekend at UConn, MayFest at U Utah, Poly Royal at Cal Poly SLO, or Case Day at Gustavus Adolphus College, to name a few). Even worse are the underground and above ground abuses of alcohol by Pan-Hellenic organizations, and just students in general.

Sadly, our society is so twisted morally that drinking to the binge degree is the modus operandi for numerous pre-legal age drinkers. And when they turn the magical age of 21, they go off the deep end, and some as a result have wrapped their cars around trees or front ended some innocent drivers and are later jailed for manslaughter. About five years ago, the University of Michigan had a 19 year old first year student get herself drunk and fell to her death out of her own residence hall window.

The lessons of drinking tend to be the harder ones to learn. Every year (at least once) some "news" outlet does some "expose" on binge drinking thinking it a new phenomenon. It is not. Perhaps it is time to consider the elimination of the Reagan Era forced law that pushed the legal drinking age to 21.

I may be mistaken, but in places where there is no drinking age, it seems as though people do less binge drinking and drinking behavior is more controlled and responsible. As we learned from Prohibition, banning it doesn't work (which, by the way is the same for the argument of legalization of pot). Instead of legislating morality, perhaps we ought trust parents to help their children learn about responsible drinking (like the reichwingers suggest about abstinence) in the safety of their own homes with out it being a criminal activity. Maybe then, our children, who then will hopefully live long enough to become adults, can learn about moderation and responsible use, rather than sink into the trap that can be repetative abuse and binge drinking.