Jun 28 2009
Quote For The Day:
Just because your motives are pure doesn’t mean you are not doing harm.
This is widely attributed to the "Unitarian Jihad".
Archive for June, 2009
Jun 27 2009
Stupidity Rules in Our Country
I got this picture from PZ Myers’ site, Pharyngula. You know I’m a fan of his, and I admire the way he takes aim at a subject and doesn’t stop until he’s completely shredded it. He’s thorough.
He posted this under Stupidity. Damn, how dumb do we want our kids to be? That coach who put up the sign needs to have remedial English (which he probably supports as the Language of the Nation, to keep out those darn furriners).
Jun 20 2009
So I’ve Been on Facebook a Few Weeks
I have just under 100 friends, and I’ve decided, that’s too damn many to keep up with. There are only a few that I regularly follow, anyway…so why bother with all the extra?
It’s very interesting, the things that I learn, that’s why. The politicians keep their information running. The
newsmedia people range from serious cross-posts (Richert and Stapilus) to plaintive tweets (Gagnon) to intriguing photographs and occasional liberal mentalpeeks (Plothow). There was the woman who had the cool name who went psycho on someone and posted the most acrid diatribe I had read in years. Then she was all sweet again. For a moment. You KNOW I’ll be sure to stay away from her page for awhile.
I found out about the Idaho Falls PETA human BBQ demonstration, and the Boise PRIDE days, and today’s 5k run. (Yeah, like I’m gonna be at any of them…but I know about them!)
It’s a totally voyeuristic (and exhibitionist) venture, and I’m glad to be there (so far). It’s like a personal Reader’s Digest Condensed Book of information from many people that I (mostly) know.
Jun 18 2009
Every 26 Seconds, a Child Drops Out
OMG! WTF? According to this story on CNN, only 52% of kids graduate from the nation’s 50 largest school systems 
after 4 years. If you take all schools in the nation, the number is still only 70%. That number is a national shame, tragedy, and heartache, and is leading to our national doom.
Colin Powell is trying to do something about that, especially with regard to black kids, who have a low graduation rate. But he can’t do it alone, and not unless the other adults in the nation decide that the numbers are an abomination and can’t continue. But to do something else, like say they can’t drop out until they’re 18, or say they will go to reform school (and out of the household) or jail or something…FORCE them to go, is very expensive and in this day and age no one would approve of it because they’re too busy putting freakin’ dope users in jail…argh!
Locally, I could only find numbers from 2007. District 91, which is slightly more urban, had better rates than national but not really good. District 93 (slightly more rural) had better rates yet.
Skyline 87.17% -up slightly over the two previous years
Idaho Falls 84.62% -down slightly from 2006, about the same as 2005
Bonneville 93.36% -slightly down in each of the previous years
Hillcrest 98.13% -just a tiny bit down from the previous two years.
It’s not going to get better if we turn our backs on the schools and fail to keep them worth the young person’s time…we don’t fund them, we create disgruntled and underpaid teachers, and we make them cut the fun classes or the AP courses so that no one really wants to stay. Soon we’ll have a nation of uneducated adults, unfit for much more than asking if we want fries with that…
Jun 16 2009
Sonia Sotomayor is NOT a Racist
She’s used that same sentence, probably as part of her regular speeches, for at least 15 years. No one has thought to 
say, “hey, that really sounds racist” in the past. No one cared, even though this woman was a circuit court judge, a trial judge, etc. Why did they not care before?
It’s because that’s a benign statement, and everyone knows she’s not a racist. She’s expressing a total truism that we are all what we are…the sum of our ethnic heritage, our roots, our nurture in our neighborhoods and the product of our parental baggage.
Discussing the differences in the ability to be empathetic for some people’s situations, the differences in perspective between herself and a white man “who has never lived that life” she says:
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion.
It frosts my britches that they pull out this one sentence, instead of showing the entire speech, and using the sentence in context for which it was written.
And this article on CNN points out that those speeches existed and could have been used in the past when she was being vetted for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. It notes:
…Republicans did not object to those remarks in 1998 during Sotomayor’s confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
So the use of them now is smoke and mirrors, it’s an attack campaign akin with swiftboating. It should stop, but it won’t. Once the wingnut pack thinks it has drawn blood, it will continue to nip at the heels until it hamstrings the victim, or until a weaker opponent comes along. The true target is President Obama, because he “must fail” in order to satisfy the zero sum game played by the eliminationist faction of the GOP.
Jun 14 2009
Karma is a Bitch, Sometimes
I haven’t been keeping up with my share of the writing these last few weeks, sorry.
I am curious about the conservative reaction to this weekend’s election in Iran. They are really mad about the results. The speculation is that the election was stolen, rigged, fraudulent and therefore invalid.
Well, as far as many are concerned, the 2000 election in the United States was stolen. The 2004 election in the United States was rigged and fraudulent. The liberals got mad and the conservatives told them to shut up and go away. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and it’s in a foreign country (to boot? ha ha). No matter how much Glenn Beck hates Ahmadinejad, it seems to me that until someone can prove what happened, the world (and Iran) is stuck with the results of that election, just as much as we were stuck with the results of ours.
Ain’t it a bitch when the shoe DOESN’T fit, but we still have to wear it?
Jun 14 2009
I Like Maxine!
One day God was looking down at Earth and saw all of the misbehaving that was going on. So he called one of His angels and sent the angel to Earth for a time.
When the angel returned, he told God, ‘Yes, it is bad on Earth; 95% are misbehaving and only 5% are not.
God was not pleased. So He decided to e-mail the 5% that were good, because he wanted to encourage them, and give them a little something to help keep them going.
Do you know what the e-mail said?
Ok, I was just wondering, because I didn’t get one either.
Jun 13 2009
facebook and the End of the Blogger?
On the Unbearable Bobness of Being (TUBOB) he has lamented that his site traffic is down tremendously and he wonders if it’s even worth the effort to entertain, if no one will read it because they’re all on faceBook these days. He’s such an entertaining read, I love his site. This one’s called “Facebook Killed the Blogging Star”.
I totally understand his situation. It’s incredible how easy facebook is, I’ve been on there 2 weeks now and it’s a
wealth of ideas to be explored. I don’t need to be an advertisement for it, you’re either ready to join or you’re not. I never never planned to be on there but I was convinced by listening to two people I admire very much (both men, both reasonably close to me in age) who were singing its praises.
But I like blogging, too. I like telling my story in more than a sentence or two. I like reading other people’s stories, and I enjoy the voyeurism aspect of knowing what’s on someone’s mind, or happening in their life, without actually having to invite them to dinner or exchange christmas cards with them, etc.
So for awhile at least, I’ll still pay attention to the bloggers. I probably will continue to participate in facebook, too.
Jun 09 2009
Quote of the Day
Are You Opposed to Gay Marriage?
Then Don’t Marry a Gay Person.
…seen online, sounds like a bumper sticker!
Jun 07 2009
A Social Experiment
We use Stat Counter to see the site statistics, and we have noticed many visitors actually attempting to respond to articles or other comments, but as they are not registered users they get the message that they must be logged in to respond. So they don’t bother.
There are many reasons to have a requirement to log in. One is the spam factor…but we have a great spam program
that catches 99% of what’s out there, and we’d find the others easily.
The other is accountability factor. We’ve all been on sites where you don’t have to register…and for some reason, folks tend to be less civil in those situations. And there also tends to be quite a few sock puppets on those sites.
We’re a brand new site that very few people know about. It’s probably worth it, in the seminal stages, to allow easy commenting. We can always go back to registration later if we need to.
So, as of today, the requirement to register is officially removed. We’ll see how that works for us, and you! Thanks for the loyal readership.
