February 29, 2004
He's only been 10 for one day
I went in to say goodnight...
He is listening to Bon Jovi.
Michelle tells me that last week he decided he was tired of his music collection, and had segregated most of the CD's into a "too babyish" pile. So, Michelle told him to pay attention to the radio in the car and let her know what he liked.
His first two "likes" were Bon Jovi and The Beatles.
Michelle has forbidden me from introducing him to Led Zepplin. I'm guessing Iron Maiden is completely out of the question.
Permalink | Comments (3)February 28, 2004
Happy Birthday Breck
Was it really just 10 years ago that I held him for the first time and wondered to myself, what the hell do I do now? We are over 1/2 way to college, and only a couple of years from acne, girls, and all that fun stuff.
He is having several friends over and we are taking them to the arcade and laser tag arena for the afternoon. Then one friend is spending the night. The birthday fairy is bringing a BB Gun and Razor Scooter. Because you know, your not really 10 if your birthday presents don't somehow involve violence and danger. Mother Nature is conveniently delivering the first nice weekend of the year, 60+ and sunny both days. I suspect we will be torturing a few empty coke cans with the BB's. He also indicated that this would be a good weekend to start getting ready for baseball season. That translates into me pitching batting practice until my arm falls off.
February 27, 2004
Dr. Phil's Shocking Behavior
A local Fredericksburg area family appeared on the Dr. Phil show and is shocked and upset at how their family was portrayed on TV.
Well, duh.
I don't know which is sadder; that they went on Dr. Phil looking for help, or that they watch the show everyday and were still surprised by how all this turned out.
This might be a good time to point you back to when we almost were on ESPN...
Permalink | Comments (1)February 26, 2004
Firefox .8
I just upgraded from Firefox .7 to .8. In the words of Howard Dean, Yeeesssshhh.
The speed improvement is quite noticeable. This is one blazing fast HTML rendering machine.
(For the uninitiated - Firefox is the name of the next generation Mozilla. Technically, it's still a technology preview and not ready for prime. I haven't had any problems with it.)
Permalink | Comments (3)A Music Meme
1. Open Your MP3 player
2. Put it in shuffle play mode
3. List the first ten songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing.
OK, here we go.
The Prisoner - Iron Maiden
Serious Business - John Cougar Mellencamp
Please Love Me - BB King
Bad Boys of Rock N Roll - Twisted Sister
Wild In The Streets - Bon Jovi
Heros and Legands - Axe
Tamale House #1 - John Dee Graham
Promised Land - Queensyche
P.S. - Toad the Wet Sprocket
Why Does It Feel So Hard To Say - Kevn Kinney
Nobody can accuse me of having predictable taste! How often do you see Twisted Sister and Toad The Wet Sprocket in the same playlist?
via Frog Blog
Permalink | Comments (2)YARTNVFK (Yet Another Reason To Not Vote For Kerry)
Sgt Striker on why he won't vote for Kerry.
Read it, and keep it in mind next time Senator Kerry, the haughty, french looking democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, tries to use his service to deflect criticism of something he has done in the 30 years since.
Permalink | Comments (0)Spice Spice Baby
Who knew that the Spice Girls were such Chris O'Donnell fans?
Permalink | Comments (1)February 25, 2004
Season Over
We lost 40-12. We finished the season 8-3. Defensively, it was a pretty good effort. We had no answer for their junk 3-2 zone / trap defense. It shouldn't even be allowed at this age - but I've beat that dead horse enough around here. I had a great time, and the kids had a great time. They all got better at playing the game, I got better at coaching it. A complete win-win scenario. Now if the youth sports gods will just smile on me and grant me a little league team this spring....
Update from the scorekeeper fiasco of last game. The offical timekeeper turned in a time sheet that indicated my kids played 177 minutes of basketball. There are only 160 possible minutes in a game.
Permalink | Comments (1)Pro Homeschool Editorial in the Fredericksburg Free Lance Star
I'm just linking to this - check with Daryl for commentary. I've outsourced the tracking of VA homeschooling news to him. He always finds it before I do anyway!
Permalink | Comments (1)Job Boards a sham?
This article purports that Monster.com and all the other job boards are a total waste of time. FWIW, here is how I found my last few jobs:
- 1996 - via posting on Usenet (misc.atl.jobs if I remember correctly)
- 1997 - sent email to President asking him if he wanted to grow sales
- 1998 - hiring manager found my resume on headhunter.net and called me
- 2001 - personal referral
- 2002 - sent email to President asking if he wanted to grow sales
- 2003 - Monster.com
The "roll your own job" approach on the surface looks good, but neither of those jobs really worked out well, so maybe there is a reason they weren't actively hiring. I think the job boards work OK if you have a particularly unique set of skills that will pop up on a search. You have to pay a lot of attention to keywords when crafting your resume. Ultimately, I think you have to try all approaches. No one way is best.
February 24, 2004
The Custodian
Unofficial fan site for Boilermaker stud Brian "Citizen Pain" Cardinal, who is becoming a star in his 4th NBA season.
Permalink | Comments (0)February 23, 2004
Blazers 16 - Bearcats 15
Ah, the sweet sweet smell of victory :) After finishing the season 6-2, we blew out our first round playoff opponent and had round 2 tonight. We were down 8-4 after the first quarter and 11-7 at the half. However, I told the kids at half time that if they played defense in the second half like they played in the 2nd quarter, we would win. At the beginning of the third quarter I got my time sheet, showing how many minutes each kid still needed to play. (every kid must play 2 quarters). I normally barely look at the thing because I run a set rotation subbing kids at the 1/2 point of each quarter so that every kid gets plenty of court time. I don't sub out for situations or do anything special to try to win. Interestingly tonight, 2 of my weaker players still owed 10 minutes each - with only two 8 minute quarters to go. This is interesting since they both played 4 minutes of each quarter. So I put them both in the game at between 5-6 minutes left. At the end of the quarter the official timekeeper claimed that they both still owed six minutes.
Did I mention that the official timekeeper was the other coach's wife?
Anyway, I called timeout with 6:05 left in the game just to get those two kids in. With about 2 minutes left and his team trailing by 3, the other coach called time out to notify the ref that I was in violation of the rules because the kids still owed 4 minutes.
Did I mention the official timekeeper was his wife?
I calmly pointed out that I called timeout with 6:05 left just to get them in. Of course, they didn't remember that, but since they couldn't prove otherwise the ref gave me benefit of the doubt.
Did I mention that his wife was the timekeeper?
Shortly thereafter the ref warned the opposing parents for bad sportsmanship.
After the game I gathered my kids and parents within earshot of the opposing fans and very loudly thanked then for being good sports.
There is no way the other team did not hear me :)
We are in the final four, and will most likely get spanked on Wednesday. But I don't even care. My kids have improved dramatically over the course of the season. The look to pass first, shoot second (most of the time.) And they (and the parents!) have exhibited good sportsmanship at all times.
They are winners, no matter what happens on Wednesday.
Permalink | Comments (1)He dreams of bloggers
Should I be worried that I made an appearance in Ryan's subconscious?
Permalink | Comments (0)It's cool to be a Marlins fan
None of this will surprise my son, who has been a diehard Marlins fan since he first pulled on a Marlins t-shirt for the pee-wee league Marlins about 5 years ago.
However, it could be a long baseball season in my house. If they get off to a bad start I will have to deal with his fatalistic attitude. Ten year boys live in a world of black and white. His team either rules or drools, and the status can change several times in a single game. The concept of "it's a long season" just does not resonate with the 10 year old crowd.
If they start hot - it will be even worse. I'm a Red Sox fan. It's bad enough that he 10 and his team has won twice.
Permalink | Comments (0)February 22, 2004
ODonnellWeb Upgrade
The upgrade to a mySQL back end seems to have gone well. If you notice anything not working please let me know.
I also installed MTCloseComments. Comments are no longer accepted on posts over 45 days old. That will help a lot with comment spam as they seem to mainly target old posts.
Update: It's a geek-a-licous day here at ODonnellWeb Galactic HQ. In addition to the above work completed this morning, I've also pulled a hard drive out of an old computer and installed it in my current PC. I formated it and implemented a freeware back up solution so that backups of my home network will now actually happen on a regular basis.
Just in case that wasn't enough, I also installed MT Outliner, which I'm using to import my OPML Blogroll file from Bloglines for the Links page.
Permalink | Comments (0)Quote of The Year
Belle Wheelan, the VA state secretary of education, on why she opposes lowering the state requirement to homeschool from a college degree to a high school diploma. (Note, you can homeschool in VA without a degree, it just requires jumping throug a few more hoops).
Wheelan said her own son barely graduated from high school and "I wouldn't want him teaching any grandchildren I have. He's not qualified."
Let me get this straight. The state secretary of education was unable to instill the value of an education into her own son. Yet she is qualified to lead the education effort on behalf of an entire state?
That sort of explains a lot, doesn't it?
via Daryl
Permalink | Comments (0)February 21, 2004
Damn, my secret is out
If anybody wants to write her back feel free...
Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by Cindy (cinmiester19@hotmail.com) on Saturday, February 21, 2004 at 16:54:56 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------Permalink | Comments (2)message: OMG I love you so much... I know your really the Chris O'Donnell you
know what I mean... No need to hide but I will keep it a secret... OMG just
wanted to tell you that you are the sexiest thing ever... I'd do anything just
to kiss you... Anyways please write me back... I gave my email address...xxxx,
Cindy
February 20, 2004
Water on Mars
Both Opportunity and Spirit may have found evidence of brine on Mars. And where there is brine, there was or is salt water.
Wow.
Brine...hmmm, maybe we also now where Sea Monkeys come from?
Permalink | Comments (0)February 19, 2004
4 passes, 4 passes
Sunday, ESPN classic will be showing footage of the Milan-Muncie Central basketball game that was the inspiration for the movie Hoosiers. That will be followed by a rematch between the schools.
Cool.
via The Agitator
Permalink | Comments (0)Usenet firsts
Google has compiled a list of Usenet firsts - first mention of Microsoft, first mention of Apple, first Spam, etc. Good clean geeky fun.
Permalink | Comments (1)On the Yankees
Athletics Nation on the Arod Deal, "But we all are united in those simple little words...yes indeed, the Yankees do honestly in fact, suck."
Truer worlds have never been spoken!
I made this same point a few days ago, although I didn't use the word suck. I used the phrase dark side of the force.
Same difference though.
Permalink | Comments (1)February 18, 2004
New Web Design Blog
I've started a new blog to focus more on job related stuff. For now it's all me, although I hope to roll it under the company domain at some point.
Check it out and leave a comment here if anything seems broken. I haven't installed the comments module yet on the new blog. I built it on Blosxom, which is an open source blogging script. It's quite cool, but definately required more of my geeky powers to get the site functioning properly.
Permalink | Comments (2)The Pagan Hierarchy
The only two on the chart I might have any connection to is "Metal Heads" and "Ayn Randians." Both of which are well above "people who think they are vampires."
So I got going for me.
Permalink | Comments (1)February 17, 2004
Someday we will have to admit we were teenagers once too
Daryl want to know how honest we'll be when that day comes.
A good question, and thankfully, one I won't have to deal with for a few more years. However, I'm leaning towards the Jennifer Garner / Alias defense. I have no memory of where I was or what I did for the two years that coincidentally comprise my last two years of high school.
Prior to that though, I was a model citizen.
Permalink | Comments (3)Spring is in the air
And how do I know this you ask? It has nothing to do with robins in the yard, or even the imminent beginning of baseball spring training. Nope, I know spring is near because Carl's opened for the season last week.
What is Carl's? Ahh, only the finest custard available anywhere. We stopped by after dinner last night. The air temp was colder than the custard. And there was a short line. Not the summertime evening, 25 minute wait line, but I did have to stand in the sub freezing weather for a couple of minutes to get my first fix of the season.
Permalink | Comments (0)February 15, 2004
Arod to the Yankees
It seems to be all but a done deal. However, I don't see this as a disaster for the Red Sox at all. Yeah, Arod as a Red Sox would have been really nice, but we don't have the Yankees money. However, I do see a silver lining in this dark cloud hovering over the Bronx.
1. Until this trade, people generally felt the Sox were the team to beat in the AL East this year. RSN puts enough pressure on the team every year as it is. If this tempers expectations a bit that is a good thing.
2. Conversely, some Yankee fans, including the 6 million that just jumped on the bandwagon, and including King George, now believe playing the season is just a formality. With a payroll over $190 million, King George will go berserk the first time the Yankees lose back to back games. That kind of pressure will not be fun to play or manage in. And they still have no pitching.
3. We are the good guys again. After adding Schilling, and making the run at Arod, people were starting to view the Red Sox as just like the Yankees. This clearly delineates the line between the Yankees and the rest of the league. There is no doubt about which team draws its power from the dark side of the force.
4. Bottom line, this is an opportunity, not a problem. And it will make that victory in October all the more sweeter.
Note: I originally posted these thoughts as a comment at Bambino's Curse.
Permalink | Comments (1)Love is a functioning Perl Script
Michelle went to bed early last night - so I spent Valentine's night getting Bloxsom running. Perl scripts and beer, a geek's romantic evening in front of a Unix prompt.
I'm setting up another blog to focus on web design, development and marketing stuff for non-profits and associations. It's not really a non-profit endeavor since I'm doing it to drive business leads for my employer. So, it's not really personal use and thus would cost $$$ if I used MT. Blosxom is open source, so it is free as in beer and free as in speech.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about converting ODonnellWeb too. With MT becoming so widespread it is stating to become a target for script kiddies. Using the most popular software for any function always add an element of security risk. Also, after my near dB disaster last week, the idea of the entire blog being text files is somewhat appealing. I doubt I'll do it though - it would break all the trackbacks and links to my site, and would be a lot of work.
Permalink | Comments (0)February 14, 2004
In The Presence of Mine Enemies
Imagine you are a Jew, living in the heart of Nazi Germany in 2009, 70 years after the Germans won WWII, and 40 years after the Nazis eliminated 1/3 of the US population with nukes in WWIII.
This book is a little different than the typical Turtledove book. Instead of the grand sweeping scale of war, we get the minutia of living as Jew in the heart of Berlin. The story follows the daily lives of several Jewish families trying to stay hidden, look and act like good Aryans, while at the same time trying to not forget who they really are. They are living in heady times, as a new ruler is questioning the old ways and taking baby steps towards a more free and open society. In fact, Berlin in 2009 looks suspiciously like Moscow in 1990...
Permalink | Comments (0)
What your wife / girlfriend really wants for Valentines Day
A 10 Billion Trillion Trillion-Carat Diamond
That kind of rock would put a real damper in DeBeer's attempts to control the market eh? Too bad it's 300 trillion miles from earth.
In case your wondering what 10 Billion Trillion Trillion looks like...
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Permalink | Comments (0)VA Legislator Ignorant of The Law.
We all know that it is better to remain quiet and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt
Del Fenton Bland Jr. of Virginia's 63rd District apparently isn't familiar with that one.
Editor,On 2/14 you printed a legislative update from Del. Bland. I think his
constituents should be concerned that Del. Bland is voting on bills when
he has clearly not taken the time to educate himself on the facts
involved.Regarding his opposition to H.B 675, Del. Bland said, "Currently, a
parent or guardian must possess a college degree in order to home school
his/her child. H.B. 675, would lower that requirement so that the
provider would only need to have a high school diploma."He is incorrect. Virginia law does not require a parent to have a
college degree in order to homeschool. Virginia law assumes that a
degreed parent is qualified to teach, where as a non-degreed parent must
either use a state approved curriculum, or provide evidence that he or
she is qualified to teach. Many non-degreed parents homeschool quite
successfully in Virginia. H.B 675 simply attempts to move the law closer
to a position that recognizes the fundamental right of all parents to
decide what is best for their children.Further, Del Bland states "Studies have shown that at every grade level,
home-schooled children whose parents do not have a college degree
under-perform those whose parents have a college degree."This is a worthless comparison. We all know that children of highly
educated parents tend to perform better in school than children of
parents without college degrees. It stands to reason that the same might
be true of homeschoolers too. However, I can find no such study done
specifically on homeschoolers. I suspect Del. Bland has taken data
applicable to all children and selectively applied it to homeschoolers
in a effort to support his position.Homeschooling works. It is a simple, undeniable fact. Del. Fenton is
either ignorant of VA law, or willfully misrepresenting the facts to
support his position. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide
which is worse.
Regards,
Chris O'Donnell
Fredericksburg, VA**I grant permission to print this letter in the paper or on your
website***
Daryl, as usual, found this VA homeschool story before I did.
Permalink | Comments (0)February 13, 2004
The Octopus & String Bag Guide to Parenting
This is funny, and all too true.
Permalink | Comments (0)Jenny, I got your number...
The free market works in mysterious ways. Phone number portability brings us this:
The opportunity to buy 212-867-5309 as your phone number.
I take no responsibility for earworms that result from this post.
Permalink | Comments (1)February 12, 2004
Senator Zell Miller on...
Senator Miller on Janet Jakson
..."an exposed mammary gland with a pull-tab attached to it."
On Nelly
"And then there was that prancing, dancing, strutting, rutting guy evidently suffering from jock itch because he kept yelling and grabbing his crotch."
On Kid Rock
" But as bad as all this was, the thing that yanked my chain the hardest was seeing that ignoramus with his pointed head stuck up through a hole he had cut in the flag of the United States of America, screaming about having ‘a bottle of scotch and watching lots of crotch.’ Think about that."
There is a reason the man has always been my favorite Democrat. Congress really shouldn't be wasting time on this at all. As long as they are though, at least he does it with a little flair.
I start reading his book next week - my name finally made it to the top of the reservation list at the library.
Permalink | Comments (1)February 11, 2004
How the geeks stay organized
Interesting stream of consciousness notes from author Cory Doctorow as he sits in in the "Life Hacks: Tech Secrets of Overprolific Alpha Geeks" session at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.
A couple of the more interesting observations:
All geeks have a todo.txt file. They use texteditors (Word, BBEd,
Emacs, Notepad) not Outlook or whathaveyou.
I've got a series of text lists stored at My Yahoo, however, getting into and out of My Yahoo is too slow - so I don't write down nearly as many things as I should. I think it might be time to bring the lists back down to a local machine and then sync them daily somewhere for backup.
Everyone, including Alpha Geeks, use only one app:
A simple text editor with spell checking can do a lot of stuff...
The private blog -- a secret blog, using a tool:
Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal: 8 entries every 10 min are
private. Closed off from everyone.
I tried this - a private blog. Problem was I don't trust the security of anything hanging off ODonnellWeb, even if it is password protected. So I didn't blog the important stuff that I really should be writing down.
February 10, 2004
I'm Back
Disaster averted. Turns out my dB wasn't corrupted, it wasn't even there! My host restored just the dB directory again and all is fine now. All the HTML pages were here, so it would not have been a complete disaster in any case. But still, I was stressed.
The lesson here is
backup backup backup!
From now on I will export my blog weekly and save it to my PC. In fact, I did it before I made this post. However, in goggling around I learned that I am likely starting to push the limits of the default Berkely dB system in MT. So it looks like I'll need to convert to the mySQL backend soon. Anybody have any experience with that?
Practice safe blogging folks.
Permalink | Comments (1)February 08, 2004
Double Vision
This afternoon I started working on my taxes. As I was waiting for TaxCut to install, I noticed that front of the one of the flyers enclosed with the program looked familiar. But at the time I couldn't place where I had seen that image before.
Fast forward a few hours. I'm taking a break from trying to rationalize that veterinarian expenses are legally deductible, by checking Bloglines.
Ah ha! I remembered where I had seen this image before. I'm guessing it's stock art, and that it is not Dana in the picture. If it is Dana, I want a piece of the action when you sue HR Block!
Permalink | Comments (0)After all, his initials are JFK
Over at A VC, we find this, "All I can say is those of us who want someone who values policy over politics, truth over lies, and friends over enemies should get behind John Kerry now and don't stop working for him until the election is over in November."
Oh please. Kerry probably wouldn't do too much harm as President. Recent history indicates that splitting the power, with Congress and the Executive Branch being from different parties, works fairly well. But this values and truth crap isn't going to fly. After all, John Kerry is the candidate that:
- Voted to authorize the war in Iraq before he was a presidential candidate, then voted not to fund operations there after he was in campaign mode
- Is trying to run a populist campaign, while his wives have had an average net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars.
- Seems to have a long history of expecting and demanding preferential treatment because he is a Senator
- Appears to have traded influence for cash in insurance regulatory matters
None of which makes him a particularly bad guy. Every member of Congress (with the possible exception of Ron Paul) is expert in the art of trading influence for money. It's how our country runs, and it's how they maintain their cushy taxpayer supported lifestyles.
If you want to argue that Kerry has a better economic plan, a better plan to safeguard us from terrorism, whatever, fine. Make the argument and offer up some supporting facts. But please, don't try to claim he more honorable or more truthful than President Bush. It's a bullshit argument. Kerry is just as scummy as the rest of them. I think The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy put it best, "Any man capable of getting elected President should be immediately disqualified from consideration." The book, of course, is referring to President of the Galaxy, but the principle holds. Anybody who really wants that kind of power can't be trusted with it.
For the record, lest I get accused of being a Republican, the last Republican candidate I supported for President was George Bush Sr. back in 1992. Although at the moment, I'm leaning towards voting for GW this year because I believe national security is the most important issue we are facing. Yeah, Bush's spending proposals are totally out of control, and greatly piss me off. But what is the alternative? Every Democratic candidate is promising to spend even more, in most cases a lot more.
One more thought, Who would our enemies rather see in the White House? The guy who voted againt most of the weapons systems we used to fight the war, or the guy currently dedicated to hunting them all down?
Permalink | Comments (1)Michael Crichton: Timeline
I've really become a fan of Michael Crichton books. I appreciate that he takes the time to make the science in his books credible. This time, a US corporation, using quantum mechanics, achieves time travel. It has problems, of course. The book raises the expected questions about the hazards of time travel and potentially changing history, although the answer is a little different that what you find in other books tackling time travel. Overall, a fun and entertaining read.
Permalink | Comments (0)
February 07, 2004
How to make your home worth more
Marginal Revolution found a very interesting study where economists did some hard core regression analysis to figure out just what various improvements to your house really do to the value. (summary table, full research report)
Some of the results...
- A extra full bathroom is worth 24%.
- 9 ft ceilings are worth 6.2%
- An in-law suite is worth -5.2% (negative, heh). I wonder if this would change if we labeled it the swedish nanny suite ;)
- A wood shake roof adds 27% over an identical house with asphalt shingles.
- A kitchen island adds 5.3% and a trash compactor adds 3%. Trash compactors are cheap. Sounds like adding one, if if you don't need or want it, is a good investment.
- In-ground sprinklers add 8.7%. Wow. There is a project that pays for itself.
- Tennis courts only add 3% so I guess I'll take that off the project list.
In-ground sprinkler system, here I come!
Permalink | Comments (0)February 05, 2004
The Marriage Rant
A good rant from the New York times on the decline of the "sanctity" of marriage. He manages to mention Britney, J-Lo, The Clintons, Howard Dean, Ryan and Trista, and a few others.
February 04, 2004
This guy really shouldn't be using a computer unsupervised
The comment speaks for itself - I have nothing to add.
A new comment has been posted on your blog O'DonnellWeb, on entry #98 (Zone Labs). http://WWW.odonnellweb.com/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=98IP Address: 210.50.36.6
Name: roy padmore
Email Address: roypad46@hotmail.com
URL:Comments:
please download firewall to my computer
--
Powered by Movable Type
Version 2.65
http://www.movabletype.org/
He came in via a Yahoo search on www.zonealarms.com. If he doesn't realize how to get to a web site he REALLY should not be on the Internet alone. And what the hell is yahoo doing sending people here on that search?
Permalink | Comments (2)Lil Guns N Roses
A GnR tribute band, made up of pre-teens. I was really hoping this was a joke, but I think it's serious.
What the hell are their parents thinking? This has got to be the express route to some pretty hefty therapy bills when these kids are teenagers. Just the idea of these kids setting foot in CBGB gives me the creeps.
Maybe the kids can get Chinese Democracy released!
Permalink | Comments (1)February 03, 2004
Zero Tolerance Watch - Close To Home
A Chancellor High student in Fredericksburg VA was suspended for 5 days for having 2 tylenol tablets in her backpack. They were found when the drug dog reacted to the PB-n-J she brought for lunch the previous day.
Chancellor is the high school my kids would eventually go to if we hadn't opted out of the public indoctrination system.
From the article....
Shortly, an announcement came on through the PA system explaining that all students would be locked into their second period classes until further notice. Drug bust. This is a normal event in almost every high school across America.
Reason enough to stay the hell out of the public schools.
Permalink | Comments (1)It's The Coming Ice Age That We Have to Worry About
If the Great Conveyor Belt, which includes the Gulf Stream, were to stop flowing today, the result would be sudden and dramatic. Winter would set in for the eastern half of North America and all of Europe and Siberia, and never go away. Within three years, those regions would become uninhabitable and nearly two billion humans would starve, freeze to death, or have to relocate. Civilization as we know it probably couldn't withstand the impact of such a crushing blow.
And what could cause the Great Conveyor Belt to stop flowing? According the article, the answer is global warming. So, the coming ice age will be caused by global warming.
Scientific fact, or quack? I don't know. I do know that we don't know squat about how this planet works. The whole global warming debate has become so politicized that it is impossible for us laymen to separate fact for fiction. My gut feel is that although man may be affecting global climate conditions, I'm not convinced that we are capable of destroying the planet yet, short of a major nuclear war of course. I think we have time to continue to work rationally on long term solutions, and not succumb to the "sky is falling" cries of the radical environmental movement. In other words, man may eventually destroy this planet, but we won't be doing it with SUV's.
Of course, as I type this an ice storm is raging outside, so for all I know this is day one of the ice age :)
The eminently rational Fred First weighs in on the subject too
Permalink | Comments (4)February 02, 2004
Too Young For The Real World?
Kimberly blogs an article regarding a mother upset that her 12 year old son found a research report about Russian war games on the web via a school computer.
Joshua brought home the article from a May 14, 2003, issue of Russia Weekly, an e-mail newsletter reporting on Russian issues and activities. Russia Weekly is produced by the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C., according to the Web site.
The article discussed the possibility of Russia conducting military exercises with nuclear bombs and missiles aimed at the United States and England.
...Joshua said the article made him "a little nervous," said his mother.
..."My kids are really thinking they are going to die," said LeBlanc. "I think its too much for a child to handle right now. This (Web site) is for adults, not children."
A 12 year old? There is a 99% chance that he understands how life begins. How life can end goes right along with it.
Anyway, millions and millions of kids (likely including the mother in question here) grew up from the 50's thru the 80's with the spectre of nuclear war hanging over their heads. I spent my entire childhood on military bases that were on the wave 1 target lists for the USSR. Did the silly book over my head drill in school and all of that. I survived it just fine, and so did everybody else.
I would have seized this opportunity to open up a discussion about war, nuclear proliferation, the cold war, why America has enemies, etc. What an amazing opportunity she is letting pass.
If the thought of the Russians playing war games freaked out her kids that bad, I'm guessing they have no idea about what happened on 9-11? They also probably have never played with a GI Joe or green army men either.
Permalink | Comments (2)With Friends Like These...
Scott Boras (ARod's agent) has been doing a really crappy job for his clients the last few years. He has also 1-10 in arbitration, a system that is set up to be about 50/50. Make you wonder if he really was trying to help get Arod to Boston, or if really screwed us and Arod in the negotiations.
Permalink | Comments (1)February 01, 2004
Patriots 32 - Carolina 29
I'll admit, I didn't think it would be that close. Or that high scoring. Let's hope this isn't the last championship in Boston this year.
Props to Beyonce for dressing respectably for the National Anthem. And for singing it with respect, instead of using it as a chance to show off her voice.
I guess that was Janet's attempt to distract us from her brother's problems. I was watching on a 36" TV and I didn't even notice. Now I know what my wife was referring too when she had a snarky comment right after that moment. I guess if your career is starting to suck flashing one of the Jackson twins on national TV might help.
Or not.
Permalink | Comments (0)The Sum of All Fears
In an odd twist of fate, my Netflix delivery yesterday was The Sum of All Fears. (Terrorist plot to blow up a nuclear bomb at the Superbowl). So, I just had to watch it before the game. I certainly wasn't going to watch all 18 hours of the pre-game show.
Entertaining movie. The ending is a little "too" Hollywood, but what do you expect? Ben Affleck is credible as the young, wet behind the ears Jack Ryan. In the special features, the producer was talking about the difficulty in reducing that book to a 120 minute movie. He said that the decision to remove Arabs from the conspiracy had nothing to do with political correctness. He said he had a couple of minutes of screen time to explain the background and reasons for the bomb, so he felt he needed a simpler explanation that what happens in the book. And (remember this is well prior to 9/11) he didn't think the audience would believe that an Arab terrorist group could pull a plot like that off. They don't have the resources. Thus the uber rich neo Nazi.
I found that rather ironic because after 9/11 none of us any trouble imaging that an Arab terrorist group could pull something like that off.
And one more thing...