I wish I could do this...

Justice. Sweet, Sweet Justice.

From Freestar Media, comes this happy story of a Supreme Court whore getting his due. Hopefully:

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of [Supreme Court Justice David H.] Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

(Found on The Drudge Report)
If one of those dirty rotten scoundrels lived around here, I'd do that to them, too. What a great idea! Maybe just do this to EVERY public "servant" in your area with a "leave the citizenry the heck alone" deficiency.

MORE: Scroll down to the videos...
http://www.freestarmedia.com/index.html

AIDS: Should I be worried?

The author of "Unintended Consequences", John Ross, has written an article on whether or not your standard, hetero male should be worried about contracting AIDS via casual sex.

To get AIDS, either infected blood or infected semen must be admitted into an uninfected person's bloodstream. AIDS has ravaged the male gay community because A) a small but results-influencing number of gay men have lots of partners (over 100 new ones a year in some cases) and B) the sexual activities that some of these very active men practice (such as fisting, and the simultaneous use of amyl nitrate) often cause tiny breaks in the soft tissue inside the rectum. This provides a sure path for infected semen to enter the healthy partner's bloodstream during the next anal sex session.

and...

For those of you who want to read some recent medical literature on this issue, http://www.hopkins-aids.edu/publications/report/may00_1.html is a VERY interesting report that somewhat downplays the fact that male circumcision may drastically reduce the female-to-male transmission of AIDS. In a study of 187 uninfected men in one village in Africa whose partners had AIDS, 29% of the 137 uncircumcised men in the group became infected, while NONE of the 50 circumcised men did, after having sex with their infected female mates over a period of FOUR YEARS. Circumcision is almost certainly another critical factor in explaining the very low female-to-male transmission ratio in America.

Please note: I'm not advocating casual, unmarried sex here (I'm a Bible-thumping, fundamentalist Christian), just presenting a view about the transmission of AIDS.

The homosexual lobby likes to pretend that AIDS is not almost universally a gay problem, but the facts seem to contradict that.

Germany, all over again

Remembering the lessons of Germany's past

From The Price Of Liberty comes this article on the similarities between the direction this country is headed, and Hitler's era:

After the Reichstag was burned on February 28, 1933, President Hindenburg and Hitler invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which permitted the suspension of civil liberties during national emergencies. As a result, freedom of the press, free expression of opinion, individual property rights, right of assembly and association, right to privacy of postal and electronic communications, states' rights of self-government, and protection against unlawful searches and seizures were suspended. Shortly afterward, the "Enabling Act" was passed, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Of course, historians have widely speculated that it was Nazis, themselves, that had set the fire in order to facilitate passage of the "Enabling Act" and ensconce Hitler as Germany's Fuhrer. No one knows for sure who burned the Reichstag, but what we do know is that Hitler used that act of terrorism to gain the support of the people as a "wartime president."

The German people were convinced that their country was under attack and that Hitler was the leader who could protect them. Consider the statement of one of Hitler's most trusted cabinet members, Hermann Goering, "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." (Source: Transcript of Nuremberg Trials)

Compare Goering's statement to former Attorney General John Ashcroft who, in defending the USA Patriot Act (which does much the same thing as Hitler's "Enabling Act") said, "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve." (Source: Press Report, Center for Public Integrity)

Is it only a coincidence (or a repeat of history) that Republicans have introduced a bill in Congress to nullify the 22nd Amendment thereby opening the door for President George W. Bush to become permanent president? (Source: U.S. House of Representatives, H.J. Res. 24 "Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution" introduced February 17, 2005.)

Just go read the whole thing, and be very, very afraid.

Got ammo?

"Private" property rights?

"All your land are belong to us!"

I'm sure we've all either read or heard about this story, whereupon the Supreme Court (genuflect, head bowed) has decided that local governments have the authority to force you to sell your property, if they think you should:

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that local governments may force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, even if the property is not blighted and the new project's success is not guaranteed.

The 5 to 4 ruling provided the strong affirmation that state and local governments had sought for their increasing use of eminent domain for urban revitalization, especially in the Northeast, where many city centers have decayed and the suburban land supply is dwindling.

Well, dangit. There goes another of the facades of freedom Americans hold dear. It's not as if the property was really ours, anyway; try not paying your property taxes for a year or three, and see who's property it really is!

So, now, should this happen to your property, what to do? I would strongly consider public threats to the public officials of severe consequences should they attempt to thieve private property, but I would likely be just pissing in the wind. I guess attempting to convince the public officials to do the right thing (ie, leave me and my property the heck alone) would be the best course, at least to start, but once the arrogant little dorks get their mind set on something like that, it's hard to turn them away.

At some point, America is going to have to draw a line in the sand. When will we decide we've had enough?

As that famous curmudgeonette, the Great Claire Wolfe, wrote, "America is at that awkward stage: It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." It's hard to dispute the first part (When was the last time we gained freedom?), and it's not all that early anymore.

We know best...

Don't question us

From an e-newsletter I get:

Dear Reader,

I am furious!

You can underline that twice and add as many more exclamation points as you like.

If you haven't heard the most recent developments in the story of Katie Wernecke, the young Texas girl with Hodgkin's disease who was taken from her home and family last week, I think you may be furious too when you find out how easy it is for a state agency to remove a child from her parents' custody based on nothing more than an absurdly narrow mainstream view of cancer treatment.

--------------------------------------------
Who's the boss?
--------------------------------------------

There's a knock on the door. State authorities present a court order to remove your child in order to give her radiation treatment contrary to your clearly expressed wishes.

The fact that neither you nor the child have agreed to the treatments is irrelevant. The fact that you have previously agreed to intensive chemotherapy treatments to address your daughter's Hodgkin's disease is irrelevant. The fact that you have requested an additional opinion regarding the radiation is irrelevant. And the fact that you have expressed a desire to find a safe alternative to radiation treatments could hardly be less relevant.

This is how the medical mainstream shows you who's boss. They take away the child you nursed through months of difficult chemo treatments. In fact, they take all four of your children for relocation in a foster home because your attitude toward radiation now qualifies you as an unfit parent. And they arrest you for interfering with Child Protection Services (CPS).

This sad scenario was recently played out in a small town in south Texas where Michele and Edward Wernecke have tried to protect their daughter Katie from one of the harshest therapies in the medical world. After controlling a tumor in Katie's chest with an intensive round of chemotherapy, her doctor prescribed radiation, strictly as a preventive measure.

The possible long-range side effects of radiation in the upper body include damage to the heart muscle, lungs, spine and thyroid gland, a high risk of breast cancer and potential disruption of hormonal activity.

--------------------------------------------
Taste of his own medicine
--------------------------------------------

After getting a second opinion, Michele and Edward were rebuffed when they expressed an interest in exploring alternative therapies that might be safer than radiation. Furthermore, they were informed that they had no choice in the matter. That's when Michele took Katie to a family member's farm. When the mother and daughter couldn't be found at their home, CPS authorities issued an Amber Alert.

Imagine being treated no differently than a kidnapper or a child molester for simply refusing a prescribed treatment and taking steps to protect your child.

Keep in mind that the Werneckes had not denied treatment for their daughter. They were merely questioning the use of radiation as an additional preventive treatment. The Werneckes believed they would be able to exercise their right to weigh the benefit/risk ratio and come to their own conclusion about how best to treat their daughter.

Before push came to shove and Michele was arrested, Katie and her mom made a video in which they explained why they wanted to avoid the radiation treatment. I saw the tape on a morning news show last week. Katie, who appears to be a very self-possessed young woman (she managed to earn straight As in school while undergoing chemo), states, "I have been fine for two months since my last chemo treatment. I am gaining weight and my hair is coming back. I feel great. I don't need radiation treatment. And nobody asked me what I wanted. It's my body."

Having been told that the risks involved with radiation are very small, Katie suggests on the video that her doctor undergo radiation treatment himself to prove it's safe.

No word on her doctor's response. I'm betting he'll take a pass.

--------------------------------------------
Arrogance plus power
--------------------------------------------

Last Friday, during a court proceeding that was intended to weigh the radiation option, Katie's doctors revealed that her cancer had become active again. This was a blow to the Werneckes who immediately agreed to go ahead with further chemotherapy treatments. (They had not previously been told that chemo, instead of radiation, was an option open to them.)

Some might see this development as a vindication of the doctors. I see it as a vindication of the Werneckes.

When the Werneckes were wary of bombarding their young daughter's chest with radiation as a preventive measure they were treated like dangerous fools. The state decided they were a hazard and took their children away - a deeply traumatic act for both parents and kids (especially a child recovering from cancer) - but it was all for the best, according to Texas CPS.

When the Werneckes were told that Katie's cancer was no longer in remission, did they stubbornly dig in and refuse treatment? Did they vow to fight the doctors, no matter what? No. Once they were given clear evidence that treatment was necessary, they agreed she should receive the same treatment that had previously been effective. In other words, their behavior was the exact opposite of the way their behavior had been portrayed by Katie's doctor and the authorities at CPS.

Katie's three brothers returned home shortly after the Friday court appearance. At this time it's unclear when Katie may be reunited with her family. She's expected to receive chemotherapy sometime this week.

Whatever the future may hold for Katie, her parents and her brothers, their experience has demonstrated just how arrogant and powerful those in the medical mainstream can be when someone dares question their authority.

Heaven help them if they ever came to my door like that...

What would have happened if they hadn't told the Werneckes that Katie's cancer had returned? (I don't think I would have taken that doctor's word on anything ever again...) Would they have forcibly given Katie the radiation therapy? Diptard...that doctor should be shoved in a large microwave.

I'll say it again: I'll NEVER do chemo/radiation. Period. Quality of life following the "treatment" is reduced, and as the chemicals and radiation do serious damage to the immune system, the cancer is quite likely to return with a vengeance. There are natural treatments that are much healthier and more likely to result in a successful outcome (cancer gone forever).

Go to http://www.cancertutor.com. Scroll down a bit to "Politics, Money and Cancer", and see what you think.

I Love Cops, Part MCCXVIII

"Next time you won't fight with us."

From the Palm Beach Post, Quicktime videos of a traffic stop that got ugly.

(Found via Bill St. Clair's blog...where does he find all this stuff?)

Go watch the videos: Yes, the woman was annoying and, well, really annoying. She WAS driving with a suspended state-permission-to-drive license, she DID have a broken taillight, but she could get out of that speeding thing in a New York minute: Radar guns are pretty unreliable, even more so while moving.

Did this really require a tasering? In my opinion, the officer was extraordinarily arrogant and brash, and I don't think I could have taken much of his crap, either, and if they tried to drag me out of a vehicle, there would have been trouble aplenty, just maybe not then and there: I think I would have spent a considerable amount of time making sure a certain police officer didn't win any popularity contests.

Newsflash: Smoldering Fires Melt Steel Columns

(Chortle, Snicker)

From LewRockwell.com: Morgan Reynolds lays out the case against the gov't version of the collapse of the WTC towers--quite damning. If you still buy the "fires from burning jet fuel (kerosene) weakened the structure and caused it to collapse" story, then you need to read his article:

Those who support the official account like Thomas Eagar (p. 14), professor of materials engineering and engineering systems at MIT, usually argue that the collapse must be explained by the heat from the fires because the loss of loading-bearing capacity from the holes in the Towers was too small. The transfer of load would have been within the capacity of the towers. Since steel used in buildings must be able to bear five times its normal load, Eagar points out, the steel in the towers could have collapsed only if heated to the point where it "lost 80 percent of its strength, " around 1,300oF. Eagar believes that this is what happened, though the fires did not appear to be extensive and intense enough, quickly billowing black smoke and relatively few flames.

While some experts claim that airliner impact severely weakened the entire structural system, evidence is lacking. The perimeters of floors 94–98 did not appear severely weakened, much less the entire structural system. The criminal code requires that crime scene evidence be saved for forensic analysis but FEMA had it destroyed before anyone could seriously investigate it. FEMA was in position to take command because it had arrived the day before the attacks at New York’s Pier 29 to conduct a war game exercise, "Tripod II," quite a coincidence. The authorities apparently considered the rubble quite valuable: New York City officials had every debris truck tracked on GPS and had one truck driver who took an unauthorized 1 ½ hour lunch fired.

Read the rest...

This was interesting, too: There was a fire at the North tower before, back in 1975, and it was much worse than the ones on September 11:

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER FIRES.

First you need to know that the north tower of the World Trade Center suffered a very serious fire on February 13, 1975. You also need to know that this fire caused no serious structural damage to the tower and that no steel-framed high-rise has ever collapsed due to fire. The following is a report concerning the February 13, 1975 fire.

[BEGIN REPORT]
The February 13, 1975 North Tower Fire.

The February 13, 1975 North Tower Fire has been carefully hidden from you. Here are a few reports concerning it.

This 110-story steel-framed office building suffered a fire on the 11th floor on February 13, 1975. The loss was estimated at over $2,000,000. The building is one of a pair of towers, 412 m in height. The fire started at approximately 11:45 P.M. in a furnished office on the 11th floor and spread through the corridors toward the main open office area. A porter saw flames under the door and sounded the alarm. It was later that the smoke detector in the air-conditioning plenum on the 11th floor was activated. The delay was probably because the air-conditioning system was turned off at night. The building engineers placed the ventilation system in the purge mode, to blow fresh air into the core area and to draw air from all the offices on the 11th floor so as to prevent further smoke spread. The fire department on arrival found a very intense fire. It was not immediately known that the fire was spreading vertically from floor to floor through openings in the floor slab. These 300-mm x 450-mm (12-in. x 18-in.) openings in the slab provided access for telephone cables. Subsidiary fires on the 9th to the 19th floors were discovered and readily extinguished. The only occupants of the building at the time of fire were cleaning and service personnel. They were evacuated without any fatalities. However, there were 125 firemen involved in fighting this fire and 28 sustained injuries from the intense heat and smoke. The cause of the fire is unknown.
[END REPORT]

Also, check out:

911 Evidence

Plauge Puppy's site.

If, after reading all this, you don't have doubts about the official explanation of events ala the Bush administration and the September 11 Commission, you should have your head examined.

You're 17! Time to Go Get Killed!

From Seattle Post Intelligencer, comes this heartworming (not misspelled) story of a nice military recruitment:

For mom Marcia Cobb and her teenage son Axel, the white letters USMC on their caller ID soon spelled, "Don't answer the phone!"

Marine recruiters began a relentless barrage of calls to Axel as soon as the mellow, compliant Sedro-Woolley High School grad had cut his 17th birthday cake. And soon it was nearly impossible to get the seekers of a few good men off the line.

With early and late calls ringing in their ears, Marcia tried using call blocking. And that's when she learned her first hard lesson. You can't block calls from the government, her server said. So, after pleas to "Please stop calling" went unanswered, the family's "do not answer" order ensued.

But warnings and liquid crystal lettering can fade. So, two weeks ago when Marcia was cooking dinner Axel goofed and answered the call. And, faster than you can say "semper fi," an odyssey kicked into action that illustrates just how desperate some of the recruiters we've read about really are to fill severely sagging quotas.

Let what we learned serve as a warning to other moms, dads and teens, the Cobbs now say. Even if your kids actually may want to join the military, if they hope to do it on their own terms, after a deep breath and due consideration, repeat these words after them: "No," "Not now" and "Back off!"

"I've been trained to be pretty friendly. I guess you might even say I'm kind of passive," Axel told me last week, just after his mother and older sister had tracked him to a Seattle testing center and sprung him on a ruse.

The next step of Axel's misadventure came when he heard about a cool "chin-ups" contest in Bellingham, where the prize was a free Xbox. The now 18-year-old Skagit Valley Community College student dragged his tail feathers home uncharacteristically late that night. And, in the morning, Marcia learned the Marines had hosted the event and "then had him out all night, drilling him to join."

A single mom with a meager income, Marcia raised her kids on the farm where, until recently, she grew salad greens for restaurants.

Axel's father, a Marine Corps vet who served in Vietnam, died when Axel was 4.

Clearly the recruiters knew all that and more.

"You don't want to be a burden to your mom," they told him. "Be a man." "Make your father proud." Never mind that, because of his own experience in the service, Marcia says enlistment for his son is the last thing Axel's dad would have wanted.

The next weekend, when Marcia went to Seattle for the Folklife Festival and Axel was home alone, two recruiters showed up at the door.

Axel repeated the family mantra, but he was feeling frazzled and worn down by then. The sergeant was friendly but, at the same time, aggressively insistent. This time, when Axel said, "Not interested," the sarge turned surly, snapping, "You're making a big (bleeping) mistake!"

Next thing Axel knew, the same sergeant and another recruiter showed up at the LaConner Brewing Co., the restaurant where Axel works. And before Axel, an older cousin and other co-workers knew or understood what was happening, Axel was whisked away in a car.

"They said we were going somewhere but I didn't know we were going all the way to Seattle," Axel said.

Just a few tests. And so many free opportunities, the recruiters told him.

He could pursue his love of chemistry. He could serve anywhere he chose and leave any time he wanted on an "apathy discharge" if he didn't like it. And he wouldn't have to go to Iraq if he didn't want to.

At about 3:30 in the morning, Alex was awakened in the motel and fed a little something. Twelve hours later, without further sleep or food, he had taken a battery of tests and signed a lot of papers he hadn't gotten a chance to read. "Just formalities," he was told. "Sign here. And here. Nothing to worry about."

By then Marcia had "freaked out."

She went to the Burlington recruiting center where the door was open but no one was home. So she grabbed all the cards and numbers she could find, including the address of the Seattle-area testing center.

Then, with her grown daughter in tow, she high-tailed it south, frantically phoning Axel whose cell phone had been confiscated "so he wouldn't be distracted during tests."

Axel's grandfather was in the hospital dying, she told the people at the desk. He needed to come home right away. She would have said just about anything.

But, even after being told her son would be brought right out, her daughter spied him being taken down a separate hall and into another room. So she dashed down the hall and grabbed him by the arm.

"They were telling me I needed to 'be a man' and stand up to my family," Axel said.

What he needed, it turned out, was a lawyer.

Five minutes and $250 after an attorney called the recruiters, Axel's signed papers and his cell phone were in the mail.

My request to speak with the sergeant who recruited Axel and with the Burlington office about recruitment procedures went unanswered.

And so should your phone, Marcia Cobb advised. Take your own sweet time. Keep your own counsel. And, if you see USMC on caller ID, remember what answering the call could mean.

(I think this was linked from Bill St. Clair's blog, but I can't remember for certain...)

To add to this, I was listening to a report on NPR the other day (yeah, I know) about the failure of military recruiters to make their quotas of new recruits. A recruiter said, in response to a question concerning the reluctance of parents to allow the recruiters to speak to their sons, that (and I'm paraphrasing, here) "It's fine--if people won't step up and volunteer, they they'll just have to go when their number is picked by Selective Service."

How-To of the Decade:

Get Those Loud Radios Turned Down


Several weeks ago, on the Claire Files forums, (popularized by Claire Wolfe, libertarian author) user Penguinsscareme posted this ranting, setting off a firestorm of debate over the best way to handle a situation that's becoming all too familiar:

It was early this morning, shortly before seven. I was on my way to work, and I had a pretty good headache going.
I was just crossing the Connecticut River into Vermont. A long freight train was going by just as I got to the bridge, so all the traffic had to stop and wait. And wait. It was a long train, well over a hundred cars, probably the better part of a mile long.
The damned kid behind me, he was playing this godawful music, if it can be called music. He was playing it so loud that the windows in my truck were rattling. It wasn't good for my head.
That used to happen all the time when I lived in the city, but today was the first time it happened since we came to New Hampshire. Usually I just let that kind of thing slide. But the train was a long time in passing, and my head was pounding. After a couple minutes I rolled down my back window and motioned to the kid to turn down his music. In return he looked at me like I was a mute idiot. So I hopped out of the truck, walked back to his driver's side window and asked him to please turn down the music. He was able to hear me because he had obligingly turned down the music and rolled down his window. But it wasn't a sign of amicable relations to come.
"Why?" he sneered belligerently at my request.
I was a little taken aback. After a second to compose myself, I replied, "Well you don't have to get snippy about it. You're hurting my head. And I'd really appreciate it if you'd turn down the music, just until the train passes."
He didn't respond, just sat there looking at me. Then he reached down, still looking at me, and turned the music up so loud I could feel it in my feet.
It's been a while since anyone was that rude to me.

Cartoon thought balloons appeared over my head as I went back to my truck. We were on the river, between the two states. No man's land.
Hammer?
Dagger?
Chainsaw?
Prybar?
Shotgun?
Stone?
Wrench?

Before I tell you what I did, ask yourself, what would you do?
Would you sit in your vehicle and let that little pissant keep imposing his will on you?
Would you forcibly destroy his stereo?
Would you do nothing for fear of the legal consequences?
Would you drag him out of the car and pummel the crap out of him?

All these things played through my mind. Finally I acted. I pulled my truck out of the lane, did a U-turn, and drove back down the road the other way and got back in line again, giving up about 20 spots in line. Oh, and I dumped out my coffee on the kid's car as I drove by him.

I hate what I did. Ooh, I hate what I did. It was cowardly. I did it because legally it was all I could get away with. Morally, I felt I would have been well within my rights to smash the back window out of his car and destroy his subwoofer. I would have enjoyed it, too.

I don't like to be angry. I didn't follow my instincts because I thought of the consequences, and I thought of my family. But maybe I should have just done what I wanted to do at the time. This morning's incident taught that punk kid that being a thug is rewarding, that he can be a bully and get away with it.

Well, that would have really set me off, too, though I don't think the coffee dumping was quite proper, though I can sympatize. What would you have done?

Anywho, just the other day, Penguinsscareme posted a follow-up: It happened again! Same guy, same railroad crossing! What do you think he did?

I may be the most famous man in the upper Connecticut River Valley today. It didn't take real ID, nor surveillance cameras, nor road checkpoints. No, all it took was that pesky punk with the loud radio and the coffee-stained upholstery. You may remember him

http://www.thementalmilitia.org/clairefile...=ST&f=17&t=4345

from the above thread.
Yep, that's right. This morning I was sitting on the bridge once again, waiting for the train to pass. As fate would have it, who was right in front of me but Radiokid (that's right, that's what I call him now)! I was so happy I almost thanked him for the opportunity to right my wrongs!
Just as polite and cheerful as could be, I hopped out of my faithful 'Yota and trotted up next to him. "Hi!" I grinned. "Say, would you mind turning down your music, please?"
His response was direct and coarse, and I shall not here repeat what he said. Except to say that it sounded a lot like Fuck you.
That made me even happier. I looked at him real mean, like I was about to rip his guts out through his throat, and I said, "Turn it down right now or I swear I'm going to start dancing." I waited a second until he realized what I'd actually said, I got a great double take, and then I said, "And you don't want that." I then followed up with some more taunting, like Bring it on, and Don't think I won't.
Sure enough, he cranked up the volume until his whole car was reverberating. So nice of him to oblige.

And so, right there on the bridge, in full view of the morning traffic, the CT River, and the city of Brattleboro, VT, I worked it, baby. I didn't just put on a little cha-cha. Oh no. This sucker incurred the full measure of my wrath. And I don't mind saying, it was a damned fearful thing. Men trembled. Women shrieked. I give Radiokid credit -- he lasted nearly a half-minute before he pulled out of line and skinned out. I know exactly which move it was that crossed the line for him, too. But you don't want to know about that.

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to beech trees for giving me the idea. Brilliant. Absolutely devastating. A million thanks.

What was the super-duper move that iced the deal?

Claire
QUOTE
"Hey, Penguins ... The one thing nobody's asked yet and you didn't mention: What did the other drivers do? I mean, besides tremble and quake at your power and your moves. Honk, applaud, grin, sit in numb, unbelieving silence?"

Honking. There was quite a bit of honking. A few people got out of their cars, staring, pointing, shielding their children. Some of the people were pretty slack-jawed and probably unappreciative, but I think most of them understood what was really going on, especially once Radiokid went tearassing out of there.

Erin
QUOTE
"But, dammit, what move did it for Radiokid?"

If you really must know...I hope this doesn't ruin it for everyone, but...
It was when I pulled off my shirt as seductively as I could and started, ah, "crotch flossing" with it.

Brilliant. Absol-flicking-lutely brilliant.

Public School Budgeting for CA

A Brilliant Proposal

From Senator Tom McClintock's website:
Quoted here in it's entirety, for purposes of web archival, a brilliant piece on how the public school budget in CA should be spent. Written by Senator Tom McClintock:

The multi-million dollar campaign paid by starving teachers’ unions has finally placed our sadly neglected schools at the center of the budget debate.

Across California, children are bringing home notes warning of dire consequences if Gov. Schwarzenegger’s scorched earth budget is approved – a budget that slashes Proposition 98 public school spending from $42.2 billion this year all the way down to $44.7 billion next year. That should be proof enough that our math programs are suffering.

As a public school parent, I have given this crisis a great deal of thought and have a modest suggestion to help weather these dark days.

Maybe – as a temporary measure only – we should spend our school dollars on our schools. I realize that this is a radical departure from current practice, but desperate times require desperate measures.

The Governor proposed spending $10,084 per student from all sources. Devoting all of this money to the classroom would require turning tens of thousands of school bureaucrats, consultants, advisors and specialists onto the streets with no means of support or marketable job skills, something that no enlightened social democracy should allow.

So I will begin by excluding from this discussion the entire budget of the State Department of Education, as well as the pension system, debt service, special education, child care, nutrition programs and adult education. I also propose setting aside $3 billion to pay an additional 30,000 school bureaucrats $100,000-per-year (roughly the population of Monterey) with the proviso that they stay away from the classroom and pay their own hotel bills at conferences.

This leaves a mere $6,937 per student, which, for the duration of the funding crisis, I propose devoting to the classroom.

To illustrate how we might scrape by at this subsistence level, let’s use a hypothetical school of 180 students with only $1.2 million to get through the year.

We have all seen the pictures of filthy bathrooms, leaky roofs, peeling paint and crumbling plaster to which our children have been condemned. I propose that we rescue them from this squalor by leasing out luxury commercial office space. Our school will need 4,800 square feet for five classrooms (the sixth class is gym). At $33 per foot, an annual lease will cost $158,400.

This will provide executive washrooms, around-the-clock janitorial service, wall-to-wall carpeting, utilities and music in the elevators. We’ll also need new desks to preserve the professional ambiance.

Next, we’ll need to hire five teachers – but not just any teachers. I propose hiring only associate professors from the California State University at their level of pay. Since university professors generally assign more reading, we’ll need 12 of the latest edition, hardcover books for each student at an average $75 per book, plus an extra $5 to have the student’s name engraved in gold leaf on the cover.

Since our conventional gym classes haven’t stemmed the childhood obesity epidemic, I propose replacing them with an annual membership at a private health club for $39.95 per month. This would provide our children with a trained and courteous staff of nutrition and fitness counselors, aerobics classes and the latest in cardiovascular training technology.

Finally, we’ll hire an $80,000 administrator with a $40,000 secretary because – well, I don’t know exactly why, but we always have.

Our bare-bones budget comes to this:
5 classrooms $158,400
150 Desks @ $130 $19,500

180 annual health club memberships @ $480
$86,400

2,160 textbooks @ $80
$172,800

5 C.S.U. Associate Professors @ $67,093
$335,465

1 Administrator
$80,000

1 Secretary
$40,000

24% faculty and staff benefits
$109,312

Offices, expenses and insurance
$30,000
TOTAL $1,031,877

This budget leaves a razor-thin reserve of just $216,703 or $1,204 per pupil, which can pay for necessities like paper, pencils, personal computers and extra-curricular travel. After all, what’s the point of taking four years of French if you can’t see Paris in the spring?

The school I have just described is the school we’re paying for. Maybe it’s time to ask why it’s not the school we’re getting.

Other, wiser, governors have made the prudent decision not to ask such embarrassing questions of the education-industrial complex because it makes them very angry. Apparently the unions believe that with enough of a beating, Gov. Schwarzenegger will see things the same way.

Perhaps. But there’s an old saying that you can’t fill a broken bucket by pouring more water into it. Maybe it’s time to fix the bucket.

(Found at The Smallest Minority, who found it via Mostly Cajun, who saw it at Aaron's.)

Wow. Darn good article! I might send any future kids to a school like that. (Well, maybe; as long as the teachers weren't the unionized boobs that they are now, but that could never happen, so I'll happily homeschool when the time comes.) It would be nice to see what would happen if he were to actually try to push that proposal through as law, sans the allowance for bureaucrats. (Bureaucrats would become janitors under the new system, and the current janitorial staff are given cattle prods with which to motivate the new "custodial maintenance engineers".)

Quote of the day...

From The Pan Galactic Blogger Blaster: (Motto: "The more words I use in my blog title, the cooler the people who link to my posts are!")

The stone will roll downhill so long as the stone is round. Voting on the color of the stone will never stop it.

Go read the whole post for context: It's a great editorial on the perpetuity of the Fustercluck that is our government.

F***ing taxes

Oh, how I hate them

My good friend and former business partner showed me a tax bill that he recieved the other day from the state of PA for "Capital Stock Tax" for a business we closed five years ago. I have no idea why we would even owe that, but there it is.

Apparently, they are so clueless and incompetent in Harrisburg that they can't get that stuff any quicker. Hanging's too good for 'em. Of course, we also owe interest and penalties for the period of time that they screwed around with it...

Diptards.

Holocaust II:

Hiel, Bush!

From Justice For None:

One of our neighbors is moving. I've been in this neighborhood for about six years now, but didn't really know them very well at all - just waves and nods, mostly.

So I heard the moving van pull up this morning. When I got home this evening I happened to spy my neighbor (he's like 85 years old - I don't know exactly, but he's old, talks and moves very slowly) standing on the sidewalk next to the van. I walked over and shook his hand, and we started talking. I asked him where he was moving, and he said, "Back to Germany."

I had been stationed in Germany for two years while in the military, so I lit up, and commented about how beautiful the country was, and inquired if he was going back because he missed it.

"No," he answered me. "I'm going back because I've seen this before." He then commenced to explain that when he was a kid, he watched with his family in fear as Hitler's government committed atrocity after atrocity, and no one was willing to say anything. He said the news refused to question the government, and the ones who did were not in the newspaper business much longer. He said good neighbors, people he had known all his life, turned against his family and other Jews, grabbing on to the hate and superiority "as if they were starved for it" (his words).

He said he was too old to see it happen right in front of his eyes again, and too old to do anything about it, so he was taking his family back to Europe on Thursday where they would be safe from George W. Bush and his neocons. He seemed resolute, but troubled, nonetheless, as if being too young on one end and too old on the other to fight what he saw happening was wearing on him.

(Found on Bill St. Clair's blog).

Anyone who doesn't see it coming, doesn't know their history. President George is passing laws right and left that, whether intentionally or not, are paving the way for a fascist, totalitarian police state, and we're getting there awfully fast.

I just want to be left alone to live my life as I see fit. Why can't I?