Spokane schools skip Christmas...

OK. Not exactly. It's just that the Spokane Public Schools newsletter for December omitted Christmas while Hanukkah, winter break, Human Rights Day, the Islamic holy day Eid al-Adha, the first day of winter and Kwanzaa all made the list.

Well, the folks who put the calendar together might have been inept, thoughtless, or trying to make some sort of point. Which is it?

"It was absolutely an error of omission," district spokeswoman Terren Roloff said. "In our efforts to be inclusive, we missed the obvious."

All three, evidently.

Uh, shouldn't that be spokesperson...

Jeff Beck w/Tal Wilkenfeld...

Joy.


'Cause We've Ended as Lovers


Big Block

Y' don't see communication like this every day.

The first tune had me in tears. The second had me grinning from ear to ear. It's almost like a chick flick for musicians. Perfect.

Double Standard Deluxe...

Judges decide father has no rights over child, who is now in foster care, because "he was only a one-night stand".

Ah, well...then I'm certain the converse is now true: that "fathers" from one-night stands also now no longer have any responsibility.

Yeah, right.

Immigration laws...

Illegal Immigrant Rescues Boy in Desert

Why would I not want this man as a neighbour?

Yeah, yeah, forgiveness... whatever...

Headline (CP): Top Roman Catholic's appeal for forgiveness dismissed by church critics

Y'know...I could be a lot more forgiving, I suppose, if I thought for one minute that the Church (and not just this one) recognized and understood that the mere existence of the mistakes totally trashes any claim the church has--or ever has had--for obedience.

That's what I want to hear.

Words mean things.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States change their definition of privacy. Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

Privacy doesn't mean "anonymity", Kerr, you meddling, paternalistic, arrogant fuckwit. It means: "none of your fucking business." I don't want the State to safeguard my private stuff, you dolt. I want the State to leave my private stuff the fuck alone. My private stuff is *mine*.

Is that clear enough?

Yeah, yeah...I'm sure you mean well...uh huh.

Credit where credit is due...

A liberal/leftist comes to his senses regarding gun control (except not that we have a 2nd amendment in Canada; we're not near that brave or that principled).

Considering the Framers and their own traditions of hunting and self-defense, it is clear that they would have viewed such ownership as an individual right — consistent with the plain meaning of the amendment.

None of this is easy for someone raised to believe that the Second Amendment was the dividing line between the enlightenment and the dark ages of American culture. Yet, it is time to honestly reconsider this amendment and admit that ... here's the really hard part ... the NRA may have been right. This does not mean that Charlton Heston is the new Rosa Parks or that no restrictions can be placed on gun ownership. But it does appear that gun ownership was made a protected right by the Framers and, while we might not celebrate it, it is time that we recognize it.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

My comment for Canadians:

Rights are not something governments give you. They are things you have because you are human, period. Now, governments can recognize your rights, or try to suppress them, but that is all. In other words, you already have the right to individual gun ownership; the fight is just over the legal permission to exercise that right.

Do what's right.

Permission is for children.

Section 899a of...

...H.R. 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 passed today.

It includes this gem (Section 899a--Part III):

(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. (emphasis mine)

Cool.

Does that mean the tax guys and drug police have to stop threatening citizens with jail and such?

One could only hope.

Nostalgia...

Back in the 1950s, my folks had a 1954 recording of two Jackie Gleason (well, I'd call 'em...) "musical monologues":

What is a Boy
What is a Girl

Both recordings are scrathy as heck...just the way it is, sorry. ;-)

Here's a look at one version's record cover:

There's a lesson in this...

...a few actually.

Boozers Fight Off Armed Gang (The Sun, UK)

Thirty drinkers [at a British pub] waded in after five masked thugs tried to rob them at gunpoint and demanded cash from the tills...."People were picking up ashtrays, pint glasses, chairs and even champagne bottles and just throwing them straight at these idiots."

And they kept up the onslaught until the would-be robbers fled – even though one of them fired a gun...“The gang tried to intimidate us, but the regulars said this was their place and they just weren’t having it."

Wonderful. The universe unfolding exactly as it should.

Side note:

"People were picking up ashtrays..."

Fighting back and smoking? Land of the Free and Home of the Brave!

Can't think of a title...

...but I was wandering the blogosphere when I ran into this at Hornby Island's Word of Mouth blog: as kids are taught to fear men, men are learning to fear children

Go read it.

Anyways, the article there reminded me of growing up in the then tiny scenic village of Comox on Vancouver Island, just down Comox Avenue from what is now Mack Laing Park. If you walk from downtown to the park, our place was just a block or so outta (I laugh calling it this) downtown but before the Filberg place, and then it was a short walk more to Mr. Laing's place. This was back in the mid-50s.

I knew Mack as Mr. Laing, and I got to know him pretty well, as did a bunch of neighbourhood kids. (It's easier...I was maybe six/seven or so at the time, I never called him Mack back then, woulda never thunk of it, but it'll save some typing...) Mack would walk to town, him and his cane and small backpack, to the post office most days and when the weather was nice, he'd collect whichever kids were interested on the walk back to his place. Sometimes one, two and sometimes maybe up to seven or eight kids.

See, Mack had been a naturalist and a writer and a curator and so on, and evidently had been a scoutmaster, but he was maybe seventy or so when I knew him and pretty much retired. He was just gentle, beautifully sorta-British-type old-school, well-mannered and proper, easy to be friends with, patient and extremely interesting. He didn't talk down to us, even at 6 or 7...it was like he was always just talking straight across, person to person, with the same vocabulary he'd have used with folks three times our age. He treated us like he expected us to understand, so we did. No big words for big-words sake, but big words when they were the right words. And he collected kids and took them back to his place, regularly.

When we were with him, he'd teach us about anything that came up, or anything we asked (and he knew a hell of a lot of neat stuff), and he'd feed us what he called his "health salad", all sorts of raisins and such, lettuce that was more interesting than just iceberg, ...geez, seeds and nuts and things, and homemade salad dressing. He got us kids thinking salad was cool; no small trick. He'd show us his huge collection of taxidermy-birds, explain how and why binoculars worked, train us what "found food" to eat in the woods and what to stay way from. And more and more and more; history, geology, philosophy...we'd spend hours with him at or in his place. You get the picture.

Anyways, one day Mack and me and a few other kids were trotting to his place after his daily post office trek, and he bent down and picked up a dead bird, asking us what type of bird it was and then asking if we could tell how it died. We checked it out until one kid noticed it had a small hole in its side. Mack pulled out his pen-knife and extracted a BB, a small copper pellet.

He showed us the BB, reminded us gently that birds have valuable lives too, and then asked "is this bird male or female?".

We'd been hanging and learning with Mac for a while so we mostly trotted out the "males usually have brighter plumage" thing, and Mack replied that, yes, that's usually true and then he told us "but there's one way to know for sure". He took his pen-knife and made a small incision low in the belly of the tiny bird, opened it up some and pointing with the tip of his blade so we could all see, said "see those two things? Those are ovaries. If it has them, it's female. If it doesn't, it isn't."

There we were, all of us 6 or so years old, getting the straight goods about life with no hassle or embarrassment or hesitation, from a 70 year old man who simply cared enough to just teach.

Now I'm sure Mack never spoke to our parents about permission to teach us, or to have us over at his place, or to have us with him for hours and hours and hours, alone without another parent hovering nearby. I'm sure it never occurred to him to ask for permission any more than it occurred to our parents to stop him--and I'm also sure he never worried that his actions might be misinterpreted [Addendum 03/25/08: I checked with my Mom and Dad....nope, he never asked 'em. They never thought about it.] . And it absolutely never occurred to us that there was anything unusual about all this going on. It was just a normal day in Comox with Mack Laing and his collected kids.

As if such a thing could happen today.

We're so much better off now, all scared, distrustful, careful and litigious.

Mack lived to be 99 and gave his property to the town so it could be a park.

More about Mack Laing here.

More on Mack Laing Nature Park here.

Coffee...

Readin' FARK, sippin' a coffee, and I happened on this in a discussion about a Christian congregation with a beef about Hallowe'en:

FTFA:- There are many message-driven alternatives to offer, other than a bowl full of candy. For instance, there are Gospel tracts designed for trick-or-treaters that can be purchased online or at your Christian bookstore.

jay-vee: You might want to hide your cat, and particularly it's rolled-up-gospel-tract sized rectum if you're going down this route.

Time to clean my keyboard.

Wildlife recognition...

The call of the Arrogant Fuckhead:

The people don't want them...

That's Los Angeles Councilwoman/person/nag Jan Perry speaking about her proposed 2-year ban on new fast-food restaurants in Los Angeles.

Here's the short version of her thinking: Although the relatively free market already provides literally thousands of restaurants (Los Angeles County has over 14,000), people are too stupid and/or concerned with convenience when left to their own devices to choose to eat healthily. Consequently, they (read: you) need bureaucrats to make the difficult choices.

One would think if "the people" didn't want fast-food restaurants, the restaurants would go broke.

At least CNN is being honest...

...and calling it compulsory health care or mandatory health care instead of the Orwellian double-speak of "free" health care trotted out by lefties.

Clinton unveils mandatory health care insurance plan (CNN)

Not that double-speak isn't obvious in the plan. Billary Rodham is using the term "individual mandate" in her prattling for support. That's individual as in: everybody must comply.

She's brazen enough to call it the "American Health Choices Plan". You understand: your menu consists of "yes" and "yes." Choose.

"I know my Republican opponents will try to equate this plan with government-run health care. Well don't let them fool you again," Clinton said, explaining that her plan would allow participants to "keep the doctors you know and trust" while it would expand "personal choice" and keep costs down.

Clinton's package would also require insurers to provide coverage for anyone who applies for it and would also bar insurance companies from charging people with greater health care costs more for their premiums. (CNN)

Right, Billary. The government won't be "running things" even as they force insurers to carry clients at rates the government mandates. Bismark anyone?

Words are not a replacement for thought.

They're supposed to be a tool for thought. Over the past bit I've been noting that "evidently lines on a piece of paper substitute for thought with some folks."

Well, here we go again:

Former Jamaica Assistant Principal Guy Venezia sent a memo to school deans on April 12 banning 911 calls "for any reason."

so school officials didn't call 911 even though:

14-year-old Mariya Fatima suffered a [devastating] stroke...

Dumbass zombie-prole "zero tolerance thinking" in spades.

And this happened where government folks teach kiddies how to think, people.

More on the next (as in previous and lower on the page) post...

...or at least a connected idea.

I bump into this at Tech News by way of FARK: Survey: Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."

The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming.

And here's a kicker...

In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

So I gets to thinking when I run into this quote:

I think it's a slap in the face to the entire scientific community for you to simply pick and choose which empirically observed, peer-reviewed, scientific theories to accept based on whether or not you like their conclusion

I'm fifty-six years old, and I bet I didn't hear the phrase "peer-reviewed scientific theories" more than once a year in my layman's life. Now I run into it maybe three times a week or more, and pretty much only (as in: only still) on this one subject.

I figure the vast majority of the folks sputtering this script have barely skimmed an original, current technical article or three on climate change, and this only after being prompted to do so by a pundit of their usual persuasion, and I further estimate these 95% folks have read none of the peer reviews. It sure wasn't like they were heavy into peer reviews in the past; judging by present behaviour, they woulda told us about it.

Anyways, I was mentioning in the next post about "Evidently lines on a piece of paper substitute for thought with some folks."

Another stellar bureaucratic moment...

Ambulance called for 10 yrd trip

A HOSPITAL refused to help an emergency patient parked TEN yards from its A&E entrance — and told his pal to call 999 for an ambulance

There's a photo and more details, and nothing except a line somewhere on a piece of paper makes this "the thing to do" for anyone. Evidently lines on a piece of paper substitute for thought with some folks.

All over the net...

...you can find harmonica players (some of who are really very good, and legions who are not) who insist that the only way to get authentic blues harp tone is to 1) tightly cup your hands around 2) a small, old crystal or controlled magnetic mic through 3) (essential again) a classic small tube amp. According to these folks, nothing else will do; it's the only way to do it.

Little Walter with Hound Dog Taylor:



Evidently there's another way to do it.

I love Rock'nRoll...

...and I've been to Mount Rushmore (Summer 1964). So I'm perusing through the Ebay Mount Rushmore listings, and I stumble on >>this gem<<. Pure genius.

The description:

Very unique little vintage sugar bowl made in Japan. There is Mount Rushmore one one side, but the weird thing is that instead of Abe Lincoln they have the head of Elvis...

It's a truly wonderful world.

Oh. My. Gawd.

Beauty Contest...contestant.

Gotta see it to believe it.

...and people ask me why I'm not a democrat.

H/T Fark.