Is This How You Think The United States of America Should Behave?

I was considering posting this as my Facebook Status today, but I really am not sure I want to go there.

I’m going to get un-friended by some folks, but I hope you read this first.  I was taken aback by something a lifelong educator that I know and like said to me recently, and I hope this makes those that I love and respect (and those that I just love) take stock of your thoughts. 

It started as a simple “some administrators are idiots, too, so with all the talk about firing the bad teachers, what about firing the bad administrators?” talk.  Inside, I thought “well, that’s a general truth in life, right, that some managers aren’t very good and can hire and fire anyway?” I taught for almost 9 years, and have seen that everywhere I’ve worked when I wasn’t teaching, too.  Do a web search for “bad boss” for Pete’s sake, stories are legendary. But I digress.

What disturbed me came next: he got an email that said something about it being time to “get a little bloody.” Now, if you pay attention, you know that this was recently stated (and probably inspired) by Congressman Michael Capuano in Massachusetts (who now “regrets his choice of words”), but for my friend, I thought he was being metaphorical about the situation here in Ohio until he followed it up with “these right-wingers think they’re the only ones with guns, and they’re wrong.”

This is a complicated issue, and my FB status is no place for debating specifics, I think. I have stopped doing anything other than “liking” posts that I like, for the most part, so I won’t engage in it. However, let’s fly at 30,000 feet, as they say, and ask the philosophical questions, shall we?

Is this how you think America should work? Is this what you expect from an educated person and an educator? Is this how you think The United States of America should behave? I understand that people will react strongly if they feel their livelihood is being threatened and I understand that these were promises made, the pensions and retirement benefits, but still, the threat of violence over this? Going to protest at the homes of people with disagree with?

Another lifelong educator I know threw in "why blame the state's financial woes on the the teachers? Why not look to Wall Street?" and then included the Republicans. I don't have the heart to tell her, because I like her very much, that the number one recipients of Wall Street donations are Democrats, according to CBS and 

the Puffington Host (I can't believe I'm linking to them). Businesses give to the party in power, usually, so it fluctuates, but this Republicans=Wall Street is a myth that I am so tired of. How many Goldman Sachs people work for the current Administration? Even the NY Times has weighed in.

The upshot is that the Union Leaders have screwed the members for years, in collusion with the politicians that have kicked this can down the road, making unsustainable deals. The difference here is that it's our tax dollars footing the bill. A former CEO of GM famously said that he didn't run a car company, he ran a pension and benefit company that sells cars to pay for it. The 90% of workers in this country who aren't in a union are footing the bill for this mess.

gettting traffic, eh?

Well, I have no idea sometimes about how works the internet: I'm getting traffic on a very short post, and here's some funny parts:

I got a hit when someone searched "why republicans are feeble minded" and that person was probably not pleased with the result, I bet.


I was somehow referred by an "onlineviagrapill dot com" site, which is a total mystery.

This is interesting: Moldova? Really?

Pageviews by Countries

Ukraine 12 Russia 9 United States 9 Moldova 3 Germany 2

My Moments On The Radio...and I Finally Wrote Something To Put On The Graph.

Well, yesterday I had my first piece published on The Graph and was fortunate enough to talk to Sean Hannity on his radio show about Egypt.

As expected, I didn't get to mention the Graph piece about Egypt, and it wasn't as clean of a performance as I would have liked, but he certainly did just let me have my say, didn't he? It helps to be polite and make the Host look good, doesn't it?

one side doesn't get the science....

I love this from drudge:  Al Gore replies to Bill O'Reilly and quotes a non-scientist for backup. Here's his post:

An Answer for Bill February 1, 2011 : 11:43 AM

Last week on his show Bill O’Reilly asked, “Why has southern New York turned into the tundra?” and then said he had a call into me. I appreciate the question.
As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming:
“In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe. Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow.”
“A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species.” 


His quote is from Clarence Page at the Chicago Tribune, who assumes, like Gore, that we trust that because he says a scientist said it, a scientist said it...and neither attribute their information to the originator. Hmm.

Now, I love that this youtube video follows the link on drudge's page:


in which the exact opposite weather data means It's Global Warming's Fault...oops, I mean "man-made-global-warming's-fault."

So, if there's no snow, it's evidence of Global Climate Change, and if there's a lot of snow, it's evidence of Global Climate Change. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Drudge has updated to include an actual Weather Guy's take on all of this, too. He also makes a point that I make:
Bastardi adds that with the U.S. in the middle of one of its worst recessions in its history and the price of oil in question, he is extremely concerned about the prospect for more persistent cold weather in the coming years putting increased financial hardship on Americans.
"Cold is a lot worse than warm," Bastardi said, "and that's why your energy bill goes up during the winter time: because of the fact that it takes a lot to heat a house."

Yes, it's true folks, cold is worse than heat, that's why there are so many more people that live close to the equator than the arctic.... Read up on Lief Erikson if you want to get an idea of life with a warmer planet. Greenland, anyone? Vinland?

Climate Changes. It's What It Does, All On Its Own, Folks.

hat tip goes to Reboot Congress for the twitter link to this fantastic article about how Climates change, all the time, and we know it.

How 'bout some science?


"For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause. The earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work (Tsonis et al, 2007), suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century."

To which I say "blam!"

I've written about this in layman's terms here, here, here, and here, here, here, here, and I'll stop here. Let's just say I have a thing against junk climate change science, ok?

The Emperor's Still Got Nothing On.

I agree with this in it's entirety, so while I've grabbed some quotes, please read the complete post here. I've never encountered Tammy Bruce before, but I'm relieved I'm not the only one that comes away from any Obama speech wondering why everyone is so in awe of his abilities.

big pull quotes for me:

Funny, I don’t think I’m the only one who remembers Obama BSing and manipulating his way through the 2008 election, and I just saw it happen again tonight. And just like in 2007 and 2008 quite a number of conservatives thought the speech was just fabulous.  It certainly is a stark reminder of how the Dumb Bastard got elected in the first place.

Upon hearing the awful news Saturday morning, within an hour–even before we knew the number of dead–Barack Obama’s gestapos moved in for the kill–the Kill of Palin and the Kill of Conservatives in this country. For 5 days Tea Party, conservatives and Sarah Palin were blamed for murder. I spent the weekend, as did so many others, not being allowed to grieve but having to listen to crass political smears and libel, while defending those falsely accused of horrific complicity. 


So don’t wonder why I’m calling the charade tonight a charade. Despite all of us being faced with the ugliness of the liberal response, we also spent the last 5 days praying for the victims and being concerned for our nation. You will also see my concern in refusing to silently acquiesce or in faux praise for one of the most bizarre displays of manipulation of a tragedy I’ve ever seen. 

 I, for one, will continue to speak as clearly as possible when the Emperor is stark raving naked. 
 
You and me, both.

Now, on to the next portion:  T-shirts? a new slogan? really? It very nearly makes me sick to my stomach, and scares the hell out of me that we are approaching banana republic adoration of our leader. Others have talked about the use of symbols and the hagiography, etc. but to see the sheeple lining up and wearing the shirts and swaying along is frightening, people. When will the humongous portraits be hung on buildings?

My 10 Year Old Gets It, Why Don't The Liberals?

I really can't remember how the subject came up, but on the way to dropping my son off at a friend's house for a sleepover, we got on the subject of taxes (what did you expect, we can't talk about Madden 11 all the time?) and he was quite surprised to hear that the more money you make, the higher percent you paid in income tax: it was plainly unfair to him, and he said,

"you did the work, you earned the money, shouldn't you get to decide how you spend it?"

I replied "as long as it's not illegal or immoral, I agree. If a rich person wants to buy a brand new pair of socks every day, I may think that's stupid, but it's their money."

I also let him know how proud I was that he understood something that many elected (and citizen) folks don't.

Happy New Year!

Yes, it's 2011, and I have no answer to the question: which is preferable, "twenty eleven" or "two thousand eleven," but don't hold that against me, ok?

Like much of the modern world, I'm using the calendar's turn to start hammering out goals and expectations for the future, short term and long term. First to fall was the "hey, maybe I'll not eat french fries." Next should be my decision today to limit myself to 2 Diet Cokes a day, but since I only have 2 here at work, I can keep that resolution for now and drink water and milk at home...or some of the egg nog we have left. I have gotten a couple of good resolutions jokes in, like "I'm gonna drink more coffee: one sip and I can check that one off" (I don't drink coffee). For me, simply replace "coffee" with "beer" or "booze," repeat the joke to the appropriate audience, and suddenly one joke becomes 3.

I did get a workout in last week and plan to keep it up, it totally kicked my butt. Serious jello legs. Now, I am a desk jockey and have been fairly sedentary for some time now, so of course I was winded and quaky! Here's what I did, and here's what I based it on (you may have to read that workout several times to figure it out, unfortunately; it's not a well written article!)


I did 4 moves in a row with essentially no rest between, then repeated that circuit. I thought i could do 3, but I was very wrong. A little embarrassing, frankly, but you have to start somewhere!
1.Pushups, 10 reps
2.Reverse lunges with a dumbell press,  10 reps each side
3. Partial pullups or static hangs as able (on one of those Stretching Station thingys,  10 reps all sketchy at best
4. Prisoner squats, 20 reps.

After this, I hit the treadmill for an interval, but not too fast: slow sections were 1.5 mph, fast ones varied from 3-4mph, about 25 minutes total. I kidded with my wife and daughter about puking, but I wasn't too far away from it, between you and me.

The article said do 5 reps of each exercise in a circuit and repeat for 10 minutes, so that's what I'll try this evening, replacing my feeble pullup attempts with the recommended Inverted Rows!


Onward and upward!