It’s too bad Sundays are slow for comments because this is a day rich in news. And in anniversaries. For example, today is the birthday of Renee Richards (author of the autobiography Tennis Without Balls), noted cigar enthusiast Bill Clinton, the nightmarish Mary Matalin, and equally nightmarish musician Ginger Baker. In honor of the last, enjoy Pressed Rat and Warthog.
Without further ado or anecdote about the goings on in the Candy/SP household (“Stop writing about me, people are going to start believing that shit!”), let’s turn to the news.
Rule of thumb: never go to anything called a Peace Picnic. It will not end well.
Three people were shot at a back-to-school peace picnic held at a playground in Chicago on Saturday night. A fourth person was beaten up at the event that was held to promote peace and community.
The picnic, which took place at Seward Park on the city’s North Side, was off to a safe start, but onlookers say the mood quickly turned when a group of young men showed up and started fighting.
So, which “reverend” will lead the next “protest”?
The Mormon Church is unhappy that it’s the Mormon Church. So whatever you do, don’t call it the Mormon Church.
The church, commonly referred to as the Mormons, really wants people to stop using that word. It also wants people to stop using LDS as an abbreviation. From now on, it prefers that people use the church’s full name, and when a shortened reference is needed, to just use “the Church” or “Church of Jesus Christ.”
Those poor Latter Day Saints, they had their name scraped off the door.
“Mormon is a long-standing nickname for the church and for the movement, but the church leadership has always been concerned that the nickname has obscured the fundamentally Christian nature of the church and the religion,” [professor of Mormon Studies Patrick] Mason told CNN. “Especially since they’re so many people who’ve criticized the church and have done so historically for not being Christian or orthodoxly Christian. The church leadership really wants to emphasize the fact that it is a Christian church.”
Orthodoxly?
In the Department of Fuck Government Schools, there’s always something new to prove that kids are being educated in ways that are perhaps unintended. In this case, that brainless bureaucrats who can’t get their actual job done will nonetheless try running your life instead. Some of the parents get it.
“At the end of the day, we want to be able to decide on our own,” Chris Swafford, a father of five kids in the school district, told Fox 4. “I thought it was overstepping at its finest. It’s up to parents what their children eat. Parents’ lives are busy. They sometimes have things going on, and sometimes, grabbing a 10-piece nugget from McDonald’s and taking it to their child shouldn’t be an issue.”
And inevitably, some don’t.
However, some parents support the district’s decision, saying it promotes lunch equality and healthier eating habits. “Oddly I support this. I would hope they are doing this for the right reasons though. That being it’s simply not right for kids who do not ever get these things to watch the other classmates eat it in front of them. Some parents can’t afford to bring child fast food.”
Lunch equality?
Kofi Annan is dead. At last. Of course, there’s the usual outpouring of sympathy and lionization of a fabulously corrupt leech who managed to completely bungle his role when it came to the genocide of millions. That’s the shit that gets you Nobel Peace Prizes.
“Kofi Annan was a diplomat and humanitarian who embodied the mission of the United Nations like few others,” Obama said in a Facebook post. “His integrity, persistence, optimism, and sense of our common humanity always informed his outreach to the community of nations.”
Rwandans are apparently not part of the “community of nations.” Well, mostly because they were slaughtered while Annan wrote reports and skimmed off billions in UN graft. But hey, he had a great voice and looked like Morgan Freemen!
So in Jew news, the United Nations is doing what it does best.
The protection of Palestinian civilians could be improved by the deployment of UN-mandated armed forces or unarmed observers, a beefed-up UN civilian presence, or expanded UN assistance, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on Friday in a report.
What a great idea! Ignore that it’s been done repeatedly and it’s been a disaster each time. THIS time, it’s gonna work because we wrote a REPORT.
I suppose we should count our blessings that this is one place where Bush-Obama-Trump haven’t stuck American armed forces. May it ever be thus.
OMG OMG OMG, TRUMP WANTS TO KILL US ALL!!!!!
President Trump plans next week to unveil a proposal that would empower states to establish emission standards for coal-fired power plants rather than speeding their retirement — a major overhaul of the Obama administration’s signature climate policy and one that could significantly increase the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The plan, which is projected to release at least 12 times the amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere compared to the Obama rule over the next decade, comes as scientists have warned the world will experience increasingly dire climate impacts absent a major cut in carbon emissions.
So let me get this straight- the panic here is because carbon regulation will get tighter, but not as tight as Obama wanted (but couldn’t have enacted into actual law)?
While EPA projects that the U.S. power sector’s overall carbon output will decline over time due to market pressures and other factors after the new rule takes effect, the policy shift would make it increasingly difficult for America to meet the international climate goals it adopted under the previous administration.
Oh-ho, so the problem is that the laws aren’t aligned with the Paris Climate treaty that we never actually ratified, but that Obama signed us onto unilaterally. And of course, let’s just dismiss the effect of market forces. And of course, cue the scary quotes from former Obama administration appointees.
The main purpose of dress codes when I was in school was to keep the place free of damn dirty hippies. Today, things are a bit different, the purpose is (to the horror of the Ferengi) to clothe our women.
“Yesterday we showed a dress code video that featured only female dress code violations, and was accompanied by a poor song choice. Construction in and around the campus prevented us from holding student orientation, which is typically accompanied by a fashion show that demonstrates what to wear, and what not to wear. We believed a video would be a good way to replace the fashion show, but this video absolutely missed the mark.”
Now, what’s really the issue here?
“Why are we still over-sexualizing teen girls?”
Any volunteers to explain it to this dolt?
Does Swiss Servator know about this?
A Muslim couple have been denied Swiss citizenship after they refused to shake hands with people of the opposite sex during their interview, officials say. They confirmed the decision on Friday, further citing the couple’s failure to integrate and respect gender equality. The couple, interviewed months ago, also struggled to answer questions by members of the opposite sex.
The couple were not asked about their faith, authorities said, though their religion seemed apparent, local media reported.
More importantly, could they identify the parts of a cuckoo clock, drill holes in cheese, and make a proper fondue?
Old Guy Music! And proof that you can never have too much Monk. Of course he plays the piano all wrong and probably had an IQ of 65 in the way we measure such things, and was likely deeply autistic. Yet somehow, the writing and performance were works of true genius, and he may have completely changed the way that three generations of musicians approached chord progressions and timing. But otherwise, what did he really do? (Maybe number one on my list of people I never got to see live and horribly regret not being able to do so) Here he is with Charlie Rouse, who uniquely understood Monk’s voice and was… just perfect here.
Comments
271 responses to “Sunday Morning Overly Long Links”
I thought Boutros Boutros-Gillooly was Secretary-General during the Rwanda genocide.
He was, but Annan was the DPKO guy who prevented Dallaire and UNAMIR from taking action.
Sorry, could you repeat the question? I was busy fapping.
The over- makes no sense to me.
The protection of Palestinian civilians could be improved by the deployment of UN-mandated armed forces or unarmed observers, a beefed-up UN civilian presence, or expanded UN assistance, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on Friday in a report.
So both Palestinian terrorists and UN
rapistsblue helmets get killed? Sounds like a win-win to me.My neighbor gave me some gorgeous homegrown tomatoes yesterday. Breakfast this morning was a big sliced tomato with olive oil, basil, and a little goat cheese. Heaven.
I am jealous. Our tomatoes are played out. We planted early and enjoyed vine ripened tomatoes all summer but now they seem to have entered some kind of suspended animation.
Ours are just starting to hit their peak. We had a marvelous caprese last night…
You are a bit north of us. We are in that hot, dry, leaves are withered end of summer. I might be able to get away with planting another batch and have tomatoes into early november but I would have to water every day.
Here in NYC we have a nice batch reaching grape-size on our porch plants. I’m waging a losing war against the aphids and flies for the life of our milkweed. We’ve been forced to move the Monarch eggs and caterpillars indoors. It’s a fun project for the kids but between parasitic wasps and flies, and having a chrysalis succumb to the black death bacterial infection it has been a bit rough for this old softy.
“I am jealous. Our tomatoes are played out. We planted early and enjoyed vine ripened tomatoes all summer but now they seem to have entered some kind of suspended animation.”
Probably the determinate variety. Indeterminate tomatoes will just keep fruiting for a long time if they don’t freeze. I’ve never actually kept one overwinter, but I guess it’s possible. I do have peppers I kept over winter though and they already produced one healthy yield and now a lot more are coming on again. Plan to keep them indoors this winter as well, I guess they can last up to 5 years, at least for jalapenos.
I got an excellent unsolicited batch from my friend. I think I’m gonna grill 2 half tomatoes and do some scrambled eggs on the side.
I need to further tie up the tomato plants today. And maybe create some chicken wire cages. &$:/;@# squirrels have commenced thievery.
My neighbor has had a hard time with the tomatoes this year. The only plant really producing is a volunteer in his front yard that was probably planted by a squirrel. He’s going out of town, so brought them over.
Me too, because rain. I am just now starting to get ripe tomatoes and I typically start getting those in May. It’s hard to get ripe tomatoes when they are constantly being drowned by monsoons. Everything out there is a mess because of just sloppy rain sogged everything. After 2 whole day of no rain now, I’m going out to try to restake them and pick some more. I can only grow small tomatoes now because no enough sun, too many big trees. So I just have cherry, pears, and grapes. I picked maybe 40 yesterday and I see maybe 20 more on today.
“…the world will experience increasingly dire climate impacts absent a major cut in carbon emissions.”
Will experience. It’s always just around the next bend.
I always chuckle because I read the UN as “un-peacekeepers”
Accurate
The only thing blue are their helmets. Definitely not their balls.
The
GestapoICE arrested a poor man just driving his wife to the hospital to give birth. I mean, sure, he’s wanted in Mexico for homicide, but does that really justify detaining a man with a pregnant wife?!“Stop calling us fake news!”
And then Trump showed up at the hospital himself to eat the baby after it was delivered! And he then demanded two scoops of ice cream after his grisly feast!
/MSM
He probably put ketchup on it
On the baby or the ice cream?
I think I’d be more offended if he put it on the ice cream.
And had it overcooked until it was as tough as shoe leather
Did they separate him from his family?
Apparently so.
I’m pretty sure that happens to everyone here who’s wanted for homicide.
Holy shit! The thing about homicide didn’t even get a microsecond of airtime on my wife’s background noise ABC World News during dinner.
Sure. If you are going to hang out with a homicidal piece if shit, too bad if thier are consequences. I realize that women facing consequences for thier stupid decisions is frowned upon.
Is there a cheat sheet for when it’s okay to go from “women are just as strong as men, stop treating us any different!” to “what sort of monster would force a frail, delicate, helpless woman to drive herself to the hospital?!”
I’ll believe the homicide thing when I get some independent confirmation. So far the only source I have seen is the ICE; you’ll excuse me for not taking a government press release at face value. And aren’t such warrants usually for manslaughter, murder, or something that is a legally-defined crime? Maybe it’s different in Mexico.
I dont need to know if the guy is guilty or not. He is here illegally and wanted by the Mexican govt. Ship his ass out.
^this^
I’m willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. But in this case, he gets the benefit of the doubt, in his own country, not here.
If there really is a warrant, then I agree with you. My point is that I want independent confirmation–more than an ICE press release– that a warrant existed at the time he was arrested.
If the peace prize winning Chocolate Jesus would not give Iran billions in cash the Iranians wouldn’t have it to give to Hamas and Hamas wouldn’t be able to buy rockets with it and Hamas wouldn’t be able to lob those rockets at Israeli school children and the Israelis wouldn’t be forced to shoot Palestinians.
Problem solved.
Now we just have to hope that Hamas cannot get their hands on plans for plastic guns.
Suthen, speaking of plastic guns. How much heat does something have to withstand to have a bullet fired through it. I’m sure it’s a lot, but I thought you might know. Because a plastic gun is not going to stand too much of that. But what about silicone or some other hybrid material? I’m assuming even 600 F is not enough.
Trump tax breaks for the wealthy are paying dividends for Republicans.
Yes, it’s been so hard to sell people on keeping more of their own money.
So disastrous, this improved economy and people keeping more money in their pockets. Also, how is anyone being forced to “pay for” someone else keeping more of their own money?
The correct answer to “why do the ‘rich’ [sic] deserve tax cuts” is to ask why the swarms of officers sent hither to harass us and eat our substance deserve it.
Repeat after me The Elite Elite: Not giving is taking.
Now, write that on the chalkboard 100 times.
Chalkboard? It’s a
whiteboardPrivilege Board now. Because…oh never mind. Not awake yet.“sold them out with a disastrous tax giveaway to the rich ”
The problem here is they the Tax cuts were complicated. Were there changes that were politically motivated? Sure. But on net the people paying more in taxes were the rich (because they no longer could deduct state taxes, a move I opposed).
The left likes to talk about the rich, but never coherently defines who is rich. They get away with this because everyone knows who is rich, and that they are not rich. But when you look at the policies they enact, it becomes clear that the ‘rich’ includes small business owners who may make just over 150K a year.
The GOP could have changed the tax rate schedules a bit to give less to the top earners and more to the less-top earners. But they wouldn’t have gotten any credit – it still would have been “crumbs” and no amount of tweaking -short of actually raising taxes on the top earners – would have prevented the whining and the gnashing of left wing teeth.
Things are only good when the government takes it from other people, skims a good portion off the top, and redistributes it to you. I still don’t get it, but our betters have told us so. I guess they are still not explaining it well enough to we plebes.
They’re so disastrous that the Feds just collected record revenue again. Democrats absolutely depend on people being stupid, not only stupid, but stupid to retard level stupid.
Thus the current state of the public schools.
And “corporations” includes tiny companies where the owner has not given himself a paycheck in years.
And “privileged” includes a toothless dirt farmer from Mississippi who happens to be Caucasian.
And “oppressed” includes a Harvard grad working at the New York Times who makes blatantly racist Tweets for years with no consequences.
And “assault weapons” includes firearms that were never used by any military on the planet.
The Left is all about using vague, indefinite language. It’s the only way that they maintain a veneer of logical soundness.
I’nnit weird how pieces like this never seem to talk about the truly unprecedented and insane level of spending that those shitstains in Congress have gotten us into since W?
Truly strange.
You mean like during the 8 years of Obama when Paul Krugman churned out several articles a week, every week, saying that deficits are not only not bad, but actually good? And then the day after the tax cuts, started doing the same saying deficits are bad? It almost makes one believe Trump when he calls them fake news.
I’ve read most of Krugman’s columns for several years because I listen to the podcast Contra Krugman, and I like to see the column for myself first.
It’s interesting how he changes the narrative to suit Leftist viewpoints… During the Obama years, he basically flipped and flopped between two positions:
A) “The economy is wonderful, and it’s all thanks to Obama’s wise economic policies! Why, just look at metrics X, Y, and Z! They tell you everything you need to know!”
B) “The economy has never been worse, and it’s all the fault of those damn Republicans in Congress! And don’t pay attention to metrics X, Y, and Z – they’re not giving you the whole picture!”
Of course, now he’s suffering from late-stage Trump Derangement Syndrome. He may be past the point of no return, but we can only hope that our researchers can learn something from his case and continue working towards a cure.
For dinosaur Keynesians, recessions are like terrorist attacks on tall buildings: They Change Everything™.
Fuck off slavers, cut spending.
Because everyone’s at work now and too busy to attend political rallies?
People are sold. They looked at their damn pay stub. People are not as stupid as Democrats want them to be. And those people are also probably not talking to pollsters, especially if they support Trump. I wonder why?
American Bridge is another David Brock group like Media Matters, so why exactly is anyone going to them for a quote?
!שלום. בוקר טוב
Good links.
!בוקר אור
(I couldn’t find the Hebrew for “fuck off, Tulpa” to tease you.)
Well let’s have some Russian profanity instead. Хуй!
When I was in Israel, I was delighted to find out that they had co-opted the English word “fuck.” So for “fuck you,” they’d say “fook atah.”
“fook atah.”
I don’t even know why, but I like it. Stolen.
One of the really great things about software keyboards is how easy it is to change between languages/alphabets. Or in this case, alef-beits, amirite? *wiggles eyebrows*
Shouldn’t you be in church or something?
Nope.
Is RUSSIAN COLLUSION ever going to die? We Know Trump Is Guilty. We’re Having a Hard Time Admitting It.
We just KNOW he’s guilty. I mean, okay sure, we don’t actually know, but deep down we all know! The Special Counsel has the evidence. It’s all there and going to come out any day now!
We know he’s guilty, so why do we need to waste time with evidence?
This is silly. All we have to do is find out if he weighs more than a duck. Easy peasy.
Who would have guessed that mere emotion is an effective epistimology.
No one ’round these parts, I suspect. Maybe the folks over yonder at TOS.
It’s true that as a matter of courtroom, reasonable doubt legal proof we don’t yet know this. Or at least, we in the public don’t have all the necessary evidence. It’s possible that critical details are in the hands of the Special Counsel’s office or somewhere in the Intelligence apparatus. But that’s not really the point. These aren’t questions of criminal law. They might become questions of criminal law. But they’re not there yet.
This is jaw-dropping stuff and how this, in the days of great censoring, gets published is beyond belief.
What a complete dangerous, remedial retard this moron is. Simple as that.
Notice the sites getting banned speak against the Russia narrative as being bull shit while stupid fucken idiots like this guy who buy into it are safe.
“It’s true that as a matter of courtroom, reasonable doubt legal proof we don’t yet know this. Or at least, we in the public don’t have all the necessary evidence. It’s possible that critical details are in the hands of the Special Counsel’s office or somewhere in the Intelligence apparatus. But that’s not really the point. These aren’t questions of criminal law. They might become questions of criminal law. But they’re not there yet.”
Dat shuda bin in kwotes.
“the truly vast powers of the Presidency”
Ah, I see the problem right there. Maybe the best way to handcuff Hitler and future presidents is to vastly reduce these powers?
It’s been going to come out every day now for 18 months.
And
I picture these people on the floor kicking and screaming while typing these responses.
It’s not faaaaaaair!!!!11!!
Fine, one bowl of grey nutrigruel for each child per day. No trading, finish your ration, and then get back to the mines!
“Please sir. Can I have some more?”
Re-education camp for this one.
How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat you meat?!!?!?
The sports club (read outdoor gun range) 1/4 mile from us crow-flying apparently opens at 0700 on summer Sundays. And is doing a land office business today. That sounds like more fun than my list of chores.
Woohoo.
Waking up with a bang! I’d love the convenience, but is it loud enough to be annoying?
Depends which part of the house I’m in. My bedroom faces that direction. It’s not loud enough to wake me, but it’s loud enough to prevent me getting back to sleep if something else wakes me.
When we first moved here, I couldn’t figure out what I was hearing. I grew up shooting, but it’s just far enough to not sound like guns to me, but random banging (not a euphemism) on and off all day. But not every day. Thursday through Saturday they are open until 2200.
I thought maybe it was new construction or something like that. My neighbor finally mentioned what it was.
Apparently all those bullets land on the south side.
“Oddly I support this. I would hope they are doing this for the right reasons though. That being it’s simply not right for kids who do not ever get these things to watch the other classmates eat it in front of them. Some parents can’t afford to bring child fast food.”
You sad miserable naif.
Some parents can’t afford to bring child fast food.”
When I was in junior high a French-Canadian guy we all liked was pretty poor. He would sit with a few of us at lunch. Out came these splendid works of sandwich art and other delicious (often from the garden) items only a neurotic culture could come up with while he had the usual staple of white bread and peanut butter.
One day my friend – David – gave half his cutlet and rapini sandwich (with provolone) to Michel. The guy’s eyes exploded with joy. He never tasted anything like it.
Next thing we know, mother’s are packing him a lunch. One day he’s having soppressata in ciabatta, the next meatballs in panini. Then came the ball busting jokes. ‘Here, Mike you hobo’. But we all loved the guy. He was a super nice kid. And then….poof. He disappeared.
It was a cool time.
No government intervention.
One year at YMCA summer day camp (Boulder, CO) there was this scrawny runt my age, originally from England. It was the strangest thing that his teeth were filled with so many fillings and silver crowns on about 20% of his teeth.
He would come with barely a lunch, but it always consisted of an apple, of which he would eat EVERYTHING, including the nutritionless pith, core, seed casings, and apple seeds.
My parents had hit a stride around that time career wise, and were able to send me along with single serving size name brand chips.
I felt sorry for this runt, and one day gave him my bag of Ruffles. He was so excited and then proceeded to prance around to his friends and say “look what I brought for lunch today!”
I probably would have given him part of my lunch the rest of the summer, but the way he bolted and didn’t acknowledge my gesture annoyed me enough that I never gave him more of my food. In hindsight, maybe I should have.
Is it bad I laughed?
I wish my story ended like Mike the Hobo’s did.
There’s a little addition to it. When we said to Dave it was a nice thing he did he said, ‘Fucken guy was depressing me.’
I think that’s what happened anyway. You know, this was, what, 35 years ago?
Great story!
We still wonder what happened to him. He had blinding speed. Usually unwashed, had torn shoes and still outran everyone.
Usually, the complaint is the fast food sucks in the poor, who rely on it for cheap eats and thus become obese.
But arguments are… flexible. If Team loyalty demands that they be inverted, well, here we go!
That sounds like an admission that the kids dont like the lunch they are being served. Stop feeding them stuff they hate.
Hot lunch at school being inedible is a popular trope. 95% of my time at government daycare, I had to take cold lunch. Days where my parents sprung for hot lunch, it was always very tasty. I guess it is worth pointing out that hot lunches always cost more sans subsidy than brought, cold lunch of the correct configuration of generics.
Hot lunch was tasty.
The ones we had weren’t bad and some were quite good. However, that was a long time ago – pre-Michelle.
I have no idea what they are like now post-Michelle.
I hear yah. Kids are still likely to dump the warmed-up canned green beans cooked in broth in the trash, but not any more likely to be dumped than kale and arugula salad.
Pre-Michelle wasn’t proud of her country and Post-Michelle became proud.
I had no idea “bringing your child lunch” was a thing. My god we have gotten rich.
In my day it was either brown-bag or school lunch. Those were the only choices available. No one was allowed in or out during the school day, either.
SP, I just saw your reply from last night. That property sounds awesome! With 4,000 trees surrounding a house, there couldn’t have been a whole lot of open grass left…?
All our trees were a similar program to how you got yours; the country soil conservation district sells trees for cheap. Like with yours, they are bare root and a couple feet high, at most. We got two black walnuts that were under a foot tall. We’re also working on planting 1.5 acres of our yard to a mixed fruit orchard. Here we buy more mature, potted trees/shrubs. We already have apples, plums, raspberry, juneberry, chokecherry, grapes…I know I’m forgetting some. We have plans to still add a dozen or more other species of fruit out there. That will be very fun in 10+ years when everything is starting to get into full maturity.
“there couldn’t have been a whole lot of open grass left”
Grass. You have to cut it. You cant eat it. Unless you have cattle there is no profit in grass. Plant trees.
Sounds like you have a very nice yard.
Yeah, we’ve been looking at land and lots of trees are a requirement. Not gonna cut a bunch of grass nor am I planning to farm. Might need a little straight clearing for long range target shooting.
I have a tiny yard because I hate yard work. I do have flower beds. Sigh, I need to weed, again.
God I hate weeds!
A shooting lane is easy to make by just trimming a few limbs and/or small trees.
Cool tip:)
Thanks Suthen. It’s a work in progress. Unfortunately we took a step back last year. A bad windstorm came through and knocked over 140+ trees (my wife actually walked the yard and counted), including the 18 mature pines that were our windbreak on the north side. Many more weren’t knocked over, but lost large limbs.
I know 140 doesn’t sound bad to people who live in forested areas, but on the treeless plains where nearly every tree you see has been planted, losing that many hurt bad. Especially since we’re talking 30-50+ year old trees. It really changed the yard. Took me a while to not get a little pang of sadness every time I’d come home. It really sucks to look at 80′ tall, 70+ year old cottonwoods laying down, completely uprooted.
Anyway, onward and upward! We’ll keep replacing and adding trees. It should be getting damn nice around here about the time I’m ready to retire and enjoy it!
That would have killed me, too. Damn.
Same here.
Ouch.
We have one 200 acre plot that was hit by a tornado about 20 years ago. The fucking thing plowed a 30 yard wide path right across it at the widest point. Not one tree left in the path. Half of it was 80 year old growth, half 10 years old. Now you cant tell it happened but I still remember the three 80ft tall black cherries that were destroyed. I had planned to cut those trees myself for lumber (I occasionally build furniture) but they were twisted and broken too badly to be of any use. It pangs me now to even think of it.
1999 July 4 superstorm knocked down a shit ton of trees at my FIL’s cabin in northern Minne. We had to clear a bunch of trees just to get to the road.
Ever seen a white pine snapped clean off 50 feet in the air? Impressive.
A big storm in the 90s took out of the big pines in my parents’ old house’s front yard. It wasn’t a white pine, but I can’t remember what type of pine it was. It fell into the other big pine. That was a good thing, because if it had fallen any other way, it would have taken out one of:
– the power line to the house
– the house
– one of our cars
– the power line for the street and blocked the street
I have no idea how my dad got the tree out. I came home from school one day and he had just finished removing the tree. I spent the following weekend helping him get the stump out.
I live on a small lot in a forested area. 140 trees still sounds bad. I feel your pain!
I do need to take out a bunch of big leaf maples. Those things grow like weeds around here and choke out the smaller firs and everything else.
Only 2000 trees around the perimeter of that property. It left much more open space than you’d think. Of course, the rest of the property had mature pine and birch, too.
I also had a 25’x25’ fenced garden uphill from the house in full sun.
Your place sounds like it’s going to be similarly awesome!
When the kids were here I cut about 4 acres. A couple of years after they were gone I realized the only person who went in the grassy yard outside the fenced area for the dogs was me and the only reason I went there was to cut the grass. I gathered acorns, walnuts, redbud seeds, hickory nuts, etc and planted it. Some of it is over 20 feet tall now and my mower doesnt get the hell beat out of it.
What does ‘common sense of humanity’ mean anyway?
Is Obama going to comment on, like, everything?
What facia di culo of the highest order this egotistical twit is.
I speak a little prog, and in the prog thesaurus, this phrase is under the “human citizen of the world” entry. According to an ex girlfriend of mine, everyone is a “human citizen of the world.” This loosely translates into “society has the moral imperative to stick a gun in your face and rob you, and to redistribute the result to everyone else in need abroad or at home”
Dodged a bullet there, sir. She’s a spinster now too.
They’re called globalists and internationalists.
Aka commies.
Trudeau regards himself as such.
He’s all over the Tele-Latino Network here. It’s cringe-inducing stuff never mind angering. All these idiot wops gushing over this POS who compared ISIS repatriation to Italian immigration piss me off. ‘Oh, look he speaks Italian well!” Fuck. You.
I’m not the only one who thinks he’s a piece of shit.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4392057/fredericton-widow-justin-trudeau/
Trump trusted to grow the economy.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/trump-trusted-more-than-democrats-to-boost-economy-keep-us-safe
So there is all this construction going on in Boise. Infrastructure being upgraded. Roads upgraded. New apartments. All of it impeding ME (ME god damn it) from getting from point a to point b. Fucking Trump. And jobs,. All these jobs on indeed. Fucking Trump.
I am an idiot that was supposed to be in a sub thread
State Street pisses me off.
State Street? That great street? I just wanna say, they do things they don’t do on Broadway.
I bet that none of these idiots squawking about how no one likes Trump also dont know anyone that voted for Nixon. They are about to get their asses handed to them a couple of times and they still wont get it.
Fox trusted more than weasel to guard coop.
In my town, they’re building a huge hospital and a sorta-luxury apartment complex. Even this shitty little gas station is doubling the size of their building. And I drove into this part of town where I haven’t been for several months, and there’s a whole bustling strip mall where there was once an empty field.
Trump’s presidency is certainly not the disaster that the “experts” told us it would be.
“The couple were not asked about their faith, authorities said, though their religion seemed apparent, local media reported.”
Apparent, eh? Like what gave it away?
Swiss official 1: In three short visits the husband raped two women and molested a child.
Swiss official 2: We found dynamite in the wife’s purse as well as a pack of Lemonheads.
Ironically, those aren’t the reasons they were denied.
Swiss official 3: Why do you need so many sticks of dynamite?’
Muslim (rummages through purse. Hurls a few out the window. Winks): Better?
Swiss official 3 (jots down on clip board): Better.
Stop fooling yo’selves: We all know it was their hostility to the Swiss national pastime, usury.
re: US troops peacekeeping in the Levant. We once had an E-7 transfer to our unit who had recently finished an Operation Bright Star rotation with the 82nd Airborne Div.. He spent a good 18 months calling and written, daily, to DOD in an effort to secure a combat patch and Purple Heart for some incident that happened (IIRC, some flavor of Islamonutters mounting an attack on a ferry upon which our good SFC was embarked). He was eventually successful. My Army time did more than anything else to hasten my embrace of libertarianism.
That is no shit. Nothing drives home the evils of collectivism more than being in the military.
The waste… the cartoonishly absurd waste of tax dollars at every single turn, in every single arena was just enraging. I was turned from a slightly leftish contrarian punk to a bitter, jaded, fire & brimstone proselytizer of the Fuck You, Cut Spending! mantra.
For me it was the utter disregard for individuality and expendability of the individual but yeah, the deliberate waste of resources was…troubling to me.
That was bad to be sure but (hard to type that without chuckling) I did sign up for that known part. My naive ass just read Smedley Butler a year too late.
Working at the state prison for 15 months was quite an eye-opener about governments pissing money away.
One thing I remember is that they paid $36,000 for a suicide cell door. Yea, it’s a big steel door with a plexiglass window that you can’t just pick up from Home Depot, but seriously? The cost of a brand new car for this steel door?
Then there was the issue of staff who fuck off all day and collect a full paycheck. Big thanks to the AFSCME and SEIU for making it damn near impossible to fire prison employees!!
You think the military is bad? Try being in the Air Force. Now there is some nuclear grade waste.
You are a funny guy TARDIS
It didn’t work for my younger brother.
There is a guy who works for Fed ex picking up lots of freight. He intimated to me that he has 100% disability from the army. He appears young and healthy. Brags about that he doesn’t HAVe to work.
That’s very common among retired military. Disability payments get preferential tax treatment and many retirees treat it as an entitlement/part of their retirement pay. That’s why it’s so hard to reform. (Rules are complicated – they don’t get disability on top of retirement, but it makes the retirement python largely tax free.)
Python? What the hell autocorrect?. Should be pay.
It works though.
It was my impression from my mother’s medical retirement, which started at about 80% disabled, that the payments rise exponentially as you close in on 100%. Back when I served, people would receive a lump sum below a certain percentage, and lifetime tax-free payments above a certain threshold. 100% disabled means you CAN’T work. Eventually, my mom got 100% and a nice fat tax-free “bonus” check.
That dude is a damned thief.
Yet again my church decides it can force language use so the rest of Christianity will like us better. Because it worked so well the last time we tried it. ProTip: Christianity is never going to like us. Also ProTip: Can’t force language.
One more ProTip; asking to be called the Church likely won’t go over well with Catholics.
That too.
It works for THE Ohio State University, however.
Most unorthodox!
This is why you’re not on the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
It is because I am not ancient and do not have a dick.
So I qualify, then?
You’re a Jew. You’re already at the top of the food chain.
“Tastes like gefilte fish.”
– Gilbert Gottfried
Oh, I don’t know. Isn’t California planning to throw people in jail if they use the wrong pronoun? At least the Mormons are just asking. (Not that it’s working)
Was it California? I can’t keep Team Blue hotspots straight anymore.
I dont live in an area with a lot of mormons. There were a couple of kids in school. Nice kids. I must be missing something. I dont see anything wrong with the word mormon.
It’s a nickname and the church doesn’t like it. Never have. A few years ago, they tried this “Don’t call us that!” but it didn’t work. Then the Book of Mormon musical came out so the church PR department rocked and rolled with it. Now with our latest dear leader, it’s back to “Don’t call us that.” Not that anybody will listen.
I had no idea. I thought the name was of their choosing.
You’re…..MORMON?!
I worked with two Mormon sisters at the bank in the 90s. Easily the nicest, most polite people ever.
And then there was me and my friend. I don’t know how they put up with us and our vulgarity.
If you ever see any dick jokes from me, they are likely posted on Sundays between noon and 3pm.
Just sayin’.
I can confirm. Mojeaux is the only Glib I’ve spent time with who didn’t have a glass of something alcoholic in his or her hand.
The only Mormon I can think of that isn’t halfway likeable is Mittens Romney.
And that has much more to do with his profession than his religion.
I have a theory about why he comes off so badly, but it will wait until I’m at a keyboard instead of my phone.
From the people that know him personally I hear he is a stellar guy….but he is still a politician.
You’re forgetting Harry Reid
He’s a
MormomLDS’ermember of The Church?Sadly.
Isn’t Evan McMuffin also a Mormon?
I’ve met a few Mormons who thought alcohol prohibition should come back. Other Mormons were sane about the issue and I got along with them.
I know a Jewish woman who thinks that. She has an occasional glass of wine, but you know, other people can’t be trusted.
Some Mormons come in authoritarian and totalitarian varieties.
There is a house in my neighborhood used by a rotating cadre of young folk doing their missionary work. Every few months I have to explain Mezuzahs and why houses with them may be safely disregarded to a new pair of overly cheerful kids. They have, over the years, tended to the awesome side; they are always out shoveling snow and mowing lawns around the neighborhood. I want to engage them more when they come by but I have no intention of converting and don’t want to waste their time or come off as confrontational so I just offer lemonade and wish them well.
That is very sweet. I’m sure they appreciate it.
Years ago I used to offer them food after assuring them I wont be converting…so come by after you do your rounds and I will cook.
They were always confused as to why an atheist would do such a thing but the takers did like the food.
I live in the middle of nowhere now so I never see them any more.
I offer them beer.
And if they’re female and young, candy.
I always talk to them for a few minutes, offer water, etc. They are decidedly less creepy than the Jehovah’s Witness people that come by.
That is for sure
They are not going door to door anymore (or they’re not supposed to be). They’re supposed to be helping people in the community.
Now that you say that, I haven’t had them around for awhile. I still see them riding their bikes, though.
I’m an asshole and a dick to them. Of course, I’m an asshole and dick to anyone who stops by my house. Even people I invite over.
Yeah, my wife figured out the way to get rid of the Adventists was to tell them we were Druids. They literaley took of running.
Always nice to member of The Church.
Can’t wait for the Methodists (“What is your Method?”) and the Presbyterians (“What the heck is a presby?”) to start demanding “Church of Christ” to be added. And I remember asking my Dad once, “What kind of Scientist was Christ?”
About to go out on my ride but I shall leave you all with this. My wife was listening to ‘Hot child in the city’ of which I hijacked and ruined the moment with…
‘Hot retard in the city’ over and over.
Hope that sticks in your minds.
I’m out.
My wife just brought me a grilled cheese sandwich and some tomato soup. I bet your wife wont bring you a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.
::shakes head in disgust::
What a way to ruin a good song.
Oh, yeah? How about this maple syrup breath?
Brian Adams’ famous song “Cock sucking night”
*a buddy in high school showed up one day convinced that someone at the radio station had totally screwed up and played the dirtiest song he had ever heard. Ever since that day, I can’t hear that song without thinking of Bobby and the morning we all learned how dumb he really was.
Thelonious Monk was a staple of our household when I was a kid. Interesting only because my parents weren’t typically into jazz. In college knowing his music helped, er, connect with a delightful young lady, so thanks Thelonious!
Riddle me this. Why in the hell do EX-government officials get to keep their security clearances at all? They should all be yanked. That should be by law.
Money. It helps them get lucrative jobs with govt. contractors.
To get a job. They shouldn’t have access to anything anyway. You are supposed to have a clearance and need to know. They have no need to know, so if someone is telling them stuff, that teller should be in trouble. (Yes, yes FYTW)
That is the sensible approach. Having Brennan working at a 24/7 hate Trump news outlet with top secret clearance is insane.
It just means you were cleared by a background investigation so the government is relatively sure you aren’t a spy. It has to be renewed periodically. I think it’s 10 years for secret and 5 for top secret.
I have a secret and all it means is I can do my job. If I didn’t have the clearance I would not be allowed in my job. But I only get access to a limited amount of information necessary to my job. Most “secret” things are beyond my purview so I have no access to them.
If I quit then my clearance would continue until it’s normal expiration but I would not have access to any information. Nobody could share that info with me anyway since I have no need to know.
All that would happen is that if I got a new job that required a clearance they wouldn’t have to pay for a new investigation until the last one expired.
If Brennan had access to any classified information then whoever gave it to him likely committed a crime or at the least should be fired.
In this case I think it’s mostly a big show. Brennan speaks out of his ass with authority and they just want to make a public show demonstrating his authority is bull.
Yes, he should not be getting any information.
If I quit then my clearance would continue until it’s normal expiration but I would not have access to any information. Nobody could share that info with me anyway since I have no need to know.
I guess the rules have changed in the last 20 years, but when I quit my job that required a clearance to go to another job that required a clearance, my clearance ended. My new employer had to get it reactivated, which was pretty easy.
I think it’s in some sort of standby status.
Still the same. I think they can change the sponsorship and effectively continue it, but if you leave your cleared position, they’re supposed to administratively suspend your clearance. Pretty much if you don’t move to a new cleared position and get it reinstated, you have up to 2 years of eligible to be cleared at the same or lower level (depending on when the last security investigation) without a new security investigation.
My three questions that aren’t getting answered by Fake News
1) who is passing classified info to these people, and what is the purported justification for passing info to some one who doesn’t requiere it? That the receiver has a clearance is not enough.
2) what position are they holding that grants them a security clearance? When you leave a cleared position and you don’t transition to a new one, your clearance is supposed to be automatically administratively suspended.
2b) what organization is sponsoring these people’s clearance? A government agency either directly, or through a contractor, needs to sponsor a clearance. Which one is doing it?
Thanks for the info.
Except as Comey/Hillary showed us, there is clearance and there is clearance. Rules apply to plebes like you, not to the Party Members.
Given Brennan’s position, the barrier for “need to know” is about 3 inches high. Especially if you are part of the Deep State and fashion yourself part of #Resistance. Now that it’s gone, they can go after people if he is still getting info.
I hate this.
What Your Car Knows About You
But don’t worry, they will be totally respectful of your privacy…
Or maybe not.
And people like me will be yanking that shit out of the car and tossing it in the ditch.
I doubt it will be able to yanked without disabling the car’s ability to transport you.
I bet it will. disable the connection between the car and your phone. If the car cant talk it cant tell what it knows. There will always be someone figuring out ways around that.
Cellular chips are cheap enough that car manufacturers will install one and pay for it to keep that connection alive. Or there are new technologies that will allow cheaper communication via some other channel.
Or, they just use the software licensing model. The car has to communicate with a license server before it will start. Portray it as a ‘remote diagnostics and safety check’ or something.
Wrap the car in a farraday cage. The. End.
There may be an opportunity here for some smart entrepreneurs. Pro-privacy counter measures.
Of course that probably violates some bullshit laws.
And warranty. That’s the easiest way to stop it (for a while) is to say tampering with it voids the warranty.
You can bet they will do that. Still, fuckem. I give a lot of muscadine wine to my mechanic buddy (genuine no-shit top shelf mechanic) and I always pay him more than he asks for.
You can’t void a warranty by tampering with the product you bought. Yes everyone slaps them on their shit, but they are bullshit.
Interesting. Pretty sure Apple is still not complying with that.
Probably not, but they are paying for a shit ton of lawyers anyhow. Why not use them?
Now that I think about it, though, how many people actually give a shit? I mean, they are completely comfortable bringing a spy device into their homes (“Alexa, please share every detail of my life with the government”).
So maybe it’s just us misanthropes.
It’s just us misanthropes. Most people wont give a shit until it is too late.
It bugs me, but I wouldn’t buy the privacy car because I don’t want to spend all my time tinkering with the settings.
It is like my linux work station. I like it and it provides a lot more privacy and control than my windoze box, but fuck it can be frustrating at times trying to find the right settings to make things work.
Same here. I won’t buy certain features, but I have only so much time to keep up with shit.
There have been a lot of discussions here about using mileage information from GPS installed in your car to calculate taxes for road repair. The “claim” is that gas taxes fail to take in account the fact that some cars get much better miles per gallon but that’s clearly bullshit. Don’t they want to incentivise higher mpg? And wouldn’t heavier autos with lower mpg put more wear on roads? They want to track people, that’s the only reason. The cops won’t need to keep driving past the bars to see how long cars have been there, they’ll get a text every time someone leaves one with that info.
I generally don’t like this either, but, since I’ve been under your hood doing similar things for decades, I’ll toss out a few opinions.
1/ Car data is inferior to personal data commercially: most people volunteer more than enough with their phones. I don’t think this will go far (pardon the pun), and the car guys should, whatever they decide, keep their maws shut about it. Your phone tells them you’re at the donut shop whether you drove a Camaro or a mule.
2/ Traffic data is generally a good thing, especially if you’re a good driver. Eyewitness testimony is garbage on a good day and usually just self-serving lies. Cops are worse, and, for some reason, people (jurors) think cops are car experts, physics experts (goes with the tactical expertise that accrues to anyone the minute they pin on a badge). Traffic data can prove that the other guy was wrong, didn’t react, caused the problem, and is lying. If you’re the careful, capable sort and believe in fresh brakes and good treads, you might like to have this data handy on a he-said-she-said day in court when the damages in question ( t-boned a town-car full of lawyers? ) exceed your coverage.
3/ Storage is so cheap that they’ll just stack in onboard anyway. This part has been going on for generations of engine control modules (eg: when you pull codes, that includes (days) old data in addition to current codes….which can clear up and change since, of course, a car is a dynamic system. Again, I’d keep my pie hole shut and just filter for what I think I need, inventory that data to some affordable level, and download it while you’re getting your oil changed or whatever if I were managing this for a automotive OEM.
I embrace everyone’s choice and privacy, though, and look forward to market solutions in this space. That said, as a car guy, I hardly care about the 10% of the data that I can’t get from the tinfoil hat crowd; with large sample sizes I probably know all I need to know from less than 20% of the population.
True story: I diagnosed by phone a dead air pressure sensor/transponder once; mechanic couldn’t get this semi’s AC to come on although all the parts were fine. Problem was that the ECM wouldn’t let the HVAC control head come on unless the brake pressure was above 80PSIG. No senser = no AC, although that makes zero sense to the average mechanic. But that’s what Daimler wanted, so I had it coded….nothing but bits and wires to me, more to charge for.
If you want a bright ray of optimism, Tundra, I have one: incompetence and distributed parts vendors.
My last job was working for a huge German supplier of automotive parts for lots of car manufacturers. They couldn’t get out of their own way and design a working Big Brother app if they wanted to. One of the last things I was doing on my last job was to start trying to define a new cloud based service that would integrate into the new product lines of one of the Big 3 car manufacturers. I was coming from the cloud side, but the group also included hardware people. Like the article you referenced there was a belief that the data they would collect would be huge. No one understood what the gold nugget actually was, but they were sure it existed. We just had to find it. During the first meeting, I asked the simple question of why anyone would want to have a fancy built in car system instead of using their phone? Why not just simply design around the idea that people would use their own phone and apps and make the car a big accessory that plugs into that?
My German colleagues were not impressed. They were convinced that they could design a system that could compete with the capabilities of new phones. The big car people want to “own” that experience and don’t want to give up control to the phone manufacturers.
The size and complexity of the electronic system makes it pretty tough for a single entity to provide all the parts. That means you are going to have multiple parts vendors and that means multiple standards and competing groups of engineers who all think their standard is the one that should be adopted.
I completely agree with Don that the one valid ROI worthy use case for this data is in post mortem accident resolution and also in detecting too many hard brakes/hard accelerations/swerves. The people that are interested in this will be the insurance companies and people will willingly give them this data to get lower rates. At a certain point, insurance companies will deem anyone who doesn’t give up the data to be in the high risk pool and price accordingly.
For some reason, that hadn’t dawned on me. I always scoff at the commercials where the auto insurance companies talk up their great spy device that will lower your rates. But, yeah. At some point, they won’t be optional will they? Unless, like you say, you want to pay to be in the high risk pool.
Hell, I won’t be shocked if one day companies will make it so it is not an option at all. “You want our cheap insurance? Put this in your car or find someone else.”
And remember, the insurance mafia is in bed with the government.
I’m not sure that the insurance company is in the wrong either. If they limit their use of the data to pricing risk, I think they are OK. After all insurance is to pay for accidental damages. If data shows that you are 10 times more likely to be in a crash than I am, why shouldn’t your premium be higher?
The problem is scope creep. They won’t just leave it at pricing risk. They will slowly begin using it for other things and monetizing the data and that is where the problems will happen.
I’d have to agree. If I owned an insurance company, I’d sure want to have as much risk data as possible.
The first systems I built like this were German components supplied to German OEM….almost 20 years ago for me.
I spent 3 years doing the automotive stuff. Before that over 15 doing IoT stuff.
That is why I am pretty sure that any project that requires major components from several vendors will always fail if it requires a meeting between the vendors to “iron out the kinks”.
My favorite anecdote from the auto parts world was that the brake sensors are paired (L & R). So if one breaks you need to a) pair the new one with the old one or b) just buy a pair from the auto parts company and replace both. Most people would just buy a pair because it was cheaper and easier. Pairing them took more of a computer geek than a mechanic to do. One of my colleagues in Germany had a sideline business going where he was pairing the castoff sensors so they could be re-used.
I may be perplexed by the tenets of Mormonism, but the Mormons I have known personally have all been wonderful people. Our next door neighbors for the last five years are Mormons and you could not ask for better neighbors. Example: I asked the husband once if I could borrow his ladder to clean out my gutters. He said yes, I said I’d pick it up next weekend, and before I had the chance he had brought it over and cleaned them out himself. That actually happened. They are going to be watching our dog while we’re on vacation in two weeks, refused to accept money for it. Best of all, they have only tried to convert us once or twice, and only halfheartedly at that.
It isnt my place to tell other people what to believe and I think it is inappropriate to try and talk anyone out of their beliefs. The only thing I measure is how people behave, what they do. That does count. Belief in spaghetti monsters does not.
South Park’s episode on the Mormon family’s son who befriends Stan illustrates your post well.
BTW, how do you italicize words in WordPress? The traditional doesn’t work.
em instead of i in the pointy brackets.
Why didn’t you ask your Korean neighbors to watch you dog? They probably offered to pay you to watch him. Racist shitlord!
More evidence that the prog version of “equality” means only the lowest-common denominator will be tolerated.
Novell Lawson on. She’s lost weight, looking quite milfy. It’s her voice though. Would.
Nigella. Stupid autocorrect.
How about Nutella? 🙂
I thought she always looked MILFy.
So does NY Governor Cuomo. But hey, those brownie points with the greens won’t score themselves. So what if your electric bill triples.
“closure of the Indian Point nuclear-power plant in 2021”
Well, we have to close it anyway, cause cultural appropriation.
Dot Indian, or point Indian?
And the AG candidate who only wants people to defend themselves with baseball bats.
But only from Trump supporters.
The guy is a fucking lying sack of shit. He doesnt want people to defend themselves at all.
The joke is that in his campaign commercial he says that he will literally swing a baseball bat at any Trumpaloes he sees.
Maybe in NY. Not in Louisiana. That would be very bad for his health. He would contract an acute case of lead poisoning.
“it promotes lunch equality ”
Everyone gets equal gruel rations. Chocolate rations may be affected.
THIS… IS… …Sparta?
It’s comrade Bernie’s America.
But at least when we wait in line for it, we know that it’s there for us!
We’re just living in it.
Increased to half?
The beatings will continue until morale improves. The halved gruel rations will be increased right after we cut 5 zeroes off the currency. It’s time now for all good comrades to grub some roots in support of the fatherland.
Mmmmm… I love root grubs!
No one needs 23 different kinds of lunch.
So I scored some interesting new beers yesterday. I think I’ll wait until afternoon links to post a pic. I’ve never had any of them before, wife brought me back from Berlin. They look interesting and I’m sure they’ll be tasty, so far everything I’ve had from there has been. Maybe some Glibs have had some or all of them, being the jetsetting elites that ya’ll be.
I look forward to seeing them.
Yeah, I hope you’re around this afternoon, they’re interesting and like I said, I haven’t tried any of these.
I’ll drop in in between house work and errands.
Three people were shot at a back-to-school peace picnic held at a playground in Chicago on Saturday night.
That reminds me of something we used to say about Philly in the 80s and 90s: “The City of Brotherly Love: Where you show your love by shooting your brother.”
Hey OMWC. Thanks for the Monk music. I really liked it – which surprised me.
Surprise is one of the things about Monk’s music that makes it delightful.
Speaking of which, if you’re going to own ONE album by Monk, Monk’s Music is the one.
“I don’t agree with this. At all. I’m the parent. It is my job to parent my child and make those decisions. What she eats, how much she eats, what she wears, how she does her hair, if I keep her home because she is sick, those are MY decisions The schools sole responsibility is to provide a safe, positive learning environment for my children to get an education. They are not, and will not be making parenting decisions for my children,” another angry parent commented.
I don’t think this parent understands how government schools work. Shame this parent is forced to support the schools through taxes.
Sometime in my HS freshman year it just hit me that public school is about teaching compliance and obedience. I felt like Neo in The Matrix. No one else seemed to be aware of that. Things went downhill from there. If I had it to do over again I would spend a summer studying at 16, take my HS equivalence exam and go straight to college. What a waste of time that was.
Ok so my children go to a private school, and they still don’t get to bring McDonalds. I mean what are you trying to here, start a riot?
A friend of mine from where I grew up and who is about 20 years older than me told me once that he wished his parents had sent him to the local Catholic school instead of the local public school. “Public school education is for the factory line workers. Catholic school education is for the factory managers.”
One of the guys who was a great mentor to me when I was starting my career only had a GED. “Good Enough Degree” was what he called it. I was sort of envious because he had the guts to drop out and do his thing while I was busy checking the boxes in HS.
My mentor had a great story about when he turned his life around. He grew up in SoCal and had dropped out to party and chase girls. He had gotten a job at Disney Land and was sweating his ass off in a Goofy suit when he realized he had to do something with his life. Got is GED, got a college degree and then got into computers. A great guy. I still miss him (he finally couldn’t take Minnesoda winters anymore and Oracle gave him a job working from his house in CA).
I hated school with a passion. I still get fired up thinking about it.
If I ever have kids, they’re either going to a Montessori or getting homeschooled. I don’t care if I have to work 3 jobs and eat nothing but lentils; they’re NOT going to a government school to get their intellects scooped out and replaced with statist bullshit, nor are they going to be yelled at by some cranky teacher’s union bitch who should have been fired half a century ago.
Marry someone who is a talented teacher, then.
As much as I’d like to homeschool (if I did, which I don’t), I am a shit teacher. I have zero idea how to pedagoge and less patience.
I remember an episode of Happy Days where Fonzi was teaching auto shop at the high school. He took a carburetor apart and put it back together in 15 seconds flat and expected the students to do it right then. That’s how I teach.
Ten to one she supports a whole raft of other “lifestyle” or parenting choices foisted upon the students in the name of providing that safe, positive learning environment for *the children*.