Thursday, March 20, 2008

Why Obama Calls Himself a "Black Man"

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Our local paper had a whiney comment about this topic, so I answered it as follows:

The Racist Society, which doesn't include many white folks, identifies anyone who "looks black" as being black, whatever that is supposed to mean. The joke is that there are many, many individuals with one black parent and one white parent, that look "so white," that the Racist Society members accept them as "white." This is known as "passing." Sort of a NCLB for skin melanin content and body features.

Obama has failed this NCLB test.

No wonder Bush lovers hate him.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

If You're Worried About Obama, Maybe You Should

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watch Current TV, on DirecTV at channel 366.

They just had a show produced by a guy who traveled to Russia to interview a NeoNazi who prides himself on yet another form of underground TV. Snuff films, against anyone they don't like, and that's just about everybody who isn't one of them, done for REAL!

I kid you not. Russia is supposedly home to 50,000 to 70,000 neoNAZI's, complete with Swastika's, who go out as gangs, and kill people at random, and make videos as they do it. Then they make duplicates and send them to their friends, who watch the DVD's on their laptops.

The guy who "starred" in this video was busted a couple of weeks later. In this case I would forgive the journalist for becoming part of the story, which I suspect he might have. I know I would have turned in these creeps.

If Obama has a hate agenda, he will be impeached. We are electing just one man here, not 535 Obama's and a Supreme Court full of Obama's. Is he going to help out the Black and minority communities? Yes. Is that morally bad or illegal?

Not as long as the help is color blind, and whites in the same socio-economic straits can get the same help. How will he do it? Not with testing a'la No Child Left Behind, but rather with educational programs that work and give students and workers a new foothold in the global economy.

Current TV is on Directv at 366. It consists of short, 2 to 16 minute long productions, made by amateurs with talent, from all over the world. The range of material is breathtaking, and a lot of it is very positive. Fresh, young, and a window on the world you don't get anywhere else. It's sort of YouTube with a quality control. ( www.current.com for more information)

The point of this post? If neoNAZI's are that blatant in Russia, you can bet we probably have the full spectrum from Russia's worst to the person who secretly hopes that none of the black people getting on the plane will sit next to them. This is a problem that won't be solved in one Presidency, as Obama has said, but trying to hide it under the covers is silly.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Terrorists, Home Grown, Attack BarBeQues

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I just fired up my barbeque for the first time this season, after buying a 20 lb bag of Kingsford brickettes at K-Mart on sale. I built my little pile, squirted on the lighter, and waited until I had a nice glowing pile.

Then I went to spread them around, and a good one third of them fell through the grate to the catch pan below! ARRRgh!

I looked at the bag. Kingsford, each brickette with a "K" on it. I've used the stuff for fifty years with no problems. I looked closer at my 20 lb bag......hmmmmm.......it's now an 18 pound bag. No wonder it was on sale at a price just slightly below last season's 20 pounders.

I looked at the brickettes. They seemed, skinnier????? Could that be?????

I still had an older bag back in the shed. I took it out. It was a 20 lb bag. I looked at the brickettes. They seemed...thicker. Quickly I lined up a bunch from each bag, and indeed the new brickettes are thinner on average than the older ones. This means that they will burn up faster, fall through the grates more easily, greatly add to the air pollution and CO2 levels, and force me to go locate a crossway grate to catch the falling brickettes, and hold them at the right height.

I've been told that K Mart and the other big box stores get specially packaged inferior products of brand names. Is this evidence of that? My dogs seem to need to eat more Pedigree dog food than they used to. Is it less nutritional now that gas has gone up?

Nathan Hotdogs on special, but that's a 12 oz package, not a 16 oz package. Seven skinny dogs, also subject to "fall through," not 8 dogs as before. "We have met the enemy, and they is us," Walt Kelly of Pogo fame.

It's time to see if http://consumerist.com with take up the story.

it's obvious that both companies want to sell more product at less cost. And Kingsford doesn't care how much they pollute the environment. I think I will go to natural wood style charcoal for the duration.

Polically Correct Concepts, The Republican Versions

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Try Going Against the "Politically Correct for Republicans" issues Below:
The USA is always right.
Any Flag is .........
Private Property is ..........
The police are perfect .........
Republicans are perfect .........
Anyone or any idea not promulgated by a Republican must be bad, wrongheaded, or worse.
The environment will take care of itself.
The homeless deserve it.
The bottom end of the pay scale deserves it.
Those in medical need without coverage deserve none.
Roads will never be gridlocked.
We will always have enough food, and water doesn't have to be that clean.
Nor does food.
Mass transit must pay for itself.
Anyone not a RightThinkingRepublican is delusional.
There are no innocent victims when it comes to firearms discharged by government agents.
The military industrial complex will never bankrupt this country.
China will never reach Mars with a human first. If they do, they will never get them back.
Should Japan or China or Germany patent super cheap solar panels first, our economy will be just as prosperous as if we had.
It's OK to give banks free money, but not the mortgagees.
The schools cost too much and never give us genius employees who will work for nothing and be grateful for the chance.
I "deserve" an SUV, a golf club, and everything else you can think of.
My God is Better than Your God.

In fact, your God is dead or a liar.

And so are you.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Charter Schools are Cheaper, You Betcha!

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Cali spends $6200 per pupil per year. NY upwards oof $14000....It is amazing what gets done w/ the these lackluster funding.

report this | replyby bucalum on Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:16:09 PDT
So Open a School with a class size of 20
You are the teacher, of all subjects, at all levels. you have that kinds of smarts.

$124,000 less rent of a classroom. We'll dispense with a playground, and use the public parks (done often, BTW).

You need at least 1,000 sq feet, plus a restroom. At $1/sq ft, that leaves you with $112,000. Oh, the building has to conform to all fire codes (sprinklers in ceiling, earthquake proof), be handicapped accessible, etc. to be usable as a school. You also need drop off and pickup spaces. Maybe $2/sq ft, including a bit of storage.

Did you plan to offer science or shop? Gas lines and more space needed, add another 500 sq feet at least, but fancier, so $2.50 sq/ft. $100,000 left.

How about 21 laptops at $600 each, every three years. or about $12,000/3 or $96,000 left.

How about a few books, typically $50 each per subject, times four major subjects, times 21, $91,600 left.

Art and music supplies and instruments, make the parents buy those, ooops, can't do that with the poor kids, so at least $100/kid, $89,600 left.

Now there is a little thing called liability insurance, another thing called theft and vandalism, and a whole bunch more things I don't even know the names of from the same kind of company. Do you think you could get by with less than $4,600/ I doubt it. $85,000 left.

Did you ever buy health insurance on your own, good health insurance? -$12,000 for the year. $73,000.

Did you plan on getting rich doing this, and retiring? -12,000 again, for the old nest egg. $61,000.

Were you going to take the kids on field trips, at least one with a bus? -$500 $60,500.

Ooops, light, heat, water, power for computers, phones -$6,000 $54,500.

How did you plan on getting parents to sign up?

Advertising, mailings, and your time going to every kid related event you can think of. -$4,000 $50,500 left.

What happens if you don't get 20 kids to stay the entire year, or even sign up in the first place? Can you order a lot of those items one off without incurring horrendous shipping charges? You need a reverse fund. -$5,500 won't even cover the loss of one kid.

Are you getting rich yet? Go Charter School founder, more power to you!

And how many people do you know who would be smart enough to teach all those subjects for that little money, at that high a risk? Right, NONE!

Buckle Up, Bucalum, Your Kia is the Public School down the street. The Mercedes is for sale, at $40,000/year, at Exeter Academy, where daddy Bush sent GeorgiePorgie.

I Suspect that as the Oil Runs Out, We will Find that

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I Suspect that as the Oil Runs Out, We will Find that
the MegaCorps in the energy and motor vehicle production areas have been preparing for this for much longer than we might have guessed.

Have you noticed the really charming ads on tv from GE? They know who to hire and how much extra cash it takes to really effect a cultural change. In their case they want to be seen as the "heros" who save the day as oil nee gas becomes the uneconomical environmentally damaging fuel that it's been all along.

From the standpoint of the interlocking directorships of the major corporations (think Hillary/Walmart) they merely want two things:

To get as much money as possible out of the old technologies in which they have so much invested. This is why no new oil refineries have been built. They already knew that technology was dead years ago.

To remain in control of whatever it is that replaces those old technologies, and continues to produce cash. Like planned obsolescence, they merely want to take the slightest step upwards in energy efficiency and independence. Taking a big leap would mean they would not have the cash or the control of the technolgies involved. Many minor leaps, with the customers stuck for each upgrade, keeps them in control.

Initially, what we can expect is cars and trucks running off of solar, at a cost of about the equivalent of $6/gallon. This will seem a bargain in comparison to gasoline, which will hover around $9.11/gallon, and be used for antique vehicles by afictionados who can afford the luxury. And, of course, by the military and the New Feudal Lords, who get whatever they want, with the taxpayer footing the bill.

These people have been playing these games for 150 years now. They are getting very good at screwing the consumer and John Q. Public, and they are not going to stop out of the goodness of their hearts.

To counter act this behavior:

Let people know they are being screwed and by whom and in what ways.

Let young people know this is happening, in no uncertain terms. Then, encourage them to get educated as much as possible, so as to not only understand the mechanisms of culture, but also to have the skill sets that earn the kind of money needed to change culture, and to create the inventions we need to stabilize planet Earth.

Population stabilization is a key player here, but generally only occurs when women become educated, and, to a certain extent, "Westernized." Making underground videos available in Russia had a lot to do with the fall of the Soviet dictatorship. Making western culture available via satellite tv will probably be viewed, in the ancient future, as the number one item, just after Internet access, that brought about population stabilization.

BTW, even just one nuke going off, anywhere on the planet, will be catastrophic, so that fear is still right there, at least for us older folks. because if one goes off, you cannot prove who set it off, or where it came from. Most importantly, since you can't prove A and B, you have NO IDEA WHEN AND WHERE the NEXT ONE might blow.

Consider, for example, some part of the Iranian desert goes up. Was it their lab, or a plant by the USA? The evidence one way or the other would be destroyed, in the explosion itself. How could you prove there wasn't a lab located underneath Tehran, to make this even twichier? That's where I'd put it, if I were Iranian. very hard to detect, with all the background noises. Just tunnel in from an industrial suburb, and dump the tailings into a river underwater, and keep on dredging the river.

Good Luck Everybody!

Friday, March 07, 2008

The Biggest Problem is the Oldest Problem......

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the government and the businesses that either obfusticate or outright lie about their aims and objectives. It set a very bad moral tone for the whole country. It's called, "Trickle Down Ethics."

Even if the kids can't pin all the right tales (deliberate not use of "tail") on the appropriate donkeys, elephants and jackals, they have enough intuition to sense that they are getting screwed while others are getting free passes.

Are some of them angry and stupid? You betcha! Of the parties involved, who has the most responsibility and also the capabilities to change things? A sixteen year old kid? I think not.

One of the best things a teacher can do is to acknowledge this leadership gap at the top, and then give a young person suggestions on "work-arounds with awareness," to fly past these sticky nets of society, oftentimes by using them to their own improvement.