Breivik

I'm diverging from my recent decision to stop beating a dead horse in order to briefly beat this one.

The problem for Breivik is that he is insane, but for the rest of us the problem with Breivik is not that he is insane, but that he is insane and armed to the teeth.

nuts

What Bruni says in his New York Times editorial about Michelle Bachmann.

"She’s like a coat rack with dozens of hooks. You can hang almost anything on her."

... by which I think he means that she is so colorful and doctrinaire in her right-wing attitudes, that any outrageous idea can be easily attributed to her.

history quiz

A little history quiz.

Tell what you can.

Fairness takes a stumble.

IRISH MIKE relates the story of a dentist who is bragging that he will get about $50,000 in benefit from the Rick Snyder "jobs" plan.

How many jobs will a dentist create with that money, Mike asks?

ZERO.

If and when this transfer takes place, it will come indirectly from some retiree's pension, via the Michigan Treasury.

STEVE's Corner

One of the least astute members of Congress is James Inhofe a Mossback Republican from Oklahoma where outrageous Republican politics is SOP.

And here, Inhofe admits that the environment he has done so much to damage is now fighting back by damaging him.

Steve says: "The text is beautiful." READ IT HERE: CLICK

incandescent thinking

Here is another battle that will have to be refought.

Some Republicans, and we should assume that as authoritarian personalities they will eventually all flock to do as they're told, are suggesting ending the move to the new lightbulbs. Here at BIRCHES we are aware of people who have gone out and stockpiled the old kind.

The plan nationally is still in place to do away with the old incandescent bulb and replace them on the market with new energy efficient bulbs. The new bulbs have saved a colossal amount of energy nationally over the past few years. And it is a social benefit that grows and grows with every day and year.The light bulb industry had endorsed the new bulbs and manufacturers have been ready to make the change. Now, with Republican tub-thumping, even they are beginning to go back to their old ways. They see it as a violation of consumers' rights to make a free choice. So, we have to gear up for a renewed fight over this issue.

In so many ways, how disastrous was the last congressional election for this country? This is just one more example.

Click here: BULB

In my present mood, I would vote for anyone who opposes Obama in the Democratic primaries.

Brenda's Nominee for Wacko of the Week, and possibly the Wacko of all Time

There seems to be several possible ways to play with the name of I.C.("eye" see?) Chrisco, whom Brenda has chosen for the honor of receiving "Wacko of the Week" designation. I see my way clear to support this movement. But, dear followers, read it for yourself and laugh:

"Came across this new story and thought this guy deserved a nomination for your latest wacko! From the yoga convention to the tarp, the details are what get me! Oh my!"

CLICK

doing justice?

I'm no longer a smoker. I imagine if I were still a smoker, I would smoke in a variety of places where "you're not supposed to." Eventually, someone would have to arrest me, or possibly someone would just beat me up.

Why? Because in their wisdom, the people of the state have chosen to make the behavior as illegal as possible without being totally illegal, and now they will have to pay the costs of enforcement.

I heard a recent story about a man urinating behind a grocery store. Now he's classified as a "sex offender" and must register his residence for the rest of his life. I heard a story this morning about a man who visited a whorehouse and was arrested. Since he was on probation for a different offense, this violated his probation, and now he's back in prison. So, as my friend Bill from Wnnco says, now society will pay $32,000 a year to host this prisoner who heretofore had a paying job, just because he paid to get his jollies in the wrong place.

Our prisons are full. We keep building more. Isn't there someway society could begin to make better punishments and better choices than just locking up anyone who might have infracted our particular whims?

For your amusement

Just for thehellofit, I decided to post this mugshot I thought was special. This is Craig Vanderwort of California who rigged an explosive device that went off and injured someone else.

This is not pessimistic

I do not think that American public education will survive the current war upon it in any form like the system we knew in the past half century.

One cost will obviously be in the refusal of good students to go into teaching. The slow step by step improvement in the status of teachers, their salary improvements, their benefits, their job security via tenure, etc., are being ended in many states. Skilled teachers now employed will have their standard of living cut and their retirement benefits, the pensions and health care, scrapped.

There is more and more movement toward home schooling of children and toward private schools. With the introduction of modern technology into the educational process, I think that school classrooms as we have known them will be phased out. Parents will no longer be able to use schools as babysitting services and will need to provide other means (if they choose education for their kids at all) to educate their offspring. I think there will less effort to educate kids in a variety of skills and subjects. Instead, parents will select certain "tracks" that they want their children to follow. Many will not get training in literature or writing skills. Many others will not get math instruction. Science, so odious to so many, will be in the curriculum of many fewer.

I believe in the next 20 years we will see the abandonment of many more school buildings. There will be no need for them.

a lesson here

This is why, when the bullet train is built, which will cause a boom in American economy, it has to be built without crossings, just like the interstate highway system.

SPARKS, Nev. – Two truck drivers and a train engineer watched helplessly as a semitrailer skidded the length of a football field before it smashed through crossing gates and into two double-decker cars of an Amtrak train at a highway crossing, killing at least six people.

Goodbye Peter Falk

teacher teacher

Just wanted to come onto the blog-o-sphere today and make an observation.

I know there are bad teachers. No matter how high or low you mark the measuring board, some of those teachers won't measure up. It's like other professions, you know. Some are failures.

But I bet there's not one of you people out there who might read this who has any idea at all, I mean none, about how you can judge the skill or dedication of any particular teacher.

You haven't got a clue, do you? I know Rick Snyder doesn't either.

ALICE'S corner

Here are the answers Alice came up with for "snitching on the welfare cheaters":

Afgan Prez; oil CEO's subsidies; farmer's ethanol subsidies; Top 6 banks-no taxes; companies that build in cities and pay no taxes; sports franchizes that have their stadiums subsidized; airlines whose fields and terminals are built with our dollars and then charge huge fees to pay CEO's who haven't invested a cent and collect gigantic salaries; drug companies that do not have to deal wholesale prices to the Government(except for the veterans administration). Think of more later. Read FREE LUNCH by David Cay Johnston for many more.

I plucked this from someone else's blog and reprint it here for your reaction. This is the source: http://50isnotmiddleage.blogspot.com/

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So why do I have to pay taxes for education when I already put my kids through school. Why should I pay for other's educations?

Why?

Other people's children clean the office you work in, the hospital you go to for help and the streets you walk or ride on.
Other people's children run the gas station where you buy gas for your car.
Other people's children gather produce from the field, slaughter the animals, process the meat, deliver it to market and package it for sale in the supermarket or butcher shop.
Other people's children check out your groceries at the store, bag it and take it to your vehicle.
Other people's children assure your safety by patroling the city streets, directing traffic,an upholding the laws of your community.
Other people's children fight fires in the forest and in your community.
Other people's children patrol the rivers and lakes of your community.
Other people's children maintain the roads, sewers, airports, as well as staff the railways and buses.
Other people's children build your Lexus. Ford, Dodge or Kia at US assembly plants.
Other people's children prep the food, cook the food and serve the food at the resturant you go to for lunch or dinner or celebrations.
Other people's children are the Geek Squad at Best Buy that fixes your computer.
Other people's children are dental hygeinists, CNA's, physical therapists, occupational therapists.
Other people's children cut lawns, clean and maintain pools, sweep the city streets.
Other people's children serve your coffee at Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts.

suggestion

Why don't all of us from around here pack up and move to a place with better weather? We're too old for all this up-and-down, aren't we?

best headline of the day

Man with dead weasel accused of assault

Ohio State

I don't think I'm naive about college sports, but shouldn't we expect good behavior from athletes, or at the very least, the coaches, without being considered born yesterday?

There are rules. So, just think how naive the NCAA is, that it creates these rules and actually enforces them at times. It is no good to tell me that everyone is corrupt. The fact is, there 's a standard of good behavior which has been duly promulgated by the experts, and which we expect our publicly supported universities to obey. It's not that we SHOULD expect it, it's that we DO expect it -- on paper. Coach Musclehead may not like it sometimes, and he may find ways around it, but he ought to set a better standard than deviousness, or deceit and corruption, to field a team.

Win at all costs is not a standard I can accept. And how sad that great universities should be sullied like this. Ohio State should be better than its Pryors and its Tressels.