Month: June 2011

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Beating a Dead Horse

From the WaPo a few years ago (a 2006 repeat of a 2005 report), based on the 2003 Adult Literacy Survey by the DoE:

Experts Stunned – Literacy of US College Grads Declining

“The declining impact of education on our adult population was the biggest surprise for us, and we just don’t have a good explanation,” said Mark S. Schneider, commissioner of education statistics. “It may be that institutions have not yet figured out how to teach a whole generation of students who learned to read on the computer and who watch more TV. It’s a different kind of literacy.”

“What’s disturbing is that the assessment is not designed to test your understanding of Proust, but to test your ability to read labels,” he added.

Yep, reading and understanding “labels” was about what the “proficient” level denoted. Sad. That’s “proficient”? Hardly.

*sigh*

Of course, this article from the Georgia State University student newspaper notes a couple of things most of the educrats (they’re all very naturally baffled, the idiots) who’ve commented on the situation have missed. First, more and more illiterate sluggards are getting into colleges, having graduated high school with the reading skills of gerbils. And then this:

“…perhaps the failure lies in the lack of support for library services in schools in the United states, where the first place for funding and staff cuts is the school library.”

Well, there is a wide and deep constellation of other contributing causes, but what the student writer noted here is a fact of pubschool life.

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Here’s a Suggestion for Weiner’s “Rehab”

“News” of the “who cares what his latest ploy is” variety:

Weiner seeking treatment amid growing pressure to resign

While the New York congressman seeks treatment at an undisclosed location, he will take a “short leave of absence” from Congress, Risa Heller said in a statement.

A Democratic source, familiar with conversations among Weiner and Democratic leadership about his fate, did not know what specific type of treatment Weiner would undergo.

What “type of treatment”? Frankly, I’m thinking his treatment should follow a line from an old Cheech and Chong bit, “Bailiff! Whack his pee-pee!” *heh*

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Let’s Go “Precautionary Principle” All Over Some Greenie A**

Yeh. Greenies invoke their sacred “precautionary principle” to kill economies, kill people (think Rachel Carson’s utterly dishonest scam to kill people via malaria, et al by getting DDT banned)–as long as they’re little brown people in far away places–and shut down energy production, attempting to send mankind back to the stone age. F’n idiots. F’n malicious, toxic, evil idiots.

So, let’s exercise some “precautionary principle” all over some greenie a**:

Dead bodies demand organic food moratorium

Right now, someone nearby is buying organic bean sprouts. It may be the last thing he ever does. Last week’s E. coli outbreak in Germany – potentially traced to an organic farm – was more deadly than the largest nuclear disaster of the last quarter-century.

Indeed, in the past two years, two public safety stories have dominated global news headlines – an explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan. Yet in the recent German organic-food-disease outbreak, nearly twice as many people already have died as in the two other industrial disasters combined.

And that’s why I eat only food treated by poisons and irradiation to kill bugs and bacteria. It’s safer and thus better for me.

“Organic”* farming is now proven to be more dangerous than a nuclear disaster caused by the most powerful earthquake in recorded history followed by a massive tsunami… Therefore, following the “precautionary principle” so beloved to greenie weenies, “organic”* farming should be banned.

*”Organic” used as a neologism (ca. 1940s?) to denote foods grown without the use of “artificial” fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides is an especially stupid term. “Organic” compounds are hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are organic. Take any hydrocarbon molecular chain: it’s organic. Period. Most man-made pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers are… organic, except in the illiterate use of the word promoted by J.I. Rodale and his groupies. BTW, Rodale was born a few years later than my grandparents, all of whom ate normally-produced food, not Rodale’s “organic” crap, all their lives… and passed away, after long, productive and mostly healthy lives, a decade or more later than the Prevention “organic” health guru Rodale.

*feh*

I’m darned near positive it was all the chemicals in their food that prolonged their lives. Heck, their bodies probably didn’t even need embalming. 🙂

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I’m Not Complaining… Honest!

The Joplin tornado event took down our ISP for a couple of days. Seriously. Only a couple of days. A tornado plowed right through the infrastructure it uses (cable) and took out tons and tons of essential infrastructure, and it was back online in a couple of days’ time.

Not bad.

So when I post the access speeds below, I’m NOT complaining. Heck, they still beat the heck out of DSL “speeds” from our local baling wire and tin cup telco–and at lower cost–so I have nothing to complain about, but I still can hardly wait for stutterless video feeds, etc…

OK, I am going to bitch a bit about these “speeds”:

*sigh* Gag me.

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Martha v. Anthony

The critical issue before the republic today is:

If a citizen “lies” (or simply says something contra to government’s agenda), they’re due some prison time à la Martha Stewart who was sent to prison for “lying” (NOT under oath) to “feddle gummint” goons by denying she’d done something they couldn’t prosecute her for (because she’d not done it and what she “lied” about wasn’t a crime anyway).

But when one of the truly privileged class repeatedly lies to American citizens–even to making blatantly false accusations against others–the consequence certainly doesn’t include prison time. Witness Anthony Weiner. He did, definitely lie, and repeatedly. He slandered others with some of his lies and the lies he had his minions (the ruling elite has minions, of course) promulgate. Consequences? Even if he is eventually forced to resign, it’s still not prison.

Congresscritters are different from you and me. They have no consciences and experience far fewer, and far milder, consequences for their actions.

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The Muse Within

My inner muse recently reminded me,

NEVER let a day go by without accomplishing some little thing in the art you are nourishing in your life. Great things (or even “just” good–within range of the best of one’s talent) are only possible when many, many little things are built upon day in and day out, consistently.

More than talent, blood and toil and sweat and tears: that’s what real chops are built by.

“[T]he art” could as easily refer to any craft or useful skill and not necessarily be tied to what are usually thought of as “the arts”–graphic, dramatic, literary, musical. Being better than just a good carpenter requires constant striving to be better.

I need to listen to myself more, I think…

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Almost Sweet Enough

Bank of America Gets Pad Locked [sic] After Homeowner Forecloses On It

It seems the Bank of America decided to foreclose on the home of a couple who had paid cash for their home. Unfortunately, all the judge in the case did was declare that bank of America had to pay the couple’s legal fees, not some truly righteous damages, but still the bank refused to cough up what they owed. So, the layer got a court order foreclosing on the branch the fake foreclosure had issued from:

After more than 5 months of the judge’s ruling, the bank still hadn’t paid the legal fees, and the homeowner’s [sic] attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He seized the bank’s assets…

…Sheriff’s deputies, movers, and the Nyergers’ attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller’s drawers.

After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.

Too bad. It’d have been better to have socked the BoA with a much bigger bill and foreclosed the entire BoA operation, the friggin’ cheats.

I do wish people who wrote and edited copy for a living were more ethical about their work. The stupid errors in the original noted above ought to have those responsible docking their own pay, since, after all, they make their living as wordsmiths, don’t they?

“Pad Locked”-nuh-uh: padlocked.

“homeowner’s”–nope. The article made it clear the couple owned their home, so it is “homeowners'” with the apostrophe following the plural “s” creating the possessive form. F’in’ idiots. I don’t get paid for this stuff, and even I know that.

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Another “Not Quite a Recipe” Recipe

Chicken salad.

Since I throw this together by eye and by taste, I’m just listing ingredients, so it’s “Not Quite a Recipe” ‘K?

Chicken, cooked, deboned and chunked. You can use canned chicken if you want–I have at times–but it’ll lack flavor. I like some nice juicy dark meat in mine, but I’ve noticed most folks seem to prefer the less flavorful white meat for some reason. Whatever.

Onion, minced.

One or two garlic cloves, minced. More if you’re making more than a couple of cups of salad or just want more garlic. You can rehydrate dried garlic chips if you want, but they lack flavor, IMO.

Lemon pepper

More black pepper

Celery seeds

Celery stalk(s), de-stringed and diced

Mayo. No, the real stuff.

Either some sweet pickle relish, the finely diced kind, or some diced jalapeño or other fav capsaicin-laden pepper. (I can hardly wait for my habaneros to come in… and hopefully the “ghost pepper”–Bhut Jolokia–seeds I’ve planted will bear fruit as well ;-))

Balance the ingredients according to your taste and refrigerate. Serve on lettuce or in a sandwich (with lettuce and tomato).

Just good eats, folks.