Oh, you mean like people who spend millions of dollars fighting to prevent revealing a birth certificate? I just love it when politicians can be hanged with their own words. 🙂
Snowmageddon 2011?
*heh*
Just when it was (relatively) safe to go outa the house: in the last 1-1.5 hours, nearly 2″ of powder over packed snow & ice on America’s Third World County streets and roads. Makes for more treacherous driving than if it were snow alone, of coure. OTOH, it is kinda fun to watch dumbasses trying to drive in the stuff (as long as one can stay out of their line of attack).
[audio: Paul_Simon-Art_Garfunkel_Slip-Slidin-Away-clip.mp3]This S&G hook is pretty much the theme song for today’s “Third World County Snowmageddon Demolition Derby”.
Understanding “Capitalism”
“Capitalism” as used by the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, nearly ALL politicians *spit*, Academia Nut Fruitcakes, Wall Street moneychangers and the common (“mass man”) man in the street today really refers to a system of spoils, wherein government licenses fiefdoms to businesses and then taxes and regulates them into inefficient, wasteful systems of producing wealth for those who are “connected” to political and bureaucratic power bases by family (or other associations) or money.
Classic capitalism is something the U.S. hasn’t seen for a long, long time.
Is It My Fault?
Well, partly, I guess. After all, with the weather dominating my thoughts recently, I’ve actually been watching TV weather ‘casts. But really… Sticking a sharp stick in my ear with abortions of the English language like “tempature” and “FebYOUary”? Over and over and over again!
*arrrggghhh!*
And it’s not just some regional crapspeak limited to local yokels, no!
Why are these people allowed to poke me in the ear with a sharp stick? Why is there no capital punishment for these crimes?
But no! It’s my fault for watching these idiots. But they accept pay to butcher the English language! It’s criminal, I tell you, criminal. They should all be hung by dangling participles…
I’m going to pledge to myself to stick with accuweather.com, weatherbug.com (although the weather station at the local high school is giving some weird, anomalous readings recently) and weather.com. At least I don’t have to listen to “dumbassspeak” when I read a web page (just poke a fork in my brain and twirl when reading some web pages *arrrggghhh!*).
!!!!!
WOW! It’s a heat wave! Weatherbug says the local high school weather station is reporting 8.3°F (~-13°C) already. At 10:30 in the morning! I’d better break out the cargo shorts and sunblock.
Just a Lil Geekiness
I have used some form of the OpenOffice suite as my usual office apps collection for personal use for several years now, actually since Sun offered StarOffice for free, early on. Oh, I’ve used the progressively-upgraded M$Office suite (now with Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 on various Windows boxes, “real” and virtual) just because I need to maintain familiarity for troubleshooting or tutoring others’ use, but that’s just about it for me and M$Office apps.
Now, though, the scene’s a bit complicated since LibreOffice has forked (sort of) from OpenOffice. So, OK, I uninstalled OpenOffice on this lil 15.6″ toy Asus and installed LibreOffice. Most things seem about the same, except… killer feature: natively editing PDF files. Very nice. I liked being able to create PDf files in OpenOffice, but opening and editing PDF files is a very cool feature. Kudos, LibreOffice guys n gals.
*sigh* And I Missed It!
Yesterday Was “Working Naked Day”
*sigh* How did I miss getting the skinny on this one?
Effecting Subliteracy, One Headline at a Time
Headline on local weather report:
Weather Effecting Superbowl
Really?
When “effect” is used as a verb, it means “cause something to happen” so that headline-written-by-an-idiot means, “Weather Causing Superbowl”.
Of course, the idiot who wrote that meant “Weather Affecting Superbowl” but, because he* is a subliterate idiot, apparently working for and with other subliterate idiots, that headline made it onto a local weather report.
Insert fork, twirl in brain.
*Yes, I eschew the “he or she” or “s/he” or whatever current abortion of good English is in current vogue in favor of the long usage of “he” to mean a non-specific person. I have little time or energy (and no respect) for that politically correct crap.
Pay Attention: Our Society Has Already Failed The Test Once….
“What is so Special about the 30 Year Mortgage” by Peter Williams in today’s [Feb 1, 2011] Wall Street Journal dispels some myths and raises interesting questions. The United States has for a long time encouraged people to buy their homes. This is a good idea: rule by the middle class, ‘those who possess the goods of fortune in moderation’ (Aristotle) requires that there be a middle class, and that they have property. Alas, the implementation did not leave them much of a property stake. People who owe more than the property is worth not only do not own property, but have a strong motive to shed themselves of the very idea that they ever owned it. The long time mortgages with low down payments do not build property ownerships.
Now, our home is paid for. Was a fifteen year mortgage to begin with, and we had EVERY intention of making it wholly ours from the beginning. Paid it off early. And when we bought, we bought a home that was less than we could have gotten, deliberately. Indeed, we’ve mostly, for quite some time now, made it a practice, in general, to live under our means, providing a greater cushion for emergencies and potential income losses or other changes of circumstances.
Major purchases, other than this house–cars, appliances, electronics, whatever: saved for and paid for in cash or cash equivalent (check or debit card).
“[T]he goods of fortune in moderation” is key to a solid middle class, and a solid middle class is even key to long-term wealth for the putative upper class, for without such a middle class, the means to assure long-term wealth become shaky in a republic. Of course, our republic is trending toward an oligarchy (rule by an elite) with a veneer of democracy (rule by mob), and the oligarchs seem to have little interest in even their own grandchildren’s future, “planning” ahead only so far as their next short-term “killing”.
Well, as usual I’ve wandered off the reservation a bit. *heh* Pournelle’s original comment, and his recommended reading material (I fixed his link to point to a non-registration reproduction of the article) are worth reading.
What’s the Matter With Kids Today?
*heh*
Okay, so my topic’s not the same as the Bye Bye Birdie tune’s. Here’s a switcheroo. A recent (well, 2007) book on school reform and what can go dreadfully wrong with reform efforts had one comment that made me hoot til I almost cried. “Oh, what was it?” you ask. Praising the intent of the “New Math” era and how it breathed life into Math curriculum.
Yeh, right. If anything were deliberately designed to wreck budding students’ interest in or understanding of math, it was New Math. Either it was a conspiracy of evil persons to completely screw kids up or it was a conspiracy of dunces who were too stupid for words… completely screwing kids up. That is, if their “intent” was good, the people who designed and implemented “new math” were monumentally stupid people.
4th Grade: “new math” screwed me up so badly, it wasn’t until I had a high school geometry teacher who was teaching just for the joy of it (her family was in Big Bucks City) that my head started to come unscrewed from “new math” so the threads could be reworked and I could have the thing screwed on right (as to math). From there, calculus, stat, whatever, was fun.
What’s the matter with kids today? A lot of it is remote educrats having screwed up public education for decades (with the complicity of lazy, dumbed down by their own school years, parents and stupid, compliant pubschool administrators).
[great story excised to protect the innocent]
Asshats.