Say Anything Blog

When I saw the headline on CNN’s web site:

Students angered, disgusted by gunman’s manifesto

it made me think of a couple of things.  First, how much of the anger and disgust was actually CNN’s because nutbar decided to send the manifesto to NBC and not them?  Second, if the manifesto had said something along the lines of

“I had to do this to show America the awful effects if the illegal war perpetratated on the Iraqi people by Chimpy McBushitler,”

would CNN have been so quick to point out any negative reactions to it?

I think we all know the answers to both of those questions.

Lately, I have been spending far too much time with firemen.  Twice in the last few days, I have had to summon the fire department.  Fortunately, nothing bad happened in either case.

Last Friday, I went to pick up my wife after work (we both work at the same high school.) She asked me if I smelled an unusual smell.  There was a definite smell of something burning, but the smell was in a strange place in the room.  The custodian was leaving for the day and said that he would check the boiler room which was adjacent to my wife’s room on the outside of the building.

A few minutes later, the office called my wife and said that he had reported smoke in the boiler room.  I went around back to the room to see what was going on and saw that the room was filled with smoke.  I called the office and asked them to call the fire department.  About that tie, the custodian came running out of the room.  HE had discovered that the clothes dryer that is in there was on and was beginning to burn (best guess is that it had been running for about 3 hours and the shut off hadn’t worked.) He had managed to unplug it, but it was still smoking badly.

The fire station is about 3 blocks from the school.  I started wondering why the fire department hadn’t shown up yet.  I soon found out that the following conversation had occurred:

Wife (to secretary):  Have you called the fire department?

Secretary:  I am still trying to find the number.

Wife:  Ummmm...how about 911?

When the fire department arrived, the put on their oxygen, went in and got out the dryer and put out the fire with no problems at all.

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Yesterday, the University of Arkansas fired its men’s basketball coach.  There are many reasons for his dismissal, and I do not agree with them.  This firing is somewhat unremarkable as news outside the state, but I bring it up because of something one of the players said.

During interviews yesterday, most of the players struck the right note discussing how the team was a family and how they respected the coach and hated to see him go.  One player, however, showed no class at all.  He said that he was happy that the tem was getting a new coach.  Needless to say, that interview was almost as big as the firing.

This young man was disgruntled.  Early in the year, he got lots of playing time but did not produce.  As the season wore on, he got less and less.  Needless to say, that did not sit well with him.  I can understand his frustration, but he made a big mistake in blaming the coach.  He has now branded himself as a disloyal malcontent to the new coach.  That is not a good way to start.

I suppose this is just a symptom of the “me” society we now live in.  We have started to teach our children that the individual is the single most important thing and that each person’s self-esteem is more important than what is best for society.  This is a symptom of the moral relativism that we have been teaching our kids for years now.  Kids are taught that only he or she can decide what is best for himself/herself.  Others have no say in the matter.

This player is not the first person to say or do something stupid.  I am sure that his teammates are letting him know how he messed up.  I am sure that the new coach will treat him fairly and give him a chance to make up for his mistake.

There has been a ton of gum-flapping about the minimum wage hike and its supply-side effects.  No one has addressed the demand-side issues, and I believe there is plenty of meat on that bone.  When looked at from that perspective, the minimum wage increase is a bad thing.

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Personally, I couldn’t care less about gay marriage.  I’m not gay, so it really doesn’t affect me.  My problem is with the tactics that the gay rights’ community uses.  I think they are stupid for trying to go about change the way they are.

In Washington state, a group is trying to get an initiative on the ballot:

Initiative 957 was filed by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance. That group was formed last summer after the state Supreme Court upheld Washington’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Under the initiative, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children in order to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriage would be subject to annulment.

All other marriages would be defined as “unrecognized” and people in those marriages would be ineligible to receive any marriage benefits.

Will this do anything to advance the debate?  Of course not.  This is a cheap publicity stunt designed to draw attention to their cause.  In fact, it will likely draw such ire that it will further entrench those opposed to gay marriage in their positions.

I don’t actually belive that these people really want gay marriage.  If they ever got it, they would have to find something else to complain about.  This way, they can continue to act oppressed and continue being martyrs.  That’s all they really want anyway.

I was scanning headlines at cnn.com and I saw this one:

Experts slam upcoming global warming report

I got all giddy.  Was I seeing correctly?  CNN was daring to challenge the accepted mantra about global warming?  Alas, no.

I read the article, and it was not a repudiation of the upcoming IPCC report.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  It’s main complaint was that the IPCC is sugarcoating the problem when it is more dire than we dare imagine.

I wish these Republicans would quit trying to scare people with all their doom and gloom.

Holiday Greetings to Everyone

I wanted to send some sort of holiday greeting to my colleagues, but it is so difficult in today’s world to know exactly what to say without offending someone. So I met with my legal representative, and on their advice I wish to say the following:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, nonaddictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted Gregorian calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that this country is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Disclaimer: No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

(I didn’t come up with this, but I am blatantly stealing it.)

I am speechless.

It seems this guy worked for IBM for a number of years.  One day, he was in a sex chat room during work hours from a work computer and a co-worker saw him and reported it.  He admitted to visiting the site and was fired per the company’s internet usage policy.

He sued IBM for wrongful termination, claiming that he suffered from an internet addiction and should be protected under the Americans with Disablities Act.

Like alcoholics or those who abuse drugs, people who are addicted to the Internet use it to change their mood and feel better, says [Dr. David] Greenfield. There are also many who can’t stop using it, despite reprimands from work, disputes with family and friends, and other negative effects such as debt due to compulsive Internet shopping or gambling. “It’s not surprising that it is not defined yet, because these things change very slowly,” says Greenfield. “But when you are in clinical practice and you are dealing with people’s lives, you can’t wait for those issues to be addressed. There is a huge problem with Internet abuse in the workplace, and you can’t pretend that they don’t exist because there isn’t a label.”

Once again, we have a case of a person who can’t take respobsibility for his own actions, so he must blame someone or something else.  If he can’t control it, he doesn’t need to be around computers.  Society shouldn’t be responsible for carrying this load around just because he has no will power.

This morning, I was reading the paper and came upon a wire story from the AP. The opening paragraph read:

House Republicans, in a final display of majority power, pushed through a major tax-break bill Friday, clearing a hurdle to passage before making way for a new Congress under Democratic control.

The vote must have ben close and along part ylines.  I mean it was “pushed through.”

The vote was 367-45.

Not exaclty what the AP implied, now was it?

As tends to happen his time of year, controversy has made its appearance in the land of college football.  The annual calls for a college football playoff have begun.  While I would love to see a playoff system developed, I don’t think that it will be without controversy.  The only thing that would change is what the controversy is over.

The biggest source of argument would be about which teams should be in the playoff.  People don’t like the current system, so someone will have to develop a new one.  It won’t be easy because everyone has a different opinion about what a system would need.  For the sake of this argument, let’s assume that a ranking system can be developed that people like.

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During the campaign season, Democrat after Democrat pledged to implement every, single recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.  Apparently, they were just joking:

But with control of Congress now secured, Democratic leaders have decided for now against implementing the one measure that would affect them most directly: a wholesale reorganization of Congress to improve oversight and funding of the nation’s intelligence agencies. Instead, Democratic leaders may create a panel to look at the issue and produce recommendations, according to congressional aides and lawmakers.

It seems that the reorganization that the Commission wants would take away some power from the Armed Services Committee and the Appropriations Committee and transfer it to the Intelligence Committee.  Of course, the powerful Democrats who sit as the chairs of the affected committees can’t have that.  I guess protecting their power is more important than protecting America.

The Democrats defense will be that the Republicans balked at the same reforms.  That doesn’t fly.  The Democrats said they were changing the culture.  I guess they meant they would make the changes in some future, unspecified way much like they did with their plans for Iraq.

I am still amazed that people really believed that things would change when the Democrats took power.

H/T Drudge

Take a look at this package tracking.

This morning, I was reading the paper, and I came upon a story that showed me that the October Surprise has infiltrated local politics.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but this one was too shameless.

The county next to us changed its sheriff 8 years ago.  The county’s politics had long been dominated by the Democrats but has been turning red recently.  In 1998, the Democratic sheriff was ousted by a Republican.  Now, I don’t know much about the man, but I do know that the Democrats hate him.  I have heard them say too many bad things about him.

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Last night, my wife mentioned that some of the high school kids she teaches were bandying about the theory that gas prices will go back up after the election.  Apparently, we don’t teach sound economic theory any more.  It got me thinking about a game we can all play.  Let’s predict what the Democratic spin will be with the various election results/gas prices scenarios. (more...)

The NY Times has a piece up about the IRS holding off collecting outstanding taxes from Katrina victims until after the election and Christmas.  Of course, they seize on the word “election” as proof of a vast conspiracy to influence the election.  It made me think.

The President would be crucified no matter what they do.  If the IRS collects taxes just before Christmas, well, that just proves that George Bush hates black people.  If they hold off collecting back taxes, then they are improperly influencing the election.

Anf the Times wonders why people think they suck.

H/T Drudge.