Imaginary Conversations and Random Thoughts

Every once in a while you'll get a hit from some wacky search that picks up on terms from several posts and leaves you with a hit for something like "monkey penis chinese food allergies." You had each word in different posts, but Google tells someone you've been writing about monkey penis chinese food allergies.

This is not one of those times. I really did do a post that mentioned Ann-Margaret camel toe.

Of course you know that over the weekend there were many large demonstrations of/for illegal immigrants. Today was supposed to be a day on which all illegal immigrants would not show up to work. See, this would teach whitey how wrong he is to actually expect people to be law abiding citizens. And it's a metaphoric spit in the face to every person who comes to our country legally.

What's with the Mexican flag waving at all these rallies? I thought these people wanted to be Americans. If I want to be French, speak French, eat French food and watch French TV, I should go to France. When I get there, if anything, I ought to be waving a French flag (especially when running away), not an American flag. If I wanted to be American so bad, I should have stayed in America. It would be foolish of me to go to France and then expect France to transform itself into America. Come on, illegal immigrants, let's be honest: if your country is such crap that you see no other option but leaving it, why on earth would you want to bring the crap culture that created that country over here? Immigration is a good thing, it's good for the country, and we want good, hard-working people to come to our country. Having said that, let me also say this: if you're that dumb that you'd bring the degenerate culture from which you fled here with you, we don't want you.

Which brings us all back to the title of this post. We had a wonderful moment of shadenfreude when France experienced all those riots last fall. "Look at those silly French. We knew they were fools, and were setting themselves up for this sort of disaster." And I think a good number of us were rather smug about how much better we were than they were. Wake up America. The French were the canaries in the coal mine. Our only advantage is that we're much earlier on the revolt curve than France. Give it another ten years and who knows?

Anybody want pictures? These turned out a little better than I hoped, although they certainly are not great. Some bad language here, and poor spelling, but what do you expect from an inner city school in a community that has a large population of illegal immigrants. Pics first, then comments:



I put this one first because it came out the best of all three. It also gives you the same sort of sentiment you'll see in the next two pics, just with lesser legibility.



This is a nice one. "Fuk Bush" is written to the left of his head. You can't appreciate it from my lousy photo skills, but this artist is rather skilled. It certainly looks a lot more like Bush than what you'll see in most editorial cartoons, except for the bullet hole in the forehead. Poor taste, to say the least.



Here's one that was spelled correctly. Unfortunately, my crappy pic cut off the anarchy symbol just to the left. Anarchists? Kinda suspicious. Something else that's suspicious? Our school gets tagged a lot. By a lot I mean a whole bunch. In the past six years, guess how many times Bush has been mentioned, in any way, shape, or form of tagging since he has been elected? Until today, that number was zero. That tells me that it's unlikely that these are typical student tags. It may even be unlikely that these were done by students at all. If they were done by students, some activist adult encouraged or ordered these tags. At least we have security cameras. Except they either weren't working, or they were pointed off at some far distant point perhaps not even on campus.

The principal came on the intercom during third period to remind students that their obligation is to be in class, and that the administration would meet with students in the school theater at lunch to discuss their concerns. This was in response to some number of kids, probably less than thirty, who spent first period protesting across the street from the school. The lunch meeting was apparently not satisfactory. You see, the kids feel that lunch is their time. A kid needs to check out a book from the library? Before school, lunch, and after school, these are all their times. So when do they check out a book? "Teacher, gimme a pass." They insist that they be allowed to go during class. If you say no? The response, rather than "Ok, I'll get it after school, or at lunch, and have it tomorrow," is more likely to be "Oh well, then I won't do the work because you won't let me get a book." My internal response goes something like "That's certainly your right to make that choice, and to choose to fail." You might be surprised at the number of students who regularly choose to exercise that right. I'm not one to deny rights, so if they want to fail, who am I to say no?

But back to the point. Lunch was apparently not satisfactory, because fourth period, before lunch, we had our own little walkout. Nothing like Los Angeles, but maybe 50 kids roaming the school in a big group. I only noticed them once, near the beginning of the period, but a friend told me that all during fourth period, kids were running up and down the halls, hooting and hollering, banging on doors, opening doors and yelling into classrooms. After lunch, I asked one student what it was all about. I was informed that Bush wants to deport all immigrants. Yeah, right. Just goes to prove my theory that when we have walkouts, less than ten percent actually have any clue about what the protest is about. I offered him a cash reward if he could find a quote from President Bush in the newspaper that said "I want to deport all immigrants." My money is safe.
If I cast my mind back to the last time we had a walkout, I seem to recall that the reason they gave then was that Governor Schwarzenneger wanted to deport all immigrants. Hmmmm.

The sick thing is that some liberals who are sympathetic to the immigration situation hate these sorts of protests, because these sorts of retarded protests make liberals look bad. I don't mind so much, because liberals looking bad is half of what gets Republicans elected.

Actual Update: Is the dam finally breaking? Are we finally going to start hearing about the reality of our public schools, and that they aren't the schools you went to twenty or thirty years ago? The first drops are escaping.

Jamie at Something Old, Something New, posted some Les Nessman quotes from one of the best comedies of all time, WKRP in Cincinnati. The connection between Nessman and O'Reilly? Jamie reports, you decide.

Thanks to Bill at So Quoted for the tip, and for the continuing Lost reports. (So quoted, So Quoted. Heh heh heh.)

Sorry for the delay too.

. . . I would buy me some ports.

I've been wondering who is going to step up and spend the $700 million to buy out DP World's interest in running parts of several east coast ports. I believe in America. We must have some major league port operating companies that just bleed red, white, and blue. How could a company like this not go for such a great business opportunity? How did DP World get in there and snap up this purchase? My gut told me that the reason an American company didn't do this deal is because for whatever reason, no American company felt like it was good business, or worth their effort.

Now that congress has decided to send DP World packing, what is it that has changed that makes this deal a desirable one for an American company? Don't ask me. I'm just an idiot with a crappy blog. Why not turn to someone knowledgable:

WASHINGTON - Congress will closely watch a Dubai-owned company to be sure it transfers its U.S. port operations to an American company, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday.

But Frist, R-Tenn., acknowledged that if an American buyer is not found, and the Bush administration determines there are no security risks, a deal for DP World to manage and operate major U.S. ports still could go through.

I bolded my favorite parts. I don't understand. You mean the hysterical ninnies in congress demanded DP World sell, even though they don't know if anyone wants to buy? What is this, some sort of Five Year Plan? Didn't those go out of fashion around 1989 or so? And if no one wants to buy, it may very well go through as originally planned? How can it go through as planned? I thought they were this huge security risk? We'd be opening our ports to every Jamal, Abdul and Mohammed who has some WMD in his pocket! At least, that's what I heard day and night from shrill Capitol Hill.

What I heard from people who actually comported themselves in a rational manner was that DP World would have virtually nothing to do with any sort of port security, which would be handled as always by the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs. What I also heard was that this deal is not really unusual, since DP World hadn't bought out a U.S. company, but a British company. And that Chinese companies (aka the Chinese government), run several port terminals on the west coast.

If it does go through, does that mean that Bush was right? And that knee-jerkism once again managed to steal the day from reasoned thought? Ahhhhh. Suddenly, I feel better. Or at least back to normal. After all, we've been living that for the last five years. Let me go out on a limb and make a prediction: when they open the line for people in congress to apologize to the president and the country for their behavior, no one will be there. Not even those punk republicans who sold him out. And they've got the nerve to keep sending me fundraising letters.

As long as we're talking about cell phones, here's a bit (a few weeks old now) from a USA Today piece:

Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest cellphone service provider, quietly has
launched filtering devices and password-enabled blockers that help thwart
underage consumers from buying adult content.

It's a nice piece, but it ignores an unsettling reality. Children do not need to buy their porn on a cell phone. All they need is a friend to send some homemade disturbing imagery for free.

Here's a quiz for you. All you have to do is guess which one doesn't involve a 9th or 10th grade student. Remember though, just because you got it right is no reason to cheer. And if you're squeamish, well, maybe you'd better skip this one. Just to be safe, I made the text white on the choices. Highlight them to see the text. To be extra clear, all three of these have circulated at our school, you're just guessing which one wasn't made by students

The cell phone video not made by and starring 9th and 10th graders is:
a) a male beating up a homeless (aka defenseless and uncoordinated) male
b) a male going number two on a female's face
c) a female performing oral sex on a male

Not too difficult was it? Let's give it a day or two and we'll discuss it.

I do not have any children of my own, so parents, help me out here.

We go to the faculty meeting and something came up. Discipline. For some reason, the school seems interested in it all of a sudden. Naturally, the subject of cell phones came up.

Children are not allowed to have cell phones at school. So all of them do. Turns out, when an administrator or security officer notices a student with a phone, some of the kids complain that they see teachers using cell phones. Problem one: our school is starting to develop a culture in which the word of the student is taken over the word of the teacher. Here's the solution, as handed down by an administrator in whom my esteem has taken a severe plunge: teachers stop using cell phones.

You heard me. In order to stop our kids from using cell phones, teachers must stop using them. It's called setting a good example. Methinks the captain of this particular institution of learning hasn't heard of the Captain's Perogative: rank has it's privileges. I guess back in the day, he would have supported prohibition. We don't want kids to drink? No one drink. We don't want ten year old kids driving cars? No one should drive cars. Dang, he might be onto something with this good example thing!

He could always decide to be rational and accept that some people are allowed to do things that other people aren't. And there's nothing wrong with that! It's been going on since the very first cave woman told her cave man that she wanted to go on the next big hunt, and he grunted and kept watching the big game, leaving her to gather berries. Not everyone should be allowed to do everything.

But why be reasonable? This is education we're talking about. So teacher, the next time a fight breaks out in your room, whatever you do, don't use your cell phone to call security. You'll be setting a bad example. Funny how attending school every day and being on time hasn't had the same effect on students.

Seriously though, mom and dad, is this how you handle a child? We seem to say yes to everything. Is it ever ok, once in a while, to just say no?

Ok genuises, help me out here. A small condominium association with 18 units and a swimming pool has some concerns about liability The pool is completely surrounded by a six foot high fence, with locked gates. The remainder of the property, aside from enclosed patios for each unit, is unfenced. Neighborhood children are getting old enough to roam on their own, and some have taken to walking across the property at various points, doing whatever kids do. Do No Trespassing signs protect the association from liability? Any tips or insight are welcome.

Alternate title: Sweet Geezer of Mine.

Of all the things going through your mind when you hear that Guns N Roses have been added to the playlist of the classic rock station, none are good.

I'm sure you know this by now, but it turns out Bush was right on the money. The video mentioned "overtopping," not breaching. I'm sure some people will say po-tay-to, po-tah-to, water got in BUSH LIED!!!! No. Overtopping is a specific and distinct event from breaching. A levee that's twenty feet tall will stop water as long as the water doesn't rise above twenty feet. Yes, if water goes to twenty-one feet, it will flow over the top of the levee, but this is not a failure of the levee. The levee completely fulfilled the specifications of its design. A levee breaches if the levee wall itself breaks or collapses, allowing water in. These are not the same thing. Bush was warned about overtopping, but not breaching. When he says they didn't anticipate a breach, it's because they didn't.

It was a pretty dirty trick by the AP. I guess it's a pick'em between stunning ignorance or stunning bias on the part of the reporter. But you can't tell me that among all these follow on reporters, none of them knew the difference. It's just another chance to get Bush.

As I said, you must know all this by now. I wonder, once you realized the truth, did you ask yourself, "How could I have believed Bush would lie like that? Why did I take that report at face value?" They're interesting questions because a moment like this is a sort of litmus test, a what-will-you-do-when-the-chips-are-down situation. This could have been a real blow to Bush. And no one likes to be a dupe.

But since everyone does like an O. Henry ending, let us ponder the fact that the only lie in this story was told by the AP.