09:34 – It was 66.1F (19C) when I took Colin out at 0625, overcast and foggy with a light mist in the air. The rain is supposed to get heavier through the afternoon and into the evening, with heavy rain and winds gusting to 45 MPH (72 KPH) overnight. Total rainfall is supposed to be 3 to 5 inches (7.5 to 12.5 cm).
We’ll work on some science kit stuff today, although we’re actually in pretty good shape already. Colin won’t get much time outside today.
We finished watching season 7 of Doc Martin last night. In one episode, I was surprised to see a character, a lunatic elementary school art teacher, ask her pupils to bring in their favorite toys for an art project. They all brought in their favorite stuffed animals, which she then attached to the board at the front of the class using a staple gun. Geez.
The title character is an MD who’s strongly Aspergers, or at least some form of ASD. I think the point of the series is supposed to be that he’s abnormal and is surrounded by “normal” people, all of whom have lovable quirks of their own. In my opinion, he’s one of only maybe four characters who are at all normal. The rest of them, far from having lovable quirks, are blithering idiots. They say in the series that he doesn’t tolerate fools gladly (or at all), and he’s certainly surrounded by fools. His wife is just annoying. She knew what he was when she married him, and yet she’s always trying to force him to behave “normally”.
Had an incident at school. I subbed on Tuesday of last week, gym class, which is fairly easy. Uncooperative assholes but that is the norm. Anyway I had my bicycle in the gym off to the side. Several of the kids were sitting in the same area close to the bicycle.
When I went to use the bike on Thursday to take the bike to school for another sub job I discovered that the fender support arms had been disconnected, all four of them. When I got to the school I informed the gym teacher. He then informed the school resource officer (SRO) about the incident. The SRO reviewed the video for the gym and found the student that had messed with the supports.
Friday I talked with the SRO and he asked if I wanted to file vandalism criminal charges against the student or let the school handle it. Since there was no damage I told the SRO to just let the school handle it.
So I talked with the school administrators and they are going to charge the student with vandalism. That is apparently a serious offense, almost as bad as striking a teacher. This means the student will get expelled for the rest of the school year and sent to alternative school. Kid is an asshole anyway and I have sent him to the office twice this year.
At the alternative school there is no bus service. Parents must drop off the student and pick up the student from school. If the student fails to attend they are considered truant and the police get involved. In TN that can mean criminal charges against the parents. It is really inconvenient for the parents.
I have mixed feelings about the impact on the parents. On one hand it is the parent’s fault for raising a kid with no respect that apparently places no value on other’s property. On the other hand I don’t think it punishes the kid enough. The kid should really suffer.
Regardless, the asshole will not be in school anymore so the problem is no longer a concern of mine.
The title character is an MD who’s strongly Aspergers, or at least some form of ASD. I think the point of the series is supposed to be that he’s abnormal and is surrounded by “normal” people, all of whom have lovable quirks of their own.
The Doc Martin character originated in Craig Ferguson’s “Saving Grace”. Same actor, but in the movie, the doctor’s behavior is due in part to his fondness for a particular recreational pharmaceutical. Plus the character is less “fish out of water” in a town where they have, as one local puts it, “a local tradition of complete and utter contempt for the law”.
(Mild contempt. It is Scotland after all.)
Since Ferguson is listed as a creator of “Doc Martin”, I imagine that the bizarre behavior of the townspeople is a sly commentary on the English from a Scottish point of view, especially with gags like the staple gun.
@Ray, do watch your back. The little asshole and his parents may make things difficult. It is real good that there is video evidence and I hope you can get it preserved.
The little asshole and his parents may make things difficult
I am. If anything happens I will pursue the criminal charges and really make their life difficult. But I am not too concerned at this point. The school is the entity pursuing the charges, not me. It will be a school issue. The school will basically leave me out and just show that the school caught the idiot being obnoxious. Same as if he got caught vandalizing a locker or other school equipment. So the anger should be directed at the school and not me.
Am I the only dork who thinks cameras in the gym or anywhere in the skool is sorta surprising but not really? That’s where we are nowadays, I guess. Swell.
Man, if they’d had those when I was a kid, all through publik skool, I would have been jammed up weekly, if not daily, and would most likely have been sent off to “reform” skool, which I guess is now “alternative,” where actual reform is most unlikely.
Some of the other students and the instructors where I am in grad school work in skool systems with kids and families. No thanks. I’ll take my insane and violent war vets and cops any day.
Some blowing rain earlier today and now sunny and breezy with blue skies and in the low 70s.
Man, if they’d had those when I was a kid, all through publik skool, I would have been jammed up weekly, if not daily, and would most likely have been sent off to “reform” skool, which I guess is now “alternative,” where actual reform is most unlikely.
It isn’t just about having cameras. Go read between the lines of the Google Clips product announcement, and consider how the AI could be tweaked to capture something else beyond optimal family moments.
At $250 a pop, too!
Buy a dozen!
The ol’ Panopticon, writ large.
And its very late inventor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#/media/File:Jeremy_Bentham_Auto-Icon.jpg
I’ll be going over here this afternoon to enjoy a country band, Bar Country:
https://www.facebook.com/MothersTavern/
Municipal code limits occupancy to 49; consequently, I don’t expect and demented, deranged deplorables to bother with us.
I’ll take Lyft or Uber back and forth and check back here later.
WRT to lynn’s comment of Sat:
“Huh ? Do 25% Hispanic children get free university in Kalifornia ? Or do 25% Hispanic children get automatic university entrance in Kalifornia ?
EDIT: Here in The Great State of Texas, the top ten percent of each high school class get automatic entrance into the university of their choice in the state. But they still have to pay for it.”
Well, they tried at one time to legislate affirmative action for minorities, but it was stricken. WRT financial support, it is solely based on family income and number of dependents.
Similarly here with the 90%, which was installed after the affirmative action was thrown out. Functionally, the 90%, without specifically defining ethnicity, allows lower scoring minority admittance where test scores of 88 get you 90% in deprived area schools but get 85% in middle class and up schools.
So that is the issue with my grandchildren, they attend middle to upper class school in Newport Beach where many come from $1 million houses and up. College is just expected for all their classmates.
One nice thing about their environment is that incidents as Ray experienced just don’t happen (or at least I have no knowledge of such).
Dunno how it is now. Back in the day, when I was in college in Dallas, my father having died during my freshman year. My mother couldn’t support me any more.
Thankfully, the college had a really great work-study program: work a semester, study a semester, year round (summer included). Together with a SS benefit, this meant that I could pay my own way. Together with some AP credits from high school, I still managed to finish in 4 years.
The thing was: since my parents had started supporting me, I was not eligible for any financial aid until after I could show I had been independent for two years. Which meant full tuition and no aid for half of college. I got financial aid during my last year in school.
WRT financial support, it is solely based on family income and number of dependents.
That’s true of school-given financial aid at most of the higher ranked private and public universities and colleges and has been for quite a while. Pure merit scholarships are mostly given out by mid and lower ranked schools trying to get high flyers to attend. My daughter was offered a number of these based on being an National Merit Semi-Finalist. (She didn’t get to be a finalist because she had left the school she was at when she took the PSAT and they didn’t forward the paperwork to us.)
So the anger should be directed at the school and not me.
Should? Should? What is this “should” of which you speak? You’re dealing with a teenaged male. Rationality just ain’t in it.
It sounds as if the kid has entered the school-to-prison pipeline. Unless or until he’s incarcerated as an adult, you mos def should watch your six.
I just hit Collins Street Bakery up for a couple of regular size fruitcakes. The price is a few dollars more than last year. Just like all groceries.
The driveway announcer project is, other than tweaking the sensitivity, done. Did I wear gloves while chopping road gravel today? Never crossed what mind I have. I’ll heal.
“Thankfully, the college had a really great work-study program: work a semester, study a semester, year round (summer included). Together with a SS benefit, this meant that I could pay my own way. ”
That’s exactly how I made it. Although, we were on the quarter system so I alternated school and work every 3 month period.
We had a bit of fun with the TV this morning. No over the air channels. I pulled the power for a few minutes to no effect. I later thought to re-scan for channels… that picked up a few. Tried resetting the TV. No joy.
Three hours later, another re-scan and we have all of the channels we had yesterday.
Atmosphere effects?
For years I kept all my grocery receipts and used them to check my belief that prices were rising at much more than the 1.5% inflation we were told we had. They were — average almost 10% per year, though that number gets into statistical jiggery-pokery like how to weight white flour going up at X% while chicken thighs go up at Y%.
No secret anymore that we are being ripped off at every turn in our lives, from womb to tomb. On multiple levels and by multiple perps.
For my BA in English Lit? Took 13-14 years, working full-time, sometimes two FT jobs, part-time, and sometimes up to four of those. Nights, weekends and holidays. Plus two years of it done via CLEP exams.
Wife did her junior/senior years of high school at Emma Willard in Troy, NY and then started her first year at Brown in Providence. Got very badly sick and almost died, the same year I was in Thailand-Laos-Cambodia. Did four to five more years at McGill and got hers in History of Science, and meanwhile had worked as an admitting and ward clerk at Bellevue, again on night and weekend shifts.
And tomorrow will be killed off playing the border/cars game again with Princess and GG and wife and me, because somebody just couldn’t find the time to renew their Murkan passport anytime in the last several years, even though the office is downtown here. (long story, but it seems to change every month WRT to why this is so).
No BA here. The motorcycle wreck addled me for a few years. And then I’m busy doing stuff like working and paying rent. But, you know, no where I have applied for a job seems to care if I did college. The classes I took? Never used any of it.
I was pretty much done with school after 10th grade. Maybe half way through 11th. High School felt like jail… no choice if I want to be there… 1.5 hours on the bus each way… take the classes you are assigned, because, “college bound”. I wanted to take shop and do mechanical stuff.
I don’t analyze grocery receipts just out of laziness. I do notice things like a 5# bag of sugar is now 4#. Canned tuna is 5 oz when it was 6 oz. I ran across a recipe in an old cookbook calling for 7 oz cans of tuna. A pound of coffee is what? 11 oz now?
When I quit the grocery store I was bumping $16/hr. Yeah, $50 a week into the credit union and about $50 above the company match into the 401k. Plus whatever the insurance I didn’t use took. My house and land are paid. I drive an old car. I felt broke all the time, just like when I made $5.25/hr in the ’80’s. How the hell do kids get ahead now? The average checker at the grocery store makes about $10/hour after a couple of years. Where do they live?
Where do they live?
They live with parents. Or in the case of a few people that I know they live with their boyfriend. Don’t want to get married as that would eliminate the cash they get from the government. Live with the boyfriend 11 months out of the year. Thus the female gets welfare, money for the kids birthed at government expense, food stamps, money for daycare, no expense medical, etc. A lot of that money goes for booze, cigarettes and lottery tickets. Getting married would kill all that money.
Or they join the military and get sent to our endless useless wars all over the world and come back all effed up. Which we then have to deal with.
Or they become dope dealers and manufacturers. Ex-Marine in our vets group has two sons; both in their thirties and both meth cookers and tweakers, both also have done hard prison time. One is still in the AN; you know, you can check out but you can never leave. He himself has been a junkie and a prison inmate and awaits the phone call/s every day now, telling him one or the other or both are finally dead.
Wallyhogs on either side of us here have one rugrat apiece and no husbands. Both live at the expense of their mom and stepdad, and both smoke and are always on their iPads and both are overweight.
“Atmosphere effects?”
Glitch in the matrix.
n
WRT self funding college…
Several people have done the math, and it’s no longer possible to work a part time minimum wage job and pay your own way thru a 4 year college.
The cost of college has risen much faster than inflation or wages.
A firehose of .gov money is to blame, and pushing every student towards a university degree (which creates an abundant pool of suckers/victims/students).
I will say that our school district has as an explicit and measured goal that every student eventually attend a trade school/mil service, 2 year, or 4 year degree program. They call it “T-2-4”.
Given the 90% non-english speakers, and 66% poverty rates, I think that’s a tad optimistic, and I wonder how they count the pregnant 15yos….
n
“Given the 90% non-english speakers, and 66% poverty rates, I think that’s a tad optimistic, and I wonder how they count the pregnant 15yos….”
Sacrableu! The micro-aggressions there, let me not count the ways….yikes!
The district derps who came up with that must have been taking lessons from our higher-level politicians, in both halves of the Party. I’m guessing a high percentage for military service; even 45 years ago we had a lot of Latinos, Hispanics, whatever they call themselves now, in the military, esp. from Nueva Aztlan states. I recommend the trade schools, esp. for SHTF stuff. Can’t hurt to know how to do repairs and maintenance on all kinds of stuff now; somebody’s gotta do it. Certainly not our creampuff snowflakes and Entitled children.
Given the way the fetus people claim that the “unborn child” is a living, independent person with full civil rights, the pregnant 15-y-o should be counted twice.
A firehose of .gov money is to blame, and pushing every student towards a university degree (which creates an abundant pool of suckers/victims/students).
Student loan interest contributes to the funding of Doh-bamacare. The loan program was effectively nationalized by the ACA in order to help get the bill past the CBO as “revenue neutral”.
We had to pass the bill to find out what was in it.
“We had to pass the bill to find out what was in it.”
Thanks a bunch, Nance.
And half the country thought that was an acceptable response or just didn’t care. Meanwhile she, like Cankles and Maxine Waters, is as mad as a hatter. Yet there they are.
OK, back from Mother’s Tavern and the C&W band was fantastic.
“Several people have done the math, and it’s no longer possible to work a part time minimum wage job and pay your own way thru a 4 year college.”
Not to worry, I will take care of my grandchildren as I did with my children, both with master’s degrees.
My son put himself through trade school (with a tiny bit of help) and learned auto body repair and shop management. Then he enlisted in the Marines who taught him fantastic leadership skills. Got a medical discharge and 25% disability for Rynads disease. At 41 he is running my ATM and real estate businesses. You never know where life will take you.
Damn. That Slim guy camps on mountaintops, plays doubles tennis, and hangs out with rowdy deplorables at C&W bars. Shazzammmm! THAT’S how to live, mes amis! And he was in high skool when RBT and I were BORN.
And life goes on here; I managed to slide down the stairs earlier on my butt and enjoy wife’s brunch feast. Sat there after feeling depressed and sorry for myself but then managed to get down the back steps and retrieve a certain item I’d gotten earlier for my bro and stash it inside a closet here until I can hook up with him. He’s also trading me his Glock 22 .40-cal for my Taurus .357 and I have a 9mm drop-in barrel conversion kit for the Glock, so I’ll essentially have two calibers for the same pistol. He also wants a Cimmaron 44-40 single-action revolver so I’m working on that.
You know, I’m not sure that’s true. That was the narrative, sure, but think of where the narrative was coming from. Blogs and various social media in 2009-10, but weren’t as ubiquitous and their power to go around the establishment narrative was not as established.
We’re finding today that narrative claims that “most people in America” (can’t say “most Americans”, of course, because that would be exclusionary) “believe this n that” just aren’t true. There’d been suspicions that the media and government were lying about the amount of support for whatever liberal cause, with contradictory claims being pooh-poohed as anecdote and echo chamber. Recently, and especially since last November, it’s become obvious that the narrative is a lie
And tomorrow will be killed off playing the border/cars game again with Princess and GG and wife and me, because somebody just couldn’t find the time to renew their Murkan passport anytime in the last several years, even though the office is downtown here.
Just say NO !
Good points, Mr. SteveF. It was in fact a “narrative” that even I was buying at the time and since. Mainly because it seems that the country is about evenly divided on all the important issues, both from whatever narrative and from personal anecdotal experience.
But more and more people here in FUSA are realizing that we’re being lied to constantly and being ripped off likewise. It does not bode well for a “stable” future.
“Just say NO !”
As I WAS doing for twenty years, but was almost always undermined and sandbagged by the other fems in the family. So now we have what we have.
For years I kept all my grocery receipts and used them to check my belief that prices were rising at much more than the 1.5% inflation we were told we had. They were — average almost 10% per year, though that number gets into statistical jiggery-pokery like how to weight white flour going up at X% while chicken thighs go up at Y%.
There an incredible number of factors here. When Walmart moved into the grocery business, they held the prices level for several years. That time has passed and those price clamps are rebounding.
“The Worst Gun Control Arguments”
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/166112920486/the-worst-gun-control-arguments
“Gun advocates like to point out that Chicago has strict gun control laws yet high murder rates. This is an irrational argument. The only valid comparison would be Chicago with gun laws in 2017 versus Chicago without gun laws in 2017. Any comparison to other cities, or to other time frames, is pure nonsense. Nothing is a rational comparison to Chicago. There is only one Chicago. And because Chicagoans can easily buy guns from nearby places, the gun ban is probably useless in that case.”
“Gun opponents use a similarly irrational argument. For example, anti-gun folks might point out that London bans guns and has fewer gun crimes. That’s as irrational as the Chicago argument. There is only one London in 2017. You can’t compare it to anything.”
“In general, any argument that says, “Look at that one city” is irrational, anecdotal thinking. It has no place in policy decisions.”
Scott Adams strikes again.
He’s right about the “one city” argument on either side, but in my experience us gun people only point out Chicongo as just one of a bunch of other cities and states with strict and onerous anti-gun laws and ordinances, and resulting high crime rates, esp. violent crimes. The same argument applies to Maffachufetts, NYC, Kalifornia, Hawaii, etc.
London may indeed have fewer gun crimes but there was an increase in knife attacks, several of them infamous, plus the driver-vehicle assault stuff. And now more bobbies gotta carry.
From that same Scott Adams post:
Update: Readers asked me to describe the best argument in favor of the 2nd amendment. So I will.
Gun ownership protects citizens against the risk of a tyrant trying to take over.
At this point in the reading of this blog, half of you are laughing out loud because you imagine the massive U.S. military squaring off against some rag-tag militia group with rubber bands on their AR triggers. Not exactly a fair fight.
It’s also not the point.
The way private gun ownership protects citizens is by being a credible threat against all the civilians who might be in any way associated with a hypothetical tyrannical leader who uses the military against citizens. Citizens probably can’t get close to the leaders in such a scenario, but it would take about an hour to round up their families, and the families of supporters.
That would do it.
America is unconquerable.
I read elsewhere that 77% of Americans don’t own a gun. Could that be true?
No idea if that is true, but consider: if true, 23% DO own guns and that would be roughly 75 million Murkans, many of them owning way more than one or two or several.
And Adams makes the point I’ve made here several times before. Yes, the military has jets and tanks and APCs, etc. The guys who run those machines also have families. When you’re collecting intel in your AO and greater AO, your notes and/or database should include all the relevant information WRT that. Those guys also have to eat, sleep and crap somewhere, at which times they’re not likely running their machines.
I guess we might find out how all this could come to pass before most of us on this board check out permanently.
“I read elsewhere that 77% of Americans don’t own a gun. Could that be true?”
Hard to say. These days all anyone should admit to is “boating accidents” unless actively brandishing the thing. At least 90 million legal infants (kids) are theoretically disarmed. Call that a 1/3 of the population. A good number of Clinton voters of any stripe and ladies of well meaning heart but soft head add up to a significant percentage. Perhaps another 1/3? Who can say.
OTOH, CCW permit holders add up to 15 million and climbing. The gross population of guns has always been huge and continues to grow at an impressive rate of over a million weapons a month for longer than a decade. Practically the only positive value for the background check system is guesstimating that growth. Can’t just be ol’ white dudes upholstering their mancaves.
And technically my Gramps left me his war trophy when I was the tender age of 10. My parents kept track of it until I moved to my own place considerably later. Fortunately there is no government form or nosey survey that covers that kind of familial situation separating ownership and control. Hardly unique.
“The ol’ Panopticon, writ large. … and its very late inventor”.
I believe JB is “present but not voting”!
He’s been voting in Chicago, St Louis, and New Orleans for the past 50 years.
[snip] Yes, the military has jets and tanks and APCs, etc. The guys who run those machines also have families. [snip]
Tanks & helicopters require lots of fuel, and lots of maintenance. If threats to the families doesn’t work, shoot the mechanics & fuel truck drivers. Then those pretty, expensive machines are inert.
Yes, the military has jets and tanks and APCs, etc.
And the guys who run those and even the grunts are overwhelmingly conservative. If a tyrant tried to use the US military to obvious unconstitutional ends he/she would quickly find a good part of the military would side with the people.
And the guys who run those and even the grunts are overwhelmingly conservative. If a tyrant tried to use the US military to obvious unconstitutional ends he/she would quickly find a good part of the military would side with the people.
Especially the USMC ! Uncle Sam’s misguided children are usually independent to a fault. I have witnessed this up and close.
Agreed on the USMC people; and many of us older vets from previous capers around the world. Plus I did the cop gig for years after my time with Uncle and if that doesn’t get you conservative in a hurry, I dunno what would. Between life on the streets at night and the regular courthouse and jail follies, and all the domestics and dope dealers.