Wednesday, 4 January 2017

By on January 4th, 2017 in personal

09:56 – Barbara is off to the gym. She volunteers at the Friends of the Library bookstore again this afternoon. Her regular afternoon for FoL is Tuesday, but she may be volunteering two afternoons a week for a while. The woman who works Wednesday afternoons is undergoing cancer treatments, and Barbara wants to be there with her in case she needs to take a break. The weather forecast over the next few days is for wind, temperatures down in the single-digits F later this week, and some form of precipitation, whether rain, freezing rain, or snow. At 43F (6C) we reached our forecast high for the next few days this morning. It’s all downhill from here.

While Barbara was working at the FoL bookstore yesterday afternoon, her friend Joanne stopped by with her daughter, Kelsey. Kelsey just finished the first semester of her freshman year at a private college up in Pennsylvania as a biology major. She wants to become a veterinarian. She had a hellish semester academically, which is understandable given that she had an undiagnosed case of Lyme Disease and wasn’t able to sleep or concentrate on anything. It was finally diagnosed, but too late to allow her to salvage the semester. I asked Kelsey if she was still on doxycycline, and was surprised when she said that they’d prescribed only a three-week course of it, which she’d completed.

She ended up failing Chemistry I. That’s a problem because they won’t let her take Chem II until she’s passed Chem I, so she’ll end up doing general chemistry as a sophomore, when she should be doing Organic Chemistry. Her college won’t accept credits from another institution, so doing general chemistry as a summer course this year won’t get her back on track. So we talked about alternatives for a while. I suggested that Joanne talk to the dean and the chairman of the chemistry department and convince them that this was an anomaly caused by the undiagnosed Lyme Disease and that they should make an exception by allowing Kelsey to take a general chemistry course this summer and accept that as the prerequisite for starting organic chemistry in the autumn. That’d get her back on schedule and eliminate the need for a fifth year. I also asked Barbara to email my phone number and email address to Joanne and have her give them to Kelsey so she could contact me any time I could help her, with chemistry or anything else.


90 Comments and discussion on "Wednesday, 4 January 2017"

  1. Dave Hardy says:

    Best wishes to Kelsey and let’s hope the department sees the light. Sounds like a kid who’s working hard and trying to do the right thing.

    Overcast and in the high 30s, but the temps will be dropping here, too, down into the teens, mainly, with possible rain and snow showers here and there.

    And I see that the Dems in the new Congress are again acting like spoiled children and Obola is sending troops to…..wait for it….Lithuania. What an asshole. Is he actually trying to light off a war with Russia in his last two weeks??

    This would be like Prince Vlad sending Spetznatz guys to Baja California.

  2. Ray Thompson says:

    That’d get her back on schedule and eliminate the need for a fifth year

    You fail to understand the goal of colleges and universities. The objective is to keep students in the system as long as possible to gain as much money as possible. Mistakes by the university are not the fault of the university and correcting such is on the backs of the students.

  3. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Yes, I pointed that out to Joanne and Kelsey.

  4. MrAtoz says:

    At UNLV, where my Twins are in STEM, they tell you at orientation: “You’ll be here for at least 5 years…” I got my BS in Maths in 4 back in the good old days of no Women’s Studies etc.

  5. IT_Pro says:

    Wow, times have changed a lot.

    I received both my BS in Mathematics and MS in Computer Science in my four years of attendance at Stevens Tech in NJ back in ’74. Plus holding a 20/hour per week part-time job during the school year and a full-time job during the summer. Not much time for anything else, though.

  6. Ray Thompson says:

    My son was attending MTSU, curriculum approved by his adviser. Senior year come time to make sure everything is ready for graduation main office said he was missing some classes. The main office had entered his major incorrectly into their system. My son had documentation to show they were wrong. MTSU said they would correct but between the time he set his major and current time the courses needed had changed. So if MTSU corrected their error he would still be missing some courses. He countered with that he had supporting documentation signed by a faculty member refuting their claims. MTSU said that faculty member no longer works there so the information is invalid.

    So applied for the classes. Nope. Priority is given to freshmen and there were no slots available. He would have to wait another year to get the classes. Wife went ballistic and threatened to go to the university president, as on his doorstep beating on the door, if they did not let him in the class. They relented and found a spot in the class. But it cost another semester of tuition.

    Another time I got the bill in the mail for his semester tuition. It was due that afternoon, no way I could send a check. Called MTSU and explained that I just got the bill. MTSU said the company that sent out the bills had a problem and the bills went out late, tough luck, not their problem. So I said I would pay with a credit card. Nope, need a student ID. Son had to be the one to pay. But he was not available. Finally was able to contact him and he paid about 15 minutes before the deadline.

    But his friend was not so lucky. His friend did not get his mail until the next day and by then it was too late and it was a Saturday. So Monday he goes to the main office to pay his tuition. Too bad, he missed the deadline and MTSU had given his class slot to someone on the waiting list. My son’s friend was not able to take the classes he needed thus costing him another year in school.

    MTSU also forced all freshman to get a meal card. No deviation, not even if you lived off campus. Does not matter if you did not use all the meals on the card as there was no refund for meals not used. They also had this Raiders’ Bucks card that you had to put $250 on each semester. Do it or don’t go to school. Card could be used for books and other items. At the end of the semester if there was any money left on the card, tough. The university kept it. You could not roll the money over. That it my mind was theft. MTSU did not see it that way as the card was the property of the university and they could do with the card as they saw fit.

    My son, along with most of the students in one class, simply quit the class as they could not understand the professor. His accent and use of English was so poor that comprehension was impossible. MTSU told the students too bad as the professor was qualified to teach the class and none of those qualifications included the ability to speak English. Thus the students had no case and lost the money paid for the class.

    There were other minor problems, all university caused, for which they refused to accept responsibility. If they did admit fault (well, not really admit, just acknowledge) it was the responsibility of the student to fix the issue. Son even had a couple of grades entered into the system incorrectly but fortunately had proof of the grades. Took some threats to get those resolved.

    The incompetence of the school was enough to boggle the mind. My impression was the university existed to employ the unemployable.

  7. nick flandrey says:

    It took me 6 years, but I changed majors 3 times, and schools twice. I had a LOT of extra credits that I couldn’t apply anywhere. Probably should have picked up a couple of minors, but didn’t. I was paying for it myself after the first 2 years and 2 majors changes.

    However, market-ticker.org has done the math and it’s no longer possible for most people to work their way thru full time school. As in so many things, our own experiences are out of date and no longer valid wrt paying for college, or going to public school (elementary and above.) In the case of college costs, more money pouring in simply resulted in costs increasing to absorb the money, and much faster than other segments of the economy.

    n

  8. nick flandrey says:

    Yeah, I was working throughout my college career, part time at first, for the school at minimum wage for a while, then full time 40+ hours for a couple of years. I often had the feeling that work was negatively impacting my education, as I often shorted the school work when time got tight. I wondered why I was working so hard to pay for something that I couldn’t do well, ‘cuz I was working so much… And I had about $20k in debt when I got out.

    nick

    ADDED- my degree program was small and only offered some required courses every other year. This extended my stay by at least a year. In the beginning I was carrying a massive credit load, at the end, I was struggling to find enough relevant credits to keep the student aid flowing.

  9. Al says:

    “The woman who works Wednesday afternoons is undergoing cancer treatments, and Barbara wants to be there with her in case she needs to take a break.”

    Barbara sounds like a wonderful person. Consider yourself a lucky guy.

  10. Spook says:

    “”US military chief General Raymond T Thomas told the New York Times that America has a “persistent” presence in the Baltic states bordering Russia.””

    http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/us/politics/us-baltic-russia.html?_r=1

    “”Last week, Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, visited all three Baltic countries to reassure regional leaders who are concerned that Mr. Trump might not be fully committed to their defense.””

  11. Miles_Teg says:

    I wish the Baltic states well against Russian imperialism but am not the least bit interested in going to war over them.

  12. Miles_Teg says:

    My first degree (BSc in computer science) was “free”. The government picked up the tuition charges and gave me a very small allowance. I usually worked during the summer holidays. Living at home helped…

  13. rick says:

    You fail to understand the goal of colleges and universities. The objective is to keep students in the system as long as possible to gain as much money as possible.

    It depends on the school and the student. Both our sons went to private colleges, one a small school in the Midwest, the other an Ivy League school. I told them at the beginning we would only support them for four years. When our older son didn’t do well his first semester, I reiterated the four year rule and he finished in four years. He decided, after graduation, to change fields and he got a second bachelors degree and a masters in math at the local state university on his dime. He has been teaching math in China for three years and has paid off his student loans and built up significant savings. Our second son worked part time through college and has been gainfully employed since graduation. The only help he requested after graduation was a $500 loan to move from New York to California when he graduated.

    Our daughter is in her second year of college in California. She is on track to graduate in four years and has planned a career path which should allow her to support herself.

  14. nick flandrey says:

    @rick, very rare these days.

    n

  15. nick flandrey says:

    I’ve got a couple of surveillance state links to put up with some comments, but I’ve got paying work this afternoon, so…

    Speeder has his car data used against him:

    “Data retrieved from his Honda showed he kept the accelerator to the floor up to just half a second before the crash,”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4087838/Iqpal-Kandhola-killed-Lisa-Strueh-Indiana-car-crash-laced-Hendricks-County-deputy-prosecutor-Loren-Delp.html

    In this case they used it for accident investigation. How long ’til it’s routine to use it for insurance rating? or retroactive speeding ticket? (yes some high risk lenders install tracker/loggers, and some insurance cos do too in exchange for lower rates, and some rental cos do, but it’s their car) This was HIS car, with a built in black box.

    Here’s an older, but good, article on the capability of the modern state against domestic threats.

    https://thelizardfarmer.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/how-they-hunt/

    Remember that Homeland and other domestic police and security agencies consider most of us here to be domestic terror threats- veterans, conservatives, strict constitutionalists, liberty minded, cash users… They’ve got a list and we’re on it.

    And I’ve got one to link later regarding the bus system in a major city. 12000 cameras, 9 HD cams/bus, links to fed agencies….

    n

  16. ech says:

    She wants to become a veterinarian.

    Vets are a solid lower middle class job. $50-80k per year, but you can end up with pretty high debt when you get out of school. To be honest, being an RN or nurse practitioner would probably lead to higher pay and better job mobility. As for being an MD, I’m not so sure how they will fare in the future. The rise of corporate medicine is probably too far gone to stop. The result will be less control, lower pay, and more paperwork….

  17. ech says:

    I am amazed at how few hours you need for even a STEM degree now. I know I had well north of 150 hours for my degree. I had to take 5 courses of 3, 4, or 5 hours per semester to get out in 4 years. My peak was 21 hours per semester in my Junior year – 2 Physics classes of 4 hours each, a math class of 4 hours, a history class of 3 hours, one astronomy class of 3 hours, 1 hour astronomy lab, and a two hour physics lab. My lowest was 14 hours my first semester – I had placed out of freshman chem, but the results came back too late to pick up a class. My wife had a slightly lower load as a biology major, but she also worked weekends.

  18. Miles_Teg says:

    I loved being a computer programmer for 34 years but would not recomend it to anyone now.

  19. lynn says:

    She had a hellish semester academically, which is understandable given that she had an undiagnosed case of Lyme Disease and wasn’t able to sleep or concentrate on anything. It was finally diagnosed, but too late to allow her to salvage the semester. I asked Kelsey if she was still on doxycycline, and was surprised when she said that they’d prescribed only a three-week course of it, which she’d completed.

    I wish her the best and hope that she only has a Stage I version of Lyme. Unfortunately, it sounds like she is Stage II. A simple three week doxy will not help her. She needs to visit an infectious disease specialist. They are very difficult to find, there is ONE is Houston who treats Lyme. Infectious diseases include Lyme, Syphilis, AIDs (HIV), measles, etc, etc, etc. Their clientele is … interesting.

    My daughter is Stage III but we have moved her back to Stage II using lots of drugs. No more seizures as long as she takes an anti-seizure drug. But the brain lesions give her constant migraines. If we could get rid of the migraines, she could be somewhat functional.

    A good writing of how Lyme disease can destroy your life. “Bite Me: How Lyme Disease Stole My Childhood, Made Me Crazy, and Almost Killed Me” by Ally Hilfiger.
    https://www.amazon.com/Bite-Me-Disease-Childhood-Almost/dp/145556706X/

    I cannot stand to read it as we are living the dream. My parents have read it, my wife and daughter read it, but I cannot. My daughter has had Lyme for over 15 years and no end in sight. For some reason, Lyme seems to affect women more than men. Very discriminatory. It is almost as if women are different from men but I hear that is not the case nowadays.

  20. Clayton W. says:

    Basic 4-layer PCB’s are running about $50 for up to ~50 sq inches, 10 mil via, 6-mil trace/space, 1 week turn, qty 4+. Times sure have changed.

  21. lynn says:

    I loved being a computer programmer for 34 years but would not recomend it to anyone now.

    It is a different business than it was 30+ years ago. But the mobile computing is transitioning the business greatly. I am in the desktop application business which I am hoping survives.

    I have been reading OSnews for a while. It is an interesting daily newsletter on operating systems.
    http://www.osnews.com/

    Today’s article is about the death of hobbyist mobile systems since mobile went mainstream.
    http://www.osnews.com/story/29586/Two_old_stories_more_relevant_today_than_ever

    I cannot figure out Microsoft’s strategy around Windows 10. It just does not make sense.

  22. SteveF says:

    I am in the desktop application business which I am hoping survives.

    Switch to a hosted server with lightweight client business model? The engine should need minimal changes. The UI would be totally different. The real question is how tightly the front and the back are tied together.

  23. JLP says:

    I would assume that a properly written letter from the right doctor should push the university into making some concessions for Kelsey.

    My brother-in-law is a university professor (history, far lefty, but a nice guy none the less) and told me about half his students have notes from various doctors and psychiatrists and social workers. He figures most of them are probably bogus and just an attempt to get a better grade with less work. Regardless, he and and the university just have to accept it and make allowances. Snowflake syndrome is more epidemic than obesity on campuses. At least Kelsey has a legitimate claim that can probably be backed up with real documentation.

    Apropos of nothing else: The overhead light in the kitchen has been getting dimmer over the last week or so. I pulled out the dying curly CFL and went to my big box o’ bulbs for a replacement. I put in a good old fashioned 75W incandescent. God I miss those bulbs! Instant brightness and perfect color. Yeah, I know it’s a waste but for the next couple of months I’m going to revel in its inefficient, full spectrum glory. I’m a simple man and simple things make me happy.

  24. Dave Hardy says:

    “I wish the Baltic states well against Russian imperialism but am not the least bit interested in going to war over them.”

    Nooz Flash! Miles_Teg makes perfect sense today!!!

    “They’ve got a list and we’re on it.”

    Which is why I keep saying that WE need a list and put them on it. Start with our local dimwit city and town council members, skool committees, judges, and DA’s and ADA’s. Include various heads of city and town agencies and departments. Expand that to the state level. I’ve started that here and have a probably much easier job of it in this small state than most everybody else does, but I highly recommend getting on the stick with it. Include addresses, phone numbers, license plates, email, etc., if possible. Make several copies and keep one offsite, just like we do with our home and financial and password info and/or on encrypted sticks.

    “It is almost as if women are different from men but I hear that is not the case nowadays.”

    That sounds suspiciously a lot like some kind of micro-aggressive hate speech, Citizen, and sexist sarcasm.

    “Switch to a hosted server with lightweight client business model?”

    Agreed, 100%. Preferably open-sauce. More control up and down.

    “I’m a simple man and simple things make me happy.”

    For you, man, down south there…lol…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqfwbf3X8SA

  25. SteveF says:

    For some reason, Lyme seems to affect women more than men. Very discriminatory. It is almost as if women are different from men but I hear that is not the case nowadays.

    So all your child has to do is self-identify as male and the disease will go away? Holy smokes, it’s a medical breakthrough!

  26. Dave Hardy says:

    “Holy smokes, it’s a medical breakthrough!”

    Trouble is, a lot of these SJW and prog types are so divorced from reality they’d believe that.

  27. lynn says:

    The engine should need minimal changes. The UI would be totally different. The real question is how tightly the front and the back are tied together.

    The calculation engine in the simplest form takes a text input file and produces a text output file. It is written in 700K lines of F77, C, and C++. 98% F77.

    The user interface is 500K lines of C++ tightly tied to the Win32 API using a hand built diagrammatic user interface and 150 dialogs. Also some code “borrowed” from MS Excel. Moving it to Javascript would be a freaking nightmare. I figure 25 man years of work over five years. One of my partners tells me that a couple of high schoolers could do it in three months.

    I have been thinking about trying the Frame Win32 cloud emulator to see if we can get our software up there.
    https://fra.me/

  28. lynn says:

    Apropos of nothing else: The overhead light in the kitchen has been getting dimmer over the last week or so. I pulled out the dying curly CFL and went to my big box o’ bulbs for a replacement. I put in a good old fashioned 75W incandescent. God I miss those bulbs! Instant brightness and perfect color. Yeah, I know it’s a waste but for the next couple of months I’m going to revel in its inefficient, full spectrum glory.

    I’ve got four 65 watt halogens in cans in the kitchen. Now that is light !

    But the Lyme diseased daughter is light sensitive and won’t come in the kitchen unless we turn them off and use the under cabinet lights. And then I usually trip over the white cat who blends into the tan tile floor. Sigh.

  29. lynn says:

    “I’m a simple man and simple things make me happy.”

    For you, man, down south there…lol…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqfwbf3X8SA

    I love that song. In fact, I love all of their songs.

  30. Miles_Teg says:

    “And then I usually trip over the white cat who blends into the tan tile floor”

    Very simple solution to that… 🙂

  31. SteveF says:

    One of my partners tells me that a couple of high schoolers could do it in three months.

    And it would have 10% of the specced functionality and no error handling. Yah, I’ve seen quite a few UIs implemented in the “so easy anyone can do it” toolkits over a brief period, then then company owner or VP of product development tells me it’s 99% done and just needs a quick run-through before release — which, by the way, is in three weeks and we can’t slip. I never take those contracts. Even if I can talk them into hourly billing rather than a fixed fee to get it production read — and it’s always a low fee, because barely anything beyond testing and a couple of minor fixes are needed — it would be my fault that the product isn’t ready by the “hard deadline”.

  32. Dave Hardy says:

    “And then I usually trip over the white cat who blends into the tan tile floor. Sigh.”

    I have to turn on the upstairs overhead/stairway lights at night if I’m going up or down because one or more of the cats will, surprisingly, pick that exact time to flash on down or up. Another trick of theirs is to sit right at my feet if I’m in a chair reading, so if I stand up I’m liable to either trip over them or step on them; they evidently feel the 50-50 odds are worth the attempt.

    “I love that song. In fact, I love all of their songs.”

    I love a dozen of their songs; they sure have been through some personnel changes since the damn plane crash, too. The only original guy is Gary Rossington, the guy in the black hat and playing guitar; he got both of his legs broken, both arms, both ankles and wrists, and pelvis. Married one of the Honkettes, Dale Krantz, a super hottie then and now, lucky bastard.

    http://www.famousfix.com/post/dale-krantz-rossington-15241177

    And also a wonderful singer; she could have a solo career easily.

  33. Dave Hardy says:

    And the latest nooz, which comes rarely, from middle brother, is that he had jury duty today and has now been seated for a criminal trial down in Woostah. I’ve never had it; they don’t want ex-military or ex-cops or Gawd forbid, someone who is both!

  34. lynn says:

    And it would have 10% of the specced functionality and no error handling.

    And it would have 1% of the specced functionality and no error handling.

    FTFY.

  35. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Try getting on a jury as a libertarian. If the prosecution doesn’t use a preemptory challenge, the defense will. We’re loose cannons, we are.

  36. Miles_Teg says:

    Or ask about jury nullification.

  37. Dave Hardy says:

    “We’re loose cannons, we are.”

    There it is. No libertarians, and certainly no ex-cop, ex-military, cis-hetero Whitey Roman Catholic Christians married-with-children and Patron Life NRA members to the right of Patrick J. Buchanan. You want a loose cannon??

    Of course I would be fair and impartial; I’m no lover of courts and police and lawyers as they exist these days.

  38. Greg Norton says:

    I am in the desktop application business which I am hoping survives.

    It will survive, but you may want to look at a Red Hat Linux port or, at the very least, make sure your application runs in the free version of Wine on that platform.

    If you aren’t doing something odd with Win32, chances are that someone will support that API for a very long time. Too many internal apps. Heck, Microsoft was pressured to maintain support for *VB 6* apps until Windows 10 goes end-of-life, and there are still calls for a new version of that development environment from the user community.

  39. Chad says:

    …they tell you at orientation: “You’ll be here for at least 5 years…”

    My niece is in a private college pursuing her bachelor degree in music education. They also told her at orientation it was a 5 year program. It seems colleges have decided that 4 year degrees are now 5 year degrees.

  40. Dave Hardy says:

    “It seems colleges have decided that 4 year degrees are now 5 year degrees.”

    It’s all about the money, period. What a racket. Our daughter is supposedly wrapping up her BA in Languages and Music this spring, or so we were led to believe, and it’s already been six years; of course she changed her major halfway through. To top it off, without going into tedious detail, they play all kinds of games with billing and credits and what they will and will not release depending on if our bill is paid, and I’m not kidding, literally up to the minute. I’m waiting for them to hold us up some more just prior to graduation; you’d think they’d at least have the courtesy to wear masks while they rob us.

    What I’ve noticed also, is that colleges and universities are now top-heavy with administrators, who pull down very nice salaries and perks. With all kinds of made-up titles and job descriptions.

    So far as I can tell, there are only about half a dozen decent, genuine institutions of undergraduate education left in the U.S. now. The rest are just baby-sitting and indoctrination and party camps. Drink and dope and get laid at night and then report to the daily dose of Bolshevik claptrap. And wring Mommy and Daddy’s pocketbook and wallet out and/or pile on the student loan debt.

  41. lynn says:

    My niece is in a private college pursuing her bachelor degree in music education. They also told her at orientation it was a 5 year program. It seems colleges have decided that 4 year degrees are now 5 year degrees.

    Most college degrees used to be a total of 120 hours. In the 1970s and 80s, most, if not all, college degree programs were expanded to 130+ hours to add liberal arts to STEM degrees. And such and so forth to the liberal arts degrees. It was thought that the students needed more rounding outside their areas of indoctrination.

  42. Chad says:

    Also, with this push to make sure everyone in the US has a bachelor degree they won’t be worth much more than a high school diploma in another generation or so. If you flood the market with bachelors degrees they no longer mean anything.

  43. Dave Hardy says:

    As fah as I’m concerned, they don’t mean anything now. Unless it’s from a reputable college and it’s in a STEM program with a good track record. Although I’m tempted to be open to the possibility of a genuine medievalist who has multiple dead and modern languages down cold and is not concerned with the usual PC blather and malarkey and is also not too concerned with finding a job anywhere in his or her field. His or her period of medieval lit, history, philosophy, etc., should be well before the Protestant Reformation and the so-called Early Modern Period. I’m thinking 476 to 1300 AD. That would take in the first half, roughly, of Dante’s life.

  44. Eugen (Romania) says:

    We have a new government as of today. Nothing good to be said about any of it’s members. So, no point in wasting more time on this news.

    No Romanian university is in the Top 500 Universities of the world. And there are only about 200 countries in the world. No bright future either. Again, time wasted…

  45. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    “I’m thinking 476 to 1300 AD. That would take in the first half, roughly, of Dante’s life.”

    So Dante was born in 476 CE and won’t die until 2124 CE?

  46. Dave Hardy says:

    “So Dante was born in 476 CE and won’t die until 2124 CE?”

    Somebody cue up whichever one of the Three Stooges who used to say “Oh–a wiseguy, aaaaaaaay??!!” I think it was Curly.

    And what’s with that “CE” stuff? Is before the Year Zero “BCE,” too? To me that’s of a piece with calling the Renaissance the “Early Modern Period,” because “renaissance” implies a triumphalist patriarchal episode that marginalizes the other genders and religions, and arguably more important herstorical periods, etc., etc., etc. What if Buddhists or Jews or God forbid, musloids had conquered most of the world and modernized and fed much of it, and also had the most advanced science and engineering and arts? But they didn’t. It was Christians, and mainly, BOOM, Christian men.

    “Oh my !”

    Hey, so long as we’re stopping it in Windows 10, amirite?

  47. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Scientists use CE and BCE in the same way that Christians use BC and AD.

  48. SteveF says:

    I use CE and BCE as well. I recognize no lord or Lord other than myself. If you want to use Anno Domini in years, be advised that we are currently in 54AD if I rightly understand how the years are numbered.

    As for BC, to the extent that the christian prophecied one existed at all, it looks like he was born in 4BC, thanks to clerical error in doing arithmetic with Roman numerals, which rather vitiates insistence on the “BC” nomenclature.

    “Common Era” and “Before Common Era” suffer no such debilitations. We can stick a pin anywhere and call that the 0 point.

  49. lynn says:

    “National Firearms Reciprocity Bill JUST Introduced”
    http://cqrcengage.com/gunowners/app/write-a-letter?3&engagementId=270553

    “Yesterday, Congressman Richard Hudson introduced legislation to grant national reciprocity for Americans who can carry concealed firearms in their home states.”

    “After years of discussion and negotiation, Hudson’s new bill, H.R. 38, unifies the major components of the Second Amendment community and has the strong support of Gun Owners of America.”

    “The Hudson bill would ensure that victims of crime like Pennsylvania concealed carry holder Shaneen Allen do not face decades of imprisonment merely because they took an erroneous turn into another state. It would cut through the labyrinth in which 50 different sets”

  50. Dave Hardy says:

    “Scientists use CE and BCE in the same way that Christians use BC and AD.”

    Dang it, that’s right, I plumb forgot about that. OK, you won’t go to Hell now.

    “I recognize no lord or Lord other than myself.”

    Ah, a Protestant! (just kidding! kidding!!!)

    “vitiates”

    Ooooooo….slick use of a relatively uncommon Latinate verb…well played, sir.

    Pikers, the lot of youse. How about "ARSH?"

    from Barnhardt:

    “What does ARSH mean on your date stamps?”

    “It is the abbreviation for the Latin, “Anno Reparatae Salutis Humanae” which means, “In the Year of the Reparation of Human Salvation.” Why? Because “Anno Domini” just isn’t quite hardcore enough for me.”

  51. SteveF says:

    ARSE – Anno Reparatae Salutis AEternus – The Year of Reparation of Eternal Salvation

    (If I got the adjective ending correct, concerning which I have no confidence.)
    (And don’t give me no guff about the AE ligature.)

  52. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Mithuth Smith fell on her arsh?

  53. Dave Hardy says:

    It would be “Mithuth Thmith fell on her arth.” Or “ath.”

    “ligature”

    Oooooooo….another Latinate word…noun thith time, too…well played, well played.

  54. nick flandrey says:

    Ohh, you guys are choking me up!

    n

  55. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    “ath”

    Properly, yes. I did the best I could with the acronym you gave me.

  56. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Why are you reading HuffPo?

  57. SteveF says:

    Followed a link there.

  58. Dave Hardy says:

    Is that what’s known as “clickbait?”

    Cupholder my ath.

  59. nick flandrey says:

    There was video on Daily Mail a couple of days ago featuring the “cupholder” recipient.

    Nasty to try to keep clean, no matter which part goes in your hand….

    n

  60. nick flandrey says:

    anyone got any more on this story?

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/01/guilty-fake-news-media-democrat-party-responsible-horrific-chicago-racist-hate-crime/

    n

    It’s so out there it has to be fake but if not, lock and load.

  61. lynn says:

    Questionable Content: “Orbital Railgun Justice”
    http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3389

    THOR lives !

  62. Dave Hardy says:

    “It’s so out there it has to be fake but if not, lock and load.”

    Dunno. But it fits their MO. Always a bunch on one and preferably the one is elderly, disabled, or just a kid.

  63. nick flandrey says:

    zerohedge picked it up and says it’s confirmed

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-04/chicago-teens-broadcast-alleged-kidnapping-trump-supporter-live-social-media

    Sweet jebus those fuckers are stupid. And I bet there won’t be one riot in response, although I think they should just call in the arclight. seriously. NO redeeming value at all.

    n

  64. SteveF says:

    Yah, I know that intelligence is important in overall life success and I know Americans with recent African ancestors average something over a standard deviation below national average, but how can anyone be that stupid and be able to breathe? Trying to instigate what looks like a racially divided war of extermination when you’re outnumbered about six to one goes beyond stupid.

  65. Dave Hardy says:

    Not all of them are full-on retards; I’ve seen several vids of at least one guy who’s about as militant as they come, but he doesn’t hold back an iota in telling the bruthas and sistahs that taking on Whitey with firearms in a war is muthafuckin’ stupid as shit. I be usin’ his lingo there for a sec, for max impact, haha. And then there’s all the regular folks in those places just trying to get through the damn day, like a lot of us out here, and they’re trapped.

    IIRC, the reports have gone on to inform us all that the four (?) perps have been arrested, and I may have missed it, but what word of the victim? If convicted after the usual “fair trial,” how about we string them up for crimes against humanity, instead of the usual AA&B and Attempted Murder, etc.?

  66. Dave Hardy says:

    Words of common sense from the zman:

    http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=9290

    That’s just it; they don’t read or remember history, and they don’t care. And if their latest chit fails, they double down on it.

    What we’re about to see continue in this country:

    1.) The continued, because nearly unstoppable with such wide-open borders and the hordes already here, invasions of potential enemy combatants behind us, so to speak, i.e., within the gates, along with any terrorist sleeper cells long since in place. And…

    2.) In front of us, any number of potential hot spots that can flare up and ignite yet another war…along with…

    3.) Every possible attempt to tank the economy…and thus:

    A three-pronged assault on the U.S. with half of our government and almost all of our MSM and academia at the very least in sympathy with the enemy, if not actually actively aiding and abetting (how’s that for alliteration; Anglo-Saxons loved it!).

    All of this chit has been done before in history to bring down governments, countries and empires; it’s nothing new at all, other than in the instant transmission of data, text and pixels worldwide so long as the Grid stays up, which is another potential threat; a few determined peeps with a few tools can bring down whole sections of the Grid and other infrastructure.

    Regardless of which National Administrator is in whichever white house and regardless of which people are in his Cabinet and among his advisors, we are in for an interesting few years ahead. Does anyone here think Soros or the Clinton Crime Family or Obola are just gonna shut the fuck up and go away and not bother us anymore?

  67. lynn says:

    I love a dozen of their songs; they sure have been through some personnel changes since the damn plane crash, too.

    I remember that very well. I was watching the NBC nightly news with Dad in his bedroom. I was hanging with him because he had not left his bed for months due to severe back issues. Was really cancer in his right leg causing his back to go out. The announcer came on and said that the Lynyrd Skynyrd band has crashed their airplane and some of them were dead. I had to explain who Lynyrd Skynyrd was to Dad.

  68. ech says:

    I love a dozen of their songs; they sure have been through some personnel changes since the damn plane crash, too.

    An acquaintance of mine was on the plane. His twin brother was at the destination waiting on the plane. He broke a lot of bones but fully recovered.

  69. Miles_Teg says:

    “Scientists use CE and BCE in the same way that Christians use BC and AD.”

    Atheists and historians/anthropologists use it too. Sometimes to accomodate mooooslems, sometimes to accomodate precious snowflakes. I seriously don’t care.

    First time I saw BCE used was in Scientific American 20-25 years ago, where it was explained as “Before Christian Era”. Now it invariably means “Before Common Era”.

  70. nick flandrey says:

    Anyone who wants some eye opening info from someone on the frontlines of the war on poverty and black underacheivement- live stream of discussion on Houston radio station

    http://tunein.com/radio/The-Voice-700-s35292/

    On the radio, a guy from Generation One Houston, who has 10 yrs working in the 3rd ward (really shitty black area of houston) trying to make a difference. Also city councilmember, and a cop.

    n

  71. nick flandrey says:

    Some things

    “we were working with teens and we’re finding that our first group of basketball kids has started getting killed.”

    “after ten years we’ve found that all the critical things happen age 0 to 5. That’s when you have to get them or there is NO return on investment for any money or effort you spend.”

    “now we’re teaching our 2 and 3 yos self regulation [and some other stuff] and seeing changes in their success.”

    n

  72. nick flandrey says:

    “we’ve had kids in the project for 2 years before we saw their parent. We drop kids off at home where there is never a parent there.”

    “we see 5-7yos, out on the street at 3am”

    ” they call the cops, ems, fire for all sorts of things other than emergencies. – really? yes, like “move my couch”. -Councilman- yeah, and we can’t do anything about it, what are we gonna do? Put them in prison? They don’t have any money to pay the fines…. ”

    n

  73. nick flandrey says:

    “you have until age 5. all their self awareness, self regulation, empathy, trust, develops before then. After age 5 it’s therapy and [retraining]….”

    n

  74. Harold says:

    Just in from Chicago (home of love)
    Four black teens kidnap white man, force him to denounce Donald Trump on video. (Why does this suddenly sound like a Taliban thing?) Chicago (home of love) Police capture the perps and announce there is no evidence this is a HATE crime committed for racial or political reasons. Can’t you feel the love?

  75. Dave says:

    I propose that we standardize on BC and AD to give offense to Militant Muslims. Anyone who isn’t Muslim and is offended by this can either deal with it or go live in the Muslim world.

  76. nick flandrey says:

    From the Generation One website, the cleaned up PC version of what the founder was stating much more plainly on the radio:

    “In May 2014 an extensive program evaluation was conducted after 3 years of operation. Research shows that children from low-income families hear an average of 8 million fewer words per year than children from high-income families. This means that by the time these children are 4 years old, they will have heard 30 million less words than children coming from high-income families. This is commonly referred to as the 30 million word gap [1]. Findings clearly indicate that the greatest gains occur when quality education is introduced as early as possible. As a result, the Academy was redesigned to become an Early Childhood Intervention Program (Pre-K to first grade) in response to the findings which indicated the greatest achievement and behavioral gains had been made by the youngest children.

    All ages of students improved, but replacing the poor work habits and behavior of the older students was the most labor and time-intensive. To that end, partnerships with Young Scholars Academy and the Nehemiah Center were created to serve G1A’s older students. Generation One would continue to provide after-school and summer programs for them along with the early intervention students. The ultimate goals for students graduating from the Early Childhood Intervention Program and attend our partner schools are:

    –They achieve at or above grade level

    — Are equipped with self-regulation/ social skills/productive work habits

    –Have at least one family member equipped to help them navigate successfully through the educational system.

    Posted here as an example of the difficulties faced by real world do gooders, with some real “home truths” about a segment of the population that we often talk about in terms of prepping and social issues.

    When I post a “not like us” link, they really aren’t. We read, we are socially connected, we can self-regulate, we are capable of looking to the future, we are self supporting. The ones that make the news as “not like us” can’t or don’t do those things. If they don’t get normal ‘human’ conditioning before age 5 they just aren’t gonna get there.

    nick

  77. nick flandrey says:

    the guy just made the point that these kids don’t expect to live, they want to be remembered. They want to leave a memory behind. That goes a long way toward explaining something like livestreaming a kidnapping and torture.

    n

  78. Dave Hardy says:

    Even so, they will only be remembered, like the rest of us in this vale of tears, so long as our immediate family members and good friends are alive. After two or three generations, unless there is something really memorable, that’s it.

    I never met my great-grandparents but I know who they were; I remember my grandparents and aunts and uncles and parents, but after me and my siblings are gone, that’s it. Great-grandmother, wife and I will be remembered by the kids and great-grandkids, dimly, perhaps, to the end of this century. After that, not much.

    As for the inner cities; the do-gooders have had half a century to figure this out; I am skeptical. They didn’t get it that you have to latch onto the 0-5-year-olds back then?

    And now it will take two to three more generations to get a foothold, not likely considering the pending future.

  79. MrAtoz says:

    We worked with Houston ISD frequently before Katrina. We had leadership, human communications, etc. programs in grade school through high school. We were called in for a meeting with the Super announcing no more contracts. A new smartypants Libturdian PhD stood up and said, pretty much, “We are going to fix student problems on our own in High School”. MrsAtoz just said “that’s way too late” and we walked out never to work in HISD again. I see Mr. PhD’s plan worked out very well.

  80. ech says:

    I read an interesting story about Felix Tijerina, the founder of the Felix’s Mexican restaurant chain in Houston. He was very active in local politics and was head of LULAC for 1956-60. One of his accomplishments was the “little school of the 400”, a program to teach Spanish-speaking kids 400 basic words of English before kindergarten. It was a big success and was an inspiration for Head Start and the like. Alas, it’s been morphed into the mess that is bilingual education. As one writer put it: “Tijerina’s story is a study in assimilation. His mission was to help Mexican-Americans merge into the American mainstream as successfully as he had.”

  81. Dave Hardy says:

    Thanks for the dark chuckle of the day, MrAtoz. That figures.

    None of this is new, by the way; look into the very late Jonathan Swift’s writings on “projectors” and innovators like that, along with several of the other famous 18th-C English writers. At the macro level, they are extremely dangerous; Rousseau, Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, et. al.

    And at the micro level, i.e., public skool systems, they only destroy the minds of generations.

  82. Mike G. says:

    This is more sensible,

    A New History for Humanity – The Human Era

    Happy 12,017!

    .mg

  83. Dave Hardy says:

    “His mission was to help Mexican-Americans merge into the American mainstream as successfully as he had.”

    The Bolsheviks in the skool sytems can’t have anything like that. They’re rather see Nueva Aztlan y viva la Raza.

  84. MrAtoz says:

    Bi-lingual education seems to be another commie construct to keep the masses stupid. With over 100 languages in LA alone, it is a win for commies and lose for Normals. It’s hard enough with Spanish where parents only speak Spanish, throw in some Mandarin and Moosfuktalk language and MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

  85. nick flandrey says:

    Yep, start off with a handicap, keep going with that handicap.

    ESL is a very profitable area for the teachers. Years ago the schools called for more bilinguals, and they got them, then they needed to create a NEED for them.

    ESL and teaching in the student’s ‘home’ language ghetto-izes them by separating them, and holding back their education.

    my grandmother arrived in the US LEGALLY as a child, and attended school in Chicago. Mornings in Polish, afternoons in English, both languages she didn’t speak. Didn’t take too long to learn them BOTH. Of course, she had the normal IQ for white europeans, wasn’t damaged in the womb by alcohol or crack, had 2 parents in her family, and WAS EXPECTED to learn and get acculturated.

    Go to Mexico on vacation, and every billboard you see has ads for ENGLISH lessons. They know how to get ahead in life.

    n

  86. SteveF says:

    ESL is a very profitable area for the teachers. Years ago the schools called for more bilinguals, and they got them, then they needed to create a NEED for them.

    Son#1 arrived in the US at age 8 knowing about 11 words of English (“hello” and counting 1-10). He needed the ESL for the first half of fourth grade and didn’t really need it for the second half. He was in a different school district in 5th grade, had no ESL teacher, and got near perfect grades in all subjects. In 6th grade he was back to the first school district and they tried really hard to get him back in ESL, all the while crying about how much it cost and what a drain on resources and blah blah blah.

    As I say all the time, words lie but actions usually tell the true story. They weren’t acting like it was a drain on school finances, and by gum it wasn’t — NYS sends lots of sweet, sweet cash to districts for every special needs student, of which ESL students are a notable fraction.

  87. Dave Hardy says:

    My ancestors came over 400 years ago speaking the King’s bloody English and to this day we’re still speaking it. Truly awesome. And I am the only bugger in my entire family, leaving aside wife and Princess, that has had substantial foreign language exposure and familiarity. Not that I do anything with it in particular, since leaving grad skool a quarter-century ago, but there it is.

    Public skool systems in FUSA have long since been rackets for unions and Bolshevik indoctrination. The ESL scam is just one small facet.

  88. Miles_Teg says:

    DH wrote:

    “I am the only bugger in my entire family…”

    Too much information Dave… 🙂

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