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Hockey Night in Texas

2008-10-04T04:17:00.000-05:00

Went out and played hockey this evening. I had planned to show up and buy a new jock/cup, but the store closed roughly an hour early. So I started plotting to go out to dinner instead. I value my gonads more than I wanted to play hockey, so I figured I was out for the night, but the coach had one he bought and didn't want nor like nor use, and had washed it, so he gave it to me (for good) and I got to play.

I've been playing on the White team, as opposed to the Black team. We're supposedly looking for names for the team, so I suggested that we should be, respectively, the Supremacy and the Power. I get the feeling they'll say no on racial grounds.

I didn't have my usual Oleg Tverdovsky #10 jersey from his days with the Soviet Wings, so I wore my Stars jersey with no name or number on it. My previous line had been split up from last season, so I was assigned to be on a line with the two players wearing Suomi jerseys (Finnish national team), which amused me because we were all wearing jerseys that were worn by a lot of Finns.

We actually played like a team, and even though we got shut out 2-0 due to failing to take advantage of some opportunities, we definitely played well and could have taken advantage of some things we didn't. Our goalie made a few big mistakes too, and they managed to capitalize on that.

As for me, I know a few mistakes I made that could easily have been avoided. I positioned myself poorly a few times, I failed to break diagonally on a couple opportunities, and I played too close to the boards on approach once or twice. I also suffered from an uncalled hooking on a breakaway, which ended with my right wrist being pulled behind me by a high stick, and as a result instead of making a proper approach I had to chase the puck to the boards where they never should have ended up. That should have been a penalty shot, but there's nothing I can do by complaining.

My old season in Euless ended, so I'll be switching back to my old team in Grapevine. They're moving back to D-league from Tier III (C), which is good because we no longer have the players that forced our move from D to C. They don't start until the end of the month, so hopefully it won't be until I return from my trip. If I miss the first game, I'm ok with that, since the trip is more important than a single recreational hockey game.

We went out to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings, and enjoyed cheering for the Red Sox. We're no Red Sox fans, but we can't stand the Angels. Amy discovered she definitely likes Carribean Jerk sauce. After the Red Sox beat the Angels, we sat around talking hockey and fantasy football while waiting for a check. It turned out that the credit card machine had been down, and they finally got it working just as we were about to pay. We stopped off for a few things at Mega Lo Mart on the way home.

Farewell, WaMu

2008-09-30T13:32:00.001-05:00

Well, I've been off-and-on in this whole blogging concept for a while now, and I've been wanting to get back into the "on" of it. So here I go.

Last week was interesting because my bank tanked. Washington Mutual, my bank since 2002, has been excellent from an account-holder point of view. Keep in mind that this is only one side of the deal. Meanwhile, there was obviously another side that wasn't working so well. When I joined WaMu, I randomly walked in with the memory of somebody having a good experience with them that I knew back in California. At that time I had been with Redwood Credit Union, who are an excellent option if you live near enough to them.

When I moved to Texas, I switched to BankOne because it was what my now-wife's family used, and one of her aunts worked there. Not long thereafter, I knew I was going to be moving to another bank before long. How? I learned very quickly that they don't like, care about, or wish to benefit their customers.

At the time I was a night-stocker at a grocery store. My shifts ended around 6 or 7 in the morning, and one morning on a payday I collected my check and drove to the bank. Not being open yet, I sat in my car and waited in the parking lot for it to open. This was just after the September 11th attacks. While I waited, a man came out of the bank and asked what I was doing. I told him I was waiting for the bank to open, and he asked why. I told him I was waiting because the bank was closed, and I wished to deposit a check. He told me I could do it at the ATM, and I told him I preferred not to. So he walked back into the bank, and I went back to my reading.

A few minutes later I heard a car pulling into the lot, and then another. I saw in my rear view that it was two local police cars. I pretty much knew they were there to pay me a visit, so I watched the mirrors as they blocked my car in. Upon knocking on my window, I rolled it down and greeted them. They started questioning me, and I answered the same set of questions as I had told the banker. They then started to ask questions about what was in my car, and asked if I had any bombs or tanks or anything in the car. I told them that aside from the box-cutters from work that were in the glove box and the fighter jet in the trunk, I didn't have anything that could be classed as a weapon. After taking down my information, they departed. I went into the bank, told the banker that he had lost my business, and that as soon as all my transactions had cleared I would no longer be banking with them. My fiance had had all sorts of trouble while opening an account recently herself, and I wasn't going to put up with it.

A couple weeks later I walked into a Washington Mutual branch and was immediately treated with the same kind of courtesy, respect, and service I enjoyed in my six years with them. After a few questions and listening to the banker's spiel in the WaMu branch, I held up a penny from my pocket and asked, "So are you saying I could open a no-fee checking account with this penny and you will give me checks, a debit card, and not charge me fees?" The only answer I got was a smile and a yes. I got out a $20 bill and told him to sign me up.

In the years between them, I opened a business account, got married, changed industries, bought and sold a house, and enjoyed worry-free banking. In the same period, BankOne became Chase, the CEO of BankOne became the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, and now on Thursday, JP Morgan Chase became the proud owners of an institution I didn't wish to leave. Now, however, I can't stay. There's no way I will do business with these people. I'm going back to Redwood Credit Union, a financial institution which rarely deals in mortgages at all, and deals with what seems to be a significantly more stable clientele. Unlike when I first moved to Texas, I live in a town now where I can access another credit union, the American Airlines Credit Union and a few others, that will allow me to handle any necessary in-person banking.

I hate to see WaMu fail, but at the same time I'm excited to be going back to RCU. I had kind of considered it before, I just never did. Now I can do it without any risk of regretting leaving WaMu.

NHL Conference Second Round Predictions (and Conference Quarterfinals results)

2008-04-24T19:23:00.000-05:00

Monteal Canadiens vs. Boston Bruins (4-3)
My guess: Habs in 5 (Right team, two games off)

Philadelphia Flyers vs. Washington Capitals (4-3)
My guess: Flyers in 6 (Right team, one game off)

Montreal Canadiens vs. Philadelphia Flyers
The Habs really showed weakness by taking so long to finish off the very same Bruins they schooled all throughout the season, while the Flyers made some of their strongest showings that I've seen this season against Ovechkin and the Caps. The Flyers just seem to be the stronger team here, and I think the Flyers can break them.

Result:
Flyers in five

Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Ottawa Senators (4-0)
My guess: Pens in 4 (exact!)

New York Rangers vs. New Jersey Devils (4-1)
My guess: Rangers in 5 (exact!)

Pittsburgh Penguins vs. New York Rangers
These are two great teams, and it's going to make for some incredible games. That said, the Penguins are probably the best skating team in the NHL right now, and Lundqvist may be the best goalie to enter the league since Ron Hextall. (Holy War alert!) This is going to be close, I suspect.

Result:
Pens in seven

Detroit Red Wings vs. Nashville Predators (4-2)
My guess: Wings in 4 (right team, two games off)

Colorado Avalanche vs. Minnesota Wild (4-2)
My guess: Wild in 6 (Wrong team, right number of games)

Detroit Red Wings vs. Colorado Avalanche
The Detroit Red Wings are a great team, and I'm surprised it took them so long to beat the Predators. I thought about predicting a Wings sweep again, and thought better of it. The thin air is rough on an athlete in Colorado (I'm kind of assuming they play at high altitude) so I'm going to give the Avs a game.

Result:
Wings in five

San Jose Sharks vs. Calgary Flames (4-3)
My guess: Flames in 7 (right number of games, wrong team)

Dallas Stars vs. Anaheim Ducks (4-2)
My guess: Stars in 7 (right team, one game off)

San Jose Sharks vs. Dallas Stars
The Stars have overcome a lot of injuries and a lot of shortcomings this season, the most prominent loss being Sergei Zubov. Sergei is back on the roster, and considered day-to-day., It'll be interesting to see him back in action, but I don't want to see it if he's not ready.

Result: Stars in seven

Another weekend, another season

2008-04-21T18:11:00.005-05:00

I started a new season with the West team this past Saturday night, and so far I'm amazed how much better I've gotten since September. I've been playing in a C2 level league (I'm more a D-level player, I-level when I started) and this is a new I-minor team. We did pretty well, and I was definitely much better than I thought, but perhaps that's not fair to say since this is the beginner level league and I've been playing for eight months, four and a half in C2 league.

We didn't have assigned numbers yet, but I managed to get the number 37. Kevin Smith fans will recognize the reference as one thing, and Monty Python will recognize it as something else. I'm not old, and I'll try not to suck any dick on the way to the ice. There, now the references are out of the way.

It was my first time in anything but I-league scrimmage at the other facility playing as a center, and it wasn't too bad. Even at the other league I'd only been in for one or two shifts as a center. We had one goaltender, four defensemen, and two forward lines. They assembled the first line, and we got our line together. It turned out that I was assigned a girl who had never put on pads before, and a guy who hadn't skated in four years. This left the obvious decision of me playing in the middle and my two cohorts as wings. I asked which side they'd prefer, and neither had a preference. After asking whether my female teammate was left or right handed, I assigned her to right wing to match her handedness, but we changed our mind at the last minute and made her left wing upon determining that it was closer to the bench.

Anyhow, I made a good show of it, despite missing my many shots. Even on four breakaways, countless shots, and an instance of running in circles. I learned that impressive play is not always a mark of skill. On one approach, I lacked a shot, so I looked for a pass but lacked one, so I took it around the net, going through a few guys in the process with fancy-looking puckhandling that really consisted of me losing and regaining the puck rapidly, and upon still lacking a shot or pass, I did it again. Then I just tossed it in the corner to let my winger get some practice. I probably should have shot, but their goal was pretty much clogged with defensemen and out-of-position forwards from both teams. In the end, we did win 4-1.

The officiating was much better than my old facility, as was the ice. The Zamboni was actually in proper repair, which is astounding after my old rink. I was very appreciated by my teammates, and I've now volunteered as a substitute for two other teams at different rinks. Looking forward to more hockey with these guys. This season is going to be a blast.

Hockey Playoff Picks

2008-04-09T20:57:00.001-05:00

I know it's a little late, but here's my picks for the NHL playoffs in the first round. I haven't looked at any of the scores yet, other than the fact that the Pens game is on and I just caught the tail end of the Devils/Rangers game, so I admit a little head start, so I'm cheating as little as possible.

MONTREAL (1) vs. BOSTON (8)

Montreal hasn't lost against the Bruins yet this year. I know the playoffs are different, and it'd be great to see a more competitive matchup, but it's not in the cards. Even so, with the playoffs being different, the Bruins may pull out one win in the series.

RESULT

Habs in five.

PITTSBURGH (2) vs. OTTAWA (7)

The Pens really have a lot of great players and they're an excellent team this year. The Sens aren't near as good as they were last year. The pen is mightier.

RESULT

Pens in four

WASHINGTON (3) vs. PHILADELPHIA (6)

The Flyers are underrated, but this is coming from a Philly fan. They're not the best team in the league, but they're definitely better than the Caps.

RESULT

Flyers in six

NEW JERSEY (4) vs. N.Y. RANGERS (5)

Great goalies on both sides, but I don't think the Devils can hold the line against the Rangers. I don't think with Brodeur in the net though that the Devils will get swept either.

RESULT

Rangers in five

DETROIT (1) vs. NASHVILLE (8)

No contest. Detroit is leaps and bounds better than the Preds.

RESULT

Wings in four.

SAN JOSE (2) vs. CALGARY (7)

This is going to be the most exciting series of the round. Hard pick, but I'm going to have to go go with Calgary. I don't know why.

RESULT

Flames in seven

MINNESOTA (3) vs. COLORADO (6)

A pretty even matchup, I'm hearing people talk about Foppa this and Foppa that, but I don't think that'll matter so much when it comes to the post season. Still going to be close.

RESULT

Wild in six

ANAHEIM (4) vs. DALLAS (5)

Maybe I'm just biased, but I think the Ducks have more names than ability. They'll fight it out to the end, but it's going to be tough without Sergei Zubov, which is why I say seven instead of six.

RESULT

Stars in seven

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Two-game streak!

2008-03-26T02:24:00.001-05:00

Well, got back from tonight's hockey game, and it was a fun time. Our last late game, started at 2200. We had a surprisingly good turnout, with three lines, four defensemen, and two centers. Contrast this with our previous 2200 start times, where we had six or seven total players and ran it like rat hockey, and it becomes apparent how awesome having twelve guys was. The ice was way better than usual, with the rink having been cut down significantly to the point where we could actually see the lines on the ice. Previously, it was questionable whether there were lines under all that ice in the first place. They're still going to be repainting the ice before long here. This weekend I'm told. It appears that they shaved it down, which is amazing considering how terrible the Zambonis at our rink are. It was cut down to where I remember it being back in August when I bought my skates, though the paint under the ice was definitely worse for wear.

Enter the first period. Us in our grey jerseys, them in their St. Louis Blues bases with their bulldog logo on the front plus one guy in a Flyers jersey and another in a green jersey with some unknown logo. Went out for my first shift playing third line left winger, and immediately got rammed by the guy in the Flyers jersey. No big deal, even though we're a no-checking league, so I get back up and we continue. I get back to the bench and someone asks if it was a little rough out there, and I tell him that the guy in the Flyers jersey seems to want to be Eric Lindros, including the concussions. So we continue for a while longer, and our captain has a rebound bounce off his skate into the goal. Paste the other time being a bunch of whiny little girls here, insisting that he "kicked" the puck into the goal. Anyone who knows the rules of hockey knows that's a crock, and the zebras counted the goal. 1-0 us. A couple minutes later, they tie it up with a junk shot past our usually awesome goalie. No penalties in the first.

Second period gets us up 2-1, and each team gets their only two penalties of the game. Hooking for them, roughing for us. Our gameplay turns into a cluster, and nobody really accomplishes anything in the second. One of our player departs, having taken some personal time off work to come play but not enough time to stay the whole game. The dull blades on one of our centers' skates are obvious, but he's doing a surprisingly good job of making do. He knew they were bad when he got there, but had no time or means to get them sharpened beforehand.

Start the third period. They tie it up with a junk shot 8 seconds into the period, and then less than five minutes later they're leading 4-2 with two goals in 19 seconds during the fourth minute. Our team gets fired up, and a few minutes later we make it 4-3, and another 45 seconds later we're tied 4-4. Enter my line a few minutes later, and after a couple very short plays ending in more faceoffs, we get the puck in the zone. I remember what I've been meaning to try out, and I start screening the goalie. Boy did that make their goalie and one of their defensemen mad. After less than a minute of screening him, we're leading 6-4. We change lines, and after a bit, it's 6-on-5 with the opponents having pulled their goalie for a faceoff on our side of the ice. Ten seconds later, it's 6-5, and eighteen seconds after that, we've won!

Two game streak in a league we've only just entered this season after having previously been in the champions in the league below the one we're in now. It was a rocky start to the season, but we've really grown into this level of play. Now that I've discovered how effective this "screening" stuff is, I really need to do it more.

Hockey pics from last week

2007-10-05T01:51:00.000-05:00

Since I work today, and can't play hockey, here are the pictures from last week. I'm the one in the green jersey and the red socks.

Game 2, I-League

2007-09-29T01:28:00.000-05:00

Played my second game of hockey tonight. Yeah, that's me in the green. It's an instructional league, so I can't be too proud of the fact that we won, but I'm still proud of it. 5-2, according to my wife. I don't remember for sure, I was too busy playing to worry about the score. Had a great time. Played LW last week, RW this week. Then I got a little practice with one of the goalies afterwards.

My stats for tonight:
1 assist
5 shots on goal
1 turn-over
2 off-sides
0 PIM

More Ice Hockey!

2007-06-12T00:48:00.000-05:00

On Saturday night after going to the Saturday Night service at Richland Hills, we met up with Randi and Chris, along with Silas and Olivia. Got something to eat and then went over to Grapevine Mills with the intent to walk a lap around the place. Instead, we ended up taking Silas and Olivia to their first sporting event: A hockey game. A game between the DFW Titans (who I later learned were a Public Safety hockey team consisting of firefighters and police officers) versus somebody with red jerseys and what Amy identified as a Panther logo. I don't know where they were from, as I haven't seen them before and none of their equipment that I saw had it written on it.

It was pretty fun, Silas got all excited and watched everything. Olivia didn't like the buzzer at the end of the periods. It was a good time. The Titans won 2-1 despite most of the end being in Power Play or 5 on 3 against them.

I've toyed with the idea of trying to play ice hockey, but since I've never played, I don't want to dive into it due to the expense of the whole thing. I might try going to pick-up game night over there sometime if I can find used equipment for cheap enough at some point, but I don't know yet. It's always looked fun to me, but the cost and the fact that I've never played ice hockey before sort of make me wonder if it's a good idea. I figure I'll keep watching on craigslist and see what I can see. There was a pair of hockey skates that looked to be in great shape somebody was selling in my size in Frisco for $15, so if I do it right it might not actually be too bad. Who knows, we'll see.

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Chim chiminey chim chiminey

2007-05-03T09:56:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been giving some consideration to starting to post again, and may even do so. No promises yet. As with any reviving blog though, never expect something identical to what you're used to seeing. What I will do, however, is provide a few photos of my new apartment building and the big hole in the roof from where a chimney over a different unit was blown off by the storms last night. I wasn't here, but Amy was, and she said she felt the building shake pretty good.

2006-11-17T23:40:00.000-06:00

I discovered in soliver571's Xanga that Michael Moore has decided to be a self-righteous jackass once again, and since I haven't torn an idiot apart piece-by-piece in a while, here's me pointing out the obvious stupidity of his claims.

Let me take this son-of-a-bitch's pledge piece by piece.

1) We will always respect you. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.

Why would you ever need to call us unpatriotic? Last time I checked, conservatives were not the ones backing the UN's global control agendas, opposing our troops in the field and their objective, calling them idiots and their lives wasted, and keeping them from fighting a war like it was really a war. I only wish more of our side had the cojones to see the folly of the tactics we are using and call a spade a spade. Nor are we the ones more interested in how we treat our enemies than our own, who reject profiling in favor of feel-good but worthless "randomness" as if Old Black Granny or 7 Year Old White Bobby is going to commit a terrorist act on a plane, or persist in pursuing fallacious "Bush Lied" claims despite solid evidence that he as well as many of those Democrats who now decry him were speaking based off the same intel. Whether the evidence was correct or not is the question of any who truly deserve to be called patriotic. Slander is never honorable, nor is it patriotic.

2) We will let you marry whomever you want (even though some among us consider your Republican behavior to be "different" or "immoral"). Who you marry is none of our business. Love, and be in love — it's a wonderful gift.

Every time I hear this argument I am reminded just how stupid it is. Marriage is what it is. Unfortunately, much like the leftist view of the constitution, the left also views words as "how we think they should have been defined" rather than "how they are defined".

3) We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook too, and we will balance it for you.

The problem is, tax-and-spend types like modern Democrats seem to believe that expanding government and raising taxes are something other than "spending our grandchildren's money on our personal whims", and see enriching total strangers in both our own and other countries by robbing our own as valorous. I want less government involvement in my checkbook, not more of it. I admit that tax reductions aside, the Republicans have failed on this front too, but I don't believe for a moment that the Democrats are going to be any better.

4) When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home too. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on some amateur Power Point presentation cooked up by men who have never been to war.

There are many problems with this, but I feel they will illustrate themselves if they succeed in a cut-and-run in Iraq.

5) When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you too will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that afflict you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family too.

Right, because universal health coverage has worked so well elsewhere. Also, considering all the advances have happened in adult, not embryonic, stem cell research, and that we have not outlawed it in the first place, this is a huge red herring.

6) When we clean up our air and water, you too will be able to breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water. When we put an end to global warming, you will no longer have to think about buying oceanfront property in Yuma.

First off, global warming is nothing but a scare tactic, and probably even a natural phenomenon if it's happening at all. Weather has always been cyclic.

Second, if your air and water are filthy (as leftists tend to suppose), perhaps you should have thought twice before moving into a densely populated area like New York City or Los Angeles. The air and water are just fine where I live.

7) Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.

Mohammed Atta and his buddies died in 9/11. Finding and taking out the whole of Al Qaeda is a bigger job than it sounds, considering they are decentralized, have cells all over, and operate under the guise of civilians in so many countries that it's near impossible to really make a difference just by catching "him" (whoever "him is; killing bin Laden is not the end of Al Qaeda, and he did not put himself on a plane in the US on that fateful morning). I have yet to see a clear majority of modern Democrats (with obvious rare dissenters like Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller) who had the backbone to follow through on anything of the sort. Democrats are more interested in shutting down any and all programs we have to find these bastards.

8) We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.

Right, because much like the attitude of a certain political party from Germany in the first half of the 20th, as long as you convince yourselves they aren't humans, it's fine to kill people. The sad thing is, mentioning that online invokes Godwin's law despite the obvious veracity of the comparison.

9) We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, take up another sport. In the meantime, we will arm the deer to make it a fairer fight.

The second amendment has never, ever been about hunting.

10) When we raise the minimum wage, we will raise it for your employees too. They will use that money to buy more things, which means you will get the money back! And when women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage too.

Because it's fun to put low-wage people out of work by cutting the number of jobs available while creating unemployment at the same time! Whee!

11) We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't practice those beliefs. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me"). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism — starting here at home.

Picking and choosing religious snippets has always been a pasttime of modern leftists. To be fair, though, if you take things out of context as has been done above, you can prove pretty much anything biblically without being doctrinally accurate. Clinging to what is good and hating what is evil (Romans 12:9) has never been their strong suit. I guess they are distracted by their efforts to rob Peter to pay Paul.

12) We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and break the law. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side first. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

Moral corruption vs. legal corruption. Six of one, half dozen of the other. Both parties are just as guilty as each other. On both counts.

Now, as a special bonus for those of you who have stuck around this long, I'll put you off by saying stuff that may not please you.

Bin Laden isn't important. He thinks he is, and as long as you believe he is he will continue to be on a certain PR-style level, but he's not important. He is a figurehead, a spokesmodel, a talking head. He may as well be the terrorist version of Larry King. Taking him out will not hurt al Qaeda, and may even help them recruit in the short term. I am still for taking him out, but he's not a genius and he's not a mastermind.

He is one of potentially thousands of al Qadea leaders. Just as the Japanese emperor was not responsible for each and every new aircraft design Mitsubishi put out in the early forties and early thirties, and Churchill not the man who personally organized the Coastwatchers in the Pacific, there are always people who do the real work and the real planning. A CEO does not code software in most companies, he tells design departments what he wants and they delegate to the nth level. In a way, bin Laden is the most disposable man in that organization. As well as the most potent powder-keg if we kill him, since he will then be seen as a martyr.

Any fool can give an order to underlings to go find a way to blow up the White House or to sneak a dirty bomb into one of our ports. The real danger is the men who come up with the plan and execute that plan. These are the ones that need to be taken out most, and we have succeeded to a certain extent at this domestically.

Next time a leftist bitches that we haven't found/killed bin Laden yet, keep this in mind. Don't try to explain it though, you will only get a headache trying to make them understand.

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Computer Fun

2006-09-24T04:13:00.000-05:00

There hasn't been a lot of excitement around right now, since the beginning of September marked a drastic drop-off in the number of fire calls we have had. August was my fire department's record month for calls in its existence, which is saying something since we have been around since 1928. This break will be a big help, since it lets us take care of some badly neglected maintenance that we just couldn't afford the time for. First will be our brush truck, which has a minor leak. This isn't a big problem in itself, but the ordeal of removing the entire pump motor is a time-consuming hassle, and that brush truck is the busiest unit we have had, especially with Whitesboro's brush truck being unreliable. Their new one should be completed in the middle of next month.

Next on the list, according to my Chief, is the Battalion Command. Air conditioner needs work, and while it's a little late, it'll be nice next year. I think there are some other minor mechanical issues to be done as well. The booster is on the back burner, since its projected overhaul is the most considerable, but also the most optional. We want to turn it into a brush truck, and are just awaiting the funds.

As for me, the fiscal year for fire departments is coming up, which means they have money to hire. So I've been applying again, and it's nice to have that going on. Even if it means I'm running around and filling stuff out. The first two have the same day for physical agility, so I may have to pick one. It's a choice between the one I prefer, or the one that has more applicants and more slots. The one I prefer is closer, and I would pick it over the other.

I recently upgraded aoi-chan's processor from an Athlon Thunderbird 1000 MHz to an Athlon Thunderbird 1300 MHz when one of our firefighters bought himself a new Pentium IV system and gave me his old one. This turned out to be a really good deal for me, since it allowed me to upgrade the afforementioned processor, as well as replace my CD-RW and DVD-ROM with a single DVD±RW drive that I installed for him maybe six months ago (the CD-RW was out of his computer too, as it was given to me when he upgraded to the DVD±RW). It also added a 128MB and a 256MB DIMM of PC-133 to my memory stash, and I replaced a 64MB DIMM in aoi-chan with the 256MB DIMM. He also had a pair of 80 gigabyte IDE hard drives, unmatched unfortunately, which he determined he did not need since his new system was SATA and gave to me. One was in the old PC, the other brand new and still in its factory-sealed wrapper.

So total upgrades to aoi-chan in the process of Ken getting a new PC:

Processor from 1000MHz to 1300MHz
RAM from 704MB to 896MB
CD-RW and DVD-ROM replaced by a single DVD±RW
Hard drive can go from my 40GB to either of two 80GB if I feel like messing with it, but it's kind of a pain and I have over half of it free.

My data is still mostly kept on the file server, better known as miyuki. She has a 60GB, if I recall correctly, and is definitely a candidate for one of the 80GB models when I do a re-install soon. GCC (gnu C compiler) 4.1.1 has wreaked havoc on all three of the Pentium II machines on my network as far as upgrades go, but has only taken one out of commission. Have-blue, my laptop, freezes due to some kind of library fubar, and is being reinstalled. Twenty, Amy's new-to-her Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop is having minor issues, but still fuctions. For now. It too will probably be re-installed soon. Miyuki, an HP Kayak XU functioning as a file server, is unable to update itself due to the C compiler not being able to create executible code. Any techs in the audience will know what this means if they have ever messed with compilers. This should be solved when I re-install, as thankfully a stage1 install of Gentoo from a 2006.1 tarball will natively compile for GCC 4.1 series.

Soon, my network will be cured. I still don't understand why GCC 4.1.1 hates Pentium II machines so much, but there is little I can do about that other than be thankful it works when it's done. I'm not terribly well versed in C, so I won't pretend to know what advantages 4.x will hold, but I'm content with the idea that with a machine compiled from scratch all on 4.x will run properly. Broken libraries are no fun, and should be left to Red Hat.

And now, I leave you with a comic strip well worth reading, from the fine folks at Little Gamers.

Now Playing: Led Zeppelin - When The Levee Breaks
Computer: aoi-chan.systemsalchemy.org
Operating System: Linux aoi-chan 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 #1 PREEMPT Fri Sep 15 23:02:33 CDT 2006 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) processor GNU/Linux
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060917 Firefox/1.5.0.7

An embarrassment

2006-07-26T23:46:00.000-05:00

Note: I will be writing with initials today. This does not normally find itself to be the case in my entries, but due to not wanting to have things reflect poorly upon any individual or department, I have opted to do so today.

Well, the fire department was...interesting...to say the least today. I got woke up by a call for mutual aid to PPFD for a "fire". They wanted our Tanker, which is fine. We run excellent tanker ops. I heard KB on the radio telling Dispatch that he was on his way through PP and would be at CFD(I)'s station in about 10 minutes. So I got up, got dressed, and got to the station shortly after KB left in CFD(I)'s Tanker with DR. KB's daughter C was at the station, one of our explorers. She told me her dad had told her to wait, and if somebody else arrived, to go out there in CFD(I)'s Battalion with a cooler full of ice and bottled drinking water. So far so good.

Me and CB arrive on the scene right near downtown PP in CFD(I)'s Battalion, and followed CFD(I)'s Tanker to a filling location. As it turned out, DR refused to go help fill the tanker and stayed at the scene, which is completely unacceptable in the first place. CB and myself assisted, and followed CFD(I)'s Tanker to a location behind CFD(II)'s Engine where CFD(I)'s Tanker supplied it with water. DR returned from someplace, apparently the Command Post, to inform us that he had left a $1200 handheld radio on the bumper of CFD(I)'s Tanker before KB took it to fill up, so we had now lost a $1200 radio that we couldn't find.

Command came over to tell us that they had a Quint coming from TCFD to use its aerial gun to spray water from above. TCFD arrived, and PPFD broke down the entire water supply to let them set up their Quint (despite a superior location being ready and clear for the Quint) and began operations. I'm not going to even get into how much of a cluster the command situation was. Shortly thereafter, DR makes us aware that we have been cleared to leave. Me and KB found this unusual, since there was lots of work and water supply to be done. Also, we were still supplying CFD(II)'s Engine with water, while many other Engines were doing nothing. This is pretty much unheard of. DR broke down our connection and we departed.

We arrive back at station. KB is already fumingly annoyed at DR over the radio and the fact that CFD(I)'s Tanker's accountability tags and passports were still in PP somewhere, missing, since DR gave them to someone who put them somewhere we were not aware of and we couldn't retrieve them. What's even worse is that DR laughed and said that he had gone to Command and had seen WW (a former CFD(I) captain who hates CFD(I) there as one of those in charge. Long story and I don't know the half of it. He was quitting as I was joining, so I don't know the guy. DR apparently asked while CFD(I) Tanker was out filling up they were done with us. This is another unacceptable action, since it implies that you and your department have better things to do than help them. Our new and improving relationship with PPFD was not helped by this in any way, shape, or form.

To make matters worse, right afterward we picked up traffic on the radio scanner that GFD was being called for their tanker, FMFD was being called for a tanker, LFD was being called for manpower and I think maybe a tanker, and WFD for an Engine and manpower. All of these departments are much further than us. Which made myself and KB particularly annoyed with DR for humiliating our department like that. Fortunately, like usual, DR had already left. We wondered idly why he volunteers if all he wants to do is go home. We had wanted to fight fire. If we had known he had done that I would have told him to take the Battalion and go home, and then I would have gone to command and apologized for his actions right away and ridden home in the Tanker. I plan to write an email today to PPFD's chief and call PPFD's chief tomorrow about it. I want him to be aware that he acted on his own and his actions do not represent the rest of the department. Not being an officer, I can't exactly speak for us officially, but since I was there I feel somewhat responsible for his not having been stopped or questioned more closely in regards to what he was telling us.

DR returned, got a mild talking-to by our chief, and me and DR were sent in CFD(I)'s Brush truck to stand by at WFD's station. We went and had sandwiches at the meat market, and hung around the station. I looked up problems with my website and found out why, which will follow my long rant about DR dragging down the quality of CFD(I). When we heard WFD check en route back to W, DR insisted that we go back to CFD(I). I had planned on waiting for WFD to get back, but I was sick of him. So I got in, and halfway there we heard our chief on the radio to WFD's assistant chief telling him the CFD(I) crew would stay at WFD's station until he arrived to release us. So rather than return to WFD station, DR decided we should stage halfway between.

As soon as we arrived halfway between, we got paged out for a grass fire in CC. This meant driving back on the same street past WFD's station, a good 4 minutes away, where we should have been. I know they saw us, too. It made me even more annoyed with DR and how he reflected on our department. After that there is little to say, we went to the fire (which was nearly nothing) and went back to station.

As far as the website issue above, I redid my website yesterday using XHTML Strict 1.0, CSS, and a limited amount of Javascript. Everything looked good, my CSS and XHTML Strict 1.0 passed the W3C testers with flying colors, and everything seemed great. I tested it today on the fire department's computer and learned that Internet Explorer doesn't support XHTML. At all. Even 7.0 will not support it, despite the standard being more than a half-decade old. My page turns out as just a blank black page on it. While this proves my stance that Internet Explorer is an embarrassment as a web browser, it doesn't make my page work on it, and sadly a lot of misguided people have failed to switch to something better like Firefox. So now I have to figure out what to do. I don't want to crumble and use one of Microsoft's hacky broken methods of making it sort of work, but I don't want to make my page unreadable for average users. I'll have to figure something out.

I am interested to know what browsers people out there are really using. A lot of statistics claim different things, probably because different user bases respond to different things. Who out there is using Firefox? Internet Explorer? Opera? Konqueror? Safari? Something else? And on what operating system? Feel free to respond in comments, I am really curious to know.

Now Playing: The W's - J.P.
Computer: aoi-chan.systemsalchemy.org
Operating System: Linux aoi-chan 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 #2 PREEMPT Wed Mar 29 19:27:33 CST 2006 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) processor GNU/Linux
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060613 Firefox/1.5.0.4

Stadium Security Stupidity

2006-07-08T02:31:00.000-05:00

Went to the Rangers game tonight (last night?). It was good, because the Rangers pwned the Twins, but the main thing at hand is the utter stupidity of stadium security.

Now, if any of you have ever heard Lewis Black speak on airport security, especially his stand-up on his album The End of the Universe, you will find some common threads. Obviously, it will entail the stupidity of the policies, the outlandish ideas that formed them, and the complete incongruities within.
This is not news to anyone who has been reading me for any length of time, but that is not a problem as far as I can see.

Among the things we brought to the stadium was a couple of six-bottle capacity coolers with soft shells, one of which had a plastic liner, the other of which once had one but no longer does. Each one was filled with six plastic bottles, one filled with Coca Cola, the other filled with Dr Pepper.

Slight digression: Dr Pepper is not spelled with the period after the "Dr" part. It once was, but is no longer.

Stadium Security, in their overzealous yet wholly ineffective quest to give reasonable people headaches, searches all bags on the way in. Not people, just bags. I could have walked in with a loose BDU jacket with a .45 in a shoulder holster without question. Now, I walked into the area, compliantly opened all bags, and was promptly informed that they were going to confiscate the liner to the cooler. I bluntly stated, "I don't understand," and she said I could keep the cooler and drinks, but that she had to take the liner. Apparently it might be used to hit people with, she says.

I reminded her that I could just as easily bludgeon somebody with a foul ball, and she seemed amused and unsurprised, but still hijacked the liner of my cooler. Obviously, I knew how stupid the situation was, and that escalating over a cooler liner was idiotic. So I dumped the ice and drinks into what was at this point essentially a canvas sack with a zipper. Standing there, dumping ice and drinks into a sack to get rid of a plastic liner that might be used at a weapon, while wearing a belt that could be used to strangle, a pair of boots that would be far better as bludgeons than a lightweight plastic liner, a knife clipped visibly to my righthand slash pocket, going into a stadium where wooden bats are featured.

In fact, today (tomorrow, at the time, the 8th of July, 2006) they will be giving 8,000 fans Michael Young Commemorative Bats as they enter. Meanwhile, they will be hijacking the liners of soft-shelled coolers, selling alcoholic beverages, and providing people with numerous ways they could (but won't) hurt each other. Meanwhile, a bomb-strapped terrorist, a concealed knife, a hidden pistol, or a grenade down the pants of a malicious ticket holder would skate right past the gates.

Does this mean I want tighter security? Not at all. All I ask is that they start trying to make some kind of sense. In particular, stop pretending cooler liners are weapons but giving people sticks intended for hitting on the way in. This is idiocy. Instead, stop taking away cooler liners, and quit being idiotic.

The Randi profile thing...

2006-05-26T16:40:00.000-05:00

Q. Elaborate on your default photo:
A. On Gaia, it is my avatar. On Blogger, I lack one. On LiveJournal, it is a cargo container. On Xanga, it is Glyn squeezing the crap out of a sandwich that isn't any damn good.

Q. What's your current relationship status?
A. married

Q. What exactly are you wearing right now?
A. black socks, black EMT pants, black Das Komet t-shirt, dog tags, spongebob squarepants boxers, black web belt, contact lenses

Q. What is your current problem?
A. unemployment

Q. What makes you most happy?
A. accomplishing stuff

Q. Are you musically inclined?
A. no, but I have a mix of a Mega Man 2 song here.

Q. If you could go back in time, and change something, what would it be?
A. I would be hesitant to change anything, things have gone well and I wouldn't want to risk messing that up.

Q. If you MUST be an animal for ONE day, what would it be?
A. I have no idea.

Q. Ever have a near death experience?
A. many times. It's fun.

Q. Name an obvious quality you have?
A. An annoying interest in knowledge

Q. What's the name of the song that's stuck in your head right now?
A. Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman) by Led Zeppelin

Q. Who will cut and paste this first?
A. no one

Q. Name someone with the same b-day as you:
A. Jeanne d'Arc

Q. Have you ever vandalized someone's private property?
A. Not that I can think of.

Q. Have you ever been in a fight?
A. Officially, yes. I don't really think so though.

Q. Have you ever sang in front of a large audience?
A. Yes. I was in choir in 8th grade and in my freshman year

Q. What's the first thing you notice about the OPPOSITE sex?
A. boobs

Q. What do you usually order from Starbucks?
A. chai

Q. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?
A. no

Q. Say something totally random about yourself:
A. I am practical to the point of impractical.

Q. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?
A. yes, Wierd Al Yankovic

Q. Do you still watch kiddy movies or TV shows?
A. yes

Q. Did you have braces?
A. yes

Q. Are you comfortable with your height?
A. yes

Q. Do you speak any other languages?
A. English, bad english, some German, and trying to learn Japanese. I also am conversant in Python, and I know a bit of perl, bash, and a little C

Q. What is your favorite smell?
A. so many good smells, so little time.

Q. Have you ever been to a tanning salon?
A. no

Q. What magazines do you read?
A. Game Informer

Q. Have you ever ridden in a limo?
A. no, but I know a limo driver

Q. Has anyone you were really close with passed away?
A. a friend from kindergarten killed himself when I was in high school

Q. Do you ever watch MTV?
A. no, but I used to watch it when Daria was on

Q. What's the latest you have ever stayed up?
A. there is no good answer, I have stayed up for multiple days at a stretch

Q. Have you ever been rushed into the emergency room?
A. More than once.

Q. What's the last text message on your cell phone say?:
A. I think it was Cingular trying to pimp out more services.

Q. What color shirt are you wearing?:
A. black

[b]Q. Most recent movie that you watched?:
A. [/b]In The Army Now

Q. Name one thing that you do everyday?:
A. cook

Q. What's the color of your bedroom walls?:
A. off-white

Q. How much cash do you have on you right now?:
A. $8 and change

Q. What is your favorite part of the chicken?
A. breast

Q. What's your favorite sport to watch?
A. womens' gymnastics

Q. When was the last time you saw your mom?
A. I think last summer.

Q. Who got You to join myspace?
A. Huh?

Q. What did you have for dinner last night?
A. The slowest chimichanga on earth.

Q. Is Tom on your friends list?
A. no

Q. Look to your left. What's there?
A. Amy

Q. What's the last piece of clothing you borrowed from someone?
A. I borrowed Grady's gloves a few months back at a fire.

Q. What website(s) do you visit the most during the day?
A. Gaia Online

Q. Do you have an air freshener in your car?
A. No

Q. Do you have plants in your room?
A. If by plants you mean bugs

Q. Does anything hurt on your body right now?
A. no

Q. What city was your last taxicab ride in?
A. Flagstaff, Arizona

Q. Do you own a picture phone?
A. no

Q. Recent time you were really upset?
A. A while back.

Q. Would you have a problem if your friend went after your ex?
A. What ex?

Computer: aoi-chan.systemsalchemy.org
Operating System: Gentoo Linux 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 #2 PREEMPT Wed Mar 29 19:27:33 CST 2006 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) processor GNU/Linux
Current Music: まほろまてぃっく - かえりみち

The Bill Pullman Curse Theory

2006-03-27T02:50:00.000-06:00

I have had an epiphany which has resulted in a theory, which follows.

Bill Pullman is pretty good at what he does, and he has a tendency to be in good movies. A League of Their Own. While You Were Sleeping. Spaceballs. However, he seems to not make movies that qualify as "great". I came up with this theory earlier today when something made me think of it. I don't even remember what. I was content to leave it at that, but then Amy embarked on an effort to make her own list of "the greatest movies". She mentioned both While You Were Sleeping and A League of Their Own as being very good but not "great" in the sense of the list, and I reminded her what I had said earlier today about Bill Pullman. Interesting.

Anyhow, Saturday I tested in Flower Mound. The test was the exact same one I took in Lewisville and got a 94 or 93 on. Somehow, despite putting the same answers, I got crapped on. I have no idea how I got a 79 on this thing, but I guarantee I did not miss one in five questions. While I am on the list, it's not near as high as I expected. I saw Dewayne late the other night and he also seemed confused. But as I mentioned to him, even if something went wrong with the scantron machine, being the whiner who demanded a re-check does not get me the job. All it does is make me the whiner who second guesses them.

Finally got my wok good and clean, which is good. Made General Tsou's chicken (yes, I am aware of the culinary lack of authenticity of this dish) and was very pleased with the results of the washing. Seasoned cookware used to make me paranoid, but no longer. I now have mastered the zen of carbon steel wok maintenance. No Volkswagen maintenance mastery, but I get by.

Stupid Foreigner ばか外人

2006-03-24T13:59:00.000-06:00

Applied in Flower Mound last Friday, and tomorrow is my test and physical agility test. Looking forward to it, somehow. I want this one to count. It's been a slow week, been playing Final Fantasy VIII now that I finished Final Fantasy IX, and afterwards I may end up trying VII again...VII frustrated the hell out of me when I somehow managed to get my game stuck in a place where I could not continue. Don't ask how it happened, according to everyone I asked, I should have been able to continue but the game was not doing what it should have been.

Recently, I tore down my whole home network and rearranged things, including changing from a desk to a table, since having two monitors makes having more desk space a must, provided you lack flat panels. These old Trinitrons are huge. aoi-chan (my Athlon T-bird) is now under my table, and instead of being on the right of me with amy on the other side of it, miyuki (深雪, my file server, an HP Kayak 400MHz Pentium II with 1 processor, 2 once I find a matching one) is now on the right-hand side of my table, with my old switch-box on my old desk next to it. To my left is Amy with puddleglum (her Athlon XP) on her desk. Aoi-chan now has the monitors running at 75Hz, which is a nice upgrade since it wasn't working out previously thanks to the switch-box. It turns out that my switch-box did not support 1280x1024 at a higher refresh rate than 60Hz. Amy now has a 5-port switch on her desk, and over on top of the switch-box by miyuki there is a Netgear modem router, with a 5-port 10/100 switch, on top of which I placed a wireless b/g access point with four 10/100 ports. My old monitor is attatched to the switchbox, which rests atop an old Belkin surge unit. Miyuki, mahoro (まほろ, a Dell Pentium III 500, our token Windows box) and two openings for computers I am working on are attatched to that setup over there. I left half the desk open for use as a work bench.

Physical layout aside, the cool part of what I did was I made Miyuki the print server and the scanner server. Print-server stuff is normal, which most people are probably used to seeing. My black-and-white laser is now run through miyuki. My scanner, on the other hand, is different...my entire network goes through miyuki for scanning now too. I have the Epson flatbed scanner hooked up and configured to be used by any box on the network, which is something cool that I ran across as an idea one day on google. Turns out Linux loves it.

I read an interesting column on Townhall today by Col. Oliver North. While in Heidelberg, Germany doing a documentary on Gen. George Patton, he encountered a group of students in an internet cafe. Hilarity would ensue, were it not for the fact that these kids are serious:

«Though hardly a scientific sampling of European public opinion, these students' perspectives on the U.S. role in defeating fascism, communism, in bringing down the wall, of standing up to Islamic terror were both shallow and twisted. According to them, Germany would have rid itself of Hitler without "terror bombing German civilians"; the Americans "created the 'Red-Scare' to divide and punish Germany; the wall would have come down decades earlier but for the presence of U.S. bases in Europe; the Sept. 11 attack was concocted by the Bush administration; German troops should never have been sent to Afghanistan, and -- because this is much on the news here right now -- U.S. troops in Iraq routinely commit atrocities and human-rights violations. They were unaware of this week's forceful presidential speeches, press conference and question/answer sessions -- perhaps understandably, because they have been little covered in European TV and newspapers.»

These students did not know who Col. North was, or I doubt they would be so open with him. It's well worth a read.

In other news:

I am studying the Japanese language.

日本語を勉強しています。

Mike Adams for President!

2006-03-02T14:37:00.000-06:00

The best news I have heard in a long time, even though I strongly suspect it of being satire, is columnist Mike S. Adams announcing intent to run for President in 2008. I would, without a doubt, vote for Dr. Adams if he is on the ballot for the primary.

In other news, my temperature is back to normal, from its peak around 102.9 last night and 101 or so in the afternoon yesterday. Hoping my head and throat stuffedness ends soon, it's really quite annoying.

Aside from this, I have had very little going on lately.

Extreme Opposition

2006-02-23T22:40:00.000-06:00

Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 22:19:34 -0600
From: xxx
To: info@noworlando.org
Subject: Extreme Opposition
Message-Id: <20060223221934.0acec198.xxx@xxx.org>
Organization: xxx
X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 2.0.4 (GTK+ 2.8.12; i686-pc-linux-gnu)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/signed; protocol="application/pgp-signature";
micalg="PGP-SHA1";
boundary="Signature=_Thu__23_Feb_2006_22_19_34_-0600_YKG/Tz/C5f1QPsia"

Dear NOW Orlando:

I realize that you have until now used your Extreme Opposition page for more prominent people than myself, but I would love to be linked to on your "Extreme Opposition" page, as I extremely oppose just about everything you stand for. I realize that I am not in the Orlando area, but rather closer to Fort Worth, Texas, but please consider my request.

Thanks,

xxx
http://www.xanga.com/xxx

--
"Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve." - Benjamin Franklin

[application/pgp-signature (Good signature)]

Been a while

2006-02-16T04:01:00.000-06:00

Well, I have been absorbed for several months with American Government Simulation, which I have been tired of for a while and finally decided to just quit. This means it is likely I will post here more often. With any luck, I may even remember to read the entries of others, too. I sure hope so, I have felt kind of bad about getting out of the habit. However, I have been waiting for real inspiration to go ahead and post here, and as a result, here is a nugget of wisdom that came to mind:

I would sooner let Dick Cheney take me hunting than let Ted Kennedy drive me on a tour of bridges.

Thank you.

All units on scene on all wheels

2005-10-03T22:10:00.000-05:00

Well, a week ago (the 26th) I finished fire school. It feels pretty good to be done. Got an 85 on my state test, and successfully completed all 3 skills tests on the first try. Works for me.

Been busy here in my fire district some days. The next day, tuesday, I was on the way back from a medical call in the brush truck, and then we got paged out to do mutual aid in Sherwood Shores for a structure fire. On the way, in Whitesboro, just as we went under 82 going north on 377, we passed a wreck. Whitesboro was toned out, but they were all at the fire. I got on the radio to dispatch, and asked if they wanted us to take it. We stopped and worked the wreck before going on to the fire. Had to wait for an ambulance all the way from Sherman Fire Department because all the Whitesboro ambulances were already on the way to Sherman with patients. That's how hectic it gets around here some days. I sure was glad when a lone guy from Whitesboro showed up with extrication tools in their secondary engine.

All things considered, I think everything went far smoother than could have been expected considering how busy the whole area was that day. Especially on a weekday in the middle of the afternoon, when personnel for volunteer departments are so limited.

Saturday, on the other hand, wasn't nearly so smooth. A medical call kicked it off, which was hectic in and of itself with so many personnel on hand. While we were there, we got paged out to a grass fire. One guy in the tanker, and two of us in the brush truck. We were following the tanker to the scene, and at a rail crossing the driver in the tanker decided to let us by. Not realizing how steep the drop into the ditch was, I saw something I never want to see again: Our tanker, barely two years old, with its 1800 gallon tank of water, hung for a second at a delicate balance on two wheels. Were it not for the blaring sirens and the diesel engine, you could have heard a pin drop inside the F-350 cab we sat in as we watched, before the tank water must have sloshed in just the right way, sending the truck crashing back down onto all four wheels. This is the kind of adrenaline I prefer to get arriving at a scene, not just trying to get there.

After fighting that grass fire of a couple acres, we go back to the station and wash both trucks that we brought out there. Almost finished, we get a page for Whitesboro in need of mutual aid. So we get back in and dirty our truck on dusty gravel roads, getting lost a couple times on the way due to bad directions over the radio. Worst of it is, we were going the right way until they "corrected" us.

It's been an interesting week, suffice to say.

Bite my shiny metal ass, MySpace

2005-09-03T03:59:00.001-05:00

Well, it finally happened. Myspace, who has been irking me for quite some time just by being crappy on the whole, gave me the last straw, and here it is:

Far be it from me to post my content on a site that would play pimp for the bastards at moveon.org on top of having a crappy community filled with whores of all shapes and sizes, poor navigation, inherently flawed base layouts, and overall dissatisfying user experience. A well-deserved "sod off" to myspace.

For those of you reading on the mirrors that do not have "myspace" in the domain name, in other news Ambassador John Bolton has apparently taken to his new job like a fish to water. Best of luck being a thorn in the side of the UN, John! It's all we can ask that you look out for the United States above all in your duties. After all, you're the US ambassador to the UN, not the UN ambassador to the US.

In other news, I began working on an article a while back but seem to have lost it. It concerns gun control. I may or may not rewrite it. Basically, what it comes down to is that there are a lot of anti-citizen Democrats and a few co-conspirator Republicans working against your right to defend yourself, and Ron Paul wants to protect and restore your Second Amendment rights (H. R. 1703). I am sure this shocks none of you. If there is a sufficient desire to read about it, I will go ahead and research it again and write about it. As far as I am personally concerned, I found out what I wanted to know and none of it was contrary to what I expected to find. So if you like your right to bear arms, don't elect people who want to take away that right. It seems pretty self-explanatory.

For those who want names, here are the names of those who wish to reinstate the 1994 "assault weapons" ban that had absolutely nothing to do with assault weapons. I recommend voting every last one out of office.

Bill: S.620

Sponsor: Sen Feinstein, Dianne [D-CA]

Co-Sponsors:

Sen Boxer, Barbara [D-CA] - 3/14/2005
Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [D-NY] - 3/14/2005
Sen DeWine, Mike [R-OH] - 3/14/2005
Sen Dodd, Christopher J. [D-CT] - 3/14/2005
Sen Durbin, Richard [D-IL] - 3/14/2005
Sen Levin, Carl [D-MI] - 3/14/2005
Sen Mikulski, Barbara A. [D-MD] - 3/14/2005
Sen Reed, Jack [D-RI] - 3/14/2005
Sen Schumer, Charles E. [D-NY] - 3/14/2005
Sen Warner, John [R-VA] - 3/14/2005

Along with that, here is another related Senatorial bill aimed at taking away your right to bear arms, this one with the highly misleading title of "A bill to reinstate the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act." Somebody needs to slap around all these people who come up with misleading bill titles like that. This one is entirely Democrat-sponsored.

Bill: S.645

Sponsor: Sen Lautenberg, Frank R. [D-NJ]

Co-Sponsors:

Sen Akaka, Daniel K. [D-HI] - 3/16/2005
Sen Boxer, Barbara [D-CA] - 3/16/2005
Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [D-NY] - 3/16/2005
Sen Corzine, Jon S. [D-NJ] - 3/16/2005
Sen Dodd, Christopher J. [D-CT] - 3/16/2005
Sen Durbin, Richard [D-IL] - 3/16/2005
Sen Kennedy, Edward M. [D-MA] - 3/16/2005
Sen Mikulski, Barbara A. [D-MD] - 3/16/2005
Sen Reed, Jack [D-RI] - 3/16/2005
Sen Sarbanes, Paul S. [D-MD] - 3/16/2005
Sen Schumer, Charles E. [D-NY] - 3/16/2005

So feel free to vote the folks listed on the above sponsor list out of office, and encourage your congressmen and senators to support Ron Paul's bill. Pardon the disjointed nature of this entry, I have a cold and a slight fever. Otherwise I would probably feel ambitious enough to make a whole worthwhile post. While I normally prefer to be able to post contrasting bills, the only people who seem to be trying to change any gun laws appear to be anti-gun folks. So there it is, for now at any rate.

Bite my shiny metal ass, MySpace

2005-09-03T03:59:00.000-05:00

href="http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Crouse20050903.shtml">taken to his new job like a fish to water. Best of luck being a thorn in the side of the UN, John! It's all we can ask that you look out for the United States above all in your duties. After all, you're the US ambassador to the UN, not the UN ambassador to the US.

In other news, I began working on an article a while back but seem to have lost it. It concerns gun control. I may or may not rewrite it. Basically, what it comes down to is that there are a lot of anti-citizen Democrats and a few co-conspirator Republicans working against your right to defend yourself, and Ron Paul wants to protect and restore your Second Amendment rights (H. R. 1703). I am sure this shocks none of you. If there is a sufficient desire to read about it, I will go ahead and research it again and write about it. As far as I am personally concerned, I found out what I wanted to know and none of it was contrary to what I expected to find. So if you like your right to bear arms, don't elect people who want to take away that right. It seems pretty self-explanatory.

For those who want names, here are the names of those who wish to reinstate the 1994 "assault weapons" ban that had absolutely nothing to do with assault weapons. I recommend voting every last one out of office.

Bill: S.620

Sponsor: Sen Feinstein, Dianne [D-CA]

Co-Sponsors:

Sen Boxer, Barbara [D-CA] - 3/14/2005
Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [D-NY] - 3/14/2005
Sen DeWine, Mike [R-OH] - 3/14/2005
Sen Dodd, Christopher J. [D-CT] - 3/14/2005
Sen Durbin, Richard [D-IL] - 3/14/2005
Sen Levin, Carl [D-MI] - 3/14/2005
Sen Mikulski, Barbara A. [D-MD] - 3/14/2005
Sen Reed, Jack [D-RI] - 3/14/2005
Sen Schumer, Charles E. [D-NY] - 3/14/2005
Sen Warner, John [R-VA] - 3/14/2005

Along with that, here is another related Senatorial bill aimed at taking away your right to bear arms, this one with the highly misleading title of "A bill to reinstate the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act." Somebody needs to slap around all these people who come up with misleading bill titles like that. This one is entirely Democrat-sponsored.

Bill: S.645

Sponsor: Sen Lautenberg, Frank R. [D-NJ]

Co-Sponsors:

Sen Akaka, Daniel K. [D-HI] - 3/16/2005
Sen Boxer, Barbara [D-CA] - 3/16/2005
Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [D-NY] - 3/16/2005
Sen Corzine, Jon S. [D-NJ] - 3/16/2005
Sen Dodd, Christopher J. [D-CT] - 3/16/2005
Sen Durbin, Richard [D-IL] - 3/16/2005
Sen Kennedy, Edward M. [D-MA] - 3/16/2005
Sen Mikulski, Barbara A. [D-MD] - 3/16/2005
Sen Reed, Jack [D-RI] - 3/16/2005
Sen Sarbanes, Paul S. [D-MD] - 3/16/2005
Sen Schumer, Charles E. [D-NY] - 3/16/2005

So feel free to vote the folks listed on the above sponsor list out of office, and encourage your congressmen and senators to support Ron Paul's bill. Pardon the disjointed nature of this entry, I have a cold and a slight fever. Otherwise I would probably feel ambitious enough to make a whole worthwhile post. While I normally prefer to be able to post contrasting bills, the only people who seem to be trying to change any gun laws appear to be anti-gun folks. So there it is, for now at any rate.

All-volunteer

2005-08-21T00:27:00.000-05:00
Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that I tried joining the military when I was 18, and that I have nothing but respect, support, and gratitude towards our soldiers. That said, I also do not see the need to dilute the ranks of these fine men and women with spineless bastards, which unfortunately make up the majority of the people who would never, ever consider joining the military voluntarily. As a result of the respect and support, I find it necessary that we take the basic measures to prevent such dilution by making sure there is no conscription or draft.

However, it looks like Ol' Charlie Rangel is back at it. You may or may not recall his antics last year with trying to stir up bad morale on the homefront in the war by trying to decieve us into believing there was a need for a draft or compulsory military service, and then his lackeys from various propaganda outlets began declaring that Bush and the Republicans were pushing for this legislation. As a reminder, I will state that both of the bills from last session are from last session, and are at this point merely historical in significance. Every sponsor was a liberal Democrat (I have the data on my laptop, and if need be I will post it later, but my power cord is melting which makes it dangerous to run), and there was roughly 17 or so congressional supporters, as well as one (now retired) Senator who introduced similar legislation in the Senate but gathered no sponsors.

This session, Charlie has come back with a similar, possibly identical, bill. This bill is numered H. R. 2723. Be aware that this bill is in no way a reflection of either the needs of the war effort or the desires of the Pentagon or the White House.

The Sponsor: Rep Rangel, Charles B. [D-NY-15] (introduced 5/26/2005)
The Co-sponsor: Rep Stark, Fortney Pete [D-CA-13] - 7/12/2005

The introduction: "A BILL

To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes."

Not exactly a bill that anyone in their right mind is going to support, right? Meanwhile we have two bills that are worth a look in the House, both of which are still in their infancy as bills. I hope they go somewhere. The first that I will bring up is that of Rep. Major R. Owens, and is not as good of a bill as the second of the anti-conscription bills, but would be a step in the right direction. It is known as H. R. 1495. Rep. Owens' bill is problematic though in that it fails to completely eliminate the Selective Service, which creates a drain upon the budget by not eliminating the Selective Service in its entirety, but removing all of its apparatus by which it must operate if called upon.

The Sponsor: Rep Owens, Major R. [D-NY-11] (introduced 4/6/2005)

The introduction: "To amend the Military Selective Service Act to terminate the registration requirement and the activities of civilian local boards, civilian appeal boards, and similar local agencies of the Selective Service System, and for other purposes."

This is a step in the right direction, because it defuses the constant fearmongering that the draft or conscription might be forthcoming any time soon. However, enter the bill of Rep. Ron Paul, who is my personal favorite congressman, having been responsible for the "Get the US out of the UN" bill, and who is known to be a strong fiscal conservative and constitutionalist. Rep. Paul's bill is numbered as H. R. 2455. This bill accomplishes the same ends in actual functionality as Rep. Owens' bill, but instead of adding new complexities upon old laws, it follows Rep. Paul's modus operandi of instead removing the offending legislature entirely. Which is to say in this case that H. R. 2455 would completely eliminate the Selective Service as a whole rather than leaving fragmented bits of it in place serving no discernable purpose, and also leaves no question as to the result of the bill.

The Sponsor: Rep Paul, Ron [R-TX-14] (introduced 5/18/2005)
First Co-sponsor: Rep Baldwin, Tammy [D-WI-2] - 6/9/2005
Second Co-sponsor: Rep McKinney, Cynthia A. [D-GA-4] - 5/24/2005

The Opening: "A BILL

To repeal the Military Selective Service Act."

The bill then proceeds to state in simple terms that it repeals the Military Selective Service Act and then describes in simple (albeit legal, meaning word-here, word-there modifications to existing laws) terms the other modifications that are necessary to fill any existing gaps that would need filling in the event of the elimination of the Military Selective Service Act.

I would love to see Rep. Paul's bill succeed. Naturally this has garnered no media attention that I know of, but I recommend that if you agree you raise attention in your area and ask your congressman why he has not signed on the bill. Or if you oppose it, I would love to know why.

All bill information and party information taken from publicly accessible servers at http://thomas.loc.gov/ and http://clerk.house.gov.

Infidels and Empires

2005-08-13T07:13:00.000-05:00
Jeff Jacoby has a great article up reminding us why any attempt to pin the responsibility for terrorist acts performed by one of us infidels on the infidel communities at large is completely invalid.

«Israel and its supporters complain with reason that Arab terrorism against Jews is too often shrugged off or excused by Arab and Muslim leaders, or that a murderous attack will be condemned in English for international consumption, while the government-run local media extols the killers in Arabic. But when the terrorists themselves are Jews -- admittedly a rare event -- do Israel's defenders live up to the standard they expect of others? How many of the statements quoted above, for example, would leading Israelis have been willing to make?

All of them.»

Perhaps when we see the Muslim world at large condemning terrorism wholly and without being coerced into it people will believe them. Until such a time, I really don't see that happening.

While I am here, I would love to hear from anyone who can justify the Rebel Alliance's actions in Star Wars. I really can't find a plausible, movie-based-canon reason to back the Rebellion over the Empire. Does anyone feel up to the challenge?

The Church Ladder

2005-07-23T07:01:00.000-05:00
Well, Thursday at fire school we did the Chruch Ladder. It was interesting to say the least. They call it the "Church Ladder" because when you are doing it, you are praying "Lord, just take me now."

What it is is we take a 24 foot extension ladder, extend it, attatch a couple ropes to the top for side-to-side stabilization. For vertical stabilization...the rest of the class holds it up at a 90 degree angle. You proceed to climb to the top. Then you climb over the top, and come back down the other side. It is an insurance nightmare.

We each went three times. Should make today much easier, climbing up ladders at a 75 degree angle up the side of a building. Much more stable. But the tallest ladder is either 40 or 50 feet for today, I don't remember which. So it is a bit of a trade off. The fact that we will be carrying each other as "victims" down the ladder doesn't help matters either. Should be interesting...and the weather will be HOT.

Fortunately, I am now the platoon's lieutenant. Hopefully I will get the platoon to stop being a bunch of slackers and actually do something for a change. I am tired of them doing the bare minimum of everything.

Payroll

2005-06-30T00:11:00.000-05:00
Well, here I am after not having had the privilege of sleeping last night. Got a call from a client in need of urgent computer work, and went down there before school and got the computer necessary to make payroll. Hardcore virus and Trojans, and the Internet account had been shut off due to this by the ISP.

After school, worked on it all night and in the morning went back there and tried to get the ISDN running. They did not have their driver CD anywhere to be found, so I was unable to get it online. The modem ISP seemed to have issues, too, and wouldn't connect. At noon I finally ended up telling him that he would have to mess with it and hope they got him fixed on their end, and that I had to go get some sleep before school. Hope it worked out for payroll, but it is not my fault that they gave no notice at all and didn't notice until last night that the computer was busticated, and that they couldn't find the proper documents or CDs to get the new ISDN up and running.

I hope their payroll worked out. If not I suspect they will call me tomorrow. I hate to leave them hanging but I have to have my priorities too.

Church Bra Story

2005-06-26T19:16:00.000-05:00
This story was demanded after my comment posted on an entry in Mel's Xanga today. So my apologies of anyone who really didn't want to hear it, and for those who do: Enjoy!

Anyhow, this is my Church Bra Story. I realize that guy generally should not have these, but it wasn't me wearing it. I was in church on Easter Sunday a couple years ago, and there was some girl who I suspect was in her late teens who was wearing a one-shouldered top that fit rather closely sitting a few rows ahead of me. I know that it fit rather closely because I could see her bra distinctly beneath the shirt...a normal bra with only one strap in use, the other inside the shirt. It looked bad enough from behind, and you could see the derelict strap dangling trapped in the probably-a-size-too-small shirt.

It got worse. On our way out, I saw her from the front...one boob was a good two inches higher than the other. I really wanted to say something but decided it was a bad idea what with me being a guy and all. I didn't want to look but it was so funny looking and distracting that it was hard not to. Poor girl...I really was hoping someone would tell her, but it sure wasn't gonna be me.

As long as I am alienating everyone who doesn't want to hear it, I have a public service announcement about another right-bra-for-the-outfit issue, which I also posted a while back on the MiniTokyo forums. I think I sometimes think too much. I think most of the people around here are smarter than the people I posted this to help, but since it seems related and the one-boob-bra shirt church story seems rather short for an entire entry, I reproduce it herewith.

I have noticed a disturbing trend as hot weather begins to sweep into North Texas. Now, I know that a lot of you girls pay a lot of attention to the clothing you wear, and many of you pay close attention to what you wear with what. However, there has been a disturbing trend that I wish to help you girls avoid.

The trend is that as they have been changing into their summer shirts, girls have been wearing the wrong bras. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the need for clothes which suit the weather. The problem is that lots of girls I have seen around have been wearing bras with very prominent lace or embroidery or something that is raised from the surface. This makes their boobs look very lumpy, sort of like how some bras have a seam that is very visible beneath a shirt, except all over the entire bust (or what portion the bra happens to be covering). The bra may be fine under a jacket, sweater, or a thicker shirt, but it does not work for close-fitting T-shirts of moderate to thin material, especially in lighter colours. It just looks like lumpy boobs, and it looks bizarre.

I certainly don't object to lace or otherwise fancy bras, just wear them responsibly.

Please, avoid the lumpy boob look. Wear a bra that suits the shirt.

Thank you.

Parental Involvement Über Alles!

2005-06-24T16:23:00.000-05:00
In my Xanga, I got a well-thought-out comment response from IdiotSavant123. To avoid responding out of context, since this response will be on multiple mirrors of my bloggings (blogger, gaiaonline, livejournal, xanga, and myspace) I will post the entire comment and then respond to the parts that response is needed, since there were some questions.

«Parenting in America is definitely in a fix.

It's true that the reason American teens are immature and rude is because that is what our culture expects of them and so let's them get away with it as normal teen behavior. Just makes you wanna slap 'em, doesn't it? After observing many of my Mom's old clients, I can honestly say that most of the behavioral problems with children these days are caused by their parents' poor parenting.

You mentioned a lot the fact that it's the parents' jobs to teach their children all those things, but you also agreed that the parents aren't parenting (you suggested it's because they're leaving it to the schools). In that case, there are two possible ways to cure childrens' lack of parenting...the person who was writing to you was part of the camp that suggests the government take over from America's seemingly incompetent parents. Now, the last paragraph from the article I link to furthur down is this: "Our society requires massive consumption. Needy, ignorant people consume more goods and services than educated, emotionally stable people do. The quickest way to create needy people is to obliterate the family. The quickest way to create ignorant people is to divorce them from their parents. The mass school is an excellent exercise in creating a market for your goods, whatever they might be." That's why I'm against that idea. I also believe that there's no way mass schools can actually be giving students any kind of quality education...there's just no way. So I'm against having the government take over children's parenting through schools, even though something must be done. Now, you didn't offer a solution that I could tell, but I came up with the second option on my own, and I imagine it's the one you'd support. The second option is to get rid of the schools, which would force the parents to actually parent their kids (gasp!). It would increase stability and probably increase quality of education, just through the comfort factor, individual attention and choices of modality. Studies have shown that even kids homeschooled by parents who didn't go to college do better than average public schoolers. I'm all for homeschooling.

Personally, I agree with the second choice. I think our education system IS SO BROKEN and needs to DIE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH. The best way to actually do that would be to let the Republicans take over and abolish the Department of Education and underfund the schools, so they just dry up and blow away, but I don't want the Republicans to take over government because the very vocal, extremist group will hijack the moderates and the Republicans are so well organized it'd be impossible for the public to regain control (unless John McCain is elected in 08! W00t!). So...any other ideas on getting rid of public schools?

Once the public schools are gone, homeschooling is the answer to everything. Here's the article I mentioned above. Basically it says that while everyone thinks public schools are the norm, they're a relatively recent invention on the face of the planet, not to mention America. Before then, it was homeschooling, which worked just fine: "Fifth grade basal readers included works from William Shakespeare, Henry Thoreau, George Washington, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Bunyan, Daniel Webster, Samuel Johnson, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson." Public schooling has been a nice little experiment (and way to create unskilled people who then had to become factory workers, ushering in the industrial revolution as planned), but besides not needing unskilled factory workers now thanks to Bush's stupid immigration policy and the technology revolution, schools are just plain not working as an educational institution. So let's go back to homeschooling until we can think of something better, neh?

I do want to ask you about this, though: "Independent thought is a direct result of being ready for it. An unprepared person forced to think independently will usually end up with flawed ideas or bad results and may never even realize or come to terms with it." True, but in this case, what makes you think most American parents have any kind of independent thought? I'm sure development would come from reading the "basal fifth grade reading list" as mentioned above, but nowadays most kids are not and probably could not learn independent thought from their parents. Of course, if there is any graveyard of independent thought in America, it is for sure the public schools, lordy. I'd take my chances with the parents and the reading list.

I was having that discussion the other day, actually, with a lady who does conflict resolution with African and Asian governments. A key, if not THE key to my independent thought development was my parents pointing out and explaining faulty dilemmas during everyday exposure. That's why we don't have television anymore...commercials really get me PO'd. And it's always, "YELLING! POW! BANG! FLASH! SENSATION!" Even the blooming radio adverts are like that. Anyway, faulty dilemmas are also why I don't like listening to election campaigns or presidential speeches. If you believe what's coming out of a politician's mouth, you don't have independent thought yet. Being able to recognize faulty dilemmas is important to your independent thought development.

By the way, to all American citizens: the advent of the Gameboy and the like have not helped America's parenting problem. Many parents now use the Gameboy in lieu of parenting. And since video games cause brainwave inflexibility and mental ruts, irritability, and a general zombie-like demeanor...it's so sad to watch! Don't use video games to babysit your children, people!»

Now, here is the breakdown of the parts I responded to.

«Personally, I agree with the second choice. I think our education system IS SO BROKEN and needs to DIE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH. The best way to actually do that would be to let the Republicans take over and abolish the Department of Education and underfund the schools, so they just dry up and blow away, but I don't want the Republicans to take over government because the very vocal, extremist group will hijack the moderates and the Republicans are so well organized it'd be impossible for the public to regain control (unless John McCain is elected in 08! W00t!). So...any other ideas on getting rid of public schools?»

I don't know about the Republican conspiracy theory part, but getting rid of the Department of Education is a great start. The next step after that is removing the departments at the state and local level. The biggest difficulty is the sheer amount of property owned by the schools and the schooling systems. Even in a small town like I live in, the school has a big football complex, three huge buildings, and an office in what used to be a single-residence home. And that doesn't even address assets like buses, furniture, school libraries, textbooks, computers, and television sets. Liquidating the infrastructure is the biggest hurdle once the dismantling begins. School Districts are distinctly separate entities from cities, circumventing public-property laws in some rather devious ways that upon researching them actually struck me as rather unconstitutional.

«Once the public schools are gone, homeschooling is the answer to everything. Here's the article I mentioned above. Basically it says that while everyone thinks public schools are the norm, they're a relatively recent invention on the face of the planet, not to mention America. Before then, it was homeschooling, which worked just fine: "Fifth grade basal readers included works from William Shakespeare, Henry Thoreau, George Washington, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Bunyan, Daniel Webster, Samuel Johnson, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson." Public schooling has been a nice little experiment (and way to create unskilled people who then had to become factory workers, ushering in the industrial revolution as planned), but besides not needing unskilled factory workers now thanks to Bush's stupid immigration policy and the technology revolution, schools are just plain not working as an educational institution. So let's go back to homeschooling until we can think of something better, neh?»

Indeed. I am for private alternatives existing, though I would prefer not to have my children in them. However, the government really has no business being in the education business. We have seen time and time again just how dangerous allowing governments to "educate" is.

That said, though, we do need to crack down on immigration. That and education are my biggest problems with his policy. To quote Ronald Reagan:

«[I]f you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we've discovered that money alone isn't the answer.»

I have no idea exactly what he thought was the answer in regards to that quote, but as far as the quote goes, he is dead on.

«I do want to ask you about this, though: "Independent thought is a direct result of being ready for it. An unprepared person forced to think independently will usually end up with flawed ideas or bad results and may never even realize or come to terms with it." True, but in this case, what makes you think most American parents have any kind of independent thought? I'm sure development would come from reading the "basal fifth grade reading list" as mentioned above, but nowadays most kids are not and probably could not learn independent thought from their parents. Of course, if there is any graveyard of independent thought in America, it is for sure the public schools, lordy. I'd take my chances with the parents and the reading list.»

I am not convinced that independent thought can be taught. It has generally been my opinion that contrary to the status quo, it is not the job of educators to teach what a student should think, but rather how to go about the act of thinking. Which basically is the 3 R's. Reading, including works of wisdom and of history, and hopefully in more than one language. Get 'em while they are young enough to absorb it. wRiting, preferrably in multiple languages again, and aRithmetic, which is self-explanatory.

I think that in the process of these three basics, a person will hopefully do two things. First, they will thirst for knowledge. Yes, that's right. Thirst for it. Schools these days teach many children to hate learning, and to hate reading. This is because they are being presented with mind-numbing assignments rather than ones that challenge them. Second, they will learn to think, and benefit from the additional interaction that comes with parental involvement. Riddles like "Who was buried in Grant's Tomb" and "If a plane crashes on the US-Canadian border, where are the survivors buried?" were commonplace at the after-dinner table in my home, and this kind of two-on-five (I am the oldest of five) session was great because it made us all think, and want to think faster than our siblings, whom most people are predisposed to compete with anyhow, even in a friendly context. This actually falls under the reading and writing elements, since it is based in linguistics and makes the person solving the riddle think about the words that were spoken. Even simple things like this can expand the basic concepts into things like a grasp of logic.

«I was having that discussion the other day, actually, with a lady who does conflict resolution with African and Asian governments. A key, if not THE key to my independent thought development was my parents pointing out and explaining faulty dilemmas during everyday exposure. That's why we don't have television anymore...commercials really get me PO'd. And it's always, "YELLING! POW! BANG! FLASH! SENSATION!" Even the blooming radio adverts are like that. Anyway, faulty dilemmas are also why I don't like listening to election campaigns or presidential speeches. If you believe what's coming out of a politician's mouth, you don't have independent thought yet. Being able to recognize faulty dilemmas is important to your independent thought development.»

That is true in most politicians' cases. I have actually seen a few that were not that way, but they were either retiring or were unfortunately not in my district. I generally don't opt to watch much TV.

«By the way, to all American citizens: the advent of the Gameboy and the like have not helped America's parenting problem. Many parents now use the Gameboy in lieu of parenting. And since video games cause brainwave inflexibility and mental ruts, irritability, and a general zombie-like demeanor...it's so sad to watch! Don't use video games to babysit your children, people!»

I got my first game boy (a game boy advance) at the age of 22. When I was a kid, there was a rather strict 1 hour limit on video games per day, and using it was optional. Most of the time I didn't even get around to it, since I had better things to do.

As an ex-game developer, I can confirm that the last thing I would want to do is sit my kid in front of a video game all the time, It was mind-numbing enough when I was in the industry, even moreso for people who aren't constantly accomplishing something by using the game, such as software development.

That said, there are certain games that are good logic-and-thought games. Almost nobody makes them anymore, unfortunately.

cutting the threads he is grasping at

2005-06-24T13:41:00.000-05:00
It took me a while to get around to responding to this latest response, frankly because it was almost not worth responding to. This time his response being one filled with attempted ambiguities and thinly-veiled admissions of defeat. Here we go again:

«Fair enough. I tell you that you can't see my point and you tell me I can't see yours. The subject isn't worth pursing any further, although I would like to clear a few points on the progression of this discussion.I'm a bit amazed at what passes for an insult to you. When I say that your position is hardly credited by your manner of attacking mine I mean you've presented nothing that addresses the issues I bring up. That's what you've accused me of doing so I guess that we're equally insulting and uncredited.
The part I liked best was "More ambiguity. Ho hum." I stated the central tenet two sentences later. You called my point ambiguous (a buzzword, something we both enjoy using apparently) before it was even made. That's what I mean when I say your position is not credited by your method. You basically said "I don't know what you're going to say but it's ambiguous and wrong".If I may be condemned for saying 'core belief' where do you get in comparing my view to your view of Soviet Russia? Sure, children who are by nature immature and require ever-present guidance should not grow up in an environment where if they so much as speak dissent against the conservative totalitarian government they'll be killed or imprisoned. But that is hardly a comparison to children who only mature and self-determine when they witness conflicting views and have to choose their own to defend living in America or Canada.
Lastly, when I said that you aren't addressing the "core belief" I meant that you didn't try to disprove my reason for stating what I did. One example is that I believe that students should be in schools where they learn beside people who have different beliefs. That is why I brought up the Muslim students in my school. To say, "See, that proves my argument, governments shouldn't force schools to allow people of different religions admission" doesn't really say anything. If you're going to proudly announce your logical superiority, convince me of why it is wrong for a Catholic to attend school with a Muslim otherwise I will only see the government forcing such heterogenous school populations as a good thing. I'm not asking you to do it now, but it might help in future discussions.»

I will now again tear this to shreds.

«Fair enough. I tell you that you can't see my point and you tell me I can't see yours. The subject isn't worth pursing any further, although I would like to clear a few points on the progression of this discussion.»

Translation: He is out of ammunition, and now wants to call it a draw.

Response: Victory is mine!

«I'm a bit amazed at what passes for an insult to you.»

The idea that the government, not parents, ought to make the key decisions regarding raising children including at what age below 18 the children may make certain decisions is indeed insulting, both on a fundamental level and insulting to the intelligence of those reading it. Parents are for parenting, and governments are not. Stop trying to confuse the two.

«When I say that your position is hardly credited by your manner of attacking mine I mean you've presented nothing that addresses the issues I bring up. That's what you've accused me of doing so I guess that we're equally insulting and uncredited.»

Presented nothing? Laughable. You are merely denying that your ambiguities are both off-topic and incorrect. Next time you may want to try something besides red herrings and fallacies.

«The part I liked best was "More ambiguity. Ho hum." I stated the central tenet two sentences later. You called my point ambiguous (a buzzword, something we both enjoy using apparently) before it was even made. That's what I mean when I say your position is not credited by your method. You basically said "I don't know what you're going to say but it's ambiguous and wrong".»

I had already read the entire post beforehand, so your characterization is blatantly false. If you are going to complain about me calling your statements ambiguities then stop making ambiguous statements.

«If I may be condemned for saying 'core belief' where do you get in comparing my view to your view of Soviet Russia?»

Politically determined schools and curriculum are precisely what Soviet Russia strove to create. You stated you were boldly in favor of government involvement in schooling and in favor of the schools placing the decisions in the hands of the students without input from the parents. There is no way to read your ramblings concerning such concepts that does not smack of Soviet Russia.

«Sure, children who are by nature immature and require ever-present guidance should not grow up in an environment where if they so much as speak dissent against the conservative totalitarian government they'll be killed or imprisoned. But that is hardly a comparison to children who only mature and self-determine when they witness conflicting views and have to choose their own to defend living in America or Canada.»

That is for the parents, not for the government, to determine. Red herring again.

«Lastly, when I said that you aren't addressing the "core belief" I meant that you didn't try to disprove my reason for stating what I did.»

I didn't have to. Your so-called "core belief" was both off-topic and incorrect. Unless you can prove that it is on-topic and correct, you already did a great job in stating your reasons for stating it in disproving it yourself. To sum it up, you basically said that it is the government's duty to have public schools that are constantly conflicting with the will of parents and cutting parents out of their own children's education and future. This is belief is inherently wrong. And as far as the "under 18 making decisions" part, I tore that to shreds.

«One example is that I believe that students should be in schools where they learn beside people who have different beliefs. That is why I brought up the Muslim students in my school.»

Feel free to raise your children that way. Don't use the government to force it on others.

«To say, "See, that proves my argument, governments shouldn't force schools to allow people of different religions admission" doesn't really say anything. If you're going to proudly announce your logical superiority, convince me of why it is wrong for a Catholic to attend school with a Muslim otherwise I will only see the government forcing such heterogenous school populations as a good thing. I'm not asking you to do it now, but it might help in future discussions.»

There you go making misguided statements again. You are taking my words out of context. I stated that if a private school is one of a religious nature (i.e. a catholic school) then the parents' intent is for their children to be educated in a Catholic environment. Letting Muslims in does not fit that description.

Additionally, I never said anything about the government forcing homogenized school populations. What I stated is that as private institutions, it is necessary that they be able to choose who can and cannot attend based upon their own rules, be they academic standards or religious ones. It is not within the government's rights to prevent such rules, nor is it consistent with the wishes of the parents whose children will be attending the school.

Responding to a naive response. Now with childish insults!

2005-06-21T02:53:00.000-05:00
Looks like the party never stops over at my livejournal...more naive (and now even childish) responses to my remarks on education. I will tear both of his most recent comments apart limb from limb after posting them each as a whole. Here is the first one to start with:

«My views are hardly as ignorant as you seem to think. I understand the potential political tensions in a government-run school system. The reason I believe that they are the best option for education is not some pastiche idealism or poorly constructed philosophy. The central tenet of my belief differs from yours. It hardly does credit to you when you make a big display about how my arguments could not possibly flow from your core belief and I am therefore ignorant. If you're doing to 'rend asunder' my proposals, at least attack the belief behind them. That is, that children are capable of being adults long before the age of majority. Why do I propose a child should be in an environment where their parent's views are challenged? Because it forces them to make a decision and form an opinion of their own, independant of the two educating forces in their life. An individual does not have to be 18 before they can have something unique and worthwhile to say. Granted, many people remain immature up until 18 and far past it but that is because they aren't expected to be an autonomous individual until they are. In past centuries children became adults at 13 because they needed to. People have not lost the fundamental ability to be autonomous from a very young age, it is just rarely needed or forced.

There are cases that come up, such as Craig Kielburger, that kid who started Free The Children, a child labour activist group. It's now a major organization and he started it when he was 15. His actions were not the result of government-school education or parental action. I don't think you can mount an effective argument that states that he was not capable, willing, or eager to educate himself and form his own doctrine. If he can take his education and development into his own hands so successfully, I don't see how anyone else isn't at least capable of the same.

That is the point from which my earlier arguments grow. The freedom to build up and nurture ideas is aided by the conflict of home and school. It shows children that people they respect can have different opinions (as opposed to "the only people who think differently are -over there-")and the fact that everyone in their lives does not profess the same beliefs allows them the space to create their own. If a child sees one idea at home at has the exact same idea enforced at school and on TV and in the books they have available to them, they are not encouraged to be autonomous. Any idea that deviates from the norm they may have is immediately labelled 'wrong' from all angles. This may be good for the big stuff (murder, etc) but it would permeate the personal levels of creativity and expression.

So if you're going to call anything ignorant, say that children do not become capable of the abilities we grant to the 'adult' status of 18 until they reach that age. I know most people agree with you seeing as the laws state the "18 is adulthood" mentality. Still, I'm far from alone in my stance that an age limit on maturity can only be problematic. If you can convincingly show me why that is wrong I'll admit to being a misguided ignoramous. But as long as that belief stands my concept of schools and the logic behind it works just fine.»

Let the games begin!

«My views are hardly as ignorant as you seem to think. I understand the potential political tensions in a government-run school system.»

Clearly not well enough, because you openly support such a concept.

«The reason I believe that they are the best option for education is not some pastiche idealism or poorly constructed philosophy. The central tenet of my belief differs from yours.»

More ambiguity. Ho hum.

«It hardly does credit to you when you make a big display about how my arguments could not possibly flow from your core belief and I am therefore ignorant. If you're doing to 'rend asunder' my proposals, at least attack the belief behind them.»

I am glad you have finally come down to childish insults like "it hardly does credit to you" and misleading buzzwords like "your core belief" that make all the little hippie children cheer. Where have you presented any logical beliefs behind your views that have anything to do with the topic at hand, and where have I failed to attack the belief that the government and so-called "educators" know better how to raise peoples' children and that parents should thus be stripped of that power and it handed to the schools with little to no say from the parents?

«That is, that children are capable of being adults long before the age of majority.»

Were you aiming for the word "maturity", or does your sentence simply make no sense? An adult is defined as a "Fully developed and mature." Pretending that it means something else does not make it so.

«Why do I propose a child should be in an environment where their parent's views are challenged? Because it forces them to make a decision and form an opinion of their own, independant of the two educating forces in their life.»

That is for parents to decide, not the government. Regardless of how much you might want to force it upon people. Independent thought is a direct result of being ready for it. An unprepared person forced to think independently will usually end up with flawed ideas or bad results and may never even realize or come to terms with it. The sixties should have made us learn from that mistake.

«An individual does not have to be 18 before they can have something unique and worthwhile to say.»

Which has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion. This is about parents having a say in education, not about when children may and may not speak.

«Granted, many people remain immature up until 18 and far past it but that is because they aren't expected to be an autonomous individual until they are. In past centuries children became adults at 13 because they needed to. People have not lost the fundamental ability to be autonomous from a very young age, it is just rarely needed or forced.»

Off-topic yet again.

No, they were able to be considered adults at 13 because parents actually parented back then, instead of letting their kids dick around for a decade accomplishing nothing at all. Which is a good analogy, because that is precisely what American students do. With a proper schools and with parental involvement in their lives, adulthood at 13 could in theory be reality. It is a rare 13 year old these days who is actually prepared for what you propose, primarily due to both the schools and their parents failing to do their jobs (often due to the two constantly conflicting with each other, I suspect)

«There are cases that come up, such as Craig Kielburger, that kid who started Free The Children, a child labour activist group. It's now a major organization and he started it when he was 15. His actions were not the result of government-school education or parental action. I don't think you can mount an effective argument that states that he was not capable, willing, or eager to educate himself and form his own doctrine. If he can take his education and development into his own hands so successfully, I don't see how anyone else isn't at least capable of the same.»

Which again has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. Self-education is not the subject of this discussion.

«That is the point from which my earlier arguments grow.»

So in other words your earlier arguments were off topic and not relevant. Finally something we agree on.

«The freedom to build up and nurture ideas is aided by the conflict of home and school.»

The problem is that such ideas are borne of confusion, and are frequently either incorrect or based upon false premises pieced together from the debris that is left over from the conflict. Whether your chaos theory even makes sense is questionable. That still begs the query, why should parents be forced to subject their children to such potentially damaging conflict? What you say makes absolutely no sense. It is like setting off a block of C-4 in a car and telling the kid to go build a car out of what is left and then drive it for 10 or more years.

There is no logic in going out of our way to confuse students with that sort of nonsense. Find a truth and stick with it. What that truth that will be taught to the children happens to be is the job of the parents, not of the government. Otherwise again we have led to Soviet Russia.

«It shows children that people they respect can have different opinions (as opposed to "the only people who think differently are -over there-")and the fact that everyone in their lives does not profess the same beliefs allows them the space to create their own. If a child sees one idea at home at has the exact same idea enforced at school and on TV and in the books they have available to them, they are not encouraged to be autonomous.»

Your definition of "autonomous" is misleading. Teaching the kid to earn a living is encouraging autonomy. Confusing the living crap out of a kid by giving them constantly conflicting views and calling them all "truth" or pretending they are all equally valid is just idiocy. The parents, not the schools and bureaucrats, are where the responsibility for raising children lies, and education is part of raising a child.

«Any idea that deviates from the norm they may have is immediately labelled 'wrong' from all angles.»

It is the job of parents, not the government, to teach right from wrong.

«This may be good for the big stuff (murder, etc) but it would permeate the personal levels of creativity and expression.»

Creativity is not the job of a school. Kids already have plenty of it. Expression is only the job of a basic education inasmuch as it is necessary to function in life, for example by teaching them to read and write, perhaps in multiple languages. Preferably English and something useful like Latin (because it helps in comprehension of lots of word-roots).

«So if you're going to call anything ignorant, say that children do not become capable of the abilities we grant to the 'adult' status of 18 until they reach that age. I know most people agree with you seeing as the laws state the "18 is adulthood" mentality. Still, I'm far from alone in my stance that an age limit on maturity can only be problematic. If you can convincingly show me why that is wrong I'll admit to being a misguided ignoramous.»

Offtopic. Age of maturity is not the issue at hand. If you wish to discuss that, go start your own topic. What I have stated is that for the duration of time in which parents are custodians of their children, it is not acceptable to strip parents of their basic rights as parents, in this discussion particularly in regards to educational matters.

«But as long as that belief stands my concept of schools and the logic behind it works just fine.»

*shrug* suit yourself. If you want to hold misguided views, go right ahead. You can even pretend that you were on-topic, but it doesn't make it so.

Next we have his most naive and misguided response yet.

«I would like to mention one point though. Privately funded schools have the ability to restrict entry based on whatever they like. Often this means relgion, but if a blanket policy were introduced that allowed all schools to be heterogenous wouldn't it make sense for some schools to restrict entry on other grounds? For example, if a community has only a handful of black students, couldn't a school deny them entry so they don't have to teach any racial sensitivity? Couldn't a school deny women access because they want a male-centric curriculum? In every community there would be at least a couple of people who would be the odd men out. In my community there aren't enough Hindus to make their own school. If there are Catholic-only and Muslim-only schools in my area, where do the Hindus go? The government couldn't step in and force a school to make a special allowance for them. If both the parents work, they cannot home-school the child nor afford to have them privately tutored. The parents could afford to send them to a school, but no school will accept them. It seems like they have to move into an area with a larer Hindu population and put their child in school there. Isn't that the same 'go fuck yourselves' attitude towards parents that you accused me of proposing? If there would be government safeguards in place, what could they be without being hypocritical of the private school system they put in place?»

In honor of this misguided writing, I will again destroy it.

«I would like to mention one point though. Privately funded schools have the ability to restrict entry based on whatever they like. Often this means relgion, but if a blanket policy were introduced that allowed all schools to be heterogenous wouldn't it make sense for some schools to restrict entry on other grounds?»

Of course. People are free to make idiots of themselves in any form they care to.

«For example, if a community has only a handful of black students, couldn't a school deny them entry so they don't have to teach any racial sensitivity?»

"racial sensitivity"? Why should we require racial sensitivity? Racial sensitivity is just about as racist as you can get, since it requires that people pay even closer attention to race. Personally, I prefer to ignore race entirely.

If the people running a school wanted to have such a racial policy, I seriously doubt you would manage to find enough racist parents in an area to actually support such a school.

«Couldn't a school deny women access because they want a male-centric curriculum?»

I have long been in favor of this sort of policy. Girls' schools denying entrance to boys as well. One less distraction in the classroom. It works pretty well in a lot of schools in Japan, and studies in the US have actually found that it works pretty well over here too.

«In every community there would be at least a couple of people who would be the odd men out. In my community there aren't enough Hindus to make their own school. If there are Catholic-only and Muslim-only schools in my area, where do the Hindus go? The government couldn't step in and force a school to make a special allowance for them.»

Why should they? Private entities can pretty much have whatever entrance requirements they like as far as I am concerned. If I were to send my kids to a Hindu school I sure don't want a bunch of Muslims and Voodooists attending the school.

«If both the parents work, they cannot home-school the child nor afford to have them privately tutored.»

Both parents working is in many cases rather irresponsible as far as child-rearing goes. Financial studies have actually shown that it frequently costs money for both parents to work rather than increasing the amount of money they have coming in due to the extra expenses and lifestyle trade-offs associated with both parents being busy with work rather than home taking care of and raising the kids properly.

«The parents could afford to send them to a school, but no school will accept them. It seems like they have to move into an area with a larer Hindu population and put their child in school there. Isn't that the same 'go fuck yourselves' attitude towards parents that you accused me of proposing?»

Not at all. Letting Muslim kids into a Catholic school is a "go fuck yourselves" attitude, directed at the rest of the parents. You can't please everyone.

«If there would be government safeguards in place, what could they be without being hypocritical of the private school system they put in place?»

Fuck government safeguards. The government has no business telling schools who they have to let in or what they have to teach outside of a totalitarian government. If a school wants to set the bar high for entrance, go for it. If they want to have an all-Voodoo school, let 'em. If they want to have a girls' school, more power to 'em. This is all about giving the parents options that suit their wishes.

Whether it pleases those who do not have children in the school is irrelevant, since their children are not enrolled in that school to begin with. Your example the other day about the Muslim in the Catholic school is a prime example of a stupid decision forced by "government safeguards". It is much like somebody who moved in next to an airport and then complains about the noise. If they wanted quiet they should have gone elsewhere.

Another naive response is torn asunder

2005-06-18T19:44:00.000-05:00
Whee! Yet another misguided and naive post in response to my posts in regards to the government usurpation of child-rearing through public schools. Here is the passage I will be putting through the versatile paper-shredder we all know and love as "logic".

«Schools aren't just entities. Students are dealing primarily with their teachers who aren't always hung up on doctrine and policy.
I have the proof of personal experience to say that teachers know how to deal with students better than their parents. Parents are too hung up on being parents. Often they have the mindset that their children are the same foolish children they were in the pre-school days and they have the authority to enforce that view. Teachers see the children in a social environment where they are free of the unquestionable parental authority. I know I didn't act the same at school as I did at home, and I would say that I was more myself at school. My parents are very liberal but I still felt that restriction that I could only escape at school. The teachers knew this and dealt with everyone accordingly.
I have a couple of friends who are in university for artistic programs. I know that if their parents had any say in it, they would not have been allowed to take art courses in highschool. They would have been forced to take courses that corresponded with the jobs of their parents, accounting and business administration. To them, school was a refuge where teachers encouraged them to take the courses they want, regardless of their parent's wishes.
An issue that came up in my school was that of Muslim prayer. It was a Catholic school but it was publically funded so they couldn't refuse students with different religious backgrounds. The school chaplain forbid Muslim students from praying in the school saying that it disrupted the school environment. Parents either didn't care about the issue or supported the chaplain's decision. The students made it an issue and it was ruled that the Muslim students could pray on school premises. The school listened to students rather than parents in this case. If the parents had their way it would have created a "My parents say that I can't be around you" situation that could only have bred religious tension and racism.
Also, teachers are citizens of a free society. They're as American or Canadian as their neighbours. I don't know a single teacher who hasn't gone against some outdated or misguided school policy to benefit a student.
To accuse teachers of indoctrinating seems absurd to me. Teachers are people who have their own ideals that influence their teaching, sure. But are you suggesting parents are completely doctrine free or that a parent's ideals are the right ideals for their child? Or perhaps that children should never be in an environment where their parent's ideas are challenged? All those options seem far more authoritarian and misguided than a loosely monitored government-run school.»

I will now summarily destroy his argument.

«Schools aren't just entities.»

A bad start. A school is precisely an entity. To be more detailed, a school is an educational entity. To deny that it is an entity is preposterous.

«Students are dealing primarily with their teachers who aren't always hung up on doctrine and policy.»

In some localities this might be true, but in general it is exactly the opposite of what you stated. And in the cases of teachers who are not "hung up on doctrine and policy," generally the doctrine and policy has already been mandated in the curriculum they are required by political entities of some flavor to teach.

«I have the proof of personal experience to say that teachers know how to deal with students better than their parents.»

I have yet to see any evidence of this whatsoever, regardless of what you claim as "personal experience". You will have to do better than that to try to prove your case that parents should not be the end-authority with whom the educational decisions of their children should rest.

«Parents are too hung up on being parents. Often they have the mindset that their children are the same foolish children they were in the pre-school days and they have the authority to enforce that view.»

That is extremely childish reasoning. If parents were done raising children at 5, adult status would not be gained at 18. What you describe is called parenting, despite your mischaracterization of parents as "being hung up on" parenting. Seeing to it that children are properly raised and educated is a basic duty of parenting.

«Teachers see the children in a social environment where they are free of the unquestionable parental authority. I know I didn't act the same at school as I did at home, and I would say that I was more myself at school. My parents are very liberal but I still felt that restriction that I could only escape at school. The teachers knew this and dealt with everyone accordingly.»

Red herring. I did not say anything about lack of schooling, I was stating that parents need to have more of a say in how schools are run. Your statement has nothing to do with my posts.

Besides the above, there is also the fact that a basic element of parenting is deciding whom you would entrust your children to in your absence. Due to the way the money flows, the current system strips most parents of that ability by making alternatives to public education unaffordable by the means mentioned in the previous posts on the subject that I have made.

«I have a couple of friends who are in university for artistic programs. I know that if their parents had any say in it, they would not have been allowed to take art courses in highschool. They would have been forced to take courses that corresponded with the jobs of their parents, accounting and business administration. To them, school was a refuge where teachers encouraged them to take the courses they want, regardless of their parent's wishes.»

You have yet to make heads or tails of why the government should be able to take power out of the hands of parents and put it into the hands of the schools in this regard. There is no logical reason why parents should not have a very strong say in the curriculum their students receive, regardless of the types of courses being taught.

«An issue that came up in my school was that of Muslim prayer. It was a Catholic school but it was publically funded so they couldn't refuse students with different religious backgrounds.»All the more reason to get the government out of the business of funding education programs. A Muslim has no business in any other religion's school.

«The school chaplain forbid Muslim students from praying in the school saying that it disrupted the school environment. Parents either didn't care about the issue or supported the chaplain's decision. The students made it an issue and it was ruled that the Muslim students could pray on school premises. The school listened to students rather than parents in this case. If the parents had their way it would have created a "My parents say that I can't be around you" situation that could only have bred religious tension and racism.»

Irrelevant. In a Catholic school, the environment should be Catholic. That is the point of having a Catholic school. Hell, even I know this, and I am a protestant who attended public school. This kind of homogenization is exactly why the government has little to no business butting into schools.

«Also, teachers are citizens of a free society. They're as American or Canadian as their neighbours. I don't know a single teacher who hasn't gone against some outdated or misguided school policy to benefit a student.»

Outdated or misguided according to whom? Your ambiguities are appalling.

«To accuse teachers of indoctrinating seems absurd to me. Teachers are people who have their own ideals that influence their teaching, sure. But are you suggesting parents are completely doctrine free or that a parent's ideals are the right ideals for their child? Or perhaps that children should never be in an environment where their parent's ideas are challenged? All those options seem far more authoritarian and misguided than a loosely monitored government-run school.»

There you go slinging ad-hominems all willy-nilly. Authoritarian? Please. Parents are the authorities placed above their own children, true. But that does not make it "authoritarianism". You still have yet to make any logical argument why parents ought to be stripped of the authority they have over their own children in favor of politically-charged government programs like unaccountable public schooling. Teachers indoctrinate all the time, be it because of the mandated curriculum or their own views being reflected in the way they teach a subject. I will take authority in the hands of the parents any day over handing it over misguidedly to any government entity.

If that is the best you can do, you have made a great case for my own argument that the government should not be in the business of making decisions regarding the raising and educating of people's children.

Schools: Delegates, not surrogates

2005-06-16T15:34:00.000-05:00
While I did not receive a lot of responses to my last post, mostly because I don't update frequently anymore, I did receive a very misguided post on my livejournal mirror in which a very disturbing post was made:

«I think that parents shouldn't have much of a say in their children's education. They can move schools or even move to different states or countries if they're really bothered by the school curriculum. They already control a major part of education through their control on home life.
Schools are supposed to serve and represent the students, not the parents. The teachers and administration are the most intimately acquainted with children outside of their home setting so they are best suited to create the curriculum. It doesn't mean that they're fantastic at it, but they're better than parents.»

This can only be stated upon the most misguided and totalitarian principles imaginable. Allow me to tear this apart piece by piece.

«I think that parents shouldn't have much of a say in their children's education.»

This is a bad foot to get off on to begin with. In a free society, choice is key. Particularly when it comes to parents raising their children. Only in the most vile societies are parents cut out of their own children's upbringing in such a manner. The Soviet Union and Red China come to mind, as do the Hitler Youth. I know what the standard response would be from anyone who holds the above fallacious view...they would compare it misguidedly to the Boy Scouts. However, there is a key difference. There is no political pressure in the US involved with having your son join or participate in the Boy Scouts. In most cases there is no other alternative but to place a child in public schooling.

Which brings me to the next misguided sentence, which I will summarily rend asunder.

«They can move schools or even move to different states or countries if they're really bothered by the school curriculum.»

This is exactly the kind of "go f*** yourselves" attitude parents are receiving that is such a problem. In a free society, all things are accountable to the people, particularly the people affected by the subject at hand. I have yet to see this happening...if parents are forced to move to get away from such schools, there is something inherently wrong with the system in place for schools in that area.

«They already control a major part of education through their control on home life.»

That has nothing to do with it. Parents should always be in control of how their children are raised. It is a vital part of parenting to be able to choose what is and is not acceptable in regards to your children.

«Schools are supposed to serve and represent the students, not the parents.»

Also a fallacy. Schools are supposed to teach students, but they fail to do so anymore. All they seem to do is indoctrinate, which is a realm that is not the job of the government of any free people. This also neglects that the government must be accountable to the people, not simply above them.

«The teachers and administration are the most intimately acquainted with children outside of their home setting so they are best suited to create the curriculum. It doesn't mean that they're fantastic at it, but they're better than parents.»

Have you proof? I have not seen any reliable evidence of anything of the sort. Meanwhile, I have seen with my own two eyes exactly the opposite, which is to say that schools do a very poor job of educating and instead tend to focus on indoctrination and teaching to suit a standardized test with no regard to whether the knowledge will ever benefit the students at all.

To put it succinctly, raising children is the parents' job, not that of the government. Schools are delegates of parents, not surrogates to them. If the schools are not reflecting the will of the parents, then the schools are inherently flawed in their existence.

government vs. the people

2005-06-13T14:28:00.000-05:00
I have been wanting to write something about the Supreme Court's poor decision in the Gonzales v. Raich decision but due to fire school, I haven't yet have the time. I hope to get to it. But in the mean time, here is Paul Jacob's take on it. It brings up the most important of the things I wanted to get across: The commerce clause is not carte blanche for the Federal Government to be all-powerful in all material respects. Quite a while back I wrote another xanga entry concerning this, but I would eventually like to pick apart this particular Supreme Court opinion since it is far more current than the wheat case of the thirties that I addressed in that one.

Additionally, Jeff Jacoby wrote an interesting take entitled «Separating school and state», which discusses the most obvious solution to all the "what schools should and should not teach" debates across the country. As I read it, I first had to think and consider this: Why are school administrators, school boards, and bureaucrats being allowed to override parents?

The answer is twofold, really. One is political and the second is economical.

The political answer is that even many school boards (and especially departments of education) are unintereted in what parents think or believe, and are so far removed from them that they have no serious repercussions from failing to obey the will of those they are supposed to serve and reperesent. This is unacceptable.

This leads me to the economical half. Without competition, there is no inspiration for the schools to try to actually improve or to actually satisfy the parents' concerns and complaints. In fact, there is no need to do so at all. Especially as long as private schooling costs on top of school taxes, which is an underhanded system any way you slice it. Without basic competition and actually having to get students to get their pay, the public schools will continue to ignore public and parental concerns.

The solution?

I don't know for sure. Some semblance of ownership, be it actual ownership or just control, of the parents over the school is a must. This can be direct control, or the control that actual choice allows (by levelling the cost playing field between public and private schools, in whatever way that would be executed).

Personally, I like the idea of some sort of competition. It makes marketplaces thrive and competitors compete to be more desirable than the other. This means constant competition rather than temporary, and it means that if one slacks off they actually have to answer to the marketplace for it.

Common sense? I like to think so. But you would be amazed the lack of common sense that is shown by socialized programs in most cases. There are three basic economic ideas that must be observed in order to maintain both quality, quantity, and price:

Without competition, costs go up.
Without competition, quality goes down.
When competition is precluded by governments, the above two reasons cannot be cured by the creation of competition.

And no, private schools are not "competition". The parents and others still have to pay tuition for the private schools and school taxes for the public schools they do not use, which is a corrupt system of funding. Takes away the inspiration of public schools to compete for the parents to put their students in the public school that doesn't care what parents think anyway, wouldn't you say?

Another mirror

2005-06-08T06:32:00.000-05:00
Hello, friends, conservatives, Republicans, soldiers, sailors, Marines, coasguardsmen, old-fashioned girls, mothering mothers, men who are men, gun nuts, firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency services personnel, fellow Linux geeks, and any other folks who care to drop in. I am Peter, a volunteer firefighter, almost-EMT (just finished the class, and have to take the state test now), fire-school student, husband, brother, entrepreneur, Christian, ex-video game developer, former movie theater projectionist, Eagle Scout, and various other things that don't spring to mind.

I will be mirroring my other blogging spots here (xanga, myspace, livejournal, gaia online journal) as well. I figure I may as well, besides it makes it feasable to maintain an account for commenting on all of them. I post most these days on Xanga, but that is because that is where most of the discussion goes on. I will try to keep up around here too, though.

Thanks for stopping by!