Does The Moon Also Fall?

Here's your homework assignment for this week.  But if you're anything like me, it'll take you a good while longer than a week to get it all internalized.



Thinking about things like String Theory and other Quantum-y stuff usually gives me a pounding headache.  So, I try instead to think about what was going on in people's heads in the 17th century when Newton was trying to introduce his new ways of doing things.  And it occurs to me: the TeaBaggers of that time resisted all this revolutionary thinking the same as they do now.  It's not much to hang onto, but I have to remember that time is actually on our side.  Evolution doesn't care if you "believe" in it or not.  The surest path to extinction is to defy the natural order of cause and effect.  Adapt; Improvise; Overcome.  If you don't learn, you don't change.  And if you don't change, you die.

The News From Afghanistan

As of today, in wars supposedly intended to get us a little payback, we've now gotten almost 3 times as many Americans killed as died on 9/11.  

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The killing of an American serviceman in an exchange of fire with allied Afghan soldiers pushed U.S. military deaths in the war to 2,000, a cold reminder of the perils that remain after an 11-year conflict that now garners little public interest at home.

When do we get it thru our thick skulls that none of this makes any sense at all?

Gettin' It Done - 38 & 37

I truly hate the Performance Test model for improving schools.  Teachers and Administrators are actually pretty smart people, and it doesn't take a long time before they figure out the game.  I'm not saying they're all just a buncha short-cutters and cheats, I'm saying they know that about the only thing that gets improved in any big way is the balance sheets of companies that suddenly pop up to peddle Assessment Software and their new-found "expertise" as Education Consultants - the teachers and admins figure out how to do what they need to do to keep the doors open, and how to make it look like they're toeing the line as prescribed by power-drunk law-makers and self-designated "experts" who have practically no fuckin' clue how any given school actually works.

And here's the kicker:  You don't fix the schools until you fix the neighborhoods - maybe we could concentrate on that for a minute or two, eh?

37. Crafting Next-Generation School Tests: Devoted $330 million in stimulus money to pay two consortia of states and universities to create competing versions of new K-12 student performance tests based on latest psychometric research. New tests could transform the learning environment in vast majority of public school classrooms beginning in 2014.

And speaking of schooling, this one I can get behind in a pretty big way.  "Higher" education is becoming (if it isn't already) the new High School.  Since there are practically no jobs in the traditional sectors where lots of non-college-track kids could catch on, you don't get any job that doesn't require Spatula Skills if you don't have at least a coupla years beyond K-12.  By trying to do something about the Loan Sharks, Obama is trying to make it a little harder to chain these kids to a lifetime of servitude just so a few bankers' kids get new Mustangs for graduation.

38. Cracked Down on Bad For-Profit Colleges: In effort to fight predatory practices of some for-profit colleges, Department of Education issued “gainful employment” regulations in 2011 cutting off commercially focused schools from federal student aid funding if more than 35 percent of former students aren’t paying off their loans and/or if the average former student spends more than 12 percent of his or her total earnings servicing student loans.

Meep Meep, Muthahfuckah

Wile E Coyote's cousin Bibi addresses the UN.

Sen Jim Webb, (D-VA)

Those young Marines that I led have grown older now. They’ve lived lives of courage, both in combat and after their return, where many of them were derided by their own peers for having served. That was a long time ago. They are not bitter. They know what they did. But in receiving veterans’ benefits, they are not takers. They were givers, in the ultimate sense of that word. There is a saying among war veterans: “All gave some, some gave all.” This is not a culture of dependency. It is a part of a long tradition that gave this country its freedom and independence. They paid, some with their lives, some through wounds and disabilities, some through their emotional scars, some through the lost opportunities and delayed entry into civilian careers which had already begun for many of their peers who did not serve.

And not only did they pay. They will not say this, so I will say it for them. They are owed, if nothing else, at least a mention, some word of thanks and respect, when a presidential candidate who is their generational peer makes a speech accepting his party’s nomination to be commander-in-chief. And they are owed much more than that — a guarantee that we will never betray the commitment that we made to them and to their loved ones.

Any Questions?

Today's Cartoon

GOTV

Goofy as all hell, and the numbers are quite a bit different now, but it's still all about moving a few people off the fuckin' dime and out to the polls.

On average, over the last several cycles, national elections are decided be fewer than a dozen votes per precinct.  Make a few calls and see what happens.

The War Goes On

In this particular case, I refer to The War On Women.

via Addicting Info:

On Friday, the Illinois court of appeals upheld a decision that allows pharmacists and medical dispensaries to refuse to give out emergency contraceptives on the grounds of religion.

So here's a thought; maybe I could go to Pharmacy Tech school, wait around for that job at CVS to open up, and then after I'm kinda established, I could convert to the Christian Science brand of religion.  At that point, it seems like I'd be in the perfect position.  I could simply refuse to fill or dispense any prescriptions because my religion forbids it, which means I wouldn't be required to do any actual work.  And they couldn't pressure me or fire me because I could sue their asses off for Religious Discrimination in the workplace.

Gettin' It Done - 39

Because you can't concentrate well enough to learn everything you need to learn when food is competing for the top spot on your brain's list of priorities.

39. Improved School Nutrition: In coordination with Michelle Obama, signed Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 mandating $4.5 billion spending boost and higher nutritional and health standards for school lunches. New rules based on the law, released in January, double the amount of fruits and vegetables and require only whole grains in food served to students.

And btw -  
It has given us the iced doughnut, the burger and the fattest people on Earth.

But now America is outdoing even itself when it comes to unhealthy food, by trying to claim pizza is a vegetable.

A school lunches Bill going before Congress aims to reclassify the junk food due to the tomato paste on the dough.

Read more: The Daily Mail