It Must Be Election Time....

Literally every single time I have lingered for more than a second on MSNBC the last two days, they have been talking about Woodward's new book. This book is a slam against the White House, (I know..surprise surprise) based on leaks and back stabbing interviews.

The next Republican president should completely clean house at the State department and CIA, they have become bastions of Democratic hacks and internationalists who could care less about the US. Send them all home like Pres. Reagan did with the air traffic controllers.

We will be in marginal more danger (given the track record of the State Department and CIA) while the two organizations are reconstituted, but the danger will be worth it.

Minor Tragedy

I caught one of my students cheating last week (she was really sloppy) and confirmed it by using a fake answer key today.

She's a good kid, and pretty smart. She didn't need to cheat, and I'm not even that mad about it.

But what is really depressing is that she is refusing to admit it. (and I have her dead to rights...the evidence couldn't be more damning.) She has given tearful denials now to her parents and another teacher. In fact it is her denials that are probably going to see her kicked out of leadership at school. (the teacher she tearfully denied it to is her leadership advisor, but I've shown him the evidence, and there is no doubt in either of our minds)

So now I'm starting to feel like a shit for busting her. My friend the leadership advisor is upset, hurt and disillusioned by the false denials, the other leadership kids are going to be upset if she is kicked out of leadership (and I have about 20 of them in the class), her parents are upset, and the student in question is upset.

Yet another way that teaching sometimes sucks.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

This is my favorite version of the song, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

100 Words

100 words is back, and I have just posted my entry for the fourth straight day. It's hard to find a voice in only 100 words, and have a plot. Then to top it off, somedays, like today, you find that someone else has already developed the theme you were shooting for. I was going to go with Space Invaders today, but it had already been done. Still, I think today's effort has been my best of the four. I should find my groove in a week or two.

Kill Me Now......

Man I hate food poisoning......

Update: Last time it was a pizza, which was bad enough. Today I got to re-visit this morning's sausage and egg McMuffin, and a Livewire Slurpee.

Heroes

Well the show didn't knock my socks off, but it was interesting enough to get me back for one more week. The show was dramatically over-hyped though.

We Missed You Les......

Apparently 100 Words or Les Nesman is back. Sorta. Now it's apparently just plain old 100 Words. My first effort is a little questionable, but I'll soon get back into harness.

By the way H/T to my brother.

My New Favorite Rap Video

H/T: The Irish Trojan

Update 9/26/06: I've just watched this thing again for like the 20th time, and laughed outloud each time. Weird Al is a God.


I wonder what videos made by Richard Cheese would look like?

Fight On! Pt. 3

What the hell? We lose another fullback? This is getting ridiculous! Oh well, at least we beat the University of Arizona in the PAC-10 opener, 20-3. Moody is looking like quite a find, and a suitable replacement for Reggie Bush.
Considering what we lost to the NFL this year, USC is progressing very nicely.

Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

Andrew Sullivan is complaing about "torture" again on his blog. You can tell this guy has lead a very sheltered life, because the tortures he is so torn up about are pretty mild, and no worse than what occurs during hellweek for many sports teams and most fraternity pledge classes. (hell, from what I hear, worse things happen on an average weekend at English public schools) Who does Sullivan think we are dealing with here? These guys aren't boyscouts..they're terrorists for Christ's sake!

Fantasy Football 2006

Well, after two weeks results are mixed.

In my three tier 1 leagues (two ESPN cash leagues and a yahoo league, all with my co-workers) I am 5-1. In the league I have a loss in, none of the teams in my division are undefeated.

In my three tier 2 leagues, I am 1-5 (three yahoo leagues with friends and former high school classmates) . That means I am .500 overall, not too shabby at this point.

Two and a Half Men

The funniest TV I have seen in months was the 2 minute intro to the season premire of Two and a Half Men that just played.

California Governor's Race

Apparently, the Democratic Party has been subsumed by BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). They are spending millions of dollars on commercials here in California on the governors race. Do the ads give us reasons to support and vote for Angelides? Nope. He doesn't even appear. Instead they are one minute attacks on Arnold simply because he supported the re-election of Pres. Bush.

So in a State with a larger economy than most nations, with huge problems with illegal immigration and the inability to adhere to a balanced budget; the biggest issue according to the Democrats, is that a registered Republican supported a registered Republican.

The bankruptcy of ideas on the left has never been more pronounced or apparent.

Fight On! Pt. 2

28-10. A fine workman-like victory. Nothing flashy, but fairly effective. Give the re-building currently going on at SC, you can't really expect more at this point.

Breakfast Club Redux

I remember watching The Breakfast Club twenty years ago, and being able to see a little bit of myself in all the kids (except Molly Ringwald). Today I was in charge of Saturday school, (a four hour detention hall) and it finally hit me..I have become Principal Vernon.


Man that sucks.

A Fine Pair of Boobys!

I guess the hot new topic in blogging today is boobys. Steve H. has been discussing the issue the past couple of days, and has apparently come to the conclusion, that if you can't beat them, join them. So he has posted a kind of mini-carnival of boobys today. Since I haven't had an original thought in years, and I am a complete traffic whore, I thought I would get in the game. So here I proudly present my favortite pair of boobys.


Update 9/15/06: Welcome to everybody coming over from the Irish Trojan! Relax, kick up you feet and stay awhile. Have a look around, you might find something you like.

Update 9/28/06: Welcome everyone coming over from Samantha Burns' site. C'mon on in and stay awhile.

I Shall Never Forget...

I remember the morning of 9-11-01 very well. My Mom had just called me over to look at the news (a live shot of the Twin Towers) about a plane hitting a building in New York. Almost immediately the second plane hit. I was consumed with a deep anger, because I knew what had happened. One plane may be an accident, two is a plot. My mind did not leap to Osama, but I did know it was Islamic terrorists.

I was watching live TV when the Challenger blew up also. I remember the grief and sadness I felt, and the anger for the anchorman who was apparently unaware of what had happened and kept droning on about the mission.

9-11 was different though. This wasn't an accident, this was planned.

I have always been labeled pro-Arab. I understand the anger about the imposition of Israel in their midst. I have always believed in a Palestinian state. I can even understand intellectually the anger and futility that the Islamic world feels when they compare their standard of living to ours.

But when it comes down to a question of us or them, (and I think this conflict does) then there is no question whose side I am on. In the last five years I have come to believe that we are in a clash of civilizations, the modern world versus the medieval one. And even if we were so inclined as to show mercy, our mercy would be scorned as weakness and rejected. We are going to have to develop the resolve and the will to eliminate Islam as a force in the world. Because they are never going to give up, reform or back down. Their culture and religion simply will not allow them to. We have spent the last two centuries fighting against Islamic expansion, in Moorish Spain, at the Battle of Tours, in the Balkans. Islam has made more gains in the last fifty years than in the 500 years before it. Europe has been thourghly infiltrated. Already one Islamic state has developed atomic weapons, and a second is on the cusp. MAD will not work on these people, because as far as we are concerned they are quite simply mad.

Genocide is an ugly word, for an ugly act. We can all hope that it never comes to that. The problem is, our enemies are literally praying that it does come to that.

Thoughts on 9-11

As I have said before I am a teacher. I teach Social Studies to 8th graders. One of my fellow Social Studies teachers and I had a conversation on Friday about what we were going to do on Monday to commemorate 9-11. Now I respect this woman. Five years ago she organized some students who raised money, and bought trees and plaques to commemorate the Twin Towers and United 93. (However nothing was done to commemorate, and no mention was made of, the attack on the Pentagon, and I don't think that was an accident. I wish I had noticed that at the time, I would have spoken up)

However, she had mixed emotions about doing anything on Monday, because she didn't want to support in any way, those who would "use the anniversary of 9-11 to justify going around the world and bombing people". She talked about doing a presentation on an organization in NYC comprised of victims of terrorism around the world who promote a peaceful response to terror.

The whole time she was doing this, I was thinking, "how nice that you have the luxury to indulge your ideology, and present it to your students."

Because I feel exactly the opposite. I want my students to understand the horror of what was done. I want them to realize that there are people on this planet who want them dead because of who they are, how they live, and what they think. In five years many of these kids will be in the service defending us.

My last thought Friday morning was: Doesn't this otherwise intelligent woman understand that these monsters would come here and cut her head off in a heartbeat, and not feel a thing about it? And sadly I realized that she doesn't. Not really. And neither does most of the left in America today.

Frankly that scares me more than the terrorists themselves.

It's Baaaack

Mountain Dew Livewire is back. (The Orange flavor) Oh well, guess I'm not going to be losing any weight for a while.....



Update 9/9/06: I've looked everywhere! I've looked at Stater Bros., 7-11, Arco, Wal Mart and everywhere else. The only size of Livewire available anywhere is the 20 oz size, which of course is the most uneconomical size. Damn it. Hurry up and ship the 2 liter bottles!

Day By Day

Have you read the latest Day By Day strip? I can't believe Chris would kill off Jan that way...it has to be a carjacking! I mean, she just found out she's pregnant!


I'm actually waiting impatiently for tomorrow's strip......


Update: Thank God, Jan is alive in Monday's strip, and the car was stolen.

Fight On!

USC wins its first game! We blow out Arkansas for the second year in a row, this time 50-14.

A Shot Across Her Bow.....

The Kossack/nutroots crowd have fired their first salvo at Hillary Clinton. MoveOn (which if I remember correctly was formed to defend Pres. Clinton) has failed to endorse Sen. Clinton for re-election to her Senate seat against a no name, no chancer. Look for Hillary to quickly run to the left.