Ironic?

They just had Jerry West award the Western Conference Championship trophy to Mitch Kupchak of the Lakers. Excuse me? Given all the talk that the fix was in when West traded Paul Gosol to the Lakers was this really a good idea?

Public Service Announcement

If you ever hear that I am going to the same baseball game you are going to, sell your tickets. The last four baseball games I have attended (2 Angels, 2 Dodgers) have ended in 1-0 scores.

Last night was a real scorefest. The Angels won 1-0 on a walkoff walk on four straight pitches in the bottom of the 12th.

Plus I got the pleasure of sitting next to a bunch of drunken frat boys and their dates.

The seats were cool otherwise though....3rd base side, field level between the foul pole and the bullpens, close to the bullpens. Kenny Rogers was pitching for Detroit, and I got some good heckles in as he was warming up in the bullpen and walking out at the start of the game.: "Hey Kenny, you pitch like a singer", "hey where's Dolly?". " you better sing good tonigght, I paid good money for the seats", "freebird!", "C'mon Kenny, just one song".

O'Reilly Losing It (profanity)

The Empire Strike Barack

TBL? Update 4/21/08

Well I weighed in today. My team leader read off the numbers. According to her I lost 9 pounds this week. Not bad, remember, I haven't started any type of exercise yet...it's all just a change in diet so far.

Am I The Only One Thinking This?

Utah is known as the beehive state. New Orleans is the home of jazz music. The NBA franchise in Utah is known as the Jazz, the NBA franchise in New Orleans is known as the Hornets. Shouldn't somebody arrange a swap in team names?

There is precedent.

When the Art Model wanted to move the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, the NFL worked out a deal where he essentially traded the Browns to the NFL for an expansion team and the Browns' then roster and organization. The name, uniform, records, legacy of the Browns stayed in Cleveland even though everything else went to Baltimore, and a new Browns team was formed.

Refilling Oil Fields Pt 3

Another article musing about the possibility that the Earth is constantly producing oil deep beneath the surface. It mainly talks about a new field found off the coast of Brazil. Every since people started moaning that oil was running out new oil fields have started popping up all over the place.

Being Sick Sucks.....

About halfway through work today, I started to get a painfull cough and my chest tightened up. By the time I got home I was feeling miserable. Just in time for the fracking weekend. My throat is raw, my upper chest congested and I am painfully coughing up bloody sputum. I hope it burns out fast, we're giving the state standardized test all next week, and I really need to be there.

Global Warming Redux

Global Warming

The global warming doomsayers have been telling us for years that one sign of global warming was the increasingly bad hurricane seasons. It's a central point in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

Well, the scientist Gore and others have been depending on has just released a new study. Those that are talking about this study are concentrating on the idea that this new study might suggest that hurricanes are not linked to global warming. Which is true. What they are overlooking or ignoring is that Emanuel also states at the same time that his new study might equally suggest that the climate models that global warming activists rely on do not accurately reflect real world realities. The key quote from Emanuel:

"The models are telling us something quite different from what nature seems to be telling us. There are various interpretations possible, e.g. a) The big increase in hurricane power over the past 30 years or so may not have much to do with global warming, or b) The models are simply not faithfully reproducing what nature is doing. Hard to know which to believe yet."

Surely the interpretation that the climate models that underlay the theory of global warming don't work is much more newsworthy than the interpretation that hurricanes aren't linked to global warming? Why then is the first interpretation receiving so much coverage, and the second is being, as far as I can tell, completely ignored? According to Emanuel himself the two are equally likely.

At the very least, Emanuel's new study clearly shows that climate science is not a settled issue. Which is what we skeptics have been claiming all along.

TBL? Update 4/13/08

Another good week. My clothes are definitely getting looser. Still no weight, but that may change this week.

I cheated a little on Friday night, I went out with some friends and had three glasses of beer. Then I cheated a little tonight and had a Coke with dinner.

But I'm not putting any pressure on myself to be perfect, so it's all good...no guilt.

I may be having a strange aallergic reaction to the generic Crystal Light though..so I'm going to stick to straight water for a day or two to see.

TBL? Update 4/5/08

I went the whole week without soda...in fact without sugar. I had some caffiene headaches, but nothing I haven't had to deal with before. Diet food like Healthy Choice or Lean Cuisine still tastes like cardboard to me....I may simply go on Atkins again.

Thursday night we worked at McDonald's for three hours to raise money for my school. I spent three hours in front of the fryers. I can't believe I used to do that stuff for a living once. When I got home that night I drank 4 quarts of generic Crystal Light.

The lady at the DO never got back to me about weighing in...so who knows. My clothes continue to get looser though.

I Am The Champion!

I just won the IrishTrojan's NIT pool for the second year in a row. I came in second two years ago. Go me.

The Biggest Loser?

Well, I was nagged into joining a weight loss competition out at work. The big problem? They can't weigh me. The scales only go up to 350, and I peg it there. Someone from the district is supposed to call me this week to let me know where to go to get weighed.

I had already decided to try and lose 6 inches by the end of the school year. At one point last year I was at 68 inches, right now I am at 66, I want to get to 60 by the time school is out. So even if I end up not being in the competition, I have my own goal to meet.

The big thing, that will make a big difference, is cutting out soda. It's tough for me, and that's where my empty calories are. I can drink 4 liters of Mountain Dew in a day, easy. I figure I can drop at least 1,500 to 2,000 calories a day just by finally not drinking soda. It's been two days so far...so far so good.

To be honest, I really don't know how I got to be this big. Pyschologically I don't think of myself as this big. Two inches here, two inches there, and the next thing you know you can only buy clothes at the big guys store.

Well, Mom and dad have both lost a lot of weight in their 50's and 60's so it can be done.

One day I hope to be able to say I'm half the man I used to be.

The Master Of My Domain....(or at least the N.I.T.)

http://blog.brendanloy.com/2008/03/defending-champ.html

Clinically Wild Alaska

I have been watching a lot of the Animal Planet channel lately. There's one show called Clinically Wild Alaska. There is something about the female vet on that show, especially her eyes that I find incredibly attractive.

Am I alone here?

Update: Her name is actually Dr. Shannon Kesting

Valentine's Day For Men

Technically, Valentine's Day is supposed to be for men and women, but for a myriad of reasons has devolved into "treat women ronmantically day". So, in order to restore balance to the universe, there is a proposal to make March 14 a companion holiday for men.

Generic Blog topic #2,090,897,456,001

What are the ten greatest songs that were better as covers than the version sung by the person who wrote them?

To keep the list kosher, we'll confine the list of possible songs to those written by people who have had at least one song sung by them make it to the top ten. The song also must have been released in some form by the writer as well as been sung by someone else.

The first two people that come to my mind immediately are Carole King and Bob Dylan. I'm not a big fan of either of their voices, but they both wrote some great songs.

Behavioral Skills and Expectations

Here is an argument I am participating in on an education blog called joannejacobs.com. The beginning quote is from someone on the otherside of the argument. The discussion began with a post about disruptive students filming "out of control" teachers on their cellphones and posting them on youtube.

"I have a big problem believing that teachers who know how to teach reading and arithmetic can’t figure out how to teach behavioral skills and expectations."


Really? Why?
When did it become the role of teachers to teach behavioral skills and expectations instead of parents? Not too long ago, it was expected that students would already have behavioral skills and expectations before they entered school, and the results were rewarded and punished at home.
We used to teach behavioral skills and enforce expectations by having concrete consequences, and enforcing them uniformly and immediately. This enforcement included corporal punishment, public embarassment, and meaningful expulsion.
Then the 1960's came along and brought us the self-esteem movement and dangerous kooks like Dr. Spock.
Every animal on the planet that raises and teaches it's young uses negative reinforcement to do so. There's a reason for that...it works. We now have a society in which not only can't educators use corporal punishment, but parents are afraid to do so also, for fear of being reported for abuse. The second most effective form of negative reinforcement, shame, is also out of bounds. I have parents who have actually filed complaints on me for embarassing or shaming their child. When I explain to them their child's behavior deserved shame and embarassment they look at me like I am crazy. Shame and embarrsment have also gotten much less effective as popular culture has glorified and celebrated behavior that was once deemed shameful. There literally is no sense of guilt anymore...maybe a little chagrin at getting caught. The most popular kids at school aren't the athletes or cheerleaders, they are the thugs. The ruder and more out of control you behave, the more popular you are. Academic success and good behavior is ridiculed (school boy, acting white). Politeness is seen as weakness.
There are problems with positive reinforcement also. Praise has been completely devalued, because these students have been receiving false praise for poor performance and effort for years. Rewards are ineffective because the students feel entitled to them regardless of performance or behavior. In my experience positive reinforcement doesn't motivate those who don't earn it to try harder, it motivates them to belittle and deride positive reinforcers. As for the students who earn positive reinforcement, they tend to be the students who are going to behave and succeed anyway.
Children are not civilized beings who can be reasoned with. You cannot get children to behave by explaining to them that it is the right thing to do. Children are barbarians. They must be civilized. How do you civilize barbarians? By making the price of barbarity too high to pay, and civilization a more attractive alternative. We are refusing to punish barbarity, and instead glorify it in our popular culture.
So what are we left with? Calling home? About half of the time, the parents side with the students indiscriminately. Much of the rest of the time, the parents have no control over their kids. (This year I have had literally half a dozen parents ask me how to get their child committed to Juvenile Hall) A significant number of parents are simply unreachable. Time outs, detentions? My students either ignore them or simply see them as the cost of doing business. Suspensions? 50% of my referrals to the admin are ignored. When students are eventually suspended, they stay home for a couple of days and watch TV and play video games. (I have students who if they were literate enough would be taunting me with "go ahead and throw me in the briar patch") Expulsions? The district simply refuses to expel students. If they do, they immediately suspend the expulsion, and move the student to a different school instead. I currently have a student who has been expelled twice already this year. (once by a different district with a much better reputation who actually enforced their expulsion)
So, I have 5 classes with 35 students that I see for one hour a day, five days a week. At least half of them see no value in an education and expect (and fell entitled) for society to provide for them. They have no sense of shame or guilt, and no fear of corporal punishment. They know the worst thing that will happen to them is that eventually they will get a couple of days vacation at home.
For the sake of arguement, let's grant that I am responsible for teaching them behavioral skills and expectations? How am I supposed to do that? And if I do try to do that, when am I supposed to teach them the subject matter material?

What the @#&*% Is Going On With TV? Pt. 2

Did I really just see Ana Marie Cox on CNN's reliable sources on a panel discussing journalistic ethics?

Does no one have a sense of irony?