INSPIRATIONAL: My Summertime friends

Monday, May 3, 2010

One of the interesting parts of owning a “summer home” is neighbors.

You become attached, involved, and friends.

But, only for the “summer”.

That’s defined for us from when we turn the water on to when we turn it off.

Each spring, we sort of hold our breaths while we find out if everyone survived. As one of the “younger couples” on the street, each year we dread losing a few neighbors.

“Life goes on.”

Some of the neighbors are like us and open up asap and close as late as possible.

(I wish it was year round. Virtually no people in the winter. Perfect for an ITSJ like me.)

When one of my neighbors was AWOL, I decided to break my own rules about phones — I didn’t have her email — and call. With some trepidation.

(Our “rutgers womens bball games” friends have also suffered the fate of old age and passed. We have a similar dread of the first game each season to see who didn’t make it.)

So I called fearing the worst.

But it was good news, there’s a baby on the way. So we’ll have a baby next door this summer. Great. It means life goes on. And, someone to inherit that family’s summer home.

And, maybe some one to mark when our time comes.

I informed the lady in question about the direct path to my will for children named “Ferdinand”. She thanked me for a good belly laugh.

That’s me just spreading humor around.

When I introduced myself as “her favorite author calling”, she laughingly told me that I was the only author she knew. (She’ll have to get out more.) And, she too had an excuse for not reading it over the winter. Pregnancy. Guess you have to keep your priorities straight.

She should have read the book! ROFL.

Great news!

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POLITICAL: Thinking about “fair”!

Monday, May 3, 2010

I was watching an old episode of Family Fued and one of the questions spurred a RANT. Really political.

“What do you think is a fair salary for a new teacher?”

Arghhhhhh!

Regardless of the answer, this had so many “teachable moments” it was astonishing.

(1) Opinions are like …, everyone has one. Who cares what people think is “fair”? The ONLY “fair” price is one that is freely offered and accepted. A marketplace establish what is “fair” better than any vote or opinion.

(2) The teacher is an employee of the gooferment. With a capturing captive union that exerts tremendous political pressure. Starting salary is political. Very political.

(3) The salary of day care “teachers” is by definition “fair”. And, much lower than that of “real teachers”. Why do we have gooferment “education”? I’d call it “youth propaganda prisons”. And we sneered at the Communists and their “political reeducation camps”; what’s different?

(4) The whole education system isn’t “fair”. I don’t decide ANYTHING in a child’s life, but I’m forced to pay for their education. That ain’t “fair”.

Argh!

Did I miss anything?

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FUN: 57 PIC from Mom’s stash

Monday, May 3, 2010

1957-DEC-XX Oregon Photo

My father, who everyone called “Ferdie”, my paternal grandmother Marie, me, and an unknown person.

Going through my Mom’s old pictures. Too bad people don’t write the names, date, and place. Start now to memorialize your history.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Eliminate the Public Schools

Sunday, May 2, 2010

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/galvin5.1.1.html

Strike a Victory for Federalism: Eliminate the Public Schools
by Paul Galvin

*** begin quote ***

But eliminating public schooling, an institution not extant at the country’s founding, would have national implications extending well beyond the boundaries of any one state. Chief beneficiaries would be an overall strengthening, and rehabilitation, of the American federal system and an increase in individual liberty.

*** end quote ***

The whole public school “sysstem” is:

(1) Immoral

• Forcibly separating children from their families. The model was to create cannon fodder and factory workers easily led by the elite.

• Indoctrinating future voters to support the government.

• Excessive costs drive senior citizens from their homes

• The “public education” model demotivates the student, “un-involves” the parents, and creates an “education” political force.

(2) Ineffective

•  Education results are in free fall; without factoring in all the tricks being used to pump up results.

• Unlike a free market, education isn’t delivered where it is needed at price that can be afforded. It’s political; not market based.

• One size fits all squeezes everyone into the same mold; the smart are held back and the “dumb” are lost.

(3) Inefficient

• The Horace Mann model hasn’t changed with the times; University of Phoenix delivers over the inet, why not everyone?

• Cost per student “educated” is double Catholic, private, or other parochial schools.

• Mandatory attendance, child labor, and licensing laws deprive us of non-academic education (i.e., craft apprenticeship)

(4) Harmful

• Creates “education factories with gun free zones” that are an undefended target rich environment.

• Puts children is a hostile environment where they are exposed to drugs and bullying.

• Some teachers are sexual predators.

• Children are not taught the skills they need to survive in the real world. School life is completely unlike real life.

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JOBSEARCH: An example of “Using Your Corporate Email”

Sunday, May 2, 2010

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/24/how-not-to-handle-a-resignation-gracefully

How Not To Handle A Resignation Gracefully
by Jack McKenna on Apr 24, 2010

*** begin quote ***

I should note, that instead of responding, he instead removed my email account. Real pro of him. Good thing I forwarded it to myself first :P

*** end quote ***

Argh!

Now while the story is about who’s the bigger a hole, a fact which is debatable.

I would like to direct your attention to the email account. And, how fragile that threat is.

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2007/11/16/linkedin-may-i-suggest-that-you-not-use-your-employers-email-on-linkedin/

You should be EXTREMELY careful how you use any email address that you don’t own and control. You’re employer can nuke your email address on a whim as you are escorted out of their premises. Even your Internet Service Provider, whom you pay faithfully every month, can nuke you or change your email address on a whim. Sell out, buy out, merge, or exit the biz and you are the one who is screwed!

Your address book may go up in internet smoke in a heartbeat never to be seen again.

You try and find everyone who knows you by that email address. And, remember, you may not have given someone the address. They could have gotten it from a third party. Try and find those.

And, when you used that now lost email address to register for sites, you’re stuck with the obsolete sign on. And, don’t have a a password malfunction with the now defunct email address because you can’t get a password reset there. Good luck changing that old email address for a new one. (I’ve even seen a site restore my old one on me!)

Bottom line: If you don’t own your own domain, you are asking for trouble and the Universe will send you what you ask for when you can least afford it.

For a few bucks? Don’t say you weren’t warned.

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TECHNOLOGY: “Drive by” messages!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Ever notice how many more what I call “drive by messages” are being sent?

That is a message that includes a disclaimer saying that it won’t be read.

I imagine them saying: “If you ask for clarification, we’re going to ignore you”!

Arghhhh!

Wasn’t “marketing” supposed to be a “conversation with customers”?

Well, that’s like “Customer Service” being expected to “service” “customers”?

I know I feel like I’ve been “serviced”! In the sense of bulls and cows.

Argh!

*** begin quote ***

This is an automated email, and replies will not be delivered. If you need to contact us, please log on to your account and click the “Contact Us” link to send an email.

*** end quote ***

*** begin quote ***

Please do not reply to this message. This is a service email related to your use of XXXXXXX. To learn more about XXXXXXXX’s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy.

*** end quote ***

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RANT: Government is not us

Saturday, May 1, 2010

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/56930.html

Not Us. Never, Ever Us.
Posted by Charles Featherstone on May 1, 2010 10:50 AM

*** begin quote ***

But second, it’s important to emphasize again and again and again that this notion that we, the people, are in any way the government is fraudulent. The government is not us. It cannot ever be us. If it were, there’d be no need for signs that say “Property of the United States Government” with warnings to trespassers because how can citizens — who are sovereign — trespass on the property over which they are sovereign? It’s the problem of socialist property writ large, and it’s why popular sovereignty is bunkum. All human societies become societies in which a relatively tiny elite rule a majority, and democracy (along with ideology) is just modernity’s method of legitimizing that elite rule. I have compared democratic rituals to religious rituals before, and I do believe that elections are the central sacrament of democracy. A pointless sacrament of an idolatrous religion.

The truth is governments are always a menacing entity. Often times they are evil. Sometimes they are even foreign. Government is not us. And it will not ever be us.

*** end quote ***

Important to underscore.

This is not a democracy.

It’s an oligarchy.

Leadership by a political elite, who do what they want.

(Think the healthcare polls!)

We have to follow Gandhi and just not cooperate!

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TINFOILHAT: OKC and the second man

Saturday, May 1, 2010

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=143865

What Clinton didn’t say about OKC
Posted: April 22, 2010
Jack Cashill is an Emmy-award winning independent writer and producer with a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue.

*** begin quote ***

“The magistrate, Ronald L. Howland, ordered McVeigh to be held without bail after listening to four hours of testimony from FBI special agent John Hersley in which he described eyewitness accounts of a yellow Mercury with McVeigh and another man inside speeding away from a parking lot near the federal building.”

Rather than put a single witness on the stand who could place McVeigh in or near Oklahoma City on April 19, the prosecution chose to build an entire case on circumstantial evidence.

The Justice Department had lost all interest in the eyewitnesses as soon as the White House had established its talking points. They also lost interest in any Islamic connection.

“Could the al-Qaida explosives expert [Ramzi Yousef] have been introduced to the angry American [Terry Nichols] who proclaimed his hatred for America,” writes Richard Clarke of Nichols’ visit to the Philippines in “Against All Enemies.” “We do not know, despite some FBI investigation.”

“Some FBI investigation”? Why was there not a massive FBI investigation? The reason is fairly obvious: McVeigh and Nichols served as poster boys for the natural progression of the “Republican revolution.”

*** end quote ***

Seems like some unanswered questions about “OKC BOMBING”.

As usual, we never get the truth. And, yes, I think we can handle the truth.

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