12.14.2001
Calling my bank yesterday, the voice prompt started: "For questions about military deployment, press 1."
The bastard. That poem he recites at the end is pretty chilling... anyone know who he's quoting?
12.13.2001
The noose is tightening," said Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, gnawing on a dead horse's hoof. "With every Taliban soldier you capture or kill, your selection of enemies grows more limited. Our remaining soldiers, on the other hand, enjoy a virtually limitless array of Allied soldiers to shoot. Before long, it will be virtually impossible for you to find someone to engage on the field of battle. Then, victory will be ours."
Omar then closed his eyes and began to rock slowly back and forth.
See, this is why Martha Stewart doesn't connect with Gen-Xers.
Another IE security risk -- the article recommends that you "temporarily disable IE's ability to download files. To do so, users should select Internet Options from the Tools menu. Then select the Security tab and click on Custom Level. Scroll down to the listing for Downloads and disable file downloads."
An Australian police offer sold his badge to a drug dealer, so the dealer could pose as a narc and confiscate his rival's inventory. And, in Flint, Michigan, a gas station employee was fired for refusing to sell crack pipes. The manager claimed "ceci n'est pas une pipe."
Both stories thanks to BoingBoing.
12.12.2001
Hazy Past
Most journalists confessing past drug use say they tried marijuana a few times and deeply regret it. But Reason magazine editor Nick Gillespie writes that in college, he tore through "pot and alcohol, mostly, but also acid, mescaline, Ecstasy, mushrooms, coke and meth. . . . Mostly I did drugs because they were fun and I liked the way I felt when I was high." He's cut way back because of adulthood.
Thanks, Sandra. Always knew those libertarians were smoking crack.
Sandra sent in this article on Crimson Grade Inflation from the Washington Post, excerpted below. Note that the article only refers to undergraduate grade inflation. I can attest that there's no grade inflation at Harvard Business School, as only 10% of each class gets the top grade. Of course, those grades are more or less meaningless, but hey, who's counting?
Harvard's High-Grade Curriculum
By Jonathan Yardley
Monday, December 10, 2001; Page C02
What the Germans call schadenfreude -- taking pleasure in the pain of others -- is never more delicious than when those in pain are prominent, powerful, prosperous and conceited. So it is understandable that a wave of pure delight is now coursing through the rest of higher education as Harvard -- probably this country's greatest university, and certainly its most arrogant -- licks a self-inflicted wound known as grade inflation. The wound in time will heal, but it has exposed weakness and hypocrisy that make Harvard something of a joke. . . .
"While the world regards these students as the best of the best of America's 13 million undergraduates, Harvard honors has actually become the laughingstock of the Ivy League. The other Ivies see Harvard as the Lake Wobegon of higher education, where all the students, being above average, can take honors for granted. It takes just a B-minus average in the major subject to earn cum laude -- no sweat at a school where 51 percent of the grades last year were A's and A-minuses."
It's hard to say which of these figures is more astonishing: the 51 percent A's, the 91 percent graduating with honors, or the B-minus for honors. Taken individually or collectively, these figures -- none of which Harvard has disproved -- depict an undergraduate college in which there no longer is any meaningful distinction among the excellent, the satisfactory and the mediocre. Arthur Levine of Columbia University, as quoted by Healy, got to the heart of it: "Rather than singling out who performs best, they're signalling the 9 percent who perform the worst. Harvard has done away with true honors." . . . .
Maybe so, maybe not. Reports from Harvard -- in the Globe, the Harvard Crimson, the New York Times and other places -- cite numerous students who admit that once you've gotten through the chamber of horrors of Harvard admissions, the pressure can go way, way down. One said, "I know I can do minimal work in some classes and get good grades," and another: "I really believe Harvard students don't always challenge themselves."
Matt A. writes:
Dear Friends,
I thought you might like to see this San Francisco�Examiner editorial, which is about small schools and the recent work Small Schools for Equity has been engaged in.
In addition, the California Teachers Association magazine California Educator ran several articles on small schools in its November issue. One piece called "Here, students don't fall between the cracks," features San Francisco Community School, a small K-8 school we are working with, as well as Mary Lavalais, one of our amazing community activist parents.
Another article called "Less can be more," talks about Small Schools for Equity's work and how we want to be part of a systemic, within-the-district reform effort that helps improve learning for all of the students in San Francisco's low-performing high schools. (The entire California Educator�feature on small schools can be found here.)
Best regards,
Matt
Small schools save failing kids
San Francisco Examiner editorial, 11/30/01
����CHARTER schools, privatization and vouchers have hogged the spotlight in education reform for a long time. But you don't need to sell a school off to the highest bidder to make it supportive of kids.
����San Francisco public high schools are mostly gargantuan places where students can get lost in the crowd, fail and drop out. We need to do better.
����Five years ago they thought teachers were the problem. At Balboa High, they got rid of all the teachers and administrators, and hired a whole new staff. But the new teachers ran up against the same problem -- they never had the time to deal with students one-on-one or in small groups.
����Large schools create a climate of anonymity. Small schools can be cozy and personal, without spending more money.
����A few dedicated San Francisco teachers and parents want to create a model high school starting in September 2002 that is small and puts an emphasis on teaching. The idea has been tried in communities across the country, even at the public San Francisco Community Alternative School in the Excelsior.
����Small Schools for Equity says the school would have 300 kids, small classes and teachers who work in interdisciplinary teams. The school would occupy under-used space in another school.
����Teachers would have small classes -- maybe 25 students each -- because there would be fewer guidance counselors and administrators. Teachers would become guidance counselors themselves.
����What it would give up in diversity of courses it would more than make up for in creating the sense that students are valued.
����THE San Francisco push is part of a national movement for small schools. Other things being equal, small schools are safer, have lower dropout rates, higher retention rates, higher staff retention, better test scores, higher college acceptance and more parent participation.
����The movement has caught the attention of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which wants to start 1,000 small schools around the country. The money could come in handy here.
����The school district has been hit especially hard by charges that it misspent money earmarked for construction. The Board of Education is under pressure to come up with reforms that don't cost anything. Small schools are basically a reshuffling of the deck.
����Two weeks ago parents who back the new school packed a meeting with school board members, urging them to support the experiment. So far the newly reconstituted board has been supportive.
����But once a small school has been tried it will be a catalyst for reforming the whole system. It's not just better than doing nothing. Small schools work.
This is, quite simply, the best reason to love consultants I could possibly come up with. Also, as my sister-in-law so rightly put it, this is the reason they invented the phrase "busting a gut."
Happy holidays,
Nancy
12.11.2001
Somehow, this reply from Marcus's college friend's third cousin's step sister-in-law's second grade teacher's wife, to the Presidential Assistant That Replies to Letters, about the 2nd Amendment and 9/11, found its way into my inbox. Thought I'd share it.
-----------------------------
Senor Sanchez:
Seems like you've been spending too much time ropin' cattle out there on Dubya's ranch. You've plumb forgot what bullshit smells like, cause you're too used to wadin' in it.
Let's talk plain. Ask yourself this: I've got one of them suspected terrorists in jail. I can read his mail, listen in when he's talkin' to his three-piece-suited lawyer, investigate everything he's done, where's he's gone, and what he's spent since he entered into this freedom-lovin' country with murder in his heart.
Except for one thing: that little trip he made to the shop to buy hisself a gun. No sir, that's off limits.
Now he might have gone and bought an assault weapon, and armor-piercing ammo a-plenty. Now, we both know that's his right, so long as he's passed the background checks to make sure he's no criminal (yet, anyway.) But even though his name's right there on the gubmint's list, in black and white, well we can't very well look up his name on that list.
Hell, does that make any sense to you? Do you think this what they had in mind when they wrote #2, way back when? If I was trying to investigate these folks, and they told me I couldn't even find out if they had bought a gun, why I'd be madder than a wet hen at Colonel Sander's.
This is where I smell bullshit. Because I don't believe for a New York minute that we're upholding the Second Amendment rights of these terrorists out of concern for their rights, or so those pesky protesters won't claim that we've suspended the Big C. Those protestors -- that riled-up tenth -- are mostly liberals anyway who'd be just as happy if the Second Amendment went away for good. (Just read the New York Times articles for proof.) The reason we won't do gun checks on these "folks," (as your boss likes to call 'em) is plain and simple: it's against conservative principles. (Just like federalizing airport security was against conservative principles, even though it made sense to 100 senators, and 98% of Americans who thought about it. Maybe the other 2% were terrorist sympathizers.) The GOP and the NRA are against the gun checks. That doesn't mean that the people are against gun checks. Or that doing these gun checks is a bad idea, from the point of view of fighting terrorism. Like you said, we can't back down now. No room for idealism, no matter who's ideals we're talkin' bout, the right's or the left's.
See, you're right about one thing: the rules have got to change. Question is, which rules? This is where Ashcroft and I part company. If he said, "well, these rules that protect terrorists, they've got to go," I'd respect that even if I disagreed with his plan. But for him to ban the gun checks, that's rank hypocrisy. Is that a rule that protects terrorists? Why, you'd better believe it. So why do we keep it? I'm waiting for a practical answer. Still haven't heard one. As my Pappy used to say, "You can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit." Maybe that's why your boy Ashcroft says that anyone who questions him must be a terrorist himself -- it's easier to tell us to shut up than answer the questions.
My Pappy also used to say "When you step in a field full of bullshit, you'd better watch out for the bull." It's not the hypocrisy of this-amendment-over-that that gets my gander, it's the way the executive branch has taken it on itself to make the decisions for us. The real question is, not which rules, but who decides and how? Is it just your boss? Not the last time I checked the rule book (the one that's kept us from tippin' the canoe for the last 200-plus years.) Nothing in there about suspending the courts, or the legislature, during a war. (In fact, I seem to remember that only the Senate's got the power to declare a war.) Even during a war, we've got the right to stand up and say what we believe. Even during a war, we've got rights as well as responsibilities. Even during a war, the folks in Congress have a say in how we run things. Even during a war, we're a democracy. Just in case you forgot.
-- Mrs. Lila Mae Boone, Laticuff, TX
PS. Oh, and you're also right that there's only so much taxpayer money to go around. Thank your boss's tax cut for that. And tell that to your boy Ashcroft as he spends his money making sure folks in Oregon don't kill themselves, instead of hunting down killers.
12.10.2001
Marcus writes:
This was sent to my college friend's third cousin's step sister-in-law's second grade teacher's wife, who wrote the White House asking about the 2nd Amendment aspect to Bush's anti-terrorism response. I won't even get into how it found its way to me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM: Presidential Assistant That Replies to Letters
TO: Dear Letter Writers to the President
RE: Everyone�s Interest in #2
Kind of y�all to write in them smart-as-a-whipsaw questions �bout the 2nd Amendment. So many people think there ain�t no point writing to the federal government. And by and large it�s as fruitless as a kumquat tree in the Kenai. Especially if you work for the government. You know, once you hit that G5, you�re Supreme Court, sans the robe and thinking part. We take real seriously our adopted motto: �If it ain�t broke, fix it until it is.�
Now you�ve got us for airport security.
Seems lately the New York Times and other concerned parties dug in on the far side of the corral have been blowing their claxons blue, telling us Bush and Ashcroft is fulla prairie cakes. So far, they have got all a-twitter about a whole 10% of the populace.
But then the New York Times supported that fella with the big teeth for mayor. And that tennis-playing fella in �93. Not to leave out Gore, Dukakis, Mondale and Carter. Why, the New York Times is wind-pissers that�d make my great-granddaddy proud for saying the Mexicans couldn�t never take the Alamo!
But folks say poll numbers don�t matter none. True �nuf. There�s always some who feel it�s important they yell for the bus to stop �fore it rolls clear off the washboard, as they see it. It�s tradition. Why, many said the U.S. dang better not go rescue Europe in �44. Some said Nixon should not ever resign. Same thought the U.S. should not a left Vietnam, the Rosenbergs was plum innocent, a tomato�s a fruit and Paul was really dead.
Seems whatever�s facing us, there�s some who say, �Uh-uh!� They got that prerogative. I myself have been there. But now I recall from my insomnia-fixin� history class at Laredo Community College (go Toros!) that whatever�s happened in America over the centuries � wars, suspended liberties, rationing, scandals, red scares, crashes, riots, Hillary Clinton and the like � the canoe ain�t never tipped one way or another.
Never.
Show me a time when this country�s gone sideways like some of them European ones have, and I�ll show you a U.T. fan don�t wear orange on October Saturdays.
Some nights lately, I pour up a lil� belt of the boss�s Makers and I ask myself, �Self, what in America�s past gives us reason to think military tribunals for foreign-born suspected terrorists is disastrous for this great nation?�
With or without Makers, I can�t think a nothing.
But there is some things I do think about. I think of the flaming deaths of 4,000 people. I think of the bigger-�n-we-know conspiracy that led to it. I think how that conspiracy took place on American soil, under the protection of the American constitution, and made possible by the open society we treasure. I think of how the terrorists counted on our openness to plan and commit their vile act. How they didn�t just use our planes against us, they used our Constitution as well.
I think of how they raised some of their budget money right under our noses. How they took flight lessons right here so they could steer our jetliners into buildings. How they cut the throats of pilots, flight attendants and passengers. How terrified the passengers were when they realized their fate. How heroic � and patriotic - those passengers were who fought the terrorists over Pennsylvania, knowing they was all gonna perish. I think of how the terrorists must a had smiles on their faces and shouted psalms to their crap-ass religion as they slammed into the offices of unsuspecting people and burned them alive. I think of the sudden, unspeakable horror in the Twin Towers. The smoke, heat and death before people�s eyes. I think of tearful, desperate phone calls to loved ones. I think of people who chose to jump 107 floors instead of the fate closing in on them. I think of babies born without knowing their fathers. Husbands and wives without each other forever. Parents, brothers and sisters who watched fires rage and buildings crumble knowing their kin was inside. Children who lost both parents. Parents who lost two children. Single mothers and fathers in homes they can�t pay for. I think of how knee-jerk negativism to the war in Afghanistan and to the swiftest justice possible discredits victims, heroes and survivors.
I think about the atrocious effect the attack has had on the economy of a city, a country. I think of all the people out of work in time for the Holidays. I think of the Americans who have been killed and will be killed in Afghanistan while hunting the perpetrators of 9/11.
I think of how the attackers will do it all over again if we back down in the slightest.
�Bout the only thing I don�t think about is... the fuckin� rights of terrorists, pardon my Canadian.
What seems to evade some folks, like a prairie dog ducking an F-250 pushing 70 with the horn blastin� and Garth on the quads, is that 9/11 was an act of war. Yes, war has been declared on the United States.
That is W-A-R, as in we are in a STATE OF WAR.
That there�s no opposing nation don�t matter. That there�s no opposing army as we know �em don�t matter.
There will be yet more attacks, bigger and more violent � as the enemy has swore � unless some things are different.
We here in the Administration duly respect those who are worried for the rights of foreign-born terrorist suspects. But perhaps they have not yet read the captured al Qaeda training manual, pages 94-95, that advises terrorist �brothers� to �take advantage� of our judicial system to do things such as �helping� un-arrested brothers �in their work outside prison.�
Now, what kind work do we suppose it is some I�m sure well-meaning people would like to enable them to continue?
Sure, being na�ve has a charm to it, but not in the areas of war and mass-murder. The well-intended but na�ve among us must realize if you want to stop a relentless foe, you must be even more relentless than them. That�s the history of the world. There is no margin for being na�ve. No margin for idealism. No margin for personal values. No margin for sniping at those who have accepted the mandate to annihilate our enemies � and are so doing. And, I�m so very sorry to suggest, there�s no margin for idealism.
There is only strategy, tactics and the will to crush and crush hard by any means that works. Anything less and they will keep on, keeping on, comin� back, and killin� more.
We salute the bespectacled Senator from Vermont � that�s a state somewhere, right? - as he strives to protect those who attack us, rather than protecting us from those who attack. Unlike many others, we would never call him a wimp for his stand, but we do call him painfully na�ve. Or is it he�ll do anything for his share of face time? We applaud Mr. Safire for taking on his friends at the White House and for pretending there�s a growing drumbeat of opposition to tribunals in Bush circles; fantasy and inaccuracy have a storied tradition at the New York Times and we do appreciate an imaginative news media.
Yet, to the few who see it Leahy�s and the New York Times� and al Qaeda�s way, I tip my Stetson, smile and apologize: If we want to avoid another 9/11, the civil liberties of terrorists cannot and will not be the same as before.
You try criminals in court. You try war combatants and war-crimes suspects in tribunals. You try �em on evidence you don�t have to present, without nobody from outside watching. You give �em counsel they don�t get to choose. You sentence �em to death if it�s so decided and you execute them with no appeals and plenty of alacrity.
Or do some kind folks think them Nuremberg trials was a travesty of justice?
Speaking of Europe, yes, I know our E.U. friends think we�re mean as an old dog with its tail stepped on. But they seem to have forgot why they enjoy liberties of their own sovereign choosing faster than you can say hypocrisy in French.
Go Toros!
But I personally recall the sentencing only a few short months ago of the 1993 terrorists - from 1993! - convicted in civilian court of trying to demolish the Twin Towers and kill thousands. They stood up and shouted profane anti-American, anti-Jewish, anti-capitalist threats and slogans at the tops of their lungs. This was after one of �em put a guard�s eye out. After all the horrors of the first Twin Towers attack, wasn�t that nice to see EIGHT YEARS LATER?!
Course, that ain�t all. The judge in that trial? He�s gotta live with 24-hour armed protection. The jurors? They feared for their lives and some of them moved out of the area. The witnesses whose testimony �successfully� convicted the bastards? I�ll put it this way: They ain�t out there throwing chairs on Jerry Springer.
And let us not forget the eight million dollars of taxpayers� money that paid for all that �justice.�
So, I cordially ask the 10%: Are they really hankering to see that repeated time and time again for years to come?
If so, I�ll tell �em what. All them kids sitting in our un-heated, un-air conditioned, over-crowded classrooms under falling tiles reading textbooks that was old when I was skippin� school? Tell them that�s how it�s gonna stay. The money�s going to ensure due-process and eight-year show trials for foreign terrorists who killed or tried to kill thousands of Americans.
There is, after all, only so much taxpayers� money. �Specially after 9/11.
But then, this ain�t about money, it�s �bout rights, right? Well, I got a right-fine irony: The rights of Americans to protest our tribunal plan is being directly protected by the Americans getting killed in Afghanistan while they�re hunting down terrorists who killed Americans here at home so the terrorists can be tried in those same tribunals the protesters is protesting and which will make protesting even safer!
Whew! These days, I prefer Daisy Cutters to daisy chains. And hippos to hypocrisy.
And I say �directly protected� because, well, if you�re dead, you can�t much protest nothing, can you?
Time to wake up & smell the meadow muffins, kids: But for the grace of God � and the vicissitudes of killers - do we take each living breath.
It�s simple: Either you�re willing to leave the barn door open for another 9/11, or you�re not.
It be getting on time to pick.
Naivet� will � and has - got people killed. That Neville Chamberlin guy, he might elaborate if he�d stuck around.
While we in this here Administration is willing to abrogate (LCC, baby!) Amendments One, Four and Five for suspected foreign terrorists, we do realize we�ve got to throw protesters a bone so�s they can�t rightly call us a constitution-suspending, Moose-al-lini lovin�, terrorist-repressing Judge Roy Bean.
Don�t look a gift horse, honey-children: Number Two�s it!
If they don�t appreciate it, well, as we say down here in between huntin� seasons: �Don�t like the bone? Don�t sit at the table.�
Sincerely,
Vladimir Sanchez, III
Steer-Roper to the President
Crawford, TX
Pretty goofy -- photoshopped versions of this diagram of bin Laden's mountain fortress. My personal favorties are the Where's Waldo and Family Circus versions on this page.
Naunihal writes:
Not even wrapping yourself in the flag - literally - is enough to protect you these days!
www.latimes.com
www.dailynews.com
Sidhu said he was preparing to close his Liquor Mart store in the 16100 block of Nordhoff Street about 11 p.m. Monday when two men armed with 4-foot metal poles walked in and asked, "Are you bin Laden?"
Sidhu said he replied, "No, I'm a Sikh from Punjab, India," adding that in America, only Sikhs wear turbans.
They said, "We'll kill bin Laden today," then hit him about two dozen times with the poles, said Sidhu, 47, who lives in Valencia.
[NB: Police are reportedly on the lookout for two men stupid enough to think that bin Laden had escaped Tora Bora and was posing a liquor store owner in L.A.]
The Oxford English Dictionary is hunting for science fiction citations!
