MTheads

The IRS is a Bug Compared to the People of Oklahoma

Good thing all those people conducting search and rescue operations and helping each other in Oklahoma don't view their jobs or roles as vehicles for promoting their own personal political views.

I don't think those in the IRS see the rest of us as their neighbors and fellow citizens.  Oh, they'll let us equally pay for their salaries and benefits, but treat us equitably?  No.  Imagine if we all acted like those white-collared, college-educated, tax-paid losers who used their positions of responsibility to hurt those with whom they disagree politically.  We'd live in chaos, hate, and paranoia.

Government beneficence for some, suppression for others.  Good job, tools.

I've Hitched my Little Wagon to the Obama Administration. So, Tell Me What to Say

I'm so glad I'm not a Democrat as I watch the Benghazi hearings.  I don't have the least compulsion to rationalize or excuse or ignore the shameful mistakes made by the administration over Benghazi in order to save my Party's face. 

I've been listening to C-SPAN's morning edition's discussion about the Benghazi hearings.  Disgustingly, the Democrat callers and Democrat tool guests all spout the same garbage that the hearings are only a Republican attempt to disgrace Hillary Clinton.  They even blame Ambassador Stevens!  If only he'd had the decency to not be killed by the wrong group rather than by rioters. They blame Republicans, they blame the military, the video, the Libyan government, anything but the true culprits - incompetency and poor prioritization on the part of the highest pay scales.  I've always been disturbed by the fact that the higher one is on the pay scale, the less likely one is to be burdened with the consequences of one's actions.  Hey, that's what the lower ranks are for.

One of the most telling characteristics of the dissembling administration tool is their practice of first praising whistle-blower former DCM Hicks as a competent official before turning their Janus faces to the audience, metaphorically winking, and implying we all know what this is all really about -- a Republican conspiracy.

I suspect many Democrats wish the administration had handled things better or that this incident could legitimately be blamed on those they don't like.  But that isn't the case.  And how they've handled this doesn't reflect well on them or on those who make excuses for them.  Cowards.

What is Freedom?

What is freedom?  Is it the freedom to do whatever we want without government interference?  Is it the freedom to shape our political or social culture through group action?  Does it mean a well-ordered society that allows us to make long range plans without the chaos of shifting rules and new paradigms?  Maybe it's freedom from anarchy and the inevitable rule of the strongest. Security is a freedom of sorts.  Not worrying about whether or not one will be able to feed one's children is a freedom.  It's a freedom from fear and despair.  How free does one feel who can't get medical help for a sick child?

There's a freedom that comes with money.  Would you rather be rich in a less free country or poor in a freer one?  I'm not sure which I'd pick -- personal freedom or my ideals.   And there's the freedom that comes with living far away from the bureaucrats.  But that has less to do with principle than environment.  We can't recreate our Wild West, and most people wouldn't choose to live in the wilds of Alaska only to be able to drink raw milk and ride helmet-less.

I recently had a long conversation with someone who feels our freedoms as Americans are being lost; that America is becoming a tyranny.  And he wants to move to another country where he can be more free.  But I could never get him to tell me what he means by freedom.  I think he means his own personal freedom to live without petty rules and regulations. 

Personally, I think most of the petty rules and regulations growing around us come more from busybody people than from any governmental plan to enslave and control us.  Neighborhoods pass ordinances in an attempt to keep resale values high.  Pools lose diving boards because parents sued when a child broke his neck.  Helmets become mandatory because we hate the idea of someone unnecessarily risking his life. We have to fight creeping legalism by not turning to government to regulate behavior and risks we ourselves don't like and by accepting the consequences of our stupid choices.

Businesses also want to protect themselves, and they turn to government to slow down upstarts and eliminate competition.  And people in these industries usually go right along with anything that helps them.  How many of us manage to be objective when it comes to our own paychecks and benefits?

My friend is betting against the U.S.  He's willing to put his resources and energy into another country he thinks will allow him to be more free.  He thinks he'll find people who love personal liberty more somewhere else.  I don't know.  If, today, you had to place a chip representing your life savings and future earnings on either the square where the U.S. will remain a first class country with an imperfect but sure emphasis on personal liberty or on the square where our country becomes a failed state that turns to rounding up old people and raiding their bank accounts, I think you'd be a fool to bet so much on the latter. 

The freedom to nap.

Back from Vacation!

We just got back from a trip to St. Petersburg, Florida.  We went to the beach, the Dali Museum, Busch Gardens, downtown, and several local nature preserves.  While I managed to keep the carbs down, I found it very difficult to stay on as strict low carb diet as I'd been following.  But, what can you do?  I'm back to practically no carbs and smelling acetone all day.

Today I tried to make egg blinis like the ones made for me by a Russian guest to our home.  Her blinis were more like blinis; my blinis were one big omelette.  I'll keep working on it.  The recipe is only two ingredients long: mayo and eggs.  Then you beat them and fry them up and slather them with heavy sour cream.  I got the sour cream part correct.  I'll keep playing with ratios.

Some snaps from the trip:

Sawgrass Lake Park.  The green muck hides the seething population of alligators.

 

Fossil Park and the kids' "most painful jump" contest. 

 

Stupid Pet Pic

The Only Good School is a Union Controlled School

Here's an article from the WSJ about the Chicago school system: Rahm's Latest Union Beating.  It's about the city of Chicago wanting to shut down and consolidate a number of schools in an effort to save money and to make more efficient use of existing resources as student numbers drop.

Of course, the local teachers' union opposes these actions on the grounds that the closings will result in the breakup of neighborhood schools.  CTU President Karen Lewis claims the closings are racist, and:

"sets an example that low-income, African-American children are disposable."

Maybe it's union integrity and honesty that is disposable.

Besides keeping half empty schools open, the unions have an interest in directing parents and students away from the ever more popular charter school movement.  According to the article, two-thirds of polled Chicagoans support opening more charters. Uh-oh.  Not again!  Parents and students fooled into thinking that just because two-thirds of Chicago charter schools outperform regular public schools and their students are highly more likely to attend college they should have some sort of right to demand more of the same.  What idiots.

Luckily the union knows what poorly served students and their parents really need - emptying schools with 60% graduation rates.  It's for the children. 

Wlog

Unfortunately, no new PRs in the bench press.  I'm doing mostly dumbbell bench presses right now.  I did add in military presses.  Dang, those are hard!  I'm up to 65lbs max rep on those. Pull-ups are great.  I want to start doing dips. 

At least I'm deadlifting and squatting heavier.  I'm up to 155lb max reps on both.  And I'm doing straight legged dl for the hams.  Keeps me off the streets.

Low carb fad diet is still good.  I eat a lot of steak.  The real challenge is feeding six people this way.  One, I have to go shopping almost everyday for fresh food.  I'm aware I could do freezed meat, but our freezer is tiny.  I'm lucky I can squeeze in some frozen veggies.  This refrigerator came with the town home and was meant for someone single with cat who puts a premium on various ice types and filtered water.  We want to buy another freezer sometime in the future.  

Two, what I like to eat is expensive.  I'm buying the highest quality food we can afford on any given day.  Right now I have a 15 dollar chicken, admittedly large, sitting in the fridge for tonight. 

Luckily, I love to walk, cook and buy expensive food.  So, I'm not complaining.  But I am having to relearn how to feed all of us.  Instead of getting recipes from low carb or paleo cookbooks, I'm turning to older cookbooks for recipes.  For example, Julia Child and Elizabeth David aren't overly concerned with fat content. 

Roast beef, stroganoff, goulash, pot roasts, stews, pates, liver, coq au vin (a personal favorite), and lamb tips are all recipes I've tried recently, some more successful than others.  I haven't been able to make a beef stew I love yet. 

Cat included for scale. 



Public Schools Produce Parents too Stupid to do What's Best for Own Children

Aaahh!  Why do some people who slather over choice in just about every arena in life think educational choice for parents trapped in bad schools is equivalent to destroying public education?? 

NYT's article With Vouchers, States Shift Aid for Schools to Families has garnered the regular fascist/marxist comments from the kind of people without children trapped in bad schools.  We'll get to that in a second. 

But first, one thing about the article that bothers me is the assumption that it's legislators who are redefining education:

A growing number of lawmakers across the country are taking steps to redefine public education, shifting the debate from the classroom to the pocketbook...

It's not the states that are redefining public schools; it's the people who have to live and pay taxes to crappy school systems that are redefining education!  Again, it's that ignorant implication that the State is the only free actor and people are simply statistical aggregates.

Now for some miscellaneous snippets from a proponent and from a critic quoted in the article:

Mr. Komer at the Institute for Justice called for a shift of focus. “We happen to take the view that parents know best,” he said, “and are the best accountability measure to make sure that things are done properly for their kids.” (I love you.)

“This movement is doing more than threaten the core of our traditional public school system,” said Timothy Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association. “It’s pushing a national policy agenda embraced by conservatives across states that are receptive to conservative ideas.”(Everything he said is true.  Now imagine exchanging some words and making this statement about same sex marriage. What a bigot!)

And here are some comments from those who assume they know better than parents actually in the now:

There is no doubt that the ultimate goal for Arizona is the total destruction of public education in favor of private schools and charter schools run by corporations. (Yeah, free of doubt like a Stalinist show trial.)

My biggest beef with all of these voucher programs is that they lead to re-segregation of the educational system. Not just by race, but by class, religious, social and intellectual proclivities. (Otherwise, our public schools are so racially, socially, and economically well integrated.  Let me guess, you're from Vermont.)

Currently, many middle class and poor families are not well enough informed to know that they might soon lose one of the benefits that has been granted to American families for a long time. (By ill-informed you mean not passive enough to accept things as they are?)

In my humble opinion, many parents of the neediest (educationally and income-wise) kids have absolutely no clue about what's good for their children. (Go look up humble in the dictionary.)

Conservatives have been trying to destroy public education for decades.(Public education is destroying public education.)

This is all part of the GOP's plan to destroy public education and support church schools. Typically these programs have NO accountability...(Umm, these programs are accountable to the parents and students, genius.)

To be fair, and to be pleasantly surprised, many readers of the article defended the right of parents to guide their own children's educations, to include providing vouchers.  Imagine!  Our very own tax money being given back to us to use as we think best!  God, this must strike fear into the hearts of reactionaries everywhere! I'm all warmed inside to see so many people finally coming around to understanding public education has to be freed from its Medieval guild structure if it is to ever evolve.       

Post Update:  I take it back.  The comment section is now awash with spittle spewing stooges.  Yes, the face of public education.                                                                                                                                      

Soon...It'll be Spring II

Soon....It'll be Spring.