Pretty damn damning, 68 million views

Lost in Argentina

Ruh roh...

Alledgedly, the Governor of South Carolina had gone hiking on the Appalachian Trail for a solo vacation. As it turns out, he was actually in Argentina. It looks like his absence caused a great deal of speculation as to his whereabouts.

I wonder if tango in the mecca drew him there?

I haven't read the article, but here is the link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31522908/ns/politics-more_politics/

This guy is my kinda governor.

Update @ 6:40pm

I wrote this before the news of the 'affair' broke. Just to clarify, he would have been my kinda governor, had he just chosen to disappear to Buenos Aires for a few days. He would have been my kind of governor had he not wanted to tell anyone where the fuck he was going. He would have been my kind of governor (politician) to not play by the rules. He would have been my kind of governor if he were a Democrat and not a Republican. I'm not going to judge him about his affair, nor his handling of it. Relationships are imperfect. Men are imperfect. Very imperfect.

It is odd to watch...

with what feverish ardor the Americans pursue prosperity. Millions of men are all marching together toward the same point on the horizon; their languages, religions, and mores are different, but they have one common aim. They have been told that fortune is to be found somewhere toward the west, and they hasten to seek it.

Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America, 1835

Photographer Chris Jordan :: Picturing Excess :: TED :: Ideas worth sharing

"I have this fear that we aren't feeling enough in our culture today . There is this kind of anaesthesia in America at the moment. We've lost our sense of outrage, our anger, and our grief about what is going on in our culture right now, what is going on in our country, the atrocities that are going on in our names around the world....they've gone missing, these feelings have gone missing..."

Here's a little something tending toward the profound on this fine Saturday afternoon...

The Empire Strikes Barack

They needed to do a study to figure this shit out?

On MSNBC.com...

1 in 3 PARENTS LACKS KNOWLEDGE ABOUT BABIES
Many have little understanding of infant development, study finds

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
updated 3:13 p.m. ET, Sun., May. 4, 2008
CHICAGO - Nearly a third of U.S. parents know surprisingly little about typical infant development, and this lack of understanding can rob their babies of much-needed mental stimulation, researchers said on Sunday.

"There are numerous parenting books telling people what to expect when they're pregnant," said Dr. Heather Paradis of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

"But once a baby is born, an astonishing number of parents are not only unsure of what to anticipate as their child develops, but are also uncertain of when, how or how much they are to help their babies reach various milestones, such as talking, grabbing, discerning right from wrong, or even potty-training," said Paradis, who presented her findings at Pediatric Academic Society meeting in Honolulu.

Click to read the entire article...

I thought this was common knowledge - and the very obvious reason behind the fact that there are so many fucked up, ignorant, stupid-assed, brain-dead people walking around in the world today. They didn't get the proper mental/ intellectual/ creative/ nurturing/ brain development fucking plain and simple "love" they need to be highly functioning human beings.

Didn't we all know this? I've known this since the 5th grade - when I knew I had my shit together better than most of my teachers. Okay, I exaggerate - 6th grade. It became brilliantly clear to me - like a superfuckingnova - in high school when I determined it was all an elaborate day-care system and that if I was going to learn anything, that I would have to avail myself of the resources before me, and edumacate my own ass.

They had to do a study? Come fucking on....

It's a good thing DiSarli's "Verdemar" just came on...I'm calming down...

Scary...

On Saturday mornings, I volunteer as a tutor for underprivileged kids. I'm the volunteer that got tagged to be the tutor for high school math - algebra.

It's fun and fulfilling, but it's scary that some high school kids are operating at a 5th grade math level. Have you ever tried, conceptually, to explain why -200 is a "smaller" number than -20? Have you ever tried, conceptually, to explain why 2 x 1/2 = 1?

Here is the REALLY scary thing that prompted me to write this post. Another tutor and I were chatting with the school district security guy who unlocks the school. Call him a typical "rent-a-cop". We were talking politics - well, they were talking politics and I was listening. This guy was saying that if Obama loses the nomination, he thinks there are going to be riots in the streets. Then he chimes in about Kent State. He said, verbatim, "Kent State was the best thing that could have happened. It sure put a stop to all that stuff." He meant the killings of Kent State students protesters by Ohio National Guardsmen. They were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia in 1970.

I also now recall him saying something about "treehuggers" and "environmentalists", but I forget what exactly. I didn't hear because I was backing away slowly to retrieve my Starbucks Grande Triple Mocha Skim No Whip that was sitting on my bumper. So being concerned about public health, clean water, clean air, viable and sustainable agricultural and forestry practices, oil & gas drilling in wilderness areas is a bad thing to many people. It's un-American. It's anti-capitalism, so it must be communist.

What's scary is that there are people out there in America, right now, who believe that protest should be quelched by state sponsored violence. They could be your next door neighbor, your co-worker, anyone, anywhere.

There are people who believe that protest and dissent is "un-American".

These are the people who when you make a comment about the American educational system sucking, or the American government sucking, or American foreign policy sucking - they immediately chime in with "Well, why don't you just go live in Russia or Iraq!?"

They are too ignorant to realize that THEY are the ones with the un-American mindset.

America was founded on protest. It was founded on revolution. Revolution is as American as you can fucking get.

Only in America :: It's always about the money...

Here's an article about traffic light cameras - originally installed to catch people running red lights, and in theory, reduce fatalities, discourage the habit, and increase public safety. The gov't also made the incorrect assumption that they would reap in millions in ticket fines.

In actuality, the reverse has happened. Yes, fatalities are down, safety is up, but fines are also down because people are being safe - not running red lights.

So, because fines are down, at least one city - Dallas - is turning the cameras off. In camera based fines, they took only in $11 million versus their projected $15 million.

I can understand (although not necessarily agree with) the budgetary realities for public entities. But come on now, really.

Here's another one for you. Aspen recently spent somewhere around $1 millon on solar powered parking meters - to be installed into extended residential areas around the town core.

So now, you have to pay to park on the street in front of your own house.

Only in America, is breaking the law an economic benefit. They want us to break the law. It's good for business. It's good for government. It's good for the GDP. But not the big laws - just the little ones - misdemeanors and parking offenses. Don't go postal on us.

Here's the link to the traffic light camera article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23710970/