Barney Frank is a weenie

The 2010 Census caused Massachusetts to redraw their congressional districts, and look which district got more conservative as a result: the district represented by Democrat Rep. Barney Frank.

Frank is a bitter, nasty, mean, combative, insulting, pig of a man who also turns out to not have much courage either. Now that his redrawn district would provide some real competition for his reelection efforts, Frank is bowing out. He is not going to run for reelection next year. Thank God.

Now, the cynical conspiracy theorist inside me could easily believe that Frank is quitting for other reasons upon which he chooses not to elaborate, but if being a cowardly wimp is his story, then I will believe him. I know he is 71, but he just always struck me to be one of those power-hungry congresscritters who would only leave if they were not reelected or they were taken out on a stretcher or slab.

Either way, I am thrilled to see this... person... leave Congress in January 2013.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

It's like I'm a kid again!

But not in a good way. Several times during my childhood, I suffered from bouts of Strep Throat, but I had yet to suffer from it as an adult... until now.

My son has it too; we both caught it while visiting relatives in Las Vegas. A doctor friend of my wife's told her that the streptococcus bacteria that causes this horrid condition thrives in desert conditions.

So here we sit today at home, playing hooky from school and work. We have a 10:30am appointment to pick up our anti-biotics, and we can't get them soon enough. I don't know if you the readers have ever had strep, but it makes you feel like you are swallowing a handful of thumbtacks... if you are even able to swallow at all; my uvula - you know, the hanging thingy at the back of your throat that causes the gag reflex - is swollen to at least four times its normal size and is resting on the back of my tongue, causing me to gag - how ironic; add to this the requisite fever, chills, body aches, and headaches, and you have one heck of an affliction on your hands.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

How many feet high is 57,000 pages?

For the record, about 19 feet. What in the world would be a 19-foot tall stack of 57,000 pages? Try the 2010 corporate tax return for General Electric (GE).

But it gets better. After crunching GE's numbers into 57,000 pages of tax return, it turns out that GE paid not a penny on the $14 billion dollars in profit it made that year.

I'm sure it doesn't hurt that GE's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and that Immelt's company has received billions of dollars worth of tax credits from our federal government because they have joined in on the taxpayer-funded green energy gravy train.

Remember folks: human nature is human nature, and if the people who run corporations and businesses out there see a way to get a leg up on their competition, they are going to take it. When the government offers that leg up in the form of tax credits and the granting of monopoly status, a corporation would be stupid to not take advantage of that opportunity, as they figure if they don't, their competition will. What needs to happen then is that our federal government needs to get out of the business of picking winners and losers in our supposedly free-market economy.

The way to stop the federal government from picking winners and losers is to return it to the limits put upon it by the Constitution. Show me where in Article I, Section 8 Congress is given the authorization to grant tax credits to selected private businesses whose work the Congress (and the President) happens to like. If consumers in this country truly wanted CFL lightbulbs, wind power, and solar power, then they would voluntarily choose to use those products rather than have them forced upon the market through the use of coercive laws and taxpayer-funded subsidies to the companies who make these otherwise unprofitable products.

There is a reason that the Founding Fathers gave the federal government such limited powers in the first place. The power to use taxpayer money to pick winners and losers in our economy, and ensuing efforts by companies to influence government in order to be in the winner column is why the federal government was not given this power in the first place.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

A "Reader's Digest" version of two Obama Administration scandals that the statist media would rather you forget

It must be nice to be on the left side of the political aisle and thus have an entire media apparatus run interference for you by not reporting to the American people that which would be blasted from the rooftops if a conservative President occupied the White House. Here are the two scandals currently flying under the radar, either of which would sink a conservative presidency:

Solyndra:

It's simple really: Barack Obama hates oil and coal. He is one of these eco-topia nutballs who thinks we should do away with carbon-based fuel sources that are actually effective and inexpensive, and replace them with so-called "green" or "clean" sources of energy such as wind and solar that are mostly ineffective, prohibitively expensive, and not nearly as clean as he would like you to think. That is why his administration has been handing out billions of our taxpayer dollars to private companies - or more specifically, EVIL CORPORATIONS - that produce these pie-in-the-sky power products that can only turn a profit if they are heavily subsidized by Joe Taxpayer. Even then, after being thoroughly padded with our hard-earned tax money, many of these "green energy" companies still go under. And the tragic part is that apparently, the Obama administration is willing and able to give these companies our money even when it is perfectly clear that the company is doomed to financial failure.

One such example was Solyndra, a Fremont, California-based company that produced solar panels. Notice I speak of this company in the past tense because Solyndra is now bankrupt and defunct. But not before Solyndra first received about $530 million of our taxpayer dollars in the form of a federal loan guarantee. Emails are now surfacing due to FOIA requests and a House investigation revealing that the Obama administration pushed to have Solyndra receive this half-billion dollar, taxpayer-funded, loan even though it was already apparent that Solyndra was going broke. In fact, it now looks like the Obama administration was strong-arming Solyndra to not announce their inevitable layoffs until the day after the November 2010 mid-term elections. But boy, in the meantime, Solyndra made for a great success story photo-op when Obama made a visit to the company building to showcase to the American people what a great alternative solar was to that icky oil and coal on which we so much depend. Not only that, these "clean energy" loans somehow tend to end up in the hands of wealthy campaign donors and bundlers who helped Obama get elected, or are trying to help him get re-elected.

Fast and Furious:

Two years ago, the American lamestream media made great hay out of reports that many of the guns that were being used to commit crimes in Mexico were being traced back to the United States as the country of origin. In April of 2009, President Obama announced in a speech that more than "ninety percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States." That turned out not to be the whole truth, as not every gun recovered was traced. What was likely happening was that the Mexican government was submitting for tracing, guns that likely had come from the United States. That will of course increase the percentage.

Now that the Fast and Furious scandal has begun to gain some traction in the wake of the beginning of Congressional hearings that have made AG Eric Holder look like a liar or a blithering idiot, we can start to get an idea of why so many guns captured in Mexico turned out to be from the United States: because U.S. federal law enforcement agencies were ensuring that guns from U.S. gun stores were being smuggled into Mexico and handed over to Mexican drug cartels. Ultimately, those guns have been estimated to be involved in the murders of at least 200 Mexican citizens and 2 U.S. law enforcement agents.

Now why would Obama's Justice Department do such a thing? The purported purpose was to allow these guns to be traced to the cartels so that criminal charges against them could be shored up. However, accountability of the guns was quickly lost, and they disappeared into the netherworld of the Mexican crime world, only to resurface at the scenes of hundreds of murders.

I will now add my opinion. I believe Fast and Furious was an effort by Obama and Holder to demonize gun dealers and gun owners in the United States, and use the violence caused by the use of these weapons in Mexico as a pretext to strip law-abiding Americans of our right to defend ourselves through the keeping and bearing of arms as is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Why do I think that? Because I remember when the "90%" meme was being bandied about in 2009, politicians were calling for the stripping of the rights of law-abiding American gun owners in order to remedy the situation. How convenient is that?

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Like I stated, this was only a "Reader's Digest" version of these two scandals; a primer if you will. For the finer details, do your own research. If you will only Google or Bing "Solyndra scandal" or "Fast and Furious scandal" you will find mountains of news stories, both from so-called mainstream and alternative sources, that will cover every angle of these scandals. The mainstream media do report on these scandals, but they either bury it on page A24, such as the N.Y. Times did with Solyndra news the other day, or they report it and then move on without further comment. A good example of this technique was noted the other day by the conservative blogo-sphere when the statist talking heads on MSNBC's Morning Joe program spent oodles of time mocking and insulting the Republican presidential candidates, but when a news story was mentioned about the Obama administration requesting that news of Solyndra layoffs be held off until the day after the 2010 midterms, those same talking heads clammed up, and far off in the distance, a cricket chirped. They spent a lot more time making fun of Herman Cain's fedora than they did about the deliberate waste of a half-billion taxpayer dollars.

Watch Newsbusters' compilation of the hilarity:



With that kind of hard-hitting coverage (/s) of Obama's scandals, it is not surprising that the average citizens out there haven't a clue what is going on.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Consistency is for fags

WARNING: EXTREMELY BAD LANGUAGE QUOTED AHEAD... SERIOUSLY, DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU OFFEND EASILY:

Now, now. Before you get all worked up, allow me to explain the context of my catchy title for this post.

I have become less and less interested in the annual Academy Awards broadcast as the years go by, but I couldn't help but shake my head in disbelief when I found out the reason that the director of this year's show, Brett Ratner, was fired.

When asked by a reporter about his methods of management, Ratner was quoted as saying, "Rehearsal is for fags!" That is it. According to news stories, that simple comment got him canned as Academy Awards show director. I heard that news while driving to work to the other day, and I yelled at the radio, "What about Eddie Murphy?!"

See, Eddie Murphy had been picked months ago to be the host of this year's show. But when Ratner was fired, Murphy quit. Nevertheless, the producers of the show had been fully intent on going with Murphy.

Does no one remember Eddie Murphy's stand-up comedy routine from the 1980s? Remember his 1983 show called Delirious? In one sketch, he imagined what it would be like if tough-guy actor Mr. T were homosexual.

So let's juxtapose. Which of the following statements should get you fired (or never hired)?

Brett Ratner: "Rehearsal is for fags."

Eddie Murphy (as a homosexual Mr. T): "Hey boy... Hey boy... you look mighty cute in them jeans. Now come on over here... and fuck me up the ass... Hey boy slow down... or I'll pinch up my butt cheeks and rip your dick off."

Unless I'm missing something here, I can't understand how Hollywood can get so worked up over Ratner's statement, when under that kind of standard, Eddie Murphy's past performances should have been something to keep him from ever being hired to host the Oscars. One might make the argument that Ratner was speaking his true feelings, while Murphy was just performing on stage. But if that argument were to be valid, why did comedian Michael Richards (you know, Kramer from Seinfeld) get in so much trouble when he repeatedly uttered the word "nigger" while performing on stage a couple years back?

I will never understand society's selective outrage where some people are allowed to say a word or phrase with no repercussions, while other people are crucified for saying the same thing.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Throwing bad court decisions after bad

A flurry of lawsuits have been filed by assorted state attorneys general since the atrocity known as Obamacare was shoved down the American peoples' throats in March of 2010.

While we have won some and lost some, we had a big loss the other day when Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found that one of the worst features of Obamacare - the individual mandate that requires that Americans purchase health insurance - is constitutional.

It is bad enough that this judge put lipstick on this pig of a law, but what really steamed me was his rationale for finding the law unconstitutional. Hear it from the judge first before I pick it apart:

The mandate, Silberman wrote, “seems an intrusive exercise of legislative power" and “certainly is an encroachment on individual liberty, but it is no more so than a command that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race, that gravely ill individuals cannot use a substance their doctors described as the only effective palliative for excruciating pain or that a farmer cannot grow enough wheat to support his own family.”

“The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute, and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems, no matter how local — or seemingly passive — their individual origins,” Silberman wrote.

I know I am just one of those lowly proletarians with no law degree, but this judge is out of his friggin' mind. Just look at the past examples of legislative overreach he uses for his justification:

...a command that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race: While people like to morally preen and feel all self-righteous by singing hosannas toward the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it is still a law that Congress was given no power to pass under our Constitution. A business today that tried to ban all members of a certain race as was done in the past would not be in business for long in our society. This would be true even if the 1964 CRA did not exist. Boycotts, social pressure, and ostracizing have always been more effective in shaping peoples' actions and behavior than laws ever have. Changes in attitudes about race were taking place even before the 1964 law, and would have continued to do so. The bottom line is that one can vociferously believe that the practice of racial discrimination by private businesses is wrong, but still demand that the Constitution be amended before the Congress passes a law in an area of concern for which they were given no authority under the Constitution.

...that gravely ill individuals cannot use a substance their doctors described as the only effective palliative for excruciating pain: Once again, show me in the Constitution where the federal government has the power to outlaw the use of drugs. News flash! There used to be no federal drug laws. Were there addicts out there? Yes. Did society survive? Yes. Like the previous example, you can be against the use of illegal drugs, but still recognize that regulating them is not the job of the federal government.

...or that a farmer cannot grow enough wheat to support his own family: This one is my favorite. As part of the New Deal, FDR and the Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which limited the amount of crops that farmers could grow. The intention was to prop up the price of food by creating an artificial shortage. One farmer - last name Wickard - grew more wheat on his farm than the law allowed, even though he was growing the extra wheat simply to feed his family. After being pursued for this act by the federal government, Wickard argued in federal court that Congress had no jurisdiction over his growing of wheat because what he grew not only stayed within his state, it stayed on his farm. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court. In the infamous Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Supreme Court found that even though farmer Wickard was growing the unauthorized wheat for his and his family's own consumption, and the wheat did not cross any state lines, Wickard's growing of the wheat still constituted interstate commerce (and thus the ability for Congress to regulate the situation) because that meant there was some wheat somewhere out there from another state that would not be purchased because Wickard had produced his own.

And let us not allow to slide by this final comment: ...and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems, no matter how local — or seemingly passive — their individual origins. No matter how local? The Tenth Amendment truly is dead with Circuit Court judges saying such things. It is so simple, I can type it from memory: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. That means if the issue is local, then it is NOT up to Congress to get involved, no matter how much they may want to.

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I am disheartened by Judge Silberman's comments. His justification for agreeing with the health insurance mandate is essentially that the federal government has run roughshod over our rights so completely over the past 70 years, what does it matter if they do so just a little bit more.

With different federal courts at both the district and circuit level giving differing positions on the constitutionality of Obamacare, and especially its mandate to purchase health insurance, the chattering classes are in almost unanimous agreement that the Supreme Court is going to take up this issue. If their decision-making processes are along the lines of Wickard vs. Filburn (or Kelo vs. New London, or Dred Scott vs. Sanford, for that matter), then we are in serious trouble.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Thank You

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

What the heck is a "Body Man," and why does the President have one?

President Barack Obama just had another member of his staff quit. This time, it was his long-time personal assistant, Reggie Love, to whom the President, and even the news agencies reporting the story, refer to as the President's "Body Man."

To whose body does the term refer? Is it similar to a bodyguard? If so, doesn't Obama have the Secret Service for that? Have other presidents employed someone in a similar capacity?

Just another headshaking feature of the Obama administration.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Catch it early on, folks

I took the day off from work today, and for my trouble I now have 12 stitches that run from the side my nose to the top of my lip. The reason? Basal cell carcinoma. I had a mole removed from that area a few weeks ago, and the biopsy came back positive. So now I am left lying here feeling like I got punched in the face. The worst part of the ordeal was when the doctor would use a cauterizing device to stanch the bleeding as he cut away the offending tissue. The smell of burning flesh is bad enough, but when the procedure is taking place a quarter of an inch from my left nostril? Yuck!

With my stitches and my deformed fat lip, I either look like I got in a fight, or I look like a villain from a James Bond movie. Hopefully in a few weeks, I will just look like me again.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Jesse Jackson: "Occupy Atlanta" reminds him of the Civil Rights Movement

Sometimes, I see a headline that causes me to utter an audible Scooby Doo-esque "Huhhhh?" A headline on Drudge that said Jesse Jackson compared the "Occupy Atlanta" movement to the Civil Rights Movement elicited that reaction from me.

The reason is that the only other thing I have seen of the "Occupy Atlanta" movement is when a bunch of cultish, statist, twinkle-fingered protesters (most of them white, by the way) rejected civil rights icon, Representative John Lewis, and kept him from speaking at their rally.

How cultish were they? Watch them repeat everything the moderator says as they eventually tell Lewis to take a hike. The video is 10 minutes long, but just watching the first minute or two will give you the gist:



Creepy.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The "Nanny State" is now literal

I can't believe stuff like this is really, truly happening in this country -

Can't afford diapers for your kids? Not to worry. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) is riding to the rescue.

Senate Bill (SB) 1778 authorizes states to use federal block grant money to provide diapers for parents who have their children in federally funded daycare.

But wait, there's more! Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) is taking care of business on the House side by introducing the - this is serious now - DIAPER Act, or the Diaper Investment and Aid to Promote Economic Recovery Act. Seriously.

Bottom line: These statist northeast Congresscritters from the Democrat Party are trying to use our tax dollars to give free diapers to poor people who are squeezing out kids they cannot afford in the first place.

Hear that sound? That's the Founding Fathers spinning in their graves.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

"There is no sight quite so terrifying as ignorance in action" -Johann von Goethe

WARNING - Bad language ahead

You gotta love teenagers. They are often so smugly sure of their own brilliance, even when they make complete asses of themselves.

On a typical day, after I get off work, I pick up my two kids (aged 7 and 5) from school, and then when we get home, they love to play on the driveway. They ride their bikes, Ripsticks, and scooters on the driveway, climb the tree on the front lawn, and basically wind down. It is especially nice to do now that the Sacramento summer is over, and the late-afternoon weather is positively beautiful outside.

How angry I was then when on Friday afternoon (10/28), I looked down my street to see a pack of about ten teenagers from the local high school walking down the middle (literally, the middle) of the street. They were dressed in their finest slacker gear, with shaggy uncut hair spilling out their backwards baseball caps, and their skateboards being carried alongside their sagging skinny jeans. If that had been it, I would have tolerated it and moved on. What I could not tolerate was the filthy, vulgar language that was loudly pouring out of their mouths as they swaggered down my quiet residential street. I had to send my kids into the house, it was so bad.

As they walked past my house, I stood there on my driveway and watched them pass by; their filthy conversation continuing unabated as the words "fuck", "fucking", "motherfucker", and all other manner of words violated our quiet neighborhood.

I couldn't let this one go. I yelled, "Excuse me. Could you please not talk like this in our neighborhood? I just had to send my 7 and 5 year-old kids into the house so they wouldn't have to hear your foul language."

One of the boys turned toward me while continuing to walk, gave me a mocking salute, and said, "Yes, Sir!" in a very mocking and disrespectful fashion. One of the other boys yelled, "First Amendment, my friend! We can say whatever we want!"

I yelled in response, "First Amendment? I'm not the government! How about just common decency?!"

They continued walking.

And there it was, one of the major problems of our society on full display: The exercise of rights without regard to responsibilities. Although I could make an argument toward the budding lawyer's ignorant comment that you indeed do not have a right under the First Amendment to yell vulgarities as you walk down a residential street (disturbing the peace, anyone?), for the sake of argument, let's say that you did have that right. Should you exercise it? Where was that little voice inside their heads, that realization that perhaps cussing like that in front of my children wasn't exactly a good idea? Where was that sense of shame when confronted by me about it where instead of mocking me, they could have given a quick apology for possibly corrupting the innocence of my children, and moved on without further comment?

I wonder the same thing when I walk down the halls of the school at which I teach and listen to the atrocious and vulgar language uttered by my students as they flitter down the hallways and the lunch grounds outside.

When I am around my friends, do we cuss like sailors? On occasion, you bet! But the difference is that I do it out of earshot of my kids, and my friends' kids. And when I slip on occasion and say a bad word in front of my kids, such as when I drop something or hurt myself, I profusely apologize to them for having done it. I make sure they know that it is not OK to publicly cuss with abandon.

Too bad no one taught these boys the same lesson. Whether or not they learned anything, that lesson was left to me to give in front of my house on a Friday afternoon.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

And I thought *I* have it bad...

When it comes to posting, I love nothing better than a juicy story about something that happened to me at work; a story that serves as a microcosm of the problems with our nation's education system.

I have had school years in the past where certain class periods caused me to drink entire bottles of wine when I got home. So it is rather refreshing that so far this year, I honestly don't have much to complain about. I am now just a bit over two months into this school year - plenty of time for the honeymoon to end - and overall, my students are pretty darn well-behaved. Is every day going to be all sunshine and bunny rabbits? Yeah right. But for the most part, I tell my students to calm down or quiet down and they... do.

My wife on the other hand...

She teaches first grade in a different district than mine. Her student population makes mine look like a bunch of private school Stepford children. She teaches in a very poor area full of apartment complexes, drug use, family dysfunction, and victim mentality. When we get home at the end of the school day, my report of how my day was can usually be summed up with a succinct, "No problems; I had a good day." Whereas, my wife usually has a couple tales to tell. Today was especially true.

While my wife has plenty of challenging students, her first grade teaching partner in the room next door is fighting what appears to be a losing battle. My wife often gets a call from him in the middle of the day because he needs her assistance reining in an out-of-control student (or two). Today, she got that call and walked in to see one student standing on the teacher's desk, and another student tossing the classroom computer monitors on the floor. At the same time, my wife had been babysitting yet another student from her partner's class - a female student who my wife describes as "pure evil." Keep in mind, this girl is a six year-old first grader. This girl also began seriously acting up, to the point where my wife ended up having to carry this girl to the principal's office while the girl struggled, tried to bite my wife and spit on her, and upon being delivered to the principal, slapped my wife on the arm.

Of course, one of the reasons behavior like this has become the norm at my wife's site is largely due to the administration's inability or outright refusal to do anything about it. Between fear of lawsuits from belligerent parents,; fear of loss of ADA money if the kid is suspended; and fear of damaging the self-esteem of the precious little monsters, these students act out in the most disruptive and atrocious ways, yet they are right back at school the next day, ready to do it all over again.

And my wife is right in the middle of it all.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

If they don't like this bathroom policy, wait until they get a load of mine!

It seems some parents and students are in an uproar about a new bathroom visitation policy at a suburban Chicago high school. The school has a rule in place that limits to three the number of times a student can leave class to go to the bathroom during a given semester.

In typical overbearing, helicopter parent-type fashion, these overprotective parents - of high schoolers, mind you - gnashed their teeth for the news cameras as they denounced this horrific policy.

One parent, Bea Bailey, said, "This principal -- let him find out he's got diarrhea, and he's only told that he can go to the bathroom three times a semester and we'll see how this policy holds up with him."

Sorry, Bea, but you apparently have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Judging by her quote (and the way she said it, if you watch the video at the news story I linked) it almost seems like she believes the school is only going to let students go to the bathroom thrice in a semester under any circumstances. Uh, no. Again, the three time-only limit only applies to leaving class to go to the bathroom. Students still have before school, after school, during lunch, and passing periods between classes to go potty as much as they desire. I wish I could inform Bea that I teach straight through from 9:00am to 12:15pm, when my lunch starts. At that time, my morning coffee is ready to be purged, and off I go. How is it that I am able to make it long periods of time without having to use the bathroom, but these pitiful students, with their enabling parents, aren't able to go the distance? Are you telling me that the bladder of a high schooler isn't yet fully developed?

I learned early on as a new teacher that there are plenty of students who will ask to go to the bathroom every class period of every single day. Quite often, students who have different classes with their friends will coordinate their clocks and ask their respective teachers to go to the bathroom at a designated time, and then the friends will meet up to do God-knows-what.

You think three visits is harsh? For years now, I have had a ONE-visit-per-quarter policy that has worked quite nicely. At the beginning of each quarter, I issue to every one of my students a bathroom pass that is good for one visit to the bathroom. The pass is the size of a half-sheet of paper. I have it saved on a Word document with two passes on one sheet of paper. After I make my copies, I cut the stack in half with a slicer.

This bathroom pass has been one of the most successful policies I have ever instituted in my classroom. Every quarter, I enter the bathroom pass as an extra credit assignment on my gradebook. After I hand out the passes, I record on the gradebook that the students received their pass. I then inform/remind them that this is their one and only chance to go to the bathroom for this quarter. If they absolutely, positively have to go now now now, then that is what the pass is for. If they don't use the pass, and they hang on to it without losing it for the entire quarter, then at the end of the quarter, they can turn in their bathroom pass to me for a 3% bump on their final quarter grade. For example, if their final quarter grade is an 87%, the unused bathroom pass moves their grade up to a 90%. If a student actually uses the pass (and I do everything I can to remind them of what they are giving up if they use it), they turn it in to me upon their return from the bathroom, and I record in the gradebook that they used it. This way, it does no good for a student to make copies of his pass, as I check the gradebook to make sure they haven't used it.

I usually have between 160-180 students. Every quarter, I get an average of maybe 5 students who actually use their bathroom pass. Before I instituted my bathroom pass policy, I had dozens of students going to the bathroom every day.

We teachers see the reality of what it is like if visits to the bathroom are not regulated, which makes me shake my head in indignation as I watch these parents in that news clip with their knee-jerk reactions against the school's very reasonable and overly-generous bathroom policy. I actually think three visits is too many. One has worked just fine in my classroom for years.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

What was the worst song of the 1980s?

I might be the world's biggest '80s music fan. If a song was in the Billboard Top 100 during that decade, chances are that I can tell you not only what year that song was popular, but which season of that year.

I therefore took great interest the other day when Rolling Stone magazine released a list based on a reader poll of the ten worst songs released in the 1980s.

What can I say? I agree with some of the choices; some I don't. Here is a rundown of the list, along with my thoughts:

10. Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Winter 1988)
I'm not sure if this one belongs on the list. It is definitely high up on the cheese-o-meter, but it has a beat and you can dance to it. The most memorable thing about this song was the reaction from people when they saw the video. The deep baritone that people heard on the radio had everyone assuming that it belonged to some black Motown singer. Imagine everyone's surprise when they saw that voice emanating from a waif-ish, wimpy Brit who looked like the skinny version of a Bob's Big Boy statue.

9. Taco - Puttin' On The Ritz (Summer 1983)

This one so belongs on this list. In fact, I believe this song should be in the #1 spot. How bad is it? Take a Jazz Age song, synthesize it and add some Eurotrash vocals, then make it sound like some jam session where the studio engineers were making stuff up as they went, and Voila! You have what I believe is the worst song of the 1980s.

8. Toni Basil - Mickey (Fall 1982)

Yeesh! Oh Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind.... While Toni's mind is being blown, I am blowing chunks. I can't stand this song; never could.

7. Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry, Be Happy (Fall 1988)

I could think of other songs that should be on the list instead of this one, but this a capella stinker from the soundtrack to one of the worst movies of the 1980s - Cocktail - is still pretty bad. When your song has lyrics like this: Your landlord say your rent is late; he may have to litigate - it can't help but make people want to put the song on a "worst of" list:

6. Falco - Rock Me Amadeus (Spring 1986)

This song bugs me for three reasons. First, it was such a nakedly shameful attempt to capitalize on the success of the movie Amadeus, which had won the Best Picture Oscar the previous year. Second, the strange halting rap that Falco strains through during the song was his obvious attempt to cover up the fact that he barely spoke a lick of English. And third was the annoying bridge in the song where, while the synthesizers were still going strong, some strange far away voice begins listing Mozart's life accomplishments. Right in the middle of the song!

5. Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance (Summer 1983)

Whoever voted to include this song on the list ought to be ashamed of themselves. This is a great song.

4. Wham! - Wake Me Up (Before You Go Go) (Fall 1984)

This song is so impossibly happy, it is evil. Add in the short shorts that George Michael wears in the song's video, and there is just nowhere to go but down. This song does NOT make me want to do the jitterbug... oh do the jiiitterbug.

3. Chris DeBurgh - Lady In Red (Spring 1987)

The ultimate in '80s high school slow dance cheese. By the way, when I was a junior in high school, my prom date wore a red dress and we danced to this song. Cool huh? Of course, since Chris DeBurgh really laid on the thick British/Irish accent in this song (just like the Psychedelic Furs liked to do), my prom date wasn't "dancing" with me, she was "dah-ncing" with me.

2. Europe - The Final Countdown (Winter-Spring 1987)

The ultimate in pretentious hair band cheese. I don't think this song is terrible, but there is something about it that bugs the heck out of me. Obviously, it has the same effect on others, since it is in the #2 spot. If you want to hear a much better song from Europe, try Superstitious from 1988.

1. Starship - We Built This City (Fall 1985)

Oh the irony. The 1960s counterculture group known as Jefferson Airplane had, by the 1980s, morphed into a canned, corporate schlock factory called Starship. One of their biggest hits was this atrocity that includes a radio weather forecast/traffic report during the song's bridge. I think what makes me despise this song even today is not so much that it is so bad, but that it got so much radio airplay when it was released, that 26 years later, I am still sick of hearing it.

Since I expressed my misgivings about the presence of some of the songs on this list, you are probably wondering what I would have put there instead. That's easy. The following songs are so awful, that they are forever seared into my memory. Whenever I hear any of these songs on the radio, I immediately turn the station:

Blondie - Call Me (Winter-Spring 1980)

Irene Cara - Fame (Summer 1980)

Blondie - Rapture (Winter 1981)

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - I Love Rock 'n' Roll (Winter-Spring 1982)

Soft Cell - Tainted Love (Summer 1982)

Wall of Voodoo - Mexican Radio (Spring 1983)

Thomas Dolby - She Blinded Me With Science (Spring 1983)

Prince - Little Red Corvette (Spring 1983)

Donna Summer - She Works Hard For The Money (Summer 1983)

Pat Benatar - Love is a Battlefield (Fall 1983)

Night Ranger - Sister Christian (Spring 1984)

Mike Reno and Ann Wilson - Almost Paradise (Summer 1984)

Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It (Summer 1984)

Cyndi Lauper - She Bop (Summer 1984)

Stevie Wonder - I Just Called To Say I Love You (Summer 1984)

New Edition - Cool It Now (Fall 1984)

The Time - Jungle Love (Fall 1984)

Glenn Frey - The Heat Is On (Winter 1985)

Katrina and the Waves - Walking On Sunshine (Spring 1985)

Timbuk 3 - The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades (Spring 1986)

Michael McDonald and Patti LaBelle - On My Own (Spring 1986)

Kenny Loggins - Danger Zone (Summer 1986)

Simply Red - Money$ Too Tight To Mention (Summer 1986)

Stacey Q - Two Of Hearts (Summer 1986)

Whew! That felt good to get off my chest. Any decade is going to have its stinkeroos. For the 1980s, those songs were definitely it!

On another note, I am happy to report that the 1980s sound is beginning to make a comeback! There are bands that are recapturing that happy, poppy, synth sound but with a post-modern angsty twist that we can't quite seem to shake these days, as the 2010s are not exactly Morning in America. One of the best examples is a group that is currently tearing up the sales called Foster the People. What great music they are producing! Another group making "new waves" is One Republic. I am happy to see music from these groups showing up on the charts and supplanting some of the dominance we have seen in the last two decades from shi*-hop and (c)rap music. I remember ten years ago or so when so-called music from that genre occupied every spot in the Billboard Top Ten. That's not the case nearly as much any more. My wife and I have both noticed a shift in music and we are tickled about it.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Checkmate complete: Statist governor and legislature outlaw open carry of handguns in California

Back in August, I wrote a post about Assembly Bill (AB) 144, which called for the outlawing of the open carry of handguns by law-abiding citizens in California.

Being a "may issue" rather than a "shall issue" state when it comes to handing out concealed carry (CCW) permits, the one way that law-abiding citizens in California could still exercise their right to self-defense as guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was by carrying their handgun in plain view, usually with the use of a holster on the hip.

Now, California gun owners will no longer be able to openly carry their handgun. Late Sunday night, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 144 into law. As I have been saying: Checkmate. Most Californians are already unable to obtain permission to carry their handgun concealed; now they no longer have the option of carrying openly either. For all intents and purposes, the carrying of handguns in California is now entirely illegal.

I fully expect this newly-signed law to be challenged in court, however, there is the matter of a federal court case that has already been decided, but the basis for the decision has been negated by the signing of AB 144 into law.

In the 2009 case of Richards v. Prieto, Adam Richards sued Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto after Prieto refused Richards' application for a concealed carry permit. The federal district court judge found in favor of Prieto because, after all:

"...even if Plaintiffs are denied a concealed weapon license for self-defense purposes from Yolo County, they are still more than free to keep an unloaded weapon nearby their person, load it, and use it for self-defense in circumstances that may occur in a public setting. Yolo County's policy does not substantially burden Plaintiffs' right to bear and keep arms."

Translated: Even though Richards got turned down for a CCW permit, he was still free in California to open carry, so quit complaining.

Uh, now what?

In the meantime, Open Carry advocates are not going to give up. AB 144 does not go into effect until January 1, 2012. After that, people will start walking down the street with rifles and shotguns strapped around their shoulder, as AB 144 only applies to handguns.

Anthony Portantino (Democrat, naturally), the legislator who created this noxious bill-turned-law, cited as one of the reasons he wanted AB 144 passed was that some people were "uncomfortable" at the sight of someone with a pistol holstered on their hip. Awwwww.

How would these faint-hearted wimps feel with me walking by them with my SKS 7.62X39mm carbine hanging off my shoulder? That is what this anti-gun madness is coming to.

Since carrying a handgun openly is so visually upsetting, the best thing for the California legislature to do would be to change state law so that we are a "shall issue" rather than a "may issue" state when it comes to issuing CCW permits. Better yet, we could change the law to make California like Vermont, Arizona, and Alaska. In those states, you don't need a permit to carry concealed, let alone openly.

What is the California legislature (and our Governor) so afraid of?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

"Occupy Sacramento" protesters seek publicity, but reject their opportunity to receive it

When a few hundred people hold a public protest in a public park in the middle of downtown Sacramento, you would think they would not only expect the media to show up, they would welcome the media's presence.

That thought was occurring to me as I watched this amazing bit of video from the local CBS (Channel 13) station here in Sacramento. Not only did these insipid people in Cesar Chavez Park not know why they were there, many of them did not want to tell the media even if they did know why they were there. Perhaps all they knew is that they wanted to piggyback on the Wall Street protests in New York, but that is only as far ahead as their drug-addled minds could think. Watch this and shake your head in amazement:

I have seen other public assemblies where protesters did not want to be filmed by bloggers with cameras (like me) or something like that, but I don't know that I have ever seen this kind of hostility directed at members of the news media by people who are seeking public attention.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Sacramento restaurant closures provide a lesson in free-market economics

The Sacramento Bee ran an article today about the travails of the eateries in downtown and midtown that unintentionally provided a wonderful lesson in the concepts of what in free-market economics is called "creative destruction."

Since the economic downturn began in 2008, quite a few restaurants in downtown and midtown Sacramento - some very well known - have gone out of business. Does that stink if you work at one of those restaurants? You bet. But a cursory drive around downtown/midtown quickly dispels any notion you may have that all the restaurants are going to go out of business. Many are doing quite well, thank you very much. In fact, the closure of one restaurant means opportunity for other restaurants that are succeeding:

Still, some restaurateurs are betting things will get better. They're snapping up vacated restaurant space at bargain rates for future expansion...

The silver lining for entrepreneurs is that the commercial real estate market is now full of bargains.

"The deals are good right now," [local restaurateur Randy] Paragary said. "What used to be $2 a square foot is now $1.50, or maybe you get six months' free rent. Landlords just want to get a new tenant."

Many restaurants that recently closed are being scouted by potential new owners. For instance, the space formerly occupied by California Pizza Kitchen at 15th and L streets is being remodeled into a sports bar by the families behind Mix Downtown and de Vere's Irish Pub.

Bazett of Golden Bear and his business partners are also branching out with Hook and Ladder Manufacturing Co., a bar and eatery that will occupy the former Hangar 17 at 17th and S streets come February.

"It was too good of a deal to pass up," said Bazett. "The next five years could hold some promise for Sac, but yeah, it's kind of scary at times."

The tough part about economics is that people only see half the story. When a business goes out of business, what people see are a boarded-up building and dozens of employees out of a job. What often goes unseen, however, is the opportunity for expansion of a competing business that is obviously delivering a superior product. How do we know their product is superior? Easy - they are still in business and the other is not. This expansion means the buying up of the inventory and real estate of the business that failed, and the hiring of many of the people who lost their jobs after the other establishment went out of business; or the opportunity for those people who have learned enough about their trade to try their hand at opening their own business rather than working for one.

If these restaurants were treated like the banks that were "too big to fail," Uncle Sugar would come swooping in with Joe Taxpayer's money in order to "save" Red Lotus, Brew It Up, Spin Burger Bar, L Wine Lounge & Urban Kitchen, Celestin's Island Eats, California Pizza Kitchen's 15th and L street location, Good Eats, The Terrace, Slocum House, and any other eatery that has been unable to attract enough customers to stay open in these difficult times.

As for the restaurants that are attracting enough customers to stay open? They don't need a taxpayer bailout; they are creating taxpayers with their successful business. What sense does it make to take money from the success stories and transfer it to the failed businesses in an effort to prop them up when they would otherwise close down?

Like I said, it's a great economics lesson.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

You can't make this sh** up!

Those words are often uttered by my wife after she regales me with yet another story of something that happened that day at her school where she teaches first grade.

While I teach in a middle to lower-middle class school, my wife teaches at a school that is located smack dab in poverty central. With neighborhoods in which the majority of residents live under the poverty threshold, there is always a certain amount of dysfunction to be found there.

Case in point:

Today, my wife watched as her principal affixed a district police officer sticker to the chest of a female first grader who had found and turned in a baggy of marijuana that she had discovered on a bench near the playground.

Later, my wife asked the student how she even knew that what she found was a bag of pot. The student told my wife, "Oh, I know what that stuff is. I see my mom and dad smoke it all the time."

You can't make this sh** up.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Teacher invokes Godwin's Law, proves to be an embarrassment to the profession

Although no one can ever accuse me of not being a political conservative, my participation in the teaching profession does often put me at odds with my fellow conservatives regarding the conventional wisdom about teachers and teaching.

One assumption conservatives often have about teachers is that they are all a bunch of raving left wing wackos. While I can attest that many of them are, I stand as living proof that this is definitely not always the case. And hey, my wife is a teacher, and she is conservative, too.

What doesn't help counter this blanket accusation of leftitude is knuckleheads like this high school government teacher who recently spoke at a Tea Party forum that focused on illegal immigration. The teacher was reduced to invoking Godwin's Law, which states that when one is losing a political argument with his debating opponent, you can be assured that the losing debater will call his opponent a Nazi. Watch:



How old is this teacher? 12? Aside from simply using the "N-word", just the way he calls the guy a Nazi betrays him as a snot-nose little punk who, when he was in high school, probably had upperclassmen shoving each other out of the way to see who could make him push a penny down the hall with his nose.

And shame on him for dragging his minion-esque students to the forum to serve as props. This guy should do himself a favor and find another line of work. If he taught my kids, I would pull them out of his class yesterday.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson