Listen, My Children...

Minimum service hike to match minimum wage hike

Now this is a reform I might be able to get behind!

Barbaro

This is so amusing -- Breyer suggests you buy a tiny vet to go along with your plastic model of Barbaro (who's doing well, by the way).

No Freedom of Choice

Gotta love things like this -- Women should have total freedom of choice, so long as their priorities are family second and work first (and not the workplace first -- consideration for others is also unacceptable -- but one's own salary first), and so long as they make Kelly Ripa's practically-going-into-labor-on-air choice rather than Elizabeth Vargas's choice. 

In Defense of ... well, not the French system!

I like this article, from WaPo: French Take to the Streets to Preserve Their Economic Fantasy.  It's full of delightful statements like this one:

What's so galling about the French is that, in the name of equality and solidarity, they are well on their way to creating not only one of the least vibrant economies in the industrialized world, but also one of the least equitable.

An article that makes fun of the French while having a valid economic argument -- what more could you ask?

Internet -- a private forum?

There are so many totally foolish people.  Sororities look online to see if potential rushies have publicized actions with which the sorority would not like to be associated.  A local teacher gets fired after publicizing private school details online, and gets divorced after typing out and publishing fantasies about an affair with another teacher.  Those people can't get it through their heads that the internet is open and public.  Education's no help -- when employers check online to see what kind of behavior prospective employees see fit to describe in public (and may well continue to describe in public once they are functioning as a representative of their company), Ivy League students describe it as an "invasion of privacy" and whine that "employers should not have access to that."  Fools.  Don't want people to know who you're sleeping with and how much you drank last weekend?  Then don't scrawl it on walls and billboards, phone it in to the newspapers, or otherwise broadcast it to the interested public, idiot!

Grammar

Microsoft Word's grammar checker is so odd.  I wonder how it works -- because it sure doesn't!  It is unable to realize that there are some valid uses of "it's"; furthermore, it just told me that the correct sentence should be, "it are too difficult for me."  Meh.  Maybe I'm just grouchy.

Hope y'all are having a better day!

Nope, they ain't.

Stories like this one (via the Professor), on the dismal state of American education, make me sick.  I'm doing my best to combat its effects -- having students read real newspaper articles and explain them, encouraging them to look at the bigger picture, trying to cultivate practical, real-world skills... but it's difficult (especially when the parents, however well-intentioned, themselves lack the education to back it up, or when you have to spend half your time undoing the misdeeds of previous teachers).   Here's to work!

Too Poor

According to Bank of America I am:

Based on your inputs it appears that you will not become a millionaire in your lifetime.

Typo of the Day

Found while installing my new color printer (useful for printing out Soviet propaganda):  "If you cannot proceed to the next procedure after two minuets, refer to 'Troubleshooting.'"

The use of the internet

I have my first day of work, and I find several links from Drudge pertain directly to the subject at hand.  Who'd'a thunk it? 

But I'm swamped, and I've also had two of my "old ladies," one of them very dear to me, die over the holidays, so I'm not much in a mood to chat.  See y'all once I've slept.