Down Time

The server has been sporadic here at my favorite coffee shop yesterday and today, and there has been a frustrating amount of time I've been offline. I was able to get some facebook conversation time in last night, but the neighborhood signal is weak and slow. So one of the things I've done this morning is go through some of the pictures I've downloaded onto my hard drive to see if I can come up with captions.So has Obama given his speech yet? Did the world explode? I'm off to find out.

First Snow of the Season

That's Mt. Bachelor, a little bit west of Bend, OR (the peak behind and to the right is South Sister, and you can make out Middle Sister farther to the right, behind the pair of trees). The first snow this "winter" fell yesterday. The snow level was at 7500 feet; the peak itself goes up to a bit over 9000 feet. But we're supposed to be back up to nearly 90 by the weekend; I expect most of the snow will melt off before it goes below freezing for the season.

I Guess I Knew This

but I didn't realize that a fair amount of research has been done on it, nor did I realize how effective it is... even against otherwise antibiotic-resistant bugs: cinnamon oil kills bacteria.

Hospitals will henceforth smell like bakeries, but they'll all be shut down, 'cause the fasislamicommie Obama wants everyone to die under his gummint-run antihealth plan.

Here Ya Go, Tengrain!

Damn Typo! If you like snarky, satirical and liberal humor, and you don't read Mock, Paper, Scissors, that counts as a FAIL! 100 fails per semester, and you lose the innernetz.

Health Care Mythology

• The U.S. has the best health care system in the world.
• Private health insurance companies are more efficient and customer-focused than the government.
• Covering the uninsured isn't our problem.
• We don't need comprehensive reform now -- we can wait.
• I don't need to worry. I have good insurance through my job.

Nice debunking of these myths at OregonLive. I've read a couple of pieces in the last few days claiming the problem isn't that the dems are wrong, or that they have proposed bad ideas, the problem is that in addition to their complete mental and ethical vacuity, the republicans have an astonishing knack at drumming up short, memorable slogans and talking points... "death panels," "pull the plug on Gramma," "government-run health care" and so on.

The editorial piece linked above does a nice job of taking each of the above sentences and making them into slogans by tacking the word "Myth."

Obama's Big Let Down

I just finished reading the prepared speech he's planning to deliver to America's school kids tomorrow. I am SO disappointed.

There's not one use of the word Nazi.

Nor of indoctrination camps.

He doesn't encourage anyone to read Marx, or Mein Kampf.

He says being educated takes hard work and persistence.

He says it's unlikely that most will grow up to be wealthy rappers or sports stars.

Not once does he tell the kids to strip naked and have gay sex while they're watching the speech.

He doesn't tell them that Christianity is evil, nor encourage anyone to blow up the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, or congress.

No, all we get is insipid platitudes like this:

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

I feel completely let down. Maybe he'll stray from his remarks; one can only hope.

Followup:

Students in the state's largest school district may listen to President Barack Obama's education speech Tuesday morning. Portland Public Schools officials say they will allow teachers and principals to decide what's best for students on the first day of school.

Criminey... go read the speech, seriously! Can you imagine anyone who honestly thinks of themself as an educator wouldn't want that message to get out to kids? And officials will allow principles and teachers to decide? How... magnanimous... of them.

Also, John Cole at Balloon Juice has an amusing, snarky piece on his predicted response from righty pundits:

BTW- Who do you all think will be the first wingnut to find a hidden coded message in the text of the speech? The odds on favorite for that kind of lunacy would be Glenn Beck, but then again the one lunatic who pushed the “Republican car dealers is being punished!” nonsense would be a good bet, too, as would that clown who freaked out over dijon mustard. There is just so much quality amateur wingnuttery going on these days that there really is no safe bet anymore.

You can, in fact, make this shit up. But Beck and Co. will still go you one further, and astonish you with their interstellar conclusion leaping.

I Would So Love to Teach This Trick To Ozma

but it isn't going to happen. She startles and moves away from anything that sounds like running water.

Speaking of which, we've been having steady, but fairly light, rains for the last couple of nights, then occasional light showers during the day. I think the precip is supposed to taper off over the next 24 hours, but it's actually been very pleasant. I love the odors associated with the first fall rains, as the parched ground and vegetation come back to life.

I've been referring to this 2-3 day window as "our fall preview trailer." We'll be back to summery weather by Tuesday; 90's are not unknown in September, but I hope we're done with that range for the year.

Worse Than 9/11: Obama's Gonna Fly a Work Ethic Into My Kids!

Poor, poor conservatives... crying (literally) about the fact their precious little ones might be exposed to the President of the United States encouraging them to study hard and stay in school. If they want to keep their kids home, that's fine by me. As an ex-teacher, I guarantee you that your effect as parents on your kids' attitudes toward education is magnitudes larger than any teacher's. If you want them to wallow in hate, stupidity, ignorance and fear, that's exactly what they'll do. Just one word of warning: as they pass through their teens, they're likely to start rebelling. It's sort of surprising to me how many libs I know who came out of profoundly conservative households. Just keep that in mind, Okay?

From Mock, Paper, Scissors; Tengrain then pointed out what the righties are picturing:

Via BAC

Lobautomatic Part Two

Haven't forgotten the LOLBecks, I've just had other topics that interested me more. I'll be damned if I'm going to give this putz his own tag, but I have been seriously thinking about instituting an "Idiots and Scoundrels" label. However, I do use the "Monsters" label for this guy and his ilk when the latest offense warrants.

Lobautomatic

A current facebook conversation (with names and pics other than mine redacted).

Sunday Funnies

This is just so wrong... Skull Swap.
see more Funny Graphs

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
epic4chan
He finally got to live his dream of swimming with dolphins... Skull Swap.
Times New Roman... web comics were crap back then. Luke Surl.
Cyanide and Happiness.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
I Hate my Parents, a recent find. I just realized it's put together by the same person who does the Skull Swap tumblr feed.
I find your lack of cake disturbing... No Cats on This Blog.

see more Political Pictures
Serious Lulz.

see more Lol Celebs

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Steven Spielberg's worst nightmare... Skull Swap.
epic4chan. (now I have 867-5309 running through my head again...)
Misery Loves Sherman.
Evolutionary forces are powerful... epic4chan.
Pavlovian Obesiance.
Skull Swap.
Pygalgia.
Cyanide and Happiness.
Phydreaux Speaks
My First Dictionary.

see more Celeb Look-A-Likes

moar funny pictures. Via EB Misfit. Probably Bad News. This was sent widely around the innernetz after the disaster, but I'm pleased to see it again. 18 times the speed of light is relatively fast.
This group should be called "Hug." Skull Swap.
CNN Speaks in Tongues! Probably Bad News.Also speaking in tongues... epic4chan
Glenn Beck, however, may not be. From Criggo.
From That Will Buff Out, silly-looking accidents, a recent find. The next two are from the same place.

see more Fail Blog. OSU starts Fall term three weeks from tomorrow; the kids are starting their shopping already though.
Pareidolia for the godless, from Pharyngula.And more pareidolia from LOLtheist: Whatever. Jesus is everywhere, blah, blah, blah. Click over for a very snarky, funny discussion, and a link to an enormous and amazing image of martian fluvial-alluvial geomorphology.
Skull Swap- Awwww!
Skull Swap
Night Deposts
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
BuzzFeed

Ice Cream Conservatives

Another from Firedoglake. After quoting a conservative unhappy with Ben and Jerry's Hubby Hubby Ice Cream, Thers helpfully lists a number of possible "conservative" ice cream flavors...

Chunky Not Really Descended from Monkey
Death By Chocolate Waterboard
Health Care Crunch Denied Because of Preexisting Condition
Cherry Garcia Ha Ha Your Dead Hippie
Butter Pee in a Can Before You Can Get a Job Junkie
Mint Chocolate LIBERALS WANT TO MIX A FETUS INTO THIS PINT OF ICE CREAM Chip
Rocky Road to HELL
Extra Fudgepacker Brownie Burn in Hellfire

Many, many more suggestions in the comments.

Someone Else Blogging About Vultures

At Firedoglake. At least the vultures I blogged about play a healthy role in the system. These vultures play the system, but root against health.

"Green Czar" Steps Down For Telling the Truth.

Van Jones, who was Obama's "green jobs tsar", has been the subject of a campaign by conservatives ever since they uncovered a video from last year in which he described Republicans as "assholes". The public airing of such a view is awkward for Obama at a time when he is trying to win over Republicans in support of health and energy reforms.

No siree, wouldn't want any awkwardness. No prob when the Pres and VP candidates refer to a reporter as a "major league asshole" (and never apologize, but did regret that people were offended), but when an environmentalist, civil-rights activist, and (gasp) brown person has correctly referred to republicans as assholes at some point in his past... well! We mustn't have that. I gather Beck has been having conniptions over this for several days.

Assholes...

Surplus Population

"If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Two articles in the NYT caught my eye this morning. The second was on the budgetary problems arising in districts with large numbers of homeless kids. An unfunded 2001 federal law requires districts to provide a number of services for such kids.

The instability can be ruinous to schooling, educators say, adding multiple moves and lost class time to the inherent distress of homelessness. And so in accord with federal law, the Buncombe County district, where Charity attends, provides special bus service to shelters, motels, doubled-up houses, trailer parks and RV campgrounds to help children stay in their familiar schools as the families move about.

Still, Charity said of her last semester, “I couldn’t go to sleep, I was worried about all the stuff,” and she often nodded off in class.

I'm sure the republicans feel that home-schooling would be the best solution for homeless kids.

And the first was on the emerging new thang on Wall Street: buying life insurance policies from the elderly and ill at a reduced rate, bundling them and selling them as securities to pay off when the original policy holders die.

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person.

(...)

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

This strikes me as beyond disgusting, but then everyone knows I'm a prude. Still, there are some moments of levity...

Critics of life settlements believe “this defeats the idea of what life insurance is supposed to be,” said Steven Weisbart, senior vice president and chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group. “It’s not an investment product, a gambling product.”

Well, ummm... insurance of any kind is a gambling product. I guess what he's really saying is "Hey we're supposed to make the profit on this, not someone else."

Dickens

I'm looking for a particular Dickens quote for a piece I'm think about tossing together... if I had a dead tree version of the NYT this morning, I would have wadded it up and thrown it across the room. I haven't found the quote I'm looking for, but I did find this one, which seems perfect for the rage I've been feeling this summer:

“There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth”

I like.