OK, I’m bad, I admit it. But these appeal to my (very) sick sense of humor.
First, the remixed Bill O’Reilly, channeling Der Fuhrer:
Next, Hillary in Der Fuhrerbunker, facing the inevitable
OK, one more - that angry German kid? He’s really a frustrated Cubs fan (aren’t we all?)
Verzeihen Sie bitte.
Categories: Just for fun · Politics as Usual · media
Today’s (sigh) Contemporary Americana!
And yes, this was in so-called liberal Minnesota.
Three small-town eighth-graders in Minnesota were suspended by their principal for not standing Thursday morning for the Pledge of Allegiance, violating a district policy that the principal now says may soon be reworded to protect free speech rights.
“My son wasn’t being defiant against America,” said Kim Dahl, mother of one of the students, Brandt, who attends Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Junior High School in northwestern Minnesota.
Brandt told the Forum newspaper in Fargo that Thursday’s one-day in-school suspension, “was kind of dumb because I didn’t do anything wrong. It should be the people’s choice.”
Kim Dahl said the “punishment didn’t fit the crime. If they wanted to know why he didn’t stand, they should’ve made him write a paper.” She said her son has been declining to stand all school year, offered no reason for sitting and was not obligated to explain his actions.
The school’s handbook says all students are required to stand but are not required to recite the pledge. The same is true for all four schools in the district, a school official said.
“These three [students] didn’t, and they got caught,” said Mel Olson, the district’s community education director. He said he backs the punishment, “being a veteran and a United States of America citizen, absolutely.” Olson served in the Marines in Japan during the Vietnam War.
The head of the Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union said that the school’s actions against the students are unconstitutional, and his office informed the district of that today in a strongly worded letter.
“The school can’t do that; that’s illegal,” said Chuck Samuelson, the civil liberties group’s executive director. “Wow.”
“but nobody paid much attention to the law anymore” - from Gattaca.
Of course if you look at the human material commenting after the story, there are many in the Land of the Free ™ who think these kids should probably be shot:
These are our kids! How dare you tell them what they should do. They are in Junior high and should be in total control of their own lives with no intervention and no consequences. Let them do whatever they want. Do you think school is for learning things like respect and doing things they don’t think are fun???
Just because some clown from the ACLU says its illegal, doesn’t make it illegal. The head of the ACLU doesn’t get to decide how case law is applied here and a 13 year old kid certainly doesn’t either. Besides, if they reword the rule to state that the kids are allowed to sit or stand, how will all the belly-aching liberals protest? They will have to lie down in order to break the rule, which is the position they usually take anyway.
Categories: Contemporary Americana · Education
I found this interesting:
We Were Warned: Tomorrow’s Oil Crisis
This presentation, originally created in 2006 is running again on CNN, according to what I was seeing on that news channel this morning.
Apparently CNN will continue to dust this “classroom lecture” off again as gas prices continue to rise. Of course, the story hook is a terrorist attack on oil facilities after a hurricane hits Houston. The interesting thing is, those incidents aren’t needed to get where CNN says we might be going:
It is September 2009. A Category 5 hurricane roars through Houston, destroying oil refineries, drilling platforms and pipelines–the complex system that provides a quarter of our nation’s daily fuel supply. Three days later, terrorists attack two key oil installations in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest supplier. In the days and weeks that follow, gasoline prices hit record highs, food prices soar as trucks cannot afford to make deliveries, and Americans begin to realize that their very way of life is in peril.
In We Were Warned: Tomorrow’s Oil Crisis, CNN’s Frank Sesno explores the potential ripple effects of this frightening scenario. The events depicted are hypothetical, but oil experts believe the scenario is entirely plausible. His interviews with energy experts reveal that we are nearing the point at which the world, led by the U.S. and China, will begin to consume more oil than can be pumped from the ground and the oceans. Tracking the global race to find new pools of oil, Sesno also considers the viability of alternative fuels, such as ethanol, which is used as fuel for 40% of cars in Brazil. Throughout his investigation, Sesno tries to find out whether any of these ventures can solve our looming energy crisis or whether we are already too late.
Try this scenario: the asshole in the White House decides to go out with a bang and launch a massive attack on Iran, which attempts, in retaliation, to close the Straits of Hormuz. Successful or not, worldwide insurance firms pull the coverage on oil tankers operating in the Straits and prices go out - of - sight.
But CNN wouldn’t put THAT even MORE plausible scenario on TV, right?
In any case, any time this subject comes up, people need to hear the terms ‘peak’ and ‘oil’ mentioned simultaneously so that it begins to sink into the American consciousness. We need to mentally and physically prepare ourselves for the world that is no longer just ‘coming,’ but now right around the corner.
The next President, no matter who it is, will have to have the balls that George W. Bush doesn’t have and level with the American people - our non-negotiable way of life is ending. We can either pull together and work COLLECTIVELY with SHARED SACRIFICE (oooh, can’t you just hear Limbaugh scream like a stuck at that?) or. . . we can drown in our own blood. Your choice.
And it’s not just the oil either - it’s the whole climate issue.
Personally, I think the powers that be are actually NOT going to do that but are planning on a world wide die off to save themselves from having to do collective shared sacrifice. Greed in the species homo americanus is too strong, I suppose, for people to learn a new way of thinking and living.
In any case, you have a better chance of surviving here than in, say, Africa or Asia. The question is - will India and China, both nuclear armed, go willingly into that good night?
Categories: Peak Oil · R. McGeddon, Proprietor · media
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pledge your allegiance
everyone who lives in the u.s.a. should respect the pledge, all it is asking you to do is to pledge your allegiance to this country and if you live here, work here, go to school here you owe this country, if nothing else, your allegiance. there are too many terrorists ready to take down the freedom we enjoy so liberally that it is absurd that you wouldn’t pledge to remain loyal to the country you inhabit. i was always proud to stand and recite the pledge when i was in grade school and cannot for one instance believe that these kids care about the pledge at all, they are just lazy and don’t want to get off their butt to stand for 45 seconds. american children- the future obese adults who don’t believe in this country.