January, 2007 archive

I am not a big fan of home schooling.

But this is not right:

How do you spell extracurricular?

Answering that question probably wouldn’t be difficult for Meghan Reynolds, a 12-year-old home-schooled student from southern Chester County, a winner in last year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee contest at her local school.

But figuring out whether Meghan can compete this year – under a new state law that gives home-schooled students the right to participate in public-school extracurricular activities – isn’t so easy.

The Avon Grove district says no; in its judgment, the first round of the bee is a classroom activity, not an extracurricular one, and therefore is not covered by the law.

Addendum, 1/26/2007:

The School Board stepped in and let her compete.

Or so said Frank Zappa.

Apparently not to this guy:

Ronald Dotson, 39, of Detroit, was sentenced to 18 months to 30 years on charges of breaking and entering and being a habitual criminal.

He was arrested in October after police in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak spotted him near a smashed storefront window containing a mannequin wearing a French maid outfit.

Phillybits has found this great video tracking an internet email worm as it spreads.

There is an old story that Greta Garbo once had a nightmare that she was sprinkling grass seed on her head and awoke, screaming, “I vant to be a lawn.”

Lawns are pretty much a creation of the fertilizer industry.

To sell fertilizer.

From today’s local rag:

There is a man in my neighborhood who mows twice a week during the season, no matter what the conditions.

He then clips and snips his shrubs, edges his sidewalk, whacks those errant blades that grow at the base of his chain-link fence, poisons the weeds and fertilizes and limes.

The result of all this care is a lawn with large areas of dead grass bordered by a few no-longer-evergreen shrubs and one scraggly rose bush that lives only because he ignores it.

The fascinating aspect of this situation is that he continues with his ministrations week after week seemingly oblivious to cause and effect.

In the Bushes.

Richard Cohen:

From the get-go, the Bush administration has taken the position that anyone it detained on terrorism charges was guilty. Throw away the key. No need for lawyers. No need for judges. No need for anything except, of course, the word of the authorities. In recent months, a more assertive Congress and the courts have unaccountably challenged this view, and the Bush administration has beaten a tactical retreat on unchecked eavesdropping and the legality of trying alleged terrorists before military commissions. Still, we all know where its heart is on these matters. Justice is what the administration says it is.

Mindset of tyranny.

One of the nice things about visiting my mother in the home is that, throughout most of the drive, I have interesting radio listening. When I lose the signal of the Best Public Radio Station in the USA, I come under the signal of the Salisbury (Maryland) University station. And, when I leave that, I get the UMES station.

So I was able to catch this fascinating episode of Talk of the Nation on my drive today: Former Senators Alan Simpson (R-Wy.) and George Mitchell (D-Me.) talking about getting the job done.

Wham! Pop! Bash!

is deplorable, because the captain of the ship can’t read a compass or a chart.

He just makes up his charts as he goes along.

So I shall read about the speech in the papers, while expecting nothing from it.

The Current Federal Administrator has a track record of thinking that, when things ain’t working, the thing to do is make a jolly speech to rally support, while not changing the things what ain’t working.

It’s kind of like changing the sign on the outhouse.

It’s still an outhouse.

Newsflash: When things ain’t working, doing the same things harder don’t change nuttin’.

Oh, my.

Listen.

Here.

Only in New Jersey:

In a state known for its small municipalities, the smallest of the small are two Camden County boroughs that don’t have enough residents between them to fill a school bus.

Tavistock (population eight) and Pine Valley (population 19) are historic relics, golf clubs posing as towns. Each has a mayor and borough commissioners, a clerk, solicitor, tax assessor, tax collector and school district, though neither has any schools. Pine Valley even has a police force of seven.

New Jersey, home of the nation’s highest property taxes, is contemplating consolidating some of its 566 municipalities, 616 school districts and 486 local authorities to try to save money. Gov. Corzine has urged voluntary mergers and service-sharing, while some legislators are calling for mandatory consolidations.

Researchers investigate the waistline. Girth may clear up hysterical historical mystery:

Then there was the question of Napoleon’s obesity. Genta’s team looked at historical records and did extensive legwork. Swiss physician Alessandro Lugli and his wife, also a physician, visited museums around Europe, examining different pants that Napoleon had worn.

The pants investigation showed that the emperor had lost some of his girth over the years, Genta said.

All in all, the team determined that in the six months before his death, Napoleon’s weight had dropped by as much as 33 pounds. Significant weight loss is common with stomach cancer.

In all likelihood, Napoleon had a Helicobacter pylori infection, a bacterial infection in the stomach that can lead to gastric cancer, Genta said.

His team’s analysis of the autopsy report also showed an absence of medical signs that are consistent with arsenic poisoning, including lack of hemorrhage in the heart.

FELA is the law that covers liability in the United States railroad industry.

It is absolute: either the employee or the company is wholly liable if there is a workplace injury. Check out this link: It points to a law firm specializing in FELA law. The information about the law, by the way, is accurate.

There are many such firms. There is even a firm from which I have received many mailings (though I was never injured on the job, on company time, or on duty) whose phone number is 800-something or other-FELA.

When I worked for the railroad, I knew a number of folks in the claims department–the department charged with settling injury claims under FELA. In most cases, the company and the injured employee acted in good faith. The employee was hurt, lost time from work, and the company paid, even though the employee may have contributed to the injury.

However, from time to time, they ran into situations such as this one, where good faith was missing and a little bit of videotape invalidated the injury claim.

And, make no mistake, the company used detectives and video when it doubted the good faith of someone who claimed an injury.

Oh, yeah. We won’t mention the charges of criminal fraud.

Fake Stinger missile explodes. Causes real injury.

This was about three miles from where my mother now lives.

And it made the AP wire.

A tribute here.

(Takes a moment to get to the right spot.)

The attorney-general of the Current Federal Administration perversely argues that the right of habeas corpus is not a right:

Responding to questions from Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18, Gonzales argued that the Constitution doesn’t explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights; it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended.

“There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there’s a prohibition against taking it away,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales’s remark left Specter, the committee’s ranking Republican, stammering.

“Wait a minute,” Specter interjected. “The Constitution says you can’t take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there’s a rebellion or invasion?”

Gonzales continued, “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended” except in cases of rebellion or invasion.

No. It doesn’t say, “All Americans have the right of habeas corpus.” It simply assumes and implies it.

The twisted reasoning that would deny the existence of that right is quite clearly treasonous. It is the thinking of tyranny.

And must not be brooked by any citizen of the United States of America who has even a ten-percent understanding of what this country is about.

Another take here.

With a tip to Andrew Sullivan.