A Perfect Solution

Some Southern Baptist activists are once again urging their faithful to yank their offspring from public schools. As long as such an "exit strategy" doesn't involve school vouchers, I'm all for it. Don't let the door hit ya on the way out.

Red Wave

If at all possible, I avoid driving in Oak Ridge like the plague. For those lucky enough to be unfamiliar with Oak Ridge layout, the nucleus of the city is shaped like a triangle with a Super Walmart in the center. The main thoroughfares of the Atomic City, Oak Ridge Turnpike (Hwy 95) and South Illinois Avenue (Hwy 62), are lit with traffic lights like Christmas trees. There are fourteen (14) traffic lights on Oak Ridge Turnpike alone, and thanks to the ingenious traffic light programming no doubt devised by mad scientists in the ORNL, driving from one end of Oak Ridge to the other takes about 30 minutes, 25 minutes of which one is privileged to spend staring at a red light in an empty intersection. Hardly a good way to attract visitors to local businesses.

Disaggregationalism

There's lies, damn lies and then there's statistics. "No Child Left Behind" apparently means "No Child Left Behind Except For Blacks, Hispanics, Cripples And Other Statistically Meaningless Kids". This comment by Julie McCargar, the executive director of federal programs at the Tennessee Department of Education, truly pisses me off: "Would you want a school to be judged on what five kids did in a subgroup? Would that truly represent how effective or ineffective a school is?" Hell, yeah! If the school is not measured by its effectiveness in providing services to those who need the most support (minorities, disabled and special needs), then what's the point of "No Child Left Behind"? Why not just pick a bunch of valedictorians for the statistical sample and claim victory? (Kudos to R.Neal at Knoxviews.com)

Ding In The Door, Again

Somewhat an armchair sociologist, I've maintained a keen interest in observing oddities of human behavior. The most recent phenomenon that boggles me is "parking magnetism". It can be observed in any reasonably large parking lot. Park your car away from other cars. Make sure your vehicle is parked at least 50 feet away from the nearest car. Go away for 10-15 minutes. When you return, lo and behold, your car will have sprouted a cluster of automobiles parked right next to it, even if there's plenty of parking space closer to the store. Try it out, I guarantee it never fails. Explanations are welcome.

The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Beg

I'll never make a charitable donation to any national non-profit organization again. In the past, on occasion I've thought it proper to donate money to a good cause through a reputable non-profit. However, I've learned that yielding your name and address, or email address, to one of these organizations propagates it through "like-minded" non-profits like wildfire.
Donate to the Humane Society, and your mailbox is likely to be flooded with mail from the likes of the Greenpeace, the ACLU, the Democratic National Congress and Public Citizen (Ralph Nader's political vehicle). Although these non-profits claim to have a "privacy policy", they outsource their mailing list processing to third parties, who apparently are not bound by these privacy rules.
Moreover, these non-profits refuse to divulge where they got your contact information, and there's no way to get your personal information out of the non-profit mailing system. For example, the ACLU, which purports to "preserve our right to privacy", refuses to comply with explicit requests to remove me from their mailing lists in spite of repeated demands. I'll gladly help my fellow man in need, but national, corporate non-profits are not getting another penny from me. Instead, I'll be making contributions to such worthwhile efforts as Open Voting Consortium.

I Welcome Our New Overlords

Just recently, Baby Bell execs started making noises about charging Google and other internet giants for access to their networks. Now it appears this plan has backfired. Consumer groups are pushing the FCC to forbid the reborn Ma Bell from expanding to wireless services as a condition of the merger between SBC and BellSouth. If this happens, rumor goes that a consortium of internet content providers, including Google, Amazon and eBay, are ready to bid for radio spectrum and set up a country-wide, high-speed wireless network to compete against landline telcos. Sign me up!

Ice Bears Win The Presidents Cup

Minor league ice hockey in Knoxville has finally emerged from the tar pit left behind when the Cherokees moved out back in 1997. Yesterday, Ice Bears won the historical first professional hockey league championship in Knoxville by beating Florida Seals 3-2 in the SPHL finals. They also won the regular season title earlier. Congratulations to Coach Bermingham, the Ice Bears staff and the 2006 championship team! Also, huge thanks to the local owners group of the Ice Bears who've kept ice hockey alive in Knoxville.

Now It All Makes Sense

The Bush Administration Guide To Crisis Management:

1. Deny anything notable has happened.
   
2. If you can't deny something has happened, claim it's not a problem.
   
3. If the problem is real, claim the problem has already been taken care of.
   
4. If the problem turns into a disaster, blame the opponents.
   
5. If you can't blame the opponents, lie.
   
6. If you get caught with a lie, pick a scapegoat from your own side.
   
7. If you can't find a scapegoat, or the scapegoat rolls over, declare that as the Commander of Chief during a war you can do whatever you want, screw the laws.
   
8. If someone claims you're not above the law, change the subject.
   
9. Profit.
   

Brilliant!

Me So Lucky

I have the best job in America. It says so on the Internet, so it must be true.

If You Kill Someone, Make Sure You're Drinking And Driving

What's a human life worth in Tennessee? Not much, unless you're a drunk driver. In our state, one can pass a $200 bad check and be sent to jail for 3 years. But to kill a child while driving under the influence of alcohol, Xanax, cocaine and meth is only worth a slap on the wrist. Yesterday, 25-year-old Joshua Caleb Harris pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide, vehicular assault, aggravated assault and driving under the influence for causing a crash that killed 3-year-old Hunter Bittle in 2004 and got away with 2 years in Knox County jail and $7,100 in restitution. With time served, the bastard probably walked away from the court a free man. Knox County Assistant District Attorney General Phil Morton claims that had Harris not pleaded guilty, he would've probably received even less jail time in a trial.
This while our state legislature is diddly-farting with trying to shame drunk drivers to submission and establishing gubernational task forces to figure out how drunk is too drunk to drive. Recently, a man who killed a woman with a rock thrown from an overpass received 40 years in prison -- how is a 10 pound rock less destructive a device than a 3000 pound vehicle driven by a drugged up drunk?

Yes, We Can

Case and point, Mark Stein of Chicago Sun-Times writes:

Deena Gilbey is a British subject whose late husband worked on the 84th floor: On the morning of Sept. 11, instead of fleeing, he returned to the building to help evacuate his co-workers. A few days later, Mrs. Gilbey receives a letter from the INS noting that as she's now widowed her immigration status has changed and she's obliged to leave the country along with her two children (both U.S. citizens). Think about that: Having legally admitted to the country the terrorists who killed her husband, the U.S. government's first act on having facilitated his murder is to add insult to grievous injury by serving his widow with a deportation order. Why should illegal Mexicans be the unique beneficiaries of a sentimental blather about "family values" to which U.S. immigration is otherwise notoriously antipathetic?

Average American

I didn't think the day would come that I'd agree with Tom DeLay on something, in a substantive way.

Pick A Number, Any Number

Bill Frist has caught another floater in the bowl with his immigration reform compromise that would give special treatment to illegal immigrants who've eluded deportation for an extended period of time. Apparently, details of this brainstorm are still vague and subject to sniffing the political glue.
I've got a better solution: A green card lottery for illegal immigrants. This is how it would work:

• Illegal immigrants could voluntarily register for the lottery with their real name, address and country of origin
  
• Annually, on a given date, a lottery would held wherein, say, 50,000 randomly selected illegal immigrants would be granted instant and unconditional green card.
  
• To check whether they've won a green card, a registered illegal immigrant would have to go personally to a USCIS office.
  
• Once in the office, lottery winners would be given their green card.
  
• Those who didn't win would be promptly detained and deported to their county of origin, from where they could cross the river and try again next year.

Hey, that's basically the way many legal immigrants get into this country. Fair and square.

Withdrawal

Nature's revenge to "daylight savings time": Power was out this morning, the alarm clock didn't go off. I got my hour back, yay!