"Many seeming disasters are ultimately blessings. I believe in a world of good and goodness. It's often darkest just before the dawn and you can come out of this stronger and wiser and perhaps in a few years you'll look back and have a compassionate laugh for yourself. When you're right in the middle it's difficult, but I suggest you see this as the middle of the story, not the end of the story yet."
"The school board of a small central Ohio community voted unanimously Friday to fire a teacher accused of preaching his Christian beliefs despite staff complaints and using a device to burn the image of a cross on students’ arms.
School board members voted 5-0 to fire Mount Vernon Middle School science teacher John Freshwater. Board attorney David Millstone said Freshwater is entitled to a hearing to challenge the dismissal.
The report came a week after a family filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Columbus against Freshwater and the school district, saying Freshwater burned a cross on a child’s arm that remained for three or four weeks."
"History teacher (hanging up posters with spray adhesive): If ya'll get high from this, you're welcome.
High School
Columbia, South Carolina
Overheard by: thank you!"
"A high school teacher has been suspended for three months after he was ticketed for driving under the influence of alcohol -- more than eight hours after he stopped drinking, officials said.
...The teacher admitted that he was drinking the previous night. 'I didn't think I was under the influence because more than eight hours had passed since I drank,' the teacher was quoted as telling board officials."
"Assholes. The whole lot. Mike Masnick reports on the American congress' failure to not only penalize telco giants who allowed warrantless spying on American citizens, but to provide retroactive immunity for any previous crimes. A few hundred corrupt, pissloaf schemers have just made it totally legal for the government to spy on you without any oversight whatsoever."
"The White House has declared a “major victory,” thanks to 105 sellout Dems and…(cough) ‘leaders’ Hoyer, Pelosi…and Barack Obama. This is “change you can believe in?” Reprehensible."
"The Democratic Leadership as portrayed in a picture:
"The House of Representatives today has fallen down on the job. By passing the FISA Amendments Act (293-129, with 105 Democrats in favor), they voted to give this lame duck President an undeserved parting gift by passing immunity for telcoms that helped the President violate the Constitution by participating in the NSA's massive and illegal spying program.
While Speaker Pelosi and President Bush describe it as a "balanced bill" with "bipartisan support," the millions of Americans whose privacy rights have been violated by the President's illegal spying program seem to have been left out of the equation.
Senator Bond's gloating statement to the New York Times showed the true picture: "I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get." The Washington Post wrote that the bill "hands President Bush one of the last major legislative victories he is likely to achieve." And the San Francisco Chronicle, writing from Speaker Pelosi's home district, called the vote "weak, timid, spineless."
To say that EFF is disappointed in the House Leadership's support for this bill is an understatement. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer, so vocal in their opposition to telecom immunity last March, capitulated to a dangerous "compromise" that gives the telecoms and the Bush Administration what they have been demanding for over a year: Protection from court cases that threaten to uncover the extent of the President's illegal spying program."
"..In the past Obama supported Chris Dodd’s filibuster.
...Obama will back a filibuster of any Senate FISA legislation containing telecom immunity, his campaign has just told Election Central. The Obama campaign has just sent over the following statement from spokesman Bill Burton:
“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”
That was huge at the time.
UPDATED 1: Obama has come out with a statement via Glenn Greenwald:Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. . . .
After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year’s Protect America Act. . . It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.
It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives -– and the liberty –- of the American people."
"[Bob] Lehman, a former Marine, and [Tom] Felkner were married by Lehman's brother, Jeff, a retired Marine.
'I'm a Marine. I like to do things first,' said Bob Lehman."
"NICE guys knew it, now two studies have confirmed it: bad boys get the most girls. The finding may help explain why a nasty suite of antisocial personality traits known as the "dark triad" persists in the human population, despite their potentially grave cultural costs.
The traits are the self-obsession of narcissism; the impulsive, thrill-seeking and callous behaviour of psychopaths; and the deceitful and exploitative nature of Machiavellianism...
But being just slightly evil could have an upside: a prolific sex life, says Peter Jonason at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. "We have some evidence that the three traits are really the same thing and may represent a successful evolutionary strategy."
"Blonde: So I started calling my students 'nizzle'.
Brunette: 'Nizzle' means 'nigger'.
Blonde: Oh. My. God.
--A Train"
"Chief says police have 'better things to do'
..."It's not a matter of enforcing the law, it's a matter of making good sound decisions on what you're going to enforce and when you're going to enforce it," said Chief Mark Beckner. He admits his department has "better things to do than enforce a law in which no harm was being done."
He went on to say, "In a situation where it's a mass event like this, I just don't think it's to the communities benefit to spend the money and resources it would take to try to stop a group of 60 people riding bikes naked. It would be like herding cats anyway and that's just the position that we've taken.""
"30-something guy to group: So yeah, I mean my ex-wife found out I bought a new car, a Benz, and that my new girlfriend was driving around in it. So she got all pissy and told me to buy her a car. So I bought her the shittiest Toyota I could find at the used car lot. No joke, this thing is a death trap. I hope she burns alive in it.
Friend: Um, don't you have kids?
30-something guy: Yeah, so?
Friend: Doesn't your ex-wife drive the kids?
30-something guy: Oh fuck me, now I have to tell her that I tried to kill her.
--Metro North Train
Overheard by: Just Trying to Sleep..."
"A uniformed police officer went to 20 classrooms El Camino High School in California on Monday and announced to students that several of their classmates had been killed over the weekend in alcohol-related car accidents.
He was lying, and he and the school continued to lie about it for two hours to the grief-stricken students. Why? To teach the kids an important lesson about the dangers of drunk driving.
I imagine the students learned another lesson -- that cops and authority figures are liars."
"Lie and lie and lie and then wonder why they go apeshit.
...
It has been said that children no longer respect their elders. Children see no wisdom in an adult who is unable to set the time on a VCR. And this is further proof. Lying to children will not teach them. Cognitive abuse will only strengthen their boundaries. This same excercise took place in my high school, fifteen years ago. And yes, some of the students knew it was fake...and disreguarded the authority figure, their message, and their failing ethos. Others, like me, became very distraught receiving the message that another friend had died due to the plauge of drunk driving...
...
"They were traumatised, but we wanted them to be traumatised,"
Right there, you're fired. And in a sane world, jailed.
This exercise teaches children the valuable lesson to not trust anything adults tell them. It teaches paranoia and irrational fear. It teaches children that the best way to instruct someone is to terrorize them.
Yes, drunk-driving is awful, a tragic consequence of bad decision-making. Why not focus on making better decisions in the first place?"
"“That processed cereals had become little more than sugary junk with milk and vitamins added was an accusation made as long ago as 1970, when Robert Choate, an adviser to President Nixon on nutrition, told a congressional hearing into breakfast cereals that the majority “fatten but do little to prevent malnutrition”. Choate was outraged at the aggressive targeting of children in breakfast cereal advertising. He analyzed 60 well-known cereal brands and concluded that two-thirds offered “empty calories, a term thus far applied to alcohol and sugar”. Rats fed a diet of ground-up cereal boxes with sugar, milk and raisins were healthier than rats fed the cereals themselves, he testified to senators.”"
"Actor George Takei, 71, and Brad Altman, 54, were the first couple to ever receive their marriage license in the City of West Hollywood. Takei and Altman will have a wedding ceremony in September in the Democracy Room of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles."
"Hot Asian chick to boyfriend, about former boyfriend: He actually told me he liked fucking me because of my 'almond eyes.'
Boyfriend: Where do you find these guys?
Hot Asian chick: I know, right?
Boyfriend: I like fucking you because you come at least once a minute.
Hot Asian chick: Take me home now!
--8th & Broadway
Overheard by: ...can i borrow her"
"Under current National Health Service (NHS) regulations, if a patient chooses to purchase expensive drug treatments not covered by the government, they forfeit the right to further state-funded treatment. Allowing citizens to purchase life-extending drugs not covered by the NHS would create, says Labour Health Minister Alan Johnson, a two-tiered system favoring the wealthy. Of course, Mr. Johnson's is demanding equality of grim outcomes and preventing patients from spending their after-tax income however they see fit. This would be less of a problem if the NHS actually had the money to cover £2,200 a month cancer drugs."
"A Japanese man who was kidnapped by a Pakistan-based gang of bandits while traveling in Iran last year has finally been released. After gaining his freedom, one of his first acts was to appear before cameras and apologize for all the trouble he had caused"
"Oh, yes, a human’s best friend. Until you show a sign of weakness. And then they eat you. Cats eat dead bodies because they get hungry, and, let’s face it, they made it clear they couldn’t give a shit about you from the start. Dogs lure you with that masquerade of unconditional affection. But they’ve been thinking about eating you the whole time.
My friend Zo lost her dog Moo some weeks ago. What do you think happened to that little dog, now no-one’s keeping their eye on it? That’s right. That dog is now living on the fucking moon, collaborating with Nazis. Prove me wrong."
"Five-year boy in front of a door: (frantically) Which one? I have to go!
Exasperated mother: The men's room.
Little boy: Which one?!
Mother: That one (points) and that's why you need to learn to read.
Barnes & Noble
Cary, North Carolina"
