YouTube - The Forgotten Giant

Today we were setting up a YouTube account for my 7.12 year old son...

As I was keying in the info my son inquired:

John - Hey Dad, what's 'other'?

Hah! I ignored him, twice, and haven't gotten around to answering it. Although *Michael Jackson* might do the trick.

YouTube is littered with cussing and girls in thongs....even on SpongeBob videos!

So generally I don't let the kids surf the website.

BUT there are still tons of terrific, age-appropriate content on YouTube.

I send my kids videos of (other) amazing kids all the time. Y'all should do this too!

Right now my daughter is watching a young lady singing beautifully.

And my son, now that he has an account, is already subscribed for awesome, FREE chess lessons.

Critics thought YouTube would die from copyright infringement lawsuits; they said that it was nothing more than *pirated content*; that no one would create quality video content for free; and that Google OVERPAID.

Of course they were, as critics so often are, dead-wrong.

Now that I have an internet-enabled color TV in the house I find myself more and more opting to watch YouTube clips late at night, in bed - be they chess tutorials or interviews with famous entrepreneurs and whatnot.

Flying South?

I honestly haven't thought much about wintering in Florida this year. Maybe that's because it's been unseasonably warm the past two months? Or perhaps it's because living in New York now we are just so much busier?

Anyways I've tossed out a handful of lowball bids for unrented places in Naples the past couple of days.

We'll see if anything comes of it.

Of course I'd like to go, but my wife gives me such a hard time about taking the kids away from her for a couple weeks that it really mitigates the fun in the sun.

Either way I win. If I don't go....we'll save the $3,500-$4,000 total cost of the trip.

On the same subject, I am actually thinking about buying a place down there in Naples. It's not time yet, but it's getting close.

For less than $100,000 you can get a 2 bedroom place very close to Vanderbilt Beach now. At that price, the total annual cost of ownership (mortgage + taxes + HOAs) is only about $8,000 per year.

You could theoretically rent it out for just March and April for 4k+ and have half of that yearly nut covered.

Like I said, it's not time yet.

Those units are headed to 50k when the stock and bond markets revert to reality.

Indian 'Takers'

Yet another profoundly hilarious title by moi.

Oh, how I crack myself up...

Green Suckers

Saw this foolishness in TJ Max the other day - YummyEarth Organic Lollipops.

Licking them will save Father Earth! Seriously. Watch the video.

But upon further reflection I must say these are actually ingenious.

I mean every freakin' doctor and dentist in the wealthy suburbs (and all over California!) will buy them. Every Big Government, Big Bank will stock them...

Okay. For those of you provincials who've NEVER LEFT the Northeast....a *sucker* is a Midwestern(?) term for lollipop. So my clever title bears double meaning.

Attention - Pin-Heads

Did y'all see this new, upstart website - Pinterest?

I'm sure the site has some appeal - even if it was indiscernible to me upon first glance.

Funny Doctor Lies

I'm pretty sure that much of what that *doctor* said was outright distortion - particularly his assertion about the safety of natural birthing TODAY.

Still it was funny!

When they cut my wife's belly open for our first love child....one of the attending student nurses fainted.

I averted my eyes as best as I could!

And when our second child came, also via C-Section,....I went even further. I had my back to my wife!

Can you say Jaws? Well that was the invoked imagery.

'Old Coot' PDA

From Geezer Planet!

Awesome Fossil!

Watch the whole thing:

Last Minute Gift Ideas For HER

Last year, Lindsay Demma Gibson was thrilled to find a stocking and, under the tree, several carefully wrapped gifts from her husband Christmas morning.

That is, until she opened them.

Ms. Gibson, an elementary-school teacher, had been hoping for her favorite perfume, new boots or a nice purse.

Instead, her husband gave her golf gloves, a golf skirt and a golf shirt with a country-club logo on it—even though she rarely hits the links. He also presented her with a heating pad, Listerine breath strips and generic nasal strips to prevent snoring.

Tom Valentino, who grew up in a large Italian-American family, blames his upbringing. In his parents' house, Christmas was all about religious values—and food. Gifts were an afterthought.

Flash ahead a few decades, when Mr. Valentino, an accountant, had to pick out a holiday gift for his wife. "I started to think, well, we have three kids already, so no need for anything from Victoria's Secret," he says. "And I bought her a fancy watch last year for her birthday. How many of those does she need?"

Then he remembered his wife had said she needed a vacuum and a bigger pasta pot. Off to Macy's he went. "I could almost smell the sauce cooking with meatballs, sausage and braciole," he says. "How could a woman not be happy with these?"

He found out, because the gifts made his wife cry. "The worst part of it all were the looks the kids gave me," says Mr. Valentino, 52, who lives in Cheshire, Conn. "It's been about 15 years, and I can't tell you how many times I've been reminded of those gifts."

Those harrowing excerpts are from here.

Believe me. When women say, they don't want *anything* for Christmas/Kwanzaa...

They are lying!

Normally I charge $300 per hour for my sage *gift consultation*....but here are a few valuable(!), free suggestions:

1 - Pole Dancing Classes

2 - Books

3 - Clothes

The trendy knee pads are for scrubbing the floor, pervert!

4 - Exercise Feedback Gadgets

5 - Kettlebells

I got my wife one for Valentine's Day last year!

All these gifts are GUARANTEED to bring a tear(s) to her eye!

Stick with my suggestions.

*Lingerie* will get a Moron in trouble. As will a new *iron*.

And don't buy a new *vacuum* either or the wife might think you have an eye for the undocumented cleaning lady - since she's the one who actually USES it.

Arlington Christmas

While I'm certainly no flack for Big Military and these types of *forwards* often march as propaganda...

Still this is pretty cool:

Readers may be interested to know that these wreaths -- some 5,000 -- are donated by the Worcester Wreath Co. of Harrington, Maine . The owner, Merrill Worcester, not only provides the wreaths, but covers the trucking expense as well. He's done this since 1992. A wonderful guy. Also, most years, groups of Maine school kids combine an educational trip to DC with this event to help out. Making this even more remarkable is the fact that Harrington is in one of the poorest parts of the state.

Christmas Cheer, For Heathens Too

All Hail The Puppet King!

The thing is, Big Media could have put an end to this if they were the slightest bit inclined. They could still have *their guy* in the White House...

Instead they choose to provide blanket cover - I guess rationalizing in favor of a *larger battle*.

Whatever Obama is, it's important to remember that he's merely a symptom - a symptom of runaway, unaccountable Big Government.

Ron Paul has been gaining steam, despite ZERO media coverage, despite murderous *friendly fire*, despite being anathema to the ruling elites, and despite some of his admittedly wacky stances.

But the people who discount him would be well-served by reading a little history.

Winston Churchill was also Marginalized and considered a loon by the entire political establishment before....before HE SAVED EUROPE from Hitler!

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932-1940 really ought to be REQUIRED READING for young Morons and fossilized Morons alike.

Measuring Manhood - 2 - Justin Bieber

Behold the chest *concavity*!

And you know his trainer definitely has him working out, too.

Selena Gomez too. She's a modern day Winnie Cooper!

Someone's Cranky...

This is going viral at the moment:

I think it was a computer monitor.

Whatever. There's padding in there, right?

And for all we know, the recipient might well be a deserving $*&#-head.

Have you seen the baggage handlers at the airport toss/slam the luggage all over the place - particularly when THROWING it on the belt?

On a related topic, I have noticed that much of what comes from Amazon, particularly the *books* show up with small damage - rips and whatnot.

Whatever. It's still worth it.

Amazon Prime makes me almost feel like a king.

Who Knew?

Of course it makes sense.

Jesus still reigns on Earth - despite Big Media and Big Government obliteration.

I'm still a HeadBook newbie, but I'm studying it more and more these days. Most likely going to do little Facebook Fan Pages for this blog and for HomeschoolDad.com. This way earthlings don't have to subscribe to my blog via a Reader. If they *fan* my page they can be alerted to new content via Fbook.

Starting to get mad at myself for chronically underestimating the power of social media!

Instead Of Worrying About Credit Risk...

So while the bank is losing tens/hundreds of billions....they still have time to promulgate an extracurricular POLITICAL CAMPAIGN.

For more on this very topic visit my killer classic post - Bank of America's Ken Lewis - Socialist Hero, Shareholder Villain.

Recall when Al Gore's sci-fi motion picture came out - A Convenient Myth - Kenny had them screening the movie, at work, all day long!

Look at that graphic above again.

Melvin Dwork???

Did God make him gay? Or did the people who named him? Seriously.

Perhaps it would have been wise for him to take his mother's last name.

Then again, perhaps he did!

For the record, I don't care who's in the military - SO LONG AS THEY CUT IT IN HALF budget-wise.

ATM Fees, SURGING

At Penn Station in NYC the other day I withdrew $340 from my account...

But it only dispensed $220!

I checked with the bank today and it did in fact confirm that I typed-in/requested $340 on Sunday. I had been doubting myself; and hadn't requested a receipt.

After a *first check* they haven't found any problems with the money count from that ATM. So I've had to file some sort of appeal.

Of course this is Bank of America we are talking about.

I've never had a problem with Capitol One. See an old receipt of mine above.

Cookie Flop!

So my wife goes to a *cookie swap* last night.

Great, right? She'll come home with all sorts of delicious cookies.

But it turns out most of them stunk.

Why is that?

According to my wife, "....there were just too many WORKING moms."

The Splits Too?

That's the Russian Kettlebell guy - Pavel Tsatsouline. Read my prior post.

He's got another book -Relax into Stretch : Instant Flexibility Through Mastering Muscle Tension - which is informative and fascinating.

Pavel asserts that most men CAN do the splits and that the only reason the only thing holding them back is purely *pschological*!

He says that most people can stand up and stretch one leg out 90 degrees on a chair....and they can do this also with the other leg.

So why can't they stretch both legs out 90 degrees at the same time?

Anatomically there is no connection from one side to the other - so raising one leg SHOULDN'T preclude raising the other.

Pavel says that our fearful brain is the culprit - NOT THE MUSCLES, NOT THE LIMITS OF OUR FLEXIBILITY.

Check out his book if your interest is piqued.

One warning - his hacks are time-intensive. He wants you to stretch until these involuntary, reflexive contractions/restrictions tire out.

December Software Deals

Need voice recognition software?

Then watch the video:



You can get it for $20 right now - $60, less $20 coupon code, less $20 main-in rebate. Email me and I'll send you the info. Just have to buy before 12/31.

I just ordered that. Hopefully it will help me get my *content* down for HomeschoolDad.com.

AND theoretically I can use it to get the kids dictating short stories. We'll see.

This isn't the only software I just snagged for a song.

A couple weeks ago I bought the full suite of MS Office for only $10.

Can't help y'all with that one, not directly anyway. It's a deal only offered to employees of my wife's company.

But you Big Business wage slaves ought to inquire to find out if they can get a similar deal through their employer.

Dentists - Self-Interested Thieves?

So some kid died after complications from wisdom teeth removal.

More accurately I should say that he died from complications from anesthesia.

Whatever.

Reading that article I came across:

Like any surgery, wisdom tooth extraction carries risks. The most common complication -- permanent nerve damage causing numbness of the tongue, lips or cheeks -- affects more than 11,000 people annually, according to a 2007 report in the American Journal of Public Health. But the surgery has also been linked to jaw and tooth fractures, brain tissue infections, life-threatening bleeding and hypoxia.


With all the risks, some dentists question whether the extraction surgeries are even necessary.
The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons strongly recommends that young adults have their wisdom teeth removed to "prevent future problems and to ensure optimal healing." But the science supporting prophylactic extraction is thin.


"Third-molar surgery is a multibillion-dollar industry that generates significant income for the dental profession," Jay Friedman, a retired California dentist, wrote in the American Journal of Public Health. "It is driven by misinformation and myths that have been exposed before but that continue to be promulgated by the profession."


American dentists and oral surgeons pull 10 million wisdom teeth each year -- an effort that costs more than $3 billion and leads to 11 million days of post-operative discomfort, according to the report.


"At least two thirds of these extractions, associated costs, and injuries are unnecessary, constituting a silent epidemic of [physician-induced] injury that afflicts tens of thousands of people with lifelong discomfort and disability," Friedman wrote.

Shocker!

Obviously, dentists and the oral surgeons they are in cahoots with WILL NEVER, EVER admit that wisdom teeth extraction is or even might be dubious.

They just make too much darn money!

Be cynical of EVERY PROFESSION - especially the *guilds* and the ones that are paid by third parties (e.g. government, banks, insurance companies).

CHECK. CHECK...for dentists.

Pre-Oinking Advice

Just a quick reminder...

Y'all realize that you are most likely going to consume small mountains of food and rivers of alcohol this upcoming Christmas weekend.

Obviously there's no avoiding it. Inlaws and outlaws are intolerable without such medication!

I'm working out vigorously every morning this week in preparation thereof. I'll still oink, but this should take the teeth out of the calories/cellulite.

Unicycle - A Killer Ab Workout!

Alright I mentioned in an earlier post that unicycling might be an *ab hack*.

Well I took my kids to a unicycling sort-of class today and had the opportunity to jump on myself.

Actually I jumped on a unicycle with training wheels (4 of them!) and even riding that misnomer, for only about two minutes, activated my abs to the point where I can still feel it a little 12 hours later. (I did have some problems trying to turn the dang thing!) I'm definitely tempted to give this doohickey some more consideration.

It was 20+ kids from our homeschool group. Here's the demo video from their website:

Thankfully, being mid-December, they have a nice indoor space too!

The guy who started this business has a great story.

He had Crohn's disease something fierce - surgical removal of much of his large intestine...

I didn't get the full story, but apparently he started unicycling and this fitness kick brought back his health - relieving him of the 23 pills a day he had to take.

We'll be back to his place soon for another session. I may come back a bit bruised as there's NO WAY I'll wear a helmet (or kneepads!).

Before SHE Cheats

Another celebrity divorce. I'm shocked!

In these cases it's rather easy to assume that the dude's unfaithfulness was the cause of the breakup.

But with the prospect of a huge *departing bonus* and the freedom to do whatever with whomever they want....I bet more of these divorces are initiated by the wife than most people think.

Back in 2005('04?) when I was living in Charlotte, NC I delivered one of my personally most memorable jokes.

The color TV was on at the bar and it was broadcasting the story of how a married Kobe Bryant allegedly raped that girl in Colorado.

I stately rather loudly, and with my trademark credibility:

"...That's BAD LUCK. The ONE TIME Kobe cheats on his wife he ended up getting caught..."

Taking the bait, some young lady near me went ape$hit over my remark.

PuddyInMyHandsChick - YEAH.  RIGHT.  THE ONE TIME HE CHEATED!

And then she stormed out of the bar in a huff.

I can only presume that she was a female chauvinist pig - if not a racist.

(BTW, there is a comedy routine on YouTube that shares the title of this post and parodies the Carrie Underwood song. But it was a little too raunchy for me to embed or link to.)

Funny Earthlings

Again, you 'old coots'...

This is a SLIDESHOW. It's more than one image!

Never mind.

And, for you younger fools....if you can't read/understand the image, click on it to enlarge.

Making people laugh is a such a chore. This is the modern day equivalent of *explaining the punch line* or something.

Can't Live On Beer Alone?

Or can you?

Not for nuthin' but one of my South Philly golf jabronis has lived for years - if not DECADES - almost exclusively on Coors Light.

Pranking A Sleeping Wage Slave

Shoot. This would have been a great idea for back when I was in my private Catholic high school!

Although, I would have been a SITTING DUCK.

I dozed off in almost every class. They piled on so much work that between 1 and 2 nights a week I really didn't get to sleep.

Quite often there was a puddle of drool on my desk.

Looks like tons of clips come up when searching for *fell asleep in class* on YouTube.

Oh how I wish I spent my sophomoric youth in the age of digital cameras!

Pranking Spoiled Brats

My son was laughing at first...

Then I asked him to send it to one of his friends.

But he wouldn't - said this video was *mean*.

Six Pack Abs Hack?

Like most earthlings, sit-ups, leg raises, and crunches kill my back and neck.

But I recently heard that there is a way to do them which not only protects those weak spots but also really hits your abs.

Apparently the key is to *flatten your lower back* all the way to the floor while doing them.

And now that I Google this a bit I can see that it's hardly a secret among the workout cognoscenti.

I'll have to give this a whirl now. Technique is everything in life!

Movie Skip - The Way Back

Looks good:

But was a dud!

You'd think a story about a 4,000 mile prison escape from Siberia would be teeming with drama. Except, there wasn't even a single memorable or well-done scene.

The acting was also weak and no doubt many viewers had trouble understanding the various fake foreign accents speaking English.

I'm sure the book was better.

Now I'm going to try to remember which fool it was that recommended this one to me...

Moronic Respiration

A few times on this site I've discussed my congenital mouth-breathing problems. For the most recent reference - click here.

Well last week Tim Ferris ran an interesting post on the importance of nasal breathing.  See - The Painless Path To Endurance.

A few years ago I read how Goethe would only breath through his nose. Apparently the guy never caught a cold.

And now you've got Tim Ferriss' super-athletes also asserting the health benefits of nasal breathing...

Unfortunately I've been unable to really improve the quality of my breathing.

I just keep forgetting to breathe! Seriously.

The only time I actually remember to breath properly (through both mouth and nose) is when I'm working out.

I probably need to post sticky-note reminders at my desk, on the bathroom mirrors, on my steering wheel...

Soccer Moms And Hockey Dads - Insane?

A few weeks ago I found out my cousin's son (my second cousin?) has soccer practice 3 days a week on top of a Saturday game.

Big deal, right?

Well the boy is NINE!

Then the other day I found out that one of my son's local age-mates started playing youth hockey.

Guess what....he's at the rink 5 DAYS PER WEEK.

I just don't get it.

There's no way this is time and energy wisely spent. Whether the child likes it or not....whether you think they like it or not....even if the whole town is doing it.

By committing so much to one activity they are inherently narrowing the kid's life experience. What about the other things they might like even more - things that by default they won't get any exposure to?

And I say this as someone who laments how much of their youth was wasted on organized sports.

I should have been computer programming, running a lawn business, learning a musical instrument, or dabbling in something else that could have paid lifetime dividends.

It does suck that kids can't go down to the park and get their fill of stickball soccer or whatever these days. (No one is there to play with!)

But parents need to open their eyes and push back a little.

I started soccer and basketball at age 8 and I was STILL overly committed.

My freakin' daughter started local soccer last year when she was 4!

Though when my son had the opportunity to start traveling team soccer this fall my wife and I passed - without even the tiniest afterthought.

Meanwhile many of the boys in town not only opted for the traveling team (Saturdays)....but they are also co-enrolled in the intra-town league on Sundays.

And on the sidelines all they do is grumble about *chauffeuring* kids all over the place!

All I'm saying is that there certainly are diminishing returns to youth sports and the point at which they start descending is probably a whole lot earlier/lower than the lumpen masses are aware of.

Macy's - Sanctuary For Perverts?

Hah!

Apparently Macy's, in deference to political correctness, now allows men to use the women's changing room.

I can't wait to try this out tomorrow!

Thanks to LeagueIslander for this one.

(Why do people instinctively think of me when they come across such *news*???)

Measuring Manhood

So a buddy is having his first child soon...

Of course he and his wife are having trouble, or at least taking their time picking out a name.

They don't know the baby's gender...

And it turns out the dad's gender is looking questionable too!

He said one of the complicating issues is that they aren't sure about the child's last name. So picking a first name....

WAIT A MINUTE. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU AREN'T SURE ABOUT THE LAST NAME?

His wife didn't take his last name when they got married which is of course a manliness demerit (or ten) in and of itself.

But he has it in his head that when a wife doesn't take her husband's surname that it's logical/acceptable or whatever for the kid to bear Mom's last name!

I've never come across such a situation in my life. And even if I had,  it certainly wouldn't alter my staunch belief that giving a child Mom's last name constitutes THE PINNACLE of emasculation.

I told him, right away, that he was going on the blog for this. How could I possibly keep him off?

Yes indeed, this was the same Ivy-League educated guy who had no idea how to poop.

Propaganda Sculpting Reality

Predictable spin!

While I don't follow the din of contemporary politics even a little bit...

I'm 1,000% sure that Newt Gingrich has negligible genuine support among Republicans.

But Big Media (Big Government'ss apparatchik) most certainly wants this loser on the ballot next fall - just as they salivated at facing that Moronic 'old coot' John McCain the last time around.

The only people I've ever even heard talk about Newt Gingrich....are the most devout illiberals within my social circles.

One could easily make the case that the special interest socialists actually would rather Mitt Romney get the nomination...and I won't argue against that hypothesis.

From that it follows that Big Media is just disposed toward building up upstarts for the purpose of weakening the alleged frontrunner/entire field.

Whoever won that debate if anyone actually watched, or cares,....whoever is the frontrunner remains immaterial.

My point is that the news from the big pipe is nothing short of pure propaganda. It's designed to DEFORM rather than inform minds.

A Brooklyn Jabroni Christmas

This is well-done, and not much of a theatrical distortion either - for those of us familiar with Brooklyn (and South Philly).

Click the hyperlink above, Morons.

"No Weekend Golf" - Says Trangendered Male

A WAHD (Work At Home) Dad goes off on *dads* who apparently *do nothing* - as far as the house and kids are concerned:

Really, wake the hell up. Now. I understand that most of you have 9-to-5 jobs, that you leave tired and come home tired and just wanna chill in front of SportsCenter with a bowl of chips. But, seriously, you have no remote idea: Being a stay-at-home parent is exhausting. At the office, you can hide. You can take lunch. You can pretend you're working while scrolling the Internet for Yankees-Blue Jays and, ahem, Lindsay Lohan news. You have genuine social interactions with folks over the age of, oh, 12. People ask questions about your day -- and listen to the answers.


I envy you, but I sort of pity you. Kids grow. Age 1 turns to age 3, which turns to age 7, which turns to 15 and 18 and 21, all in the blink of an eye. If you're there, as I am, it flies. If you're not there -- if you're almost never there -- it barely exists at all. Which is why I just can't stomach those millions of dads who view their days at home as recovery from work, who'd rather rest than engage, who have no problem with passing the tykes off for more alone time with mom and who, literally, moan to their wives, "You have no idea how hard I work."
For you, I offer these 10 commandments of righteous fatherhood. Pay close attention, because, behind your back, people are pitying your wife:


1. No golf on weekends: Seriously, it's ludicrous. Your spouse is home with the kids all the time, and you think it's OK to take five hours on a weekend day to pursue your own pastime? Selfishness, thy name is Father.

Hah! Weekend golf is NEVER only 5 hours. Such an erroneous characterization definitely calls into question his *man cred*.

I have to admit that over the years many moms have waxed astonished that I, a chromosomal male, know how to cook, clean, and rear children.

But the retort to this anti-male propaganda...

Is that I know plenty of stay-at-home women who:

• Don't teach their kids
• Hire maids to clean
• Order out food all the time instead of cooking
• Spend all day on Facebook,  at yoga class, tennis, or poolside at the club

So the article, unbalanced as it is, says nothing really.

Every family has to work out the division of labor for themselves.

And, if I can retort again, there are plenty of mothers out there who ENABLE lazy husbands one way or another.

If they ultimately want Dad to help out with the kids he needs to be involved from Day One.

If she doesn't like how Dad feeds the baby or gets them dressed and consistently co-opts these tasks for herself...

Then she shouldn't be surprised when down the road he's totally checked out.

Revisit - Hollywood's Typical Stay-At-Home-Dad.

Can Colleges Adapt/Change?

Read this article in The Economist that addresses that very question.

FWIW, I'm not optimistic about the ability of higher ed to adapt; or of the ability of Big Government to effect positive change (short of getting its nose out!).

The only Obamian hope/change that will actually lower costs is drastically reduced student lending from the government AND from government sponsored/subsidized institutions. I mean even in the inconceivable case that the Feds start reducing student loans....if the slack is taken up by the same Moronic banks that wrote trillions(?) of bad home loans these past several years it won't do any good.

And the only thing that will might improve teaching is for the Federal government to stop subsidizing research - *welfare for white/asian nerds*.

John Gatto's characterization:

...the organization of colleges around a scheme called "research" (which makes teaching an unpleasant inconvenience).

And research isn't merely wasteful spending.

Its worst aspect is that it effectively POLITICIZES public knowledge and information. And it's why these schools and their elitist denizens have become nothing short of bought-and-sold flacks for Bigger Government.

I predict that ultimately colleges will have adapt....about as well as newspapers adapted to the internet!

YOU Should Get Off The Phone

From the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- For all the criticism and new legal bans, texting by drivers just keeps increasing, especially among younger motorists.

Most said they would answer a cellphone call while driving and continue to drive after answering. And nearly two of 10 acknowledged sending texts or emails from behind the wheel. That spiked up to half of drivers 21 to 24 years old.

More than half of drivers said making a cellphone call made no difference to their driving performance, and a quarter said texting or emailing made no difference. But 90 percent said that when they are passengers they feel very unsafe if the driver is texting or emailing.

I love it. They all think it's dangerous only when SOMEONE ELSE is texting/calling!

It's like how everyone hates Congress but continues to re-elect their representatives.

I'm a big advocate of heavy fines for roadway cordless cellphone usage.

BUT, these cops need to have a digital pic/video of you in order to issue a citation.

It's ridiculous that you can grab a candy bar or bend over and touch your shoes and some quota-bent cop can write you a $180 ticket for what they think is in-car phone use. You have ZERO recourse - at least here in New York - unless you want to miss an entire day of work and try to argue your defense with a judge.

Digital camera's would/should cost the police almost nothing. (Though I'm sure they'd find a way to spend $5,000 on each one!)

And it is my opinion that these dumb kids are texting, not simply because they are self-absorbed Morons....but probably more so because they are freakin' addicted to the devices.

Parent Of The Year - 2011

It might take a second....and it's really not worthy of this category.

But the winner is...

And there may be some *nepotism* involved...

It's my SIL - who recently told us that she won't let her kids take books out of the library....because they get lost!

Contrast that with my family's prolific library usage. See - Raising Bibliophiles.

Only Morons Shop At Retail Stores!

Approaching the Kwanza/Festival of Trees' season....

Amazon boxes are piling up on our doorstep.

But even before the holiday season we were still getting at least a shipment or two per week.

Amazon Prime has got to be one of the best things on this overheated planet.

For $79 per year you get free 2-day shipping on most items.

I mean if you need something trivial like *nailclippers* you can get them door-delivered with a couple of clicks. No more waiting to get a free-shipping $25+ order together; and no more waiting 2 weeks for them to show up.

And I want thank everybody who's been ordering products through my Amazon Affiliate links.

You can buy ANYTHING through ANY of my Amazon links and they will deposit the 4-5% commission in my son's account. In other words you can click on a link to a book....then from there search Amazon for any type of product and my son will get referral credit.

I do have the Amazon Store page linked above and I've also added an Amazon Search widget on my sidebar.

Thanks again. And get Amazon Prime, will ya?

It the best thing I've bought since my first DVR 10+ years ago. Prime is a life-changing event. Seriously.

Nazism - Alive And Well In America

Check out what was posted on one of my local homeschooling forums today:

I posted 2 months ago about being reported to CPS for homeschooling my daughter Well they did a few home visits I worked with the school did all my paper work right well they came to my house last week and asked my 2nd grader to write her ABC's and she did. I got a letter today telling me I have been found guilty of abusing of my child and if I do not put her in school by monday they will take my child away. I have the books from the school....they gave me their books, I do all the paper work we do 5 hours a day of school work and I still got in trouble. Schools do not like parents homeschooling because they lose money and they are making it harder on parents who homeschool. I just wanted to let everyone know what we are going through.I have all my paper work in order but CPS said NY just does not believe in homeschooling.

That is nothing short of every homeschooling parent's worst nightmare!

And it happened in a district very close to mine.

This is precisely why I paid a $500 retainer to HSLDA only 2 weeks ago.

See - Hired A Homeschool Legal Posse.

Normally I'm a complete DIY'er....but I anted up after reading the horror stories of these Nazi's masquerading as *Child Protective Services* in - Homeschooling: The Right Choice.

Now if I was FORCED to send my kid to government school for a few weeks I could of course do it and everyone would live.

But what if you homeschooled a child in one of the many horrible/violent school districts? And had to deal with the prospect of your child coming home bullied or beat up?

One of the key things I learned from that book is that you NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES let CPS into your house. They will use every dirty trick, (e.g. "...it will be worse if you don't let me in", "I'll have to ASSUME neglect if you don't let me in")

They might even show up with a police officer.

It doesn't matter. Without a warrant from a judge, you NEVER let them in.

You dial your lawyer (HSLDA), and hand the phone out the door to them.

Furthermore, and this is my own take, I would record the entire conversation with them.

I have a digital voice recorder that only cost $40. I KNOW it's going to save me one day. Some government agent is going to say something they shouldn't have....and I'll have proof.

This poor mother would have been in great shape, legal-wise, if she had taped CPS saying that they *don't believe in homeschooling* - a right that's well-protected by the freakin' Constitution!

Kid Injects A Levity Laxative

I swear...

That's the same rabbi used in Seinfeld - at the end of the Shiksa-Appeal episode. See from 3:58 on of this classic clip.

Not Very Flattering - To Either Of Them!

And how funny would it be if that was what she really looked like unclad???

In a way this reminds me of the 7 MILLION TIMES I've mistaken a moving African-American elbow....for a fumbled American football on my color TV.

Better Than 24?

I taped it on my DVR....then after not watching for many weeks I deleted them and turned off the series-record.

But then I caught a bit of an episode and got hooked.

Thankfully Showtime has the whole season on on-demand. (The wife loves it too.)

Dumbest Male On Earth?

Eligible Voter?

Hah!

Even though he got the money....El Morón ended up getting pounded, shot himself in the foot, AND got arrested.

Now who thinks this guy, A CONVICTED FELON should be able to vote?

The largest civil rights group in America, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is petitioning the UN over what it sees as a concerted efforted to disenfranchise black and Latino voters ahead of next year's presidential election.


The NAACP says voting rights are being whittled down at every stage of the electoral process. First of all, the registration of new voters is being impeded in several states by moves to block voter registration drives that have historically proved to be an important way of bringing black and Hispanic people to the poll.


Four states – Florida, Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia – continue to withhold the vote from anyone convicted of a criminal offence. In Florida, offenders who have completed their sentences have to wait at least five years before they can even apply to restore their right to register to vote.


Across the US, more than 5 million Americans are denied the right to vote on grounds that they were convicted of a felony, 4 million of whom have fully completed their sentence and almost half of whom are black or Hispanic.

First of all, no matter what these race-baiters say....there's simply NO WAY that convicted felons in America are actually concerned with voting.

Regardless, I submit that not only should convicted felons be permanently disenfranchised...

I submit that instead of incarcerating them at taxpayer expense - we should BANISH them from America.

Drop them off in Ethiopia or Siberia. Pay the corruptocrats there a pittance for permission to do so.

We need to drop the ridiculous and failed idea of collective rehabilitation. After all, all education is SELF-EDUCATION. Let them ruminate upon their misdeeds among other savages far away from civilization!

I'm serious too. I got to thinking about *banishment* studying the Pilgrims with my kids recently.

Late Fall, Funny Pics

Attention Morons, this is a slideshow - not a single weird pic!



If you can't read any of them, just click on them to enlarge. They ARE worth your time.

Book Review - Homeschooling, The Right Choice

A father and son at the foot of Mt. Rushmore:

Boy - Hey Dad, do you think they’ll ever make a monument to homeschoolers?

Father - You’re looking at it, son!

That was a comic/cartoon in Homeschooling: The Right Choice by Christopher Klicka.

Written by one of the founding (sort of) members of the HSLDA - Home School Legal Defense Association - it was unlike most other books I've read in this genre.

It was really a historical, legal, and moral perspective rather than another how-to-homeschool guidebook.

Klicka argues that all self-identifying devout Christians ought to be educating their own children. So if you fall into this category the book is DEFINITELY something to borrow from your library or buy on Amazon.

Basically, homeschooling has only recently been re-legalized - and Klicka and his organization played THE major role in reclaiming the educational rights enjoyed by 3,000,000 homeschooled kids today.

Here are my book excerpts:

The students attending teacher’s colleges and pursuing education degrees are, on the average, below average on SAT scores. Consistently, these students who are planning to major in education scored below the national average. Such students’ average verbal score is 406 (out of a possible 800; national average is 422) and their math score average is 441 (out of a possible 800; national average is 474). (p31)

In fact, a U.S. Department of Education study demonstrates that public school teachers are more likely to send their children to a private school than any other group. (p32)

The College Board "recentered" its test scores....by adding 80 points to individual scores on the verbal section of the SAT and 30 points to scores on the mathematics section....a numbers game to lift the average SAT score from 424 to 500. (p34)

Horace Mann quote,

"What the church has been for medieval man the public school must become for democratic and rational man. God will be replaced by the concept of the public good....The common [public] schools....shall create a more farseeing intelligence and a more pure morality than has ever existed among communities of men." (p82)

John Dewey, author of the modern public school system...

"I believe all education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself....Education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform [religion being bypassed]....Every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth....In this way the teacher is always the prophet of the true god and the usherer of the true kingdom of god."

"Faith in the prayer-hearing God is an unproved and outmoded faith. There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, the immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes."

Dewey also emphasized "social unification" as the goal of public schools in order to promote "state-consciousness."

"The American people is conscious that its schools serve best the cause of religion in serving the cause of religion in serving the cause of social unification; and that under certain conditions schools are more religious in substance and in promise without any of the conventional badges and machinery of religious instruction than they could be in cultivating these forms at the expense of state-consciousness." (p84)

In the late 1980s Dr. John Goodland wrote a report for the National Education Association arguing that one of their goals is to re-educate children to turn away from the values of their parents. He said:

"Our goal is behavioral change. The majority of our youth still hold to the values of their parents and if we do not resocialize them to accept change, our society may decay." (p85)

In 1923,....J. Gresham Mecham, sounded the alarm concerning the direction of attendance at the public schools becoming compulsory:

"...Freedom of thought in the Middle Ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective. Place the lives of the children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist. Such a tyranny, supported as it is by a perverse technique used as the instrument in destroying human souls, is certainly far more dangerous than the crude tyrannies of the past, which despite their weapons of fire and sword permitted thought, at least, to be free.

"The truth is that the materialistic paternalism of the present day, if allowed to go unchecked, will rapidly make of America on huge ‘Main Street’ where spiritual adventure will be discouraged and democracy will be regarded as consisting in the reduction of all mankind to the proportions of the narrowest and least gifted of the citizens." (p95-96)

Many families are turning to home schooling as the solution to the decaying public school system. However, home schooling is not a new idea - it is the restoration of an old and successful idea. It is not only a return to effective, parent-directed education; it is a moral and spiritual reformation. (p103)

...the national average of parents spending approximately seven minutes a day with face-to-face contact with their children, according to a study from Stanford University. (p125)

Academically, the home schoolers have generally excelled, but some critics have continued to challenge them on an apparent "lack of socialization" or "isolation from real world." Often there is a charge that home schoolers are not learning how to live in the "real world." However a closer look at public school training shows that it is actually those public school children who are not living in the real world.

For instance, public school children are confined for at least 180 days each year with minimal opportunity to be exposed to the workplace or to go on field trips. The children are trapped with a group of children their own age with little chance to relate to children of other ages or adults. The children spend their time pooling their ignorance. They learn in a spiritual and moral vacuum where there are no absolute standards. They are given little to no responsibility, and everything is provided for them. The opportunity to pursue their interests and to apply their unique talents is stifled. Actions by public students rarely have consequences, as discipline is lax and passing from grade to grade is automatic. The students are not really prepared to operate in the home (family) or the workplace, which comprise a major part of the "real world" after graduation. (p127-128)

For example, DuPont de Nemours surveyed education in America in the early 1800s and discovered nearly a 99 percent literacy rate:

"Most young Americans...can read, write, and cipher. Not more than four in a thousand are unable to write legibly - even neatly....the Bible is read; it is considered a duty to read it to children...In America a great number of people read the Bible." (p153)

Sadly, even within the homeschooling world there are many people (militant anti-Christians) who bash the poop out of this group that won educational freedom FOR THEM.

But whatever...

I've got too many things to do to worry about other people.

See also - Hired A Homeschool Legal Posse.