Saturday Cartoon Fun

Mr. Fish

Want To Take Back Your Neighborhood School?

Food for thought:

47605. (a) (1) Except as set forth in paragraph (2), a petition for the establishment of a charter school within any school district may be circulated by any one or more persons seeking to establish the charter school. A petition for the establishment of a charter school shall identify a single charter school that will operate within the geographic boundaries of that school district. A charter school may propose to operate at multiple sites within the school district, as long as each location is identified in the charter school petition. The petition may be submitted to the governing board of the school district for review after either of the following conditions are met:

(A) The petition has been signed by a number of parents or legal guardians of pupils that is equivalent to at least one-half of the number of pupils that the charter school estimates will enroll in the school for its first year of operation.
(B) The petition has been signed by a number of teachers that is equivalent to at least one-half of the number of teachers that the charter school estimates will be employed at the school during its first year of operation.

There's a lot more. Check the link above for more details.

If your district is exerting too much control over your school, you CAN take it back and give the kids what they deserve. It's not easy. But changing the world ain't easy!

Compassionate Conservativism: We All Knew It Was An Oxymoron

You won't believe me, so go read it. Here is your snippet:

I often tip generously both because I have been a waitress and because I think it is important to reward people who work. However, if Obama gets in (and it is still an if), perhaps tipping less or not at all would be a good way to save money as a way of "going John Galt." Yet, is it fair to the person who is stiffed? What about a compromise, just tipping less? What do you think?

This evil bitch is married to Instapundit. I think she thinks she is a little funny, but funny in the way conservatives are usually funny. IOW, not funny at all. I also think she is serious, in the way conservatives are usually serious. IOW, not serious at all. These people are running scared, and it's about fucking time they did!

Not to worry, rich assholes. We Democrats don't share your evil, vindictive streak when it comes to policy. Our worst offense is that we call you out on our blogs.

Darth Vadar Endorses McCain

Better late than never, I suppose.

Sarkosy Calls Palin (NOT!)

Palin gets completely punked. She is a moron.
h/t Mudflats

Obama Is American!

Satisfied?

State declares Obama birth certificate genuine

19 hours ago

HONOLULU (AP) — State officials say there's no doubt Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Friday she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Fukino says that no state official, including Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, ever instructed that Obama's certificate be handled differently.

She says state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest.

Some Obama critics claim he was not born in the US.

Earlier Friday, a southwest Ohio magistrate rejected a challenge to Obama's citizenship. Judges in Seattle and Philadelphia recently dismissed similar suits.

If The World Could Vote

Obama's in blue.

Sherman Dorn: Teacher's Hero

Sherman Dorn is a smart guy. He is one of the policy wonks who seems to understand that NCLB is not going to save us. He is fair, and willing to accept what's reasonable with NCLB, and reject the nonsense (most of NCLB). Here is a great example of Dornism (I made up the term just now):

Sick leave

Laura Pohl riffs off the new Center for American Progress report suggesting that districts pay teachers for part of unused sick leave. Many already do, and as the author notes, there isn't much research on the details. I just wish I didn't quite so immediate an interest in this topic. Given the state of my body this afternoon and evening, I'm hoping not to need to use sick leave myself tomorrow.

But enough about me. There's this thumb-sticking-out recommendation as a result of this report: Federal policymakers should amend No Child Left Behind to require information on teacher absence on school report cards. Okay, so we're going to take everything that might be conceivably relevant to performance and ask for a statistical report for each school. Why stop at teacher absences? I suppose with this reasoning, we should ask for data on used textbooks, unusable texts, library resources (don't tell me that they should be called "multimedia centers"!!), roof tiles per scraped student knee, and kleenexes used February 20. For all such proposals of expanded reporting, my advice is to take two budget rescissions and call me in the recovery.

It's this kind of nonsense--trying to change or address all the variables that could possibly affect anything--that is ruining education. It is the reason we adopt crap like Everyday Math. It is the reason we spend hours looking at data that are simply unenlightening due to the weakness of the data. It is the reason district administrators have no idea what to do in light of the data, because whatever they try to do doesn't seem to change the data (I wonder why?).

Let's give teachers a couple thousand extra dollars if they stay after school and tutor the lowest kids. Let's provide late bus service so the kids that need the intervention the most can get home when it's over for the day (often it's the kids whose parent can pick them up that get to stay for extra help, not the kids who have parents or guardians working the late shift, or who take the bus and have no way of picking up their kid late).

If administrators would deal with the money side of their job (the only thing they should really be doing, IMNSHO), and give it to the teachers who want to do the extra work, maybe we could get somewhere. But trying to claim that a teacher who is absent is the cause for a student's failing scores is nonsense. I know of a teacher who was out for six weeks due to surgery whose students had very high scores. Maybe he is just amazing, and an outlier, but I doubt it!

The Maddow/Obama Interview

Rachel Maddow is the most intelligent pundit working in television. Period. Here is her interview with Obama. She says he is unflappable, calm, happy, at ease, and he complimented her pants!

You Got Me Hypnotized

Are these morons serious?

An Examination of Obama’s
Use of Hidden Hypnosis
Techniques in His Speeches

THE EVIDENCE IS HERE: This document contains over 60 pages of evidence and analysis proving Barack Obama’s use of a little-known and highly deceptive and manipulative form of “hack” hypnosis on millions of unaware Americans, and reveals what only a few psychologists and hypnosis/NLP experts know.

Olbermann's Plea (Especially Now, U of K)

I believe that you feel as I do, as Clarence Darrow said in a different time and a different context, "I am pleading for the future. I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by reason and judgment and understanding and faith." Sometimes, Senator McCain, it is as if we are almost there. And then some unthinking act like the one by that Ashley Todd throws us back against the rocks and we barely escape with our ship intact. In that time of foundering, Senator McCain, far too few of us have a chance to personally right the ship. To heal instead of to stand idly by. To make a difference in this oldest and most wearying of our struggles as a nation. This chance, sir, is yours. Say something. Or better yet, say something with Senator Obama, about race and how we live with one another and how we can. Let this last week of the campaign be remembered, no matter how it turns out next Tuesday, as something other than the time Ashley Todd lied, and the John Moodys threatened, and you said nothing. Senator McCain, once again, grab the microphone. Thank you.

Transcript available here:

OLBERMANN: Finally, a "Campaign Comment" about the fraudulent race attack claim since acknowledged and recanted by a John McCain campaign volunteer in Pennsylvania. You know the story well, by now. It's a sad and demoralizing tale of a woman who could be summarized by the awful term B actress. Ashley Todd was not sexually assaulted by a big black man. He did not carve the letter B on her face to punish her for supporting John McCain.

It apparently never dawned on her it resembled less a cut than an abrasion done by a weapon no more sinister than a nail file. She was not even at the ATM where she claimed the attack took place. It apparently never dawned on her that the machine had security video and she would not be on it. And clearly, somewhere in her mind was a calculation that a story like this one with layer upon layer of racial threat could be some kind of game changer for the presidential candidate she worked to get elected in at least two states for at least two months. Her saga is pathetic. She now claims mental illness. If this too is not true, Miss Todd might think she's pulling another fast one over on the rest of us. In fact her claim seems to be accurate, whether she knows it or not.

And much more disturbingly, so was her calculation. At least until her story, in retrospect a ludicrous confection, fell apart and she had to confess her crime. She had inspired dozens, perhaps hundreds of journalists and bloggers and all those in between on both political sides to stand over this nation's ever present tinderbox of racial prejudice and racial fear and racial hatred. And she had brought them all matches. We already know what the executive vice president of Fox News had written while his organization was perched next to that tinderbox waiting for the slightest excuse to light it and our nation ablaze. The over the top, caveat thrown in for window dressing balance with not the slightest intention that it ever be taken seriously. Quote, "If the incident turns out to be a hoax Senator McCain's quest for presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting." That is the well-known part of what John Moody wrote. What preceded it was far less publicized and far more important. "Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama's campaign," he wrote, "is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party's presidential nomination. That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.

If Ms. Todd's allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists, with due respect to Representative John Murtha, but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee."

Moody wrote that. It wouldn't be racism to suddenly blame Barack Obama for an attack on a white woman by a black man intending to punish her for not supporting another black man. It would instead by a watershed moment because it somehow meant, "They suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee." Its only connection would have been racial. But the response would not be racism. The tinderbox again, and a very large match provided by John Moody. I know that man. He is not stupid. Not careless. He has in fact an education background identical to my own, right down to the same college radio station. He knew what he was writing. A rationalization for racism. That Moody should be fired goes without saying. But if not fired that he should resign in shame is also obvious. Neither will happen because there is no one of sufficient authority to reproach him. And the others, who but for Ashley Todd's inability to maintain her inner hoaxster for more than two days would have solemnly and grimly and some secretly, happily set this presidential campaign on its ear and knocked this nation's tenuous grip on the relationship between the races off its axis. Because there was nobody to say, "No. Don't." This is where you come in, Senator McCain. No histrionics from me to you this time, Senator. No yelling. Just a plea. Say something about this. Now. Say something strongly and succinctly about the unacceptability of what happened, and how some of your supporters tried to exploit it. I am not asking you to assume the responsibility for this. No matter how your campaign pushed this story, I have no doubt that in the mirror image scenario many of Senator Obama's supporters would have done the same. But I also have no doubt that by this point in that mirror image scenario, Senator Obama would have said something to try to stop the next Ashley Todd, or the next John Moody. Senator, of all the things I don't like about you or your campaign, I have never thought you a racist. As imperfect as was your moment with that Minnesota woman mumbling about Arabs, I thought it was the finest moment of your campaign. I believe that you feel as I do, that racial prejudice and hatred have no place in this campaign, nor in this country. I believe that you feel as I do, as Clarence Darrow said in a different time and a different context, "I am pleading for the future. I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by reason and judgment and understanding and faith." Sometimes, Senator McCain, it is as if we are almost there. And then some unthinking act like the one by that Ashley Todd throws us back against the rocks and we barely escape with our ship intact. In that time of foundering, Senator McCain, far too few of us have a chance to personally right the ship. To heal instead of to stand idly by. To make a difference in this oldest and most wearying of our struggles as a nation. This chance, sir, is yours. Say something. Or better yet, say something with Senator Obama, about race and how we live with one another and how we can. Let this last week of the campaign be remembered, no matter how it turns out next Tuesday, as something other than the time Ashley Todd lied, and the John Moodys threatened, and you said nothing. Senator McCain, once again, grab the microphone. Thank you.

McCain's Own Words

University Of KKKentucky

LEXINGTON — An effigy of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee and an African American, was found hanging from a tree on the University of Kentucky campus this morning, according to university officials.

UK President Lee Todd said he was alerted about the incident by a professor who was riding his bicycle to campus around 7:30 a.m.

The effigy was found on Rose Street, near the university’s Mining and Minerals building.

Officers with both the University Police Department and the Lexington Police Department are investigating the incident, and the Secret Service has been notified, Todd said.

Todd said it is not known whether a student or someone else was responsible.

“It’s a very embarrassing situation that has happened on our campus, regardless of who did it,” he said.

Todd referred to the incident as a “despicable act.”

“We certainly believe in political expression, just not in this form,” he said.

Anyone with information about the incident is being asked to call the UK police department at (859) 257-1616.

Embarrassing? Really? That's the emotion? That's all you got? How about, um, I don't know, reprehensible? Criminal? Racist? Reflective of the deep divide between the races in Kentucky, and at the University? But embarrassing?

I have an idea. Shut down the University until the perp is caught. Sue the University for fomenting this kind of crap. And shame them endlessly. They are a sick bunch of racist assholes down south, and I won't apologize for saying so. Do they fly the Confederate flag? I wouldn't doubt it. How many black students go there? Not many? Why? Call these fuckers out!

More Conservatives For Obama

Bush official: Obama presidency would be 'great' for US image
Agence France-Presse
Published: Wednesday October 29, 2008

The election of Democrat Barack Obama to the presidency would be a "great thing" for the image of the United States, a Bush Administration State Department official said on Tuesday.

James Glassman, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, was careful to emphasize he did not support the presidential nominee of either party, adding that he also thought "it would be a great thing for the United States to have a woman as vice president," in reference to Republican running mate Sarah Palin.

Glassman has also served as a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Speaking at a news conference focused on the US-led "war on terror," Glassman, who is tasked with improving America's image around the world, also spoke about the US military-run detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- a lightning rod for criticism abroad.

"I don't think it's going to affect the image of the United States" if the prison is closed, he said.

Both candidates, Obama and his rival Republican John McCain, have pledged to close the camp at the US naval base that continues to hold 272 "war on terror" prisoners without charges.

Glassman is also known for his book "Dow 36,000," which he coauthored in 1999. In it, he asserted that the US stock market was vastly undervalued and that the Dow would reach 36,000 in "a few years."

As of Wednesday morning, the Dow stood at 9062.

Dow 36,000 (co-author). In this book, published in 1999, near the peak of the late 1990s stock market bubble, Glassman and his co-author declared that the stocks making up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, then around 10,000, were undervalued and that the stock prices would rise sharply, with the index reaching 36,000 within three to five years.

An Example Of Everyday Math Silliness

This is a note to teachers from Everyday Math. I have taught my second graders the term "commutative property" for years. Now I am supposed to ignore the real term in favor of the nonsensical "turnaround facts". Seem silly to you too?


page 112, California Grade 2 Teacher's Lesson Guide

Step Aside, Boomers

I was born in 1963, so I am barely a boomer. Watching this video makes me want to be a Millenial. I teach them, and I am raising one. They make me feel good, these diverse, smart, tolerant, savvy, youngsters who now have to clean up the mess left them.

This video probably scares some folks; all the ethnic faces and progressiveness. But they don't scare me one little bit; they give me hope that the world they are inheriting will be better cared for once they are in charge.

Maybe we boomers did one thing right: we gave these kids each other. We put them in integrated schools. We taught that racism was bad. We taught them war was bad. They don't think about these things the way we do. They don't know how to be racist because they live the diversity. In order for these kids to know intolerance, it must be taught to them. Of course they won't believe it, because they know--truly know from experience--that people are people, to be judged on their merits, not skin or anything else superficial. As well, our example, which was not a good one, was a lesson, and they learned it.

I teach my students and my son that we each have a responsibility to each other and our planet. I know they agree; the lessons are embraced and easily understood. The lessons are embraced because they are obvious to these kids, these saviors of our selfishness.

It's a brave, new world.

Obama is a couple years older than me. He is barely a boomer. I can't wait for inauguration day!

(VOTE!!!!!!!)

Charlie Crist Extends Voting Hours So Obama Will Win!

Crist extends voting hours

This is a very big deal: Florida Governor Charlie Crist, to the shock and dismay of Florida Republicans, just moved to extend early voting hours, a move likely to widen the Democrats' lead under a program on which the Obama campaign has intensely focused.

"He just blew Florida for John McCain," one plugged in Florida Republican just told me.

The Buzz reports:

At a hastily arranged news conference, Crist said the right to vote is sacred and that "many have fought and died for this right." He said he consulted a leading Democratic legislator, Rep. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, before issuing his order, and that Gelber knew of a similar order issued by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2002 that dealt with helping voters deal with new equipment.

As to the perception that more early voting helps Democrats, Crist said: "This is not a political decision. This is a people decision."

Democrats had urged the extension, which means that votes will be cast 12 hours a day, not eight hours a day.

McCain's Chappaquiddick?

Plus a cover up? Check it out.

For the past two months, a major American magazine and an allied news service have been engaged in a legal battle with the United States Navy over records that they believe show that John McCain once was involved in an automobile accident that injured or, perhaps, killed another individual.

Vanity Fair magazine and the National Security News Service claim to have knowledge "developed from first-hand sources" of a car crash that involved then-Lt. McCain at the main gate of a Virginia naval base in 1964, according to legal filings. The incident has been largely, if not entirely, kept from the public. And in documents suing the Navy to release pertinent information, lawyers for the NS News Service allege that a cover-up may be at play.

Larry David On The Election

Waiting for Nov. 4th
By Larry David

I can't take much more of this. Two weeks to go, and I'm at the end of my rope. I can't work. I can eat, but mostly standing up. I'm anxious all the time and taking it out on my ex-wife, which, ironically, I'm finding enjoyable. This is like waiting for the results of a biopsy. Actually, it's worse. Biopsies only take a few days, maybe a week at the most, and if the biopsy comes back positive, there's still a potential cure. With this, there's no cure. The result is final. Like death.

Five times a day I'll still say to someone, "I don't know what I'm going to do if McCain wins." Of course, the reality is I'm probably not going to do anything. What can I do? I'm not going to kill myself. If I didn't kill myself when I became impotent for two months in 1979, I'm certainly not going to do it if McCain and Palin are elected, even if it's by nefarious means. If Obama loses, it would be easier to live with it if it's due to racism rather than if it's stolen. If it's racism, I can say, "Okay, we lost, but at least it's a democracy. Sure, it's a democracy inhabited by a majority of disgusting, reprehensible turds, but at least it's a democracy." If he loses because it's stolen, that will be much worse. Call me crazy, but I'd rather live in a democratic racist country than a non-democratic non-racist one. (It's not exactly a Hobson's choice, but it's close, and I think Hobson would compliment me on how close I've actually come to giving him no choice. He'd love that!)

The one concession I've made to maintain some form of sanity is that I've taken to censoring my news, just like the old Soviet Union. The citizenry (me) only gets to read and listen to what I deem appropriate for its health and well-being. Sure, there are times when the system breaks down. Michele Bachmann got through my radar this week, right before bedtime. That's not supposed to happen. That was a lapse in security, and I've had to make some adjustments. The debates were particularly challenging for me to monitor. First I tried running in and out of the room so I would only hear my guy. This worked until I knocked over a tray of hors d'oeuvres. "Sit down or get out!" my host demanded. "Okay," I said, and took a seat, but I was more fidgety than a ten-year-old at temple. I just couldn't watch without saying anything, and my running commentary, which mostly consisted of "Shut up, you prick!" or "You're a fucking liar!!!" or "Go to hell, you cocksucker!" was way too distracting for the attendees, and finally I was asked to leave.

Assuming November 4th ever comes, my big decision won't be where I'll be watching the returns, but if I'll be watching. I believe I have big jinx potential and may have actually cost the Dems the last two elections. I know I've jinxed sporting events. When my teams are losing and I want them to make a comeback, all I have to do is leave the room. Works every time. So if I do watch, I'll do it alone. I can't subject other people to me in my current condition. I just don't like what I've turned into -- and frankly I wasn't that crazy about me even before the turn. This election is having the same effect on me as marijuana. All of my worst qualities have been exacerbated. I'm paranoid, obsessive, nervous, and totally mental. It's one long, intense, bad trip. I need to come down. Soon.

h/t mom2014 mom2015 (oops!)

2nd Amendment Blues

Yesterday, an idiot father and and even more brain-dead “instructor” allowed an eight-year-old boy to fire a fully automatic Uzi submachine gun at an event billed as, “all legal and and fun! — No permits or licenses required!!!” Naturally, the gun kicked up, as it is designed to do, flipping toward the child who managed to shoot himself in the head with it. Since kids’ heads aren’t all that heavily armored, we now have a little boy who will never see his ninth birthday.

So, little Christopher Bizilj is dead, dead, dead. His father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, director of emergency medicine (if you can believe it) at a hospital in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, got to watch his son bleed out from a head wound on the floor. And the people who put this little event together have to look at themselves in their mirrors and ask themselves the simple question, “What the FUCK made me think it was a good idea to put a submachine gun in a child’s hands?”

As a parent and teacher, this horrifies me.
h/t Newshoggers

Economy Linked To West Nile Virus (Yup!)

The economic crisis caused an increase in cases of West Nile virus!

It’s easy to find correlations between seemingly unrelated events; epidemiological journals are full of stuff like this which doesn’t mean a thing. For example, as ice cream consumption increases, so do drownings. But it’s not because ice cream causes drowning.

In this case, though, the cause-and-effect link is pretty clear. Delinquent mortgages in Bakersfield and the surrounding community caused people to abandon their houses, and mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus bred in their untended swimming pools. The resulting outbreak is a epidemiologists’ textbook case of the unintended consequences of economic turmoil. It’s not the first such example, and undoubtedly won’t be the last before the crisis ends.

Read it below...

Foreclosure Epidemics
West Nile Virus Tracks Housing Crisis

Subprime mortgages have ruined banks and insurance companies and brought the global economy to its knees. Now it looks like they’re also causing the spread of deadly West Nile disease.

In a weird new wrinkle in the story of the exploding mortgage crisis, the housing market in Bakersfield, Calif., was tied to a 276 percent increase in the number of West Nile virus cases, according to the November issue of the scientific journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases.

It’s easy to find correlations between seemingly unrelated events; epidemiological journals are full of stuff like this which doesn’t mean a thing. For example, as ice cream consumption increases, so do drownings. But it’s not because ice cream causes drowning.

In this case, though, the cause-and-effect link is pretty clear. Delinquent mortgages in Bakersfield and the surrounding community caused people to abandon their houses, and mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus bred in their untended swimming pools. The resulting outbreak is a epidemiologists’ textbook case of the unintended consequences of economic turmoil. It’s not the first such example, and undoubtedly won’t be the last before the crisis ends.

“We’ve had problems with West Nile in California since 2004, but in 2007 the housing market really went south and it resulted in a lot of neglected swimming pools,” said lead author William K. Reisen, an entomologist at the University of California, Davis. “They’ve always had problems with homeowner neglect of pools. But all of a sudden, it went through the roof.”

There were 140 confirmed human cases of West Nile virus in the Bakersfield area in 2007, the largest outbreak in California, and the worst mosquito-born encephalitis virus outbreak in Kern County since 1952. At least two patients — one, a 96-year-old woman — died of the disease, which can also cause brain damage.

The outbreak spread to several other counties and led Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to hold a news conference and release $6.2 million in emergency mosquito abatement funds.

West Nile virus outbreaks intensified in other parts of California this summer, in particular in Los Angeles. This could well be related to the swelling foreclosures in that area, Reisen said.

Insect-borne microorganisms thrive in times of economic crisis and dislocation. For example, mosquito-borne dengue fever has surged in the growing cities of Asia and Latin America in the past decade; as people move into urban areas that lack running water, they store water in tanks that are perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti, the leading dengue vector.

Bakersfield, CA (Flickr: Alice Chaos)

Count the Kern County West Nile outbreak in that category. “What’s worrisome is that most U.S. mosquito abatement districts are funded by property taxes,” said Reisen. “As their revenue falls, it’s going to be harder to keep up with the abandoned swimming pools.”

West Nile has spread gradually across the United States since the first cases were reported in 1999 in New York City. It’s carried by several different species of mosquitoes and can infect many birds and mammals — from crows and chickens to cats and horses. In different areas of the country, the epidemic has generally slowed after the virus kills off a large enough number of the birds that carry it from place to place. Only about one in 100 people exposed to the virus become ill; about three percent of those it sickens die from this disease.

No one in Kern County had anticipated the 2007 outbreak. Winter and spring rains were light, and the Kern River, which flows through Bakersfield and sometimes leaves pools of water where mosquitoes can breed, was dry. In fact, water was so short that it changed the bird ecology of the region, resulting in an expansion of house sparrow flocks. Unlike other bird populations in the area, most of the sparrows lacked protective immunity to West Nile virus.

The county Mosquito and Vector Control District conducted an aerial survey of the town that showed an extensive number of green or neglected pools, “most of which were producing mosquitoes,” according to the article in Emerging Infectious Diseases.

“The likely reasons for neglected pools,” reported the journal, which is published by the Centers for Disease Control, “are the adjustable rate mortgage and associated housing crises in Kern County and throughout California, which have led to increased house sales and abandonments.” Kern County suffered a 300 percent increase in delinquencies in the spring quarter of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006.

As chlorine-based chemicals deteriorated in the abandoned pools, “invasive algal blooms created green swimming pools that were exploited rapidly by urban mosquitoes, thereby establishing a myriad of larval habitats within suburban neighborhoods.”

By California law, properties with swimming pools must be surrounded by six-foot-high fences, and so it has been difficult for mosquito control agents to enter foreclosed properties. “They can’t just go breaking the doors down,” said Reisen. “It’s kind of a mystery how to get access to these properties.”

The major carrier of West Nile during the 2007 outbreak was the common mosquito Culex pipiens. But by this year, Culex tarsalis, a more efficient West Nile carrier that typically colonizes rural areas, had moved into some of them.

That said, no human cases had been reported in 2008 as of Oct. 23, though the disease continued to infect mosquitoes and kill birds and horses. Kern County officials have been vigilant in spraying the abandoned pools or stocking them with larva-eating fish.

Then too, West Nile outbreaks are sporadic, and seem to depend on complex factors in the virus’ hosts. High temperatures, raising the viral load of mosquitoes, are one such factor; a die-off of the crow population, causing the virus to run out of hosts, can also play a role.

The Bakersfield story presents another such factor: the crashing of American dreams.

Sarah Marx vs. Barack Marx

Hertzberg on how Sarah Palin thinks its okay to spread the wealth around up in Alaska:

For her part, Sarah Palin, who has lately taken to calling Obama “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” seems to be something of a suspect character herself. She is, at the very least, a fellow-traveller of what might be called socialism with an Alaskan face. The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist.

Obama Target Of Assasination Plot

Seriously! I wonder how culpable McCain and Palin feel about this? Oh, I forgot. They don't feel.

Assassination plot targeting Obama disrupted

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal agents have broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree, the ATF said Monday.

In court records unsealed Monday, federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the school by name.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the two men planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The men also sought to go on a national killing spree, with Obama as its final target, Cavanaugh told The Associated Press.

"They said that would be their last, final act - that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama," Cavanaugh said. "They didn't believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying."

In One Week.....

He is good!

My Google Ads

Any Google ads you see on this site are Google's choice, not mine. If you live in California, vote NO on Proposition 8. Everyone deserves equal rights. Religious nuts have no business deciding who gets married to whom!

VOTE NO ON 8

Update: There is a half-million dollar Blackwater connection to Yes on 8.

Hey, Joe. Why Such A Putz?

Rick Hertzberg thinks Lieberman is a bit of a putz. He's right, of course. And he explains why in his post. Here is the best demonstration of hypocrisy yet leveled at Lieberman:

Admittedly, I have strongly disliked Lieberman ever since he cemented his bogus reputation for “integrity” by denouncing Bill Clinton’s supposed lack of family values during the Lewinsky fiasco. I thought the denunciation was—what’s the word?—inappropriate, coming from a man who not only divorced his first wife while their children were at highly vulnerable ages (just past puberty) but also had the gall to attribute the divorce to the insufficient piety of his wife. In other words, he was too good for her.

Read the whole thing...

Joe the Senator

Now it’s John McCain’s turn to discover what sort of “friend” Joe Lieberman is. Via Andrew, Mark Pazniokas reports in today’s Hartford Courant:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, one of John McCain’s closest political allies, said Friday he does not believe that Barack Obama is unprepared to be president.

“I’m saying he is less prepared than McCain,” Lieberman said.

But what about Sarah Palin?

Is she ready?

“If, God forbid, an accident occurs or something of that kind?” Lieberman said. “Um, she’ll be ready. You know, she’s had executive experience. She’s smart and she will have had on-the-job training.”…

“[McCain] is ready to be our president at this very difficult time,” Lieberman said. “And Sen. Obama is not as ready. It’s as direct as that.”

Not as ready. Sweet.

That little word—“as”—is supposed to be Lieberman’s life jacket, I guess, now that the SS McCain looks like it’s going glug glug glug and may not, after all, be seaworthy enough to deliver its chaplain to that big corner office in the Pentagon. Google “lieberman obama ‘not ready’” if you need a few thousand samples of the unqualified way Joe talked about Barack’s before the ship hit the iceberg.

Admittedly, I have strongly disliked Lieberman ever since he cemented his bogus reputation for “integrity” by denouncing Bill Clinton’s supposed lack of family values during the Lewinsky fiasco. I thought the denunciation was—what’s the word?—inappropriate, coming from a man who not only divorced his first wife while their children were at highly vulnerable ages (just past puberty) but also had the gall to attribute the divorce to the insufficient piety of his wife. In other words, he was too good for her.

That was just garden-variety hypocrisy. He did far worse when he was Gore’s running mate, as I explained two years ago.

Lieberman’s embrace of the neoconservative position on the Iraq war is evidently sincere. If he really believes that the nation’s survival depends on “victory” in Iraq, that is sufficient reason for him to endorse McCain. But it doesn’t explain his willingness to debase himself by promulgating Hannity-type talking points.

"Senator Biden Is My Homeboy!"

This is a great video of Biden being interviewed by a 5th grader, Damon Weaver. Biden seems clearer than Palin on the job of VP:

More Biden Love

Watch Biden nicely and calmly rip this bitch a new one:

Williamyard On The Terrorist Midget

What's the big deal? The Terrorist fist-bumping yet another albino Negro midget? Tell me something I don't already know.

Let me guess: the albino Negro midget's father came from "Kenya"--as in the People's Republic of Kenya.

How many times has the albino Negro midget registered to vote? Four? Six? It's anybody's guess.

Ten-to-one he's connected with all that offshore money pouring into the Obama campaign.

Methinks the midget won't be so keen on fist-bumping the Terrorist once he finds out his taxes are doubling so William Ayers can have convicted Negro felons teach highschoolers how to perform forced abortions on their Christian mothers under portraits of Malcolm X and Timothy Leary.

I've tried to point all this out, time and time again, but the MSM has ignored me. Meanwhile, CBS infiltrates Sarah Palin's campaign staff and her favorability ratings start tanking. And you won't hear CBS reporting on Obama's plans to pardon Charles Manson, now, will you? Coincidence?

I read this morning that Ahmadenijad has taken ill...just a little over a week before the U.S. election. How conveeeenient.

Tampa Bay hides the "Devil" in its name, Nate Silver predicts they'll win 200 games, meanwhile every Beltway "expert" is now quoting Fivethirtyeight, and the "Rays" are in the World Series.

Connect the fucking dots, people.

--Williamyard

The 7 Deadly Areas

Being a Jewish Atheist, I was not aware that the fundies actually had specific areas of society they want to control. I though they wanted us simply dead, but no. They have a plan, apparently:

Extreme Christian Nationalists not only believe that the United States was founded as a Christian nation but that its institutions should be run entirely by fundamentalist or evangelical Christians. They believe they have a mandate to purge our institutions of "humanists" who believe that humans are in control of their own destiny, progressive Christians and non-Christians. They believe there are seven areas of society that must be controlled, the so-called Seven Mountains Strategy: church, family, education, government and law, media, arts and entertainment and business.[emphasis mine]

They want to wrest control of the media from the Jews?! Say it ain't so!

h/t Sully

Palin On Israel

h/t mom

Another Paper Endorses Obama: The Anchorage Daily News!

From the Anchorage Daily News opinion piece endorsing Obama:

Gov. Palin has shown the country why she has been so successful in her young political career. Passionate, charismatic and indefatigable, she draws huge crowds and sows excitement in her wake. She has made it clear she's a force to be reckoned with, and you can be sure politicians and political professionals across the country have taken note. Her future, in Alaska and on the national stage, seems certain to be played out in the limelight.

Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.[emphasis all mine]