flabbergasted

Background check to be a parent

/ hsoi

Continuing this morning’s theme of “Asinine in England”, apparently now there’s a proposal for homeschooling parents to have to undergo a criminal background check in order for the government to deem them fit and qualified to teach their children.

Unbelievable.

So you don’t need a background check to send your children to government school, but if you want to teach them then you do. Of course we can enter into the slippery slope here because if you’re unfit to teach your children, wouldn’t you be unfit to be a parent? How soon until your children would be taken away from you (given how the UK governments behave these days)? Who deems what a fit or unfit parent is? Why just stop at a parent that wishes to teach, how about any and every parent because if you’re not fit to be with the child during the day, why should you be fit to be with them during the nights and weekends?

As well, one side-effect would be killing off homeschooling, which is well-likely a hidden goal. Lord knows we can’t have free-thinkers in our midst, nor encourage thought other than government-sponsored. Too dangerous for a well-controlled society.

This is government gone amuck. This is intrusion. This is daft.

Bowling is dangerous (apparently)

/ hsoi

Who knew that bowling could be so dangerous, but thankfully we’ve now got a UK Government study telling us so. Thank God for the government telling us these things.

Back in my day, people took bowling as a P.E. class because it was a joke. But apparently now evil bowling lanes are just waiting to gobble up and physically mangle our children. They must be banned! Or at least:

 

Its authors even considered ordering every bowling alley to put barriers across lanes. But they were forced to admit defeat – after realising that bowlers must be able to see what they are aiming at.

 

I wouldn’t even call that a modicum of common sense winning out; that’s still too generous.

And did you know, if you continue to breathe, you might suck in a bug that could cause you to choke and die. Better stop breathing now because the risks of choking on a bug are too great!

*sigh*

Politicians are hypocrites? You don’t say…

/ hsoi

Gee.

They say you can’t have a gun.

But yet, these politicians all have guns.

Ah. Chicago politicians. That explains it.

Obviously another terrorist

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

So we had a 6-year-old Cub Scout suspended from school because he brought camping gear on school grounds. Zero tolerance.

Now we have a 17-year-old Eagle Scout suspended for 20 days because he had a 2 inch knife in his car. Why did he have a knife in his car?

Matthew Whalen, a senior at Lansingburgh Senior High School, says he follows the Boy Scout motto and is always prepared, stocking his car with a sleeping bag, water, a ready-to-eat meal — and the knife, which was given to him by his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town.

He lives in upstate New York, so getting caught out in the snow is a real possibility. So he keeps things in his car, ready in case of emergency. Good for him.

And so why is this all being done? Because they have to apply policy. Because they have to make an example out of him.

Whalen said he does not know why the 15 days were added, but he said a school district employee told him it was because the school wanted to apply its policies consistently.

“I’ve been told by someone who works for the district that they had to do it, because if someone else had a knife and they saw that I didn’t get a suspension, that it would look bad for the school.”

What looks bad isn’t Matthew Whalen. What looks bad are stupid school administrators making asinine rules. I thought schools taught critical thinking… but I guess they don’t need to apply it.

Obviously a terrorist

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Zachary Christie. He’s obviously a terrorist.

How do I know this?

Why, he ran afoul of the Newark, Delaware school district’s zero tolerance policy.

What did he do?

He brought a utensil to school.

You see, 6 year old Zachary just joined the Cub Scouts. He received a folding utensil that can be used as a knife, fork, and spoon. He was so excited at receiving it, he wanted to use it to eat his school lunch.

Obviously a terrorist. Spoons… soon we won’t be able to take those on airplanes either.

As the result of this, the boy faces 45 days in the district’s reform school.

Obviously a troublemaker. Thank God those school officials acted now. Who knows what could have happened if this sort of behavior went unchecked. I mean, the boy takes karate… obviously demonstration of violent tendencies. Then he joins the Cub Scouts, with all their uniforms and handshakes and oaths, learning about camping and the outdoors, maybe even how to shoot a BB gun… what sort of paramilitary training is this?!?! I’ll say it again, thank God for those school officials.

So, what is the mother doing? Homeschooling him, at least while this whole ridiculousness is going on.

Frankly, I hope Mom makes it a permanent setup. Zero-tolerance for public school lunacy, I say.

But you know, easier to hide behind stupid policies that don’t work (in fact, they tend to make things worse) than use your brain. Wither education.

How disheartened should I be?

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Last night, Wife had a workshop to attend so it was just me and the kiddos.

We had dinner at home, then opted to go out for ice cream. The particular shop we went to has a place outside where you can sit, kids can run and play, and you can just enjoy the evening. The weather was fantastic last night, so outside we went. Being a gorgeous Friday night, lots of other people were out and about, many kids running around, chasing each other, playing. A good night.

As soon as we found a spot, we sat and started to eat. Not a few seconds later did I look over and see a little girl maybe 8-10 years old lying in the grass on her back, crying pretty hard, holding her head. One of her friends was kneeling over her asking if she was OK. I could hear the crying girl affirming she was OK, so as I watched for a few seconds I was observing a few things: was she in fact OK? give it a few seconds to see if she shakes it off, gets up, and keeps on playing? Parents coming over to check on her? Well, I saw none of this. Little girl remained on the ground crying, no adults whatsoever coming around. In fact, there was a lady sitting on a rock between me and the little girl (i.e. right there not 10 feet from the girl, closer than I was) and the lady never made a move to check on the girl.

After a few seconds, I opted to go over and check on the girl. I asked her if she was OK, she continued to nod yes and got up off the ground, sill crying, but I could tell she was OK. She ran off to go find her parents. I watched the girl run off, over the hill, down to another restaurant then lost track of her. A minute or so later I noticed a couple of the other girls that were in the same pack were pushing each other with mean looks on their faces and one got knocked to the ground. I was “this close” to stepping in but as soon as the one girl hit the ground everything broke off on their own. As I saw these girls throughout the evening, they were all still playing with each other so who knows what the social dynamic was.

So what bugged me about this?

That no one cared.

The place was swarming with adults, but there’s a little girl… crying… lying on the ground in pain. And no one noticed. No one (but me) cared. If anyone did notice, they didn’t feel any motivation to check on her and help her. I’m not painting myself as a saint, but rather an observation of how oblivious people are.

As my own children played and ran around, I kept an eye on them but also watched all the other people. Task fixation was rampant. People minded their own children to some extent, but then there was little mind paid to what was going on around them. I was just a bit appalled. Why is this? What has come of our society?

Furthermore, I watched other children on the playground. I saw the general lack of manners, turn taking, consideration for others. Then I saw their parents, and the role model was evident. Not all were this way, but many were.

Then we walk through the parking lot and I see people just walking out in front of moving cars. I don’t care if you have a legal right of way, if the driver doesn’t see you, you will lose the battle with the ton of steel hurtling towards you. Why do people do this? Sense of entitlement? Ignorance? An “I’m right and fuck you!” attitude? I don’t get it.

Just how disheartened should I be in my fellow man?

I am no saint. I used the opportunities from last night to talk with my children to reinforce some valuable lessons (teachable moment). Yes sometimes you have to resist, but sometimes it is better to yield. Pay attention to the world around you. Be polite. Treat people as you want to be treated. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Saving us from ourselves

/ hsoi

I see a headline at SayUncle that grabs my attention: Kimchi.

Being as my mother is Korean, I of course have eaten lots of Korean food…kimchi is quite the staple of my diet. In fact, just reading Uncle’s blog post and the comments, my mouth started to water, the bottom dropped out of my stomach. Man… talk about Pavolvian response. 🙂

But the point of his article was something we ourselves had encountered. Being a geek, that means my workday tends to be surrounded by other geeks, especially back in the days when I worked out of an office building. Back then a lot of the folks I worked with were single and had little life other than work. Or if they did play, often it was with people from work and many times playing multi-player games over the office network. One thing Wife and I realized was how they didn’t eat all that well, or if they did it was expensive restaurants.

Looking for a job opportunity, Wife thought she could make food for my office-mates. Make huge batches of various dishes, portion them into containers, sell a week’s worth of containers to someone. They can stick ’em in the freezer, then defrost and heat in the microwave as needed. It would have worked out great… except for massive amounts of government regulation. It’s interesting that I can make food to feed my family — arguably the people I care most about and above all others wish to ensure their good health and welfare — in this kitchen, but I can’t make food for someone else, at least for profit, in the same kitchen. That I don’t have two mop sinks somehow means this kitchen isn’t good enough to make for-profit food for someone else. I could have a huge dinner party for my friends, and that’s OK, but if I charged money to consume the food suddenly the food isn’t clean enough.

Go figure.

All that happened was hysterics

/ hsoi

Via Tam I read about a spectacular case of PSH.

PSH – Pants Shittin’ Hysterics

So a man with a gun comes into a city council meeting in Chico, California, addresses the council in support of a library, then leaves. Wow, nothing happened. The gun didn’t just jump and start shooting people. No blood was shed. No one died. Wow. Unbelievable.

Thing is, the man is a former California Highway Patrol officer and had permit to legally carry. So thus, no laws were broken.

But lots of hysterics:

Although the man didn’t violate any laws, it made Mike Maloney uncomfortable as the interim chief of police, he said.

“From my perspective, I can’t see any reason for someone who’s not a peace officer to carry a weapon to the City Council,” Maloney said.

He was uncomfortable. He got his feeling hurt. Time to call the waaambulance.

“The million-dollar question is, why would you bring a weapon to the City Council meeting when we’re talking about library funding and the budget?” Vice Mayor Tom Nickell asked.

Those police officers in the chambers and around the building, why do they have guns at a City Council meeting when you’re talking about libary funding and the budget? Perhaps because the potential for bad guys to do bad things doesn’t get scheduled on your meeting agenda? Back to that whole “Be Prepared” thing. Again, the guy’s an ex-cop and probably has enough personal direct experience to know that it’s wise to be prepared to defend yourself because shit happens.

“My opinion is that members of the public should allow trained professionals to carry and use firearms,” Maloney said.

Hrm. The guy in question? He’s an ex-cop. So I guess as soon as he took off the badge, all of his training was immediately removed from his brain, body, and soul. Now he’s suddenly one of those dangerous citizens that we just cannot trust. Sure 5 minutes ago he was a cop and we trusted him fully with a gun, but now he cannot be trusted!

Wow.

Having seen the effects of gun use, Maloney thinks citizens should instead be good witnesses if they spot a crime, he said.

OK ladies. While you’re being raped, just be sure to be a good witness. That’s what Chico, California Interim Police Chief Mike Maloney wants you to do.

And gosh, if that’s how the Police Chief wants things to be, how much can you expect the police will do anything to protect you? Especially how later in the article it mentions how Chico is down on police officer positions. They just don’t have enough cops to go around to even come and protect the legislators in their meetings, so how are you mere citizens going to be protected on a daily basis? But just remember, be a good witness so you can help the Chico police clean up afterwards.

[Mayor Ann] Schwab was concerned when she heard about the gun, especially considering children were in the audience and the council had a heated discussion on budget issues, she said.

Ah good! Someone was thinking about the children. You know, those children that weren’t harmed at all by a law-abiding citizen doing lawful things; in fact, a law-abiding citizen participating in the legislative process… arguably being a more productive citizen than most! Gosh now, we can’t have any more of that. Children are watching!

Thank God we have hysterical Mayors, Vice Mayors, City Councilmen, and Police Chiefs to keep us safe…. safe from what, I don’t know, but thank God we have them. I would add “Thank God they’re thinking of us” but that implies thinking, and it appears not a lot of that is going on.

Feminist hate

/ hsoi

Suzi brings up an article by a Feminist on Feminists hating Sarah Palin.

Regardless of my or your feelings in Sarah Palin, there’s no question the way she was handled and portrayed during her time in the national spotlight during the 2008 US Presidential election was just … well … mindboggling.

I did think it was most curious how the feminists were all up in arms and probably her biggest bashers. I guess Sarah Palin wasn’t “female enough” for them.

Anyway, give the article a read. It even acts as a bit of a microcosm for the whole election itself:

None of these characters are real, of course. Yet, weirdly, people were much more interested in these fictional beings than they were in the real individuals who were vying for political office last year. There were times in 2008 where I felt that the entire national discourse had become one of those scripted faux-reality shows, where nothing is real and the producers edit everybody into barking stereotypes. And the people at home just watch and point and snicker. We’re actually having an election here, I kept wanting to say. These are the people who want to run the country. Don’t you want to know who they really are?

Where to begin?

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Foo.c points to this Washington Post article on Obama’s tax pledges:

President Barack Obama promised to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. It’s a promise he’s already broken and will likely have to break again.

The article contains all sorts of money gems on how to pay for the healthcare proposals:

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