Maths + science

Both Sean and I here are big supporters of education, science, math, and various other things that can loosely be defined as "uppity book shit". Why? Because we've been bought off by Big Book and Big Knowledge. We're huge whores, what can we say?

So we often try to highlight the large Texas sections Texas of this Texas country Texas where people Texans are trying Texas to undermine science and facts, and monkey with our basic educational system. That said, we also know when well intentioned educators are doing things wrong as well. After all, there's a right way to educate and a wrong way to educate. Let's see if you can point out where this next fellow went wrong. Show your work.

The Secret Service investigated an Alabama high school teacher for using the example of shooting President Obama while teaching a geometry lesson.
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A student in the class described the lesson: "He was talking about angles and said, 'If you're in this building, you would need to take this angle to shoot the president.'"

The district superintendent told the News that the unnamed teacher will not be disciplined.

Where do you think the teacher went wrong? Clearly he wasn't accounting for wind resistance, any teleprompters in the way, or podium height. At least he had the decency to cross Medgar Evers' name off this old lesson plan and fill in a new darkie. Gotta make the lessons current, otherwise the kids will never pay attention.

Lest you think we'll just paint Alabama and the South with the same finger wagging brush, we'll have you know that both Sean and I consider this to be progress. In the entirety of this man's lesson he did not once refer to mathematics as "that durned numerical witchcraft", attempt to cast Pythagoras as a heretic, or petition the state to bring back the cubit as a unit of measurement. He even taught the assassination lesson in an unsegregated class. I think you'll agree that this is remarkable progress for not only Alabama, but Southern education as a whole.

So if you're in the Jefferson County area and want to drop in on Corner High School, you might just learn something. Like, say, the chemistry teacher teaching the proper gasoline to frozen orange juice concentrate measurements for homemade napalm in case that pesky local IRS building keeps infuriating you or the English Department's curriculum guidelines for their Turner Diaries unit. If you stick around, you might just get to enjoy the Phys Ed Department's George Wallace themed Field Day wheelchair races.

Revolution!

Health care has passed and conservative pundits aren't taking it well. Ok, they weren't exactly taking the run-up to health care reform passing well. Ok, they didn't exactly take the election of Barack Obama well. Ok, they didn't exactly take the eight years of the George W. Bush Presidency well. But on this, they're really not taking it well.

Of course the man taking it the least well is Glenn Beck. We all knew that one was coming. But even I'm a little surprised at how poorly our little aardvark loving aficionado is taking this. Right now he's huddled in a nuclear fallout shelter slamming GI Joes together, making "PEW PEW PEW" sounds with his mouth as he careens a jet fighter through the air, and is ranting about WAR and BATTLE and FIGHTING and THIS ISN'T OVER and YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE! So much so that Media Matters couldn't contain it in one post.

Beck: "The war is just beginning."
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Beck suggests that progressives support "armed insurrection."
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"Why would the president take up immigration right away, after he's just punched you in the face with health care?"
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"You'd pick up a gun? Have you ever thought of that?" He then pointed to several pictures, including images of Obama and Pelosi, and stated: "These people have. Because possibly, maybe the question should be asked, maybe they're tired of evolution, and maybe they are waiting for revolution." Beck also said: "Haven't we just been spanked? Hasn't most of the country -- doesn't most of the country feel like they've been spanked over health care? You bet. I do, you do. A lot of people do."
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"You can try to put the lid on this group of people, but you will never silence us. You will never -- you can shoot me in the head, you can shoot the next guy in the head, but there will be 10 others that line up."

Yes, we've all been spanked. Erotically spanked by health care. But enough of that, THIS IS WAR! REVOLUTION IS AT HAND! PICK UP A GUN! THEY'RE COMING TO KILL ME!

Yes, Obama has sent out hit squads to silence Glenn Beck. Even as we speak these elite SEAL teams are traipsing through the forests of Glenn's mind, unlatching the aardvark pen, busting through his windows, climbing up his pant leg with his grandma with a knife in their teeth, bursting out of his box of Golden Grahams, and hiding everywhere... waiting to get him. Don't you get it? Don't you see?



MOSES! JEWS! COMMANDMENTS! The second American revolution is at hand!

I feel for Glenn I really do. Ok, I don't. I hope this ends with him lighting himself on fire at Teabagstock '11. But, I guess I just didn't foresee how poorly he was going to take this "slightly cheaper/better health care for the peasants" thing. This has just been what he's been up to over the past few days. Who knows what chalkboard diagrams, battle movements, and calls for armed insurrection he's drawing up in his basement, tears staining the plans as he cries "I didn't want to have to do this to you America, I LOVE YOU!"?

Glenn, just breathe into a paper bag, stop making batches of hard tack, and cancel the fife and drum lessons. It'll be all right. Well, at least until Sebelius and the HHS release the nanites that read thoughts and kill based on the degree of right wing rhetoric rattling around your frontal cortex. Then you're fucked. But there's nothing you can do about it. It's nanotechnology. That's why Obama chose it to kill the elderly and everyone who has ever uttered a thought in opposition to him. Didn't you read this health bill? This is all useless gesturing. You're dead already. Use what time you have left.

Hyperbole

Beware Republican Senators and Governors who have only a half-remembered sense of history and high school sophomore English. With the passage of health care upon us -- totally, for real this time, no take backs -- GOP opposition has moved from huddling for warmth with tea partiers to making bad historical and literary analogies about the oncoming flood of marginally better health coverage that we're all going to receive.

Up first is Lindsay Graham, off fresh from Sunday talk show hysterics complaining that two similar things aren't similar, who looks at the push to pass health care and sees in the eyes of Nancy Pelosi... the Yellow Peril!

"Nancy Pelosi, I think, has got them all liquored up on sake and you know, they're making a suicide run here," Graham said Monday during a call to the Keven Cohen Show on WVOC radio in Columbia, S.C.

Yes, because when the Japanese were ramming zeroes into aircraft carriers, it typically resulted in the betterment of health care conditions in the immediate area for all sailors. Truthfully, if anything is going to sink this country it's a reform plan that expands access, cuts costs, and cuts the deficit. It's just a shame the Speaker had to get Barney Frank drunk, tie one of those rising sun bandannas to his head, and yell "banzai" as he careened into the House floor to ram his body into the voting area, causing it to burst into flames. Surely there was a better way.

On the other hand, a jobless ex-Senator and an Argentinian hiking enthusiast who is inexplicably still with a job decided that they were going to brush off some Shakespeare studies they kind of remembered to make reference to a date they realized just happened.

Sanford released a statement earlier saying that today -- March 15 -- is the day Julius Caesar was murdered, sometimes known as the Ides of March. The day is usually associated with a sense of foreboding, and Sanford warned the public to be wary of health care reform.

Trent Lott agreed today on Fox News: "Shakespeare warned us to beware the Ides of March. That's today, and I have a very ominous feeling about what's fixing to happen on health care votes."

So you're worried that a bunch of crooked Senators are going to murder the leader of this country with knives on the Senate floor in an attempt to overthrow the government? Because that's what happened of the Ides of March. The day isn't associated with a sense of foreboding, Mark; it's associated with the murder of Julius Caesar. But if this isn't just a bad metaphor and you know something more specific about that crazy look in John McCain's eye, you should speak up. Just a warning though, this is going to end with Sasha Obama as President, tasked with hunting down the conspirators with Joe Biden in Macedonia, right? Just so we're clear.

So be forewarned, this health care battle is not only like a suicide attack, but it's also going to result in a child President ganking a Republican senator in Phillipi after a coup. It's going to be a hectic next few days, I only hope this country can survive a moderate ascension on the WHO health rankings.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 4.17

Ex-McCain aide to call for gay marriage support
Seems former McCain aide Steve Schmidt thinks that Republicans being for gay marriage is a smart thing. He'll be denounced as a heretic, shunned, and possibly stoned by the rest of his party in 3...2...1. While it's good to see him make the argument, let's make sure he's not involved in selling it or getting it passed. I don't know how much McCain campaign type backbiting, mixed messages, infighting, confusion, incoherence, and mismanagement the issue can take.

Banks Rush to Repay U.S. Funds, but Cling To Other Lifelines
Well, well, well. Banks want to bitch about taking one set of government funds while lining up at the trough to take another. CEO's are complaining about the restrictions surrounding the use of TARP funds, using words like "scarlet letter", "asinine", and complain that they only took the money to show a united front. Now that some turned a 1st quarter profit, they want to yell about how they never needed the money in the first place, they're defaulting on checks to their butler, and the terms are "damaging the economy", neglecting to mention the fact that they'd be bankrupt if they didn't get the TARP money and are still hoovering up government billions from other areas. They really haven't learned anything, have they?

Injured War Zone Contractors Fight to Get Care From AIG and Other Insurers
Turns out those bastion of usefulness, AIG, were making quite a handsome profit off of the Iraq war. Not only did they insure civilian contractors, collecting premiums to the tune of $1.5 billion dollars, a sum an army audit called "unreasonably high", they went ahead and denied 44% of all claims for contractors suffering serious injuries and over half of all claims for psychological distress. They were able to net a cool $600 million profit, which given their track record, they probably used to fund the liquidation of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. God, I'm so glad they were too big to fail. What would we ever do without them? I mean besides have a solvent economy and treat people wounded in war with a shred of dignity.

Sondhi Limthongkul Survives 84 Gunshots
Mr. Limthongkul, aka King of the Badasses, organized protests that ended up deposing Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra last year. The New Rasputin, who led the 'yellow shirts', has been under fire (figuratively at first, now literally) from the 'red shirts' who backed the previous government and are trying to protest the new government out of power. When asked for comment, Mr. Limthongkul responded that "there is no spoon" and then kung fu fought his way through a bunch of men in black suits.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 4.1

Super Bowl Loss Can 'Kill' Some Fans
I knew the Steelers winning the Super Bowl meant more than just bragging rights over 31 other cities, it turns out the XLIII victory meant that the Steelers Nation will live longer. Now if they could just figure out how many years Super Bowls XL and XLIII added to my life and computate it with how many years the Kordell Stewart helmed AFC Championship games took off it. According to science if the Steelers are able to string together three SB victories in a row everyone in Pittsburgh will become functionally immortal. Highlanders. So draft some fucking lineman already so we can live forever.

Unions protest Joe the Plumber in Pittsburgh.
What's that? A union town doesn't like a mongoloid political novelty act come to town to bash unions and ignorantly pontificate on things he doesn't understand? For future reference: Republicans, if you want to send someone to advocate to unions that they should willingly sodomize themselves, don't send the scab plumber.

McCain Rumored To Be Working His Own Budget
Oh dear God, someone kindly tell him he lost and no one cares. Let me guess what his budget is: no earmarks, tax cuts for the rich, some paen to the working class about how government needs to tighten its belt just like the regular folks do in tough times, and something named after Reagan. I know it's April 1st and all but can the GOP stop releasing so many joke budgets? As we demonstrate here daily, jokes become less funny after you ram them into the ground a few thousand times.

FARC guerillas fail in bid to kill defence minister after spelling mistake
Pobody's nerfect in FARC. I can just imagine the conversation. "You wanted me to kill Jose Rodriguez? I thought you said Jose Bodriguez! DOH!" followed by a comical slap to his forehead, the sad trombone, studio audience laughter, and the sound of gunfire as he's shot to death by a firing squad out back. Actually it's even dumber: they misspelled "policia" on their fake police gear. Boy are they gonna get made fun of in prison.

Luxury Property - The Luxury Real Estate Authority
If you'd like to trainwreck gawk at the misery of the rich there's the Luxury Property Blog. A place where you can see all the hot new foreclosed mega-mansions that are up for sale. Perhaps laugh as some poor baron's castle and mega-yacht are put up for sale. It's OK to laugh, they're rich and thus don't have real human feelings or emotions. Remember to point.

HBO sets drama series in Treme with focus on city's musicians
What's that, David Simon, creator of the Wire and Generation Kill? Writing a new TV show for HBO? About post-Katrina New Orleans? It follows destitute musicians trying to get back on their feet and it stars Bunk and Freamon from the Wire? Sounds like like a typical Simon appointment viewing epic for those of us who get a huge tragedy boner from depressing TV. I'll get my TiVO ready.

Well, it was only a matter of time

Criminal masterminds

Colorado authorities have arrested three men in connection with a suspected plot to assassinate Barack Obama during Thursday's speech at Invesco Field.

It began early Sunday, when a rented Dodge pickup being driven by Tharin Gartrell, 28, was pulled over in Aurora on suspicion of drunken driving.

Authorities then saw two rifles in the truck, with a high-powered scope, a bulletproof vest, a walkie-talkie, several boxes of ammunition and some methamphetamine.

Yessuh, can't have ah-selves a proper assassination if we're not cranked on meth.

The idea that these three cretins could potentially murder the most transcendent political figure in a generation is pretty laughable. Still, this probably isn't the last we'll hear of various assassination plots over the next eleven weeks. Maybe the next trio will have a full set of teeth between them.