Introduction To The Nanny State

Why Mommy Is A Democrat. The text should read We want Daddy to steal toys from others and give them to our friends. A book little Karl Marx would have loved.

From the Center for the Study of the Obvious

Tattoos lessen likelihood of landing a jobA new survey shows that employees are getting the message that plenty of bosses find visible tattoos or body piercings objectionable in the workplace.

"Some would argue that they are a legitimate form of self expression and shouldn't be regulated by an employer," said Mark Oldman, co-founder of career site Vault.com, which conducted the survey.

"But, like it or not, many employers feel that flagrant tattoos detract from one's professional appearance. While they may be less unsavory now, they still can carry a counterculture, Hells Angels flavor, especially the more angry-looking tattoos."

Others agree. Of 468 employees who responded to Vault's 2007 tattoo and body-piercing survey, 85 percent said, yes, such body decorations impede a candidat

A Man With A Mission

A scientist helps science illiterate employees to correctly shelve books at local bookstores.

It is my mission to correctly re-shelve books to the appropriate section of the bookstore.

For example, "Darwin's Black Box", the famous psuedo-science book by the non-evolutionary non-scientist Michael Behe, should not be in the "Evolutionary Biology" section, but something more appropriate, such as "New Age", "Religion", "Christianity", or even "Fiction". You get the idea.

I call on all readers of this blog to follow my example. Help your local bookstore correctly stock their science section. Spread the word.

Site Comparison

Doesn't appear that Facebook or Yahoo is any danger of being overtaken by this site or the school's site.

Meet The Hippie Chimp

The Bonobo a kinder gentler version of the Chimp that only lives south of the Congo river.

In recent years, the bonobo has found a strange niche in the popular imagination, based largely on its reputation for peacefulness and promiscuity. The Washington Post recently described the species as copulating “incessantly”; the Times claimed that the bonobo “stands out from the chest-thumping masses as an example of amicability, sensitivity and, well, humaneness”; a PBS wildlife film began with the words “Where chimpanzees fight and murder, bonobos are peacemakers. And, unlike chimps, it’s not the bonobo males but the females who have the power.” The Kinsey Institute claims on its Web site that “every bonobo—female, male, infant, high or low status—seeks and responds to kisses.” And, in Los Angeles, a sex adviser named Susan Block promotes what she calls “The Bonobo Way” on public-access television. (In brief: “Pleasure eases pain; good sex defuses tension; love lessens violence; you can’t very well fight a war while you’re having an orgasm.”) In newspaper columns and on the Internet, bonobos are routinely described as creatures that shun violence and live in egalitarian or female-dominated communities; more rarely, they are said to avoid meat. These behaviors are thought to be somehow linked to their unquenchable sexual appetites, often expressed in the missionary position. And because the bonobo is the “closest relative” of humans, its comportment is said to instruct us in the fundamentals of human nature. To underscore the bonobo’s status as a signpost species—a guide to human virtue, or at least modern dating—it is said to walk upright. (The Encyclopædia Britannica depicts the species in a bipedal pose, like a chimpanzee in a sitcom.) This pop image of the bonobo—equal parts dolphin, Dalai Lama, and Warren Beatty—has flourished largely in the absence of the animal itself, which was recognized as a species less than a century ago

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A Defense of Dangerous Ideas

Ever society in every generation has questions that people dare not ask in public at the risk of being ostracized or worse.

• Do women, on average, have a different profile of aptitudes and emotions than men?
• Were the events in the Bible fictitious -- not just the miracles, but those involving kings and empires?
  
• Did Native Americans engage in genocide and despoil the landscape?
• Do men have an innate tendency to rape?
  
• Would society be better off if heroin and cocaine were legalized?
• Is homosexuality the symptom of an infectious disease?
• Would it be consistent with our moral principles to give parents the option of euthanizing newborns with birth defects that would consign them to a life of pain and disability?
• Is the average intelligence of Western nations declining because duller people are having more children than smarter people?

Are we better off not asking and living in blissful ignorance? Steven Pinker of Harvard makes a case for asking.

Become A Pirate And Save The Earth

If Al Gore was really super serial about global warming he would quit harping on the SUV and concentrate on teaching students seamanship, plundering and general pillaging. Below is the latest graph Rev. Gore was afraid to show in his movie. The latest research has confirmed the inverse relation between the number of pirates and global average temperature.

A companion graph not shown has temperature increasing with the increasing number of lawyers. So the solution too global warming is relatively easy close down law schools and divert the would be barristers into seafaring renegades. It isn't that much of a stretch.

Not Your Mom's Barbie Doll

Now young girls can go online, shop and make purchases without bugging their parents for a credit card. Just plug the e-Barbie into her docking station and click away. Can't start being a material girl too soon. As for material boys they have similar Hot Wheels. Isn't anything sacred these days? On the bright side doesn't appear that they have developed online tattoos or piercings but give 'em time

**** BREAKING NEWS ******

Latest information on the Internet Crash of 2007

The Glamour Of Shopping At Wally World

New Cerals

With Kellogg's announcement that they will no longer be marketing unhealthy cereals, that supermarket aisle will now be kid safe. Here are some of the latest test cereals that you will be seeing soon.



Images from FARK.com phototshop contest

Wanting To Have Her Cake And Eat It Too

The Kutztown District is in a disagreement with the greedy parents of a charter school student who wants to play sports for the Kutztown teams. While traditional home schooled students have the legal right to play, seems a little murky when it comes to students enrolled in a charter school.

Traditional home schooled students cost the taxpayer very little and their progress is monitored by their home district. With both brick-charter and cyber-charter students there is no way of knowing if they are making progress or even "attending" classes. If they are allowed to participate in regular school activities, besides double dipping into the taxpayers pockets, there are a multitude of ways this could be abused. Parents or an aggressive coach could have players that are having academic problems just drop out of school and enroll in a cyber-charter school and continue playing. This is not in the best interest of either the student or the taxpayer.

The whole premise behind local taxes paying for local schools is that the community has the say in how their school is run, even if it is becoming less and less each year. The way charter schools are setup in this state, is making that a total farce. With a local school board there is at least the opportunity to vote them out of office, with charter schools there is no local control or oversight on how the taxpayers money is being spent.

Saints Vs Sellouts

The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America Daniel Brooks laments that in order to make a living in this country you actually have to produce something or perform a service that someone wants. Seems he wants to make a more just society by taxing the rich so that young college graduates can pursue their dreams of naval gazing.

After graduating Yale in 2003 with a double major in film studies and gender studies, Tara moved to San Francisco to pursue queer documentary filmmaking. She settled in the Castro district, the historic epicenter of American gay culture, and quickly discovered plenty of enticing projects. "There were lots of opportunities to do film and to help people with their films, but no one had any money to pay me so I did a lot of volunteering and part-time work," she told me in a Castro coffee shop.

What kind of materialistic country have we become when a Yale graduate with degrees both in film and gender studies can't make it in San Francisco? Better question how rich were the parents that could afford to send their daughter to Yale to major in anything that had "Studies" in the title.

Sliding Down The Slippery Slope

From When Three Is Really A Crowd

SOMETIMES when the earth shudders it doesn’t make a sound. That’s what happened in Harrisburg, Pa., recently.

On April 30, a state Superior Court panel ruled that a child can have three legal parents. The case, Jacob v. Shultz-Jacob, involved two lesbians who were the legal co-parents of two children conceived with sperm donated by a friend. The panel held that the sperm donor and both women were all liable for child support. Arthur S. Leonard, a professor at New York Law School, observed, “I’m unaware of any other state appellate court that has found that a child has, simultaneously, three adults who are financially obligated to the child’s support and are also entitled to visitation.”

FLASHBACK: Boys Beware

Brits Spell Funny

Oops the people responsible for creating a banner for the space shuttle Endeavour used the American version of spell check. However the shuttle is named for the first ship commanded by James Cook and is spelled the limey way with a "U". The banner was replaced 90 minutes later but not before photographers captured the error.

Ms Emily Goes To The Movies

Looks Like this episode of Harry Potter has lost some of its magic as Ms Emily completes her recent trifecta.

Review by Emily Trosprel
10th Grade BHHS
Senior Entertainment Editor

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Watching Order of the Phoenix does not feel like watching a movie or any form of story. Instead, it seems to be one long, clumsy montage, a blur of characters, settings, and bits of plot thrown together and separated with choppy transitions. Hey, look over there, is that supposed to be Tonks in the background in a few shots? And isn’t that Lupin with only two lines and whose name is never even mentioned? Now where is Harry? Hogsmeade you say? How did he get there? Those few in the audience who have not read the series haven’t a hope of understanding many details, although the main plotline is obligedly clear. While all Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) can think about is his dread at the return of the dark wizard Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) during the previous year, the rest of the wizarding world doesn’t share his feelings. Despite Harry and Hogwarts School’s headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) insisting that he has risen again, the Ministry of Magic resolutely refuses to believe them because what accepting it to be true would mean. It would be easier for the Ministry to simply use their influence to discredit the supposed rumormongers. The only wizards doing anything to stop Voldemort gaining power is a small, secretive band of those loyal to Dumbledore called the Order of the Phoenix. And so Harry returns to his fifth year as a student at Hogwarts, facing peers who have been constantly told over the summer through the newspaper what an attention-seeking liar Harry is. It seems that his friends Ron (Rupert Grint), Hermione (Emma Watson), and bemused Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch) are some of only a few who believe his story of how he witnessed Voldemort’s return. To make matters worse, the pink-clad new defense against the Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), is sent by the Ministry to take control of Hogwarts and prevent the students from learning magic that the Ministry fears could be used to rebel against them. Instead of letting authority keep students from being able to defend themselves against Voldemort, Harry, Ron, and Hermione decide to take matters into their own hands.

Writing an ultra-faithful adaptation to a novel may be feasible when said novel is in the 300 page range. However once a book enters into 800 page territory, a screenwriter has to accept that the story must be restyled to suit a two hour and a quarter hour film. Michael Goldenberg, a first time screenwriter for the world of Harry Potter, would not accept it. Fans may complain that Goldenberg left out too much of the story, but in this humble opinion, he did not leave out enough. The awkwardly built up romance between Harry and fellow student Cho Chang could have been one of several subplots to be eliminated, giving other sequences room to breathe and reach their full potential. What’s more, a talented screenwriter should have been able to rebuild the entire main plotline to a cinematic format rather than copying large chunks of the book. The screenplay and resulting disjointed pacing were obviously Order of the Phoenix’s main weaknesses, with several poor acting performances on their heels as a third. Emma Watson and on occasion newcomer Evanna Lynch left one cringing at their respective overacting and underacting styles. There are no prodigies among the rest of the teens either, but most range from acceptable to decent with Daniel Radcliffe coping well with the pressure of having to carry much of the movie. As always with the Potter movies, the adult cast is made up the finest British actors that a budget can buy. Imelda Staunton utterly mastered making Umbridge loathsome, and Helena Bonham Carter, small as her role was, commanded full attention as the twisted Voldemort follower Bellatrix Lestrange.

The one category which Phoenix fully conquered was the visuals of the wizarding world. Special effects? Check. Cineamatagraphy? Check. Perhaps director David Yates did merely imitate the style of his preceding directors but at least he did so skill and flair. Fans of the Potter books will doubtlessly flock to Order of the Phoenix regardless of what any reviews might say, and they will probably be thrilled to see their beloved novel play out on screen. However, the adaptation had little magic to offer those uninitiated in the books and who are simply searching for a decent film.

Scale Model of A Hydrogen Atom

This page is scaled so that the smallest thing on it, the electron, is one pixel. That makes the proton thousand pixels across, and the distance between them is... yep, fifty million pixels. If your monitor displays 72 pixels to the inch, then that works out to eleven miles - making this possibly the biggest page you've ever seen.

Looked to me like 10.9 miles somebody should print it out and verify.

In NJ kids will be playing victims and robbers

N.J. senator proposes toy gun ban that would make it illegal for anyone under 18 to purchase toy gun. A parent who gives a child a toy firearm as a gift would be guilty under this legislation.

Why Didn't We Think of This

With all the complaining around here nobody came up with the simple way to solve the problems in public education. Took people from Pittsburgh to solve all the problems in one simple stroke. No longer will the schools in the steel town be part of Pittsburgh Public Schools now they will be part of a new district Pittsburgh Schools. Look how simple that was just drop the word public and its all good.

To Recent Grads

Avoid lawsuits and trouble at future reunions by not using a classmate's name if you go into the adult entertainment biz.

A Houston woman is suing a former high school classmate who took her name and starred in pornographic movies.

Kristen Syvette Wimberly, 25, is asking that Lara Madden and film distributor Vivid Entertainment Group stop using or publicizing her name, which Madden took as a stage name.

more

Who wants to bet its a cooked up lawsuit just to sell more videos or someone is starting a website.

Ms Emily Goes To The Movies

Review by Emily Trosprel
10th Grade BHHS
Senior Entertainment Editor

Ratatouille

There is more than spelling in common between Ratatouille and ratatouille. Ratatouille, a French vegetable stew, is a simple dish, “peasants’ food” as it is called, yet in the film with a little effort it is turned into something extraordinary, something to please even the harshest of critics. Pixar’s latest addition to their growing list of achievements takes the same approach. Ratatouille has the heart and story of a simple family film, but add in a dash of spices and some originality to the recipe and the resulting confection is complex delight that begs to be savored by all ages. These food metaphors have purpose, for Ratatouille is set in Paris in the once renowned gourmet restaurant Gusteau's, stripped of its acclaim by the owner’s death and a ravaging review by food critic Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole). It is now under the direction of Chief Chef Skinner (Ian Holm), who only wants to use the Gusteau name to sell frozen corn dogs. In comes a chef, or aspiring chef, by the name of Remy (Patton Oswalt), who is ready to turn around Gusteau’s misfortune and cook up the most delectable dishes this side of France. There’s only one problem. Remy, as it happens, is a rat. Kitchens don’t tend to be very welcoming towards rats, even if they do secretly help prepare a soup that impresses a food critic. Remy’s solution? Why, hide under the hat of Gusteau’s newest employee, desperately untalented Linguini (Lou Romano), secretly control him with his hair like a marionette while they create their dishes, and watch them together become the biggest new culinary sensation! It would be the perfect plan, if only Remy’s rodent family was not convinced that cooking food was a dangerous waste of time, Anton Ego didn’t decide that he was not yet finished with Gusteau’s, and Skinner wasn’t determined to find the “phantom rat” he kept on spotting in the kitchen.

Just like the case of CGI in mega blockbusters, the technical quality of computer animated films is evolving as fast as studios can churn them out. Ratatouille is the pinnacle of current animation, from every waving hair on Remy’s body to the enticing French dishes that will have mouths watering at pixels. Pixar is not yet at the level of photorealistic animation, but at the rate they are improving, it may not be as long as one would think before it is achieved. The finest technical realism counts for nothing of course if the voices lent to the characters don’t serve to bring them to life. Ratatouille does not fall to current trend of tacking ill-fitted celebrity voices onto characters for the sake of marketing. The filmmakers are rewarded with distinctive, well-suited characters for their use of a modest cast, with the exception of the star Peter O’Toole who is nevertheless chosen for suitability and brings some of the most memorable moments in the film with his haughty tones. Finally, there is the story, usually the shakiest aspect of family movies as many writers feel it necessary to cave to physical humor and dumb down the plot until there isn’t anything left that would be of interest to movie-goers past toddler age. The writers of Ratatouille however have faith that they will not lose their audience at the mention of such sophisticated language as sauciers and sous chefs and of course a mouthful of a title. Instead of indulging a craving for an average junk food blockbuster (I’m looking at you, Transformers), why not take in an even more satisfying treat, the gourmet cuisine of studio-made cinema, Ratatouille?

FOUR out of four stars for Ratatouille

A Simple Solution To A Vexing Question

You are the lame duck President of the US with poll numbers in the toilet, how can you make them go even lower?

Easy make a 13 year old girl cry.

As sum peepol hav trubbal spelling, shud we mayk it eezeur for them?

They've been campaigning for a century to make the spelling of the English language easier and recently picketed a spelling bee in the US to make their point. Welcome to the Simplified Spelling Society.

Turns Out You Can't Legally Punch A Hippie

Bad enough teachers can't use paddles with holes drilled in them for extra effect now this. What is this country coming to?

A Frank Legal Discussion: Why Is It Illegal to Punch Hippies?


Often I'm asked, "Why, if I punch a hippy, would I be arrested for assault? Are we supposed to believe that the Founding Fathers wanted hippies to walk around un-punched?"

First off, the Founding Fathers hated hippies as much as you and in no way intended America to be a place hippies could feel safe. What they knew, though, is that allowing people to punch hippies could lead to abuse of the law where someone would punch a non-hippy and claim he thought he was a hippy. So the reason we can't punch hippies is to protect non-hippies from being punched.

I would support a change in the law, though, where it is legal to punch hippies, but the punched can afterwards legally challenging the punching by claiming to not be a hippy. If the punched was found to in fact be of the non-hippy persuasion, then there will be severe penalties against the puncher for abuse of the hippy punching law. ...

"To Live Outside The Law You Must Be Honest"

Bob Dylan's verse but it was the key to the Pirate Code featured in the New Yorker article and the History Channel. Pirate ships were floating United Nations and were governed as a true democracy with elected captains. Unlike the Royal Navy the captains didn't feast while their crew starved, they all feasted or starved together. Booty was shared equally with the captain receiving at most twice the amount as a common crewman. They pioneered methods of self-governing with divisions of power to constrain authority long before England and the United States. They were also one of the first equal opportunity employers with blacks being up to 39% of the crew. Their written constitutions even had social insurance with provisions for men that lost limbs during battle.

Maybe the founding fathers of this country took as many lessons from them as they did studying the Roman and Greek forms of governing. They had to be familiar with them since many were at most one generation away from being pirates and other assorted scoundrels.

Ms Emily Goes To The Movies

Review by Emily Trosprel
10th Grade (it is now official she passed)BHHS
Senior Entertainment Editor

Transformers

Has your appetite for big, dumb summer blockbusters not yet been satisfied? Did May and June’s dosages of explosions, battles, and special effects leave more to be desired? Transformers is just the right counter to the documentaries, Oscar hopefuls, and “thinking man’s” movies, so sit back, relax, and let your brain cells take a rest. You’re about to watch a movie about giant robots taking over the earth. That aptly sums up the story; this isn’t the movie for subplots. Autobots (good robots) come to planet Earth to save the human race, and decepticons (bad robots) come to exterminate it. Their tool is the Allspark, a powerful cube that fell to Earth years earlier. These alien robots can transform into virtually any machine, as teenaged Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) discovers when his recently purchased first car turns into a giant autobot named Bumblebee. Bumblebee is his “guardian” against the decepticons, for in Sam’s possession is an artifact passed down by his explorer great-grandfather that contains a map to the almighty cube. Sam, along with love interest Mikaela (Megan Fox), must help these autobots (including leader Optimus Prime) get to and destroy the cube, lest evil decepticons get their hands (or claws?) on it first and harness its power to annihilate mankind. Care for a little melodrama, anyone?

Michael Bay, helming such recent projects as The Island and Pearl Harbor, has honed blowing stuff up into a near art form. A movie such as Transformers certainly plays to his strengths as a director—minimum character development, maximum action, and the latest and greatest visual effects. Steven Spielberg unexpectedly shows up as an executive producer, and perhaps some of his touches were what counteracted Bay’s smash ‘em up style. Not that this style isn’t present as well, from the opening battle set in the Middle East and edited to a breakneck pace to the final doozie of a battle featuring the first major machine on machine violence. With such a blockbuster, acting generally takes a back seat. However, rapidly rising star Shia LaBeouf truly does shine in his first mega-budget lead role. In fact, the young actor outshines even some of his older costars, with neither Josh Duhamel as a soldier fighting the decepticons nor Rachael Taylor as a bright government analyst breaking out of their stereotyped, tiresome roles. Still, no actor could bring down the film a great deal, for the robots are front and center and take most of the screen time. As hinted at before, they are masterfully created, putting Transformers in the class of movies that has throughout history shaped the way we look at special effects. They look real, and there is no higher complement then that. If only they had been in a little less of, well, a blockbuster, then Michael Bay would have made a real achievement. As is, these computer generated creatures are plugged into the formula that has been serving Hollywood summer tentpole pictures for years, and of which the product is glossy, cinematic junk food. Junk food that is in this case wholly worth taking a piece of.

Two and a half out of four stars for Transformers

And Now a message from our sponsor.

Never play a video game that's trying to teach you something.

Making games educational is like dumping Velveeta on broccoli. Liberal deployment of the word blaster can't hide the fact that you're choking down something that's supposed to be good for you.

Politics and Education

California has a critical shortage of nurses with a waiting list of applicants. The state also has a bumper crop of lawyers, so what does the California legislature choose to do yep,build a new law school.

For CSpan Junkies

A list of sites that provide a broad range of information available to track government and legislative information, campaign contributions and the role of money in politics.

Buy A Pint For John

Scotland celebrates a hero.

Four Hundred generous people have already ponied up £3 to buy John a pint through Paypal, leaving us with 600 to go. A good night out, for an average man perhaps, but not for John.

But let me ask you this. Is this any way to treat a national hero? Is this how you want the man who said, “You’re nae hitting the Polis mate, there’s nae chance”, to be remembered? Is that how you want John to go down in history? Do we deserve our reputation for meanness (apart from you 400, who are now exempt from being complained about)?

To this travesty, I say - “That’s nae gonnae happen - nae way”

Join me, brothers and sisters. Let us join together and rise up to honour the ordinary hero of that day. Let us make a shining example of community spirit and heavy drinking.

The country needs to see 1,000 pints lined up behind the bar of the Glasgow Airport Holiday Inn with John Smeaton’s name on them. JohnSmeaton.com will not rest til 1,000 pints are paid for and foaming on that counter.

That is the tribute that the great man deserves for his acts of heroism, community spirit and kicking.

A Little Sc-Fi Humor

An explanation if you haven't read H.P. Lovecraft

School District Tax Rates

From the Reading Eagle

Property tax rates for Berks County’s 18 public school districts are shown for the 2007-08 school year along with the percent changes from the 2006-07 rates.
A mill is $1 for every $1,000 of assessed value. That means, for example, a property assessed at $100,000 in a district with a 20 mill tax rate would pay $2,000 in annual school taxes.

Dist 2007 rate 2008 rate change % change
antietam 29.25 30.80 +1.55 +5.30
brandywine 27.30 28.10 +0.80 +2.93
daniel boone 25.25 26.25 +1.00 +3.96
tulpehocken 24.71 25.83 +1.12 +4.53
exeter 23.50 25.825 +2.325 +9.89
kutztown 24.70 25.50 +0.80 +3.24
fleetwood 24.41 25.256 +0.846 +3.47
wyomissing 23.84 25.17 +1.33 +5.58
muhlenberg 23.31 23.81 +0.50 +2.15
hamburg 22.08 23.73 +1.65 +7.47
oley valley 22.50 23.42 +0.92 +4.09
conrad weiser 23.03 23.40 +0.37 +1.60
schuylkill valley 21.87 22.88 +1.01 +4.62
gov. mifflin 20.30 21.60 +1.30 +6.40
reading 19.75 19.75 none none
twin valley* 18.60 19.30 +0.70 +3.76
boyertown** 19.18 19.24 +0.06 +0.31
wilson 17.59 18.55 +0.96 +5.46
* In the Twin Valley School District, Chester County residents will pay 19.50 mills.
** In the Boyertown School District, Montgomery County residents will pay 19.42 mills
Source: School budgets