To Serve and Protect
Notice I never mention what they are protecting.
Memphis mayor says police union’s ‘danger’ billboards hurting city’s image
The billboards in question show a warning sign, telling people, “DANGER: Enter at your own risk; This city does not support public safety.”
Now, if I were to see that sign, I would think that there was no local law enforcement at all. But that is far from what’s really going on.
Mike Williams, the president of the MPA (Memphis Police Association), said the billboards are meant to target city leaders and are about protecting union’s jobs and benefits.
Apparently, the city had wanted to institute a 4.6% pay cut to its police force in order to avoid laying off any officers. But the MPA is just not happy about losing any of its benefits. If you think this is about public safety, think again.
“The mayor has the power to stop it, so if in fact he wants to stop it then he needs to do right by the city employees, and definitely the police officers in this city,” Williams said.
So in essence, it’s not about the people, or even keeping the officers employed. It’s extortion.
And here I thought that was illegal.
While We Were Sleeping
Or more accurately, cheering on Boston.
Teh Prez gets busy with his pen.
You want more money? We are MADE of money! You want to kill us? We DESERVE it!!
So what if Martha Stewart went to jail for this? YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!! Oh, wait….
Privacy? I do not think it means what you think it means.
Never, ever ignore what the other hand is doing. Why couldn’t this guy be on his way to Congress??
A Mattress is Starting to Look Safer
At least when it comes to keeping your money.
Cypriot ministers rushed on Monday to revise a plan to seize money from bank deposits as part of an EU bailout, in an effort to ensure lawmakers supported it in a vote later in the day.
The weekend announcement that Cyprus would impose a tax on bank accounts as part of a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout broke with previous practice that depositors’ savings were sacrosanct and sent a shiver across the bloc, causing the euro to tumble and stock markets to dive.
In case you are wondering why, it turns out that Cyprus is the Russian’s Switzerland as far as bank accounts go. Not only is the island a haven for gun running and drug dealing for the *ahem* Cyrillic Mafia, the wealthy use the Cypriot banks to facilitate their business. But in order to “tax” the wealthy Russians, the government has to tax every bank account to “make it seem fair”.
Needless to say, Vladimir Putin is very, very angry. Moscow was set to extend a 2.5€ billion loan to help the island in view of how Russians do use their banking system. Now, that extension may be jeopardized, and that can actually push the Cypriot parliament to “tax” the bank accounts.
It’s a viscous circle. Yes, viscous.
But hey, that can never happen here, right?
Analyze This
A few months back, Eldest came to me for help on a Language Arts an English assignment. First of all, I was THRILLED that she asked for my help. Second of all, I was flattered that she felt I would be knowledgeable enough.
Well, y’all know how kids are.
Anyway, she had to “interpret and analyze” a poem by Robert Frost, called Mowing. Now, I remember the poem from my 9th grade English class. It’s a nice poem, light and easy to follow. But what disturbed me was the teacher’s topic of discussion. She wanted the kids to analyze the sexual innuendos. At first I thought I misunderstood. But no….. the teacher wanted the students to explain how Frost was essentially writing about sex.
In a poem about a laborer cutting tall grass to make hay.
And y’all maybe wondering what I did.
Well, I told Eldest the poem was about the satisfaction of hard work, that sex had NOTHING to do with it, that that was something that Language Arts teachers began to push back in the early 1990′s, and that Robert Frost himself said the poem was about MOWING GRASS WITH A SCYTHE. Further, I told her that if the teacher had a problem with it, she could call me. She never called, and Eldest got an “A” on her paper.
Sometimes the curtains are fucking blue, but according to public education, the curtains are aliens with grape jelly golfing in a fishtank.
And people wonder why we have dumber kids now.
Money to Burn
Unbelievable.
I never link to the NYT, so if you want to read the story, go to Drudge.
Kerry Announces $250 Million in U.S. Aid for Egypt
Seriously. what the SHIT?? Prez Obama promised that shithole ONE BILLION DOLLARS. This is the first disbursement. Meanwhile, in the Land of Reality I like to call the United States of America, he is implementing Sequestration.
The aid announced Sunday consists of two parts. One is a $190 million infusion for Egypt’s budget intended to address what Mr. Kerry said was the country’s “extreme needs.” That assistance has already been approved by Congress.
Mr. Kerry also pledged $60 million for the creation of a fund to support small businesses, which will provide “direct support to key engines of democratic change in Egypt, including Egypt’s entrepreneurs and its young people.”
“Extreme needs”?? What exactly is that? And supporting small businesses??
How about supporting OUR small businesses first? How about meeting the extreme needs of Americans still without a place of their own after Hurricane Sandy? How about meeting the extreme needs of people who have to work two jobs because their hours were cut due to the implementation of Obamacare? Or how about meeting the needs of those being furloughed during Sequestration???
We are essentially funding them to hate us. Well, fuck that on a stick with sauce. They can hate us for free.
Because Speaking Fwench TOTALLY Qualifies One to Be an Idiot
And so it begins. Our esteamed (yes, I misspelled that on purpose, and it hurt) Secretary of State John “Effing” Kerry is now in Europe, trying to soothe ruffled feathers or something. Just their feathers, though. Not ours.
“People have sometimes wondered about why our Supreme Court allows one group or another to march in a parade even though it’s the most provocative thing in the world and they carry signs that are an insult to one group or another,” he added.
“The reason is, that’s freedom, freedom of speech. In American you have a right to be stupid -- if you want to be,” he said, prompting laughter. “And you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be.
“And we tolerate it. We somehow make it through that. Now, I think that’s a virtue. I think that’s something worth fighting for,” he added. “The important thing is to have the tolerance to say, you know, you can have a different point of view.”
Yes, he did say “In American”. Now, coming from anyone else, I wouldn’t be bothered. He’s right: you do have a right to be stupid. But this is the same guy who said, “You know, education -- if you make the most of it -- you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq,” which implied that if you’re not educated, you go into the military. And as y’all know, HE SERVED IN VIETNAM!!!ELEVENTY111!!!! He defends the right to be stupid, because without the stupid vote, we wouldn’t have Obama, or him as Sec State.
If he is out to make Prez Obama look good, he is not doing a good job of it.
Like We Needed Proof
If you had doubts that Hollywood is an arm of the White House, you shouldn’t now.
Michelle Obama surprises Oscars by presenting Best Picture award
On an evening when the most elite gather to give each other props, I found it rather apropos to have the Cremè de Politics give the award for Best Picture.
Y’all can go vomit if you haven’t done so by now.
Headlines and Their Explanations
I had to laugh last night at the Drudge Report™ headline. Matt Drudge is a master of juxtaposition.
Well, of course he does. That’s what the drones are for.
And then I read this:
ABC Gives Sen. Menendez Six Minute Interview With No Questions About FBI’s Hooker Investigation
And my thought was, why ask? It’s a resumé enhancer for a Democrat. Had it been male prostitutes, well then he would have gotten a promotion to Obama’s cabinet.
And finally, I read more on Bloomie, and shook my head.
Seriously, why would anyone expect Bloomberg to practice anything he preaches, or dictates? That’s for the Little People™.
So, there you have a few explanations on today’s headlines. Hope y’all can still enjoy your day!
*Ahem*
Because History has this Deja Vu thing going for it.
You think sure, but that was before we were a country and had the Second Amendment.
And I say sure, and that was before Executive Orders, Progressives, and Sandy Hook Elementary.
Never give up! Never surrender! And always remain vigilant.
Learning the Hard Way
Some of the H&B readers and lurkers may be familiar with RFID, AKA Radio Frequency Identification. Basically, it’s the use of a microchip to detect your presence. Ranchers use this for cattle.
And now schools use them for students.
[T]he Northside Independent School District will be issuing RFID-equipped identification cards that the kids have to wear on lanyards any time they’re on campus. And then, in some corner of the principal’s office, the students show up as moving dots on a map of the screen like some real life game of Pac Man.
When NISD first proposed this, they defended it by masking it with concern for truant children. But the reality is, it is a way to keep taking money from the state. You see, school budgets are intertwined with attendance, and if kids are not in his or her seat when roll is called, that means the school doesn’t get money for having a kid in that seat.
Now, y’all may think that parents are ok with this because the schools are using it, right? Noooooooope. Parents were told, not even asked that this programs was to be implemented. Now, that was their first mistake. Their second mistake was implementing it at a magnet school. One very intelligent young woman stood up for her rights and refused to wear the lanyard with the tracking chip, and for that, she was expelled. She in turn took the case to court, and a judge will be ruling on her temporary injunction next week. And as it happens, someone decided to wreak a little havoc to bring attention to this rather obvious infringement on privacy.
Personally, I am not a fan of the entity known as Anonymous. In their quest for equilateral anarchy, they tend to leave a mess in their wake. But they are an equal opportunity pest, and sometimes they do hit a nail in a coffin pretty well. This Anon person makes a valid point: ASK THE PARENTS FIRST!!! They are the ones paying the taxes for the school system. Further, I have an issue with their whole “first period attendance” thing. According to my source, attendance is taken in the second period, because students do run late, have mishaps on the road, or buses can be late getting in. By second period, everyone who is at school is there anyway. Any student that has a doctor’s appointment, for example, is counted present when he or she check into the attendance office, so that excuse is weak at best.
The whole program reeks of control. Anyone who claims that this is for the safety of the children is either deluded, or in collusion. Just think what would happen if a pedophile hacked into the database. What’s next? Spying on students’ webcams?
Oh, wait…. that already happened.
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