For the children: "trashcan cameras" and location-tracking chips

In the wake of American schoolkids rebelling against the federal government's new school lunch rules, a school district in Florida is considering installing video cameras on its school cafeteria trashcans so it can monitor and determine if students are throwing away their vegetables.

Meanwhile the students of Northside Independent School District in Texas are being told to wear ID badges containing location-tracking radio chips on penalty of "suspension, fines, or being involuntary transferred".

Here's an idea: the students should go ahead and wear the badges, but only after putting them in their microwave ovens for a minute or two. THAT oughtta scramble the innards enough to make them useless!

Some good commentary by Fred Reed - the Internet's finest curmudgeon - about the growing "Eye of Sauron" over us, which you can read here.

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A textbook education in ignorance

A few days ago my friend and fellow blogger Matthew Federico addressed the situation with history education in the state of Texas. In case you missed that bit of news, last week the Texas State Board of Education voted 10 to 5 to make drastic changes to the history, social studies and economics curricula being taught in that state's schools.

The vote occurred along split partisan lines. The ten Republicans on the board voted for the curriculum changes and the five Democrats opposed it. The results have been both hailed and condemned as giving the teaching materials a "conservative" and "right-leaning" slant, as opposed to what some construe is a "liberal" one.

The reason this is going to be a big deal for the rest of the country is because Texas is one of the biggest consumers in the highly lucrative business of school textbooks. So if textbook publishers have to produce for the Texas market, those same learning materials will likely be adopted in other states.

Matthew wrote on his blog about how this smacks too much of political propaganda. And, he would be correct.

But what troubles me especially about this - and it's taken me a few days to really feel ready to articulate my thoughts on it - is that the Texas State Board of Education is perpetuating a terrible ignorance... and it has nothing to do with the ideological flavor of the textbooks that they will be using. I would be just as bothered by the board's actions if it had purposefully chosen an admittedly left-leaning curriculum.

The ten members of the board who voted for these changes demonstrated no wisdom or foresight by wielding their power in order to literally ensconce Newt Gingrich and the Moral Majority in the history books, or to remove entirely any mention of Thomas Jefferson as a leading intellectual guiding light of early America (huh?!). And it's even troubling that the board deliberately chose to remove Ross Perot's 1992 run for President from historical discussion (the 1994 "Contract with America" however did make it in).

Is it Republican/"conservative" propaganda? Hell yes it is. And it would be just as wrong if it were Democrat/"liberal" propaganda. The examination and deliberation of history should never be defined by and along partisan lines. History is a broad tapestry, and to selectively pull this thread or that one out of it is to cheapen and make worthless the work entire.

But that still isn't what is particularly frustrating me about what the Texas State Board of Education has chosen to do. No, what irks me the most is that in spite of its sworn duty and very title, the board has chosen not to educate young minds, but to rather instill unquestioning obedience to the status quo and a paradigm fast approaching obsolescence.

Education is supposed to be a thing that transforms a person into an enlightened individual. The intended result of education should be a person capable of wise choice, rational mind, and liberty to pursue the exercise of personal conscience. In short: education is that which most empowers one to be free... including the freedom to question The Way Things Are.

The Texas State Board of Education, however, has chosen to compel the millions of children in its charge to accept The Way Things Are without question. And I would say that regardless of which ideology the curricula was being slanted toward. The Texas State Board of Education however has taken an education of ignorance to an entire new level of brazenness. The board - along with all other school boards in the United States - should be doing its damndest to encourage its students to not think in terms of "conservative and liberal". That is a dichotomy as false as anything could possibly be. It is also one that I am increasingly seeing is being challenged and questioned by a growing number of people.

But it's not freedom of mind that the Republicans of Texas' state school board have shown they are interested in by this course of action. Rather, they have demonstrated that they want, in their own way, to continue propping up the two-party puppet show that is destroying America.

Well, America isn't going to be saved for our children by the party faithful of either the Democrats or the Republicans. If America is going to have any future at all, it's going to come by the hard work, tireless efforts and even sacrifice of those who refused to abide by The Way Things Are.

The Texas State Board of Education had an opportunity to lead the way in this country by an infusion of fresh blood. Instead it chose to continue a condition of terminal anemia.

Perhaps there is a country in history that has thrived on a determined education in ignorance and apathy. But if there is one, it's not coming to the mind of this writer. And I doubt that Texas, as a state, is going to prove to be any different.

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Homeland Security is now officially worse than useless

Malik Nadal Hasan, the U.S. Army major who massacred thirteen people and injured more than forty others at Fort Hood in Texas last week, made numerous attempts to contact members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda by e-mail...

...and the FBI and other U.S. government intelligence agencies knew all about it but did nothing! Their general consensus was that Hasan's activity wasn't important enough to investigate.

So let's ask the obvious question: WHAT THE #%@$-ING HELL GOOD IS THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY?!?

No way around it: the United States government effed-up heinously. Homeland Security failed! The mechanism put in place by George W. Bush, Congress, and continued by Barack Obama SCREWED THE POOCH!

There is no more justification for the existence of the Department of Homeland Security, if it couldn't prevent something like this while knowing fully well that Hasan was apparently trying to actively conspire with the same bastards that caused the 9/11 attacks to begin with.

Ask yourself this folks: if your own government can't keep us safe from an American soldier who was seeking to collaborate with this country's enemies when it knew Hasan was trying to do so, how CAN it keep us safe from anything?

Protect yourselves. Lord knows the government can't.

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Are there any consistent politicians left?

As I write this, Drudge Report has a red-colored link to a story about Governor Rick Perry of Texas vowing that he would assert that state's Tenth Amendment rights if he had to in order to oppose President Obama's plans to nationalize health care.

Hey, I'm all for that. I think every state should consider using that Tenth Amendment. But does Governor Perry seriously oppose Obama's mad medical plot on account of principle?

Because as recently as two and a half years ago Perry was very much for government-mandated medicine! It was in February of 2007 that he issued an executive order mandating that all girls entering the sixth grade be vaccinated against cervical cancer. The only vaccine available, Gardasil, is manufactured by Merck & Co.

And it soon turned out that Perry was more or less in Merck & Co.'s pocket, having received $6000 from the corporation's political action committee and that his former chief of staff was one of three registered lobbyists for Merck.

Ultimately the executive order was defeated by act of legislation, after a tremendous uproar from doctors, parents and others. Had it been enforced, that would have been all of Texas's young ladies having to get a shot at $120 each... with the money going to one of Perry's campaign contributors.

Rick Perry wanted to take a vital health care decision out of the province of families and their private practitioners, and hand it over to bureaucrats and government flunkies.

Sounds like Rick Perry was "for it before he was against it" when it comes to government-managed health care.

I am so damned sick and tired of these partisan #&@$ers who apparently have no virtues or principles that they aren't willing and able to sell out for the right price. And I mean both of the major parties that are dominating this country's politics.

How many elected officials in high office can I say that I respect? I'll only remark that I can number them all on one hand. And maybe only one of those is from my own home state of North Carolina.

It's not just a parliament of whores. It's a system-wide corruption.

So when the hell are we the people gonna stop falling for the "shuck and jive" of these bastitches and whip them all out of where they should have never been allowed in the first place?

Or to paraphrase that Nazi agent from Raiders of the Lost Ark: "Shoot them. Shoot them all!"

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Texas preparing for possible collapse of Mexican government

This might be the most under-reported story in America right now, that has the potential to wreck the most havoc on this country: the escalating violence of the drug wars in Mexico and the teetering stability of that country's government.

I've got friends in Mexico City who tell me they can't believe us Yanks aren't talking about this "enough". Juarez, straight across the border from El Paso, has seen more than fifteen hundred murders already in the past year. Many of them have been of the "send a message" variety... particularly the bodies that the police are finding sans heads.

So maybe this'll open some eyes: the government of the state of Texas is bracing for a likely collapse of Mexico's authority and the millions of refugees that would no doubt be streaming north to escape the chaos.

Should this happen, the services infrastructure of the United States... well, it ain't in such hot shape either, is it?

Whatever happens, it will assuredly not be anything like this great clip from the Latino Comedy Project...

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Hacked electronic road signs warn motorists of Nazi zombies, velociraptors

High-tech practical jokers in three states have declared war on those electronic road signs that DMVs put out to relay information to drivers. Here's what one sign in Austin, Texas alerted motorists to...

But these weren't ordinary zombies, mind you. They were "Nazi zombies", from which people were urged to flee toward cooler climates. While Texas and Illinois got plagued with zombies, Indiana roadways suddenly became flooded with raptors from Jurassic Park.

Mash down here for the story and video about the highway highjinks!

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Bush wants gate on public street to limit access to new home

I defy anyone to tell me that these people don't think of themselves as elitist royalty who believe they are better than the rest of us...

George W. Bush wants taxpayer money to pay for a gate to be installed on the public street where he will soon be living in Dallas after he leaves office in a few weeks. The gate will be a hindrance to those who already live on the street.

So because George W. Bush as a private citizen has chosen to live in a certain place, the right to free movement of not just his neighbors but all other Americans will be limited by act of government, paid for by our money, if this goes through.

Even without having it actually declared, is this not tantamount to granting Bush a de facto "title of nobility"?

If Bush is that concerned about his safety - though God only knows what ever gave him such a notion - then he should retreat to a house located a remote distance from any public thoroughfare, where he can provide for a gate and guards paid for out of his own pocket.

And isn't it funny that Bush wants to secure himself away behind a fence... when he hasn't done a damned thing about building a real barrier against illegal invasion along the border with Mexico?

America will not long survive tolerating this brand of hypocrisy. Maybe it's time for another storming of the Tuileries.

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This blog just got a visitor from Galveston, Texas

Whoever you are, I hope we have the pleasure of meeting someday.

But until then, get the flying f--- out of there.

(In case nobody has heard the news, authorities are telling people who for whatever reason choose to stay behind to write their names and Social Security numbers on their arms with Sharpies, so that the bodies/parts can be identified later.)

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Is it a police state NOW?

How in the world does a sheriff's department in a mostly-rural west Texas county justify having in its possession an armored personnel carrier?

This was a picture taken during the raid a few weeks ago on the property of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I know there have been some serious allegations regarding this religious group. And hopefully this will be looked into with all proper due process. But think about it: all of this happened because of one anonymous phone call. That was enough to send more military-grade hardware descending on the place than is usually seen escorting Vice President Cheney on an excursion through the green zone.

It just lends itself toward making you wonder: how long has the Midland County Sheriff's Department staff had such equipment, and why did they believe they needed it to begin with?

And how many other law enforcement agencies throughout America are lusting after such toys, if they don't have them already?

I'm starting to believe that nobody should be allowed to enter into a career as a peace officer (that's what I'm calling them) until they're at least 30 years old. That's long enough to experience the world as it really is, to get knocked around some and be humbled by it. And then, go into this as a career in public service, having resolved to be someone who rises above the way the world expects to work.

'Cuz otherwise, there are too many guys out there who've been given too much power and not nearly enough discipline to know not only how to use it, but how not to use it, too. Pictures like this one are a tangible reminder of that.

And God help us if enough of these people ever get too carried away with the firepower they've been given.

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"And we'll bring it back no matter what it takes..."

Remember how Smokey and the Bandit was about smuggling a lot of Coors beer from Texas to Atlanta, because at the time it was illegal for Coors to be shipped anywhere east of Texas? Well, right now I feel a bit like "Big Enos" Burdette 'cuz even though I don't drink beer, I do now have something that is still as hard to get outside of Texas today as Coors was thirty years ago...

It's a six-pack of Dublin Dr. Pepper. Last month when I went to Texas, I got to visit the Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco. That part of Texas is the only place that you can find what is called "Dublin Dr. Pepper", which is Dr. Pepper made with real cane sugar as opposed to corn syrup. They were selling the Dublin Dr. Pepper at the gift shop there, but since I was going back on a plane and didn't have much room in luggage, I had to pass on getting any to bring home to North Carolina. Fortunately my bro-in-law Jonathan (who's in seminary at Waco) bought some, then drove it from Texas to Georgia (how is this not like Smokey and the Bandit, exactly?) and then gave it to us to drive back to North Carolina when we went to Lisa's parents' home for Christmas.

We haven't opened any yet. As hard to find as this stuff is, we're more or less saving it for special occasions. But if you're desperate to try Dr. Pepper the way it was originally made, head over to Old Doc's Soda Shop and you can buy Dublin Dr. Pepper over the Internet for shipping to just about anywhere.

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Pictures from Texas, Part 3

I'm gonna go ahead and knock the rest of this thing out of the ballpark, 'cuz the next few days are going to be crazy busy and I've put off doing this long enough. So here's the rest of the photos from Texas (here's Part 1 and here's Part 2).

One of the things that I'd wanted to do while I was in Texas was visit my brother-in-law Jonathan, who's a seminary student at Baylor University in Waco. On Friday, the day after I went to the Alamo, Deborah and I hopped in my rented Jeep and took off for Austin, where we'd catch I-35 north.

Here's Austin as we were entering town...

Here's Deborah. The last time we'd seen each other, it was at Star Wars Celebration III in Indianapolis two and a half years earlier.

This was taken while we were on Congressional Avenue, with the Texas State Capitol in front of us...

This is me, in front of the University of Texas Tower. This is the very building from which Charles Whitman shot and killed all those people in 1966. I heard that there are still places around the building down on the street that you can see where the bullets hit concrete walls and such. Macabre history aside, the Tower is one of the things that dominate the Austin landscape, and is often lit up for holidays and whenever University of Texas wins a ballgame.

After that, Deborah and I got onto I-35 and headed north. It was about two hours later when we hit the outskirts of Waco. A short while later, and we were at Jonathan's apartment! 'Twas a really great thing to hook up with my bro-in-law so far from home.

By the time we got there, we were starving. Jonathan said that he knew of a good place to eat, and it must have been 'cuz he's mentioned this a few times already: Rosati's Pizza. That's where he took us. Here's Jonathan after we got seated...

Rosati's serves up Chicago-style deep-dish pizza. That was the first time that I'd ever had any and it was delicious! Here's the soft drink cup that I got, which I took a pic of mostly so I could point out the phone number of the place...

After lunch, Jonathan took us to the Dr. Pepper Museum. Waco is the town where Dr. Pepper was first invented, and it's practically the official drink of the state of Texas...

Here's Deborah with a spooky animatronic talking Charles Alderton, the guy who invented Dr. Pepper...

We were at the Dr. Pepper Museum for a while and then Jonathan took us on a tour of Baylor, which is one of the biggest campuses that I've ever seen: the science building itself is bigger than the entire campus of Elon University south of Haggard Avenue! Here's Baylor as we were entering the place...

Here's a side-shot of the seminary building. Note the Bible verse that says "The night cometh". That's the seminary's ummm... official verse, or something, according to Jonathan...

A shot of inside the stained-glass windows inside the seminary's chapel...

This is Deborah and I at the sign outside the seminary. The building behind us is a parking deck, that Jonathan said the Baylor students refer to as the "Garage-Mahal". Something else about Baylor: every building on campus seems to have at least one steeple. Strange, that...

And here's me and Jonathan at the sign for the George W. Truett Theological Seminary...

After we went around Baylor, we headed back to Jonathan's place, said our goodbyes for now ('cuz it would just be a few more weeks before Jonathan and I saw each other again) and Deboran and I headed back to her house near Austin. On the return trip, we got to see a beautiful sunset, and Deborah was able to get some pics...

We made it back to her house, and then I was headed back toward downtown Austin, for this "meet and greet" for the Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 attendees at a local chili honky-tonk. That's where, after all of these years (I was one of Ain't It Cool News's first readers, even remember the day Harry posted those pictures from Star Wars Episode IV Special Edition which kinda launched the site) I got to finally meet Harry Knowles. Here's the pic of us together...

Then I went back to Deborah's place and wound up having to call FedEx to fuss at them for not having delivered a package on time (I'd sent it on Monday for 2-day delivery to Deborah's house, and it was now Friday night). The FedEx rep - who I'm fairly sure wasn't even talking to me from anywhere in the United States - told me that it would get there "tomorrow". When tomorrow morning came, it still hadn't got there... and the next FedEx person that I talked to on the phone said that particular station wasn't even open on weekends! "I don't care how you do it," I told her, "you had better get that package here today. I don't care if they are closed are not, FedEx failed to live up to its end of a contract. You'd better make up for it immediately." Well those weren't my exact words: they actual dialogue was, shall we say, far more colorful. But this comes into play before long in our story, that's why I wanted to mention it.

Saturday was the day of Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9. That morning before I left for the event in Austin (which I wouldn't return from until the following day, it being a 24-hour long film festival), I spotted this dear outside of Deborah's kitchen window...

Not long after that, I left for Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9. There aren't any pictures from that, because cameras, cellphones and similar electronic devices weren't allowed. Here's the report on Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 that I made a few days after I got back home, in case you're wondering what went on there (I'm still laughing at how they ran a documentary about a urethroplasty during breakfast).

Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 ended a little after noon on Sunday. I went back to where I'd parked the Jeep, at the Hilton Hotel a few blocks away, and then very tiredly headed back "home". On the main road to Deborah's house a storm front was roaring across the landscape, and I got to get a neat pic of that...

The front brought significantly lower temperates to that part of Texas: most of the time that I was there, it was around 70-72. The high the next day was 50.

When I got back, I found out that a FedEx person had come from the shipping facility not long after I'd left the previous day, driving his own car and very apologetic about how my package had been sitting at his office for three days without any attempt to deliver. I'll give FedEx credit for trying to make up for their bungling (in addition to their offering to refund my money). Now, what was so important about that package? I'd put some presents in it for Deborah and her family, out of gratitude for their providing me with a place to stay while I was there for the film festival. Some of this stuff that I was giving them weren't the kind of things that you want to bring on a commercial airliner. Namely, this very cool railroad spike knife (the entire knife, blade and handle, is forged from a single railroad spike) that my Dad made for me to give to Deborah's father...

I also gave Deborah some Star Wars figures from my personal collection that I knew she had been looking for, and gift cards for her and her sisters.

And that's pretty much it for the Texas trip. The next morning I finished packing, bid farewell to Deborah and her family (Lord willing, Lisa and I will be going to Austin in the spring and we'll get to see Deborah again) and then I headed to the airport, stopping at a shipping place on the way to get the HD-DVD player (the one that Harry gave everyone who attended Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9) and posters from the event sent home 'cuz there wasn't room to put them in my luggage. I turned in the Jeep, checked in my luggage, hopped on the plane, and started the journey home.

Very heartfelt thanks to Deborah Wilson, her dad, her sisters, and their dogs for hosting me while I was visiting Texas!

All in all, it was a terrific trip. And after everything else that's happened over this past year, the whole thing was a wonderful way to help cap off 2007. I hope and pray that maybe, just maybe, it'll be a sign that things might bode well for 2008 :-)

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Pictures from Texas, Part 2

Here are more photos from my Texas adventure. When we left off at Part 1, I'd arrived at my friend Deborah's house in Texas. The next morning, before anyone else had woken up, I went out for a walk around her house.

Here's Deborah's backyard. As I told her when I got there, "You could throw a dead body back there and nobody would ever find it." Also fun to keep in mind that this is Travis County, which was the setting of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Just think: somewhere in those hills, Leatherface could yet be lurking with his trusty Stihl...

Some road I found, that goes... Lord knows where.

Here's a shot of Deborah's house from the backyard. That's Deborah's sister's dog Sophie who's bouncing across the grass...

Here's the scene from Deborah's front porch...

And some of her front yard (the pics can't do any justice to how vast this place really is)...

The first cactus that I've ever seen growing in the wild...

And here's a yucca plant...

And here's a... actually I forget what kind of plant that Deborah told me this is.

A close-up of Sophie as I was going back inside...

Around 1:30 that afternoon (Thursday), I left Deborah's house and soon was on Highway 281, tearing across the Texas landscape, headed south...

And two hours or so later, I was in San Antonio, en route to the Alamo...

Finally, after wanting to visit the place for over a quarter-century, here I was, at the Alamo!

Here's some more stuff around the Alamo: barracks, Spanish cannon, etc...

Being into knifemaking (along with Dad), the Alamo has a special place in my heart because this is where Jim Bowie died. Althoug these are not Bowie's personal knives (or maybe they are, who knows?), the Alamo has a number of Bowie knives on display...

I was at the Alamo for about an hour or so, and then left. On the way out I spotted Bowie Street, which I thought was a cool name for a road...

I got a sandwich at a Quizno's on the way back, and about an hour later or so I drove through the town of Blanco. I tried getting some pics of the Christmas lights that the town was decorated with...

I think that's probably enough photos for this installment. I'm going to try to get the rest up later this evening in Part 3, which'll cover the following day's trip to Waco and some other stuff.

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Pictures from Texas, Part 1

Here they are finally: photos from the trip to Texas that I made earlier this month. Took awhile to get around to posting these 'cuz there were so many (over 380) across a six-day period, and I've been extremely busy since getting back. Obviously this isn't all of the pics, but they'll give you a gist of what went down there (except for during Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 itself because cameras weren't allowed in there). And because there are so many (and also 'cuz it's a bit late) I'm going to break these down into two parts. The second installment of pics, I'm gonna try to have up later on Saturday night. Anyhoo, here's the first batch of photos from my odyssey to Texas!

I flew out of Raleigh-Durham on the morning of December 5th, en route to Orlando and then the plane would go on to Houston. On the south-bound flight I got to see Charleston, South Carolina from the air...

And after leaving Orlando, it wasn't long before I got my first-ever look at the Gulf of Mexico...

Here's something I didn't expect to see: New Orleans. The pilot didn't announce it, but I immediately recognized the causeway across Lake Pontchartrain. Even from the air, I couldn't help but think that New Orleans looked... a bit messy. Is that still damage from Katrina? I'd never seen New Orleans before, so I don't know. But compared to other cities that I've seen from the air, New Orleans seemed dingy...

Here's an un-resized (read as: very very big) image of New Orleans, if you want to see some more detail...

And here's a pic I took of what I call "Voodoo Country"...

Around the time that New Orleans came into view, I saw something else that I'd never seen before in my life: offshore oil rigs. And there were a lot more than I ever thought were out there. Not only that but they were also fairly close to shore and spaced relatively close by to each other: I saw one cluster of them that I'm pretty sure I could swim from one to the other, they were in such a small area. Here's one of the better pics that I was able to get...

As we were approaching Houston, I spotted this fighter jet off the starboard side of the plane. It was flying at a speed and trajectory that put it almost synchronous with our airliner, so I was able to snap this cool pic...

Here's the Johnson Space Center as we were approaching the airport...

And here's downtown Houston, along with the Astrodome...

As we were landing in Houston, the dude sitting behind me told me "Welcome to Texas!" His name was Terry, and I thought that was worth mentioning here too 'cuz that was the first time ever that someone welcomed me to Texas...

I got to Houston, waited at the airport for an hour and a half and then took off for Austin (I flew Southwest Airlines by the way, an outfit that really impressed me with a lot of things, including their innovative way of how they board the planes). When I got to Austin and retrieved my luggage, I went to rent a vehicle. The nice girl at the desk recognized me from my appearance on The Soup on E! several weeks ago. The car rental folks said they didn't have too much at the moment. "Give me the most Texas-ish thing you got," I told them. "The Jeep," one girl said: "You want the big white Jeep." Here's what I wound up tearing across the Texas landscape in for my trip: a 2008 Jeep...

I took off and got to Deborah's house about a half-hour later. It wasn't long afterward that Deborah's dad got home from work, and we went to a real honest-to-goodness Tex-Mex restaurant for dinner (a place that had the spiciest salsa that I've ever had in a restaurant). Then we went back home and I turned in for the night.

And that's a great stopping-point for this edition of "Pictures from Texas". Will have the next bunch up real soon :-)

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