Disjointed Ramblings

I have been working quit a bit the past week and a half. Catching up with my clients needs and systems.

I have not been posting as much, and expect this to continue for about the next three to four weeks.

Today, I am about computered out.

So, in no particular order, I see the Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey's are throwing another hissy fit about their language being lost as the language of diplomats and I am sure this is why they are doing this:

France's report said standards of English in schools were poor and worsening.

"Its conclusions have been challenged by some politicians, including one deputy from the ruling UMP party, Jacques Myard.

He told Le Monde: "English is the most-spoken language today, but that won't last."

He said Spanish, Chinese and Arabic were all growing in importance.

"If we must make a language compulsory, it should be Arabic," he said."

And, here in the good old "Homeland", we have this:

Government Schools And Muslims Will Brainwash Your Kids
By Dave Gibson (10/22/04)

"In observance of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month will become part of the curriculum for many U.S. public school students. In Herndon, Va., a Muslim teacher named Ayeefa Syeed will be teaching third through fifth grade children in that city about Ramadan and the tenets of the Muslim religion (well, at least the popular tenets).

Over the last few years, this practice has been quietly spreading into this nation's government schools system. In 1997, the U.S. based Council on Islamic Education produced a 'lesson plan' entitled "Muslim Holidays" for U.S. children. The manual is full of politically-correct information about Islam as well as tips on how teachers can circumvent regulations against religion. Since that time, over 4,000 U.S. teachers have used it in their classrooms with the blessing of their respective school officials.

Prayer rugs are distributed, Muslim prayers are recited, and basically a 'happy face' is put on the most dangerous and violent religion the world has ever known. Government teachers and administrators who are overwhelmingly liberal, no doubt take great pleasure in turning our public schools into American hadrassas."

Then, jumping back overseas, Malaysia is taking away paper "money" for plastic "money":

Polymer notes to replace paper currency
Kamarul Yunus

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21:
Bank Negara Malaysia will start phasing out paper currency notes, replacing them with the new, more durable and security-featured polymer notes.

"On Tuesday, the central bank will launch for circulation notes of one denomination ? expected to be the RM5 ? to be followed by other denominations later.

Sources say the new notes are expected to be issued in time for the coming Deepavali and Hari Raya Aidilfitri holidays.

An official said once Bank Negara issues the polymer notes, the central bank will stop issuing the existing paper notes of the particular denomination.

However, existing paper notes in circulation will be considered legal tender until they are brought back to Bank Negara.

"At that point, we will not re-issue paper notes.

"We are phasing out the old notes gradually," the official said.

Polymer notes have a high level of durability and retain their quality while in circulation, as well as staying clean and hygienic to handle.

With clean, robust notes in circulation, polymer notes have a significantly extended lifetime, lasting three or four times longer than paper notes.

As such, they are very cost-effective with significant savings in the provision of notes for the country.

Not only that, at the end of their circulation life polymer notes can be recycled."

Gee, recycled, isn't that special, but not as special as what is happening in the U.K.:

Met deploys mobile gun scanner in London raid
By John Lettice
Published Saturday 23rd October 2004 13:37 GMT

"The Metropolitan Police deployed a weapons scanner in the London Borough of Lewisham last night, as the culmination of a week-long series of anti gun crime operations in the Borough. Friday's swoop also identified a radical new use for the Millenium Dome, although the scanner itself seems not to have detected any guns.

A BBC report tells us that police boarded 20 police vans and two London buses at the Dome, then swooped on a pub, a barber's shop and a take-away. Although the BBC says 700 officers were involved, The Register's abacus suggests that total capacity of the vehicles mentioned would be more in the region of 400, depending on how sociable the officers may have been feeling. But there may well have been a total of 700 involved.

A street was cordoned off, and the occupants of the premises were made to walk past the scanner, which found no guns. 14 people were however arrested for other reasons.

The Met has a small number of low intensity X-ray scanners, which it has previously offered to schools as weapons detectors, but it's also possible that the scanner is a 'weapons detector' it announced last year.

The Met declined to discuss the workings of the scanner when it was announced, but it is not exactly a secret. It is a Millimetre Wave Camera developed by QinetiQ, and the technology is particularly applicable for airport security scanners and similar. It works by passively detecting naturally occurring radiation, and as metal objects completely reflect this, they show up well. As the human body reflects 30 per cent of naturally occurring radiation, it sees through clothes and, as QinetiQ coyly puts it, "a person's actual body shape" can be seen. Phwoarrr..."

Of course, the Limey Bastard's at the Register, as regular readers of that site know, are always big on gun confiscation. Of course, most of those Limey Bastard's are, and look where it has brought them to.

Nevertheless, we have our own crime to worry about, such as these antics:

Early voting brings cries of bullying

By Brittany Wallman
Staff Writer

October 23, 2004

"On Election Day, voters will be protected from campaign pressures by a 50-foot cone, an invisible barrier that campaign workers cannot breach. Not so for early voters.

While the Voter's Bill of Rights in state law says they have a right to "vote free from coercion or intimidation by elections officers or any other person," a glitch in the newer early voting law does not include the same 50-foot guarantee.

As a result, with early voting taking place in busy public places like City Halls and libraries, voters are voicing complaints of being blocked by political mobs, or being singled out for their political views. Others say they have been grabbed, screamed at and cursed by political partisans of all stripes.

Republican Rep. Tom Feeney of Oviedo said the antagonizers are "Kerry thugs" out to harass Bush voters.

"If you ask me whether I believe there is an organized effort to intimidate Republican voters, the answer is absolutely yes," said Feeney.

The Republican Party is calling on the secretary of state's office for help, asking that early voting rules be clarified.

The secretary of state's office has not yet responded.

"Significant numbers of people have already been deterred from voting," wrote Republican Party Chairwoman Carole Jean Jordan to Secretary of State Glenda Hood, "and this will continue until corrective measures are taken."

Democratic Party officials in Tallahassee said they've had some complaints, too.

"We have had incidents as well," said Christine Anderson, spokeswoman for the Kerry campaign. "We've had quite a few."

She said the party hasn't taken affidavits from voters and found it shocking the Republicans were so focused on the issue rather than working to make sure people can vote."

Moreover, to think it is illegal to take a gun to a polling place, but then again, political arguments will happen anywhere and between anyone, and these Geeks prove it:

Libertarian Badnarik an Election Spoiler?

Posted by michael on Friday October 08, @04:24PM
from the election-already-spoiled dept.

Mr. Slippery writes "The New York Sun points out that Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik could tip the balance in this year's presidental election, like Ralph Nader is accused of having done in 2000. Bush's policies may be driving some traditional conservative Republican voters into the Libertarian camp. Rasmussen polls have put him as high as 5% in New Mexico and 3% in Nevada, which could make a difference in which major party candidate takes those states."

Hmm, all this because Bob Barr throws his support to Badnarik? Nope and not at all, but because people are angry that our Constitution and Bill of Rights are, and have for so long, been used as toilet paper.

However, anger is no longer an allowed emotion as explained in this editorial:

The anti-angry brigade

Anger management is all the rage these days. Brendan O?Neill says it?s a sign of emotional correctness gone mad

"Imagine if Arthur Seaton, the fictional factory hand created by Alan Sillitoe for his 1958 novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, had been around today. Sillitoe was the angriest of the Angry Young Men, and Seaton ? a ?billygoat trying to screw the world...because it?s trying to do the same to me? ? the most rebellious and unforgiving of his creations. He was a womanising wide-boy who worked in a Nottingham factory by day and drank himself stupid by night, spending his time ?fighting with mothers and wives, landlords and gaffers, coppers, army, government...?.

In New Labour?s New Britain, Seaton would be carted off for a short, sharp dose of anger management therapy, perhaps courtesy of the courts or as part of a workplace stress-relief programme. From schools and colleges to workplaces and prisons, the management of anger has become big business. Anger, or at least the unmediated expression of it, has effectively been outlawed. The emotional police have declared war on anyone who remotely resembles an angry young man (or woman). The aim, it seems to me, is to turn the ?billygoats? into sheep, yet barely an eyebrow has been raised in response to this insidious campaign of emotional conformism.

If the Fifties were ?The Angry Decade? (the title of Kenneth Allsop?s 1958 study of the AYM), then the noughties are the Anti-Angry Decade. Ours is an age which elevates emotion over reason ? provided our emotion of choice is on the approved list. We are encouraged to open up, confess, break down, weep, show compassion, and the more publicly we do it, the better. But anger? That is stigmatised. The British Association of Anger Management has a team of coaches who offer advice about this ?powerful? and potentially ?dangerous? emotion to the general public, children and teenagers, government bodies, corporations, the education sector, personnel managers and anyone else ?dealing with their own or another?s anger?. Its aim is to ?extinguish the flames? of anger, which, if left unmanaged, can apparently have ?massive social implications on your family, your career and ultimately YOU?. (At £110 per hour for a one-on-one phone session with a BAAM anger coach, it can also have massive implications for your bank balance.)"

I don't know about you, but I sure have been wanting to go out an kill something- fortunately, hunting season is almost here...

--WP