ITS ALL MINE, SHE SAID

Don't forget to click the header. Whatever happened to Preparations A through G? ------------------------------------------ In AOL's mail system, anytime you type the name "Obama" it is automatically underlined in red, which indicates a misspelling. Do they know something we don't? ------------------------------------------- For those interested in Zero Tolerance Rules, here's a few selections seen recently: Patrick Timoney, 9, was playing with Legos at lunch time at Public School 52 on Staten Island, N.Y. He particularly liked the policeman figure, since his father is a retired cop. But the boy was hauled into the principal's office for possession of a gun -- the tiny plastic one held by the Lego policeman. "They made me sign a statement," the tear-stained fourth-grader said. "She told me to write that I had a gun," he said. "She said, 'A gun is a gun'." The boy's mother had something to say about that. "This principal is a bully and a coward, and needs to be held accountable," said Laura Timoney, 44. "Why didn't anyone step up with an ounce of common sense and put an end to the harassment of my child?" (New York Daily News) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexa Gonzalez, 12, was doodling on her desk with an erasable marker at Junior High School 190 in Queens, N.Y., when officials called in police, who arrested her and took her to the precinct house in handcuffs, detaining her for several hours. "I made two little doodles," she said later. "It could be easily erased. I started crying, like, a lot." Once reporters got on the story, school officials backpedaled. "Based on what we've seen so far, this shouldn't have happened," said City Education Department spokesman David Cantor. "Even when we're asked to make an arrest, common sense should prevail," agreed police spokesman Paul Browne. Still, the girl was suspended from school for several days, and she was sentenced to eight hours of community service. (New York Daily News) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW DID WE SURVIVE?? No matter what our kids and the new generation think about us,WE ARE AWESOME ! OUR LIFE IS LIVING PROOF ! TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then, after that, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps, not helmets, on our heads. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes. Riding in the back of a pick-up truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this. We ate cupcakes made with lard, and we had white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank FLAV-OR-AID made with real white sugar. And we weren't overweight. WHY? Because we were always outside playing...that's why! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were OKAY. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Play stations, Nintendo' s and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping pong paddles, or just a bare hand and no one would call child services to report abuse. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! We knew the penalties involved if we talked back to out teachers and we learned to respect them and listen to what we were told. The alternative was detentions after school. These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. What can kids today do besides push buttons? We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good (?). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jay Leno: "With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of H1N1 flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KINDLES AND NOOKS I was gonna buy one of these things. At least until I thought about it and reflected on my reading habits. Well, I like to curl up on the sofa, with a cup of coffee or tea while I read. Balancing acts are not in my repertoire. I like to notate on the pages of the books I read, as various thoughts, awoken by the author, enter my mind. I like to dog ear my pages (yeah, I know, but I still do it).It's handy to throw at the dog for getting into mischief. My cat loves to curl up with me, sometimes helping to turn the pages. I sometimes snooze off while reading. The sound of a book falling on the carpet is barely noted by my ears. I'm pretty sure a "Clunk!" would wake me. It's never a problem for me to loan a book to a friend. I have noticed that books do not contribute to the radiation belts we all live in. I like that. When my butt gets sore, its an easy matter to move to a more comfortable position. Not sure how that works with a hunk of metal (or, gasp, plastic) in your hands. I know there are other reasons, too. But as for me, I like my style of reading, better than this electronic one. Oh, yes, the name "Kindle" sounds like something I should use in knitting. And "Nook" sounds almost indecent to me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is primarily a heads up, guys. While all of the news outlets have been focusing on Obama and the health care debate, the US government has been hiring some rather weird people for important tasks.

According to John Dvorak (a long time columnist for PC Magazine -- a well known commentator in the business and computer fields), the government has hired a couple of phonies to head up some programs.

The lead character is now the US Chief of Information, named Vivek Kundra. Read the article to get the details but it appears his resume is largely phony. Degrees claimed are either completely bogus or not as claimed. Dvorak has spent a great deal of time in Washington and frankly, this scares the crap out of me more than any health care debate.

Consider, personal privacy is up from grabs these days due to the constant flood of user data that flows on the web. We need some very sharp, knowledgeable people running the system and this guy is certainly not it.

Get this: the Recovery.com website the US government put together, apparently under this guy, cost 18 million dollars. Say what? What sort of freaking website cost 18 million dollars, TO PROGRAM!?!

That's right. the cost was for PROGRAMMING the site. Not for hardware like servers.Please, go to the following site and read up on it.

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let me see if I understand all this...

If you cross the North Korean border you get 12 years hard labor.

If you cross the Iranian border illegally you are detained indefinitely.

If you cross the Afghan border illegally you get shot.

But, if you cross the U.S. border illegally, you get a driver's licence, social security card, welfare, food stamps, a place to live and free health care.

Oh well, sure. That makes sense.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------