WHY MEN DIE YOUNG AND OTHER NONSENSE

^-----Why men die young. Did You Know? Did you know that male moose use almost as much energy growing their antlers yearly as female moose use being pregnant? . So much for my Canadian friends. . Don't forget to click the header. Did you know that today is Procrastinator's New Year? If you are a procrastinator, you should be getting around to celebrating the New Year today. Do it today. Or tomorrow. No hurry. ;-) . An old biker, on a summer ride in the country, walks into a tavern and sees a sign hanging over the bar which reads: CHEESEBURGER: $1.50 CHICKEN SANDWICH : $2.50 HAND JOB: $1,000. Checking his wallet for the necessary payment, he walks up to the bar and beckons to the exceptionally attractive female bartender serving drinks to a meager looking group of farmers. "Yes?" she inquires with an impish smile, "Can I help you?" "I was wondering," whispers the old biker, "are you the young lady who gives the hand jobs? "Yes" she purrs, "I am. "The old biker replies, "Well wash your hands. I want a cheeseburger." . Here's a little something to ease your pain Click here: Serenity . Bread bowls emerge strong in Britain A food company in Birmingham, England, has begun marketing fully edible bowls and plates. The dishes are made of dough but a special industrial oven bakes the inside and outside of the bowls and plates to give them a stronger "double crust" to keep from getting soggy, the Daily Telegraph reported Monday. David Williams, the managing director of Butt Foods, which developed the idea, said: "Our banks, our investors all thought we were crackers. But we've now proved them wrong." He added that the company will provide its microwaveable naan bowl filled with chicken tikka masala to a leading supermarket chain. Williams said Butt's bowls hold their shape for eight hours without going soggy. This has got to be a put on. The names are too easy. . Something else for Canucks... A butcher fresh out of trade school in Canada gets a job skinning and cutting up the kills of local hunters. His first assignment is a moose. He cuts the moose up and puts the parts into carefully marked bags: chops, steak, ribs, sirloin, etc, etc. When he finishes, he still has a pile of unidentifiable parts. He shrugs and puts them all into one large bag, which he marks "Moosellaneous." . The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling. . Be Careful. Swine Flu is coming. As you know, there is a possibility of another outbreak of swine flu during the next few months of flu season.

In order that you may be on the alert for indications that you or members of you family may have

contracted the Swine Flu Virus, you should be aware of the symptoms associated with this disease:

1) Sore throat.

2) Slight headache.

3) Moderate to high temperature.

4) Nausea or upset stomach.

5) A strong urge to have sex in the mud.

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The other night, Wild Thing and I were going out. She sat there and put on eyebrow pencil, eye shadow, eyeliner, eyelashes, mascara, toner, blush and lipstick, then turned to me and said, "Does this look natural?"

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David took his blind date to the carnival.

"What wouldyou like to do first, Kim?" asked David.

"I want to get weighed" she said. They ambled over to the weight guesser. He guessed 120 pounds. She got on the scale, it read 117 and they won a prize.

Next the couple went on the Ferris Wheel. When the ride was over, David again asked Kim what she would like to do.

"I want to get weighed," she said. Back to the weight guesser they went. Since they had been there before, he guessed her correct weight, and Joe lost his dollar.The couple walked around the carnival and again he asked where to next.

"I want to get weighed," she responded.

By this time David figured she was really weird and took her home early, dropping her off with a hand shake.

Her roommate, Laura, asked her about the blind date,"How'd it go?"

Kim responded, "Oh, Waura, it was wousy!"

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Little Hughie was eating breakfast one morning and started thinking about things.

"Mommy, why does daddy have so few hairs on his head?" he asked his mother.

"He thinks a lot," replied his mother, pleased with herself for coming up with a good answer to her husband's baldness.

Johnny thought for a second and asked,"So why do you have so much hair?"

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"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." -- Herm Albright

SCHOOL DAYS, SCHOOL DAYS

The link under the header has absolutely nothing to do with this rant. Enjoy it. Have you heard about Detroit schools? Or our Albuquerque schools? Or schools in (insert your city's name)? . Detroit, the capital city of American automobile manufacturers, has a high school graduation rate of 25%. That means 75% of the students are drop outs. Albuquerque has a graduation rate of 53%. That means 47% are drop outs. The District of Columbia has a drop out rate of 41%. Providence, R.I., graduates 54% of its kids. That means 46% do not graduate. . And on and on. And School Boards make up excuses and try to reinterpret these findings using various semantic attacks. All the while the local School Boards know that they do not control what the kids are taught. Here in N.M. the state has the final say on education. End of discussion. Makes you wonder why we should have the expense of local school boards. I guess they are good for passing students with D and F averages. . "One in 10 Schools Are 'Dropout Factories' By NANCY ZUCKERBROD, AP Posted: 2007-10-29 22:36:03 It's a nickname no principal could be proud of: "Dropout Factory," a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. That description fits more than one in 10 high schools across America."If you're born in a neighborhood or town where the only high school is one where graduation is not the norm, how is this living in the land of equal opportunity?" asks Bob Balfanz, the Johns Hopkins researcher who coined the term "dropout factory." The Bottom Five States Eric Draper, AP New MexicoDropout Factories: 26 out of 98 schools (26.5 percent) Rank: 46 out of 50 There are about 1,700 regular or vocational high schools nationwide that fit that description, according to an analysis of Education Department data conducted by Johns Hopkins for The Associated Press. That's 12 percent of all such schools, about the same level as a decade ago. While some of the missing students transferred, most dropped out, says Balfanz. The data look at senior classes for three years in a row to make sure local events like plant closures aren't to blame for the low retention rates. The highest concentration of dropout factories is in large cities or high-poverty rural areas in the South and Southwest. Most have high proportions of minority students. These schools are tougher to turn around because their students face challenges well beyond the academic ones - the need to work as well as go to school, for example, or a need for social services.Utah, which has low poverty rates and fewer minorities than most states, is the only state without a dropout factory. Florida and South Carolina have the highest percentages. What's Your Take? "Part of the problem we've had here is, we live in a state that culturally and traditionally has not valued a high school education," said Jim Foster, a spokesman for the South Carolina department of education. He noted that residents in that state previously could get good jobs in textile mills without a high school degree, but that those jobs are gone today. Washington hasn't focused much attention on the problem. The No Child Left Behind Act, for example, pays much more attention to educating younger students. But that appears to be changing. House and Senate proposals to renew the 5-year-old No Child law would give high schools more federal money and put more pressure on them to improve on graduation performance, and the Bush administration supports that idea. The current NCLB law imposes serious consequences on schools that report low scores on math and reading tests, and this fallout can include replacement of teachers or principals - or both. But the law doesn't have the same kind of enforcement teeth when it comes to graduation rates. Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. students graduate on time with a regular diploma. For Hispanic and black students, the proportion drops to about half. The Top States VermontDropout Factories: 1 out of 51 schools (2 percent)Rank: 5 out of 50 The legislative proposals circulating in Congress would: Make sure schools report their graduation rates by racial, ethnic, and other subgroups and are judged on those results. That's to ensure that schools aren't just graduating white students in high numbers, but also are working to ensure that minority students get diplomas. Get states to build data systems to keep track of students throughout their school years and more accurately measure graduation and dropout rates. Ensure that states count graduation rates in a uniform way. States have used a variety of formulas, including counting the percentage of entering seniors who get a diploma. That measurement ignores the obvious fact that kids who drop out typically do so before their senior year. Create strong progress goals for graduation rates and impose sanctions on schools that miss those benchmarks. Most states currently lack meaningful goals, according to The Education Trust, a nonprofit group that advocates for poor and minority children. The current law requires testing in reading and math once in high school, and those tests take on added importance because of the serious consequences for a school of failure. Critics say that creates a perverse incentive for schools to encourage kids to drop out before they bring down a school's scores. "The vast majority of educators do not want to push out kids, but the pressures to raise test scores above all else are intense," said Bethany Little, vice president for policy at the Alliance for Excellent Education, an advocacy group focused on high schools. "To know if a high school is doing its job, we need to consider test scores and graduation rates equally." Little said some students pushed out of high schools are encouraged to enroll in programs that prepare them to take the GED exam. People who pass that test get certificates indicating they have high-school level academic skills. But the research shows that getting a GED doesn't lead to the kind of job or college success associated with a regular diploma. Loretta Singletary, 17, enrolled in a GED program after dropping out of a Washington, D.C. high school that she describes as huge, chaotic and violent. "Girls got jumped. Boys got jumped, teachers (were) fighting and hitting students," she said. She said teachers had low expectations for students, which led to dull classes. "They were teaching me stuff I already knew ... basic nouns, simple adjectives." Singletary said a subject she loved was science but she wasn't offered it, and complaints to administrators went unanswered. "I was interested in experiments," she said. "I didn't have science in 9th or 10th grade." A GED classmate of Singletary's is 23-year-old Dontike Miller, who attended and left two D.C. high schools on the dropout factory list. Miller was brought up by a single mother who used drugs, and he says teachers and counselors seemed oblivious to what was going on in his life.He would have liked for someone to sit him down and say, "'You really need to go to class. We're going to work with you. We're going to help you'," Miller said. Instead,"I had nobody." Teachers and administrators at Baltimore Talent Development High School, where 90 percent of kids are on track toward graduating on time, are working hard to make sure students don't have an experience like Miller's. The school, which sits in the middle of a high-crime, impoverished neighborhood two miles west of downtown Baltimore, was founded by Balfanz and others four years ago as a laboratory for getting kids out on time with a diploma and ready for college.Teachers, students and administrators at the school know each other well. "I know teachers that have knocked on people's doors. They want us to succeed," 12th-grader Jasmine Coleman said during a lunchtime chat in the cafeteria. Fellow senior Victoria Haynes says she likes the way the school organizes teachers in teams of four, with each team of teachers assigned to a group of 75 students. The teachers work across subject areas, meaning English and math teachers, for example, collaborate on lessons and discuss individual students' needs."They all concentrate on what's best for us together," Haynes said. "It's very family oriented. We feel really close to them." Teachers, too, say it works."I know the students a lot better, because I know the teachers who teach them," said 10th-grade English teacher Jenni Williams. "Everyone's on the same page, so it's not like you're alone in your mission."That mission can be daunting. The majority of students who enter Baltimore Talent Development in ninth grade are reading at a fifth- or sixth-grade level. To get caught up, students have 80-minute lessons in reading and math, instead of the typical 45 minutes. They also get additional time with specialists if needed. The fact that kids are entering high schools with such poor literacy skills raises questions about how much catch-up work high schools can be expected to do and whether more pressure should be placed on middle schools and even elementary schools, say some high-school principals. "We're at the end of the process," says Mel Riddile, principal of T.C. Williams High School, a large public school in Alexandria, Va. "People don't walk into 9th grade and suddenly have a reading problem."Other challenges to high schools come from outside the school system. In high-poverty districts, some students believe it's more important to work than to stay in school, or they are lured away by gang activity or other kinds of peer or family pressure. At Baltimore Talent Development, administrators try to set mini-milestones and celebrations for students so they stay motivated. These include more fashionable uniforms with each promotion to the next grade, pins for completing special programs and pizza parties to celebrate good attendance records."The kids are just starved for recognition and attention. Little social rewards matter to them," said Balfanz. Balfanz says, however, that students understand the biggest reward they can collect is the piece of paper handed to them on graduation day.Without it, "there's not much work for you anymore," he said. "There's no way out of the cycle of poverty if you don't have a high school diploma." . And still parents don't take an interest in whether, or what, their kids are taught.

BEING STUNNED AND AMAZED

Be sure to click the header when you're finished reading this. . I don't know about you, but I am always amazed when things I thought I knew about, turn out to be apparently false. Or at least not correct. . Maybe it's just the fickleness of facts. Maybe Chaos has arrived. Maybe you assumed something and you shouldn't have. Maybe you should have assumed something and you didn't.

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In any case, I'm stuck on one those horns now.

When I was a sophomore in University, I got interested in the FBI. In those days, it was honorable to admire organizations that had a reputation for prestige, straight shooting and honesty. (The straight shooting was no problem. I had scored marksman on the shooting range.) I was aware that the FBI was created to investigate only crime within the U.S. borders. That was fine with me. I was prepared to defend my country, again, but this time within its borders.

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So one summer, I visited the local FBI office and spoke to a very nice agent there about working for Hoover's gang. We had a long, interesting chat and I walked away with the application papers and a number of other papers defining what they wanted in an agent and what college degrees were needed to work for them. I even got the government ratings for different positions and the pay scale. As I recall, the scale was pretty good even for a starter position.

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There was only one drawback. The job requirements. At that time (I do not know what present day requirements are) you had to either have a degree in law or be a Certified Public Accountant. Now that was a kick in the butt. Recognizing my own distaste for pencil pushing and a sedentary desk job, there was no interest on my part in being a CPA. None. Zilch. Nada. That left the study of law. I talked to the Dean of the Philosophy School and he was noncommittal and mumbled something about the joys of taking on Locke and the gang. So I talked to the Dean of Psychology and he pointed out the joys of helping people and being a published authority in the field to me. But he knew nothing about the FBI. So I talked to the Dean of English and she said I would be wasting my "talent" by becoming a lawyer.

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I avoided the Dean of Accounting and visited with the Law Dean. He told me about the hard work, the fact that very few passed the bar exams on their first or second try, but that I might luck out and pass it the third or fourth time. (I decided then that if that department couldn't teach any better than that, I probably should find a different school or forget it.)

But I gained a lot more respect for FBI Agents. Lots of schooling behind them. These people had smarts galore.

So when I read that the FBI was in Iraq, I was surprised, because I was pretty sure Iraq was not a part of the U.S. And now this showed up in the news:

Who's in charge of phone bills?

The FBI has failed to pay phone bills on time, causing telecommunication firms to temporarily cut off wiretaps used for terrorism investigations, an audit found.

In a review of the FBI's handling of special funds used for secret operations, the Justice Department's inspector general found an archaic payment system that goes through disorganized third-party offices.

A summary of the audit released Thursday noted that a telecommunication specialist pled guilty in June 2006 to stealing more than $25,000 in confidential funds.The audit found that the employee had taken advantage of the FBI's mismanagement of bills to steal money from refund checks, as the agency even has trouble cashing refunds from overpaid bills.

The audit concluded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was particularly bad about paying phone bills by their due date.

One would think that with all the accountants on the payroll, someone would have experience in bill paying and forensic accouting.

I'm kind of glad that I didn't make the choice to join this organization.

HILLARY SPEAKS, TIM GRILLS

Yeah, I know. Anyone can have ridiculous and painful pictures taken in an instant.

But Hillary Clinton showed up on Tim Russert's Meet The Press show this a.m.

(I really hate that they have an ugly logo on the base of the screen, when the entire back wall is plastered with the name of the show.)

The word "overkill" comes to mind.

You can visit MTP by clicking the header.

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I have been trying to avoid saying very much about the Dumocrat candidates. With one exception, that is.

But something really stood out in this interview. I should have counted, but, as usual, the idea came to me half way through the interview.

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Now, without looking back, how many times has the word "I" been used in this post?

It is realised here, that a blog is a very personal thing and one should be allowed certain leeway. It's our contribution to the egotism pool after all.

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If you watch that video, you can count the "I's". And then reflect on this: You have to have an enormous ego to even consider running for President. (As well as enormous money for the campaign. But that's another post.) If that were the only consideration, I think Hill would get the nod from the populace.

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But, after Hillary's (some say faked) breakdown into tears on national television in front of God and all, the thought occurred to me about the Russian ICBMs being shipped into Cuba and what JFK did about it. The pressures on him were enormous. World War III was on the brink of breaking out if he did not handle it correctly. He was a combat warrior who had his PT boat shot out from under him and knew what war was all about. Whether you liked him or not, you had to admire the way he handled the situation.

Hillary, on the other hand, is as blind as Dubya about real war. Neither she nor her husband have ever experienced it up close and ugly.

I got thinking about what if she had been President then? Would she have broken down into tears in the War Room? On television? In the Oval Office?

Any possible chance of my voting for her disappeared with that episode.

Menopause is a bitch.

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One final thing (for now, anyway) was her non reaction when her Hubby said that oral sex isn't real sex.

I tried telling that to a young lady after the Clinton episode. You can use your imagination about what she told me.

NEWS FLASH FROM THE FRONT

A blogger, Christopher Weber, has published what must be insider news.

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Our governator is coming back to N.M. after making an ass of himself for at least a year. At least that's what is stated in the column. (Click on the header.)

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And do we ever have some problems that need solving (I wonder if he'll need a passport to get into the state?).

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Seems like, ignoring the Railrunner fiasco, the thieves in state government, the falling apartness of our highways and the unwillingness of our legislators to cooperate, there's another great big problem facing him.

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That health care he wanted the entire state to have has reared its ugly side. With a great humongous price tag: More than $1,000,000,000 worth. That's money in addition to those other needs of the state. But our Bill's a Democrat. Spend is really his middle name. I just hope he doesn't run for Mayor of Albuquerque.

BILL RICHARDSON WON'T YOU PLEASE COME HOME?

Looks like a group photo of the Iowa electors who chose to vote for our governator, Bill Richardson, in the primary.

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But there's more to this story:

I visited my doctor Friday morning (for some needed assistance) and he, smiling from ear to ear, told us about his son's experience with Richardson Party Politics.

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Seems the young fellow, a state employee, took some time off and went up to Iowa to help Bill get votes.

Before he left, he contacted the people in Richardson's campaign and was told he would be reimbursed for travel expenses both ways, and would get bed and board paid for while he was there working for his "hero".

Apparently, someone "forgot" to pay him (and his mates who went with him), so he wound up calling Dad and asking for some money to buy food and get home. Dad laughed and laughed, suggested he find his way back home by bus, promised to feed him when he got back.

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I looked at Doc skeptically, and he admitted sending bus fare to the lad. But that was all, he grinned at me. "He's learning about honesty and politicians" was the explanation.

To make the story complete, our local newspaper ran an article on Saturday, stating that the governator had closed the Iowa office and asked his "volunteers" to follow him to New Hampshire.

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Now, the "volunteers" were as successful as they could be with what they had to work with in Iowa. We know that Obama won the contest with Hillary a distant third.

Bill? Oh, he got fourth place. With almost 2% of the total vote.

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Now, it seems to me that any reasonably intelligent person, who could only get such a piddling number, would understand that he was not liked and would not be able to get the votes needed in any of the Eastern states. He should be able to figure out that those voters were neither impressed nor believed his fairy tales.

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I gained a lot of respect for Iowa voters after this fiasco (on Bill's part). They weren't fooled by his rhetoric, they didn't buy his "qualifications", they didn't believe in his pie in the sky.

I suspect that the almost 2% were those who devoutly wanted the idiocy of Iraq ended as soon as possible, regardless of any consequences down the line. (No, I don't believe in G. Bush's war. But that's another posting.)

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In a way, it has now become a painful embarrassment for us New Mexicans. And Bill won't realize that his "team" made the biggest effort, spent the most money they ever have and still couldn't sell him to the people. His statement "On To New Hampshire" is not a rallying cry. Considering the Iowa results it sounds more like a painful wail, a "I coulda been a contender" kind of stance.

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Somehow, I think the New Hampshire voters will see through his act, will note that he has been gone from New Mexico for almost a full year while the state has more than enough problems that are not being taken seriously by him. After all, if he can't care for a state of 2 million, how could we entrust 300 million souls to him? He is, once and for all, a carpetbagger in the worst sense of the term.

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One more word of advice Bill: the American people are really, really worried about the economy and your record of spend, spend, spend, even if we don't have it, won't stand you in good stead.