Sunday, May 31, 2009

Reason To Homeschool #17

Indoctrination

Its comforting to know that they will review the mandatory curriculum after it has been in place for a full year. Just long enough to let the sheeple go lose steam and energy so that they can continue with this constant indoctrination.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Green Day has gone retarded

Yes, thats right, retarded.

Seems Green Day is upset that Walmart will not sell their CD. Why? Because Walmart has a long standing policy to not sell ANY CD with a Parental Advisory warning on it. What Walmart WILL do is sell an album that was sufficiently edited so as to remove that PA label. And you know what? Radio stations do the same thing. They required edited version of songs so that words are removed in some form or another if it violates certain standards. So this isn't anything new. But Green Day doesn't want to "feel like [they are] in 1953 or something"

Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt said: "As the biggest record store in the America, they should probably have an obligation to sell people the correct art." But do they have an obligation to sell it? GD wants to stay "true" to their art, but don't want that same freedom for others. I guess in Dirnt's mind, the artist has a right to be heard, but the responsibility falls on others to make sure that he is heard. Dirnt doesn't understand that a right does not work that way. A right encumbers no one except in that they not infringe upon that right. The proverbial my right to swing my arm ends where your nose begins. If Walmart has a responsibility to sell GD's music as GD sees fit, then what they have is not a right but a form of mastery over Walmart, placing them in a form of servitude, or slavery if you will. And requiring someone to take an action, in this case selling an item, is arguably worse than a prohibition against an action but I suppose that is a topic for another blog post.

The article ends by quoting Dirnt saying "It's like a game that you have to play. You have to refuse to play it." And in that he is somewhat right. It IS a game. There are no real rules, but the goal is to attract customer dollars and there are a great many teams in the game, all playing by their own rules. Walmart established theirs many years ago and has come out on top year after year. If you want your music sold to their customers you have to play by their well known, long established rules. If you don't like it, don't play with them. In the end, both parties lose a little, but Walmart's loss is minuscule in comparison to the loss GD will take in sales.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Friday, May 01, 2009

Colorado Jobs

Looks like the grocery unions in Colorado might be striking come May 9th. Kings and Safeway are about to start advertising for temp workers.

The unions lost out pretty bad the last time around (I know, I was working grocery at that time) and now looks even worse for them. Honestly, with the economy in the shape it is in the stores should have exactly zero problems getting their stores staffed. If the union strikes now they may just find that the grocers just stop dealing with them. But anyways, if anyone is looking for work, I suggest getting an application into Safeway or King Soopers on the double. It might only be for a short time, but any amount of money is good when you don't have a regular job.

Dino Blood and Protein recovered

Seems like Jurassic Park isn't such a far fetched idea. Seems that the scientist who recovered soft tissue from the T Rex in 2005 has not only duplicated it with an "older" dinosaur, but has had it independently verified by several other teams. The dinosaur, a hadrosaur, was excavated from "80 million year old rock" using sterilized tools and encased in glass for their trip back to the labs. You can see a short article in the New Scientist or in the May 1st edition of Science.