Did ya hear what I just heard?

Good stuff :)

2011-01-28T15:16:00.001-06:00

This is the amazing story of social worker, Julio Diaz, who was on his way home one evening. His normal routine was to get off the train one stop early, to visit his local diner.

The station platform was empty, but as he was walking towards the stairs something dramatic and unexpected happened.

Suddenly a young teenager came up to Julio, pulled a knife and demanded money.

Julio just handed over his wallet, saying: “Here you go”.

But as the teenager turned to go, Julio said: “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

The story unfolds with Julio offering to take the teenager to the diner to eat with him. He explains: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money… I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”

When they have finished eating, Julio asks for his wallet back in order to pay for the meal. He then offers to give the teenager $20 in exchange for one thing…

His knife.

Source

Full story- http://www.npr.org/2008/03/28/89164759/a-victim-treats-his-mugger-right

ahhhh

2010-12-24T00:10:00.002-06:00

There is a site called Spokeo.com that's a new online USA phone book w/personal information: pics you have posted on FB or web, your approx credit score, home value, income, age, etc. You can remove yourself by searching for yourself on their site to find the URL of your page, then go to the bottom of the page and click on Privacy button to remove yourself.

Inner monologue of a 17 year old in a strip club

2010-09-24T11:34:00.000-05:00

Holy shit. I can't believe I got into this strip club. This fake ID totally worked! It doesn't make any sense: it didn't work at the 7-11 an hour ago when I tried to buy a can of Foster's. It must be the lighting in here. I probably got one of those fake ID's that only works under black light. That's cool, though; as long as I can use it to get into strip clubs for the next nine months, it was well-worth the $200 I paid for it. Okay, now that I'm inside, I've got to stay cool. They can probably still kick me out if they discover that I'm only 17 and 3 months old. Just be casual. Act like this is the thousandth time that you've been in a strip club, and tits tits tits tits tits. Holy shit. Tits. There are tits right there in front of me. This place is amazing. I know that's what happens in strip clubs, but seeing it first-hand...it's breathtaking. Those tits are glittery, too! I bet they smell like cucumber-melon. Oh man, there's some more tits over there, too! Everywhere I look, there are titties! How late does this place stay open? Can I stay here forever?
There's a hot cocktail waitress coming around. Should I ask to see her tits? Maybe I shouldn't. I don't know if it's acceptable. If I see her show her tits to someone else, then I'll ask, but not until then. For now, I'll just be casual and play it cool. I'll probably have to order a drink from her. What should I order? They probably don't have Natty Ice here. I guess I should go with some kind of sophisticated mixed drink. I'm not used to those. I don't really know what anything is. Shit, the waitress is almost over here. Okay, don't panic. Just think for a second. I just need to remember the name of one mixed drink. That's it. Dammit, with all these titties around here, it's hard to remember anything except how great that pair of titties that I just saw was. Speaking of titties, that stripper on stage has a nice rack. What did the creepy DJ guy say her name was? I think it was Mary. It was either Mary or Ecstasy, I can't remember which one. Oh! Bloody Mary! That's a kind of drink, right? Yeah, that's what I'll order. Yes! Thank you, Mary or Ecstasy, whatever your name is. Yeah, Bloody Mary. That's totally something that a sophisticated, strip club-experienced, over-seventeen year old would drink. C'mon cocktail waitress, I'm ready for you!

Damn. 18 fuckin' dollars for a Bloody Mary. I'm such an idiot. Bloody Mary's are probably the most expensive mixed drink you can order. Whatever. I wonder why she asked me if I knew that it was night time. Of course I know that! What a weirdo. She's probably on drugs or something. I heard that a lot of strippers are tits tits tits tits. Holy fuck. Perfect tits coming right this way. God damn, that stripper is hot as hell. She's super glittery, too. She's glittered to impress tonight. Oh my god, she's looking right at me. She's coming over here. Shit, shit, shit! What the fuck do I do?! Okay, play it cool. Act casual. Maybe I should try to make my voice a little deeper, so I seem more mature. Okay, she's sitting on my lap now. This is good. This is very good. She smells like Fruit Snacks. OH MY GOD. Is she serious?! Of course I want a fucking lap dance! Who would say no to a lap dance from a Fruit Snack-scented stripper?! This is the best night of my life!

Hmm. I definitely feel a boner coming on. Do other people in here have boners? Shit, now I'm looking at other dude's crotches and trying to see if they have a boner while there's a hot Fruit Snack stripper straddling me. I'm gonna assume that boners are okay here. It's a strip club. This place probably hosts more boners than a Growing Pains-themed Cosplay Convention. Man, Fruit Snack's tits are kinda sweaty. I think she has some pretty severe scars, too. I couldn't really see them from two feet away, but now that her tits are literally in my face, they're pretty gnarled. They look like two whale carcasses humping each other. Eh, whatever. At least I'm getting a boner out of it. Speaking of boners, this one seems about ready to unload. They probably frown on ejaculating in your pants here. Fuck! I knew I should've jerked off before I came here! Okay, just try to think of something non-arousing. Traffic school. The older sister from Life Goes On. That smell you get when you don't run the garbage disposal for a long tits, and then when you finally run it, the drain tits all of this tits up into the tits and tits tits tits in your face.

Fuck. It's impossible to think of something non-arousing when a Fruit Snack-scented ass is rubbing your junk. Don't panic. It'll be fine. All you have to do is not blow a load in your............shit. I just blew a load in my pants. A pretty substantial one, too. Maybe Fruit Snack didn't notice. Nope, she noticed. Yeah, the bouncer's coming over now. I'm getting dragged out of this place for sure. I guess I'll just have to get that $18 Bloody Mary to go.

http://www.holytaco.com/inner-monologue-17-year-old-strip-club

dont know

2010-09-22T12:32:00.000-05:00

Haven't really been keeping up with all of my followers, and for that I'm sorry :(
I just decided to order internets so I won't have to use the neighbors anymore and can stop using my laptop so much, since it's slow as shit.

So I randomly found this website the other day and I'm not sure if its legit. Anyone ever order from dealextreme.com ? They have all kinds of shit for cheap and with free shipping but not sure if I'd end up getting any of the stuff I order, haha.

will start updating more sooon.

A new Bill and Ted movie?!/1

2010-09-20T11:40:00.000-05:00

Just read that Keanu Reeves said that it's possible that their might be a new Bill and Ted sequel being made sometime in the future.He also wants to reprise his roll as Ted Logan. Pretty funny to think about a 46 year old Keanu playing Ted again. It would be cool to bring back the greatest movie duo for a new generation of kids :) I'll be looking forward to seeing what they do with this new movie. That is, if it's ever made.
Here's a link to article ..----..

Also, check out this video. Some people strapped a camera to the back of a hawk. Badass.

ecig..

2010-09-18T18:26:00.000-05:00

Haven't had a cigarette in three days. A few people suggested trying an ecig, so I decided to check it out. It sounds pretty damn sweet but I'm not sure which one I should get. Does anyone recommend a specific brand or anything? or a good/cheap site to buy one?

Heres a nice song about science for you lovely people.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

fiending for a cig

2010-09-16T17:35:00.000-05:00

I quit smoking today. Decided last night I'd start today. It sucks. Though I did pick up some snus to try, and it helps a little, but I'd rather not start doing it everyday. Replacing lung cancer with mouth cancer, lol.

This helps a little. Knowing I'll at least be able to breath and all that again. haha. Also looking at pictures of lung cancer infested lungs seems to help a bit too.

Hope I can do it. Haven't tried to quit in a few years, but the last time it only last 6 hours. rofl.

Wish me luck!

don't be an ant

2010-09-15T11:36:00.000-05:00

Ahhh I have way too much to do today and I don't know what to write about.. so I guess I'll share a video I found. peace and lurv folks

Woman using 21 different accents :P

All my friends are dead.

Disturbing movies.

2010-09-14T13:06:00.000-05:00

So after reading a couple lists of the most disturbing movies ever, I decided to check out a few of them.

I watched August Mordum Underground first.

It was pretty disgusting. I could see how some people thought it was an actual snuff film, as the effects were very very realistic. Even after being desensitized at an early age from sites like lifeofdebauchery and freakhole, it still made me feel a bit uneasy. Castration, wound fucking, eating maggots from a rotting dead infant's headless corpse, and the list goes on. I think AMU should be on everyone's top 10 disturbing movie list.

Next was Salo or The 120 Days of Sodom

Not as "disturbing" as I thought it would be, but pretty messed up nonetheless. Poop on a plate made me lol, and then puke in my mouth. Mmm mmm good. The torture scenes were pretty brutal, but the poop eating was what really made me queasy. An updated version of this movie would be cool, as now they could make those torture scenes even more fucked up.

I also watched Cannibal Holocaust

Meh. I always heard this was one of the most fucked up movies ever, but it wasn't that great. I think the most disturbing thing was the turtle scene. I want one of those chicks on a stick for my front yard :P

Theirs some more that I need to watch, but thats all for now.

What movies would you guys recommend? I mean the most fucked up movie you can think of!

Let me know in a comment.

Have a good day folks.

making trippy fractal art

2010-09-13T11:51:00.000-05:00

Just started using Apophysis and I love it. Pretty easy to set up but it takes awhile to understand how to make something cool.

A few examples of what you can make with apophysis:

Here's some tutorials to get started

1---
2---
3---
4---

You can download the program here>>>> Apophysis 2.09

Leave a comment if you need help with anything, or a link to your art you made :)

Goodluck!

Machete

2010-09-12T15:57:00.000-05:00

Just watched Machete. Not as good as I thought it would be, but still pretty cool. Lindsay Lohan titties a plus. Not sure about the message though... I mean, immigrants shouldn't be allowed to just mosey on into the country but the shooting of random illegals was kind of fucked up. Anyway, I think that Danny Trejo should be in more movies, he's one b.a.m.f..

Just look at that mean mug. Hopefully he gets more parts after this.

old sickopath article

2010-09-11T01:03:00.000-05:00

Found this in an old text file I had on my computer. Anyone remember this guy? OG troll.

When I Become Dictator of the World

This will be a never ending theme. Once I finally have control of the entire world, these rules will take the place of the ones you currently live by. Check back often for new updates, your life could depend on it.
When I become dictator of the world...
...all drugs will be legal. In fact, it will be illegal to NOT have drugs. If a cop pulls you over and searches your car and he doesn't find drugs, you go to jail. If this happens three times, you get the death penalty. None of this life sentence crap, and no appeals either. Three strikes and yer dead.
...sports will be illegal. You can't play sports, watch sports, or talk about sports. If I perfect my mind-reading machine before I take over, you won't be allowed to think about sports. I'm not talking about combat sports like boxing, kick-boxing, Ultimate Fighting, etc. Any activity where the sole purpose is to hurt your opponent will be fully endorsed in my regime. But all sports that use a ball or puck or stick or net are illegal. Same with things like auto racing, track & field, swimming, and the so called X-treme sports. None of it's allowed. The only sport that will be legal is curling. That's right, that stupid game with the brooms and rocks. Enjoy your sport. Also, no one may wear clothes with team logos, or have sports stickers on their cars. If you break these rules you get the death penalty on the spot with no trial. The olympics will still be held every four years, but all the athletes will be killed during the opening ceremonies. The special olympics will continue as usual, because nothing is funnier than watching retards trying to act normal.
...no one can have kids unless they get express written permission from me. If a woman gets pregnant without permission, she gets kicked in the stomach until the fetus stops breathing. Then she gets her uterus surgically removed with no anesthetic. Betcha a lot less women 'forget' to take their pill after this law goes into effect. If you're thinking of trying to get written permission, forget about it. It ain't happening. You're too lame to be allowed to reproduce. Still want to try? Here's a few prerequisites you should be aware of:
1) Ugly people may not have children. If you don't know if you're ugly, you are.
2) People with an I.Q. less than the temperature of the room may not have children. If you think I.Q. tests are an unfair measure of intelligence, you probably got a low score on one.
3) People who believe in God may not have children. Even I'm not sick enough to take an open mind and fill it with that nonsense.
4) People who make less than $50,000 a year may not have children. How you gonna buy the kid a Playstation and buy drugs for yourself on less than 50 grand?
5) People who don't speak English may not have children. English is the only language that matters because I speak English. How are your kids gonna follow my rules if they can't speak English? This also includes people who know how to speak the language, but choose not to (Ebonics anyone?).
6) People who don't own guns may not have children. How is your kid supposed to shoot up his school if he can't use your gun? How are they supposed to shoot themselves if they can't use your gun? We don't want our kids having to get their guns on the streets.
7) People who were sad when Princess Diana and JFK Jr. died may not have children. If you're so wrapped up in a lame fantasy where these people were your friends, you're way too out of it to raise a child.
8) People who don't have internet access may not have children. How else is your child supposed to see hard-core sex and autopsy photos? The neighborhood pedophile can't be everywhere at once people. With the internet, pedophiles from other neighborhoods can help pick up the slack. While we're at it, you must have cable or satellite TV service also. Your kids won't always be on the net, and they'll have to get sex and violence somewhere.
9) People who don't like Howard Stern may not have children. Only up-tight morons with no sense of humor don't like Howard. People with no sense of humor should not have kids. BaBa Booey!
10) People who want children may not have children. Anyone who wants children is lame, and lame people shouldn't have kids.
That's just a basic outline. The final decision is still up to me and will be based on a myriad of subjective criteria that changes at my whim. I guess the bottom line is that NO ONE may have children.
...there will be no restrictions of any kind placed on the content of TV and radio shows. Anything goes. There will be a channel devoted to each of the 600 perverted passions the Marquis de Sade spoke of in 'The 120 Days of Sodom'. One thousand channels of complete nastyness, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Hell, they could even say the dreaded "F" word on the radio. Well, that might be going a little too far.
...if you really can't stand a person, you're allowed to kill them. You don't even need a good reason, just go ahead and wax 'em. The only exception to this rule is that no one is allowed to kill me. That would suck.
...abortion will be legal up to 18 years after the child is born. After that, you can't abort them. You may however, as per the above rule, kill them.
...the public library will start stocking pornography and all Bibles will be removed from all hotel rooms.
...the legal drinking age will be 'old enough to swallow'. Anyone physically capable of injesting liquid may drink. It will no longer be a crime to drink and drive. It will however, be a crime to drink and drive and crash. Unless, of course, you meant to crash.
...everyone who has a stupid tattoo will be held down while someone cuts it off with a rusty razor blade. If you're not sure if you have a stupid tattoo, use this simple formula: if the tattoo is somewhere on your skin, it's stupid.
...everyone who has any body piercings will have them yanked out one by one and feces rubbed in the wounds. Everyone who has no piercings will be forced to get nipple rings.
...religion will not be permitted. If your life is so boring that you think church is fun, maybe it's time you met your maker. Our crack staff of murdering thugs will be more than happy to send you on your way at no charge to you or your family. If you insist on worshipping something, worship me. I can't offer eternal life, but I can save you from eternally having no life.
...most music will be outlawed. The only music allowed will be Death Metal and Classical music. But you don't like those kinds of music, you say? Good.
...the work week will only be 1 hour long. If you don't feel like working that much, that's fine too. That's only for the cool people. Lame people will be forced to work 100 hour weeks with no days off, ever! How do you know if you're cool or not? Very simple. If you agree with all the rules in this essay, you're cool. If you've been reading this and thinking how horrible it would be to live in a society governed by these rules, you're lame.
...society will be divided into 2 different groups. As alluded to in the last rule, these will be the Cool People and the Lame People. Cool People get to do whatever they want, whenever they feel like doing it. They get first place in lines, the closest parking spaces, and don't have to work or pay taxes. The Lame People will do all the work, and must yield to the will of the Cool People. Lame People will be given no rights and can expect to suffer greatly. This is what they get for being lame. In order to tell who is in what class, all Lame People will have the letter "L" branded on their forehead.
...if you're in line waiting to buy something, and the person in front of you is taking too much time by asking stupid questions, you may grab that person, slap the crap out of them, and push them out of your way. They must then go to the end of the line. This includes people who fill out their deposit information right at the ATM, instead of doing it before they left the house.
...if you are driving your car, it's legal to run over people who are in the street. Those stupid roller-hockey kids won't get out of your way? No problem, just step on the gas and waste their ass. Some idiot riding a bike too far out in your lane? A flick of your wrist will waste that bitch! If you're chasing someone down and they run up on someone's lawn, you're allowed to jump the curb and go after them if you want to. If you have a big enough car or truck, you can also hit people on motorcycles. Speaking of motorcycles, it will be illegal to ride a motorcycle while wearing a helmet. When your dumb ass hits the pavement at 75 mph, we don't want any protection between the pavement and your thick head. Born to be Stupid. Also, if you own a motorcycle, and you sit in your driveway and rev the engine over and over and over again but don't drive it anywhere, you will be beaten to death with a lead pipe.
...everyone who thinks neckties are a good idea will be hung with one.
...everyone who thinks pornography is bad will be forced to watch the sickest porno flicks from around the world non-stop until they die.
...all electrical outlets will be redesigned with receptacles the size of a small child's finger. All cleaning products, bug sprays, perscription drugs, and drain openers will taste like candy and must be stored in unlocked cabinets on the bottom shelf.
...no one will be allowed to water their lawns. This is a waste of water. If your lawn dies, that's tough. Move where it rains if you want a stupid lawn. Also, you can only mow your lawn between 2-3 pm on tuesday. No more of the constant rattle of lawn mowers all summer long. But you're at work between 2-3, you say? Too bad, so sad. Anyone breaking these rules may be shot in the head by any neighbor that feels like doing it.
...if you keep your dog outside and it barks all the time, you will be killed and your body will be ground up into bite-size pieces. These pieces will be fed to your dog. Then your dog will be killed.
...it'll be legal to drive around and shoot people who are jogging, walking the dog, riding their bike, rollerblading, sitting on their front porch, or planting flowers in their yard. Go in the house you boring bastards, I can't stand the sight of ya!
...anyone wearing a backwards baseball cap or trousers two times too big will be tied to a chair and set on fire. If I see underwear above the belt-line, you get beaten first, then set on fire.
...any guy wearing perfume must get breast implants and have his sex organs removed. What's that you say? It's not perfume, it's cologne? Same thing, you fool! It's stinky shit in a little bottle you use so people can't tell how bad you naturally smell. Perfume is for girls, and if you want to smell like a girl, you're gonna have to look like one too. Same goes for scented deodorants. There's an oxymoron for ya. It should be called a reodorant. By the way, females won't be allowed to wear perfume either. If they do, they will be demoted to the Lame People class.
...all vegetarians will be forced to eat raw meat until they puke. Then they'll be forced to eat the puke.
...alarm clocks will no longer be legal. These sick little torture devices are responsible for more misery than the rack, the iron maiden, and the cat-o-nine tails combined. On second thought, alarm clocks will be used to torment the Lame People.
...there will no longer be an offical speed limit. The only limit is how fast your vehicle is capable of going. If this increases accident rates, tough! In fact, I really hope it does.
...people driving a car or pick-up truck with one or more of the following stickers will be shot: 'No Fear', 'NIN', 'My kid is an honor role student at...', 'D.A.R.E.', 'Baby on Board', 'Easy Does It', 'Heath Beach', 'Mean People Suck', 'One Day at a Time', the kid pissing on the Ford logo, anything Taz, anything about Jesus, anything Harley Davidson, anything political, anything about hunting or fishing, and anything about your pets.
...people driving a mini-van, stickers or not, will be shot.
...it will be legal to kill the guy who works the drive-thru window at the fast food place if they get your order wrong. Forget my fries, you die! Gimmie the wrong pop, I pop a cap in your ass! Gimmie chicken instead of beef, I shoot you in the teeth! It will also be legal to shoot the cook if your food is over-cooked or there's too much mayo oozing out the sides of your burger. On the flip side, if you're being a rude dick to the people who work at the fast food place, it's legal for them to spit/piss/puke/shit/ejaculate in your food as they see fit.
...it will be illegal to send money to those 'save the starving children' funds. What a load of crap. When you send money to those things, all you do is keep the kids alive just long enough for them to have kids of their own. Then your kids end up sending those kids money, who in turn have THEIR own kids, so YOUR grandkids send them money... Get the picture? If you really care, SEND NO MONEY and let them die to prevent the suffering of future generations. In fact, the only legal charity will be called 'Kill the Children'. We'll send them candy bars laced with poison and teddy bears infected with some cool new disease. Everyone will be expected to donate.
...if you own a swimming pool, you may not make any noise while using it. No splashing, no jumping, no yelling, and no laughing. Anyone who so much as WHISPERS the words 'Marco' or 'Polo' will be thrown into a new pool filled with boiling water, razor blades, and electric eels. This will be the only pool you're allowed to make noise in.
...it will be illegal to have a family gathering where everyone wears the same T-shirt. If you break this rule, I'll be happy to add matching bullet holes to your matching shirts.
...it will be illegal to be really, really fat. Anyone who breaks this rule will be locked in a room with no food until they are no longer in violation of the rule.
...it will be illegal to NOT beat your kids. They should be beaten before breakfast and at bedtime. You know damn well they deserve it.
...there will be new faces put on money. The $1 bill will have MY picture on it. The $2 will have two big tits! The $5 bill will have John Wayne Gacy. The $10 bill will have Ted Bundy. Albert Fish will appear on the $20 bill. Jason Vorhees will be on the 50, and the Marquis de Sade on the 100. The $500 bill will have a skull and crossbones and the $1000 will have another picture of me. The words "In God We Trust" will be replaced with "In Sade We Trust". Coin money won't have pictures on it, just it's denomination. And you can forget about that fucking ugly dollar coin with that indian chick and her stupid baby on it; that thing is SO gone. You know damn well that even people who hate these changes will still want the money!
...public display of affection will not be allowed. No kissing. no hand holding, no lovey-dovey sweet talk. Couples who walk real close together with a hand in each other's back pocket will be stabbed with a large knife until they die. Then their bodies will be sewn together so they can rot together. Also, women will not be allowed to breast-feed in restaurants. I don't want to see a stupid baby eating better than I am!
...arson will be legal. Yeah Yeah, Fire Fire!!!!
...prostitution will be legal. In the words of the brilliant George Carlin, "Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?". Never fear George, it will be. Also, the age of consent will be lowered to 5 years old. Of course, you can still fuck your own kids no matter how old they are.
...T.V. stations will no longer be allowed to display their station logo in the bottom cornor of the screen during a show. Movie theaters will not be allowed to show commercials before the movie. Tele-marketers will be herded together and pushed off the edge of a cliff.
...if a child commits a crime and gets caught, the parents will receive the same punishment as the child. But that's not fair, you say? Hey, if you never had a dumb kid in the first place, it wouldn't be around to commit crimes! Just because you CAN reproduce, doesn't mean you SHOULD.

More rules will be added when I think of them. Even if a rule isn't here, that's no excuse for breaking it. If I outlaw something tomorrow that you did yesterday, you're still guilty.
-SICKOPATH

informational/lifehax lurv

2010-09-10T12:11:00.000-05:00

nostalgia tiem

2010-09-09T14:00:00.004-05:00

Used to love this shit.

hungarian suicide song

2010-09-09T00:41:00.002-05:00

Gloomy Sunday Wiki

Surprised I never heard of this before. Supposedly, alot of people killed themselves after listening to it. Some had the sheet music still in their hands, some still had the music playing when their bodies were discovered, and others just referenced the song in their suicide note. Even the guy who wrote it killed himself. Of course, it's bull shit, but pretty interesting nonetheless.

Here is one english translation of the lyrics:

Gloomy Sunday with a hundred white flowers
I was waiting for you my dearest with a prayer
A Sunday morning, chasing after my dreams
The carriage of my sorrow returned to me without you
It is since then that my Sundays have been forever sad
Tears my only drink, the sorrow my bread...

Gloomy Sunday

This last Sunday, my darling please come to me
There'll be a priest, a coffin, a catafalque and a winding-sheet
There'll be flowers for you, flowers and a coffin
Under the blossoming trees it will be my last journey
My eyes will be open, so that I could see you for a last time
Don't be afraid of my eyes, I'm blessing you even in my death...

The last Sunday

erpdederp

2010-09-08T10:40:00.002-05:00

Here's something I found How to Answer the 64 Toughest Interview Questions
And here's a link to one of my favorite flash games dat boy needs therapy

Might go see Machete today.. was watching a video on another bloggers site and saw some of the scenes and they were brutal.

Love this shit

jeez

2010-09-08T03:04:00.004-05:00

I haven't updated this in years. Hmm... what to write about...
Well, out of nowhere I went into a downloading frenzy and got all the seasons of kenan and kel, animaniacs, doug, and The Walking Dead comic series. Looking forward to the Walking Dead show coming out soon. Looks badass.

.

I'm tired, goin to bed. Will start updating more, so follow please ;D

29 Predictions For The Year 2000 (Written in 1900)

2007-04-20T11:37:00.001-05:00

The Ladies Home Journal from December 1900, which contained a fascinating article by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”.

read more | digg story

the worst shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

2007-04-17T13:05:00.000-05:00

A tranquil college campus in Virginia became a killing field Monday morning. At least 33 people are dead in the worst mass shooting in modern American history.
Click the links to learn more about it.

Newstory

'I don't think my teacher got out'

When Animals Attack Reporters: The Top 5 Videos

2007-04-03T00:55:00.001-05:00

"It’s cruel to even want to watch these videos. You do know that, right? Not just because people are attacked by animals. The added cruelty is you’ll be enjoying an animal attack on a human who only wanted to enlighten you."

read more | digg story

Top 10 April Fool Pranks 2007

2007-04-03T00:54:00.001-05:00

Great run down of all the best April fools jokes that were played yesterday. Nice bits of foolish history mixed in too!

read more | digg story

The Most Hated Family in America

2007-04-03T00:49:00.000-05:00

Louis Theroux spends time with the Phelps family and the Westboro Baptist Church. These people are fucking twisted. I feel sorry for the younger kids, they're going to end up growing up believing in the same stupid bullshit. Their are seven parts, you can watch the rest by clicking on the video.

lolz

2007-03-02T03:01:00.001-06:00

a pom, an arab and an aussie stumble across a lamp at a worksite, give it a rub and gets the standard genie response "3 wishes, no wishing for more wishes etc"

they decide a wish each is only fair...

the pom says "i want all muslims, arabs and pakis on an island in the middle of nowhere"

*poof*... "it is done, but you(in reference to the arab) get your wish first"

the arab bloke, obviously not happy about this says "and i want a wall, 100m high so noone can get in"

*poof*.... "it is done"

the aussie sits and thinks for a second, "so all arabs and shit are on some island with a 100 m wall round it..."

"yep" genie replies...

"fill it with water"

Mr.Deity, All mightiness one day at a time

2007-02-08T01:07:00.000-06:00

Pretty funny series, check it out.

http://mrdeity.com/

If ya like them, go to the website and watch the rest, their are six right now but they make new ones every couple weeks or so.

Louisiana Town's 1st Black Mayor-Elect Killed...

2007-01-02T21:33:00.000-06:00

The newly elected mayor of this southwest Louisiana town was found shot to death in a parking lot over the weekend three days before he was to become the town's first black mayor.

The body of Gerald Washington, 57, was found Saturday night in the parking lot of a former high school. He had been shot once in the chest, investigators said.

Funeral arrangements had not been made as of Tuesday morning, City Clerk Andrea Mahfouz said.

Officials said Washington was found lying by his truck with his cap on and a pistol nearby.

Gary "Stitch" Guillory, chief deputy of the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office, said his death is being treated as a homicide.

Washington, who served three terms as a city councilman, was sworn in Dec. 19 as Westlake's first new mayor in 24 years. He was set to take office Tuesday.

Although the town of 4,500 is 80 percent white, Washington had no trouble winning election in September. He had 696 votes _ nearly 69 percent of the vote _ to 318 for social worker Paula Johnson.

The city councilwill hold an emergency meeting Tuesday. The council has 10 days to appoint an interim mayor, and if it fails to do so by that deadline the governor could appoint someone to lead the town, according to Mayor Dudley Dixon, who is retiring after 32 years as mayor and council member.
"Mr.Washington is going to be missed by all the people of Westlake," Dixon said. "It's one of the most tragic things I've heard in a long time. He would be a good mayor."

"Westlake lost a good friend," said longtime Councilman Dan Cupit. "I was excited about the next four years. We all had good chemistry together."

Mahfouz said Washington was retired from the Conoco refinery, where he had worked for more than 30 years.

He and his wife; Mary Washington had an adult son and daughter, Mahfouz said.

New Years

2007-01-02T05:28:00.000-06:00

http://www.panoramas.dk/new-year-2007/times-square.html

Cool panoramas of new years from around the world.

little late but happy news years :)

Top 10 Pot Studies Government Wished it Had Never Funded

2006-12-23T23:23:00.001-06:00

August 31st, 2006

10) MARIJUANA USE HAS NO EFFECT ON MORTALITY: A massive study of California HMO members funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found marijuana use caused no significant increase in mortality. Tobacco use was associated with increased risk of death. Sidney, S et al. Marijuana Use and Mortality. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 87 No. 4, April 1997. p. 585-590. Sept. 2002.

9) HEAVY MARIJUANA USE AS A YOUNG ADULT WON'T RUIN YOUR LIFE: Veterans Affairs scientists looked at whether heavy marijuana use as a young adult caused long-term problems later, studying identical twins in which one twin had been a heavy marijuana user for a year or longer but had stopped at least one month before the study, while the second twin had used marijuana no more than five times ever. Marijuana use had no significant impact on physical or mental health care utilization, health-related quality of life, or current socio-demographic characteristics. Eisen SE et al. Does Marijuana Use Have Residual Adverse Effects on Self-Reported Health Measures, Socio-Demographics or Quality of Life? A Monozygotic Co-Twin Control Study in Men. Addiction. Vol. 97 No. 9. p.1083-1086. Sept. 1997

8) THE "GATEWAY EFFECT" MAY BE A MIRAGE: Marijuana is often called a "gateway drug" by supporters of prohibition, who point to statistical "associations" indicating that persons who use marijuana are more likely to eventually try hard drugs than those who never use marijuana — implying that marijuana use somehow causes hard drug use. But a model developed by RAND Corp. researcher Andrew Morral demonstrates that these associations can be explained "without requiring a gateway effect." More likely, this federally funded study suggests, some people simply have an underlying propensity to try drugs, and start with what's most readily available. Morral AR, McCaffrey D and Paddock S. Reassessing the Marijuana Gateway Effect. Addiction. December 2002. p. 1493-1504.

7) PROHIBITION DOESN'T WORK (PART I): The White House had the National Research Council examine the data being gathered about drug use and the effects of U.S. drug policies. NRC concluded, "the nation possesses little information about the effectiveness of current drug policy, especially of drug law enforcement." And what data exist show "little apparent relationship between severity of sanctions prescribed for drug use and prevalence or frequency of use." In other words, there is no proof that prohibition — the cornerstone of U.S. drug policy for a century — reduces drug use. National Research Council. Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us. National Academy Press, 2001. p. 193.

6) PROHIBITION DOESN'T WORK (PART II: DOES PROHIBITION CAUSE THE "GATEWAY EFFECT"?): U.S. and Dutch researchers, supported in part by NIDA, compared marijuana users in San Francisco, where non-medical use remains illegal, to Amsterdam, where adults may possess and purchase small amounts of marijuana from regulated businesses. Looking at such parameters as frequency and quantity of use and age at onset of use, they found no differences except one: Lifetime use of hard drugs was significantly lower in Amsterdam, with its "tolerant" marijuana policies. For example, lifetime crack cocaine use was 4.5 times higher in San Francisco than Amsterdam. Reinarman, C, Cohen, PDA, and Kaal, HL. The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy: Cannabis in Amsterdam and San Francisco. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 94, No. 5. May 2004. p. 836-842.

5) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART I): Federal researchers implanted several types of cancer, including leukemia and lung cancers, in mice, then treated them with cannabinoids (unique, active components found in marijuana). THC and other cannabinoids shrank tumors and increased the mice's lifespans. Munson, AE et al. Antineoplastic Activity of Cannabinoids. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Sept. 1975. p. 597-602.

4) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER, (PART II): In a 1994 study the government tried to suppress, federal researchers gave mice and rats massive doses of THC, looking for cancers or other signs of toxicity. The rodents given THC lived longer and had fewer cancers, "in a dose-dependent manner" (i.e. the more THC they got, the fewer tumors). NTP Technical Report On The Toxicology And Carcinogenesis Studies Of 1-Trans- Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, CAS No. 1972-08-3, In F344/N Rats And B6C3F(1) Mice, Gavage Studies. See also, "Medical Marijuana: Unpublished Federal Study Found THC-Treated Rats Lived Longer, Had Less Cancer," AIDS Treatment News no. 263, Jan. 17, 1997.

3) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART III): Researchers at the Kaiser-Permanente HMO, funded by NIDA, followed 65,000 patients for nearly a decade, comparing cancer rates among non-smokers, tobacco smokers, and marijuana smokers. Tobacco smokers had massively higher rates of lung cancer and other cancers. Marijuana smokers who didn't also use tobacco had no increase in risk of tobacco-related cancers or of cancer risk overall. In fact their rates of lung and most other cancers were slightly lower than non-smokers, though the difference did not reach statistical significance. Sidney, S. et al. Marijuana Use and Cancer Incidence (California, United States). Cancer Causes and Control. Vol. 8. Sept. 1997, p. 722-728.

2) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART IV): Donald Tashkin, a UCLA researcher whose work is funded by NIDA, did a case-control study comparing 1,200 patients with lung, head and neck cancers to a matched group with no cancer. Even the heaviest marijuana smokers had no increased risk of cancer, and had somewhat lower cancer risk than non-smokers (tobacco smokers had a 20-fold increased lung cancer risk). Tashkin D. Marijuana Use and Lung Cancer: Results of a Case-Control Study. American Thoracic Society International Conference. May 23, 2006.

1) MARIJUANA DOES HAVE MEDICAL VALUE: In response to passage of California's medical marijuana law, the White House had the Institute of Medicine (IOM) review the data on marijuana's medical benefits and risks. The IOM concluded, "Nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety are all afflictions of wasting, and all can be mitigated by marijuana." While noting potential risks of smoking, the report added, "we acknowledge that there is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting." The government's refusal to acknowledge this finding caused co-author John A. Benson to tell the New York Times that the government "loves to ignore our report … they would rather it never happened." Joy, JE, Watson, SJ, and Benson, JA. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. National Academy Press. 1999. p. 159. See also, Harris, G. FDA Dismisses Medical Benefit From Marijuana. New York Times. Apr. 21, 2006

"How public education is crippling our kids, and why" by john taylor gatto

2006-12-23T23:22:00.001-06:00

I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.

Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn't get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?

We all are. My grandfather taught me that. One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainly not to be trusted. That episode cured me of boredom forever, and here and there over the years I was able to pass on the lesson to some remarkable student. For the most part, however, I found it futile to challenge the official notion that boredom and childishness were the natural state of affairs in the classroom. Often I had to defy custom, and even bend the law, to help kids break out of this trap.

The empire struck back, of course; childish adults regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty. I once returned from a medical leave to discover that all evidence of my having been granted the leave had been purposely destroyed, that my job had been terminated, and that I no longer possessed even a teaching license. After nine months of tormented effort I was able to retrieve the license when a school secretary testified to witnessing the plot unfold. In the meantime my family suffered more than I care to remember. By the time I finally retired in 1991, I had more than enough reason to think of our schools - with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers - as virtual factories of childishness. Yet I honestly could not see why they had to be that way. My own experience had revealed to me what many other teachers must learn along the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal: if we wanted to we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old, stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merely receive a schooling. We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness - curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight - simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then.

But we don't do that. And the more I asked why not, and persisted in thinking about the "problem" of schooling as an engineer might, the more I missed the point: What if there is no "problem" with our schools? What if they are the way they are, so expensively flying in the face of common sense and long experience in how children learn things, not because they are doing something wrong but because they are doing something right? Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child behind"? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them ever really grows up?

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a secondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry, like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.

We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of "success" as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, "schooling," but historically that isn't true in either an intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble prisons. Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such a system? What exactly is the purpose of our public schools?

Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:
1) To make good people.
2) To make good citizens.
3) To make each person his or her personal best.

These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim.. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States . . . and that is its aim everywhere else.

Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted to dismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article, however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational system back to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, military state of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the irony that we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussian thought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Our educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern.

The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again and again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to it many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s. Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here. That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising, given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian served as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many German- speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws. But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens - all in order to render the populace "manageable."

It was from James Bryant Conant - president of Harvard for twenty years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bomb project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany after WWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century - that I first got wind of the real purposes of American schooling. Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000 students at a time, like the famous Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's 1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the modern schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered between 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."

Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever reintegrate into a dangerous whole.

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such a herd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.

There you have it. Now you know. We don't need Karl Marx's conception of a grand warfare between the classes to see that it is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don't conform. Class may frame the proposition, as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." But the motives behind the disgusting decisions that bring about these ends need not be class-based at all. They can stem purely from fear, or from the by now familiar belief that "efficiency" is the paramount virtue, rather than love, liberty, laughter, or hope. Above all, they can stem from simple greed.

There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and unwise to buy things they didn't actually need. Mandatory schooling was a godsend on that count. School didn't have to train kids in any direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. And that left them sitting ducks for another great invention of the modem era - marketing.

Now, you needn't have studied marketing to know that there are two groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than they need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children. Again, this is no accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his once well-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P. Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successive school enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years, and forced schooling was at that point still quite new. This same Cubberley - who was dean of Stanford's School of Education, a textbook editor at Houghton Mifflin, and Conant's friend and correspondent at Harvard - had written the following in the 1922 edition of his book Public School Administration: "Our schools are . . . factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned.. . . And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down."

It's perfectly obvious from our society today what those specifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearly every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask questions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has seen to it.

Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.

First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a preteen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there's no telling what your own kids could do. After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.

omgztymetrvl lolz

2006-09-11T21:31:00.000-05:00

"THE TIME TRAVEL TALE OF JOHN TITOR

Although there is debate over the exact date it started, on November 02, 2000, a person calling themselves Timetravel_0, and later John Titor, started posting on a public forum that he was a time traveler from the year 2036.

One of the first things he did was post pictures of his time machine and its operations manual. As the weeks went by, more and more people began questioning him about why he was here, the physics of time travel and his thoughts about our time. He also posted on other forums including the now non-existent Art Bell site. In his posts John Titor entertained, angered, frightened and even belittled those who engaged him in conversation.

On March 21, 2001, John Titor told us he would be leaving our and returning to 2036. After that, he was never heard from again. Speculation and investigation about who John Titor was and why he was online continues to this day.

Although it may be easy to dismiss all this as science fiction, most people who read his posts agree that there is something very haunting about John Titor and what he said. In addition, and open to more debate, he also made a series of predictions and comments that eerily seem to be coming true. "

I read through all the questions he answered and everything he said. I don't know, its definatly weird but kind of skeptic on the idea of this guy beingfrom the future and posting on a forum.

I guess it could be possible, on the site their are pictures of the 'time traveling' device and such

Check out the site and read through everything pretty interesting shit y0

http://www.johntitor.com/

This shits kind of old(2000-2001) but this is the first time I've seen it.

2006-09-11T12:29:00.000-05:00

lol bubble magic..I thought this was kinda cool.

2006-09-09T14:19:00.000-05:00

hahah, my favorite version of an interwebz classic<3

Love

2006-09-07T20:15:00.001-05:00

To all of you who ponder on the meaning of love and all its intrigues here is a little secret. Love is bullshit. Yep thats right, bullshit. Why is that so? Simple really, love is just a drug to get people to do stuff for you. From when we are born we use it to survive by intoxicating our parents to feed and clothe us. When we get older we realise that there are other things we want. Women are very good at playing this game but so to are men although the skill is not as universally spread amongst them.

You want something, company, to be driven somewhere, to fit in, money, whatever, you entice another into it. Its all sub concious in many ways, ingrained learned behaviour. It all gets wrapped as "love". I would do anything for love... so the song goes, well thats right buddy thats what its all about.

So when there is no more need and the love tap gets turned off, those sucked into believing it get all hurt and emotional. Christ the amount of deep ponderous bullshit that has been spawned by people wallowing in the love game would be enough to fill all the oceans with foetid crap.

Its only the strong who can survive. Its the strong who know love = bullshit. They use it as one would use any other tool to get what they want. Most importantly they know that others like them use it as it should be used and do not go whinging and snivelling when the love other moves on.

So if you want utter devotional, unquestioning and loyal to the end love - Get a dog!

You want a boyfriend or girlfriend - someone to have fun with, to look good on your arm, cook for you, buy a house for you, give you money and children etc. Use love as the tool it is, but don't expect anything else and you will be happy.

YARR

2006-08-31T12:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I was looking through some news articles, and saw this... Its about salvia..I gaurentee the shit will be illegal in a few years, fucking retarded. Note the fucking syringe and crack pipe in the picture in the article, how the fuck is that relavant to the article at all???? The bastards are making salvia look like heroin or something. Anyway heres the link, http://www.abcnews4.com/news/stories/0806/353369.html

Also, I saw this little video, which I thought was real until I read about it being part of this movie called "Zero Day". It looks pretty cool, besically like another 'elephant' type movie, columbine style. The video is pretty cool though, if I hadn't of seen the movie review, I would still think it was real haha. http://www3.strangeland.com/asp/show.asp?id=19482

Cannabis should be decriminalized for the same reasons alcohol is.

2006-08-29T22:07:00.000-05:00

Why did the U.S. ever end Prohibition? Certainly, alcohol has all the trappings of a morally-dangerous and socially-damaging substance that should be banned, per the arguments of those who currently clamor for the banning of morally-dangerous and socially-damaging substances . Alcohol has little or no proven medicinal value. Its abuse can ruin the lives and hinder the development of children who use it. Its overconsumption can kill. It can contribute to social, financial, or emotional problems in adults. It should not be consumed before driving or operating heavy machinery. It distorts perception and emotion. It is often improperly used as a crutch by those who can't deal with real life.

Most of these effects are very similar to marijuana and scores of other illegal drugs, and underline the arguments defending their illegality. But alcohol, with many of the same features, is still legal in the U.S.

It turns out that alcohol is legal for the simplest, most nostalgic, and most American reason of all. Despite its risks and harmful side-effects, adults are reserved the right to drink because they are independent adults in a free country. For all of the empty rhetoric about economics and black markets, the end of Prohibition was due to a single principle: even if drinking may be bad for society, government has no right to keep the people from doing it. The ability to get drunk is an inalienable right that we have forever confirmed with the 18th Amendment.

No one can - nor should try to - challenge the fact that alcoholism is a social disease, that youth drinking creates a net loss to society, that nearly all alcohol consumption is physically unhealthy, and that there is little medicinal or health benefit to the substance itself.

Instead, our laws rightly disregard these points, while true, in favor of the higher principle that adult Americans should have the guaranteed ability to do potentially harmful things that they also enjoy.

When will U.S. drug policy become so enlightened?

Marijuana has fewer documented harmful effects than alcohol. It is not physically addictive. It has yet to kill a single person. And it actually has medicinal benefits. according to the medical opinion of thousands of doctors who prescribe cannabis for their patients.

But in most ways, and for the discussion of public policy, marijuana is identical to alcohol. Both are intentional distortions of reality. Both can induce positive or negative effects, depending on the self-control of the user. Both have the capability for misuse to cause personal or social harm. Both should be of limited access to minors. Both are also recreational activities enjoyed by millions of people over thousands of years of recorded history.

Despite plenty of restrictions, alcohol is still legal thanks to the 18th Amendment. The same principles should inspire the decriminalization of cannabis.

America's laws, like all just laws, should be consistent. Which legal principle do we believe in enough to stand behind? Do we believe in paternalism and prohibition, or will we decriminalize cannabis?

ugh

2006-08-28T23:53:00.000-05:00

lmao, I was talking to this girl today, well more like arguing with her, and somewhere along the way she had said "If I'm so stupid and ugly, why do I have 3,000 myspace friends,huh?" I couldn't even answer her. I was too busy lmao.. Mother fuck this generation is going to hell. All these scenesters,poseurs,myspace kiddies..WHAT THE FUCK. Oh well, maybe they will all die of something horrible that makes them puke up blood and scratch out their own eye balls, that would be entertaining to say the least. I don't know.. I feel like shit right now. I'm gonna go take nice assortment of pills and watch lucky louie. If anyone reading this hasn't seen that show, its definetly worth a look, most likely you will find it hilarious and grow to love it like I have. hahaha.
Oh and check out www.shoutwire.com
They post random links about random stuff and you can always find something worth reading.

Well I'm off, pzlv

Iranian suicide bomber cartoon intended for children..

2006-08-17T06:55:00.000-05:00

hahaha wow...

What a moron >_<

2006-08-14T13:35:00.000-05:00

Orem man reports marijuana stolen.

Two people are in jail following a home burglary.

According to police reports, 18-year-old Kory C. Tippetts returned home Monday evening to discover that someone had broken into his house. Tippetts reported that a quarter-pound of marijuana was the only thing missing.

Tippetts told police he had an idea who might have stolen it. Tippetts explained to police that he had received a call earlier that day from 23-year-old Richard W. Hight. Hight wanted to buy some marijuana, but Tippetts couldn’t meet him to make the sale.

Officers checked Hight’s house, where they recovered six ounces of marijuana and arrested him for burglary, theft, and possession of marijuana in a drug-free-zone with the intent to distribute. He was booked into the Utah County jail.

With the stolen marijuana now in hand, the officers called Tippetts to come to the police station to identify the drugs. Tippetts came to the station, identified the drugs, and was then arrested and booked on drug related charges.

Source: KSL News

The Marijuana Conspiracy - The Real Reason Hemp is Illegal

2006-08-14T13:24:00.000-05:00

MARIJUANA is not DANGEROUS. Pot is NOT harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does NOT pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Various big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people.

The truth is if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! Entrepreneurs have not been educated on the product potential of pot. The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about an extremely versatile plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies.

Where did the word 'marijuana' come from? In the mid 1930s, the M-word was created to tarnish the good image and phenomenal history of the hemp plant...as you will read. The facts cited here, with references, are generally verifiable in the Encyclopedia Britannica which was printed on hemp paper for 150 years:

* All schoolbooks were made from hemp or flax paper until the 1880s; Hemp Paper Reconsidered, Jack Frazier, 1974.

* It was LEGAL TO PAY TAXES WITH HEMP in America from 1631 until the early 1800s; LA Times, Aug. 12, 1981.

* REFUSING TO GROW HEMP in America during the 17th and 18th Centuries WAS AGAINST THE LAW! You could be jailed in Virginia for refusing to grow hemp from 1763 to 1769; Hemp in Colonial Virginia, G. M. Herdon.

* George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers GREW HEMP; Washington and Jefferson Diaries. Jefferson smuggled hemp seeds from China to France then to America.

* Benjamin Franklin owned one of the first paper mills in America and it processed hemp. Also, the War of 1812 was fought over hemp. Napoleon wanted to cut off Moscow's export to England; Emperor Wears No Clothes, Jack Herer.

* For thousands of years, 90% of all ships' sails and rope were made from hemp. The word 'canvas' is Dutch for cannabis; Webster's New World Dictionary.

* 80% of all textiles, fabrics, clothes, linen, drapes, bed sheets, etc. were made from hemp until the 1820s with the introduction of the cotton gin.

* The first Bibles, maps, charts, Betsy Ross's flag, the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made from hemp; U.S. Government Archives.

* The first crop grown in many states was hemp. 1850 was a peak year for Kentucky producing 40,000 tons. Hemp was the largest cash crop until the 20th Century; State Archives.

* Oldest known records of hemp farming go back 5000 years in China, although hemp industrialization probably goes back to ancient Egypt.

* Rembrants, Gainsboroughs, Van Goghs as well as most early canvas paintings were principally painted on hemp linen.

* In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down. Government studies report that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees. Plans were in the works to implement such programs; Department of Agriculture

* Quality paints and varnishes were made from hemp seed oil until 1937. 58,000 tons of hemp seeds were used in America for paint products in 1935; Sherman Williams Paint Co. testimony before Congress against the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.

* Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR ITSELF WAS CONTRUCTED FROM HEMP! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; Popular Mechanics, 1941.

* Hemp called 'Billion Dollar Crop.' It was the first time a cash crop had a business potential to exceed a billion dollars; Popular Mechanics, Feb., 1938.

* Mechanical Engineering Magazine (Feb. 1938) published an article entitled 'The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that Can be Grown.' It stated that if hemp was cultivated using 20th Century technology, it would be the single largest agricultural crop in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

The following information comes directly from the United States Department of Agriculture's 1942 14-minute film encouraging and instructing 'patriotic American farmers' to grow 350,000 acres of hemp each year for the war effort:

'...(When) Grecian temples were new, hemp was already old in the service of mankind. For thousands of years, even then, this plant had been grown for cordage and cloth in China and elsewhere in the East. For centuries prior to about 1850, all the ships that sailed the western seas were rigged with hempen rope and sails. For the sailor, no less than the hangman, hemp was indispensable...

...Now with Philippine and East Indian sources of hemp in the hands of the Japanese...American hemp must meet the needs of our Army and Navy as well as of our industries...

...the Navy's rapidly dwindling reserves. When that is gone, American hemp will go on duty again; hemp for mooring ships; hemp for tow lines; hemp for tackle and gear; hemp for countless naval uses both on ship and shore. Just as in the days when Old Ironsides sailed the seas victorious with her hempen shrouds and hempen sails. Hemp for victory!'

Certified proof from the Library of Congress; found by the research of Jack Herer, refuting claims of other government agencies that the 1942 USDA film 'Hemp for Victory' did not exist.

emp cultivation and production do not harm the environment. The USDA Bulletin #404 concluded that hemp produces 4 times as much pulp with at least 4 to 7 times less pollution. From Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938:

'It has a short growing season...It can be grown in any state...The long roots penetrate and break the soil to leave it in perfect condition for the next year's crop. The dense shock of leaves, 8 to 12 feet above the ground, chokes out weeds.
...hemp, this new crop can add immeasurably to American agriculture and industry.'

In the 1930s, innovations in farm machinery would have caused an industrial revolution when applied to hemp. This single resource could have created millions of new jobs generating thousands of quality products. Hemp, if not made illegal, would have brought America out of the Great Depression.

William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane) and the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division of Kimberly Clark owned vast acreage of timberlands. The Hearst Company supplied most paper products. Patty Hearst's grandfather, a destroyer of nature for his own personal profit, stood to lose billions because of hemp.

In 1937, Dupont patented the processes to make plastics from oil and coal. Dupont's Annual Report urged stockholders to invest in its new petrochemical division. Synthetics such as plastics, cellophane, celluloid, methanol, nylon, rayon, Dacron, etc., could now be made from oil. Natural hemp industrialization would have ruined over 80% of Dupont's business.

HE CONSPIRACY

Andrew Mellon became Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury and Dupont's primary investor. He appointed his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

Secret meetings were held by these financial tycoons. Hemp was declared dangerous and a threat to their billion dollar enterprises. For their dynasties to remain intact, hemp had to go. These men took an obscure Mexican slang word: 'marihuana' and pushed it into the consciousness of America.

MEDIA MANIPULATION

A media blitz of 'yellow journalism' raged in the late 1920s and 1930s. Hearst's newspapers ran stories emphasizing the horrors of marihuana. The menace of marihuana made headlines. Readers learned that it was responsible for everything from car accidents to loose morality.

Films like 'Reefer Madness' (1936), 'Marihuana: Assassin of Youth' (1935) and 'Marihuana: The Devil's Weed' (1936) were propaganda designed by these industrialists to create an enemy. Their purpose was to gain public support so that anti-marihuana laws could be passed.

Examine the following quotes from 'The Burning Question' aka REEFER MADNESS:

a violent narcotic.
acts of shocking violence.
incurable insanity.
soul-destroying effects.
under the influence of the drug he killed his entire family with an ax.
more vicious, more deadly even than these soul-destroying drugs (heroin, cocaine) is the menace of marihuana!

Reefer Madness did not end with the usual 'the end.' The film concluded with these words plastered on the screen: TELL YOUR CHILDREN.

In the 1930s, people were very naive; even to the point of ignorance. The masses were like sheep waiting to be led by the few in power. They did not challenge authority. If the news was in print or on the radio, they believed it had to be true. They told their children and their children grew up to be the parents of the baby-boomers.

On April 14, 1937, the Prohibitive Marihuana Tax Law or the bill that outlawed hemp was directly brought to the House Ways and Means Committee. This committee is the only one that can introduce a bill to the House floor without it being debated by other committees. The Chairman of the Ways and Means, Robert Doughton, was a Dupont supporter. He insured that the bill would pass Congress.

Dr. James Woodward, a physician and attorney, testified too late on behalf of the American Medical Association. He told the committee that the reason the AMA had not denounced the Marihuana Tax Law sooner was that the Association had just discovered that marihuana was hemp.

Few people, at the time, realized that the deadly menace they had been reading about on Hearst's front pages was in fact passive hemp. The AMA understood cannabis to be a MEDICINE found in numerous healing products sold over the last hundred years.

In September of 1937, hemp became illegal. The most useful crop known became a drug and our planet has been suffering ever since.

Congress banned hemp because it was said to be the most violence-causing drug known. Anslinger, head of the Drug Commission for 31 years, promoted the idea that marihuana made users act extremely violent. In the 1950s, under the Communist threat of McCarthyism, Anslinger now said the exact opposite. Marijuana will pacify you so much that soldiers would not want to fight.

Today, our planet is in desperate trouble. Earth is suffocating as large tracts of rain forests disappear. Pollution, poisons and chemicals are killing people. These great problems could be reversed if we industrialized hemp. Natural biomass could provide all of the planet's energy needs that are currently supplied by fossil fuels. We have consumed 80% of our oil and gas reserves. We need a renewable resource. Hemp could be the solution to soaring gas prices.

THE WONDER PLANT

Hemp has a higher quality fiber than wood fiber. Far fewer caustic chemicals are required to make paper from hemp than from trees. Hemp paper does not turn yellow and is very durable. The plant grows quickly to maturity in a season where trees take a lifetime.

ALL PLASTIC PRODUCTS SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP SEED OIL. Hempen plastics are biodegradable! Over time, they would break down and not harm the environment. Oil-based plastics, the ones we are very familiar with, help ruin nature; they do not break down and will do great harm in the future. The process to produce the vast array of natural (hempen) plastics will not ruin the rivers as Dupont and other petrochemical companies have done. Ecology does not fit in with the plans of the Oil Industry and the political machine. Hemp products are safe and natural.

MEDICINES SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP. We should go back to the days when the AMA supported cannabis cures. 'Medical Marijuana' is given out legally to only a handful of people while the rest of us are forced into a system that relies on chemicals. Pot is only healthy for the human body.

WORLD HUNGER COULD END. A large variety of food products can be generated from hemp. The seeds contain one of the highest sources of protein in nature. ALSO: They have two essential fatty acids that clean your body of cholesterol. These essential fatty acids are not found anywhere else in nature! Consuming pot seeds is the best thing you could do for your body. Eat uncooked hemp seeds.

CLOTHES SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP. Hemp clothing is extremely strong and durable over time. You could hand clothing, made from pot, down to your grandchildren. Today, there are American companies that make hemp clothing; usually 50% hemp. Hemp fabrics should be everywhere. Instead, they are almost underground. Superior hemp products are not allowed to advertise on fascist television. Kentucky, once the top hemp producing state, made it ILLEGAL TO WEAR hemp clothing! Can you imagine being thrown into jail for wearing quality jeans?

The world is crazy...but that does not mean you have to join the insanity. Get together. Spread the news. Tell people, and that includes your children, the truth. Use hemp products. Eliminate the word 'marijuana.' Realize the history that created it. Make it politically incorrect to say or print the M-word. Fight against the propaganda (designed to favor the agenda of the super rich) and the bullshit. Hemp must be utilized in the future. We need a clean energy source to save our planet. INDUSTRIALIZE HEMP!

The liquor, tobacco and oil companies fund more than a million dollars a day to Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other similar agencies. We have all seen their commercials. Now, their motto is: �It's more dangerous than we thought.� Lies from the powerful corporations, that began with Hearst, are still alive and well today.

The brainwashing continues. Now, the commercials say: If you buy a joint, you contribute to murders and gang wars. The latest anti-pot commercials say: If you buy a joint...you are promoting TERRORISM! The new enemy (terrorism) has paved the road to brainwash you any way THEY see fit.

There is only one enemy; the friendly people you pay your taxes to; the war-makers and nature destroyers. With your funding, they are killing the world right in front of your eyes. HALF A MILLION DEATHS EACH YEAR ARE CAUSED BY TOBACCO. HALF A MILLION DEATHS EACH YEAR ARE CAUSED BY ALCOHOL. NO ONE HAS EVER, EVER DIED FROM SMOKING POT!! In the entire history of the human race, not one death can be attributed to cannabis. Our society has outlawed grass but condones the use of the KILLERS: TOBACCO and ALCOHOL. Hemp should be declassified and placed in DRUG stores to relieve stress. Hardening and constriction of the arteries are bad; but hemp usage actually enlarges the arteries...which is a healthy condition. We have been so conditioned to think that: Smoking is harmful. That is NOT the case for passive pot.

Ingesting THC, hemp's active agent, has a positive effect; relieving asthma and glaucoma. A joint tends to alleviate the nausea caused by chemotherapy. You are able to eat on hemp. This is a healthy state of being.

{One personal note: During the pregnancy of my wife, she was having some difficulty gaining weight. We were in the hospital. A nurse called us to one side and said: �Off the record, if you smoke pot...you'd get something called the munchies and you�ll gain weight.' I swear that is a true story}.

The stereotype for a pothead is similar to a drunk, bubble-brain. Yet, the truth is one�s creative abilities can be enhanced under its influence. The perception of time slightly slows and one can become more sensitive. You can more appreciate all arts; be closer to nature and generally FEEL more under the influence of cannabis. It is, in fact, the exact opposite state of mind and body as the drunken state. You can be more aware with pot.

The pot plant is an ALIEN plant. There is physical evidence that cannabis is not like any other plant on this planet. One could conclude that it was brought here for the benefit of humanity. Hemp is the ONLY plant where the males appear one way and the females appear very different, physically! No one ever speaks of males and females in regard to the plant kingdom because plants do not show their sexes; except for cannabis. To determine what sex a certain, normal, Earthly plant is: You have to look internally, at its DNA. A male blade of grass (physically) looks exactly like a female blade of grass. The hemp plant has an intense sexuallity. Growers know to kill the males before they fertilize the females. Yes, folks...the most potent pot comes from 'horny females.'

The reason this amazing, very sophisticated, ET plant from the future is illegal has nothing to do with how it physically affects us�..

�POT IS ILLEGAL BECAUSE BILLIONAIRES WANT TO REMAIN BILLIONAIRES!

ps: I think the word �DRUGS� should not be used as an umbrella-word that covers all chemical agents. Drugs have come to be known as something BAD. Are you aware there are LEGAL drugstores?! Yep, in every city. Unbelievable. Each so-called drug should be considered individually. Cannabis is a medicine and not a drug. We should DARE to speak the TRUTH no matter what the law is.

:)

2006-08-14T12:56:00.000-05:00

Alright, I had to start a new blog, cause my old one was deleted. Well actually, the site was put down for reasons unknown. Anyway, I'll be posting lots of random things I find on teh interwebz. Links,stories,lyrics,articles,pictures and anything else I find that I think others would enjoy :) Hmm well lets start this off with a list of ten reasons why america's public schools are like america's prison. Found this while browsing through shoutwire and thought it was interesting.

Ten Reasons Why America's Public Schools Are Like America's Prisons

1. Both are compulsory. Obviously, prisons are designed to be compulsory punishment. Yet public schools, especially for poor kids, can also be de facto imprisonment. As schooling is required by law, and parents are often geographically, financially, or in some other way limited to their local public school, students end up being forced by law into the dictated state-run institution. It is worth mention that vouchers, which PI happens to support, would free parents and students from the lack of choice in schools.

2. Both are overcrowded as the result of poor public policy. In the case of prisons, the drug war and other misguided prosecutions of nonviolent offenses has unleashed a torrent of "criminals" into the prison system. In the case of schools, the aforementioned herding of young Americans into local public schools creates the same result: overcrowding. The intelligent policies to reverse both problems would be the decriminalization of nonviolent offenses and school vouchers.

3. Both are prone to violent insurrection. Both prison breaks and school shootings occasionally but not infrinquently stir public fear on the nighly news. When either occurs, blame is usually spread liberally, and often misplaced. The state should be at least partially faulted for its overweening presence yet inability to effectively maintain peace. Insurrections can be prevented when prisoners are correctly controlled; school shootings can be prevented when kids are effectively taught right from wrong.

4. Both are poorly administered and inefficient. Excessive bureaucracy and centralization plague both institutions. The heavy state regulation of American K-12 education has enjoyed a well-documented history of failure, wasting money and resources to little benefit to the students and parents. Prisons fare little better. Countless cases of prison rape are reported each year at federal penitentiaries, yet prison officials do little to try curb the problem.

5. Both assume one solution for every individual. US justice policy incorrectly assumes that incarceration will solve many social problems, such as drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc. The US Department of Education assumes that federal and/or state government standards should apply to every student. Both are incorrect assumptions. Nonviolent and white-collar offenders should be rehabilitated; parents and kids should have choice and options in education. One size does not fit all.

6. Both are unnecessarily expensive to taxpayers. Because politicians generally fear comprehensive solutions to problems, they end up throwing money at whatever doesn't work right. This is true to disastrous effects for both prisons and public schools, to whom the allocation of taxpayer largesse is tantamount to buying Italian leather loveseats for the deck of the Titanic.

7. Both harm American competitiveness by keeping Americans from being productive. In prisons, felons can't vote, even if they are nonviolent and otherwise productive citizens. In schools, poor education inhibits upward mobility, encourages dropouts and breeds criminals.

8. Both are institutions often internally ruled by intimidation and violence. The toughest, most callous inmates become the leaders of the prison. In prison slang, these individuals have “the keys to the car.” Likewise, in public schools, the toughest students become the leaders of the school. They are the “bullies” or “jocks.” Both of these prototypical ‘alpha males’ are the de facto lords over their peers. They are the punishment dealers and the trendsetters.

9. Both are ruled by cliques. The clique provides security in a scary and uncertain world. It also allows people to form a lasting bond between peers with similar interests or backgrounds. In prison, cliques are formed between the races. A member of a clique knows that he will be protected by his fellow associates if he is accosted by someone in a rival clique. Cliques commonly form in public schools as well, although not always because of race. Peer groups are often formed on the basis of many different characterstics, but are equally as influential in social affairs.

10. Both have tenure regulations not conducive for improvement. In public schools, tenure rules make it nearly impossible for schools to terminate incompetent teachers or deans, let alone mediocre ones. Prisons have the opposite problem. The average tenure of a prison chief is 2.4 years, which isn’t nearly enough time to pursue the real reform which the US correctional facilities desperately need.

Well I'm off for now.

PeaceLoveHappiness