Pirate1974

Scary.

The only Momentus I ever heard of is a training method that's supposed to improve your golf swing. Somehow I don't think that's the same thing.

My wife just completed her 26th year of teaching in the NC public schools, and she has some very strong opinions about NCLB. I'd let her respond to this, but it would probably go on for several pages. On the surface, this law sounds great. The three main goals are: 1) To make sure that all students in a school as well as students from low-income families, minority populations and students with disabilities perform well in the areas of reading and mathematics. 2) To hold schools responsible if all children are not on grade level or above. 3) To make sure that there is a highly qualified teacher in each classroom. Now who can argue with those goals? Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? The problems come in when you start looking at the specifics. NCLB lets individual school systems define their own standards of "proficiency" in reading and mathematics. What's considered proficient in North Carolina is not necessarily considered proficient in North Dakota. The only requirement is that there be some sort of standardized test so that schools can issue a "report card" of how they measured up. One of the biggest problems is that the law sets up 10 different subgroups of students in a school. There must be a minimum of 40 students in a subgroup and all of the subgroups must meet Adequate Yearly Progress (grade level on the standardized test) for the school to meet its NCLB goals, This means that if all of the students in a school kick butt on the test except the "Limited English Proficient" students or the "Free/Reduced Price Lunch" students, the school as a whole fails. Two years of failure means parents can pull their kids out of that school and the school system has to let them transfer to any other school in the system that they want. NCLB defines a "highly qualified teacher" as one who has a bachelor's degree, full state certification, and can prove that they know the subject that they teach. Well, duh! That sounds to me like "barely qualified." I don't know how it is in other places, but in Charlotte you don't get hired without a bachelor's degree and subject knowledge. They will give you six months to get state certification, but if you don't get it, you don't stay. Apparently, a school system can opt out of NCLB, but they'll lose their federal funding. They're not likely to do that.

Obviously, this clown doesn't update his site very often. This is a quote off his "List of Cults" page: How long has that thing been gone?

Saw it last night. I think I was the only guy in the audience with a couple hundred women. The last time I heard so much sniffling was at a funeral. I didn't think it was that bad compared to some others of the same type. It was a whole lot better than "The Bridges of Madison County," for one. One thing that really irritates me personally, not just in this movie, but in lots of others is this: There's one scene where the young characters go to the beach and they're supposed to be in South Carolina. This beach has huge rocks on it which has to be someplace in California. Now this movie was mostly filmed in Georgetown County, South Carolina which is right on the Atlantic Ocean. Why stick a scene in there that is so obviously the Pacific? I guess they think most people won't notice, except anybody that's ever been to the beach in the Southeast. Just my personal gripe.

Just in time for the Fourth of July, you can blow up your favorite terrorist. A manufacturer in China has come out with fireworks featuring the faces of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Moammar Gadhafi. When lit, the Osama model erupts in blood-red flames and screeches for 60 seconds. Two shots blow his head off. The Chinese call them Exploding Terrorist Heads and they've been hot sellers in some parts of the country. Light 'em up.

The real name of Alice's restaurant was The Back Room in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track

I always planned what I was going to say ahead of time in case I got nailed during a meeting. Had to make sure I said something that was "on the word" don't you know. Every single time I did the speaking in tongues thing, it always sounded exactly the same. Only the "interpretation" changed.

Now that's a catfight I'd pay to see. My money's on Halle. She kicked some serious butt in "Die Another Day."

If you reject Spiderman, do you also reject his father.. Stan Lee?

I don't think I'm going to be able to avoid this one. My wife has been waiting for this to come out for about a year, ever since she stood in line for an hour at Barnes & Noble to have Nicholas Sparks autograph her copy of the book. I had to sit through "Message in a Bottle" and "A Walk to Remember" too, so I know what I'm in for. I don't know how popular Sparks' books are in other parts of the country, but they're real big around here. My wife has read all of them, mainly because they're about places in North Carolina where we've spent a lot of time - New Bern, Wilmington, the Outer Banks. I've only read bits and pieces of them, but they're the kind of stuff that women read, and then say to their husbands,"Why aren't you as romantic as the guy in this book?" Who needs that? I'll get even though. I just haven't decided yet if it will be "Spiderman II" or "King Arthur."

Fascinating. How can a book described as "used with a name written in the front cover" also be in "mint condition?"

I had forgotten about those silly checkbooks. How ridiculous was that? So what was the explanation if your check bounced? I never bought into that "law of believing" stuff anyway. I saw it fail way too many times.

I thought it was interesting that they mentioned that “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” was used in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "Moulin Rouge," but they didn't mention that "Singin' In The Rain" turned up in "A Clockwork Orange." I wonder why?

No, this is not a Polish joke. The official name for it is the Polish Optimal Diet and apparently, several million people, mostly in Poland, are on it, which goes way beyond anything Robert Atkins ever imagined. It's basically cutting way back on the carbs and sugars, and consuming mass quantities of fat. Specifically animal fat, such as butter and lard. 250 grams per day, about 10 times the amount of satured fat the FDA recommends. This was developed by a Dr. Jan Kwasniewski and people who are on it think its wonderful. They've lost weight, have more energy and there are claims of being cured of diabetes, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis, and its even supposed to result in painless childbirth. Of course, their cholesterol levels must be 1000, but Dr. Kwasniewski seems to think that's irrelevant. This diet recommends lots of egg yolks, cheese, vegetables cooked in butter and such delicacies as tripe, blood sausage and head cheese. If you've never seen head cheese, it's indescribable and clearly not intended for human consumption. Not surprisingly, not many other doctors endorse this thing and it hasn't gained much popularity outside of Poland or Polish communities in the U.S. Yet. I could practically feel my arteries clogging up just reading about this.

I seem to remember general condemnation of rock music, specifically the evil Stones, and how it wasn't profitable to listen to it, but I don't recall ever being told to get rid of any records that I had. Not that I would have anyway. I do recall some twi lackey going on and on about one song that was on the radio about every 15 minutes back then. It was so bad because it contained the lines "talk to God and listen to the casual reply" along with "friends around the campfire and everybody's high." The devil's own "Rocky Mountain High" by that spawn of Satan, John Denver.

Don't know if this was ever recorded, but Stevie Kay did a song called "For God So Loved the World" that was awesome. I heard her sing it live at the first way coffeehouse I ever went to and was blown away. Great song. My favorite way group was always "Good Seed," in a live performance not the recordings.

Did people really buy into that garbage? In Boy Scouts, they teach the kids about the four "hurry cases" which are serious bleeding, stopped breathing, internal poisoning and heart attack. These are the things that need to be handled immediately. I sure wouldn't want to wait for "third aid" for any of those. My least favorite twi catch phrase was "Where was your believing?" usually after something didn't go quite right or as planned. The implication being that it was your fault, of course, for not having your believing right. B*ll....!!

"Third Aid?" Never heard that phrase. Must have been long after my time. I assume that this is what the normal world calls "first aid." So if this is third, what's supposed to be first and second??

I still think William Hurt would make a good LCM.

It was good, but I didn't think it was as good as the first two. Just my personal opinion. Liked the new characters, but I don't know about Dumbledore. He was barely in it at all. The hippogriff was very cool. I thought the climax was pretty hard to follow if you didn't already know the story. I'd be curious what somebody who hadn't read the book thought about that.

Can't say I really miss anything about twi. The only good times I really remember are when we got together to do something that had nothing at all to do with teaching or witnessing or classes, like going to a movie or playing basketball. Those times were few and far between, I'm afraid.

Why did I get in and why did I stay as long as I did? I was in love. That was the ONLY reason.

On behalf of my better half, thanks for the kind wishes. She's doing her best to try to ignore the situation.

Happy Birthday, Tennessee Lady Today is my wife's birthday too. GO VOLS!!