Say Buh-Bye

It already is time for Superintendent Dennis Thompson to go.

His Royal Arrogance was on display last week when he declared himself and his fiefdom to be above the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I can't say it any better than NDN's Phil Lewis said, so read his Sunday column.
Apparently, Thompson thinks if he covers up bad news, it'll just go away. His excuse was that the media would disrupt the school. Bull. All it would have disrupted was his carefully-created facade of professionalism. We all now know for sure it's just a facade.

Resign, Dennis. Leave.

And take school board member (and chronic sexual harrasser) Richard Calabrese with you.

You both are disgraces to education.

And so it goes.

Listen up

Can you believe it?!?

The Collier County School Board, in a rare reversal of policy, actually listened to its constituency. You know, the people who put them in office (and were threatening to string them up).
At least temporarily, the board decided the bow to the will of the people, at least for one year.

The Collier County School Board agrees block scheduling should stay in Collier County high schools. For one more year. But whether to go from eight credits to seven in the 2009-10 school year was a little trickier. The School Board voted 4-1 Thursday night to keep the 4x4 block schedule for the 2008-09 school year.

This, of course, isn't to say that the board won't go into executive session in the next month or so and reverse itself.

But at least temporarily the will of the people has been heard.

Whoda thunk it?

And so it goes.

Northern Illinois University

And people still think we don't need stricter gun control.

In the 21st century, the only purpose of guns is to kill other people.

To argue otherwise is pure stupidity.

How many more?

And so it goes.

Just send money

Just got back from my weekly excursion to the grocery store. And I have one thing to say:
PLEASE, IS SEASON OVER SOON?
The antics of our seasonal guests never cease to amaze me. It is, after all about them.

ALL about them.

A gentleman stocking cereal was interrupted so he could help a well-dressed woman find a particular brand of cereal - that was right in front of her at eye level. And once she was handed the cereal and directed to her next shopping list item (can't look, gotta be waited on, after all) she proceeded to interrogate the stocker to make sure that the store continue to stock that item. (Which they have, the clerk said, for years...)

Another shopper grabbed onto a stocker and proceeded to have him guide her throughout the store to find all her items. Didn't know Publix had personal shoppers.

As I left the store (I did my own shopping, thank you) I was nearly run down by a Mercedes with a New York plate who decided those stop signs and painted crosswalks in front of the store couldn't possible be for him.

And finally, as I approached my vehicle, another woman (Ontario plate) finished loading her Lexus and left her cart directly behind my vehicle.

Yes, I know, our seasonal guests are a big boost to our economy. It's their money and presence that helps make our lifestyle so enjoyable.

But their attitude (it's all about ME) is really beginning to wear thin.

And this doesn't even begin to take into account the driving habits of our 'guests.' More on that later. I'm keeping a list.

Please, visitors, when you move south for the winter, bring your manners and a bit of common courtesy along. Please.

Better yet, stay home.

Just send the money.

And so it goes.

Playing to win

Two weeks ago, I was ready to bet that the GOP would have a brokered convention. And the Democrats would have a candidate all locked up before its convention.

Now, it looks like it's just the other way around. McCain's got the GOP pretty much locked up now while Clinton and Obama are running neck-and-neck toward a convention showdown which could be, uh, contentious.

Wadda I think about all this? On the GOP side, about all I can do is chuckle. McCain ain't bad as far as Republicans go. Which is just the problem facing the GOP. He is far from conservative enough to satisfy the neocons, fundamentalist snake handling tongue talking evangelicals and related wackos. In fact, he's pretty centrist. That said, I don't think he's electable. Conservative Republicans are likely to not support or vote for him because he isn't the march-in-lockstep litmus test conservative they're praying for. Democrats won't support him because he's, well, not a Democrat. Given that narrowed base, he'd better start digging up a lot of Illinois voters. (Thank God FlipFlop Romney and FlatEarth Huckabee are fading into the background. What losers!)

On the Democratic side, I'm a bit ambivalent.

Clinton's been painted with a rather harsh and unfair brush. She's strong. She's smart. She's ambitious. She's knowledgeable of foreign and domestic issues. She has plans and ideas about how to bail us out of this Bush Quagmire. However ... even though all the aforementioned qualities would be praised if they were applied to a male candidate, when applied to a female candidate, ... somehow, strength isn't a good thing.

Yeah, she may be a little shrill at times, maybe even a little overbearing. But she'd be a good president. Because she knows what it takes to be a good president.

I could vote for her.

I'm also ambivalent about Obama. I like him a LOT; it's just that he's being painted (perhaps by his own advisers?) as the new Kennedy, bringing a new Camelot to the country. That simply isn't fair and isn't accurate. I think Obama could provide us with a more fresh, more positive and more forward-looking presidency. Just don't try to paste the Kennedy mantle on him. Let Obama be Obama. Don't try to project something else on him. He could be a great president. But he's not Kennedy.

I could vote for him.

(By the way, I lived through Kennedy's presidency; he's far from the rainbows and balloons liberal that hazy memories tend to paint him as. Look it up).

The final analysis (at least for today; things could change any minute): Things are looking good for the Democrats. McCain isn't gonna have the total support of his own party, which is a minority and falling fast thanks to the W-imbecile in the White House.

Both Clinton and Obama are electable. Both will have the support of pretty much the entire Democratic party.

Things are looking blue all over.

And so it goes.

What's left to say?

Kinda gives a whole new slant to Red State/Blue State, doesn't it?

And so it goes.

Oily slope

Who could ever have foreseen this:

HOUSTON - Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion — as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from historic crude prices at year's end.

Exxon also set a U.S. record for the biggest quarterly profit, posting net income of $11.7 billion for the final three months of 2007, beating its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The previous record for annual profit was $39.5 billion, which Exxon Mobil made in 2006.

The eye-popping results weren't a surprise given record prices for a barrel of oil at the end of 2007. For much of the fourth quarter, they hovered around $90 a barrel, more than 50 percent higher than a year ago.

Gas is at about $3.15 per gallon, and Bush's buddies are raking it in. What a shock.
And that isn't even the worst part:

Also extraordinary was Exxon Mobil's revenue, which rose 30 percent in the fourth quarter to $116.6 billion from $90 billion a year ago.

For the year, sales rose to $404.5 billion — the most ever for the Irving, Texas-based company — from the $377.64 billion it posted in 2006.

Isn't our president nice to his friends?

What are friends for?

Of course, it's all about supply and demand. Bush and his buddies control the supply and they demand higher and higher profits. What a country!

And so it goes.