Way back in the Reagan era, I used to get in trouble in school all the darn time for reading books under my desk after I’d finished my homework while the teacher was giving the lecture from which I was supposed to learn how to do said homework. One of my favorites was The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids

It’s out of print, and my memories of it are probably seen through almost twenty years of rose colored glasses, but in a lot of ways the book had more to do with setting my world view than anything else I can put an immediate finger on. (Well, there’s the whole Dad Jank refrain of “the world’s not fair”, but that’s a different rant entirely)

My personal opinion – this kind of stuff will definitely heat up. Word on the street is this is one of the most corrupt multi-billion dollar overruns in history.

Here’s a bit I’ve filed away as kind of a personal touchstone. Note, it’s a pre- 9/11 column, and at the time I thought it was a bit over-the-top. Revisiting it almost three years ago, I can honestly say that it’s had a huge role in shaping my views on America’s place in the world.

What he really has in mind… (is) a world in which nobody is militarily dominant. That’s a lovely idea, but … (it) is not going to happen. As for “not just one but many arms races,” well, … we’ll just have to win, won’t we? As we have won all previous arms races … while simultaneously creating the greatest, freest economy the world has ever seen.

to the ChiComs just like when he got back from Vietnam.

John Kerry took ten large from Johnny Chung on behalf of Chinese intelligence back in 1996.

Chung came to Kerry’s office in July 1996 to seek help in getting a Chinese official in to see a Securities and Exchange Commission official, and within a week, Kerry’s staff wrote Chung asking him to host a Sept. 9 fund-raiser.

Turns out a frat boy buddy of mine (a few years behind me) spent some time working for Dean in Iowa. His pics from the trip are here

Full time he hangs out in Austin working for a Americorps organization that provides small business loans. If any of y’all lefties are interested, I can put you in touch with him.

The interface on this presumably XBox related website is wonderful. (Of course, I love mice. Some people don’t.) Be sure to click through to the movies section and check out Champagne — it’s awesome.

I used to know this guy who was really interested in DMT and did a lot of reasearch about it. I always hoped he’d get his hands on some so we could try it, but no success was to be had.

The molecule DMT is a psychoactive chemical that causes intense visions and can induce its users to quickly enter a completely different “environment” that some have likened to an alien or parallel universe. The transition from our world to theirs occurs with no cessation of consciousness or quality of awareness.

Here’s an interesting section of the article:

DMT is also naturally produced in small quantities in the pineal gland in the human brain. The pineal gland appears in the developing human fetus around 49 days after conception. Perhaps an embryo should not be considered human until DMT production commences. Note that “zygotic personhood” (the idea that a fertilized egg is a person) is a recent concept. For example, before 1869, the Catholic church believed that the embryo was not a person until it was 40 days old.

Why are the simplest games often the most intriguing. All you gotta do is keep the red square inside the black square while dodging the blue squares.

So my personal moment of outrage at the Superbowl was the Ditka ad where he implies that “Baseball could use (an erectile dysfunction drug)”. (More here )

Another sign of the declining intellect of America is the trend away from baseball, the thinking man’s game, to football, the fat, lumbering, sweaty man’s game. In baseball, coaches have little to do with the outcome of a game (arguments could be made here for knowing when to pull pitchers and pinch hit), and everything to do with both the mental struggle between batter and pitcher, and the subtle shifts the fielders and baserunners make on every pitch.

Maybe baseball’s a little slow, but girls – whadda you want? Do you want a lover who pounds it out like football, or do you want a man with a slow hand/… a lover with an easy touch/… somebody who will spend his time, not come and go in a heated rush…?