Untreated Spewage

I participate in on-line surveys conducted by the Gallup Panel. Occasionally they send out updates on the results of selected recent poll questions.

"--A recent Gallup Panel survey asked respondents to consider Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Arizona Sen. John McCain and indicate which one they most want to see elected president this year. McCain is the winner among national adults, with 40% of panelists giving him the edge against Obama (31%) and Clinton (22%)."

My attempts to influence national public opinion by voicing my views are, apparently, futile.

Latest hot-off-the-press news from the National Science Teachers' Association:

NSTA on Facebook

Communicate with colleagues, read our Boston Conference Blog, and learn more about membership in NSTA by visiting NSTA’s group page on Facebook.

The term "Facebook" is hot-linked in the original email notification, but requires potential viewers to sign up for a Facebook account before visiting the NSTA profile.

Be sure to add the National Science Teachers' Association to your friends list. You know all the cool kids are going to!

The entire welfare budget for the state of Hawaii is currently about $45-million per year.

Double that figure... nah, let's triple it (to factor in larger states) to about a hundred-fifty million, multiply by fifty for all the states, you get around seven-point-five-billion dollars per YEAR for welfare benefits in the U.S.

Compare that to the twelve-billion dollars per MONTH the U.S. is spending on the war in Iraq.

Or another way: $45-million for a population of about 1.2 million persons works out to about $11.25-billion dollars per YEAR for the 300-million population of the U.S., or roughly equivalent to the cost of ONE MONTH of the war in Iraq.

Considering that the total value of the welfare benefits for a single client with two or three kids in Hawaii can run upwards of $30,000 a year, for the cost of the war in Iraq, every welfare client in the U.S. could be given three-point-six million dollars a year! We could have a nation of welfare millionaires, who would all shop at K-Mart and Wal-Mart, thereby stimulating our economy and catapulting us once again to international super-power status.

But... naaah! It's more important to invest our nation's wealth in killing people.

The Olympic Games are supposed to be apolitical.

I see by the papers (okay, the internet) that Hillary Clinton is calling on President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games "unless China improves its human rights record."

How is China supposed to "improve its human rights record" in three months?

My contempt for the Democratic party has reached new highs because of this. It was Democrat Carter who ordered a boycott of the Olympic games (with a pledge to revoke the passports of American athletes who attended) back in 1980. Now another high-ranking Dem with Presidential aspirations is calling for an Olypics-related political statement. I hereby pledge an oath to never, ever, ever, ever, ever support or vote for another Democrat candidate in any race, for any seat, anywhere.

Some selectively-edited stats:

It was Nixon who signed into law the bills banning cigarette advertising from radio and television. Meanwhile, Democrat Al "Envro-man" Gore's family was making the big bucks with their tobacco farm.

Democrat Johnson ramped up the war in Vietnam. Republican Nixon ended it.

Does anybody remember Democrat Al Gore's wife Tipper calling for censoring of rock-n-roll albums? A few years before that, Nixon held secret meetings with Elvis.

My new motto: real lefties vote right!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ENDORWITCH!




(Technically, it's not quite her birthday where I live... and her birthday is nearly over where she lives! A groovy thing about having strategically located LJ friends is that your birthday can span nearly two whole days! In theory, that should result in twice as many presents.... right?)

In case you're wondering about the spate of posts tonight... I'm procrastinating. I have some stuff I pretty much absolutely have to get done for work tomorrow... and on which, 'natch, I've barely started. I dislike bringing work home because I'm usually too tired (and/or annoyed) to actually, like, work on work stuff.

Plus, I haven't really updated much since before leaving for Boston over a week ago. A blessed silence to some that may in fact have been, altho' I suspect by and large nobody noticed. Nevertheless, all this nonsense percolating in my psyche demands an outlet. Work stuff hardly constitutes an outlet. It's more like a bottleneck, a stopper, a plug.

I have a fall-back plan. Feeble, it is, to be sure, but it might work, and should only require about half an hour of prep, which if I get to bed in the next half hour, I can then be rested and fresh enough in the morning to pull off.

I really need to stop putting things off like this. It's... stressful.

I just remembered one additional thing I wanted to get done tonight. It's not due until Wednesday, so there's always tomorrow night. Then there's another absolutely-must-get-done project (kind of a big one, and kind of a serious one) due by Thursday. This week is kind of sucktastic* as far as non-push-backable due dates go. Once this week is over, things should mellow out a bit.

Okay, one more non-productive post to write... okay, maybe two... then I'm off to... sleep!

*Thanx to narilka for that keen new vocabulary word!

Did I mention that I met another on-line friend In Real Life at the NSTA (National Science Teachers' Association) convention in Boston? I had the opportunity to hang out with molecularman49. Not unexpectedly, he's a really swell guy! More about Dr. Steve's presentation at the conference... and the zany shenanigans in the Zometool Kissing Booth*, whenever I get around to actually, y'know, writing about the conference. In the meantime, check out his cool new line of educational tools at SkybayEducation.com.




*Don't worry, B., that part of the sales pitch was Paul, not Dr. Steve!

I've been kinda spending money I shouldn't lately. And most of it has been, ostensibly at least, for work-related toys... er, tools! Yeah, tools! ( Collapse )