Missouri, our children, high school, privacy and the military, all in one

It seems the Gestapo Right Wing just can't get enough of their "small gubmint" and their ability to reach into people's lives.

How much more ironic and hypocritical is this?

It seems the state wants more and more of our children to be automatically tested for a career in the military while they're in high school:

Missouri Program Requires High School Students To Take Military Enlistment Test

Check this from Truthout earlier today:

The Missouri School Improvement Program, which is set to take effect beginning with the 2014-15 school year, establishes five standards of accountability used to rate school performance. The third standard calls on high schools to administer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Career Exploration Program (ASVAB-CEP) to determine whether students are "College and Career Ready." 

The ASVAB is the entrance exam the military gives to recruits to determine their aptitude for various occupations. The test also is used as a recruiting tool in 11,700 high schools across the country. The ASVAB is the most important component of the Pentagon's school-recruiting program because it provides information on the cognitive abilities of students, something the Department of Defense cannot purchase or find online.

Participation in the ASVAB-CEP allows high schools to take advantage of the career exploration component of the testing regime while prohibiting the release of ASVAB results for recruiting purposes. ASVAB results include three hours of test data, sensitive personal demographic information on children and Social Security numbers. There are no privacy protections built into the Missouri School Improvement Program. ASVAB results are the only student information leaving Missouri's schools without providing for parental consent.

We can't just let our children go to school, we have to automatically have them tested for the military and share that information with that same military and the government.

Weimar Germany would have loved this.

First we'll have them join the Boy Scouts and wear their little brown shirts and get ranks and badges and such, then, once in high school, we'll automatically test them for the military.

Sure, that's perfect.

The two real, actual problems people have with "Obamacare"

Let's face it, the fact is, there are only two real problems Americans have with the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare."

Sure, there's the whole idea that we aren't quite sure what it is or how much it's going to cost or who's going to pay for it or, ultimately, how it will work because, really, that would require reading and/or paying attention, after all, right?  And who's "got time for that"?

But ignoring that, there's really only two problems Americans have with this bill.

The first one is the big one.

It REQUIRES Americans to do something.

By law.

It demands that we all get health insurance.

And that goes against everything Americans in the 21st Century have come to be for.

WE HATE TO BE TOLD WHAT TO DO.

And we especially hate to be told what to do, for something to be required of us by Uncle Sam. We hate to be told we have to do something BY GUBMINT.  It just goes against our current, very spoiled grain right now.  We're far too spoiled to have anyone TELL US WHAT WE HAVE TO DO. (Even if it's for the greater well-being of the society, too, as it turns out).

That's the first problem.

The second problem is a tougher one, though albeit more short-term.

We really, really don't want no dang Kenyan/Socialist/Communist/Pinko/Gubmint lover tellin' us what to do.




 

The NSA?

If you think the NSA tracking us is a big deal, think about it.

We are so easily and simply traceable, it's not funny.

Between our cell phones, our computers and credit and/or debit cards, if virtually anyone wants to know anything about you, there's no difficulty to it at all.

At all.


Now, get out there and have a great weekend anyway.

And don't be paranoid.

Good news--and bad--on your birthday

First, the bad news:

The Google and Facebook and Pinterest and Socialcam and all kinds of computer organizations and people know all kinds of things about you, because of your computer and what you do and where you go on it.

Additionally, they sell that information.

Third, they can--and maybe sometimes do?--track you on it.

The good news?

They remember your birthday and send you this:

Think happy thoughts.

(Have a great weekend, y'all).

Quote of the day--on big government

"...I don't want to scrap what you might call big government. I distrust big business more than big government. But often enough the two entities have been bedfellows with silk sheets and matching toothbrushes..."  --Dar Williams, Contributor/Commentator, The Huffington Post

Link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dar-williams/an-open-invitation-to-the_b_786277.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=238881,b=facebook

Roy Blunt: Bad, old, corrupt Washington politics

For your edification--and enjoyment

All Glenn Beck, folks.  Admittedly spliced together but all Glenn Beck---right from his mouth.  Thanks, Glenn.  Now, would you either tone it down or shut up?  Please?

Big or small, government should work

Did you miss the latest Ponzi scheme catch?

Ever heard of Tom Petters?

Here we go again.

This clown ran a $3.65 billion dollar Ponzi scheme out of Minnesota that bilked thousands of people out of their money.

One more in a long line up of Ponzi schemes.

First--and biggest--was Bernie Madoff.

Then there was R. Allen Stanford and now this guy.

In the 2000's, it seems the government virtually shut down and didn't investigate anyone who was--or was supposed to be--taking money for investments. Bernie Madoff, in the most aggregious example, didn't have an investor's license. Ever.

It needs to be asked: Where were the government regulators when these men were taking in all this money?

We need our government to work for us.

Sure, we want less government and smaller government and the requisite lower taxes but for the agencies that exist, we want and need them to do the jobs they were designed and created for.

In this case, where was the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)? What the hell were they doing these last 9 years?

There should be hell to pay for them for all that has happened.

Links: http://www.reuters.com/article/fundsFundsNews/idUSN024978920091202
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Petters
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/business/03stanford.html?_r=1

Our institutions are failing us

Our governments are not doing their collective jobs well at all, our churches have us do silly, pointless, unproductive things to ourselves--
maybe this is an improvement, since they used to have us kill one another--while. finally, our corporations drain and killus.

All I need to say about our govenrments not working is the current national and international financial, economic and banking crises. That along
points it all out but add that they are taking money in all kinds of amounts from businesses and business people, instead os doing their job and working
for us, the people they are supposed to be representing and working for.

--Some examples of our silly church practices::

==Hassidic Jews, with their required haircuts and black, "just so" clothing;

--Sikh Indians, with their rules about men never cutting hteir hair;

--Mormans with their "magic underwear";

--Catholics with their magic "blessings" and "holy water" (you gotta be kidding me);

--Amish people not using electricity (aparently because God doesn't want us to be warm in the winter or cool in the summer, eh?);

--Swirling dervishes, who do all that spinning to "get closer to God."

Shouldn't churches just be concerned with getting us all to help and work with one another? Wouldn't that be a better use of their--and our--time?
Wouldn't that be a better function for a church? All churches?

Examples of how our corporations are killing us:

--Bhopal, India in 1984 when Union Carbide has a gas explosion;

--Our food corporations are putting chemicals in our foods, along with fats and salt and sugars of all kinds, that are having the effects of making our
lives more miserable, while we're here, and then kiling us prematurely;

--those same food corporations and chemical corporations (and no doubt others, too) poisoning our soil, air and water, all for their various uses and
profits;

--the nature of corporations and their structures, period, which constantly, annually, require ever-increasng profits, to the detriment of their own
employees, since so much of their profits frequently, obscenely-largely go to executives and executive pay, while being taken from the most of the
employees;

And one of the subtle worst--taking all our working lives from us but giving us no means to take care of ourselves once their through with us and we're
elderly, preferably with a pension or some such;

This isn't working. Our instutions are failing us. They need to make sense and work for us. They're not, as I've illustrated.

We need to change them and have them work for us.

We need to get busy and take our lives and our worlds back.

"Workers of the workd, unite."

The way it oughta be... (right?)

I'm Voting Republican!

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