You’ve seen the commercial. A park ranger at Old Faithful, being coy as to why it is so regular. But then it cuts to the ranger sneaking up to Old Faithful and feeding it a glass of the product, implying that even Old Faithful needs fiber to be regular.

Tonight, I saw the same ad, with a new disclaimer; “DRAMATIZATION: Please follow all park rules and Rangers directions.”

Which undoubtedly somebody at least tried to jump over the safety fence and tried to feed some extra Metamucil to Old Faithful. If somebody actually got close, they most likely got caught or almost caught by the scalding water that comes out of Old Faithful.

Stupid.

I found this article, Dumbed Down and Out in High School and it got me thinking.

First of all, the article talks about getting rid of the ‘D’ grade, going straight from a C- to an F. This would have been bad news for me and my Latin classes, but I would have deserved it.

School teaches you more than information. Sure, it is nice to know who discovered America and all that, but when you look at the process, not just the information, then things become clear.

If you want to earn those good grades, you have to be able to effectively study, learn and retain information for later retrieval. In the case of things like papers, you must learn the value of research and being able to pick out the salient bits of necessary information.

It is these processes that are the important things to learn in school. These are the things you bring to your job, that is if you want something other than a dead-end minimum wage job.

The people who learn these processes are the ones that get good grades as a byproduct of learning how to learn. I wish schools would teach the process as a primary class, instead of letting the student thrash about and learn the process almost by accident. Imagine how effective our children could be if they are taught these skills at the 6th-7th grade level.

But no, our schools will focus on the byproduct, or false self-esteem rather than on the process and real- self esteem. When you successfully complete a project, you earn that self-esteem and are proud of it, and you know you earned it. To be given false self-esteem leads to a big let down once you hit the real world and find out how things really operate. Then you find out how you’ve been cheated all those years of a real education.

As with all things, learn how to learn and there is no limit to how far you will go.

First of all, let me say there is no such thing as an Assault Weapon. There is an Assault Rifle, which is defined as a “Rifle of mid-power cartridge, able to fire full automatic, burst and semi-automatically.” The rest are merely rifles of any caliber which automatically fire one round and reload for each pull of the trigger, no matter what its appearance is.

To use their terminology is to fight on my side of the board and I refuse to do that. The AW ban names 19 specific makes and models of such semi-automatic weapons, plus any weapon that has a certain amount of cosmetic features. The law in question never even slowed down the sale of semi-automatic weapons that are patterned after fully-automatic Assault Rifles.

So, for the MMM to take out an ad in the WaPo, Ad for Anti-Gun Rally Links Students With ‘Assault Weapons’ and say things like this:

“When your kids go back to school, will assault weapons, too?” the ad caption says. The caption is printed over a photograph of a young boy wearing a backpack who is walking away from the camera — and appears to be heading to school.

Paid for by the Million Mom March, the ad promotes a Mother’s Day march for “sensible gun laws.”

The only sensible gun laws I can back are automatic 10-15 years for any felon caught with a gun or even ammunition. By and large (and I’m talking about 99.5%), the people who have concealed weapons permits are very much aware of the responsibility of they have when they carry, and discharge that responsibility correctly.

If you have the ability to carry, and you know you can shoot a person down who is a serious threat to you or your family (not everybody can), then I urge you to carry.

It is much better to have and not need then to need and not have.

I find political correctness to be irksome. Sure, unfairness exists in the world, but changing the language will not solve the problem and make everybody equal.

Here is an example of people who are afraid of a non-existent and groundless lawsuit. As Plain as the Nose on Their Faces shows just how stupid this really is.

When the police issue a BOLO (Be On the LookOut) for a black male in a gold Cadillac, they aren’t going to pull over a couple of white males in blue Subarus just to balance out the racial quotas, and neither should DOT.

You know, if any of the 19 involved in 9/11 had been a white male, DOT would not have had a problem pulling over every white male in every airport. That’s the sad part about it.

Safety signs are serious. They warn you to keep your eyes up, ears on and thinking cap on straight. Otherwise you’ll lose something serious, like an eye, an arm, or your life.

That being said, here is a way to generate your own “safety” signs, Safety Sign Builder 2.0. You can put anything you like, then have it generated to a pdf file. Registration required.

Have fun.

Just to show how stupid and hypocritical Senator Kerry is, here is an article that shows it: Kerry Skipped Prescription Drug Vote Then; Complains Now

Sen. John Kerry has no right to scare senior citizens with “misinformation” about the Medicare Prescription Drug Law — especially when he skipped the final vote on that bill, said House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

[...]

“Fact is, while promising his constituents he wouldn’t miss any important votes, the Senate’s most liberal member from Massachusetts skipped 36 of 38 votes, including final passage on improving Medicare and adding a much-needed prescription drug benefit.”

Of course, his failing to vote or even show up for votes was well documented by one of the daily blogs I read, Viking Pundit, one of the few Conservatives in that state.

Senator Kerry is still missing Senate votes, he is campaigning so hard for the Big Seat he is not doing his present job. Ah, well, I guess the good side is he’s not blocking important things.