Search Corsair The Rational Pirate's site powered by FreeFind

---

---

Oh, The Pain!

Man! It is like a convention of lost souls on the WaPo Opinion page this morning. I have never seen a bigger bunch of whining, glass-is-half-empty, pessimists in my life!

This from Fareed Zakaria:

The Bush administration has never really understood the security problem in Iraq. To do so would require that it face up to its own mistakes. The original sin of U.S. postwar policy remains the decision to go into Iraq with too few troops. A larger presence would have intimidated and thus deterred some of the opposition and, in places such as Najaf and Karbala, forestalled the rise of local militias.

More from David Ignatius:

Yesterday's shift of authority to Iraq was, like so much else in the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, a surprise -- apparently driven by the deteriorating security situation. With the world awaiting some sort of grand farewell tomorrow, U.S. occupation chief L. Paul Bremer agreed instead to a low-key transfer of legal documents yesterday morning in the fortified Green Zone and departed Baghdad a few hours later.

The all-but-invisible ceremony couldn't disguise the fact that Iraq has confounded the grand strategy of transformation that led the Bush administration to invade the country 15 months ago. The handover leaves a fragile, chaotic Iraq whose old institutions of security were broken by the U.S.-led invasion but whose new security forces aren't yet fully ready to take control.

And still more from Richard Cohen:

Instead, Iraq graduated to sovereignty two days early -- a ceremony accelerated not because Iraq was doing so well but because it was doing so badly. The event was a surprise, moved up and held within the U.S.-controlled Green Zone for security reasons. "You are ready now for sovereignty," Bremer declared in the straight-faced manner of a principal who has just shaken hands with an illiterate. We will, it seems, leave no child behind.

Is Iraq a garden of roses with singing children flocking the streets and childhood sweethearts walking hand in hand down the boulevard? Course not, you idiot! It is a mess. But what country hasn't been born out of a mess?

If these nay-sayers had been around about the time of the Declaration of Independence I assure they would have said something along the lines of:

With brash stupidity and overarching sense of their own importance, a small band of white, privileged, slave-owning landowners today announced their intention to break away from the only legal authority currently constituted in these, the 13 Colonies. With little capital, no military to speak of, and no support from the loyal subjects of the King it is hard to see what exactly these rash fools think they are going to accomplish.

They obviously haven't thought through the consequences of their actions. It is a given that the mere declaring of their treasonous intent will be enough to whip up the righteous furor of the legitimate government and force strife upon our land. We can now thank them for many months of fighting and destruction that otherwise would not have occurred.

We call for these selfish, short-sighted individuals to immediately forswear their intemperate acts and throw themselves upon the mercy of our good and loving King. Either that or ask the French for their help.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:39

OK. Mozilla Looks Better

Safari is still giving me posting problems so I have switched to Mozilla. Looks to be working.

Thanks for your patience and here is a reward. If this doesn't work for you then you must be dead:



Notice the slight wardrobe zipper malfunction there on the left hip...
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 18:16

So You Are Saying...

That when you are unwanted in a country, you should get out?

"This was not our war. We are there out of responsibility to our alliance with the United States," said Park Eun Joo, 28, a human rights activist, who was weeping by an incense pyre and holding a sign demanding "South Korean Troops Out of Iraq."

"But the truth is the Iraqi people don't want us there -- it is that simple," she said. "Yes, I blame the militants for what happened. But I also blame George Bush for pressuring South Koreans to go against our will. Now, an innocent South Korean is dead."

Fine. What will you be doing with all the land and facilities that they US has in South Korea once we remove all our troops? The Korean War was not our war. I am not even sure why we went there any more. Maybe you could enlighten me?

Oh, and once we leave, don't expect us back any time soon. You can deal with the Chinese, Japanese, and North Koreans on your own. You all have done so well at that in that past...
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:06

Oops! Silly Me!

When I first saw this I thought these guys were the French army...



Turns out they are the German national soccer team.

My bad.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:59

Money Quote

Grotto11 has the following:

As Lance put it, fear fades�but adolescent resentment of authority figures only grows. Bitter, self-centered chafing against The Man.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:49

Who Didn't See This One Coming?!

Just look at her...

One half of the world's most famous teenage twins is believed to be suffering from anorexia.
Mary-Kate Olsen has been admitted to a special treatment centre for eating disorders in America.

In recent months, the 18-year-old has been pictured looking painfully thin in the UK and US newspapers.

They're stick figures! Eat a sandwich, the both a ya!


posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:01

Got to Watch Out for Them Damn "Good Christian Families"

We had a close call around here recently when some middle schooler packed a load of weapons to school and was getting ready to use them before being discovered by the vice principal and detained.

Of course, there was nothing wrong with this kid, according to the neighbors. In fact:

In the boy's subdivision, there was surprise that the seventh-grade student, a Boy Scout and one of two sons of what one neighbor called a "good Christian family," had been arrested and relief that no one had been injured or killed.

When you start hearing those phrases, you know it is time to head for the hills! Jeebus loves you... but he will love you more if you take out your schoolmates!

Of course, some (silly) will claim that this boy's behavior means that he was never a Christian in the first place, despite all the church going and hymn singing, and prostrating, and fearing and all the other accoutrement that go with organized religion.

Another nitpick:

Jamie Addington could not be reached to comment yesterday, but his wife called him a "real hero."

That would be the Vice Principal who discovered our christian miscreant. He is, however, not a "real hero" as described by his wife. He was doing his job in this case. He had been trained to do certain things based on the situation. He did those things. What else could he have done? Run screaming from the school and hide in the woods? Now, had he done something that he was not trained or prepared for that went above and beyond the call of duty, that would make him a hero (see the post below about the terrorist fighting plane passenger).



posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:24

Here's 50 Bucks, Can I Write an Opinion Piece Too?

So I am reading through the WaPo editorial pages this morning when I come across this disjointed piece. I am not sure who this guy is, really but he managed to sneak in an advertisement totally unrelated to what he was trying to talk about:

A first review of the Sept. 11 commission's report indicates that the system failed, but that is wrong. While the U.S. air defense system did fail to halt the attacks, our improvised, high-tech citizen defense "system" was extraordinarily successful.

Confronted by a cruel and diabolical surprise that day, those with formal responsibility for protecting our country from air attack could not defend us. For example, according to the commission's report, all the terrorist aircraft had crashed before Vice President Cheney issued orders for our military to down the planes seized by terrorists. Not only were those orders irrelevant, they were never even delivered to our fighter pilots. This is not surprising given that the command-and-control structure required so many baton handoffs in the 77-minute response window between the crashes of the first and fourth terrorist aircraft.

I am not sure if he is castigating the government here for taking more than 77 minutes to reach a decision to shoot down civilian airliners in the skies the United States, something that the military has never done and, I assume, hadn't up to this point practiced all that often.

This is a sort of roundabout way to praise the reaction of the passengers on the doomed flight.

Requiring less time than it took the White House to gather intelligence and issue an attack order (which was in fact not acted on), American citizens gathered information from national media and relayed that information to citizens aboard the flight, who organized themselves and effectively carried out a counterattack against the terrorists, foiling their plans. Armed with television and cell phones, quick-thinking, courageous citizens who were fed information by loved ones probably saved the White House or Congress from devastation.

The foremost strategic question we need to ask ourselves is not, "How did the government/CIA/FAA fail us?" Rather, we should ask: "How did the networked citizens on the ground and in the sky save us?"

OK, that's fine. Those folks up in that aircraft did a hell of a job that I can't imagine having to do myself. For those who do not know what heroes are, just look at the names of those on that flight.

So what do we do about it?

First, we Americans need to see ourselves as our brave fellow citizens on Flight 93 saw themselves, as front-line combatants in this struggle. There is no gated community safe from the threat, and there are no professional, volunteer armed forces that can, alone, fight this enemy. Not only should we aspire to match the great homeland sacrifices of citizens in World War II, we must see ourselves, and prepare ourselves, as the front line in this struggle.

Fine. Let us all be good upstanding citizens willing to fight the Islamonazi terrorists with the last breath in our bodies.

But then this guy goes off the deep end:

Second, we need to ensure that the communications infrastructure, including broadcast, Internet and telecommunications, remains robust, modern and accessible.

Finally, we should consider what other social challenges can be addressed by providing an infrastructure for citizens to organize around. The U.S. government's role in enabling a competitive broadcast media and telecommunications industry, not to mention the development of the Internet, made the citizen success on Sept. 11 possible. In commerce, eBay has built an auction block through which individuals have famously self-organized and developed rules to make trading easier. Linux provides a way for people to build and refine computer operating systems. In education, College Summit, the organization I work for, seeks to provide the infrastructure for low-income communities to self-organize, much as middle-class communities do, to get their promising young people into college.

What?!? How does having internet access fight terrorism? Quick nitpick, linux does not "provide(s) a way for people to build and refine computer operating systems", linux is an operating system.

But then we get to the heart of the matter! "College Summit, the organization I work for, seeks to provide the infrastructure for low-income communities to self-organize, much as middle-class communities do, to get their promising young people into college." Again... What?!? How do "self-organized" low income communities fight terrorism? Guy look like he is just trying to hang his name on the latest fad.

And who is this guy? According to the WaPo he is "The writer is founder and chief executive of College Summit, a national nonprofit organization that helps low-income students through the process of applying for college admission." That's it? There exists a company that helps poor kids fill out college entrance forms? Great and all, but how this relates to terrorism and why this guy gets 663 words on the WaPo opinion page escapes me.

Maybe I can write something for the WaPo and have the following added at the end: "Corsair the Rational Pirate is the founder and chief executive of Corsair the Rational Pirate, Inc, a don't-even-think-about-profit organization that ridicules incompetent morons."
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:05

Maybe it Was.... Satan?

There is a big sob story on the front page of the Metro section today about a kid who is having problems passing Virginia mandatory Statement of Learning (SOL) tests before he can graduate. He and his mother appear to be blaiming everyone in around him but his own lack of intellectual ability.

I am having a hard time feeling sorry for him:

As Michael Copeland's classmates at Gar-Field Senior High School paraded in front of their beaming parents, waving new diplomas, he was home in front of the television, eating pizza and watching movies.

Like the 577 graduates, Copeland passed all his classes. Unlike them, he failed Virginia's Standards of Learning reading and writing exams, new graduation requirements this year.

Copeland, 18, a standout football player, took the reading test eight times, three in the last week of school alone. He delivered the news to his mother, Maria Copeland, the day before graduation, calling from an empty school hallway so his classmates would not see his tears. He said he couldn't bear to attend the ceremony.

"I've been going for four years. I was successful in class," he said. "Everybody will walk. I'm sitting beside my teachers and my friends [and not walking]? It's embarrassing."

OK, right here we see the first problem. He passed all his classes yet is unable to complete a relatively simple test that virtually all the other 577 graduates in his school were able to pass. How was he then able to pass his classes?

Others questioned whether Copeland lacks necessary skills or is simply a poor test-taker. They wondered whether students like Copeland would abandon the effort in frustration and face employers without the benefit of a diploma they would have earned in years past.

"Given what he's been able to accomplish, I don't think it's fair or right to say we'd be helping him by not giving him a diploma," said Andy Block, a testing critic and legal director of Just Children, a Charlottesville-based advocacy group. "There will be other challenges for him, but at least he'd be free to have the opportunity to face them."

What? He's been able to accomplish some continuing social advancement. He just hasn't learned enough to pass a simple test. But you should give him the diploma anyway 'cause he will have other opportunities to fail in the future.

And it appears the next opportunity to fail is just around the corner:

What he faces now is a summer of tutoring to pass the two crucial SOL tests, raise his 490 SAT score and renew his application to Virginia State University, where he wants to play football. The coach there said he's interested in Copeland, who needs an SAT score of about 770 to get in and 820 to be eligible for the team.

He wants to go to college!?!? Remember when attending college used to mean something? The smart kids went to college to become scientist and business leaders. Others went into the trades (auto, plumbing, construction) and help grow the country. Now everyone is pushed into college whether they need it or not. And what is up with a 490 SAT score? I am assuming here that that score is for both sections? I which case you get 200 points per test just to show up. So somehow he managed to score a 90 on his SATs!? And this guy is thinking about college?

In middle school, Copeland was classified as learning disabled and took special education classes until seventh grade, when his test scores rose and disqualified him. "Just, boom, he was out of them," said Maria Copeland of the special education classes. She said she believes her son might have done better if he had continued to receive the one-on-one attention.

Yeah, I think anyone would do well with a personal tutor. Unfortunately our state doesn't appear to have the money to give all students their own teacher. Maybe in next year's budget.

Copeland's mother said that he found it hard to keep track of almost daily tutoring sessions and that he was bound to miss some. And she said that school officials did not offer her son a free online tutorial designed by state educators, part of series of programs touted by Gov. Mark R. Warner (D). State officials said only one of the county's seven high schools enrolled students in the program. Of the 193 Virginia students who took the tutorial this spring, 149 passed the exams.

Oh, so the poor dear couldn't remember to go to his daily tutoring sessions? Did he remember to go to his daily school lessons? Couldn't he have just tacked them on to the end? Did he miss any football practices?

And to top it all off the very same people who passed this "slow thinker" on year after year think he should get passed out:

Supon, the guidance counselor, said he believes that Copeland deserved to receive a diploma with his classmates but that he will need more than just reading remediation before he can tackle college level work. "He's got a good brain, but he's going to need some help with [college]. Junior college might be good, where he could get remediation courses," he said.

Why didn't he get the remediation corses in high school, you idiot? Now you are trying to foist him off on the 2-year college system to get him up to speed when you had him for 12 years and couldn't do it.

What a waste.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:39

Damn This Having To Go To Work Thing

It is eating in to my posting time. Not that I couldn't quit any time I felt like it.

I could.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:38

What A Stupid Tool

I am not sure what a Charley Reese is nor why he has a website (not that it takes much to have a website, just look at mine) but I do know that he is an ignorant, mouth breathing, slope headed moron of the first order.

Why you ask?

I have come to believe that one can have a successful Christian society, Jewish society, Muslim society, Hindu society or Buddhist society, but not an agnostic or atheistic society that is successful.

First off, his sentence structure is awful. Second off, his assertions are ridiculous. Sure, one can have a successful religious society (Colonial US), you can also have a dysfunctional, messed up religious society (look at the Middle East, Japan of the Emperor period, Europe during the Middle Ages, etc.). Steve, of course doesn't give us any examples or reasoning behind his statement. He just moves on to a Washington quote without any of its own supporting evidence.

Here he tries to come up with some reasons for his stance:

The basic thing that protects our persons, our property and our liberty is the morality that individuals possess in their own hearts. The law cannot be a substitute for that. No law can protect you from a dishonest merchant or a thug because the law is always, of necessity, applied after the fact, and then only on a selective basis. Furthermore, as we have seen, the law and the system of justice often degenerate into a tragic farce.

So what we learn here is that the US, being the highly religious, god fearing, bible reading, church going country that it is... shouldn't need laws! Or it should only need a few laws to keep those ravening atheists and agnostics at bay. Maybe chain them all up or something so they will stop stealing and killing and doing nasty things to the "good" people in the US. Maybe the law and the system of justice degenerate into a tragic farce when it tries too hard to be more like a religion.

Experience also teaches us that a society without an underlying private morality will degenerate into a corrupt jungle. I surprised some people once by saying that I would rather live in a neighborhood of Islamic fundamentalists than in a neighborhood of atheists and agnostics. That's true. You can count on the morality that Islam teaches; there is no morality for atheists and agnostics, except what they arbitrarily choose.

Bwahahahah! What a maroon! You can count on getting your head chopped off by some of the adherents to the Islam that Charley so obviously loves. I don't remember the last head we chopped off during our monthly ATOTW (Atheists Take Over The World) meetings.

Some years ago, I inadvertently put this to the test by becoming lost late at night in the slums of Cairo, Egypt. Despite being dressed in an American business suit and far from any law enforcement, I was never accosted or threatened by anyone. I dare say there are American slums where no sensible person would wish to go late at night.

Laughably stupid! Is this idiot equating American slums with atheists?!? When poor people who live in slums are some of the most religious people around (since they have been brainwashed into believing that once their shitty lives on earth are over, they get wings and a harp in heaven)? The poorer a society is, the more religious (except for the US which is rich and religious). And the more religious a person is the stupider they become, if they clown is any indication.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:51

More?!

I just had a post about decapitation and now I read yet another report. What the hell is wrong with people today?

LOS ANGELES -- Police tipped by Hollywood studio guards captured a man who they had just identified Monday as the suspect in the beheading of a 91-year-old screenwriter and the stabbing death of a neighbor in the midst of a phone call with an airline reservation agent.

Keven Lee Graff, 27, was arrested near the gates of Paramount Studios, about 2 miles from the victims' homes, after he was recognized by a studio guard. The guard recognized Graff's picture from a televised news conference that had just aired, and his supervisor called police, said police Chief William Bratton.

Is it the Muslim influence? Movies? TV?

Did this always used to happen or is it just recently that we are hearing about it?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:17

Your Korean Women's Golf Belly Button Super Site

It's Infantile Obsession© time again folks!



You think they do this on purpose?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:39

Went to West By Gawd Virginnie

The Corsair Clan spent the weekend in West Virginia. Turns out that Princess Corsair II doesn't like traveling more than 2 hours at a time. Since Snowshoe West Virginia is 5.5 hours away, it makes traveling difficult.

My nephew was in a mountain bike race (came in 17! Woo hoo!) and we went up to support him. Turns out Snowshoe WV is cold, foggy , and rainy this time of the year.

I'll post some pics at a later date if I feel like it (I think I got a cold out of the trip as well).
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 15:04

Can I Hear an "Amen, Brother"?

We keep hearing how much Koreans don't like the US military in their country. And how much they think that the US is the cause of all their problems with North Korea. And how much the US is striving to keep the two Koreas seperated so that they obvious economic, political, and miltary world power that would occur soon after reunification won't happen and the US can maintain its racist, imperialistic grip on the world.

Well, no one has spent much time asking the US what it thinks about Korea. Now, because of all the scheming with the Jews, work that needs to be done in the imperialst arean, and the heavy lifting involved in keeping the brown/yellow/red/black man down, most Americans would probably answer "Don't they make crappy little cars?" when asked their opinion of Korea and our military relations with them.

A few, however appear to have taken more of an interest in KoAm relations:

Amid continuing reports of rising anti-American sentiment in Korea among the younger population and some liberal lawmakers, negative sentiment toward Korea is also taking its toll in the United States.

Results of a poll released Tuesday show that 82 percent of Americans support the current Bush administration's plan to cut one-third of Uncle Sam's forces in South Korea by the end of next year.

Preach it, my man!

Media reports, both in Korea and abroad, have repeatedly underscored the growing anti-American sentiment here, especially over the U.S. military presence on the peninsula, but since this week's confirmation of the planned troop pullout, some are now even questioning the half-century-old military alliance.

Korea watchers say the survey results also show the strong feelings of many Americans who feel they have over-sacrificed themselves for an ungrateful ally.

Uh huh! Lay it on the line, preacher man!

On Sunday, Washington proposed to pull out 12,500 soldiers from the 37,000-strong U.S. Forces Korea by the end of next year, leading to concerns at home and abroad of a security vacuum along the Cold War's last frontier, with little time to prep up national defense under the proposed timetable. In response, many South Korea government officials have said they would ask for the date to be pushed back.

Although the decision on the exact number and timeline for the withdrawal have not been finalized, Seoul is preparing to beef up its own 650,000 military in order to become more self-reliant in its defense against North Korea's 1.1 million troops.

But many Americans are wondering why Korea is adamant about keeping the troops now, after the U.S. announcement.

"For years you have been spitting on our troops, protesting like maniacs at how our troops endanger South Korea. (It is) time for the U.S. troops to come home and for Korea to take care of North Korea alone. It is an internal Korean problem now and of no concern of the U.S.," an American reader of The Korea Herald said. Other strong opinions sent to the Herald mocked the Korean attitude as "hypocritical."

Praise Jeebus!

About damn time someone called the Emporer on his decided lack of sartorial getup. If they want us there, quit acting like such assholes. If they don't, we will leave. Period. We have done it in the past and we will do it again. Despite the left's attempts to paint the US as some kind of imperialst force in the world, we really aren't. We don't like to be where we are not wanted.

Think of the US as a big puppy dog. Treat us nice and we will stay, kick us to the ground and we will either rip your leg off or go on our merry way.

"There are consequences for South Korea's childish behavior. Americans have heard for years of the constant "protests" against Americans in Korea who act as a "trip wire," which is a nice way of saying human sacrifice," another American wrote. "For the honor of being the first to die in the next Korean war, thousands of miles away from their homes, they are insulted by the people they are expected to die for."

Praise the lawd!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 14:50

What the Hell is Up With all the Beheading?

decapitate

\De*cap"i*tate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Decapitated; p. pr. & vb. n. Decapitating.] [LL. decapitatus, p. p. of decapitare; L. de- + caput head. See Chief.] 1. To cut off the head of; to behead.

I saw another story on CNN this morning about some nut-job cutting off heads. This wouldn't be the first:

Kids

Dogs

Cats

Dudes in Iraq

Dudes in Pakistan

I have gone through my whole life without either the desire or the reason to cut off someone's head. Too bad we can't find out what gene causes this behavior. We could then take some corrective action before the fact and leave people with their heads.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:13

I Weep for Windows Users

Nah, not really. They got themselves into this mess, they deserve what happens.

This guy thinks so too:

You can argue about why this is so, but you don�t need to. You can�t argue with the facts. Anti-virus software vendor Sophos reported yesterday that it found 959 new viruses, last month alone. How many of those do you think were for Mac OS X? Any at all?

Arguing that it�s technically possible that the Mac could suffer just as many security exploits as Windows is like arguing that a good neighborhood could suddenly find itself strewn with garbage and plagued by vandalism and serious crime. Possible, yes, but not likely. The security disparity between the Mac and Windows isn�t so much about technical possibilities as it is about what people will tolerate.

And Mac users don�t tolerate shit.

Damn, straight. I never have to worry about the Corsair Computer Cave, its all Macs and a Sun.

I'll post another pic soon so y'all can be jealous.


posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:38

Infantile Obsession

It's an Innie!


posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:20

Well, That's Just Too Sad

I watched Spellbound, a story about kids getting ready for the National Spelling Bee, a couple of weeks ago (got through Last Samurai a couple of days ago as well, pretty good!) and was impressed by all them little brainiacs. One who impressed me the most was the girl who came from the Washington DC public school system. As a citizen of Northern Virginia, we get to see a lot of news about the abysmal state of the education system in DC. Lots of killing and bad grades and failing students.

So this girls somehow managed to transcend this cesspit of educational disasters and make it to the finals of the spelling bee. Somewhere around 9 million kids start the season going through school, district, region, and state spelling bees and only the top 249 get to go to the national competiton. Ashley White, despite being from DC was one of these. She actually ended up around 14, I think which puts her better than 8,999,986 other kids out there. Pretty impressive.

Five years later and it seems that being a spelling nerd won't make your life all rainbows and puppy dogs:

In the ballroom of Washington's Grand Hyatt Hotel, hundreds of children sat uneasily Wednesday afternoon with huge numbered signs hanging around their necks. One by one, under the glare of television lights and the gaze of tense parents, they approached the microphone and began to spell, letters spilling from their lips and arranging themselves into the words they have spent countless hours memorizing: lenitive, equipollent, polemoscope, verbigeration.

Across the Anacostia River, in her sparsely furnished apartment, a contestant from a previous Scripps National Spelling Bee -- 18-year-old Ashley White -- arrived home from her job as a salesclerk, having just picked up her 10-month-old daughter from day care. White was tired, the baby fussy. Out their window, buses growled by on Minnesota Avenue SE.

Five years after winning the D.C. bee and surviving several rounds of the national finals, White was warming pureed peas and remembering the achievement that won her a featured spot in the Oscar-nominated documentary "Spellbound."

"I would not have imagined that my life would be like this," she said softly.

But in part because of the bee, "like this" is a lot better than it used to be.

It may be a lot better, but what was she comparing it to:

Like her grandmother, mother and several aunts and cousins before her, White was a teenage mother. And despite her love for her daughter, Dashayla, then about 2 months old, she was deeply disappointed in herself.

"I was always someone who wanted to be different -- who wanted to work harder, who wanted to achieve more, who wanted to succeed," she said. Instead, "I was basically repeating my family history of teenaged pregnancy. I felt like a failure because everyone had such high expectations for me and thought that I would be the one who would break the cycle."

Things have gotten better for her since she now goes to school and has people mentoring her to live in the real world.

It is really disappointing that a smart girl like this who seemed to have a whole lot going for her falls into the same trap that got so many others around her (and where is the damn father of the baby? Stupid putz. Get a girl pregnant and don't even hang around.).

As Al Pacino said in The Godfather, Part III, �every time I try to get out, they keep pulling me back in." There has got to be a better way for people to get out more easily.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 14:20

I Guess They Found A Market

Capitalism is all about creating the things you create more efficiently than anyone else and selling those things for enough money so as to make a profit.

International trade is similar in that one country might make one thing more efficiently than a second. The second country, meanwhile creates something that the first country needs and they sell each other these things. Country one gets cheap products from country two and country two gets cheap stuff from country one. Everyone is happy!

I guess that North Korea has finally found its niche in the international global trade marketplace

South Korean soldiers open the gate for trucks carrying sand from North Korea (news - web sites) at Dorasan immigration office, near the Demiltarized Zone in Paju, June 4, 2004. For the first time since the 1950 Korean War, commercial material is being exported from North Korea to the South by land. REUTERS/You Sung-Ho

Of course, calling sand a "commercial material" is stretching the definition just a little. And, really. Can't South Korea come up with its own sand?

I think it would be more appropriate to call this not international trade, but what it really is... Buying pencils from the bum on the corner because you feel sorry for him.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:27

This Always Happens

I have been busy all week. No time to find good stuff to post about. Now that I am complaining about it I will find something to put up.

Never fails.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:50

Let's Count to 130!

Did you know that Sesame Street used to create 130 new shows every year? There was plenty of work for the Count back then.

Of course now they only do 26 a year. Says they don't have any money to do more.

Shame.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:54

They Changed The Music

Corsair the Buff Pirate was working out this morning in the local Glods Gym when I noticed that the muisc had changed. We used to get a lot of black guys singing about getting laid and black girls singing about what lying bastards tha black guys were. Today we listened more to songs about Dream Warriors and stuff by Rush.

I am just guessnig that the change at the front desk from a bible-reading hispanic gentleman to a scruffy, surfer dude had something to do with this.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:45