Tag: Christmas

Music Monday: Come!

 

In Closing: yes yes yes, of course I’ll serve up more NSA, privacy, and Ed Snowden links, you can count on me!; RIP Kalashnikov; ancient super-volcanoes; he’s got the right to say stupid, hateful shit and I’ve got the right to continue ignoring him; nice doggies, bad handlers; not sure why people think they have the right to ignore the law, nor why they think kids having babies is a good idea somehow; a few moments of economic clarity; wouldn’t get much traction as the Screw Everybody Treaty; rich white criminal; zero thinking policies; would require backbone; Cuba; or, you know, we could start school late enough that kids don’t have to walk in the dark.

Music Monday: Christmastime in the City

 

In Closing: NSA? Sure, I got your random links right here (and why exactly would Snowden take a deal that forces him to shut up?); Muslims; I’m not sure how equal wages equals abortion but then I’m sane; let’s hear it for statistics; friendship; race card; Keystone XL is not only a bad idea, it’s unnecessary; cyberspace robots; and there are moments I miss Seattle.

Music Monday: Happy Birthday from The King, to The King.

Edit: something happened to the video but now it’s fixed.

Yes, I am aware that the historical Jesus was most likely born in the Springtime. Stop being a Grinch.

When I was in college, I had a job working as a church musician. I eventually worked my way up to Music Minister. Every year we had an evening service on Christmas Eve. At the end, everybody would have lit candles, the lights would be turned off, and we would sing Silent Night. After the first year, I remembered to have my own light on the piano so I could see the music! Things evolved over time. I started bringing frankincense and myrrh incense from a curiosity shop near my home owned by this guy. And I don’t know whose idea it was, but the last few years I was there after Silent Night we would sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and have a birthday cake.

Music Monday: Happy Hanukkah

Comrade Misfit already posted the Adam Sandler Hanukkah song, so here is something different….

 

In Closing: staying in shape while traveling; what?; duh; it never was the union’s fault; backfired; surprise, most doctors are bad a math; and 10 things you probably didn’t know about Christmas.

I think I have a better idea….

So Clark County School District — the 5th largest school district in the nation — has a “successful” pilot of a program to keep track of students on school busses. Parents can theoretically find out whether their kids got on the bus, and where the bus is. Roughly 700 of the 110,000 students who daily ride the bus got special ID cards and were tracked for 4 whole weeks. Clearly something short of a representative sample. However, “because of financial problems, the district has shelved any large-scale program.”

Good for administrators for realizing that there were concerns about losing passes, and concerns about the costs of the system.

However, here’s the thing. There’s already a great technology in the hands of many middle school students and virtually all high school students that parents can use to keep track of their kids. Better yet, there is absolutely zero cost to the school district for this technology; most parents willingly — nay, eagerly — pay for implementation and all necessary equipment. I personally tested it for 4 years within the Clark County School District Transportation Department, and I feel certain that other parents here and elsewhere have similar experiences. In one case, I was even alerted to a wreck involving the school bus. This of course not only delayed pickup, but changed the pickup location. Use of this amazing technology saved the school district the time and expense of individual notifications to parents in most cases.

It’s called a cell phone.

Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, and stop pretending that a child’s RFID tag is necessarily in the same location as the child.

In closing: good call; inconvenient truth for anti-porn crusaders; Heinlein; I guess none of the researchers ever played the “telephone game”, or they could have saved a lot of research; so some busybody docs and pharmacists think they know more about women’s reproductive health than gynecologists; support a political cartoonist; hackers, crackers, and black swans; Expert Ezra; what could possibly go wrong; income inequality; the Buffett Rule; sure, there’s no such thing as inflation; and Cat Heaven Island. Enjoy an early Caturday.

I don’t think Rudolph would approve

 

Personally, I don’t know whether Sniper Rifle Santa is creepier than Football Hero Santa, but it’s got to be close.

In closing: So much for Republican hating on Romney; screw the TSA, everyone’s driving; on domestic oil; flat population growth; picky!; a fun game.