Stossel asks, if every economics textbook says that monopolies are bad, then why is the system we use to educate our children virtually a monopoly? Folks, public schools, by and large, fail our kids miserably. My job has me looking at job applications on a daily basis. You'd be surprised how many people out there can't spell "fitter" or "laborer" or "personnel." My six-year old can spell "Transformers." My wife gets mad at me when I say this (because she's a teacher), but you cannot trust your children's education to public schools anymore. We need to have options, we need to FORCE public schools to be competetive. When you are the only option, you get complacent. (Ask people who live in cities with only one cable or utility provider.)

Now, I'm lucky. My wife teaches in what is generally considered the best school system in our state. On top of that, she can chose which teacher my son is going to be placed with, so we can pick the cream of the crop (although this year it backfired on us. My son's first grade teacher, while being EXTREMELY HOT, has not impressed me yet.) But what about the parents that have no choice and have to send their kids to a rotten school with crappy teachers? I feel sorry for them because they have no choice. Now, the libertarian in me wants to say "Move to another school system." That's not always feasible. In any event, if the government is going to FORCE you to pay for public education, it is your right to demand satifactory results.

The guilty parties? Governor Kathleen Blanco (Democrat), and Mayor Ray Nagin (Democrat). They did nothing before the storm hit, and they did nothing after its devastation.

In Ray Nagin's defense, New York still hasn't done anything with the WTC five years later. He's (supposedly) trying to rebuild a whole city.

Please, God, let this be true.

Blue Grass Airport in Lexington Kentucky has two runways. Runway 4/22 is 7000 feet long and 150 feet wide. Runway 8/26 is only half that length/width, 3500/75 feet. Runways are named for the Directional Heading (or compass heading) they are on. For example, Runway 4/22 would be heading northeast at 040 degrees and Southwest at 220 degrees. Runway 8/26 would be running almost due east/west at 80 degrees and 260 degrees, respectively. All the pilot would have had to do to avoid this is:

1) Be aware of the runway lengths for each runway in use at his airport. If cleared to depart on Runway 8 or 26, alarm bells should be going off telling him he's been cleared to a runway that is not long enough.

2) Be familiar with the ground layout of the airport so if cleared onto the CORRECT runway, he'd know how to get there in case he received wrong directions "cleared onto taxiway A..."

3) LOOK AT HIS COMPASS before takeoff. There's at least two of them in the aircraft (we're real big on redundant redundancy.) One is a regular compass, the other is called a Directional Gyro (DG) or Heading Indicator. In fact, one of the last things a pilot does before takeoff is line his airplane up with the center line of the runway and set his DG to the runway heading to be sure it is accurate. If he was told "Cleared for departure runway 22" and he rolled off on runway 26, he should have caught it. Now there are 49 people dead because he didn't perform his duties, and didn't do something as simple as look at his compass.

NOTE: When referring to a runway for takeoff/landing purposes, you say "Runway two-six" or Runway "eight." You don't say "runway eight two six" in order avoid confusion. If I say "Runway two-six" you know you will be departing/landing on runway 8/26 in a westerly direction.

So, we've decided that there's only going to be eight planets in our solar system, huh? That's fine I guess. There are thousands of objects orbiting our sun, and we've got to have a way to categorize them. 20 years ago, all we knew about were some comets, asteroids, and nine larger objects with their moons. Technology has progressed so that we may have detected objects beyond Pluto, some of which may be even larger than this tiny little ball of frozen whetever. Who know what else is out there in the frozen reaches of our Solar System, where the sun is barely even distinguishable among the other pin-pricks of light? If Pluto, a tiny little object not even as large as our moon, is considered a planet, what do we do with the other objects that are larger than Pluto? We've already found a few. Do we want to use the designation "planet" willy nilly, or do we want to reserve it for only the most majestic of the heavenly bodies? Fortunately my favorite planet, Neptune, is now tail-end charlie. Maybe it'll get a little more press. More importantly, maybe this will help kindle or even re-kindle someone's interest in space, and they will be aware that there's more to our "universe" than what just goes on 20 feet around them.

The only thing that makes me a little sad is that I liked Pluto. It was the oddball of the Solar System. It's orbit was the most elliptical of the planets. It's orbital plane was also the most inclined. It it twice as small as the next largest planet, mercury. Compared to the four gas giants, it is a speck of dust. In a Solar System of fairly concentric orbits and uniform orbital planes, Pluto was different. It was the exception to the rule. Now it's just another piece of rock. I hope children 20 years from now will be taught the history of our Solar System, that Pluto was a planet longer than it wasn't. Most importantly, I hope they know that we have progressed so much that we said it was a planet because we didn't know anything else, and that once we were able to see that there was more, we changed the way we thought about the whole thing. Godspeed, Pluto. Tell Neptune I said "hi."

Pluto Fast Facts
Orbit: 248 Earth Years.
Diameter: 1,430 miles (Moon's diameter: 2,160 miles)
Moons: 3, Charon, Nix, Hydra (the last two were discovered in 2005)
- If you shrink the distance between the Earth and the Sun down to a football field (100 yards), the average distance bewteen the Sun and Pluto would be over two miles away.
- For a 20 year period (1979-1999), Pluto was not the farthest planet from the sun. Because of its irregular orbit, it was closer to the Sun than Neptune.
- Even though Neptune is the next planet in line from Pluto, Pluto will never be any closer to Neptune than it is to Saturn (the eighth and sixth planets, respectively) because of their orbits.

Quotable Quotes This from today's Nealz Nuze. It's an analogy for those who want to "negotiate" with people who want to blow you up:

One day a hunter saw a bear and was about to fire when the bear held up his paw and said, "After all, Mr. Hunter all you want is a fur coat, and all I want is a full stomach. Can't we use some diplomacy and sit down and negotiate this problem."

So the hunter sat down to negotiate. The bear was right. The hunter got a fur coat and the bear got a full stomach.

Another of my favorites, and I can't remember where I heard it, addresses the fact that America is not (contrary to popular belief) a DEMOCRACY, but rather a Representative Republic.

I don't want to live in a Democracy. A Democracy is two wolves and a sheep getting together and decided what to eat for dinner.

pantyhose bums - Huh? While I am a fan of the former, and not crazy about the latter, I don't think I've ever used either word here. I don't even want to KNOW what half of that stuff is.
mohommed mosharref hossain - He tried to blow something up, I think.
Heavyarms - (image search) Sweet! For those of you that don't know, Heavyarms is a Mobile Suit from the Japanese anime series Mobile Suit Gundam. The series has been on the air since the late 1970's and is considered to be the Star Trek of Japan. Most MSG series follow the basic premise that the Earth has been overpopulated, so humanity begins to build massive space colonies. Eventually, people living in space (usually called spacenoids) outnumber those living on Earth (earthnoids). Living on Earth means you are either the richest of the rich or the poorest of the poor. Most of the ruling faction still live on Earth, and the spacenoids begin to resent the control placed over them, this usually starts a war between Earth and its loyal colonies versus a group of rebelling colonies. A much better synopsis can be found at Wikipedia. The Gundam Heavyarms is from an "Alternate Universe" (not of the standard timeline, a sort of Stand-Alone series) of MSG called New Mobile Report Gundam W (pronounced "Wing").
male images - Uhh...I don't want to know.
Current White Running Backs, NFL - you mean, there's one besides that dude that plays for Tampa Bay?
30.06 hunting rifle - Still don't want to know. And it's 30-06, not "thirty POINT ought six."
Baltimore Strip Clubs - man, guns, strip clubs, what more could a guy want? Move over, Man Show, I'm the Ultimate Guy's Blog.
heavyarms tblog - Yikes, someone specficially Googled me!
song in newest cadillac commercial - Rock and Roll by Led Zeppelin (the greatest band to ever walk the earth), BTW.
ballectomy - Hey! I coined a new word! From my Ballectomy review (Term used to refer to the procedure by which a patient gets his nuts snipped so he can no longer make babies. I'm tired of those.)
1972 olypics basketball us vs ussr - Yes, I actually covered this. Go find it. It was during the last summer Olympics when Team USA Basketball was an embarassment to our country.
"venus de milo" "standard of beauty" - Ironically, BOTH of these phrases appeared in the same post. Subject - Jessica Alba. Dear GOD, this chick is hot! I just can't say enough good things about her.

Well, that was fun, wasn't it? I write about some crazy shit.

WHAT!!!! Someone please, please tell me this movie is not going to be number 1 this weekend. We used to call these movies "B-movies." B-movies used to be the second of a double feature. Usually a genre film with, *ahem* lesser production values and silly plot lines like...well, being trapped somewhere (in a house, on a ship, in a PLANE) with a group of somethings (ghosts, monsters, SNAKES) on the prowl. During the 1950's, 60's, and 70's, these type of campy movies were shown in drive thrus where people were more likely making out than actually watching the movie. During the 1980's, they were lucky to even be on the big screen for a few weeks, most were straight to video (remember VHS?). During the late 1990's, these were mostly Sci-Fi Pictures Original Productions.

Please, PLEASE, I am begging you, do NOT go see this movie. Don't make it #1 at the box office. All you'll be doing is telling Hollywood to make more Somethings on a Something movies. Badgers on a Subway, Frogs in a Car, Ants in your Pants. It's bad enough that Hollywood is taking every campy 70's and 80's TV show and turning it into a movie, or remaking movies that have already been made once. Please don't tell Hollywood that we want B-Movies with A-budgets. Keep these types of films on Sci-Fi Channel marathons and USA's Up All Night with Rhonda Shear.

1) Men
2) aged 17-35
3) of "Middle-Eastern" (or what used to be called ARAB) appearance
4) possibly with Islamic names

is trying to hijack aircraft and blow them up, you should immediately narrow your search of suspects down to:

1) Men
2) aged 17-35
3) of "Middle-Eastern" (or what used to be called ARAB) appearance
4) possibly having Islamic names

Apparently they think that spending time searching old women, children, babies, is a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME.

Of course, the Muslim Council of Britain had a huge problem with the fact that British authorities are concentrating on:

1) Men
2) aged 17-35
3) of "Middle-Easter" (or what used to be called ARAB appearance
4) possibly having Islamic names

could possibly risk alienating Muslims. Some brainic even went so far to say "(Screening possible terrorists) becomes hugely problematic when it's based on ethnicity, religion, or country of orign. I don't think there's a stereotypical image of a terrorist. That's unpalatable to everyone. It is communities that defeat terrorism, and what we don't want to do is actually alienate the very communities who are going to help us catch terrorists. We cannot lose sight of the fact that terrorists come in all shapes and sizes." Sorry, bud, but every fucking one of the terrorists on 9/11 and arrested in Britain the other day were:

1) Men
2) aged 17-35
3) of "Middle-Eastern" (or what used to be called ARAB) appearance
4) possibly having Islamic names

Where is the confusion here? Why are we still searching old white guys and children? To keep from offending anyone? Great. Yeah, sorry, little Jimmy, your mommy is never coming home again because some rag head hijacked the plane she was on and spread her across the lawn of the White House. Hey, at least we didn't hurt the feelings of all those other ragheads, though. That's something, right?

"But Angry White Male," you say "the minimum wage hasn't been raised in almost 10 years. People can't support a family on minimum wage." I would respond to that by saying that if you are trying to support your family on minimum wage, you have made some poor decisions in life and don't have any business trying to support a family. It isn't your employer's job to step in and help you raise your kids. The minimum wage is not designed for people who have families to support. The minimum wage is a wage for employers to pay people who have no developed set of skills to bring to their job. It is an entry level wage to pay people to flip burgers, clean toilets and sweep floors. If you have developed a skill set that is applicable to your job, you employer will pay you what you are worth. Yes, there are some people out there who are worth more than minimum wage. But by the same token, there are probably 10 times as many who aren't worth paying 5 dollars an hour. I can drive you down to the local Taco Bell right now and show you 10, because they get my fucking order RIGHT about 30 percent of the time.

Another reason the minimum wage shouldn't be raised, it forces employers to dedicate more of their money to payroll. Let's pretend that all the money a company is involved in is a pie. We're going to chart the way that money is divided. A "pie chart," if you will. All the money the company makes goes into the pie. One slice of that pie is the operating costs the company must pay to keep itself running (maintenance, advertising, etc.) The next slice of the pie is the amount of money the company spends on its employees in the form of wages, incentives, etc. The final slice is the amount of money the company keeps for itself as profit. Contrary to popular belief the primary function of any company is NOT to provide its employees with a "living wage" or affordable healthcare. (I know many of you socialist bedwetters out there don't like this) The PRIMARY function of any company is to make that last slice of the pie, the money it keeps, as big as possible. It must do so by keeping the other two slices as SMALL as possible. When you force a company to pay more to its employees through rasing the minimum wage, it's going to do what it can to reduce that portion of the pie by getting rid of employees. Ever wonder why Wal-Mart has 40 checkout lanes and only 5 are open, this is why.

Raising the minimum wage by a dollar an hour may not sound like much, but let's look at a hypothetical situation. Let's say you have a giant big-box store like Wal-Mart or Target. This store is open 24 hours a day, and it's employees work 3 eight-hour shifts. Let's say that the day shift employs around 50 people, and the late shift and early morning shift each employs around 20 people. We're looking at 90 employees. Now, let's say that half these employees, 45, earn the minimum wage and the minimum wage is raised by .50 cents an hour. That's $22.50 an hour more that the store has to pay in wages, or an extra $540 a day. The store is open 7 days a week, so that's an extra $3,780 a week. There's 52 weeks in a year, so the store is paying an extra $196,560 A YEAR! Now, this is a big chain store about half the size of Wal-Mart, with around 700 stores a year. Let's say our hypothetical store is representative of the average size of this company's store. Simply raising the minimum wage by .50 cents an hour forces this company to pay $137,592,000 in wages. One hundred thirty seven MILLION! So, this company is going to do one of two things. Reduce the amount it has to pay to it's employees by laying people off, or increasing the amount of money going into the pie by raising prices. People start having to pay more for it's services, so it's a wash. You minimum wage bums out there are making more per hour, but the cost of milk, pantyhose, shaving cream, tires, cars, toilet paper, etc. goes up. Of course, you're average minimum wage earner either isn't bright enough, or doesn't care enough to realize this, so when they hear Senator Joe Schmoe saying "I'm going to fight for a raise in the minimum wage," they get excited.

On a side note, I hear the idiots that run the city of Chicago have just passed a law that says stores with at least 90,000 square feet and make at least $1 billion in profits a year (wonder what chain this is aimed at?) must now pay a minimum wage of $10 an hour. Jesus H Tap-Dancin' Christ! Wal-Mart, which has no stores in the Chicago urban area, but is planning several, is likely to abandon those plans and concentrate on building stores in suburban Chicago where the law does not apply. Target, which does have stores in Chicago proper, is considering closing some of its stores. Chicago Alderman Joe Moore said, "Let's make sure that when these big stores open in our neighborhood, they help our people, not exploit them." Nice job, asshole. Instead of "helping" people, you're going to cost people jobs they already have, or potential jobs in the area. Of course, the morons running Chicago won't be blamed when Target lays off half it's Chicago workforce, Target will. Buy why stop at 90,000 square feet and $1 billion in company profits. Why not 45,000 square feet and 500 million in profits. After all, you want to "help" people right? Force this upon more stores, you can help more people, right?