SfanGoch

Yeah....like 65% of lottery revenues in NYS were supposed to fund education. If the gas tax hasn't been used to maintain and repair either before, what makes you think that it'll be used for that later? There are potholes I know on a first name basis around here.

That was you?!?

You have to understand that I live in Disney's newest theme park attraction - Stupidland, aka Brooklyn. The person working at the prescription pick-up counter isn't any better. She looked at my name on the envelope and told me my name is "Ra-low (pronounced like "ow!") ski". I corrected her and said it's pronounced "Zrud-luff-ski". She countered with, "No, that's wrong. The "Z" and "D" are silent." What do you mean "it's wrong"? I think I know how to pronounce my own name! Why the hell would they be silent?!? They wouldn't be part of my name if they were silent. "Yeah, maybe that's how you say it in Holland or wherever you come from; but, you live in America now. So, get used to it." Now, what was that about insulting a cashier's intelligence? I need to start carrying a baseball bat when I go shopping.

Those cost overruns are known as baksheesh in other locales and are how public servants who get paid $179K/yr end up with net worths in the seven to eight digit range after a couple of terms in office.

I asked about a vet's discount at the same drug store where I was carded for cigarettes and was told, by the same cashier, that the animal clinic was three blocks away.

Alcohol has excellent preservative qualities.

One of those municipalities isn't NYC; common sense by the seller is permitted. If in doubt, card'em. That doesn't mean stopping every swingin' Richard walking into the joint. One would need to possess a modicum of intelligence to feel insulted in the first place. The regs in NYC are pretty straightforward and do permit the vendor/seller/cashier to use common sense. Number 3 is the pertinent one: Notice where it reads "appears to be under 25 years old". That's pretty clear, isn't it? It's not difficult to determine if someone with graying hair and wrinkles is older than 18, never mind 25, by looking at that person. So...yeah, "too friggin' stupid to use common sense" is apropos.

Don't forget June Lockjaw, June Foray ( the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel), Kirk Douglas, Olivia de Havilland, Marty Allen, Lupita Tovar and Dewey Martin. In case you did, that's O.K. Old people tend to forget things. By the way, don't forget June Lockjaw, June Foray ( the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel), Kirk Douglas, Olivia de Havilland, Marty Allen, Lupita Tovar and Dewey Martin. In case you did, that's O.K. Old people tend to forget things. :)

Well, we still have Fyvush Finkel, Professor Irwin Corey and Larry Storch.

Two professions never lacking business.....morticians and lawyers.

Too friggin' stupid to use common sense. Only cockroaches and cashiers will survive a nuclear war. I've had the same happen in a number of places lately. I never got carded when my friends I hung out in bars or bought fifths of Wild Turkey at the liquor store when I was 14 (42 years ago). Now, the zombies behind the counter at Duane Reade ask for I.D. when I buy a pack of smokes.

Yeah, Yeah, non capio. Non es mercandum, annonae foret. Tibi fructibus ingens punctum argumentum ad nauseam, memoratorum. Ita aiunt verbera cessent equus mortuus.

Gettin' old, man.......Another great musician headed for that all star jam session in Heaven. I was lucky to see David Bowie in concert three times, twice in '74 (July and November) for the "Diamond Dogs" tour and in March '77 when he played with Iggy Pop at the Palladium during the "Idiot World Tour".

Mike makes the most sense. First, drop the anchor and you won't worry about her telling you how to spend it. THEN, you can think about tooling. Let's see....tooling......gentlemen's club........tooling...pfft.... yeah, right.....

Heck, I'll take it off your hands if you don't like it. You could, like, end up with acid reflux or a bad case of gout if you keep it.

Speaking of Yugos, in the late '80s, there were dealerships in NYC giving away free Yugos with the purchase of a new car.

You're almost right. There are differences. United States - Still a constitutional republic. European Union - oligarchy. The U.S. Constitution contains 7,591 words including the 27 amendments on four pages. It is easily comprehensible and can be read by the average person in a comparatively short period of time. Quoting James Madison: “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” The EU Constitution to the Lisbon Treaty, on the other hand, runs some 66,497 words. Including the various annexes and declarations, this total grows to 154,183. The printed two-volume version weighs around two pounds. It is ponderous, difficult to read and is chock full of impregnable technical language comprehensible only to bureaucrats. The framers of this document seemed to have had W.C. Fields in mind when they put it together: “If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with b******t.” Sometimes, less is more.

The federal government shouldn't dictate the content of the curriculum. It exerts pressure (strongarms) on the states and municipalities into following DOE guidelines by threat of withholding funds. This is known as extortion in most places. Ironic, since it's money from the states in the first place. It might be a crazy-quilt; but, that's because each state is different from another in terms of its own history and development. The federal government does not have the ability to accurately determine what is in the best interests of each state, municipality or individual. One size doesn't fit all. That's why each entity has a Board of Regents/Dept. of Education which are better equipped to make these decisions. Why did the basics of education, the three "R's" if you will, work for so many generations to produce some of the most brilliant minds and most educated people on this planet, but is considered ineffective today? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yet, that's exactly what "they" did. "They" broke it by trying to tweak, alter and replace something that worked. Common Core isn't a tool to teach. It's test prep without actually learning the "Who, What, Where, When, Why and Hows" of anything. It's imperative to make Uncle Sugar happy with them there test scores, even if they don't accurately reflect what students really know or understand. Under Common Core standards, you can get a partial credit for a math problem. What counts is that you performed the requisite steps correctly to arrive at the wrong answer. HUH?!? S'plain that one, Loocy. Vague generalities trump specificity. Style over substance. Glossing over information and facts without thoroughly explaining them. That's why more than a few students would be hard pressed to point out either Idaho or Iowa on a map if you asked them. It's pretty hard to keep up with all 57 states, y'know.

Actually, that's the gist of it. There are more than a few large municipal educational systems which have opted out of Common Core curricula for exactly that reason. Interestingly, New York City's public school teachers aren't crazy about it either. That, in itself, says a lot. The public elementary school system here is abhorrent. When comparing public versus private/parochial school students at the same grade level, a student in a public school is academically two years behind one attending a private/parochial school. I placed my kid back into a Catholic parochial school after he completed second grade at the neighborhood public school because the curriculum just plain sucked. The students didn't have textbooks. Everything was a stapled printout; yet, this particular public school spent $17,900 for something called "Handwriting Without Tears", which was supposed to be used to teach students cursive writing. Part of the program was to have students perform interpretive dances to "celebrate" different aspects of cursive writing. Really?!? What kind of happy horsefeathers is that?!? Also, division and multiplication wouldn't be taught until fourth grade. Great. The kids can ace a video game but can't tell you what 42 divided by 6 is. Funny, I was taught that, and more, when I was in second grade. What is it about kids today that educators have deemed them unready, or incapable, of learning at the same level as in the past? The school faculty, and the parent-teacher association are "progressive" in their collective outlook and goals. Everything falls on the left hand side of the table. They were averse to listening to views or opinions which didn't toe the party line. The day following the 2008 Presidential election, my son's second grade class was given an interesting assignment. They were to write an essay titled, "Why I think Mr. Barack Obama is a great President". The guy wasn't even sworn in yet, for chrissakes! I told the teacher that, under no circumstance, will my son complete this nonsense. She's supposed to be teaching, not politically indoctrinating, children. I told her if she continued to impose her personal political ideology on the students, I'll have her license pulled. I didn't have to. The following year, she received the lowest teacher rating in the school district and was 86'ed by the superintendent. I had a number of discussions with the principal and the "parent coordinator" about the state of education and policies at the school; and, I finally told them not to send me a re-registration form because SfanGoch, Jr. wasn't returning in the fall. On the way home, I told my kid that he was going back to parochial school because if he stayed at this school any longer, he'll end up as stupid as the rest of the kids. He agreed. A woman overheard me and said. "How dare you say such a thing?!?" "Well, it's like this", I replied. "Deep down, in the back of your mind, you probably think your kid is stupid; but, you're afraid to say it because you know that he really might be."

What makes that interesting, the price for the PE? That's a nice set. I have a $125 PE set for a $56 M1A2 Abrams SEP. It all comes down to how much detail one wishes to include in a build. BTW, there's almost a half pound of stuff (26 PE frets, 178 brass and aluminum and resin parts) packed in the box. I wish this kind of AM was available for 1/25 cars and truck kits.

Get off at BQE Exit 33 and make a left onto McGuinness Blvd.

Ty Po

Welcome to George Orwell's world. Colleges and universities are no longer places where students are encouraged to freely discuss and debate ideas and voice their opinions. It's all about indoctrination and group think. Anyone who disagrees with the program is silenced by accusations of insensitivity, bigotry, racism and other such abuse. Freedom of speech and thought, in schools and elsewhere, are defended as long as what one says or thinks is in line with what is deemed politically correct. Otherwise, Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform and sit down.

This might help.

If I, or anyone else, even attempted to hand mindless floof like that in when I was in high school, my old, Nehru jacket wearing, overtly Socialist-leaning Regional Studies teacher Mr. Mendelsohn would have beaten us to death. Never mind what Nike Zeus Zacharias, one of my English teachers, would have done. He was small in stature; but, he projected a huge and menacing presence in the classroom. Too bad that kind of educator isn't around today.