Kit's blog: "Bitches and Complaints"

Are you fucking serious right now. When are people going to realize that the problem in this country isn't the shit being taught, it's the people teaching it, and the students who aren't being given enough motivation or encouragment or beatings or what the fuck ever? Our country seems to get dumber every day. I've heard that there are even schools who have done away with "holding" a student back a grade, because it outcasts the student and lowers their self esteem. You have got to be kidding me. You pansy ass bleeding heart goddamn fucking liberals are killing me! Stop worrying so much about peoples self esteem and maybe worry about the fact that if you keep dumbing down our children to save their pitiful grade school reputations that won't mean a damn thing in college or heaven forbid they actually make it that far, the real world and focus on the fact that this country's education system has gone down the fucking tube and there's no happy pill at the end to make it all better. You wonder why our president can't spell, or make a coherent sentence? OUR PRESIDENT people, whom you elected yourself! (don't give me this shit oh I voted for Kerry, that evil bastard wasn't any better. Bush may be dumb but at least in his mind he means well) If the "greatest country on Earth" can't even have a literate leader, what does that say about the people running the corporations? Or the workers? (breaks a couple dishes and goes hunting for Fred) You're worried about terrorists? You're worried about drugs? Why don't you worry about the fact that Little Billy is 14 years old and can't spell the word enough? Or the state he lives in? Read the goddamn article. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Advocates Push for Simplified Spelling Wednesday, July 05, 2006 WASHINGTON When "say," "they" and "weigh" rhyme, but "bomb," "comb" and "tomb" don't, wuudn't it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound? Those in favor of simplified spelling say children would learn faster and illiteracy rates would drop. Opponents say a new system would make spelling even more confusing. Eether wae, the consept has yet to capcher th publix imajinaeshun. It's been 100 years since Andrew Carnegie helped create the Simplified Spelling Board to promote a retooling of written English and President Theodore Roosevelt tried to force the government to use simplified spelling in its publications. But advocates aren't giving up. They even picket the national spelling bee finals, held every year in Washington, costumed as bumble bees and hoisting signs that say "Enuf is enuf but enough is too much" or "I'm thru with through." Thae sae th bee selebraets th ability of a fue stoodents to master a dificult sistem that stumps meny utherz hoo cuud do just as wel if speling were simpler. "It's a very difficult thing to get something accepted like this," acknowledges Alan Mole, president of the American Literacy Council, which favors an end to "illogical spelling." The group says English has 42 sounds spelled in a bewildering 400 ways. Americans doen't aulwaez go for whut's eezy witnes th faeluer of th metric sistem to cach on. But propoenents of simpler speling noet that a smatering of aulterd spelingz hav maed th leep into evrydae ues. Doughnut also is donut; colour, honour and labour long ago lost the British "u" and the similarly derived theatre and centre have been replaced by the easier-to-sound-out theater and center. "The kinds of progress that we're seeing are that someone will spell night 'nite' and someone will spell through 'thru,'" Mole said. "We try to show where these spellings are used and to show dictionary makers that they are used so they will include them as alternate spellings." Lurning English reqierz roet memory rather than lojic, he sed. In languages with phonetically spelled words, like German or Spanish, children learn to spell in weeks instead of months or years as is sometimes the case with English, Mole said. But education professor Donald Bear said to simplify spelling would probably make it more difficult because words get meaning from their prefixes, suffixes and roots. "Students come to understand how meaning is preserved in the way words are spelled," said Bear, director of the E.L. Cord Foundation Center for Learning and Literacy at the University of Nevada, Reno. Th cuntry's larjest teecherz uennyon, wuns a suporter, aulso objects. Michael Marks, a member of the National Education Association's executive committee, said learning would be disrupted if children had to switch to a different spelling system. "It may be more trouble than it's worth," said Marks, a debate and theater teacher at Hattiesburg High School in Mississippi. E-mail and text messages are exerting a similar tug on the language, sharing some elements with the simplified spelling movement while differing in other ways. Electronic communications stress shortcuts like "u" more than phonetics. Simplified spelling is not always shorter than regular spelling sistem instead of system, hoep instead of hope. Carnegie tried to moov thingz along in 1906 when he helpt establish and fund th speling bord. He aulso uezd simplified speling in his correspondens, and askt enywun hoo reported to him to do the saem. A filanthropist, he becaem pashunet about th ishoo after speeking with Melvil Dewey, a speling reform activist and Dewey Desimal sistem inventor hoo simplified his furst naem bi droping "le" frum Melville. Roosevelt tried to get the government to adopt simpler spellings for 300 words but Congress blocked him. He used simple spellings in all White House memos, pressing forward his effort to "make our spelling a little less foolish and fantastic." The Chicago Tribune aulso got into th act, uezing simpler spelingz in th nuezpaeper for about 40 years, ending in 1975. Plae-riet George Bernard Shaw, hoo roet moest of his mateerial in shorthand, left muny in his wil for th development of a nue English alfabet. Carnegie, Dewey, Roosevelt and Shaw's work followed attempts by Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster and Mark Twain to advance simpler spelling. Twain lobbied The Associated Press at its 1906 annual meeting to "adopt and use our simplified forms and spread them to the ends of the earth." AP declined. But for aul th hi-proefiel and skolarly eforts, the iedeea of funy-luuking but simpler spelingz didn't captivaet the masez then or now. "I think that the average person simply did not see this as a needed change or a necessary change or something that was ... going to change their lives for the better," said Marilyn Cocchiola Holt, manager of the Pennsylvania department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Carnegie, hoo embraest teknolojy, died in in 1919, wel befor sel foenz went maenstreem. Had he livd, he probably wuud hav bin pleezd to no that milyonz of peepl send text and instant mesejez evry dae uezing thair oen formz of simplified speling: "Hav a gr8 day!"

I read this article today on MSNBC. Let me just say that this shit has got to stop. It is not the toy's fault that a child gets hurt. Kids are fucking kids, they're going to get hurt, they're going to fall down, bump their heads, skin their knees, stuff shit in their mouths that they probably shouldn't. I remember when I was growing up if a kid did something stupid with a toy, well, shit happens. No one was suing anyone, toys didn't get recalled. It's called natural selection. Remember the Tonka Trucks, the metal ones, with the sharp ass edges, that would rust and everything? What the hell happened to those? Look, I'm not saying give a two year old who puts everything in his mouth a bunch of legos to play with, but have some sense. Buy toys for your kids that are for their age, for one, and stop being a bunch of goddamn pussies for two. Stop trying to blame things that happen to your kids on other people and maybe accept the fact that it could've been your fault the kid choked or stuck a fork in the light socket because you were too busy banging the pool boy or the kitchen maid to pay attention. Fuck, people, I have a kitten and I pay more attention to it than some of you pay to your children. These toys in this article should not have killed this kids. Look at the numbers. 255,000 recalled because TWO kids choked to death. These kids wouldn't have choked to death if someone had been paying attention to them. They are less than three years old, and here they are jamming a three inch long and an inch and a quarter wide toy down their throat, and no one does anything? These toys have been out for awhile, it's not like they just came out last week or something. Bah. Make your own opinion, but I say the parents are to blame in this one. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHICAGO - Playskool Friday said it was recalling 255,000 Team Talkin' Tool Bench toys after the deaths of two small children who suffocated when the head of an oversized plastic toy nail became lodged in their throats. The unit of Hasbro Inc., said the two children were aged 19 months and 2 years. The toy is labeled for children 3-years old and up. "While the circumstances surrounding these tragedies are not clear to us at this time, we went to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and initiated this voluntary recall out of an abundance of caution," Al Verrecchia, chief executive of Hasbro, said in a news release. The nails involved in the incidents were more than three inches long and an 1-1/4 inches wide. Hasbro is offering a $50 certificate to consumers who return the toy, which sold from October 2005 through September 2006 for about $35, the company said. For instructions on how to return the toy nails and receive the certificate, consumers can call Playskool at (800) 509-9554 or go to www.playskool.com, the company said. For the exact article including picture: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14952221/

I like clogging my arteries, thank you. Alright look, I know like it seems like all I do is bitch about stupid people...but do you really blame me? This article right here is bullshit. What happened to a free country! Look assholes, if I want to make myself fat and clog my arteries I will! And neither you nor your polly fucking prissy pants officials are going to do shit about it! It's the same thing with smoking! Stop banning smoking in my bars and restaurants! I don't ever want to go out anymore because then I have to haul my drunk ass up off the barstool to go outside to smoke! Bars are supposed to be about smoking and drinking and playing pool and getting thrown out. Seriously, I think the government needs to stop being so nosy and let people kill themselves the way they want to. Leave my greasy fatty food alone! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NEW YORK - Three years after the city banned smoking in restaurants, health officials are talking about prohibiting something they say is almost as bad: artificial trans fatty acids. The city health department unveiled a proposal Tuesday that would bar cooks at any of the city's 24,600 food service establishments from using ingredients that contain the artery-clogging substance, commonly listed on food labels as partially hydrogenated oil. Artificial trans fats are found in some shortenings, margarine and frying oils and turn up in foods from pie crusts to french fries to doughnuts. Doctors agree that trans fats are unhealthy in nearly any amount, but a spokesman for the restaurant industry said he was stunned the city would seek to ban a legal ingredient found in millions of American kitchens. "Labeling is one thing, but when they totally ban a product, it goes well beyond what we think is prudent and acceptable," said Chuck Hunt, executive vice president of the city's chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association. He said the proposal could create havoc: Cooks would be forced to discard old recipes and scrutinize every ingredient in their pantry. A restaurant could face a fine if an inspector finds the wrong type of vegetable shortening on its shelves. The proposal also would create a huge problem for national chains. Among the fast foods that would need to get an overhaul or face a ban: McDonald's french fries, Kentucky Fried Chicken and several varieties of Dunkin' Donuts. Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden acknowledged that the ban would be a challenge for restaurants, but he said trans fats can easily be replaced with substitute oils that taste the same or better and are far less unhealthy. "It is a dangerous and unnecessary ingredient," Frieden said. "No one will miss it when it's gone." Same ban in Chicago? A similar ban on trans fats in restaurant food has been proposed in Chicago and is still under consideration, although it has been ridiculed by some as unnecessary government meddling. The latest version of the Chicago plan would only apply to companies with annual revenues of more than $20 million, a provision aimed exclusively at fast-food giants. A few companies have moved to eliminate trans fats on their own. Wendy's announced in August that it had switched to a new cooking oil that contains no trans fatty acids. Crisco now sells a shortening that contains zero trans fats. Frito-Lay removed trans fats from its Doritos and Cheetos. Kraft's took trans fats out of Oreos. McDonald's began using a trans fat-free cooking oil in Denmark after that country banned artificial trans fats in processed food, but it has yet to do so in the United States. Walt Riker, vice president of corporate communications at McDonald's, said in a statement Tuesday that the company would review New York's proposal. "McDonald's knows this is an important issue, which is why we continue to test in earnest to find ways to further reduce (trans fatty acid) levels," he said. July deadline proposed Under the New York proposal, restaurants would need to get artificial trans fats out of cooking oils, margarine and shortening by July 1, 2007, and all other foodstuffs by July 1, 2008. It would not affect grocery stores. It also would not apply to naturally occurring trans fats, which are found in some meats and dairy. The Board of Health has yet to approve the proposal and will not do so until at least December, Frieden said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration began requiring food labels to list trans fats in January. Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard University School of Public Health, praised New York health officials for considering a ban, which he said could save lives. "Artificial trans fats are very toxic, and they almost surely causes tens of thousands of premature deaths each year," he said. "The federal government should have done this long ago."