Moebius strip comic by Jim Woodring (video, photo, animation)

That's right folks - a comic strip done as a Moebius strip. It's not The Neverending Story, but it is funny - and unusual.

The Thought For Today

"The sky is the daily bread of the eyes." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Thought For Today

"Arrogance leads to failure." - The Buddha (Siddhartha Gotama)

The Thought For Today

"You can get more with a nice word and a gun than you can with a nice word." - Al Capone

The Hard Truth From Orlando

HEADLINE: Dad arrested in Seminole County, Florida, for
going on a bus and threatening the kids who bullied his 6th
grade disabled daughter...

As I've previously ranted at length about the criminal
behavior of students toward other students...

Mr. James Jones had the motivation and the right idea, but
he chose the wrong venue. In order to effect a change, he
needs his daughter to identify one or more of her
tormentors by name, go immediately with his daughter
to the State Attorney's Office and file a sworn complaint
against that child or children by name. He would have to
assist his daughter in the wording, being specific as to the
times, dates, places, what exactly was done (including things
that were thrown at her as evidence if she kept any of them),
what was said and by whom, and lists of any children or adults
she might know (including the bus driver) present during any
of these events. If his daughter only knew one of the assailants,
that's fine. She can name that one specifically in the sworn
complaint.

A lot of parents make the mistake of thinking that if they
report the bullying to the school, the school administrators
are going to do something about it -- after all, almost every
school now has a zero-tolerance of bullying policy. But
administrators have to report any incidences of violence,
disciplinary actions against students and the like to the
school board and this creates negative statistics against
the school, weighed against the job performance reviews
of the administration staff and in the school "fitness"
reports. Negative reports can cost funding to a particular
school. So despite the zero-tolerance policy, the
administrators are very reluctant to take any action
against the bullies. They'll move the child who's being victimized
if the parent insists, but basically, they won't do anything to stop
the behavior unless the victim's parent ups the ante to a lawsuit
against the perpetrating students, their parents, the school
and/or the administrators themselves.

A civil lawsuit is an expensive proposition. The sworn
criminal complaint is free; however, it needs to be made
at the State Attorney's Office to be effective. Parents who
make a criminal complaint to the school administration are
referred to the School Resource Officer, who is officially a
law enforcement officer but he answers to the school
administration -- and they can and often do put the kibosh
on any investigation. If the matter goes to the local sheriff's
office, it just gets referred directly back to the school resource
officer and then to the school administration.

But if the complaint originates in the State Attorney's Office,
there's an agency the school administration can't deflect
directly. They can make it more difficult to investigate,
but the State Attorney's Office has the power to issue
subpoenas for witnesses and records of administrative staff.
Mr. Jones would need to be proactive, calling periodically and
showing up in court to make sure the criminal case is not
being sidelined, but chances are excellent that the criminal
charges would be enough to "tag" the kids perpetrating the
harassment and threats of his daughter and get her and
other victimized children some relief from the bullies.

And Mr. Jones should definitely talk to a civil litigator about
suing the bullies' parents, the school administrators and/or
the bus driver. While I abhor the constant state of sue-happy
silliness in our country, a lawsuit is a real attention-getter for
effecting policy. Sadly, no one in any organization anymore
does something automatically because it's the right thing to
do -- they do it because they don't want to get sued. And rest
assured, if your child is the bully and you're one of these
useless, ineffective parents which are epidemic nowadays,
there's nothing like the threat of losing a substantial portion
of your income or having to go to court over and over because
of your kid's behavior to wake you up and get you involved.

I wish Mr. Jones and all the parents of bullied kids luck and
the intestinal fortitude to make the legal system work for
them against the inaction of school administration
everywhere. Having fought the fight twice on behalf of
children in my family, I know how draining and
frustrating the process is. But if you stay with it and
don't take "no" or "we can't" for an answer, your
children will be greatly comforted knowing that they're
not battling the bullies alone; they have someone in their
corner fighting effectively and making changes. And you
can make our schools a positive environment for productive
academic learning instead of a daily dose of hell for children
ill-prepared for this kind of unrelenting brutality.

Meantime, Mr. Jones' daughter is in the hospital on suicide
watch. Mr. Jones is facing criminal charges and the bullies
are laughing their butts off at how much trouble they've
caused -- but with this much media attention, the school
administrators aren't going to be able to duck and dodge.
They're going to have outside scrutiny of how they handle
these aggressive, nasty little freaks and they're going to have
to be prepared to answer in court for their failure to step in
at the beginning and protect the girl. And I hope the bullies
parents get a strong dose of wake-up, but I won't hold my
breath. We'll see the bullies again -- maybe not with this
victim, but we'll see them down the line in criminal court.
Bullies don't change anything but their targets.

Good luck, Mr. Jones, to you and yours. Yell for help. There's
a lot of families and teachers out there who want to get these
little creeps out of the schools and preferably, out of the
community altogether -- them and their dead-beat,
worthless parents.


Florida Cracker

The Thought For Today

"A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good, and a real one." - J.P. Morgan

The Hard Truth From Orlando

“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,
and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).

1. It is good and appropriate to submit to the state when
asked;
2. Spiritual demands supersede earthly demands, but do
not abolish them;
3. The demands of the state are non-negotiable;
4. Spiritual authority should maintain its independence
from temporal authority, which rules by force rather
than moral law.
That’s straight from Wikipedia and the King James version of
the Biblical texts – plain information, plain understanding of the
text no matter your Christian affiliation. And that’s why I don’t
understand why these so-called ministers of faith don’t
understand why they have to comply with criminal
investigations – except that they don’t want to. The source
of their own religion spelled it out for them that they must
comply with secular laws.
Nowhere does their religious code claim that sexual abuse
of children is acceptable. Nowhere does it claim that those
who perpetrate these acts are not to be prosecuted.
Nowhere does it claim that the most helpless of the
supplicants are to be callously used and justice for them
suppressed with such disdain and vicious disregard.
Nowhere does it say that a wolf in the fold should be
tolerated; in fact, quite the contrary. The wolf is to be
eliminated for the protection of the flock.
On all counts, the Catholic Church has failed. They have
failed to police their own; they have systematically and
sadistically abused the most vulnerable of their congregants;
they have bribed and corrupted families and local officials to
cover their criminal acts; they have openly obstructed any
investigation or punishment of the criminals in their midst;
they have misused charitable donations and subverted their
own credo. Somewhere along the line, they mistook
representing the will of God for acting as if they were God.
Time to shatter the Golden Calf and toss the false prophets into
the fire. And if that’s too metaphysical, the Catholic Church
needs a good public purge of its dirty priests and hierarchy
delivered openly into the hands of the secular authority if it
ever hopes to regain any semblance of credibility and honor.
The crimes they have perpetrated under the guise of
ministering are an obscenity and if the Catholic Church
suffers a loss of substantial power, influence or position in the
world, they need only to look to their own actions for the cause.



Florida Cracker

PDF 'virus'

A lot of email traffic on this one....this should clear up a bit of the confusion...

Also, check for Windows/Microsoft updates...now. Even though Black Tuesday isn't until the 14th, there are some Criticals out there now waiting to be installed...

A Guide To Gizmodo

"Whether you're new to Gizmodo or a seasoned old-timer, there always seem to be some tips, tricks, guidelines, or rules that might be news to you. That's why we've put everything into one handy-dandy reference guide."

The Thought For Today

"Most people are willing to pay more to be amused than to be educated." - R.C. Savage

The Thought For Today

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say,'I used every thing you gave me.'" - Erma Bombeck

The Hard Truth From Orlando

And so it goes...
In the news today, Amber Turner and Erin Ross -- another
young woman dates a loser, breaks it off with him, and he
comes unglued. He texts her. He harasses her. He stalks her,
waiting outside her residence and her work place. She goes
to get a restraining order and gets denied by the judge. So
stalker-ex kidnaps her as she's heading to work, takes her
to a motel, kills her and himself. And now becomes the
inevitable handwringing and blame game, as everyone sings
the woulda, shoulda, coulda refrain. And as I'm walking my
dog at lunch, I hear a guy on his cell phone outside his
apartment (notice how the cell phone generation conduct
"private" phone calls where EVERYONE has to hear them?)
in a tirade against whatever woman he's involved with -- or
thinks he is. His conversation is, You been with three different
guys since I known you, you're just a whore, I ain't putting up
with it. Well, obviously, he is putting up with it, because
instead of cutting this alleged whore out of his life and moving
on, he's hammering at her on the phone and making demands
of her under some kind of strange rationale that he'll somehow
only be satisfied if he has her back -- even though she's a
whore and worthless and can't be trusted.
20 minutes later, the dog is back in the house and I'm heading
back to work, and this idiot is STILL outside on his cell phone
berating this woman, who apparently is too stupid to hit the
END button and turn her phone OFF and/or do the magical
programming to block his phone calls. She obviously doesn't
live with him. He's not paying her any money (at least, he
didn't mention it in his phone call -- he'd have been bringing
that up, trust me) and they don't have any kids together
(because that also didn't come into the harangue and they'd
have been used for verbal leverage). So WHY, WHY, WHY
is this woman not hanging up on this guy?
Because date/domestic abuse is a sick, vicious game and it
takes two players. One player gets to be the psycho bully
and one gets to play the mentally defective victim. And
make no mistake, the victim is as mentally defective as the
bully. The victim chooses to be a victim. The bully chooses
to be a bully. And both of them choose to be completely
irrational and self-destructive, locked in an perpetual match
of violent stupidity.
We have all the laws in place for the abused women (and
statistically, it is many more times women than men) to get
help, get away from their abusers, get counseling and
assistance. But there's no legislating common sense and
self-preservation. And after decades of working to get
women sanctuary from abusive relationships, you begin to
understand the earlier history of disdain by law enforcement
for victims of domestic violence. It's hard to have sympathy
for someone so dumb they keep walking into the buzzsaw.
It's hard to be sympathetic to someone who clearly has a
choice in who they date and what they do with their life, and
choose consistently to pick a piece of destructive two-legged
crap, whether it's for a one-time date or a life-time
commitment.
It used to be said that women stayed in abusive relationships
because financially, they and their children were not in a
position to live without the abuser's income. If you look at
the statistics now, most women have their own jobs and
sufficient government aid that they don't have to be in a
relationship for financial survival. In fact, many of them are
with guys who are providing little or nothing to the
household income. So why are they still walking into the
relationship meat grinders? Because women haven't gotten
the message that they are the ones who choose the kind of
life they want to live. If they pick a sadistic twit-head for a
partner, then it's on them to get out of it. If they want a
better life, they have to be more careful and cold-blooded
about what kind of guy they allow through their door. And
you don't have to be nice about his feelings if he's the one
who's crossing the line. But you have to make sure he knows
where the line is and that he won't like what happens if he
crosses it.
There's no rule that says you have to give ANYONE your
phone number. There's no rule that says you have to let the
guy in your house on the first, second -- or fiftieth date.
Women need to ask themselves when they are first being
chatted up, where do I see this guy in five years? Where do
I see him going in ten years? If he's 20 or 30-something years
old, hasn't got a job, doesn't own a car, hasn't got his own place
with HIS name on the lease, can't pay for a movie and a meal
for his date, can't pull his pants up, can't stay sober and
doesn't know how to take NO for an answer, treats you like
you're too dumb to come in out of the rain, then chances are
really good that he's going nowhere, ever, and he's going to
make sure you go with him if you're dumb enough to stick
around.
If you have a history of crappy relationships, take a good
hard look in the mirror and see if you're walking around
with a big V for victim on your forehead. If that's what's
shining back at you, then you need to make up your mind if
this is what you want to be for the rest of your life, and
define your future choices accordingly. If you don't know
or can't tell -- contact the YHTP.org -- You have the
Power...Know How to Use It, Inc. to reduce your chances
of being a victim and joining the depressing list of relationship
casualties.
Good luck.


Florida Cracker