From James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today.": Great Moments in Public Education--I An article in New York Teacher, the magazine of the state teachers union, pays tribute to Jack Powell--but not for his professional accomplishments, which are rather meager:

A longtime singer and guitarist with the Zucchini Brothers and a substitute teaching assistant for Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES [school board], Powell has lived frugally for years. He works about three days a week as a sub, earning about $70 a day, with no benefits. From March to October, he rides his bike 20 miles to work when work is available. Sometimes he works for a funeral home to make extra money. The shawl he has wrapped around himself on this winter day, he says simply, doubles as a blanket. "I do whatever it takes to survive and live a socially conscious life," said Powell, who has a tepee in his yard.

Far be it from us to fault Powell for lacking ambition or being a bit eccentric. If he's happy leading a modest life with his bike and his tepee and his courgette fraternity, hey, more power to him. But why is New York Teacher honoring him? Well, that is because of a "principled stand" he has taken. To wit:

Part of that survival--or so he thought--included shopping at Wal-Mart to take advantage of cheaper prices for himself, his partner and her two children. Then his discussions about Wal-Mart with Sandra Carner-Shafran, a teaching assistant at BOCES and a member of the Board of Directors of New York State United Teachers, started churning inside him. . . . "I don't like what Wal-Mart stands for," Powell said, noting the mega-chain's scanty health insurance for staffers. "Because of all those things they can lower the prices." He and his partner agreed to go on food stamps for their family rather than shop at Wal-Mart any longer.

Powell, that is, has generously permitted American taxpayers to subsidize his unaffordable moral tastes. Pardon us if we regard him as something less than a profile in courage.

This is old, but just freaking PRICELESS!

I stashed this away ages ago, so I don't remember exactly where it came from, other than I know that it was written by the Tuesday Morning Quarterback.  Anyway, I ran across it this morning, and it gave me a good laugh.

By Reading This Subhead, You Agree to Any Terms NFL.com May Impose in the Future: Everyone hates the long legal agreements to which you must click "accept" in order to use software. No one reads the agreements, nor are you expected to do so; the buttons might as well say "I have not read this agreement but nonetheless accept since I have no choice in the matter." Take-it-or-leave-it agreements are called "contracts of adhesion." Rental car paperwork, for example, is a contract of adhesion. You can't arrive at a Hertz counter and announce you wish to see someone in authority to negotiate a contract for a car. The clerk hands you the standard Hertz contract -- hoping you won't read it -- and you either sign or go elsewhere. Recently, Tuesday Morning Quarterback has noticed contracts of adhesion popping up all around. I needed to send an iPod back to Apple for service; first I had to accept a 2,138-word agreement. In order to register to track UPS packages online, I had to agree to a 4,115 contract of adhesion. It contained this gem: "UPS may revise and update these Terms and Conditions at any time. Your continued usage of My UPS will be conditioned upon Your agreement to the revised Terms and Conditions." I was not only agreeing to the current terms, I was agreeing to unspecified future terms! So far, the hands-down champion is this 32,781-word "terms and conditions update" Hertz recently emailed customers. "We urge you to read the entire updated Terms and Conditions carefully from beginning to end and to contact Hertz if you have any questions," the header said. The update is 62 pages single-spaced!

Part 2 of Thomas Sowell's column. They money quote:

With some crops, we don't really "need" any of it. If the United States had not produced a single grain of sugar in the past 50 years, Americans could have gotten all the sugar they wanted and at lower prices, simply by buying it on the world market for half or less of what domestic sugar costs. Sugar has been in chronic surplus on the world market for generations. It can be grown in the tropics far cheaper than it can be grown in the United States. All the land, labor, and capital that has been spent growing sugar here has been one huge waste.

Amen!

It seems that Google has filed for three patents relating to the offering of free wi-fi service.  These patents relate to serving up free wi-fi via subsidized ads.  Free wi-fi, and all I have to do is look at Google ads?  Where do I sign up?

A very cool new feature of IE 7 is multiple home pages.  You can set multiple home pages, such that when you launch the browser, it opens a new tab for each home page.  That's enough to make me switch back from FireFox right there. More to come.

As a major first step in my Clean Living Campaign, I'm jumping back on the dieting bandwagon. For those who don't know, I went on a 600 calorie a day liquid diet last year, and lost 47 lbs. in about 4 months, if memory serves me correctly.  Well, since Thanksgiving of last year, I haven't done squat.  Oh, I've managed to stay on the diet for three days here, four days there, but summer is quickly approaching, and it's time to get in shape for the Ladies. So, as of today, I'm back on the wagon.  600 Calories of day of fabulous Myoplex shakes.  Yummy!!! During my hiatus, various vacations, etc., I seemed to have gained back 5 lbs.  Not bad, really.  So I'm currently down 41 from my start.  My total goal is 100, so I'd better get cracking!

Well, it's official.  I've begun my clean living campaign today.  I've spent the last four months travelling and partying, and I haven't gotten a damn thing done at home or in my personal life.  Par Example:  I bought an NAS storage rig last year, and got it all set up right before Thanksgiving.  1.5 TB of wonderfully networked attached storage, just waiting to be used and abused. Number of files on said storage device to date?  4.  Pathetic. Not to mention the lack of attention to my diet, etc.  It's time to get my act together.  At least until summer.  :-)

A genuine WWII Enigma Machine.  Pretty darn cool.  With I had the dough. I mean how can you dismiss marketing like this: ORIGINAL!!! KEIN NACHBAU!!! VOLL FUNKTIONSTÃœCHTIG!!!!

Well, I just installed the lastest version of IE 7 (Beta 2 Preview), and it's pretty damn slick.  I still really like FireFox, but in certain things, like tab management, IE seems to have taken the lead.  IE could very soon once again become my primary browser.