Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Dubai's Ports

Hey, i live in philadelphia, city of brothers committing homicides. It's a city, and the homicide rate hovers just under one per day. Most, not all, are black-on-black crimes, and about half of the victims and shooters are under 26 years old.

What's this got to do with the Dubai company running America's Ports? Well, here's the analogy:

Saying that a company in a Muslim country cannot run our ports, is just the same as saying that Sylvester Johnson can't be Philadelphia's Top Cop because he's black.

It sounds like an oxymoron: Muslim security at American ports. But that's a foolish generalization to make.

Yeah, i do have concerns about the Dubai people running our ports. I'd have the same concerns if the British, Argentinians or Mozambiquians did it too, but that's along the lines of internal security issues, not the nationality or religion of the country supposedly protecting our ports.

I forget the city, but I read a few years back that the Nation of Islam was contracted to be the security force for a few of the housing projects in a city. During the contract, violent crime almost dissapeared. Then the ADL got upset that the NOI had this contract and had the contract terminated along the lines of separation of Church and State. I've no problem with the ADL, i think they serve a valuable function in their community. However, i'd throw that decision out simply because of the reduction in crime in those projects.

I heard Gov Rendell say that they only have the money to search 5% of the containers coming into the ports. So there's a 95% chance that someone can smuggle in contraband, drugs etc whether the ports are run by the Emirates of Dubai, or little 'ol me.
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Thursday, February 16, 2006

how to make viruses productive

I think it should be legal for people who create viruses to unleash viruses targeted and limited to people who create spam. Hackers against spammers. whaddaya think?
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Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Turino at my front door.

Turino must be the coolest name the olympics ever had.

Anyhoo. Undoubtedly (did i spel that rite?) the coolest winter sport ever is speedskating. Those guys and gals fly! Next in line is the freestyle skiing, the halfpipe is my favorite. Then comes, you guessed it . . snowball fights at home.

This weekend we in philly got thousands of pounds of snow. I think we got around 7-10 inches. It was hard to tell because the wind was kicking. It snowed on saturday and the school district still closed on Monday. That was a blessing fo sho'.

I tried to look on the web for the olympics content, no such luck. I just wanted some video of the speedskating. I think if there were more video of less popular sports, there would be more interest in it. I mean football sundays, weekdays are for hockey and basketball. And when you turn the tv off, on comes baseball and NASCAR.

Did you notice that there's a black speed skater? He almost qualified for both the short and long distance speed skating teams. And people are mad at him because he won't be on the team skating event. He's not phased saying that he didn't come to the games for that event, but other people did.

'sabout it.
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Wednesday, February 08, 2006

teacher of the day!

So, i'm on fire as a teacher. I blogged a while back about the revolutionary insight that lesson plans give: you actually know what to do. So this week we started a new semseter/year with about 40 new kids. I don't know what's been happening, but i've been organizing and planning like a beast! I know where stuff is, i am planning my itinerary for the year, i'm even writing up my grading and rules policy for all the kids to read. Whatarush.

I might start to like this teaching thing . . . if i didn't get the news today that i won't be a teacher past september, whatabummer. But, i'm going to juice this job while i got it for everything that its got.

sianara -or however you spell it.
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