Yes, Applaud These Kids

This entry was posted in Anarchism Federal Government Government on by

Ed Brayton encourages us to applaud these kids and I am happy to join him.
They are certainly taking a step in the right direction.
However, why are they reciting any pledge at all?
The only ones who should be reciting a daily pledge are our servants: government employees everywhere.
As I wrote here a couple years ago:

..there is a group who by dint of their position should recite a pledge…probably several times per day. That would be the set of government employees, elected, appointed or hired, throughout the world. Our servants: congress critters, kings and queens, premiers, secretaries of desks and states, governors, presidents, soldiers, firepersons, police, mayors, etc.
They, each and everyone, in every government job throughout the world should start their day with something like:

I pledge allegiance to the people of name your jurisdiction and swear to protect their lives, help them maintain their liberty and assist them in their pursuit of happiness.

…and repeat it frequently throughout the day and once again before going to sleep at night.

Free individuals are under no obligation to recite pledges of allegiance of any kind.

A Failing Grade for the US Post Office

This entry was posted in Government on by

We recently left home for a week and used the USPS online tool to have our mail held.
We gave them the stop date and the restart date and printed out a nice form confirming all the relevant information.
How did they do?
Not well!
They delivered mail for at least two days after the stop date and the restart date has gone by and we are still waiting for mail to arrive….
This level of performance may earn one a high school diploma but out in the real world the grade is failing.
Unfortunately, the USPS has a monopoly on certain types of mail. This needs to change!!

There is some competition and even though I’m a bit of a Luddite when it comes to electronic bills I will confirm our evaluation of the USPS by moving a 4-5 monthly and quarterly items to electronic delivery or payment.


Friday Ark #158

This entry was posted in Bird Blogging Cat Blogging Dog Blogging Friday Ark Invertebrate Blogging Weekend Cat Blogging Weekend Dog Blogging on by

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

ALERT ~ 1:38 PM EDT:

We will be offline for 7-10 hours and will catch up boardings when we return. 11:59 PM EDT (9/28) ~ Caught up!

Cats

Dogs

Invertebrates

Birds

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn’t Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 183rd edition, 9/23, is up at This, That & The Other Thing . The 184th edition will be hosted on 9/30 by Life from a Cat’s Perspective. There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging #120 hosted on 9/29-30 by Madak-Masak. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 58th edition is up and hosted by The Nightjar. The 59th edition will be hosted on 10/4 by the Naturalist Notebook.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 24th edition is up and hosted by Naturalist Notebook. The 25th edition will be hosted at the end of September by The annotated budak.

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

A Little Bit of Possible Good News

This entry was posted in Ecology on by

A sure way to begin holding the line on greenhouse gas emissions and oil dependency is to reduce the rate of growth in gasoline usage and eventually to start reducing total gasoline usage.
From Texas this good news:

State transportation officials announced today that rising costs, dwindling federal funds, and lawmakers’ opposition to private-sector investment in toll projects have combined to force it to sharply scale back construction plans.
“The people of Texas need to understand that within a very short period of time, there will be no money for mobility projects,” said Texas Transportation Commission member Ned Holmes of Houston.
The affected projects will be those designed to build new roads, or add lanes to existing roads. Projects already under contract and those designed to maintain or rehabilitate existing roads won’t be affected.

Yep, stop building new roads to reduce the growth rate in fuel consumption.