"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." - Douglas Adams
Schools were cancelled across most of Central Florida again today. Too many places had no power or flooding to make it safe to transport using buses.
Fay is finally heading out of the area, maybe. Who knows with this one. She may decide to turn back on come here again. Even on her way out, though, it is still raining, raining, raining.
Personally, I thought they should have closed schools yesterday. I fought my car most of the way home yesterday. At times, winds were so strong that it seemed my car was going to change lanes against my will.
I'm including a picture of part of the lake one street behind my house. In the front of the picture is a stream that is normally about 3 feet lower than seen in the picture. In the mid-upper region of the picture you can see some plant life just above the water. Those plants are on a spit of land. The plants height is normally a good 3 feet above the water line.
In Orange County, Florida teachers went back to work this week. As usual, it was a busy week. Since we have a new principal, he felt it necessary to have many, many meetings. As a resource teacher, when I wasn't in meetings I was trying to get information together for the special education teachers and trying to help parents and students out.
Yeah, I didn't get a lot done.
The administration decided to open the school today for anyone who wanted/needed to come in to get things done. I felt it would be a perfect time to get caught up (or nearly caught up) on everything I couldn't get done during the week. No parents, students, or teachers knew I was there. Perfect.
As I left the school campus I saw these two right at the campus entrance. I probably could have walked up to them. They just didn't seem to care how close anyone or any car got.
As you should already know, a man went on a tragic shooting spree in a church in Knoxville, Tennessee on Sunday. The church was the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and the man was Jim Adkisson. It's been determined that Adkisson chose the church because he hated the church's liberal teachings. Adkisson also believed that all liberals should be killed.
Oddly, if you do a search of Foxnews.com using the words knoxville tennessee shooting you get 36 hits but none are about this particular story:
Alan Grayson is running for the Democratic candidate for the 8th district of Congress. The position he is running for is currently held by Ric Keller. Keller is best know for the "Cheeseburger Bill" and well, not much else. At least, not much when it comes to his work in Congress.
But Ric Keller is for another post.
Alan Grayson has been fighting against contractor fraud for more than 16 years. Since the beginning of the Iraq War, he's been battling against the no-bid contractors and the Department of Justice. One case involves a refrigerator truck that KBR was using to hold bodies of Iraqis. The bodies had been in the truck for two weeks in the Iraqi heat without refrigeration. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty. Now, refrigerator trucks can be used to hold bodies, but then they can never be used to carry food or ice. KBR, however, continued to use this particular truck to carry ice.
Yeah, gross. And any ice or food carried on that truck becomes a bio-hazard. You can read more about this case and other cases in a Vanity Fair article.
I found a new tv ad that Grayson has put out over on Daily Kos. It looks great.
In case you haven't figured it out, I plan on voting for Grayson. If you want to help Grayson out, please visit Act Blue or Grayson's campaign website.
George Carlin died last night of heart failure. He was 71.
I never got to see Carlin perform in person. When he came to Orlando I remember having a prior obligation so I missed seeing him perform.
In 1978, Carlin ended up in a court battle in front of the Supreme Court over his "Seven Words" routine. The Supreme Court ruled that the routine was indecent, but Carlin continued to perform the routine. As a result, he was arrested several times. All of the cases were dismissed.
