13 November 09 (later am)

Workout 2650 set: 500 of back/free (about 9:50), 500 of side/free (about 9:40), 20 x 50 on the 0:50 (mostly 47, a couple of 48s, a couple of 46s), fins: 100 back, fly, back, fly, drill, then 3 x 50 paddle.

The 20 x 50 on the 50 set wasn’t quite as comfortable as I’d like though I did get a tiny bit of rest each time.

Social Sometimes, it is time to move on even if you like your sweetie:

My ex-girlfriend truly believes 2012 is the end of the world. She bet me 50 dollars that the world would end in 2012. I explained to her if the world is going to end, then there’s no way I could pay her. I either win the bet, or we’re all dead. With a frustrated look on her face, she doubled the bet to 100 dollars.
-Thomas, UCSD

Science evolutionary trees of life are checked and cross checked by many methods, including homology (body structure) and by genetic markers. Here is but one example. In other words, there is evidence; this isn’t just “if the rules of science applied, what would we get best-guess” type of conjecture.

Politics Is it time for Democrats to panic? “Concern for getting results” might be the order of the day. I see some bluedogs losing seats but the bottom line is that our tent is too darned big to begin with.

Religion In Cincinnati: threats have made a bill board company move an atheist billboard.

But in Chicago, groups have protested against the atheist billboards (satire)

Really: why would a sign that says “you can be good without god” threaten anyone? I’m sorry, but when religious types claim that they are “persecuted” they mean either

1. “I won’t be given a captive audience” or
2. “It is wrong that people will actually say that they don’t believe the way that I do; they should just shut up about it” or…even worse…
3. “Smart people openly disagree with me and that hurts my feelings”.

13 November early am

At one time, there was supposed to be a teacher shortage. Now there is a teacher glut…except for one subject area:

Since last fall, school systems, state education agencies, technical schools and colleges have shed about 125,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the same time, many teachers who had planned to retire or switch jobs are staying on because of the recession, and many people who have been laid off in other fields are trying to carve out second careers as teachers or applying to work as substitutes to make ends meet.

In Texas, the Round Rock school district had more than 5,000 applications for 322 teacher openings this year and saw its pool of subs almost double to 1,200, about 2 1/2 times as many as it needs even on a particularly bad day during flu season, said spokeswoman Joylynn Occhiuzzi.

“It is a tougher job market, and you get applicants that you might not normally have because of the economy,” she said. [...]

But the nationwide demand for teachers in 60 out of 61 subjects has declined from a year earlier, according to an annual report issued this week by the American Association for Employment in Education. Only one subject — math — was listed as having an extreme shortage of teachers. In recent years, more than a dozen subjects had extreme shortages.

Emphasis mine.

Smoking: didn’t fall in 2008; it was a slight rise (though I haven’t checked to see if it was a statistically insignificant rise.)

Is this a trend or is this due to changing demographics? I’d have to see the data with cross-tabs.

Learn to Speak Tea Bag

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