I had to share this, its too funny

ONLY IN CALIFORNIA....

This is hilarious, no wonder some people were offended! This is the message that the Pacific Palisades High School (California) Staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine.

This came about because they implemented a policy requiring student sand parents to be responsible for their children's absences and missing homework.

The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children's failing grades changed to passing grades even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes.

*This is the actual answering machine message for the school:*

"Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting the right staff member, please listen to all your options before making a selection:

"To lie about why your child is absent" - Press 1

"To make excuses for why your child did not do his work" - Press 2

"To complain about what we do" - Press 3

"To swear at staff members" - Press 4

"To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several flyers mailed to you" - Press 5

"If you want us to raise your child" - Press 6

"If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone" - Press 7

"To request another teacher for the third time this year" - Press 8

"To complain about bus transportation" - Press 9

"To complain about school lunches" - Press 0

"If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable and responsible for his/her own behavior, class work, homework, and that it's not the teachers' fault for your child's lack of effort: Hang up and have a nice day!"

it's a dog and badger world

What would the religious right say about this:

Puppy love by the hour

Also, my thoughts on the hurricane damage (somewhat of a rant):

The damage is astounding. The deaths are tragic. The cause of the flooding is just sad. The levee system created to put a damper on the annual flooding of the Mississippi (and yes I DID spell that out...by the way) has backfired. Naturally, the Mississippi floods every year and deposits nutrients in the form of silt all along the region. This silt is what fertilizes the soil and it's what keeps the land mass in balance...it actually builds up landmass over time. Well, some silly people...let's call them THE FRENCH! (ho ho!) decided they wanted to live in an nice fertile spot. SO they built a bunch of houses on stilts, had fantastic vegetable gardens, and then over the next 200 or so years some other people came along and built some more houses, and got tired of having to row the kids to school in the boat, so they built a wall around the city...in the form of levees. Many years later, without the yearly addition of silt, this region is now lower than the outlying regions. So now, the region is up to 12 feet BELOW sea level. I don't think it takes a genious to figure out what happens next. In fact, parts of San Jose are 6 feet below sea level...FYI. So those pumps we hear about on the news...they aren't just for emergencies...they operate everyday pumping water out of the city BECAUSE IT'S 12 FEET BELOW SEA LEVEL!! I mean please, come on people. What did you think would happen? In fact, here's an article from the New York Times in 2002 describing this exact scenario:

2002 Flood Warning

So let me sum up: we damn up a river by erecting walls around a naturally underwater region, build a whole bunch of houses there, use high power pumps on a daily basis to continually pump out an equal amount of water that naturally flows in... a storm comes through, drops a whole bunch of water, cuts the power to the pumps...and the walls that were built to hold the water out are now holding it in...like a giant swimming pool...

Can you say SCREWED? I feel terrible for the people who have lost their homes, their loved ones, and this whole region is just F'ed up and it's going to take a long time to get things back to business again. But I can't help but feel the pang of myopia when we continue to neglect the oh-so-obvious laws of nature that we have been watching on Channel 9 since grade school. I have great respect for badgers, and I think we might be alot better off if we decided to send all of our policy makers to the woods for a month each year to watch the natural state of things. Maybe this George Bush vacation thing is a good idea....all in all I will end with this:

I blame the French.

Some times you feel like a nut...

Hey ya'll. So it's been a WHILE since I got my hand at this thang. I wanted to give you a head's up. Let me first dispell any perverted thoughts in your head and say that Maria and I are still happily married...2 months and not really counting! I am very happy to be married to Maria. We have been transitioning back into the school year. For parents it's probably something similar, but more intensive...especially if there are lots of little ones about. For us it means at least 12 hours a day of work, and lots of home cooking...which we do together, so it's quite lovely. Oh, and there's the first alarm clock that goes off at 5:45, then there's the second, unmistakable coffee pot alarm clock that goes off at 6. Our new coffee maker grind the whole beans then makes the coffee, so it sounds kind of like a jet engine warming up in the morning...quite an effective waker-upper.
Maria and I have been carpooling, and that's been working out well. It definately helps with the $2.79 el cheapo gas prices. Yesterday when I drove past the 76 station in the morning it was $2.71, then in the evening we drove past the same station and it was $2.81...for the cheap stuff. In addition to carpooling we are going to sell one of our 4runners (we have 2) and buy a VW TDI, which is a diesel. We will be running it on biodiesel...it's basically fuel made from vegetable oil. There is one station in San Jose on 10th street that sells it at the pump, and I believe it goes for about $3.30/gallon. At about twice the mileage of what we currently get I have very conservatively estimated about $800/year fuel savings at current petrol pricing. If you are interested in this...I admit, I am kind of a nut about the whole thing...so ask away!
At work I am getting along great. I have the best 'cube' in the building with 8 floor to cieling windows right in front of my desk....so I knocked down the cube wall, ala "Office Space" a few months ago, and now everyone is jealous...especially the guy who used to sit here and stared at the wall all day never thinking...literally, outside the box. We are actually moving to a new campus (ours now is about 30 years old, and spread out all over a few blocks, and really isn't a campus) in October, so I am hoping that I have not used up all of my 'good office' Karma. Friday I watched a formation of Canadian geese flying south, and being right along the Moffett/Onizuka flight path I see lots of cool planes flying by everyday...F-18s, F-15s, P-3s, C-130s, C-5s, WWII bombers, and lots of helicopters. I saw a stealth fighter once, which was pretty cool...but it's mostly the transports.
Alright, back to making money for the company. I did some research online and found that each employee at Trimble makes the company around $350,000 per year. Not shabby. And boy there are sure some people that aren't pulling their weight, so I figure I am doing pretty good for this place...and they are treating me pretty good too.
Cheers!
The Real Bill Carter