Video Killed the Radio Star: The Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart

Now if you have read this blog, you know I am a huge fan of Craig Kilborn, especially his time at The Daily Show. When Jon Stewart took over, he soon changed the show into a liberal propaganda type show.

Well it's good to see that Jon Stewart isn't afraid to pull punches, even on those he voted for. These are some great clips where Jon does a good job of getting some jabs in at Obama. Really good.

First up is his take on Obama's pledge to create a solid infrastructure...great Oprah reference. Now just to show fairness, he takes on Jan Brewer on this one too.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2010 - Are You Ready for Some Midterms?
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Next up is his take on Obama's town hall meeting from a couple of weeks ago.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

I don't have a problem with political humor and as long as Stewart takes on both sides I'm ok with it.

Music Non Stop: New All That Remains samples

Disclaimer: this is a pretty bad year for music. Nothing has gotten my attention and I'm not sure anything will. I can only name at most 5 above average albums. I have been doing my top 10 lists for a few years and this is going to be a tough year to fill up 10 spots. With that said...

The new All That Remains album, For We Are Many, will definitely be in the top 10. Heck, I should just give it the number one spot now. Overcome messed with the vocals a little bit and this one sounds like it is more in line with The Fall of Ideals, their best album. I know you can't tell much from samples, but compared to everything else I have heard this year, this is promising.



Like I said, it's just samples, Nevermore's samples were great and the album was so-so. Oh well. Wait and see.

The Sun Always Shines on T.V.: Bill O'Reilly vs. Jon Stewart

These two are on total opposites of the political spectrum, but putting them together is gold. This is their second time together and I found myself laughing the whole time. On The Factor, there wasn't much political talk, but on The Daily Show there was some. And you can see that both O'Reilly and Stewart want whats best for the country...it's how they want to get there that differs. Anyway, enjoy the videos, they are great. First, The Factor (because Stewart was on first) then The Daily Show.





The Daily Show, from Monday night.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill O'Reilly
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Inside Four Walls: Talking behind my back...

So while some parts of my job are a little hectic, I still find ways to enjoy myself at work.

The other day I was walking through campus after school. I noticed a freshman student and her friends. As I got closer, they all huddled up and I saw one of her friends stick her head up and look right at me then go back to the huddle. I had my sunglasses on, so I pretended not to notice. I knew she was talking about me and honestly it doesn't bother me. Students say bad things about me all the time...remember Rate My Teachers?

The next day in class, I called her on it. She said "I wasn't talking about you...I promise." I told her it was ok, people do it all the time, just don't look so obvious next time. Then she said, "well I didn't say anything bad about you." The class laughs a little and I repeat myself. She then starts telling us what was "said". I stop her and tell her to relax.

So when I finish my lesson, I do the whole Checking for Understanding thing and ask for any questions. The student raises her hand and says she has a question. I couldn't resist. I looked at her and said hang on.

So I turn around and stare at the board. About 15 seconds later, she says "Mr. W can you turn around?" I look over my shoulder and said, "Oh I'm sorry, I thought you were more comfortable talking behind my back." Of course that got a good laugh. By the way, I did answer her question...facing her.

The Last Laugh: $111 Million = 55 Jobs

It bothers me when I hear people say how they don't understand why Americans or upset. Or worse yet, we are upset because we are racist against black people. It's things like this story that upset us.

Seems that when Los Angeles got some stimulus money, they didn't use it too well.

"I'm disappointed that we've only created or retained 55 jobs after receiving $111 million," said Wendy Greuel, the city's controller. "With our local unemployment rate over 12 percent we need to do a better job cutting red tape and putting Angelenos back to work."

According to the audit, the Los Angeles Department of Public Works spent $70 million in stimulus funds -- in return, it created seven private sector jobs and saved seven workers from layoffs. Taxpayer cost per job: $1.5 million.

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation created even fewer jobs per dollar, spending $40 million but netting just nine jobs. Taxpayer cost per job: $4.4 million.

Now this is from the city's own audit, so it could be worse. I guess it's not that funny that we have wasted billions of dollars and not much has changed. Unemployment is going up, foreclosures are still rising, and well that Change everyone voted for sure doesn't look that good right about now.

My favorite quote of the article though;

"I would say maybe in a grade, a B- in creating the jobs," Greuel told Fox News.

Really a B-?!?!? for 55 jobs and you got $111 million?!?!? It's things like this that Americans are upset about.

Free Speech for the Dumb: Michael Moore

I can't believe there was a time when I actually liked Michael Moore. I saw a film of his in high school and it was like he was looking out for the good of America. Then he went nuts. He went off the deep end and really start becoming radical in his views.

So what did he do on 9-11 this year? Well he chimed in on the mosque in New York, just 2 blocks away from Ground Zero. So what did he say?

I am opposed to the building of the "mosque" two blocks from Ground Zero.

I want it built on Ground Zero.

Why? Because I believe in an America that protects those who are the victims of hate and prejudice.

On 9-11 he basically spit on the graves of those victims. You believe in an America that protects victims of hate and prejudice? How about the innocent victims that were killed for no reason, but they were Americans or just at work? This just goes to show the disrespect he has for America and the real victims of the mosque, the survivors and families of the victims of 9-11.

Insider Four Walls: more fallout from superintendent firing

So a few weeks ago I talked about how our superintendent was fired a week before school started. Then I talked about how we were not only paying our new guy, but also paying her for the next 18 months.

Well today the local newspaper ran an article about the firing and it led off with the great title of "Superintendent change to cost Walnut Valley Unified hundreds of thousands". Talk about an eye catcher. So I read it and now if the teachers weren't upset before, we are now.

Our district will pay Dr. Simms $295,500 over 18 months, while the interim receives $14,842 a month plus an extra $1000 for travel and housing. Are you kidding me? That's over $30,000 a month for these two. So in less than two months the district is paying for one teacher's full yearly salary!!

And yet, we don't have enough money in our district to fund detention? What is wrong with this place? We can't pay our class advisers or any extra duty, but we can pay out this much a month? Oh yeah, we are facing a 3 million dollar budget shortfall too. Nice.

Here's the kicker that isn't in the article though, we have heard that she is getting or has already got a lawyer to go after the district for all of the money on the contract. So now on top of paying this amount for 18 months, it might be more, PLUS our district now has to pay lawyers to go to court on this.

I love education.

Right Now: Happy 9/02/10 Day

This slipped passed right by me until a teacher told me about it. Today is 90210 Day because of the date 9/02/10, September 2nd 2010. Really cool.

I have been meaning to do a Remember the Time about the original 90210 because there are a ton of great memories from that show. Yeah it jumped the shark a million times and really went downhill after Brandon left the show, but I can still remember going to school and talking about Kelly's classic "I choose me" moment when Brandon and Dylan both proposed to her. Ahhh memories. Anyways it's one of those once in a lifetime days, so why not recognize it.

Inside Four Walls: Who needs a discipline plan?

So I have known about this for a few weeks now, but in case some of my students knew of this blog I kept it under wraps. But as they say, the cat is out of the bag now.

Our schools budget was cut, like everyone else's, and our principal decided to maintain the status quo with keeping sports and IB funded. Well, seems that discipline isn't that big of a deal because the extra duty pay that went along with one hour detention and Saturday work detention were cut. So what was the plan? Apparently, they were hoping people would volunteer to do detention. Really.

So fast forward to today, I was putting notes on the board for my Algebra 2 Senior class when one of the students asks me "Is it true there's no more detention?" I say I have no idea. Then it opens the flood gates. It was a flow of "I heard the GLC's are doing it.", "I heard there is no detention til next semester", "I heard there's no more Saturday school." I do a pretty good job of ignoring the statements until one kid says, "I cut class last week and I was warned to not do it again. I did it last year and I was told it's an automatic detention. What's up with that?"

So to stop rumors, I told them detention was up in the air, but that the GLC's would most likely run it. It's funny how bad at math they can be, but then surprise you at other times. It took a few seconds before someone said, "there's 8 GLC's and there are 3 one hour detentions and one Saturday. They can't do that the whole year." It's funny because he is right.

Talking to our ASB director he is concerned because the Saturday kids would clean out and sort the recylcable trash cans. And I don't think he wants to do it.

So what is the discipline plan? No one knows. I have a couple students with two tardies, 3 is an automatic one hour detention, so it will be interesting to see what happens the next couple of days. Nothing like starting off the year with no discipline plan.