According to Media Matters, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter to schools on August 26th that described the focus of Obama’s upcoming September 8th speech to kids on education as “the importance of education and persisting and succeeding in school.” Sounds docile enough, right? I mean, pretty much every adult and family member tells kids the same exact thing during the school years!

But, if you expected no one to pick up on this mundane sounding speech, you’d be wrong. No such thing as rational thought from the likes of Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, and other conservative commentators.

Beck on his radio show presented this as more proof that Obama is indoctrinating our youth:

Gang, you have a system that is wildly, wildly out of control, and they are capturing your kids. As [special adviser for green jobs] Van Jones himself has said, the earlier we get the kids, the earlier we make this adjustment with the youth, the easier this transition is going to be. Stand guard America. Your republic is under attack.

And there are ton more in the Media Matters article linked above, as well as this more recent post.

So what’s their “call to arms” on this issue?

To encourage parents to let their children skip school that day.

From Pamela Geller, contributor at Newsmax.com, on her blog:

The fascist in chief is taking his special brand of brainwashing to the classroom. Keep your kids home. I think this man is a threat to our basic unalienable rights. I don’t want him indoctrinating my children. Seriously.

Ask your school what their participation is in this leftist indoctrination outrage. Keep politics out of the classroom. Keep communists and their propagandists away from small children.

Since when is getting an education politics? Oh yeah, wait, if these kids actually complete college and get an education, they’d be less likely to believe this wacko B.S. – that’s got to be the reason, right?

(And, as before, there are many more examples in both articles linked above.)

These wingnuts hate Obama. It’s going to be a long four (or more) years. Seriously.

Here’s the file: helvetical.user.js

Just unzip and drop the helvetical.user.js file in your User Scripts folder, as detailed on Lifehacker:

Windows XP: %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\User Scripts\
Windows Vista: %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\User Scripts\

Then, I have Google Cal set up as a Chrome “Application”, so all you need to do is right click on the Google Cal icon and change the switches at the end of the target to this (switches in bold):

"C:\Documents and Settings\{user.name}\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --enable-user-scripts --app=https://www.google.com/calendar/render?tab=mc

Enjoy!

P.S. I am sure this Google Calendar userstyle would work with all userscript flavors (Firefox & Greasemonkey, Safari & GreaseKit), but haven’t tested it… use at your own risk!

“Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope,” said Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) at a town hall. “I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington.”

She went on to name Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) — all white males.

On a serious note, the latest health care lie pushed by the republicans is “Obama is going to kill your grandma.”  Classic shock and awe, baby. It has ignited outrage, protests, and many viral forwarded emails. (Has anyone received a mass forwarded political email that’s actually true? I haven’t.)

Too bad it’s not true. (Despite being continuously pushed, to this day, by the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, the teabaggers, and various repub congresspeople.)  And too bad the republican leadership (read Newt Gingrich) were for it, before they were against it.

In comes a great post from Matt Taibbi on True/Slant titled, Newt Gingrich Changes What’s Left of his Mind on End-of-life Care.

So, a few months ago someone wrote this in the Washington Post:

More than 20 percent of all Medicare spending occurs in the last two months of life. Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin has developed a successful end-of-life, best practice that combines: 1) community-wide advance care planning, where 90 percent of patients have advance directives; 2) hospice and palliative care; and 3) coordination of services through an electronic medical record. The Gundersen approach empowers patients and families to control and direct their care. The Dartmouth Health Atlas has documented that Gundersen delivers care at a 30 percent lower rate than the national average ($18,359 versus $25,860). If Gundersen’s approach was used to care for the approximately 4.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who die every year, Medicare could save more than $33 billion a year.

via Health Care Rx: Across the Country, Some Systems Are Getting It Right – Newt Gingrich.

Yup, Newt Gingrich. So Newt loves him some advanced care directives! Would save Medicare more than $33 billion per year. Sounds good, right? So good, we should include it in the health care reform bill.

Except that is the portion of the health care bill the baggers are flipping out about. Kill Grandma! Obama loves Euthanasia! Government Death Panels! So, Newt must be trying to set them straight, right? Nope. He’s against it, now.

Newt defending Palin’s crusade against Death Panels:

STEPHANOPOLOUS: The only thing that’s in the bill is that Medicare would pay for what they say is voluntary counseling on end-of-life issues.

GINGRICH: I think people are very concerned when you start talking about cost-controls… you’re asking us to trust the government. Now I’m not talking about the Obama administration, I’m talking about the government. You’re asking us to believe that the government is to be trusted. We know people who’ve said routinely, well, you’re going to have to make decisions. You’re going to have to decide. Communal stadards, historically, is a very dangerous concept.

STEPHANOPOLOUS: It’s not in the bill.

GINGRICH: (stammering) B-but, the bill’s… a thousand pages of setting up mechanisms. It sets up 45 different agencies. It has all sorts of panels. You’re asking us to trust the government when there clearly are people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.

Yeah, you go Newt. Say it like you really mean it! Matt nails it at the end of his post:

Amazing. I mean, talk about being full of shit. This is as clear a case as you will ever find of a politician just getting up on television and just flat-out dogging it, saying something without even the faintest shred of belief, just as a means to an end. What an asshole!

The sad thing is, while health care is obviously in need of reform, the teabaggers/birthers/fringe lunatics that are out at town halls screaming their heads off (and getting all of that news coverage) don’t want ANY bill to pass. Their goal is to make sure no bill passes — anything else and they fail.

It’s ridiculous really, that anything the neocons are against they cue up the script: distort/lie about the issue (the more dramatic and shocking the better), scream until they are heard, the media feels like they need to provide a soapbox to this fringe group (all sides need equal time, of course!), and the story spreads. It always seems to work. They may have really bad ideas (when they do have ideas, other than ‘No! We don’t want that.’) and nutcases (Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Steele, Santorum, etc. etc.) for spokespeople, but they are good marketers. They know how to work the system.

Techcrunch has it right:

This was meant to be an internal document for employees to read, but it’s also one hell of a recruitment pitch.

Netflix certainly sounds like a great place to work. And I do wish more companies followed suit.

Paul’s concept centers around two schedule types (he focuses on programmers, but I think it applies to most business roles):

1. Manager’s Schedule: dominated by one hour block scheduling – the traditional appointment book.
2. Maker’s Schedule: are dominated by half day blocks (at the very least) to accomplish most tasks. (The more challenging the task, the bigger the block, obviously.)

He then takes a look at scheduling meetings for both schedule types:

When you use time that way [note: Manager's Schedule], it’s merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you’re done.

Or rearrange blocks. It can get complicated, but it’s a fairly simple problem to solve.

But, take a look at scheduling using a Maker’s Schedule:

When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting.

Breaking the day up pretty much ruins any chance of getting anything productive done. I know I’ve found this to be true.  And that is just considering going to the meeting, not preparation (which on some occasions I’ve found folks don’t do, which make the meetings even more of a waste) or (gasp!) meetings to talk about meetings. (Yes, you read that right.)

Well, what to do about them? Paul lays out a little bit of detail:

Each type of schedule works fine by itself. Problems arise when they meet. Since most powerful people operate on the manager’s schedule, they’re in a position to make everyone resonate at their frequency if they want to. But the smarter ones restrain themselves, if they know that some of the people working for them need long chunks of time to work in.

And from his experience, as a founder of Y Combinator:

How do we manage to advise so many startups on the maker’s schedule? By using the classic device for simulating the manager’s schedule within the maker’s: office hours. Several times a week I set aside a chunk of time to meet founders we’ve funded. These chunks of time are at the end of my working day, and I wrote a signup program that ensures all the appointments within a given set of office hours are clustered at the end.

I think in the end, the best solution is what works best for the team. Personally, I am a fan of as few meetings as possible, but I do know that some are inevitable. In those circumstances, it’s probably best to schedule meetings early or late in the day to allow for longer stretches of work time for the makers. I also like alternative communication tools like IM; group-centered micro communication tools like Presently, SocialText and Yammer; and even email (so 2000, I know!) that don’t necessarily require instant and constant interaction / interruption. I’ve managed to avoid quite a few schedule meetings by addressing topics via email beforehand. It’s amazing how fast things can get taken care of if you get right to the point.

Anyway, Paul gets it right. Definitely recommend reading the whole article.

We know we have to have some number of meetings. All we ask from those on the manager’s schedule is that they understand the cost.

Too funny, although Conan was right — the speech was meant to be poetry. Shatner killed it:

Lucy and I went out for a walk tonight after dinner. Here’s a portion of our conversation:

Lucy: Look, dadda, the moon!

Me: Oh, yeah, that is the moon. Very cool!

Lucy: Dadda, bring it down here.

Me: I wish I could!

Lucy: No, dadda, jump up and get it.

Me: I wish I could do that too! It’s really, really, really far away.

Lucy: No, dadda, jump up high and bring it down here.

Conversations like that are what’s amazing about kids – they don’t have any idea of what’s not possible. Whereas our (us “grown ups”) first instinct, a lot of the time, is that’s not possible or I can’t do that. Something changes us and our outlook. I’m thinking school [with varying degrees of crushing negativism, depending on race/class/gender] or maybe it’s just us “grown ups” projecting our own ingrained negative thinking upon kids. What ever it is, I think it’s pretty sad. Imagine how much more we could accomplish if we first thought in terms of ‘how can I do that’, rather than ‘why I can’t do that’.

Just something to think about when you have an idea, goal, or challenge in front of you… it might not be bringing the moon down to your kid, but it still can something as ’simple’ as that project you always talked yourself out of starting.

I went to the movie this weekend with a gun. And surprise, surprise, I didn’t kill anybody!

During a Fox News “discussion” on the recently defeated amendment that would have allowed individuals with concealed carry gun permits to carry firearms into another state.