As if the new year weren't bad enough.

E M 053 E M Equip Maintain 3.0 F 0 0.0 AA CSU

And this is the class where I was the only one who had answers to anything in class. I missed the notice of when to hand in lab books, and of course by finals day it was too late. That's a good 1/4th or more of my grade. All the tests I got at worst a 79% on. Without ever having to study. It's kinda sad that I'm so smart, don't have any problem performing on the job, but am terribly lazy about school because there's very little consequence for being lazy if you do well on tests.

Of course, if there was a little more structure given by the teacher with an easier way to find out these things. Due dates and instructions on assignments are generally given out at the beginning of class, but sometimes they're clarified in the middle of lab to a small group of students, or the days are postponed, and no announcements get made at class, you just hear by word of mouth.

Ah well, nothing to it, just have to re-do it. Tired of sounding whiny, so good night. Pictures of my poor stripped car should be up later.

At first I was like "yeah yeah, big deal, smoke residue it toxic, hoocoodanode?"

But then I read this:

Among the substances in third-hand smoke are hydrogen cyanide, used in chemical weapons; butane, which is used in lighter fluid; toluene, found in paint thinners; arsenic; lead; carbon monoxide; and even polonium-210, the highly radioactive carcinogen that was used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006.

That's right, some of that nasty smokersmell is actually radioactive.

Radioactive.

As always, I want some of what the NYT is smokin

This is a subject that might be profitably explored in Washington. There are many questions an enterprising United States senator might want to ask the credit-rating agencies. Here is one: Why did you allow MBIA to keep its triple–A rating for so long? In 1990 MBIA was in the relatively simple business of insuring municipal bonds. It had $931 million in equity and only $200 million of debt – and a plausible triple–A rating.

And not paragraphs before he states:

Richard Fuld, the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, E. Stanley O?Neal, the former chief executive of Merrill Lynch, and Charles O. Prince III, Citigroup’s chief executive, may have paid themselves humongous sums of money at the end of each year, as a result of the bond market bonanza. But if any one of them had set himself up as a whistleblower – had stood up and said “this business is irresponsible and we are not going to participate in it” – he would probably have been fired. Not immediately, perhaps. But a few quarters of earnings that lagged behind those of every other Wall Street firm would invite outrage from subordinates, who would flee for other, less responsible firms, and from shareholders, who would call for his resignation. Eventually he’d be replaced by someone willing to make money from the credit bubble.

He seems to forget that the Washington power brokers are all bought and paid-for by these firms they are supposed to regulate and protect us from. If the senators start whistle blowing, their re-election money will dry up and they will be replaced by someone willing to play ball.

In the immortal words of perhaps the funniest video game ever: “There will be cake.”

Also, the credit-ratings agencies are all government sponsored.

I <3 Howard Zinn

But when you start criticizing, when you start making an honest assessment of what we have done in the world, they say you’re being unpatriotic. Well, you have to–that’s another part of the mindset you have to get rid of, because if you don’t, then you think you have to wear a flag in your lapel or you think you have to always have American flags around you, and you have to show, by your love for all this meaningless paraphernalia, that you are patriotic. Well, that’s, you know–oh, there, too, an honest presidential candidate would not be afraid to say, “You know, patriotism is not a matter of wearing a flag in your lapel, not a matter of this or not–patriotism is not supporting the government. Patriotism is supporting the principles that the government is supposed to stand for.” You know, so we need to redefine these things which we have come–which have been thrown at us and which we’ve imbibed without thinking, not thinking, “Oh, what really is patriotism?” If we start really thinking about what it is, then we will reject these cries that you’re not patriotic, and we’ll say, “Patriotism is not supporting the government.” When the government does bad things, the most patriotic thing you can do is to criticize the government, because that’s the Declaration of Independence. That’s our basic democratic charter. The Declaration of Independence says governments are set up by the people to–they’re artificial creations. They’re set up to ensure certain rights, the equal right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. So when governments become destructive of those ends, the Declaration said, “it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish” the government. That’s our basic democratic charter. People have forgotten what it is. It’s OK to alter or abolish the government when the government violates its trust. And then you are being patriotic. I mean, the government violates its trust, the government is being unpatriotic.

The whole speech is a very good read, as always.

Sunday Ebay Dump

Got a webcam, a transformer, a garlic press, and a 1 up. Shoulda sold more stuff before Xmas, not after. Ah well.