- Common sense comes to a public school near you. Can’t possibly last.
- You heard the tut-tutting because more than a quarter of Americans recently polled didn’t know what country the famous forefathers won independence from. But what if respondents were just funnin’? C’mon. Everybody knows it was the Soviet Union.
- Which brings back fond memories of the witty (and now retired from writing) Patty Neill and her hysterical take on “How We Got the Data for the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse” Old. But timeless.
- On the more serious side, here’s an excellent Forbes piece from Michael Pento on “Why the Greater Depression Still Lies Ahead.” Good (but easy to digest) stats on conditions today vs. the 1930s.
- And on the topics of debt and depression, DebtKid, whose own personal debt story is pretty remarkable, offers some quite alarming stats on the physical and mental ills suffered by people who are under debt stress vs those who aren’t. Unfortunately, he doesn’t cite or link to the study his figures are drawn from. Would be interesting to know if his info is accurate and if so to know why people in debt trouble suffer so many ills. Is it because of debt-stress alone? Or are people who get into debt-wrecks already prone to lifestyles and attitudes that give them headaches, sleeplessness, back pain and the like?
- I figure most readers of this blog are unusually wise about money and debt. But for any who still want to go broke in good old 2000s style, here are “Ten Ways to Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch.” 🙂
- Of course, if you run a police department, you don’t have to worry much about money. If you can’t get enough dough through red-light cameras, speed traps, bribery, and asset forfeiture, just make more pot busts. The feds will shower you with tax-paid wealth.
Claire
thought this might be of interest
KOMO TV has been running items on the Barefoot Bandit
Seems he is now making his run global
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/97813839.html
Maybe the midwest just wasn’t warm enough.
A small plane stolen from Bloomington, Indiana over the weekend was found crashed off the coast of the Bahamas, and officials believe it may be the work of Colton Harris-Moore.
Sheriff’s deputies said the Cessna 400 was taken from a hangar at the Monroe County Airport late Saturday or early Sunday, and car stolen from Illinois was found near the airport.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Coast Guard District 7 said the aircraft was found crashed in shallow water off the coast of the Bahamas on Sunday. It was not clear if there were any survivors.
In an interview with the Herald-Times, Monroe County Airport manager Bruce Payton said Harris-Moore is suspected of stealing the plane.
Payton would not confirm a suspected connection to Harris-Moore when contacted by KOMO News, but in an interview with WRTV Payton said the incident “seemed to fit the pattern” of Harris-Moore’s crimes.
Herald-Times reporter Michael Malik said local law enforcement officials told him that no hard evidence was found linking Harris-Moore to the stolen car or plane, but that the crime was very similar Harris-Moore’s past crimes.
“It’s unclear how the person who stole the plane was able to get into the airport,” Malik said. “It is guarded by a 10-foot-high fence that’s ringed with barbed wire, and the gates are all locked. In the hangar where the plane was kept the door had been pried open.”
Harris-Moore has been a thorn in the side of law enforcement officials in Western Washington for years.
In recent weeks, however, the teen known as the “Barefoot Bandit” seems to be spending a lot of time in other areas of the country.
Last week, officials in South Dakota said fingerprints at the scene of a June 18 burglary were a match for Harris-Moore.
And investigators in Madison County, Nebraska issued an arrest warrant for Harris-Moore, who is suspected of several recent break-ins, car thefts, and attempted airplane thefts there.
Authorities believe the 19-year-old is responsible for stealing property worth a total of up to $1.5 million, and has been on the run since he escaped from a Renton group home in April 2008.
He is accused of breaking into dozens of homes since and committing burglaries across Washington, as well as in British Columbia and Idaho.
The teen has garnered considerable media attention and got his nickname after allegedly committing some break-ins without wearing shoes.
Police say they nearly caught Harris-Moore during an intense manhunt on Orcas Island on March 18, but he managed to slip away.
He apparently began his trek out of the Northwest earlier in the spring, donating $100 to a Raymond animal hospital and allegedly stealing a $450,000 yacht from Illwaco, Wash. to get across the Columbia River.
The yacht was recovered in Warrenton, Oregon, where police said fingerprints were used to positively identify the thief as Harris-Moore.
Harris-Moore’s mother has long supported her son’s criminal escapades and has said she hopes he goes to a country that won’t extradite him.
She reiterated the advice two weeks ago in an interview with the Everett Herald.
“He ought to steal a plane and get the hell out of the States,” she told the paper.
My nephew is in a charter school that works like the one in the article, he seems to be doing well at it. The teachers are too liberal, but that’s a common problem. Kinda wish I’d gone to a school like that, I love learning but I HATED school!!! There was very little learning at my school, it was all “read, regurgitate, forget”. I had classmates in high school who were still reading at the first-grade level.
About the pot busts, that is one thing I’m worried about on my land. I don’t grow that stuff (I’m allergic, and I have moral objections, but I think it should be a moral restriction and not a legal restriction, that’s just my opinion) But, this spring I discovered an infestation of sulphur cinquefoil, which at certain stages of growth looks very similar to pot. I’ve been chopping it out when I find it just because I can’t afford even a misunderstanding about that right now, but as I’m lucky to get out there once a week, it’s getting ahead of me. Any advice for getting rid of a look-alike?
Jackie — thank you! I’ve been receiving daily email news bulletins on Colt (and I spent an interesting half hour talking with his mother on the phone a week or so ago, too). I’m surprised there’s been no follow-up reports yet on that Bahamas crash. Was the plane empty? Were there signs somebody escaped from it? Or was there a body? Inquiring minds want to know!
The writer part of me would love for the plane to be empty and for Colton Harris-Moore never to be seen or heard from again. What a legend that would create! Another side of me just hopes he’s all right — but that he quits what he’s been doing!
Ellendra — I hear ya on that fear of pot busts. How many times do we have to hear about cops clearing fields of weeds under the assumption that it’s The Dreaded Marijuana? Sigh. As to eradicating it, not a clue. (I can see why you wouldn’t want the cops to do you the “favor” of clearing your field.) But I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody here had an answer for you.
I’m with you on school. It was boooooooring! (Among other problems.) Just sitting there while the same material was repeated over and over for the slowest person in the class … ugh. It’s nice to see that ancient Prussian age-grouping pattern changing. But still … this being government school, I’m confident they’ll find a way of ruining their new self-paced learning method.
Heh. Our local PD hires itself out to collect bounced checks. I guess that’s sorta like honest work…
Heya Claire!