Celebrity Dumb-off

As long as there have been famous people, there have been famous people who have done stupid things. Michael Jackson held his son over a hotel balcony. Eddie Griffin totaled a million-dollar Ferrari. Coolio lost years worth of street cred by appearing in a flashing square for a week, screaming like a girl while trapped in a plexiglas cube, and playing poker badly on basic cable.

But that's not the kind of stupidity we're talking about. I'm referring to the stupidity of two women: Rosie O'Donnell and Sheryl Crow. On the 26-March-2007 episode of ABC's hen-party The View, O'Donnell said that 7 World Trade Center was imploded, and not the target of an al-Qaeda attack. It should be noted that O'Donnell has publically announced her belief in "conspiracy theories" concerning the attacks of 11-September-2001.

Her comments were cheered by the audience, but drew the scorn of Bill O'Reilly, and a point-by-point dissection from Popular Mechanics. (If you're wondering, fire can indeed melt steel; and has been able to for thousands of years.)

Sheryl Crow has taken up the green flag, and tried to help save the forest. Her dictum? When using the toilet, only take off one square of toilet paper for cleaning. (She goes on to say that in the case of a big, steaming dump, you can in fact use two squares. Why thank you, Mrs. Scrooge). I hope that the idea was in jest, because it seems like an offshoot of that one Seinfeld episode. We should use less paper overall, sure, but there are better ways to go about it; paperless offices, electronic banking, and so on. The stinkpalm is not the way to go.

Here's the deal. I look to entertainers to entertain. I want musicians to perform their craft; not proselytize about how we should ration paper, or to spread disinformation to willing sheeple. I would be more likely to embrace the ideas or opinions of say, Alex Trebek or Penn Jillette, because they've demonstrated intelligence in addition to adeptness while performing. Rosie O'Donnell has demonstrated herself to be a loud talking head, and she has gained popularity because her audience has not bothered to think for themselves or to do any sort of research whatsoever. (How do you think blacksmiths were able to craft swords, Rosie? Duh.) Sheryl Crow can play guitar and sing with the best of 'em, and I like much of her music, but I'm not picking up what she's putting down.
She ought to stick to what she does best. Rosie O'Donnell should just go away.

WASL Woes

After our illustrious President decided that No Child Left Behind would be a good thing to ramrod through Congress, we all get to pick up after him. The main thing that came of it in Washington state is the WASL exam. Taken by high school students, our state legislature decided that only those students who pass all of the sections of the WASL (which is made up of multiple-choice, short answer, problem solving and essay questions on a variety of topics: reading, writing, mathematics, and science are a few), as well as scoring a 2.0 or higher grade point average would graduate from high school. It was thought that these standards would compel students to achieve at a high level, as well as being able to read their own diplomas.

The only problem is that scores were abysmally low across the board in the last year. Roughly a third of all test takers were able to pass all of the required sections, and an altogether too-high percentage of students were unable to attain a 2.0 average to pass high school.

So, rather than sticking to their guns, the legislature decided that the 2.0 requirement would be waived, and that the WASL requirements would be similarly tossed out. In essence, the test means nothing.

I propose that any family that spent money on preparing for the test should file a lawsuit with the state. Furthermore, this sends a horrible message to the students who actually did pass the sections: you might strive for something, but it can be capriciously taken away by someone else's utter whim.

I've had problems with the WASL examination for various reasons, and I don't think it should determine whether a person can graduate, but it is totally unfair to pull the rug out from under students who have been playing by certain rules, only to have the game changed on space #99.

Fie on you, legislators. Fie.

City of Sanctuary

Last week, Rebecca Griego, a researcher at the University of Washington was murdered by her ex-boyfriend Jonathan Rowan. That's bad enough, but a murder by its own doesn't really rank a mention on the PolitBlog. Probing deeper reveals the meat of the story.

Jonathan Rowan (who killed himself after murdering Griego) was an illegal criminal alien living in the United States. Last year, he was stopped for drunk driving on June 30, 2006. His 90-day visa had long ago expired. During the course of the police inquiry, a simple question would have found out that Rowan was here illegally. In fact, the city of Seattle has been deemed a "sanctuary city" for illegal criminal aliens. Police officers are actually prohibited from asking people for proof of citizenship or residence. Illegal criminal aliens are allowed to freely roam the city, and there is Not One Thing that the police force can do about it.

That's an incredibly stupid law just on its face, but it becomes all the more deplorable when you consider Initiative 30 which was passed back in 1986. Initiative 30 repealed the City of Refuge law passed in January of that year. This is another case of the administrators of the city of Seattle doing whatever they want, giving the middle-finger to their citizens.

A simple residency check would have allowed deportation proceedings to begin, and one more person would not be dead. The blood of Rebecca Griego is on the hands of the City of Seattle administrators, who would rather coddle illegal aliens, living here as criminals, rather than upholding the law, and the will of the people.

Remember that when the next elections come. The City of Seattle administrators are murderers.