I'm going dark for the rest of the month.  I started this blog with a few goals, most of which had to do with venting and blowing off steam. I've done that.  I currently have no steam to vent or blow off.  My head's not in the game.  So rather than limp along, posting out of a sense of inertia I'm going to pull the plug.

For a while.

And see what happens.

To the three or four of you who wander by occasionally, thank you.  

I'm fine.  Been dark since last Saturday.  Quite busy.  And today is ... well.... we all know .... so I promise to be back tomorrow.

My RSS reader gagged last night and deleted about 300 old articles because I'm so far behind.  Gotta get caught up.

And I will

This is the whole list.  We're getting a little sparse so maybe the final list will be "pre-teens." 

The Atlantic: Barely a third of U.S. senators pay their interns — and embarrassingly for Democrats, a party focused on workplace welfare, most of them are Republicans.

Its not a bug, it's a feature: Paper: Obama’s Proposal to Limit Tax Deductions for High-Income Donors Would Undermine Charitable Giving.

That way the Feds can have more control over who gets what.

THE HISTORY OF SPENDING FREEZES: “During long periods in American history, flat budgeting was the norm. For the first 150 years of the nation’s existence, federal policymakers generally restrained spending and reduced debt between wars.  .....  Consider that if Congress simply held total spending to this year’s level of $3.5 trillion, the budget would be balanced by 2016 as the growing economy generated rising tax revenue.”

HEY, THEY FORGAVE HIM FOR THE FIRST ONE: Will Democrats Forgive Obama for Blowing His Second Term? “

I have seventeen students in mt Remedial English class.  Two are fine.  Five are fighting ESL and winning.  Three gave up week one.

The rest?  I realized the problem this morning when reviewing rough drafts of final projects.  They're trying to write the way THEY THINK smart people write.  Instead of writing well (short, concise sentances mainly) they try to "impress" me with fancy contructions (that clunk,) long, nested sentances, and "cute" approaches.

JUST WRITE!  The "smart" part comes later.  When you ARE!

I want Congress to authorize something I don’t believe they need to authorize, and which I reserve the right to do anyway whether or not they authorize it, in order that I might defend the credibility of a red line I didn’t actually draw, so that I may take decisive action that will not in any way affect the momentum of the Syrian civil war or, if it accidentally does, al-Qaeda will the stronger for it, in order that I might have a chance to do what I have spent a decade yelling about other people doing.

Obama Inflates The Higher Education Bubble.

What was the dumbest idea of the summer of 2013: Ignoring previous Syrian chemical attacks? The? Massachusetts tech tax? Letting Miley Cyrus pick out her own clothes?

How about this one:

Telling college kids that if they spend six years running up a student loan tab getting an unmarketable diploma, they’ll only have to pay back a fraction of what they borrowed. In fact, the less valuable their degree and the more money they borrow — the more they win!

read it all

DOJ Sues Louisiana Alleging its School Choice Program “Impedes the Desegragation Process” We're from the governmet and we're here to help!

They weren't anti-war, they were just on the other side: Research: 2000s anti-war movement was really just anti-Republican. Do tell.

An interesting chart from Slate. 

‘To my knowledge, I have no knowledge’ — The Best Tweets During the Kerry-Hagel Buttfumble Briefing on Syria.

JIM TREACHER: “I’m fine with Obama invading Syria for war crimes. Just don’t pretend it’s any different than what you’ve been screaming about for 10 years.”

Debbie Wasserman Schultz says ‘dozens’ of countries stand with US on Syria, can’t name them.