This picture sums it all up nicely!

Last summer we posted a blurb about "Whale Wars",  the Animal Planet reality show that features the trials and tribulations of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as they go to "war" against the Japanese whaling fleet. Each week features new episodes of complete buffoonery as the floundering crew of the 'anti-whaling ship' Steve Irwin lobs stink bombs, fires blinding lasers and drops prop-fouling lines in an attempt to shut down what they consider illegal whaling activity.

Last season ended with the Steve Irwin being impounded in Tasmania as the Aussies investigated them for crimes on the high seas. This year, armed with their shiny-new stealth looking trimaran the Ady Gil (above), the Sea Shepherds appear to have met their match - a Japanese fleet that actually fights back.  Below is a photo of the Ady Gill with its snout ripped off after being rammed by the Japanese ship Shonan Maru 2. As Rodney would say, "Hey! You scratched my anchor!!!"

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I used to think whales were pretty cool until I met Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and captain of the 'anti-whaling' ship Steve Irwin. Watson is a radical eco-terrorist who, despite being an original founder of Greenpeace, was thrown out of the group for being a complete idiot. Featured on Animal Planet's'  show Whale Wars, Watson and his band of idealistic, tofu-eating hippie pirates ply the Antarctic seas looking to 'attack' Japanese whaling ships with stink bombs in hopes of shutting down illegal whaling.  The trouble is, the crew of the Steve Irwin spends more time fighting their own demons in the form of extremely poor nautical skills, a complete absence of effective of leadership and an ill-defined mission - which makes it a strangely compelling show to watch.

From nearly killing half the crew during routine deployment of a Zodiac,  to getting their thin-skinned ship stuck in Antarctic ice fields where it was nearly crushed,  to almost running the ship out of fuel 1800nm from the nearest port, you can't help but root for the Japanese whalers to succeed and the crew of the Steve Irwin to meet an icy end. The show airs Friday nights on Animal Planet.

Myra Bradwell Elementary School, located in a really bad section of Chicago, is taking some serious heat for its recent performance - more than half the 8th grade class(44 out of 77) did not graduate and move on to high school. Liberals are blaming the system and conservatives are blaming the parents, but in my estimation, Bradwell should be congratulated for being one of the best schools out there for throwing grade inflation to the wind and holding students accountable for their performance. 

 In my state there are several schools that are under criminal investigation for fudging end-of-course standardized test results, exams which dictate whether a student gets promoted. Weeks are spent prepping students in standardized 'testmanship', and extra credit is doled out in frivolous pursuits such as watching movies, making collages and even for coloring pictures. A few years ago at the local high school, better than 40% of the graduating class averaged an A (90+); supposedly one of the better schools in the area, they also allow students to exempt final exams for "good attendance". A slightly higher percentage are enrolled in so-called "gifted" classes. (My late mother, a  practical Yankee with traditional views on education, used to remind me that the term "gifted" was not to be taken lightly, as in "Mozart was gifted!") Statewide, high schools are rated by the percentage of students who graduate, remain in the state university system, and...get this... do not require remedial math or English courses as a freshman.

There is obviously something seriously wrong with a school that can't adequately prepare its students for secondary education. I'll leave it to the 'social scientists' to figure out what's wrong with Bradwell, not because they have any credibility but because I don't have a say in the matter. No matter who ends up with the blame, the administrators at Bradwell get a hero tag for having the balls to stick to their guns, parents or state-mandated BS be damned. The "hippie" tag is for all those 60's era jackasses who ran the public education system in this country into the ground :-)

There's not really too much to running the backend of the Dooferbook site - most of the hard work it took to get it up and running is already in place and short of a major design or system upgrade, the site pretty much runs itself. Occasionally we get spammed through PHP mail, but it's pretty easy to close the door on that stuff once I figure out who's sending it.

One minor PITA that continues to spam this gracious site is "Peace Paint" - a new-age hippie site engaged in "promoting world peace and green movements" through the artistic medium of body paint. Yeah. They sell "intelligent Design" t-shirts urging patrons to "realize, revitalize, undanger and spiritulize" the human condition, yet predictably not a nickel of their income goes to any non-profit cause. 

 The latest piece of spam comes with the given claim that "All 192 Members of the United Nation's General Assembly have pledged to promote international peace." Comforting. What the purveyors of Peace Paint fail to fathom is the fact that the US military has done more to promote world peace than the UN or any half-naked chick with body scrawlings ever could...and that they picked the wrong site to sell their wares! Feel free to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.