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So its high school graduation time and every parent is ‘oh so proud’. When did it become a major event to get a kid through school? They even have pre-school graduation ceremonies – is it so unlikely that a kid will not die of drugs, HIV or who knows what that they need a ceremony ? And of course no ceremony is complete without the parents having to shell out for a major gift (I bet the number of new car owners increased dramatically this week). Its little wonder that kids here have such an entitlement attitude, when you grow up thinking that you’re a hero just for getting out of bed and doing some homework each day its no wonder that you think you’re too good to get a job and actually earn a living for yourself. If I see one more picture of 6 year olds in cap and gown receiving ‘diplomas’ I swear I’ll drink another vodka.

So people in Wisconsin are debating whether or not it should be legal to hunt and kill wild cats, including domestic cats that don’t have a collar. But frankly I don’t care about that. What I do care about it that on MSNBC’s Countdown programme last night an article on this story was presented by a Kevin Tiddles.

Sometimes you can’t make up stuff better than that.

The lowlight of the week must be tonight’s American rewrite of The Office. Now I haven’t seen it but every British sitcom that’s been adapted to the US screen has been a complete disaster; Coupling and Men Behaving Badly to name just two.

The highlight has to be the new Dr Who episode this weekend. All over the UK people will be watching from behind their sofa just as we used to as kids.

Bummer of the week has to be that I’ll be here in the US unable to watch it. Hopefully someone will DVR it and push it out for us to download. Not that I condone such illegal activities of course!

Listerine can get you arrested for drunk driving. Ok, so you’re not supposed to swallow the stuff but its still one more reason why Pfizer sucks ass. Hopefully this week the FDA will announce their findings on Celebrex and Pfizer will go further down the flusher, sucks for my some of my 401k, but there are many many people in the company who deserve it. Of course the good people will suffer whilst the idiots will remain, blaming everyone else., but those of us still suffering the trauma of having worked there can smile a little. Better than therapy!

For no reason other than I think this page would look better with some images on it to break up all the text, here is a graphic showing the US states that I have visited. I need to get in the middle there, I think.

create your own visited states map

Have to post this article from CNN. At a recent career day at a middle school in Palo Alto, the speaker included stripping as a career choice, saying that you could make $250,000 a year depending on your bust size. According to one student, they were told that every 2 inches added $50,000 to your earning potential. Oddly, the principal of the school says that the consultant may not be back next year.

We all tend to think of America and Great Britain as technology-aware countries but there are very definite areas where they disagree, or where one is far behind the other. I am always reminded of this at a petrol station. In the UK there is a huge awareness, and campaign about, the dangers of using a cell phone when pumping fuel. The feeling at home is pretty much that if you dial a number within 10 feet of a pump it will blow up. Over here though, that doesn’t seem to be an issue at all. There are no warnings about it on the pumps and most people I speak to haven’t even heard that it might be dangerous to use a cell phone at a petrol station. Given the American sense for over-protection it makes me think that the danger has been over-hyped in the UK though clearly it does exist (there are plenty of episodes of people being set on fire by igniting the fuel when their cell phone goes off), but why is it almost totally ignored over here?

Sigh, I am getting some comment spam again. Not much but enough to annoy me.

Today the new alien flight training rule goes into effect which means that all non-US citizens taking any kind of flight training have to get pre-approval from the TSA before they start. Further, flight instructors now have to verify the citizenship of US student pilots before they are allowed to start training.

According to this AOPA article the TSA refused to let resident aliens (green card holders like myself) be exempt. Apparantly they don’t trust that the INS is weeding out terrorists; all those background checks, FBI-vetting etc doesn’t mean squat to them. On the other hand, they have trust that (a possibly resident alien) flight instructor can verify that a US citizen’s papers are the real deal. Pathetic.

And its all pointless anyway. If terrorists want to learn to fly they’ll forge a US birth certificate – could you spot a fake? – or learn to fly elsewhere. Its just another government public relations exercise with no real value. So, rest easy dear readers in the knowledge that this terrorist-until-proven-innocent won’t be doing any more flight training after I finish my commercial rating.

Well, its 10pm and I thought I’d be blogging my opinions of the Apprentice finale but the show is now into a third hour. Good grief, indeed, Charlie Brown. Jen is getting killed in the comments so, given how this series seems to go I am guessing that the Trump is going to pick her just to spite everyone.

Its now 10.15 and Kelly is the winner. He wouldn’t have been my pick over all the contestants but of the two I think he is the right choice. However, I would hate to work for either him or Jen, but then I’m just a slacker.

My final thoughts: Donald – how come we never hear about the casino failures huh??; the show is as contrived as every other ‘reality’ show; Raj was a great character and showed he was a great dancer, too; Ivanna taking off her skirt was the best part of the whole series and, finally, I don’t know how I got hooked on this dreadful series but I vow never to watch again!

According to this article at CNN.com :

Twice as many walkers die in traffic accidents in New Orleans, San Diego and Phoenix than in Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Boston.

Apparantly the USA is getting less and less friendly to pedestrians. Well, duh. It always amazes me that there are places you simply can’t get to without a vehicle. When the oil runs out, how will we get from A to B?

Get the full skinny here.