LAND O' LAKES -- A Florida substitute teacher said his job disappeared after he did a magic trick in front of his students.

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas made a toothpick disappear, then reappear, in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land O'Lakes.

The Pasco County School District said the trick is just one of the reasons Piculas was let go.

"I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, 'Jim, we have a huge issue. You can't take any more assignments. You need to come in right away.' I said, 'Well Pat, can you explain this to me?' 'You've been accused of wizardry.' Wizardry?" Piculas said.

Piculas says the parent of a traumatized student complained after he performed the toothpick trick.

The assistant superintendent said Piculas had other issues, such as not following lesson plans and allowing students to play on computers that were not approved....

A report by the government-appointed Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH) described interfering with plants without a valid reason as "morally inadmissible".

The committee looked at ethical views held on plants and issues of how their use could be justified.

t said that from a wider perspective, "all action involving plants for the preservation of the human race was morally justified"....

The report is from the UK -- they haven't shown up in North America... yet.

The IndyCar Series' biggest driver doesn't see eye to eye with its smallest one.

The series' new rule that attempts to equalize the weights of cars, including the driver, is "the first step in making things fair," Justin Wilson said Thursday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the 2008 IndyCar Series begins with the Gainsco 300 on Saturday night....

IndyCar officials haven't announced specifics of the rule. Spokesman John Griffin said it's likely to establish several weight categories, with the heaviest drivers able to subtract weight from their cars and the lightest having to add as much as 35 pounds.....

What would drive one of the nation's most successful and respected school systems to report which racial and ethnic groups demonstrate the soundest moral character and ethical judgment?

But in Fairfax, and in schools across the land, the instinct -- no, the compulsion -- is to amass data points and "disaggregate," ed-lingo for looking at children not as individuals but as members of a group. The move to quantify grows from a religious devotion to test scores, a faith that the shaping of a mind can be mapped like a cancer cell and expressed as a number. And the resort to race stems from the balkanization of society, the self-destructive notion that we are a collection of groups rather than a nation of individuals who believe what it says on the coins in your pocket: e pluribus unum -- out of many, one.

"The superintendent told me that the reason they broke it down by race was that two years ago, the board decided to report all data by race," Hone says. "That was part of the No Child Left Behind frenzy. This is a classic case of a pendulum overswing."

...Jose Velasquez's Mufflers 4 Less shop got more excitement than they bargained for Monday -- the first customer of the day was a masked man with a gun.
"He had his gun out, walking in the office," said mechanic Antonio Diaz.
The three mechanics on duty told him they didn't have any money and the owner would have to come in to open the safe. The man gave them his cell phone number.
"He just told us he would give us the number, and we would have to call when the owner was here and the money was going to get here," Diaz said....

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."

It added: "Offenders will be severely punished."

* Phone not included.

So far, I've managed to set up the basic phone functions on the Wing and get the old address book transferred (by cable -- I haven't been able to get Bluetooth sync to work. Based on what I've been able to find online, I might need to install XP Service Pack 2 to get the drivers for Bluetooth ActiveSync).

During the bus ride to work yesterday, I discovered that quite a few of the neighbors seem to have unsecured wireless networks. I think I'm going to need to turn off WiFi when not actually in use in order to save the batteries.

So far, battery life seems OK; it was down to a bit over half this morning after being charged yesterday. However, when I took it out just now, it was unusually warm and down to 15% -- the most likely explanation is that I put it away without turning it off or locking down the touchscreen, and some intensive process or other started and kept runnning.

starmalachite

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Category: Conventions
Attendees: No attendees

Saturday had a very good lineup of concerts, and a showing of some of Brian Richardson's DragonConTV videos. After the batch of 2x10 (two songs/ten minutes), there was a break for people to get ready for the banquet. As usual, the banquet entertainment was excellent; I only joined in one dance myself, but there was generally as large a crowd as the portable floor (that had to be moved back into place a couple times as it drifted too close to the control board) could accomodate.

I don't recall the exact amount raised by the Interfilk auction (but it was fairly substantial); the item that particularly impressed me was the calligraphic rendering of "Rich Fantasy Lives" (autographed by the authors, filkertom  and partiallyclips ) went for (IIRC) $300.

filkerdave

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filkerdave

partiallyclips

thatcrazycajun

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