Monthly Archives: August 2006

First grade

Posted on August 16, 2006 | Comments Off on First grade

First day of first grade yesterday and Mr. Boy had homework! Took about twenty minutes. Amounted to printing his letters (the vowels), repeating a short, memorized poem about school, and having a book about school read to him. I noticed several mistakes in his letters, but we have decided to let the teacher handle the accuracy. I did insist that he hold his pencil correctly, and read the book to him. I suppose some young parents have less time to read to their children, hence the school’s approach. I also started volunteering again, as last year with kindergarten. Last year it was pulling weeds in the flowerbeds around the school and helping judge the science fair. Yesterday, I cut eighty used tennis balls for the legs of the chairs in Mr. B’s classroom (20 chairs x 4 legs each) and have more to do this morning for the extra chairs. Apparently the tennis balls cut down on the noise in the classroom of scooting chairs back and forth.

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Posted in Mr. Boy

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And no relief in sight

Posted on August 15, 2006 | Comments Off on And no relief in sight

"We hit a high of 103 degrees at [Austin’s] Camp Mabry [this] afternoon! This marks the seventh day in a row of a high temperature over 100 degrees in Austin. It also marks the 20th 100 degree day this summer."

No relief? Well, the National Weather Service is predicting some but LCRA’s Bob Rose doubts it.

"I find it very interesting that the latest 6 to 10 and 8 to 14 day outlooks from National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center call for below normal temperatures and above normal rainfall across a large part of Texas for the latter half of August. None of the forecast modeling I see supports this bold prediction. I’ll be curious to see if this forecast continues the next couple of days."

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Posted in Weather/Climate

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A new Israeli political party?

Posted on August 15, 2006 | Comments Off on A new Israeli political party?

Yoni the Blogger thinks a new one is needed.

"We have gone from highs to lows over the last month as together we have watched Israel suffer.

"The people in the north of Israel have suffered deaths and injuries as well as losses of income and production in the billions of dollars, due to the rain of thousands of rockets that have fallen on their homes.

"All of Israel and those that love Israel around the world, have suffered through a month of the worse leadership in Israel’s history…The government’s on again and off again fighting of this war, has caused wide spread suffering in Israel and Lebanon without the destruction of Hizballah."

Others speak of Israel’s broken heart. (Requires free registration.)

"This is a nation whose heart has been broken: by our failure to uproot the jihadist threat, which will return for another and far more deadly round; by the economic devastation of the Galilee and of a neighboring land we didn’t want to attack; by the heroism of our soldiers and the hesitations of our politicians; by the young men buried and crippled in a war we prevented ourselves from winning; by foreign journalists who can’t tell the difference between good and evil; by European leaders who equate an army that tries to avoid civilian causalities with a terrorist group that revels in them; by a United Nations that questions Israel’s right to defend itself; and by growing voices on the left who question Israel’s right to exist at all."

Via An Unsealed Room

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Posted in Israel

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Cease fire or reinforcement?

Posted on August 14, 2006 | Comments Off on Cease fire or reinforcement?

Debka already sees the cease-fire being broken by Hez.

"The IDF’s northern command watching the thousands of displaced Lebanese flocking to their homes feared they would be used as cover for Hizballah to exploit the ceasefire for reinforcing its depleted South Lebanese forces.

"By afternoon, their fears were realized: cars loaded with Hizballah fighters, boxes of guns and military equipment were clearly visible heading south. Israeli troops were not authorized to stop them. DEBKAfile quotes a senior military source as saying that Hizballah is making a mockery of the ceasefire which Israel honored. ‘The situation is dangerous,’ he said, Most of Hizballah’s fortifications, including its bunker network in the south, were not destroyed as reported. Fresh Hizballah strength is now heading back to man those war stations anew."

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Posted in Israel

Space elevator

Posted on August 14, 2006 | Comments Off on Space elevator

Baby Space Elevator.jpg

Wish I could be in Albuquerque Oct. 21 and 22 when twenty examples of this baby version of a space elevator will compete in the Annual Space Elevator Games at the X-Prize Cup exposition. Maybe someone will blog it. It isn’t rocket science.

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The boy problem redux

Posted on August 14, 2006 | Comments Off on The boy problem redux

"Boys continued to trail girls by substantial margins in reading and writing on the annual Connecticut Mastery Test. The pattern has persisted since Connecticut first started keeping track of scores by gender in 2000, and is consistent with longstanding patterns on national tests."

Reading to them every day (before they can read) might help, which we do with Mr. Boy, and keeping a journal which his teacher made all of them begin last year in Kindergarten, altho Mr. B. filled his with more drawings than words. 

Via Instapundit 

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Posted in Mr. Boy

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Today’s pretty picture

Posted on August 13, 2006 | Comments Off on Today’s pretty picture

PerseidMoonlightAurora9_westlake_c50.jpgPerseid meteor over Colorado/NASA

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Posted in Space