One of my favorite web sites is the Mendocino County Sheriff's booking page. Being from a small town, this is attractive because sometimes I recognize people I went to school with or who served me at the local burger joint. Some of the pictures of the alleged criminals are quite amusing. Today, the name of one of the alleged criminals caught my attention. The gentleman's name is:

Larry Pee Wee Commander II

What makes it even more unfortunate is that apparently his Dad had this same name and he decided to give it to his son as well. With a name like that, this poor guy was born to a life of crime. He didn't have a chance. Read the rest of this post!

I couldn't help but laugh when I read this newsletter from the California School Board Assocation's (CSBA) President. It speaks of something that happened during Secretary Duncan's speech at the National School Board Association (NSBA) annual leadership conference .

A prime example occurred during the Q&A following his speech, when he received a question from a board member who wanted to know if Mr. Duncan could name an example of a failing school district that should be taken over. “That’s easy,” Duncan said, “Detroit!” That was all well and good, except for the fact that NSBA’s President-Elect, Earl Rickman, is from that area, and was sitting right there on the stage. Needless to say, the statement didn’t go over too well with him.

This just cracked me up. I had this visual in my mind of the expression on Mr. Rickman's face during all of this. As I see it, one of two things happened here.

First, it is possible that Secretary Duncan knew precisely where Mr. Rickman was from and because he felt strongly that Detroit Schools deserve to be taken over, he used it as the example. If that's the case, it demonstrates that he's not afraid to say what needs to be said.

Second, it is possible that Secretary Duncan had no idea that one of the NSBA officers sitting on the stand was from Detroit and thus he was caught off guard by the question and the reaction from Mr. Rickman was completely unexpected. If that's the case, then it is just one of those funny coincidences that happens.

One of my co-workers ran into a similar experience when they were planning on using a school as an example of poor performance, only to find out that someone from that school was involved in the event. They quickly picked another school to serve as a bad example.

If it was the first situation, I'd love to shake Secretary Duncan's hand. If it was the second, I wish I could have seen his face when he learned he'd just suggested taking over the school district of NSBA's President-Elect. Read the rest of this post!

I thought this story from FoxNews was kind of humorous.

Authorities say a San Diego middle school was evacuated when a student's science project was mistaken for a bomb.

A Fire-Rescue spokesman says a concerned vice principal prompted the evacuation of Millennial Tech Magnet Middle School yesterday afternoon.

He says an arson team took photos and X-rays of the empty plastic bottle with wires and determined it was harmless.

He says the 11-year-old was trying to build a motion detector with instructions he found on the Internet and parts he bought online. His parents helped him buy the parts. They say they didn't realize the experiment looked threatening.

This is a kid who needs some attention. Any kid who is trying to build a motion detector at 11 could be the next Thomas Edison. I hope that this experience doesn't discourage him from continuing his experiments. If he gets the education that he deserves, we could be reading about his inventions on the web in another 10 years. Read the rest of this post!

This Rasmussen Report shows just how poor a job the average person believes that Congress is doing at resolving our economic problems. A couple of the findings really stood out:

When it comes to the nation’s economic issues, 67% of U.S. voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress.

To me, this just shows the disconnect between our political leaders and the people. Two thirds of people believe they can do a better job than their congressman/congresswoman.

I think this one was even better:

Forty-four percent (44%) voters also think a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress, but 37% disagree. Twenty percent (20%) are undecided.

As read this, nearly two-thirds of voters think we could replace congress with people selected at random from the phone book and have better results. That actually kind of appeals to me. How about "America's Next Top Politician" or "American Congressmember" where we could create a reality show to select our political leaders? Each week, the contestants could answer policy questions and compete in real-world problem solving exercises. Anyone who starts with the usual Washington DC deal-making immediately gets booted. The public could vote on who to kick off the show next week.

Actually, I think "Survivor" is a pretty good model for our current politicians. The ones that get elected have "Outplayed, Outwitted and Outlasted" their opponents in order to get elected.

I think the reality show idea is a great one. I think I'll start working on the constitutional amendment right now. Apparently, the majority of the people don't think the random phone book draw would be any worse than our current system. We'd probably get to know them better in a 13 week TV show than through an expensive year long election cycle. Read the rest of this post!