Since when is not deciding to being a slacker a revelation? Your life/lives must be pretty fucked up if you depend on hallucinogenics to make your life decisions for you. This notion that drugs expand your mind or make you see things more clearly is complete and utter bullshit.
>> ^braschlosan:

Because of LSD my little brother had the revelation to start doing well in his final year of high school and try to make his parents life easier.
Then while in his first year of college he had the revelation about many parts of life and decided to study hard and play hard too. Now he has fun on the weekends and is getting great grades. The combination of the two has given him infinite self esteem.
During the summer break after his first year of college he had another LSD revelation about taking drugs. Now he rarely takes them (in high school he was a big pothead and E-Tard), when he does take them its planned out ahead of time for a special event. He's not even 20 yet and has a "wise" outlook on just about everything.
I have had similar life altering changes because of LSD that I'd rather not share here,
I agree with Enoch.
>> ^enoch:
for those who may be a tad uptight hallucinagenics should be mandatory.
if only once in your lifetime.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Take it away, Rush:
"A lot of people have been saying this kind of thing. It's been one of the raging debates about where we are as a country, and have we lost the country. That's what this is all about. So went back, I went back to the news archives. And look what I have here my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. This is USA Today, April 26th, 2011. Headline: "Americans Depend More on Federal Aid Than Ever." It's not Romney saying it. Ha-ha. It's USA Today, shazam. It's the Drive-By Media saying it.
"Americans depended more on government assistance in 2010 than at any other time in the nation's history." Exactly right. It's why Obama has to be stopped. It's not what this country is, as Obama said his convention, "It's not who we are." This is not who we are. Forty-seven percent of this country's population is helplessly dependent on the government because of policies created by Barack Obama and the Democrat Party year after year after year. Why are they dependent? Nobody's saying that all 47% of 'em are slackers. Nobody's saying that all 47% of 'em are losers. A lot of them are victims of Obamaism, of the Democrat Party. They're victims of liberalism. They're victims of an economy that does not grow. They're victims of an economy that shrinks. They are victims of an economy where there are fewer jobs and where there's less income to be earned. They are victims of failed Democrat Party policy after policy after policy."


Look I'm not fan of either party, in fact I hate politics in general... but this one-sided rhetoric doesn't help anyone... The headline reads that in 2010 Americans depended more on government assistance than ever", then it gets subtlety tweaked into "47% of the country is helplessly dependent on the government" Really?? 47% helplessly dependent??! Nice little shift there... And Obamaism? wtf does that even mean? So they really believe that before Obama took office everything was great then one year later it had all turned to shit?

Again, I don't care for Obama or any politician's for that matter, but do you not see how this kind of divisive rhetoric will only drive people further apart then they already are? What's the endgame, a civil war between the 'right' and the 'left'? I just don't get what people like Rush actually want other than the total annihilation of the left. Isn't democracy supposed to be about working together (even with opposing views) for the good of the people? Or am I wrong about that?

Take it away, Rush:

"A lot of people have been saying this kind of thing. It's been one of the raging debates about where we are as a country, and have we lost the country. That's what this is all about. So went back, I went back to the news archives. And look what I have here my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. This is USA Today, April 26th, 2011. Headline: "Americans Depend More on Federal Aid Than Ever." It's not Romney saying it. Ha-ha. It's USA Today, shazam. It's the Drive-By Media saying it.

"Americans depended more on government assistance in 2010 than at any other time in the nation's history." Exactly right. It's why Obama has to be stopped. It's not what this country is, as Obama said his convention, "It's not who we are." This is not who we are. Forty-seven percent of this country's population is helplessly dependent on the government because of policies created by Barack Obama and the Democrat Party year after year after year. Why are they dependent? Nobody's saying that all 47% of 'em are slackers. Nobody's saying that all 47% of 'em are losers. A lot of them are victims of Obamaism, of the Democrat Party. They're victims of liberalism. They're victims of an economy that does not grow. They're victims of an economy that shrinks. They are victims of an economy where there are fewer jobs and where there's less income to be earned. They are victims of failed Democrat Party policy after policy after policy."

In reply to this comment by Issykitty:
Sorry so late! Congrats @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://critical.videosift.com" title="member since April 12th, 2009" class="profilelink"><strong style="color:#fa6800">critical_d!!! Yay diamonds! =\^\^=

slacker

17 hours and gwiz hasn't riffed on the title yet? Slacker!

Adam is great...and like Cenk I agree with him on many issues....but it's not hard to believe that Adam doesn't really understand what OWS is really about. He doesn't study this stuff...he is a casual observer of the news and uses that to spin off on rants and stories. What he know about OWS is the general information the news media feeds us which is OWS is about rich vs poor, bums and slackers wanting everything for nothing, etc...>> ^ghark:

It's not above Adam Carolla's head unfortunately, people like this know exactly what they are doing, trying to make the people who are robbing entrepreneuring you look awesome.

>> ^Sagemind:

I understand what he is saying, and aside from all the course language, he has a point.
(because youth today is far too "entitled" and he's right as to how they got that way.)
BUT
His argument falls apart because the economy has changed. If the economy was the same as it was even 20 years ago (never-mind 35-40 years ago in the 70s) and this attitude of youth existed, then I'd completely agree - but it isn't. Today's economy says I can't feed my family and own my own house, even with two full-time incomes in the household. I work damn hard, I'm not a slacker.
I may not run my own company but, my job, as it is today, and would have been 20 years ago, would have paid the bills and allowed some extra cash to take my family on a holiday once a year. My wife would have been able to stay home with the kids, at least part-time.
I bought a house. It cost me $400,000. Ten years ago, the same house was valued at $140,000-170,000.
Twenty-one years ago, when my house was built, it cost $100,000 brand new. Wages, on the other hand, haven't changed all that much. As I left high school, people with good jobs were making $19-25 an hour working at the mill. Today, the wages are much the same. No one is making 300% more for the same job they were doing 20 years ago. So why has housing gone up, why has everything gone up(fuel, food etc.)? The truth is I can't afford a $400,000 house, no regular person can, but what choice do I have, the cheapest rental I could find was $200 more than what my mortgage payment is.
It's the economy, it's the banks, It's globalization, It's International Trade, It's Corporations buying up all the little guys and then jacking up the prices, paying employees less and paying all the politicians to stay out of their way.
His analogy about seeing Mr. Rich and respecting him in the old days and slamming him today also doesn't stand. Today, very few people own their own business and are successfully wealthy. Most small businesses are barley hanging on, operating in the shadows of the companies like Wal-Mart. Most small businesses need to barrow money to set up shop. These businesses pay more tax and interest than they ever did.
In the sixty's to late eighties, both of my uncles owned their own businesses. They were very successful and made a decent living and had many employees. Life was good. That bubble popped in the late eighties to nineties not because business was decreasing but because new governments raised business and property taxes to the point that, they both had to close up their shops. Taxes more than doubled over night and the interest on banking skyrocketed.
So Adam's rant is fun. It makes a good point about entitlement and winy brats wanting reward without working for it but that's it. It doesn't explain Occupy of the financial state every one is in now.
Period.


we should be happy that all the increases in wage/salary/benefit that we should have been getting over the last 30yrs have been going to a small group of individuals

we should be happy that money is allowing for the degradation of rights and civil liberties

we should be happy that every noble endeavor should be stifled and made irrelevant for the sole reason of monetary gain

we should be happy that our elected officials blatantly lie to our faces, and serve only their greed, and thus the whims of those with money... and not so much individuals as much as corporate interests... corporations who while now given the same "rights" as humans, bear none of the responsibility... either to their local communities or to the nation they are now a "citizen" of

we should be happy that education is becoming something you pay off over your life as opposed to something nutured and pushed by your nation, because it's how we seize the future and progress as a society... better we become ignorant and uneducated so that we are easier to control and are reduced to grunt manual servitude to our feudal lords

we should be happy the rich get bailed out; are allowed to gamble with our money consequence free... then because of it, we lose our home and our children lose their future

better we lose our right to privacy than be subjected to invisible boogeymen
better we lose our freedom of speech than be allowed to exercise it

i honestly hope not... but I can't help feeling the road back to sanity starts with the rolling heads of politicians and bankers... and I don't mean that metaphorically

i honestly hope they have the humanity to overcome their greed... because no amount of money will overcome the fury of the masses... right now the bear is waking up... best not poke it with a stick

I understand what he is saying, and aside from all the course language, he has a point.
(because youth today is far too "entitled" and he's right as to how they got that way.)

BUT

His argument falls apart because the economy has changed. If the economy was the same as it was even 20 years ago (never-mind 35-40 years ago in the 70s) and this attitude of youth existed, then I'd completely agree - but it isn't. Today's economy says I can't feed my family and own my own house, even with two full-time incomes in the household. I work damn hard, I'm not a slacker.

I may not run my own company but, my job, as it is today, and would have been 20 years ago, would have paid the bills and allowed some extra cash to take my family on a holiday once a year. My wife would have been able to stay home with the kids, at least part-time.

I bought a house. It cost me $400,000. Ten years ago, the same house was valued at $140,000-170,000.
Twenty-one years ago, when my house was built, it cost $100,000 brand new. Wages, on the other hand, haven't changed all that much. As I left high school, people with good jobs were making $19-25 an hour working at the mill. Today, the wages are much the same. No one is making 300% more for the same job they were doing 20 years ago. So why has housing gone up, why has everything gone up(fuel, food etc.)? The truth is I can't afford a $400,000 house, no regular person can, but what choice do I have, the cheapest rental I could find was $200 more than what my mortgage payment is.

It's the economy, it's the banks, It's globalization, It's International Trade, It's Corporations buying up all the little guys and then jacking up the prices, paying employees less and paying all the politicians to stay out of their way.

His analogy about seeing Mr. Rich and respecting him in the old days and slamming him today also doesn't stand. Today, very few people own their own business and are successfully wealthy. Most small businesses are barley hanging on, operating in the shadows of the companies like Wal-Mart. Most small businesses need to barrow money to set up shop. These businesses pay more tax and interest than they ever did.

In the sixty's to late eighties, both of my uncles owned their own businesses. They were very successful and made a decent living and had many employees. Life was good. That bubble popped in the late eighties to nineties not because business was decreasing but because new governments raised business and property taxes to the point that, they both had to close up their shops. Taxes more than doubled over night and the interest on banking skyrocketed.

So Adam's rant is fun. It makes a good point about entitlement and winy brats wanting reward without working for it but that's it. It doesn't explain Occupy of the financial state every one is in now.
Period.

*promote the bronze.... go for the bronze, noobs and slackers, it isn't that far away, promise!

1. Do not equate jobs. I was a public education teacher for four years, and I've been an IT pro for seven years, now as a senior consultant for AD, Exchange, VMware, and storage, with too many certifications to list them all off the top of my head. I just want to make this clear. Even with all the learning I've done to get all those certifications, it wouldn't take me the five years it took me to get a master's degree in education. Even with "summers off", without a doubt, I worked more hours in a year as a teacher than I have as an IT pro with 2-3 weeks paid vacation. Even in the most demanding IT jobs I've had (one was Premier Support for Microsoft Support Services), I have never been more stressed out than I was as a teacher, and I got paid half as much to teach.

2. You get better with experience as a teacher, but the ability to teach is also a gift. You must have some innate ability for it to actually be a good teacher. Not only do you have to know your subject matter, but you must also be able to relate it to an audience with completely different backgrounds, styles of learning, while managing a classroom of immature people by their very nature. Dismissing it as an "acquired skill just like anything else" shows an dizzying amount of ignorance about what the job entails.

3. You're half right about this. Teachers in my experience fell into 3 categories - great teachers, slackers, and those who tried really hard but failed because of a lack of talent. Of the slackers, the overwhelming majority were people who got the idealistic burning desire to teach beaten out of them by the system. They didn't move on or weren't fired because they simply didn't want to start over, and the system was short of teachers anyway. I moved on because my wife had medical issues, so I needed to earn enough for both of us, and there was no way I could do that by teaching. It took me 2-3 years to fully transition into IT. By the second year, I realized I didn't want to be a teacher anyway because of how screwed up public education was. I still believe in public education, but it's the external factors that prevent you from doing your job, whether it be woeful funding, bad salary, unsupportive parents, ludicrous insistence that standardized multiple choice tests accurately measured knowledge and understanding of a subject, etc.

Here's the problem with "getting rid of those bad teachers" - we don't have enough teachers as is, so you want less teachers? Can't wait to see those classes of 37 go to 45 or 50. Until you address the problem of attracting and keeping teachers, all that stuff is moot.

As for merit pay, I'm fine with that as long as something can be devised that accurately measures the teacher's performance. Standardized test scores won't do that because, nor absolute values on grades, etc.

5. See above. Most teachers' unions are against merit pay because no one has come up with a fair evaluation of a teacher's performance.

As for the arts, exposure to arts help students beyond the specifics of the art, assisting with learning and comprehension of every other subject. Ridding art from schools is a big mistake. Major advancements in science for example is derived by creative thinking, which art helps to develop. And this isn't just some psychological BS.

>> ^RedSky:

1. So is every other job.
2. It's an acquired skill like anything else. Also, let's not equate private tutoring with teaching a class, they are different things entirely and while some teachers certainly fill that role it is entirely unreasonable to suggest that most students will either demand this kind of attention or that most teachers will provide it (outside of what their job entails). I should probably disclose that my mother is a teacher too.
3. I'm not sure what you mean here. What I'm saying is people who don't want stress in their job and potentially don't want to put in a great deal of effort work in more secure positions, typically government related. I am not saying that all government employees are lazy and unmotivated, I'm simply saying that the obvious and apparent perks they provide attract certain kinds of people disproportionately.
4. This is why I would argue there needs to be a way to evaluate performance and reward teachers that do well. Rewarding them will allow the wages of teachers who are good at what they do rise and encourage more talented individuals who want to teach into a field they would otherwise not consider. As I said in my previous comment as far as I'm concerned the primary skills that schools should be teaching are reading, comprehension and rudimentary maths. These are also easily able to be evaluated with standardised tests. The same standardised tests that determine university enrollment. As far as I'm concerned I see no reason a test like this cannot evaluate a teacher's capability in improving year upon year results of students. Yes, it cannot be a primary measurement and it is certainly not perfect, but if your intention to increase the standards of teaching and you accept the impractically/implausibility of vastly increasing the teaching budget, you have to accept that improvements have to come from improved efficiency and effectiveness. You can't begin to address that unless you have some way of measuring it.
5. No skilled or academically minded industry is a factory. Yet everything from engineering to consulting to scientific research companies thrive in a competitive economy. Am I suggesting privatising and cutting funding? Not at all. I think poor neighborhoods need to be subsidised to encourage good teachers to teach there. I have no particular issue with public schools although I see no reason charter schools should not receive eligible to such government assistance and what currently exists where the funding is there to serve the common good of creating an educated and knowledgeable society. My problem is entrenched union interest groups who by virtue of the campaign contributions they endow to their elected representatives, block any capacity to reward good teachers and who in effect keep teacher wages depressed and a whole bunch of talented individuals who would have otherwise genuinely considered teaching out of schools.
My point is not that I don't think art/music/drama are valuable aspects of schooling. Rather that schools in poor neighbourhoods are failing to endow students with the basic skills they need to enter a skilled job or for that matter to enter university. I think when people make arguments like this (which if I recall one of the people in this video did), they fly in stark contrast to reality that many simply do not even grasp the basics of education.
Schooling at it's base is not rooted in wishy washy concepts of creativity, expressing individuality or character, they are part of growing up but not the function of school at its core. Math and reading skills are ultimately rooted in effective teacher instruction followed by repetition. No amount of related activities will dress up the fact that if you want to function in modern society you need to go through these trials and tribulations. Until all schools can do that, the last thing I want to listen to is some guy at a rally preaching about abstract skills.

Actually, I don't really care that her or her staff confused Gacy for John Wayne, although admittedly it's pretty funny. I just get sick of the repeated insistence of "real American" sentiment that the middle of the country, John Wayne, etc. is "real America", and the rest is apparently "fictional" America. Just reinforces that anyone who disagrees with you must be un-American/Socialist/Nazis/etc.

>> ^lantern53:

Y'all forgive Obama for all his gaffs, right?
Bachmann has a postdoctoral degree in tax law, so she's no slacker.

Yes, she's a very motivated nut-job.>> ^lantern53:

Y'all forgive Obama for all his gaffs, right?
Bachmann has a postdoctoral degree in tax law, so she's no slacker.

Y'all forgive Obama for all his gaffs, right?

Bachmann has a postdoctoral degree in tax law, so she's no slacker.

Cut before "Get back to work slacker"

If he had kept his hair, he could have made it to 3,000. Slacker.