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>> Why Americans Should Never Be Allowed To Travel << |
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Odd Boss SayingsThese things were actually once said at the first day of work. "That is the person you'll be replacing. She doesn't know that we're going to fire her yet, so please don't say anything. We need her to train you." "... And this is the beer fridge." "How quickly can you load a handgun?" "Didn't we hire the hot chick in the red dress?" "We dont provide web browsers on the PCs in this agency because people might use them." (employee was hired to build them an intranet and write all their web pages). "Welcome to Microsoft. You know the company name was inspired by a remark made by Mrs. Gates on their honeymoon!" (said to a guy) "Wonder what you would look like in a white sundress?" "This is the best we could find in 48 hours!" "Hey, if you see the new guy, tell him I'm not here. Make up something about a family emergency or some junk. My tee-off time's in ten minutes..." "Did you get those projections done that I asked for on Friday?" "Around here, we put the FUN in dysFUNctual" "If you bring a weapon to work, keep it hidden." "Since you're female, I can't ask you to walk with me to the restroom, so I guess I'll have to discuss your duties here." "Hello ... Had any sex lately?" "Despite what your coworkers say, that's not a blood stain." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why Americans Should Never Be Allowed To TravelThe following are actual stories provided by travel agents: I had someone ask for an aisle seats so that his or her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window. A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?" I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts. "Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Capecod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa." Her response ... click. A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state." I got a call from a man who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" I said, "No." He said "But they look so close on the map." Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a 1-hour lay over in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time." A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of llinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that! A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know who's luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any connection?" After putting her on hold for a minute while I "looked into it" (I was actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage. I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them." A woman called and said, "I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one of those computer planes." I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said, "Yeah, whatever." A businessman called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those." I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, "Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express." A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York" The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent: "Are you sure that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere." The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?" "That's it! I knew it was a big animal!" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- American school systems: a failure?This text is based on a documentary which studies the American School system. A lot of American high school students are getting low test results and are performing badly. Compared to students from other countries they almost seem to be stupid. Are the kids to blame, or is there something else going on? During the making of the documentary, the makers stumbled upon their first strange problem. No regular schools allowed their camera’s to film inside. In every state they were turned down and told that they couldn’t film inside typical classrooms. They were only allowed to film in one school located in Washington. A few carefully selected students were given camera’s and only during certain classes were they allowed to film. The film footage is quite disturbing. During one class, a boy was dancing on top of the table with his shirt off, while the teacher was watching him. During another class they were playing Monopoly during Geography class. The worst part of this is that the teacher instructed them to do so. Most teachers in the school seemed to have no control over the students they had to teach. If things like these are going on in one of the best public schools, then what about the average ones? The American people have no idea what these stupid schools are doing to their kids. Most parents refuse to believe that these things are happening in their children’s school. They give their public schools A and B grades. The test scores seem to tell a different story. They gave children the same intelligence test in a lot of different countries to see which countries scored the best. Most countries found the test pretty easy and Belgian kids even got the best score out of all the countries. America ranked 25th on the list, which is even lower then a lot of poor countries. When they asked the American kids if they felt stupid they responded with a firm “No”. They blame the schools and bad teachers. The strange part of it all is that American kids seem to be fine during their early school years but fall way behind once they enter High School. It seems that the system is failing, not the kids. A former teacher was shocked when her own daughter could barely read or do any basic math. She taught her most basic things in only 1 week. Something that schools failed to teach her in a period of years. Schools claim they need more money. According to the teachers and the schools, the problem is the lack of money. A lot of rallies were organized where teachers asked for more money and a lot of parents also raised money for the school system. In the end, they got their money. Two billion dollars were spent to make schools better and to give the children a better education. They built swimming pools, running fields, a huge gym and even bought special taxi cabs that could pick up the children and bring them to school. Yes, money was the answer. In reality nothing could be further away from the truth. The test results got worse and none of the kids did any better. All the money in the world wouldn’t be enough to fix the problem. Because that problem is not a lack of money. A former principal now runs an alternative school which spends thousands of dollars less on each child. They save money on anything the children don’t really need. They don’t have computers or a big expensive gym. During gym class they mostly run laps around the block. The imporant thing is that the school is booking results. They are getting the highest test scores in the city by spending less money on the children. Instead, they pay the teachers a lot more than those in public schools. There are a few more alternative schools that are doing really well. They make kids enthousastic about school by making learning fun. There are a lot of sad stories about teenagers that aren’t even capable of reading at a first grade level which pretty much makes them incapable of reading anything for their own age. There’s a story about one boy that they tried to teach how to read at a public school from time to time, but never did decently. He also can’t read anything properly and reads at the level of a first grader. During the making of the documentary they sent the 18 year old teenager to a private learning center to improve his reading and after 72 hours he managed to get his reading skills up by 2 levels by using computers and workbooks and a proper teacher. More then 100.000 dollars was spent on his education in a public school that couldn’t even make the boy read. Something truly frustrating is the fact that parents do not have a choice on what school their kids go to. If you don’t have a lot of money or friends in the political world, you are stuck with the public school your district offers. You have to go and live in a certain district just because of the school. Some parents cheat the system and tell the state that they live somewhere else just to have a better school for their children. There are inspectors that go door to door to check if the child really live at the given address. It’s absurd that they force you to go to the black market to get a better education. Why can’t parents choose what school their child goes to? It could change a kid’s life! Most countries give parents that choice. In those countries there is a lot of pressure on the schools, that forces them to do well and educate well. If parents are not getting what they want, they go somewhere else. If the school is bad, it could even get shut down. Not in America. There are even stories of American kids that learned how to cheat during tests by teachers just so they could pass on to the next grade. The teachers just didn’t care. The reason why there is no pressure on the public schools in America is simple. The American school system is a Union Monopoly. They give parents only one choice and the whole public schooling system is being kept under control by the teacher Unions. Teachers unite to fight any changes to the public schooling system. A while ago, a plan was almost launched which would have allowed parents to choose their own school. Private schools would have gotten support through state money. The teacher unions all objected to this plan, as did the teachers themselves and everyone else that had anything to do with it. Their biggest argument: How can we spend money on something that hasn’t been proven? The plan was eventually voted down. After that incident, the unions payed a lot of money to broadcast adverts that showed how well public schools were doing, how their results were going up and how well kids had it down there. The problem with the teacher unions are even bigger than you could imagine. The worst teachers can get away with anything, because it takes years to fire a bad teacher. The procedure that principals have to go trough to fire someone can take up to 5 years. They have to follow a complicated plan full of complicated steps which no one would like to take. There’s a story about a teacher which sent sexual emails to a 16 year old student. They couldn’t fire him for that unless they followed the plan. It eventually took 6 years to fire him trough a set of courtlaw cases. The worst part lies in the fact that the school had to pay him money while he could not teach. Because this was a delicate case, the teacher could not go near any children. Instead they made him go to a building which they call: a rubber room. A rubber room is the name for a building where teachers are being kept during a procedure. They go to that building every day and waste their time by reading magazines or doing something else. Meanwhile, the schools still have to pay them. Only 2 out of 80.000 have been fired for being a bad teacher. The defenders of the public school system say that anyone with critic doesn’t care about the children. Some schools have dropped the union rules. These Charter schools are much better than public schools. They are different. They have a lot more order and much better teachers. They stimulate the teachers by giving them bonusses. They care more because the schools compete and really have to perform well, just like in most other countries. The teachers all have cell phones because the kids have to be able to call them in the evening to ask questions about their homework. Because these schools are really popular, they have to hold loteries to select the children that can enter them. The winners get a shot at a better future. It’s a proven fact that competition makes everything better, but the teachers from the public schools keep disagreeing. The question is now: what will it take for the teachers to finally come to their senses and do something about it? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Making money with your websiteEver wondered how you can make money with your website? Well, "the" easiest way to make money on the web is through placing "text link ads" in your web site. This text will explain you how!
Obviously to achieve a blog or site with a decent page rank is not easy and it takes time. However, once you have reached it why not monetize it and let it generate you some nice income? Do take advantage of it and that's really how you can make money smart through your site. Source: Swapw's blogspot --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Achmed the dead terroristAchmed the Dead Terrorist from Jeff Dunham's Comedy Central and new DVD, Spark Of Insanity. One of the greatest ventriloquists ever!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Annoying Devil |
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