Monthly Archives: June 2016

Brexit

The UK voted to leave the EU.

Some posts about it here, and here, and here, lots of articles at ZeroHedge, and I’ll add more later.

A few general thoughts: centralized, distant, bureaucracy-heavy control never works. It can’t. But people are lazy and easy to scare, so it’s easy to entice them into a honeytrap by promising them something for nothing and security. Orwell and Kafka and Rand understood it only too well, and people don’t want to hear the truth. But when reality is staring them in the face, they can wake up and make the hard decisions… because they see that although the short-term cost is high and painful, the long-term cost is crushingly unbearable. Congrats. UK. Now let’s see what you can do with the follow-through.

Updated thoughts: It’s likely that the powers that be, the global elite power-brokers, will try to make an example of the UK, making the break-up as painful and expensive for the people of England as possible and still not appear to take deliberate and public (i.e. visible) punitive actions. They will do it as a warning to anyone else that tries to gain  freedom for the chains of distant bureaucracy and. The bankers will save their own, but make others pay the cost, for all their tears they shed. It’s going to be a particularly ugly few years for the islands. But if they suck it up and live up to traditional “stiff upper lip” standards, and face the economic reality of the bad end of the debt cycle when the debts come due and the soul-crushing spirit-suck of the welfare state, they will survive. If they cave in like an addict that can’t go cold-turkey and go back for another hit of easy credit and cheap immigrant labor and overlooking corruption and incompetence and the downsides to diversity, then they are doomed.

I really, REALLY hope Kratman’s Caliphate doesn’t predict the future. And this may well be the inflection point, the fork in the road, where Europe goes one way…or the other.

Back on the job-search treadmill

The school year is over, and yet another leave-replacement contract is done. Back on the search path for something in teaching (which I love, and most of the kids in my classroom like me), or maybe it’s time for a career-change if the money is right. My tech is a little dated, but I’m a fast learner, good speaker, decent writer, and can explain things to almost any audience. Anyone know of any open positions?

I’m doing all the normal job searches in the school districts that are a reasonable commute distance, but they mostly seem to want specialists (like a BS in bio to teach a bio class) and special ed, and while I’m “highly qualified” in five things (including science, math, and social studies) my MS in computer science doesn’t seem to be enough to generate much interest when they are winnowing twenty applicants down to the five they’ll interview. I’m good at connecting the classroom to the real world, if anyone wants that, and connecting different subjects that are usually taught as stand-alone and disconnected from any real meaning to life.

Eh, I’m sure something will turn up. But if you know of anything, a pointer in the right direction would be most appreciated.