So I was looking at the Election Pulse on facebook this evening.  I noticed that in all of the highlighted races they have listed, Democrats led in all but 2 of the races.  (One race was for Governor in Texas where IND led, and the other the Governor race in Michigan where the GOP led).

I know that college aged people tend to be more liberal, and facebook is college aged kids (for the most part).  But I wonder how many of these kids are influenced by their professors.  I know that at Bethel most of (at least in the Poli Sci department) are more left leaning.  I have heard from friends it’s the same at Concordia Moorhead, St. Johns, and pretty much all public universities.

I can see a college kid being swayed by their professor.  Most professors lecture with authority and can put their own personal agenda on things.  I had one professor (who I won’t name) who (in my opinion), instead of giving a lecture with the information, was really more preaching and indoctrinating their liberal views.

I, on the other hand, also had a professor, G.W. Carlson, (who proclaims to be on the left side of the spectrum) who gave lectures that would just present the facts.  He presented every side of the political spectrum, and really left it up to our choosing.  If you would talk to him after class and ask his opinion, the he would give it.

I wish that more profs would be like G.W.  He was a great prof, and he argued for each side like he truly believed it (except for the far left and far right).  He didn’t indoctrinate, and only gave his opinion when asked.

Now those examples are from a private Christian school.  If you talk to people at a public school, like the U of M Morris they’ll say it’s even worse.

There have been attempts at an Academic Bill of Rights (feel free to google it), which would try to ensure the facts are being given, without bias, and letting the students decide on their own.
My questions to you are thus:

1. Why is it that professors are (usually) liberal?
2. How big of an effect does it have on the students?
3. What do you think about an Academic Bill of Rights?

So if you don’t hear from me much in these next 7 days you’ll know why.

And that’s only in the last 10 days.  Okay, so I’m sure it’s not a lot compared to some (I bet Mooney has seen worse), but it seems like a lot to me.  Of course it is for my votebleess.com email, which is open to crawling on the site and has a catch all.  I just checked my bleaus.net mail.  It appears that I have 2158 spam messages in there, in just 30 days.  That seems to be a lot.

Is this October colder than most?  I’ve been thinking that it’s cold this October.  I heard a report last night that we’ve been 14 degrees colder this month compared to average.  I wasn’t sure if it was just me or not, but I guess it’s not.  I thought that since I was out jogging in DC last October and it was still in the upper 60’s/low 70’s I just got used to that warmer weather.  Which I must say, it was pretty easy to get used to!

Two completely unrelated subjects, but here goes…

I’m working on getting a new file server set up here at work.  It’s being a pain.  We’re trying to move databases over, and that’s not very easy as it turns out.  The programs on the client computers seem to be hard coded to look for the databases on the old server, and I cannot seem to find where that is at.  I’ve tried looking in the registry, the config files, everything I can think of.  None of them would work.

So I think on Monday I’ll start on Monday I’ll keep plugging at it some more, and move some other stuff over.  It might be easier to do a lot of this stuff on the weekend when no one is here.  Once we get to user files, etc. then we’ll have to do it on the weekend.  That’ll be a good time I am sure.

So on to the Governor.  I heard that he will be at Bethel tomorrow shaking hands and talking with people outside of the football field gates.  I’m a little jealous I can’t be there.  If I could I would definitely go talk to him, and shake his hand.  Granted I have shook his hand before, and I even have pictures to prove it.

So if anyone wants to go meet the Governor tomorrow would be your chance to do it!

So I was looking at the Firefox website today and noticed that a lot of places will be having a party for the FireFox 2.0 release.  (Yes, I find that a little strange).  However, there are only 3 parties taking place in Minnesota, and none of them are at Bethel.  I thought for sure the CS Dept or ITS would host some type of sweet party. You even get a free T-Shirt if you have a large attendance.  So I encourage someone in the Bethel world to host a FireFox Party.

On a less geeky note, I have decided to never again take my car to mechanics to get my oil changed.  I don’t usually do it, but I won a free oil change a while back, and my car needed it, so I did it.  However, last night (which just happened to be 3,100 miles later) I decided to change my oil.  I had everything I needed.  I got my car up on the ramps, go the wrench I needed, the oil pan, and I was ready to go.  Except the plug wasn’t.  I tried for a good 20 minutes to try and get the bolt (oil plug, whatever you want to call it) to loosen up.  No dice.  So I tried a few things to get more torque on it, which I’ve done before when changing oil with my dad.  Well, I finally got the bolt loose… but I stripped it.  It would just sit and spin, it wouldn’t come out.

So I put a new filter on and talked with dad about it.  He was gracious enough to take a look at it this morning cuz he’s on 2nd shift.  He took it into the shop today (a different one that did the original oil change).  They have to drop the oil pan, and get a new plug and everything.  That’ll set me back probably $70.

Lesson learned (again): Nothing is ever free.

Hi Barry!

Only 34 days until I see my sister!

It was a good weekend!  Beth came home on Thursday, which was great!  It was awesome to have an extra day with her than I usually get.  We went to a pumpkin patch, a meatball supper, a football game, and we hung out with our families.  So it was a lot of fun.  Too bad I won’t see her again for another 22 days. 

It’s raining up here today, which is a bummer, but that’s alright.  I’ll be a little wet tonight when I’m out pounding the pavement, but it’ll be good times!  Nearly 7,000 doors knocked.  Way more to go, but I’m getting there!

Also, I saw today that the last televised debate is now viewable on their website.  Here’s the link.  Feel free to watch me in action!  I got a DVD copy of the first debate, so if some one wants to see it I could let you borrow it I’m sure.

I hope everyone had a good Monday!

It seems this week has gone by really fast.  I’m guessing there are a few reasons for that:

1. I had 2 debates this week.  Both of them were great.  I had a lot of fun with them, and I got to show the people what I’m all about.  (It’s always awesome to have a job you can love and have a lot of fun with)
2. Beth came home yesterday (yay for Fall Break!).
3. I’ve been busy at work.  For the most part anyway.  We’re working on getting new servers up and running, which is fun.

So it’s been a good week.  I’m looking forward to the doorknocking that will come with the weekend, hanging out with Beth, and seeing the niece and nephew again (of course that list is not ranked in order of what I’m looking forward to those most).

So you may, or may not, remember a post from a while back saying that Google needed a Document Editor.  Well I read on the Google Blog that today they have launched Google Doc’s & Spreadsheets. How great! However, when they talked about vanilla ice cream and chocolate jimmies on it, it definitely made me hungry.
Granted, I’d probably use this more if I was in school, because I used word processors a lot more back then.  But I still like and encourage the idea!

I shall now return to the regularly scheduled program.

That’s what they are saying.  It’s supposed to snow tonight.  That makes me a little sad.  It’s still early in the season.  Granted it will all melt away, but still.  I would rather have no snow, right now.  Maybe after November 7th.

Plus, I would rather it not snow while my road is all dug up.  They’re putting curb and gutter in on my street, and they still need to tar it.  I’m hoping they get that done soon, cuz it’d be nice to have a tar road to drive on again.

It was good to see some of ya’ll when I was in the cities this weekend.  It was a good chance to catch up, and hang out.

Until next time, keep on rocking in the free world!

So I read this article today about how OPEC will cut production to keep oil at $55/barrel.  So there you have it, that is why gas is expensive.  It’s not the government’s fault.  Oil prices are not a political issue.  I would love to see oil prices come down again, I would love to pay $1.15 for gas again, but oil is about supply and demand not about the President.

Now granted, Congress could open up more drilling in ANWR to get more supply out there.  They could build more refineries to help the cause as well.  But to say that any political party, or government official, sets the gas prices is completely false.

80 degrees in October.  You can’t go wrong with that.  Okay, so I don’t know for sure that it hit 80 yesterday or Sunday, but it was pretty close anyway.  It was some great days to be outside.  I got to do some raking of leaves, which is fun.  I don’t get to do that much anymore (don’t get me wrong, I’m not overly bummed about that).

Life is super busy it seems, but it’s great times.  With about 35 days to go until Election Day life will be getting even busier.  That’s alright, I can handle it.  I’m out there showing the people what I have to offer and they are liking what I have to say.  I love getting out there and talking to people.  I’m also looking forward to the first debate, which should have been yesterday but was canceled due to “lack of participation” from some candidates, that is on Thursday.  It’s on Local Access TV in the Douglas County area.  It will be a great time.

Hope ya’ll are having a great Tuesday.  I’m busy here today, so I best get back at it.