Swine flu, Teachers, and drunk driving

Well from the title you can see that a few things in today's news have touched a nerve. You have stupid people who need to get some common sense, greedy over paid people who need to earn more and work less, and judges who need to get a clue.

First there were several stories regarding the swine flu. Several people were interviewed who are not eating pork because they are afraid of getting the flu. This would be the virus that has jumped from pigs to humans in Mexico(this time around). You can not get it from eating the meat. The virus only lives in live hosts and the human flu does not even come from the pig but is a pig virus that has mutated in a human. Do some reading and stop listening to the news hype.

The Ontario elementary school teaches ratified a four year contract yesterday. In the contact they received a 10% raise, and more prep time. This is 10% over 4 years or 2.5% a year, who is getting 2.5% now a days. We just handed out raises at work and the average was 1.3% or the cost of living. These people are like the auto works, they have the best benefits going yet still whine for more. (of course this is back firing on the auto works but the teachers are public sector) Teachers are already the highest paid public sector works and because of their wage increase in the last 10 years many programs have been cut and teaching tools like books, computers, and pencils need to be cut on a regular bases. Then they got more prep time, how much more time do they need to prepare for the same lesson they teach every year. The last time they got this they cut the kids break time by ten minutes. 4 years ago the kids had two 15 minute breaks and a hour lunch. Then they changed it to two 45 minutes nutrition breaks( same amount of time) but last year they took 5 minutes from each to meet prep time demand from the union. maybe if the teachers stayed at work for 8 hours a day like the rest of us that they could get their work done. I have sat out side several schools over the years waiting for or dropping off the kids. Most teachers show up just before the first bell and several leave before the last bell and most are gone with in 15 minutes of the last bell. I would love a 9 to 3 job. Maybe they need to privatise the schools and get the teachers to do some work.

Last a women was sentenced yesterday to three years in jail for driving a car into a utility pole, killing her passenger, while having 3 times the legal limit of alcohol. Why do we let these people get away with what is essential murder. In this case several people tried to take away her keys and she refused taxis. In another case several years ago the judge could not decide whether to give sentence the defendant to time served or two years house arrest and it was his second conviction for killing someone while driving under the influence. We need to get tuff on these offenders and start sentencing them for the crime they committed. 25 to life should be the sentence that is handed down for these crimes.

This has been my point of view.