This Could Be The Start of Something B-I-G!
Yellowstone is having a now three-day series of small quakes. The largest has been 3.3 on the Richter Scale...not large, but substantial none the less given the fairly quiet area involved.
Yellowstone is part of
The Yellowstone Caldera.
There was an hour-long program within the last year or so on Discovery or one of the science channels which explained that one day Yellowstone will repeat its massive eruption of 700,000 years ago. I'll see if I can find reference to it.
James Pethokoukis reports on the current situation at U. S. News & World Reports.The situation justifies close watch as a true eruption here could be disastrous particularly for the states from Yellowstone East; but also for the earth where particulate matter rises into the atmosphere and circles the globe.
600 Mile Radius around Yellowstone...a possible death zone according to reports by The Cutting Edge.Here is the report by the folks at
The Cutting Edge Blog.I for one hope the Cutting Edge folks...and their sources are a bit over enthusiastic about the level of activity, however...keep an eye on it folks! This seems to go beyond scary if activity continues.
Duke
Update: Thanks to Instapundit for the "Instalanch" on this post. I am now beginning to see the topic in many locations! I also forgot to mention the world-wide map of earthquakes which is both interesting and available to all here:
Labels: Caldera, Earthquakes, Super eruption, Yellowstone
What If??????
What if Israel halted their current war against Palestinians?
What if Israel then adopted a new plan......a plan wherein they lined up their own rockets and mortars, and in response to the Hamas gunmen/Terrorists, they indiscriminately fired back into Palestinian territory each and every time the Palestinians fired a shell/rocket in the direction of Israel?
What if the Israelis fired back using the same level of "shoot-anywhere-without-fear-of-who-you-hit" plan as do the Palestinians?
What would be the response then of the U.N.? The other Arab nations? The rest of the world's governments?
What would a "tit-for-tat" response bring?
I am guessing we'd get the same hand-wringing, woe is Palestine response we are hearing now. BUT, would not the bleeding-heart media, and the Idiotarians of the Middle East have a much harder time finding fault with the 1 for 1 response...if it is fairly acknowledged?
Ah, but there is the key. The U.N., other Arab nations, and the rest world's governments do not seem to recognize the rockets and shells from Palestine aimed at Israel.
They simply do not count.
Duke
The Global Warming That Never Was!
Christopher Booker
announces the year man made global warming was disproved.But of course the AlGore and our US Media are silent! They have W-A-Y too much invested in seeing that GW is truth.
Meanwhile most stations are shoveling frantically to keep their access to transmitters during record snows for the 2nd year in a row.
Ya gotta love it.
World temps are dropping; polar bears are asking for a shave....
Duke
The Screaming Liberals of The World Decry Palestinians' Deaths!
From every corner of the world the dead Palestinians seem to bring forth a cry of evil regarding the Israeli perpetrators. 200 plus dead from aircraft attacks. Nary a word about the continuous mortar and rocket barrage falling on Israel all this year. 3,000 plus shells/rockets have hit Israeli soil....most of them during the so-called cease fire....honored only by Israel.
The cease fire expired two weeks ago and the Palestinians doubled, then redoubled their attacks. The Israelis, showing a huge amount of restraint, issued ever-stronger warnings to the Palestinians. The attacks from Gaza continued and again grew.
Israel struck hard and fast. They literally destroyed almost every Hamas control center in Gaza. Most of the dead were Terrorists....Hamas thugs. The civilians who perished were killed as the Israelis could not avoid them. The Hamas thugs set their centers and weapons in civilian neighborhoods....you know, just like terrorists everywhere.
The media, and the governments around the world call for Israeli halts to killing. They say nothing of the Palestinians rockets. Even the USA issues the lone call for Palestinians to halt their attack....and in the same breath urge Israel to not hurt civilians...saying nothing of the cause for the civilian deaths.
There has never been a more one-sided war in the minds of media and many governments. Israel is always wrong; Palestinian thugs can do no recognizeable wrong.
Sickening.
Duke
The Best "Year-End-Review!"
& of course it is from none other than
Victor Davis Hanson.In a nutshell!Duke
Dollah - Dollah......Gimme Dollah?
Figures by people who know (I'll give you the link in a minute!) indicate that there would be NO unemployed if we give each of those without a job $75,000......However, if we follow the Democrat's "job stimulus program" it will cost $250,000 per job, and there is no information on what jobs will be created or what they will pay......not $75,000 you can bet.
At Bloomberg.com
Caroline Baum says the "experts" proposing Obama's jobs program cannot do math!The facts show that the Dems are not interested in having everyone employed. They are enamored of the governmental mechanism they will create to produce any jobs at all.
Duke
NO GOVERNMENT PROGRAM CREATES JOBS!!!!!!!!
That is the fact Jack!Government programs might create
"temporary" employment.....vis-a-vis the programs of the depression. THEY DO NOT create "R-E-A-L" Jobs......
The idea is....YOU & I pay for the people to work. Then when the temporary jobs are done, they are again unemployed.
Then you and I have to pay for the folks employed under these programs, and the unemployed are STILL in the same class.
ONLY
Free enterprise offers jobs. Business creates jobs by growing and expanding.
GOVERNMENT HAS NEVER CREATED ANY JOBS,,,,only Temporary-Taxpayer-supported employment!
Grow up you liberal idiots!
Duke
I SEE NOTHING!
Thus is "THE ONE" able to mollify the Antique Media!
Michael Laprarie at Wizbang covers the problem:
"Even though the report was released yesterday evening, the major editorial pages are curiously silent this morning. There are questions to be asked, if anyone with a big stick is willing to ask them. Sure, it's Christmas Eve, and maybe a big document drop before a major four-day holiday weekend (*cough*) just doesn't raise the kind of suspicions it used to, now that our Deliverer is poised to take over the reigns.But certainly there are numerous aspiring Woodwards and Bernsteins out there who haven't had much to do since their all-expenses-paid vacations to Wasilla, AK ended some six weeks ago. Or maybe a bored editorial writer or two. Or maybe some cable news anchors with a little time on their hands. Anyone with a little curiosity? Anyone willing to "afflict the comfortable"? Anyone?Once again, it seems that the legacy media, which spared no effort investigating the Bush TANG AWOL non-story, the Valerie Plame non-story (and is still milking it), and the "Downing Street Memo" non-story; which managed to dig up John McCain's Vietcong torturer, which tried to con gullible teenagers into dishing dirt on the McCain children via FaceBook -- well, they just don't seem interested in investing a similar amount of effort when the fruits of their labors might dull the patina of holiness that they have worked so hard to place upon The One.Christmas is the season for celebrating the arrival of the Heavenly Messiah, not an excuse to whitewash the ascension of an earthly one. The more unwilling the media is to deeply probe the Chicagoland-Blagojevitch cesspool, the more I am convinced that there is a lot about it that we should know."GOOOOLLLEEEEE! Could it be the media are carrying water for
"THE ONE"??????Duke
Move Along...."Nothing To See"....Just Check With Your Antique Media!
OK....We have the story here in the blog-o-sphere.....BUT In the Antique Media they find NOTHING!Just amazing.....
IF Obama decides he needs to just simply drop the Constitution entirely, the Antique Media will APPLAUD!
We are in for a REALLY, REALLY TOUGH 4 years! Unless....
"The ONE" decides to seek perpetual Presidency....already possible according to the Antique Media!
Duke
The Conclusion IS.....Now, Let Us See if It Is True!
Major Garrett of FOXNews has details of the forgone conclusion!What else could we expect......are we in for four years of this type of fol-de-rol? OF COURSE!
It is the time of Hope and Change.......No facts; no solutions....Just HOPE & CHANGE!
Duke
Best Headline of The YEAR!
Cross post from
My "& Then We Elected Obama" blog!Worth a read.
Duke
Cross Posted.....Obama is on ONE Right Track!
At my
"& Then We Elected Obama" site I posted
This piece on one thing on which The One and I agree.Duke
DISK JOCKEY BAILOUT LIKELY -
12/23/08
Jacksonville, FL
The latest group looking to Washington to come to their rescue may catch some by surprise, but the case is being made that without a mobile DJ bailout, our economy may not recover. Paul of D’Land Entertainment is leading a growing movement that seeks to stop the catastrophe about to encompass this country.
“The Christmas season is our biggest” said Paul. He continued “Many DJ’s from around the country were down by as much as 40% this season.
It may sound inconsequential, but there are 10,000 DJ’s around the country and if they fail, we could see a domino effect as business that thrive on DJ’s also start to fail. There are the companies that sell equipment and music to them. Some have suggested that even iTunes could be hurt and that may even lead to the destruction of Apple Computer. As this news gets out, we may see shares of Apple fall by as much as 50%. With out DJ’s buying music, we could see major music labels go down as well.
What about the businesses that rely on good music to thrive? Night clubs are already hurting, as are catering halls, bartenders and liquor distributors. The billion dollar wedding business may be against the ropes as well. The prospect of a wedding reception without music is not something a serious bride wants to think about. “My guests will leave if they are not having any fun” exclaimed a possible bride, “I refuse to get married under those circumstances.” Without weddings, there go Invitation companies, cake bakers, photographers, videographers. Total wedding industry breakdown.
This brings us to the moral part of saving the DJ’s. Without weddings, there would be an increase in the number of couples living together. This may keep some away from the church, causing church membership to drop. With fewer people getting married, fewer people would be getting divorced. There go the divorce lawyers! More and more illegitimate children, dogs and cats living together in sin, society on the brink of collapse, anarchy!!!!
Sorry… Don’t let this happen. Call your Congressman today. Better yet, send your funds directly to me, I mean us. Save the free world this Christmas, help a DJ today
Little Duke
Auto Industry In Focus Darkly!
At National Review Online Mark Steyn urges you to
"See The USA In Your Chevrolet!"If the above piece does not get you in the mood to forget A-N-Y funding for the "Big" Three, you have not yet learned to read.
& if my line didn't even peek your interest, consider this quote from the piece:
"General Motors now has a market valuation about a third of Bed, Bath And Beyond, and no one says your Swash 700 Elongated Biscuit Toilet Seat Bidet is too big to fail."Duke
Do You See Bias, I Don't See No Bias.......
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.....
Palin was "lacking in experience?"
Shawn Mallow at Wizbang tells thbe story of bias:
"What a difference an election makes.It was not long ago that Democrats and their accomplices in the MSM field dressed Sarah Palin for not having enough experience to hold the office of Vice-President (By the way, where has Chia Joe been lately?), while disregarding the lack of experience of Obambi. My, how the tables have predictably turned.Caroline Kennedy SCHLOSSBERG is now the front runner for one of the most influential, powerful political positions in the country, yet not a whit of discontent has been uttered by her slobbering pals in the Democratic party or the hypnotized media.Sarah Palin was elected Governor to one of the most important states in the country. She was also Mayor of Wasilla City, and was appointed Chairperson of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.And Caroline Kennedy-SCHLOSSBERG's credentials? {sound of crickets chirping}Sarah Palin was elected by actual voters to her political positions. She campaigned and fought to win for them based on her beliefs and convictions, and she won.Caroline Keneddy-SCHLOSSBURG will be appointed to her senate seat for one reason only: Her Kennedy name. No experience necessary. As Harry" the Mortician" Reid put it while appearing on "Face to Face", "I think Caroline Kennedy would be perfect." Color me surprised.The abject hypocrisy of the liberals and leftist media could not be more transparent. Apparently, all the experience she needs is old footage of her fumbling around on Daddy's shoes for the cameras, milking the Kennedy legacy for everything imaginable.New York already put a senator in office with star power, but no experience.Wanna place bets it's gonna happen again?"I'd take those odds....whatever they are.
& Our Democrat party and the Antique Media want to be taken seriously?
Har Har
Duke
"The World According To TARP"; or, How Bush Once Again Sold Out GOP Principles!
HughS, at Wizbang details Bush's latest abandonment of any GOP Pretense!Will this idiot never go away?
I feel a strong dose of BDS coming on, and my nose sprays, pills, etc. don't seem to help!
Duke
Obama's Not Worried About Deficit Spending....He Should Be!
The one thing that I cannot understand at all is how any politician can believe the way our of a recession is to spend more of the O-U-R hard-earned money. "Incentive?" IF you are taking more money from me; or, you are taxing the holy heck out of my kids/grandkids, how can you possibly be making things better?
John Stossel follows that theme:
"Krugman echoes John Maynard Keynes' complaint: Roosevelt's budget deficits were too small. Indeed, the deficits run by Roosevelt were comparable to those run by his predecessor, the allegedly do-nothing, laissez-faire Herbert Hoover. Both administrations spent heavily, but both also raised taxes substantially.Of course, neither was able to fix the economy. On the contrary, their policies made a depression the Great Depression, extending it many years and even generating a depression within a depression in 1937.But Krugman and others suggest that since the New Deal ran moderate deficits and the Depression persisted, then Roosevelt should have run bigger multiyear deficits -- and so should Obama.This is the wrong lesson to learn from the 1930s. The New Deal didn't fail because its deficits were too small. As Amity Shlaes shows in her book "The Forgotten Man," the New Deal failed because it interfered with the market's natural regenerative processes. By raising taxes, hamstringing producers with arbitrary regulations and creating uncertainly about what the government would do next, business people were unwilling to invest and hire workers.Uncertainty about taxes, regulation and government policy similarly threaten recovery today.Obama must realize that government has no wealth of its own and that commandeering scarce resources from the private sector only stifles the economy. The 2009 deficit is projected to be $438 billion. Obama's "stimulus" could take it up to a trillion and beyond. That's just the beginning since the Democratic Congress' spending wish list and Medicare's $35 trillion unfunded liability loom.We should all worry about the deficit."Stossel has more to say
IN his complete piece!Duke
I Suddenly Feel More Patriotic!
I moved about a good bit for many years, thus I never received a summons to jury duty. Finally, after residing in my current residence for 15 years (three years ago) I received one. Duchess and I were booked and paid for a cruise when I was to report, and I had to sign the "Exemption or Mandatory Disqualification" form and send it in.
Now, yesterday, I received a summons, and will be reporting January 20th....especially given the low # I have. Here in Tampa they assign potential jurors numbers, and then call the number they anticipate needing. I'll know the night before....but given I am #190 & usually several hundred are called, I feel confident I'll at least sit in the waiting room for a while.
Duchess, meanwhile, has been called three times, and served on two juries; a murder trial and a civil trial.
They claim they call here based on driver licenses.
Should be interesting, even if a bit boring, to actually live the process.
Duke
"Blago moves front-and-center on most news centers!
Busy this morning posting at my Obama-tracking site.
Check the posts:
A Little Blago for Everyone!and
Obama's Rules, or Chicago Rules?Busy out there today with Bush thinking of trying TARP for the auto unions (&companies supposedly) and the Blago happenings. No dearth of material here.
Duke
.
"We got into business to be independent. We will get out for the same reason."
This is just TOO Real!
"It is no secret that owners circulated endless emails leading up to election day discussing lay off plans were Obama to win. Entrepreneurs instinctively understand the danger posed by larger liberal majorities in power. The risk-reward equation and fierce independence spirit of start up businesses are anathema to the class warfare, equality of outcome and spread the wealth mentality of the left.
We have very little appetite to have our lives run by elected or un-elected officials like Barney Frank and Jamie Gorelick. We have no appetite to be taxed even more by the likes of Charlie Rangel. These clowns destroyed Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and our entire economy as a result. Congress, by their own admission, cannot even run their own damned dining room with a captive customer base! Some of them refuse to pay their own tax burden. Why in the world would we subject ourselves to their ilk armed with the unchecked powers of the Oval Office and both houses of congress and a massive army of bureaucrats"
Read it all
HERE...AND LEARN!There is more meat in the above article than in anything I have read since the election!
Duke
GOP Shows "Some" Balls as They Demand Union Concessions!
However....how much they will push is still up for grabs...
BE STRONG!!!! GOP!!!!!for Once in your lifetime!
God, I hope so!
The White House has already bailed!....Bless you GWBush....you are the center of our failures as a nation....your last GREAT decision was after 9/11......
Since then you have been a loser for us....and you certainly have never known the conservative/libertarian base.
For that I find you reprehensible!
Duke
Study: Half of warming due to Sun! –Sea Levels Fail to Rise? - Warming Fears in 'Dustbin of History'
650 Scientists dispute Global Warming...The madness is subsiding...even as the U.N., at a conference, announces the issue is settled and GW is fact.
The U.N., ever there to muck things up!
& once again we keep forking over billions to the U.N.
WHY????Duke
Gubernatorial Suites?
I have an on-line email group of my high school graduates in central Illinois....(Pekin High)
One came up with the comment that we should soon hear of Illinois creating a set of
"Gubernatorial Suites" in one of Illinois' prisons just for our past governors!
Sounds today quite reasonable! Soon there will be at least two residents.....
Duke
Cross-Posted From My "& Then We Elected Obama" Site
& Another One Down....My Obama site is bustling with activity....what a fertile field of information mostly from "The Office of The President-Elect!"
Ya gotta love it!
Duke
Global Warming Joke!
From Neal Boortz' "Nealz Newz".....
"If global warming is real, then can someone tell me why the oceans are getting cooler? Yup .. been getting cooler for a while now. In fact, the ocean temperatures off the coast of California are at a 20 year low. Not 2 year ... 20 year.Oh, you can bet the global warming crowd has some excuse. Cyclical, they say. Odd, isn't it, that the ocean temperatures can be cyclical, but global temperatures cannot. When the oceans warm or cool it is all part of some cycle. When the earth warms or cools man did it with his SUVs and coal-fired power plants.Someday most of you will understand that this whole man-made global warming scare has been ginned up by anti-capitalist moonbats whose real desire is to cripple capitalism."Gollee....Guess we'll have a two-stage retreat here in the future by the GW idiotarians who will 1st - Try desperately to spin coverage of Global Warming out of the thread of cooling Earth....and then, 2nd IGNORE the topic totally, and never discuss it again!
Gore.....well, he'll still be preaching GW when he rolls into the grave cause it is his own one-note-song.
How sad that so much of the political world of the Earth has given $ to this man and his ideas....WITHOUT PROOF!
Duke
Comparison? - Let Us Watch.......
In late 1999 the dot-com bubble was bursting, and the economy was headed toward the tank. George Bush had been elected but was still serving in the "office" of Vice-President-Elect.
Magically, once the new President was sworn in he was suddenly responsible for the tanked economy....even though he had not been in-charge or even involved in the U.S. Government operations at that point. I know this because my Democrat friends told me it was so.
Should be interesting to see their take on Obama as he is sworn in and his position vis-a-vis the economy which is tanking. Wanna bet it will be all Bush's fault for at least the 1st 4 years of Obama's time?
I guaranty it will be so!
It is all in whose horse is running.
Duke
Microsoftless World????
Michael S. Malone
offers some thoughts....For my part I believe Michael is missing the larger point. PCs/Laptops seem to me to be becoming the "Typewriters" of our era while everything from phone/cameras/emailers/whatever devices are becoming our new communication method.
While I still utilize my PC & laptop as devices for some emailing and mostly for chores like producing a newsletter for a local hospital, and signs/tickets/posters/form for my Elks Lodge, I use my phone for most common communication. It is possible to type/use Excel/use Word/my camera (and then send the photo) and do lots more without ever heading to the computer.
Now comes Asus, and a fleet of brands of small laptops down to 8 inches in screen size. They seem to me as the next step toward an eventual co-joining of the phone and laptop into a small keyboarded or voice-controlled unit which will be computer/phone/and internet connection. All in the size of a blackberry...possibly storing all your data in a repository at your home or in some remote location.
Advances in the PC are beginning to look to me like advances in horse-drawn wagons...too little and too late.
Paul
61% of USA Opposed To Auto Bailout!
IT COULD NOT BE MORE CLEAR!If our elected officials vote this bailout, then it is really time to bail out on the elected. The GOP meanwhile should definitely seize this golden moment to show solidarity WITH THE VOTERS and stand tall in opposition to such a bailout.
The current congress has the lowest rating of any congress in forever...and if these dolts continue to vote against the wishes of their constituents they deserve an outing in 2010.
I strongly suspect by then, following the bad financial recovery and such topics as the fairness doctrine for broadcasters and the card check union deal to force union membership, there will be a move toward the GOP anyway.
Duke
Let Them Do Chapter 11......
The automakers have offered nothing that will tell us they can cure the "ills" of their business.....They simply scream that we cannot let them go to bankruptcy...or we will all DIE!
BULLSHIT!They are a business, they can reorganize under Chapter 11, and they will then be relieved of the onerous load of Union bullshit! That, of course, is what the unions fear most.
They have feather-bedded themselves into a solid support for making ALL autoworkers immune to layoffs/downsizing/etc. They will never let these goals go.
These goals are W-H-Y we, as automakers, are obsolete, and ignorant of the world process of produce and sell...
BANKRUPTCY is an option....and my favorite!Thus speaketh Duke
Spending our way to Prosperity
Lying or Stupid
Government Created Jobs
“…every $ 1 billion invested in transportation infrastructure creates 42,000 jobs.”
Corrine Brown, (D-FL)
The above quote came from a press release by Corrine Brown when talking about the need to spend money on infrastructure and transportation projects. She is against the idea of working people keeping their own money to stimulate the economy and instead feels it would be better if the Federal Government spent the money. If you haven’t heard of the idea floating around Congress this week, listen to this. Basically, instead of the feds spending money on a stimulus package, the government would declare a tax holiday (income tax, FICA, Medicare / Medicaid) for the first two months of 2009. Every working person in the country would get a 2 month “raise” in income. The cost would be the same as the 300 billion stimulus package without as much red tape and bureaucracy. For more information,
check here. According to the esteemed Ms. Brown, we need to have the federal government spend that money in order to create jobs. She says “42,000 jobs for every 1 Billion spent”. Let me, if I may, poke two big holes in her argument.
1. If indeed, the Government could “create” 42,000 jobs by spending $1 billion, then why do we have any unemployment? I’m no math major, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we had 10.1 million people unemployed in the United States in the month of October, 2008. If $1 billion will create 42,000 jobs, we only need to spend 240 billion (and some change) to reach full employment! How come no one else has ever thought of this? We never have to have unemployment again in this country!
Except for point number 2….
2. The simple fact is that government is incapable of creating a single job. Sorry, not one. Ask yourself what it takes to create a job? It takes capital. It takes capital to pay the worker, to train the worker, to provide the work environment. Simply put, it takes money. What money does the government have? None, remember that the government cannot create capital. The government cannot create anything. The government must take from its citizens to have money to work with. This is done by taxation. That money taken by taxation would have been spent. Maybe the money would have been invested in a business allowing it to expand. Maybe the money would have been saved allowing a bank to loan it out for business expansion. Maybe the money would have been blown on a lavish, opulent party thus helping to expand a catering business or a rental hall or a small liquor store. In effect, the government must seize money from a job creating public, in order to spend money to create jobs. The sad part is that it’s not even a one for one proposition. The very cost of government to implement these “jobs” programs or the bureaucracy used to distribute the money reduces the effectiveness of so-called jobs creation. Let’s not even get into how much is wasted once the government gets its hands on it. For every job the government “creates”, probably 1.5 jobs must be destroyed in the private sector.
The solution is simple. DO NOTHING! Economies expand and contract, it’s natural and necessary. We will recover and we will recover faster if the government stops spending money. If our Imperial Federal Government feels they must DO something, then implement the tax holiday. At least the money would go to every working person instead of just to the politically chosen or to a bunch of failing companies.
When Corrine Brown says that government spending the money is better than letting people keep the money they earn, I understand. Most big government fans do not like a solution that keeps the power in the hands of the great unwashed. They want the power. If any politician tells you that they can create jobs and save the country by taking money out of your pocket, you have to decide if they are
lying or stupidLittle Duke
Labels: Lying or Stupid
Marvin is Blackjack.......er, BlackJackie!
BlackJackieDuchess and I have been owners of cats for our entire time together. We had three for several years, then Marmalade, our orange and white tabby passed on at the ripe old cat-age of 19 years. It was about three years later that Bandit, our Siamese/Manx mix also went to that big litter box in the sky. He suffered with diabetes, a number of other things as well.
This left us with C.J., our white mostly-siamese. C.J. came to us as a gift from one of our daughters whose then-new hubby was alergic to cats. He is now 14 plus and aging rapidly.
C.J. & BlackJackieThis long introduction is by way of setting the stage for the phone call I received from Duchess a little over a week ago. She had stopped at the local pet supermarket next door to her exercise place. The stop was to get a new litter box that fit a remodeled hall bathroom. The call to me was from a woman with a black cat on one arm and a white one on the other. We ended up with the black cat.
The store named the kitten "Marvin". Well, that would never do...So Marvin became Blackjack.....
UNTIL Yesterday when an initial vet visit confirmed BlackJack was BlackJackie.....
She is neutered, and a bundle to handle....quick as a flash and able to create havock as most kittens are.
Fun
Duke
Gummit Gonna Fix Our Schools???
Little Duke offers this piece:
"Please Sir, May I have another?"
I must have really slept too much after all that turkey. Apparently I just woke up and today is not December 1st, but April 1st and we are all the fools. At least that is the feeling I get when reading the WSJ Op-Ed from Louis V. Gerstner Jr., the former CEO of IBM.
READ IT HERE!Mr. Gerstner may be a very smart man, but he missed the whole point of his own opinion. He makes the following suggestions:
- Abolish all local school districts, save 70 (50 states; 20 largest cities). Some states may choose to leave some of the rest as community service organizations, but they would have no direct involvement in the critical task of establishing standards, selecting teachers, and developing curricula.
- Establish a National Skills Day on which every third, sixth, ninth and 12th-grader would be tested against the national standards. Results would be published nationwide for every school in America.
- Establish national standards for teacher certification and require regular re-evaluations of teacher skills. Increase teacher compensation to permit the best teachers (as measured by advances in student learning) to earn well in excess of $100,000 per year, and allow school leaders to remove under-performing teachers. Ideas that he thinks would change the educational landscape. While some of these things may be good ideas, his fundamental flaw is in reading why schools are failing in the first place. Read the first point and see how he refutes it with this point from his own article.
I believe the problem lies with the structure and corporate governance of our public schools. We have over 15,000 school districts in America; each of them, in its own way, is involved in standards, curriculum, teacher selection, classroom rules and so on. This unbelievably unwieldy structure is incapable of executing a program of fundamental change. While we have islands of excellence as a result of great reform programs, we continually fail to scale up systemic change.Let’s see, we have 15,000 school districts with 15,000 sets of minds working on the problem. A few are successful, he says and so the answer is to do away with 96% of those groups? Are we to hope that the “new” groups in charge will be of the good 4%?
He further shoots himself in the foot by saying:
While ideally we want all 50 states to participate, we can get started with 30. The rest will be driven to abandon their "see no evil" blinders by their citizens as the original group achieves momentum and success.Now, if I understand this correctly, 20 states would learn from the successes of the 30 under federal control, but 14, 000 school districts can’t learn from the 1,000 good ones?
Here’s the real problem. The Federal government has taken a bigger and bigger role in education since the 1970’s. Remember the promise the Department of Education? We have upped federal spending without any results except that schools continually get worse. A national teachers union makes sure that any real reform gets stuck in red tape. Their idea of reform is to spend more money and that has gotten us no where in the last 40 years.
Mr. Gerstner, here’s the real solution. Do not consolidate, but fragment them further. Not 90 school districts, not 15,000 school districts, but 1,500,000 schools and groups of schools. Get rid of the teachers unions and go to a voucher system. You won’t need national standards because parents would vote of how the schools were doing with their pocketbooks. You still want national standards. Watch them be created by private institutions based on the demand of parents who want to know how their school stacks up against others.
Moscow deciding that all crops must be harvested on August 15th didn’t work for farming and we think that Washington deciding what to do for each and every American will work any better. I’m sorry Mr. Gerstner, I trust 1.5 million minds more than 90.
Imagine if you read the paragraph about 15,000 school districts and inserted grocery store chains in place of school districts. It would read like this...
We have more than 15,000 Grocery Store Chains in America; each of them, in its own way, is involved in standards, freshness, employee selection, customer service rules and so on. This unbelievably unwieldy structure is incapable of executing a program of fundamental change. While we have islands of excellence as a result of great reform programs, we continually fail to scale up systemic changeSounds silly, doesn’t it? While education may be important, I do believe eating may be more so and yet we manage to do that without Washington dictating how to do it. Competition keeps those stores in top shape, not a centralized bureaucracy."
The Color of Obama's Skin Gives Him International Legitimacy!
BUT....somehow it does not help Condi Rice?
Go figure.....and then
CHECK THIS BY GLENN REYNOLDS, INSTAPUNDIT!Funny how the worm turns when a liberal/Democrat is involved.
Do you see any bias, naw....nothing here...just move along!
Duke
600 Mile Radius around Yellowstone...a possible death zone according to reports by The Cutting Edge.
BlackJackie
C.J. & BlackJackie
