Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
If you have massive grouping just above or below the Median line, the statistician will adjust the Median. Also, in order to deal with grouping, the statistician will chop up the stats, take the median of the medians and then give you that number. That is just two ways.

As I said -- cite, please.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I really don't get this. revenues mean what? little kids would assume a school should be whatever their school is- poor facilities they wouldn't know. If the school has textbooks, even old ones, shouldn't those be useable? Math and science and english haven't changed much- there could be a handout with all the proof on global warming. and I don't mean schools shouldn't be better funded, I just don't see how revenues possibly explain the horrible reality of our schools.

Schools are fucked up because teachers are allowed to be substandard. Democrats play politics with the issue while another generation of poor kids is doomed to producing the next.

It is criminal. We broke the air traffic controllers union, we should outlaw unions for teachers other than negotiation of contracts.

I will repeat what the libertarian on the bus told me: If you want to fix the schools, you need to stick it to the teachers to take away their freedom to teach whatever the hell they want and you need to fix the curriculum. You need to fix the curriculum so that the teachers are all teaching the same things, and so that it's the right things. To do this, you need to spend a lot of money to buy new books.

He said that trying to set standards to get rid of teachers is a lost cause because (a) no one is in the classrooms watching them, (b) it's very hard to tell from tests whether the teachers are doing well or they just started with good/bad kids, and (c) it's not like the administrators rating them are rocket scientists either.

I don't know enough about the subject to say whether any of this is right, but it sounded right, and "a pox on both houses" was not what I expected this fellow to say. I had been watching him try to get other people on the bus to take his copies of the National Review and obscure libertarian tracts for several months.

etfs

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Hank's movie libels American Airlines.

With all the conservative bloggers who were given access to the movie beforehand, you'd one of them might have caught some of the blatant factual errors. It's almost like they don't know what they're talking about.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
you need to spend a lot of money to buy new books.

where my kids went/go is fine. the City of Detroit is in a budget crisis- its not buying books anytime soon- that's a problem?

let's take math. why do we need NEW math books? the most recent math developments taught in k-12 are probably 3 or 400 years old. My dad's math book should probably be at least accurate for what my grandkids learn. the lack of new books can hardly be blamed- plus clinton got all them schools wired to the internet didn't he? I know the internet has solid math stuff- even string theory pages- all that.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
where my kids went/go is fine. the City of Detroit is in a budget crisis- its not buying books anytime soon- that's a problem?

let's take math. why do we need NEW math books? the most recent math developments taught in k-12 are probably 3 or 400 years old. My dad's math book should probably be at least accurate for what my grandkids learn. the lack of new books can hardly be blamed- plus clinton got all them schools wired to the internet didn't he? I know the internet has solid math stuff- even string theory pages- all that.

I don't think the math has changed much since the 1960s, or whenever Tom Lehrer wrote that song, but there has been progress in how to teach it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I posted earlier that the Detroit Free Press screwed up the figures, and posted a link to a table of corrected figures. Here is a link to a conservative economist (Jane Galt, a/k/a Economist writer Megan McArdle) (I hesitate to let Spanky know that I'm a regular reading and sometime commenter at her site) explaining at some length what was wrong with the first numbers.

I note that neither she nor anyone else whom I can find think there is some problem with the concept of looking at median income, and that her guess of what median income has done in the last three years (down 3%) is very, very close to the corrected numbers in the table I posted.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I don't think the math has changed much since the 1960s, or whenever Tom Lehrer wrote that song, but there has been progress in how to teach it.

by "progress" I'll assume you meant "change intended to improve." I learned math one way- but I learned it- when I graduated HS I could do calculus like mad- should have seen me!!!

my kids' second grade math was already stuff I had never seen- so they needed new books to learn that. but say if they had to learn math the way I did, I submit that would be better than not learning it, or stated otherwise- if their textbooks were still mine they have no excuse not to know how to do calculus when they graduate HS.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
by "progress" I'll assume you meant "change intended to improve." I learned math one way- but I learned it- when I graduated HS I could do calculus like mad- should have seen me!!!

my kids' second grade math was already stuff I had never seen- so they needed new books to learn that. but say if they had to learn math the way I did, I submit that would be better than not learning it, or stated otherwise- if their textbooks were still mine they have no excuse not to know how to do calculus when they graduate HS.

Your point is well taken, and I will not be understanding if my kid cannot do calculus when he graduates from HS.

But as a matter of social policy, if you want to improve the schools, I believe the way to do it is for the left to sell out the teachers unions and for the right to agree to spend more money. As I say, I don't really know the subject, but I suspect both left and right have an element of truth to what they say but also are avoiding acknowledging inconvenient truths.

If, on the other hand, you don't want to pay more in property taxes and you don't care an awful lot about whether the schools improve, then the teachers and the students make perfect good scapegoats.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Your point is well taken, and I will not be understanding if my kid cannot do calculus when he graduates from HS.

But as a matter of social policy, if you want to improve the schools, I believe the way to do it is for the left to sell out the teachers unions and for the right to agree to spend more money. As I say, I don't really know the subject, but I suspect both left and right have an element of truth to what they say but also are avoiding acknowledging inconvenient truths.

If, on the other hand, you don't want to pay more in property taxes and you don't care an awful lot about whether the schools improve, then the teachers and the students make perfect good scapegoats.

at least in Michigan the schools are funded locally. my kids go to a school that gathers one upper middle class suburb, one middle-middle class suburb and one lower middle class suburb. my suburb votes at like 90% and any school millage passes. the schools are fine.

My concern is for the poor children who are going to school in the City of detroit* (or Oakland?) Monday morning. many will graduate not knowing math- I don't think its the textbooks, that's all I'm saying.

*actually Detroit is on strike because the district is asking for wage concessions, so no one is going Monday- but you all don't know that- read it as the implied image

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Good news, Burger!

• Federal authorities could force Caltrans to kick hybrid vehicles out of congested carpool lanes or require drivers of nonhybrids to pick up an extra passenger to gain admission to overused lanes.
  
  And that could help unclog carpool lanes in the Bay Area, most of which have become commute-hour slogs, according to a Caltrans report compiled after more than 50,000 hybrids were given access to the lanes.
  
  The report found that carpool lanes on Interstates 80 and 880 and Highways 101, 4, 85 and 237 have gone from being relatively free-flowing routes in spring 2005 to stop-and-go congestion this past spring. It recommends that no additional carpool lane stickers be issued to hybrids once the state-imposed cap of 75,000 is reached -- which could be within weeks, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
Hank's movie libels American Airlines.

With all the conservative bloggers who were given access to the movie beforehand, you'd one of them might have caught some of the blatant factual errors. It's almost like they don't know what they're talking about.

Thre show apparently makes the Bush Admin look just as culpable as Clinton's, so why care?

Why, Kos, why?????

[LessinSF]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
[re Iraq] ... is not Social Security reform; it is not a capital-gains tax cut. It is a war, or whatever euphemism one wishes to use to describe resisting the up-and-running forces that planned 9/11, London, Madrid, the foiled airline-bomb plot and all the other murders of innocent civilians whose crime was that they affronted radical Islam.[/b]

Sure, up to a point, but one cannot hide behind the "war" justification forever. Which is what Bush is trying to do. This is not a "war" in the historic sense and it this so-called "war"will probably be perpetual, so does that mean that - forever - we suspend what makes us unique and attractive, our beliefs in indivdual civil rights, our beliefs that the protection of the status quo is not supreme? Are we going to let fear, as justified by a "war" against fear, erode what acually made us the freeest society ever?

Bush is using this "war" against "terror," as most obviously manifested by police actions against shitwads (Iraq, the Taliban) who never really threatened us, to justify spying, mistreatment of prisoners, secret facilities in countries that we otherwise despise, and blatant attacks against what we have traditionally believed the Constitution protected (to the point that even the current Supreme Court gets pepsis) . And it is all in the name of security. But security always fences liberty, and we have almost always chosen liberty as the primary ideal. Despots hide behind "security" as a justification for their actions. Way back, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and he was wrong to do so, but at least he was up front about it. Bush is making the same sort of challenge against rights/beliefs that are the cornerstone of our society, under the pretext of this so-called "war," but this is a "war" that will not end in during the next couple of generations.

I may be more pessimistic about our future than others (as human intolerance achieves technoligal ability), but I would prefer that we go down fighting. To do otherwise reminds me of saying, "Hey, at least Mussolini made the trains run on time."

Lessin (War is Peace) SF

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
What we were discussing is whether you are a centrist. I admit there are Dems to the right of me. We have big tent.

Maybe your ESP isn't all it's cracked up to be.

What issue makes you think I'm so lefty?

This board is not where I go to lay out the platform I would run on if I were a candidate for office. When I criticize lefties here, there isn't much of conversation, so why bother? I've never been a big fan of Bill Clinton, HRC or Nancy Pelosi.

I've been fairly consistent in saying we need balanced budgets, and voted for McClintock for that reason. I said at the time that I thought he was the best person to be a check on the legislature. I also thought he would have been more competent than the alternatives.

You consistently twist my words. Why, bilmore, why? Did I really say that the lack of revenue is a "bigger" problem? I think I said that to change the curriculum you need to both make the teachers unions unhappy and to spend money, goring both sides' oxes. Go check if you like.

Well, "tone" was the wrong word -- I disagree fundamentally with their approach to governing. That said, I have posted here when I've agreed with them. For example, I said that the administration was right on the Dubai Ports thing. I will say that off the top of my head I can't think of an issue where I've ever agreed with Tom DeLay, so you may have me there.

You are seriously deluded if you think anyone on this board does not think you are a knee jerk liberal. How do I know this without ESP? - I have been reading this board for over a year. I think your impression of yourself and your the impression you give off on the board are two totally different things.

Of all the posters I would say that you are the most ideologicaly rigid, except for maybe Taxwonk. The proof of the pudding is that all the posters on the right agree with me. Unless you argue you with someone its hard to understand how closed minded they really are.

However, I could be open to that fact that I am wrong. Anyone can correct me if they think I am wrong. Are there any conservatives on this board that think that although Ty is liberal, he is generally more openminded than the other liberals on the board?

And if that doesn't work for you - I will open it up even more- does anyone on this board think that Ty is not the most ideologicaly rigid person on the left? Is there anyone that thinks they are more liberal than Ty?

BTW: All liberals are for balanced budgets now that the Bush administration and the Republicans are creating them. The test is if you critisize them when the Dems are in control.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by LessinSF
Sure, up to a point, but one cannot hide behind the "war" justification forever. Which is what Bush is trying to do. This is not a "war" in the historic sense and it this so-called "war"will probably be perpetual, so does that mean that - forever - we suspend what makes us unique and attractive, our beliefs in indivdual civil rights, our beliefs that the protection of the status quo is not supreme? Are we going to let fear, as justified by a "war" against fear, erode what acually made us the freeest society ever?

Bush is using this "war" against "terror," as most obviously manifested by police actions against shitwads (Iraq, the Taliban) who never really threatened us, to justify spying, mistreatment of prisoners, secret facilities in countries that we otherwise despise, and blatant attacks against what we have traditionally believed the Constitution protected (to the point that even the current Supreme Court gets pepsis) . And it is all in the name of security. But security always fences liberty, and we have almost always chosen liberty as the primary ideal. Despots hide behind "security" as a justification for their actions. Way back, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and he was wrong to do so, but at least he was up front about it. Bush is making the same sort of challenge against rights/beliefs that are the cornerstone of our society, under the pretext of this so-called "war," but this is a "war" that will not end in during the next couple of generations.

I may be more pessimistic about our future than others (as human intolerance achieves technoligal ability), but I would prefer that we go down fighting. To do otherwise reminds me of saying, "Hey, at least Mussolini made the trains run on time."

Lessin (War is Peace) SF

And so far I have heard a lot of screaming but nothing that substantive. Lincoln threw US citizens (not even ones that were rebellion) into jail without a trial. So did Wilson and Roosevelt. What has Bush done to a US citizen that even comes close to this?

Listened to some phone calls? And if these phone calls originate outside the US or end up outside the US there should be no expectation of privacy anyway. An international letter or monetary transaction is not protected, why should an international phone call?

And cell phone calls. They are almost like making a radio call. All sorts of people can listen in so why should there be an expectation of privacy there?

What is the horrific transgression on our rights that has occurred in the name of National Security?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Without actually prosecuting her, it would be impossible for me to prove you wrong. I will let you know how my petition to Justice to become a junior prosecutor goes....

However, it seems to me, without having the benefit of reading the full passage in the book (which you do not either) that if the fantasizing, in context, could be construed to imply an actual threat (and/or perhaps if the recipient of the fantasized murder was actually threatened by her publication) then there could be grounds to prosecute.

Of course, if you read my original post more closely, I wrote, "I wonder if Gonzalez and the attorneys at Justice will do their appointed jobs and prosecute her", implicit in that "wonder" was that they would need to actually have a case to make, requiring a job to be done, which would have to be predicated on the actual language in the book, which, if you read carefully, does not come out until September 19th. I don't have a time machine, anymore, and as a result, I have not gone into the future and read her book. However, I am wondering. I am not asserting that she indisputably violated the statute. Yet.

On the other hand, you seem hell bent on giving her a pass no matter what the language says, which makes sense from the penultimate most militantly partisan left wing ideologue on the board, and a person, who, arguably, may have violated that statute himself.....,,,maybe you think your spirited defense will get you Seven Minutes of Heaven with Ms. Sheehan??

I see where the miscommunication is here. The law requires that a threat be something that would put a "reasonable person" in fear of imminent harm. My bad. I forgot my audience.