Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Sorry to think that your response to my post was a response to my post.

if you saw the entirety of what I had intended to post, you would realize I wasn't respondng to you directly.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by nononono
So, you've know some soldiers who were smart, and some less so? And this differs from civilians you have met how?

It doesn't. I was responding to your idiotic comment suggesting that I thought all soldiers are dumb.

I never suggested the highest socioeconomic ranks enter the military by the same proportion as they enter Wharton.

Good for you. It's about fucking time you acknowledge the basic issue that we've been arguing over.

But to act as though "having" to enter the military (whether for lack of imagination, shitty grades, needing to get kicked into shape, or merely for desire) is somehow a tragedy or a shame is just an insult to the people serving. It's an honorable profession (and please - you can find Graner and England in chinos on any college campus), and just because not everyone heads into it knowing exactly what they are or what they want, for whatever reason, doesn't mean they are being exploited.

Excuse me -- you think that "having" to enter the military during wartime, rather than "choosing" that path, is not an unfortunate thing?

Of course the military is an honorable profession. But are you seriously suggesting that you have no sympathy or concern for people who "have" to do it because they have no other real options?

I am not sure how to explain how condescending "We put the lives of our least advantaged on the line in Iraq" is to say, but I can guarantee you that those serving probably don't appreciate it much.

Your next comment basically echoes mine, so I'm not sure why you find mine "condescending."

The mere fact of growing up poor (or "disadvantaged socioeconomically," if you must) does not render one incapable of making mature decisions. The military offers the potential for raising up, and they look for people ready to do that.

My point -- though you've demonstrated that you are emotionally incapable of understanding it, or desperate to misread it -- is that poor people have limited options for raising up. Going into the military is not necessarily an immature decision, and I said nothing to suggest that I believe it is
(though, of course, we are often talking about 18 year old kids here, many of whom may well make immature decisions, especially when pressured by recruiters -- and yes, I know you'll read that as "Sidd says all volunteers are dumb, Sidd is evil."). Often, it is the best option available for people -- and that is the pity, because the people sending them to die rarely have their own family, or people that they consider the peers of their family, on the line -- or, to loosely paraphrase one general's comment from several months ago, the decisions about the war in Iraq were made with a casualness that is the special province of those who have never had to implement such decisions, or bury the results.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Spanky
When did I say that? But you can't tell me that offering bonuses to teachers who are able to get the worst classes to learn something wouldn't help.

Spanky: offering bonuses to teachers who are able to get the worst classes to learn something won't help. Good teachers are good teachers. It is not lack of motivation that keeps good teachers from being great teachers.

But also, let me be clear. I'm not against testing students. I think it's important to do so. I'm just against using those tests rigidly to measure teachers and schools, and I think it is imprudent to create a policy that punishes schools by taking funding away based on test scores.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
My point -- though you've demonstrated that you are emotionally incapable of understanding it, or desperate to misread it -- is that poor people have limited options for raising up. Going into the military is not necessarily an immature decision, and I said nothing to suggest that I believe it is
(though, of course, we are often talking about 18 year old kids here, many of whom may well make immature decisions, especially when pressured by recruiters -- and yes, I know you'll read that as "Sidd says all volunteers are dumb, Sidd is evil."). Often, it is the best option available for people -- and that is the pity, because the people sending them to die rarely have their own family, or people that they consider the peers of their family, on the line -- or, to loosely paraphrase one general's comment from several months ago, the decisions about the war in Iraq were made with a casualness that is the special province of those who have never had to implement such decisions, or bury the results.

2.

nonono sounds like she thinks almost every recruit has a hs diploma, that the vast majority have some college, AND that they are mainly from middle class families.

It's possible she hasn't seen Farenheit 9/11

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Real GDP in the fourth quarter of 2000 was up 2.1%. For the year, real GDP increased in 2000 by 3.7% over the preceding year.

Real GDP for Q3 of 2006 -- i.e., "now," -- was up 1.6% compared to the preceding quarter.

Thanks for playing.

Be nice. Spanky is a victim of the public education system. It's the CTA's fault, and the fault of all Democrats, that he thought 1.6 > 2.1.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Nat...y/cda06-09.cfm

• 99.9 percent of the enlisted force have at least a high school education; 73.3 percent have some semester hours toward a college degree; 16.2 percent have an associate’s degree or equivalent semester hours; 4.7 percent have a bachelor’s degree; 0.7 percent have a master’s degree and .01 percent have a professional or doctorate degree.

AND


the middle classes over-represented.

sorry Sidd. You lose another.

368-11

Find me the post where I said "middle classes".

When you give up on that, demonstrate for me that people with "some semester hours" have a vast array of promising, non-military career options open to them.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Spanky

4) Immigration. Republicans in Congress insisted upon and got the first serious immigration restriction in decades. On Oct. 26, the president signed a law that will build a 700-mile fence along our southern border and, what is more important, does not offer amnesty.

Did they read the small print about where the money is going to come from for actually building the fence?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

So, who let Bush make this his day to defend Cheney and Rumsfeld? Doesn't he know that the biggest favor he could do them right now is to not say their name again until after next Tuesday?

Thanks, George. It's good to remind people that what this is all about is who is ready to take responsibility for and deal with the mess in Iraq.

:thumbsup:

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Find me the post where I said "middle classes".

I took your point to be the military is mostly poor kids. this report said poor are underrepresented, especially compared to middle class.

but you intended some other point, which means your writing skills are as weak as the reading skills. do your firm a favor? put your feet up on the desk and nap for the next 30 years.

And Sidd, hint, kids who have taken some college classes have the opportunity to do what? that's right take college classes. they choose not to for whatever reason.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by baltassoc

quote:
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8) John Roberts and Samuel Alito sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.
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I don't get it.

I agree it's something of a stupid reason to vote R today, but think of it as a request for an electoral victory lap.

[nononono]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
prickly personal attacks

Feel free to continue the conversation when you can do it without calling me names or hurling insults. My initial post was not even directed to you, and it is interesting you chose to take it as a direct hit. In any event, I've nothing to say here except that insulting me and an apparent pathological need to respond to each and every sentence, whether or not you have something germane to add, doesn't strengthen your arguments.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Did they read the small print about where the money is going to come from for actually building the fence?

Wasn't there an amendment to the bill that let Bush decide to appropriate the money to other border control measures besides a fence?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Spanky: offering bonuses to teachers who are able to get the worst classes to learn something won't help. Good teachers are good teachers. It is not lack of motivation that keeps good teachers from being great teachers.

People should be rewarded and acknowledged for their hard and exceptional work. That encourages them to stay. The employees that work for me were my gain and the teaching profession's loss. They were great teachers but being great never gained them anything except the knowledge they were helping. When I go to their social functions I am always more impressed by the teachers that left than the teachers that have chosen to stay. My employees tell me that all the best teachers keep leaving because the system rewards incompetance and excellence just the same. That seems logical to me.

Originally posted by baltassoc
But also, let me be clear. I'm not against testing students. I think it's important to do so. I'm just against using those tests rigidly to measure teachers and schools, and I think it is imprudent to create a policy that punishes schools by taking funding away based on test scores.

How else do we determine which teachers are doing a good job and which teachers aren't? In every endeavor there are bad eggs that need to be weeded at. In this case, if they are not weeded out, you are screwing the future of countless students. In California schools there are countless bad teachers, and principles, that need to be weeded out. How else do you do it except through testing? The teachers are there to teach the students. Full stop. If the students are learning to read and write and do math then the teachers are doing their job, and if they are not learning, the teachers are not doing their job. It is not that complicated. Don't you agree that it is pretty easy to test to see if students are actually learning the basics? Is there something they are doing there that can't be determined through testing?

[nononono]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
more piss and vinegar

I don't think you are the person who can, with a straight face anyway, suggest than anyone else in this conversation is "emotionally" anything.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Gattigap
I agree it's something of a stupid reason to vote R today, but think of it as a request for an electoral victory lap.

Classic. Post of the day.