Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
We had the bomb and they did not. It would have been a very short war.

As refreshing as it is to see a conservative complaining about Winston Churchill, we did not have the bomb in February 1945.

So Bush is PO'd that FDR is kicking his ass on Social Security, and he's bitching about Yalta?

[Valentine]

I wonder if they are right about Iran being attacked by this summer.

Originally posted by Valentine
Iran is obviously next.

Let me know if you have any ideas as to how we can actually prevent the Orwellian infrastructure from kicking into full gear. I'm convinced they want a dirty bomb to go off soon and that Iran is next. President Bush's invasion has turned Iraq into a recruiting and training ground for anti-U.S. terrorists. Its clear that our policies in the Middle East fuel Islamic resentment. Did you see what happened today? The Iraqi resistance ('insurgents') knocked off 50+ people. The Iraq insurgency is growing in size and complexity by the week... with daily attacks increasing 240 percent just in the last month.

The situation, in other words, is TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL. One hundred fifty thousand American troops are tied down by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents. The recent Iraq election was won by Shi'ites allied with Iran. U.S. casualties continue to mount, and our troops can seldom tell friend from foe. Why isn't Bush looking for a way out of the greatest strategic blunder in American history? Why, instead, are Bush/the pro-Israel Zionists on this board and this corporate controlled government doing all they can to spread the conflict into Syria and Iran?

Does Cheney and co. (Bush, Baker, et. al ... and David R.?) really want that suitake nuke/dirty bomb to go off this soon?

Is the infrastructure ready yet?


- V.

ps. Some visuals for your consideration and contemplation:

http://www.bushflash.com/antiwar2.html

http://www.bushflash.com/liberation.html


http://www.bushflash.com/strangelove.html

http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html


http://www.bushflash.com/occupied.html

http://www.bushflash.com/ihr.html

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Valentine
I wonder if they are right about Iran being attacked by this summer.

Would you like me to start a new thread where you can talk to yourself? Or were you trying to have a conversation between socks, and forgot how you logged in?

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch BRC's argument -- that no one has ever really tried libertarianism --

Dahlin', you've gotta get off this board more often. It wasn't an argument, it was a joke.

BR(nobody notices when you steal from Chesterton, I guess)C

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Would you like me to start a new thread where you can talk to yourself? Or were you trying to have a conversation between socks, and forgot how you logged in?

Huh? I thought Valentine was a Ty sock. Or are you trying to be ironic?

[captain marvelous]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Would you like me to start a new thread where you can talk to yourself? Or were you trying to have a conversation between socks, and forgot how you logged in?

Well done Tyrone you pathetic DiNO mainstream hack.

I'll be back to set you facist warmongering fucks straight.

You been warned!

[Say_hello_for_me]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7761678/...week/?GT1=6542

FL and VA seem, well, disproportionately represented. NY seems to be well-represented too.

Last smart person out of IL, CA or MA, please turn off the lights please!*


Hello





*Threw this in just in case y'all beeyotches missed my generalizations and slings

[Tyrone Slothrop]

So when pretty white girls go missing, the media goes nuts, but pretty black girls, not so much.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7761678/...week/?GT1=6542

FL and VA seem, well, disproportionately represented. NY seems to be well-represented too.

Last smart person out of IL, CA or MA, please turn off the lights please!*

That's pretty funny, since that article -- you know, the one that you linked to -- is about a school in Boston.

Here in California, we thank the conservatives for destroying what used to be pretty excellent public schools by removing the funding. Property taxes are capped, and localities depend on state funding. In order to raise taxes locally, you need a 2/3 vote. There was a ballot measure a few years ago to let towns hold a vote to reduce this threshold, and the conservatives defeated it -- apparently not content to have ruined the public schools in Orange County or wherever they live, they need to make sure that the lefties in Marin County and Berkeley can't opt to tax themselves to make their own schools better.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
That's pretty funny, since that article -- you know, the one that you linked to -- is about a school in Boston.

Thats pretty funny because that school in Boston doesn't appear to be in the first 100 entries on the list. Hey, why write about a top school on your publication's top-school list when you can write a sob story about the problems schools encounter when they have to teach democrats?

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Here in California, we thank the conservatives for destroying what used to be pretty excellent public schools by removing the funding. Property taxes are capped, and localities depend on state funding. In order to raise taxes locally, you need a 2/3 vote. There was a ballot measure a few years ago to let towns hold a vote to reduce this threshold, and the conservatives defeated it -- apparently not content to have ruined the public schools in Orange County or wherever they live, they need to make sure that the lefties in Marin County and Berkeley can't opt to tax themselves to make their own schools better.

This is especially funny, because the actual real-live California conservatives on this board swear they are the only California conservatives left in California. You talking about all the conservatives that voted for Feinstein, Pelosi, and that Republican mayor in LA?

You might as well be blaming it on martians!

[sgtclub]

• So NRO now supports limited government? So why have they not blasted consistently at George W. Bush's complete abandonment of limited government and fiscal balance? As I have written before, Tony Blair's incremental increase in government spending is pure Thatcherism compared to Bush's big government explosion. Wouldn't it be great if NRO actually used the same principles it deploys against Blair and Howard against Bush? And don't give me the excuse of occasional pathetic worries about Bush's spending. If a Democrat had Bush's record, NRO's assault on him would be daily and relentless. Draw your own conclusions.

http://www.andrewsullivan.com

Both the WSJ and NR have lost their bearings and have become shills for the GOP. Where is Buckley and Bartlett when you need them (actually, I guess we know where Bartlett is).

[andViolins]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7761678/...week/?GT1=6542

FL and VA seem, well, disproportionately represented. NY seems to be well-represented too.

Last smart person out of IL, CA or MA, please turn off the lights please!*


Hello





*Threw this in just in case y'all beeyotches missed my generalizations and slings

Is the formula used to generate this list of the best high schools (number of AP tests taken at a school in 2004 and divided by the number of graduating seniors) really the most accurate way to determine the "best" high schools in the U.S.? What about graduation rates? Number of students attending college after graduation? Performance on the SATs? Benchmark tests as designed by individual states?

aV

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Thats pretty funny because that school in Boston doesn't appear to be in the first 100 entries on the list. Hey, why write about a top school on your publication's top-school list when you can write a sob story about the problems schools encounter when they have to teach democrats?

I don't know, but you are clearly cut out to be an editor at msnbc.com. Tell them I sent you.

This is especially funny, because the actual real-live California conservatives on this board swear they are the only California conservatives left in California. You talking about all the conservatives that voted for Feinstein, Pelosi, and that Republican mayor in LA?

You might as well be blaming it on martians!

I was talking about the conservatives who pushed Prop 13 back in the day, and who have resisted efforts to tame it. Back during the last gubernatorial election, Warren Buffet -- not a slouch -- suggested it was time to reconsider it, and he was bitchslapped so hard by The Arnold that he was seeing two Omahas for a while.

I'm no political scientist, but I think you are technically correct when you point out that statewide referenda need a majority of the votes case, if not more, to pass.

People are funny and complicated. They don't like taxes, but they want good schools. Well, most of them -- some (deranged) people like paying taxes, and some (selfish) people would prefer that the schools suck. So whether they vote for one or the other can depend on things like whether a state's politicians show leadership.

Part of The Arnold's trouble right now is that he made the right (Austrian-accented) grunts about supporting education, but it appears now that he was only grunting, and that he's not planning to put any money where his mouth is. Republican parents with kids in public schools are not thrilled:

• Voters here [in Mountain Home, San Joaquin County] wonder whether Schwarzenegger can help solve the problems that come with booming growth.
  
  "It seems like California is facing a lot of issues, and if you keep taking money away from the communities, I don't see how it benefits anyone," says Lynelle Duncan, 32, sitting surrounded by children -- Hayden, 3, Abigayle, 5, and Andrew, 7 -- in the courtyard of their new neighborhood school, Wicklund Elementary.
  
  Duncan moved to Mountain House with her husband, Jason, in September from Virginia; while she marvels at this fresh place full of beautiful parks and still-empty custom homes, she also worries about whether her community will get the services it needs.
  
  Mountain House is not even on the map yet -- the closest hospitals are in Tracy and Livermore -- along with the closest major shopping. Nearly everything requires a commute -- at $2.60-plus per gallon of gas.
  
  Her husband, a software engineer, makes a grueling trip daily to Oakland and back -- a battle with traffic and BART that takes two hours each way and threatens to become more expensive if BART raises its fares, Duncan noted.
  
  "He gives up time with the family, and it's a sacrifice, but he'd do it longer for a good education for the kids," she said, adding one of the draws of Mountain House was the promise of new schools. "But I don't get the feeling that education is a strong priority for the governor. He says it's a priority, but not in the way we'd like to see."
  
  That's because while teachers are working hard, and parents volunteer countless hours, the new elementary school has "a beautiful library with no books, and a beautiful computer lab" lacking software and computers, she said. "I've never experienced this, and I've lived in several states ... the infrastructure isn't there.
  
  "I know there's issues with budget and money," she said. "(But) I understand he's trying to renege on a deal" to provide full funding to education.
  
  Across the road, another Wicklund school mom, Thida Penn, 35, agreed. "I wish the funding was there," she sighed, lamenting the school's struggle for books and materials as she pushed a baby stroller with neighbor Christina Fortes, 31, a mother of two.
  
  "We both voted for Schwarzenegger," said Fortes, a Republican. "He talked the talk then."
  
  "He's not doing such a good job now," Penn said.
  
  Fortes, a nurse in a Tracy hospital, said, "I understand there were shortfalls, and he couldn't solve everything ... but schools and health care are important." .

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
supporting education appears to put any money where his kids are . Voters seems like California is fresh place full of empty worries about the map yet -- a grueling time with the family sacrifice, adding new schools. teachers are new beautiful lacking experience renege on funding across the road,

Maybe- but the list has nothing to do with whether good schools are in your neighborhood/state. My kids could go to the number 2 school and won't/don't. The number 2 school would present a skewed experience of HS (no sports/ no local friends/ few non-geeks) so they choose to go to our neighborhood school which is a good school. Certainly there are troubled schools throughtout the country and despite accusiations from both parties little seems to get done no matter who is in charge.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by andViolins
Is the formula used to generate this list of the best high schools (number of AP tests taken at a school in 2004 and divided by the number of graduating seniors) really the most accurate way to determine the "best" high schools in the U.S.? What about graduation rates? Number of students attending college after graduation? Performance on the SATs? Benchmark tests as designed by individual states?

aV

I hear ya on this, and I don't disagree. The only part of the methodology I read about was something about excluding schools from consideration if they only take top students in without giving opportunities to motivated average students.

That said, I'm trying to figure out how many high schools in Fairfax and Loudoun counties VA aren't on the list. While I'd be hard pressed to define a "good" school, I'd certainly include criteria that reflects progress made with students across incoming-ability levels.

In other words, if you are getting all the 95th percentile kids in, it shouldn't be feted that you are spitting 95th percentile kids out.

Nevertheless, I'll stipulate that these "ranking", like almost any other list of this sort, is a bunch of journalistic hogwash. I still thought there was something to the disproprortionate showing of some states though.

And, really, WTF is up with Florida?