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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When Europe was falling to the liberal facists who did they elect? Churchill. After his success, within a couple of months they ejected him like a whores tissue paper. Of course they fell into 40 years of Obama socialism. They got what they deserved.

Same difference in America. When the kooky liberals, and progressives like congress and Obama screwed things up, they elected conservatives to put things in order. Like 2006 they rejected conservatism for a "hate the rich" agenda.

It appears that there are some adults in 1/2 of 1/3 of the branches of government who will slow the growth of government. Good, but not great.
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feuser



Joined: 29 Oct 2002
Posts: 1508

PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevenbard wrote:
mrgybe wrote:
The past tense of "spill" is "spilt" or "spilled".........both are equally acceptable. Congratulations Steven.........your vocabulary is broader than those who mock you.


Thank you Mr. Gybe. One thing is perfectly clear to me. If the idiots who run this country had studied Roman military history, or even 20th century history, we wouldn't be having as many difficulties today.


'Spilled' is colloquial, modern US English while 'spilt' is British or literary English. In light of your usual contributions that are neither, it looks like a typo - no more.

Oh, and the Roman empire isn't doing so great, last time I checked. When they were doing well... they were a socialist, totalitarian society.

One lesson that you could have learnt (!) from watching the History Channel is that building and maintaining empires is not cost-effective. Eventually the benefits of power are snuffed out by the economical impossibility of holding on to it. It was making friends and becoming indispensable that has helped the US gain the predominant role in the 20th century.

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florian - ny22

http://www.windsurfing.kasail.com/
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feuser



Joined: 29 Oct 2002
Posts: 1508

PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevenbard wrote:
When Europe was falling to the liberal facists...


Turn off Glenn Beck - his complete lack of grip on any kind of fact is contagious.

And, it's spelt 'fascist', sir.

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florian - ny22

http://www.windsurfing.kasail.com/
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Embarassed
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17744
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whew, mrgybe weighs in to defend stevenbard’s use of a British hoity toity term to take a shot at me. He kind of ignores the rest of the garbage that stevenbard spews out. So let’s take it by the numbers. First, the exaggerated claims of inflation to attack Obama and Pelosi. But I am so reassured by their claims to not be bigoted or misogynist. Here’s the bible: http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx In case you are too lazy to do the research, inflation for 2010 is under 2%. For those of you interested the average inflation for the Bush Presidency was 2.78%/year. Despite the overall idiocy of bard’s comment, and his failure to comprehend the anecdotal nature of the evidence in the article he posted, there is a likely source of increased prices. Oil prices, and by market forces all energy prices, are going to go up as the economy recovers. We can already see it in gasoline with the limited recovery. So everything that uses petroleum will cost more. I would submit that has nothing to do with debt, or debt related inflation. But it’s a good thing we’ve invested in alternatives to petroleum—whoops, the Republicans stopped that, so the market will do its brutal thing.

Now the thing that really pissed me off, stevenbard’s comment about education. Were I a better man I would have responded just with facts rather than anger, but I guess I’ve watched too much Rush to be mature. First, what I do. I am retired, and spend 4 days a week helping in a classroom. First and fifth grades. I mostly teach reading, writing, and advanced math. There is no political content in what I do. Instead, I listen to where kids are struggling and teach them to read. It’s a pretty nice time of the year now, as all but 2 of the first graders who were struggling with reading are now starting to take off. Bard’s comment is exactly what is wrong about the right. With no knowledge of what I actually do, or what goes on in a classroom, he says: This is precisely why the American children score so low on their tests. Teachers like you.

So if you want to actually learn something about education and its problems, try “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” by Diane Ravitch. You can find short articles by her pretty readily on the web. She was the former assistant secretary of education under Bush I, and spent time trying to develop Federal education standards and worked with the libertarian Hoover Foundation at Stanford. She is pretty scathing in her criticism of the No Child Left Behind movement, despite the best intentions of Bush II. There are multiple problems, but most fundamentally, the right continues to be a faith driven movement. The patent failures of NCLB are ignored because they don’t fit into the faith structure. There is ample research testing different aspects of reform, and some stuff has worked pretty well and some hasn’t.

The real agenda for much of the right? It’s simple. Either teach religion in schools, despite the first amendment, or we take our kids out of schools and do our best to kill funding for public schools. Or in Texas they just take over the school board and present a dumbed down, but right wing curriculum. Safe for evangelicals. The movement has focused on anecdotal evidence, such as the teachers awaiting discipline in New York City, and avoided any rigorous look at the larger trends. There are 4 million teachers in this country. Ninety percent of them are competent, 5% are superior and 5% are terrible. We should get rid of the 5%, but that won’t fix the quality of education for the 95% who aren’t. Upgrading their performance is the important issue. There is absolutely no evidence that the current scoring system improves teachers performance. I am actually a supporter of total quality management, and think that it can, and should be applied to school teachers. There is a huge gap between NCLB and meaningful TQM, and the idea of running this from Washington D.C. with different ascendant political viewpoints see-sawing every 2, or 4, or 8 years is an astonishingly bad idea.

So why don’t kids do well? Poverty is a big part of it, and we know that Iso and Bard think poverty is either deserved or God’s punishment for parent’s bad behavior. About 50% of my kids are below the poverty level, and about 50% are Hispanic. There is certainly correlation to poverty, but every time I see a kid that is striving and succeeding I know, absolutely, that there is a good mom behind that kid. It is absolutely true that a good teacher cannot make up for a bad parent. Drugs, alcohol, and marital discord all produce the same kind of kid—scared, defensive, too upset to work hard, and clearly trapped in chaos.

But for mrgybe and bard to have a viewpoint on education that was more informed and more nuanced than what they spew here they would have to read a bit outside their right wing web sites, and maybe have a little bit of experience. So why do schools fail? In substantial part because folks like bard take their kids out so there are fewer middle class examples, and then starve the system.
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

For the record, my kids go to or went to public schools. My wife is also a volunteer. My daughter even graduated Berkeley and lives in SF. My son is age 13 in honors geometry in public school.

I'm not happy with how they teach history or english, but we support public education.

Mac, I've only attacked you after your scathing PM's and rediculous racism remarks about me.

You should be proud of what you do for kids, but stop the insults. In fact shame on us all, for all the personal attacks. I love to throw in some outrageous commentary, pictures, and articles to get you sf girls in a tizzy. Mostly for fun though. Twisted Evil
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mrgybe



Joined: 01 Jul 2008
Posts: 5180

PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A brief primer for those who erroneously believe that US debt levels have nothing to do with rising oil prices. The US deficits and increasing debt levels are contributing to the decline in the value of the dollar. The international crude market is a dollar denominated market. When the value of the dollar falls, the price of crude rises. If demand remained constant, but the dollar weakened, crude prices (and consequently gasoline prices in the US) would rise.

Separately, those who point to CPI based inflation statistics as proof of the lack of inflation, may be unaware that the CPI excludes changes in food and energy costs, both of which are on the rise at a faster rate than core inflation.
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Let's be frank mrgybe, the price of gasoline has nothing to do with the condition of the American economy. Oil producers will take advantage, if the situation readily serves their interests. One only needs to look at huge oil company profits over time. All the more reason to become energy independent, sooner rather than later.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 9:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevenbard wrote:
Mac, I've only attacked you after your scathing PM's


Post 'em. The privacy of personal attacks is determined by the target, not the sniper. Stealth snipers deserve no respect whatsoever, certainly no presumptive privacy rights.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 9:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mrgybe wrote:
The US deficits and increasing debt levels are contributing to the decline in the value of the dollar.


As is Bernanke,, deliberately, in accordance with standard practice he supports of using inflation to reduce the value of the debtor's foreign debts ... while he and Obama tell us they're trying to prevent inflation. They think we're too stupid to read Bernanke's past writings and see through their lies. The have no choice but to inflate our debt away, and lack the balls to admit it because it would cost the Dems the next election.
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