The FUBAR Follies

Gender or sex has to do with biology, with reproduction, and therefore "transgendered" really doesn't exist. What people with gender identity disorders want to do is to playact a stereotype of the opposite sex, even going so far as to submit to surgical mutilation and hormones, but what makes a male and a female isn't stereotypical behavior anyway but a matter of having the capacity to reproduce (there are rare cases of people with chromosome problems, but that doesn't change the reality of the vast majority of people on the planet). Being a man or a woman isn't a "state of mind." You are what you are born with. I have always been opposed to surgery creating fake males and fake females, regarding such surgery as medically unethical and ultimately antifeminist. In a world with gender equality, "transgendered" people would not exist; there would be no reason to rebel against a sex role because sex role stereotyping would not exist.

This is the reason I find the story of the "pregnant man" so absolutely stupid. This woman is truly fucked up in the head and is actually lesbian by being "married" to a woman--a real one, by the way, so as to not be even more confused. Beatie has decided she wants to have a hysterectomy, but even so, she will not be any more a man than my sister and niece who both had hysterectomies.

The world has truly gone batshit.

OWS is Resonating Because People Are Slowly, Slowly

realizing they have been had.

Unfortunately, if they still talk about medical marijuana and other stupid issues they aren't going to get far. Leave that shit at home. Nobody gives a shit about pet issues like this when millions upon millions are jobless and facing homelessness. Those who have jobs are at risk of being both.

"Medical marijuana," to pick an issue that just sticks in my craw, is just another bullshit sideshow agenda like laetrile was in the 1970s. I am sick of it. Gay marriage is another dumbassed "issue." Just leave that shit out of public discourse; it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, here's Reich:

A profound change has come over America. Guts, gumption, and hard work don’t seem to pay off as they once did – or at least as they did in our national morality play. Instead, the game seems rigged in favor of people who are already rich and powerful – as well as their children.

Instead of lionizing the rich, we’re beginning to suspect they gained their wealth by ripping us off.

Ya think?

But we are supposed to feel pity for the rich when they get caught in wrongdoing:




Had the old man not gotten caught, the rest of the family wouldn't be doing interviews.

The Decline of the United States

Of course it began in around 1981, when the neoliberals gained control of the government through Ronald Reagan and then imposed University of Chicago economics on the masses.

When the Republicans turned even more to the right, the neolibs started infesting the Democratic Party, almost rendering it useless. The operative word is "almost," as many, many people are finally seeing through the scam.

According to figures published by the Social Security Administration on October 20, the median income for American workers in 2010 was $26,364, not much more than the official poverty level of $22,025 for a family of four. Given that a family making even twice the official poverty level faces real hardship and insecurity, it is no exaggeration to say that the SSA report shows that the “poor,” by any reasonable definition, constitute the absolute majority of the American people.

On the other side of the spectrum, a Congressional Budget Office study released October 25 shows that the richest 1 percent of US households saw a 275 percent increase in their income between 1979 and 2007 and more than doubled their share of the national income. While the income of this layer nearly tripled, the income of the middle 60 percent of the population rose only 40 percent over 28 years, and the income of the poorest 20 percent rose by only 18 percent.

26k won't even support an individual in most areas of the country, let alone any kind of family. The statistic probably isn't including household income but rather individual income.

News, Etc.

Stupid is as stupid does: The man--and he IS a man no matter if he claims otherwise--needs a BRAIN transplant, not sex reassignment surgery or continue to deceive others he is something he is not.

Private schools, as long as they don't receive public money, can kick somebody out for this.
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"Reciprocity" is a Big, Cruel Joke

Here is a post I wrote over at Teachers.net with a response which says it all.

My post:

"Reciprocity" is a big fat lie. The fact is if you have a teaching license
from the state you trained in and taught initially and then move, you have no
real "reciprocity." True, states don't make you go back for another
teaching degree, but they will load up requirements like ridiculous testing
requirements and additional classes. They think you aren't "good enough" for
"their" kids even though student populations are mostly the same everywhere
and have the same needs. It should be a federal requirement that if you are
licensed in a subject area in one state, it is good in all fifty.

The lack of true reciprocity is one of the reasons that before the latest
economic downturn, there were huge gluts of teachers in most regions and
shortages of teachers in others. Now there is nothing but one big glut.

The response:

Reciprocity is a big joke. It takes a lot of jumping
through hoops as well as time to get reciprocity. And, of
course, it comes with a hefty fee. And, yes, why is it
that teachers credentialed in other states with basically
the same standards has to jump through hoops but meanwhile
any Teach for America candidate is allowed to waltz right
into a classroom with just a few worthless weeks of
"training."

Similarly, many states will gladly give temporary
credentials at the request of the school districts so that
foreign teachers (with substandard English) brought in on
visas can teach but American teachers credentialed in a
different state are not given the opportunity to have the
same temporary credentials. I just read about that. What a
sick joke.

The entire system is crooked. State departments of
education and school districts are run like the mafia.
They ignore whatever laws they like with near impunity and
do as they wish.

link


It's a cruel joke. I will likely have to take a stupid test or two to prove I am "capable" despite having a master's degree in education and around six years of experience (or five, if you count my last truncated year as "unsuccessful" thanks to a perjuring POS). Here is an area where a test case could come in handy.

The Media Continues to Lie for the Neoliberals

by peddling more alarmist propaganda about Social Security's "fiscal woes."

It's all a lie, of course, because the projections of a "shortfall" were always based on cooked numbers (pessimistic projections) and not on actual economic growth.

The biggest threats to Social Security right now are the neoliberals in Congress and in the White House.

News, Etc.

Governor Brown tells teachers they can go to hell and work until they die.

Since the average pension is about $1700 a month and teachers in that state do NOT pay into Social Security, the situation is extremely dire for them. Those teachers who paid into the system in other work are also given the shaft because their Social Security is reduced thanks to the "Windfall Elimination Provision."
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The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series, just in case you have been in a cave someplace.
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Whirlpool cuts 5,000 jobs, while others are waiting for the economy to go further in the ditch.

Again, you idiot neoliberals--it's the DEMAND, stupid.
_____

OF COURSE Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee, and he will be president thanks to Obama screwing things up so badly.
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This country should have followed Iceland's path and allowed the banks to go belly up.

The banks should have been made to fail and the banksters jailed.

We should NOT be bailing crooks out.

No Surprise Here

Since school districts all around the country, and especially Title I schools, provide little instruction beyond reading and math in order to conform to the ridiculous requirements of NCLB and RTTT, it is no wonder science is being relegated to the fringe of student learning.

Never mind science can be so beneficial in the early years and kids ENJOY it.

I won't even mention social studies, handwriting, art, P.E., and all of the rest that have been junked.

It's all deliberate, of course, in order to create a permanent underclass to serve their "betters."

After doing a long Google search, I found the press release and the full report, which the paper didn't link:

Lawrence Hall of Science


Snip:

Intense pressure to meet accountability goals in mathematics and English is limiting time for science, and teachers and schools do not have the infrastructure support needed to consistently provide students with quality science learning opportunities. Forty percent of elementary teachers say they spend just 60 minutes or less teaching science each week. Just one-third of elementary teachers say they feel prepared to teach science, but 85 percent of teachers say they have not received any professional development in science during the last three years. And while nine in ten principals say science education is very important and should start early, less than half of principals (44%) believe it is likely that a student would receive high-quality science instruction in his or her school.

“Children in California’s elementary schools rarely have the opportunity to engage in high-quality science learning because the conditions that would support such opportunities are rarely in place,” says Dr. Rena Dorph, a researcher at the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley. “Analysis of our elementary teacher survey data suggests that high quality science learning opportunities are only available in about 10% of California elementary school classrooms on a regular basis.

Teachers have to pay for supplies themselves. It's bad for public ed teachers, but try private school. It is even worse. I had to CREATE a second-grade curriculum because the school's books were hopelessly outdated. Thank God I had a great mentor in a fellow second grade teacher who taught for over 30 years and knew exactly what the kids needed to learn.

With "Unions" Like This One, Teachers Don't Have a Prayer

Good God. What an asshole to propose still another YEAR before a teacher can be "tenured." Why not just abolish it and be done with it?

That is what this is. Let's quit pussyfooting around. Four goddamned fucking years before a teacher can get an automatic renewal and their careers dependent on an idiot principal for this?

Guess what, asshole? School districts will string along new teachers, and then, just when they are just about set to get vesting in their pensions, they get fired or "nonrenewed," as the sanitized term is called. These poor teachers will find it difficult if not impossible ever to teach again, and certainly not in their states.

NJ teachers need the Teamsters instead of NEA affiliates.

News, Etc.

Don't wear such a low-cut gown, Nancy.

Why hasn't she been booted off DWTS already?
_____

Since the end didn't happen for the world, the end happened for Harold Camping.

He's not dead, just retired.

News, Etc.

OWS is now at a crossroads. It is unlikely it can be effective without clear leadership.
_____

The middle class is turning into the middling or muddling class as it is getting squeezed harder and harder.

One of the people profiled in this article is a Reno car salesman who recently lost his job. He's now sharing a mobile home with his mother-in-law.

Then this year, after the car dealership he worked for went bankrupt and he lost his job, they had to leave that apartment and move into his mother-in-law's single-wide trailer.
Along the way, they have sold off their possessions. Today, the sports car is gone; so is much of their furniture. They sold their Apple computer recently for $150.

Ticknor checks in every day at 5:30 a.m. with a temp agency. "You hope they have a job for you," he says. He has worked for minimum wage as a receptionist, cashier and manual laborer.

"The biggest word is humbling," he says. "It does a mental thing on you. I used to make big money. I was like a big shot. …You take it for granted."

I am surprised he gets anything working for a temp agency there. Years ago, there was lots of work, but now it is basically dried up.

I'll bet he looked down on those "bums" who drew UI and received food stamps and other public assistance.

But for the grace of God go I and all that...

Education Follies

IPS superintendent wants investigation of the area's charter schools. These schools take a full year of funding for students, and then when the students return to public schools, those schools don't get the funding.

Call it thievery.
_____

Naturally there is nobody on this list who actually has a clue about public education.

After all, "Democrats" in the administration don't know squat about it.
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Whiny Employers

Employers continue to lie they can't find enough "qualified" people for their job openings. Of course, they jettisoned their on-the-job training programs long ago just so they would have to whine about it.

Frankly, I don't believe them.

It isn't a matter of "can't" but "won't."

They just want ten years of experience, a master's degree, and a willingness to work for ten bucks an hour.

And this is a goddamned lie for sure. There is NO shortage of "teachers" anywhere in the United States, and employers should have a HUGE pool to choose from:

So who are these employers that are looking to fill so many jobs? The agency says the top 10 toughest jobs to fill are: 1. Skilled trades, 2. Sales representatives, 3. Engineers, 4. Drivers, 5. Accounting & finance staff, 6. IT staff, 7. Management/executives, 8. Teachers, 9. Secretaries/administrative assistants and 10. Machinists/machine operators.

Besides, school districts and private schools have their own list of substitute teachers and don't use firms like Manpower. Subs, at least for public schools, have to be licensed as subs (usually with two years of college, but it varies from state to state).

What category of "teachers" employers may be referring to is preschool teachers, which have shortages only because the job pays shit wages and there is high turnover as a result.
_____

Etc.

Two assholes were arrested for trying to bury a disabled dog alive.

The dog is now in care of a vet.
_____

Obituary: CBS newsman Robert Pierpoint, one of Edward R. Murrow's "boys," of complications from surgery.

He was 86 and retired from broadcasting in 1990.
_____

Coast Trip

Yesterday, we went to Crescent City, California, and Brookings, Oregon, to enjoy some halfway decent weather on the Pacific coast. This is perhaps the latest in the year I have ever been there.

Hoaxes, Etc.

I love stories about hoaxes, so I will have to get the new book called Sybil Exposed, which goes behind the story of a woman allegedly afflicted with 16 different personalities. The sensational story generated an industry of sorts, including movies. Unfortunately, the story was total bullshit.

It seems the author of the original story was used by the so-called patient and her unethical shrink to generate publicity and money.

Adaptation of book

All three women are now dead, but the hoax lives on.

I read the book, Sybil, decades ago when it first came out. It doesn't surprise me at all the story was a fake.
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Why 401(k)s Are a Ripoff

I have written a lot about this over the years. Companies don't offer these do-it-yourself savings plans--they are NOT pensions--because they want their employees to get rich. They do it because it is far cheaper than having traditional pensions. They shift ALL the risk on the employee, where in pensions the risk is on the employer. Pensions are also federally insured and guaranteed. 401(k)s are not.

How did these scams begin? Elizabeth Warren provides some information in an interview from 2006:

How much [were] the changes in the ERISA law -- because it was amended a number of times through the '80s and '90s -- and the way the 401(k) law was interpreted driven by the financial interests of CEOs and CFOs as they saw their own pensions being affected? Is there any evidence in the legislative history of the 401(k) provision that people ... understood that it might become the basis of a mass national savings plan? ...

Much of the law governing 401(k)s and much of the push toward 401(k)s was not driven by ordinary workers who were looking for a way to set a few dollars aside for their retirements. It was driven by CEOs who were looking for tax protection in order to maximize the value of their retirements. ... If you read the legislative history ... of the 401(k), it's clear this was a little tax break and special protection for people on a very high margin, the folks who made lots and lots of money. ... That's the irony. What it was designed for and what it's being put to use for are totally different from each other. ...

So it wasn't designed as a middle-class retirement program.


No, it was not. ... It's being harnessed for that because that's the only alternative now. There is nothing left on the table. If the defined pension benefit plan goes away, as it is quickly doing -- it is melting like a snowball in Texas in July -- all that's left is Social Security and the 401(k). Middle-class America knows it can't live on Social Security, and so everyone's attention is now riveted on what an employee can do and can't do through a 401(k) to protect himself through the retirement years. ...

link

People have absolutely no idea how much money they would have to save to have equal to what they would have gotten in a defined benefit plan or pension. Even my piddling $300 a month pension, taken nine years early, would have required my saving well over $100,000 if the money was to last me the rest of my life, which would be around 30 years minimum. The pension also snowballs so that my $300 will not remain at the same amount over a period of 30 years, so even more money would have had to have been saved. Social Security is much the same way, except it is taxed out of one's paycheck if the employer pays into it (I know the tax pays for current retirees, but I am just saying the system works similar to defined benefit programs).

You can safely figure that you aren't going to get any more out of a 401(k) than what you put into it. "Extra" money from investing in the stock market is just a illusion. You're better off with a savings account, which is at least insured by FDIC, than an annuity.

Education News and Follies

Chicago teachers won at least this round regarding a longer school day.

The district would have to hire more teachers because if they didn't, these teachers would leave in droves.

Moron "reformers" have this notion that teachers should "work" 9-5 year round, and never mind the fact the job isn't like parking one's ass in front of a computer all day. It is extremely labor intensive, with little of it being delegated because of state laws prohibiting nonteachers from teaching, and with high burnout.

Not to mention teachers are PAID for seven hours, but they put in far more UNPAID hours than that.

Not that "reformers" know or give a shit.
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Of course Gates money and as well Arne's blackmail scheme have gutted teacher morale in Tennessee. Hell, there are so many teachers out of work and schools continue churning out teachers, these districts can AFFORD to treat current teachers like shit:

Tennessee overhauled its teacher evaluation system last year to win a grant from the federal Race to the Top program. Now many teachers say they are struggling to shine, and that's torpedoing morale.

For Janna Beth Hunt, who teaches first grade at Norman Binkley Elementary in Nashville, it's been a disappointing process. Tennessee's new observations grade teachers on a scale of 1 to 5. Many are scoring what feels like a C, which under the system isn't enough to get the job security of tenure.

"I definitely feel like I'm better than an average teacher. I'm not happy with a 3, but I told my principal that, and he knows that I'm a perfectionist and that I want a 5. It's just extremely difficult to get a 5," Hunt says.

Some teachers say it feels impossible. To score at the highest levels, students must demonstrate a mastery of the day's lesson. But the four-page checklist used to grade teachers is incredibly detailed, down to how handouts are passed around. That kind of nitpicking is new for every teacher in Tennessee, but especially for veteran educators, who may not have had anyone watching them in years.

Unbelievable shit. Of course the principals will use this as an excuse to get rid of teachers they don't like.

It's Possible

iPods and other portable digital players may be obsolete with the increasing ability of smartphones, iPhones, and the like to have the same capability.

Frankly, though, I will keep my few vinyl albums and my CDs and my iPods because they all serve different purposes.

I am surprised illegal downloading is still hugely popular:

Not that some diehards don’t still cling to their turntables and CDs. Vinyl album sales have surged in recent years, driven by connoisseurs, audiophiles and young music listeners longing for a deeper, more tactile connection to the music they love. But digital music files now dominate the retail market, which is to say Apple Inc. dominates the digital market.

In the pre-digital music world, acquiring music below the mainstream radar involved something akin to a treasure hunt. If you grew up in a small town or rural area especially, you often had to chase the music, sometimes taking months or years to find a rare limited-edition single by a favorite punk band or an out-of-print album by German art-rockers from the ‘70s. There was lasting value attached to the prize, a physical artifact that became part of your life, a piece of music that also functioned as a small, relatively affordable piece of art.

Now that virtually any song, no matter how obscure, can be located with a couple of clicks, some pundits argue that the iPod has become cooler than the music it contained. Consumers fill their sleekly designed, increasingly compact music players with thousands of songs that are continually recycled. The tracks are listened to over marginally adequate ear buds on an inferior format (MP3 files contain less sonic information than a CD or vinyl album), often to complement other activities.

Despite the emergence of the iTunes store and other on-line retail music outlets, the vast majority of music acquired digitally is done through file-sharing. Many first-generation iPod listeners have no problem buying and replacing their iPods, putting hundreds of dollars in Apple’s pocket for the hardware. But they fill them with music acquired free through illicit channels, which the music industry says has contributed mightily to its huge revenue losses in the last decade.

I download, but mostly single tracks and not entire albums. If there is an album I want, I get the CD or vinyl. Period.

Etc.

Call it the "austerity class" or simply neoliberals, but in any case their ideas have ruined the country.

More about this:

Indeed, the austerity class has done such a good job of sidelining dissident voices—with the exception of the Times’s Krugman and a few other high-profile Keynesian economists—that the Washington debate seems permanently skewed to the right. “On one side you have deficit obsession to the point where Republicans use this as an excuse to threaten to shut the government down over a couple billion dollars,” says Bernstein. “On the other side you pretty much have people talking balance. You have no one on the other extreme saying, Our main worry about the deficit, with unemployment at 9 percent, should be: Is it large enough to provide the boost that the private sector is not capable of providing right now?”

It’s doubtful that Obama’s belated pivot back to jobs will break the power of the austerity class. The administration’s schizophrenic approach to the economic crisis has left voters perplexed about where it stands on the biggest issue of the day. “When you ask people, ‘What is Obama’s economic policy?’ they have no idea,” says Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. “They think maybe it’s healthcare reform.” Obama’s latest position—more spending to boost the economy, followed by deficit reduction once the economy recovers—may be too nuanced for the public to grasp (some in the austerity class, in an attempt to retain credibility at a time of economic peril, now echo Obama’s view). “The Republicans’ message, ‘Government spending is a problem,’ is much easier to penetrate,” says the EPI’s Irons. “The administration is missing a simple point, which is that you need jobs to reduce the deficit.” That’s why the EPI advocates a moratorium on austerity measures until the unemployment rate is back down to 6 percent.

Education Follies

Senator Aqua Buddha sounds more like a liberal Democrat than Obama does:

Reserving the right to object, I find it a tragedy that we are operating here in the Senate by introducing an 868-page bill with 48 hours to read it; approximately 1,000 pages worth of amendments to this bill with virtually no time to read or think about the amendments. I think it's precisely what's wrong with this body that we would try to rush things through.

I've been here since January and there have been no hearings on No Child Left Behind. I have had no hearings that involve teachers, no hearings that involve superintendents, no hearings that involve principals. I think this is an affront to the process.

As I go around my state and I talk to teachers, I've yet to meet one teacher who's in favor of No Child Left Behind. They abhor it. They hate all the stuff we are telling them what to do from Washington. They want more local control.

Maybe it will be gutted, but I doubt it.
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Standardized tests for kindergarten is nothing more than batshit craziness.

New York and New Jersey are preparing to administer mandatory school-readiness tests to children as young as 4 years old in an effort to win millions of dollars from the federal government.

The states submitted applications this week for the newest round of federal Race to the Top money, the Obama administration's signature education program. The competition gives more weight to bidders that perform wide-ranging assessments of children in the first few months of kindergarten.

Obituaries

One of the last, if not THE last, of the actors of the silent film era who performed as an adult then, Barbara Kent, either 103 or 104, has died.

She is best remembered by yours truly as being the young girl who falls in love with John Gilbert in the 1926 classic, Flesh and the Devil, but of course Gilbert's character was stuck on the temptress character played by Greta Garbo.

A brunette, baby-faced beauty, both shapely and petite — most sources say she was under five feet tall — Ms. Kent made her film debut in “Prowlers of the Night,” a 1926 western in which she was the only woman in the cast. She followed that with a featured role in “Flesh and the Devil,” playing a lovelorn young woman with a crush on a man (played by John Gilbert) who is enthralled by the wily vamp played by Garbo.

Ms. Kent was an inexperienced performer, but Universal Studios had offered her a contract and provided rudimentary acting lessons after she won the 1925 Miss Hollywood beauty pageant.

“I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,” she told Michael G. Ankerich in an interview for “The Sound of Silence,” his 1998 book about Hollywood in the transition from silent to sound pictures. But, she added, “being an actress was not it.”

Bad To Worse

As bad as Washoe County School District was under Paul Dugan, Heath Morrison is an absolute disaster.

There will be more layers of bureaucracy in hiring teachers, and the model is based on privatized outfits like TFA and New Teacher Project.

Human Resources staff Courtney Folgner, Adriana Publico, and David Gamble presented WCSD’s new teacher hiring process at the American Association of School Personnel Administrator’s national conference in Reno. The new selection process for teachers is designed to place the highest quality teachers in our classrooms. It is based on best practices derived from the interview process of the Teach for America and The New Teacher Project models. Candidates are screened and hired for attitude in addition to the content knowledge, pedagogy, skills and experience they bring to the job. They participate in a half-day interview that includes a lesson plan presentation, group activity, writing prompt focusing on core values, and a one-on-one interview.

The interview process is conducted by principals, assistant principals and Human Resources staffers. District selection criteria includes demonstration of teaching abilities, student engagement, and WCSD core beliefs such as passion for teaching, being an advocate for all students, not giving up on kids, and relationship building. The presentation was very well received and gave WCSD national exposure to school district personnel from all over the country.

They've hired more idiots in personnel to handle this absolute nonsense, thus costing more and more money to taxpayers. What the hell is this idiot Morrison talking about when it comes to "attitude"? That is absolutely insulting to professionals. They aren't McDonald's workers who have to work with the public.

Of course, demonstrations to adults isn't the goddamned same as relating to kids, not to mention HR people have no fucking background in education to even make a judgment call like this.

Besides, the nepotisms will always get the jobs anyway. At least elementary jobs that are non-special ed or ESL.

The Biggest Scam Ever

401(k)s were designed simply to save companies money on pension costs, and thanks to loopholes, companies jettisoned the guaranteed pensions in favor of do-it-yourself 401(k) plans whereby employees, not employers, bore the risk.

Hardly anybody has anything of savings anymore, thanks to banks refusing to pay any interest on the accounts:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

News Briefs and Whatever

Obituaries?

What's-his-name is reportedly dead, and I don't think I am going to print the name because nobody seems to know how in the hell to spell it.

He was shot following his capture:

Deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has died of wounds suffered in his capture near his hometown of Sirte, according to a senior National Transitional Council military official and a government minister.

"He was killed in an attack by the fighters. There is footage of that," the NTC's information minister, Mahmoud Shammam, told Reuters.

He was the head of Libya for years and years and years.

And the spelling of his name?

His name, rendered in Arabic, is "معمر القذافي," roughly transliterates to "Muamar AlQadafi." The part with his last name in question, is begins with a "ق" a Qoph, an Arabic letter that is definitely a "K" (if you ever studied Hebrew, its essentially the same letter as "kaf").

And from ABC, this list of spellings:

Qaddafi, Muammar
Al-Gathafi, Muammar
al-Qadhafi, Muammar
Al Qathafi, Mu'ammar
Al Qathafi, Muammar
El Gaddafi, Moamar
El Kadhafi, Moammar
El Kazzafi, Moamer
El Qathafi, Mu'Ammar
Gadafi, Muammar
Gaddafi, Moamar
Gadhafi, Mo'ammar
Gathafi, Muammar
Ghadafi, Muammar
Ghaddafi, Muammar
Ghaddafy, Muammar
Gheddafi, Muammar
Gheddafi, Muhammar
Kadaffi, Momar
Kad'afi, Mu`amar al- 20
Kaddafi, Muamar
Kaddafi, Muammar
Kadhafi, Moammar
Kadhafi, Mouammar
Kazzafi, Moammar
Khadafy, Moammar
Khaddafi, Muammar
Moamar al-Gaddafi
Moamar el Gaddafi
Moamar El Kadhafi
Moamar Gaddafi
Moamer El Kazzafi
Mo'ammar el-Gadhafi
Moammar El Kadhafi
Mo'ammar Gadhafi
Moammar Kadhafi
Moammar Khadafy
Moammar Qudhafi
Mu`amar al-Kad'afi
Mu'amar al-Kadafi
Muamar Al-Kaddafi
Muamar Kaddafi
Muamer Gadafi
Muammar Al-Gathafi
Muammar al-Khaddafi
Mu'ammar al-Qadafi
Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi
Muammar al-Qadhafi
Mu'ammar al-Qadhdhafi
Mu`ammar al-Qadhdhāfī 50
Mu'ammar Al Qathafi
Muammar Al Qathafi
Muammar Gadafi
Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Ghadafi
Muammar Ghaddafi
Muammar Ghaddafy
Muammar Gheddafi
Muammar Kaddafi
Muammar Khaddafi
Mu'ammar Qadafi
Muammar Qaddafi
Muammar Qadhafi
Mu'ammar Qadhdhafi
Muammar Quathafi
Mulazim Awwal Mu'ammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi
Qadafi, Mu'ammar
Qadhafi, Muammar
Qadhdhāfī, Mu`ammar
Qathafi, Mu'Ammar el 70
Quathafi, Muammar
Qudhafi, Moammar
Moamar AI Kadafi
Maummar Gaddafi
Moamar Gadhafi
Moamer Gaddafi
Moamer Kadhafi
Moamma Gaddafi
Moammar Gaddafi
Moammar Gadhafi
Moammar Ghadafi
Moammar Khadaffy
Moammar Khaddafi
Moammar el Gadhafi
Moammer Gaddafi
Mouammer al Gaddafi
Muamar Gaddafi
Muammar Al Ghaddafi
Muammar Al Qaddafi
Muammar Al Qaddafi
Muammar El Qaddafi
Muammar Gadaffi
Muammar Gadafy
Muammar Gaddhafi
Muammar Gadhafi
Muammar Ghadaffi
Muammar Qadthafi
Muammar al Gaddafi
Muammar el Gaddafy
Muammar el Gaddafi
Muammar el Qaddafi
Muammer Gadaffi
Muammer Gaddafi
Mummar Gaddafi
Omar Al Qathafi
Omar Mouammer Al Gaddafi
Omar Muammar Al Ghaddafi
Omar Muammar Al Qaddafi
Omar Muammar Al Qathafi
Omar Muammar Gaddafi
Omar Muammar Ghaddafi
Omar al Ghaddafi

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One of the more outrageous stories of the past week or so was the case of the idiot in Ohio who released all of his exotic animals, including 18 Bengal tigers, an endangered species, out into the "wild" near Zanesville, Ohio. He committed suicide. Unfortunately, almost all of the big animals had to be killed as they did not respond to tranquilizers.

NOBODY should ever be allowed to have these animals apart from sanctuary groups.

Only six animals survived the incident.

Ol' Kasich, yet another dumb Republican governor, has tried to do contortion acts around the scandal.
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Student loan debt was made non-dischargeable in bankruptcy back in the 1990s, not in 2005, but the argument students are graduating with monstrous debt still holds.

It's not just young people, by the way, who are stuck with these loans.
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When you're a slave to a crackpot ideology, as Ron Paul is, facts have no bearing on it.

The problem is we have politicians in both political parties who believe this shit which is destroying this country's economy.

Etc. and News

"They" call Disneyland "Mouseschwitz" for a reason.

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The Issue is Obama

The issue is not whether the GOP can come up with anybody better than those who are running for the nomination but why the Democrats could not do better with anybody else but Obama.

Why can't Democrats simply ditch this utter failure of a president? He's just as Republican as those who are running on the alleged "other side of the aisle."

Sneering at the buffoonery of the current GOP field just avoids the obvious issue.

The election will be about jobs, the economy, and what Obama has done about it.

Period.

We could be electing a fascist next year or some muddle of the road like Mitt. It will be because the Democrats screwed up so badly in 2008 with the nomination of Obama.

Economy. Jobs. Economy. Jobs.

This is ALL the OWS "movement" should be talking about. No "gay marriage," no "medical marijuana," no "animal rights," no "environmental issues," just the Economy and Jobs.

Why should ANYBODY be forced to accept the idea that being out of work for two years--hey, how about almost FOUR years--be considered the "new normal," to use yet another hackneyed phrase?

These and other related issues need to be front and center at all times because this affects everybody not in the top one percent or one tenth of one percent.

The LAST Thing OWS Needs

is this goddamned "identity politics" bullshit.

The issues are not environmental issues, or more significant "medical marijuana," the latter of which was mentioned time and again in the speeches down at Alba Park in Medford on Saturday. I don't give a SHIT about somebody's gripe to have access to weed. Frankly, the whole "medical marijuana" issue is a phony one to try and get the drug eventually legalized so that all dopers and dopes can get it. That's why I always voted against legalizing it for "medical purposes." I always knew it was a shit issue but a way to open the door to get it legalized wholesale. The proponents can't even be honest with voters.

And then you have the goddamned vegan/health nut crowd and their pet issues. Meanwhile, millions upon millions of people are going without or with very little to show for after spending their entire lives in the labor force.

The ONLY issue is economics, which means the issue of the distribution of wealth. It has been skewed in the past thirty years upward, to the detriment of everybody else. It has been distributed upward ON PURPOSE, as a part of government policy by both political parties, both of which remain enthralled with the ruinous University of Chicago neoliberal economic philosophy. Nothing else should EVER be brought up in these OWS protests. Nobody gives a shit about marijuana, or even the environment, when millions of lives are at stake.

The Last Thing We Need

is for ESEA, better known as NCLB, to be made even worse by putting in still MORE testing and demonizing of teachers.

Why don't Harkin, Enzi, and all of the rest bother to ask TEACHERS what they think should be in the legislation?

The answer, of course, is that teachers don't have access to lobbyists or to wealthy donors.

There is a Dire Need for Civics and the Constitution

to be taught; there would be no need for ignorant editorials like this one which go overboard in trying to appease a small minority group.

I have increasingly gotten disgusted with the LGBT community because of their complete ignorance and myopia when it comes to politics (such as the ridiculous requirement in California public ed that students, even kindergartners, be taught inappropriate curriculum such as "gay rights" and "gay history" of figures who may or may not have been gay), and, in this case, their disregard for constitutionally-protected speech by public employees, even those they disagree with. In this case of the FB teacher, she was merely expressing her religious opposition to gay rights and NOT as part of her job. So what? Many, many people have the same point of view, and many of these people are in public employment.

I got news for the LGBT community: Tolerance begins at home, with those you disagree as well as with those with whom you agree.

If this teacher is actually fired, she will win big time in court. It's really a no-brainer.

Obituaries

Tragedy in Las Vegas as this year's Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon was killed in a horrendous crash at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Details:

The race was only minutes old when Wheldon, who started at the back of the 34-car field and was in position for a $5 million payday if he had won, couldn't steer clear of a wreck that started when two cars touched tires.

Within seconds, several cars burst into flames and debris covered the track nearly halfway up the straightaway. Some points of impact were so devastating workers had to patch holes in the asphalt.

Video replays showed Wheldon's car turning over as it went airborne and sailed into what's called the catch fence, which sits over a barrier that's designed to give a bit when cars make contact. Rescue workers were at Wheldon's car quickly, some furiously waving for more help to get to the scene.

There's a video at the link.
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Hollywood agent Sue Mengers, 79, of pneumonia.

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Pianist Roger Williams, 87, from complications of pancreatic cancer.
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Controversial football team owner and coach Al Davis, 82, at home of undisclosed causes, at least at the time of this obit.

A lot was written and said about him since his death:

Mr. Davis was a coach, general manager and owner of the Raiders for nearly 50 years. He left briefly, in 1966, to become the commissioner of the A.F.L., vowing to battle the older N.F.L. for the best players available. That attitude helped lead the N.F.L. to agree to play the A.F.L. in an annual championship game, which became the Super Bowl. In 1970, the leagues played a united schedule, creating the modern N.F.L.

For his part, Mr. Davis vehemently opposed the merger. And he feuded for decades with the former N.F.L. commissioner Pete Rozelle and sued the league in the early 1980s so he could move the Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles.

Then, 13 years later, he moved them back.

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Etc.

Did Steve Jobs doom himself by looking at alternative treatments for his cancer rather than conventional treatment?

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Teachers in California and in other states have other, more pressing matters to teach than satisfy a tiny minority group.

It's completely inappropriate to teach that kind of thing in the younger grades.

California has gone stark raving batshit.
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I removed the link that was causing a malware error message on this blog. I didn't find it before because it was on the links list under the word "the."

Occupy Medford

A couple of hundred people converged in Alba Park in Medford, Oregon, today to air their grievances as a part of the OWS movement.

According to a local television station, the Ron Paul supporters were staging a counter-protest, but they were very respectful of what was being said; it was almost like they weren't there.

I was there for about an hour. A few pictures:

Elizabeth Warren for President

As far as I am concerned, she should run now and challenge that neoliberal POS in the White House for the nomination. Of course it is not going to happen, but there is the very likely possibility I will write her name in the blank next November.

Anyway, Vanity Fair has a new article up about how the little-known Harvard Law School professor wound up in the middle of a political firestorm. Frankly, she was in it because she said things the powers-that-be didn't want told, and she knew what in the hell she was talking about.

I have read Warren's works for years on bankruptcy, so I was familiar with her LONG before she became a semi-household name.

Perhaps the most widely watched hearing is the one that took place in September 2009. A video of part of that hearing can still be found on YouTube, under the title “Elizabeth Warren Makes Timmy Geithner Squirm.” It opens with Warren asking the question that was on the minds of many taxpayers: “A.I.G. has received about $70 billion in TARP money, about $100 billion in loans from the Fed. Do you know where the money went?” What followed during the rest of the hearing was the spectacle of the Treasury secretary tripping over his words, his eyes darting around the room as Warren, calm and prosecutorial, kept hammering him with questions. At another hearing, in December 2009, Geithner appeared to be barely able to contain his annoyance, at one point almost shouting at her. Warren’s questioning “was masterful,” says Neil Barofsky, who ran the TARP oversight for Treasury. “She eviscerated him.” But Warren would pay a price for those hearings.

“Geithner hated her,” says a former administration official. Part of it was seen as personal because she had scorched him in public. But the whole thrust of her work on the oversight panel—getting the facts out to the public—was at odds with Geithner’s perceived conviction, shared by the Wall Street establishment, that the details of the banks’ TARP rescue should be hidden from public scrutiny whenever possible in order to give the banks time to recover, an assessment that a Treasury spokesperson disputes, insisting that “Secretary Geithner initiated unprecedented disclosure requirements for financial institutions.”

How else would you expect a crook to act?

Michael Moore

was very good on Lawrence O'Donnell's show last night talking about the Wall Street protests and where it goes from here:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Etc.

So what direction should OWS take?
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From Sea to Shining Sea

is the problem of lousy principals; it is hardly unique to NYC. The quote I mentioned the other day summed up the dire situation in public education administration, and it has always been thus:

"In a dairy, the cream rises to the top, but in education, it is the crap that rises."

People who are in education because of the kids do NOT become administrators unless they are at the end of their careers and want their pensions to be bigger, as one of my former principals told me as to why she did it. But those people were typically the really good principals, but now those have gone the way of the dodo. Now there are nothing but mental cases and idiots running the schools.

I don't expect ANY principal evaluations anywhere in the United States be based on teacher feedback. If these principals follow directives from on high, keep those test scores up, and keep the parents happy, they can do whatever the hell they want with assurances the legal system will back them up.

We will see a LOT more teacher firings because of the fig leaf of "accountability" being used to set teachers up to "fail" or to be fired outright. As tenure rights are increasingly rare, it will be harder and harder for teachers to sue. It is almost impossible now.

WCSD Strikes (Out) Again

It figures that the corrupt practices of the district continue regardless of who is in the superintendent's chair, and this brand, spanking new one, filed in federal court just a couple of days ago, seeks injunctive relief as a Lemmon Valley ES teacher was denied her due process rights and was supposedly suspended but in all reality has been fired (with pay). Bogus charges were leveled at her by yet another crappy (young) principal claiming she was guilty of testing irregularities last spring. I can't begin to stress how serious this allegation is: Teachers can have their licenses suspended or even revoked over testing violations. This piece of human shit regularly targets teachers at her school for termination if she perceives them to be disloyal in any way and makes up "self-fulfilling" charges to back up her actions. This poor teacher has not had any real hearings outside of one and hired an outside attorney rather than the shysters at Dyer Lawrence (WEA's law firm) to handle her case. The attorney notes those hearings are like medieval show trials, whereby the "accused" doesn't have any rights to question witnesses or get evidence. But hey, the whole goddamned thing is rigged, and the teacher's attorneys should simply jettison the whole thing and sue the district in federal court. It could be a landmark case in Nevada because administrative hearings are NOT real "due process" tribunals as civil and criminal cases are supposed to be.

One of the defendants is that crook who used to be the executive director of WEA and took a bribe in the form of a job as labor relations manager to work under the now-retired human resources chief officer just so to deprive me of any witnesses after he and my former principal both violated federal law, not to mention my constitutional rights to due process. She was a total ass in this new lawsuit appointing herself judge and jury in the matter. Completely compromised and completely crooked.

It's a pay site, but here is a link:

link

Here is the webpage of the case in question with links. You have to be registered with the U.S. Courts website:

link


A decision was reached about the request for injunctive relief, but it is not linked yet, so I don't know how Judge Hicks (the same judge presiding over the fake case where I am named as a defendant) ruled yet.

Not Only Did Steven Brill Write a Nonsense Book About Education,

he actually made up a "teacher" that did not exist in a school he was writing about:

link

The "teacher" in question was actually a substitute teacher, but who cares about facts when you have a story to sell?

Etc.

So much for the GOP Nevada caucuses.
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OWS protesters have no desire to leave Liberty Plaza despite the mayor's order they leave so the park can be cleaned of debris.

Like protesters, of course.

Update: "They" decided not to "take out the trash" at this point.
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If This Teacher Made the Remarks on FB on Her Own Time,

then it is protected speech and she should be able to keep her job.

There are lots and lots of conservative teachers who keep their opinions out of the classroom but are free to express their views elsewhere. There are also lots and lots of liberal teachers who express their views on FB, but you don't hear of a lot of right wing people demanding they be fired for beliefs they don't agree with.

Teachers are public employees, and yes, they are supposed to be protected when expressing their opinions as long as they aren't doing it in their classrooms.

That's one of the reasons tenure existed for public school teachers in the first place.

Etc,

Has OWS ended before it ever really began? If so, what can be done about it?

Congress still doesn't give a shit about anybody but its rich contributors and passed more trade agreements that undercut living standards here even more.

Of course, neolib Obama thinks it's all hunky-dory.

THESE politicians in both political parties are the enemies of the American people.

THIS is what needs to be protested. The Congress and White House need to be "occupied."
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The Horatio Alger Myth

needs to be thrown into the garbage can where it belongs.

It is probably the most destructive of all myths because it denies the reality that people get rich in one of only three ways: winning through a lottery, inheriting/marrying into wealth, or being at the right place at the right time.

The last one is extremely important because many millions of people believe if you have "talent" or "work hard" you will be rich, but it doesn't work that way. Somebody can be like the late Steve Jobs and have a talent for marketing quality products, but if the demand had not been there, he'd have been like everybody else living in glorious anonymity. Timing is all important in the business world, in show business, and so on. It literally is the luck of the draw, like winning the lottery.

As I have said and Elizabeth Warren agrees, the "self-made man" is a myth.

Since people overstate their "wealth," it is small wonder many aspire to be like the real economic elites because they think they will be part of that class one day. Never mind it is in the elites' best interests, or so they think, they remain in an exclusive class.

Etc.

If OWS is to succeed at all, it must critique the political system which feeds on Wall Street and vice versa.

D.C. policies are just as bad if not worse than Wall Street's wrongdoing.

As long as the neolibs control Congress and both political parties, nothing good is going to happen.
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Robert Reich summarizes the seven biggest lies about the economy but are still widely believed, unfortunately.

Read the article, but here is a summary:

1. Tax cuts for the rich trickle down to everyone else.

2. Higher taxes on the rich would hurt the economy and slow job growth.

3. Shrinking government generates more jobs.

4. Cutting the budget deficit now is more important than boosting the economy.

5. Medicare and Medicaid are the major drivers of budget deficits.

6. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.

7. It’s unfair that lower-income Americans don’t pay income tax.



We have Democrats, including Obama, believing this shit. That's what scares me about him and them.

It's the Lack of Jobs, Stupid

"Relocating" or other such crap won't work if for every job that is filled, four people go without.

It's not getting any better. Obama's "jobs" program which was rejected by the GOP didn't go anywhere near far enough.

Face it: The neolibs WANT high unemployment. They don't give a flying shit.

If You're Getting a Malware Screen on This Blog,

there is NOTHING I can do about it. I deleted the blog in question from the blogroll, but that doesn't mean I don't have a link to the blog somewhere among 37,000 posts in the almost nine years of this blog's existence.

There is nothing I can do about it. Sorry.

What the Hell Planet Do These Writers Live On?

Just for the author's information, women, too, are struggling in this economy, and most of them aren't in the elite category of single women who are supposedly dying to find husbands but none are worthy.

It's the same crap that has been published again and again and again since the 1950s. Blame women for "choosing" to be "too picky" and not settling for some idiot right out of high school and now it is their fault what remains are supposedly the dregs.

With all of the goddamned problems in the world--especially economic--magazines still push this "marriage-for-all" crap instead of looking at forces which have created a living nightmare for millions upon millions of people and families.

Outside of handful of urban centers in the country like NYC, there are damned few women who never marry. I am the only person I know out of thousands of people I have met who never married and who isn't lesbian. So what does that mean? It means this article caters to the goddamned elites who never venture out of their privileged social circle to understand their crises "don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world," to quote a line from a movie whose title I can't remember.

These articles ALWAYS appear when the economy is in the ditch. It never fails.

Etc.

Like many smart people, Steve Jobs could be and was a total asshole.

He's not ready for sainthood, that's for sure.
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As far as I am concerned, Mitt Romney's Mormon beliefs will not be a factor in his being elected the next president of the United States.

People are going to vote AGAINST Obama, not FOR Romney, so any nonsense that his religion is disqualifying doesn't know the GOP.

OBAMA is going to be the issue in this coming election, provided he isn't pressured to not seek re-election.
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I missed this story of an arrest of a woman charged in a double murder in Topeka, Kansas, in 2002, and was featured on 48 Hours.

She was arrested in late July.

Absolutely interesting murder case.

More here and here.

It Took the U.S. Ages to Wake Up

to what people in other countries have been saying about the destructive neoliberal policies:

Because the Democratic Party

has been bought and paid for by the same interests as the GOP, it embraces policies that are antithetical to what is in the best interests of the American people, i.e., what used to be Democratic Party policies. That's why OWS protesters have their work cut out for them.

Barack Obama subscribes to the same debunked and discredited neoliberal policies as any Republican.

The plutocrats might be in a panic, but I think they are confident this movement will eventually fizzle. The protests are about 25 years too late.

I guess better late than never.

Meanwhile, OWS has spread to close to 1300 cities, and not just confined to the United States.

Blasts From the Past

A couple of Geraldo's greatest hits, which he has NEVER lived down.

From 1988:



And this:

The Problem is Neoliberal Politics,

and neoliberalism (or "libertarianism") must be eradicated from the scene if this country has any chance at all to survive.

Wall Street is only one part of the problem and not the root cause.  The root cause is Washington, D.C., politics, including and especially those policies from a so-called "Democratic" administration.

If neoliberalism is not purged from the scene, nothing will change.  It will only get worse.

Bring Me the Head of Geraldo Rivera

He is kicked out of OWS to return to Al Capone's vault:

Etc.

I may show up at the "Occupy Medford" gathering this Saturday at Alba Park, but things could change, such as the weather.

Here are some pieces about Wall Street, etc., which seek to explain what is going on:

Ten Things to Know About Wall Street's Rapacious Attack on America

Nothing most of us don't already know but feel powerless to change.


Why the Elites Are in Trouble

Or they should be in trouble, but their attitude toward the protesters is instructive.

However, there are many people who are NOT in the top one percent who still think the rich are taxed "too much" or that they "create jobs."  Neither is true.

Economic crisis heightens global tensions

Expect even more repression now that the masses are slowly "getting it."

Etc.

Time will tell if the third time's a charm for Paul McCartney.
At least she's not half his age.
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Quote of the Day

Every teacher can identify with what this anonymous poster at Teachers.net wrote:

At the dairy the cream rises to the top, but in education it's the crap that rises, more often than not.

This is about administrators, of course.  The least capable people rise further up the chain of command.

link

The Anaheim Union School District Principals Who Humiliated Their Students

by implementing a color-coded ID system indicating which students "deserved" special privileges for scoring high on standardized tests should be fired and publicly humiliated.  Then they would understand what it is like to be a student who does poorly on tests, tests which measure nothing since they are easily gamed, and then are branded with some kind of modern day scarlet letter.

Nevertheless, a few students and parents liked the policy, which was nothing but a lawsuit waiting to happen.  Confidentiality and all of that.

News, Etc.

At least Nevada is doing something right on the animal cruelty front.

People who abuse animals should get felony charges against them.
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Is the Democratic Party's expressions of "support" for Occupy Wall Street sincere or is simply a cynical ploy for Obama's re-election?

The irony of somebody who is so much in bed with Wall Street as Obama showing "support" for the protesters!

Obama, of course, is a big part of the problem.
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Age Discrimination

is  rampant in public education, as I knew too well from personal experience, and now it is becoming formal policy in school district's like Memphis.

Thanks to RTTT and Duncan, states are willing to subvert teaching licensing laws and requirements so some cheap bimbos can be hired in place of veterans.

It has nothing to do with "quality" but saving money on costs.  This "job fair" happened last Friday, and veteran teachers were pissed off royal:

Of the 154 teachers eligible to attend Friday's fair, fewer than 100 registered, said Sheila Redick, spokeswoman for MCS teacher hiring office STARS.

Paden, who has been on the surplus list since summer, registered an age discrimination complaint Friday with Equal Opportunity Commission.

"I've been with this system 18 years. I have a master's degree in my subject area. I taught at the University of Memphis for 15 years.

"And now there is no place that wants to hire me as a history teacher in the city schools? That is absolutely absurd. I have outstanding evaluations everywhere I have been."

As a result of the teacher shuffling, all sections of physics at Ridgeway High were dissolved this week, said 13-year chemistry teacher Talya Brown.

She was not placed Friday because there were no chemistry openings at the fair, and has no idea where she is supposed to report to work Monday.

Amateur Hour at LA Unified

Those of us who have worked in the grossly dysfunctional world of public education know how administrators often flout the law, with many thinking they ARE the law, but this turkey former dean went one better.  She thought she knew more than police.

The kicker is one of the comments notes she is actually an attorney:

Armando Mejia, Custodio's immediate supervisor, was a lazy buffoon who allowed her to do as she pleased and made no effort whatever to assure that either District guidelines or federal law were respected; I suspect he was neither aware nor genuinely concerned about either the law or the students.  His method of supervision was to sit in his office listening to Dr. Joyce and ordering takeout which "his" campus aides were to fetch for him. 

Dr. Laura Lee Custodio (who is, astonishingly, a practicing attorney) persistently disregarded District guidelines, the California Education Code and - in the case of special education students - federal law in implementing  her rigid, "one size fits all" discipline policies during the time I served at Porter Middle School.  She was counseled many times regarding the necessity of consulting special education students' Individualized Educational and Behavior Support plans when dealing with them, but her response was, "The police won't care if he has an  I.E.P."  Since a large percentage of the students whom she termed "frequent flyers" in the Dean's Office were, indeed, students with disabilities, her stubborn refusal to respect their individual needs and challenges often resulted in violations of their rights.  Students whose eligibility is "emotionally disturbed" are unlikely to respond to such cultivated ignorance. Con't. below...

Some of the comments responding to hers are very self-serving.  Anyway, the dean was demoted to teacher while her superiors retired.  Meanwhile, a jury awarded the family a million bucks, which is way excessive.

I Am Skeptical

the OWS "movement" will amount to anything because it seems so disorganized.

Actually, Congress and the White House are just as bad as Wall Street for creating this mess; in fact they are WORSE because they are carrying out the banksters' and neoliberals' wishes when they are in the position of stopping them.

Occupying D.C. would be far more effective because that is where these obscene policies are originating.

I feel D.C. politics is more of a public enemy than even Wall Street, though it is close.

Testing Outrages

It's hard to imagine a worse idea than color-coding students' test scores, given the fact they don't accurately reflect their abilities.

Naturally two moronic principals thought it was a good idea.  It was later ditched:

Anaheim Union High School District on Thursday killed a controversial incentive program that assigned students color-coded ID cards and planners based on state test scores, required those who performed poorly to stand in a separate lunch line and awarded the others with discounts.

But the district pledged to continue providing incentives under a new system.

The program, in place at Cypress and Kennedy high schools, was designed to urge students to raise scores on the California Standards Tests, but it also raised concern among parents and students who said it illegally revealed test scores and embarrassed those who didn't do well. 

The principals should be demoted for proposing and instituting such an idiotic idea.
_____

News, Comments, Etc.

Steve Jobs wasn't just a business and cultural icon, he was also somebody's neighbor.

This might be the best obit of all.
_____

If a public school teacher can be fired over a district's failure to follow FMLA, what chance does a fired teacher from a religious school have when she becomes ill?

She's going to lose with the high court.
_____

As usual, Nancy Grace is full of shit.

Coincidentally, she was nowhere to be found on HSN when Amanda Knox returned to the U.S.  Supposedly her "duties" on Dancing With the Stars interfered.  She said absolutely nothing it about last night, focusing instead on the Conrad Murray trial.

Interesting Jane Velez-Mitchell and Dr. Drew both felt Knox had nothing to do with the Kercher killing, which of course is the truth.  Grace prefers to side with the libelous British tabloids and the crackpot prosecutor.

So What SHOULD Be the Issues in the Wall Street Protests?

I am not sure the organizers really have a concept of it, and actually a march on Washington would be more effective because, after all, Wall Street wouldn't get away with what has happened if the perpetrators didn't have help from the D.C. pols bought and paid for by them.

Why now?  This may help explain it:

It is not the bankers who have to fear for their personal safety, but the demonstrators, who have been subjected repeatedly to police brutality and mass arrests for exercising their free speech rights.

Nonetheless, Sorkin’s warning about civil unrest is entirely justified. These are among the first prominent social protests in the United States in more than 30 years. Most of those involved in the occupations have never seen significant struggles for social change in their lifetimes. Coming on the heels of the mass demonstrations in Wisconsin last February, they signal the reemergence of open class struggle in the United States, the center of world capitalism.

Such struggles do not arise by accident. They are driven by the powerful contradictions of a world capitalist system which, three years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, has produced catastrophic unemployment levels and deepening poverty for millions, while those at the top continue to pile up obscene levels of wealth.

That won't change until these cretins at the top realize THEY are in danger if the course isn't reversed.

There is the very likely possibility it will be subverted.

Meanwhile, megamillionaire Mitt Romney is blathering about "class warfare" because he knows it is people in his parasitical elite circle who have declared war on everybody else in this country.

The Hype Is Justified

The "big story" today is the not unexpected death of Apple co-founder and marketing genius Steve Jobs.  He battled pancreatic cancer for many years all the while continuing to come up with new products and promoting them.

Jobs was just a few weeks younger than I am at 56.  It was way too soon.

I really can't add anything of substance because it has already been said:

When he was 12, Jobs wrote to William Hewlett, co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard Co., seeking parts for a school project. The precocious youth ended up getting a summer job that would fan his love ofelectronics as well as introduce him to future Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, several years his senior, who worked for HP.

Jobs' fascination with the electronics industry stood in contrast to his disdain for an educational system which, as he told the Smithsonian, "came close to really beating any curiosity out of me." Nevertheless, when he graduated Homestead High School in Los Altos, class of 1972, true to their word his parents sent him to the school of his choice, Reed College, an expensive liberal arts institute in Oregon.

As Jobs told Stanford University students in a now-famous 2005 commencement speech, he dropped out after one semester. "All of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition," he said. "I couldn't see the value in it."

His biological father lives in Reno.

News, Etc.

Those who want to invest their time to better themselves careerwise are finding out they cannot repay their student loans.

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Knox speech:




I suspect she is suffering from PTSD.