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GOP Will Take Control of Senate: What Now?

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  • Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
    I'm not so sure that schools are changing just because they are changing. I think it would be more accurate to say they are changing because parents are changing. My son is in kindergarten and I am 61 years old while the other parents are 30-35 years old. Their ideas of what school should be are vastly different.
    I thought I was bad having kids in my 50s. :) Mainly what's different today is Federal involvement in education. Fundamentally there's nothing wrong with that, but in practice--at least so far--it's been a goat rope. As always happens with government involvement, control of the purse strings shews the school's mission of educating kids into one of competing for federal dollars. We'll see how that plays out. But as it stands now, I wouldn't miss the "Education" in HEW.


    So needless to say I didn't agree with their whining as I had nuns who would whack you and your parents would say you had it coming.
    I had my share of ruler whacks from the nuns in parochial school. By my second year I was a model student. :) I also went to a military school run by nuns (and retired military officers). A smack on the backside with a slat from an orange crate did wonders for discipline. It didn't happen often, and I wouldn't have dreamed of telling my mother for the very reason you give. I have mixed feeling about corporal punishment. Too much and too hard is counterproductive. But how do you know when enough is enough?


    Oh, I can balance as long as no one comes along saying you can't do this. I have this strong streak in not liking being told what to do or how to do it unless I ask you first. I know many programs could run better and am all for it but when some say let's just run them all off or tell them all no then I walk out the door.
    For your reading enjoyment: Current Issue
    To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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    • Originally posted by antimony View Post
      I take it back, a pedant would go a board and try to differentiate between pedantic and legal
      Touche. Still doesn't define stupid. Forrest Gump had it about right: "Stupid is as stupid does." :)
      To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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      • Low turnout is blamed for the Democrats loss in the mid-terms. Emphasis on regional disparities plays into that assessment. But a post-election Gallup Poll measuring national favorable rating for each party tells a different tale.




        Democratic Party Favorable Rating Falls to Record Low
        Attached Files
        To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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        • Originally posted by antimony View Post
          This is something that the society has created. I think we need a system where children are given a clear feedback when they are not doing well.
          Your daughter gets pregnant.

          And all this pie in the sky bullshit gets thrown out the window.
          Chimo

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          • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
            Your daughter gets pregnant.

            And all this pie in the sky bullshit gets thrown out the window.
            Col.

            Why do you think I am strongly in favor of birth control and family planning? Women should be allowed to decide about their own bodies and their reproductive cycles and not be at the whim of foggy old suits in paneled chambers.
            "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

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            • Originally posted by antimony View Post
              Col.

              Why do you think I am strongly in favor of birth control and family planning?
              Yeah, welcome to my world ... actually, you're there.

              Wake the hell up, your daughter and mine will get pregnant without our consent.

              Scary thought, isn't it?
              Chimo

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              • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                Your daughter gets pregnant.

                And all this pie in the sky bullshit gets thrown out the window.

                So dark, colonel.
                To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

                Comment


                • Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
                  I went to U.C. Berkeley from 1977-81 as a grad student. The school was not as political as in the late 60's but it was still politically oriented and progressive.
                  I was there at that time, and well remember taking back People's Park 10 years after the original version.
                  Trust me?
                  I'm an economist!

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                  • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                    Yeah, welcome to my world ... actually, you're there.

                    Wake the hell up, your daughter and mine will get pregnant without our consent.

                    Scary thought, isn't it?
                    If that indeed happens, then you or I deal with it as individual parents. But if society starts out with the premise that young women will get pregnant without their parents consent, it will end up by putting all women behind purdahs and burqas.

                    What I am talking about is not pie in the sky. We provide our daughters with the right educational and other tools. If the unforeseen happen, we should also provide them with ways to deal with it, from termination to safely managing their pregnancies, based on their choices
                    "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

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                    • The problem is that you have stupid people, you will always have stupid people, and if you are banking on creating a system free of stupid people, you are so screwed that we might as well lube up right now.
                      The world that we have created pretty much survives despite a huge chunk of the population being really, really, really dumb. Clearly, it's possible to create a working nation, despite some major intellectual shortcomings. It's easy to say "well, people should know better." It's also impossible to do.

                      I have this struggle at work all the time. My company is one of the many Fortune 50s who feel making more money than 99.9% of the world is not enough, so they needed to outsource and make more money than God. Unfortunately, they have run into the problem that the tomatoes in India and the Phillipines are even less bright than the tomatoes in the US. This isn't necessarily a problem. You need to build a structure that takes advantages of their strengths, and don't expect them to do things they can't do.
                      My managers, though, think they can manage receivables that range in the tens of millions of dollars, with dozens of different issues, on tens of thousands of claims. You pay them five fucking dollars a day to work 8 hours, at night, and you are demanding them to do something that traditionally was only given to high-level college graduates after years of experence.
                      That level of retard is on my company, not on the hard-working outsourced employees. That also cannot be fixed by the President. It needs to be fixed by my managers who are stuck in this crappy situation, or my upper-level managers who need to figure a way out of the stupid contract. But maybe I'm just bitter since I'm working on my "day off".
                      "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

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                      • Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
                        The problem is that you have stupid people, you will always have stupid people, and if you are banking on creating a system free of stupid people, you are so screwed that we might as well lube up right now.
                        The world that we have created pretty much survives despite a huge chunk of the population being really, really, really dumb. Clearly, it's possible to create a working nation, despite some major intellectual shortcomings. It's easy to say "well, people should know better." It's also impossible to do.
                        GV

                        That sounds like a rather negative and harsh view. I am not saying that we imagine a world without stupid people. I am just saying that we create an education system that focuses on skill development, such that people other than brain surgeons or rocket scientists can actually make a living. In that context I gave an example of Germany, which with its three tier educational system tries to ensure that the future college entrant can focus on academics while others not eared towards that can focus on vocational and skills training. You can either give up on your tomato citizenry or at least prepare them for some sort of workplace competence.

                        The semi tomatoes (those without learning disabilities but without access to a proper educational environment) have the right to be given a chance, while the full tomatoes (those with actual learning disabilities) need society's help anyway.

                        The more folks you allow to get into the bottom bucket, the more you spend out later on welfare.
                        "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

                        Comment


                        • Before we get to see the new Senate in action, we'll see some groundwork being laid in the lame duck Congress. Things to keep an eye on:

                          The Keystone pipeline: The House passed authorization to proceed for the 9th time. Outgoing Senate leader Reid has scheduled it for a vote, probably to help Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., chairwoman of the Senate Energy Committee in her upcoming runoff for her seat in Louisiana. It may get the 60 votes needed to pass, but Obama may veto it.

                          Immigration: The GOP is dead set against Obama using executive powers to deal with immigration problems embodied in the immigration bill bottled up in Congress. Preliminary plans revealed by the White House are to issue work permits for some 3 million offspring of illegal immigrants (or something like that) and to postpone deportation proceedings on another 1 million. Despite teh GOP wish to pass an omnibus spending bill, indications are that the GOP will use stop-gap budget measures to force Obama to pull back from issuing the executive orders on immigration. There's a remote possibility of a fiscal crisis if both sides stick to their guns.

                          NSA Authority: A bill to more tightly control NSA's latitude for eavesdropping is favored by many dems, while the other side believes the NSA shouldn't be overly hampered particularly now that we are operating against ISIL.

                          Appointments: Reid wants to wrap up a number of languishing ambassadorial and judicial nominations while the dems are still in the majority. It only takes a simple majority to confirm nominations. No surprises here. To keep the spotlight on current nominees, Obama's nomination of Loretta Lynch to replace outgoing AG Eric Holder, may be delayed to the next Congress.
                          To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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                          • Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
                            Okay. So does anyone have an opinion on what's going to happen on the political front starting with the new Congress in Jan. Already, Obama has said he will explore compromises with the GOP leadership, but not violate his principles, whatever that means. The GOP leadership is up for exploring for compromises. What does that mean for immigration reform, Obamacare, etc?
                            Yep, it was just happy talk. I expect the fun to start as soon as Obama issues his executive order on immigration. The Republican Party will go ape shit in public as well as behind closed doors among themselves. This is going to be some real true life political theater playing out right in front of us with a fair amount caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

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                            • so obama's issued the executive order now, which is probably deeper in breadth but shallower in depth than most people would have thought going in.

                              most likely there's going to be a lot of noise but not much 'bang' from the republican side, as it's pretty clear they cannot agree among themselves what their own immigration policy should be. and this hurts their own political manuevering.

                              The GOP's political strategy against Obama keeps leading to policies conservatives hate - Vox
                              There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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