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The Golden Flush Award /Click Image for Past Winners
Usually this is an after thought…” Oh, wow, year’s over, let’s get a person of the year”… And then once we elect one, we go… “holy crap… we totally forgot so and so….”
So to try to stir up some old simmering coals of memory, both mine and others, and perhaps even to (heaven forbid) get some debate going in the blog sphere, I thought I’d make an initial run on Thanksgiving Week, and then add people into the nominating category as others mention various ones I should kick myself for forgetting.
It will also force me to review the year which is something I rarely do… because face it, as a human being, I am slave of the moment…. If I did this last year, come December 14th the entire world would have been turned upside down and all the old priorities of 2012, would in one day become trivial….
And so starting early gives me the chance to make the argument for each of those I decide to enroll with your kind recommendations included….
Julius Cephus: Particularly this one man organized and stopped an end run around the Port of Wilmington. The Kinder Morgan deal did not go through, and the Wilmington Port is bustling like never before… Kinder Morgan was to strip the union of power, and drop the rates of pay, further dampening the economy of Wilmington proper. It was also the first defeat of a Lavine-Markell development project, .. Fisker and Bloom had gone forward without a hitch. Julius and other’s push back resulted in a General Assembly motion that stated they, not the governor, had final approval. It was the first time we were exposed to the current Governor’s manipulations. They were to play a significant part across this year’s tapestry.
Steve Newton: A blogger who has written infrequently, but effectively. His piece on SB 51 is what alerted us to the end run being performed by Dave Sokola on lowering the current standards being used for educating teachers. It is brilliant. It took an evening of reading the legislation line by line and cross referencing it with Steve’s analysis, to understand the huge negative impact this bill would cause. By the time this was done, the Bill had already passed the Senate unanimously without comment, and with an friendly amendment added that was voted upon without even being read. Some public outcry was mustered within the House, both in committee and on the floor, but under the Governor’s direction, the Speaker of the House, pushed the bill to the floor before significant outcry could be mustered. Only 4 House members were not on record for it’s passing. Our educational schools now have to water down their teaching standards to meet the new law. Steve also has brought the Highmark story to Delaware. His research in the increase of medical costs in Western PA as a result of knocking out competition by unfair practices, leads one with a cold chill of what to expect in Delaware’s future. We are already there. As an insurer, Highmark is only paying medical claims in its own affiliated clinics. As the new Blue Cross/Blue Shield owner, that is a huge percentage of Delaware’s residents. None can go to any other hospital. He has properly fingered Karen Weldham Stuart for not catching this prior to implementation. Without Steve, this would have passed unnoticed. The News Journal still has not once mentioned the takeover of Delaware’s health field under one owner.
Ernest Lopez. If Kennedy were still writing Profiles of Courage, he should include this man. Ernest Lopez is a conservative, and voted with Libertarian values to pass the gun legislation recommended by Markell and Biden. Reflecting the views of his district, instead of taking the threatening message sent to him down from the NRA, he voted for his district. A very vocal minority, who is always vocal, and always in the minority, swore they would unseat him. He disregarded their idle threat, and voted both his and his constituents conscious. A major billboard was put up to call him out. His vote caused the passage of us now requiring background checks at public gun sales. Now a certifiably insane person cannot slap cash and get a gun. It is a no-brainer, and Ernie was the only Republican with brain enough to even know what a no-brainer is….
Cathy Cloutier: her vote allowed gays to marry. Again, she is a Republican who said enough is enough… Tired of voting against her conscious just so Sussex County would not flip over to the Democrats, she finally did not toe the line and voted along the lines of her own constituents, all overwhelmingly in favor of gay marriage. In doing so, she went against the entire grain of her party, who firmly feel that gays are second class citizens, even though most Republicans in office are closeted gays.
Bethany Hall Long: on the same vote, made a viable personal decision, and also voted for the legalization of gay marriage. Unlike Cathy’s vote, this was accomplished at great personal sacrifice, for all of those in her personal life, were solidly against this policy from taking effect. In voting for what was morally right, she had to contend against those whose influence she could not escape. She went with the correct vote, over the easy one. As a result, Gay marriage is now legal in Delaware.
Paul Baumbach: gave great ammunition against the fight for SB51, and later against HB 165. Both bills which will damage Delaware’s education for years to come. He was one of the four who put up a fight on the House floor. Paul also arranged for the meetings in Newark to discuss the new Power plant that figured in this past week’s election.
John Kowalko: also was against SB51, HB 165, as well, being against the power plant. In fact, John was the first person to sound the alarm over how big the power plant would be. Without his big voice, it may have slid through unnoticed. The power plant has defined northern Delaware politics since September.
Kim Williams; responsible for HB 40 which investigates Charter School’s meddling into our educational systems. She was as an acting state representative, allegedly refused entrance into a committee hearing on education, for fear she might say something damaging to the bill being rushed through…. She brought to the public’s knowledge, that the Charter School bill was drafted illegally without public input, and the charter group constructing it, was also under FOIA, to which the private group denied. The Attorney General backed up her assertion, that the bill was formulated illegally but their decision was moot, because the bill was passed both houses anyways. Kim Williams also in the HB 40 task force, led the group to realize that charter schools unlike public schools, do indeed filter those entering charters to weed out those who might lower their test scores….
Mark Murphy, Rodel, Sweeney, Hefferman, and the Fake Educational Reform Establishment: I almost purposefully did not post this. Although the first person’s name is usually followed by explicatives whenever mentioned, it is unlike Voldermort’s, still getting mentioned. Mark Murphy was not put in his position based on his ability. He was placed there for his loyalty to the cause of corporatizing public education. Markell pulls the strings, Murphy figures how to get it done… It is hard to make a puppet the most influential person of the year… So I was going to skip him… But at the last minute, remembered that every time he or anyone of these make an op-ed, it resonates as gigantic news. The entire community rises up to counteract each op-ed, usually with the word “lies” thrown liberally about…. So, they do exert an influence. I looped all of them together, as the group of liars in a Greek play, who stand on the stair steps and taunt the protagonists. Well,… they are part of the play…….
Dan Short: Sometimes villains get noticed too. Primarily a single issue candidate, who personally supports the NRA, he actively campaigned and organized to create enough backlash so Markell’s gun laws could not get enough votes… Without him, there is a possibility that all four of Markell’s gun control pieces of legislation would have passed both houses of Delaware’s legislature. Dan Short should be given the credit for stopping them.
John Sigler: Single handedly by his very brief tenure as the re-elected head of the Republican Party, he pointed out through his pigeon shooting, just how inept the Republican Party was at everything else. With his leaving, all fissures cracking the Republican bedrock, were impossible to ignore. Blogs split. The IPOD’s split. Former candidates of the same party just months earlier, now not talking to each other. The Delaware Republican Party is dead; no it is past dead. More dead than a pigeon shot inside a box by John Sigler, former head of the Delaware Republican Party.
Nancy Willing: Her blog, the Delaware Way, is the go-to site for local information. Whether about Dover, about New Castle County, about any of New Castle County’s associations, Nancy combs all sources and puts them down in aggregate form. Heavily involved in the Power Plant controversy, The Delaware City Rail Yard controversy, Barley Mill controversy, the Woodlawan controversy, the Kinder Morgan controversy, the Charter School Controversy, the Common Core Controversy, Nancy has who is saying “what”, and links to “why”. One can expend less energy by using her blog to follow all the stuff the News Journal neglects, in a few quick empty steps.
Amy Roe: a head of the Sierra Club, who emerged from nowhere to lead the fight against the power plant, and give quite a run against the establishment candidate. Becoming the face the anti- power movement could coalase behind, she gave the anti power plant movement both dignity and grace. Coming up short only 115 votes, she has awakened Newark now politically as never before… The power plant if it goes forward, now has a strong group of Newarkeans against it. Hopefully they will be monitoring it regularly and helping authorities keep in in compliance with all local law.
Tom Gorden; although much quieter than his first term in office, Tom Gorden is rapidly rolling back the privileges the previous Clark administration handed over to our state’s top developers. The Barley Mill plaza which had a green light, is now parked at a red. In a big sea change, though handled quietly, community groups are now no longer persona non grata in county government. It is no longer accepted as a matter of course that the Woodlawn Trust will be gobbled up by developers. If enough fight can be mustered, it can be stopped. Furthermore, with Tom there is closer coordination with the City of Wilmington, than we have experienced anytime in our lifetimes. In the county, local policing has been stepped up, particularly in neighborhoods prone to crime…
Dennis Williams: Came in with grand expectations, which looked deliverable for a while. The tide is turning and his relevance on this list, is because every day, the headline reality in Wilmington’s streets, brings his electioneering boasts back to haunt him, like a sizzling hot branding iron. Time, Dennis, to say “Damn the torpedoes… Their punk asses are going in jail no matter which blowhard on City Council spouts off,before mine gets tossed in jail for impersonating a mayor..”
Alan Levin: Jack Markell’s second in command, he was instrumental in defending Markell’s position on Kinder Morgan and the port, as well as the new power plant for the data center. He also had a hand in keeping Dole in Delaware, and worked to slip the power plant past a slew of unsuspecting Newark City officials.
Jack Markell: had his hand in everything. He was behind Kinder Morgan’s takeover. He was behind SB 51 and HB 165. He was behind the illegal charter group, requiring HB 40. He also was the driving force for the four rational steps to gun legislation, 2 of which were passed. He was also the driving force behind the passage of gay marriage, signing the bill in the chambers just moments after its passage. He also supported the transgender bill in its travels through the labyrinth of Legislative Hall. He as behind keeping Dole in Delaware. He was behind changing an icon in Millsboro away from pickles, over to poultry. He pushed the bill to curtail Flowers. Despite your opinion over whether these were good or bad, they still showed a ubiquitous and wide reach across the state of Delaware. Seems like nothing got done that didn’t have his fingerprints all over it.
John Young: As head of Christina board, John Young led the board in standing up to Mark Murphy and Jack Markell, by refusing the RTTT funds slated for his district. Although some hired fools, (Jea Street) tried to paint Young into a corner, it served the opposite purpose and gave Young a platform. For the fist time, Common Core was getting publicly bashed. For the first time, many were finding that aligning themselves blindly to this sham of improving standards, was probably going to hurt them politically in the next couple of years. It was the fist salvo back, so the damage estimates were not high, but it did open eyes of many who had been on the sidelines of all educational issues, making them also become vocal in fighting Common Core. His blog Transparent Christina has channelled a lot of detailed information into the Delaware market, and had made Common Core an apprehension, instead of the savior it was supposed to be….
Kilroy: Kilroy has always been haranguing over education. In fact he was doing such a good job I left that issue alone for years, because other issues for me, like the economy and elimination of guns from the hands of the mentally ill, were more important. But as the issue has shifted back into the limelight, Kilroy’s hard hitting is making its mark… Kilroy is blunt, and right now, that is the language that needs to happen. Blunt descriptions of what takes place in the stratosphere of he academic field…. Kilroy often breaks stories before the News Journal, especially ones embarrassing to the Murphy/Markell cartel of education. If you have read Kilroy over the past couple of years, you would already know that Common Core is not the panacea we have been promised. It is a power grab for taxpayer dollars, financed by Wall Street itself…. If you think otherwise, you haven’t been reading a balanced reading list….
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That is what I have so far. In retrospect I am surprised that education has played so much, as even I have only come to that topic lately… But if one looks over the News Journal op eds, education really did dominate the discussion in the 2nd smallest state this year….
I may have forgotten some big ones. To reiterate, that is why I am posting this early, to catch those big mistakes as they get brought to my attention….
Common Core took quite a few arrows into the heart with the release of New York’s Test Scores. One of the huge questions being asked, is how did the Commissioner John King, know what the drop would be before the tests were given?
We are learning; new reports popping up every hour on how those scores were derived. To understand the process, you must first be familiar with how regular grading scores are determined. Most teachers when they score their tests assume that if a student can show that they understand 65% of the material, they can pass the class. It is reality based. Here is the material, you know this much, you shall pass because it is above the 65% threshold. If you have a good class, you can pass all of them.
I hope you are sitting down. The Pearson tests were taken, then graded. After that was done, they were then scored. They were not scored on whether a person got the answer right or wrong. They were scored on where the benchmarks should be. A benchmark is that spot where a score of 1 then becomes a 2, or a score of 2 becomes a 3 and so on.
This is the story of how those bench marks were determined. Close coordination was done with the College Board SAT’s. The tests were going to determine which students were… or were not, college and career ready.
So how was the level where one is college-ready determined?. It was decided to be at that level where there was a 75% chance that a student would receive a B- or above in ELA, and writing, and a 65% chance that he would receive a C+ in math, in his first college course in those two subjects… Got that? “That” is college ready.
Once that arbitrary level is set, and it is arbitrary. Is a B- the same at Harvard as it would be in Michigan State? is a B- the same if given by Professor X or Professor Y? Anyone who has ever picked their college classes over the alleged difficulties of certain college professors, certainly knows that this method is very suspect. But regardless of whether it makes sense, once the threshold is set, one can compare the SAT scores of those students and come up with a correlation. The correlation between these grades and those SAT scores that would determine if one was college ready, happened at the score of 1550.
Now that you know how this score was determined, you can forever dismiss its validity. That is not being snippy. That is a real assessment of the credibility these scores now have.
From the score of 1550, the next step was to determine how that works downward to the test scores of 8th graders who still have 3 years before they take the SAT. The Breakdown of that score was 560 Reading, 530 Writing, and 540 Math.
To those teachers gathered for the opportunity to cut the scores, the Pearson executives showed them all the data, then told them where the bookmark should be for a 3. From there the groups determined where to draw the lines for a 1,2,3 and a 4. Then they went and did the 7th grade, then the 6th. Each grade was determined by the previous one, all of which went back to comparing the 8th Grade to the SAT to be taken 3 years into the future.
They returned to the 8th grade, and re-walked through that process then, that was the cut turned into the commissioner. Because he had given them the rubric or guidelines upon which to make their judgment, he already knew ahead of time how the results would turn out. Does that make sense?
Here is an first person account of what went on inside those cutting rooms… and here is a humorous account with diagrams, which help a lot in understanding the twists and turns taken to determine this result.
Your test question now. Did you add the three individual scores I posted up above? Had you done so, you would have noticed that they came up to 1630 instead of 1550. It is 1630, significantly higher than the 2011 College Board’s index associated with a B- in college.
From this assessment, comes the criteria that permanently classify a student, that fire a teacher, that close down a school, that wreak havoc in a district. An assessment that has no basis in reality…
What does have a basis in reality?
Decades of research have shown that the SAT test can be an accurate indicator of IQ. Which is why, test prep classes rarely move the needle on the actual scores themselves.
They created this report to justify their methodology.
If you connect the dots and read all of these links you will see that these scores were supposed to be low for a reason, a reason of politics, They had the data and knew that the results would be scored low, that was their plan.
As they even state here, education did not fall apart; the students are not dumber; the teachers are not derelict; the schools are not failing. They were just graded on a different curve, that’s all.
It was all done politically to show that large numbers of students did not meet the arbitrarily decided new standard of being college and career ready…
Yes, in even those in Third Grade.,
If two volcanos go as did Krakatoa at both ends of the San Andreas fault close to the same time, could it be enough for the Big One?
Kilroy thinks so and I am inclined to agree. Call it a sixth sense. I’ll be looking forward to seeing if this mystical sense of certainty is indeed as real as old philosophers have impuned, or if it alas is just a figment of my imagination, which my rational side has insisted all along…
🙂
But one can’t be a seer without making a prediction…
Courtesy of Climate Code Red
If you kinda thought the weather was wild this year, you were right. The most ice lost is taking place right while you read this. A large chunk was broken up by a freak storm. Another similar on is on its way. The question that no one knows the answer to, is… will this affect the circulation pattern.
We all know in our lives that as human beings we can put up with aggravation rather well, unless we are Type A. Whether it is aggravation from our boss, from our spouse, from our in-laws, from our choir director, from that guy selling papers on the corner,… we put up with it, accepting it as the normal course of business. Except once or twice in our lives, we just snap. And the consequences of that, momentary snap, cause big changes… maybe in our employment, maybe in our marriage, maybe in our in-law’s will, maybe from the choir director’s husband, maybe from the police…. things change for us in a big way…..
That is how we have to see this. From a mud core taken from an ancient lake, Lough Monreach, in Ireland in 2009 it was discovered that in a matter of one month 12,900 years ago, we went from normal seasonal temperatures to an ice age. The cause came from a switch in ocean currents. As cold fresh water entered the ocean, warm water stopped flowing north. That Ice Age lasted 1300 years before the thaw returned. It flipped in one month…. 30 days more or less.
So is that happening?
The science is too big. We don’t know. It will be like on the Day after Tomorrow where we first find out from buoys scattered across the Atlantic. It cannot be predicted.
What can be foretold is that the earth has never had this much stress before during civilized mans span on earth. Do you know when you snap, or does it take you off guard as well?
That is where we are…
Of course nothing could come about it… Just like when your boss insults you in front of all your staff, your office competitor’s staff, and ridicules you like you have never been before… You just take it…
The boss tells your competitor… “I knew he was a wus… I wasn’t worried one bit… you have nothing to worry about him…”
Republicans will say in Tampa:… “I knew it was a scam…. I wasn’t worried one bit… we have nothing to worry about burning carbon fuels and putting carbon dioxide into the air.”
News Flash: The earth is not a wus……..
2012, day 230, 2.87743 million square kilometers
2011, day 253, 2.90474 million square kilometers (previous record low)
A small note on Louisa County Twitter…
That costs money.
Here’s a list of the approved inspectors.
What does a homeowner do who is behind on his mortgage and has this happen to him? Can he get an inspector when he has no money? Should he even get an inspector since someone else will probably be taking over the property if money doesn’t start flowing in soon?
Yesterday Fairfax County sent four of their best inspectors to Louisa County, to inspect homes to determine whether they are safe or not. They returned home yesterday evening. Should Louisa County pay for that, or should Fairfax donate them free of charge?
In the wake of the 5.9 magnitude earthquake, Louisa County Parks and Recreation will be opening its child care program tomorrow morning for children K-6th grade.. The cost is $15 for first child, $10 for second child, $5 for the third child from the same family per day. Thirty dollars a day (plus a bag lunch) for 9 days…. What does a family do that does not have $360 dollars laying around?
Eric Cantor wants to hold up any relief funding to this area, until something else can be cut from the budget to pay for them.
I have a better idea. John Carney, from Delaware needs to introduce legislation that states that once the assessment is clear as to how much we need to spend for disaster relief, the top one percent’s taxes go up to cover the amount….
Put Cantor in the position where he has to vote against immediate help flowing into his district in order to stand on principals no one cares about anyway…….
You all felt it on the East Coast, shaking windows and hanging lights; moving top floors a few inches in each direction….
The USGS provides some rather interesting data. Originally listed as being <.1 kilometer, that correlates to 316.8 ft. The data has sensed been revised to stand at this writing, at 6 km, or 3 miles and 1281.6 yds,,, Only once before did this area experience a quake.
A quick satellite look at the epicenter shows an area crisscrossed with drilling roads and well sites.
What is at stake is the natural gas buried under the Marcellus Shale. This shale is impermeable and trapped the methane gas decomposing underneath. Most old wells went down to the shale level and stopped. Since 2009, new technology uses wastewater and high pressure to fracture that shale layer. Once fractured, the gas can escape upwards…..
Now, imagine filling up an old bathtub with sand… then going to sleep on it…. It would be quite comfortable… Now suppose your significant other brings in a garden hose, turns it on and leaves it. At first the water goes into the sand. Eventually the water gets too much, that the sand/water mix can no longer hold up your weight, and you go splat, to the bottom of the tub.
That is what happens to whole layers of rock when this process is applied. All the layers of rock on top, suddenly drop several feet. Whoomp…
This whoomp covered the whole east coast….
Two years ago, a team fracking (fracturing the shale layer) in central WV, caused a tremor felt outside of Pittsburgh, PA… In the past year, West Virginia, a state that has never had seismic activity, is suddenly being shaken with 2.2 to 3.4 tremors…
This video gives you some insight into the problems that come with fracking. And this industry video shows the protections that are in place when frakking is involved. Take note of how the drill sites are set up.
Officials in WV, usually company operators themselves have dismissed any connection between the new technology being developed across their state, and all the new earthquakes that have come out of nowhere during the same time.
The same occurrence took place in Arkansas. Fracking and novel earthquakes. And not just on this continent, but a 3 mile deep well drilled near Basil, Switzerland caused a 3.4 earthquake in that geologically tame region, so the well was shut down. (Unlike WV, neither Switzerland or Arkansas receive 75% of their income from energy) Out of Memphis, Steve Horton, an earthquake specialist at the University of Memphis and hydrologic technician with the U.S. Geological Survey notes: “Ninety percent of these earthquakes that have happened since 2009 have been within 6 kilometers of these salt water disposal wells,”
Likewise, ever since the West Virginia Oil and Gas Commission forced the disposal companies to cut back on their injection rate and pressure, the professor said, the earthquakes there seem to have dissipated. (Recently WV put emergency rules in place that require operators to file water management plans when using saltwater for fracking. The emergency rules require operators to file water management plans when using more than 210,000 gallons, citing the source and anticipated volume of withdrawals, as well as measures to protect aquatic life. The companies also must list their “anticipated additives” and say how they plan to dispose of wastewater.
Arkansas went one step further. They place a moratorium on fracking to see if there was a correlation between the two. The data was implicating, but not totally conclusive. In ten days preceeding the moratorium, Arkansas experienced 100 quakes with it’s largest quake in 35 years at 4.7. In the following six months, 60 quakes occurred and only one was over a 3. Most were between 1.2 and 2.8. After shocks.
Just two Virginia counties away, permits to frack have already been sought in Rockingham County by a Carrizo Marcellus, LLC, a Texas company.
And as any driller in Central Virginia knows, there is a wide belt of phyllite bedrock that extends across central Virginia through eastern Albemarle and western Louisa counties. This is a very soft rock that does not have the ability to hold open fractures under the confining pressures that exist beneath the surface. As a result, groundwater is scarce, and successful wells are difficult to construct.
Compare this map with this satellite photo and see how the area of phyllite bedrock matches the area that is too poor a quality to farm and remains forested for that reason….
Courtesy of caggiotech.com
Below is a Google Map shot where the green arrow pinpoints the coordinates of the August 23rd epicenter, 5 miles south of Mineral, VA.
Next is a shot of the homestead on whose property the quake was centered (remember originally it was only 300 feet below the surface.)
Seeing some interesting uncharacteristic activity, here is the closeup of that picture above. Use the zoom function or your own computer to let you zoom in closer.
These structures are different from any other buildings in the area. There also are a lot of heavy equipment on the property.
And notice the surrounding soil is a different color.
Looking northeast of the green arrow on the top of the three images, one sees, across the expanse of forest, what looks like a new road, bright white the ends in a circle.
On that circle are several pieces of equipment. Remember the video that depicts the white covering of a well site, as well as berm appearing on the north side? It looks eerily similar.
At the end of the circle, one can see tracks continuing over the area, quite possibly to wildcat drill sites. And what is peculiar, is that the road shows up brilliantly on the satellite, but on the map version of Google Maps, it does not… (Maps are updated faster than the satellite photos.) Whereas the driveway into the previous owners property is mapped out,this one is not.
It’s all rather interesting, and needs further proof. To arrive whether it is definitely a possibility of having a man-made quake scare the crap out of the entire east coast, but as they say in a courtroom, there is the preponderance of evidence that it is so…..
Review:
Quakes happened across the world in stable areas far from faults, once fracking is done.
As soon as fracking is done with less pressure, or discontinued, the quakes stop. Despite the practice occurring in several different geographical and geological areas.
Satellite photos show drilling activity near the epicenter of the August 23rd quake.
Surprisingly, no permit was filed with the Department of Virgina Mining Bureau, or Louisa County for this activity.
Every driller knows that Louisa County, is permeated with a very soft shale that shatters extremely easily.
And unbeknown to most of you, another quake occurred almost simultaneously, in southern Colorado near the New Mexican Border, at very similar latitude in an area also crisscrossed by mining roads and drilling activity…. A 5.8 at 1:46 EDT… Ours was a 5.8 at 1:51….
kavips 
