Late Night Geek Report:

It is clearer now that the biggest benefactors for the NSA spying were commercial enterprises. The Obama administration went along with the Bush plan and accelerated it, primarily to give American companies a heads up, and keep jobs here.  It worked too.

One can’t argue with success. But one can find how American businesses were co-opted to assist the NSA.  From the Guardian, the following, allegedly from Snowden himself.

• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;

• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;

• The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;

• Microsoft also worked with the FBI’s Data Intercept Unit to “understand” potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;

• In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;

• Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a “team sport”.

it is revealing that the beneficiaries of the Patriot Act and probably one of the reasons it has been intact long after terrorism faded offshore, are the exact same who are suing each other left and right, using the anti-piracy laws as their barrage.  It appears that laws are not for people anymore; they are for corporations.  It is corporations who want the US to fund listening posts for every American word and sentence.

The only way to fix that, is to divide the corporations Teddy-Roosevelt-style, thereby giving We, the People a little more clout.  …

Why HB 165 Is The Exact Same As Welfare

A comment over at Kilroy’s describes HB 165 the best. It is putting schools who can’t compete in the real world, on welfare. No if’s, and’s, or but;s. HB 165 could be characterized as WALL STREET’S WELFARE ACT FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS…

All those arguments certain republican right wingers have been making about blacks on welfare? Well, .. how does the Charter School movement stand up under that same scrutiny, under the same accusations?

So borrowed straight from the Republican platform…

Welfare steals away responsibility from religious beneficiaries and charities….

I think this headline says it all: Massive Catholic School Closings Across America. Is Catholicism In Decline? With Charter Schools receiving government funding now stealing students away from Catholic Schools, Catholic schools have been forced to undergo mass closings across the country.

Move Welfare participants off Welfare Roles.

This is exactly opposite of what HB 165 does. Instead, it adds charters ONTO the public dole. It give welfare payments TO private owners (freeloaders) who do nothing but watch tv, imbibe alcoholic beverages, and fornicate with members of both sexes.. These private owners could certainly fund Charters using the business model. They could easily get a loan, and since Charters are so profitable, banks would certainly be happy to line up and lend it. But no. They want your free money. The money you worked hard for; they think belongs to them… They even have Wall Street lobbyists who will say so.

Welfare: its giving money for nothing.

Public schools outperform Charter Schools in testing when all other factors are equal. It makes sense. Vanessa Williams would play tennis better than a fifth grader starting for the first time. What HB 165 does is take money away from Venessa Williams, give it to that fifth grader’s mother, then call for a rematch. That outcome is the same, just that the fifth grader’s mommy can now shop at Talbots.

HB 165 takes tax money from the working man to support the non working one.

Do you work hard? Do you pay property taxes? HB 165 is making your taxes rise to provide this welfare payment to Wall Street. Here is how it works. Wall Street invests in a Charter School Corporation You always have paid taxes into public schools to support everyone’s child. When those children switch to charter schools, your tax dollars instead follow them. Wall Street who owns the charters, then gobbles up the money. Is that fair? They do nothing? And take your money? So do you want your tax dollars going to Wall Street? Or prefer them to stay close by within your own community? At least in your local community, you know it is going to “local” jobs. Where Wall Street puts your tax money, who knows? Furthermore, do you want your property asset values to keep soaring? Or fall because your school’s are becoming slums because of all the Charter Schools coming into your neighborhood? The outcome of this future scenario all hinges on whether HB 165 can get passed with the help of the Wall Street lobbyists in our legislative hall on Wed.

It never solves the problem. People living on welfare never get back to the working force, not the formal working force.

Welfare for Charter Schools creates a problem that is not there. Chicago went charters 10 years ago and now is closing lots of schools. Philly went Charters 10 years ago and now is closing schools. When a Charter comes in, it can’t compete with a public school. It takes a lot to run a school well, and Charter schools don’t have the economies of scale to match the ability of public schools and so their test scores are lower. But as they suck up more and more students, the public schools also have NO money to keep up their test scores. Things break, don’t get fixed. Teachers die, don’t get replaced. Principals leave, and no one takes over. Public school’s scores drop also… In a landmark Philly study comparing 2004 and 2011, the total number of students meeting competency at graduation, decreased BY ALMOST HALF!. Yes, by almost half. Half the number of graduates in 2011 in both charter and public schools, could pass the tests that just public schools passed in 2004. Because of letting Charters into Philadelphia, half the number of students are as competent as would have occurred if Charters were never allowed to come in. All students are suffering, and there is now no hope. Students in Charters, bad as they are, certainly don’t want to go back into the public schools system and be bussed across the inner city. We’ve created a Welfare State, where we are subsidizing Charters and will always be subsidizing charters.. That will happen here in Wilmington, if the Wall Street Lobbyists, who were there in force last Wednesday, get HB 165 out of the Senate over the Senator’s objections themselves!

Sets a threshold for the cost of labor.

If a person gets $100 dollars a day for doing nothing, then the most menial jobs must start over $100 a day, otherwise why would one work at them? Paying your property tax money to Charter Schools does the same thing. All one has to do is open a Charter School to get free money. A contract gets signed for 5 years, or renewed for 10 years. Once signed, the owner doesn’t have to teach one darned thing. He has 5 years until the contract ends, free money coming in. HB 165 allows free money to flow into the Charter School movement. The Charter School investment scheme was originally based on competition. They sought students who brought money with them. That was how Pencader was pitched and founded; as a better opportunity than what was in Glasgow or Christiana High. Now, since that money is not flowing fast enough for investors (believe it or not, it is Wall Street (i was skeptical at first too)), they have pushed HB 165 thru Jack Markell (Wall Street Support for 2016)and the DOE to give them a direct conduit towards funding… So now, even if those kids say “eww” and don’t come, your state tax dollars will keep making the payments that keep those investment opportunities a good risk. If the exact same scheme were applied to blacks in Southbridge, East Side, Hilltop, or West Side, we’d be calling for Welfare Reform right now. Since Charter Schools can’t fail because of state welfare payments, they will always get students by a) being less disciplined, b) by not enforcing quality standards, or c) allowing pot in classrooms with teachers joining in. Public schools will be forced to follow suit and also lower their standards to keep the money behind those types of students from switching. Delaware suburbs will become the inner city Philadelphia of education.

People in real need get help from their community. If they’re good people and show good will and try to get over their problems, they get help. If they abuse the generosity of others, they don’t get any more help. With the government running the system, it’s the opposite situation.

That is the distinction. Charter Schools were and (according to some “old” people) still are the market place solution to solving public schools. However that statement is not thought out well enough in advance. Consider this. When you have two grocery stores competing across the street, both are always busy and the price wars to get your interest, benefit you greatly. But after 5 or 6 more grocery chains move into the shopping center, all are barely staying financially afloat, and all must squeeze every penny off every product they can. All the prices are high. So what HB 165 is doing is giving money to those 4 or 5 newcomers who all came in late.. So instead of direct competition keeping things in check, where those 4 or 5 would normally fail and we’d be back to two large ones performing happily, we subsidize poor performance. Everyone loses. HB 165 will provide public money to charters, those education facilities that are doing poorly. With the government intervening in supporting the those that don’t work, it is destroying the system of what does, and up to now, has always worked.

When you’re really in need, you don’t get help. The one who never worked is in extreme social distress and it’s supported immediately. If you’ve been working all your life and all of a sudden get laid off, they’ll wait until you loose everything to give you help

This concept is valid with education. HB 165 will only give support to Charter Schools. It bleeds money away from existing Public Schools. In the supermarket analogy above, I showed how the bleeding of customers away from the two good viable stores is kept up longer than the competitive marketplace would allow by the continuous feeding of free money to its competitors, the newest entries. With the welfare payments subsidizing poor private charter performance, just as would the two large stores get forced out of business, so will the public school system en masse. I present to you today’s evidence of the school districts of Cleveland, Philadelphia, DC, and Chicago. In this case HB 165 is a direct subsidy to poor performance. It’s like giving free money to drug dealers. “Hey dudes! Got something in my wallet here for you!” Where is such help for public schools, who right now, with this additional state funding could really make a difference? It is getting sliced out of each subsequent state budget. State support for those who just need a little to stay on their feet, is being withheld so that those who “Play The Game” can get free money for doing nothing.. The signal sent is this: “if you do absolutely nothing, I’ll give you free money”. Seriously, what kind of an investor can pass up a deal like that?

The welfare system is ran by a huge team of bureaucrats and they have no incentive to take care of your money. In fact it’s the exact opposite. The more money they spend, the better they look in the results.

So it is with Charter Schools. The bureaucrats in this case are Wall Street. The last free source of money on earth is in American Education. There is no other unclaimed resource to be mined. Public education spends vast amounts of money, . Most of our property taxes go to education costs we impose upon ourselves by levies, not to local government. Historically all that money was in public hands. Now, it is being privatized. Just like lumber in national forests were once deemed a public future asset, they are now logged and sold for free. Just like water under the ground was once considered a public asset, it is now pumped and sold by the investor who pumped it. Just like a mountain was once a public asset, it gets stripped, pushed into the creek, and washed to the sea, while its assets get sold by a private concern with no benefit to the real stockholders, we the public. So it is with education. Except the resource this time is all that tax money from every piece of property in the great nation of the United States of America. Wall Street wants to mine, log, and profit off all those tax dollars you (our your bank escrows) mail in every year… They want it bad because like trees, coal, gold, rare earths, the product is free. And it is in demand. Anytime you have a high demand for something that is free to you, there is a very high rate of return…

Which is why, last Wednesday, I have on good authority to know, Wall Street brought in the best, the richest, the trickiest lobbyists they could muster, just to make sure HB 165 slid through Delaware’s House of Delegates with enough votes. Look this is not a nasty finger pointing session; just a statement of fact. I would have done exactly the very same thing if I were in their shoes. And if you were worth trillions, I’m sure you’d want to do the same.. We’re all human after all. We all employ whatever resources we can, to get whatever it is that we want. Sure, we might get criticized for it, but in the end we are comfortable with that; for we got what we wanted; we can shrug off that criticism. I just wanted you to know why there is a reason, a very good reason, that is bill which goes against public opinion, which goes against every voter’s gut instinct, which goes against what is best for every child’s education, is currently sailing through the General Assembly barely being debated… (Emergency lunch break is being called right now. Recess for lunch immediately. I said be quiet. We’re on lunch now)….

So when you wake up one day, and that hill you loved seeing is clear-cut, devoid of trees, that mountain you played on as a child, is gone, that river you used to swim in, is now a dry bed, you will know it came down to one day, one vote, when you were too tired to pick up the phone and call your Senator, or you had no idea because no one said anything because your newspaper kept you in the dark, or you resigned yourself to the fact that it would happen anyway so what’s the use, you will know it was because of whatever reason to strike your fancy, you failed at that one moment to make your voice heard. Maybe you would not have made a difference… But then again, maybe you would wind up being the deciding factor? That finally, opens everyone’s eyes to what is really happening..

Me? I do this solely because I have to look into the eyes of school children when I come home every single damn working day. If the enemy outspends us, it outspends us. If they blackmail legislators, they blackmail legislators. If big money wins, big money wins. If we lose, we lose… but I don’t have the luxury of being happy that my children will be fine with the outcome… anymore than those trees thought they’d be fine, anymore than that mountain thought it’d be fine, or that riverbed presumed all would be fine…

Sometimes one has to do all one can. Even if it is just a phone call saying… “You know Senator? This is way too fast. There is a lot of facts against this bill out there that make a lot of us real suspicious and squeamy about it. We don’t have to rush it this year, possibly losing your seat next election over something turning out really bad that was rashly done. Take it up next January, that’s only six months, and give all a everyone a chance to look at the ramifications. After all, what’s a six month wait for something that could turn Delaware’s into those of Phllly or Chicago, huh? Then, with good judgment, after everyone has seen all the pieces, then you can vote on it.”

“We all have parts to play; we choose upon which sides to play them.”

There Must Be 50 Ways To Taze A Lover

Jeff Christopher followers stage a show of force to give Sussex County an idea what will happen once a sheriff gets full power to make arrests base on his arbitrary judgment.

All three of his followers think this is what America needs more of.

NRA’s Death Rattle

Just before someone expires there is a stir, a gasp, a movement, and for one second it looks like all is well, they are coming back to life, and then the eyes just stop. The spirit has moved on.

Anyone attending the Civic League for New Castle County Debate on Gun Control, as well as the General Assembly hearings in Dover this and last week, got a visual of that same scenario …

The meeting took place Tuesday, March 19, at the County building just off the road to the landfill…

The meeting room was packed with Andy Griffiths, Barney Fifes, and Aunt Bee’s numbering close to 170. No Opeys. One person represented Sussex County. One person represented Kent, and the preponderance represented New Castle County.

It had the feel of a coming out party. The participants were giddy to see so many others there just like them. Each felt the entire universe’s lifeforce passed through them and them alone, and none had qualms shouting down speakers who just were not as enlightened as them. Many of the 9-12 Patriots were in attendance, foregoing their required date with a treadmill just to make the meeting. Quite a few over 70 years in age, both men and women, actually shaved for the occasion.

Probably it would be safe to say, roughly 4% of the attendees supported the Governor’s Plan on Gun Control. The rest all showed up to fight oligarchical tyranny. that multi-headed hydra capable of shape-shifting at a moments notice. It would be safe to say, just two years ago, that hydra would have been in the form of a horrendous Hawaiian Birth Certificate, or the (spooky music here) lack of one.

Anthony N. Delcollo, Esq., President, Delaware Association of Second Amendment Lawyers (guess which side he was on) felt the power of the room and tried to channel himself into the Great Wonderful Oz. Although he was capable of mesmerizing his captive audience who hooted and hollered at his unsupported platitudes, outside that small room the Great Oz would no doubt have as much critical acclaim as the current movie does bearing the same name.

Mark Blake, Hockessin Civic Leader and NRA lifetime member, enjoyed having a room that supports him, (he is usually on the other side regarding Land Use). Seriously. There were no challenges to numerous misstatements. One could say anything in support of unlimited use of unlimited weaponry aimed at unlimited people and receive a standing ovation. He did repeatedly. Other than the luminary idea of putting locks on school room doors, nothing new to the argument was provided. It was the “same ole”, “same ole” platitude that since criminals don’t obey laws anyway, so … what’s the point of even having law? ….. Applied to guns, that was crux of the argument.

Poor Andrew Lippstone, Esq., Governor Markell’s Chief Legal Counsel…. Two hundred and thirty five years ago, he would have been picked up, dropped and rolled in a bed of tar, and covered with half the chicken feathers of Sussex County. One has to admire the courage to even attempt to engage against a force so righteous they were deaf to any reasoning. To them however, he provided the entertainment giving an excuse for every member to show their extensive knowledge of every individual part of every firearm in the cannon of military weaponry… Being so overwhelmed was obviously discomforting to him; hoping of course 235 years of the “right to free speech” would prevail among people wishing they lived inside a piece of parchment written 235 years ago.

Delaware Coalition Against Gun Violence Representative (Nancy will supply me with the name) announced the results of a new poll on gun violence. OVER 50% OF SUSSEX COUNTY WANTS ALL GUNS REGISTERED! NEAR 60% OF KENT COUNTY WANTS ALL GUNS REGISTERED. OVER 90% OF NEW CASTLE COUNTY WANTS ALL GUNS REGISTERED!… or were in support of some type of background checks with no exceptions…

This data was attacked. The sample size was too small it was said; questioned was the 600 people sample size for the entire state of Delaware? Forget that national polls are also decided on the same number polled, there were 200 people there in that room and almost 100% were in favor of no regulation on any weapon ever…. That poll had to be a lie, a disingenuous trick. a surreptitious plot to steal the truth away from the American people. Someone was lying. It was obvious that 100% of the people support open warfare with military weapons anywhere at anytime… because… well, they said… look around….

In their enthusiasm at not being a shunted minority, their exuberance is forgivable. But one hoped, that someone, just one person, would point out to them, that… you know? There were other people living in Delaware too, who weren’t in that room…

You know? They probably didn’t get that email that told them they were about to lose their prized possessions and to show up in force to demand they keep things the status quo. They probably just got home and had to cook dinner or eat dinner with the kids, and then do homework, put them to bed, and then get ready for the grind tomorrow. You know, after a rough day, there was probably something better they needed to do than find a building just off the road to the landfill, and park their car in a crowded lot, and freeze their butts off walking through the labyrinth of that parking lot and finding the entrance to the main steps of that building… I would offer that perhaps drinking wine would have been a better option. You know?

There was not one black person in the room.

This group was very representative of Delaware’s entire population.

It brings to mind this… I wonder if this “debate” had been scheduled say, in the auditorium of Bancroft School, just off Pine Street, or in the Auditorium of Pulaski School, up on the hill off Rt 4, or in the Kingswood Community Center in Northeast Wilmington, or in the Boys and Girls Club off Union Street, or in the Salvation Army Building between Shipley and Orange Streets, if the NRA would have been so overwhelmingly represented. If those 80 year old white folks would be willing to park on the street, walk the one or two blocks on inter city sidewalks to share their view with those living within walking distance, who hear the pop, pop, pop almost on a daily basis, and it is not at a shooting range…. I wonder if these brave, pompous, arrogant, white haired, Viagra driven septuagenarians would be willing to sit next to a young muscularly built black man who has probably had more experience fighting humans with his bare hands, that that old white man has ever fired his assault rifle. I wonder if these pompous protagonists feel strong enough, virile enough to weather the hurt soul of a black woman who lost their child solely because the NRA has purposefully made guns so easily available and has interceded to discourage law enforcement every step of the way in trying to preserve the peace… Do you really think these old men would show up in the inner city to say, “guns don’t kill people! We already have laws. We need to lock up criminals or people who sort of look like criminal, you know, “those people”, and throw away the key. We don’t need any more law and order!!!”

Tell me. Do you think they would be willing to do that? if the location were made in say a …. more American atmosphere?

The point being made here for all to listen, is that America is bigger than the NRA.. Tailoring meetings and demonstrations just so they can play their strong suit, is not moving America in the direction it needs to go, towards civilization. If all you have is 200 people, getting those 200 people to show up an one spot, is easy. If the room only holds 200 people, it is easy to bluster you have 100% of support in your favor… You say just look around.

On similar grounds, one could say that 100% of people support Miss America Beauty Pageants. Or 100% people support Model Train Collecting. Or 100% of the people prefer to look at old and new postage stamps. Or that 100% of the people want to “flip That House.” Or that 100% of the people prefer to listen to classical music….. “Just look around…” (All good causes by the way….)

I think those analogies properly put the overwhelming support shown by those who want no law on guns, at meetings they can pack, into their proper perspective….

Polls show that close to 9 out of 10 Americans are sick of the NRA making their lives unsafe and want Government to get off their ass and finally do something about it. 9 out of 10 people, especially including those “normal” Americans who own firearms.

I venture that the fact that as the NRA and the Tea Party get crazier and crazier each time they realize no one is listening, is justification enough that they themselves,… know it is true…

Remembering The Past….. Comment Rescue…..7/2009

In a discussion about global warming, one John Galt gave this piece of enlightenment….  this is dug up here for historical reasons and it is well worth remembering the arguments of the  past as we now investigate such problems as raising taxes, protecting social security, and increasing labor participation against the same faulty reason….

It is a walk down memory lane, accompanied by knowing we were right on the issue of global warming, and Republicans were very, very, very, very, very,  very…. wrong….

 

=======================================================================================

by John Galt  July 17, 2009.

Dear  Frieda:

All of your claims are wrong and you know it or your an idiot.

Global temperatures peaked in 1998, a fact that contradicts the assertion that man’s continued pumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is making the planet hotter. This was not predicted by the climate models that say we’re headed for a warm period.

Nor can anthropogenic global warming be explained when introduced into the argument is the fact that 1934, when far fewer carbon-spewing machines existed than we have today, is the hottest year on record.

Global warming alarmists invested heavily in convincing everyone that 1998 was the hottest year and 2006 the third warmest. After correcting for faulty data, NASA had to backtrack.

At the same time NASA made the correction, it also reported that six of the top 10 hottest years are from a period before 90% of the 20th century growth in carbon emissions occurred

Researchers at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center admitted that “sensor drift” in the satellite monitors used to measure sea ice caused them to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 193,000 square miles. That’s a significant area roughly the size of California.

In a column titled “In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Alarm,” New York Times columnist John Tierney exposes the Chicken Littles for what they are — opportunists and alarmists who in this new year “will bring you image after frightening image of natural havoc linked to global warming.” Inconvenient truths and scientific fact will be ignored.

A case in point cited by Tierney was when Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites. It was hardly a blip in Earth’s geological history, but Tierney noted how “it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming.”

Less dramatic and newsworthy was the announcement that the same satellites also recorded that the Antarctic sea ice had reached the highest level ever. But then, polar bears allegedly drowning and icebergs breaking away are good theater.

We’re told the Larsen B ice shelf on the western side of Antarctica is collapsing. It is warming and has been for decades. But it comprises just 2% of a continent that otherwise is cooling.

In the same week Gore received his Nobel Peace Prize, the respected scientific journal Nature published a paper you probably didn’t hear much about. It concluded that global warming had a minimal effect on hurricanes.

In fact, after Katrina, hurricane watchers have had trouble getting as far as the letter “K”.

“The last couple of years have humbled the seasonal hurricane forecasters,” says Max Mayfield, a former director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The 2007 season was the third calmest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

As for temperature, Tierney reports how British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would make 2007 the hottest year on record. After 2007 was actually lower than any year since 2001, the BBC still proclaimed: “2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend.”

That must be why in January 2007 some $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a disastrous five-day freeze. A few months earlier Gov. Schwarzenegger signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designed to, uh, help cool the climate.

In 2007, Australia experienced its coolest June ever. The city of Townsville underwent its longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in a quarter-century.

But for greenies, it doesn’t matter what the weather actually is or what the data actually show. It’s all caused by global warming. As Canadian Greenpeace rep Steven Guilbeault explained in 2005: “Global warming can mean colder; it can mean drier; it can mean wetter; that’s what we’re dealing with.”

Let me make this as simple as possible. Greenhouse gases makes up 2% of our total atmosphere. Of that 2%, 3.62% is CO2 and of that 3.4% is caused by man, yes only 3.4% of all CO2 is man made, the rest is made by nature. Man made CO2 makes up .000024% of the atmosphere.

If they were this wrong on global warming, can they possibly be right on anything?   Can someone tell me why we even listen to them anymore when they whine?

For the most awesome replies…. it is here….. 

More On Philly School Closings….

Whatever your opinion may be of charters, there’s no question that the District has failed to explain its inconsistent approach of allowing charter expansion without regard to expense or academic quality while insisting on draconian and widespread sacrifice among District schools. This despite the fact that many of the District schools targeted for closure outperform some of the charters that the SRC renewed and expanded last spring.

Is this a “Damn The Public” boondoggle in the making? Are we running roughshod over evidence, children, teachers, structures, reality, in order to promote Charter Schools?

When something like this usually happens, it is the result of someone being on the take.

The Charters countered with this…. “The closings are inevitable for a district that must manage within the framework of a harsh fiscal reality. Given this scenario, the good news is that not only are charters educating children at a fraction of the cost, but they in turn are able to channel more money to children remaining at district schools.”

A student who leaves Philly schools for charters takes $10,170, leaving $5,879 with the district.

Philadelphia charters have more than 40,000 students on waiting lists. It is tragic that only a very small percentage of families ultimately “win” a seat. It is especially disheartening to turn away thousands of children and families seeking a quality education.

Recently I documented a comparison between 2005 and now, and illustrated that now there were only 950 fewer students (both public and charter) in Philadelphia less than the public school’s seating capacity, and that half as many graduates today were as college prepared as were those back when public school supplied over 88% of Philadelphia’s educational needs.

If using the criteria of judging education by how well it educates students, the Charter experiment has failed in Philadelphia.

Fight Sequestration: Stopping By The Road For Free Wild Strawberries…

Unless you read one of the big newspapers you will never hear of this… From yesterday’s sequestration hearings on Capitol Hill:

United States Army Chief of Staff Raymond T. Odierno elaborated on the impact that these indiscriminate, across the board cuts would have on military readiness in the Pacific and the United States Pacific Command.

“First, as I talked about 80% of our force having to stop training this year that includes our forces in Hawai’i, that includes our forces in at Fort Lewis that are in PACOM so they will be significantly degraded capabilities that they would have to respond to anything that goes on within Pacific Command. Additionally, the Army is responsible for providing a significant amount of communication support, intelligence support, logistical support to the PACOM Theater. Their ability to do that will also be affected by sequestrations specifically in the Fiscal Year 13 but beyond. We have tried to fence our capability in Korea to make sure they are at the highest readiness level. We will continue to do that. But the cuts in family programs, cuts in soldier programs, cuts in our civilians will also impact Korea as well. So for us it has a significant impact on our ability in the Pacific for the next several years,” said Odierno.

• 80% of our forces will have to stop training this year.
• Communication support, intelligence support, logistical support to the PACOM Theater; their ability to do that will also be affected by sequestrations specifically in the Fiscal Year 13 and beyond.
• Our capability in Korea to make sure they are at the highest readiness level. We will continue to do that to the best that our finances will allow us. But cuts in family programs, cuts in soldier programs, cuts in our civilians will also impact Korea as well…
• Just as we trim the forces in South Korea, North Korea puts us on a Defcom 4.

It is obvious with yesterday’s nuclear explosion on the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, we can’t cut the Pacific. If we try we are going to run cost overruns. This is just as silly as your boss setting financial goals that have never been proposed before and you simply know you will go over them. You accept that because it is impossible to meet them.

So how can we fix it?

We need just $86 billion extra per year. That is a lot for you and me, but for the wealthy, that is nothing. In fact Kinder Morgan just bought out Caldone for 8% of that: $5 billion. Prior to that, it just spent $21 billion on El Paso Gas. One company buying another company it didn’t need.  Comcast just  bought  NBC for $13 billion.  That’s almost half the total amount needed, thrown away on another company that would have been fine if left alone.  See how easy it is?

Just a few more companies  like that, and we could pay enough to keep our military in top shape. We don’t need sequestration.

Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, $86 billion is nothing to them. Each alone could cover the cost of our military.

Point is, we have the money just sitting there. Sitting out there all alone, saying “take me, take me.”  All we have to do is go get it, and we can cut our deficit at the same time as we keep ourselves protected by having a first rate defense.

It is no different than a family of four on a tight budget, stopping beside a field of wild strawberries and picking their next few meals.

We can do this… $86 billion on just the top richest 400 people is only $215 million each… That is nothing, nothing to them. What farmer will miss having wild strawberries getting picked out of his hay crop? As a nation, let’s just take it;  it is there, it is begging for it, and we’d be doing an awful lot of good for everyone involved….

NRA Has Plan To Eliminate Courthouse Shootings Across America

Photo Courtesy of newshopper.sulekha.com

NRA Says Having Piles Like These Outside Every Courthouse Door Would Have Prevented Today’s Shooting

NRA Sponsored Terror Shoots Up New Castle Courthouse

Not really.  But think.  If the NRA had helped us keep guns out of the hands of criminals, instead of proposing that guns could be sold and bought by anyone with no questions asked….

This wouldn’t have happened.

Call your Senators and Congressmen.  Tell them to list the NRA as a terrorist group.

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And Fox News Brings Back The Laughter Curve–Oops– Laffer Curve

Today in order to capitalize upon the fact that the fourth quarter economy sank (even though it was because of the downward pressure due to the threat of sequestration forced upon Congress by the Tea Party), they wheeled out Arthur Laughter Laffer to make a dire predictions….

He is on their short list of who-to-call-when-we(FOX News)-NEED-a-dire-prediction…..

Because….. He is well known for making “dire predictions”..

“Economist Arthur Laffer told his clients on July 26, 1982, that (Ronald Reagan’s) Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which raised taxes by about one percent of GDP, “will stifle economic recovery,” “retard economic growth,” and undercut “the economy’s ability to enter into a period of expansion.” On August 20, 1982, he told his clients that TEFRA, Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, “will tend to lengthen and deepen the recession.”

Instead, ….. No one could have been more wrong…

“Looking at real gross domestic product, it grew 4.5 percent in 1983 and 7.2 percent in 1984 – an exceptionally strong performance. The stock market had one of its best years ever in 1983 – both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index rose 35 percent. There was no increase in the rate of inflation, which was exactly the same in 1983 and 1984 as it was in 1982. The unemployment rate fell from 10.6 percent in December 1982 to 8.1 percent by December 1983 and 7.1 percent in December 1984.”

On August 20, 1993, Laffer told his clients, “Clinton’s tax bill will do about as much damage to the U.S. economy as could feasibly be done in the current political environment.” He said that interest rates would rise and the stock market would fall.

Once again, it would be hard to find a forecast that was more completely wrong….

“The unemployment rate fell from 7.1 percent in January 1993 to 5.4 percent by December 1994. Real GDP growth rose from 2.9 percent in 1993 to 4.1 percent in 1994. Stock prices rose and interest rates fell. More importantly, the 1993 tax increase and accompanying spending controls, which were opposed by every Republican in Congress, laid the foundation for the phenomenal growth of the late 1990s that actually produced budget surpluses before Republican tax cuts in the 2000s dissipated them.”

And now! Today,… well, there he goes again….

“You have the whole output of the economy shrinking. Not just expanding more slowly, it`s absolutely shrinking,” (lol, see by how little, below)… Laffer told Fox News’ Eric Bolling…

“That’s catastrophic,” the former adviser to President Ronald Reagan added. (Did anyone else catch the stupendous irony of that? Oh, Wow. You can’t make stuff like that up).

“You can explain some of that by sequestration, and defense spending was down lot and all that. But you still have a rotten economy. And it’s still too bad. We know how to fix it, by the way, a low rate flat tax, spending restraint, sound money, free trade.” (See George Bush’s Economic Record.) Laffer was responding to reports Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012…

Yes. Laffer was responding to reports Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012. Quote: “You have the whole output of the economy shrinking. Not just expanding more slowly, it`s absolutely shrinking,”

Recalling his years as one of Reagan’s top economic advisers, Laffer said Reagan actually cut the highest tax rates (From 70%-50%; they are 35% now) He said “we made a mistake” by phasing in the cuts, which he said caused the 1981-82 recession. But he said the economy took off in 1983* when the cuts (and 1%GDP tax increase) went into full effect. *

“This place just went like a rocket ship,” he said. “I think we had 7.5 percent growth in 1983 and 5.5 growth in 1984, just this boom that lasted for years and years.”* (*lol)

(Conversational excerpts provided by Newsmax)