CRI Sues DNREC Over RGGI

Don’t you hate how everything is in initials today… As if one is supposed to remember what all those stand for….

Cunt Switching Imbeciles sue Damn Norquist Rectal Energizer Conglomerates over Raping Governor’s Gerbil’s Ass*oles.

Perhaps I got it wrong.  Now I have to go look-up other alternatives on the Internet and see what other possibilities could occur.  Are you sure I’m wrong? You are, huh?  Do any of them fit?

Perhaps if one didn’t use initials and came right out and said  “Caesar Rodney Institute sues  Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control over Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative”, we’d save a lot of time…  However the off-line consensus says I nailed it pretty well with the first stab of interpretation….

So what is this about?

Did you ever at work have those smart asses who try to cause trouble by challenging the interpretation of every word in the employee handbook?  Their prime objective is simply to be annoying.  For example if the handbook states that shoes must be worn, they point out that it doesn’t specifically allow for sneakers, and that under some obscure rule or regulation that only they can find, someone once said that sneakers were different from shoes….  Therefor all those wearing sneakers need to come to work in “real” shoes?  And so they force an issue that should have been left unchallenged, for of course sneakers are shoes and everyone knows that, but we have now to go through a long trial and they and the sneaker people have to appear before the arbitrator and waste everyone’s time to decide the obvious, that yes, sneakers are shoes because they protect the feet almost equally….. And therefore much time is wasted over nothing…..

Yeah, this lawsuit is like that…. Very similar to the Constitutional Sheriff’s argument that 2013 put to rest….  The formula is the same. Take an obscure colonial reference, twist it in a fashion so someone could according to that interpretation be acting illegally, bring it up and harass until it goes to trial, then appeal your loss, then appeal that new loss again….  The sole object it to waste time, and draw attention away from doing one’s assigned duties.

Of course or laws are designed so  they have the right to do that… but in balance,  we are also given right, if not duty,  to skewer them royally for all the selfishness and pomposity they exhibit…  Of course as in the work-place analogy, all the exaggeration we do makes little difference in the outcome, for as the ridicule piles on from us, they double down, enabling us to pile even more ridicule upon them…….  Our only benefit is that we get something to mock, to laugh at… And if you live this life and don’t laugh out loud every other minute, your missing out on life my friend….

One of the suitors is a legislator…. Harold “Lost-My” Peterman… a Log Cabin Republican from Milford…. 

Hi. I’m Harold “Lost-My” Peterman and I approve this lawsuit.

So what does all this mean?

Essentially it means the Koch Brothers are  paying to impede Delaware’s entrance into the agreement we have over CO2 with our neighbors, because Koch-heads don’t care how people get hurt as long as they make their money….   That is essentially what this is all over….

Now here is their mixed up, convoluted,  obfuscated,  Rue Goldberg Contraptionalized, attempt to make that money grab look like something else…..

They are challenging its Constitutionality, taking a page right out of Jeff Christopher’s bid to becomes Supreme Ruler over the Fiefdom of Delaware….

They are trying to win friends by implying that environmental controls  were not put in place to protect the environment from money grabbers who just want to make money and don’t care what harm gets left behind….  but instead were put there by “bad,  bad people” who “just don’t like them”, and therefore in fairness they should just … go away…  So they can make more money.

They are also trying to scare the population by making everyone think that energy costs will rise solely because of laws to protect the environment….

Before we jump on them and bust apart their claims,  let’s cover what the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative really does…

Most of us don’t know.  In plain speak, it was a way of spreading out the costs of what we will one day have to pay…

This concept is very pertinent at a time we are all sensitive to corporate abuse of our social structure. Wal*wart and McDonalds are paying $7.25 and hour, and enjoying the fruits of that low labor cost while they send their employees off to get food stamps and Medicaid at the taxpayers expense…

We, the taxpayers are subsidizing their business…  Wal*Mart and McDonald’s should be paying for the Food Stamps and Medicaid costs out of their excessive profits….   But since they aren’t… it amounts that they are using government subsidized labor to increase their profit margins, then walking away from their self-created problem….

It is the same with energy…. Essentially we will one day have to pay for our energy’s damage to the environment.  That is a given.  The question is when…  Recognizing this, several states joined in a pool to sort of start assessing power companies some of that cost now, so it would not be a giant shock in the future.

The way it works is that in this region, power companies will have to cut down their emissions or pay a fine.  It is minimal in the first few years and gradually gets tighter over time.  The Power companies if they possibly cannot meet the requirement for a variety of reasons, can do so through credits earned by paying cash to companies who did come in under their threshold of gas emissions…. It’s like if I farted less than you,  and you farted more, you could pay me money for the times I didn’t fart…

It is an arbitrary scheme and that is why it has animosity behind it, primarily from people of “that type” who don’t like arbitrary schemes.  But the contrivance was built to create a marketplace incentive by using that biggest motivating factor ever,… money!   By playing these rules, you can make money by cutting down your greenhouse gases….

To make this lawsuit even more of a moot case, every state is already far under the allowance caps, because cheap natural gas from fracking has replace dirty coal in most furnaces….

The second myth being propelled by Koch-heads is that this will cost you, the customer, more money…  They  play on our common sense notions that if things cost more to get, the price goes up….  Well, you can readily see with energy, … that is not necessarily so….

Let’s use gasoline as an example… Right now at the pump gas is at $3.45 to $3.55 a gallon for regular.  I saw both on my return from church this Sunday.   The last time prices were that high, a barrel of oil cost $107.  It now costs $93.   Yet, when it was at $98, the pump prices were between $3.20 and $3.30….

The point being made is that energy prices, because we need them no matter what they cost, are set by demand, not supply…   Holiday Travel pushed the price up the week before Thanksgiving, and  Christmas and New Year’s pushed it up now…  Especially with fracking, acquiring energy is rather cheap.  Some wells produce at a cost of 19 cents a gallon.

So who gets hurt, is not the consumer, if costs go up…  The money makers in the middle are the sole ones who have to eat their profits.   Which is exactly why the Koch Brothers are funding this nuisance lawsuit to cast aspersions upon the Greenhouse Gas Initiative….

If  the Koch Brothers earn $3.26 cents off of every gallon sold at $3.45,  they will fight to make sure that doesn’t drop to $3.25, or $3.24, or $3.23 or lower….  People purchasing energy will not be affected by the Initiatives.  The Corporate Investors will.   Unfortunately as we can see with today’s gasoline, even when energy prices plummet, we the consumer, don’t get the benefit… The Hedge funds do…

So the bottom line is this….  The Greenhouse Gas Initiative save us money… They put the cost of the problem upon those who are creating the problem, and not leaving it for us to pay from some other account at some future date…  Corporate profits in the energy business are too high, and have been since deregulation.    Those who are making money off of polluting the world, off of blowing CO2 into the air,  should be able to make money and pay for the polluting of the world… The Koch Brother think differently, and that is why they are paying for this lawsuit…

It is ironical that a Delaware legislator from Milford, which does not have a huge power plant in their backyard as to those poor souls at Millsboro,…. would sell his soul and the souls of his constituents, just for some Koch Campaign money come his next election…..

Bottom line, is if the Brandywine Zoo put baboons in a glass enclosed Monkey House, and then suddenly no one came into see them, ever,  they  craving attention, would probably file a law suit just exactly like this one….

Nominations for Delaware’s Person/Place/or Thing Of The Year

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….
====
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….

Form A Posse?

There was a very strange pamphlet that showed up in Sussex County, sanctioned by the REPUBLICAN sheriff down there..   Here is the quote…

“PARTICIPATE  IN  THE  TRAINING  OF  THE  SHERIFF’S  POSSE……”

Fact: Sheriffs in Delaware are not law enforcement officers. They are paper pushers. Their only duty is to serve court papers such as divorce proceedings and the auction of houses… By law, they are not allowed to form “posse’s”

I can remember however, a long, long time ago, when rural people who didn’t agree with Federal guidelines that was being imposed upon them, would arm themselves, gather in the middle of the night under a certain tree, or a bend of the road, and ride out to perform their own particular brand of justice.

We called them the Klu Klux Klan…… Is Sheriff Christopher trying to revive them…..

What The News Journal Gets Wrong When It Deals With Education In Delaware

It simply strains credulity to insist that pedagogues who get paid middling wages but nonetheless devote their lives to educating kids care less about those kids than do the Wall Street hedge funders and billionaire CEOs who finance the so-called reform movement. Indeed, to state that pervasive assumption out loud is to reveal how utterly idiotic it really is, and yet it is baked into almost all of today’s coverage of education politics.

 

Just When You’ve Mastered “The Electric Slide”, Get Ready For “The Global Shift”

We knew this but it  is now being published… and so it is in the news.

The world is getting warmer… and we can now predict our climate by looking at map at 300 miles south and guessing what our weather will be from that…

Just as plate tectonics and  Darwin’s origin of the species were able to lay the groundwork of reason  for explaining puzzling observations, this simplifies what to expect from global warming rather startlingly.

Texas is now  what we alway thought of when we considered the weather of Mexico; Oklahoma is now West Texas; Kansas is now Oklahoma; Nebraska is now Kansas; South Dakota is now Nebraska, North Dakota is now South Dakota: Southern Manitoba is now North Dakota…..

If  West Texas had 3 days of rain, now Oklahoma is getting 3 days of rain;  If it snowed 12  times in South Dakota, it is now doing the same in North Dakota… and so on.

So, to predict our heat, rain, winters, etc, our guide would be North Carolina.  Longer growing seasons,  some winters with no snow, hot summers…

However due to Global warming, the East Coast has a caveat.  An anomaly so to speak  and actually some relief from the North Carolina summer heat we would normally expect….

With the unprecedented melting of the Arctic and Greenland icecaps dumping its excess into the Labrador Current, that cold water drops South hugging the East Coast shoreline all the way down to North Carolina’s Outer Banks where it finally becomes neutralized…   Therefore even though we have hotter air masses, the colder ocean temperatures creates a buffer against Global warming off the entire northeastern US.

Europe, Japan, and Alaska all experience  the same mitigating effect, although with both Greenland and the Arctic Icecaps melting into the Labrador, the US East Coast gets a stronger volume of cold water.  Call it our icy shower effect….

Once melting stops and the currents dry up, we return to the North Carolina scenario of the twentieth century….

Chart Courtesy of NOAA

So, we in Delaware really get the best climate on the East Coast.    Warm winters, little or no snow, and cool breezy summers….. as well as a longer growing period, and… less dependence on fossil fuels for winter heating.

Gee, global warming isn’t so bad for Delaware after all….  Oh, the rising seas?  There you go again… Why did you have to spoil the rosy picture I was painting?

 

How They Wish It Was: How It Really is

On Delaware Politics, Mike Protack put this up for humor.  Warning: it isn’t really funny.  However, it is a very useful tool which can be used to describe the difference between the two parties.  Or more specifically, one decrepit party versus the rest of humanity.  One can definitely see in its original tone, that Republicans feel they are the entitled ones. They feel they should not have to work for their wealth, but it should be handed to them.  They assume they are entitled to exist at the top fo the food chain, and all others, who are on this planet, are here only for their pleasure or benefit….  So, I sincerely thank him for posting this, so the historians of posterity can come here to browse, whenever they ask: …”btw, what ever happened to the Republican Party?”

If a Republican doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.

If a Democrat doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a Republican is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.

If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a Republican is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.

If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a Republican is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.

If a Democrat is down-and-out he wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a Republican doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.

A Democrat demands that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a Republican is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.

A Democrat non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.

If a Republican decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.

If a Democrat decides he needs health care, he demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a Republican reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.

A Democrat will delete it because he’s “offended”.

That is how they wish it was…. Now… here is how it really is…..  if you notice above, Mike Protack’s joke is phrased as if it is the Republican who is the one doing something of which all Republicans don’t approve .  Everyone knows, that is not how Republicans are!   For this to be a true, accurate depiction of how things truly are and perceived by Republicans, we need the Republicans to be the ones controlling everyone else…  That is the reality and that is why the Republican party has lost 50% of its base since last November.

If a someone doesn’t like guns, a Republican threatens them with bodily harm.

If a someone is a vegetarian, a Republican taunts him for being a tree hugging commie pinko fag..

If someone is homosexual,  Republicans and his friends, attack him and drag his body behind their pickup around town.

If  someone is down-and-out, a Republican jeers, taunts, and punches them in the face.

If a Republican doesn’t like a talk show host, he beats the crap out of his wife.

If someone is a non-believer,  a Republican gets on his knees, and leads the Sussex County Council in loud, obnoxious prayer.

If a Republican decides he needs health care, he quits his job, runs a meth operation, and uses the money to pay off his doctors….

If a Republican reads this, he will say it was written by a bigot.

Obviously this of course has been done as a public service so those insensitive Republicans who are still unaware of how they appear to society when they express their views in public, can finally get the idea.  I hope this helps us all to move forward and treat each other with mutual respect…..

But, I doubt….  that they have it within them to rise to the challenge….   🙂

The Silliness Of Being Right

Recently, being “Right” is Wrong. It is wrong for the military. It is wrong for the economy. It is wrong for the planet. It is wrong for education. It is wrong for your pocket book. It is wrong for Hurricane Sandy victims. It is wrong for women. It is wrong for Catholics. It is wrong for the middle class. It is wrong for children. It is wrong for the environment. It is wrong for growth. It is wrong for gun safety. It is wrong for rape victims. It is wrong for ocean lovers. It is wrong for those with beachfront property. It is wrong for the sick. It is wrong for those with private insurance. It is wrong for the victims of Sandy Hook. It is wrong for middle America. It is wrong for anyone and everyone….. Being “Right” is simply wrong.

Unless you are a billionaire. And want everyone else poor and squalid so you can sequester yourself behind your billions… For you…. the Right is right….

Anyone who tries to say the Sequester was the folly of both sides…. is getting paid by a billionaire….

There is no.. other… way.

How “right” is it to make us the middle class suffer just so billionaires won’t have to pay one single penny more on every earned dollar over the $1 million dollar mark?

Delaware’s Education: Because It Is Important

After a brief stint as head Rodel’s Vision for Delaware, Mark Murphy was promoted to the spot of Secretary of Education.

Who is his replacement?

Dr. Dana Diesel Wallace

 John Young  has all the details but on her public announcement there appears this:

….and then served as the superintendent of West Fargo Public Schools in North Dakota. As Superintendent, she and her team fundamentally redesigned their curriculum and established a dual enrollment program. In her time there, she moved her district from the 50th percentile in AYP across all grades to approximately the 90th.

Please go to the source, but apparently as John found out, “that ain’t necessarily so..”

• The scores she inherited appear to be in the 70’s, not the 50’s.
• The scores she left with appear to be in the 70’s, not the 90’s.

John has all the corroborating documents on his page… (Hint, it is much easier to find)…

The time frame involved ended only 3 years ago.  This is not something from ones deep, dark past.   What’s ironical is the Rodel blurb brags about how they searched long and hard, pouring over the details of a hundred applicants, and they chose …. this one…

Pencader Wastes $1,282,188 of Delaware’s Money.

So.  How could have that money been spent within Christina School District if a charter School hadn’t siphoned off that and wasted it in a fiasco of epic proportions?

Could we have saved one student?  Two?  Maybe a whole class?  Maybe all 16,807 could have had some educational benefit from this total, which I should point out, we only have of the fiscal state funding so far…..

Here exactly is why Charter Schools fail…

They spend that total on just barely offering the barest minimum of educational opportunities….

Doubling the above total  and spending it within the Christiana school district would provided all current 16,807  students,  EVERY SINGLE ONE, with an additional $152.00 per child to spend upon their education…..

This is money spent on extra’s.  On those things that make students learn.  On salaries, On supplies.  The basics are already cared for… so this incremental amount goes straight to augmenting each student’s ability to learn…..

When you pursue  a charter school philosophy,  you are stealing  $152,00 from every single child from elementary up to twelfth grade, and squandering it upon items like…. A-1 Sanatation, ADT Security Systems,  and half a million dollars to 4048 Associates…..

How do those expenses help our children learn, especially when those expense are being paid for over the Christiana District already?   By pursuing the misguided policy of  funding Charter Schools, we are paying for two trash bills, two electric bills, one extra lease payment to private individuals,  two electronic security services…..

And with every new Charter School opened,  given only a 17% chance of survival, meaning  a failure rate on the investment of 83% of our wasted tax dollars, more and more is bled from that fund that actually does what it is supposed to do…. teach our kids and make them want to learn.

Charter Schools can go private. That is fine. But public money is not well spent to help out one’s buddies owning 4048 Associates……

Because Caesar Rodney Is Always Wrong

Caesar Rodney Institute has promoted Charter Schools as being the future of education.  As posted earlier, Charter Schools always fail.

As one more example piled upon the skyscraper of evidence, here is Pencader Charter School today…..

To say this happens in public schools all the time, misses the point… We spent millions on this Charter School just to allow kids to learn in an environment where THIS WOULD NOT HAPPEN.

The inside story is that adults were responsible for this unfortunate situation, not students.

One more charter schools fails again.  Yet Caesar Rodney is still trying to get hard earned tax dollars spent on these wasteful projects just so it’s benefactors can get their hands on some of your money….

Wouldn’t that money have been better spent rebuilding one of the schools we already got?

Of course it would.  Charter schools always was, is , and will be a horrible idea….   In fact, for quick reference, anything   everything the Caesar Rodney Institute sells itself out to represent, is… a horrible idea.   I guess that is why they are there.  So people with horrible ideas can try to fool the rest of us who don’t have time to do the research to understand this fake organization is lying to us…. they’ll say anything for a fee, mind you, for a fee.