Tuesday, 5 April 2016

By on April 5th, 2016 in Barbara, personal, science kits

09:26 – Barbara headed down to Winston-Salem this morning to run errands and meet with the guy who’s doing the cleanup and painting at the house. Colin and I are working on science kit stuff.

It probably sounds odd given that our business is selling science kits to homeschoolers, but yesterday I found myself again thinking how nice it would be if homeschooling disappeared entirely. And that could be accomplished with the stroke of a pen: just extend school vouchers to cover the children of any citizen, allowing those parents to send their children to any school they pleased, public or private, religious or secular. Set the amount of those vouchers at, say, 2/3 of what the local public schools actually spend per student, and allow them to be cashed by any person or organization that a parent or parents have chosen to educate their children. And deduct the amount of that voucher, dollar for dollar, from the funds provided to public schools. Any parents who chose to send their kids to public schools would be supporting those public schools financially with their vouchers. If, as I suspect, only the loser children of loser parents ended up attending public schools, so be it. At least they wouldn’t interfere with other children’s educations, as they do now. And the public schools would waste away as their funding disappeared. The good teachers, and there are many, would be employed by private schools, which would spring up like weeds to accommodate parents’ priorities. The bad public school teachers, which is to say most of them, would find themselves unemployed and unemployable, which is as it should be.

Not that I’m worried about our business, because we’ll never see universal school vouchers. Teachers simply won’t let it happen. They as a group are clients of the progs, happily voting for them in return for salaries that are at least two or three times what they should be, not to mention medical, retirement, and other benefits that are even more excessive. Thrown open to private competition, public schools and their staffs would be crushed, and they know it.


79 Comments and discussion on "Tuesday, 5 April 2016"

  1. SteveF says:

    Yep, I made just about the same rant elsewhere a couple days ago, as I have been from time to time for a decade or two. As always, I got general agreement from the people already inclined that way and general disagreement from people either profiting from the system or mentally trapped in the libtard mindset.

    A couple years ago, when some NYS legislator was talking about vouchers again, the topic came up when I was talking with some people at my daughter’s school. They’d be delighted to get a voucher for even a third of the cost of putting a kid through the public school system.

    It won’t happen, of course. Not unless a very large number of public school teachers, teachers union employees, state legislators, and bureaucrats die. Which would be a good thing just on its own merits…

  2. Harold says:

    While I agree with your voucher plan, it would NOT eliminate homeschooling. Some homeschooling are because of geography, too far from any schools, and some is because the parents want to be completely involved in the education of their children. We started home schooling because of bullying at our local school and found that it was so enjoyable as a family activity we would never have considered returning our girl to public schools.

  3. JimL says:

    Every year we look at the cost of private education versus public education. Every year we scrape out the tuition for the private schooling and every night we spend time with our children reviewing what they learned and encouraging them to question everything.

    We live in a good district, with good teachers. I know most of the board members. But the Catholic school, with a principal that’s been there for 40+ years, is a rock that has earned a good reputation. It’s worth it.

    Would I take the vouchers? You betcha. In a heartbeat.

  4. JimL says:

    Why don’t we homeschool? Because Daddy was a teacher and found he wasn’t good enough at it. I know my limitations. I can teach many things, but I don’t have the temperament to be really GOOD at it. And that’s what our kids deserve.

  5. MrAtoz says:

    In the “they are not us” column:

    A transgender former banker claims to be the first and only person to have both ears cosmetically removed as part of her ongoing quest to become a ‘dragon’.
    Born Richard Hernandez in Maricopa County, Arizona, the 55-year-old has undergone a number of painful procedures over the past few years including nose modification, tooth extraction and eye colouring.

  6. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Ah, for the Good Olde Days, when we called such people “mentally ill” if we were polite, or “fruitcakes” if we were less so.

  7. nick says:

    It would only work if the schools could reject students for any and all reasons, without threat of lawsuits. EEOC, affirmative action, snotty parents of bratty kids, all would be lining up to sue the school that wanted nothing to do with darling Chad and his PITA parents, or dangerous Pookie Jr, or brain damaged little Maya, or little Juan the US citizen son of illegal immigrant parents.

    Who gets the vouchers? Only US citizen parents, or only US citizen children? Who controls the vouchers, the parent guardian or the kid (if the parent, there are some who will find a way to turn it into cash for themselves, like selling foodstamps.)

    Who is the school of last resort, and can the public schools reject students too? Where does 14 yo Agamemnon, who has low IQ and aggression issues due to chemical exposure in the womb, end up?

    nick

  8. SteveF says:

    Where does 14 yo Agamemnon, who has low IQ and aggression issues due to chemical exposure in the womb, end up?

    A very similar question was asked in NYC a few years ago. I don’t remember if it was that asshole Bloomberg or his asshole chancellor of schools, but whoever it was, he smarmily asserted that the public schools will always be needed because no private schools would be willing and able to deal with the worst of the problem children.

    At that point, the head of a small private school (a Catholic school, IIRC) stood up and announced “I’ll take that challenge!”.

    Shockingly, the NYC school system was not interested in the experiment of sending some of the worst kids to the private school to see if there’d be better results.

  9. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    It goes without saying that schools are free to set any admission standards they wish, and to reject any student. Citizen parents receive vouchers for up to two or three students. If they have more kids, it’s their problem. Citizen parents control the vouchers, which can be redeemed by any school they see fit to use them for, including themselves if they home school. The government has nothing to say about anything. It’s up to the school to decide what, if any, credentials they require for teachers. The government schools are the last resort for Agamemnon and his like, who can be warehoused with a minimum wage staff. Problem kids are their parents’ problems.

  10. SteveF says:

    JimL, same here. Paying the private school tuition is painful, but I grit my teeth, dig deep into my pocket, and pay it every year.

  11. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    We’ve known for 40 years just how bad a job public schools have been doing. Marva Collins demonstrated that decisively.

  12. nick says:

    “undergone a number of painful procedures over the past few years including ”

    INCLUDING genital mutilation! f the ears, s/he cut off his genitals!

    nick

  13. Dave says:

    Every year we scrape out the tuition for the private schooling and every night we spend time with our children reviewing what they learned and encouraging them to question everything.

    I am convinced that parents who care about education spend every night doing that very thing without regard to where there children were schooled during the day.

  14. brad says:

    “I can teach many things, but I don’t have the temperament to be really GOOD at it. And that’s what our kids deserve.”

    Exactly. I think this is what a lot of the home schooling evangelists forget: Not everyone is a good teacher, or has the temperament to work intensively with kids. Frankly, some of the people I’ve known who did home schooling were not the sort of people I would trust to understand or explain anything terribly complex.

    Others very clearly had some sort of agenda. Not even necessarily religious. For example: one friend of mine in the US insisted on trying to raise and homeschool tri-lingual kids (English/German/French) – a laudable goal if it happens naturally, but in his case, neither of them spoke German natively. Unsurprisingly, the older child wound up with speech-related learning problems requiring professional intervention.

    Finally, you hear that home schooled students score better on standardized tests that public school students, and I’m sure that’s true. However, it’s not entirely clear what it means. If you have a home where education is considered important, those students will do well in school, period. Maybe they would have done even better in a good private school?

  15. JimL says:

    “INCLUDING genital mutilation! f the ears, s/he cut off his genitals!”

    Out of the gene pool. Now it can only pollute the current generation.

  16. OFD says:

    Haters.

  17. MrAtoz says:

    lol TSA app cost $1.4 million to build! Gummint efficiency in action:

    http://gizmodo.com/tsas-1-4-million-app-takes-about-10-minutes-to-build-1769084655

  18. pcb_duffer says:

    [snip] A transgender … eye colouring. [snip]

    Whatever happened to the notion “First, do no harm?”

  19. Lynn says:

    but yesterday I found myself again thinking how nice it would be if homeschooling disappeared entirely.

    Not gonna happen. Home schooling is about multiple issues. One is the quality of education. Another is about bad socialization.

    We home schooled our son in 10th, 11th and 12th grades because he needed the reinforcement on the difference between right and wrong. And that is all that I am going to say on that.

  20. OFD says:

    Oh boy, me and wife will certainly rush to put that app on our iPhones! Hey, walk into the airport nowadays and get screwed anyway, no matter which line you end up in.

    “Whatever happened to the notion “First, do no harm?””

    It has long since become:

    “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” – Aleister Crowley, Satanic priest and paragon to Alfred Kinsey, father of modern sex education

  21. Ray Thompson says:

    lol TSA app cost $1.4 million to build! Gummint efficiency in action:

    The app was only $295.00. The rest was paperwork, affirmative action classes, environmental impact statements, lawyers, and bribes.

  22. brad says:

    Apropos of nothing, just finished watching “The Martian”. FWIW, the book is great. The movie, of course, left out 80% of the techie details, but it was remarkably well done. Of course, y’all have probably already seen it…I’m just slow, that way.

  23. JimL says:

    Re: The Martian: The book was simply excellent. The movie took very little license with the book, but cut out 80% of the details (as @Brad noted). It reminded me of Lord of the Rings in that the movie was as true to the written word as it was possible to be. The didn’t seem to change anything.

  24. Lynn says:

    Yes, both of “The Martian” book and movie are simply excellent. Best movie of the year for me. And Howard Taylor.
    http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/the-martian-movie-review/

    “And in an even more amazing, and seemingly impossible twist on that thing everybody knows, not only is The Martian movie as good as The Martian book, The Martian movie is as good a movie as The Martian book is a book.”

    The only problem that I had with either was the hurricane since Mars has 1% of the atmosphere as Earth has. 300+ kph winds are no big deal there. But, the author says now that he has NASA advising him, he would find another catestrophic event to make the Marsnauts leave in a hurry.

  25. SteveF says:

    re The Martian, I just got the disk from Netflix half an hour ago. Might watch it tonight, but probably will be busy until I pass out this evening. For what it’s worth, I also have the novel on my Kindle, but haven’t gotten to it yet. I recently finished a novel and Lars Brownworth’s history of the Normans (an excellent book, by the way) so now there are only … about 2 dozen books in the queue before I get to The Martian. -sigh-

    (I might be passing out early tonight. Apropos nothing, I went to bed about 1230, read until something past one, and got up for the day at 0600. In the approximately five hours I was nominally sleeping, I was woken up three times by “a certain someone” snoring very loudly. My wife denies that it could possibly have been her, so I guess I need to stay up late tonight to catch the invisible intruder who broke in, snored, and then snuck out before daylight. Either that or I need a low-light video camera activated by sound, to catch “a certain someone” in the act.)

    Anyway, back to the movie: Most full-length movies cover about the same material as a longish short story. It’s not surprising that most of the book had to be trimmed.

  26. OFD says:

    “Of course, y’all have probably already seen it…I’m just slow, that way.”

    I’m way slower than YOU, podner. (zero interest in the book or the movie, actually).

    “…Lars Brownworth’s history of the Normans (an excellent book, by the way)”

    THIS, however, would keep me occupied. Queue? I don’t need no stinkin’ queue. OFD reads, on average, a dozen books at a time; no, not all at once, homies! I just dip into one or another depending on my level of interest that day/night. Wife reads one at a time but REALLY FAST. Probably several thousand words a minute, no exaggeration.

    “…so I guess I need to stay up late tonight to catch the invisible intruder who broke in, snored, and then snuck out before daylight. Either that or I need a low-light video camera activated by sound, to catch “a certain someone” in the act.)”

    A certain spouse here snores like Armageddon every night; I’ve seen boats sinking out on the lake and planes crashing. I got used to it and sleep right through it; not hard if one used to work effed-up night shifts for years and spent too many of those years in cop and mil-spec environments with a lotta noise and light. I can sleep on top of a tank with rockets incoming. Wife wakes up if a leaf falls in the woods a mile away.

    “Most full-length movies cover about the same material as a longish short story. It’s not surprising that most of the book had to be trimmed.”

    A long time ago I got interested in how screenplays are done, and read that it’s about a minute per page, or, 90 pages for a 90-minute flick, 120 for a two-hour caper. I tested that out with a couple of movies and their screenplays and darned if that wasn’t the case! Doesn’t seem that hard, does it? Sit down and crank out 90 pages, sell it to Hollywood, and next thing ya know, ya got a blockbuster! Because after all, you can write better chit than those monkeys out there, amirite?

    Or, hell, roll yer own these days; all the toolz are freely available, most of them open-sauce, and just upload it to the Tube or AMZ.

  27. Lynn says:

    “Should Your Right to Carry End at the State Border?”
    http://gunowners.org/alert04052016.htm

    “Stutzman & Cornyn Bills Treat the 2nd Amendment as Your Concealed Carry Permit”

    “Sources inside Congress have told GOA that they may soon be taking up a concealed carry reciprocity bill.”

    “If enacted, this legislation would mean that your right to carry would no longer end at your state border. ”

    “It would mean we would be one step closer to enjoying the full protections of the Second Amendment, which says the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed.”

    “To this end, Gun Owners of America is supporting H.R. 923 and S. 498 — legislation introduced by Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX).”

    “H.R. 923 and S. 498 are the best reciprocity bills in the Congress. Yes, there are similar bills, but they don’t protect citizens who travel from Constitutional Carry states.”

    Hey, my RINO senator is actually doing something proactive. I guess that someone told him that he is in trouble at re-election time.

  28. Lynn says:

    THIS, however, would keep me occupied. Queue? I don’t need no stinkin’ queue. OFD reads, on average, a dozen books at a time; no, not all at once, homies! I just dip into one or another depending on my level of interest that day/night.

    I currently have 400+ books in my SBR (strategic book reserve). Added three more to it Sunday at the local B&N. I buy 4 or 5 books a month from Amazon (usually at least half are POD – print on demand). Almost all are SF (speculative fiction).

  29. SteveF says:

    The requirement for a carry permit is prima facie an infringement.

  30. RickH says:

    I have learned, over the many years of marriage, to refer to the spousal unit’s nighttime noises during sleep as ‘purring’.

  31. paul says:

    “The requirement for a carry permit is prima facie an infringement.”

    Bingo. MrSteve wins the Internet today.

  32. SteveF says:

    …Lars Brownworth’s history of the Normans (an excellent book, by the way)

    THIS, however, would keep me occupied.

    He did such a good job that I came out of it with some respect for (some of) the Normans, where I’d gone in with disgust, contempt, and a vague notion that it would be a good idea to go back in time and sink their ships when they first neared Normandy.

    Brownworth’s book on the Byzantines was even better, by the way. Both are highly recommended for anyone interested in history.

    And, checking just now, I see he has another book, about the Vikings. And it came out over a year ago, which suggests that my reading queue is too stinking long or that I’m reading too slowly.

  33. OFD says:

    “The requirement for a carry permit is prima facie an infringement.”

    +1,000,000

    All the various laws, regulations, ordinances, etc. enacted in this country since the 1930s in regard to firearms are also blatant and obscene infringements.

    “I have learned, over the many years of marriage, to refer to the spousal unit’s nighttime noises during sleep as ‘purring’.”

    I’ll try that one, instead of using “snoring like a freight train” or “sleep apnea” for which she needs med attention…

    @Mr. SteveF; thanks for them tips on the Brownworth books; am ordering forthwith. I’m a history maniac, esp. for the medieval period, but pretty much anything from my own lifespan thus fah back to when Someone said “Fiat Lux!”

  34. MrAtoz says:

    And it came out over a year ago, which suggests that my reading queue is too stinking long or that I’m reading too slowly.

    I just stink.

  35. medium wave says:

    I’m way slower than YOU, podner. (zero interest in the book or the movie, actually).

    @OFD: As someone who has read “The Martian” but hasn’t (yet) seen the movie, allow me to strongly urge you to buy the book! I was actually moved by certain parts of the book, unusual for a cynical, hard-bitten and jaded lifelong reader such as myself. Its main attraction: Mark Watney simply Does. Not. Give. Up!

    In re books currently being read: Three in the bedside stack, three next to the comfy living room chair, both extremely low numbers for yours truly.

    @Mr. SteveF; thanks for them tips on the Brownworth books; am ordering forthwith.

    Ditto

  36. SteveF says:

    I just stink.

    Physically I’m rather neutral in that, but I carry a moral stench with me wherever I go.

  37. ech says:

    A long time ago I got interested in how screenplays are done, and read that it’s about a minute per page, or, 90 pages for a 90-minute flick, 120 for a two-hour caper. I tested that out with a couple of movies and their screenplays and darned if that wasn’t the case! Doesn’t seem that hard, does it? Sit down and crank out 90 pages, sell it to Hollywood, and next thing ya know, ya got a blockbuster! Because after all, you can write better chit than those monkeys out there, amirite?

    That’s the theory. I’ve found the practice harder. You have to be able to think visually, do reasonable characterization, and have reasonable pacing. I’ll keep you posted on how my screenplay is doing. I’ve started a rewrite based on “coverage” I got from a former script evaluator from HBO. She was very encouraging. After rewrite, it’s flog to an agent time.

  38. OFD says:

    My best wishes, Mr. ech, on that project. I really hope you get it going and are successful with it. I’m not as good a visual thinker as my wife, which she reminds me about when she’s busy re-arranging the house (my opinion is worth approximately nil). I was finding it very helpful back then to read actual screenplays, however, esp. those by Horton Foot and David Mamet.

  39. OFD says:

    Wow, this is gonna be an interesting year coming up! Besides the probable Cankles/Sanders WH, we have our fun pals on the SCOTUS, too:

    https://www.oathkeepers.org/scotus-decision-on-counting-illegals-highlights-betrayal-of-governments-purpose/

    As WRS site sez, we do not have enough ammo, food or water yet. Not to mention meds, heat/a-c, and comms.

    And I refer once again to that infamous SteveF Playbook page about what the current rulers would be doing differently, etc.

  40. SteveF says:

    Was it here that people were talking about Evelyn Waugh about a month ago? Regardless, for anyone interested, BBC’s “Free Thinking” has a podcast about him: http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download/proto/http/vpid/p03q51n2.mp3
    (I’m not sure if that link is permanent, so here’s the podcast’s page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nrvk3/episodes/downloads )

  41. OFD says:

    I don’t recall the conversation here, but that’s likely a function of my continuing senility and CRS Syndrome. The Waugh family were a bunch of miserable sons of bitches and drunks, but by Jeezum they could write! Evelyn had other stuff besides the homosexual-adoring production of “Brideshead Revisited,” esp. his trilogy about the Good War starring the officer, Guy Crouchback. Recommended highly.

    Tx for dem links, homie.

  42. OFD says:

    Heads up down there, you Lone Star State cowboyz and cowgrrls:

    http://freedomoutpost.com/the-exodus-of-people-moving-away-from-california-is-becoming-an-avalanche/

    Yo, they movin’ to TX. Hopefully it won’t be swarms of SJWs and progs seeking to replicate the places they’re coming from. If so, I recommend setting up some machine guns and artillery on the highway approaches and implementing TANG offensive maneuvers. See if Shrub is willing to put his narrow ass back in the pilot seat.

  43. OFD says:

    Another warrior-hero executes a brutal and savage and dangerous hardcore criminal suspect:

    http://freedomoutpost.com/cop-charged-with-second-degree-murder-after-killing-sobbing-unarmed-man-begging-for-his-life/

    That’ll be the day I’m crawling on my knees and begging; fuck that. They can kiss my ass or shoot me. Might take more than the five 5.56 rounds they pumped into this poor bastard, though, before I get to them.

  44. MrAtoz says:

    Why can’t the cops do that to Cankles. Maybe the FBI?

  45. OFD says:

    Fun suggestion: Put Cankles and an assortment of SCOTUS justices, Congress whores, and Cabinet officials out on one of them TX feral hog hunts; let ’em run around for a while down below, while you pilot the chopper and I take shots at them with whatever feral hog hunting rifles I can retrieve from the Brazos. See how many I can nail in half an hour. You don’t have to lead the fatter ones as much…

  46. OFD says:

    Latest bumf from some operative on Faux Nooz is that the Repub nabobs plan to fiddle with Rule 40 and force it so that Kasich is their nominee, despite his pitiful last place throughout with single digits and having only won his own state so far. So, if true, they plan to deliberately lose to Cankles, as your northern correspondent has already predicted. They would rather have her than Trump or Cruz, obviously, and several of them and their neocon enablers have repeatedly come right out and said so.

    Here’s my latest scenario: They put Kasich or Mittens or even Jebster in against Cankles so they can lose and she gets in. She picks Sanders as her VP running mate; note how they’ve basically played patty-cake with each other throughout the campaign. So then she either gets indicted and causes a Constitutional crisis of some sort, or croaks, from whatever multitude of ailments she clearly. Then we get President Sanders, who spent his honeymoon in Moscow, and thinks breadlines are a socialist workers paradise. He oughta get along swell with all the neocon scum who still infest the Fed, sharing their Trotskyite origins.

    Get the basic human needs taken care of for you and yours and a basic defensive battery and PLENTY of ammo. If you live in a city, GTFO before it’s too late. Spouses and other family and friends got normalcy bias? They’ll be cured of it by this time next year, I reckon.

  47. OFD says:

    Life is fookin’ grand for some folks:

    https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/ruler-spends-money-far-elan-ever/

    No real reason, though, for Jebster to get back in it; his family continues their life of crime and corruption apace:

    https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/04/roger-stone/next-bush-crime-family/

  48. lynn says:

    I just stink.

    Physically I’m rather neutral in that, but I carry a moral stench with me wherever I go.

    Yup, ever since Eve listened to the serpent and brought the forbidden fruit to her husband, we all have a moral stench. And my preacher recently pointed out that Adam just dug the hole deeper when he complained to God about THAT Woman That You Gave Me. Trying to blame God for our failings has been a common problem of the human race ever since then.

  49. lynn says:

    Latest bumf from some operative on Faux Nooz is that the Repub nabobs plan to fiddle with Rule 40 and force it so that Kasich is their nominee, despite his pitiful last place throughout with single digits and having only won his own state so far.

    Kasich is a gun grabber.

  50. nick says:

    Any of them that know in their heart of hearts that they will be a target are gun grabbers. So that means ALL of them. Some just haven’t de-cloaked yet.

    nick

  51. lynn says:

    Heads up down there, you Lone Star State cowboyz and cowgrrls:

    http://freedomoutpost.com/the-exodus-of-people-moving-away-from-california-is-becoming-an-avalanche/

    Yo, they movin’ to TX. Hopefully it won’t be swarms of SJWs and progs seeking to replicate the places they’re coming from. If so, I recommend setting up some machine guns and artillery on the highway approaches and implementing TANG offensive maneuvers. See if Shrub is willing to put his narrow ass back in the pilot seat.

    Too late, they are already here! And George flew an F-102, a gun less piece of junk. Fire your six air to air missiles and run baby! If he could fly that piece of junk, he could fly an A-10 just fine.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_F-102_Delta_Dagger

  52. lynn says:

    Whatever you do, don’t shoot the feral hgs. Ever since OFD mentioned that feral hogs eat rattlesnakes, I reseached that up and found it to be true. I have only seen one snake on my 14 acres in the last year. Havent seen the feral hogs either since they come up from the river about 3 am and leave at 6 am (dawn). But my neighbor has as she leaves for work about 5 am. They just leave their plowings around the place where they turned over the turf.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBlcMaMw0Xk

  53. brad says:

    “They put Kasich or Mittens or even Jebster in against Cankles so they can lose and she gets in.”

    I could see them trying it with Jeb again. After all, didn’t the golf club decide it was his turn? He certainly went into the whole thing with that attitude.

    The simple fact that the Repub party is considering playing that kind of game ought to be utterly offensive to any and all registered party members, regardless of who they support. It’s a slap in the face: “you’re opinion doesn’t matter, we’ll tell you who you should have voted for.”

    Not that the Dem’s are any better, with their huge number of superdelegates.

  54. Clayton W. says:

    Ordered 3 from Lars Brownworth. Look for “A World Lit Only By Fire” Great book.

    And I loved “The Martian”. Only SF because we haven’t done it. The science is correct (except for the hurricane), and the math all works out. He has struggles, WITHOUT it seeming forced or exceedingly bad luck. He makes mistakes and works through them. Fun read.

  55. Al says:

    Interesting. After Putin was outed by the leak of the Panama Papers, he’s decided that he’s going to declassify some documents that contain some ‘very interesting names.’

    This looks like it could be a lot of fun.

    http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/04/putin-to-declassify-documents-that-bear.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FortRuss+%28Fort+Russ%29

  56. Dave says:

    Our town has seven elementary schools, six public and one private. Great Schools rates the private school as better than five of the six public schools. The sixth public school has very small class sizes because of the way the boundaries are drawn.

  57. Dave says:

    The private school in our town charges at most $4500 per student. In our state, public school spending is over $10,000 per student, over $6,000 of that being spent in the classroom.

  58. nick says:

    Private schools often have lower costs for teaching staff, as they are willing to work for less for religious or personal reasons. And they are not typically unionized.

    nikc

  59. nick says:

    Weaponsman linked to this, if you are looking for something to read.

    It’s very funny, and each anecdote is fairly short.

    https://archive.org/details/dynamitestoriess00maxi

    “Over in the superintendent’s office the
    foreman had just completed his narration of
    Pat’s carelessness, when there was a thunderous report and a crash of glass, and
    Pat’s booted foot landed on the office floor between them.

    The superintendent dryly remarked, “Evidently, Pat is already discharged!”

    I guess if you spent any time around explosives at the turn of the century, you soon developed a very wry and darwinian sense of humor. Recommended.

    nick

  60. DadCooks says:

    Here’s a thought, Trump and Cruz form an alliance and go third-party. IMHO, not out the realm of possibility/probability. Hey, some of you have brought up a Cankles Bern ticket.

    The only problem is that darn Electoral “College”. With that there really is no way a third-party can win. Even though Trump Cruz would get a majority of the popular vote it would be so spread out that the “Electors” will go to whoever the Darnocrats are running.

    Two, of many, things that need to be changed in our electoral process: (1) primary winners determined by popular vote rather than delegates and (2) general election winner determined by popular vote rather than the Electoral “College”.

    Our society has too many parasites and too many politicians willing to give away your money.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/san-francisco-approves-fully-paid-parental-leave.html

    I have an additional use for “Trump’s Wall”. Can you guess what it is?

  61. dkreck says:

    The Founders didn’t want a democracy, for good reasons. Many of those can be seen now.

  62. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Good heavens, no! The electoral college is the only thing standing between the lower population areas and the megalopolises on the coasts.

  63. SteveF says:

    The electoral college is the only thing standing between the lower population areas and the megalopolises on the coasts.

    Kinda makes you wish the warmenists were right and the sea level was going to go up ten meters in no time, doesn’t it?

  64. Dave says:

    Private schools often have lower costs for teaching staff, as they are willing to work for less for religious or personal reasons. And they are not typically unionized.

  65. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    I was going to say the red states, but I dislike the red/blue thing. I think the prog media intentionally reversed them to confuse things. Everyone knows that conservatives/libertarians are blue and progs are red.

  66. MrAtoz says:

    Our society has too many parasites and too many politicians willing to give away your money.

    It’s time for Basic Income and PRCs. Let those who don’t want to work live on soy rations, free basic health care and TV. Those who want to work get real food and nice accommodations plus top health care.

  67. DadCooks says:

    “Let those who don’t want to work live on soy rations, free basic health care and TV.”

    /Prog whining voice on/
    But that’s not faaaiiirrr :shed-a-tear:
    /Prog whining voice off/

    “basic health care” = a band-aid and an aspirin (What you want two? Back of the line for you!)

  68. DadCooks says:

    @RBT – but at least they got the jack-ass right 😉

  69. dkreck says:

    Football and beer – the modern bread and circuses.

  70. OFD says:

    @Mr. Al;

    Yes indeed, those Panama Papers look like they could be very entertaining, and are likely to be released piecemeal for a while. Can’t wait to see Murkan names cropping up.

    Red states, blue states; it seems to me that most of the cities are, using RBT’s preferred color scheme, Red, along with large chunks of coastal geography. The majority of the country in terms of real estate is true Blue. But many areas are also Purple, a mix, where reds and blues are all smushed together. It’s almost as simplistic a way of looking at things as the old town mouse versus city mouse fable. And we’re all connected to the pixels now, for as long as the juice holds out.

  71. MrAtoz says:

    How about a Trump/Sanders third party? We’ll call it Communism with panache. ™

  72. Miles_Teg says:

    OFD wrote:

    “Another warrior-hero executes a brutal and savage and dangerous hardcore criminal suspect”

    I’ll bet London to a brick he’ll skate.

  73. Lynn says:

    How about a Trump/Sanders third party? We’ll call it Communism with panache.

    Why are you calling Trump a communist?

  74. OFD says:

    “I’ll bet London to a brick he’ll skate.”

    Not a bet I’d take. Cop-thugs almost always skate on these things; they have the full backing not only of their department brass, but also the town/city/state fathers and mothers. This is, of course, after they investigate themselves. The rare exceptions I’ve seen have been where the media gets hold of it and blasts it all over the net, usually when it’s evil white cops (but also now any color/face cops) murdering helpless black babies. And those Feds out in Oregon clearly murdered Finicum but they’re in the process of prosecuting and imprisoning as many citizens as they possibly can, even from events of two years ago at the Bundy ranch; no Feds will get so much as a slap on the wrist or a good talking-to.

    “Why are you calling Trump a communist?”

    I think he meant Sanders as the commie and Trump as the panache.

  75. Lynn says:

    “Why are you calling Trump a communist?”

    I think he meant Sanders as the commie and Trump as the panache.

    Oh. I think of Trump as a heavyweight and Sanders as a lightweight. Trumps ideas are achievable, Sander’s ideas are not.

  76. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Trump has no ideas, just bluster.

  77. OFD says:

    “I think of Trump as a heavyweight and Sanders as a lightweight. Trumps ideas are achievable, Sander’s ideas are not.”

    I beg to differ with thee.

    Just a couple of ideas: Trump wants to build a bigger wall on the southern border, send millions of illegals out of the country and eliminate the “official” debt of nearly $20 trillion. I doubt if such a wall could be built of sufficient strength to seal that border in time before the erstaz billions finally run out. More likely many hundreds of billions to build it, all in fiat currency and/or borrowed from foreign countries one way or another. And by now it’s physically impossible to remove the tens of millions of illegals here and that was the point of the various amnesty exercises and the long-ago depredations by the late Ted Kennedy and his minions back in the Glorious Sixties. Such demographics would clearly favor the Evil Half of the Party and they certainly have, haven’t they? Finally the only way to get rid of the humongous “official” debt is to repudiate it and declare national Default, which is probably coming eventually anyway. That will undoubtedly not only rock the international financial world but knock us down to a bad-credit second-tier empire.

    Sanders, on the other hand, has various socialistic and commie ideas that already have a substantial foothold in this country and would have little to no trouble continuing to implement them and the associated projects started by Obola and the Klintons.

    It could actually come about that we end up this fall with a Klinton-Sanders WH, and her super-delegates will probably be the planned-for tipping point. Short of an indictment, of course, or her just collapsing and dying somewhere from whatever, which is devoutly to be wished for. Yes, a sin, but these people are evil. Yes, but they COULD repent their evil. Yes, but that is highly unlikely. Yes, but you don’t know that, do you? The ways of the Lord are mysterious indeed.

    OK, Lord. We pray thee for the repentance of these evildoers, none of whom will get my vote anyway.

  78. Lynn says:

    Trump wants to pay for the southern wall using a tax on money transfers to Mexico and South America.
    https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/pay-for-the-wall

    Trump wants to return us to the old healthcare insurance system by totally rolling back Obolacare. He also wants to block grant the Medicaid payments to the states for their choice of apportionment. I am not sure what he want to do about people with existing conditions that affect them getting health insurance. He also wants to take care of people dying on the streets, I do not have a clue about that one.
    https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/healthcare-reform

    Trump wants to institute a tariff of 35% on all goods entering the USA. I do not know what he wants to do with the funds generated.
    https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/us-china-trade-reform

    Trump wants to remove us from trade agreements such as NAFTA, WTO, TPP, MFNS, etc.

    Trump wants to dispense the debt of the USA in 8 years. I have no idea how he plans to do it but it is a admirable goal. One has to start somewhere.

    Trump wants to appoint Supreme Court justices like Scalia and Thomas.

    Trump wants to remove us from NATO. Trump wants to return most foreign based USA troops to the USA. He wants to leave some troops in the middle east and in the china sea areas for “Chinese adventurism”. Me, I want to bring all troops home.

    Trump wants to stop immigration until current immigrants have been assimilated. Similar to what we did from 1925 to 1965.

    All of these goals are admirable to me.

  79. OFD says:

    They may or may not be admirable goals, at least some of them, but the key thing to note here is that Trump SAYS he wants this and that and is a tad deficient on saying HOW he plans to implement any of them in the face of a recalcitrant and criminal Congress, commie SCOTUS and legions of Fed bureaucrats and lawyers. It’s not like he’s Mussolini and can simply make the trains run on time; that era is long gone, despite the attempts by libturd media to portray him as another Hitler or Mussolini. As RBT said above, he’s full of bluster, und sturm und drang, but actually able to run an empire, doubtful.

    Cankles and Sanders, on the other hand, will have no trouble implementing even more socialist/communist projects and programs with a mainly cooperative and supine Congress, SCOTUS and MSM. And the RINOs will happily ride along for a share of the loot and power, while the neocon chickenhawks, having no particular trouble working with socialists and communists, will continue to gin up more foreign wars and are very likely to touch off World War IV even before I shuffle off to the boneyard.

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