That Warren Woman

Not long ago, Scott Brown was busy losing his Senate seat and decided his best course of action was to say stupidly offensive things about Elizabeth Warren as he tried to turn Adolescent Mocking into a viable campaign strategy.

Any time one side decides to concentrate on their opponent's status or comportment or  "tone" - you know their policy argument's a total loser.

From Pam Martens at Wall Street On Parade:

Senator Warren said to the audience: “Who would have thought five years ago, after we witnessed firsthand the dangers of an overly concentrated financial system, that the Too Big to Fail problem would only have gotten worse? There are many who say, ‘Sure, Too Big to Fail isn’t over yet, but Congress should wait to act further because the agencies still have to issue a bunch of Dodd-Frank’s required rules.’ True, there are rules left to be written, but that’s because the agencies have missed more than 60 percent of Dodd-Frank’s rulemaking deadlines. I don’t understand the logic. Since when does Congress set deadlines, watch regulators miss most of them, and then take that failure as a reason not to act? I thought that if the regulators failed, it was time for Congress to step in. That’s what oversight means. And that’s certainly a principle that would have served our country well prior to the crisis.”

Warren makes way too much sense - she must be destroyed.

Virginia Voting (one more)

2 questions:

1) Is Kenny the Kooch ever gonna make the phone call to Terry McAuliffe?  Or is it something he can't do if he expects the sweet Wingnut Welfare gig that high-profile Repub losers get?

2) How long before somebody breaks up the circle jerk the Press Poodles are enjoying so much regarding Chris Christie?

Just wonderin'.

Virginia Voting 2013

First off, Mark Herring released the standard "I-Think-I-Won-This-Thing" statement that's de rigueur for this stuff - somebody has to claim the prize, and that puts pressure on the other guy to concede; and the other guy will demand a recount; and we'll all still be here doing the same thing for another month.  But it's important to have the numbers edge on the first pass because recounts generally don't change the outcome (Florida 2000 not withstanding, of course).

The main thing I wanna point up here is this:  After a week of scouring thru the precinct reports and digging up one or two machines that hadn't been included in the first count, and then sorting out the provisional votes, and and and - after adding up more than 2 million votes, Herring's ahead by a whopping 163. So if you're somebody who blows off the chance to vote because you're walkin' around thinking your vote doesn't matter (and I say this with love and charity in my heart) - go blow yourself; you're an idiot.

Secondly, here's a map looking at vote distribution by county and incorporated city areas, which is the map Repubs love to see because it seems to show "the real Virginia" should've gotten its way, and that "them damned yankee-lovin' city-livin' DemocRats are stealin' our heritage and denyin' us our god-given rights" (to live at the mercy of corporate whim, but never mind all that).  Anyway, here's that map:

And here's a Cartographic look at what the numbers and the distribution really mean:

Again with love and charity in my heart: Demographics, dumbass.  Get some.

hat tip = Blue Virginia

Schools Matter

So what happens if we don't slap a nation-wide school system with all the crap we've been dumping on our public schools?

Schools Matter takes a look at it - and finds that the DoD schools were exempted from NCLB etc etc etc, and gosh:

So what do we see as a result at the DoDEA schools (see earlier post here) after all these years of living without corporate charter schools, teacher evaluation based on test scores, value-added assessment, corporate missionaries for TFA, AYP, Reading First, scripted parrot lessons, DIBELs, segregation based on test scores, corporate tutoring, venture philanthropy, required testing to graduate or be promoted to the next grade, total compliance classroom, test and punish, test prep, withdrawal of funds from those who need it most, rewarding schools that don't need it, nervous breakdowns, vomiting students, nosebleeds, suicides by principals, school children dying from toothaches as billions are spent on testing, and on and on....How have the DoDEA schools survived without all this?

This first group includes the schools that have been scoring better than the National Average:

Then we have the bunch in the middle where there's no appreciable difference between these schools and the Nation Average:

And lastly, here's the group lagging farthest behind the National Average:

Did ya happen to notice where the DoD schools happened to rank in all o' dat?

Almost forgot - isn't a school operated by the Department of Defense very much the epitome of a "Government School"?  And since those Gubmint Skools are doing just fine without all that massive boondoggle, can we drop the bullshit now?

Today's Pix

Battle Of The Brands

One of Lee Camp's Moment of Clarity videos on YouTube

Today's Best Blog Headline

From Wonkette:

THAT NORTH DAKOTA NAZI-TOWN GUY IS A LITTLE BIT BLACK, SO IT IS TRUE THAT BLACK PEOPLE ARE THE REAL RACISTS

It's not quite the greatest post ever, but I don't care - the headline makes it worth looking.

Today's Quote

(via Charlie Pierce)

War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.

In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it.

In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them.

In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed.

It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.  --James Madison, 1793.

You Know Somebody's Thinking It

It's just bound to be the next big thing in marketing.

A New One For Me

Schools Matter:

This space explores issues in public education policy, and it advocates for a commitment to and a re-examination of the democratic purposes of schools. If there is some urgency in the message, it is due to the current reform efforts that are based on a radical re-invention of education, now spearheaded by a psychometric blitzkrieg of "metastasizing testing" aimed at dismantling a public education system that took almost 200 years to build. JH August, 2005

I'll tell y'all up front that I don't know how to "fix the schools".  But we've been trying this melange of Charter Schools and Magnet Schools and For-Profit-Public-Private and Casino-Style-High-Stakes-Testing etc etc for something like the last 20 years or so, and I think it's time to admit that practically every attempt to shoehorn the operations of a Public School System into the Standard Business Model has failed.

I guess I should clarify what I think has failed - these attempts are not making for better students or for better teachers, and they're not making for a better work force, and they're sure as shit not making any given community better.  It is, however working beautifully when it comes to making some well-connected "entrepreneurs" quite comfortably wealthy.  Don't you have to wonder why Neil Bush suddenly discovered his long-dorment passion for Student Testing and Assessment right about the same time his brother was busily sliming No Child Left Behind thru congress?

See, it kinda works like this here:  When you make the endeavor about The Public Good, then you build in an incentive to do good things for The Public.  When you make the endeavor about Profit, then you build in the incentive for Rentiers to take profit.

(I can't believe anybody has to say it out loud like that, but fuck me, there it is)

Anyway, schools need a lot of help in a lot of ways, but a lot of the ways we've been "helping" them is straight up shameful.  Let's try something else.

hat tip = Democratic Underground