http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl1pceahuts&feature=related
I've seen this ad and I'm having trouble trying to figure out the offensive part of the ad? Is there something racist about this add?
This ad questions Senator Obama’s judgment for associating with Reverend Wright and it also questions the judgment of two N. C. Democrats judgment for endorsing Senator Obama? What the offensive part?
The only thing racist about this ad would be the part where Reverend Wright speaks.
Is this how the general election is going to play out? Anytime we question Senator Obama we'll be accused of being racist?
So maybe Senator McCain could explain the part of this ad that he finds offensive?
Friday, April 25, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
What is wrong with public schools and how do we fix them?
Graduation Rates in our public schools are deplorable. America’s Promise sponsored a study of the 50 largest cities and learned that only 70% of all students nationwide are receiving diplomas. In our inner cities it is even worse. Detroit has a graduation rate of 24.9%, Indianapolis 30.5%, Cleveland 34.1%. Even the best districts in the survey Mesa, San Jose, and Nashville were only at 77%.
I’m sorry but even the best cities in this survey were unacceptable. I believe that even a 90% success rate would be unacceptable. That would be 1 out of every 10 kids failing to graduate. Although, I guess today that would sound pretty good.
Our schools are failing. They have been in decline for several generations now and it is totally unacceptable. The worst schools are all in districts that have been controlled by Democrat party for many generations. They’re always coming up with the same reasons for their failures. They always need more money. I have news for you, they will never have enough money and if we doubled the money that is spent on education today we still wouldn’t get any better results.
Imagine if General Motors tried that approach. I promise to get you a better car tomorrow if you would just pay me more for the one I’m selling you today? Do you know what you would do if they tried something like that? Well, you’d run right over to Ford, or Chrysler, or Toyota and buy a different car and you wouldn’t go back to them until they got their act together.
Unfortunately the fact is districts controlled by Republicans are only slightly better. They generally reside in the suburbs and have parents that are more involved than we have in the inner cities. So they typically get better results albeit not great results either.
Teachers are not incompetent (well maybe a small percentage of may be) but the system they are in is broken. Government monopolies are doomed to be inefficient at best and incompetent at the worst. Bureaucrats are not out to improve productivity they are all about protecting their own jobs.
Well what are we going to do about it? We cannot let this continue, it will not get better. The problems are systemic and we have to reconsider our ideas on how to get good education.
We spend more money per student than any other country in the world. The children in this country should be the smartest and best educated children on the planet.
The solution is capitalism. It is what has made this country the greatest country in the history of the world. We have to infuse competition into our schools and make them compete with each other.
We need to stop funding schools and start funding children. We are spending about $10,000 per student nationwide. You give that money to the parents in the form of a voucher and the parents are free to put their kids into whatever type of school they believe will do the best job educating them.
All kids learn differently so why are we trying to find a one size fits all version of a school for every child. It makes no sense what so ever.
Now, I know it’s not practical to send every kid from all of the inner city high schools to 1 or 2 really goods schools in the suburbs that may be 30 miles away. Some parents still wouldn’t be able to send their kids to a better school because they don’t have the means to transport them to a school so far away.
We need to stop looking at schools as buildings. Schools should just be a collection of teachers. Think of a school building as something similar to a mall. Where different schools can setup shop in the same building.
The different schools can share resources. Perhaps they could take turns using the gym, cafeteria and the auditorium. Split the cost proportionately for the heat electricity and the water.
We can have a boy’s school, a girl’s school, a boot camp type school and a religious school all under one roof. We could have secular schools, college prep schools, music schools and schools that focus on athletics. We could also have schools that have more hands on style of teaching and schools that focus on gifted children.
Some schools may offer free busing for their students others may promise a new laptop to for every student. Some may require kids to wear uniforms. Others may have a 3 hour homework session in the building right after class.
There will be all sorts of different possibilities. I don’t know what the final mix will turn out to be and that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that parents and children will make these decisions based on what fits their children the best.
Let the free market go to work and watch what happens. Three important things will happen:
1 - Kids will get better educations.
2 - Teachers will get better pay
3 - Someone will be making a profit.
You say how can this be? Surely if someone makes a profit from this then won’t they actually be taking money away from our kids? I don’t believe so; I believe that we are that inefficient today. Do the math. Even at 20 kids per class at 10,000 dollars per kid. That is 200,000 dollars per class. Teachers barely make about 50,000 per year. What is happening to the rest of the money? Books, supplies, surely school buildings don’t cost that much to operate?
Now of course we’ll have to have some type of watchdog group looking over all of these different schools to ensure that they are meeting some minimum standards. But I feel confident that even the worst of these schools will be an improvement over what we have today.
To get this started we could break up the schools sort of like the government broke up AT&T. We can have different principals and department heads get together and form individual companies. Now obviously every company would be structured differently, but I think that we could structure teachers’ salaries with incentives and performance bonuses.
Of course the worst performing schools would end up getting the least customers and be forced to either cut their costs or go out of business. At which point a new company would come in and try something different, perhaps something that has been successful in other areas.
I don’t know how it will play out in the long run. Maybe we’ll have a big three like the auto industry. Or maybe it’ll be like the restaurant industry were we have national chains along with local little specialty schools. I think it would be exciting to see how it all plays out.
We could start a trial program in Detroit they seem to be in the biggest mess and in no time we should see some marked improvements from them. The important thing is that we have to be sure that we truly get government out of the decision making process. After that it would spread just like wildfire across the country.
I’m sorry but even the best cities in this survey were unacceptable. I believe that even a 90% success rate would be unacceptable. That would be 1 out of every 10 kids failing to graduate. Although, I guess today that would sound pretty good.
Our schools are failing. They have been in decline for several generations now and it is totally unacceptable. The worst schools are all in districts that have been controlled by Democrat party for many generations. They’re always coming up with the same reasons for their failures. They always need more money. I have news for you, they will never have enough money and if we doubled the money that is spent on education today we still wouldn’t get any better results.
Imagine if General Motors tried that approach. I promise to get you a better car tomorrow if you would just pay me more for the one I’m selling you today? Do you know what you would do if they tried something like that? Well, you’d run right over to Ford, or Chrysler, or Toyota and buy a different car and you wouldn’t go back to them until they got their act together.
Unfortunately the fact is districts controlled by Republicans are only slightly better. They generally reside in the suburbs and have parents that are more involved than we have in the inner cities. So they typically get better results albeit not great results either.
Teachers are not incompetent (well maybe a small percentage of may be) but the system they are in is broken. Government monopolies are doomed to be inefficient at best and incompetent at the worst. Bureaucrats are not out to improve productivity they are all about protecting their own jobs.
Well what are we going to do about it? We cannot let this continue, it will not get better. The problems are systemic and we have to reconsider our ideas on how to get good education.
We spend more money per student than any other country in the world. The children in this country should be the smartest and best educated children on the planet.
The solution is capitalism. It is what has made this country the greatest country in the history of the world. We have to infuse competition into our schools and make them compete with each other.
We need to stop funding schools and start funding children. We are spending about $10,000 per student nationwide. You give that money to the parents in the form of a voucher and the parents are free to put their kids into whatever type of school they believe will do the best job educating them.
All kids learn differently so why are we trying to find a one size fits all version of a school for every child. It makes no sense what so ever.
Now, I know it’s not practical to send every kid from all of the inner city high schools to 1 or 2 really goods schools in the suburbs that may be 30 miles away. Some parents still wouldn’t be able to send their kids to a better school because they don’t have the means to transport them to a school so far away.
We need to stop looking at schools as buildings. Schools should just be a collection of teachers. Think of a school building as something similar to a mall. Where different schools can setup shop in the same building.
The different schools can share resources. Perhaps they could take turns using the gym, cafeteria and the auditorium. Split the cost proportionately for the heat electricity and the water.
We can have a boy’s school, a girl’s school, a boot camp type school and a religious school all under one roof. We could have secular schools, college prep schools, music schools and schools that focus on athletics. We could also have schools that have more hands on style of teaching and schools that focus on gifted children.
Some schools may offer free busing for their students others may promise a new laptop to for every student. Some may require kids to wear uniforms. Others may have a 3 hour homework session in the building right after class.
There will be all sorts of different possibilities. I don’t know what the final mix will turn out to be and that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that parents and children will make these decisions based on what fits their children the best.
Let the free market go to work and watch what happens. Three important things will happen:
1 - Kids will get better educations.
2 - Teachers will get better pay
3 - Someone will be making a profit.
You say how can this be? Surely if someone makes a profit from this then won’t they actually be taking money away from our kids? I don’t believe so; I believe that we are that inefficient today. Do the math. Even at 20 kids per class at 10,000 dollars per kid. That is 200,000 dollars per class. Teachers barely make about 50,000 per year. What is happening to the rest of the money? Books, supplies, surely school buildings don’t cost that much to operate?
Now of course we’ll have to have some type of watchdog group looking over all of these different schools to ensure that they are meeting some minimum standards. But I feel confident that even the worst of these schools will be an improvement over what we have today.
To get this started we could break up the schools sort of like the government broke up AT&T. We can have different principals and department heads get together and form individual companies. Now obviously every company would be structured differently, but I think that we could structure teachers’ salaries with incentives and performance bonuses.
Of course the worst performing schools would end up getting the least customers and be forced to either cut their costs or go out of business. At which point a new company would come in and try something different, perhaps something that has been successful in other areas.
I don’t know how it will play out in the long run. Maybe we’ll have a big three like the auto industry. Or maybe it’ll be like the restaurant industry were we have national chains along with local little specialty schools. I think it would be exciting to see how it all plays out.
We could start a trial program in Detroit they seem to be in the biggest mess and in no time we should see some marked improvements from them. The important thing is that we have to be sure that we truly get government out of the decision making process. After that it would spread just like wildfire across the country.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
What's the worst that could happen?
John McCain recently quoted Tony Blair who said that “If we're wrong about global warming the worst thing that could happen is that we leave our children with a cleaner planet".
Well Senator McCain, let me tell you what the worst thing that could happen is.
The worst thing that could happen is that we leave our children a world filled more and more bureaucrats and politicians spending more and more of our money and wondering why we’re unable to save money. Those same politicians also believe they know what’s better for our children than we do.
I’m here to tell you that they don’t have a clue and the best thing that you can do for us Senator is to reduce the size of our government.
The explosive growth of government over the past 100 years has been unprecedented. Our government now spends more than 36% of our GNP/GDP.
In the manufacturing sector, we’ve been able to reduce costs and increase productivity dramatically over the same time frame. Government however, continues to grow. You would think with the advent of computers and other technologies our government would become more efficient. Certainly you don’t need as many bureaucrats as you did in the past?
But that’s not how it works. Bureaucrats don’t try to reduce costs and they don’t try to eliminate jobs. Not at all, they are all about protecting their own little jobs and their own little fiefdoms.
If politicians and bureaucrats were any good at predicting what the next great business would be, they wouldn't be in politics trying to spend our money. They would be in business making money.
Let’s take a look at some of their accomplishments:
Sport Utility Vehicles - This is a direct result of congress imposing "CAFE" standards on to the American Public. This eliminated the family sedan. So people who had never ever had any desire to ever go off road or to go four wheeling bought vehicles that would hold their entire family and keep them safe.
Ethanol – Congress passed laws subsidizing Ethanol in an effort to get our country away from oil. Well this doesn’t work. The latest reports show that we actually spend about a gallon’s worth of fuel to create a gallon of Ethanol and the ethanol only produces about 80% of the energy of a gallon of gasoline.
Air Bags – or do people forget that because of government regulations air bags were made much more powerful than they needed to be. The government required that airbags had to be able to protect an unrestrained 200 lb male. That little plan started killing small women and children in low speed crashes who unfortunately were sitting too close to these air bags that were exploding in front of them at 200 mph. So, after enough people were killed, the government allowed women to go get a court order to allow them to have their air bags disabled. They would have to go a repair shop and pay about $500.00 to have it disabled. Ironically they still couldn’t order a car without an airbag because that was still against the law.
Unfortunately there are countless more examples of government ineptitude. Remember Hurricane Katrina. I believe that most people failed to learn the true lesson of Katrina.
The liberals would have us believe that conservatives don’t know how to run big governments – as if that were a bad thing. Sorry but they don’t know how to run it either.
But the real lesson from Katrina was that government by definition is inept. They are a monopoly with out any incentive to get better.
President Bush fired some figure head leader of FEMA. But he didn’t deserve to be fired. It’s the equivalent of firing the coach when the team loses but you don’t change any of the players.
So please Senator McCain do not join with the Democrats and try to solve global warming.
Would you be willing to make a pledge that you will work not only to keep government from getting larger, but would you be willing to make a pledge to reduce the size of government every year? I’m thinking 10% a year would be a good start.
The best thing that you can do for the American people is to reduce the cost of government by making it more efficient and then get out of our way and we will solve this crisis just as we have solved all of the other crisis’s that we’ve solved in the past.
Well Senator McCain, let me tell you what the worst thing that could happen is.
The worst thing that could happen is that we leave our children a world filled more and more bureaucrats and politicians spending more and more of our money and wondering why we’re unable to save money. Those same politicians also believe they know what’s better for our children than we do.
I’m here to tell you that they don’t have a clue and the best thing that you can do for us Senator is to reduce the size of our government.
The explosive growth of government over the past 100 years has been unprecedented. Our government now spends more than 36% of our GNP/GDP.
In the manufacturing sector, we’ve been able to reduce costs and increase productivity dramatically over the same time frame. Government however, continues to grow. You would think with the advent of computers and other technologies our government would become more efficient. Certainly you don’t need as many bureaucrats as you did in the past?
But that’s not how it works. Bureaucrats don’t try to reduce costs and they don’t try to eliminate jobs. Not at all, they are all about protecting their own little jobs and their own little fiefdoms.
If politicians and bureaucrats were any good at predicting what the next great business would be, they wouldn't be in politics trying to spend our money. They would be in business making money.
Let’s take a look at some of their accomplishments:
Sport Utility Vehicles - This is a direct result of congress imposing "CAFE" standards on to the American Public. This eliminated the family sedan. So people who had never ever had any desire to ever go off road or to go four wheeling bought vehicles that would hold their entire family and keep them safe.
Ethanol – Congress passed laws subsidizing Ethanol in an effort to get our country away from oil. Well this doesn’t work. The latest reports show that we actually spend about a gallon’s worth of fuel to create a gallon of Ethanol and the ethanol only produces about 80% of the energy of a gallon of gasoline.
Air Bags – or do people forget that because of government regulations air bags were made much more powerful than they needed to be. The government required that airbags had to be able to protect an unrestrained 200 lb male. That little plan started killing small women and children in low speed crashes who unfortunately were sitting too close to these air bags that were exploding in front of them at 200 mph. So, after enough people were killed, the government allowed women to go get a court order to allow them to have their air bags disabled. They would have to go a repair shop and pay about $500.00 to have it disabled. Ironically they still couldn’t order a car without an airbag because that was still against the law.
Unfortunately there are countless more examples of government ineptitude. Remember Hurricane Katrina. I believe that most people failed to learn the true lesson of Katrina.
The liberals would have us believe that conservatives don’t know how to run big governments – as if that were a bad thing. Sorry but they don’t know how to run it either.
But the real lesson from Katrina was that government by definition is inept. They are a monopoly with out any incentive to get better.
President Bush fired some figure head leader of FEMA. But he didn’t deserve to be fired. It’s the equivalent of firing the coach when the team loses but you don’t change any of the players.
So please Senator McCain do not join with the Democrats and try to solve global warming.
Would you be willing to make a pledge that you will work not only to keep government from getting larger, but would you be willing to make a pledge to reduce the size of government every year? I’m thinking 10% a year would be a good start.
The best thing that you can do for the American people is to reduce the cost of government by making it more efficient and then get out of our way and we will solve this crisis just as we have solved all of the other crisis’s that we’ve solved in the past.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Oil companies are dragged before congress
Things you won't hear at today's meeting on oil prices.
1 - You guys made so much money last year. We like to thank you for all of the taxes that you paid.
2 - Do you know how much oil we have in ANWR?
Estimated at over 10.6 billion barrels it would pay our government about 111 billion dollars in taxes and royalties over the next 30 years. Plus help to reduce the costs of gasolilne today.
3- Do you know how many Americans own stock in your companies? They should all be getting sizable dividends and we'll be able to tax those too.
4- What can we do to help lower taxes to help out our country?
5- How audacious is it for us to bring you here and grandstand while making it appear like we had nothing to do with the high prices?
6- How can we reduce regulations so that it's possible for you to build additional refineries - which would help lower gasoline prices?
7- How do we keep getting re-elected? I mean how stupid and naive can the people in the country be?
8- Can our approval ratings fall any lower?
9- How stupid is it to waste our time with ethanol? Do you that these are the solutions that you get when congress gets involved.
Estimated cost for Ethanol range from 3.40/cwt to 6.89/cwt. Ethanol would not survive in the market place without government subsidies.
10- How can government get out of the way of oil companies so that you can find and develop more oil reserves?
1 - You guys made so much money last year. We like to thank you for all of the taxes that you paid.
2 - Do you know how much oil we have in ANWR?
Estimated at over 10.6 billion barrels it would pay our government about 111 billion dollars in taxes and royalties over the next 30 years. Plus help to reduce the costs of gasolilne today.
3- Do you know how many Americans own stock in your companies? They should all be getting sizable dividends and we'll be able to tax those too.
4- What can we do to help lower taxes to help out our country?
5- How audacious is it for us to bring you here and grandstand while making it appear like we had nothing to do with the high prices?
6- How can we reduce regulations so that it's possible for you to build additional refineries - which would help lower gasoline prices?
7- How do we keep getting re-elected? I mean how stupid and naive can the people in the country be?
8- Can our approval ratings fall any lower?
9- How stupid is it to waste our time with ethanol? Do you that these are the solutions that you get when congress gets involved.
Estimated cost for Ethanol range from 3.40/cwt to 6.89/cwt. Ethanol would not survive in the market place without government subsidies.
10- How can government get out of the way of oil companies so that you can find and develop more oil reserves?
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Of all tyrannies
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock
People have always been afraid of big brother. Liberals are convinced that this is exactly what the Bush administration is up to with the whole wire tapping thing. They scream about someone trampling their rights. Well you don't have to worry about "big brother" anymore. In the name of knowing what's best for all of us the liberals and do-gooders in this country are doing something much worse. Something so awful, so heinous, so terrible, what they have given us instead is "Big Mother".
We have people who want to make sure that we are all healthy. So they legislate the use of seat belts, air bags, and helmets for motorcycles and so on. They say that this is good for us. Thanks Mom!
We can't smoke in restaurants and bars - it's not fair to the people that must work there or eat and drink there, besides its good for you. Thanks Mom!
We can't smoke at work, we can't smoke in arenas and stadiums - Thanks mom.
We can't smoke in public places. Now they want to ban smoking in your cars and in your houses- Thanks Mom.
They raise taxes on smokers, they raise taxes on alcohol. All in the name of knowing what is good for us. Thanks Mom.
They use all sorts of justifications. Smokers cost the state more in health care costs then non-smokers. Would someone please tell me how a smoker dying of cancer in their 60's costs society more than someone else dying of something else in their 80's or 90’s? We are all going to die. Some of us will die quickly and some of us will die slowly.
They ban trans-fats because they know what’s good for you. Thanks Mom.
They increase the fines and sentencing for drunk driving. Thanks Mom.
Listen to what they want to do next. They are going to ban fat people from restaurants. Don't worry they know what's best for all of us. Thanks Mom.
Next they'll want to tax us by the pound. Awe damn, I just gave them another idea. Thanks Mom.
They believe that they know how to teach and raise our kids better than we do. Thanks Mom.
They're attacking home schooling in California. That will soon spread across the country. Thanks Mom.
They tax big cars because they're bad for the environment. But they're safer and I want my child to be safe. It doesn't matter they know what's best. Thanks Mom.
They tax gasoline because we use too much of it. Thanks Mom.
They must stop global warming so they'll soon tax your breath. But we're heading into and ice age. It doesn't matter we know what's best. How dare you question us? We'll have to tax you for that. Thanks Al, I mean Mom.
Is this the world that you want to live in? I certainly don't. Look around there are hundreds of other examples of "Big Mother" all around. It will continue to happen until we start fighting back and start saying that enough is enough.
C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock
People have always been afraid of big brother. Liberals are convinced that this is exactly what the Bush administration is up to with the whole wire tapping thing. They scream about someone trampling their rights. Well you don't have to worry about "big brother" anymore. In the name of knowing what's best for all of us the liberals and do-gooders in this country are doing something much worse. Something so awful, so heinous, so terrible, what they have given us instead is "Big Mother".
We have people who want to make sure that we are all healthy. So they legislate the use of seat belts, air bags, and helmets for motorcycles and so on. They say that this is good for us. Thanks Mom!
We can't smoke in restaurants and bars - it's not fair to the people that must work there or eat and drink there, besides its good for you. Thanks Mom!
We can't smoke at work, we can't smoke in arenas and stadiums - Thanks mom.
We can't smoke in public places. Now they want to ban smoking in your cars and in your houses- Thanks Mom.
They raise taxes on smokers, they raise taxes on alcohol. All in the name of knowing what is good for us. Thanks Mom.
They use all sorts of justifications. Smokers cost the state more in health care costs then non-smokers. Would someone please tell me how a smoker dying of cancer in their 60's costs society more than someone else dying of something else in their 80's or 90’s? We are all going to die. Some of us will die quickly and some of us will die slowly.
They ban trans-fats because they know what’s good for you. Thanks Mom.
They increase the fines and sentencing for drunk driving. Thanks Mom.
Listen to what they want to do next. They are going to ban fat people from restaurants. Don't worry they know what's best for all of us. Thanks Mom.
Next they'll want to tax us by the pound. Awe damn, I just gave them another idea. Thanks Mom.
They believe that they know how to teach and raise our kids better than we do. Thanks Mom.
They're attacking home schooling in California. That will soon spread across the country. Thanks Mom.
They tax big cars because they're bad for the environment. But they're safer and I want my child to be safe. It doesn't matter they know what's best. Thanks Mom.
They tax gasoline because we use too much of it. Thanks Mom.
They must stop global warming so they'll soon tax your breath. But we're heading into and ice age. It doesn't matter we know what's best. How dare you question us? We'll have to tax you for that. Thanks Al, I mean Mom.
Is this the world that you want to live in? I certainly don't. Look around there are hundreds of other examples of "Big Mother" all around. It will continue to happen until we start fighting back and start saying that enough is enough.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
