President Ronald Reagan Has Died
It’s been so long since I’ve heard it from a politician that I’d completely forgotten what moral clarity on economic issues sounded like.
Thanks for the reminder.
Welcome to the Fourth Level of Hell
Somehow, this doesn’t suprise me.....
The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Level | Score
Purgatory | Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo | Very Low
Level 2 | Very High
Level 3 | Moderate
Level 4 | Very High
Level 5 | Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis | Low
Level 7 | Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge | Very High
Level 9 - Cocytus | High
Level 7
------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------
Guarded by the Minotaur, who snarls in fury, and encircled within the river Phlegethon, filled with boiling blood, is the Seventh Level of Hell. The violent, the assasins, the tyrants, and the war-mongers lament their pitiless mischiefs in the river, while centaurs armed with bows and arrows shoot those who try to escape their punishment. The stench here is overpowering. This level is also home to the wood of the suicides- stunted and gnarled trees with twisting branches and poisoned fruit. At the time of final judgement, their bodies will hang from their branches. In those branches the Harpies, foul birdlike creatures with human faces, make their nests. Beyond the wood is scorching sand where those who committed violence against God and nature are showered with flakes of fire that rain down against their naked bodies. Blasphemers and sodomites writhe in pain, their tongues more loosed to lamentation, and out of their eyes gushes forth their woe. Usurers, who followed neither nature nor art, also share company in the Seventh Level.
MPS approves 15.4% tax increase
The hike in the tax levy is basically designed to make up for the cut in state aid. For the first time in more than a decase the state is not meeting its obligation to pay 2/3 of the distrcit’s costs.
And even after raising the additional revenue, it still means a layoff of more than 300 teachers and further cuts at central office.
For the record, I don’t think this is the best way to handle the shortfall. Ballistreri had some good amendments to the budget that the board killed that would have saved millions. And the board’s negotiating team (I’ve been without a contract for a year now) keeps rejecting a self-funding health-care re-vamp proposed by the union that would have saved $90m in the first three years, and $50m a year after that.
And as I pointed out here, MPS is able to spend about $700 less per student than the rest of SE WI, on average. A real solution will only come in a re-examination of the equalization formula.
Firearm Ignorance
I would also point out that the tool they used to cut their way into the armored vehicle would not have been correctly called a blowtorch.
Altho the SWAT officers couldn’t have known that the armor was sufficient to resist even modern anti-tank weapons, once they saw that shooting at it had no effect they should have stopped.
Fathers' Day Gift Idea
The Saiga I want would be the .410. First of all we already have a 20 guage, and secondly I would expect it to be easier to make it look more like its ancestor by replacing the sportster furniture with available military wood. One of my favorite Louis L’Amour quotes is “There is something about a shotgun that makes a fellow consider,” and this look would encourage that.
Colombian baby 'stolen from womb'
Wow indeed. I recall two such cases in the U.S. and the mother didn’t survive either one. In the one in Chicago, which I followed as the story broke, the infant’s siblings were also killed, and the would-be foster mother had accompices.
Rollover victim wins $369M verdict
But if an appellate court rules in favor of Ford, will the woman sue the original jury for an unsafe verdict that was overturned, much like the Explorer?
Yet More Job Growth
But the media is not biased. They say so! 
Rollover victim wins $369M verdict
Setting aside the merits of the case (I don’t think that she should have won anything), I don’t think that compensatory damages should be limited to lost wages. They should include loss of lifestyle, pain & suffering, etc. But I don’t think that every individual should receive the same damages. It should be dependent on the circumstances of the individual.
So, for instance, Michael Jordan’s career depended on his legs. Without them, he could not earn the living that he otherwise would have been able to. If I lost the use of my legs due to some negligent act, I don’t think that I would be entitled to as much. My career does not depend on my legs, so I should only be compensated for actual expenses (medical expenses, etc.), pain & suffering, and lifestyle damages. Even if I were a delivery driver, for instance, and my career did depend on my legs, I wouldn’t argue that my loss of wages would equal that of a Michael Jordan.
Compensatory damages are supposed to cover actual damages. Those actual damages will differ in every case, but they should be based in some sort of reality.
The Old Man And The Marine
Aakash - you could do much worse than blogrolling Jed and Owen - oh wait, you did… me!
That tongue-in-cheek aside - what would your foreign policy be, in broad terms, were you the sitting President?
Rollover victim wins $369M verdict
Are you basing this on the notion that she should only be compensated for lost wages?
How much is your ability to walk worth? How much is your physical independence worth? And why would yours or this woman’s be any less than Michael Jordan’s in this respect?
The Effects of Affirmative Action
“Lesson: just because an issue involves race does not mean that it involves racism.”
Corollary: any time a white guy mentions race he’s accused of racism. Yet jumping to the conclusion that he’s a racist based on the fact that he’s white isn’t considered racist.
School Finance "Reform"
The absolutely terrifying aspect of all this is that one of the sales tax exemptions they are pointedly not talking about eliminating is the one on home sales. The impact this would have on the state economy (and mine personally if it goes thru in the near future) would be rather destructive.
Hitler's U-Boat War
John Keegan gave Blair top marks in “intelligence in War.”
Thanks for adding your perspective!
BTW, those cavalry jodphers (sp?) you all wear are ‘way cool - I had thought dress blues (the stripe down your leg, great way to start fights were the most amazing uniform still in use.
BTW, one of my profs was taking horse cavalry ROTC on Soldiers Field in Cambridge, maybe 3-4 years before Kistiakovsky field-tested the first napalm there. Hell on the greens
Great blog!
The Effects of Affirmative Action
You bet!
Seriously, though… I don’t see how our reactions are racist. It would be racist if I thought that they were underqualified because of their race. Instead, I think that they might be underqualified because they are a member of a protected class and AA exists. If AA did not exist, I wouldn’t think that they might be underqualified. If AA applied to whites, then I would think that whites may be underqualified. Considering that my whole reaction hinges on the existence of AA rather than race, it can’t be racist.
Lesson: just because an issue involves race does not mean that it involves racism.
The Effects of Affirmative Action
Wow - so both of you are blaming tacist attitudes on affirmative action?
The Effects of Affirmative Action
I work for a Fortune 500 company, and those minorities that I meat, I sadly jump to the same conclusion. It does not matter that the individual may have succeeded on their own merits, I assume that some favoritism played a part in their status. It takes getting to know that individual over a long period of time to gain a perspective as to the truth. First impressions however are lasting ones.
The Old Man And The Marine
Well, I strongly oppose both the distasterous foreign policy of the Clinton administration (which by the way, was not a time of “peace,” but rather, a time of hyper-intervention - there were more than twice as many military deployments during the Clinton/Gore administration as there were during the Reagan/Bush administration), and I oppose the foreign policy that this administration has ended up executing as well.
But what I wanted to post here is:
1) I’ve seen this story before; it is, indeed, quite neat, and
2) I think that I am going to blogroll ‘Boots and Sabers’ - I was glad at the respectful response that one of you posted after I posted a comment at one of your entries not too long ago. It’s good to be able to discuss issues without flaming and nasty attacks, as sometimes happens in discussion threads. I also wanted to say that I was just looking at your guys’ bio pages… I may have been to one or both of them before, but this is the first time that I recall seeing Jed’s page.
I was just at Jed’s reading list, and I notice two writers listed there for whom I am planning on doing blog entries mentioning them soon. Joe Galloway is one of them; I just posted a comment last night at Jennifer Martinez’s recent entry featuring him; he seems like a great writer. Tom Clancy also must be an excellent writer… He is a strong conservative who strongly supports our military, and our brave servicemen, and I’ve liked what he has been saying lately about the Iraq war. I’ve never read any of his books, though - Are they good?
Keep up the good work at this site, and with all else that you guys are doing.
The Old Man And The Marine
And upon reflection - my close above reads a lot harsher than I intended.
It’s a slam at an education system that doesn’t even really attempt to teach history anymore - and not intended as a personal slam at Marie, whom I only know from this comment and a brief jog to her blog…
If it’s taken that way - please accept my apology up-front, as I don’t mean it that way!
The Old Man And The Marine
And the ‘Peace’ of the 90’s was more analgous to the ‘Peace’ of the 30’s, than to a genuine time of peace.
If peace is the absence of war, and that’s your only criteria, okay, Maria, you win.
If peace is just the calm before the storm - then I say let’s invade the Rhineland IAW the the League of Nations resolutions so we don’t have to invade at Normandy.
If the analogy is lost on you, you were short-changed in your education, and there isn’t space here to correct that.
The Old Man And The Marine
Our prosperity in the nineties was not due to any of Clinton’s policies or acts, but because of the Internet boom (which Clinton had absolutely nothing to do with).
And I’d much rather live in a time of war than a time of peace, if living in a time of peace means sacrificing our dignity, our sovereignty, or our national security.
The Old Man And The Marine
Yes. Thank god our long nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.
Folkbum Fisking
Actually, Wendy, my school does do that kind of data mining; I also do it for my classes. The students with 90% or better attendance tend to have GPAs of 2.0 or better and test scores at least in the “proficient” range. When you get below that, numbers start to look very bad.
When I talk to people in the community, I acknowledge that there are challenges in MPS, including attendance, but that any student who wants a quality education can get one. I’d put my best students up against any other kids any day.
I must concur with Patrick, too--all three things he says are true.
Folkbum Fisking
I do think it would be interesting to see the test results of just the kids with high attendance. The schools would obviously fare much better with those results. It’s a shame MPS doesn’t have a better way to get butts in seats. Are the truancy rules too lax, or is truancy such a problem that there aren’t enough people to enforce them? I can’t imagine living in a family where education wasn’t a huge priority. That’s just sad. The teachers, I’m sure, do the best they can, but they can only teach to the kids who are there.
Folkbum Fisking
From many years of listening to the stories told by an MPS wife, I can add that turnover and morale are much, much, much worse in MPS than you will find in nearly any private sector company. While a few factors such as the residency requirement and ability to earn more money in a few other districts may come into play, I truly believe the most significant reasons for turnover/morale problems are:
1) the lack of parental interest and support found in many of the students’ families. I wash shocked to learn that only a scant number of parents showed up for conferences in the “bad” schools. I was also dismayed by the endless stories about parents who always took the side of their children even when homework wasn’t done and tests were flunked. Certainly, they argued, “you must be out to get my child.”
2) the poor state of school-readiness, attitudes, and behavior of the “raw materials” (students). My employer runs a charter school in addition to our other ventures. I can guarantee you that the kids we have coming in every morning take their education more seriously than most of the MPS kids. The charter/choice versus MPS argument is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is the more talented kids with the more dedicated parents who are looking for a good charter/choice school. I truly believe--even as a representative of a charter school--that MPS is at a disadvantage in working with kids who just aren’t taking their education seriously. In some cases, I suppose I understand why. My wife would come home and tell me about one of her middle school girls sold into sexual slavery by mom for drug money; or the other girl who was being sexually abused by dad; and so on, and so on. I thought these kinds of stories were only found on TV, but I found out differently.
3) Poor administrators. Not enough focus over the years on experienced, tough, innovative administrators. Sadly, those who are talented also often leave to flee to the suburbs.
Folkbum's Response
Oh well. At least you probably bumped up his stats a little for a couple days. Thank GOD we don’t have kids in MPS.
The Wisconsin Technology Council's Entrepreneurs' Conference
Is there an Ethics workshop Doyle can sit in on? Or maybe he would benefit more from the “How not to grab your ankles when negotiating” workshop. It might help when he tries to hand the state over to the tribes.
Memorial Day 2004
I honor all soldiers; past, present, and future, whether active duty or not, peace time or war time, those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and those who survived, may our country never forget.
The Quantum Sleeper
Ah, but it does come with a gun rack.
From http://www.qsleeper.com/quantum.html:
The unit can also be fitted with defensive devices customized to the requests of the purchasers such as tear gas spray, robotic arms, or projectile weaponry.
Folkbum's Rambles and Rants
Wendy, piece by piece:
WEAC steals tax dollars in the way they negotiate contracts for teachers.
WEAC does not negotiate. They may lobby (one of many groups that do), but only locals, like MTEA, do any negotiating.
They want to repeal the QEO.
The QEO means that Wisconsin teachers are the only employees in the country to have their compensation limited by law. The state has maintained the QEO without addressing out-of-control cost increases in health care (southeast Wisconsin pays more in health care than the rest of the state, and the Midwest already has the highest costs in the nation).
They want to get rid of revenue caps.
Somehow allowing local school districts to decide how much to spend on education doesn’t seem terribly evil.
They want to take away school choice from parents.
No. They just feel if you want a private education for your children, my tax dollars shouldn’t pay for it.
They want to force parents into sending their kids to school at 4 years old.
WEAC would like to see full funding of four-year-old kindergarten, so that those districts who offer it do not have to cut from other programs to pay for it. No one is going to break into your house and drag your four year old to kindergarten if you don’t wnat her to go.
Honestly, who cares how high the turnover rate is?
Study after study after study by conservative, liberal, and independent organizations alike concur that student achievment is higher when a teacher has experience. MPS itself has calculated that the costs of hiring a new teacher, despite the lower salary, are actually higher than keeping an experienced teacher in the classroom, when you add up the additional HR, training, and administrative costs. And from a purely personal POV, it’s devastating to morale to lose a significant number of colleagues every year.
If you choose to get an advanced degree, it does little to help your students. The degree only makes your pay go up because WEAC decided that people with a Master’s degree should be paid more and beat the school boards into submission.
Again, students in classrooms with teachers who have more training do better, both on standardized tests and in later years. Again, I think you’re confusing WEAC with local unions that do negotiate; beyond that, though, in nearly every private sector field you can name, those with more training are paid better. Why should we public servants be treated any differently?
You’re right that we may never change each other’s minds, but I at least hope that in the future you will try to learn something about me and my union before you spout off about us.
The Quantum Sleeper
In the not-so-immortal words of Harvey Danger:
“paranoia, paranoia, everybody’s coming to get me”
But then again, it’s not paranoia if they’re really coming to get you…
Folkbum's Rambles and Rants
I’m soooooo jealous. I want a nemesis!!!!
Folkbum's Rambles and Rants
WEAC steals tax dollars in the way they negotiate contracts for teachers. They want repeal the QEO. They want to get rid of revenue caps. They want to take away school choice from parents. They want to force parents into sending their kids to school at 4 years old. Do your dues pay for these things? No. My tax dollars do.
Honestly, who cares how high the turnover rate is? UWM is filled with students about to graduate. You don’t have to have a Master’s Degree to teach. If you choose to get an advance degree, it does little to help your students. The degree only makes your pay go up because WEAC decided that people with a Master’s degree should be paid more and beat the school boards into submission.
I have four kids, and so far, they have had some great teachers. We love their teachers and treat them with respect. They are not members of WEAC, but they are still paid well. They get all sorts of paid training at no cost to them. They get merit raises. Ever hear of those?
You’re never, ever going to convince me that WEAC is a good thing. I’m sure I will never convince you that WEAC is a very, very bad thing.
By the way, if PSR was meant to be totally unbiased, Owen wouldn’t have that little “R” next to his name. There were a bunch of liberal WI bloggers there, but they all quit.
Folkbum's Rambles and Rants
So, since you have a nemesis, does this make you a superhero of some sort?
BOOTMAN!
Cool 
Anyway, I promise not to reveal your secret identity…
Folkbum's Rambles and Rants
Wendy, believe me, I’m not in it for the money. But if it becomes untenable for me to stay, I will leave. And if you don’t think that the 15% annual turnover rate at MPS is too high now, just wait.
Neither am I a “poor me” public servant--I don’t want your sympathy.
And can you explain to me how WEAC is stealing your tax dollars? Yes, they get a chunk of my salary--paid by your and my tax dollars--but that comes out my my pocket, not yours. Your tax dollars are no higher for the union dues I pay.
Folkbum's Rambles and Rants
Another “poor me” teacher? You’re a public servant. If you were in it for the money, you picked the wrong profession. You don’t need a Master’s Degree to teach kids how to read. You just have to be smarter than your students. I had an excellent English teacher in high school. Linda Cross. Name ring a bell? Your precious union ostracized her 30 years ago when she decided that teaching her students was more important than standing outside with poster board on a stick.
WEAC=legal theft of tax dollars at the expense of quality education for children.
Folkbum's Rambles and Rants
I object to his characterization of our blog as “Republican.” We’re only half Republican.
Memorial Day 2004
I find myself thinking a lot these last few days of the families for whom this will be the first Memorial Day when they will be honoring a family member. Perhaps a year or two ago the family was all together, having some hamburgers and brats on the grill (in the rain, most likely). Memorial Day was a “holiday,” a kickoff to summer, a day off with a few thoughts on the military men and women who lost their lives in service to their country. This year, it’s a day that takes on new significance to them. Every day for those families is a day of mourning. Every day is filled memories of what was and thoughts of what might have been. But this is Memorial Day. Who of them thought a year ago or two years ago that their son or daughter would be one of the fallen whose memory we honor? My heart breaks for those families.
This article is a huge tribute to the dedicated people who provide medical treatment to injured military members. How many more would our country have lost if not for their expertise and diligence?
Phunny Photos, Part VI - Virgin Territory
I guess I’m an “international” traveler then. 
Phunny Photos, Part VIII - Dont't Drink and Make Signs
Don’t drink and make signs either.
Sewage dumped in May: 4.6 billion gallons
Owen,
You’ve posted a lot of crap in the last year, but this takes the cake. What a crock o’ shit.
How can you constantly keep spewing this sewage?
And BTW, hu...hu...hu… you said “dumped”.
Sewage dumped in May: 4.6 billion gallons
An interesting solution for the zebra mollusk problem?
Sewage dumped in May: 4.6 billion gallons
makes me want to disinfect my boat.
Sewage dumped in May: 4.6 billion gallons
In other news, the Milwaukee beaches are closed for the Memorial Day weekend due to e. coli levels in the water.
The Sierra Club has issued a statement in which they argue that President Bush, and not the attorney they use to sue polluters, who happens to be head of the MMSD, is to blame.
Ol' Army
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