From the land of milk and Sebby
 

Hunh?

You mean Bush believed the documents he received re: WMD to be true?

You mean Bush thoroughly investigated the facts?

You mean Bush didn't report the content of the reports re: WMD to the people to make his case?

From the land of milk and Sebby
 

The comparison is fucking idiotic.

BTW - I'm having a great time reading about how the Sunday 60 Minutes guys are hanging Rather out to dry. Blood in the water and all that.

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

I'm going to be quite ashamed of Clubby if this is what he meant.

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

I think this is probably correct. Both DC and Baltimore City have notoriously bad schools. I imagine the surrounding counties have much, much lower rates.

I've just gone back and read the whole original article and find its conclusions, um, interesting. Especially in light of my prior comment that teachers kids are disproportionately good for a school, relative to their socioeconomic status. "School choice" is the answer. Uh huh. So the best way to deal with the fact that teachers think that schools are failing is to make it EASIER financially for teachers and others to opt out the kids who stablize the school and make it functional. Okay then.

I agree I'd like to see comparatives against families with similar economic status. While you're correct teachers are underpaid, they're not exactly living in a box, either, especially once they've gotten to their kids being school age. And that's assuming there's not a trend that the teaching spouse isn't the lower income in a dual income house. If the average teacher in DC [I'm making these numbers up] makes say $50k and has a household income of $120k, it would be interesting to know whether what percentage of the general population making that money sent their kids to private school. My guess is higher, at least in DC, but I suppose we'll never know.

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

No fair trying to shame him into your anti-union camp now. Not that I would be surprised if he were anti-union, or that I disagree with you about the damage teacher unions have done. I just don't think it's what he meant.

Let me put it another way: I thought Club was expressing outrage at the hypocracy of teachers suckling at the government teat, lounging about their schools not caring about their charges and overpaid (yes, tangentally, all thanks to their union) while going out of their way to ensure that their own progeny were not victims to their laziness and ineptitude. It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

There are towns -- lawyers live in them -- where public school teachers cannot afford to buy a house, and have no choice but to send their kids to (presumably inferior) public schools in other districts, or to (gasp) private schools. When club gets agitated about that, and insists that the wealthy suburbs pay their teachers (and policemen, etc.) enough to live in them (oh, the hypocrisy!), sign me up for the crusade.

Here's a special post for club on Kerry's Iraq position. Someone at Slate has been reading my posts here and decided to do the leg work for me:

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

whatwehavehereis failuretacommunicate.
Ty you think any city where the average household income is less than 200K is poor. There are plenty of cities where the people are middle class and the schools fine. Most people (breeders at least) factor school district into their home search. Why would you not think a teacher would? I would think a teacher in an urban district who lives inthat district, might go out of his/her way to ensure em's kid gets a decent teacher, butt to claim thatsomeonewho earns em's bread by subjecting kids to the district should avoid the district? How is that not disturbing? If you knew little Ty's teacher lived down the road but sent her kids to St. Vitus, you wouldn't wonder WTF?

huh? can you do that in a 30 second spot?

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

Cheers!

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

Fair enough.

edited to add after reading all of posts that followed that:

I don't hate all teachers. My mother is one and I don't hate her. But I find it ridiculous that the unions are against vouchers and tout the public schools, while their members are sending their kids to private schools.

Coming soon to a suburb near you?
 

Housing is much cheaper in Cleveland and Alabama and Iowa and Vermont than it is in NYC. You don't have a fucking god given right to live in Manhattan. If you cannot afford to live there, then move. Plenty of places in this country have affordable housing.

eta: Remember when there were good jobs in the north and not so good jobs in the south? People fucking moved so that they could have a better quality of life. Same is true for housing. If you can't afford to live in NYC, then fucking move. If you are a minimum wage earner, there are jobs for you in other parts of the country that pay the same but have much lower housing costs. You should move there.

Then if unskilled labor was scarce in high cost of living areas, the simple laws of supply and demand would dictate that the employers would have to pay more for unskilled labor in those high housing cost areas. The solution is not to introduce a market failure by having the government subsidize the employers. That is what section 8 housing is - a subsidy for employers.

People need to move where they can afford to live.

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

Teachers don't work an entire year like the rest of us do. They get 3 months off in the summer and several weeks off between semesters and a week off for spring break and usually every jewish and christian holiday off, too, as well as every fucking official government holiday.

Saying 50k a year is deceptive given the number of days in a year that teacher actually work.

Coming soon to a suburb near you?
 

Yes it is. No they don't. Indeed. Indeed. All non-responsive though. I'm in favor of the lowering, particularly if it gets the poor to start spreading out more. Gotta wonder though how many section 8ers live in Manhattan and need to spread out.

If the poor spread out more (and landlords are forced to accept them, hopefully on a very limited basis), then it forces the issue on this country that pays for the vouchers. If they are Right, then they'll tell their Reps to vote it to ZERO in the case of able-bodied working-age adults. But if they were as Right as me, it wouldn't take the spreading out (NIMBY reaction) to get them to this point. But if they were as Right as me, we wouldn't have this mess because:

If they want section 8, they'd have it in a suburb near them; or
They wouldn't want section 8.

In either case, Right people wouldn't want the current system that perpetuates poverty (and thus, itself). You are either Right or you are Not. But if you are not Right, then you are Not_Me.

Hello

Coming soon to a suburb near you?
 

I was editing my post while you were responding. All section 8 does is help to keep wages low for unskilled workers in high cost of living areas because it effectively acts as a subsidy to an employer. Without section 8, the people would have to move somewhere else where they could afford housing. This would make unskilled labor scarce in high cost of living areas, requiring employers to compete via increased wages for unskilled workers.

Of course I am not including the truly disabled and elderly population in this analysis. We should take care of the disabled. The old people, though, they can just move to Florida. Mobile homes are cheap there.

Coming soon to a suburb near you?
 

Right. Because we all know that the problem with the poor and housing is that they tend to clump in the better neighborhoods, and refuse to move to areas where they could get more for their Section 8 dollars.

Look, this is a cut in housing subsidies, plain and simple.

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

Damn reruns. I just saw that one.

Coming soon to a suburb near you?
 

No doubt. And, ironically, it seems concentrated in areas where there are Democrats. Democrats like Daley. Cities where things have been run into the ground so much that on a single day you can read about the transit chief threatening to cut rush-hour service and also read about wild animals moving back into the heart of downtown (iconjuring mages of tumbleweeds blowing past skyscrapers).

To expand on your statement, people need to move where they can find jobs at all. I have a former 6-figure friend who is moving to the DC area from the afore-mentioned wasteland to regain his 6 figure status, and I know many more who have done so already (conjuring images of the exodus from Northern California in '00/'01).

I thought a lot about what Taxwonk wrote a few weeks ago, regarding Chicago having a housing-rights law that requires landlords to accept section 8. The problem with such a law is that people can just move to the suburbs (just like they do to avoid public housing). Enact it in the county, and people will just move to another county. Enact it in the state, and people will just move to another state. The problem is national. Ironically, the funding is national too. Unfortunately, at the same time our fearless leaders imposed this burden on our pocketbooks, they didn't actually do anything to ensure the real burden (of living with Section 8ers next door) was imposed fairly. Thus, the Democrats in places like Chicago give the people a big Hug while the city empties out. Then the Democrats scream poor-mouth. Pretty much every year. When their tax base is gone.

No matter. We are all still paying for their big Hug. Personally, for the money we spend on failed not_Right dreams, we all probably deserve a blowjob (at least!).

But hey, your corrected post is pretty much right. If you are Right, you are Me.

Hello

Coming soon to a suburb near you?
 

Uhm, see my sentence on Manhattan.

He(having it both ways tonight, and I'm still Right!)llo

Coming soon to a suburb near you?
 

20. St. Gilligan and The Dragon - Angry because the men haven't kept their promise to build them private houses, the women decide to move to the other side of the island in protest. Gilligan and the Skipper dress as a monster, in an attempt to frighten the girls and cause them to come running back.

February 13, 1965; w: Arnold Peyser & Lois Peyser; d: Montgomery

To Wonk
 

We also need to turn down the level of what passes for debate around here these days. We're all taking this shit way too seriously.

Coming soon to a suburb near you?
 

Let me guess, a suburban Democrat who couldn't point to the nearest public housing if she was getting mugged in its lobby. You still probably deserve a blowjob too.

What do I win?

To Wonk
 

Every time I see $14000 monthly get turned into $9600, I get pissed thinking about how many dozens of children I could feed for Sally Struthers if I just had the choice with that missing money. Or I could probably buy breakfast for a celebrity like Sally Struthers. I'm trapped into this poverty. Trapped I tell you. And it pisses me off.

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

Frankly, no. I know plenty of public school teachers who've sent their kids to private school. I'm related to several of them. The decision to send the kid to private school was more complex than "it's a better school."* Much of it is straight-up religion** or resonates with the discussion on LWK about not being able to kick the bad apples out. (Confidential to Club: the teachers' unions tend not to march in the streets against the power to expel. And nearly all of the individual public school teachers I know tend to agree with their unions about the systemic effects of vouchers. Some of them feel strongly against tuition credits for private school WHILE THEY'RE PAYING THOUSANDS IN PRIVATE SCHOOL TUITION. Stop pretending the union is making this up.)

*Lawyers are all the fucking same. We are rank Timmies. Want me to point you to the posts on Infirm asking about "the best" law school or "the best" firm in a particular city? I have news for you --- normal people don't think so superficially.

**A not-inconsiderable portion of Club's stats are probably due to the fact that Catholic families who think civil service jobs are da bomb tend to produce a lot of teachers. Who send their kids to parochial school. It's not exactly a grand conspiracy. Catholics are 30% of the country, and some of them can afford parochial school. Big whoop.

Collateral Damage
 

Arnold's special smoking huesli on the Capitol lawn may have contributed to the basement of the Capitol building being flooded.

Also among the Gov's accomplishments this week was vetoing a bill that would have phased out use of "Redskins" as a school mascot, because the law was "another nonacademic state administrative requirement for schools to comply with takes more focus away from getting kids to learn at the highest level." No word yet on how school boards are supposed to focus on getting kids to learn at the highest level when the Governor has just slipped them this political football. Money quotation, from GOP legislator for affected school: "People can make anything ignoble if they want to. What's next - bullfrogs, because they are green and slimy?" Nice.

The Governor's love of local control does not extend, however, to business regulation, as he vetoed a measure that would have permitted local governments to certify businesses that operated in environmentally friendly ways, because the bill would not allow local governments to "respond to the needs of businesses in their community." Very nice.

Meanwhile, the Governor also vetoed a bill that would have required hotels to install certain handicapped accessiblity and safety measures in bathrooms, on the ground that --- get this, now --- the legislation was "unneccessary" because the same result could be accomplished through regulations.

This guy is an empty, albeit rather large, suit that spouts a series of soundbites that aren't even a coherent version of GOP talking points. What a yutz.

The End of Reaganism
 

OK (or O.K., YMMV), so the headline on the NY Times today is that tax cut extensions have been passed without an offsetting revenue source.

I always though of RR's greatest achievement as Gramm-Rudman. It was, despite the best efforts of a sizable number of Democrats as well as some Republicans, a bi-partisan and radical approach to governing: setting some ground rules where we needed to pay as we went, and it has dominated the economic policy debate ever since.

It strikes me that during this election season Bush is putting the final nails on the Reagan coffin (granted, with the help of many D's, but that shouldn't surprise anyone - we're not the heir to the mantle).

Do any R's object to this?

Coming soon to a suburb near you?
 

Conf. to Vietmom, posting the episode guide is the easy part. Its when you catch this kind of thing that you earn the right to use them. You need to hit back with furious anger.

The End of Reaganism
 

As a principle, absolutely. But the devil is in the details. I'd say a wartime exception should apply, but the deficit is going oh-so-much-higher than the increases in defense and security spending. Which. Is. Abhorrent.

To Wonk
 

And yet, I don't hear you crying for the kids starving here in America, or living on the streets. I don't hear you talking about how we need to trim the defense budget of all outdated or ineffective missle systems so that we can afford to pay for more troops to mop up Iraq and Afghanistan.

And if you truly believe that poverty is a bad thing, you could take two months net salary and put some homeless family of four over the poverty line.

Don't cry for you, Argentina.

To Wonk
 

I served my time. I shed my tears.

Collateral Damage
 

Are you fucking nuts? Are you really arguing AGAINST a politician shutting down unnecessary bills of dubious worth in a state climbing out of a fiscal hole which also happens to have a history of enacting piles and piles of the most worthless, inane and costly legislation/regulation in the country? Maybe Arnold's decision to blow out new regs/laws isn't well thought out on the micro level, but one certainly cannot argue with sending a message to California's legislature to stop writing a bill to cover every goddamn thing some flake decides should be subject to a law.

Now, shred me with some stats and explain how I'm painting with a broad brush, JFK.

You Get Out What You Put In
 

My mom called me all pissed about how her taxes just got upped because teachers in her district demanded a new contract with $12,500 in benefits per year. Yeh, I ain't making that up. Oh, and they demanded a fat pension.

Here is wisdom... This country will fall on its fucking ass if someone doesn't remind people that everything is a bargain and you get what you pay for. If you want to have three months off every summer and low stress (don't even attempt to tell me how "stressed" teachers are - I have no desire to wipe vomit from my keyboard), you'll get paid accordingly. If you want to work 9-5, you'll get paid accordingly. Teachers are not dumb - they understand the bargain they've made. Their demands for pay similar to what some newly minted professionals get paid are disingenuine at best and an unvarnished greedy shakedown at worst.

These teachers and govt workers and union folk with their pension demands amaze me. I have family who get pensions which allow them to live lifestyles comparable to those lived by other family who worked, saved and retired. Working for Uncle Sam for 25 years is like saving a pile of dough sizable enough to turn off $50-60k in returns when you factor in the pensions and health benefit packages these "retirees" (nobody really retires from the govt because none of them have ever really worked) get. Hell, I should quit now and get a cushy govt job, or perhaps teach. Why the fuck bust one's ass when you can shake the school district or the govt down and do just as well?

To Wonk
 

Salary is tacked to taxes. I'm always puzzled when I hear the argument "But I'd make so much more if not for these fucking taxes!!!" No, no you wouldn't. They'd pay you less.

Need an example? Ask your buddy who works in the satellite office outside the City how much he gets paid.

You Get Out What You Put In
 

Before you quit, you might want to look into how the federal government pensions work. Right now it offers a 401(k) plan and a traditional pension that you pay for up front in the form of additional payroll taxes. I think it's about 1% of your salary, which gets you 1% of your salary back upon retirement for each year of service. With your hard living, you probably wouldn't make out like a bandit.

You Get Out What You Put In
 

Yeah. God knows we certainly don't want to waste money on the people who teach our children and shape our future. Especially since so many of us are now two earner couples and even more dependent on teachers and child care workers to help our kids learn and become good people.

From the land of milk and Sebby
 

I sneer at people who read that piece of emergency toilet paper on the train. Crap. Indicative of just what a rat's asshole this place really is.

50 pages of ads for used Toyotas and C-grade lingerie models preening for Lord & Taylor.

And they have the nerve to still put out a local business section, as though there is some substance to fill those five pages.

Oh, but how bout them Birds? Like clockwork - they'll pull a Tyson v. Douglass embarrassment in the playoffs.

Eh, what can you expect from a joint who's mascot is semi-retarded punch drunk Vinnie? Philly - the land of concrete jaws... without much behind them.

You Get Out What You Put In
 

You're still pissed that Mrs. Hooper gave you a "C" on your essay on the wit and wisdom of The Fountainhead in 11th grade, aren't you?

$12,500 in benefits? Do you have any idea what your benefits cost your firm? What do they want, good health insurance and some sort of contribution to a retirement account? How dare they!

I have no doubt that there are lazy teachers who are paid too much. I also believe that teachers have made substantial advances in pay over the last decade, at least in the geographic areas where I have acquantences who teach. But it's still not the sweet life you make it out to be. And when you come to a point where you have kids, perhaps you will ask yourself "Am I really comfortable leaving my kid all day with someone who's best option in life was taking a job paying $30k a year?" You better hope that the reason s/he's there is because s/he's independantly wealthy and really likes kids.

You Get Out What You Put In
 

No risk, no reward. I don't give a fuck what you do - if you don't put something on the line, you don't deserve to get paid. That, my self-righteous pal, is whats called capitalism.

If you don't want to put the minimum wager down, don't cry for a seat at the table. That's not an unfair proposition in the least.

Jesus Christ, when did Americans develop this notion that there was a way other than actually paying for the ticket to get into the show?

I Hate the Fucking Teachers
 

Your comment is flawed for a few reasons. Most importantly, the public school education is not simply a product of the teachers efforts but operates in a broader context.

An example: just yesterday, I spoke with a woman (really hot -- but that's not relevant here) who used to teach at a public school in SF, and expects to return to public school teaching after getting a degree. The school where she taught regularly conducted "drive-by" drills -- what to do if someone started shooting on campus. Four kids at the school had been killed in such incidents the prior year. This sort of thing happens at public schools all over SF, and I would suggest has nothing to do with the skills of the teachers or the product they produce. Under those circumstances, I think we should admire her dedication for actually continuing to teach in public schools -- not criticize her decision not to force her own willingness to work in danger onto her kids by having them attend the same school.

Another part of the context, of course, is money. Public schools are starving, with classes growing and extra-curric activities being slashed. Would you criticize someone for sending her kid to private school so he could be someplace with a music program? Why is it wrong for a public school teacher -- who plays no role in the funding decisions that limit the resources available to public school students -- to make that decision? Again, this is not the product she produced.

Another part is textbook choice. Again, not something that individual teachers decide. Public school texts are getting worse and worse, in large part because of the influence of the religious right. Having seen the books that some public schools force kids to read, based on state-wide purchasing decisions (or, worse, based on decisions by the publishers about what they have to print in order to sell their books to the Texas school system), I personally would not send my kid to public school. His private school makes its own purchasing decisions, and isn't bound by district-wide, state-wide, or regional decisionmaking bodies.

Expressing "regret" or shock over (a minority of) public school teachers sending their kids to private school is kind of like criticizing people who volunteer at soup kitchens for eating at restaurants.