DemConWatch - Recent Comments

Good.

skillgore — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:09:29 GMT

Give him a bottle of pain killers and a kick in the butt and send him on his way.

I definitely wouldn't miss him. May upset the Costa Ricans though.

I love it.

jean — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:38:03 GMT

Con's but short lived.
1. The kids are mean the first week of the time change and you to have remind yourself the two frontal lobes are not connected and it is not worth jail time.
2. It is dark in the morning at 6am and no you cannot sleep longer.
Pro's
1. We cook outside 75% of the time on the grill.
2. When everyone is home at 7pm we can still eat outside and enjoy the sunset (yes I live in Southern CA)
3. Gardening and weeding can be done at 7pm and it is a great stress reliever.
4. People are still out and about and friends actually visit at 7pm and yes possibly looking for a free meal:)
5. We have a pool, and NO I do not like swimming. But it is fun to have the young kids come over to swim at 7pm and get exhausted and the parents smile as they take them home for bed.
6. For some reason blenders work best at this time:)

Yes I love it:)

PA is a slippery slope, texas, on the other handis a

UplandPoet — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:08:54 GMT

straight drop into the abyss! and if it isnt stopped somehow, we all go along for the ride! is this crazy, or what?

i dont really care, but

UplandPoet — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:50:52 GMT

it does add a sense of international silliness, that not only we bother with it at all, and that most countries bother with it in some fashion, and not only that we do for little or no economic or energy benefit, but that it is done so haphazardly. for the most part, I encourage silliness, especailly if it is basically neutral as to its impact on the health and well being of people and critters.

Other runners...

DocJess — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:41:22 GMT

When I run, it's always early in the morning to catch the sunrise near the pond on my route....so, it's good for some, but not so much for others.....the earlier the sun rises, the better for me....but it's different strokes for different folks!

Did you read the link?

DocJess — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:39:49 GMT

It's the most recent report, even though the data is several years old.

I worked with illiterates as a volunteer, and I know that the reason you don't know these folks is how well they hide it, generally because they are ashamed. And how hard they worked to overcome the limitation.

Often, people who can't read aren't stupid, they just don't know how to read. When there was slavery in this country, slaves were not allowed to know how to read. People used to travel to the plantations with hornbooks, small enough to hide a lot of the time, but mostly they'd use a stick in the dirt to teach the alphabet and words. It was that much of a priority.

You can debate the semantics of the frame, but the actual truth is that schools at the elementary and secondary are not teaching basic skills the way they used to, say, 30 or 40 years ago. You may then question why a lot of adults are illiterate. They fall into two camps: those who dropped out of school (to support a family, or join the military, which didn't really require reading skills in the 40's and 50's) and made allowances and covered. Also, those who come here from other countries where learning to read was not a priority.

Amoung younger people, the teaching just isn't there. The most recent stat I heard was that fully 45% of all college freshman need remedial reading classes to keep up with college work. Certainly, entrants to Harvard, MIT, Sarah Lawrence, etc would have high literacy rates, but that 45% number is much higher at a lot of lower ranked schools.

Curriculum often misses not only basic skills, as kids are pushed along, or shuttled off to the special skills for behaviour problems, but also something sacrosanct a generation ago: HOW TO THINK. "Teaching to the test" is nonsense.

If you doubt me, click this link: http://literacydirectory.org/ and you'll be able to find a bunch of literacy programs within 20 miles of wherever you live. There wouldn't be so many programs if the need didn't exist. Go be a volunteer for a few months: it will only take a few hours a week, and once you hear the stories, and work with the people, it will all make more sense.

runners

politicaljunkie — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:29:50 GMT

I, as a runner, love it when I have daylight after work so I can go to the Arkansas' Big Dam Bridge and do a big run.

That's good to hear

MisterEd — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:42:32 GMT

I know what it is like to have a messed up back and neck from an auto accident. I know she got the best treatment, but also know the back and neck are tricky. I was not as fortunate. We didn't know I broke (minor) one of my vertebra until years later when I started dropping things. By then the bone had already healed in place and no surgery was done. Thank goodness for TENS units. ;o) So being able to treat her this early is a good thing. Plus they have come leap years on back injury surgeries in the past few years.

at least DST is relatively stable

pretzalz — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:15:44 GMT

On linux there is a dedicated package for timezone and daylight savings data. It is updated every 2-3 weeks due to various governments mucking around with it. I think Brazil literally every year decides what day DST is to start and end. It always bothers me that you can't tell noon by the sun, but nothing will ever completely fix this.

I just can't bring myself to believe it

pretzalz — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:56:32 GMT

I'm sorry I just can't bring myself to believe that 1 in 7 Americans are illiterate to that extent. I've never met one, and I can't imagine it is that hard especially for words that are mostly pronounced the way that they are spelled. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe how computer illiterate some people are and I have met some of those. When I attempted to learn Japanese, it only took a week or two to learn to read and write[with writing the much more involved of the two] the non-kanji bits[hiragana/katakana]. English might have more letters[in the sense that 'sh' is a separate letter], but it seems impossible that it could take that long. And given how pervasive writing is it seems hard to believe that people wouldn't pick up some of it just by osmosis.

While I mostly agree with your points, I think an analogy might be climate change. If you try to frame the argument in the sense of Armageddon if it's not stopped then people will rightly call bullshit and ignore the entire argument. But if you phrase it in terms of drought, famine, flooding, and hurricanes it becomes harder to dismiss.

Pretzalz

DocJess — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:41:05 GMT

In order of your comments:

1. State Capitals:I know no one knows them. I know they never will. MOST people cannot name the president AND vice president AND their two Senators AND their Congressperson much less their state reps, 4 of 9 of the Supreme Court justices....they don't know how many amendments there are to the Constitution, nor could they name the 5 rights accorded under the First Amendment. It's all CIVICS and the woeful lack of knowledge appalls me. It's a running unfunny joke on my part....

2. Functional Illiteracy: You're completely wrong. 1 out of 7 Americans is functionally illiterate, meaning they cannot read a STOP sign. http://www.demconwatchblog.com...

3. Addition: My bank still requires deposit slips for in person and ATM deposits. The point is that while transcription errors occur (although if you check your work they're less likely) many people CANNOT add. They also can't go into a market and determine the best price per ounce between a 50 and 100 ounce bottle of laundry soap. And then you wonder why people would sign for mortgages they couldn't possibly afford. Basic math, like all basic skills MATTER.

4. Literature: I believe reading is important. I like mysteries and I certainly wouldn't call them "high literature" - the benefit of reading classic literature, or junk novels, or non-fiction is that it works part of one's brain, that it encourages creativity and thought. I'm not a reading snob.

5. Parts of Speech: I'm a big fan of gerunds. More seriously, owning the parts of speech make it easier to organize your thoughts into sentences and paragraphs (written and oral) into ways that make you more understandable to other people. People who don't know the parts of speech say things like "them flowers" instead of "those flowers" or they want to "orientate themselves to their surroundings" or they "ain't going" - they don't know that "he does" in lieu of "he do" -- they not only sound stupid......

6. I'm sorry, the sentence was mistyped and should read:

Do you know how much a 10 net 30 bill costs you depending on when you pay?

10 net 30 means that if you pay the bill within 30 days, you'll get a 10% discount on the billed cost. Normally a business contract inclusion, although 2 net 30 is more common. Still, not knowing it can cost you a bunch of money.

7. El Nino: - yup, it refers ocean currents that affect different land masses differently. And if you don't know where the countries are relative to each other, you don't know when it affects what where. You may not care, but if you're a farmer or a fisherman, El Nino greatly affects your livelihood.

8. The Arts: I believe the arts are important. But higher if you used something equivalent in education to Maslow's discussion of basic needs. My point, which I didn't make clearly enough, is that as a society we'll pay millions to someone who acts in a film, or throws a football, but a mere fraction of that to people who teach. Often money is how we keep score, and the societal value on "entertainment" is much higher than that of "academics".

Further, it doesn't take smarts to be a great painter, or composer or sculptor or actor...it takes TALENT, which people are either born with, or they're not. Those talents can be enhanced, but you need that initial ability.

Finally, people have needs. Societies have needs. No one NEEDS a movie. People need clean water, food, housing, electricity, medications, etc. There need to be people who can fight for the rights of the disenfranchised, people who can understand situations well enough to solve the related challenges: creating/discovering things like short wheat, desalination plants, clean energy, epigenes. NO ONE is born knowing what those things are, how to invent them, or how to think about problems with an eye to solving those problems. THAT is the benefit of great education: learning how to think, how to contribute.

You'll come back with the idea that not everyone can be a scientist or an inventor, and you're right. But without learning how to read, do math, and all the other basics, NO ONE gets to become the person who solves world problems.

Antitrust

tmess2 — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:37:03 GMT

Antitrust isn't my expertise but my memory with Microsoft is that anti-trust law contains some restrictions on add-on type deals (am trying to recall the legal term but it's not coming to me).

Microsoft's violation was using their market advantage in the operating system to require people to include explorer, outlook, and microsoft word as software on their computers.

In the insurance industry, it would be like requiring people who wanted to purchase health care insurance to also have to buy auto insurance and fire insurance from the same company at the same time. You could still go out and buy your preferred auto coverage elsewhere but your basic auto coverage from Blue Cross would be included in the price for your health insurance.

Update: Total = 51

Leah — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:29:25 GMT

As announced on MSNBC earlier today...
http://whipcongress.com/ has updated the list.
Total is now 51.

Wow, 18% cheaper would mean a lot to a lot of people for a lot of things

Etucson — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:05:25 GMT

I think an 18% discount on a $1000/month health insurance premium would be welcome by most people. (or how about an 18% raise in salary? or an 18% reduction in taxes?) I'd happily take an 18% discount on almost anything if all other things were equal. It surprises me, Scott, that you don't think that would sway anyone.

Reid's wife has surgery.

jean — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:58:53 GMT

Just an update.
It seems she is doing well, and I hope so.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITI...