Why oh why have you forsaken us, Mr. Obama? After being in office for five days I have yet to see my street paved with gold nor have I been given my complimentary pile of money from the wealthy you promised to bilk in my honor. The Republicans claimed you would do all these things and I was excited for your victory but it has not yet come to pass. Isn't five days enough to get us out of war, remake the economy so that there are no poor, and solve all the problems Bush left us with? Maybe next week?On to the weekly romp:
I learned this week that Tim Walz is obviously a secret socialist menace. Why else would he get excited to be "called into service" by the Socialist-in-Chief? Come on, Mr. Walz, no one who isn't a full blown communist sympathizer would want to hear about the "common good". Note to Michele Bachmann: I found the first person for that investigation you were talking about!
You know something, it is really damned annoying when you lefties write reasonable and logically sound posts. Why can't you just call for wealthy people to become slaves of the poor? At least then I would be able to recognize your evilness as described by the righties. So, KNOCK IT OFF!
Before you click on THIS LINK, let me set the scene for you. First, you must keep fresh in your mind the image to the left. Second, you must visualize this little boy writing this post while stomping his foot in whiny annoyance. Finally, you need to think to yourself how unfair it is that Democrats keep conservative members of their party in the ranks while Republicans beat down and kick out anyone who might have the slightest scent of liberal. Actually, you don't even need to read the post because I pretty much gave you the gist of it.
I am in total agreement HERE! I know that when I used the, 'he did it first' defense with parents and other authority figures it always came across as a well reasoned argument. Perhaps next you could use the ever popular 'liar liar pants on fire' retort or the 'I'm rubber your glue' defense. Maybe, just maybe taking your ball and going home will endear you to the people.
Hey man, lay off Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney! These two guys have had a lot of work to do over the past eight years. Between making a mediocre President look good by sheer comparison and defending the mind-boggling stupidity of decisions made by this administration, they are bound to be worn out and tired.
Wait one hot minute! Didn't we learn over the past eight years that protest and dissent are BAD THINGS? Congratulations, Paulites and other righties, for making protest acceptable again although it is really weird that you are resurrecting this practice on the day we changed to a Democratic Administration. Well, I guess you know best! In other news, the communications team that makes Michele Bachmann look oh so good is branching out to make other Republican leaders come off just as super awesome. You would think they would be tired from all the spin they had to provide for Bachmann.
Yes, thank you President Bush! Thank You for not locking me up in one of your secret prison's. Thank You for not waterboarding me. Thank You for listening in to my phone calls because quite frankly, I need monitoring. Thank You for making me believe again that merely average is plenty good for the White House. Thank You for explaining that a country with no logical connections to 9/11 is the OBVIOUS front for the war on terror. THANK YOU!
NO, Mr. Truscott, this country is NOT about any big dream! It is about twisting and manipulating the words of other people so as to make them look like they hate America and are therefore unfit to run this country. So, take your fancy schmancy word prayers and begin the attacking because we have no place in American politics and life for people that are going to be all common sense and concilliatory. See, I knew you could do it!
Nobody likes hope and change. Why can't we embrace fear and inaction once again?
But if we end the culture war, what the hell are we going to write about on our blogs?
Is it at all ironic that a member of the hard right would use the writings and beliefs of a man who grew out of the Unitarian Church (i.e. liberal group that denies the divinity of Christ as well as the trinity) and was once a member of Brook Farm (a utopian community based on the principle of cooperation) to lambast the utopian sentiments of Barack Obama?
Yes, more thank you's to President Bush for doing what you "thought" was right even though the majority of the WORLD knew you were wrong. It takes a true leader to give a middle finger to the world and do whatever you want. Oh, and by the way, I LOVE the liberals are bring on the apocalypse meme. It warms my heart to know that striving for peace and working towards an end to racism really piss off the Lord enough to bring him down to smite us. God demands WAR and HATRED!
DAMN IT PEOPLE, who went and spilled the beans that 'progressive' is code word for America hating super communist? Whoever you are, you are soooo kicked out of the club! Apparently, singing "Hey, Hey... Goodbye!" to the outgoing President is extremely hateful but calling on people to "pull a sirhan sirhan" on Barack Obama well that is just a reasonable response to someone with whom you have philosophical disagreements. Are we clear?
I cannot believe that the Republican Party or conservatives would LIE! I am shocked, shocked I tell you!
The two things I learned from skimming this week:
You know something, it is really damned annoying when you lefties write reasonable and logically sound posts. Why can't you just call for wealthy people to become slaves of the poor? At least then I would be able to recognize your evilness as described by the righties. So, KNOCK IT OFF!
Before you click on THIS LINK, let me set the scene for you. First, you must keep fresh in your mind the image to the left. Second, you must visualize this little boy writing this post while stomping his foot in whiny annoyance. Finally, you need to think to yourself how unfair it is that Democrats keep conservative members of their party in the ranks while Republicans beat down and kick out anyone who might have the slightest scent of liberal. Actually, you don't even need to read the post because I pretty much gave you the gist of it.I am in total agreement HERE! I know that when I used the, 'he did it first' defense with parents and other authority figures it always came across as a well reasoned argument. Perhaps next you could use the ever popular 'liar liar pants on fire' retort or the 'I'm rubber your glue' defense. Maybe, just maybe taking your ball and going home will endear you to the people.
Hey man, lay off Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney! These two guys have had a lot of work to do over the past eight years. Between making a mediocre President look good by sheer comparison and defending the mind-boggling stupidity of decisions made by this administration, they are bound to be worn out and tired.
Wait one hot minute! Didn't we learn over the past eight years that protest and dissent are BAD THINGS? Congratulations, Paulites and other righties, for making protest acceptable again although it is really weird that you are resurrecting this practice on the day we changed to a Democratic Administration. Well, I guess you know best! In other news, the communications team that makes Michele Bachmann look oh so good is branching out to make other Republican leaders come off just as super awesome. You would think they would be tired from all the spin they had to provide for Bachmann.
Yes, thank you President Bush! Thank You for not locking me up in one of your secret prison's. Thank You for not waterboarding me. Thank You for listening in to my phone calls because quite frankly, I need monitoring. Thank You for making me believe again that merely average is plenty good for the White House. Thank You for explaining that a country with no logical connections to 9/11 is the OBVIOUS front for the war on terror. THANK YOU!
NO, Mr. Truscott, this country is NOT about any big dream! It is about twisting and manipulating the words of other people so as to make them look like they hate America and are therefore unfit to run this country. So, take your fancy schmancy word prayers and begin the attacking because we have no place in American politics and life for people that are going to be all common sense and concilliatory. See, I knew you could do it!
Nobody likes hope and change. Why can't we embrace fear and inaction once again?
But if we end the culture war, what the hell are we going to write about on our blogs?
Is it at all ironic that a member of the hard right would use the writings and beliefs of a man who grew out of the Unitarian Church (i.e. liberal group that denies the divinity of Christ as well as the trinity) and was once a member of Brook Farm (a utopian community based on the principle of cooperation) to lambast the utopian sentiments of Barack Obama?
Yes, more thank you's to President Bush for doing what you "thought" was right even though the majority of the WORLD knew you were wrong. It takes a true leader to give a middle finger to the world and do whatever you want. Oh, and by the way, I LOVE the liberals are bring on the apocalypse meme. It warms my heart to know that striving for peace and working towards an end to racism really piss off the Lord enough to bring him down to smite us. God demands WAR and HATRED!
DAMN IT PEOPLE, who went and spilled the beans that 'progressive' is code word for America hating super communist? Whoever you are, you are soooo kicked out of the club! Apparently, singing "Hey, Hey... Goodbye!" to the outgoing President is extremely hateful but calling on people to "pull a sirhan sirhan" on Barack Obama well that is just a reasonable response to someone with whom you have philosophical disagreements. Are we clear?
I cannot believe that the Republican Party or conservatives would LIE! I am shocked, shocked I tell you!
The two things I learned from skimming this week:
- Eric Black liked the speech but was too verbose and analytical for me to care why he liked the speech.
- North Dakota has gay people. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given that they have that Medora Musical thing.
Really, Matt Entenza? Really?
Well of course poor people and labor unions are the problem! Don't you get it? Labor Unions are bad because then we have to pay people a reasonable wage and poor people need to just get off their butts and work three or four jobs. That way, we will be able to pay them substantially less without unionization and we will have three to four times the workforce. It is an economic stimulus that is destined for greatness!
Don't you just love it when old myths re-emerge?
There are few things that fill me with more soaring optimism than reading the writings of one Andy Aplikowski. He truly is a national treasure of the American spirit!
Did the party of George W. Bush just accuse someone else of hubris? Oh, will the hilarity never end?
Why oh why must we demand accountability and results from charter schools! Never mind that they do no better than their public school counterparts, we need to give them free reign and lots of extra money. As for those damned public schools, we demand results and don't tell us money will solve the problem! Does that about sum it up, Mitch?
If God told you to do something and you failed, then does that make God a failure as well? Just a thought...
Are you telling me that the DFL leadership PROMOTED a conservative Democrat to positions of power? I thought we were supposed to be weeding these people out and demanding ideological purity? I totally joined the wrong party...
His first mistake? Really? What about being a terrorist loving super secret muslim communist hell bent on destroying America?
It seems as though Jeff Rosenberg is "tracking" the Minnesota Legislature. I wonder how he was able to get all those tags on all those members of our state government. Do you think he had any trouble tranquilizing Seifert? That guy doesn't go down easy I bet!
I really hate it when I agree with someone at True North! Will you people just stick to writing about how much liberals, unions, poor people, gays, and immigrants suck so that we can stop this bipartisan agreement CRAP. By the way, if your son wore that shirt to my public school I would have a good laugh and then congratulate him on being politically active at such a young age. Not the response you were hoping for, huh?
Well of course poor people and labor unions are the problem! Don't you get it? Labor Unions are bad because then we have to pay people a reasonable wage and poor people need to just get off their butts and work three or four jobs. That way, we will be able to pay them substantially less without unionization and we will have three to four times the workforce. It is an economic stimulus that is destined for greatness!
Don't you just love it when old myths re-emerge?
There are few things that fill me with more soaring optimism than reading the writings of one Andy Aplikowski. He truly is a national treasure of the American spirit!
Did the party of George W. Bush just accuse someone else of hubris? Oh, will the hilarity never end?
Why oh why must we demand accountability and results from charter schools! Never mind that they do no better than their public school counterparts, we need to give them free reign and lots of extra money. As for those damned public schools, we demand results and don't tell us money will solve the problem! Does that about sum it up, Mitch?
If God told you to do something and you failed, then does that make God a failure as well? Just a thought...
Are you telling me that the DFL leadership PROMOTED a conservative Democrat to positions of power? I thought we were supposed to be weeding these people out and demanding ideological purity? I totally joined the wrong party...
His first mistake? Really? What about being a terrorist loving super secret muslim communist hell bent on destroying America?
It seems as though Jeff Rosenberg is "tracking" the Minnesota Legislature. I wonder how he was able to get all those tags on all those members of our state government. Do you think he had any trouble tranquilizing Seifert? That guy doesn't go down easy I bet!
I really hate it when I agree with someone at True North! Will you people just stick to writing about how much liberals, unions, poor people, gays, and immigrants suck so that we can stop this bipartisan agreement CRAP. By the way, if your son wore that shirt to my public school I would have a good laugh and then congratulate him on being politically active at such a young age. Not the response you were hoping for, huh?
3 responses to "Weekly Romp Through The MN Blogs"
Oh, the hell. What's life without casting pearls before the occasional pen full of swine?
I mean, not only do I know more about the actual issue than you, but I'm an actual parent with actual kids in the charter system. What would I know?
Does that about sum it up, Mitch?
As usual, no. But it proves that you haven't the foggiest clue what you're writing about, who-or-whatever you are.
Why oh why must we demand accountability and results from charter schools!
Charter schools are more accountable at every level than public schools; to government, and especially (and most importantly) to the parents that control the boards that run each school.
Never mind that they do no better than their public school counterparts...
...when you compare apples and axles.
But public schools can shunt "problem students" off to the ALC or "special ed" to keep their stats up; charters have to work with the kids that come to them. And the kids who go to many of the charters, esp. in the inner city, are the ones that weren't "thriving" in the factory-model public schools, and whose parents, disproportionally minorities who have been grossly underserved by the system, are looking for a better education and - here we go - more accountability. I'm one of them, and I'm deliriously happy with the decision.
we need to give them free reign and lots of extra money.
Charter schools get less money per student than public schools. They get the state allotment, but not the local levies. A charter probably gets 60-70% as much per student. I'd love to see a public school have to succeed on its own at all, much less with 2/3 of the money.
As for those damned public schools, we demand results and don't tell us money will solve the problem!
I could follow up right now with the raft of studies that show money and class size has little to do with results, or comparative lists of high-support states that are flopping against lowER-support states that are getting better results...
...but it occurs to me that this is a leftyblog - an anonymous one at that - so facts, logic and reality and thoughtful dissent are wasted. So I'll just throw some shiny "HALLIBURTON BUSHCHEWNEY HOPEANDCHANGE" trinkets on the rhetorical floor and let you all roll and romp and play.
A note on charter school accountability: There have been a number of studies over the past few years showing that charter schools are underperforming regular public schools (most recently there was one done by the University of Minnesota, last year there was one done by the Bush administration's Department of Education). These do compare apples to apples. At best, a couple have shown them to be keeping up, and one showed that the only the very first wave of charter schools slightly outperformed regular public ed.
Even private schools underperform regular public schools when like economic groups are compared in scientifically based studies.
Some speculate that the fact that charter schools have on average less experienced educators, less oversight, greater teacher workloads, and less money may contribute to their underperformance. Some of the same issues apply to private schools, partly because they pay their teachers less on average than public schools, and as a result, there is less competition for those positions (which begs the question, how can they pay less and still charge so much more than the state pays per student and no one calls them fiscally irresponsible?).
As far as the "raft of studies" to which you refer, virtually all of them forget to disaggregate by income level - the single largest driver of student performance. When you compare poor kids to poor kids, middle class to middle class, and even rich kids to rich kids, funding and class size (an arifact of funding) matters.
I am happy you are satisfied with your school choice, and it is possible it is the best for your child. However, you took some risk in placing your child in a system that is underperforming.
Well, these posts are meant to be sarcastic summations of the blog posts this past week. However, since you want to get all "serious" and "substantial" with me I suppose I can play along.
"I mean, not only do I know more about the actual issue than you, but I'm an actual parent with actual kids in the charter system. What would I know?"
*That is the second time you have claimed superiority over an issue. You must be really smart. Given that I am a public school teacher and I have actual kids in the public school system, Does that mean I know more about that system?
"But public schools can shunt "problem students" off to the ALC or "special ed" to keep their stats up; charters have to work with the kids that come to them. And the kids who go to many of the charters, esp. in the inner city, are the ones that weren't "thriving" in the factory-model public schools, and whose parents, disproportionally minorities who have been grossly underserved by the system, are looking for a better education and - here we go - more accountability. I'm one of them, and I'm deliriously happy with the decision."
*I actually support the charter school system and think it is great that children are able to find their niche in these systems. However, you have a fundamental flaw in your above logic. Under NCLB, those kids that you say the public schools get to shunt away are REQUIRED to be tested. No public school is allowed to exempt all of their special education students. Granted, there is a very small percentage (around 5%) that you can exempt but these are the truly disabled students who couldn't take the test even if we forced them to.
"Charter schools get less money per student than public schools. They get the state allotment, but not the local levies. A charter probably gets 60-70% as much per student. I'd love to see a public school have to succeed on its own at all, much less with 2/3 of the money."
*Yes, but don't you also pay a tuition for these schools? When you add in that tuition and any donations and grants that they get, I dare to bet you come out on par with the public school system.
"...but it occurs to me that this is a leftyblog - an anonymous one at that - so facts, logic and reality and thoughtful dissent are wasted."
*Damn, Mitch Berg is calling me out because I use a moniker rather than my real name! I am all for dissent and welcome your comments. By the way, my name is Eric Austin. For a while I chose to remain anonymous but since I am a nobody anyway it really doesn't matter all that much.