I stand corrected…..will Fox 21?

January 27th, 2012

Apparently Fox 21 got it wrong. The Insurance reduction is a mere 6.5 %.

On the other hand, if the School District’s reduction in insurance premiums is the result of laying off teachers I’m not so impressed. Even if its not 6.5% is a hefty jump for a District swimming in debt and busy eating its seed corn.

Speaking of venom

January 27th, 2012

http://rightsite.asia/en/article/johnson-controls-suspected-poisoning-pudong-residents

Snake oil

January 27th, 2012

My snakey post on JCI elicited an email with this reminder of the wind project JCI almost sold the Duluth School District about the time of the Red Plan:

“I was at the SB mtg when JCI tried to sell Duluth on joining the wind farm venture.
One of the skeptical members said “there is no free lunch”
One said she wanted more information.
And AW was ready to sign that night.

What is most interesting in this blurb from Rochester is that the reference to the complicated financial plan.
That seems to be JCI’s specialty.”

It came with this link from a 2008 Rochester Post Bulletin:

“Almost from day one, the funding mechanism for the wind farm has been puzzling to the point of being inexplicable, as have Johnson Controls’ claims that the district would likely make a little money while incurring no financial risk.”

Its almost like Johnson Controls is the Milwaukee gift to America’s schools that Governor Walker is the Madison gift to Wisconsin’s schools.

The snake pit that is Johnson Controls Inc.

January 27th, 2012

Brutal. Sounds just like the Duluth Schools:

“we end up with Johnson Controls Inc. overseeing Johnson Controls Inc.”

If the GOP can’t impeach a President for lying about having sex with his intern.

January 27th, 2012

They’ll just impeach him because they don’t like his fiscal policy. Or so says Grover Norquist:

Obama can sit there and let all the [Bush] tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach.

Then they can impeach folks like me who refused to sign Norquist’s no new taxes pledge when I ran for Congress in 2006. Disagreeing with a Republican is an impeachable offense. With thinking like that its no wonder the GOP debates are so hot tempered and irrational.

I’d have schlepped that ice bucket around too

January 27th, 2012

I like Dole and appreciate his humor but it turns out Newt was making a good point with it.

Word Search of the Day

January 27th, 2012

hypocrisy – I’ve used it a lot less often than I would have guessed.

January 27th, 2012

hypocrisy – I’ve used it a lot less often than I would have thought.

30 Rock Ribbed Republican

January 26th, 2012

I switched back and forth between the latest GOP debate and 30 Rock tonight. Not sure which was funnier. Ron Paul was keeping toe to toe with Tina Fey.

16% increase in the cost of health insurance?

January 26th, 2012

That’s what one of the TV news stations just reported was going to happen to the Duluth School District’s budget next year. I think it was Fox 21. KBJR is reporting an anticipated $3.8 million cut but doesn’t mention the insurance. Ann Wasson dredges up the hoary old “low hanging fruit” cliche but she’s one of the Board members who never questioned the cost of the health package agreed to in the last set of contracts.

This is not a surprise to a select few of us.

Its nothing that adding a couple more kids in each classroom can’t solve.

If the District is really into “transparency” I know a couple of bureaucrats whose departure might help bring that about.

Ah, ten minutes ago Fox put up a transcript. The DNT story doesn’t mention insurance increases.

Keynes is not really dead

January 26th, 2012

The Europeans and the British have done what our GOP wants to do to fight their recession, cut spending. The graph shows how long recent historic recessions have lasted in England. Because of the austerity. This one has now lasted longer in Great Britain than the Great Depression.

The Keynesian solution is to cut spending once the economy starts humming not during a depression.

Where I got this.

What a man who used to pass for a real Republican says of candidate Gingrich

January 26th, 2012

“Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty bucket in his hand — that was a symbol of some sort for him — and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it, and I’m not certain he knew either.” – Bob Dole

The Fanny’s knew what to do with it.

Shortcuts

January 26th, 2012

That’s how to describe the Duluth School Board’s modus operandi as demonstrated once again by this story and this editorial:

The opportunity seemed clear: Give Gronseth until, say, the end of the school year to see if he could emerge as the strong leader the district so badly needs, to see if he could pull back together a community clearly divided by the Red Plan. If so, hire him permanently. And if not, consider launching a new search.

That logical strategy started changing Friday when School Board members called a special meeting on the superintendent issue. Why they couldn’t have waited until their next regular meeting, when more of the community would regularly be paying attention, wasn’t made clear.

The strategy completely unraveled Tuesday when the board voted to immediately begin negotiating a contract with Gronseth to replace I.V. Foster, who resigned just this month amid controversy over his lack of a license. The 4-3 decision was hardly an overwhelming vote of confidence for moving quickly. The vote followed just a half-hour of discussion.

I should note that this smacks of Machiavellian maneuvering to get the candidate that Judy Seliga-Punyko and Ann Wasson wanted all along. The DNT Editorial Board is not in the best position to criticize their methods having condoned so much similar behavior by them in the past.

Word search of the Day

January 26th, 2012

Grandiose

Sexual grandiosity

January 26th, 2012

Victor Davis Hanson is one of the current Era’s right-wing political pundits. He’s also a historian. I got about half way through his book on the War between the Spartans and Athenians and like many other of my books a book mark is stuck where I left it beckoning me to finish someday.

My Buddy sent me one of the typical emails with nothing but a link to some bit of punditry in it. Today’s was a piece by Hanson pooh poohing the harrumphing about Newt Gingrich’s three wives which he seems to excuse because he’s “grandiose.” Mormons of old got nothing on Newt.

Well, I took the bait and sent my Buddy this reply:

Buddy,

Hanson should stick to the Spartans and their eccentric homosexual military organization where his moral flexibility is aided by his historical view. He probably likes the historian Gingrich’s romanticism but I wonder if Hanson ever decried the GOP’s desire to remove Clinton from office for lying about his daliance with an intern? Maybe Hanson was too busy writing about the Greeks back in the 90′s to offer his opinion on Clinton for public consumption. For that matter Newt himself seems to have a different standard for Clinton than he has for himself.

Harry

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 5:46 AM, [your Buddy] wrote:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0112/hanson.php3

Once again – not quite bookin it

January 26th, 2012

I watched one of the NOVA programs tonight which was about trying to prove that a 500 year old painting had been the work of DaVinci. If it was real the painting purchased for $22,000 would be worth $80 million. In addition to the incredible science that could be applied to the investigation a fair amount of circumstantial historical evidence was applied. The latter is what I’m doing in my research on the book I’m working on. Fortunately there is a ton of it available to any fool willing to devote six years plowing through it all.

This week I’ve been going through about fifty books that I’d previously notated and am now putting the critical info in a series of chronologies. They are but the latest chronologies but they come from legitimate reports verified by others. I had a shock a couple days ago when I realized there were another 13 books to go through. I’m down to four final publications: Rudy, The Terrors of Justice, the Solberg Biography of Hubert Humphrey and my surprise Internet find from four years ago which is by far the biggest and most unique source of first-hand information. I have been so impressed with it that I’d like the Minnesota Historical Society to publish it on its own merit.

The thesis I will offer up is not that novel. It is simply that political hacks can capture a movement and corrupt it like the eunuchs of ancient Persia or China. There will many interesting stories that hit the proverbial cutting room floor if I am to trim this down to 300 or so pages. I’m hoping that I’ll finish off integrating these last four book’s data into the overall chronology before I take off for my lucky front row seat at the Florida Primary.

When I’ve finished integrating these last four books into the final chronological compilation it will be of immeasurable help when it comes to integrating and footnoting the book. There will be plenty of other work to do. I’ve got to finish reading at least two trial transcripts, some FBI interviews and a million words worth of News articles. Wish me luck.

My take on the SOTU

January 25th, 2012

I wasn’t wowed by the President’s speech last night. When my wife said it was the best speech she’d ever heard him give I joked that it only seemed that way after listening to so many GOP Debates. She conceded the point.

My take was that under the circumstances it was the speech he had to make. It was full of Clinton-like small goodies that sounded appetizing. The GOP certainly is in no mood to give him anything big but these smaller things will be hard for them to oppose without looking more obstructionist. That’s not how the GOP will want to look going into November and yet their Tea Party Base probably won’t let them cooperate with the evil Kenyan. Obama could very easily come out smelling like a rose next to the dumpster as the election rolls around.

I’ve already ridiculed one of the President’s ideas – locking up kids in high school. Some of his optimistic rhetoric about Afghanistan rings hollow to me. We’re about to abandon them because we don’t have it in us to stick around any longer. Obama did the right thing. He’s backing out slowly enough that the Taliban might not overrun the country when we are gone. The rate at which Afghans are attempting to leave the country doesn’t leave me with much optimism on how that will work out. And goodness, Bush and the GOP let Bin Ladin get away. Obama got him. That counts more for me than the SOTU.

I think Obama got us a modest recovery which is a lot better than the outright Depression that would have been likely if the Tea Party had gotten its way and done nothing. His list of patches last night for the mortgage crises and tax fairness will be additional salve. I’d like to see him implement Simpson-Bowles type cuts but see that as unlikely because of the current Washington climate of scorpions in a bottle. I’ll take what I can get from Obama while expecting little from the FOX addled GOP.

The GOP Presidential candidates will keep throwing battery acid on each other for the foreseeable future and give the voting public a sobering look at the alternative to Obama. I’ve already seen the latest ads on youtube but that’s just a start. I’m heading to Florida for the week running up to the Primary to visit family that watches FOX. As Andy Sullivan says, please pass the popcorn.

GOPaganda

January 25th, 2012

I heard Chip Cravaack’s analysis of Obama’s SOTU on MPR today. He carped about all the regulations Obama has implemented. Hmmm. I think the Prez claimed to have done less of that than his predecessor. I’m sure the fact checkers will soon figure out which story has more merit.

At least Chip would talk to Minnesota media. Michelle Bachmann wouldn’t talk with MPR but rushed over to criticize Obama On FOX News. That’s her kind of fair and balanced.

One quibble with Obama’s State of the Union

January 25th, 2012

I was a skeptic about George W Bush’s No Child Left Behind. Count me a skeptic about Obama’s plan to keep kids in school until they are 18 or until they graduate. School is prison for a lot of kids. A school crammed with such kids will be a prison for a lot of teachers.

word search of the day

January 25th, 2012

soporific