Category: Whither Michigan?

Public education:
the scam continues

So now there are a few more government/foundation initiatives to make education work for Detroit kids.

Great.

Yet more proof that the job is not getting done, else why the need for a change in strategy? The state poured uncounted billions into public education over the years. How come the money didn't buy better results? If the job was getting done, we wouldn't fix-it programs.

The new effort, to train teachers, suggests that teachers-now-working don't know how to do the job. True in too-many cases. Schools of education, especially those in Michigan, are basically a scam. Teaching pedagogy and handing out degrees, even if the newly-minted teacher knows little about the subject she is to teach.

Michigan taxpayers are spending plenty on education. But they're not getting their money's worth, thanks in part to cowed administrators and teacher unions that protect incompetents.

One of the new program is aimed at teaching math. Why bother? The state is working to dumb down math standards. So here we are: spending more money to teach to dumber standards.

Here for story.

Category: Government at work

Health care reform: the federal hand is in your pocket again

Another health care report:

If you're not outraged by the House proposed health care reform, you should be.

Especially if you're middle class.

The numbers have been analyzed a number of ways (see previous blog), and here's is another:

A family of four making $78,000 a year will eventually paying an average premium of $8,800 plus $5,000 copays, says the Congressional Budget Office.

Imagine that.

After paying federal income tax, state income tax, sales tax, excise tax, gasoline tax, property tax, state and federal fees and social security ax, the feds want another $13,800 out of your hide.

Odds are you'll be handing over 50 percent or more of your income so somebody else can spend it for you.

The idea of forcing families to buy something, like health insurance, is obnoxious on its face.

As economist Peter Schiff says in his books ("Crash Proof" and "Crash Proof 2.0"), people in China have more economic freedom than the U.S. That's why China is poised to be the world's next great economic power, and the U.S. is reeling.

Category: Government at work

Health care reform: Do you have $10,000 to spare?

If certain families have an income of $88,000 a year, it's gonna cost them $10,560 for health care before any subsidies kick, reports the New York Times, editorializing on health care reform.

Even the Times, which favors health care reform, calls it a "substantial hit."

Could be, some families have other priorities, such as building a college fund. Paying grandma's rent. Etc.

Here for story.

Category: Sign of the Times

No tight pants or adultery -- or else

Extreme Islam, a sliver of the whole, is still nutty after all these years, firmly rooted in the 7th century.

If you want an idea of how strict Shariah, Islamic law, be:

"...the Shariah police will be wielding a new and more potent threat: death by stoning for adulterers," reported The New York Times out of Banda Aceh, a backward corner of Indonesia.

We'd have to stone half of Congress, were Osama and the boys to have their way here.

And then there's the public canings in Banda Aceh for gambling, the kind of thing that would all but kill Detroit's casino industry. The Times ran a photo of the Shariah police chastising a man for eating in a restaurant during prayer time.

Oh yeah, one district in Aceh banned tight pants for women. Officials even ordered 7,000 pairs of baggy pants. If the cops think you tush is too prominent, they're authorized to shred your clothes and give you government-issue, one of those 7,000 non-designer pairs.

Too bad. Most of Indonesia, a Muslim country, is moderate. Voters are rejecting Islamic extremists. Yet the hard core can wield power, as Aceh shows.

Here and here.

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Category: Government at work

Needed: More straight-talking, cussin' governors

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has sent a message to the girly-men in the California legislature. It's the ol' encoded F-word. He vetoed bills with a letter which is interesting if you read down the left edge of the type.

We need more decisive folks like that in office.

The guv says the wording is coincidental. Right.

Below is the love note, which must have taken an aide a little time to construct.

Category: Dubious science

Pew: Fox News is conservative. Who knew?

The Pew Center has come up with big news: Fox News is perceived as conservative.

That's the trouble with academic and research types. Most have pretty much run out of ideas, except proving the obvious.

Reminds me of this recent research: Learning how to swim reduces the chance of drowning.

And this unneeded study: Sleep is good for you.

How about government grants to nail down these still-unproven concepts:

Walking in the rain increases you chance of getting wet.

People who exercise risk breaking out in a sweat.

Buying a lotto ticket means you have a chance to win.

And so on.

Here for story.

Category: Government at work

Feds have no idea if stimulus plan is working

Associated Press caught the Team Obama overstating the number of jobs created by the $1 trillion plus stimulus plan -- spending that will eventually contribute to the country's economic collapse.

The administration both defended its tallies and scrambled to correct them.

Here's some of what AP found:

-- Some recipients of stimulus money used the cash to give existing employees pay raises, but each reported saving dozens of jobs with the money, including one Georgia day care that claimed 129 jobs saved.

-- A Texas contractor whose business kept 22 employees to handle stimulus contracts saw its job count inflated to 88 because the same workers were counted four times.

If you like the way the feds run the stimulus plan, you'll love the way they run health care, if reform passes.

Meanwhile, the feds concede they cannot distinguish between jobs added and jobs saved.

If that's true, it means the government doesn't know squat about what's going on. If you don't know the underlying details, you can't possible know the full picture of what's happening.

We shouldn't be shocked that the Obama administration runs the stimulus plan like the Bush administration ran the Katrina clean-up -- inefficiently.

Politicians are politicians, and government is government, no matter its political stripe.

From Washington's perspective, it doesn't matter if the stimulus plan works. It's you're money they're spending. Or more accurately, your grandchildren's money.

Here and here.

Category: Government at work

U.N. investigates U.S. housing

The U.N. is sending an agent to a number of American cities to check on affordable housing -- and determine if a lack of it violated human rights.

Of course, there's no common definition of what is acceptable housing. What works for the Yanomamo won't work in Royal Oak. And vice versa.

The overall problem with the U.N. throwing its weight around is the organization's democracy deficit. Nobody elected these folks. And if power comes from the people, it has no power.

Here for story.

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Category: Punditry

Obama, golf and gender-specific sport

President Obama is outscoring George Bush in one category: Most golf games played by a commander-in-chief. Critics delighted in accusing Bush of his laid-back approach to the presidency. As it turns out, Obama has already played 24 rounds of presidential golf,a tally it took Bush nearly three years to reach.

Obama is blamed for golfing and basketballing mostly with men. I don't blame him for that. That's what guys do: work out with other guys. Sports are segregated by sex on just about every level, including high school, college and pro teams. Girls play like girls. Boys play like boys.

If there were true equality in, say, football, 300 pound women would be allowed to try for MSU football scholarships.

Curves, the popular workout system, bills itself as a gym for women, with no hint of allowing men members, despite being a public facility. Nobody much cares. Because that's what women do: work out with other women. Reminds me of the Detroit Athletic Club, which was once all men but in 1987 was nudged into allowing women.

Here for golf.

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Category: Quote Watch

Consumers don't know squat

"Consumer confidence is an utterly useless statistic."

-- Peter D. Schiff, explaining how federal officials fake a healthy U.S. economy when, in fact, we're skating toward a financial collapse much worse than the bursting of the real estate bubble. In his book, "Crash Proof."

It makes sense the consumer confidence is a nutty statistic. As Schiff notes, a man ice skating a lake may have confidence that the ice is thick. But if, in reality, it is thin, the skater will be "very cold, very wet and very drowned."

Confidence doesn't make the ice any thicker.

Reminds me of the University of Michigan consumer confidence index.

Why bother?

I'd like to see a survey to see if Americans have any confidence in the U. of M. confidence index.

Here's a story about a confidence index, saying it hasn't topped an optimistic score of 100 since 2007. Think about that. All the that bubbly 2007 consumer confidence didn't stop the economic collapse of 2008-09, which forced the feds to provide a $1 trillion plus crutch.

Perhaps consumers don't know squat.

Schiff, by the way, way back in 2006, accurately predicted the real estate collapse we're all living today. So don't dismiss his views lightly.