Now I understand how Bush can be President

The answer is simple. Impress everyone by telling them that you're going to buy a MacBook Pro and then spend the money putting a fence around your yard.

Yeah, and when they ask where the MacBook is, call them liars for making up this whole "MacBook" story.

Well all the teachers will be teaching intelligent design, which means big savings right there on lab materials.

"Q: Children, what causes the white stuff to precipitate when silver nitrate is added to seawater?

A: The Designer!"

And won't be needing any fancy smanchy internships with liberal university commie evolutionist atheist professors either.

They tried this kind of thinking in Ontario in the 1990s. Health care was costing the province too much money, so the government decided to cut the number of medical students. Ten years later, we now have a doctor shortage, combined with a larger population. Their math didn't work.

This wasn't the conservatives either, it was a socialist government.

Why do you doubt Our Leader? Your problem is that you've had your thinking twisted by years of liberal mathematics, with its mushy notions of 'addition' and 'subtraction'. Numbers are what we want them to be, pal.

Haven't you heard of cost efficiency? The US spends more tax money per student than Finland and still gets far worse results. The education budget should be cut by 50-75%.

Did anybody catch this gem from Alberto Gonzales? "President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale."
Bush is far from being the only dumbsh*t in this Administration.

This is good too (last sentence is the good one):

BIDEN: Thank you very much. General, how has this revelation damaged the program?

I'm almost confused by it but, I mean, it seems to presuppose that these very sophisticated Al Qaida folks didn't think we were intercepting their phone calls.

GONZALES: Well, Senator, I would first refer to the experts in the Intel Committee who are making that statement, first of all. I'm just the lawyer. And so, when the director of the CIA says this should really damage our intel capabilities, I would defer to that statement. I think, based on my experience, it is true - you would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance.

But if they're not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget.

Training all these teachers while cutting their pay? It's going to happen because Bush says so. Because what he says, and not what reality is, is Truth (since truth is so much better than reality), and anyway, facts are whatever wins a debate or is determined by a poll.

Since intelligent [sic] design makes us feel special, that should be taught because if everyone believes in evolution, we'll have no moral compass to spin wildly and point toward the various rationalizations for the Iraq War in the absence (but they're really still there somewhere, you know) weapons of mass destruction. Global warming will just go away if we just ignore it. Everything is hunky-DORKY according to Bush, because we live in IDIOT AMERICA.

Pardon me, Mikko, but what does anything Bush said have to do with efficiency?

You can't improve your car's efficiency by deciding you're going to drive more miles while budgeting less money each month for gasoline.

Pardon me, Mikko, but what does anything Bush said have to do with efficiency?

You can't improve your car's efficiency by deciding you're going to drive more miles while budgeting less money each month for gasoline.

Obviously you haven't learned to think like a Republican!

Here is how Republicans think about education. It's very simple:

1) public schools get lots of money but the results are not what we'd like.
2) therefore schools waste money.
3) therefore, if we take most of their money away, that's money they won't be able to waste.
4) when schools have most of their money taken away, their quality will collapse.
5) when schools collapse, public support for private schools will rise.
6) at this point the public will accept vouchers for religious schools!
7) if large numbers of people cannot afford any school, they can work at Walmart or join the Army.
8) lower taxes for everyone!

Haven't you heard of cost efficiency? The US spends more tax money per student than Finland and still gets far worse results. The education budget should be cut by 50-75%.

Within the US, there's a very high correlation between state funding of education and state performance on standardized tests. There are numerous ways to increase efficiency, although most of the difference is due to culture, which is immune ot short-term political changes. Japan, the East Asian tigers, Benelux, and Scandinavia have very education-oriented cultures, which explains why they hog the top spots on all math and reading tests; the USA has an anti-intellectual culture, which explains why it ranks almost dead last.

Now, culture aside, part of the USA's education problem stems from lack of funding, as seen in the correlation between funding and performance. However, additional problems come from the southeast and southwest's textbook adoption requirements, overreliance on standardized rather than non-standardized tests, and the lack of national standards for high school graduation. When you rely on standardized tests, there's a huge problem of teaching to the test; when you rely on non-standardized ones, teaching to the test entails teaching the material.

I think the answer is pretty obvious. They are going to take all the retired fighter jets that the Air Force will replace with their multi-billion dollar F-22s and put them in the classroom. Who wouldn't pay attention when an F-15 tells them something? Each jet should be worth at least 500 to 1000 human teachers.

pz--check out the discussions in support at apple.com. there may be real problems with the new cpu. also, existing software will likely run slower on the new machines until the code is rewritten to use the new intelcpu.

This can be done because these aren't cuts to schools or teacher salaries or books or anything that actually has to do with educating a student, but to the Federal Department of Education, which has yet to educate a single student.

It was sheer idiocy to create this Department and we can only hope that someday we will do away with it so that the money can be used locally for real educational purposes.

I'm trying to think what the name of the analyst was that put the following idea forward, but it was essentially this statement:

'Truth is controvertible. To succeed in politics, it has to be all bullshit, all the time.' In that light, the Republican party's hypocrisy isn't hard to understand at all. Especially when so many people actually buy it.

I'd like to be able to explain to my wife how we can buy a brand new MacBook Pro while saving money, but either I'm not as smart as George W. Bush or she is much, much cleverer and less credulous than Republicans.

Let's see... the cost of a computer should be amortised over three years, including all repairs plus upgrades to deal with new software. So what you do is, you rig^Hcollect the figures such that the cost of keeping the old Powerbook is higher than the cost of buying the new one. Then you factor in timesavings (conveniently overlooking the new toy value, and the games you can now play). Then you promise your wife that you will spend more time with the family, or doing the lawns, or something.

[I was once a manager repsonsible for purchasing computers. Does it show?]

Alon Levy:
Japan, the East Asian tigers, Benelux, and Scandinavia have very education-oriented cultures, which explains why they hog the top spots on all math and reading tests; the USA has an anti-intellectual culture, which explains why it ranks almost dead last.

The difference is the amount of foreigners. Finland and East Asian countries are ultra-racist nations with homogeneous populations. America is multicultural and multiracial.

And that wasn't a racist comment - it's a fact that foreigners and children of immigrants have more learning difficulties than the native population has.

Now, culture aside, part of the USA's education problem stems from lack of funding, as seen in the correlation between funding and performance.

It's not the lack of funding. Many districts overspend and fail to meet standards. Private schools and even homeschools outperform public schools. The problem is the simple fact that a bureaucratic machine can in no way offer as high quality (or better) education as privately funded for-profit education system can.

Cato's Andrew Coulson had this to say:
Nor has our increasingly centralized approach to schooling served the interests of the poor. Though many inner city public school districts from Detroit to DC spend $12,000 to $16,000 per pupil annually, their performance is often abysmal.

Then there are the teacher labor unions & such which work aggressively to prevent poorly performing teachers from being fired.

Craig:
You can't improve your car's efficiency by deciding you're going to drive more miles while budgeting less money each month for gasoline.

But there are ways to make the car use less gas. Its performance can be improved. This is what happened, for example, in New Zealand, where the government had grown too big during the 80's and to avoid a total collapse it had to cut spending and increase performance by liberalizing its economy and lessening public spending. As a result of competition and liberalization the performance of both private and public schools in NZ skyrocketed.

But there are ways to make the car use less gas. Its performance can be improved.

I've also heard that if you start eating no more than about 50 calories a day, you'll make much better use of those calories. You'll waste less food and actually have much more energy!!

Ummm Mikko, have you actually paid attention to the NZ education system?

Currently it's hiccouping because of a new qualification system but in general I'd say that the strength in NZ schools lay in programs like reading recovery and funding allocation based on the average income of the people in the area (so kids in the poorest schools are the most well funded).

There *is* a powerful teacher's union and schools are unable to pick their students.

the fiscal conservatives over at The Economist are not too happy about this budget-busting flim-flam (subscription may be required). they say in part:

POLITICAL speech is always full of slippery locutions, but George Bush's state-of-the-union address last week may have set a new standard for involuted meaning when he urged Congress to âact responsibly, and make the tax cuts permanentâ. At that time, the official White House projection of the budget deficit for the 2006 fiscal year was $341 billion, a substantial portion of which could have been erased by rolling back the tax cuts so dear to Mr Bushâs heart. On Monday February 6th, the use of the word âresponsiblyâ suddenly looked even more idiosyncratic, as the administration released a $2.7 trillion proposed budget, and announced that the 2006 deficit projection had grown to $423 billion, or 3.2% of Americaâs GDP.The Bush administration claims it is trying to reduce spending to match the hefty tax cuts the president passed during his first term. Aside from the programmes loosely associated with the âwar on terrorââdefence, diplomacy, homeland security and veterans affairsâdiscretionary spending (the section of the budget that is allocated directly by Congress every year) is actually scheduled to fall in the 2007 fiscal year by roughly $8 billion.

well, who cares what The Economist says? ;-)

i don't know why noone i've seen has come right out and say it: the reason why tax cuts remain in the plans despite this bank account busting budget is that they are political items, not economic items. they are bribes to everyone who benefits to vote Republican in Congress and for President and to convince them to argue It's The Only Sensible Thing.

Anna:
"Currently it's hiccouping because of a new qualification system but in general I'd say that the strength in NZ schools lay in programs like reading recovery and funding allocation based on the average income of the people in the area (so kids in the poorest schools are the most well funded)."

But the point is that America faces quite a similar situation as New Zealand faced during the 80's. The system can be recovered without wasting an awful pile of money or by putting the current budget in use more efficiently.

Not to mention the simple fact that a state-run education system will always face difficulties. Even in Scandinavia, where the quality of education is high (welfare system), the current tax revenues just aren't enough to uphold the welfare system and higher taxation would eat our purchasing power. The recession of the 90's already proved that a welfare system can't grow pass a certain point.

Any tax-based fix is a temporary fix.

Any tax-based fix is a temporary fix.

But taking 75% of the schools' money away -- that lasts forever!

Bush's remarks remind me of the old conserve fuel joke--put a brick in your gas tank.

his proposal to add or train 70,000 new math and science teachers while cutting the proposed education budget by 20%?

The same way Ronald Reagan managed to increase spending while cutting taxes. I thought you knew.

a trouble with this is that the country is heading towards several trainwrecks at the same time(*), on orthogonal tracks. take your pick: pushing healthcare more and more onto patients and families, pushing education more onto parents and families, pushing productivity and employer-based healthcare so families need to work longer and longer hours, inadequate funding of government-supported pension plans, and growing the defense budgets (including "homeland security") ever and ever larger despite the fact Rumsfeld says they can't protect us from every threat.

i don't mind defense being important. but i do want features and weapons and defenses to be those which are used, not ones that are solutions in search of problems. for instance, if nuclear weapons will never be used because there's never a context which they can be, for whatever reason, then their number should be cut to some minimum (2000 is good) and the rest junked, along with the costs for maintaining them and their delivery platforms.

if we can't have that, we might as well cut the defense budget significantly and use these funds. that's been talked about ever since the supposed "peace dividend" of the Cold War. it's now slated for 2007. yeah, right.

Weisberg of slate.com wrote today (in part):

If we deficit hawks have failed to generate enough alarm to motivate action, it may be that our metaphors have become stale. Running a deficit is not so much like going on a spending spree or shooting yourself in the foot, which hurts immediately. It is more like smoking, drinking to excess and not exercising. It will in fact kill you â just not tomorrow.

or, as Mr Friedman of Times Select wrote yesterday, start to get us off our "oil addiction" by slapping a $1 a gallon tax on gasoline, strip the 54 cent a gallon tarriff on ethanol from Brazil, and use the resulting revenue to help pay for some of this stuff. i'd even escalate the gasoline tax to $2 a gallon in, say, 5 years.

(*) i mean we're heading towards them, not that we'll arrive there at the same time.

The difference is the amount of foreigners. Finland and East Asian countries are ultra-racist nations with homogeneous populations. America is multicultural and multiracial.

And that wasn't a racist comment - it's a fact that foreigners and children of immigrants have more learning difficulties than the native population has.

No, it wasn't racist, just ignorant. Singapore, a very plural and multiracial country, ranks first on these tests.

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