bobby jindal

Graduation Rates

rallain | April 2, 2010
The current push in our state is to improve college graduation rates. Who could argue that is a bad thing? Having more students succeed in college is a good thing. The problem is assessing the performance of the state universities by looking primarily at graduation rates. Why? Simply - if the goal is to just raise graduation rates, that is easy to do. Just make sure more students pass. Is this really what we want? I think not. Louisiana Governor Ricky Bobby Jindal compared the poor graduation rates of the state universities to a football coach without a winning season hinting that you…

Go Tell Bobby Jindal...

User Image sheril | March 19, 2009
..about the undersea volcano that's been erupting over the last four days in the South Pacific! What you see is smoke, steam, and ash shooting up thousands of feet near Tonga. And while this activity poses little threat to islanders right now, the image reminds me why I'm in favor of "something called 'volcano monitoring'," even if the Louisiana governor disagrees.

The Buzz: Who Needs Volcano Monitoring?

User Image amillikan | March 2, 2009
Following President Obama's address to Congress Tuesday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal delivered a speech on behalf of the Republican National Committee that criticized a government spending bill, claiming it was "larded with wasteful spending" because it allotted $140 million for "something called 'volcano monitoring.' " But with 65 active volcanoes in the United States alone and the well-documented consequences of what happens when natural disaster potentials are not taken seriously, several ScienceBloggers are calling out Jindal and the idea that volcano monitoring isn't a good use of…

Because unlike hurricanes, volcanoes are fuzzy, pink, and cute?

User Image bioephemera | February 25, 2009
As a native of Washington State, where we could literally scoop white ash off the ground in handfuls after Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980, I have one thing to say about Bobby Jindal's totally disingenuous dig at "volcano monitoring": if geoscience is such a big waste of money, sure, let's stop monitoring volcanoes - and hurricanes, too. That okay with y'all? I wonder what Jindal's fellow Republican governor Sarah Palin thinks of his advice, given that Alaska's Mt. Redoubt may erupt any day. . .