March, 2015 archive
QOTD 0
John Astin as Gomez Adams:
We are faced with a very serious problem. There is only one thing we can do.
Worry.
Still the Chill 0
Detail
Chris-Crossed 0
Alfred Doblin doesn’t think Chris Christie is serious about his attempts to “reform” (Christie’s term, not mine–ed.) New Jersey’s pension laws.
But the facade is cracking, and that explains the pension war. The governor may say he intends to win this battle, but his actions say otherwise. He doesn’t need to win it, only to declare it to grab the attention of conservatives.
The overarching problem in pension-world is not retirees who expect to receive the pensions that they were promised. It’s companies and governments who promised the pensions, then failed to provide for them.
Employees kept their promises to come to work and do their jobs. Employers broke their promises and now would penalize employees for daring to expect a solvent retirement, while the companies and governments face no penalties for their pension lies.
The Testing Flailure 0
In my local rag, education professor Claire Berube argues that, as long as politicians continue to flail at public schools with standardized tests, education will continue to deteriorate. Here’s a bit; read the rest.
The beneficiaries of the testing flailure are the outfits selling the tests and no one else.
Situational Ethics 0
Shaun Day explains “ethics” (or at least legislation) on one situation do not lead to “ethics” (or at least legislation) on the other situation(s). A snippet:
This year’s bipartisan ethics reform bill focused strictly on one component of ethics in government — restricting gifts to elected officials — while ignoring two others that are critically important: redistricting and campaign finance.
Light Bloggery 0
Events.