Frankly, the SATs aren't as important as they used to be as more colleges no longer require them. The school BeezleBub is planning to attend doesn't require the SATs. He won't be going the Big State University until his junior year because he'll take his freshman and sophomore prerequisites at the local community college, which is part of the state university system here. (It helps that by the time he graduates from high school he'll already have a number of college credits from the community college.) It will save us and him $30,000 or more compared to going directly to the BSU.
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The Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove needed a few repairs this past week. We were having problems getting a draft going, so the local chimney sweeps/woodstove guys came to fix the problem. It still isn't perfect, but BeezleBub and I know what we need to do to put it right, something we'll do when the next batch of warm weather arrives (tomorrow and Tuesday). This will allow us to let the stove go cold so we can reinstall the damper assembly that was removed. Without it we don't get nearly as much heat and we have to stoke the stove every 3 hours rather than every 6.***********
The New England Patriots defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-24 today down in Gillette Stadium.***********
I have to say I was dismayed to see Herman Cain 'suspending' his bid for the GOP nomination. (I think in this case suspend means “dropping out.”)In the end, I'm not surprised. I have to hand it to David Axelrod - it was a perfect smear campaign. After all, there's no way the Dems, and particularly Obama, want a black Republican running against him.
I have a feeling that some time down the road the allegations will be found baseless, or they're just going to fade away and no one will remember them a year down the road.
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Staying on the Herman Cain theme just a little longer, John Hindraker gives us his view on the moral of Cain's story. It all boils down to this:What happened to Herman Cain is what the Democrats intend to do to whoever the Republican nominee turns out to be. They know they can’t win a debate on the economy or on President Obama’s record, so they will do everything they can to distract the voters’ attention from those matters, which should be decisive, and instead turn the focus to the GOP candidate and his or her alleged foibles. If Republican voters allow that to happen by nominating a candidate with baggage that permits the Democrats to turn him into the next Herman Cain, it is all too likely that President Obama will be re-elected, with consequences that can hardly be overestimated.We saw that as soon as the allegations starting flying, all debate about Cain's stand on the economy ceased. The problem is that no candidate of either party will ever be perfect. Not one will be squeaky clean. Not one will have nothing in their past that might be embarrassing should it come to light.
Of course we know nothing about Obama's past, at least those things that give us a view of him that hasn't been heavily massaged, twisted, or outright buried. Obama is the only president in my memory that has been such a complete cipher: No school transcripts. No papers written or articles authored. No in depth looks at his accomplishments. (That could be because he has none.) He's the 'perfect' Democrat candidate because he's an empty suit. We've seen how that works for us.
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Even the Canada Free Press is saying the Democrat Party is likely to go the way of the dodo, considering its political shift away from American ideals and towards statism.In decades past, the Democratic Party was the party of the working man. It was the party that fought to even the playing field with unscrupulous and an all-too greedy American industry. Over time, real progress was made and working folks were paid a decent wage and afforded a lifestyle that many today would envy.While the author of the article resides in California, the fact that someone in Canada sees fit to post it must mean something.
--snip--
Today the Party of the working man has become the Party of the non-working class. The Democrats have devolved to become the Party of moochers, leeches, and victims. And this Party of hope and change has morphed into a Frankenstein that would turn FDR in his grave. The Democratic Party is an abomination that is slowly strangling the greatest country in the world: The United States of America.
(H/T Maggie's Farm)
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Also by way of Maggie's Farm comes this post about the “Eight Warning Signs of Junk Science.”AGW certainly fits the list of those signs, meaning to me that it is junk science. So far none of the theories are verifiable, most are not falsifiable, far too much of the publicly funded research data is being withheld or buried despite FOIA request both in the UK and the US, algorithms used to crunch data showing temperature averages over the past few hundred years have been found to provide similar results even when random data is applied to them, and the all so sacred climate computer models have been unable to predict past climate trends using even earlier climate data.
Check out the list and tell me if you think AGW doesn't fall under at least three of those signs.
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Why doesn't this surprise me?It appears a 7-year old boy attacked by another boy that had been bullying him for some time. A t some point the bully tried to steal the boy's gloves by choking him. The boy resisted and defended himself by kicking his attacker in the crotch.
Now the Boston School System is saying the 7-year old boy is guilty of sexual assault. Excuse me?
The boy's attacker is guilty of assault & battery and attempted robbery, but the bully's victim is the one being up for discipline?
I'll say it again: The nanny state's justice system is seriously broken when it defends criminals and punishes victims.
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I missed this one from a couple or three weeks ago.Apparently some know-nothing Harvard students in Greg Mankiw's Economics 10 class demanded that he stop teaching economic theories with which they disagree.
WTF?
So, they don't like Adam Smith and are only interested in Keynesian economics? Never mind that Keynes was covered later in the course. They didn't want to hear a valid economic theory that has proven itself correct far more often than the overused/misused Keynesian model. (I think even Keynes would be horrified to see how his economic theories have been twisted into something so damaging.)
Talk about being close-minded, arrogant, entitled pricks! It is elitist jerks like these who helped cause the economic malaise from which this country suffers in the first place. Who the hell do these kids think they are?
One commenter to Tom's piece nailed it.
So some Harvard students went there to have their prejudices confirmed rather than to learn anything. The professor is better off without them.As Tom Bowler writes, “Scary thought, that students like these might someday have a major impact on public policy, free from the encumbrances of unwanted and distasteful economic theory.”
Scary thought indeed.