All-purpose news and politics thread: One Step Beyond!

[macul]

That's what the Border Control claim isn't why he's stopped.

When it comes to officers in Arizona pulling over Hispanics, I know I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Oh, OK. So now we're good with substituting whatever facts we wish to bolster our argument. Is that really the road you want to go down? Are you truly comfortable with that? That door swings both ways, so don't get upset when the other side does it was well.

The guy was stopped because he was giving off radiation. He wasn't stopped because his last name is Castro. And the stopped lasted anywhere from 10 - 40 minutes while the officers performed a search of his car.

[Charles RB]

Are you truly comfortable with that?

Am I comfortable assuming that when Arizona cops and border control officers pull a Hispanic guy over claiming "radiation" and keep him there for ten minutes in physical uncomfortable circumstances after hearing why there's radiation, they may be doing it because he's Hispanic, after multiple cases where they've pulled over people for being Hispanic and their state government made a law mandating they assume Hispanics without papers are "illegals" and drumming up lots of fear and loathing towards Hispanics?

Yes.

I'm sure Arizona'sgovernment doesn't like people assuming their guys are being racist, but they made that bed.

[Nick Soapdish]

Because if it's privatized, they can teach the TRUTH, not that suspicious science and history that's taught in those worthless public schools the government rams down everyone's throat!!!

Or that the Loch Ness monster disproves evolution. However, I haven't been able to see a copy of the pages in question. The guys behind ACE Curriculum don't seem to have many sample pages available. I'm not sure where the Scotland Herald got their information or how reliable they are.

how do the well off stay well off? by keeping the poor poor

can't have the "commoners" learning anything, they might actually make something of themselves

we are seeing the 21st century version of class warfare

No, it's only class warfare if you question that. And then you're the one declaring war.

So is Bush saying he's Native American? Because otherwise he's descended from colonists.

I think that if you come to the US late enough, you're an immigrant not a colonist.

Oh, OK. So now we're good with substituting whatever facts we wish to bolster our argument. Is that really the road you want to go down? Are you truly comfortable with that? That door swings both ways, so don't get upset when the other side does it was well.

The guy was stopped because he was giving off radiation. He wasn't stopped because his last name is Castro. And the stopped lasted anywhere from 10 - 40 minutes while the officers performed a search of his car.

I think that Castro explains it pretty well.

"I feel they've got a job to do and I don't condemn them for doing a job, but once I was identified and I was 96 years of age and told them I had medical treatment the day before, I expected a little more."

After all, it was 100 degrees out. And isn't that the point of having identification?

[Iangould]

Charter school perfiormance is all over the map in PA. Overall though, the average preformance is below public schools (when using standardized test scores as a performance bar ). There are some decent charters. But they seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

My biggest problem with charters is the amount of croneyism and corruption that happens with public money. There are a lot of charter school CEOs that are simply educational slum lords ... getting rich off of educating the poor. It's disgusting.

There may be other explanatiosn for that.

Immigrant and ethnic minority children in the US tend to do worse than white students on standardized tests.

If a charter school is primarily taking immigrant or minority students then even if the students are performing better than similar students in other schools their results could still be below the state average.

[Charles RB]

Scientology has not only declined in Australia, they're not only outnumbered by people identifying as wiccans (fourfold) but by people saying they're jedis.

[Iangould]

It's a complex problem.

One interesting thing I have read: Nations that have passed the U.S. in math and reading proficiency tend to do the opposite of us. That is, they spend more money on low performing schools and less money on high performing schools.

25% of our kids are in poverty (a number way beyond the best performing public schools in the world. Finland, the current best, has a poverty rate of about 4%). Since 25% of our kids are in poverty, they obviously live in low income areas with a low tax base, so the money available for public schools just isn't there. When you add in some of the social issues that come with poverty, it just turns the whole mess into a cascading snow ball.

Generally speaking, I prefer the US model of devolving political power and decision-making to the lowest possible level to the mroe centralized Austeralian system.

But maing school funding largely dependent on local property taxes seems a really bad idea.

[Iangould]

Ah, yes, the good old "capitalist competition makes the cream rise to the top!" ploy. **eyeroll smiley**

To quote The Tick: "and the cream is white."

[mikekerrIII]

Scientology has not only declined in Australia, they're not only outnumbered by people identifying as wiccans (fourfold) but by people saying they're jedis.

I think that there are probably more Pastafarians in the US that Scientologists

[bringthenoise]

I'm not sure where the Scotland Herald got their information or how reliable they are.

The Herald (formerly the Glasgow Herald) is a quality broadsheet with a good rep. Not guaranteed to be true, but far more likely to be true than false.

[Iangould]

For the first time ever, the US generated more power from natural gas than from coal in April 2012.

That's largely because of low natural gas prices but there's also a long-term story at work.

Power plants have a 20-30 year design life. After thay they typically require major maintenance like replacing boilers , turbines and condensers.

In the US, the Clean Air Act had the perverse effect of extending the life of old generators way beyond their designm life (because existing plants were exempted from many of the reuqirements of te Act so it was cheaper to patch them up than to repalce them with no plants that did have to comply.)

The oldest operating plants are reaching the poitn where patch-ups are no longer cost-effective and nobody is building new coal-fired plants ot repalce them because when you look 20-30 yars ahead, the risk of some type of carbon price is just too great.

[Vibranium]

For the first time ever, the US generated more power from natural gas than from coal in April 2012.

That's largely because of low natural gas prices but there's also a long-term story at work.

Power plants have a 20-30 year design life. After thay they typically require major maintenance like replacing boilers , turbines and condensers.

In the US, the Clean Air Act had the perverse effect of extending the life of old generators way beyond their designm life (because existing plants were exempted from many of the reuqirements of te Act so it was cheaper to patch them up than to repalce them with no plants that did have to comply.)

The oldest operating plants are reaching the poitn where patch-ups are no longer cost-effective and nobody is building new coal-fired plants ot repalce them because when you look 20-30 yars ahead, the risk of some type of carbon price is just too great.

steps in the right direction....I think

[Iangould]

I think that there are probably more Pastafarians in the US that Scientologists

You have to bear in mind two contradictory trends:

1. The Church of Scientology appears to inflate the claimed total number of practising Scientologists.

2. The Church of Scientology encourages individual Scientologists to lie about their membership of the Church.

[Vibranium]

but they are totally telling the truth about Lord Zenu (sp?)

[Nick Soapdish]

but they are totally telling the truth about Lord Zenu (sp?)

Xenu. They aren't allowed to talk about him - and at the lower levels even know about him.

[Vibranium]

Xenu. They aren't allowed to talk about him - and at the lower levels even know about him.

there is a a Church of Scientology office or mission or whatever two towns over in New Haven....I never see anyone go in there