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Aug. 2nd, 2011 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* Because Democrats caved to Republican demands that they cut 323,000 jobs in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, the markets tanked. Because the "Deal" was so detrimental to the American economy, they are still considering downgrading the national credit rating. Remember how I said we needed a clean bill and this deal was an incredibly bad idea? Yeah. There is reason to worry this "deal" is so damaging it may be enough to give us a double dip recession or depression. I am not sure why it's a surprise that doing the opposite of what will help the economy damages the economy, but people are acting like it is.
* I know completely dismantling the American middle class and shifting the tax burden away from the rich is a really popular idea with Republicans right now, but trust me, it worked out really badly for the Romans and the 18th century French.
* neo_prodigy found: "Here’s the difference between straight celebrities and queer celebrities:" http://synthezoid.tumblr.com/post/8375000333
* In Wisconsin, there was a suspicious fire in the "We are Wisconsin" offices, which is organizing people to vote Democrat in the recall. Meanwhile, a Republican group, "Americans for Prosperity" and an anti-gay group, have been mailing fake absentee ballots that give the wrong date for the election as two days later to senior citizens and LGBT folks, presumably in the hopes they will vote too late or on fake ballots. As this is a popular republican tactic in recent years, and this group has done this repeatedly, I'm having a hard time believing it was a typo as they are claiming.
* Rm found: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/central-park-zoo-peacock-flies-the-coop/
* In Somalia, they are starving. If you wish to help, unicef is looking like your best bet right now.
* In Syria, they continue to slaughter unarmed civilians. I still have no idea how to make that stop, but I keep mentioning it because I'm scared we'll all forget.
* Eleven people have been arrested in the News corp hacking scandal.
* Pat Buchanan, made reference to "nailing the coon skin to the wall" in reference to President Obama.
* Meanwhile, Congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado can't figure out why his calling President Obama a "tar baby" might be considered "insensitive."
* Regarding the two items directly above this. O.o I know you can all imagine my rant on Republicans using racial insults to characterize the president, so I'll just leave you to it.
* Shutting down the FAA until at least September is expected to cost at least 1.2 billion dollars. This does not count unemployment benefits for all the folks out of work. All this is because Republicans want to destroy those "greedy' unions for demanding safety procedures and enough sleep for pilots. Republicans say that this waste of 1.2 billion dollars and job loss is really saving money, although I have yet to hear how. Sounds like magical thinking, as the numbers look pretty solid to me.
* Republicans are so against any attempt to regulate or enforce laws regarding the financial industry, that that they are insisting Congress is in secession during the recess to prevent any recess appointments to the consumer Protection agency. I mean, the last thing we'd want to do is protect ordinary people from corporations.
* For the record, the incentive to be a better teacher for actual real life teachers is: 1. You teach because you love teaching and therefore want to be the best you can be at it. 2. The better you are the easier it is and the more good days you get as opposed to bad. 3. Things like at risk kids coming up to you at the end of the year saying things like, "You are the only teacher I've ever trusted," or "you are the first teacher who was really fair to me," or a refusnik smiling at me and waving as we passed each other in the hall. These are still the things I am most proud of in my life.
Money has nothing to do with it. I quite literally could have made more money working fast food, and I wouldn't have had to pay to maintain certification, keep up a professional wardrobe, or bought office supplies for work doing that. Imposing monetary penalties because this year the district happens to have more ESL or special ed kids than last year is a pretty fucked up way to fund education. Those are the years schools need more money, not less.
Teachers aren't in it for the money, but starve them long enough, and they have to go looking for jobs that pay a living wage.
* Yet another reason to love Matt Damon: http://youtu.be/WFHJkvEwyhk
* Here's the speech he made at the same event: http://youtu.be/Lxy9b0-u0gU
* I know completely dismantling the American middle class and shifting the tax burden away from the rich is a really popular idea with Republicans right now, but trust me, it worked out really badly for the Romans and the 18th century French.
* neo_prodigy found: "Here’s the difference between straight celebrities and queer celebrities:" http://synthezoid.tumblr.com/post/8375000333
* In Wisconsin, there was a suspicious fire in the "We are Wisconsin" offices, which is organizing people to vote Democrat in the recall. Meanwhile, a Republican group, "Americans for Prosperity" and an anti-gay group, have been mailing fake absentee ballots that give the wrong date for the election as two days later to senior citizens and LGBT folks, presumably in the hopes they will vote too late or on fake ballots. As this is a popular republican tactic in recent years, and this group has done this repeatedly, I'm having a hard time believing it was a typo as they are claiming.
* Rm found: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/central-park-zoo-peacock-flies-the-coop/
* In Somalia, they are starving. If you wish to help, unicef is looking like your best bet right now.
* In Syria, they continue to slaughter unarmed civilians. I still have no idea how to make that stop, but I keep mentioning it because I'm scared we'll all forget.
* Eleven people have been arrested in the News corp hacking scandal.
* Pat Buchanan, made reference to "nailing the coon skin to the wall" in reference to President Obama.
* Meanwhile, Congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado can't figure out why his calling President Obama a "tar baby" might be considered "insensitive."
* Regarding the two items directly above this. O.o I know you can all imagine my rant on Republicans using racial insults to characterize the president, so I'll just leave you to it.
* Shutting down the FAA until at least September is expected to cost at least 1.2 billion dollars. This does not count unemployment benefits for all the folks out of work. All this is because Republicans want to destroy those "greedy' unions for demanding safety procedures and enough sleep for pilots. Republicans say that this waste of 1.2 billion dollars and job loss is really saving money, although I have yet to hear how. Sounds like magical thinking, as the numbers look pretty solid to me.
* Republicans are so against any attempt to regulate or enforce laws regarding the financial industry, that that they are insisting Congress is in secession during the recess to prevent any recess appointments to the consumer Protection agency. I mean, the last thing we'd want to do is protect ordinary people from corporations.
* For the record, the incentive to be a better teacher for actual real life teachers is: 1. You teach because you love teaching and therefore want to be the best you can be at it. 2. The better you are the easier it is and the more good days you get as opposed to bad. 3. Things like at risk kids coming up to you at the end of the year saying things like, "You are the only teacher I've ever trusted," or "you are the first teacher who was really fair to me," or a refusnik smiling at me and waving as we passed each other in the hall. These are still the things I am most proud of in my life.
Money has nothing to do with it. I quite literally could have made more money working fast food, and I wouldn't have had to pay to maintain certification, keep up a professional wardrobe, or bought office supplies for work doing that. Imposing monetary penalties because this year the district happens to have more ESL or special ed kids than last year is a pretty fucked up way to fund education. Those are the years schools need more money, not less.
Teachers aren't in it for the money, but starve them long enough, and they have to go looking for jobs that pay a living wage.
* Yet another reason to love Matt Damon: http://youtu.be/WFHJkvEwyhk
* Here's the speech he made at the same event: http://youtu.be/Lxy9b0-u0gU