That’s my 6 word summary of what people want based on the comments at this thread. Well, I don’t know how to up the quality of our trolls, but here’s a post about Washington with swearing:
Hey assholes, turds, jackasses, fuckers, and various shits for brains! Are any of you as pissed off about some Democrats’ (and more Republicans, but they don’t control anything) attempts to fuck with teachers?
As amended by a coalition of eight Senate Democrats and 22 Senate Republicans, the bill now would require school districts facing layoffs to first get rid of teachers who have received the lowest evaluations. That would replace the standard method of using seniority only – the last hired would be the first fired.
Look, there are bad teachers who probably deserve to get fired. If district administrators want to work with the teachers unions to figure out the best methods to fire those teachers, I’m all for it. But it should be part of collective bargaining, not imposed on districts by the legislature. I just realized this paragraph hasn’t had any swear words, so: blumpkin. In any event, those evaluations had better be pretty rock solid if legislators want the state to impose them on school districts.
Gregoire said she doesn’t expect the layoff change to pass the entire Legislature. But if it does, she will not support it. That’s because the state is in the midst of a process to improve the way teachers are evaluated because the existing system doesn’t work.
Well shit, I hope at the very least, that there’s some compelling reason to make this change now.
Numbers collected by the state show that fewer than 1 percent of all teachers have received unsatisfactory grades while all others have been deemed satisfactory. The percentage of principals graded unsatisfactory is less than one-half of 1 percent.
So, if these legislators get their way, the state is going to fuck with collective bargaining to impose a system on districts that mandates hiring and firing based on a system we’re trying to fix. And if you do trust that system, there already is a better than 99% satisfactory rating for those teachers. Thanks, fuckfaces.
Does the bill say anything about firing teachers who have sex with their students? Seems to me those teachers should be the first to go. You know, the Mary Kay LeTourneaus of the world.
I’ve mentioned before, my mother was a teacher, and by every account I’ve heard (principles, fellow teachers, and former students), she was a good one. But she was very concerned about evaluation-based systems to determine firing, raises, or promotions.
The problem is that any quantitative evaluation tool doesn’t do a very good job of fairly evaluating teacher performance. If you have a very good teacher assigned to teach the lowest performers, and an average teacher assigned to teach the advanced-placement kids, the former would have the hardest job and yet be penalized the most in any system which weights performace based on standardized testing. The latter teacher would be rewarded for leading a class where the kids would already excel, assuming the teacher doesn’t do something really dumb.
And any other system of evaluation is inherently subjective, which causes lots of other problems. Students who don’t want to work hard can get even with a teacher on the evaluation submission. Fellow teachers can reward friends and punish enemies in “peer-based” evaluations. Evaluations performed by the principle could reward those who help them in their jobs by “not making waves” which might come to the attention of the school board. Eventually such a system rewards those who do average work, keep their head down, and kiss ass.
I don’t know if they’ve found some miraculous evaluation system which avoids these problems, but I’m skeptical.
Yes, tenure keeps bad teachers in place. And also yes, standardized testing dilutes both the scope and quality of education and is less than a model metric. Go ahead and look at the epidemic of schools changing wrong-to-right answers on standardized tests, the argument against even giving this a second-glance is “Well, if kids are doing better, WHY would we question it?” Are you kidding me?
I discussed business management techniques with a fellow over the weekend. He’s a business owner, and he thinks he’s got it all down. What essentially he does in “manage by fear”.
Anybody who makes a mistake is fired immediately. Anybody who brings him bad news is fired. Anybody who complains is fired.
And just in case everybody is doing well, he bragged that he will routinely fire people every once in a while, to “keep them on their toes”.
Of course, he has a high turnover rate at his company, as the good workers get out the first opportunity they have to find a better job. This leaves him with the poorer workers, who can’t get a job elsehwere.
The problem is, lots of Republican politicians (and some ordinary Republican supporters) think this is the way to manage public employees. They want them scared, fearing for their job. They want to be able to fire anyone who doesn’t kiss their ass fast enough. To them, subservence is a greater attribute than job performance. And they are really pissed anytime they find a government worker that they can’t treat the way they would treat their own employees, if given a chance.
Who Pays Taxes?
I’m a regular reader of rightwing magazines like Barron’s because, let’s face it, if you want to make money without working for it (which is the only way to make real money because nobody pays for work anymore) you should read the advice of the people who are good at it, namely, Republican assholes.
Okay, so here’s the rundown of who paid how much in 2008, the latest tax year for which data are available, by tax bracket:
10% bracket — 26 million filers paid $13.6 billion.
15% bracket — 42 million filers paid $149 billion.
25% bracket — 25 million filers paid $278 billion.
28% bracket — 4 million filers paid $127 billion.
33% bracket — 1.6 million filers paid $109 billion.
Note, these taxpayers are put in the highest bracket in which they paid some tax; even billionaires pay 10% on the first few thousand dollars of their income.
Source: Article by Thomas G. Donlan in Barron’s, April 18, 2011, p. 39. Presumably he’s citing government data.
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Donlan pointed out that the total income of richest 1% is $1.2 trillion, less than this year’s deficit, so even if we taxed those folks at 100%, they couldn’t pay enough taxes to erase the deficit. Fair enough. However, Donlan — who’s as rightwing as they come — goes farther and suggests we should give more tax cuts to the rich because they’d use the money toc create jobs.
That’s bullshit, but before I get into that, I’d like to point out a couple of other things. First of all, while it’s perfectly fair to use the latest data available, which happens to be 2008, Donlan doesn’t point out that 2008 is the year right after the credit meltdown, a year in which the economy was plunging into deep recession, and any data on anything from 2008 is skewed, because that was a highly abnormal year. It’s not really a fair representation of the economy or tax revenues.
Secondly, Donlan failed to mention that federal tax revenues are at an all-time low. Historically, federal tax revenues have been about 18-19% of GDP, but Bush The Monkey pushed them down to 16% — while tripling the rate of growth in federal spending. That, just possibly, has something to do with the fact we’re now running record deficits.
But Donlan’s larger sin is his ridiculous claim that tax cuts for the rich translate into jobs. If you want to test this thesis, just ask the millions of unemployed how many rich guys getting tax breaks have hired them recently. Bush’s Tax Cuts For The Rich(TM) demonstrably produce no jobs, because there was zero net job growth during Bush’s 8 years in office. Not that this bothers Republicans a whit, because Republicans don’t give a shit about workers, and their policies always produce fewer jobs.
I’ve got something positive to say about Donlan, though. He may be a badly informed and dogmatic ideologue, but at least he’ll argue with you, if you email him the facts. I did that a few months ago. Donlan is convinced that government is good for nothing and everything that was ever built in this country was built with private capital. When I sent him an email pointing out that the government subsidized the transcontinental railroads and built the Columbia River and Tennessee Valley dams, he acknowledged overlooking that evidence of government’s role in America’s development, but didn’t really back off from his ideology. But I’ll say this for the guy, at least he debated the issue with me, which is more than you usually get when you email a national columnist for a widely read national magazine.
I’ll leave it to someone else, though, to e-mail Mr. Donlan and debate the issue of giving more tax cuts to the rich, at a time when we’re running record deficits and taxes on the rich are at an all-time low and there’s trillions of dollars of surplus capital sloshing around that nobody can find a place to invest. From my point of view, based on his past track record, trying to point this out to him would simply be an exercise in frustration.
I’m not against standardized testing per-se. The Asian countries which are kicking the asses of our own kids in science and math use it pretty effectively – and fairly.
The problem is that standardized testing should be used for the following purposes only:
(a) to identify subject areas where additional efforts need to be taken;
(b) to confirm that the student has the necessary skills to advance or graduate.
And it should be recognized that standardized testing isn’t appropriate for all subjects. It works best in math/science/geography types of subjects. It really stinks in trying to assess language skills, critical thinking, literary knowledge, etc.
Baloney rhp6033… Got that from your daily reading of Cass Sunstein tea leaves? It has nothing to do with fear, except the fear that you SUCK teaching. Since I have close relatives in the teaching profession at this moment, their complaint is everyone is moved onto the next pay level based on years service until you reach the maximum then it’s just the standard contract raise. When a teacher gets tenure some enter IPR (that’s in-plant retirement for ylb since he doesn’t know what working out of the house is) and are on cruise control then on. They should get rid of the worst performers. Expand your reading materials and learn something for a change.
Being a Cass Sunstein Maleable Manipulable Useful Homer Simpson Idiot means you can throw useless crap on a blog with no links and pray it passes muster.
Pfffffffffffft…….. Nope You Dope!
@3 Republicans like standardized testing. They think the only legitimate function of schools is to teach practical skills and brainwash students about how to be good little employees. They regard subjects like literature, art, music, etc. — and teachers who teach them — as useless. So, the problem of figuring out how to conduct standardized testing of those subjects isn’t a problem at all; just get rid of them from the curriculum, and problem’s solved. They don’t want pupils reading controversial books like “Huckleberry Finn” because, you know, it’s against slavery.
# 5: If you think that automatically giving tax cuts to the rich creates jobs, then just consider what options are truly available to them:
(a) Personal consumption outside U.S. – a trip to the Rivera/Bahamas/etc., yielding no appreciable jobs in the U.S.
(b) Throwing a party for themselves in the U.S., which creates some work for the servant classes – but they have to earn it.
(c) Investing in U.S. businesses, which could result in jobs.
(d) Investing overseas, which would probably bring faster, larger returns because the economy there is not yet “mature”.
(e) Loaning money out to poorer Americans, which doesn’t do much to create jobs, but transfers the wealth back to them in higher interest rates.
(f) Buying luxory goods built overseas – no net job creation in the U.S.
(g) Keeping the money and giving it the grandkids when they die, an even lower (or non-existent) estate tax rates.
On the other hand, you can take the same money in the form of taxes, use it to invest in infrastructure the same way we did when we built the Interstate Highway System under the Eisenhower administration ,except this time replace aging bridges or highways, build high-speed train systems across the U.S., etc. In those cases all the money is spent on job creation, because the nature of the job is local.
I forgot Bird’s view, I fucking love Bird’s Eye View. You gots ta keep that mother fucker around.
@10 Fuck yeah.
While Carl’s post is an improvement, he failed to mention even once that Republicans fuck goats.
@10 Yeah, but ban wes.in.wa and milwhicky. Those guys always kick our butts.
heh- Just kidding. I’m very much impressed with their ability to find those places so darned quick.
Thanks a bunch!
Your economic policy of spend spend spend is sure workin well….
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/.....3.html?x=0
Idiots on wheels
By the way Silver and Gold are at record highs, and I got lots of it…to buffer Obama’s budget and Stock market bustin ponzi scheme.
So run the dollar into the ground, and they gang of big spenders will soon get the credit rating they deserve “BANKRUPT”
@14
Ass opposed to Bush’s policy of spend, spend, spend, or the current Republican policy of spend, spend, spend, but only on our friends, friends, friends?
Nice!
(
@1 It depends. the teacher would be out if democrats are in charge, but the teacher would be celebrated if there is a republican administration, just like they treat David Vitter.
And DOMA goes down!
More BULLSHITTIUM Roger Dumb Rabbit. Those classes are needed but not every day.Where does America stand in education Roger Dumb Rabbit? Don’t read the link ylb. It’s from a liberal newspaper. You need to stay stupid. Well Roger Dumb Rabbit, an American student may get one hour of science and math a day.
Here is what Roger Dumb Rabbit thinks are useful degrees.
Ariz. Governor Vetoes ‘Birther’ Bill
In a rare display of lucid sanity Arizona’s GOP governor has VETOED a bill passed by the GOP legislature requiring presidential candidates to prove their citizenship before thei names could appear on Arizona ballots.
budget problems?
Kent School district has 40 schools….and nearly 100 administrators who make OVER $100k per year
well fuck! no wonder they dont have any money for the kids! KSD is talking about cutting some of their programs due to budget problems.
HOW ABOUT GETTING RID OF A FEW ADMINISTRATORS!
and you want to raise my taxes? fuck off.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....3kent.html
EERMM….so what is wrong with presidential candidates having to prove their citizenship? Why shouldnt they?
If I have to prove my citizenship to get a job, should they have to as well?
@19 “Here is what Roger Dumb Rabbit thinks are useful degrees.”
Who the fuck authorized you to speak for me? I didn’t. This belongs in the “Puddy’s Made Up Shit” circular file.
I have to say, though, that I’m flattered when you pick on me, fudgebutt. It proves I get to you. Good!!!
@22 Look up the requirements to be president listed in the U.S. Constitution and then get back to us. Also, if you think the Constitution can be amended or changed by a single state legislature, please cite your legal authority for that proposition.
how that florida beef tasting magoo rabbit?
@24
so being a citizen is not a requirement? is that what you are saying?
LMFAO
We don’t have a quality problem with our trolls, we have an idiocy problem with our trolls.
Maybe we could import some trolls from China or something to replace the crop we’ve got now.
Well golly magoo rabbit…look what I found:
According to the US Constitution: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
you stupid fucking dope, of course being a citizen is a requirement, you old fucking nutty bastard.
Not only does Magoo Rabbit think Florida is the # 1 beef producer in the US, he also thinks that citizenship is not a requirement for being the President.
LMFAO…yep, you are fully qualified to be a moron.
@24
I just posted the requirements you dumbshit.
@9 One thing I’ll say for Obama is that his administration has boosted the number of criminal prosecutions of rich oeople using offshore tax havens to evade paying taxes.
Of course, the income that rich people hide from the IRS in offshore tax havens wouldn’t show up in the government statistics cited by Mr. Donlan, would it?
@28
or better yet, maybe we need some chinese lawyers and wannabe judges, because if you are any indication of our crop, we are fucked.
run roger magoo…run away….LOL
@21
Kent? That’s conservative suburbia isn’t it? Aren’t those your people?
@35
are you kidding me? Kent has been infested with the refugees that used to inhabit parts of the Rainier Valley.
Kent is inner-city ghetto town now.
@28 You do such a good job of fucking yourself, you certainly don’t need me for that.
@34 From who? You? Are you a comedian?
@26 Go read the Constitution and tell us where it says candidates have to prove their citizenship in the manner delineated in the (vetoed) Arizona bill.
the eastern parts of Kent are still somewhat decent suburbia, but the valley and east hill areas are crapville. Lots of public housing now – in other words all the people that could leave, left back in the 90’s.
@29 Where does it say they have to provide a birth certificate?
@38
hey fuckhead, it doest do any good to have requirements if they cant be verified, now can they?
my god you are a dense douche.
Cmon magoo rabbit, tell us kids how you discovered that Florida was the #1 beef producer and how the western US doesnt really produce much food.
cmon pops, tell us that story again.
@29 “you stupid fucking dope, of course being a citizen is a requirement, you old fucking nutty bastard.”
I’ve been a lawyer for almost 40 years and over the years lots of people have called me a “stupid fucking dope” or words to that effect. The one thing they all had in common is they all knew a hell of a lot less about law than I do.
My law degree is from the University of Washington. Did you ever try to get into U.W. Law School, dude? (They accept roughly 1 of every 20 students who apply.) If not, where did you get YOUR law degree from? Did you clip it out of a comic book?
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
The constitution also states that a person must be at least 35 years old.
In Magoo Rabbits world, a 27 year old could be president, because the constitution doesnt say anything about proving what your age is.
logic…magoo rabbit style.
Of course being a citizen is a requirement. The Arizona bill doesn’t require presidential candidates to be a citizen, it requires them to submit specified documents to the Arizona secretary of state, and that is NOT in the Constitution. But just try explaining this to sone shoot-from-the-lip bozo who thinks he knows more about constitutional law than retired judges do.
@44 No, a 27 year old could not be president, because you have to be 35 to be president. But presidents can lie about virtually everything else. See, e.g., George W. Bush.
@41 I really love when trolls call me names.
@43
Like I said before, if you are an example of what the typical lawyer is, then you guys are stupid as hell.
Obviously all that schooling at the UW never taught you anything about agriculture in the midwest…or florida.
Face it asswhipe, you are a liar….and dumb as a box of rocks.
Now, again…please tell us stupid non-lawyer folk about how florida is the #1 beef producer – I really want to hear all about it.
Here’s a little quiz. Why did federal courts declare state laws imposing term limits on federal offices (e.g., congressmen and senators) unconstitutional?
Hint: It may have something to do with states lacking power to regulate federal elections.
LMFAO @ traffic court judge…
your a flake.
@49
aaaahhh yes, back to those quizzes again.
remember the last quiz you gave us? You know, the one about who the #1 beef producer was? Remember that quiz dumbass?
@48 I won’t argue your point that some lawyers are stupid, although I’ve never met any lawyer as stupid as you. I’ve met a few as arrogant as you, but their arrogance was correctible.
The “Florida is #1 beef producer” came from EPA data presented at a legal seminar I attended several years ago.
Even in the US, not everyone is born in a hospital. I suppose now a days people get some sort of birth certificate when they’re born, regardless of where that is, but I have more than a few relatives that don’t have birth certificates because they were born on farms. Should those folks not be eligible?
You know, its one thing to shout “Florida is the #1 beef producer!”
but not only did you shout it, you did it for the sole purpose of trying to disparage the cattlemen and farmers of the midwest.
THAT is why you look especially stupid(and an asshole). Its not just the fact you fucked up your data, its that you used your false data to try and throw other people under the bus.
and you fucked it all up! BRILLIANT! Ya! I want you as my lawyer. HAHAHHAHAHAHAH
NICE CLOSING ARGUMENT THERE Magoo! Way to botch the case!
@50 “your a flake”
At least I can spell you’re.
@52
‘
you got the data at a legal seminar? HAHAHAHAHHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Wow, you arent you lawyer types jsut fucking brilliant! HAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHHAH
you stupid dolt! and you believed it? HAHHAHAHAHAHAH
of course I dont believe you, because you are always full of shit here – you just flat out lied and hoped that nobody would call you out on it.
OWNED!
@54 “you did it for the sole purpose of trying to disparage the cattlemen and farmers of the midwest”
No, I did it to disparage the “cattlemen and farmers” (read: hobby ranchers and hobby farmers) of the west, not the midwest. You know, those guys who would never turn a dime of profit if they had to pay for their own water projects (average cost: $2 million per ranch or farm) or pay market rates for grazing permits on federal land. Any grade school kid could figure out that the arid west isn’t a cornucopia of food production, but apparently you can’t. Not to mention the stupidity of someone who can’t spell a simple word like “you’re” and doesn’t know the difference between the “west” and the “midwest” …
@52
Im sure they have some sort of documentation.
Im sorry, but Joe 6-pack needs to produce documentation to get a job, then so should a candidate for prez.
Its not that fucking hard to prove….unless you have something to hide.
@56 So far, I’ve posted more actual data on the topic (in one sentence) than you have (in about fifty posts).
@57
Look, its obvious you dont know a damn thing about farmers or farming. Just shut the fuck up already.
Your data is still screwed up – but thats par for the course.
Its useless talking to some dolt who believed that florida was the #1 beef producer, and then goes on to blabber away about how the west produces very little food. YOu dont know a damn thing.
you have been served.
@58 “Im sorry, but Joe 6-pack needs to produce documentation to get a job, then so should a candidate for prez.”
The presidency isn’t a job, it’s an elective office, the qualifications for which are set forth in the U.S. Constitution (and nowhere else).
What do you think would happen if a state passed a requirement that candidates for president pass a drug test?
That might not be such a bad idea, for one thing it would have kept a certain cokehead out of the White House, but the Constitution doesn’t allow states to impose additional qualifications on candidates for the office of president.
@59
actually I posted data with a link a few days ago that proved you wrong.
Thats all I had to do.
Keep flailing magoo rabbit, you keep looking more and more stupid on this subject.
Not putting too fine a point on it, but if you or I got caught diddling an employee with a cigar at work, we’d get fired for that; but presidents don’t get fired for that when their party controls either the House or the Senate.
You can get away with almost anything when you’re president, including secretly trading arms to our enemies in exchange for U.S. diplomats they’re holding as hostages.
No. Puddy wasn’t interested. And yes Roger Dumb Rabbit that’s nice… but so what? UW is ranked 30th in 2011 Top Law Schools. My son is accepted into quite a few higher ranked law schools. He is going to the east coast to attend one of those much higher ranked law schools.
Oh and Roger Dumb Rabbit, you love to post how you know what Republicans like and how they think acting like you are authorized to speak for us. Yet when someone turns the tables on you it’s aneurysm time:
Hilarious!
@8,
I don’t care if the school kids read “Huckleberry Finn” or not. I DO care about the kids coming out of the system not being able to read and write and do basic math. We pour all this money “for the kids” into a system that isn’t producing the results we pay for. The WEA and NEA care more about “educators” than they do education!
Congratulations, Trolls! You got the thread to stop being about education and into a Birther debate right at 22.
rhp @ 4
So. What’s George W. Bush like in person?
So in a few years, when their is another shortage of school teachers…
Because nobody with a brain will be willing to put up with this type of crap, for the pittance they are paid.
@70
Yep…Kent SD has 40 schools…and nearly 100 administrators making over $100k a year.
LMFAO…if anything, the teachers should be pissed at the administrators.
There is PLENTY of money in there..its just not used very well.
Here’s my suggestion. Remake this site into something coherent. Turn it over to the trolls.
I guess it all comes down to what you want to accomplish. Goldy seemed to have a good time publishing this blog. But he also seemed frustrated that some folks didn’t take him seriously. And that he couldn’t generate enough money to make a decent living.
Goldy is a talented enough writer that I think he could have made it if he had adopted a more inclusive rhetorical tone. He didn’t want to give that up the hip, young lefty “hot talk.” And, in a sense, he succeeded in having his cake and eating it to — he now works at a newspaper where he can swear and insult as colorfully as he wants to.
But what about HA? Are you guys cool with always doing this on a largely volunteer basis? If so, follow your bliss! But if you have larger dreams, I suspect you won’t reach them without rethinking your MO. It doesn’t mean turning into your dad, but you could be more strategic.