Obama Undertakes Presidential Internship To Ease Concerns About His Lack Of ExperienceOctober 29th, 2008 | 29 Comments | Posted in Barack Obama, Education, Experience, Internship, Leadership, Spain
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Raising the Bar on Education part: 3 |
Issues / Raising the Bar on Education
Governor Mitt Romney has said that when parents and kids are free to choose their school everyone benefits.
I would like to hear your reasons to agree or disagree, until then, here are my Reasons to agree with Romney:
Learn more:
Raising the Bar on Education part II |
I would like to hear your reasons to agree or disagree, until then here are my Reasons to agree with Romney:
Raising the Bar on Education |
I would like to hear your reasons to agree or disagree, until then here are my Reasons to agree with Romney:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achievement_gap
Considering Mitt? Roe v. Wade and the Real RomneyJanuary 23rd, 2008 | Comments Off | Posted in Abortion, Ann Marie Curling, Character, Children, Coalition, Compassion, Conservatism, Conservative, Culture, Death, Education, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, F. Thompson, Family Values, Florida, Fred Thompson, Future, Gay Marriage, Governor, Health Care, Honesty, Marriage, Marriage Amendment, Media Bias, Mitt Romney, Morality, Murder, Pro-life, Romniac, Values, Women
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For fellow conservatives considering Mitt for the first time, it’s important to understand Mitt’s staunch support of the pro-life platform. The media has tried to downplay and negate Mitt’s position on this. They’ve managed to stick a big old post-it note on Mitt’s forehead labelled “Flip Flopper” in permanent ink. They’ve asserted that he lacks conviction. They’re wrong. As Governor, Mitt consistently stuck to conservative principles. On abortion, marriage, health care, economy and other important issues, Mitt consistenly made conservative decisions. For a great summary on Mitt’s real record, see Ann Marie’s post back in November 2007.
On Monday, the 35th anniversay of Roe v. Wade, Mitt once again committed to overturning this decision:
After 35 years of Roe v. Wade, we are again reminded why this decision should be overturned,” Romney said in a statement provided to LifeNews.com.
“We recognize the worth and dignity of every person, a fact that is ingrained in our hearts and etched in our national purpose,” Romney added. “Unelected judges should not be the final arbiters on these important decisions which define who we are as a people.”
Recently, Romney told Nevada voters that he wanted the high court to overturn the infamous decision allowing virtually unlimited abortions.
“I am pro-life, and I would welcome a time when the people of America concluded that abortion was wrong, but that’s not where America is, and that’s why I believe that the next right step for America is for the court to overturn Roe v. Wade,” he said then.
“That would return to the states and to the elected representatives of the people the ability to set their own laws related to abortion,” he said.
“Today, as Americans from across this country participate in the annual March for Life, my thoughts are with all those whose dedication and compassionate concern have done so much to educate and assist others in creating a genuine culture of life,” he said.
The last phrase is a very telling remark. As he does with so many issues, Mitt is able to look at the broader implications and ramifications of following a certain path. When he discusses his decision to become politically pro-life, Mitt often states that as Governor he realized that the effects of Roe v. Wade weren’t just limited to abortion. They extended to issues like embryonic stem cell research and teenage pregnancy, and to the very basic fabric of our culture. The question, “Are we a culture of life, or of death,” has strong ramifications for our children, their education, their government, their health, their society and their future. Mitt understood (and has helped me understand) that the issue of abortion isn’t solely about choice or murder or rights - it’s about the kind of culture, society and country we are creating (or destroying) for the next generation.
If you are unsure about Mitt’s conviction on this or other social issues such as marriage, please DO NOT believe the picture the media has painted. Please take a few minutes to visit Mitt’s site where he discusses his belief in “promoting a culture of life,” or visit the Encyclopedia Mittanica, where you can scroll down and find Mitt’s answers to just about any question, all neatly alphabetized according to issue.
Warning: if you take a few minutes to do this - to objectively look at Mitt’s platform and record, you WILL find he is a true Reagan conservative, and you WILL most likely want to join, sign up, contribute, campaign for, blog and in all other ways become a Mitt supporter! Let us know when you do - we’d love to hear your story!
Mrs. Blazo speaks of Hard Working Romney |
From: CBS’s From the Road
“He was one person you never had to reprimand about talking, you know,” She said. “He worked hard.”
This is a great coup for Governor Romney! The head of a Christian home-schoolers organization endorsed him today. Let’s hope this endorsement will get many of the evangelicals in Michigan to vote for Governor Romney, or at least think twice before voting for the person who should be their fifth choice.
ROMNEY’S MICHIGAN SUPPORT — Domenico Montanaro
You may recall that it was believed the large number of home-schoolers in Iowa had a big impact for Huckabee. Well, I think this is outstanding news for Governor Romney in Michigan!
[emphasis below is mine]
Romney’s scooping up some support in Michigan heading into the home stretch before Tuesday’s primary. One intriguing get is the support of Dennis Smith, who heads up the Information Network for Christian Homes, which has supported home-schoolers in the Wolverine State since 1984.
Smith yesterday circulated a letter in the state supporting Romney and denouncing many of the Republican candidates, including McCain, and explained in detail the rationale for his thinking. Of McCain, Smith writes: “McCain has been wrong on issues like campaign finance reform and immigration, has an un-presidential nasty temper, and I just don’t like him.”
While Romney’s chief rival here is McCain, Smith’s support of the Michigan native is a bigger blow to Huckabee, who is making a play for the state and is certain to try and turn his success with Christians and home-schooling families in Iowa into similar gains here. According to Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis, “That could have a great negative impact on Hucakabee’s ability to organize under the table sort of speak and help Romney pull in unexpected support.”
Smith writes that Huckabee “says he supports home-schoolers and that they should be left alone, yet he signed into law a bill that imposed new restrictions on homeschoolers in AR.”
He added that he investigated Huckabee’s record in the past few weeks and through a series of e-mails and issues that were drawn to his attention, Smith said the confluence of factors “really point out some deficiencies in Gov. Huckabee,” especially when it comes to education. “I’m not pleased with what I saw about what Gov. Huckabee did in Arkansas.” He went on that Huckabee’s “rhetoric today doesn’t match his” past.
The Michigan team believes the campaign is bound to do well in the state because the level of attention has not been what it was in Iowa or New Hampshire, and so the level of turnout will not be comparable. For those who do turn out and haven’t been following closely, “The default will be for a guy named Romney in this state,” one strategist said this morning, adding that the size of McCain’s lead in some polling isn’t consistent with what they’re seeing.
~ Vic
We Need to Build the Coffers for Mitt — PLEASE CONTRIBUTE HERE
Romney Wants Tax Help for Home Schooling |
Don’t underestimate the homeschooling crowd. There aren’t many groups of voters out there more dedicated to their issue.
Parents who home school their children should get a tax credit to help offset the expense of teaching, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Wednesday.
“I also believe parents who are teaching their kids at home, homeschoolers, deserve a break, and I’ve asked for a tax credit to help parents in their homes with the cost of being an at-home teacher,” he said.
Romney supports giving parents more educational options, through charter schools or vouchers, but he said legislation should be done on a state level.
During the same event he also spoke on teacher merit pay:
Romney also said teachers are underpaid and better teachers should be rewarded with more money.
“I’d like to see there be a relationship between the pay of the teacher and their performance, their career track, their ability to mentor other students,” Romney told more than 100 people at a children’s museum in this early voting state. “We need to treat teachers like the professionals they are and not like people manufacturing widgets on an assembly line.”
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On teacher pay, Romney said each state should decide the compensation. He said as governor, he pushed for a $15,000 bonus package for the best teachers in Massachusetts, including $5,000 bonuses for math and science teachers and $5,000 bonuses for teachers deemed in the top third of a school.
~~~Thomas
Boston, MA – Tonight, Governor Mitt Romney delivered remarks at the Family Research Council’s “Washington Briefing: Values Voter Summit.” In his address, Governor Romney proposed a 12-point conservative plan to strengthen families in America. Below is the full text of Governor Romney’s remarks as prepared for delivery. More »
Mark this down in history…Mitt Romney on Thursday called the failure of inner city schools “the great civil rights issue of our time.” |
I guarantee you it’ll be looked back upon as pivotal in terms of Romney’s first run for President down the line in terms of political history.
Keep in mind the following quote:
Mitt Romney on Thursday called the failure of inner city schools “the great civil rights issue of our time.”
This man impresses me more and more every day…
Health Care, Race Relations, Immigration, Education…there isn’t one issue where he’s trumped by another candidate…
Mitt vs. the Hill |
Mitt Romney has said: “The defeat of this radical and violent faction of Islam must be achieved through a combination of American resolve, international effort, and the rejection of violence by moderate, modern, mainstream Muslims. An effective strategy will involve both military and diplomatic actions to support modern Muslim nations. America must help lead a broad-based international coalition that promotes secular education, modern financial and economic policies, international trade, and human rights.”
Lets contrast that with Hillary Clinton. Hillary believes that America can not preach secular education in the Muslim world and promote vouchers at home. Here is the video:
Here is what she said:
First parent who comes says, ‘I want to send my daughter to St. Peter’s Roman Catholic School’ and you say ‘Great, wonderful school, here’s your voucher.’
Next parent who comes says, ‘I want to send you know my child to the Jewish Day-school’. ‘Great here’s your voucher.’
Next parent says, ‘I want to send my child to the private school that I have always dreamed of sending my child to’. ‘Fine here’s your voucher.’
Next parent says, ‘I want to send my child to I want to send my child to the school of the Church of the White Supremacist.’ You say, ‘wait a minute. You can’t send, we are not giving you a voucher for that.’ And the parent says, ‘Well the way that I read Genesis, Cain was marked, therefore I believe in white supremacy. And therefore you gave it to a Catholic parent, you gave it to a Jewish parent, you gave it to a secular private school parent, under the Constitution, you can’t discriminate against me.’
Suppose the next parent comes and says, ‘I want to send my child to the school of jihad.’ ‘Wait a minute. We are not going to send a child with tax payers dollars to the school of Jihad.’ ‘Well you gave it to a Catholics, you gave it to a Jews, you gave it to the private secular people. You going to tell me I can’t. I’m a tax payer. Under the constitution.’
Now tell me how we are going to make those choices.
It’s not difficult. All you need is Common Sense.
Speaking of Common Sense, Philip K. Howard wrote a book called, The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America. This book outlines how New York City laws forbidding Mother Theresa from opening a two-story homeless shelter unless she installs an elevator. The project was scraped.
According to Hillary Clinton you can’t have vouchers because people could teach bad things with those vouchers. Using that same logic, we shouldn’t have ropes, because people could do bad things with them.
The media acts like democrats are sophisticated, just because they seek to be counterintuitive. Just because you are counterintuitive does not mean you are smart.
3rd graders understand the stupidity the idea that “you can’t have vouchers because people could teach bad things with those vouchers.” But these are the kind of unsophisticated, stupid things that democrats believe, when even a 3rd grader can find the solution: DON”T GIVE VOUCHERS TO THOSE WHO PREACH HATE! But that would force someone to make a value judgments, and democrats have to tell themselves that they are better that republicans, because they don’t impose their values on others. And so they can’t “judge” jihadist schools or white supremacist schools are bad, they have to outlaw all vouchers!
Do you agree with Mitt Romney that “America must help lead a broad-based international coalition that promotes secular education, modern financial and economic policies, international trade, and human rights.”
Do you think that American tax payer funded schools should promote a secular education in the Islamic world? In America? Do you agree with Hillary Clinton that we should not have vouchers?
Do you agree with Romney’s education policy?
http://myclob.pbwiki.com/Education
Do you agree with Romney’s support of Charter Schools?
http://myclob.pbwiki.com/Charter-Schools
Do you agree with me that democrats oversimplify things more than Republicans, and that Hillary’s logic shows has some major problems?
Appreciate any feedback.
~ Mike
UPDATE:
Mitt Romney says: “America must help lead a broad-based international coalition that promotes secular education, modern financial and economic policies, international trade, and human rights.”
My assertion was the democrats would just look at the surface and you know how democrats are. They say that Evangelicals are America’s taliban. They are unable to see that Evangelicals are not blowing themselves up. They are unable to see shades of gray. Everything is black and white for them, and so because they see everything as black and white, they might say that it is hypocritical of Mitt Romney to call for secular schools in Islamic countries.
This is exactly what Hillary says. Hillary says that we can not have vouchers because vouchers could possibly go to bad people.
I think Mitt Romney is right. “America must help lead a broad-based international coalition that promotes secular education, modern financial and economic policies, international trade, and human rights.” However, I am not going to go as far as Hillary, and say that we can not have any vouchers. Hillary is so afraid of non-secular education, that she wants to destroy vouchers. Mitt Romney is not.
http://myclob.pbwiki.com/06-28-2005
re: “It sounds like Mr Romney is promoting secular education in the Islamic world _outside_ the US, whereas Mrs Clinton is talking about promoting secular education here _in_ the US. Either they are talking about two different subjects or they sound like they actually agree that secular nonreligious education should be promoted.”
Mitt Romney is saying the Islamic countries need to be more secular. This is common sense. Hillary Clinton is trying to be counter-intuitive (so she can tell herself how GOOD she is) and say that we need to be more secular. This might make Hillary feel good about herself, when she looks beyond the mark, and says that we are the bad guys. We need to be less secular. This is the liberal counter-intuitive way of looking at things, so they can tell each other how smart they are. But Mitt Romney knows we are not blowing each other up, we are not trying to impose our views on others threw violence, we are not the ones who need to change. They are. They need to be more secular.
re: “Not to defend Mrs Clinton, but I have some concern about your advocacy of “common sense” with deciding who gets vouchers … whose common sense are you talking about? The government’s? Even if Mr Romney is elected, as brilliant as he is, I wouldn’t trust the government ever to exercise much common sense.”
That is the whole point of the book, “The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America”. We used to trust each other. We used to be able to shake, and know the deal was good. Then (this is an over simplification but I don’t have the energy to do it justice, you are going to have to read the book) lawyers got involved, and to the degree that their outlook pervaded, our society doesn’t trust each other, but tries to write laws or come up with rules that make it so that we don’t have to trust each other… I think this way of looking at the world is the prime problem with liberals… They come up with rules, so that no one has to take responsibility for making a good decision…
“The nuns of the Missionaries of Charity believed two abandoned buildings in New York City would make ideal homeless shelters. The city agreed and offered to sell the building for one dollar each. Yet the shelter project faltered: the city’s bureaucracy imposed such expensive remodeling requirements on the buildings that the shelter plans were scrapped. To Howard, an attorney practicing in New York City, this is but one of many examples of the law’s suffocating Americans by extensive decrees on what may and may not be done. His book is truly a catalog of horror stories, actually quite engrossing and adding to the story of public inefficiencies chronicled by David Osborne’s Reinventing Government (Addison-Wesley, 1992).”
Philip Howard’s insights help us understand why government appears arbitrary, almost never able to deal with real-life problems in a way which reflects an understanding of the situation. Peppered with pointed anecdotes about absurd regulatory inflexibility and the lack of the use of judgement, Howard’s book reveals that we have concocted a system of regulation that “goes too far while it does too little.”
In the decades since WWII, specific legal mandates designed to keep government in check have proliferated. The result is not better government, but more and poorer government. In a free society, we are supposed to be free to do what we want unless it is prohibited. But highly detailed regulations proscribing exactly what to do turn us toward centralized uniformity, Howard says, where law has replaced humanity. Detailed rules and uniform procedures have nonuniform effects when applied to specific situations.
Our old system of common law recognized the particular situation and invited the application of common sense. Common law evolved with the changing times and its truth was relative, Howard tells us, not absolute. But in this century statutes have largely replaced common law, and in recent decades regulations have come to dominate the legal landscape. Howard observes that the Interstate Highway System (still the nation’s largest public works program) was authorized in 1956 with a 28-page statute. Now, we attempt to cover every situation explicitly. He cites one contract lawyer who received a proposed definition of the words and/or that was over three hundred words in length. (Let alone the more recent and prominent lawyer who parsed carefully over the definition of what the word “is” is.)
Howard traces the growth of this regulatory “rationalism” from Max Weber - the German sociologist at the turn of the century who said that “Bureaucracy develops the more perfectly, the more it is `dehumanized’” - to Theodore Lowi - who in The End of Liberalism in 1979 saw greater regulatory specificity to be the antidote to special interest groups. But in truth, Howard shows us, the more precise we try to make the law, the more loopholes are created.
Centralized rules have caused us to cast away our common sense. Furthermore, “Coercion by government, the main fear of our founding fathers, is now its common attribute. But it was not imposed to advance some group’s selfish purpose; we just thought it would work better this way. The idea of a rule detailing everything has had the effect of reversing the rule of law. We now have a government of laws against men.”
The second section of Howard’s book explains how the ritualization of bureaucratic process has brought us to the point where people argue, not about right and wrong, but about whether something was done the right way. He sees the agency as mainly a referee to the process, not a decision maker. He beautifully describes how the bureaucracy surges and falls, en masse, onto a decision. Even Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t be able to identify an actual decision maker! The process decided.
In this maze of centralized, detailed regulation - a system designed to discourage individual responsibility - many have lost sight of what government is supposed to be doing. Howard argues that process is a defensive device; the more procedures, the less government can do. The paradox is that we demand an activist government while also demanding elaborate procedural protections against government. “The route to a public goal cannot be diverted through endless switchbacks of other public goals, for example, without losing sight of the original destination.” He tells us that responsibility, not process, is the key ingredient to action. If responsibility is shared widely, then like the extreme where property is shared widely, it is like there being no responsibility at all.
Effective government, Howard suggests, is one which attracts the best people and gives them leadership responsibility. But we have created the opposite system, based on defensive formalisms, driving away good people who cannot abide the negativity of the process.
The last section of Howard’s book explores the “rights revolution,” where government has become “like your rich uncle under your personal control” and everyone now gets to be a part of a legally-mandated, discriminated-against minority. As rights weaken the lines of authority in our society, the walls of responsibility - such as how a teacher manages a classroom - have begun to crumble. We want government to solve social ills, but distrust it to do so. Congress has resolved this dilemma by using rights to transfer governmental powers to special interest groups. The result has not been bringing excluded groups into society, but rather has become the means of getting ahead in society. Howard makes the distinction that, “The rights that are the foundation of this country are rights against law. In James Madison’s words, the Constitution provides for `protection of individual rights against all government encroachments, particularly by the legislature.’ Rights - freedom of speech, property rights, freedom of association - were to be the antidote against any new law that impinged on those freedoms.”
In this way, Howard finds that we have confused power with freedom. These new legislative rights aren’t rights at all, no matter how righteous they sound. “They are blunt powers masquerading under the name of rights.” He says we need to consider how these new rights impinge on what others consider to be their own freedoms. The flip side of the coinage of the new rights regime is called coercion.
Howard suggests that our loathing of government is not caused by its goals, but by its techniques. “How law works, not what it aims to do, is what is driving us crazy.” Decision making must be transferred “from words on a page to people on the spot.”
His book brings us closer to a place where what is right and reasonable, not the parsing of legal language, dominates the discussion. His thoughts shine needed light on the path to common sense and responsibility in government.
I’m not saying that we should trust Mitt to decide which schools should get vouchers. I am saying that Hillary is stupid, to pretend like our society would allow white supremacists or jihadist to get vouchers, or that this would be a big enough of a problem to say, no, we can not do this, this white supremacist or jihadist argument is valid enough to applie… Liberals let the acception decide the rule… they think they can come up with a utopia by creating a rule where nothing bad can happen… I think conservatives live in the real world, of cost benefit analysis where we decide by figuring out if something causes more good than it causes bad…
We have a system designed by lawyers, that every building that was more than two stories tall had to have an elevator, even though Mother Teresa could not afford to re-do the entire building. The building was abandoned, and was not being used, but because New York didn’t trust people to make good decisions, they created a system that made decisions for them… if it didn’t have an elevator, it couldn’t get a permit, and so people went homeless…
Hillary thinks no one should get vouchers, because someone bad COULD get them. She doesn’t trust Americans enough to determine who is bad or who is good, so she would rather say no one gets them.
The city of New York doesn’t trust it’s people who give out permits enough to determine when a project would do more good for New York that it was doing bad, so they came up with a rule that applied to everyone. If you do not have an elevator, you can not get a permit…
Bad Math Causes Explosion at CERN Collider |
http://science.slashdot.o…240249&from=rss
javipas writes
“The Large Hadron Collider at the CERN has suffered a big explosion deep inside that has caused a leak of hellium gas and the quick evacuation of everyone working there. The reason: a mathematical mistake that affected the design of the giant superconductive magnets made by Fermilab. Now the company will have to repair and upgrade the 24 magnets that are installed on the 27 km. circunference of one of the most important research centers on Earth.”
This story might seem strangely familiar to you.
Click here for more about Mitt Romney and “Math”
~ Mike
PC Police with Lights and SirensFebruary 12th, 2007 | 30 Comments | Posted in 2008 Election, Announcements, Campaign Appearances, Culture, Diversity, Education, General
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http://www.washingtonpost…7021200661.html
The problem with political correctness is the tendency to use it “politically” and not as a way to inform, educate and empathize with others. Case in point:
The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) comes out with harsh criticism towards Mitt Romneys announcement to run for President in the Henry Ford museum. The Washington Post and ABC News have both picked it up:
“Romney has been traveling the country talking about inclusiveness and understanding of people from all walks of life,” Forman said. “Yet he chooses to kick (off) his presidential campaign on the former estate of a well-known and outspoken anti-Semite and xenophobe.”
Now when I was in school, including college, everything I was taught about Ford was his revolutionary ideas in regards to company operations and assembly lines. I never once heard about Fords views on Jews in any of my college history courses. Have you? Maybe I cut class that day.
The NJDCs article is inflammatory against Ford. Maybe Ford deserved it, but I would have thought if Henry Ford was so anti-Semitic, we wouldve heard about it before, say during Ford Motorcar’s advertising or something pertaining to the mans legacy and products, not a presidential candidates announcement. The timing of it just seems a little too political to be correct to me. Given Romneys supportive and novel ideas for Israel and condemnation of Iran, I know where Romney stands on Israel and Jews. I dont know where the NJDC stands politically, but I question their timing and venue for coming out against Romney.
Sound off in the comments and let me know if I am the only person in the U.S. that did not know about Henry Ford’s past and what you think about the timing of the NJDC’s comments.
Nathan W.
Romney Books |
http://myclob.pbwiki.com/books
Thomas Carlyle said, “What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.”
So what has Romney “become” after all of his Harvard professors were done with him? Or in other words, what has Romney been reading?
When ever I hear Romney mention a book that he has read, I keep it here:
http://myclob.pbwiki.com/books
Romney has mentioned reading:
What do these books tell you about Romney. Three books about former presidents, two books about Islam, the Cube and the Cathedral, a book about religion and secularism.
The only book that I have read was John Adams, by David McCullough. Awesome book, but it surprised me that Romney liked it so much, because it kind of has an affection for John Adams who always said the first thing that came to his mind, which is more like Romney’s father, and less like Romney or Thomas Jefferson.
This issue has been covered pretty well in an article called, “Lessons of the Father” but I thought it was interesting in context to the contrast between Jefferson, Adams, George, and Mitt.
Have you read any of these books? Are you glad Romney has read them? What do these books tell you about Romney?
If congress passed a law, that each congressman had to read a book report on one book a year, and write a 1 page book report, which book would you have them read? If the presidential candidates all had to read a book, and write a book report on that book, as an application to become president, what book would you have a presidential candidate share beliefs about? What books have you heard Hillary Clinton reference?
Do you think Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton would publish every book report that they have ever written? Why dont we demand that of them?
~ Mike
