Bill Gates on Charter Schools - They Work

Every year, 1 million kids drop out of high school. Only 71 percent of kids graduate from high school within four years, and for minorities, the numbers are even worse -- 58 percent for Hispanics and 55 percent for African Americans. . . . The federal No Child Left Behind Act isn't perfect, but it has forced us to look at each school's results and realize how poorly we are doing overall. It surprises me that more parents are not upset about the education their own kids are receiving.

...

Nine years ago, the foundation decided to invest in helping to create better high schools, and we have made over $2 billion in grants. The goal was to give schools extra money for a period of time to make changes in the way they were organized (including reducing their size), in how the teachers worked, and in the curriculum. The hope was that after a few years they would operate at the same cost per student as before, but they would have become much more effective.

Many of the small schools that we invested in did not improve students' achievement in any significant way. These tended to be the schools that did not take radical steps to change the culture, such as allowing the principal to pick the team of teachers or change the curriculum. We had less success trying to change an existing school than helping to create a new school.

...

But a few of the schools that we funded achieved something amazing. They replaced schools with low expectations and low results with ones that have high expectations and high results. These schools are not selective in whom they admit, and they are overwhelmingly serving kids in poor areas, most of whose parents did not go to college. Almost all of these schools are charter schools that have significantly longer school days than other schools.

...

Based on what the foundation has learned so far, we have refined our strategy. We will continue to invest in replicating the school models that worked the best. Almost all of these schools are charter schools. Many states have limits on charter schools, including giving them less funding than other schools. Educational innovation and overall improvement will go a lot faster if the charter school limits and funding rules are changed.

One of the key things these schools have done is help their teachers be more effective in the classroom. It is amazing how big a difference a great teacher makes versus an ineffective one. Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

source

Pretty ironic considering that the Gates Foundation stopped it's grants to Seattle schools because they were being wasted and that Washington (his home state) refuses to authorize Charter schools.

Gates article also points out the utter hypocrisy of the NEA. No matter what they say about wanting to provide for the children that is really just a smoke screen. What they are after is political power and perks for their members. If that wasn't the case they wouldn't uniformly resist every successful method of improving educational outcomes, including those that Gates indicates his foundations experience has shown work, No Child Left Behind, Charter Schools and Merit Pay for successful teachers.

"Stimulus Plan" fails in the house

Every Republican voted against it. Personally I think this is a good thing, there was too little stimulus and too much social engineering.

Seriously $1,000,000,000 for STD control is supposed to create jobs? I guess it could if more potential hookers stopped worrying about social diseases and took to the streets but I doubt that is the kind of stimulus we want.

Anyway my point is the House Republicans did the right thing here and a little positive reinforcement might be in order, after all we are quick enough to jump on them when we think they are doing the wrong thing. Maybe if everyone sent 10 or 20 dollars to the House Republican Campaign Committee it would encourage a little behavior modification. After donating send a letter to the Senate Republicans telling them what you did and suggesting you will do the same if the also vote against the bill.

Obama may not have conditions - Iran does

A day after US President Barack Obama offered a new approach to relations with Iran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the US must apologise for past "crimes" committed against his country if it seeks a thaw in relations.

source

But... Obama is the harbringer of hope and change! I just don't understand how Ahmadinejad can say no to the hopey changefulness!!!

Matt Miller - The Tyranny of Dead Ideas

Went to Townhall Seattle last night as I mentioned previously. I mixed up the dates and the talk I was going to see is actually tonight, but the cute girl at the ticket stand (and she was very cute)convinced me to stay and see a talk by Matt Miller on his book The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.

Mr. Miller is a former advisor to the Clinton and Bush 41 White Houses and a columnist for Fortune Magazine and the Atlantic magazine so I figured hey he might be worth listening too.

He was.

I didn't agree with most of his contentions, although I could understand his reasoning. (He appears to be a liberal, but doesn't not militantly so). One I did agree with is that the American educational system needs an overhaul although we had a disagreement there too. He believes that it needs to be nationalized from the standpoint of standards and funding. I think it needs to be completely re-evaluated, as I have written many times in the past. (here are two of my more coherent posts on the subject) Mr. Miller said he wanted to hear our suggestions for dead ideas so I wrote him this morning and suggesting the same sort of model that I proposed in my Open University post at the elementary and high school levels.

Speaking of the Open University - I just found out yesterday that Britain has an online program run in connection with the BBC called The Open University, and that an Israeli is proposing to open a free online degree granting university. That should be interesting.

Also in education news - LA teachers are boycotting assessment tests in order to preserve their jobs.

The Los Angeles teachers union and the city's school district are battling over a district practice that, a Times' analysis suggests, contributes to higher scores on state tests.

The practice is "periodic assessments," a bureaucratic name for exams administered by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The goal is to give teachers insight into what students need to learn while there remains time in the current school year to adjust instruction.The union Tuesday directed teachers to refuse to give them to students on the grounds that the tests are costly and counterproductive.

source

Here is another dead idea - Only teachers can teach. Fire 'em all revoke the unions collective bargaining status and start over with a fresh crop.

I have mentioned before that one of the most successful educational institutions in the US is the military. One of the reasons that they are is through the use of assessments. In every course of instruction the instructor reads out the Terminal Objectives, what the overall goal for that course of instruction is, and Enabling Objectives, what the goals of that particular block of instruction are. In most a pretest and a post test are given to evaluate how effective the instruction was.

It works, and that is really what a periodic assessment test is. My personal opinion is that teachers don't like them because they know deep inside that overall the educational system is failing to educate and these tests point that out.

Going to a talk at Townhall Seattle tonight

Dalton Conley author of Elsewhere U.S.A. is going to be talking about his book.

Over the past three decades, our daily lives have changed slowly but dramatically. Boundaries between leisure and work, public space and private space, and home and office have blurred and become permeable. How many of us now work from home, our wireless economy allowing and encouraging us to work 24/7? How many of us talk to our children while scrolling through e-mails on our BlackBerrys? How many of us feel overextended, as we are challenged to play multiple roles–worker, boss, parent, spouse, friend, and client–all in the same instant?

Dalton Conley, social scientist and writer provides us with an X-ray view of our new social reality. In Elsewhere, U.S.A., Conley connects our daily experience with occasionally overlooked sociological changes: women’s increasing participation in the labor force; rising economic inequality generating anxiety among successful professionals; the individualism of the modern era--the belief in self-actualization and expression--being replaced by the need to play different roles in the various realms of one’s existence. In this groundbreaking book, Conley offers an essential understanding of how the technological, social, and economic changes that have reshaped our world are also reshaping our individual lives.

If any of the other Seattle Morons are going let me know maybe we can meet up.

The solution to our economic woes? Liquor up the population

At least that appears to be Washington Governor Christine Gregoire's plan:

OLYMPIA — Independent grocers don't like Gov. Chris Gregoire's plan to raise money by opening more state-controlled liquor stores.

It's part of Gregoire's plan to bridge a nearly $6 billion deficit. She hopes to get about $21 million over the next two years by opening more liquor stores, and expanding Sunday sales.

source

Caliphate by Tom Kratman

Updated:I exchanged a number of e-mails with Tom Kratman this evening and I am completely withdrawing one of my disagreements below and modifying the others:

The female President was not intended to be Hillary Clinton. I still have some issues with the idea that a President would let three cities be nuked without retaliation, but I find it more believable if it isn't Hillary.

President Buckman was an amalgamation of characters and while I couldn't see Pat Buchanan having the patience to wait four years to launch a retaliatory strike, even if he was maneuvering for dictatorial type powers, it makes more sense if Buchanan was only part of the character.

Regarding the deus ex machina use of love at first sight, Mr. Kratman tells me he felt that he had laid the back story on that and he wasn't trying to take the easy way out. I probably projected some of my distaste for a couple other recent reads *cough*Black Ops*cough* onto Caliphate. My problem not the authors.

The rape scene - This is the one I withdraw completely. At the end of the chapter the girl who was raped, a slave named Petra, is visited in the slave pens and her visitor observes that she has been made beautiful.

"The reddish-blond Nazrani?" the slave dealer shrugged. "She's too choice to let rot down here. Or she will be, once her bruises and scratches heal. In any event, I'll get a much better price for her all dolled up and in proper clothing. Still, if you want to inspect her, she's upstairs." He pointed as a flight of stone steps. "Remember," the dealer cautioned, "look but don't touch."

Bowing his head and thanking the dealer, Ishmael made his way up the stone steps to a corridor. There were perhaps a half dozen doorways, each of them barred. He called out, "Petra?"

A pair of small, delicate hands appeared at one of the barred doors. "Ishmael, is that you?" a desperate voice called out.

He ran to it . . . and stopped dead once he saw. Suddenly, the purse at his belt seemed very light indeed. Clothes, hair, face . . . despite the bruises, Petra had been transformed from a skinny twelve year old into something—

"Beautiful," Ishmael said, despairingly. "They've made you beautiful. Allah have pity; I'll never be able to buy you for Miss Besma now."

When I initially read it I thought that the author was trying to say the rape had made a change in Petra that made her beautiful, coming into an inner strength as a result of it, a will to resist or live, a burning hatred of the Caliphate or something of that nature. I found the description offputting as I said below. During the course of our email exchange Mr. Kratman wrote:

Hmmm...what have I missed? Ah, yes, the rape. Couldn't resist the urge to remind women that this is the enemy's cultural MO. And, yes, I was deliberately graphic about it to make it _hurt_, if possible

This caused me to go and reread that portion of the book and I now believe that what was being said was that the slave traders had made Petra over in order to get a better price.

This one I think I owe the author an apology on, so here it is, Sorry I had made such a boneheaded reading of your work. I knew it wasn't intended to portray rape in any sort of flattering way and I hope I made that clear in my original post below.

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I tend to read a lot of science fiction and speculative history. Some is pretty good and a lot is outright crap. Caliphate by Tom Kratman falls on the good side of the middle spectrum.

Although the main story is a spy drama set 105 years in the future this book is really a look at trends that Kratman believes could lead to the establishment of a Muslim Europe and a fascist America. I think his premise is pretty well thought out, but I do have a couple disagreements.

First I don't think any American President would respond to the nuking of three US cities with a shrug and the statement that "all the attackers are dead we need to move forward." Not even Hillary Clinton (who he postulates as the President, the book was written in April 2008).

Second, I don't think the Pat Buchanan analogue who does become President would wait 4 years to start nuking most of the Middle East.

Third, Gang rape doesn't make a girl beautiful. I know he wasn't trying to glorify rape and that he had already described the character as beautiful but the wording was off-putting.

Fourth, I hate it when writers take the easy way out and have characters instantly fall in love as kind of a deus ex machina to make the story move easier. W.E.B. Griffin has been repeatedly guilty of that also. It's lazy damn it.

Other than that the book is worth the read. Especially the afterword.

Ending any effective terrorist deterrence

Last week President Obama (still sounds freaky saying that) signed an executive order that "banned" torture. The world rejoiced, finally, finally that evil George W. Bush and his Sith Lord sidekick Dick Cheney were out of the picture and America could regain it's status in the world as a beacon of humanity.

Here's the problem - As Wordsmith at Flopping Aces points out, this is a rehash of the executive order that Bush signed in 2007.

CJ asks "If the orders are essentially the same why reinvent the wheel?", because the Obama order expands the legal rights of terrorists.

In establishing his new interrogation playbook, President Obama revoked the previous playbook initiated by the Bush Administration. Now you tell me, does the following sound reasonable to anyone here?

1. Torture is prohibited as defined in section 2340 of title 18, United States Code.

2. Murder, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, mutilation or maiming, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, rape, sexual assault or abuse, taking of hostages, or performing of biological experiments is prohibited.

3. Other acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation, and cruel or inhuman treatment, as defined in section 2441(d) of title 18, United States Code are prohibited.

4. Any other acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment are prohibited.

5. We are prohibited from engaging in willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual in a manner so serious that any reasonable person, considering the circumstances, would deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency, such as sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation, forcing the individual to perform sexual acts or to pose sexually, threatening the individual with sexual mutilation, or using the individual as a human shield.

6. Acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of the individual will not be tolerated.

I mean, is this really a good idea? What's that? You agree with all six of those points? Then why did President Obama just revoke them? Those were all outlined in Executive Order 13440 signed by President George W. Bush on July 20, 2007. That's right. Those aren't Obama's words although he does restate in less plain terms than President Bush did. That's right. Much like the Gitmo issue, this EO simply restates what was already US policy. So why revoke it and recreate the wheel?

Well, that wasn't all that President Bush's EO 13440 said. President Bush reiterated what the Geneva Conventions already tell us about unlawful enemy combatants - that they aren't entitled to protections under the law. Specifically, according to Bush, "members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces are unlawful enemy combatants who are not entitled to the protections that the Third Geneva Convention provides to prisoners of war." Translation: terrorists will be treated as such so long as they continue to fight in violation of the established Conventions agreed to by most nations.

President Bush also gave the CIA latitude to conduct interrogations against said unlawful combatants in any manner the Director of the CIA may deem necessary to "detect, mitigate, or prevent terrorist attacks, such as attacks within the United States or against its Armed Forces or other personnel, citizens, or facilities, or against allies or other countries cooperating in the war on terror with the United States, or their armed forces or other personnel, citizens, or facilities." These tactics MUST provide "the basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care." Additionally, they are not exempt from the six areas listed above.

You read me correctly. The CIA was not above the law and neither was the military. Neither agency or department was given tacit or implied permission to commit those six acts. And when it was discovered that some rogue elements or personnel DID commit these offenses, they were promptly dealt with and a rash of new training was conducted to ensure future compliance.

Thanks Mr. President.

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You know when Episode Three of the Star Wars saga was released there was a lot of speculation that it was a thinly veiled criticism of the Bush Presidency. One week into the new administration and I am thinking that Obama and Palpatine may be synonyms. If he starts wearing a hooded cloak look out.

Hillary Clinton Truly is the New Face of American Diplomacy

She gives a speech yesterday declaring a new era in which diplomacy and development will take the lead in securing America's future. Today we launch a cruise missile into Pakistan killing 18.

Tax Deadbeat Treasury Secretary Nominee - "China is manipulating it's currency"

Mr. Geithner’s comment was made in writing to the Senate Finance Committee hours before it voted 18 to 5 to recommend that the full Senate confirm him. The statement, which is certain to anger the Chinese government, comes at a particularly sensitive time, with economies in both the United States and China weakening and tensions already rising around the globe over trade. The United States, moreover, is increasingly dependent on China to finance its ballooning deficit.

...

It remained unclear whether Mr. Geithner was signaling that Mr. Obama would officially declare later this spring that China was engaging in currency manipulation, when the administration is required by a 20-year-old trade law to report to Congress on exchange rate issues. Such a finding would begin a legal process that starts with diplomacy and could end with the imposition of trade barriers like tariffs. The objective would be to persuade China to let the value of its currency, the yuan, freely float — a move that would let its value rise and would increase the cost of its exports.

OK, it's stating the obvious - We all know that the Chinese have been artificially keeping their currency weak, but it's significant that Geithner would say such a thing. Some people people think it's indicative of an enhanced free trade stance:

On Thursday, Mr. Schumer welcomed Mr. Geithner’s reply. “For the first two days, this is a big step” from the Obama administration, he said in an interview. “And I think it’s an indication: They are not going to be anti-free trade; they are not going to be for putting artificial barriers in the way. But when other countries do, they’re going to be much tougher on them.”

Others think it's unnecessarily confrontational at a time when the U.S. needs foreign investment to finance various stimulus programs. I am wondering if it's actually the first signal that the U.S. is going to start imposing trade barriers to please the anti-free trade crowd?

The U.S. is bound by the treaties that established the free trade agreements, but I believe almost all of them have escape clauses to address things like currency manipulation. By "taking a tougher line" Obama get to claim to be pro-free trade by not actually withdrawing from the agreements while at the same time pleasing his unionized labor overlords.

source

You have to give it to Obama - he is one slippery S.O.B.

During his Presidential campaign he explicitly promised to limit all government agencies that perform interrogation to the methods contained in the US Army Field Manual.

Within a month some senior Democrats began suggesting that maybe that wasn't such a good idea. I don't really blame them - seriously if Los Angeles got nuked, and it turned out we had someone in custody who could have provided details that would have allowed us to stop it, do you really think the American people would accept "But waterboarding is bad" as an excuse?

I don't.

It appears that our new President has found a way out of this dilemna. Yes, limit all agencies to the Army Field Manual. Just add the techniques in question to that manual.

At least two more executive orders are expected in coming days, according to two Obama officials.

One official said the first will require all U.S. personnel to follow the U.S. Army Field Manual while questioning detainees. The manual explicitly prohibits threats, coercion, physical abuse and waterboarding, which creates the sensation of drowning and has been termed a form of torture by critics.

The second order will set up a study of interrogation methods that could be added to the Army manual, including some that may be more aggressive than those currently permitted.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss the orders until they are released.

source

You have to wonder how the Human Rights crowd is feeling about their wunderkind now????

Found a link to one of the best magazines ever... Also am I the last one to know Spiderman was sexually abused???

OK maybe my taste in magazines is weird. I admit it.

Also found the M16 maintenance comic issued to troops in Vietnam during the war. Kind of amusing to read.

The comics with problems site has a few other interesting ones like the popular Spiderman issue where he reveals his sordid history of sex abuse.



I feel so dirty now.

40 Al-Qaeda Terrorists Dead Due To Plague Contracted in Botched Bio-Weapons Experiment

From the crap I hope not files...

On the 18th the Sun reported that 40 Al-Qaeda, in an Algerian training camp, had been killed by Bubonic Plague.

The world rejoiced.

Today the Washington Times is reporting that it wasn't the Plague, but a WMD experiment gone wrong that killed the 40.

An al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday.

The official, who spoke on the condition he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said he could not confirm press reports that the accident killed at least 40 al Qaeda operatives, but he said the mishap led the militant group to shut down a base in the mountains of Tizi Ouzou province in eastern Algeria.

He said authorities in the first week of January intercepted an urgent communication between the leadership of al Qaeda in the Land of the Maghreb (AQIM) and al Qaeda's leadership in the tribal region of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan. The communication suggested that an area sealed to prevent leakage of a biological or chemical substance had been breached, according to the official.

"We don't know if this is biological or chemical," the official said.

source

The way I look at it, if they have gotten to the point that they have created a germ or a chemical weapon that is weaponized enough to kill 40 of their own they are probably pretty close to being able to make something that will kill a bazillion Americans. If nothing else they can infect their own people and send them into the US on a plane. Tell me that wouldn't cause a little panic 6 months into a new administration.

h/t Ace

How bad do you have to be when the Dalai Lama says you can't be salvaged?

NEW DELHI: The Dalai Lama, a lifelong champion of non-violence on Saturday candidly stated that terrorism cannot be tackled by applying the principle of ahimsa because the minds of terrorists are closed.

"It is difficult to deal with terrorism through non-violence," the Tibetan spiritual leader said delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture here.

He also termed terrorism as the worst kind of violence which is not carried by a few mad people but by those who are very brilliant and educated.

"They (terrorists) are very brilliant and educated...but a strong ill feeling is bred in them. Their minds are closed," the Dalai Lama said.

He said that the only way to tackle terrorism is through prevention. The head of the Tibetan government-in-exile left the audience stunned when he said "I love President George W Bush." He went on to add how he and the US President instantly struck a chord in their first meeting unlike politicians who take a while to develop close ties.

source: Times of India

I have said this before and I will say it again - Up to this point Bush has been the most maligned President that I can remember, but I have a feeling his historical rehabilitation will occur fairly quickly.

Will walking your own dog cause the downfall of the American economic system?

Apparently - at least according to this article in the NY Times.

All of these consumers could praise themselves for their newfound frugality in the midst of an economic downturn. But every step they take toward self-reliance — each shrub they prune themselves, each cupcake they bake from scratch — hurts the people and small businesses that have long provided these services professionally.

These small, service-oriented businesses are run in storefronts on urban streets and in suburban strip malls, or sometimes just out of pickup trucks. Responsible for roughly 18 million jobs nationwide, according to 2006 Census Bureau data, these companies have long been seen as engines of America’s economic growth. Yet after years of explosive expansion, many beauty salons, dry cleaners, landscapers, dog walkers, nanny services and restaurants experienced slower sales growth or even decline in the final months of 2008.

Their services are suddenly, and painfully, being perceived as nonessential.

The question now for these businesses is whether demand will stabilize or, eventually, drop enough to force them to close. And the answer may depend on whether consumers’ new penchant for self-service is temporary or permanent.

But I thought America's spendthrift ways were what caused the economic collapse? Now saving is bad?

The real problem is a lack of non-service sector economic activity. Everyone keeps saying that manufacturing jobs can't be brought back onshore - I say bullcrap, we just haven't found a way to make it economically feasible yet. If Republicans were samrt they would be looking at that issue hard.

Bush Goes Out On a Win - FISA Court Rules Terrorist Surveillance Program Legal

Of course all of us here at Kuru Lounge knew that anyway.

WASHINGTON — A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, is expected to issue a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans’ private communications may be involved.

The court decision is expected to be disclosed as early as Thursday in an unclassified, redacted form. It was made in December by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which has issued only two prior rulings in its 30-year history.

...

The opinion is not expected to directly rule on the legality of the once-secret operation authorized by President Bush between October 2001 and early 2007, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international communications of Americans suspected of ties to terrorists. The disclosure of the program’s existence in The New York Times in December 2005 set off a national debate on wiretapping, privacy and the limits of presidential power. Critics charged that Mr. Bush had violated a 1978 law requiring that the government obtain a court order to listen in on Americans’ communications.

Still, the new ruling is expected to have broad implications for federal wiretapping law, because it is the first time that any appeals court has ruled on the constitutional question of the president’s wiretapping power.

source

Although this decision doesn't directly address the initial surveillance program authorized by President Bush, I expect that it along with the earlier Truong decision will effectively quash the legal challenges to that plan.

Interesting... Chavez courting western oil companies

CARACAS: It is a telling sign of how deeply the global economic crisis has cut: President Hugo Chávez, who initially reveled in describing the crash as proof of capitalism's flaws, is now quietly courting Western oil companies once again.

Until recently, buoyed by the surging price of oil, Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with the tax authorities and imposing a series of royalty increases.

But faced with the plunge in oil prices and a decline in domestic production, senior officials here have quietly begun soliciting some of the largest Western oil companies in recent weeks, including Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and Total, in the hope of getting them to invest in Venezuela again.

...

In recent years, Chávez has preferred partnerships with national oil companies from countries like Iran, China and Belarus. But these ventures failed to reverse Venezuela's declining oil output. State-controlled oil companies from other countries have also been invited to bid this time, but the large private companies are seen as having an advantage, given their expertise in building complex projects in Venezuela and elsewhere in years past.

The bidding process was first conceived last year when Petróleos de Venezuela's production decline was getting impossible to overlook. But it was not until this month that Chávez's government was to begin reviewing the bidding plans on new areas of the Orinoco Belt, an area in southern Venezuela with an estimated 235 billion barrels of recoverable oil, for exploration and production. Altogether, more than $20 billion in investment could be required to assemble devilishly complex projects capable of producing a combined 1.2 million barrels of oil a day.

Chávez's olive branch to Western oil companies comes after he nationalized their oil fields in 2007. Two companies, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, left Venezuela and still wage legal battles over lost projects.

But Venezuela may have little choice but to re-engage with foreign oil companies. Nationalizations in other sectors, like agriculture and steel manufacturing, are fueling capital flight, leaving Venezuela reliant on oil for about 93 percent of its export revenue in 2008, up from 69 percent in 1998 when Chávez was first elected.

...

the severity of the drop in oil prices may ultimately dictate the terms on which Venezuela re-engages with foreign oil companies.

"Chávez is celebrating the demise of capitalism as this international crisis unfolds," said Pedro Mario Burelli, a former board member of Petróleos de Venezuela.

"But the irony is that capitalism actually fed his system in times of plenty," he said. "That is something Chávez will discover the hard way."

source

The Best and The Brightest???

Confirmation hearings on Barack Obama's cabinet picks started yesterday and all is not well in Mudville. So far his Treasury Secretary can't figure out how to pay his taxes and hires illegals as domestic help, his Secretary of State's husband is apparently on the payroll of every despot in the world, his climate change czar is a socialist, and his Labor Secretary wants to force everyone to join a union.

Wow am I glad to be living in a time of hope and change.

Having an existential crisis...

I am reading "Twenty Years After by Alexander Dumas", the second book in the D'Artagnan chronicles, and I just realized that D'Artagnan is the same age as me. The difference being he is headed out to foil Oliver Cromwell and kill Mordaunt and I am thinking about finding a job.

Makes me think I should be doing more with my life.

Obama so far...

I know he hasn't taken office yet but since a NY Times reporter is already predicting he will be a one term President I need to get my licks in early and often. (h/t Instapundit)

First off I am pleasantly surprised by his National Security team. The majority appear to be pragmatists. I mean the evil one himself, Dick Cheney, endorsed them so unless he has some subtle plot underway to secretly allow the Islamists to destroy America they can't be that horrible.

I am a little more ambivalent about the economy. I supported the TARP bailout as an emergency measure to forestall a failure of the banking system. I am more ambivalent about Barack's stimulus package, but even with that He has made some moves that I find encouraging. Naming a Chief Performance Officer for one and his continued pledge to scrub the budget. I really want to see full scale performance audits on every government program and recommendations for elimination on about 50% of them.

I have been disappointed by his silence on Gaza, and some of the social issues I hear percolating in the background worry me, but nothing concrete yet.

Overall so far I am giving him a C but the test really begins next week.

Hmmm, Something bad seems to be happening at Blizzard

I went to log on to World of warcraft and the authentication server is down. So are a whole bunch of other servers and their forums. This can't possibly be good.

Well no interview today

Some difficulties in getting the travel set-up. It has been pushed back to the 15th.

The Puritan's Gift

One of my pet peeves in the business world is the short sighted quarter to quarter drive make the quarterly report look good and hopefully boost stock prices. I have long attributed this to the increasing numbers of MBAs and consultants in American business. Where the purpose of business used to be to make a profit and possibly pay a dividend to stockholders it seems that is now a distraction to shuffling numbers on an SEC form.

Imagine my surprise to find out I am not alone in these heretical thoughts.

Ken Hopper and Will Hopper have written a book called "The Puritan Gift: Triumph, Collapse and Revival of an American Dream" which:

"traces the origins of contemporary management back to the strict disciplines of the Puritan Migrants of the 1630s and their flight to America. The authors list the four abiding aspects of Puritanism which infused the managerial culture established by the descendents of those early settlers as being: 1) the purpose of life was to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth; 2) an aptitude for mechanical skills; 3) a moral outlook that subordinates the interest of the individual to the group; and, 4) an ability to gather, galvanize and marshal financial, material and human resources to a single purpose at whatever scale. More briefly put : Rectitude, Pragmatism, Teamwork and Leadership. An Appendix summarizes the quintessential of the book in a most useful listing of the authors' 25 principles underlying good practice from the Golden Age of Management (1920-1970). "

(I blatantly stole that from David Howards Review on Amazon.com)

Listening to the authors on BBC World Service last night I am really looking forward to reading this book, there views seem very close to my own. Unfortunately the book is out of print at the moment although the paperback releases in March.

Nuclear Batteries and Distributed Energy Generation

Here is the idea - By spreading energy generation out, (smaller, possibly alternative source generators such as solar, wind, etc.) power generation becomes more efficient. The energy is generated at the point of demand, transmission losses are decreased since it doesn't have to be transmitted as far, infrastructure costs are decreased because you don't need as many high tension lines, and the power grid becomes more expandable because you are dealing with local nodes instead of a big grid.

combine that with mini nuclear reactors such those being manufactured by Hyperion Power Generation Inc. and suddenly you have what looks like a pretty viable solution to and ongoing problem.

more here

Back at it

The last few weeks have really kind of sucked, holidays, getting laid off, horrible weather, etc. all took a toll on blogging, and every time I would try and get started again something would come up. Well school started up again this morning and I am trying to get back into the blogging swing of things concurrently.

-Went to the first class for in my ongoing quest to complete the Calculus series so I can move forward on my engineering degree. There may be trouble in River City.

First off only one fairly cute girl in the class so I have no one to try and impress so about half my motivation is gone right there.

Second the class is filled with 13 year old Asian males who all pulled supercomputer style calculators out of their back packs as soon as the instructor started talking. I hope this class isn't graded on the curve.

Third, the instructor. He comes off as kind of an old hippie just rambling thru his thoughts which had all the other students murmuring in disapproval. That was distracting, especially since if they would have been paying attention they would have figured out he gave a pretty good introduction to both 3D coordinate systems, instantaneous rate of change and why calculus is important.

-On the way home Rush Limbaugh was on and although I lost a lot of respect for him during the election season I still listen occasionally. He is predicting that the way Obama is going to generate 600,000 new government jobs is by re-instituting the draft. I kind of doubt that but I wouldn't be surprised to see mandatory government service, ala West Germany, coming down the road.

Snow in Seattle again

I am sick of it I tell you - sick... of... it.

Classes start again tomorrow. Still trying to decide if I want to take a couple quarters off work and just go to school.

Well it's a new year...

And hopefully a better one.

It's 11 a.m. my time and the Dow is up by 200 points. If it holds it will be a good first trading day, but I have always heard that it's the first two weeks that sets the tone.

This may also be the year that the idea that global warming is world's overriding concern gets busted. Ther have been a couple articles about that in the paper recently but I haven't really had time to do anything with them. I will try and get to it this evening.

I hopefully have a job interview in San Diego on Thursday the 8th. I like the San Diego area but not really looking forward to moving. I also start classes on Monday. If I don't get the job in San Diego I will just keep plugging along.

Other than that not much happening. I may try and get one of the guys I used to work with to go in with me on a World Of Warcraft gold farming setup. We can probably make a couple hundred bucks a month that way. (Nothing that would violate the ToS Blizzard gut a lot of leveling and auctioning.)