Thursday, February 24, 2011

Mid-Week Post

Tragedy in New Zealand.


Severe food shortages in North Korea? Again? Does no one question why its leader and his son are fat but no one else?


The teachers of Wisconsin are shouting out slogans because they care about "the children" or are desperately trying to drown out the sounds of their incompetence:


Two-thirds of the eighth graders in Wisconsin public schools cannot read proficiently according to the U.S. Department of Education, despite the fact that Wisconsin spends more per pupil in its public schools than any other state in the Midwest.

In the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009—the latest year available—only 32 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned a “proficient” rating while another 2 percent earned an “advanced” rating. The other 66 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned ratings below “proficient,” including 44 percent who earned a rating of “basic” and 22 percent who earned a rating of “below basic.”


The test also showed that the reading abilities of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders had not improved at all between 1998 and 2009 despite a significant inflation-adjusted increase in the amount of money Wisconsin public schools spent per pupil each year.


Won't some please think of "the children"?!


(hat tips: MM, ST, PJ)


Do you think Che Guevara was actually a pants-wetting boy-killer? Is there an irony in the artist who marketed his image wanting copyright?



A wafer-thin mint.

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