What's more important in fucking DeVos- whether she has an orgasm or whether you're at least better than her previous fuckers?
She doesn't even deserve mouse orgasms.
It's mind-boggling. Does any one of the Republican senators really believe that Betsy Devos is competent to run the Department of Education? Or am I pathetically naive for even asking that question?
Pat Toomey didn't answer me when I asked the same question.
Shouldn't have led with mouse orgasm, Moby.
It's incomprehensible-- one of the real competitive advantages the US has is a network of excellent universities. They are also effectively an export industry when foreigners come here to study, as well as being a way of exporting american values via their foreign graduates.
Damaging the educational system weakens the US, both its standing in the world and its ability to effectively respond to problems. The only reading that makes sense to me is that status anxiety among the 1% is really intense. Intense enough that keeping the non-rich down by making basic education an expensive luxury seems appealing, a moat to protect the status quo.
Effectively a gift to China, turning ourselves into a less capable country.
I think it's more status anxiety among the top 30% or so.
I think it's more status anxiety among the top 50 or so, looking at a president with 90% popularity among Republicans.
You need to keep in mind that only 60% of the eligible adults bothered to vote.
7. Some status anxiety among people I know, but the idea of destroying or weakening schools to improve their kids' chances, I've never heard that. Maybe more interest than is healthy in competitive admissions.
The (few) conservatives that I know are either libertarian or afraid of change. Peter Arnade's tangential comments about views on education in the places that are losing are maybe worth mentioning-- he reports that people in bad places do not see college as particularly likely to help them, because there's no good work in places that have gotten worse.
I've never heard of anything directly about weakening schools to improve their kids chances, but status, income and school district and educational opportunities are tied together in such a way that the effect of status anxiety is to weaken or destroy public schools in the middle class and poorer areas.
If you believe strongly enough that your own success is reflective of some fundamental degree of spiritual merit, and that those less fortunate are less fortunate because they are morally inferior on some important axis or other then it makes perfect sense to try to pull off the leeches sucking your wealth away through taxes. The interests of the leeches are not important - if they were important they would be successful and they would not need handouts in the form of grants and subsidized loans. DeVos is part of the Amway family and they are straight up prosperity gospel believers. They made their money via a cult crossed with a pyramid scheme, and the culty bit is very much prosperity gospel based. They absolutely believe their success is a merely divine recognition of their merit. They are among the most contemptible of human beings.
If she really were worthy of divinely recognized, how come she's the first cabinet appointee to require the VP to secure he nomination when her own party controls the Senate?
The mistake was ever letting the wealthy opt out of the public school system.
13: The Lord works in mysterious ways.
13 (It would be comment 13 wouldn't it) is of the devil. She was put over the top by the VICE-FUCKING-PRESIDENT! The second most awesome government official in the land, after having been picked by the first most awesome! And it's MIKE PENCE!!! The holiest governor in the US prior to becoming VP. And note, heathen, "pence" is English for MONEY, the one true sign of G-d's favor! It's right there in black and white!
The Democrats need more of a taste for blood. When they get back into power, they should set out to destroy Amway just on general principles. Blowing up MLMs is even the right thing to do on the merits.
How much can you stop this st the state level? MA voters just voted against increasing the cap on charter schools. Can the Feds force us to lift that?
Topically, I would like to add that Pat Toomey is a world-historical shithead. Not only did he blame the high volume of calls and emails he got about Devos on "out of state activists," he's now closing his Pittsburgh office and moving it to somewhere that he has yet to disclose but if it actually exists I'm sure will be somewhere that protest is illegal.
Oxford, the Not-Mississippi- or Ohio- one.
Tsinghua's probably another couple of decades away from really reaching the same status. It takes time and effort to build up the sort of dense concentration of assholes you find at Harvard.
I can probably count on you to not ask me to murder people.
It's Trump's America now, Moby. All the rules have changed.
Anyway, because of China's one-child policy, wouldn't it be easier to for Tsinghua to find assholes. Basically all their students are going to be first-born kids.
Oh, I wasn't thinking of students being assholes, I was thinking of the faculty. And I wouldn't ask anyone to murder anyone, but, well, will no one rid me of my troublesome coworkers?
28
Wait, are you working at Tsinghua now?
He's working at a puppy. Or a guinea pig. Do keep up.
That was the hardest conversation to follow.
WTF just happened with Warren? Every single morning I wake up and it truly is a fresh hell.
The hypotheticals about Rule 19 from Sens. Merkley and Whitehouse were pretty good. "Suppose a senator is a horse thief . . ."
6.1 But no foreigners will be allowed in so no problem.
Seriously every single thing being done by this administration seems aimed at making the US a much weaker nation.
I'm ready for guillotining for this entire crew.
Does any one of the Republican senators really believe that Betsy Devos is competent to run the Department of Education?
No. They know she's incompetent, but they don't care.
Some of them want to abolish the Dept of Education altogether. Some of them view education as yet another ideological battleground: it's not competence that matters, it's having the right set of political-ideological commitments. And some of them dismiss education as one of those soft and squishy things that nobody cares about except liberals and women.
But basically they do not care.
The Senators are still better than the House. The House Republicans are getting ready to pass a resolution noting that "in a certain sense, Hitler was also a victim of the Holocaust."
He was killed and burned by Nazis.
All Cretans are examples on logic puzzles.
I believe one will find that is a truth apprehensible only by observation, not purely by considering the relations of ideas.
Annoying conversation/argument with a cow orker who argued that American higher education is not the best in the world. He put forth Singapore as having better higher ed. Segued to the UK from that but still (and now post-Brexit it's going to suffer badly). Dude has his PhD from U of Pittsburgh too (but is not American).
I guess maybe this is some sort of self-protective mechanism, but this appointment has me so much less upset than some. Gut public education and breaking accreditaion? Bad, but unsurprising. It's going to suck. Like everything else. The Sessions appointment is going to render it open season for hate crimes. That's one I'm sick about. Also, Interior/EPA/CDC positions.
I'm personally thrilled that the person ultimately responsible for deciding to continue funding for my project is Rick Perry. What a fucking clown. Sessions is particularly egregious though. DeVos will cause damage, but it will be limited by pushback from the states, at least the blue ones, and I think destroying public education is going to be a lower priority for this congress than reducing taxes on the wealthy, deregulating the financial services industry, selling off public lands or at least opening them to development, getting us into a war with Iran, and shitting all over Muslims.
Maybe more interest than is healthy in competitive admissions.
Absolutely certain this is true. Supporting competitive admissions is pretty much a qualification for admission to conservative circles in Britain (we're talking high schools, universities already have them.) Create an educational environment where parents have to spend money to ensure their children can get to a decent school, and then say, "Look at our perfectly meritocratic system!"
This recent one was good too.
Not coincidentally, my Stardew Valley farm is doing great.