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With a U.S. student dropping out of high school every 26 seconds, the unemployment rate seems...

  • Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 6:25 PM ET
    With a U.S. student dropping out of high school every 26 seconds, the unemployment rate seems sure to keep rising. Dropouts are ineligible for 90% of the total jobs in the economy, and those who find work earn 40 cents of every dollar a college grad earns. And in this recession, the gap between educational haves and have-nots is growing.
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This news story has 140 comments:

  • After looking at, there was nothing to read, the link I do not have enough information to determine WHY this is happening or IF this is the way it has always been. In my high school days, over forty years ago, most young women took jobs a secretaries after high school. A small percentage went to college to either meet a husband or to get a degree in order to teach. This changed very quickly a few years later when the Feminist movement took hold and today young women make up a higher percentage of college students than young men. And, these young women are pursuing both a wider variety of degrees and a higher percentage of advanced degrees than their Mothers. The young men who I went to high school with either went onto college or went into the service or took up a trade. All of these options are still around but there are many less young men going into the service and into the trades than in the late sixties. Probably because there are many less semi-skilled jobs. What is going on? Can this be fixed and how?
    12 Jul 2011, 06:45 PM Reply Like
  • Yes, of course, it can be fixed. First, though, must come bankruptcy reorganization through reinstatement of Glass-Steagall.

    tinyurl.com/3vzwnqc

    First, subdue the casino economy. Indeed, write it off.

    Then, invest. Not speculate. Invest in physical economy. Increase productive efficiencies to a degree allowing commerce to flourish and opportunity to abound. (Hint: windmills won't cut it, nor were they ever intended to.)

    I would guess that, 95% of U.S. citizens have never heard the phrase, "the American System of Political Economy." Yet therein is the key.
    12 Jul 2011, 08:14 PM Reply Like
  • RAA,
    Sounds good, but how can US based businesses compete with manufacturers in other countries? They have substantially lower wages and little to no benefits, little to no environmental regulations to deal with, little to no government regulation, the list goes on (I won't even get into lopsided trade agreements). How can US based companies compete with foreign based companies who's overhead is some 60-80% lower?
    13 Jul 2011, 05:30 AM Reply Like
  • Really bodes well for the future of America.
    12 Jul 2011, 06:52 PM Reply Like
  • and don't forget that if we have fewer young people and more old people, the younger generation is burdened more to pay for the older, more dependent seniors
    12 Jul 2011, 08:17 PM Reply Like
  • what a scarey thought.....
    12 Jul 2011, 10:11 PM Reply Like
  • heres an idea - return to fundamentals. teach english, math, science, history and forget all the political correctness, homosexuality and so-called tolerance. stop the indoctrination. abolish teacher unions and pay teachers on merit. when a kid fails - hold them back.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:07 PM Reply Like
  • No more teaching of the 6,000 year old earth in public schools.
    12 Jul 2011, 11:15 PM Reply Like
  • Or the 6 guh-jillion year old one either.
    12 Jul 2011, 11:46 PM Reply Like
  • No more teaching of "global warming" or "climate change" Terry.
    13 Jul 2011, 12:04 AM Reply Like
  • Hmm, it would seem that two of my comments mysteriously disappeared.

    Anyway, here's the data I wanted to most share:

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    If you can solve why US student performance tracks with school poverty rate, then you can solve the educational performance problem.
    13 Jul 2011, 12:45 AM Reply Like
  • The teachers are doing a good job, but they can't brainwash them all.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:13 PM Reply Like
  • Poor have-nots. Maybe you shouldn't drop out of the easiest educational system in the international community, lazy bunch of idiots.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:13 PM Reply Like
  • Is it the kids fault? I think look a bit further back. Parents are the failure.
    13 Jul 2011, 05:31 AM Reply Like
  • Oh come on! That line is total BS.

    First, they say that we have to consolidate our schools in order to save money and homogonize the curriculum and hire huge overhead load of administrators, shrinks, nurses and secretaries. Then they blame too large of class sizes. So we hire more teachers and bring the class size down. Next they blame poor pay for teachers, so we give them all raises and let them join unions. When that didn't have any positive effect, we blame the parents. The same parents who have to work two jobs to pay for all the taxes that the schools rake in for teacher and administrator pay.

    Put that on a timeline, and then check the correlation to declining student performance.
    13 Jul 2011, 10:37 AM Reply Like
  • Damn that's just lazy.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:26 PM Reply Like
  • when is the last time you heard of a kid flunking?

    How many teachers has your system fired in the last year?

    Now, compare it with how many a company fires!

    First priority: Get parents involved with education again.

    We are in for some serious "come to J-sus" but we are Americans, and are fix, improvise and improve our way out of the hole we're in.
    13 Jul 2011, 12:43 AM Reply Like
  • bdarken.....get parents who care. Ultimately though...its a population problem.
    13 Jul 2011, 05:33 AM Reply Like
  • Tenure, why is anybody surprised?
    12 Jul 2011, 07:31 PM Reply Like
  • You could probably slide through high school with your eyes closed. As much as I don't like teachers' unions this stinks of a total lack of work ethic on the part of the students. I'm sure a good number of those students come from broken homes in some form or another, too. Not much that a teacher could do about that.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:46 PM Reply Like
  • They don't mention how many are illegals.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:33 PM Reply Like
  • At least they've all got great self-esteem.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:42 PM Reply Like
  • Until cold, hard reality smacks them upside the head. Times are tough enough for educated and responsible people. Not finishing even high school is almost suicidal.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:49 PM Reply Like
  • And a trophy for participating.
    13 Jul 2011, 12:05 AM Reply Like
  • Every 26 second is not bad. It got improved.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:44 PM Reply Like
  • Tigerscam,

    The Poster Child for the failure of government funded , public education.

    Literacy is fundamental.

    Yeaa,

    Go Unions!
    12 Jul 2011, 07:52 PM Reply Like
  • It got improved by how? Seems badder than when before.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:57 PM Reply Like
  • Ugly Jalopy 1980:

    Republican governors are cutting teachers everywhere. What you can expect?
    12 Jul 2011, 08:15 PM Reply Like
  • I'll take unions over National Socialism any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
    12 Jul 2011, 08:17 PM Reply Like
  • My father was a teacher and I recall him saying sometime in the '90s that you can trace the decline of American education to the transition of the National Education Association from a professional association to a union beginning in the 1960s. It's really not that difficult to understand why US education is failing to keep up.

    "In 1966, the NEA merged with a black organization called the American Teachers Association (formerly known as the National Association of Colored Teachers). It was a move that symbolized the NEA's century-long commitment to black education efforts. Within a decade of the merger, NEA would have its first black and Hispanic presidents. It was also around that time that the NEA morphed into a union to ensure that education personnel enjoyed reasonable pay and workplace conditions."

    www.ehow.com/about_551...
    12 Jul 2011, 08:27 PM Reply Like
  • "It was also around that time that the NEA morphed into a union to ensure that education personnel enjoyed reasonable pay and workplace conditions."

    Seems to me that if someone has excelled in the educational system to advance to a college teaching degree, and most even post-graduate, and can't even attain "reasonable pay and workplace conditions" on their own, they just aren't very smart now are they?
    12 Jul 2011, 10:05 PM Reply Like
  • Good news for McDonalds.
    12 Jul 2011, 07:58 PM Reply Like
  • Not really. The typical high school dropout would make a bad employee for a variety of reasons.
    12 Jul 2011, 08:05 PM Reply Like
  • Bouchart,

    Yes, because they will probably just raise the minimum wage anyway.
    12 Jul 2011, 08:07 PM Reply Like
  • I wouldn't eat whatever the average dropout cooked.
    12 Jul 2011, 08:59 PM Reply Like
  • Well I guess we can save more tax money by just closing more schools.
    Let the unions open their own schools.
    12 Jul 2011, 08:00 PM Reply Like
  • Commentators are grouping all public schools to discuss the dropout rate. You'll find a more useful assessment by comparing public schools' drop-out rates in wealthier neighborhoods to the rates in poorer neighborhoods.
    12 Jul 2011, 08:19 PM Reply Like
  • You bet. The worst ones are in Chicago where all are left behind. A true Daley legacy. However, the teachers, "morphed into a union to ensure that education personnel enjoyed reasonable pay and workplace conditions."

    In Chicago, union status is all that matters. Maybe someone should unionize the poor students and parents.
    12 Jul 2011, 10:09 PM Reply Like
  • Hey, it's not a problem. They'll get food stamps, housing assistance, Obamacare and a new iPhone, along with their Democratic Party voter registration card.
    12 Jul 2011, 08:28 PM Reply Like
  • Silly Tack,

    I-Pads not, I-Phones.

    BTW, this is my Home Town, and I am thrilled.

    mobiletechlearning.tum...
    12 Jul 2011, 08:36 PM Reply Like
  • The dropouts should get a GED, and go to a two-year trade school (or apprentice in a skilled trade). Graduating from high school and my 8 years of college were not the best path to my ('MY', ymmv) financial well being, in retrospect.
    12 Jul 2011, 08:46 PM Reply Like
  • Almost every day I get a feeling of relief from when I dropped out of college and started a biz. The real world is a helluva better teacher than college is you're willing to learn.
    12 Jul 2011, 10:06 PM Reply Like
  • The problem is...they get a skill, welding, etc.. and there is no manufacturing jobs to be had. The jobs that are available are short term. Only those able to move every few months are able to stay employed. I suspect this is why we see so many on the UE rolls every week.
    13 Jul 2011, 05:51 AM Reply Like
  • The problems described by the News Story that leads off this discussion have existed to an ever growing extent for the last three decades but, it is clearly true, these problems are compounded by the dreary job market that now exists (and is likely to continue to exist for the foreseeable future). The 20 somethings who are graduating from various post secondary educational establishments, particularly if they have accumulated sizable debt loads in the course of completing their education, are also facing very difficult challenges.

    As the high unemployment environment (which has existed since 2008 stretches on and on, expect to hear more from that generation (they, with justice, will not be happy campers.).
    12 Jul 2011, 09:13 PM Reply Like
  • "8 years of college down the drain."

    Dean Wormer.
    12 Jul 2011, 09:13 PM Reply Like
  • Why go to school or try to be anything for that matter when kid's channels The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, brainwash kids into believing that life is one big bowl of cherries.
    Life involves no work according to these channels.You are going to be famous. No doubt about it.You can live on your own as a teenager, have fantastic adventures, spend all your waking hours texting, talking on webcams, going to performing arts high schools, becoming a singer,dancer, actor, with little or no effort. As a matter of fact you can have your own web show when you are in 10th grade, live with your brother who has no real job, yet can somehow afford to live in a 2000 sq. ft. apartment, eat and live like a millionaire.
    Thank goodness these all television shows for kids display the real world as it exists today. Right? We wouldnt want to do something logical like teach them the real truth or have them truly prepare for the real future out there.
    What is missing in this country is what we once called the "family unit" and some good old fashioned hard assed physical discipline of today's kids.
    12 Jul 2011, 09:40 PM Reply Like
  • Every 26 seconds?! so about 100k unskilled labor entering the market every month. Our jobs number last month was a measly 18k! I bet all that was in the skilled labor sector too. To support 100k unskilled in the work force we need another housing bubble to put all these people to work in construction!
    12 Jul 2011, 10:09 PM Reply Like
  • Every kid that makes it through college and hasn't learned anything is just one more voter for Obama
    12 Jul 2011, 10:17 PM Reply Like
  • Stoopid is as Stoopid does.

    That's what Momma always said.

    The apple never falls far from the tree.

    That's what Gramma always said.

    Dumb dogs make dumb pups.

    Just said that.
    12 Jul 2011, 10:26 PM Reply Like
  • Three cheers for private schools!
    12 Jul 2011, 10:33 PM Reply Like
  • private for profit colleges like university of phoenix exist only because of the federal government. they pay their faculty no more than what a mcdonald cashier gets.

    those who are proposing a private system do not know what a private system of education looks like.
    12 Jul 2011, 10:57 PM Reply Like
  • Varan,

    "those who are proposing a private system do not know what a private system of education looks like"

    Private School?

    You mean like Harvard University?
    13 Jul 2011, 08:35 AM Reply Like
  • Ugly Jalopy 1980:

    Let me educate you on Harvard.

    Last year Harvard got 35000 applications with SAT score above 2300. All these students had subject perfect subject II test and all of them had above 10 AP courses. All these 35000 students were brilliants. Harvard accepted may be 1500 out of them. If all professors are monkeys in Harvard, all these kids will graduate with distinction. In other word Harvard is money making scam.
    13 Jul 2011, 11:11 AM Reply Like
  • School drop outs just need to turn on Fake News TV to receive there PHD in economics and US history, and then teach in a christian school.
    12 Jul 2011, 11:20 PM Reply Like
  • Indeed Tear bear. We need to keep our antichrist schools going so that the god of the State can keep its uncompetitive, forced perch of coercion on the throne of dumbasses who yank lefty crat chad. An army of unemployed meth head ex-roofers coming to a town near you.
    12 Jul 2011, 11:52 PM Reply Like
  • Three week wait to get a roofer around here. No such thing as an unemployed roofer in my area right now... Maybe in the winter months, but no, not right now. Meth head roofers would probably be snapped right up if they can nail a straight line.
    12 Jul 2011, 11:59 PM Reply Like
  • Sp-1 THEIR not THERE.....
    13 Jul 2011, 08:00 AM Reply Like
  • Jack, she went to public skool, not her fault.
    13 Jul 2011, 10:08 AM Reply Like
  • terry, it is "their" not "there". Your public school education (or lack thereof) is showing again.
    13 Jul 2011, 03:40 PM Reply Like
  • I always find SA discussions about US public education fascinating; especially because the topic is so often a lightening rod for discussions about labour relations and social issues. I’m the last to suggest that Canadian public education is without problems or challenges but I find the ideological tension attendant the tenor of discussions about US public education remarkable.

    In many ways Canadians and Americans (each in their own ways) share many common North American experiences and values and it follows that comparisons between institutions in both countries can be interesting. Like in the US, education in Canada is a local and Provincial (Canada’s equivalent to State) responsibility and, broadly speaking, school districts in both countries are organized and funded in the same manner. While the history of collective bargaining for teachers varies from Province to Province (and within Provinces from District to district and between the publically funded Catholic and non-denominational school systems as well), the schools generally perform the many tasks asked of them well and teacher collective bargaining has not appeared to have had a net negative effect on either the performance of the system or public acceptance of the educational system

    This, of course, is not to say that a wide range of issues are not hotly debated or that many proposals for improvement are not raised from time to time; only that all this generally takes place in a largely constructive atmosphere and collective bargaining, as such, is rarely a contentious issue. A particularly interesting example of a well functioning public school system is that in Edmonton (the capital of Alberta) which has gained an international reputation. The following article and two web sites give some idea give an overview of that school system.

    www.guardian.co.uk/edu...

    www.epsb.ca/about/miss...

    local37.teachers.ab.ca...
    13 Jul 2011, 12:22 AM Reply Like
  • The poorest state of the U.S. is what they oxymoronically call a 'right to work' state. The state which has a better employment rate than others is also a 'right to work' state, but most of the jobs there are minimum wage jobs.

    The great triumph of the right in this country has been its success in convincing the middle class and the blue collar workers that it's best for them to vote against their own self interest . As a result they continue to support policies that have been giving ever greater power to the corporations which turn around and quickly ship all the jobs to India and China, and then complain about the lack of skilled workers here. The result of 30 years of this concerted campaign to decimate the middle class and to depress the wages of the blue collar workers to their lowest levels possible is right here for all to see.
    13 Jul 2011, 01:11 AM Reply Like
  • You mean the unions, right? Right?
    13 Jul 2011, 01:39 AM Reply Like
  • There are two somewhat contradictory problems illustrated by the exchange above between varan, with whom I tend to agree, and Wyatt..

    First. The concept of ‘middle class’ is very fuzzy in the US where there is a reluctance to acknowledge that economic classes exist (except at the extremes of the very wealthy, particularly where the wealth is inherited, or the very poor, particularly where the poor are from a minority background) but where personal wealth generally connotes success and higher ‘worthiness’. On the one hand, there is an ideal whereby everyone (particularly oneself) is ‘middle class’ (but of a particularly virtuous sort) while, on the other hand, there is anxiety about social standing as reflected in possessions.

    Second. There are clearly major shifts under way in the US in the ways by which people earn a living and consume or save their earnings and this is reflected
    (a) in a hollowing out of the middle range of income earners and growth in the numbers of persons at both extremes (i.e. high end and bottom) of the income scale, and
    (b) in diminished opportunity for many to finance the educations they saw as their ticket to upward social mobility or to live the retirement life they recently thought reasonably attainable and affordable. This often promotes a growing tendency to envy and vilify people who appear better placed to protect their personal interests (regardless of whether those interests are reasonable or not) and this anger is often focused on public servants or union members (particularly public servants who are in the public sector).

    In short, while a few are prospering mightily in the economy of the last couple of generations, many more are only tenuously holding their own or are falling backward economically. This is creating great anxiety within much of society (some coming face to face with desperate choices and others leading lives of increasing but quiet desperation). Arguable the two problems above have the combined impact of making it difficult for many persons to see their personal circumstances as anything other than personal failure or undefined unfairness directed at them personally. Scapegoating segments of society such as public sector union members is a typical irrational reaction of such highly anxious and frustrated people. Reasonable political solutions, however, require that the myth that everyone is middle class must be abandoned and that people must realize that reasonable and responsible collective political action (and not only personal effort) is often appropriate and necessary.
    13 Jul 2011, 02:15 AM Reply Like
  • It's not scapegoating. The US government schools system sucks. It costs far more per pupil than other developed nations, yet delivers a far inferior product.

    And give me a break with the US vs Canada comparisons. Canada is much closer to Sweden than the US - relatively small population, demographically uniform, little in the way of cultural and socio-economic diversity. Where Canada has diversity it's primarily (for example) Asians that as in the US perform above the existing demographic groups.

    The US has to deal with it's problems or continue to see a decline in our standard of living. Relying on Canadian characteristics (which in addition to the above is a heavily natural resources driven and export driven economy) isn't going to cut it.
    13 Jul 2011, 03:12 AM Reply Like
  • The failure of the student is usually due to failure by the parents...plain and simple. Private schools do well for the simple fact that a parent(s) willing to spend the money and time are usually heavily involved in their kids lives. Same goes with public schools. Those schools with heavy parental involvement simply score better and have higher grad rates. Teachers can only do so much when parents aren't involved.
    This mentality seems to be ethnically based. Asian kids (think Tiger Moms) far outstrip all other ethnic groups in education success. This continues to the unemployment statistics. The latest NFP showed asians not only had the lowest UE by 2% to the next closest ethnic goup, but was also the only group to decline in unemployment rate. It's not that they are genetically smarter, but ethnically they have a higher drive for success and better work ethic.

    It is, as many have pointed out, our (US) basic mentality that has failed. Parents have allowed the state to usurp their duties, and we have adopted a much weaker standard that everyone will succeed...simply by lowering the bar for success.
    Kids that are foreign born and come to the US (and educated here) have a higher education success rate (across all ethnic groups) than native born. I do not see this changing any time in the future.
    13 Jul 2011, 06:19 AM Reply Like
  • Cincinnatus –

    As a Canadian I can agree that in some ways our society is in some ways and to some degree like those in the Scandinavian countries. On the other hand, it is very much rooted in the North American culture and setting which we have shared with the US since the colonial days of our two countries. Commodities do play an important part in our economy but manufacturing actually is a larger component in our economy than it is in that in the US.

    We are a very ethnically diverse (peoples from over 140 countries and a significant aboriginal population) and culturally diverse people with many integrated but distinct communities. This is reflected, for example, in the Edmonton school district which provides not only French for Francophone students and French immersion (instruction in most subjects throughout the school years) for non - Francophone students where the parents of these children wish this but also immersion programs in Ukrainian and I believe Mandarin and one or two other languages. Edmonton has a large First Nation (Native Indian and Métis) school age population and (as the School District web page shows) has extensive programs geared to their needs and interests. Note as well that all Provinces (with the exception of British Columbia where I live) publically fund a separate system of School Districts for those who wish their children educated in the Catholic faith parallel to the other School Districts for non Catholics. In British Columbia there is partial public funding for private schools, including those established by Catholics.

    This diversity has existed throughout Canada’s history and is currently marked by large scale immigration from many countries, notably from the Caribbean, South and East Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

    In short, Canada in general and Edmonton in particular don’t fit the picture you assume applies.
    13 Jul 2011, 10:17 AM Reply Like
  • Too many words and you still don't get to the gist of it.

    The UAW broke GM over its knee. A good president would have fired the union like Reagan did when he told Patco to take a hike. Then let the lard fall off by the wayside. Instead of breaking contract like with the bondholders(Obama) I'd rather he broke the union's ability to destroy American manufacturing, but no, he made it even worse, he forced the taxpayer to bail out VEBA and then gave the entire company over to his goons & thugs.

    This is a Hugo Chavez move.

    The unions are the number one, two and three reason why most companies are hiring overseas.
    13 Jul 2011, 11:31 AM Reply Like
  • Good god, $28 an hour for GM assembly line work(not counting bennies)-
    finance.yahoo.com/news...
    You *may * be onto something with your crazy theory of unions being a problem.
    13 Jul 2011, 12:18 PM Reply Like
  • KCR357,

    That is old rates, old rhetoric.

    Those rates scheduled to end via attrition.

    Part of the bankrptcy viability mandates.


    www.nytimes.com/2011/0...
    13 Jul 2011, 12:39 PM Reply Like
  • That article is from yesterday and quotes current UAW rates in other factories (save the one in the story) at 28/hr. If the article is wrong please list other sources saying otherwise.
    13 Jul 2011, 01:13 PM Reply Like
  • Do your own reseach.

    Fact, No new hires are getting the old rate at any of the factories.

    Hourly labor vs total compensation as reported, can confuse some.

    That was part of the viability mandates of the bankruptcy.
    Objective was wage competitive costs with foriegn transplants building in the US.
    13 Jul 2011, 01:22 PM Reply Like
  • ? I just did! The article you linked to was the exact same one I listed and indicated wages at 28/hr.
    13 Jul 2011, 01:33 PM Reply Like
  • Wages, or combined overall compensations costs?

    Hourly wages

    Soc Sec

    Medicare

    Worker's Comp

    Disabilty

    Medical.

    Retirement Co contribution

    Vac

    Holidays

    Sick days.

    other misc perks


    Need apples to apples for acurrate comparisons.
    13 Jul 2011, 01:38 PM Reply Like
  • Bob, the Canadian census figures are quite clear. I made the comparison with Sweden having lived there and being a frequent visitor to Canada since a child. The major groups aren't present in the Canadian population. Hispanics don't even show up they're so infinitesimal. Blacks are very small. It's only Chinese and Southeast Asians that comprise any noticeable minority group and they're present primarily in BC, and these two groups don't perform poorly in school - in fact quite the opposite.

    www12.statcan.ca/engli...

    The demographics matter as illustrated at the following link. If you disregard them you will draw faulty conclusions. Two states in the US (California and Texas) are 20% of the US population and their minority populations dwarf those in Canada. Texas is 12% Black and 37% Hispanic. You won't find that Edmonton, Kamloops, or anywhere else you care to look in Canada. The comparison to be made would be between Canada and say North Dakota as then you're making an apples-to-apples comparison.

    iowahawk.typepad.com/i...
    13 Jul 2011, 03:20 PM Reply Like
  • Parents play a major role, but you're ignoring that the government schools curricula is controlled by teachers' unions apparatchiks and the government schools are arrogantly run and don't listen to parents.

    Case in point: a friend and colleague from India has two daughters both very gifted. The younger was born in the US and speaks perfect English. That at home they often speak their native tongue has nothing to do with her English proficiency. She started school one year - I think around the 6th or 7th grade - and her teacher and the school administration wanted to put her in an English-as-a-second-la... program. My friend asked me what the bloodly hell they were up to? He had to fight tooth-and-nail to get them to drop the ESL nonsense. Luckily he was highly education and an experienced leader so he had the skills to go up against the teacher and the administration and wouldn't back down. The average Joe isn't likely to fight to the extent he did. The only reason they wanted to dump her into ESL is the school would receive more dollars for her head and they wanted to pad their revenue stream. What goes on in the government schools with the exploitation and manipulation of children and their parents for the benefit of the teachers' unions and "the system" is nothing short of criminal.
    13 Jul 2011, 03:46 PM Reply Like
  • Cincinnatus –

    Canada, like the US and unlike Sweden, is predominantly a settle society (i.e. one where the overwhelming proportion of the population has come to settle from other societies within recent history). Being thus presents both unique opportunities and challenges as each such settler society tries to establish a reasonable, just and vibrant balance between the need to promote social harmony, participation and cohesion and the desire of persons from diverse backgrounds to retain links with their past, those in their adopted country who come from similar backgrounds to their own and to make their own mark with dignity in their adopted country.

    In both Canada and the US the public school system plays a vital role in this complex process but I’m not suggestion that the role played in this regard in each country is exactly the same or that that in the US should be more closely modeled on that in Canada. I am only saying that effective teachers’ collective bargaining need not be a barrier to the creation of a highly effective school system and that responding to a wide variety of social backgrounds can be addressed creatively and effectively by such as school system (it being the challenge in each school district to rise to its challenge in its own unique way).

    Your equating the diverse Canadian population, especially in Canada’s major urban centres including Edmonton, with that typical in Sweden where immigration in any numbers is a relatively new phenomena, is a misreading of Canadian society.
    15 Jul 2011, 09:57 PM Reply Like
  • Adamson,

    Nice job over analyzing a simple fact.

    Public Sector Unions, Teachers Unions being the prime example, are one of the major reasons for the decline of America and it's educational underperformance to it's peers globally.

    Tenure, lack of accountability, merit pay, etc. The list goes on and on.

    You don't get it and neither do they.

    The party is OVER!


    www.youtube.com/watch?...

    senatus.wordpress.com/.../

    Public Education as a business model is a failure.

    Until vouchers are commonplace what incentive do they have to promote excellence?

    Even when they suck, they get rewarded.

    If my public schools don't do their job, and I send my kids to private school, they get to keep the money, yet no longer are obligated to educate my kids.

    That's like no longer frequenting a crappy restaurant, because it sucks, but you have to keep paying them anyway.

    But I'm sure you, or any teacher would simply no longer patronize the establishment, and take your money and go elsewhere.

    Why don't I have that option with education?



    Tell me why the hell it is any different.
    15 Jul 2011, 11:45 PM Reply Like
  • Bob, you don't have to believe my experience. I provided the link to the demographic data because it is very clear and leaves no doubt. Canada is much closer to Sweden when it comes to uniformity in demographic makeup. That first link is to the official Canadian government statistics. The demographic groups that account for the divergences simply don't exist in Canada or are but a couple of percent. Taken together the Chinese and Southeast Asians are the only significant minority demographic and they don't diverge as they don't in the US (or if they do, it's because they perform above the average, not below).
    16 Jul 2011, 11:35 AM Reply Like
  • Cincinatus -

    I don't question you data. Remember, however, that in in Canada, like in the US, there are areas of the country with long settled, stable and fairly homogeneous populations (think much of Atlantic Canada, Québec away from Montréal, rural Saskatchewan and southern Alberta) and areas of rapidly growing, populations arriving from elsewhere in the country and abroad (think the larger urban centres in particular). In other words, national data doesn't tell the whole story.
    16 Jul 2011, 12:04 PM Reply Like
  • 1980XLS –

    In my previous comments I was simply addressing the issues of student diversity and teacher collective bargaining and my point was simply that these issues can be productively addressed (and I gave the Edmonton public schools system as one example of where this is being done well).

    You raise the new topic of international ranking of the performance of primary and secondary students. I would note that Canada and many nations in Western Europe rank well ahead of the US in such rankings and that union certification and collective bargaining for teachers in those countries is more firmly established and prevalent than in much of the US.

    You also raise the new issue of school vouchers. In British Columbia we actually have a partial scheme for this and the web sites below give information about that program. As a lawyer in the BC Provincial Public Service responsible for drafting government legislation I actually helped design this legislation which I drafted in its initial form decades ago.

    www.bclaws.ca/EPLibrar...

    www.bclaws.ca/EPLibrar...

    www.bced.gov.bc.ca/ind...

    www.ourkids.net/bc-pri...

    The idea behind the BC scheme was to allow those who choose to educate their children outside the public school system an opportunity to benefit from partial public funding but not to an extent that would undermine local funding for the public schools in each district.
    16 Jul 2011, 12:47 PM Reply Like
  • Just scrap public school altogether. Its a union lard ripoff of the taxpayer. In America it was only created by Jimbo Carter as a way to engender more votes for his dem base by making a new taxpayer funded sector. Create any new bureaucracy. Its gonna create slaves, slaves who vote for their creator. Look at the 500,000 TSA agents Bush hired. They were just allowed to go union this year. Who do you think they'll vote for? Yep. A DNC lock on 500,000 votes... forever. Good one Bush!

    We could do this all day with every public employee. They are parasites. And parasites only do one thing. Eat off the corpse of their host and feast on dead skin cells.

    As far as education. Its overrated anyway. Kids don't learn much there. They play dodgeball and make paper maiche volcanoes.

    And we need to pay a teacher 85K/yr plus insane lifetime healthcare benefits and pensions that would make the private sector's mouth water? For paper maiche volcanoes?

    And why force the elderly or a gay couple or a barren couple who owns a house to pay a tax for education? They don't have kids. Let parents pay. They made the choice to have kids, not anyone else. But with all socialism, its always everyone's problem now, right?
    16 Jul 2011, 01:07 PM Reply Like
  • Wyatt:

    You need to get updated.

    Dodge ball has been banned, as "violent" and "dangerous." You have to understand that its much preferrable to have meek, unathletic, complacent drones, who can sit placidly inside all day getting "educated" in socialism and Marxism.
    16 Jul 2011, 01:24 PM Reply Like
  • Tack,

    Correct you are.

    Dodgeball is competitive, thereby being categorized as bullying.

    Since Teachers prefer not to compete with each other ( against Merit Pay) they assume that is what is best for your children as well.

    Competition may expose flaws in their, "Everybody gets a Medal" thesis.
    16 Jul 2011, 02:02 PM Reply Like
  • 1980:

    Good points. I forgot to mention that dodge ball produces "winners" and "losers," which is entirely anathema to the "we're-all-equal" crowd. It might crush somebody's "self esteem."
    16 Jul 2011, 02:06 PM Reply Like
  • Bob, the data as to stable homogeneous populations versus rapidly changing diverse populations is there. It's in the Statistics Canada figures and the US Census data. The Statistics Canada data provides the provincial breakdown, and with regards to Alberta the only two cities of any size are Calgary and Edmonton. There's no way Edmonton is going to be 40% Hispanic and 12% Black and it won't show up in the Alberta figures - that isn't mathematically possible.

    Indeed the key difference between the US versus Canada and Sweden is how quickly the demographic changes are occurring. The two largest US States (California and Texas) now have nearly 40% Hispanic populations and the White/European ancestry populations are at or below 50%, and that large shift is relatively recent occurring largely in the last 30 years or so. Canada hasn't gone through anywhere near such a shift.
    16 Jul 2011, 03:25 PM Reply Like
  • Here's the demographic distribution in Alberta which is going to mirror Calgary and Edmonton as they're the only two sizable populations. Columns across are Total Pop, Total Minorities, Chinese, Southeast Asian, Black, Filipino (note Hispanics don't even show up as they're non-existent statistically).

    Alberta 100.0% 11.2% 3.4% 2.4% 1.1% 1.2%

    Thus Edmonton doesn't have a student diversity issue as there's no diversity to begin with other than the Chinese and Southeast Asian contingent and this group has a high education level among the parents, a strong work ethic, and strong academic performance among the youth.
    16 Jul 2011, 03:38 PM Reply Like
  • It's an interesting question as to why collective bargaining in Europe hasn't destroyed education and led to the high costs that have occurred in the US. But it's an academic question at this point and doesn't change the fact that it's not working for the US. I think one of the reasons is government school monopolies work well in smaller homogeneous populations where there's much greater cohesiveness.

    It's clear though that costs in the government school monopoly are out of control and school vouchers and a strengthening and expansion of private school choice is the way forward.

    mjperry.blogspot.com/2...

    sayanythingblog.com/en.../
    16 Jul 2011, 03:52 PM Reply Like
  • Cincinnatus -
    Responding to your demographic distribution question there follows two websites showing various dimensions of Edmonton’s demographic variety and, in particular, of Aboriginal people in Edmonton.

    www.mapsalbertacapital...

    www.mapsalbertacapital...

    In short, the local community that a school district serves will have its unique characteristics and it follows that the people in that district, the teachers, other staff, elected officials etc. need to seek creative solutions to the challenges posed by the local characteristics. Opting out of the school system, demonizing student populations or teachers, passivity etc. only make things worse. Constructive engagement by all involved can make things better.
    16 Jul 2011, 04:24 PM Reply Like
  • Cincinnatus -

    I’d like to close our discussion on this topic by observing that teacher collective bargaining hasn’t held back Canadian primary and secondary education either but, as you say, each country needs to determine how best to address its educational needs.
    16 Jul 2011, 04:28 PM Reply Like
  • More Public Funded educational, excellence, from both union and administration.

    www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4...


    Pay particular note to "Paid Leave"

    Translation, When you can't do your job, Cheat.
    And if you get caught cheating, you won't have to come into work anyway.

    No problem You'll get paid anyway.

    Poor performance, incompetence and fraud = More paid vacation time.
    16 Jul 2011, 04:37 PM Reply Like
  • don't pay any attention to anti-union know-nothings. probably they are jobless losers sitting in their grandmas' basements writing lengthy indictments of Obama and of this century. they do not even have the intelligence to go make some cheese dip when their brains reel from their intense literary labor.
    16 Jul 2011, 08:16 PM Reply Like
  • Go turn a bolt or bend a nail, union john. Back to work.

    I mean, wait, no... union greed has forced most companies to offshore to avoid you. You cost too much for your manual, brainless labor. Aww, you don't have a job then do you.

    I guess you shouldn't have negotiated your way out of a job then. Sucks, eh?
    16 Jul 2011, 08:31 PM Reply Like
  • In a single catch-all word, try "accountability".
    In the 60's it existed. In the past 20-30 years it no longer does.

    Put the rule of law back in the home (where it belongs), make parents responsible financially, and every other way for their "products", and things will change.

    And by the way,..liberal judges, and "left-wing learning institutions",... got to go.
    13 Jul 2011, 06:32 AM Reply Like
  • really? why are you not marching for prosecution of those who broke the anti-torture laws during the previous administration? that's where the real lack of accountability lies.
    13 Jul 2011, 12:52 PM Reply Like
  • Really? You mean the same ones that Hussein is using as we speak? Or maybe you're referring to the illegal wiretapping that Hussein railed against during the campaign but continues to employ now that he's under the thumb? Or perhaps you're referring to the Patriot Act that he hated so much but has now made permanent when it came up for renewal a few months ago.
    14 Jul 2011, 10:56 AM Reply Like
  • Lakeaffect,

    OBAMA=HYPOCRITE

    freedomeden.blogspot.c...
    14 Jul 2011, 11:04 AM Reply Like
  • Or maybe he was referring to Echelon & Carnivore under Billy Jethro Clinton's command? Yeah, the media didn't say jack about those either.

    Same S. Different day.

    Lefties are hypocrites and liars.
    14 Jul 2011, 11:28 AM Reply Like
  • If torturing a few animals prevents the innocent slaughter of some more Americans (including women and children ala Sept 11) I'm all for it.
    13 Jul 2011, 12:59 PM Reply Like
  • So you are not really for accountability. You are for forcing your values on others - in this case on parents and teachers.

    OK. I get that.
    13 Jul 2011, 01:07 PM Reply Like
  • I was hazed worse at my alma mater.

    I wish we did torture. Might have saved a lot more lives.

    But to a turbo-lib, a hang nail is torture.
    13 Jul 2011, 03:32 PM Reply Like
  • no,

    If they knew a terrorist had the information, and failed to extract it by any means necessary, I would want to hold them accountable in the event they failed to prevent an attack.
    13 Jul 2011, 03:34 PM Reply Like
  • Obama caught no #1 terrorist without torturing anybody. Thanks to Obama and out military forces.
    13 Jul 2011, 04:56 PM Reply Like
  • tigersam, what the hell are you babbling about?
    13 Jul 2011, 05:12 PM Reply Like
  • I am not babbling. I just stating the facts. I know your kind very well when things goes against you, you change the subject.
    13 Jul 2011, 08:00 PM Reply Like
  • Obama didn't catch anybody. He was watching TV with his buddies in the situation room.
    14 Jul 2011, 10:58 AM Reply Like
  • Yeah, but by the way he talks he must think he was the one rappelling down the wall with the M4, smashing through the window feet first.

    The guy is a tan Rambo in his own mind, by his own admission last week, "I've been doing MY job! I've been doing the Afghanistan thing, doing the Osama Bin Laden. What have you guys been doing?"

    The guy is borderline insane.
    14 Jul 2011, 11:31 AM Reply Like
  • The guys claiming Obama didn't nail Bin Laden are hilarious.

    It's like claiming Steve Jobs was successful running Apple cause all the guys before him 'prepared the ground' for his success.

    I can't stop laughing.,
    14 Jul 2011, 12:15 PM Reply Like
  • Obama is Steve Jobs now too?

    This guy is AMAZING!

    What's next?

    Is he gonna beat Carl Lewis in a 440?
    14 Jul 2011, 01:50 PM Reply Like
  • Wyatt:

    Usain Bolt.
    14 Jul 2011, 01:53 PM Reply Like
  • Probably right. He's a Jamaican. Meanwhile, the Kenyans are only decent at long distances.
    14 Jul 2011, 01:56 PM Reply Like
  • kmi, the operations that led to getting Bin Laden were approved and put into place under Bush. Obama merely permitted them to continue rather than terminate them. When you're talking about assigning credit to leadership it's the leadership that had the vision that gets the credit, not the reluctant know-nothing follower.
    14 Jul 2011, 02:51 PM Reply Like
  • Seriously, attributing an iota of competence to Bush the Minor is stretching the imagination in ways that can endanger one's sanity.

    Obama may not be Jobs, but the point stands uncontested. You can't attribute policy failures to him and successes to others.

    I'm still laughing at the idea Bush had an ounce of relevance in snagging Bin Laden. 977 days 'out of office' Bush, leading? Thanks for the humor.
    14 Jul 2011, 05:05 PM Reply Like
  • But you do have to give full credit to Reagan, because without him there would be no bin-Laden, and no one to kill.

    So I agree that Obama had nothing to do with OBL's killing. The credit must be given to Reagan if not Bush.
    14 Jul 2011, 05:10 PM Reply Like
  • The problem with your Huffpo cliche is that you simply don't understand how intel works. The most damaging thing Billy Jethro Heefus Corndog McYeehaw Cletus Cliton did wasn't the base closures. It was cutting off our intel. Takes YEARS to get that back, several decades in fact, through languages, treaties and cultures.

    The fact that it happened so quickly by bag-n-tagging OBL means we were able to beat the timetable's typically slow footrace of getting a team of entrenched snitches in place, especially ones who are loyal to Allah above all else. That's a hard one to break. Takes time, kiddo.

    Back to your kool aid session in 5,4,3,2... 1.
    14 Jul 2011, 05:39 PM Reply Like
  • And without Mohammad there would be no Islam and thus no OBL. Yeah, let's go all the way back to Lucy & Pilt Down man to make a desperate point about nothing.
    14 Jul 2011, 05:41 PM Reply Like
  • Well done!

    Disinformation campaign and avoidance of any reference or discussion of Bush the Minor effected, crisis averted...

    "Obama got Bin Laden", I see you writhe in pain whenever you read it, desperate for it not to be so.

    Back to your mind altering drug session in 3..2..1...
    14 Jul 2011, 06:02 PM Reply Like
  • He got him with the karate didn't he?

    Or was it the 5 finger death punch?

    Its okay. We know you have a Blammy poster up on your wall with him standing in the middle of The Village People, shirtless, as the construction worker.
    14 Jul 2011, 06:10 PM Reply Like
  • You may be right. Crystal meth must definitely improve a person's ability to come up with insults which he obviously mistakes for logic.
    14 Jul 2011, 06:17 PM Reply Like
  • No way man, Go-Bama parachuted in by himself, singlehandedly beat several guards while armed with only a pencil and a handful of treasury bonds, jumped into the second story of the building where he then used his pencil with un-erring accuracy to end Bin Laden's life.

    He then jumped out the building, and launched a missile into the sky, which he flew out of the compound on.

    It's ok, you were too busy watching Bush ride horses and comparing his physique to Putin's to notice, but it all happened just as I said it did.
    14 Jul 2011, 06:21 PM Reply Like
  • Obama, probably not even a buck fifty, with wrists the circumference of wine glass stems couldn't even adjust a Total Gym 5000 without spraining his thin calf muscle. And after Seal Six dispatched OBL with a close range 9mm hollow point to the dome, somehow he's a UFC cage fighter that can take out Bones Jones in the Octagon.

    I'm sensing some strange Prop 8 cheerleading here.
    14 Jul 2011, 06:27 PM Reply Like
  • KMI,

    Seriously, Credit where credit is due.

    Obama gets credit for following up on what Bush started.

    Bush gets credit for getting it going.

    I do wonder however, had Bush been at the helm when they shot and killed an unarmed, Osama Bin Laden, unlike the way Bush captured Saddam, and brought him to justice, what they would be saying?

    They certainly would be crying foul for an unjust illegal and barbaric assassination.
    14 Jul 2011, 06:29 PM Reply Like
  • "I'm still laughing at the idea Bush had an ounce of relevance in snagging Bin Laden."

    All you have to do is learn to read, but obviously holding onto your belief system is easier as it requires no documentation of fact nor cognitive ability.

    www.elpasotimes.com/po...
    ----
    While he was shepherding the hunt for bin Laden, John also was pushing to expand the Predator program, the agency's use of unmanned airplanes to launch missiles at terrorists. The CIA largely confined those strikes to targets along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. But in late 2007 and early 2008, John said the CIA needed to carry out those attacks deeper inside Pakistan.

    It was a risky move. Pakistan was an important but shaky ally. John's analysts saw an increase in the number of Westerners training in Pakistani terrorist camps. John worried that those men would soon start showing up on U.S. soil.

    "We've got to act," John said, a former senior intelligence official recalls. "There's no explaining inaction."

    John took the analysis to then CIA Director Michael Hayden, who agreed and took the recommendation to President George W. Bush. In the last months of the Bush administration, the CIA began striking deeper inside Pakistan. Obama immediately adopted the same strategy and stepped up the pace. Recent attacks have killed al-Qaida's No. 3 official, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, and Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.
    14 Jul 2011, 06:34 PM Reply Like
  • Junker, post a stupid comment and I'll reply with a stupid comment, I do hope you enjoyed it however.

    XLS,

    Credit where it's due. Clinton failed. Bush failed. They tried. They failed. Guess who didn't fail.

    Don't make up some story about operations BS and sell it to me. If we are gonna backtrack to where and who started the efforts to nail Bin Laden we are going back to at least Clinton.

    Obama has enough crap on his face with a piss poor healthcare reform, which he didn't write but we all blame him for, a piss poor financial reform bill, which he didn't write and we all blame him for, and assorted other things.

    But don't tell me that nailing Bin Laden, which we all agree was a significant accomplishment, isn't owned by him, cause that's such a load of crap I can't believe you are writing it.
    14 Jul 2011, 06:39 PM Reply Like
  • "Obama has enough crap on his face with a piss poor healthcare reform, which he didn't write but we all blame him for, a piss poor financial reform bill, which he didn't write and we all blame him for, and assorted other things. "

    He should be blamed. Zerocare sat in a bureaucrat's desk for years like an ancient sea Nautilus, pre-written, encased in glass with the label 'Break in case of democratic majority!'

    He doesn't even write his own book or speeches, but I'll blame him for those too. The book was a pretentious & lame, 90's era race identity tome and his funny name helped get the publishers on board.

    And his hopeychangey speeches were all written by a 27 year old John Favreau frat boy. I'll blame him for that too. They were written for tard-nation, careful to insert the occasional reference to Selma or Missuh-sippi Baaaarnin' like so much recycled MLK speech fed thru a damn woodchipper in order to guilt his white racist liberal voters into casting him some love at the ballot box.

    Doesn't it scare you that major, society-altering laws are passed that haven't been read first prior to being passed? Nancy said it needed to be read so we know what's in it first, but damn it if we had to get it passed in record speed. Same with the $800 billion stimulus, rushed on all of us, then after, left unsigned by the president while he went on vacation. But I thought time was essential, getting those shovel ready jobs out pronto! I guess he was full of it then too.
    14 Jul 2011, 06:52 PM Reply Like
  • KMI,

    Do you have reading comprehension problem?

    Unlike others posting BS, I said Obama deserves credit, not just Bush.

    However, you failed to address my hypothetical question.


    How would they (Both the Media & the Bush Haters) have treated Bush, if he had Bin Laden shot and killed on sight without due process as was given to Saddam Hussein?
    14 Jul 2011, 07:03 PM Reply Like
  • So no go on the OBL thing, but we're still game to give bush credit when anything negative pops up. correct?
    14 Jul 2011, 07:16 PM Reply Like
  • I'll respond XLS.

    Bush the Minor like his predecessor was responsible for frequent overreaching of authority (bush's war funded without a dollar of the normal budgetary process, and clinton's fast track trade deals are example). He was able to as long as the war was popular. When attitudes shifted near the end of his presidency, nothing he did as approved or appreciated by the public, including trade deals to this day on the table and still not passed.

    So my answer is, if he nailed him fast and early in his presidency, he would have been treated to love and adoration, if he did it late in his presidency he would have been attacked and bedeviled.

    By the way, I am a big fan of both Clinton and Obama regardless of both's failures. Bush's stint as leader of the US was an unacceptable failure every which way you look at it, and god help us had we ended up with McCain/Palin in the White House.
    14 Jul 2011, 07:21 PM Reply Like
  • kmi said:
    "By the way, I am a big fan of both Clinton and Obama regardless of both's failures."

    I'm shocked. I never saw that coming.
    14 Jul 2011, 07:29 PM Reply Like
  • Cinncinatus, that's a joke right?

    So, the CIA operates in the dark without any input from anywhere right?

    They lead and where they go no one knows right?

    I read the books too sport, and the lead always comes from above, in our case, the President.

    It's this simple, in the same way Jobs is the guy responsible for the iPad while not having written a line of code, Obama is the guy responsible for nailing Bin Laden, even while he never pulled the trigger.

    I'm done here, you psychopaths are typical internet 'last worders' who need to have the final say on things, so I leave the floor open, go ahead, have the last word.
    14 Jul 2011, 07:31 PM Reply Like
  • The only thing good in Clinton's term was when he was finally triangulated in '94 by Newt's boys, then the bond bullies forced him to shrink the govt's balance sheet. Before any of that he was as identical as the Kenyan, Hillaryscare & gaze-in-duh-mill-uhtarri then he got stuck in a chair, arms behind his back and duct tape put over his mouth. Only two years of the Yeehaw before the rest of his presidency was lame duck as the responsible cost cutters ensured we had fiscal sanity again.

    Heefus Corndog McCheese was thereafter a game show host mascot who did speeches and spunked up the Oval Office with the occasional ham-n-cheese sploshuns.

    Hopefully we can get another super run, but it will only happen if we can get fiscal cons in there once again to cut the ridiculous spending of Big Bro & its Keynesian drug addiction.

    I don't care what clown's in charge as long as they check Big Bro into a clinic for rehab.
    14 Jul 2011, 07:43 PM Reply Like
  • The correct terminology would be not that Bush was above Obama, but that he was previous to Obama and he set the path and Obama followed it. Obama didn't really have a choice having no ideas of his own.

    And you were actually done quite some time ago - you just are the last to figure it out.
    14 Jul 2011, 07:49 PM Reply Like
  • The "Economic Success" of the Clinton ERA was largely the result of $18 per barrel oil as a result of the previous most successful and inexpensive war in the history of the United States, orchestrated by his predecessor.

    About $25 per citizen.
    14 Jul 2011, 07:50 PM Reply Like
  • Tigerscam,

    Sorry, Obama was not there.
    13 Jul 2011, 05:04 PM Reply Like
  • Only thing I remember Jr Bush was in the classroom when planes were hitting our towers. He looked like lost monkey in the forest.
    13 Jul 2011, 07:19 PM Reply Like
  • Never argue with the people whose brains are impervious to facts and empirical data. Even on the internets.
    13 Jul 2011, 06:06 PM Reply Like
  • thwart a man's sense of racial superiority, and you will meet a desperate and bitter being.

    the talk of obama the kenyan and what not would be funny if it did not evoke a sense of pity for these little men.
    14 Jul 2011, 02:41 PM Reply Like
  • Sounds to me that you're a fan of Obama, based on racial pity, or perhaps guilt.
    14 Jul 2011, 06:37 PM Reply Like
  • No, I have pity and total contempt for the racists on this board spouting off incredible amount of nonsense against Obama. Any decent person should.
    15 Jul 2011, 01:31 AM Reply Like
  • Varan,

    You are in fact, part of the problem.

    Accusing people of being racist for disagreeing with Obama's Policies.

    You are the one that is racist.
    15 Jul 2011, 01:43 AM Reply Like
  • Yeah, to call him a tan Rambo is just a minor disagreement with his policies.


    Forget it. I have no desire to engage with vermin.
    15 Jul 2011, 02:13 AM Reply Like
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