Category: Rant

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Texas Comptroller Cutting 12000 Elementary Teachers?!

Update 01/13/2011:

Someone from my area e-mailed her directly for clarification and here’s her answer:

January 11, 2011

Mr. ******

Dear Mr. *****:

Thank you for your message concerning our recent Financial Allocation Study for Texas (FAST) report.

The education of Texas school children is among the state’s highest priorities. The recommendations in the FAST report are intended to provide school districts with options to manage their budgets during these difficult times.

The FAST report does not recommend firing Texas teachers; the report recommends replacing the current 22-students-per-classroom cap in grades K-4 with a requirement that districts maintain an average of 22 students per teacher for those grade levels. In practice, this would give school districts the flexibility to have slightly more than 22 students in a particular class as long as it was offset by a classroom with fewer than 22 students. In this way, districts could determine student class size based on the needs of their particular students and district rather than a state-set mandate.

To read a detailed description of our recommendation to allow school districts to maintain an average of 22 students per teacher, please see Page 31 of the FAST Appendix, which can be found at www.fastexas.org/study.

In addition, we have recommended a study of the growth in school district administrative positions. Reducing growth of these positions could result in increased resources for teachers. Please see Page 32 of the FAST Appendix for more information on this recommendation.

Legislative action would be required to adopt any of these recommendations, which may be discussed in the 82nd Legislature convening Jan. 11. If you would like to contact your state legislators concerning education policy, you can find their contact information at www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us.

We hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely,

Susan Combs

Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts

So if the above e-mail is indeed true (and it starts at page 30, not 32), then I would like to do the decent thing by retracting my anger towards the Comptroller.  I guess I will not read from The Dallas Morning News anymore.

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As I am about to go to sleep, I come across this disturbing news that the newly elected Texas comptroller is planning to cut 12,000 elementary school teachers to save $500 million! What the %23@#!$!$

Of all the stupid things to do to save money, you cut education?! Cut your own salary first! Even more infuriating is the fact that I see this on her website!

Combs

I added the red circle to point out that she promised two things she’s breaking as we speak! What kind of baloney is this?! How is she FOR education by destroying the basic foundation of the education: elementary schools?! Kids first get exposed to school through this system and I can’t see any of my kids being happy to hear that their teachers may not return next year!

I am soo mad right now! I hope people take notice and address this!

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Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen: Is Toyota the new GM/Ford from the ’60s/’70s?!

If you haven’t been watching news lately, Toyota has announced the biggest, if not one of the biggest, recalls on vehicles… EVER!  Evidently it’s a pedal that seems to get stuck.  It has already claimed lives… and its luxury sibling, Lexus isn’t immune to this defect either.

Picture courtesy of NY Times

According to the NY Times article, four people died in a tragic accident that shouldn’t have happened in last August in a Lexus ES 350!  How the hell does this kind of stuff happen?!  Well, from my sociology class from yonder years in college at WPI, I am reminded of the ethics falling behind the curtains of schedules and costs.  Ford & GM had similar safety issues but with gas fuel tanks in the ’60s and the ’70s.

Back then, I thought Ford and GM had made one of the worst choices by choosing not to recall the cars and leave it to statistics and chance and paying out lawsuits rather than spending millions in repairing the dangerous defects.  I still hesitate because such an inherently terrible oversight makes a consumer think twice and buying such product.  Only recently (since 2005) have I actually thought that Ford has come a long way and made the cars actually decent and safe.  So in essence, it has taken about 30 to 40 years to erase the reputation damage that were burned into the minds of the consumers.

So I was rather shocked and disappointed to find out that Toyota has been so slow in doing something about this recall and dealing with its defects!  It applies to millions of cars including the best-selling Camry!  When you choose money over people, you are telling the consumers that you don’t care about us and only care about money.  Well, that will always be true to certain degree because of the nature of for-profit companies.  However, if you look at things in long-term perspective, you think Toyota would have learned from the lessons of Ford and GM.  Come on!  Toyota is repeating history!

Today’s headline in Business Weekly shows that their decision to recall and repair was too slow.  Trying to hide it or ignore it (or whatever they call it) is definitely the worst business AND ethical decision they have made EVER!!!

I will say this… Toyota, welcome to my black list.  I will buy your cars in maybe 30 years or so… when that terrible stigma of poor decision making process wears off from me, your typical consumer.  Sheesh…  Just the picture of this Pinto makes me shriek and reminds me of some of the terrible decisions made from the past…

Courtesy of Motherjones.com

UPDATE: Now, though fixed somewhat more or less, 2010 Prius have had some brake issues as Toyota admits its problems.  Like I said in the last comment, Toyota is at best becoming like Sony, just big in its head and riding on its popularity.

UPDATE 2: This lady was driving a ’07 Tundra pickup….

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Democrats (and Republicans) and Prejudice

If you had asked me which political party I belong to about 10 years ago, I’d have said Republican w/o a doubt.  However, since then, I have had my share of doubts about the party and have now become a moderate.  But don’t party now just because you are a democrat.  I still have bones to pick with you yet.

You see, 10 years ago, I’d have said that it is just the republicans that are prejudiced.  Against everything and everyone.  Be the issues of abortion or gay rights or death penalty or “War against Terror”, I’d definitely agree with you on that the Republicans are prejudiced.  However, it seems that the Democrats are not that different.  You see, among my list of friends, many who are younger tend to be democrats.  However, I was just as surprised to find out that they are still prejudiced against me.

For what you ask?  Simply for being me.  I’m going to be taking lots of flak for this, I’m sure.  What I mean is that my democratic friends are prejudiced against things that are not cool.  Take Star Trek for example.  During our retreat, the speaker used the Star Trek reference and she misused the reference to which she meant “Starfleet Academy”.  Upon my correction, slew of people reacted as if it’s a taboo.  So it’s a crime to be a geek and a nerd?

I am a die-hard PC gamer.  And people ridicule me for being one.  They use lines like “Why don’t you grow up?”  So picking up other expensive habits are better?  And take sports as another example.  In my 2 cents worth of opinion, sports is a waste of time unless you are playing it.  So my not watching it becomes another point of ridicule.  I can go on and on.

My point is thus a simple one.  Prejudice runs in both republicans and democrats.  I wish everyone would stop using it as an excuse.  Just for being different, it is a (bad) human nature to pick on someone else, be it color of skin, economic status, political status, how nerdy you are, or if you suck at sports and make them look bad so that you look better.  Just admit it.  We all should belong to “Prejudiced Anonymous” and we all need to repent of it…  I know I do.

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No Tech Gadgets for My Kids

Gizmodo Article

Gizmodo reported that 1/3 of 11-year-olds in the US own a cell phone!!  What kind of crazy world is this?!  Sure technology has advanced but I for one do NOT plan on introducing/indulging my kids in tech stuff, be it cell phones or Nintendo DS.

We try to limit the amount of TV that the kids watch.  Heck, we stopped showing them Bakugan TV shows after it seemed to make them more agitated and rude!  Video games?  As much as I love them, I don’t plan on introducing them to DS or Wii until they are well over 10 years old!

Why?  Can you say ADD?!  I blame much of TV and all these tech gadgets and toys for making our children lose focus and develop very short attention span!  Heck, it seems to affect even us adults!  I think playing with old school but proven stuff like Lego and reading is better way to go…

Even the TV commercials don’t help.  So we minimize on these 30-second-slot ADD-inducing hysteria.

Since not watching Bakugan, my kids’ sense of aggression has decreased significantly.  I kid you not.  They have difficult time as it is staying focused so I don’t need other gadgets to detract them from focusing.  Learning to do one thing for a long time seems to be a lost art.  In my mind, that’s a danger to our society.  Being able to dedicate to one needed activity for an extended period of time is a must in my opinion.

Do I seem a bit extreme?  I was concerned about that at first but don’t care anymore.  I am focusing on my kids’ long-term development.  What say you, other parents and teachers?  Am I really that crazy?!

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Chrysler Burning the Bridges

CNN Money Article

It’s one thing to cut your losses but it’s totally another to burn the bridges in the process.  I swear that when financial folks are involved, they take the humanity out of the process!  So we all knew that GM, Ford, and Chrysler were planning on cutting off a slew of dealerships throughout the country but there’s a right way to do it and then there’s a wrong way.

GM did things decently at least.  They gave out the notice in October and gave them decent amount of time to close out their stores.  Chrysler, however, have been less than helpful.  They gave only 30 days to sell off the cars and parts!  Many that were told to close ended up losing a lot of money due to time constraint.

GM seemed to go through arbitration process at decent pace bringing back some of the dealerships.  Chrysler however made the process expensive and with no guarantees that dealers that were shut down seemed to refuse to even consider the arbitration.

Where’s the decency in that Chrysler?!  Chrysler is not learning.  They don’t seem to realize that bad news travels way faster than good news.  Now that the people know how Chrysler treated the dealerships by burning the bridges, I am fairly certain that the consumers will have even more bitter taste in their mouth and stay further away from them when their pockets and auto needs meet.  Seriously, nobody seems to look at long-term effects anymore…  Sheesh…

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Soda Tax a Possibility

NPR Article

Why didn’t we think of this before?!  Government is thinking about and planning on taxing soda.  Soda is mostly sugar water.  And it’s one of the leading reasons why the Americans are so dang unhealthy, and the contributor to America’s health insurance cost.

It’s so simple.  Tax soda to let people know that you are paying extra because it’s known to make you unhealthy.  We do it to cigarettes and alcohol.  Why not soda?!  Heck, why stop there?  Tax other stuff like cakes and cookies!!  Ok, ok… some of you are probably freaking out.  But seriously, we are the fattiest country (by far) in the world!  We consume way more food than the rest of the world.  We need to be less selfish and strive for change.

As prices for such unhealthy products go up, perhaps it will wake us up to smell the coffee and strive for healthier lives… and lower the nation-wide healthcare cost.  \

Now my favorite sodas of Coca Cola (none of that Pepsi crap please) and Sweppe’s Ginger Ale will cost me more and will prevent me from drinking so much!  Actually, I have pretty much stopped drinking soda altogether.  I drink perhaps about 1 serving of soda per week or two.  Let’s do it America!

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Sick sick world – Murder of a Couple

CNN News

What in the world is coming to?!!  In Florida recently, a couple was killed.  It would’ve been another killing except that this one is a crying shame… dang shame, really.  You see, this couple took in about 14 special-need children!

I am sooo mad!  I sure hope those 8 people get more than what they deserve!  Who’s gonna take care of these kids now?!  It’s a sad sad day…