[poorgradstudent]

Gary Johnson = Ron Paul – teh Crazy

If it was Johnson vs. Obama I’d have to give Johnson a long hard look. He’s a centrist on a lot of issues, he doesn’t pander to the religious right, he believes in science. I don’t agree with 100% of his positions, but he doesn’t get the auto DQ that Romney/Gingrich/Santorum/Paul do for advocating blurring the line between Church and State. I hope Johnson pulls a decent percentage of the vote in the general.

[poorgradstudent]

School rankings are always goofy. It’s like college or pro sports rankings, except schools don’t actually play games against each other and rankings can shift a lot depending what you put a premium on. Five teams could take the same data and come up with five quite different sets of rankings.

As for flu’s comment on “wasting resources”, I don’t think it costs the district that much more to have 200 vs. 50 students all take the same AP test. The material covered in AP vs. non-AP Calculus isn’t that different, although in AP you might try to cram a couple topics into the last week or so if the class is behind schedule while non-AP might focus more on mastering what is possible and leaving it at that. I could be wrong about costs associated with pushing middle of the road students to take AP tests.

I’m a pretty firm believer that for the vast majority of students, the difference between a good vs. “great” school is pretty small. There’s a huge downside to going to a bad school. Of course, as I’ve stressed before, I have a friend who teaches at Lincoln, and I would imagine if you took her students and traded them with San Marcos students, their scores wouldn’t shift drastically. That doesn’t mean I want my kids going to Lincoln; there are obvious social issues and potential distractions of attending a school with a large number of under motivated pupils.

Anyways, good for San Marcos. Clearly they are at least doing some things right.

[poorgradstudent]

Bottom line, a big part of why California has such “Budget Problems” is the Federal Government takes from California and gives to sparsely populated, historically Republican states like Mississippi, who then complain about the size of the Federal Government.

[poorgradstudent]

Sell in May and go away?

[poorgradstudent]

Considering I’ve been out of grad school for over two years now and am not quite so poor, I really need a new moniker. Is “Dr. Paul” for sale? 😉

[poorgradstudent]

My feeling is it is reasonable for you to want your own representation for the transaction. The seller’s agent who showed you the property will still get paid, so it’s not like you had him show you around town only to have you switch to another agent at the last minute.

Really, there’s no downside to finding your own agent. Be upfront with the new agent that you have been shown homes by the seller’s agent, but my guess is they aren’t going to turn you away.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=markmax33]Did you want something safe an effective or did you want the FDA? There are private label certs on meats all the time. You did notice the $450M Medicare scandal didn’t you? The GOV is much less efficient than the free market. It is proven every day in the news.[/quote]
You haven’t read The Jungle, have you?

There are things Government always is more efficient at: National Defense and Highways are two obvious examples. There are things the private sector does extremely well. Working in biotech I can tell you that drug discovery doesn’t work without both government and free market factors in play. The free market is great at bringing products to market and making them affordable to the mass market. But overall the free market is TERRIBLE at swing-for-the-fences, so crazy it just might work ideas. The very internet we are using would not really exist without government help. Otherwise we’d probably have a patchwork of AOL/Compuserve type networks and company intranets; think mid to late 90s.

History has clearly shown regulated free markets work best of all. Blanket statements about free market or government always being better are at best overly simplistic and at worst ignorant.

[poorgradstudent]

My biggest concern about prostitution is it encourages kidnapping and trafficking. For every unemployed college grad who turns a few tricks to make the rent while seeking a real job, there are probably dozens if not hundreds of girls forced into prostitution against their will, many while underage. It’s an issue where the idealist in me (adults should be allowed to engage in whatever consensual transactions they like) disagrees with the pragmatist in me. Of course, perhaps decriminalization and regulation would help with trafficking. I’m pretty sure the Bunny Ranch doesn’t employ any underage, under duress women. But minimally I would want any decriminalization to get rid of those damn card flickers who line the Strip in Las Vegas. I hate those people.

[poorgradstudent]

The Padres now have a .320 win percentage, and thus are still doing better than Ron Paul.

[poorgradstudent]

Haha, apparently the worst part of CISPA was an amendment from none other than Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.). It’s interesting and odd to me that SOPA was backed by Dems while CISPA is a Republican creation.

It sounds like the Democratically controlled Senate is either going to kill CISPA or strip it of the crazier language and send it back to the house. The Obama administration has also hinted it will veto the current CISPA bill.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=flu]I’d like to see the numbers before and after taxes. I’d say a majority of the folks in the 90-99% category end up much lower after bending over…[/quote]
Probably about 20% lower? Of course, then you’d have to factor after taxes in for everyone. Rich people don’t pay THAT much more in taxes than the middle class. Especially if they have investment/dividend income, like Mitt Romney, who paid a lower tax rate than I did last year.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=poorgradstudent]The 7-17 Padres are racking up wins. [/quote]

And no doubt Republican nominee Ron Paul will be throwing the ceremonial opening pitch at their first World Series game this October.[/quote]
Actually, hasn’t Ron Paul already WON the World Series this year? I mean, it’s pretty much in the bag for him based on trends.

[poorgradstudent]

The 7-17 Padres are racking up wins. They beat San Francisco on Friday. Pay no mind to all their losses.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=briansd1]To tie this story to real estate, the Homeowners Association was clearly negligent in allowing a vigilante to act as its security agent.
http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/20120404_trayvonmartin.htm%5B/quote%5D
I’m skeptical they would actually be found negligent, but I’ll admit I don’t have a law degree, and am not familiar with Florida law. I agree with the linked article they’ll probably have to spend a pretty penny defending themselves from a civil suit, but it doesn’t seem remotely like a slam dunk case.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=briansd1]Back to Zimmerman.

The more I read about this case, and ignoring all the sensational national news, the more I think it stinks.

I believe that after Zimmerman killed Martin, he phoned call to his dad, a retired judge (that’s what I would do in that situation). The dad, the judge who understand the criminal system, then started to work overtime to protect his son.

We shall see if the phone records become public.

And we shall see from the phone records if Trayvon Martin was indeed talking to his girlfriend when he was killed.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/12/justice/florida-teen-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_c1%5B/quote%5D
Bottom line, I’m glad there will be a trial. Whatever the verdict, this is clearly a situation where it was appropriate for charges to be filed and the legal process to occur.

Ultimately, I think it’s going to come down to a question of if the Jury accepts that Stand Your Ground can be applied to a case where the person claiming self defense followed the person killed.

[Author]

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