Even pre-March Basketball was better than the SOTU

I guess the SOTU speech was pretty tough to stomach. That’s why I didn’t watch. I was with several Purdue fans watching The Ohio State Buckeyes lay one heinous @$$whippin on the Boilermakers.


But the sense I got of the reaction was pretty much what I expected as outlined in the post under. Pudgy, pasty faced, Pissy Mathews and the MessNBC crowd went nuts for P-BO all wishing that they could have been there to throw rose peddles at his feet as he exited the chamber. People with brains were a bit more skeptical.

I heard Sarah Palin on Greta last night. Palin shortened P-OB’s signature line of “win the future” to WTF. She went on to say that were a lot of WTF lines in P-BO’s speech. No doubt she will be faced with charges of ruining the new tone for her bit of double humor.

First, WTF moment in my opinion was the glorious reference to China. I thought Thomas L. my head is flat Friedman was channeling the president. When will these Red Chinese loving dopes get the big picture? What they seem to admire about China is that the central planners can tell the people what is going to happen and there is no descent. I saw a picture of a dam the Chinese were building for hydro electric power. The project made Hoover Dam look like the piles of leaves we used push into place in the street gutter with our foot to slow the progress of the water. There is no way the EPA and a myriad of other government agencies would ever allow such a dam to built in the US.

Inexplicably P-BO compares our education system to the Chinese and S. Korean models, and he calls it our Sputnik moment. WTF? In 1983 the Reagan administration published a report on American education titled A Nation at Risk. That report contained this famous passage:

“The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."

Now P-BO thinks has stumbled upon something. WTF? Government is not the answer to the problem. Government is the problem. Here’s what the 1983 report purposed:

• Content: "4 years of English; (b) 12 years of mathematics; (c) 3 years of science; (d) 3 years of social studies; and (e) one-half year of computer science" for high school students." The commission also recommends that students work toward proficiency in a foreign language starting in the elementary grades.

• Standards and Expectations: the commission cautioned against grade inflation and recommends that four-year colleges raise admissions standards and standardized tests of achievement at "major transition points from one level of schooling to another and particularly from high school to college or work."

• Time: the commission recommended that "school districts and State legislatures should strongly consider 7-hour school days, as well as a 200- to 220-day school year."

• Teaching: the commission recommended that salaries for teachers be "professionally competitive, market-sensitive, and performance-based," and that teachers demonstrate "competence in an academic discipline."

• Leadership and Fiscal Support: the commission noted that the Federal government plays an essential role in helping "meet the needs of key groups of students such as the gifted and talented, the socioeconomically disadvantaged, minority and language minority students, and the handicapped." The commission also noted that the Federal government also must help ensure compliance with "constitutional and civil rights," and "provide student financial assistance and research and graduate training."

Instead of taking any of these recommendations seriously, one congress and president after another has thrown money at a problem that has a lot more to do with administration than dollars. It doesn’t cost anything to drop the class on diversity and condom distribution in favor of one on math or language skill.

Now P-BO stands up and says we have a problem with competiveness, which he links to education, while heading up the party that stands for road blocking any meaningful educational reform. WTF? I cannot believe how the MSM heaps great praise on this guy for how smart he is. WTF? Take away the teleprompter and scripted moments and this is a guy who thinks there are 57 states and pronounces corps as corpse.

To the extent that P-BO wants longer school days and school years it’s not so much to emulate china or enact one of the recommendations from the report sited above. It is to throw a bone to the teacher’s unions and keep children in state controlled environment longer. I would not support such a move until the teacher’s unions go the way of the air traffic controllers union.