Category Archives: What? Are They Nuts?

Guest Post: Fanny calls Challenger Challenge Challenging

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The Messenger reported yesterday that Missisquoi Valley Union High School students may get “the opportunity to send probes into Jupiter’s atmosphere and look for signs of life in the water beneath the ice on Jupiter’s frozen moon Europa” if the school can get funding for a Challenger Center for Space Science Education.

That is an exceptional opportunity. I hope it can happen but we need much more to make the experience fair and equitable.

Two simulators form the heart of the center, one at NASA and one at the International Space Station. The Learning Center simulators duplicate the mission control experience to give students the same audio and visual information the NASA scientists and engineers use. Students prepare for their missions with curricula designed in conjunction with NASA.

Students also work in teams to solve mission problems such as designing space probes, analyzing data, and calculating the maneuvers and trajectories for their space ship.

The Challenger Center for Space Science Education is an international organization founded by the families of the Space Shuttle astronauts who were killed on mission STS-51-L. Their charge is to kindle an interest and joy in science in young people.There are currently 45 Challenger Learning Centers spread across the United States from Kenai, Alaska, to Hazard, Kentucky, to Wheeling, West Virginia.

A new building to house the center will cost around $3.1 million but the center might use an existing building for a total cost including the simulator office equipment, parking lot expansion, and other expenses of about $1.5 million. The simulator costs $825,000 plus another $10,000 to ship it to Vermont. Gov. Jim Douglas has included the proposal in the state application for federal Race to the Top education funds.

President Obama announced his plans to continue the Race to the Top grant program this year as a part of the Democratic Congress’ G.R.A.F.T. Act spending. Race to the Top winners will develop and showcase school reform concepts or pilot programs and “provide examples for States and local school districts throughout the country to follow … that can transform our schools for decades to come.” Overall, $4 billion will be awarded in two Phases with an estimated Range of Awards of $20 million-$700 million. Vermont is in Category 5 and is most likely to receive $20-75 million.

That is an exceptional opportunity for some 1,112 Vermont students at MVU but only one Vermont school can possibly receive this center and that limits the opportunities for the 89,739 other students. That’s bad for the kids and bad for the state.

After all, the Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1997, known here as “Act 60,” makes “educational opportunity available to each pupil in each town on substantially equal terms, in accordance with the Vermont Constitution and the Vermont supreme court decision of February 5, 1997, Brigham v. State of Vermont.”

Kids in one school district like MVU are restricted from getting anything kids in the other district cannot have.

The State will either have to arrange for a Challenger Learning Center in every school district or forego the Center at MVU.

—Nola “Fanny” Guay

Is it even possible that Vermonters would deny a school this specialized occasion to excel, particularly in science and mathematics? See the Liberislam series for Dick’s response.

Change We Can Believe In!

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The ups and downs of the decade. We made a bunch of great closeout deals but this column has room for only a few. Here are the top nine of 2009:

The downside: We may not have changed many of the Old Guard of pols but we surely did change how they do business inside the Beltway. They no longer throw billions of We the OverTaxedPeople’s dollars at problems.
The upside: Now they throw trillions.

Hoo wee. That’s change we can believe in!

The downside: President Obama (praise be his name) stole General Motors from its rightful owners (that would be small stockholders like thee and me) and put Ed “I Came from the Phone Company So I Don’t Know Anything about Cars” Whitacre in charge.
The upside: Thanks to the soybean lobby, your new Chevy Condescension will be the first model to come with tofubags instead of the dangerous and expensive airbags as well as the new OnStar-by-AT&T. Rumors that OnStar service will also be available on your iPhone have not proven out.

The downside: Democrats were appalled when President Obama nominated Senator Judd Gregg, R-NH, as his Secretary of Commerce. The U.S. Department of Commerce fosters, promotes, and develops business and industry. Democrats called Senator Gregg “too pro-business.”
The upside: Caroline Cartwright of Great Britain was arrested for noise levels that ranged between 30 and 40 decibels, with some squeaks “being 47 decibels” during sex. Bird calls are generally 44 dB.

The downside: Congress passed without reading a $787 billion “stimulus package” that, instead of stimulating We the OverTaxedPeople who provided the money, all went for swine flu shots to bankers. Vermont had a looming two hundred million dollar budget deficit so the Democratically controlled legislature there decided to spend three hundred million dollars of its portion of that G.R.A.F.T. Act windfall to “stabilize” its budget. Since that wasn’t enough, the Democratically controlled legislature also raised taxes by $24 million dollars in order to make up for the revenue shortfall.
The upside: The Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize posthumously to Michael Jackson.

The downside: The Environmental Protection Agency ruled that political science trumps actual science as a danger to human health and to the environment.
The upside: Millions of people flocked to Al Gore’s house in the Belle Meade neighborhood of Nashville where his Christmas decorationsand the upturned smiling faces were photographed from the International Space Station.

The downside: Just two years ago, world leaders of 193 countries pledged to reverse the course of climate change in Denmark this year. When the hot air cleared in Copenhagen this month, there were two inches of snow on the ground, two pounds of faked “global warming” emails, and $200 billion dollars in a Global Relief fund. Guess who they want to pick up the tab?
The upside: Each world leader flew to Denmark in one or more private airliners thus reducing the worldwide surplus of Jet A and Jet A-1 petroleum-based fuels.

The downside: In a strange coincidence, the International Olympic Committee also meeting in Copenhagen voted not to award the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago for fear that a fire in former Governor Rod Blagojevich’s hair might undermine the new “pay to play” Olympic game category.
The upside: The one billion dollar Cash for Clunkers program which cost three billion dollars left an estimated 643,000 1974 Ford Pintos on Illinois and Michigan highways as entry level vehicles for migrant farmers and high school students.

The downside: The Environmental Protection Agency said it will increase the percentage of ethanol in gasoline to 15% by next June. Ethanol producers and most newspapers say the higher blends will increase fuel economy, create more jobs in the industry, and increase government payments to ethanol producers by $787 billion.
The upside: The Social Security Administration announced that since Congress will lock fuel prices at $4.599 per gallon through 2012, the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) can remain fixed at 0% for the same period.

The downside: The U.S. economy has shed 15.4 million or more jobs including those once held by Rufus, Biff, and my wife, Anne.
The upside: The $787 billion “stimulus package” has created an estimated 643,000 brand new jobs (roughly identical to the number of saved 1974 Ford Pintos). All the new employees are dedicated to maintaining the White House website that tracks new jobs.

We have, as a nation, spent the entire decade unwilling to learn from our mistakes. Change We Can Believe In! certainly changed all of that and we are this >||< close to ObamaCare to prove it.

You can’t make this stuff up. Happy New Decade, everyone!

Party Hearty

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The Federal Aviation Administration has set stiff airline fines for those hours-long waits on the tarmac some airlines “give” their passengers. Carriers that do not provide food and water after two hours or a chance to disembark after three hours will face penalties of $27,500 per passenger.

I have sat waiting to take off for half an hour or so but luckily have never been held that long. Of course, the two hour break for bread and water will guarantee a need for the three hour break to pee.

I’m thinking it would have been smarter just to give the money for a single, 200 passenger junket on the tarmac to the passengers than to spend it for a great drinking party in Atlanta.

Dick Sizing Contest

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My old friend Lido (“Lee”) Bruhl is a true believer in ObaMathematics-1-. “We never made any claim to fiscal responsibility, as your Republicans keep doing,” he said this morning after he praised the Senate Health Bill. “The Republicans left the largest deficit ever, even allowing for two wars in progress.”

That has so many holes, I just don’t know where to drive my 18-wheeler first.

Fiscal responsibility. “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future.” Must have been a famous Republican president who said that.

“My” Republicans: Heh. I have retracted the Goofy vote. I keep trying to join the Librarian party. Unfortunately, they all want to shush me.

Deficits: Deficits are not a dick-sizing contest.

Warning: the following couple of paragraphs include actual fact and even two definitions about counting on your fingers.

The annual “Deficit” is simply the difference between government receipts and government spending.

The ongoing “National Debt” is the total cash money the federal government (that’s We the People) owes to the people and businesses and countries from whom the federal government has borrowed. The government “sells” Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds and Savings Bonds, and more to our lenders. About 25% of the total national debt was held by foreign governments in 2007. Mainland China holds about $800 billion in addition to the $1.4 trillion cumulative trade imbalance. Each and every one of us We the Peoples owes about $30,400 on the national debt right now. Each. Cash money.

“George Bush left the largest deficit ever,” Lee repeated.

That’s simple obfuscation. There is no deficit “carryover.” The real issue is the national debt.

The United States has been a debtor nation since 1776. We borrowed money to finance the Revolution before we were even really a country. National debt varied through most of the 19th century and began a steady growth about 1910. F.D.R. and Harry Truman had Depression-era social programs plus World War II to pay for. They borrowed to do so. On average, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter grew the debt through 1980 at about the rate of inflation. In actual dollars, the national debt quadrupled under Reagan and George H. W. Bush and about doubled under George W. Bush although his early budget surpluses did decrease the debt from 2000-2002; it began to climb again with post 9-11 spending.

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A more telling piece of data than the billions of debt dollars is how that debt compares to how much we actually make.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures how much all the goods and services we make sell for in a year.

Let’s compare how the national debt rose against how the GDP rose.

By 1940, F.D.R.’s spending programs had raised the debt to more than 50% of GDP. Eisenhower inherited a debt over 90% of GDP but gave a debt of 56% of GDP to J.F.K. The debt hovered in the 30% range through about 1980 as the go-go economy grew. It was back over 50% of GDP by 1990 and 58% when G.W.B took office in 2000. Bush spending made half the new bump but the tanking economy and real GDP contraction made the debt jump from 65% to 70% by 2008. Now, after a year of ObaMathematics and a flat economy, the national debt is about 90% of GDP.

The 2010 ObaMathematics Budget will bump the debt another 10% to about 100% of GDP. It will remain there as long as real GDP growth (after inflation) actually happens. Since the consensus estimates from most analysts show much smaller growth in GDP, the debt will actually soar past 100% as ObaSpending continues. The CBO projects the debt to double again (to $20 trillion) by 2015. Other estimates take it higher.

Only one American President, Andrew Jackson, ever dropped the national debt to zero. That was on January 8, 1835. Every other president of every political persuasion has increased it.

“I guess you would rather have McCain who would have been amazing on international affairs, but even he admitted he had no ideas or platform for domestic recovery?” Lee said.

Under the circumstances, when the economic “recovery” programs created with ObaMathematics have created somewhere just south of zero new jobs and will run up the debt service We the People must pay to $700 billion per year (seven hundred billion dollars), “no ideas” for domestic recovery sounds like a pretty good idea. Or at least a cheaper one.

We should always choose a President who does nothing over one who does everything wrong.

-1-ObaMathematics is a combined arithmetic system in which “2 + 2 = 47,208” for very large values of 2 and after borrowing from the “4.”

Flu Banks

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Wall Street bankers got yet another bonus thanks to the U.S. Government. Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and others received thousands of H1N1 vaccine doses ahead of doctors, hospitals, and senior centers.

CDC Director Thomas Frieden is now urging health officials nationwide to make sure the vaccine goes only to high-risk groups.

So. Is this is the G.R.A.F.T. Act or ObamaCare in action?