Even Pelosi’s own party started telling leadership they had gone way too far with the assembled list of nonsense legislation. The speaker recognized if she did not quickly make a tactical retreat her party would be crushed by exposure of the brazen politics they were attempting. The reach was so extreme, the media could not protect her.
In an effort to save a horrid face, the speaker was forced to blitz the media alone while all other house members watched to see how she could recover.
The New York Times changed their Sunday headline three times, starting correctly with “Democrats Block Action On $1.8 Trillion Stimulus,” then shifting the truth to “Democrats Block Action On Stimulus Plan, Seeking Worker Protections,” and finally editing the headline to pure farce with “Partisan Divide Threatens Deal On Rescue Bill.”
Ah the days of her youth when all those pesky normal people couldn’t look over a bill and spread the word on social media to the point where the press couldn’t ignore it. The days when a president of the other party couldn’t use social media to fight back.
This is not about the ridiculous Green New Deal. It is about putting our great workers and companies BACK TO WORK!
This may in fact be the day that Nancy Pelosi cost the Democrats the house by going along with nonsense that she likely would have gotten away with if it was still 1987 when she was 1st elected. One might wonder how a seasoned pro like her would have made such a mistake, and the only answer that keeps coming to mind is this quote from Stonewall Jackson:
“He who does not see the hand of God in this is blind sir, blind.”
SHREVEPORT – Finally, yesterday afternoon, Louisiana
Governor John Bel Edwards issued a “stay at home” order across the state. All “non-essential”
businesses are shut down; restaurants are still open for curbside pickup and
delivery, you can still take your dog to the vet, and liquor stores are open.
So, not much has changed under this order from what has been
happening all week.
Louisiana has the fastest growth rate of confirmed cases in the world, Edwards said, citing a University of Louisiana at Lafayette study. Louisiana ranks third in the nation — behind New York and Washington State — in per capita cases of people infected with the deadly novel coronavirus. The growth trajectory shows Louisiana increasing its confirmed cases on the same steep angle as Italy and Spain, where the virus has become exceptionally widespread.
It is not likely to improve for a while as there are still far
too many people that don’t appear to comprehend the gravity of what is
happening.
Sunday, in East Baton Rouge parish, The Life Tabernacle
Church hosted
over 1,800 people at their Sunday morning service. Pastor Tony Spell said “if
anyone in his congregation contracts covid-19 he will heal them through God.”
If anyone still doubts the severity of this virus, take a
look at a
viral Facebook post by Chicago resident Michael Bane. He describes the progression of COVID-19 as it
has attacked him after a “brief encounter” with someone who later tested
positive for the virus. Bane wanted to put “a human face” on the virus and
stress to people the importance of staying home.
The numbers in Louisiana continue to climb and as I write
this, there is plenty of traffic I can still see outside my window. Our
shut-down order doesn’t take effect until 5:00 p.m., and grocery stores (which
will remain open) are packed with people clearing the shelves of whatever
staples remain. As with much of the country, there has been no toilet paper,
hand sanitizer, rice, dried beans, or bread for at least two weeks. If you
catch it right, you can get milk or meat as stockers work frantically to keep
shelves stocked.
On the plus side, random acts of kindness are on the uptick.
One of my neighbors left a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread on my porch
yesterday. Neighborhoods are pulling together to support one another, and
people are getting creative in keeping the little ones entertained. One
activity I saw yesterday was a “bear hunt,” where neighbors put a stuffed bear
in their windows for kids to spot, or find, on walks with their parents.
I’m counting my blessings right now and staying inside.
Stay safe wherever you are, stay home, and wash your hands!
Let’s be honest, nobody’s kid is this excited over Kahn Academy! Techno Source introduces Kurio Xtreme-the Ultimate Android Tablet Built for Kids–designed for extreme play and the safest online experience. Featuring a faster Intel(C) Atom(TM) processor, Bluetooth technology and 24/7 customer support right from the tablet, Xtreme comes with $300+ of kid-safe content, including exclusive Kurio Motion body-controlled games. (CNW Group/Techno Source)
Like most people, my kids are now home from school. At first, I’m sure most kids celebrated, like mine did. Yesterday was a turning point for my youngest daughter though, because when she told me that she was going back to school in another week, I told her that wouldn’t happen.
My prediction is that we don’t go back to anything normal until at least April. While I don’t believe the gloom and doom, 12-18 month recession, Fallout-style post-apocalypse robbing your neighbor for toilet paper worldview that seems to get pushed around, I also don’t think this will quickly resolve itself. We are going to hunker down for a lot longer than anyone imagined. This is not like a hurricane, where the storm passes and normalcy is restored in around 1-2 weeks. It’s going to take a while.
In the aftermath, it’s going to change grade school education. Right now my kid’s schools are struggling with how to fairly teach classes. I say “fairly” because there are still kids that don’t have internet at home, so simply saying “Move your class online” isn’t always going to work. Worse still is that we have lots of parents that just don’t care about their kids education and viewed school as the babysitting service so they could go to work. Normally teachers could cover up this problem, but COVID-19 is tearing that scab off.
There will be a bunch of kids that will benefit from learning at home. People will be surprised to find that in terms of hours of education per day, schools are fairly inefficient at teaching high-performing children. That’s a combination of large class size and the 90/10 rule of poor performing children, where you spend 90% of your time teaching the bottom 10% of your class. At home, in the right setup, a high performing kid can blow through lessons quickly when there is no bullying, food fights, and other distractions.
When these kids go back to school, schools will want to hold them back. We’ll hear about “social development” problems of skipping a grade. But that’s not really an issue. The problem is we view grade level and age as linked, even though we know that some people mature and learn faster than others. In the past, these kids were one-offs because there just wasn’t a lot of them. It’s going to become much more obvious when thousands of kids nation-wide test high enough to merit skipping a grade.
The reverse is true too. Plenty of kids won’t test high enough to merit passing their grade. In many cases it won’t be there fault. Many kids benefit from the structure, discipline and food that comes with school, and too many have parents who can’t or won’t provide a decent home to learn in. We cannot abandoned these kids. As a nation, we should be planning to hold summer schools to catch these kids up.
Perhaps COVID-19 can change how view grade school education in general. Instead of linking age to grade level, we focus more on testing and placing kids according to their performance, giving kids that are high performing more challenges early on. This means they graduate sooner and have more chances at a younger age for higher education. For kids that struggle, why are we not regularly providing summer school? We know the kids that aren’t doing well. Making them come to summer school, both to finish their current grade and to get a jump on the next grade, might be the ticket to better performance. It also gives us an excuse to pay teachers more and give them full-year compensation.
COVID-19 sucks, but it might be what we need to change our old views on grade school education.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
Posted: March 20, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized
A few days ago I wrote about the new expectations that New England Patriots fans should have with Tom Brady no longer on their team. Now lets look at the expectations game for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who have now signed Tom Brady to a contract in keeping with his status as the greatest football player who has ever lived.
As we have demonstrated the New England Patriots were a team that in their 41 year history before Tom Brady came on the scene
Had a winning record 55% of the time
won 11 or more game (10 in a 14 game season) 14.6% of the time
won their division 12% of the time
made the playoffs 24% of the time
won a playoff game 9.7% of the time
went to a championship game 7% of the time winning 0%
but during the twenty years that Brady played for them
Had a winning record 100% of the time
The Patriots won at least 12 games 70% of the time
The Patriots won their division & made the playoffs 90% of the time
The Patriots won at LEAST one playoff game 70% of the time
The Patriots went to the Superbowl 50% of the time
The Patriots WON the superbowl 30% of the time (67% of the times they went)
Let’s now look at the history of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:
Tampa Bay entered the NFL as an expansion team in 1976 when the league played a 14 game season. Their 1st season was played in the AFC and they were moved to the NFC in their 2nd year In their 43 Years they have had
Had a winning record 30% of the time (13 seasons)
Won 11 or more games 7% of the time (3 seasons 1999,2002,2005)
Won their division 12% of the time (1970,1981, 1999,2002,2005,2007)
Made the playoffs 23% of the time (10 seasons)
Won at least 1 playoff game 9% of the time (1979,1997,1999,2002)
Won the Superbowl 2% (100% of the times they went 2002)
By an odd coincidence the year Tampa Bay won the Superbowl 2002 is the only year that Brady played a full season and failed to win at least 10 or make the playoffs.
In short while their percentage of winning seasons, 11 game seasons and superbowl appearances are about half the rate of the pre-Brady Patriots their rate of division wins, playoff appearances and winning at least one playoff game are almost identical
Given these status one should expect a dramatic improvement to this team with three caveats.
Tom Brady’s stats with the Patriots include games played by him from ages 23-42
All of Brady’s games with Tampa Bay will be played form age 43-45
None of these games will be coached by Bill Belichick
As to the question of how much weight this should be given it’s worth noting that In three seasons Tom Brady has played at age 40 he has:
Had a winning record 100% of the time
Won at least 12 games 67% of the time (at least 11 100%)
Won his division 100% of the time
Made the playoffs 100% of the time
Won at least 1 playoff game 67% of the time
Gone to the Superbowl 67% of the time
Won the Superbowl 33% of the time
During those three years Tampa Bay has
Had a losing record 100% of the time
Missed the playoffs 100% of the time
As for Bill Belichick in the two seasons with New England where he didn’t have Tom Brady at Quarterback he
Had a winning record 50% of the time
Won at least 12 games 0% of the time
Made the playoffs 9% of the time
So given these factors and the level of Tampa Bay at this time and the fact that he’s sharing a division with Drew Brees here is what if Brady signs with the Bucks for three years the expectations game should be.
Tampa Bay Should expect to have a winning record 100% of the time
Tampa Bay Should expect to win at least 10 games 67% of the time
Tampa Bay Should expect to make the playoffs 67% of the time
Tampa Bay Should expect to win at least one playoff game 67% of the time
They should expect to win their division at least 33% of the time
They should make the NFC Championship game at least once
Anything less that this would be in my opinion failure anything more than this would be gravy.
I suspect that Tampa Bay fans will expect better than me and if they aren’t in the NFC championship game by 2021 will be pissed.
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