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ORIGINAL: Owner59

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ORIGINAL: joether

I'm not unimpressed or impressed with the President's speech. Its that he kept asking Congress to do something....useful....and......positive....on behalf of the American people. Thanks to the childish and petty games of the GOP, Congress is in total gridlock. Not just on the big ticket items, but stuff that should pass a vote without even so much as an after thought (i.e. approve 'X' number of interns for Senators and Representatives next semester). These Republicans could give a shit less what happens to the nation. They created the problems we are STILL suffering through over a decade later. Their solutions are laughable and absurd, fit for one in a fantasy land rather than reality. So until the population of the nation demands Congress (Republicans in particular) to get off their collective asses and do something, giving a stiff penalty for failure (i.e. executions), we are not going to see much getting accomplished in the next two years.

I dont blame the President for Congress's failings one moment.

The important part,IMHO was the good news...that we are coming out of the bush-shit-storm and making gains.....The DOW is about to hit an all time high...

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ORIGINAL: samboct
I liked Obama's speech. He's pushing harder on the coal industry- using the EPA to increase fines on coal plants. Not as good as a carbon tax- but definitely moving in the right direction. Plus, his speech was a bit less on the "all of the above" where earlier he had pushed that terrible oxymoron of "clean coal". Wind energy is getting more acceptable to the mainstream. Still have to work on storage and transmission lines, but Congress controls the transmission lines- not FERC. (go figure...)

I thought his bringing along the 102 year old woman who had to wait 6 hours to vote was telling- and good politics. I mean really, if we're going to say that free elections are the cornerstone of our democracy- wouldn't it be important to make sure that everyone can vote? I thought this was a great underhanded swipe at the Republicans....

Can you believe that a 102 year old woman had to wait 6 hours to vote?
Unbelievable!
I had to wait over an hour, and I thought that was too long.
This needed to be made public.


I liked the idea of putting pressure on colleges to reduce tuition costs- this is long overdue. Of course, having the feds pick up more of the expense of higher education would also be a good idea-roll back the Reagan cuts which have done so much to put us in our current mess...

College tuition should be reduced, another great idea.

And calling for better pre school is another good idea- but the devil is in the details. A pre school with half a dozen youngsters and an adult- OK. A dozen youngsters and an adult- not so good....will cause more harm than good.

Pre-school should also be a full day program, and not half a day.

He's definitely putting more into the Krugman camp- and as far as I'm concerned, he's the guy who's called the economics of the last decade better than anybody. Deficit is largely irrelevant- emphasis needs to be on growing the economy currently- worry about the deficit later. Obama's call to change the tax code to reduce the incentives to ship job's overseas is still on target- and still being blocked by Republicans.

I would LOVE to see an emphasis on growing this economy, BRINGING back some of the millions of jobs that have been outsourced, sounds great to me.

Rubio on the other hand- was sort of likable- but a dolt. Gee- I graduated with $100,000 in debt, but look at me now- I made it....Well, how many other people can do that? [sm=applause.gif]
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That's like saying the 9/11 attack wasn't so bad- I got out of the North Tower OK...Then- "We can't control the weather." No dimwit- but the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere does affect the climate- the same way the sulfur compounds caused acid rain and phosphates cause algal blooms etc... Our governor, Dannel Malloy- went on the air after the recent blizzard and said that the effects of climate change need to be budgeted for here in the Northeast- and the tab is going to be a lot higher than shuttering all the coal plants. Plus- "our nation has been blessed with the resource of coal"? Yeah right....

As has been said ad nauseam- You're entitled to your own opinion- but not to your own "facts". As long as the Republicans want to keep up an anti science agenda, it's very hard for me to see working constructively with them...
Sam

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ORIGINAL: samboct
You're entitled to your own opinion- but not to your own "facts".
Sam

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so how do you grow the economy?
anything beyond needs is inflation.

I suppose we could take over the whole world and use them as slave labor since by definition a zero inflation economy precisely matches population growth and trade needs.

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ORIGINAL: samboct

Thanks Marini

A bit of a followup on the preschool issue. While full day preschool can make sense from a working mom's point of view, I suspect it's burnout city for the people doing the schooling. We're already seeing that the notion of keeping kids in classrooms longer doesn't work- especially for boys. Kids need to get outside, run around and have unstructured time too, otherwise learning suffers and drop out rates increase. Article today in the NY Times on this issue- preschool can't be babysitting- it's teaching- and you need good people to do it.

Sam

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

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ORIGINAL: samboct
Thanks Marini
A bit of a followup on the preschool issue. While full day preschool can make sense from a working mom's point of view, I suspect it's burnout city for the people doing the schooling. We're already seeing that the notion of keeping kids in classrooms longer doesn't work- especially for boys. Kids need to get outside, run around and have unstructured time too, otherwise learning suffers and drop out rates increase. Article today in the NY Times on this issue- preschool can't be babysitting- it's teaching- and you need good people to do it.
Sam

Aren't most of the successful pre-k and kindergarten programs half day?

quote:

ORIGINAL: samboct

Thanks Marini

A bit of a followup on the preschool issue. While full day preschool can make sense from a working mom's point of view, I suspect it's burnout city for the people doing the schooling. We're already seeing that the notion of keeping kids in classrooms longer doesn't work- especially for boys. Kids need to get outside, run around and have unstructured time too, otherwise learning suffers and drop out rates increase. Article today in the NY Times on this issue- preschool can't be babysitting- it's teaching- and you need good people to do it.

Sam