Overnight Open Thread

The Giants won Game 4 tonight. Will they clinch the World Series tomorrow? Quien sabe? Talk about anything (including politics) until morning.

Halloween Night Semi-Open Thread

I just returned from my oldest son’s house, and I can assure you that my grandkids are cuter than yours. (With or without their costumes) So what are doing tonight? Are you dressing up? Going trick-or-treating? Passing out candy? Hiding in the house with the lights off? I’m planning on watching Game 4 of the [...]

The War on Teachers Ignorance III: What Could Work

(The title is inspired by Historiann’s excellent post. Also a note: unlike most of the things I blog about, teaching is what I’ve done professionally for decades. I taught in universities, not schools, but the two aren’t totally unrelated.) Part I, Part II If you need a metaphor for education it’s not work or play [...]

So what do we do with those idiots?

It seems to be an article of faith among both sides of the political spectrum that the people on the other side are evil, stupid or both. The only difference is the terms that get used when they call each other names. Both sides are convinced that they are morally superior, more intelligent and better [...]

Afternoon Musical Interlude: Revenge of the old, uneducated, working class, post menopausal people the Democratic party used to call its voters

Hey you Obots, you hippy punchers, you nasty, sexist, snooty, self described “creative class” Obama supporters who pushed us under the bus in 2008 because *you* didn’t need us anymore.  You’ve spent the last couple of years pushing the rest of the working class over to the Tea Party with your condescending ridicule of Sarah [...]

Sunday News – All Hallow’s Eve Edition

Boo!! Happy Halloween Conflucians!! What are you dressing as today and tonight? I hope you all have a great Halloween. Other than bats in the belfry, let’s see what else is spooky out there. Some fun yesterday was the Steward/Colbert rally yesterday. I quite liked Jon’s sentiment at the end. He basically echoed what we’ve [...]

DT’s Voting Strategy

Background I won’t forget 2000, 2004, or 2008. Our democracy was tarnished, torn, and battered on those election years. Perhaps we never had the democracy I always thought we had, but I know we don’t have it now. And that cynical, cruel, destructive action from the political machine has nearly destroyed this country. Of course [...]

My Voting Strategy – Hard Liquor

Life was so much easier when I was a yellow-dog Democrat. I could just check off all the names with a “D” next to them and head on down to the ballot propositions. But I’m not a yellow-dog anymore. To quote one of our commenters here at TC, “I rode that damn donkey for over [...]

War on Teachers II: Why It Can’t Work

(The title is inspired by Historiann’s excellent post. Also a note: unlike most of the things I blog about, teaching is what I’ve done professionally for decades. I taught in universities, not schools, but the two aren’t totally unrelated.) Let’s face it. The war on teachers is about money. People want to pay less and [...]

T-minus 72 hours (or something like that)

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then–we elected them. –Lily Tomlin Good Saturday-before-the-elections morning, everyone. It’s T-minus time! I grew up with an astrophysicist at the Thanksgiving table and astronauts and Mission Control employees for neighbors, [...]