Monday, November 8, 2010

Math Education

If I was to recommend a website for math education I would suggest khanacademy.com. He has good clear lessons. No matter what level of math your studying khanacademy.com has a lesson for you.

Having found the discovering algebra and geometry books, I am looking forward to studying them and gain some understanding why students do not do well with this method. I like the idea of them discovering mathematical principles. I do wonder if there needs to be a more of a Singapore math foundation with a tiny amount of investigation. And start the discovering of items sooner.
We should consider increasing the school year. Start by adding an hour of school Mon to Thursday. Then we start school a week earlier and end it a week later. Not in order to do more but to allow a longer time to learn what we are teaching.

Stop the gloating!

After the 2010 mid-term election, an extensive amount of gloating by talk show hosts. I heard at least three times the song "Ding Dong The Witch is Dead". So hear it is on Monday after the election and now is the time for the gloating to end. One of the elements of the downfall of the Democratic congress is the arrogance of thinking the victory in 2008 represented approval of anything they wanted to do. As it was then the republican victory is in part to the rejection of Democratic policy.
It is not surprising to hear Nancy Pelosi is going to try to gain the position of minority leader. She may have had water poured on her, but she is not melting away. Her willing to stay and fight and not just disappear is admirable. Will the Republicans listen to the American people and begin to cut spending. Will they do all they can do to repeal the new health care reform law.

On the issue of raising the debt ceiling. Continuing to have United States fall deeper and deeper in to debt must stop. The ability for the congress to propose a budget that doesn't have a deficit is difficult to imagine. But would like to see them cutting spending. I want to see that is being done first. If the President does not like the spending cuts, let him veto the budget. Only after we have severely cut spending would I be willing to see the debt ceiling go up.

It is going to require abandoning the status quo thinking. Start thinking that federal government does not need to be the one doing everything. It means we may have to allow a company to file bankruptcy. Understand it is not a bad thing Imagine what would happen if we would allow the American people to have the money for the education of their children and be allowed to shop around for the best schools. Could we legalize drugs and be able to save money or would it cause so much harm that the money spent on the war on drugs would be small in comparison. Start repealing laws and reduce regulations.

The gloating has to stop. It's the time to be making sure the message is clear on what we need done.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

HOPE

Its not the beliefs people hold but why they believe it. Some person do not believe in the Holocaust. Some of these people believe it happen but will attempt to propagate the such a lie in hopes of getting people to begin to come over to their side. Others don't believe its true because they would NEVER be in favor of anyone doing such horrible acts again any other being. It is the latter group that would be reachable. The best chances of converting someone, is to find the person who could never continue to belief if one was presented with the truth.

I have hope of converting those who will deny President Obama's policies are socialistic. I would suspect most would not consider socialism as having more than one meaning and only apply a meaning that would seem the furthest from the polices. If one could successfully convince someone about President Obama's views, you could bring them back from where they came.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

MISC.

Filibuster

Except for Senate only decisions, a Republican controlled house and a Senate controlled by the Democrats will virtually eliminate the use of the filibuster. The house would be able to hold up legislation unless the democratic controlled Senate is willing to give the Republicans some ground. And the Democratic Senate will be able to hold up legislation. But with momentum on the Republican side, it will be essential for both houses to be able to start doing things that the 'Tea party' is seeking. What is needed: Cut spending, lower taxes, roll back provisions of the health care reform (passed only because the house had to gave into the Senate version after losing a the 60th vote which would have protected against the filibuster) a lot of people were upset with the way things were done. Many people would be happier with gridlock than continuing in the direction the president has been heading. So it needs to be a net change more republican than democrat. If that does not happen the Democrats will lose the Senate, and The White House.



Obama's magic
People have put too high expectations on President Obama. His lack of experience to accomplish the things people had in mind Also some expectations would not be possible no matter who is president.

President Obama needs to learn to move to the center. Political positions are on a bell curve. If you insist on staying in the far left, your positions will be unpopular by many people and you will find yourself out of the White House. Will Obama learn and move to the right and start supporting positions held by more of the American people. Will he find himself a Dick Morris. He does not need to move to the absolute center but will simply need to move just to the left of center.

Obstructionist

Listening to MSNBC, Rachel Maddow stated it was obstructionism when Rep Boehner told Republican members not to compromise with President Obama and did not want one vote for the legislation. But doing this did not result, in any way, blocking the legislation. It simply gave President Obama everything he wanted. It perfectly demonstrated the American people were not in favor of Obama's agenda.

Last night's election showed the American people do not want President Obama's agenda. If President Obama wants to make a difference, he will need to move to towards the center. if he does not President Obama will be voted out of office in 2012 and the Republicans will gain the Senate.

Who is going to filp?

So I wonder if anyone is going to flip parties. In the house it would not surprise me if some Democrats would flip to the Republican side in order to preserve their seat in the next election. But will any one flip in the Senate? If someone does it will be to gain power. But since the filibuster number is 60, it will be a surprise that someone will flip. I could see Murkowski going to the Democrats if she feels like she was betrayed by the Republicans. So we will see what happens their, one can not assume that Murkowski received all 40% of the vote. The write-in vote will take time to determine who got what vote. Could someone have written in McAdams or Joe Miller? And how many people signed up for a write in campaign in order to confuse the write-in count.

What will happen? It is going to be interesting.