Nope, I am not driving a Ford made in Mexico. But even if I were, there is a big difference between something that leaves you on the side of the road when it fails and something that leaves in a crumpled pile ON the road when it falls. There isn't a lot of room for error with gizmos like these.
Additionally, keep in mind the Fords (and other marques as well) are not *engineered* in Mexico, only assembled after many years of prior assembly in the First World. It's sometimes done there now on especially cost-sensitive models (read "cheap") because the labor costs are very low. The technology is pretty established and the catastrophic failure modes are few. So what if a mirror falls off or a piece of trim rattles...
When Mexico learns to engineer (and then build) its own motorcycles, cars, airplanes, and helicopters first, then we can consider them as a viable source for rocket pack expertise. There's a little catch up needed for them to prove themselves.
Akiro- Government schools near me (a mix of rundown inner city, middle class suburb, and redneck-rural upstate NY) generally use about $14K per student per year in taxpayer $ to educate kids. It varies a little among districts, but not much. This money ALL comes from taxpayers at some level. Because it is shockingly high ($350K per year to educate a single class of 25), school districts like to hide this figure, but it's easy to calculate if you divide their published annual budget by their total number of students served. Tuition charged to the taxpayers is 14 thousand dollars per students per year. Period. What is it where you live/work? If you don't know the figure, you are kidding yourself when you believe "funds are limited and awful". I'm betting a lot more money comes in per student than you imagine; it is just so wastefully spent, that not much makes it to teachers like you (it sounded like you might be a teacher).
Now parochial (and non-sectarian private, too, but there are fewer of them) schools do exactly the same job (well... better, but that's an argument for another day) for roughly $7 thousand per student per year. About 1/2 of this cost is paid by the diocese which runs the schools ($ coming unltimately from donations) and 1/2 comes from tuition charged parents who send their kids there. The kids are tested to the same subject matter as the government school kids and do as well or better, yet the total cost is half! Unfortunately, their parents need to come up with half of that half, or around $3500 (the price can get reduced further if you are extra needy). $3500 a year is a lot of $ for even middle class folk, so those schools operate at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting students.
If parents were given a $3500 voucher if they elected to send their kids outside the public schools, 1.the taxpayer would be FAR ahead paying this instead of the $14K per student per year they now pay. 2. parents who otherwise could not afford a private education now could. 3. the government (public) schools would get a firm kick in the ass in that they would now be required to be cost-competitive. Right now, they are granted an exclusive monopoly to funds levied upon taxpayers. It's a sweet deal for sure, but it makes them lazy, inefficient, and not particularly results-driven.
Public schools counter my arguments by saying the private schools do better with less cash because they get the cream of the crop. Well, vouchers would level the playing field and let poor kids have a choice in school as well. What are the districts and teachers' unions afraid of?
These will be great now that they are doing another "Bionic Women" show this Fall. In the mid 60s - late 1970s, TV action shows always seems to work hard to construct plots that demanded the hero(ine) strap one of these on to "save the day".
I'm not sure I would trust one made in Mexico, though...
Shaun's comment about the mean white Europeans wiping out the Mayans with their diseases is a popular myth, but it's way misplaced. The Maya civilization, was pretty much "done" by A.D. 1000, LONG before the Europeans arrived. Sure, some of their descendents survived (and do today), but the organized temple-building child murdering society we like to wax poetic about was long gone when the Europeans showed up. You can still blame conquistadors for knocking off the peaceful Incas and Aztecs, though.
I just checked out the John Taylor Gatto link Rob posted. It's an interesting site which seems to mirror a lot of my personal feelings on the subject -- I will check out some of Gatto's writing on the subject.
To be clear though, Gatto doesn't appear to advocate just "not sending your kids to school" (home schooling?) as Rob does. Rather, Gatto and the Odysses Group just want to *remove* the uncomepetitve monopoly that has been given to government schools, which would force them to compete with parochial schools, home schooling, non-sectarian private schools, &c. The problem we have now is that the government schools stink (in general) because they are given a TON of money per student, and none of the alternatives are. There is absolutely no incentive for government schools to comepete on a quality basis, becuase most parents can't afford the other options. The government schools wind up delivering (generally) a mediocre product, becuase they needn't try harder. Vouchers are one method to get them off their butts, by enabling parents who don't have gobs of $ to have other choices for their kids' education.
What a laugh. Only in the America of today (it wasn't like that 70 years ago!) can people getting something for nothing complain about it not being good enough. Bloody Moochers! Their lunches are heavily subsidized by taxpayer dollars, and the parents need only cover a SMALL portion ($1.50 I think) of the total cost. But they are so self-absorbed and entitlement-deserving, that they welch out of even paying that, shifting it upon others to carry their burden. Why aren't these people sending their own brown-bagged sandwiches in with the kids every day (I have one daily!) ? Because it's easier to live on the dole.
I don't feel bad about putting the squeeze on the kids either -- their ungrateful reaction belies the teaching their deadbeat parents have already instilled upon them. I think they are pretty darned lucky to be getting the cheese sandwhiches gratis -- in my world, they would not. A little shame would do wonders to teach these children from becoming the societal burdens their parents have become. Stand on your own feet and stop being leeches! Kids today are really big into "getting respect" but not knowing humility. If those on the dole would endure a little shame at the same time, they'd be more likely to pull their bootstraps up a little quicker (while still not starving).
Climate change did the Mayans in, huh? How can that be when they didn't have SUVs? Perhaps they just had overly large "carbon footprints"? Or maybe, they just did not purchase enough "credits" in the form of carbon indulgences. When you cut out your enemy's heart and burn his remains on a pyre, is that carbon-neutral? You are reducing *their* carbon footprint, after all.
I subscribe to the print Mental Floss and it's a great magazine, but one thing irks me a little bit about this article. Nowhere is it mentioned that the Mayans killed TENS of THOUSANDS of themselves (within tribes and enemy Mayans) in human sacrifices. What effect did this have on their subsequent downfall and the disappearance of their civilization? It's not adressed at all and the only indication of any sacrifice is a small reference in the caption of one of the art photos.
Unfortunately, it's very PC to talk about how ingenious and technologically sophisticated these ancient cultures were, all while ignoring or just glossing over the "bloodthirsty savage" qualities. Yes, in years past, the opposite was true, but now we have WAY overcorrected.
Oh, this story is soooo funny! What a bunch of morons. I can't look down too much though -- the sign painters we have here at work misspell or mispunctuate about half of what they create. I guess Pakistani sign creators are just as dumb.
Dopey Okies! Most of the smart ones left during the Dust Bowl years. By the time 1957 rolled around, the level of grey matter there was kinda low.
I saw some pics of the "vault". The chumps who built the thing didn't even have a seal on the concrete lid. That is pretty common in the undertaking business (at least in the US), and what goes into THOSE vaults generally isn't planned on be pulled out in the future. On top of that, the car looked to be basically sitting in a pool of water -- the morons hadn't built in any way for water to get out, either! So water had no trouble getting in, but absolutely no way to get out! They couldn't have designed it much worse. Nothing like setting up a publicity stunt to show the whole world how stupid you are!
Other content... For many years (well into the 1970s), my Dad's car was a 58 Plymouth Belvedere. It was a black convertible with a push button transmission... Brings back good memories...
Jimbo is dead on. I was in grade school in the 1970s and our (ahem) "science" teachers warned us that the Earth was cooling. It's true, they insisted! "Scientists had studied gobs of data, ice cores, glacier samples, etc. and determined that we were headed for an Ice Age." Brrrr!
It's a major crock of ship that a lot of folks are getting rich off of. How about those charlatans selling "carbon credits" (nothing more than carbon indulgences, really!) so they can ease their guilty consciences? It's a major scam.
Fortunately, the US recognized Kyoto as the fraud that it was and never signed on. I'm not quite so sure how the Red Chinese and Indians were able to bamboozle the Europeans so easily. While Europe agrees to limit its "carbon footprint", Red China is building 2,000 (yes, two THOUSAND) coal-fired power plants. If you are among those who sip the global warming Kool-Aid go complain to the Chocoms, not the U.S.
I've seen that Tyson guy on the program "Beauty and the Geek" and heard his brother is at least as good. It's pretty wild watching him look at a mixed up cube and solve it behind his back in a few seconds.
Additionally, keep in mind the Fords (and other marques as well) are not *engineered* in Mexico, only assembled after many years of prior assembly in the First World. It's sometimes done there now on especially cost-sensitive models (read "cheap") because the labor costs are very low. The technology is pretty established and the catastrophic failure modes are few. So what if a mirror falls off or a piece of trim rattles...
When Mexico learns to engineer (and then build) its own motorcycles, cars, airplanes, and helicopters first, then we can consider them as a viable source for rocket pack expertise. There's a little catch up needed for them to prove themselves.
Straight talk from Sid.
Government schools near me (a mix of rundown inner city, middle class suburb, and redneck-rural upstate NY) generally use about $14K per student per year in taxpayer $ to educate kids. It varies a little among districts, but not much. This money ALL comes from taxpayers at some level. Because it is shockingly high ($350K per year to educate a single class of 25), school districts like to hide this figure, but it's easy to calculate if you divide their published annual budget by their total number of students served. Tuition charged to the taxpayers is 14 thousand dollars per students per year. Period. What is it where you live/work? If you don't know the figure, you are kidding yourself when you believe "funds are limited and awful". I'm betting a lot more money comes in per student than you imagine; it is just so wastefully spent, that not much makes it to teachers like you (it sounded like you might be a teacher).
Now parochial (and non-sectarian private, too, but there are fewer of them) schools do exactly the same job (well... better, but that's an argument for another day) for roughly $7 thousand per student per year. About 1/2 of this cost is paid by the diocese which runs the schools ($ coming unltimately from donations) and 1/2 comes from tuition charged parents who send their kids there. The kids are tested to the same subject matter as the government school kids and do as well or better, yet the total cost is half! Unfortunately, their parents need to come up with half of that half, or around $3500 (the price can get reduced further if you are extra needy). $3500 a year is a lot of $ for even middle class folk, so those schools operate at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting students.
If parents were given a $3500 voucher if they elected to send their kids outside the public schools,
1.the taxpayer would be FAR ahead paying this instead of the $14K per student per year they now pay.
2. parents who otherwise could not afford a private education now could.
3. the government (public) schools would get a firm kick in the ass in that they would now be required to be cost-competitive. Right now, they are granted an exclusive monopoly to funds levied upon taxpayers. It's a sweet deal for sure, but it makes them lazy, inefficient, and not particularly results-driven.
Public schools counter my arguments by saying the private schools do better with less cash because they get the cream of the crop. Well, vouchers would level the playing field and let poor kids have a choice in school as well. What are the districts and teachers' unions afraid of?
I'm not sure I would trust one made in Mexico, though...
I'd like a ruling on the ethics of mailbox jousting? Is doing battle against inanimate objects prohibited by #5?
Read the article. The kids ARE being fed. They just don't like the menu and are throwing out their free lunch.
Straight talk from Sid.
To be clear though, Gatto doesn't appear to advocate just "not sending your kids to school" (home schooling?) as Rob does. Rather, Gatto and the Odysses Group just want to *remove* the uncomepetitve monopoly that has been given to government schools, which would force them to compete with parochial schools, home schooling, non-sectarian private schools, &c. The problem we have now is that the government schools stink (in general) because they are given a TON of money per student, and none of the alternatives are. There is absolutely no incentive for government schools to comepete on a quality basis, becuase most parents can't afford the other options. The government schools wind up delivering (generally) a mediocre product, becuase they needn't try harder. Vouchers are one method to get them off their butts, by enabling parents who don't have gobs of $ to have other choices for their kids' education.
I don't feel bad about putting the squeeze on the kids either -- their ungrateful reaction belies the teaching their deadbeat parents have already instilled upon them. I think they are pretty darned lucky to be getting the cheese sandwhiches gratis -- in my world, they would not. A little shame would do wonders to teach these children from becoming the societal burdens their parents have become. Stand on your own feet and stop being leeches! Kids today are really big into "getting respect" but not knowing humility. If those on the dole would endure a little shame at the same time, they'd be more likely to pull their bootstraps up a little quicker (while still not starving).
Straight talk form Sid.
I subscribe to the print Mental Floss and it's a great magazine, but one thing irks me a little bit about this article. Nowhere is it mentioned that the Mayans killed TENS of THOUSANDS of themselves (within tribes and enemy Mayans) in human sacrifices. What effect did this have on their subsequent downfall and the disappearance of their civilization? It's not adressed at all and the only indication of any sacrifice is a small reference in the caption of one of the art photos.
Unfortunately, it's very PC to talk about how ingenious and technologically sophisticated these ancient cultures were, all while ignoring or just glossing over the "bloodthirsty savage" qualities. Yes, in years past, the opposite was true, but now we have WAY overcorrected.
Straight talk from Sid.
Straight talk from Sid.
I saw some pics of the "vault". The chumps who built the thing didn't even have a seal on the concrete lid. That is pretty common in the undertaking business (at least in the US), and what goes into THOSE vaults generally isn't planned on be pulled out in the future. On top of that, the car looked to be basically sitting in a pool of water -- the morons hadn't built in any way for water to get out, either! So water had no trouble getting in, but absolutely no way to get out! They couldn't have designed it much worse. Nothing like setting up a publicity stunt to show the whole world how stupid you are!
Other content... For many years (well into the 1970s), my Dad's car was a 58 Plymouth Belvedere. It was a black convertible with a push button transmission... Brings back good memories...
It's a major crock of ship that a lot of folks are getting rich off of. How about those charlatans selling "carbon credits" (nothing more than carbon indulgences, really!) so they can ease their guilty consciences? It's a major scam.
Fortunately, the US recognized Kyoto as the fraud that it was and never signed on. I'm not quite so sure how the Red Chinese and Indians were able to bamboozle the Europeans so easily. While Europe agrees to limit its "carbon footprint", Red China is building 2,000 (yes, two THOUSAND) coal-fired power plants. If you are among those who sip the global warming Kool-Aid go complain to the Chocoms, not the U.S.
Straight talk from Sid.