On Evaluating Teachers in a Fair and Positive Fashion

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First I would insist on a truly representative sample of the teacher's teaching performance.

Then I would have an initial judging done by three teachers, who teach populations of similar socio-economic backgrounds, located at least 2 or more school districts away from the teacher being judged [the judgee] district.

I would have the results of the initial judging reviewed by 3 professional judges, teachers already rated excellent, on leave for a year of judging, who rate the teacher in 10 to 20 areas, on numerical scales.  There would be an overall rating and recommendations for areas where improvement is needed, and suggestions as to how to go about making such improvements.   These judges might not necessarily teach kids of the same socio-economic background, but could not, all three,  share just one socio-economic teaching population background.

The evaluation would be done in the second semester of teaching.  The results would come back to the teacher, no penalties, but a clear indication of how well they are doing, referenced to other teachers.  In the second year, the classroom would again be rated, but this time, those rating 3 standard deviations to the low side would be let go in June.  Those 2 standard deviations below would get a warning, and would be tested again in their third year, unlike the rest, who get a pass until year 5.

50% of teachers self select to quit on their own, within five years of starting teaching. 

How to capture a truly representative sample of a teacher's performance?

Closed circuit surveillance systems are readily available to handle multiple cameras and multiple sound tracks, wirelessly, recording full fidelity images and sound, such that the viewer can choose which camera to watch and which mic to listen to.  A rig, cameras and software, mics and computers, can be had for under $2,000.  The teacher works with a tech to set up his classroom for optimum recordings.  Dummy versions of the gear can be placed initially to get the kids through their initial curious and screwup phases.  Then the teacher records up to ten days worth of teaching over a three week span, max.  The teacher can then edit out 20% of the material recorded.  If the teacher can get what he feels is necessary in 5 days, so much the better.  Three weeks is more than enough time to get a representative sample.

The teacher can then pick out 3, 20 minute sections that he feels represents good teaching.  A computer will pick out 7 more 20 minute blocks at random.  The three initial evaluators will thoroughly review the teacher's choices, and can skim or closely review the computer choices, and will need to write up and evaluation of each of the teacher choices, and 4 of the computer choices.

All of this information is passed on to the Pro judges, who review the materials and video, alone, and come up with independent ratings and suggestions.  Then they meet as a group, and assign one final set of ratings and an overall rating.  The teacher [judgee] gets to see both sets of ratings, and all recommendations.

This would not be cheap to do, but it would be far more accurate than letting school politics be the real determiner, or all mighty test scores, which tell very little about a teacher, especially in a school with disadvantaged kids.

I think all CEO's salaries should be compared to those of the occupations you list, as well as teachers. As for teachers themselves, shouldn't those 2 standard deviations above the average be as well paid as a beginning graduate from a technical school? Normally it take 20 years to get up to $60,000, like these graduates start with.
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/news/on-campus/90-percent-placement.aspx
What a thrill as a first year teacher to get that kind of boost, for your second year. And for those that score only 1 standard deviation up from the norm, let them jump to year ten on the local scale. That's what I would call rewarding teachers. How about you? "A Golden Brass Apple, how nice....I think I'll try law school next. This teaching job can pay my tuition, and guess where I'll pay my attentions..." (you did want to know where "bad" teachers came from, didn't you?)

Gingrich Lied Through Misrepresentation about Gas Prices

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Newt claimed gasoline prices “doubled” under Obama. This is only true if you take the last month of December in 2008, which was the lowest ever under Bush, 1.61, and compare it with today. June 2008 gas was at $4 and then some. If you take the last 36 months of Bush and compare it to all 36 months of Obama, you get $2.74 and $2.89 respectively.

Lying through misrepresentation seems to be a fine art for Gingrich.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=W

On Identifying "BAD" Teachers

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These are a few of my most recent posts at George Rebane's Blog, in a discussion of improvements to society.

The problems here, Mr. T, can be broken down into several parts:

How do you identify a "bad" teacher?

Are "bad" teachers really that responsible for all the evils in the world as you post of 11:04 pm suggests?

Your article suggests "better education" as a cure for income inequality. You suggest getting rid of "bad teachers" as a means of achieving better edu8cation, and Obama and I think you rewarding good ones. I point out that "rewarding good K-12 teachers never happens. [You'll note I leave out higher ed, where there are countless MD professors in med schools to inflate public employee pension calls, I avoid that trap] Instead of saying anything nice about rewarding good teachers, you go off on a total tirade about "bad teachers" without ever quantifying the situation, mentioning where the replacements will come from, or most importantly, how your "better teachers" are going to be rewarded.

You also fail to mention how you are going to ID these teachers. Are you going to randomly yake every 20th teacher out behind the gym and shoot them? Are you going to use test scores? How are you going to avoid firing a very dedicated teacher, who, at risk to life and limb, chooses to teach in a ghetto school? I served along side a teacher in the heart of Hunter's Point, who choose to live there, walking distance to the school. After a bullet flew through her living room at chest eight, she choose to line all her outer walls on the inside with concrete blocks. Her kids, on average, scored well below your beloved norms.

You see, in a ghetto school, there are real disconnects between how some of the parents perceive society, and how you and I do. There are literally kids who are raised such that they believe it is the God given mission to go to school and disrupt it. These may not necessarily be the dumbest kids either. In fact, techniques of disruption, are learned, and strategies of of disruption have evolved into cyberbaiting* today. Their parents [in many cases, relatives of their parents, real parents separated, drug incapacitted, locked up, or dead] of several generations back have learned all the in's and out's of finageling the system against itself, and they pass it on.

Based on my experience in Hunters Point, I would say maybe 3 to 5 percent of the students fall into this category. Add in another 3 to 5 percent who have serious untreated medical conditions, another 35 who are willing to play along with the ringleader(s) [one to three per classroom], and you have a recipe for disaster for the remaining 55% who are desperately trying to anything and everything to learn and get the hell out of Hunters Point. Would you like to try teaching in such a zone?

Most importantly, would you like to be fired for not fixing what you never broke?

Teaching is about the only profession where if you are not hired by September, you will have to wait an entire year for another chance at a real paycheck. Substitute teachers make typically one THIRD what a regular teacher does, and there are no benefits, not even unemployment over the summer.
Once again, what real rewards are you proposing for good teachers? Will the "best" teacher in the nation ever make one one thousandth of a CEO making $25,000,000 per year?

And tell me again, is it the teacher who gives birth and raises all these abject rejects for the American Corporate machine? Or is it the parents, who earn a supposed living from the American corporate machine?

Posted by: Douglas Keachie | 26 January 2012 at 09:41 AM

 

Are you upset that I mention rewarding teachers? Golly, you want the best, right? The best CEO's and other "leaders" in their fields, all expect to get paid very well. Why? because that how you get them as "employees." Why wouldn't the same human dynamics apply to teaching? Maybe "American Teacher: should be the new reality show, with the winner taking home $1,000,000. We just heard Gingrich or was it Paul wanting the government to offer prizes for the best moves by private corporations involved in space exploration, why don't they call for the same for teachers? Why is the psychological makeup of a teacher so different from the rest of us mortals?

Posted by: Douglas Keachie | 26 January 2012 at 09:47 AM

 

I also note that a certain "more educated than thou" poster has gone into hibernation, now that he's been hoisted up by his own table of numbers, that show gas under Obama at 2.90, and under Bush at 2.74, thus proving that Gingrich LIED when he claimed gas price doubled under Obama when compared to Bush. Said poster does not seem to risk a lawsuit for libel and to be so stupid as to call my photo a fake either, so a few of his neurons are still functioning, despite the shock of discovering the Keach can and does use spreadsheet functions.

Posted by: Douglas Keachie | 26 January 2012 at 09:53 AM

Collecting Unemployment is not a Sin

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Unemployment is not a sin.  It is one of the few times the working man, with the help of unions, got a set of laws passed, for their benefit, and for the greater good.  I'm sure many employers out there think the program is terrible.  These will be the same employers who never, never fail to collect on any insurance that is due to them.  Do you think you will ever hear:

"Hey man, my auto reapir shop burned to the ground, I've paid thousands of dollars in insurance every year, but me collect?  Nope, I'm too macho for that.  Let the sissies collect, I'm better than them." 

So why on earth would there be bragging rights here in this paper for having never collected unemployment? 

Cyberbaiting the Teacher Destroys Learning in the Classroom, a Cure for This Idiocracy.

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It is high time that a teacher be allowed to set up multiple cameras and mics in his or her classroom, to squash any students who would like to engage in cyberbaiting, and to shut up, once and for all, parents who claim their little Johnny or Susie would NEVER do what the teacher claims they did. Modern surveillance software and wireless nanocams and an on-teacher wireless mic will set up a room for less than a grand, and i 'll bet many teachers would consider it a great form of insurance.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2011/12/07/cyberbaiting-teens-find-high-tech-ways-humiliate-teachers

What costs the quality of education in the USA the most is the enabling by the parents and administrators of the favorite pastime of a sizable portions of the students. That pastime is best described as, "chewing up the clock." The less that is presented to and learned by the better students, the easier the resulting tests will have to be, and cyberbaiting is FUN!.

2 Buck Verizon ---> FAIL! Occupy Verizon!

Guess what? Verizon says you can still make online payments for free, if they come directly from your bank account. No more postponing the payments for phoning. I wonder if they are beginning to wake up to the Brave New World of "OCCUPY VERIZON!" Did not get a straight answer to paying by paper check at store, so I will have to test that one.

• To be clear, you do not have to give them the right to do a snatch and grab, you can make one time payments by posting your routing number and banmk account number, on a day of your own choosing.

Founding Fathers SMARTER than Everyone Alive Today?

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There is a Tea Party premise that is unspoken and unquestioned. The Founding Fathers, whoever they really were, whatever opinions they really held, ( it's kinda hard to ask them today), were and are SMARTER than anyone around today, and therefore working from what little we do know about them, is the only way to TRUTH to LIVE BY. I think this is total BS, and a very poor way to run a society, as all it really means is that whatever agenda YOU want, you'll go digging for supposed facts from the past, instead of coming up with rational arguments to support your case.

Cash Back Fraud, Beware!

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CHECK YOUR RECEIPTS BEFORE LEAVING THE CASHIER'S STATION!!!!!

THIS COULD HAPPEN ANYWHERE. CHECK YOUR RECEIPT BEFORE LEAVING THE STAND. I'VE SEEN PEOPLE DO JUST THAT. NOW I'LL START!

PASS THIS ON TO YOUR FRIENDS, KIDS, LOVED ONES.

I bought a bunch of stuff, over $150, & I glanced at my receipt as the cashier was handing me the bags. I saw a cash-back of $40. I told her I didn't request a cash back and to delete it.  She said I'd have to take the $40 because she couldn't delete it. I told her to call a supervisor.

Supervisor came and said I'd have to take it. I said NO! I didn't want $40 cash advance If they couldn't delete it then they would have to delete the whole order. So the supervisor had the cashier delete the whole order and re-scan everything!

The second time I looked at the electronic pad before I signed and a cash-back of $20 popped up. At that point I told the cashier and she deleted it. The total came out right. The cashier agreed that the Electronic Pad must be defective.

Obviously the cashier knew the electronic pad was defective because she NEVER offered me the $40 at the beginning. Can you imagine how many people went through before me and at the end of her shift how much money she pocketed?

Just to alert everyone. My co-worker went to Walmart last week. She had her items rung up by the cashier. The cashier hurried her along and didn't give her a receipt. She asked the cashier for a receipt and the cashier was annoyed and gave it to her.  My co-worker didn't look at her receipt until later that night. The receipt showed that she asked for $20 cash back. SHE DID NOT ASK FOR CASH BACK!

My co-worker called Wal-Mart who investigated but could not see the cashier pocket the money. She then called her niece who works for the bank and her niece told her this: This is new scam going on. The cashier will key in that you asked for cash back and then hand it to her friend who is the next person in line.

Please, please, please check your receipts right away when using credit or debit cards!  This is NOT limited to Wal-Mart, although they are the largest retailer so they have the most incidents.

I am adding to this. My husband and I were in Wal-Mart North Salisbury and

paying with credit card when my husband went to sign the credit card signer he just happen to notice there was a $20 cash back added.  He told the cashier that he did not ask nor want cash back and she said machine has been messing up and she canceled it. We really didn't think anything of it until we read this email.

Homeless Students & Test Scores

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How to Lose in the Global Market Place

2,200 homeless students out of 55,000 students in San Francisco.

No shelter, no food, = no test scores worth reporting.

When Poverty Class > Middle Class,

then GDP & taxes, 

= = = = = = = equals = FAIL!

I wonder how many homeless students there are in Nevada County?

Triptoeing Through the Opium Fields of Facebook

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"Is FB Worth 100 Billion?" Two posts I made at Jeff Pelline's blog this morning.

Douglas Keachie
If you take what you know about FB, and the potential for enhancing the revenue of companies possibly not even in current existence, by virtue of suggesting what such companies might have as a product or service, and then add in the obvious demographic clustering capabilities for advertising services of existent products, and then add in a big dash of the following:
http://news.discovery.com/tech/supercomputer-predicts-civil-unrest-110908.html
You are looking at a one trillion plus company, and, “BRAVE NEW WORLD.”

on November 29, 2011 at 8:41 am | Reply Douglas Keachie

In short, for the first time, we are looking at molding the products and services to the customers’ nacent desires, instead of trying to persuade the customer to buy what we’ve already produced.
Because the manufacturer/service provider can literally get into the heads and mindsets of selected potential customers, the potential for profits is enormous.
It also means that if I adopt a totally separate false identity, and use the best anonymizing capabilities out there, I will still be found by potential sellers simply by them knowing who my various circles of non anonymized friends are.
If you weren’t into sociology/anthropology/psychology before, welcome!

New Examples: 1984 Double Speak

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UPS has been selling vendors on a new mailing scheme, and tries to tell them is is just as good as first class mail, but is one day slower.

USP even admits it is a slower process.

“Domestic Mail Process

Using the reliability and strength of the UPS network, the U.S. Postal Service, our extensive national network of processing facilities, proprietary software, and technology enables us to consistently achieve domestic average transit times comparable to First Class Mail® plus one day on all qualified mail”
comparable times PLUS ONE DAY is not comparable times. Orwell Speak example number 3,453,324.

On my bottle of Bolthouse Farms Blue Goodness”

100% Natural

Blend of 5 not from concentrate and
from concentrate juices/purees.

It is printed just like that. Why not just say, “Blend of 5 juices/purees, concentrated and non concentrated.”
BTW, what is a puree? watered down or mixed with sugar, etc.? On the list of ingredients EVERYTHING is listed as from concentrate, except for the banana puree.


And then there’s my Nestle’s Toll House cookie dough roll. On the side, it warns:

“DO NOT CONSUME RAW COOKIE DOUGH.”

yeah, right!....................

Your FICA and Facebook

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Why do you think all these apps ask for the information? Would you believe that your FICA score may depend on who you do and don't firend? Coming soon the biggest class warfare digital divide ever seen. If you ain't got friends you can borrow from if you get in trouble, your FICA goes down. It is most likely already happening. if you can afford to subscribe to Linked In, your FICA probably goes up.  Smart money buys into Linked In.  I don't own stock, but do have a former student who works there.

Are EMT's Smarter Than LE?

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On the Davis Pepper Spray Attacks: It's funny, EMT personnel are more than capable of moving unconscious limp bodies, possibly with internal injuries, and can do so without causing harm. What is to keep the police from learning the same techniques? After all, the police make two to three times as much money as the EMT's and should be able to live up to a higher standard.

What the 99% Want.

The 1% just thought the 99% would dry up and blow away, when the 1% found other places to manufacturer, and other places to sell. Guess what? That’s not happening, and 99% with time on their hands and American cultural values are being very creative about letting the 1% know that this country was founded on the notion of freedom and justice for all, and NOT for just the 1%.

Best expresssion yet that I’ve found of what the 99% want is here: “In a must-read New York Times Op-Ed over the weekend, economist Jeffrey Sachs – an erstwhile villain in the eyes of the anti-globalization left – hailed Occupy Wall Street as the start of a new progressive era in American history, defined by the challenge of restoring “prosperity and power to the 99 percent.”

The movement, he writes, should aim concretely for three things: The first is a revival of crucial public services, especially education, training, public investment and environmental protection. The second is the end of a climate of impunity that encouraged nearly every Wall Street firm to commit financial fraud. The third is to re-establish the supremacy of people votes over dollar votes in Washington. 

None of this will be easy, obviously. The movement will have to up its strategic game, Sachs writes: consumer and shareholder activism needs to play a bigger role, and the movement also needs both a public policy platform and a cohort of change-makers willing to run for public office propelled by social media, not corporate cash. But make no mistake – something’s happening here. “A new generation of leaders is just getting started,” Sachs writes. “The new progressive age has begun.”

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/is-occupy-the-start-of-a-new-progressive-era-20111114#ixzz1eAyLhkWO

Easy to Remember, Hard to Crack, Passwords

Technorati Profile http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping Easy to remember, hard to hack password, can be created by taking the first letter of a favorite song, going in nine or ten words, and add your phone number suffix. sample: (H)ow (M)any (R)oads (M)ust (A) (M)an (W)alk (D)own, (B)efore (T)hey + the phone number 304-5678 equals a password of "HMRMAMWDBT5678" All you have to do is recite the song in your head as you type the letters in. You do not have to remember the password, just the song, and the last four of your phone number, which you already know. Good luck!

Population Control 1A

Technorati Profile http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping Population control in the USA can be done as follows: Money is put into a college/education fund account every month from age 13 to age 23, for everyone in those age ranges, subject to the following conditions. For girls, it's "don't get pregnant." BTW, 5% of that amount is given directly to the individual as spending cash, again on a monthly basis. For boys, they have to give a sample of their DNA, to match up any unwanted pregnancies. In the case of either sex, having a pregnancy happen, kicks you out of the program for one year, and 25% of what you've saved up is redistributed to those who have not screwed up. This way their are strong incentives to avoid pregnancy at the most important time, and to get an education, and to learn to manage money.

Honoring Corporal Keachie

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http://militarytimes.com/citations-medals-awards/recipient.php?recipientid=12833

©Douglas Keachie, All Rights Reserved

Cain IGNORANT of China's Nukes

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Herman Cain is IGNORANT of China's nuclear status:

Reality: Nations that are known or believed to possess nuclear weapons are sometimes referred to as the nuclear club. There are currently eight states that have successfully detonated nuclear weapons. Five are considered to be "nuclear-weapon states" (NWS) under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In order of acquisition of nuclear weapons these are: the United States, Russia (successor state to the Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, France, and China.

"JUDY WOODRUFF: And what could you do as president to head that off?

HERMAN CAIN: My China strategy is quite simply outgrow China. It gets back to economics. China has a $6 trillion economy and they're growing at approximately 10 percent. We have a $14 trillion economy -- much bigger -- but we're growing at an anemic 1.5, 1.6 percent. When we get our economy growing back at the rate of 5 or 6 percent that it has the ability to do, we will outgrow China.

And secondly, we already have superiority in terms of our military capability, and I plan to get away from making cutting our defense a priority and make investing in our military capability a priority, going back to my statement: peace through strength and clarity. So yes they're a military threat. They've indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So yes, we have to consider them a military threat."

It is obvious that Cain is UNAWARE China already has the Bomb! I'm amazed Woodruff didn't call him on it.

His understanding of business math is lacking as well. How long does it take, at 10% per year for China's economy to surpass the USA? Unless he can get the USA speed up almost instantly, China passes us in less than 7 years. Greg Goodknight can give you the exact numbers.

"Nein. Nein, Nein" on "999"

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Obviously "999" was picked because it slogans so well, and the resulting system will most likely screw the heck out of the poor, working, and what's left of the middle class. If that is not the case, then please make the case for this taxing the 1% more than they are taxed today.

Own BofA ATM, Make Money FAST!

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BofA, 1 customer per machine, every five minutes, 12 hours a day, a different customer, for one month, and $60/year to use the service once a month, at 30 days per month, equals, 12 per hour, times 12 hours, times 30 times $60 or $259,200.00 per year, from one lousy machine.

When I Give Food to the Poor,

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"When I Give Food to the Poor,I'm called a saint.

When I ask why the poor need food, I'm called a communist."

~Dom Helder Comoro~


Yup, taking care of the problem is one thing, asking why there is a problem in the first place is altogether another. You are allowed to bail out the life boat, you are not allowed to ask why the 1% are sailing away on the cruise ship.

On the Westboro "Church"

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The Westboro Family Enterprise is a unique example of capitalism gone rougue. They make cash by getting people angry enough to physically assault their members. Their people are equipped with wireless mikes, and the have a second family member filming the whole incident. Most of the time they settle out of court. It has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with shakedown. Bring mirrors and white noise machines, to such an event and blind their cameras and wash out their mikes.

BTW, Obama just wiped the floor with Boehner at the press conference.

It's The Union's Fault!

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I guess what seems to be the missing piece here, are the clauses in the contracts with the various unions, in which it is clearly spelled out that they are the ones in charge of keeping the governments' books straight, and giving them the power to tax as needed to generate the income to guarantee that the government lives up to its side of the bargain.

If you can show me ONE SINGLE UNION CONTRACT, in which such oversight and taxing power is included as part of the deal, then indeed, I will agree, the budgetary problems ARE THE FAULT OF THE UNIONS. However, since you can't, then the responsibility for the budgetary problems is the fault of every single US of A citizen out there, including all those who waited until Obama was elected to start complaining vociferously and blaming the issue on him and the public employee unions.

Passing on the debt to future generations is just one possible solution. Taxing the assets of the wealthiest is yet another. I can't conceive of any reason why one person needs to own more than $100,000,000. Yes take care of the obligations incurred 30 years ago, with the money from the richest and therefore the MOST CULPABLE, as they could afford the experts to do the needed analysis way back when, but waited until Obama was elected to make their moves. In the meantime, they harvested the cash, free of any pesky taxes. Time to pay up is now.

********************************************************

I note in passing that the Tea Party Right is beginning to back off blaming people (unions) and is now concentrating on blaming all the rules and regulations. As I have pointed out before, the government needs to maintain a help desk, staffed by US citizens, living in the USA, of course, that answers the phone within 3 minutes with a human who has the final authority to walk the business person through filing out the forms correctly. Given today's online screen sharing capabilities, this should be a no brainer, and will put at least 100,000 people to work. All phone answerers must have a four year degree, and be well trained.

The robotic pre-screener will determine the type of business, using the standard codes, and then pass the person on to an appropriate screener, who can then alert the caller via email to all possible regulations, for that code, which will of course be online, and each one will include a common English translation from the governmentez. If after two hours of active communication, the form remains incomplete, the business person is excused from that law for one year, subject to review for sincerity and prep on the callers part.

BP cannot have a driller attempting to answer environmental regulation questions. BP must hire a regulation specialist for each major subdivision.

Walmart Creates a Foodstamp Nation

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Walmart, by only employing workers for the fewest possible hours, has been a partner in raising the number of folks on food stamps 50% in less than three years. The following is from a Reuter's article.

Genna Saucedo supervises cashiers at a Wal-Mart in Pico Rivera, California, but her wages aren't enough to feed herself and her 12-year-old son.

Saucedo, who earns $9.70 an hour for about 26 hours a week and lives with her mother, is one of the many Americans who survive because of government handouts in what has rapidly become a food stamp nation.

Altogether, there are now almost 46 million people in the United States on food stamps, roughly 15 percent of the population. That's an increase of 74 percent since 2007, just before the financial crisis and a deep recession led to mass job losses.

At the same time, the cost doubled to reach $68 billion in 2010 -- more than a third of the amount the U.S. government received in corporate income tax last year -- which means the program has started to attract the attention of some Republican lawmakers looking for ways to cut the nation's budget deficit.

While there are clearly some cases of abuse by people who claim food stamps but don't really need them, for many Americans like Saucedo there is little current alternative if they are to put food on the table while paying rent and utility bills.

"It's kind of sad that even though I'm working that I need to have government assistance. I have asked them to please put me on full-time so I can have benefits," said the 32-year-old.

She's worked at Wal-Mart for nine months, and applied for food stamps as soon as her probation ended. She said plenty of her colleagues are in the same situation.

A Novel Fundraiser, especially Appropriate for Earthquake Relief

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You might as well take this map, divide it up into squares, and have an earthquake pool.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/

Once all the squares are sold, each to the highest bidder, the next red dot to appear gives the pot to owner of that square. This might make a cool fund raiser, as typically a new patch of red shows up every 20 minutes to every two hours.

Obviously the squares around the Bay Area, LA, Mammoth, and Parkfield and Clear Lake and Eureka would be the top sellers.