Rag Hand

The Nevada Teacher’s union has agreed to allow student’s test results be used as a part of the teacher’s evaluation.

The reason for this sudden change is that the U.S. Department of Education published its standards for teacher evaluations on Nov. 12 as part of the application criteria for the Race To the Top Funds, a $4 billion pool of competitive grants intended to spur educational reform at the local level.

To become eligible, Nevada would have to amend a state law not allowing student performance data to be used in teacher evaluations. The first round of grant applications is due Jan. 19.

For years teachers of this state have been hiding behind the law that prevented any measurable test of the job -teaching our children- they supposed doing. –Now it’s put up or shut up time. Although I’d be willing to wager that the change is going to be administered in such a way as to minimize any negative effects.

I realize that the state doesn’t pay teachers very much once you take into account the cost of living, making qualified teachers difficult to hire, but the current system of allowing teachers to stay on simply because they got the job needs to change.

I sincerely hope that including test scores as part of the evaluation process, will have the effect of forcing teachers and administrators to a change the system by which students are treated as second class citizens because everyone else in the class speaks a different language and the teacher is forced to cater to the majority of students to the detriment of the few.

All large retailers have Black Friday sales, complete with color ads deliver to your door step.

The problem with these “huge discounts” is that they are a scam.

CNNMoney -Sears (SHLD, Fortune 500) has not officially revealed its Black Friday sales. However, the company confirmed to CNNMoney.com that two of its post-Thanksgiving deals include a Samsung 40-inch 1080p LCD HDTV for $599.99, “Only while quantities last, minimum three per store, no rainchecks.”

The other is a Kenmore 3.5-cubic-foot high-efficiency washer and 5.8-cubic foot dryer pair for $579.98, “Limit four per store, no rainchecks.”

Three or four units per store sold on a first come first served basis, in a store that has the sales traffic of Sears? If that’s not a scam I don’t know what is.

Do you remember the stampede at Walmart in which a security guard was trampled to death? –This happened because there were some great deals on the hottest items, but only in severely limited quantities.

The other thing mentioned in the article at CnnMoney was something called “derivatives,” which is the same product but with fewer or different features than the full priced model.

Derivatives are also the reason electronics stores say they will give you money back if you find the “same item” cheaper somewhere else. Most of the electronics -laptops in particular- are configured specifically for a particular box box chain like Walmart or Best Buy. –So it’s virtually impossible to find the exact item anywhere else.

I repeat myself but like most things in advertising it’s all a con, and the American public has been trained to accept, not think, about it it.

Even that (very small)segment of the population that’s smart enough to know that it’s nothing more than a con job to get them into the store, doesn’t seem to care, and is willing to trample someone to death or fight for that special deal.

Like the man says: “You can’t fix stupid.”

Christian Science Monitor: Atlanta – In the days after the Ft. Hood shooting, mosques around the country bolstered their security in anticipation of a backlash from Americans angry about a Muslim man alleged to have killed American soldiers on their own turf.

Since then, only one alleged hate crime against Muslims has been directly tied to the Fort Hood rampage.

Two days after the rampage by an alleged lone wolf jihadist killed 13 in Texas, a Tinley Park, Ill., woman grumbled about the massacre and tugged the headscarf of a US-born Muslim woman, Amal Abusumayah, standing in line at a local grocery store.

Reaction was swift and, as prosecutors announced this week, serious: The alleged scarf-puller, Valerie Kenney, is charged with a hate crime, and she could face three years in prison and a $25,000 fine if convicted.

Why is there no mention of “hate crime” when a Muslim shouts Allah Akbar and kills Americans or an Imam stands in a mosque and incites his congregation to hate the great Satan?

Sura 9 –Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

The apologists can Kiss My Ass.

The headline from CNET: “Feds: Top e-tailers profit from billion-dollar Web scam”

Words like “scam,” “fraud,” and “arrest” filled the air during a Senate hearing on Tuesday that focused on the controversial marketing companies that allegedly dupe consumers into paying monthly fees to join online loyalty programs.

Vertrue, Webloyalty, and Affinion generated more than $1.4 billion by “misleading” Web shoppers, said members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which called the hearing. Lawmakers saved their harshest rebuke for Web retailers that accepted big money–a combined sum of $792 million–to share their customers’ credit-card information with the marketers.

When you do business with an online retailer there is a privacy policy somewhere on the site. –”Privacy Policy,” makes you feel safe doesn’t it?

Well if you can wade through the legalese you will find that they can share your data with other under terms that allow your credit card data to be shared with affiliates. –Which is to say: pretty much anyone they damn well please.

There is money to be made tricking people into signing up for these so called “loyalty programs.” Billions are made by the company running the con, but millions are made by the retailers you should be able to trust by selling your credit card data. This outright scam is legal under both the law and the company’s tos.

Now the senate is holding hearing and the scam artists are telling the committee that they will use something besides you email address to sign up.

The problem with this scenario is that the retailer can sell credit card data to scammers and not only not violate any laws but to make a serious profit all the while knowing that the source of the information is unlikely to ever be reveled to the consumer.

No matter how careful you are to protect yourself from identity theft, the bad guys can buy all your data from the company where you purchased the latest Harry Potter book.

Some of the retailers that partnered with Affinion, Webloyalty, or Vertrue.
Travelocity
US Airways
Barnes and Noble
FTD
Victoria’s Secret
Pizza Hut

And the list of companies who have no qualms about helping rip you off goes on practically forever.

For my part the only company I have done very much online business with is Barnes and Noble and I will no longer be doing business with them. They won’t even notice I’m gone but I’ll feel better.

Read the CNET article all the way to the bottom. There you will find an image listing the companies that have sold you out.

“What’s happening is many online merchants have decided to betray their customers’ trust.”
–Sen. John Rockefeller

The health care savings our elected officials promised are coming almost exclusively from Medicare/Medicaid.

Washington Post – Sunday, November 15, 2009:A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending — one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health-care system — would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

The report, requested by House Republicans, found that Medicare cuts contained in the health package approved by the House on Nov. 7 are likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether.

The report offers the clearest and most authoritative assessment to date of the effect that Democratic health reform proposals would have on Medicare and Medicaid, the nation’s largest public health programs. It analyzes the House bill, but the Senate is also expected to rely on hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts to finance the package that Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) hopes to take to the floor this week. Like the House, the Senate is expected to propose adding millions of people to Medicaid.

If you ignore the posturing and look closely you will notice that the public option will only benefit the insurance companies by forcing people who can’t afford it to buy insurance.

When was the last time you met a family of four trying to get by on $50k who had an extra $5k sitting in the bank?

The other thing that was promised and is missing is the ability to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical companies. –Big Pharma went straight to the Whitehouse to get that concession.

The basic problem with this whole dog and pony show is that the insurance/health care industry owns too many politicians outright and until the little guys can afford to buy our “elected officials” the way big business does all of us peasants are screwed.