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Part 1 here. The question I asked if the School District Administration does any kind of QA when a new / replacement program is introduced is one that I should NEVER have to ask.  Rather, why didn’t the School District Edu-mucky mucks ask it of themselves?  Failing that, why didn’t the School Board?  After all, aren’t they supposed to be in charge and providing competent oversight (versus just being, as I have seen around the State) rather than mere rubber stamps for “the professionals”?

Anyways, given the answer that I received from the Superintendent:

For all of our curricular materials in the district we use

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OK, Part 1 was done in April – too many Shiny Objects to contemplate so  back to playing catch up. The premise was that we should pay more for what we buy because CONSUMERISM and ENVIRONMENTALISM!  We all should be forced to make do with less, and I commented on this at the time (not wanting to make you click back):

“…the experience becomes less pleasurable and more painful.” You may not realize it but that statement seems to sum up how environmentalists come across to a lot of the rest of us (those of us that pay attention, anyways) – force life for the rest of us to be more miserable to satisfy their outlook on things.

Somehow, y’all gotta change your style (and I’m not talking about clothes or furnishings) because when I see this kind of statement, it cements even more my perception of what is “required”: Happiness is misery!

And for the record, I hate shopping all together; I have clothes older than you that I just can’t part with because I don’t care about fashion at all.

And went down hill from there – a bit.  In fact, if you go there now, the next two comments were deleted:

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Reformatted, emphasis mine:

An 84-year-old Korean War veteran killed a home intruder Friday with a single shot right to the chest, and he’s crediting God with his success.

Two robbers tried to break into Korean War veteran Don Lutz’s home early on Friday morning in Lawrence County, Penn., but were quickly dissuaded by some serious firepower. “Two guys tried to rob me, and I killed one of them,” Don Lutz said, according to WTAE-TV. “Maybe the other one, the bullet hit him, too. I hope so.” Lutz recounted that he woke up Friday morning at about 1:15 a.m. to the sound of someone breaking into his house. He grabbed his gun, which was stored underneath his pillow, and ran into the two robbers.

 

…Lutz is not facing any charges for his act of home self-defense.

The Great Equalizer –

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Yeah, Treehugger again.  I have NO idea what I said that would be an affront to these socialistic/communitarian (and let’s not forget that in every Socialist, there is a much worse Totalitarian yearning to get out – like in the movie Aliens) environmentalists. It seemed to be a hum-drum enough post (“Air pollution is hurting human procreation“, reformatted):

It distorts sperm, makes it harder to get pregnant, and can lead to premature births and low birth weights — yet another reason why cars and humans don’t mix well. Air pollution has become the world’s single largest environmental health risk, and scientists say it causes more than 3.7 million premature deaths per year (data from 2012). But what does air pollution do to unborn children? Or even to those parents who are trying to get pregnant? New research shows it’s having a seriously detrimental effect.

Problems start with a man’s sperm. In a study titled, “Exposure to ambient fine particulate matter and semen quality in Taiwan,” researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong examined 6,475 men between the ages of 14 and 49 and found that the more air pollution a man is exposed to, the greater his risk of having irregularly shaped and smaller sperm. Most of the participants did not smoke and had less than one alcoholic drink per week.

And of course, the obligatory (for them) WE HATE CARS!!!

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Reformated, emphasis mine:

Man Allegedly Grabs Woman from Behind, Flees When She Puts Gun to His Stomach

A suspect in Sterling Heights, Michigan, allegedly grabbed a woman from behind then fled when she pulled her concealed carry handgun and pushed the barrel against his stomach. The incident allegedly occurred “near 15 Mile and Van Dyke” during evening hours, as the woman was walking her dog.

…The woman said she noticed a suspect get out of the van and that he “started walking parallel to her.” She instinctively reached under her coat and put her hand on the handle of her gun. Then the man disappeared. Suddenly, the man reappeared and was coming right at her. Chief Dwojakowski said, “He grabbed the back of her jacket and tried to grab her and pull her towards him.” The woman drew her handgun, put the barrel against the suspect’s

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The nationwide survey by YouGov shows that only 29% of Americans now say life is fair, down from 38% in December of 2016. And, while Republicans are more likely than Democrats to view life as fair, both saw a drop in optimism since last year.

“Life Is Fair”:

• Republicans: 39%, Down from 47%
• Democrats: 26%, Down 34%

Total: 29%, Down from 38%.  Likewise, a smaller percentage of both Democrats and Republicans now say life “should” be fair. Overall, 55% of Americans believe it should, down from 63% in 2016 – and one in five (20%) said “Life shouldn’t be fair” – while 25% weren’t sure.

“Life SHOULD Be Fair”:

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QA: that would be Quality Assurance for those not in the know. In any manufacturing environment, if someone (if not EVERYone) is watching the quality of your product(s), the last person who holds or uses your product or service is your customer. While that customer really is the ultimate QA guy in the end (“do I have to return this for non-conformance” or worse “I’m not buying this again”), do you really want to give them a reason to go negative?  Expensive, expensive, expensive if you fail to do your QA.

During my first stint on our BudComm, I never asked the following question but just kept being amazed at how many new “programs” kept popping into the budget – new textbooks, time to train teachers, new teaching supplies; we’re talking on a new curriculum that may span several grades up to 100s of thousands of dollars.  And then see that new program replaces after a couple of years??  But the mostly costly question is:

What difference did it do and did it work better than what it replaced?

“HEY – THAT’S NOT IN THE BUDGET!”  HOW DARE YOU ASK THAT!

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Yet another piece from the Concord Monitor where Don Vallone of Reaching Higher New Hampshire makes the argument, financially, that ONLY Government schools should be allowed to teach your children.  How?  He cries in his cups of how government public schools would be losing money to other entities if HB 193 is enacted.  Boo-hoo (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Two public policy groups provided closer looks Wednesday at the financial impact of a sweeping school choice bill under consideration at the State House. Senate Bill 193 could cost the state $31 million in new spending over five years, an analysis by public school advocacy organization Reaching Higher New Hampshire has found, and the legislation could cost school districts nearly $6 million in state aid in its first year of implementation.

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(re: Moms Demand Action is really misnamed; it should be Hoplophobic Womyn Demand Complete Civilian Disarmament).

This is the bill that will allow those of us with NH Pistol / Revolver licenses to conceal carry anywhere in the US – no more having to study up where one can pack legally and no longer having to worry “er, what jurisdiction have I forgotten to study??” Neither will we in NH who have to go southward worry about the wall that is MA, CT, NY, or NJ which effectively act as a “Thou Shalt Not Pass” for guns.

No, this does not allow

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Reformatted, emphasis mine:

A 41-year-old pizza delivery driver from Imo’s told St. Louis police he was making food delivery when two men tried to rob him Thursday night, KTVI-TV reported. One of the suspects hit the driver in the head with a gun, the station said. When the victim ran back to his vehicle, KTVI said the same suspect began shooting at him, but the driver had his own gun and returned fire.

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…coded in an outdated assembler language…

Voyager 1 is an important vessel. It’s the fastest spacecraft we’ve got, traveling at around 11 miles per second. It’s also the farthest. Its twin, Voyager 2, is nearly 11 billion miles away from the Sun, pushing through the last layer of our host star’s influence on the space around our system. But Voyager 1 is over 13 billion miles away from the Sun, and has the incredible distinction of being the first human-made object to enter interstellar space.

Yet even from that great distance, the probe still sends messages back to Earth. That’s where the thrusters come in. For decades, a set of thrusters has served to set out tiny, split-second pulses to keep the craft’s antenna pointed toward us. Now those thrusters are getting old, and it’s taking more effort to make Voyager 1 move. The solution? See if the TCM thrusters—which on the one hand haven’t been worn out by constant use over the last few decades, but on the other hand haven’t even been turned on — could take on some of the legwork.

“The Voyager flight team dug up decades-old data

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“We don’t take any money from the state or the federal government. You know why? It’s because I don’t want to serve a piping hot bowl of red tape every day.”

From his UL Op-Ed, Matt hits the nail on the head.  The problem isn’t that the Feds want to make sure that their money (er, our money minus their vigorish) is well spent, it is that it all comes with micro-management. You may have the idea, you may have the sweat, you may have the willingness to do the right thing, but of course some government bureaucrat (or commission or board or some other entity that ISN’T doing the good work you want to do themselves) believes you don’t know HOW to do it – so you now have the privilege of paying taxes to them simply to have them tell you how to do what you want to do, how to spend that which you have left of your treasure, even as they simply sit in a chair with a keyboard (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Another View — Matt Mayberry: A piping hot bowl of red tape

I recently attended the 2017 Londonderry-Derry Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner. That evening, the Sonshine Soup Kitchen won the Business of the Year Award. Linda German, a firecracker of an activist, talked about making ends meet during hard times, and she said something profound and unfortunately accurate.

“We don’t take any money from the state or the federal government. You know why? It’s because I don’t want to serve a piping hot bowl of red tape every day.” And she’s right. The federal government would come in and dictate things such as serving portions. These volunteers just want to feed people, provide fellowship, and comfort those in need.

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