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“So who’s right? The educators who insist on making the fundamentals of mathematics as complex as a Rubik’s cube, or the kid who probably has secret access to his mom’s old flashcards and sees this as a foolish waste of time?”

My mom’s flashcards taught me the answer was 13.  Period.  The kid gets it – and the teacher is leading him/her astray.  Or, given that most teachers were nearer the bottom of the SAT scores than the top than other college students (I’ve posted about the hour of my life trying to teach a School of Ed student that was in my EC 101 class  what Y=MX + B meant for graphing homework), this teacher hasn’t grasped the error of this way.  I’ve put up examples like this before – what our kids are now being taught, a curriculum / testing regime that has NEVER even been beta tested.  I have followed some of the money – and it leads to folks that are quite happy to keep upending what used to be the best educational system in the world (and if not THE best, certainly one of them). 

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From CNN (reformatted, emphasis mine):

In one of the most closely-watched Senate races of the year, incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina holds a narrow three-point advantage over her Republican challenger, according to a new CNN/ORC International survey. But the poll indicates that Thom Tillis, the GOP nominee, may be falling behind Hagan because a Libertarian candidate could be siphoning off Republican votes.  Hagan edges Tillis, 46%-43%, while Libertarian Sean Haugh has support from 7% likely voters, according to the poll.  The three-point gap between Tillis and Hagan, however, is well within the poll’s sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points among likely voters, meaning the candidates are about even.

… Hagan’s favorable rating is 46%, indicating that everyone who likes her is going to vote for her. But Tillis gets a 47% favorable rating among likely voters, yet only 43% of the vote. “That suggests that there are voters who would probably choose Tillis in a two-way race but aren’t going to vote for him in a three-way contest,” said CNN Polling

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More and more, I am seeing posts at the national level on a topic that I have been writing and talking about for months now: Trust.  The lack thereof.  From the grassroots to the Republican Establishment there is little Trust (or as I told someone tonite (so many calls tonite, very little blogging!) that having zero Trust would be a large step up right now).  Each of these posts by others is now echoing that sentiment even as the Establishment (nationally and certainly here in NH!) is tearing their collective hair out – “WHY aren’t they falling into line like they always have???  Why are we being told “nope, no interested in voting“?   And that is their large problem – but we have told them why (certainly *I* have  and I know that I am not alone).

They simply are not listening.  But their words are heard and their action speak even louder – it’s deafening.  They have made themselves clear – and they don’t get that WE have been listening closely and watching even more intently.  They have brought us upon themselves.  Anyways, I have a few of these bookmarked and will share them over the next few days.  This is from IBD Editorials (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Republicans, in an orgy of expectations, believe the key to taking the Senate was getting “electable” candidates nominated. And get them nominated they did.  The Establishment got their candidates. Now they’re looking at a potentially disastrous election where their chosen ones dramatically underperform all reasonable expectations, the result of attacking their own party’s base to cement primary victories.

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Once in a while (a rare while, I will post up a complete post from elsewhere – this time, from Bill Quick at Daily Pundit (via Instapundit) (emphasis mine):

Stinking Chickens Coming Home to Roost for Gentry GOP

Republicans See Money Drying Up in Final Weeks – NationalJournal.com

The disparity has led to mounting frustration among political operatives running Republican campaigns. And they are issuing a blunt warning: In a year with a half-dozen tight Senate contests, the party could easily squander most of them.

“I am worried about it for the first time in a long time,” said Rob Jesmer, who ran the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2012 and 2010 and continues to work on behalf of Senate campaigns now. “I think in some of these places, it could be the determining factor.”

The party, Jesmer says, still has a good chance of taking the Senate from Democrats. “But if we don’t, the story is going to be that outside money saved these guys.”

Yeah, that will be your story, JIsmer.   Of course you won’t mention the scorched earth war, and the oceans of money, you and your organization spent to “crush” the Tea Party, whose donors are taking their wallets and going home.

Just like the base here in NH that watched the NH Senate Republican Majority PAC drop oodles of money into

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 “We can’t let divisions between conservatives cause us to forfeit elections to big government.”

In the midterms “everything is at stake,” he [Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas)] added, and “arguments within the family” should be laid to rest to get the party past the finish line. “The appropriate time for it has passed, at least until after the general election,” the senator said, noting that once the GOP gets the majority the party can then have “robust discussion about what our priorities should be.”

Seriously??  You don’t know what you’re gonna do until you win?? Even just to say that before the election?  And then they wonder we in the base keep having WTF thoughts?  This is supposed to engender Trust? You want us to vote for you and you don’t know what you are going to do?? Is it only me that thinks this makes sense??

Winning is merely a precursor – it is what you do afterwards that is most important.

So according to Cornyn, we in the base are just supposed to

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This is funny!  Hysterical even!  Doesn’t Arturo Carmona know where Jeanne Shaheen lives??  Yeah, New Hampshire.  Which means:

• White alone, percent, 2013 (a) – 94.2%
• Hispanic or Latino, percent, 2013 (b) – 3.2%

So why am I chuckling?  This (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Senate Election 2014: New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen Criticized for ‘Appearing Anti-Immigrant,‘ Missing Senate Hearings

…”In siding with Senator Cruz, Senator Shaheen has relayed the message that she is willing to throw Latinos and other immigrant communities under the bus for votes,” said Presente Action Executive Director Arturo Carmona, in a statement to Latin Post.  According to Carmona, Shaheen re-election bid has made her evaluate political efforts to “appear more socially conservative and anti-immigrant.”

“We have voting power and we’re going to use it in the upcoming elections to

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This from Instapundit on the topic of someone in the act of carry at work:

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Oklahoma City beheading: Will jihad-style attack boost ‘bring gun to work’ laws? “Moore Police Sgt. Jeremy Lewis told the Associated Press that Vaughan’s decision to carry a weapon to work made a big difference in the outcome of the attack. The situation ‘could have gotten a lot worse’ if Vaughan didn’t have this gun, said Sgt. Lewis. ‘This was not going to stop if [Vaughan] didn’t stop it.’”

Plus, some no-nonsense thoughts from Tam: “While a gun in the parking lot might be a few minutes closer than the gun in the holster of a responding cop, the fastest response is the gun you have on your person right then.”

The Natural Right of Self-Defense.  I do dryly notice that Moms Demand Action’s FB page has NOTHING about the Oklahoma beheading where a good guy with a gun on the premises stopped a second Mom from losing her head. Nein, nadda, nothing, zippo.

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” beat me, smear me, dirty tricks me, despise me, ostracize me “

I get inundated with eblasts from all kinds of groups including the NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee – to elect Republicans to the US House) and most of them are trying to pry money out of my wallet (like running GraniteGrok is cost-free?).  But this line takes the cake:

• President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are spending MILLIONS to smear conservatives in the 50 most critical races across the nation.

Bolding of conservatives is by me.  Heck, it hasn’t just been by the Dems, dudes, national level Republicans have acted in the exact same manner.  So did the Establishment Republicans here in NH; we’ve seen that deal before.  The most extreme example, once again, was done by NH State Senator Chuck Morse and NH State Senator Jeb Bradley in steering a ton of money to prop up two of their Insider Senate Circle that scarcely could be considered to be conservative: NH State Senator David “I was too drunk to know” Boutin and NH State Senator Nancy “There was no Supreme Court ruling to make Medicaid Expansion optional!” Stiles.  Tons of money for these two hacks in attacking their truly Conservative opponents whose only “political sin” was to actually take the NH GOP Platform seriously (as opposed to the propped up incumbents).

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State House Dome:

“Right-to-work, or forbidding unions from charging non-members agency fees for negotiating and administering collective bargaining agreements, will also be back next session.  During the 2011-2012 term, lawmakers battled over the issue – which was promoted by House Speaker Bill O’Brien – more than two times before the Senate called a halt to the maneuvering by simply refusing to take it up any more.”

Frankly, if we ARE the Land of the Free and we do cherish the Constitution (First Amendment, Right to Free Association), I have no problem with people voluntarily banding together for whatever reason.  What I do protest is the FORCING of association simply because one wishes to make a living and provide for their families.  It should not be that to sit in a particular chair or at a designated bench or doing some set of tasks that your future is determined by union bosses that, often, are more interested in just power and changing everyone else’s lives (e.g., look at the list of political issues that the NEA or AFT involved themselves in that have NOTHING to do with teaching).

If I was the next Republican Speaker of the NH House dealing with this issue, I would simply emulate 

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Twinkies disappeared for a while as the bakery (et al) unions overplayed their hands in a power struggle as in who gets to effectively run a company – the company’s owners / managers or the unions (note I didn’t say workers).  The unions wanted control and they wanted more money.  However, in the public marketplace, the consumer makes the final rule and when the profits could not sustain the greedy unions, the company went under (and afterwards, a box of twinkies went for big bucks on eBay).  And now, are we seeing the same thing by the Post Office unions?

The U.S. Postal Service must hire 9,000 employees over the next three months to staff regional part-time post offices as part of a settlement it negotiated with the American Postal Workers Union. The new postal employees will be working at offices that are open for four to six hours a day.

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