I Shall Purchase One of These Books. My Wife Shall Purchase the Other. The Cosmic Scales Shall Remain Balanced. 2012 Is Averted For Another Day.

(via)

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Maybe Not the Point They Were Trying to Make

Over at Red County they've got a post up criticizing the Department of Revenue for their recent report showing that Washington has the 26th highest level of taxation in the nation. Their beef was with releasing the report during the height of the campaign around I-1033, but the take-home message I get from their research is that in the last 4 years the level of taxation has been 29th, 28th, 26th, and 37th.

Overtaxed? Maybe. But compared to the mean? Not so bad.

More here from the Washington Policy Center.

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One Pill Makes You Larger; One Pill Makes You Small

EIA Online on school district consolidation in Maine and Mississippi.

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Let's Try GraphJam Again

see more Funny Graphs

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Jesus, People Suck

The saddest, most amazing thing I've seen in a while: The Stomachs of Dead Albatrosses.

(via)

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Gerald Bracey Remembered

One of Washington's own and a dynamic public speaker, education advocate Gerald Bracey passed away last week. You can read eulogies here from Sherman Dorn, here from Mike Antonucci, and here from EduWonk.

Read more here, if any.

David Brooks is Full of Crap

Check this out, and understand that he's talking about DC:

Duncan even seems to have made some progress in persuading the unions that they can’t just stonewall, they have to get involved in the reform process. The American Federation of Teachers recently announced innovation grants for performance pay ideas. The New Haven school district has just completed a new teacher contract, with union support, that includes many of the best reform ideas.

There are still many places, like Washington, where the unions are dogmatically trying to keep bad teachers in the classrooms. But if implemented well, the New Haven contract could be a sign of perestroika even within the education establishment.

There is no teacher union that wants to keep bad teachers in the classroom. Hell, I've told my district and my members directly that I'm not here to protect bad teachers. What I am here to do is to make sure that the contract is followed, and far too often the administration makes that molehill into a mountain, because they'd rather not have to put in the work.

Where there's a will, there's a way, and the presence of bad teachers is a function of the failure of administrative will, not union dogma.

Read more here, if any.

Poetry for Our Times

IBM and UPS and other corporations
Have declared their recent earnings
And they beat the expectations.

And it's not because their products have been flying out the door.
It's because their payroll's down
Cuz no one works there anymore.

(via)

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EYMAN TALKS IN ALL CAPS

Seriously, sir, haven't you ever heard the internet convention against typing things in all capital letters, even it if is the title of the post? It looks absolutely terrible in my RSS feed.

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More on the Jobless Recovery

Nafzblog has a scary chart and some good thoughts on what the state should and could do, but given that there is no money and will never be any money ever again, ever, I really don't see the political will to expand unemployment insurnace and create more safety nets.

It'll be ever better next summer when thousands of laid-off teachers and paraprofessionals hit the job market.

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Privatize the Prisons

Arizona is.

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I Can't Wait to See the One From OSPI!

Let the cleaving begin! It'll be as bloody as Saw VIIIIIIIXM, only worse.

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The Decline and Fall of Washington Mutual

This is fascinating reading.

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As the Father of a Special Needs Child, This Scares Me

The impact of I-1033 on county health budgets.

The people at the Spokane Regional Health District were invaluable during the first three years of my daughters life, after she was diagnosed with her profound deafness and we worked through all the other various diagnoses that came up along the way; the thought that parents might not have access to that is troubling.

More here from the Washington State Budget and Policy Center.

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Chatter, Part 2

Randy Dorn was over here in Spokane last week talking at First Presbyterian church. I wasn't able to attend--I teach, every now and again--but a friend who went said that Dorn talked directly about school district consolidation, mentioning specifically "little districts within larger districts", which makes one think of places like Griffin, Orchard Prairie, Great Northern, Benge, Damman, Onion Creek, Mount Pleasent, and College Place.

It's going to be a fun 60 days.

Read more here, if any.

Chatter

Talked to a couple of principals on Friday who attended the AWSP conference down in Yakima last week. Apparently a couple of State Senators were there who said that they fully expect the budget deficit they have to deal with to roll right past $2 billion dollars and settle--maybe--at right around $2.25 billion.

So long, levy equalization.
Nice to have known you, K-4 class size enhancement.
Hey, full day kindergarten! We had a good coupla years, didn't we?
I-728? You've been mostly dead, so let's just make it official.

There is no hope.

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Eek

400+ banks on the "Problem" bank watchlist.

7 banks failed yesterday, bringing the total to 106 for the year.

The foreclosure crisis isn't really behind us yet, either.

And just wait until commercial real estate really gets going! By which I mean not going. Or going down.

Hang on to your hats, folks.

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The Most Amazing Chart You'll See This Week

Home foreclosures.

Dow 10,000 is cold comfort when put side-by-side with Unemployment 10%+.

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No on I-1033 Week: Firefighters Hate It, Too

There is absolutely nothing to like about this Initiative.

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There is NO HOPE

Well, one small hope--hopefully things don't get as bad here as they are in California.

(via)

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No on I-1033 Week: Because Tim Eyman Is a Twit

Sound Politics has given Tim a platform to talk about I-1033, which seems kind of repetitive because he'd be preaching to the choir there, but such is life. What's rather funny is one of the headlines he used:

GREGOIRE BLOWS A GASKET OVER INITIATIVE 1033
....particularly when you compare that to the previous video of him acting like a jerk to Joel Connelly and David Goldstein.

It also doesn't help that his biggest critique is a house built on sand:

After Gregoire recently announced that she's changed her position and now wants higher taxes - whatever increases "lawmakers and interest groups" tell her to enact - the need for Initiative 1033 became even more evident.

Let's compare that to what she actually said (emphasis mine):

Now Gov. Chris Gregoire, of all people, jump-started the tax talk in response to a question from Associated Press reporter Curt Woodward. The governor said her “door is open” to lawmakers and advocates who want to make the case for a tax package come January. “I’ve told them come on in, convince me that that’s the right thing to do and that the people will support it,” said Gregoire in a briefing with Capitol reporters.

So she's asked lawmakers (you know, the guys we elect) to make their case, and if they can convince her that tax increases are the best way, she'll consider it.

That's a long ways off from the metaphorical dinner bell that Eyman would have you think that she's ringing. My belief is that the political will won't possibly be there this session, since 2010 is an election year, and that's despite a reasonable argument to be made that taxes might be better than the alternative.

Government may have it's problems, but this initiative is not the solution.

Read more here, if any.

From the 5th Grade

Q) Explain how you know the numbher of decimal places that should be in the product when you multiply two decimal numbers together.

A) There should be one decimal.

-----

Thanks, kid. Now, about those decimal PLACES.........

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No on I-1033 Week: The Seattle Times Editorial

The Times lays out the case for voting no on I-1033; additional commentary by David Goldstein here.

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No on I-1033 Week: Tim Eyman Hates It, Too!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

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No on I-1033 Week: It Didn't Work in Colorado

Good video from Horse's Ass with the president of the Colorado Education Association talking about what a similar bill there did to the schools in her state.

Also check out this video of Tim showing up to a press conference and acting like, well, a Horse's Ass. He gets asked the question about levy equalization and levy lids and he has no answer because he doesn't give a damn about public schools.

Read more here, if any.

Gotta Love GraphJam

Edit: Well, if they can't figure out how to embed, then I guess I won't be linking to them.

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What Do the Following All Have in Common?

Larry Springer, Frank Chopp, Timm Ormsby, Al O'Brien, Larry Seaquist, Ruth Kagi, Reuven Carlyle, Mary Lou Dickerson, Ross Hunter, Mary Helen Roberts, Tina Orwall, Sharon Nelson, and Sharon Tomiko Santos?

A) All are Democratic State Representatives.
B) They all agree that Taco Bell is better than Taco Time.
C) All of them have donated money to the re-election campaign for Laura Grant in the 16 Legislative District.
D) Both A and C.

The correct answer is D. All have donated $100 or more to re-elect Laura Grant, who I'm guessing will lose to Terry Nealey by 15 points in November. Not only is Nealey the Republican candidate in a traditionally Republican district, but he's also the first of the candidates in November to break the $100,000+ mark in donations.

There are roughly 12 legislative districts in Eastern Washington, with 36 legislators between them. Of those, only 6 are democrats, and of those, only Laura Grant is from outside Spokane. It's a seat that I know the Democrats would love to hold, but I wouldn't lay money on it.

I'll share the real fun education angle after November 4th.

Read more here, if any.

No on I-1033 Week: Because Tim Eyman Doesn't Understand Levy Law

It's worth reading this interview with Tim Eyman on the TV Washington website, because he's a moron:

Let’s say you put it to voters to raise sales tax by $1 billion a year and use that for education. If voters vote for that, the billion a year would be exempt for all time from the formula for determining growth.

Now nevermind that we've just cut $2 billion dollars from education and are in line to cut hundreds of millions of dollars more. The trouble comes from the fact that local school districts have a lid on the amount of money that they can ask for from levies (24%), and can't ask for money above that. Consider, too, that there are many school districts that could never ask for the full 24% because of their property-poor nature (see the tag below for levy equalization), so they'll never have a real chance at success.

Tim doesn't care what this will do to our schools. Hopefully, the voters will.

Read more here, if any.

This, On the Other Hand, Looks Rather Dumb

I guess not every school documentary can hit it out of the park, but still.

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No on I-1033 Week: Tim Eyman Single-Handedly Heals Schism Between Anglican and Catholic Church

It's true!

The state's Roman Catholic and Episcopal bishops, together with other faith leaders, warn that Tim Eyman's Initiative 1033 would "make Washington State's recession permanent" and cut human services.

Let's deploy him to the Middle East stat so that he can bring his particular brand of love to the Palestinians and Israelis. Much as only Nixon could go to China, only Eyman can go to the West Bank.

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I'd Watch This

I'd probably disagree with most of it, but I'd watch.

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No on I-1033 Week: More from the League of Education Voters

5 Reasons to vote no.

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Fill in the Blank: By the Year _____, Kids Will No Longer Really Know What Newspapers Were

I'll miss print media, and mourn it's passing, but articles like this make it pretty clear that the end is coming.

Read more here, if any.

Sen. Zarelli Says We Need a Special Session in December

And I say sure, why not. The schools are going to take it in the shorts one way or the other; might as well get it over with.

Read more here, if any.

Let's Peek In on the 9th LD Special Election

One of the political things I did over the summer was to sit in on the WEA candidate interviews for the folks seeking to replace Don Cox in the 9th Legislative District. Rep. Cox was one of the best in the legislature from either party regarding education issues, so both the WEA and the PSE have given the race some attention.

The two candidates that came out of the primary are Pat Hailey of Mesa (just north of the Tri-Cities) and Susan Fagan of Pullman, and it's going to be a tight one. The WEA and the PSE have both endorsed Pat Hailey--she's a former school secretary, school board member, and has a real depth of knowledge regarding the 9th--but Susan Fagan has some strong GOP connections (endorsed by both Rob McKenna and Dino Rossi!) and is pulling the money in hand-over-fist.

It's why you've got to love the Public Disclosure Commission website, because there are interesting stories to be told. Hailey, for example, has had 11 different $800 donations (among them the PSE twice and the WEA), with $800 being the max allowed under the law. Fagan has 32 $800 gives, including a double-dip from Wal-Mart and Avista, 5 donations from Schweitzer Engineering in Pullman (where she used to work), and at least 6 from health care interests, which I only find interesting because you don't really think of health care as being a big issue in either the 9th or Washington State, even if it does burn brightly at the national level right now.

It'll be an interesting one to watch play out here in the last month.

Read more here, if any.

No On I-1033 Week: The LEV Takes a Call

It takes a lot for me to say it, but good on the League of Education Voters for the conference call they held last week sharing objections to the newest Tim Eyman initiative, I-1033. It's well worth listening to for anyone who is a school advocate.

Read more here, if any.

We Is Smart!

Hooray for the Seattle/Tacoma metropolitan area, the 7th smartest in the nation!

This poll says that we're awfully smart, too.

Read more here, if any.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation and Me Are Best Friends Forever

I'm fine with this:

The Freedom Foundation is proud to announce the launch of our School District Transparency Project. With the goal of helping policymakers and taxpayers better understand K-12 education funding through easy access to actual spending (not just budgets), we asked Washington state school districts to post their budgets and warrants (check registers) online.

As a union guy that would make my work that much easier.

This, on the other hand, is a bit divergent from the usual conservative script:

Responses included yes, no and maybe, with many reluctant school districts citing cost as a factor in posting their budget and warrants on their websites. Given that we’re living in the Information Age, we don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a detailed expense report for school districts on the Internet for public inspection. Approval of warrants—including check number, vendor name and amount—is already part of most school board meetings. Posting warrants online requires no additional equipment, and only a limited amount of employee time. In just a few minutes, a document can be converted into PDF form and posted on the school district’s website.

This is how 1,000 unfunded mandates have ended up thrust upon the schools: "Hey, it sounds really easy, and we think it's a good idea, so you guys should do that." Later on they say that if the Districts don't do it the EFF will do it themselves, which isn't exactly a really big threat; if you're a school district that doesn't want to pay to do this, and the EFF says they'll go ahead and do it for you, then you haven't exactly lost anything.

Should be fun to watch.

Update: Brett Davis of the EFF has posted a nice reply on their website, here.

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Who's Screwed? We're Screwed.

The economic situation isn't getting any better. The next forecast for the state comes out in November, IIRC, which will lead into the December legislative assembly days and the Governor's budget. With our luck unemployment will hit 10% in December, putting a realy damper on the holiday shopping season, taking that much more away from a state that lives and dies on the sales tax.

Yippee.

Read more here, if any.

No on I-1033 Week: The NEA Ponies Up

Via Intercepts, the NEA has given $200,000 to the No on 1033 campaign. Since it would be devestating to the schools, this is only appropriate.

Read more here, if any.

This Is What Charts Are For

A great find by Dr. Pezz.


see more Funny Graphs

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Uh-huh

Red County King County on the most recent Dow Constantine/Susan Hutchison spat:

It is the WPC’s prerogative, not the opposition’s, to clarify its own language. We, as a society, have already begun to lose touch with the importance of language, a slippery slope of diminished value from our interpersonal communications that is hastened when politicians take liberty to twist words that are not their own. The term “socialist,” when used in a specific context, is as inflammatory when directed at liberal Democrats as when conservative Republicans are labeled “fascists.” Words often have multiple definitions and as Ennis clarifies, the context in which the WPC’s Policy Guide uses the term is academic and benign. It was used– in Ennis’s words – to “describe a benefit to society, not a political ideology.”

Headline from Red County from October 1st for an article also written by Bryan Myrick:

President Holly Golightly Heads to Copenhagen

Intentions are a funny thing, aren't they?

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The Best Line on Obama Winning the Nobel Peace Prize

Thanks, Daily Kos.

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Krugman on Education Funding

Good stuff. Check out the comments section, too.

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God Says Vote No on I-1033

Basically.

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To All You A-Holes Who Won Ben Stein's Money, Look What You've Done to Him!

(I kid because I love--I really liked that show)

So Ben Stein spoke to the Washington Policy Center the other night; Olympia Business Watch thinks he's just peachy!

Ben Stein, the iconic actor who played the economics teacher in Ferris Buehler’s Day Off, is not shy about expressing his opinions.

Iconic? When I think iconic actors I've gotta say that Ben Stein doesn't really pop right to mind, y'know?

I also rather like this piece from his speech:

On health care: “Somewhere between 70 percent and 80 percent of all people are happy with their health care. Take the poorest people in this country and give them money to buy health insurance. Don’t screw up everyone else’s relationship with his doctor and hospital.”

Ben Stein.....ENDORSES SOCIALISM?!?!?! What did Obama do to him?

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This Week In Education: Another Harsh Cartoon About Education (And Chicago)

It's not funny, because it's true.

This Week In Education: Another Harsh Cartoon About Education (And Chicago)

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It Can't Happen Here?

Dell gets a bunch of tax breaks, closes the plant anyhow. Governor (of North Carolina) pulls hair, stomps feet, pulls feet, stomps hair.

As you read the article, don't think about Boeing.

Read more here, if any.

So We Can't Have the Olympics--Let's Fix the Schools Instead!

Somehow, I think that getting people to turn their considerable energy from landing a major sporting event to fixing the Chicago Public Schools is one of those nice ideas that is never, ever going to happen.

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Stupid Use of Stimulus Funds

Diversity training. That's the salary of 7 teachers, right there.

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Snark!

The Washington Association of School Administrators is against I-1033.

The Association of Washington School Principals is against I-1033.

The Washington Education Association is against I-1033.

The League of Education Voters is against I-1033.

The Washington State PTA is against I-1033.

The Northwest Professional Educators has no opinions, because why would teachers be interested in politics?

One of these groups is not like the others. I'll leave it to you to decide if that's in the best interest of their members or not.

Read more here, if any.

Raising Class Size Will be a Microtrend, or Something

I think you'll see a lot of this in Washington State in the coming few years. The contract interplay will also be interesting, because in my experience it's not class size caps per se that cost money, it's the overload pay or the mandatory triggers that have actual $ associated with them.

Read more here, if any.

Don't Go Into Teaching

Just don't. The article is about Oregon, but I'm willing to bet it holds true for Washington State as well. I know that our sub list is actually wonderfully robust this year, which is a pleasant change.

Have any of the papers done a study like this for Washington? It'd be fascinating reading.

Read more here, if any.

Joe Zarelli: Huh?

Something odd that Sen. Zarelli said in the paper the other day:

“We've made our points on this. We're going to let them do what they're going to do,” said Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, who is the ranking Republican on the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Zarelli said the looming deficit might not even exist had Democrats taken his advice to adopt the budget well before April so the cuts would have been in place longer. He's hoping they won't wait to act until the end of the 2010 session.

“The inaction is really what we're paying for,” he said. “The problem we're going to have this budget is probably consistent with savings we passed on by not acting in January 2009.”

Does he really believe that passing a budget in January instead of April would have meant an additional $1.8 billion dollars in savings, especially since some of the savings that were projected haven't happened?

Bizarre.

Read more here, if any.

Then Again, Maybe Tax Increases Are the Way To Go

Really intersting thoughts from the Flypaper Blog at the Fordham Foundation:

No politician likes to raise taxes, but this is one of those times when a tax increase may be the lesser of two evils. Setting back urban school districts big-time while also killing off the state’s charters would be a political nightmare for Democrats and Republicans alike. More importantly, it isn’t in the interest of the state’s neediest children and their families.

They're talking about Ohio, sure, but it's still an interesting point worth consideration.

Read more here, if any.

Scenes from the 5/6 Combo

"Your next spelling word is gaze. Gaze."

(snickering from the boys)

"Gaze in the mirror."

(more snickering)

(Teacher finally figures it out)

"Knock it off, knuckleheads."

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One of the Joys of Teaching in a Small School District

You don't have nearly the number of arguments about what school the kids will go, especially when there's only one school for the kids to go to.

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Crosscut on a Potential Tax Package in 2010

Interesting thoughts from the always good Austin Jenkins, but given the continuing national trend against Obama and towards the GOP in general, I really have a hard time seeing our state legislators who might be in a competitive race in 2010 signing on to any tax package.

Take, for example, someone like Democrat John Driscol out of the 6th LD in Spokane, who beat incumbant Republican John Ahern by less than 200 votes in a district that's only recently become swing after leaning conservative for a long, long time. If a Driscol votes for taxes, he's giving his opponent a hammer that will be used to hit him over the head repeatedly in the 2010 elections. It's politics 101.

Point is, it's beautifully easy for someone like Lisa Brown to talk about potential "revenue" streams, since she's a Senator for Life in every sense of the phrase, but can she and Frank Chopp convince others to follow their lead?

Read more here, if any.

The NEA on Health Care Reform

This is from an email newsletter I got:

NEA opposes any tax on health benefits, including a tax on insurance companies, which would be passed off to consumers in the form of higher premiums. Many public education employees have traded salary increases for the long-term security of a comprehensive health plan. Telling them benefits will be cut or that they will pay more taxes would unfairly penalize them.

In addition, such a tax would place the burden more heavily on some workers than others. Coverage is more expensive for employers whose workforces are older or female-dominated such as education.

I remember McCain proposing a tax on health benefits during the campaign, and we blasted him for it. It's weird to see the idea coming back to life when the Democrats control every branch, and while I get that it's only supposed to be on super-duper-cadillac-A1 plans, as someone who gets heavily subsidized by the state for his insurance, I worry.

Read more here, if any.

That Doesn't Make Sense

From Intercepts:

In California we’ve been hearing about a teacher shortage for the entire decade, which has led to a rush to the profession and a large increase in hiring, despite flat enrollment. Now those teachers are being laid off and they can’t understand why.

Why would a shortage lead to increased hiring?

Read more here, if any.

Ryan Goes and Gives the Quality Education Council a Piece of His Mind

The post that I wrote over the summer on measuring teacher effectiveness was well received in a lot of quarters; I didn't realize just how well until I received an invitation last month to be part of a panel of teachers talking to the Data Governance Workgroup that's a part of the Quality Education Council, which is the new big committee that was formed out of HB2261.

We met at the WEA Headquarters in Federal Way, and it was a pretty impressive group. The Chair, Bob Butts of OSPI, is a pretty nice guy, and he was sitting next to Cal Brodie, a financial wiz who's helped me with some impact aid issues in the past. Lots of good questions, lots of brainpower, a really good conversation about the data that teachers use, how we use it, and how the system could be improved to the benefit of our kids and ourselves.

The last question, though, was the biggie--linking evaluation to student testing data. I essentially repeated what I always do, that designing a system sensitive enough to suss out the good teachers from the bad mathematically would be almost impossible given the testing apparatus that we have now. A couple of the teachers on the panel were strongly in favor of doing exactly that, a couple strongly against.

Given that I <3 politics I'm looking forward to the legislative piece, when a bill gets constructed and the fight begins. That'll be fun to watch.

Read more here, if any.

It Was Going To Take a Really Good Game to Take Me Away From Kingdom of Loathing For Any Amount of Time....

....and that game is Scribblenauts, for the Nintendo DS. It's absolutely freakin' addictive trying to figure out different solutions to the problems presented, and you can easily see it as the logical heir to games like Maniac Mansion and Portal.

If there's a better game this year, I'll be shocked.

Read more here, if any.

After Al Gore Invented the Internet, Eric Oemig Invented the Number System

Senator Oemig was the first to think about data and measurement in public education. Just ask him, he'll tell you:

So getting, reporting and acting on data has been a priority of Sen. Eric Oemig, D-Kirkland, since he took office in 2007.

“How do you change a system that is entrenched?” Oemig asked. “You make compelling cases supported by data.” But he remembers the initial reaction.

“My first year, everyone was ‘Data What?’ Now it’s, ‘of course we need data,’” he said. “It’s a big transformation.”

Every EdD issued before 2007 is hereby revoked.

Read more here, if any.

Senate Ways and Means Committee Report

Really interesting stuff out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee work session the other day; it's worth going through the committee documents and seeing what was talked about. The most important one from a K-12 perspective was called "Considerations in Making Additional Budget Reductions" which says that there's only 9% of the education budget that can even be looked at for reductions (about $635 million), which sounds good until you realize that 1) the deficit the state is looking at is about twice that number and 2) that $635 million includes all of levy equalization, all the K-4 class size reduction money, everything that's left of I-728, and what we currently spend on full-day kindergarten.

That said, I've got my own ideas (school district consolidation, NBPTS certification, LASER, ProCert) that probably fall in the other 91%, but they could be real savings if the political will was there.

It's going to be an interesting session.

Read more here, if any.

Yakima, you're FAT!

It's not me saying it, it's their hometown newspaper.

Read more here, if any.

Liv Finne Goes Looking for a Boogeyman, Finds the Same One She Always Does, Life Goes On

Liv, dear, if WEA President Mary Lindquist could ashcan the whole Race to the Top nonsense just by making one comment on TV Washington, then either the process itself is built on a foundation of quicksand, or we're not going to get the money and people (like, say, Liv Finne) are already looking to get the scapegoat lined up.

Liv's one of those happy hypocrites who I can't understand, the ones who'll pound the table saying that schools are amply funded, and then talk out the other side of their mouth about how we need to make wholesale changes so that we can please maybe get some of Obama's Dash to the Cash money. Note that money isn't guaranteed, and it isn't forever, but in Liv's world we need to start writing laws all the same.

Read more here, if any.

I'm Registered for the Collective Bargaining Conference in Seattle

Looking forward to it. They're always great presentations, and given the dual reality of having an open contract next year plus a very real possibility of re-opening this year, I need all the knowledge I can get.

It's November 6th and 7th; you can download the flyer here.

If you're attending and would like to meet up for dinner, drop me a line!

Read more here, if any.

Final Thoughts on Notre Dame v. Washington

I don't know exactly when my visceral hate of Charlie Weiss started, but it's real.

That said, Sarkisian will have us in a BCS bowl within three years.

Read more here, if any.

Why I Worry, Continued

If Krugman is right about private sector unemployment not coming down any time soon, a state like Washington that lives and dies on sales tax collections is going to, well, die that much faster.

Read more here, if any.

Why I Worry

I see a lot of the Eastern Washington school districts I work with also falling under this situation.

Will the last person leaving Pond O'Reille County please turn off the lights on their way out?

Read more here, if any.