Kend -- How about the loyalty of the govt regulators? BP fills out the regulatory forms in pencil and the govt agents write over it in ink.

Mark Saulys ~ Happy Earth Day to you too!!!

Kend ~ I only have one thing to add to what Mark Saulys said:

The Hemp Solution

I've heard it said - by an environmentalist authority whose name and title I don't remember - that it's better to drill here where there are regulations than in another part of the world where there are none. If so, we have to give BP holy hell so it'd be that way. We shouldn't drill anywhere, of course but develop renewables and clean sources.

We need to diversify the economy of the gulf coast, maybe with some green energy production. The people of that region have a lost dog, suck ass loyalty to the oil conglomerates. No matter how much they are crapped on by them that loyalty is unflagging. I think those oil conglomorates probably sabotaged and undermined the attempts to develop the green and clean that'd been recently undertaken.

Happy Earth Day, everybody.

I think the lesson here is that humans can't be trusted. The best laid plans would work except that corporations who agree to rules to get permission will ignore those same rules if the risks look manageable and can be concealed. Increased production vrs possible fines. It's people that screw things up. Nothing wrong with the plans.

You could just approve the keystone pipeline and stop drilling in the gulf. It would also stop 800,000 barrels a day that is being shipped through the gulf from Venusaula. Mandatory double hull tankers wouldn't be a bad idea either.

AIW -- For the 13 weeks the dems had the power do you know anything they did that would have not been better with more dems? IMO, in that 13 weeks they did things that made me proud that I voted for them.

All good points. But it was really hot and I eat and drank too much today. I have nothing left tonight.

The fact is Kend, they can make a profit here but they have no loyalty to their own country so they'll let our economy go to hell if we don't force them to do otherwise. It's the nature of a competitive society, there can be no ethics in business, ethics are an impediment to one's competitiveness so, in a competitive society, ethics have to be handed down by government in the form of laws and regulations.

Kend -- How do you know they are moving the jobs out of the country because they can not make a profit? I (probably all of us) think they are moving jobs out of the country because they can make a bigger profit.

The people in Scottsdale agree with you, That is a joke. Scottsdale is like Tosh.O describes Orange county, CA. Orange county has a large diversty. They have the upper middle class and the very wealthy.

I agree with you that the marketplace should determine the CEO's salary. FDR and LBJ demonstrated how good the market place could be. Thatcher and Reagan demonstrated how horrible a free market is. I think the function of the government should to ensure the fairness of the market place. Supply side economics destroys the balance of supply and demand to enrich the 1%.

Palin -- Is the odd procedural requirement you speak of the 60 votes for cloture? Or, is it that Harry Reid has to vote against it to keep the bill alive for the future?

Mr. Maselow -- Do you realize you are just singing Thom's tune. The problem is not as straigtforward as your numbers might imply. When Reagan lowered the top tax rate the top earners paid 2 to 3 times as much in federal income tax, and the economy suffered. When Johnson used Kennedy's plan and reduced the top tax rate the economy suffered. I could tell you why I think this happens, but Larry Beinhart does a much better job.

You were misled about who wrote the Common Core Standards. They lied to you. David Coleman was the architect of common core standards. It's development was funded by the Gates foundation, among others, and sold to the Governor's Association as a way to get federal funding, and as a way to sell packages of tests and curriculum, not developed by teachers or researchers in education or psychology. It looks like it pormotes critical thinking, but it judges students, teachers, and communities by standardized thinking in a strongly neoconservative, "global-free-trade-and-competition" framework. Implementation wasn't "botched", it revealed the agenda: for-profit testing, discrediting non-standard students, teachers, and communities, and privatization of every conceivable public asset. One can even doubt if they meet the standard of a standard. In Democracy, it's the process, the civic engagement. In Oligarchy, it's doing what you are told, and hoping for the best. To quote a post by Diane Ravitch (March 24, 2014):

"Why so much controversy?

The complaints are coming from all sides: from Tea Party activists who worry about a federal takeover of education and from educators, parents, and progressives who believe that the Common Core will standardize instruction and eliminate creativity in their classrooms.

But there is a more compelling reason to object to the Common Core standards.

They were written in a manner that violates the nationally and international recognized process for writing standards. The process by which they were created was so fundamentally flawed that these “standards” should have no legitimacy.

Setting national academic standards is not something done in stealth by a small group of people, funded by one source, and imposed by the lure of a federal grant in a time of austerity.

There is a recognized protocol for writing standards, and the Common Core standards failed to comply with that protocol.

In the United States, the principles of standard-setting have been clearly spelled out by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

On its website ANSI describes how standards should be developed in every field. The American National Standards Institute

“has served in its capacity as administrator and coordinator of the
United States private sector voluntary standardization system for
more than 90 years. Founded in 1918 by five engineering societies
and three government agencies, the Institute remains a private,
nonprofit membership organization supported by a diverse
constituency of private and public sector organizations.

“Throughout its history, ANSI has maintained as its
primary goal the enhancement of global competitiveness of U.S.
business and the American quality of life by promoting and
facilitating voluntary consensus standards and conformity
assessment systems and promoting their integrity. The Institute
represents the interests of its nearly 1,000 company, organization,
government agency, institutional and international members through
its office in New York City, and its headquarters in
Washington, D.C.”

ANSI’s fundamental principles of standard-setting are transparency, balance, consensus, and due process, including a right to appeal by interested parties. According to ANSI, there are currently more than 10,000 American national standards, covering a broad range of activities.

The Common Core standards were not written in conformity with the ANSI standard-setting process that is broadly recognized across every field of endeavor.

If the Common Core standards applied to ANSI for recognition, they would be rejected because the process of writing the standards was so deeply flawed and did not adhere to the “ANSI Essential Requirements.”

ANSI states that “Due process is the key to ensuring that ANSs are developed in an environment that is equitable, accessible and responsive to the requirements of various stakeholders. The open and fair ANS process ensures that all interested and affected parties have an opportunity to participate in a standard’s development. It also serves and protects the public interest since standards developers accredited by ANSI must meet the Institute’s requirements for openness, balance, consensus and other due process safeguards.”

The Common Core standards cannot be considered standards when judged by the ANSI requirements. According to ANSI, the process of setting standards must be transparent, must involve all interested parties, must not be dominated by a single interest, and must include a process for appeal and revision.

The Common Core standards were not developed in a transparent manner. The standard-setting and writing of the standards included a significant number of people from the testing industry, but did not include a significant number of experienced teachers, subject-matter experts, and other educators from the outset, nor did it engage other informed and concerned interests, such as early childhood educators and educators of children with disabilities. There was no consensus process. The standards were written in 2009 and adopted in 2010 by 45 states and the District of Columbia as a condition of eligibility to compete for $4.3 billion in Race to the Top funding. The process was dominated from start to finish by the Gates Foundation, which funded the standard-setting process. There was no process for appeal or revision, and there is still no process for appeal or revision.

The reason to oppose the Common Core is not because of their content, some of which is good, some of which is problematic, some of which needs revision (but there is no process for appeal or revision).

The reason to oppose the Common Core standards is because they violate the well-established and internationally recognized process for setting standards in a way that is transparent, that recognizes the expertise of those who must implement them, that builds on the consensus of concerned parties, and that permits appeal and revision.

The reason that there is so much controversy and pushback now is that the Gates Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education were in a hurry and decided to ignore the nationally and internationally recognized rules for setting standards, and in doing so, sowed
suspicion and distrust. Process matters.

According to ANSI, here are the core principles for setting standards:

The U.S. standardization system is based on the following set of globally accepted principles for standards development:*Transparency Essential information regarding
standardization activities is accessible to all interested
parties.* Openness
Participation is open to all affected interests.

* Impartiality

No one interest
dominates the process or is favored over another.

* Effectiveness and Relevance

Standards are relevant and effectively respond to regulatory and
market needs, as well as scientific and technological
developments.

* Consensus
Decisions are reached through consensus among those
affected.

* PerformanceBased
Standards are performance based (specifying essential
characteristics rather than detailed designs) where
possible.

* Coherence

The process encourages coherence to avoid overlapping and
conflicting standards.

* Due Process
Standards development accords with due process so that
all views are considered and appeals are possible.
* TechnicalAssistance

Assistance is offered to developing countries in the formulation and application
of standards. In addition, U.S. interests strongly agree that the process should be:

* Flexible, allowing the use of different methodologies to meet the needs of different technology and product sectors;

*Timely, so that purely administrative
matters do not result in a failure to meet market expectations;
and

* Balanced among
all affected interests.

Lacking most of these qualities, especially due process, consensus among interested groups, and the right of appeal, the Common Core cannot be considered authoritative, nor should they be considered standards. The process of creating national academic standards should be revised to accord with the essential and necessary procedural requirements of standard-setting as described by the American National Standards Institute. National standards cannot be created ex nihilo without a transparent, open, participatory consensus process that allows for appeal and revision.

United States Standards Strategy
http://www.us-standards-strategy.org"