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Garbo commented on the diary post Learning the Hard Way: The False Promises of Standardized Tests by amerigus.
My kids start CSTs tomorrow. The curriculum has been hastily crammed in to finish the textbooks before testing, meaning kids who take longer to learn new concepts have fallen behind and will perform worse on the tests rather than better. There will be more than a month of school after testing is done, with burned [...]
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Garbo commented on the diary post Disabled Now Blamed for Social Security’s Woes AND Sluggish Economy by TomThumb.
The report also fails to acknowledge another disturbing trend in disability: Autism now affects 1:50 children born in this country. While the media have chosen to focus on the high-functioning “quirky, socially awkward” side of the autism equation, the fact is that there are substantial numbers of severely disabled, often non-verbal children with autism and [...]
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Garbo commented on the blog post Investors Pushing to Buy Housing Other Than Foreclosed Properties
The cash purchases do make sense if the profit isn’t coming from the houses themselves, but rather from the collateralization of rental income across huge batches of properties. The losers are the renters and potential buyers who remain priced out of the artificial market thanks to this Ponzi scheme.
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Garbo commented on the blog post The Electoral-Industrial Complex: Fortunes Made by Consultants on Campaign Spending
Not sure if it’s just the server or if that Red State article is in the process of being disappeared, but had to go Wayback to get it; current site pulls up a blank page.
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Garbo commented on the blog post California Nabs 2/3 Majority as Voter Universe Changes
It’s a bummer about 37, but it’s pretty awesome that aside from that, all the rich people who dumped money in California(the Mungers, the shadow Koch/Rove groups) didn’t get their way.
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Garbo commented on the blog post California Agency Releases Evidence of Money Laundering in Right-Wing Campaign Spending on Ballot Measures
Not only that, the “Voter Guide” mailers that are probably funded by these groups are showing Obama, Feinstein and other top dems on the cover, but the recommended votes on the proposition are all the NON-democratic ones (i.e. anti 30, pro 32, etc.)
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Garbo commented on the blog post California GMO-Labeling Initiative Tightens in the Polls
The bill may not be the best written in the world, but the LA Times has been abysmal on this issue, issuing a steady drip of pro-GMO articles over the past month. They have failed utterly to present the many very legitimate arguments for why GMOs may be harmful to human health and in need of labeling. Same goes for any issue involving pharma, which in the past year has rammed several ALEC bills through the store-bought legislature. One has to wonder whether Tribune, in bankruptcy, is so beholden to their remaining advertisers — grocery stores and pharma cos — that they are no longer able to report anything but lobbyist press releases.
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Garbo commented on the diary post Frackademia: Controversial SUNY Buffalo Shale Institute’s Reputation Unraveling by Steve Horn.
Thanks for this. It’s a critical problem, how science is being corrupted in many disciplines. How many researchers are free to publish unbiased studies critical of pharmaceuticals, oil industry, GM foods? How many key “academic” journals are staffed by editors and peer reviewers with industry ties? Worse, even if they manage to get a meaningful [...]
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Garbo commented on the blog post New Home Sales, Home Price Statistics Continue to Fuel Optimism on Housing
Ditto in L.A. In how many of the Case-Shiller index cities are investors buying up huge chunks of inventory (as in yesterday’s story on Tampa), vs. other non-index cities? Is it a coincidence that they are artificially pushing up the bottom line right in time for these pre-election numbers to come out? Everyone I know feels a profound disconnect between reality and the positive economic spin on the news. It’s as if the banks and their allies are keeping values artificially high until the economy actually bounces back, only there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to the unemployment, underemployment, layoffs, rising cost of living, and precipitously declining wages.
