Blue-ribbon panel
North Carolina has seen the first payment to Art Pope for his purchase of the 2010 election. He has been appointed to the blue-ribbon panel to develop a five-year academic priorities and spending plan for the 16 campuses of the university system (“Panel to develop priorities for UNC system,” Sept. 14).
Panel members include the leaders of the General Assembly and the president of the N.C. Chamber of Commerce. The committee reminds me of the phrase, “a fox in the hen house.”
Art Pope doesn't like public education. He doesn't want an educated population that would demand higher wages.
If this panel follows Art Pope's lead, they should add changing the constitution of N.C. to their duties. Our constitution states that North Carolina “shall maintain a public system of higher education extended to the people of the state free of expense” where possible. Our system of higher education is under attack from the far-right wing of the Republican Party.Bridling this panel will be determined by a watchful and vigilant public and press.
Elections have consequences, and we have seen the destruction the 2010 election has had on public education. This panel could proceed with more disaster to higher education. We have seen that nothing will stand in the way of their agenda — and public education at all levels is under attack.
Campaign money will always demand payback. The citizens of North Carolina must consider carefully if we want to move forward or be subservient to a wealthy ruling class.
NANCY WRIGHT
Lexington
A shocking imperative
The headline article “City’s poverty rate rises to 24%” (Sept. 20) is indeed shocking. I would have guessed a much lower number. But the article does not state what dollar amount per person is the poverty level, but only mentions the median household income level of $37,501. It may be even more shocking to find that the 2011 federal “poverty threshold” is:
$11,702 for a single person under 65
$22,811 for a family of four (with two children)
I think these numbers give an even more shocking imperative to the extreme divergence of wealth in our country, and why the safety nets of unemployment, food stamps and welfare are necessary.
Our nation is becoming more divided than at any time since the Civil War. I am sorely afraid that a country with this division of wealth cannot exist much longer. We who are fortunate should vote with our hearts, and not with our wallets.
DAVID TURCK
Clemmons
Sum It Up
What will Gov. Bev Perdue's legacy be?
Blogger University
ReplyDeleteI have to thank LaSombra for helping me.
1. go to the above, copy and paste the html code and drop it in the comment box
2. delete the letters URL, copy and paste the Link's URL between the leftover "..."
3. delete Title, copy and paste or just type your own title between the leftover >...<, submit
Thanks for the props, Prof, but it's all you. My skills are rudimentary. OT, I'm impressed with some your skills as well; from symbols to posting up-side-down. How DO you DO IT?
DeleteEasy breezy. Go to FlipText.
DeletePaste your text in the top box and click "Flip Text". The flipped text will appear in the lower box. Just copy it and paste it here.
It's simple and free.
There are other free sites that do much more, such as writing backward, writing upside down and backwards, etc.
Just Google "flip text" and they will all come up.
I had a girlfriend once who could read backward text as fast as forward text. She recently retired as a captain in the cryptography section of the Navy Security Group.
I used to amuse her by laboriously typing or writing her notes backward. Wish I had had these websites in those days.
As for special characters...
DeleteOn a Windows machine, go to START, select ALL PROGRAMS, then SYSTEM TOOLS, then CHARACTER MAP.
Find the character that you want, copy it and paste it into the text box here.
On a Mac, there is an entry under edit in most applications called SPECIAL CHARACTERS. Select that and a window pops up showing several choices: Arrows, Parentheses, Punctuation, Currency Symbols, Pictographs, Bullets/Stars, Math Symbols, Letterlike Symbols, Emoji and Latin. There is a huge selection, way more than in Windows.
Most of the Emoji will not work here on blogspot.
Click on the area that you want, find the character and double click it…it will be pasted wherever your cursor is at the moment.
As always, easier and more elegant on the Mac.
⇟〖〗¿¿$✄✽⅋℞ḈǾ
Thanks for the link. It'll be fun to try this out on my friends and family on facebook. It doesn't flip accurately in spanish, though.
DeleteWonder why? This should do the job.
Delete☞♂☻☺♂☜=♥
Delete☞♀☺☻♀☜=♥
¡Que bueno!
DeleteExcellent, Professor Phargo.
ReplyDeleteYou can save a couple of steps this way:
Just select instead of delete "URL" and paste the copied URL.
Just select "Title" and type or paste your title.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteLTE #1 - Finally, a topic that really matters, and is local enough that we as individuals can actually do something about.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Great Reagan became governor in 1967, the University of California system was the pride and joy of the state, the best in the nation. And tuition was actually free for all legal residents.
Reagan got out his sledge hammer and went to work in an attempt to destroy the system. He came close, doing long term damage to the best schools and crippling the fledgling Cal Santa Cruz so badly that it has not yet reached its full potential.
But fortunately, there were enough people who recognized what was going on and who were willing to fight to the bitter end to prevent total destruction.
We have a university system that is among the 2 or 3 best in the nation. With Art Pope and the twin idiots from the legislature on a similar mission, that won't last long unless the newspapers keep us fully informed and we, the people of NC, stand up to these ignorant bullies.
LTE #2 - It's not just the city. The entire county has a disgraceful standing when it comes to poverty. When the Forsyth County commissioners are wasting their time and our money on crap like prayer at meetings, meaningless resolutions supporting voter ID, etc, there is little hope of changing that.
Ignorant bullies-that sounds like you're talking about yourself, Rush.
DeleteAve Divus Reaganius.
DeleteJust got a new poll in Ohio…Obama +9.
ReplyDeleteThe last four Ohio Polls show Obama +10, +8, +1, +9. Average over last 8 polls: Obama +5.9, up 4 points since August. The 1 point poll comes from Gravis Marketing, which uses an automated call system and does not do cell phones. Their polls, like Rasmussen, tend to lean Republican.
In college statistics, in the polling section, we learned that if there is one poll that is way out of line with others, we should drop the highest and lowest polls and see what that does to the main number. In this case, that would make it Obama +6, over the last 8 polls, within a percentage point of our first number. The same method applied to the last four gives us Obama +8.5, which is probably more accurate at this point.
Based on the 5.9 number, RCP has put Ohio into "leans Obama" column, which makes 265 electoral votes, needing 5 from the 82 remaining in 7 toss-up states. Obama is leading in all 7. His margins have risen from dead even to plus or minus 1 before the conventions to plus 3-4 in every state except NC. He has trailed from the start in NC, but since the conventions he has taken a tiny lead, held back by one poll (Rasmussen) which showed Romney up by 6.
Pollster, which uses a slightly different algorithm, is showing only one toss-up state left, NC, and a tally of Obama 332, Romney 191.
Essentially, it is Obama's election to lose at this point.
New poll from Mass shows Bess Warren +5 for Senate.
I don't think Obama is going to win N.C., no matter how hard the liberal media, and you too Rush, tries to manipulate the poll numbers.
DeleteBoth Reagan and Bush II were behind before the debates. Guess what happened?
Paradox: "Dunce thinks"
DeleteDunce loves myths.
In 1980, Jimmy Carter led in the polls from January, when he had a 34% lead, until late May, when Reagan took the lead. By late July, Reagan had a 20% lead. At that point, Carter began closing the gap. He got within 3% just before the conventions in late August. Reagan got a better "bump" from his convention. From then until the single debate in late October, it was nip and tuck, and at a couple of points Carter held brief leads in one poll, the Gallup, but he never led in the combined polls after May.
In 2000, GW Bush held a small lead in the polls throughout the summer. By Labor Day, the race was a dead heat. From that point, neither candidate ever held a lead outside the margin of error. Gore won the national popular vote by over half a million votes.
In 2004, Bush led Kerry by 14% after the conventions. Kerry decisively won the debates and Bush's lead narrowed to virtually 0 by election day.
__The Timeline of Presidential Elections, Erikson & Wlezien
More Dunce "trivial mistakes". That works...he makes a lot of "mistakes" and almost everything he says is "trivial", not to mention "made up".
Reagan won, and so did Bush. Will Romney win? We'll have to wait and see. It's not a done deal...........
DeleteYou're so psychotic Rush, you probably think Obama has already been elected.
reelected....
DeleteIf people are listening during the debate, and Romney has a good one, I expect the poll numbers to flip.
DeleteDuncePost x 3
DeleteHey Rush, did you take up brain surgery yet? If you have, please start on yours, it needs a lot of work.
DeleteOh dear. Rush, you're too much. Hee hee...thank goodness there's only one Rush. I don't think my side could take another one.
DunceParrotEcho
DeleteUC Davis huh? I think FT is better.
DeleteDuncePost
DeleteMitt Romney is far from being the only Republican who lives by the gaffe. Some will remember the infamous Dan Quayle, others might even remember a guy named George W. Bush.
ReplyDeleteBut when he was running against Harry Truman in 1948, Thomas Dewey pulled a few good ones as well. Two of my favorites:
At one campaign stop, Dewey said that it was nice to see so many children, and that they should consider themselves lucky because he got them a day off from school. One kid, obviously annoyed at having his playtime wasted on politics, yelled, “It’s Saturday.”
Mouthy kids! That one didn't hurt Dewey, but the next one did, because Truman used it against him again and again.
In Illinois, Dewey was speaking from the rear platform of a train, which started backing up. No one was injured, but Dewey said that the engineer “should probably be shot at sunrise, but we’ll let him off this time since no one was hurt.”
Truman shot back, saying that there were great train crews all across the nation.
“And they are all Democrats. Dewey objects to having engineers back up. He doesn’t mention that under that great engineer, Hoover, we backed up into the worst depression in history.”
__The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election
"What will Gov. Bev Perdue's legacy be?" Pat McCrory.
ReplyDeleteHa, ha! Jokes on us.
DeleteAnd Pat's legacy will be the next Democrat governor, whose legacy will be...
Thanks, WW, I didn't even see the Sum It Up. Just as well.
Anytime. I figured i could sneak that one in before the daily booger slinging match began. The NFL comes on tv in a few minures.
DeleteMinutes...damn it!
Delete8-) I don't like these little boxes and I don't like typing, so I use Dragon Dictate and OpenOffice to write.
DeleteOpenOffice is a freeware suite similar to but better than Microsoft Office. It has a combined spelling/grammar checker that will alert you to almost all spelling/grammar problems.
Dragon Dictate allows you to dictate into almost any text program using either their headset mike or your built-in computer microphone. With my Mac, I don't even need to be sitting at the computer because the built-in mike is so good. It has its own error checker, so you get double-checked.
Beats the hell out of typing...sort of a secretary without the attitude...and is always around 24 hours a day. We use this system in our offices as well.
Bev Perdue was good for N.C. She taught the citizens of N.C. how stupid and ineffectual a liberal Democrat can be in government.
DeleteI WONDER why Bev didn't run for a second term? She could have gotten Anthony 'Weiner' to run with her as lt. governor. They'd made a pair.
DeleteDuncePost
DeleteMedicare is going broke, but these dopes, like Rush, have the nerve to criticize Rep. Ryan for offering a solution.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI still think if Rush would retake his college biology class over at the Greyhound Bus Station he'd come away with a new appreciation for why most people think gay marriage is not normal.
ReplyDelete"One of the greatest gifts America has is a president who is kind and warm with a big smile and compassionate heart. That is the president who will win the first debate."
ReplyDeleteHilary Rosen-CNN
________
Now, do you understand why Obama is leading among women? Pathetic.
DunceParrotEcho x 3
DeleteSome women think they're selecting a boyfriend instead of a president.
DeleteDuncePost
DeleteRush is going into his 'MOLE' mode.
DeleteDunceParrotEcho
DeleteI saw in the print version that Wes is the COTW. I thought he said there was a liberal conspiracy to keep his letters out...he must be absolutely beside himself.
ReplyDeleteROTFLMAO
DeleteGotta love these right wingers and their conspiracy theories.
Here's a good one. A new favorability poll from Bloomberg shows that W has a higher favorability rating among Americans than Romney, 46-43.
ReplyDeleteBill Clinton headed the poll at 64%, closely followed by Michele Obama at 63%. Maybe the wrong Obama is running, because she was 11 points above her husband, who was third at 52%, tied with his own party.
But that is well ahead of Romney's 43%. At the bottom came Joe Biden at 42%, and Paul Ryan and the entire Republican Party at 41%.
Maybe Romney should have had Bush come to the convention and make a rousing speech like Clinton did. Dream on.
Bush's favorability rating was at 62% during his first term. They all change over time. Some go up, and some go down.
DeleteBut dopey Rush starts rattling on like they're etched in stone.
He just can't help making a fool out of himself whenever the opportunity arises. Can ya Rushy baby?
DuncePost
DeleteRush is in his 'Mole Mode'.
DeleteDuncePost
DeleteYesterday I figured out a way to save myself a lot of time on this forum. From now on there will be three generic replies to 99% of Dunce's posts:
ReplyDelete1. DuncePost: A reply of no substance to a comment of substance.
Examples: "Did you go over to the Greyhound Bus Station like I told you to? Those 'boys' over there will teach you a thing or two about biology."
"You know when Rush starts making Biblical observations, he's gone off his meds."
Note: Rush has forgotten more about Galatians in the last 6 months than Dunce has ever known about the whole Bible. He could continue to forget at the same rate for ∞ years while Dunce spent 12 hours a day on Bible study and Dunce would never catch up.
2. DunceLie: A post that in whole or in part contains at least one, and probably more than one, lie, distortion, half-truth, etc.
Examples: "Health insurance premiums are up 18% after the passage of Obamacare…"
"Obama has grown government from less than 20% of GDP to over 24%, and he has added $6 trillion to our national debt. That's not even including the disaster that will hit in the next few years called Obamacare."
3. DunceParrotEcho: A repeat of any reply of no substance, lie, whatever that Dunce has already posted before.
Examples: May contain such phrases as "liberal media", "gay marriage", "illegal alien(s)" or some variation thereof or copycat items previously posted by others.
For the last, see his posts on September 29, 2012 at 11:16 and 11:33 AM.
I do reserve the right to occasionally simply type "Irrelevant" in reply to some of Dunce's more frenzied rants.
I figure that all of the above will save me as much as 15 minutes a day, time which I can spend watching the sometimes spectacular downtown sunsets or chatting with my wonderfully diverse neighbors. Maybe I'll even put a rooster on the roof to assuage my Phargo envy.
Hey Rush, did you hear about the GOP being involved in voter fraud in Florida? Now, will you believe that there's voter fraud?
DeleteHee...hee....you gotta get these liberals to think you're helpig their cause. Then, mayBE, they'll admit the truth.
DuncePost
DeleteI've even figured out a shortcut to get Dragon Dictate to automatically paste the different ones by saying "Dunce one", "Dunce two" and "Dunce three".
I didn't know 'moles' could type?
DeleteDuncePost
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIf you are going to be a smartass-first you have to be smart...otherwise you're just an ass.
DeleteComplete with kitty picture.
Worked a little bit better than I had intended.
Ha, ha...that cat made me think of this:
ReplyDeleteA diller, a dollar, a ten o'clock scholar,
What makes you come so soon?
You used to come at ten o'clock,
Now you come at noon!
We knew this rhyme when we were kids, but had no idea what it meant, still used it in what we discovered later was the proper way.
A "diller" is "Geordie" slang from Newcastle-upon-Tyne (for beer heads, home of Newcastle Brown Ale) which refers to a boy who is a dim-witted, even stupid, unwilling scholar. The "ten o'clock" refers to the fact that school traditionally began at 8 or 9 o'clock, so means that this diller has habitually been tardy, and now he's gotten worse.
We used it in the same way, to tease our tardy brethren.
I once had a very complicated job in the Navy. We had this dunce 1st Class PO who was always telling people how to do things. He had no idea how my job worked, but was advising me anyway, and I was going along with him, trying to see how many stupid things I could get him to say.
The Chief looked up from his desk and said "Rush, you're just a smartass!" Without missing a beat I said "Emphasis on 'smart', Chief" then continued my game. The Chief started laughing so hard that he knocked over his coffee cup.
You know who had to clean up the mess, but it was worth it, because the dunce never caught on that he was being played.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEMZHQsQJ6Y&feature=related
ReplyDeleteAnd we wonder why things have gone so terribly wrong under Obama. Oh boy!
Irrelevant
DeleteBy 2016, China is projected to overtake the U.S. as the world's economic superpower.
DeleteFrom CNN:
Or consider communist China. How many of its 1.34 billion citizens pay income taxes? According to the state-run Xinhua newspaper, only 24 million made the cut this year. By my math, that’s 1.72 percent of the population; 98.28 percent of Chinese don’t pay taxes.
_________
But of course, there are the idiots of the world, like Rush, that think societies can't make it without taxing the ever loving daylights out its people.
Pathetic.
Ignorant, therefore irrelevant.
DeleteIt's highly relevant because of our economic situation. You're just a 'mole' Rush. Why don't you get back into your hole?
DeleteNEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Economists think Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would be better for the economy than President Obama. But they're not very enthusiastic about either of them.
DeleteNine of 17 top economists surveyed by CNNMoney picked Romney when asked who's election would help the economy grow more. Only three picked Obama.
CNN
__________
Of course, we've got the idiots of the world, like Rush, that think they know more economic experts.
You're pathetic Rush.