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Looks like I missed this one. Says the video is no longer available.
Brad, you should clean up those empty beer bottles and call a taxi. I see The State has updated the electrical wiring.
I don’t think the funding for education will change unless the courts step in like they did in Kentucky. Different bloggers have pointed out the high per pupil spending in many rural districts. There point is well taken that there needs to be more in depth analysis of this spending – cost effectiveness and accountability.
Yeah, those liquor bottles on the wall are a hoot! And talk about educational funding…the laptops I have in my classroom in Fairfield county are much nicer than The State’s. And we’re pretty poor.
Oooh, Brad’s gonna write about Iraq!
Are we finally going to get you definition of “victory” and a realistic plan for accomplishing it?
Are you going to admit that entire Bush/neo-con plan has been an incompetently bungled disaster? Are you finally going to recognize that Americans rightly won’t tolerate an incompetently AND falsely-justified war?
Or, will you continue your disparagement of the people who actually have been proven correct by events– unlike you?
Workable plan? Institute a UNIVERSAL draft of men — that includes you and me — and send half a million.
There’d still be plenty of troops left, so we’d send a couple of corps more to Afghanistan, and the same number to Darfur.
I’d rotate home a few thousand battle-hardened non-coms to train the REALLY big force that we would position to pose a credible threat to Iran and Syria.
With all those things demonstrating our seriousness, I’d ask China politely to DEAL with North Korea, which they could do with a hint or two about cutting off support.
Anyway, that’s not what the column is about.
> Institute a UNIVERSAL draft of men
That’s not a plan. A plan has an objective and a way to measure progress.
You have presented a pie-in-the-sky idea with no explanation of how increased forces would do anything but promote the idea that we are occupiers. It’s a “plan” that has ZERO chance of ever happening which provides you the easy way out.
Your “plan” would only result in more body bags, amputees, and widows and orpans in the U.S.
Instead of pipedreams, how about defining success in Iraq. Does it involve a neverending military presence in Iraq? Free elections where we recognize that Irawq may elect someone who is anti-U.S.? Full civil rights for women? Religious freedom?
Ain’t happenin’…
22 um’s, uh’s, and ah’s in 166 seconds.
Uhhh, what’s your point?
I guess my point is that your attempts to include video into this blog have tended to be detrimental to the experience versus enhancing it, in my opinion. Reference back to the candidate interviews…
Not sure I get the point of what seemed to be an unrehearsed, off the top of the head “chat” with the readers of the blog. Was the changing eyeglasses supposed to mean something? Basically, it took you 2.5 minutes to convery what could have been covered in a half dozen sentences.
Sometimes the medium is the message.
Thank you, Mr. McLuhan.
Doug, try some Ex-lax.
BTW, did anyone else notice the Arial sketch of W looks alot like the MAD character?
Randy, only if you mean Mutually Assured Destruction.
Seriously, Alfred E. Neuman’s motto is “What, me worry?” It’s pretty appropriate for our Feckless Leader.
So, what’s the objective and what’s the way to measure progress, Brad?
Now you’re going to think this is a dodge, but it isn’t. You’ve just reminded me of something.
I hate measurable objectives. I know I’ve advocated accountability for public education and all that, but I’ve never been comfortable with the fact that that requires progress that can be measured with numbers.
What is success? Well, if it’s successful enough, we all recognize it when we see it. If we’re going to count deaths due to violence, what number is low enough? I have no idea. It’s like when these antitax people say, “How much of your income is too much for the government to take?” They actually want an agree-upon percentage. I can’t give them one. I have no idea. I don’t have an upper limit, or a lower limit, in mind. The only correct answer is, however much the people decide, through their duly elected representatives, is the right amount.
Sorry if I went on a tangent; you probably weren’t talking about a number. You just reminded me of a pet peeve.
With regard to Iraq: I guess we’ll be successful whenever a consensus of Americans, and a consensus of Iraqis, regard the enterprise as a success. There will always be, given the nature of partisan politics, a significant number of people who will refuse to recognize success when we have it. Those people will probably be the partisans of whichever party holds the White House when that success is achieved. That might be Democrats, and it might be Republicans. I don’t know who’s going to win the next election, or the one after that.
As I have written since the invasion in 2003, success in this war is several election cycles away. This didn’t start with Bush, and it certainly isn’t going to end until long after he’s gone.
Oh, and you can’t END it by surrendering Iraq. The battle will go on in other places. If we can succeed in Iraq, it will be easier to succeed on other fronts in the coming years. If we decide to lose in Iraq, we’ll have a much deeper hole to climb out of in this multifaceted war against militant Islam.
Surrendering to whom, Brad?
We’d be giving it back to the Iraqis. They’re the ones who are running the insurgency. They’re the ones killing each other with great zeal and abandon.
And, they’re the ones who’d be in charge in a theoretical democracy.
Your thinking is really a mess.
Brad,
Using your logic, if a majority of Americans and Iraqis now consider the Iraq War a failure, then it must be a failure.
I guess you’re still waiting for Americans to wake up and declare victory in Vietnam.
You want it to be about partisan politics.
It’s not. It’s about doing what is right.
And what is right in the minds of most Americans is admitting our motives, tactics, and execution in Iraq were all wrong.
The only partisans in this fight are the
neo-cons and Bushites who cannot admit their mistakes.
RTH makes a great point. Who are we fighting? AQ is causing only a fraction of the problems. The War of Shiite Agression or War Between the Sects, or whatever name you use for the Civil War is increasingly THE problem identified.
I think Doug coldly and accuragely used Brad’s own logic against him. Warner (R Va) claims Bush as much as admitted the mistakes by stating “I am not pleased with the progress”. That’s as much of an admission they are willing to make. Until the Decider offers up an honest analysis as Commander in Chief, how will we have an effective course of action to follow?
Randy, the sectarian violence is caused by Iranian dollars and instigators sent in to make sure the democracy fails in Iraq. Leftist pacifists are playing right into their hands by screaming cut and run after each episode of violence. I say lets give them more violence, in Iran and wherever else it is being brewed.
Cut and run is a simplistic and misguided propaganda term.
It sure is easy to scream for more blood from your cozy desk chair at your computer using your anonymous handle – the epitome of an arm chair quarterback.
We don’t have the resources to give em hell Harry, unless you want a draft. Seeing how you want US bases in Iraq for decades, why not a draft as well.
when do we get to talk about this statewide funding business for public education?
Randy, saying we dont have the resources to accomplish something is wrongheaded. We have 300 million citizens in the nation and with 140,000 soldiers in Iraq the left continues to claim we are overextended. That is pure Barbra Streisand. We have the resources to win, but do we have the will to win? Some of us do but we have a contingent of people who WANT to lose in Iraq. Some are right here on this blog but wont admit it. The military lawyers who ordered that we cannot blow up terrorists at funerals and terrorists using mosques as weapon cache areas along with the wussified media are the ones responsible for the US fighting with handcuffs on. Simply take the handcuffs off and Iraq is over in 2 months.
I’m with some guy– what about statewide funding of education.
Also, Randy, do you have any links or references to Kentucky’s new model of funding education?
Brad,
I find your interest in this statewide funding of public education kind of dicey.
It’s understandable to want to balance funding to a greater extent around the state.
But it seems to me that if you want to undermine support for public education, one really good way of doing that is by taking local control away from communities that A.) have resources and B.) are supportive of their schools. Telling local communities that they do not have the authority to contribute in their own ways to their own community schools seems to undercut the whole notion of public, locally-run schools, in my opinion.
This isn’t to say that funding can’t be balanced more sensibly and that we can’t expect the rich counties to contribute more to those less fortunate. But to tell a community that it has no funding control over its schools doesn’t seem like the best way to get people to buy in to and support their public schools.
Dave, there are 140k pairs of boots in Iraq CURRENTLY. They are rotated so there are a great deal more than that, not to mention Afghanistan.
Don’t forget the deaths, the injuries, and the mental issues (along with the increased family problems).
You are ok with the 6 billion we spend per month because our future generations are picking up the tab as are the young Americans giving their lives and not you.
Again, it’s awfully easy to be the hawk sitting in that desk chair.
RTH,
I remembered something about the courts and Kentucky funding from an education finance class. Here’s a link to an overview of the Kentucky Education Reform Act, or KERA.
Randy, by far the easy solution is to surrender now. The consequences of that will be far more tragic worldwide including the fact that after that cut and run event Americans will not be safe in any country in the world. You will have instantly made Iran a superpower status entity. Think through the consequences of 6 to 12 months AFTER we evacuate Iraq.
Dave, the Iraq War is not a choice between two sound bites; cut and run vs stay the course.
Such simplistic analysis is what got us into this mess to begin with.