I haven’t done one of these for awhile, out of laziness. I’ll start to do one, but I can’t find six stories that I think are worth a front. So I cop out and do an Open Thread instead. But were this an actual newspaper, I’d have to come up with six (OK, given the demise of the broadsheet, more like five, or even four) whether they were worthy or not.
So as a matter of discipline, I’m going to make myself do this. Fortunately, we do have a serious lede story today:
- Nuclear ‘framework’ reached — And no, I don’t know what to think of it. Not enough information. Not even Lindsey Graham knows what he thinks yet. But the link is to the WashPost story, and they’ve got a bunch of sidebars you can read. Here’s the NYT version and here’s the WSJ and here’s The Guardian. Have at them. They all appear to have extensive reports.
- 147 DIE IN KENYA UNIVERSITY ATTACK — Shabab militants claimed responsibility, because they’re the kind of twisted ____s who would be proud of something like this.
- Belk department stores considering selling — This was the biggest thing I saw locally. It’s been slow.
- Two New York women arrested for trying to build homemade bomb — Their being women raises it to front-page level. Case of woman-bites-dog, you might say.
- At Boeing, Innovation Means Small Steps, Not Giant Leaps — A WSJ piece looking at the company that now looms so large in the SC legend.
- A fighter pilot helmet with 360 degrees of sky — Speaking of aviation… for those who enjoyed reading about Burl’s museum… a gee-whiz story about the $400,000 helmet that comes with the F-35.
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On Boeing, it seems that our governor is going off the deep end bashing unions. It’s kind of a piece of the uniform among some Republican governors these days, but she certainly takes a threatening tone in her speeches. I wish we never needed them, but I guess it ought to be up to the workers to decide if they want or need some sort of organization.
On another note, I got a piece of mail today inviting me to “re-direct up to 60% of your income taxes.” It is from a group collecting money for their “Scholarship Funding Organization” designed to take taxpayer donations offset one-to-one by tax credits to fund scholarships to private schools. This is presently limited to “special needs” students, but our legislature (Oops!) sent out of committee a bill that would expand its scope widely. Looks like The State’s Ms Scoppe was right. I think Brad has also pointed out the dangers of this kind of back-door voucher program. I don’t think the legislature is about to allow me to “redirect” any tax money, but only let me donate to wildlife or child welfare by adding 5 bucks to my tax bill. I think there should be some strong daylight shown on the groups who are pushing this, but I doubt there are any news groups with the gumption or resources to do the digging and shining.
Digging and shining — it has rhythm, promise, potential!
Thx!
The State has recently had articles about the finances of the largest of the scholarship organizations operating under the current SC law to provide tax credits for donations supporting private school scholarships for children with disabilities. The articles noted the history in Georgia of this organization funneling money from parents to scholarships for their own children, thus producing precisely what the legislation was NOT intended to do — give a tax credit to parents for sending their own children to private school. They also covered the inadequacy of current disclosure requirements to assess whether that is happening here. Basically, the General Assembly must require these organizations to disclose sufficient information to insure that they are operating properly — if you assume that this is a good thing to do in the first place. I don’t.
First, this is both a classic example of legislative sausage-making and a classic example of legislators abdicating their responsibilities to appropriately fund the states needs, including education.
Second, SC has very good programs to assist special needs kids – until the age of five. Once they become school-aged, this situation completely reverses itself.
This “scholarship” program – while bizarrely inappropriate as legislation – does do something the state has been unwilling to do: provide effective learning environments for children the public schools are ill-equipped to educate. As long as this program is restricted to special needs kids and if the program itself could be brought back inside governmental control/oversight then this is, weirdly as it sounds – a really positive way to educate all of our children.
And Harry, there actually are children with very special educational needs; and many of these aren’t visible to the casual observer – and sometimes even within a family. This program, as flawed as it is, is a boon to these children. It does what the state has proven itself unwilling (not unable) to do. That is something to keep in mind in this debate.
I’m glad the Republicans have found a new derogatory characterization of the president. We can add Neville Chamberlain to their arsenal of nonsense to go along with Kenyan, Socialist, Anti-Exceptionalist, radical, job destroyer and many others. I have a name for all this name calling of a twice-elected president: un-American.
I still maintain that “Arsenal of Nonsense” was AC/DC’s best album.
I’ll have to check it out. It does have a catchy ring to it.
Maybe I’ll add it to my list of band names.
Dang. I should have discussed the band with Burl while I was there. You know, Burl was in my first band (something I doubt he remembers). It was short lived. Compared to us, Blind Faith was a long-term deal. We met to rehearse exactly once, and never got together again. We met at Steve Clark’s house on Hickam Air Force Base.
I was the front man.