CNN brings us this article on overheated housing markets and lists what it considers to be the 50 most overpriced markets. However, some of the “markets” listed are quite silly. Denver-Aurora? Seattle-Bellevue-Everett is one massive multi-county area, but neighboring Tacoma is another area? And with the number of California communities listed, wouldn’t it be easier to say “#1 Northern California, #2 Southern California” (or reverse order)? I wish I understood the agenda of this list.
CNN also brings us an article on education where they helpfully tell us that kids who don’t understand English well don’t do well on standardized tests. This may result in these kids not getting high school diplomas. From the article:
“Do we want a lot of high school students who don’t have diplomas — and therefore have a lot of limited opportunities after high school — because they are still acquiring English?” [Deborah Short, director of language education and academic development at the Center for Applied Linguistics] said. “We need more of a policy on what to do with these children.”
Here’s what we do with these children: teach them English! The kind of employer who has a problem with the fact that someone does not have a high school diploma has an even bigger problem with the fact that these potential employees don’t read, write and understand English. Failing to teach all children the lingua franca of this nation is condemning them to underclass status. The diploma is by comparison just a bit of paper.
Also from the realm of education, even the American Beverage Association thinks elementary school students shouldn’t have access to all the soda they can drink. Seattle schools have already limited vending machines, and are now dealing with the reduced funding for everything that isn’t critical.
Seattle happens to be hosting a convention for state legislators around our nation, and one thing they are steaming mad about is Real ID. They don’t like the fact that the Feds are telling them what to do. They don’t like that they will have to spend thousands of millions of dollars on it. They don’t like the time, money, and responsibility of obtaining and verifying documents on every driver. They, well they don’t like any of it. One thing pointed out in this version of the story is this: “The new requirements are aimed at stopping illegal immigrants from getting driver’s licenses, thus preventing them from boarding planes or entering protected federal buildings.” Now think about this. We want to prevent illegal immigrants from getting into federal buildings, where they might have legitimate business such as applying for asylum, legalizing their status, or being a witness in a court case.
Finally, a word about Cindy Sheehan. Remember, if you can’t go to Crawford, you can still find a way to support her in your community. There is a vigil tonight, and probably one near you. Saying you think the President is wrong does not mean you “hate America.” As far as I am concerned, the guy who did this hates America.
