Monday Open Thread
It’s Monday and I still have a bit of a high from Saturday’s passage of the historic health care reform bill. As someone said on Twitter, they’ve never seen so many people watching C-SPAN and tweeting on a Saturday night.
Speaking of health care reform – Josh Marshall is very optimistic:
There are many events in life that, while more or less predictable in themselves (House passage of the health care bill), turn out to have an impact and significance that is only truly apparent after they occur. The passage of the House health care reform bill last night strikes me as one of them.
The precise contours of the post-conference legislation remains uncertain in a number of key respects, especially in regards to the public option. But having watched the events leading up to the House vote and the politicking in the senate, I have little doubt that a broadly similar bill will pass the senate, be reconciled with the House bill in a conference report and bill that will be signed by the president in relatively short order.
The reason these sorts of events happen so infrequently is that they are like colossal ships or vast armies, very difficult to build or assemble and get on their way but also extremely difficult to stop or turn once they are under way.
Here’s hoping that he’s right. Joe Lieberman is making noises again about filibustering.
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight has been all over the story of Strategic Vision pollsters, a Republican polling firm. They published a poll showing that students in Oklahoma did very poorly on the American citizenship test and the story was widely picked up by the media. I’ll let Nate tell the tale:
In detailing some of the evidence against Strategic Vision LLC, a pollster I am now almost certain is disreputable and fraudulent, I pointed in particular to a poll that they conducted on behalf of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, an conservative-leaning educational thinktank. The poll purported to show that Oklahoma’s high school citizens were deficient in some of the most basic aspects of citizenship. Only 23 percent of them knew that George Washington was the first president, the poll claimed! Just 43 percent knew that the Democrats and Republicans are the two major political parties!
These conclusions seemed dubious to me on their face. Several years ago, at my old consulting job, I participated in a project for the State of Ohio’s public schools which involved sitting down in a third or fifth grade classroom for the better part of a day and seeing how the students were learning. Most of these observations took place in poor, post-industrial towns, which were still suffering the effects of the steel mill or the axle plant that had long ago left town. What struck me, most of all, was how smart the kids were, relative to my expectations. These kids might not have been the highest achievers — but I’m pretty sure that more than 90 percent of them would have known who George Washington was. And these were third and fifth graders.
There were other hints too, that Strategic Vision’s poll may have been fake. The scores that Strategic Vision claimed the kids had gotten, for instance, were strangely underdispersed. And they seemed to contradict results from Oklahoma’s own standardized testing, which asked much more difficult citizenship questions and found most of the students doing just fine.
The students and teachers of Oklahoma are owed an apology, a big one. Hopefully the news outlets that ran the fraudulent results will print a retraction as well.
Tags: Open Thread
Joe Lieberman is also making noises about investigating the Ft. Hood shooting to see if it is linked to Islamic extremists or if it is a terrorist act. All designed to get Joe more TV time than he deserves, but I sure hope that Lieberman lets law enforcement finish their work before he meddles in it.
repub Senator Tom Coburn of OK is holding a veteran’s benefits bill –S.1963 Veterans’ Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act of 2009. Coburn has voted against Iraq appropriations, but isn’t interesting that the wingnuts don’t seem to have a problem with Coburn — a man who didn’t serve — actively working at denying benefits to veterans.
a man who didn’t serve — actively working at denying benefits to veterans.
As an aside, Coburn is probably the only member of the Senate who has actually performed abortions with his own hands.
I would like a podcast of nemski reading these jokes.
Thank you.
That list made me laugh out loud. I luckily have Nemski as one of the voices in my head, so hearing him read the jokes was even better.
I think Lieberman would do the podcast, as long as a few networks agreed to play it and then have him on to discuss it.
Pfizer to shutter six out of 20 R&D sites
Marketwatch ^ | November 9, 2009 | N/A
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) said Monday it will “significantly” reduce research and development at some of its sites and shut down six out its 20 sites. Pfizer said it will shut down its R&D operations at Princeton, N.J.; Chazy, Rouses Point and Plattsburgh, N.Y.; Sanford and Research Triangle Park, N.C.; and at Gosport, Slough/Taplow in the United Kingdom. The company will also move a number of functions from Collegeville, Pa.; Pearl River, N.Y.; and St. Louis to other locations. Pfizer said the moves will result in staff reductions, but it did not specify how many.
Interestingly enough, one of the places that will be expanded is Groton, CT. Hmmm, I wonder who else live in CT?
A couple quick questions for the class: Jefferson Jackson Dinner — is it a suit and tie/nice dress type thing? Also, how late does it usually go? Just wondering.
Since this is the Open Tread – here is my contribution…
20 YEARS SINCE THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL…wow..I still get tears in my eyes when I just think about that night – more on my blog 🙂
Yes Scott. I will be in a suit.
Say Hi to “the Big Dog” for me.
(I wouldn’t bring up the disbarment thing until after he retakes the exam and is re-admitted… just in case the test has gotten harder)
This is hysterical too:
Is Mark Sanford American’s first emo gov?
Thanks cassandra for I just threw up a little in my mouth after reading the Sandford emo piece.
Skirt length? Cleavage recommendation?
My dress is just above the knee, no cleavage. You should wear what you want, though.
Well, you already saw my tendency for special occasions, lol. Trying to behave, a little. 😉
Go ahead and wear the wings.
LOL, loved the emo governor link.
On that Jefferson-Jackson Dinner: Do you have to bring your slaves, or is it sufficient if you simply force the Native Americans to leave and go elsewhere?
Where is the Jeff/Jax Predictions thread? I’ll start. Tom Carper will say that both he and Bill Clinton are “recovering Governors” then he’ll pause for the laughs to die down.