Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Tuesday, November 8. 2011

Tuesday morning links, election day in the US

Siegel: Who Lost the Middle Class? A question for historians in the not-too-distant future


Full Civic Literacy Exam  Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better?


The great $26 billion real estate swindle. Commentary: Pity anyone who took the tax credit to buy a house


Bialek Will be MSM’s Penance for Brodderick


In the US, Extreme poverty isn’t


United States Is Getting Colder, Not Warmer


It doesn’t matter all that much what Romney really believes, or whether he believes much of anything. Romney will be a very conservative president because that’s the only kind of president a Republican can be these days.


Sowell on income inequality: Young people make less money than more experienced people, single-parent households have less income than two parent households. So what?

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:27 | Comments (24) | Trackbacks (0)

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Not to brag, but I missed three on the quiz - 90.91%.
#1 arcs on 2011-11-08 06:48 (Reply)
I too missed 3...
#1.1 G Walker on 2011-11-08 09:23 (Reply)
Missed 4, but one was a stupid mistake due to speed reading the test this AM. Finished the thing in under 10 minutes.

The stat on college educators is scary.
#1.2 phil g on 2011-11-08 12:29 (Reply)
You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %

Musta fat fingered the other one. ;)
#1.3 Knucklehead (Link) on 2011-11-08 16:08 (Reply)
90.1% and I'm British
#1.4 Bill Saunders on 2011-11-09 03:14 (Reply)
QUOTE:
"You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %

If you have any comments or questions about the quiz, please email americancivicliteracy@isi.org."


BOOYA!!

I blew the one about Socrates, et. al.

If the average citizen's score was 49% - damn man, that ain't right. Love to see the age/education breakout.
#2 Tom Francis on 2011-11-08 08:15 (Reply)
I don't find the $26B article particularly fair with the numbers.

People need a place to live, many would have bought w/o that credit, and thus lost more. Others would be renting, which means their money would be gone too (although they'd have had shelter for 2 years).

The lost tax revenues are hard to account for, we can't re-run the experiment to see who would have bought anyway, and what other benefits having an extra $8K brought out.

Lowering taxes and letting people make a choice isn't a swindle by any definition.
#3 DrTorch on 2011-11-08 08:22 (Reply)
"United States Is Getting Colder, Not Warmer"

Thanks for the reminder, BD, that most people discussing the subject are absolute imbeciles and have no concept, whatsoever, of what the term 'global climate' means and, as such, are inadvertently doing the truth a huge injustice.

QUOTE:
Every region of the continental United States has shown a cooling trend during the winter from 2001 to the present

In other words, if it hasn't warmed for ten years, then AGW is a hoax. And when it does warm up in the next ten years, then AGW wasn't a hoax after all, right? That's what their logic dictates, and that's the path these clueless morons are leading us down.

Seriously, folks, if you see anyone referring to "years" in an article on global climate, hit the 'Back' button as soon as you can. Tomorrow morning I'll post "Doc's anti-anti-AGW project" and maybe we can use our collective efforts to fight this idiocy.

"Full Civic Literacy Exam"

So, lemme get this straight. In a nation where 80% of the people can't name their own senators and couldn't name three people who signed the Declaration of Independence, 49% of them know how Roosevelt fought a 1935 Supreme Court decision? Really? And these were "average" Americans? From where, the local political science faculty lounge?

BTW, we were speaking the other day in the comments about oxymorons. How about "political science"? You stand up in front of a microphone and blather platitudes to a crowd and they eventually vote -- and this is a science?

The mind reels.
#4 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-11-08 08:23 (Reply)
I missed one - that I should have know the answer to (I'm not saying which one because I am embarressed).

Results
• You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %


49% - 55% for college educators - that is pitiful. It shows the true value of a college education today. These state of our education system is appalling.

The sad fact is that if this were a basic math test - the scores would been a lot lower.
#5 JG on 2011-11-08 08:29 (Reply)
I'm a Canuck and I managed 31 out of 33....eh?!
#6 Rich on 2011-11-08 08:56 (Reply)
You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %
They marked me off on the question concerning "gov't debt" - since the federales themselves can't seem to understand it, I'm not sure why the question is even on the test!!
;-D
#7 cas on 2011-11-08 09:08 (Reply)
I never finished ninth grade......

You answered 30 out of 33 correctly — 90.91 %

If you have any comments or questions about the quiz, please email americancivicliteracy@isi.org

.....evidently my 1981 GED is now equivalent, even superior to, to a Bachelors in PolySci and a Masters in Education.

Headed to the neatest University, test results and application in hand. Do folks often job hop from dishwasher to Professor?
#8 NorthCountry on 2011-11-08 09:09 (Reply)
Well duh - of course you'd make full Professor - probably with tenure.

Oh wait - you must be a liberal to apply. Are you a liberal? :>)
#8.1 Tom Francis on 2011-11-08 09:13 (Reply)
Bialek Will be MSM’s Penance for Brodderick

As one of the commenters said in reply to The Anchoress' post, "it shouldn't be this easy to destroy a political candidate".

Most are calling Bialek "credible". Why? I don't understand why - somebody clear this up for me. Why is she more credible than any of the other "victims"? This happened in 1997 - it took until six months into the Republican Presidential races to come out and lay it all bare after fourteen years. Really? Fourteen years? What is she doing for a living now? Is she financially solvent? Why isn't anybody questioning Gloria Allred's involvement - character assassination is her forte.

Cain was right - he was going to get the full Clarence Thomas treatment - guilty of being conservatively Republican while black. Liberal white folks or Democratic plantation blacks only - no others need apply.

Normally, I'm not this politically motivated, but this just seems to be a high tech lynching. Some, such as Ace, have suggested that Cain should have been prepared for this, maybe even brought some of this out on his own and that somehow this all makes him unfit for President. And appear that "conservative" commenters are willing to convict a black man of daring to be something different based on he said/she said from a "credibly" uncredible source.

And now there is this: http://www.suntimes.com/8592168-417/sneed-witness-says-cain-accuser-hugged-him-during-tea-party-meeting-a-month-ago.html

While I've goofed around a little supporting the Cain/McMillan ticket for the "Rent is Too Damn High" Party, I wasn't really in his "camp" per se. I'm still evaluating who I want to support (with the sole exception of the grumpy old man), but I will say this - Cain is being lynched from both sides - the Republican "Elite" and the Democratic machine on a series of he said/she said without fully investigating or waiting for some of the smoke to clear.

While all is fair in war and politics, there are somethings that go beyond that - like accusing a politician of criminal behavior well after the event "supposedly" took place.

Global Cooling

I look forward to seeing the post tomorrow Doc - as always you have curious and interesting takes.
#9 Tom Francis on 2011-11-08 09:11 (Reply)
I was surprised to score 100% - and my last course on related matters was in college 29 years ago...
#10 Jeff on 2011-11-08 10:00 (Reply)
I missed one of the Civics questions -- the one about taxes and spending is at best convoluted. A few of the others are phrased in ways I'd call fishy, but I got them anyway.
Re Ms. Bialek: penance for the Broddrick case? Hardly that. It's an opportunity to damage a conservative. Is Ms Bialek credible? I dunno. I agree in general with the "Allred means liar" crowd but Ms. Allred could stumble on a legitimate witness like a blind squirrel finding a nut. Surely the circumstances of Ms. Bialek's coming forward are dubious.
I have the same faith in "global cooling" predictions that I have in "global warming" predictions, that is, almost none. I know the globe cools and warms on long time scales, of course. I doubt we have any real trending in our instrument records that tell us which part of the cycle we're in. I do know that the AGW theory is very hard to defend and, like Ms. Allred's client, loses credibility by the methods used to foist it on us.
#11 Geoff Brown on 2011-11-08 10:21 (Reply)
Doc Merc, AGW is a hoax regardless of whether the US hasn't warmed up in ten years--but as I commented before, the AlGorebal Wormists said we were inexorably warming. So if we didn't get warmer, they are liars and AGW is a hoax. QED, ICQ, WTF, EG, IE, and ETC.
#12 Sam L. on 2011-11-08 10:59 (Reply)
Re the Sowell comment, Fox yesterday mentioned a recent finding that households headed by over 65 year-olds had 47 times the assets of households headed by under 35 year-olds.

Hell, that's proof enough we need a revolution! IO mean a REAL one --we need to be born over 65 and die under 35!
#13 buddy larsen on 2011-11-08 11:43 (Reply)
Buddy,

What those numbers re: assets for >65 and
#13.1 Knucklehead (Link) on 2011-11-08 16:21 (Reply)
buddy dear... when you get to about 75, let me know. I always did love younger men ....

Marianne
#14 Marianne Matthews on 2011-11-08 11:54 (Reply)
31 of 33. The last one about taxes and debt tripped me and I overthought the one about life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. always go with your 1st instinct.

The sad thing about the test is that it assumes a very high level of reading comprehension and verbal skills. Most of the high school students who come into my class don't have those skills.

We are running the most expensive and least effective babysitting system in the world. But our football teams are great and the bands are always in step!
#15 Dangerous Dean on 2011-11-08 12:13 (Reply)
Missed 2. The one about the philosophers I just didn't think through. The one about "what policy has government often followed" I answered from the viewpoint of the way it was worded - "what has government often done" - as opposed to "what should government have often done".
#16 RonF on 2011-11-08 13:43 (Reply)
Missed 4
#17 Jim on 2011-11-08 13:53 (Reply)
you guys are dumb.

I snagged 31 out of 33 (93.94%); the levee question got me and the one about the relationship of tax to debt.

Their break-outs weren't too far off either; I'm 61 and a teacher at our community college.
#18 random coolzip on 2011-11-08 22:59 (Reply)

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