I'm thankful for ...

… the Health Care Reform Bill passed by Congress and signed by President Obama. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Insurance companies can no longer deny insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition. That's ME!
2. Up to 29 million individuals will receive TAX CREDITS to help pay for health insurance.3. Up to 3.5 million small businesses will receive TAX CUTS to help pay for employee health care coverage.
4. Prescription drug costs for medicare recipients have been CUT 50% That's ME!
4. Medicaid has been expanded to cover all individuals under age 65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level (Who qualifies? A family of 4 with an income below $29, 326 or less is now eligible for Medicaid).
6. Health insurance providers now have to disclose how much of your premium actually goes to your health care (not for advertising, not for administrative costs, not for bloated CEO salaries, … just for patient health care).

Republicans are touting their nutty idea to repeal the Health Care Reform Bill. If you agree with that lunatic idea you're nuts too.

How Germany got it right on the economy

Harold Meyerson, OpEd Columnist for the Washington Post:

It’s quite a turnabout for an economy that American and British bankers and economists derided for years as the sick man of Europe. German banks, they insisted, were too cautious and locally focused, while the German economy needed to slim down its manufacturing sector and beef up finance.

Wisely, the Germans declined the advice. Manufacturing still accounts for nearly a quarter of the German economy; it is just 11 percent of the British and U.S. economies (one reason the United States and Britain are struggling to boost their exports). Nor have German firms been slashing wages and off-shoring — the American way of keeping competitive — to maintain profits.

Rest of the article worth a read: http://wapo.st/g17hMH

What Has Obama Done So Far?

What Has Obama Done So Far?

1. Health Care Reform Bill, preventing insurance companies from denying insurance because of a pre-existing condition.
2. Tax credits for up to 29 million individuals to help pay for health insurance.
3. Tax cuts for up to 3.5 million small businesses to help pay for employee health care coverage.
4. Expansion of Medicaid to all individuals under age 65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level.
5. Cut prescription drug cost for medicare recipients by 50%.
6. Require health insurance plans to disclose how much of the premium actually goes to patient care.
7. Signed the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act, which provides health care to 11 million kids–4 million of who were previously uninsured.
8. Added 4.6 billion US Dollars to the Veterans Administration budget to recruit and retain more mental health professionals.
9. Provided the Department of Veterans Affairs with more than $1.4 billion to improve services to America’s Veterans.
10. Signed financial reform law establishing a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to look out for the interests of everyday Americans.
11. Signed financial reform law requiring lenders to verify applicants’ credit history, income, and employment status.
12. Repealed Bush era restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
13. Developed stimulus package, which includes approximately $18 billion for non-defense scientific research and development.
14. Signed financial reform law prohibiting banks from engaging in proprietary trading (trading the bank’s own money to turn a profit, often in conflict with their customers’ interests)
15. Signed financial reform law allowing shareholders of publicly traded companies to vote on executive pay.
16. Provided $12.2 billion in new funding for Individuals With Disabilities Act.
17. Significantly increased funding for the Violence Against Women Act.
18. Established Credit Card Bill of Rights, preventing credit card companies from imposing arbitrary rate increases on customers.
19. Lifted restrictions granting Cuban Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to the island.
20. Increased funding for national parks and forests by 10%.
21. Significantly expanded Pell grants, which help low-income students pay for college.
22. Expanded hate crime law in the US to included seal orientation through the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
23. Provided stimulus funding to boost private sector spaceflight programs.
24. Appointed the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer.
25. Extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
26. Signed the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act to stop fraud and wasteful spending in the defense procurement and contracting system.
27. Issued executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
28. Ended Bush administration’s CIA program of “enchanted interrogation methods” by requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terrorism interrogations.
29. Increased minority access to capital.
30. Appointged more openly gay officials than any other president in US history.
31. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: a $789 billion economic stimulus plan.
32. Launched recovery.gov to track spending from the Recovery Act, providing transparency and allowing the public to report fraud, waste, or abuse.
33. Signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, restoring basic protections against pay discrimination for women and other workers.
34. Provided travel expenses to families of fallen soldiers to be on hand when the body arrives at Dover AFB.
35. Reversed the policy of barring media coverage during the return of fallen soldiers to Dover Air Force Base.
36. Signed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis act, the first piece of comprehensive legislation aimed at improving the lives of Americans living with paralysis.

Source: http://bit.ly/90NCpW

Hudson Square Research Analyst Boosts Apple Inc.'s Target to $500 (AAPL)

Posted 10/15/2010 01:10 PM ET

Featured Stocks
• AAPL *

Oct 15, 2010 (SmarTrend News Watch via COMTEX) -- Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) target price has been hiked to $500 per share Friday, by an analyst at Hudson Square Research, reports BusinessInsider.com.

The bold move comes two days after shares of the tech giant broke above $300 per share for the first time on record.

Apple is scheduled to report its Q4 financial results on Monday, October 18th.

What if the iPad Were Counted as a "PC"

Philip Elmer-DeWitt on a report by Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore:

Exclude the iPad, and Apple’s PC sales grew 24% year-over-year. Include them, and Apple’s unit sales soared roughly 250%. By comparison, Hewlett-Packard grew 3% year-over-year and Dell units fell 5%.

When the iPad is part of the mix, Apple’s share of the U.S. PC market is about 25%. That makes it the market leader, having gained a remarkable 18 points in the space of two quarters.

Rest of the story: http://bit.ly/9sngor

The problem is poverty

The problem is poverty: Evidence from Gerald Bracey
Stephen Krashen

 

The entire basis for the national standards/testing movement is our low scores on international tests when compared to other countries. Our scores, however, are only low because we have such a high percentage of children in poverty, compared to other countries that participate in international tests. When we consider only middle-class children who attend well-funded schools, our math scores are near the top of the world (Payne and Biddle, 1999).

 

Here is another analysis, using reading test scores, that comes to the same conclusion. The PIRLS test was given to ten year olds in 35 countries in their own language.

Bracey (2009) presented this data, along with relevant socio-economic data on the poverty level of the schools American children attended (defined as participating in free or reduced price lunch programs):

 

American students attending schools with
- less than 10 percent in poverty averaged 589 (14% of students).
- 10-24.9% in poverty averaged 567 (20% of students)
- 25 to 49.9% in poverty averaged 551 (30% of students)
- 50 to 74.5% in poverty averaged 519 (21% of students)
- 75% or more in poverty averaged 485 (15% of students)

 

Clearly, students in schools with lower levels of poverty did better.  
Of great interest to us is the fact that American children attending low poverty schools (25% or less) outscored the top scoring country, Sweden (561).  Bracey also points out that "if the students in schools with 24-49.9% poverty constituted a nation, it would rank fourth among the 35 participating nations" (p. 155).

 

The problem is poverty, not our teachers, our unions, the parents, or the children. The solution is to protect our children from the disadvantages of poverty, through health care, nutrition, and access to books. Geoffrey Canada claims that his approach is to attempt to do just that in the Harlem Children's Zone schools (NY Times, October 12, 2010; but see Krashen, 2010a,b). 

 

Thus far, the Arne Duncan department of education has chosen to ignore this route (while praising the Harlem Children's Zone), and spend billions on useless national standards and national tests, focusing on measuring rather than helping.

 

 

Bracey, G. 2009. Education Hell: Rhetoric Versus Reality. Alexandria, VA: Educational Research Service.

 

Payne, K. and Biddle, B. 1999. Poor school funding, child poverty, and mathematics achievement. Educational Researcher 28 (6): 4-13.

 

Krashen, S. 2010a. A suggestion for Geoffrey Canada. www.schoolsmatter.info. October 12, 2010.

 

Krashen, S. 2010b. Shocking revelations from Goeffrey Canada's autobiography. www.schoolsmatter.info. October 13, 2010.

 

 

Meg Whitman’s Economic Plan Blows A Hole In California’s Budget, Reduces Jobs And Services

Meg Whitman’s Economic Plan Blows A Hole In California’s Budget, Reduces Jobs And Services

Meg Whitman is running for governor of California. She has outlined her plan to reduce the states $20 billion deficit and grow its economy. (You can see her plan here: http://www.megwhitman.com/platform.php).
According to a new Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis by Michael Reich, an Economics Professor at The University of California at Berkeley, Whitman’s economic plan — outlined in Meg 2010, Building a New California — is “likely to have negative effects on jobs and economic growth and to deepen the state’s budget crisis.”

A group of 20 California economists signed a letter today stating that “the evidence and theory that Whitman uses to diagnose California’s problems are unscientific and an unsound basis for policy. As a result, her diagnosis and her proposed economic policies are both deeply flawed…If implemented, Whitman’s program would worsen California’s budget malaise and its economic performance.”

Sounds to me like change we can't afford.

Source: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/10/whitman-econ-report/

Microsoft Office 2011 for the Mac Ships October 26th

We’ve recently announced that Office for Mac 2011 is ready for pre-orders online and will soon be available at a store near you on October 26. We’re really excited to finally get the product in our users’ hands, our latest version packs plenty of new features and significant speed improvements that will help you be more productive.

A discussion of the new/revised layout tools can be found in the Mactopia blog: http://blog.officeformac.com/dynamic-reorder/

Phone services on my iPad

A new app, Line2, just released for the iPad, let's you make phone calls on the iPad. This is cool. No need for a phone or even a phone company to make calls. You sign up and get a new phone number (all done wirelessly and instantly) which you use to make calls. Your contacts address book can be uploaded saving the time of entering individual phone numbers. You can forward your landline or mobile phone calls to the iPad as well and it handles SMS and voice mail. This is going to be big ...