The Hollywood campaign

If you have ever wondered about the Obama campaign for the election of 2012's inspiration, look no further than this article about O's campaign head Jim Messina and his Hollywood "advisors".  All of which simply proves how out of touch Hollywood is with the country at large.  It also accounts for the unhappiness of the pros, Carville, Clinton, et al., with the emphasis of the campaign on pitting various groups or collection of Americans against one another.  We're looking at a wipeout election this year not only because this administration has failed on so many levels but because they have been running a divisive, even destructive, campaign that has just about everyone at each other's throats.  Not good.

Istanbul, Bosporus History

National Geographic has produced a fascination video that describes the amazing engineering feat of the crossing of the Bosporus with a train tunnel 160 feet deep.  In the course of building this tunnel, started in 2005 and supposed to be finished in 2010, a major archeological find was made that has delayed the completion of the project until 2013 or later.  The Marmaray Tunnel website is here where you will find most interesting facts about the construction of the tunnel.  BTW, the spelling of what most of us know of Marmara apparently has morphed into Marmaray in the case of this tunnel, at least on their site..  What makes this project especially interesting is the fact the tunnel is being built 12 miles from one of the world's most active faults, the North Anatolian Fault.  Some scientists believe the area is overdue for a major quake within the next few years.

A test!

Is this humbling or what?????


Subject:  1895 8th grade final exam

-- Take this test and pass it on to your more literate friends.   What it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895... Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895?  This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina , Kansas , USA . It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina , and reprinted by the Salina Journal. 8th Grade Final Exam: Salina , KS - 1895  Grammar (Time, one hour) 1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters. 2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.  3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph 4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie,''play,' and 'run.'  5. Define case; illustrate each case. 6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.  7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.  Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes) 1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic. 2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?  3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?  4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000.. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?  5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton. 6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.  7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft.. Long at $20 per metre? 8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent. 9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?  10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt  U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes) 1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided 2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus  3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War. 4. Show the territorial growth of the United States  5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas  6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.  7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe? 8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.  Orthography (Time, one hour)  [Do we even know what this is??] 1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication 2. What are elementary sounds? How classified? 3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals  4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.' (HUH?) 5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule. 6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.  7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup. 8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.  9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays. 10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks  and by syllabication.  Geography (Time, one hour) 1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend? 2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?  3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean? 4. Describe the mountains of North America  5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla, Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco  6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics ofEurope and give the capital of each.. 8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?  9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers. 10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.  Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.  Gives the saying 'he only had an 8th grade education' a whole new meaning, doesn't it?! No wonder they dropped out after 8th grade. They already knew more than they needed to know! No, I don't have the answers! And I don't think I ever did!

Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman

This segment on Bloomberg in which Ron Paul and Paul Krugman air their differences in a 15 minute video clip is an extremely vivid example of liberal and conservative differences on a host of subjects related to the economy and governance.  Krugman is a Keynsian and Paul a von Misean.  Their discussion has been going on since these two schools of economic thought emerged in the aftermath of WWI, now almost 100 years ago.  It's worth noting that Freidrich Hayek,  a student of von Mises',  a contemporary of Keynes, and maybe the best known to Americans of all the Austrians, was actually in the Austrian government when the horrific inflation of the German currency occurred in the aftermath of WWI, the event that led to the destruction of the savings off the German middle class, the rise of the Nazis and the devastation of WWII.  There is an inbred fear of inflation bred into the Austrian School of Economics that seems to lead to an inbred fear of fiat money.  You see this same attitude reflected in Ron Paul's comments.  Krugman dismisses all Paul's fears, including the idea of rejecting central banking and a returning  to the gold standard by saying the worldwide economy and financial scene is so complicated at this point that no one can even accurately describe what money actually is.  How this debate ends up over the next decade or so will determine where  the US and world economy ends up.  It's the issues of big government versus smaller government, individual freedoms versus collective group rights, capitalism versus socialism, and so forth.  It seems pretty clear from the examples of the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, and now much of Europe, that socialism does not work.  The discussion seems to be coming down to what is the proper definition of Capitalism.  Is it closer to the definition of the Austrian School or the version that has evolved since the Hoover-Roosevelt period when Big Government was unleashed in an attempt to eliminate its inherent uncertainties and risks?  In other words how much managing can Capitalism take before it stops functioning as the worldwide engine of prosperity it has been?  Quite a question!