Probably everything you’ve ever dreamed of owning, but for the Los Angeles school district it can buy you an overly priced, ugly, and horribly named new school.

The official name of the school is the Central LA New Learning Center #1, which is a very boring and bland name. The other name of the school is the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, which is significantly better. The school is named after RFK because it’s at the site of the old Ambassador Hotel, where RFK was shot.

The problem with this high school isn’t the name, it’s the price tag. The total complex, which will house grades K-12, has a budget of $572 million. Or slightly over half a billion dollars. And standing at 391,840 square feet, that’s a cost of $1,459/sq ft, which is incredibly expensive.

Now, if anyone knows anything about mega high schools that cost millions of dollars it’s me. The high school I attended had a price tag of $226 million and is 500,000 square feet. Which for comparison to the LA school is $452/sq ft. We can split hairs and attempt to figure out what made my school cost more than $1,000 less per square foot, but I think it’s pretty obvious. Just a take a look at the picture for the RFK school, clearly architecture and small lavish details upped the price tag.

This high school is just a simple example of what is wrong with education in America today. Teachers, administrators, and parents alike all point to studies and polls that show America is lagging behind in the educational foot race. Most of the time I ignore those studies, mainly because I think it’s a good thing that we stress book smarts isn’t the only key to success. But at the same a good education is important.

However, we’ve decided the fix to our educational problems is wasting money. Educational spending has gone through the roof over the last 30-40 years, particularly on the federal level. But even at the state and local level as well. So what’s the big deal? Well, here’s the problem.

For starters, the needs of education is not universal. Students learn in different ways, students from different regions learn in different ways and learn different things. Educational plans are developed by the states, so why is funding coming from the federal government? Also, now that the federal government has increased educational spending, it allows states to cut educational spending. States know that the feds are there to back them up, and so they cut educational spending knowing full well that the federal government will increase educational spending. However, education should be as local as possible, the federal government clearly can’t spend that money efficiently because studies continue to show America lagging behind even while spending increases.

And then we have the problem that the RFK school displays.

“There’s no more of the old, windowless cinderblock schools of the ’70s where kids felt, ‘Oh, back to jail,’” said Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University, a school construction journal. “Districts want a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment for learning.”

You’re trying to tell me that the reason the RFK school cost so much was because of an increased number of windows? Yeah, I doubt that. Again, my high school, which had plenty of windows and was over 100,000 square feet larger, cost $1,000 less per square foot.

The problem with education isn’t a lack of windows and buildings that look like a prison, it’s the teachers in the classroom and the way they’re teaching the kids. Sure, students complain about the lack of sunlight and the feeling of being imprisoned, but that’s not the reason they aren’t learning, that’s simply an excuse. Who is teaching the kids? The teachers, therefore whom should we blame for a lack of educational achievement? Probably the teachers.

The reason we’ve made no strides in education is because the real reason is too taboo to speak of. It’s not politically correct to blame the teachers, even though that’s the problem. This isn’t a blanket statement against all teachers, there are plenty of educators who are qualified and know how to engage students and teach well, but then there are a hand full of teachers that have no idea what they’re doing and stink at their job.

And why are they still around, because of the teachers unions, but that’s a blog post for another day.

We’re not going to solve our educational problem with half a billion dollar schools. It’s not about the building, it’s about the learning. You can build a beautiful and functioning school with $200 million, my district did. Spend that leftover $300 million on educational tools and hiring good teachers, not increasing the pay of the bad ones.

–jb

And all of a sudden the executives at NBC got a headache.

NBC has been struggling for several years now, ever since the giant comedies of Seinfeld, Friends, and Fraiser went off the air, the network has been in a constant manhut to find their niche. While networks like CBS found comedies they could settle into a specific night and dramas that were never failing, NBC was trying show after show with no luck. Remember Heroes? That show had the most potential out of any new show in the last five years, and yet it failed.

However, there was one bright light in NBC’s lineup; The Office. Sure The Apprentice and The Biggest Loser made waves, but neither of those shows had the marketability of The Office. TV isn’t just about a screen and a couch anymore, it’s about merchandise, and DVDs, and web advertising, and games, etc. The Office was a monster when it came to money made outside of the 9:00pm hour. T-shirts sold like crazy, DVDs flew off the shelf, and NBC used their web power to create webisodes and blogs and all sorts of internet gimmicks.

Most importantly the show was good. Sure, it had some moments where it got off track, but it was still funny. However, lately it felt that Steve Carell was bound to leave. Every time I’d watch the show it felt like I was watching a big fish attempting to live in a small pond. Carell’s career has skyrocketed since that pilot episode, and now it just feels like he’s too big for the show.

The news of him leaving was confirmed by Angela Bromstad, NBC Primetime Entertainment President. And she’s a little overly optimistic, saying if he leaves the show is strong enough to continue without him.

Uh, no. The show is Steve Carell. That show is character driven, not plot driven. And he is without a doubt the strongest and most recognizable character from the series, without him the show will last an additional season and be done.

Without The Office NBC is at a loss for a strong comedy to carry Thursday nights. They have two years, at minimum, to find an alternative, but they’ve got a lot of work to do. 30 Rock has peaked, Parks and Recreation is too weak, and Community, while funny, is very narrowly focused in its audience. I think NBC would be smart to find their niche in a new live audience multi-camera comedy, a traditional show. Parks and Rec, Community and 30 Rock feel like they are riding the coat tails of The Office, and that won’t work well for a strong replacement. NBC needs a new fresh comedy that has a wide appeal. A comedy that will peel viewers away from the other networks Thursday night dramas.

Without that they’ll continue to flounder in fourth place.

–jb

More stories are breaking online, more citizens are becoming at-home journalists, and the blogging community as a whole is gaining more legitimacy.

But one event comes around and quickly changes all that. One day the folks at CNN are embracing new media, boasting about their twitter accounts and YouTube accounts. The next day they’re slamming blogs for posting false videos and deceiving the public. They’re trying to drive both ways on a one way street.

By now everyone knows the controversy of Shirley Sherrod. If you don’t, here’s your nutshell; there was a video of her online where she basically said she ignored a white farmer (she’s black by the way). The Obama administration fired her, it took a couple of days but the mainstream media uncovered that it was not true. Now the Obama administration has egg on their face. The end.

And now CNN thinks that bloggers should be regulated. Uh yeah, not kidding.

Anchors Kyra Phillips and John Roberts discussed the “mixed blessing of the internet,” and agreed that there should be a crackdown on anonymous bloggers who disparage others on the internet.

“There are so many great things that the internet does and has to offer, but at the same time, Kyra, as you know, there is this dark side,” Roberts said. “Imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t taken a look at what happened with Shirley Sherrod and plumbed the depths further and found out that what had been posted on the internet was not in fact reflective of what she said.”

Well John Roberts, that’s kinda your job, so I’m glad you decided to actually do it for once. And beyond that it’s kinda the Obama administration’s job to fully investigate an accusation before just firing someone. As a matter of fact that’s standard practice throughout the world of employment. You fire someone after you’ve verified that what you’re firing them for is true, and not made up, or in this case edited.

But it continues.

But Phillips replied that the mainstream media “can’t always do that.”

“There’s going to have be a point in time where these people have to be held accountable,” Phillips said. “How about all these bloggers that blog anonymously? They say rotten things about people and they’re actually given credibility, which is crazy. They’re a bunch of cowards, they’re just people seeking attention.”

Phillips demanded to know what Andrew Keen thought needed to be done. Keen, author of “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture,” who suggested that there needs to be an internet “gatekeeper,” had been interviewed by Roberts and quoted in the segment.

“Well what Andrew talked about with me was this idea of a gatekeeper but there are huge first amendment rights that come into play here – freedom of speech and all that. And he said the people who need to be the gatekeepers are the media to check into these stories,” said Roberts.

Phillips wanted to go even further, asking if “there’s going to come a point where something’s going to have to be done legally” about anonymous bloggers.

“There has to be some point where there’s some accountability. And companies, especially in the media have to stop giving these anonymous bloggers credit,” she said.

Does your head hurt like my head hurts after reading that?

For starters what exactly would a “gatekeeper” to blogging do? Read everything before it is published online? That would be an extraordinary infringement on the first amendment. But I don’t really think that’s what they’re getting at here. It seems like they believe the blogger “gate keeper” is essentially the mainstream media, and they’re right.

For the most part blogs have a very narrow and small readership. There are a few blogs that have massive readership, but generally speaking those blogs tend to do some decent research and background before they publish, and if they don’t they probably have a reputation for not doing so. However, the blogging community as a whole has been legitimized by the mainstream media. The MSM reports on info that’s been posted to blogs, sometimes without verifying it. Honestly, I don’t think it’s a good thing.

Yeah, it’s great that “at-home” journalists are getting recognition, and I certainly believe that most of them are good reporters with good intentions that research their material. But it’s a slippery slope for the MSM to go down. They literally have millions of people eating out of their hands. Anything they say on air automatically has the benefit of the doubt. Therefore they have a duty to the people to report the facts and only after they’re verified.

However, instead of looking at blogs as a great resource to get leads that they can then verify, they’ve treated it as other people doing their jobs, and they’ve grown lazy, oftentimes just reporting what the blogs have and calling it fact. Never give blogs the benefit of the doubt. That was the first mistake the MSM made. Do your own research and verification, that goes for readers too.

So instead of “regulating” the blogs, the MSM should just fact check them. Are they going to be wrong sometimes? Yup. And they’re allowed to be, it’s their right, get over it and do your job.

–jb

It’s been 58 days since the oil spill and Obama finally met with BP executives today. 58 days after the fact! At the most it should have taken him 3 days, but instead Obama opted to publicly trash BP instead of asking how he could help in the cleanup efforts.

And how long did this meeting with Obama last? A whole 20 minutes. Wow Barry way to show you care.

Obama made sure he used fancy words in his address last night to display that he deeply cared about Gulf Coast business owners, and he made sure he used heavy words to describe how he would punish BP. But instead of punishing BP, we should be helping them, at least for right now.

I agree that BP should pay for this mistake, however, we should deal with that afterwards, right now there’s still oil gushing out of that hole, and until the oil stops gushing, Obama should stop insulting and punishing BP. Save the punishing and “ass kicking” for later, worry about plugging the hole now.

A lot of people have asked, what could Obama have done? Obam himself has posed this question. It’s very simple, allow me to lay it out for you…

-Upon hearing of the explosion and leak Obama should have immediately flown to the Gulf and met with the CEO of BP, the Chairman of BP, any other executives, and the leader of the cleanup effort.
-At this meeting he should have asked BP officials what he can do as president to help them. He should have asked, what experts do you need? Do you need the Navy’s assistance? Do you need volunteers?
-Then Obama should have met with business officials from the Gulf and discussed with them how he could help them keep business and stay afloat. He should have asked them for ideas to deal with their imminent loss of business and what they would like to see from BP.
-Then he should have become the face of the disaster, not in a bad way, but in a spokesman type of way. He should have held a presidential address long before 58 days had elapsed, he should have held weekly press conferences on the spill and the efforts BP is implementing to stop the spill.
-Then he should be on the phone with the CEO of BP and the head of the cleanup effort every day of the week to get an update on the situation.
-While all this is going on he should be meeting with republicans and democrats in the House and Senate to work on a new energy bill and to discuss punishment and payback for BP. However, he should not publicly talk about either yet. It is important to get the oil cleaned up before any discussion of punishment or new energy policy is brought to the table. The people of the Gulf Coast couldn’t care less about punishment and new energy policies right now, they just want their ocean back to normal and business as usual. Once that is achieved they will be receptive to new policies and punishment for BP.

Obama failed to take all of those steps. Instead of sitting down and thinking this through and working with BP to fix the problem, he saw an opportunity to play politics. He used Rahm Emmanuel’s motto of “never let a disaster go to waste” and took the opportunity to handle it incorrectly. There is something to be learned from this oil spill, but lets clean up the damn oil first.

–jb

I was sitting in the Tim Horton’s in Saline with my friend Logan and my girlfriend MaryKate when we noticed a semi-truck stopped on the side of US-12 (the road Tim Horton’s is on) outside the store. We then saw the man who was once driving the truck walk into the restaurant.

We were befuddled by the man’s selection of the road as a parking spot. US-12, in this particular area, is a four lane highway with virtually no shoulder, so in essence he was stopped and taking up the entire right lane.

He quickly came in and ordered a coffee and something else and when we looked back at his abandoned truck…there was a cop with it’s lights out behind it. The poor coffee deprived trucker had gotten “pulled over” although I guess it’s not really pulled over when the trucker was already on the side of the road.

The cop gave him a ticket, for what I’m not sure. It’s clearly illegal to just blatantly park in a lane of a US Highway, but what is the ticket called? Obstructing traffic?

The best part was that the parking lot was completely empty with the exception of two cars, the trucker would have had plenty of space to quickly idle his truck, get coffee, and get back on the road.

There was some talk from the Tim Horton’s employees that the man claimed he couldn’t stop. I assume that means his trucking company didn’t allow him to make coffee stops, but I think they’d rather him stop for coffee than pay a $250+ ticket to the City of Saline.

Either way, today’s lesson is…don’t park your car and certainly not your semi-truck in a lane of a major US Highway, the popo will get ya every time.

Here’s a picture of the cop and the driver hashing it out…click for a larger image

–jb

Then there are some ideas that when I hear them I think, “wow that is quite possibly the stupidest idea any human being has ever come up with in the history of man since the dawn of time.”

This idea qualifies for the second reaction.

Kym Worthy is the Wayne County, Michigan Prosecutor, it’s only one county to the east of where I live. She gained public attention during the Kwame Kilpatrick scandals and investigations and I guess is using that public momentum to push some new, and radical, ideas. Her latest is making it illegal to miss a parent-teacher conference.

Believe it or not Worthy wants to put parents in jail if they miss a parent-teacher conference, according to her plan it would be mandatory to attend at least one conference a year.

It’s a plan that’s still in the works, and Worthy acknowledges it faces a tough sell. But she said she’s so concerned about truancy and juvenile crime that she wants an ordinance that would force parents to attend at least one conference a year — or face jail.

“If they come (to the conferences), they will be more engaging in their children’s education,” Worthy told The Detroit News.

In all fairness I don’t think the goal here is to lock parents up, but Worthy has to realize that government mandated or not, some parents just aren’t interested in these conferences. And the kids would not be better off with a parent in jail.

There certainly is a connection between parent involvement and truancy, I don’t think that’s in dispute. However, that involvement problem has nothing to do with parent teacher conferences, it has more to do with parent oversight of who their children are hanging out with and where they’re going when they leave the house. And I don’t think it’s fair to assume that if a parent isn’t showing up for conferences they are automatically going to have a truant child.

More importantly imagine the red tape and the massive headache this is going to cause for schools. They’ll have to keep a roster for each parent that attends the conferences, probably make them sign something, file all of it, and then mail it off to the state. It’s just more unnecessary work for the schools that will further distract them from educating children.

And not to sound like a broken record but, the government really isn’t suppose to force people to do stuff, especially something as mundane and useless as parent-teacher conferences. Personally I think these conferences are slightly outdated. With technology, such as the telephone and email, teachers should be able to almost instantly alert a parent about their child’s educational progress. And most schools now provide the ability for parents to access their children’s grades online. So a parent can be involved in their child’s education without physically going to conferences. And it’s the teachers responsibility to provide parents updates throughout the year, not just at conferences. And if a face-to-face discussion is needed, the teacher, or parent, can request one. Does that always happen? Nope. But it’s the parent’s and the teacher’s responsibility, not the government’s.

How about Worthy focuses on something that has been proven to curb truancy? How about more emphasis on after school activities and common sense education reform. Forcing parents to go to parent-teacher conferences isn’t going to do squat for out-of-control children.

–jb

It’s different, it’s been updated, it’s been freshened.

Reason being? The blog is changing a bit. Before, I would only post about politics and current events, well believe it or not that’s not that only topics that consume my brain power. I’m also an avid TV watcher, an avid follower of the TV industry, and an avid sports fan. So that will all start appearing on this blog, it will truly be my brain in a blog.

Here’s some of the stuff you can expect on here in the future…
-TV Reviews
-Analysis on TV ratings
-Sports topics
-More general news topics
-Humorous commentaries on stupid news and general tomfoolery of life
-Movie reviews
-Technology news and reviews
-And the same political and current events commentary as before.

I’m also going to work to post more video content.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy my new look blog!

Thanks for reading!

–jacob

I often times don’t like to describe myself as a conservative or a republican, but rather a common sense thinker. I believe Washington over thinks things. Problems could be solved more efficiently and more intelligently if they simply installed the common sense solution.

Washington might want to take a lesson from Arizona.

Arizona took a stand on illegal immigration, after all Washington isn’t doing anything about it. Instead of sitting on their hands and waiting for the federal government to get through all their socialist crap and finally do something about illegal immigration, Arizona took a common sense approach.

What radical change did they make that Obama called misguided? It has to be some crazy-far-right-wacko-nut job legislation, right?

Get ready for it…Arizona decided to make illegal immigration…illegal.

Wow, I know, hard to swallow. Those far right loons making illegal things illegal. How dare they!

In all seriousness, Arizona passed a bill called SB1070, according to political pundits and television talking heads the bill is one of the “toughest” immigration bills to be passed. I’m not exactly sure why they’re saying that.

Let’s take a look at the bill.

The first part of the bill says,

NO OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE MAY LIMIT OR RESTRICT THE ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS TO LESS THAN THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY FEDERAL LAW.

This section basically bans sanctuary cities, and it simply says that a city or town cannot restrict the federal government from carrying out federal immigration laws. That seems common sense to me.

Here’s where it gets dicey for some pro-immigration people.

FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY OF A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON, EXCEPT IF THE DETERMINATION MAY HINDER OR OBSTRUCT AN INVESTIGATION.

Seems straightforward and common sense to me. If a police officer, whose duty it is to uphold the law, has reason to suspect that a person is unlawfully in the United States, they have an obligation to make a reasonable attempt to verify their citizenship.

The opponents of this bill made two main arguments. The first was that this would stop illegal aliens from reporting crimes. The second is that this would lead to racial profiling.

Well good news immigration bill opponents! The bill addresses both of those concerns.

The reporting crimes concern is addressed in the first section of the bill, “except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.” Put simply if an illegal alien reports a crime, a police officer cannot ask them for proof of citizenship. However, this shouldn’t be anything new for illegal aliens. It’s always been illegal to be an illegal alien (shock I know) so technically they should have always been “in fear” when reporting a crime. This bill simply removes the guilt police officers might carry by doing their jobs.

The racial profiling argument is also addressed in the bill, “A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE MAY NOT SOLELY CONSIDER RACE, COLOR OR NATIONAL ORIGIN IN IMPLEMENTING THE REQUIREMENTS OF THIS SUBSECTION EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE UNITED STATES OR ARIZONA CONSTITUTION.”

So a police officer cannot solely use race or national origin as suspicion for someone being illegal, seems fair to me. Will an officer use those factors? I’m sure from time to time someone will, but instead of not enforcing the law out of fear of racial profiling, how about we punish those who actually commit the profiling. This would be like saying we can’t fight terrorism because it might lead to racial profiling of Muslims. Okay, it might in some rare instances, but we can’t just sit on our hands because there’s a possibility of racial profiling.

So I’m confused why Obama called this bill “misguided.” It seems very guided to me, it actually doesn’t seem like anything new, or at least shouldn’t seem like anything new. Basically the article is just giving police officers the right to uphold the law, which is their duty anyway, so what’s the problem?

Obama also said that the actions of the Arizona law may “undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.” Really? Really?

Ya know what undermines the basic notions of fairness Barry? Illegal immigration. How is it fair that people can just waltz on over here from another country, not go through the immigration process, pay no taxes, and then bank on the luxuries we as taxpayer pay for? Please explain how that is fair? Please explain how enforcing the law of the country is unfair?

The immigration efforts in Arizona need to happen throughout the entire country. We need a bill that will make officers enforce the law instead of turning a blind eye to illegals. If we begin to enforce the law, they will naturally leave out of fear of being deported. It’s simple.

And more important, it’s just common sense.

–jb

There were some surprises, but nothing earth shattering, I’ll talk about some of the upsets after the rankings.

Top 12 Rankings
1. Michael Lynche
2. Crystal Bowersox
3. Lee Dewyze
4. Siobhan Magnus
5. Andrew Garcia
6. Didi Benami
7. Casey James
8. Paige Miles
9. Lacey Brown
10. Katie Stevens
11. Aaron Kelly
12. Tim Urban

Now to the slight upsets. I wasn’t too shocked that Todrick Hall got voted off, I wasn’t a huge fan of him and I thought he was just too over the top and changed things up too much. However, I would take him in the top 12 over Tim Urban any day. Tim had a good performance this week, but other than that his singing was off and he was boring.

The other upset was Katie Stevens. I don’t totally disagree with the fact that she’s in the top 12 because she is a talented young voice, but I wouldn’t have put her in over Lilly Scott. I would have taken out Lacey Brown or Didi before Lilly Scott. But hey it’s America’s choice.

I’ll have detailed rankings next week once everyone does their first top 12 performance. Until then this is the list!

“As a citizen of the United States, and no more, I will ask those among my fellow citizens who share my sense of urgency to join in asking President Obama and the leadership of the United States Senate to set a deadline of April 22, 2010—the 40th anniversary of Earth Day—for final action on U.S. legislation,” Gore said.

Gore, you’re a little more than just a citizen of the United States. Any ole’ citizen can’t fly to Copenhagen, get personal security and speak in front of thousands of drooling global warming nuts while calling on the President of the United States to pass climate legislation. That’s not exactly an everyday opportunity.

Before we go ahead and pass a half-ass climate bill that imposes crippling taxes on American business let’s decide what exactly is causing climate to change. There are hundreds of reasons the climate changes. Sun activity, natural cycles, changes in the wind, ocean currents, etc. To think that we can without a doubt say that it is man made carbon dioxide emissions is ridiculous and unproven. No one has presented solid evidence to back this claim up. So why are we acting on it?

Especially in light of Climate Gate. And not to mention the overall distrust citizens have for the government. Why would we ever think they could successful halt climate change? They can’t do anything else right.

All I’m saying is the science is not settled. It might be settled on the fact that climate is changing, but it certainly isn’t settled as to why it’s changing. Let science figure it out and run it’s course, and then determine if there’s anything that can even be done to stop it.

–jb