Text of Jim Matheson two e-mail blast letters.

First e-mail sent:

July 28, 2011                 
 
 
Website- Contact Jim- News Room- 2nd District- Online Office
Dear Jeanne,

Leaders in both political parties agree: defaulting on our nation's bills will have dire consequences. From successful programs such as Social Security and Medicare, to defense, veterans'benefits and transportation, every American will be affected. I am working hard to ensure that default does not occur and that serious budget reforms are adopted for the future.
However, if default does happen, another paycheck for Members of Congress should not be allowed. Members of Congress should not be getting paid while veterans, seniors and those with disabilities are not receiving their benefits.
That is why I support H.R. 2653-- the "Stop Pay for Members Act". This straightforward bill says that if the U.S. Treasury is unable to meet America's obligations in a timely way, Members of Congress should be paid last.
According to a bipartisan, independent analysis, if the U.S. should default, the Treasury Department would have to choose which of the approximately 80 million payments need to be paid with the limited cash available. The "Stop Pay Act"would place Members of the House and the Senate last on the list.
As I did when the threat of a government shutdown loomed, and government services and delivery of benefits were threatened, I want to make sure that we get our priorities right during the financial disruption.
Please let me know how you feel, by responding to the brief survey. As always, I want to hear from you.
Sincerely,
U.S. Representative
2nd District of Utah

My response:

You are an evil man to continue to say seniors wont get their checks when they will. Lier. How about congress doesn.t get their checks until we balance the budget?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4GLTE smartphone.

Second E-mail:

July 28, 2011

Dear Ms. Whitmore,



Thank you for sharing your concerns regarding the debt limit. I appreciate your interest in the issues facing our country and state, and I am glad for the opportunity to respond to your inquiry. By contacting me on issues important to you, I am better able to represent Utah in Congress.



The federal government's borrowing power – or debt limit – is capped by law and can only be raised by Congress. If the budget is not balanced, the debt limit must be raised in order to pay for previously approved expenditures. Currently, the government has exceeded this limit, and the Treasury has informed Congress that the debt limit must be raised by August 2, or the United States will not be able to pay its bills. These obligations include Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits, and debt payments. Economists and financial experts have warned that if the U.S. defaults on these payments, its credit could be downgraded and the strength of our nation in the global economy severely affected.



For any legislation to become law, it must be agreed to by the House, Senate, and signed by the President. For this reason, many proposals have been discussed this summer to negotiate a suitable compromise to raising the debt limit. I believe that any solution must be bipartisan and address the issue long-term. It should include structural reforms that fundamentally change the way we borrow and spend while helping us maintain a responsible, fiscally sound budget that prevents greater debt. It should be fair and equitable, requiring each of us to share in the sacrifice to reduce our federal deficit.



It is my hope that a workable, long-term plan can be developed that will protect the credibility of the federal government, maintain operation of essential programs, and set the stage for a future of financial solvency and discipline.




Again, thank you for sharing your concerns with me. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact my office.

My second response:

More lies. The government can choose what bills to pay with incoming money. There is enough money coming in to pay these SS, medicare, the debt interest and some other obligations. The treasury just released its prioritized list of payments.. You are evil to scare seniors when the treasury department will surely pay these bills after making debt payments.

Shameless

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4GLTE smartphone.

Class size and student performance

Class size reduction and charter schools

Many educators and parents support lower class sizes.  Aristotle Academy has reviewed the class size literature and has developed a best case scenario for fiscal responsibility, student achievement and teacher morale.

 1.  Class size reduction has been shown to increase student achievement when the class size is between 15 - 18 students.  Fiscally it is not possible to reduce class sizes for the entire day to this level.  Aristotle Academy will use small class sizes of 15 students per class for reading and math break out groups.  

 2. Small changes in class size from 30 - 25 or even from 25 - 20 appear to not increase student achievement.  The reduction in class sizes from 30 to a number of less than 18 for the entire day would significantly endanger the school’s ability to operate within a balanced budget. 

 3.  Class size reduction has been shown to be most effective in reading and math areas in the lower grades.  The reading and math breakout classes of 15 students will be used for 1st - 5th grades.

 4. Reduction in student/teacher ratio alone does not change achievement, only the number of children in a classroom with an educator appears to increase student achievement.  Math and reading break out groups will be held in separate rooms to decrease distraction and allow the reading and math aide to focus on individual students. 

References for Class size reduction research.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091014122045.htm - Note that the benefit is only for class sizes of 13 - 17.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080228112004.htm  - Small class sizes don't close the achievement gap, those that were going to do well do even better, those that were struggling do better but don't close the gap.

http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Key_lessons_Class/ - Class size only works at the 15 - 18 level at the lower grades, reduced class sizes in upper grades has not been shown to increase achievement.

http://cepm.uoregon.edu/publications/policy_reports/class_size/student_achievement.html  Reducing class size from 25 - 20 is ineffective, I would guess that reducing class sizes from 30- 25 is equally ineffective. 

Teachers still remain the most important factor in student achievement (McRobbie et al, 1998).

“When certain services and technologies are available to achieve the small-class effect.
When well-trained teachers employ effective instructional techniques, students achieve more. No organizational reform, smaller class size included, will substitute for high-quality teaching, as many studies have documented (McRobbie and others 1998). If professional development that guides teachers in small-class instruction is used in conjunction with effective teaching practices, a strong curriculum, and smaller classes, researchers will be more able to examine the true effects of class-size reduction (Beall 1998; U.S. Department of Education 1998). “

http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/ReducingClass/index.html  Summary of above, only micro-class sizes matter, teacher quality matters the most. 


http://www.edweek.org/rc/issues/class-size/ Class size reduction efforts that come at the expense of quality teachers and reasonably safe and practical facilities may be a detriment rather than a help.

http://www.heros-inc.org/classsizeresearch.htm  - A great summary of class size research, again supporting the 15:1 ratio.

Findings from the current major well-designed class size studies seem to have influenced policy makers toward the institution of reduced class size. Ernest L. Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, has laid out a four-point plan to ensure that all children are educated to their full potential, which includes reducing classes to "no more than 15 students per teacher" for the early elementary grades. In addition, the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) Delegate Assembly has revised their class size policy statement from 20 to 1 down to recommending a student-teacher ratio of 15 to 1.

Junior and High School Suggested Reading List

A Suggested Reading list for Junior and High School Students

Level 1 can start at  7th Grade depending on your student

Level 1

Literature:

Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain)

The Bronze Bow (Speare)

Diary of Anne Frank (Frank)

The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Speare)

Call of the Wild (London)

Dandelion Wine (Bradbury)

Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)

A Wizard of Earthsea (LeGuin)

Code Talker (Bruchac)

The Pearl (Steinbeck)

Captains Courageous (Kipling)

Biography:

In Defiance of Hitler (McClafferty)

John Wesley Powell: Explorer of the Grand Canyon (Bruns)

The Story of My Life (Keller)

Level 2

Literature:

To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)

The Chosen (Potok)

Watership Down (Adams)

And Then There Were None (Christie) or

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Doyle)

The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)

Hobbit/LOTR (Tolkein)

A Single Shard (Park)

Shane (Shaeffer)

Little Women (Alcott)

Biography:

A Dangerous Engine: Benjamin Franklin (Dash)

The Good Fight: How WWII Was Won (Ambrose)

Level 3

Science:

Bellwether (Willis)

Water, A Natural History (Outwater)

The Control of Nature (McPhee)

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bryson)

Mathematics:

Flatland (Abbott)

The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster)

History:

Profiles in Courage (Kennedy)

The Mother Tongue (Bryson)

Literature:

Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)

Animal Farm (Orwell)

A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Smith)

Philosophy:

Sophie’s World (Gaarder)

The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)

Drama:

Cyrano de Bergerac (Rostand)

The Foreigner (Miller)

Level 4

Mathematics:

The Man Who Counted (Tahan)

Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland (Gamow)

The Tipping Point or The Outliers (Gladwell)

Science:

Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman (Feynman)

The Double Helix (Watson)

Last Child in the Woods (Louv)

History:

Galileo’s Daughter or Longitude (Sobel)

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage (Lansing)

The Code Book (Singh)

Literature:

The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas)

Peace Like a River (Enger)

Night (Weisel)

Gulliver’s Travels (Swift)

Don Quixote (Cervantes)

David Copperfield (Dickens)

Philosophy:

Man’s Search for Meaning (Frankl)

Room of One’s Own (Woolf)

Anthem (Rand)

Drama:

A Man for All Seasons (Bolt)

The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde)

Level 5

Mathematics:

Freakonomics (Levitt)

The Golden Ratio (Livio)

History:

Common Sense (Paine)

Undaunted Courage or D-Day (Ambrose)

Brave Companions (McCullough)

1776 (McCullough)

Literature:

Killer Angels (Shaara)

The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)

The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe)

Lonesome Dove (McMurtry)

The Last of the Mohicans (Cooper)

The Jungle (Sinclair)

Science:

A Brief History of Time (Hawkins)

Napoleon’s Buttons (LeCouter)

Philosophy: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig)

Walden (Thoreau)

Drama:

The Odd Couple (Simon)

Inherit the Wind (Lee)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Stoppard)

Level 6

Science:

Silent Spring (Carson)

Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn)

Mathematics:

Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Hofstadter)

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (Seife)

History:

Salt: A World History (Kurlansky)

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation (Roberts)

Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (Stegner)

I Never Had It Made: Autobiography of Jackie Robinson

Wild Swans (Chang)

What If? (Cowley)

Literature:

Cry, the Beloved Country (Paton)

The Color of Water (McBride)

Jeeves and Wooster (Wodehouse)

Brave New World (Huxley)

Moby Dick (Melville)

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Márquez)

Wuthering Heights (Bronte)

Philosophy:

Vindication of the Rights of Women (Wollstonecraft)

The Social Contract (Rousseau)

On Liberty (Mill)

Gilead (Robinson)

Drama:

King Lear (Shakespeare)

Twelfth Night (Shakespeare)

Driving Miss Daisy (Uhry)

A Doll’s House (Ibsen)

Aesthetically Pleasing Vaginas

      I learned two things today that I didn't want to know: 1) There is a socially acceptable "look" for a women's genitals and 2) some women care about this enough to have surgery.

     I was innocently watching a Hulu documentary called "America the Beautiful" when they cut to a women in a plastic surgeons office with a Penthouse magazine (a magazine where they apparently show women's genitals! I know, right!) and showed it to the doctor. She wanted her vagina to look like the one in the magazine.  (45:27) Wow! Next scene, a women saying that the full frontals are often airbrushed, meaning some guy is making the genitals conform to a standard societal model of what women's genitals should look like.  Yup, designer vagina!
   
     This also makes me aware of something else I didn't want to know; there are women who are checking out their genitals enough to know what they look like compared with a Penthouse magazine model.
    
     Is there any part of a women's body that has not been assigned a societal model of beauty - any part? Is there a standard of beauty for the back of the knee or the curve between women's fingers?
   
     I really want to believe women are doing this to themselves and that no man ever cared if one labia was a different size or shape from the other one. Did any guy ever have an opportunity to check out a women's genitals then say, "Meh, no thanks, I really expected that to look better"?

Links - http://www.hulu.com/watch/198883/america-the-beautiful.
PS. - Check out the swell guys at (42:51) such caring young men. (sarc)  I wonder if super cool, shallow guy knows he is going bald.

Why Mitt Romney's Focus on Jobs Won't Work

Mitt Romney introduced his campaign today with the focus on Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Not Steve Jobs, just regular jobs, as in employment.  This is a mistake.  Yes, it is the economy stupid, usually, but it won't work this election cycle.

First the people who are out of work are not Mitt's constituents. Joblessness is high among minorities, much higher than whites. Minorities are not going to abandon the first black, Democratic, President especially when that candidate is offering them candy. (Candy means more spending, more benefits.) The economy will start to recover by mid next year and whites will be back to work. Joblessness in minority communities tends to lag behind whites. (OK, I looked and couldn't find the research. Props to someone who sends me a link.) By the time we get to the election the independent vote will be happily back to work and not at all motivated to go out to vote for something they already have.

Second, Obama believes he has the solution to jobs: Investment (also called spending and more debt.) This is extremely easy for people to understand. Obama only has to say that he will "invest" money which will pay for jobs, jobs, jobs. Mitt will be caught explaining supply side economics to the American people who can barely balance their check book. This sets up a He said/She said argument which Mitt will lose. Obama's base doesn't want the Evil Rich to get money before they do. Mitt will be painted as someone trying to help his country club friends in the business community and not helping the poor.

Third, the Tea Party wants more Freedom and Democracy.  That needs to be the message. This is the only thing that will motivate the independent vote in late 2012.  They want less spending to get more freedom, less central planning (O-care) to get more freedom, less debt to get more freedom.

Mitt, bless his heart, is pounding the nail with the hammer he knows, but that won't win an election this time around.

Yes, Bill Maher the T Word is Mysogynistic

     Bill Maher used t**t (a vulgar word for the vagina) to describe Sarah Palin. NOW (National Organization for Women) decried it, he didn't apologize for it, most center and left wing news organizations and pundits stayed away from the issue.
     The defense of Bill Maher is that he is a comedian and he could have used *sshole or any other word to describe a stupid person and his use of the word was not a attack based on her gender.
      Yes, I think that is the point, exactly. He could have used any word, but he chose that one. Reducing a wife, mother, former-governor and christian conservative to the female body part. T**t eliminates her intellect and any other qualities that she has as an individual and reduces her to a friction tube.
      I wonder how much time he spent deciding on that word. I would guess, none at all. This is how he thinks about conservative women, and perhaps all women. It is reflective of his deep contempt of conservative women to call them the most vulgar term you can call a women.
 

P.S.- Protip: Never, ever, ever call a women that word.
 

Triangle Shirt Factory Fire - How to talk to a Liberal

    The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911 is used by Liberals/Progressives to defend government regulation of working conditions. Just ask them this: "If the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were to open today, with the same working conditions and pay, how much government regulation would be needed to protect the workers?"
     The answer is, "None." There would be no government regulation needed because there would be no workers. Everyone in America has a better option than this, including begging on the street.
      Are there some people in the U.S. who are working in horrible working conditions? Of course there are but we have all the law and government regulations to prevent it now and yet these conditions still exist.  The reason there are people who are working in horrible conditions is that they have no other options, including begging, because they are here illegally. (I think humanitarian reasons are the most important reasons to enforce our immigration laws.)
     What can we do? Continue to raise living standards here and around the world so that everyone has a better option. Working conditions will fix themselves as workers vote with their feet.