Failure, Canada Style.

Cellphone jamming principal forced to retreat at B.C. high school
Device illegal in Canada, students point out

CBC News
Many schools across Canada have banned cellphones from classrooms. Many schools across Canada have banned cellphones from classrooms.

The battle between students and teachers over the use of cellphones in schools reached new heights in B.C. when a school principal installed an electronic jamming device to stop the ring tones, the chatter and the text messaging.

Steve Gray, the principal in Port Hardy Secondary School on the north coast of Vancouver Island, was frustrated that a cellphone ban in his school wasn't working.

"We banned them a couple of years ago and that doesn't seem to have stopped the problem," Gray told CBC News on Monday.

"When there are cellphones in use, there is a constant background of 'Please put your cellphone away. Please give me your cellphone,'" Gray told CBC News.

So about a month ago he went online and bought a device from China to jam the signals.
Electronic warfare

Last week the device, which Gray described as a little box with four antennas, arrived from China, and he plugged it into the wall in the school library.

"I thought we'd do a little experiment and see what happens," he said.

"It was astonishing how it worked.… Two-thirds of the school instantly shut down for cellphone use. The teachers were very happy. Students were wondering what was going on," he said.

"Many students said, 'Yeah, you have done the right thing,'" said Gray.

Many others, however, were irate, and on Thursday a group of students refused to return to class after lunch, claiming their rights had been taken away, said Gray.

The students informed the principal the jamming device was illegal in Canada, and Gray had to pull the plug.

Now he's back to the frustration of an ineffective cellphone ban.

"It's not easy to enforce, because, you know a cellphone in your pocket, it's impossible to know it's there, and it's always on, always ready to be used," he said.
Toronto has largest ban

In Toronto, school trustee Josh Matlow understands the principal's frustration, but he said with proper enforcement cellphone bans can work.

Matlow introduced Canada's largest ban two years ago across 560 public schools. He acknowledges that some students still break the rules, but says fewer are using phones inside the classroom.

"If they are caught using it in the classroom, the teacher is allowed to confiscate the cellphone. Certainly, in most cases they get a warning, and they are told to turn it off," he said.

In New York City schools, students are banned from having cellphones on school property, but Matlow said that violates their right to contact parents on the way to and from school.

Instead, he urges school boards in Canada to go as far as they can to ban cellphones in the classroom — without breaking the law.

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Good News for Young Recessionistas!

Under 35? Hurray for the meltdown!

If you're a young adult, the economic clouds have silver linings: You've got time to recover from the market's losses, and you can snag a great deal on your first house.

By Liz Pulliam Weston

MSN Money

If you're 35 or older, the financial crisis may seem to have no upside. Your retirement funds, home equity, job prospects and credit lines have withered so much that it's hard to focus on anything but what you've lost.

If you're young, though, the biggest threat to your future financial security isn't the current crisis. Your greatest risk is that fear will cause you to miss some once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

Consider:

Houses are on sale. Home prices are down 27% from their July 2006 peaks, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, and values have fallen more than 40% in some areas. That's a bummer for current homeowners but a boon for those just starting out who can now afford better homes and neighborhoods than they could have just a few years ago.

Could home prices drop further? Of course they could, and they probably will, because the foreclosure crisis is far from over. But right now:

• Interest rates are still near generational lows but are likely to shoot up once the recovery begins.

• The Internal Revenue Service will give you an $8,000 tax credit if you buy before Dec. 1.

You shouldn't buy if you can't stay put for at least five years. And you should read "3 bad reasons to buy a home." But if you're where you want to live and can afford the costs, there may never be a better time to buy.

Stocks are on sale. Yeah, yeah, you've heard this before -- and heard it discounted by pundits who measure "long term" in weeks or months. So let's be clear: You've got at least 30 years until retirement, and an investment in stocks, as measured by the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index, has never lost money in any 30-year period. Far from it. Even those who invested before and during the Great Depression, when stock indexes plunged by up to 90%, eventually came out ahead:

30-year period	Average annual return*	30-year period	Average annual return
1928-1958	8.47%	1935-1965	12.00%
1929-1959	9.20%	1936-1966	10.53%
1930-1960	10.27%	1937-1967	12.93%
1931-1961	13.27%	1938-1968	12.31%
1932-1962	13.25%	1939-1969	11.99%
1933-1963	12.40%	1940-1970	12.53%
1934-1964	13.03%

*As measured by the S&P 500 Index at year-end

Source: T. Rowe Price

Here's another way to look at it: Much has been made of the fact that the S&P 500 has fallen more than 50% from its peak, to under 800. Thirty years ago, the S&P was under 100.

Could stock prices fall more? Of course they could.

But to think stocks will never recover is kind of ridiculous. Yes, there are some doomsayers who are predicting the end of the financial world, with a complete worldwide collapse. But there have always been folks forecasting financial apocalypse, and they've always been wrong.

What's really going on is the flip side of the bubble. As human beings, we erroneously think that whatever happened recently will continue indefinitely. In good times, we decide that dot-com and real-estate prices can only go up. In bad times, we make the same mistake in the opposite direction.

What you shouldn't do is sit on the sidelines until it's "safe" to get back into the market. By the time the economy is clearly in recovery mode, the market will have made big gains, and you'll have missed out.

Credit is tight. How the heck is that a blessing? Unlike your unwise elders, you won't be able to borrow your way into trouble, at least for a while. You may actually learn to live within your means.

That's a big reversal from a couple of years ago, when lenders were pelting virtually everyone with credit cards, auto loans and outsized mortgages. Today the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that you really need your financial ducks in a row to get a loan. (Read "Need a loan? Borrow like it's 1975" for details.)

The good news: Everybody's cutting back these days, and the national savings rate has jumped to 5%, so you won't stand out if you're careful with your money.

Where to start

That means it's a great time to:

Get in the habit of saving. A financial cushion is essential now that you can't just borrow your way out of a jam. Read "Why you need $500 in the bank" for starters. If you're saving for a home, shoot for at least a 10% down payment plus three months' worth of mortgage payments before you buy. ("The end of the 0% down payment" tells you more about why.) Want to buy a car? A 20% down payment is good -- 50% is even better -- because plunging resale values can leave you "upside-down" if you pay less ("What a car wreck could cost you" has details). Really smart folks pay cash for their cars and drive them until the wheels fall off. Owning your cars for 10 years instead of five can save you more than a quarter-million bucks over your lifetime.

Pay your credit card balances in full. This was always the best way, but it's crucial now that issuers are slashing limits and raising rates with little or no justification. If you don't charge more than you can pay off when the bill comes, you won't be at the mercy of mercenary lenders. This one habit can make a world of difference in your financial life, leaving you richer and at far less risk of bankruptcy.

Work on your credit scores. These little three-digit numbers have never been more critical than they are today. If you have good scores, you still have access to cheap loans and the best rewards cards. If you don't, you're in a world of hurt. Read "Raise your credit score to 740" and "7 fast fixes for your credit score" for more.

Cheerfully Stolen from msn.com

Epic Failure Prediction

Stolen from CNBC.COM (Screw You, Jon Stewart).

Treasurys Are 'Disaster Waiting to Happen': Dr. Doom

The Federal Reserve has no option but to start buying Treasurys as the government's needs for financing are huge, but the government bond market is a disaster in the making, Marc Faber, editor and publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, told CNBC.

Federal Reserve policymakers start a two-day meeting on Tuesday, weighing options on how to spur lending to help cash-strapped consumers kickstart the economy.

Economists expect them to leave rates at zero and look to other ways of boosting liquidity, such as buying government bonds – a measure which has already been taken by the Bank of England.

"Well I think other central banks have done it already around the world but basically what it amounts to is money printing and in fact I don't think that it will help the bond market at all in the long run," Faber told CNBC's Martin Soong.

The yield on the 30-year Treasurys touched a low of 2.51 percent last year in December but now it is back up at 3.77 percent, he said.

"Yields have already backed up pretty substantially and I tell you, I think the US government bond market is a disaster waiting to happen for the simple reason that the requirements of the government to cover its fiscal deficit will be very, very high," Faber said.

"The Federal Reserve will have to buy Treasurys, otherwise yields will go up substantially," he said, adding that as their reserves were dwindling, foreign investors were likely to scale down their purchases.

But there will be a time when the Federal Reserve will have to increase interest rates to fight inflation, and it will be reluctant to do so because the cost of servicing government debt will rise substantially.

"So we'll go into high inflation rates one day," Faber said.

The stock market is likely to continue its bounce at least for a while, but the outlook is bleak, he added.

"I think we may still have a rally (in the S&P) until about the end of April and probably then a total collapse in the second half of the year sometimes, when it becomes clear that the economy is a total disaster," Faber said.

© 2009 CNBC.com

Stupid Judge Watch

Wake judge orders home schoolers into public classrooms

Posted: Mar. 12, 2009
Updated: Mar. 14, 2009

Raleigh, N.C. — A judge in Wake County said three Raleigh children need to switch from home school to public school. Judge Ned Mangum is presiding over divorce proceeding of the children's parents, Thomas and Venessa Mills.

Venessa Mills was in the fourth year of home schooling her children who are 10, 11 and 12 years old. They have tested two years above their grade levels, she said.

"We have math, reading; we have grammar, science, music,” Venessa Mills said.

Her lessons also have a religious slant, which the judge said was the root of the problem.

"My teaching is strictly out of the Bible, and it's very clear. It is very evident so I just choose to follow the Bible,” Venessa Mills said.

In an affidavit filed Friday in the divorce case, Thomas Mills stated that he "objected to the children being removed from public school." He said Venessa Mills decided to home school after getting involved with Sound Doctrine church "where all children are home schooled."

Thomas Mills also said he was "concerned about the children's religious-based science curriculum" and that he wants "the children to be exposed to mainstream science, even if they eventually choose to believe creationism over evolution."

In an oral ruling, Mangum said the children should go to public school.

"He was upfront and said that, 'It's not about religion.' But yet when it came down to his ruling and reasons why, 'He said this would be a good opportunity for the children to be tested in the beliefs that I have taught them,'" Venessa Mills said.

All sides agree the children have thrived with home school, and Vanessa Mills thinks that should be reason enough to continue teaching at home.

"I cannot sit back and allow this to happen to other home schoolers. I don't want it happening to my children,” Venessa Mills said.

Mangum said he wouldn't talk with WRAL News Thursday about the details of the case because he hasn't issued a written ruling yet. He said he expected to sign it in a few weeks.

An estimated 71,566 students were taught at home during the 2007-08 school year, according to figures released by the state Division of Non-Public Education. The enrollment amounts to about 4 percent of students ages 7 to 16 in North Carolina – students in that age range are required by state law to attend school. About two-thirds of the schools classified themselves as religious schools.

Home school students and their parents plan to come to Raleigh on March 24 to lobby at the state Legislature. They want to demonstrate they have a strong voice regarding education.

• Reporter: Valonda Calloway
• Photographer: Greg Clark
• Web Editor: Minnie Bridgers

News I stole from NBC

Gregg: Budget forecast a lie

Posted: Thursday, March 12, 2009 12:55 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: White House, Congress, Republicans

From NBC’s Ken Strickland
It was obvious to most Capitol Hill insiders why President Obama wanted Republican Judd Gregg as a member of his cabinet: He's one of the sharpest money-minds in Congress.

But instead of getting Gregg's counsel within the administration, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner found himself today of the receiving end of Gregg's fiscal conservative wrath.

In a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee Gregg dressed down Geithner with facts, figures, and charts. While always keeping his cool, the exchange was somewhere between a mother's scolding, a drill sergeant's questioning and an attorney's cross examination.

In his opening statement, Gregg politely called the administration's budget forecast a lie.

"The argument that it cuts the debt in half in four years is, ahh, is truly spurious," he told Geithner.

President Obama himself gives Gregg's comments a sense of stinging credibility. When the president introduced Gregg as his nominee for Commerce Secretary last month, he said Gregg is known for is fiscal discipline.

"He shares my deep-seated commitment to guaranteeing that our children inherit a future they can afford," Obama said.

Today, the president's compliment of Gregg turned into an attack on Geithner. Gregg said the budget is essentially "putting on our children's backs a debt they can never get out from underneath."

He added pointedly, "I think we're putting at risk not only our children's future, we're clearly putting at risk the value of a dollar and our ability to sell debt."

When Gregg withdrew his nomination, he said he and the administration were "functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy."

Gregg's opening monologue today would indicate that was a gross understatement.

"The argument that this budget doesn't have tax increases [on everyone] is, I think, an 'Alice in Wonderland' view of the budget," he said.

He challenged the budget's math on cutting the debt: "When you take the deficit and quadruple it and then you cut it and half, that's like taking four steps back and two steps forward. That's not making any progress; you're still going backwards."

Gregg questioned why any foreign country would continue to buy up U.S. debt: "Because if I'm in the international marketplace, and I'm looking at this budget, I'm saying to myself, ‘Where's the discipline? Where's the containment?' There isn't any."

In his withdrawal statement last month, Gregg said, "I expect there will be many issues and initiatives where I can and will work to assure the success of the president's proposals."

The budget doesn't appear to be one of them.

Self Righteous or Does he have a point?

Jon Stewart's interview with Jim Cramer.

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Everyone deserves a bailout

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Compromise

Got a call from my bank this morning. All they would tell me was that my debit card number had been "compromised." Despite my further inquisition, they declined to tell me what that meant. However, they did tell me that they were shutting off my card and sending me a new card, which they generously agreed to rush to me.

So, until I get my new card I'm poor. Yea. In honor of my situation, here's an acoustic performance of one of my favorite bands, The Format, playing "THE COMPROMISE."

NOBAMA!

STOP! STOP! STOP!

Here's the link to the Wall Street Journal article imploring Mr. Obama to stop his insane war on economic recovery.

Link

Stop the presses!

Obama announced that the fed is going to print yet another trillion dollars to loan to people. When will this madness end? WHO IS JOHN GALT?

Stick with Cramer!

Hey Geithner, YOU SUCK!

One of simsisms favorite market commentators, Jim Cramer on why the current bank plan sucks and won't work. The second clip, though a little long, is Cramer's explanation of why Obama's policies are killing the country and ought to be put on hold.



Can we force the market down to 6500 this week? YES WE CAN!