Tag Archives: u.s.

Business/Economics, U.S.

Tens of thousands of U.S. teachers laid off

Around the country, tens of thousands of teachers in the United States have been laid off.

New York City needs to lay off 6,000 teachers, to balance their education budget.

California has notified at least 20,000 teachers that they will be unemployed.

Dozens of teachers were fired in Ohio this week.

Broward County Florida School District will lay off 1,400 teachers.

And many layoffs took place in the past year.

In some cities pro-teacher groups are pointing out that their school districts actually have budget surpluses, yet teachers are being laid off in large numbers.

Teachers unions are on board with the layoffs, saying it’s time for the bad teachers to go.  I’m all for getting rid of the bad teachers, there are plenty (from my own experience as a student, and as a parent putting four kids through school), but when you realize the number of teachers being laid off across the country it makes you wonder: Are there that many bad teachers?

 

 

International, U.S.

Gates calls war on Libya “Limited Kinetic Action”

May 17, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was recently asked, by CBS’s 60 Minutes, about the war against Libya.  He replied that the United States was not legally/technically at war with Libya (that would take a declaration of War by Congress).  Instead Gates says the U.S. is engaged in “limited kinetic action” against Libya.

Gates is not the first U.S. official to make such a reference to the war against Libya.

International, U.S.

Russia says United States starting new Cold War

May 18, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, says the United States faces a new Cold War if it continues to push its “missile shield” across eastern Europe.

Medvedev says Russia will have no choice but to increase spending on its military, especially nuclear weapons: “We would then be talking about developing the offensive potential of our nuclear capabilities. This would be a very bad scenario.”

The U.S. has repeatedly said the missile shield system is aimed at Iran, but it’s very suspicious that most European countries that have agreed to host the U.S. system, are in eastern Europe facing Russia.

International, U.S.

John Kerry says Pakistan will return stealth copter tail rotor

U.S. Senator John Kerry says that he’s worked out differences between Pakistan and the United States.  As a sign he says Pakistan will return the tail rotor of the downed stealth helicopter used in the Osama bin Laden raid.

Kerry also says Pakistan no longer wants an official apology from the U.S.  Kerry’s announcements might be too late for the U.S. government, as a Senate panel is deciding if Pakistan is still an ally of the U.S. or not.

 

International, U.S.

NATO helicopters attack Pakistan

Pakistan is reporting that two NATO helicopters attacked a Pakistani security checkpoint in North Waziristan.  Also, a U.S. drone attack killed 12 people in the same region.

No response so far from NATO forces on why they attacked a security checkpoint.  This is not the first time; last year U.S. helicopters did the same thing, killing two Pakistani soldiers.

These attacks come as U.S. Senator John Kerry is in Pakistan, to try an reconcile the May 1/2 Osama bin Laden operation with Pakistani officials.

Opinion, U.S.

U.S. government now using employee retirement money to pay debts

“…timely action to increase the debt limit in order to protect the full faith and credit of the United States and avoid catastrophic economic consequences for citizens.”-Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, will now use government employee retirement money to pay U.S. government debts.  He pointed out that he’s not the first Treasury Secretary to do so.

Even with using retirement money, it’s estimated the government will run out of debt payment options within 11 weeks.  The Federal government has spent its way to the legal debt limit of $14.3 trillion.

What Geithner, and Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve (a private bank), want is for Congress to raise the debt limit.  But, that would only mean that our elected officials could get us even deeper in the hole.

The problem is that our Federal government is running solely on loans.  Geithner wants to be able to keep borrowing money.  There is a fear that no matter how drastic government spending cuts are, they might not be enough.   This is a really really really bad sign.

The Treasury Department has already stopped issuing state and local governments special securities to manage their debts.  Where does that leave them?

History shows that Congress loves to raise its debt limit, so it can spend more of YOUR money, and it’s partly the cause of our current situation.  Some members of Congress say it’s time to pay the piper.

Fukushima

TEPCo tries to blame employees for nuclear meltdown!

Tokyo Electric Power Company says they have reason to believe the cooling systems for Fukushima Daiichi were manually turned off.

They claim that the automatic systems kicked on after the 9.0 quake, but were then manually shut off right before the tsunami hit. It was three hours later before the system was turned back on.  TEPCo did not provide evidence, and it sounded like speculation to me.

Basically they’re trying to say a shutdown of cooling systems for slightly longer than three hours caused a total meltdown of fuel rods in Reactor 1.  They’re forgetting that there was no power to run the system anyway (according to their own statements weeks ago).  Also, TEPCo has recently admitted that dozens of trucks with generators, brought in after the tsunami, failed to provide power to run the plant.  It sounds like TEPCo is trying to blame its lower level throwaway employees for the meltdown.