Hostess

OK. So. Hostess is filing Chapter 11 because their employees struck when the company demanded givebacks on wages.
And the big joke is that "Oh noes! No more Twinkies! Ermahgerd!"

Nope. Not buying it.

So, you're filing Chapter 11. Liquidation. On a brand-name product. The question here is: who is going to buy the assets? And once they buy them, what are they going to do with them? Re-negotiate with the same unions?

Of course there is something approaching zero actual reporting on this beyond the silly "Our childhoods are over!" snarkiness.

And you wonder why I post pictures of owls...

Occupy

Isn't it just a tad embarrassing that the most organized and active people out there helping the victims of Hurricane Sandy are OccupySandy?

 I mean, it's not embarrassing for the Occupy folks -- it's embarrassing that the state doesn't have the capability -- or desire -- to get in there and do the work.

Of course, anarchists around the world will all say "Right, exactly" in unison.

Left Without Comment

Drew's Prediction about Mitt's Taxes

So my theory is this: Mitt Romney never paid less than 13% in taxes for the last 20 years.
And.
There are some of those years which he did not pay taxes during the year.
I think he made up for the owed back-taxes in subsequent years.

Is it me?

Or is this just kind of... pathetic? This doesn't look like a national convention. It looks like a poorly-attended sales meeting.

Surely they'll fill those bleachers eventually. Right? But those aisles look like they deliberately emphasize how little seating is on the floor.
One place the RNC didn't screw up is the logo. I think it looks pretty nice and the elephant is pretty good looking too. I kind of like how he's in a 3/4 with trunk in the air.

No Need to Think Anymore

It used to be that with few exceptions the real ideologues in economics were on the left. Those days are long gone. There are almost no hard-core communists anymore, except maybe in Cuba. Instead, all the "it doesn't matter what's factual, I know the Truth" commissars are on the right.

Here's a helpful little hint as you go down the road of life — do not pay attention to Austrian economists. Believe me, you'll be better off. If your economist isn't British and gay, there's no need to listen.
In America, the Republican party has abandoned all reason and just become ranting and raving. This happened sometime around the election of Bill Clinton. There used to be a half-dozen reasonable Republicans, but they all jumped ship onto the new, conservative, Democratic party in the US.
The Democratic party contains anyone who's actually in favor of a balanced budget (and actually means it, rather than using it as a talking point and then spending lavishly and crazily when given the first opportunity.)

Larnin

So. Education.
You can't talk about teaching without instantly being subjected to a political firestorm.
Which is disappointing because I want to know about the science of pedagogy. As it turns out, good luck with Google on that search.
From what I can tell, nobody really knows. They know some things but...
1. Well first of all, nobody can really agree on what needs to be learnt in public education in the US. And
2. As it turns out public education is really freakin' expensive. We spend a lot of money on it. And almost all that money comes from local (rather than Federal or income) taxes.
But all I want to know is how do I teach somebody something.
3. Different people learn different ways. It's probably important for you to learn how you learn stuff. And it may be that an individual person learns different stuff in different ways. Like they might do better learning history from doing their own reading but better at math in a classroom. Or, you know, vice-versa.
Now here's a thing which I kinda wonder about. The military. They teach a lot of people a lot of stuff. They train people in all kinds of things. Heck, they have colleges and universities.
And, oddly, they're somewhat immune from the political whims of education fads.

And does it involve cats?

So my question is: what do they do?