You beat me to it. I was going to suggest the same thing, only with
tulip bulbs.

I worry that our strategic mooncake reserves might come under
sustained attack by hungry foreign nationals. Perhaps its time to
retool our once-vaunted fruitcake capacity and regain its traditional
dominance?

Steve, so happy to know you have a good time in Beijing. I just came back from Shelly's Summer Symposium in D.C. last month. It's a pity that you were not there, but it's so nice that we had Shane Harris with us, he is amazing!!! Hope we can meet and talk to each other in China or US some time in the futrue. Good Luke, maybe you should bring some mooncakes back to D.C. Haha, I like it so much.(without the starbuck mooncake).

What about the fortune cookie futures market? Shouldn't Summers advising the Chinese on how to set that up?

Finally, a currency we can eat. I'm going to stop hoarding clam shells and go long in mooncakes, although I would have preferred eggrolls.

I think the point is that if you trade the vouchers, there is no danger anyone will expect you to eat any mooncakes. Does anyone ever eat any mooncakes?

Actually eat mooncakes? They're made with tons of sugar and fat, plus 20 yolks from salted duck eggs. Talk about a bubble, you'll look like one if you many mooncakes.

Steve is uncharacteristically behind the curve--this morning El Cabillito (Chavez) phoned Iran to confirm the move from the (sadly transient) petroeuro to the petromooncake (Pooncake in the vulgar vernacular...)

jollyroger -- lol. well, with good folks like you this blog can stay on the cutting edge of which waves are rolling. thanks much for the petromooncake info. all best, steve

I was not sure, and still am not sure, it this is some sort of April fools joke. But I sense it is real. And want to present something to percolate inside of people. When two humans interact, the benefit from that interaction is 100% dependent on whether they are honest with each other, open to reveal all that is within each (regarding each issue they discuss, or activity they do in common), and mutually empower each other (repeatedly over time; by their behaviors far more than the words they communicate to each other; teach each other valuable ways to life).

If two people attempt to have a relationship, but both are actually going in different directions in life, it is impossible for the above to occur.

China is headed for a major disaster, given its continued allegiance to the insane idea of a communistic party. It is only a matter of time before the inherent contradiction between the political system and the economic system reaches a blow up, and after whatever form in which that blow up appears, there will unavoidably be a period of decline; as occurred in Japan in the 1990's (and continuing to this day), when the contradictions between attempting to maintain the traditional Japanese mind-set collided with the mind-set necessary to have an advanced economy.

I believe that the longer the US government continued to have a foreign policy with China that is based on lies, (lies that ignore that China's political system is totally anti giving all its citizens the inalienable human rights they possess), we will become more and more in bed with that country, thereby sharing much of their pain when that inevitable collapse arrives.

Poetry in drive!

Obama's Wisconsin speech today was the opening pitch of the political season. And what a speech.

Sorry for the mixed metaphors, by the way, but if Steve can have cutting edges of waves, I figure opening pitches of drives are ok, too....

There's a beautiful car analogy with D and R and forward and reverse and a ditch to boot!

There's a lot of "no" and "yes we can," a lot of "union and united", a lot of admission of suffering and a realization that the pubs have had their chance and they blew it. The amnesia line is good and we need to remember what a change of party will mean. A warning about the man who would be speaker.

And the infrastructure bank, if set up with the equivalent of US war bonds or some other kind of fund, and perhaps some kind of tax-reduced gains for investing could grab a big chunk of that frozen money. Perhaps there's some deal that could be struck with this and repatriation of money locked up in islands around the world.

What we need is to get money flowing again, and that takes both a destination (this infrastructure bank) and some kind of decent rate of return.

Obama knows, as well, that there's money in smaller chunks that can be put to good use as well. So perhaps they'll come up with a variety of clean financial products that put America back to work building all the stuff that got us the last big booms.

Tech, green, transit, education, entertainment, parks and river fronts, water resources, city services, connections, the electric grid that distributes electricity more efficiently and with less risk of massive black outs, better mouse traps, better farm techniques, more places for more people to fulfill more dreams, arts and expression.....

There's a lot that people can do when they feel resourced.

I'm so freakin' hopey changey!

And maybe just maybe Arne Duncan will volunteer to give up his job and spend a day reading the article I saw earlier that knocks all of the techniques for studying that have been advocated for forever and a day.... We don't entirely know what makes people learn things, so Duncan should rethink all the testing he has a test-crush on. And no, not even his most recent "higher order thinking" test regime is any good either..... Ugh.

(Article in WaPo? NYT?? LAT???)

Poetry in Drive: Satire or Serious?

Who can tell?

nadine, you should know me by now!

I'm being quite serious. It was a great speech, there was a great driving analogy, the passion is there, the legislative proposals are there, the dissing of the right and Boehner are there, and Foxinabox got its comeuppance as well.

kos has a link up in blackwaterdog's diary on the top of the rec list. Give it a listen. 39 minutes or so.

The main issue is whether or not phloxTV will drive the meme or if the dems can get their fucking act together and start demanding the infrastructure bank, the car in drive not in reverse, and yes yes yes....

Good memes if they can be made to stick.

And if Arne Duncan can find a new day job instead of pushing the value-added-assessment as if kids were commodities in production in Europe... life would be glorious indeed.

Busy, beavers, building.... Ok, so I'm not a speech writer!

Found it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage

"The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.

For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.

“We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Instead, we walk around with all sorts of unexamined beliefs about what works that are mistaken.”

Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” the researchers concluded.

Ditto for teaching styles, researchers say. Some excellent instructors caper in front of the blackboard like summer-theater Falstaffs; others are reserved to the point of shyness. “We have yet to identify the common threads between teachers who create a constructive learning atmosphere,” said Daniel T. Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia and author of the book “Why Don’t Students Like School?” "

****
And so Mr. Duncan is enjoying the LATimes value added thing and he's developing newer and broader tests so we can test the living daylights out of the kids and nail the teachers for being inadequate.

BUT, irony of ironies, we can't figure out how to generate effective teaching machines.

So what's a school to do? Fire all the inadequate teachers every year, and hire all new teachers every year. Damn fine way to build trust and community, to get the kids and teachers and parents and administration all working together in non-adversarial and super-constructive ways.

Way to go Mr. Duncan! Woohoo! Shoot some hoops to celebrate! You know so much about how to run a classroom!

I'm glad you liked that driving analogy, questions. Obama obviously does. This is like the 10th time he has used it. Obama is good at making partisan speeches to the base. But I fear the thrill is gone for the independent voters.

We'll find out in Nov. I guess.

Til then, I remain quite hopey changey with a sense that indeed we'll get a little more legislation through, a ME peace document, the oil spill is dealt with, there will be some positive news on housing, jobs, health care, Iraq. Something good will be generated for Afghanistan.

And hopey changey will beat out SoSec cuts, and the rest of the stuff that the right spews.

The Tea Party will melt down. Angle and Paul and Rubio and Miller and McMahon and co. will be what they are. It's enough.

The party of no will keep saying no.

And I will continue my hopey changey ways!

And Arne Duncan will find a new job before he drives away all the teachers from the dem party. what a dilp.

"Til then, I remain quite hopey changey with a sense that indeed we'll get a little more legislation through, a ME peace document, the oil spill is dealt with, there will be some positive news on housing, jobs, health care, Iraq. Something good will be generated for Afghanistan."

That is seriously hopey changey, questions. Can I have some of what you are smoking? It sounds like damn fine stuff.

Obama who is in deep dem doo-doo tells the unemployed middle class to take their jackets and ties off, he's got a great opportunity for them working on road crews in a Wisconsin speech that progressive Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) has found it inconvenient to attend, and questions goes apeshit. So why be surprised?

You want a real eye opener, google up the controversy about disposable wooden chopsticks,

Think about it. Can you even begin to imagine the amount of wood thrown away daily by the billions of Chinese, and the astounding amounts of Spruce trees it takes to supply the demand?

Next time you're trying to look cool eating Chinese, ya might wanna give a fork about it.

Real Chinamen use ivory. Just ask Steve. He's been there, like, forever.