Interesting developments in the British parliamentary elections. The Tories have picked up a lot of seats (92 so far), and have a plurality of 291 seats to Labour’s 251 and the Liberal Democrats’ 52, with 621 of 650 seats declared as of this writing (the balance of seats have gone to minor parties like the Scottish National Party, Sinn Fein, the Green Party, etc.). 326 seats are required for a majority, so it’s looking like no party will have what it takes to put together a majority government. That’s what they call a “hung parliament,” and now somebody will need to wheel and deal and try to put together some sort of coalition. And that coalition promises to be be pretty fragile, so the next PM will have a pretty rough road ahead, I think.
Otherwise, it’s just nice that Friday’s finally here. It’s actually been a pretty quick week. Not as quick as they weeks will be starting May 17th, of course, ‘cuz my furlough is looking all but certain at this point in time. For me, a 20% pay cut is gonna be kinda sucky. For people with families who aren’t making much money and live paycheck to paycheck, well, I don’t know what they’ll do. I guess it’ll be time for people to decide between paying the mortgage or buying food. The people making the most money are, of course, unaffected by all this, as are our brave state legislators.
Since I’m salaried, I’m sure they’ll just expect me to work longer hours to make up for my extra unpaid day off. And I know all this makes me really motivated to get out there and be productive, so I’ll be happy to do it. Honest.
Speaking of which, time to get going, I guess.
:omg:
Carly is baaaaad.
Matt Lauer actually said that the stock exchange crash yesrterday may have been caused by someone hitting the wrong typewriter key.
Must have been one of the old Fiorina HP models.
I have very limited experience with the stock market but, yesterday’s activity seems very strange. Not only did the stock market suddenly and inexplicably lose 1000 points in minutes, but several stocks became valued a $0 and others at $100,000 per share.
I understand that it is blamed on an erroneous trade (buy or sell?) in the billions instead of the millions, but no one seems to be able to identify that trade, who made it or from where it came.
I think there is more to this story.
Ever since the NY Times did a front page story on charter schools, it’s been fun to watch charter supporters.
Essentially the Times said there are 5000 charters in the US. Of those, 5% do better than the public schools and 37% do worse. The remaining do as well.
But, charters are very attractive to people who want to destroy unions. The NY Post, erroneously of course, claims that charters outperform public schools because their teachers are not unionized.
Now that their claim of “outperforming” has been refuted, charter school proponents are arguing that judging them on the results of standardized tests is unfair.
Of course test results have been used not only to rate schools but as ways to evaluate and pay teachers. Does this apply only to public schools? I hope this will lead to some sanity but I doubt it.
I’ll bet they can get forensics experts in to analyze the typewriter ribbon (or maybe the mimeograph stencil), and determine who did it.
Get Gary Sinise – he’s a CSI New York guy, right?
Oh, wow. Just got a mimeograph olfactory flashback….
I remember that smell all too well. Smells like test.
An old Carly HP purchased on Meg eBay.
How long is the furlough supposed to last?
Yowsa – me too!