On-line Opinion Magazine…OK, it's a blog

Backstabbing, that is.

These are Florida state senators, and they have an idea: Senate bill would tie teachers’ pay to students’ performance

Florida Senate Bill 6 is not popular among local teachers, to say the least.

The education reform bill would eliminate existing teacher contracts and replace them with contracts that base more than 50 percent of a teacher’s wages on student achievement.

Only the contracts for Wall Street bankers are safe from government meddling. Contracts negotiated by workers are ignored at will. Let’s see, there couldn’t possibly be a problem tying half of a teacher’s pay to student achievement. I mean, students certainly wouldn’t use that to manipulate teachers, and teachers wouldn’t feel pressure to get creative with the FCAT… No reason to worry at all about all of the A average students coming out of Florida schools unable to read.

This should really help to find teachers to work in the poorer schools in the state.

A bad day for empires and emperors.

In 44BCE Julius Caesar was stabbed in the back by Senators. This was the first time, but definitely not the last time, this would happen.

In 1848 the Emperor of Austro-Hungary discovered he wasn’t the beloved leader of the Magyars, as revolution broke out in the Hungarian side of the Empire.

In 1917 Tsar Nicholas II decided that it was probably a good idea to hand the crown, mace, and scepter to his brother Michael, Prince of Lvov, who promptly turned it down. Unfortunately, Nicky wasn’t bright enough to get out of the country, and received the Julius treatment in the following year.

The 15^th of March is a bad day to be Emperor.

Good news: Whitey, the 3-year-old dog of rookie Justin Savidis, was found late Sunday and the two are on their way home.

The news is not so good for Judy Currier (72), who had to scratch at Galena because she can’t take standing on the runners and taking care of her dogs with a back injury from earlier in the race.

Unalakleet is waiting to greet its mayor, William “Middie” Johnson (16), who is currently running 35^th in his rookie race. Middie is a Native Alaskan and the grandson of Henry Ivanoff, a musher in the 1925 diphtheria serum relay to Nome which is considered the founding event for the Iditarod.

In the front, Lance wants to be the first to win 4 in a row; Jeff wants to be the second to win 5 overall; and Hans wants to be the second to win the Quest and Iditarod in the same year. Meanwhile, 69-year-old Jim Lanier (43) is consolidating his hold on being the oldest musher to finish the race is in 28^th place.

Beyond Elim
1 Lance Mackey (49)
2 Hans Gatt (20)
3 Jeff King (15)

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More unhappy puppies to report on, this time in Galena.

Warren Palfrey (27), the only Métis in the race, scratched at Galena. He moved his kennel and family from Yellowknife, NWT to Quesnel, BC last year which makes it easier to participate in races. There were 10 dogs on his team when he made the decision. Palfrey made his decision “based on his team’s inability to continue to compete” [they weren't having fun any more].

Ryan Redington (25) of Wasillia also scratched at Galena. He is letting his brother, Ray, continue the family tradition of running the Iditarod because “some members of his team were not feeling well” [the puppies weren't happy].

Their teams didn’t come back after the 24-hour layover, and they are both experienced mushers and dog handlers with solid long-distance bloodlines in their kennels. The warm and relatively snowless first half must have discouraged the dogs. If their eating habits change, you know you have a problem. In general they eat everything in sight and want more. If they start getting picky, something is wrong.

Beyond Shaktoolik
1 Lance Mackey (49)

At Shaktoolik
2 Jeff King (15)
3 Hans Gatt (20)

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3/14 is Albert’s birthday and

Π Day.

I assume you have all shopped for the perfect gift.

To get you started: Π ≅ 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419
716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211 70679…..
[post at 1:59am]

The field is shrinking. Linwood Fiedler (2) scratched at McGrath with 11 unhappy dogs. They just didn’t want to continue, so there was no point.

Tom Thurston (68) made it to Ophir with 9 dogs left but they weren’t happy puppies, so he scratched and went back to McGrath where there is a good road to load them on his truck.

Karen Ramstead (29) scratched at McGrath with 14 happy purebred Siberian Huskies, that are considered the best looking team on the trail, for personal reasons.

Rookie Justin Savidis (10) had a 3-year dog, White, slip his harness between McGrath and Nikolai on March 10, and can’t go on until the dog is located. There is a search underway, but it looks like Justin’s Iditarod is probably over. He assumes that the wheel dog got spooked by something, because he is normally a happy, friendly dog.

Beyond Kaltag
1 Lance Mackey (49)
2 Hans Gatt (20)
3 Jeff King (15)
4 Hugh Neff (56)

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It’s not just a musical question [video link].

You will, of course, remember to “spring ahead” Sunday morning at 2AM [it instantly becomes 3AM] in the process to see how many small children going to school can be run over by sleepy motorists in the dark who realized they are an hour late.

The invention of the clock was obviously the first step towards fascism.

The people who have completed their 24-hour layover are back in front, while the people who delayed it are on theirs.

There is an 8-hour layover that has to be taken on the Yukon, so things will even out. At Ruby are the top three finishers at the Yukon Quest this year, Hans, Lance, and Hugh, as well as Jeff and Mitch who have proved they know how to win this race. There has been some snow in the area, so there will be some trail-breaking that will be more work for the dogs on the leading team, but the temperature is back down in the dog comfort region. Currently [9AM local, Noon CST] in Ruby there is light snow and an invigorating -26°F [-32°C].

At Galena
1 Jeff King (15)

Beyond Ruby
2 Lance Mackey (49)
3 Hugh Neff (56)
4 Mitch Seavey (41)
5 Hans Gatt (20)
6 Sonny Lindner (44)
7 Sebastian Schnuelle (35)
8 Ken Anderson (51)
9 John Baker (8)

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Slumming

What was that?

[Editor: This little juvenile has been by a couple of times. I think she is getting out and having a walkabout. She avoids the ferals. She wondered what the flash was, as I wondered why the camera thought it was necessary.]

Friday Ark

I’m totally fed up with all the clowns yelling about the Federal deficits. They compare the Feds with state and local governments, and with people, saying that the Feds should budget like people.

The problem is that the Fed does budget like people, within the restrictions of a new Congress every two years, and a new executive every 4 or 8 years. The majority of the country is in debt.

If you have a mortgage, a car loan, or a credit card balance, you have a deficit. If a state or local government issues bonds, they have a deficit.

The reason so many people are in debt is because the clowns decrying the Federal deficit, are the same idiots who told people they were stupid for paying off their mortgages and having real equity in their houses. These are the cheerleaders for “home equity lines of credit” which helped to inflate the bubble that just burst.

I remember Greenspan talking about the “danger” of running a surplus and paying off the national debt, when Clinton started doing it.

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The FDA says: “HVP stands for hydrolyzed vegetable protein, a substance used in small amounts to add flavor to many commercially processed foods, such as soups, hot dogs, chilis, stews, dips, salad dressings, gravies, frozen dinners, and snack foods.”

The stuff is everywhere, which is why Moi’s post, Hydrolized Vegetable Protein Recall, affects a hell of a lot of people, most of whom wouldn’t welcome the addition of Salmonella to the list of ingredients.

The FDA has a PDF of the products being recalled, eight pages and growing. You will note that a number of the products have “organic” in their names. Excuse me, but I seriously doubt that HVP is a naturally occurring substance, although Salmonella certainly is.

More information at FoodSafety.gov.

Dallas Seavey won the $3K in gold for the Halfway Prize, but there is a horde on its way that have completed their 24-hour layover, who will soon whiz by. There has been a marked increase in the number of dogs being dropped, Lance Mackey is down to 13 dogs. That probably reflects the early relative warm temperatures and the lack of snow to cushion the trail.

The weather has gotten colder, but there have to be dogs who are not bouncing back from their earlier exertions and don’t want to run. People miss the point that teams are playing when they pull that sled, and if they decide they aren’t having fun, they stop playing and nothing will make them do it again until they are ready. In the old days mushers would whip dogs and they might move, but they wouldn’t put any more than the minimum effort into it. If the dog doesn’t want to do it, it won’t get done. Lead dogs are important, not just for following orders on direction, but for cheerleading. A musher in the Quest carried his primary lead dog on the sled for a couple of checkpoints, because that dog could keep the others charged up until the secondary lead dog got the hang of the job and the respect of the team. It really is all about the dogs.

At Cripple
1 Dallas Seavey (19)
2 John Baker (8)
3 Martin Buser (37)
4 Bruce Linton (65)
5 Michelle Phillips (36)^R
6 Robert Nelson (32)
7 Jeff King (15)
8 Hugh Neff (56)
9 Mitch Seavey (41)
10 Lance Mackey (49)
11 Sebastian Schnuelle (35)
12 Sven Haltmann (42)
13 Sonny Lindner (44)
14 Hans Gatt (20)
15 Rick Swenson (57)
16 Ray Redington, Jr (9)
17 Cim Smyth (3)

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