Sell Your Gold - NOW!

I've been taking a brief hiatus from blogging, as it does take up a lot of time, and leading up to a final exam, I wanted to make sure I passed it (which I did). But oh, the things that did transpire during that time. I'd like to take a look at Paul Ryan's spiel on healthcare reform. I'd also like to examine the ruling of Wisconsin court justice Maryann Sumi. But for now, let me simply issue a recommendation to all investors out there:

Sell your gold now!

Why? It's simple, really. Since Obama's election, conservative media outlets have been touting the buying of gold, mostly on the grounds that they think Obama will destroy the dollar, and that gold will be the safest investment for the future. It's a version of the golden rule -- whoever has the gold makes the rules -- but in truth, the conservatives who push gold were likely heavily invested in gold to begin with before they started pushing it as an investment strategy.

Historically, precious metals investing has been a good hedge against inflation. Buy gold or silver, and as the dollar devalues and prices go up, you end up retaining the same spending power safely. Then, when the economy stables, you sell the gold or silver at a nice profit, though in fact you are not really making a literal profit, but are only breaking even in terms of buying ability.

But this latest spike in gold and silver prices is caused by something else. It's not inflation, because we don't really have a big problem with that (except with gasoline prices). And it's not an unstable economy, because it's been showing signs of recovery for quite some time now. No, this spike in precious metals prices has been caused solely due to the Tea Party movement. Convicned that Obama is about to ruin everything, or that Obama is the Antichrist, or some other disaster involving Obama is impending, they buy up all the gold and silver they can, preparing for the cataclysm to come. Demand goes up, supply stays the same, so the price jumps. Basic economics.

Problem is, the feared chaos will never get here. The economy is stabilizing. The disaster predicted with healthcare reform did not happen. Transitions to hybrid and electric vehicles will soon make higher gasoline prices less relevant. And best of all...

Obama is the president that got Osama Bin Laden!

That marks the end of the big push for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our troops will begin to come home. The biggest budget-buster of all time, initiated by George W. Bush, will finally cease to drain the lifeblood out of the nation's pocketbook. We will have a balanced budget before Obama's second term is over, with a budget surplus, just as it was under Clinton.

In other words, there is no more reason to panic.

That means the wise investors are selling their gold -- while the price is still high. With the panic over, and the storm clouds of impending disasters having blown by, we see sunny skies. The price of gold is about to DROP. FAST!!!

Oh, maybe gold will continue to climb just a bit more over the very short term. The pan-Arab revolt to democracy still has a lot of people worried, particularly in how it will play out in Egypt and Syria. And the brouha with Netanyahu over the Israeli borders will rattle a few nerves. But the fact remains that America is stabilizing, China's never going to take over, the national budget will cease to be upside-down, and the dollar will be secure.

So clear is this future that Republicans can't find a decent candidate to challenge Obama. Many Republicans don't want to. They don't dare! Face off against an incumbent who saved the economy and killed Bin Laden? No way! Who'd want to run into THAT buzz-saw?

So if you've invested in gold, now's the time to sell. Take your profits while you still can!

And watch while all the tea-partiers, who will refuse to sell in their anti-Obama delusions, take a huge loss when the price tumbles.

Eric

Herman Cain: Your Next Republican Presidential Candidate

Since before 2008, Republicans have lacked something they desperately need: A candidate. Now, they've got one.

Meet Herman Cain. He's smart, articulate, a successful businessman, an absolute conservative. Former CEO of Godfather's Pizza. Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Radio talk show host. Bachelors degree in mathematics and Masters degree in computer science. He's also a Southern Baptist, and an opponent of abortion in all cases, including rape and incest. The religious Right loves him. The Tea Party loves him!

Best of all, he's black.

We've seen it happen before: A party desperate to unhorse a sitting president will pick a candidate who contrasts well against that president's primary strength. Thus, in 2004, when the "war on terror" was the overriding issue, General Wesley Clark, who didn't really want to run, was a serious candidate, and the nomination eventually went to John Kerry, a military veteran.

Now we'll see this sort of thing happen with the political parties turned around.

He's the ideal candidate, except for one, teensy, little thing. He's picked a fight with the IRS. He wants something called the Fair Tax, which is a kind of national sales tax. He wants to return to the Gold Standard. Were it up to him, all estate taxes, capital gains taxes, and income taxes would be abolished.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

Every charity that receives donations from the wealthy who are motivated by write-offs will oppose the guy. Every big-time banking and accounting firm that builds its industry upon our current tax system will oppose him. Subchapter S corporations, which already pay no taxes, will have no real reason to support him. A lot of people with a lot of money will oppose the guy.

He's the African Steve Forbes.

But the disenfranchised with Obama will flock to him. He can easily eclipse other novelties, like Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin. He will win nomination. If somehow he flummoxes the nomination, he'll be the ideal Veep. He holds the promise of unifying the Republican front, of winning over some moderates, and splitting the black vote.

This hope is likely misplaced. Obama has faced this sort of candidate before. When running for the U.S. Senate, Republicans put their trust in another black conservative, named Alan Keyes. A former ambassador, Alan Keys was smart, eloquent, handsome, and a darker shade than Obama. But the black voters of Illinois weren't taken in. Obama not only beat him, he crushed him.

You see, contrary to popular conservative myth, black people are not stupid. They know when they're being pandered to, and they feel insulted when conservative special interests put forth a black candidate, as if they would all simultaneously abandon Dr. King's dream and vote on the color of skin rather than the content of character. There could only be one Jackie Robinson. There could only be one Rosa Parks. There is only one Barack Obama. African Americans already have their champion.

But the Tea Party doesn't know this, nor shall they. The entire movement is all salt and almost no pepper, all cream and no coffee. They'll look to Herman Cain as their savior.

Well, ya better hold on to that dream, people.

Eric

New Pro Life Commercial

I have a lot to say about many things. Like, for example, how everybody should stop jumping to conclusions about whether Bush-era-style water-boarding was used to kill Bin Laden. But for now, I've got something more important to grouse about. Yes, more important than whether Obama used torture.

This past week, I've noticed on NBC's Nightly News and other outlets a brand new pro-life commercial, and it really has me pissed off. I've included the video of the commercial here, so that you can see what I'm talking about.

Basically, the video says nothing I disagree with, until they come to the all important point about brain activity being present at seven weeks. Then, the motherly voice says, "Who knows? Maybe he's even thinking."

Oh, it's ON now!

I've posted before about how the brain defines the being in my online book, "It's The Brain, Stupid!" So I'm perfectly prepared to deal with the issue of brain development as it pertains to the abortion debate. You can read my full argument here. In it, I repeated the claim about the earliest brain activity of any kind being present at seven weeks, but I point out how that early brain activity means very little. The cerebral cortex, which governs movement, doesn't form until the 10th week, resulting in sudden and dramatic fetal movement. The cerebellum, the all-important area of thinking, cognition, reasoning, and experience, doesn't form until the 20th week, or 4.5 months in. The half-way point.

So for this commercial to come along and say, "Maybe he's even thinking," is just flat-out misleading. And it's a deliberately calculated attempt at misleading to boot. Lying is one thing. "Obfuscation of the truth" is even worse. The morons who made this commercial knew they were occulting the facts, and didn't care. What hubris!

In particular, I want you to focus in on the blunt admission of how 7 weeks is the earliest brain-wave activity point. Do the math. That's almost two months. Meaning that very early term abortion can still be done upon a fetus with ZERO brain activity whatsoever.

By thy own lips do I condemn thee!

This means not only that it is irrefutable that early-term abortion should remain LEGAL and PROTECTED, but that any objections to morning-after pills have no scientific basis. Those who deny morning-after pills to teenagers are therefore monsters, those who deny such pills to rape victims are rapists themselves.

And there's REALLY no damned excuse for opposing embryonic stem cell research! I, for one, am sick of scientists being forced to dump billions of dollars down the primrose path of regressing adult stem cells down to an undifferentiated state, as if that technology were anything other than setting any treatment back ten to twenty years!

Conceptionism is dead! Long live neural-developism!

As the woman says in the commercial, "What was I thinking?"

Hell, I don't know, lady. What were you thinking?!

Eric

Give The Pres. Some LOVE!

Osama Bin Laden is dead. Sweet, isn't it? The heart and soul of Al Quaeda is extinguished, terrorists can forever mourn their loss, and Americans can celebrate their victory. For that matter, Afghanistan has a real shot at a lasting government, and may well experience the first permanent steps towards liberation of women in... well, ever!

So now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. For all the brave talk about Americans being united, and this victory being a bipartisan one, I'm still waiting to hear it. Just one compliment for President Obama.

Come on! Just one, teensey, weensey, little compliment? Can any so-called "conservatives" say it? Come on, say it with me, "President Obama did good." It's not hard! You can say it! Really! "The President did good!" Each time it gets a little easier. "President Barack Hussein Obama did a good thing in killing Osama Bin Laden."

Better yet, I'd like just one tea-party member to say, "You know, maybe I was wrong about Obama."

Hell, I'll say it: I was wrong! Yes, I was wrong about Bin Laden being already dead. I claimed that he was long ago killed, and that we would forever be fighting a ghost. Now, in light of new evidence, I'm forced to recant, and admit my mistake. And I'd made a second mistake with it: I thought the troop surge in Afghanistan was probably a mistake. I thought maybe it was a desperate gamble on Obama's part to try and get Bin Laden, and likely wouldn't work. Well, lo and behold, it DID! And I'm forced to admit that Obama's gamble paid off, and that the troop surge, which Obama did in defiance of his own party, was a good idea. I was wrong.

You know, it's a rather healthy thing. "I was wrong." It feels good to say! Maybe that's because those three little words are what makes science possible. Because in science, oneself being right or wrong doesn't matter. One's ego doesn't matter. All that matters is Truth. (And notice, I say Truth with a capital letter "T"!) So in saying "I was wrong," I'm really doing the most important thing that anybody can do in the pursuit of truth, and that's bow to the evidence.

Some people don't want to bow to the evidence. Already they're saying that Bin Laden isn't really dead. People also say that Elvis isn't dead. Or that we didn't land on the moon. Or that Obama is the Antichrist. Or that global warming is a hoax. Or that evolution didn't really happen.

Our culture really hasn't emphasized enough how important being wrong is. It's good to be wrong now and then! The ability to admit that you're wrong is the heart and soul of all Truth-seeking. It is the Alpha and Omega of maturity. It is the one trait absolutely essential for true intelligence.

Strange that so many people don't have it.

Even stranger that so many people go out of their way not to have it, and violently throw it away if it happens to fall right into their lap. Rather than admit they're wrong, they'll ignore birth certificates, become activists, proffer conspiracies or even build massive fake museums in Northern Kentucky, all to insulate themselves against the Truth, and having to say those three, small, all-important words: "I was wrong."

Why not just wear a dunce cap and save yourself the trouble?

So yes, everybody, I was wrong! And I say it proud!

Now, to all you Obama-haters: Your turn.

Eric

Our Critical Tech Schools

Wisconsin's budgetary outlays are interesting to read about. A few percent here, several percent there, but nothing breaks into double-digits. Wisconsin just doesn't allocate much in any one particular area...

Except education.

Education support is the one item which not only breaks double-digits, but consumes the vast bulk of the State's expenses. How much? A whopping 38% of the State's money goes to some form of educational support, whether it be public schools, state-funded colleges, or tech schools. Education spending is to Wisconsin what Barbara Streisand's nose is to the rest of her face. It's what Donald Trump's hairpiece is to the top of his head. It's comparable to the percentage of Rush Limbaugh's body fat, or the percentage of Scott Walker's brain-cells devoted to his own ego.

In other words, if one is going to balance the Wisconsin State Budget, one simply has no choice but to cut education support somewhere. There's no way around it. We have to cut.

But may I make an impassioned plea that the one place we mustn't cut is our tech schools.

Our inner-city public schools have been failing. Our businesses are starved for skilled workers. That means that there are hundreds of thousands of under-qualified Milwaukee residents, and thousands of businesses forced to hire outside the State, or leave outright. Bridging this horrendous gap is Milwaukee Area Technical College. With a dual-pronged approach of making up for the lost learning from high school and giving excellent collegiate educational quality for the dollar, MATC is the one, lone bridge allowing those in the realm poverty to cross over the troubled waters of education to reach the promised shore of decent wages. It's the one beacon of hope that desperate education-seekers have.

Oh, don't get me wrong, MATC has its problems! It has its own teachers union which has basically decided to protect its full-time personnel in favor of screwing over the part-time instructors. And it seems to have the habit of looking after its own members Ph.D. aspirations more than is healthy. But it really is a remarkable institution otherwise. Its bathrooms have no mirrors and barely any tissue paper (because it can't afford these creature-comforts), its downtown buildings are old and dilapidated, and its facilities are stripped so bare that its teachers are forced to bring in their own white-board markers because none of the ones the school provides are ever anything but bone-dry. But it gets the job done. As teacher pay gets cut, and need for skilled workers becomes even greater, the gulf MATC bridges is more important than ever.

Cutting funding to tech schools like MATC now is the stupidest possible move. Why shut the front door on a burning building full of people?

Unlike MPS, MATC is doing awesome. It, along with two other Wisconsin tech schools, namely, Northeastern Technical College and Moraine Park technical college, are ranked in the upper 10% of technical schools in the nation in terms of demonstrating high levels of student success.

In other words, MATC is succeeding where MPS is failing.

Cut everywhere else if you must, but cut MATC last of all! It's an institution that's desperately needed, desperately wanted, and best of all...

...it's working!

Eric

I Want A Chevy Volt!

The Chevy Volt is out, and I want one!

It's the 2011 Motortrend car of the year, and for good reason. All the benefits of a pure electric, with a small gasoline motor to act as a safety-net for longer drives. Nice! And with gasoline prices blowing the ceiling right off of gasoline station rooftops, we could all use one, couldn't we? Looks like the Volt has arrived just in time to save America's economy from yet another gasoline-induced economic recession.

Well, guess again. GM has produced, for 2011, 10,000 models of the new Volt. Ten thousand! That's it! To put that in perspective, the village of Greendale has a population of 14,400. The Bradley Center seats 18,000. You could fit the entire run of Chevy Volts for 2011 in the parking lot of Miller Park, and it wouldn't come close to occupying half of it!

It'll be easier to buy a ticket for the Superbowl than it will be to buy a Chevy Volt.

So much for the rescue.

Why are we, who are so starving for this needed product being tossed these few, paltry crumbs? Why is the free market not rising to the challenge?

The answer is simple supply and demand. GM has produced one hell of a car, but it cost them one hell of an investment. The price tag for this new vehicle would have been equivalent to that of a gas-guzzling sports car, without all the traditional flash. So GM pledged to hold the price down below $35,000. As it turns out, the car has smashed through that ceiling, and is going for something like $44,000. Worth it? You bet. IF you can find one!

You see, if left to the free market, GM would be rolling Volts off by the hundreds of thousands, for the initial price of around $60,000. But because they made a pledge to hold the price down, they simply cannot make money if they produce high volume. So they produce low volume, take a small gain, or possibly even a calculated small loss, and make plans to ratchet up the production gradually. It makes good business sense, but hurts the rest of us, for whom this technology is sorely overdue.

It's 'Tickle Me Elmo' all over again. Remember 'Tickle Me Elmo?' Christmas of 1995, I believe. The manufacturer of that toy pledged to only sell at a set, low price. But then demand went through the roof as everyone's kid wanted one. To meet demand, the price should have been raised to pay for the cost of increased production. But no, the price had to stay the same -- they promised. The result? No Elmos on the store shelves. And when they did materialize, parents stampeeded for them like herds of wild buffalo, at times getting into fisticuffs with other parents who dared get to the toy first.

It's the effect of price-fixing. You can't force the market. If the price is forced to stay low, manufacturers cannot make money unless they produce far less. The Soviet Union learned this lesson the hard way. If one forces prices of bread to be low by law, then prices will be low -- but the bakery shelves will usually be empty. The "invisible hand" fights back against attempts to force prices lower than what the free market demands.

The manufacturers of 'Tickle Me Elmo' lost out on the opportunity to make billions. Likewise, GM is going to lose billions. Oh, it won't be operating under red ink. In fact, the Volt sales will likely show a small profit. But that's because they didn't have to break the bank on producing very many. What SHOULD have happened is for prices on 'Tickle Me Elmo' to have been raised, production lines increased, and vastly more money made, to say nothing of there being lots stress-relieved parents as a result. The following year, demand would come down, and the price would have dropped dramatically. Investments in production for the company would have been made, and the cost of production would be dramatically less. Lots more parents could get Elmos for a reasonable price. And GM? It should be selling Volts at $60K or more, making money hand over fist, then, next year, the 2012 models can come down in cost. The manufacturing infrastructure will have been expanded and improved. People will finally be able to flip the bird to the overpriced gas stations forever.

And GM will be rolling, rolling, rolling in cash. But nah, that would mean the corporate executives would have to be smart!

And in case you're wondering where else I'm going with all this, it's very similar to the situation with collective bargaining and teachers' salaries. Give legislators the ability to fix the price of hiring an inner-city school teacher to what they THINK it should be, and the salary will be affordable to the taxpayer -- but good luck finding anyone to teach science or math!

In the meantime, we'll have to make do with what other options are out there. A Toyota Prius is still an affordable option, with the power of a wet noodle and the mileage of a Harley Fat-Boy. Nissan has a nice all-electric car, the Leaf, if you're willing to never drive out of the city. Most don't. In fact, Nissan may be poised to run away with this thing! Or how about a Ford? Ford now has hybrid Fusions, Fiestas and Focuses (Foci?). If you want a hybrid, that's the most affordable way to get one, with prices under $20K. (NOW you're talking!) Nissan may have the best all-electric, but Ford has gone hybrid-crazy, and is now the leading car manufacturer again. Or, maybe one could go extra fancy and buy a Tesla. Those sports cars are not only all-electric and could take you from Milwaukee to the Twin Cities, they're SWEET! But they cost the equivalent of a luxury yacht.

Meanwhile, BMW is producing the electric crossover model, the Megacity, Mercedes Benz is producing the Blue Zero, and even Minicoops are now coming out with a "Mini-E" version. But look out! China's car-company, BYD, is producing the E6! The Panda has seen the future!

All this is happening because the demand for electrics and hybrids is so high. Ford saw it, and is currently #1 again. GM could have seen it, but stubbornly stayed married to the idea of too little, too late.

Just think of how wonderful GM's stock would be, and how stable our economy would have been, had GM not been stupid enough to kill the EV-1 model back in the early 90's!

Oh, the folly of it all!

Eric

Waiting for Superman

I've got a lot to blog about, but there's just too much to summarize, so let me start with the one that's most on my mind.

I've just seen the documentary film, 'Waiting for Superman.' It's about the plight of the failings of our public school system, and what can be done to fix it. As someone working to become a teacher, I knew this was a film I probably wanted to see. So I put it in my Netflix cue and finally got around to viewing it.

Twenty minutes in, I was furiously taking notes.

I knew things were bad, but I had no idea that they were this bad. And the film illustrated the problem in the best possible way, by following the lives of a few kids, and their caring parents. One kid, an adorable Hispanic girl who said she wanted to be a doctor, broke my (and indeed, everyone's) heart when she didn't get into the school she wanted.

The interviews were enlightening, and the facts, staggering. I've long heard Charlie Sykes rant about the situation in public schools in Milwaukee, but one of the interviewees was none other than Howard Fuller, former Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools. In an event which took place many years ago (apparently, while I was paying attention to something else), a kid walked into an MPS school with a hidden camera, taking pictures of teachers who were doing nothing, reading newspapers, with whole classrooms full of kids doing absolutely nothing. Fuller, when shown the video, yelled, "I'm gonna fire these people!"

The teacher's union stopped him. After he'd fired them, he was later forced to hire them back, with one year's back-pay.

Realizing he wasn't in charge, he resigned.

This acute Milwaukee connection got my attention. And there were plenty of other figures which blew me away. Here's just a small sample of what I wrote down in the notes I took from the film:

In Pennsylvania, 67% of all prison inmates are high school dropouts.

There, it costs $33,000 per year to incarcerate one inmate. Over the average period of incarceration, four years, that's $132,000 dollars.

A private school in PA costs $8,300 per year. So for K through 12th grade, the state could have put the same inmate through a quality school for 13 years. 13 times 83K is $107,000.

If they did, they'd still have $24,000 left over for that person to go to college.

Where is all the money going?

Here's another stunning fact: There are 14,000 separate, autonomous school boards in the U.S. That's a lot of cooks to spoil the broth! Any reform efforts must face fourteen thousand individual bureaucracies!

(This same multiplicity of school boards is also what allows creationism to thrive in science classrooms below the radar.)

This one really blew me away: A bad teacher retards a student's development by 50% of an entire year. By contrast, a good teacher can bring students up by 150% or more! And here's a juicy tidbit: If we were to eliminate only the bottom 10% of bad teachers, and replace them with only average teachers, our overall school performance would jump to the level of Finland, which has the best academic measurements in the world!

We've got to get rid of those bad teachers! But firing a teacher is harder than curing herpes these days.

In Illinois, for example, there are 876 school districts. Only 61 of them even tried to fire a teacher. Only 38 were successful. Ever.

Compare this with other professions. On average, 1 in 57 doctors will lose their license. One lawyer in 97 will be disbarred. But among teachers, only 1 out of every 2,500 will lose their teaching license.

Why is this? Well, Howard Fuller found that teachers had something called "Tenure." Interesting, that. Tenure was originally meant for college professors, and was designed to prevent them from being fired for arbitrary or political reasons. Even today, professors can teach college classes for years before they qualify, and many never even get tenure.

Tenure for high school teachers? And it's automatic after only two years? When the hell did that happen?

I've always held the opinion that you can't pay a good teacher enough, while you can't fire a bad teacher fast enough.

Sadly, teacher's unions have stood in the way of both these things.

This brings me to the subject of the unions, and the power they've had. I've recently put my good name on the line defending these unions, while simultaneously hedging my defense by advocating that these unions be reformed. I now know just how deep that reform needs to run. Unions need reform, and not just for public sector unions. The whole thing needs to be reworked.

A few blog posts ago, I detailed some needed overall union reforms. I errantly left out one BIG one, and for that, I apologize. The one I left out, the most important one of all, is this:

UNIONS MUST FIRE SLACKERS!!!

I don't think I can overemphasize this enough. The survival of unions depends upon this more than anything else. Over and over again, those who oppose unions cite the inevitable lazy son-of-a-bitch who doesn't produce, gets over-paid, and who can't be fired. Why is it that union leadership doesn't realize that if they could just change that one thing, and then change the perception of it, if they could just get that damned pro-laziness albatross off from around their collective necks, they could have complete political acceptance? Why do unions not realize they need to fire lazy jerk-offs more than they need oxygen?

The answer, I fear, is poor leadership within unions. A good union, with wise leadership, can be a sound system which benefits all. A bad union is worse than no union at all.

Which might explain why Walker went after the unions.

The secret-camera episode is what Walker should have cited when attacking the teachers unions, instead of listing all of the bullshit union "offenses" which I debunked in my blog post from March 13 of this year (yet another example of his overall incompetence). He probably didn't because it was an episode from back in the early 90's. But so what? The need to be able to fire bad teachers is still essential.

(Where was Howard Fuller during this whole Madison budget-battle, by the way?)

The film cited Michelle Rhee, who was given broad powers to reform schools in Washington, D.C., which has the worst performing public schools in the nation. She started to make progress, but she knew she needed to make sure the bad teachers were gotten rid of. Her proposal to the teachers union during a collective bargaining session was brilliant: Either teachers could accept "tenure" with modest pay increases, or they could relinquish tenure and potentially receive massive pay increases based on performance. It was a brilliant masterstroke! I must say, I think this Michelle Rhee is one hell of a woman!

The union didn't even let her measure come up for a vote, fearing it would pass.

Meanwhile, enterprising charter schools, such as the Kipp academy, and boarding schools such as SEED in New York, are working -- operating outside the sphere of influence of the teachers unions.

David Guggenheim, the director of the film, told it like it is, and really targeted the fact that most political contributions from teachers unions go to Democrats. He wasn't being political, he was merely telling the truth. As such, we're greatly indebted to him. This is the same guy who directed the film, An Inconvenient Truth! He's certainly no raging conservative nut-job!

So here's my new position, and I don't think it's too radically different from my old one: I intend to really pound hard upon the leadership of the Milwaukee teachers union to push for the firing of poor teachers, and to drop any attempts to defend residency rules. Those unions should be defending the quality of education just as much, if not more, than the teachers themselves. I'll watch them like a hawk! After that, it depends on what the union itself does or has to say. If they do the right thing, all's well. If they don't...

Well, then I'll be forced to eat my slice of humble pie, and admit that, in his sheer incompetence, and primarily out of political malice, Scott Walker may just have accidentally done the right thing in breaking the teachers' union.

And I'll be there afterwards to help with the work of putting the union back together again, only better this time.

Eric