uncertaintraveler

Admittedly, this is slightly off-topic, but the essential problem with the school system (in Texas and elsewhere) is that there are too many administrators and not enough teachers.

The first problem can be easily remedied: just fire half of the administration--you'd still probably have too many people in the system, but at least it would be a start in the right direction.

The second problem can be just as easily remedied:

1) immediately repeal teacher-incentive bonuses (probably created by MBA-consultants who think every problem in the world can be solved by solutions that work in the business environment---never considering, apparently, who would want a job (aside from college/basketball coaches, perhaps) whose income is dependent upon the actions of hyper-active, hormone-filled youngsters);

2) immediately increase all teacher salaries (across the board) by 50%;

3) immediately grant teachers the right (and the ability) to give their students a "3-strikes and your out" policy (as in, a kid screws up three times, they are kicked out, with no questions asked and no appeal process available), without any interference from the principal or the board of education (although...perhaps, I could see a need for one appeals level, but only one appeal, so an aggrieved student better use it wisely);

4) immediately grant teachers the right (and the ability) to assign as much homework, activities, and classwork as they deem necessary;

5) immediately cap class sizes at 20 students, regardless of how "special" or "brilliant" or "gifted" the students are in said class;

6) immediately require all teachers to complete a masters program in their field of study within 7 years of their hire date; and

7) immediately require all administrators (those that are left, anyway) to spend one year out of every three in the classroom teaching. Too many administrators, sitting behind desks they don't deserve based on qualifications they no longer have, have forgotten what actual teaching is, and what it requires..

I'm sure there are other ways to improve the school systems, but that should be a good start...

There are too many whining parents (who won't allow their little rug-rat to be required to do anything that would infringe upon their "childhood experience," whatever that means) who force weak-spined school boards to limit the amount of homework that can be assigned (at one school I know of, the maximum amount of homework that can be given is 20 minutes a week!!!), the amount of work their child should have to do in school, and the amount of punishment a child can be given (we mustn't hurt their little feelings, after all...). Good grief, until the education system starts improving, it shouldn't be at all surprising to these "oh, my child is so wonderful" parents why we are quickly becoming a third-world nation.

Hopefully, Congress has the guts to address the issue. This strikes at the heart of our Constitutional right to privacy.

Depending on where and the circumstances in which a "tapped" telephone call is taking place, the right to privacy may not even apply. And, even in those limited circumstances in which such a right would apply, why would the present Congress even want to take up the issue? Chances are, the majority in Congress would prefer to further limit one's right to privacy, rather than expand such a right. And, in any event, I don't think basing a legal argument on a right to privacy is particularly wise unless you have nothing else to use....

It would be nice if you could click on a topic heading and it would take you to the first post you haven't yet read. That way, you don't have to scroll through all the posts you've already read/viewed to get to the new stuff.

Assuming, of course, there isn't some setting that allows a user to already do this???

FROM SOURCES I DEEM RELIABLE - SO TAKE IT FWIW

per my sources (yes, there is more than one), atlas is looking for someone to buy him out at $160 psf. with 3333 ap going into the crapper and about to be relisted as rental, its become difficult for a first-timer to build vertical projects.

im not attempting to piss on anyone's parade, just passing along what i heard yesterday.

I assume you are referring to 3333 Allen Parkway? If so, this shouldn't be very surprising---they were asking outrageous prices for units that have absolutely horrible finishes and build-quality....

They no longer sponsor Armstrong.

And when they did, it was for Express Mail. Express Mail competes directly with FedEx and UPS.

Express Mail is not your regular mail.

That's why I said "in years past."

And, I believe Armstrong's team was called the "USPS pro cycling team" or "team USPS." Nowhere was it explicitly stated that only the Express Mail division of USPS was sponsoring Armstrong, et al.

In any event, I note that the price of express mail is increasing too. So, even if Express Mail was the actual sponsor of Armstrong, et al (a contention I disagree with...), clearly their outlandish advertising costs has some connection with the increased postal rates. It is somewhat naive to argue otherwise...

Penny stocks = dangerous!!!

Sometimes, but not always. Look up PETDE (that's the stock symbol)...for years it traded in the sub $1 range, then in the $1 to $4 range, and then, boom....it exploded to over $50 a share, although it has come down from there recently. But it has certainly had a good ride.

That being said, it takes serious discipline and a solid understanding of the company's business to sort which penny stocks are good and which are worthless.

Or, you could just get lucky.

Well I will start of with $1,000, can you give me an estiment of how long that will take to dubble?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Rule of 72.

Assuming you have a stable investment, and a solid (i.e, one that does not vary over time) rate of return, you divide the interest rate (or rate of return) by 72, and you get the number of years required to double the principal. Thus, if you have a 4% interest rate (or rate of return), it will take 18 years for your principal to double.

Perhaps a postal rate increase would be easier to accept if the USPS didn't spend so many millions of dollars supporting Lance Armstrong in years past on his bicycle rides. They have a monopoly (protected by statute, no less) and still, for some reason, feel the need to squander millions to advertise their product! I think that's crazy....if they had used their money more wisely, there probably would not be any need for a postal rate increase...

Singapore is lovely. I've been there twice and I'd go back there in a second if I could. I don't know where some people get their information, but Singapore isn't dirty, polluted, hateful, or crime-infested. Its by far the cleanest city in Asia, its got an incredibly efficient transport system, it can be quite cheap, and has amazing food. Its well worth a trip...

As far as Kuala Lumpur (KL), buses are best, either through Melaka or straight on to KL. I think it is a 6 to 7 hour bus ride to KL. The bus station in KL though is, at best, wildly chaotic, and at worst, a complete nightmare. Still, KL is worth a visit, but I wouldn't go out of my way to visit there again. If you go, be sure to visit the main railroad station (its an amazing work) and the islamic arts museum---beautifully designed and a great introduction to islamic arts, architecture, and history. You can easily spend half a day there.

The petronas towers are fine, but nothing special. You can only go up to the skybridge level, and only for a 15 minute time period (get a free ticket in the basement, which gets you an entry time). They are better seen from KL tower, which, because of the hills, makes you feel like you are looking down on the towers.

If you are set on taking a train to KL, consider looking at the man in seat 61 website--I think it is seat61.com, but I could be wrong. Anyway, the guy is a train fanatic and has very complete information on train schedules for rail networks around the world.

Oh...and skip the raffles hotel's singapore sling. Its awfully pricey, and you can get other ones (that are much cheaper and much better) elsewhere in the city. Of course, the Raffles is where it was invented, but I don't go to San Francisco to buy Levis...

Just so no one here thinks I can't (or don't want to) formulate a coherent response, I want to go on record as saying I had drafted up a nicely-worded rebutal, and when I hit "add reply," I got a "cannot find server" message. Maybe it was because of the A&M gods...

Regardless, I'm not going to rewrite what I originally wrote (I'm sure much to the chagrin of everyone on this board), but I'm still sticking to my view.

uncertaintraveler, you seem to be an uncertainperson. Please lay off the baseless opinions until you actually understand what you speak. You have obviously never set foot on campus or attended an Aggie sporting event in Aggieland. Once you have, we'd like to hear your opinions. Until then you are showing your ignorance on the subject as shown in each post of this thread.

Texas A&M is a well respected institution of higher learning and a proud group. As is UT, Tech, Baylor, UH, and so on. The university is 40k strong, do you really think it's all Corps? Or all farmers? Have you worked in corporate Houston? A huge percentage of your peers are Aggies, show some respect for their education and university.

Thanks for your time

You are correct...I have never attended a sporting event in Aggieland. Nor do I ever intend to. And, admittedly, as someone who was not raised in Texas, I do not understand any of A&M's traditions or know of their allegedly storied history.

However, as for the rest of your post, you are reading way too much into my alleged "opinions," and I stand by my original premise: A&M is overrated---predominantly on the football field, but also academically. I never said the school wasn't well-respected, I just believe it gets way too much credit for its also-ran (or moderately better-than-average) programs. Perhaps it gets so much credit because of its "proud group" of alumni, but even the most passionate of alumni must acknowledge that the school isn't considered to be the number one school (by any publication that I am aware of) in any particular discipline. Granted, its petroleum engineering department is pretty good, but UT's and OU's are considered to be much better by companies and goverments.

Considering how highly revered the school is, one must wonder why it nevertheless gets so much praise....and the only explanation I can discern is that, as the saying goes, sometimes the majority view reveals that there are more fools on one side.

The author, like most economists, does a great job of wandering around a topic without ever committing himself to a firm projection or answer to the topic he's discussing.

And I assume he is talking about rural land, and not urban land being developed? If not, his comment that "unlike the 1980s situation, many current transactions involve little or no borrowed funds," is clearly inaccurate.

So, let's call a spade a spade. All those aggie haters advance a poor argument that we are overrated and blah blah.

Makes no sense.

We just plain suck.

Even when A&M has a good year, they are still overrated. Why, you ask? Because they are still (usually) favored to beat higher-ranked teams, like Tex. Tech, OU, Colorado, etc. Maybe they won't be the favored team this year, but in years past they most certainly have been. Case in point: a few years ago (pick any year within the last 5...) OU was ranked #1 or #2 in the nation, A&M was ranked #23. Who was the media darling and the favored team in their match-up?

So I don't think the overrated argument has anything to do with hating A&M or with picking on a team while it is down. I think it is just a fact...A&M is consistently overrated. As, as Arche_757 mentioned, A&M does tend to play a weak schedule, especially when it comes to their non-conference opponents. Its the same with Kansas State...by playing Directional-State-U and We-Aren't-Even-on-a-Map-U, they would be undefeated and ranked as a top 10 team, but then lose big once the conference games begin.

I don't know why A&M is so consistently overrated, but they are--maybe the media likes all the history, the tradition, the corps of cadets, etc., that A&M has. Personally, I don't get any of it. I mean, isn't A&M really just a school for those who couldn't get accepted at West Point but want to dress as if they were?

A lot of my gay friends are "reformed" breeders. Have children, got married at a young age 'cuz society, family whatever told them that is the way it's done.

But ultimately it's the divorce that is hardest on the kids, not the fact that they have a gay parent.

my close friend's father came out and divorced his mom when he was 16. the hardest part was definitely the divorce, though his parents are still close.

he hangs out with his dad all the time, and after a little bit of time he was ok with it.

i didn't meet him until college, i'm sure it was bad at first, but now he's very open about the whole thing.

I agree that it is usually the divorce, and not the existence of a gay parent, that is hardest on children, at least in the long term. Of course, having a gay parent is difficult in the near-term as well. However, perhaps someone here can answer these questions:

If you are born gay, do you not know that you are gay prior to getting married? If so, why are you getting married? And, once you are married, don't you have a committment to remain married, regardless of the fact that you now "know" you are gay and, accordingly, never should have gotten married in the first place?

Thus, I don't understand why gay people feel the need to get a divorce from their heterosexual relationship---they presumably knew they were gay going into the marriage, so using the reason "I'm gay and need to be true to myself" as a reason to get out of the marriage seems awfully suspect and selfish to me. So why do gay people get a divorce from their marital relationship?

It doesn't matter to me if someone is gay. What bothers me though is for a gay person to get married, have a kid, and then---by declaring their need to an unmarried gay person---gets a divorce, effectively screwing up two people's lives that may never had been screwed up if: 1) the gay person had never gotten married in the first place [although I realize this may eliminate the existence of the child, but in any event....]; and 2) if the gay person had just followed through with their original marital committment. Does the gay parent ever truly consider the feelings of their kids when realizing "hey, I'm gay, I shouldn't be married!"?

Do any of my questions make sense?

If not, I'm sorry, but I have never (knowingly) met another child of a gay divorced parent, and I've often wondered what their thoughts on the matter were. When I was traveling around Australia, I met a gay divorced father who had several kids, and when I asked him how his kids handled his coming-out and his divorce, he seemed stunned and acted as if he had never considered what they thought about the matter. Instead, all of his comments revolved around how difficult it was for him to come out, and it seemed like no thought was ever given to his children's feelings. After I asked my question, he even said he had never even met a child of a gay parent! I was shocked....I mean, we aren't that rare, are we?

A month or so ago I spoke with someone from UrbanLofts who said they were actually pulling out of the Midtown area because property has gotten too expensive for the average buyer.

Perhaps a reason property has gotten too expensive is because the developers are listing the properties for way too much? The correlation between product and price has come unglued---the developers are trying to cram as much of a product as possible in the smallest amount of space possible for the greatest economic return possible. And, usually, quality suffers as a result. I'm consistently amazed at the shoddy work people are (presumably) paying large sums for....

Or, alternatively, perhaps a reason property has become too expensive is because tax valuations are becoming stratospheric. If Houston (or any city, for that matter) wanted to redevelop and revitalize an area, why don't they lower tax assessments? I browsed around town yesterday and realized that there is no way I could afford a $6K annual tax bill on a tiny 1850 square foot house listed for $250K. I'm sure others are the same way: they'd love to live in-town, but can't afford it primarily because the tax man is too greedy.

I looked at the Tricon website....maybe its just me, but if I am buying a $300K plus home, I would expect the door and window trim to be made out of something more substantial than MDF. I would think that $300K would get you trim made out of solid wood, and not out of sawdust.

I don't care how the lights are positioned. I just wish they were timed properly.

The lights used to be timed wonderfully but in recent days, coming into downtown from Memorial, it seems that I can often go only east (on Texas) one block at a time. It is exceptionally aggravating...

A&M has had one of the top 10 recruiting classes in the nation three out of the past four years, so saying they are overrated is a little non-informed.

Ummm....non-informed? That word must be in the A&M dictionary, because I sure can't find it in my Webster's.

Sorry, but A&M has always been a completely overrated team and, for that matter, a university. Sometimes I'm surprised that they are able to barely beat Baylor.

Well, they have finally left N. America, with a little jaunt to Panama....

Like other have said, the previous seasons were very good, but this one is horrible. Too many people to keep up with, too much of being in the same place for too long, and very little originality on the part of the players and the producers (i.e, putting on all your clothes when you have reason to believe you will come in last on a non-elimination leg....yawn, its already been done before, and using the same lines as prior contestants when you are dressing up makes you look even more lame; having to bungy-jump to win a fast-forward...yawn, the whole "I'm afraid of heights" has been played to death already..).

If they really wanted to make it a real race, they should run it in a place where english isn't widely spoken. Having to deal with language barriers makes the whole show much more enjoyable, and goes a long way towards separating out the good travelers from the merely lucky.

The Atlantic Station project does a good job of rehabilitating what was once and empty factory/heavy industrial site and provides yet another "point of interest" for the visitor, but it's overall impact on the city of Atlanta will be hard to gauge. I'm concerned that they've done things like put in a Publix grocery and such before really having a handle on its local residential market. The last thing you want to do is bring in the wrong type of retailers, have them go out of business quickly and then create a dynamic where you have a large structure with lots of ground level vacancies. New or not, that can "ghettofy" the area very quickly.

Ummmm...have you ever been to Midtown Atlanta? The place is booming with residential development (mostly new high-rise condos and apartment-to-condo conversions), and sorely needed a close-in supermarket and other retail shopping areas. My Dad used to live right across from the downtown connector in the Metropolis condos, and he would have to practically go to Buckhead to go to a grocery store. Shopping was closer, but you still had to go to Lennox or Phipps Plaza. Now you can basically walk to some good stores and shops. Plus, the Midtown area of Atlanta is a great place, and I can't imagine it going "ghettofy" anytime in the next decade. This type of development just made it that much better....

Fine by me. I've seen what the government pays for land, and I'll take that fat check anyday. I'm sure some poor village eskimo wouldn't mind either.

Fat check? What fat check? Despite its claims to the contrary, the government hardly pays fair value for what it takes. At best, you'd get 1/2 of your property's fair market value....

It's funny, 51% of Americans call themselves conservatives, but those same conservatives are the first to get in line asking the government to fix the price of oil.

As an aside, about 4 years ago, I went to a "nonpartisan" convention once in Amarillo and ended up sitting next to the Randall/Potter County republican committee chair. He was complaining about the low oil prices and wondered why the government didn't have a floor (and a ceiling, for that matter) on the price of oil. I replied, hey, its the free market...I thought you guys loved that economic system. He looked at me as if I was Pol Pot....

Don't forget about Canada. They have oil reserves they are dying to have Amercian oil companies develop and pump down to the US since Canada will never need it all. They would make a nice profit from all this oil.

Ummm...exactly where are these oil reserves? And what kind of reserves are they? Are you referring to the tar sands in Alberta, which, even at $60 a barrel oil, are marginally profitable?

In any event, the future of the hydrocarbon age isn't oil production, but rather gas production. I'm not sure Canada has anywhere near the amount of gas that we have in the States.

People need to get a real picture of the ANWAR in the area that is being requested to drill. This area in the best weather conditions is a barren wasteland. Litterally very little life. The proposed facilty would cover less than 200 acres and would have to meet stringent environmental guidelines like the Alaskan Pipeline.

The residents of Alaska want this facililty. The exkimo tribes on the north slope areas really want it too.

In the interest of full disclosure, I think we should drill in ANWR.

That being said, KJB isn't being totally honest with the facts. ANWR isn't a barren wasteland, and considering the vast array of wildlife that call the area home, I wouldn't call it a place of "very little life." Additionally, the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline may have meet strigent environmental guidelines, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the pipeline's operators don't violate such guidelines on routine basis. By extension, even the best oil and gas drillers and operators have environmental spills in conditions much less harsh than that found in the northern reaches of Alaska, and I think it is myopic to believe mud wastes, leaks, and chemical spills won't occur in ANWR.

Furthermore, there is a reason why the residents of Alaska want drilling to occur: they get a check at the end of each year based on their proportionate share of Alaskan oil royalties attributable to the government. If drilling ANWR is allowed, they are almost guaranteed larger checks in the near future.

So then any homeowner in Houston who is, say, trying to sell their home has the right to petition for and seek the condemnation of another's allegedly structurally-unsound property under the theory that said property hampers the sale of their house? That's preposterous!

So, let me get this right....the developer of Jackson Place Condos is trying to get the property across the street from his project condemned because said property is allegedly structurally unsound??? Or, at least, said developer started the condemnation process and now the city of Houston is using said reason for condemnation proceedings?

If so, what business is it of the developer whether the property around his project is properly built? I don't remember voting for Scott Breitweister (sp?) (the developer) as city engineer in the last elections. And at what radius does he believe that any alleged poor construction impedes or disturbs the soundness of his new project? Will he go after Jackson Hill Apartments next (after all, I do have a bathroom door that sometimes "sticks")--or how about the new Perry development that went in down the street? Surely they have some structural issues..

Oh...as a side note, I too was a little concerned about said property owner's trash flying through my (er...the apartment's) windows during Rita, but I realized that if any damage occurred, I could sue the guy (or his landlord) under several theories to (probably) recoup any losses incurred. I find it intriguing that Breitweister wishes to be so proactive...but something tells me he isn't doing so out of the sheer charity in his heart.