Monday, November 05, 2007

Pakistan

Can someone please explain in a nutshell what is going on with Pakistan? I thought they were supportive of the US. At least I thought the president of Pakistan was.

18 comments:

Jason said...

Pervez Musharaf is a moron. According to the Pakistani constitution, a member of the military cannot run for president until he or she has been out of uniform for at least 6 months (I think). Musharaf is the current Army chief in addition to being the president but has promised to step down as a member of the military and has supposedly set an election day. The current issue is that Musharaf is afraid that the Pakistani supreme court will not allow him to run in January's election because he is still Pakistan's military leader. As such, he has shut the country down and imposed military law. A dumb move on his part. He is now risking everything. He has had US and British support (among others) in the form of $$$ but with his current actions those dollars may be cut off. The Netherlands has already cut off aid.

I am really interested to see what our government is going to do. Are we going to stand by our guns and tell him that although he has been our ally in the war on terror, that his current actions are unacceptable or are we going to make excuses for him and allow his to keep our money while walking all over human rights?

chelsey said...

Hey thanks. I didn't know all that. All CNN does is confuse you half the time with all their speculations about what will happen if the terrorists get into Pakistan and assemble their nukes. I didn't ever know what the root of the problem was in the first place. Now I do. Thanks.

Mike and Adrianne said...

Mike doesn't like CNN. He says they are all liberal.

Jason said...

There is nothing inherently wrong with being liberal. Technically speaking, the United Order is as liberal as you can get. The problem with CNN and Fox News is that they both make rather lame attempts to be impartial. The only people being fooled are those whose family tree has no branches. I always thought that journalists were supposed to present news and let us make up our minds. I really don't like being told what to think. Fox News is as bad or worse than CNN.

Mike and Adrianne said...

Mike agrees with you. His main gripe is that they only tell one side and it is usually negative, especially about the war. He also dislikes the United Nations. Anyway, he listens to Laura Ingram, Paul Harvey, Michael Savage, and all those crazies. I doubt they tell both sides either. I hate Michael Savage, he is just mean.

Jason said...

Can you imagine the problems Ted Turner would have at home if he made CNN be impartial?

I am also not a big fan of the United Nations. They are a lot like an infant - a lot of noise but no teeth. The UN is very parasitic. We are always expected to give more but we get nothing in return.

Jess and Jen said...

Hey, I voted for Hillary Clinton yesterday! I'm waiting for the earth to catch fire today. Hasn't happened yet, despite the prophecies of the conservatives.

(Okay, I didn't really vote for her yesterday. They were local elections and she wasn't on my ballot. My voting took about 1 minute and I voted for three items: private school vouchers, new school district boundaries, and a city councilperson.)

Papa Doc said...

I voted against the vouchers. I truly believe that the public schools should be fixed. I also thought there were way too many loopholes in the law as the legislature wrote it. Besides that, I was ticked that the legislature tried to get it through without having us vote on it anyway. There are other larger issues that caused me to vote against it, but those are the quick ones. (For instance, if school districts spend about $7,000 per student, then why wouldn't the student leaving the public school to transfer to a private one get that same amount? If you are going to help them, then help them. Otherwise this is just a silly law that wouldn't really help low income people at all. And the idea that there would be smaller classrooms just isn't true. Provo School District has a policy in place that sets a certain teacher per pupil standard and it has to average 30 students per classroom. If more students move, teachers are fired. All school districts aren't the same way, but this would not make classrooms smaller -- they would be combined and shifted around. Can or should the legislature step in here and make sure their promise of smaller classrooms really happen? I don't think that's their place and I don't think they would do it. So that argument is pretty much a pie-in-the-sky idea that isn't how it works now.)
If the voucher issue was re-written and made more sense, I would have no hesitation in voting for something like that but not the way it was done or written now.
I also hate the idea of Utah to become the "elitist" society of the country since we are supposed to educate the poor as well.
I felt there was a lot to this issue and took it very seriously. Oh well. It didn't pass and now we have to figure out how to help Utah education work better.
(Hey, how about not giving tenure to poor teachers such as coaches that teach math because they have to teach something and how about paying teachers a really decent salary so we can attract more and better teachers? Just a couple of ideas.)
Mom

Mike and Adrianne said...

Mike and I have talked alot about schools. My thing is the teachers union. I dislike the idea that a bad teacher can't be fired because of the union they belong to. Therefore, my kids can get a terrible teacher and what say do I have to do with it. Of course, I can transfer my kid to a different class but anyway, there are a lot of other issues with it. There are scary things happening in schools. I can't believe some of the things kids are being taught. Mike told me about a school in Colorado that required all the Sophomores to attend an assembly and they assembly featured all the gays in the school. The stuff they said was awful. The kids were told they had to come and the parents were not invited to come. They asked all the kids to raise their hand if they didn't agree with a gay or lesbian lifestyle. Only one kid raised their hand. Can you imagine that kind of pressure on a high schooler? Anyway, it just goes to show that you have to be completely involved in your child's education! I don't like homeschooling but if it ever came to the point where my kids were being taught things like that, I would homeschool them in an instant. Aren't charter schools supposed to be schools where parents get a say in the curriculum? Maybe I'll have to find a charter school.

Jason said...

I think that we (as a society) confuse tolerance with acceptance. I know many gay men and women. I do not accept their lifestyle but they are still children of God and should be treated as such. Although their lifestyle sickens me, I have never met a gay person I didn't like. I think it is important to help our children learn to tolerate other people's choices while helping them to understand that sometimes those choices are not in keeping with the commandments of God. As James E. Talmage once wrote, "Tolerance is not acceptance." Iowa City is a pretty liberal place and as such we have also had some of these "alternative lifestyle" agendas advocated. Sometime I will have to tell you what happened at my boss's son's school.

To address some of Mom's points, I agree that our children's teachers need to more answerable to us, the taxpayers. Until issues such as tenure and competence are solved, I am completely against giving teachers significant raises. I realize I just painted a giant target on my chest and am probably going to offend someone (that is not my intention, by the way) but here is why I believe that. Why is it that someone with a B.A. who works 9 months of the year - albeit a very difficult 9 months - and gets 2-3 weeks off every December, deserve to be paid $40-50K? I know a lot of teachers who deserve that kind of salary (and a lot are making it - it is a matter of public record here in Iowa) but they shouldn't get that kind of salary just because they have been teaching for 10-15 years. I do believe that teacher's starting salary's need to be higher but all raises should be merit based. I guess part of my bias is personal. School teachers and university researchers are employed by the same entity (the state - unless you are at a private university). People in my job classification (research assistant I, II, or III) make between $25-60K. Most only have a B.S. but a growing number of us have Master's degrees or even Ph.D's - often in very technically demanding fields that literally change on a weekly basis. The bulk of the research and day to day issues in the lab are handled by research assistants. We don't get summers off, we don't have tenure, and we are very much subject to the ebb and flow of grant money. Next time you take a drug or get treated for a disease, you can bet there were a bunch of research assistants who helped to perfect the treatment. So why is it that teachers deserve so much more than research assistants? Perhaps it's apples and oranges. Now, having complained and whined until all of you have probably called your spouses over to point out what a jerk I am, let me also say that we have been very fortunate to have had some very good teachers for our children. People like that can't be paid enough but chances are that they are teaching in spite of their salary.

Jess and Jen said...

Maybe the pay should be raised for teachers AND research assistants. I agree that the raises should be merit based, but I also think that the starting salaries really should be higher.

Jen

Jess and Jen said...

...and I really hope that Abby gets into the charter school by our house next year. The chances are quite slim (hundreds of Kindergarteners apply for 50 spots), but I can always hope!

Mike and Adrianne said...

I just want to say that I agree and understand that our children should learn to tolerate gay and lesbians. I do not under any circumstances believe that my children need to be brainwashed at school that there is nothing wrong with being gay or a lesbian. It is wrong, totally wrong. I will always teach my children to treat people with respect regardless of their choices but I will not teach my children to "hang out" with those people. It isn't the school's responsibility to teach my children right from wrong--it is mine and I will take that responsibility seriously. But I will never let my child go to an assembly that is designed to brainwash them into believing they should accept that kind of behavior. Don't you think that if the parents aren't allowed to come, something is wrong? Seems a little fishy to me. I also know some people that are gay. They are very nice. That isn't hte point. I don't think you are saying that an assembly like that is fine, although maybe you are. I can't tell. I will say that I think parents need to teach that, not schools, and never behind my back.

Jason said...

Adrianne,

I agree with you completely, 100%. An assembly like that is totally out of line. And Jen, I also agree with you 100%. Starting salaries for teachers need to be higher. I had a good friend in ID who became a HS biology teacher and his starting salary was just over 18K. You can make that much working full time at McDonalds - almost. That was nearly 10 years ago however. The starting salary for teachers in ID is now $27,500. If you go to the NEA's website and look up teacher's salaries, you will see that the mean salary is in the low to mid 40K range (in CA it is 60K). Not a lot but certainly enough to live on.

Mike said...

I have a lot of friends that are teachers. They have all said that if you want to make more money as a teacher you have to start our with your BS and then after a few years get your Masters. If you get your Masters first, they won't hire you because they know they have to pay you more. But if you are already teaching for them, there isn't much they can do. Crazy. Jason, I thought you agreed but I also wasn't sure so I just thought I'd check.

Jess and Jen said...

How do you guys all claim to know so many gay people? The gayest person I know is me. And Dave. He likes to grab my butt a lot.

Jess

LanceandNance said...

Did you know that some gays believe that jesus was gay? Seriously, I taught one on my mission. Oh well, the blacks think he was black too. Once, my companion and I were teaching a lesbian the first lesson. My companion, Elder Priebe, didn't catch on that she was a lesbian and asked her about her husband right when her "partner" walked in. Man, that was funny. Seriously, we all laughed for a good minute together. Good sports. Anyway, gay people are silly.

chelsey said...

How did we manage to get from Pakistan to gay and lesbian issues? We're all funny. Oh that's right -- voting. We certainly like tangents...