Stan Geiger

Stop SQ 744

I have to believe SQ 744 is DOA, but you just never know. So I reckon it's time for all good men and women to stand up and start ripping this thing. I have put up a link to the right. You might think about hitting it from time to time.

If you are not aware of the educators' latest attempt to screw this state silly for their own benefit, you will be made aware in the coming 90 days. You will be asked to vote, up or down, on an educator proposal that would mandate an $850 million bump in state funding for common education. That bump, by the way, would just be for starters. There would be more to come for years and years and years.

There was a poll done at the first of the year, January, I think. It showed 61 percent in favor. I put no stock in that poll at all. Aside from the fact that polls don't have a very good record of predicting the future of late, those poll results are old. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since January.

I don't know of a single prominent politician that has not condemned this measure. Our two candidates for governor have condemned this measure. Our sitting governor, Brad Henry, Mr. Education himself, has condemned this measure.

Even the Oklahoma Policy Institute---a liberal stink tank---has condemned the measure. It condemns the measure from a liberal standpoint, of course. The institute complains of no funding mechanism. The institute logically figures if common ed gets another $850 million, funding for its other socialist darlings will get gutted.

The institute is quite right.

Educators claim their constitutional amendment would not result in gutting of funding for other things. Educators claim their constitutional amendment would not result in a tax increase. They seem to think a billion dollars can magically fall out of a tree.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on this topic. For now, I'll just tell you that if you have more than 3 living brain cells, you'll decide to vote no on this issue long before election day.

Askins' Problem

Jari Askins, Democrat for governor, has a major problem. A poll is out showing her trailing Republican Mary Fallin 57 percent to 36 percent. Trailing in the polls doesn't put Askins in unfamiliar territory. One late poll prior to the primary showed her trailing Drew Edmonson by 49 percent to 33 percent. She won a narrow victory, nonetheless.

In the pre-primary poll, 18 percent of voters declared themselves undecided. That's a pretty big tater hangin' out there. And it appears that tater, almost in total, went to Akins.

I put forth a possible reason for the undecideds going to Askins in a previous piece. Edmonson pledged to work for more money for schoolteachers. Askins didn't.

Meanwhile, in the current poll, Askins is behind by 21 percentage points. But only 5 percent declare themselves undecided. Askins, in the general election, won't be able to win by garnering undecided voters at the last minute. She will have to convince people that have already decided to vote for Fallin to switch sides. That is a much greater challenge.

Bell, Califonia II

CBS News did a follow-up on the Bell, California story. I loved every second of the video of citizens cussing the City Council up one side and down the other. The sons/daughters-of-bitches earned every little bit of it.

CBS reported the top dog in the mix, the city manager, will get a pension of $880,000 a year---for starters. That's a hundred grand more than he was getting paid while he was "working." The CBS report said, if the fellow in question lives to be 80, he will draw $30 million in pension pay.

I have been arguing for an end to public pensions for some time. My imagination couldn't devise a better case than the real world has just provided.

The Edmonson Analysis

Let's do a brief, and more serious, analysis relative to the outcome of the governor's race.

Attorney General Drew Edmonson lost to Jari Askins in the Democratic primary. The pollsters had Edmonson with a strong lead right up until Election Day. Now they are all scratching their heads, trying to figure out how they got it so wrong. Allow me to help.

I wrote a while back about the recent Tulsa mayor's race. A Democrat, Tom Adelson, a state senator, well-financed, managed to get less than a third of the votes cast in the general election. He was a pro-education-spending candidate. In a public appearance, Adelson advocated housing subsidies for schoolteachers.

Drew Edmonson was the only candidate for governor that ran TV ads promising to work for higher pay for schoolteachers. He was endorsed by our local socialist rag---the Tulsa World. The World has been a card-carrying member of the political-educational complex for years and years. Nonetheless, Edmonson went from strong front-runner to loser just that quick. He now says he will exit politics. I applaud his decision.

Politicians everywhere should be paying attention. People are sick and tired of hearing about the "downtrodden" public educator. Hitching a political wagon to the education lobby worked for a long time, but it doesn't work anymore.

An Historic Battle

The stage in the governor's race is set. It's the wannabe MILF versus the fat chick. Is this a race for governor of a state or a race for student council president? Dude.

The media is touting this as an historic moment for Oklahoma. Two women are matched in the governor's race, and that naturally means we will have a female governor for the first time. I would dispute that claim, however.

We've had a female governor for the last several years. His name is Brad Henry. We elected a woman as governor way back in the '70s. His name is David Boren.

Don't get your panties too awfully wadded up, folks. A man's gotta have a little fun from time to time.

A Little Relief in Sight

Ahhhh, it's primary day; some relief from political ads is in sight. There is no panacea at hand, mind you. November is still 3 months away. But at least the field will narrow after today.

You might have noticed I have a bit of a problem with campaign ads on TV. They don't tell anybody anything.

Hey, I'm a "conservative," vote for me! In Oklahoma, that's a very popular message in TV ads. The NRA thinks I'm cool, vote for me! That's another popular message in Oklahoma ads. I have a wife and kids, vote for me! Every dude running seems to think having a wife and kids constitutes a qualification for high office. Women, on the other hand, don't seem to think having a husband and kids rates even a mention. That's interesting.

A lot of folks shoot lip about getting money out of politics. Hell, that will never happen. It won't happen as long as we have whores running for office, at least. But if you really want to try to get money out of politics, banning TV ads would be a good start. A person can't be considered a "viable" candidate these days unless that person is putting his or her face on TV every 5 minutes. Politicians run ads like they're trying to sell Big Macs. Paying for TV time is the biggest eater of campaign money.

Without question, the biggest winners in a campaign cycle are TV stations.

At any rate, I'd say Mary Fallin has the best shot at becoming our next governor. I hope she can learn to pronounce the word "government" between now and November. Some folks might be a little confused when her ads refer to an "overreaching federal gurment."

Bell, California

Let's all pause for a moment to give a big round of applause for the citizens of Bell, California.

I don't know if you've heard, so I'll briefly draft the story for you. Bell had a city manager. He was getting paid nearly $800,000 a year. The manager had an assistant. She was getting paid nearly $400,000 a year. Bell had a police chief. He was getting paid nearly half a million dollars a year. According to CBS, they have all resigned. They have resigned because the citizenry found out about their ridiculous salaries and stormed City Hall with pitchforks and torches in hand.

The city manager apparently took the job initially for a salary of $72,000 a year. That's not too wild and crazy pay for a job in the LA area. But he also apparently had a contract that called for automatic pay increases of 12 percent per year. That is wild and crazy---for anywhere.

I hear there is a movement at hand to kill the mayor's job in Tulsa and replace it with a city manager's job. I'd say that would be a bad move.

The Bell police chief was overseeing a police force of 33 officers. Bell barely had a police force. Nonetheless, the chief was getting paid nearly half a million bucks a year.

There is much caution in this tale. What is the greatest threat to the continuing existence of this nation? Well, I'd have to say gubment employees.

A CBS anchor, reporting on the resignations of the trio of thieves this morning, noted they will all be drawing huge public pensions until they die. That was an excellent point to make. And that point makes for an excellent reason to do away with public pensions, period.

No word on the fate of the part-time city councilors, that are reportedly paying themselves $100,000 per year.

We have a sitting councilor, Jack Henderson, that recently wanted to triple the pay of Tulsa's part-time councilors to over $50,000 per year. I've heard it said that one can take a Tulsa salary and double it in order to live at the same level in a California metro area. Henderson, then, was arguing for a $100,000 salary in California dollars.

Henderson was shouted down. We recently ran off a police chief and replaced him with one that gets paid 60 grand a year less. Those are positive things. But Tulsa isn't in the clear completely.

Terry Simonson, assistant to the mayor, is reportedly making $150,000 per year. That's about 50 grand more than his boss makes. And, in California terms, that's about $300,000 per year.

Does that sound a bit silly to you?

Oklahoman, 39, Dies Due to Educator Greed

News reports say an Oklahoma man, a former cop working for a private security company giving firearms training to Afghans, was shot to death by one of his students. He was 39 years old.

Private security companies operating in war zones pay very well. They have to pay well, or they would have no employees. The fellow in question, according to reports, quit his cop job and signed on with the private security firm for the money. You see, he had three kids and wanted them to go to college. Now he's dead and his three children have no father.

I guess it's not enough for families to go bankrupt because they have to take on mortgages to pay for college degrees. Now people are actually dying so educators can line their pockets.

Enjoy your blood money, fuck-heads. (Pardon my French.)

School Super Ads

I've seen ads from a couple of candidates for state school superintendent. They are NBP ads. NBP stands for nuttin' but platitudes.

Both of them speak of routing more education money directly into classrooms. I don't really know what that means.

Excluding the students, there are two components to a classroom: a teacher and the various tools.

Are the candidates for school super calling for more teacher pay without actually saying it? If so, I'm in complete disagreement with them.

A punk that just graduated from a university with a teaching degree can take a job as a classroom teacher and be paid more than the state average wage from the get. That new teacher will also get free health insurance, courtesy of the state. And that teacher will become a part of the Oklahoma Teachers' Retirement System, which offers a very generous defined-benefit pension plan. Meanwhile, that teacher will have a 6-hour workday and be required to show up for work only half the days in a calendar year.

Teachers are more than amply compensated for what they do.

Are the candidates claiming a need for more educational tools in the classroom? Every time I see a news story on education, complete with video of kidlets playing with Crayons, I see a classroom so full of stuff you couldn't get anything else in it without the aid of a shoehorn. The only thing in the classrooms that seems to be in short supply is students.

If the candidates are saying too much money is being spent outside the classroom, I'm in complete agreement. But that money should be pruned from the system and given back to taxpayers. There is no need for it anywhere else.

I saw a report just the other day that mentioned the results from a recent study of 30 industrialized nations. U.S. students ranked 21st in science and 25th in math. We spend more money on education than any nation on the planet, yet we rank in the bottom third in science and math.

Statistics say anywhere from a fourth to a third of students entering a public high school won't be around come graduation day.

For three decades, we have given educators everything they said they needed. We have hired more teachers to reduce class sizes, we have hired more non-teachers, we have increased pay for everybody in education, we have built fancier facilities with fancier equipment. What we have to show for that massive public investment is something just short of spit.

Still, the educators sing the same tired song. They just don't have enough money.

There is a thing in economics known as the law of diminishing returns. Basically, that law says you can gain by throwing money at a problem up to a point. After that, you're just wasting money. I think we hit the point of diminishing returns a long time ago when it comes to funding education.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was Einstein that defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Have we, as a nation, gone insane?

Askins Ads

I give Jari Askins, Democrat for governor, some credit relative to her ads. She has avoided kissing up to the education lobby. For a Democrat, in particular, to do so is admirable.

Her current ads seem to focus on ethics in government. That is admirable as well. However, Askins has been in government for years. She is currently lieutenant governor. Corruption in government is certainly nothing new. Why the great concern, all of the sudden?

My biggest bitch with an Askins ad has to do with one I haven't seen in a while. I'm left to wonder if she pulled it.

The ad in question was clearly aimed at garnering female votes. It claimed women in Oklahoma make 76 cents on the dollar relative to men. The ad claims that is illegal, and Askins pledges to fight that evil if elected governor.

I don't dispute the number. I'm sure, if Askins is making the claim, there is a statistic out there, somewhere, that says women in Oklahoma make less than men. That isn't necessarily illegal, however. It is perfectly legal for different jobs to pay different salaries. Therein lies the rub.

Give me two schoolteachers, a man and a woman. They have the same number of years on the job, they have the same level of education and they work for the same district. Do they not draw the same pay? I think they do.

You could make that same argument for, say, cops.

How about legislators? Do women state senators make 76 percent of what male senators get paid? No. They get paid the same.

Let's go private sector. Does a female store manager at Quik Trip make 76 percent of what a male counterpart gets paid, all influencing factors being equal? Again, the answer is no.

Women, on the whole, might make 76 percent of what men get paid in the state. The perfectly rational explanation for that lies in the fact that men, on the whole, occupy tougher jobs than women. Ergo, it is perfectly fine that women, on the whole, get paid less.