The Rain in Spain, falls mainly on Teachers

The number of Spanish students K thru 12 is 6.2 million.  Up from 6.02 million last year.  The number of teachers is way down, to 525,078.  Oh woe.  That's only one teacher to each 11.84 students. Over work. 
Of course when I was in elementary school in the good old USA, we had 28 students per teacher.  I can remember parents rejoicing that 28 students in a grade was so much better than 32. 
   Spain is running a bad budget deficit, and no one will loan them money and it's all the fault of the Euro crisis, of German refusal to bail them out, or something, anything. Laying off half those teachers is just not to be talked about.  A 50% layoff would bring the student teacher ratio  up to (gasp) 24.   

DNC

So I watched it last night, on C-Span so as to see the speakers rather than network talking heads.  The dems put on a vast array of speakers,  most of them people I never heard of.  They all spoke with great enthusiasm.  Lot of talk about things in the past, some talk about things I didn't quite believe, such as Obama is responsible for the GI bill.  Some women talked long and passionately about the need for free birth control.  Some called for tax hikes. 
  Last speaker at ten o'clock was Michelle Obama.  She spoke well and at length about her husband's marvelous qualities and sterling work ethic. 
   Little talk about jobs, the economy, tax reform, oil exploration, Keystone XL, or the Federal debt.
   Somehow the atmosphere at the DNC wasn't as lively as it was last week at the RNC.
  

Whither Fannie and Freddie?

Fannie and Freddie are US government "deals" intended to make mortgage money more plentiful, to make house sales easier to do.  (No mortgage, no sale)  Real estate agents, builders, appliance makers, interior decorators, contractors, banks, mortgage insurers, and lawyers all approve of more cheap and easy mortgage money.  
  Trouble is, Fannie and Freddie caused Great Depression 2.0, then went bust, and are still being bailed out by US taxpayers to the tune of $142 billion.  That's worse than AIG or the GM/Chrysler bailout.  After doing all that damage, they ought to be closed down for good before they do anymore damage.
   For four years the Obama administration has done nothing.  They cannot make up their minds.  They have offered three  ideas for consideration.
1.  Government backs off from mortgage lending to merely guaranteeing mortgages via FHA. The Obama folks worry about mortgage rates rising and big banks driving local banks out of the business.
   This ain't all bad.  It would be better if the government got out of the mortgage guarantee business too.  Home mortgages are very sound and profitable deals, (safe as houses).  They don't need a government guarantee.
2. Government creates a "backstop mechanism" to pump out mortgage money during bad times. How this would work is not specified.
   Pretty vague, and they would declare bad times all the time, so the money pump would be on all the time.
3. The government could offer a guarantee on mortgage backed securities.
  This is an awful idea.  Mortgage backed securities are a scam on investors, because investors have no way of knowing if the mortgages doing the backing are any good or not.  Great Depression 2.0 broke when investors wised up and stopped buying mortgage backed securities.

Newsies love conventions

How else can you explain all the coverage of the DNC in North Carolina before the convention even starts?  They are inside the convention hall, giving us video of empty seats, stage hands putting up giant TV screens, but no politicians.  The thing hasn't started yet, but the newsies are so eager to do convention coverage that they are interviewing empty chairs.
   Surely, something more interesting is happening somewhere in the world.

Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS)

As opposed to a development program for a new weapons system.  Development programs take forever, cost like crazy, and deliver late.  Pentagon cost savers are claiming that COTS procurement will save money.
   So the Navy, needing a replacement for the P3 Orion antisubmarine planes  (The Orions have been flying since the 1960's), purchased Boeing 737s.  Not a bad idea, the 737 has been flying for years and years.  If you flew on a single aisle airliner, it was probably a 737.  Southwest loves the 737 and flies nothing else. Good well proven plane.  Just take out the seats and put in the antisubmarice electronics.  Hang some torpedoes under the wings.  Piece of cake.
  But then the Navy has flown a few test flights.  Just a few.  3000 hours worth of test flying.  That's 125 DAYS , 24 hour days, in the air.  At $10,000 an hour. 
  When Boeing builds a commercial 737, they give it one, just one test flight, and turn it over to the customer.  Who proceeds to fly passengers in it. 
   The Navy, buying the same plane,  does 3000 hours of test flying.   Time for a little sequestration here.
 

Zombie Attack ads

Not quite sure what has stimulated them, but we have them, all over TV.  There is that one where the hand grenade drops into the roll basket and the who ever he is flees the explosion and winds up chased by Zombies.  That one was for Time Warner Cable. 
  Then we have the Jackie Cilley ad (Jackie is running for governor in the democratic primary).  Evil Zombies push in thru her window.  The Zombies represent "The Pledge" which Jackie is refusing to take.  The ad was good enough to get mentioned this morning on WMUR's "Closeup" pundit show.

Do Conventions still matter?

Well, not like they did back in the New Stone Age.  Back before primary elections, the conventions actually chose the party candidates.  That doesn't happen anymore, the primaries do that now.  But we still do conventions.  Pollster Scott Rasmussen thinks conventions are passe. 
  I differ.  The conventions are now pep rally and TV event.  But lotta people watch them.  I watched the RNC, two nights out of three.  Mostly to see with my own eyes how well (or poorly) various speakers do. 
   I am not alone.  I went to an Ovide Lamontagne event on Friday. Everybody attending had watched the RNC.  Granted the people there were all Republicans and all politically active, but still, the Romney people had them watching, and attitudes had been effected.  Not too shabby for a media event.