So United Teachers L.A. didn't sign off...

on a grant proposal and a $40 million grant slips through the fingers of LAUSD.  Did they do the right thing?  The union says the district would have had to spend more money than the grant would have brought in.  But if one believes news reports, the real reason is that teachers don't want standardized test scores to be used in any evaluative process concerning their effectiveness or performance in the classroom.  That's part of on-going negotiations that might have been impacted by this grant.

It's not fair to use standardized testing to evaluate teachers in classrooms where they have no control over the quality of the students they are teaching, or any influence over the instruction those students received in prior years.  But there needs to be some kind of performance measurement for teachers.  Lawyers are evaluated by other lawyers.  Accountants are evaluated by other accountants.  Plumbers are evaluated by other plumbers.  Every other profession and in fact, every other job I'm aware of has some kind of performance evaluation system.  I understand the argument of teachers against using standardized testing for performance evaluation.  I don't understand their intransigence in fighting any kind of performance evaluation system whatsoever.

Soapbox dismounted.  Got a 9.785 from the German judge for my dismount.  Woo-hoo!

So Tom Cruise isn't going to press charges against his neighbor for climbing onto his property while the neighbor was allegedly drunk.  I'm wondering if the neighbor and Tom are close, if Tom just doesn't want the publicity from this to increase, or maybe the neighbor has some incriminating info about Tom that he keeps secret.  I know, I know, I think the worst of people.  Blame it on my negative opinion of Scientology.  Ever since I read "Nickel and Dime-a-netics"....er "Dianetics", I've felt that it was a cult.  My observation was confirmed by the account of one member of  the graduating class of Pali High 1965, some of whom had their first ten years post-high school chronicled in a great book "What Really Happened to the Class of 65".  Jamie, one of those grads, went into Scientology and actually got into the Sea Org.

I'm pondering why TV news people talk about power outages as though the people whose power is out can still hear them and will get information about when their power will return.

Rory McIlroy beat Tiger Woods in an exhibition match in China.  So how is it that McIlroy got only $1 million for the event while Woods got $2 million?  Appearance fees were paid, no fee for who actually won.  Guess even in the wake of all his scandals, Tiger is still the bigger draw.

Deep sea fishing is supposed to be fun.  That's why most people do it, right?  But for one guy it was very lucrative.  He landed a 465 lb marlin that garnered him a prize of more than $2 million.  And he's not even famous like Tiger Woods.  He was the lucky one to catch his big fish (two people caught bigger fish but at the wrong moment) while some tournament was in session.

Most dangerous job in college sports at the moment is being the quarterback for the Maryland Terrapins.  They've lost four quarterbacks to injuries, three of whom suffered ACL tears.  Their new quarterback is a freshman linebacker.  They'd better protect him, they have only one option left, if he goes down.

What does your bank charge you for an overdraft?  Depending on the fee and the amount of the bounced check, that fee may represent a 5,000% annual interest rate or worse.  Fortunately, I suspect most of you never bounce a check.  However, banking fees are moving in the direction of ridiculous.  I'm sure you've seen the new commercials.  Take a photo of a check and deposit it without visiting an ATM or a live teller.  That saves money for the bank.  Yet some banks are starting to charge a fee for every check you deposit in such fashion.  That's some serious greed.  Charging you for something that saves them money.

Do you remember that series of bumper stickers?  The ones I was just reminded of by bankers.  One said "Bankers Do it With Interest - Substantial Penalty for early withdrawal".  "Pilots do it with lift and thrust."  "Athletes do it longer"  and so on.