Marc Comtois

Some Pension Crisis Solutions

By Marc Comtois | March 30, 2011 |

Local 2882 President Cathy Paquette: The answer to the pension problem … is, if you hire more state workers …You would get more people paying into the pension system, and you won’t have any unfunded liability. Yeah, I get it. More workers now to pay for current retirees. Then we just keep hiring more, every…

Chafee Proposes Beach Fee Raise, Explains How to Circumvent It

By Marc Comtois | March 29, 2011 |

Only in the Chafeedom….First, Governor Chafee proposed doubling the fees for accessing state beaches. Under the plan, season passes would double, from $30 to $60 for residents and $60 to $120 for non-residents. Weekend daily parking would increase from $7 to $15 for residents and from $14 to $25 for non-residents. A legislative panel reviewed…

Breaking the Mold

By Marc Comtois | March 29, 2011 |

Just to make you think (h/t): Now, it’s a gross simplification, to be sure. I’d add a column labeled “Reading”, for instance, and how much of the “classes” and “homework” laid the groundwork necessary for “perl”. But the point being made is this: the basics of education are necessary, but it is often what kids…

Cicilline Goes National

By Marc Comtois | March 29, 2011 |

Thanks to left-leaning Politico, Congressman Cicilline is getting some national pub for his Providence past. The lede: So much for the honeymoon period. Less than three months into his first term, Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) has nose-dived in the polls and is under fire back home in Providence, the embattled city where he served as…

Foreign Policy Reset

By Marc Comtois | March 28, 2011 |

In light of the Libya situation, Victor Davis Hanson concisely sums up the truth behind the past decade of anti-Iraq War stances made by liberals and the Democratic Party. Libya is now an exegesis of the Iraq War. By now we know that the Bush-Cheney “shredding” of the Constitution (e.g., tribunals, wiretaps, intercepts, renditions, preventative…

Gist, Education Consultants & Skeptical Radio Anchors

By Marc Comtois | March 25, 2011 |

This morning, I listened as the new WPRO Morning News team of Tara Granahan and Andrew Gobeil went after Education Commissioner Deborah Gist for her proposal to hire up to 50 retired educators (teachers, principals, etc.) as 90 day consultants to help implement the programs funded via Race to the Top. Earlier, Granahan and Gobeil–apparently…

NPR: No Such Thing as Unbiased

By Marc Comtois | March 24, 2011 |

The thing about bias is that 1) we’re all biased; 2) we often have a hard time identifying when those of similar bias are being biased; 3) we can identify bias, but probably overstate it because of our own bias! Thus, when NPR’s Steve Inskeep defends the unbiasness of NPR, well, my own bias leads…

Paglia on Liz Taylor: The Power of a Woman

By Marc Comtois | March 24, 2011 |

Camille Paglia, who admits to being obsessed with Elizabeth Taylor, puts the just-deceased actress in cultural perspective: To me, Elizabeth Taylor’s importance as an actress was that she represented a kind of womanliness that is now completely impossible to find on the U.S. or U.K. screen. It was rooted in hormonal reality — the vitality…

Hess: One Size Doesn’t Fit All with Teacher Evaluations

By Marc Comtois | March 24, 2011 |

Rick Hess offers some thoughts on teacher evaluations and the polarization that occurs whenever the topic is discussed: [O]ur teacher evaluation and pay debates are fought between two bizarre poles. One camp insists that teachers, for some reason that escapes me, can’t possibly be evaluated fairly. Any tough-minded effort to gauge teacher performance or reward…

Obama’s Own Middle-East War

By Marc Comtois | March 22, 2011 |

It’s so obvious that we haven’t even commented on it, really. Glen Reynolds calls attention to this by Niall Ferguson: The president has been more Hamlet than Macbeth since the beginning of the revolutionary crisis that has swept the desert lands of North Africa and the Middle East. To act or not to act? That…