Exxon oil spill on Yellowstone River disrupts ranches, farms

[AZGrizFan]

That's good old Silvertip Basin oil, saturated in H2S, and stinky as hell. What a mess, and too bad it had to be piped across all those badlands just to spill out right under the Yellowstone River.

Damn, the price of progress..

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Drill

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baby,

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drill!

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Youbetcha!

[kalm]

I'd wish them well and be happy to see them start paying their own way instead of sucking off the Federal tit.

They'd be fine. First of all, they probably would be much more willing to cut social programs, etc., than the United States with those Blue states would be. Secondly, they'd have the overwhelming preponderance of the mineral wealth and agricultural capacity of the current United States. And they'd be free to exploit it without the drag inflicted by those Blue states.

Assuming that the new Confederacy would control the territorial seas adjacent to them as well as lands, they'd get all the revenue generated by mineral exploration and production fees and taxes such as those generated by offshore oil exploration. And they'd facilitate a lot more of it.

It'd be interesting to go back and see how many Democratic Presidential candidates won the majority of the electoral votes in that Red zone since the start of the 19th Century. Without looking I'd say it could be zero. Don't know about FDR. What a far different and better place it would be!

All the smart people in the Red would immigrate to the blue except the sociopaths who, on the wings of objectivism, would ascend to represent the oligarchy - at least those who weren't already there to begin with. Low income equality, bad environment, poor educational system - in other words those states would become even more like Mexico.
The Blue states would be more like Canada.

[Grizalltheway]

They'd be fine. First of all, they probably would be much more willing to cut social programs, etc., than the United States with those Blue states would be. Secondly, they'd have the overwhelming preponderance of the mineral wealth and agricultural capacity of the current United States. And they'd be free to exploit it without the drag inflicted by those Blue states.

Assuming that the new Confederacy would control the territorial seas adjacent to them as well as lands, they'd get all the revenue generated by mineral exploration and production fees and taxes such as those generated by offshore oil exploration. And they'd facilitate a lot more of it.

It'd be interesting to go back and see how many Democratic Presidential candidates won the majority of the electoral votes in that Red zone since the start of the 19th Century. Without looking I'd say it could be zero. Don't know about FDR. What a far different and better place it would be!

All the smart people in the Red would immigrate to the blue except the sociopaths who, on the wings of objectivism, would ascend to represent the oligarchy - at least those who weren't already there to begin with. Low income equality, bad environment, poor educational system - in other words those states would become even more like Mexico.
The Blue states would be more like Canada.

[JohnStOnge]

All the smart people in the Red would immigrate to the blue except the sociopaths who, on the wings of objectivism, would ascend to represent the oligarchy - at least those who weren't already there to begin with. Low income equality, bad environment, poor educational system - in other words those states would become even more like Mexico.

Nah. We'd get the smart people who aren't hung up on radical environmentalism. We'd get the people smart enough to realize that we could do things like exploit the ANWAR oil resources without having the sky fall or anything.

[Ibanez]

I don't know why you people are bitching about an oil spill. Isn't oil natural? This is not an issue. DRILL!!!!!!!!!

[Grizalltheway]

All the smart people in the Red would immigrate to the blue except the sociopaths who, on the wings of objectivism, would ascend to represent the oligarchy - at least those who weren't already there to begin with. Low income equality, bad environment, poor educational system - in other words those states would become even more like Mexico.

Nah. We'd get the smart people who aren't hung up on radical environmentalism. We'd get the people smart enough to realize that we could do things like exploit the ANWAR oil resources without having the sky fall or anything.

Yeah, the South's fabulous school system really leads me to believe that.

[JohnStOnge]

Yeah, the South's fabulous school system really leads me to believe that.

The South's school systems probably aren't as bad as you think they are. I think that most judgements on school systems are based on raw standardized test scores with no adjustment for demographics. I've got to run now but after I'm done I'll show you that when you compare apples to apples in terms of demographics Texas students, for example, score as well on standardized tests as Massachussetts students do. And when you adjust for demographics Louisiana's school system is about average nationally rather than near the bottom.

I guess I should say "as of last time I checked National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores." But if it changed I'd be shocked. Anyway, most of the variation in standardized test scores between jurisdictions can be accounted for by demographics. Who the students are in terms of socioeconomic status, race, and parental education level is way more important than which school system or it is. If you had Massachussetts educational system, for example, dealing with Mississippi's student population Massachussetts standardized test scores would be near the bottom.

I've typed about that before on message boards but maybe I'll do it again.

[JohnStOnge]

Ok I said I’d do this and here it is. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) employs “scientific sampling” of students to take various standardized tests. You can go to the NAEP data explorer at http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (click on “NDE Main”) and break things down by demographics.

For this post I looked at the 2009 8th Grade Math test. Massachusetts students averaged 299 while Texas students averaged 287. The difference is “statistically significant.” However, the idea that the overall average suggests that Massachusetts has a better educational system is an illusion that disappears when demographics are taken into account.

I’ll just take three major factors into account to the extent that I can. They are race, socioeconomic status, and parental education level. Race is self-explanatory. Socioeconomic status is addressed through looking at whether or not students are eligible for the school lunch program (poor vs. not poor). Parental education level reported by NAEP ranges from parents who did not finish high school to parents who graduated college. It is the highest level achieved by at least one parent.

So here is how Massachusetts and Texas compare when you compare apples and apples by breaking it down according to those factors into race/socioeconomic status/parental education groups (for groups such that sample sizes were large enough for NAEP to report averages):

Poor Hispanic children of parents who didn’t finish high school: Massachusetts 261, Texas 272
Poor Black children of high school graduates: Massachusetts 260, Texas 263
Poor Hispanic children of high school graduates: Massachusetts 270, Texas 274
Poor Black children of parents with some education after high school: Massachusetts 272, Texas 275
Poor Hispanic children of parents with some education after high school: Massachusetts 269, Texas 284
Poor White children of college graduates: Massachusetts 297, Texas 293
Poor Black children of college graduates: Massachusetts 280, Texas 271
Poor Hispanic children of college graduates: Massachusetts 267, Texas 279
Not poor White children of high school graduates: Massachusetts 292, Texas 295
Not poor White children of parents with some education after high school: Massachusetts 295, Texas 300
Not poor White children of college graduates: Massachusetts 315, Texas 311
Not poor Asian or Pacific Islander children of college graduates: Massachusetts 334, Texas 325

Texas students in eight of the 12 groups for which comparisons are available had the higher sample averages. There was only one “statistically significant” difference between States when things were compared group by group as indicated. That one, in bold above, had poor Hispanic children of parents with some education after college in Texas scoring higher than those in Massachusetts.

I might add that this is just scratching the surface in terms of adjusting for demographics. I picked some major factors but there are many other factors. Plus the precision of what I can do is limited by the way NAEP categorizes things. For instance: Categorizing students as being eligible for the school lunch program or not does not fully capture differences in socioeconomic status. Billionaires go into the same group as middle class people. Parental education doesn’t fully capture that factor either. Children with two parents holding doctorates go into the same category as children who have one parent holding a bachelors degree and the other parent without a college degree. So on and so forth.

The fact that one can eliminate the difference between Texas and Massachusetts with such a crude, preliminary demographic adjustment demonstrates how fallacious the idea of judging educational systems without taking student demographics into account is.

But it is done ALL the time. My belief is that it’s done because of “political correctness.” I think there is an aversion to being perceived as “blaming” the students when school systems don’t perform well in terms of test results. But if demographics are taken into account and standardized test scores are used as the measure, the perception of those red States in gerneral and the South in particular as having inferior educational systems is seen as substantially exaggerated and perhaps downright false.