More Evidence The Press Corps Is Poop

Said in jest: You haven’t looked in the mirror lately?
.
These seem like more substantive questions.

Longer school days make so much sense. The current half-day hours are a relic from when we were an agricultural society, and kids were required to help out on the farm in the afternoons. Now, it leaves kids and parents in the lurch, often scrambling for child care after school, and creating an expensive conundrum for working parents.
.
Schools should be a place that is open all day, a safe haven for kids to hang out until their parents can pick them up. It might even encourage kids to study more if resources are available to them for extended hours.

How about school 12 months a year, too?

I do think that school should be (almost) all-year round, if that were possible with teachers. As a society, imagine how workers’ productivity would rise substantially if child care were not an issue. Or how juvenile crime would go down if kids weren’t left unattended on an extended basis.
.
It would take an extraordinary commitment to education reform though.

Don’t know if anyone is following, but the Fed’s FOMC just cut target rates to the lowest in my lifetime, fed funds between 0 and .25, discount rate to .5. That is astonishing in and of itself, but they are also throwing all their ammunition at the problem. All I can say is, Wow.

Full text of Fed statement: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWh.Nn9dXE_A&refer=home

from the mouth of babes…

Best question from a kid:
.

KID: When will you hold a press conference and answer every single question the press and pundits have about your connections to Rod Blagojevich, even though the federal prosecutor in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, has asked you not to release your report, and, thus, probably not comment as well, until December 22? What are you hiding? Why won’t you clear the air? And even though I gave the explanation why you will not hold such a press conference (the request of the investigating federal attorney with an ongoing investigation), I insist on asking you this question on why you have so far refused to clear the air because I am only a third grader and don’t know any better. So the second part of my question is, what is the excuse of the so-called “adults” among the press and the pundit class that can’t make the logical connection between the prosecutor’s request and your own comments?
.
OBMAMA: Thank you for your questions… What’s your name, again?
.
KID: Timmy.
.
OBAMA: Thanks for your questions, Timmy and you about summed it up. I don’t know why these folks insist I do something that I’ve been asked not to do and then take my refusal as a sign that I’m hiding something. Clearly, these folks are not as smart as you and your third grade classmates.

atrios = Timmy” As Jamo notes, Obama has two choices: 1) honor Fitzgerald’s request and delay the release of his internal investigation, and 2) fail to honor Fitzgerald’s request and potentially undermine parts of his corruption investigation. Obviously #2 would be the more suspicious course of action and would rightly raise the eyebrows of reporters. But fortunately our reporters know the rules of the new game, so #1 is a problem too!

I Obama just going to leave the poop left by the previous administration just lying around? We need a Truth Commission.

The kids sound far more intelligent than the gasbags. After the briefing MSNBC had a gasbags convention. Chuck Todd seems to come off better than most. He appears to understand that Mr Fitzgerald’s request makes sense. But the others like Mark Whittaker seem to always find a but..It is amusing (and somewhat pathetic) to see these men and women looking for some traction to keep the Blago story moving.

Was there a little Roddy B. offering to toss him a softball question in exchange for an XBox 360 and no questions asked about the broken window?

Attaboy. Play off the massive and manifest failures of what you still call a profession with mock self deprecatory humor. Makes it easier to allow things to continue on their present, disastrous arc. Easy being the key word here.

Ha ha! Asking questions of politicians. So retro. They’re the ones who will inherit the national debt and the global warming, so the joke’s on them.
-
Standard disclaimer: Not that I’m bitter.

re interest rate cuts, are we entering the stage that Japan went through, where real interest rates are zero but the economy continues to shrink?

The press crops is poop? Wow Scherer, you’re in a reflective mood this afternoon.
-
Those kids probably had better question then all the BS the media was asking him at the presser. Have the idiots learned NOTHING from the debates? They’re were all ready to annoint McCain King of All Debates, then they got poll numbers, and *GASP* the American People don’t care about who attacked who the most and who got in the most witty lines!?!?!?!? WHAAAAAATTTTTTTT?????????
-
I guess not.

Art: Yes. ‘Real’ interest rates are currently negative. The overwhelming Fed action today is an effort to fight off the deflationary trajectory that Japan went through in the early 90s.

So things could get (even more) exciting. Though I don’t pretend to understand economics, unlike many people in Congress.

Any chance we could get some kids to ask why George Bush authorized torture as American policy?