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Paul Brandon

Paul Brandon's picture
Mankato, MN
Commenter for
5 years 18 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 08/19/10 at 08:45 pm in response to Horner will announce a full budget plan Monday

Tim--
I believe that Dayton has stated that by 'fair share' he means the same proportion of gross income paid in tax as paid by those whose incomes are less than $150,000.
Currently those over that amount actually pay a smaller proportion than those under.

Posted on 08/18/10 at 12:06 pm in response to Latest gubernatorial debate: Facts fly, but they need to be checked

ACT scores are not a measure of a State's educational system.
On the coasts, the top students are more likely to take the SAT than the ACT (colleges there prefer it).
There are other differences, such as socio/economic variables that also bias the score in favor of homogeneous populations such as Minnesota.

And no one has said that Minnesota's educational system has been destroyed -- just that cuts in courses available and increases in class sizes will catch up with us...

Posted on 08/17/10 at 03:18 pm in response to Sean Hannity interviews Pawlenty on Manhattan Islamic center

The PRACTICE of law is about winning -- ours is an 'adversarial' system where the winning side is assumed to be right.

So, lawyers don't like people (professors) telling them what the laws really mean, as opposed to what they've gotten away with.

Posted on 08/17/10 at 03:21 pm in response to Remember IRV?

Mark--
The difference between IRV and a runoff is:

1. Expense.

2. The turnout is usually lower in a runoff election when the election in question is not the one on the top of the ticket -- say in a Presidential election year.

Posted on 08/17/10 at 01:50 pm in response to Remember IRV?

Actually, IRV works against the interests of third parties.
Under the current system, the Independent party determines who is elected governor.
Under the IRV ('Hare') system, the votes from the party getting the least votes for an office are redistributed according to their second choices, then the next lowest party is redistributed, until a candidate receives a majority.
The main virtue is that it elects a candidate who is at least acceptable to a majority of voters,...

Posted on 08/18/10 at 07:52 pm in response to The first tentherist debate: George Washington weighs in

Final mercenary post--
Obama has just announced that the troops in Iraq will be replaced by 'contractors' -- read 'mercenaries'.

Posted on 08/17/10 at 11:01 pm in response to The first tentherist debate: George Washington weighs in

Final point on Hessians--
George III belonged to the House of Hesse (his native language was German) and the 'Hessian' troops were supplied by his various German allies (leaders of various principalities, since Germany as a nation didn't exist yet).
Rather than true mercenaries (fighting for the money) they were mostly conscripts, debtors, etc.
While several thousand (maybe a quarter of the total) ended up settling in American, it seems unlikely that any of them fought on...

Posted on 08/17/10 at 09:39 pm in response to The first tentherist debate: George Washington weighs in

Looks like a lot of my Wikipedia quotes didn't get posted.
Short form -- the French (both private and government) invested enough money and resources in the American Revolution to financially stress their economy.
By the end of the war, there were as many French troops (and they were better trained and equipped) than American.
While it was an overstatement to say that the French funded the revolution in the sense that they were the major source of funds, they did make a...

Posted on 08/17/10 at 08:27 pm in response to The first tentherist debate: George Washington weighs in

And there were some mercenaries on the American side; both Indians and European soldiers of fortune, but unlike the British Hessians, they did not make up the bulk of American troops (that's a more recent innovation).

Posted on 08/17/10 at 08:29 pm in response to The first tentherist debate: George Washington weighs in

And final quote:
"As for the Revolutionary military officers, in 1777 John Adams complained to his wife Abigail that they were “Scrambling for Rank and Pay like Apes for Nuts.”