2/23    Is it really so hard to make tense and singular/plural matches in
        English?  I'm not asking for perfect A+ book standard English, but how
        about getting the bare basics down?  This is the easier part of the
        language.  When in doubt, plural words get an extra "s" on the end.
        You'll be right 99% of the time.  Try it.  You'll like it.
                --Friends Of The "-s" Committee
        \_ Plural NOUNS get an extra "s" at the end.  Plural VERBS use an
           opposite system.  Also, typical style rules state that you
           shouldn't capitalize minor words such as "Of" or "The" in titles.
           \_ Not to mention the taboo against using caps for any
              non-abbreviation.
           \_ You're making it too complicated.  They just need to add an "s"
              when they're unsure and they'll do fine.  As for "typical" style
              rules, it's my damned committee, I can call it anything I want.
              \_ by your instructions, people will add an "s" when they're
                 unsure and get either the subject right and the verb wrong
                 or the subject wrong and the verb right.
                 \_ It's better than they're doing now.
        \_ whether it's hard depends on where you come from.  Some say
           Chinese is impossible to learn, but many grow up knowning only
           Chinese.  The more relevant question is what the variation of
           the tense adds to the language.  Why make the extract effort
           of saying "he runs" instead of "he run".
           \_ go learn Esperanto, loser
              \_ Don't be a pedant. The above comment is quite correct within
                 natural language. Furthermore, Esperanto isn't exactly trivial
                 in all regards, and becomes progressively less so as your
                 native language goes further from the Romance, Germanic, and
                 Slavic groups. Kaj se vi volas dauxrigi cxi diskuto
                 esperante, bonvolu cxu tio faru. Mi komprenos vin. -alexf
              \_ Esperanto: an artificial language created for the purpose of
                 making it equally hard for everyone to learn it.  A sort of
                 equal-opportunity for everyone to be equally ill educated and
                 unable to intelligently communicate with others.

2/23     How Can We Fix Our Public Schools? By Making Them Private
        http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/012/friedman.html
        \_ 'we had to destroy the village in order to save it'
        \_ By going back to the 3 R's and removing politics from the school
           system.
        \_ Critical flaw in this argument: He's claiming that private schools
           are somehow magically better than public schools.  I attended both
           public & private in 3 states in my K-12 years.  My private school
           education was simply "not as bad" as my public school education.
           My parents and their parents received a *vastly* superior education
           in public schools in their day.  Have you seen the credential test
           for CA teachers?  It's supposed to be a 10th grade level test and
           something like 30% fail it the first time. (sorry, no URL on that).
           Teaching has become the place for the bottom end of the previous
           generation of ill educated dim wits to go since they can't do
           anything else.  Break the teacher's unions, dump all the losers,
           raise standards so maybe someone teaching 11th and 12th grade needs
           to pass a college level exam, not a 10th grade exam, and then pay
           them a real salary but make them accountable so shitty teachers get
           dumped instead of settling down into the system, ruining a few
           dozen students every year until they pension out.
                \_ Not if the teachers unions have anything to say about it!