Hot, Flat, Crowded - you betcha!

Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times columnist, has published the next steps after his acclaimed best=seller, The World is Flat. It's Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America.

HOT=global climate change
FLAT=global middle class growth
CROWDED=global population growth (1Billion more born in next 12 years)

Forget the warm and fuzzy term "global warming", we're experiencing "Global Wierding". Weather is getting wierder: hotter hots, longer droughts, heavier rains and snows, bigger and more destructive storms.

And, the next Chapter of Hot, Flat and Crowded will be written by us. Mr. Friedman's self-proclaimed Version 2.0 will include ideas and proposals sent in from readers: ideas about clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation; about politics and nation-building.

Have an idea? Post them on his website.

In the words of Sheikh Yamani, former OPEC oil minister, "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones." It ended because we found something better.

Four-Day School Weeks, you've GOT to be kidding, right?

A recent article in TIME magazine has me more than a little verklempt! It seems that rising gas prices, poor infrastructure and lack of funding is prompting some school systems across the U.S. to resort to a 4-day school week.

Ok, what part of this actually makes sense? Save $$-Ruin a Life?

In math and science achievement, our kids' test scores already rate behind (and in descending order): Korea, China, Japan, Russia, Netherlands, Canada, England, Australia, and students in all of these countries go to school more days than our kids in the U.S., on average three weeks longer! Students in China and Korea go to school for 220 days per year; that's 20+% more than our average national requirement of 180 days. And, with shorter breaks, teachers in these countries don't spend an inordinate amount of time reviewing materials to bring kids back "up to speed".

If anything, U.S. students should be attending school MORE days per year AND year-round to avoid empty, under-utilized school buildings, working families with daycare problems and dumb/dumber kids. Ideas like 4-day school weeks has got to make home-schooling look better and better to parents who really want their kids to do well in life.