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Episode-2019- Listener Calls for 6-8-17 — 8 Comments

  1. If your kids are in public school, as a parent you should teach your kids to check their work, check their teachers grades and question things they mark wrong which aren’t. In the process, some of the teachers may move out of drone stage.

    In your opinion, what is going on in this photo?
    Mom, I don’t know the answer.
    What does opinion mean, give your opinion, what do you think?
    She writes down her opinion, teacher marks it wrong.
    I go with her to talk to her teacher.
    Why is this marked wrong?
    Because that was not the answer we were looking for.
    So you mean you are telling my 2nd grader what her opinion should be?!!!!
    Silence…….

    Teacher apologizes and changes the grade.
    I’ve never had a parent/child question the answer in our answer key before. Parents don’t check/discuss homework with their kids any more, no one has ever brought that to my attention before.

    Parents have to take an active role in teaching their kids, even if not home schooling.

    One of my favorite high school teachers encouraged us to question his grading, and if we could come up with a good reason why our answer could be right too he gave us credit.

  2. Brave Bat etc
    Have to love it
    What an entrepreneur goes out and creates after social justice warriors drive him out of managing a company he co-founded because he donated $1000 to a cause they did not approve.

  3. I just watched ‘the castle’ again, an Australian classic – if you haven’t watched it, indeed it is a feelgood heartwarming movie about one man taking on the government- so worth watching!! This doesn’t really tie in with anything – maybe the call in regarding the gov being like a landowner!!

  4. On the “elm” question. The description agrees with Siberian Elm, Ulmus pumila; the majority of the American Elms died off owing to Dutch Elm Disease. A landscaping book cited online says, basically, there’s no excuse for planting this tree (!). However, it was imported into Europe for supporting grape vines; would have to be cut back heavily but it’s a thought if it fits your plan. Basically, you’d be making living posts. Check out the grapevine pruning style called “Umbrella”.

    Old time advice, still valid, is to cut down such aggressive woody plants in late summer, when the tree’s or shrub’s reserves are lowest. You have to keep doing this but eventually the tree will give up.

    This might be a good tree for “tree hay.” If there are livestock people nearby, you might have some fodder with which to barter. Hay has been hard to get and high in price in the Northeast; I don’t know about Kansas. Agree with Jack: don’t get livestock to deal with this until you have infrastructure in place, and “a fence will hold goats if it holds water.”

    A friendly note: there are a lot of resources on line to identify plants and one can get farther in a query if one has an exact species name. “Elm” is a common name and means different things to different people.

  5. What’s scary is that these same types of people are writing the state required examinations for for licensing in regulated industries. You can’t just answer the questions correctly, you have to look at every question from the standpoint of the idiot test writers. Otherwise there is a good chance you will not pass the test. The last time I did one of these tests, I answered easily 10% of the questions incorrectly as they were written and ended up with a score of 98%. I told them what they wanted to hear.

    It seems that the ability to tell people what what they want to hear is becoming more important than giving your most accurate information and telling the truth as you see it. Maybe this is why I find this podcast is so refreshing. Even in the very rare cases where some of the information given is not entirely correct, at least you can be assured that it was given with integrity and that Jack’s opinions can change with new information. I really find that attribute to be as, if not more important, and more lacking in the general population, than the ability to think abstractly.

  6. Ground hogs are delicious in a stew, better than pork. Just make sure to remove the glands. The best bait I’ve used is fresh green beans.

  7. RE Pine cordwood house: There are a ton of pine commercial plantations that need thinned, but due to the decreased use of a paper, pulp log prices are way down. As such, it costs the landowner money to thin the smaller trees. If you found someone in your area with commercial pine and offered to thin it for free, they would likely jump on it. A good chance you could even charge them. Way easier and quicker than growing them.

    Otherwise, Jack’s comments about alternatives are great. I think TN also allows native (ungraded) dimensional lumber cut on your land in code compliant structures. (PORTABLE SAWMILLS ROCK!) Just don’t take my word, do your own research on details if interested. If code is not a concern, it gets simpler of course. ๐Ÿ˜‰

  8. Annnnnnnd the child was smarter than the (I’m sure) accountability board that reviewed and approved the test for purchase and distribution….. the blind leading the blind leading the blind and all thinking that more funding will solve the problem… ๐Ÿ˜‰