Fifteen-year-olds in the U.S. ranked 25th among peers from 34 countries on a math test and scored in the middle in science and reading, while China’s Shanghai topped the charts, raising concern that the U.S. isn’t prepared to succeed in the global economy.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, which represents 34 countries, today released the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment. For the first time, the test broke out the performance of China’s Shanghai region, which topped every country in all academic categories. The U.S. government considers the test one of the most comprehensive measures of international achievement.

The results show that U.S. students must improve to compete in a global economy, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said yesterday in a telephone interview. President Barack Obama’s administration is promoting national curriculum standards and a revamping of teacher pay that stresses performance rather than credentials and seniority.

via U.S. Teens Lag as China Soars on International Test – Bloomberg.

Get that last part?

Unlike in the private sector, where employees are compensated based on how well they do their jobs and let go if they don’t produce successful results, American teachers are instead paid based on how many degrees they have and how many years they’ve survived on the job–regardless of how well they teach students or.

Thank you, teacher’s unions!

“Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a . . . banana?”

Weight loss heavyweights, Weight Watchers, on Sunday unveiled a new point system that has changed the way hundreds of thousands of American dieters think about fruits and vegetables.

The new plan, company officials say, is based on scientific findings about how the body processes different foods. The biggest change: All fruits and most vegetables are point-free (or free of PointsPlus, as the new program is called). Processed foods, meanwhile, generally have higher point values, which roughly translates to: should be eaten less.

“If I lived in the Caribbean, maybe I’d be able to make goal,” said Susan J. Slotkis, 64, an interior designer at the Park Avenue South meeting on Wednesday.

I’m fascinated by this.

I mean, I get the projected behavior change that the suits are shooting for. By charging points for ‘healthy’ fruits and vegetables, you’re disincentivizing their consumption. Healthy bodies should consume healthy foods, not discard it in favor of a sugary substitute that happens to have the same amount of artificially established ‘points’.

“You could be holding an apple in one hand, which was two points, and you could be holding a 100-calorie snack pack of Oreos in the other hand, which was also two points,” David Kirchhoff, the president and chief executive of Weight Watchers International, said in a telephone interview.

Now, all of that has been upended. The new system allots points based on a complex formula that considers each item’s mix of protein, fiber, carbohydrates and fat. Making it more confusing, most people are now given more total allowed points — a kind of new math that requires recalculation of what had been ingrained.

I get it.

What I don’t get, I guess, the subtler point of just what the hell was going on in the first place that fruit and vegetables had become such nutritional outlaws. Last week an apple was bad . . . but now I can eat as many as I want? I can gorge myself on apples? I can pack apples into my pockets and sew them into the lining of my overcoat to eat at the movies because they’re suddenly worry-free? Last week an extra ounce of then added weight, but this week . . . not so much?

Alas, the devil is in the details, and the fruit liberation actually comes at the cost of an overall lower total point allowance per week.

Still.

One’s got to wonder about the role Big Fruit played in all this.

No, not really. I just wanted to say “Big Fruit” out loud.

Go ahead, try it.

The murderous cult leader was one of thousands of California inmates busted with a cell phone last year, which he used to call unidentified people in California, New Jersey, Florida and British Columbia, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“It’s troubling that he had a cellphone since he’s a person who got other people to murder on his behalf,” said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections.

via “Cell” Phone: Charles Manson Busted with a Mobile | NBC Los Angeles.

It’s actually troubling that he had a cellphone…since he’s in PRISON and cellphones are forbidden regardless of what you did to get there.

But yeah, hurry up and put the government in charge of our health care please. Just can’t do that quickly enough, right?

Idiots.

I’m normally against such gratuitous displays of holiday spirit, but thought it appropriate to make an exception this one time.

And for the more adventurous among you, here’s the interactive version.

Don’t ever say I never gave you anything.

NEW YORK — Negotiations between the Yankees and Derek Jeter are at a standstill until Jeter and his agent, Casey Close, “drink the reality potion,” according to a source close to the negotiations.

According to the source, a baseball industry executive who has knowledge of both sides’ position, the Yankees are not budging from the three-year, $45 million offer they made to Jeter earlier this month, nor has Jeter moved off his demand for a longer contract believed to be in the area of $23-$25 million per season.

No talks took place over the holiday weekend and none are currently scheduled. Neither Yankees general manager Brian Cashman nor Close immediately returned messages seeking comment early Monday.

I remain fascinated by the proceedings because it feeds an ancient yearning to see Yankee fans implode in spluttering disbelief at Captain Smirk wearing another team’s uniform next year.

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama has announced a two-year pay freeze for federal employees, saying the step is necessary to help bring the federal deficit under control.

The freeze would apply to all civilian federal employees but would exclude military personnel.

Obama says the sacrifices of limiting government spending must be shared by government workers.

The White House says the freeze would save $5 billion over two years. By delaying wage increases, the freeze would save $28 billion over the next five years, the White House says.

via Citing deficit, Obama freezing federal worker pay.

You know what also would have helped bring the federal deficit under control?

Punting Obamacare.

Punting the Stimulus.

Punting the bailouts.

Strangely, when the anticipated spending was most damaging to the federal deficit, Obama was blithely unconcerned. Only when the spending is so small as to be statistically meaningless does he trot out the moralizing.

Tell you what, Chief. Save your moralizing.

We’re all too busy choking on your cheeseburger to give a hot damn.

As you gather around the table with your family this Thanksgiving, ask yourself this question: are you better off today than you were four years ago? Unfortunately, most Americans are not.

[snip]

If you watch the economic statistics from week to week and month to month, it will seem like sometimes they are getting worse and sometimes they are getting better. However, once you take a longer-term view of things, exactly what is happening to us starts to come clearly into focus. The truth is that the United States is in the midst of a long-term economic collapse, and many economic statistics just keep getting worse every single year.

via 11 Statistics That Reveal Just How Far The U.S. Economy Has Fallen Over The Past Four Years.

What happened in November of 2006 that put us on such a downward economic spiral?

Let’s see.

Damn, I hate hard questions.

Wait a minute, I’ve got it!

The Democrats did win majorities that year in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate and have controlled the passage (and defeats) of all US legislation since then. Do you think that might have had anything to do with it?

Naa. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Ten stewardesses with troubled Mexicana airlines, which filed for bankruptcy in August and suspended operations, launched a sultry aviation-themed calendar Thursday in a bid to call attention to their own plight and that of their airline—one of the world’s oldest.

The 2011 calendar features glossy shots of the flight attendants, clad only in bikinis and aviation shades or abbreviated uniforms, draped over propellers and striking racy poses in the cockpit.

What else could their job description have been at Mexicana except “sexy Mexican girl” anyway, right? This new venture just cuts out the middle man.

I think more people should do this. At least more sexy, unemployed, Mexican stewardesses should.

Happy Black Friday.

“I’m wearing my bikini,” Corinne Theile said as she unbuttoned her overcoat outside the terminal to reveal a black two-piece. “It’s not that I’m concerned, it’s that I feel like the TSA is making travelers feel uncomfortable, and I feel like we can have security measures that don’t make people feel uncomfortable.

Have Bikini, Will Travel | NBC Los Angeles.

Let’s hope it’s the start of a beautiful trend.

Go Corinne!

Whistling past the graveyard here, folks. Whistling past the graveyard.