I love stories like this XVIII

[Sigh!] More zero-tolerance in the schools. This story details the pending suspension/expulsion of a 13-year-old boy for tossing a rubber band on his science teacher's desk. The justification offered by the school? He could've shot her eye out!

"They said if he would have aimed it a little more and he would have gotten it closer to her face he would have hit her in the eye," mother Jenette Rojas said.

Rojas said she was shocked to learn that her son was being punished for a Level 4 offense -- the highest Level at the school. Other violations that also receive level 4 punishment include arson, assault and battery, bomb threats and explosives, according to the Code of Student Conduct.

The district said a Level 4 offense includes the use of any object or instrument used to make a threat or inflict harm, including a rubber band.

I love stories like this XVII

Can you imagine yourself in the place of Pfc Rob Jacobs in Korea during mail call? He gets the largest packet of letters from the States and wonders if somebody hasn't made a mistake. No, they're all addressed to him. His buddies kid him about all the girlfriends he's left hanging back home and now the chickens have come home to roost. Very funny.

Now he opens the first letter and reads, "I strongly feel this war is pointless." Who's writing this? Hmmm, the penmanship is like a kid's. It is a kid, a sixth-grader from some school in Brooklyn. What do these others say?

One letter says that because President Bush was re-elected, "only 50 or 100 [soldiers] will survive." Another decries that Jacobs is "being forced to kill innocent people." Still another says that soldiers are "destroying holy places like mosques." Mosques? There aren't any mosques in South Korea!

It was a class project headed by sixth grade teacher, Alex Kunhardt, at JHS 51 in Park Slope, New York. Pfc Jacobs hopes that the kids were coached by the teacher or by their parents. I predict that if the parents are ever interviewed about the letters their children wrote that they'll be proud as can be of the national attention.

Recent commentary: Tax Freedom Day

What special week or day of recognition would you declare?

(published 14-Feb-2005, Appleton Post-Crescent)

A very sad day for me: Tax Freedom Day. A day when I can hardly get out of bed. The day when the average American's federal and state tax obligations are fulfilled. I hate that day. My only consolation this year is that it comes a few days later: April 14th. 2004 was a terrible shock to my system. I had to give up sending money to the federal and state governments by April 11th, the earliest it's been since 1967! You'd think they could give extra money to starving artists in Greenwich Village or something. During the Clinton years Tax Freedom Day advanced from April 20th to May 2nd! A record! Then Bush got in somehow and immediately cut taxes. What good did that do? I feel like I'm letting the National Endowment for the Arts down. I say make Tax Freedom Day a national day of mourning.

Tax Freedom Day

Here's a superb graphic from the Tax Foundation showing the advance of Tax Freedom Day over the past few decades. Tax Freedom day is the day that the average American taxpayer stops working for the guvmint and starts working for himself. Check out what happens after 2000:

Tax Freedom Day, 1963 - 2004



Tax Freedom Day went from a record late date of May 2nd in 2000 all the way back to April 11th in 2004. Note that that's the earliest it's been since Lyndon Johnson's Presidency.

Wiio's Laws of Communications

A blast from the past. These "laws" come from a book called, "The Official Explanations," published in 1980.

1. Communication usually fails -- except by chance. Corollary: If you are satisfied that your communication is bound to succeed, then the communication is bound to fail.
2. If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just the way that does the most harm.
3. There is always somebody who knows better than you what you meant by your message.
4. The more communication there is, the more difficult it is for communication to succeed. Corollary: The more communication there is, the more difficult it is for communication to succeed. Corollary: The more communication there is, the more misunderstanding will occur.
5. In mass communication it is not important how things are; the important thing is how things seem to be.
6. The importance of a news item is inversely correlated with the square of the distance.

Compiled by Prof. Wiio, Director of the Institute for Communications Research, University of Helsinki.

My kind of guy!

Donald E. Simanek is a professor of physics at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania. He has a lively interest in pseudo-science, science frauds, flat-earth societies, etc. His web site has a wealth of material on debunking science hoaxes as well as a "Museum of Unworkable Devices." He gave a couple lectures in the mid 90s that I came across today. These lectures dealt with education; specifically its decline. His lectures are based on decades of observation of students in his physics courses at LHU. A sample:

I've even had students ask, with some indignation, "Why must we work so hard in a physics course to get a measly C when we can get A's in non-science courses without ever studying?" I respond, "Why should there be any course on campus you can get an A in without studying?"

I once taught a course where one student scored nearly 100% on every one of my exams, while no one else could score above 50%. Several students got up courage to confront me and complain that I was making the course "too hard for anyone." I pointed out that it was obviously not too hard for the student doing nearly perfect work. They responded, "That's not fair--he studies all the time!" They were not at all happy when I suggested they try copying his method for success.

Well worth your reading.

Fabulous VDH piece

From National Review Online: this rip-roaring column by military historian Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute of Stanford. There are so many good bits from this column. Here's a choice one (emphasis mine):

Communism and Marxism are dead. Stalin and Mao killed over 80 million and did not make omelets despite the broken eggs. Castro and North Korea are not classless utopias but thugocracies run by megalomaniac dictators who the world prays will die any minute. The global Left knows that the Cold War is over and was lost by the Left, and that Eastern Europeans and Central Americans probably cherish the memory of a Ronald Reagan far more than that of a Francois Mitterrand or Willy Brandt.

Do yourself a favor and read this column.

I love stories like this XVI

It appears that high school students think that the First Amendment is too lenient:

when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

And here's the absolute killer (emphasis mine):

The study suggests that students embrace First Amendment freedoms if they are taught about them and given a chance to practice them, but schools don't make the matter a priority.

Prof who stepped in it steps aside

It's interesting to see how quickly things happen these days. University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill wrote an essay immediately after 9-11 in which he said that the people that hijacked those jets and flew them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were "combat teams." Yesterday, as a result of the furor raised by the essay -- as well as a number of "credible death threats" -- Churchill resigned his position as chairman of the school's ethnic studies program.

The most interesting thing to me in all of this is that Churchill claimed that the 9-11 attacks were in direct retaliation for the actions of the U.S. in Iraq in the early 90s; specifically the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq and the killing of Iraqi children in a 1991 bombing raid.

So, 9/11 and Iraq ARE connected

At least according to this story about the chairman of the University of Colorado Ethnic Studies Dept., Ward Churchill. From the article:

Churchill's essay argues that the Sept. 11 attacks were in retaliation for the Iraqi children killed in a 1991 U.S. bombing raid and by economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations following the Persian Gulf War.

Harry Browne on Social Security

Financial advisor Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party's candidate for President in 1996 and 2000, has a flair for the "Goverment breaks your leg, gives you a crutch, and then tells you you're better off because of them" argument:

Final fix for Social Security

By Harry Browne
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23948

The president's Social Security Commission has acknowledged what politicians have been denying for decades - that Social Security has no true reserve fund and that much higher taxes will be required to make good on the promises made to you.

The politicians don't put your Social Security taxes into a "lock box" for your retirement. They give part of the money to current retirees and squander the rest on their favorite boondoggles. Since they've set nothing aside for your rainy day, they can pay you a pension only by taxing your children and grandchildren at higher and higher rates.

"Solving" the Social Security problem wouldn't be as difficult as the politicians and pundits make it seem. But to understand the solution, we must first deal with a few clichés.

Investing for retirement Cliché No. 1: "Some people can't invest properly for their own retirement."

This is typical of politicians' justifying their interference by citing a problem they caused themselves. If they didn't tax interest payments, and if their monetary policies didn't create inflation, anyone could ensure a secure retirement simply by putting 5 percent of his earnings in a bank savings account. No speculation or investing expertise is necessary.

Cliché No. 2: "Some people are too irresponsible to plan ahead for their own retirement."

Of course, some people wouldn't provide for their own retirement - just as some of them won't brush their teeth. But it's wrong to hold the rest of us hostage - to force us into a fraudulent Social Security scheme (or force us to display our teeth for government hygiene inspectors) - simply because some people won't take responsibility for their own lives.

Cliché No. 3: "Social Security would be more solvent if the politicians could increase the system's earnings by
investing the reserves in the stock market."

Social Security brings a new dimension to such concepts as annuities, insurance and retirement. No long, complicated contracts. No actuarial tables to pore over. Social Security operates on a very simple principle: The politicians take your money from you and squander it. Allowing the politicians to boost Social Security's earnings by investing its reserves in the stock market would just give them more money to squander - and they'd still be back soon enough to increase your taxes again.

Cliché No. 4: "Gradually 'privatizing' Social Security will wean people off the system."

The first time the stock market dives, the politicians (both Democratic and Republican) will jump on that as an excuse to take away from you any further control over your own retirement.

The problem and solution Social Security is inherently unsound because it's a political program - run by politicians for political purposes. It will never work. And no attempts to fix it, reform it, or refinance it can make a silk purse out of a politician's ear.

Only a purely libertarian solution can make things right: Shut Social Security down - completely, immediately and for good. End the Social Security tax tomorrow morning and stop making Social Security payments tomorrow evening. Anyone under 50 can have a better retirement putting 10 percent of his income in the bank instead of 15 percent into Social Security.

And what happens to those who are currently dependent on Social Security and those too close to retirement to build a new nest egg?

Have the government make a one-time purchase of private annuities - secure, non-political annuities that guarantee the same income Social Security is paying now to senior citizens.

How will the annuities be paid for?

Sell off assets the federal government shouldn't own anyway - power companies, pipelines, unused military bases, Western lands, oil rights, mineral rights, and the hundreds of thousands of federal buildings that serve no constitutional purpose.

This approach doesn't appeal to politicians, because it takes tax money and power away from them. But the only alternative to it is to resign yourself to having more and more of your income taken from you and poured down the drain.

Three questions

Before we go supporting legislation to reduce human-caused global warming, it would be well if we were all aware of the answers to the following questions:

1. What gas is responsible for approximately 95% of the "greenhouse effect" on planet Earth?

2. Is the United States a net A) Emitter, or B) Absorber of carbon dioxide?

3. Is the global climate now A) Warmer, or B) Cooler than it was approximately 1,000 to 1,100 years ago?

These questions come from a letter on Jerry Pournelles' web site. Here's the complete text.

Here are the answers from the letter:

1. Water vapor is responsible for about 95% of the Earth's greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide is less than 2% of the total effect, with methane taking up most of the balance, and other gasses responsible for the remainder. But all we EVER hear about is CO2.

2. The U.S., with it's vast forests (more now than in pre-Columbian times) and farmlands is a net ABSORBER of CO2...as opposed to Europe and Japan, which are net emitters.

3. Let's see...they were raising crops of oats in Greenland, and the Icelandic/Viking explorers were calling what is now the chilly area of Newfoundland "Vinland" because of the grapes which grew there. It's an era referred to as the "Medieval Climate Optimum" in old climate textbooks, and was followed by the spread of Black Plague (the fleas of the rats taking advantage of the warmer climate to spread to northern Europe). That period was followed by what used to be referred to as the "Little Ice Age", in which England saw snow in areas never before seen, and the River Thames froze quite solidly on a regular basis. That period ended in the early/middle 1700's, and we've been in a warming trend ever since.

We need to see more like this

The London Times Online published this story today. An excerpt:

One thing not in doubt is that the elections will go ahead and that there will be a result sometime next month. “I think that despite everything, many Iraqis will vote on Sunday,” Fadel Alfatlwi, the head of the Iraqi Institute for Peace and an independent candidate, said. “With the occupation and all the horrible things that have happened, people dream that they will be wealthy and happy. That dream starts with the election.”

We're pulling for them.

You can't make this stuff up!

Man pees his way out of an avalanche after drinking 60 bottles of beer. Oh, man!

It's hard to beat Fred

Fred Reed has a nice rant on education. An excerpt:

How is it possible to spend twelve years in school and not be able to read? How? It is beyond me. A sheet of dry wall would be reading in less time.

How indeed?

Oh, gawd! VI

They're still going. Jesse Jackson and the Democrat supporters of the idea that Bush really lost in Ohio are pushing ahead with charges of vote suppression, intimidation, and fraud. The Dec. 30th MSNBC interview with Jackson is very mild compared to the unbelievable frothing at the mouth on the DemocraticUnderground.com web log.

And, of course, there's more on the book front. Former New Jersey governor, Christine Todd Whitman, has a new book called "It's My Party, Too," in which she

details her many scars and frustrations in dealing with what she calls the "antiregulatory lobbyists and extreme antigovernment ideologues" that she suggests hold too much sway over the Republican party.

according to the Drudge Report.

I love stories like this XV

From ZeroIntelligence.net comes this story of terrorism in our government-funded public schools. A school suspension administered to a 10-year-old girl, Kelli Ilyankoff, for drawing silly pictures. The ultimate giggle from this story is this paragraph:

The [zero tolerance] policy defines terrorism as "a threat to commit violence communicated with the intent to terrorize another". In order to arrive at their conclusion that Kelli terrorized her friend you would have to define laughing together as communicating an intent to terrorize.

Kyoto won't work

I'm sorry that I missed this the first time around:

Despite the fact that green groups at the U.N. climate summit in Buenos Aires called President George Bush "immoral" and "illegitimate" for not supporting the Kyoto Protocol, the groups themselves concede the Protocol will only have "symbolic" effect on climate because they believe it is too weak. Kyoto is an international treaty that seeks to limit greenhouse gases of the developed countries by 2012.

So even though the Senate has to ratify any treaties (and it rejected Kyoto by something like 95-5) it's all right for these enivironmental ministers to insult the President on their way to admitting that the Kyoto Protocols will have no effect, a "symbolic" effect.

Heinlein said that there are only two kinds of people in the world: "those that want people to be controlled and those that have no such desire." The well-fed ministers at these global environment meetings are the first sort...and rude to boot.

I love stories like this XIV

Walter Williams often has some very trenchant things to say about education. This time he's produced two columns (1 and 2) on the state of college education. My favorite part of his second column comes from a reader:

An English professor wrote, "One of the items that I assigned was a two-page essay that described a favorite vacation or holiday. One student turned in two pictures drawn with crayon depicting the beach. When I gave her a failing grade, she was indignant and said that she put a great deal of work into the pictures. When I told her that she did not do the assignment and that she was supposed to write an essay, she said, ‘But I don't know what an essay is!'"

Half of all college students now take Bonehead English and Bonehead Math. You have to wonder about the value attached to college degrees if so many students have to make up so much ground lost in high school. Williams says:

Colleges should not admit students requiring remedial education. That's not to say youngsters shouldn't receive remedial education, but let them get it elsewhere -- maybe at the high school that awarded them a fraudulent diploma.

Why Rumsfeld should NOT go

Victor Davis Hanson posted a fine piece on National Review on-line last week. It's another reminder that the modern media mavens have a perspective about as broad as a sidewalk and as deep as a puddle:

A thousand brave Americans gave their lives in combat to ensure that the most wicked nation in the Middle East might soon be the best, and the odds are that those remarkable dead, not the columnists in New York, will be proven right — no thanks to post-facto harping from thousands of American academics and insiders in chorus with that continent of appeasement Europe.

Please give it a read.