The Left Has Mastered Hypocrisy

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In Vermont They Can Still Criticize Having Boys Compete In Girls' Sports

First, the good news:

In October of last year, a school in Randolph, Vermont, became the center of controversy when some female athletes objected to sharing their locker room with a biological male.

The female students were banned from their own locker room, and the father of one of the students was suspended from his coaching job at the middle school for defending his daughter.

The school has now been forced to settle with the Allen family.

Now, the bad news:

That settlement requires that the Vermont School Boards Insurance Trust pay $125,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees and costs to Travis Allen and Jessica Allen, on behalf of their daughter, Blake Allen, and their attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom.

That's right, the people who screwed up pay no penalty at all, and while the victims have to pay their own bills or hope a legal team will work for them pro bono, those in the wrong have all the resources of the public purse at their disposal.

In other words, they use other people's money to act illegally, and do so with impunity.

Global Warming

Warming is happening.  I don't believe man (man-made emissions) is the cause, though:

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There's also this:

Organic Waste Recycling

About a year ago I wrote this post about mandatory organic waste recycling, at the end of which I asked the question, "Does any of this produce environmentally meaningful results, or is this just a way to generate more money for governments and certain businesses?  I'd really like to know."

I think I now have an answer:

California’s ambitious and expensive plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from landfills may itself be headed for the trash heap.

A state oversight panel is recommending that California pause implementation of Senate Bill 1383, which requires cities and counties to offer organic waste recycling , because it is riddled with problems and falling short of its goals, according to a draft report provided to KTLA.

The law set benchmarks for reducing the amount of organic waste sent to landfills by 50% by 2020 and 75% by 2025, using 2014 as a baseline.

Instead, only about half of local governments are participating in the program and the amount of organic waste in landfills has actually increased in recent years, the Little Hoover Commission said in the draft...

Among the many hurdles to SB 1383’s success are cost and infrastructure, the report says.

For example, a $100 million anaerobic digester in Perris, California, took six years to permit and construct. The demands placed on rural communities, which produce very little organic waste compared to heavily populated areas, were not considered, commissioners said. 

Kabuki theater.

The Math Teacher In Me Cries Out In Pain

Here's one from the "it helps to know a little math" department.

Background:  in my school district, teachers are on either a 10-month or an 11-month pay cycle; for example, I get 11 paychecks per year with July being the only month in which I don't receive one.  I'm sure there are myriad other employees who do not work every month of the year and hence don't receive a paycheck every month of the year.

Some employees would prefer to have the district hold back a little money each month and then receive 12 paychecks a year, hence the impetus behind the email we received yesterday:

(District) employees who work less than 12 months now have the option of signing up for the summer savings program opportunity. If you choose to participate, 1/11 (~0.9%) of your monthly net paycheck would be deducted (starting in August), and you’d then receive a paycheck for the following July of all prior summer savings withholdings.

That email went to thousands of employees.

The School Nurse

One of our teachers was riding his bike to work on the bike trail yesterday, when an off-leash dog crashed into his tire and knocked the bike out from under him.  His elbow, hip, and calf took beatings.

He needed to clean up these fairly gnarly-looking cuts and scrapes, so he went to the school nurse (who's only on campus a couple days a week).  She's not allowed to perform medicine--what's she there for?--so she didn't even have alcohol to clean him up.

He then asked the teachers in rooms near his first aid supplies they had.  One even got a first aid kit out of her car but it didn't have anything he needed beyond a large bandage.  I overheard the conversation and was sure I had iodine in mine, but when we got to my classroom and opened up my first aid kit the only things of value for him were bandages and some antiseptic cream.

Joking about that in the staff lounge today, one of our chemistry teachers overheard.  The biker should have gone to the chemistry teacher, as he said that he has plenty of alcohol, iodine, etc.

At our school, if you get scraped up, I guess you have to go to the chemistry teacher--because no one else can help you.

Do Shareholders Have Grounds To Sue?

You've no doubt heard about the recent problems Anheuser Busch, Target, Kohl's, and the LA Dodgers are having because of some biased and unpopular marketing decisions made recently.  Given the severe drops in value of the first 3 of those, I wondered today if the shareholders have grounds to sue the Boards of Directors for financial malfeasance.  Wouldn't life be a lot easier if this were the way things worked?

Imagine a beer company that just wanted to make good beer and sell it to you. Imagine if that company wanted to sell beer to everyone but didn’t feel that its job was to make you more accepting of transgender individuals, any more than it felt its job was to warn you about the national debt or teach you the value of standardized testing in public schools or warn you about North Korea’s intercontinental-missile program. Imagine a beer company that liked its existing customer base and didn’t feel a need to reeducate those customers and get them to give up their “fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor.”

Imagine an everything store like Target that wanted everyone to shop there, but that had the good sense to realize that partnering with a brand that had “Satanist-inspired merchandise” was not the way to win over shoppers in a country that is still roughly two-thirds Christian. (Also note that almost every faith has a devil figure, so there’s no reason to think non-Christian religious customers are big fans of Satanic branding, either.) You want to put rainbows and “PRIDE” on your merchandise, go right ahead. It’s a free country. But if you partner up with a “Satan Respects Pronouns”* designer, don’t be shocked when lots of people choose to shop elsewhere.

Imagine a sports team that declared everyone was welcome but didn’t formally and publicly roll out the welcome mat for the quasi-pornographic Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. (Is the promotion worth it if you’re alienating your team’s star pitcher?) Last year, the Los Angeles Dodgers led Major League Baseball in attendance; with the exception of 2020, the Dodgers have led MLB in attendance for the past nine seasons. Marketing the Dodgers in Los Angeles is like marketing water in the desert. The Dodgers don’t need to reach out to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence fanbase; they’re choosing to reach out, because someone in the organization likes that message. The irony is that a significant chunk of the attending fans, as well as the players, are Christian.

Hey, does any gay-rights group want to dress up as Muslim imams? Nah? Okay. We know the score. It’s safe to pick on Catholics, because Catholics are going to turn the other cheek and ignore you or offer mild protest. Dress up in drag to mock Muslims and there’s a good chance you’ll get firebombed. We saw this with the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, we saw this with the Muhammad cartoons, we saw this with Charlie Hebdo magazine over in France, and we see it now. What those who enjoy mocking Christianity ought to fear is the day that certain Christians look at the Muslims and realize intimidation, threats, and violence are an effective way to make their faith un-mockable. American society is perfectly okay with threats of violence in response to blasphemous speech, but we only tolerate it for certain faiths. There are good reasons to doubt that double standard is sustainable.

As Michael Jordan probably didn't really say but the quote still gets attributed to him, "Even Republicans buy shoes."  Just sell your product and make money.

Now I Understand The Appeal

I've seen lots of articles about "Such and such a study proves conservatives are horrible people" or whatever nutjob belief the study or article's author wants to spread about conservatives, as if we're all something besides mostly correct.  So imagine my surprise when I read about a study showing lefties are horrible people...not that you need a study for that, of course, just look at the results of their policies.  But I digress:

A new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Psychology reports that liberals are as nutty as a porta potty on the last day of a peanut convention...

Leftists aren’t frothing from the mouth crazy, but when you put it all together, leftists are self-absorbed liars who direct and move opinions to match their own. They are also heartless, without a conscience. They make knee-jerk opinions and never look at the long-term effects of the policies they support and are misanthropic.

I've long said that "We conservatives think lefties are wrong, lefties think we conservatives are evil."  What if I've been wrong all along, and lefties are more than just wrong, but are in fact evil?  This study seems to support that!

I never bought into the "conservatives are evil" so-called studies, and I'm not going to buy into this "lefties are evil" study, either (although their policies are patently evil).  But I can see the draw of such studies for people incapable of thinking for themselves:  they have the imprimatur of science! behind them, and they can give people a brief sense of superiority over "the other".  Fun times.

Seniors Are Gone

Today was Senior Checkout Day at school, and my 6th period class had only 2 remaining students.  What shall I do with them?

A couple weeks ago one of them asked if we were going to learn anything about investing in the stock market.  I spent a week on that last semester, but these 2 students weren't in the class last semester.  

Today we started with the basics:  what is a stock, what is a broker, how does one purchase stocks, how does one read financial information about stock performance, and what is a mutual fund.  With just the 3 of us it was a very involved conversation, and at the end of the period one of them said, "that time feels like it went by in 5 minutes."  I'll call that a victory.

What are we going to do tomorrow?  We'll cover the different "sectors" of stocks, and then I'll let them play at finding companies in each sector.

What will we do on "final exam day", given that they already took the final with all the seniors?  I assume they'll get sick *cough* *cough* and call mommy to go home.  If not, I'll come up with something.

When Taxpayers Pay For Unions

Unions are private organizations and should not be subsidized by taxpayers:

California is a hotbed of toxic policy ideas, yet Michigan and Delaware seem to think it sets an example: Both states recently proposed California-like tax credits for union dues, which, in effect, force taxpayers to subsidize Democratic candidates and policies.

Last fall, the Golden State’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill forcing California taxpayers to pay up to $400 million of public and private employees’ union dues via tax-credit subsidies...

Edward Capodanno, president of the Associated Builders and Contractors Delaware, blasts the legislation as unfair because it favors a specific group.

His association is lobbying against it, correctly arguing that employees at many companies pay membership dues to business organizations and trade associations but don’t get a similar tax credit.

How can you convince a leftie this is wrong, and simultaneously show that Democrats are bad and that Republicans don't do the same thing when they have power?  Point out that no Republican-controlled state requires payment to the NRA.

Import/Export

California already imports a significant amount of its energy and exports a significant amount of its waste and pollution, but how long can it remain solvent when it exports its jobs?

If there is a similar list of companies that have packed up and moved to California, I'd genuinely like to see it.

Update, 5/31/23:  Here's another one.

Can Spoken Language Make Math Easier Or More Difficult?

While I have an affinity for the belief that the way a language expresses numbers can make mathematics either easier or harder, the logical part of my brain cautions skepticism.

Examples:  in English we say "twenty-one", the German number translates to "one and twenty", and Chinese translates to "two-ten-one".  Sure, the concept of place value is most obvious in the Chinese expression, but absent strong evidence I have to believe that any benefit is short-lived.

Welsh numbers are presented in the same way as Chinese numbers, and a researcher found the following:

Dowker's findings were nuanced. She found, for instance, that six-year-olds who spoke Welsh at home and school made fewer errors when reading aloud pairs of two-digit numbers. They were also better able to point out which was the bigger of the two, compared to those who spoke English. "There was a significant advantage," she says.

However, these benefits didn't seem to translate to advantages in other measures of general mathematical ability. For this reason, Dowker concludes that the effects of language on numerical ability are subtle and specific rather than large and "pervasive". She certainly doesn't believe that linguistic transparence, alone, could explain why East Asian countries tend to be placed higher in educational league tables.

Cross-country comparisons within Europe support this position. Consider German, which shares many of the irregularities seen in English, including the inversion of certain numbers. Forty-five, for example is fünfundvierzig in German (five-and-forty). Some studies suggest that inversion confuses German children as they learn to write numbers as digits. (Hearing fünfundvierzig they might write 54, for example.) But that doesn't seem to hold them back for long. "Germany does rather well in international comparisons," says Dowker.

"Nuanced" seems to be an apt description for advantages that are short-lived.

Then there are fractions:

Even if the influence of language does not extend to the whole of mathematics, emerging evidence suggests it might extend to a handful of skills beyond counting. So far, there is some evidence that language may affect how quickly children learn to use fractions. "When thinking about fractions, we have to look at the big part first and then see how much of that is in the numerator," explains Jimin Park at the University of Minnesota, whose PhD thesis concerns the linguistic representation of fractions.  (Who says the bigger part is in the denominator?--Darren)

In Korean, this relationship is explicitly spelled out. The term for 1/3 is sam bun ui il, which translates as "of three parts, one", and 3/7 is chil bun-ul sam, which translates as "of seven parts, three" – where the English terms "one third" or "three sevenths" do not make this so immediately obvious. And this seems to give young Korean children a slight advantage in matching named fractions to diagrams illustrating the quantity, before they have even been taught formal lessons in the idea. "When they have to verbally understand fractions, the Korean children definitely benefit," says Park. Intriguingly, when English children are taught to describe fractions with the Korean style of phrasing, it does seem to improve their intuitive understanding of the quantities.

Does the Korean method help understand fractions like 5/4?  I wonder.

I understand that teaching children to read Finnish is easier, and hence takes less time, than does teaching children to read English.  It might take less time, but no one is suggesting we all switch to Finnish, and those of us adults who can read English are at no disadvantage relative to those who read Finnish.  Thus, the Finns had a small, temporary advantage that disappears over time, which I assert is probably the same as math issues described above.

There Should Be A Reckoning

Even if it's nothing more than a South Africa-type "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", the purpose of which was to expose the injustices of apartheid for all to see, we deserve more than we're likely to get:

A global consensus has emerged that governmental responses to covid-19, which mainly involved shutdowns, limitations on mobility and other aspects of freedom, mask mandates, and vaccination requirements, did an enormous amount of harm. The issue is sometimes posed in terms of whether governments’ responses did more damage than the epidemic did. But that isn’t actually the right question. The epidemic happened. The question is whether the epidemic + government restrictions on freedom was better or worse than the epidemic alone would have been. And the answer is, worse. The net effect of government responses was catastrophically bad...

The analysis synthesizes 600 publications with a focus on meta-analyses, systematic reviews, global reports and multi-country studies. This cumulative academic research shows that the collateral damage of the pandemic response was substantial, wide-ranging and will leave behind a legacy of harm for hundreds of millions of people in the years ahead. Many original predictions are broadly supported by the research data including: a rise in non-Covid excess mortality, mental health deterioration, child abuse and domestic violence, widening global inequality, food insecurity, lost educational opportunities, unhealthy lifestyle behaviours, social polarization, soaring debt, democratic backsliding and declining human rights. Young people, individuals and countries with lower socioeconomic status, women and those with pre-existing vulnerabilities were hit hardest.

Some have called for Fauci and others to be criminally prosecuted, but I am not aware of any basis for such action. I do think, however, that we need a political accounting. Those who used covid as an excuse to exercise essentially fascistic powers, like Newsom, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, and Minnesota’s Tim Walz, should be humiliated and driven from office. But so far, that isn’t happening.

Update, 5/29/23:  Yes, a Truth and Reconciliation-type commission is certainly called for:

The petty tyrants and their lies have been so thoroughly exposed that they are now in full consequence avoidance mode. The first thing that leftists like to do when ducking responsibility is to rewrite history and pretend that none of it happened. Tyrannical garden gnome and alleged physician Anthony Fauci repeatedly insists that he didn’t want anything shut down. Randi Weingarten — the most evil woman in America — swears that she and the cauldron-stirring teachers’ union she runs never tried to keep schools closed.

Update, 5/31/23:  More:

So all of that unpleasantness is simply disappearing from medical journals and research archives. And the media would like us all to pretend that it never happened. But it did happen. And if we don’t learn anything from all of this, it will happen again when the next pandemic inevitably comes along. The need for speed must be moderated by adhering to proven practices from the past. And if you’re trusting the government to deal with you honestly and fairly based on the best available science rather than “The Science,” I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in purchasing.

Well, There Goes My Retirement

As long as the crazy lefties in California pay for the retirement they've promised me, I guess I shouldn't care what silliness they do--but they won't be able to pay me if they keep up silliness like this:

The California State Senate has passed legislation that would require the state’s two powerful public employee pension funds to stop investing in fossil fuel companies. It would also force them to liquidate close to $15 billion in holdings to aid the nation’s transition to clean energy and reduce greenhouse gas production.

The bill, SB 252, would prohibit the California Public Employees' Retirement System, or CalPERS, and the California State Teachers' Retirement System, or CalSTRS, from making or renewing investments in the 200 largest publicly traded fossil fuel companies beginning Jan. 1.

By July 1, 2031, both funds would have to liquidate investments in those 200 companies, which are defined by the carbon content in their proven oil, gas and coal reserves. Because of underground reserves, companies on the list of 200 are deemed to have the most potential for future emissions if enabled by investment capital.

The bill next must be approved by the state Assembly and then signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Supporters say they are confident both will happen.

The Annual Post About Graduation Ceremony Attire

I doubt Native Americans held high school graduations, so no, this isn’t going against their culture.  They can wear whatever they want when they have their own celebrations. 

Why don’t they complain when football players don’t wear a feather in their uniforms?  Because football is important.

I’m against turning graduation ceremonies into free-for-alls and costume parties:

She won. Her graduating senior son can wear representative tribal wear at his Elk Grove high school ceremony Tuesday, but she objects to what she views as an unnecessary fight to allow him to do so. 

So her fight goes on. 

Jessica Lopez objected to school officials initially rejecting her son Louie’s desire to represent his Maidu culture at his Pleasant Grove High School ceremony at Golden 1 Center because school policy barred the adornment of graduation garb with other items. After legal threats, the school has reversed course, and her son will wear an eagle feather representing his Maidu heritage. 

Lopez, a past Maidu tribal chairwoman, said despite that outcome, she and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California are demanding the district end its graduation dress policy and allow its indigenous students to wear tribal regalia without schools’ pre-approvals, calling the rule “flagrantly unlawful.”

It's for reasons like this that I haven't attended or volunteered to work at my school's graduation exercises in many, many years.  They've become parties that I'm not interested in attending.

Update:  She could wear the feather in this Colorado district, but cannot wear a sash:

According to the order, Garfield County School District 16, in the western part of the state, had indicated that sashes or cords worn during graduation typically represent membership in a nationally recognized organization; other distinctions such as class honors; future military service; or “regalia that is part of a Native American or Pacific Islander tribe.” Additionally, the school district’s policy says “(i)t is appropriate” to decorate a cap with the “flag of a country as recognized by the United Nations,” the order said. 

In her ruling, Wang said that a student wearing regalia at graduation sends a message that the school approves, so it “qualifies as school-sponsored speech, at least for the duration of the ceremony.” The district insisted that standardized attire was required to create a message of unity, a concern that the judge deemed legitimate.

The judge also pointed out that the district’s policy would have permitted Villasano to reproduce the design of the sash on her graduation cap, and would have allowed her to wear the sash before and after the ceremony.

“While Naomi may prefer to wear the sash during the graduation ceremony, the Court respectfully agrees with the School District and concludes that Naomi will not suffer irreparable injury by having to express her culture in a form other than the sash,” Wang wrote.

NAACP and Florida

So the NAACP has warned black Americans not to travel to Florida because the state is hostile to them.  Two points in opposition can be made.

First, the head of the NAACP lives in Tampa:

NAACP board of directors chairman Leon W. Russell pushed back against criticism for his organization's travel advisory for Black people in the state of Florida while he himself lives in the Tampa Bay area...

Florida Republican Party chairman Christian Ziegler pointed out that Russell’s Twitter account shows that he currently lives in the Tampa Bay area.

Ziegler commented on the apparent hypocrisy and offered to pay for Russell to leave the state:

"The CHAIRMAN of the @NAACP lives in Tampa, FLORIDA! True leadership is being willing to do what you ask others to do… time to step up and MOVE. If you think our state is so bad, the @FloridaGOP will help with moving costs."

I like the cut of this Ziegler fellow's jib.

Second, Florida has the 2nd highest number of black-owned businesses in the country:

Despite Florida being one of the best states for black business owners, the NAACP has decided the state is irredeemably racist, and has issued a travel advisory against it.

The NAACP points to several of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s policies — including recent legislation to prohibit colleges from spending public funds on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts — and the state’s “seeming quest to silence African-American voices” as examples of “the hostility towards African Americans in Florida.”

Donna Jackson, the director of membership development for the Project 21 black leadership network, is having none of this.  She says:

While the NAACP claims to represent the interest of black and brown people, it certainly doesn’t consider the financial interest of these same Americans.

The NAACP issued a travel advisory claiming the new DeSantis law is racist and harms black Americans. However, it failed to mention in its statement that Florida ranks number two for black-owned businesses.

That being the case, I think the NAACP is more concerned with its elite white liberal donors than it is with the financial prosperity of African Americans who will be negatively impacted the most by its travel ban.

According to the Florida Chamber of Commerce, there are more than 250,000 black-owned businesses in Florida which collectively employ 77,136 Floridians and represent an annual payroll of $2.63 billion. That ranks it as the state with the second-most black-owned businesses in the country.

Follow the money.  Ms. Jackson could not be more correct.

And there's plenty of other commentary at the link.

In Honor of Tina Turner's Passing

This is my favorite video of Tina Turner, performing It's Only Love with Bryan Adams.  There's so much energy and raw sexual tension on that stage....

(Note: I seem at least temporarily unable to embed YouTube videos here, hence the link.)

Update, 5/26/23:  Here's the video.

 

Cell Phones and Kids

Too many parents were (and some still are) willing to mask their kids for years for a minimal threat but completely ignore the science telling them about the threat from cell phones:

“The younger the age of getting the first smartphone, the worse the mental health the young adult reports today,” writes Jon Haidt, citing a survey of 28,000 young adults around the world. 

Reingold talked to Nicholas Kardaras, who authored a book on tech addiction. He treats young adults with screen addictions at the Omega Recovery center in Austin, Texas. Often "influencers" have persuaded them they have Tourette syndrome, borderline personality disorder or gender dysphoria. When they go offline, escaping the “social contagion,” their symptoms disappear.

 Update:  More here.

The ACLU Has Lost Its Way

In reading a post about California's losing another legal case, there was this dig about the ACLU:

Though the first amendment of the Bill of Rights is quite clear, that government cannot restrict the religious rights of citizens or churches, DMHC, Planned Parenthood, and the ACLU teamed up to write regulations to do exactly that, and they did it outside the legislative process. Brianna Pittman, Planned Parenthood’s legislative advocate, repeatedly suggested DMHC come up with “an administrative solution, in lieu of legislation,” and DMHC officials immediately agreed, arranging a meeting with both Planned Parenthood and the ACLU in order to create the mandate.

That the ACLU was part of this process only illustrates once again how corrupted with politics that so-called free speech non-profit legal firm has become. Once, it stood firmly defending the first amendment in all cases. Now it conspires with others to nullify that first amendment, if it disagrees with the politics of those targeted.

Maybe they agreed with those Nazis in Skokie.

Stop Asian Hate

I have nothing to add to what Instapundit has already said:

LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES: No prison time for black man who set Asian Berkeley students on fire with homemade blowtorch: Prosecutor funded by George Soros gets criminal sent to ‘diversion program.’

Remember all the “Stop Asian Hate” posturing? That went away when people started pointing out where the violence was coming from.

If A 9th Grader Can Take A College Course

Are there not enough community college students?

California’s incoming community colleges chancellor, Sonya Christians, doesn’t officially step into her new role until June 1, but she has an urgent agenda: enrolling every ninth grader in a college course.

Right now, just 6% of California students take a college course through dual enrollment in their first year of high school. The time is now, Christian said, to make sure that all 436,192 of the state’s eighth graders will be automatically enrolled in a college course next fall.

“Can we do this? We must. We must,” Christian said. “We can’t wait for tomorrow.”

Christian made this urgent call to action earlier this month at the first Dual Enrollment Equity Conference, an event that brought 450 dual enrollment advocates and educators from California’s K-12 and college systems to Bakersfield. What she calls her “ninth grade strategy” is emblematic of the type of work she expects to push during her tenure as the next chancellor.

If a 9th grader can take and pass a college course, the course is probably too easy to be considered a college-level course.  Of course, those who preach equity equity equity don't think black and brown skinned kids can compete academically with white and Asian kids, which is why they want standards lowered.

Textbook Standards

California governor Gavin Newsollini is such a petty little man:

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom is demanding records from textbook publishers to determine if they have changed any content used in California’s schools to comply with Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education laws.

The DeSantis’ administration has enacted several laws in the past year prohibiting Critical Race Theory (CRT) and certain lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation from K-12 classrooms. In addition to the textbook companies records, Newsom’s office sent a public records request Saturday to DeSantis’ office and the Florida Department of Education (DOE) asking for all communications between the governor’s administration and the textbook publishers relating to revisions made to content to ensure compliance with the Florida education laws.

If the books don't comply with California's standards, they shouldn't be purchased in California.  If they do comply with California's standards, what is Newsollini trying to accomplish?