How Each Side Sees The Other

Here's a YouTube video of some liberals' mocking/satirical view about how conservatives think. When the URL was posted on an email list of which I am a member, the following was posted as a rebuttal:

*I'm voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

*I'm voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

*I'm voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq, I trust that the bad guys will stop what they're doing because they now think we're good people.

*I'm voting Democrat because I believe that people who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday CAN tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don't start driving a Prius.

*I'm voting Democrat because I'm not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

*I'm voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as IT sees fit.

*I'm voting Democrat because I believe three or four pointy-headed elitist liberals need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.

*I'm voting Democrat because I believe that when the terrorists don't have to hide from us over there, they'll come over here, and I don't want to have any guns in the house to shoot the terrorist invaders.

*I'm voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I've decided to marry my horse.

*I'm voting Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.

Hard to argue...

(Note: I received the author's permission to reproduce the above comments here.)

Old News, But Good News

From the Army Times:

The Defense Department has announced a new get-tough policy with colleges and universities that interfere with the work of military recruiters and Reserve Officer Training Corps programs.

Under rules that will take effect April 28, defense officials said they want the exact same access to student directories that is provided to all other prospective employers.

Students can opt out of having their information turned over to the military only if they opt out of having their information provided to all other recruiters, but schools cannot have policies that exclude only the military, defense officials said in a March 28 notice of the new policy in the Federal Register.

The Defense Department “will honor only those student ‘opt-outs’ from the disclosure of directory information that are even-handedly applied to all prospective employers seeking information for recruiting purposes,” the notice says...

The new policy is, in part, the result of a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the federal government’s ability to use funding as a means of forcing equal access for military recruiters and ROTC units on campuses.

See, my leftie friends? It's all about equal access. You believe in equal access, don't you? You think the federal government should have whatever power it wants over citizens, don't you?

MythBusters On Science Education

The opinions expressed in this piece aren't well formed, but they're a nice starting point for discussion.

What Happens To NCLB In The Next Presidential Administration?

Of course, real changes will be made by the Congress; the President will either sign or veto those changes. But what have the candidates said about the future of the law?

From Barack Obama's web site:

Reform No Child Left Behind: Obama will reform NCLB, which starts by funding the law. Obama believes teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. He will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama will also improve NCLB's accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.

From John McCain's web site:

No Child Left Behind has focused our attention on the realities of how students perform against a common standard. John McCain believes that we can no longer accept low standards for some students and high standards for others. In this age of honest reporting, we finally see what is happening to students who were previously invisible. While that is progress all its own, it compels us to seek and find solutions to the dismal facts before us.

So is either one of them saying anything substantive here? If so, I'm not seeing it.

I looked these positions up months ago, back when the Hildebeast was still in contention, in consideration of writing a post comparing the educational platforms of the three major candidates. Never got around to writing that post, but decided to write this post after reading this EdWeek post:

At the Republican National Convention in St. Paul this week, President Bush was expected to anoint Sen. John McCain as his successor and the new leader of the party.

But it remains far from clear whether Sen. McCain—and other top Republicans—will continue to embrace the federal mandates on school accountability at the center of the No Child Left Behind Act....

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

THIS Just Dropped Off The Radar Screen, Didn't It?

Remember all the brouhaha about Michigan and Florida and whether or not their delegates at the Democratic National Convention were going to have any votes, because the states moved their primaries to a date before the national dems said they could? Remember how that was a big deal a few months ago?

And then it disappeared.

What happened? Well, here's what happened. And if you don't want to follow the link, look at the labels I've attached to this post and see if you can figure it out.

NOW Press Release

I guess there's a positive in this press release from the National Organization of Women. Apparently it's not enough to be a woman (Sarah Palin) to get their support; no, you have to hold the correct views.

Good job, NOW. You've finally learned that it isn't the plumbing that matters. Welcome to the latter half of the 20th Century. When you're ready to join the 21st Century, please let us know with another whiny press release.

A Sad Day For Trekdom

Tomorrow, Star Trek The Experience closes down after a 10-year-long run at the Las Vegas Hilton. I enjoyed it every time I went.

K'Plah!

Governor Schwarzenegger's Algebra Initiative

I just received a PDF file containing state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell's press release about implementing the governor's Algebra Initiative. I cannot find this press release on the Department of Education web site, but I assume it will be there shortly after the 3-day weekend.

We need more teachers, blah blah blah. The CSUs and UCs need to produce more math teachers, blah blah blah. We need to increase math instructional time, blah blah blah. Smaller class sizes, blah blah blah. Specialized classes for struggling students, blah blah blah. Extend AVID, STEM, and MESA programs, blah blah blah. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

There's a dollar figure attached to each proposal. Total cost: $3.1 billion.

There's not a single thing new here. Same old ideas.

There's not one suggestion about studying successful programs in other states, both math programs and poor/minority achievement programs, and adapting them to California. We know there's more to this problem than just incompetent teachers and schools, and there's not one suggestion about addressing the family component of education. There's not one suggestion about looking at those countries which successfully teach algebra to 13 and 14-year-olds, and seeing how they accomplish it.

No, we just throw more money at the same old time-worn ideas and hope they'll work this time.

$3.1 billion. That's about $100 for every person in the state, in addition to already spending half of our state budget on education. In fact, this represents about 6% of our entire state education budget, for more of the same old, same old.

Sometimes it's scary having number sense.

The "Education Angle" of McCain's VP Choice

From Joanne Jacobs:

Sarah Palin, daughter of a science teacher and a school secretary, appears to be the only one of the four (VP and presidential candidates) educated at the local public schools.

How could the NEA be against her? :-)

Student's For McCain

If there's only one student, there's nothing wrong with this pen.

McCain's Vice Presidential Pick

I've said for years that the Republicans needed to get a woman vice presidential candidate, if for no other reason than to blunt the liberals' claim of the party as a "good old boys network". I'm glad we now have such a candidate.

How funny, though, that she's running in the same election as the first black (major party) candidate!

The cynical libs will claim that Palin was chosen only because she's a woman. Or are they smart enough not to suggest she's an "affirmative action" candidate?

Stay tuned!

Community Service For All High School Students

Let Barack Obama say he wants middle and high school students to perform 50 hrs of community service a year, and he's a saint to the left.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that if a white man wanted people to perform involuntary servitude...well, you get the idea.

Also, if 50 hrs a year of community service sounds good for high school students, how good does military conscription sound for 19-yr-olds?

An Interesting Boarding School, To Say The Least

This gives a new meaning to "down under".

Dallas McInerney, 35, condemned the Bathurst school — which only this week was allegedly encouraging its students to read Penthouse magazine — for retaining the Vincentian Fathers as governors while police investigated claims up to four staff were involved in abuse of students.

*sigh*

Obama's Nomination

Fifty-one years ago, President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to protect nine black students who wanted to attend Central High School. The majority didn't want them there, but ours is a system of laws, not a lawless rabble, and US Army soldiers marched into the city to enforce a court order. Such turbulent times. I wrote extensively about it here, in a post that links to this Army slideshow.

Barack Obama hadn't been born yet then, and now he's one election away from being President of the United States. I hope he doesn't win, but the significance of his nomination is not lost on me. It's a sign of how far we've come as a nation.

If I find any disappointment today, it's that so many people still cling to racial identity and politics that we still have to celebrate the first "black" person do something. Many view Obama's nomination as a victory for black people; I view it as progress for America.

To me, we are still that shining city on a hill, our best days are ahead, and we are still a beacon of goodness and of liberty in the world. We are not perfect--no person or country is--be we've come closer than any other nation in history, and we're getting better.

I love my country.

Entitlement Complex at School

Cheerleaders' uniforms show too much bod during the school day:

Parents of cheerleaders at an Ohio high school are frustrated with administrators for uniforms they say come up short in the classroom...

"The skirts that the cheerleaders wear are very short, and they're very tight and they're slit so they can do the gymnastics that are required of a cheerleader," (Superintendent) Lolli told WLWT.com.

You can agree or disagree about a dress code, but if you're going to have one, I say it should be enforced.

Some people, though, seem to have an entitlement complex. These are the parents that teachers can't stand:

"My daughter is a senior, this is her last year," Daniel told the station. "We paid for uniforms and they should be able to wear them on game day."

Yes, because it's all about you and your daughter.

I have more to say, but this is a family blog.

The Political Bent of Teachers

You think our US schools are too politically charged? It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The ruling Hamas movement on Wednesday replaced hundreds of striking teachers with its own supporters, purging Gaza's education system of its political rivals and deepening its control of the coastal territory...

During the takeover, Hamas routed forces loyal to the rival Fatah movement. The local teachers' union, one of the last remaining Fatah strongholds in Gaza, called its strike this week to protest the transfers of dozens of educators to new schools. It said Hamas forced the transfers to give its supporters key posts in the education system.

Hamas denied this, but then installed hundreds of new teachers almost immediately after the strike began.

As a well-known blogger always says, "Let's give these people a country!"

Carnival of Education

This week's Carnival is here and includes my Troops To College post.

I Despise The Stupidity of the TSA With Every Fiber of My Existence

A 4o-minute delay because of a woman's bra?

Nancy Kates, who wore a large underwire bra, told the San Francisco Chronicle the security check by a female TSA agent before JetBlue flight 472 at Oakland International Airport was too invasive.

"The woman touched my breast," Kates said, according to the report. "I said, 'You can't do that.' She said, 'We have to pat you down.' I said, 'You can't treat me as a criminal for wearing a bra'"...

Kates said the incident took 40 minutes, causing her to miss her flight. She arrived in Boston four hours late, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

I feel much safer, don't you?

English Use Required At Catholic School

Clearly this is an opinion piece, but I agree with the author's comments:

Thank goodness U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten showed some common sense when he ruled last week that a Wichita, Kan., Catholic school policy requiring students to speak only English did not break any civil rights laws. Three Hispanic families had tried to end this practice at St. Anne's Catholic School on the grounds that Spanish-only students were harassed and ostracized by other students. I remember a time when Hispanic parents insisted that their children speak English...

Multilingualism has increased illiteracy and balkanized communities, but that hasn't stopped proponents from trying to make it mandatory. What part of "this doesn't work" don't they understand?

Can you really argue with the fact that English is the language of success and opportunity in this country? If you argue with this, how do you explain that English is the most common "foreign language" in the world?

Homosexual Hypocrisy

I have nothing to add to this LA Times piece, except that I could not agree more with the last 5 paragraphs. I like the whole thing, actually, but the ending is right on target.

The comments afterward are frightening in their anger and their justification for intolerance. As Instapundit, on whose site I first learned about this opinion piece, said, "Is it just me, or does it seem that the people who are the most demanding of tolerance tend to be those least likely to display it themselves?"