It's Always A Cop, A Teacher, or a Preacher

This time, it's a school administrator--which is close enough for government work:

An assistant superintendent of Vacaville schools was arrested at the district offices on Wednesday for possession of child pornography...

He (the superintendent) said there is no indication that Shields, 43, has had any inappropriate contact with any student or engaged in any inappropriate activity at work.

Hoping For Change

Forget hope and change. President Obama’s reelection campaign is going to be based on fear and loathing: fear of what a Republican takeover would mean, and loathing of whomever the Republican nominee turns out to be. link

It's The Major, Stupid.

I've said it a zillion times: there's nothing wrong with getting a sociology degree, or a Film History degree, or an Underwater Basket Weaving degree. I'm all about having the freedom to self-actualize, and to pursue whatever courses of study we choose to in life. But if you think people should pay you for your Underwater Basket Weaving degree, you're sorely mistaken. We as adults are responsible for the choices we make:

We write a lot on Economix about whether college is worth it. In a piece in Investor’s Business Daily, Alex Tabarrok, an economics professor at George Mason University, suggests that Americans are focusing on the wrong question. They shouldn’t be debating whether college in general is “worth it”; they should instead be thinking about whether the specific college degree they’re considering is marketable.

Update, 11/4/11: How many math/science/engineering majors do you think are participating in the Occupy (insert city here) movement?

False Freshman Fifteen

An Ohio State researcher says it's a myth:

The idea that college freshmen gain an average of 15 pounds in their first year of school is a myth -- the average is really between 2.4 pounds for women and 3.4 pounds for men, the co-author of a new study said.

"Not only is there not a 'Freshman 15,' there doesn't appear to be even a 'college 15' for most students," said Jay Zagorsky, research scientist at Ohio State University's Center for Human Resource Research and co-author of a study on college weight gain.

(Inside joke for old-time West Pointers: clearly most schools don't have Mama Brava's calzones!)

No Point In Conserving

They get you coming and going. You can't win for losing.

A local water district is seeking an 18% rate increase because their revenues have gone down. Whether it's because of the wet winter and mild summer we had or because of water conservation efforts or because of the bad economy, people are using less water and the district isn't making enough money.

It's similar to gas taxes. If you drive a high-mpg vehicle, you don't get dinged with high gas taxes. However, if everybody drove high-mpg vehicles, we'd use less gas--which means the states and feds would get less gas tax revenue. Problem is, the roads would still need maintenance, so the taxes would have to be increased!

If everyone does it, there's no economic benefit to conservation.

There's Nothing Wrong With This

Not everyone should go to college, and not everyone who does needs to graduate:

Jim Stout, an English professor at Williston State College in Williston N.D., started losing some of his best students to the oil fields last year.

It was too hard to compete: The students could either spend thousands of dollars on a college education or earn $100,000 a year working on the rigs, performing maintenance on oil wells or driving trucks. ..

Only about one-third of Williston State College students graduated from the two-year associate's degree program last year, said Mike Hillman, vice chancellor for academic and student affairs with the North Dakota University System. That rate has stayed around 35% to 40% for the past few years, but Hillman said he expects it to plunge even lower this school year as students exit early for jobs.

"A lot of students are getting a few credits they need -- like one or two welding courses -- and entering the labor market," said Hillman. link

And good for them! If they're doing what they want to do and making good money at it, what more do they need? Maybe some of those "Occupy (insert city here)" folks need to quit whining, quit expecting others to take care of them, and set the GPS for North Dakota and do something productive.

On What Planet Would Normal, Reasonable People Consider This OK?

Not too far away from me is a school district that has a history of being dysfunctional. It was created only a few years ago, merging a few elementary districts with one 7-12 district to make a unified K-12 district. The 7-12 district, and at least one of the elementary districts, were dysfunctional before the merger; the hope was that with the bad blood gone, things would improve. Oh, if only that were so.

But that's only tangential to our story.

The 7-12 district in question had its own police force, and now the unified K-12 district has that police force. Wouldn't you think a school district police force, working as it does with children, would want to project an image of actually caring about children? I would think so, but then again, no one asked me:

T-shirts sold by the Twin Rivers Police Officers Association have this message: "U raise 'em, we cage 'em," surrounding a picture of a young child behind bars.

The shirts were first sold in 2009. A year later the police chief asked that they be taken off the union's web site. The police union president still had them for sale on his Facebook page as recently as this past summer.

The Solyndra Express

Does California really have this kind of money to throw at a pie-in-the-sky train?

Building California's high-speed rail project could cost $98.5 billion over 20 years, more than twice what was previously thought, according to a draft copy of a business plan obtained late Monday by The Bee.

The amount is still far less than the cost of expanding airport and highway systems to accommodate the state's growing population, the California High-Speed Rail Authority said in the report. Even with conservative ridership and cost estimates, it said, the system will operate at a profit.

First, I don't think anyone truly believes it will operate at a profit. Ever. Is there a bullet train anywhere in the world that does? (I believe there's one, in France, that does, but that's it.) Second, that cost is more than the entire California state budget for this year. Really, for a train?

I quote from a teacher at school today:

On the plus side it’s not a train to nowhere, there are lots of stop along the way: insolvency, bankruptcy, and the final stop, ruin.

This is a fiasco of Biblican proportions. If we can't stop something this insane in California, there's nothing crazy we won't try here--all in the name of Gaia.

Bad Report, or Bad Reporting?

Here's what we get today from the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, by way of the Washington Examiner:

We can already hear the anguished, angry protests of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers. But our headline captures the essence of an important new study being released today by Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis and American Enterprise Institute's Andrew Biggs. Richwine and Biggs found that when public school teachers and private sector workers are compared objectively on the basis of cognitive skills -- rather than years of service or educational attainment -- the educators enjoy higher compensation -- contrary to the claims of union officials in public debate and in negotiations with school boards.

This is seen most dramatically when workers switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs. Such a move typically results in a wage increase of approximately nine percent. "Teachers who change to non-teaching jobs, on the other hand, see their wages decrease by roughly 3 percent. This is the opposite of what one would expect if teachers were underpaid," Richwine and Biggs said.

All of this may well be the truth, but is there something more that is not being reported? Might more information have been in the actual report, but lacking in the Examiner's column?

I have no doubt that for some people with some degrees, teaching is the most money they can make. However, is that true for all teachers? The statements quoted above give us reason to think so, but is it? Especially high school teachers, who usually have degrees in the subjects they teach--are they overpaid, even math and science teachers? And is this true across the country, in certain states, or is there some other geographical issue at play?

Bottom line is that there is precious little in this Examiner column to support the claims made. I hope that organizations as prestigious as Heritage and AEI weren't so sloppy in their work.

How Will CTA Spend Its Money?

According to EIA:

The state affiliates are acting in the same fashion as NEA. The California Teachers Association suffered a 4.2 percent loss in active membership even before the latest round of layoffs. The loss of revenue prompted CTA to sell off three of its 35 regional resource centers. Yet the union budgeted $3.9 million for its media fund, maintained its $36-per-member initiative fund and its $20-per-member "advocacy" contribution, and recently approved a $2 increase to the union's candidate PAC. CTA currently collects $18.45 per member in PAC money. Unlike federal PACs or PACs in many other states, California PACs are allowed to deduct contributions from paychecks along with union dues, so that objecting members have to request a refund.

Democrats control all the levers of power in California, so it is not entirely clear where CTA plans to spend this money, though it is well-positioned to launch a tax increase campaign, and may also seek to temper Gov. Brown's more radical ideas. (boldface mine--Darren)

Will the snake bite its own tail?

Income Inequality

Does it exist? You might say, "Yes! Of course!", but economics professor Mark Perry would say, "Not so fast":

Bottom Line: Whether we look at Census Bureau data on Gini coefficients [a statistical measure of dispersion that quantifies income inequality on a range from 0% for complete equality to 100% for complete inequality where one person receives all of the income] for U.S. households, families, or year-round workers, or look at the share of income going to the top fifth of Americans, there is absolutely no statistical support for the commonly held view that income inequality has been rising recently. So why are we even having this national debate about solutions to the "non-problem" of rising income inequality. Is this another "imaginary hobgoblin" (see below)?

H.L. Mencken: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Fighting Street Crime With Math

Oddly enough, this was exactly the plot of the episode of Numb3rs I saw last night:

UCLA mathematicians working with the Los Angeles Police Department to analyze crime patterns have designed a mathematical algorithm to identify street gangs involved in unsolved violent crimes. Their research is based on patterns of known criminal activity between gangs, and represents the first scholarly study of gang violence of its kind.

A "Jobs" President

Not every regulation of business is bad, but how much more regulation do we really need?

The roots of today’s economic troubles are hinted at in a new Gallup Poll of small business owners, which finds compliance with government regulations tops their “problem list.”

Bigger businesses say the same. No one’s forgotten that Vegas resorts mogul Steve Wynn called Washington “the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime”; or that Bernie Marcus claims he could not have built Home Depot in the regulatory environment of today.

Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro this month called today’s White House the “most anti-business administration in my lifetime.” Even Apple’s Steve Jobs reportedly gave President Obama an earful on regulation, invoking impediments to manufacturing in the U.S and more.

Continental Energy CEO Harold Hamm, rebuffed by the president when describing the sheer torrent of domestic energy available and accessible, told the Wall Street Journal that Washington keeps “a regulatory boot at our necks and then turns around and asks: ‘Why aren’t you creating more jobs.’”

He's smarter than these guys, he know what this country's economy needs.

Are Polar Bears Really Drowning?

Outside of alarmist literature, I've never seen anything that remotely implies that polar bear populations are in danger--or are even declining.

Remember the U.S. government report report five years ago that polar bears were drowning? Kassie Siegel, director of the U.S.-based Center for Biological Diversity, cited the report in her call to place the polar bear on the endangered species list. Never mind that we now have 5 times as many polar bears today than we did 50 years ago. We must take action immediately. Based on one report. Because that’s how science works. One report is all it takes to leap to a conclusion that may cost society billions.

In December 2006, Kassie Siegel told the Ottawa Citizen: “This is a watershed decision in the way this country deals with climate change. The science of global warming and the impact to polar bears are so clear that not even the Bush administration can deny that polar bears are threatened with extinction because of global warming.”

Well, it turns out that report was likely crap. The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of the Interior is investigating the veracity of the report.

College Admissions Myths

I'd rather these come from an admissions officer than newspaper reporters, but take them for what they're worth:

1. It’s best to set your heart on one school and really go for it.
2. The tuition price listed in brochures is what everyone pays.
3. The admissions department adores you.
4. It’s best to crowd your application with a volume of extracurriculars.
5. It’s better to have a high GPA than to take difficult classes.
6. Essays don’t really matter much in the end because grades and test scores are so dominant in admissions decisions.
7. Recommendations from famous people can give an applicant a huge boost.

I'm Not The Only One Who Thinks The "Occupy" Crowd Is Way Off Base

His points about corporations, about consumerism, about 401(k)’s, are right on.

A Unified Theory

For all the physics buffs out there, here's a unified theory of left-wing causes:

Isn’t it interesting that no matter what the current global crisis is, according to leftists, the solution is always the same: a benevolent world dictatorship of the enlightened elite, and mass transfer of wealth from rich nations to poor nations.

Interesting that I pointed out the same thing 2 years ago, only without the physics language.

Global Warming Science Is Settled?

Not yet it isn't:

Read the whole article, but the real conclusion is this: Judith Curry, a co-author of these four papers, has now gone on record repudiating not the papers themselves, but the press associated with the papers. This will be a black eye for the Berkeley Earth Project, and in all probability for Prof Muller. Worst of all, it means that the integrity and validity of what should have been an important confirmatory study is now questionable.

Instead of a truly useful study, Muller’s use of the press has simply added to the climate food fight.

If it's settled, why do these people repeatedly have to resort to lying and subterfuge to make their point?

Update: Just learned about this site.

Update #2, 10/31/11: More on Muller's paper:

Very few if any skeptics assert that the earth is still in the Little Ice Age. While the Little Ice Age raged from approximately 1300 to 1900 AD, it is pretty well accepted that the Little Ice Age did indeed end by approximately 1900 AD. The mere fact that the Little Ice Age ended a little over 100 years ago, and that temperatures have warmed during the course of recovering from the Little Ice Age, tells us absolutely nothing about the remaining components necessary to support an assertion that humans are creating a global warming crisis.

Muller himself admits, “How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.”

So we have a paper merely claiming that two out of three global temperature stations report the Little Ice Age is over...

Even prominent global warming advocate Eric Steig admits, “Anybody expecting earthshaking news from Berkeley, now that the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature group being led by Richard Muller has released its results, had to be content with a barely perceptible quiver. As far as the basic science goes, the results could not have been less surprising if the press release had said ‘Man Finds Sun Rises At Dawn.’”

I continue to think we're in a cyclical warming pattern.

I Will Not Be Volunteering For This Training

Two months ago I told you about a bill working its way through the halls of the Capitol, a bill that would allow--well, just reread that post here. It's now the law in California:

Authorizes a school district to provide school employees with voluntary training in rendering emergency medical assistance to pupils with epilepsy suffering from seizures, including rectal administration of Diastat; and allows a parent of a pupil with epilepsy to request the school to have an employee receive the training if the pupil suffers a seizure when a nurse is not available.

Again, my fear is that this will eventually become mandatory training. I most certainly will not volunteer for this.

You've Got To Love The Hypocrisy Here

Gotta love it when CTA complains about "tax fairness", or the lack thereof:

California has the second-highest foreclosure rate and the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation behind Nevada. There are 2.2 million unemployed people in California — 12.1 percent of the population — many of whom have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits months ago. Due to the housing crisis and unemployment, California has the highest rate of small business failures, ranks 40th in the nation in child homelessness, and has 2.2 million children living in poverty. According to a report from the Center for American Progress, California is among the three top states seeing an increase in hunger due to the recession. Our state has the eighth-largest economy in the world, but ranks 43rd in per-pupil education spending. Our schools have undergone unprecedented cuts and layoffs in recent years.

Just for giggles, which political party has run California for most of my life? And which political party does over 90% of CTA's political donations go to?

Just sayin'.

But wait, it gets better:

Joining a groundswell of support from fellow unions, community leaders and students throughout the country, CTA proudly supports the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is in favor of tax fairness and against corporate greed.

This from an organization that doesn't produce anything, that legally compels and extorts money from teachers who don't want to pay them, and that doesn't pay any taxes at all on that money.

I've said it too many times to count: consistency is not a strong suit of the left.