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Rooftops of Rome

My Personal Message From Joe Biden, The Intellect of the Democratic Party

Darren --

If we win this election, it will be because of what you did in moments like this to help close the spending gap.

Because this is real: Just last week alone, Mitt Romney's campaign and his allies outspent our side by at least three to one in North Carolina, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, all states we need to win.

That could swing the election -- but it doesn't have to.

Tomorrow is our biggest fundraising deadline so far. Will you make a donation of $5 or more today and help this campaign hang in there for the final two months?

Tonight Mitt Romney will deliver a speech that millions of Americans will hear.

He's going to say a lot of things about Barack Obama, and belittle what we stand for.

When he does, remember the important role you play in the political process. Remember the kind of man our president is, and the tough choices he's had to make from that Oval Office.

Voters in some very important states are hearing distortions and lies from people who've invested a lot to see Barack Obama removed from the White House.

Fight back. Donate $5 or more and make sure your voice is heard just as loud:

https://donate.barackobama.com/August-Deadline

We wouldn't be here without you. Thank you.

Joe

P.S. -- Deciding that the stakes are high enough to do our part isn't a November 6th decision. It's one I'm asking you to make right now, before tomorrow's big fundraising deadline.

Joe --

No.

Darren

They'll Stop At Nothing

Can you believe the audacity?

On Thursday, in the shadow of the hurricane barreling down on the region, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, a large teachers' union, launched an attack on the state's chapter of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, a nonprofit organization working to improve black educational achievement through education reform and school choice.  On its official Twitter account, the teachers' union ludicrously alleged that BAEO supports a "pro KKK curriculum," and sent out the statement to various followers.

The mind boggles.  Seriously.

Why I'm Blogging Today

California's budget is in a shambles, and the faucet of money that funds education is slowing to a trickle.  If the tax increase on the November ballot doesn't pass, and it probably won't (I'm certainly not going to vote for it), then that trickle will become a persistent drip.

Today is a furlough day in my district.  There's no school, I'm home, and I'm not getting paid.

Hypocrisy, Thy Party Is Democrat

I'll just quote the Instapundit post in full:

IT’S LIKE ALL THOSE WAR-CRIMES COMPLAINTS AND “HAVE YOU NO DECENCY” TROLLS DURING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WERE JUST POLITICAL BULLSHIT: The Reckoning: CIA Interrogation Investigation Closed Without Further Charges. “In the meantime, the Obama administration that once savaged President Bush for surveilling American citizens who abet the enemy tells us that there is no problem killing American citizens — with a straight face and without the slightest hint that some apology might be in order.” Including from some Obama-loving bloggers who have changed their tune since the White House became theirs.

Where is the anti-war left and their mass marches while this president kills American citizens by missile without giving them due process rights???

It's not that I have a problem with doing that; my problem is people who decry lesser activities when the president has an (R) after his name and sit silently by when a president with a (D) after his name goes even further.

A Reason To Go To Manhattan

From the June 2012 Smithsonian magazine:

Click to read about the Museum of Mathematics.

Random Rantings

I need to make dinner and then get to my linear algebra course, so here are some topics I'd love to spend more time on but can't today!

Have you heard about the deaf 3-yr-old whose school said he has to change the way he signs his name because part of the gesture looks like the "bang-bang" gesture that all boys make with their hands?  Incidentally, the boy's name is Hunter:

A Nebraska school district wants a 3-year-old deaf boy to change the way he signs his name because they say the gesture makes his hands look like weapons, the boy's family claims.

The district, in Grand Island, about three hours west of Omaha, has a policy that forbids kids bringing to school "any instrument ... that looks like a weapon," local station KOLN reported.

According to the report, Hunter Spanjer signs his name by crossing his index finger and middle finger and then wagging his hands, which the school says is not appropriate. link

The school district denies this:

Grand Island Public Schools officials declined to discuss the case, but issued a statement to FoxNews.com in which they denied requiring any student to change how his or her name is signed...

Jack Sheard, a spokesman for the district, said district officials — who have reportedly received hundreds of angry phone calls, emails and even death threats — are working with Spanjer’s family.  link

Exactly how are they working with the family, if there's no problem?  If he can sign his given name, what problem is there to "work with"?

A few of us were talking about this at lunch today, and the consensus is that the school district will buckle by Friday.

Next topic:
Remember a few years ago when Eric Holder said that we as a nation were afraid to hold discussions of race?  Well, it's certainly not hard for certain people in a certain political party to talk about race, as they bring up every chance they get, but this is pretty much how we discuss race in a school environment:

Teachers can’t discuss intelligence or racial differences in “behavior, focus or drive,” Morrison writes. If black or Hispanic students score below average, it must be due to “racism, oppression, cultural differences and textbooks.”  White or Asian students who don’t learn must be victims of “poor teaching methods, run-down school buildings, or lazy and uncaring teachers.” Above all, “students are never to blame if they misbehave, fail to study, or can’t understand the curriculum.”

Poor performance is never caused by culture...or perhaps I'm judging poor performance from a white middle-class perspective.  Damn me.

And while we're on the subject of race, Instapundit first quotes Roger L. Simon:

Racism is stalking the Republican Convention in Tampa. But it’s not from the Republicans. It’s from the mainstream media.

First it was MSNBC treating convention speakers Artur Davis, Mia Love, and Ted Cruz like nonpersons. And now it’s Yahoo! Washington Bureau Chief David Chalian getting caught on an ABC webcast saying Mitt Romney would be “happy to have a party when black people drown.”

Chalian, not surprisingly, was fired almost immediately when the word got out, but the climate in which he would make such an insane statement is very much alive and well. Why would anyone dream of saying such a thing in a semi-public situation if he didn’t feel safe and among friends?

The left/liberal need to think Republicans and conservatives racists is more than just projection. At this point, it is nothing short of a mental illness. It is so far divorced from reality, it has to be pathological. No longer are these people able to observe reality with anything close to impartiality. We are not in the world of politics, ladies and gentlemen. We are in the world Freud, Jung, Adler, and people bouncing off walls.

Then Instapundit quotes from a reader who emailed him:

The sheer pathology that Roger Simon highlights may well be one of the biggest stories of this election season. It’s becoming hard to ignore it and becoming more apparent to a larger number of people. At the same time, intended victims are less likely to be cowed.

Democrats and the left have lazily relied on the power of ad hominem coupled with race for the better part of 40 years now. The power of that was bound to diminish with passing time and generations. We’re seeing it now and also seeing that Democrats, and the left generally, have done nothing to prepare for that day. They are desperate, because they have nothing else to offer as rebuttal in policy disputes. Nothing.

This is the price to paid for 40 years of intellectual stasis on the left.

When he jokes that NBC must stand for "No Black Conservatives", the days of playing the race card are indeed numbered for our friends on the left. They've been shouting "fire" in that crowded theater for 40 years now, it's time to make them stop.

Update, 8/31/12:  Hunter Spanjer's school district buckled sooner than we expected.  Good!

The Republican Convention

A friend posted the following on the Facebook:

Great quote from Twitter

You can judge how effective the convention is by how angry the anchors are on MSNBC. So it was a good night.

I just smile :)

My First Small Victory

#31.

My instructor assigned problem #31, which happened to be the first problem on page 34.  There were no problems like it in that section of the text.  None.  And I had absolutely no idea how to solve it.

In the textbooks out of which I teach, it would have been labeled a "critical thinking" problem.

So on Sunday I started thinking about it.  I had a brief idea and gave "part a" a shot--and when I checked the answer in the back of the book, it was right!  OK, on to part b.

Buoyed by my success in part a, I thought long and hard about how I might tackle part b.  Then I went on to the next section of the book because I can't spend the rest of the semester on page 34 without moving on.  But I kept coming back to #31b, just to see what intuition would buy me.  Last night (Monday) before going to bed I actually came up with an idea I thought I'd try today.  It was based on logic, but it was a complete and total guess.  I had no idea if I was anywhere near the right path or not.

So when I got home from school today I set to work on 31b.  I checked the section again, but no, no example problem had magically appeared in there.  I was going to have to give my idea a try.  So as I'm turning from pages 30 and 31 (the lesson) to page 34, on which resides problem 31, I passed page 33, which contained problems 29 and 30--both of which introduced concepts needed in #31.  As I said, #31 was the first problem on the page; I hadn't thought to look at previous problems, only the lesson itself, and besides, 29 and 30 weren't assigned.

So I spent a few minutes studying #29 and 30--and I'll be darned, all that thinking and intuition I'd done on parts a and b were definitely on the right track!  Armed with my new-found information in problems 29 and 30, though, I tackled #31, and I got the right answer! 

My goal is to have many more such feelings of victory in the weeks and months ahead.

Voter ID Requirements

Could he be any more correct? (said in best Chandler voice, from Friends)

Current voter-registration systems are flawed, with huge numbers of dead or disqualified voters still on the rolls. And, since voter-ID enforcement is poor, in many places a person can simply claim to be one of those people and vote in their name with no one the wiser.

(Sometimes it’s worse than that — one voting-rights activist, a twentysomething white guy with a pony tail in Washington, DC, managed to get a ballot in Attorney General Eric Holder’s name.)

You might call our system “Third World,” but that would be an insult to the Third World. As Fund and von Spakovsky note, to register to vote in Mexico a voter must provide a photo, a signature and a thumbprint. The Mexican voter-registration card includes holographic security, a magnetic code and a serial number. Before voting, voters have to show the card and have the thumbprints matched by a scanner.

Similar safeguards apply in many other countries, along with simple precautions to prevent repeat voting (remember those Iraqis with purple thumbs?) that America lacks.

In the United States, meanwhile, only 17 states even require identification in order to vote. Holder & Co., claim that requiring photo ID would be racist, because getting a driver’s license, etc., costs money. This claim has consistently been rejected by courts, and with good reason: If requiring photo ID to vote is racist, then what about requiring photo ID to exercise other constitutional rights, like buying a gun?

Of course, the real objection to requiring voter ID isn’t based in civil rights, but in civil wrongs.

To make such observations is probably raaaaaaacist to some people, but to those of us who love liberty, you can't flinch in the face of the truth.

Come On, ABC News, You Can Do Better

A second staffer, a school resource officer, was outside the cafeteria and rushed in to help the teacher subdue the suspect until cops arrived, police said.  link

"Cops"? Really?  ABC News is supposed to be a serious news outlet.  Let's cut down on the use of slang and refer to them as "police" or "law enforcement".

And no, that's not the most important thing I got out of a story in which a student was shot at school by another student, but since I don't really have any commentary to add to that story, I'll just write about something else that jumped out at me.

Humble Pie

Sometimes we bite off more than we can chew.  I did that, so now I have to eat some humble pie.

I thought that I could work, be a dad, have a life, and take 2 master's level courses at the same time.  After one week, in which some of the work was review and there was very little new material, I've found that that's just not so.  The time commitment is just too great.  I might be able to make it through the semester, but I think I'd be a very unhappy, unpleasant person by December.

So I made a decision.  I contacted my advisor--who a couple months ago warned me against taking 2 classes at once--and she concurs with my decision to drop one of the classes.  This morning I dropped statistical analysis.

My remaining class (linear algebra) will still take about 10 hrs a week, but I should still have time left over for the rest of what life has to offer.  I've confirmed with my statistical analysis professor that he'll offer that course again next semester so I'll take it then.

I'm a little embarrassed about being knocked down to size in an academic environment, but, as they say, "it is what it is."  Now I just need to do well in my remaining course so I can salvage some dignity out of this.

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

President Bush popularized that phrase, and it's been enshrined in Virginia's new educational standards:

Virginia's new achievement standards have raised eyebrows.

Part of the state's new standards dictate a specific percentage of racial group that should pass school exams, a move that has angered the Virginia Black Caucus. The caucus' chairwoman, Democratic state Sen. Mamie Locke, says the new standards marginalize students by creating different goals for students of various backgrounds...

The standards do not pose different pass rates for different groups: regardless of race, each student has to correctly answer the same number of test questions in order to pass. The difference lies in the expectation of passing from groups of different backgrounds. The new rules were designed as part of Virginia's waiver from No Child Left Behind, along with 31 other states and Washington, D.C.

For instance, only 45 percent of black students are required to pass the math state test while 82 percent for Asian Americans, 68 percent for whites and 52 percent for Hispanics are required to pass. In reading, 92 percent of Asian students, 90 percent of white students, 80 percent of hispanic students, 76 percent of black students, and 59 percent of students with disabilities are required to pass the state exam.

Can this possibly be correct?  I mean, who could possibly believe this is the right thing to do?

When You Can't Run On Your Record...

It's clear that the president can't campaign on his accomplishments, of which there have been none, so this is what he and his party are reduced to:

To win the “war on women,” the party’s general staff are planning their own Normandy invasion, adding to their convention line-up a host of stellar “pro-choice” speakers, including Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria, Planned Parenthood’s head honchette Cecile Richards, NARAL Pro-Choice America abortion supremo Nancy Keenan, and Georgetown Law’s contraceptive coed Sandra Fluke. President Obama’s lavishly remunerated strategists have presumably run the focus groups and crunched the numbers, but, if I were a moderate, centrist, eternally indecisive swing-voter in a critical state and I switched on the Democrat convention to find a bunch of speakers warning about the threat to your abortion rights I would find it a very curious priority in the summer of 2012.

None of us can know what the world will be like four years from now, but one thing can be said for certain: An American woman will still enjoy her “right to choose.” Whether one supports or opposes abortion, the practical reality is that the biggest “threat” to your “right” to one is that you might have to drive a little bit further for it. Still, one should never underestimate the peculiar lens through which “progressives” view reality: The “war” on women boils down to Sandra Fluke, a 30-year-old schoolgirl, demanding Georgetown Law should pay for its students’ contraceptives — notwithstanding that the entire cost of that four-year contraceptive bill works out to less than the first week’s paycheck of a Georgetown Law graduate’s first job (average starting salary: $160 grand per year). War is hell.

If you think Barbara Boxer’s right about General Romney’s war on woman, feel free to waste your vote. But what else is likely to happen between now and the next time you cast a presidential ballot? We’ve rehearsed the fiscal stuff in this space before: China becoming the world’s biggest economy, another American downgrade, total U.S. liabilities equivalent to about three times the entire planet’s GDP. A “non-partisan” Pew Research study says the American middle class faces its “worst decade in modern history” — and the first bump down starts on January 1: The equally “non-partisan” Congressional Budget Office now says that the tax and budget changes due to take effect at the beginning of 2013 will put the country back in recession and increase unemployment. This is a revision of their prediction earlier this year that in 2013 the economy would contract by 1.3 percent. Now they say 2.9 percent. These days, CBO revisions only go one way — down. They’re gonna need steeper graph paper. In a global economy, atrophy goes around like syphilis in the Gay Nineties: A moribund U.S. economy further mires Europe, and both slow growth in China, which means fewer orders for resource-rich nations. . . . Four wheels spinning in the mud, and none with a firm-enough grip to pull the vehicle back on to solid ground.

This president has never even signed a federal budget.  Would you want to put your signature on the mound of debt he's racked up?  You don't hear the president or his party addressing any of these topics on the campaign trail, and for that reason if no other he deserves to be fired in November.

RIP, Neil

I just saw that Neil Armstrong has died.  He was my first hero.

The Road To Hell

The do-gooders thought they were saving Mother Gaia by banning DDT, and now many areas of our country are inundated with bedbugs and poor people throughout the world die from malaria.

I remember when grocery stores switched from offering paper bags to plastic bags because--wait for it--plastic was better for the earth because we didn't have to cut down trees!  Now in some jurisdictions they're not supposed to offer you any bag at all; you're supposed to bring your own, with entirely foreseeable (and foreseen) consequences:

Researchers examined these reusable totes and found significant amounts of dangerous bacteria, including, among others, E-coli. And there seems to be a correlation between plastic bag bans and increased illness, as bacteria-related deaths spiked immediately after San Francisco’s bag measure began. 

Liberals sometimes like to mockingly pray, "Lord, please save me from your followers."  I might paraphrase their prayer to, "Lord, please save me from those who try to save me from myself."

I Found It!

Tonight while looking for something else I found a picture I've been looking for for months:

Sadly, in my scan, because it's black ink on a black section of the picture, you can't see the part that says "To Darren".  Darn it, there's got to be a way to scan it such that my name is visible!!!

Last year one of my students interned in the Capitol and got me a new autographed picture of the current, older Governor Brown. No, I'm no Democrat--and I wasn't in 1982, either--but this is still kinda cool, so I'm going to scan both of them and hang them up in my classroom.

Update, 8/26/12:  That was then, this is now:

Linear Algebra

Last night I spent close to an hour studying 2 sections of the book, then spent another hour watching the video lesson covering those two sections.  Today I spent about an hour on the homework on those two sections.

And that was just Linear Algebra.  Statistical Analysis is another animal entirely!

Yes, I brought this upon myself--I could be done with this degree in 10 months if I just wanted to jump through hoops at National or Phoenix, but that isn't the point of this post.

As an undergrad I took linear algebra while an exchange cadet at the Air Force Academy.  A recent retiree from my school was the course director for linear algebra at USAFA for a couple of years immediately before I got there--talk about a coincidence!  Anyway, I once talked to him about what a horrible course it was, how the book was horrible, and he was horrified.  He said it was a wonderful book, then pulled it out of his closet (!!!) and asked what was wrong with it.  "This isn't the book we used," I said.  The next day I brought in the book we had used, he glanced through it and said, "It's no wonder you didn't learn anything.  This is way above the head of anyone taking an introductory linear algebra course.  This is at least master's level."

I got the highest score in the class and there's an A on my transcript, but if I remember correctly, that score was maybe a 60% or something.  I could go through some motions but I didn't learn a thing.  Last night and today I learned Gaussian Elimination, how to manipulate matrices into reduced row-echelon form and solve systems of equations.

I've learned more in 3 hours of this course than I learned in a semester in my previous Linear Algebra course.

Now I need to tackle some of the other course.

I Thought Getting A Master's Degree Was Supposed To Be Easy :-)

2 courses.
3 hrs of video lecture per course per week.
Plus homework.
Plus tests.
For an entire semester.

For 5 semesters.

What have I done???

Students Who Exercise Their Rights

Some people just don't like our Constitution.  Would this physics professor cancel class if he found out that people were going to exercise their 1st Amendment rights?

University of Colorado Chancellor Phil DiStefano notified the Boulder campus faculty Tuesday afternoon that professors "do not have the right to shut down a class or refuse to teach" should they learn that one of their students is lawfully carrying a gun under a concealed-carry permit.

And, DiStefano added, any faculty members who do so will be in violation of their contracts and face disciplinary action.

DiStefano's message comes a day after Professor Jerry Peterson, chairman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly, told the Daily Camera that, under his own "personal policy," he plans to cancel class if he ever learns any of his students are carrying firearms. A Colorado Supreme Court ruling this spring overturned CU's Boulder campus gun ban, and university officials say that students with conceal-carry permits are allowed to bring guns into classrooms and labs. ..

"On this issue, there can be no ambiguity: all CU-Boulder faculty, as CU and state employees, are expected to teach their assigned courses and to hold classes for all enrolled students," DiStefano wrote.

I'm impressed that Chancellor DiStefano's comments are as strong as they are. The ball is now in Professor Peterson's court.