The Very Definition of Fascism

When government “politely asks” businesses to do its dirty work for them, whether the businesses do so gleefully or reluctantly, isn’t that kinda sorta the very definition of fascism?

The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents — obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents — illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.

The work, much of which remains unknown to the American public, came into clearer view earlier this year when DHS announced a new “Disinformation Governance Board”: a panel designed to police misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) that allegedly threatens U.S. interests. While the board was widely ridiculed, immediately scaled back, and then shut down within a few months, other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate — the war on terror — has been wound down.

Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.

This next sentence ought to send shivers down the spine of anyone who loves freedom: 

“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.

It's Halloween, so you know you want to be scared.  Go read the whole thing. 

Update, 11/2/22:  Even the ACLU, which has lost its way in recent years, is right on this one:

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) went back to its roots Monday, condemning the government for working with Big Tech to censor certain topics and calling it a betrayal of constitutional rights.

"The First Amendment bars the government from deciding for us what is true or false, online or anywhere. Our government can’t use private pressure to get around our constitutional rights," the ACLU tweeted from its official account.

Plastic Recycling--Or Lack Thereof

Even the wackadoos at Greenpeace are admitting the reality:

Even Greenpeace has finally acknowledged the truth: recycling plastic makes no sense.

This has been obvious for decades to anyone who crunched the numbers, but the fantasy of recycling plastic proved irresistible to generations of environmentalists and politicians. They preached it to children, mandated it for adults, and bludgeoned municipalities and virtue-signaling corporations into wasting vast sums—probably hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide—on an enterprise that has been harmful to the environment as well as to humanity.

Now Greenpeace has seen the light, or at least a glimmer of rationality. The group has issued a report accompanied by a press release headlined, “Plastic Recycling Is A Dead-End Street—Year After Year, Plastic Recycling Declines Even as Plastic Waste Increases.” The group’s overall policy remains delusional—the report proposes a far more harmful alternative to recycling—but it’s nonetheless encouraging to see environmentalists put aside their obsessions long enough to contemplate reality.

The Greenpeace report offers a wealth of statistics and an admirably succinct diagnosis: “Mechanical and chemical recycling of plastic waste has largely failed and will always fail because plastic waste is: (1) extremely difficult to collect, (2) virtually impossible to sort for recycling, (3) environmentally harmful to reprocess, (4) often made of and contaminated by toxic materials, and (5) not economical to recycle.” Greenpeace could have added a sixth reason: forcing people to sort and rinse their plastic garbage is a waste of everyone’s time. But then, making life more pleasant for humans has never been high on the green agenda.

These fatal flaws have been clear since the start of the recycling movement...

Environmentalists’ zeal to ban plastic is far more destructive than their former passion to recycle it; it’s also harder to explain. Recycling, while impractical, at least offered emotional rewards to hoarders reluctant to put anything in the trash and to the many people who perform garbage-sorting as a ritual of atonement—a sacrament of the green religion. But why demonize plastic? Why ban products that are cheaper, sturdier, lighter, cleaner, healthier, and better for the environment? One reason: the plastic scare helps Greenpeace activists raise money and keep their jobs. Environmentalists need something to replace their failed recycling campaign.

The BBC Knows Not What It Writes About

They totally don't get it. Our governmental system is designed to ensure that passions are moderated, not enshrined into law:

It's notoriously hard to get new laws passed in the US and few believe the looming election reshaping Congress will solve that. Could the Swiss "people power" model help?

The US political system seems designed to create gridlock. The two chambers of Congress are frequently controlled by different parties.

The Senate has longstanding procedures that allow the minority party there to block most major legislation that doesn't have the support of at least 60 of the 100 senators.

And anything passed by Congress can be vetoed by a president (overriding that requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate).

All this means that the political stars have to align for the federal government to get things done - even overwhelmingly popular laws will wither on the congressional vine.

Policies like raising the minimum wage, enacting gun control legislation or immigration reform have substantial support but go nowhere in Washington.

Leave it to the BBC to suggest that minimum wage laws and gun control have substantial public support in this country.  They don't.

One wonders if they, like the NYT or MSNBC, even recognize what a leftie outlet they are.

Let the Swiss have their system, if they like it.  I prefer ours, thankyouverymuch.

"Even Liberals Should Be Skeptical of Racial Preferences in Higher Education"

Do racial preferences in higher education help black Americans?  This liberal emphatically says no:

Let’s begin by being clear on terminology. “Affirmative action” in higher education embraces many activities that the plaintiffs in the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases are not challenging. Investing in educational pipelines to improve under-performing high schools, improving outreach to underrepresented students, improving admissions practices to better capture student ability—these all reflect the traditional meaning of “affirmative action,” and no one is questioning their legality.

The practices used by Harvard and UNC, and challenged by Students for Fair Admissions, are racial preferences—admitting some students with weak credentials, and rejecting other students with strong credentials, strictly based on which racial “box” they check...

This policy is carried out in a variety of ways, including giving negative weight to Asian applicant performance and having admissions officers give dramatically lower interview ratings to Asian-American applicants than Harvard’s own alumni give the same students in interviews. By Harvard’s own internal analysis, it’s clear that Asian-Americans would make up around 30 percent of the student body in a race-neutral process, but they are limited to around 18-20 percent of the student body. This is every bit as appalling and illiberal as the old Jewish quota.

Meanwhile, the corresponding racial preferences favoring Black applicants, if perhaps appealing to many liberals in principle, produce a cascade of terrible results.

At most elite universities and professional schools, preferences are so large as to produce huge gaps in student performance. Half of Black law students in American law schools have first-year GPAs that put them in the bottom 10 percent of the class—and their poor performance, it can be clearly shown, is entirely due to the large preferences the students receive.

Black students who receive no preference perform just as well as whites or Asian-Americans. But when a racial group is performing poorly by design, it has many awful effects. Black students will feel demoralized, stigmatized, and even discriminated-against (which of course they are, in a sense). Other students will form negative stereotypes about the poor-performing group—just the opposite of the intended beneficial effect of a “diverse” class...

Large preferences (racial or otherwise), we show, produce massive and heartbreaking declines in bar passage rates. Tens of thousands of Black law students have failed to become lawyers over the years because of misguided preference policies.

There are signs that these facts are starting to sink into the liberal establishment.

The Supreme Court will hear the Harvard/UNC case(s) tomorrow.

A Long Day of Football

In my district we're required to perform unpaid duty at 6 extracurricular events per year.  The district's view is that these unpaid events (supervising at dances or at sports, for example) are part of what we get paid to do, and while they're technically correct since that's what our contract says, the local teachers union could do a lot worse than ensuring such supervision is paid.  So much time and effort goes into planning, scheduling, and supervising such unpaid supervision, most of which would go away if you paid teachers even a modicum to supervise.

At my school we get away with doing only 4 events per year.  Usually I sign up for two Friday nights of football, both JV and varsity, and that completes my non-instructional duties for the year.  We don't have stadium lights on our school's football field, so we play our home games at a school that's only about 3 miles from my house.  These football games last from about 4:30 to 10:15, and then I go home.

After we signed up for this year's unpaid non-instructional duties, a friend invited me to her Friday night wedding--on one of the Fridays I'd signed up for football duty.  Since I wanted to go to her wedding I traded duties with a teacher at my school.

He'd signed up for JV and varsity games held at our own school--on a Saturday (yesterday).  I got up, cleaned up, left home around 10, and was at school by 10:30, and the games ended around 4:15 or so. So I spent most of yesterday's daylight hours at sparsely attended football games, sitting in my lawn chair and ensuring nobody jumped the fence in order to get in without paying.  Exciting stuff.

When the game ended, the same friend I'd traded with met me at school.  He and I attended the Oregon State @ Stanford game a few weeks ago, and last night we went to the Idaho @ Sacramento State football game.

I attended both schools.  I got my masters degree online at Idaho, but I've never stepped foot on the campus.  I took 4 classes at Sac State early in my education career--not a great experience, but Sac State is my hometown school.  No matter which team won, I could be happy.  I just hoped for a well-played, close game with lots of lead changes.

We sat on the Sac State side and cheered for Sac State, which was 7-0 going into the game vs Idaho's 5-2 record.  The line was Sac State by 13.5 at kickoff, with the over/under at 62.5 points.  Throughout the first half it was easy to cheer for Sac State, and in the 3rd Quarter they were leading 24-7.

I could actually feel the momentum shift after that, as Idaho eventually pulled ahead 28-24 late in the 4th Quarter.  Sac State moved methodically down the field and scored, winning 31-28.  Idaho had missed a field goal early in the game. 

I got home shortly after 10 pm.  That was enough football for one day.

Imagine Universities Populated By Capable Students

It's easy if you try....

As I’ve said for years, students who don’t possess the requisite skills and knowledge shouldn’t be in universities, they should be at Community College.  Imagine, no more impacted programs (as in nursing) as schools admit only the qualified.

The crisis in US K-12 public education continues to deepen, and decisions by many colleges and universities to abandon SAT and ACT scores are making it worse. Instead of demanding more accountability from high schools, colleges are expecting less.

In the latest dismal signs for students, scores on the ACT college entrance exam have fallen to the lowest level in 30 years, while fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (often called the nation’s report card) show devastating declines. Taken together, these results underscore the urgency of K-12 interventions and the necessity of reinstating testing standards for college applicants.  link

Update, 10/31/22:  Here's how universities make make higher education more affordable, if they had any incentive to do so:

If colleges and universities got back to basics -- teaching and worthwhile research -- they could serve students without saddling them with massive debt, writes Richard Vedder, an emeritus economics professor at Ohio University.

Should, But Won't

Being a leftie means never having to admit you were wrong:

Editorial: Achievement data should discourage future school closures

Just-released data confirms some of the public’s worst fears: COVID and remote learning took an enormous toll on many students. In Pennsylvania, two decades of academic gains have been wiped out, as students are at their lowest proficiency levels in nearly two decades. 

It’s now painfully obvious that snap closures that morph into long-term lockouts, while understandable during the early uncertainty of the pandemic, were wrong. They set back an entire generation of students, and it will take years to catch up. The nation must do better during the next public health emergency. But the immediate challenge is helping students set back by the pandemic to catch up. If they don’t, the nation will pay a huge price in jails, prisons and lost human potential.

For the first time, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, showed across-the-board declines, from 2019 to 2022, in proficiency for U.S. students in reading and math at the 4th and 8th grade levels. The worst declines were in math, with proficiency levels decreasing from 41% to 36% for 4th graders, and 34% to 26% for 8th graders.

The research shows that remote learning worked well for some students. Overall, however, the COVID experiment in universal education-by-screens was a failure. 

Zoom school was remote teaching, not remote learning.

Department of Defense Schools Are Not Immune to the Zeitgeist

Why do some people insist on providing explicit sexual material to other people's children?  And wouldn't you think that such people wouldn't get very near Department of Defense schools?  If you do, you'd be wrong:

Pentagon school libraries contained dozens of books with jarring, pornographic content, such as detailed instructions on how to have sex, or radical gender ideology from elementary to high school, a Fox News Digital investigation has found. 

Fox News looked into over 50 schools, selected at random, at the Department of Defense Education Activity, which services over 66,000 military-connected children in the Americas, Europe and the Pacific. Some of DoDEA's libraries boasted specific sections for "banned" books, including explicit titles such as "This Book is Gay," which discusses orgies and sex apps. 

Many of the pornographic and radical gender ideology books were added within the last two years amid President Biden taking office. This finding was determined by taking into account dates books were originally published.

DoDEA and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

I'll bet they didn't.

Books in DoDEA high schools were found to contain sex imagery, detailed instructions on masturbation, recording sex, sending nude pictures, how to have anal sex and other topics. 

It's not a school's place to provide such information to students.  That's what their parents (and the internet) are for.

Maybe There Are No Tailpipe Emissions....

I have friends with Teslas.  The cars are fun to drive in.  But let's not pretend they're so-called zero-emission vehicles:

As California, New York, and other states move to phase out the sale of gasoline-powered cars, public officials routinely echo the Biden administration’s claim that electric vehicles are a “zero emissions” solution that can significantly mitigate the effects of climate change. 

Car and energy experts, however, say there is no such thing as a zero-emissions vehicle: For now and the foreseeable future, the energy required to manufacture and power electric cars will leave a sizable carbon footprint. In some cases hybrids can be cleaner alternatives in states that depend on coal to generate electricity, and some suggest that it may be too rash to write off all internal combustion vehicles just yet. 

“I have a friend who drives a Kia he’s had for about 15 years,” said Ashley Nunes, a research fellow at Harvard Law School. “He called me and said, ‘Hey, I’m thinking of buying a Tesla. What do you think?’” 

“I said, ‘If you care about the environment, keep the Kia,’” Nunes said. 

Nunes’ advice points to the subtle complexities and numerous variables that challenge the reassuringly simple yet overstated promise of electric vehicles. Few dispute that the complete transition to EVs powered by cleaner electricity from renewable energy sources will have a less dire environmental impact than today’s gas-powered automotive fleet. But that low-carbon landscape exists on a distant horizon that’s booby-trapped with obstacles and popular misconceptions. 

In the meantime, the growing efforts by governments in this country and abroad to ban people from buying a transportation technology that has shaped modern society for the past century is prompting some electric car advocates to warn against using best-case scenarios to promote unrealistic expectations about the practicalities, costs, and payoffs of EVs. 

Shocking to me was the quote from a professor at Berkeley-lite:

“They're making these forecasts that are basically licking your finger and sticking it up in the air,” David Rapson, a professor of energy economics at the University of California, Davis, who analyzes electric vehicle policy, said about California forecasts, which also applies more broadly. “Nobody knows what's going to happen."

Will tenure protect him?

Read the whole thing.

I Expected His Case To Go The Other Way

I'm not sure I'm 100% comfortable with the Court's decision.  In fact, I'm 100% sure I'm not comfortable with it how the Supreme Court ruled.  Once they ruled, though, I guess the district had to hire him back:

A Washington high school football coach who was fired by the district over postgame prayers must be reinstated to his old job by March 2023, court documents filed Tuesday say.

Joe Kennedy, a former football coach at Bremerton High School, was put on leave in 2015 for reciting prayers at midfield following games. 

His case was decided last June.

Berkeley-lite and the Heckler's Veto

They make all the 1st Amendment noises but still cancel the event:

The University of California Davis canceled a student-led event with Turning Point USA, featuring Stephen "MAGA Hulk" Davis, on Tuesday after fights broke out between protesters and counter-protesters.

In a statement issued Tuesday evening, the university said the event was canceled before Davis began speaking after about 100 people outside the conference center started fighting, using pepper spray, knocking over barricades, removing traffic cones and banging barricades on the glass of the venue. UC Davis claims some people fighting were wearing "Proud Boys" clothing.

Approximately 30 people were inside the venue waiting for the event to start when the fights took place, the university said.

Event canceled.  The lefties got exactly what they wanted.

I'm Seeing This Storyline More And More Frequently

Facts won't sway the True Believers or the Virtue Signalers, but if there's this much resistance to plastic recycling, shouldn't we do away with it?  Is the purpose of government to tell us all how to live?

Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as "fiction."

Titled "Circular Claims Fall Flat Again," the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by U.S. households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons were recycled, or around five percent. After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West's plastic waste in 2018...

According to the report, there were five main reasons why plastic recycling is a "failed concept"...

Fifth and finally, the process of recycling is prohibitively expensive.

"New plastic directly competes with recycled plastic, and it's far cheaper to produce and of higher quality," said the report.

The "failed concept" won't end if the people in charge are, or are influenced by, the True Believers or the Virtue Signalers.

"Woke" German

I took 3 years of German in high school.  I respect the language, notwithstanding the fact that every noun has one of three genders (masculine "der", feminine "die", and neuter "das") versus the one in English (the).  The Germans are very proud of their language; to be honest, I was a bit surprised when the German government did away with umlauts and resorted to merely placing an "e" after the formerly umlauted letter (probably makes keyboarding easier).  Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised, given their so-called Teutonic efficiency.

Getting rid of umlauts is one thing, changing their language to satisfy a few weirdos who kneel at the altar of "inclusion" and "wokeness" is entirely another--and I'm sure they'll have none of it:

Linguists have slammed Cambridge University for teaching and encouraging students to speak a new form of gender-neutral German.

The university's 'inclusive language' section of the £9,250-per-year German course aims 'to use gender- and non-binary-inclusive language' in both speech and writing.

The push for inclusive language likely stems from German's use of the male form when referring to the plural form of words, which some argue is sexist and doesn't account for non-binary people.

Actually, all plurals are "die", which is feminine, but we'll overlook this one small error.

However, experts argue attempting to converse in the 'woke version' of the ancient language 'stand a good chance of making a fool of themselves.'

The Germans are very forgiving of people who try to speak their language, but I can't believe they'll be very accepting of holier-than-thou foreigners' changing their language for them merely to satisfy a few political cultists.

Standing Astride "Wokeness" And Saying "Stop!"

Math is racist?  What's next, gravity?  At least some eminent mathematicians are standing up against this sort of silliness:

Californians have witnessed many foundational pillars of society come under siege by fringe activism. They shouldn’t be too surprised that now even eternal, ubiquitous, infinite, and perfect mathematics is the next target in the crosshairs.

It’s only the chic excuses for decades of abysmal math results in U.S. schools that change, and with approximately four in 10 of California’s public school students proficient in math currently, the latest blame shifting should stretch parents’ patience.

A Seattle public schools pilot program has adopted framework for a K-12 curriculum teaching that “math has been appropriated by Western culture” and beyond that, is currently being used “to oppress and marginalize people.”

“The mathematicians of Alpha Centauri are doing the same math as us,” says UC Berkeley Professor Richard Borchends, winner of the planet’s most prestigious math award, the Fields Medal. “Life’s too short to waste on such folly.”

The Fields Prize is mathematics' equivalent of a Nobel, there being no Nobel Prize for Math.  Let's return to the article:

Harvard Professor Emeritus David Mumford says, “The idea that math is ‘racist’ is absurd,” he shot back. A second professor emeritus at uber-prestigious Harvard, David Kazhdan, says, “Empty claims without any concrete examples.”

Another Fields medalist, Prof. Martin Hairer at London’s Imperial College, says that context matters and that “no one truly suggests math in itself has a racist or bigoted component,” offering the understandably frustrated observation that “culture wars raging in the U.S. seem distant and incomprehensible.”

Bruce Berndt, named among the 10 most influential mathematicians, says that there may be some prejudiced “potholes” along the way, as in any human endeavor.

“In the thousands of mathematical papers I’ve read, I have never found anything that could be identified as racist. It’s a sad fact that science is being politicized by those who prefer ignorant prejudices over facts. Mathematics, thankfully hasn’t suffered too much.”

One of the world’s top-tier female mathematicians, requesting anonymity, is unconvinced that race or sex has anything to do with manipulating numbers successfully. “Math isn’t racist or sexist,” she says. “The problems of teaching mathematics in school have less to do with math and more with politics. Anyone who doubts that is blind to the sort of society in which we live.”

All I can offer is a "hear hear!" and an invitation to read the complete article.

What An Idiot

Do people really mean stuff like this when they say it, or are they virtue signalling to show off their leftie bona fides?

Centennial School Board candidate Jessica Schwinn suggested white people who quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are racist and accused them of advocating for white supremacy.

I have to believe she knows such a view is unsupportable (by reason), yet she voices it anyway.  What gives?

Put Out To Pasture

Ecstasy was the second cruise ship that I sailed on, it saddens me when these beauties get broken up:

Carnival Cruise Line’s oldest ship, Carnival Ecstasy, recently sail her final cruise after more than 31 years in service.

Carnival Ecstasy’s final cruise was a five night sailing out of Mobile, Alabama on October 10, 2022.  After the cruise was over, the ship sailed to Miami where the vessel stayed docked for several days.

On October 20, the cruise ship departed from Miami and is now headed towards Aliaga, Turkey.  Carnival Ecstasy’s ETA in Turkey is on November 7, 2022.

There is a large cruise ship recycling center in Aliaga. Four of Carnival Ecstasy’s sister ships (Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Sensation, Carnival Imagination, and Carnival Inspiration) were scrapped here during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The most recent ship I sailed on has also been sold for scrap:

On 12 April 2017, after being handed over to CMV she consequently departed Singapore as the Pacific Pearl sailed to Damen Shiprepair Schiedam in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and underwent dry dock to become Columbus.^[14] In 2018, she underwent dry dock with Damen Shiprepair in Amsterdam.

In March 2020, CMV's operations were temporarily shut down, along with the rest of the cruise industry, to combat the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. By July 2020, CMV had entered administration. On 12 October 2020, Columbus was auctioned by CW Kellock & Co. London, and was sold to Greek ferry operator Seajets.^[15] The ship was bought by SeaJets, but due to the ship aging and other problems, SeaJets sold her for scrap in Alang.^[6] She was beached in Alang, India for scrap on 12 April 2021 and scrapping begin on 5 August 2021.

Climate Nihilism

Why do people choose to believe something that isn't true?  Are their lives so devoid of meaning that they have to create drama in their lives, they have to be a part of a fantasy bigger than themselves?

The main reason policymakers are pursuing pro-scarcity policies is because they, along with most of the public, believe the environment is getting worse, not better. The share of Americans who say the state of the environment is fair or poor rose from 49% to 61% between 2015 and 2022. Movies and television reinforce this perception. In David Cronenberg’s new film, “Crimes of the Future,” industrial waste, such as from microplastics, has become so prevalent that people’s bodies start evolving so they can eat it.

But almost every major environmental trend is improving. Lead, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous oxide pollutants declined 99%, 91%, and 61% between 1980 and 2018, according to the U.S. EPA. It’s true carbon emissions are rising again. But that’s because natural gas shortages are forcing nations to burn more coal, which is twice as polluting. Carbon emissions globally were flat over the last decade and declined 22% in the U.S. from 2005 and 2020. And there is little evidence that microplastics actually harm human health, something Cronenberg himself acknowledged.

Why, then, do people think things are getting worse? 

Natural gas, easily gotten from frakking, and nuclear power are the most green large scale energy sources we have today.  We should be pursuing those with a vengeance.  The fact that we're not tells me that energy independence and higher living standards are not the goals of the environmental movement or our current administration.

Be A Hero. Eat Meat.

I Am Unemployable

I spent some time a few nights ago running through Indeed.com looking at different jobs.  I came to one conclusion:  I'm unemployable.

For years my dream job has been to work at a gaming company, one that designs and manufactures slot machines, running the calculations for slot machine wins--a Game Mathematician.  Most of the entry-level jobs seek a "recent college graduate", and the more advanced positions require skills I don't have.  I'm in no man's land, probably a common experience for people of a certain age.

There are many analytical-type jobs, often in health care, and there are also the education jobs (specifically community college).  Those jobs require a submission not only of a resume, but also of a statement of support for minorities, members of underserved communities, the disabled, the sexual minorities, English learners, etc.  Here's an excerpt:

Candidates must exhibit an appreciation of, a sensitivity to, and a respect for a diverse academic environment, inclusive of students, faculty, and staff varying social, economic, cultural, ideological and ethnic backgrounds. 

Some of them are even more declarative. 

We believe that educational justice can only be achieved when all students are successful — including students of color, students from low-income communities, English learners, and students with disabilities. Our team is committed to addressing gaps in educator understanding and practice, pairing support with high expectations, allowing all students the opportunity to access high-quality instruction.

Educational "justice"?  How about "excellence"?  If you're using "woke" terms like "educational justice", you're not interested in high expectations, you have ideological goals that don't align with academic excellence, despite claiming otherwise. 

To be honest, I don't care about your social, economic, cultural, ideological, or ethnic background.  If you're in my class, I'm going to teach you math.  If there is a difficulty, we'll see what other resources are available to help me to teach and you to learn.  I'm interested in my students as students, not as members of groups that don't have any relation to learning math.  You want so-called educational justice?  Seek academic excellence, and justice and success will follow.

You can say I'm old-fashioned, and I am, but tell me, how are your "woke" views working out?   Is student achievement going up?  Is there any evidence that high school students are doing better than in the recent past, or that university students are graduating better prepared to succeed in the adult world?  The reason so many jobs require university degrees is because high school diplomas are worthless, a point I've made several times on this blog.  A university degree today is only slightly more valuable than a high school degree of the past.

No, I don't fit the political or ideological structures in education today, and I'm too honest to lie in a statement of ideological conformity.  Thus, until I find a position that is not directly related to teaching math, I'm sort of stuck where I am.  Five more years, I should be able to make it.

"Eco morons"

I think this “gluing” trend will end if more of the victims act like Volkswagen did:

Eco-demonstrators who glued themselves to the floor of a Volkswagen factory then moaned that their hands hurt and they could not go to the toilet have been arrested.

Nine activists from the Scientist Rebellion group broke into Autostadt, a museum and car showroom opposite Volkswagen's main factory in Wolfsburg, late on Wednesday and glued themselves to the floor of the Porsche pavilion.

They vowed to continue their protest until Volkswagen agreed to lobby ministers to decarbonise the transport industry.

But they began complaining after just a few hours that they had no food and staff had refused to bring them a bowl to defecate in...

As the protest got under way, Mr Grimalda tweeted: 'Together with 15 other members of Scientist Rebellion I have occupied the Porsche pavilion at Autostadt.

'Nine of us glued to the floor and some of us on hunger strike until our demands to decarbonise the German transport sector are met.'

But just two hours later, he had begun complaining that museum staff 'refused our request to provide us with a bowl to urinate and defecate in a decent manner while we are glued, and have turned off the heating'.

He added: 'People in support can get out of the building but then they couldn't get back in. We can't order our food, we must use the one provided by Volkswagen. 

'Lights off. Random unannounced checks by security guards with bright torches. Police just came in'...

Images showed dozens of riot police inside the pavilion and people being arrested outside, ending the protest on its second day. 

That Volkswagen provided them food and water shows more decency than I would have.  I support locking the building and coming back in a week.