The Nevada Trip, Part 1--The Desert

I took 117 pictures on this trip, but will only post a representative sample here. For those of you who have never seen the American West--and by that I don't mean San Francisco or Los Angeles, but the wild West--you're in for a treat.

After I picked my son up at the airport Saturday night, we drove for 3 hours to Fallon, NV, the starting point for this trip. Sunday morning we headed east on Highway 50, the Loneliest Road In America, and stopped at Grimes Point.

click on pictures to enlarge them

Here's an extremely good-looking guy near one of the many engraved rocks. Grimes Point was a rocky peninsula in a lake a couple thousand years ago, and the natives would herd game there and trap them on the peninsula. There's not much sign left of any lake. Global warming, perhaps???





Continuing east we passed Sand Mountain. To get an idea how big it is, click on the picture and find the black dots in the sand. Those are people riding ATVs.


Shortly after passing Austin, NV, we started our trek on about 60 miles of dirt roads. This particular scene is of the Toiyabe National Forest in Central Nevada. Not quite what you'd expect of Nevada or of a National Forest, is it?


We had quite the adventure looking for the Toquima Cave, site of Native American cave painting, but we eventually found it. The area isn't marked but can be found on local maps.


A real treat was Diana's Punchbowl. Here's a view of it from about a mile away. Again, to get an idea of the size, click on the picture and find the pickup parked near the top.


To give you an idea of the size of the punchbowl, at the bottom of which is a 200 degree hot spring, that's my son standing on the far side at the top.


You can see that it's not shallow, either.


The end of the dirt road came at Belmont. It's billed as a ghost town, but since a few people live there today it's more of an "inhabited area with lots of ruins". Old mining town, of course.





And finally, our destination for the night, the thriving metropolis of Tonopah. The Mizpah, shown here, can be yours for only $1.65 million. In a previous post, commenters mentioned that the residents of this fine town are rude; fortunately I didn't encounter that.


I was buzzed by a Stealth fighter while driving down an empty US 395 in December, 1990. By then their existence near Tonopah had already been announced or at least was an open secret.


This sign was in a storefront window in Tonopah. Perhaps a meeting of Spellers Anonymous would be in order.


The next day involved another 20 or so miles of dirt roads in order to see this crater, among other sites. The walk around to the other side would be about a mile--and while the view from that peak would have made a great picture, I didn't go.


A desert denizen (coyote?) somewhere along US Highway 6 or Nevada State Highway 375.


There's no long and winding road here, just a long one. Sorry, Paul.


We heard a sonic boom (only the second I've ever heard) but saw no strange aircraft or other UFOs.


There are three roads which might be the one that goes from 375 to the Groom Lake/Area 51 facility, and this mailbox is at the middle one. It belongs to a nearby resident and is supposed to be the ideal spot from which to see UFOs. The owner claims never to have seen one, though.

And from here we drove to Las Vegas, which will be shown in a different post.

The Lines Have Started Already

Lefties here in this country tout the "free" health care programs of Canada and the United Kingdom but always conveniently forget to mention the long waits. Of course, an American universal health care plan would avoid lines and waits, it just would.

Or would it?

Just What I Need

Will I be required to support this union financially as well?

In a move that might make some people scratch their heads, a loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers are trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.

Good gawd, we need this like we need a hole in the head.

Warrantless Surveillance

A quick search for FISA (use the search box at the top of this page) will bring up my blog posts regarding warrantless surveillance, which our friends on the left called "illegal wiretaps". Of course, they were not illegal at all--in fact, the Congress has recently voted to expand the program.

Here's a list of the tweaks to the old program.

You're A Racist If You Don't Support Voluntary Segregation At Colleges/Universities

In an editorial for a school newspaper, I criticized how the school's four ethnic theme dorms (African-American, American Indian, Asian and Latino) stereotyped minorities by categorizing individuals by race rather than considering broader personal experiences and values. The response: How dare I condemn the established multicultural institutions on campus! Didn't I know that I had no business commenting on the issue since, as one student stated on a campus forum, I was just a "white, libertarian girl from the O.C." Considering how often students refer to their right of free speech when they criticize the school or presidential administration, their reactions to my article were stunning.

I received so many caustic e-mails and messages the weekend after my article was published that my residential adviser actually asked me to inform him if I received any tangible threats. Luckily, these messages were just irrationally irate, not violent. Students accused me of being a racist and an ignoramus because no one they knew had ever objected to the houses. One black girl asked me to be her "Facebook friend," suggesting I didn't have any minority friends or else I wouldn't have written the article. Most students did not respond to my arguments, opting to personally slander me.

It's good that the left can behave in such a mature, intellectual manner (cough cough). Are you surprised at that? I'm not.

What Will The Church of Global Warming Followers Say Now?

Scroll down to the comments at the end of this post to see how they challenge this statement:

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II.

I can't vouch for the accuracy, veracity, or track record of Dailytech.com, from which the quote above was taken. But they have a link to the NASA information. If someone can show me that this information is demonstrably false, I'll obviously post an update with a retraction.

Update, 8/11/07: You knew Kerplunk would have something to say about this.

The Benefits of Diversity

Outstanding ethnic restaurants notwithstanding, a (liberal) scholar determines that diversity apparently isn't all it's cracked up to be.

But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

"The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott Page, a University of Michigan political scientist.

So can we finally quit genuflecting at the altar of diversity and get back to what really makes this country great--the freedoms it allows individuals?

Update, 8/16/07: This piece had a tasty morsel that the left won't like:

Here, too, Robert Putnam has a possible assimilation model. Hold onto your hat. It's Christian evangelical megachurches. "In many large evangelical congregations," he writes, "the participants constituted the largest thoroughly integrated gatherings we have ever witnessed." This, too, is an inconvenient truth. They do it with low entry barriers to the church and by offering lots of little groups to join inside the larger "shared identity" of the church. A Harvard prof finds good in evangelical megachurches. Send this man a suit of body armor!

Body armor, indeed!

Cowardly Academics

Rabbi Aryeh Spero is a radio talk show host, a pulpit rabbi, and president of Caucus For America.

So now we know a little bit about Rabbi Spero. Let's see what he has to say in FrontPage Magazine:

So-called intellectuals, as found in universities, have seldom been people of courage. They are only "brave" when it comes to speaking and writing against "devils" whom they know will never physically harm them. Richard Nixon and George Bush are not going to behead or send people to beat physically intellectuals and their familiy (sic) members even if they are the brunt of left-wing mouthings. In fact, intellectuals receive greater acclaim among their colleagues and students -- the only community they frequent and care about -- if they speak against America or western civilization. Their "speaking out" is really not an act of courage at all, rather an act of career-advancement, one causing adulation.

However, most school adminstrators (sic)-- be they at Pace or San Francisco State, Berkely (sic), or Columbia -- are indeed afraid of live, angry, chanting, in-your-face Moslem students, not to mention their legal representatives from CAIR and the ACLU ever ready to charge them with racism and the crime of "Islamophobia" if they do not bend to the will of Islamic demands on campus. Historically, intellectuals have always sided with the dictatorial bullies they fear -- they are afraid of those who will use their fists, since they are unwilling to use their own.

In contrast, when was the last time evangelicals brought a college to court on the charge of "Christophobia" ( indeed, the deans would consider that a badge of "enlightenment" ) and what administrator is afraid that the pro-Israel Jewish students are going to rough-up the staff and punch-out other students. Academics will never admit to the fear which forces them to be "sensitive" to every Islamic demand while deaf to the victimization from it toward peaceful everyday students. They have crafted new categories of justice and crimes on campus that mask their fear.

Nail. Hammer. Whack!

Diversity and Multiculturalism

The Colossus of Rhodey says it so well that I'll just cut and paste here, along with a big fat "yeah, what he said":

Liberal groups, as I've noted often before, just cannot get out of the way of their own circular logic when it comes to "diversity" and multiculturalism. Here we read, further in the DSEA newsletter, that the NEA brief in support of the defendants said in part,

Interactions among students of different races -- with different vantage points, skills(?), and values -- are of great consequence not only to the students' development as citizens in a multiracial, democratic society, but also to their intellectual development. The impact of encountering and dealing with racial diversity as part of their education is positively linked to growth in cognitive and academic skills of both racial minorities and white students. These educational benefits are realized not only while children are in school, but in their subsequent lives as well.

Yet these very same advocates stand behind the anachronism that are HBCs, separate dorms for minority students, separate freshman orientations, and even separate graduation ceremonies! Which, of course, begs the question that if diversity is SO all-important as the NEA (and others) profess, then why the constant invocation of separateness?

My God, it really is just too easy to cleave such "research" and "arguments" in half. But what can one expect from those who once championed color-blindness but now color-consciousness ... once championed individual rights but now group rights ... and once championed dismantling barriers to desegregation but now favor race mandates based on some pseudo-scientific notion of "diversity"?

Carnival of Education

I got home about an hour and a half ago--haven't had internet access since Tonopah! Still, I need to give props to Education In Texas, host of this week's Carnival of Education. My post about NEA homophobes was linked.

This Town Is Dying

It's taken me over an hour to establish an internet connection here at the hotel, and it will possibly be the last time I'll be able to be online for the next few days--so here's what's been going on so far.

I picked my son up at the airport last night, and we were on the road before 9. Making great time, we pulled into Fallon, NV, shortly before midnight. That was the scheduled start of the trip.

This morning we headed east on Highway 50, The Loneliest Road In America. I didn't give it that name--they've got signs for it and everything! There are places where you can see miles in front of you and miles behind you, and there are no other cars in sight. Being manly men who do manly things, we took the opportunity to give the car a little test. Road: perfectly straight. Overdrive: on. Windows: up. Accelerator: down. Top speed: faster than I've ever driven before--by probably 20 mph or so. We did it again on another road several hours later, but that road wasn't near as good as US 50, so we didn't go above 110 mph that time. Note to MikeAT, a loyal blog reader and cop: since I'm admitting to it, can I still be busted, or does an officer have to catch me in the act?!!

We stopped first at a picnic area near the site of ancient Indian petroglyphs. I've always wanted to stop there before, and this trip is the ideal time. The carvings range from 500 to 7,000 years old (500-6,000 years old if you go to Liberty University). Turns out there used to be a huge lake there; by the time man came on the scene the lake had receded considerably, and the rock outcropping was a peninsula in the marshy part of a lake. There's certainly no lake anymore! We took several pictures, some of which will be posted when I have the capability to do so.

Our next stop was Austin, NV. Find it on a map, it's almost dead center of the state. Former mining town, county seat, etc. Population of probably only a few hundred. Currently it's known for outdoor recreation. Anyway, the only place I'd ever stopped there before was the Chevron station at the west end of town--it has the cleanest service station restroom I've even been in, and that's after having used it several times over the course of several years. This time we skipped the Chevron, walked the main road through town (US 50), had a milkshake, then headed east.

Not too far past Austin we got on a dirt road. Well, I guess it was kinda sorta gravel, and moderately well maintained, but there was no pavement of any kind. We took this road through some mountains, in search of Toquima Cave and its cave paintings. We found the picnic area, but no cave. It was rather forested there (in Nevada? yes! the Toiyabe National Forest) so we wandered through the woods, looking at every rock outcropping we could find, but to no avail. After probably 45 min of no luck, my son stayed at the car to get a snack as I headed to another rock outcropping. He read the description on the map, instead of just looking at the map itself: the cave is just a short 1/4 mile hike down an easy footpath from the picnic area! When I got back to the car he showed that to me--and from where we were parked, I could see a very small sign in the distance. It didn't even say it led to the cave, but I was sure that the footpath below it had to lead to our destination. It was more than 1/4 mile, that's for sure, but at the end we found the cave--fenced off by the Forest Service to preserve the drawings. These were painted, unlike the carved petroglyphs we saw earlier, and we were close enough to take pictures. Again, pics will posted when I'm able to!

Back to the dirt road, we headed east, then south through the Monitor Valley. When I saw the white, shallow-dome-shaped hill in the distance, I knew that was our next destination. Diana's Punchbowl was more interesting in person than I thought it would be, and that's saying a lot. Several dozen more miles down the dirt road brought us to Belmont, a half-ghost-town (a few people live there now), some cool ruins, and a paved road! Less than an hour later we were in Tonopah, our planned stop for the night.

And Tonopah is dying.

It was founded as a mining town (like just about every other place in Nevada) in 1900, but later made its way as a "military town" and as a crossroads town (US 6 and US 95, which leads to Las Vegas). I don't know what, yet, but something's happened here. Did the last mine stop operating? Did the military leave? Or what?

The two big, historic hotel/casinos in the center of town are closed. One is scheduled to reopen late in 2008, and the other is for sale for $1.65 million. Shops along Main Street (US 95) are closed. There's plenty of real estate for sale here, and it's all for sale by the same realtor. This town has the look and feel of a town that's losing jobs, people, and life itself. Somebody needs to turn this place around--perhaps market it as an outdoor mecca, as does Austin. If something doesn't happen, this town will just stop existing. I told my son to come back here in 20 years and see what it looks like. I won't predict the future, but right now I don't think putting money on Tonopah would be a wise bet. Sad--there's so much character here.

After what I hope will be just as interesting a day tomorrow, we should be in Las Vegas tomorrow night--and for the next few nights.

Trip's On Hold

My son is sitting in the Houston airport--they won't let him on the plane to Honduras. There's a lot of scrambling in two different time zones, but it's not looking good. Obviously I have to put my trip on hold until we can find out what's going on.

Update: Everything's fallen though. My son will return from Houston tonight. I'll modify my desert trip and take him with me.

What A Great Way To Start A Vacation!

Phil Perry's (see above) wife is a friend of Right On The Left Coast and got me a ticket to see this show at the Radisson Grove. I can't tell you how many times during the night I said "wow!"

Great show--no, amazing show. Awesome way to kick off a great week.

The Big Summer Trip

Tomorrow I'm off on a "vacation of solitude". I'll be driving through central and eastern Nevada, stopping at such sites as Indian petroglyphs, ghost towns, abandoned mines, and interesting geological phenomena. Obviously, blogging will be light to non-existent for the next several days. I'll still post your comments, though, when I get an opportunity to check in.

I'm hoping to have plenty of post-worthy pictures upon my return.

So until then, adieu! And thank you for reading my blog. Be sure to check back in on the 12th.

Government Surveillance To *Expand*

Congressional Democrats, under pressure from the Bush administration, today proposed a six-month compromise that would expand the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance of overseas communications in search of terrorists.

So after all that whining about how the President's "warrantless surveillance" was against the law and un-American and how the Patriot Act is taking away our freedoms, the Democrats are going to allow the program to expand. That's right, expand.

So what fig leaf are they going to try to use to cover their obvious change of heart?

The proposal, according to House and Senate Democrats, would permit a secret court to issue a single broad order approving eavesdropping of communications involving suspects overseas and other people, who may be in the United States. That order "need not be individualized," according to a Democratic aide.

That's right. They're going to allow a court--incidentally, the same court that already ruled the President didn't need a warrant to conduct the surveillance that was being conducted--to issue a blanket warrant. In other words, a carte blanche.

If my liberties were at risk before, I don't see how they're any safer now.

The Dems got this one right, but it sure looks like they should be eating crow about it.

21 1/2 Years After Challenger

All these years later, NASA's going to send another teacher up on a shuttle.

There's lots of talk about Challenger--how could there not be--but do you remember the names of the Challenger crew?

I do.

Commander Scobee
Pilot Mike Smith
Ron McNair
Greg Jarvis
El Onizuka
Judy Resnick
Christa McAuliffe

May they rest in peace, and have no visitors.

Charter School Closed

In this post I wrote about an Oakland charter school that faked documents--for example, a teacher's record didn't match a report card and neither matched the student's transcript, among other problems.

The school has been closed by its governing board. This is a good example for other schools that want to cheat and lie. It's unfortunate for those students who are innocent bystanders in this mess--truly it is--but how else do you reinforce the lesson that lying and cheating as that school did are crimes?

Carnival of Education

When you're done with the Tilt-A-Whirl you can read this week's Carnival of Education, which includes my post on the NEA and democracy.

Free Speech At Columbia

Makes you wonder what they have to hide.

Yes, I know it's a private university and they can make whatever rules they want, but I don't see anything about "controlling the message" in their Mission Statement.

Report: Technology "Immersion" In Middle School

Click here to read the report from the 2nd year of the Texas Technology Immersion Pilot program--or, if you prefer, allow me to summarize it for you:

Students and teachers in the program were significantly more comfortable using "technology", principals provided more leadership regarding "technology", and there was stronger parent and community support for "technology". Students in immersion schools seemed to like school better and had fewer discipline problems.

However, there was no significant effect on student self-directed learning, there was a negative effect on student attendance, and there was no significant effect on standardized test scores in reading, writing, or math.

Technology had a positive effect on math achievement for higher achieving students.

Do these results explain or justify further expenditures for "digital schools" and "bookless schools" and for plans in some districts to issue every student a laptop computer? I'm not sure they do.

But this is only one study, right?

What Is The True Purpose of the NEA?

Why does the teachers union exist?

I believe that a union should look out for the best interests of those who support it financially, and should focus on their pay, benefits, and working conditions.

It seems, however, that the NEA disagrees with me. It apparently sees itself as a union cum social services organization, a left-wing organization of the highest degree.

What prompts me to say this? Why, their very own resolutions, posted on their very own web site. There are some 300 resolutions there; how many of them pertain directly to pay, benefits, and working conditions? Even if you like or agree with some of the resolutions, why should a labor union--financed in part by extorted dues--be involved in these issues that have nothing to do with pay, benefits, and working conditions?

Seriously, go read just the table of contents for their resolutions.

Tell me why a labor union should be looking out for others people's children instead of (or in addition to) its members. And if you think that a labor union of teachers should be looking out for students--as if that's not the responsibility of the elected school board--explain the 2nd paragraph of Resolution B-75 to me, which punishes students whose parents pay taxes for public schools but don't want their children educated in public schools.

See if the NEA itself lives up to Resolution B-11 with regards to white people or Republicans, both of whom are specifically left out of the list of people who should be respected. Explain how the NEA can support affirmative action and other set-aside programs--and why it disliked the school segregation cases ruled up on by the Supreme Court in June--when it claims Part D of Resolution B-11.

Tell me why a labor union to which I'm compelled to give money should give a darn about "Equity for Incarcerated Persons", which is Resolution B-23.

I'll skip a hundred or so resolutions--what possible interest could a labor union have in "Statehood for the District of Columbia", Resolution H-11? or in the "International Court of Justice" or the "International Criminal Court", Resolutions I-2 and I-3? or "Protection of Senior Citizens", Resolution I-35? or in "Businesses Owned By Minorities and/or Women", Resolution I-54?

I could go on but I'll stop there. While the ideas represented by those resolutions may (or may not) be good ideas, the NEA has no business concerning itself with them--or in using my money to do so. Pay, benefits, and working conditions, and nothing else.

Want to know why I have so much disregard for the NEA? There are only two reasons:

1. the fact that I'm compelled to give them my money, and
2. the things on which they spend my money.

The second point I've addressed in this post, the first I've addressed in so many others:

Every (non-military) American has a right to join a union. Every American has a right not to join a union. Every American should have the right not to be required to support a union financially.

That NEA gets a cent from me is an injustice of the highest order.

NEA Members Are Homophobes

It's statements like the following, which pertains to gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender school employees, that just disgust me about the NEA. Quoting from EIA (where else?) in this week's Communique:

The Standing Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identification had a research problem: "One of the challenges confronting the committee was the continuing lack of empirical or even anecdotal data on the experiences and the rate of harassment among school personnel. The difficulty obtaining such data is more likely a byproduct of the extreme homophobia that makes many schools inhospitable places for personnel to be openly GLBT, rather than the absence of negative experiences among GLBT personnel. In addition, the relatively few personnel who are openly GLBT may report mostly positive experiences because they work in hospitable climates and have strong support from administrators and the community. While these experiences are valid, they probably do not reflect the experiences of the majority of GLBT personnel nationwide."

They admit that there's no data at all, assume harassment, and state outright that the reason there are no data is because of "extreme homophobia". Nope, no bias there! Certainly no left-leaning agenda.

But let's dissect that statement a bit.

The NEA is the largest labor union in the country. It has affiliates in every state, even in right-to-work states. There are few districts indeed in which the NEA is not present in some form. With well over 2 million members, including teachers and support personnel, I dare say that it's a mammoth.

That being the case, who are the homophobes that must be harassing the GLBT teachers into silence? Fellow teachers and school staff--fellow NEA members.

Who else could it be?

Smart Is Cool

Smart and hot is even better =)

McKellar should know. The actress once struggled with the subject around the seventh grade, but a teacher helped her through. McKellar eventually majored in math in college. She co-authored a scientific paper while a student at UCLA.

The book includes tips to avoid mistakes on homework, ways to overcome test-day anxiety and profiles of three beautiful mathematicians. (emphasis mine--Darren)

The referenced book is called Math Doesn't Suck.

Higher Pay For Math And Science Teachers

In this post I suggested that universities' charging more for math/science courses, for example, would have the effect of having even fewer people go into those fields, while "oppressed studies" majors would continue to flood a job market that doesn't need them. Well, if this proposal is implemented, it could conceivably counteract the effect listed above.

A group of business and university leaders proposes addressing the shortage of math and science teachers by paying higher salaries, improving teacher training, and giving first-year teachers more support...

Among teachers of all subjects, math teachers have the highest annual turnover rate (16.4 percent). Science teachers have the second-highest (15.6 percent).

We'll see if the NEA and CTA hop on board with this.

Health Care

Some companies are offering stick-and-carrot approaches to employees in an effort to reduce health care. While I don't like such approaches, they are the inevitable result of employer-paid health care.

Does anyone know why we in the United States assume that our health care costs will be borne by our employers?

Well kids, our story takes place in World War II. We got pretty close to socialism in that war, what with wage and price controls, rationing, the New Deal (under which we still suffer), etc. Companies, limited by government in what they could pay employees, found ways around the limits by offering non-taxable perks--including health care. Now, more than 60 years later, we live in a society that expects employers to fund health care coverage. What a perversion.

So what are companies doing today in order to cut costs?

Looking for new ways to trim the fat and boost workers' health, some employers are starting to make overweight employees pay if they don't slim down...

In one of the boldest moves yet, an Indiana-based hospital chain last month said it decided on the stick rather than the carrot. Starting in 2009, Clarian Health Partners will charge employees as much as $30 every two weeks unless they meet weight, cholesterol and blood-pressure guidelines that the company deems healthy.

Those of you who adore the nanny state might very well say, "Good! It's what's best for those people." I, on the other hand, don't have a problem with the market approach--those who cost the system more should pay more.

However, what happens when government runs health care and compels people to lose weight? Then it becomes an issue of the coercive power of the state versus individual freedom, and that's an entirely different game.

One California school district is looking at getting into this game:

[T]he Los Angeles Unified School District, which has 90,000 employees, is researching financial incentives and disincentives to help bring down healthcare costs.

There are some interesting issues relating to these reward-and-punishment proposals when instituted by companies; what happens when the government itself starts implementing requirements "for the public good"? Will we have Prohibition II? Will smoking be outlawed? Will we have mass public calisthenics each morning like they (used to?) have in China? Will certain foods be taxed more, or forbidden?

Critics of the lose-it-or-pay trend say that companies that charge overweight employees more for their medical coverage are turning the healthcare system into a police state and, just as worrisome, are working off of a false assumption that it's easy for people who are obese and have other health issues to change their situations...

Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, a Princeton, N.J.-based employee rights group, called the trend "a very dangerous road that could lead to employers controlling everything we do in our private lives."

If you don't want your employer controlling what you do in your private life, the thought of government's being in that position should send a chill down your spine.

And do you foresee many new "disabilities" to create loopholes?

Still, some lawyers say weight-based compensation plans may run afoul of other employment laws.

"A key protection in the Americans with Disabilities Act is that employers can't discriminate against employees based on their health status," said J.D. Piro, a principal at Hewitt Associates' healthcare law group. "This is a fight that's likely going to be dealt with in the courts."

Smoking, drinking, overeating, addiction to high-calorie foods--all will become "disabilities".

In Arkansas, Deeann Gutekunst, 42, a Benton County deputy treasurer, said she understood the rationale for the county's policy.

"If you have employees who don't care about their health," she said, "what else are you supposed to do?"

Of course, the solution is to compel them. Right.

How about this solution? How about we create a "wall of separation" between employer and health care? How about we let the marketplace take care of health care, the same way it takes care of groceries, housing, cars, and most everything else we need in our daily lives?

This isn't an area that requires more government intervention--heck, it was government intervention that got us here in the first place. This is an area that requires less.

But people aren't going to want to give up their "free" (employer-provided) health care. This is exactly why we don't need to go any further down the road to socialism--because any time someone gets something for which they don't have to pay money directly from their own pocket, they think it's free. It's too abstract to realize that every cent your employer pays for your health care--or for your social security, for that matter--is money that can't go into your pocket. Our health care situation in the United States is nowhere near ideal, but I can see no improvements at all by bringing it completely under the jurisdiction of the very government that created the employer health care mess in the first place.

It gets worse under government-run health care. As NewsAlert (see blogroll at left) always says,

Socialism means waiting in line.

Private health insurance is forbidden in Canada--except in Quebec, where the High Court ruled that too many people are dying while waiting and must be allowed to get private insurance. Another case is pending in Toronto. What will happen in Canada is this: there will be a two-tiered health care system, one for the "haves" and one for the "have-nots". Everyone will have the least common denominator, government-run health care program, which requires exceedingly long waits for what we in the US consider routine exams, and those who can afford it will have better. Given that, what good has Canada's system provided?

Here's the situation in Toronto:

It started when McCreith, a resident of Newmarket, north of Toronto, suffered a seizure last year. He was told in Canada he would have to wait more than four months for an MRI to rule out a malignant tumor.

Rather than wait, McCreith, 66, quickly arranged a trip to Buffalo for a scan. The MRI confirmed his worst fears — a cancerous growth that a Buffalo neurosurgeon removed a few weeks later.

“If I had been patient, I’d probably be disabled or dead today,” McCreith said.

Now, McCreith is suing the Ontario government in a closely watched constitutional challenge that could reshape universal health coverage in the province by striking down the prohibition against patients buying private insurance.

On this side of the border, advocates of universal health insurance champion Canada’s popular public program as a fairer system that the United States should emulate, as seen in Michael Moore film, “Sicko.” Yet critics see the long waits for some services in Canada — mainly for non-emergency surgery — as an argument against an increased role for government in health care.

With Medicare, Medicaid, and (in California) Medi-Cal, even the poorest wouldn't suffer what McCreith suffered in his first-class, G-8 government-provided health care.

For those of you who think socialism will level the playing field, you're right. It brings everyone down to the lowest level. And then the "haves", especially those in government, start making exceptions for themselves. Is that really what you want?


Hat tip to NewsAlert for the two links above.

Is The Teachers Union In Mexico Worse Than NEA/AFT?

Joanne links to a story that says, "Oh yeah."

Learning Styles: Complete and Total Crap

And it's high time someone says so publicly, even if that someone is in Britain.

"The rationale for employing Vak (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) learning styles appears to be weak. After more than 30 years of educational research in to learning styles there is no independent evidence that Vak, or indeed any other learning style inventory, has any direct educational benefits."

Some of us will never forgive Howard Gardner for writing that rubbish (I'm in British mode now), nor can we forget the so-called education professionals who foisted it upon our profession above and beyond what Gardner himself posited.

Good pedagogy requires that material be taught in a way that makes it accessible to students. That way is not necessarily the way that's most comfortable for the student; rather, it's the way that's most appropriate for the subject matter. Trying to learn trig using your musical or kinesthetic "intelligence" would be a colossal blunder. Of course specific applications in specific instances can be found, but on the whole, if you want to learn trig, you should learn it as it's been effectively and efficiently learned and taught for centuries.

So kudos to Baroness Greenfield! And kudos as well to Professor Coffield, who gets the final word in the linked article and in this post:

Frank Coffield, a professor at London University's institute of education, who reviewed 13 models of learning styles, insists that the approach is theoretically incoherent and confused.

"As well as Vak, I came across labelling such as 'activists' versus 'reflectors', 'globalists' versus 'analysts' and 'left brainers' versus 'right brainers'. There is no scientific justification for any of these terms," he said.

"We do students a serious disservice by implying they have only one learning style, rather than a flexible repertoire from which to choose, depending on the context."

I've Always Said This Was A Family Blog

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• drugs (2x)
• slap (1x)

• 
  

2200+ posts, and this is what they come up with? Slap? Idiocy. I hope movie ratings are determined more intelligently, but I fear they're not.

It's nice they realize that I don't use foul language, though.

Good For Brown

When I read the title of this post I experienced a sinking feeling, thinking that it was the accuser that Brown had admitted. Instead they welcomed one of the real victims of the Duke rape hoax.

With everything over but the cleanup in that case, I can't imagine why any of those young men would ever want to hear about Duke again, much less return. What a vile, disgusting place--and with professors like the Gang of 88, the university deserves any consequences that accrue.

That situation, and indeed the entire university, cry out for justice--and I for one hope that voice is heard.

The NEA and Democracy

The NEA likes to bill its annual Representative Assembly as the largest democratic assembly in the world, with a couple thousand delegates who get to vote on the major issues facing the union.

This, of course, is complete and total crap.

There's so much more to democracy than just voting--after all, Saddam Hussein got "reelected" plenty of times. Hiding behind a façade of a fair election is the most evil of lies and the most cynical of acts.

Since the left is so fond of international governmental organizations (but not multinational corporations, go figure), I thought it might be fun to explore the democratic requirements of one of the treaties we've signed. Let's see what the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the Organization of American States has to say on the topic.

At the beginning of the charter is a large list of therefores, whereases, and recognizing-thats. This one stood out to me:

RECOGNIZING that the right of workers to associate themselves freely for the defense and promotion of their interests is fundamental to the fulfillment of democratic ideals;

What is probably the most important word in that recognition? Freely. Well, the NEA certainly can't claim title to that. Let's move on to the articles.

Article 3
Essential elements of representative democracy include, inter alia, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, access to and the exercise of power in accordance with the rule of law, the holding of periodic, free, and fair elections based on secret balloting and universal suffrage as an expression of the sovereignty of the people, the pluralistic system of political parties and organizations, and the separation of powers and independence of the branches of government.

Of course these articles relate specifically to governments and not to unions, but an organization that considers itself democratic in nature should at least support these requirements, if not abide by them. NEA doesn't believe in secret elections; as a union, it supports the card check process for certifying unions (learn how a card check works here). NEA doesn't believe in pluralism, it believes in acting as a monolithic bloc representing "teachers", even though it supports politicians and organizations that a large percentage of its membership most likely does not.

Article 4
Transparency in government activities, probity, responsible public administration on the part of governments, respect for social rights, and freedom of expression and of the press are essential components of the exercise of democracy.

The constitutional subordination of all state institutions to the legally constituted civilian authority and respect for the rule of law on the part of all institutions and sectors of society are equally essential to democracy.

Transparency is not a word I'd use to describe the workings of the teachers union. And when the NEA devotes even a page of its union rag to the 30+% of its membership that claims to be Republican, or that challenges NEA's actions, I'll consider revisiting this criticism. Until then, no.

Article 5
The strengthening of political parties and other political organizations is a priority for democracy. Special attention will be paid to the problems associated with the high cost of election campaigns and the establishment of a balanced and transparent system for their financing.

Opposing viewpoints expressed in the NEA? Perish the thought. It takes outside organizations to stand up to the NEA because there isn't a fair process with which to do so internally.

Article 6
It is the right and responsibility of all citizens to participate in decisions relating to their own development. This is also a necessary condition for the full and effective exercise of democracy. Promoting and fostering diverse forms of participation strengthens democracy.

I'm not quite sure what a diverse form of participation is--maybe it's supporting a Republican for president, something the NEA has never done in its 150 year history? Nah, couldn't be that!

Well, that was fun. Now let's try something domestic--the US Department of State. Here's what our own State Department, darling of the liberals, has to say about majority rule and minority rights:

On the surface, the principles of majority rule and the protection of individual and minority rights would seem contradictory. In fact, however, these principles are twin pillars holding up the very foundation of what we mean by democratic government.

Majority rule is a means for organizing government and deciding public issues; it is not another road to oppression. Just as no self-appointed group has the right to oppress others, so no majority, even in a democracy, should take away the basic rights and freedoms of a minority group or individual.

Minorities -- whether as a result of ethnic background, religious belief, geographic location, income level, or simply as the losers in elections or political debate -- enjoy guaranteed basic human rights that no government, and no majority, elected or not, should remove.

Minorities need to trust that the government will protect their rights and self-identity. Once this is accomplished, such groups can participate in, and contribute to their country's democratic institutions.

Among the basic human rights that any democratic government must protect are freedom of speech and expression; freedom of religion and belief; due process and equal protection under the law; and freedom to organize, speak out, dissent, and participate fully in the public life of their society.

Democracies understand that protecting the rights of minorities to uphold cultural identity, social practices, individual consciences, and religious activities is one of their primary tasks.

Acceptance of ethnic and cultural groups that seem strange if not alien to the majority can represent one of the greatest challenges that any democratic government can face. But democracies recognize that diversity can be an enormous asset. They treat these differences in identity, culture, and values as a challenge that can strengthen and enrich them, not as a threat.

There can be no single answer to how minority-group differences in views and values are resolved -- only the sure knowledge that only through the democratic process of tolerance, debate, and willingness to compromise can free societies reach agreements that embrace the twin pillars of majority rule and minority rights.

U-bots will claim that the NEA does this, but I disagree. Vehemently.

For starters, the NEA is entitled to my money--whether or not I want them to have it. They can vote all they want what to do with my money, but the fact that they get it against my will is tyranny.

I do not believe the NEA will protect my individual rights and self-identity, since the very idea of a labor union is that we're all one and speak with one voice. The NEA has no outreach to people of my political persuasion--and why should they? They get my money anyway. If I had remained a union member I wouldn't have minority status, I'd have invisible status. Yet even after resigning, they still get my money.

If you've ever seen a union at work, you'll know that dissent is never tolerated. Don't believe me? Shame on you. (Updated link here.)

Incidentally, did you know that according to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, that during the period 1975-1993 (the last time period for which I have found data), NEA ranked as the most violent public-sector union? I didn't, either, but I do now.

How can all this be fixed? Hayek answered that question decades ago in The Constitution of Liberty:

[T]he coersion of employers would lose most of its objectionable character if unions were deprived of this power to exact unwilling support.

I've said it before, several times:

Every (non-military) American has a right to join a union. Every American has a right not to join a union. Every American should have the right not to be required to support a union financially.

It must be this way if free will and freedom of association are to have any meaning at all.

The Simpsons

Have you ever wondered what you'd look like as a Simpson's character? Me either. But at this site, you can find out! And here's what I'd look like.

I See Bad Things From *This* Market Approach

NewsAlert quotes from the New York Times:

Should an undergraduate studying business pay more than one studying psychology? Should a journalism degree cost more than one in literature? More and more public universities, confronting rising costs and lagging state support, have decided that the answers may be yes and yes...

Such moves are being driven by the high salaries commanded by professors in certain fields, the expense of specialized equipment and the difficulties of getting state legislatures to approve general tuition increases, university officials say.

And then says:

You wonder why this hasn't happened sooner.

You know I'm all about the market and how the market should decide things, but there are consequences. Since your black/women/gay/chicano studies majors and psychology majors and recreation majors are not going to pay such a fee, more people will go into those fields instead of the more expensive business/engineering/science majors. I'm compelled to ask: do we need more oppressed studies majors, or more business/engineering/science majors? Hmmmmm, tough one.

In the end, though, the market will correct the problem. A glut of oppressed studies and other fuzzy majors graduates will drive down salaries in those fields, while the scarcity of graduates in the more expensive fields will drive up salaries. It's supply and demand--and the market will equalize on its own.

Let's not find ways to perform our own form of social engineering and lower the prices for tougher majors. It may take awhile longer, but the market will resolve this issue in its own way, and far more effectively than we could ever hope to by tinkering.

A Canadian Doctor Talks About Socialized Medicine

He said it, not me. Well, all right, I've said most of it, too. But here's how he starts:

I was once a believer in socialized medicine.

Nice. =)

Government researchers now note that more than 1.5 million Ontarians (or 12% of that province's population) can't find family physicians. Health officials in one Nova Scotia community actually resorted to a lottery to determine who'd get a doctor's appointment.

These problems are not unique to Canada — they characterize all government-run health care systems.

Health care by lottery. Bet you didn't hear about that in Sicko, did you?

Because the U.S. is so much wealthier than other countries, it isn't unreasonable for it to spend more on health care. Take America's high spending on research and development. M.D. Anderson in Texas, a prominent cancer center, spends more on research than Canada does. (emphasis mine--Darren)

Do I need to add to that?

The Canucks and the British aren't stupid. They didn't set out for their health care systems to be as screwed up as they are. If there were a way to avoid it, I'm sure they'd have avoided it. But they haven't. The problems they haveare entirely predictable, they're what socialism has wrought.

Anyway, our doctor-author ends with a statement that Adam Smith would probably agree with:

America is right to seek a model for delivering good health care at good prices, but we should be looking not to Canada, but close to home — in the other four-fifths or so of our economy. From telecommunications to retail, deregulation and market competition have driven prices down and quality and productivity up. Health care is long overdue for the same prescription.

Hear hear.

I've Never Understood The Bottled Water Thing

For the time being, I have flat-rate water. Doesn't matter how much I use (not that I waste it at all), I pay the same amount each month. That's changing soon--thank you, Governor Schwarzenegger--but that's the way it is now.

So why would someone pay for bottled water? It ranks right up there with Pet Rocks for brilliant marketing.

OK, so you like the pure mountain spring water, fresh from nature's bosom.

Not if you're drinking Aquafina, or (I'm sure) most other brands:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - PepsiCo Inc. will spell out that its Aquafina bottled water is made with tap water, a concession to the growing environmental and political opposition to the bottled water industry.

There's an environmental opposition to bottled water? On what grounds?

Critics charge the bottled water industry adds plastic to landfills, uses too much energy by producing and shipping bottles across the world and undermines confidence in the safety and cleanliness of public water supplies, all while much of the world's population is without access to clean water.

Damn. "Big Water" sounds like communist whores or something.

Done With The Potter Book

I'm done--less than two days. I haven't done too much else but read in that time, either!

I liked the fact that Rowling tied up every loose end--can't stand ambiguous endings.

There was a death in the book that really saddened me. I once nicknamed a student after one character, and this character's death was so unnecessary. The character died with honor, though.

Didn't think the story was all that great. It was certainly not the best of the bunch. I did like the ending, though--I'm a sucker for happy endings.

Is Teacher Turnover As Bad As The NEA Says It Is?

EIA (see blogroll at left) has a great comparison.

Schools and Drug Testing

I was once "thanked and dismissed" from jury consideration because I'm former military, had kicked people out of the army for drug use, and have a friend who's a cop. I'm not a fan of drug use at all, and no, I don't accept the libertarian "it's my body" argument. I do, however, think that marijuana should be legalized, and no, I don't smoke it.

So you know where I stand on drugs.

In Tennessee, student athletes can be tested for drug use--I'll ignore, for the moment, why only athletes are tested and not others who represent the school--but recently the state attorney general opined that testing random athletes violates state law. Specifically, he said, state law requires that there be a reasonable suspicion of drug use before students can be tested.

The opinion doesn't bar schools from drug testing, but it could leave them open to court challenges, said Rich Haglund, legal counsel for the state board of education.

So what are some schools doing? They're testing their students anyway.

You can hear the leftie cries of "it's to protect the children!" all the way out here on the Left Coast. Apparently, "protecting the children" is far more important than a) following the law, and b) the constitutional rights of those children.

Yes, I know that children have fewer rights than do adults, and even support the reasoning behind that fact. However, I don't see that reasoning as supporting random drug testing. Even children should be presumed innocent of crimes before there's adequate reason to believe they're not, and the fishing expedition that is random drug testing assumes just the opposite.

Random drug testing is right up there with the Transportation Security Administration (the federal idiots at the airport)--window dressing so some politician somewhere can say he or she is "doing something" about a problem, but that actually accomplishes next to nothing.

What should we do about kids' taking drugs? I don't have a complete answer to that yet. But I know the solution does not include having random students, or even random athletes, pee in a bottle.

And schools that continue to do this now that they've been told that the top law enforcement officer in the state thinks it's illegal? They deserve to get hit with the lawsuits that will come--just like my school district deserves to get hit with the lawsuits that will eventually come from the charging of illegal fees.

I can forgive breaking a law inadvertently. I can't forgive a government entity knowingly and willfully violating the law.

Socialism and Capitalism

Someone in Rhode Island has a clue.

A Couple Links Related To Renewable Energy

New Solar Photovoltaic Cell Efficiency Record: 42.8%

Renewable Energy Seen As Harmful To Environment

Interesting points in each of them.

As I've said several times before, I don't think man is doing much at all compared to the sun with regards to global warming, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't look for ways to pollute less. The 2nd link had some especially interesting points, including the point that nuclear power has the smallest environmental footprint of all.

Nuclear power--good for the atom, good for global warming!

Update: here's an interesting post saying that recycling isn't as fantastic as some claim. I admit that I wasn't very impressed with Penn & Teller's "debunking" of the myths surrounding recycling, but I'm pretty convinced by the points made in the linked post. Here's a point I never hear explained: if recycling is so wonderful and saves so much (including money), why do I have to pay more for it (can/bottle redemption values, forced curbside recycling costs)? Why isn't someone paying me to take my cans away?

Harry Potter

I'm among the world's slowest readers. I'm one of those who pronounces each word in my head as if I'm reading aloud. I don't know any other way, and fortunately I've found ways to compensate for this inability.

Still, I'm on page 502. So far, I'm not convinced the story is as good as any of the previous books. Here's hoping for a good ending, though.

Carnival of Education

This week's is here, and includes my post on cheating at an Oakland charter school.

What Have You Done Today To Make You Feel Proud?

I was shopping yesterday, and the very beautiful, soulful song being played over the speakers included the lyrics, "What have you done today to make you feel proud?"

So I started thinking. My first reaction, and probably most people's, was to look back over my day and find something, anything, with which to answer the question. After all, if we can't answer that question then we're not good people--and we all want to think highly of ourselves, don't we?

Shortly thereafter I realized that I had it all backwards.

You see, it's not enough to look back on the day and hope you've done something to make you feel proud. Rather, you should set out each day with the goal of doing something in which you can take pride.

At the end of the day, answering the question should be easy.

Blogging May Be Light For Awhile

I'm starting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows tonight ($16 at Fry's Electronics), and I'm a very slow reader.

It's About Darn Time

Ward Churchill has been fired from the the University of Colorado. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

I don't think he should have been fired for his 9-11 "little Eichmanns" comment, although he's earned any and all social opprobrium that comes with such a vile exercise of free speech. No, he was correctly fired for faking his credentials and for plagiarizing. That people started looking into his background only after his 9-11 comment is irrelevant, because their motivations don't change or justify his lying and plagiarizing.

Personally, I hope he rots in Hell.

More Union Hypocrisy

Here's another union paying non-union (often homeless) people to picket for them.

Being that I'm a good conservative, having just finished Goldwater's book, I'll only jokingly consider joining with those who suggest that maybe there outta be a law that says that outside picketers for unions must be paid whatever wage the union is trying to get for its own people.

Introducing this post I said another union. Here's what I was referring to, and it's one of my favorite union stories of all time. This post has links about hiring canvassers and protesters, too, at substandard wages--by people who claim to know better.

NEA Wants More Of Your Tax Dollars (and, of course, dues money)

Quoting EIA, in a post on NEA President Massa Reg's speech at the recently concluded Rep Assembly in Philadelphia:

The idea is that NEA has trouble organizing communities to support its requests for more money. Since most Americans don't currently have children in public schools, NEA hopes to get them to rally around issues they care about, like tax fairness and the economy.

The campaign is to paint corporations as special interest shirkers, who don't pay their fair share of taxes to support public schools which, the NEA contends, is an investment that brings future dividends in the guise of creative, knowledgeable employees and entrepreneurs.

This, I might add, from a national organization with state and local affiliates that collectively take in more than $1 billion annually and pay no corporate income taxes.

Does this surprise anyone? Does it disgust anyone? My guess is the answers to those two questions are going to be different.

Cheating At A Charter

This isn't an anti-charter school post, as I'm a big fan of charter schools. I'm not a big fan of cheating and fraud, however, and when one of the good guys commits cheating and fraud, I call them on it.

In spring 2006, teachers' records for an 11th-grade boy at University Preparatory Charter Academy in East Oakland showed an F and five D's.

His report card for the same period featured three D's and three C's.

His transcript -- the one received by the California State University campuses that accepted him -- glowed with three A's and three B's.

That's pretty blatant, and there are more examples in the article.

Let's skip the moral argument or right and wrong for a moment, because anyone who would do what was reported obviously would not be swayed by such arguments. Let's try a completely practical, utilitarian approach.

Why would school officials change grades? One possible reason is for the school's stats to look good. No one, in the light of day, will try to defend such a proposition. Even if someone were to try, changing a teacher's grade is against California ed code. It's illegal. No argument there.

So there's only one reason left that I can come up--we want to help the boy get into college. If you only fe-e-e-e-e-e-l, instead of think, I'm sure you can justify such behavior as doing a good deed for some poor, downtrodden soul. But is a good deed really being done? Is there any reason to believe that someone who gets D's and F's in high school is going to be able to succeed at collegiate academics? Isn't it far more likely that the student will get to college and fail there--at great emotional and financial cost? Isn't the school, then, just setting this student up for failure?

If there's a good answer to that argument, one that would justify violating the law by changing grades, I'm listening.

You know what would be a far better way to help the boy get into college? Teach him the material he isn't currently learning, material in which he's earning D's and F's.

Meet Your Blogger

Being tagged by Mr. Chanman, I present you with another opportunity to get up close and personal with me--or at least to learn more than you want to.

Four Jobs I've Had

• Sandwich maker for a gut truck (8th grade, and only for a couple days--I was too slow!
• Army lieutenant
• Inside sales rep/sales coordinator
• Manufacturing manager

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

• Sky High
• Galaxy Quest
• The Bourne Identity
• Crimson Tide

Four Places I've Lived

• West Point, NY
• El Paso, TX
• Colorado Springs, Colorado
• Fremont/Newark, CA

Four Books I Love

• Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater (just finished it, and it's phenomenal)
• Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler
• Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling
• Strength In Numbers by Sherman Stein

Four Places I've Vacationed

• Vancouver/Victoria, British Columbia
• Las Vegas, NV
• Acapulco, Mexico
• Western Europe

Four Of My Favorite Dishes

• Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding
• Tacos and enchiladas
• Pepperoni pizza
• Barbecued chicken

Four Sites I Visit Daily

• Instapundit
• Joanne Jacobs
• NewsAlert
• EIA

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now

• London
• Grand Cayman
• On a cruise
• Bavaria

The Real Threat To Civil Liberties

From Victor Davis Hanson:

But at least the Patriot Act passed both houses of Congress with wide public support. In contrast, there are a variety of other assaults on personal freedoms, due process, and the sanctity of the law that leftwing moralists not only ignore, but often seem to endorse--as if the liberal ends should justify illiberal means.

There's good stuff in there. I'd recommend you go take a read.

Exactly What We Don't Need

A president who would walk a picket line.

Democrat Barack Obama is telling union activists he would walk a picket line as president if organized labor helps elect him in 2008.

I guess if you have to kiss the butt of your union overlords, that's what you do.

`We are facing a Washington that has thrown open its doors to the most anti-union, anti-worker forces we've seen in generations," Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery Saturday night. "What we need to make real today is the idea that in this country we value the labor of every American."

Two points.

First, exactly what has the President done that is anti-union and anti-labor? Obama's sound bite sounds great to the faithful, but is it anything more than hot air contributing to global warming? Seriously, give one specific, Senator, just one.

Second, in order to "value the labor of every American", we should value every American. Freedom is the watchword of this country, Senator, not labor. I believe in giving every American the freedom to join a union or not to, as are the dictates of his or her own conscience. As I've said before:

Every (non-military) American has a right to join a union. Every American has a right not to join a union. Every American should have the right not to be required to support a union financially.

When right-to-work laws are in place across the land, Senator, then you'll be valuing the labor of every American. Until then, you're valuing compulsory unionism.

Nanny State Health Care

If you believe the government is doing right by schools, roads, water, public safety, the budget, then you will love government medicine.

That is what AB 840 is about, total government control of your health care, your life. This is the nanny state with your life at stake.

Assemblyman Huff minces few words in describing what will happen to you and your family under this measure. A somewhat similar measure has just about bankrupted Tennessee and caused hundreds of health professionals to leave the State.

The French have raised taxes and still have a major deficit from their program. You didn’t want poor health care coverage to be cheap did you?

Want to wait weeks and months for needed procedures? You will love AB 840.

We keep telling you, but the big government-types who want to run your life for you don't care.

By the way, how's that Social Security system holding up financially? Are FICA taxes still 1%, like they were at the start of the program?

Freedom isn't free. Neither is socialized medicine.

Solar Cells

It is my hope that continued innovation along these lines will someday help reduce the strain on our power grid here in California.

Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. "The process is simple," said lead researcher and author Somenath Mitra, PhD, professor and acting chair of NJIT's Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. "Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations"...

"Developing organic solar cells from polymers, however, is a cheap and potentially simpler alternative," said Mitra. "We foresee a great deal of interest in our work because solar cells can be inexpensively printed or simply painted on exterior building walls and/or roof tops. Imagine some day driving in your hybrid car with a solar panel painted on the roof, which is producing electricity to drive the engine. The opportunities are endless. "

Sacramento Democrats Should Learn Some Math

Under the GOP plan, education spending would go up 3.8 percent this fiscal year, from $55.1 billion to $57.2 billion. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders back spending of $57.6 billion. So by any rational definition, what the Republicans are suggesting is a modest attempt to contain spending growth as part of an overall effort to bring spending in line with revenue.

Forget rationality from Democratic leaders. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez said “Republicans are asking for cuts that are way too deep,” and declared the GOP wanted to “eviscerate public education.” But Republicans are not asking for spending cuts – just holding the increase to 3.8 percent. Likening this to evisceration – the removal of a vital or essential part of something – is goofy. But in a Capitol dominated by the California Teachers Association, alas, it's unsurprising.

So a 3.8% increase is a deep cut that will "eviscerate public education". What's amazing is that in California, people take such idiocy seriously.

I like the little pun at the end of the editorial, which says that when considering math, the legislature should listen to the CPA and not the CTA.

Update: EIA (see blogroll at left) has slightly different numbers and a slightly different take on the situation. His point: Why is the CTA told the details about the "secret" negotiations, but the rest of California isn't?

Lawmakers shouldn't be having secret budget negotiations. Secret from whom? The rest of the legislature? The press? The taxpayers? But if they are secret, they should be secret from everyone. Californians didn't elect David Sanchez. California's teachers didn't elect David Sanchez. He was elected without opposition by some 800 teacher union activists who meet four times a year over a weekend.

Union bashing? Replace "education leaders" with "HMO directors" or "big box store executives" or "defense industry interests" and see if you still think this is the way government should be run.

Washington State--On Its Way To A Clue?

Here's hoping.

An outside review of Washington's standards for mathematics found them sorely lacking — with key concepts missing, a lack of focus and insufficient clarity, especially when it comes to the basics.

Consultant Linda Plattner, hired by the state Board of Education, says Washington expects too little of its students in math, even though roughly 40 percent of Washington 10th-graders fail math each year on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL).

Echoing concerns from a grass-roots parents group, Plattner also said Washington needs to be clearer about the need for students to memorize basic math facts and learn standard methods of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

What will the Board of Education do with this assessment? That's one of those details in which the devil resides.

High School Exit Exam Update

According to the major Sacramento newspaper:

State education officials and lawyers representing students who failed the California High School Exit Exam settled a lawsuit Thursday that began last year in an attempt to eliminate the test as a graduation requirement.

Under the agreement, the test remains in place but schools must continue to educate students who fail for an additional two years after 12th grade -- if those students want to return and try the test again.

I'm glad the exam remains. I'm not sure of the wisdom of having 20-year-olds on a campus with 14-year-olds, but I guess that's part of the agreement.

This all started when some students who failed the exam were not going to be allowed to graduate (click on the testing/assessment tab and find some posts on this topic from Spring 2006) and filed a lawsuit. They lost; the state courts ruled that it's clearly within the purview of the legislature to dictate graduation requirements, and those students didn't graduate because they couldn't pass a test that has at most 8th grade math and 10th grade English.

In a remarkable effort at spin, the students' attorney calls this settlement a victory:

"For our clients, this is absolutely a victory," said Arturo Gonzalez, the San Francisco attorney who represented students in the classes of 2006 and 2007 who couldn't graduate from high school because they failed the exit exam.

"It just means that if (a school is) going to have a special course to prepare students for the test, you may have to invite five kids from last year who didn't pass. And that's a lot better than having those five kids out on the street."

OK, Arturo, whatever you need to tell yourself.

Do You Feel Safer Now With Democrats Running The Congress?

Remember when we were told to be vigilant and report suspicious-looking people and activities? Well, do that now, and the Democrats will let the terrorists sue you.


Update: Does the stock market indicate anything relating to the Global War on Terror?

It has been widely reported that President Bush simply refuses to turn against the surge in Iraq, or even compromise on it. At the same time, he admonishes Congress to toss out troop-withdrawal timetables and to give Gen. Petraeus' new counterinsurgency plan time to work. And you know what? While the Democrats stand against nearly all of the president's wartime policies -- and in the process court defeat -- the stock market is standing with Bush, and the chance for victory.

Early last week, when the Democratic leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi launched their latest antiwar offensive, stocks dropped about 150 points. Then, in a press conference a few days later, after Bush discussed clear successes in Iraq's Anbar province, the Dow Jones soared nearly 300 points, marching ever closer to the 14,000-point plateau.

I'm not saying there's any correlation, Larry Kudlow is.

Update #2, 7/22/07: More thoughts on keeping your mouth shut.

Update #3, 7/25/07: Apparently, those same people who need to be muzzled by the so-called Fairness Doctrine have "encouraged" the Congress to rethink the John Doe Amendment. It's may be safe to report suspicious activity again.

Worth The Expense?

A suburban Sacramento school district superintendent makes more money than Governor Schwarzenegger.

Wow.

Lefties Apparently Don't Think Too Highly Of Voting

Which do you think is more important: purchasing alcohol, or voting for the officials of government? This is not a rhetorical question.

Any reader of this blog will know that I choose the latter. Whatever the legal age for purchasing alcohol is in any locality, it's wise to require identification to ensure the purchaser is of legal age. But that requirement pales in significance to the importance of the vote. But apparently some don't see it that way.

Detroit Branch NAACP officials blasted the Michigan Supreme Court today, accusing the court of turning Michigan into "the Mississippi of the North" with its ruling requiring photo identification for voting.

I'm truly at a loss at how anyone can show even the slightest comparison to showing identification, thereby proving you're entitled to vote, to poll taxes, reading tests, grandfather clauses (if your grandfather couldn't vote, neither can you), or outright disenfranchisement. The NAACP has made itself a laughingstock on this issue and so many others. I ask: what possible affront to liberty can be accrued by ensuring that those who are not legally authorized to vote are in fact prevented from doing so, and that only those entitled to vote actually get to cast ballots?

Another area in which lefties show outright contempt for voting is with the darling of the unions, the card check. Allow me to explain what that is.

A card check is a way to certify a union without an election. What happens is a union organizer talks to individuals and gets them to sign a union card. When over half the employees of a company have signed the union card, the union is certified. Would anyone suggest we hold public elections that way? The reason for the voting booth and the secret ballot is to allow each voter to choose in accordance with his own conscience, free of pressure or intimidation by others. This rationale works just as well for a national election as it does a union election. Clearly, a card check law is un-American, to say the least.

Which political party claims to be the party of the working American? And which party has temporarily halted card check legislation in the Senate? Readers of this blog will not be surprised by the answers.

Note how the law is deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act. Orwell was writing about the left.

"Real World Applications" of Supreme Court Decisions

Here are two posts from this week's Carnival of Education, posts which relate to two of the Supreme Court cases decided this past term--the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case and the Louisville and Seattle so-called desegregation cases.

The first was about the free speech of students at a school-sponsored event. Clearly, the school can regulate such speech. What, though, about speech that doesn't occur at school? What if the speech is on a student's own blog? This post discusses that topic and the first commenter, obviously with a brilliant mind, extends the subject somewhat.

The next post I'll link to combines desegregation and some NCLB-like ratings for a failed school, to wit: if a mostly white (or mostly Catholic) school doesn't encourage racial (or religious) mixing, then that school is automatically labeled as "failing". If you thought such stupidity stopped at the western edge of the Atlantic, you'd be mistaken.

Carnival of Education

The popcorn and cotton candy can be found here, and includes my post on alternate methods of multiplication.

Democratic Congress Has A Gift For Its Union Overlords

The new Democratic Congress has finally found a government agency whose budget It wants to cut: an obscure Labor Department office that monitors the compliance of unions with federal law...

Union officials have publicly stated that they believe many of OLMS's requirements are burdensome and unnecessary. Since unions helped elect the current Congress, they are now seeking action on their agenda, which ranges from holding fewer secret ballot elections to cutting back on the oversight that is at the heart of the 1959 union "bill of rights" that JFK championed.

Those are the opening and closing paragraphs in the piece. There's plenty more good stuff in the middle.