I'm Not Sure This Is The Right Way To Act

Laws are sometimes stupid, and the stupid ones need to be changed, but unless we're willing to live with anarchy, laws should be followed until they're overturned (or at least you should risk the consequences of not following them).  I'm not sure these teachers are acting appropriately:

Teachers at a Seattle high school, in a rare boycott by educators against a standardized test, are refusing to give students a decades-old reading and math test after the city's school district decided to factor the exam into the instructors' evaluations.

The 19 teachers at Garfield High School have complained they are unable to adequately prepare students for the Measures of Academic Progress test, which was created more than 25 years ago and introduced to Seattle public schools in 2009.

The revolt by the Garfield teachers, who comprise all the instructors at the school required to give the MAP test, comes at a time of fierce political battles over teacher evaluations that has played out in cities from Chicago to Los Angeles.

The MAP test that has become a point of contention at Garfield is given at schools around the country, but is not required by Washington state.

Unlike the tests required by the state, which are the High School Proficiency Exam and the End-of-Course exams, it has no bearing on students' grades or their ability to graduate.

You want stupid? I'll give you stupid.  This year I teach two courses for which there is not a state test.  Juniors and below in my courses will take the "summative high school math" test, which covers Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and geometry topics--nothing I've taught them.  I guess if I were being evaluated on their performance, I'd have issues with that.  But refusing to give the test?  Are there no better ways of addressing that issue?  I notice that Washington is not a "right to work" state, so surely there's a powerful teachers union there--and this is exactly the type of issue a teachers union should address.

Hat tip to reader PeggyU for the link.

Hot Yoga

A little over 2 years ago I started dieting and doing Bikram hot yoga, and in 4 months I lost 25 pounds.  Yoga is expensive, though, so I stopped and signed up for a gym membership.  My weight loss stalled.

It took me 4 months to lose the weight and 2 years to gain the vast majority of it back.

This morning I started yoga again.  As I was driving to the studio it was 32 degrees; 2 hrs later, on the drive home, it was 10 degrees warmer.

I'm toying with going skiing tomorrow.

(BTW, that yoga kicked my butt.)

What Degree To Get

This isn't very helpful to me at this stage in my career, but if I had to do it all over again:
See pay, job prospects, unemployment rate for every college major in California

Now I Will Have Even Less Of A Retirement

It's not like the California State Teachers Retirement System, or CalSTRS, isn't in enough financial trouble already:

The nation's largest teacher pension fund took the first step Wednesday toward divesting from companies that make guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines that are illegal in California.


State Treasurer Bill Lockyer made a motion to begin the divestment process after pension fund officials determined that the fund invests in the owner of a company that manufactured one of the weapons used in the Connecticut school shooting. The California State Teachers' Retirement System's investment committee unanimously approved the motion.

Thank you, idiots.  I guess more of my money will be invested in Solyndra and its look-alikes.

Should Students Be Required to Wear RFID Badges At School?

First off, I believe that requiring students to wear such badges is entirely legal, and that the religious argument against it, that it's akin to "the mark of the Beast", is beyond silly. 

On the other hand, just because something is legal doesn't make it "right" or even good policy.  I'm just starting to form an opinion on this so I solicit intelligent commentary.  I'm especially interested in the security vs. privacy discussion.

They Don't Always Think Before They Talk

Real live no crap, this conversation took place at the beginning of one of my classes today:

Me:  Cameron, you and I have the same birthday.
Cameron:  Really?  When's yours?

Who doesn't love teenagers?  :-)

Teacher Work Day

For the first time since I became a teacher, our semester ended before Christmas break.  What that means, though, is the last Friday before break, which was often a "party day", was actually a final exam day!  One less day of fun, but the benefits of not having the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head for two weeks of break is more than worth it to both staff and students.

Today was a teacher work day, students start classes tomorrow.

I left home later than I usually do but actually got to school earlier than I usually do--must have hit the lights perfectly this morning.  Had a half a class of final exams left to grade, which didn't take long, and then got all the semester grades entered and submitted.

Then I really got to work on the computer.  Planned out my teaching for the rest of the month, got my web site updated with January's assignments, made new seating charts, and did a few other administrative/bookkeeping tasks.  Wrote a couple letters of recommendation, had a nice lunch at a nearby restaurant (courtesy of a gift certificate given to me by my Parent Secret Pal),

When the kids show up tomorrow it'll be like we never left.  Won't miss a beat.  The river keeps a-flowin'.

And they'll hate it.  But they've had me for a semester already, so they should know to expect it.

School Supplies

I've written many times about the illegal fees charged in so many of California's classrooms.  Our law is extremely clear, even though it's ignored to the point that my own school district, whilst having policies that comport with the law, also lists teacher "student supply lists" right on our district's web page!

It's a lonely battle to fight but I do in fact fight it.  I don't know what the law is in Michigan, but I'm glad someone there is picking up the fight:

School may be on break but school supplies are causing quite a controversy in Birmingham.

The parents of a 6th-grader at Derby Middle School have filed a lawsuit, possibly a class action suit, against Birmingham Public Schools claiming the district is violating state policy by asking families to pay for supplies used in a public school...

"This lawsuit doesn't have any merit," said attorney Timothy Mullins. "There is nothing inappropriate about asking parents to pay for certain school supplies."

I don't care which way the law goes; either parents can be asked to pay for certain things, or they can't. What I can't tolerate is having a law that is clear and explicit--and totally ignored.

Hat tip to reader Steve K for the link.

Goodwin Liu Doesn't Like The First Amendment?

How nice it is to know this lib is on the California Supreme Court:

While Seidman was preaching contempt for the Constitution, the radical former law professor Goodwin Liu, whose nomination by Obama to be on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was thwarted by the Senate, was counseling evasion of the First Amendment. (After his federal appeals court nomination was defeated, he was appointed by California Governor Jerry Brown to the California Supreme Court.) With Liu voting in the majority, the California Supreme Court undermined property rights and the First Amendment rule against content discrimination by forcing an employer to host union picketing on its own private property. Liu argues that speech by businesses or other economic entities, or on their premises, can be sharply restricted by the government, to achieve the goals of the modern regulatory state: he approvingly cites progressive legal scholars exulting that “large areas of communication still remain untouched by the First Amendment,” and that “the state [supposedly] may criminalize speech [that] is face-to-face, informational, particular, and for private gain.” This claim is at odds with the First Amendment’s established protection for commercial speech, which liberal justices once defended more avidly than conservatives, before they became less enthusiastic than conservatives about it, as American conservatism became more tolerant, and American liberalism decayed into controlling statist orthodoxy.

Alarmingly, Liu also approving cited a left-leaning legal scholar’s claim “the First Amendment’s coverage in the civil context may be partly explained by the existence or absence of a sympathetic class of litigants or a well-entrenched regulatory scheme.” So if Goodwin Liu doesn’t empathize with you, you apparently don’t deserve free speech (an outlook that echoes Obama’s claim that empathy rather than purely legal considerations should dictate the outcome in certain cases). Liu also argues that “the Supreme Court has consistently rejected First Amendment challenges to content-based speech regulations in the context of labor relations” and that content-based restrictions on speech are just fine in areas like antitrust law. (His argument gives short shrift to Supreme Court decisions limiting the reach of labor and antitrust law on First Amendment grounds, cases like BE&K Construction v. NLRB and the Noerr-Pennington line of cases, and lower court rulings limiting federal law’s reach over speech, like Rodriguez v. Maricopa Community College, and White v. Lee.) Once upon a time, left-leaning judges were more likely to rule in favor of free speech than conservative judges, but, alas, that time has long passed, and UCLA law professor Eugene “Volokh found that the conservatives have been considerably more likely to vote in favor of First Amendment claimants than liberals on the [Supreme] court” since 1994.

Liu’s pinched interpretation of the First Amendment came in a case known as Ralph’s Grocery v. United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 8. In its decision in that case, the California Supreme Court refused to follow a federal appeals court ruling invalidating a requirement that employers host labor picketing, but not other picketing (Waremart Foods v. N.L.R.B. (2004)). The state supreme court disregarded the fact that a California statute imposing this requirement discriminates based on the content of speech without any compelling reason for doing so (the union could have picketed instead on nearby public property, without trespassing on the employer’s property). It rejected the employer’s challenge to forcing it to host the picketing, based on the reasoning that the employer’s property was not a public forum, which turns logic upside down, since the fact that the employer’s property was not a public forum is an added reason to leave it alone, and since the purpose of public-forum analysis is to distinguish among different owned government-owned settings based on whether public debate is permitted there (such as distinguishing a public park designed partly for speaking and assembly, from a government office designed for working, not public intrusion or debate), not to deny the First Amendment’s protection in private settings where First Amendment norms protected speech even before the concept of a public forum was invented — and which thus are fully protected against government meddling by the First Amendment regardless of whether they resemble “public forums.” As the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals once noted, “Private property affords the strongest protection to free speech,” so speech in a company-owned bus shelter would be just as protected as speech in a government-owned public forum. Metro Display. Advertising, Inc. v. City of Victorville, 143 F.3d 1191, 1195 (9th Cir. 1998). (For example, your home is not a public forum, but that doesn’t mean the government can restrict speech there — the Supreme Court has said that the government cannot restrict the books that you possess in your own home, even if they contain obscenity that could be banned in public forums, and it has no more power to ban signs that you display from your home based on their viewpoint than it does to ban such signs in traditional public forums.)

Libs would be more honest if they just admitted they wanted to get rid of the Constitution, but then again, libs aren't known for their honesty.

They're Luckier In Ohio

I pay over $1000/year to teachers unions, and get about 1/3 of it back because I'm not a union member!  Why do I have to pay anything at all?  Because California is a so-called fair share state, not a "right to work" state.  That 1/3 I get refunded each fall is my "agency fee rebate".  All that coerced union money is being spent on some lavish paychecks:

Dennis Van Roekel was paid $389,620 in fiscal year 2012 as president of the National Education Association (NEA), America’s largest labor union. Van Roekel was one of 14 NEA bosses paid more than $250,000 with dues taken from teachers in Ohio and other forced-unionism states as a condition of employment.

Based on union filings with the U.S. Department of Labor, 436 NEA employees were paid over $100,000 from September 1, 2011 to August 31, 2012. Full-time teachers across Ohio were forced to pay NEA $178 – in addition to $425 in Ohio Education Association (OEA) dues – during the 2011-2012 school year.

As current union contracts expire, Michigan’s new workplace freedom law will make Michigan the 24th state to protect the right of educators to choose whether they contribute to the following NEA paychecks...

Including the 14 NEA bosses listed above, 53 of the union’s staff and officers were paid in excess of $200,000 in the most recent fiscal year.

Fourteen officers make over a quarter of a million dollars a year. One-percenters.

Bazinga!

The show's writing quality has dropped in the last season or two, but that doesn't lessen how cool this is:

If you watch "The Big Bang Theory," you probably laugh every time Sheldon Cooper says the B-word: "Bazinga!"

Now, in one of those amusing science-imitates-art moments, "bazinga" has been officially dubbed a species of a bee.

The writers of the hit comedy probably never imagined that the persnickety physicist Cooper's favorite word would be immortalized in actual science.

But thanks to a team of Brazilian biologists, a Brazilian orchid bee is now known by the name Euglossa bazinga.

"The idea was to honor actor Jim Parsons and his brilliant interpretation of Sheldon Cooper," Dr. André Nemésio, a biology professor at the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia in Brazil told CNN.

Did the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Lead to Risky Lending?

Yes, it did. And let's be honest, that was its purpose--couched in racial terms.

Here's A Shocker

There were so many problems with the Cash For Clunkers program--anyone who wasn't blinded by rewarding political friends could see them, and the rewarding was the actual purpose of the program.

Back in 2009, President Obama’s “Cash for Clunkers” program was supposed to be a boon for the environment and the economy. During a limited time, consumers could trade in an old gas-guzzling used car for up to $4,500 cash back towards the purchase of a fuel-efficient new car. It seemed like a win for everyone: the environment, the gasping auto industry and cash-strapped consumers.

Though almost a million people poured into car dealerships eager to exchange their old jalopies for something shiny and new, recent reports indicate the entire program may have actually hurt the environment far more than it helped.

According to E Magazine, the “Clunkers” program, which is officially known as the Car Allowance Rebates System (CARS), produced tons of unnecessary waste while doing little to curb greenhouse gas emissions...

And though the point was to get less fuel efficient cars off the roads, with only 690,000 traded in, and over 250 million registered in the U.S., the difference in pollutant levels seems pretty negligible.

Another Turnaround

Patrick Moore of Greenpeace changed his mind on nuclear power, and now Mark Lynas is changing his on genetically-modified foods:

But Lynas has changed his mind—and he’s not being quiet about it. On Thursday at the Oxford Farming Conference, Lynas delivered a blunt address: He got GMOs wrong. According to the version of his remarks posted online (as yet, there’s no video or transcript of the actual delivery), he opened with a bang:

I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.

As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.

DDT isn't the evil it was supposed to be, but Rachel Carson is dead and can't apologize to the millions of malaria victims she helped kill.

What's the next leftie totem to fall?

Update, 1/6/12:  I guess we have our answer:

The state’s Health Department found in an analysis it prepared early last year that the much-debated drilling technology known as hydrofracking could be conducted safely in New York, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times from an expert who did not believe it should be kept secret.

Boys Will Be Boys

Even if prissy idiots don't want them to be:

Well, in the latest in hysterical responses to Newtown and weapons in general, a first-grade boy has been suspended for pointing a finger at someone and saying "Pow!"...

The finger I want to raise to (school spokesidiot) Dana is my middle one.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Roger L. Simon on lefties in general:

Leftism has devolved into a kind of scam run not only on others but also on the self. Leftists are brilliant at convincing themselves of their own altruism and then broadcasting it to the public, thus providing cover for the most conventionally greedy and selfish behaviors. We see that in our society all the time: the quondam Marxists of Hollywood, the media, and the academy blathering on about economic equality while living lives the Medici could not have dreamed of.

Part of this construct is a “prevent game,” a public persona and system erected so privilege cannot be questioned or undermined. A nomenklatura more successful and sophisticated than anything ever conceived in the Soviet Union. The result of this is a highly stratified society. As is well known but scarcely reported, blacks and Latinos have actually done worse under Obama than other groups. Normally, that would be unconscionable, considering the rhetoric. But as we know, it’s all about the rhetoric. Reality is unimportant — an inconvenience.

Relatively unbridled capitalism has always the best way out of this, the best way to true social mobility, but our nomenklatura doesn’t want to admit this because it might threaten them and their perquisites. It would blow their cover.

Instapundit on Al Gore:

AL JAZEERA BUYS CURRENT TV. “Mr. Gore and his partners were eager to complete the deal by Dec. 31, lest it be subject to higher tax rates that took effect on Jan. 1.”

That’s Irony #1. Irony #2 is Al Gore walking away with $100 million in dirty oil money. Well, it would be ironic if it weren’t so predictable. Al’s a whore, basically. Gore, I mean. Not Jazeera.

In an earlier post I said I might need to create a new post label for firearms. I certainly didn't need any new labels for this post.

How Much Control Are You Willing To Cede To Government?

This much?

A 15-year-old is suing the Icelandic state for the right to legally use the name given to her by her mother. The problem? Blaer, which means "light breeze" in Icelandic, is not on a list approved by the government.

Like a handful of other countries, including Germany and Denmark, Iceland has official rules about what a baby can be named. In a country comfortable with a firm state role, most people don't question the Personal Names Register, a list of 1,712 male names and 1,853 female names that fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules and that officials maintain will protect children from embarrassment. Parents can take from the list or apply to a special committee that has the power to say yea or nay.

In Blaer's case, her mother said she learned the name wasn't on the register only after the priest who baptized the child later informed her he had mistakenly allowed it.

We conservatives don't think government should have this kind of control (although I'd consider cases of abuse, e.g. Shih Tedd Smith); what do you libs think?  On what legal theory do you justify allowing government to dictate that you purchase health care but not allowing it to "assist" you in choosing your child's name?  You like socialism?  Doesn't get much more "social" than your name....

Weren't Klebold and Harris Both From Intact Families?

While there's something some worthwhile points in this article, one of those points is not a connection between so-called absentee fathers and mass murderers.  The problem in Sandy Hook was not a missing dad but a wackadoo son:

It's hard to read such an account without feeling great sadness for someone like Nancy Lanza—a single mother with a deeply disturbed male adolescent on her hands and no man in the house to turn to for help or advice. Those who knew her said that she was at her wit’s end and thought she could no longer care for her son by herself. In a saner age, when people understood the palpable harms of “broken homes” and “fatherless boys” (the terms themselves have become quaint if not archaic), the “family structure issue” would have guided reflection on the Lanza killings. But now, since any such discussion of divorce’s harms, especially the harm of not having a father present in the home, would step on too many toes, we focus instead on the safer territory of gun control and our mental health system.

A preview of the current non-discussion was provided almost fifty years ago when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote his famous report The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. As Moynihan learned, however important the “family structure issue” may be to an understanding of an acute social problem, for many it strikes a raw nerve, the pain of which shuts down all serious discussion. A preoccupation with "racism" and "de-industrialization" were the equivalents in Moynihan's day of guns and the mental health system today, as topics to raise to avoid the salient but hypersensitive issue of family breakdown.

At this rate I may need to create a "firearms" label for posts.

Legitimate Reason, or Political Bias?

You make the call:

Today, St. Charles has a population of around 65,000 and home to the Francis Howell School District and a growing controversy over political discrimination charges. Bryan Spencer has been an elementary school teacher in the district for the past 22 years. In November, he was elected to the Missouri State House of Representatives. Upon his election, Spencer applied for an unpaid leave of absence from his teaching job for the time that he will spend at the state capital in Springfield.

However, the school board denied his request, basically forcing Spencer to have to resign from his teaching position in order to serve his district in the state legislature. Herein lies the issue. The same school board has approved other requests for unpaid leaves of absence from other teachers. Spencer pointed out that two other teachers in the district were granted their leaves in order that they could serve as leaders with the Missouri National Education Association, which is a politically driven union.

Spencer claims the difference is that the teachers union is Democratic controlled and that those involved with the union, including the two teachers from the same district actively campaigned for Democrats. Spencer is a Republican, and as such does not hold with some of the union practices. He believes that the school board denied his request for an unpaid leave because of his political party, so he sent in a second request for an unpaid leave, but the board voted 5-2 to deny him a second time.

Hat tip to reader MikeAT for the link.

I Feel Much Safer Now

According to the graphic in this article, teaching is a field with a relatively low number of psychopaths.  Guess our students need to find a better argument!

How Much Does Free Healthcare Cost?

Like California's bullet train, the price of which has more than tripled since Californians stupidly voted for a $10 billion bond to pay for (part of) it, so too has Obamacare's price tag gone up:

Oops. New CBO Estimate: Obamacare Will Be TRIPLE Initial Estimate

P. J. O'Rourke had it right in The Liberty Manifesto.

Firearms--in Schools?

The lefties are looking for a win, anywhere, on the firearms issue.  They don't really care where it is; it's like a small string in a sweater, once you start pulling it the whole sweater comes undone.  And let's face it, that's what they want.  They'll use Sandy Hook not because they think it's better or worse than any other firearms event, but because it's a string they can pull.

Don't let them get away with it.

Here are two articles on the subject of firearms:

Experts: Trained police needed for school security

An officer, he said, "is not just a hired gun. They have an office in the school. They are trained in crisis management, handling mass casualties and medical emergencies."

Gun Control Tramples On The Certain Virtues Of A Heavily Armed Citizenry

Hard cases make bad law, which is why they are reserved for the Constitution, not left to the caprice of legislatures, the sophistry and casuistry of judges or the despotic rule making of the chief executive and his bureaucracy.  And make no mistake, guns pose one of the hardest cases a free people confronts in the 21^st century, a test of whether that people cherishes liberty above tyranny, values individual sovereignty above dependency on the state, and whether they dare any longer to live free.

I'm Back!

After 3 days of camping and one day of returning home while feeling on death's doorstep, I'm back in the Land of the Reasonably Fast Internet. 

Did we fall off the "fiscal cliff"?  I honestly don't know!  But here's my guess:
1.  Yes, we did. 
2.  It'll get fixed, retroactively, when an agreement finally is reached.
3.  An agreement will be reached.
4.  It will include far more in tax increases than in any real cuts.

I hope I'm wrong, but this one's too easy.

Resolved To Lose Weight?

Maybe the science isn't settled:

In my new book, The 8-Hour Diet, I'm proposing something that may sound a little radical: Skipping breakfast may be the key to skipping a lot of things -- excess weight, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, and premature death, among them. How are you going to do all that, simply by pushing away from the breakfast buffet? By engaging an amazing process called "hormesis." Scientists tell us that if you challenge your body, the way you do with a 16-hour fast, it responds by preferentially burning fat, sharpening your mind, tuning up your heart, and turning on the human growth hormone jets. Cool, right?

Which leads me back to breakfast, and why it's important to skip it.

Some of what he said sounded contradictory to me--maybe you'll do a better job of understanding!

Culturally Sensitive Perversions

This one's kinda funny:

The U.S. Army got itself into an embarrassing situation recently, when it was revealed that a new cultural sensitivity pamphlet had been distributed containing some explosive advice. Among the many things troops were advised not to talk to their Afghan colleagues or students about were; homosexuality, sex with children, and abusing women. All three practices are common in Afghanistan, especially the southern areas where most American troops operate.

Yeah, you definitely want to read the entire (short) article at the link.

Less Empathy, Not More

In our politically-correct world, you'd expect people at least to fake the "right" answer, but no, honesty shone through:

Today's college students are not as empathetic as college students of the 1980s and '90s, a University of Michigan study shows.

The study, presented in Boston at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, analyzes data on empathy among almost 14,000 college students over the last 30 years.

Yes, this report is over two years old, but I doubt much has changed in the interim.

Screw The Rich? Not So Fast!

Well, at least, not so much.  It's still socialist Europe, after all:

Embattled French President Francois Hollande suffered a fresh setback Saturday when France's highest court threw out a plan to tax the ultrawealthy at a 75 percent rate, saying it was unfair.

In a stinging rebuke to one of Socialist Hollande's flagship campaign promises, the constitutional council ruled Saturday that the way the highly contentious tax was designed was unconstitutional. It was intended to hit incomes over €1 million ($1.32 million).

The largely symbolic measure would have only hit a tiny number of taxpayers and brought in an estimated €100 million to €300 million - an insignificant amount in the context of France's roughtly (sic) €85 billion deficit.

With these kinds of people, including our president, it's not about bringing money into the treasury. It's about some warped view of "fairness".

If This Bothered You Lefties Under Bush...

...why does it not bother you under Obama?

By a vote of 73 to 23, the US Senate just voted for the warrantless surveillance of American citizens until 2017.

The vote, set to affirm to eradicate the FAA Sunsets Extension Act of 2012, means we'll be living with Bush-era spy laws for another half decade. In 2007, the Senate voted to grant blanket immunity to companies like AT&T, which conspired with the NSA to monitor American digital conversations without government oversight after 9/11. Today's vote continues that immunity, and provides further carte blanche for the American intelligence-gathering apparatus. Phone calls, texts, and emails are all fair game—and a judge doesn't have to give the OK, so long as it's in the name of counterterrorism. Which is a very easy guise.

Marching Band, Rifle Drill, and Excellence

Based on the language this particular site appears to be Portuguese, but the video is of the Royal Norwegian Guard.  Impressive.

Hiatus!

I'm (probably) taking a break till 2013, so for the next few days you'll get a couple of scheduled posts or "best of" reruns.  Enjoy the end of 2012

This kid rocks.

Freedom

Sometimes people ask me why I value freedom so highly.  If giving up a few freedoms would make life a little easier, they say, why not go for the easy life?

My cerebral answer is that freedom is what drives the human spirit.  We psychologists talk of self-actualizing, they're talking about freedom.  Freedom is the precursor to human growth, it is the essence of what it means to be human.

That's the grand, one-over-the-world answer.  Here's a more practical one:

The Heritage Foundation calculates an Economic Freedom Index annually for countries around the world based on ten factors: business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government spending, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom. With the index, one can compare the impact of economic freedom to quality of life measures.

The Heritage Foundation uses the index to break down the nations into five subgroups ranging from free economies to repressed economies. Based on the data, it is possible to compare the subgroups for factors such as average life expectancy, income and happiness. Table 1 shows the subgroups based on the 2010 index compared to the average life expectancy, per capita Gross Domestic Product (Purchasing Power Parity), and the Gallup Happiness Index in the year the economic freedom index was calculated.

Practical evidence of my ethereal belief.  Libs can believe whatever they want, but reality is conservative.

I Do Enjoy Satire

Think the Founders never intended for citizens to have high-powered rifles because all they had was muskets?  Think the 2nd Amendment is "technology-dependent"?  How about the 1st?

There’s a lot more at the link, but clearly, and particularly in light of all of the irresponsible reporting and pontificating on what the Founders intended, by CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and others, it’s time to rein in this out-of-control media. How could the Founders have foreseen cable television, or television at all, in which irresponsible, uneducated, ignorant people could fill Americans’ heads with rapid-fire historical nonsense?

If, just to win this debate with me, you say you'd agree to some curtailing of the 1st Amendment if it meant curtailing the 2nd, then you're a fool who has both of those rights only due to the exertions of men and women better than you are. (with thanks to John Stuart Mill)

A Little Reason About the Connecticut Shooting and Calls For More Firearms Control

Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and host of the Instapundit web site, has penned what I consider a thoughtful and reasoned column about the aftermath of the shooting.  You may or may not agree with him, but I think you'll have to agree that he's "thoughtful and reasoned", especially considering that he's not calling for anyone to be killed (unlike the gun control crowd):

When Twenty Minutes Is Forever. According to the CNN timeline for the Sandy Hook tragedy, "Police and other first responders arrived on scene about 20 minutes after the first calls." Twenty minutes. Five minutes is forever when violence is underway, but 20 minutes -- a third of an hour -- means that the "first responders" aren't likely to do much more than clean up the mess...

Is Hate A Liberal Value? A 20-year-old lunatic stole some guns and killed people. Who's to blame? According to a lot of our supposedly rational and tolerant opinion leaders, it's . . . the NRA, a civil-rights organization whose only crime was to oppose laws banning guns. (Ironically, it wasn't even successful in Connecticut, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation)...

Calling people murderers and wishing them to be shot sits oddly with claims to be against violence. The NRA -- like the ACLU, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers or Planned Parenthood -- exists to advocate policies its members want. It's free speech. The group-hate directed at the NRA is ugly and says ugly things about those consumed by it.

He goes on, ending with this:

Ah, yes, the government is broke. And nobody seems to have a plan to deal with it. No wonder they'd rather have us talking about gun control.

Good article.

Obama Administration to California Dept of Education: Screw You!

Obama loves the money his campaign can raise here, and he loves the electoral votes, and he loves his popularity, and he loves our high taxes.

He doesn't like our schools, though, or our elected officials:

California has been denied a waiver from federal sanctions associated with the No Child Left Behind law, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said in a news release Friday.

"It is disappointing that our state's request – which enjoyed such strong support from parents, teachers, administrators, and education advocates across California – has apparently been rejected," Torlakson said in a statement.

Those who thought that NCLB was a way to privatize our schools, well, you were wrong. It might be a way to force the state, or maybe even the feds, to take them over!

I especially like the comment, as I type this it's the only one, after the article:

Maybe CA should let ALL schools be taken over by the state. Let the state fix them. Let the state figure out how to get the non English speakers up to grade level since Brown and the Dems are so hep on treating all illegals like citizens. Let the state figure out how to make all the poor, under achieving students go to school everyday and study without parental involvement. It seems they believe it's the teacher's responsibility to get all the kids to school everyday, do their homework, and behave themselves at school.

Shoot, we're feeding them with tax dollars anyway. Why not force the teachers to be their parent too.

Christmas Day

I watched a healthy portion of the pope's Christmas Mass last night, finally going to bed at 1am.  St. Peter's isn't as impressive on tv as it is in person, but seeing it again brought back memories of the grandeur.

I hope all the readers here at Right On The Left Coast have (had) a wonderful day, a Merry Christmas, or a joyful celebration of whatever holiday you celebrate :) 

Here's my favorite version of a Christmas song, posted again for at least the third year in a row!

Merry Christmas!

Buon Natale!
Froehliche Weinachten!
Feliz Navidad!
Joyeaux Noel!
Mele Kalikimaka!

I'm scheduling this post in advance because I plan on watching the Pope's Christmas mass.  No, I haven't converted to Catholicism, but I want to see St. Peter's again.

Have a great day!

Jury Duty

Back in October I was scheduled for jury duty, but since I'm a teacher (students are allowed to as well) I was able to push my service date out up to 90 days so I could serve during a scheduled break.  I stated on the form that I'd be available the week of December 24th.  A couple weeks ago I got a new jury summons for that (this) week.

The instructions were to call or check the web site over the weekend to see when my group number would be needed.  When I checked on Saturday the site said that my group would not need to go in on Monday morning, but should call or check at 11:30 to see if we'd need to go in at 1pm.  I checked a little early, and here are the new instructions for my group:

Your group is not needed. Your service is complete. You do not need to check back. Thank you for making yourself available to serve as a juror.

Not complaining!

Vilfredo Pareto's Simple Discovery

When I worked in industry, we used Statistical Process Control to ensure that our manufacturing processes were stable.  We measured output using a variety of charts and could identify if something were going wrong with a process (a blade going bad on a cutter, or perhaps a die wearing out) and could fix the problem before it became severe.

One of the charts we used was called a Pareto Chart; on it we listed the types of errors we got from a specific process, and the quantity of those errors.  The goal was to attack the most common error first.  Turns out that chart was named after Vilfredo Pareto, who's discussed in this article:

With today’s liberals, it is not really about fairness. It is about trying to make people equal who will never be equal. It is what socialism and communism have always striven toward, and it is something their philosophy has never achieved. It can never be achieved.

And that is because people are not equal. Created equal, yes; equal under the law, yes; equal in many ways, yes; but ultimately not equal because people are all different. Despite ecumenical pleas that we are all one, that we are all the same, we really are not.

And neither is the tax situation. Liberals cry that the rich are not paying their share, and they are right about that – just in the wrong direction.

The top one percent of earners pays 40 percent of all income taxes. The top 10 percent pays 70 percent of all taxes. The top 50 percent pays 98 percent. The bottom 50 percent of earners pays two percent.

That is the truth. However, the truth, historically, has always been the biggest enemy of the liberals, socialists and communists.

Their goal has never been to be “fair,” or to make rich people pay a “fair share.” Their goal is to make everyone equal in the egalitarian utopia that socialists have always desired. The trouble is, it usually ends with everyone being equally poor and equally miserable...

When you talk about unfairness and inequality, consider the work of Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian engineer and sociologist turned economist. More than a hundred years ago, he saw disparity and it made him wonder – why was 80 percent of the land in Italy owned by 20 percent of the people? He saw the rich and the poor, and he wondered why some people became rich and some remained poor.

His observations – known as the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule — are worth noting, and apply today as much as they did a hundred or a thousand years ago.

Pareto noted that 80 percent of a company’s profit came from 20 percent of its customers; 80 percent of a company’s sales come from 20 percent of its salesmen, and from 20 percent of its clients; 80 percent of a company’s complaints come from 20 percent of its customers; in his garden, 80 percent of the peas came from 20 percent of the peapods. In other words, 80 percent of achievement comes from the efforts of 20 percent.

The principle has been adapted and expanded by a number of economists in the years after Pareto. Microsoft, for example, did its own study showing that fixing 20 percent of the most reported bugs eliminates 80 percent of errors and crashes. Safety experts know that eliminating 20 percent of hazards prevents 80 percent of injuries. Supervisors know that 20 percent of the work takes 80 percent of the time...

A 1992 study by a United Nations committee found that the richest 20 percent of the world’s population controlled 82 percent of the world’s income, while the poorest 20 percent controlled 1.4 percent (and the poorest 60 percent controlled 5.5 percent). The U.N. didn’t need a study to show that.

It does seem unfair that so many have a lot while so many others have so little. But that is life, and life is unfair. The Democrat liberals and socialists have turned America from a society that praised and rewarded hard work, to a society that scorns and punishes it. We now are a society that has made a cult of worshipping the poor. There’s an old saying that it isn’t a crime to be poor, but it isn’t a great achievement. Well, now it is considered a great achievement...

It was Pareto’s education as a sociologist, where human nature came into the mix, that made him understand why utopian theories didn’t work out in reality.

I found the Pareto Principle on a local level, anytime I had to do a story about any of the high schools my newspapers covered. I noticed that the students at the top of the class were involved in the most activities, while those at the bottom of the class were involved in no activities. That didn’t make sense to me on first glance. The students involved in so many activities, like sports, music, service clubs — shouldn’t they have the lowest grades because they don’t have time to study, and shouldn’t those with no involvement have the highest grades because they have all that free time to study?

No, it was just the opposite. Those who worked the hardest, in an out of the classroom, were the smartest and the most successful.

Just like in real life.

Some things just are.  That doesn't mean they're good or desirable, but a quixotic and ruinously expensive attempt to change them isn't any more so.

Running Out Of Other People's Money

You wouldn't see a piece like this in the American mainstream media, especially in the Age of The One, and it's certainly odd to see it in the British press, but it is, as the British would say, spot on:

The promises that governments are making to their electorates are not just misleading: they are unforgivably dishonest. It will not be possible to go on as we are, or to return to the expectations that we once had. The immediate emergency created by the crash of 2008 was not some temporary blip in the infinitely expanding growth of the beneficent state. It was, in fact, almost irrelevant to the larger truth which it happened, by coincidence, to bring into view. Government on the scale established in most modern western countries is simply unaffordable...

Of course, the moral logic of this principle is absurd. The amount of wealth in an economy is not fixed so that one person having more means that somebody else must have less. But, for the purposes of our problem, it is the fault in the economic logic that is more important. The amount of money that is required to fund government entitlement programmes is now so enormous that it could not be procured by even very large increases in taxation on the “rich”. Assuming that you could get all of the rich members of your population to stand still and be fleeced (rather than leaving the country, as Gérard Depardieu and a vast army of his French brethren are doing), there are simply not enough of them to provide the revenue that a universal, comprehensive benefits system requires. And if all the French rich did stay put, and submit to President Hollande’s quixotic 75 per cent income tax, they would soon be too impoverished to invest in the supply side of the economy, which would undermine any possibility of growth...

There is no way that “taxing the rich” – that irresistibly glib Left-wing solution to everything – can make present and projected levels of government spending affordable...

At some point, we will have to accept that government-funded health care will consist of subsidised core services to be topped up by the patient’s own insurance or personal funds, just as dentistry and opticians’ services are now. Similarly, pension provision will have to be largely the responsibility of the individual. The greatest contribution that government will be able make to these efforts will be in cutting personal taxes, thus leaving people with more money to pay for provision that they will be free to choose for themselves.

No. Next Question.

Is the Ivy League fair to Asian Americans?  Are any so-called selective universities?

Are Ivy League institutions discriminating against Asian Americans by limiting how many are admitted? That's the subject of a debate published this week in the New York Times...

As I see it, we know that even well-intentioned people regularly rationalize discriminatory behavior, that society as a whole is often horrified at its own bygone race-based policies, and that race is so fluid in our multi-ethnic society that no one can adequately conceive of all the ways it is changing; knowing these things, prudence dictates acceptance of the fact that humans aren't equipped to fairly take race into consideration. At various times in history, doing so has nevertheless been a necessity. We're lucky that it isn't a necessity now, and that class-based affirmative action would effectively target the most needy racial minorities in a race-blind way.

To imagine that today's college-admissions officers can step outside the failings of humanity, making subjective judgment calls in secret with racial enlightenment that is unprecedented in human history, is folly. It may have seemed possible and even done more good than harm when America was mostly grappling with black and white. Now that we're asking people to calibrate the "diversity value" of American blacks, Africans, Hispanics, Thais, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Native Americans, and many more besides? The prudent course is acknowledging the limits of our wisdom. Alas, intellectual humility and restraint are not among the Ivy League's virtues.

They do well, so in education circles they're not considered "minorities" and hence can feel the full force of racial discrimination. Logic is not the strong suit of the liberals who create these policies.

Update:  Does anyone truly believe that affirmative action candidates for faculty really are the best instructors a college can get?  No.  Next question.

The problems of such hiring assumptions and practices are so manifold as to make it nearly inconceivable that they should have been implemented across North American universities without any significant protest — but implemented they have been, and most academics I know will admit no serious contradiction between the ideal of equality and the reality of discrimination against white male candidates. It should be self-evident — but is not — that any form of hiring is wrong that does not make merit its first and major criterion. Not only academic departments are harmed by practices that imperil quality; the candidates themselves, who must live with the question of their real qualifications forever undetermined, are placed in a humiliating position. Moreover, department morale is likely to suffer considerably when members see less qualified candidates favored due to non-intellectual factors, with resentments and rivalries an almost inevitable result.

What stands out most in my recollection of that time is the dishonesty of the proceedings. A member of the department who served on a campus-wide committee tasked with developing best practices to promote diversity mentioned one of their recommendations: after a minority candidate is hired, members of the department should take care to tell all their friends of her merit; the equity preference should not be mentioned. The omission hit at the nub of the matter. It was not that individuals were necessarily lying as they offered their various justifications and rationales; many of them believed in what they were doing, at least some of the time. But it was impossible to believe wholeheartedly and without hesitation through all of those strained, compromised, and occasionally ludicrous moments of hedging, half-truth, selective blindness, and forced praise.

No matter one’s commitment to righting past wrongs, one could not avoid recognizing that non-intellectual criteria were being used to hire candidates into positions ostensibly defined by intellectual achievement.

Update #2, 12/24/12:  Here's the racial breakdown for Cal-Berkeley.  I wonder how many of those Asians are affirmative action candidates.  I wonder what their percentages would be if there were no affirmative action at Berkeley.  I heard once, but can't find a citation for it, that someone once told Governor Reagan that without affirmative action our University of California campuses would be overwhelmingly Asian and his response was, "So what?"  I'd like to find out if that anecdote is true or not, and what the context was.

It's Like I Can't Stop

No, I'm not talking about eating sweets, although I very well could be.  I'm actually talking about Christmas shopping!  For no good reason today other than wanting to get out of the house, I went to Target to pick up a bunch of stocking-stuffer-type things for my son.  He's 16, but I still like having a stocking from Santa for him :-)

Sometimes our kids bring out the worst in us.  Sometimes, though, they bring out the best in us.  Christmas can be one of those times.

It Must Be Pretty Bad

"But, but, he has a medical condition, and the workplace has to accommodate him!"

"Or, he can wear charcoal-laced undies."

Whatever the solution is, this selfish idiot isn't so important that everyone else should have to smell his farts:

A federal employee was formally reprimanded this month for excessive workplace flatulence, a sanction that was delivered to him in a five-page letter that actually included a log of representative dates and times when he was recorded “releasing the awful and unpleasant odor” in his Baltimore office.

In a December 10 letter accusing him of “conduct unbecoming a federal officer,” the Social Security Administration employee was informed that his “uncontrollable flatulence” had created an “intolerable” and “hostile” environment for coworkers, several of whom have lodged complaints with supervisors.

The worker, a 38-year-old Maryland resident, reportedly submitted evidence that he suffered from “some medical conditions” that, at times, caused him to be unable to work full days. But a SSA manager noted in the reprimand letter that, “nothing that you have submitted has indicated that you would have uncontrollable flatulence. It is my belief that you can control this condition.”

I'm sure this will end up on a judge's bench, and hope that the judge applies some common sense--which this individual clearly lacks.  Of course his union is springing for the attorney.   Why don't they care about all the other employees?

(My favorite line in the story:  The man was also accused of launching a trio of attacks on September 11.)

Clogging the Arteries

How amazing does this pizza look?

The Double Sensation's outer crust is filled with mozzarella, Parmesan, and cheddar cheese, which oozes out from strategically placed notches all the way around the edge. The smaller crust is stuffed with a chicken sausage that is itself stuffed with bits of cheese. The entire thing is liberally covered in pepper-Alfredo sauce, salsa sauce, smoked chicken, turkey ham, mushrooms, onions, bell peppers and zucchini. This is knife-and-fork pizza, not pick-it-up-and-eat-it-with-your-hands pizza. Also: There's a maraschino cherry on top.

I can feel my arteries hardening just from looking at the picture.

What I Like About Today

The last day before Christmas break is always a fun time.  We used to come back in January and have two weeks left in the semester, so finals hung over everyone's head like a Sword of Damocles.  Not so anymore, and everyone, staff and student alike, gets to enjoy a well-deserved no-school-requirements break.

I teach in an upscale area, and the generosity shown my students and parents always humbles me.  It's very kind. 

Additionally, I love it when former students come back and visit.  I think I had three of them just drop in today, one from college and two from one of our "online" schools.  Facebook keeps me in touch with many former students, but it's still nice to see them in person--and they have no idea how much.

Our first day back at work in January is a teacher work day, so that's when I'll finish grading the final exams and entering those grades.  The semester will start that Tuesday.

I think I'll skip entirely what I don't like about today.  I'm on too much of a high.

We Didn't Have Such Clubs At West Point

We had all sorts of clubs, military-oriented and otherwise, but we didn't have anything like this:

The august flagship of the Ivy League, Harvard University, approved Friday a student group devoted to kinky sex called Harvard College Munch, a university spokesman said.

I'm sure mumsie and dadsie are just so happy to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars so their baby can go to a school with a kinky sex club.

Sad. Very Sad.

Our military academy cadets and midshipmen should be exemplars of decorum, physical aptitude, intelligence, and integrity; they should represent the best of their generation.  How, then, have they devolved to this:

Reported sexual assaults at the nation's three military academies jumped by 23 percent overall this year, but the data signaled a continued reluctance by victims to seek criminal investigations.

According to a report obtained by The Associated Press, the number of assaults rose from 65 in the 2011 academic year to 80 in 2012. However, nearly half the assaults involved victims who sought confidential medical or other care and did not trigger an investigation. There were 41 assaults reported in 2010.

Granted, we're talking about 80 out of 12,000 young men and women, or 2/3 of 1 percent, which is probably better than most civilian campuses, but still--*sigh*.

During the Golden Age of West Point, 1983-1987, such things weren't unheard of (I myself heard of two cases of pressuring but no actual assaults), and we didn't even have locks on our doors.  Nowadays there are locks on the barracks doors to prevent theft and to prevent sexual assaults.  There's no way around it, that's a specific case of degraded standards from "back in the day"--and it comes as much from the society from which these cadets and midshipmen are drawn as much as from any lack of training or command emphasis.

School Shooting

I've been carrying on an animated discussion on the topic over on Facebook, but the bottom line is that my opinion falls well within what is currently mainstream American thought:

A new poll released today by Gallup shows that Americans favor increased security and proactive mental health treatment over gun control. The national poll of a little over 1,000 adults was conducted in the wake of the tragic murders at a Connecticuit school last Friday.

I wrote on the topic of arming teachers over 5 years ago.

Standards, High and Low

The premise of this first story sounds like one of those too-good-to-be-true weight loss diets, just take this pill and you'll look and feel great!

I don’t know anyone who cares more or knows more about Montgomery County public schools then Joseph Hawkins, a senior study director at the Westat research company.

He tried in 2000 to start a charter school in the county to challenge low-income minority kids. The Board of Education said no, concerned, among other things, that the charter’s plan to have all students in the International Baccalaureate diploma program was too strenuous.

Hawkins still wants more rigorous classes for the students least likely to be in them. In a recent post on the Rockville Patch blog, he suggested the following: At the eight county schools that offer IB classes, black students must go for the full IB diploma, which requires six three-to-five-hour exams and a 4,000-word research paper. His reasons are interesting...

“Now I know it sounds simple,” he wrote, “but to close gaps, schools must make the students who are behind (e.g., black students) run faster. And if they do not, then gaps remain.” He said he italicized the word “make” because “it does come down to a requirement. There is no negotiating excellence and better outcomes.”

It seems to me counter-intuitive to believe that putting kids in the IB program will "work" when too many of them--supposedly the best of them--can't succeed in college.

Hawkins and the other charter school backers said making the IB diploma the ultimate goal would transform the usual easy-going, let’s-get-everybody-graduated atmosphere of the typical U.S. high school. With the IB diploma as the goal, “you might need five years of high school to make that happen for some, and that might include going to school six days a week and not five,” Hawkins said. 

Oh, I definitely see the teachers unions getting on board with that.  Not.  It would have to be a charter school. 

How do we address the racial discrimination that would be inherent in such a school setup?


If we want to find something positive in that story, though, at least we can see that someone wants to set and enforce high standards.  What happens when dumb people want to become teachers?  I wrote a harshly-worded post on the subject almost 5 years ago, and now we face the issue again:

Is arithmetic racist? Are English and science and art?

These might seem like stupid questions, but — speaking of stupid — a federal judge says the answer is yes, they are, and slapped New York City with a judgment that could cost the school system hundreds of millions.

The case involves a 16-year-old lawsuit, a handful of unqualified teachers who tried to cast their own failures as a civil-rights violation — and the lefty lawyers who have abetted their cause...

As a former city teacher told The Post, the exam is “high-school level, so anyone with a high-school [diploma] should be able to pass it, regardless of race.”

But that hasn’t been the case. Back in the 1990s, whites passed at far higher rates than blacks and Hispanics.

And when the test was first rolled out, some folks who had been teaching for years were required to take it — but failed.

They were clearly unfit for full-time teaching and were demoted to substitutes, losing salary and seniority.

And they didn’t like that.

So in 1996, some of them turned to activist lawyers and sued the city to have their jobs and pay restored. The case has been kicking around the courts ever since.

Their claim: Since black and Hispanic applicants failed the tests more often than whites, the tests were ipso facto racist.

It’s an embarrassing thing to believe.

The questions on the exam are race-blind and measure basic academic skills. Passing the test doesn’t prove someone will make a brilliant teacher — but no one who fails should be within a mile of a city classroom...

There’s nothing racist about the LAST.

And that fact can’t be sued away.

Yet last week, in the latest twist in this 16-year-old case, Judge Kimba Wood found that the LAST had a “disparate impact” on black and Hispanic applicants and violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Kimba Wood? Where have we heard of this genius jurist before?

Who's more stupid, Kimba Wood or the college-educated adults that can't pass a junior-high level test?

I'm curious what Randi Weingarten, she of the "teacher bar exam",  thinks of this.

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

That's the argument being used in this case:

A California school district is defending its decision to name a new elementary school after an infamous murderer – by calling him a hero and a role model to children. The decision has infuriated many parents and law enforcemetn (sic) officers.

The Alisal Union School District in Salinas agreed to name the new school in honor of Tiburcio Vasquez – who was eventually hanged for killing at least two people in the nineteenth century.

Superintendent John Ramirez defended the board’s decision telling Fox News that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

“Tiburcio Vasquez, along with others, was an individual who was a revolutionary,” Ramierz (sic) said. “He was not okay with the oppression.”

You know how this story is going to go, but read it anyway.

What's next, Tookie High?

RAM

Remember when, over a decade ago, the price of computer RAM was a serious discussion?

A problem in my stats class today got me to thinking about this.  Remember when, back in the 90s, RAM hit that magical price of $100/Mb, and that was a big deal?  It was a tremendous milestone at the time.

Just for giggles, when the question came up today, I decided to use it as a teaching point.  I went to Amazon and typed in "PC RAM" and the first one that came up was 4 GB for $19.99.  That's half-a-cent per MB, down from $100/MB less than a generation ago.

Nice.

What The Hell Are They Thinking?

Back in the Golden Age of West Point (1983-1987), drugs weren't an especially big problem.  We got popped for random urinalysis tests, and I can only remember once when someone came up "hot".  If there was drug use in The Corps, its existence was virtually unknown to me.  Alcohol?  Gawd yes.  I was known to keep a bottle available once or twice (literally) during my tenure there, but drugs?  Who had that kind of money?

It turns out that several of today's midshipmen do:

When the Naval Academy closed its 11-month investigation last year into the use of synthetic marijuana by midshipmen, officials said they’d dismissed 16 mids — but found no evidence of drug dealing.

What the academy’s account didn’t reveal was just how significant a drug culture Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents found.

The investigation ended the military careers of at least 27 midshipmen, including those allowed to resign while being investigated for drug use and an undetermined number suspected of drug use who were dismissed for collateral reasons.

The only question I can ask is, what they hell were they thinking?

Tying Several Posts Together

Yes, I'm a rock star--temporarily, and in my own way, but a rock star nonetheless!  And in celebration of that new-found status, let me relate a story:

Back in 1982 or so, I had a ticket to see Fleetwood Mac in Sacramento.  Unfortunately the concert was put on hold because Stevie Nicks caught "a cold"--which, if I read the bios well enough, is code for "rehab"--and when the concert dates were rescheduled, Sacramento's was canceled.  A couple years later Christine McVie released a solo album, and I got to see her perform when she played at West Point's Eisenhower Hall.  A few years ago I saw Lindsey Buckingham perform on a solo tour, and just two summers ago I went to a Stevie Nicks concert.  At that point I'd seen all three of Fleetwood Mac's "lead" singers perform, but never as Fleetwood Mac.

Sunday, May 26th, at the MGM in Las Vegas, I get to see Fleetwood Mac perform (Christine doesn't tour anymore, but OK).  I'm very much looking forward to it!

In order to buy tickets I had to go through Ticketmaster, and you wouldn't believe the stupid fees they get away with as a veritable monopoly!  Yes, I want the tickets enough to pay the fees, but that doesn't mean that they aren't stupid fees.  I mean here's the list:
"convenience" fee:  $11.15 ea
order processing fee (I have to pay them to take my money?): $3.75
TicketFast delivery (ie, I get the privilege of printing my own tickets): $2.50

I get to see Fleetwood Mac! After a weekend in Las Vegas!

Can You Believe This Is Really An Issue?

Only in San Francisco could such an ordinance be contentious:

San Francisco's city attorney is urging a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to overturn the city's recently approved nudity ban...

The ban was approved by the Board of Supervisors this month and is scheduled to take effect Feb. 1. It bars nudity in public places, with exceptions at events like the Bay to Breakers race and the Folsom Street Fair.

They Thought They Were Safe, But Time Caught Up To Them

Remember all those teachers who cut school in Wisconsin to throw a hissy fit, and all the doctors who wrote their illegitimate "help me violate my contract by lying" notes to excuse them from work?  You might recall that some of those doctors were sanctioned.  The wheels of justice have turned rather slowly, but almost 2 years later, even more have been busted:

The Wisconsin Medical Examining Board on Wednesday sanctioned 11 more doctors for writing questionable sick notes to protesters demonstrating at the Capitol in February 2011...

The 11 doctors sanctioned Wednesday were named in records the Madison School District released to the State Journal and other media in December after a lawsuit by the newspaper.

Now will the teachers finally be sanctioned?

Global Warming? Not So Fast....

A decade ago Al Gore was telling us how bad hurricane seasons were going to be in "just a few" years--our hurricane seasons have been lighter.  A decade ago we were warned about how the earth was warming up, but now there's no evidence that it's warmed in the last decade.  And then we were told how carbon dioxide, the elixir of life on this planet, was the cause of this global warming, but now even the IPCC is taking a step back:

So the IPCC, at the moment at least, stands ready to admit that the evidence supports a much larger role for solar activity, and a correspondingly much smaller role for CO2. Of course, other sections of the report implicitly contradict this admission. Watts Up With That has all the details on the controversy. I am not sure I agree with those who say this represents the death knell for climate alarmism, but it certainly does illustrate how flimsy the “science” underlying the hysterical position is.

I have long believed, and continue to believe, that solar activity has been the cause of Earth's, and Mars', recent warming trends, and I welcome the IPCC to the group of us that believes in science as opposed to hysteria. 

Do You Feel Safer? I Don't.

How could this possibly make us safer?  Are bad guys really going after Travers City, MI, or Eugene, OR?

Transit authorities in cities across the country are quietly installing microphone-enabled surveillance systems on public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private conversations, according to documents obtained by a news outlet...

The use of the equipment raises serious questions about eavesdropping without a warrant, particularly since recordings of passengers could be obtained and used by law enforcement agencies...

Cities that have installed the systems or have taken steps to procure them include San Francisco, California; Eugene, Oregon; Traverse City, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; Baltimore Maryland; Hartford, Connecticut; and Athens, Georgia.

San Francisco transit authorities recently approved a $5.9 million contract to install an audio surveillance system on 357 buses and vintage trolley cars, paid for in full with a grant from DHS (Department of Homeland Security). The contract includes the option to expand the equipment to an additional 600 vehicles.

Concord, New Hampshire also used part of a $1.2 million economic stimulus grant to install its new video/audio surveillance system on buses, according to the Daily.

Transit officials say the systems will help improve the safety of passengers and drivers and resolve complaints from riders. But privacy and security expert Ashkan Soltani told the Daily that the audio could easily be coupled with facial recognition systems or audio recognition technology to identify passengers caught on the recordings.

In Eugene, Oregon, the Daily found, transit officials requested microphones that would be capable of “distilling clear conversations from the background noise of other voices, wind, traffic, windshields wipers and engines” and also wanted at least five audio channels spread across each bus that would be “paired with one or more camera images and recorded synchronously with the video for simultaneous playback.”

Do we really want or need to live in this type of surveillance society? Do our friends on the left remember when they used to believe in civil liberties, and when they believed in individual privacy rights?

Homeland Security gave these grants.  Are these cities, and/or their bus systems, serious terrorist targets?

Update:  Do you feel safer after watching TSA-holes detain a 12-yr-old wheelchair-bound girl because she had "bomb residue" on her hands?

Rock Star

Regular readers of this blog know that I've started a (5 year long) master's program via distance learning, and my first class has been Linear Algebra.

I started out slowly, getting 9/10 on my first homework submission and 85% on my first test, and began to wonder if I still "had it", as I used to do rather well academically.  After that I hit my stride, though, and going into the final exam this past week I had just over 96%.

Monday after school I took my final exam.  I was allowed 2 hours but finished in 80 minutes--and felt very confident about the results.  Today I got those results back:  including a total of 10 available bonus points, I scored 149/140 on the final, ending with just over 99% in the class.

I'm euphoric.  I feel like a rock star!  There's nothing I can't accomplish today!
appropriately-titled video #1
appropriately-titled video #2

Dear College Math Professor

I'm sorry, I truly am.  But it's really not my fault.  Please don't blame me.

I'm truly not incompetent.  I know you must think I am when you get that student in your class who did so well in high school but doesn't seem to know anything about math.  You wonder what the heck is going on down there in high school, why can't those darned teachers teach these kids anything?  Do high school math teachers know any math at all?

We're not incompetent.  We really do know math.  But we operate under an entirely different set of rules than you do.

Hear me out.

See, you might think that the grades I assign should reflect a level of competency and fluency with course material--that a student who gets an A did an exceptional job and has an exceptional grasp of the material, that a student who gets a B did well above average and has a reasonably strong grasp of the material, etc.

Oh, if only that were so.

 Maybe for most students it is that way, but for a small but growing number of students, the grade I assign is sometimes entirely independent of the student's mastery of the material, and I'm required to assign a higher grade than what you and I think the student should receive.  In fact, I'm legally required to assign this higher grade, even if the student can't meet any reasonable standard of competency.  How can this be, you ask?  Well, I don't know about how this works at your level, but here in high school we're hogtied by a federal law that's been effectively stretched and abused; that law is the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, specifically Section 504 of that law.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was written to protect the rights of those with physical or mental impairments, and to provide training for people with handicaps.  Section 504 of that law specifically requires "reasonable accommodations" in the workplace--or in the classroom--so that the "disabled" can fully participate in all areas of society.  And therein lies the root of our issue.

Now don't get me wrong.  I understand that diabetics need to be allowed a snack in class to control their blood sugar, even though no one else can eat in class.  I understand that an obese kid won't be able to walk across campus in our 5-minute passing period and will need extra time to get to class.  I understand that an asthmatic needs to be allowed to carry his inhaler with him, even though we don't generally allow students to carry prescription medicines around with them.  I understand that students who are hard of hearing, or with vision impairments, might need to sit near the teacher at all times.  And if that's all we were talking about when it comes to Section 504, then grades wouldn't be an issue, and you wouldn't think I'm a dolt.

But wait.  Included in the definitions is one small phrase about  the law's applicability to students with specifically designated learning disabilities.

Now can you see the problem?  Can you see the potential for abuse?

I'm here to tell you that it's not potential, it's here.  It's abused.  It's chronic.  It's gross.

And I'm just a lowly minion who's told what to do and threatened with federal sanctions (and lawsuits and disciplinary action) if I don't comply.  If I don't give certain grades, the entire weight of the federal government comes down upon me.

All it takes to get a "504 Plan" is one doctor to say a child has a problem, and voila!  A "504 Plan", as it's called, and a cushy ticket to A-grade-town.  Even high school students--they could have been seen by a doctor in 2nd grade, and if that doctor said they have ADD or "oppositional defiance disorder" or a "sequencing issue" or "verbal processing difficulties" or "dyscalculia" or whatever, then here's what happens.  School officials--sometimes in consultation with a teacher, often not--meet and come up with a "plan" that will bypass the student's disability and get the student Stanford-ready--a silver bullet!--and then that "plan" is imposed upon the teacher who will, since it has the force of federal law behind it, enforce it to the letter or face severe sanction.  And that plan will periodically get updated as the student gets older, but no parent in his or her right mind is ever going to have accommodations removed from this "plan"--they like seeing high grades on report cards, and don't want to accept that their kid isn't truly as capable as they want them to be--so what happens is that as time goes on, even more requirements are imposed on teachers.  Eventually, these requirements become educationally unsound, but as a teacher I'm still required to obey them.  Often these requirements involve how I assess the student's knowledge, and sometimes they even impose specific grading requirements.

Again, don't get me wrong, I'm all for helping students who need help.  What I'm against is having to assign a grade--and most people, especially my fellow educators, interpret a grade as indicating some level of course mastery--that in no way reflects mastery or knowledge at all.  And what's worse, there's no way to indicate that the student got that grade because of excessive accommodations.  When your university admissions team looks at that student's transcript, they see great grades and everything is wonderful.

When you get the student and they can't do anything in your class, you might wonder how this student ever passed the math classes required for university admission.  You'll think I'm incompetent--how could this student, who knows nothing, earn such grades in a math class that's an entry ticket to college?

Please, don't blame me.  And don't think of this as reflecting on my integrity as a teacher.  I have to console myself with the thought that I'm merely an arm of the state in this case; the grade is not a reflection of me, my beliefs, my teaching ability, or of my assessment of the student's abilities.  No, in too many of these 504 cases the grade merely reflects what those above me, and those who came before me, want me to put on that transcript.

Yes, that belief structure is the same heartless one we hear all too often, "I'm just doing what I'm told, just doing my job."

Well, now that kid's your problem.  We both know this isn't right.  I hope you fare better than I did in this battle.

And lest anyone think I'm violating confidences here, this is not about any particular student or any particular event.  This is not a venting caused by any recent student, parent, administrator, or 504 Plan imposed upon me.  This is truly just a general venting on a topic about which I'm very passionate because it is abused so much.

Update, 12/15/12: On a related note:

Eighteen-year-old Jared DeWeese is severely disabled. He cannot walk, talk, read or write. Nevertheless, WSB-TV reports, he is receiving straight A’s in several courses, including algebra, biology and world history at a school in Gwinnett County, Georgia.

Now, Jared’s father, Wes DeWeese, is publicly questioning exactly how such a feat is possible, given his son’s limited aptitude and cognitive skills.

“My wife and I were pretty astounded,” Wes DeWeese told WSB-TV. “Glad he’s getting 90s and 100s. But he can’t do any of these. He has the mental capacity of a six-month-old.”

What is the explanation?  It's quite similar to the explanation for including educationally unsound requirements in 504 Plans:

A spokesperson for Gwinnett County Schools, Sloan Roach, said that the district is merely following the Georgia Department of Education’s policies and regulations. Those regulations require schools to provide students with disabilities — no matter how severe — access to the same academic courses other students take.

“We take those courses you see other students taking and we adapt those courses,” Roach told WSB-TV.

Roach added that students with disabilities, such as Jared, are graded based on “participation” with the curriculum.

More On Union Thuggery

Instapundit is all over this:

WHAT THE LEFT BLOGOSPHERE IS DOING ABOUT THE ASSAULT ON STEPHEN CROWDER: “They’re engaged in a systematic effort to create confusion and discourage mainstream journalists from reporting on the incident.” And they don’t have to be very good at it to achieve their goal, since mainstream journalists are looking for an excuse to ignore it. They never cover violence by lefties when they can avoid it, though they’re happy to report made-up claims of violence involving the right.

Additionally he links to this:

Max attempts to take the side of the violent protester by implying that Crowder deserved it for inserting himself into the situation and advises Steven to “stop whining, take your licks, and accept that getting hit in the face is a hazard of inserting yourself in the middle of an argument between billionaire-funded know-nothing ideologues and people whose livelihoods and stability are being threatened by the insatiable greed of the super-rich and the blind extremism of their wooden-headed political allies.”

Really? I would love to see this writer’s reaction if a writer at Gawker had gotten punched in the face at a Tea Party event while reporting. I highly doubt the reaction would be the same. It shouldn’t matter what political party you belong to, violence should always be condemned.

Differences In How The Left Behaves vs. How The Right Behaves

Where have all the massive protests against the Obama reelection been?  How many riots were caused by passing Obamacare, or by the Supreme Court ruling OK'ing it?

Oh, that's right, there have been none.

Let the duly elected government in Michigan pass a law similar to that of 23 other states, though--a law that enhances personal liberty, at that--and you get violent protests.  It's like I keep telling you, the left knows only compulsion, and if you don't do things their way, they go straight for the physical violence.

And don't you love it when teachers show their maturity by behaving this way?

At least 26,000 children will miss school today because their teachers called in sick or took a vacation day to protest proposed right-to-work legislation, which is expected to pass today.

Ah, the union mentality.

Nothing would ever get done in this country if conservatives acted this way.  How we as a society tolerate this kind of behavior from half our people, and expect to survive long as a society, is beyond me.

Update:  And who's surprised at this response from the White House?

White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to condemn the increasing violence and threats by union members in Michigan, merely telling reporters Tuesday that “the president believes in debate that’s civil.”

When asked by a reporter about a claim by Michigan state Democrat that “there will be blood” should Republicans pass a union-choice law in Michigan, Carney professed ignorance and then downplayed the comment.

Update #2: "There are people under there, oh my God!"

An Inauspicious Ending

It's not that I think I bombed today's final exam--I certainly do not. I probably didn't ace it, either, but perhaps that's not a bad thing, given that the last time I thought I aced a final my overall grade actually dropped from a solid A to an A- because of the final. Yes, seriously.

I was allotted two hours for today's final exam but only took 80 minutes, and that includes checking what answers I could as well as doing the bonus question.

No, it's an inauspicious ending to the first class of my master's program because I have a splitting headache--and not just an ordinary headache, but a straight-across-the-face sinus headache.  Maybe that's to be expected, given that I've been up since 2:30 am (had to study for the final!).  Whatever the reason, I can't celebrate what I anticipate being a very good showing in that class.

I'm having some jasmine tea right now.  In a little while I'll go watch some tv with the dog, and then I'll hit the hay early.  That usually does the trick on headaches.

Final Exam

I take my final exam for my linear algebra class right after school tomorrow, and I admit to slacking on studying for it this past week. It's 5pm, I'm tired, so I think I'll probably go to be in an hour, get up at 2 or 2:30 am, and spend a few hours of quality time with my notes and textbook.

It all comes down to this!

This Is What A Moderate Sounds Like

Obama: 'I Won't Compromise' on Taxes
link

School Board Considers Overturning Stupid Policy

Six months ago I wrote about the teacher who was fired because he refused to comply with a stupid policy, namely that students would not earn a zero for assignments not submitted.  My take on the story was that the policy was stupid, but it was the district's policy--and the teacher, an employee, needed to follow it.

Turns out that the times, they may be a-changin' already:

Just months after a teacher was fired for giving zeros to students who didn't complete their work, the Edmonton Public School Board is proposing making zeros part of their official policy.

So what happened to the teacher?

After he was fired, Dorval, 61, was hired by a provincially accredited private school in Edmonton, where the headmaster said he would be free to hand out zeros.

Good for him!

Sometimes, Mark Twain's thoughts on school boards are right on.

Where You Stand Depends On Where You Sit

(...if you can find a place to sit.)

While I'm a "live and let live" kinda guy, I still think this is kinda stupid:

The people aren’t really tiny, but their homes are — 150 to 200 square feet of living space, some with gabled roofs, others with bright cedar walls, compact bathrooms and cozy sleeping lofts that add up to living spaces that are smaller than the walk-in closets in a suburban McMansion…

If these affordable homes — which maximize every inch of interior space and look a little like well-constructed playhouses — are the dream, they represent a radically fresh version of what it takes to make Americans happy.

While you're in this house, saving Mother Earth as well as a buck, maybe you'll want to follow Jimmy Carter's advice and put on a sweater, too.

Anyway, this observation couldn't be more correct:

Barbie’s Lowered Expectations House. Put that thing in Flyover Country and cue the Palin jokes. Put it in northeast DC and it magically becomes a fashion statement.

It’s odd… You only read stories about how great it is to be poor, how empowering it is to settle for less, when a Democrat is president. If a Republican was in charge, would WaPo be doing stories about how awesome it is to live in a breadbox?

The "Stupid Fee" Fee

Today I contacted the bank and asked them to send me a check when my certificate of deposit matures in a few weeks.

I don't have any other accounts with them, so in order to get my own money from them, I have to pay.  If I wanted the money wired somewhere, there would be a wire transfer fee.  If I want a check sent to me, there's a check preparation fee.

This is absurd.  It ranks right up there with--might even surpass!--luggage fees at airlines, or the "resort fee" at hotels.