Socialized Medicine

According to this article, Hillary Clinton's health care proposal uses many of the bad ideas Republicans have suggested.

Like Romney's and Schwarzenegger's proposals, HillaryCare 2.0 also pretends to be based on competition, choice, private insurance, and universal coverage.

What's wrong with such principles? Nothing, in and of themselves. But as we have seen time and again, these principles cannot be engineered by a government bureaucracy.

Case in point: In the 1990s, Tennessee dramatically expanded its Medicaid program, allowing individuals making as much as $100,000 a year to sign up. The results nearly busted the state's budget, despite strong economic growth at the time.

Government-run health care around the world has produced similar failures. In Britain, waiting times for treatment grow longer, while patients suffer from serious conditions, so much so that some Brits have taken to pulling their own teeth.

In Canada, health-care rationing has sent citizens fleeing south of the border for needed cures. Yet even as Canada exports its medical problems into America, some deluded American politicians want to bring Canada's price controls into the United States through a "forced sale" drug reimportation law. Ironically, these price controls are responsible for many of Canada's health-care problems to begin with.

Massachusetts and California will soon face similar problems. And so will Hillary's proposal, if it ever becomes law.

The reason is simple. Any program that codifies health care as a public good -- granting all residents a legal entitlement to consume as much as they want, whenever they want, all at low prices -- is soon overburdened by the inevitable cost overruns, shortages, and shoddy service that result when everyone gets a "free lunch."

The tragedy of the commons.

Fly To Bali, Save The Earth

So who was excluded from presenting at the UN's little global warming shindig in Bali? Why, the deniers, of course!

Indoctrinate U and the Blogging Big-Time

Any guesses which conservative teacher's blog was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal Online's "Best of the Web" section today? If you guessed Darren's, you win!

In addition to linking to my site--specifically, my post about Evan Coyne Maloney's film Indoctrinate U--they fill us in on why his site was taken down in the first place. Apparently, the logo was too similar to the logo for Indiana University, and they threatened. Before deciding how to respond, Maloney took down the site and eventually decided to put it back up, sans logo. However, the university still wants beaucoup dinero. I'd love to see how that turns out.

Update, 12/11/07: All's well that ends well.

Need Another Reason To Fear The College Application Process?

Here's one for you!

As campus administrators worry about how to prevent violence like last spring's Virginia Tech shootings, students applying to college increasingly face queries about their past behavior: Were they ever severely disciplined in high school? Have they been convicted of a crime?

Although such questions were added to a widely used college application form months before the massacre at Virginia Tech, admissions officers say that the murders made them more vigilant about students' personal troubles. They say that they won't reject otherwise strong applicants because of one schoolyard fight or a beer arrest, but they may be wary of troubling patterns.

Critics contend that the form allows colleges to invade private matters better left to the law and high school counselors. And the extra attention is raising anxiety among high school seniors.

Absent a good argument that I haven't heard yet, I'm inclined to agree with the critics.

Returning Vets And College Experiences

Thousands of troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are trying to get back to normal by starting or continuing their college educations. They aren’t returning to campuses that are hotbeds of anti-war ferment.

Far from it. Instead, in-your-face episodes are occasional but powerful reminders to service members on campus that they’re a little bit, well, different.

One reporter's story.

Indoctrinating The Kiddies

This author thinks public school teachers indoctrinate their students with leftist dogma--and proposes an experiment to prove or disprove his hypothesis.

Some teachers have written in, challenging my assertions about what currently gets taught in the government youth propaganda camps ("public schools").

"I'm surprised to learn I've been teaching all this propaganda promoting the merits of collectivism or whatever else Suprynowicz accuses me of," reads a typical missive. "I've reviewed my curriculum and I can't find that stuff in there anywhere. I teach ..." whereupon the writer typically inserts "English," "history," "algebra," or whatever.

It's hard to tell whether the open face of guileless innocence assumed by these scriveners is real or feigned. So I won't try. Instead, let's propose a small experiment which any curious party could undertake to test my premise.

He then conducts this experiment--by guessing the results!--and informs us that the results confirm his beliefs! Now, I'm not saying he's wrong, but his style certainly lends itself to being shredded, mercilessly, by the opposition.

I do like his explanation for why teachers indoctrinate, though:

The very purpose of indoctrination of the young is to foreclose such debate.

The man's got a point there. Let's not forget--the "science" of global warming is "settled"--said so that there can be no debate.

Online Charter School Operating Illegally?

I'm a big supporter of charter schools, and I think there's a future in online educational opportunities. But if this school is operating illegally, then either the school or the law has to change.

Girls Split $100,000 Scholarship

A third girl got $100,000 on her own. Wow.

In a first for the prestigious Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology for U.S. high school students, girls walked away with top honors in both the individual and team categories.

The individual grand prize of a $100,000 scholarship went to Isha Jain, a senior at Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pa., for research into bone growth. Results of the nine-year-old competition were announced on Dec. 3. As winners of the team grand prize, Janelle Schlossberger and Amanda Marinoff, seniors at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview, N.Y., will split a $100,000 scholarship awarded for their research on tuberculosis. (For a slide show of the 20 finalists, see "America's Smartest Students.")

Congratulations!

Carnival of Education

This week's Carnival can be found at So You Want To Teach? Not only does it include my post about Tea Club, it listed that post in the Top 5 for the week!

What Does CTA Do For Its Teachers?

Not much, if I'm reading the November 2007 issue of its mouthpiece rag, California Educator, correctly.

The cover story is about Professional Learning Communities. I can take them or leave them, but I don't get overheated on them either way (until they're forced on me). The letters section, though, had two interesting tidbits.

One letter chastised the magazine for comparing apples to oranges in an article. "While I recognize this (a legitimate comparison) does not support the argument you are trying to make in your article, it is irresponsible to skew the information so blatantly...I believe the article does a disservice to your teacher population...."

The next letter was even better. The boldface is in the original: "I am so very disappointed in my CTA. How could you possibly align yourself with someone so far on the left as Michael Moore? ... We teach our children to get the facts from both sides of an issue before determining a conclusion on any issue. Did you check out the facts in his film? ... I'm embarrassed that my teachers union would fall for such propaganda."

Now, I give kudos to California Educator for printing those two "contrarian" letters. I genuinely do. But when CTA members call them on bad stats and being too far left, that's saying something. Maybe CTA isn't doing such a good job of representing all its teachers.

Or maybe it's not doing a good job at all. On page 32 I see a chart listing "CTA-sponsored and co-sponsored legislation for 2007". There are 7 bills listed:

1 mandating universal health care
5 relating to community college or CSU issues
1 relating to mandatory kindergarten

How many of those bills relate to K-12 teachers, the vast majority of the people paying extorted dues to CTA? None! In fact, only one--mandatory kindergarten--relates to K-12 education at all! And let's not forget: a union should focus on the pay, benefits, and working conditions of its members. Do you see that occurring above? Only for the community college professors.

So what exactly is CTA doing for California teachers? I'm hard pressed to find an answer--besides bilking them of their hard-earned money, that is.

Indoctrinate U Web Site Back Up Again

In what I can only assume is a victory for free speech and yet another loss for fascist lefties, the Indoctrinate U web site is back up. Why is that news? Because of this, which I reported to you a couple weeks ago:

Due to a threatened lawsuit from a major taxpayer-funded university, the Indoctrinate U homepage has been taken down temporarily. On The Fence Films LLC is deciding how best to proceed, and we will not be commenting on anything until after our final response has been executed.

Don’t worry, though, this will not derail the film.

But wait, now there's an update:

The site is now back online, and an announcement will be issued soon.

I eagerly await this announcement. I want to know which publicly-funded university I can excoriate here on Right On The Left Coast.

The Scientific Meth-od

A high school chemistry teacher found himself in hot water over the weekend when he was charged with making methamphetamine in his school lab, the Bakersfield Californian reported.

Jeff Scheidemantel, 32, who taught at Shafter High School, came under suspicion when he went online to buy red phosphorus, an important ingredient for making the drug, from a supplier outside the U.S.

According to FoxNews, police found weapons and meth recipes in his lab, and the man's on paid administrative leave while school officials "investigate". Amazing.

I wonder how vigorously the CTA will defend him....

I Thought The Complaints Must Have Come From Muslims Or Those Being Overly Sensitive *For* Muslims

Instead, the complaints came from Hispanics.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Two days after naming its mascot "PorkChop," the Philadelphia Phillies' new Triple-A affiliate abruptly dropped the moniker after receiving complaints from Hispanics that it was offensive.

The Lehigh Valley IronPigs, whose mascot is a large, furry pig, had selected PorkChop from more than 7,300 fan submissions. The team, which begins play in 2008, announced Monday that the mascot will be named "Ferrous" instead.

General Manager Kurt Landes said he heard from several Hispanics who said PorkChop was derogatory.

"We were really unaware of any negative connotations with the word 'pork chop,"' he said.

I'm with you, Kurt. "Pork Chop" is a derogatory word for Hispanics? Who knew?

I'm glad "Dinger" isn't derogatory towards any groups.

Pyramid Scheme For Diversity

John Leo has it nailed.

Yale's college council has come up with a bright idea: it endorsed a call for each of the twelve residential colleges on campus to have two diversity coordinators. The relentless expansion of what Claremont McKenna professor Frederick Lynch calls "the diversity machine" is not exactly breaking news. Diversity is a restless quasi-religion whose missionaries are ever on the move. Yale already has an impressively vast diversity bureaucracy headed by Nydia Gonzalez, the new chief diversity officer. She is working on a long-term plan, "Diversity Yale 2010 and Beyond." Each school has its own system of diversity apparatchiks. There's even a Yale library diversity council with 10 to 16 members and a three-year diversity program. Now Yale's Coalition for Campus Unity (CCU) is encouraging the residential colleges to create "some kind of diversity-awareness position or board." A board of, say, ten members in each college would add 120 new officials - another diversity gusher. Last February, Yale continued its long-term program to segment the student body into ever smaller ethnic and sexual groups. It hired a new assistant dean for Native American affairs. Can anyone say that a provost for the transgendered is somehow out of the question?

I have a suggestion for how Yale could improve its diversity, but I doubt they'd view it favorably. Hint: it has something to do with conservatives :-)

Spanking Is Different From Whooping

Just so you know.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Tennessee mother claims she recorded a conversation in which a teacher admits to spanking her son, MyFoxMemphis.com reports.

“He had told me that she whooped him with the ruler because he wouldn’t do his work,” Meriam Thomas said of her son, who claims he was hit in the head, back and stomach at Riverview Elementary School in Memphis.

“They never knew I was recording. I had my phone in my pocket and had it on record.”

Spanking is a violation of Memphis School System policy.

Thomas confronted the teacher and principal. During the recording, she is heard saying: “I’m here to find out what’s going on with my child. She whooped my child.”

A voice responds: “I didn’t whoop your child. I spanked him.”

Lola For A New Generation

If you don't remember the song Lola by the Kinks, perhaps you're one of the younger readers of this blog. However, for more--how shall I put it?--seasoned readers, we remember the song as a hilarious hit. It's hard to believe it was first released in 1970, as it was still going strong when I was in high school.

Keeping that background in mind, I encourage you to watch James Blunt's You're Beautiful video, a song that lives up to its title:


Then watch this PG-13 parody video:

Definitive Explanation for BDS

Gallup polls provide the explanation.

A roundup of Gallup health polls over the past four years finds that Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to report having excellent mental health.

The survey found that 58 percent of Republicans polled reported having excellent mental health. Only 38 percent of Democrats and 43 percent of Independents reported the same.

New Friend Of This Blog

OK, so he's a Navy supporter, but go check out this blog.

The Carden Chronicles

The rantings, ravings, and opinons of Politics, Judicial Rulings, World Events, and things I generally care about. Written by a Right-Wing Constitutionalist from the great State of Arizona (but now living in Kansas)

What Do Nakedness, Pizza, Kindergarten, and Cops Have In Common?

This story.

A 20-year-old Penn State student was charged with criminal trespass and underage drinking when she was found stark naked in the apartment of three gentlemen in the 200 block of East Nittany Avenue, State College police said in a complaint they filed against her.

The guys came home at about 3:30 in the morning Oct. 21 "to find an unknown, naked female eating pizza in their kitchen," police said.

Ironically, her last name is Munch...

A PBT administered by police turned up a .24 blood alcohol content, which, to the layperson out there, is blotto, the kind of drunkenness that could land you naked in some stranger's kitchen eating their pizza.

The young lady, according to the Penn State Web site is an aspiring kindergarten teacher, had no idea where her clothes or shoes were, police said.

Nutjob Teacher Arrested

This story is weird on many levels.

It appears to me that the commenter is attempting to do one of two things. Option 1: the commenter is a right wing whack job that isn’t violent, but likes to engage in outlandish rhetoric. Option 2: the commenter is a liberal who is trying to discredit conservatives by acting like option 1.

As you can see from the story, the commenter is actually a union teacher from Oak Creek, but it gets more interesting than that. The commenter was also once the president of his local teachers’ union. This leads me to believe that Option 2 is the truth. This commenter is just a liberal union teacher who was trying to make conservatives look bad by pretending to be one and acting like an imbecile.

What did this stalwart of the community do that resulted in his being arrested?

An Oak Creek High School teacher who allegedly praised the actions of the Columbine School shooters and threatened local teachers on a Web site blog was arrested Thursday. The 46-year-old Cudahy man was arrested with the assistance of Oak Creek and Cudahy police departments after West Bend police were notified of a threatening post on Nov. 16.

The first comment on this blog post was pretty good.

Reading your perspective, I guess it would be hard to impute any kind of “criminal intent” on the part of the actor, but I do get a certain sense of satisfaction in seeing such a troll “outed”. I feel sorry for good teachers who might be smeared by this.

Hear hear.

Update, 12/5/07: The teacher is not being charged with any crimes. The 1st Amendment protects idiots, too, as well as the good guys. Sadly, this comment rings true:

The first time you ignore one of these off the wall threats, and the guy starts shooting. All of a sudden the authorities weren't doing there job. Sounds like it's cover your a-- time. And I don't blame them in this day and age.

Thus the arrest is explained well.