Different Schedules

Tomorrow night I get to go to my nephew's graduation.  I have 7 work days after he graduates before I'm done for the summer.  My own seniors don't graduate until next Thursday.

Whatever, my nephew didn't get Ski Week off in February.

The Decision Has Been Made

How am I getting to Friday Harbor?  Click here to find out!

More Evidence That It's A Spending Problem, Not a Taxation Problem, In California

This is so typical:

Legislation to provide nearly a billion dollars in middle-class college and university scholarships passed the Assembly on Wednesday, but lawmakers have not yet taken up a companion bill to provide funding.

In this state what matters is that your intentions are pure (and leftie), not that they make any sense.

Solving The Big Problems In Math And Physics

If you think math and physics are good only for building rockets and bridges and airplanes and computers, think again:

One of the more intriguing conundrums in fluid dynamics is the puzzling behaviour of bubbles in Guinness, the famous Irish stout.

As many drinkers will attest, the bubbles in Guinness appear to sink as the drink settles and the head forms. How can this be, given that bubbles are less dense than the surrounding fluid and so should rise?

Over the last ten years or so, physicists have begun to pick this problem apart. Most recently they've shown that it is not the bubbles that sink but the liquid, which circulates in a way that is downwards near the glass walls and upwards in the interior.  As long as the downward flow of the liquid is faster than the upward motion of the bubbles, they will appear to sink.

But that still leaves a puzzle: why does the liquid circulate in this way?

Today, a dedicated team of Irish mathematicians reveal the answer. Eugene Benilov, Cathal Cummins and William Lee at the University of Limerick say the final piece in this puzzle is the shape of the glass, which has a crucial influence over the circulatory patterns in the liquid.

So there you have it.

Harmless Joke, Or Cruel?

It's harmless if you're the teacher, cruel if you can use it to extort money from the school:

The mother of an 8-year-old Arizona girl who was presented with a "Catastrophe Award" for apparently having the most excuses for not having homework believes her child was humiliated by her teacher.

Christina Valdez said her daughter, Cassandra Garcia, came home one day from class at Desert Springs Academy in Tucson, Ariz., with the paper award.

The document, which looks like a colorful card, contained the following message: "You're Tops! Catastrophe Award.  Awarded to Cassandra Garcia. For Most Excuses for Not Having Homework"...

 "I think it's cruel and no child should be given an award like this. It's disturbing," she said, adding that she was not aware her daughter had a problem with homework"....

And that says it all.

What Does The CTA Do Right?

Nothing, in my opinion, and nothing in the opinion of this fellow, either:

Troy Senik’s “The Worst Union in America,” is a deadly accurate piece which appears in the Spring 2012 edition of City Journal. Not surprisingly, the author was referring to the California Teachers Association, the state affiliate of the National Education Association. It wasn’t too hard for Senik to make his case because the evidence is, well, overwhelming. With its ever ready cash on hand (forcibly taken from teachers who have no choice but to fork it over), CTA has stopped every meaningful education reform measure that has been proposed, ensured that meaningless reforms like small class size in early grades are mandated, protects underperforming and criminal teachers, bullies political opponents and encourages lawbreaking when it is to their political advantage.

These views may explain why the author is the president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network.  He's clearly a brilliant and perceptive guy, linking (just above the picture, about 2/3 down) to my humble blog :-)

OK, Larry and I are predisposed not to like the CTA.  Fair enough.  But I challenge anyone here (especially the u-bots!) to tell me where Larry's wrong with the points he brings up in his article.  Do share with us not only where Larry is mistaken, but give us your unvarnished "truth".  I defy you.

What To Do When The Friend of My Friend Is My Avowed Enemy

Diane Ravitch--what's she going to do?

Hat tip to Stephen Sawchuk at Teacher Beat for reporting on the $550,000 grant the National Education Association Foundation received for labor-management collaboration from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. NEA’s charity arm previously received $358,000 from the Gates Foundation...

 Time to get out the popcorn again as we await the response of Matt Damon’s mom. And let’s not forget 2010 NEA Friend of Education Diane Ravitch, who had this to say about Gates and his “Billionaire Boys’ Club” in an opinion piece posted – where else? – on the NEA web site...

So, are they only Evil Corporate Puppetmasters when they give money to someone else, or is the NEA leadership a bunch of sell-outs? Let the debate begin.

You remember Diane Ravitch, don't you?

Well, given the bat-guano craziness of her arguments, I'm sure she'll find some way to justify it.

Interesting Correlation

I'll have to run the numbers to see if these percentage differences are statistically significant or not, but either way I don't see them as practically significant.  Still, it's funny to give this information to the adherents of the Church of Global Warming:

Are global warming skeptics anti-science? Or just ignorant about science?

Maybe neither. A study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change finds that people who are not that worried about the effects of global warming tend to have a slightly higher level of scientific knowledge than those who are worried, as determined by their answers to questions like:

"Electrons are smaller than atoms -- true or false?”
"How long does it take the Earth to go around the Sun? One day, one month, or one year?"
“Lasers work by focusing sound waves -- true or false?”

The quiz, containing 22 questions about both science and statistics, was given to 1,540 representative Americans. Respondents who were relatively less worried about global warming got 57 percent of them right, on average, just barely outscoring those whose who saw global warming as a bigger threat. They got 56 percent of the questions correct.

"As respondents’ science literacy scores increased, their concern with climate change decreased," the paper, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, notes.

Huh.  You don't say.  Hmmm, very interesting.

Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, was one skeptical scientist who signed the letter (titled No Need to Panic About Global Warming). He said that the finding that skeptics know as much or more about science surprised him "not at all."

"MIT alumni are among my most receptive audiences," he added.

I'm Not This Bright

While I accept your high praise and hosannas regarding my getting accepted into grad school, I'm just not as bright as this guy:

A German 16-year-old has become the first person to solve a mathematical problem posed by Sir Isaac Newton more than 300 years ago.

Shouryya Ray worked out how to calculate exactly the path of a projectile under gravity and subject to air resistance, The (London) Sunday Times reported...

Newton posed the problem, relating to the movement of projectiles through the air, in the 17th century. Mathematicians had only been able to offer partial solutions until now.

My senior project at West Point involved shooting a projectile at an airplane moving at constant speed and altitude.  I did the computer programming in what I called "blocks", so that one block could be removed and another inserted as the program got more complicated.  I envisioned adding diving and climbing aircraft, as well as accounting for air resistance.  It would have been a "partial solution", but hopefully one good enough to bring down enemy aircraft.

I had no idea until I read the linked article that an exact answer was even possible.

Why Taxing The Rich Isn't Enough

The "rich" may have more than you and/or I do, but there aren't enough of them.  You could confiscate every American billionaire's wealth and not put a dent in our national debt.  Heck, I'm fairly sure you could even cover one year's deficit with all that money, and then what would you do next year when the rich didn't have anything to covet anymore?

Yes, covet.  It's class warfare, nothing more and nothing less.  Here is some interesting information about taxing the rich:

We continually hear that "The Rich" got richer thanks to the tax cuts enacted in 2001 George W. Bush's first term. If that’s the case, why is it that in the wake of these lower tax rates (set to expire at the end of this year) the top 1% of income earners now pay roughly 40% of the income taxes collected. As you can see by the chart below from the non-partisan Tax Foundation, that’s double the share they paid back in the early 1980s.

Still convinced the “wealthy” (whatever that means) don’t pay their fair share? It turns out that the U.S. has the most progressive personal income tax rates of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). According to the Tax Foundation, “the top 10% of U.S. taxpayers pay a larger share of the income tax burden than do their counterparts in any other industrialized country, including traditionally ‘high-tax’ countries such as France, Italy, and Sweden.” (1) Moreover, the Tax Foundation calculates that even if you took as much as half the annual income “from every person making between one and ten million dollars,” you’d only reduce the federal deficit by 1%.

We don't have a taxation/income problem in this country as much as we have a spending problem.

My Alma Mater

From the major Sacramento newspaper:

About 15 students could face disciplinary action after school officials say they were caught red-handed executing a senior prank.

The students are suspected of spray-painting exterior walls and dumping dirt and debris in the driveway of Foothill High School, 5000 McCloud Drive, in the Twin Rivers Unified School District.

As one commenter at that link said:

A "prank" is something like putting a giant hat on a statue. Something harmless and hopefully a bit funny. Destruction of property is not a prank.

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2012/05/foothill-high-students-suspected-of-senior-prank-vandalism.html#storylink=cpy

A "prank" is something like putting a giant hat on a statue. Something harmless and hopefully a bit funny. Destruction of property is not a prank.

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2012/05/foothill-high-students-suspected-of-senior-prank-vandalism.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2012/05/foothill-high-students-suspected-of-senior-prank-vandalism.html#storylink=cpy

How I've Spent Memorial Day

I grew up in North Highlands, the suburban town outside the gates of McClellan Air Force Base.  It was never the nicest of areas, was never going to make any magazine's list of "best towns to live in", but it was home.

McClellan was closed by BRAC some time in the 90's and is now a business park.  No one's going to confuse North Highlands with Beverly Hills, but the town looks nicer than I remember from my childhood--the houses are painted and the lawns watered and better maintained now.  And for that I'm glad.

I went back to North Highlands this morning to watch the Memorial Day parade.  My son marched in it as part of his high school JROTC program's color guard, and of course I had to go take video (he's the rifle bearer on the left side of the rank, next to the California flag).  The judges awarded them 1st place in the parade in their category.

People from North Highlands and beyond lined the 1-mile route down Watt Avenue to watch the Ben Ali riders, beauty pageant winners, VFW officials, police and fire vehicles, and various military units, and so many others, march in a this parade dedicated to fallen service members.

May those service members rest in peace and honor.

No One Ever Taxed Themselves Into Prosperity

Illinois is showing what happens when you try:

Sixteen months ago, Democrats pushed through the largest income tax increase in Illinois history, an unpopular decision that was billed as a crucial step to put state government on the road to financial recovery.

Yet last week lawmakers made deep cuts in health care for the poor, and this week they face tough votes to raise the cigarette tax, strip away public worker pension benefits and slice spending on social services. Despite all that, the giant pile of unpaid bills that has loomed over state government for years is expected to keep growing.

So why didn't the roughly $7 billion more a year the state is collecting from that income tax hike fix Illinois' money problems?

Pension payments continue to increase dramatically each year. The same is true for health care costs as more people seek coverage during a down economy. And that stack of bills keeps rolling over from one year to the next partly because lawmakers declined to go along with Gov.Pat Quinn's request to use some of the income tax windfall to borrow to pay it off.

Tax increases are just throwing good money after bad unless they're accompanied by significant spending cuts, entitlement reforms, and adult budgeting.

We in California are an inclined plane wrapped helically around a pointed cylinder--we're screwed.

This Bodes Well For My Masters Program

In 1960, the average undergraduate grade awarded in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota was 2.27 on a four-point scale.  In other words, the average letter grade at the University of Minnesota in the early 1960s was about a C+, and that was consistent with average grades at other colleges and universities in that era.  In fact, that average grade of C+ (2.30-2.35 on a 4-point scale) had been pretty stable at America's colleges going all the way back to the 1920s (see chart above from GradeInflation.com, a website maintained by Stuart Rojstaczer, a retired Duke University professor who has tirelessly crusaded for several decades against "grade inflation" at U.S. universities).

 

By 2006, the average GPA at public universities in the U.S. had risen to 3.01 and at private universities to 3.30.  That means that the average GPA at public universities in 2006 was equivalent to a letter grade of B, and at private universities a B+, and it's likely that grades and GPAs have continued to inflate over the last six years...

 

"Conclusion: Across a wide range of schools, As represent 43% of all letter grades, an increase of 28 percentage points since 1960 and 12 percentage points since 1988. Ds and Fs total typically less than 10% of all letter grades. Private colleges and universities give, on average, significantly more As and Bs combined than public institutions with equal student selectivity. Southern schools grade more harshly than those in other regions, and science and engineering-focused schools grade more stringently than those emphasizing the liberal arts. It is likely that at many selective and highly selective schools, undergraduate GPAs are now so saturated at the high end that they have little use as a motivator of students and as an evaluation tool for graduate and professional schools and employers."

By Professor Mark Perry

Planning Another Trip

In addition to the big secret trip in July, I'm currently making plans to go visit a friend of mine who is currently "wintering" on his boat in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, WA.

Getting from Sacramento to Seattle is easy; getting from Seattle to Friday Harbor is not so easy.

The easiest, most enjoyable, most convenient, and most expensive option is to take a Kenmore Air floatplane.  That would cost more than the entire Southwest Airlines flight.

The next possibility is an airporter shuttle, which would take me from the airport to Friday Harbor by ferry.  The only inconvenience with this conveyance is that to get back to Seattle airport I'd have to meet the shuttle in Friday Harbor at 5:45 am.  Ugh.

There's a ferry from Seattle to Friday Harbor, but the time it runs each day won't jibe with any flights either coming or going.

I *could* rent a car and drive to a car ferry, which runs a couple times a day, but that's a bit ridiculous, too. I hate renting cars.

So it comes down to convenient/expensive or inconvenient/affordable.  Suggestions?

Update, 5/30/12:   I looked at just about every combination of shuttles, ferries, car rentals, and flights I could find.  Shuttles and ferries were actually the hardest to arrange, and it would have taken all day long, with several waits of several hours, before the end of one leg of the trip would become the beginning of the next.  I don't want to travel all darned day.

So I leave Sacramento at a reasonable hour and fly to Seattle.  After 1:20 of wait time I'm picked up by the float plane's shuttle, by which conveyance I'm taken to the float plane.  We land on Friday Harbor, where my friend's boat is docked.

Four days later I meet the float plane at the dock in the afternoon and fly back to Seattle.  A bit of a wait at Sea-Tac this time, but I'll survive.  I get home not too late at night.

I'm limited to 24 lb of luggage on the float plane!

I definitely went with convenient/expensive.  I'm getting too old to tolerate inconvenient.

What Are The Ramifications For High School Counselors and Disciplinarians?

From Science Daily:

People who rate themselves as having high emotional intelligence (EI) tend to overestimate their ability to detect deception in others. This is the finding of a paper published in the journal Legal and Criminological Psychology on18 May 2012...

Professor Porter says: "Taken together, these findings suggest that features of emotional intelligence, and the decision-making processes they lead to, may have the paradoxical effect of impairing people's ability to detect deceit.

It's Official

Dear Mr. Miller:

Your application for admission to the University of Idaho and supporting credentials have been reviewed. We are pleased to inform you that you have been granted admission to the M.A.T. program in Mathematics.

Your formal acceptance letter will be mailed shortly.

Congratulations and welcome to the UI.
University of Idaho

Stupid Suspension Shenanigans

In some schools this would get an award, but in one New York school it gets you suspended:

Cyber-bullying and bullying in general has no doubt become a hot button topic amongst teens, which is why Jessica Barba, a freshman at Longwood High school decided to make the issue the focus of one of her school projects on persuasive promotion. Instead, the project got her in some hot water and led to her suspension from school.

"When they told me i was suspended i just started hysterically crying," said Jessica.

Barba wrote, edited and starred in an anti-bullying video project by playing a fictitious character, Hailey Bennett, and even created a fake Facebook page. The Bennet character was tormented and cyber-bullied in the video. In the end, the character commits suicide.

"I wanted to influence kids to do the right thing and not bully," said Jessica.

Barba added there were several posts on the fake Facebook page and video indicated the Bennett character and all the events taking place were not real. A local parent, however, became alarmed after seeing the Facebook page and contacted school officials, leading to Barba's one week suspension.

Now, Barba and her parents will have to face a hearing before school administrators to determine when she'll be allowed back.

I'm still trying to understand exactly what it was she did wrong, besides provide an opportunity for school officials to show how stupid they are.

More School Idiocy

On the heels of this story of a nurse who almost let an asthmatic student die because he didn't have a signed form comes this story of high quality dental care in school:

A Framingham mother is demanding answers after her son’s tooth was pulled at school by a teacher’s aide. What made the matter worse was the tooth wasn’t even loose.

Mother Sabrina Grant said her 10-year-old autistic son Chris Quirk went to the Wilson Elementary School one day last week with a loose tooth. When he came home, Grant said a different molar had been pulled out without parental permission by a teacher’s aide.

“When I realized he got off the bus it was the wrong tooth they had pulled out, it was even worse,” said Grant.

She said she received an email from his fourth-grade teacher saying the loose tooth had been a distraction.

You know what else is a distraction?  A criminal complaint and a civil lawsuit.

How Fares California?

Not well, judging from one story and a related anecdote.  First, the overview:

The euro zone isn't the only economy reeling from "failed states." The United States has several of its own — most notably California and Illinois.

According to the CIA's world factbook, California's economy is the ninth largest in the world with a gross state product of $1.9 trillion. Illinois' economy is the world's 23rd largest economy with a gross state product of nearly $630 billion.

These are impressive figures, to be sure, but both states have seen their global position slip in recent years — and further erosion is likely thanks to poor fiscal stewardship and anti-competitive tax increases.

Both California and Illinois are hoping that tax hikes will bridge gaping deficits created by politicians' failure to rein in government growth — including expanded entitlements and exorbitant public sector pensions.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should. This is precisely the sort of unchecked public sector growth that has landed Greece in its current predicament — a worsening crisis that has pushed the entire euro zone to the brink of collapse.

California is not only shedding jobs, it's shedding companies:

The backbone of a new social website with free online classifieds is looking to not only leave Palm Springs, but leave California altogether.

SquawkBoard.com offers "neighborhood bulletin boards" for neighborhoods throughout the United States, so where the company moves to is really wide open, said spokeswoman Faith Jackson.

"California's tax hike will place a strain on SquawkBoard's growing company and is seeking to save various taxes by moving out of the state," she said.

Gov. Jerry Brown is seeking to raise taxes and establish across-the-board cuts as a way to shore up the state's $16 billion budget gap.  Sales and income taxes are first on his list, with hopes of raising enough money to prevent more cuts to education.

Will our friends on the left figure this out before the last company to leave turns out the lights?