This Is Why I Want To Limit The Power of the Federal Government

If we limited the power of the feds to their enumerated powers, idiocy/hypocrisy like this wouldn't be able to happen:

A law championed by Senate Democrats (including one named Joe Biden) to undermine a Supreme Court ruling written by Justice Antonin Scalia has become the latest obstacle to the Affordable Care Act.

Who says Washington’s not bipartisan?

Of course, no one knew back in 1993 that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) would one day be invoked by business owners who say their religious beliefs forbid offering employees health insurance plans that cover some types of contraceptives.

When the RFRA was proposed, it had the support of the American Civil Liberties Union and religious lobbyists, rolled through Congress with near-unanimous support, and was happily signed by President Bill Clinton.

For lefties, the law means whatever they want it to mean.   Nothing more, nothing less.  I think Lewis Carroll had something to say about that.

Is There A Good Answer?

If there is it might include getting off that stupid "quarter" system and going to semesters, like real schools do :-)

From the major Sacramento newspaper:

An online petition posted by a UC Davis student on Jan. 22 has obtained more than 27,000 signatures from students UC-wide opposing a change in the academic calendar that shortens next year’s winter break from three weeks to two.

The change, resulting from a UC policy to accommodate major religious holidays, has sparked discussion among students about the tight constraints of the quarter system and what role religion should play in determining the school schedule.

You don't want religion to determine the school schedule?  Enjoy being in class on Christmas!  What?  What's that you say?  You don't like this because it's the Jewish holidays that are being accommodated?  Oh, well it's ok to be against the Joooooooos, I guess.  That multi-culti stuff doesn't apply to Jews, white people, or men.

The change.org petition, which is unaffiliated with student government, is addressed to UC President Janet Napolitano. Written by UC Davis student Alfredo Amaya, the petition asks that the start of the 2014-15 winter quarter be shifted from Jan. 5 to 12, allowing the fall start date to still accommodate the High Holy Days while maintaining the three-week winter break. In just the first two days after Amaya posted the petition on his Facebook page, 24,000 students signed it...

Changing the 2014-15 calendar to accommodate the petitioners’ demands would only push next fall’s start a week later and re-create the same problem, because the summer quarter cannot be shortened. Adjusting next year’s dates would also disturb events and conferences with contractual obligations...

The UC system adopted the quarter system in 1965 to accommodate a bulge in enrollment, but UC Berkeley switched back to semesters in 1983. The system’s newest school, UC Merced, also adopted the semester model. UC Davis debated switching to semesters in 1997, but efforts to do so failed.

Current students have mixed feelings about the quarter system, said Sandstrom, because it disqualifies them from many summer internships and jobs, since school doesn’t get out until mid-June. At UC Berkeley, by comparison, the fall semester in 2014 will last from Aug. 28 to Dec. 19. Instruction for the spring semester will begin Jan. 20, 2015, and end May 15. Students also get a weeklong spring break. 

Why do they start classes so late at Davis?

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/03/6122731/davis-authored-winter-break-petition.html#storylink=cpy

Next fall, most UC students will start school on Sept. 29, a week later than last year, to allow Jewish students to observe Rosh Hashanah from Sept. 24 to 26. Those students can move in after the holiday and attend the first day of instruction on Oct. 2 before observing Yom Kippur from Oct. 3 to 4.

The UC policy mandating that no move-in day conflict with a major religious holiday has been in place since 2007, but this is the first time the dates have conflicted with Jewish holidays, which follow a lunar calendar. The policy was last invoked in 2009, when the move-in dates for the two UC semester schools were adjusted for students observing Ramadan.

I'm curious if there was a big whoop-te-doo when Ramadan was involved.  Just sayin'.

Update:  I like to think that my regular readers, as well as any newcomers with even a modicum of intelligence, are smart enough to recognize that my supposedly anti-Jewish comments above were in fact a dig at anti-Semites.  That assumption of mine was wrong in one case, so I'll clear it up here.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/03/6122731/davis-authored-winter-break-petition.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/03/6122731/davis-authored-winter-break-petition.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/03/6122731/davis-authored-winter-break-petition.html#storylink=cpy.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/03/6122731/davis-authored-winter-break-petition.html#storylink=cpy

Are You Kidding Me?

Is there anyone left, even some "bitter clingers" somewhere, who believe anything this man says anymore?

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Obama denies any wrongdoing on IRS, Benghazi. “President Obama said Sunday there was “not even a smidgen” of corruption in the IRS targeting of conservative groups, and that his team did not try to deceive the nation about the terrorist attack in Benghazi to aid his reelection bid in 2012. In a contentious interview with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News before the Super Bowl, the president said he doesn’t remember meeting with former IRS chief Douglas Shulman during any of Mr. Shulman’s 157 visits to the White House during his first term.”

This reminds me of something: “Number of times that Hillary Clinton, providing testimony to Congress, said that she didn’t remember, didn’t know, or something similar: 250.”

Why did the IRS apologize for doing it, then, if they did nothing wrong?  Idiot.

Worst NFL Team in the Super Bowl Award

Let's say that, in order to qualify for this ignominy, a team has to have had at least 2 Super Bowl appearances.  My top 3 contenders for the award:

Denver Broncos.  Yes, they've won 2 Super Bowls, but they've lost 5, including two of the worst beatdowns, both against NFC West teams--San Francisco, 55-10, the worst rout in Super Bowl history, in January 1990, and Seattle, 43-8, today.  Those two games are two of the Super Bowl's 4 worst games in terms of point differential.

Buffalo Bills.  They went to 4 consecutive Super Bowls in 1991-1994 and lost them all.  The third of those, against Dallas, ties today's game with Denver for the worst point differential in a game.

Minnesota Vikings.  Been 4 times, lost them all by at least 10 points.

Feel free to vote for one of these teams, or choose your own.

It's What They Do

This is the end result of modern liberalism:

Detroit represents nothing less than progressivism in its final stage of decadence: Worried that unionized public-sector workers are looting your city? Detroit is already bankrupt, unable to provide basic services expected of it — half the streetlights don’t work, transit has been reduced, neighborhoods go unpatrolled. Worried that public-sector unions are ruining your schools? Detroit’s were ruined a generation or more ago, the results of which are everywhere to be seen in the city. Worried that Obamacare is going to ruin our health-care markets? General-practice physicians are hard to find in Detroit, and those willing to accept Medicaid — which covers a great swath of Detroit’s population — are rarer still. Worried about the permissive culture? Four out of five of Detroit’s children are born out of wedlock. Worried that government is making it difficult for businesses to thrive? Many people in Detroit have to travel miles to find a grocery store. This is the endgame of welfare economics: What good is Medicaid if there are no doctors? What good are food stamps where there is no food? What good are “free” schools if you’re so afraid to send your children there that you feel it prudent to arm them first?

Detroit is what Democrats do. The last Republican elected mayor of Detroit took office during the Eisenhower administration. The decay of Detroit is not the inevitable outcome of the decline of the automotive industry: The automotive industry is thriving in the United States — but not in Detroit. It isn’t white flight: The black middle class has left Detroit as fast as it can. The model of Detroit politics is startlingly familiar in its fundamentals, distinguished only by its degree of advancement: Advance the interests of public-sector unions and politically connected business cronies, expand the relative size of the public sector remorselessly — and when opposed, cry “Racism!” When people vote with their feet, cry “Racism!” When the budget just won’t balance, cry “Racism!”

Hat tip to NewsAlert.

A Fun Use of Statistics

There are too many guesses in the model for this to be real statistics, but it's still entertaining:

Damjan Vukcevic and Joan Ko, planning their wedding in Melbourne, Australia, were struggling to draw up an invitation list of family and friends in places as far-flung as Serbia, Tawain, the UK and the US.

"We're both from immigrant families, so the guest list had people from all around the world and, while it's easy to work out whether people in Melbourne - our home town - could come to the wedding, it was a much more difficult task to work out what proportion or how many of the overseas guests would show up," Joan says.

"So the challenge is to pick the right number of invitees so that we could get all our friends there, but to not overshoot the mark - and to stop my parents from inviting their friends willy-nilly, as well."

The venue they had chosen could fit 110 comfortably. Damjan and Joan calculated that having fewer than 100 guests meant they would be wasting the opportunity to celebrate with more friends, while having more than 110 guests would be too much of a tight squeeze.

They could have done what many people do - post the first batch of invitations, wait for replies and then send out a second round and, maybe, a third - but this wasn't an option the couple were keen on.

"Some people might get an invitation in the second round and if they're comparing notes they might wonder, 'Oh, what's going on here? Are we not in the best tier of friends, so to speak?'" Damjan says.

So one morning, Joan awoke to the find that Damjan had been up late building a solution - a statistical model.

They even calculated a confidence interval :-)

Tasing Teenagers

A 17-year-old Texas student who spent 52 days in a medically induced coma after police used a Taser on him at school entered a full-time rehabilitation facility Friday, his family's attorney said.

Noe Nino de Rivera was transported to the hospital on November 20 after Bastrop County Sheriff's Deputy Randy McMillan, serving as a school resource officer, used the device on him after the teen tried to defuse a school fight involving two girls, one of them his girlfriend, said attorney Adam Loewy.

The parents have filed a lawsuit alleging their son never posed a threat to the deputy and that Nino de Rivera suffered a permanent brain injury when he hit the ground after McMillan tased the teen.

The family is also asking the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to outlaw the devices, along with pepper spray, on state campuses.

Several civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, sent a letter to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement last month calling the use of such weapons on children "unconscionable."  link

Perhaps such tools are unconscionable on "children", but they're not necessarily so on teenagers.  Some of these teenagers are big and having a little extra some'm-some'm to subdue them when necessary seems smart to me.

I'm not saying the teenager in this story deserved to be tased--I don't have enough information on which to base such a statement.  But making a blanket statement that such tools should never be used on teenagers?  No, I can't abide that.

Completely Fair and Totally Unbiased Media

Within the span of 40 seconds, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams reported on two politicians caught in scandals, one a Republican the other a Democrat, but he gave the party affiliation of only one of the troubled politicians. Can you guess which one?  link

I can :-)

University Ditches Math Major

I wonder how they chose the programs to cut.  If it was strictly a dollar issue, that seems reasonable:

Franklin Pierce University said Wednesday it will stop offering degrees in six academic programs, effective immediately.

The university will no longer offer majors or minors in American studies, theater and dance, graphic communications, fine arts, math, and arts management.

The linked article states that medical-related majors are very popular at the school. 

Here's the school's web page showing current majors.  Here are their graduate programs.

This Is Encouraging

From the Army's web site:

Late in 2012 the academic community saw the return of ROTC to several college campuses where it was perceived to have been unwelcome. But for all of its Vietnam era stigma, the University of California, Berkeley has been welcoming the military for several years now.

Dr. Kathryn Scott, director of physical education at the university, said that although the Vietnam War protests may have given the school an anti-military label, such was not really the case. And Scott should know. Not only is she a UCB graduate, she has been on the faculty since 1970 and for the last 11 years as a member of the Military Officers' Education Committee that is charged with the academic oversight of the ROTC programs.

"Berkeley was part of the original (group) of universities that came into being in 1916 with the founding of the Army ROTC program," she explained. "The protests (of the Vietnam War) were not against ROTC, but rather the war. Today, the three ROTC programs on campus are viewed in a positive way and are very visible to the entire campus community."

She said when ROTC instructors and cadre are assigned to the school they do so with apprehension because they expect a negative climate.

"However (the cadre) have been pleasantly surprised when (they are) actually immersed in the campus community. Many find general students taking the Military Affairs courses alongside the Cadets and Midshipmen," she said.

To illustrate her point about the positive relationships ROTC now has on campus, Scott tells a story about an event that happened 12 years ago and how instead of protesting ROTCs presence another UCB group acted to defend it.

Could it be that the UC Berkeley campus is more tolerant than the City of Berkeley?

Funny Commercial

Yesterday morning I was listening to the radio and a commercial came on.  I only heard it the one time, and I wasn't paying close attention to the end, so forgive me if I get particulars wrong.  I'll summarize it here, filling in details that might not be exact but are in line with the theme of the commercial.  Here goes:

A voice talks to you, and you realize that it's that of a waffle iron.  He tells you about all the good times he had, how good it used to be, but how it's not so good anymore.

Announcer:  this Valentine's Day, donate all the things that remind you of your ex to Goodwill.

I thought it was funny :-)

The So-called War on Women

I disagree with nothing that Krauthammer said in this article:

What is it about women that causes leading Republicans to grow clumsy, if not stupid? When even savvy, fluent, attractively populist Mike Huckabee stumbles, you know you’ve got trouble. Having already thrown away eminently winnable Senate seats in Missouri and Indiana because of moronic talk about rape, the GOP might have learned. You’d think...

In any case, why go wandering into the psychology of female sexuality in the first place? It’s ridiculous. This is politics. Stick to policy. And there’s a good policy question to be asked about the contraceptive mandate (even apart from its challenge to religious freedom). It’s about priorities. By what moral logic does the state provide one woman with co-pay-free contraceptives while denying the same subvention to another woman when she urgently needs antibiotics for her sick child?

The same principle of sticking to policy and forswearing amateur psychology should apply to every so-called women’s issue. Take abortion, which is the subtext of about 90 percent of the alleged “war on women,” the charge being that those terrible conservative men are denying women control of their reproductive health...

Yet there is a very simple, straightforward strategy for seizing the high ground on abortion in a way that transcends the normal divisions and commands wide popular support: Focus on the horror of late-term abortion — and get it banned...

Conservatives need to accept that no such consensus exists regarding early abortions. Unlike late-term abortions, where there are clearly two human beings involved, there is no such agreement regarding, say, a six-week-old embryo...

This doesn’t mean that abortion opponents should give up. But regarding early abortions, the objective should be persuasion — creating some future majority — rather than legislative coercion in the absence of a current majority. These are the constraints of a democratic system.  (boldface mine--Darren)

Not so regarding a third- or late-second-trimester abortion. Here we are dealing with a child that could potentially live on its own — if not killed first. And killing it, for any reason other than to save the mother’s life, is an abomination. Outlawing that — state by state and nationally, as was done with partial birth abortion in 2003 — should be the focus of any Republican’s position on abortion.

Regarding the lying Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis:

Talk policy — specifically, the issue that brought Davis to national prominence.
What was her 11-hour filibuster about? Blocking a state law whose major feature was outlawing abortions beyond 20 weeks. Make that the battlefield. Make Davis explain why she chose not just to support late-term abortion but to make it her great cause.

Stay away from the minefield of gender politics. Challenge the other side on substance. And watch them lose.

Krauthammer is suggesting a way to win politically.  Therein lies compromise, sometimes with principles, and I understand that there are those who will never compromise on principles.  Krauthammer isn't suggesting giving up principles, he's suggesting settling for one piece of pie rather than trying for the whole pie and getting none of it.  In that regard I'm reminded of one of the quotes on my "favorite quotes" list (although the link doesn't work anymore):

“To draw an analogy from metallurgy and apply it to morality--pure morals may be more valuable, but alloys are more useful.”

--commenter BumperStickerist at http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index.php/weblog/entry/20599/

Does Fox Do This?

Here's a recent roundup of the vileness on MSNBC:

MSNBC President Phil Griffin apologized Thursday for what he called an "offensive" network tweet, which suggested that conservatives may “hate” a Cheerios Super Bowl ad featuring a racially mixed family.

Griffin said the person responsible for the tweet was fired...

"We can have our political disagreements with MSNBC," (Republican National Committee Chairman) Priebus said in an email blast earlier Thursday. "But using biracial families to launch petty and ridiculous political attacks is low, even by MSNBC's standards. It only coarsens our political discourse. This is more than just a tweet or an offhand comment. This is part of a pattern of behavior that has gotten markedly worse."

The Cheerios commercial features the same biracial family that appeared in an ad for the cereal brand last year. The ad sparked controversy after highlighting a family with a white mother and a black father.  Priebus also noted a string of other controversies MSNBC has faced for criticizing Republicans.

In his complaint to MSNBC, Priebus referenced Alec Baldwin and Martin Bashir, who were both let go from the network after they made offensive comments about homosexuals and Sarah Palin, respectively.

Melissa Harris-Perry, host of a weekend show, also apologized this month after a panel on her program made jokes involving Mitt Romney's adopted black grandchild.

It's clear there's a culture of such filth and vilification of "others" at MSNBC, but at least the sunlight had enough of a disinfectant quality that they felt the need to fire those responsible.

Liberals always need someone to hate.

Update:  We get a two-fer on the subject today:

But making broad and essentially pejorative generalizations about giant swaths of non-Democrats is hardly the exclusive domain of the racist-chasers at MSNBC and Salon.com. Journalistic outlets at the highest levels have been making non-jokey versions of the same accusation throughout the Obama presidency, ever since the twin ascension in 2009 of the Tea Party and opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

For an example, check out this passage in New Yorker Editor David Remnick's extraordinarily long and often insightful recent profile of the president...

This isn't just bad journalism, it's bad tolerance. Attributing a single set of personality traits to scores of millions of people whose only commonality is age and race is the opposite of judging people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. It's also a cheap way to wave off the substance of anti-Obama criticism—why bother figuring out why a majority of Americans have consistently disliked the flawed Affordable Care Act when you can just roll your eyes and assert that the real reason is white anxiety and worse? There is nothing tolerant about assuming that those who have different ideas than you about the size and scope of government are motivated largely by base ethnic tribalism.

How Will Teachers React?

I think California teachers are soon to take two financial hits.

First, I've posted about a zillion times that the California State Teachers Retirement System--in other words, the pension that I've been promised--is in deep financial doo-doo.  There was talk early in the Schwarzenegger administration about increasing the amount paid into it by teachers, school districts, and the state, but that talk came to nothing as it was poo-pooed by those on the left.  Now that someone on the left is bringing it up, it may happen, and that's a good thing.  On the other hand, California teachers (so many of whom vote for the Democrats) may scream when those same Democrats reduce their take-home pay as well as the ability of the school districts to offer raises:

With California facing a massive teacher pension shortfall, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, D-Los Angeles, unveiled an effort Wednesday he hopes would fully fund the system.

An influx of revenue has allowed California to emerge from years of yawning deficits and protracted budget fights, and the pressure is mounting for the state to do something about an avalanche of liabilities that runs into the hundreds of billions.

Of those looming obligations, a substantial chunk comes from the gap between how much the California State Teachers Retirement System takes in and how much it will owe retired educators. Gov. Jerry Brown estimated in his budget this year that the liability has grown to $80.4 billion and would require a $4.5 billion annual infusion to balance the books.

"While we know our revenues will fluctuate up and down, our long-term liabilities are enormous and ever growing," Brown said in his State of the State speech earlier this month.

Pérez calculates the liability at $71 billion, somewhat lower than Brown. And on Wednesday, the speaker called for a plan that potentially includes increased contributions from all three contributors to the system -- the state, school districts and individual teachers (boldface mine--Darren)...

"Since the contribution rates for CalSTRS are set by the Legislature and not the retirement board," as is the case with the California Public Employees Retirement System, "it is the responsibility of the governor and the Legislature to determine the best way to address the funding shortfall," (Assemblyman) Bonta said.

The second big hit will be Obamacare.  My W-2 has some interesting new additions on it, including a 5-digit number that I believe is the value of the cost of my health/dental insurance that my school district pays.  I think we're to be taxed on that, if not this year (I'll soon find out, as I'm ready to start my taxes) then soon.

If I'm correct it would amount to a 20% increase in my taxable income, which would surely be a serious hit to me come tax time.

You Democrats brought this on us; remember, not a single Republican voted for Obamacare in either the House or the Senate.  This debacle, and the financial hit we'll all take because it, is your fault.

Update:  According to this article the health insurance tax doesn't kick in until 2018:

Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans($32 bil/Jan 2018): Starting in 2018, new 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans ($10,200 single/$27,500 family). For early retirees and high-risk professions exists a higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family).  CPI +1 percentage point indexed.

There's still time to repeal the entire disaster before that provision kicks in.

How's That Global Warming Going For You?

It's a dead issue for the president:

President Obama came to office promising significant action to fight climate change, and Tuesday night’s State of the Union indicates this administration fully recognizes any action on that issue over the next three years will come not through legislation but through regulations and executive actions.
Rather than call for a “comprehensive energy and climate bill” as he did in 2010, Mr. Obama on Tuesday focused on much smaller goals and touted the controversial efforts of his Environmental Protection Agency to cut down on carbon emissions from power plants.

And after all I've heard about a "polar vortex", here's a little reminder of all those Democrats who tried to convince us that weather=climate:


Here's another fun video, just to annoy liberals:

Conclusions start at 8:45.

7 Weeks

It was 7 weeks ago when the Sacramento Valley last had rain.  That was before Christmas.

Here in the Valley we only have 2 seasons:  the one where rain is possible, and the one where rain isn't at all likely.  We're in the middle of the one where rain is possible, and the last rain was 7 weeks ago.  Around these parts we call that a drought--just like we did in 1976, back when the leading scientists of the day were telling us we were heading towards another ice age.

This morning when I got to work I stepped out of the car and smelled that ozone smell, that smell associated with rain.  I remained hopeful.

As students came into one of my morning classes they were chattering about rain; I went outside yet saw and felt none.

Helios the Sun God had deserted us the day before, but it wasn't until after lunch that Hydros the Water God made his presence known.  We may rack up a quarter inch or so of rain here in the Valley, but at least it will help turn some of the lawns green.  I heard on the news a couple weeks ago that either our season rainfall total or our water storage, one or the other, was at 20% of normal for this time in the season.  That's just gruesome and it'll make for a bad summer, especially when the temperature hits the triple digits.

It's probably a good year to want to become a firefighter, yaknowwhatImean?

Common Core, the New "New Math"

After Sputnik, math education in the US changed--we had to catch up to the Russians!  I've read that one of the big "deep understanding" topics that was introduced in the "new math" was set theory and intersection/union; I also remember doing sets, and intersections of sets, and unions of sets, quite often in elementary school.  I also remember learning about different bases other than base-10.  In elementary school.

People eventually figured out that such instruction just wasn't going to work.  Here we are, 40 years later, and we're going to do it again:

In 1961, New Math “was supposed to transform mathematics education by emphasizing concepts and theories rather than traditional computation,” as this article shows.
Flash forward 50 years, and Common Core is today making the same promises:

The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

New Math, Sequential Math, Math A/B, and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards also “promised to transform (America’s children) into young Einsteins and Aristotles,” writes Bonagura. It didn’t work out that way...

With so much focus on teaching students the “why” of math, teachers will have little time to teach the “how,” Bonagura predicts.

Mathematical concepts require a high aptitude for abstract thinking — a skill not possessed by young children and never attained by many. What will happen to students who already struggle with math when they not only are forced to explain what they do not understand, but are presented new material in abstract conceptual formats?

“Instead of developing college- and career-ready students, we will have another generation of students who cannot even make change from a $5 bill.”

I believe Mr. Bonagura, a fellow teacher, to be correct. 

Additionally, I agree with this statement from the linked post:

Despite claims that Common Core doesn’t tell teachers how to teach, the new standards come with a flawed pedagogy, Bonagura charges. “Common Core buries students in concepts at the expense of content.” 

Repeat after me:  would you like fries with that?

Global Warming and the State of the Union

What more need be said?

Barack Obama is not at a great moment in his presidency.  His numbers are terrible.  Obamacare, his signature legislation, is a fiasco.  His attempts to make peace in the Middle East — let’s be charitable here — have not borne fruit.  The labor participation rate is at a thirty year low.  Things are pretty bad for the president (and for the country, I am sad to say).

At moments like this people do strange things. Word is that President Obama is going to ignore the freezing weather and say something about “global warming” or “climate change” or “stormy weather,” or whatever the euphemism of the moment may be, during the State of the Union address Tuesday night.
It’s a sign of desperation — fewer people believe in this now than ever — an attempt to change the discussion and a sop to his left wing.  Also, it’s a power grab, in concert with his desire to circumvent a supposedly do-nothing Congress.

Whither Diversity--or Wither, Diversity

I can understand the diversity argument in some situations--sometimes, people want or need to see people who look like they do.  Humans are tribal, we like to be around members of our own tribe, and sometimes our tribe concerns skin color or sex.  I can imagine that under certain conditions, that would be important; I can understand people wanting to see doctors of their same sex, or if social workers are involved, people might feel more comfortable around social workers that they perceive as part of their tribe.

But why would you, why should you, care if an engineer is a racial or ethnic minority?  Why does it matter if the scientist working on a cancer cure is Hispanic, deaf, or a lesbian?

All this race-based activity by a government agency raises two fundamental questions not addressed in the Chronicle article: Why is it necessary, and Why is it legal?

It is certainly necessary for the NIH not to discriminate against minorities, but why is it necessary to discriminate in favor of them? The only justification for race-based preferential treatment that has survived Supreme Court review is "diversity," i.e., that whites, Asians, and others must be exposed to the "difference" embodied by blacks and Hispanics in  order to get a good education. But how, as I have asked here and here, will having a few more black mathematicians or engineers "enrich research and scholarship"? To whom will they provide exactly what "diversity"? Despite the NIH having a new officer in charge of "scientific-work-force diversity," these programs, like so many "diversity" efforts, have nothing at all to do with diversity and everything to do with simply targeting blacks for preferential treatment to get their numbers up.

The Real War

The so-called War on Women is one of those made-up boogeymen that the Left uses to divide and conquer the electorate.  I admit, they're quite adept at it.  If the Republicans were any good at fighting dirty that way, and they're absolutely not, they'd talk about the real war--on our young:

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Eating Our Young. “It is popular now to talk of race, class, and gender oppression. But left out of this focus on supposed victim groups is the one truly targeted cohort — the young. Despite the Obama-era hype, we are not suffering new outbreaks of racism. Wendy Davis is not the poster girl for a resurgent misogyny. There is no epidemic of homophobia. Instead, if this administration’s policies are any guide, we are witnessing a pandemic of ephebiphobia — an utter disregard for young people. . . . In truth, no administration in recent memory has done more to harm young people.”