Author: David

Well, the usual suspects—Jean Fraud sKerry, Dianne Feinstein, Teddy “Swimmer” Kennedy and all the denisens of Demoncrappic Underpants and the like are baying at the moon over Michael Hayden’s nomination to head the CIA, especially given his involvement with the electronic surveillance programs run by one of their fav boogymen, the NSA.

And they’re so completely removed from reality that they not only do not see (or are unwilling to admit) that not only are the ESP (yeh, I like that acronym for “electronic surveillance programs”) perfectly within legal boundaries (“Oh,” but they twitter, “they could be abused!” Yeh, if a Clintoon were back in office… ) but also eminently sensible given the nature of terrorist threats against the U.S.

No, they even bury their heads in the sand and ignore the penultimate bellwether (only Mass Media Podpeople carry a bigger stick with these folks) a politician *spit* must follow: the polls. Why, even the D.C. commie rag, the Washington Post, ran results of a poll it admitted revealed…

…that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it.

A slightly larger majority–66 percent–said they would not be bothered if NSA collected records of personal calls they had made, the poll found.

Even when it’s written clearly, “Mene, Mene Tekel Upharsin,” (or perhaps instead, “The tree of liberty must from time to time be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots”), politicians, greedy for a little face time in venues controlled by Mass Media Podpeople, have to spout inanities about invasion of privacy.

Well, those critters had better remember: as they posture and preen and babble vicious nonsense, whether at or leading up to the Michael Hayden’s nomination hearings or at any other time, we are watching them, and their day of judgement will come. Either at the polling booth or as they catch a one-way bus to hell at the end of their tenure in this life.

Just sayin’…

h.t. STACLU on the WaPo article.

BBSed at Sed Vitae (where trackbacks aren’t really enabled, but I’ll give it a shot, anyway), Is It Just Me? (Off camping and letting the blog run on autopilot? :-)), Adam’s Blog (what a purty liz, bubba! *heh*) and TMH’s Bacon Bits (bein’ a lil catty, TMH? ;-)).

This is my Friday Open Trackback Alliance post, extending through Sunday. Link to this post and track back. More below the short post.

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Jerry Pournelle [Not Dr. Pournelle: an email from a reader that Dr. Pournelle published] has some good sense to offer about the mess our national intelligence bureaus/departments are in. His observations—as one who has “been there, done that, helped win the Cold War—make so much sense that naturally they’ll not find an ear in Washington D.C. [Note: the rest of Pournelle’s own comments are worth reading, as well]

A small sample:

…DIA evolved precisely because of the following mindset, automatically regurgitated by the STRATFOR analyst: “On the surface, the answer to that is clear: The job of the intelligence community, taken as a whole, is to warn the president of major threats or changes in the international system.”

No. ‘The job of the intelligence community, taken as a whole’, is to provide intelligence data to the entire federal government to support its execution of national policy as established by the President and Congress. And also to support the formulation of that policy.

*sigh*

As I said, I doubt D.C. will listen to that any more than it listens to citizens’ concerns about illegal aliens invading. The political elite und Das Büros (I’d rather spell it “burros” to reflect the assinine nature of bureaucraps) will have none of those vestiges of a democratic republic whose government is actually subordinate to a citizenry…

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As I said, this is an Open Trackback Alliance open trackbacks post. Link here and track back.

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

From Gribbit:

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Why Isn’t A Town Enforcing Their Law? – The ACLU

The ACLU is watching a small town in western Pennsylvania because of its curfew law.  Each night at 9:45 pm the Trafford fire station blows its alert sirens to alert teens and other children that the curfew is fast approaching.  All persons under the age of 18 are to be home by 10:00 pm according to local law.  But with the ACLU looking over their shoulder, the town has been reluctant to enforce their law.

This stems from one child.  Again it is the needs of the one trumping the needs of the many.  Mr. Spock wouldn’t agree with this total lack of logic but that is the principle that the ACLU operates under.

Under threat of lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, it appears the borough has backed off its curfew ordinance. Neither Mayor Kevin Karazsia nor solicitor Bill Ferraro would confirm or deny if the long-time curfew ordinance is being enforced — but this much is certain: In December, the ACLU contacted Ferraro after the Toocheck family complained to the organization. Attorney David Millstein, a volunteer at the ACLU who handled the case, said as far as he knows the ordinance is not being enforced. If he learns otherwise, he said, the ACLU will sue. Craig Toocheck contacted the organization after one of his sons was cited a second time under the Trafford curfew ordinance. The first incident occurred last summer when the boy, then 15, walked to the 7-11 without his parents’ permission around midnight. Craig Toocheck was asleep in bed when a police officer brought his son to the door. Surprised that his son had gone in search of a Slurpee without informing him, Toocheck agreed to pay the $73 fine and grounded his son — an active Boy Scout who posted a 4.11 grade point average on his last Penn-Trafford report card — for two weeks. The second incident occurred last August when the boy was watching a pre-season Steelers game at a friend’s house. At half-time — and with his parents permission — he left to walk home. The time was 10 minutes after curfew. Craig Toocheck said his son was a half block from his home on Edgewood Avenue when he was picked up by police. A week later, a fine for $98 was in the Toocheck mailbox. Millstein called the fine and the curfew ridiculous. “The whole thing was unconstitutional,” he said. “There’s no question about it.” The curfew violates one of the rights in the First Amendment — the freedom of assembly, Millstein said. “To impose a curfew on a person just because they’re a juvenile… It’s just not constitutional.” Toocheck said the curfew also violates the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and 14th Amendments — which protect against deprivation of liberty without due process of law and includes the right to travel.  SOURCE

Ok, let me get this straight, the ACLU is claiming that a reasonable curfew of 10:00 pm for what we can all agree are minor children  violates the 4th, 5th, 9th, and 14th Amendments?  How absurd.  Next you will be telling me that a 9 year old has the right to buy a semi-automatic handgun provided they are willing to wait the required waiting period.  I won’t hold my breath on that one but it falls in line with the same logic.

Here are the facts folks:

   

Children under the age of 18 are just that – CHILDREN.  And are subject to the regulations that the home and society puts on them.

   

Persons under the age of 18 (CHILDREN) cannot legally marry without consent.

   

Children cannot own guns, securities, land, vote, and are not subject to taxation all because of their age.

At which point do we throw caution to the wind and teach youngsters the meaning of law and order?  If children are subjected to the same freedoms that adults enjoy, then why is it that no one is standing in line to represent children who are forced to live under their parents’ regulations as false imprisonment?  After all, a responsible parent would restrict where and when a child can travel outside of the home right?

If you leave children alone for any amount of time, their inner demons will get the better of them and trouble usually follows.  As someone who lives with 2 teenage boys, I can tell you that if left to their devices there would be holes in the walls, broken fixtures, parties 24/7 where all kinds of unspeakable activities would be occurring, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.  Teenage children often times need to be restricted more than younger children.

The ACLU will stop at nothing to remove all barriers to free will in order to create chaos.  Once that is achieved they will swoop in utilizing their dupes in black vestments to create laws restricting all liberties to restore order and a Communist state will be born.

The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few or the one.  In this case the needs of Trafford to be safe and secure in their community without an unchecked unregulated youth population roaming the streets causing trouble at all times of the night out weight any presumption that a minor child has to Constitutional rights to travel.  And if I remember right, there is no such right in the 4th, 5th, 9th, or 14th Amendments.

The ACLU needs to allow local governments decide what is best for the citizens of their locality.  The beautiful thing about a representative democracy, if you don’t like the decisions being made on your behalf, you can vote the decision maker out of office.  Hence the terms government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Sign the Petition To Stop Taxpayer Funding of the ACLU.

This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay or Gribbit. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board

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N.B. While I’m not in complete agreement with Gribbit’s latter comments (I raised two teenagers, and can testify that I know of one time when they were mostly unsupervised for a whole month, for perfectly good reasons, and they were very responsible people during that time. Ages? 15 and 17. BUT, whether teenagers in general are or are not well-behaved (something that it is entirely the responsibility of the parents to ensure by raising them well before they reach that age), is not the point here, nor is the serious point that the ACLU will sweep in with “men in black” to rip our freedoms away. No, the point as far as I’m concerned is the twisting of Constitutional provisions into something they are not, thus weakening the fabric of the Constitution even further and not coincidentally weakening the fabric of society at the same time.

Over at TMH’s Bacon Bits, DL has a post, “Conservatives Asking: Which Face Now?”, that I consider a “must read” for anyone who needs a reminder of the political dilemma facing responsible voters in upcoming elections. In it he makes mention of disaffectation among the Rpublican Paty faithful.

Loyalty is a two way street. The party faithful can only maintain faith with the party when the party leaders maintain faith with them.

BTW, “faith” entered the English language from Norman French. It was a term explicitly used to denote fealty relationships. relationships that required two-way loyalty. even more interesting is that “belief” came to English through a Celtic/Anglo linguistic journey. “Lief-an” was the relationship between a Celtic chieftan/leader and his people denoting much the same two-way loyalty that faith’s French journey into English followed. (The Anglic intensifier “be” was added much later as “lief-an” became pejorated to denote the highest form of lief-an.) The history of both these words was strongly reflected in their contemporary meanings at the times Wycliffe, Coverdale and later the KJV translators used them to translate verb and noun forms of “pisteuo” which—in first century Koine—held the same meanings of bilateral loyalty. Or, to use a more current idiom from the military, loyalty up the chain of command is only as strong as loyalty down the chain of command.

In fact, one of the fundamental principles of Christianity has remained that we are only able to be faithful to God because of His faithfulness to us. Our faith in Him is a gift from him. The best of feudal rulers understood this and that’s where the concept of noblesse oblige came from: to whom much is given (wealth, power, prestige, etc.), much shall be required in return.

Our current political elite—of both major parties—have no such understandings of faithfulness, responsibility, obligations. To the leaders of both parties, political power is more important than doing what is right and just and good. The representative republic handed us by the Founders has become a kakistocratic kleptocracy.

And “we the people” are to blame.

The Tree of Liberty is getting mighty thirsty…

No linkfest for twc today. Stop the ACLU Blogburst later today. Meanwhile, how about a small change of pace from immigration, ACLU shenannigans, Jean fraud sKerry’s unconscionable… existence and revamping the tax code?

Pet Fish Blamed for House Fire. I bet those folks are thinking, “Pan fry!”

Subliterate man nearly calls wedding off (misread the time on a text message); asks, “Who’s 5am?”

A real dog lover. “I’ll have mine to go.”

Dangerous underwear. Dy-no mite!

At least it’s not the doghouse…

Oh, and on this day in 2118 B.C., the chair was invented in China by Whu-Sat and immediately exported to the New World (Egypt) at cutthroat prices. And mankind has been breeding Laquishas (“Laquisha’s got a big ole butt!”) ever since.

Well, that’s about all the short takes for now.

Fred Reed has a screed up about education in Mexico wherein he compares Mexican public schooling to U.S. public schooling. Now, most of y’all who read this blog know I’m no fan of our “prisons for kids” approach to education. In fact, I think that by and large, public schools in these United States are the most glaring example of child abuse in America.

But. IMO, Fred’s screed misses several points and argues apples to oranges*. Here are some excerpts from a “country study” dealing with Mexico from Department of the Army (US) archives.

“Approximately 54 percent of all students attend a six-year primary-school program that, together with preschool, special education, and secondary school, constitute the basic education system. Children in nursery school or kindergarten accounted for 12 percent of matriculation at all levels in 1995-96. As the Mexican population gradually aged during the 1980s, the primary-school share of matriculation at all levels declined from 70 percent in 1980 and was projected to continue to fall through the year 2000… Upon successful completion of primary school, students enter a three-year secondary-school program, or vocational-education program. Approximately 19 percent of all students in 1995-96 were in secondary school. Those graduating from secondary school can pursue mid-level education, either through a three-year college preparatory program–the bachillerato– or advanced technical training; this encompassed 10 percent of all students in 1995-96. Higher education consists of four-year college and university education–the licenciatura– and postgraduate training. Approximately 5 percent of all students in 1995-96 were in postsecondary institutions…”

“…Students’ access and retention remain critical concerns for educators. The government reported in 1989 that each year, 300,000 children who should be in first grade do not attend. An additional 880,000 students drop out of primary school annually, 500,000 of them in the first three grades. Nationally, in 1989 only 55 percent of students successfully completed their primary education, and graduation rates were only 10 percent in many rural areas. However, the government reported that in 1995 the national graduation rate reached 62 percent….”

“Approximately 15,000 schools–20 percent of the total–did not offer all six primary grades in 1989. In that year, 22 percent of all primary schools had only one teacher. The government could meet only 10 percent of potential demand for special education. Thirty percent of all secondary-school enrollers failed to complete the three-year curriculum. As a result, government education officials estimated that 20.2 million Mexicans had not completed primary education and another 16 million had not finished secondary school.”

Note the gaps. A LOT of kids don’t even attend primary school, and of those who do, many do not even complete that.

This information pretty much squares with both my experiences attending high school in El Paso in the ’60s, though much improved from that time, and it also seems congruent with the time I taught there, in a “barrio” school in south El Paso, some years later: parents living in Mexico would seek to get their children in American schools, then, because they had a better shot at getting a better education.

Fred Reed noted some examples from his 14-year-old step-daughter’s curriculum in Guadalahara that are comparable in quality to what I recall from eighth grade work back in the (very) early 60s. Not comparable to today’s curriculum in most American schools, of course. But then, his step-daughter is among the relatively small minority of students that both graduate from primary school in Mexico and then proceed along an academic track. Another small percentage stay in school for tradeschool training.

My experiences more recently with immigrant students (legal and otherwise) from Mexico is a mixed bag. Most were either subliterate or illiterate in Spanish, although as far as intelligence goes, they seemed to follow a normal bell curve distribution. The problem was that a.) they came hampered by language barriers; b.) many were illiterate in both English and Spanish—a higher percentage than even the illiterate English speaking students (which was bad enough) and c.) ESL programs were designed—intentionally or not—to keep them from attaining literacy in English in a timely fashion, if at all.

But then, a rather large portion of Mexican students (or children of student age who do not attend school for various reasons) enter adulthood as illiterates there, too.

But all this talks across the real issue: structurally—apart from heavy central government controls—the Mexican system makes a lot of educational sense. By tracking children into tradeschool or academic programs following primary school, kids who simply are less-equipped to handle abstract reasoning (at the very least, around the middle of the bell curve for IQ—a well-established measure of abstract reasoning ability—and left) can be tracked into areas where their abilities can be successful.

In the U.S., every child is apparently from Lake Woebegon. All through junior high and high school, students are expected to handle subjects demanding complex abstract thought regardless of the fact that Calculus, for example, simply will not compute with any but a small number of students, darned near all of whom will have IQs above 120 and most of whom will be mathematically gifted to some degree or another.

And what of college? High school curricula (and No Chile Gets Ahead testing) seems to assume that all high school students ought to prepare for college, whether they are college material or not. Which is one reason among many why freshman years in college have so many “remedial” courses… and why so many incoming college freshmen must take dumb-dumb math and English courses… as well as one of the reasons so many college students graduate as profoundly subliterate.

They didn’t belong in (a real) college to begin with. So, in many cases, they get trash degrees from dumbed down colleges.

*sigh*

We’d be much better off to crib from Mexico (and many, many other more well-developed countries!) and “track” students relatively early into tradeschool or academic tracks. but we won’t, cos too many parents have been brain-muddied to think that their child can achieve above average, and educrats, pubschool administrators, many teachers and most politicians have given themselves lobotomies where their good sense could have developed.

Still, Fred’s argument, slickly made, is an apples-to-oranges argument, as well as leaving out a lot of relevant information about how many students actually attend school at all—though he very carefully avoids stepping directly into that mess by disclaiming (and not doing any homework to find out) any knowledge about Mexico’s public education in general. It makes his polemicization of the topic so much easier, you see.

But that’s what he does very well: polemics. And by stirring me offa my fat lazy butt to check the first one or two pages in a Google search on pubschooling in Meshico (or some such), he did demonstrate that old farts like me can still read, maybe even nearly as well as his 14-year-old step-daughter.

*Let me be clear: Fred did say he was familiar with ONLY his stepdaughter’s school, and couldn’t make any generalizations about pubschooling in Meciso from that alone. Read his article for yourself and tell me if I’m being fair here, OK?

Well, Diane has “Dead Guy on the Sidebar” and Samantha has “Moron of the Week” so I thought I’d see if anyone would play a new game here.

It’s a simple game, and the rules are even simpler: simply answer the question I pose here in comments. Both commenters can submit all the answers they want.

What was I thinking?

OK, time frame: 0-dark-30 this morning.
Sitch: woke to the sounds of thunder and rain, extremely dark. No, darker than that.

What was I thinking?

Thas all folks.

Heading back over to Diane’s Stuff to see if Samantha’s guessed the third Dead Man in the Sidebar. 🙂

Wednesday Open Trackback Alliance open post. Link here and track back. More below the post body.

Or, “How to meet the requirements to become a warden in our nation’s prisons for kids.” From Hugh via email, with an addendum from me:

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Brit politicians and utility workers could probably very easily qualify to be administrators in our government schools.

hth
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From “Bonehead-Of-The-Day” award by Jerry Lerman.

Peddling And Spinning
The Guardian (UK) 2-May-06

Bonehead award one goes to British Conservative leader David Cameron who rides a bicycle to work every day to increase environmental awareness and who is followed by a car carrying his briefcase, apparently to increase political awareness. [emphasis added]

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Drowning in Incompetence, Part II
The UK Sun 8-May-06

A water leak that gushed through a UK Hamlet for 16 years, causing extreme icy road conditions and wasted millions of gallons of water, was finally stopped when a farmer turned it off at the faucet.

Water board officials at Hamerton Cambs insisted for 16 years that it was a natural spring.

“If that is a natural spring then it must be the only one with a tap on it,” said the farmer.

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You think I’m kidding (or that Hugh is offbase) equating pubschool administrators with monumantal stupidity? Just google it. Or click here and read for a start on some search terms. Or read this and weep. While teachers seeking advanced degrees (which darned near all require taking the GRE) scored relatively poorly—a little to the left of the mean on the bell curve—those seeking “Education Administration” degrees fared quite a bit worse. Yep. That’s right. The pool of folks who are teachers are demonstrably to the left of the bell curve among those who seek masters degrees or higher, while the people who are the managers and administrators in pubschools are demonstrably dumber than the folks they supervise.

Heck, the phenomenon of dumbness extends to all the professions that are involved in one way or another in ruining education:

In a nutshell, GRE scores of applicants for graduate study in education are on the left side of the ” bell curve ” distribution of scores. For example, applicants for graduate study in Education Administration – tested between July 1, 2001, and June 30, 2004 – had a combined mean total GRE score of 950 (Verbal – 427; Math – 523). That is sixth from the bottom of 51 fields of graduate study tabulated by the Educational Testing Service. The mean total GRE score across all fields was 1066. Which applicants had still lower total GRE scores than applicants in Education Administration ? Social Work – 896, Early Childhood – 913, Student Counseling – 928, Home Economics – 933, Special Education – 934 – education fields all. Other fields with mean GRE scores on the far left side of the GRE bell curve? Seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth from the left tip of the curve, respectively: Public Administration ( ” practices and roles of public bureaucracies ” ) – 965, Other Education – 968, Elementary Education – 970, Education Evaluation and Research – 985, Other Social Science – 993.

Note the pattern: Eighty plus percent on far-left-side-of-the-GRE-bell-curve are headed for – or, more likely, already employed by – public education systems. Ninety plus percent are headed for some form of government employment.

The picture is not unrelievedly bleak. There is a GRE outlier in the public education world: Secondary Education – 1063, in the middle of the GRE bell curve. That makes sense. Many secondary school teachers have academic degrees. Problems at the high school level may have less to do with teacher aptitude than with students ‘ K-8 preparation, with the regulatory/contractual straitjacket in which high schools operate, and with education administrators ‘ aptitude (mean GRE – 950), which likely contributes, for example, to school systems ‘ tolerance of out-of-field teaching:

On average, then, the best of teachers—as a class: secondary level teachers—are average. What that makes pubschool administrators—as a class—is subnormal.

Or, as I like to put it from my years’ exposure to the breed, dumber than rocks.

N.B. All of these assessments are based on differentiated classes of persons, determined by both such objective criteria as GRE scores and subjective evaluation based on performance, personal evaluation of curricula I’ve been exposed to for advanced work in education and ed admin, etc. There ARE sterling examples among teachers, administrators and ancilliary personnel in our schools. I have known many fine, intelligent, hard-working teachers (often “beaten down” or burned out by the system and often ganged up on by lazy, incompetent and stupid colleagues *sigh*) and three very good principals. Exceptions do exist within this sub(human) species.

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