Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Edu-blogging for the smart set

Yeh, that sounds elitist, doesn’t it? S’all right.  I’m really just one of the “dumb set” bystanders.
 
I know there’s a Carnival of Education (recent carnival linked), and I’ve read some of the posts.  Some pretty good stuff, and I’ll be reading more. Still… here’s something I’ve been waiting for. Speaking of public schools, Jerry Pournelle (like you’ve not seen that name here before) write,
 
…Whatever modern education has done for the averages, the effect of No Child Left Behind is that No Child Gets Ahead — which is in fact the only way to assure the No Child Left Behind result.
 
Next week I will start a new page (or pages) dedicated to what can be done. One section will be devoted to homeschooling: materials available, recommended reading, and the like. I know there are home schooling networks, and it may be that those are Good Enough, so that all that’s really needed is to link into them. I will also look into supplementary reading and supplementary education materials for those who can’t do home schooling.
Oh, there’s more viewpoint in that post, including the nearly-agreeing-with-my-assessment,
 
In my judgment the failure of education in the US has reached a crisis stage: one could almost say that compulsory education in the public schools comes very close to child abuse.
Where Pournelle falls short in that statement, IMO, is “one could almost say.”  Prisons for kids is more like it. *sigh* Still, pop on over for a read.
 
And note the last sentence in this snippet.  It’s one reason why polemicists are often at cross purpose with folks like Dr. Pournelle: he’s open to reason.
 
…there are pockets of excellence left in the public school system but increasingly No Child Left Behind==No Child Gets Ahead is destroying those in the name of equality and diversity. I’m open to refutation of that hypothesis also.
 
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Thank a Veteran

If you do not feel you owe a debt of gratitude to veterans of our military who served with honor protecting your liberties, I just don’t want to know you.
 
Lashed by the not-so-thinly-disguised disdain of the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade and the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army, scorned by the Great Unwashed of Academia, our military personnel serve the primary legitimate function of government: protection of its citizens from outlaws and outlaw regimes which would seek to harm us.
 
For that alone—quite apart from the hardships they may endure in service—they deserve our gratitude, respect and clear and unequivocal expressions of thanks.
 
So, to all who have honorably served or are honorably serving in our country’s military, Thank You. And to the families of those who have given their lives so that we may breathe free, no thanks is great enough, no honor is higher than the one bought and paid for by your sacrifice.
 
God bless you one and all.
 
We now return to our regular programming of snark aimed primarily at those in the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade and the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army—you know: those who just won’t “get” the point of this post. Not because they can’t but because they choose not to.
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Moi?

So, I’m griping about socks…
 
“I know I put a pair of these in the wash! Now I have one white sock of one kind and one of another,  They’re different shapes, sizes and thicknesses.  Arrggghhh! I’ll be walking around unbalanced!”
 
And Wonder Woman gives me The Lookâ„¢ that says, “So? This is news?” (aieee! My eyes! My eyes!)
 
What?!? Moi “unbalanced”?  Surely you jest!
 
heh
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More assaults on truth from the ACLU

From Whizbang!–
 
More deceit from the ACLU, via Whizbang!:
 
The ACLU released a FBI memo that contains a prisoners report of a Guantanamo guard flushing a Koran.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An FBI agent wrote in a 2002 document made public on Wednesday that a detainee held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had accused American jailers there of flushing the Koran down a toilet.

 
The Pentagon said the allegation was not credible.
 
…The newly released document, dated Aug. 1, 2002, contained a summary of statements made days earlier by a detainee, whose name was redacted, in two interviews with an FBI special agent, whose name also was withheld, at the Guantanamo prison for foreign terrorism suspects.
 

The American Civil Liberties Union released the memo and other FBI documents it obtained from the government under court order through the Freedom of Information Act.

I’ve seen various sites claim that Newsweek is vindicated, nothing could be further from the truth.–Whizbang!
 
Note, in other accounts, that the detainee who initially made the claim has recanted. Well, of course.  Consider the spin-source—ACLU: Any Criminal Lie Used.  See the rest at Whizbang!
 
Crossposted at America’s Third World County/Protest the ACLU
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Carnival of the Recipes is up at Fresh as a Daisy

I’ve been looking forward to this one.  A couple of recipes I’ve wanted to see hit the blogosphere’s premier food lovers’ group are in this one…
 
Check it out over at Fresh as a Daisy.
 
My own offering, a CCCCCC recipe (just go; it’s goooooood), a great flank steak recipe, and—oh, just go!  There’s just too much good stuff to stick around here (unless you wanna pick up my Mocking Wussie Waldorf Salads Salad recipe before you leave.  🙂
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For those who are confused about ID

That’s “Intelligent Design”
 
Every now and then I run across another wannabe enrollee in the Darwinist Seminary who insists that Intelligent Design scientific theorists are “loony right-wing illiterate wacko creationists.”
 
Just goes to show you that the Darwinist religion is as peopled with sub-literate wackos as the Creationists are.
 
Via Jerry Pournelle, here’s one of the better popular explanations of Intelligent Design thinking I’ve seen: “Intelligent Decline, Revisited” by Mustafa Akyol.  A sample:
 

In a nutshell, Intelligent Design is the theory that argues life on Earth is the product of natural laws, chance and intelligence. Darwinism, on the other hand, accepts only the first two causes, because, according to materialist philosophy, intelligence does not exist unless it evolves over time from mindless matter.

 
There’s more, and it’s all easily accessible and calmly presented.
 
This post/link to the article noted at Whizbang!‘s weekly Carnival of the Trackbacks.  Check it out for some posts/articles/stories that may have slipped under your radar.  And while you’re there, check some of the other posts out, like “When squeegees are outlawed, only outlaws will have squeegees,” “Quote Of The Day – Lay Fatwa Edition,” and others.
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A shameless plug…

…for someone else’s blog
 
Kris, of Anywhere But Here, has a very good “journal-type” blog with interesting posts and some newsy things as well.  And every now and then she pops in one of her out-of-the-way internet discoveries that are just pure fun.
 
Here’s one such post pointing to a comprehensive answer to that age-old question: Why did the chicken cross the road?
 
Check things out over at Kris’ place.  You might decide it’s one to blogroll.  I did.
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My poly-compass…

You might have thought, reading some of my posts about schools, congresscritters, Islamic jihadists, etc., that I’m a right-wing extremist of some sort.
 
Nothing (except assuming me to be a flaming anarchist :-) could be further from the truth:
 

Not a surprise to folks who know me well, perhaps. I’m just about as centrist as can be. (Although I have some libertarian leanings the test did not ask particular questions to uncover. heh 🙂 
 
Take the test yourself and see where it marks your political compass.  As these things go, it seems to be better than most.
 
By contrast to my scores, Ted Kennedy would likely fit in the far, far upper left-hand corner (slotting in by his soul mate Joseph Stalin), George W. Bush would fit about midway in the upper right hand quadrant, close to Margaret Thatcher, and Jean Fraud sKerry would be wandering aimlessly around the upper left hand quadrant (with furtive and abortive forays into uncharted territory in the upper right hand quadrant), depending upon the latest wind—and accusing some Secret Service agent of pushing him around the compass.
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Sympathy for the Devil

From the depths of my most charitable being I offer this sympathy card to the wounded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi…
 
 
To: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
(I’ve addressed this to you in Malawi,
Cos I hear you’re running
From folks who’re gunning
For you, for a lark on safari.)
 
Your wounds may be sorely pressing,
And even, perhaps, quite distressing,
But I take hope in this,
You insufferable piss-
They’ve poisoned your surgical dressing.
 
So, as your wounds fill with puss,
We’ll charter a big Grehound bus
To haul in the tourists
(We need no jurists)
To jeer as you whine, moan and fuss.
 
Your passing will leave us distressed,
For really, in case you’ve not guessed,
We all think it fitter
You suffer long, bitter
Agonies; yes, that is best.
 
(Yeh, it’s doggerel. What? I’m going to spend time polishing actual poetry for that scabrous, mangy dog?)