A Failing Grade–well, duh.

Walter Williams has an easy job. He’s busy dishing dirt on American “education” in his two most recent columns.

Here’s a sample from the latest:

…Recently released findings of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) ranked U.S. high school students 24th out of 29 countries. American 15-year-olds demonstrate less math proficiency than their counterparts in Hungary and the Slovak Republic. With those findings, we shouldn’t be surprised by a recent U.S. Department of Education study finding that nearly half of all college students must take remedial courses in math and reading. According to National Center for Education Statistics, in 2000 close to 80 percent of colleges offered remedial services…

.Gee. It’s almost like stealing pencils from a blind man’s tin cup. In the land of the half wit (American “Public Education” or, as I prefer to call it, Prison for Kids), any wit at all is an unfair advantage…

Keep in mind that the lowest common denominator in government schools is the administrators, who regularly rank below the teachers they supervise in intellectual achievement (heck, in intelligence) and such measures as GRE test scores. No wonder administrators place roadblock after roadblock in teachers’ way: they are just plain flat too stupid (as a class) to be able to do anything else. The only people who have strong influence upon what is taught who are demonstrably more stupid than administrators are politicians and Mass Media Podpeople.

Online Shopping for Gifts

Michelle Malkin issues this warning to rhose considering Amazon.com for their Christmas shopping. Glenn Reynolds comments on another not-so-wonderful gift-giving “opportunity.” I’ll include the link for the truly sick among my readers (well, “reader,” more like :-), but I’ll describe the object and comment as well, so you don’t absolutely have to click on the link to the “gift”.

YEP, as my column yesterday suggests, you can take care of all your holiday, um, needs online. I don’t think that the “used or refurbished” model should sell very well, though. . . . Eew.

Yeh, it’s a “personal” vibrator… right. That kind. The truly troubling thing about the article wasn’t the link on the Amazon.com page to “two used or refurbished” examples of the article (as Glenn said, Eew!) but the link that reads, “Add to Wedding Registry.”

No further comment needed.

[Update: added the Michelle Malkin link referred to but forgotten when originally posted. 12/20/04]

Opposing Views

OK, it’s time I dealt with a serious issue, for once.

Alchohol consumption. Preferably beer. On one side we have (the fictional) Dean Woermer saying in “Animal House” (1978), “Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

OTOH, Cliff (a slightly less fictional character [heh] ) outlined the Buffalo Theory of Alchohol Consumption” on a “Cheer’s” episode pretty much thusly:

“Well you see, Norm, it’s like this… A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo and when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive drinking of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.” (Thx to DNW for the Buffalo Theory.)

Well, there you have it. The arguments for and against alchohol consumption. Diametrically opposed, neither one seems compelling. I fear the controversy is with us forever, given the chasm that gapes between these two intellectual giants’ positions and the near inmpossibility that we lesser mortals can reconcile the stances of these two great authorities on the effects of booze, glorious booze, hot sausage and mustard, While we’re in the mood…

Sorry. That’s another story.