January 2007 – third world county

January 31, 2007January 31, 2007

You Do the Math/OTA Day

Yeh, a linkfest, but first: can your kids do simple (really simple) math?

A people who cannot do math are easily fooled by false statistics and prone to falling prey to fallacious arguments. Simple arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) form the foundation for learning how to use numbers with understanding. Heck, simple arithmetic like that demonstrated in the video below is useful in everyday life, because we always have the calculator that’s located between our ears, and facility with numbers can often be faster and easier for on-the-spot calculations than dragging out an electronic calculator when doing price comparisons while shopping, figuring board feet at the lumber yard, etc.

But “educators” (specifically NOT teachers) have managed once again (remember “new math” anyone?) to make simple arithmetic complex enough to ensure failure. (But surely all those “smart” people in schools of education know what they are doing? Surely?)

Watch the video and then check to see what textbook is used in your school district, and what it teaches. I know what’s being used in our local district, and once again the unholy alliance of local school administrators, remote educrats and schools of education have managed to frustrate teachers and students in the pursuit of learning here in America’s Third World CountyÃ¢â€žÂ¢.

When you stop throwing things, get out there and find out what your local schools are teaching. Make some noise if it is “misundereducating” the youth of your community, cos those are future voters and workers, folks.

Want to make more noise? Go here. It’s mentioned in the video above, but what the heck, I’m a reasonably full-service kinda guy.

Once again a h.t. to a contributor at Chaos Manor Musings.

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Right Pundits, Perri Nelson’s Website, The Random Yak, Adam’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, Right Truth, Shadowscope, Common Folk Using Common Sense, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Renaissance Blogger, Planck’s Constant, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Continue reading “You Do the Math/OTA Day”

January 30, 2007January 30, 2007

Listing to Starboard

Sure, it’s a linkfest, but before we get to that, the content indicated by the pun in the title…

The List:

Orson Scott Card, a semi-classical liberal Democrat (meaning not really classical liberal, but leaning that way; a kinda Roosevelt/Truman “liberal”) has another serious essay on the Iraq war worth your time. Being Orson Scott Card must be fun. A strange critter: Semi-classical liberal Democrat; right most of the time. As in

Keep in mind that most of the country of Iraq is functioning surprisingly well, despite the forays of terrorists into Shiite-majority and Kurdish-majority areas. The economy of most of Iraq is doing better than it ever was under Saddam; the people are far more free and, for the Shiites and Kurds at least, safer than before.

I missed this article by Jonah Goldberg, cos it was right around the time of The Great Third World County Ice-out. He cites de Toqueville and takes off from there essentially touching on Samuel Francis’ term “anarcho-tyranny” without actually mentioning the term. Example:

…We ban using trans fats for millions but flinch at the idea that some kid might have to endure the Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence in school if it conflicts with his conscience. Everyone must surrender his shoes, his regular-sized toothpaste and shampoo at the airport, but we man the barricades to protect a few young Muslim men from being inconvenienced for an extra five minutes at the airport.

Linkfested in earlier, this post from Pirate’s Cove deserves to be highlighted. As an example of anarcho-tyranny, the persecution (and prosecution and conviction) of two Border Patrol agents for doing their job stands out head and shoulders above the crowd of government misbehavior in recent months (including even the misbehavior by the prosecutor in the Duke rape case). Shame on the “Justice” Department for proceding with the persecution. Shame on U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton for ginning up the phony charges. Shame on the jury for being so stupid as to convict these two Border patrol agents for doing their job. And shame on President Bush for not getting off Vicente Fox’s lap long enough to pardon these guys.

*sheesh*

Read these three ¹ ² ³ WSJ articles by Charles Murray on education in America. No, really. READ them! Lil tickle from the first one: “Half of all children are below average, and teachers can do only so much for them.”

It’s hard to argue rationally against someone who’s actually done the politically incorrect real science on a subject and is able to make general applications sensibly. (Yes, Charles Murray wrote The Bell Curve. Have you read it?)

More anarcho-tyranny.

“Power corrupts. The ability to arrest and imprison another human being is an immense power that is held in bounds by principles based on common sense and common decency.”

Or not:

Why was the boy pursued so zealously? Jeanne calls it “a witch hunt” fueled by two factors: Thomas campaigned for office on a promise of being tough on sex offenders; and, he needs a high conviction rate in that area.

The real answer, however, may be the one MattÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s attorney reportedly received when he asked the County AttorneyÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s office, “Why are you doing this?”

According to Jeanne, he answered, “Because we can.”

16-year-old boy pursued as a sex offender for… being a (typically hormone-driven stupid) 16-year-old boy. Shades of Duke.

Lastly, just cos I want to, a link to a very short piece on Lincoln, in the spirit of this comment by Jerry Pournelle:

You can prove anything if you make up your data. You can draw any lessons you like from history if you ignore all the inconvenient historical facts. You may learn from good history but you learn little from bad history.

The article says nothing new or surprising (at least to folks who actually read a little history instead of the fluff that’s taught in schools), but it does nicely put paid to “The Great Emancipator” meme.

As Toynbee famouslysaid, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (Of course, he said many other things nearly as pithy about history. :-))

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January 29, 2007January 29, 2007

READ THIS!/Linkfest

Yeh, yeh, this is a linkfest, but as usual, it includes some of my ranting, observations and other “just stuff” that THIS time happen to be of more than usual importance, IMO.

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Read the quote in the header of this blog. Now, consider this comment by Jerry Pournelle, one of those (OK, many :-)) guys who’s a lot smarter than I (or you, for that matter) who has also given some thought to what’s happening in education, government and society in general… and who is usually, IMO, pretty much on target.

Do note that under the court imposed “equality” system of school financing, schools are paid by the state for students who attend. Disciplinary action that results in lower attendance cuts the amount of money the school gets. The result is that particularly in the inner city there is often no discipline, thus no one learns; the equality is equality in misery and incompetence. Under the old system in which local school districts set school taxes and controlled the schools there was at least a chance of discipline and learning. The liberals meant well when they forced the changes in financing. They certainly meant well. They could not possible have wanted to destroy public schools so that wealthy people (like lawyers and judges) could give their kids enormous advantages by sending them to private schools while other children get a primary hamper by being sent to public schools where there is no discipline and thus not a lot of learning. They couldn’t possibly have intended that result. But if they had intended it, would there be a better way to accomplish it than what the courts have imposed on the nation?

Lousy schools. Open borders. Structural reasons for not having school discipline. Free Trade. All well intentioned. The results weren’t intended. Were they?

Go ahead and read the rest of Pournelle’s mini-essay (and the email that spurred it). My experience on the inside, my Wonder Woman’s experience and that of many pubschool teachers (and retired pubschool teachers) in my family and extended family results in a strong resonance with Pournelle’s thoughts.

Let me just add a soupÃƒÂ§on of my own thought to Dr. Pournelle’s comments.

Consider remote educrats and politicians and their effects upon education (and the resultant harm to the electorate, society at large and the security of these sorta-United States). Take Congress, for example (please!). Congress is constitutionally responsible for administering the District of Columbia. Considering the school system in D.C., easily among the worst if not actually THE worst school district in the U.S., the buck stops at Congress’ feet.

Ever wonder how many congresscritters send THEIR children to D.C. public schools? The Heritage Foundation noted in 2003 that

While only 10 percent of American students attend private schools, 41 percent of Representatives and 46 percent of Senators responded that they had sent children to private school…

Ah, but here’s the thing: I have been unable to discover how many of those congresscritters who do send their children to public schools send them to D.C. public schools… I’m willing to wager the number is almost vanishingly small, eh? After all, who would want to send a child to a school in a system where, “…only sixteen percent of DC school children [are] reading and able to do arithmetic at levels expected for their grade”? Certainly not congresscritters, who can easily afford to live outside the leprous boundaries of the nation’s capitol with its execreble education system… for which congresscritters themselves are responsible.

So, when Pournelle asks, “Lousy schools… Structural reasons for not having school discipline… All well intentioned. The results weren’t intended. Were they?” I do wonder, Were they? Unintended, that is. After all, aren’t the best a brightest calling themselves to serve us as political elite? And aren’t the teachers of education in schools of education intelligent and well able to see the results of their tinkerings?

To listen to these peacocks preen, one would think they are smart enough and wise enough to at least see and recognize the results of their disaterous policies, right?

If these folks are as smart and capable as they want us all to believe, then they are the witting perpetrators of enormous wrong upon society and should all be treated to a party hosted by Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether.

If they are as stupid as their policies and theories, then they should be removed from their positions of influence and retrained for menial tasks like hand picking undesired weeds from raw sewage treatment ponds and breaking rocks by hand (OK, some tools allowed under close supervision).

Just a thought.

If you bring the tar, I’ll bring the feathers.

Trackposted to Right Pundits, Perri Nelson’s Website, The HILL Chronicles, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, and basil’s blog, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

January 25, 2007

T-13, 1.15: Thirteen Things I Forgot to Do Today

Before I forget this, too, I’ll just post this as an early “Friday-Saturday-Sunday” linkfest. Link to this post and track back. More below the post.

With my head totally storm-blasted and still digging out from a week and a half of limited-to-no-access and chores, projects and work I had to let slide, I’ve let some other, more recent, things slide and slide and…

Thirteen Things I Forgot to Do Today… until now

1. Look up a repair manual for Lovely Daughter’s lil Sony Vaio notebook (cos I’m having a DEVIL of a time getting the thing apart enough to work on it!). OK, doi9ng that now.

2. Call our homeowner’s insurance agent… again (about the damage to property–yeh, yeh, I know: can’t let it go too long *sigh*). OK, tomorrow. If I remember to check my todos on my Palm.

3. Change the cat litter. Yeh, today was the day for a complete changeout and it’s gotta be done before I go to bed…

4. ALMOST (does that count?) forgot to post today’s Linkfest Haven Deluxe post. Almost. *whew!*

5. Morning supplements/meds. Right. Something I know better than to forget, but how can a guy remember to take his ginko biloba unless he’s already taken it?

6. Log on to my Mitchell’s online book for my car to look up a wiring diagram. Have to do that tomorrow… (Said that yesterday.)

7. (Re-)Set up the downstairs leg of the network (subnet an entirely new leg with it’s own router/firewall separate from the rest of the network. Not just for fun).

8. Clean off deck.

9. Get the mail. (I forgot to pick up the mail! *sheesh!*)

10. Give “The Boys” (son’s dogs) “Fourth Meal”. Oh, well, they can live without that one all right.

11. I forget what number eleven is. Oh, yeh. See #2. I forgot (and how the HECK did I do THAT?!?!?) to check my todo list on my Palm. *profound sigh* No wonder I forgot so many things today.

12. The bedding. I forgot to wash it last weekend (when we didn’t have power but a local laundromat did) and have meant to pop it in every a.m. since our power was restored… but haven’t. *sigh*

13. Do my Thursday Thirteen.

TB-ed to the Thursday Thirteen Hub.

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