This Just In: The Progressive magazine

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything and I was beginning to think I may not have the desire anymore. Maybe I was just caught up in the election frenzy and rhetoric. Then I clicked on my link to The Progressive and found this:

"Bush's Inaugural Address contained many explicit references to God, but there were even more hidden allusions to the Bible that may have been lost to many in his audience, as they were to me, before I did some research.

The subtle subtext of his speech carries with it a profoundly disturbing message about the separation of church and state in this country."

Now, if I had the time - and the paranoia of Matthew Rothschild - I would research ALL the inaugural speeches from the past looking for biblical references. My guess is that we'd all be surprised by the frequency. I probably would have to look no further than Bill Clinton's efforts in this research to find multiple references.

We are, and always have been, a nation formed by Christian values. We also - or I should say our forefathers - had the foresight to write a Constitution that forbids the government from establishing a national religion, or preventing anyone from freely practicing their own religion. That doesn't mean we can't openly refer to, cite or talk about religion. They are beliefs. Just like certain liberal beliefs that I personally don't believe in, but I don't demand that they be censored!

Finally. Charges in the tire slashing case.

This story took almost three months to get to this point, but based on the District Attorney's response, it's no surprise:

McCann said the state's relatively clean political history makes such election-day sabotage without precedent in his memory.

"This isn't what goes on all the time in Wisconsin," he said, citing his recollection of contentious elections from the late 1960s. "... There might be signs torn down in those campaigns, but never anything like this."

Apparently, Mr McCann has 'selective' memory. Wasn't it just the last Presidential election when a Democratic operative was providing 'smokes-for-votes'? Oh, yeah. I don't think there were ever charges brought - so it didn't happen!

More "Progressiveness" from San Francisco

JS Online: News:

"The city's Commission on the Environment is expected to ask the mayor and board of supervisors Tuesday to consider a 17-cent per bag charge on paper and plastic grocery bags. While the goal is reducing plastic bag pollution, paper was added so as not to discriminate."

What's a bit surprising is that the resolution didn't include the purchase of shopping bags made from hemp to be provided to each and every citizen at taxpayer cost. Somehow, I think the commission discussed it, but chose not to report it - yet!

US Ignored Warning on Iraqi Oil Smuggling

In a comment to an earlier post, Anonymous (this guy gets around) pointed me to this article US Ignored Warning on Iraqi Oil Smuggling, with the suggestion that the US "didn't care." Since I don't have a way of communicating with Anonymous directly, I will do so here by asking if he thinks this "revelation" validates or justifies the UN scandal?

As I read the article, I don't see any suggestion or evidence that the US was directly involved in the scandal. No where does it say that the US was a direct beneficiary of, or a collaborator in, this scam. The most damning evidence is this:

"However, FT/Il Sole have evidence that US and UK missions to the UN were informed of the smuggling while it was happening and that they reported it to their respective governments, to no avail. Oil traders were told informally that the US let the tankers go because Amman needed oil to build up its strategic reserves in expectation of the Iraq war."

Understand that at the time (January and February of 2003), this was a plausible explanation by two countries who were preparing to go to war with a defiant dictator who was not complying with UN sanctions - or perhaps he was. In some ways, Saddam was the biggest pawn in this game. Don't get me wrong, he is an evil an ruthless dictator who deserves everything he gets and more. But he was hearing from one side of the UN (the US, UK and other allies) that he must comply with sanctions or will face the consequences. On the other side (Annan, the French, Germans, Russians, etc) that he shouldn't worry (wink-wink). The UN will protect him as long as the oil flows (I admit this is an assumption, but based on the audit reports, pretty likely). No one believed that the US and others would actually keep their word. No one believed that the sanctions would ever be enforced. These things just don't happen. At least not under the previous administration.

The evidence uncovered and presented in this article, that the US knew about illegal shipments and did nothing about them is a sham. It's possible that US may not have followed the UN's policy or international process of reporting these shipments. No. They decided to end them by enforcing the larger sanctions and removing the dictator from his throne.

So, yes. I guess the US didn't care. We didn't care to play by the UN's rules. I can live with that.

Prayer at the inauguration...maybe not?

WSJ OpinionJournal - Taste:

"Next Thursday, George W. Bush's inauguration will include a religious invocation . . .unless Michael Newdow has his way. Mr. Newdow, the atheist lawyer who last year failed to persuade the Supreme Court to eliminate the words 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance, has filed a lawsuit seeking to remove all prayer and 'Christian religious acts' from the Jan. 20 inauguration."

Mr. Newdow claims that a prayer or religious invocation at the President's inauguration (a practice that dates back to the first inauguration as the article points out) is a violation of the First Ammendment's separation clause and:

"He claims that an inauguration that includes prayers by religious ministers would turn nonbelievers "into second-class citizens and create division on the basis of religion."

I'm sorry. There are any number of things that could and can be done or said that would alienate me from others who believe in what they happen to believe in. Every day there are news stories, movies, television programs, radio shows, and comments or demonstrations by people in the streets that can offend someone and make them feel like an outsider.

The bigger question I have is, other than feeling like an outsider or "second-class" citizen, what impact does the act of a religious invocation or prayer have on Mr. Newdow's personal life? Does it prevent him from making a living? Does it prevent him from having food and shelter? Does it limit his own personal freedoms of expression?

This may be harsh, but I don't care about his personal feelings. His argument that, because it's the government expressing this belief, doesn't hold any water with me. The government is not mandating or enforcing any religious practice (which is what the First Ammendment was designed to prevent). You can hear the invocation as an atheist, agnostic, pagan, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc and still know, that in the United States, you can practice what you believe.

This government is "for the people, by the people" meaning that we are all part of the government - whether we like it or not. Each of us expresses our opinions regularly and each of us are exposed to others opinions regularly. We don't always agree, and never will. (see earlier post) But we move on in our lives and get over it because in the end, it's not what someone else's belief does to you, it's what your belief does to yourself.

The Oil for Food Audits

More damning reports about this U.N. program. This from the WSJ. Where's the outrage from the Left regarding this incompetance and corruption? Let's not hold our breath:

"Which brings us to the fact that the Volcker Commission appears to have drawn some fairly damning conclusions already. In the briefing paper accompanying the release of these audits it marvels at the critical aspects of the program that weren't audited. Although 'the potential for abuse was a principal concern of the U.N. team that negotiated the Memorandum of understanding with Iraq in 1995,' the Commission writes, 'there were no examinations of the oil and humanitarian contracts' or the processing of letters of credit by BNP Paribas, which handled the program money. Such examinations, the Commission states, might have deterred the surcharge and kickback schemes Saddam used to get around sanctions."

It's worth reading the whole thing. There's a link to the audit reports as well.

No Teacher Left Behind

This Op-Ed piece from Terry Moe (Mr. Moe, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, and a professor of political science at Stanford, is the winner of this year's Thomas B. Fordham prize for distinguished scholarship in education) in the WSJ, illustrates the largest known problem in education, yet the one that will be most difficult to overcome:

"The problem is not that the unions are somehow bad or ill-intentioned. They aren't. The problem is that when they simply do what all organizations do -- pursue their own interests -- they are inevitably led to do things that are not in the best interests of children.

To appreciate why this is so, consider the parallel to business firms. No one claims that these organizations are in business to promote the public interest. They are in business to make money, and this is the fundamental interest that drives their behavior. Thus, economists and policy makers fully expect firms to pollute the water and air when polluting is less costly (and more profitable) than not polluting -- and that is why we have laws against pollution. The problem is not that firms are out to destroy the environment. The problem is simply that their interests are not identical to the public interest, and the two inevitably come into conflict."

Here are some examples of what their interests impact:

"The unions are opposed to No Child Left Behind, for example, and indeed to all serious forms of school accountability, because they do not want teachers' jobs or pay to depend on their performance. They are opposed to school choice -- charter schools and vouchers -- because they don't want students or money to leave any of the schools where their members work. They are opposed to the systematic testing of veteran teachers for competence in their subjects, because they know that some portion would fail and lose their jobs. And so it goes. If the unions can't kill these threatening reforms outright, they work behind the scenes to make them as ineffective as possible -- resulting in accountability systems with no teeth, choice systems with little choice, and tests that anyone can pass."

Finally, Mr. Moe ends with this:

"Only when the public speaks out will politicians have the courage -- and the electoral incentive -- to do the right thing. And only then will the interests of children be given true priority."

TCS: Comparing Monsters and the Left

This is a different point of view:

"What's a non-reproducing leftie to do? Discarding leftism is out. Having more ... ick ... children ... with their stinky diapers and expensive college educations and drain on the world's limited resources and whiny tantrums right in the middle of All Things Considered ... is out, too. So the Left is, er, left with two options for ensuring the survival of their ideology: the Bride of Frankenstein option and the Dracula option."

Entertaining. Read the whole thing.

Thomas Sowell: I beg to disagree

Thomas Sowell on the need for critical thinking skills:

" Instead of trying to propagandize children to hug trees and recycle garbage, our schools would be put to better use teaching them how to analyze and test what is said by people who advocate tree-hugging, recycling, and innumerable other causes across the political spectrum.

The point is not to teach them correct conclusions but to teach them to be able to use their own minds to analyze the issues that will come up in the years ahead, which may have nothing to do with recycling or any of the other issues of our time."

The overall theme of the article is to consider facts rather than emotion when considering an opinion or course of action:

"Unfortunately, our educational system is not only failing to teach critical thinking, it is often itself a source of confused rhetoric and emotional venting in place of systematic reasoning."

I understand the "value" in minimizing disagreements and confrontation from the standpoint of emotion. No one wants their feelings hurt. But as addressed in the article, greater understanding of issues often comes from disagreement if a discussion of facts ensues.

From an institutional education position, this is yet another example of incompatible goals: embrace diversity but think the same way.

Teachers may get more time to talk

Well, it's about time:

"The West Bend School Board is considering changing the Monday morning start-time in both district high schools from 7:30 a.m. to 8:05 a.m. - meaning, unless you take the bus, which will keep the same schedule, you'll have an extra 35 minutes to snooze.

School would continue to get out at 2:31 p.m. so it's not like you'll have to stick around later in the day."

According to the school principal of West Bend East, the reason is because:

Teachers need to spend more time collaborating, talking to each other about teaching strategies and curriculum and student achievement data, she believes.

To borrow from John Stossel: Give Me A Break! As an earlier post suggests, when teachers begin acting like the professionals they claim to be, they will be treated as such.

The article goes on to point out that between now and the end of the school year, the teachers have 5 days off - besides spring break - to "collaborate". What's wrong with sticking around an extra 30 minutes after school ends - AT 2:31! - to get their "strategies" in place? That still gets them home 2 to 3 hours before the rest of. We need those few extra hours not to "collaborate" and "strategize". We need them to make the extra money to pay our taxes!

Drugs from Canada: The market strikes back

JS Online: Canada threatens drug supply; Doyle seeks Bush's help:

"In recent weeks, Canadian Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh has said the threat of prescription drug shortages or higher prices for Canadians have made it necessary to establish new, more restrictive guidelines under which prescriptions for Americans could be filled. Those guidelines have not yet been established, but Canadian officials say they could include an outright ban on exporting drugs to the United States."

At some time, it would be nice if Democratic leaders would take some basic economic courses before they make policy decisions. Again, the Law of Unintended Consequences is like Newton's Third Law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". You can't avoid it.

Would it be nice if everything was handed to us? If government made everything fair? Considering the natural laws and economic principles, no. I'd hate to see the unintended results.

Justice: Is it just a game?

From an AP report in JS Online:

"Yates' lawyers had argued at a hearing last month before a three-judge panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston that psychiatrist Park Dietz was wrong when he said he consulted on an episode of the TV show 'Law and Order' involving a woman found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children."

Okay. First, how did we get to the point in the justice system that we are debating whether or not someone appeared on a television show to determine if the accused is guilty of the crime committed? Second, was this the ONLY testimony or evidence the prosecution presented in the case against this woman? Third, what yahoo in the DA's office thought this would be a good idea? And finally. What about the kids? You know, the VICTIMS. The children who are now dead.

It seems pretty clear that this woman - the mother of the dead children - committed the act of murder. Why she was charged and convicted for only 3 of the 5 acts is further beyond me, but she did do it.

Now, her defense attorneys want the conviction overturned on a technicality? One that had little bearing on the facts of the crime. Not a technicality like: "it wasn't her hands holding her own children under the water in the bathtub of their own house" kind of technicality. That may have some weight. How does that serve justice?

NYT's: We Are All Torturers Now

The New York Times Op-Ed Contributor:

"By using torture, we Americans transform ourselves into the very caricature our enemies have sought to make of us. True, that miserable man who pulled out his hair as he lay on the floor at Guantanamo may eventually tell his interrogators what he knows, or what they want to hear. But for America, torture is self-defeating; for a strong country it is in the end a strategy of weakness. After Mr. Gonzales is confirmed, the road back - to justice, order and propriety - will be very long. Torture will belong to us all."

Hmmm? Does that mean, based on the actions of our elected leader in the previous administration, we are all adulterers?

Teaching writing - again. Finally!

JS Online: Rewriting education:

"The resurgence of interest in teaching kids how to write comes none too soon in the eyes of some education experts. They see the jobs of the future calling for more ability to put words together effectively, and they think American kids just aren't writing as well as they should."

And this is different than when? Why do we have this desire to ignore basic, common sense practices and go in search of some great, enlightened endeavor? When we do this, our society and our people are cheated. How many kids were put through school during the period prior to this "resurgence of interest in teaching kids how to write" and at what cost?

Teachers' insurance targeted for budget

JS Online: Teachers' insurance targeted for budget:

"In general, teachers now have health insurance that is much better than most workers, with many teachers' plans calling for little, if any, out-of-pocket spending and offering wider ranges of coverage than those offered to workers in other occupations.

But backers of the idea of switching teachers to the state health system - which generally costs much less per person - say the state plan is also a good plan, although it is more restrictive and involves more out-of-pocket expense. 'Most people would be tickled pink to have the plan that is offered by the state,' Gard said.

Ken Cole, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, spoke positively of the idea of switching teachers to the state plan, calling it 'a concrete way of saving school districts in the state a lot of money . . . yet it provides solid benefits for teachers, just as it does for legislators and state employees.' Cole said the alternative to such a change would likely be continued reductions in staff, programs and transportation services.

On the other hand, Alan Jacobs, executive director of the Wisconsin Education Association Trust, the union-affiliated health insurance plan that holds contracts for health plans in 78% of the state's school districts, said teachers greatly value the health insurance they have now and often have shown they would trade pay raises to keep such plans."

When teachers start acting like the Professionals they claim they are (and I agree, they should be Professionals, and many are) and openly criticize the union that represents them, they will see more support from taxpayers who are tired of hearing how bad things are for them.

While teachers do not receive the highest annual salary (although it's arguably comparable on a pro-rated basis), the combined compensation package with insurance and pension is very competitive with similar skilled professions. Add to that, the security of union protection which makes it virtually impossible to be fired, and you have a pretty nice job.

With the increases in insurance to private employers making it harder to keep out of pocket costs low for their employees (my employer faces between a 34 & 37% increase this year), it's no wonder teachers are willing to "trade pay raises to keep such plans". After all, no one said teachers were dumb.

Philanthropy in America

Opinion's - Taste:

"But if Americans are generous, they are also vain. That's the sad conclusion to be drawn from the fact almost every new concert hall, museum, hospital wing and university building bears at least one donor's name. The 'naming opportunity,' as it is called, is the instrument of choice for development officers--their tried-and-true method of coaxing money from wealthy people. The strategy has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for worthy causes. But with its bald pandering, it has also corrupted the true spirit of philanthropy.

With the way the world has reacted regarding the response by the US to the tsunami disaster, I think some of this vanity is in self-defense: "I did give! See, there's my name on the plaque!" We may be the most prosperous country in history and we have our faults, but we are not unique in this regard.

I'd prefer to see more anonymous donations. I don't particularly like 'naming' everything. This is getting especially tiresome in sporting venues and events (hey, isn't the Nokia Sugar Bowl tonight?).

Some Truths About Black Disadvantage

This is an interesting article from a perspective not always taken when discussing racial disadvantages:

"Consider the parable of the paraplegic. A reckless driver runs over a pedestrian, leaving him unable to walk. The driver pays for the pedestrian's treatment and physical therapy, but recovery will require a long, exhausting, and painful effort. The victim is angry. It's not his fault, so why must he face an overwhelming, uphill struggle? But there is no help for it. Although the driver can and must pay, he cannot guarantee success. He cannot make his victim walk again."

I'm not sure we'd be having articles like this if it weren't for people like Bill Cosby take the initiative and voice the opinion first.