in Germany that is. Socialism and labor unions at work. The number of unemployed workers in February is between 3.97 million to 5.2 million depending on how it is measured. Ya think they could have rounded up the 3.97 million to 4 million?? Nah, neither did I. Read all about it at BBC news on line.
Yes there IS a silver lining, a whopping 14,000 jobs were added to a total workforce of 38.9 million in February and the economy is expected to grow at a rate of 1% in 2005.
Walter Williams takes us on a historical tour of social security in his recent column titled “Social Security Deceit”. There are so many juicy insightful quotes, I’ll limit myself to one and suggest you read the article for the rest…
Vital to any Ponzi scheme, like Social Security, is the ability to recruit as many suckers as possible. In 1999, a little noticed part of President Clinton’s plan to “save” Social Security was to force 5 million previously exempted employees into Social Security. If they were forced into Social Security, it would have created billions in additional revenue. Guess what. Twelve senators, including five Democrats — Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) — descended on the White House to demand that President Clinton not support forcing 5 million of their constituents into Social Security. They warned of the adverse impact on employees in terms of lower rates of return and lost flexibility.
This is a big deal…
“It’s strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq,” explains Jumblatt. “I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world.” Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. “The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.”
David Ignacious explains the changing Middle East dynamic in his “Berlin Wall” column at the Washington Post (registeration required). Change is coming. I think it’s safe to say we live in interesting times.
Barry Garelick captures my thoughts and experience perfectly regarding the sorry state of math educatation in todays school system. He hits the “nail on the head” so many times I don’t even know where to start. Here’s a small outake that I can identify with:
At the time I started tutoring, my daughter was in 2nd grade. I was concerned that she was not learning her addition and subtraction facts. Other parents we knew were saying the same thing. Teachers told them not to worry because kids eventually “get it.”
One teacher told me her understanding of the new method. “It used to be that if you missed a concept or method in math, then you were lost for the rest of the year. But the way we do it now, kids have a lot of ways to do things, like adding and subtracting, so that math topics from day to day aren’t dependent on kids’ mastering a previous lesson.”
In a world where it doesn’t matter when you learn something, because you’ll get it eventually, there seem to be few if any critical junctures, no mastery of procedure, no building on what you’ve learned—no learning
The addition example above I can identify with from personal experience. The “fuzzy math” folks absolutely hate the concept of “algorithm” and they expect students to “discover” how to add and multiply (or subtract and divide). A “carry” or “borrow” operation is avoided at all costs. It’s fine for the students to “discover” how to do math as long as they don’t discover the old algorithms! Be sure to read the “Anything-Goes Math” sidebar.
I believe the way “New math” is taught today is nothing short of an absolute abomination. Engineering and Science shortages are bound to happen as students simply are NOT learning math in such a way that they will become successful. Both of my children are in Kumon math in an effort to counterattack the effects of National Science Foundation (Connected Math) backed math programs.
Thanks to Joanne Jacobs, one of the best education bloggers on the planet, for steering me to Barry’s article.
Global Warming that is. I’m not surprised that this showed up on CNN/Reuters first. Global warming is real and it’s our fault. Leaving no room for doubt, here’s the introduction…
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Studies looking at the oceans and melting Arctic ice leave no room for doubt that it is getting warmer, people are to blame, and the weather is going to suffer, climate experts have said.
I particularly like this statement…
“The debate over whether or not there is a global warming signal is now over, at least for rational people,” he said.
Time will tell. It would be easier to believe if not for so many loud, shrill screaming voices over the years. Bring on the rebuttals.
a dream according to this Reuters article. I particularly like this dose of reality…
“Virtually every candidate called for American energy independence — which is something that may sound good in a campaign, but has no grounding in reality,” Dave O’Reilly, chief executive of No. 2 U.S. oil company ChevronTexaco Corp. (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , told an energy gathering earlier this week. “With the political season behind us, we can move from rhetoric to reality. We must create an energy policy that is pragmatic and holistic, and which reflects the reality of the interdependent world in which we live.”
In Boulder the political funny season never ends.
Todays Opinion Journal has an article titled “Hockey Stick on Ice: Politicizing the science of global warming” (registration required but OJ is free). The article is regarding the hockey stick shape of North American temperatures over the last 1000 years. As you can imagine, the “toe” of the hockey stick is the last 100 years of this time period. This graph is the product of “research” done by geoscientist Michael Mann in the late 1990’s.
This hockey stick concept has gathered such importance that according to OJ, “Little wonder, then, that Mr. Mann’s hockey stick appears five times in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s landmark 2001 report on global warming, which paved the way to this week’s global ratification–sans the U.S., Australia and China–of the Kyoto Protocol.”
However, there were critics from the start, and the results were immediately challanged. The results are not surprising considering the concept of global warming has created a “religion” around it.
Yet there were doubts about Mr. Mann’s methods and analysis from the start. In 1998, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics published a paper in the journal Climate Research, arguing that there really had been a Medieval warm period. The result: Messrs. Soon and Baliunas were treated as heretics and six editors at Climate Research were made to resign
This seems almost unbelievable, six editors resigned and two scientists are treated as heretics. One hopes they did more then question Mr. Mann for that to happen. However, in 2003 in a bid to preserve academic freedom two canadians analyzed Mr. Manns data and they concluded:
Mr. Mann’s work was riddled with “collation errors, unjustifiable truncations of extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculations of principal components, and other quality control defects.” Once these were corrected, the Medieval warm period showed up again in the data.
The results of this questioning are:
Mr. Mann was forced to publish a retraction of some of his initial data, and doubts about his statistical methods have since grown. Statistician Francis Zwiers of Environment Canada (a government agency) notes that Mr. Mann’s method”preferentially produces hockey sticks when there are none in the data.”Other reputable scientists such as Berkeley’s Richard Muller and Hans von Storch of Germany’s GKSS Center essentially agree.
One wonders how Mr. Mann’s work passed peer review to begin with? Perhaps the reviewers are already feeding at the trough of the global warming crowd, and to disupte Mr. Mann’s findings would mean loss of funding for their pet projects? Apparently academic freedom isn’t enough freedom for the peer reviewers, they apparently need a “shot” of courage on the side.
A one paragraph blurb in the Feb 13th Parade magazine puts into focus China’s energy demands. In part it reads…
This winter, residents of major Chinese cities have been sitting in the dark, shivering. The culprit: a massive coal shortage caused by the rising demands of industrialization.
Starting February 21st you can find your way to the paragraph from here. I recently saw another article on how China had surpassed the USA in consuming natural resources with the exception of energy. I will try and locate it tonight and post.
According to Parade Magazine (article not available yet):
Dictator Country This Year Last Year
Omar al-Bashir Sudan 1st 7th
Kim Jong Il North Korea 2nd 1st
Than Shwe Burma 3rd 2nd
Hu Jintao China 4th 3rd
Crown Prince Abdullah Saudi Arabia 5th 5th
Muammar al-Quaddafi Libya 6th Dishonorable mention
Pervez Musharraf Pakistan 7th Not Mentioned
Suparmurat Niyazov Turmkenistan 8th 8th
Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe 9th 4th
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Equatorial Guinea 10th 6th
I don’t believe Kim Jong Il had thrown his latest nuclear weapon temper tantrum or he would probably be back in 1st place.
Also sorry about the formatting, the Blogger editor apparently leaves something to be desired!
If ever Boulder County gave itself an award, it would be for smart growth. Luckily for the majority of Americans this isn’t a contagious disease. What happens when an area has smart growth? According to the report titled “Smart Growth and Its AEfects on the Housing Market: The New Segregation” by the National Center of Public Policy Researach …
1) 260,000 minority homeowners circa 2002 would not have been able to become homeowners;
2) One million homeowners of all races circa 2002 would not have been able to afford their homes by that year;
3) The average home price in 2002 would have been $10,000 more expensive;
4) The average cost of renting a home or apartment in 2002 would have increased six percent over its actual price.
This should be required reading for all City and County Boulderites and you can read it here! Kudos to Katie at A Constrained Vision and Amy Ridenoir’s blog as well.
Unless you live in a cave, no doubt you’re familiar with the Ward Churchill saga. Today the Daily Camera editors have come to his defense, primarily under the freedom of speech theme and citing past incidents where the University of Colorado (CU) has not defended the faculty against political pressure. Their Sunday editorial ends as follows:
By launching a politically expedient investigation of a professor, the CU Board of Regents sent a chilling message to professors who hold wildly unpopular views: Their jobs may be in peril.
There is no evidence that Churchill, with his flamboyantly odious metaphor, committed a firing offense. Last week, the regents should have said so, thereby making a rare show of courage, prudence and integrity.
Miserably and spectacularly, they failed to defend the central, cherished creed of the university. That damage is done. Now, we can only hope that they do no more harm. We can only pray that, ultimately, they will keep the faith.
While they are busy dragging up the past and playing the freedom of speech card, they never define a “firing offense”. They leave that task to their part time token Republican columnist John Caldera of the Independence Institute . His column states the following:
Article 5 of the Laws of the Board of Regents spells out the causes to fire tenure faculty members as well as their responsibilities.
Among Churchill’s responsibilities are “to act on and off the campus with integrity and in accordance with the highest standards of their profession. Faculty members should be accurate at all times, should exercise appropriate restraint and show respect for the opinions of others.”
after a sidetrip, he continues with the Boards or Regents laws…
The same laws state the causes for dismissal: “demonstrable professional incompetence, neglect of duty, insubordination, conviction of a felony or any offense involving moral turpitude or other conduct which falls below minimum standards of professional integrity.”
It seems that reasonable people can conclude a study by the Board or Regents is reasonable “next step”, and that is exactly what they are doing. Last Thursday they started a 30 day review of Ward Churchill’s various writings. (As a side note, the Daily Camera stated the review period is a month. There’s a difference as I found out when violating the grace period for auto registration!)
I certainly side with the Board of Regents that a study is justified. It seems the Camera editors don’t trust the Regents to come to the “obvious” conclusion. The Regents should judge Ward Churchill using Article 5 of the Laws of the Board of Regents, no more, no less.
Additional Daily Camera editorial comments can be round here (Clint Talbott), here (Susan Deans), and here.
on January 15th, 1935:
“In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, noncontributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities that in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.”
emphasis added. Read the complete artice from Tech Central Station here. And to no one’s surprise, the Daily Camera came through supporting the typical liberal bandaid solution to Social Securities ills. Those guys rarely meet a tax increase they don’t like.
Well Minneapolis may not be stoopid, but the editors of the Minneapolis Star definitely are. Unlike most blog readers (and bloggers) in the world, Power Line has only recently gotten on my radar screen. They have some type of feud with the Star who seems like the child in this relationship. Read about the stoopid editors here.
KBFR was Boulder’s pirate radio station. The equipment owners “jumped the gun” and purchased their low power broadcasting equipment before the final bill was passed. The final legislation, while not technically outlawing low power FM stations, basically did just that especially in urban areas.
That said, these jokers decided they would run their radio station anyway. They picked a frequency of 95.3 MHz which plants them close to two stations owned by broadcasting conglomerate Clear Channel Communications. The two channels were KBCO (97.3) and “The Peak” (96.5). The story goes that no one knows who turned them in to the FCC but clearly the KBFR owners are of suspicous of Clear Channel.
From the articles I have, KBFR (Boulder Free Radio) started sometime between January 2000 and June of 2001 and has had a run of over 4 years. This article in todays paper says the station has shut down for good. Apparently the FCC “brought the hammer down” so to speak. The station director has this to say…
We’re gone for good,” Monk, the station’s pseudonymous director, said in an e-mail Wednesday. “When the government decides they want to’get’ you at all costs, there’s little you can do to win. … Welcome to fascist America.”
The kinder gentler definition of facism is:
Oppressive, dictatorial control.
Who broke the law here, not only once but many times over the last 4 years? They jumped the gun and bought their equipment before the law was passed, didn’t like the final legislation, and did what they wanted anyway, in clear violation of the laws. I suspect they caused no harm, but their reaction to a law that didn’t agree with their plans shows little respect for the rule of law.
I doubt I can bring myself to watch more then a few minutes of the televised city council meeting this evening as they discuss building fences to contain the spread of prairie dogs. How these animals (rodents) got put on such a pedestal in the city and county is a post for another day. At anyrate, here’s a letter to the editor complaining about the “fences without a plan”, not to mention the $$$’s spent. It’s at the bottom of the page, enjoy!
Ward Churchill resigned his position as Chair of Ethnic studies at the University of Colorado today. You can read the article and letter of resignation here.
Highlights are:
While I am immensely proud of my administrative accomplishments in the chair’s position over the past two-and-half years, it is my considered view that the present political climate has rendered me a liability in terms of representing either my department, the college, or the university in this or any other administrative capacity.
My decision to resign immediately is therefore subject to neither reconsideration nor negotiation.
He’s got the liability part correct, I hope it won’t take too long for him to figure out he’s still an unwelcome liability. That said, I suspect he thrives on being an “unwelcome liability”. It’s also good to know he won’t change his mind, as if someone’s going to ask.
It took a few days for the Daily Camera to chime in on Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who believes the victims in the World Trade Center Towers were far from innocent. While suggesting he is protected by tenure and has the right to “spew such tripe”, the editors show little sympathy for Mr. Churchill. The editorial concludes as follows:
In this regard, Churchill enjoys greater-than usual free-speech rights. For
most people, public malice toward innocent victims could well mean unemployment.
Though we all are free to spout vile views, our employers might find such
hateful speech sufficient cause for firing.Meanwhile, Churchill can blithely suggest, obliquely, that knocking off
stockbrokers is justifiable. In doing so, he needn’t fret over his paycheck,
which is, incidentally, substantial. The most recently available salary figures
show that he earns more than $90,000 annually. That is, no doubt, much more than
the wages of many capitalist “Eichmanns” murdered on Sept. 11.It is therefore odd — and more than a bit hypocritical — that a man who
enjoys such freedom and emits such venom is trying to characterize Columbus Day
celebrations as “hate speech,” and to thwart such observances. Then again, a man
who blames victims for their own demise probably has no compunction in arguing
that he deserves more freedom than the rest of us.
I’m not sure under what circumstances a teacher is protected by tenure, etc but I would simply like to point out that freedom of speech does not mean freedom of platform.
I’m sure if the Prebble mouse losses is protection under the endangered species act as described in this article, it won’t keep the Boulder County Commissioners and the land use zealots from continuing to use it as a tool control growth and house remodeling. Science is convenient when it supports your ideas but easily ignored when it doesn’t. I expect the power troika to continue to use the mouse as a tool to control people’s property rights.
It sure wouldn’t be surprising if a disproportionate amount of the dollars mentioned below have been spent in Boulder County…
Builders, landowners and local governments have spent as much as $100
million by some estimates protecting the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse since it
was added to the federal list in 1998 as a species whose survival was considered
“threatened.”
Neil let’s the UN have it with both barrels here. Surely they have more important things to do??
Columnist Clay Evans of the Daily Camera points out in his column how the Boulder City and County prairie dog colonies have sown the seeds of their own destruction. His comments are made in context to a recently passed law allowing the City to be involved in deciding the fate of prarie dogs on private property. The City previously had stricter regulations but was informed by the state that those laws contradicted state law.
I watched some of the debate over the new regulations and the regulations that were passed were proposed after hour of debate on more restrictive suggestions. There are a couple of passages that I find illuminating in Mr. Evans columns…
But Boulder has begun to see the ill effects of its good intentions, and
the days of unsustainable relocation are ending. On Jan. 19, the City Council
adopted a policy that would allow landowners to kill prairie dogs under strict
conditions. Landowners must apply for permission to kill prairie dogs and prove
that they have explored all alternatives. Then the public will have two months
to make non-lethal suggestions of their own. The city manager then can delay
killing for up to a year if any options warrant further exploration.
(Relocation, keep in mind, is increasingly difficult, caught between the state’s
foolish law banning the transport of prairie dogs across county lines without
the explicit permission of commissioners, and Boulder County’s limited suitable
habitat.)
I really don’t like the liberty given to the City Manager. First of all, there’s no land in the City to relocate the prairie dogs to and secondly there’s no space in the County either. Is the Manager simply going to create land out of “nothing” or start arm twisting to get other governments or even private citizens to open up land for the “dogs”? To me, it’s simply a sign of the environmentalists invading personal property rights combined with both the City and the Counties desire to see as little construction as possible. Oh, I nearly forgot, it isn’t mentioned that the private property owner has to pay an application fee (or some type of fee) to start this process. This fee is on the order of $1000!
Furthermore, what’s Clays issue with laws restricting the transportation of the “dogs” across county lines? Given that we know how they mulitply and destroy land, seems like getting permission from a neighboring county where you want to “drop them off” so to speak isn’t asking a whole heck of alot. If the City and County of Boulder want to protect them, they created the problem, they need to fix it. Perhaps they can buy or condemn private property to allow the prairie dogs room to roam!?
Another interesting fact is the City has spent $600,o00 controlling the spread of prairie dogs in the last 4 years. Hello…. that’s not how I want my tax money being spent, especially when the City budget is under stress.
