View 569 May 4 - 10, 2009 (original) (raw)
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Well, it is official. If you do not BELIEVE in the CO2 theory of Global Warming, you are anti-science. Carbon Dioxide is destroying the planet, and if you don't believe that, you are a primitive idiot undeserving of any attention at all. The science is established. It's the consensus, and anyone who questions it simply doesn't pay attention to real science.
We stagger toward totalitarianism.
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Amazon today introduces the new -- and very expensive -- Kindle DX. The trend in publishing will be the subject of the next column. Prior to the announcement I received
Amazon to Launch Kindle for Textbooks - WSJ.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124146996831184563.html?goback=%2Ehom
This will probably save the Kindle.
Regards,
Francis Hamit
Whether it saves the Kindle will depend on the competition, but it's pretty certain that Kindle-like devices are the wave of the future for textbooks. I'm doing that column now.
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KUSC continues its quarterly pledge drive. The emphasis is on new subscribers. I suppose I should do the same: that is, I have an astonishingly high renewal rate among subscribers -- thanks!! -- but lately the new subscriptions have fallen off. Given the economy that's hardly a big surprise, and I don't intend to spend a lot of time nagging you about it, but I do point out that both this page and the monthly column and mailbag at Chaos Manor Reviews are supported by subscribers -- perhaps a better name would be patrons. We run on the public radio model. It's all free (well almost; there are a few goodies in the closed areas at Chaos Manor Reviews), but if not enough subscribe it can't stay open. Think of this as a gentle reminder to those who find these pages worth your time and intend to subscribe but just didn't get around to it yet. And again, thanks to all those who have recently renewed.
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The Obama Administration has relented -- sort of -- on the death sentence for the alternative education program in the DC school system. They're going to let the kids in the program go on to graduation, but there won't be any new students accepted.
The DC school system is horrible. There is no question that Congress has the constitutional authority to fix the DC school systems; this isn't a "federal aid to education" because Congress is sovereign in the District. They throw money at the schools, and I believe DC spends more per pupil than any other school district in the country. The schools are so awful that almost no Members of Congress or high ranking members of the Executive (including the President) will send their children to the DC public schools. Indeed few who can escape those schools let their kids go to them. The alternative school program in DC was a voucher system, and by all accounts it has been enormously successful.
It makes no sense to shut the program down; it was the escape hatch for a couple of thousand kids, nearly all black, all from the low end of the socio-economic scale, and by all indications I have heard (including the Washington Post) it was very successful. So of course it had to be shut down. Apparently there was a lot of pressure not to tear the kids already in the program out and cast them back into the DC Public School Blob, so there was mercy from above: those kids will be allowed to finish. But the program itself must be cancelled. You may come up with your own reasons for why that very successful program had to go; I suspect you already know.
Incidentally, the Federal Government does know how to operate a school system. The Armed Forces school system works splendidly; it is one of the best school systems in the nation, even though many of its pupils find their academic year interrupted by transfers. It's not an expensive system compared to the DC school system. And it works. Of course the Department of Education does not seem to notice this. Perhaps that is just as well, since if the education establishment learns about it, they will want to take it over. I wonder how the Legions will feel about that.
Incidentally, this note on education and my opening remark on totalitarian science are not entirely unrelated.
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From within the Legions:
Revelations
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/031970.html
"Fortunately, the NY Times was able to get in front of this story, publishing an an interview with a "Pakistani logistics tactician for the Taliban" who "showed himself to be knowledgeable of Taliban activities, and the information he provided matched up consistently with that of other sources". Among the shocking revelations, civilian casualties are actually part of the plan: �The Americans cannot take control of the villages,� he said. �In order to expel us they will have to resort to aerial bombing, and then they will have more civilian casualties.� Although he admits that the drone attacks are actually the most effective weapon used against Taliban/al Qaeda forces: The one thing that impressed him were the missile strikes by drones � virtually the only American military presence felt inside Pakistan. �The drones are very effective,� he said, acknowledging that they had thinned the top leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the area. He said 29 of his friends had been killed in the strikes."
The issue is complex, but when the enemy admits something is hurting them, we might want to consider carefully before ceasing. It would certainly have been nice if this hadn't been subject to the political leak treatment. That is not going to help the US one little bit.
We have not heard the last of this one. And Pakistan has nukes.
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