Month: April 2004

Teacher! My Math Book Bluescreened Again!

Maybe you read about this here, here, or even here. It is less likely that you have read this press release. The short version of the story is as follows: The Forney Independent School District, just enough East of Dallas to be not quite a suburb, has decided that rather than buy traditional textbooks for the 5th and 6th graders, they will buy notebook computers with the textbooks and 2000 works of literature on them.

The official reasons for this decision include the fact that the District expects to be short about 600 textbooks, and it takes 3 months to order and receive books. Furthermore, the director of this program points out that “A child’s set of textbooks costs $350. If they can get these notebooks down to $500, it gets cost-effective in a hurry.” Of course the students can tell you that $350 is less than $500, and a lot less than the $1350 that each computer will actually cost. Based on a quick check of prices, it seems unlikely that this price includes the content. I sincerely doubt the computerized versions of the textbooks cost less than their paper-based brethren.

IBM for it’s part points out that works of literature — such as the complete works of Shakespeare — that are already on the computer represent physical books the district does not need to purchase. How many of those 2000 works of pre-loaded literature will actually be read anyway? Does anybody really want to read them on their computer? How many of them are remotely age-appropriate? Most American students are not officially exposed to Shakespeare until 8th or 9th grade, but that seems to be beside the point. The party line from IBM and their content partner, Vital Source Technologies, is that computerized is better. After all, it’s indexed, it’s searchable, it’s all in one relatively lightweight box that fits nicely into a knapsack or locker. It’s even ergonomically friendly compared to a student carrying every textbook they use.

Math pop quiz! Which is less money: 600 textbooks times $350 (that’s the price for a complete set of books, despite the fact that they “only” expect to be short 600 individual textbooks), or 459 students times $1350? I bet you could buy a lot of books with the difference between those figures. Congratulations, Texans. This is your tax money at work.

Now that we’ve utterly debunked the idea that somehow this saves money, we can deal with the unintended consequences of this decision. Let’s start with computer literacy. Are the teachers really prepared to use these computers, let alone teach from them? Are they ready to spend the first 10 minutes of each and every class debugging somebody’s computer textbook problem? And is it fair to the other kids in class to waste this time in every class period? I’m sure they’ve got better things to do.

Which brings us to the next problem. How are you going to make sure the kids are reading their textbooks instead of playing games? Don’t tell me these computers have no games on them. One trip home fixes that problem. If these computers are equipped with wireless modems, it doesn’t even take that. In fact, games may be the least of the unauthorized software that ends up on these computers.

Speaking of one trip home, we should consider parental support at home. Are the parents capable of helping the kids use and perhaps troubleshoot the computer? There’s nothing to troubleshoot in a book. Don’t dismiss this problem: computerized textbooks may exacerbate the achievement gap between rich and poor students. How? By making parents less able to help their children.

There is also an obsolescence issue to consider. The school officials in this case claim that paper textbooks can be several years out of date. However, does this really change anything? Experts are not going to decide that the Declaration of Independence wasn’t really signed in 1776, or that a water molecule isn’t really two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. How much of what a 6th grader really needs to know about any given topic is really the topic of heated academic debate? There is still valuable information in a 5 year old textbook. On the other hand, see what you can accomplish with a 5 year old computer. Good luck.

Speaking of 5 year old computers, let’s talk about the environmental impact of this project. Those computers will have to be disposed of someday, and computers aren’t exactly landfill friendly. In addition to added disposal costs, there will be ongoing costs to operate these computers. One light bulb can make a dozen students able to read a standard textbook. However, each of these computers will require its own power.

I haven’t even gotten around to talking about theft and damage. Officials at schools where such programs have been tried say this is rare, but frankly I find that hard to believe. I am more willing to believe that a certain number of parents are just willing to suck up repair and replacement costs.

Finally, what if when fall comes, it turns out the school is short computers? After all, the reason for this purchase was an anticipated textbook shortage. At least you can photocopy pages of a textbook until a book order arrives.

The only person who really stands to benefit from this deal is one IBM salesman.

Hiatus

I will not be posting for a few days in the interests of server upgrades and maintenance. Please excuse this interruption. I promise to be posting by the end of the week. There should be no actual downtime for the site.

Thank you for tuning in, and much thanks for your patience.

How does that work?

Now let me make sure I understand this. We will hand over “sovereignty” to Iraq on June 30, but they won’t be able to command their own armed forces, and they won’t be able to make their own laws. If George III had offered this “opportunity” for self-government to our Patriot forbears during the Revolutionary War, much laughter and gunfire would have ensued. Please remember that these words were written by people who overthrew a legal government.

In the meantime Fallujah is officially a quagmire. Oh yeah, and we have more reports of American snipers shooting schoolchildren. What a clever way to defuse the situation.

Speaking of schoolchildren, back in the United States, a licensed, state certified and probably “highly qualified” teacher ordered a student thrown out a window. I have spoken about “No Child Left Behind” before, and cannot understand why we can’t get people like this permanently out of the classroom. Want to promote excellent schools? How about we promote enough independent thought that this girl’s classmates realize that’s a bad idea?

Wasn’t that the point?

An Associated Press poll finds that Americans are still worried about terrorist attacks. President Bush says he isn’t surprised, and adds that it’s hard to defend our country from terrorists, and we should be patient.

Mr. Bush isn’t surprised. Nor should he be. Didn’t his advisor Condi Rice say just days ago that we should expect terrorists to attempt to disrupt our November elections? Didn’t Mr. Bush himself warn us that just because the PATRIOT Act was set to expire didn’t mean the risk of terrorism would expire too? Doesn’t the Department of Homeland Security tell us there is at this moment an Elevated Risk of Terrorist Attacks? That’s Threat Advisory Code Yellow to you and me. Frankly, we should be concerned if Mr. Bush were surprised. After all, his entire team has been telling us to Look Out!

In the meantime, the Washington Post reports that we may need to send more money to Iraq. Here’s the no registration required version. My inner cynic wants to know why. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to send our tax dollars directly to Halliburton and the other gauging contractors?

If you didn’t see this very moving picture of flag-draped coffins coming home from the Middle East yesterday, take a good look at it now. The people responsible for bringing it to you have been fired.

Back at home, over half of American workers are concerned about job security. Add to that record high gas prices, and Greenspan pointing out the elephant in the living room — the fact that interest rates will eventually have to go up — and things aren’t looking good for Joe and Jane Average. And that’s before they think ahead to whether their son may someday be drafted into the military.

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

When Dilbert is making jokes about real estate, I take that as a sign that the housing market is way out of control. With housing starts up to an annualized rate of 2 million units per year you’ve got to wonder. That’s one new house per 146 Americans. Who is buying them? Who will live in them? What are we tearing down to build them?

Another comic with a serious note today is Get Fuzzy, with the aim of reminding us that real people — normal people like you and me — get hurt in wars. Ever thought about letting the military pay for college? Ever thought about serving your country, maybe even picking up some extra cash in the reserves? Then Rob Wilco’s injured cousin could be you. This is to say nothing about the brave men and women who have died in Iraq.

And from corporate America, Coca Cola has announced their intention to launch a “Low Carb” soda. Foolishly, most people who want such a product are already drinking Diet Coke. Indeed, people who are on true low-carb diets do not consume refined sugars at all, particularly during the early stages of the diet. Atkins even says no caffeine, especially during the first two weeks. The only people buying this product will be people who are under the delusion that they can substitute a few “diet” products and lose weight. Yeah, good luck there. In their defense, it is only fair to point out that Coke is merely following Pepsi’s lead.

Two comics being serious. One industry being clueless.

The 700 Club

Or, Into the Valley of Death Rode the 504

A sad milestone has been reached in the cradle of civilization. It has been confirmed that 700 American soldiers have died in Iraq,* 504 of them in combat. Don’t like CNN? Here’s Reuters and here’s the Associated Press.

However, there is some question about the priorities of the American press in reporting what is really happening in Iraq. Apparently, CNN actually questioned whether Al Jazeera wasn’t missing the point by reporting Iraqi deaths. Well, let’s be realistic. Their audience is more interested in knowing whether friends and relatives in Fallujah might be under attack than whether some guy from Ohio has been killed — no offense or disrespect intended. Being an Arab language publication, they feel that “there is no bigger story in Fallujah than the deaths of civilians.”

Even the British press is reporting that the situation in Fallujah is really more of a massacre than anything else. Once you get past the American press, it is clear that things are awful. Ambulances are being shot at, their drivers specifically targeted by snipers. Empty or full of wounded people, it does not matter. People are even getting shot by Marine snipers for trying to use the outhouse. How dare they not pee in their pants; don’t they know there’s a battle on?

It seems clear to me that The Tiger Force mentality has not been thoroughly rooted out of our military.

Support our troops: pray for peace.

* Those of you who didn’t know that modern day Iraq is the same ancient land in which writing was invented, used to write down the first written epic and the first written code of law, in which were built one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (the Hanging Gardens of Babylon), in which Daniel survived the Lion’s Den [Dan. 6], I urge you to read a little history.

Evil.

Remember when you were a kid? It was enough to know that The Joker™ was trying to bury Gotham City under six feet of strawberry jam because he was Evil. Lex Luthor™ trying to blow up a mountain to get to the Kryptonite deposit deep inside? Evil. Prince of an alien planet wanting to kill everybody on the Earth so he could sell the planet? Oh yeah, Evil.

But here’s the problem. We grew up, and found that the Joker was also criminally insane. We found out that Lex Luthor was a greedy capitalist. We found out the Prince decided to marry a debutante-inventor and start a family on Earth.

Nevertheless, here is the kind of rhetoric we are hearing about Iraq:

Because we stand for freedom. And the terrorists hate freedom. And they’re attacking us because we’re bringing freedom to Iraq. And terrorists hate freedom. Therefore they hate us. And since they hate us so much of course they fight us.

This is one of those Snake-Eating-Its-Tail deals of “They did these things because they are evil. We know they are evil because they did these things.” There is no way to argue this point because if you ask why they did it, see statement one. If you ask, “yes, you’ve said they are evil but how do you know that?” you are referred to statement two. We can’t ask why anybody hates us enough to attack us, or how we know they “hate freedom,” because the answer is they must be evil. And you must hate Everything We Stand For not to see that.

The discussion is over.

But wait, it gets worse. When your world-view is that somebody or some group is simply evil, there is no room for negotiations. There is no room to revise your opinion. There is no room for facts inconvenient to your view. Contradictory thoughts must be wrong, misinformation from your enemy, who is evil. More dangerous still, there is the tendency to lump all your evil enemies as necessarily related. Compare this transcript with this shorter version: a question about Iraq is directly answered with a comment about September 11. Never mind how little the two have to do with one another.

I conclude by urging you to read the words of a man I expect you to not like or agree with. Among the salient points are several things we can all agree are true: “The greatest rule of safety is justice, and stopping injustice and aggression.” “[V]igilant people do not allow their politicians to tamper with their security.” “We must take into consideration that this war brings billions of dollars in profit to the major companies, whether it be those that produce weapons or those that contribute to reconstruction, such as the Halliburton Company….” “Heeding right is better than persisting in falsehood.”

These are the words of Osama Bin Laden.

It’s a lot easier believing we are good, everything we do is good; they are evil, everything they do is evil. The truth is your enemy does not see himself as evil.

Finally, two things. First, a succinct essay by security expert Bruce Schneier on why a National ID card is worse than a waste of money, it in fact would make us less secure. Oh, and remember 2 weeks ago we learned 308,000 jobs had been created in March? Well last week 360,000 people filed for unemployment benefits for the first time. If that’s not enough for you, people aren’t quitting to take better jobs for the most part, and a new poll says people would rather have job creation than a tax cut.

A happy thought for tax day: you only had to pay income taxes if you had income.

There’s One for You, 19 for Me

I hate to interrupt your frantic search for bits of paper and mashing on the calculator, but you did know “Tax Day” is Thursday, right? Those of you outside the United States should feel free to scroll down and read something else. If you are hopelessly buried under tax paperwork, you might take a moment to read this.

If, on the other hand, you aren’t one of those people who will be standing in line tomorrow at the Post Office to assure your tax return has the correct postmark date, here are some ideas about what to do with your tax refund. And finally, here’s a bit of excellent reading on taxes, politics, and the 2004 elections.

Politicians say a lot about taxes, particularly in an election year. Everything they say is supposed to make you agree with them enough to vote for them. But listen on the defensive, okay? We don’t need “tax reform,” because that implies taxes are corrupt. We don’t need “tax relief,” because that implies taxes are onerous. What we need is Tax Simplification. That implies the truth: that taxes are too complicated.

Taxes, as they stand now, are complicated enough that at this time of year you may find tax kiosks in the grocery store — convenient, and a friendly reminder that Joe Average shouldn’t do his taxes alone. Some tax deductions and credits are sufficiently complicated that many eligible people do not claim them. The new rules on taxation of stock dividends are so complicated that some brokerage houses had to send corrected tax statements to customers. And of course, may we all have mercy upon someone whose stock options at work put them in that taxation twilight zone called AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax).

Although some people argue that the clearest path to Tax Simplification is a flat tax, I think there is a more politically tenable path. The goal of Tax Simplification is not to put accountants out of work. The goal of Tax Simplification is to make it easier for average people to file and pay their taxes. Ideally, half of all taxpayers should be able to do their taxes on a one page form, using tools no more complicated than a pencil, a calculator, and maybe a bit of scratch paper.

The results of this are more than giving you more time in April. By simplifying taxes, compliance will improve: more people will file taxes earlier, they will be more accurate, audits will be focused only on returns that need it, fewer tax scams will exist. Taxes will seem more fair because the method for calculating them will be plain and simple. Government expenses go down: the tax code will be shorter and cheaper to print; enforcement will be easier because the rules will be clearer, non-contradictory, and uniformly applied; fewer cases will end up in tax court. IRS agents can spend less time on personal tax returns, and more time finding corporate tax fraud — or better yet, more time getting into the financial affairs of criminals and terrorists.

The first step of my plan would be to make the standard deduction equal to the poverty line for a family of four, adjusted accordingly each year. Exemptions would work more or less as they do now. The result of this is that people who live in poverty would not be taxed. Nor would anyone ever be “taxed into poverty” again. This insures that people living on the edge can use every bit of their meager earnings to provide food, shelter, and necessities for their families. Their tax return will have fewer than a half dozen lines filled out, and will take less than 15 minutes to complete, including putting a stamp on the envelope.

Because the new standard deduction would be relatively high, most Americans would not have to itemize deductions. This reduces their paperwork and record-keeping substantially. It will also save average people money, because they will not spend money just to get a deduction. With little rework of the old 1040, anybody whose income is strictly from paychecks and interest on the savings –e.g., most people — can be looking at one page of tax paperwork. People with complicated tax situations, such as owning a small business or having capital gains, will still have to fill out additional forms. View it as the cost of making money.

This system would also make most tax credits obsolete, because most tax credits are focused on relatively low-income families. Take them out of the tax code. Likewise, most deductions should be re-examined. Perhaps we should consider a cap on the mortgage interest deduction equal to the prevailing interest rate plus one percent on the maximum conventional house loan. Thus, home ownership is still promoted, but the ownership of McMansions is not subsidized and the housing bubble is not pumped up. Or cap itemized deductions at three times the standard deduction.

Better yet, eliminate all itemized deductions except for a short list of things over and above the generous standard deduction. Put the lines for these special items right on the 1040: IRA contributions; health insurance expenses; no more than 3 or 4 top priorities to be named at a later date. These items should be things we can all agree are important and of benefit to all.

Once the overall deduction scheme is streamlined, two important things happen. First, the wealthiest among us pay their fair share of taxes. Second, there will be no more need for the AMT. It can be eliminated.

In the meantime, you can download that tax form you are missing from these guys.

Call Webster

If the situation in Iraq is not a fiasco, nor a quagmire, then would somebody kindly tell me what must be added to the situation to make it so? Can we at least say it’s a SNAFU?

Just a quick review. It’s been a over a year since a largely American force stormed into Iraq to liberate its people from a brutal dictator, and/or find Weapons of Mass Destruction, and/or root out Al Qaida cells, and/or put oil fields in friendly hands. It has been a year since Saddam Hussein was toppled, just short of a year since President Bush declared hostilities over, and just short of 5 months since Hussein himself was dragged out of a hole in the ground (longer, if you put credence in the date theory).

The rebuilding effort has been spotty at best: the nation as a whole still does not consistently and reliably have things like electricity, potable water, schools, navigable roads, and the like. The only people who seem to be benefitting from the reconstruction of Iraq are certain contractors. Heck, they even have a problem keeping police officers alive. American soldiers, some of whom are looking at extended tours, are only safe inside the fortified “green zone.” As of this writing 650 of them are known to have died. Do not blink; this number is subject to rapid change, particularly inasmuch as 51 have been killed just this week. The families of these brave men and women deserve the sincere sympathies and kind thoughts of us all.

These things being true, the United States is still trying to ram through a single, democratic government that will nevertheless leave a government friendly to government interests. This ignores several basic facts. Iraq is made up of 3 basic ethnic groups that hate each other (Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds — and the first two have decided to declare truce long enough to oust the Americans). They have radically different ideas about what their ideal government should be about, fundamentally different ideas about the role of religion in government. Heck, they have radically different ideas about whether women should have human rights. Frankly, the only way to forge these peoples into one country is a strongman dictator. Rather like the one we deposed. Single, democratic government friendly to American interests? The combination platter isn’t available.

Now, what is one of the basic freedoms we enjoy in a modern democracy? Why, there’s freedom of the press! So, if we are trying to build a democracy in Iraq, it makes no sense to shut down a newspaper, even if it prints things the interim government doesn’t like. You won’t catch the Federal Government trying to shut down, oh, lets say the Fort Worth Star Telegram because they printed a critical essay. But those rules don’t apply in Iraq, where the Americans shut down a newspaper for printing items critical of the Americans. This of course was a marvelous excuse for general rioting, not to mention a power grab by a young cleric and Future Dictators Club member called Moqtada al-Sadr. The Americans didn’t much care for this either. Being a cleric, it was only normal for al-Sadr to take sanctuary in a Mosque. His followers being militants, it was completely predictable for there to be shots exchanged between the Mosque and the Americans who demanded al-Sadr be handed over. The term “Branch Davidians” comes to mind, but a more correct cultural translation would be if the Army had surrounded and started shelling the Boston Arch Diocese to force them to surrender all suspected pedophiles.

Add to this mix the fact that Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, has a major religious holiday right around the first full moon after the Spring Solstice. This means pilgrims are converging on the embattled city of Kerbala. Some even blame the Americans for engineering this crisis to disrupt the holy days.

Oh, and one more thing. Various forces have begun the time honored tradition of taking political hostages. Indeed, they are threatening barbaric deaths for the hostages, such as being beheaded or lit on fire. The Japanese are not happy about this. They are not alone either. Political turmoil in Iraq has now streamed over the physical border. Events there dominate the top news stories of almost any source that covers world news. Stock markets on 3 continents have been effected. Politicians past and present are letting their thoughts be known.

It seems clear now that there was a grievous under-estimation of what it would take to liberate Iraq, re-stabilize it, and make it a member of the international community. The number of troops required was more than expected. The length of time the troops would be there was more than expected The amount to rebuild was more than expected. The resistance to American “interference” was more than expected. And of course, the Weapons of Mass Destruction that were found were much much less than expected. For their part, President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld maintain that everything will be under control shortly. It sure must be nice to handle a high pressure always-on-call job from your fishing hole.

We may still hand Iraq over for self-rule on June 30. But June 30 of what year?

Meanwhile, the real terrorist is getting away.

Instant Karma

Certain analysts and economists are shocked, just shocked I tell you, to find that the Consumer Confidence numbers — what Joe and Jane Average think of the economy — are getting worse. Hasn’t Joe read that job cuts are at a 9 month low? Isn’t Jane pleased that the Nasdaq is over 2000 again? Are they unaware that inflation is low? Don’t they know job growth hit 4 year highs last month? How could public sentiment not have changed instantly upon hearing this good news?

I think maybe Joe and Jane are focusing on the fact that despite the touted low inflation rate, gas prices are at an all time high and housing in some areas is appreciating at absurd rates, aided and abetted by mortgage companies, appraisers, and Fannie Mae. They would like to believe there is something to those job numbers, but then they hear that the 3rd biggest bank in the United States is eliminating 12,500 jobs. Adding insult to injury is the fact that on average an American with an actual job is still only working 33.7 hours a week and earning $523.70 per week. And that’s before payroll taxes. There still aren’t enough jobs being created, and too many of the jobs created are of the part-time no-benefits variety. More than one analyst thinks things aren’t as good as they should be. The future really isn’t that rosy either. The Baby Boomers are looking at retirement in a decade or so, assuming they can afford to do so. And some analysts say we can’t count on Wall Street to bail us all out.

And maybe consumer sentiment is also effected by what Joe and Jane see happening to America and the World. Joe knows that another mega-blackout could still happen, and that the last one was preventable. Jane knows her rights under the Constitution aren’t what they used to be, particularly if she wants to get on an airplane. And it has not escaped their attention that things are not going well in Iraq, where over 600 American soldiers have been killed in addition to an unknown number of “contractors” doing everything from cooking meals to providing security in lieu of the military. There is some question about whether we will ever be able to bring our troops home — at least there is to everyone but Paul Bremer.

The Statue of Liberty is still closed, and it appears she will remain closed. If this isn’t symbolic, I’m not sure what is.