Month: February 2007

That sound you heard was my head exploding.

This morning whilst reading the news I came across this CNN item entitledWoman Allegedly Advised by Geese Not Guilty in Tot Death.

Yes, you read that correctly. Granny has apparently been in the mental hospital before, and one fine day she killed her grandchild with a chef’s knife. “Authorities said Pappas had told her son she had been receiving spiritual advice from geese flying over his house, where she was living,” according to the article.

Yes, Geese.

Now think about this a minute:

HONK! HONK! HONK!

“Yes! Of course, I see it now! Thanks!”

Make no mistake. This woman is clearly insane, and clearly needs to be in the mental hospital for a good long time; what a shame that she had to kill somebody for that to happen.

But what about charges for the parents who left their toddler in the care of a woman who had been admitted to a mental hostpital 6 weeks previously and gets spiritual advice from geese?

If you are looking to read something with a bit more substance, may I recommend The Nation’s article “The Care Crisis.”

Things are not improving.

It’s time to talk about education again.

The latest data suggests that kids are doing fine in school, as long as you don’t ask them to take any standardized tests that would actually measure what they know against what they actually should know. The fact that kids entering college now know less than they did even ten years ago has now been documented by college professors, who are understandably alarmed. We’ve got junior high school students being forced to memorize pi to 52 digits instead of learning math.
Math isn’t the only problem, either. Clearly there are big problems with understanding English. How else can we explain how the Christian Science Monitor is actually able to print experts claiming:

“The picture is getting brighter,” and if there’s no recession over the next several years “there are going to continue to be some good strides made,” says Mark McMullen, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com….

Let me get this straight: things will get better unless they don’t. Brilliant analysis. Furthermore, the nice folks at The Mess That Greenspan Made point out how the “experts” are trying to redefine basic economic terms. Perhaps they hope Joe and Jane Average are too stupid to notice.

Now we have arrived at the point where the basic inability to understand written English is going to be harmful to some people’s health. Ezra Klein points out that the average American is no longer able to read and understand basic information about their medical care. You really ought to go read the Washington Post article he references.

Nor is this problem limited to America. The BBC reports that poorly educated workers are costing their employers money.

Oh, do I have your attention now?

The saddest part of this whole mess is that we do know how to educate children using time tested processes. Effective programs like Direct Instruction and Kumon exist, and have been used successfully for decades. Fine, these programs may be a little dull for the instructor, but school isn’t about entertaining the instructor; it is about educating the student. More importantly, programs like these don’t require lots of extra money. They do, however, require starting with what the student already knows, and accepting the fact that some students will move through the material more quickly than others.

In closing: a man without whom few Japanese folktales would have survived; a unified No Fly List is so important to the Feds that it’s 5 years behind schedule; two items on how things are tough all over, but it turns out that’s because poverty is at a 32 year high; a mandatory health proposal from a hospital group that should know better, this one would cost $115,000 Million in federal dollars to “provide subsidies for individuals to buy insurance from their employer if they cannot afford it, or to buy tax-subsidized coverage in the open market”; some people are saying money spent on health care will double in 10 years, but I disagree and think the whole system will collapse first; must read from NYT on Making Martial Law Easier; you can’t find mad cow if you don’t run a test; and finally, “we don’t need no regulation, passengers don’t need no federal protections.”

Thou Shalt Not Shorties… Except

Gomen Nasai. Success may be Toyota’s worst enemy, as it is getting more difficult to make the way they do things scale. (Not finding a good definition of “scale” online. I am using it as “the ability of a system or practice to serve incrementally more users and or an incrementally larger organization as needs grow.” Put that in your Wikipedia and smoke it.) In case you ever were curious, the History of Toyota. How did Mr. Toyoda’s company become Toyota? A character informally known as a “chong-chong” that looks a bit like a double quote-mark was omitted from the corporate name to separate home life from corporate life, and make the company name “luckier”.

We don’t care where you are from as long as your money is green. On one hand, we have the New York Times asking NAFTA should have stopped illegal immigration, right? This article scratches the surface of how NAFTA in fact shrunk Mexico’s manufacturing base and made it not cost effective for their farmers to stay in business. The latest news confirms that Mexico’s economy is experiencing reduced growth and increased inflation A quick look at stories about “The Tortilla Crisis” suggests that — just like in the United States — the Mexican central economic authority does what it can to under-report inflation. But have no fear; illegal immimgrants who come over the border can apparently get credit cards from Bank of America. Mr. BinLaden, please disregard the previous sentence, mmkay? Thanks.

Maybe Regulation Can Be a Good Thing. Apparently it takes leaving Joe Scarborough on a plane for 9 hours to get something going in this country. But now, it looks as though the flying publicrights as travellers. If it can get rammed through Congress, if lobbyists don’t kill it, if the airlines don’t try to head it off by offering a non-binding “promise.” If you want to keep up with this topic, don’t forget to stick with Upgrade Travel Better.

The Soft Bigotry of Lowered Expectations. Way to go, Condi. An article entitled “Low expectations ahead of Rice-Olmert-Abbas talks” is this quote from Ms. Rice: “What I would consider a success … is that we have gotten started.” Showing up is worth diplomatic points? Whatever!

It turns out Americans prefer food that won’t kill them. Who knew. The USDA is making some changes in the inspection process to focus on food processing sites where there have been problems in the past, freeing up places where they have in the past done things right to keep working. Both consumer groups and meat packing interests are approaching these changes with skeptical optimism, which means they are probably as close to “on target” as we will ever get. On a related note, how the heck did they manage to get salmonella into peanut butter??

‘Scuse me? Guys? The Center is over here. A bit to the left. Yeah, that’s it. I’ve been reading all darn weekend about how the Democratic Presidential candidates had better be careful not to sound like they don’t support the troops, and not to sound like they are all liberal and stuff. In fact, even relatively conservative Americans are alarmed by the growing gap between the haves and have-nots. Some are willing to go so far as to call it a liberal resurgence, pointing out that “Presidential candidates, for instance, can now safely utter “universal health care” without being tarred as supporters of “socialized medicine.” Polls show increasing support for raising the minimum wage, stem-cell research, gay and lesbian civil unions, alternative-energy initiatives and increased financial aid to offset the escalating cost of college.” And yet The Pundits warn against politicians saying that they honestly stand for the things The Voters want. Huh? Isn’t it the voters that put elected officials into office? I can only imagine the ornery comments that the late Molly Ivins would have.

Speaking of voters and the voting machines that (allegedly) record their votes. Researchers at Princeton were able to buy themselves a “secure” voting machine for $82. Experiments are now underway to find out just how “secure” it really is.

From the “It Sounded Like a Good Idea at the Time” Department. Artificial coral reef damaging to the real thing. And content recognition software is supposed to automatically determine whether music or video is copyrighted; one of several problems is that just because there’s a copyright doesn’t mean there is not a permission. I used to work in this industry and it appears that there are still many unaddressed issues.

Three Coins in the Fountain. The Governator’s plan may place a huge burden on (what’s left of) the middle class. It seems that there is a large swath of population who make too much to qualify for assistance but not enough to really afford a healthplan that covers much of anything. Remember, this plan is mandatory health coverage, not universal health coverage. Speaking of universal health coverage, Ezra Klein brings us a nice item on universal health, Medicare, and prescriptions. Whatever we end up with health insurance reform wise, I sure do hope it will cover regrowing fingers.

That’s it for now. Happy Presidents Day. How many of them can you name? Hint: there have been 43, including the younger Mr. Bush.

But I Can’t

Today, I turned on the TiVo to watch something, and noticed that there was a video by MC Lars in the main menu. I like MC Lars, and if you are unfamiliar with him, you really ought to go check him out. While you’re at it, look into Frontalot and Lady Sovereign. These folks and people like them are new voices in [hopefully soon-to-be] popular music.

Anyway, it is a video for MC Lars’s Download This Song. It is a catchy tune about the fundamental shifts taking place in the music industry whether the music industry likes it or not.

The funny part is that at the end, there was no way to — in fact — download that song.

And Iran: Iran so far away….

A few months ago, I read James Clavell’s Whirlwind. The book begins 28 years ago today: February 9, 1979, in the middle of the Iranian Revolution.

Now those of you who have read any of Clavell’s books know that they are long historical novels, and full of detail, and have dozens of characters, at least 3 of whom can be argued are the “main” character. Whirlwind is no different. Who is more important: the Mullah who opens and ends the book with prayers; the helicopter pilots who risk their lives; the former World War II POW who must play a careful game of cat and mouse to get his people out of the country safely; the executive’s son who witnesses a brutal mass execution; the Persian Princess; the spoiled daugher of the bazaari; the head of Straun’s aircraft division? Thankfully for the reader, Clavell walks us through a strict timeline; each day is marked; each chaper includes a map to let us know where in the country the characters are; each section has a timestamp.

Now, I was alive in 1979. Admittedly I did not pay a whole lot of attention to the world events of the day, preferring to listen to the Bay City Rollers. But I do remember when the Embassy was taken, and I remember NBC and ABC (probably CBS too) running a big “100 days in captivity” special. In many days, reading this historical novel was an eye-opener.

One of the most striking things is that at least once a day, some character said that “soon things would get back to normal.” Oh the Shah is gone, things will be back to normal in a few days. Oh Khomeni has arrived, surely things will be back to normal soon. Oh the military has stood down, that means things will be ok soon. A cow farted, things will be back to normal. Talking to people who were adults in this era confirms that this kind of thinking was prevalent in real life in the United States, too. This is but one example of the striking naivety that seemed to afflict all Westerners in the book. Non-natives were consistently caught off-guard by the idea that “progressive” reforms could be rolled back, that a theocracy could be erected, that Sharia could be enforced, that assets owned jointly with foriegn entities could be nationalized.

The reason I bring this up today is that we still don’t understand Iran.

More to the point, we don’t understand that they don’t like us. Sure, they have their reasons. A poll this week says Arabs don’t like President Bush. My inner cynic suggests he doesn’t much like them either. It might have something to do with the sabre rattling that keeps going around, set on a backdrop of perfectly innocent ICBM tests.


There is just too darn much we don’t know about what’s really going on there, and since we’ve had effectively no diplomatic presence there in the last 28 years, we are unlikely to make progress on that front. Even Hillary Clinton has gone on record saying there’s too much we don’t know to be idly talking about bombs and invasions and whatnot (WARNING: that link is an MP3 of yesterday’s interview on the Ed Schultz Show). We don’t even know who is really calling the shots, according to Senator Clinton — who is in a much better position to know these things than most people. Do we negotiate with Ayatolla Khamenei? Or President Ahmadinejad? The restless Parliament?

These are not academic questions if we want to avoid having another nuclear power in the region, or sending American soldiers to a third Islamic nation. Pat Buchannan and some liberal thinkers agree, Bush may not in the long run have the authority to start the next war, but frankly I am beginning to wonder if much of anything can stop the President from having something he really wants.

Oh well, the Senate is talking about non-binding resolutions. Surely this means everything will get back to normal soon.

Clearly, too many people are looking forward to Armageddon.

In closing: on children being left behind; someone finally caught on to the fact that people grow pot in the ‘burbs, too (way to have cutting edge reporting, USA Today); law, the rational basis test, and you; it’s a lot easier to say “quality, affordable healthcare for all by 2012” when you don’t have an actual proposal on the table; thoughts on the idea of a flat tax; turning ISPs (Internet Service Providers) into cops will not prevent child abuse, but it would probably drive small ISPs out of business; has anybody considered the idea that the internet might make things tougher for child abusers?; the person in charge of infrastructure at California’s DMV officially doesn’t get it, thinking that somehow RealID is going to allow her to provide more services online (How? How does this prevent Joe Nefarious from entering Joe Average’s driver’s license number at the online prompt? Maybe she wants to issue everyone a USB License Reader to hook to their computer?); and finally, This Day In History 1969, the first 747 takes off. They still make 747s a couple miles from here. It’s a beautiful airplane. Sometimes on hot days they open the factory doors and you can see what they are working on. But let me tell you, the 777 is much quieter.

Follow up: one, two, three, four.

Edwards Officially Doesn’t Get It… and other musings.

So now, we have word that Presidential candidate John Edwards has proposed a so-called “universal” health plan. Here’s a couple of choice paragraphs from the ABC News version of the story:

“Can we finally say we stand, now and forever, for every single man, woman and child in America having health care, universal health care?” Edwards said before a speech at the Democratic National Committee. “We will leave no one behind. We will not allowed a single family or a single child in America to not have health care coverage and to not have the health care that they need and deserve.”

[snip]

Edwards plan would first require employers to cover their workers or help pay for their insurance. He would try to clamp down on rising costs with tax credits to help lower and middle income taxpayers pay for their plans, expanded government programs like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and changes to insurance laws to require coverage for all regardless of pre-existing conditions or other factors. And he would create nonprofit regional purchasing pools so that consumers would have a way to buy an affordable and high quality plan.

So on one side he claims he wants a plan that provides healthcare for every man, woman and child. And then it turns out his plan depends on employers buying healthcare policies. Apparently he has forgotten that children don’t have employers.

And that is merely the most obvious of reasons his plan won’t work. Everybody else is beating their chests about how it will mean higher taxes! Nobody is mentioning that his plan requires changes to insurance law in pretty much each of the 50 states. Nobody is mentioning that it is just another plan that siphons money out of doctor’s and patient’s and even employer’s pockets, and stuffing the bank accounts of mostly for-profit insurance companies. It’s just another Hillary-style band-aid on a fundamentally broken system.

It’s time for something completely different. Let’s hope we get it before there’s a real medical emergency.

Other Musings: job creation and unemployment numbers are in a place where economists can pretend they are good news; latest salvo in trade war with China; somebody has noticed that contractors amount to a “4th branch of government”, effectively outsourcing things that maybe shouldn’t be outsourced; Prince!; and thanks to frequent-poster Jukkou-san for pointing out that states are fighting back on RealID, so keep bugging your state legislature because it’s working!

Follow up: Some of you realize that Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon is working for the Edwards campaign. She posted a call for questions on the Edwards Health Plan, and linked this document, which confirms that this is a mandatory health plan rather than a universal health plan.

Shorties of Dracula

Startling news from the wonderful world of education! It turns out that more classrooms are using the incredible variety of news sources and viewpoints available on the internet than are using the local newspaper. No wonder there, rather than students dragging around whatever biases are inhererent to the local news outlet, a savvy teacher can demonstrate issues like bias by contrasting worldwide coverage. CNN, NY Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and a dozen English language publications from foreign nations are just a click away. Google news can give you 50 different spins on one story in half a second. (Oh yeah, and it saves paper.)

News flash: some parents feel seeming pure is more important than being alive. Apparently, potentially saving your daughters’ lives is controvertial. There is a vaccine that prevents most cervical cancer. But because the virus it prevents can be transmitted through the dreaded sex, some parents think it’s unneccessary. Because goodness knows Good Girls are never raped, and never ever have unfaithful husbands.

Don’t get me started. Here’s an item called Who Would Jesus Deport. Short version, “Waah! Let’s be nice to immigrants! Under these rules Mary and Joseph would be deported!” Reality break: Jesus said to render unto Caesar that which was Caesars, by which he meant to follow the laws where you are; furthermore since Mary and Joseph were travelling under a royal commandment to present themselves for tax assessment, no they wouldn’t have been deported. If you’re going to quote the Bible, at least get it right!

Can’t find what you’re looking for? Maybe you need a new search engine. Here’s a hundred of them to try.

“Mah House! I’m the decider!” The President is tightening his grip, and asserting that a host of agencies answers to him. Sounds to me like a showdown is inevitable.

Two items on food and eating. First, what many of you already know, it’s darn hard to eat a quality diet of healthy foods on a budget. As a follow up, Healthy eating and the federal school lunch program. The take away quote in a sea of important details, “Currently, 78 percent of schools in America do not meet USDA nutritional guidelines.” So an important thing to remember about the 39% of children who are in low income families, which includes 18% of children who are in poor families, is that 78% of them can’t even get a USDA approved quality meal in the school student lunch program. Oh, and if you are one of those people who has a hard time making the food budget work out, you might try some of the tips from the Hillbilly Housewife.

And finally…

Maybe if we stop treating everybody like a potential terrorist there will be more tourism. Really? D’ya think? The travel industry says travel to the United States is down because there’s not enough officials at border posts, the officials that are there “bark” at travelers, and travelers simply feel unwelcome. This results in an estimated loss to the United States economy of “$94 billion in economic gains, some 200,000 newly created jobs, and $16 billion in tax revenue.” That is to say absolutely nothing of international opinion of America and Americans. Federal officials reply: “If, God forbid, there’s another terrorist attack … travel to our country would come to a standstill. And then, I believe, they would find themselves in a much worse position.” It is unknown if the official actually added the words “oooga booga!” or “look out!”

Would we as a nation rather be the sum of our hopes, or the sum of our fears?