Shorties’ Advocate

Follow up on last post.

Two items on Plan B: one from Time Magazine and a frankly more important one from Molly Saves the Day.

Cheneyfilter: Mr. Cheney dazzles us with logic that would have earned him a D- in high school geometry. He also completely reframes reality to suit his rhetorical whim. In other Cheney news, we bring you See Dick Run (the country) and — only tangentially about Cheney himself — Cheney Can’t Scare Me Anymore. One thing that struck me as interesting about this editorial is that the author thought this was so important, he wrote and submitted this despite being on sabbatical.

“OK, OK, we’ll give them a trial. But we won’t show the accused all the evidence.” No! Really! Never mind that pesky Constitution thingy: “Despite assuring Congress that career military lawyers are helping design new trials for accused terrorists, the Bush administration has limited their input on their key request, that any tribunals must give detainees the right to see the evidence against them, officials said.” Somehow or another, this country managed to get through the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the War on Drugs, to say nothing of Prohibition without such measures. The government didn’t need secret evidence against Al Capone.

Insane rules on asylum.

They’ve run afoul of the Patriot Act of 2001 and the REAL ID Act of 2005, which further tightened asylum laws.

The Karen are not alone. Many people trying to escape Cuba, Liberia, Colombia and other troubled countries are classified as having provided “material support” to terrorists. In reality, many were forced to aid violent soldiers who passed through their villages.

Women in Liberia who were raped by soldiers have been told that they offered aid to rebel groups, experts say. Cubans who resisted Fidel Castro’s communist regime have been denied entry here because of supposed affiliation with clandestine terrorist groups.

Many Karen refugees, who make up the largest group affected by the legislation, may have aided the Karen National Liberation Army, a militia that fights the country’s military junta.

Here is an update. Two things about this situation strike me as being even more Kafka-esque. First, under Real ID rules, none of these people will be able to get a form of identification that will allow them into any federal building, such as an immigration office or a courthouse. Hopefully you see where that might delay normalizing their status. The other thing that should make your head spin is that while we are turning away people who are the victims of horrible violence in their home countries, who already have family and support organizations here in the United States, who would otherwise live in refugee camps hoping nothing else bad happens, and who most importantly are using legal channels to try and get into the United States, the Senate wants to give just forgive and forget about several million people who came to this country illegally. Not even the Right Wing News thinks that’s a good idea.

Obligatory comments on the anniversary of Katrina: one by a Professor of Political Science who just happens to have family in New Orleans and one more general item about Katrina, Terrorists, and the DHS from Dr. B’s guest blogger, No Nym. Note the links; a good researcher cites sources. Update: just arrived in my email.

A timely item on school lunches and agriculture.

Consumer confidence numbers for the American economy were released today, and they are down. It’s the lowest level since last November, and the biggest drop — what a coincidence — since Katrina hit. Let the argument about what that means begin. While many people are talking about the fact that Americans are worried about the availability of jobs, few are openly talking about the fact that real wages are stagnant. Update: lagging consumer confidence could also have something to do with the fact that poverty remains unchanged (1 out of 8 people and 1 out of 4 black people live in poverty) and the number of people without health insurance rose for the 5th year in a row.

Elsewhere in the wild world of business and economic news: Whispers of Mergers set off Suspicious Trading (who knew??) and United States wants China to have bigger role at the IMF. I am curious about the real reasons why.

And finally, an utterly absurd situation which sums up why average people will either insist upon an overhaul of airplane security rules or stop flying: Airline loses the prosthetic leg of a disabled athlete after making her put it in checked baggage.

Mike

OK, I don’t normally write about local politics. I have readers from all over the world, and I realize that the majority of you don’t particularly care about issues local to my area unless they are particularly interesting for whatever reason. However, this is in regards to a Senate race in a state with almost 6 million residents. I honestly figured I should talk about the housing data that was such bad news yesterday, particularly when correlated to the bad durable goods numbers. Just to give you an idea, Ford is having to give 0% financing to subprime borrowers to move just about everything, including trucks. As icing on the cake, the rental market is heating up in some places.

But no, instead I bring you an overview of the 2006 race for United States Senator in Washington.

Six years ago, Maria Cantwell defeated incumbent Slade Gorton (yes, he’s related to the fish stick people). That means she’s up for re-election. Although the primary is not for another month yet, her presumed opponent is Mike McGavick.

Mr. McGavick’s ads focus on nice, fuzzy, feel-good things like how great it would be if instead of politicians, we were just people working together for the common good. No talk of issues, no stances, nothing. But it turns out he supports Lieberman. And it turns out that when you scratch the surface, he’s just another Republican, with pretty much the same slate of Republican ideas, who falls in line with the President’s ideas. He’s not an outsider, but an old political behind the scenes hack who was Chief of Staff to former Senator Gorton, and then a lobbyist who tried to weaken Superfund rules.

And now he’s trying to get his “youthful” indiscretions out in the open and out of the way. Let’s start with this:

McGavick began his letter on the Web site by asking rhetorically, “What’s wrong with politics today?” Then he excoriated the tenor of his race with incumbent Cantwell, in which he said he is being attacked.

Um, sorry. When someone holds themselves up as a political candidate you can have a friendly chat and a beer with, they have to expect someone will reply “No he’s not! And sorry, what’s that got to do with anything?”

Mr. McGavick went on to confess that he was on marriage #2 (having divorced the mother of his son many years ago), and that he was arrested for drunk driving in 1993 (at the tender youthful age of 35). Oh and yeah he dismissed 450 employees after telling everyone there would be no more layoffs.

The purpose behind these revelations is to minimize their value. Don’t let them get released a week before the elections, for example. But there’s more. Getting this information out there means that he doesn’t have to actually talk about issues for a while. And Mr. McGavick doesn’t want anyone noticing that his stance on the issues is pretty much neo-con.

I hope Ms. Cantwell is in a position to say “Yes, he’s right. We need to focus on the issues, not 13 year old DUIs. So here’s where I stand. And according to Mr. McGavick’s website, he stands for this.”

On a related note, Elisa is right on times three. And now for something completely different: Bernanke “Argues for work retraining programs and other ways to ease pain caused by economic shifts; no comments on interest rates or inflation”; a scary statistic; and finally over 1800 pictures of Hello Kitty.

Terraist Roundup!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am dangerously close to declaring that the terrorists have won.

New flight restrictions, updated just this morning, prohibit pretty much anything liquid or gel. Such restrictions promise to be enforced for the forseeable future with only minor tweaks. People are reporting that the TSA is taking away books, asthma inhalers, not letting people with certain kinds of shoe insoles fly, and generally making life difficult. Thankfully the restrictions are not as bad as in London, where electronics are also prohibited. Can you imagine taking a Trans-Atlantic flight with no reading matter and no electronics? For that matter, it makes business travel impossible. There are many people who cannot allow their computers to be checked as baggage. Period.

Nor can you bring a beverage on the plane purchased at the post-security-checkpoint convenience store. This means — to me anyway — that the authorities do not believe they have secured the post-checkpoint area. I’ll repeat that: authorities to not believe they have secured the post-checkpoint area. If that area were secure, we could assume everything and everyone in it was secure. What about cleaning supplies, you say? Those should be either in a locked storage area or in the control of the background-checked cleaning crew.

If we must assume that someone behind the security checkpoint could be a Bad Guy capable of getting banned items to other Bad Guys to take on airplanes, we must ask ourselves why these Bad Guys wouldn’t just put a bomb directly on the plane. Follow up: “Several handguns have been stolen from bags checked by police officers, military personnel and others on United Airlines flights departing O’Hare International Airport, sparking concern that the weapons are loose in what is supposed to be a secure part of the airport.”

Even with the increased scrutiny, “suspicious items” are still turning up on airplanes. And the nice folks over at BoingBoing ask whether these security measures apply to high level officials.

For that matter, am I the only person who has noticed that the last time we heard from Bin Laden and Zawahiri, Zawahiri was standing in what looked very much like a standard newscast set? For that matter, if Bin Laden is sending his tapes from a remote cave by yak courier, shouldn’t there be a great deal of reverb on those tapes? Now, since I don’t really want to go out on a limb saying such crazy talk as “those tapes aren’t real, just a government plot to keep you scared,” I am forced to assume that we haven’t really got them on the run as much as we’d like.

Bruce Schneier reminds us that “The goal of a terrorist is to cause terror…. And if you want to know what you can do to help? Don’t be terrorized.” That’s hard to do when CNN is running Terror Target Monday. Maybe it will help to put it in cartoon form.

In closing: a second helping of Chertoff. Some Star Trek Motivational Posters! A plan to reduce the costs of drug testing that would warm Dr. Mengele’s heart. Speaking of World War II atrocities, 39% of recently polled Americans think Muslims should have to carry a “special” ID. How about sewing a red crescent to their jackets? Please forgive my bigotry; I hate bigots. And when research keeps saying teens brains aren’t up at 7:30, why do school administrators still insist on having classes then? Are they trying to fail?

Fatty Fatty 2 by 4, Can’t Get Through the Cooler Door

Yes yes, I’ve said it before, but there’s yet another new study — actually a study that looked at 30 studies published over the last 40 years — that supports what I’ve been saying for a long time. Americans drink lots of sugary sodas with no nutritional value, and as a result gain weight. Did you know that an extra can of soda daily can cause you to gain 15 pounds in a year? And that’s a 12 ounce can, not the 20 ounce bottle you’ll find at most convenience stores. Maybe you weren’t aware that on average Americans get 8-9% of their total calories from sugary beverages.

Super-sized cheesy poofs and snacky cakes are part of the American obesity problem, sure. But 8% of your calories coming from sugary drinks could sure explain why your pants are a bit tight.

Oh, the USA Today version of the article includes quotes from two scientists who are paid by such “impartial” groups as the American Beverage Association that amount to “Waah! They didn’t use the two studies that say what we wanted them to say!” Nope, in the Associated Press’s words, they only used “40 years of nutrition studies that met strict standards for relevance and scientific muster.” (Emphasis mine)

Want a healthier diet? Not ready to run out and buy a copy of Diet for a Dead Planet? Start by cutting the soda. Maybe it won’t cause the pounds to melt away, but getting rid of the calories that come from sugary drinks has to be a good start.

In closing, The BBC confirms that employers don’t want to hire people who can’t use the language properly; Windows users, get that security update ASAP; “Polite Advice for Mainstream Journalists”; Maya’s Granny offers concise wisdom on why Lieberman lost; Seeing the Forest has an interesting view on the draft; and finally American Academy of Pediatrics offers more advice parents can’t follow, “warn[ing] parents against placing children in shopping carts and… advising they look for alternatives.” Alternatives? Like what? Having groceries delivered, or maybe pushing a stroller in addition to a cart? Even coverage of the study says “that child restraints in shopping carts are just part of the solution and that shopping carts need to be redesign to prevent them tipping over and the current safety standard strengthened to prevent such injuries.” Of course they don’t mention paying attention to junior while you shop. These are the same people who recommend that children under the age of two not watch any tv under any circumstances, effectively meaning no tv for the whole family if “the baby” is awake. Too bad if your pre-schooler wants to watch Sesame Street. Too bad if you want to see the news.

Caw, Caw, Bang, Bang, $#!+ I’m Dead

I missed it.

I first discussed workplace violence over two years ago, and in many ways nothing has changed. File under “sad but true.”

The latest incident was probably big news locally when it happened, but you wouldn’t know it now. In fact, I would have overlooked it completely if it hadn’t been for a commentary on it called “Death at the Supermarket.”

Now, I am not ready to blame workplace violence on the Reagan Administration. But I am willing to say that workplace violence is a big problem, and employers need to think very carefully about whether their actions and policies might be incubating a shootout. There are things every company can do to minimize their risks, and as the nice folks at Stratfor point out, physical security is only part of the puzzle.

For starters, and I can’t say this enough, screen applicants! How indepth you need to go entirely depends on your business, but there’s a lot you can learn about somebody just from following up on their resume. Call former employers; most will only verify information you already posess, but if the resume is wrong you will catch it, and you might be lucky enough to find someone who will talk. Call references — yes yes they will say Joe Average is a swell guy, but how they say it might be surprisingly insightful. Speaking of “how they say it,” pay attention to exactly what your applicant says on the phone and at his/her interview. Be careful of filtering with things you want to hear. For pity sake I don’t care how desperately you need warm bodies, if the applicant gives you the creeps, you don’t have to hire. It’s a whole lot better to not hire someone than to fire someone on every conceivable level.

After you hire people, you are responsible for the atmosphere they work in. The Alternet article makes crystal clear that when you tolerate abuse, hazing, and ridicule in your workplace, you are asking for trouble. Oh, and school administrators, are you paying attention? This means you, too. Schools are workplaces too, in their own way. And most of the “workers” have the judgement of children. Boys will be boys? Sure, until the day somebody has had enough.

Being a bad boss can put you and your company at risk. Remember that the next time you interact with employees. We may all laugh at how Lumbergh treats employees, but it’s no laughing matter when real employees light the place on fire.

But even if you are in charge of hiring, even if you are supervisory personnel, you may or may not have any control over corporate culture. What you can do and stay within “the rules” are often limited. Corporate policies that force families apart, and 3-letter types who raise their own pay while asking rank and file to take wage, benefit, and pension cuts don’t make for happy, productive employees.

Just because they aren’t shooting up the place doesn’t mean their attitude isn’t hurting business. Try treating employees like human beings.

In closing, worried about RFID passports?; follow up on the housing market; it must be real nice to get 5 weeks paid vacation, especially when your desk is still covered in unfinished work; judge swings both gavel and cluebat, declaring that a mis-matched name is not reason enough to consider someone a fraudulent voter; what investigators were told and what the tapes show about military response on September 11 are not quite the same; a new false sense of security card, but this one is virtual and (supposedly) just for kids!; and finally “But still Pharoah’s head remained hard.” Amen, brother Toles.

False Economy

Last week I was amused by the fact that it took pointing out that Congressmen got $31,000 in raises since the last hike in the minimum wage before the House of Representatives was willing to put together a bill. Of course this wage hike for millions of workers was attached to a huge cut in estate taxes for people with multi-million dollar net worth that is widely regarded as a “poison pill” Just for reference, the $31,000 in Congressional raises works out to 6,019 hours of work at minimum wage, or at 40 hours per week, just under 3 years of work at minimum wage. Yeah, that’s right. Just the annual raise would take 3 years for a minimum wager to earn. If the rise in minimum wage actually goes through, the raise will only be 4,276 hours of minimum wage work, about 2 years of work assuming a little overtime.

By way of reference, this raise would directly benefit over 7 million workers, 70% of whom are adults — not teenagers. The majority of the workers in question are women, and a third of them are the sole wage-earners for their families. Furthermore, 22 states have enacted higher minimum wages than the federal standard. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are 144 million people employed right now in the United States. So by my math, just under one out of every 20 employed Americans would get a raise under this bill.

I confess, I used to be one of those people who was against raising the minimum wage. I was a young worker, and thought that raising the minimum wage would make older (more desperate) workers more attractive to the sorts of employers who pay minimum wage. I now see that wages today are artificially depressed by several factors. Sure, in an ideal world wages would be raised not by government fiat, but by workers saying “no, I can’t afford to pay my bills for that, so you will have to pay me more,” and employers responding “well, that’s what everybody else says too, so I guess I will have to pay you what you are worth.” For those that say a raise in the minimum wage would result in inflation, I reply that low-income people spend most if not all of what they earn; if they have more money to spend, they will spend it, and that is good for the economy.

On one hand, 13% of men aged 30-55 have dropped out of the workforce, due to a combination of not being able to find jobs as good as the ones they lost, wives who do work, home equity loans, and sometimes-trumped-up disabilities. The money quote:

Many of the nonworking American men could find work if they had to, but at lower pay and fewer benefits than they once earned, and they have decided that they prefer the alternative. It is a significant cultural shift in the country from three decades ago, when men almost invariably went back into the work force after losing a job and were more often able to find a new one that met their needs.

Translation: if the economy were really as good as it was in the 70s, these men would have moved on to other jobs that, if not better, at least “met their needs.” Unspoken: or gone into business for themselves. Let’s say for the sake of argument that most of these men should be in the workplace, and that this is an artificial contraint of labor supply. As a footnote, could the low minimum wage and the ability of these men to “just say no to low wages” be part of the reason the majority of minimum wagers are adult women?

Now, it would be easy, nay a cheap shot, to say that welfare reform artifically grew the labor supply by “forcing lazy welfare recipients to get jobs.” Well, that represents maybe 4 million workers, sure. And they are barely getting by, “working long hours despite low wages, shrinking health-insurance coverage and serious trade-offs between work and decent care for their children.” These people would certainly benefit from higher wages, but more so from universal health care and fundamental changes to their childcare arrangements. Oh, and that says nothing of dealing with the fundamental additional expenses of being poor in the first place. Unfortunately, none of those things are on the Congressional agenda, but a minimum wage hike is.

You cannot reasonably talk about why low-wage earners earn so little without talking about the elephant in the kitchen: illegal immigration. Do not get me wrong, I am not against immigration; like almost all Americans, most of my forbears came to this country sometime after 1607. But there are 2 major problems with hiring illegal immigrants. First — as I have said many times before — there is no way to know which of them are just people trying to get by and which of them are involved in drug-running, human smuggling, human slavery, forced prostitution, organized crime, and/or terrorism.

The second problem is that the sort of employer who doesn’t mind if his employees aren’t legal doesn’t mind ignoring other laws while he’s at it. Laws like workplace safety regulations, overtime laws, and even that minimum wage law we were discussing. So not only are we talking about millions of people artificially increasing the labor supply, they might not even be getting minimum wage. Furthermore, they may be working way more than 40 hours a week, and they may be working in an unsafe environment that a legal worker simply wouldn’t tolerate. When one out of every 7 Mexican workers is working in the United States — and most send money home — we cannot be too surprised that Americans are having a hard time finding jobs (I will leave the possible impact on the trade deficit to the reader’s imagination). Although the official numbers estimate 11 or 12 million illegal immigrant workers, some experts think the number is closer to 20 million. Or back to the BLS statistics, or almost 14% of the American workforce. Elephant in the kitchen? It’s a whole herd of elephants.

The Feds are finally starting to come down on employers who break the law by employing illegal workers. But frankly, if they were serious, they would not be going after small time operators with a few dozen employees. Nope, if they want to get the job done, go after some big companies.

Hey, if they need to protect their big-business benefactors, just send a little note to the CEOs of the S&P 500 companies letting them know they have 30 days to get their acts together before the raid.

In closing: 100 years of progress; about freaking time they did something to prevent unwanted pregnancy, the leading cause of abortion; it turns out that people will eat as much as they can fit in the container, regardless of container size; and it’s vaccination time! Quick question, which is cheaper: $360 for a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer — you know, should your daughter be sexually assaulted or have an unfaithful husband or just use the wrong hot tub — or thousands of dollars to treat that cancer?

One House, Two House; Red House, Blue House

So today we learned that consumer confidence is not that bad, but these readings were taken before record gas prices, rising oil prices, yet more war breaking out in the Middle East, and a slowing housing market. I’d like to examine the housing market in more detail today.

Although Mr. Bernanke tells us that “The downturn in the housing market so far appears to be orderly,” it is worth noting that he admits the housing market is having a downturn. The Washington Post outlines the numbers for us: sales slowest since January; weakest price increases in 11 years; condo sales “tumbled”; a decline in sales of 8.9 compared to June of last year; 6.8 months supply of homes on the market, when most realtors sign 90 day agreements. It isn’t a disaster, but it isn’t good either.

This morning, as I was listening to the duelling pundits on CNBC, somebody offered the semi-helpful advice that you shouldn’t “worry” about a declining real estate market unless you are in an “overheated” area of the country — and he wasn’t talking about the weather.

That got me thinking about this item from over the weekend about how high housing prices are squeezing the middle class who can’t afford luxury homes, yet make too much for subsidized housing. But look at some of the cities mentioned. They are the obvious suspects: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, San Diego. Places where the local economy is OK and conditions in the city are improving. But unfortunately places where enough people want to live that home prices are rising faster than the wages that would pay for such a home. Although that particular article does not mention the Seattle area, today’s local news informs me that even in suburban areas a county over basic 2 bedroom homes (with no view and a small lot) are half a million dollars.

All these housing markets are in “Blue” states.

Remember this story about people getting out of overheated housing markets? Most of those overheated markets are in liberal areas. The Atlanta Journal Constitution tells us the housing market in the South is holding up well, but then they mention that “Atlanta’s price increases have been far less dramatic” than in other areas of the country. The South was pretty Republican last election. The Real Estate Journal helpfully tells us that Some Housing Markets Are Grossly Overheated

It’s one thing to look at a and it’s another thing to look at a map. And now, compare that map of hot housing markets to this map of 2004 electoral votes.

When you look at those maps together, it becomes even more clear that with the exception of Florida, most of the overheated housing markets — where everybody wants to live and work regardless of cost — are in areas that vote with a progressive agenda. It is reasonable to suspect that voting on local and state issues is more or less in line with voting on Federal issues.

Why is that?

Could it be that progressive policies result in desirable living conditions? Do progressive policies result in relatively stronger local economies?

Alternatively, could it be that states with very conservative policies end up having less desirable living/economic conditions?

Just asking.

In closing: Barry Manilow may be harmful to your budget; a food columnist at the L. A. Times describes KFC’s “Famous Bowls” (because they contain pretty much everything KFC is “famous” for, get it) as “It’s like throwing up in reverse”; “This Isn’t World War III”; normal everyday people might end up on international terror watchlists simply because it’s been a slow month as a result of air marshal incident quotas; survey shows Americans beleive a lot of things that are untrue about Iraq (see sources such as this item on reconstruction and this item on Americans ordered to kill all military aged men and boys — way to win hearts and minds, create desperately poor widows in a society where women can’t work, and commit war crimes all at once — and this item on how the WMD being found are all from the 1980s); The New York Times reports that most states aren’t meeting NCLB requirements; and finally 95 Theses for the technological age.

John Carpenter Presents “Big Trouble in Little Shorties”

The Bad Idea that Wouldn’t Die! Somehow “Social Security Reform” still includes the idea of private retirement accounts. Private accounts mean less money goes to the Social Security fund, and “everybody knows” the problem is that the fund won’t have enough money! If the goal is really — as proponents claim — to have more people investing more money towards their own retirements, raise the limit on IRA contributions.

Fisher-Price My First Veto. Bush’s first veto — be sure to look at the graph near the bottom of the article — happens to be for a bill the vast majority of Americans want passed! Do not be fooled. Embryonic stem cell research is not “killing babies.” It is using extra embryos from IVF treatments — with permission of the donors — that would otherwise be flushed down the drain. This usage would ultimately help save people who have actually been born. For more information on the bill and it’s possible future, take a look at what Tom Harkin has to say.

A study documents what many apartment managers already knew, the additional expenses associated with being poor in the city are pretty steep. The catch-22 is that if they were in a better neighborhood they would be spending less money, but they can’t afford to get out of the neighborhood because they are spending so much money.

Workplace Zen! A local bar has been fined for not going “smoke free.” The quote that blows my mind, emphasis mine: “[The manager] said the club had tried to establish a smoking room, but it was not approved because employees were exposed to the smoke. She said the law’s protection of employees ‘doesn’t make sense’ because employees can find work elsewhere if they wish.” Now don’t get me wrong, I voted against the smoking ban. I thought it was dumb to make it law. But I am deeply offended by the concept of “If you don’t like a workplace littered with known carcinogens, find another job!” All I can say is that Mr. Smithers had better watch his step if Montgomery Burns ever gets wind of this manager!

There’s Evangelical Christians, and then a bit farther to the right, there’s Christian Nationalists.

And finally, I summon the Iron Science Teacher!

Here We Go Again

I happened to check in on CNN.com and found this article entitled “Republicans unveil $100 million school voucher plan.”

Even though the Department of Education “just released a study that raises questions about whether private schools offer any advantage over public ones,” Congress wants to give families in poor schools up to $4000 towards private school tuition. “Supporters say poor parents deserve choices, like rich families have,” the article points out.

Ok. Time for Google-fu. From this site, you can find out what the accredited private schools in your area are. Remember, if it isn’t accredited, you should ask why. These days, most schools have websites. For example, if you live in Las Vegas, you will find a list which includes Las Vegas Day School, and if you enter that into the search engine of your choice (if ths school name doesn’t include a city, add it), you will find it — oddly enough — at www.lasvegasdayschool.com. With a little digging, you should be able to find tuition information about most schools, in this case $10,500 per year. This does not include uniforms, book fees, extracurriculars, transportation, or “After School Study Hall.” Please keep in mind, LVDS is a top quality private school. If your kid qualifies, and you can afford it, and there is a seat, by all means send them. Please feel free to research each school in your area. Keep in mind that church run schools can afford to provide education at below cost, and a plan which includes religious schools would probably not pass Constitutional muster. Also keep in mind that very small schools have lower expenses, and may be nothing more than a “front” for a homeschool group. Not that there is anything wrong with homeschooling, but homeschool is not a private school.

Finished the research? Good. So now you have a pretty good idea what tuition at a private school in your area costs? I bet it’s more than $4000 per year.

Now let’s move on to this report which tells us (emphasis mine):

[T]his report details the results of the Goldwater Institute’s first annual statewide survey of Arizona private schools, representing over 20 percent of private schools in Arizona. It shows that private schools serve a diverse student population and offer a variety of curricula at roughly half the average public school expenditure of $7,816 per student. The average private elementary and middle school tuition is $3,700, and 89 percent of private schools offer financial aid. Three-quarters of private schools surveyed are sectarian, but 83 percent of those schools do not require religious affiliation for admission. Ninety-three percent of private schools surveyed administer standardized tests annually. Nearly 80 percent of private schools surveyed offer kindergarten, and 49 percent offer preschool programs. Forty-three percent of Arizona private schools surveyed accept special needs students, and nearly half of them have room for more. Private schools typically have half the student population of public schools and have smaller classes, 14 students per teacher compared to 18 students per teacher in public schools on average.

To review, they got data from one out of every 5 private schools in one state. Most of them offered financial aid despite the fact that I have yet to encounter a private school that did so. Among those schools, 75% were religious and probably won’t be able to receive Federal funds. Is “average” the mean or the median? Does the “average” figure of $3700 include unaccredited schools? Does it include very small schools? Oh yeah, and at over half of these schools, good luck if your kid has any kind of “special need.”

Oh, and by the way, where is the money to fund this going to come from? The Social Security lockbox?? Congress and the President keep talking about bringing the budget deficit down, but then they turn around and offer to spend $100,000,000.00!

A voucher of $4000 is a cruel joke on the middle class. For more of my musings on this topic, see my fourth post. In that very early post I also point out that voucher programs can result in de facto government control of private schools (“If you want the money, you have to do things our way”). I don’t think anybody wants that.

The nice folks at NYC Educator also have things to say about this, and I’m sure other education-centered blogs will weigh in Shortly.

You and What Army?

Some time back, I had the opportunity to discuss the First Amendment to the Constitution. Inasmuch as I support Constitutional Rights, I hope to discuss all of them outlined in the Bill of Rights in due time. That being the case, please forgive the delay as I am quite alarmingly overdue to discuss the Second Amendment. You’ll find it here, but the relevant text is:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.


This poor sentence has been subjected to so much scrutiny and twisting, so much debate and rhetoric. Some people say it means we all have the right to have any kind of gun we like. Others say it only means the military has a right to guns, an idea which seems redundant. Still others say the whole thing is outdated and needs to be reigned in with regulations, a tricky arrangement unless the whole thing is repealed.

When interpreting the sentence in question, it is useful to remember its context. So I direct you to the top of the page, where the Preamble to the Bill of Rights begins:

The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

So let’s keep in mind as we read that the purpose of this sentence and the entire Bill of Rights is “to prevent misconstruction or abuse of [the Government’s] powers.” Indeed, “During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Fresh in their minds was the memory of the British violation of civil rights before and during the Revolution. They demanded a “bill of rights” that would spell out the immunities of individual citizens.”

I have often condensed this line of reasoning as “Remember that the Bill of Rights was written by people who overthrew the legal British Colonial Government.”

So let’s begin with the concept of the well regulated militia. Militia is easily understood. Well regulated is another story, because in my opinion it means multiple things. Remember the story of Paul Revere? He rode through the countryside, raising the alarm that the British were planning an attack. This warning allowed Colonial citizens to band together as a militia and repel the attack. Of course his deeds are exaggerated in the famous poem, but Wikipedia informs us that “He used his numerous contacts in eastern Massachusetts to devise a system for the rapid call up of the militias to oppose the British. Although several messengers rode longer and alerted more soldiers than Revere that night, they were part of the organization that Revere created and implemented in eastern New England. Some claim that Paul Revere became famous while Dawes and Prescott did not because Revere was better known and trusted by those who knew him.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Revere illustrates multiple ways that we can have a “well regulated militia.” The militia in question was a group of more-or-less average fellows who stood up to the trained British regiment. However, they weren’t exactly beating Redcoats over the head with copper-bottomed pots! They had guns, and they knew how to use them. Granted, the modern Army no longer makes soldiers bring their own guns; it provides arms to soldiers, and trains them too. But imagine how much faster a country can mobilize against invasion if there are already people who know how to use basic firearms! General Washington must have been very glad he and so many other lads learned to hunt as a boy.

It is easy to see how the right to bear arms might result in the rapid recruitment and deployment of a militia. But don’t forget the other half of the story. The Minutemen were able to inflict “many casualties” on the well trained, well armed British troops. A “well regulated militia” can also mean that if the need arises, citizens can defend themselves against the troops of their own governement.

Both interpretations are absolutely necessary to the security of a free state, the next phrase of the sentence. To have a a continuing “free state,” we must have security from threats. These threats can be external — like an invading army. Or they can be internal — like an occupying army or Old West Outlaws or a military coup.

That’s a lot of philosophical baggage, and we haven’t even gotten to the main clause of the sentence, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. It is worth noting that the right is granted to people. Not men, not adults over the age of 21, not people who are not slaves, not citizens, not even people of sound mind. People. People like you and me and that guy you don’t like over there. Not only do ordinary people have the right “keep arms,” they have the right to “bear” them.

Make no mistake, I think there is plenty of middle ground for common sense regulation that does not “infringe” on the rights in question. I think we can all agree that we don’t want the mentally ill or known criminals carrying guns (with the caveat that we cannot count on known criminals to follow the law). And I don’t really think anybody wants people taking their guns with them to the bank or to school. Furthermore, I do not support “concealed carry” laws; if somebody wants to carry a gun in public, it belongs out in the open so everybody can see it and act accordingly.

I support the right of Joe and Jane Average to have guns; I hope I never feel like I need to have one.

In closing, Lou Dobbs on “The Bush White House and its lackeys in the Senate have reached a new low in their quest to bestow amnesty on 11 million to 20 million illegal immigrants, while doing as little as possible to secure our nation’s borders and ports.” I bet you didn’t even know there was such a thing as Japan’s National Unified Otaku Certification Test. Are the Top Ten College Majors also the next decade’s top ten most glutted professions? Ok, so the problem is that “biases and distortions in the current system had created financial incentives for hospitals to treat certain patients, on whom they could make money, and to avoid others, who were less profitable.” So the solution is to “cut payments by 20 percent to 30 percent for many complex treatments and new technologies.” For reference, “record hospital profit margins” are 5.2%, and that in a year that 25% of hospitals lost money. Here’s two experts on opposite sides of the “Net Neutrality” debate. And finally, Robert Rubin treads lightly as he points out the fact that the growing inequalities in the American economy have possible consequences in the long term, perhaps.