No Child Gets Ahead, hormesis, and a mixed bag of interesting mail

Mail 696 Friday, October 21, 2011

In tiny rural Kansas district, students out-performing global competition

Jerry

It figures there would be a town – or four towns, actually – where all of the children are above average:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/tiny-rural-kansas-district-students-performing-global-competition-195446967.html

“The students in this sleepy agricultural community are not only out-performing American kids in other, much wealthier schools; they’re also out-performing most students in developed nations around the world, according to a new analysis.

“The average student at the Waconda school district of 385 kids scores better than 90 percent of students in 20 developed countries on math and reading tests, according to The Global Report Card, published in the journal Education Next. In fact, Waconda is the second highest performing school district in math in the country, after Pelham, Massachusetts, an affluent community that is home to Amherst College.”

The details, of course, will not surprise you. Maybe even not this: “65 percent of them qualify for free or reduced federal lunches, an indication that they live in poverty.”

Heh.

Ed

One of your readers posits:

The study raises a troubling but predictable question: Is the U.S. preoccupation with closing achievement gaps and "leaving no child behind" coming at the expense of our "talented tenth"?

The alternate name of "No child too far ahead" for Bush Jr’s education plan didn’t evolve in a vacuum.

Regards,

John Harlow

So Much for Transparency

Jerry,

Under the direction of the Obama White House – John Holdren in particular – various US Government officials working with the UN’s IPCC have taken to using private email accounts instead of their official email, for the illegal purpose of hiding communications from Freedom of Information Act requests.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/17/breaking-an-ipcc-backchannel-cloud-was-apparently-established-to-hide-ipcc-deliberations-from-foia/

So much for transparency. My own policy opinions have differed pretty sharply with this administration in many instances, so I’m not exactly a fan of theirs. Even seen through that lens, their behavior time after time is both extreme and surprisingly consistent. I’m reminded of the corruption of part of the constitution (or whatever it was called) in Animal Farm, which went something like: "All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others."

Regards,

George

Hormesis

Jerry,

When I googled this topic today at work, I got a link to your site and the link you posted about this topic. I work in the nuclear power industry and I remember when I was at the Dresden plant, someone asked the instructor in the annual Rad Worker requalification about hormesis. He replied that he was forbidden by NRC regulation to even mention the subject.

Joe Wooten

The evidence for hormesis continues to pile up. I have intended to write an essay on the subject. For now there is the Taiwan accidental experiment http://www.radpro.com/641luckey.pdf and for the subject itself the Wikipedia article is overly cautious but gives a passable introduction to what we’re talking about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis

The dose makes the poison; and we all know of substances vital for life that are poisonous if taken in large doses. The statistical evidence for hormesis seems overwhelming but regulatory agencies have been loathe to adopt the idea. It’s on my list for an essay.

Flaking

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Henry+Tavarez <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Henry+Tavarez> , whose buy-and-bust activity had been low"

——

I can’t help but wonder what would happen if a citizen caught an officer doing this, then took his head off with a tire iron or something.

What would happen is that the citizen would end up being executed for murder, or, more likely, die in custody from an attack by an unknown assailant.

Abuse of power by police is infuriating, but some of it is inevitable. Even God suffered from fallible minions.

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

I’ve encountered a style of management called ‘rock management’: Manager: ‘bring me a rock.’ Employee brings him a rock. Manager: ‘not that one’. This survey reminds me of rock management. The UK people want less immigration, but in categories the UK has no control over. The current attempt to control immigration by reducing the numbers of skilled workers and students entering the UK is definitely not what they want. See <http://preview.tinyurl.com/3v74h7a> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15324754> <http://preview.tinyurl.com/6abp7jy>

Lord Giddens comments on university policy: <http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=417796&c=1> I now intend to remain in the UK for the 2012-13 academic year–one rarely gets to observe a train wreck up close and personal.

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Beware Outside Context Problems–Harry Erwin, PhD

“The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader. Everyone who stands between those two has both risk and opportunity.”

<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/technology/amazon-rewrites-the-rules-of-book-publishing.html?&pagewanted=all>

—–

Roland Dobbins

I’d think an editor is needed. Most writers are awful at editing their own material.

Jerry Pournelle

I concur; however, editing/curation seems to be taking a back seat in the rush to ebook publishing. This is somewhat analogous to all the awful typography which became so common after the original Mac and LaserWriter brought ‘desktop publishing’ to the masses.

—–

Roland Dobbins

Publishing has certainly been turned upside down recently, and the revolution continues. I would think there are serious careers in editing and reviewing for those good enough at it and clever enough to find out how to exploit those talents.

“Racial balancing is not transformed from ‘patently unconstitutional’ to a compelling state interest simply by relabeling it ‘racial diversity’.”

<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/sunday-review/college-diversity-nears-its-last-stand.html?&pagewanted=all>

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Roland Dobbins

I have many times said we need a Constitutional Ammendment that says

Neither the Federal Government nor any State may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws; and this time we really mean it. But then I was considered a hopeless radical when I was a teenager in then-segregated Tennessee who believed and said that the law ought to be color blind. I have had many changes of political view since then, but I never changed that belief – which now, apparently, labels me a hopeless reactionary.

Subj: A natural deterioration dynamic in Rule by Foxes?

I do not remember seeing quite this analysis in Pareto, but upon reflection it seems to me to be consistent with Pareto’s analysis:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/280266/dynamics-despotism-john-derbyshire

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

It is quite consistent with Pareto, who deserves a great deal more study and attention than he gets. For those who find Pareto too dense, I can recommend Burnham’s summary in The Machiavellians. Alas the book is long out of print, but copies can be found. It is worth searching for. I can’t tell if it is public domain; were I sure it was I would find a way to put up a Kindle version with commentary.

Why the OWS Movement should support Herman Cain

The Nation is in an uproar, the Tea Party’s Nemesis is blossoming worldwide and the MSM is presenting the victim’s story in 3D (BTW – Credit the Seer of Progress, Michael Moore with predicting the upheaval!). Ebenezer Scrooge is in charge of the economy and He Must Pay, from his riches sooner, else he pay with his life, later.

Comes a Black Man from the nether regions of the Right, spouting simple blasphemy; a Traitor to his Race, regardless the purity of his beginnings. Cain preaches moving to a Tax on consumption that will fall on everyone, without exception or loophole; a Politician’s Nightmare.

Imagine – No favors for Politicians to sell; Armies of Tax lawyers, Government bureaucrats, Wall Street Fixers and the Internal Revenue Service unemployed. Conspicuous consumers would have to pay more for what they consume! The Horror!

Dan Steele

Good news!

<.>

British billionaire Richard Branson opened the world’s first-ever commercial spaceport in the New Mexico desert, the new home for his company, Virgin Galactic </>

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.a7531fdac8c142d68b402738294123a2.2a1&show_article=1

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

America may yet become a space faring nation.

Re: Billion-Ton Comet May Have Missed Earth by a Few Hundred Kilometers in 1883

Jerry,

From MIT’s Technology Review yesterday:

"Manterola and pals have used this to place limits on how close the fragments must have been: between 600 km and 8000 km of Earth. That’s just a hair’s breadth.

What’s more, Manterola and co estimate that these objects must have ranged in size from 50 to 800 metres across and that the parent comet must originally have tipped the scales at a billion tons or more, that’s huge, approaching the size of Halley’s comet."

…

"Each fragment was at least as big as the one thought to have hit Tunguska. Manterola and co end with this: "So if they had collided with Earth we would have had 3275 Tunguska events in two days, probably an extinction event.""

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27264/?ref=rss

While comment is actually unneeded – Holy Cow!

Regards,

George

Indeed.

APOD: 2011 October 18 – Movie: Approaching Light Speed

Jerry

Your colonists, on their way to Avalon, might have perceived this:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111018.html

Lovely, brought to us by APOD.

Ed

Glory.

600 Mysteries in the Night Sky

Jerry

Says here the Fermi orbiting telescope has picked up 600 gamma ray sources not connected to anything visible:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/18oct_600mysteries/

I keep hoping someone will decide these are the exhaust from antimatter rockets . . .

Ed

What with dark matter, dark energy, and all the rest of it, one wonders if we are not due for a new grand theory of everything. There’s just too much unexplained “Gee that’s funny” happening…