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