Remarkable Success in Public Education

In the video below John Stossel interviews Inez Tenenbaum when she was the South Carolina State Superintendent of Education. This first aired in 2006 and during the interview Stossel asks Tenenbaum about the dismal performance of the South Carolina public schools. I'm snipping the part of the interview out that I want to focus on but the relevant segment starts at 22:40 if you'd like to check my editing.

Ms. Tenenbaum makes some strong comments in this interview. She seems confident and predicts great improvements for South Carolina students. I thought it would be interesting to see how her predictions panned out. If nothing else she deserves to be given credit for progress that has no doubt occurred since this interview took place. And of course that progress took place, right? I mean, just listen to how sure she was: (I've started this video at her segment which starts at 22:40 and it runs through about the 27:00 mark)



Here is her current bio. Ms. Tenenbaum is no longer the State Superintendent of Education, she was appointed by Barack Obama to be the Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission in June 2009. Her bio states a couple things that are relevant to the topic at hand:

Ms. Tenenbaum was elected South Carolina's State Superintendent of Education in 1998 and completed her second term in 2007. Throughout her career, Ms. Tenenbaum has been an energetic and determined advocate for children and families and has extensive experience in administrative and regulatory matters.

During her tenure as South Carolina's State Superintendent of Education, student achievement in South Carolina improved at the fastest rate in the nation, with scores increasing on every state, national, and international tests administered. At the end of Ms. Tenenbaum's tenure, the prestigious journal Education Week ranked South Carolina number one in the country for the quality of its academic standards, assessment, and accountability systems.

So, this woman was not an education system passerby, she was the SC Superintendent of Education for about 8 years.

Some time has passed since this interview so maybe we could check on the "remarkable success" South Carolina was anticipating in its K-12 education. The first thing we'll check are the State's SAT scores. Now, the College Board, who administers the SAT, doesn't recommend you compare the various States by SAT scores but this will be a good starting point for our discussion. The SAT scores by State can be found here. Ms. Tenenbaum would be pleased, no doubt, that South Carolina no longer has the worst State scores. They have moved up two slots and now Hawaii and Maine perform worse. And of course Washington DC if we're going to count them. Over on the right we can see the 10 year improvement for the tests that were given in 1999. (The SAT now has a writing component and improvement data is not available for that) We see that SC has improved 7 in Reading and 21 in Math. These are improvements on their old 1999 scores of 1.5% and 4.4% respectively. Keep in mind that is over 10 years. I will leave it to the reader to decide whether that qualifies as a remarkable success.

The real test (hah hah) however, is South Carolina's performance on the NAEP exams. NAEP is the National Assessment of Educational Progress and is considered the gold standard by which to judge and compare a State's performance in education. It is administered by the National Center for Education Statistics which is part of the U.S. Department of Education. It is even referred to as "the nation's report card." NAEP does include private schools as well but they account for only 10% of students nationally. Let's see how SC compares:

The scores below are all 8th grade scores. It should be noted that in some of the earlier years some States did not participate. The maximum score is 500.

For Math, in 2000 SC was ranked 31st out of 41 with a score of 266. In 2009 they were 34/52 with a score of 280. A 5.3% score increase in nine years.

For Reading, in 1998 SC was ranked 31/38 with a score of 255. In 2009 they were 42/52 with a score of 257. A .7% score increase in eleven years.

For Science, in 2000 SC was ranked 34/39 with a score of 140. In 2009 they were 30/45 with a score of 145. A 3.6% score increase in nine years.

For Writing, in 1998 SC was ranked 32/37 with a score of 140. In 2009 they were 37/45 with a score of 148. A 5.7% score increase in eleven years.


In no area did South Carolina students do better than an average of about a .6% increase per year.

What does that bio say again?

During her tenure as South Carolina's State Superintendent of Education, student achievement in South Carolina improved at the fastest rate in the nation, with scores increasing on every state, national, and international tests administered.

I see. The fastest in the country, you say? Well, I suppose the other States should be um, concerned, yes?

Here is the National long term NAEP trend assessments for Reading and Math.

Reading (Click to enlarge):

Math (Click to enlarge):

Remarkable success.

This just proves we need more money in the education system right? I mean, if we had been spending more on education over these 30 years we would have a different story!

Well... you're probably a racist.

Stupid in America

Disgusting moral populism

Jim Wallis on The Daily Show:



There are few things worse than self righteous, sophomoric thinking pushed through a populist message. It has a way of catching fire and even sloppy reasoning when it is put in a way that sounds good can become part of the every-day consciousness. Downstream this can lead to poor decisions and bad policy. During this interview Jim is metaphorically wagging his judgmental finger in your face and talking down to you about your moral failings like a disappointed father... while pimping his book on TV for profit. Look Jim, either you get to preach to people about "values" and castigate them for their worship of money or you get to write a book and make money off of it. You can't do both.

I looked to see if Jim was donating the profits from his book to this-or-that charity and I wasn't able to find anything. And I don't mean just some of the profits, I mean all of them. Why, you ask? Well, if he can draw an arbitrary line in the sand for what constitutes a morally approved charity donation - well then so can I.

Look, if you want to give to the relief effort in Haiti, by all means, give. And don't think that I necessarily approve of all bonuses either. Graft is graft and waste is waste but... and this may come as a shock to people like Jim, bonuses serve a purpose in the workplace - even in banking. How much does Jim know about running a bank? Not much I'd guess. Not that that keeps him from running his yap about it. Worse, he dresses his pronouncements in a sort of quasi-religious, motherly-pat-on-the-knee folks-ism. I know what's best for your soul, Dear. Oh, and I wrote a book about it. Only $19.95!

While the interview is chock full of populist cliches I want to talk about a few specifics here. At a certain point in the interview, he says that the bonus money should be appropriated in some manner other than to give it to the people who... what's the word... oh, worked for it. His first idea is Haiti. As I explained above, first - we don't need people like you lecturing us like children, and second - you first. Third, Jim has no idea what percentage of their income these bonuses constitute. In a sales position it is entirely possible to have a very significant portion of your income - that you rely on to, you know, feed your family - come in the form of "bonuses". Jim has no idea what these people do for a living, how specialized their particular skills are, how hard or long or smart they work, in what manner banks structure their pay to increase productivity, or how much they might (or might not) deserve to be compensated. He knows absolutely nothing about them. Except that they should give their money away. And Jim will be right there to morally bully them into doing the right thing. It's for the common good, you know. Fourth, a considerable percentage of this money will actually go back to one level of government or another. Before you blow that off, consider that both the Mayor of NYC and the Governor of New York have made comments opposing any sort of retro-active penalty, tax, or fee against these banks or persons. Why? Because NYC and the great state of New York tax the crap out of their citizens, especially high income ones, and they stand to collect a great deal from these bonuses. Mayor Bloomberg had this to say after the idea of keeping the bonuses in escrow was bandied about:

The mayor was so upset about the move -- and a suggestion that Wall Street bonuses be put in escrow, which means the money wouldn't be spent here, wouldn't help the city economy -- he responded with a proposal of his own for members of Congress.

"Maybe we should hold back their salaries for a decade or so and see whether the laws they pass work out," Bloomberg said.

Food for thought, that.

Jim's second idea is that we use that $150 billion dollars to pay the deficit of the various States in the Union. Let it be known: we already do this. The federal government subsidizes the state budgets in all manner of ways. Name most any service that a State provides and you'll find a Federal dollar somewhere on the balance sheet for that service. Texas, for example, gets about 31% of it's revenue from the Federal Government. Wisconsin famously halted its plans to lower the drinking age to 19 - only for military service members - because the Feds would pull about $30 million in highway funds. The States already receive too much money from the Federal Government and are restricted and regulated correspondingly. There is no free lunch - and no Federal dollars without strings. Even if Jim means we should give to the States above and beyond what we already do, we wouldn't exactly be encouraging future fiscal responsibility by our State Governments if we bail them out after their spending bonanzas. Kinda like the banks...

What's that you say, this is exactly what we already did with the stimulus bill? Oh, that $787 billion monstrosity? Here's the full title:

An act making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes.

Jim, your indignance was only about a year late. The States already got their billions.

His next idea is to use this money to "prevent mortgage foreclosures all the way through 2012". For the sake of discussion, I will assume that Jim has not developed the ability to see into the future and he is just speculating and using some formulation of projected mortgage foreclosure rates over the next two years. The reader that hasn't been in a coma for the past couple years will note the considerable lack of success recently in the arena of projecting said mortgage failure rates by people way more experienced and much smarter than Jim - but hey, we'll just let it slide and assume it to be true. No opportunity for graft or waste in a program like that, I daresay. And certainly pushing billions into the housing market in such a manner won't alter people's behavior in any way. Nah. I'm sure people, being the noble and altruistic beings that they are, will continue doing the right thing and go on paying that mortgage even though there's billions of dollars sitting around to "prevent" them from foreclosing on their house.

Mmm, what's that you say? There already is a $75 billion mortgage foreclosure prevention program? What the deuce!?

He does say one thing that I agree with him on. He derides the "too big to fail" line by banks and other financial organizations and says we should make them smaller. I agree completely; if your organization is so big that its failure will cause country sized collapses in the financial markets - then you need to be cut down.

Jim gives "greed" a good solid B+, populist bashing in the interview. In the interest of fairness I offer a counterpoint, Stossel: Greed is good. And more here on greed by Stossel, in video! (An excellent 6 part ABC special - watch this)

Watch out for The Consensus

NYT: A New Search for Consensus on Health Care Bill

Can't say I didn't warn you.

MSNBC reaction to Scott Brown victory

Instapunk (NSFW) links this piece from Glenn Garvin on the difference between the coverage of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC of the special election in Massachusetts. A snippet:

If you watched CNN or Fox News last night, you got a balanced analysis of how Republican Scott Brown pulled off the political upset of the century (or, if you prefer, how Democrat Martha Coakley blew a dead solid electoral lock). Yes, I said Fox News, without irony. To be sure, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity made it clear they were rooting for Brown. But their shows also included a steady parade of liberal-leaning guests -- former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, former Dukakis campaign manager Susan Estrich, Democratic party strategist Mary Anne Marsh, NPR commentator Juan Williams and radio host Alan Colmes. And pollster Frank Luntz interviewed a panel of two dozen or so Massachusetts voters, most of them Democrats, about how they voted and why. Practically every conceivable perspective on the election was represented.

And on MSNBC, you got practically every conceivable expression of venom against Brown and anybody who voted him. From Maddow's dark suspicions that the election was rigged -- she cited complaints about a grand total of six ballots out of about 2.25 million cast -- to Olbermann's suggestion in the video up above that the same Massachusets voters who went for Barack Obama by a 62-28 percent margin had suddenly realized they helped elect a black guy and went Republican in repentance, the network's coverage was idiotic, one-sided and downright ugly.

As they say, read the whole thing(SFW link).

Memo to Olbermann: You work for a corporation

Related: Jon Stewart mocks Olbermann over Scott Brown comments.

Update: Olbermann responds and reminds everyone of Affleck spoofing him on SNL:





From the Hot Air Headlines

Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United v. FEC

SCOTUSblog has a round-up.

An interesting segment on CNN over torture

From Hot Air.

Part 2.

Pelosi says they don't have the votes

At WaPo.

What to watch out for next? The Republicans selling out of course. Don't forget that many (most) of these guys are big government types that have been on watch over the past couple decades as the size and scope of the federal government has expanded as never before. It would be easy for the Democrats to "cut a deal" by scaling back on some of the health insurance bill to get something passed which they can expand on at a later, less controversial time.

Hit Cato up for some actual reform ideas.

Happy Birthday Major Winters

Richard Winters, Commander of Easy Company during World War II, turns 92 today.

Band of Brothers is an amazing mini-series by the way. I highly recommend it.

A headline to warm your cold, capitalist heart

Dems' Massachusetts loss clouds Pelosi's future

This is totally unrelated to Scott Brown

Totally.

Some post Brown victory wrap up

Brown on his election:

Asked on NBC's "Today" show if the election was a referendum on Obama, he replied, "No, it's bigger than that."

Ooooh, that's gonna leave a mark.

NYT: A Year Later, Voters Send a Different Message

Rasmussen: Brown Wins Stunning Victory in Massachusetts

In the end, Brown pulled off the upset in large part because he won unaffiliated voters by a 73% to 25% margin. The senator-elect also picked up 23% of the vote from Democrats. [Our polling shows that 53% of voters in Massachusetts are Democrats, 21% Republican and 26% not affiliated with either party.]

WSJ: The Boston Tea Party.
Massachusetts voters tell Democrats to shelve ObamaCare.

New York Post: Heck of a Job, Brownie!

IBD: This is big for Romney too.


Wishful thinking by Fred Barnes? Healthcare is dead.


The Boston Globe says:

Brown’s strong win does not negate the resounding mandate that President Obama and Democrats in Congress received in 2008 to address escalating health costs, which are strangling businesses while pricing coverage beyond the reach of tens of millions of Americans. Both houses of Congress have already passed credible reform bills. At this point, President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should bring the legislative process to a close by pushing House members to pass the Senate version. Any necessary amendments can be addressed in the budget bill, which isn’t subject to the filibuster.

Here's Scott Brown's victory speech if you missed it.

Some of my favorite MA tweets

Brown wins

Obama won Massachusetts 62/36.2.


Can't top the AP headline: Brown win is Epic.

Barney Frank reverses his reversal...

As soon as I saw this I knew I had to look into what Barney had been saying during the whole "nuclear option" shindig a while back. Here's Barney showing us why he's been a federal legislator for 28 years: Now that the Health Care legislation is in jeopardy the filibuster must go!



Over at The Jawa Report we have an old Boston Herald story:

WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, who publicly crusaded against Senate filibusters 12 years ago, now says he opposes banning filibusters against judicial nominees - the so-called "nuclear option'' fueling a bruising Capitol Hill showdown.

``I would vote against changing the filibuster rule right now,'' Frank (D-Newton) told the Herald in a telephone interview Thursday. Frank explained he still supports an ``across-the-board'' ban against all filibusters, but he opposes the Republican ``nuclear option'' because it only outlaws filibusters against judicial nominees.

In 1993, Frank led a public fight to end Senate filibusters, asserting in a Washington Post op-ed piece: ``I believe legislative bodies should scrupulously abide by two principles: complete openness and majority rule. The filibuster is a godsend to potential gridlockers.''

Right, Barney.

By the sword...

Massachusetts will elect its Senator today to fill the seat left by Ted Kennedy. With the election might go the fate of the Health Care legislation. Intrade and a variety of polls have Brown up:



But Zogby says it's Coakley by a point.

Another link in the poverty-leads-to-terrorism chain

Or maybe not... Today a woman from Pakistan who went to MIT will stand trial in NYC. Yeah, the MIT in Boston.

For those with a battle of the sexes sense of humor:

In the summer of 2008, a shopkeeper in the Afghan city of Ghazni noticed a strange sight: a woman in a burqa drawing a map. In a region where nearly all females are illiterate, he found it suspicious and called the police, according to an Afghan intelligence official.

(Insert joke about women reading 'n learnin stuff just causing problems here.)

The majority of the article goes on to explain what a great case she's going to have in a civilian court. Look for this one to last 10 years over the course of its appeal lifetime.

Siddiqui’s family, including her sister, Fowzia, a Harvard-trained epilepsy specialist, publicly accused the United States of secretly detaining and torturing Siddqui at the US military base in Bagram.

She offered little evidence of that claim, except a report that a former prisoner had seen her there. The charges have sparked deep outrage in Pakistan, where Siddiqui is widely viewed as a victim.

She went to MIT and her sister went to Harvard. It's like we're just forcing them to become terrorists.

The end times

So if this wasn't bad enough now we see this monstrosity:

MOVIE fans are rushing to name their babies after characters in sci-fi smash Avatar.

What are you?

The story below from the NYT reminded me of this old study from Pew in 2005 titled Red vs. Blue in which Pew matched your answers to some basic political typologies.

Take the test here and find out what you are.

For the record I was a...

Why are professors liberal?

From the NYT. It includes this interesting graphic:

The figure on journalists is interesting too and matches the difference between liberals and conservatives in this Pew poll from 2004, which said in part:

About a third of national journalists (34%) and somewhat fewer local journalists (23%) describe themselves as liberals; that compares with 19% of the public in a May survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, there is a relatively small number of conservatives at national and local news organizations. Just 7% of national news people and 12% of local journalists describe themselves as conservatives, compared with a third of all Americans.

Many people have noted the 34/7 number for the National Press and that liberals outnumber conservatives by about 5 times there. This stands in stark contrast to the numbers for the general population where conservatives outnumber liberals 33/20. Keep in mind that this is also a self described survey.


From the Hot Air Headlines.

Dogs and Cats, #2

From the University of Texas: Research Shows Personality Differences Between Cat and Dog People.

In a paper to be published later this year in the journal Anthrozoös, Sam Gosling finds that those who define themselves as "dog people" are more extraverted, more agreeable and more conscientious than self-described "cat people."

Fans of felines, on the other hand, are more neurotic but also more open than their canine-loving counterparts.

I believe this.

What would we do without France?

No, really, what would we do?

Giving Jon Stewart his due

Via Newsbusters, Jon Stewart reminds MSNBC there's a time and place for partisanship - and this isn't it.

The hesistant, nervous laughter from the audience is kind of funny all on its own.

China's empty city

From Ace's headlines:

Math funny

Orin Kerr relates a funny exchange that took place over use of the word "orthogonal" at the Supreme Court.

Stossel and Gillespie on the Nanny State

Me or your lying eyes?

This photo is making the rounds. It shows a Weekly Standard reporter being knocked to the ground by someone associated with the Coakley campaign while Coakley herself looks on:

When asked about the incident Coakley reportedly said she didn't see it. Hmm.

See more at Ace and Powerline.

John McCormack is the Weekly Standard Reporter who was pushed. Here is his account with video.

Update: Powerline points towards another Coakley mistake... always make sure you spell the name of your state right.

Pay no attention to the man...

...or woman, behind that curtain. Last night, PhRMA, the drug company trade/lobbyist group held a fundraiser for Coakley, the Democrat in a tight race with Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts for Ted Kennedy's old seat.

How many times have we heard that the drug companies are fighting against this health insurance legislation?

H/T: Hot Air Headlines

Gold from the Onion

As always:

Biden Criticized For Appearing In Hennessy Ads

So should Harry Reid resign?

I am certainly no fan of Harry Reid or his policies but I don't think he should resign his seat over his recent comments:

...American voters would embrace a “light-skinned’’ African American who speaks “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.’’

With the exception of actually committing a crime I don't believe there are really any good reasons for a Congressman or woman to resign their seat. That's what elections are for. I don't believe Reid's comments warrant his resignation of the majority leader post either. That's not to say though, that the comments are irrelevant or not newsworthy - they are and there are plenty of things in the statement for one person or another to find offensive or just plain stupid. Even so, I don't think Reid should have to step down over them.

Tactical considerations in the world of hardball politics make the Republican criticism understandable though. Harry Reid is a vulnerable Majority Leader and this is an election year when pivotal issues are at stake; Republicans aren't going to pull any punches. Democrats do the same thing, of course. The faux outrage in these scandals is only as strong as their opportunity to make political hay from whatever they are supposedly upset about though. Democrats and the left have very successfully cornered the race market and only the anointed have the right to speak - sometimes regardless of the offensiveness of any statements. Even fairly innocuous statements in the Race Orbit can be twisted, packaged, and mainstreamed into a club with which to bludgeon your political opponent with. So, in that sense, the gander gets what's coming. While the Trent Lott non-controversy involved statements that were arguably higher on the racism-o-meter the difference between the reactions of the so-called enlightened in the two situations is telling. The defense he gets is fairly straightforward: Reid gets a pass because he is Race Approved.

As with many issues though, the actual realities of the situation don't really matter. What matters is what people perceive rather than what actually is. And people in America perceive that race is a huge problem. I'm not saying that racism isn't a problem - I'm saying that it doesn't matter whether it really is or not because as a society we have decided that it is been told it is by those that know things. Totally by coincidence, I'm sure, those same people have a solution ready: talk about it, endlessly. Well, they will talk about it, we just need to listen.

Many of these pundits, mostly on the left, maintain the importance of the "conversation" on race or racism.  However, they don't mean the type of conversation that most of us think of with a give-and-take and a meaningful sharing of opinion. Instead what they mean is they want a chance to lecture and tell you what they think. You can speak and take part in the discussion as long as you agree with them and parrot their social justice memes.

I saw an interview with Morgan Freeman once in which he said that to end racism we should stop talking about it and I think he's mostly right. The more we talk about and emphasize the small things that make us different rather than the large overarching things which make us the same the more we will perceive those differences and the more they will influence our personal decisions and governmental policies.

So many jokes...

Chris Matthews, upon hearing that Sarah Palin would be contributing to Fox News:

An unwitting tribute to America? Here, even morons can become Governors. 

And TV show anchors I suppose.

H/T: Hot Air Headlines

The dumbest thing you will read today

Audiences experience post-Avatar depression.

"One can say my depression was twofold: I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, which seemed like such a perfect place, but I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world, what we have done to Earth. I so much wanted to escape reality," Hill said.

Dogs and Cats, #1

Does this dog sense the earthquake coming?

Dog Senses Arcata Earthquake at News Station - Watch more Funny Videos

Powerline on Harry Reid

A good post over at Powerline about Harry Reid's 'Negro' comments and comparisons to Trent Lott.

You lie?

Obama during the campaign on health care negotiations:

Texas vs. California

Over at Instapundit, a link to Texas vs. California, an ongoing discussion that many on the right or of the libertarian persuasion have pointed to in order to illustrate the flaws of certain policies with CA representing the left and TX the right.

More here, here, and here.

In what respects, then, does California "excel"? California's state and local government employees were the best compensated in America, according to the Census Bureau data for 2006. And the latest posting on the website of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility shows 9,223 former civil servants and educators receiving pensions worth more than $100,000 a year from California's public retirement funds. The "dues" paid by taxpayers in order to belong to Club California purchase benefits that, increasingly, are enjoyed by the staff instead of the members.

Nice work if you can get it.

South Park nails Whale Wars

Really, they did (Link to the full episode NSFW). Perhaps their recent episode lampooning the show Whale Wars hit a bit close to home? These idiots just managed to get their new speedboat, which was built to break speed records, smashed by a... whaling vessel. I know those speedwhalers can probably do a good, solid B+ 20 knots but um, guys, step on the gas much?

At the beginning of Operation Waltzing Matilda, Watson talked up the impact the Ady Gil, formerly known as Earthrace, would have in confronting whalers. He said the boat, with a top speed of up to 50 knots (58mph) and able to dive under waves completely, would "give us the speed we need to intercept the harpooners. This vessel is twice as fast as a harpoon vessel".

Mmmm... Yeah.

I will say that I'm impressed by the fact that Greenpeace calls him an eco-terrorist. That's some endorsement, I admit.

I saw this guy on some show yesterday claiming they are the victims in this incident but as they say, you can't be both the pimp and the prostitute. The older video right  below shows that the Sea Shepherd people have been throwing their muscle around so their shock plays a bit thin with me. Really, they shouldn't be surprised if or when the Japanese whalers return the favor.

The collision with the speedboat is below. That loud, screeching noise you hear? That's the sound of $2 million dollars being flushed down your low flow toilet. It's like the story of the guy who wrecks his brand new Porsche on the way home from the dealership - because he parked it on the railroad tracks. Here's hoping there's a "no ramming Japanese whaling vessels" clause in their insurance policy:

Kelly McParland over at the National Post is feeling some of the same vibes.

New unemployment numbers

Looks like it's leveling out. Let's hope we keep moving in the right direction. Innocent Bystanders has the latest chart:

H/T: Ace.

This is how Government "competes"

Here's an astounding video from Stossel's show on the strong arm tactics used by government regulators instituting TARP.




H/T: Hot Air.

Choice?

Two great videos over at The Patriot Room on school choice - one from Reason and one by Milton Friedman. It's difficult to think of a more pointed example of political calculus than the DC school voucher program. Which to back, powerful teacher's unions or a couple thousand poor kids? That Democrats chose the former should surprise no one.

Here's the first, hit the link above for the second, which is truly heartbreaking:

H/T: Hot Air

War Pr0n

We are all serious

So terrorism is a serious business. I know it. You know it. We all know it. I know that Obama knows it. But when I watch Obama give a speech or talk about it - I can't tell that he knows it. I basically have to take it on faith. I have to convince myself: "well, of course he takes it seriously, I mean, what kind of person wouldn't?" But it just doesn't register - I don't see it in his tone or mannerisms; it just doesn't seem to register on his emotional radar. Instead I feel like he takes this war and terrorism in general seriously in the manner I take my taxes - or visits to the dentist - seriously.

Unfortunately this doesn't inspire confidence in me. I don't want my Commander in Chief to conduct a war like I fill out my 1040 - with intermittent channel surfing and long sighs of irritation: for the love of the Home Tree^tm, when will this be over?

This could entirely be a matter of political grooming but you'd have a hard time convincing many people that Bush had more "polishing" than Obama. If there's any word that can be used to describe Obama it's polished. I hope that this is the case and that Obama really does take these wars and national security as deadly serious as Bush made me believe he did. 

Compare these comments by Bush back in 2006 recently reposted at the Foundry with those made by Obama over the past week:

See what I mean?

Very cool

The Third and Seventh.

H/T: Hot Air.

H/T: Villainous Company

A dig at pop culture

Over at NPR, a taste:

Admit it: If you've seen Avatar, weren't you sort of overwhelmed by how everything in the story has been in some other movie? Pocahontas, The Last of the Mohicans, the Smurfs. (OMG, we love the Smurfs.) It's like some unholy mashup of those movies, plus bits of Wall-E, Thundercats, Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia — every colonialist fantasy in which an Outsider Saves Natives, or Outsider Wants to Be a Native, or better yet Outsider Wants to Be King OF the Natives. Avatar rips off every movie in the world but Twilight.

Ouch.

Pearls before swine

$250 million for science, math...

First, I'm all for spending more money on education - when it can be shown that said money might actually result in an improvement in education. However, the US has been spending more and more money on education over the past 25 years, massively more - to little, if any effect. Depending on what you count as "expenditure" we currently spend about $11,700 per K-12 student. Heritage has a good post on this so I'm going to steal one of their graphs:

The Post, in typical fashion, glosses over the real picture of international American performance:

Business and government leaders have sounded alarms over science and math education in recent years as concern has mounted that the United States may be losing the technological edge that fueled its economy in the 20th century. The nation's universities are still known as world leaders, but the performance of its K-12 schools has come under scrutiny. International math testing in 2007 found that U.S. fourth-graders trailed counterparts in some areas of Europe and Asia and that U.S. eighth-graders lagged behind those from a handful of Asian powers. Similar results were found in science.

The tests they are talking about are the PIRLS and TIMSS examinations and they accurately quote the results. However, there is one more international test that is extremely important for international student comparison: PISA.  In 2006, 57 countries participated in the exam. It measures the performance of 15 year olds in reading, science, and math. If you are interested in the scores of fourth and eighth graders why not 11th graders as well? That they went to the trouble to post results from the other tests only makes the exclusion of PISA all the more glaring. Anyway, as you are probably already guessing, the US's performance in PISA was abysmal. The US's score for reading was thrown out due to an error in the test booklet but in science we scored 30th and in math, 34th.

For years more education spending has been the clarion call of the left. Teachers and Teacher's Unions have been claiming that we simply don't spend enough money on education: if we spent more, we'd get more. And so we have. We have dramatically increased spending on education on both a federal and state level. But with the exception of Switzerland we spend more on a per student basis than any other country in the world. And still countries like Croatia and Austria outscore us in science and math.

While I appreciate the intentions of these folks, this money will still be funneled through the incompetent, bureaucratic mess that is our education system and the results will be similar to previous influxes of cash into the system - almost nothing.

Big Business

Stossel mentions an op-ed in Forbes by Rep. Ryan. Here is the op-ed. I think many people confuse Big Business for what are more realistically agreements between government and business. Many times "regulation" is steered to keep competition out of certain regions or areas and new, would-be competitors suppressed. Hit the link for a refreshing article from an elected official.

So Dodd is calling it quits...

The end.

The Fox analysts mostly say this is bad news for Democrats and the CNN analysts mostly say the opposite.

One wonders.

CIA using assets to look at global warming?

So Fox and Friends had this story on this morning about the CIA using satellites to look into possible global warming evidence. An article over at the New York Times appears to be the source of the story. On its face this appears to be a serious misuse of intelligence assets but upon consideration it may be understandable. The article is careful to point out early:

The monitoring program has little or no impact on regular intelligence gathering, federal officials said, but instead releases secret information already collected or takes advantage of opportunities to record environmental data when classified sensors are otherwise idle or passing over wilderness.

Of course, "little" may mean something different to you and me than to the editors at the NYT or to unnamed "federal officials". Which federal officials you ask? Well, the Times doesn't say but maybe it's this one:

 A senior federal official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, defended the scientific monitoring as exploiting the intelligence field quite adroitly.

Ah, the infamous anonymous federal official; there's one in every Times story it seems. Once again we are forced to take the word of someone on a possibly critical issue who doesn't want their name used either because of political considerations or because it is a crime for them to speak about it. The article also goes on to mention that the scientists involved in this program have secret clearances, one presumes over the accuracy and capability of the satellites involved. An NDA is without a doubt part of these clearances... No doubt these scientists will take their responsibilities more seriously than these "federal officials".

That said, it is obvious that satellites do in fact spend time over areas that would otherwise be of no interest to us and I have no problem with using that "time" for other pursuits. Obviously we do have polar satellites and it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to see some spare available time for some scientific inspection so long as it doesn't interfere with the primary mission of the CIA - you know, security of the nation and all that jazz. The article also mentions that this program was suspended under Bush which does give me additional pause. Say what you will about Bush but he was serious about terrorism and security. This might be a case of walking and chewing gum at the same time but from where I sit I wouldn't bet on it.

Because I have to

Some good news from Iraq

Zero American Combat Deaths in Iraq Last Month

Blizzard helps authorities catch fugitive

No, the other kind of Blizzard:

Long arm of law reaches into World of Warcraft.

Armed with this information and Hightower's WOW alias of "Rastlynn," Roberson sent Blizzard a subpoena asking for Hightower's location--a subpoena that couldn't be enforced, given that it was in a different state. Several months later, though, the lawman received a welcome surprise--a packet of information on the fugitive's whereabouts, including the IP address from which he was logging onto the WOW servers.

"I did a search off the IP address to locate him," Roberson told Kokomo Perspective. "I got a longitude and latitude. Then I went to Google Earth. It works wonders. It uses longitude and latitude. Boom! I had an address."

Security or silliness

David Steinberg at the LA Times writes about some of the silly security procedures at the airports. Stories such as these and my own experiences at airports have made me wonder if perhaps we should look in a different direction. Of course in the tradition of most government contracts it's possible, or probable, that we would end up with a monopolistic type system where the best results of competitive capitalism are mostly negated.

A Picture is Worth...

Over at Instapundit I see this Rasmussen graph of the Presidential approval index. It is quite startling:

Berkeley High to drop science labs because...

... white and asian students perform better.

Regardless of whether or not this ever actually happens it is still amazing that it's even being considered.