The Golden Gate

Captain Ed has a great post about Yale’s courtship and eventual rejection of Hashemi, the Taliban’s former diplomat at large. Quotable:

It’s odd that Yale would have trotted out the diversity argument, considering the regime that Hashemi represented. Let’s recall that the Taliban beat women for not covering themselves from head to toe and men for shaving their faces. Ancient Buddhist carvings, considered artistic and historical treasures, exist no more thanks to Taliban tolerance. The Taliban also reintroduced the lovely Islamic tradition of tolerance by crushing homosexuals to death or throwing them off of towers.

The latter point seems especially germane when it comes to Yale. After all, they have taken the position that the American military cannot stage ROTC classes at the campus due to their “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military (which I also oppose, for several reasons). Yale’s students and faculty argued that the university would benefit from having Hashemi’s diverse viewpoint represented on campus, but they kicked out the military for a much milder viewpoint and action than that of Hashemi and his colleagues.And while they argue that Hashemi would have benefited the Yale community by his inclusion, no one appears to wonder whether Yale students might benefit from having the ROTC on campus and the diversity of political opinion it might create.

Yale invited Hashemi — he didn’t just show up and fill out an application. They went out of their way to get him to choose Yale, because as their admissions office stated, they didn’t want to lose another “high profile” candidate to Harvard. Regardless of all the arguments about diversity and openness, all of which get belied by Yale’s policies towards the American military, Yale obviously chose Hashemi as a tweak at the Bush administration. They thought that Hashemi’s presence would embarrass the White House and give Yale some sort of moral authority.

Instead, they have demonstrated themselves to be hypocrites, and still do with this decision.

Playboy Magazine in…wait for it…in braille. Once you get done shaking your head in disbelief, go check it out and the rest of the Banterist’s site.

Maybe some people really do read it just for the articles.

Naaaaaahhhhhhhh.

Dave over at Logical Meme has a thorough post on this controversy which should not really be a controversy at all. It is a long post well worth reading. Here is one of my favorite passages:

Nor does ID entail rejection of evolutionary theory. Many a respectable philosopher and scientist have entertained the possibility that some form of higher intelligence might be the theoretical construct that best ‘explains’ how we perceive the reality we perceive and what might lie beyond it: Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, C.S. Lewis, and contemporary philosophers such as Alvin Plantiga, William Alston, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Antony Flew.

At a minimum, ID and the basic philosophical position of deism (be it Gaia, Buddhism, extraterrestrial intelligence, God, or the theoretical construct of a humanly-unconceptualizable, advanced agency) serves to keep the precepts of reductionism (elsewhere referred to as ‘naturalism’ or ‘physicalism’) from becoming entrenched as dogma. There are plenty of well-founded and respectable philosophical reasons to problematize the assumptions of reductionism. The bizarre, counterintuitive “reality” at the quantum level, for instance, completely violates our “common sense” notions of causality and its accompanying reductionism, leading some scientist-philosophers such as David Bohm to posit a nonreductive ‘implicate order’ (a holistic concept) as the best theoretical explanation for the paradoxes that emerge from Bell’s Theorem.

Go read it all to understand both the ID thinking as well as the silly issue this lawsuit is actually about–4 paragraphs read aloud. Geez.

I have long been frustrated with activists, politicians and policy makers who seek, support, and pass legislation with the intention of producing some economic result that ends of producing the very opposite effect. Price controls are just one example. Hawaii’s recent choice to put price caps on wholesale gas will create shortages. Period. Other problems are numerous with price controls. But the bottom line is that they simply harm the consumer while politicos get to say they “did something”. For a brief treatment of this, go here. For a thorough and thoroughly readable treatment on economics, I recommend Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics: the Antidote for Idiocy A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy.

In addition to the general public and activist and politicos, we now know that the problem of economic common sense in this Country is in the sorry condition it is because basic economic reasoning is not taught well, if at all, and the very people who teach economics do not possess it.

A recent study [PDF] found that 78% of economists gave the wrong answer to a simple economic question of opportunity costs. Many of these economists were professionals or doctorates. All of them from top-30 programs in the Country. This is stunning. Here is a New York Times column on the study and the issue.

With increasing economic legislation and regulation and increasing demand for gov’t intervention into all parts of our lives including economics, it would be kinda nice if they were actually educated on solid principles of basic economic reasoning, dontcha think?. This affects all of us, people.

From the TechCentralStation piece linked to above:

“Some analysts warn move may spur supply problems.”

Really? Only “some”? Maybe they need to be more careful about which “analysts” they listen to. Whatever would we do without those other “analysts”?

Imagine the headlines, “Legislature Mandates Pi To Equal 3.00000 — Some Analysts Warn Move May Spur Engineering Problems,” or “King Canute Commands Tide To Recede — Some Analysts Warn Move May Spur Wet Footwear Problems.” What would we think of the analysts who thought that the proposed mandates were no problem, perfectly in consonance with the laws of physics and human nature? Even most people with typical journalism educations would recognize such heads and subheads as the jokes they are, but somehow when it comes to basic economics, the laws of supply and demand, and the function of prices in a market economy bizarrely remain subjects for public debate.

Bizarre indeed.

And I prefer this analogy: it’s as if the Senate and the House were to pass legislation to temporarily ban gravity to give relief to the airline industry through the increased fuel efficiency they would enjoy.

This is what Hawaii is effectively doing. Laughing in the face of objective reality.

The next time you want something done about something, ask yourself if you are certain you understand for yourself [not from this party's propaganda or that party's propaganda or some questionable study that buttresses your pre-determined opinion] the dynamics at play, the underlying principles being demonstrated, etc. What it means to get legislation passed is that you are voting or asking your representative to vote for the authorization of the use of force against your neighbor. Be it police action to enforce the new statute or be it the use of force though increased taxation [gov't sponsored theft] it is force.

Are you certain you are clear enough and confident enough in your reasoning to support that? Have you considered under what conditions the use of force is just? Have you ever denied evidence that contradicted your position and shrugged it off or rejected it out of hand?

Gets torn a new one. Man I enjoyed this.

Here we are again, talking about wonderful Government UNIONS, once more.

When will we as a body politic ever LEARN? Geez. I mean, we make some progress, things seem to get moving in a positive direction, and then something like this smacks us square in the face.

In a nutshell, San Francisco Public School “Service Workers” (janitors, cafeteria workers and the like) are threatening to hold the School District hostage, going on strike for more pay even as the start of the school year approaches. San Francisco Teachers are threatening to join the strike, delaying the start of school for tens of thousands of San Francisco schoolchildren.

Now, in order to pay for these raises for the janitors and cafeteria workers, the San Francisco School Board is seriously considering raiding a special fund, approved by voters, which gave $13 million to the schools for things like sports, arts college and career counselling and other “enrichment activites” for kids.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the SFUSD fire any and all “service workers” who walk out. Period. Immediately hire replacements for all staff thus terminated.

Remember, it’s “all about the children.”

The public watchdog group SFSOS has it right:

School support staff threaten strike; teachers may join in

If you suffer through as many School Board meetings as we do, you’ll often hear politicos drone on about their pet project and claim that it’s good for the children, and, after all, “It’s all about the children.” Sometimes, like today, it’s becomes crystal clear who’s looking out for the children, and who’s looking out for the adults.

As the handful of families who remain in San Francisco are just weeks from the start of school, the teachers union is threatening to join SEIU’s service workers in a strike that would shut down K-12 education for 58,000 public school children. Threatening our children’s education unless we get pay raises. Who’s for the children here?

Despite the well-known financial struggles the School District has been enduring — the layoffs, the program cuts, the school closures — SEIU Local 790, which represents school support staff such as custodians and cafeteria workers, is demanding more money. Should they strike (they’ll vote on that in early September), the teachers themselves are likely to join. This might be the first strike ever sponsored by the Marin County Realtors Association.

To further undermine the confidence in our schools, and for that matter our confidence in our government as a whole, there is talk that a $13 million advance the City has provided the School District could go to pay for these raises. That $13 million is Prop H money. Remember Prop H? The crux of Prop H money — what voters endorsed — was funding for school enrichment programs. One-third was to go to sports, arts and libraries. One-third was to go to preschool and related programs. The final one-third was to be allocated to “…gifted and talented programs, magnet programs, literacy programs, dual-language immersion programs, special education, employee compensation, career and college centers at high schools, teacher mentoring or master teacher programs, or other instructional purposes.”

Now, while that tiny little reference to “employee compensation” among all those important programs certainly allows the Prop. H money to be used to pay salaries, absolutely everyone who supported Prop. H (like SOS and so many of our members) knew that all of the Prop. H money was supposed to be for more programs. The whole point was that taxpayers wanted the School District to have additional enrichment programs for the children, not additional enrichment for the adults already in the same programs. Voters weren’t asked to increase funding for the status quo. They passed Prop H to get more, not to get more of the same.

And, in an interesting contrast (that we’re so used to seeing), Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and Board of Ed President Eric Mar vary greatly on their respective approach to the strike. Ackerman is the negotiating diplomat: “If there is any way I can support [Local 790's] issues without putting the district in any kind of fiscal jeopardy, I will do that,” the Examiner quoted her as saying. Mar, on the other hand — the president who should be leading a balanced dialogue toward a fiscally responsible end, is instead flying the extremist solidarity flag and sending out emails rallying protesters to mobilize on behalf of Local 790. Gee, is that “All About the Children” or “All About Mar’s 2008 District 1 Supervisor Campaign”? We think Richmond District parents will remember that Mar’s slogan as Board President has been “It’s all about my endorsements.”

Police and firefighters are prohibited by law from striking due to the threat to life that such a strike would cause. Teachers striking ought to take a close second on such a severity scale. But since it is not illegal, public outrage is all that protects us from such an irresponsible and damaging action. Your outrage should be doubled since the teacher’s union isn’t even involved in the financial negotiations. They’re threatening to strike just because it’s called for under their “you scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours” union boss solidarity pact.”

Please write a letter to the Board of Education, urging them to denounce the potential strike by the SEIU Local 790 and by the teachers’ union

Read this. Here is a taste:

Before the advent of psychology into the schools, education involved learning to read, acquiring mental skills, and developing the ability to think conceptually. The idea behind traditional education was to prepare the student with as wide and strong a base as possible for future success and contribution in the world. The modern psychologists have a different idea, and this involves ensuring the students possess the correct beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. The attention in education has gone from cognitive skills and effective thinking ability, to affective things, such as how the student feels, what he believes and what attitudes he has. This is why students perform worse on standardized tests today that gauge thinking ability and cognitive skills compared to 25 or 50 years ago.

By 1952, behavioral psychology had not only become the “scientific” foundation of American pedagogy, but it had changed our textbooks, revised the classroom curriculum, and redesigned the American school building. If you detect something mindless about American education, it’s because the mind has been taken out of it. Only visible behavior counts.

The modern psychologically-based schools fail to adequately teach the students how to read, learn and understand, concentrating more on the affective domain, and actually cause a number of “learning disabilities”, which psychiatry then “diagnoses” and prescribes drugs for as the solution.