perfidy

Slate is reporting that the news from California's schools isn't so good. Two-thirds of the state's public schools have just been deemed deficient under California educational standards. You might say, "California, who cares!", but in reality this is bad news to the rest of us because California's school-standards criteria closely track those of No Child Left Behind, implying that some 66% of the nation's schools could potentially receive failing grades next year when the first round of grades and sanctions hit.

I'm of the opinion that No Child Left Behind is full of holes anyway, and fails to take into account the full collateral effects and implications its policies and mandates could produce. For example, see this paper by economist David Figlio. Although the conclusions and conjectures are ultimately a bit more polemical than I might wish, Figlio uses data from Florida schools to suggest that the schools at greatest risk for year-to-year Federal sanctions are the very schools whose operating budgets most depend (in dollars and in percentage terms) on Federal funding to remain open. This means that when the Federal government withholds money from such a school, as a part of NCLB sanctions, the school sinks further into a spiral of debt and failure. Where's the justice in that?

Even if 66% of the nation's schools don't "fail" next year any number even in that neighborhood is cause for concern that the standards are badly out of whack. What good is school choice if all the other schools in the area are deemed failures too? What good are waivers if transportation is not financially feasible for districts and private schools accepting transfers?

Finally, Figlio paper listed above also observes that school reputation plays a significant role in property valuation-- if more schools are deemed failures, this could have effects on the real estate markets in many communities, reducing the property taxes and hence local-level public school funding accordingly. Again, this has its greatest impact on those communities and school districts that most need help.

Look... I know that America's public schools are in the shitter. I also know that many parties are at fault. I simply remain totally unconvinced that a national initiative which is based on withholding funding from schools is the way to do it. Especially such a sweeping initiative whose mandates will come into effect in 2004, long before a sufficient amount of data is collected to make reasonable decisions about what schools have what problems and how best to address them. 

For your health, I recommend you go read somethingawful.com's ripping-off-Conan-O'Brien Photoshop Phriday, and especially enjoy the last image on the last page. I nearly died of amusement.

Also for your health, I do not recommend using img tags to link directly to images on SA's site. That is, unless you LIKE obese transvestite pornography. Consider yourself warned.

He's so good, we stole our name from his idea. Today's bleat:

Why not nuke North Korea's nuke test? They've said they're going to have a test; I presume we know where that will be. So we nuke it the day before. There's a big explosion, a mushroom cloud; they blame us. We say what are you talking about? You said you were going to light one off. And you did. No! You did it! Right. We nuked your nuke test. And that makes sense . . .  how, exactly? It would certainly keep them off their game. And just after we nuke the test - and every subsequent test, of course - we put a call to Li'l Kim's cellphone, and someone with a Texas accent says oh, I'm sorry, wrong number. I was tryin' to reach a live man.

Via GeekPress I find this post, which raises a really damn good question.

Ya know, with all the bombings and destruction in Iraq, especially with the attacks on the infrastructure, like the oil lines, the electricity, the water...

Where the fuck are the human shields? I thought they went there to make sure this kinda crap didn't happen. Where are the granola eating turdburgers who went bravely to pre-war Iraq and placed their bodies in harm's way so that a stray incoming round would hit them, rather than the baby milk factory?

I guess they just up and left, when they all survived the war. They need to turn right around, get their collective asses back, because someone's blowing up the water pipes and people are going thirsty. The infrastructure of Iraq is being destroyed! It's killing the chilllllllldren! Hundreds of thousands of innocents are at risk! DOn't you CARE about the suffering of the Iraqi people rom indiscriminant bombing and ruthless attacks? Come back! You are needed!

Bah.

The real reason is, of course, that they stand a greater risk of getting whacked by some crazed thug than getting hit by US military fire....but they knew that going in, didn't they?

Bam! Pow! Zing!

Yeah, where the hell are all those goody-two-shoes human shields? Are they still there? Have they buggered off before they could actually do some GOOD? I tell ya... sometimes it's hard to stay a ditherer.

Via slashdot, I see that a coalition of 198 webcasters are suing the RIAA for monopolistic practices and restraint of trade. It's the latest chapter in a continuing saga of perfidy, plutocracy, and shitty, shitty business practices.

The complaint is here.

I hope they make it hurt.

Randy Barnett of the Volokh coalition has been posting some very interesting observations about the Constitution, in particular illuminating the tension between "original intent" and "original meaning, and the debate over whether the Constitution is static until expressly changed via established process.

I'm turning into a bit of a wonk for this stuff (of course I am. I have wonk nature like a dog has dog nature), but I find Barnett's work strangely gripping.

Original post on the value of a written Constitution here.

Followup is in a den-Beste sized post here.

Professor Barnett's SSRN paper arguing that judicial review IS in the Constitution, if you look at it right, is here, and speaking as a layperson it's a bit of a mind-blower.

Another SSRN paper on originalism is here.

The AP is reporting that North Korea has announced to the six nation conference that

"it has nuclear weapons and has plans to test one, a U.S. official said Thursday. However, other participants said delegates agreed on the need for a second round of talks. The remarks by North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Yong Il set a negative tone at the conference and raised questions about the success of the negotiations"

Well, no shit.

U.S. officials say they believe North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons, and experts believe it could produce five to six more in a few months.

While I have been saying on this blog that we should wait, and let them collapse - if they test a nuke we might want to step it up a little.

The psychotic regime in Pyongyang is a threat to everyone.

I have just recently read two comments on the coming lack of attention to the anniversary of one of the worst days in American history. I commented on Robert Prather's Insults Unpunished that I want to remember what happened that day. Johno's post hit me, and reminded me about why we should be remembering.

I want to be reminded of the shock of the planes hitting the towers. I want to remember the horror I felt when I realized people were jumping from the top of the towers. I want that for many reasons.

But the reason I can never forget is that for months after the Eleventh, I drove by this every day on my way to work and back: 

Every day I would turn the corner on Rt 27 and see that, and every day I'd get a knot in my throat. 

I felt anger, and one of the few bright spots in the days right after the attack was the point-counterpoint article in the Onion - should we retaliate with blind rage or measured, focused rage? It helped a little to put it in perspective.

On the day, I was in my office a block from the White House and blissfully unaware of events. I walked by the conference room and saw everyone gathered around a 3" B&W TV. The first tower had been hit. As I watched, the second plane hit.

Astonishment, disbelief. Fifty thousand people work in those buildings. Over the next hour, we heard that the Pentagon was hit, and rumors that there was a bomb at the State Department. Six planes were unaccounted for. Eventually someone did the math, and the decision to evacuate was made. Everyone was kicked out of the government offices downtown. Everyone figured that one of the missing planes was coming for the White House or for the Capitol.

The metro had already closed, and the streets were gridlocked with federal workers and cars. The cell networks had crashed - but I had managed to get a hold of my dad at the Air and Space Museum on a landline before we were told to leave.

I started walking toward the mall. Every few feet I'd see someone dial a number on their cell phone, hold it to their ear, then say, "Shit." Cars were barely moving.

Ten blocks later, I got to the mall. I was never so relieved as when I looked to my right and saw the Washington Monument, and to the left and saw the Capitol. Both were still standing. Except for the panic, it was as beautiful a day as you ever get in swampy DC.

I got to the museum, which had never opened, and sweet talked my way in. Dad and I watched the news on a small tv in the library for a couple hours. When we emerged, the city was deserted. No cars, no pedestrians. It was the eeriest thing I have ever seen. Bright, sunny, clear day in DC, and not a tourist in sight.

I finally boarded the reopened metro, and when we came above ground just before National Airport we all turned back and saw the plume of smoke from the Pentagon. It was still smoking when they reopened some of the roads around the Pentagon.

So the decision has been made: network television is going to treat September 11th, 2003 like just another day, mostly. Well, I might just be a hick, but I don't think that's a good idea. I don't particularly want to forgive or forget what happened two Septembers ago. The shock might have faded but the memory should not.

I know this is a leetle early, but forgive me. My anniversary, the goodwife's birthday, and several other happy occasions fall on or near the eleventh, so if I'm going to bicker an' argue about 'oo killed 'oo, I'll get it out of the way now.

When I lived in New York, I used to travel from Queens to Jersey City every Sunday to play music with my friends Darrell and Bruce. It was the best part of my week. When I made it to the World Trade Center subway station, I always felt a little better because fun was just a PATH ride away. The WTC station was nifty too-- the underground mall, the half-attractive artsy inlays, the rumble of the downtown A going by. The Commuter Bar, entirely decorated in beige naugahyde and aged winos. Loved it, loved it.

Oddly enough, the World Trade Center was one of my favorite places in New York. It was how I oriented myself walking around the city. It gave balance and heft to the southern end of Manhattan. You could see it for miles, driving in on the Jersey Pike or I-95. It was like a huge, ungainly guardian watching over my city.

---------

On the 108th floor of the World Trade Center's north tower, there was a little conference room/ lounge area with a baby grand piano. I discovered this by accident one night in February of 2000.

I was at the Windows On The World on the 110th floor to see a rockabilly band managed by a co-worker's boyfriend, and Samir and Bruce were kinda late, because they got lost. (Even after I moved away from New York, I'd occasionally get calls from Samir.... "Johno... I'm on Park Avenue and 25th Street. How do I get to Grand Central Station from here?")

In the midst of getting lost, Samir and Bruce managed to give the World Trade Center elevator operators the slip and got off on the wrong floor... the 108th to be exact, where they found the piano lounge.

After we had our fill of rockabilly and high-up views of Staten Island, we went back down to the 108th floor, and hung out for a couple hours, playing the piano and staring out at the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from one of the darkened grottoes. It was one of the best nights I had in New York. Later, Bruce would take his future wife there on a crucial and historic date.

---------

As I sat in a bar in Massachusetts downstairs from the office, watching the television play images of the assault on New York, my mind was occupied like most people's was, trying to cut through the shock and disbelief, choking back horror and confused rage. I was a mess.

As the north tower of the World Trade Center fell impossibly slowly into its own rising cloud of dust, I started to cover my eyes, then stopped, and stared dumbly. I couldn't process what was happening. I didn't understand thousands dead. I didn't understand how the world was changing, even though I knew it had. Everyone had theories, but we were all in shock.

My mind was reeling, and the one sharp, tiny realization that stabbed me in the heart and made it all real was how much it TOTALLY SUCKED that my Secret New York Piano Lounge was gone-- I could never play the piano in the World Trade Center again.

Then I went back upstairs to see if all my friends were still alive.

Exhibit A: The US Army is seriously considering doubling up tours of duty for soldiers stationed in Iraq.

Exhibit B: Rumsfeld: Army has troops in Iraq in numbers "appropriate at the present time for the tasks that [it] has".

Oooh!! A paradox!