For those who claim that it is the US that is the "occupier" in Iraq, that the US is the real enemy, and that all will be well if we just leave, look at the recent bombings in Iraq. One, as Senator Clinton said:

Not one polling place was shut down or overrun and the fact that you have these homicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure.

Did she really say that? If she's positioning herself for a presidential run in '08, she's doing it in the wrong party.

Anyways, what the bombings really show is that we are no the target. In fact, we never really have been. These bombings are a desperate act designed to do a few things, all of which I predict will fail.

One, they are designed to cause sectarian civil war. As I have previously written, this won't happen as the Sunni are a small percentage of the population, and the Ba'athists a small percentage of that. The Sunni population at large will not support a civil war they will most surely lose, and lose horribly too. The Shia have shown great restraint which will yield longer term benefits.

Two, they want to weakenthe resolve of the Shia and instill fear in their population. This will not work as they knew real fear for decades, a few renegade bombers can hardly compare. Having come this far, the Shia will become more resolute.

Three, they intend to shows the inability of the US forces to stop the attacks, thus fomenting resentment and perhaps their strongest suit. It plays into the hands of the contrarian press and punditry at home, the "not enough boots on the ground" crowd as well as the "we told you so" crowd.

Four, they intend to play to the Arab "street", to attack Shias, who are seen as blasphemous by the Sunni and friends to the Persians (Iranians). This assumes that Iraq will be more concerned with Iran, and not the other way around. It is hard to believe millions of Iranians will not want Iraqi-like elections, instead of the sham that resulted from the previous elections held in Iran, as reformers were summarily thrown out in place of radical clerics. And really, to what Arab "street" are they going to play too? If the rejection of Arafat, the invasion and subsequent capture of Saddam, as well as the support of Sharon, then the "street" is impotent.

The Baathists and jihadists have utterly failed in their attempt to dislodge the coalition from Iraq. In fact, more of their attacks the last year have been against Iraqis and not coalition forces. This escalation the last several days, specifically targeting Shia and in a narrow region, don't indicate a growign, but floundering insurgency. They just haven't succeeded. They're not over, but they're not going to win. And they know it too.

UPDATE Context: 2/23, 2/21, 2/19, 2/18, 2/17

The lady's name is Dedra Alabi of Castaic. According to a story from the 11/5/04 edition of the Racism Claimed at Valencia High (no link. go to the archives section): "a lot of racial incidents go on at that school."

Ironically, Valencia is actaully the most "diverse" school in the district.

“Students are being called n------, b------, and (are being told to) go back to Africa,” Alabi said during the school board meeting. “Many parents have pulled their children out of that school. I am afraid a Columbine-type shooting will (occur) there.”

Really? Since the classes that I teach are comprised of 10th graders, and since it is a required class, I get the full spectrum of students. I have witnessed all of the behaviors, some typical, some not so, to the teenage species. I have never witnessed, nor heard of anything like this. And rest assured, the students will talk. If this was pandemic, I would know.

I have gotten to know some of the students quite well, a diverse assortment too. 99.99% of the complaints are about other teachers. Would I expect any different? Wonder what the others say about me? I'd prefer not too. However, I have never heard of their being a racial problem. And trust me, they'd tell me.

Keep in mind this is also a woman who runs right away to the radio. And not just any radio station mind you, but one whose web page descirbes itself as:

A daily digest of news analysis, investigation, education, artistic expression, and activism in the PUBLIC INTEREST

Now, you be the judge to that one.

Then logically , what follows? An editorial about racism in our public schools fro the local paper. Though a balanced and objective editorial, keep in mind we're basing this around a single allegation.

As for the family? It's not the first time they've been in the paper. Hands-on History Lesson.

Black history and culture were shared with third graders at Live Oak Elementary School on Thursday thanks to a treasure trove full of artifacts from a local family.
    Students in Jennifer Culberhouse's class were treated to dolls, clothing, games and books from the Alabi family collection. Poetry was recited, musical instruments were shared and inventions were discussed ? all reflecting black contributions to society.
    Saheed Alabi, now a fourth-grader at North Lake Hills Elementary, was in Culberhouse?s class last year. He performed an 'education rap' number for the students.

From the Signal, we learn that

Alabi’s daughter, Yetunde Alabi, is president and founder of Valenica High School’s Black Student Union.

What we have is a single family that has a particular interest in driving home an agenda, and is using the schools and the media to do her bidding. Nothing will attract attention like claims of racism, nor will anything cause people to spring into action faster.

Next week the school is hosting a Black History Month assembly that all students will attend, which was started last year by the daughter and the BSU. This year we're "welcoming" the president of the LA County NAACP as well as representatives from the US Department of Justice in attendance. In fact, the whole show was organized by the NAACP, much of the performance decided by non-school personnel.

I need to do some more research, make a few phone calls, send a few emails. Be back soon with more.

UPDATE Context: 2/23, 2/21, 2/19, 2/18, 2/17

Since a reporter is one who steps in a puddle and declares a flood, thus we have to ask, from whence the puddles came? Apparently there have been a few who wield the hose, fill the puddle, then call the reporter.

Sorry for the metaphors. The trouble with the recent spate of "racism" is that a particular person of a particular ethnicity is bent on fomenting trouble. In fact, the incidents at the high school are of a long series of "incidents" that she has been involved with. It seems that:

The same claims and attacks have been levied at the elementary and junior highs schools previously.

Other schools in the valley worked hard so that her child whould not attend their school.

Faculty of the same ethnicity have supported the schools and not her, which has drawn her wrath, as well as the predictable epiphets when certain races don't "tow the party line".

The individual in question has a particular political agenda, and is using the schools to achieve this.

The problem is far more of her singular creation than pandemic.

More on this to follow. I need to investigate a bit more, and although it isn't up there with Ra^thergate or Jordangate, it is still newsworthy. We cannot allow a politically motivated individual to use race in the vilest of ways to achieve the narrowest of political aims.

In typical fashion, the news only showed a small part of an interview with a student. While the student admitted that yes, on one occasion, the n-word was used in their presence, the remaining part of the interview had the student explaining how much they loved the school, his teachers, and and being a part fo the student body. Of course, all we were shown was the one line about someone using the n-word.

Poltics. Absolutely. Truth. Hardly.

UpdateContext: 2/23, 2/21, 2/19, 2/18, 2/17


If I were to describe in a sentence what I thought a reporter was, I'd say it was someone who stepped in a puddle and declared a flood. Better still would be that a reporter is one who heard someone say they stepped in a puddle, the reporter asks someone else if they too stepped in a puddle, then concludes there is a flood.

Nothing illustrates this better than this article from the LA Times titled, Alleged Racial Incidents Shatter Security of Santa Clarita Valley.

Full disclosure: I am a teacher at the high school mentioned in the article. I have taught there two years, and taught at a junior high school 2 miles away, in the same district, for seven years prior. Does that suffice?

I wrote about this several weeks ago. On 11/22, I wrote:

Recently, the school has experienced some racially motivated incidents. The usual bromides persist, that we need to address intolerance, we need to implement "tolerance" training, and we need to crack down on any instances of racially motivated incidents. But there is a deeper issue here, and it has nothing to do with racism.

First, the cancerous over-emphasis on racial identity has finally metasticized. The students have segregated themselves along racial lines, most notable the African-American students, who seem to be in an ever increasing attempt to out-black each other. Much of the clothing the kids wear looks like it comes out of a rap video, the language no better.

Busing has long since ended. These kids are living in the same neighborhoods, drive the same cars, have the same jobs. They certainly want for nothing that any other student does. They are as far removed from the "street" as can be.

The entire student body has been inundated with anti-racist teaching from the time they are young. There was no previous history of segregation or remnants of the "old days" to remind the population of past grievances. And the rise in racially motivated acts are a relatively new occurrence.

Without the usual suspects, there has to be a reason. Since the beginning of time, teenagers have been a rebellious lot. They will always try to upset their elders, to challenge the status quo, to seek their own identity. They constantly push until they meet resistance. That's what they do.

But there are two factors that have radically changed. One, the level of responsibility and importance of decisions have dramatically increased. And two, the level of adult toleracne has concurrently dramatically increased.

Teenagers have to make more and tougher decisions, from school, drugs, sex, and jobs among others. It is getting harder and harder to go to college, as more and more students seek the same number of positions. Students more and more see a longer and more difficult path to success and are under greater pressure to perform. Those that don't, see no use in trying. There are far more dangerous temptations luring teens today than 20 years ago. There is less and less opportunity to just be a kid.

This is coupled with an increase in the level of tolerance for behavior. There is no better place to look than with clothing. Teenage girls come to school wearing next to nothing. Shirts are low cut on top and rarely cover the midriff, combined with pants cut so low below the waist, little is left to the imagination. This unofficial dress code applies to all level of students, that the most scantily clad of young women are as likely to be A students as not.

If the attire is not shocking enough, the langugage certainly will be. The vulgarity, swearing, and sexaully laced speech is as common among girls as it is boys. But it goes beyond that. Students address teachers by their last name only, without prefacing it with a Mr. or a Mrs. And the teachers by and large allow this, choosing to be more thier "friend", their "equal", rather than their teacher.

How does this relate to the racially motivate incidents? It is the only way the students can get adults' attention. They know their dress, their language, even their conduct, will not raise a stir. They have only one way to get attention, to push the buttons, to rebel. Having been bombarded with "tolerance" for years, they have no other alternative.

This isn't a an excuse for otherwise unacceptable behavior. We have allowed the boundaries to be pushed so far, the lines to be so thoroughly blurred between chlid and adult, that they are trying to act like adults without adult understanding.

The article fails to mention that the school, and the district, has had a history of gang related racial incidents, mostly between black and Mexican gangs. This has been due to the spillover from the town of Val Verde, about 10 miles west of Valencia. Fotrunately, the district has worked to separate and minimize much of the gang violence and influence in the schools.

Where does the author go from puddles to floods?

The valley has been roiled over the last few months by claims from at least half a dozen African American families that their children have been targets of intolerant, even racist, behavior from their white peers. They say the white teens have continually bullied, harassed and attacked their children at school and off campus for no apparent reason, other than the color of their skin.

The attacks, they said, occurred when youths were walking home from school, going to the park or visiting friends. The incidents have shaken the community because the alleged assailants are not skin-head outsiders but other teenagers who live among them in the pricey subdivisions.

"I need to be making college plans for my kids, and instead I'm fighting this mess," said Valencia resident Robin Williams-Nohara, who says her three sons have been harassed and beaten by white teenagers. "I can't believe this is happening in L.A. County in 2005. No way."

So, we have anecdotal evidence, heresay, and claims of intolerant behavior. Where are the police reports and the investigations by officers? I'm not disputing the claims, only asking a very simple question that the author fails to. These are serious charges and need full attention of law enforcement.

Valencia High expelled two students last semester and suspended five others for their involvement in racial incidents, said Principal Paul Priesz.

Valencia High school has 3400 students of which seven were disciplined for racially motivated behavior, or 2/10's of one percent of the student body. Would one categorize this as a crisis?

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, meanwhile, is dispatching undercover gang unit deputies to cruise Valencia High's parking lots in search of cars with white power or Nazi insignias.

"The number of incidents has escalated a little bit recently, but it's something we've dealt with," Priesz said. "When you talk with kids and their parents, you learn a lot of these things are happening in the community — at stores, fast-food restaurants, on the streets — and then they spill over onto the campus."

So, the response has been to patrol the lots looking for bumper stickers. Wouldn't this be "profiling"? And it is apparent that the problem is one that mostly off-campus. How do we know this?

The most recent incident occurred Feb. 5, when Williams-Nohara's 16-year-old son, Akira, was chased at a neighborhood park by a group of white teenage boys who threatened to kill him, Williams-Nohara said.

Akira and his brother Shin, 17, were on their way to drop off a friend when Akira asked to stop at the park to use the bathroom.

Before Akira reached the restroom, he saw three cars pull up behind his brother's car. The youths jumped out, carrying metal poles and yelling, "I'm going to kill you niggers," Williams-Nohara said.

They began chasing Akira, who ran into the bushes, she said.

In a panic, Shin called the home where his mother was attending a parents' meeting with representatives from the county Human Relations Commission and the U.S. Justice Department about several previous fights.

Parents and officials raced to the park, where they met sheriff's deputies. The assailants weren't caught, and the matter is under investigation, said Sheriff's Capt. Patti Minutello of the Santa Clarita Valley station.

Williams-Nohara vented her frustrations in a letter to Cmdr. Sam Jones, who oversees the region for the Sheriff's Department.

" … We are tax-paying, homeowning, law-abiding citizens who moved here four years ago for the quality of life we thought the Santa Clarita Valley could offer us," Williams-Nohara wrote. "No one could ever convince me that this valley would be anything but a wonderful place to raise our children. This has turned into a nightmare. Please help us."

Parents say similar incidents have occurred during the last two years, including Memorial Day 2003, when two of Williams-Nohara's sons were attacked as they walked to a store near their house to buy ice cream. Shin and Akira were confronted by a group of white teenage boys in white pickup trucks. Akira and Shin were hit with a chain, and Shin was struck in the head with brass knuckles, which left a long, deep gash on the left side of his scalp that required nine staples. No one has been arrested in the incident.

Now, we have one isolated incident of violence two years ago which occurred off campus. Hopefully the perpetrators will be caught and sent to jail for the rest of their lives, but we have a single incident that has been transmogrified into a pattern of abuses.

Patricia Pope-Jordan said her son, Devin, also has been the victim of racist acts, including an incident that occurred last fall while he was waiting at a bus stop for a ride to school. Two white teens approached and began pushing him, she said. They tore his shirt and backpack and stole his hat and CD player, Pope-Jordan said.

A few weeks later, Devin was bullied at a friend's Sweet 16 party in nearby Castaic. A group of white youths who appeared to be in their late teens pulled up to the house in about 20 trucks and cars, jumped over the back fence and crashed the party, said Tammy Roberts, who is white and the mother of the girl who was host of the party.

Many of the party-crashers appeared drunk, Roberts said, and they began intimidating the partygoers, including Devin, the only African American in attendance.

"I've never seen such a disrespectful, ugly group of kids in my life," Roberts said. "They had no regard for parents or property. The DJ just packed up and left. They ruined my daughter's party."

Pope-Jordan said one of the male party-crashers knocked a soda from Devin's hand, pushed his hat off and threatened to kill him.

Roberts said she called the Sheriff's Department, but by the time deputies arrived, the unruly teenagers had left, only to return after the police cruisers had rolled away.

Now we have two more off-campus acts. If these did involve students, surely they would be easily identifiable at school, and surely, someone would be able to alert the police. Most ironic is that the events seem to happen to the same people. Certainly, if this is pandemic, she'd have been able to document numerous events.

As I wrote a few months ago, the real problem is not being addressed. There is precious little the kids can do today to catch our attention, save one. Identity politics and educational agendas have created racial divisions that the students never would. The school has a Black Student Union, but there would never be a White Student Union. There is an Asian cultural awareness club, but there'd never be one for caucasian cultural awareness.

Nothing can excuse or ameliorate racism or acts of violence. However, in a damned if you, damned if you don't environment, any claims must be addressed in the, swiftest, surest and most thorough manner possible, a manner which only can suggest a problem large enough to warrant such action. Deliberation and diligence, giving the accused the assumption of innocence is seen only as insouciance, with the press waiting not so idly by to grab the latest headlines.

Take a single act of violence two years old, a few disparate name-callings, a party crashing, and a bus stop shove, sprinkle liberally with hearsay, mix in a reporter, then publish. What do you get:

The school has started a tolerance education program sponsored by the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations and established a forum for students to talk about racial conflicts and devise solutions.

Michael Crichton gave a speech in January title Aliens Cause Global Warming which was highly critical of the scientific community. It should be mandatory reading for all people interested in the influence science has on public policy.

He starts off with the SETI project:

Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL

Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.

This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.

Proceeds to Nuclear Winter:

At the heart of the TTAPS undertaking was another equation, never specifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows:

Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe… etc

(The amount of tropospheric dust=# warheads x size warheads x warhead detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burn duration x Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity x Particle endurance…and so on.)

The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drake equation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. The TTAPS study addressed this problem in part by mapping out different wartime scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, but even so, the remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobody knows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn, creating particles of what kind, and for how long. No one knows the effect of local weather conditions on the amount of particles that will be injected into the troposphere. No one knows how long the particles will remain in the troposphere. And so on.

And remember, this is only four years after the OTA study concluded that the underlying scientific processes were so poorly known that no estimates could be reliably made. Nevertheless, the TTAPS study not only made those estimates, but concluded they were catastrophic.

Today, using similar psuedo-scientifc "methodology", we now have second hand smoke and global warming which are grounded in consensus, not science. As Crichton puts it:

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

Now, why is is essential that we stop this madness:

Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.

In the end, use of science to promote policy "is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold. "

Until we the public demand accountabiltiy and scrutiny, our public tax dollars will be used to fund projects of dubious scientific merit, whose findings will be prostituted to advance a narrow political agenda. And the bill will be paid by the taxpayer, his money and his freedom.

Governor Dupont writes in the Wall Street Journal, Socialism's Last Redoubt:

Ultimately the argument isn't about investment accounts, or stocks or bonds or "gambling" or "insecurity." It is about socialism versus individualism, about Attlee's social justice and Hillary's common good and Chomsky's economic solidarity. AARP CEO William Novelli is in favor of allowing the government to invest Social Security surplus funds in the stock market, but against allowing individuals to do so--exactly the socialist argument, that government should control the distribution of the nation's wealth.

When you increase an individual's wealth, he becomes less dependent on government, and his attitude towards government changes. Socialists can't allow that, for it erodes their fundamental principle that social justice can only be achieved when important segments of the economy are under government control.

And that is why today's very liberal Democratic Party is so vehemently arguing against personal ownership of Social Security market accounts. The government's Social Security system is socialism's last redoubt, and must be preserved at all costs.

Hmmm...on January 9th, Just Kill the thing:

The problem for the democrats is that reforming social security changes more than just a government program. It fundamentally changes the relationship between the government and its people. The have lived for six decades with the purpose of creating as much dependency on government as possible. Whether it's welfare, social security, worker's compensation, family leave, or even "affirmative action", democrats existence is possible only through dependency. Thus any reform is deadly to democrats.

Social security is not about "security" at all. That much should be obvious. In fact, there is nothing that is "secure" about social security, save the fact that it "secures" a prominent, and dominant, role of government, and those that administer it, in our lives. That they will fight mercilessly is to be expected. But who are they really fighting for?

...about democratic economic thought can be summed up in this one paragraph from Paul Krugman:

In fact, by taking on Social Security, Mr. Bush gave the Democrats a chance to remember what they stand for, and why. Here's my favorite version, from another fighting moderate, Eliot Spitzer: "As President Bush embraces the ownership society and tries to claim that he is the one that is making it possible for the middle class to succeed and save and invest - well, I say to myself, no, that's not right; it is the Democratic Party historically that created the middle class."

And there in a nutshell is democratic economic thought. Whatever the government does is good, and only they create wealth. No credit is ever given to the free market system that rewards entrepeneurialism, thrift, skill, risk, and opportunity.

Having searched high and low for a definitive answer, I found it on page 271 of Victor Hanson's Carnage and Culture:

The great hatred of capitalism in the hearts of the oppressed, ancient and modern, I think, stems not merely from the ensuing vast inequality in wealth, and the often unafir and arbritary nature of who profits and who suffers, but from the silent acknowledgment that under a free market system the many victims of the greed of the few are still better off than those under the utopian socialism of the well-intended. It is a hard thing for the poor to acknowledge benefits from their rich moral inferiors who never so intended it.

And thus we have a convergence of two: the well-intentioned who discover their impotence, and the intended-for who expected omnipotence, trained to expect nothing more, or less, but reliance on the dole. Both fear the truth, the former that their intentions are for naught and the latter that their expectations were for naught.

Thus they convince themselves, in almost priest-penitent fashion, the well-intended that they really are the godlike creators and benefactors, without whom evil reigns, and the intended-for that they, like the pentinet, will dwell in economic purgatory until they receive their economic absolution.

In either case, it is a macabre dance, while the wheels of the market grind onward, creating the newly wealthy and soon-to-be who simply dare to "ride the tiger". And what a difficult beast she is to ride: get an education, work hard, take some risks, save some money, have personal respnsibility, work harder, take some more risks, save some money, have personal responsibility...

That the government could create wealth, or an economic class, should have been laid to rest about the time the Soviet Union collapsed. But it reverberates amongst a political class who sees themselves as the greatest beneficiaries of federal largesse. What works for the few must work for the many, evidence to the contrary be damned.

And that nicely sums up the democratic economic thought: they created the middle class. Of course where were they in Florence, or Venice, or Milan, or Brussels, or London, or even New York, Boston, and Philadelphia for that matter. Please tell Ben Franklin he couldn't have been made it without the democrats. Just give them a few years, who knows what the history text books will say.

A few days ago, I asked A simple question of the Ward Churchill situation:

What the hell is "ethnic studies" and why does it warrant not only a professor, but an entire department at a university?

The fact the Churchill doesn't have a doctorate probably indicates that no serious university would actually offer a doctorate in such nonsense. I do believe however that such degrees were granted in Germany during the 1930's. (Thus maybe Churchill's unique insight?)

Today, Paul Campos, law professor at CU, writes:

Over the past few days I've been bombarded with e-mails regarding the Ward Churchill scandal. Many have expressed astonishment at how someone like Churchill could have been hired in the first place, let alone tenured and made chair of a department.

It's a good question, but it's not one that any of the academics who've written me have asked. We already know the answer.

Taken together, they represent the massive failure our universities have become. Instead of beacons of thought and study, they are bastions of indoctrination and supression of thought. The great broadening of minds has become an intellectual version of aboriginal headshrinkers.

Universities have become home to non-serious disciplines staffed by non-academics who wield enormous clout in the direction and focus of scholarship, far out of proportion to their importance. And thus, it should be no coincidence, that Unemployment level of college grads surpasses that of high-school dropouts - (chart)

The sad fact today is that a college education simply isn't worth nearly as much any more, primarily because a college education simply isn't what is was any more. Our college and universities have became temples of unquestioning dogma and near-religious fervor.

What have the institutions of higher learning become: anyone inside that should challenge the orthodoxy is treated as an apostate, anyone outside who should question is met with condescension, and any student who dares disupte is punished for insolence. And we should wonder why the college degree is becoming just another piece of paper? The free market caught onto their game a long time ago, while insulated and immune, the colleges and universities never will.

I witnessed this first hand while pursuing my Masters in Education. Pablum was passed off as intellectualism while the absurd was promoted to the novel, accomplished with the full consent and approval of an unquestioning peerage, beholden to their status and privilege from similar offal. And these people are producing our next generation of public school teachers.

Ward Churchill and his ilk, are just the grotesque sores that appear from a long untreated infection, one that has slowly attritted the best and brightest from its ranks long ago. Once, our universities were the envy of the world, and many still are. But many are merely caricatures. They once represented the very best this country had to offer. Now they represent our failures. They've become Charles V to true academic freedom.
As Professor Campos writes:

Academics claim to despise censorship, but the truth is we do a remarkably good job of censoring ourselves. This is especially true in regard to affirmative action. Who among us can claim to have spoken up every time a job candidate almost as preposterous as Churchill was submitted for our consideration? Things like the Churchill fiasco are made possible by a web of lies kept intact by a conspiracy of silence.
...
Tenure and academic freedom are hard to defend if they don't provide us who benefit from them with the minimal degree of courage necessary to say, when confronted by someone like Churchill, enough is enough.

If even the extraordinary protections of tenure don't lead us to condemn a fraud of this magnitude in unmistakable and unapologetic terms, then we don't deserve them. What else is academic freedom for?

Well said. Then the last question must be this: do we learn from our failures?

Richard Clarke answers 10 questions for the NY Times. Here's one I'd like him to answer.

11. After your display at the 9/11 Commission hearings, where you displayed that you were a duplicitous liar and partisan hack, why should we listen to what you have to say on terrorism?

Well, that might be a little harsh, so let's just ask a follow up to #10.

Q. 10. It is 2010. Where are we with Iraq? Are U.S. troops still there?

A. I doubt very much there will be any U.S. forces there in five years. My guess is that there is a Shi'a-dominated government with good relations with Iran, challenged by a low-grade Sunni insurgency, and possibly dealing with a breakaway movement among the Kurds in the north. We will be monitoring them closely to make sure that they do not allow terrorist camps or sanctuaries, and to prevent any weapons of mass destruction program from developing. In short, on many measures it will not be very different from the way it was in 2002 except that the leaders will be Shi'a and not Sunni.

It won't be much different than it was in 2002? Perhaps this is why you were're not working for the government anymore. Not much different, eh?

Will there be mass graves?

Will there be billions siphoned off a UN sponsored boondoggle?

Will they fund Palestinian homicide bombers?

Will we need to patrol a no fly zone?

Will they be pursuing clandestine weapons programs?

Will they be funding and supporting terrorist groups, including al Qaeda?

Will they be the source of instability in the middle east?

Will millions of Iraqis suffer from no medicine, no electricity, and no clean water while down the road the government builds lavish palaces?

Will the secret police round up and torture and kill people who disgree with the government?

Will the Iraq people vote in free and fair elections?

Interestingly, I notice you didn't say there'd be a civil war.

You had your fifteen minutes. Now, go home.

Haven't had one of these in a while.

In today's Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby An eighth of every paycheck:

Social Security wasn't always a sucker's game. As with all Ponzi schemes, players who got in early made out like bandits. For many years, Social Security deductions were minuscule. Until 1949, the combined employer/employee tax rate was only 2 percent, and it was imposed on just the first $3,000 of income, for a maximum payroll tax of just $60 a year. The first Social Security recipient was Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vt., who retired in 1940 after having paid a grand total of $44 in payroll taxes. By the time she died in 1975, she had collected $20,933.52 in benefits -- a return on her ''investment" of more than 47,000 percent.

It wasn't really an investment, of course. It was a forced transfer of wealth from younger people to an older one. And as the number of Ida May Fullers grew, and the value of their benefits increased, the amount of wealth that had to be transferred kept climbing. By the time I entered the workforce in 1975, the Social Security withholding rate was 9.9 percent, applied to wages of up to $14,100. Maximum tax bite: $1,395 a year -- more than 23 times the $60 of a generation earlier.

Just yesterday, I wrote:

If social security has done anything for older Americans, it has made them exceedingly wealthy. Of course, not all older Americans are wealthy, and of course, there are the young wealthy. But on the whole, the last 30-40 years has seen the greatest transfer of wealth, but it's not necessarily from poor to rich, as liberals love to claim, but young to old. This transgenerational transfer has major political ramifications as we try to reform social security while others entrench themselves, steeling for a fight to the death.
...
Social security supporters have claimed that it is the most successful government program ever. Perhaps. It depends on how one measures success. If it means consolidation of wealth from the young to the old, then it most certainly has been, as it has played a part. Does this mean that the social security system is solely responsible? No. But, is has factored significantly in this.

Payroll taxes used to finance the social security system deplete the pool of funds from the young that the could be used to invest OR buy a house, the source of wealth accumulation for millions of Americans. Income taxes are heavily graduated, where the higher income earners pay the vast majority of taxes.

Thanks Jeff.