Wednesday's Notes

Berry Important Lawsuit

Heigh Ho's spd rdr sends us message about the big Blackberry lawsuit. From his blackberry of course.

More Uncertainty Among Climate Scientists Among Everything

First, I'm supposed to believe that our scientists from 100 years ago kept reliable termperature readings (in between visits to their doctor for a daily leeching) so that today's scientists can state, with unexplained certainty, that we are experiencing global warming produced by man made emissions.

Now, scientists cannot explain why the Earth is getting less sun light but also increasing in temperature when the sun is also more active.

"The data also reveal that from 2000 to now the clouds have changed so that the Earth may continue warming, even with declining sunlight," said study leader Philip R. Goode of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. "These large and peculiar variabilities of the clouds, coupled with a resulting increasing albedo, presents a fundamental, unmet challenge for all scientists who wish to understand and predict the Earth's climate."

Translation: We don't know what the helk is going on.

But, we apparently knew that in May of 2005:

While researchers argue whether Earth is getting warmer and if humans are contributing, a heated debate over the global effect of sunlight boiled to the surface today. And in this debate there is little data to go on.

A confusing array of new and recent studies reveals that scientists know very little about how much sunlight is absorbed by Earth versus how much the planet reflects, how all this alters temperatures, and why any of it changes from one decade to the next.

Determining Earth's reflectance is crucial to understanding climate change, scientists agree.

We agree that we don't know anything about the interaction of certain variables about climate change that we agree must be understood to understand how they interact with climate change.

Oh, and man is responsible for global warming!

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Truancy Isn't The Crime; Going To School Is

John Stossel writes a great essay about the criminalization of kids who want to go to good schools. The problem, as any non-teachers union supporter knows, is that government schools don't compete and thus often don't care. Thus, when a good public school does exist, students and parents who care will become criminals to get into good schools.

In San Jose, Calif., many parents want to get their kids in Fremont Union schools because they're so much better than neighboring schools. ... Steve Rowley, district superintendent, said, "We have maybe hundreds of kids who are here illegally, under false pretenses."

Illegally. False pretenses. Sounds like the kids are criminals. All they're doing is trying to get a good public-school education. Don't the public schools' defenders insist all children have a right to a good public-school education?

Stossel describes an inspector who works for the school system. He goes door to door to check if kids really live where they say they do. While with Stossell, he catches a family that lied about their address.

Granted, Tapang broke the rules. The rules said her grandson, because of where he lived, wasn't entitled to the quality education Fremont Union schools provide. But which is worse: a system that traps students in bad schools, or a grandmother who lies to save her grandson from being denied a decent education? I asked her, "Isn't it creepy that they force you to go to the black market to get your kid a better education?"

Of course the countries that beat America's pants off in education today never adopted the American "one school based on geography" approach.

Most countries that beat America on international tests give their students that choice. In Belgium, the government spends less than American schools do on each student, but the money is attached to the kids. So they can go wherever they want -- to a state-run school, a Montessori school, or even a religious school.

"I wouldn't send my child to an American public school," said Maria Loth. "Not even for a million dollars." Her son lives in Belgium now, but when he was 6, his family lived in America. "In America, I had to beg, please, please give me good school for my child. And here in Belgium, they're all over the place."

That's right. In public education, our land of the free is now a bunch of local fiefs, where petty-bureaucrats-turned-lords-of-the-manor decide whether you can get a decent education, and parents must go to them, begging for their children's future. Meanwhile, in Belgium and much of the rest of the world, students and their parents have the freedom to choose their schools -- and the opportunity that comes with that freedom.

If only we could convince our states to grant such freedom and financial rationality to our own students.

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The ACLU Wins Another Vital Case

Thank God (oops, sorry ACLU) for the ACLU. It strikes another blow for freedom everywhere.

A male high school student can wear a skirt to school after the American Civil Liberties Union reached an agreement with school officials. The ACLU announced the deal Tuesday. It will allow a Hasbrouck Heights School senior to wear a skirt to protest the school's no-shorts policy.

The district's dress code bans shorts between Oct. 1 and April 15, but allows skirts, a policy 17-year-old Michael Coviello believes is discriminatory. "I'm happy to be able to wear skirts again to bring attention to the fact that the ban on shorts doesn't make sense," Coviello said in a statement.

When I was in high school, no one was allowed to wear shorts. Why? Because the daisy dukes were distracting. Of course, the skirts were distracting as well. So yes, the policy was stupid. It did not require a "pretend" protest by some high school cross-dresser.

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I am so sick of this Anti-American terrorist, commie supporting woman living off the "moral authority" paid for by her son.

Thats all.