Headline on Google and Voice of America: “Congress vows to override Bush veto on child health care.”
1. Congress vows that? Maybe some Congressional Democrats do, but isn’t it customary to have a vote before saying Congress does something?
2. I’ll bet it’s not child health care that Bush vetoed. I’ll bet he vetoed the latest version of the SCHIP legislation.
First time I heard about the yellow pages test was in this post over at SCSU scholars. (And btw, the existence of that SCSU web site is making me prouder that I got a degree from that University, even though it had nothing to do with the departments that these guys come from. I even found myself looking for an excuse to mention SCSU the other day — as the place where I got my first computer job when I was in grad school.)
The yellow pages test reminds me of Coldwater, Michigan.
This photo was taken on my last bike ride to Coldwater, two years ago. I really shouldn’t have let two years elapse, because it’s a favorite riding destination. There is a shop on main street where I can get a decent sandwich while keeping an eye on my bike, and there are lots of good Black Hawk era history places in and around the town. Main street (shown here) was part of Black Hawk’s route back in the 1820s before it became the Chicago Road.
One thing I haven’t understood, though, is why the city fathers decided to go into the ISP business. Why did they want to provide residential wireless service as a city utility?
You’d think they’d have wanted to put their energy into making Coldwater a good place for private ISPs to provide wireless, cable, whatever. Private ISPs would have property, employees, and revenue that could then be TAXED and provide revenue for the city! Given the way Michigan governments like taxes, you’d think this would have been all the incentive they would have needed. But no, they had to go and cut into their own tax base by providing internet as a public utility.
Maybe it’s something in the (cold)water that made them act that way. I will continue to enjoy the sandwiches, but maybe I will bring my own water next times I ride there.
Over on the Phred bicycle touring list, we’ve gotten into one of our discussions of when is the U.S. going to go metric? That topic doesn’t come up as often as “panniers vs trailers”and isn’t as heated as “helmets yes or no” but it’s an oldie. (If any of my fellow Phreds have found me over here, Hi!)
Someone gave a rather good-humored response to my take on the subject, which I won’t post here due to not having asked for nor been granted permission, but I hereby give myself permission to quote myself:
No, no, I didn’t say we’d be better off. What I’m saying is the drive for greater efficiency and conformity isn’t all gain. There are usually some social losses, too.Here’s another example of how that works, from a bike ride last month:
http://www.spokesrider.com/2007/10/02/technology-that-yields/
And I had almost forgotten about this bike ride on the subject:
http://www.spokesrider.com/2007/08/07/3-july-2007-the-end-virginia-military-tract/
And here’s where to learn about some people who are very deliberate in evaluating whether to adopt the most efficient technology. They don’t all come to the same conclusions each time, but they all think long and hard about the effect of efficiency on social life before adopting any changes. But they aren’t exactly opposed to conformity, either.
Which got me to wondering — I wonder how many of the people who berate ourselves for being so backward as to not go metric in this country are also anti-globalization warriors? If people don’t want all retail trade to be monopolized by Wal-Mart, all eating establishments to become MacDonalds, all coffee shops to become Starbucks, maybe they should rethink the mania for uniformity in measurement systems, laws, transportation systems, whatever.
(AP) — Mounting tiny video cameras to the tail feathers of crows, researchers discovered that the birds use a variety of tools to seek food, and even make their own tools, plucking, smoothing and bending twigs and grass stems.
Yet how do we know these same birds haven’t been researching us, too? How do we know they haven’t inserted tiny video cameras in the corners of our windows?
My, oh my. Google News is sure beating the drums hard on this SCHIP thing. They have made this the top story for I don’t know how long, using the most propagandistic headlines they can find.
The judge made a reasonable decision, I suppose, but what business do judges have in making such decisions in the first place? These are judgment calls that could reasonably be decided a number of different ways. Wouldn’t it be better for local school officials to be making them? And what would be so terrible about them not all making the same decision? Why do all the schools have to march in lock-step? So long as local principals and teachers have to watch their backs for fear of what local taxpayers and parents say, that would seem to be sufficient control, and one more robust in surviving occasional mistakes.
It’s bad enough in the United States where state boards of education make decisions for the schools in the state. That was one of the bad things about John Engler’s school finance reform in Michigan — it took a measure of control out of parents and local taxpayers’ hands, and turned it over to a state educational bureaucracy. Whatever the fiscal merits, they can hardly have been worth that cost.
Here‘s what the fuss is about:
Schools will have to issue a warning before they show pupils Al Gore’s controversial film about global warming, a judge indicated yesterday.
The move follows a High Court action by a father who accused the Government of ‘brainwashing’ children with propaganda by showing it in the classroom.
Stewart Dimmock said the former U.S. Vice-President’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is unfit for schools because it is politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and ‘sentimental mush’.
He wants the video banned after it was distributed with four other short films to 3,500 schools in February.
Mr Justice Burton is due to deliver a ruling on the case next week, but yesterday he said he would be saying that Gore’s Oscar-winning film does promote ‘partisan political views’.
This means that teachers will have to warn pupils that there are other opinions on global warming and they should not necessarily accept the views of the film.
He said: ‘The result is I will be declaring that, with the guidance as now amended, it will not be unlawful for the film to be shown.’
“Obama argued that U.S. policy is still focused on the defunct Soviet Union instead of combatting the nuclear threat from rogue nations and terrorists.” AP
Huh? Still focused on the Soviet Union? With all the noise the Bush warmongers are making about Iran?
Isn’t Barack Obama a little young to be this out of date and out of touch? Where has he been the past couple of decades?
And where are the reporters who should have challenged that statement?
It was disorienting when I happened across this article a few weeks ago by Justin Fox in Time mag. (I wouldn’t want Time in our house; it was something I saw while making a cup of coffee in the lunchroom at work.)
Talking about the sub-prime loan crisis, he says:
Does this mean we need more regulation? Maybe, maybe not. It does indicate, though, that the mortgage business might be due for a return to its roots.
The disorienting part was that he seems to care what kind of regulation might be needed. Usually you have lefties crying for more regulation, and righties wanting less. It’s frustrating, because what usually matters is the kind of regulation.
Do people want regulation that creates new bureaucracy with the power to play favorites? Do they want regulation that uses market forces to the maximum extent possible? We hardly ever get into those discussions.
That’s not exactly what Fox wants to talk about, but he does seem to keep his head about him. And I think he makes a plausible point about the need to “shift mortgage risk back into the banking industry.” Maybe I’m prejudiced, because I think that too often the God of Almighty Liquidity creates situations where people-to-people interactions vanish, which is what happens when banks freely sell off loans to other companies that have had no relationship with the borrower.
I had seen a few references to Hillary Clinton’s laugh/cackle, but I regret to admit that I wasn’t paying enough attention to join in the Hillary-Bashing. It’s not like me to miss out on an opportunity.
But I see from Dick Morris’s Column that there was more to it than the laugh.
But every once in a while, there’s a rare moment of clarity. That happened last year when Wallace interviewed the former president. At the end of the interview, Bill lost it. Suddenly the veneer was off, exposing the enraged, snarling, lunging Bill accusing Wallace of “do[ing] his nice little right wing hit job” when he forced Clinton to address his inability to capture or kill bin Laden.
Not a pretty sight.
And Wallace did it again in his recent interview of Hillary. Asked about the extreme partisan politics espoused by her and her husband, the real Hillary challenged Wallace. “Well, Chris, if you’d walked even a day in our shoes over the last 15 years I’m sure you’d understand.”
Oh, yeah? And what is that supposed to mean? Lots of people on all sides of political issues have come in for heavy criticism and opposition. Is she saying criticism of the Clintons is what explains her extreme partisanship? If so, how come it’s only the Clintons who have that kind of reaction to it?
Well, at least she didn’t deny that she was an extreme partisan.
(I don’t think this comment was as revealing of the real Hillary as the one in 1993, “I can’t be responsible for every undercapitalized business.”)
I wish I knew
why the black walnut trees in our yard still have lots of leaves, even though it’s October already! The ones lining the county road less than half a mile away away lost their leaves long ago, as self-respecting Juglans nigra should. The photo above is of some that had mostly lost their leaves by September 20, which is still a bit late in the year to have as many as are shown. But those in our yard still have lots more than that.