The Presidential Election

I still haven't decided who to vote for.

I was planning on a syphilitic goat, but it occurred to me that drafting Nicolas Maduro might get things over sooner: No toilet paper, no refrigerators working because there is power only two days a week, but that is OK because there is no food to put in them, raids and trashing of newspaper offices, and even the fleets of 747s flying in inflationary currency from Europe have stopped because the printers don't trust Maduro to pay them with REAL money.

I grant that Hillary would make a decent stand in for either, especially now that she has actually gone on record explicitly calling for a constitutional amendment to allow prosecuting people who criticize politicians.

On the other hand, there is no reason in Hawaii to vote: The Democrat will win.

Worst political class since 1855, and we know where that took us.

I am a little surprised that even with Sanders' and Trump's popularity, the leaders in both parties seem utterly unaware of just how incredibly angry average people are with them. Given the level of political education in US high schools and colleges, I have ever less trouble believing we will eventually respond to overweening politicians and their bureaucrats with an even more totalitarian leader. No matter how incompetent, no matter how corrupt politicians and their acolytes prove themselves to be, the public response is to demand they have ever more power to abuse.

Hillary will probably win, she may get her amendment, then the incumbent politicians will set up criteria for deciding which groups are 'legitimate' news organizations exempt from the ban on criticizing incumbent politicians, and all which apply for that exemption will be scrutinized for political subservience. Those like the Tea Party will be denied news licenses, and if any accidentally receive one, it can be revoked.

Just like any proper banana republic.

Saludad a nuestro Líder Suprema!

Reading Proficiency Rates At Milwaukee Public Schools

Pretty impressive:

Five schools, for example, had not a single pupil score proficient in reading on the state tests, which are administered to students in third through eighth grades, and once in high school, in 10th grade. The state assigned those schools a 0 percent score.
On the other end of the scale, the best reading proficiency score at an 80/80 school was 21 percent at Hartford Avenue University School in MPS. Second (20 percent) was Franklin School, also in MPS. St. Marcus Lutheran was third (19 percent).

Hmmmm....Can't blame underpaid teachers: Milwaukee's teachers' salaries, adjusted for cost of living, are the highest in America. (Hawaii's are the lowest)

Something else is going on. Maybe lousy parents?

It seems to me that the simplest way to improve school outcomes, and reduce violence at the same time, would be to stop subsidizing bastardy, but I guess that would be racist. You get more of whatever you subsidize, though. You want more messed up kids? Subsidize unwed teen 'parenthood'.

The Education that $60,000 Buys At Georgetown University

Student gets mugged at gunpoint: He blames his "privilege", not his assailants.

“Who am I to stand from my perch of privilege, surrounded by million-dollar homes and paying for a $60,000 education, to condemn these young men as ‘thugs?’” asks Friedfeld. “It’s precisely this kind of ‘otherization’ that fuels the problem.”

Yeah, that's one way of looking at it.

He'd make a good slave.

Another Public School Taken Over By The Mentally Unbalanced

Insanity, thy name is Public School Official.

Hawaii Ranks Low Again In Multiple Economic Categories

We like it that way: Screw the poor by screwing the not poor, and feel virtuous doing so.

State Senate Minority Leader Sam Slom stated, “I agree with the authors of Rich States, Poor States when they write “Most politicians know instinctively that taxes reduce the activity being taxed – even if they do not care to admit it. Congress and state lawmakers routinely tax things they consider “bad” to discourage the activity.” We see this when we tax tobacco and alcohol....You can’t overtax the people to support bad spending habits, and then expect people to stay and invest in our state.”

As the article also says:

there is cumulative domestic migration loss of 26,409 people from 2003 to 2012, with a net domestic migration loss of 2.4%.

The Democratic Party's subservience to the Sierra Club (the most powerful lobby in the state, and a virulently anti-building one at that) has driven the median resale price of a house here to a statewide average of roughly $675,000. Try affording that as a school teacher, or anything else, for that matter. No wonder the young move to the Mainland to escape the consequences of voting Democratic. They probably still vote Democratic on the Mainland, though, so they effectively infect the Mainland as well. They do not see the connection between making it extraordinarily difficult to build homes and the rising price of existing homes.

And the Hawaii Republican Party does a miserable job of pointing that out.

It Makes Perfect Sense To Me

After all, if a vivisected, hormonized man is properly considered a woman, why wouldn't a vivisected, hormonized woman be properly considered a man? XX vs XY chromosomes and prior life experiences aside, of course. They don't count in the Liberal Arts, and Liberal Arts trump science any and every day. As we all know, and accept, they should, naturally. Science is just an opinion, while Belief is Truth.

I'm waiting for the President to stand in solidarity with himmer. Anything less would be racist.

Still, I might reconsider allowing my child to attend Wellesley at my expense.

"Office Of Youth Engagement"

"Office of Youth Engagement"

That says enough, but the larger story is appalling: DC public schools essentially drove a 13 year old piano prodigy out of the system. Didn't matter that she was also an A+ student. Shut down the DC public school system, fire every policy maker, and start over with new people. Most especially cut the bureaucracy by about 75%. For starters.

The shame is that won't happen, because in DC, like too many other public school systems, the students, parents, and the taxpayers exist to serve the system instead of the other way around.

The entire system is supposed to be an office of youth engagement. There is a reason people are home schooling: Parents work for the interest of their child, not the interest of the bureaucracy.

Anti-GMO? You Should Read The New York Times

While many on the political Left denounce the Right as anti-science, when it comes to genetically modified foods, the same can be reasonably said about the Left.

I missed this January article in the New York Times about the controversy over GMO plants in Hawaii, but it is well worth reading. It captures the politics and the anti-science attitudes of anti-GMO activists, as well as a slight brush with their apparently universal anti-capitalism. If one doesn't take their foundational political beliefs into consideration, as well as their scientific illiteracy, one would have a tough time evaluating their claims.

"No Guns" Stickers Protect Illinois Schools

Illinois schools are putting up "No Guns" signs to ward off evil. If only we had known sooner how easy it is to keep homicidal nuts with guns out of schools:

The image can be frightening, Byrne said, “but if it keeps the world safer, that’s OK. The No. 1 thing we do for kids in general is keep their school safe...If it’s reasonable to tell people this is a safe, no-gun zone, then we’ll do it.”

What a shame that Sandy Hook and Columbine didn't have these stickers in place before nuts with guns killed people.

Guns are also banned at parades and festivals, so expect to see these talismans protecting such venues as well. Apparently churches too, whether they want to be gun free or gun protected: The legislature has decreed.

Now all the homicidal maniacs will look at these talismans and go elsewhere, because they know that the last place they want to shoot up is a place where they know that no one else will be armed.

All this time...so easy. If only we had known.

Kansas Middle School Sex Ed Poster On Expressing Affection: Anal Sex, Oral Sex, And Saying "I Like You."

For some unfathomable reason, some parents are upset.

“How do people express their sexual feelings?” the poster read. Underneath the question was a list of possible answers. Some were G-rated, like hugging, holding hands and talking. But there were also some NC-17 answers like “vaginal intercourse, anal sex, touching each other’s genitals, oral sex, sexual fantasy and caressing.”

Since the kids have to be taught exactly what these terms mean, it does seem like parents might reasonably consider this a class in How To.

District spokesperson Leigh Anne Neal told Fox 4 News the poster is part of their abstinence-based health curriculum. However, she said, the poster needed to be viewed in the context of a bigger curriculum.

“The poster that you reference is actually part of our middle school health and science materials, and so it is a part of our district approved curriculum,” Neal told the television station

So: Teaching 13 year old kids this is how people express affection, and it is approved by the district. I still can see how some parents might not get with the program their public servants have put in place.

But I can see how co-ed curriculum study groups could be attractive to the kiddies.

Since the school district officials seem to see themselves as rulers instead of servants, I can also see why home schooling might be preferred by some parents.

Bloomberg Mad That He Can't Fire A Teacher Caught With Heroin

Of course, the poor Victim of Society wasn't caught with the 20 packets of heroin in school. He was caught in court:

An arbitrator earlier this year ruled that a Brooklyn high school teacher should be fired after he was arrested for bringing heroin into a courthouse while on jury duty. But a State Supreme Court judge overturned the decision, calling the firing ”unduly harsh” and “shocking to this court’s sense of fairness.”

...The teacher, Damian Esteban, was arrested while serving jury duty last year when cops discovered 20 glassine envelopes of heroin hidden in a bulging pack of cigarettes, according to the city’s Law Department. Mr. Esteban claimed he was unaware the drugs were in his backpack

Bloomberg plans to appeal.This is one of those times even I can agree with Hizzonor. I hope there is a lot more to this story than was told here, but if reasonably accurate, I think the guy should have been flogged through the streets for terminal stupidity.

The Peanut Butter And Jelly Sandwich is Racist.

If you don't believe so, you have just encountered you own inner racist. Prepare to hate thyself, churl.

The terms 'Constitution' and 'Founding Fathers' are also racist.

The Principal of a Portland school say so, therefor it must be true.

This lunacy would be funny, but they control entire school systems. That is not funny.

The story seems to be over a year old, but for some reason has taken on a new life. As well it should.

Several of the comments are spot on. One commenter by the handle of 'Turtle' suggests that the following must also therefore be racist:

1) (American) football

2) hot dogs (some cultures don't eat them!)

3) bacon (it's existence is Islamophobic)

4) Womens & Gay rights (again, Islamophobic, some cultures don't like it!!!)

Basically, if you think women should have rights, you are racist against several cultures, if you think gays have a right to live, you are extra racist.

If you respect the rights of both while eating a bacon-wrapped hot-dog and watching football, you are basically hitler.

I think this pretty much catches the idea.

Still more here.

On Bullying

There is a column by Karol Markowicz in the NY Post about bullying, which I started to comment about on their site, but they wanted to peruse my email account. Nope.

She wrote:

The bullies of our youth could be stopped with a surprise punch. The ones of today have protection from that, thanks to our zero-tolerance policies. We’re raising a generation of superbullies.

We don’t give the good kids a fair chance to stand up to the bad ones.

Here is the reply I would have made:

Is the official policy to just quietly surrender when you’re being pummeled?

Yes. The consequences may well last a lifetime: Our schools teach passivity in the face of assault. Just how does one break through that lesson when one is later being attacked by a rapist, gay basher, or just plain nut? Answer: One usually doesn't. Learned passivity is a mental illness we demand our children learn, and learn well.

The best response to a bully is usually to punch him in the nose, and keep punching until he is either down on the ground or running away. Nowadays, of course, the head bullies run our school boards, and they are hard to beat. They like it that way.

You shall be passive, or else. You shall not take responsibility for your own safety, or else. If you defend yourself, you will be treated exactly like the bully, because you challenged the authority which says "Submit, or Else."

Schools are teaching children to submit to violent, criminal assault, and to wait for an authority figure to someday review the event.

Just soak up the violence, kid, or else.

The Insanity Continues

A police officer who dropped off his daughter at her Phoenix elementary school was asked by the school’s principal not to wear his uniform to the school because other parents were concerned that he was carrying a gun

Amazing.

When Oregon Banned Parochial and Private Schools

Wikipedia.com has this to say on the issue:

On November 7, 1922, the voters of Oregon passed an initiative amending Oregon Law Section 5259, the Compulsory Education Act. The citizens' initiative was primarily aimed at eliminating parochial schools, including Catholic schools.

It also banned private schools.

Well, that's Progressives for you.

California Schools' Transgendered Showers and Bathrooms

If I had known in junior high and high school that all I had to do to hang out nekkid with all the nekkid girls in the girls locker room and shower was declare myself transgendered, I might just have done so. I'm sure that I was a lesbian, trapped in a man's body. At least until graduation.

What an opportunity lost. Sigh.

Governor Moonbeam, where were you when I needed you most?

No Potentially Offensive Language in Seattle

Words like 'citizen" are potentially offensive.

Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.

KOMO-TV reports that the city's Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.

Naturally enough, Seattle is not alone. It turns out the the New York City Department of "Education" bans words like 'dinosaur, 'birthday', and 'Halloween'.

If you can't guess why, clik here for the story.

I wonder why it is respectrable to disrespect pagans and people who have birthdays. And evolutionists, of course.

"No Problem" vs "You're welcome."

My favorite comment: "I think, but don't say back: "You're d--m right it's no problem. It's your job.""

Thanks to JBR for the lead.

Anti-Gun Hysteria = Salem Witch Trials

If you disagree, just look at these stories, then make your argument.

Our country is being taken over by the criminally insane, and our President, and his party, are encouraging that.

I wonder when people will start resisting.

Stompng 'Jesus' for College Credit

As others have commented: Why didn't the lesson say 'Mohammed' instead of 'Jesus'?

Hmmmmmm.....

Here.

If this is what passes for intellectual discourse in colleges today, why do we allow kids to attend?