Month: September 2007

Parents decide what is reality-based education.

Evesham Township in New Jersey is under fire for including a video in its third-grade classes – as part of the state-manadated curriculum – that shows a child with two dads.

The issue first arose in December after a class of third graders at the J. Harold Van Zant School here was shown “That’s a Family!,” a documentary created by an Academy Award-winning filmmaker intended to show students the different forms that families can take, as part of the curriculum required in New Jersey. But the district temporarily stopped showing the video after some parents complained that they should be able to decide whether their third-grade children should learn about same-sex couples in the classroom.

My stance is that the only valid discussion in this context is third-grade, as opposed to children. Of course it’s possible to cherry-pick whatever quote you need to make whatever point you want to make. The article has exactly what you’d expect, but I’m sure the sentiment is moderately common:

“I don’t think it was appropriate,” said Jennifer Monteleone, 35, who is a parent of two children at the Robert B. Jaggard Elementary School. “If it was maybe in fifth grade, but in third grade they’re a little too young.”

It’s reasonable to debate this, as I said. But it can’t stop there.

Yet Ms. Monteleone also questioned whether the video should be shown at all because of the presence of the same-sex couples.

“It’s something to be discussed within families,” she said. “I think it’s the parents’ responsibility to teach the kids about that stuff.”

I don’t have a problem with this statement. But prohibiting this discussion in school addresses the symptom. When government is in charge of education, you have considerably less freedom to limit facts, or even decide what should be facts. But education is provided by the government. As a blunt instrument it can work against any agenda as much as it can work for one. Don’t be surprised when it happens.

In this case, parents do not have a right to make up their own facts. Same-sex marriage civil (in-)equality is the law. In acknowledging same-sex relationships, the state of New Jersey is dealing strictly in fact. Again, question the third-grade aspect and the debate is useful. (I think third-grade is fine, but I won’t pretend to base that on anything other than my instinct.) But you don’t get to impose this on everyone:

Delores Stepnowski, a parent of another Jaggard student, said parents should have been given more notice that the video would be shown.

“Something that controversial should have been discussed,” Ms. Stepnowski said. The children “shouldn’t learn questionable things in school that they’re not ready for and don’t understand.”

The evaluation of fact is open to subjective opinion. The existence of fact is not. The word questionable has nothing to do with this.

Economics hurts women. Let’s hurt it back.

The United States is in great company:

Why is there deep bias against mothers? It turns out our country lacks basic supports for families. Out of 173 countries, only four have no paid leave for new mothers — Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Liberia and the U.S.A.

The essay contains many other out-of-context abuses of economics, but this one is sufficient. But first, this:

We know how to fix this problem.

Of course we do. The nanny statists always do.

The U.S. does not have mandatory paid leave, legislated by Congress. And yet, how many new mothers go completely without pay immediately following childbirth? Every time I’ve encountered a co-worker who will be taking maternity leave, she and her family have planned during the pregnancy for the coming lack of income by saving vacation days. They have nine months, after all. This needs to be considered without nonsense like this:

It turns out that having a child is the top cause of a “poverty spell” for families, a time when income dips below what’s needed for basic living expenses like food and rent.

The burden is on the parents, not the state, to properly plan a family’s finances in the event of a child. If a child will cause a “poverty spell”, do not have a child. Couples may procreate but they may not expect society to pay for that choice.

Most frustrating is that the author almost understands the truth.

The good news is businesses that are adapting to the human need for flexibility are thriving.

Still, we must lament that the United States sits with Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Liberia in not mandating paid maternity leave.

So let’s assume the U.S. mandates paid maternity leave. Who will fund the new state expense? Since it’s a burden deriving from businesses, the tax burden will be placed on them. They will simply pass this expense to employees in the form of lower wages. Where there is an existing wage gap, it’s logical to assume that the cost for an extra benefit to women, all else equal, will be passed to women. We’re essentially down to shifting financial planning for children from parents to the state.

This might bypass women past child-bearing age, though how that will be determined opens a can of worms. But it will inevitably ignore the women who choose not to have children. Even though they do not need to financially plan for children, they will be financially planning for other people’s children, through the state. But I’m sure this is one extra law from Congress away from being rectified.

And what about paid paternity leave?

Via FARK

Stupid HIV Defense Quotes – A Contest

I have two competing quotes, but I can’t decide which is dumber. First, from the article I referenced in yesterday’s entry:

“It’s now the most proven, effective HIV prevention strategy we have for male heterosexuals, so it’s really important that we make this widely available,” said Robert C. Bailey, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who oversaw the Kenyan trial in nearby Kisumu.

You might remember Mr. Bailey, as he’s made two appearances at Rolling Doughnut with the same basic quote. (I guess this makes him our returning champion.) His statement is egregious, since abstinence, monogamy, and condoms are undeniably more effective.

Next, from Archbishop Manase Buthelezi of the Lutheran Church in South Africa:

Virginity inspection helps protect our children from HIV-Aids.

I’m not really sure how, as it’s a ex post facto check, unless he’s relying on the shame of “failing” the inspection to discourage sex.

I’m voting for Bailey, because he’s more certain, so unthinking individuals will be less likely to dispute him. As evidence, read the article. You won’t find any dispute from the reporter to such a ridiculous claim. What do you think?

**********

To strengthen his position, Archbishop Buthelezi offered this:

“We have never heard of any maiden who died because of virginity inspection. But we have many young boys killed in mountains during circumcision. And there is no big noise about that.

“If there are people who want to stop virginity inspection they must do the same with circumcision. Virginity testing is about abstinence from sex, which we preach in church,” he said.

As you can predict, he doesn’t make this comparison to discuss how reprehensible both are, but how beneficial virginity inspection is. He glosses over circumcision deaths to defend church doctrine. And then he states that virginity inspection “brings back humanity and respect to our children.”

Maybe that should’ve been his entry.

Fear loosens man’s adherence to logic.

From the first two paragraphs, the rehashing of the same vile pablum is inevitable:

Family gatherings for Collins Omondi once were boisterous affairs here on the verdant shores of Lake Victoria. But in just 11 years, AIDS has killed seven of his uncles, six aunts, five cousins and both his parents. His extended family now consists of one surviving uncle, an aunt and their 2-year-old child — all of whom have AIDS.

Fear is the first rule in propaganda. If you don’t get circumcised, you are going to die of HIV. You don’t want to die of HIV, do you? You don’t want your children to die of HIV, do you?

Omondi, 28, a tall, broad-shouldered fish trader, has come to believe that a quirk of culture contributed to the decimation of his family. They were Luos, members of the only major tribe in Kenya that does not routinely circumcise boys. The absence of this ritual, Omondi said, helps explain why Luos are dying from AIDS at a rate unheard of among other Kenyans and rare in East Africa.

The lack of genital surgery is not the problem. Promiscuous, unprotected sex in an HIV-packed community explains why Luos are dying from AIDS.

That doesn’t dismiss the horror of HIV or the need to reverse the trend, but if the Luos – or anyone – thinks they can keep the same habits that created the HIV epidemic after undergoing circumcision, their future will be as horrific as the present. Behavior must change, not genitals.

Buried in the article, long after several examples of how lack of circumcision “helps explain” the HIV epidemic, this:

Lake Victoria’s fishermen, following the winds, often kept girlfriends at several different beaches. The men generally were among the few in villages with steady supplies of cash, arriving home each day with $10 or $20 — sometimes much more — in areas where many earn less than $1 a day.

“With the fishermen, you can’t trust them,” said Mary Achieng Bunde, 41, a former fish trader and an AIDS activist whose husband died of the disease.

Of the women who trade in fish, she said, sexual favors were expected and generally granted. “Most of them, they are ready to do because maybe your husband has died, your children have school fees. . . . What can you do?”

Let’s keep pretending that the foreskin is the problem and not promiscuous sex without condoms. Rule number two in propaganda: lie.

She said attitudes are changing on the beaches because of fear and aggressive education programs. More fishermen are living in family houses, with their wives and children, rather than in communal dorms. The carousing has quieted as the toll of AIDS has grown.

Should I assume that this change in sexual behavior will be considered as a potentially dominant factor in the causation/correlation conclusion, should the HIV rate suddenly drop among the Luos after circumcision? I suspect that’s too much to ask. Rule number three in propaganda: ignore inconvenient evidence refuting the lies.

Unsurprisingly, the article closes with mention of a funeral for a fisherman who died of AIDS. Trite and manipulative like the rest of the article, it’s a shining example of yellow journalism.

Karl Marx is available on iTunes.

Of course:

Lawyers suing [Apple] said the new devices bolster their antitrust case accusing Apple of trying to monopolize the markets for digital music players and online music sales.

“The inability of the new line to play competing formats is part of the case,” said Gregory Weston, an attorney with one of the nation’s premier class-action firms, Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins of San Diego. “That is evidence that the company is acting like a monopolist and not competitive.”

Just ignore that there are competing formats, that they continue to exist, and that companies continue to release new products capable of playing those formats. None of that proves anything about competition and consumer choice. The iPod is really popular and Apple has a lot of money!

In court documents, Apple said demanding that the company work with competitors “may facilitate the supreme evil of antitrust: collusion.”

“Forcing Apple to deal with rivals may lessen the incentive for Apple or rivals to innovate and invest in economically beneficial facilities,” Apple wrote in court briefs. “It would require antitrust courts to act as central planners, identifying the proper price, quantity and other terms of dealing — a role for which they are ill-suited.”

Ill-suited? Absolutely. But central planning is exactly what anti-capitalists want, especially if they can steal money in the process of getting to centrally-planned, where they can steal more money for the “good” of consumers.

The [class-action status seeking antitrust] suit alleges Apple customers were economically harmed because, once they bought an iPod and purchased music at iTunes, they were locked forever into buying iPods.

Perhaps they should ask each individual iPod customer if he or she has been economically harmed. I don’t. I valued the iPod and all its alleged limitations more than the $400 I paid for it. The same was true of the second iPod I bought. It was going to be true of the third iPod I intended to buy, the iPod Touch, but I don’t like the limited size of both hard drive choices. I will be keeping my $400 and Apple will be keeping its iPod. Behold competition.

Did I mention that the iPod’s success is largely due to its superior design and user interface? Central planners have never concerned themselves with quality, of course. Quantity matters exclusively. Apple has sold the most mp3 players (to lemmings, apparently), so they’re monopolists. Ridiculous.

About that surge…

In its determination to remake Iraq into whatever it’s actually trying to create in Iraq (rhetoric aside), the Bush administration has clearly diverted its attention abandoned the legitimate war it entered. From Afghanistan:

Taliban insurgents carried out 103 suicide bombings in Afghanistan in the first eight months of 2007, a 69 percent increase over the same period last year, according to a United Nations report that is expected to be issued publicly on Monday. The record number of attacks killed more than 200 people, 80 percent of them civilians.

We had a clear chance in Afghanistan. There was no guarantee that continued dedication to the war we accepted¹ would end in a stable democracy. The seeds were there, as our stabilization efforts have apparently provided some results. But the Bush administration abandoned that war to fight the perpetual war, with Iraq the next, illogical frontier.

When the Bush administration says we need to stay and fight in Iraq because we started it, they lie. They don’t care about that. If they did, we’d be in Afghanistan to win, not to pursue the appearance of winning. And based on these numbers – remember, the Wall Street Journal’s editors believe this statistic to be a valid measure of success – we’re losing ground in Afghanistan. Heckuva job.

¹ “Accepted” isn’t really the word I want here, but I can’t think of a concise way to say that we were attacked with the support and protection of the Taliban. We didn’t start that war. Afghanistan was merely the battleground of a legitimate national security threat. We had to accept the rude invitation, for want of a less crude explanation.

Fred Thompson – The New Divider

Remember back when Fred Thompson didn’t-but-really-did endorse an amendment to the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage? Yes, well now that he’s in the race officially, he wants to win your socially-conservative vote.

“I would support a constitutional amendment which says some off-the-wall court decision in one state, that recognizes the importance of marriage in that state, like Massachusetts, which is a good state, do not come to another state and have it recognized in that state,” Mr. Thompson said. “You’re not bound by what that other state does.”

“My concern is under the full faith and credit clause that some court — in the second state — is gonna say that you’re gonna have to recognize that marriage. That should not be the case,” Mr. Thompson said.
…

… “The second part of my amendment would also state that judges — judges could not impose this on the federal or state level, unless a state legislature signs off on it.”

So, parts of the federal Constitution pose the risk of giving him an outcome that won’t win him votes he doesn’t like. In the name of federalism, he proposes that we scrap that bit of language, but only in the context of marriage, because he wouldn’t think of toying with the Constitution in the future to meet some undetermined threat to our sensibilities. He holds the Constitution sacred. He’s a prudent federalist.

As to the second part, why don’t we just do away with courts? Obviously we’re uninterested in legal scholarship. The masses know how individual rights should be offered. You want to claim a right, put it to a vote. Until the populace agrees, through the legislature, you are merely requesting special rights. That’s un-American. How dare you?!

Fred Thompson clearly does not understand that our government is a three-pronged system of checks and balances. He can’t be trusted to respect the independence of the judiciary from the legislative, so I shall assume he can’t be trusted to respect the independence of either branch from the executive. Eight years of that is enough.

Any fool can compare irrelevant statistics.

The editors at Opinion Journal put forth their case for the success of “the surge” in Iraq:

What’s more important is to note the changes that have taken place in Iraq, all of which indicate that the “surge” is working and that we are at last on our way toward a positive military outcome. As General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker prepare their testimony to Congress later this month, it’s worth pointing to a few indicators:

I’ll get to the indicators in a moment. I just want to demonstrate how clearly the editors have stated their interpretation of the included data points.

  • There were 30 “multiple fatality” (usually suicide) bombings in August 2007. In August 2006 there were 52.
  • There were 120 daily attacks by insurgents and militias last month, down from 160 in August 2006.
  • 60,000 prisoners were being held by the U.S. and Iraq as of last month, up from 27,000 a year earlier.
  • Iraqi security forces currently number 360,000, up from 298,000 a year ago.

Regarding the first two points, is it a relevant comparison to use statistics from last August, when the surge was merely a glimmer in the Bush administration’s eye? Wouldn’t monthly statistics from just before the surge began be more informative? Or at least important for context? Regardless of the outcome, using statistics from 6 months before the surge began looks like cherry-picking.

The last statistic is rather empty, outside any other context (wages, employment opportunities, actual merit-based achievements of the security forces, to name a few), so I’m discarding it.

I find the third indicator most interesting. Merely having twice as many prisoners is a measure of success. There is no mention of findings of guilt in a court of law. They’re prisoners, which means we have 33,000 more terrorists in captivity. Allow me to be kind and say that’s incomplete. Due process, burden of proof, innocent until proven guilty? Sound familiar?

We can’t be sure that the prisoners are receiving any sort of judicial oversight, so the increased prisoner statistic is just a worthless number, although the Journal’s endorsement says much. It’s just as easy to conclude that our military is rounding people up and imprisoning them without cause. I assume the only reason we’re supposed to accept that the prisoners are justly held is because we’re America and we’re just. It’s a worthwhile assumption rooted in our history, although the Bush administration regularly demonstrates its lack of interest in continuing its practice. But even if that assumption is correct, this statistic’s current form is nothing more than propaganda.

California bans force. Mostly?

California is addressing the possibility of forced RFID implantation:

California’s senate passed a bill last week that would protect people from having RFID tags forcibly implanted beneath their skin. All that’s left is for Governor Schwarzenegger to sign it, and then the state will become the third to pass such legislation (after Wisconsin and North Dakota).

The motivations for the bill were to prevent people from being forcibly tracked and to protect them from identity theft should someone electronically sniff data stored on the tag.

Kip already debunked the flaw in this plan:

It’s quite simple really: Only the government (or an armed thug) can “force” anyone to do anything. No employer can ever “force” an employee to accept any rule, policy or prerequisite.

I have nothing to add to that, but in light of what I wrote last week, there is another component. First, a word from the bill’s sponsor, Senator Joe Simitian:

“At the very least, we should be able to agree that the forced implanting of under-the-skin technology into human beings is just plain wrong,” he says.

I’ve read through the bill (pdf), and it clearly addresses what to do in the event a minor (or dependent adult) suffers a forced RFID chip implantation, but I can only find this for the possibility that it’s the parent forcing the child rather than an outside party:

This section shall not in any way modify existing statutory or case law regarding the rights of parents or guardians, the rights of children or minors, or the rights of dependent adults.

I’m not an attorney, so it’s possible, probable even, that I’m missing something in my analysis. But I doubt it. I have a strong suspicion that no one in the California legislature is much interested in the ethical issues posed by parents implanting an RFID chip into their children. Obviously it’s better to address a nearly impossible scenario with a new law, while leaving the entirely plausible scenario unprotected in order to guarantee parental “rights”.