Category Archives: Politics

Where has my country gone?

Witness this article from the Washinton Post:

And the Verdict on Justice Kennedy Is: Guilty (washingtonpost.com)

Conservative leaders meeting in Washington yesterday for a discussion of “Remedies to Judicial Tyranny” decided that Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee, should be impeached, or worse.

…

Not to be outdone, lawyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, “upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law.”

Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his “bottom line” for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. “He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: ‘no man, no problem,’ ” Vieira said.

The full Stalin quote, for those who don’t recognize it, is “Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.”…

Call me silly, but isn’t threatening violence against judges illegal?

Want to get scared? Try googling for “judicial tyranny”, and see what people are saying.

Doesn’t anyone read Jefferson?

The Constitution of the United States having divided the powers of government into three branches, legislative, executive, and judiciary, and deposited each with a separate body of magistracy, forbidding either to interfere in the department of the other, the executive are not at liberty to intermeddle in [a] question [that] must be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.

or Madison?

As the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments of the United States are co-ordinate, and each equally bound to support the Constitution, it follows that each must, in the exercise of its functions, be guided by the text of the Constitution according to its own interpretation of it; and, consequently, that in the event of irreconciliable interpretations, the prevalence of the one or the other department must depend upon the nature of the case, as receiving its final decision from the one or the other, and passing from that decision into effect, without involving the functions of any other.

or

… independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an inpenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive [branches].

It’s… just…

I’m left speechless.

Decoding Why Few Girls Choose Science, Math (washingtonpost.com)

Stories like this one have been making the rounds, probably in response to the unfortunate remarks which Harvard University President Lawrence Summers made last month that suggested that innate differences between men and women might be responsible for the differences that the two sexes demonstrate in math and sciences.

Unfortunately, in all of the these stories that I have read, they neglect one thing which seemed obvious to me:

Teachers and scientists say that there are greater differences in learning styles within each sex than there are between the sexes and that any school or teacher that doesn’t approach students as individuals is missing the mark.

The problem with bad schools (of which there are plenty) and bad educational practices (ditto) is that they try to take the shortcut and stereotype the failures and successes of individual students by some overly simplistic indicator. “Girls aren’t good at math because they are more social.” “Boys are less afraid of being wrong.” “Girls are collaborative.” “Boys are programmed for conflict.”

There are certainly lessons to be learned. Every teacher should examine his actions and try to decide whether his actions are somehow biased towards outcomes for any of his students. Every child should enjoy an atmosphere where they are welcome and encouraged. How much should we do? All that we can, and all that they need, for each individual student.

Kids don’t understand the First Amendment

CNN is running a story about students’ lack of knowledge about the First Amendment that is getting quite a bit of blog space. Short excerpts:

Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

Of course the really tragic thing is that most adults don’t understand our basic freedoms either.

TaxProf Blog: Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed

The Big Picture has an interesting list of post-election maps which seek to demonstrate the oddities of how people voted in the Presidential election. I find this one to be rather interesting, which showed that of the 32 states that receive more in federal tax money than they collect in taxes, 76% ended up voting for George W. For all their preaching about self reliance, it appears that these predominantly Republican states drink heavily from the fountain that is federal taxation.

Where did my country go?

While as of this hour Bush has not declared victory, nor Kerry conceded victory, both seem to be inevitable. I’m depressed, and I can’t help but wonder where my country has gone.

Don’t think I’ll be up to podcasting today. Four million of you conspired to ruin my mood.

Jon Stewart on C-SPAN

C-SPAN recently ran an interview with Jon Stewart and just like his appearance on Crossfire, he continues to roast the conventional television media for participating in the farce that is “popular journalism”.

I’ll undoubtably rant about this some more in my podcast, but here is an idea for thought: Fox News made a deliberate choice to advocate the conservative agenda in America, and has become a commercial success on that basis. Here’s the question: why can’t a news network be similarly focussed, not on the “liberal” viewpoint, or the “left” viewpoint, but the viewpoint of integrity? Why not make the news network that really is Fair and Balanced and News You Can Trust?

More in the audio podcast soon. Download and listen to his interview, it’s great.