Is a Education a Priority

What do you think the US Government's priorities should be?

House Republicans have decided that aid for student loans, funding for child support enforcement, and aid to companies who have been harmed by unfair trade practices of their competitors are not among the priorities of this government.

They are also looking to cut funding for food stamps, farm subsidies, and medicaid (although acknowledging that medical costs continue to skyrocket).

Bush commented that he was "pleased with the progress" he has seen in the House and he added "I encourage Congress to push the envelope when it comes to cutting spending."

George Miller (D-CA) called the plan which imposes new fees on students who consolidate their loans and higher fees on parents who must borrow on behalf of their children, a "raid on student aid"

The planned cuts have consistently been supported by votes falling strictly along party lines. Therefore, it would not be unfair to draw conclusions about the goals and interests of the parties based on their votes on these budget measures.


US Taxpayer Funding of the Education of only the World's Elite

One must acknowledge that the reduced assistance for the common family to fund their own or their children's educations is a strange and counter intuitive policy. We now find ourselves in a country where all taxpayers fund public universities that only the richest families can afford to send their children to.

Further, American student achievement in Science and Engineering continues to decline to a level that has prompted the President of Cornell University and the Dean of Stanford Medical school, among others, to note that American students are becoming less qualified for Graduate programs and American Universities. Currently, about 1-in-3 candidates in doctoral and postgraduate programs are foreign students.

Wouldn't most countries consider it a national security concern with a potentiality for alarming economic consequences if their taxpayer money was used to fund the education of Foreign Elites.

Perjury (R) versus Perjury (D)

One is hard pressed to detect a more significant "flip-flop" in American politics than what is currently occurring with regard to the Bush Adminstration cronies; namely Karl Rove (Senior White House Advisor) and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff).

Condemnation of Perjury as Applied to President Bill Clinton:

While still governor, George W. Bush presented his argument why Clinton should be impeached: "The man lied."

Bill Frist has said: "There is no serious question that perjury and obstruction of justice are high crimes and misdemeanors . . . Today, we punish perjury and obstruction of justice at least as severely as we punish bribery. Apparently, the seriousness of perjury and obstruction of justice has not diminished over time. Indeed, our own Senate precedent establishes that perjury is a high crime and misdemeanor. The Senate has removed seven federal judges from office."

Senator DeWine (R-Ohio) says: "[A] decision to place one's hand on the Bible and invoke God's witness--and then lie--threatens the judiciary. The judiciary is designed to be a mechanism for finding the truth--so that justice can be done. Perjury perverts the judiciary, turning it into a mechanism that accepts lies--so that injustice may prevail."

Representative Henry Hyde (R): "Lying under oath is an abuse of freedom. Obstruction of justice is a degradation of law. There are people in prison for such offenses."

Representative Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R): "[S]omething needs to be said that is a clear message that our rule of law is intact and the standards for perjury and obstruction of justice are not gray. And I think it is most important that we make that statement and that it be on the record for history.

I very much worry that with the evidence that we have seen that grand juries across America are going to start asking questions about what is obstruction of justice, what is perjury. And I don’t want there to be any lessening of the standard. Because our system of criminal justice depends on people telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That is the lynch pin of our criminal justice system and I don’t want it to be faded in any way." (Feb., 2, 1999)

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Now, the New interpretation of Perjury from the right under a Republican President (as coming from the party that declared themselves possessors of "a moral monopoly" in this country):

Representative Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R): ""I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime..."

A NY Times article also examines Republicans' efforts to now assert that what constituted a "high crimes and misdemeanor" as applied to Clinton, now is merely a legal technicality and not even immoral. This article indicates that "people sympathetic to Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have said that indicting them would amount to criminalizing politics and that Mr. Fitzgerald did not understand how Washington works."

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It is especially significant to note that this is an investigation regarding a leak of classified information. That information was required by federal statute to be kept confidential. Unusrprisingly, during the Clinton years, Ken Starr, or members of his prosecutorial staff, were responsible for nearly daily leaks of information from grand jury hearings; information required by Federal Statute to be kept confidential, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6 (e)(2)(b). There, the prosecutor himself was guilty of committing the very crimes that are now being investigated by Mr. Fitzgerald.

The republicans got away with it then, is it any wonder that they haven't stopped violating this law when it comes to seeking political vengence?

Marriage Debate

There is a fantastic discussion on http://volokh.com about the marriage debate. I find the argument presented by their guest blogger Maggie Gallagher (an author of many books on the subject) fascinating, intelligent, and unlightening, but ultimately unpersuasive.

She argues that marriage is primarily instituted as a means for child bearing and child rearing. Certainly these activities are most advisedly pursued within marriage. She also makes the critical point that while people have no need to reproduce, societies do. Consequently, societies must support child rearing and in the most ideal circumstances possible to ensure that healthy and productive populations persist.

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I don't think we can accurately predict the impact of a change of the rules of marriage to include same sex couples without taking a pragmatic view of why people marry, not why the government wants people to marry (if the there is a differnce between the two).

I believe that there is a difference. Fewer people wait to have children until marriage, more people are getting divorced, more people are preparing for the potential of divorce with prenuptial agreements, and more people have children without a partner at all, and more people are bringing children into subsequent relationships.

If marriage is not treated by the public as a means for raising children, then I do not believe that allowing couples who cannot or do not plan on raising children in marriage or that the further diminishment of the symbolic significance of the association between marriage and child rearing will actually alter or significanlty affect marriage as we now know it. We know marriage as it is applied, not the ideal purposes that it could serve.

Were marriage primarily used as a means for having children this argument would unquestionably be determinative. However, since I believe that the public does not use marriage for the purpose in which it may have originally been created and employed by the state then a change in the state's reasoning for continuing to support it would alter the perception more than the reality and application of the "institution."

Of course, a debate on the issue of child rearing certainly implicates the question that if a heterosexual couple were unable or chose not to have children, what argument would allow them to still marry that would not likewise allow a homosexual couple to marry (an equal protection argument). If the childrearing argument is the tip of the marriage sword, then marriage should not be promoted without likewise requiring that it in fact be used to support that purpsoe of child rearing and not be used unless that goal is pursued by the couple.

The Quality of Journalism

A Headline at www.cnn.com stated: Weakened Dam Stable but 'Extremely Volatile"

What? Am I losing my mind or does that headline not have any actual meaning? Isn't stable directly contradictory to volatile?

Definitions:
Stable - Resistant to change of position or condition; not easily moved or disturbed; Not subject to sudden or extreme change or fluctuation; Maintaining equilibrium; Enduring or permanent.
-- or -- A building for the shelter and feeding of domestic animals, especially horses and cattle

Volatile - Tending to vary often or widely; Inconstant; fickle; Ephemeral; fleeting.
-- or -- Evaporating readily at normal temperatures and pressures.

Perhaps the simple explanation is that the dam is in fact also "a building for the shelter of domestic animals" that is "evaporating readily at normal temperatures and pressures."

Intelligent in Design - ignorant in application

A Pennsylvania School district has selected a policy of teaching in science classes that life on Earth so complex that an intelligent creator must be responsible for life as we know it.

I must object to the attempt to teach intelligent design in a science course because intelligent design is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts of natural selection.

The principal of natural selection relies on three critical facts:
1) Living individuals within a community have differences in their physical makeup
Hair color, pigmentation, any biological difference (it is undisputed that individuals differ).
2) These differences (at least some) are heritable (genetic)
Differences between individuals are inhereted from their parents (an undisputed fact)
3) Individuals within the community can produce more offspring than the community can support to survive
The familiar survival of the fittest argument

Application of these principals leads us to the logical conclusion that those individuals whose traits provide them with the greatest survival advantages (or more importantly, the greatest advantage in reproducing, i.e., passing on one's genes) will pass on those advantages traits (through their genes) to subsequent generations to a greater extent than will individuals whose genetic makeup leaves them with a survival (or reproductive) disadvantage.


Intelligent design mistakenly argues that the process of evolution is random. While a mutation in the genetic code may be random (e.g., the mere change from an "A" to a "T" or a "G" to a "C"), natural selection is not a random process. Natural selection is based on what traits provide the greatest advantage in survival and reproduction.

Example: A gazelle is a fast runner. This ability benefits them in their ability to avoid predators. If a gazelle has a genetic makeup that gives them greater speed than all other gazelles, that gazelle will have an easier time avoiding predators. That gazelle is likely to survive longer and reproduce more (say 10 babies). Its progeny, if that genetic make-up is inhereted, will also enjoy a greater ability to avoid predators and will pass those genes on as well (say each of those will produce 10 more babies). Over many generations more and more gazelles with this genetic makeup will fill the population of that community. Those gazelles with another genetic makeup that does not provide them this advantage will become the most susceptible to predation and will reproduce less.

This would result in one group becoming relatively more productive, more "fit" (the faster gazelles) while the others become comparatively less "fit" (the slower gazelles). Eventually, over many many generations, most of the population will be comprised of those with the genes for greater speed. Thus the species has evolved.

It is a simple and uncontriversial matter. It is only when beliefs arising from outside science are injected into the issue that any objection to the principal of natural selection arises.

Still, 140 Years Later

One particular cultural battle persists, inexplicably in my opinion, in America these days. Displaying and honoring the confederate flag.

In Illinois, a memorial to confederate soldiers will soon be dedicated. This memorial is at a National Cemetary, where, understandable, the flying of the confederate flag is prohibited. It is allowable, however, to carry the flag in and out during dedications and similar ceremonies.

Organizers rejected the idea of flying the flags of the states of the confederacy instead.

I find the argument unavailing, that the confederate flag is part of US history that deserves honor. It certainly is a part of US history, equal in impact to all others who have sought to destroy or dismantle the United States.

The Confederacy's goal was not to uphold but to absolve itself of the Constitution that it ratified roughly 80 years earlier. The confederacy and symbols of support of the confederacy are as firm a contrast to American Patriotism as one could possibly conceive.

Benefits of Complacency

It appears that the H5N1 strain of influenza that is generating so much fear in public health officials is now showing resistance to the antiviral medication Tamiflu, that gave hope of alleviating some of the danger of an impending pandemic.

The good news is, at least the US government saved some money by not buying much of that medication for this country.

Pestilence

The World Health Organization (or Organisation in England) is concerned about a strain of influenza (a bird virus) that could infect and potentially kill between 5 and 150 Million people worldwide. It has demonstrated a mortality rate exceeding 57%.

The United States Dep't of Health and Human Services reports that there is a drug believed to effectively treat infection. However, the US government had not ordered enough of the antiviral drug Tamiful to treat even just First Repsonders and US Military Personnel. Why not? Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Michael Leavitt, says "I don't know the answer." He further explains that we are "not as prepared as we need to be." Worse, the US is "nowhere near the top" of the waiting list for that medication.

Although a vaccine may become available, expect at least a six-month delay, during which time it is predicted that 200,000 flu deaths could occur.

The preparations actually undertaken include plans that portions of cities may be quarentined and stadiums may be converted to "make-shift hospitals."

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Questions
Did they not learn from the Flu vaccine shortage just last year?

Is the government prepared for anything? Since we can't rely on the government, how do we prepare ourselves?

With a bigger and more expensive government, have you ever, in your lifetime, felt less able to look to the US government for help in a disaster?