Friday, September 30, 2005

Enders on Education

I attended public schools, but I got my education by reading everything I could get my hands on. We spend more than other countries, but our kids do worse in school. Part of it is the infastructure of the schools, and part of it is the culture. Most Americans, young people especially, are inclined to rebel against the Man, or in this case the Adult. When the Adult stick a lession plan in front of you, you do whatever you can to get around it.The fact is that kids had to read and learn because we make them read and learn. Mom got me to like reading by prohibiting from me from doing so. You think I'm kidding don't you? You never met Mother then.
Mother's strategy (if it in fact was a strategy) would of course not work with the obidient kids, though it would be funny if we tried it. ("We confiscated a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare from your son's locker.") Rather, we should provide them the opprotunity to learn rather than making them do so.

The key is to give them the skills to learn rather than cramming dry facts down their throat untill they are 18. If they don't want to learn, they won't learn. They'll cheat on tests or simply not do the assignment at the worst, at best they will parrot back everything they are taught, then delete it from the hard drive inside their head when June rolls around.
I'm not even worried about graduation rates. A high school degree doesn't mean anything if everyone has one. Some people are naturally inclined to be lazy and stupid. They should be left alone so that this country can compete with China when it comes to cheap labor.

Preservation or Progress

The Lincoln Highway are early 20th centruy relics that stand in the way of economic progress.

A section of the Lincoln Highway stands in the way of a proposed road extension that would connect Maplecrest Road with Adams Center Road. The Lincoln Highway once lead from New York City to San Francisco. It was build to spur economic growth and progress, and now one small piece stand in the way of progress.

If people want it preserved, they should tear up chunks of it and stick it in a museum like they did with the Berlin Wall. That wall interfered with traffic as well, and had to be removed dispite its obvious historical significance. Sections of it are preseved by both those who want to celebrate the triumph of democracy over Communism and by those nostalgic for the glory days of the Stasi.

The purpose of a road is to make transportation easier, cheaper, and quicker. The purpose is more important than the artifact itself. Remove any sections of the Lincoln Highway that stand in the path of new roads.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

JetBlue Flight 292

Yesterday JetBlue Flight 292 had trouble with its landing gear. It was a situatution that happened before and airline pilots are trained to deal with this sort of routine mechanical failure. The plane had to fly in circles over Los Angeles for three hours to burn off fuel while passengers watched television news coverage of the event that they were apart of. "It was very scary. Grown men were crying." Ok, I'm a sensitive 90's kind of guy, but I don't think crying was warrented in this situation when the odds were that you would survive The previous time that this happened on this kind of aircraft (Airbus A320) the pilot was able to land it safely. I just have two questions:

1. Did the news anchors decide to put more drama into the news story than was warrented. "Look at this plane that might crash!" This would have worked the passengers up. The pilot probably let them watch it so he could have been the hero who saved them from Certain Doom.

2. Since when is TV coverage of an event more exciting or more informative than being at the event itself? Yes it might be cool to see the plane that you are on from the outside, but the reporters do not know anymore about it than the passengers did, since they WERE RIGHT THERE WHEN IT WAS HAPPENING! I would have changed the channel and watch something else. Maybe I would have slept. "Hey guys, wake me up if the reporter tells us that we're dead."

Star Trek and "Atlas Shrugged"

This is just for kicks.

Page 1050
“He’ll obey us now! I’m sure he’ll obey!”
“No! It’s not enough! I don’t want him to obey! I want him to believe! To accept. To want to accept! We’ve got to have him work for us voluntarily!”

ST:FC “You wanted me to give myself freely to the Borg. But I fought you.”

* * *

Page 1015
“When you force a man to act against his own choice and judgement, its his thinking that you want to suspend. You want him to become a robot. I shall comply.”

TNG “Best of Both Worlds”
“You will comply”
* * *

Page 1024
“For instance, in view of the desperate shortage of food, it has been suggested that it might be necessary to issue a directive ordering that every third one of all children under the age of ten and of all adults over the age of sixty be put to death, to secure the survival of the rest.”

See TOS episode “The Conscience of the King”

* * *

Page 463
“There are no absolutes,” said Dr Pritchett. “Reality is only an illusion. How does that woman know that her son is dead? How does she know that he even existed?”

TNG episode “Chains of Command”
“How many lights do you see?”
“I see four.”
“No, there are three lights.”

* * *

Page 894
“You don’t seem human anymore! You keep pressing us for answers when we haven’t any answers to give. You keep beating us with logic-what’s logic at a time like this?-what’s logic at a time when people are suffering?”

STII
“My god man! We’re talking about universal Armageddon and he wants to talk about logic! You green blooded, inhuman…“


* * *
Page 1052
Now he knew that he wanted Galt’s destruction at the price of his own destruction to follow, he knew that he never wanted to survive, he knew that it was Galt’s greatness that he wanted to destroy…

STII
“To the last, I grapple with thee. From hell’s heart, I stab at thee….”


* * *

Page 980
“…they deliver their science to the service of death…to inventions of coercion and destruction..”

STII
“Scientist have always been pawns of the military.”

* *

Page 1074
He raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced in space the sign of the dollar.

ST:FC
“Dollar signs! That Zefram Cochrane’s vision!

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

It has been made plain to us that a American city can be totally devastated by a natural disaster. There is also the threat that a city might be leveled by less than natural means. On 9/11, an attempted decaptitation strike took place against the United States. The pilot who crashed into the Pentagon chose it as a secondary target, his primamry target would have been the Capitol or the White House. Had all four plane hit their targets, and had the president been at home at the time, this nation would have been in chaos. The last time a president was assassinated, nessesary functions ground to a halt on all levels of government.

The best way to prepare for this contigency is for states to be better able to funtion independently in the case of a temporary abscene of federal leadership. Not only will we be better prepared, it will make assassination attempts less likely. Terrorist and enemy nations would be not be as tempted to try to take out the President and Congress if they knew that the US would make a quick recovery.

Federalism and Disasters

It has been made plain to us that a American city can be totally devastated by a natural disaster. There is also the threat that a city might be leveled by less than natural means. On 9/11, an attempted decaptitation strike took place against the United States. The pilot who crashed into the Pentagon chose it as a secondary target, his primamry target would have been the Capitol or the White House. Had all four plane hit their targets, and had the president been at home at the time, this nation would have been in chaos. The last time a president was assassinated, nessesary functions ground to a halt on all levels of government.

The best way to prepare for this contigency is for states to be better able to funtion independently in the case of a temporary abscene of federal leadership. Not only will we be better prepared, it will make assassination attempts less likely. Terrorist and enemy nations would be not be as tempted to try to take out the President and Congress if they knew that the US would make a quick recovery.

It would be like shooting a rhino with a BB gun. You would only piss it off.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Gratuitous 9/11 post

Has this day become just another day? With 3/11 and 7/7, is the calender getting crowded with terrorist attacks that we don't bother to give proper names to anymore?

Friday, September 09, 2005

The Men Who Cry Doomsday

Probably the best reason that the warning about the possibility of the New Orleans levees failing was that people hear about new doomsday scenarios all the time. We constantly hear about the possibility of new terrorist attacks within the US. None have taken place since 9/11. Before 9/11, there was the belief that Y2k would make the lights go out. A few ATM's in Britain acted up, and that was it. During the Cold War, we worried about getting nuked.

Global warming is supposed to be an ongoing process, and you can find experts who say it is happening and experts who say it isn't. The planets were supposed to line up and cause the Earth's axis to shift so that one of the poles would be facing the sun and the other would be facing away.

On the other hand, the Earth is supposedly enjoying a period of usually warm weather which is supposed to end soon.

Some disasters are anticitpated in advance, some are predicted but never pan out, and some are prevented by good preperation. Sometimes politicians might claim credit for preventing a disaster that was never really a possibility. Most of the doomsday predictions I hear come from people down on their luck, and they often discribe the chaos to come with a smile on their face, as if they look foward to everyone being brought down to their level, or maybe the opprutunity to loot.

I am going to make a prediction of my own. The next time you turn on the news and you hear a reporter scream "Oh the humanity!", some expert will be on the news later that day saying that he knew that would happen.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

"Battle of New Orleans: Part Deux"

Some of you may already know about my fondness for song parodies. This is a work is progress. I hope to develop it further as events unfold.

"Battle of New Orleans: Part Deux"

Two-oh-oh-five, Katrina hit the Coast
Most of those who wouldn't leave, their asses were all toast
So we sent some bottled water, and we sent some MRE's
Now a bunch of f****** looters are in what left of New Orleans