THE DAILY BLADE: Take That, Al Gore!
After reviewing data published in scholarly journals, a panel of experts pulled together by the National Research Council concludes that the extended droughts that have afflicted the
According to the panel:
For many years, scientific understanding of
However, recent tree-ring based reconstructions demonstrate that
The panel also considered computer-generated climate simulations along with temperature records and concluded that, “the preponderance of scientific evidence suggests that warmer future temperatures will reduce future
Here’s how The New York Times characterized the findings:
Global warming is already making things worse … Rainfall patterns are difficult to predict … panel member,
Now, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the scientists holding the press conference – which The Stiletto did not attend – spontaneously decided to make wild statements about global warming that are unsupported by the data they painstakingly gathered and analyzed, but this scenario seems highly unlikely. In The Stiletto’s experience, researchers prefer to downplay their findings than to hype them and look foolish – or worse - before their peers.
No doubt, The New York Times stands by its reporting.
Americans Are Illiterate and Innumerate, But Unionized Teachers Are “Criminally Low Paid”
Numerous studies have shown that millions of Americans cannot read or do basic math well enough to conduct basic transactions of life, according to The Washington Post:
† Low health literacy affects up to 90 million Americans, according to a 2004 report by the
† Forty-three percent of adults have basic or below-basic reading skills – reading at roughly a fifth-grade level or lower - according to a nationwide assessment of adult literacy conducted by the US Department of Education in 2003.
† Fifty-five percent of adults have basic or below-basic quantitative abilities; many are unable to solve simple arithmetic problems, including addition. … [M]any Americans could not determine the difference between two prices using a calculator or were unable to write a brief letter explaining a credit card billing error.
In another shocking example of innumeracy, a recent study conducted by
Against this backdrop, Wired takes Apple CEO Steve Jobs to task for raising objections to unionized and lifetime employment for K-12 public school teachers. Managing Editor Leander Kahney offers lots of attitude, but little data to refute Jobs:
"I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," the Apple CEO told a school-reform conference in Texas on Saturday. "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."
Jobs knows a lot about schools; he's been selling computers to them for more than 30 years. But don't you love it when a billionaire who sends his own kids to private school applies half-baked business platitudes to complex problems like schools? I'm surprised Jobs didn't suggest we outsource education to the same nonunion Chinese factories that build his iPods.
As someone who sends his kids to a struggling San Francisco public school (where 60 percent of the students are eligible for free lunches), I know for a fact that Jobs' ideas about unions are absurd, he's-on-a-different-planet bulls**t [emphasis, The Stiletto’s]. …
In California, the most pressing problems are schools that are too big, too bureaucratic and chronically under-funded. Teachers are criminally low paid and under-trained. Education - and school funding - has become solely about test scores. …
The most pressing problem with schools lies outside the schools themselves: It's the socioeconomic circumstances of the students they're trying to teach.
Whatever “facts” Kahney knows, he’s keeping close to the vest because he doesn’t divulge a single one of them in his entire 860-word piece. The only phrase that rings true is that teachers are criminally under-trained – and too many of them are too incompetent to teach their students to pass the tests they get school, or the ones they get in life.
Moonie Over Washington
After years trying to overcome its reputation as “the Moonie paper,” The Washington Times blew its credibility in one giant wad with this editorial on H.Res. 106. In a previous post, The Stiletto made the bold assertion that everyone except Turks and their apologists considers the Armenian Genocide settled history. She stands corrected. Everyone except Turks, their apologists and Moonies considers the Armenian Genocide settled history. The Stiletto regrets the error.
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March 19, 2007
The Stiletto wrote:
New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin believes that the slow recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is part of a plan to disperse black voters geographically to make it more difficult for blacks to be elected to political office. "Ladies and gentlemen, what happened in New Orleans could happen anywhere. They are studying this model of natural disasters, dispersing the community and changing the electoral process in that community," Nagin said in a speech to the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a trade group for newspapers serving the black community. The Washington Post reports that ...
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