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Archive for 2014
October 8, 2014
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 517.
THE PANOPTICON STATE, HOMESCHOOLING EDITION:
As part of an initiative to prevent future school shootings, the Connecticut state government is acquiring new and controversial powers that could permit it to significantly curtail parents’ right to homeschool. Some background: After the tragic 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, the state’s governor, Dannel P. Malloy, set up a committee to recommend changes to school security and other measures that could help prevent such horrifying crimes from occurring. The committee released an interim report in 2013 that called for obvious changes and created no stir.
But the latest report has added a new proposal. Because the shooter, Adam Lanza, was homeschooled during high school, the committee decided that children with “behavioral problems” who are homeschooled must be monitored much more closely by the state. . . .
Over at City Journal, Matthew Hennessey points out a few of the many troubling aspects of this proposal. Seizing upon this tragic incident to enact these regulations seems like the worst kind of opportunism, not only because, as Hennessey notes, Lanza attended public school for more years than he was home schooled, but also because Lanza’s situation was unique from first to last. More importantly, the category of “behavioral and emotional disabilities” is terrifyingly broad, and could easily come to include run-of-the-mill problems like ADHD. Given that every year we find new “behavioral disabilities” in need of “medical treatment,” this is a real risk.
Parents should have the freedom to homeschool—not least because homeschooling families represent at least an attempt to think outside the box of the blue model idea of industrial education. But even if homeschooling wasn’t a boon to parents rightfully frustrated with our often-dismal public ed, we’d still decry this sort of bureaucratic opportunism and overreach.
The bureaucrats are insufficiently afraid.
JOHN TIERNEY: How Are the Boy Scouts Doing in American Cities?
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HMM: Spanish nurse’s assistant hasn’t ‘slightest idea’ how she got Ebola.
The woman, named by Spanish media outlets as Teresa Romero Ramos, told the paper she took the right precautions in helping to care for a Spanish missionary who was infected with Ebola in West Africa and who died after being brought to the hospital where she worked.
Was she worried she might have contracted the disease after helping with his care?
“Well, no, not at all,” she told El Mundo. . . .
Five people were under observation in a hospital Wednesday — the woman’s husband, judged to be at high risk of infection; a nurse from the same hospital admitted Wednesday morning after showing symptoms; another nurse’s assistant who worked on the same team as the infected woman and was admitted late Tuesday with a fever; a nurse who has tested negative for the virus and is expected to be discharged Wednesday; and an engineer who returned from Nigeria, who also has tested negative and is set to be discharged.
Stay tuned.
Related: “This should be a lesson for everybody that you can’t overreact. You can’t overprotect.”
UPDATE: We may have an answer:
Dr. German Ramirez of the Carlos III hospital in Madrid said Romero remembers she once touched her face with protection gloves after leaving an Ebola victim’s quarantine room.
Health officials say Romero twice entered the room of Spanish missionary Manuel Garcia Viejo, who died of Ebola on Sept. 25 — once to change his diaper and again after he died to retrieve unspecified items. Ramirez said Romero believes she touched her face with the glove after her first entry.
“It appears we have found the origin” of Romero’s infection, Ramirez said, but he cautioned the investigation was not complete.
Romero was said to be in stable condition Wednesday. Health authorities in Madrid have faced accusations of not following protocol and poorly preparing health care workers for dealing with Ebola.
In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais, Romero said she thought “the mistake was on taking off the suit. I see it as the most critical moment in which it could have happened, but I don’t know for sure.”
“I haven’t got a fever today, I feel somewhat better,” she told the newspaper.
In an earlier interview published by Spain’s El Mundo newspaper, she said she had followed safety protocols as part of the team treating two priests infected with Ebola.
Her husband Javier Limon told the same newspaper that his wife went on vacation after Garcia Viejo died. She started feeling sick with a low fever Sept. 30 but still took a career advancement exam with other candidates. Health authorities say she did not leave the Madrid area during her vacation.
That’s not entirely comforting.
AND TO THINK WE WERE COMING CLOSE TO ERADICATING IT: Polio becomes ‘public health emergency’ in Pakistan as number of cases soars.
IT WAS A BAILOUT FOR HIS BUDDIES AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE: Timothy Geithner is in the hot seat once again over AIG.
THE REST EITHER AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION, OR ARE ON HIS PAYROLL: Poll: Most see Obama as a failure.
ED DRISCOLL: Two MSNBCs In One.
GOALPOSTS, MOVED: CDC: Airborne Ebola possible but unlikely.
TOM MAGUIRE ON D-68: Moving To Phase II Of The Enterovirus “Coverage.” “The NY Times notes that the D-68 enterovirus is now claiming lives around the country and that people are concerned. That means it is time to move past ignoring this story and move to Phase II – cover it without asking any of the obvious follow-up questions.. . . Hmm. Didn’t we have an influx of central American children to the US this summer? Weren’t there concerns about diseases spreading in the holding camps? Weren’t the children dispersed all across this great nation? Well, yes, although the Feds aren’t forthcoming about where. That is too many dots for the Times to attempt to connect, so instead we get expert ruminations about Asia and Africa. . . . My initial guess was that since Texas was not showing up as one the early states with an outbreak, the disease was less likely to be associated with immigrants. As to that, who knows? But my other guess, that political correctness would require the media to steer away from exploring this possible link, has been utterly vindicated.”
Everyone has gotten so cynical.
ROGER SIMON: Leon Panetta: Hero, or Villain?
October 7, 2014
DAVID FEITH: Hong Kong At The Barricades: “Speaking to Bloomberg News this weekend, senior official Regina Ip, a longtime antagonist of Hong Kong’s democrats, suggested that their movement is too decentralized to have an effective voice: ‘There are tens of thousands of them—who am I supposed to talk to?’ Ms. Ip has a point about the difficulty of turning popular protest into real political power. But her comment also revealed, perhaps inadvertently, something more important: Many tens of thousands of Hong Kongers have now risked arrest and violence to demand democratic self-government. That’s a surprise to everyone—and a historic challenge to the strongest authoritarian government in the world.”
JONATHAN CHAIT: In Defense of Male Aggression: What Liberals Get Wrong About Football. I can’t bring myself to care about the NFL, where the owners are politically correct pantywaist plutocrats and the players often felons, but Chait is right that the war on football is really an assault on the very idea of masculinity.
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NOW OUT: J. Christian Adams’ new book, Crimes Against The Republic.
LIST: Zombie Preparedness Supplies.
UPDATE: From the comments: “The product reviews alone are worth a click-through…” Plus worries about whether zombies can carry Ebola.
HE’S REFERRING TO COAL WORKERS AND THE COAL INDUSTRY: Video: Top Grimes Donor: “She’s going to f**k ’em when she gets elected.”
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Pentagon: US troops to have contact with Ebola virus.
OOPS: Democratic Senator in Tight Re-election Race Stumbles Over ‘Softball’ Question on Ebola. “A sweet, little, nice, gentle question, and the guy just collapsed!” When it’s Mika saying that, it’s bad news for Mark Pryor.