Archive for 2015
April 27, 2015
PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE, PACE DREHER, IS NOT BACKING DOWN: “I am a sinner who is far from perfect. But I refuse to be a closeted sinner. And if my colleagues don’t like that, all I can say is ‘Come and Have a Go If You Think You’re Hard Enough.'” If you say that, and mean it, they will leave you alone. Like all bullies, they’re cowards.
VIDEOS: Lightning In the Erupting Calbuco Volcano. Plus: “So far the Calbuco eruption does not look to be as big as Mount Pinatubo in 1991 or Mount St. Helens in 1980. Pinatubo lowered global temperatures by about 0.5C. The big eruptions matter because they can cause climate changes that cause crop failures. An eruption on the scale of the 1815 Tambora eruption would cause massive crop failures and famine in many countries.”
LIFE IN OBAMA’S AMERICA: Seven officers injured, one unresponsive in Baltimore riot: police.
VIRTUAL, MY HINEY: Elizabeth Warren’s Virtual Candidacy. Mark my words: Warren will run, and her platform will be indistinguishable from Obama III. Progressives are salivating at the prospect.
EVEN? ESPECIALLY! You Should Google Everyone, Even Your Therapist.
I SMELL A WISCONSIN RAT: Reporter M.D. Kittle at WisconsinWatchdog.org asks a very interesting question: What did the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel know, and when did it know it? The question relates to the Journal-Sentinel reporters’ knowledge of a pre-dawn paramilitary-style raid of the home of Cindy Archer, a fomer aide to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and one of the architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10, which reformed that State’s public sector unions.
The raid of Archer’s home occurred in the early morning hours of Wednesday, September 14, 2011. At the time of the raid, Archer saw an individual that she believed to be a reporter, standing in her lawn. But the question became: How would a reporter even know that Archer’s home was being raided? Someone had to tip the Journal-Sentinel off. But under Wisconsin law, disclosure of a search warrant’s issuance, prior to its execution, is a Class I felony and could also violate the judge’s secrecy order of the John Doe investigation itself.
The Journal Sentinel ran a story on the Archer raid on the same day that the raid occurred (Sept. 14, 2011), authored by reporter Jason Stein. In that story, Stein suggests that the raid was associated with the ongoing John Doe investigation:
About a dozen law enforcement officers, including FBI agents, raided the home of a former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday as part of a growing John Doe investigation.
The home on Dunning St. on Madison’s east side is owned by Cynthia A. Archer, who was until recently deputy administration secretary to the Republican governor. Archer, 52, now holds a different state job but is on paid sick leave, records show.
“We’re doing a law enforcement action,” one of the FBI agents told a reporter.
He didn’t identify himself or provide further comment but confirmed that he and three others were with the FBI and that a Dane County sheriff’s deputy was present.
The raid on Archer’s home coincides with a John Doe investigation in Milwaukee County.
That probe was started last year after the Journal Sentinel reported that another Walker staffer who was being paid by Milwaukee County taxpayers to help citizens with county services was instead using her work time to post anonymous comments supporting candidate Walker on websites and blogs. As part of the investigation, authorities earlier seized the work computers of two former Walker staffers and executed a search warrant of one of their homes.
Stein also intimates that Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm, one of the John Doe prosecutors, was involved in the raid:
Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm also declined to comment.
Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney said one of his deputies had been placed at Archer’s house during the search at the request of investigators from Chisholm’s office. Mahoney said his office wasn’t involved in the investigation.
Sources indicated that Chisholm’s office continues to take the lead in the case of Walker’s former county staffers, with federal authorities providing assistance with computers and other digital technology.
The rest of the Stein story describes prior John Doe raids initiated by Chisholm’s office. Stein may have just guessed that the raid was John Doe-related, but the tone of his piece seems more confident than that.
Journal Sentinel reporter Patrick Marley–not Stein– has admitted that he was the reporter Cindy Archer saw in her lawn. But Stein admits that he, not Marley, was tipped off about the Archer raid, and he merely asked Marley to observe and take notes because Marley lived closer to Archer’s home.
So the question remains: Who tipped off Stein (a political reporter) about the Archer raid? Stein denies that his source was a prosecutor or law enforcement officer, and it’s theoretically possible (though somewhat farfetched) that one of Archer’s groggy neighbors just happened to know Stein’s home or cell phone number and called him in the middle of the night to tip him off.
The John Doe investigation has been plagued by selective leaks all along, is an ongoing problem, and is almost invariably favorable to the prosecutors. All of this strongly indicates that the source of these leaks is an insider in the John Doe investigation. While Stein appears to claim a reporters’ privilege to protect his source regarding the Archer raid, Wisconsin does not have a reporters’ shield statute, its courts have recognized only a qualified privilege pursuant to its state constitutional equivalent of the First Amendment. So in theory, the identity of Stein’s source could be revealed under the right circumstances.
But regardless of Stein’s possible privilege, it seems evident that there is a serious and continuing leak in the Wisconsin John Doe investigation, and that it warrants an investigation of its own.
Indeed, if it hadn’t been for the courage of Eric O’Keefe of the Wisconsin Club for Growth–who has defied the ridiculous gag order imposed on John Doe targets–the only knowledge the public would have today about the investigation would come from these one-sided, pro-investigation leaks. But getting the truth about an issue of such public importance shouldn’t depend upon the courage of one person. The leak’s one-way nature and suspicious timing only amplify the impression that the entire investigation is, as O’Keefe’s lawsuit contends, a political witch hunt, designed to silence conservatives in the State. Thankfully, O’Keefe is punching back twice as hard.
NOW IN CANADA, every time a new regulation is enacted, an old one of equivalent burden must be eliminated. Can we do that here?
Thankfully, regulatory transparency got a considerable boost Thursday when the Red Tape Reduction Act (C-21) received Royal Assent and became law. Minister Tony Clement, who has championed the bill, can be proud that Canada is now the first country in the world to require that for every new regulation introduced one of equivalent burden must be removed.
C-21, has been operating as policy for several years already, which means that the costs of new rules must be quantified and equal or greater costs removed. It essentially caps the cost of rules coming directly from regulations. Government rules can also come from legislation and policy so the one-for-one rule is not a cap on the cost of all government rules. Still, it is a very good start.
Why is this so important? Regulation, both necessary and unnecessary (red tape), are a huge hidden tax on all Canadians. The latest estimate from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business suggests that regulation costs $37 billion a year. To be clear, not all of these costs could or should be eliminated. But Canada’s small business owners suggest that about 30 per cent of these costs, $11 billion, could be eliminated with no negative impact on human health, safety or the environment. This number seems reasonable given that British Columbia has reduced its regulatory requirements over the past decade by over 40 per cent with no one arguing the cuts had any serious negative impacts.
(Via Against Crony Capitalism).
WHEN BOTS COLLUDE: Can Algorithms Create A Price-Fixing Cartel? A nice piece citing the paper by my colleague Maurice Stucke and Oxford’s Ariel Ezrachi that I linked the other day.
PLANETARY DEFENSE: A gentle nudge with a nuke: deflecting Earth-bound asteroids.
THE MESSAGE MAY NOT SINK IN UNTIL A FEW BUREAUCRATS ARE TARRED AND FEATHERED: “If there’s an overriding principle, it ought to be this: Let parents raise their kids as they see fit.”
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): My husband had a long affair with his aunt—starting when he was 16.
ROGER KIMBALL: Annals of corruption: What’s real, what’s parody?
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Hillary’s Scandals: Who Wins, Who Loses?
IN THE MAIL: From David Ignatius, The Director: A Novel.
Plus, today only at Amazon: Sunforce 80-LED Solar Motion Light, $29.99 (48% off).
And, also today only: Leta Collection 7-Piece Lightweight Comforter Set, Queen, $67.99 (41% off).
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 716.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Why Chinese Students Do Better.
The Chinese favour a “chalk and talk” approach, whereas countries such as the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand have been moving away from this direct form of teaching to a more collaborative form of learning where students take greater control.
Given China’s success in international tests such as PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS, it seems we have been misguided in abandoning the traditional, teacher-directed method of learning where the teacher spends more time standing at the front of the class, directing learning and controlling classroom activities. . . .
Beginning in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, teachers began to experiment with more innovative and experimental styles of teaching. These included basing learning on children’s interests, giving them more control over what happened in the classroom and getting rid of memorising times tables and doing mental arithmetic. This approach is known as inquiry or discovery learning.
Based on this recent study of classrooms in the UK and China and a recent UK report titled What makes great teaching?, there is increasing evidence that these new-age education techniques, where teachers facilitate instead of teach and praise students on the basis that all must be winners, in open classrooms where what children learn is based on their immediate interests, lead to under-performance.
Well, the chalk-and-talk approach is proven. The newer approaches seemed more exciting because they were new, and they also offered more opportunities to politicize the curriculum in appealing ways.
PRAY THIS WOMAN NEVER TEACHES YOUR CHILDREN: Meg Stentz, a teacher in North Charleston, S.C., has written an “opinion” piece in Cincinnati.com (apparently she grew up in Cincinnati) lamenting racial violence. Her lead paragraph is unremarkable, but her second paragraph is worth a close read:
Just over a week after Walter Scott was gunned down, the Rev. Jesse Jackson returned to his home state to speak about the national tragedy. He spoke to less than 100 people, including media. The event was put on by the small, young, grassroots group leading the local resistance, Black Lives Matter of Charleston.
Jackson offered the media a chance to ask questions after his talk. The first came from a flushed white man, who said that since Jackson was calling for police to wear cameras, he wanted to know how many officers Jackson had spoken to himself. This white micro-aggression, this nearly purposeful missing the point, has been largely how I’ve perceived Charleston to be taking this horrifying incident.
So apparently, in Ms. Stentz’s infinite wisdom, asking Jesse Jackson a logical question about whether he had spoken to police about wearing cameras is a “white micro-aggression.” Not a “micro-aggression,” mind you– a white micro-aggression. Is there really any other kind?
And of course this “aggressive” question came from a flushed white man. Again, is there any other kind? They’re just so, you know, pasty-faced– a bunch of Pillsbury Dough Boys, really. I’m sure his “flushing” emanated from some unconscious physiological acknowledgment of his own whiteness and micro-aggressive behavior.
But wait, it gets worse:
After being raised in Ohio, I moved to now-well-known North Charleston to teach in a Title 1 middle school. My roommates are also transplants and teachers, meaning they’re at least as liberal as most of the North and still observant of how the South operates.
Of course, Ms. Stentz never bothers to explain “how the South operates,” but the educated (read: liberal) reader will understand what this means without elaboration (wink, wink, nod, nod). You know, it’s how the South operates. In case you don’t understand (because your white privilege or something is blocking your awareness), she thankfully makes her meaning clear in her closing paragraph:
In the Deep South, complacency is king, and the reaction here, even to sensationalized coverage, is minimal. My students are not angry, because anger only springs from a belief that things could be different. This racial violence is all they’ve known. I hope one day, that won’t be true, but from where I’m standing, the only people up in arms about this “news” are north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Well, thank you Ms. Stentz for condemning an entire region as racists. I’m sure you know this is true, since you grew up in the pure, non-racist, above-the-Mason-Dixon State of Ohio and everything.
And I’m sure Southern racism persists because of the enormous influx of Northerners over the last several decades, as well the reverse migration of of blacks into the South. Oh, wait–those aren’t “real” Southerners (wink/nod)–they’re virtuous transplants from north, so they don’t really count as Southerners. That term only applies to people who are direct descendants of Confederate soldiers–such as Bushrod Johnson, a Confederate General from Ohio— as any intelligent person knows.
And besides, there’s never any racial violence anywhere else, and it’s never initiated by minority groups. #Ferguson #FreddieGray #NYCcopambush
This is the kind of intelligent discourse our universities are encouraging, awarding degrees to those who reflexively mirror their liberal/progressive professors’ views, all while flying the banner of #diversity and #tolerance. And to make matters worse, she is a teacher.
EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH WASHINGTON: The White House Correspondents’ Dinner: “Everyone knows the White House Correspondents Association dinner is broken. What started off decades ago as a stately formal celebration of the best of presidential reporting has morphed into a four-day orgy of everything people outside the Beltway hate about life inside the Beltway—now it’s not just one night of clubby backslapping, carousing and drinking between the press and the powerful, it’s four full days of signature cocktails and inside jokes that just underscore how out of step the Washington elite is with the rest of the country. It’s not us (journalists) versus them (government officials); it’s us (Washington) versus them (the rest of America).”
It’s no surprise to anyone who has seen The Hunger Games.
Jay Rosen writes: “True! And yet they keep doing it. Why?” Contra Rosen’s predictable take, it’s not Bush’s fault. Thronesniffers gotta throne-sniff. And this is how these people get revenge for not receiving the adulation they think they deserved in High School.
Related: When Washington fiddled while Baltimore burned. “So, where were the cable networks on Saturday night as Baltimore was rocked by violence? Telling their viewers to go to Twitter if they wanted to read the news. . . . That editorial instinct, one shared by virtually every media outlet, reflects a toxic level of self-veneration and an ugly disdain for the public this institution supposedly serves.”
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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Hillary’s Scandals: Who Wins, Who Loses?
THEY SHOULD BE: Are Democratic Insiders Starting To Panic About Hillary?
HE’S SMALL, PETTY, AND INSECURE, AND THUS CAN BROOK NO DISAGREEMENT: At correspondents dinner, Obama lets second-term anger out.