'Puter Hates The Poor

Specifically, the intellectually impoverished, such as the elites holding forth from their perch on the New York Times' editorial staff.

Our noble and wise betters today put forth this nugget of wisdom, in the form of an editorial. You see, it is apparent to the NYT's editors that all Republican candidates hate the poor and want to destroy them. It's all there for those who choose to see, so long as you have your tinfoil helmet and liberal secret decoder ring.

'Puter apologizes to the NYT for lifting so much of their editorial from behind the paywall, but he payed for it, and it's fair use, so the NYT can go pound sand.

The NYT begins:

These Republican leaders, who think nothing of widening tax loopholes for corporations and multimillion-dollar estates, are offended by the idea that people making less than $40,000 might benefit from the progressive tax code. They are infuriated by the earned income tax credit (the pride of Ronald Reagan), which has become the biggest and most effective antipoverty program by giving working families thousands of dollars a year in tax refunds. They scoff at continuing President Obama’s payroll tax cut, which is tilted toward low- and middle-income workers and expires in December.

'Puter's fairly certain the NYT's editors made this up based on their fantasies of what conservatives think when they are assembled in their unholy covens. Or at church. Or wherever those freak shows congregate. The editors don't know because they've never met any.

Conservatives are not offended by the idea that people making $40,000 per year for a family may benefit from lower tax rates than those earning more. Conservatives are offended by the notion that tax revenues disproportionately are spent on a group that pays exactly nothing for their own upkeep. This despite the fact that many are able bodied people who have not done what they need to do to be employable. That is, many have foregone education, refused to marry, got knocked up or did the knocking up once or more before they turned 18, tattooed their faces, broke the law and were imprisoned, etc. In general, many of the poor have shown no loyalty to those who provide them their sustenance. And a darned fine sustenance at that.

Further, the payroll tax cut absolutely screw America going forward. Since Congress already spent all the money collected for Social Security on other needs, like honeybee farming and gang tattoo removal, every penny that is collected goes to pay current retirees. In fact, there are so many retirees and so few workers now that the government is actually borrowing money on top of tax collections to meet the demand. On that ground alone, the payroll tax cut is self defeating. It would be more logically consistent to raise the income cap and means test the benefits, but that won't happen anytime soon. In the meantime, best just to call Republicans heartless bastards who want to fuel their money-making machines with bodies of the poor they starve to death by cutting their unearned government benefits.

The NYT's editors continue:

Representative Michele Bachmann noted recently that 47 percent of Americans do not pay federal income tax; all of them, she said, should pay something because they benefit from parks, roads and national security. (Interesting that she acknowledged government has a purpose.) Gov. Rick Perry, in the announcement of his candidacy, said he was dismayed at the “injustice” that nearly half of Americans do not pay income tax. Jon Huntsman Jr., up to now the most reasonable in the Republican presidential field, said not enough Americans pay tax.

Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, and several senators have made similar arguments, variations of the idea expressed earlier by Senator Dan Coats of Indiana that “everyone needs to have some skin in the game.”

Wow. That's just crazy. You mean there might be a problem where people contribute nothing to society in tax, yet get to vote themselves benefits? That's crazy talk! Absolutely insane! Next these crazies will be talking about such controversial notions as the tragedy of the commons (no one ever washes a rental car) and Sen. Daniel Moynihan's completely vindicated The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (which we now know applies equally to any race that comes into contact with our welfare system).

'Puter would be greatly pleased if the his intellectual superiors at the NYT would explain to him why it makes sense to let benefit recipients vote on the level of benefits others are forced at gunpoint to provide. To simple 'Puter, it would seem to make more sense that if you were dependent on the largesse of others for your personal sustenance, you should have no say in how much or how the others provide said benefits. If you don't like it, change what you're doing. Saying it's hard and whining is not an answer either.

The NYT attempts to justify itself in the following paragraphs:

This is factually wrong, economically wrong and morally wrong. First, the facts: a vast majority of Americans have skin in the tax game. Even if they earn too little to qualify for the income tax, they pay payroll taxes (which Republicans want to raise), gasoline excise taxes and state and local taxes. Only 14 percent of households pay neither income nor payroll taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution. The poorest fifth paid an average of 16.3 percent of income in taxes in 2010.

The moral argument would have been obvious before this polarized year. Nearly 90 percent of the families that paid no income tax make less than $40,000, most much less. The real problem is that so many Americans are struggling on such a small income, not whether they pay taxes. The two tax credits lifted 7.2 million people out of poverty in 2009, including four million children. At a time when high-income households are paying their lowest share of federal taxes in decades, when corporations frequently avoid paying any tax, it is clear who should bear a larger burden and who should not.

The NYT's factual explanation does not address what they themselves portray as the Republicans' position. That is, 47% of Americans pay no income tax, and everyone should pay something. Is that really so controversial, the notion that there is no such thing as a free lunch? What's wrong with every household no matter income level being required to file an annual return that includes not only earned income, but also lists the total value of all government benefits received? Further, what's wrong with every adult paying a minimum of $1.00 per year in income tax? This would be share sacrifice. And it is this notion that the people caterwauling the loudest for more tax expenditures are those who contribute no tax revenues that results in the Republicans' current income tax position.

Now, on to the NYT's specific allegations.

If 14% of households pay no income or payroll taxes, assuming an equal distribution of Americans per household, that's around 42 million people, which is probably why the NYT chose to use percentages rather than actual numbers. 42 million is a whole lot of freeloaders. Why shouldn't these people pay something, even a de minimis amount, in return for their upkeep? We will never know, because the NYT will never ask or answer that question.

The notion that the "poor" pay gas taxes, state taxes and local taxes is irrelevant. For paying their other taxes as legally assessed against them, 'Puter offers the NYT-defended poor a hearty "thank you for doing your job like the rest of us." 'Puter's glad at least someone thinks it necessary to attempt to spread the burden as widely as possible. The question is federal income tax, not state, local, planetary or galactic taxes. Whether or not the so-called poor pay other taxes has no bearing on either ability to pay federal income taxes, or the fairness of so requiring.

Puter's already dealt with the red herring payroll tax issue. See above.

This leaves only only the one fifth who pay 16.3% of taxes. In fact, the lower fifth of taxpayers actually net more through credits such as the EITC than they pay in tax, so in effect they pay nothing. So shut up, NYT.

Bravely onward to the NYT's claim of moral superiority.

'Puter is sorry that some people make less than $40,000 per year. He wishes everyone could have XBoxes and iPhones and weekend homes in the Hamptons. Unicorns and rainbows, too. But we can't all have those things, only the NYT editors. There's not enough to go around. And no amount of wishful thinking or preachy moralizing is going to change the facts. As Bruce Springsteen once said, "[You] don't work and [you] don't get paid."

And there's the NYT's fundamental disconnect. The NYT views income disparity as a cause, rather than as the symptom it is. Why does the lower class make less than everyone else? It's fairly clear if you choose to look critically at the data. Most of the poor are uneducated, and the jobs that the uneducated used to fill have increasingly become automated or outsourced. If you'd like to talk about fixing education in the inner cities through a combination of increased pay for good teachers based on student performance, union busting and rigid discipline of students, then 'Puter's willing to listen and pay. Dumping money onto people who have shown no indication they are able to make good life choices is stupid and self defeating. If nothing else, 40 plus years of failed Great Society programs have given proof to 'Puter's position.

Some of the poor have drug and alcohol problems, and this is a personal choice which 'Puter should not have to subsidize. If you want to institutionalize them, fine, he'll pay. If you want 'Puter to pay for them to live on their own and continue their self-destructive behavior, no dice. 'Puter'd love to drink and drug himself into a nice mellow haze all day, and drift through life on someone else's dime. Unfortunately, 'Puter is not a Kennedy. And 'Puter has too much self-respect to force others to subsidize such behavior on his part. We've paid drug addicts for not changing, and we get more of them. All this must seem baffling to the NYT.

As to the truly disabled, no one disputes that we should pay for them. Maybe the NYT has access to some secret videotape showing Republicans cackling over the prospect of throwing the profoundly retarded out on the street, but 'Puter's not aware of any.

Corporations and rich folks are the last refuge of the scoundrel. Look at all the corporate entities that don't pay much of anything by way of taxes. GE's CEO is an Obama supporter. Jamie Dimon of Chase was an Obama supporter. Steve Jobs loves our President. If Warren Buffet was any more up Obama's rear end, he'd be wearing him as a suit. Hell, rich folks overwhelmingly voted for Obama. Democrats are disproportionately represented among the rich and the poor. It's the folks in the middle who work for a living that vote Republican. So, NYT, get off your "it's all the Republicans' fault" diatribe. It's factually and morally inaccurate.

Finally, the NYT editors choose to ignore the moral obligation of the poor to the taxpayer. The poor have a moral obligation to do everything int heir power to escape poverty. That includes but is not limited to: looking for a job, getting educated, not having children out of wedlock, avoiding drug and alcohol abuse, behaving within societal norms, snitching on criminals, disciplining their children and obeying the law and law officers generally. That's not a whole lot to ask, but an entire section of our society has determined that working is for suckers, because they can get the taxpayers to pay for their perpetual adolescence.

Put simply, the NYT's position is that favored victim classes are owed government payoffs with no concomitant duty. It is this type of thinking that has cratered our nation both morally and financially. 'Puter hopes that as a result of this Great Recession, such thinking will finally and permanently be discredited. But 'Puter's faint hopes are likely to be dashed, for wherever Ivy league grads and college faculties gather, such discredited ideas have a way of holding on against all reason.

The Zombie Apocalypse Has Struck, Namby-Pamby Liberals Hardest Hit

There is a mental disconnect between your typical Northeastern liberal elitist and the rest of us. This disconnect was made manifest to Dr. J. as he was subjected to NPR yesterday during a drive from a conference in a minor city south and east of New Atlantis.

Dr. J. was listening to Talk of the Nation. Rebecca (Daughter of Cokie Roberts) was the (presumably guest) host. And the topic of discussion was 'What's in Your Emergency Kit?'

The transcript in full can be read here. If you have 17 minutes, the audio is certainly worthy listening because Ms. Roberts's reaction to her callers is priceless.

Here are a few excerpts:

REBECCA ROBERTS, host: ...The Red Cross says you need to have water and non-perishable foods and flashlights and batteries and a first aid kit and medicine and a weather radio and sanitation and personal hygiene items and a multipurpose tool...

Ah, the ever so useful 'multipurpose tool...' As you will see later, Ms. Roberts has no idea what a multipurpose tool really is, and is probably reading off of a cue card...but Dr. J. suspects that her idea of an emergency kit is a bottle of Evian, a Starbucks gift card and a backup cellphone.

Here is where it gets juicy:

ROBERTS: ... Rock in Payson, Arizona, joins us on the line now. Rock, what is in your disaster kit?

ROCK: Three very simple things: .22 pistol and shells, fishing line and a hook and salt.

ROBERTS: OK. [ed. tone of awkward scepticism in her voice] I - is the pistol for self-defense or for hunting?

ROCK: Both.

ROBERTS: [ed. now sounding nervous] And the fishing line?

ROCK: Well, you got to have a line to catch fish.

ROBERTS: Don't you live in the desert?

ROCK: No. In Payson, Arizona, we're 5,000 feet in the middle of the forest.

ROBERTS: OK.

ROCK: And the salt, if you don't have salt, you'll die. You know, in some places, they exchange gold for salt or they used to in Africa. So it's a very, very, very definite commodity. You got to have it.

ROBERTS: Plus, you know, whatever game or fish you come up with, it would taste a whole lot better with it.

ROCK: Well, I figured out that after a month - if it's really a bad catastrophe, after a month, everybody's going to be out of everything. And if you don't have the capability of going out and hunting or fishing, you know, you're going to be dead.

ROBERTS: What sort of emergency are you preparing for in Payson?

ROCK: Well, you know, if we had a major earthquake or a major disaster, say, in Phoenix, which is 90 miles south of us, that would probably disable all the major highways. And so, after a while, after a week or two, we wouldn't be getting any medicine. We wouldn't be getting any drugs. We wouldn't be getting any food up here. So it would be a catastrophic emergency. But, if you - well, excuse me. What's going to happen first, people that need medicines that are refrigerated and all that, they're history.

People that don't can't go out and actually secure food for themselves, they're going to try to steal from other people or take it. So if you don't have those three basic commodities, you know, your chances of living are not very good.

Dr. J. doesn't know where they found this caller, but this was pure comedy gold. It was apparent that Ms. Roberts was in over her head and had no clue what survival truly meant. Rock, on the other hand could very well be the last man standing in Arizona after the Night of the Comet. What was more embarrassing was that she thought Arizona was all sand, rocks, and tumbleweeds.

ROBERTS: Rock, thanks for your call. Let's hear what Heidi in Molokai, Hawaii, is stockpiling in her disaster kit. Heidi, welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.

HEIDI: Hi. Can you hear me?

ROBERTS: I can. What's in your kit?

HEIDI: I have a few very sharp knives and knife-sharpening tools. I have water bottles and lots of rope and cordage and backpacks. We have hiking shoes. We don't focus on food because we're really good at hunting and different things. And water is more important than food.

ROBERTS: And what's the knife for? Oh, we've lost Heidi. Perhaps she has gone into the woods.

WHAT'S THE KNIFE FOR? Oh, my goodness, what does one think is the main tool of a multipurpose tool, it's a blade, and it can be used to cut things. It can clean a fish, field strip an elk, cut cloth for bandages and do all sorts of survivally things that one learns in Scouts.

Now no expose on 'bitter clingers' can't go on without a call from one that is clinging to both the gun and the bible...

BRIAN: Yeah. I'm going to say the "King James Bible" and a shotgun.

ROBERTS: Why the "King James" as opposed to another version?

BRIAN: No reason in particular. Just tradition.

ROBERTS: The poetry of it? Good to have in a disaster?

BRIAN: Yeah. Yeah. And in my scenario, this is the zombie apocalypse so - thus the shotgun.

ROBERTS: Right. Well, you're not alone actually. We have an email from Rex. He says his disaster kit includes a baseball bat in case of a zombie outbreak. So you, too, at least will be prepared.

Dr. J. loves when a Northeastern Elite looks down her nose at religion. Ms. Roberts thinking of the 'poetry' of the King James Bible as if it is a literary specimen or anthropological artifact. Dr. J. is pleased that both Brian and Rex are preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse.

Furthermore Dr. J. takes solace in the fact that if the Night of the Comet, Zombie Apocalypse or some other disaster struck, folks like Rock, Heidi, Brian and Rex would be fine, and folks who broadcast for NPR would be the first to be devoured by zombies or aliens, unless they became collaborators...but that's a different post for a different time...

Mandy's Got a Bunch of $1 Bills

One of the themes that you'll hear in the news over the next few weeks is how the Tea Party, the GOP and conservatives are mean and don't want the government to help with assistance in the recovery from the devastating East Coast Earthquake...oops...I mean the devastating impacts of Hurricane Irene.  The underlying story that will try to be created is that the small government advocates are throwing the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to inefficient government agencies and bureaucracies.  'Puter touches on some of this here.  So what do the government advocates think is efficient government?  We've written before about the massive abuse that took place with federal funds in the post-Katrina recovery.  Hopefully, the post-Irene abuses will be controlled better.  Many will push the idea that assistance programs, particularly for the disadvantaged, right?

The D.C. Attorney General has accused a District HIV/AIDS service provider of spending over $300,000 in federal funding to open a strip club. Miracle Hands Inc. promised the city it was using the cash to renovate a warehouse in Northeast for use as a job training center for residents with HIV/AIDS. Instead, the warehouse was turned into the Stadium Club, a strip club that continues to operate.  Miracle Hands shares an address with the club, according to the company's website.

It's so disappointing when a charity abuses federal funds aimed at a promising venture to help people.  It's really too bad.  It's too bad the government didn't know beforehand that problems like this might surface with this group.  Oh wait:

Attempts to reach Miracle Hands owner Cornell Jones were not successful. Jones is a self-described former D.C. drug kingpin with convictions for narcotics distribution on his record.
The grants for the renovations to the warehouse at 2127 Queens Chapel Road NE, were first given to Miracle Hands in 2006 by the District's HIV/AIDS administration. Earlier this month, an inspector general's audit of the administration found that during the four-year tenure of the agency's former director, Debra Rowe, little attention was paid to how dollars were spent by service providers, even as the city's HIV/AIDS rate reached epidemic levels.
When Rowe was fired in 2008, she went to work for Miracle Hands as its executive director. She could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
In November 2006, nearly one year after Miracle Hands first won its grant to renovate the Queens Chapel Road warehouse, a city grant monitor visited the site and found little work had been done toward meeting a March 2007 deadline, the lawsuit said.
The monitor advised Rowe that Miracle Hands' funding should be cut. But Rowe, called a "close friend of Jones" in the lawsuit, reportedly said the project was on pace and kept the funding in place. By then, though, Jones had already transferred a liquor license from a strip club he owned in Southeast to the Miracle Hands warehouse in Northeast, the suit said.
In March 2007, "the renovation work ... was at best, many months from completion," the lawsuit said. In April 2007, HIV/AIDS administration gave Miracle Hands an additional $139,000 to continue the renovations, adding another year to the nonprofit's deadline.
In the middle of that year, Miracle Hands informed the administration that it had decided to open the job training center at a different warehouse and it would be applying the funds to that project, the suit said. A job center never opened at either location. Stadium Club opened in early 2010.  (courtesy of the Washington Examiner)

Brilliant.  Clearly the bitch set him up.

This Is What Happens

This is what happens to rock stars all the time.

Be sure to read the comments. Smart fellows, all.

Now that we have been found out, we will have to leak some nonsense out that refutes all of this. Stay tuned—something should be coming out to refute the new evidence yesterday.

Japan's Man-Made Disaster: Liberalism

In case you get tired of the Czar taking credit for everything and would rather just count the number of times he winds up being right for yourself, here is another.

Back in August of 2009, the Czar predicted that Japan was in trouble, having booted their largely conservative-but-troubled government for a liberal-but-fresh-but-still-liberal replacement.

The Czar advised the Japanese people that this was going to be a mistake, since liberal governments have this annoying tendency to promise great things but ultimately screw it all up for everybody.

We have neglected our friends in Japan, but just so you know, this “new” government, filled with hope and change, is on their third freaking prime minister.

The original PM, Yukio Hatoyama, resigned after acknowledging his failure to meet campaign promises (incuding ousting the American military from Japanese soil), a series of financial scandals, and an increase in the national debt to 200% GDP.

He was replaced by Naoto Kan, who also resigned from this position due to unsurvivable, no-confidence poll numbers stemming from his apparent inability to respond to the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis in Japan.

And now Yoshihiko Noda has taken the job for the Democratic Party of Japan, he has some tough things to address. The Japanese want to know why the country’s post-tsunami construction is way behind schedule. Why did Moody’s downgrade them to Aa3? And why is Japan—Japan, goddamit, that once built a bunch of Mecha-Godzillas—suddenly out of cash? Where has the money gone?

Expectations are that Mr. Noda will not last long, either. They oughta put in a revolving door over there.

Anyway, if you look deeper into this story, you can find out what happens when a country has a non-biased news media.

Dana Milbank Is Full Of It

And by "it," 'Puter means he left two letters off the front of the word he wanted to type.

Mr. Milbank in this posting criticizing the Tea Party engages in the White House's two favorite argument styles: straw men and false choices. 'Puter takes no position on whether Mr. Milbank is actually a White House media plant, but it seems a reasonable supposition based on the fact that the Washington Post's entire commentariat (save George Will) seems to have swallowed the President's messianic act hook, line and sinker.

See how 'Puter did that? He ascribed views to Mr. Milbank, and motive as well, based on his suppositions, while presenting the argument as fact. Man, making stuff up and passing it off as news is easy.

Now that 'Puter's done with the meritless ad hominems, let's actually engage Mr. Milbank on the substance of his charges.

Mr. Milbank writes regarding NOAA's success in getting the track, if not the intensity, of Hurricane Irene mostly correct:

Such successes might provide an antidote to the souring of the public’s confidence in government. By coincidence, a Gallup poll released Monday showed that only 17 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the federal government, a new low.

More likely, however, Americans won’t have long to savor this new competence in government. NOAA has already been hit with budget cuts that will diminish its ability to track storms, and FEMA, like much of the federal government, will lose about a third of its funding over the next decade if Tea Party Republicans have their way.

Ah. So according to Mr. Milbank, people who believe in limited government are in favor of shutting down every single government agency, including the ones (1) with an important purpose and (2) functioning efficiently. Bullshit. One can clearly be in favor of smaller, limited, efficient government without taking the position that all government agencies must, of necessity, be closed. This is what logicians call a "false choice" and White House Press Secretary Carney calls "Gospel truth."

It is further consistent, logical and reasonable to determine whether important agencies can operate more efficiently. Heck, even the White House agrees with this position, based on its incessant "waste, fraud and abuse" eliminationist rhetoric.

Mr. Milbank continues is his miscomprehension, or lies if you prefer, regarding the Tea Party saying:

Tea Partyers who denounce Big Government seem to have an abstract notion that government spending means welfare programs and bloated bureaucracies. Almost certainly they aren’t thinking about hurricane tracking and pre-positioning of FEMA supplies. But if they succeed in paring the government, some of these Tea Partyers (particularly those on the coasts or on the tornadic planes) may be surprised to discover that they have turned a Hurricane Irene government back into a Katrina government.

And:

That’s one model. The other model is to have a weak federal government, without the funds to forecast storms or to launch a robust emergency response in time to do any good. You might call that the Tea Party model.

Again, 'Puter calls bullshit on Mr. Milbank's characterization. Certainly you can find a few far out wackos at any event advocating shutting down government altogether, return to the gold standard and Birther/Truther nonsense (hey, nice to see you Rep. Ron Paul (R-Crazytown)). But these positions are not representative, and Mr. Milbank knows or should know that.

As to Mr. Milbank's characterization that big, bloated entitlement bureaucracies leading to an inevitable cratering of our federal government, well, it simply seems true to 'Puter. Unfortunately for Mr. Milbank, it also seems apparent to those wild-eyed crazies at the Congressional Budget Office who repeatedly warn that entitlement spending will bankrupt our nation in short order.

Heck, 'Puter's betting that a good 75% of self-identified Tea Partiers could live with current discretionary spending levels if entitlement programs were reformed. Note well, Mr. Milbank, 'Puter did not say canceled. He said reform. As in, "Hey, Medicare and social security are functionally insolvent, but they're really important. Let's fix them on a going-forward basis."

Finally, 'Puter notes that not once in Mr. Milbank's ill-considered hit piece did he cite any member of the Tea Party as calling for shutting down NOAA, the centerpiece of his pro-unrestrained big government piece.

There's enough conflicting data and argument to sort through without this type of article. Misrepresenting another's position accomplishes nothing. It does not move the issue closer to resolution. In fact, such misrepresentations usually harden positions and make compromise less likely.

Unfortunately, misrepresentation and logical fallacy seems to be the White House's current preferred method of dealing with inconvenient truths. It is a shame to see a Washington Post columnist adopting this dishonest method as well.

World Youth Day Report

Gormogon Lawn Darts and Drinking Club chaplain writes in to explain where he has been for the last couple of weeks. Also, the club only has two members: him and ‘Puter.

Well, I had a great time at World Youth Day. There were 1.7 million pilgrims signed up (and active at events through the week like catechesis and Stations of the Cross) and we had at least a million more than that at the Mass last Sunday with the Holy Father. The week went entirely too quickly and the young people in my group enjoyed themselves a lot. We are from a largely (90%) Protestant area, so they reveled in being in a Catholic country with a million+ Catholics their age (instead of about one or two people in their grade like in their high schools).

Most of the participants were young people from 15-25 years of age with chaperons (like me). They went to catechesis for three days during the week to sites based on language group (we went to an English site) where bishops would talk to the groups and answer questions and have Mass. We were extremely lucky—we got Archbishop Dolan one day and good bishops the other days, too. I, personally, didn't get to hear much because I was hearing confessions the whole time until Mass started (which I got to concelebrate, which is nice).

As to any protests, it was similar to the March for Life in D.C. every year—hundreds of thousands of participants and so few protesters that you must look for them to find 'em. Seriously. Apparently 2 or 3 were protesting outside our catechesis site ("bad pope" or something equally stupid), and apparently there were more downtown for a couple of hours one day. I am less that impressed because I get the impression that Spaniards will protest about anything and do so all the time. The 'clashes' were mostly some fired up locals (on both sides) and foreign pilgrims praying that got caught up. I only saw the objectionable stuff on TV and absolutely nothing in person—and I went to the Stations and the Mass with the Pope. I was an active leader and we participated and they weren't really anywhere to be found.

Now, the event itself was nice, but poorly organized. They didn't have nearly enough toilets at the large events and tons of places were shut down throughout town (it's the time when the people of Madrid take their vacation and leave town because it's pretty nasty with the heat and humidity). They didn't have enough water last Saturday and Sunday and they didn't listen to anyone when they planned things 2 years ago. But, it went all right.

It was poorly done compared to other World Youth Days, but the essentials were there—tons of Catholic young people excited about their faith and the Holy Father.

God Bless,
Operative HRE

Interesting, no? Because the global media seemed to really ignore the event, except to show protestors. And HRE confirms that the protests were extremely inconsequential; in fact, a few here or there out of a million is a fraction of a smidge of not even one percent. Way to stay objective, media! “Hey, we don’t editorialize, we merely edit out anything that doesn’t agree with our agenda.”

Feudin' and Fightin'

Jonathan S. Tobin over at Commentary posts a brief essay that dismisses any notion of a Rick Perry/Mitt Romney “feud.” Did you know about a feud? Tobin didn’t. Neither did we. So why are we not surprised?

In obedience to the Czar’s prediction back in May, which has already proven true, the Democrats will continue to throw out stories of fictitious feuds between Republican leaders.

This is done to popularize the idea that the Republicans don’t have their act together—and really convince people the Tea Party is some oddball minority fringe group that pisses off the GOP even more than the Democrats—and that moderates really should yank the donkey’s tail, and not the elephant’s trunk.

We saw this a lot with the Palin-Bachmann feud, the Ryan-Boehner feud, the Boehner-McConnell feud, and the McCain-Hobbit feud. You can probably think up a lot more. One thing you don’t hear a lot about is the Paul-Santorum feud, which ironically had some truth...but then again, neither Ron Paul nor Rick Santorum pose as substantial a threat to Obama’s re-election (although, more ironically, either man could defeat Obama if the election were held today). Nor did we hear too much about the Pawlenty-Romney feud, quickly followed by the Pawlenty-Bachmann feud, which wound up concluding with the Pawlenty-Dismissed Campaign Advisors feud.

So now we have a Perry-Romney feud. Figures.

As Gormogon correspondant corespondent corespondant letter writer ScottO would point out, all these feuds are little more than liberal transference.

Yup. You know who has the internal feuds? Hint: not the Republicans, or any other party except the Democrats.

Where is the liberal media mention of the Obama-Union feuds? The Obama-Gay Rights feuds? The Obama-peacenik feuds? The Obama-Israeli feuds. The Obama-environmentalists feuds? Anybody see the protest signs outside the White House lately? They aren’t Tea Party signs.

No surprise that there would be feuding. Look at it this way: you have conservatives, right? And while conservatives differ on matters of this, that, or the other, overall conservatives basically believe in the same fundamental things: fiscal common sense, miniature government, state rights and responsibilities, prudence on social issues, and a reluctance to mess with the system once something seems to work halfway well.

Liberals are everybody else.

Think about that. The Democrats, being the “party of last resort,” attempt to cater to commies, GLBTs, college students, anti-drug activists, greenies, Jews, minorities, urban elitists, atheists, immigrants, the poor, New Agers, humanists, pro-drug types, academics, socialists, Palestinians, unions, so-called artistic and creative types, and probably a dozen more that leap to your imagination.

Basically, what these groups have in common is that they have little in common. In fact, you can usually pick two groups at random from that crowd and find something they detest about each other. This is why the Czar hates to generalize too much about liberals, because no statement starting with “all liberals...” will ever be perfectly accurate. Most, maybe. Some, certainly. All? Heck, some liberals detest big government.

In theory, no way can they ever hope to come to consensus on anything—and you do see major policy splits there all the time if you listen in on their conversations. In practice, of course, they are all united in hatred against—you guessed it—people like you.

Sometimes the differences are quite powerful, but take note of how deep or how substantive the conversations go. They usually become quite shallow, and stick to the easily agreed items: hence, ad hominem attacks on conservatives, generic gain saying against conservative themes, and very vague bullet point tropes against conservative topics...nothing too solid, of course, because that other liberal might, in fact, go bat-shit if you hit his favorite topic.

Lib1: Nice Obama bumpersticker.

Lib2: Thanks!

Lib1: Can you believe that Rick Perry jackass?

Lib2: He’s a total tool. He just wants to cut taxes on the rich.

Lib1: Totally. Another rich guy looking to take money from the big corporations.

Lib2: That’s so wrong.

And then an awkward pause. Change the subject fast, because this could happen:

Lib1: Plus, he’s some dumbass fundamentalist.

Lib2: Uh, what? I belong to Jews for Jesus.

Uh oh.

So if you were the Czar, you would (a) sharpen both bits on your Dayton double bit axe to two different bevels for precision slicing as well as power chopping, and (b) snicker each time the media mentions some intra-Republican Party feud.

Because they don’t want you to notice the bigger feuds happening right in their backyard.

Those Darn Amish

Dang it all if Confucius* doesn’t know how to get the Czar’s goat.

Actually, the Czar used to have a goat—an actual goat—but no longer does. To be fair, it was ‘Puter that ruined it, not Volgi.

But the Volgi knows the Czar has this peculiar and particular disdain for the Amish. So let’s hope they don’t read this site when the Czar reveals that he thinks they’re a sinister and dangerous scam cult.

And just when he got over their plans to exempt themselves from child labor laws for dubious reasons, the Czar receives a missive from the Volgi about the Amish in Illinois. Yeah, who knew? But apparently, they are in Illinois and guess what? They want an exemption from having their photographs on state identification.

And Governor Pat Quinn, who opposes all questionable legislation or spending bills until they actually land on his desk for signature, naturally is allowing this. In turn, this passage set off the easily set off Secretary of State, Jesse White, who said such a measure is insane. What value does state identification provide if it does not provide visual proof that the person bearing the card actually is the person to who the card was issued?

State identification is used in place of drivers’ licenses for Illinois residents who lack the latter. In addition to a simple state ID, the new law allows the Amish to prevent their photographs being used on firearm owners’ identification cards.

Why? Why would the Amish request this? There are two possible answers.

The first is that the Amish suddenly decided a couple years back that according to Exodus 20:4, a photograph is a graven image. Even, of course, if the photograph is digital file rendered via sublimation onto a PVC medium. It is interesting how specific the Bible can be when it needs to be specific; you might wonder why Exodus did not simply say “…and no photo IDs, either.” Seems to us that the Amish are more than happy to have their pictures taken for a fee.

The second theory, which is a little more to the point, comes from the Volgi, who suspects that the Amish are finding another way to bypass the law and stay off the grid. This makes it harder for the state police to investigate the numerous crimes perpetrated by members of the Amish on their own followers, which in turn are largely ignored by local law enforcement. You can look that one up too, if you wish to be horrified and overwhelmed by examples.

The Czar is all in favor of a separation of Church and State; the State of Illinois, for example, has no right to pass a law that prohibits a widely accepted religious practice. But what is curious to us is that so many requests for religious exemptions seem to revolve around a small group of people whose religious practices are never quiet entirely clear. Like the scientologists. Or the extremists who refuse to let women be photographed for IDs without head and face coverings. Or now the Amish, who once again want another exemption from another law .

And what makes it curious is that these spurious groups always seem to challenge the exact laws that would make it substantially easier for them to confuse or hide from law enforcement. Think about this. Not only could an Amish guy wanted for a crime be able to produce someone else’s ID when questioned, but so could Mitch Flanarski—wanted for extortion, but he simply grew a beard and hung out near an Amish area. He could swipe an ID and tell the cops they got the wrong guy. And how could they prove it before he skipped town?

If Illinois’ governor had backbone, he would have rejected this bill rather than signing it. He would have done so on the grounds that “The State has no cause to support any alleged religious practice that poses a clear risk to the physical safety and security of others by members of that religion (or those who pretend to be members in order to deceive law enforcement), particularly when the enforcement of the law provides no other religious oppression.” Hey—it ain’t like the Illinois State Police is going to arrest Falun Gong members and beat them up in the interest of public safety. It’s simply that the Amish cannot prove that they deserve an exemption based on Exodus.

Jesse White should refer this to a higher court for review. He is exactly right that this opens a Pandora’s box for the other states, each of whom will have suits filed by their “Amish” members demanding the same exemptions.

*For those who came in late, Confucius is the Gormogons’ Œcumenical Volgi.

The Burden of Proof

The right-wing pundits have been falling all over themselves to answer a challenge from Jonathan Alter, who asks:

Tell me again why Barack Obama has been such a bad president? I’m not talking here about him as a tactician and communicator. We can agree that he has played some bad poker with Congress. And let’s stipulate that at the moment he’s falling short in the intangibles of leadership....

Your mission, Jim (and readers named something else), should you decide to accept it, is to identify where Obama has been a poor decision-maker. What, specifically, has he done wrong on policy? What, specifically, would you have done differently to create jobs? And what can any of the current Republican candidates offer that would be an improvement on the employment front?

I’m not interested in hearing ad hominem attacks or about your generalized “disappointment.”

I want to know, on a substantive basis, why you think he deserves to be in a dead heat with Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and only a few points ahead of Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann in a new Gallup Poll. Is it just that any president -- regardless of circumstances and party -- who presides over 9 percent unemployment deserves to lose?

And so the pundits have been preparing formal and lengthy responses, replies, and lists of examples.

The Czar has a different response: up yours.

Alter seems to think—as do many on the Professional Left, as well—that there must be some reason their President is such a turd, especially after all that polishing. Implicit in Mr. Alter’s challenge that the vast majority of Americans have no objective, substantive reason to deny Mr. Obama a second term.

Actually, Mr. Alter, they don’t need one. This is how politics works. Instead, the onus is on Mr. Obama to explain to the vast majority of Americans why he deserves a second shot. You see, they have their reasons, and whether a Newsweek writer (whom we deny the charity of calling responsible journalists) gets it or not, voters do not need to explain themselves to you. If they want to dunk the President based on ad hominem attacks, generalized “disappointment,” and so on, dude, that’s how it goes.

There is so much left-wing nuttery in this challenge that it begs the Czar to ask Mr. Alter where he gets off. Why should we, or anyone, tell Mr. Obama how to run his fizzling campaign. You know, the American people have been telling the President where he has made poor decisions. And where he has gone wrong on policy. And we very much have been explaining how to create jobs.

Your challenge as a would-be journalist, Mr. Alter, is to provide an indication as to why the President doesn’t care what we think. And why, if you wish to tack on another paragraph, we should give a hoot what you think.

This is the challenge. Your inability to research or think critically has already been met. Now, you meet ours. Betcha can’t.

And more is the pity.

Mail Mail Mail...Actually, Just Mail Mail

And the mail comes in:

Great and Mighty, etc., Dreadful, etc., цѣсарь,

Your humble Burgher of Bong sends greetings from the land of Badgers and Beer-makers and Meat-Packers. Also the land of pointless recall elections, expensive ‘bring out your dead’ voter mobilization efforts, and a state Supreme Court that puts extreme unction into dysfunctional.

This Burgher considers himself (falsely, no doubt) a tolerant chap. He figures that most racists can’t really help feeling that way, and that the typical anti-Catholic bigot doesn’t really hate Catholics, merely everything they claim the Catholic Church stands for. But he draws the line when and where these intersect.

Drudge linked to one version of this story, here’s another from the local newspaper:

Short version: Gov. Walker is scheduled to read Dr. Seuss to some little kids. The night before, vandals glue the locks on the school doors, then during the day scores of ‘protesters’ show up (as scheduled) to yell at the children and their parents and everyone else about how fondly they recall our governor's name.

Here’s the rub: Bishop Messmer is one of the Catholic schools in Milwaukee that survives in large part because of Wisconsin’s (very limited) school voucher program. Its student body is almost entirely African-American, a fact well-known to the SEIU and WEAC folks who were behind this protest. So let’s call a spade a spade.

If you commit crimes and/or create a public disturbance to keep African-American kids from going to the school they want to go to, you are a racist. This isn’t about protesting the governor, it’s about taking from disadvantaged families the dignity of being able to send their children to school of their choice in peace.

To put this another way, the protestors aren’t just cravenly trying to hang on to whatever portion of the public trough they think they are entitled to; they are expressing fear of a system that might actually lift people out of poverty, a system that is based on the personhood of each individual rather than regarding the poor as a ‘class’ to be mollified. The former, of course, is the foundation of genuine Catholic social teaching. School choice is but one piece of the puzzle, but it’s a start.

Good hunting,

- Bongburgher

Thanks for the ultra-correct spelling on our name, up there! And thanks for the thoughtful reply. The Czar has no intention of quibbling.

But, if you commit crimes and/or create a public disturbance to keep kids from going to school, you are a criminal. Being a racist is not a crime of law so much as it is a crime of intellect. The Czar, who heard this story, should hope that the MPD is seriously investigating this. Bongburgher likely agrees.

However, whether the motivation was racism is curious. If anything, the motivation was to terrorize Governor Walker; that the school was almost exclusively African-American probably mattered little to them, so much as it was an opportunity to commit a vulgar attempt at stifling free speech.

You may disagree; the Czar, however, thinks that if the motivation was racism, the deed would have been done without Governor Walker needing to be there.

On this we can agree: this a clear-cut case of liberal fascism. They do not care for Governor Walker, so they punish a group of innocent students who had nothing to do with their flavor of politics.

But it is the Tea Party who are racist terrorists, right?

Oh Wise and Cuddly Czar,

I’d like to thank you for your mercy in waiting until after I moved from CT to FL to send the hurricane up there. I assume you did it to blot the denizens of the show Jersey Shore off the map? In any event, I appreciate it, and the Myrmidon training continues as usual.

XOXO,

D.T.

Great news about the Myrmidons, and may we state excellent work this past week on the earthquake cleanup! Very few residents of Washington, DC, had any indication that they were being invaded by ninja zombies. Your Myrmidons did a flawless job in wiping them out, cleaning up the mess, and keeping the streets safe. Very few citizens were eaten.

That said, though, you will want to talk to the Mandarin about the hurricane. The Czar won’t go near that damned weather machine. He learned his lesson.

And It Is Saturday

The Czar will be in big trouble if you tell anybody about this. Fortunately, ‘Puter never reads this site, so we should be safe.

His brother Krizz called him yesterday, and said “Need your help, bro. There’s a skunk somewhere on my property. He’s sprayed my dog three times in the last three days. The dog smells terrible! How do I get rid of the smell?”

‘Puter said, “You need to bathe him in lots of tomato juice. It won’t be perfect, but it should help a little. Go do it now, and I’ll call you back in 30 minutes to see how it went.”

So, 30 minutes later, ‘Puter calls Krizz back. “How’d it go?” asked ‘Puter.

“Not so good,” Krizz said “I had a real hard time getting the skunk in the tub.”

While my guitar gently weeps...

New Atlantis played host to Federal Agents this week as they performed a daring raid on Gibson Guitar a purveyor of the finest guitars in the world. The reason for the raid was that the Feds feared that Gibson was building guitars with illegally harvested hardwood.

Back in 2009, they were raided on suspicion of crafting guitar necks out of ebony clandestinely smuggled out of Madagascar in the alimentary canals of human mules or some such nonsense. As best as Dr. J. can determine, the Feds did not find anything worth pursuing.

This week, the raid was to compel Gibson to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their new hardwoods from India were obtained with, not only perfect t-crossing and i-dotting, but absurdly, with respect to Indian law.

Per Henry Juszkiewicz, CEO of Gibson:

“The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.”

(Emphasis added by Dr. J.)

Yes, you read it correctly folks, the U.S. Department of Justice is now in the business of enforcing its interpretation of Indian Law. This is nothing less than harassment of a successful American business that is headquartered in a red state. Gibson relocated its headquarters from Michigan in the 1990s. Dr. J. didn't realize that it was in the purview of the Justice Department to enforce other nation's protectionist trade policies while ignoring American crimes and laws whole cloth, or for that matter to have Interior act as its proxy in such matters.

For example, the Department of Justice freely admits that they are ignoring sections of the Defense of Marriage Act. In addition, Holder's Department of Justice dropped the charges in the Philadelphia voter intimidation case.

So the take away message is that the Obama administration will come after you if you live in a red state to make sure you purchase the right wood (TN), don't kill any Grizzly Bears who are trying to eat you (ID), and via state wildlife agents enforcing Federal edicts, make sure you don't rescue any woodpeckers (VA).

It is clear that the executive branch has its priorities mixed up, and when it comes to law enforcement, that dangerous for any free Republic.

Inaction Jackson

Jesse Jackson, whom the Czar refuses to address as Reverend on principle, decided to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by calling Tea Partiers a bunch of racists. Because that, you know, is what Dr. King wanted us to think about:

Jesse Jackson said Thursday that the Tea Party's tenets are reminiscent of state's rights philosophies used in decades past to oppose federally mandated integration.

"The Tea Party is not new," Jackson said at a luncheon honoring civil rights pioneers on Thursday. "It's just a new name for an old game."

You know, if the Czar had not actually seen photographs of the two men together, he might suspect that Jackson had never actually met King. Like the 10,000 people who claim they were part of the 600 who marched to Selma on Bloody Sunday.

In reality, Jackson is a pathological scoundrel, who knows full well the truth but continues to play on the gullibility of his supporters. He knows all too well that the Tea Party is not a race issue, but a government control issue. He also knows, all too well, that Dr. King is a publicized hero of the Tea Party. And he knows that King’s family have attended Tea Party functions to show solidarity.

But deep down, Jackson also knows which political party fought hard for continued segregation. And which party enacted Jim Crow laws. And required property ownership as a condition for blacks to vote. And which party created and fueled the Ku Klux Klan for generations.

Jackson is a product of a 1960s Chicago political experiment, in which Mayor Richard J. Daley put him into politics as a way of mollifying the black community in Chicago. Jackson, then a veritable nobody, became an effective and loyal shill for the Chicago Democratic machine, despite the fact that it was Daley who attempted to stuff blacks into high-crime housing projects, ignored police brutality against blacks, stifled the creation of black-owned businesses, and referred to blacks by particularly ugly words the Czar won’t use even if quoting someone directly.

There is an old game being played here, and that’s Jackson’s continued demagogy. Call everyone a racist, stir up trouble, and then sit back and watch what happens. You will also note, as the Czar began to observe in the early 1980s before he was a national presence, that Jackson always picks easy targets and easy fights. He never goes after the tough crowd, because he knows he’ll lose. So he boycotts faceless corporations, small businesses without resources to defend themselves, and Tea Partiers—because Tea Partiers will never bother to take him on. He never fights with any real action.

A very old game indeed.

Brilliant!

GorT has written about taxes, Keynesian economics, and the current economic situation before but I'm always impressed when I read pieces that add a new dimension to it.  This is the case with the brilliant piece by Victor Hanson here.  I have long argued that individual income is consciously or unconsciously segregated into five buckets:

• taxes - which go to the federal, state and local governments for various programs that the individual gets some amount of services in return (we could have a debate over the "fairness" of the amount contributed versus the relative benefit received and the partial benefit the more wealthy gain by having a country that, as a whole, is better off).
• charity - a direct transfer of wealth in order to help those - temporarily or extended - less fortunate.
• investment - savings or investments to preserve and, hopefully, grow accumulated wealth - which, as a side benefit can be used to generate more wealth by allowing others to make use of the capital for new ideas, efforts, products or services.
• mandatory spending - GorT defines this as any cost that the individual needs to make to maintain their current standard of living.  Generally, think of mortgage, rent, food (but not excessive dining out as entertainment), water, heat, education, etc.  Things that for the most part need or have made an obligation to pay.  This is not to say that these can't change as you'll see below.
• discretionary spending - the fun stuff - vacations, entertaining, movies, new gadgets, gifts, etc.

Income remains relatively constant for the gainfully employed.  The amount coming in to the financial picture is a known quantity and the individual allocates (either by happenstance or via a budget) the income into these five buckets.  If a bucket requires more money - mandatory spending on home repairs, new taxes, high food costs, etc. - then other buckets suffer.  Temporary increases can be mitigated with savings but only if that investment bucket has sufficient funding in the past.  Americans have be woefully under-budgeting that bucket.  So let's turn to Mr. Hanson's piece:

For decades the liberal argument was that the New Deal cured the Depression. But in a new twist, the war has suddenly been reinvented to support the current arguments of the new Keynesians — despite the irony in the embrace of the old right-wing argument that it was the World War II defense spending, not FDR’s New Deal, that finally got America out of a near-decade-long depression.
In ingenious fashion, the new argument insists that the second downward spiral of 1937–38 — formerly ostensible proof that five years of the New Deal and of anti-business rhetoric had not worked — should be attributed only to FDR’s lacking the will or political muscle to stay the course and accelerate deficit spending, redistribute more income, and grow far bigger government. Then luckily the war came along. That crisis provided the necessary political landscape, which had been lacking during the supposed Keynesian backsliding of Roosevelt’s second term, to force through the long-awaited New New Deal. At last, the really big scare allowed the really big borrowing, and the result was the really big prosperity for the next half-century.

Right?  Remember Krugman's recent blathering about the need for a space alien attack to help save the economy?  Mr. Hanson continues:

But as many have pointed out, there are all sorts of problems with this account. During World War II, the American public scrimped and saved. If household income increased, so did household savings — not surprisingly, given the rationing of many consumer goods and total unavailability of others. Washers, dryers, hot-water heaters, vacuum cleaners — all those and more were bought for the first time after the war, and often without borrowing.
In other words, there was plenty of private postwar investment capital and household money waiting to be tapped when the shooting stopped and millions came home — especially for basics such as new cars, trucks, tractors, and appliances.

So can a post-WWII analogy apply here?  Doubtful as the parallels just aren't there:

In short, in 2011 there is nothing that suggests the present massive borrowing will lead us to anything like the prosperity of the postwar years — a time when social spending and entitlements accounted for 30 percent, not 70 percent of the annual federal budget; when households both had cash and were eager to buy long-denied items; when America did not import high-cost oil (having recently supplied 80 percent of its wartime allies’ oil needs from domestic production [emphasis GorT's]

Go back and read his piece over at the Corner.  It's well worth it and dispells the spin that the liberals are touting.

Reading Is Fun. Can Be Mental.

For a robot, GorT is as smart as they get.

GorT neatly expands on our own essay on reading. Indeed, the Czar wished he had the space to explain in his own essay what GorT so perfectly expounded in his. What GorT wrote is exactly what the Czar meant when we said:

Kids tend to blow through reading rather than develop comprehension: they ask no questions about plot, character motivation, author’s technique, stylistic differences, etc., and effectively go zombie-like through reading like a video game.

“Stylistic differences” is pretty vague, but it is exactly what GorT explained: you read differently based on the intent of the author. You read fiction one way (actually several ways depending on genre), but technical reading another, and non-fiction yet another. Kids do not know this, and you have to help them understand it.

The Mandarin and the Czar were indeed enjoying a conversation about reading manuals recently. The Czar loves manuals, and does his utmost to read them before assembling and using a product. In fact, it is quite amazing what you can find in them of value!

But while the Czar reads through all the information and instructions, his brain works quite like anyone else’s. Nothing like panic to undermine your best efforts, as GorT mentions about frustration.

Case in point: the Czar has a luxurious water heater that is fairly new. Recently, the Czar was attracted to the dacha basement when he heard a curious noise. Water was spraying out of the pressure release valve at the top of the water heater, sending a scalding cloud of steam onto the immediate area.

The Czar knew a few things off the bat: he knew that this means the contents were boiling, that pressure was building up, and that the valve should be releasing water down a PVC tube toward a drain. It was not, so this was serious. Mm-hmm. The Czar also knew that hot water is expensive in Muscovy, and that he needed to stop it.

A few feet away lay the manual for the heater, and the Czar recalled there was a whole thing in there, with line art, explaining the pressure relief valve. Certainly, the manual would remind the Czar what to do in such an emergency, in simple step-by-step directions.

So the Czar opened the book. “Congratulations on your purchase of the Westmoreland 75-gallon e-Heater, which is designed to provide many years of...“Ah jeez, why put this in?” flip flip flip Félicitations! Vous avez acheté le Westmoreland 284-l e-Chauffe, et cela vous donnera de nombreuses années de service! “Hell, went too far!” flip flip flip Zorionak! Westmoreland 284-l e-Berogailu bat erosi duzu. “Basque? They sell a lot of these to Basque nationals? For God’s sake. Really?” flip flip flip Pressure Release Valve Information. Your Westmoreland 75-gallon heater is equipped with an emergency release valve, in the event that internal pressures develop past the recommended safety threshold developed by a variety of standards bodies including the ASTM... “Yeah, no kidding. Now how does one get it to stop spraying like a f@#&ing Dutch fountain?” flip flip flip If your emergency pressure release valve begins to vent, discharge, or spray water... “At last! Here it is...” the valve is not intended to be lifted except under the general installation setting of an empty tank... something... re-reading...except under an emergency condition...uh... unless it is to be reset... but do this only when the gas is off and the entire tank has been thoroughly drained of water...CRAP! None of this makes sense!

Fortunately, in large black letters on a yellow sticker was the following: MUSCOVY PLUMBING 24 HOUR HOTLINE: 426-833-1928. Phone. Dialed. Rings. Hello?

The plumber answered, said turn on the bathtub. Fastest way to relieve the pressure. Let it run for 10 minutes. When spraying stops, turn off tub. Will be by in couple of days.

The Czar did that, the spraying stopped, and the plumber swung by a couple days later and declared the valve was defective and under an imaginary warranty. No charge to repair or replace, and he was gone in ten minutes.

So much for reading comprehension in a panic. But if you are curious, the Haitian word for heater is chofaj. So it isn’t like the Czar learned nothing from all this.

Reading Is Fundamental

I enjoyed the Czar's post on reading but I figured I'd chime in with a missing element:  there are generally three "modes" of reading - for instruction, for education and for enjoyment.  The problem is that each require a different approach and these aren't differentiated in schools.  In fact, studies have shown that with more formal education, our ability to read for instruction, in general, diminishes.

Reading for Instruction - imagine you have to unbox and set up your new Blu-Ray DVD player.  Reading the manual (insert joke about "real men don't read manuals", "RTFM", etc) is reading for instruction.  Do step 1. Read step 2.  Do step 2.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Kids are great at this (when focused) as they've been trained to follow directions - they will read an instruction and then do it.  Adults tend to either read the entire manual and then can't remember what step 1 is, then they get frustrated and toss the device out the window cursing or they ignore the manual and try battling thru it.

Reading for enjoyment - simply put this is faster reading for nothing else that distraction.  Generally one will skim and get the general sense of the paragraph or dialog.  The reader isn't getting every nuance and the reader's imagination fills in the gaps almost seamlessly.

Reading for education - largely schoolwork (minus some of the reading for Literature classes).  This is in depth reading for serious comprehension.  There are different approaches to this mode - one can go in with certain keywords to help drill in on the specifics, one can break down the content in an outline or other note format or one can build up elements into larger concepts.  It varies by the reader and possibly the subject and nature of the reason for the reading assignment.

When was the last time any teacher taught you how to do one type versus the other?  Ever remember being taught how to read for instruction?  Is that VCR still blinking 12:00 in your basement?

The education system in the country has done little to nothing to fundamentally change how subjects are taught in school.  About the best thing I've seen recently (replicant GorT 1, a high school freshman this fall) is the change of the typical teaching order of the sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics) to one based on the interdependencies of the sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology).  The previous order was alphabetical.  Seriously.  It would be even more interesting if these were broken up as there are more interdependencies that could cycle back around.

Reading Scores

Well, who doesn’t love someone smart writing in:

Dear Czar,

As I read your post entitled "Liberal Science", a light dawned upon me. When you pointed out that reading began to suffer along with math and science, I was struck with the following thought: Johnny can't read because then he'll be forced to accept whatever he's told. If he could read, he would be able to make up his own mind that smaller government bureaucracy means more individual freedom, and begin to vote accordingly.

A lesser second thought occurred as I read the final two paragraphs: projection. (You may recognize that as one of my recurring themes.)

As ever,
ScottO
@AgStateSense

Well, here at the Castle, we never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity. While it is true that Johnny—if that’s even his real name—could largely accept whatever he’s told if he is illiterate, the reason Johnny can’t read is because he isn’t learning how to.

Trust us—organizing a conspiracy is a lot of work! On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence to support that the low literacy scores are more a result of shitty instructional method than anything else.

The Царица, don’t you know, is not only a teacher, but is actually a multi-degreed reading teacher. This is something she knows an astronomical bit about: she teaches reading to at-risk 4th-through-6th graders at a public school in a rough neighborhood. And yeah, we get to hear all about her day.

Some observations she has about reading: (1) All kids want to read, and the more they are given to read, the more they do read. (2) Reading is a simple skill that is impossible to turn off once acquired. (3) Kids start reading as soon as they are able. So given this, why the problem?

There are multiple causes for low literacy, and a lot of people are to blame. (1) Schools do not provide sufficient reading time because they are too focused on testing students on standardized forms, rather than letting the kids read whatever they want (2) Schools provide inadequate (uninteresting or antequated) materials for reading (3) Parents do not read along with their kids, but rather dump books on kids like babysitters; in fact, students will not correct mistakes on their own, but need parents to guide them through the process (4) Kids tend to blow through reading rather than develop comprehension: they ask no questions about plot, character motivation, author’s technique, stylistic differences, etc., and effectively go zombie-like through reading like a video game.

On that last bit, she has identified some commonalities with kids who have trouble reading. There is usually low parental influence (parents encourage the kids to read, but do not monitor how their kids are reading), a strong television or video game influence in the household, and the home is often loud, noisy, and unsupervised.

To be fair, a lot of kids cannot read well because they are learning English. Particularly in her school’s case, there are a strong contingent of newly arrived Mexican and Polish students—who are unable to read or write in their own languages, let alone English. This weighs down average scores, and she spends most of her time with them—explaining the intracacies of English spelling and pronunciation.

But this does not excuse a majority of schools in which students only know (in theory) English, but cannot read or write it effectively. In these cases, there is a strong emphasis on progressive education—manifested by endless state testing to ensure everyone is at the same level...even if that means a lower level. She would like to see less standardized benchmark testing and more actual reading, letting the teachers (and where needed, teachers like her) let the kids read what they want, and then have them explain what they just read.

Kids fail reading at very early ages, not at high school ages (even though the disparity becomes more dramatic in later years). And those younger kids don’t get or care for politics. Yes, there is a lot of pro-Democratic influence in the teachers and materials, but she will tell you (and we believe some studies will bear) that kids lean politically to the way their parents vote. Yep, in inner-cities, that is often Democrat. The kids themselves do not remotely understand big or small government; you did not, for example, until probably Sixth Grade or later. So it might be a bit of a stretch to think that reading comprehension is being dumbed down to brainwash 1st and 2nd Graders.

Also, you should be acutely aware that teachers and teachers’ unions are two very different groups of people. In the Царица’s experience in different areas, less than 20% of teachers are actually loyal to the unions. The rest just want to teach, reach a couple of students, and go home each day to a little quiet. It's the 20% who trigger the strikes, stage the protests, and stink up the place for everyone else (although in some districts, that number can be a lot higher.

This is a complex topic and probably deserves a longer answer, so we welcome your questions.

Mailbag - Interoffice Memo Edition

Dr. J. found this an inter-office mail envelope with Polish sausage grease, blood (human, type AB+) and encephalic fluid stains on his desk this morning, meaning that it could only come from The Czar:

Date: August 24^th, 2011 A.D. (ed. None of that C.E. crap).

To: Dr. J., Royal Surgeon

From: The Czar of Muscovy, etc., etc.,

RE: The so-called iPhone 5

Dear Dr. J.:

Speaking of your [missing] iPhone

(a) I don't have it.

(b) As a Sprint customer, the Czar was blown away by your post. Why is Sprint covering that up? What superb news. The цари́ца is getting frustrated with her old phone, and at the same time she's looking at moving her mom to our plan (the цари́ца gets a big discount from Sprint).

The Czar thinks the iPhone would be perfect for each of them! And both would be ready for new phones around the end of October.

Had it not been for your post, the Czar wouldn't know jack about this!

Warmest Regards,

The Czar

To which Dr. J. dutifuly replied:

Date: August 25^th, 2011 A.D.

To: The Czar of Muscovy, etc., etc.,

From: Dr. J., Royal Surgeon

RE: The so-called iPhone 5

Dear The Czar:

Thank you for your memo.

Dr. J. is keenly aware that the Czar does not have his iPhone. Given the internet IP address trail, Dr. J. strongly suspects that ‘Puter or GorT has it as one of the sites visited after it’s disappearance was, “The Naughty Ladies of Lego…”

Nevertheless, the reason Sprint is tight-lipped about the iPhone 5 is because Apple has not officially announced the iPhone 5. As seen here, Apple has an interest in selling as many iPhone 4s for as long as possible, so announcements are only weeks ahead of release dates. As Sprint will be the NKOTB, they probably have to have some sort of non-disclosure deal that they signed. While the iPhone 5 is probably Apple’s worst kept secret, it hasn’t been announced by Apple, let alone given an actual release date. Given that Sprint sent Dr. J. away without a sale was pretty telling. No whether or not Steve Jobs’s departure will have an impact remains to be seen.

One can hope that it will be faster, thinner and with better battery life than previous iterations. Of course there will be unexpected treats as well, built in.

Dr. J.’s got to wait a few more days for his loaner, but he will have something to limp him through until the iPhone 5 becomes available.

Warmest Regards,

Dr. J., Royal Surgeon

At this point, Dr. J. would like to offer his best wishes to Steve Jobs as he steps down from his lofty post as CEO of Apple computer. CNN, in this article pieces his medical history together nicely. Dr. J. suspects that his cancer recurred, he's had organ rejection, or more unlikely he's developed a secondary malignancy from his immunosuppresives. He will remain on as Chairman of the Board, largely to buoy stock prices and have a 10,000 view of what's going on with his company.

(Portrait of Yours Truly courtesy of Death Star PR)

Dr. J. has been a lifelong fan of Apple Computer. His first computer was an Apple //e, and he's owned nothing but Macs ever since. They have always had the best combination of hardware and software (despite the lean years of the late 1990s). Dr. J. suspects that they will be a success for many years to come. They just need to continue to innovate and not be afraid to introduce a few flops along the way (e.g. the Portable Macintosh, the Newton, etc.) as those flops are prototypes for future successes (e.g. the Macbook and the iPlatform).

Post Script - Dr. J. just saw this editorial on NRO just minutes after completing this blog post. Go read it. Nick Schulz describes in great detail what Dr. J. just waxed on in his concluding sentence. Dr. J. wouldn't want NRO thinking he poached their thoughts.