Mark Twain, who had covered Congress as a reporter, once quipped:
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.*
Our friend and correspondent Jim Kessler writes of a run-in he had with the staff of Congressman Peter King (Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee):
Rep. Peter T. King: Are "idiot" and "congressman" redundant?
A day or two ago Congressman King said that we owed the knowledge of who/where the courier that we used to get to bin Laden to Bush’s waterboarding.
And because I’m a general pain in the ass to Republicans I called his office and asked the person who answered if he was standing by that statement. She said yes. So then I asked “So…that means the Bush
administration knew how to get to bin Laden for years and didn’t do so? Does that mean we can prosecute them for knowingly endangering the country?” Her response was, and I kid you not, “I don’t think you
passed geometery class.”
My response was “What does math have to do with this?”
Her response: “Geometery isn’t math.”
My response was: “Yes it is. Go ask a math professor. Perhaps next time before you try and act condescending to someone by acting like you’re smarter then them you should actually make sure you’re smarter then them rather then being stupidly arrogant?”
That’s when she hung up on me.
I’m considering writing an editorial to whatever paper is in King’s district where I point out that his staff apparently hasn’t passed high school level math.
I’m not reassured that Congressmen don’t appear to have gotten a lot smarter in the more than 150 years since Twain reported on them.
* Attributed to Twain, supposedly in a writing, A Biography. I haven’t confirmed where it is, though I’m pretty sure he actually said it.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
CertificationMap.com, the group that tracks what is required to get a teaching certificate in each of the 50 states, also does information graphics from time to time.
Got this one from them today: A map on how states are spending less on education in 2010 than in 2009.
The map should change dramatically when 2011 is taken into account. This map shows $15 billion less being spent on schools nationwide. Texas proposes to cut another $3 billion from spending in Texas alone for 2011.
This is a map of the War on Education in the U.S. It shows that education, and the U.S., are losing the war.
Click here for larger version of map, "Is Your State Short-Changing Schools?"
For the blog at CertificationMap.com, there is a call for stories about cutting the funds for education:
Are you a teacher, parent or student who has been short-changed by your school? Send us your story at YourStory@CertificationMap.com by Friday, May 13th. In an effort to remind people that the choices we make now will influence our children tomorrow, we’ll be spending Friday the 13th reposting horror stories that illustrate how failing to make education a priority is ultimately failing our own futures.
As with global warming, we now have denialists in education issues, those who deny the rising tide of mediocrity, and a few who cheer the rise.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Perhaps the U.S. should celebrate the day, too, at least in those states who were not in the old Confederacy. On May 5, 1862, Mexicans under the command of 33 year old Commander General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín stopped the quick advance of superior French forces trying to invade Mexico to take it over, at the Battle of Puebla. While France did eventually defeat Mexican forces (after getting 30,000 men in reinforcements), the spirit of May 5 inspired Mexicans to continue to fight for freedom. And ultimately, Mexican forces overpowered and captured the French forces and Emperor Maximilian, who was executed.
Thus ended a great hope for the Confederacy, that French-supported Mexican Army would lend aid to the Confederates in their struggle to secede from the Union.
It is one of the great what-ifs of history: What if France had kept Mexico, and what if French-led Mexican forces backed up the Confederate Army?
One thing is rather sure: Had that happened, and had the Confederacy been successful, we wouldn’t be celebrating Cinco de Mayo in Texas today.
Update: Sam DeBerry sends a note that Seguin was a Texan. So the Mexican hero of the Battle of Puebla was a Texan. You couldn’t make this stuff up — real history is always more interesting than fiction.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Is this the last manual typewriter ever to be made?
The Prima, from Godrej & Boyce; in India, the last company making manual typewriters is closing down
According to the Daily Mail:
It’s an invention that revolutionised the way we work, becoming an essential piece of office equipment for the best part of a century.
But after years of sterling service, that bane for secretaries has reached the end of the line.
Godrej and Boyce – the last company left in the world that was still manufacturing typewriters – has shut down its production plant in Mumbai, India with just a few hundred machines left in stock.
Although typewriters became obsolete years ago in the west, they were still common in India – until recently. Demand for the machines has sunk in the last ten years as consumers switch to computers.
The company’s general manager, Milind Dukle, told India’s Business Standard newspaper: ‘We are not getting many orders now.
‘From the early 2000s onwards, computers started dominating. All the manufacturers of office typewriters stopped production, except us.
‘Till 2009, we used to produce 10,000 to 12,000 machines a year. But this might be the last chance for typewriter lovers. Now, our primary market is among the defence agencies, courts and government offices.’
The company is now down to its last 200 machines – the majority of which are Arabic language models.
The firm began production in the 1950s – when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru described the typewriter as a symbol of India’s emerging independence and industrialisation. It was still selling 50,000 models annually in the early 1990s, but last year it sold less than 800 machines.
The first commercial typewriter was produced in the U.S. in 1867 and by the turn of the century had developed into the standardised format – including a qwerty’ keyboard – that we know today.
With Ben Franklin’s bust looking on, National Commission on Excellence in Education met with President Ronald Reagan, in the White House (image from Lawrence-Berkeley Laboratories and Glenn Seaborg)
[2015 update: Here’s something to ponder about wonders of technology in education: If the internet is so good, what happened to the history of the Excellence in Education Commission, and this now-missing photo, above?]
Secretary of Education Terrel Bell, President Ronald Reagan, David Gardner, White House, Washington, DC, 1983—Photo courtesy of The White House; Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California – Berkeley (Click photo to link to a list of resources on the commission) (Photo added January 16, 2015)
“Our nation is at risk. The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament. History is not kind to idlers.”
Those warnings, grim and intentionally provocative, were issued last week by the 18-member National Commission on Excellence in Education in a 36-page report called A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Headed by University of Utah President David P. Gardner, the NCEE was set up 20 months ago by Secretary of Education Terrel Bell to examine U.S. educational quality.
This is an encore post from 2007 — we probably need to repeat this more often. Milton Goldberg, the executive director of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, and Commission Chairman David P. Gardner probably wrote that paragraph. It should be engraved over the doors of the administration buildings of every school district in America, I think.
Alas, it’s still true. It’s more true now, with the full-bore War on Education waged by people like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, aided, sometimes intentionally but sometimes not, by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and people like Michelle Rhee.
I predict Orly Taitz, Donald Trump, and all the other sideshow freaks and carnival barkers, will continue to bark away. Remember, when P. T. Barnum made a copy of the hoax “Cardiff Giant,” people paid a premium to see the fake of the hoax. P. T. Barnum’s ghost stalks and stomps on Republican and birther grounds now.
Boy, looking at this, you gotta know that Obama planned this all out, as Morgan claimed in comments below — just so he could get this story from Juan Williams and Shepard Smith at Fox News:
How many times have you heard the promise: The president could end this today if he’d just release his long form birth certificate? So now they’ve got the f—ing long form birth certificate, is it done for the Birthers?
Bigots. Probably no small amount of racism in there, too. Plus, they’ve exposed themselves as genuinely opposed to America’s good health. David Gardner and Milton Goldstein pegged it, even if we have to paraphrase them a bit: Had a foreign government tried to do what the birthers are doing, we’d have considered it an act of war. History is not kind to idlers, those who fail to call out injustice, nor idiots.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Firefighters, mostly, come from small town, volunteer fire departments. Most of the affected towns are too small to be able to afford a larger, professional fire-fighting department.
Gov. Rick Perry’s mathematical errors cost Texas $27 billion, a shortfall that Republicans propose to make up by cutting to the bone, and deeper, education programs, road building and maintenance, aid to the poor, and police and fire departments.
Yes, in the middle of one of the biggest fire disasters in Texas history, Rick Perry and the Texas Lege propose to cut the funding to the fire fighters.
If they don’t cut funding, they would have to roll back tax cuts to wealthy property owners granted six years ago, or dip into the states $9 billion “rainy day” fund.
Gov. Perry does have one other trick up his sleeve to help victims of the fires: He’s asked Texans to pray for rain. Fire departments need equipment, people and training, all of which cost money. Gov. Perry asks for prayers instead.
Gov. Perry Issues Proclamation for Days of Prayer for Rain in Texas
Thursday, April 21, 2011 • Austin, Texas • Proclamation
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME:
WHEREAS, the state of Texas is in the midst of an exceptional drought, with some parts of the state receiving no significant rainfall for almost three months, matching rainfall deficit records dating back to the 1930s; and
WHEREAS, a combination of higher than normal temperatures, low precipitation and low relative humidity has caused an extreme fire danger over most of the State, sparking more than 8,000 wildfires which have cost several lives, engulfed more than 1.8 million acres of land and destroyed almost 400 homes, causing me to issue an ongoing disaster declaration since December of last year; and
WHEREAS, these dire conditions have caused agricultural crops to fail, lake and reservoir levels to fall and cattle and livestock to struggle under intense stress, imposing a tremendous financial and emotional toll on our land and our people; and
WHEREAS, throughout our history, both as a state and as individuals, Texans have been strengthened, assured and lifted up through prayer; it seems right and fitting that the people of Texas should join together in prayer to humbly seek an end to this devastating drought and these dangerous wildfires;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICK PERRY, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas. I urge Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on that day for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal way of life.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto signed my name and have officially caused the Seal of State to be affixed at my Office in the City of Austin, Texas, this the 21st day of April, 2011.
O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
It is a mark of what the internet lacks that I could find just one quick copy of this cartoon on my first search. All of Kelly’s work should be available, but it’s largely missing from internet searches. I’m sure this is still under copyright, but I haven’t yet found the information.
You could write it off to pareidolia, once. Like faces in clouds, some people claimed to see a link. The first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, coincided with Lenin’s birthday. There was no link — Earth Day was scheduled for a spring Wednesday. Now, years later, with almost-annual repeats of the claim from the braying right wing, it’s just a cruel hoax.
No, there’s no link between Earth Day and the birthday of V. I. Lenin:
One surefire way to tell an Earth Day post is done by an Earth Day denialist: They’ll note that the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, was an anniversary of the birth of Lenin.
Coincidentally, yes, Lenin was born on April 22 (new style calendar; it was April 10 on the calendar when he was born — but that’s a digression for another day).
It’s a hoax. There is no meaning to the first Earth Day’s falling on Lenin’s birthday — Lenin was not prescient enough to plan his birthday to fall in the middle of Earth Week, a hundred years before Earth Week was even planned.
My guess is that only a few really wacko conservatives know that April 22 is Lenin’s birthday (was it ever celebrated in the Soviet Union?). No one else bothers to think about it, or say anything about it, nor especially, to celebrate it.
Inventor of Earth Day teach-ins, former Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson
Senator Nelson chose the date in order to maximize participation on college campuses for what he conceived as an “environmental teach-in.” He determined the week of April 19–25 was the best bet; it did not fall during exams or spring breaks, did not conflict with religious holidays such as Easter or Passover, and was late enough in spring to have decent weather. More students were likely to be in class, and there would be less competition with other mid-week events—so he chose Wednesday, April 22.
After President Kennedy’s [conservation] tour, I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called “teach-ins,” had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me – why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?
I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.
At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air – and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of my Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of my Senate office.
Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:
“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’…coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned….”
Nelson, a veteran of the U.S. armed services (Okinawa campaign), flag-waving ex-governor of Wisconsin (Sen. Joe McCarthy’s home state, but also the home of Aldo Leopold and birthplace of John Muir), was working to raise America’s consciousness and conscience about environmental issues.
Lenin on the environment? Think of the Aral Sea disaster, the horrible pollution from Soviet mines and mills, and the dreadful record of the Soviet Union on protecting any resource. Lenin believed in exploiting resources, not conservation.
So, why are all these conservative denialists claiming, against history and politics, that Lenin’s birthday has anything to do with Earth Day?
Wall of Lenin’s Birthday Propaganda Shame from 2010:
David Zeimer, writing in The Wisconsin Law Journal (This guy is particularly nutty. He notes the successes of cleaning up the air and water in and around Milwaukee, and then claims that clean air and water are false goals. Nuts.)
One of the ways you know Earth Day is innocently timed is that the FBI investigated it; in 1970, the FBI investigated hippies, but not organized crime. Go figure.
Don Surber may be as nutty as Zeimer, above — he notes words of concern from 1970, then dismisses the progress that resulted because people worked to change things; clean air is bad, to him, I guess
San Jacinto Day is April 21. Texas history classes at Texas middle schools should be leading ceremonies marking the occasion — but probably won’t since it’s coming at the end of a week of federally-requested, state required testing.
Surrender of Santa Anna, painting by William Henry Huddle (1890); property of Texas State Preservation Board. The painting depicts Santa Anna being brought before a wounded Sam Houston, to surrender.
How could Houston’s group have been so effective against a general who modeled himself after Napolean, with a large, well-running army? In the 1950s a story came out that Santa Anna was distracted from battle. Even as he aged he regarded himself as a great ladies’ man — and it was a woman who detained the Mexican general in his tent, until it was too late to do anything but steal an enlisted man’s uniform and run.
The San Jacinto Monument is 15 feet taller than the Washington Monument. Texas tourism brochure photo
Jerome Corsi, that serial fictionalizer of vital issues, has a book out promoting his slimy schemes besmirch President Obama. Goddard urges people to buy it.
But they really pile on in the comments. It’s almost as if Casey Luskin had a whole family just like himself, and they got together to whine about Judge Roberts again.
Warming denialism, creationism and birthers — is it all just three minor variations on the same brain-sucking virus? Or could three different diseases produce the same sort of crazy on so many different issues?
I’m reminded of the old saw that you cannot reason a person out of a position he didn’t reach by reason. These guys will never see the light. Heaven knows, it ain’t evidence that gets ’em where they are now.
Every once in a while a factoid crosses the desk and/or mind of an otherwise badly-informed person who denies global warming is a problem, and without bothering to check the significance of the factoid, the denialist world ramps up The Crazy Rant.
Former AGW poster child Lake Powell water levels have been rising rapidly over the last few years.
Goddard’s claim is a grand example of the triumph of ignorance over experience, science, data, history and the law, in discussions of climate change.
Did Goddard read his own chart? It shows a decline in lake level from 2010.
Goddard’s own chart shows a decline in Lake Powell’s March 20 level, from 2010; did he look at the chart? Even Goddard’s source says, “Lake Powell is 89.99 feet below Full Pool (Elevation 3,700).”
“Full pool” level is 3,700 feet elevation (the height of the surface of Lake Powell above sea level). Goddard’s chart shows the lake hasn’t been at that level since 2000 (and it was declining for some time prior to that). Goddard’s chart shows four years of rise compared to seven years of decline.
In the Upper Colorado River Basin during water year 2010, the overall precipitation accumulated through September 30, 2010 was approximately 90% of average based on the 30 year average for the period from 1971 through 2000. For Water Year 2011 thus far, the estimated monthly precipitation within the Upper Colorado River Basin (above Lake Powell) as a percentage of average has been: (October – 135%, November – 95%, December – 225%, January – 50%, February – 100%, March – 90%)
The Climate Prediction Center outlook (dated March 17, 2010) for temperature over the next 3 months indicates that temperatures in the Upper Colorado River Basin are expected to be above average while precipitation over the next 3 months is projected to be near average in the northern reaches of the basin while below average in the southern reaches of the basin.
Upper Colorado River Basin Drought
The Upper Colorado River Basin continues to experience a protracted multi-year drought. Since 1999, inflow to Lake Powell has been below average in every year except water years 2005 and 2008. In the summer of 1999, Lake Powell was close to full with reservoir storage at 23.5 million acre-feet, or 97 percent of capacity. During the next 5 years (2000 through 2004) unregulated inflow to Lake Powell was well below average. This resulted in Lake Powell storage decreasing during this period to 8.0 million acre-feet (33 percent of capacity) which occurred on April 8, 2005. During 2005, 2008 and 2009, drought conditions eased somewhat with near or above average inflow conditions and net gains in storage to Lake Powell. 2011 will be another above average inflow year so drought conditions are easing somewhat in the Colorado River Basin. As of April 18, 2011 the storage in Lake Powell was approximately 12.73 million acre-feet (52.3 % of capacity) which is below desired levels. The overall reservoir storage in the Colorado River Basin as of April 18, 2011 is approximately 31.40 million acre-feet (52.8 % of capacity).
Updated: April 19, 2011
“Desert mirage,” editorial discussion of Lake Powell’s climate-change-fueled dropping levels threatening a water project for St. George, Utah, with discussion of U.S. Research Council report on future levels of Lake Powell; Salt Lake Tribune, January 6, 2010. “Lake Powell’s current water level is 59 percent of capacity. The lake level, around 20 million acre-feet in 2000, dropped to about 8 million acre-feet by 2005. Water levels rebounded a bit over the next two years, but the U.S. National Research Council predicted in 2007 that the American West could see worse droughts in the future than the one Utahns experienced from 1998 to 2005. In fact, the early 20th century, when the Colorado compact was negotiated, was an anomaly, a relatively wet period for an otherwise historically much drier area.”
BuRec says very large snow pack is enough to avert shortages in the Lower Colorado, this year — but the drought continues: “The Colorado River Basin has experienced historic drought, and while this winter’s snowpack will benefit river flows, we cannot say that the drought is over,” cautioned Commissioner Connor. “Given the potential for extended dry years, and the effects of climate change on snowpack and runoff in the Colorado Basin, we must continue to work with the states, tribes and other stakeholders in the Basin to meet the water needs in the future.”
New York Times Green Blog, “A reprieve for Western Water users”; “What if this year is an anomaly — not like the year 1983, a gusher of a rain year that was followed by four more fat years, but like the other above-normal years that came and went in the last decade without really denting the impact of the long-term drought?”
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
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