Today's Links and Minifeatures 2005 07 29 Friday

Sorry about no Daily Links yesterday. I ended up helping my brother get ready to move to Washington state.

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There is an actual RPG Carnival starting up! They are accepting submissions now, the first one will appear Monday. Go here for details. I really need to game more often.



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John Roberts Supreme Court stuff:



William Kristol has a good column worth reading in The Weekly Standard on the creation of a Constitutionalist Court.



Terry Eastland has another column on Robert's application of judicial restraint. I keep learning more about this guy, and I like what I keep learning. He seems to be a moderate conservative.



Scrappleface certainly has the correct answer to those senators requesting private documents on Roberts.



Powerline reports on a press conference that may put Hillary on the horns of a dilemma. Captain's Quarters has more depth on the subject.



Eugene Volokh debunks a hit piece.



Tim Blair has a suggestion for the Democratic Senators.



SCT Nomination Blog has more on Robert's writings.



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I keep doing search engine stuff for more China/Taiwan news and not getting anything new and significant. At least two possibilities exist. The 'nuclear weapons' theme was a bluff, or it was deadly serious, is now flying under he radar, and we'll get a rude surprise when the Chinese government is ready.



Here is one article. Consider the source is Taiwanese, of course. It's still a few lines worth reading. Taiwan has had transfers of power due to democratic elections.



Here's something of a basic background to those not familiar, and here's a pdf summary of the strategic situation in terms that are about as neutral as I can find. I don't agree with everything there, but I'm forced to concede the author probably has a better understanding than I do. And here's something of political interest.







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This guy seems to be a real-life counterpart to Tommy, except that fictional Tommy had more clues to go by. Wow.



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Iraq and War on Terror



Little Green Footballs tells us the American Islamic Leaders fatwa against terrorism is bogus, and those promoting this pravda have been linked to terrorist organizations themselves. (heavy sigh) And I was so happy to see it, too (see my article here.) HT to LGF also for The Muslim mind is on fire, which shows that some Muslims "get it".



Victor Davis Hanson has more.



Mohammed at Iraq the Model has his own take worth reading.



Indepundit has one heck of a round-up of stuff. Go read it. I'll wait.



Dean's World pokes holes in Juan Cole. Not that that's difficult, or anything, but Dean does a good job.



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Powerline also takes us to President Bush's improvement on Kyoto, which Clinton didn't submit to the senate but somehow the blame ended up with George Bush who didn't take office until almost four years later, the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (use Bug Me Not to log in).



Let me get this straight. So the environmentalists blame Bush for Clinton failing ratify Kyoto, then Bush goes out and negotiates something better. To quote Powerline, however, I don't suppose President Bush is holding his breath, waiting for the crowd to start applauding.



Captain's Quarters has more on Bush's second term successes.



Chrenkoff has more.



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Michelle Malkin has wonderful roundup of the Air America financial scandal. The level of hypocrisy is amazing. Can you imagine the fallout if any other corporation took money tagged for Boys and Girls clubs, they'd be under indictment and out of business because no one would do business with them. "But we're liberals, not like that awful Halliburton. Don't blame us." Give me a break. Go rent a clue. The fact is that your organization got the money. When you purchased it, you should either have 1) paid the money out of sale proceeds, 2) required it be paid back as a condition of the transaction, or 3) paid it back yourself. See the Eeevil McDonalds Corporation you so despise for an example of how to do it right.



Captain's Quarters has more.



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For all I publish against uncontrolled or illegal immigration, I want to draw a sharp line between that and legal, controlled immigration. Indepundit directs me to a Michael Yon article on some very welcome new citizens. Welcome aboard - you've more than earned it!



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Mike's Noise has a worthwhile article on the shuttle foam which has caused so much difficulty. If it were corporations making a profit, this would be grounds for a wrongful death suit on behalf of the Columbia's crew families. Seven people are dead, but the ozone layer is a couple of litres bigger!



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Yemen Stuff:



Politburo Diktat has a link to an Amnesty International petition. I think the possibility of it helping is worth two minutes of your time. A 14 year old boy in prison being denied a doctor?



While I was thinking of it, I went over to Armies of Liberation and more stuff on the unrest there.





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aTypical Joe makes a point that cannot be made too often. Watchful Investor makes a slightly different one.



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Fearless Philosophy has a worthwhile series of posts, What Rights Do Children Have?of which Part III pertains to education. I want to highlight one section:

While I would say the most important skills for an individual to learn is literacy and mathematics and would agree that schools are not doing a very good job teaching these vital subjects, education must not end with literacy and mathematics. Education must adapt to the new challenges of the 21st Century world in which we live. Behind literacy and mathematics, every student should learn how to reason and think for themselves (critical thinking). Once a child has a basis for these three very basic skills, he or she can then learn about health, science, history, technology, etc.

I have to say that there is a fallacy here. Mathematics and Literature, properly taught, do teach reasoning skills far better than anything else. I'm not necessarily talking about x+y=z, x-y=2z type of problems here. I'm talking about word problems, which teach one more about real world reasoning than all the arithmetic problems in all the textbooks of the world. They're the litmus test of whether you "get it". Speaking as someone with a fair amount of mathematical background, the number of times I saw mathematics taught right, from kindergarten to dozens of college level courses, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I had a teacher who consistently taught mathematics well. These skills extend the sciences where you learn how to design experiments for what you need to know based upon what you can measure, and I can only name two teachers (both in high school - one physics, one electronics. None of the undergrad physics courses I took, which included an honors level starting sequence) who made a habit of teaching in this manner. Furthermore, it extends to literacy as well. If you make a habit of requiring essays on the issues, and grade upon how rationally and globally you deal with the issues, whether you address evidence for the other side, use examples, avoid logical fallacies, and so on, and not whether the conclusion you reach agrees with your instructor, you have further extended this into the real world. Despite Honors level courses in high school and several more in college, I cannot remember one instructor who came anywhere close to this ideal, or even pretended to. I'm probably lucky I had those few in mathematics and the sciences, but that's how all the teachers should be. I had one teacher in high school who was named National Teacher of The Year for designing a "politically correct" US History of Minorities course that didn't pretend to be balanced. Political Indoctrination has become so much a part of the game that the teachers expect to be able to do it, now even more so then was the case in the 70's when I went to high school. They expect to be praised, paid, and promoted because of it. The heresy, of course, is for someone else to be able to do it, or for people who get degrees in "education" not to be able to.



(Is it just me, or does it seem like every university education department in the country exists to politically indoctrinate young people while they've still got an effective threat "Parrot my line or you'll never get a job teaching!")



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Louisiana Libertarian has a wonderful article on the Senate locking the barn door while the horse runs out the back. Seems people want to ban pseudoephedrine, which can be and is used to make methamphetamine in street labs. But "Under pressure from law enforcement agencies and state governments, drug companies have begun reformulating popular cold medicines to prevent criminals from converting them into methamphetamine." This may happen as early as next year! But you know our Senate - instead of encouraging or even requiring the reformulation, they're going to pass a law requiring all purchasers to admit to their purchases of cold medicines.



links blogging John Roberts Supreme Court China Taiwan iraq terrrorism environment Kyoto Air America immigration shuttle space Yemen real estate education politics