Civic dumbness marches on

The National Civic Literacy Board issued this year's report on basic civic knowledge for Americans. Students from 50 schools, 14,000 freshman and seniors, were tested. The test itself can be found HERE. Below are test results of the top 19. The quick result: is money and family can't stop you from being stupid.

Of note, the report states, Cornell leads the nation in the negative learning stats - the seniors score lower than the freshman. [Perhaps, brighter one's transfer out.] Its students scored 56%, about the same as Harvard law students bar passage rate in NY when I took the test.

Generally, the higher U.S. News & World Report ranks a college, the lower it ranks here in civic learning. At four colleges U.S. News ranked in its top 12 (Cornell, Yale, Duke, and Princeton), seniors scored lower than freshmen. These colleges are elite centers of “negative learning.” Cornell was the third-worst performer last year and the worst this year.

In fairness to these self-proclaimed great schools, facts are not that important when dealing with how one feels about the earth and the trees and mean Mr. Bush. Two weeks ago, I got a nice cappuccino near Cornell. This study is picky, picky.

I suppose it is scary to realize that Yale is the queen bee of our intelligence community.

The negative learning bespeaks an interesting curriculum for our rich dumb kids who need jobs working for the government right away. Of note, smaller schools and private schools showed the best increase in learning, though the entering students had much lower results than the preppy colleges. Now, how to get the better students to go to schools that actually teach rather than pretend?

Seems like, if you want a good future for your children, is to study the high school choices. Or, better, home school

Here are the grades and, check the site, the questions are not that hard:

1.	Harvard University	69.56%
2.	Grove City College (PA)	67.26
3.	Washington & Lee University (VA)	66.98
4.	Yale University	65.85
5.	Brown University	65.64
6.	University of Virginia	65.28
7.	Wheaton College (IL)	64.98
8.	University of Pennsylvania	63.49
9.	Duke University	63.41
10.	Bowdoin College (ME)	62.86
11.	Princeton University	61.90
12.	University of Notre Dame	61.25
13.	Rhodes College (TN)	61.18
14.	Smith College (MA)	60.07
15.	University of Rochester (NY)*	59.32
16.	University of Wisconsin	57.87
17.	University of Georgia*	57.76
18.	University of North Carolina	57.68
19.	Cornell University	56.95

Here is a good point:

4: Are College Trustees Getting Their Money’s Worth from College Presidents?

Six of the 10 worst-performing colleges also ranked among the top 10 for the salaries they paid their presidents. These include Penn, Cornell, Yale, Princeton, Rutgers and Duke, which paid their presidents $500,000 or more.

I may as well list the best schools for increasing knowledge:

Eastern Connecticut State, one of 25 colleges randomly selected for this year’s survey, was the best performer, increasing civic knowledge by 9.65 points. Rhodes College, which increased civic knowledge by 7.42 points, was the best performer among 18 elite colleges surveyed both this year and last. Rhodes was also the best overall performer last year.

Yeah, but a graduate from Rhodes, wherever that is, won't get a job from a Harvard boss. If you have a child working toward college, consider:

U.S. News & World Report's
"America's Best Colleges"
Grove City College ranked No. 1 Best Value and is consistently in the top ten in its category among comprehensive colleges in America's Best Colleges.

The downside of Grove is that it is a morally and intellectually serious school, a throw back to the 50's and 60's, so you will have trouble selling it to the children of MTV.

America: the new fuedalism

Milton Friedman has written the introduction to several versions of F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.

Hayek's classic was written at the end of WWII for those in England who were fans of collectivism, aka socialism. The book was an argument addressed to socialists as to why they should not follow the path of the great enemies they had just defeated, which was clearly the path the nation wanted to follow.

Friedman's Introduction to the most recent edition had a section that seemed worthy of quoting at the beginning of the next silly season of babbling politicians:

...The fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism behind the Iron Curtain, and the changing character of China have reduced the defenders of Marxian-type collectivism to a small, hard band concentrated in Western universities. Today, there is wide agreement that socialism is a failure, capitalism a success. Yet this apparent conversion of the intellectual community to what might be called a Hayekian view is deceptive. While the talk is about free markets and private property - and it is more respectable than it was a few decades ago to defend near-complete laissez-faire - the bulk of the intellectual community almost automatically favors any expansion of government power so long as it is advertised as a way to protect individuals from big bad corporations, relieve poverty, protect the environment, or promote "equality."

After a few words on how American government is relentless in its growth, only slowed a bit by Reagan,

...Total government spending - federal, state, and local - in the United States hasgone from 25 percent of the national income in 1950 to nearly 45 percents in 1993.

This explosion is more than a percentage boom. During that time the real number value of the economy grew faster than any nation in history.

We let politicians become pushers. They offer us, as individuals or groups, to feed from the trough seemingly funded by the "government." We each forget when we are getting the free lunch at the back door that the government has no largess. It takes money from us and redistributes it, keeping a usurious portion so that the the non-producers who work for it can live well. Our selfishness is the road to serfdom.

Where are we now? (Click here for full story) We are at 50%:

CNN:

Study: Government costs half a year of income

Americans for Tax Reform estimates that 192 days' worth of national income is needed to pay for government spending and regulations this year.

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer

July 12 2007: 1:09 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Amid the ongoing debates about how to reduce the deficit and pay for expensive endeavors such as entitlement and tax reform, one group this week released its analysis of what government costs Americans today.

Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group that opposes tax increases and advocates for a low flat tax, dubbed Wednesday, July 11, "cost of government day" for 2007, two days later than last year and 11 days later than in 2000.

That day is 192 days into the year and is theoretically the number of days it will take Americans to pay (from wages, profits, interest and other income) for all government spending and regulation....

So, think of it this way, you spend half the year working in the fields for the King and Prince. Then you spend 1/4 or more of the year working to pay the (Land) Lord. Throw in the purchase of food, medicine, education and you find yourself visiting Shylock.

Don't bother about thinking about your government and society if you are happy working in the fields so that all you have is a roof. That roof may be showing big returns, on paper, but only if you sign on to spend more time paying the bank. Then again, that roof is losing value every day, now.

The way you get the loan from the bank is to show you are a good and humble serf by submitting your most personal information to a national data base where the key to finding you is your national identity number, you know the Social Security Card that says on it that it will not be used for identification purposes.

Since you cannot opt out of the government's tax and redistribution of your money, as the King will have its thugs arrest you, perhaps, you should pay more attention to what is going on or move to another country.

Either we are America or we are its serfs.

All we have to do is wake from the entitlement daze and realize we are addicted. We don't have to do that as a great movement, merely as individuals who dig in and act in earnest to protect ourselves and to cast out, one by one, the money changers, who are expert at centralizing power. Think about that as the argument begins to create government's largest grab - "free" medical care.

To my mind, if we let government control our bodies, there is no way back to a nation of individuals protected from the government, short of a major depression or war, which certainly will follow as our economy deteriorates and our will to remain the last best hope withers.

Recall last week's story of the British man who cannot get his broken leg reset so he can go back to work (and reduce pain) because the government will not work on him unless he stops smoking. He has tried, but failed, so Big Brother will let him hobble around in pain collecting welfare, as the masses don't like smoking, though they tax it rather than ban it. Boy, it is making a politically righteous statement, isn't it? If that happens here, don't look for me for morning coffee. I will be elsewhere.

Or, I could be wrong, and nothing will ever change and the world is a safe place filled with grace.

Bush Cookies

The following came up in a heated exhange, about 350 F (not the commie C)...


Texas Govenor’s Mansion Cowboy Cookies
From First Lady Laura Bush

{Actually, great cookies}

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1Tablespoon baking powder
1 Tablespoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon Ground cinnamon
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 ½ cups (3 sticks) butter, room temperature (or olive oil margarine)
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 ½ cups packed brown sugar
3 eggs
2 Tablespoons Vanilla (liquid form)
3 cups semisweet dark chocolate chips
3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
2 cups sweetened flake coconut
2 cups chopped pecans (8 ounces)

Instructions
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Bake Time: 17-20 minutes

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Mix Flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a separate smaller bowl.
3. In an 8-quart bowl, (really big bowl) beat butter until smooth and creamy, 1 minute. Gradually beat in sugars; beat to combine, 2 minutes.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Beat in vanilla.
5. Stir in flour mixture until just combined, then add chocolate chips, oats, coconut and pecans and blend gently.
6. Drop large dollop of dough (or slightly less) onto large ungreased baking sheets, 3 inches apart. (Pat it together if it tends to fall apart.)
7. Bake in 350 degree F oven for 17 to 20 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove cookies from cookie sheet, place on clean brown paper to cool. Extremely good!

From the favorite recipes of Foreign Agent Irene Clark-Wolfson Enjoy!

Note from Canada

Irene Wolfson sent a note that easily outlines a blog entry. Irene's comments are in italics.

When you keep up with news outside of the delusional U.S. major media sources, it is hard to get a good night's sleep. Conflict is coming, we will have to act in a big way and will, while most Americans are living in 1967.

Eventually, important events are covered, but they don't get in the way of OJ reports. At least we have grown ups still in the White House and our enemies know that. Hence, their overt and hidden support for all people left.

Irene wrote:

Over recent days: Reported: many engineers/technicians killed in Syria while loading chemical weapons on a scud when it explodes prematurely.

The news of the recent WMD Syrian SNAFU has been mentioned, see below. Also see an article about the 2004 accident (maybe) involving WMD accident. The latest crop of Syrian genius engineers were killed by sarin gas. I will take even money - this explosion was not an accident in light of the recent IDF attack on the nuclear facilities in Syria, also see below. Can Iran be far behind? Americans ignore the obvious in favor of saving "healthy" ice bergs. The events in Syria are the most important news of the summer, unless you went to public school and worry about SUVs and Edward's hair cuts.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:38 p.m. September 19, 2007

LONDON – A Syrian military installation rocked by an explosion in July was being used to develop chemical weapons, and Iranian engineers were among those killed, a defense publication reported Wednesday.

Jane's Defence Weekly said the July 26 explosion took place at the site of a joint Iranian/Syrian project to fit short-range ballistic missiles with chemical warheads. It cited Syrian defense sources as saying it happened during a test to fit a “Scud C” missile with a mustard-gas warhead when fuel caught fire at the production site.

Advertisement

“The blast dispersed chemical agents across the storage facility and outside,” the publication quoted the sources as saying. The chemical agents included VX and Sarin nerve agents and mustard blister agent.

2004: More Syrian engineers dead

Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese Daily, reported on 7th (of May, 2004), "In Ryongchon Blast, Syrian engineers were killed and wounded. A wagon carrying a large cargo had a particularly heavy damage, revealed on 6th (of May, 2004) by a military news source who has great expertise on Korean matters." According to the source, "the content of the cargo is unknown. However, after the accident, N. Korean military personnels in protective suits arrived at the scene, and recovered the remains of the destroyed wagon. We strongly suspect that the accident occurred while transporting a top-secret cargo between N. Korea and Syria."

The paper went on to say, citing the source, "Passengers in the wagon were engineers dispatched from Syria's Scientific Investigation and Research Center(CERS). CERS's goal is promoting science and technology. It is also suspected of a major involvement in the Syria's development of WMD's."

It also reported, "Engineers were in a separate compartment in a wagon from the cargo compartment. It is not clear whether the cargo was the primary source of the explosion or the secondary source after explosion from other wagons. However, it is true that this wagon had the most extensive damage. Close to 10 personnels of both Syrians and N. Koreans were either killed or wounded."

Hamas website calls Rice a "black snake". {More than a web site - it was TV}

On September 18, Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV labeled U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a "black snake."

The phrase is circled in the above image.

Something very unusual happened in Syria when the IDF ran an operation there recently. Nobody is talking.

From The Sunday Times

September 16, 2007

Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’

Secret raid on Korean shipment

BY: Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv, Sarah Baxter in Washington and Michael Sheridan

IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.

At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.

Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea...

-----

Yet. Amahdi-Nejad asks to visit Ground Zero when he comes to the UN next week. (Why is that genocidal maniac allowed in the US?)

This is being covered fully, now. We have to be nice to visiting UN con men by treaty, but only as far as getting them to the UN and hotel. I have no idea why we remain in the U.N. They are like the United Way, a group dedicated to paying themselves while funding whomever they like.

Syria/Iran assassinate yet another Lebanese parliamentarian.

I did see an article in the paper today (not a major paper) with a photo and ominous comments from Lebanon's politicians. Don't know if the TV cares to report on a bad Syria. They will soon, as I suspect Syria is going to be visited from three sides. It will be interesting to see Israel and Lebanon as allies. So far, Syria has done nothing about the attack. I suspect they know their enemies are hoping for them to attack Israel directly, not something cowards do very often.

Russia war games a nuke attack on the US.

3.15pm update Putin orders resumption of strategic bomber flights Fred Attewill and agencies Friday August 17, 2007 Guardian Unlimited 'We have decided to restore flights by Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis,' said Mr Putin. Photograph: Vladimir Rodionov Vladimir Putin today ordered the Russian air force to resume the cold war practice of long-range flights by strategic bombers. "We have decided to restore flights by Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis," the president told reporters at joint military exercises with China and four central Asian states in the Russian Ural mountains. Earlier this month, Russian air force generals said bomber crews had flown near a US military base on the Pacific island of Guam, causing US aircraft to be scrambled to track them. The Pentagon said Russian aircraft had not come close enough to US ships for American planes to react.

(At least GB II was a real fighter pilot.)


And all I saw on Fox whenever I turned it on this week was OJ, OJ, OJ,...... And of course I didn't hear about this (below) from any of the major media. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/09/another_big_dem_donor_scandal.html

{Big time trial lawyer Clinton/Dem operative going to jail.}

Even Fox now fails fabulously in their responsibility to report the news when the nation is in danger. I'm disgusted. It's one of those days.

Irene

Back to the real world

I feel motivated to move on to more pressing matters than my mere existence destroying, as I actually heard on National Geographic special last week, "healthy" glaciers. A scientist, who studies glaciers with binoculars and relies on personal anecdotes, said this is so, as he made believe he was a lone researcher on an Alaskan shore.

Perhaps, my motivations are being directed to the larger, more direct threats of primitive thought by increasing political activity, such as Mrs. Clinton's socialized, undefined, single-payer medicine plan where we will go to the DMV for forced medical care, or Obama's comment that he appreciates American entrepreneurial spririt, but capitalism has really hurt the middle class {those guys who work five month just to pay taxes.]

It is disturbing that candidates do not understand economics or the enumerated powers concept of the U.S. Constitution, but what the hell they are only politicians. Although it is nice that Mr. Obama granted his appreciation, my current interests lie in far more important matters than trying to see through the fog of pseudo socialists.

Rather than deal with the ongoing absurdity of the election/OJ/Spears season, let me turn to Maajid Nawaz. You can Google him or here is a BBC article.

I point out Mr. Nawaz as an example of the danger in the world that Americans seem unable to discern even after 911, Cole, Lebanon, WTC I bombing, blown up jet passengers, and dead Olympians. Mr. Narwaz is an earnest person who, living under the open freedoms of Britain, found himself as a young member of the Party of Liberation, Hizb ut-Tahir. That membership earned him four years in an Egyptian jail for spreading the ideas of the party in that country.

In jail he met Moslem scholars who explained to him that his beliefs, those of the Party, were contrary to the Q'uran. Since returning to Britain, he has defected from Hizb ut-Tahir.

Let me note some keystone assumptions from the Party, from the NYT 9/12/07, (which I picked up in a restaurant, so don't think I actually feed the enemy of western civilization.)

The group, started by a Palestinian judge, believes that a world caliphate must be brought about through whatever means possible. The group believes the first thing to do is is take over the current Moslem countries "even if it means killing millions of people." Such beliefs, Nawaz noted, began in the 1950s.

Nawaz was a successful young recruiter having created a cell of 10 in England, then recruiting 5 more in Denmark.

This former radical is a third generation Pakistani in England. His mother is a banker and his father a retired engineer. Growing up he thought of his religion as a "backward village religion," yet he was radicalized as a young man by a Party member who preyed on his identity conflicts - is he British or Moslem?

When he returned from the Egyptian jail he told his party, "I can't do this anymore." He is not sure of what they will do regarding his defection, but true believers generally like to kill their turn-coats. The group espouses non-violence, but operates in cells! I wish Mr. Nawaz luck.

A quote from a mission statement by the boss of the group:

...For over fifty years Hizb ut-Tahrir has continued on this political path despite the most violent of provocations . We have never advocated re-establishing the Caliphate in Britain but do strongly criticise capitalism and liberal democracy because of the perennial attempts to impose these systems upon the Muslim world, whether by force as in Iraq and Afghanistan, or by coercion attached to aid, loans, political and diplomatic pressure. [Their web site HERE]

I am sure there are many in those "liberal democracies" who avoid criticizing the group. After all it is politically correct to defend the rights of those who want to destroy you. This is especially true if they also hate Mr. Bush. As the Arabs say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In a previous blog, I quoted Carlos the Jackal who expressed the same reasons for using Islamic terrorists as a tool to spread socialist revolution, as though they could control a jihad.

Britain is catching on as there is a movement afoot to ban the group. We don't do that sort of thing, here, after all the U.S. is one of the few places left, as the Russian joke goes, where the Communist Party is legal. It is good not to "ban" any group, as that creates a sub rosa enemy; it is also good to trust in Allah, but first tie up your camel.

My bottom line is that all the white noise of politicians, talking heads and the NYT is of no use. There are things a leader can do, but the increasingly socialist West will not permit leaders to survive in tact. We like the kumbya approach to dealing with world events. If everyone wears crocs, the there will be no more war.

So, what is left is that ordinary people need to understand there is a battle of cultures, of beliefs and logic, afoot and that we are unarmed. We do not even understand our own system, having abandoned the study of civics and social studies. Why, some people think the states have granted to the federal government the power to create a national health system and no critic mentions this weird view! Our understanding of federalism has been purposely muddled in pursuit of national socialism for many years.

We need to understand there is an area to meet Islamic people and work out differences. If they, at least, saw that we are trying to figure out their problem and clear up any major miscalculations, that would help. Of course, they are right that our culture celebrates deviant behavior, child hookers, casual marriage, and self-absorption, so that will be a major problem. Perhaps, we can agree we need to fix ourselves, but that we believe spiritual repair comes from within, not from the sticks of the Taliban.

Short of engaging Moslem individuals, via media especially, the Islamic Governor Deans will continue to fan the embers of fear, hate, and ignorance in order to take control of their criminal enterprise.

It is on the grass-roots level of mutual education that we can avoid a field of battle, that we can suck the power away from the demagogues. Then again, we can't seem to even see them in our own country. We are in big trouble and everyone is looking in the wrong direction.

Some reflection on election

No big deal in this blog. I was just poking around poll sites and thought it would be interesting to revisit recent elections to see if my recollections were right. Here are my guesses in the form of questions. So, this is like a magazine quiz:

1. Who got the most popular votes since 1990? (Come on, in one election)

a. Bush 1,
b. Clinton,
c. Dole (right),
d. Kerry,
e. Bush 2
f. Gore


2. Who was the only candidate to get over 50% of the popular vote? [Hint - it was not a loser]

a. Bush 1,
b. Clinton,
c. Dole (right),
d. Kerry,
e. Bush 2
f. Gore


3. Rank who got the most popular vote (in one election): Gore, Kerry, Clinton?


4. When Clinton beat Bush 1, he got what percent of the popular vote?

a. 51.2
b. 48.3
c. 46.7
d. 44.6
e. 43.0


ANSWERS: 1. e, 2. e, 3. Kerry, Gore, Clinton, 4. 3

I should have looked up voter turn out for fun, but it this is getting too much like work. My gut tells me the turnout was higher in Kerry - Bush.

My database:

2004 Bush/Cheney 62,040,610 50.73; Kerry/Edwards 59,028,439 48.27

200o: 49,819,600 48; 50156783 48.2 (Gore)

1996 Clinton 47,400,125 49.2 DOle,Kemp 39,198755 40.7 Perot 8,085,402 8.4

1990 44,9009,806 43.0 Bush 39104550 37.4 Perot 19,743,821 18.9

Albedo and Climate Change

The New Jersey Institute of Technology has been measuring "earthshine" for a few years. They do this by measuring our affect on the moon's brightness. The jargon to use regarding reflectivity is albedo.

How they do the monitoring is interesting, if you like that sort of thing. They use earth based telescopes etc, which creates some need for care.

On the right is the graph they produced to show earthshine. The assumption under the study is that the shine is a factor of earth's cloud cover. Me, I would throw in sun variance as well, but no matter.

If you notice the graph from 1985 to 1997, you will see a drop in earthshine. What this means, as they say, is that more sunshine hit the earth. Currently, the trend is up, which is to say less sunlight is hitting the earth.

The researchers admit that much more thought is necessary to fully grasp all the ramifications of this information, but they did say it has to be factored into "global warming" analysis.

The correlation between earthshine and earth temperature for the period tracked to 1997 is strongly positive and, as many global warming zealots say, correlation is proof. I heard exactly this just today on the radio from some guy who has written a book on what the earth would be like if all humans vanished.

Scientists would disagree, understanding correlation does not imply causation: hoc ergo propter hoc.

Time will provide a better view of albedo and climate change, as well as many other brand-new research methods, but, of course, we don't have time as it is the end of the world, unless its not. If the correlation remains strong, if the earth's temperature is decreasing since 1998, that would be a strong indicator of a relationship which should be researched.