Global Warming and the Age of the Earth

Ahh, finally, the Swiss contribute something good.
While the scientific community refuses to acknowledge even the possibility (this goes against basic scientific principles of freedom of inquiry) of the existence of a being greater than man, "scientific findings" will continue to push man closer to this idea. One set of ancient writings might just be the closest they will get to an explanation on origins.

American Exceptionalism

Why are we such creatures of provencial nature? We make allegiances to our towns, our counties, our state, our region, our old haunts, our schools, our teams, etc. Is it simply because we don't see a bigger picture? Or is it our nature? All of the above divide us, and I haven't even mentioned "politics and religion."
Getting back to the idea of nature, depending on your cosmonogy, there would surface several "nature" explanations. But that is another post. Back to the point. Personnally, I have held that, while America is the best place in the world to live, it has plenty of faults. It has literally 2 histories. 1 is a history of democracy, kindness, giving, never-say-die attitude. The other is a bloody history of using religion to justify greedy expansion, rebellion, and all-around debauchery. I want to know both histories, always have. Bummer is, history is written by the winners, and the winners always candy-coat the thing. The losers are always sore-losers and shade it their way. How do you pick out the truth? Ultimately, you have to have your best guess. Here is an article that is one person's best guess. I found it interesting, but again, I am no slave or victim to what has happened in the past, so I don't feel some kind of collective guilt about what America has done. That doesnt' solve anything.
The point is, while I am glad I am an American, I want to be careful I don't try to rationalize everything Americans do.

Tech Dissappointment

Most who know me well, know that I am a gadget enthusiast (whatever) and that I prefer PocketPC to Palm, Microsoft to Mac, etc. I just lost my last phone, so I decided to take the plunge, but to do so, I had to cross the line. The only Smartphone that Verizon has is the Audiovox xv6600 . I realize there are others on the list, but that is the closest to being a real, bonafide, PDA/Phone/Camera in the PocketPC world. In addition to that it has bluetooth. Now most people would say, "Hey, that's dandy!" and be satisfied. No, I want Microsoft compatibility, bluetooth, Wifi, phone, intuitive commands, and a stable platform. I thought about the Audiovox, but I was scared away by the battery life, the lack of Wifi (this is huge), and the dropped calls the other folks I know who have it have talked about.
So I did the unthinkable for a PocketPC nut. I bought a Treo 650 . I'll have to admit, it is a very nice phone. It is very intuitive in its design. It beats a Blackberry hands down on looks, service-ability, power, camera, web-browsing, speakerphone, simplicity, and size. Because it runs on a regular server, there is no proprietary server hardware (Like Blackberry for multiple users in a company), this makes the Treo more expensive as a unit, but far more economic for a business user with multiple users. Unfortunately, the Treo has no Wifi, but I still will use my old standby pocket pc for that and spreadsheets and Word docs. But those who also know me well, know that I have the poorest timing in the world.
Hence, literally the day I get the Treo from my network administrator, this pops up on the geek alert, Verizon is finally getting their act together, maybe.
How annoying. This is after I have a conversation with a Verizon key accounts rep and straight up tell him what I want and ask if it is on the way. So, now I'll swallow my PocketPC pride in my investment in the Treo and use it for a couple of years, till I kill it too, then I'll be able to upgrade. Hopefully then Verizon will be ready.

Mandiamo - a meal with de Victor

Mandiamo is "Let's eat" in Italian and you can't just say it unless you really have something deliciouso (or whatever).
First course:
Salata, fresh young mozarella balls, olive oil-soaked red bell peppers, Prosciutto, genoa salami
Second Course:
Calamari and Shrimp antipasta with a dash of spices
Third Course:
Rolé - That little dash sign above the "e", gives a touch of class to something that fits the definition of "A Taste of the Old Country." Mama Agostino was in the kitchen and made it special for "de Victor." Vic D. is an unimposing man, but his hospitality, loyalty, and kindness fill the room. But back to the food. As far as I could tell, Rolé is made from a lasagna pasta that wasn't cut with a fluted pasta wheel. Simply, the noodle is cooked, then layed out. A mixture of freshly grated mozarella and a creamy marinara sauce was spread across the pasta, then rolled. It must have cooked like that, then Mama must have stood it on end and covered it in more of the marinara and served us. With the delectable smell magnified by the visual of the steam, we didn't waste any time.
Add to that, the house recommendation Luce red wine, Toscana, 1998, Della Vita. It carried a strong, earthy, musky tasted, that fit the richness of the Rolé (it must be capitalized, it was that good). When that bottle was finished, we went to Luce's little cousin, Lucita, similar earthiness, and a good way to end a good meal.
We were too full for dessert, so a cappucino had to suffice.
Many thanks to our friend Victor, our gracious host at Agostino's.

New Tech Geeks Links

I am going to start a Tech Geeks Links sidebar as well. Some people obsess about their blog, Blackfairy, Mac, Ipod, etc. and occasionally, I just want to read about some of the new stuff and laugh at them.
This is a link that a child of the 80's and 90's will appreciate immensely. While it isn't good for a laugh-till-you-cry kind of thing, it is that knee slappin', hearty chuckle type of laugh that should grip you.
Nintendo Obsession

School Choice Showdown

Doesn't really give the studies it sites, so I tend to downplay the weight of an article that does that, but it does point out relevant ideas.

School Choice Showdown
June 6, 2005; Page A10
The school choice movement enters middle age this year, a half-century after economist Milton Friedman came up with the idea of vouchers to improve schools and empower parents. Most school-choice programs, however, are still in their infancy and fighting to survive.
So it's worth noting that this month marks a legal showdown for the nation's only statewide school-voucher program. The Florida Supreme Court will hear oral argument tomorrow in a case that could pull hundreds of mostly minority children out of the only decent schools they've ever known.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that vouchers are constitutional, the legal battleground has shifted to the states, with teachers unions as ever leading the charge against them. The lawyer making the anti-voucher case before the court tomorrow goes to Tallahassee courtesy of the National Education Association in Washington. As the Florida fight shows, opponents would rather leave children struggling in dead-end schools than accept any kind of voucher, no matter how limited.
The standard rap against vouchers is that they'll end up only in the hands of gifted children or the kids of involved parents, leaving the hard cases behind. Not so in Florida. To qualify for an "Opportunity Scholarship," a child must attend a public school that has failed state evaluations for two out of four years. Of the 700 vouchers awarded in the school year that just ended, 61% went to African-American children and 33% went to Hispanics. Vouchers may be used at any accredited school in the state, public or private, secular or religious. In 2003-04, 25% of vouchers were used at schools with religious affiliations.
It's probably no coincidence that 56% of African-American fourth-graders are reading at grade level today compared with 23% in 1999, the year Opportunity Scholarships were introduced. Several academic studies show that vouchers also help children without vouchers since the threat of losing students creates a competitive atmosphere that boosts the quality of public schools.
Opponents argue that Florida's program violates the state Constitution's ban on aid to religious schools -- a prohibition found in many state constitutions that has its roots in the notorious anti-Catholic Blaine Amendments of the later 19th century. But the Florida Supreme Court has ruled in the past that state money can flow to religious institutions so long as it is directed there by the recipient -- for example, an elderly person who selects a church-run nursing home.
If the high court rules against the Opportunity Scholarships, many other state programs will be at risk, including tuition aid for 15,000 handicapped children, scholarships for 200,000 community college and university students, and a new pre-school program set to begin in August that will cover up to 145,000 toddlers. In every case participants can decide whether to use their aid at religious or non-religious organizations.
The title of Mr. Friedman's famous 1955 essay on school choice was "The Role of Government in Education," and the operative sentence was this: "Governments could require a minimum level of education which they could finance by giving parents vouchers redeemable for a specified maximum sum per child per year if spent on 'approved' educational services."
The Nobel laureate and his wife and fellow economist, Rose, will be honored in New York on June 22 for their 50 years of work on school choice. A favorable ruling by the Florida court would be a fitting tribute to them, but even better for America's children.

URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111800968335351231,00.html

Free to Choose, Milton Friedman

Introduction - Occasionally, I will post articles I have read that are relevant to my personal circumstances or something I am interested in. I can't just type in the link to this, because it is from the Journal, and you would have to register to read it. He definitely gives some weight to an argument, although I am concerned how it would affect the poorest school districts. Do you then say, "Well, you can't take care of them all...you just need to get who is willing"?

Free to Choose
By MILTON FRIEDMAN June 9, 2005; Page A16
Little did I know when I published an article in 1955 on "The Role of Government in Education" that it would lead to my becoming an activist for a major reform in the organization of schooling, and indeed that my wife and I would be led to establish a foundation to promote parental choice. The original article was not a reaction to a perceived deficiency in schooling. The quality of schooling in the United States then was far better than it is now, and both my wife and I were satisfied with the public schools we had attended. My interest was in the philosophy of a free society. Education was the area that I happened to write on early. I then went on to consider other areas as well. The end result was "Capitalism and Freedom," published seven years later with the education article as one chapter.
With respect to education, I pointed out that government was playing three major roles: (1) legislating compulsory schooling, (2) financing schooling, (3) administering schools. I concluded that there was some justification for compulsory schooling and the financing of schooling, but "the actual administration of educational institutions by the government, the 'nationalization,' as it were, of the bulk of the 'education industry' is much more difficult to justify on [free market] or, so far as I can see, on any other grounds." Yet finance and administration "could readily be separated. Governments could require a minimum of schooling financed by giving the parents vouchers redeemable for a given sum per child per year to be spent on purely educational services. . . . Denationalizing schooling," I went on, "would widen the range of choice available to parents. . . . If present public expenditure were made available to parents regardless of where they send their children, a wide variety of schools would spring up to meet the demand. . . . Here, as in other fields, competitive enterprise is likely to be far more efficient in meeting consumer demand than either nationalized enterprises or enterprises run to serve other purposes."
Though the article, and then "Capitalism and Freedom," generated some academic and popular attention at the time, so far as we know no attempts were made to introduce a system of educational vouchers until the Nixon administration, when the Office of Economic Opportunity took up the idea and offered to finance the actual experiments. One result of that initiative was an ambitious attempt to introduce vouchers in the large cities of New Hampshire, which appeared to be headed for success until it was aborted by the opposition of the teachers unions and the educational administrators -- one of the first instances of the oppositional role they were destined to play in subsequent decades. Another result was an experiment in California's Alum Rock school system involving a choice of schools within a public system.
What really led to increased interest in vouchers was the deterioration of schooling, dating in particular from 1965 when the National Education Association converted itself from a professional association to a trade union. Concern about the quality of education led to the establishment of the National Commission of Excellence in Education, whose final report, "A Nation at Risk," was published in 1983. It used the following quote from Paul Copperman to dramatize its own conclusion:
"Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy, and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents."
"A Nation at Risk" stimulated much soul-searching and a whole series of major attempts to reform the government educational system. These reforms, however extensive or bold, have, it is widely agreed, had negligible effect on the quality of the public school system. Though spending per pupil has more than doubled since 1970 after allowing for inflation, students continue to rank low in international comparisons; dropout rates are high; scores on SATs and the like have fallen and remain flat. Simple literacy, let alone functional literacy, in the United States is almost surely lower at the beginning of the 21st century than it was a century earlier. And all this is despite a major increase in real spending per student since "A Nation at Risk" was published.
* * *
One result has been experimentation with such alternatives as vouchers, tax credits, and charter schools. Government voucher programs are in effect in a few places (Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, the District of Columbia); private voucher programs are widespread; tax credits for educational expenses have been adopted in at least three states and tax credit vouchers (tax credits for gifts to scholarship-granting organizations) in three states. In addition, a major legal obstacle to the adoption of vouchers was removed when the Supreme Court affirmed the legality of the Cleveland voucher in 2002. However, all of these programs are limited; taken together they cover only a small fraction of all children in the country.
Throughout this long period, we have been repeatedly frustrated by the gulf between the clear and present need, the burning desire of parents to have more control over the schooling of their children, on the one hand, and the adamant and effective opposition of trade union leaders and educational administrators to any change that would in any way reduce their control of the educational system.
We have been involved in two initiatives in California to enact a statewide voucher system (in 1993 and 2000). In both cases, the initiatives were carefully drawn up, and the voucher sums moderate. In both cases, nine months or so before the election, public opinion polls recorded a sizable majority in favor of the initiative. In addition, of course, there was a sizable group of fervent supporters, whose hopes ran high of finally getting control of their children's schooling. In each case, about six months before the election, the voucher opponents launched a well-financed and thoroughly unscrupulous campaign against the initiative. Television ads blared that vouchers would break the budget, whereas in fact they would reduce spending since the proposed voucher was to be only a fraction of what government was spending per student. Teachers were induced to send home with their students misleading propaganda against the initiative. Dirty tricks of every variety were financed from a very deep purse. The result was to convert the initial majority into a landslide defeat. This has also occurred in Washington state, Colorado and Michigan. Opposition like this explains why progress has been so slow in such a good cause.
The good news is that, despite these setbacks, public interest in and support for vouchers and tax credits continues to grow. Legislative proposals to channel government funds directly to students rather than to schools are under consideration in something like 20 states. Sooner or later there will be a breakthrough; we shall get a universal voucher plan in one or more states. When we do, a competitive private educational market serving parents who are free to choose the school they believe best for each child will demonstrate how it can revolutionize schooling.
Mr. Friedman, chairman of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Nobel laureate in economics.

URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111827769927654908,00.html

In the garden

Well, pretty soon, I've got to get some pics of the garden, before and after kind of thing, onto the site. Right now, my home computer is broke, so I'm using my kid's school computer, so I can't download pics. I could do it at work, but somehow, that just doesn't seem like a habit I want to start. Hopefully the geek squad can hurry up and do their thing.
Gardening - Some guys like to golf, I like the solitude and growth of a garden. Its hands on work and gets me outside after being in the greenhouse or office all day, and while my dear wife puts up with it, my kids have actually sort of taken a liking to planting some of the basil and cilantro. We'll do more seeds with them later. I especially like some of the more exotic fruits and veggies, but being in Ohio...guess I'll have to wait till I live in Hawaii or something. This is totally a hobby kind of thing. If you saw the garden, you would agree. It is far from professional and really neat and orderly, but it is also not your average couple of tomato and pepper plants. I do about 25 different kinds of tomatoes, 15 peppers, tomatillos, 2 ground cherries, 3 different eggplants, 3 cucumber, 2 lettuce, kohlrabi, broccoli, 2 cantaloupe, 2 watermelon, squash, 3 raspberry, strawberry, onion, 3 carrot, collards, sweet potatoes, and about 10 different herbs (the favorite is cilantro). I get to give credit to Steve Thomas of Dan Schantz Farms for about half of the tomatoes and peppers. He does over a hundred varieties easily and everyone at their farm gets to use the 1.5 acre area that the crop grows on. I think his goes beyond hobby and into the obsession, but hey, its fun...for us anyway.
Hence, more inclusions into the Garden Geeks links on the sidebar will appear intermittently.