Our Society is Getting out of Control -- School Policies Getting Nuttier and Nuttier

The law was introduced after a third-grade girl was expelled for a year because her grandmother had sent a birthday cake to school, along with a knife to cut it. The teacher called the principal — but not before using the knife to cut and serve the cake.

Then there is Zachary, the avid six year old who was so enthusiastic about joining the cub scouts that he brought his swiss army knife to school to use the fork in it to eat at lunch, and was expelled for 45 days.

Just read the whole article.

Noted on InstaBS as well -- a site that doesn't only scour the Internet far and wide for anything that is far right wing slanted and skewed, logically twisted on its head, and notated therein as reasonable, but often for interesting stuff too -- which here states: "the excuses offered for this piece of idiocy are even more daming than the idiocy itself."

Actually, no, they are not. They are highly insufficient, which is what makes what is idiocy on its face, still idiocy. But they are not more damning than the idiocy itself, which is the problem. The issue of how to deal with potential weapon violence in school is very real. But the inflexible, and over the top, solutions favored don't seem to be a sensible approach, at all.

When a six year old kid in an article makes more sense than all of the adults involved in setting the policy, perhaps it is time to reevaluate our approach.

HardBall's Chris Matthews is not Helpful, to Anyone

In the 90's Chris Matthews could not get past Bill Clinton's private if disreputable behavior, and simply would not let of of it for the remainder of the decade, and beyond.

It is wrong for someone on the far right to do this, but at least they have the benefit of being driven by pure partisanship, and perhaps even a mildly Taliban like tinged belief that the President's private, legal, scurrilous behavior is so much our national business that we should devote two years to wrecking the presidency over it.

(On the pretense of an "untruth" in (1) a civil case, in a (2) deposition, on a (3) matter tangential to the issue in litigation, and a (4) matter of the utmost personal and private nature -- something which not one person has yet been able to provide an example of a successful prosecution for, in our entire American history. And for good reason; it's absurd. But our nation looked past that for two years, driven by far right framing, and a scandal obsessed and easily kowtowed media, that this same far right -- confusing occasional recitation of unfavorable facts (while omitting far more) with "bias" -- likes to correctly label a scourge, but for incorrect reasons. And which media, seeing this, like the dunce that it collectively is, then loudly, in turn proclaims, "see, we get criticized by all sides [though this blog is assuredly not a "side," nor part of one], we must be doing something right!")

Matthews? He's just simply wrong, much of the time, on everything. Which for a relatively smart guy, is quite a track record.

A simple google search of Bob Somerby's "Daily Howler" site and Chris Matthews will tell you all you need to know about Matthews.

But here, yesterday, is Matthews saying rather oafish things again. This blog says it like it is on Rush Limbaugh (see second half of this piece in particular). But still, this, by Matthews, is totally uncalled for, and not funny. (Although the headline to the video does seem a little bit misleading. But it is trivial in comparison to Matthews' statements).

Matthews seems to suffer from that common affliction of believing that everything that is "obvious" to him is obvious to everyone else, and that therefore nothing need be show with respect to Limbaugh. Clearly, this is far from the case. Still, perhaps the word "clearly" is inappropriate, since "clearly," it is not apparent to many that it is far from the case.

And that is the problem, Matthews' ridiculous James Bond movie villain fantasies aside.

The Fox Story is Still Being Missed -- Baltimore Sun Critic a Classic Dupe

This blog is no fan of Baltimore Sun TV Critic David Zurawik, who exhibits a strong bias, and strange leaps of logic.

So it was no suprise to see him jump all over the poor job of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn -- taking on a wildly manipulative, media source defending, "media critic" Howard Kurtz -- over the issue of Fox "News."

Ridiculously, Zurawik then points out, as "evidence" for his position that Dunn is wrong and that the White House's claim that Fox asserts repeated falsities is itself a threat to journalism, that he "watched [Fox] every day last fall" and guess what? There were times that Fox was not talking about Bill Ayers or Acorn!

Memo to Zurawik: When Ms. Dunno chose to make the point about the lopsided emphasis on what were fairly trivial stories, she was speaking in hyperbole. She did not literally mean that Fox was the 24 hours, round the clock, non stop ACORN and Bill Ayers only Channel.

With respect to Howard Kurtz, he has become such a jaded, entrenched, media defender, that he can't even see the difference between legitimate news (which is hard to find these days); legitimate news with a bias; and an advocacy organization either designed or with the effect of coming across as far more persuasive than an outright advocacy station, by selling itself as "news" and throwing in little tidbits of apparent "balance" amongst a barrage of slant, misleading innuendo, misleading statements, and wildly relevant omissions.

Notice that Zurawik himself, as a fish repeatedly goes for a worm on a hook, takes just such little tidbits to be evidence of "balance."

Here is the inane line that he even uses to "prove" his point, with respect to some salient assertion by Fox Anchor Shepard Smith over how ridiculous "Joe the Plumber" was being on something (overlooking the question as to why he was even on "information news" in the first place):

I wonder if [Anchor Shepard] Smith was acting as an "arm" of the Republican Party on that one.

Aside from the fact that someone can be a staunch Republican and disagree vehemently with some unlicensed plumber that doesn't know jack squat about policy or the facts, people need to communicate the following sentence, repeated from above, to Zurawik, and to others:

[Fox is] an advocacy organization either designed or with the effect of coming across as far more persuasive than an outright advocacy station, by selling itself as "news" and throwing in little tidbits of apparent "balance" amongst a barrage of slant, misleading innuendo, misleading statements, and wildly relevant omissions.

Zurawik has no clue, and serves up a classic example of exactly the type of poor reasoning skills, intense bias, and lack of information and objective analytical tendencies, that allow Fox to so successfully do what it does; namely, convince its audience that it is even being remotely "balanced," and convince much of the rest of America that it is a legitimate "news" station.

What Fox does is the biggest media story, by far, of the last decade and a half. Yet, Zurawik aside, famed "media critic" Howard Kurtz doesn't even see it, and it's sitting right in front of his nose. And this type of blindness by the rest of a somewhat acquiescing and itself increasingly poor media, only leads to further ignorance.

Although, we repeat: White House Communications Director Anita Dunn did not do a very effective job, either, of stating the case. Of course, she probably did to other Democrats, which is the problem. Democrats have to begin talking to more than just other, active, knee jerk Democrats. They won't start learning how to do this until they learn that they have to do it. In the meantime, they will continue to get bullied by the highly skewed and somewhat blindly asserted inanities of the likes of Howard Kurtz, and often, not even realize it.
____________

Update: Shockingly, the famous site Instapundit, missing the entire point (as does Zurawik), of course frames this as an Administration that is dangerous to press freedom.

We have already given examples of how InstaBS's profound political biases prevent it from viewing things remotely objectively.

Stating that Fox asserts falsities -- which Fox does repeatedly, and which has been proven on literally thousands of occasions (although Zurawik is probably so busy watching Fox and looking for those evidentiary nuggets of "balance" that he doesn't know anything) along with blatantly misleading on literally tens of thousands of occasions more -- is not a danger to an independent press. What is a danger to it, is the fact that the most watched "news" network on cable television constantly asserts falsities, serves as an advocacy channel masquerading as "fair and balanced" news, and yet is constantly being treated as yet another run of the mill, legitimate, news organization by the rest of the sheep in the media, and even by many Americans in relation to their own political biases or leanings.

The Fox Story is Still Being Missed -- Baltimore Sun Critic a Classic Dupe

This blog is no fan of Baltimore Sun TV Critic David Zurawik, who exhibits a strong bias, and strange leaps of logic.

So it was no suprise to see him jump all over the poor job of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn -- taking on a wildly manipulative, media source defending, "media critic" Howard Kurtz -- over the issue of Fox "News."

Ridiculously, Zurawik then points out, as "evidence" for his position that Dunn is wrong and that the White House's claim that Fox asserts repeated falsities is itself a threat to journalism, that he "watched [Fox] every day last fall" and guess what? There were times that Fox was not talking about Bill Ayers or Acorn!

Memo to Zurawik: When Ms. Dunno chose to make the point about the lopsided emphasis on what were fairly trivial stories, she was speaking in hyperbole. She did not literally mean that Fox was the 24 hours, round the clock, non stop ACORN and Bill Ayers only Channel.

With respect to Howard Kurtz, he has become such a jaded, entrenched, media defender, that he can't even see the difference between legitimate news (which is hard to find these days); legitimate news with a bias; and an advocacy organization either designed or with the effect of coming across as far more persuasive than an outright advocacy station, by selling itself as "news" and throwing in little tidbits of apparent "balance" amongst a barrage of slant, misleading innuendo, misleading statements, and wildly relevant omissions.

Notice that Zurawik himself, as a fish repeatedly goes for a worm on a hook, takes just such little tidbits to be evidence of "balance."

Here is the inane line that he even uses to "prove" his point, with respect to some salient assertion by Fox Anchor Shepard Smith over how ridiculous "Joe the Plumber" was being on something (overlooking the question as to why he was even on "information news" in the first place):

I wonder if [Anchor Shepard] Smith was acting as an "arm" of the Republican Party on that one.

Aside from the fact that someone can be a staunch Republican and disagree vehemently with some unlicensed plumber that doesn't know jack squat about policy or the facts, people need to communicate the following sentence, repeated from above, to Zurawik, and to others:

[Fox is] an advocacy organization either designed or with the effect of coming across as far more persuasive than an outright advocacy station, by selling itself as "news" and throwing in little tidbits of apparent "balance" amongst a barrage of slant, misleading innuendo, misleading statements, and wildly relevant omissions.

Zurawik has no clue, and serves up a classic example of exactly the type of poor reasoning skills, intense bias, and lack of information and objective analytical tendencies, that allow Fox to so successfully do what it does; namely, convince its audience that it is even being remotely "balanced," and convince much of the rest of America that it is a legitimate "news" station.

What Fox does is the biggest media story, by far, of the last decade and a half. Yet, Zurawik aside, famed "media critic" Howard Kurtz doesn't even see it, and it's sitting right in front of his nose. And this type of blindness by the rest of a somewhat acquiescing and itself increasingly poor media, only leads to further ignorance.

Although, we repeat: White House Communications Director Anita Dunn did not do a very effective job, either, of stating the case. Of course, she probably did to other Democrats, which is the problem. Democrats have to begin talking to more than just other, active, knee jerk Democrats. They won't start learning how to do this until they learn that they have to do it. In the meantime, they will continue to get bullied by the highly skewed and somewhat blindly asserted inanities of the likes of Howard Kurtz, and often, not even realize it.
____________

Update: Shockingly, the famous site Instapundit, missing the entire point (as does Zurawik), of course frames this as an Administration that is dangerous to press freedom.

We have already given examples of how InstaBS's profound political biases prevent it from viewing things remotely objectively.

Stating that Fox asserts falsities -- which Fox does repeatedly, and which has been proven on literally thousands of occasions (although Zurawik is probably so busy watching Fox and looking for those evidentiary nuggets of "balance" that he doesn't know anything) along with blatantly misleading on literally tens of thousands of occasions more -- is not a danger to an independent press. What is a danger to it, is the fact that the most watched "news" network on cable television constantly asserts falsities, serves as an advocacy channel masquerading as "fair and balanced" news, and yet is constantly being treated as yet another run of the mill, legitimate, news organization by the rest of the sheep in the media, and even by many Americans in relation to their own political biases or leanings.

Health "Insurance" is Part of the Problem, Not the Solution

Health Insurance insures people for trivial things that should be self paid, and adds countless billions of unnecessary middleman waste and seemingly non ending doctor office paperwork, while at the same time often dictating to people what procedures, and even, sometimes conditions, 'are and are not" covered, thereby defeating the purpose in the first place.

It seems the answer to solving our problem of excessive and spiraling health care costs, while at the same time many Americans are receiving sub par (or no) health care, does not lie in the direction on increasing health insurance, let alone mandated private, health insurance.

Also, they should be getting special treatment if they are non profit, keeping costs down and the quality of care up,and not commonly refusing to cover care that patients - who are often paying a small fortune for this health insurance (directly, or indirectly)- and their doctors decide is medically sensible.

One of the Stupider Science Statements Made in a While, in a "Super" Book, No Less

Here is the statement, and it comes from the new "book," "Superfreakonomics":

A lot of the things that people say would be good things probably aren’t,” Myrhvold says. As an example he points to solar power. “The problem with solar cells is that they’re black, because they are designed to absorb light from the sun. But only about 12% gets turned into electricity, and the rest is reradiated as heat — which contributed to global warming.

This is wild. This person, former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myrhvold, as told by ClimateProgress.org (a somewhat hysterical, mildly partisan, but extremely well researched site) was called as "smart as" anybody else out there, by Bill Gates. Apparently not, when it comes to matters of energy.

This line of reasoning by Myrhvold, who clearly has no clue about the subject matter, is similar to the one that confuses calories with kilocalories (a thousand calories); reads about how it takes a few calories to heat up ice cubes consumed in a drink, and suggests that one can therefore drink ice cold bud lite all day long and not put on a single calorie. (Nice idea, but you can't.)

If you want to see why Myrhvold's statement is ridiculous, click here.

We'll just share one reason, in case it was not obvious. (Don't feel bad if it was not. One of the smartest guys ever -- according to Bill Gates -- missed it, and an idiotic book that will soon be a best seller actually quotes it as logical.)

What was the absorbtivity or emissivity of the material that the panel covered up? If you look on Google images, you’ll see that PV panels [[which are often blue, not black] are often — if not usually — put on roofs or over ground that is quite dark, often black. In a large fraction of cases, the panels contribute less heat reradiation than what they are covering would.

The original book Freakonomics was creative, but in some ways, inane. Most people missed why. It compares intangibles with tangibles, and presumes that because we have to make choices with respect to intangibles with tangible items, that these valuations are equatable. (That is the short version of why it is based on a dumb concept, anyway). This column also shows why Superfreakonomics is, more obviously, a dumb book.

It will sell though. The worst --but most convincing -- crap usually sells the best. That's the way it tends to work.