Selfishness Wins Out

Among the most destructive ideas post-modernism is, "It's all about me."  This article from the March 1, 2012 Sacramento Bee is about a high school teacher who left his wife to move in with one of his students:

MODESTO -- A 41-year-old Enochs High School teacher in Modesto has resigned and moved in with an 18-year-old student.

The reaction has been largely shock, disapproval and betrayal.

The teen's mother has waged a very public campaign on Facebook since last week, when her daughter moved out of the family's home and into a Modesto apartment with the man. He has left his wife and children, one of whom is a junior at Enochs.

The police are investigating to see if anything took place before she turned 18, which would be a criminal matter.  To me, the quote that really shows what has gone wrong with America since I was young is this:

"In making our choice, we've hurt a lot of people," Hooker acknowledged. "We keep asking ourselves, 'Do we make everyone else happy or do we follow our hearts?' "

No one should have to live a life of misery--but adults recognize that there are times that it is best to avoid putting yourself in situations that will lead to having to make choices like this.  This "It's all about me" selfishness pretty well guarantees divorce, hurt, injuries, and all the rest.

One of the local hospitals here in Boise was running a billboard campaign a couple of years back for their childbirth center with the slogan, "It's all about you."  Oh my.  That's a recipe for disaster.  If there is anything that having a child is not about, or at least should not be about, it is you.  It is going to be about that child for the next three years at a ferocious level, the three after that at a more subdued level, and off and on (especially once they become teenagers) until they become adults.

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/2012/02/28/2090490/enochs-high-teacher-resigns-after.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/2012/02/28/2090490/enochs-high-teacher-resigns-after.html#storylink=cpy

Yet Another Waste of Public Funds

Doug Powers over at MichelleMalkin.com has to remind us:

Every few days now there are stories like this, and I always have to double check to make sure it’s not a repeat of previous stories we’ve alreadydiscussed. Unfortunately, they don’t usually turn out to be reruns.

A year and a half ago:

Obama announces Abound Solar to get $400M federal loan guarantee

The February 28, 2012 Denver Post reports that they are laying off "280 workers and delaying a new factory in Indiana."  As usual, the complaint is that China is subsidizing the solar panel industry there, and American companies can't compete.  This leads to two possible solutions:

1. Enforce existing antidumping law, by imposing an antidumping duty on those subsidized solar panels.

2. Don't pour public funds into companies that can't compete with Chinese subsidies.

If you do #1, maybe you don't need to make loan guarantees.  In addition, antidumping duties are money into the U.S. Treasury; those loan guarantees will evnetually turn into money out of the U.S. Treasury.

At Least Secretary Chu Admits The Goal

From the February 28, 2012 The Politico, recounting Congressional hearings with Secretary of Energy Chu:

“But is the overall goal to get our price” of gasoline down, asked [Rep.] Nunnelee.

“No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy,” Chu replied. “We think that if you consider all these energy policies, including energy efficiency, we think that we can go a long way to becoming less dependent on oil and [diversifying] our supply and we’ll help the American economy and the American consumers.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73408.html#ixzz1nt4xKsBW

If Republicans want to win the general election in November (always an uncertain matter), I would hope that they are planning to use Secretary Chu's response in advertising campaigns.  But that would require the Republican National Committee be committed to defeating Democrats.  That does not ever seem to be their goal.  Or perhaps they are just too stupid to know how.

Shut Down The Corporations Day of Action

February 29, 2012 KATU in Portland, Oregon, reports on vandalism:

PORTLAND, Ore. - Businesses in Northeast and Southeast Portland were damaged overnight and the vandals explained their actions in e-mails, police said.

The vandalism comes ahead of aplanned Occupy Portland march and rally in Portland on Wednesday afternoon as part of the Shut Down the Corporations Day of Action. The event is also known as the F29march and organizers said they will be focusing on corporations that are part of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

If the vandals get caught, I will be very surprised if they don't turn out to be largely sons and daughters of multimillionaires.

This Seems Like A Major Oversight Concerning Sen. Snowe

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) suddenly announced, three weeks before the primary deadline, that she is not running for re-election.  This March 1, 2012 Christian Science Monitor article presents the proper leftist explanation: those nasty conservatives in the Republican Party have made "moderates" like Sen. Snowe unwilling to stay in Washington:

Even with her party standing a good chance to regain the Senate majority, Snowe wanted no more of the endless gridlock that has rendered Congress barely able to carry out the most basic functions, such as keeping the federal government's doors open.

There is another possible explanation, however, from the Sunlight Foundation, that does not even get mentioned in any of the news stories about this that I have seen:

But in Maine, a few newspapers have speculated that her husband's legal entanglements had a role in Snowe's sudden and surprising decision, which left her with more than $3 million in her campaign coffers and her party without a Senate candidate less than three weeks before the filing deadline for Maine's June 12 primary.

According to the senator's most recent financial disclosure form, she and her husband, former Maine Gov. John McKernan Jr., have investments worth between $2 million and $10 million in Education Management Corp., a Pittsburgh-based company that operates for-profit higher education institutions. McKernan is chairman of the board of directors of the company, now embroiled in a lawsuit in which the federal goverment, 11 states and the District of Columbia are seeking to recover a portion of the $11 billion in federal student aid that the education firm has received since July 2003.

Originally filed in April 2007 by a pair of whistleblowers, the lawsuit alleges that the company violated a federal law that prohibits schools from paying admissions officers based on the number of students they recruit and enroll. Those numbers can affect a school's revenues because more students mean a school is potentially eligible for more federal aid dollars. The whistleblowers alleged, and provided documents indicating, that they were paid bounties for the number of students they enrolled.

The Justice Department's decision to intervene on Aug. 8 made the lawsuit, which had been under seal, public. In its complaint, Justice alleged that Education Management Corp. submitted "knowingly false, misrepresented, and/or improper certifications" to the Education Department, stating that it did not offer enrollment incentives to its admissions officers.  

 I don't know what the truth of the matter is, but this would seem like a pretty serious scandal, especially if it blows up before the general election.  My experience over the years is that "moderate Republican" like "moderate Democrat" usually means someone who stands for no strong principles, because principles get in the way of looting the public trough.

Prejudice Substitution: My Experience

Instapundit linked to it.

Two decades in higher education has taught me this: what most academics say is that they wish to challenge the prejudices of their students. When they really mean to say is that they intend to replace the prejudices of the students with the prejudices of academics.

I would not go so far as to say "most," but I will say that I had more than a few professors who saw their function as replacing the narrow-minded Christianity of their students (although few actually held those views at the college I attended) with their own, vastly more enlightened views about religion, politics, and economics. The only consolation is that many of this set were either such mean and nasty people, or so clumsy in their indoctrination efforts, that they were not terribly successful.

The university that I completed my BA and MA at was Sonoma State University.  One of their specialties was something called Critical Thinking.  My wife had the misfortune to take one of the Critical Thinking classes as part of her general education requirements.  The assigned textbook was actually pretty good.  Yes, the leftist orientation of the authors showed through, but it at least did give examples from both sides of the political spectrum where applying critical thinking skills was useful.  Unfortunately, her professor made almost no use of the textbook.  Instead, he would show up for class and just about every class session, read articles out of one of the daily newspapers in order to bash the elder President Bush.  No, really.  She tells me it was grossly and obviously very one-sided, with no attempt to apply critical thinking skills to the left-wing political foolishness of the time.  The professor was apparently incapable of or uninterested in applying these skills he was trying to teach.

The university also had a summer program intended to teach Critical Thinking to secondary school teachers.  I was walking through the campus one afternoon, and they were apparently doing some close of the program, outside session with all the secondary teachers.  One particular phrase, delivered with enormous certainty and passion, still sticks in my mind: "When you take the Truth back to your schools...."  And yes, you could hear the capital on Truth as the professor spoke.  Fanaticism doesn't need a religion to make it fanatical or dangerous.

I do my best when I teach history to not follow in the footsteps of these fanatics.  I emphasize the role of ideology in molding (and not in a good way) historical analysis.  I tell my students that a good historian gathers data first, and if you find data that does not fit your assumptions, you need to keep looking to see if there is more of this data that doesn't fit.  If you find enough of this data that doesn't fit, you need to modify your conclusions to fit the data--don't throw it away.  Heaven forbid that they end up like some of the professors that I had at Sonoma State University.

Bought RGR

The price on Sturm, Ruger dropped a bit this morning because of insider sales, but when I looked at who was doing the selling, and the quantities of stock they were still holding, I decided that this was just normal conversion by option holders to diversify their holdings.