Where is “NONE OF THE ABOVE” When You Need It?

I see that the LA Times has agreed that California can do better than our two leading candidates for Governor, but it endorsed Jerry Brown, anyway. But, even as a long-time member of the “professional left” it was not easy for them.

It would be simple justice to see Jerry have to deal with the problem he caused – when he supported and signed the right for government employees to unionize during his last term as Governor. Talk about being bitten in the ass by the Law of Unintended Consequence!

I could never bring myself to vote for Jerry – I was here the last time – but voting for Meg is beyond my ability to hold my nose with both hands and vote simultaneously. I had great hopes for her, but her Spanish language ads in which she said things counter to her English ads were beyond the pale – even for a politician. That is particularly in this new reform election, where “business as usual” for politicians is under extreme pressure. She had a great opportunity…trying to walk down the center line of the freeway got her politically killed in an era when the move is to candor.

I will go over my recommendations at some point, but locally it is a slam-dunk: For Fire Board: ROBERT E. OSBY, JEAN FRANK SLAUGHTER, BRET A. SEALEY.

Let the Games Begin!

The attack on the Iranian nuclear facility by a Stuxnet worm is interesting both in the technical and the political realm.

The best technical explanation of the likely methodology is at

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/stuxnet-a-possible-attack-scenario/7420?tag=nl.e550

From what I hear the Iranians are arresting Russian engineers and scientists — many of whom, of course are Jewish.

Apparently there was a tacit agreement that the Russians would build the nuclear electrical plant, but that the actual names of the scientists/engineers would remain secret and in Russian hands to protect their people — but the Iranians knew intuitively that some (many?) were Jewish. It was worth it to the Iranians to turn their eye

This worm triggered a crackdown — Russians are fleeing Iran with their families but keeping quiet with hopes they can return because the pay was great.

The NYTimes printed last Thursday that one of the sub-programs in the worm was named for a biblical character (Esther), and that increased the suspicion that Israel was to blame. Just to muddy the paranoia just a bit more there were other biblical clues (“Guava”)– but of course Israel (or someone) may just be playing with the already paranoid Iranian mind(sic).

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3962247,00.htm

I too suspect Israel, or at least I hope it was Israel!

“Symantec security researcher Liam O Murchu (photo above) says he found the “05091979″ date in the Stuxnet code, a possible link to the May 9, 1979 execution of Jewish Iranian businessman and philantropist Habib Elghanian.”

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/inside-stuxnet-researcher-drops-new-clues-about-origin-of-worm/7409?tag=mantle_skin;content

Hell, I don’t care who it was…good on ’em!

Let the games begin!

A Neatly Turned Phrase…Even If I do Say So Myself!

A neatly turned phrase (even if it is my original) deserves to be commemorated:

Climate Change is the mutated heir to the Tulip Craze!

A “Concept” Column in Raw Form

One of my purposes on this Blog is to test concepts for my newspaper columns — so I post unedited drafts to see if someone finds a factual or conceptual flaw before I send it to my editor.  (I just usually do not announce it in advance, as I am doing this one.)

See if you can get your mind around this concept:

There is a world-wide baseball league being formed, and each nation gets to have one team.

The US selects sets the rules for their team: We will hire our players at random from the major league teams, not look at their success or records, not keep statistics on their play and they will play based upon solely their seniority. They will have tenure and may only be fired off the team after many years of arduous legal action, regardless of their performance.

How do you think our national team would do in the world-wide league?

That is exactly how we perform public school (read “government”) education, and what results you would imagine we would get with a baseball team founded on those principles are just about the kind of competitive results we actually get in worldwide education.

I have not seen the newly released movie Waiting for Superman, but I will certainly get the DVD when it is released and for those of us who have pounded on the subject of education for so long, it is overdue. I have had many angry exchanges over the years with the PUSD School Board in the early days, and with teacher bloggers subsequently but there is a growing, and long-overdue revolution brewing in education circles.

Beginning with voucher programs that failed at the ballot box because parents did not recognize that education was in desperate crises, and through the introduction and subsequent success of the Charter School program – both of which happened simultaneously with a growing recognition that government employee unions were taking the nation to ruin, the revolt has slowly gathered steam.

It has now been given legitimacy first by President Bush’s No Child Left Behind, and then President Obama’s n, The Race to The Top – both of which, slowly, are strengthening the grip and forcing the teacher’s unions into compliance with stronger standards by judicious bribery.

The support that the current Education Secretary Duncan gave to the LA Times for publishing the rankings of 6,000 elementary school teachers in 250 schools was a major move forward. The LA times will publish the rankings of middle and high school teachers before the end of the year, and the union calls for a boycott of the LA Times has not dissuaded that newspaper a bit.

I suspect that the revolution has just begun. The teachers union is fighting a rear guard action and they will claim some victories, They already spent a million dollars defeating the Mayor of Washington, D.C. because he systematically supported the reform-minded Michelle Rhee who is trying to whip the absolute worst school system in America into shape, and her eventual support from the new Mayor’s office is hanging by a thread.

Everyone knows that we have good and bad teachers – but the unions stand in the way of anyone being able to differentiate between competent and incompetent teachers and demand that they all be rated as good and paid the same.