Mail 779 Wednesday, June 26, 2013

what to do about education

Jerry,

This guy has some thoughts, mostly on how rich kids seem to keep getting farther ahead, and why.

No Rich Child Left Behind

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/no-rich-child-left-behind/?_r=0

I think that although he identifies a key difference in why some kids are better at school than others, he misses the mark, in that he proposes that government money be spent to improve quality of home educational interaction in lower income households, plus more preschools. He misses the really simple solution:

If you covet what rich people have, you should emulate their behaviors. If you want money, do with money what rich people do with money. If you want smart kids like the rich folk, you should raise your kids like the rich folk raise their kids.

I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m comfortable and my kids are usually considered "top whatever" at whatever school they land in (military, so we move a lot). Part of that is genetics (quiz: A medical doctor and a fighter pilot get married. Their kids are a) quick b) smart c) both a and b), but I think most of it is that we interact with the kids constantly, pulling teaching experiences out of thin air all day, every day. Every night, we spend a minimum of an hour reading books with them. Not "to them", but "with them", meaning when they are very young, we ask them what the colors are or if they recognize any letters. Then we point out letters have sounds and make words. They pretty much teach themselves, and all we have to do is ask simple little questions about whatever page we are on. What does the princess have on her head? What color is the crown? Simple stuff.

And yes, we did that while we were both working, by shuffling shifts and giving up our adult leisure activities like watching TV or whatever else might keep us from paying attention to the welfare of our kids. It’s a lifestyle and our new hobby.

The results? Not to brag but to point out what happens when raising your kids is really the priority in the household – Our boy hauled me back inside at a daycare facility to show me that he could read the class roster and the names of all his classmates on a photo board… when he was only 20 months old. Our daughter doesn’t like reading as much but at age 3 she can get through most kindergarten books if she tries, and she was talking in full grammatically correct sentences so early that many people used to think she was just growth stunted and 2 years older than she is. Our boy is now 5, and his idea of fun at bedtime is to pull out a complicated cat in the hat book and try to get through the tongue twisters as fast as he can. He builds those 3-in-1 Lego sets by himself, converting the helicopter into the plane and then into a boat, without help. He’s starting 1st grade in a few months in spite of a Nevada law that tried to force him to repeat kindergarten. Both our 5 and 3 yr old kids learned the basics of ice skating before their 3rd birthdays, when we simply put skates on their feet and let go of their hands. It’s an endless source of fun, how kids learn stuff with just a little guidance.

Our 3 week old boy doesn’t do anything but scream bloody murder, but we still talk to him, because maybe Stanford or MIT wants someone with those kinds of lungs in about 17 years.

If you want your kids to be like the rich/smart kids, then emulate what the rich/smart families do. Talk to the kids, and treat ever interaction like an educational opportunity. Read WITH them, not TO them. And for crying out loud, turn off the TV. We almost never watch TV. When it is on, it is usually sesame street or world world or other kids educational show so at least it isn’t quite as mind numbing as most other popular tv shows.

Sean

Charles Murray in his Coming Apart points out that rich white people tend to be married, go to church, invest in educating their children, believe in the work ethic, and in general embody all the old American virtues that built this nation. But, he points out, they no longer preach what they practice. And the result is that the gap between rich and poor, between well off and poverty, grows greater. Those who don’t practice the old virtues descend further diwn in comparison to those who do; but no one notices that, or if they notice it they don’t say anything. It’s as if we are keeping The Protestant ethic as a secret.

Jerry,

Watts Up With Angels – link tweeted by "Sith Lord Monckton"

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/22/prescient-fallen-angels-a1991-satire-of-climate-alarmism/

J

Jerry,

Saw this on one of my favorite CAGW skeptic blogs.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/22/prescient-fallen-angels-a1991-satire-of-climate-alarmism/

73s,

Alan

It’s still a good read, too. If you haven’t read it, you’ll like it. I just wish it were not prophetic…

Subj: Most people are "too busy" to care

New Guardian article about surveillance state:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-without-warrant

The Guardian releases two more US Top Secret FISA court documents which (according to their article) belie General Alexander’s and FBI Director Mueller’s testimony in Congress this week.

Links therein. Warning: your readers with security clearances should NOT open these links on work computers per current government direction.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-b-nsa-procedures-document

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-a-procedures-nsa-document

And in computer tech: the 1000 GB DVD

Fwd: Amazing

http://tinyurl.com/opllhd7

Or Are They?

Jerry

Someone has come up with a way to make Universal Surveillance™ leave a bad taste in NSA’s mouth.

South Florida man facing bank robbery charges wants NSA phone records to defend himself:

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/31068/south-florida-man-facing-bank-robbery-charges-wants-nsa-phone-records-to-defend-himself/index.html/index.html

If I understand the law correctly, the government MUST disgorge any information it holds that may absolve someone of a crime; or the case is dropped (correct me if I’m wrong here). What a way to give NSA a huge headache.

OTOH, maybe Constitutional provisions no longer trump Universal Surveillance™. If so, the Constitution has passed from the earth.

Ed

Education: 4 stories

Dr Pournelle

Re: Education and algorithms, and a Teacher in America https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=14295

Story 1.

When I attended university back at the close of the Pleistocene epoch [1], I took a class in Differential Equations from Dr U. On a typical day, Dr U came to class; said, "Let’s get started"; and filled the front blackboard (30 ft x 6 ft) with equations. He turned to the eighteen or twenty (I don’t remember exactly) of us benighted students and asked, "Questions?" He spent a moment scanning our stunned and befuddled faces as we scribbled furiously to copy what he had drawn on the board. "Right," he said and launched into a different explication of the particular technique we were ‘studying’ that day on a different board. He rinsed-and-repeated until most of the stunned and befuddled looks faded into the glimmerings of comprehension. He always filled two boards. Sometimes three. A couple of times he filled all four (the classroom had blackboards on every wall).

When time came to take the final, Dr U advised us to come at least 15 minutes before the start. We did not need Blue Books. He provided the paper. All we had to bring were pencils and erasers.

The final exam was scheduled for 3 hours. Not academic hours. Clock hours. 180 minutes.

I got to the classroom half an hour early. I did not recognize the proctor. The college assigned him to proctor the exam. He came from another college ― liberal arts, I think.

I pulled a number from a box, penciled my name and the number I drew on a sheet on the clipboard the proctor handed me, took twelve sheets of plain typing paper from the two reams on the proctor’s desk, and sat down to write my assigned test number on each page and number the pages in the top right corner. My classmates straggled in and did as I had done.

Two minutes before the top of the hour the proctor circulated among us and laid a single sheet, face down on each desk. As he walked, he intoned, "This is your final test. Do not turn the sheet over until you are told to do so. You may not leave the room until you complete the test. When there are fifteen, ten, and five minutes remaining, I will write a notice on the blackboard at the front of the room. Write your answers on only one side of each sheet. If you need more paper, come get it. Remember to write your test number on each page and to number each page."

Finished with his task, he returned to his desk and watched the seconds tick by on the big clock at the front of the room. When Mickey’s big hand and tail stood straight up, the proctor said, "Turn your test paper over. You may begin."

I turned the test paper over. My DiffyQ final consisted of two problems. I started on the first.

I managed to squeeze my answers to the two problems into the the twelve sheets I had taken. When I finished, I sighed, collected my papers, and went to the proctor’s desk. He pointed to a stapler and whispered, "Top left corner. Then fold it and write your test number on the back." When I completed his instructions, he pointed to the box I had drawn my test number from. "Put it in there."

I turned to leave and was surprised to find the time warning "5 MINUTES" printed across the front-wall blackboard. I looked up at the clock. There were three minutes remaining in the three hours.

I was the first one to finish.

FWIW I earned an A+ from Dr U [2]. The only one in the class. [3]

Why did I tell you this story?

Patience. All will be explained in due time.

I topped the class in DiffyQ. I stood at the 95th percentile in math. [4] I expect that the low student in my DiffyQ class stood at the 90th percentile. The prerequisite for the course was successful completion of Multivariate Calculus, a course whose mere mention would cause liberal arts majors to shudder and quake.

Among college students, we were the mathematics elite. Among mathematics students, we were pushing the top tier. Not just me. All of us.

Not one of our math professors ever asked me if I knew how to ‘reason numerically.’ Not one of our math professors ever asked me if I ‘felt good’ about myself for having worked through to the solution. Not one of our math professors ever asked me "Can you add? Subtract? Multiply? Divide? Can you do those operations effectively and quickly?"

No.

They assumed that I had those skills. They assumed that I had a solid base of arithmetic fundamentals and that I performed arithmetic operations quickly and accurately. On that arithmetic base, they taught me mathematical reasoning from analytic geometry to differential calculus to integral calculus to multivariate calculus to differential equations to probability to abstract algebra to complex analysis and to mathematics that did not have a name, it was so new. I learned trigonometric substitutions, the Mean Value Theorem [5], Abelian groups, normal and skewed distributions, Dedekind cuts, and more. I discovered that I had a talent for geometry and that my talent was not enough to build a career on. I learned to think in six dimensions and work out the orthogonals in my head. For those who are interested, this is useful when you are trying to decrypt and analyze foreign telemetry. FWIW I wrote a computer program to find, identify, and catalog such telemetry using only three dimensions. Had to overload some operators in C to make the code easy to read, but, hey, what’s an overloaded operator among six dimensions?

I built my arithmetic skills in the first, second, and third grades, memorizing addition and multiplication tables and practicing those skills over and over and over again. [6] And now you post this nonsense about ‘numerical reasoning’ and drive my blood pressure to new heights.

Where I come from there’s a saying: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The old way of teaching arithmetic skills by memorization of tables and drill, drill, drill was not broken. Numerical reasoning does not fix it.

From what I read, occupational psychologists developed the term ‘numerical reasoning’ as a component of psychometrics. Am I wrong in assuming that the weenies in the various university sogenannte Schools of Education took this term and massaged it into what they called a ‘teaching concept’? No more were they to be burdened by ― shudder ― numbers. Now they could concentrate their energies on teaching ‘numerical reasoning’ and helping the piteous little kiddies feel good about folding paper in a mockery of geometric proof. No matter that little Johnny cannot add 212, 1516, and 48 and get a consistent answer. At least the little ignoramus has great self-esteem.

I topped my DiffyQ class. Regarding mathematics, I have reason to have self-esteem. And confidence in my ability. Little Johnny has no reason to have self-esteem and no reason to have confidence in his abilities. I have the skills. Little Johnny ― with his education in ‘numerical reasoning’ ― does not have the skills. When the testing comes, I shall pass and he shall fail.

The universe is not cruel, but neither is it merciful. Your self-esteem does not matter. Only results matter.

Tell you what: If numerical reasoning is the way to go, do it with Roman numerals. If all roads lead to Rome and there is no one best way to learn math skills, do all your math exercises ― if you do math exercises ― with the marks the Romans used. What difference will it make? After all, one way is as good as another. Go ahead. Reason numerically about multiplying XLIX by XXXVIII. Let me know how that works out for you.

The last formal mathematics course I took was Complex Analysis [7]. The last course you education majors took was high school algebra, and you hated that. Regarding mathematics and its instruction "My own counsel I’ll keep". [8]

If I seem contemptuous of education majors and their fitness for anything other than compost, I am.

Story 2.

I worked my way through college. The university I attended generously provided jobs to many students. One job I held was that of Computer Operator on the IBM 360/70 in the university computer center.

After my first semester working in the computer center, I worked the wake-up shift, 0600 – 0900. Many of the universities administrative computational jobs came to me to run because things were quiet at that time, and, thus, the demands on the CPU were less.

The university faculty senate had expressed some concerns about the school’s reputation, or rather the lack of it. They wanted to know why this was. So they compiled years of grades, punched them onto 80-column cards, and toted those cards down to the computer center where they spilled those data onto a tape. That took the better part of a day and all that evening which meant they did not have time to run the statistics on those data and print them out. Problem was that the computer center had promised Dr R, the president of the faculty senate, the report the following morning.

Charlie, my boss, left it to me on the morning shift to run the stats and print out the results. As soon as I woke the Beast, I ran the job. It printed out half a box of fanfold paper. I tore off the last page, picked up the printout, and took it to the counter to look through it.

Of course, I knew what this was and what it meant. I scanned to the math department. As, Bs, Cs, Ds, Fs, a few incompletes ― all the grades in the table. The distribution was normal but the mean was shifted slightly toward the lower end; that is, the department gave fewer As than expected and more Fs than expected.

I scanned to the physics department. Much the same story as with the math department but shifted even more toward the lower end.

I scanned to the department of education, and I said to myself, said I, "Oh, the shit’s gonna hit the fan." ED gave 80% As, 20% Bs, and nothing below a B.

This report exploded like a bomb in the faculty senate. Dr R, the president of the senate, made a motion his own self to severe the Department of Education from the rest of the university and another that admission to the School of Education would not give admission to the rest of the university. The recriminations were many and bitter. I heard that the President of the University called in the campus cops to restore order and prevent the threatened assaults.

I ran this report when I was a sophomore. When I graduated, the war was still on.

So if you are an education major and you think I have no respect for you . . . you’re right. I don’t. Moreover, I won’t.

Story 3.

In the same ‘Aspire-to-Mediocrity’ mindset as ‘numerical reasoning’ is the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO). Perhaps they do some good. I don’t know. What I do know is that they do not play football; that is, soccer. The game they play is to football what gin rummy is to national-tournament-level contract bridge. The implements they play with resemble each other but the games are light-years apart.

My sister enrolled my niece in AYSO. My nephew-by-my-other-sister played winger on his high school team and showed considerable skill at the position. My niece showed no skill and no inclination to acquire any, but my sister said, "At least it’ll get her out in the fresh air and sunshine." [9]

Because my sister came late to the party, my niece got placed on a team with the name of ‘Bluebirds’. [10] The coach knew as much about football as a pig knows about opera and showed less desire to learn about the sport than the pig about opera. She had no idea how to kick a football and ― it pains me to write this ― taught her charges to toe the ball. Heading was beyond her. Practice sessions stopped when the children got winded. I swear they would have worked out more hiking to and from a picnic. But the coach knew the AYSO rules ― everybody plays ― and worked out rotations to guarantee that every player got as much time on the field as every other player. It did not matter. The only discernible difference in their skills was that some were faster than others. Not a skill they developed by coaching.

The results were predictable and predicted. The Bluebirds lost. Every game. Some by embarrassing margins. My niece finished the season thoroughly disheartened. She told her mother, "I don’t want to play anymore."

My sister dragged her to the AYSO closing ceremony.

Lo and behold, the Bluebirds were the first team called. Every Bluebird got a little loving cup inscribed ‘Participant’. My niece was ecstatic. She signed up for another season. [11]

It’s true that the first place team got a big first-place trophy. But that should have been the only trophy. If you don’t grok that, I’m not even going to try to persuade you to my position. You are too stupid to live.

Story 4.

My daughter had toddled about for some months and showed signs of developing facility with perambulation when my wife suggested to me that we think about toilet training the little tyke. My memories of toilet training consisted of crying (me) and screaming (my mother) and nothing about toilets or training. But by hook or by crook or by the grace of God, I had reached a point where I was no longer crapping in my pants. My wife’s experience paralleled mine.

This was before the days of the interwebs. My wife wanted information on ‘how to’ toilet train a toddler. Given our histories, neither of us wanted to consult our mothers. My wife searched and ― wonder of wonders ― found a thin volume that purported to make ‘Potty Training in One Day’ possible. [12] This thin volume drove our purchase of a child’s toilet to facilitate the training.

Unfortunately, we were not too diligent in the application of the method detailed in the book. We did not succeed in toilet training our daughter in a day. It took three. But no crying and no screaming.

I end with this story to let you know that I am amenable to change, but if and only if the change results in measurable improvement over previous methods.

There seems to be a pernicious notion among the denizens of our universities that conflates new with better and change with progress.

This is false. Not just wrong-headed but horribly, frighteningly false.

The reason that repetitive instruction and drill, drill, drill were used to teach arithmetic skills to children is that a thousand years of use proved that they worked. To abandon that accumulated experience and wisdom for the evanescent fad of ‘numerical reasoning’ is not just stupid, not just incompetence; it is criminal malfeasance. And, yes, by that I mean those who practice it are criminals. I recommend that they be incarcerated for an indeterminate term, to be released as soon as they can ‘numerically reason’ from the paucity of mathematical knowledge that they possess to the solutions of the differential equations on my final exam using only their own innate intelligence without resort to any texts or teachers or other guidance in the mathematical arts. I submit that this is a fitting test of the rightness of numerical reasoning.

You said in a previous post that we have lost the war over public education in this country. That this fraud is trumpeted about as the new wave of teaching mathematics saddens and angers me.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

[1] Given the theoretical age of the Earth ― 4,500,000,000 years ― the 12,000 years since the Pleistocene epoch is covered by measurement error. 😉

[2] In my entire undergraduate career, this is one of two grades that I am proud of. The other is the C I won in Nuclear Physics. There’s a story to that one, too.

[3] Like my Daddy said, "It ain’t no brag if you can back it up."

[4] Turns out that standardized tests do not distinguish well at the margins. On the GRE, I scored 800 in both the standard math portion and the optional breakout. That is, I maxed the tests. Those perfect scores placed me in the 95th percentile according to the boys in New Jersey.

[5] Why is the Mean Value Theorem always taught using Cartesian coordinates? It is much more intuitive if taught using polar coordinates.

[6] Repetition is the key to all learning.

[7] The subject of the course was complex numbers (x+yi) and devising theorems and proofs about their properties.

[8] Yoda.

[9] One can make a strong argument that sending a child out into the "fresh air and sunshine" of a Texas summer when temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit is tantamount to child abuse. One has.

[10] If this gets published, all you parents out there, know this: If your child’s team is named the Bluebirds, you’re gonna lose. A lot. Get used to it.

[11] The next season, her team went oh-and-ten again, and that put paid to her soccer career.

[12] Toilet Training in Less Than a Day <http://www.amazon.com/Toilet-Training-Less-Than-Day/dp/0671693808> is available at Amazon.

Subject: LA Schools Buy $30M of iPads

$30Million on iPads??? I thought they were short of money. Granted, there are worse ways to spend all that money, but I never want to hear anyone say that we don’t have enough money for public schools again.

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/06/19/apple-scores-30-million-ipad-contract-from-l-a-unified-school-district/?utm_source=feedly

—

Dwayne Phillips

I await the result with abated breath…

The Cursive Dilemma

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I am a twice elected member of our district’s school board, and have read with great interest your essays and the materials presented by you and contributors on the state of education in the USA.

One aspect of the decline in basic education that caught me by surprise was the unanticipated result of the elimination of cursive writing courses in elementary school. Many, if not most of the children enrolled in public school, graduate to high school unable to sign their name.

There are young adults, in growing numbers, that "print" their signature on paychecks and, presumably, legal documents.

I’m wondering what a mortgage closing looks like when the buyer and seller each print their name on both of the lines?

Will the phrase "sign here" become obsolete?

Bennett Dawson

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

American education poses a dilemma for those who run the political system, namely; shall the people learn or not? If the people do not learn, then they become unproductive and the economy collapses; but if the people do learn, then they become productive but uncontrollable. Indeed, the more they learn, the more they want to take over!

Recent history gives vivid illustration of this dilemma. In the 60’s, we saw the post-Sputnik initiative. What was the result? By the end of the decade, Americans were walking on the moon, and rioting in the campuses! In 1980, an anti-intellectual was elected President, and a different attitude towards education took hold. The result? Much more political stability, but 40 years of stagnant median income.

Explosion or collapse? The ideal solution, from the 1% point of view, is a kind of golden mediocrity, where education teaches the masses just enough to work, and not enough to make trouble. The trouble is that the lines sometimes cross, and you need to know more to work than you need to make trouble; then mediocrity gives everyone trouble but no work.

60s or 80s? In the 60s, America went to the Moon. In the 80s, America went to Hell. All in all I prefer the Moon.

Snowden and Assange have taught us that there is a similar dilemma concerning secrecy. If internal communications of secretive agencies are not censored, then the agency risks exposure by leak; but if internal communications are censored, then the agency becomes stupid. As in the education dilemma, the operators and owners of the system face a choice between controlled collapse into stupidity and uncontrolled ascent into rebellion; and as in the education dilemma, golden mediocrity fails when the lines cross, and it becomes easier for a disgruntled agent to rebel than to report.

In both cases information flow is a problem. From the 1% point of view, information is a kind of explosive lubricant; if it doesn’t flow, then the system seizes up, but if it does flow, then the system explodes. Golden mediocrity fails when revolt is simpler than labor.

There is a deeper problem, and it is political. Why the rebellion of the informed public? Because knowledge gives power, and ends excuses.

Sincerely,

Nathaniel Hellerstein

Mike Johns wrote:

>I don’t think that I have ever encountered someone who did know how to solve story problems but who couldn’t perform the algorithms >without a calculator. Are there any?

Oddly, growing up in the 1970’s, I almost was such a child. I certainly learned my addition and multiplication facts, but I was bad at making use of them, mostly because I was clumsy at writing down sums, so that all too often my place-values got jumbled, and I rarely realized it in time (yes, I should have double-checked, of course).

But I understood mathematical concepts better than most of my classmates. I was obliged to take remedial Algebra II in summer school one year, and we were expected to work in small groups. That’s the only time small-group work has worked well for me. I was paired with a friendly boy who had not even a glimmer of understanding of word problems, and together the two of us shone. I would analyze the word-problem and tell him what we needed to do to solve it, and he

would unerringly work out the problems I set for us. The teacher

started giving us more advanced word-problems, and he told my mother on parents’ day that I could potentially do original work in mathematics. (I never have and presumably never will; I studied Latin

instead.)

—

Meredith Dixon

RAND study on Algebra 1 blended instruction

Dear Jerry,

Article today in Education Week on RAND study of hybrid instruction (blend of online plus in-class) of Algebra 1 “Study: Hybrid Algebra Program ‘Nearly Doubled’ Math Learning”

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2013/06/government_study_finds_gains_f.html <http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2013/06/government_study_finds_gains_f.html>

I have not read the RAND study yet. Valerie teaches Algebra 1 and Algebra 2, so I will forward her comments and mine later this month.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR984.html

Jim Ransom

‘According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a petri dish in which the KGB community could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought.’

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2348191/EXCLUSIVE-KGB-operation-seeded-Muslim-countries-anti-American-anti-Jewish-propaganda-1970s-laying-groundwork-Islamist-terrorism-U-S-Israeli-targets.html>

———

Roland Dobbins

Women as Teachers

JP: "Yet when we had a splendid education system, the envy of the world, it was mostly women teachers and principals."

This was true when I entered elementary school in the early 50’s. As I progressed I came to realize that many of these women, and a number of men, were superior individuals. Years later as once again I became familiar with schoolteachers I wondered where all these superior people were, the mean seemed to be mediocre at best.

Then I realized in the 50’s working women had three choices: become a secretary, a nurse or a teacher. A good percentage of the best became teachers. Today the career field is wide open and the best seldom look to teaching as a career path.

We can struggle against it, but I don’t see a way past the present incentives. The best answer is don’t subject anyone you care about to it.

Kent Anderson

Actually, teaching the young is a rewarding experience, and is to be preferred to most cubicle jobs even if those pay more; but we have worked to make the experience as miserable for the teachers as it is disgusting to the pupils. Properly run schools don’t have teachers who hate their jobs.

‘When it’s hot, they point to Global Warming. When it’s cold, they also point to Global Warming.’

<http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-end-of-world.html>

————

Roland Dobbins

Yep. And now Obama wants to go to war with the US economy in order to save the world from Co2 pollution – at least as contributed by the United States.

Subj: Fw: THIS Is Who We Are Helping In Syria?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJfFrkzf8I&feature=em-share_video_user

I don’t honestly care what anyone thinks of Glenn Beck or on which side their political leanings lie. Don’t watch this video at your own peril. It’s gruesome, graphic, horrifying, chilling and might spoil your breakfast if you don’t have a strong stomach, but this IS Islam, and we enter Syria at our own peril. Watch what this nice Syrian Rebel does to the Syrian military man he has killed…

ChiTownDi1 <http://www.youtube.com/user/ChiTownDi1?feature=em-share_video_user> has shared a video with you on YouTube

Glenn Beck: Shocking Video- THIS Is Who We Are Helping In Syria?! SHARE WITH EVERYONE!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJfFrkzf8I&feature=em-share_video_user> by TheDailyBeck <http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDailyBeck?feature=em-share_video_user>

From the June 17, 2013 edition of "Glenn Beck" on TheBlaze TV: WARNING- This video contains DISTURBING images. The Obama administration, along with PROGRESSIVE Republicans AND Democrats are OK providing assistance to the Syrian ‘rebels’…the same ‘rebels’ who have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda and who cut the heart and liver out of their enemies and eat it.WE MUST NOT GET INVOLVED IN THIS WAR!

Rods from God –

Jerry, I enjoyed the tungsten rod humor in the Questional Content web comic and thought I’d see if there was anything recent online about them. Found this Popular Science article from 2004 that refers to an Air Force paper from 2003 and a Rand report from 2002. Also mentions a certain science fiction author in connection with them. Can’t recall and my copies of your books are packed away since the last move, but didn’t you originate the nickname "Rods from God?" Or at least mention that nickname and who coined it?

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-06/rods-god

–Gary P.

Jerry,

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/06/how_democracies_perish_deathbed_edition.html#.UcC12GqfvyE.twitter

<snip>

Consider the example of John Dewey: a brazen propagandist for Stalinist Russia who, when the truth leaked out, turned Trotskyite without missing a totalitarian beat — and lost not one iota of public credibility in the process. He is "the father of modern education" throughout the civilized world, a world he spent a lifetime hating and attempting to undermine through an education theory built on the principle that all children must be forcibly divested of individual thought, personal initiative, and private motivation. Had the Soviet Union he admired been fully exposed without the delay effect, his own motives and credibility might have been damaged. Instead, he has been lionized as the great educator, while the educational establishment formed according to his theories has (intentionally) reduced the civilization of Shakespeare and Locke, Jefferson, and Melville, to an ahistorical, amoral, semi-literate den of dependency and submissiveness.

Jerry,

I think Martha Stewart would vehemently disagree with the Salinas vs TX ruling. You have no right against self incrimination until AFTER you have been arrested? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Maybe instead of simply not cooperating with unofficial questioning, we need to just start shooting and get it over with since the 5th amendment just got thrown out entirely.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/at-the-supreme-court-divisions-and-signs-of-trouble-to-come/276931/

They can "detain" you, not read you your rights, and then not only what you say, but what you don’t say, will be used against you in court. Our rule of law is rapidly coming to an end.

S

Mail 779 Tuesday, June 25, 2013

I attempt to cut back on the stock of mail.  More later this week. It’s all interesting.

Marius

Jerry,

You mentioned the absence of Marius recently. I suspect it is a matter of perspective and the scale of the society. My personal opinion is that FDR was early and middle period Marius and Nixon when he abolished the draft turned into late period Marius. Before we had citizen soldiers like you and me. After we had legions.

Joe Epstein, the eminent essayist, pointed out a long time ago what a great educational institution the draft was. You met so many unusual Americans and picked up a lot of perspective. Certainly, the current crop of troopers is first class. I can only think of eight guys from my active duty days I would trust to watch my back in a firefight more than local gal Jessie Lynch all gussied up with titanium rods and plates as she is. And she was support.

We are well into the start of the Civil Wars by my analog model. The biggest surprise so far is that I never expected David Petreus to turn into Pompey the Great.

Val Augstkalns

We have not yet had soldiers in the streets, and mass slaughter of enemies of the regimes. I may or may not live to see that, and it will be done more subtly than standing on the Capitol steps and have troops cut down anyone the commander does not hold his hand out to.

I have always said that wealthy republics that do not have a fair conscription system that gets the upper and upper middle classes as well as the commoners is in grave danger. Machiavelli put it simply: paid soldiers obey their officers. A paid army can ruin you by losing your battles – or, tiring of always fighting, can choose to rob the paymaster. The US is not in such danger of that sort of thing. It is in danger of widening the class gaps. In Basic Training I learned more of a range of my fellow Americans than I had ever suspected up to then.

We have Legions now, with an officer corps carefully selected; but we are losing control of that too.

Stop penalizing boys for not being able to sit still at school

Dear Jerry,

The rest of the education world is catching up with you, finally.

Middle school teacher Jessica Lahey has an article in The Atlantic: Stop penalizing boys for not being able to sit still at school.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/stop-penalizing-boys-for-not-being-able-to-sit-still-at-school/276976/

Jim Ransom

I have struggled with the authorities on this for decades. I was required to LEARN to sit still, not given drugs to make it happen. I believe the learning was worth while. Drugs do not teach you much. Of course there are cases where I suppose drugs help, but I think they are more rare than the authorities suppose.

Failing Education Systems Not Just A US Problem

Jerry,

I thought you might like to read an article from the BBC concerning the state of their national education system (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22873257). The article is titled, "Schools fail to challenge the brightest, warns Ofsted," and is about the findings of a broad survey of British non-selective secondary schools. Apparently, they are also victimizing the fastest in the name of not penalizing the slowest. I wonder if we in the United States could learn a little about our own problem by studying the British mess, its origins, and their response to it? It might be easier to look at the issue objectively.

Kevin L Keegan

Education Dilemma

Dr. Pournelle,

Back in the 50s and 60s my family lived in a NY hamlet served by a small, centralized school district. My HS graduating class size was 205 – large enough to ensure decent facilities but small enough to enforce a measure of accountability. The fact that the administrators and teachers were neighbors as well didn’t hurt.

Classes were tracked by (perceived) ability: Seminar and High Regents (there wasn’t much difference except for the foreign language studied) were designed for the gifted – those expected to go to four year colleges and universities. Regents was for solid students who could pass the (at the time challenging) NYS Regents exams to get a state certified diploma; the expectation was that some would continue on to four year schools while others went to community colleges and two year technical schools. General was for those students of a more vocational bent who received a local school diploma.

The membranes were permeable, though, and students moved back and forth between tracks based on periodic assessments of their performance. Thus, while the tracks generally categorized students correctly, there was none of the "track = destiny" bias found in most European systems. To my mind, then and now, this helped ensure appropriate education by ability and interest, while having the flexibility to deal with the inevitable human error in tracking.

Did this have a bit of a class-based society feel? Possibly, though it wasn’t very pronounced (being a farming community, one denigrated the FFA at one’s peril). Also, there was plenty of mixing via the track fluidity above and extra curricular activities like sports, band, etc. While I was in the Seminar track, I respect the work and accomplishments of all my classmates; I’m a klutz, so the skills of those in other tracks is essential to my well-being. At our 40th reunion a few years back one did not see four alumni clusters forming around the tracks in the 60s.

So what’s education in NY like today? First, there’s a definite one-size-fits-all mentality, fostered by NCLB, that harms everyone. Those who would previously get local diplomas are now struggling with material that they do not understand, care about, or need. On the other hand, the top students are deprived of the opportunity to shine – the current Regents exams are but a faint shadow of what they were before, because essentially EVERYONE is expected to pass them. AP classes help, but not as much as one would hope.

Now the Common Core threatens this already sad state of affairs. The mathematics approach – little more than group guessing and groping – might possibly work if everyone were like Richard Feynman or Stephen Hawking. Unfortunately most of us (myself included) are not in that category. The English curriculum abandons any focus on literature – I guess if you can read and understand the Windows help files, that’s sufficient.

I’m just glad all my children completed HS before the ed. school establishment was able to do even more damage. As a new grandfather, however, I worry about the quality of the education my grandson will receive. My daughter has her bachelor’s in mathematics combined with an artistic bent, and my son-in-law is a mechanical engineer – perhaps I should encourage them to consider home schooling.

Mike Lutz

Re: Preface to the Education Dilemma

Dr. Pournelle,

NOTE: Please don’t publish my name. Use the "Terrier1" pseudonym I notified you about when I sent the "I PAID" e-mail to become a subscriber.

It seems to me that it would help if schools in a district were treated like the individual campuses of the UC and CSU systems: that is, they are all part of a system, but permitted lots of autonomy. One-size-fits-all won’t get us anywhere.

And it’s time for the everyone-must-go-to-a-4-year-university assumption to go. Some might not go at all. Some might go later in life. Again, it’s one-size-fits-all.

But there are some things which should be mandatory for teaching. Chief among them would be our history, with as much detail appropriate to the grades as possible, but no PC stuff. Bringing back the "melting pot" would be a wonderful idea; President Theodore Roosevelt had some sharp words on this matter. And while it is good for people to know other languages, let’s make it clear that English is the language of our country. Basic arithmetic as well, but higher math could be left to community colleges and freshman-level classes at universities.

Let’s have some life skills as well. Personal finance would be at the top of the list. I used to be a bank teller and I saw customers getting into financial trouble all the time through their own ignorance. We don’t have to turn everyone into a Wall Street financial wizard, but at least let’s explain how credit cards, checking accounts, savings accounts, and investments work, along with inculcating the idea that it is much better to save than to borrow for an item you want or need. Learning how to cook would be a good thing too; cooking is fun and it’s better than gobbling fast food all the time. Giving them a skill — cooking — seems to be better than Mayor Bloomberg’s preachy rants about soda.

Absent some sort of enforcement mechanism, whether it comes from the district, the state, or the federal government, I don’t see how we can guarantee that these things will be taught. But at the same time, I am wary of one-size-fits-all and too much top-down enforcement.

I don’t have a wife or kids yet, but when I do, I want them to have the option of going to good public schools, not mediocre ones.

Regards,

Terrier1

Follow up to Education Dilemma

Your comments about Ed schools are spot on. The friends I have who taught at the K-12 level, especially the ones who came from industry, saw the Ed school curriculum as a joke. On the way to the NYS mandated Masters degree, most of them took as few education courses and and as many advanced professional courses as possible.

I suspect that most of your readers already know that an Ed.D. in a university setting gets no respect outside of the Ed school. I wonder how many folks in the citizenry at large are aware of this?

Mike Lutz

education

A bright spot for smart kids trapped in a bad school system is online education. Most of the courses are aimed at college level but there are exceptions such as Khanacademy that offer high school courses.

The big sites like EdX, Coursera, Udacity get a lot of publicity but look at http://www.mooc-list.com/ for a list of many other sites that offer courses. I was particularly impressed by http://www.saylor.org/ They offer a wide variety of college courses and also have a beta site of high school courses.

Bob Alvarez

It is indeed and we will have a good deal to say on that. The first step is to insure that all the kids can read before they leave second grade. Most should know how to read before they leave first. By read I mean read nonsense words like polyjubalredit as well as scientific terms; if they can say it they should be able to read it. Once that is done they can begin to profit form on line education.

Education – my obsevation

I went to elementary school in the late 60’s to early 70’s and I attended at least a dozen different elementary schools. Until 5th grade, I didn’t have any real trouble switching schools. Although most of the schools I attended were in Houston, I also attended school in California, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas. There was one other state but I was too unclear on geography to know which state.

The main problem I had with the different schools was grades; there weren’t enough of them. They were never transfered. I had to attend summer school after 2nd grade even though I had mastered the course work because I had too few grades. I was rather bored. The only other problem I had was with understanding the instructions. I finished 3rd grade in Louisiana and was making straight 70’s on the tests. I would always get the last 3 questions marked wrong. It was a word problem and I would get the right number but the instructions said to answer in a complete sentence. I did not know what that meant! It was until the very end of the year that someone looked at the pattern, explained what I was supposed to do and gave me a second chance. Some people say I should have asked. However, I was perpetually the new kid and admitting I didn’t know something everyone else knew was not something I could do.

For 5th grade, I went to 3 schools: Little Rock, Corpus Christi, and Houston. I do not remember having trouble in any classes other than science. The schools were not covering the same lessons and it was difficult to pick it up in the middle. After 5th, I went to different schools but the changes were during the summer.

The main point is that the course work was uniform enough that switching was not a problem. I’m not sure how that plays into your education debate but thought it would be of interest.

Sincerely,

Greg Brewer

P.S.

I am often asked why I changed schools so often. I was not told the real reason at the time but my grandmother told me that my step-father robbed a bank. Bank robbery is not economical. Once the F.B.I. starts asking your family about your location, you start moving. And you move every time you see a car that might be F.B.I. By the time you split the take with your partners, you only have a couple of years worth of salary. You cannot use your real social security number to get a job. You cannot get a decent apartment because you cannot stand up to any kind of background check.

Teachers

I graduated from the largest producers of teachers in the state of Illinois. It’s a big state, and it’s a big school.

Every one of the education majors I knew was a moderate-IQ female. Too low, actually, to be in anything but a community college.

No, I take that back. I knew one male. He is still a close friend. He was so disgusted with what he encountered in the schools in which he worked he left the field, and completed a Ph.D. in Economics.

Recently he ran across a high-IQ woman who is a former teacher. They were swapping war stories in front of me. They had exactly the same experiences: too many incompetent women – and too much interference from the State and its bureaucrats.

Bob Wallace

Yet when we had a splendid education system, the envy of the world, it was mostly women teachers and principals.

"Rote" Learning

Jerry,

You touched on a subject that is very important to me.

My own experience is that having "rote" learning assisted me greatly in my undergraduate and graduate education. I most fortunate in that I had two years of single variable calculus in high school. I became so proficient in it I could do the integrals so fast on the quizzes and tests that I could do a check on my answers by differentiating my answer to assure I got the original integral back.

Before calculus, I needed trigonometry. I rote learned the fundamental identities. I could plow through the most difficult identities the book or teacher could make up because of algebra.

I rote learned how to factor by endless doing problems. Most of my problems were due to miscarrying to carrying signs through properly.

And all those little rote learning problems with exponents, signs, fractions, sums, and such

What all that uninspiring, boring, mechanical, repetitive, unimaginative work from the times tables

[An interesting side note: When you wrote you should learn the times table to 20, I, in retrospect concur. I thought of 17 x 19. I didn’t know it off the top of my head–that made me mad at myself, I should know these things darn it!, so I used some factoring math tricks learned in "rote" learning and got the right result.]

To single variable calculus did for me was that I KNEW ABSOLUTELY when I didn’t understand the physics. It was never a math problem until differential equations, linear algebra and multivariable calculus–then I needed to take care I learned the principles and exercising by "rote."

In chemistry in my first year I was taking an session on organic chemistry that was taught by both an organic chemist and a physical chemist. The organic prof was saying you need to learn the pKa tables by heart. The pchem prof disparaged that. However, there are other things a pchemist needs to know!

And by the by, for those that disparage of rote learning, I suppose such musicians as James Galway, Yo Yo Ma, Maurice Andre, and Vladimir Horowitz didn’t need to do scales!

I will ask my friends in the Bellevue school system if there will be hearing about the new math curriculum and I will attempt to share my experience with learning by rote.

Seeing what others thought about math and physics, I looked around and found Dr. John Baez’s website and his discussion on how to learn math and physics.

Dr. John Baez’s website <http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/>

Dr. Baez’s take on how to learn Math and Physics <http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html>

I am very surprised that many of the books he recommends are the ones I used 35 years ago!

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

Reform Math

I was probably an early victim of the reform math movement. Wasn’t until nearly 7th grade that they realized that I had no concept of how to do division; simply because nobody had ever trained me on the process or bothered to check that I really had a tool (standard algorithm) for it, rather than getting lucky guessing at the answers. Certainly made learning algebra harder because of my later starting point. At least I’d caught up by the time I needed to take calculus in college.

While there may be some method to guessing and building your own algorithms, kids are NOT going to have the background to make general rules that apply to all problems. The purpose of schools *should* be to teach kids how to learn, in addition to teaching those general rules that have been already figured out through experience and hard work. If the purpose of schools were to make everyone reinvent the wheel on their own, we wouldn’t need any schools.

Michael Houst

Reform Math

Great article and commentary.

My question is "Do you want to live below a dam or travel in an airplane designed by an Engineer who was educated using a ‘whole math’ approach?"

John

John Harlow

How Should Arithmetic be Taught?

Jerry,

When I was a child there were plenty of children who regarded arithmetic story problems as a special kind of torture. The problem still persists in children I encounter today. They learn the algorithms but seem to regard knowing how to apply them to find answers to questions that anyone might care about as an unfathomable mystery. If that is the problem that reformers are trying to address, then I am sympathetic to their aims. If we were doing everything right, this wouldn’t be happening.

I don’t think that I have ever encountered someone who did know how to solve story problems but who couldn’t perform the algorithms without a calculator. Are there any? I suspect that the reformers’ ideas will result in children who can neither perform the algorithms nor think quantitatively.

I was puzzled by some of the algorithms as a kid. I didn’t understand why the shift and add algorithm for multiplication yielded correct answers. My requests to the teacher for help yielded an unhelpful insistence that I practice more. Fortunately, I caught on in algebra when we learned about commutativity and associativity. I gather that this was the sort of problem that the New Math was supposed to solve, but it assumed that students should progress from the general to the concrete rather than the other way around. I’m young enough that the New Math is mostly a Tom Lehrer song.

Mike Johns

Was the Afghan War as unnecessary as the second Iraq War?

Last night I watched ABC TV in Australia (Lateline -http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3785506.htm) when the counter-insurgency expert often called on because he is said to be an Australian former Colonel who advises the great and good of the military and State Department in the US, was being interviewed. His name is David Kilcullen.

Despite having got on to the problems of the Iraq war pretty early I have only been drifting towards a realisation of just how much of a blunder the Afghan adventure was, even from the outset. Kilcullen said something I had never heard before which made it clear that we have had over 10 years of unnecessary killing and waste.

He said that Mullah Omar was unwilling to have Osama bin Laden extradited/rendered/ handed over to the US but that he was willing to send him to a country governed by Sharia law like Saudi Arabia. (His reason for not being willing to have him sent to the US was that bin Laden had lied to him and denied involvement in 9/11, a lie which, when exposed made Mullah Omar thoroughly pissed off with bin Laden but that was too late)

I have now found the relevant part of the transcript:

TONY JONES: As you said earlier, one of the key US demands originally was that the Taliban before negotiating agree to denounce al-Qaeda. They haven’t done that. They’ve come part of the way by saying they wouldn’t countenance anyone using Afghan territory to make an attack on another country, which alludes to that. But where does this leave the spiritual leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, who of course is the person who gave protection, fed and housed Osama bin Laden at exactly the time that he was doing that, launching or planning an attack on the United States, the 9/11 attacks?

DAVID KILCULLEN: Well the relationship between mullah Omar and the Taliban is complex and it’s not as supportive as some people think. The Taliban didn’t actually invite al-Qaeda into Afghanistan; they were already there when the Taliban seized Kabul in September of 1996. And in fact, Mullah Omar was unaware of the planning for 9/11 and immediately after 9/11 angrily asked Osama bin Laden, "Hey, did you guys do this?," and Osama bin Laden assured him at the time that it wasn’t them. And on that basis, Mullah Omar, while refusing to give Osama bin Laden up to the United States, offered to give him to a country that practised sharia law, in this case place probably Saudi Arabia. That offer was rejected by the Americans. So the point is Mullah Omar hasn’t been an unequivocal supporter of Osama bin Laden. He’s actually been very upset with al-Qaeda at different times. And I’ve talked to people very close to the Taliban leadership over the last five years or so who’ve said, "Look, we’re angry at al-Qaeda. They brought the Americans down on us like a tonne of bricks, they lied to us about 9/11 and they dragged us into something that wasn’t our fight."

James

World War?

I’ve been saying for years we’re looking at a world war.  I said the flash-points are Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and North Korea.  Others are finally starting to take note:

<.>

A leading Israeli expert on the Middle East suggested last week that with all the foreign involvement in the ongoing Syrian civil war, that conflict could be the harbinger of a much wider conflagration.

Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, told those attending a symposium at Tel Aviv University that in the eyes of the Arab world, the final outcome of the Arab Spring hinges on the results of the struggle in Syria.

According to Prof. Rabinovich, the Syrian conflict is a Middle Eastern version of the Spanish Civil War, which was itself a dress rehearsal for World War II.

</>

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/23919/Default.aspx?hp=article_title

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The Syrian war is a religious as well as a civil war, more analogous to the Thirty Years War than other events in Western history. The Peace of Westphalia was a peace of exhaustion and was the best that could happen after Adolphus fell at Lutzen. I do not see any “side” that they US could back and expect a good result.

Middle Class in The Middle East

Jerry,

Supporting an al Qaeda-Hezbollah war of mutual destruction in Syria has short-term appeal – what’s not to like about our sworn enemies shooting each other? But such a policy overlooks Syria’s significant middle-class minority. At minimum we also need to be helping them to survive the carnage, and preferably to come out on top afterwards.

Not purely out of humanitarianism, though that has its place. A Syria ruled by its middle class is by far the best long-term outcome for the country, for the region, and for us.

This Syria would not likely be a democracy, mind – we tend to ascribe cultural virtues to "democracy" that actually stem from a stable sensible middle-class voting majority. Absent such a majority democracy is a recipe for dictatorial populism – one man one vote, once.

Which brings to mind the situation in Turkey, where democracy has taken over from the Ataturkist pro-modernist autocracy just as the middle class was nearing a majority. The current riots seem to be the Turkish middle class’s way of saying "hell no" to islamic populist rule.

Erdogan’s police don’t seem up to the job of suppressing the riots – middle class or no, these are Turks.

Now Erdogan’s talking about calling out the army. He’s spent a decade trying to purge the Turkish army of its Ataturkists. It will be interesting to see how well he’s succeeded.

But the Sunni coalition built the Syrian middle class which included Christians, Druze, and even Jews. Of course it was a despoty, but where do we find much else in that region?

Our enemies are shooting at each other.

Jerry-

Has it been considered that the Sunni Shiite conflict has been suppressed since colonial times? And that our enemies are basically shooting at each other?

Could Obama be trying to balance the sides and keep the young men fighting each other and wasting energy and hate on each other. Last face off was Iran/Iraq war 1980-1988. I was in high school (and hence oblivious), but I don’t recall that being a time when we were concerned about terrorism. Facing down Russia, yes.

The strategy has been used, and filed in the back of my head is the notion that it is unpredictable and risky. But could it be the strategy? Could it be Putin’s strategy to encourage their Muslim minorities to send off the young hotheads to . . . I confess the temptation to insert something about David and Goliath and blood in the sands and i really must stop.

But, freely quoted "I will have more freedom of action after I am re-elected." And on Fox News Sunday Britt Hume noted that Whitehouse strategy for presidential exposure seems to have changed in the last few weeks. NSA basically sent out the press secretary to the Sunday shows. Hmm. . .

David Schierholz

That kind of balance of power game is best played by monarchies, and requires dedication and skill that I have seen no reason to believe we possess.

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Fresh from the news that the US is sending small arms and trainers to syria is the news that Iran is now intervening there directly.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-to-send-4000-troops-to-aid-president-assad-forces-in-syria-8660358.html

I don’t think we can overthrow such a force with military aid alone. So we’ll either need to do a kosovo and lend the rebels an air force as well as money and training or go full in with ground troops ourselves.

Which may be why the Russians sent SAMs to Syria in the event of just such a contingency.

…

And why are we there at all again?

To me, it’s like poker. The Iraqis have raised the stakes. We should call or fold. I vote fold. No point in sitting in a high stakes game if you’re not willing to stick it through to the end, and our "leading from behind" elsewhere leaves me no reassurance that we’ll do anything other than half-measures too little and too late.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I am waiting for the President to explain our national interests; but first I expect him to explain what was accomplished in Libya, and what happened at Benghazi.

Transparency and Open Government

I really wish President Obama would go back and read the memorandum he wrote.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment

Transparency and Open Government

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.

Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperateamong themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.

I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

But this was to be the most transparent and open administration in history. I recall that in the 2008 campaign and the 2009 inaugural.

Subject: Unpaid Internship Now Illegal

The courts have declared this avenue that many have taken into real jobs to be illegal. What will happen now? Companies will probably NOT pay people to do these same jobs. Fewer people working, fewer people learning how to do a job, and all that. People actually fought to get these unpaid jobs. Now a judge says that was wrong.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/06/13/unpaid_internships_violated_minimum_wage_laws_court_rules.html

—

Dwayne Phillips

TFX redux: ‘After almost 12 years of development, at a cost of more than $84 billion thus far, the F-35 project hasn’t produced an aircraft in a form that can be manufactured.

<http://spectator.org/archives/2013/06/13/how-not-to-buy-a-fighter/print>

Except that even the TFX/nee F-111 only took six years from drawing board to deployment.

——–

Roland Dobbins <roland.dobbins@mac.com>

I need to revise The Strategy of Technology to incorporate modern examples; the principles have not changed. Alas I look at the list of things I must accomplish and I am frightened.

Oath of fealty

Dr Pournelle

Reviewed Oath of Fealty <http://thelogoftheantares.blogspot.com/2013/06/ebook-review-oath-of-fealty.html> . Gave it 4 stars.

I was amused by the size of the dump MILLIE printed out: 23,567,892 bytes. FWIW in 1980 I was analyzing dumps that were measured in boxes of fanfold output. A clean run would generate 5/6 of a box. More than that meant a problem, and I had to read through the dump to find the problem. I would have been ecstatic with a dump of only 23,567,892 bytes.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

Thanks. The book is having a new spurt of sales. It holds up pretty well…

2014 Starts Now

Jerry,

Mickey Kaus makes the point that we shouldn’t let the scandals distract us from the Senate’s current legalize-’em-now, maybe-secure-the-borders-eventually Immigration push.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/11/wake-up/

2014 starts now, and I just sent the one of my Senators that there’s some hope for the following:

Dear Senator [Redacted],

First, let me thank you for your vote on Manchin-Toomey. As I wrote to Senator [Redacted 2] at the time, it would have significantly reduced current protections (for interstate travelers, and against Federal retention of gun-ownership data.) The actual bill content contradicted the claimed effect, and I opposed that strongly enough to be writing a politician for the first time in years. I regret that I’ll have to consider Senator [Redacted 2]’s form-letter dismissal of my concerns when [it]’s up [next time]. I really appreciate your opposition to that.

Now I’m writing my second letter in a long time, to ask you to reconsider, and oppose any "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" that does not actually effectively secure the borders before any legalization can take effect. I understand the demographics from the last election, but the answer is not to join the other side in pandering to low-information voters – that’s competing with them at their game. In order to give us any hope for the future of this republic in these exceedingly perilous times, Republicans need to take the longer harder road of competing to raise voters’ information levels. That is the only game we have a real chance of winning at.

sincerely

Porkypine [Self-Redacted!]

Dem Civil War, Legitimacy

Jerry,

Apparently I’m not the only one idly speculating that we may be seeing fallout from a Billary-Barack covert knife fight. Rich Fernandez leads off his piece "The Destroyer of Words" thusly:

"The latest scandal story about the State Department coverup of a U.S.

ambassador who was allegedly soliciting prostitutes in a public park brought two things to mind. The first, unbidden and unsupported, was that factions in the bureaucracy were at war with each other and the target of the one faction was Obama and the target of the other was She Who Must Not Be Named."

He then gets serious and makes some very good points about how legitimacy is what has allowed us to cope with ever-increasing technological power, and how the main problem isn’t the NSA "Everything"

database, it’s the growing loss of legitimacy by its masters.

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/06/11/the-destroyer-of-words/?singlepage=true

Porkypine

The police are your friends !

An interesting CBS news investigation in which a sheriff first sexually assaulted a female under the cover of a "drug search", then arrested her when she protested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ytUl2Ie4E8Y

Recommend not watching it if you’re not prepared for your blood to boil. But remember: Officer friendly on the street is there to help!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

: Off-duty cops collect DNA samples at Alabama roadblocks | The Daily Caller

This should be disturbing to people.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/10/off-duty-cops-collect-dna-samples-at-alabama-roadblocks/

James Crawford=

Subj: Grand Senator Bronson’s Cure

 http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350920/americas-vast-margin-error-victor-davis-hanson

This piece reminded me of a passage from Pournelle and Stirling’s _The Prince_, page 979: When Niles was a child he had loved Turkish Delight; on a visit, Adrian Bronson had grown tired of his whining and bought him a whole box while they were at a county fair on the estate. Niles could remember the exact moment when pleasure turned to disgust, just before the nausea struck; he had never been able to eat the stuff again. No lessons like those you teach yourself, his grand uncle had said to his mother.<< Alas, we seem to be teaching ourselves the Lesson on the Consequences of Excessively Large Government.

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Part of Everyone’s Curriculum

Jerry

http://vimeo.com/66753575

Ouch!

Ed

I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.