Americans today should free “its children” by separating education and state!

Saturday, May 20, 2006

http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger86.html

***Begin Quote***

What is amazing is that after so many years of government involvement in education, with all its dismal results, so few people ask basic and fundamental questions about the education of their children, such as:

  • Why shouldn’t families have the same sovereign and independent control over the education of their children as they have over religious matters?
  • Given that the free market produces the best of everything and socialism produces the worst of everything, why are people willing to submit their children to a second-rate product in an area as important as education?
  • Why should providing education to people be considered a legitimate function of government?

***End Quote***

It's all about socialism. Centralized state planning has put us in the mess we are in. The skoolz resemble the state's prisions. Money is wasted; sometimes it's lost, stolen, or misappropriated. Results are a joke.

Here in the People's Republik of New Jersey, we have litany of problems. Here's a few of my personal favorites:

  • Schools are "financed" by property taxes. Regardless, if one has any children, everyone is "assessed" to pay for the gummamint reeducation camps. Too bad if you're a senior living in the same house for 70 years and now on a fixed income, time for you to move to a different state. Too bad if you have multiple properties, you're too rich.
  • Schools are run by the gummamint, teaching the gummamint religion (i.e., Conserve Mother Earth like good little druids and honor the all wise State from whom all benefits flow), and dumbing down the population. I particularly like how the brag on their "achievements" (i.e., number of students going to college) but never mention their failures (i.e., GEDs) and figure out ways to "cook the books". Of course, this is all done for MY benefit (i.e., Good schools mean that people will want to move here and buy your house at a big profit. Ignoring the fact that I have to live somewhere!) by "selfless public servants". Silly me!
  • There is a Political – Educrat – Servicing conspiracy at work as a positive feedback loop. Politicians "save the children" with programs. The Board of Education, School Administrators, Teachers, and Unions all campaign for more money. Custodians, Builders, Service Providers all have lucrative contracts. The School Administrators, Teachers, Unions, Custodians, Builders, and Service Providers contribute to the Politicians with money, labor, and "needs". Politicians raise taxed to "save the children" with new programs. And on and on.

So we have to break the cycle. 

I don't pay to feed, clothe, or entertain your children. Why should I pay to "educate" them?

And, if I do have to pay, which I don't think is fair, why do I have to do it with government?

Could it be that you could not "convince" me to pay for it without the force of government to make me.

Remember the hallmark of a bad idea is that you can't convince people to do it voluntarily.

(I think somebody smart said that, but I don't know who. Do you?) 


Imagine how useful it would be to have a wiki. Now how do you sell it to Leadership?

Friday, May 19, 2006

http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/05/12/1539231&from=rss

Enterprise Applications
Putting MediaWiki to use in an organization
Friday May 19, 2006 (05:01 PM GMT)
By: Mark Alexander Bain

***Begin Quote***

Imagine how useful it would be to have an online knowledge base that can easily be updated created by key people within your organization. That's the promise of a wiki — a Web application that "allows users to easily add, remove, or otherwise edit all content, very quickly and easily," as Wikipedia, perhaps the best-known wiki, puts it. Why not bring the benefits of a wiki to your organization?

***End Quote***

Imagine all you want! Leadership doesn't understand it. You can talk until you are blue in the face. They can't understand it. And, you can't make them. Talk's cheap. And, that Leadership, who you are trying to sell, has been sold and bought the Brooklyn Bridge so many times they don't even listen anymore.

Thus, you can't get it in the door!

I knew what the benefits were from using wikopedia and the wiki at http://wikiw.freetalklive.com. But, until you have your "own" demo, you don't KNOW what it could do for your organization.  

I suggest throwing it up on a laptop for demonstration purposes.

Some caveats. Any relatively modern virgin windowsXP from Dell should be good enough. I say virgin because your companies deploys as a standard image may interfere with your deployment. I say virgin also because I had played with Perspective prior to attempting MediaWiki and it needed a wipe to get it to work. But for one kilo dollar of hardware, zero software dollars, and at most 4 hours of clock time, and you can have your demo.

In my case, I use my Verizon Wireless Broad Band card and DynDns as well to make an internet accessible demo. I have actually supported five users (admittedly slowly) in simultaneous updating pages.

A demo will open the eyes of most Luddite of Leaders. A demo they get. They see it. They touch it. And, they "know" it's not that bridge. Or that they are not commissioning a trek into the unending budgetary swamp. They can make the leap from small demo to big demo.

After all to them it just feels like a funny website. But they'll "get it" when they see it.

That's what I did. It makes it visceral, easy to see, and touchable!

Now you are not going to garner the huge knowledge gains from a corporate wiki by running a demo. The value is having the enterprise version out, available, and open for use.

But you have to get to that point. This is how to do it.

Heck, if you're in a pickle, gimme a yell and I'll rent you my laptop for a day. ;-)


Police cited the woman for hunting without a license … … in her house!

Thursday, May 18, 2006

http://www.lp.org/yourturn/archives/000306.shtml

***Begin Quote***

Defending Yourself Against Alligators
Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post story that will make you think twice about moving to Florida:

"Yesterday…an alligator walked through the doggy door of a woman's house in Bradenton and went for her golden retriever. The woman grabbed a shotgun and blazed away. The alligator escaped with a flesh wound. The neighbors heard shots and called police, who promptly cited the woman for hunting without a license."
How can the police cite the woman for hunting without a license? Who ever heard of hunting in your own house? Unbelievable.

Posted by Matthew Dailey at May 18, 2006 12:41 PM

***End Quote***

Absolutely unbelievable! 


Technology presents “a you won’t believe your eyes”.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

from The LangaList Standard Edition 2006-05-18

A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa
That Helps You Get More From Your Hardware,
Software, and Time Online

***Begin Quote***

Hello, Fred! Just thought I'd send the link below to you for the Just for Grins section of the newsletter. It's an example of just how most of our brains work. We start out seeing one thing but, upon further inspection, we wind up seeing another. The page is suitable for all ages in all countries of the world. —Bob de Violini

***End Quote***

Sigh, now we can't depend upon what we see because of … evolution?


Hey Gov C wanna save some gas?

Thursday, May 18, 2006

18 may 06 @ 727 am 295 s milepost 60 TD10471 wizzed by >75 mphs.

18 may 06 @ 731am 295 s milepost 55 SG20608 passed me at 65 but at least he used his signals and got out of the left lane.

Imagine mere peasants thinking that the glorious state workers of the People's Repoublic of New Jersey should be held to the same rules that they make for the serfs and peons! How rude. Let them each cake and drive on the portions of the road we are not using.

Remember the French Revolution? It just takes one spark to set off the blaze.


Why is everyone now forcing password changes?

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Latest is verizon wireless. With a minimum of 8; max 20. No previous. Why are they "helping" me? Think I'm too stupid to manage my own life or did they lose them all?


Today’s jigsaw puzzle the Statue of Liberty with NYC skyline minus the WTC. Sensitive or Insensitive? I’d say “in”.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

http://games.myway.com/index.html

Today's jigsaw puzzle the Statue of Liberty with NYC skyline minus the WTC. Sensitive or Insensitive? I'd say "in".

But then, I'm the guy who says we should have a private fund raising drive to rebuild it just a little taller than it was. When a bully knocks you down, you don't roll over and let him kick you.

As an L, I hate the gummamint enslaving us. I'd have said sell the WTC towers because why is a quasi government agency running real estate in the hotest market in the world?

But, when someone kicks over my stuff, the gloves come off.

It's one thing if one of our own rants and raves. It's quite another if comes from the outside in. But then I'd also say we should be minding our own business.

But, this was "not relaxing", which is why I start my day with a modest mental challenge to get the brain going. 


Yahoo wants to get you interested in registering a domain. Why bother?

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Received an email from Yahoo offering a domain name for 2.99! 

***Begin Quote***

How long will you wait to get that domain for your business, hobby, family, or anything else that interests you? For only $2.99 for the first year, you'll get your domain name plus:

>  24-7 toll-free support: Get help if you have questions.
>  Bonus starter web page: Establish your web presence in minutes.
>  Domain forwarding: Easily send traffic from your other sites.

Your domain name is out there. Go get it. 

***End Quote***

 But, I've read GoDaddy's description of the add drop scheme.

http://www.bobparsons.com/index.php?/archives/116-guid.html

***Begin Quote***

Millions of good .COM domain names – on any given day over 3.5 million and climbing — are unfairly made unavailable to small businesses and others who would actually register and use them in ways for which the names were intended. Many times businesses accidentally let their domain names expire. When they go to renew them, they find they have been snapped up – and taken away with a huge expensive hassle to follow – by an add/drop registrar.
***End Quote***

So it's a waste to even bother looking for "good" domain names. They're all tied up by these phony registrars.

So Yahoo don't waste my time. 


LUG running wxp sp2 seems to “disconnect” every night?

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Seems like at midnight or there abouts, LUG "disconnects" from my home network. Interesting because nothing will convince it to reconnect but a reboot. Interesting?


“Pony Up”? That all the taxpayer keeps doing!

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

http://ems.gmnews.com/news/2006/0517/Front_Page/031.html

State needs to pony up more funds for schools
Council supports bill requiring state to fund 25 percent of school costs
BY JOHN DUNPHY Staff Writer

***Begin Quote***

EDISON – Officials and residents alike are looking for solutions on how to fund education in the wake of the Board of Education's recently defeated budget.
*** AND ***

We may not be an Abbott district, but it doesn't mean we have unlimited funds," she said.

***End Quote***

Ahh, Mister John, tsk, tsk, There is no "State". There are only taxpayers. And, if you're telling us that we have to pony up more, then I'll ask you why?

What makes you think that the taxpayer can afford to "pony up"?

And "pony up" for a failed solution.

If I was in Detroit with a map of Chicago, then you'd know I was lost! But when we have a failed system like "publik skoolz", why can we see that we need a new map?

We certainly should have learned from the Communists that centralized state planning doesn't work. Our education model is lifted directly from the great socialists of the "education  experts". 

No, sorry, more money is not needed. I don't pay to feed other people's children. Nether, do I clothe them. So why do I have to educate them?