Education

The survey says that Colorado is in a tie at 35th out of 50 with an overall high school graduation rate of 74%.

Here are the rates reported for Colorado as broken down by demographic groups:

• American Indian – 52 percent
• Asian/Pacific Islander – 81 percent
• Black – 65 percent
• Hispanic – 60 percent
• White non-Hispanic – 81 percent
• Children with disabilities – 53 percent
• Limited English proficiency – 53 percent
• Economically disadvantaged – 62 percent

In a possibly related story, with the changing of the State House from Red to Blue, the new chair of the House Finance Committee .

Never has that been more true than with the selection of HD6 Democratic State Rep. Lois Court to head the Colorado State House Finance Committee.  Rep. Court has, on more than one occasion, professed her lack of skills in math

Possibly a product of the local education establishment. I wonder if she understands the concept of a deficit?

The Future Of Transportation - Warp Drive

The physics of the space-time continuum is the playground of the scientist for the moment, and will be until the math is worked out suggesting that real phenomenon can be substituted for the chunks of the equations to produce a real working experiment.

Einstein famously came up with E=mc2 in the early part of the 20th century and some 40 years later the engineers came up with an actual demonstration of the equation.

What is needed at this point is a careful description of the phenomenon included in the math so we can get to the real business of building demonstrations on lab benches.

Some aspiring SF writer could certainly have some fun writing a description of the first such experiment on a bench somewhere and the result of moving even a small object at relativistic speeds across a laboratory of necessarily limited dimensions.

In the meantime I encourage the boffins to keep crunching the numbers. I'll keep a space clear on my workbench.

Scientists investigate that which already is; engineers create that which has never been.

                                           A. Einstein

Licensing Of The Press

Licensing of the press is being proposed in Great Britain, with only one newspaper so far coming out against it. The obvious outcome of something like this would be a press fawning over whatever party was considered most likely to abuse the licensing power. Misbehavior of this party would be studiously ignored while the smallest foible of the other side would be presented as evidence of unpardonable moral decay.

Of course if the Labour party passes this, and the Spectator refuses to participate, the Spectator will be shut down and its staff jailed to the sanctimonious clucking f the remaining press. "If only they could have followed the common sense rules" will run the editorials.

Of course if it works there, expect a similar regulation to be put forth here. This will most likely come as an extension of the powers of the FCC which can be done by executive order rather than getting tied up in the partisan bickering of the congress. Current practice is to simply not invite Fox news to the White House press conferences.

Thought: Some bloggers (not me) are pleased to call themselves journalists in attempts to question politicians. Some politicians, noting that some bloggers are notably unfriendly, have been known to forcibly push the bloggers away to the point of risking assault charges. Wouldn't it be nice if those pests were licensed and thus easily identifiable as friend or foe before the interview could get out of hand?

Term Limits

Here's some sentiment from the Shoe comic:

I suppose the more draconian version of this would be called a Terminator, no?

Gun Fun - E-Postal

This months e-postal over at True Blue Sams turned out to be among the most difficult I've seen so far. What I like about these matches is that when you get a simple looking target which when you finish you become convinced that either someone used a shotgun on it or you're in terminal Parkinsons, it's because the target was considerably more difficult than you thought.

Ranging from 1 hit on the bottle on the left to 5 each on the bottle and 'gong' on the right, those last two prove to be difficult indeed. Theoretically you should need 20 rounds for this. In reality 45-50 is more like it.

Art

The state of Art right now is that Glenn Beck has assembled and put up for auction, a piece of his own consisting of an Obama bobblehead doll in a jar of urine, reminiscent of the "Piss Christ" from way back when. He posted this on E-Bay with an asking price of $25,000 and had bids over $11,000 when E-Bay pulled the offering. Proceeds were to go to Beck's charity, Mercury One.

It seems that E-Bay does not allow the sale of bodily fluids on its site.

This brings up another possibility: Reminiscent of the portrait of the Virgin Mary done in elephant dung, how about a 3-D sculpture of the pres done in male bovine scat? This not only meets the E-Bay standards, but could probably be the best representation of the pres to date, on multiple levels.

With the artist's provenience that all the BS used in the sculpture was genuine BS from genuine bulls (not steers) I'd set the asking price at $50,000, proceeds to be donated to some worthy charity, say the Tea Party.

A common plaster bust of the prez dipped in ordinary liquid cow pies might be priced much more reasonably for the common man.

Tax The Rich

And feed the poor,
until there are no
poor no more.

Hey, it works! England, along with France is in the process of proving it. The citation from France says that Sothebys has sold more than €1.7 million worth of high-end property from April to June this year. If you're looking for a nice place in France, this probably signals the time to buy. Note: The WSJ's real estate section last week decided to specialize in really upscale properties and if you got below $1M, you were living on the wrong side of the tracks for sure. €1.7M is probably only 2 properties. Either that of the price of real estate in France is lower than I thought.

On the bright side, they're making real progress in reducing the income gap between the rich and the poor although this bodes ill for all those government programs once the people who have to pay for them pack up and leave.

Wave of the future: The Cayman Islands becomes a major manufacturing  trade and financial center after a consortium of wealthy capitalists buys the place outright. The locals, newly rich from the sale of their country, readily agree to the new name: New Hong Kong, which becomes the only sovereign country to be traded on international stock exchanges.

QOTD

"Gun-related violence has fallen steadily since 2006 in Virginia despite record firearm sales, according to a university professor's analysis."--Associated Press, Nov. 24.
                             H/T to Taranto at WSJO

It's something to point out to legislators when arguing against the assorted gun bans being proposed. Of course you may have to include an explanation, they're not quick learners.

Gun Grab

O.K. the election is over and we lost. Now comes the ritual paybacks. Last weekend the local fishwrap carried an editorial by Meredith Carroll calling for a renewal of the old AWB only this time the new and improved version. The premise is that this isn't the wild west anymore. Instead of isolated farmers with AR's fending off marauding Indians armed with AK's, it's flash mobs on the 16th st mall in central downtown. Certainly the use of automatic weapons in a crowded shopping venue is uncalled for. Not to mention they're hard to carry along with 5 or 6 big shopping bags.

This week the editorial has moved from the party line intensive Perspective section nearer to the front page in the Denver And The West section.

'Gun violence can be solved with science, public health experts say'

Colleen O'Conner is pushing the idea that guns should be regulated like medical devices.  This suggests that if the safety and efficasy of such a device cannot be proven, the device may be removed from the market. If the device can be proven to be a menace to anyone nearby, like cigaretts, the device may be subject to blanket confiscation in the interest of the public health.

At the same time, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, whose only known member in Colorado is currently serving as Governor, is proposing to close the private sale loophole in Colorado. This "loophole" allows me to sell you a gun without paying a $35 "fee" on the sale. The reasoning goes that most crime is committed by people who buy their guns from private parties. This will prevent the potential armed robber from buying a gun from his acquaintance, the burglar.

Widespread Support:

·       According to a poll commissioned by Mayors Against Illegal Guns in November 2012, 90% of Coloradans, and 90% of Colorado gun owners, support requiring all buyers to pass a background check.

·       In 2012 Frank Luntz, found 74% of NRA members and 82% of non-NRA gun owners agreed anyone purchasing a gun should be subject to a background check.

Somehow the results published here don't seem quite in line with my own observations. Sorry, no specific link. I notice on their website that they're current hobby horse seems to be to get your mental health records included as part of any background check so that people suffering from partial deafness, tinnitus, or having a history of voting the wrong way can be prevented from owning guns. A Variant of this is already being implemented in England.

The Colorado legislature now being 100% blue*, there is a distinct possibility that one or more of these things may make an appearance, sponsored by someone in a safe district and whooped through on a voice vote on a Friday as the last item before adjournment.

The time to begin calling, writing or otherwise bothering your state congress animal is right now. They understand that anything done now will be forgotten by the electorate in 2 years, so bear down hard, but politely. 

*The Dems hold a slim voting majority in both houses as well as the Governorship.

Cease Fire II

Scroll down a couple of posts and see "Cease Fire" . Note specifically the definition of the word "hudna".

Now go here and read this short article in the Jerusalem Post.

'Satellites show Iran moving quickly to rearm Hamas'

That was too easy.

The Future Of Transportation - Guns

Now here's an experiment that just cries out to be performed. Using the recoil of a GAU-8 rotary cannon to accelerate a car.

If I mounted a GAU-8 on my car, put the car in neutral, and started firing backward from a standstill, I would be breaking the interstate speed limit in less than three seconds.

 Obviously a real crowd pleaser at the drag strip as long as there was no one waiting in the staging area.

Happy Turkey Day

The turkey run, mentioned here earlier, turned out to be about the coldest day we've had so far this winter. 22 degrees and snowing on snow packed roads in places makes for a bracing motorcycle ride. Most of us took cars. The closest I got to a turkey was a wild one seen along the side of the road.

On that note let's invoke Michael Mann and his famous "hockey stick" graph "proving " global warming. Put that together and you get:

The difference being that this one comes from reputable data sources that anyone can duplicate. The turkeys in question must have been the premium variety. Birds were available as low as $.49/lb around here.

Here's hoping all you had a good Thanksgiving, and have no trouble getting back on your exercise regimens tomorrow.

Cease Fire

There is allegedly a cease fire between Israel and Gaza. This apparently means that a reduced number of rockets are being fired into Israel and Israel has suspended counter attacks.

Just a reminder: Hudna is an Arabic word, translated in the western media as "ceasefire". What it actually means is "Oh please my enemy, I am wounded and out of ammunition. Please stop fighting until I can get medical attention and more ammo".

Reportedly the Israeli public is 45% opposed to a ground assault into Gaza. I agree. Flying over the territory and spraying it with a good strong pesticide would be far more productive in the long run.

But Billll, I hear you say, how can you advocate doing to the Arabs what the Germans tried to do to the Jews?

Easy. The Germans apologized and are now our friends. The Arabs haven't been anyone's friends including their own, since 650 AD or so. Since I can't figure out how to embed this, go to the Gates Of Vienna and watch the video lecture. It's a bit long, but very enlightening.

Now Do You Feel Old?

The first Star Trek episode aired closer in time to the ratification of the 19th Amendment—guaranteeing women in the US the right to vote—than to today.

Thanks a heap to XKCD blag. I just now found this and it was publishes back in September.

Looking Forward

Having established that my crystal ball is not the most reliable on the blogsphere, It's time to see if there's any looking forward to be had.

Now history has a way of repeating itself and the Gods of the Copybook Headings have a way of pointing out humanities collective mistakes, so first let's look back. Benito Mussolini, when he was running for office, pointed out to the Italian people that the best form of government was a benevolent dictatorship. As proof, he claimed that a problem brought to a partisan elected Parliament only resulted in partisan bickering and no actual solution, whereas a problem brought to a benevolent dictator could be addressed immediately to the greatest benefit of the greatest number, and immediately move on to the next issue.

The Italian government provided the best possible proof of this assertion and still does. The argument was a powerful one and got Benito elected. He promptly styled himself Il Duce and studiously ignored parliament from there on in. History records thet the trains never did run on time, and the experiment ended badly.

One can make the same argument today with the U.S. congress deadlocked with the Republicans in the house being ignored by the Dems in the Senate and vice versa. This leaves governing up to the President who can take your problem and turn it over to an unelected appointee in charge of an agency, ask them to make some rules, which carry the weight of statute law, and move on to the next round of golf.

If the agency's rules prove unpopular, in theory the congress can over rule them but this takes the approval of both houses and the president's signature. What do you suppose are the odds of this happening? So here we are in approximately the same state as Italy in 1935, being led forward by our own Il Douche (did I spell that right?).

Also in 1928 when everything was roaring except for unfair competition from underpaid foreign labor (Germans) providing shoddy merchandise, congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff act. Trade wars are always a bad idea, and this one was a doozy. As the bill advanced through the house, the Senate, and on to the president's desk, at every step the stock market lost about 10% of its value. Coincidentally as we proceeded, so did practically every country in the world so that within 6 months of its passage, international trade, which accounted for about 25% of the global GDP, had come to a halt, and unemployment was at 25%.

Mish Shedlock has some ideas as to what might happen next that might require the attention of the president.

1. Not Addressing the Fiscal Cliff
2. Breakup of the Eurozone
3. UK exiting the EU
4. China Growth falls to Zero Because of Rebalancing
5. Currency Crisis in Japan
6. Failure to address pension problems in US
7. Rise of the Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party in Greece Leads to War

I'm not sure who Greece would go to war with, but there is a movement in Italy to split off the productive North from Rome and the Mafia-rich south. Revisions to the political boundaries in Europe seldom happen without a lot of bloodshed.
CBS also has a compilation here.