Saturday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
April 5, 2063.

Today's question is:
What is the descriptive term for someone or something from Cornwall, England? (Bonus: who is the current Duke of Cornwall?)

Friday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Today's question is:
In the Star Trek universe, on what date do humans make “first contact” with Vulcans, an extra-terrestrial species?

Off Again!

Last week I was in the city I was told had the 2nd most hotel rooms in the country (Orlando). At the moment this is posted I expect to be taking off for a weekend in what I am told is the city with the most hotel rooms in the country--Las Vegas.

I'm not taking my computer so I won't be posting until I return on Sunday, but daily trivia questions are already scheduled to show up at 4pm each day.

Enjoy your weekend. I know I'll enjoy mine!

Nunavut

For the last 12 weeks I've been meeting a team of fellow teachers at the Sacramento Brewing Company for Trivia Night. The restaurant and bar fill with teams of at most 6 players each and 30 trivia questions plus a tiebreaker are asked throughout. Answers are written on an answer sheet and the host scores each one.

Two of us missed last week since we were in Florida, and three of our team missed tonight. After 11 weeks, though, we were still in the lead by 9 points over the next highest team, and tonight was the last night of the 12-week quarter. Win, and a $100 gift certificate to the restaurant was ours.

It was a rough night of questions. With half our team gone we didn't score as high as we usually do. We changed some right answers, and guessed some others.

Different subject. It was well over five years ago, on one of my trips to British Columbia, that I learned about the territory of Nunavut. The Northwest Territories were too large, and the eastern part was split off to create the new territory of Nunavut. (A competition was held to name the territory; the runner-up name was Bob.) Knowledge that this place even existed has never paid off for me, but I always somehow hoped it would.

Back to tonight's Trivia Night. One of the questions was, Iqaluit is the capital of what Canadian territory or province? Knowing it wasn't Yukon or any of the provinces, I was able to narrow it down to either the Northwest Territories or Nunavut. I rolled the dice, told our team scribe my guess, and let it be.

When the answers were read off at the end of the night, the correct answer was, in fact, Nunavut. My trivial knowledge of the existence of that Canadian territory has finally paid off!

We ended up winning the $100 gift certificate, too. We'd have won it without that particular answer, but I'm still stoked that I've heard about Nunavut.

And now you have, too.

Obama Supporter Doesn't Like Black Kids?

The owner of that Philadelphia "swim club" (whatever that is) that turned away a bunch of kids apparently for the crime of being black--he was an Obama supporter? Looks like it.

For those wondering how an Obama supporter could have problems with minority kids in his pool club, the answer’s actually depressingly simple. The skin color of a President several states away may be safely abstract. The skin color of the child currently splashing in the shallow end of your pool is rather, ah, concrete. Sad, but true.

Not that I’m alleging that this is the case, here. But that kind of break between the abstract and the concrete has been known to occur.

I've said it too many times to count--consistency isn't a strong suit of the left. But hypocrisy is.

Thursday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Pan Am 103.

Today's question is:
What was the name of the 2nd Harry Potter book and movie?

Interview

I had an interview yesterday. I don't have any feel for whether or not I knocked them dead, but I don't think I tubed it.

Odd Weather

So far this is turning out to be the Year Without A Summer in the Sacramento area. Yes, it's warm, but unless there was a hot streak when I was in Florida, it seems like it's been weeks since we've had a triple-digit day. Not that I'm complaining, of course.

And now there's hope that we might actually get some rain this winter:

El Nino is back.

Government scientists said Thursday that the periodic warming of water in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which can affect weather around the world, has returned...

In general, El Nino conditions are associated with increased rainfall across the east-central and eastern Pacific and with drier than normal conditions over northern Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

A summer El Nino can lead to wetter than normal conditions in the intermountain regions of the United States and over central Chile. In an El Nino year there tend to be more Eastern Pacific hurricanes and fewer Atlantic hurricanes.

The Wheels Of Justice Turn Slowly

Can't say I'm disappointed with this tidbit of news:

Former University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill's request for reinstatement has been denied in Denver District Court. Front pay has also been deemed inappropriate in the case...

In April, a Denver jury agreed with Churchill's premise that he was illegally fired, but it stopped far short of awarding Churchill a high dollar figure. Instead it awarded Churchill $1...

"This is a huge win for the University of Colorado because the jury found against the university and the judge throwing the verdict out now can only be considered a major judicial upset," 9NEWS Legal Analyst Scott Robinson said.

Another story presents the events a bit more clearly:

In a resounding defeat for ousted University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, a judge ruled Tuesday not only against his request for reinstatement at CU but that he deserves no financial compensation for having been fired from the school nearly two years ago.

The ruling from Chief Denver District Judge Larry Naves was in seemingly stunning contrast to a jury’s verdict from the civil trial Churchill brought against the school earlier this year.

The man is a wart on the ass of humanity.

I Would Not Do This

Periodically I'm asked how I handle being a teacher, especially when some students are just hot hot hot. Fortunately I have one of those switches in my brain that turns off any thoughts of my students as sexual beings; I can recognize that some of them are attractive without feeling attracted to them at all. Sadly, not all teachers have this switch:

British teacher Leonora Rustamova says she had the best interests of the boys in class in mind when she wrote a racy novel to encourage them to read...

Leonora Rustamova, a teacher in West Yorkshire, said she was only trying to motivate disaffected boys when she wrote a racy book that featured the boys in her class lusting after her.

The novel - Stop! Don’t Read This! - includes underage drinking, hints of drug use and “pupil fantasies”.

When I was in high school, one of my teachers discovered that a particular girl and I were having sex. Sometimes he would ask us about it, or would make a comment about it in class. It never occurred to us to complain to school administration--that's not how we did things back then--but it certainly made us feel uncomfortable. Our attitude was: those who knew, knew; those who didn't know, didn't need to. It wasn't a teacher's business what we were doing. However he found out, he should have kept that knowledge to himself.

I don't want to see my students as sexual creatures. Even those who are probably having sex, I do not--cannot--acknowledge it, even to myself. To me they're students, they're children. It's not what I want to think about.

It's bad enough that the teacher in the linked story above thought about students' having the hots for her. But to go that one extra step and write stories about it? Eww.

Hat tip to Joanne for this story.

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Today's question is:
What was the flight number of the 747 destroyed by Libyan terrorists over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988?

This Has All Happened Before...

...and it will all happen again.

The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

Cicero understood--2064 years ago.

Why Is Global Warming Fakery Being Pushed?

This guy agrees with me:

If you like poverty, inefficiency, and bureaucratic controls over the economy, and therefore control over your choices, the "climate change" movement is ideal.

If you want to subsidize China and India, neither of which will enforce the rules laid down by unelected international bureaucrats, this movement is for you.

If you want to pay more for less energy, there is no better way than to pass the cap and tax bill which the House has passed. It will be sent to the U.S. Senate next week.

The rest of us should oppose it.

I certainly oppose it.

Tuesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
United States Pharmacopeia, a standards-setting organization.

Today's question is:
Remember the SARS “epidemic”? What does SARS stand for?

UC Merced's Graduation Bill

UC Merced scored a coup by getting the First Lady as its graduation speaker. I wrote a post about that in May, noting the ballooning cost of having her speak and questioning how the university was going to raise as much money as was needed.

The number back then was $700,000. It turns out that the actual numbers are in now, and of course, they're higher:

The final price of the University of California, Merced's commencement ceremony featuring first lady Michelle Obama was more than $1 million — surpassing the original estimate tenfold.

Private contributions and interest on a private endowment fund have helped cover the cost. UC spokeswoman Patti Waid Istas said that nonstate dollars and other contributions will be used to cover the remaining balance of around $362,338.

The school had budgeted $100,000 for the May commencement ceremony. The price tag ended up being $1.04 million.

Was she worth it? I guess only the people present can make that call. And as long as no taxpayer dollars are being spent for that ego boost--and I'm not yet convinced that's the case, but I have no evidence otherwise--I'm really in no position to complain.

How Bad Is It In California?

In a state with about 37 million people, this is amazing:

Twenty-five percent of California's revenue comes from income taxes paid by the 144,000 richest taxpayers, so "if one of them leaves, it's a really bad thing." Lots have left. Some never really arrive. Pierre Omidyar, after founding eBay in San Jose, resided in Nevada, which has no income tax.

California's cascading crises prefigure America's future unless Washington reverses the growth of government subservient to organized labor. The state cannot pay its bills, poorly educates its young, and its taxation punishes whatever success that its suffocating regulatory regime does not prevent.

This is where the US is heading under President Obama and the Democrats. And what happens when the country gets there?

A group of the biggest U.S. banks said they would stop accepting California's IOUs on Friday, adding pressure on the state to close its $26.3 billion annual budget gap...

Meanwhile, on Monday morning, a budget meeting between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders failed to produce a result. Amid the budget deadlock, Fitch Ratings on Monday dropped California's bond rating to BBB, down from A minus, the latest in a series of ratings downgrades for the state.

The state is issuing IOUs instead of tax refunds or payments to its creditors.

He who has eyes to see, let him see.

NEA Finally Admits It's A Labor Union

If it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. But not to the NEA. No, for years they've avoided the word "union" like a plague, preferring instead "association". But now they've dropped the pretense.

NEA promises to post the video of General Counsel Bob Chanin’s farewell speech. I’m looking forward to it, because it began as a fascinating recital of the early history of public school teacher collective bargaining. Chanin was in on it from the very beginning. If he wasn’t the architect, he was certainly the mason, welder and custodian of the teacher union as we know it today.

Whether it was Chanin’s retirement, Van Roekel’s new emphasis, or a spontaneous paradigm shift, this year NEA finally embraced the labor union label it has downplayed for 25 years. Delegate after delegate touted unionism and identified themselves proudly as part of the broader labor movement. Chanin told the crowd that while professional issues were important, “NEA and its affiliates should never lose sight of the fact that they are unions”...

Whatever you think of Chanin, he is to be applauded for his clarity in an age where obfuscation is the norm in politics. We shall not see his like again.

Another "T-Shirt At School" Post

Some people never learn, and that's why they become principals:

Anna Amador has gone to court on behalf of her daughter, who she says was ordered by her principal to change her shirt on "National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day." The shirt the girl was wearing displays two graphic pictures of a fetus growing in the womb.

What does the author mean by "graphic"? That term often carries a negative connotation, and the pictures of this fetus (seen at the link) look like the ones I marveled at in Life magazine back in the late 60s. Anyway, in case the link changes and the picture goes away, the shirt shows the word "abortion" above two pictures of a fetus followed by an empty picture, and then the words, "growing, growing, gone."

Offensive? Inappropriate?

First Amendment attorney William Becker, who represents Amador, disagreed that the shirt could be seen as containing inappropriate messages.

"The message of the T-shirt is that life is sacred," he said. "One would be very hard pressed to find anything wrong with that particular idea, except that some people do object to the political message.”

Hammer. Nail. Whack.

If A Male Teacher Had Done This, The Reaction Would Be Much Different

Double standards--twice the fun!

Elk Grove Unified officials have rescinded a request for parents to return DVDs that included "inappropriate images" they say were inadvertently sent home with students at Isabelle Jackson Elementary.

Now, the district doesn't want the DVDs back.

"Just destroy them," said district spokeswoman Torrey Johnson.

A teacher apparently sent the DVD retrospective of class activity home with her 24 students on the last day of school Friday.

Although the district would not say what sort of images the DVD contained, a copy obtained by The Bee from a parent showed six seconds of sexual content.

I've given CDs to my graduating seniors each year for the last few years. You can bet there's no pornography on them.

The Wheels On The Bus May Not Be Going Round And Round For Much Longer

California ed code specifically allows for school districts to charge fees to ride school buses; some districts do charge, others don't. But with California mired in so much debt, there may be an alternative to charging for buses--not providing them at all:

Budget cuts and increased fuel costs are combining to make it harder for school districts to provide bus service for students. And a new state proposal could render transportation funding as optional for school officials.

The plan also would reduce state school transportation spending by 20 percent, to $496 million.

Liberals: Principles vs. Dollars

In that contest, which do you think will win?

If you know anything at all about liberals, you know that consistency isn't their strong point--and you'll find this story hilarious:

The (very liberal) San Francisco Chronicle announced that they would stop publishing their newspaper at their aging, unionized printing plant and instead outsource the printing to a Canadian owned, non-union company.

Teachers, Students, and Facebook

Suppose a teacher is "friended" on Facebook by students, and thereby learns that these students are doing things they probably shouldn't be doing. How should the teacher respond?

Joanne has a good post on the topic.

Pictures From Nassau, The Bahamas

You read about the trip. Do you want to see some pictures?

as always, click to enlarge

I, your intrepid blogger, stand near the entrance of Fort Fincastle, on the highest point in Nassau.


Looking over Nassau from Deck 9 (the pool deck) of the Bahamas Celebration.


Atlantis Resort, seen from the bridge over to Paradise Island.



Our ship, the Bahamas Celebration, is closest, with Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas behind.

Cracking the Social Security Code?

Leave it to the math and computer geeks:

For all the concern about identity theft, researchers say there's a surprisingly easy way for the technology-savvy to figure out the precious nine digits of Americans' Social Security numbers.

"It's good that we found it before the bad guys," Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh said of the method for predicting the numbers...

For people born after 1988 — when the government began issuing numbers at birth — the researchers were able to identify, in a single attempt, the first five Social Security digits for 44 percent of individuals. And they got all nine digits for 8.5 percent of those people in fewer than 1,000 attempts...

Social Security spokesman Mark Lassiter said the public should not be alarmed by the report "because there is no foolproof method for predicting a person's Social Security number."

"The suggestion that Mr. Acquisti has cracked a code for predicting an SSN is a dramatic exaggeration," Lassiter said via e-mail...

A problem in the battle against identity thieves is that many businesses use Social Security numbers as passwords or for other forms of authentication, something that was not anticipated when Social Security was devised in the 1930s. The Social Security Administration has long cautioned educational, financial and health care institutions against using the numbers as personal identifiers.

Imagine what can happen when government runs your health care, using your SSN in the process.

Are You Fat? Maybe, Maybe Not.

The US government uses the Body Mass Index, or BMI, to determine if someone is at a proper weight, is overweight, or obese. According to this article, though, it might not be a good metric at all:

As the Weekend Edition math guy, I spoke to Scott Simon and told him the body mass index fails on 10 grounds....

Monday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Oklahoma State University.

Today's question is:
As pertains to food ingredients, vitamins, and other dietary supplements, what does USP stand for?

President Obama--Friend of Teachers?

Teachers voted heavily for President Obama, and the teachers unions could scarcely have done more to get him elected. But as the old saying says, no good deed goes unpunished:

Another presidential "no new taxes" pledge may be ready to bite the dust.

President Barack Obama promised during his campaign to contain his tax hiking zeal to those Americans who, in his view, make too much money. For everyone else, candidate Obama vowed, "no one making less than $250,000 a year will see any type of tax increase. Not income tax, not capital gains taxes, not any kind of tax."

Except for maybe a tax on health insurance benefits...

Those employees impacted by the tax -- school teachers, autoworkers, etc. -- were heavily in Obama's column in last fall's election and didn't seem bothered by his attacks on wealth. Perhaps they didn't realize their generous benefits would qualify them as wealthy.

They're looking at $2,000 to $4,000 a year in extra income taxes as their reward.

It's not a right-wing mouthpiece saying this; heck, I doubt there are any right-wing mouthpieces in Detroit.

Thanks, CTA/NEA. Thanks, liberals. And thanks to any other idiot who voted for this man.

The Florida Trip

This trip started off as a disaster.

A friend bought this travel package over a year ago and a few months ago asked if I'd like to go with him to South Florida. Ft. Lauderdale, a cruise to the Bahamas, and Orlando--what's not to like?

I'll tell you what's not to like.

Getting into Orlando and getting the rental car after midnight wasn't a problem. Getting to our hotel the first night wasn't a problem. Driving across Florida to get to Fort Lauderdale wasn't a problem, and encountering our first of many thunderstorms wasn't a problem.

The Ramada "resort" in Fort Lauderdale was the beginning of the problem. Out in the middle of nowhere ("The Gateway to the Florida Turnpike"?), run down, and only a resort if you consider having a tennis court in the parking lot a "resort"; it's only a resort if it's your last one. We went to the Florida Visitor Center there, and that's when we got the news: if we wanted to get all the things he'd been promised when he bought the travel package, we had to go to a timeshare presentation.

But when he bought the package, he asked three separate times if this package had anything to do with timeshares. He was told that it did not. When he asked if I wanted to go, I asked him if there were timeshares involved, and he was emphatic in his no. Yet, part of the reason he bought the package in the first place--and it was not cheap--was for the additional goodies it supposedly included. Not seeing a way out of it, we went. After all, what harm could come from looking at nice properties for 90 min?

I won't go into details, but it lasted 4 hours. It only ended when I got, shall we say, "direct". Given a couple of our salesman's comments, we probably could have gotten out of there quicker had we been black--not even subtle racism. Yes, that will be going into our complaint letter to Ramada, which sold the package.

We're from California's Central Valley. There are a few things you don't see there. Overt racism is one, and summer rainstorms are another. Both of us have traveled to such climes before, though, so we knew to expect rain. But we didn't expect what we encountered. We didn't get just a short afternoon rainshower. No, we got hours-long violent thunderstorms.

You'd think Fort Lauderdale would have some form of nightlife. We searched but didn't find much. And then there's beach. The Welcome Center folks sent us to a crappy beach (over 20 min away), when another 10 min of driving would have gotten us to a much nicer (and more populated) strand, even though there was a lot of rain. After 2 days of this, hopes were being dashed of having a nice vacation.

Phase 2 of the trip was a 2-night cruise to the Bahamas. It was a small ship by today's standards, displacing only about 35,000 tons and still carrying 1500 passengers, and the ship was full--and there were a lot of fellow Ramada passengers on board. The ship looked nice enough, though.

And then we got to our cabin. First off, it was on Deck 8. There were only 9 decks, and on a ship, upper is better. We didn't pay to upgrade to a nicer cabin; we were told we'd get a tiny interior cabin. Instead we got this outside cabin on Deck 8, and the bathroom in there was bigger than the one I had in my cabin on the Carnival cruise I took my son on during Spring Break! Things were starting to look up, but our hopes for a good trip had been crushed to such a degree that we were cautiously optimistic.

When we checked in, there was a sign that said "Ship full, no upgrades available". I flirted a little with the lady who checked us in, and we think that might explain our upgrade. Don't really care why we got it, just glad we did.

It was a short cruise. Sail out one afternoon, visit Nassau the next day, and dock back in Fort Lauderdale the next morning. That short cruise was enough to reinvigorate us, though, as it was fantastic. Nassau was everything I'd hoped it would be, and the Atlantis resort was just what I expected--Vegas-like.

I spent a lot of money in Nassau, especially on rumcakes! (Shared one with a neighbor today and it was delicious.) Took lots of pictures, and even some video. And after Nassau we still had one more night on the ship! And the weather, for the most part, was cooperating!

But we had one more day in Fort Lauderdale when we got back, and our room reeked of cigarette smoke. We found the nice beach on our own that afternoon, leaving when the hurricane hit. Didn't even go out that night--I wanted to get up early so we could leave that city as early as possible. Fort Lauderdale, and everything associated with it, was sapping my will to live.

Heading north on I-95 we headed for the Kennedy Space Center, where I haven't been since Spring Break '86 (just a few weeks after Challenger). En route we were hit by another hurricane, and the rain was coming down so hard that everyone was driving 25 on the freeway with their flasher lights on. Freeways there are white (they're black here in California), and with the rain I sometimes couldn't even see the lane lines on the road. Just followed the lights ahead of me....

The weather let up shortly before we got to KSC. There's a big (and expensive) visitors' center there now, and included in the theme-park-level admission price was a trip in the shuttle launch simulator. Tres cool! We had a reasonably good time there.

Then on to Orlando. The timeshare guy said we'd have to endure another presentation in Orlando--another of the many lies he told us--so we were in no hurry to get there. When we did, though, we found that these two Ramada facilities represent Good and Evil. While the Ramada in Ft. Lauderdale was crappy and their Visitor Center staff lied to us, in Orlando they were exceedingly helpful and friendly. Maybe it's Good Cop/Bad Cop, I don't know, but we things continued to look up for us after leaving Fort Lauderdale. Even this hotel was cool--our room overlooked an interior patio that contained a pool, hot tub, bar, and restaurant!

On our one full day in Orlando we had to decide what to do, and settled on Wet N Wild water park. I figured I'd get more out of that than I would any Disney theme park, and I'm sure I did.

We left for home on the 4th of July. I'd scored us emergency exit row seats on both legs our flight home, so again, life was good. Our connecting flight left Salt Lake City some time after 9, and as we took off I could see fireworks going off at different places all over the city. I didn't see Reno until we were well past it, but a flight attendant said he saw fireworks going off down there. And as we flew down I-80 and the Sacramento metropolitan area appeared before us, I could see fireworks celebrations going off all over the place.

We didn't wait long for the shuttle bus to pick us up and take us to the parking lot, and on the way I realized that I hadn't even noticed the weather. It was about 70 degrees at 10:30 at night--calm, low humidity. In other words, perfect. When you walk outside in Florida you're hit with a broadside of stifling humidity; you can't help but notice it, and the air conditioning, in buildings and in the car, stays on 24/7. But not here, not home.

I'm glad to be home. My next trip is very soon. My neighbor ladies and I are going to Las Vegas :-)

Sunday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Liberty Enlightening The World.

The answer to today's question is:
Where did Barry Sanders play college football before being drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1989?

Diversity At The Naval Academy

A few weeks ago I wrote about my concern about "diversity" being a major concern at the Naval Academy. It seems that I'm not the only one who's concerned:

Academy leaders say it is a top priority to build a student body that reflects the racial makeup of the Navy and the nation. The service academy has almost twice as many black, Hispanic and Asian midshipmen as it did a decade ago. Much of the increase has occurred in the past two years, with a blitz of 1,000 outreach and recruitment events across the country.

But during the past two weeks, a faculty member has stirred debate by suggesting that the school's quest for diversity comes at a price. Bruce Fleming, a tenured English professor, said in a June 14 opinion piece in the Capital newspaper of Annapolis that the academy operates a two-tiered admission system that makes it substantially easier for minority applicants to get in. Academy leaders strenuously deny Fleming's assertion. Fleming served on the academy's admissions board several years ago.

We'll see what happens to Professor Fleming, especially after saying something this blunt:

"First of all, we're dumbing down the Naval Academy," Fleming said in an interview. "Second of all, we're dumbing down the officer corps."

The President and Education

From the Education Intelligence Agency:

It’s hard not to root for Obama and Duncan, who continue to pitch the “let’s collaborate and come up with something that works” message. The problem, it hardly needs repeating, is that we don’t all agree about “what works.” And some people don’t care if it works or not, as long as the checks keep coming.

Just to be clear, those last people are teachers unions.

Jefferson's Code

The methodology of generating this code reminds me of the WWII Enigma machine:

For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now.

The cryptic message was sent to President Jefferson in December 1801 by his friend and frequent correspondent, Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. President Jefferson and Mr. Patterson were both officials at the American Philosophical Society -- a group that promoted scholarly research in the sciences and humanities -- and were enthusiasts of ciphers and other codes, regularly exchanging letters about them.

In this message, Mr. Patterson set out to show the president and primary author of the Declaration of Independence what he deemed to be a nearly flawless cipher. "The art of secret writing," or writing in cipher, has "engaged the attention both of the states-man & philosopher for many ages," Mr. Patterson wrote. But, he added, most ciphers fall "far short of perfection."

Well worth reading the whole thing.

Time For Another Evan Coyne Maloney Movie

Bucknell is Maloney's alma mater, and look what they're doing:

Bucknell University, a well-regarded liberal arts institution set in a picturesque location in the rolling Pennsylvania countryside, looks entirely benign. Its campus is safe, its students intelligent. It counts among its alumni the famed author Philip Roth and Leslie Moonves, the president of CBS. It’s a college to which most parents would be proud to send their kids.

But if your son or daughter is the type who might join the Bucknell University Conservatives Club (BUCC), you would be well-advised to send him or her somewhere else. Because Bucknell really, really does not want to hear what the students of the BUCC have to say.

The BUCC has never exactly been welcome at Bucknell, and as the movie Indoctrinate U shows (directed by a Bucknell alum), the university is hardly a stranger to free speech controversies. The college’s latest assault on the free expression of its students began in March, when the students of the BUCC earned the administration’s ire by passing out satirical “Obama Stimulus Dollars” — fake dollar bills with President Obama’s face on the front and the sentence “Obama’s stimulus plan makes your money as worthless as monopoly money” on the back. Only an hour of this apparently unacceptable behavior was tolerated before administrators “busted” them for “solicitation” without prior approval. A look at Bucknell’s “solicitation” policy quickly reveals that, unsurprisingly, for something to be solicitation it must be trying to sell you something, but that didn’t stop Bucknell from illegitimately using the policy to shut down the BUCC’s protest.

Gotta love the left, right?

Saturday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Omar Bradley, who died in 1981. He was also the first in the West Point Class of 1915, “the class the stars fell on”, to make the rank of general.

Today's question is:
What is the official name of the Statue of Liberty?

Friday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Ted Neeley and Yvonne Elliman.

Today's question is:
Who was the last US 5-star general alive? (Bonus point for knowing the year he died.)

No Recession For Teachers Unions

The president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network has written a timely op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

It is obvious that tough economic times have come to the United States, with California being the hardest hit of all states. We hear almost daily how California's budget crisis threatens to devastate a public education system that once led the nation. However, the California Teachers Association, the state's 340,000-member teachers union and state affiliate of the National Education Association, seems unfazed by this grim reality.

There are few surprises in this piece for readers of this blog, but it's a timely and worthwhile column nonetheless, and I encourage you to read it.

I encourage my fellow California teachers to consider becoming agency fee payers instead of full union members. Information on how to do so can be found here. Full union dues will still be deducted from your paycheck, but you can request a partial refund (usually about 30%) each fall. CTEN can help you with this.

Thursday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Columbia 409.

Today's question is:
Who played Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar?