''The choice is simple: We can let the pension challenge worsen or have corporations pay their fair share"

Our fearless governor. More money down the sinkhole of public education- and outrageous pension liabilities to boot!

Meanwhile, this myth of the underfunded inner-city school continues unchallenged. Here's what the Chicago Tribune buried in a 2005 article over school funding:

The Chicago Public Schools system, where 85 percent of students are poor, spent $9,758 per child in 2005, compared with the $8,676 statewide average for K-12 districts.

There certainly *are* gaps in spending between different districts, which certainly *are* aggravated by the use of property taxes to pay for education, but that doesn't reflect underfunding in the inner-city. If it reflects "underfunding" anywhere, it is in low-income suburbs. According to the same article:

Harvey is considered the poorest elementary district in the county, based on a state formula. Even with help from the state and federal governments, the district spent just $7,709 per pupil in 2005.

OK, but that's not significantly less than the $8,676 statewide average spent per pupil. Those schools may be crappy (and I'm generally inclined to believe they are), but it's not really for lack of funding. And given all this, where do Chicago Public Schools representatives get off complaining? If anything, they are taking more than their fair share from suburban and rural schools, not the other way around.

Meanwhile, recent testing "gains" are, rightly, being tested:

Numerous experts have contended that a long list of test changes -- including more time, an improved answer sheet and new color illustrations -- could have goosed gains statewide.

The suburban public schools also improved their test scores, but by a smaller amount. 62% of CPS students passed, up from 38%, while 81% of suburban students passed, up from 70%. The gap is closing! Or, maybe not. After all, if the test itself got easier, or if teachers are learning how to game the test, we'd predict the gap to "close" by just this amount, so long as test scores follow the typical bell curve (which they almost always do.) More tricky math- from the folks in charge of teaching kids math!

One question: how many generations of failing students have to be digested and defecated out the backside of America's public school system before we consider introducing meaningful reform?

Celebrity Libertarians!

I was doing some research for a major project I'm thinking about undertaking, and I stumbled across this site. Wow- this list is awful! Did you know that JJ from Good Times is a libertarian? Did you know that the guy who Kramer from Seinfeld is based on... is a libertarian! Val Venis too! (Who new the WWF guy with the porn star gimmick went to the London School of Economics?)

This is a desperately pathetic list, I'm quite sad to say. Whatever the merits of the arguments, the other side simply has more celebrity firepower, John Larroquette aside.

So Did James Brown, and Look How Far That Got Him

Castro calls Chavez radio show: 'I feel good'

Chavez has a radio show? Do they get Air America in Venezuela?

If Only They'd Disappear

States are in a rat race to see who can create the most onerous sex offender registration laws. Wyoming is losing the race, so, they're '"going to make it so there's no place for them to hide." OK, but when you're done, will they have any place to live?

And before people start saying things like "yeah, prison", keep two things in mind. First, some of these crimes are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, like consensual sex with a minor. There's no reason to think that all of these individuals continue to be a threat to the general public. Second, even for those who are potentially a threat, sex offender registries can do nothing but ostracize some a community. It may be illegal for them to live near a school or park, but it's impossible to live anywhere else either, because someone will find out about your past, regardless of your intentions for the future. Maybe a state like Wyoming, with it's wide open expanses and lack of population, is just the answer.

Philosophy Imitates Seinfeld

John Stuart Mill on higher and lower pleasures: "many [people], in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both."

George Costanza: "Food and sex, those are my two passions. It's only natural to combine them."

OK- back to studying for my ethics exam!

A World Without America...

Would pretty much suck.

Donations and Validity

A semi-interesting story about rising donations to universities in 2006. Besides from the political bias reasons, would you, for any reason, ever donate money to a university? It seems like there are so many other, more deserving, donations to be made in the world, rather than just adding a few drops into the ocean of ivy-league endowments. I know that I really highly doubt I'd ever donate money to the University of Illinois, and it's not because I really have anything against the University of Illinois; it just comes down to the fact that starving children in Africa, or some impending humanitarian crisis, or some medical research somewhere, is almost certainly going to be more deserving.

"I don't have a rift with Alex"

Man, if the weeks between the Super Bowl and the opening day of the baseball season are boring for fans, imagine how boring it must be for the sports writers! And does anyone care outside of New York?

Continent Wobegon

I never miss a chance to snark at Europe, but this seems numerically illiterate:

One in six Europeans is living below national poverty thresholds, with children particularly vulnerable, according to the results of an official study.

The facts are clear, 16 percent of Europeans remain at risk of poverty and 10 percent live in jobless households," he said of the data which will be formally presented to EU leaders at a summit in Brussels next month.

Wow- that sounds bad, right? Except that poverty is defined as "60 percent of their country's median income" in Europe, and not an absolute figure. Using this sliding measuring stick almost guarantees that there will always be a significant population of Europeans "under the poverty level."

Query: what percentage of citizens in the E.U., not including the recent slate of poorer countries, would be considered underneath the U.S. poverty level? Another query: what would the U.S. poverty figure be if calculated in the same manner as the E.U. figure?

Scrotum? I Hardly Even Know Him!

Who new the Newbery Award could cause so much controversy?

I remember, when in grade school, that the Newbery Award was the highest possible achievement in literature. Naturally, given my almost slavish desire to devour the canon of literature even back then, I've read a high percentage of these books. Many are not good, and one is hilariously named (and I thought I would have gotten over that by now, but I guess not.)

Now I'm looking at this list of banned books (which really isn't helpful, because some of these books were merely banned a long time ago), and noticing certain patterns:

• Books with offensive language marketed towards children
• Books disavowed by the Political Correctness brigade
• Books that are an affront to those that find homosexuality to be icky
• Books that are an affront to those that find sex icky
• Books with potentially dangerous or illegal technical material
• Books that could potentially excite political dissent

According to the American Library Association, the "Scary Stories" series was the most frequently challenged book of the 1990s, so I suppose that introduces an entirely new category- books banned for general suckiness (add #16, the Goosebumps series, to that category as well.) Hey! My Brother Sam is Dead is on the list too! I remember that book being really good for a children's book, but that was 5th grade. I also remember it being rather dark, and the title gives away the conclusion. But it didn't win the Newbery award. What did? The Slave Dancer? Even wikipedia is stumped on that one.

Good-byes, and Hellos

What do you say when it's been so long since you've seen a friend? Isn't it rather awkward? Here's some person to whom you've been incredibly close for years, and then you slip apart, and... well then, what? Do you call them? Then you need to have something to say, right then and there, and that's always weird. "So, I gained a couple pounds last summer. How old is your brother now?" Writing is easier, but it always feels like a postcard, and rarely rises any higher than that in literary quality. "Mom is doing great! She misses seeing you though, and people ask about you all the time..." And what if the friend doesn't respond? What if he wrote you? Would you take the time to respond with something meaningful.

Or if you meet again- for lunch, maybe- and you get to talking, you may arrive at a moment in which you think "this person is not how I remember." Have you changed? Has he? Is this your friend? Are you still his? Is this it? And why even keep trying; friendship was never so much work before.

But- maybe it will all work again rather nicely. Maybe it'll be just fine. So why not write that first letter, or make that first call. Don't pressure anything, don't do "friendship chores", just let it be. And take it from there.

And yes, this is allegory. Madam is back.

New Project

I've been pouring most of my excess energy into this new site: The Washington Center for Internships Lies! Check it out.

P.S. Madam is not yet dead.

And then, sometimes, you just get that itch again...

Large Man

Reuters reports on the half-ton man:

ROME (Reuters) - A Mexican man who at 550 kg (1,200 lb) is possibly the heaviest person in the world hopes to travel to Italy for a life-saving operation to shed weight.

Manuel Uribe, bedridden for the past five years, cannot stand on his own and will need a special flight to take him from Monterrey, Mexico to Modena, where a surgical team has offered to perform an intestinal bypass free of charge.

How much is 1,200 pounds?

"I can't walk. I'm can't leave my bed," the 40-year-old Uribe, who weighs the same as five baby elephants, said in a recent telephone interview.

Was that really needed? Probably not, but it made me laugh out loud.

I'm sure you've asked yourself- Steve takes so much time off from blogging, what does he do with his time? Well, here's part of it. Warning: some roguh language; this is mot the cultured fare I usually feature on my podcast. Warning- there is now advertising at the end of my podcasts.

Pat Sajak has some words of wisdom on the tax process.

Yes, I said Pat Sajak. Shut up and read it!

Apparently, it’s about that time for a new, pointless French endeavor. Quick, to the frog-Peugeot!

French president Jacques Chirac yesterday pledged to help fund a new European internet search engine to rival Google and Yahoo as he railed against what he sees as the threat of Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism.

Preach it, Jacques! It is simply not good enough to use the hegemonic data providers of the English-speaking world.

Why do all this, you ask?

In a speech in Reims, Mr. Chirac said: "We're engaged in a global competition for technological supremacy. In France, in Europe, it's our power that's at stake."
The plans reflect Mr Chirac's often-expressed concern about the omnipresence of US culture in French society. The government is already pushing to create an online digital library to rival one planned by Google.

Well, I’m certain that this project is going to combine the best of French ingenuity and efficiency.

Next: The Gallic wheel! It’ll cost 10 billion Euros and be shaped like a triangle, but it’ll avoid that Anglo-Saxon circular simplisme.

"Culture is not merchandise and it cannot be left to the blind forces of the market," Mr Chirac said in a speech earlier this year giving the go-ahead for work to begin on a digital library of European literature. "We must staunchly defend the world's diversity of cultures against the looming threat of uniformity."

Can we leave anything to the blind forces of the market? Please? Anything? Unfortunately, the French intelligentsia runs away from all possible trappings of capitalism like the dietary prude in Green Eggs and Ham ran away from Sam-I-Am.

“We won’t have free markets on our trains, not on our boats, or in the rain!

We will not have them in our jobs, instead we’ll cave in to our mobs!

We do not want you here or there, don’t want your culture anywhere!

We do not want to end this sham! We would not, could not, Uncle Sam!”

If you haven't been following the Michael Hiltzik saga, go over to Patterico and do so right now.

You may remember that I got into a scuffle of my own with Mr. Hiltzik a few months ago. What can I say- the whole affair couldn't have happened to a more weaselly person.

Sometimes there’s a piece so laughably indefensible that it shouts your name, demanding to be fisked. Ladies and gentleman, this is not only such a piece, it roughly harassed the other such pieces in line to demand that it go first. I willingly oblige.

You're not that different from Allen Iverson and Chris Webber and all the other spoiled, petulant, selfish, cheating millionaire athletes.

No?

Given the same set of circumstances as A.I. and C-Webb, you'd have skipped Fan Appreciation Night in Philly, too. You'd make life hell for Billy King and Maurice Cheeks. You'd undermine their authority, disobey their rules and betray their loyalty.

Perhaps a little background is in order here; Allen Iverson and Chris Webber play basketball for the Philadelphia 76ers, who recently failed to make the playoffs and sported the awful record of 38-44. The two team superstars felt it appropriate to repay their fans on the last regular season game- fan appreciation night, no less- by not showing up.

Iverson and Webber, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro aren't so hard to understand. They're just like you and me, capable of lapses in integrity, especially when the consequences are slim to none or years away.

Everyone can accidentally take steroids for a decade. Everyone can just kinda forget to come to work. It happens!

Instead of asking what a higher power would do, sports fans need to start wearing "What Would You Do?" bracelets if they're really interested in enjoying professional sports and understanding the modern athlete.

I have absolutely no interest in “understanding the professional athlete”, whatever that means. My level of expectation is that he 1.) perform well, and 2.) Not act like a pud. Why is that so difficult for so many?
I'm being serious. Suppose you were raised by Annie Iverson, didn't have a relationship with your imprisoned father while you were growing up, was financially supported by hustlas and ballers, lived with well-intentioned basketball coaches and got jailed after a violent brawl in a bowling alley, and important people were forced to overlook and rationalize your youthful missteps because you're the best little man to hit the court since Isiah Thomas.

Ok, I’m supposing.

Oh, and suppose after all of that, you were handed millions of dollars at age 21 and men more than twice your age and far more mature and intelligent than you had to bow to your whims and wisdom. And let's not forget the adoring fans who write you, stalk you and tell you you can do no wrong.

And let’s not forget the groupies- heck, that’s the best part of the deal!

Come on, after all of that, would you really give a flying flip about Fan Appreciation Night when the Sixers have been eliminated from the playoffs and you're upset that the organization that has given you lifetime financial security is considering trading you after 10 years?

Let’s reply that sentence in normal, regular person speak: would you bother showing up for work if the company that provided you more money than you could ever dream of yet has begun to fail considered providing you a similarly lucrative position at a well-functioning company? This isn’t like a layoff; Iverson isn’t going to be standing in unemployment lines any time soon.

You wouldn't care. You wouldn't even know why you should care

Thou dost project too much

It's easy to bash Allen Iverson, question his professionalism and reminisce about the good-old days when pro athletes played because they loved the game.
Trust me, Iverson loves the game just as much as Bob Cousy or Elgin Baylor. Iverson's intellectual evolution and maturity have been compromised by money, fame, butt-kissing and a dysfunctional upbringing.

A.I’s intellectual evolution resembles that of some prehistoric amoeboid that hasn’t felt any impetus to change over the past 3 billion years. This is the same Iverson that demanded he not have to practice, mind you. I don’t think “love of the game” translates into, “playing the game only when both monetarily beneficial and absolutely vital for my continuation as a professional athlete.

He really can't help himself, and he has no incentive that he respects and comprehends to evolve or mature.

Poor Allen!

Not to make excuses for Iverson,

Heavens forbid!

but I truly blame NBA owners and commissioner David Stern for Iverson's immature, bad business practices. The league, just like all of the professional sports leagues, has failed to adjust its rules to compensate for what guaranteed contracts and guaranteed millions have done to pro athletes. Cousy and Baylor and all the rest would behave differently now.

Let’s unwind this logical pretzel together, shall we? The NBA ownership and management is responsible because it should have expected that fabulous wealth would turn its superstars into adult brats. They now insist upon absolutely arcane regulations like practicing and showing up on time for games. What did they expect to happen?

You have to remember that we're living in an era in which Roger Clemens can sign a one-year, $18 million deal and not necessarily travel with the team to every road game. Clemens loves baseball. He's a tremendous competitor. But he'd long ago lost the desire to sit in the dugout or bullpen 162 times a year when he could be at home with his kids.

Roger Clemens is a pitcher. As a starting pitcher, he only plays every five games or so. There will occasionally be road trips he does not make because he is certain not to perform during any of those games. This is agreed upon by both the player and management. Analogy refuted.

Maybe Iverson was spending some quality time with his wife and kids before the tipoff of Fan Appreciation Night.

Maybe. Shall we wager on that? Nevertheless, given the 76ers poor play this year, Iverson’s going to have an entire, unadulterated offseason to spend with his wife and kids.

His curse is he grew up fantasizing about being a little ghetto child like his boyhood idol Jalen Rose. You know what that's like, wanting to be someone else. We've all felt it. Well, imagine being a lost child and given money and fame long before you've figured out who you are and who you really want to be.
That “not to make excuses” line really has lost all meaning, hasn’t it? Imagine being given a huge amount of money to act like a huge child… doesn’t your heart throb with sympathy?

You ever met or dated a trust-fund baby? A guy or girl who just floats through their 20s and 30s with little drive, direction or discipline because they've inherited so much money it doesn't really matter what they do. That's what it's like for a lot of young professional athletes today.

They come from so little that $3 million or $4 million feels like $200 million. And unlike Clemens, who entered professional sports two decades ago and had to prove himself before becoming a millionaire, today's pro just has to demonstrate potential to be good in order to get paid.

Hell, I come from so little that $3 million feels like $200 million. Does that mean I’m destined to act like a whiny jerk-off should I ever become successful? “Screw you, I know I’m not done with the case. So what? It’s just a case. It’s not even an important case?”

That's what cracks me up about the media frenzy surrounding Bonds and steroids. People act like they have so much integrity they wouldn't be tempted to do the exact same thing. In my profession, it's not uncommon for writers to fabricate information in hopes of winning some writing award and receiving a $5,000 bonus or promotion.

God forbid the day our baseline position of morality is set at “journalists”. But listen to what he’s saying: if only the journalists weren’t making a big deal out of this, people wouldn’t be so upset. Bull. You could have heard crickets chirp two years ago if you brought up the topic of steroids around beat reporters. Journalists were coaxed into reporting what our eyes were seeing- really ripped men with heads suddenly two hat sizes bigger.

But sportswriters are appalled that baseball players would use drugs to improve their performance and enhance their contract leverage.

Not all of them, apparently.

I don't blame the players at all.

That’s pretty much the thesis of your article, isn’t it? Not to make any excuses, of course…

I blame the owners and coaches and executives. Players are going to do whatever they believe is necessary for them to compete at the highest level.

Barry Bonds was competing at the highest level before he ever started taking steroids. Barry Bonds was a rich man, destined for the Hall of Fame, before he ever took his first banned substance. But he wanted more- he wanted to be the best ever. But the only way he could was if he cheated. And the media largely pretends that his record isn’t tarnished as he chases Ruth and Aaron this summer. Well, the statistics don’t lie this time- Zero homeruns in the first 12 games since the season began. He’s also missed three games. Hmmm… the letdown after quitting steroids couldn’t have anything to do with that, could it? Karma does exist in this world.

If Bonds truly turned to steroids after being bothered by the way the media and baseball favored McGwire and Sosa, can't you understand that reaction?
It doesn't justify the action.

No, you did that three lines ago with “I don’t blame the players.”

But after college, when a doctor prescribed prednisone, a steroid/anti-inflammatory, to relieve gout pain, I took the medication without questioning the doctor. What Would You Have Done?

This may be the closing paragraph in the history of rhetorical schemes. “I once had a disease and took a steroid as a treatment.” This is it? So what? I have a topical steroid medicine sitting in my closet right now that I take twice a day- so what? I suppose in that sense I Would Have Done exactly what Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, et al. did- namely, take steroids. But let us note in passing the difference between taking a topical steroid to get rid of a minor rash and injecting oneself freak juice.

More bad news for the Duke rape prosecution:

A woman who claims she was raped by members of Duke University's lacrosse team was described as "just passed-out drunk" by one of the first police officers to see her, according to a recording of radio traffic obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

The conversation between the officer and a police dispatcher took place about 1:30 a.m. March 14, about five minutes after a grocery store security guard called 911 to report a woman in the parking lot who would not get out of someone else's car.

The officer gave the dispatcher the police code for an intoxicated person and said the woman was unconscious. When asked whether she needed medical help, the officer said: "She's breathing and appears to be fine. She's not in distress. She's just passed-out drunk."

The chances that any players on the Duke lacrosse team will be convicted of rape is not slim-to-none, and may I posit the belief that the chances that the rape actually occurred is not significantly higher than that. In othr words: when do the Durham "community leaders" begin offering apologies?

Wow, that caught me off guard...

Former Senator Mike "I-leaked-the-Pentagon-Papers" Gravel announces his candidacy for the presidency.

My first reaction: Mike Gravel is still alive?

Again?

This is unbelievably strange:

A second person in less than a year died Wednesday after going on a ride at Walt Disney World so intense that it has motion sickness bags.

The 49-year-old woman became ill after riding "Mission: Space" on Tuesday. She was taken to a hospital, where she died, park spokeswoman Kim Prunty said in a statement. No more information on the woman would be released Wednesday night, she said.

The ride has been closed, and a state agency will monitor an inspection, Prunty said.

The first death occurred when I was working at Epcot (where the ride is located), and I could have sworn I blogged about it before, but I cannot find the old post. It's actually quite odd- the ride certainly isn't all that intense, by amusement park standards, and a lot of the thrill of the ride comes from the visual simulation, not the physical stimulation. Folks: don't just ignore those warning placards found in the queue for every ride; they're there for your health.