Can it be that people still just really don’t get it … I mean come on … Iran starting up a nuclear program … are they really that dense? Are they really going to start pushing those buttons at this point in time?
Of course the only thing that they’ve been threatened with directly is the UN Security Council. This is something like threatening a rabid pit bull with a wet noodle, and I’m sure that it will be pretty much just as effective. [Read – they will ignore any resolutions passed by the UN, undermine any sanctions placed against them by the UN, and in response the UN will pass more sanctions and resolutions but won’t actually DO anything about it.]
The UN is a joke … not a very funny one, but still a joke. They have no military, no authority, and no spine. Any country out there can (and many do) blatantly defy the UN without fear of reprisals because the UN idea of reprisals amounts to telling you ‘Bad country don’t do that anymore’ again.
I can’t even call them hopeless idealists … they know they’re a useless, corrupt, political body that is irrelevant in the global theater, but this way they can play with power and feel important.
Now, I will say that we need to TRY diplomacy in regards to the situation with Iran, yes. But we need to make damn sure and not pussy foot around the issue for the next 12 years either …. We (and by ‘we’ I mean primarily the US but including those allies that agree to come along) need to tell them in no uncertain terms that the path they are on is unacceptable … that we expect them to cease such work AND submit to inspections to prove that they have ceased the work … and we need to give them a firm deadline. If they do not meet the requirements by the deadline then we resort to a military option.
And make it absolutely clear that that option can be any of our available military solutions ….
The leaders of the free world have already spoken out against Iran’s program. President Chirac of France (*gasp*) recently said that states such as Iran “must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part…this response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind.” Senator John McCain "There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option. That is a nuclear-armed Iran” on Face the Nation recently. Signaling his belief that the US must keep the ‘military option’ on the table and not very far down in the deck so to speak.
Of course many people in the US will say thing like “we shouldn’t get involved” or “We need to get out of there not send more troops over” or even “We need to finish up in Iraq first.”
I’m sure that, in part, this is what Iran is counting on. The perceived reluctance on the part of the American people to continue the effort in Iraq, is translating to the Iranian government as ‘they won’t be willing to do anything to stop us.’
But it’s not always that simple … what if we wait to finish up and Iraq and Iran builds and detonates a nuclear weapon killing millions in that time? Maybe it was in Israel or maybe it was in Chicago or possibly somewhere else … does it really matter where?
Sometimes you choose your actions based on the reward that action will bring ‘if I do this, I’ll get a cookie.’ Sometimes, however, you have to choose your actions based on the possible consequences of inaction ‘if I don’t get car insurance I might get a ticket.’
One of the hardest things to ballance is when is the risk of the possible consequences of our inaction greater than the possible problems created by our action.
Statements have been made to the effect that Iran wants to ‘remove Israel from the map’ (not an exact quote I don’t think, but that was certainly the gist of the conversation) and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has said that “Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute.” The last time I checked ‘infidels’ includes pretty much everyone that is NOT Islamic … and even some people that are Islamic but don’t agree with al-Zarqawi.
Oddly enough … the ‘infidels’ don’t want to eradicate Islam … rather we just want Islam to stop trying to slaughter everyone else on the planet … and make no mistake Abu Musab al-Zarqawi won’t stop with Iraq, or the middle east … if we were to pull out of the middle east entirely it would only embolden him and he would say ‘see! We pushed them back. Now we must press the infidels until they are broken completely.’
Strangely enough when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi made those remarks, CAIR (Council for American-Islamic Relations) was silent … but call Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an Islamic terrorist (which is what he most certainly is) and they’ll be all up in arms threatening lawsuits and demanding apologies.
As for those people saying that the Iraqis and/or Afghans want us out of their countries … I am sure that there are some there that do have that sentiment, yes. However we have agreed to completely withdraw from the countries when and if the governments request that we do so. Not only have these countries NOT made any such request, they have, in fact, asked that we NOT leave.
We HAVE to treat the Iran situation as though it is a grave and real threat to our country … if we fail to do so people … lot and lots of people … could be killed. The problem is … that if you can never really know if you prevented an attack because it didn’t happen ... however you will certainly know if you fail to prevent an attack; and no matter how much you've done, no matter how hard you've worked ... the attack that gets through will be the one that you're remembered for as a failure.
Bah ... I'm just rambling now so I'm just going to post this before I fall off a cliff and hurt myself.....
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Various bits of ranting
It’s Tuesday again … my time does fly. First lets get the writing news out of the way … I was on track last Tuesday … even slightly ahead … but fell behind quickly with a bout of writers block and was about a day and a half behind going into the weekend. I made up the ground over the weekend without much incident, and even got into a few good clips at the end of Saturday I was only about 1100 words short of Sunday’s goal. Sunday hit though and I had, not so much writers block as writer’s fatigue and just couldn’t really focus on the task and only banged out about 1000 words, ending roughly 100 words short of the goal.
Then came Monday … oh work wasn’t pleasant and I ended up not leaving the office until a quarter after 1 in the morning. Luckily I did manage to get some writing done at the office once I got things running on autopilot but, given the distractions of work it wasn’t nearly enough. So I sit at 24,615 words starting day 17 who’s goal is a simple 27,421 … a mere 2,806 words away. I can see this weekend is going to be devoted to some serious writing … though I’m going to have to make sure and give myself some more serious breaks on Saturday to avoid the fatigue of last weekend (I did write over 4000 words last Saturday so as long as I don’t get too far behind I can make it up on the weekend).
Now … on to various rants.
Maryland recently passed a law requiring businesses with more than 10,000 employees to pay a minimum of 8% of its payroll on medical benefits for its employees. There is exactly 1 business in the state that fits that bill and it would be the one business that the law is aimed at … Wal-Mart.
Now I’m no big Wal-Mart fan, but the fact of the matter is that the legality of this law is questionable at best. It could be argued that the law is being passed specifically to target Wal-Mart as a corporate entity … targeting laws against (or for) a single entity is illegal. If you prefer to believe that since it would potentially apply to other companies it isn’t targeted at Wal-Mart … well … you’re naïve because no company in their right mind would grow to have 10,000 or more employees at his point.
This law would potentially cost Wal-Mart a cold ton of money in Maryland and if you add that to the fact that other (liberal) states are considering similar laws that would compound that cost to Wal-Mart exponentially.
The law is crap … it is more government regulation where it neither belongs nor helps. Wal-Mart should tip its collective hat to the Maryland legislature and close its books. Issue a statement to the press that the new law makes operating in Maryland prohibitively expensive and announce that it is closing ALL of its stores in the state. See how the citizens of Maryland like loosing 10,000+ jobs in a day. Let the state legislature explain to those 10,000+ unemployed workers how this law was for their own good and how much better the new health care they’ll get from it will be for them and their families.
This would also show other states considering the legislation that maybe it isn’t such a good idea for the workers in their state.
Some people have also suggested closing down a few stores to get the state employee count under the magic 10,000 employee number, but I just don’t think this sends a strong enough message. The fact of the matter is that these types of laws hurt the economic and labor sectors of the states. They stifle the free market economy and artificially inflate the value of labor … this in turn inflates the costs of everything … and as a result the prices of materials produced within the United States are increased making them less desirable than goods produced outside the US where labor can be obtained more cheaply. This in turn moves manufacturing jobs outside the US so that the manufacturer can compete in the market.
If this law stands then Wal-Mart will have to raise its prices in order to cover the additional expense … this will lead to higher prices and, eventually, to a call for an increase to the ever praised ‘minimum wage’ and the cycle will continue.
No one is forcing these employees to work for Wal-Mart … Wal-Mart has grown to the point that it has reached because it keeps its costs down which allows it to keep the prices low. This in turn brings more customers to their stores. It is the responsibility of the individual to make sure that they have medical benefits either because they have them from their employer, or, if their employer doesn’t offer them, that they’ve secured them for themselves. Government needs to get the hell out of the process.
Educational Monopoly
The children of the US are being cheated by a monopoly in the educational system. Monopolies are proven to destroy innovation … since there is no competition there is no need to improve … this inevitably leads to stagnation, apathy, and decline. Where the government has taken steps to try and introduce some competition into the educational system in the form of vouchers, the teachers unions and associations have fought against it … seeking to maintain their monopoly.
The liberals of this country are fond of following the socialist agenda of Western Europe but when it comes to education they apparently consider it a bad example, despite the fact that Western European students show better educational aptitude than their US counterparts.
What is this European system? It’s simple … competition. The tax money is attached to the child and so goes to the school that the child is put into. Therefore parents seek to put their children into the best performing schools … if a school isn’t competitive parents move their kids out of the school and into one that is … if this happens enough then the school goes out of business.
This system is, in essence, vouchers. The ability of the parents to funnel the taxes into the schools that are performing thus minimizing or eliminating the ‘double payment’ that currently exists for parents that care enough about their children’s education to move them into better performing schools.
Well that’s all for now … I’m sure there is still some things I want to rant about, but I can’t think of them at the moment so I’ll leave you with this for now.
Then came Monday … oh work wasn’t pleasant and I ended up not leaving the office until a quarter after 1 in the morning. Luckily I did manage to get some writing done at the office once I got things running on autopilot but, given the distractions of work it wasn’t nearly enough. So I sit at 24,615 words starting day 17 who’s goal is a simple 27,421 … a mere 2,806 words away. I can see this weekend is going to be devoted to some serious writing … though I’m going to have to make sure and give myself some more serious breaks on Saturday to avoid the fatigue of last weekend (I did write over 4000 words last Saturday so as long as I don’t get too far behind I can make it up on the weekend).
Now … on to various rants.
Maryland recently passed a law requiring businesses with more than 10,000 employees to pay a minimum of 8% of its payroll on medical benefits for its employees. There is exactly 1 business in the state that fits that bill and it would be the one business that the law is aimed at … Wal-Mart.
Now I’m no big Wal-Mart fan, but the fact of the matter is that the legality of this law is questionable at best. It could be argued that the law is being passed specifically to target Wal-Mart as a corporate entity … targeting laws against (or for) a single entity is illegal. If you prefer to believe that since it would potentially apply to other companies it isn’t targeted at Wal-Mart … well … you’re naïve because no company in their right mind would grow to have 10,000 or more employees at his point.
This law would potentially cost Wal-Mart a cold ton of money in Maryland and if you add that to the fact that other (liberal) states are considering similar laws that would compound that cost to Wal-Mart exponentially.
The law is crap … it is more government regulation where it neither belongs nor helps. Wal-Mart should tip its collective hat to the Maryland legislature and close its books. Issue a statement to the press that the new law makes operating in Maryland prohibitively expensive and announce that it is closing ALL of its stores in the state. See how the citizens of Maryland like loosing 10,000+ jobs in a day. Let the state legislature explain to those 10,000+ unemployed workers how this law was for their own good and how much better the new health care they’ll get from it will be for them and their families.
This would also show other states considering the legislation that maybe it isn’t such a good idea for the workers in their state.
Some people have also suggested closing down a few stores to get the state employee count under the magic 10,000 employee number, but I just don’t think this sends a strong enough message. The fact of the matter is that these types of laws hurt the economic and labor sectors of the states. They stifle the free market economy and artificially inflate the value of labor … this in turn inflates the costs of everything … and as a result the prices of materials produced within the United States are increased making them less desirable than goods produced outside the US where labor can be obtained more cheaply. This in turn moves manufacturing jobs outside the US so that the manufacturer can compete in the market.
If this law stands then Wal-Mart will have to raise its prices in order to cover the additional expense … this will lead to higher prices and, eventually, to a call for an increase to the ever praised ‘minimum wage’ and the cycle will continue.
No one is forcing these employees to work for Wal-Mart … Wal-Mart has grown to the point that it has reached because it keeps its costs down which allows it to keep the prices low. This in turn brings more customers to their stores. It is the responsibility of the individual to make sure that they have medical benefits either because they have them from their employer, or, if their employer doesn’t offer them, that they’ve secured them for themselves. Government needs to get the hell out of the process.
Educational Monopoly
The children of the US are being cheated by a monopoly in the educational system. Monopolies are proven to destroy innovation … since there is no competition there is no need to improve … this inevitably leads to stagnation, apathy, and decline. Where the government has taken steps to try and introduce some competition into the educational system in the form of vouchers, the teachers unions and associations have fought against it … seeking to maintain their monopoly.
The liberals of this country are fond of following the socialist agenda of Western Europe but when it comes to education they apparently consider it a bad example, despite the fact that Western European students show better educational aptitude than their US counterparts.
What is this European system? It’s simple … competition. The tax money is attached to the child and so goes to the school that the child is put into. Therefore parents seek to put their children into the best performing schools … if a school isn’t competitive parents move their kids out of the school and into one that is … if this happens enough then the school goes out of business.
This system is, in essence, vouchers. The ability of the parents to funnel the taxes into the schools that are performing thus minimizing or eliminating the ‘double payment’ that currently exists for parents that care enough about their children’s education to move them into better performing schools.
Well that’s all for now … I’m sure there is still some things I want to rant about, but I can’t think of them at the moment so I’ll leave you with this for now.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Morning
Well it’s a new day … I’m up but not really awake yet … still working on that so please excuse any apparent wandering or pointlessness to the rant. I don’t really have anything that’s got me fired up in any case so it’s probably not going to be much of a rant, we’ll just have to wait and see … maybe once I drink some coffee.
It’s Tuesday, a day only slightly better than Monday and still a long way from the universally coveted Friday, but so far I really can’t complain it doesn’t look to be shaping up to be a bad day at all.
For those of you who are interested in following the progress on my month long journey into insanity I can report that my novel reached page 31 and word 14,533 last night. Which to reach 50,000 words by the end of 31 days I would need to be to a scant 14,517 or so, and only 16,130 by the end of tonight to maintain the schedule. (1,613 words a day doesn’t sound like much until you try to write them.)
My wife is traipsing along this journey with me, but … let’s just say she’s behind on the word count. I will have to say that one of the things that the author of ‘No Plot, No Problem’ says is certainly true … When you have nothing to do but write, you’ll do everything EXCEPT write.
In her defense, she’s not really a writer per-say. I write … I never finish anything but I write … have for as long as I can remember. My first attempt to write a novel was, maybe 6th grade or so. That novel saw countless revisions on through high school and even in bits and pieces in college. It’s still there, but I don’t know that it will ever get written at this point … maybe one day I’ll get a large enough crowbar to wrench it out of my skull and get it onto paper … or whatever we’re using by that time.
I’ve also taken a college course on Creative Writing … now THERE was a waste of time. The professor could write, and if there is ever a call for conversations in grocery stores that make people want to start a grocery list, I’m sure that she’ll do very well. It was certainly a good exercise in learning to ignore critics, or at least sift through their comments for useful bits of information while ignoring the attacks on the work. In essence I didn’t learn anything in the class that I didn’t already know and the entire semester can be boiled down to ‘to be a better writer, learn to be a better reader’ and ‘symbolism isn’t something you write into a story, it’s something that happens; just write and leave the figuring out the symbolism to literature professors with too much time on their hands.’
Ah well … time to get outta the chair and go to work. Since I won’t have time to write more there today I’ll post this, but before I go I want to make sure that my readers are well informed about a new psychological syndrome … Attention Surplus Syndrome (thanks to Mike Adams for bringing that to everyone’s attention)
It’s Tuesday, a day only slightly better than Monday and still a long way from the universally coveted Friday, but so far I really can’t complain it doesn’t look to be shaping up to be a bad day at all.
For those of you who are interested in following the progress on my month long journey into insanity I can report that my novel reached page 31 and word 14,533 last night. Which to reach 50,000 words by the end of 31 days I would need to be to a scant 14,517 or so, and only 16,130 by the end of tonight to maintain the schedule. (1,613 words a day doesn’t sound like much until you try to write them.)
My wife is traipsing along this journey with me, but … let’s just say she’s behind on the word count. I will have to say that one of the things that the author of ‘No Plot, No Problem’ says is certainly true … When you have nothing to do but write, you’ll do everything EXCEPT write.
In her defense, she’s not really a writer per-say. I write … I never finish anything but I write … have for as long as I can remember. My first attempt to write a novel was, maybe 6th grade or so. That novel saw countless revisions on through high school and even in bits and pieces in college. It’s still there, but I don’t know that it will ever get written at this point … maybe one day I’ll get a large enough crowbar to wrench it out of my skull and get it onto paper … or whatever we’re using by that time.
I’ve also taken a college course on Creative Writing … now THERE was a waste of time. The professor could write, and if there is ever a call for conversations in grocery stores that make people want to start a grocery list, I’m sure that she’ll do very well. It was certainly a good exercise in learning to ignore critics, or at least sift through their comments for useful bits of information while ignoring the attacks on the work. In essence I didn’t learn anything in the class that I didn’t already know and the entire semester can be boiled down to ‘to be a better writer, learn to be a better reader’ and ‘symbolism isn’t something you write into a story, it’s something that happens; just write and leave the figuring out the symbolism to literature professors with too much time on their hands.’
Ah well … time to get outta the chair and go to work. Since I won’t have time to write more there today I’ll post this, but before I go I want to make sure that my readers are well informed about a new psychological syndrome … Attention Surplus Syndrome (thanks to Mike Adams for bringing that to everyone’s attention)
Friday, January 06, 2006
Random Thoughts
First and foremost, happy new year everyone. As usual the holiday season was a bit of a bear, between installing new equipment at work and getting everything working (only to have something go out again yesterday … *sigh*), being ill, and just the general holiday season with it’s crowds and such.
The wife and I did get out some and caught some movies … unusual for us actually but we enjoyed it. For those that are curious I highly recommend Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and King Kong. They’re all long moves (Narnia I believe is the shortest of the 3 at 2 hours 10 minutes if I recall correctly) but worth the time.
Both the wife and I have also started our “Novel in a Month” marathon of writing. With 5 days of writing under my belt I am officially at 6,500 words … roughly 1,500 words off my mark (with another 1,613 words needed for tonight’s mark) but the story is coming along nicely and being that my writing time so far has pretty much only been from 10pm to midnight I don’t think that I’ll have too much trouble making up any deficit over the weekend.
In fact, in all honesty, you’re only getting this treat of a blog entry because I left my thumb drive at home and it has my novel on it, so I can’t work in this time I have available at work waiting for someone else to finish their job so I can start mine. Next week I plan to try and get my brain out of cotton sooner after waking up in the morning and try to get some blogging done in my ‘me’ time that I have in the early am. As I am not, exactly, a morning person … well, don’t expect any posts to be particularly elegant or thought out, until I’ve at least had a cup of coffee.
Judges … as I was driving into work I heard the story of a judge, I can’t recall where from at the moment, but I’ll see if I can find a link to the story somewhere. This particular judge has apparently decided that he doesn’t agree with punishing criminals and, rather, wants to make sure they get treatment. To this end he sentenced a man convicted of multiple counts of rape on a young girl (these occurred over 3 years when the girl was between the ages of 7 and 10) to 60 days in prison.
60 days …. So that he can get out sooner and get ‘treatment.’ Mind you studies show that even with extensive treatment sex offenders have a 90%+ relapse rate … with child molesters being somewhat closer to the 95%. Is it just me or is the ‘soft on crime’ liberal justice system getting out of hand here in the US? I mean jeaze.
I will grant you that punishment doesn’t always work in terms of treating and rehabilitating the offender, but that isn’t the only purpose of punishment … punishment is a deterrent as well. This is a ruling that sends entirely the WRONG message to other potential offenders that, hey, you’ll just get a slap on the wrist … 60 days is NOTHING. A harsher punishment is about preventing crime as much as it is about punishing the offender in the case. The easier you make the punishment, the more likely you are to have more occurrences of the crime because less people will be scared of the punishment.
This isn’t about mandatory sentencing, I don’t believe that tying a judge’s hands is the right answer either … I don’t generally like ‘absolute’ rules as I believe that while there is black and white in the world there are a lot of shades of grey in many situations and no single law can properly cover it. (Note – this is different from how I feel about mandatory minimum serving … requiring that a convicted criminal serve a minimum amount of their sentence before being eligible for parole/early release is not something that I have any problem with (the judgment and attention to the case is handled by the sentencing phase of the trial) and feel it should be in the 66-75% range … I mean a 20 year prison sentence doesn’t mean much if you’re eligible for parole after 90 days.)
[State's judicial system failed abused child]
From there we’ll go to the FL Supreme Court, who recently ruled that the Florida School Voucher program was unconstitutional. With one of the people opposing choice for parents saying "It's a great day for public education and children in Florida."
She should have stopped with ‘It’s a great day for public (read: government) education….’ Because it is a sad sad day for children.
The law in question allowed students that were enrolled in a school that was deemed to be ‘failing’ by a state certification board for 2 years to be enrolled at a private school by use of a voucher (the voucher could be turned in by the private school to the government to receive the tax money for the student that would normally have gone to the government school.)
The public school had to have received a failing grade two years in a row for the parents to be eligible for the voucher. Two years … this means that not only had the school failed the first year … but it had failed to get its performance up to standard the following year. The students NEED to be pulled out of schools like this and put somewhere where they can actually get an education (this would almost have to be a private school because government run schools just aren’t cutting it anymore) in my opinion if the school fails a third year in a row it should be shut down and every member of the teaching and administrative faculty fired or at least given a tough evaluation and those that can’t score high enough to be picked up by another school should be shown the door.
Teachers unions HATE the idea of voucher systems … why? Because it makes them somewhat responsible for the level of education that the students receive. Because if they don’t perform then the parents have a viable choice to pull their kid out and send him (and the money associated with him) to a school that DOES perform. This might lead to teachers jobs and pay somehow being tied to *gasp* their ability to actually teach students and get them to learn.
The Teach unions won this battle … they have forced the parents who care enough about their children to want to make sure that they are enrolled in a school that is capable of providing them the best education to pay twice for that education …. Once through a forced tax by the government and then again by the enrolment fee of the private institution.
Money isn’t the problem … the city of Atlanta has among the highest dollar/student amounts in the country … and some of the lowest rated schools in the country. In fact the $/student is so high in the city of Atlanta that in some cases the government schools get more tax money per student than private schools charge for tuition. In other words (in some cases) the government could SAVE money by sending the students to private schools that are out performing the public schools.
Much of it has absolutely NOTHING to do with class sizes and $/student ratios … some of it is teacher unions protecting poor teachers … and some of it is class sizes and the lack of public schools to adequately discipline students … a large part of the problem, however, is the parents.
The parent that is willing to shell out the $$ for tuition is probably the type of parent that is going to be concerned with how well their child is doing, what they are learning, etc. These are the parents more likely to be INVOLVED. This is also why some students seem to do very well and shine even in a poor public school.
Throwing more money at the schools, buying them the latest computers and flashy laptops, new gym gear, and giving all the teachers a 100% pay raise won’t help in most of the cases … because the problem isn’t that the schools are underfunded or underequiped … it’s that the parents just don’t give a damn.
That and government schools are top heavy with administration, as are ALL government agencies, so a lot of money is wasted on salaries of people that have little to nothing to do with the education of children.
[Voucher decision reaction mixed in Escambia County]
Ah well … government education is working … and as a result the government can collect even MORE money from people to ‘better the education system’ …..
I think I need to get my own island … this country is going down hill fast.
The wife and I did get out some and caught some movies … unusual for us actually but we enjoyed it. For those that are curious I highly recommend Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and King Kong. They’re all long moves (Narnia I believe is the shortest of the 3 at 2 hours 10 minutes if I recall correctly) but worth the time.
Both the wife and I have also started our “Novel in a Month” marathon of writing. With 5 days of writing under my belt I am officially at 6,500 words … roughly 1,500 words off my mark (with another 1,613 words needed for tonight’s mark) but the story is coming along nicely and being that my writing time so far has pretty much only been from 10pm to midnight I don’t think that I’ll have too much trouble making up any deficit over the weekend.
In fact, in all honesty, you’re only getting this treat of a blog entry because I left my thumb drive at home and it has my novel on it, so I can’t work in this time I have available at work waiting for someone else to finish their job so I can start mine. Next week I plan to try and get my brain out of cotton sooner after waking up in the morning and try to get some blogging done in my ‘me’ time that I have in the early am. As I am not, exactly, a morning person … well, don’t expect any posts to be particularly elegant or thought out, until I’ve at least had a cup of coffee.
Judges … as I was driving into work I heard the story of a judge, I can’t recall where from at the moment, but I’ll see if I can find a link to the story somewhere. This particular judge has apparently decided that he doesn’t agree with punishing criminals and, rather, wants to make sure they get treatment. To this end he sentenced a man convicted of multiple counts of rape on a young girl (these occurred over 3 years when the girl was between the ages of 7 and 10) to 60 days in prison.
60 days …. So that he can get out sooner and get ‘treatment.’ Mind you studies show that even with extensive treatment sex offenders have a 90%+ relapse rate … with child molesters being somewhat closer to the 95%. Is it just me or is the ‘soft on crime’ liberal justice system getting out of hand here in the US? I mean jeaze.
I will grant you that punishment doesn’t always work in terms of treating and rehabilitating the offender, but that isn’t the only purpose of punishment … punishment is a deterrent as well. This is a ruling that sends entirely the WRONG message to other potential offenders that, hey, you’ll just get a slap on the wrist … 60 days is NOTHING. A harsher punishment is about preventing crime as much as it is about punishing the offender in the case. The easier you make the punishment, the more likely you are to have more occurrences of the crime because less people will be scared of the punishment.
This isn’t about mandatory sentencing, I don’t believe that tying a judge’s hands is the right answer either … I don’t generally like ‘absolute’ rules as I believe that while there is black and white in the world there are a lot of shades of grey in many situations and no single law can properly cover it. (Note – this is different from how I feel about mandatory minimum serving … requiring that a convicted criminal serve a minimum amount of their sentence before being eligible for parole/early release is not something that I have any problem with (the judgment and attention to the case is handled by the sentencing phase of the trial) and feel it should be in the 66-75% range … I mean a 20 year prison sentence doesn’t mean much if you’re eligible for parole after 90 days.)
[State's judicial system failed abused child]
From there we’ll go to the FL Supreme Court, who recently ruled that the Florida School Voucher program was unconstitutional. With one of the people opposing choice for parents saying "It's a great day for public education and children in Florida."
She should have stopped with ‘It’s a great day for public (read: government) education….’ Because it is a sad sad day for children.
The law in question allowed students that were enrolled in a school that was deemed to be ‘failing’ by a state certification board for 2 years to be enrolled at a private school by use of a voucher (the voucher could be turned in by the private school to the government to receive the tax money for the student that would normally have gone to the government school.)
The public school had to have received a failing grade two years in a row for the parents to be eligible for the voucher. Two years … this means that not only had the school failed the first year … but it had failed to get its performance up to standard the following year. The students NEED to be pulled out of schools like this and put somewhere where they can actually get an education (this would almost have to be a private school because government run schools just aren’t cutting it anymore) in my opinion if the school fails a third year in a row it should be shut down and every member of the teaching and administrative faculty fired or at least given a tough evaluation and those that can’t score high enough to be picked up by another school should be shown the door.
Teachers unions HATE the idea of voucher systems … why? Because it makes them somewhat responsible for the level of education that the students receive. Because if they don’t perform then the parents have a viable choice to pull their kid out and send him (and the money associated with him) to a school that DOES perform. This might lead to teachers jobs and pay somehow being tied to *gasp* their ability to actually teach students and get them to learn.
The Teach unions won this battle … they have forced the parents who care enough about their children to want to make sure that they are enrolled in a school that is capable of providing them the best education to pay twice for that education …. Once through a forced tax by the government and then again by the enrolment fee of the private institution.
Money isn’t the problem … the city of Atlanta has among the highest dollar/student amounts in the country … and some of the lowest rated schools in the country. In fact the $/student is so high in the city of Atlanta that in some cases the government schools get more tax money per student than private schools charge for tuition. In other words (in some cases) the government could SAVE money by sending the students to private schools that are out performing the public schools.
Much of it has absolutely NOTHING to do with class sizes and $/student ratios … some of it is teacher unions protecting poor teachers … and some of it is class sizes and the lack of public schools to adequately discipline students … a large part of the problem, however, is the parents.
The parent that is willing to shell out the $$ for tuition is probably the type of parent that is going to be concerned with how well their child is doing, what they are learning, etc. These are the parents more likely to be INVOLVED. This is also why some students seem to do very well and shine even in a poor public school.
Throwing more money at the schools, buying them the latest computers and flashy laptops, new gym gear, and giving all the teachers a 100% pay raise won’t help in most of the cases … because the problem isn’t that the schools are underfunded or underequiped … it’s that the parents just don’t give a damn.
That and government schools are top heavy with administration, as are ALL government agencies, so a lot of money is wasted on salaries of people that have little to nothing to do with the education of children.
[Voucher decision reaction mixed in Escambia County]
Ah well … government education is working … and as a result the government can collect even MORE money from people to ‘better the education system’ …..
I think I need to get my own island … this country is going down hill fast.
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