 in his column today, that our government exhibits a distressing degree of disregard for the little niceties, like the constitution.
Will has one very telling point: "Just five years ago, 38 senators who supported reforms contained in McCain-Feingold voted to amend the First Amendment to empower Congress to abridge political speech." That's 38% of the pricks who would shut you up right now if they could.. Think about that.
Juvenile Amusements are still the best kind
Dr. Weevil liked my reference to Harry Butt Weasel Browne. But I must admit I didn't start out to make a play on words. The 'Butt Weasel' part came along originally in reference to The Rat and was orphaned when it became apparent that beating on pathetic Johnny Taliban was just too easy.
Later the topic of Browne came up and 'Butt Weasel' attached itself to him as if by its own volition. I'd realized this would betray my generally juvenile sense of humor and I'd tried to avoid using the full appellation, but it eventually got away from me.
What can I say? Harry is to politics as Jim and Tammy Fay are to religion, except that Harry could use a little more makeup.
Update: The original Butt Weasel is a friend's cat - so fat it has to sneak up on its own butt.
Sunday, March 31, 2002- - -
Things are coming to a boil in the Middle East, in typical modern media fashion. The Israelis have Arafat's compound surrounded while Arafat's giving interviews to FoxNews. It's as if the plot were scripted in Hollywood. Strange editing on this Fox article, too. They've transcribed Arafat's speech and then edited it as if it were a written document.
I think it's safe to say that for better or worse, things are going to change a great deal in the Middle East in the near future.
Joanne Jacobs says she's never gotten a dime from Enron. Fortunately, I can't say the same.
She has some very interesting observations on education majors from one of her readers. I have thought the education curriculums I've seen have been a little odd. Great emphasis on the vocational aspects and mechanics of teaching, teachers aids (I recall a class on felt boards and three dimensional props for pre-school instructors) and little emphasis on the traditional broad university education.
I took a graduate course in multivariate statistics given through the graduate school of the education department once upon a time. About a dozen education grad students, two math grad students, one biology grad student, and me. Most of the education grads were teaching at local schools and taking this class during a free period, while the rest of us were more or less full time students, which probably makes a difference, the teachers were working more or less full time and attending class on the side. Regardless, the class required a good deal of work. Each week we employed different statistical techniques to explore the "High School and Beyond" data set, with the purpose of learning the intricacies of analyzing data containing multiple variables. In 16 weeks of class we blasted through the top ten of multivariate statistics. The professor had done his Ph.D. at Oxford, on principal components analysis I believe, in about 1940-1950 B.C. (Before Computers) and demanded that we be able to work the stats by hand as well as by dumping data into the computer hopper - the sort of thing that made you hate him then and remember him fondly now. He also graded on a strict 90%, 80%, 70% or some such scale that didn't allow much wiggle room.
The course was intensive and extensive. It was also a graduate course, in which only A's and B's count toward the degree. You've usually got to have a 3.0, a straight B average, to receive an advanced degree, so a C can only hurt you. Yet our education majors showed a remarkably lax approach to the class, some coming unprepared when they attended at all - yet they stayed in the class. In the end, two B's and two A's were awarded - to the two math students, the biology student, and me.
I've pondered the implications of this experience ever since. My initial reaction was to be shocked that would-be e