1. Doug Groothuis on recovering from fetus fatigue
It appears that millions of evangelicals, especially younger ones, are experiencing fetus fatigue. They are tired of the abortion issue taking center stage; it is time to move on to newer, hipper things--the sort of issues that excite Bono: aid to Africa, the environment, and cool tattoos. Abortion has been legal since they were born; it is the old guard that gets exercised about millions of abortions over the years. So, let's not worry that Barak Obama and Hillary are pro-choice. That is a secondary issue. After all, neither could do that much damage regarding this issue.
Evangelicals (if that word has any meaning), for God's sake, please wake up and remember the acres of tiny corpses you cannot see. Yes, the Christian social vision is holistic. We should endeavor to restore shalom to this beleaguered planet. That includes helping Africa, preserving the environment, and much more. However, the leading domestic moral issue remains the value of helpless human life. Since Roe v. Wade, approximately 50 million unborn humans have been killed through abortion. Stalin said, "One death is a tragedy. A million dead is a statistic." Too many are now Stalinists on abortion. The numbers mean nothing, apparently. The vast majority of these abortions were not done to save the life of the mother, a provision I take to be justified. Things have reached the point where bumper stickers say, "Don't like abortion, don't have one." It is simply a matter of private, subjective taste. But how about this: "Don't like slavery, don't own slaves"? Two human beings are involved in this matter, inescapably. . . .Evangelicals, for God's sake, please wake up. Remember the least, the last, and the lost: the millions of unborn human beings who hang in the balance (Matthew 25:31-46). No, this is not the only issue, but it is a titanic issue that cannot be ignored. Rouse yourself to recover from fetus fatigue. God is watching.
2. Steven Garber on making peace with proximate justice:
Proximate justice realizes that something is better than nothing. It allows us to make peace with some justice, some mercy, all the while realizing that it will only be in the new heaven and new earth that we find all our longings finally fulfilled, that we will see all of God's demands finally met. It is only then--there we will see all of the conditions for human flourishing finally in place, socially, economically, and politically.
(HT: Common Grounds Online)
3. Is Kyte is this year's Twitter?
...Kyte makes it as easy as possible to capture video with a mobile phone (any mobile phone with the capability) and post it to your own channel on the site. It's got one of the easiest interfaces and processes I've seen. One of the latest innovations by the company, though (launching today, according to VentureBeat), may eventually be what makes it a key player in the space -- the broadcasting of live video from a phone.
4. Ten Reasons I Don't Read Your Blog
5. According to scientists, Wim "The Ice Man" Hof should be dead for doing the following: running a half-marathon in the Arctic Circle in his bare feet, climbing the Everest in his shorts, and diving under the ice at the North Pole.
Normally, when a person is exposed to freezing temperatures for a prolonged period of time, the body goes into survival mode, as its liquids begin to freeze. Frostbite sets in, and in order to save the major organs, the body sacrifices blood flow to the extremities, cutting circulation from the fingers, toes, ears and nose to keep the blood flowing to the organs necessary for survival.
If not treated immediately, the damage to these extremities is irreversible. The other danger is hypothermia, an abnormally low body temperature. At about 90 degrees, body functions start shutting down, and once that starts, you could be dead within minutes.
But Hof stayed in his tomb of ice for one hour and 12 minutes. Then, the ice was poured out of the tank, and Hof emerged, his skin still pink.
"He's not moving, he's not generating heat, he's not dressed for it, and he's immersed in ice water. And water will transmit heat 30 times faster than air. It literally sucks the life right out of you. And yet, despite all those negative factors, Wim Hof was very calm, very comfortable the entire time that he was immersed in that water," Kamler said.
(HT: Neatorama)
6. Quote of the Week: "Christianity and Islam account for almost half the world's population. Amazingly, they remain relatively ignorant of each other's central beliefs." -- Mateen Elass, Understanding the Koran
7. RefTagger is a free web tool that automatically turns all of your Bible references into hyperlinks to the passages at BibleGateway.com. RefTagger can also add an icon that is hyperlinked to the passage in Libronix. So if your website says, "My favorite verse in the Bible is Romans 8:28," RefTagger will turn it into this: "My favorite verse in the Bible is Romans 8:28," or this: "My favorite verse in the Bible is Romans 8:28 [Open in Libronix (if available)] ."
2. You shouldn't split infinitives. Wrong! Nearly all grammarians want to boldly tell you it's OK to split infinitives. An infinitive is a two-word form of a verb. An example is "to tell." In a split infinitive, another word separates the two parts of the verb. "To boldly tell" is a split infinitive because boldly separates to from tell.
(HT: The Presurfer)
9. Giant 'chicken droppings catapult' set up by businessman to protect premises from arsonists:
Every night Joe Weston-Webb loads chicken droppings into a 30ft catapult and primes a cannon that used to fire his wife with a railway sleeper, all in the name of security....
Ex-showman Joe Weston-Webb primes his 30ft Roman catapult with chicken dropping to protect his business from criminals. Mr Weston-Webb, 70, has rigged up Britain's biggest anti-burglar device after being targeted by vandalism, break-ins and even an arson attack.
But police have told him he will be prosecuted if he unleashes the wrath of the 30ft-tall Roman catapult - filled with chicken poo collected from a nearby farm - on any yobs he catches on his property.
What is wrong with the police in Britain? Don't they realize that if poo-flinging catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will have poo-flinging catapults? (HT: Neatorama)
10. The Economic and Security Implications of the Artic Meltdown :
The shipping shortcuts of the Northern Sea Route (over Eurasia) and the Northwest Passage (over North America) would cut existing oceanic transit times by days, saving shipping companies -- not to mention navies and smugglers -- thousands of miles in travel. The Northern Sea Route would reduce the sailing distance between Rotterdam and Yokohama from 11,200 nautical miles -- via the current route, through the Suez Canal -- to only 6,500 nautical miles, a savings of more than 40 percent. Likewise, the Northwest Passage would trim a voyage from Seattle to Rotterdam by 2,000 nautical miles, making it nearly 25 percent shorter than the current route, via the Panama Canal. Taking into account canal fees, fuel costs, and other variables that determine freight rates, these shortcuts could cut the cost of a single voyage by a large container ship by as much as 20 percent -- from approximately $17.5 million to $14 million -- saving the shipping industry billions of dollars a year. The savings would be even greater for the megaships that are unable to fit through the Panama and Suez Canals and so currently sail around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn.
As Tyler Cowen notes, "The creation of new Arctic "territory" is one of the most important issues in the world right now."
11. Timewaster of the Week: The Greatest Nintendo Games of All Times - Playable Directly In Your Browser (HT: Neatorama)
12. Todd Seavey on markets, Bono, and Buckley
I would contend not only that markets are the most important institution to conserve (and to defend against the ever-encroaching state) but that bourgeois, Western phenomena as different as rock n' roll and National Review are obviously side effects of markets.
Indeed, just as we can barely tell the difference between eighteenth-century political factions from our vantage point, I doubt people living a century from now would see much difference between two Western, English-speaking, political, Christian, millionaire, media-savvy, and pro-capitalist-magazine owning figures such as William F. Buckley and Bono (Buckley having owned National Review, Bono owning a portion of Forbes -- a reminder that his divinely-inspired long-term plan for saving the world probably doesn't involve communism, fortunately). To the historians of the future, slight differences in their degrees of rebelliousness or stuffiness will be barely distinguishable, despite people attaching great importance to that metric in the rock n' roll era.
Markets, of course, are further down the list of institutions that are important to conserve (marriage, family, for example, are higher) . But I think Seavey is right about the similarities between WFB and Bono.
13. According to the Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology (via Neatorama), Suicide is non-existent among the Tiv of Nigeria, the Andaman Islanders, and the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego. Suicide is present but very rare among black American females, Irish Catholics, Mexicans, and Muslims in Egypt; Suicides are common in Hungary, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Japan, and Finland.
14. Jimmy Akin on the constitutional right to home school their children:
A California state appellate court judge has said "Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children."
We don't need it, you idiot. We have a natural right to home school our children. We hold this truth to be self-evident. The Constitution, and specifically the Bill of Rights is not anything like an exhaustive list of the rights of individuals, but is meant as a modest hedge against oppressive government encroachment like the nonsense you are trying to pull. You can't expect the founding fathers to list everything that people have a right to do.
15. I feel like this every day:
I am having such trouble writing these days... commenting on politics feels about as worthwhile as commenting on the nearest pre-school playground fight, commenting on God seems WAY above my spiritual level...
16. Your brain on Krispy Kremes
New research from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine reveals how hunger works in the brain and the way neurons pull your strings to lunge for the sweet fried dough. Krispy Kremes, in perhaps their first starring role in neurological research, helped lead to the discovery.
In the study, subjects were tested twice -- once after gorging on up to eight Krispy Kreme donuts until they couldn't eat anymore, and on another day after fasting for eight hours. In both sessions, people were shown pictures of donuts and screwdrivers, while researchers examined their brains in fMRI's.
When the subjects saw pictures of donuts after the eating binge, their brains didn't register much interest. But after the fast, two areas of the brain leaped into action upon seeing the donuts. First, the limbic brain -- an ancestral part of the brain present in all animals from snakes to frogs to humans -- lit up like fireworks.
17. Gene Veith: The hard-core German rap scene consists of skin-heads, neo-Nazis, and other anti-semites. The latest fad is to convert to Islam, call for jihad, and idolize Osama bin Laden, in place of Hitler.
18. Humans 'hard-wired to spot snakes':
Humans have an innate ability to spot snakes, according to University of Virginia researcher Vanessa LoBue.
She asked both adults and children to find a target picture from a set of nine images, these targets were either snakes, flowers, frogs or caterpillars. Both young and old detected the snakes faster than the other three.
Doesn't surprise me at all. As God told the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
19. Infographic of the Week: Good magazine's enlistment rates in various wars.
20. The 12 Most Powerful Christians in Hollywood (HT: Reformed Chicks Blabbing)
21. Chuck Norris on school shootings:
As I've said in different ways in different settings, we teach our children they are nothing more than glorified apes, yet we don't expect them to act like monkeys. We place our value in things, yet expect our children to value people. We disrespect one another, but expect our children to respect others. We terminate children in the womb, but are surprised when children outside the womb terminate other children. We push God to the side, but expect our children to be godly. We've abandoned moral absolutes, yet expect our children to obey the universal commandment, "Thou shall not murder."
(HT: The Point)
22. Why has executive compensation exploded in recent years?
As Gabaix and Landier write in a new Quarterly Journal of Economics article, the sixfold increase in American CEO pay from 1980 to 2003 is almost wholly explained by the roughly sixfold increase in market capitalization of big U.S. companies over the same period. (Asset values have increased sixfold because both corporate earnings and the price-to-earnings ratio investors are willing to tolerate have increased by factors of 2.5.) The trend lines of market capitalization and executive payouts rose and dipped in near-perfect tandem.
According to Gabaix and Landier's model, the talent differences among CEOs are generally minor. For example, if a given firm substituted the most talented CEO for the 250th most talented CEO, its market capitalization would only increase by 0.016 percent. But for a $500 billion company like ExxonMobil, 0.016 percent is equivalent to some $80 million. In other words, as companies get bigger, a talented CEO can have a greater impact. Therefore, large companies bid up prices across the board for the small number of men and women deemed capable of managing them.
(HT: Orgtheory.net)
23. 100 Things to do with Google Maps Mashups
24. PC Magazine picks 157 of their favorite free applications, from operating systems to security software to webapps. (HT: Lifehacker)
25. LOLCat LOLBird of the Week
Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!
26. Are bigger vehicles safer to drive?
With the price of gas on the rise, SUVs have lost some of their appeal. Nevertheless, one reason people are still drawn to SUVs is that they feel safer. They're higher and heavier than cars, a key consideration with so many other big vehicles on the road. But are these bigger vehicles really safer? One economist has undertaken a rigorous analysis of government accident data and finds that these bigger vehicles do not increase overall safety for their occupants -- and they pose a hazard to everyone else around them. The increase in the market share of the light-truck category (dominated by SUVs) from 1981 to 2004 is responsible for as many as 2,900 more deaths per year.
27.
28. How to listen to Haydn and Mozart
29. Go with your gut -- intuition is more than just a hunch, says Leeds research -- Most of us experience 'gut feelings' we can't explain, such as instantly loving -- or hating -- a new property when we're househunting or the snap judgments we make on meeting new people. Now researchers at Leeds say these feelings -- or intuitions -- are real and we should take our hunches seriously.
30. Smoking doesn't make you happy -- Extensive research carried out by Dr Iain Lang at the Peninsula Medical School looked at the relationship between smoking and psychological wellbeing. Dr Lang and colleagues used a measure of quality of life called the CASP-19 and found that smokers experienced lower average levels of pleasure and life satisfaction compared with non-smokers. The difference was even more pronounced in smokers from lower socio-economic groups. In short - smoking doesn't make you happy.
31. Parental supervision during high school may curb college drinking problems -- Parental monitoring can reduce high-school drinking and, as a result, have a protective effect on students' drinking at college, says research published this week in the online open access journal Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy.
32. TV Scheduling In America Has Overshadowed Natural Circadian Rhythms -- Television, not the sun, determines sleep schedules in America. American's natural timing cues -- the circadian rhythms determined by the sun -- seem to have lost out to the man-made cues brought on within the last century, mainly by the creation of time zones and the television broadcast schedule. In this relatively brief time, they find, the markers for how we structure our day have been dramatically altered.
33. U2 -- "Street Misssion" (1978)
Before they became the Greatest Band in the World, Bono, Larry, Adam, and The Edge were...kids. This video is from two years after the band formed (and two years before they released Boy). Bono's vocals are a bit lacking but Edge's genius already shines through. (HT: Todd Seavey)
We don't need it, you idiot. We have a natural right to home school our children. We hold this truth to be self-evident. The Constitution, and specifically the Bill of Rights is not anything like an exhaustive list of the rights of individuals, but is meant as a modest hedge against oppressive government encroachment like the nonsense you are trying to pull. You can't expect the founding fathers to list everything that people have a right to do.
OK so how do you get a constitutional right to homeschool from it?
Sounds to me like another round of "Constitutional means stuff I think is good and unconstitutional means stuff I think is bad".
Boonton:
First, you idiot.
Second, I said once before that "We hold these truths to be self-evident" would inspire you to write something like..."Err, hmmm, no, actually,..."
Once again, you show there is nothing so obvious that you can't ignore it.
Boonton said: "OK so how do you get a constitutional right to homeschool from it? Sounds to me like another round of 'Constitutional means stuff I think is good and unconstitutional means stuff I think is bad.'"
Joe must feel like he's talking in circles here. A right need not be constitutional in order for it to exist...enter natural rights. Similarly, a law need not be codified in order for it to exist...enter natural law. This is what Joe meant when he said that the BoR is not an exhaustive list of individual rights; it's meant as a modest hedge against oppressive gov't encroachment.
Example: Did blacks in America have a natural right to participate fully, freely, and fairly in our society before the Reconstruction amendments (14th, 15th, 16th)? Of course they did. These amendments only positively recognized the rights that they had all along.
U2 takes themselves way too seriously...and so do their fans. What was the title of that song?..."Teen Mission?"
Edge's genius? Please.
The tenth amendment: If the Constitution doesn't give it to the Federal government, the Federal government doesn't have that right/responsibility/power. It's reserved for the states or for the people.
Unfortunately, in this case it's the state (California) against the people, so the tenth ammendment doesn't help. The only way the rest of the Constitution could help is to explicitly give that right to the people, and it doesn't.
But the California decision is still nuts. The state has the right over the kids and the parents don't? Seriously? I don't think so...
Speaking of Google Maps, if you aren't aware of this, you should be. I have GPS on my blackberry curve, but choose not to use it because i don't want to pay for it. I have the unlimited data plan so I went to google maps on my phone, only to be offered Google's version of a GPS. So now I have free GPS on my phone and pay for it only as part of my unlimited data plan. It works incredibly well, even out here in rural Illinois.
Daniel
Joe must feel like he's talking in circles here. A right need not be constitutional in order for it to exist...enter natural rights. Similarly, a law need not be codified in order for it to exist...enter natural law.
I understand that point fully but that doesn't address the question. Of all the rights that are not codified why and how exactly is 'right to homeschool' one of them? Because Joe likes homeschooling?
There's a big difference between saying homeschooling is a good policy and state's should make it accessable to parents who are willing to dedicate themselves to it (key word there is "dedicate", the big problem that homeschooling advocates often ignore is that there are plenty of parents who think they are dedicated but if homeschooling was made easy for them it would quickly degenerate into watching TV and idly surfing the internet) and saying homeschooling is a right that states must respect regardless of consquences.
Am I the only one that can't see behind the sidebar? It blocks several of the items. Ususally this can be resolved by going to permalink and fullscreen, but not this time.
...the big problem that homeschooling advocates often ignore is that there are plenty of parents who think they are dedicated but if homeschooling was made easy for them it would quickly degenerate into watching TV and idly surfing the internet)...
"Plenty" of parents? Do you have any empirical data to back up that claim, or is it just a hunch?
I emailed Joe a screen shot of the sidebar problem so I imagine he is working on the problem. I used cut and paste to put the blocked text into Word and read it there. Perhaps there's a person here whose really good with HTML who can spot the problem and tell Joe how to fix it?
Rusty
"Plenty" of parents? Do you have any empirical data to back up that claim, or is it just a hunch?
Do I really need empirical data to back up that claim? Really?
Ah, yes, U2 in the late 70s and early 80s, when they were a garage band from Ireland - iow - when they were good.
As far as obscure videos go, however, I think "A Celebration" (~1982) better displays the raw energy that was U2.
The LA Times article is well worth reading.
California does not have a homeschooling law. Parents who want to homeschool until now have filed paperwork that essentially establishes themselves as a 'small school' or they create independent study programs overseen by charter or private schools. The Dept of Education basically made up what they thought were reasonable sounding rules regarding homeschooling.
The court case that brought this out was a case of suspected child abuse. The Dept of Family Services wanted the kids to show up to the private school they were supposedly enrolled in on a regular basis in order for someone other than the parents to be able to see the kids on a regular basis (I assume so any marks or signs of abuse could be witnessed by third parties). The parents responded that they were homeschooling. The court found that by law only those with "teaching credentials" could homeschool. Since the mother does not have them she cannot homeschool and must send her kids to school.
I've written before on how hypocritical the right is when it comes to judicial activism. Here's a case in point. The court was presented with a case, they looked at what the law said and applied it. For this they are called idiots and accused of being anti-Christian bigots (even though the child in question was enrolled in a private Christian school that the mother was refusing to send him too).
Now if conservatives were a bit more honest they would say something like "This means California should pass a homeschooling law so that thousands of decent parents can homeschool without having to go through all the college courses and special classes that someone who is teaching groups of students would have to go through". Instead they demand that the court invent a "right to homeschool", presumably out of the same set of unwritten rights they go ballastic when courts recognize...ohhh...say a right to use birth control or a right to keep the state out of your bedroom. Yes indeed the ruling will cause chaos for the many homeschooling parents in California. Duh, that's because California doesn't have homeschooling provisions (or technically it does, it is that they are very onerous). That is not sufficient to create a right, though. If California had a law that said 45mph is the max. speed limit it would likewise cause all sorts of chaos. That alone doesn't create a 'right to drive 60' that courts need to or should recognize.
Boonton:
First, yes, you do need more than a hunch to support your bald assertion that "there are plenty of parents who think they are dedicated but if homeschooling was made easy for them it would quickly degenerate into watching TV and idly surfing the internet." Are we just supposed to take your word for it?
Second, I don't view this as a right to home school, specifically; it is an issue of parental rights and parental choice in education.
Third, bad facts make bad law, this being a case-in-point. Instead of restricting its ruling to the facts of this one case--which courts can and often do--this court made a sweeping attack on all parents in CA, potentially subjecting them to criminal sanctions.
Do I really need empirical data to back up that claim? Really?
Yes, you do.
What would be the incentive for parents to choose to homeschool their children, only to let them loose on the TV and internet?
Daniel
First, yes, you do need more than a hunch to support your bald assertion that "there are plenty of parents who think they are dedicated but if homeschooling was made easy for them it would quickly degenerate into watching TV and idly surfing the internet." Are we just supposed to take your word for it?
The empircal evidence is human nature Daniel. So yes there needs to be controls in place to prevent from happening just as a store puts controls in place to prevent shoplifting even though it normally thinks very highly of its customers and doesn't conduct studies to see if they might be prone to theft.
Third, bad facts make bad law, this being a case-in-point. Instead of restricting its ruling to the facts of this one case--which courts can and often do--this court made a sweeping attack on all parents in CA, potentially subjecting them to criminal sanctions.
In other words your judicial philosophy is to apply the law only to cases before the court but ignore it for everyone else? What about parents who actually bothered to follow the law as written and obtained the certificate or hired a certified private tutor? What should the judge say to them? "Sorry suckers, we make it up as we go along to keep Joe & his Outpost buddies happy!"?
Rusty
What would be the incentive for parents to choose to homeschool their children, only to let them loose on the TV and internet?
Try rereading the post, specifically:
Have you ever had a long vacation or time off that you began with all types plans to get various things done and next thing you know you're going back to work the next day and you've done none of it? This isn't rocket science here, people quite often have intentions that turn out to be a lot grander than what they actually accomplish. I shouldn't really have to explain to you that without any type of controls grand plans to create an independent education project for one's kids might end up just like the plans to build them the world's greatest tree house.
Boonton,
How many parents have you run across that have begun homeschooling, only to realize that they weren't, as you put it, "dedicated" to the proposition? I've met several. Believe it or not, they don't just let their kids loose with media devices but, once they realize that homeschooling is not for them, they either put their kids in public or private school. After all, since it is their kid's welfare they are concerned about, it stands to reason that they wouldn't simply let them run wild.
Rusty,
That's nice that there are parents who change their mind about things. I'm not really sure what it has to do with the discussion or what it has to do with anything here.
Here's a thought experiment. Suppose tomorrow all educational requirements were abolished. Do you think that every parent would suddenly leap to the plate and come up with an excellent home schooling program for their kids? No certainly not and I'm not just talking about abusive parents. For many parents this is over their heads. Home schooling, in other words, is work & just like any other skill some people will be good at it and some won't.
Well if that's the case with the extreme 'anything goes' policy it would likewise apply with a less extreme policy. In other words, just like anything else you need some rules regarding homeschooling. Set the rules too high and it's not going to be fair to parents who could do a good job. Set the rules too low and you're going to end up hurting kids.
Where should the rules be set? The standard conservative line should be it should be set through the democratic process by the legislature working with the governor etc. Where they should NOT be set is an invention of a new 'right to homeschool' whose limits and rules are expected to be invented ad hoc by judges.
I think its perfectly reasonable to say that California should recognize that the credentials for teaching other people's kids for income or teaching large groups of kids should be different than what is required for teaching one's own kids. But that is not to say there should be no credentials at all which is essentially what making homeschooling a right would say (there is, after all, no 'free speech' credentials for...say...writing a blog or sending a letter to the editor of your local newspaper).
So California should make a better policy but there's no 'right to good policies' in our system. You have to fight for them in the democratic process which means actually getting the law changed. Homeschoolers here are no different than people who think that 'green vehicles' should be given special placement int he HOV lanes or that tattoe parlors should be inspected every three months rather than every year.
Boonton said, "In other words your judicial philosophy is to apply the law only to cases before the court but ignore it for everyone else?"
It's the province of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. Courts should not fill endless pages of rambling dicta when all they are called upon to do is to decide the cases--contextualized in the facts--that come before them. Should a similar factual situation arise in a subordinate jurisdiction, the court in that case will be bound by the higher court's ruling (or else may be persuaded if the prior court is parallel in authority). But no, courts must not be in the business of legislating from their respective benches.
Your site looks good with RefTagger. Thanks for mentioning it!
Daniel,
So then if CA's law says that only credentialed teachers can teach kids then a judge should follow that law. I'm not sure what the objection is then?
Rusty
How many parents have you run across that have begun homeschooling, only to realize that they weren't, as you put it, "dedicated" to the proposition? I've met several
I'll give you one I live with: My sister-in-law. The entire family reacted with horror when she announced she was going to 'homeschool' her son (my Godson) because he felt awkward getting on the bus. (I should point out at this venture all of us deplore her parenting and her endless indulgence and favoritism she shows towards her kids, especially her first born). Thankfully the school firmly informed her in writing that if she didn't start sending him back to school there would be a visit from law enforcement stopping a diaster in the making.
None of us needed an empircal study to know what the result would have been. There might have been a week or so of 'homeschooling' that would have then become 'educational TV' and would have finished with him sleeping all day and playing video games all night.
Are all parents like this? Of course not. But let's face it, what I'm describing is human nature. Mabye it's a bit more unchecked in her but it exists in all of us. I think homeschooling should be available as an option for parents but I also think it needs to be something that's not quite easy to do. It needs to be something that they have to fight a little bit for if only to keep out those who aren't really dedicated to it and those who don't have the discipline for it.
Correction on Comment #19: One line should have read, "Should a similar factual situation arise in a subordinate court WITHIN THE SAME JURISDICTION, the court in that case will be bound by the higher court's ruling..."
Daniel,
I think your assertion carries the danger of implementing an absurd relativism. All courts are required not only to apply the law of their jurisdiction but also the higher laws of the state and federal Constitutions. If someone under that court's jurisdiction claims the constitution (federal or state) voids some law the court has to address that defense.
Likewise if the court in some local jurisdiction is asked to apply a state law it must figure out what that law says. A single sentence like "all those teaching kids must have various credentials outlines below" doesn't magically become a different sentence depending on what county you're in. If one court finds this law means everyone teaching kids needs credentials (and I've yet to hear someone explain why it doesn't mean that) then it applies to all the courts unless you have a convincing argument for why that reading is in error.
Boonton,
California does not need a home schooling law for two treasons.
The first treason is that the judge wrote his own law outside of the particulars of the cas.
The second treason is that, thoguh the Tenth Amendment is supposed to identify liberty, some forget what is really important.
We might add a third treason. The evident level of education in Berkeley should suffice.
Collin
Boonton,
I wasn't referring to whether or not there is a right to homeschool. I was referring to your comment, specifically what was contained in this paragraph (emphasis added),
There's a big difference between saying homeschooling is a good policy and state's should make it accessable to parents who are willing to dedicate themselves to it (key word there is "dedicate", the big problem that homeschooling advocates often ignore is that there are plenty of parents who think they are dedicated but if homeschooling was made easy for them it would quickly degenerate into watching TV and idly surfing the internet) and saying homeschooling is a right that states must respect regardless of consquences.
What seems to be clear is that you have no basis for your claim, other than you think it might be that way. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, btw.
Daniel and Rusty:
You are two more in a long line of people who have been lulled into thinking that Boonton is someone to take seriously. He writes more stuff here than the moderator, Joe Carter, and all of it is for "The Sake of Argument"--literally. He has said so himself: his purpose here is to be "a pin in a bubble factory." (He says pin, I say prick.)
I mean it. He has more words on this blog than Joe Carter does. If we ignore him, maybe he would go back to his day job--filling septic tanks.
Maybe the Christian response would be to be kind to someone who disagrees with you rather than calling him names?
Daniel and Rusty:
You are two more in a long line of people who have been lulled into thinking that Boonton is someone to take seriously. He writes more stuff here than the moderator, Joe Carter, and all of it is for "The Sake of Argument"--literally. He has said so himself: his purpose here is to be "a pin in a bubble factory." (He says pin, I say prick.)
I mean it. He has more words on this blog than Joe Carter does. You will get nowhere with him. He will argue with you from now until the cows come home, and then he will tell you that "err, ummm, no, actually," the cows are not home. If we ignore him, maybe he would go back to his day job, which judging by the number of words he puts here can't be too demanding.
I know this sounds snarky but this guy has some serious issues.
Loki:
Are you Christian? 'cuz I got the distinct impression from a past conversation you are ignorant of the basic fact of Christianity--that Christ died for us.
Besides, the only reason Boonton has a place to come and disagree is because there are so many Christians here who are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt--that he is actually serious about engaging with those who think differently. I was once, but not anymore.
jd, regardless of whether Loki is correct, he/she has a point if you are a Christian. Showing some common grace to another human is pretty much the reason Christ died for us. You would do well to remember that.
jd,
Thanks for the heads-up. I am no fan of argument for the sake of argument...and this coming from someone who will be a lawyer in a few months! :o) That said, the benefit of dialogues on comment streams is that they may be beneficial to others not directly involved. Plus, I'm only a third-year law student--what do I know?--so I am always willing to consider the possibility that I am flat-out, dead wrong. Actually, I'm flattered that any of my comments--however inane they are--generate any discussion. :o)
Take care, all!
It is true that Boonton writes a lot and that he is often playing devil's advocate, but I find that he makes thoughtful contributions, interacts respectfully with those who disagree, and generally refrains from ad hominem attacks, none of which can be said about jd.
Thankfully the school firmly informed her in writing that if she didn't start sending him back to school there would be a visit from law enforcement stopping a diaster in the making.
Your argument would make some sense if there weren't millions of American lives that hadn't been made disasters of by the government schools. We've known for decades that Johnny can't read, that American schools have fallen far behind in the Western world and that Americans receive an insufficient and sometimes even a wrongly targeted education for preserving our republic, our technological lead in the world, our economic well-being, and pretty much our way of life over all. Why people still try to ignore these facts is beyond me.
You take one case as proof that fascist controls on education are necessary (and I'm not using that word in an inflammatory manner... the recent case in California far more resembles the government position on education in 1930's Germany than in 1770's America).
Honestly, many kids would do just as well to be left at home to play video games all day than to be stuck in the government indoctrination camps. The government school system turns out how many million idiots a year who don't care, can't read, then go home and watch TV and play video games for 8 hours? What's the difference if they never went to school?
Boonton, your argument that we should err on the side of human nature not being so good is actually a very compelling one. I just think it's misplaced in this case. The thing you missed is that it's not all that uncommon, even as horrible as human nature can be, for parents to love their children...and even sacrifice for them. You'll always good parents and bad parents. You're right that if everyone homeschooled, there would be parents who wouldn't do a good job and kids would watch TV all day. But I maintain that there are plenty of government school kids who do that anyway. What breaks my heart is to see good parents shoveling good kids off to the government indoctrination camps on the big yellow bus, when they could be very successfully moving their kids up 10, 20, or 30 percentiles in achievement by homeschooling or private schooling them.
There are over 2 million (maybe more) American kids being homeschooled right now. Yes, there are cases like the one in your family, but they are few and far between compared to the failures of the government schools. The success of homeschoolers, academically and otherwise, is well documented. Your arguments that fascist controls are needed to protect the exceptions misses a very important point. I maintain that if we were to get rid of all the government schools tomorrow, the education level in this country would increase, perhaps dramatically. There will always be idiots, but I'd rather live in a society where some children's lives were destroyed by bad parenting than where many children's lives were destroyed by government fiat.
ex-preacher
It is true that Boonton writes a lot and that he is often playing devil's advocate, but I find that he makes thoughtful contributions, interacts respectfully with those who disagree, and generally refrains from ad hominem attacks, none of which can be said about jd.
I won't argue with you on that, ex, because you wouldn't agree with me anyway.
The irony is that you are there to defend him. I once chided you for being an ex-Christian who visits this blog only to point at us Christians who still believe this stupid stuff. (I don't remember exactly how I said it.) My impression was that you at least acknowledged a grain of truth in that characterization. Anyone with a shred of common sense would have to concede that an ex-preacher visiting an evangelical blog is there to disillusion Christians.
With Boonton, there is never any concession to the obvious. His method is to refute an argument that nobody made. He does so with laboriously long posts that sound reasonable. He uses lots of references and links (often Wikipedia). He gives the impression that he is being incredibly patient with the great unwashed who post here. (He is actually condescending and often rude.) As he wrote himself, his purpose here is to be a pin in a bubble factory. In other words he is only here to frustrate anyone who is trying to make a serious point. That's what you call a "thoughtful contribution?"
Sorry, that's what I call a prick in a bubble factory.
jd
Besides, the only reason Boonton has a place to come and disagree is because there are so many Christians here who are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt--that
Ahhh but I follow the golden rule here jd. I don't anyone here to give me the benefit of the doubt. I make my arguments and you either accept them or not but that's it. I don't want your charity, save it for those who need it. You, perhaps, feel you should get special points for being a great Christian. Perhaps Joe could set up an intellectual affirmative action application at the front of his web site for people like you to fill out.
j.j.
Your argument would make some sense if there weren't millions of American lives that hadn't been made disasters of by the government schools. We've known for decades that Johnny can't read, that American schools have fallen far behind in the Western world and that Americans receive an insufficient and sometimes even a wrongly targeted education for preserving our republic, our technological lead in the world, our economic well-being, and pretty much our way of life over all. Why people still try to ignore these facts is beyond me...
Ignore it? There's few things everyone agrees upon as much as Johnny can't read, the schools are bad, no one is educated anymore etc. Like most things everyone agrees on it is wrong. Johnny can't read but the last 20 years has ushered in amazing technological changes and most of them had little to do with Japanese or German whiz kids but Americans. The American worker is the most productive in the world yet he supposedly can't read, supposedly is so far behind everyone else etc.
Seriously, give me a real example of someone whose life has been made a diaster by 'government schools'. Yea ok, there's examples of teachers molesting kids or other horror stories but show me who are these 'millions'. Yes there's plenty of people who weren't helped by the schools...many who were born with bad parents, bad families, bad neighborhoods etc. and the schools didn't do anything or much to help. But that's not the same thing as being destroyed by 'government schools'.
You take one case as proof that fascist controls on education are necessary (and I'm not using that word in an inflammatory manner... the recent case in California far more resembles the government position on education in 1930's Germany than in 1770's America).
I think you sound like the Noam Chomsky of homeschooling. My response is get a grip. I don't think you have the slightest idea of what a fascist or totaltarian government really is like. If you did perhaps you wouldn't have such difficulty telling the difference between, say 1930's Germany and perhaps the US in the 1940's and 50's which defeated Nazi Germany with a public school system that was probably had a lot fewer provisions for homeschooling advocates than exist in today's system.
There are over 2 million (maybe more) American kids being homeschooled right now. Yes, there are cases like the one in your family, but they are few and far between compared to the failures of the government schools. The success of homeschoolers, academically and otherwise, is well documented.
You're missing the dedication element. Those 2m kids have parents who had to jump through hoops to homeschool so yes they are pretty dedicated to it. If they had to use public school (either because of the law or just because circumstances change that make it just impossible for them to homeschool anymore) or private schools they would almost certainly make the most of them monitoring their kids' homework, going to the conferences, and so on. Many schools these days offer the dedicated parent a huge array of tools, even weekly email/web reports on what their kids are or aren't learning. The same goes for private schools. Yes it isn't all that surprising that when a parent has to write a check for $3-$10K every year they get really annoyed by, say, a kid that wants to stay home two out of every five days a week or F's because a kid decided he was going to watch hang out all night on Myspace rather than write a short report.
One area where I think we might agree is that sometimes I suspect some parents have become too hyped on education. I feel that 20, 30 or more years ago older generations were a little bit more indifferent to it. For more than a few kids, they might be healthier in the long run if they relaxed a bit on the academics and worked more holding part time jobs or simply just having fun.
Out of your supposed 'millions' destroyed by public schools...can you honestly say all of them had parents who exhausted every tool and opportunity that was available? I've seen more than my share of 'disappointments' and I can honestly say I've never seen a real failure of the public school. I've seen parental failures and I've seen plenty of cases where kids just let opportunities pass by (as they say, youth is wasted on the young) and finally I've seen plenty of cases where people just make bad choices (bad friends, bad habits, and so on). Granted I don't live in a ghetto but then most Americans don't either and yes I've known people who can best be described as 'ghetto' and for their kids more often than not the schools were the brightest part of their lives.
jd etc.
With Boonton, there is never any concession to the obvious. His method is to refute an argument that nobody made.
I've refuted the following here:
1. That there's a right to homeschooling (argument made by Joe and others in the opening).
2. That the judicial decision that motivated this thread was unreasonable or a case of 'judicial activism' (argument made here)
3. That public schools are 'fascist' (argument made by jj).
While you're prattling on, why don't you show me an argument I've refuted here that no one made?
As he wrote himself, his purpose here is to be a pin in a bubble factory. In other words he is only here to frustrate anyone who is trying to make a serious point.
And that would be you? Ok what's your serious point? The pin in the bubble factory is not to deflate the serious person but the person whose full of stupid arguments but is rarely called out on it because he hangs around friendly territory.
Re: Top Ten Grammar Myths
Grammar Girl is wrong on a couple of counts.
She cites some examples of correctly ending a sentence with a preposition, like "let's kiss and make up" and "I'm going to throw up". Unfortunately, neither of these "prepositions" are actually prepositions (though they can be in different contexts); they are part of a verb/adverb hybrid. We have many such hybrids that we use as verbs, like "to put on" (to trick or to don), "to turn off" (to repel), and "turn in" (to retire).
She says the possessive of Kansas can be Kansas' or Kansas's. She'll find some disagreement there among many grammarians; with the exception of "Jesus", the singular noun ending with "s" always takes "'s" in the possesive form.
I note with amusement that I have made a subject/verb agreement error in my post about grammar. The irony is delicious, but I'd better fix it before Grammar Girl shows up. (See, Grammar Girl? Another verb/adverb verb!)
My offending sentence should read "Unfortunately, neither of these 'prepositions' is a preposition..."
From your conversation on The Stones Cry Out http://stonescryout.org/?p=172
Yet instead of finding a world resplendent with haphazard adaptability, we find a world in which products of mindless-process design are studied for their marvelous engineering and design principles. This is the complete antithesis of what should be expected.
How would you handle the argument that the reason we see design in random processes is because we impose our rationality on them?
If the state of California restricts the ability to home school children, maybe parents should consider moving out of the state of California. It's not as if this action is out of the ordinary for California. Don't you know what you're getting when you live in a state with the ideological landscape of California? If your children are your top priority, act like it. There are states that allow a great deal of freedom to home school. Some even allow them to participate in high school sports, or at least they used to(Tim Tebow). I'm fortunate to live in Alabama where our 1st grade curriculum includes runnin' a trout line, how to properly carry a pocket knife, and teaching the terms "Sir" and Ma'am".
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