Ann Althouse Debunks Media Wailing on Texas Curriculum

So I don't have to. (Hat tip: Althouse via Instapundit)

Prof. Ann Althouse picks apart another breathless (and deceitful) report from the mainstream media on how Texas is somehow subverting the education of Texas youth.
Thanks Professor! (And my closing statement at the bottom of this post still rings true.)

Updated and Bumped from and earlier post titled:
Leftard Reporter April Castro Shocked! Shocked!
...that the Texas Board of Education moves to De-Leftardize School curriculum.

My Original Post:
In an AP article just published and titled Texas ed board vote reflects far-right influences, 'writer' April Castro breathlessly reveals her bottomless ignorance of all things American.

A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.

'Far right faction... injecting conservative ideals' - Got it.
I'd have to review the litany of changes that the Texas Board of Education is making in the 'original' before I would pass judgement of them, but Little Ms. April helpfully provides a few (with obligatory leftist bias I'm sure) examples of the 'radical' moves being made in Texas Ed. My favorite is one of the first ones:

Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic,"...

Gee. ah... April honey? The United States IS a frickin' "constitutional republic". See here, here, and here.
I suppose just about everything looks like it is 'far right' to someone if they can be habitually found grazing in the deep left field.

Update: I knew there would be more breathless and vapid criticisms of Texas Board of Education's making changes to the curriculum and I was right. Seems the Freakonomics twit has poor search engine skills that lead him to some poor conclusions (thanks for the info Volokh!) concerning F.A Hayek.

You couldn't write marketable fiction with characters as dumb as those found in the MSM.

AF Side of the KC-45 Story Disappears

At Leeham News And Comment, someone was asking me about a reference showing the AF's position on the lamented late "KC-X Competition of '08". I went looking for such documentation that I had referenced earlier in several places and found that all refernces to it appear to have disappeared on the web. Thus the dead are buried. But unlike John Kerry, I have proof it did exist.

Who knows? Someday it may come in handy.

Update: Ahhhh, cripes. I've let this now dead argument stay waaaay too far under my skin and it is getting to the point that I get 'mean' on it too quickly. I'm swearing off tilting at windmills in the past, at least over at Leeham.

DADT: Some Milbloggers Miss Target

Obama & Co are subverting Western Society everywhere else, why not the military too? Obama does NOT need your help Milbloggers!

I really don't have time for this, but can't let it pass without comment (which I made at the site linked in the title of this post). I am usually in complete agreement with most of the Milbloggers listed, but today, for some reason that escapes me, they felt a need to speak out on the wrong side of an issue near and dear to my heart. I still might have let it pass, except the Fabulous (usually-right-but -unfortunately-blind-on-this-issue) Instapundit linked into the 'statement' which will gain it traffic and exposure far beyond its relevance. I expect it will be mentioned on the network news in ten, nine, eight......

I've covered all this before ad nauseum here, here, and here.

PS: I just wish people would drop these turds into the punchbowl before OR after I go to work so I can zap them early in the life-cycle.

Now, I've got three DAU module tests to do tonight -- so go away!

Armchair General: Sink the General Belgrano

I had wanted to submit a solution to Armchair General's current command challenge: You are in command of the HMS Conqueror and have been shadowing an Argentine task force consisting of the ARA General Belgrano and two Exocet-armed destroyers. The challenge is to decide the the best course of action (COA) from three provided or perhaps propose a fourth. The major variables are attack timing and weapon choice.

Because of demands on my time (see previous post) I never got around to submitting my solution for this engagement before the deadline yesterday.

For fun, here is my solution:

Attack using COA 2 is the best option. You are authorized to engage and you have the primary advantage of surprise to leverage your clear superiority in speed and stealth. If the enemy is lucky or changes their behaviors before you can
attack, the opportunity could be lost.

All COAs are feasible, but employing Mk 8s at relatively close range has the highest probability of success. Using proven Mk 8s as your primary attack weapon is the best choice: their large warheads were developed for dealing with armored ship designs of the WW2 era, and the Mk 8s close range and higher speed shortens attack time and the enemy’s response window. One Mk 8 hit might stop the Belgrano, but two would be better. To increase the probabilities of hitting Belgrano twice you add one more Mk 8 to the spread. Since it is always possible something could go wrong even with the Mk 8s, you load the other half of your tubes with Mk24 Tigerfish in reserve. After the first salvo, the Mk 24s are available for immediate use or to standoff and engage any of the known or unknown (submarines) enemy elements as becomes necessary.

I had a couple of points to add concerning the use of Mk 8s, like rough South Atlantic seas making torpedo trails difficult to spot, but there is a 200 word limit on the solution's submitted.

We'll see what the AG selected 'best' solutions come up with in a couple of months.

BTW: Armchair General as a magazine is kind of a mixed bag for me, but their website is not: it sucks big time (just try to navigate and find something related to the print issue).

No time for Blogging

For a while now, and for a while to come, there is no time for blogging (or much else) due to my making a change in jobs. Getting up to speed in my new position and completeing DAU courses for the immediate future is Job One.

Philip Coyle III is baaaack?!

This is not good.
I'm kicking myself now for not saving an old OSD web page where Philip Coyle as Director of Operational Test and Evaluation demonstrated an absolutely superficial understanding of the Kill Chain in making his case for universally requiring Live Fire Testing without allowing for opportunity cost impact variations by program. The guy's intellect is consistently hamstrung by ideology.

Now we have an Obama Administration nominating a long-time missile defense critic to run missile defense. Hey! What could go wrong? Nothing that isn't intended by the subversives in charge, that's for sure.

Coffee Party: This is CNN....

Astroturfing!

More Evidence!

and More...

Update 03/15: and More...

The usual Koffeeklatchura suspects: aging hipsters, echo hippies, etc, etc. - all pretending to be a new 'grass roots' movement.

Sad...

Defeating IEDs/EFPs: Possibilities Part One

I've got a little lull in the workload at the moment (only working partial weekends) so I, though it would be a good time to start following up on a previous post concerning the military concept Persistence, how Persistence relates to IEDs/EFPs, and more specifically what can be done to attenuate the placement and detonation of these 'weapons that wait'.

In this post, I present the general processes an enemy could use to employ what has to be their current weapon of choice. The processes shown are not designed to be all inclusive: They are general enough to capture all the relevant concepts, but are also specific enough to allow me to efficiently propose how and why the enemy's behaviors can be shaped and IED/EFP deployment and effectiveness attenuated (no threat can be completely eliminated).

First, the obvious:

The employment of Weapons That Wait (from this point forward they will be referred to as WTW) I have broken down into two sub-processes: 'Acquisition' and 'Employment'. There were a couple of other ways I could have broken things down, but these will serve my greater purpose. If the enemy does not have a weapon or weapons in hand, they have to first get their hands on it/them.

Now for the less obvious. I have chosen (there are other ways) to break the acquisition process down as follows:

The enemy, once they have a weapon in hand, must complete the Employment process. That process I have chosen to break down as in the flowchart below. (Note: sub-processes of both the Acquisition and Deployment processes can be conducted concurrently but are, obviously, completed sequentially.)

We will return to these processes several times in future posts, but I am planning to next bound the concept of 'Persistence' sufficiently such that when we do return to these processes, we will only be dealing with Persistence as it relates to stopping these WTW.

Nancy Pelosi & Dr Evil: Separated at Birth?

The AP/Ben Margot pic shown with the latest AP propaganda "Pelosi confident House will pass health care bill" just begs photoshopping. But not much...

'Nuff said...

"Hybrid Horror Hoax" : As Suspected

Did his licence plate read "RU Verde"?
Michael Fumento lays out the story behind the story on that 'runaway' Prius in the People's Republic of California last week. Now, I can't stand hybrids (they offend my engineering and design philosophies) or your stereotypical hybrid drivers as much as anyone, but this event was suspicious from the 'get go' because it did not match up well with verified events and failure modes to-date.

So we can now point out that this 'fake' Pruis story was leveraged to promote fake concern among 'some' in Congress....which Forbes is on top of as well.

Northrop Grumman Takes a Pass

Northrop Grumman has declined to recompete for a contract they had already won - as I predicted in the comments here. (Not that it required any of my special mojo powers this time around).

Since the comment at the link may disappear someday, here is what I wrote on February 10th:

I realize that here and elswhere there are the proverbial ’some’ who view NG’s statements that if the RFP doesn’t allow them to be competitive that they won’t bid to be merely angling for an edge, but I would take it at their word. Read the bio of their new CEO. He’s Capital B ‘Business’. He’s not an ‘airplane’ but a ’space’ guy, so there is no ‘romanticism involved and this is a contract that they’ve viewed as already spent a good chunk of money pursuing and having won once only to have it ’stolen’ by political shenanigans. If there was ever a contract a company could expect no long-term customer-relations fallout of
‘no-bidding’, this is it. NG has every reason NOT to waste the effort if they think the ‘fix is in’ (again).

Forbes gets to the bottom line right away.

Merrill McPeak (Blind Pig) Finds an Acorn

And Max Boot then Glenn Reynolds take issue with it.

Even a University of Tennessee Law Professor finds Gen Merrill McPeak 'unpersuasive'. (Even though the General for once in his political-military career is on the right side of the argument)

I would also ask Max Boot how those in today's military could gauge the 'corrosiveness' of women on the battlefield? Since none serving (active duty anyway) can remember what it was like before modern times - back when women were relatively scarce in the military?

I'm reading Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society at the moment, and there's a lot in the book relevant to most major modern societal issues. I would commend it to Max Boot and Professor Reynold's: especially as it concerns the observation that societal norms are not the product of ignorance and inattention, but the product of systemic processes.

Systemic processes can bring into play more knowledge for decision-making purposes, through the interactions and mutual accommodations of many individuals, than any one of those individuals [participants] possesses. (p.16)

Max Boot, in his Commentary Contentions article trots out the old 'other militaries are doing it' argument [Did Moms stop using the Socratic "if everybody else jumped off a bridge would you do it?" stopper after my generation?]. He then goes off the deep end:

One would think that the presence of women would do even more than the presence of gays to undermine “male bonding.” Yet women have been granted admittance into almost all military occupations, in roles including flying fighter jets as McPeak once did. They are present on all major and most minor bases even in war zones. They frequently and regularly circulate on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan. What evidence is there that their presence has undermined combat effectiveness? And if it hasn’t, why would the presence of un-closeted gays be more corrosive than that of women?

'Evidence'? Hmmm. I'll answer his first question, which will dispense with the second.

First it must be recognized that such 'problems' are real and ongoing:

Some shore commands in the Norfolk, Va., area report that up to 34 percent of their billets are filled by pregnant sailors, and commanders are complaining about a “lack of proper manning to conduct their mission,” according to a Naval Inspector General report.

Second, it must be recognized that there is evidence that, I assume for politically correct reasons, such information is routinely suppressed or played down, it has been going on for years, and is a current problem.

I'm not picking on the Navy here: it is just a more obvious problem when you are structured to live, deploy and fight in geographically discrete units (aka 'ships'). The problem is one that affects all the services to varying degrees.

I enjoy the writings of both Max Boot and Professor Reynolds: they both have pretty good instincts, but they are both wrong on on repealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell". I am guessing both Professor Reynolds and Max Boot view this as some sort of 'equal rights' issue instead of a military effectiveness issue. It would help both of them to recognize the military as a unique sub-culture in America, with unique limitations on civil rights, freely acknowledged by its members in taking an oath and accepted for the duration of our service.

I would only add that I find Max Boot's attitude somewhat irritating, but only because he suffers from the same shortcomings found in so many of those analysts and historians that are involved with the military, but are not of the military: not a part of the continuum of "systemic processes" that "can bring into play more knowledge for decision-making purposes, through the interactions and mutual accommodations of many individuals", over two centuries of the American military experience.

This is not a case of 'special pleading'. I assume ALL subcultures within the greater American civilization have systemic processes that have evolved and are unique to their groups (why would they not?). I claim no insight of any to which I do not also belong. I merely insist others do not claim relevant knowledge of mine in return.

Almost forgot: 'Heh'.

P.S. Recommended reading on Women in the Military: Coed Combat

Is Beth Fouhy Lying, Stupid, and/or Incompetent?

Beth Fouhy

Or is this article her AP editor's fault?

Ignoring the cynical tone oozing out of the article covering Karl Rove's new book (it is to be expected I suppose) what I absolutely cannot abide is paragraph four:

"In the run-up to the war, Bush and his national security team, including Vice President Dick Cheney, attempted to link Saddam to the attacks as a way to build support for the invasion."

In an entire piece otherwise devoted to what Karl Rove wrote in his book, paragraph four sits there: detached from the rest of the article. It is the only paragraph without reference to Rove or his writing, and it is a complete lie, gratuitously dropped in the article like a turd in a punchbowl.

Ms. Fouhy, are you stupid enough to actually believe what you wrote? Were you merely incompetent in accepting the assertion without reflection from some less-than-reputable source? Or did you know better but threw it out there as a lie because you wanted it to be true?

Alternatively, was the paragraph just slipped in by an uncredited editor for any/all of the reasons above? What IS the explanation? Is the AP still trying to rewrite History?

It won't work. Here are a couple of examples why:

2003 Bush: No Iraq link to 9/11 found

2004 Cheney blames media for blurring Saddam, 9/11

Interestingly, what you WILL notice is that within just about every credibly-sourced news article on the subject between 2001 and today (including those linked above), is the assertion that while the Bush Administration never claimed a linkage between 911 and Iraq, they “implied” or “hinted” or “gave the impression” that there was a link.

Big Media would like you to believe it was the Bush Administration ‘linking’ Saddam and 911, but a review of the reporting shows us that it was Big Media doing all that hintin’, implyin’ and impressin’-- and this hardly a revelation at this late date: Polls, not Bush administration, helped shape Americans' bias against Saddam.

England: Just Another Fascist State?

Sigh~Seems to be going that way...
Just another reason to want to live where I am a 'Citizen' and not a 'Subject'.

I visited my parents in England in the early '80s for a month on leave. The general quiet in a London that was relatively free of the Troubles (for a while after 1983) had not yet happened, so living with the idea that a bomb might go off at any time while in London was the norm for visitors. My parents were living out in the 'Shires where the threat was seen as pretty much non-existent. In London, it was all 'stiff-upper lip' and 'life goes on' as one might expect of a people who gave us Churchill and had survived the Blitz among other things.

That England is apparently no more. These days, it seems, if a 'Community Police Officer' thinks that taking pictures of Christmastime crowds is 'suspicious', and you choose to not identify yourself when asked (and evidently no answer is required by law)......then apparently that constitutes 'anti-social' behavior' (the definition of which is decided upon by policeman on the scene). Upon declaring that your behavior is anti-social, the policeman THEN can legally require you to answer with your 'particulars'.

Nice system.

The video at the link seems to be an interesting case study in how things get blown out of proportion as more people get involved in a serial fashion. Visit the link and view the video.

My take?
Most striking (I kid!), the first 2 out of 3 policemen in this video are quite attractive. Lovely Officer 1 is equally pleasant, (Community Police?) and the exchange with her is short and without event....

But she apparently follows some rule whereby if someone refuses to answer a question, she reports it up the line. A hapless cog in a Fascist 'system'? Cute as a button though...
Attractive Officer 2 (Constable it appears) comes in later at a different location.

She's all business up front. She also appears to get quite resentful that someone is not being compliant and knows the law does not require it. She has trouble forming a response to the person she wants to question and who is repeatedly questioning her if he is free to go or is he being detained, all the while trying to think of any possible reason to require the 'interviewee' to answer her questions. Her hand gestures indicate to me she is experiencing some frustration, or does she have anger management issues? Never answering if she is detaining the man or not, the men with the video camera announce that they are leaving, then walk away.

The third officer strikes me as being at heart just another 'cowboy cop' that one runs into from time to time in the US (and as a rule on the TV shows like COPS). He is going to close the deal HIS way no matter what it takes. Is he this way all the time, or does he feel his manhood is on the line on a rescue mission of the previous officer(s)? Very polite...but his punkin' head was made up before he ever approached the 'suspects'.

I have no idea how this video plays in Britain, but in Texas, I think a case could be made to reprimand Attractive Officer #2 and fire Cowboy Cop #3.

Given that 'public photography' problems have occurred in the US (example), I've got a lot more faith that this will play out in favor of the individual and Liberty on this side of the pond.

'Allo 'Allo 'Allo! What's all this then?
It's called Fascism, with a couple of cute, and one happy, face.

Bill O'Reilly Knows Not of Which He Speaks

Just one of many reasons I am not now, nor ever have been, a fan of Bill O'Reilly. Too often it has felt like he has held the right position at the time, for the wrong reason or reasons.....and this isn't even one of those times