Can You See Me Now?

When I was a child, “learning one’s colors” was an important pre-cursor to first grade. Fortunately, at that age, there are no fuchsias or peaches to worry about – just pure primary colors which I had no trouble with.

A few years later I realized that what I was seeing in color was not what others were seeing. I was “color blind”. It amazes me that people still think that the “color challenged” (the current politically correct name) see in black and white; that’s dogs, not people. We see the exact same colors that you do. We perceive them differently and have trouble distinguishing shades and hues and thus have trouble naming them the same as you would. A purple to me is purple to you as well – until you add a little less or more red and then it’s still purple to you but I can’t name it anymore. A bright red is red to me but add a little blue and I don’t know what it is. Make it brighter or darker (intensity) and it may change its color as far as I am concerned. When does it go from red to "brick red" to brown? I haven't a clue. It’s as much a labeling problem as anything else.

Anyway, when you’re a child, not “knowing your colors” is quite the embarrassment so I became very clever in getting others to name them for me and going from there.

Now, in my 50’s, I am outing myself. I’m color blind with regard to some reds, greens, and ambers. Think about that for a moment.

A quick drive to Radio shack to pick up a computer part passes me through stop lights with, you guessed it, red, green, and amber. The wires on the part are – red, green, and amber. When I get home and talk to the customer service person for my home server the diagnostic lights he’s asking me about flash red, green, amber. Just about all computer software and electronic hardware have some versions of red, green, and amber built in for health indicators or action indicators. I always would have preferred things that look different to me like blue, yellow, and red. But I don’t run the world.

This is not your usual Blogger demanding program dollars for those poor unfortunate children who deserve a level playing field. It is a notice that most “color challenged” have managed to squeak through life fairly successfully without special laws, programs, consideration, or money.

People are not all the same. We shouldn’t want to be.

In this and most other matters - We’ll be fine. Stop helping so much. I don’t know if we can stand any more help.

Ehh, but could you just tell me, what color would you say that is . . .

If I Die . . .

(Former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas encourages a return to the faith of his father's generation. He believes spiritual values, not material ones, can guide America through troubling times:)

During moments of sadness or frustration, I often think of a family scene years ago in the town of Yakima, Washington. I was about seven or eight years old at the time. Father had died a few years earlier. Mother was sitting in the living room talking to me, telling me what a wonderful man Father was. She told me of his last illness and death. She told me of his departure from Cleveland, Washington, to Portland, Oregon, for what proved to be a fatal operation. His last words to her were these: “If I die it will be glory, if I live it will be grace.”

I remember how those words puzzled me. I could not understand why it would be glory to die. It would be glory to live, that I could understand. But why it would be glory to die was something I did not understand until later.

Then one day in a moment of great crisis I came to understand the words of my father. “If I die it will be glory, if I live it will be grace.” That was his evening star. The faith in a power greater than man. That was the faith of our fathers. A belief in a God who controlled man in the universe, that manifested itself in different ways to different people. It was written by scholars and learned men in dozens of different creeds. But riding high above all secular controversies was a faith in One who was the Creator, the Giver of Life, the Omnipotent.

Man’s age-long effort has been to be free. Throughout time he has struggled against some form of tyranny that would enslave his mind or his body. So far in this century, three epidemics of it have been let loose in the world.

We can keep our freedom through the increasing crisis of history only if we are self-reliant enough to be free—dollars, guns, and all the wondrous products of science and the machine will not be enough. “This night thy soul shall be required of thee.”

These days I see graft and corruption reach high into government. These days I see people afraid to speak their minds because someone will think they are unorthodox and therefore disloyal. These days I see America identified more and more with material things, less and less with spiritual standards. These days I see America drifting from the Christian faith, acting abroad as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation, interested only in guns and dollars, not in people and their hopes and aspirations.

These days the words of my father come back to me more and more. We need his faith, the faith of our fathers. We need a faith that dedicates us to something bigger and more important than ourselves or our possessions. Only if we have that faith will we be able to guide the destiny of nations, in this the most critical period of world history.

William O. Douglas was an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1939 to 1975. As a boy, he hiked the Cascade Mountains near his home in Washington to strengthen legs weakened by polio. His prolific career on the bench was marked by controversy and two attempts to impeach him.

Federal Income Tax on Non-Profits?

The nonprofit industry includes over 1 million organizations across the US with combined annual revenue of more than $1 trillions. Major organizations include Goodwill Industries, Ascension Health, National Cancer Institute, New York University, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The industry is highly fragmented: large organizations with assets of $10 millions or more represent just 6 percent of the industry but account for more than 80 percent of the sector's total annual revenue. A modest annual federal income tax of 2% on those organizations with + $10 millions in assets would thus generate in the neighborhood of $16 billions. A more realistic tax similar to the "corporate income tax rates" would generate some $272 Billions. That's roughly equivalent to 5 times the total annual budget for the State of Illinois. These companies pay Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare taxes. They pay other federal taxes. Why not an income tax?

Saudi royal: "you can't get rid of oil . . ."

A key member of the Saudi royal family who headed the country's intelligence service for 25 years accused both the Obama and Bush administrations Monday of "deceiving" the American people that the U.S. can ever end its dependence on foreign oil.

"You can't get rid of oil. You can't get rid of fossil fuels — gas and coal — unless you want to price yourself out of existence," Prince Turki al-Faisal, former ambassador to Washington, told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

"I'd hope that the general public in the United States would be wiser than to be deceived into thinking that the U.S. can ever be energy independent," he said.

"The U.S. has rising energy needs despite the economic downturn," Prince Turki said. "If you are going to be paying for wind, electric and solar energy equivalents that cost five or 10 times more than it costs to use oil, you are going to price yourself out of the market. You are going to lose whatever competitiveness you have in your products."

No Shoes Being Thrown in Africa

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - In her AIDS-scarred South African township, Sweetness Mzolisa leads a chorus of praise for George W. Bush that echoes to the deserts of Namibia, the hills of Rwanda and the villages of Ethiopia.

Like countless Africans, Mzolisa looks forward to Barack Obama becoming America's first black president Jan 20. But — like countless Africans — Mzolisa says she will always be grateful to Bush for his war on AIDS, which has helped to treat more than 2 million Africans, support 10 million more, and revitalize the global fight against the disease.

"It has done a lot for the people of South Africa, for the whole of the African continent," says Mzolisa, a feisty mother of seven. "It has changed so many people's lives, saved so many people's lives."

President Bush launched the $15 billion plan in 2003 to expand prevention, treatment and support programs in 15 hard-hit countries, 12 of them African, which account for more than half the world's estimated 33 million AIDS infections. The initiative tied in with a World Health Organization campaign to put 3 million people on AIDS drugs by 2005 — a goal it says was reached in 2007. Some critics, like rockers-turned-advocates Bono and Bob Geldof, have become admirers.

"The Bush regime has been divisive ... created bitterness — but not here in Africa. Here, his administration has saved millions of lives," Geldof wrote in Time Magazine as he accompanied Bush on an Africa trip last February.

"The administration and Bush himself deserve a lot more credit than they received for getting this job done," says Josh Ruxin, assistant professor of public health at Columbia University.

Desperately poor Rwanda, where Ruxin runs a health care project, now has more than 100 centers where people can receive AIDS testing, counseling and treatment, up from just two in 2002.

"I am heartbroken overall by the Bush administration," Ruxin said in a telephone interview. "But from my perch here in Rwanda, it is impossible to deny the results and achievements of PEPFAR. Many Rwandans were made Republicans because this was the first administration that has taken an interest and done something here."

U.S. ambassador Eric Bost brims with superlatives about the achievements of PEPFAR in South Africa, and believes Bush will be judged more kindly in history than on Jan. 21.

Dybul, a specialist in infectious diseases whose title is now U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, concurs.

"It's the largest international health initiative in history for a single disease," he says. "In any other circumstances, he (Bush) would be getting a Nobel prize."

Democrat? Why Choose?

Smoke and Promises

Why are baby boomers concerned about their impending retirement?

They've been over promised.

Why do our kids think they should have everything Britney Spears has and 'someone' should do something about global poverty and freeze environmental conditions as they were 50 years ago?.

They've been over promised.

Why are some folks in mortgage trouble from the past couple of years?

They've been over promised.

Why do they think it's up to someone else to bail them out?

They've been over promised.

Why is the State of Illinois (depending upon who's doing the estimates) $ 140 billions in debt?

They have over promised.

Why is Medicaid and Medicare unsustainable?

They have over promised.

Why are your property taxes more than your house payment?

They have over promised.

Why will all of this rhetoric about hope, change, and believing lead to further despair?

You guessed it.

What in the heavens does the President of the United States have to do with local education funding? Nothing.

What does the President of the United States have to do with teacher salaries? Nothing.

What does the President of the United States have to do with job creation? Nothing.

What does the President of the United States have to do with your health care insurance? Nothing.

We need leadership based in hope, faith, and 'the shining city on the hill'. No doubt. We need to inspire youth. No doubt. We need to make government more accountable. To be sure. Ronald Reagan epitomized this vision. However he, as did the Founders, believed that the hope, faith, inspiration, and foundation of the "city on the hill'', are the people. They believed that getting out of their way was the best hope for the brightest American future. That is why Reagan was a constitutionalist and this nonsense about President Bush and the current administration 'destroying' the Constitution and individual rights is just that - nonsense. The over riding theme of the document is the 'limitation' of government. Contrast Ronald Regan's themes with the same promises but based on one man, woman, or one federal administration 'giving' hope, faith, inspiration to the people by moving wealth around.

They over promise and they do it in a particularly objectionable way, and if they succeed in the bamboozlement you will see a disillusionment in this country that will make the 60's and 70' look like a tea party.

Agflation And The End Of Cheap Food

This from the 12-06-2007 print edition of "The Economist":

Rising food prices are a threat to many; they also present the world with an enormous opportunity

FOR as long as most people can remember, food has been getting cheaper and farming has been in decline. In 1974-2005 food prices on world markets fell by three-quarters in real terms. Food today is so cheap that the West is battling gluttony even as it scrapes piles of half-eaten leftovers into the bin.

That is why this year's price rise has been so extraordinary. Since the spring, wheat prices have doubled and almost every crop under the sun—maize, milk, oilseeds, you name it—is at or near a peak in nominal terms. The Economist's food-price index is higher today than at any time since it was created in 1845 (see chart). Even in real terms, prices have jumped by 75% since 2005. No doubt farmers will meet higher prices with investment and more production, but dearer food is likely to persist for years (see article). That is because “agflation” is underpinned by long-running changes in diet that accompany the growing wealth of emerging economies—the Chinese consumer who ate 20kg (44lb) of meat in 1985 will scoff over 50kg of the stuff this year. That in turn pushes up demand for grain: it takes 8kg of grain to produce one of beef.

But the rise in prices is also the self-inflicted result of America's reckless ethanol subsidies. This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks.

Dearer food has the capacity to do enormous good and enormous harm. It will hurt urban consumers, especially in poor countries, by increasing the price of what is already the most expensive item in their household budgets. It will benefit farmers and agricultural communities by increasing the rewards of their labour; in many poor rural places it will boost the most important source of jobs and economic growth.

Although the cost of food is determined by fundamental patterns of demand and supply, the balance between good and ill also depends in part on governments. If politicians do nothing, or the wrong things, the world faces more misery, especially among the urban poor. If they get policy right, they can help increase the wealth of the poorest nations, aid the rural poor, rescue farming from subsidies and neglect—and minimise the harm to the slum-dwellers and landless labourers. So far, the auguries look gloomy.

In the trough

That, at least, is the lesson of half a century of food policy. Whatever the supposed threat—the lack of food security, rural poverty, environmental stewardship—the world seems to have only one solution: government intervention. Most of the subsidies and trade barriers have come at a huge cost. The trillions of dollars spent supporting farmers in rich countries have led to higher taxes, worse food, intensively farmed monocultures, overproduction and world prices that wreck the lives of poor farmers in the emerging markets. And for what? Despite the help, plenty of Western farmers have been beset by poverty. Increasing productivity means you need fewer farmers, which steadily drives the least efficient off the land. Even a vast subsidy cannot reverse that.

With agflation, policy has reached a new level of self-parody. Take America's supposedly verdant ethanol subsidies. It is not just that they are supporting a relatively dirty version of ethanol (far better to import Brazil's sugar-based liquor); they are also offsetting older grain subsidies that lowered prices by encouraging overproduction. Intervention multiplies like lies. Now countries such as Russia and Venezuela have imposed price controls—an aid to consumers—to offset America's aid to ethanol producers. Meanwhile, high grain prices are persuading people to clear forests to plant more maize.

Dearer food is a chance to break this dizzying cycle. Higher market prices make it possible to reduce subsidies without hurting incomes. A farm bill is now going through America's Congress. The European Union has promised a root-and-branch review (not yet reform) of its farm-support scheme. The reforms of the past few decades have, in fact, grappled with the rich world's farm programmes—but only timidly. Now comes the chance for politicians to show that they are serious when they say they want to put agriculture right.

Cutting rich-world subsidies and trade barriers would help taxpayers; it could revive the stalled Doha round of world trade talks, boosting the world economy; and, most important, it would directly help many of the world's poor. In terms of economic policy, it is hard to think of a greater good.

Where government help is really needed

Three-quarters of the world's poor live in rural areas. The depressed world prices created by farm policies over the past few decades have had a devastating effect. There has been a long-term fall in investment in farming and the things that sustain it, such as irrigation. The share of public spending going to agriculture in developing countries has fallen by half since 1980. Poor countries that used to export food now import it.

Reducing subsidies in the West would help reverse this. The World Bank reckons that if you free up agricultural trade, the prices of things poor countries specialise in (like cotton) would rise and developing countries would capture the gains by increasing exports. And because farming accounts for two-thirds of jobs in the poorest countries, it is the most important contributor to the early stages of economic growth. According to the World Bank, the really poor get three times as much extra income from an increase in farm productivity as from the same gain in industry or services. In the long term, thriving farms and open markets provide a secure food supply.

However, there is an obvious catch—and one that justifies government help. High prices have a mixed impact on poverty: they hurt anyone who loses more from dear food than he gains from a higher income. And that means over a billion urban consumers (and some landless labourers), many of whom are politically influential in poor countries. Given the speed of this year's food-price rises, governments in emerging markets have no alternative but to try to soften the blow.

Where they can, these governments should subsidise the incomes of the poor, rather than food itself, because that minimises price distortions. Where food subsidies are unavoidable, they should be temporary and targeted on the poor. So far, most government interventions in the poor world have failed these tests: politicians who seem to think cheap food part of the natural order of things have slapped on price controls and export restraints, which hurt farmers and will almost certainly fail.

Over the past few years, a sense has grown that the rich are hogging the world's wealth. In poor countries, widening income inequality takes the form of a gap between city and country: incomes have been rising faster for urban dwellers than for rural ones. If handled properly, dearer food is a once-in-a-generation chance to narrow income disparities and to wean rich farmers from subsidies and help poor ones. The ultimate reward, though, is not merely theirs: it is to make the world richer and fairer.

The emphases are ours.

So go ahead and chow down and fill up with E85 on the way.
It'll only hurt when you laugh.

Gallup: Republicans Rate Themselves With Better Mental Health

We're just going to publish a couple of these graphs from a recent Gallup Poll and let them speak for themselves:


































































No real surprises here if one carefully thinks through the ramifications.

U.N. Rates "Best", "Worst" Countries In Which To Live

The U.N.'s "Human Development Report" 2007/2008 rated Iceland the most desirable place to live in the world. Countries were rated in terms of their "human development index". After Iceland, the next nine "best places to live" are: Norway, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, the Netherlands, and France. The United States (not pictured) came in 12th, a drop from eighth place in 2006. The AIDS-devastated African nations of Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone came in last. The full report can be found here.

No word yet on why the authors insist upon living in New York.

Nebraska: 40% Of Corn Crop Goes To Ethanol

Apparently, Nebraska is sending a lot of food to be burned.

Nebraska is the third ranked state with regard to corn production in the U.S, and second in the production of ethanol.

With three new plants added in November, annual corn demand for ethanol production in Nebraska passed the 500-million-bushel mark for the first time, using 37% of Nebraska's corn.

"Pluralistic Ignorance" in the United States of America

The editorial staff at the Bloomington Pantagraph writes:

You read it here first, so you should believe it

Sunday, September 23, 2007 11:01 PM CDT

Anyone who regularly reads Internet blogs, comments made after stories on www.pantagraph.com and even letters to the editor on this page has seen how many people can ardently, fervently believe something no matter how much contradictory information is available.

The old Mark Twain quotation that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” may have been a humorous observation in his day but it’s deadly accurate in the era of the World Wide Web.

For those who are troubled by that, there’s no comfort in a recent study by University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz. He found that even when people are told by an authoritative source that something is not true, a large percentage of them will erroneously remember the false information as true. Worse, they will attribute the false information to the source that tried to debunk it.

A lot depends on what people hear first — the correct information or the myth, according to Schwarz and other researchers.

The situation would be almost comical if not for the serious implications.

Schwarz’s latest research involved a myth vs. fact flier distributed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding the flu vaccine.

But such examples also have been witnesses— and most likely will continue to be seen — in political campaigns, whether it’s the issue of which candidate is “smarter” than the other or what a candidate did decades earlier while serving in a combat zone.

Political consultants are well aware of the phenomenon — confirmed by these researchers — that repetition leads more people to believe something, even if the repetition is from an unreliable source or involves individuals trying to debunk the information.

But ignoring a falsehood won’t make it go away.

In the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” category is research finding that failure to respond promptly to accusations leads many people to believe they are true.

Just ask unsuccessful presidential candidate John Kerry.

Therefore, whether you are the CDC or a political candidate, you have to do your best to get your message out and hope for the best. There is not a lot you can do about human nature.

But there is something we, as individuals, can do — and must do.

We can be careful consumers of information who read things carefully and consider the source or sources.

We respond:

Woodford Pundit wrote on Sep 24, 2007 7:22 AM:

The unfortunate side effect of this pervasive 'factual relativism" is the development of what some writers have termed "the decline of truth" in the U.S. and the fact that, despite any and all evidence to the contrary, a lot of people today think they are smarter and more knowledgeable than they objectively are proven to be.

This, in turn, has led to a feeling on these folks part that they are somehow "more special" than others and somehow "better" and should not have to abide by the rules and conditions of "the others" in society. ["The others" tending to be everyone but themselves.] When confronted with fact and reason they tend to shut/shout down discussion with, "deal with it" or "grow up", or with cries of "racist!"

The Pantagraph wisely avoids mentioning specific issues demonstrative of the "I's knows what I's knows and ain't no facts gonna make no difference" attitude. Empirical, evidential reasoning seems dead. The ancient Greeks must be turning over in their graves. Wait . . . you know they're not really dead . . . "We heard that in an email we got from an online blog we read (well, we looked at the pictures anyway . . . )."

Another article we were reading recently states:

". . . Sociologists call it pluralistic ignorance. It's this concept where reality applies to everybody but me," says Kevin Wehr, an assistant professor of sociology at California State University, Sacramento. "We justify things because we think we're better or different from other people. But, of course, we are not better than others. We are just as bad as the next folk."

Abuse Charges Against Illinois Teachers; Epidemic?

Does it seem to you that there have been an awfully lot of Illinois primary and secondary education teachers arrested for sexual abuse lately? It seemed that way to us. Here is a listing for the last THREE MONTHS:

Ian M. McDonald, 31, of 103 N. Walnut, Apt. 5, Glasford, was being held overnight at the Peoria County Jail.

Jodi E. Church, 26, a Manual High School special education teacher, is accused of having sex with a 16-year-old male student on several occasions. She also faces federal charges for allegedly using the Internet to try to lure another 16-year-old to have sex with her.

Jon Andrew White, 26, in McLean County, former Unit 5 teacher faces two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault and two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. He is accused of sexually abusing two first-grade students in Normal. He also faces similar charges in Champaign County for allegedly molesting nine second-grade girls at Thomas Paine Elementary School in Urbana.

Michael Vonderohe, 29, who pleaded guilty three years ago to molesting a 16-year-old student while he was a high school teacher, denied violating his probation during a brief interview after his appearance in Madison County, Illinois Circuit Court.

Jason Krigas, 36, of Fox River Grove was convicted in September of one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Robert Sperlik Jr., 45, was still teaching last month when the parents of a 15-year-old girl contacted police with her story of abuse and he was arrested. The band teacher was arrested here and charged with sexually abusing 16 students, jaws dropped at the allegations: Police said the teacher had tied young girls to chairs with duct tape and rope and then re-enacted bondage scenes from his porn collection.

Randy DeJaynes, 56, a DeLand-Weldon High School English teacher was charged in Piatt County Circuit Court on Wednesday with three counts of aggravated battery and two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Please let us know if we've missed any.

IEA: It's all about the Money, errhh, Kids.

Anyone still thinking that the Illinois Education Association believes "it's all about the kids" or their focus-grouped-to-death "Education is a Basic Right" slogan need only read this letter to the Bloomington Pantagraph.

Ken Swanson, IEA President, states among other things that they are "unalterably opposed" to tinkering with tenure, tying teacher pay to standardized test scores, and are "are unalterably opposed to “merit pay” schemes".

Schemes? Man, most of us have been "schemed" our whole lives. We're surprised he didn't use the phrase "risky schemes" in there someplace.

The Sun Times said the other day, "People who would never endorse the idea that businesses should be granted local monopolies, offer workers lifetime tenure, or pay employees based solely on seniority, embrace a status quo public [education] system that has all of these features."

After reading this, is there anyone left that believes these people have any interest whatsoever in "the children"? Let's recap; you MUST hire more teachers; you MUST not pay on performance; you MUST retain tenure (job for life); you MUST not hold us accountable (unless you lump together yourself, the money, the state, local, and feds). You MUST dump in more money into a dysfunctional system regardless of the results.

Mr. Swanson left unsaid on thing which has been uttered to the General Assembly more and more in the A+ Illinois circles: "We funded and voted you guys in for the last two elections and it's payback time - now!"

Extreme MakeOver: School Choice Edition

Why can't we fund the student instead of the educational bureaucracy? Lidia Downs of the Family Taxpayers Foundation in a current editorial letter brings the bony finger of indignation to bear on the Illinois legislature and Illinois Education:

The fact is that public schools are like other monopolies - they squander money.

Their newest ploy is this so-called “tax swap” which would raise both individual and corporate state income taxes by 67% in exchange for a promise of temporary property tax relief, which they can’t guarantee. Under this bill, 6¼ % sales tax would also get applied to such services as movie tickets, hair salons, parking, golf courses, car repairs and more. The result would be about $6 billion more for state government, plus less local control of our schools. A better name for this bill would be a “tax swindle!”

The real test for state leaders AND for education bureaucrats is to find solutions like charter schools, virtual schools, and opportunity scholarships, that have actually been proven to result in vastly improved academic achievement. It’s time we funded the student instead of the system.

Jump cut to another excellent analysis of why some "vouchers" are bad and some are very good according to anti-school choice folks.

When is a voucher not a voucher? When is is for college! The Heritage Foundation's Dan Lips
points out:

When the scholarship is for higher education, rather than for elementary, junior, or high school. Pell Grants, the G.I. Bill, and Hope Scholarships--all essentially vouchers--earn wholehearted support from liberals who demonize "vouchers."

Pell Grants, the G.I. Bill, "Lifetime Learning" tax credits, and college scholarships are all school choice initiatives. Why is ok for some age students and not for others?

President Clinton embodies Democrats' strange position on school vouchers. In 1998, he vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have provided school vouchers to 2,000 low-income children in Washington, D.C., calling the plan "fundamentally misguided." But just a year earlier, he signed a tax package that included the Hope Scholarship and Lifetime Learning tax credits. At the time, those tax subsidies were projected to help 13 million Americans enroll in a postsecondary institution of their choice after high school.

Mr. Lips continues,

There is no magic reform proposal that will fix all of the failures of our K-12 system. That’s why it's important to shift the focus from the system to the student. Students have diverse needs, and there are many schools that could meet those needs, including private schools.

That's why school choice programs, including vouchers, hold great promise and promote equal opportunity. Like Pell grants, existing school voucher programs in Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Washington, D.C., are structured to give disadvantaged families the same opportunity that more affluent families already have -- the ability to enroll their children in safe and high quality schools.

Say no to the "Tax Swipe" and yes to school choice. Let's fund the kids and not the system.

The Ethanol's coming, The Ethanol's coming!

The Daily Pantagraph reports Greg Jackson and Kyle Ham believe at least one ethanol production facility is in Woodford County's near future.

The interests here in the County being what they are we seriously doubt that there will be much media coverage of some of the rather unpleasant facts attending the ethanol boom. That leaves us with the job and placing the bulls-eye directly on our back.

First off, if ethanol is a way to fight foreign oil dependence, why the heck is there a tariff on Brazilian ethanol and not on Saudi oil? Just a question.

Alright then, let's see 4 up to 70 jobs created! (We wonder if that range could be pinned down a bit better.) Higher prices for grain! Higher property values! Decreased dependence on oil!

The first person to say it's "win-win" may just get slapped.

Let's take the last first. Without going nuts on the numbers, suffice it to say they just don't add up. According to the USDA's latest figures the fossil fuel input is almost equal to the ethanol output! On top of this, of course are the huge corn subsidies, the 51 cent per gallon direct subsidy (not the net ethanol, but rather the gross which is mostly recycled fossil fuels). Granted - there are huge oil and gas subsidies as well. That's worked out real well for us, hasn't it?

Now for no extra charge, you get huge demands on water tables and higher food prices with reduced corn exports. This is all presumably to replace a minuscule percentage of our national oil and gas consumption.

That's not to say this would not be good to some farmers, ethanol producers, and ag conglomerates because it will. Perhaps there even would be a financial windfall for the County Government.

Most commodities folks we know say if you haven't already invested in your ethanol plant, you probably shouldn't, because corn-based ethanol will only last 5 years or so and then the plants will be converted to other biomass like grass, cellulose, etc.

At any rate - here's the uncomfortable question:

Why on earth would we want to turn agriculture on its head in this way for what all the world looks to be a short term profit? Why have we embarked on such a dangerous public policy initiative? Every time the government gets involved in the markets it mucks them up.

We realize that Woodford County is going to ride this wave. We just hope the local effects justify the state and national policies, and no one falls off the surf board.