musing minds

This is Raven (left) and Bitsy (right). Bitsy likes to cuddle, so she cuddled with Raven last night, and Raven let her for a while.

Although the headline at Fox News (story by Associated [De]Press[ed]) is U.N. Summit Lets U.S. Keep Control of Internet Domain Names (emphasis mine).

As if the U.N. Summit can give us permission or something…

A U.N. technology summit opened Wednesday after an 11th-hour agreement that leaves the United States with ultimate oversight of the main computers that direct the Internet’s flow of information, commerce and dissent.

…

“If the Internet had been developed in Australia, I don’t think we would have had so much heat on this discussion,” ICANN chief Paul Twomey, an Australian, remarked of the tension surrounding the U.S. control of the Internet.

The U.S. not only invented the internet, it performs its oversight duties exceedingly well.

It’s snowing here in Northern Illinois. A little more than flurries really, not much, but it is snowing. I don’t think we’ll get any real coverage, but the Shih Tzu leaves tiny pawprints in what’s sticking to the porch. The Siberian, on the other hand, is in his element.

Found this through Lady Jane at A Lady’s Ruminations.

Elvish

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

The Elves were always my favorites.

Read Who Is Lying About Iraq.

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations, and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral and/or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

Go read the rest.

The Dems have made a huge mistake focusing on their hindsight aided clairvoyance regarding Iraqi pre-war intelligence. They seem to have forgotten that we now live in an information age where stuff we say is recorded and stored in a handy dandy replayable format.

occasionally chirping intellectually dishonest positions from the sidelines is one thing, but using them as the centerpiece in the run up to the 2006 elections is quite another.

Am I the only one out there who thinks Bush and company were giving the Dems enough rope to hang themselves on in waiting to “respond forcefully” to the Dems’ dishonest position on Iraq?

From kimsch: No Jeff, you are not the only one. My metaphor was that President Bush was allowing the Dems to dig their holes deeper and deeper…

In Canada November 11th is Remembrance Day. The following is a poem written by Lt-Colonel John McRae (1915):

In Flanders Fields

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Happy Veterans Day!

Last year, I linked to this post by Chris Lynch at A Large Regular. It’s worth a read again.

To all who have served and all who are now serving our country in America’s Armed Forces:

Thank you for your service.

LaShawn Barber has a great Roundup of Veteran’s Day Posts!

Jeff has a Canadian Remembrance Day post just above.

Here’s my Dad circa 1954:

Florida Senate Bill 522 (.pdf here) will mandate Spanish language instruction for all kindergartners through second graders. Let’s take a look at the bill:

Districtwide Spanish instruction in K through 2; requirements; funding.

The above sentence just describes what is to follow.

–By the 2007-2008 school year, each school district shall implement a districtwide foreign language program to provide students in kindergarten through grade 2 with instruction in the Spanish language which is designed to result in the student’s communicating competently in Spanish at his or her grade level.

Senator Miller does state this is a foreign language. He wants 5- to 7-year-olds to be communicating competently in Spanish at his or her grade level. What about requiring students to communicate competently in English?

Each student in the program must be provided with a minimum of 20 to 45 minutes of instruction, 5 days a week, from a certified Spanish-language specialist.

A minimum of 20 minutes and a maximum of 45 minutes? This isn’t really very clear. A minimum is the smallest acceptable. Senator Miller has specified a range. Also, this is a five day a week program. We need to mandate a five day a week program when subjects such as physical education (much more important to the physical well-being of a child) have been cut back to two or three days a week? Ah, here’s the real reason… Jobs. The bill calls for a certified Spanish-language instructor. Let’s just bloat the system fuller than it already is.

The Spanish instructor and the classroom teacher must collaborate during the periods of instruction.

Who will be “in charge”? The regular classroom teacher or the certified Spanish-language instructor? Will the regular lesson be incorporated into the Spanish lesson, or will the regular lesson just be shunted aside?

The school district may use grant funds or private funds, as well as state funding, to support the program.

In other words, you figure out how to fund this mandate.

I understand that there are quite a few Spanish speakers in Florida. I understand that some children have parents/others in their household who speak only Spanish or speak only minimal English. But how does teaching all children Spanish help this? What about immigrants from Japan, Germany, France, Romania, India, etc? Why should Spanish be the mandated language in a country where most people speak English?

This reminds me of the woman at Kindergarten screening who, when asked if she wanted a bilingual aide, said, “We speak English. We are from Romania.”

Amazing. I first learned of this from Lady Jane at A Lady’s Ruminations. She got it from Drudge. They both quote this from NBC-2. I found two more articles pertaining to this as well as the above quoted bill text.

Article one from the Tampa Tribune quotes Dorothy Carregal, superintendent of foreign languages for Hillsborough schools as saying, “And even if they give us the money, finding the teachers would be very difficult”.

An editorial in the Lakeland Ledger asks: “But where’s the money?”

I decided to wash some down pillows today.

In the course of washing the pillows the washer went off balance, big time. The switch that gets pushed by the pin in the lid broke.

I called the repairman to come by. He was able to come tonight.

While he was here, I asked if he could look at the dryer, because I thought I had smelled that “burnt belt” kind of smell.

He tried to start the dryer, but it wouldn’t turn on. It had worked earlier in the day.

He looked around the back and this is what he found:

here’s another shot:

Praise the Lord that I decided to wash pillows today and the washer broke. If it hadn’t, I might not have called the repairman. If I hadn’t called the repairman, he wouldn’t have found that.

The circuit breaker did not trip. He removed the circuit breaker and capped the wires. He’ll be back on Saturday with a new switch for the washer, a new breaker, new wiring, a new plug and a new outlet.

Praise the Lord our house did not burn down as a result of this.

Praise the Lord!