Quote of the Day
A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they're not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they're not so bad.
Arnold H. Glasow
Dude! Watch the Babes and
Earn up To $200K Or More Per Year
Retire at 51 With Over a $3M Pension!
Maybe California Needs Some Budget Guards....
Amy Chua, "Tiger Mom: Here's How to Reshape US Education":
Thumbs UP!
Amy Chua, the famous Tiger Mom, suggests that the Far East can learn from America's openness and inclusiveness, initiative, challenging authority, creativity and freedom, but she warns that America has a lot to learn from the structure and rigor in the earlier years of school:
The average American child spends 66% more time watching television than attending school. We have alarming rates of teenage substance abuse and the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the developed world. In the recent Program for International Student Assessment(PISA) tests, American high school students ranked 17th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math—with Asian nations taking top mark.
I have repeatedly made reference to self-actualization; any MBA you have met is familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which I find an interesting, suggestive model. Most of us in the MIS field also have a useful conceptual model of decision making in organizations(from a key paper by Gorry and Scott Morton, borrowing on taxonomies from Simon and Anthony). It is useful to think that the value American knowledge workers and managers bring to a businesss cenario is an ability to tolerate and work with uncertainty and to deal with difficult situations (say, trade-offs in short-term vs. long-term goals). Most managers expect today's college graduates to be able to work with little, if any direct supervision, to be able to cope with changes in requirements, and to know and identify with organizational goals ando bjectives. Children are much more capable of learning things and adapting to a tough study ethic than most American parents and teachers realize.
I was largely bored during my early school years; I remember in my sixth-grade I found myself somehow on the homeroom top 10 at the end of a mid-year 6 weeks period. I eyed the top spot, and I went to that student and told him to his face I would be at him to the top spot by the end of the school year. And I did. I called my own Babe Ruth home run shot. He saw me gain on him every grade period and keeping the title was very important to him. It wasn't my folks; it wasn't my teachers; it wasn't even about the grades themselves or the race to the top. It was about me. I knew I had to discipline myself to have a future. I didn't come from an upper-middle class family or have rich relatives to pay for any college expenses; I didn't have a shot at an athletic scholarship. A fair question: can I expect of others to do the same? Perhaps not; there are individual differences: but it's important never to underestimate a person's potential, within the constraints of one's abilities and environment. Amy Chua has a younger Down Syndrome sister Cindy--whom works for Walmart and can play the piano (which I can't do).
Amy Chua says on her website:
[My] Chinese immigrant parents...came to the U.S. as graduate students with practically no money....As parents, they demanded total respect and were very tough with my three younger sisters and me. We got in trouble for A minuses, had to drill math and piano everyday, no sleepovers, no boyfriends. But the strategy worked with me. To this day, I’m very close to my parents, and I feel I owe them everything. In fact, I believe that my parents having high expectations for me–coupled with love–is the greatest gift anyone has ever given me...I do believe that we in America can ask more of children than we typically do, and they will not only respond to the challenge, but thrive. I think we should assume strength in our children, not weakness... It’s about believing in your child more than anyone else–more than they believe in themselves–and helping them realize their potential, whatever it may be.
As an aside, Mr. "Tiger Mom", Jed Rubenfeld, is another Yale law professor (probably best known for an influential Harvard Law School article rationalizing a woman's right to choose abortionin Roe v Wade). (Needless to say, as a pro-life libertarian-conservative, I have issues with people whom conveniently explain away the human rights of preborn children.)
Political Potpourri
Today's RCP shows one poll which is a clear departure from reality (AP has Obama's approval at 60% (+21 approval). We see Rasmussen down to 48% (-4 disapproval), Reuters/Ipsos at 49% (+2 approval), and Gallup at 51% (+11 approval). Gallup follows yesterday's Rasmussen's (with Obama having a 2-point advantage over a generic GOP candidate) with Obama's 3-point advantage over the generic GOP advantage. Ironically, the Democratic pollster PPP is the only one showing Huckabee and Romney with a single-digit deficit to Obama.How can we have a 2 or -point generic GOP vote deficit, but individual candidates show higher gaps? First, I think most Americans don't know the GOP candidates that well; second, it may also reflect a dissatisfaction with the current pool. One of the articles headlining RCP says that Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels claims he can beat Obama. I have no doubt he can and will; I've been pushing his candidacy in this blog several times. Like Pawlenty, Daniels' big problem is people not knowing him.
In yesterday's post, I pointed out the AP's poll showing a 60% approval rating for Obama, which I called a departure from reality. Dick Morris' latest post argues the discrepancy is due to a methodology error that essentially rigged the sample with a disproportionate percentage of Democrats relative to Republicans.
I realize the fact that I am not supporting Obama for reelection may be seen as others that I have a vested opinion here, but I don't think so. Whether or not we head into a second recession, whether or not Obama can end his first term with the labor participation rate back up to the point he started his term with the labor participation rate backup to the point he started his term, which is all but impossible, here's the point: Obama cannot run for a second term promising to veto austerity measures by Republicans and playing defense on an unaffordable partisan healthcare law; we are up to our knees in debt, the Baby Boomer tsunami is only beginning to come in with unsustainable entitlement spending. We have to stop getting involved with foreign entanglements we cannot afford.
European countries (Greece, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, etc.) are trimming budgets and increasing retirement ages. The Conservatives in Canada just won a clear majority in the lower chamber of Parliament. The Conservatives won in the last British elections; as Ronald Kessler wrote in a column last week, the government has cut 19% across government agencies, has raised the retirementage, and cut half a million jobs. In contrast, Obama has been alone in arguing for stimulus spending and exercises little leadership among the world's leading free market economies; he is out of step with the rest of the world in acknowledging inflation risks. Obama has cut, well, no agency beyond a few token, immaterial cuts and no meaningful position cuts, and along with other Democrats is in a state of denial about social security solvency. Obama has become irrelevant in this era; he is still playing the same Democratic playbook that has been used the last 40 years; unlikely the last several Democrats in the past, he's run out of field to punt--he's standing at the back of the end zone. There's no real money to fund his initiatives in the last Congress. I cannot believe that the voters voted the Democrats out last fall in order to keep Obama threatening vetoes over any meaningful cuts. The voters have to vote Obama out next fall. The future of this country is at stake.
Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update
Atomic Power Review notes:
- Wednesday: A leak near the seawater intake for reactor 3 was discovered and stopped with a mixture of fabric andbconcrete.
The Hiroshima Syndrome blogger published the second of his thrice-weekly posts. Only one of the schoolgrounds in the Fukushima prefecture has radiation levels at or above safety standards (which means the topsoil can be stripped and replaced). The anti-scattering agent has reduced airborne radiation at the Daiichi sitewell within minimum standards. The filling of primary containment of reactor 1 with water has been halted to deal with some instrumentation problems. He also identifies two political stories: one is the proposed merger of the different Japanese nuclear regulating agencies and making them independent of the government (Thumbs UP! Washington, are you listening?).
The second isn't so great: it seems that the Japanese government is essentially refusing to shield TEPCO from the legally required compensation costs associated with the evacuation of refugees from Fukushima. (Keep in mind this has the effect of excusing Japanese nuclear regulatory agencies from being accountable for any of TEPCO's "sins" resulting from the worst earthquake and tsunami, which some (like me) would consider an act of God, beyond TEPCO's control.) TEPCO is being forced into a de facto takeover by the Japanese government. Apparently Prime Minister Kan has learned much from the examples of the corrupt crony capitalism of President Barack Obama (Government Motors, AIG, theG SE's, etc.) Thumbs DOWN!
Political Humor
"Al Qaeda says we're going to pay for Osama bin Laden's death. I think we did. We even took care of funeral arrangements. A thank you would be nice." - Jimmy Kimmel
[The CIA had decided to take a page out of the Chinese Communist Party playbook and send Al Qaeda a bill for the UBL operation. (The CCP has been known to charge relatives for the cost of bullets to execute a family member.) ]
"President Obama admitted he was very nervous while watching the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. And it didn’t help that every two seconds, Joe Biden kept saying, “Are we there yet?”" - Craig Ferguson
[At least it was streamed live. The last time Obama started to watch a video with Biden, Biden said, "Can you believe the butler did it?"]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "Happy Man". Another memorable Peter Cetera song and vocal performance.
