Renee Maher attends School Board Meeting; Sen. Eide Still Missing

The crowd was somewhat thin at yesterday’s school board meeting. I arrived early and sat near the front.

Renee Maher apparently had arrived earlier. She introduced herself and we chatted about some of the school issues.

This shows that despite her terribly busy schedule (and nobody is busier than someone campaigning against a strong incumbent) she was taking time to see how the schools were doing and what she could do to help.

I can’t remember ever seeing our state senator at these meetings. And I’ve heard in private conversations that our state senator doesn’t even like to meet with the members of the board, especially when they have a pressing issue. It’s really no big surprise that Federal Way School District is suffering so much. Our state senator has been asleep at the switch and hasn’t been paying attention to us.

Rep. Murtha: America is the Top Threat to Peace

Re. Murtha has finally crossed the line. He has said that America is the top threat to world peace. Apparently, he thinks we created all the wars around the world and are only making them worse.

Forget the fact that in every country we have "conquered" we have left a peaceful democracy in its place.  Forget the fact that despite all the odds and naysayers, Iraq is on the same track to become a long-term American friend.

Well, maybe Ol' Jack is right. After all, we are the country that houses a tremendous minority that, upon seeing terrorists mutilate women and children and civilians, blames America first and last and demands we disarm and retreat. We are also home to two top newspapers that believe publishing every national secret that gives us an edge on a war we don't know if we will win is going to help bring world peace. In a way, the biggest enemies to world peace are right here at home. They are the moonbats and the moonbat media.

So maybe he is right. America is the top threat to peace because we are so tolerant of newspapers like the LA Times and the New York Times, and because we allow obviously lunatic liberals to roam the streets.

I don't think that will last much longer. With Rep. King asking for the New York Times and LA Times to be prosecuted for treason, we may not be so tolerant anymore of people who are obviously dangerous to us. I certainly hope President Bush begins to act a little more like President Lincoln and take this war seriously on all fronts.

America is Evil!

America is Evil!

America tortures the enemy!

America is training Al Qaeda to torture us!

It's all America's fault! If only we didn't go around torturing everyone, then we wouldn't have people trying to kill us!

That's apparently what liberals believe.
Our troops in Iraq or anywhere in the world have never—I repeat—NEVER—committed torture. We have the right to do so, under the Geneva Convention. (Our enemies neither wear a uniform nor are affiliated with any signatory of the convention.) But we don't, haven't, won't, and never will.

To say America has tortured anyone is a bald-faced lie. There is absolutely zero evidence of torture. None! Nowhere! There aren't even any allegations of torture at this time. (All past allegations were false.)

Abu Ghraib is brought up as an instance of torture. Guess what? That wasn't torture. It was humiliation. Yes, it was wrong, but it wasn't slicing off people's fingers one at a time. It wasn't slowly drawing out the entrails of a living person. It wasn't anything that you would consider torture. If anything, it was more like a college prank that fraternities play on incoming freshman.

Terrorists, on the other hand, routinely torture their victims in the most vicious way possible. What they do is so sick and wrong that we aren't told the whole truth. Just like in WWII when the Japanese did terrible things to the POWs and the military never told their families, we aren't getting the full story.

The facts just don't match the liberal fantasy, no matter how loudly or how often they scream.

Which Side Are YOU On?

Who are you cheering for in the War on Terror and the War in Iraq?

Do you want to see the commander in chief carted away in handcuffs? Or would you rather see little bits of flesh that were once Osama bin Laden and his terrorist friends?

Apparently, the New York Times and the L.A. Times are rooting against our president.

Even though the Bush Administration asked (politely) for the New York Times and others not to publish the story on how they were monitoring international financial transactions to track down terrorists and their supporters, they went ahead and did it.

And now yet another powerful tool in our arsenal is broken.

Folks, let's be honest here. We are in a fight for the very survival of our country. Do you want to walk up to news each morning about another terrorist attack on American soil? Do you want to see your friends and relatives beheaded on Al Jazeera?

Or do you want to see this terrible philosophy swept off the face of the earth once and for all?

No matter how much liberals and Democrats try to poo-poo the threat of terrorism here at home, no matter how badly they deride the president for his handling of the war, they have no right to try and sabotage the war effort.

When you fight against us, you become our enemy.

President Lincoln had a neat solution to loose lips and anti-war propagandists. He threw them in jail and took away their printing presses.

It's time President Bush did the same, and shut down the New York Times and L.A. Times, throwing everyone connected with this story and all the stories like it into prison to await trial after the war is won.

Our worst enemy doesn't swear to Allah and doesn't have dynamite strapped to their chests. Our worst enemy lives here and is subverting our country from the inside. They have a name, and it is the New York Times and L.A. Times, and all the democrats who want to see us retreat from Iraq.

Dr. Hawkings: Earth could Become like Venus

Dr. Stephen Hawkings says that Earth could become like Venus. I don't know why he said such a thing. I don't know what his logical reasoning for it is. The article didn't explain his reasoning, so I have nothing to argue against. All I will say is that this is an absurd statement, and if he is going to make statements like these he had better have some very firm reasoning. As for myself, I have seen nothing to even hint at this, and a mountain of reasoning to hint against it.

Let me explain how I feel about Dr. Hawkings. Perhaps it will give you some insight into why physicists cringe when you mention his name. 

As a physics major, I had a unique view into the world of academic physics. It is a small society of some of the brightest minds in the world. Dr. Hawkings is but one of many shining stars.

To call him the smartest man in the world, or even the smartest physicist, is really a stretch of the imagination. There are physicists out there that are so mind-bogglingly smart that even physicists have a hard time keeping up with them. Dr. Hawkings is not one of them.

Physicists are a very conservative breed. They answer questions honestly, even if that answer is, "maybe or maybe not; I can't tell." In one instance, I remember reading an article about a new high-energy particle collider coming online. "This is so powerful," said the physicist being interviewed, "that we may even create micro-black holes the size of sub-atomic particles." (Of course, I am paraphrasing.)

"What if the black holes created swallowed up the earth? Is that a possibility?" asked the reporter. "Of course," said the physicist.

It was a possibility. Physicists have stopped trying to rule out scenarios long ago. Did Jesus walk on water? Well, we can't say for sure that he didn't, so it could have happened. So when a physicist doesn't know for sure, anything's a possibility. (And when physicists think they know for sure, they are usually wrong.)

It wasn't a probability. That word means something completely different. Were they likely going to create black holes? Who knows? One theory says it will happen, and another says it won't. Will those black holes consume the earth? Again, we can't tell for sure, having only recently discovered the possibility of micro-black holes existing at all. Suppose that we do accidentally create a black hole that will consume the entire earth. How long will it take? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Years? Centuries? Millenia? Maybe it will take longer than the lifetime of the universe? Maybe that tiny black hole created will begin to consume the earth long after the heat-death of the universe. Again, we don't know.

The point of all of this conversation is that physicists as a group have grown wise in the same way that Socrates was the wisets man in the world. He only knew that he didn't know. As physicists, we know a lot of things, but we don't know a far greater number of things. Let me take that back. Even things we think we know for sure we know are wrong in some minor way. You won't see physicists hanging on to modern theories when a better and more complete theory comes along. Ultimately, we know nothing. And physicists aren't afraid to admit that.

Dr. Hawkings doesn't behave that way. He is like the teeanage kid with his dad's car keys. He knows how to drive really fast, and he knows where all the great make-out spots are. But he doesn't drive very safely, and he is causing a lot of trouble for others on the road. He makes these statements about the current understanding of the physical universe that are not only wrong, but provably wrong. And he never states that we know nothing after everything is said and done. And he likes to focus on the points in physics that are popular with laymen yet uninteresting to the academics.

Dr. Hawkings has gotten a lot of press in the past, and he is getting more today. People outside the academic physical world like to try and put him at the top of that crowd, but people inside that circle will have none of it.

Do we respect Dr. Hawkings and his work? Yes, what work he has done has been pretty reasonable. But do we hold Dr. Hawkings above the rest? No, no one is held above anyone. And if you did try to rank physicists based on their performance, Dr. Hawkings isn't even near the top, even among living persons.

Republicans: Stay the Course; Democrats: Cut & Run

I'm using the derogatory terms the opposition uses to describe each other's strategies on the War in Iraq. Why? Because they are accurate.

On the one hand, Republicans are saying that we must stay and continue to fight just as we are now because it is working. Yes, it is taking a long time. Yes, it is costing our soldier's lives, limbs, and time. Yes, it is consuming a large portion of the national budget. But ultimately, we will be able to grind the terrorist faction in Iraq into little itty bits.

"And why shouldn't we be willing to pay the price for the freedom of a small country in the middle of nowhere, especially when this is the only way to ensure ultimate victory over terrorism?" is their line of thinking. Let me spell this out in more detail.

This is how the Republicans think we can win the war on global terror.

• Pick a small state that openly supports terrorism.
• Invade, depose the ruler, destabilizing the environment.
• Invite all the terrorists in the world to come fight the American soldiers in this chaotic environment.
• Crush the terrorists one by one.
• Meanwhile, begin establishing a real, lasting democracy, no matter how hard or how long it takes.
• When democracy is established, and it is safe for Americans to walk around any part of the country, begin withdrawing, leaving several American bases "just in case".
• Go back to step 1.

The idea is that we are drawing terrorists out into an environment where they have every advantage in the world, or at least the best advantages they can hope for. This convinces them to come out and fight. Our soldiers, equipped with the best equipment and trained in the best methods, are more than able to handle this situation.

The Democrats, on the other hand, want us to leave Iraq. "Why are we wasting time in Iraq," they reason, "when our real enemies aren't there, but scattered across the globe?" The Democrat strategy for winning the war on terror appears to be this.

• Focus on building a "safe" infrastructure at home that can't be attacked successfully by terrorists.
• Find and prosecute terrorists who happen to be at home using the FBI and law enforcement.
• Find and prosecute terrorists abroad with CIA agents and long-range missile strikes. When captured, bring them home to be tried as a criminal.
• Don't confront the terrorists in ground combat, because we might lose a few soldiers.
• Don't kill terrorists because that might make more terrorists. Treat them better than we treat our own prisoners.
• Above all, try to become friends with the terrorists by caving to their demands as much as possible. For instance, if they don't like our army in some country, withdraw that army. If they don't like the way we draw cartoons of Mohammed, write a law preventing people from doing so.

I think I accurately summed up the Democrat approach to the War on Terror. That is, the thinking that Democrats who actually believe terrorists pose a threat to our homeland. There is a large contingent of left-thinking Democrats who believe that there are no terrorists and that this was all fabricated by President Bush.

You can see why Democrats don't want to be open about their own strategy, nor confront the strategy that the Republicans have been vocal about. On the one hand, their strategy won't work in actually defeating terrorism. (This rings of their strategy to not defeat communism.) On the other hand, they try to misrepresent the Republican strategy so that it doesn't appear like it can lead to a lasting and real victory.

The Education Establishment has Failed Our Children

I wrote before how the WASL wasn't intended to test individual students, at least in the big picture. Yes, it's good that there is some sort of standard, and yes, it's good that students are being taught to the test when that test tests key basic skills.

The WASL is really a tool to assess our schools. And the results in the FWPS say that the education establisment has failed our children.

Consider our reading scores. These are some of the highest in the state. Why? Because of community pressure on the district to teach only a phonics-based curriculum that has a proven track record, rather than the "whole language learning" that is obviously flawed.

Consider our mathematics scores. They are very, very low. Too many students can't do math to save themselves. Why? Because we are teaching a "reform math" curriculum that doesn't emphasize memorization and basic skills, and we aren't ensuring that those basic skills are totally mastered before introducing concepts that rely on them.

I believe now is the time to put pressure on our schools to go back to a more traditional math curriculum, one that has a proven track record. I think we should start with the most effective teaching method out there today: Singapore Math. Why? Because it has made Singapore the #1 math country in the world. Teachers and the education establishment moan about how it uses "drill & kill" methods. (What exactly "drill & kill" is killing they won't say. I propose it is ignorance.) 

Dress Codes in Federal Way Schools

The board is considering whether to ban flip-flops in schools.

Liberals will argue that we are taking away a mode of expression when we restrict what children are allowed to wear at schools. I've never understood that sentiment. What exactly do you express with the clothes you wear? Sociologists will tell us that clothing represents a tribal identity, a place within that tribe, one's rank and stature and status as well. Conventional wisdom dictates that "clothes make the man", or in other words, the way you dress affects who you are.

It sounds like clothing doesn't so much express who one is rather than make someone into something.

Consider this mind experiment, and you'll see the power of clothing. Imagine walking onto a school campus where everyone wears suits and ties, all well-pressed and clean. The women are dressed very conservatively as well. Everyone's hair is well-kept, faces are clean from facial hair, and in the rare cases that there is facial hair, it is well-groomed and attactive.

Imaging walking onto a different campus. Here, no one has worn even casual clothing. The principal and teaching staff show up in sleepwear. Their hair is not groomed. Their faces are not clean.

Which environment do you think would engender the correct reactions of mutual respect and perseverence required for education?

I think the answer is obvious to all but the most thick-skulled moonbats.

Why Save the Trees?

I drove along I-5 from Seattle to Yuba City and back. There are a lot of trees in this country, and a lot more empty, desolate land.

Why do we want to save the trees so badly?

One argument is simply that we want to prevent global warming. The jury is still out on this one, and even the most extreme consequences predicted say global temperature will raise a few degrees every hundred years. Nothing to get worried about.

One argument is that it's wrong to cut down trees. Where does this philosophy come from? And why is it that people who argue against a universal, constant morality seem to make this argument? It may be wrong to waste trees, but it certainly isn't wrong to use them, or even to cut them down to clear land for cattle or farms or communities.

Another argument is that they are an irreplaceable resource. This is pure hogwash, of course. Trees grow like grass. They just take a lot longer and get a lot taller.

I will ask someone the next time they say exploiting the environment is wrong. I certainly can't think of a logical reason why it is worth preserving at the cost of human advancement.

(And by the way, for those of you who don't understand much about Judeo-Christianity, man is the steward of this earth, and is responsible for using it appropriately in that religion. That is, we are to exploit it for the good of man but not abuse it nor misuse it.) 

Can There Be Anyone More Evil?

We all honor and respect Hitler as the most evil man that has ever existed on the face of the earth.

But I think we have a group of people that, individually and collectively, make Hitler look like Joan of Arc.

Did Hitler ever use women and children as legitimate targets? Yes, but he didn't go out of his way to target them. The Islamic Terrorists target women and children almost exclusively if they can.

Did Hitler ever kill blonde-haired blue-eyed Germans to weaken the enemy's will to fight? No, not en masse. But the Islamic Terrorists frequently target Muslims, in their own country no less, to try and drive America out.

Did Hitler ever use mentally disabled children as suicide bombers against the Allies? No, but Al Qaeda uses them routinely. In one scenario, the mentally handicapped kid realized what he was doing was stupid, and turned around to run away from the target. (It happened to be a voting booth.) He was detonated remotely after he turned away.

Did Hitler hate the Jews, homosexuals, and Christians to the point of torture and murder? Yes, and so do the Islamic Terrorists.

When you compare the two, it's really plain to see that Hitler was not nearly as evil as someone like, say, Zarqawi or Bin Laden. Liberals like to poo-poo this observation, but the evidence is not on their side.

We are really fighting the greatest evil the world has ever faced.