November 19, 2010

Amend That To "North Carolina Was Not Threatened"

Posted by Hal Young at 6:27 PM

Arguments about origins will devolve into a quibble about effective range, maybe.

World Net Daily this evening quotes the former assistant director of operations at NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain complex, who says the November 8 contrails off the coast of California did not come from a jet but rather, "the exhaust and the billowing plume emanated from a single source nozzle of a missile, probably made in China."

Indeed, the Federal Aviation Administration documents that there were no aircraft flying in the area at that time, the night of Nov. 8.

"The question that still must be answered is why NORAD's muted response was simply that North America was not threatened, and later our government approved the lame excuse that the picture recorded was simply an aircraft leaving a contrail," said retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Jim Cash.

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Greensboro: Second Most Religious City

Posted by Hal Young at 6:08 PM

The Colorado Springs Gazette cites an article in Men's Health magazine that rates Greensboro the second most religious city in America.

The magazine says it relied on a bundle of sources to create the list: U.S. Census records, YellowPage.com (to tabulate worship centers per capita), VolunteeringinAmerica.gov (to tabulate worship center volunteers), and several sources to estimate the amount of money donated to religious groups.

1. Colorado Springs, CO
2. Greensboro, NC
3. Oklahoma City, OK
4. Wichita, KS
5. Indianapolis, IN
6. Jacksonville, FL
7. Portland, OR
8. Birmingham, AL
9. Charlotte, NC
10. Little Rock, AR
11. Fort Worth, TX
12. Montgomery, AL
13. Raleigh, NC
14. Durham, NC
15. Virginia Beach, VA

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Interesting study of class sizes in North Carolina

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 2:51 PM

Recently, I examined Jeffrey B. Maples' 2009 dissertation, "An Analysis of the Effects of Class Size on Student Achievement in Selected Middle Schools in the Sandhills Region of North Carolina." Dr. Maples (Ed.D., Fayetteville State University) studied 1,329 sixth grade classes, 1,548 seventh grade classes,and 1,425 eighth grade classes in 33 middle schools.

Dr. Maples concluded,

This study indicated that students that were enrolled in the large class size had a significant higher mean score in reading and mathematics than students enrolled in small size classes and a slightly higher mean score than students enrolled in medium size classes. The only exception was in 6 grade reading where there were no significant differences found in reading score means in small, medium or large class sizes.

...the State Board of Education released the final report of the High Priority Schools Initiative, a four-year, $23 million class-size reduction program targeting low-performing and low-income elementary schools. The report offered no statistical evidence that smaller class sizes raised student achievement. Between the first and final year of the program, fewer schools met their state ABC growth targets and even fewer made Adequate Yearly Progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Reduced class sizes failed to significantly increase student performance on state reading assessments.

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When is a genius no longer a genius?

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 2:43 PM

When he fails to buy into global warming alarmism.

At least that seems to be the point of a new Atlantic profile of physicist Freeman Dyson:

Among intelligent nonexperts who have weighed in on climate change, Freeman Dyson has become, now that Michael Crichton is dead, perhaps our most prominent global-warming skeptic. Charlie Rose began his interview with questions about the climate. Dyson answered that he remained very skeptical about the dangers of global warming. He did not believe the pronouncements of the experts. He did not claim to be an expert himself, so he would not argue the details with anybody; he had not given much time to the issue and did not pretend to know the real answers, but what he knew for sure was that the global-warming experts did not know the answers, either.

Dyson did not deny that the world was getting warmer. What he doubted was the models of the climatologists, and the grave consequences they predicted, and the supposition that global warming is bad. “I went to Greenland myself, where the warming is most extreme,” he said. “And it’s quite spectacular, of course, what you see in Greenland. But what is also true is, the people there love it. The people there hope it continues. It makes their lives a lot more pleasant.”

Oh, the horror. There's no hope for the man. We'll have to stick him in a padded room with Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, and Pat Michaels.

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Not the 'man bites dog' story it's made out to be

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 2:30 PM

It appears the latest issue of Money magazine is devoting attention to University of Chicago economist Raghuram Rajan because Rajan "stands out as one of the few economists who cite income inequality" as a root cause of the financial crisis.

As Money's David Futrelle notes, "That's hardly the type of theory you'd expect to hear from an economist at the University of Chicago, a bastion of free-market thinking."

Read the three pages of transcribed interview, though, and you'll get the sense that Rajan's ideas are not as remarkable as Futrelle's commentary suggests.

Many blame the financial crisis on housing. But you've suggested the real estate bubble itself was a bungled political attempt to deal with the real root cause: rising income inequality. Can you explain?

In the 1980s we saw a widening of income inequality. Typically the political reaction to that is to redistribute wealth. But in the '80s and '90s there was a sense that we'd had too much redistribution, too much welfare. So you had to find something else, and housing fit the bill for both political parties. The Democrats thought it was wonderful to support home ownership for the poor, their natural constituents. The Republicans figured property owners would eventually vote Republican.

Note that Rajan focuses on the political element of this issue. Politicians wanted to "do something" about rising income inequality. Limiting analysis to this single exchange, it might be fairer to say that Rajan is saying politicians' counterproductive reaction to income inequality is a root cause of the financial crisis, not the income inequality itself.

But it's possible to read those two paragraphs and think, "If housing was the wrong approach, perhaps politicians should have stuck with the wealth redistribution." What does Rajan think about that option?

What can government do to reduce inequality?

In the long run, redistribution doesn't work.

Perhaps Rajan is a fan of stimulus spending to get the economy out of its current sluggishness?

The standard Keynesian economic response to stimulate the economy is with government spending and low rates, right?

This is where I depart from economists like [New York Times columnist] Paul Krugman, who has been emphasizing the need to pump up demand, whether it be through monetary policy or through fiscal policy. My view is that it's not all about demand. In the jargon of economists, we don't just have a cyclical problem, we have a structural problem. There's a fundamental mismatch between the skills of the labor force and the kind of jobs the economy is creating.

Pumping up demand again may create an illusion of growth, but until we fix the underlying problems we will not have sustainable growth. The Fed can keep rates low for a very long time, and pump up asset prices and create new lending booms, but if the underlying dynamics aren't sustainable, we'll end up creating an eventual bust.

Let's see: Politicians created, or at least exacerbated, a problem. Wealth redistribution won't solve it. Krugman is wrong.

It doesn't sound as if Rajan's views are all that radical.

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Hello, Constitution. How are you?

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 1:50 PM

In its final printed issue, U.S. News & World Report recommends "50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2011."

Here's one of the better ideas: "Reintroduce Yourself to the Constitution." Quoting Caitlin Huey-Burns' article:

"The Constitution is like the owner's manual for the government," says [National Constitution Center CEO David] Eisner. "It's the simplest, shortest, fastest way to look at America in terms of where we've been and where we aspire to go." Getting acquainted with the nation's most vital documents could turn out to be an essential exercise for every citizen.

If you'd like to start the process, you might want to watch Troy Kickler and Michael Sanera's Citizen's Constitutional Workshop. If you're interested as well in the North Carolina Constitution, check out the N.C. History Project's State of Our Constitution series.

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N.C.'s Butterfield lone dissenting vote in Rangel censure

Posted by David N. Bass at 1:18 PM

As the Greensboro News & Record points out, North Carolina U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield of the 1st Congressional District cast the lone dissenting vote in the House Ethics Committee's decision to censure Charlie Rangel.

Butterfield was criticized for accepting campaign donations from Rangel in 2004 and 2008, and yet declining to recuse himself from the vote on Rangel's censure.

As Carolina Journal has reported in the past, Butterfield has faced ethics scrutiny of his own for foreign travel on the taxpayers' dime, some of it in Copenhagen for climate change talks.

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Now for something totally different

Posted by Dr. Roy Cordato at 1:05 PM

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More Ron Paul vs TSA

Posted by Dr. Karen Y. Palasek at 11:38 AM

>

This is an even more forceful protest by Ron Paul, to accompany Roy's earlier and my yesterday posts.

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Outlaw Hotdogs Showdown

Posted by Sara Burrows at 11:28 AM

Steve Pruner of Outlaw Hotdogs in Durham practiced civil disobedience Thursday, ignoring a court order telling him not to reopen his hot dog stand until he got the proper permits.

Pruner said the permits are nearly impossible to get, calling them an undue restriction on his constitutional right to work.

A police officer forced him to shut down with the threat of arrest on the charge of "obstruction of justice."

Pruner issued the officer a notice of violation of his civil rights and warned the officer he could sue him personally.

Pruner has already been to jail once for 24 hours, but plans to continue reopening his cart every time he is released.

He has appealed a superior court judge's decision that the permit regulations are "not an undue restriction" on his right to work.

Full story here.

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Is there any progress on the student-athlete front?

Posted by George Leef at 11:24 AM

In today's Pope Center piece UNC sophomore (and current Pope Center intern) Ashley Russell examines the furor over the limited academic progress that many student-athletes make, especially in the big sports of football and basketball. This has been a prominent issue for years, but is there any real progress? Are the Athletics Departments creating Potemkin Villages to hide the fact that many of the guys just go through the motions of education?

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N.C. unemployment matches national average at 9.6 percent for October

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 11:12 AM

The latest data from the N.C. Employment Security Commission show North Carolina's official unemployment rate stands at 9.6 percent, matching the national average.

Roy Cordato says long-term employment growth that would help that rate fall below 9 percent for the first time since 2008 requires some state policy changes, including better tax policy.

A simple first step is allowing temporary tax increases on sales and income to disappear as scheduled. He explains here and in the video clip below.

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Weird little cartoon bears slam the Federal Reserve

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 10:50 AM

Watching the entire video. [Warning: mild cursing]



Money quote: "The plumber is clearly smarter than the Ben Ber-nank."

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The old governor and the lottery

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 09:54 AM

The AP reports,

Gov. Bev Perdue reportedly attended a campaign fundraiser hosted by an investor in Scientific Games, accompany [sic] which has sought North Carolina Lottery business in the past.

Three of the company's employees were convicted of crimes related to the 2005 push to approve a lottery in North Carolina.

Marc Farinella, a Perdue spokesman, told the Raleigh News and Observer there was no problem with the governor attending a fundraiser in the New York business office of Ronald O. Perelman, a major investor in Scientific Games.

Farinella pointed out Perelman is a Greensboro native who has a lot of business interests in North Carolina, including being the chairman of cosmetics giant Revlon, which has a facility in Oxford abd [sic] that none of the companies in which he is involved with are seeking state business.

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Why I love Ron Paul

Posted by Dr. Roy Cordato at 09:07 AM

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Remember, this is all necessary to protect us!

Posted by George Leef at 08:29 AM

Here is a really disturbing story about our high and mighty TSA workers ("public servants" you know) and how they treat people who aren't as meek and docile as sheep even after severe provocation.

The abuse of power is bad enough, but the abuse of power to cover up the abuse of power is intolerable.

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C-SPAN2's Book TV highlights 'The High Tide of American Conservatism'

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:12 AM

Regular readers in this forum have learned about Raleigh finance executive Garland Tucker's book The High Tide of American Conservatism, which chronicles the 1924 presidential race between Calvin Coolidge and John W. Davis.

Now C-SPAN2 is featuring Tucker's book three times this weekend. You can watch his recent presentation to the John Locke Foundation's Shaftesbury Society on C-SPAN2's Book TV 11 a.m. Saturday, 7 p.m. Saturday, or 10 p.m. Sunday.

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This weekend on Carolina Journal Radio

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:06 AM

Daren Bakst will explain why he’s generally pleased with Gov. Beverly Perdue’s efforts to rein in state regulations, while Joseph Coletti will respond to comments from the state’s chief information officer about improving the NCGov.com state government website.

Plus William Kristol of Fox News and The Weekly Standard will offer his assessment of the American political scene in the wake of the 2010 elections, and we’ll learn why the Governor’s Crime Commission has spent $2.5 million over the past four years to help prison inmates reintegrate into society after they’ve completed their sentences.

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New Carolina Journal Online features

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 06:57 AM

This week's Carolina Journal Online Friday interview features a conversation with N.C. State economist Richard Stroup about the professional bias that leads some scientists to global warming alarmism. 

Donna Martinez's guest Daily Journal highlights overly intrusive government regulations involving hot dogs and caskets.

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