Feb
10
2024

As Usual, Remy Is Brilliant

I know this is supposed to be a parody of some song I've never heard, but this is still wonderful:

I wonder if that's his real mom. She seems nice.

Also of note (a real olio today):

(Yes, I learned the word "olio" from doing crossword puzzles.)

  • Including Kingons? Being a geek, that's my usual reaction to any proposal that uses the adjective "universal". Still, Andrew Cline and Jason Bedrick of the Josiah Bartlett Center have a pretty good argument Why universal access to Education Freedom Accounts is the best choice for New Hampshire. An introduction:

    Nearly 1 million American students participated in a school-choice program last year, according to data compiled by EdChoice. Across the country 72 choice programs operate in 32 states. And who has the most popular program in the nation? New Hampshire.

    With an Education Freedom Account (EFA), parents can customize their child’s education. Families can use EFA funds for private school tuition, tutoring, textbooks, special-needs therapies and more.

    According to EdChoice, New Hampshire’s EFA policy is the most popular education choice policy in the nation. It has had the most growth per capita nationwide over the past academic year—a whopping 58%. The number of ESA students has grown from 3,025 in 2022–23 to 4,770 scholarships awarded in 2023–24.

    The EdChoice link (above) will take you to a lot of interesting facts about programs across the nation. One fun, and surprising, fact: even the government-besotted District of Columbia has more kids enrolled in charter schools than there are in "traditional district schools."

    I can imagine parents saying: "I love government schools, but not for my kids."

    Anyway, Cline and Bedrick argue that the low-income "training wheels" requirement for EFA participation should be removed. Check that out.

    New Hampshire Bulletin has (apparently) the latest news on EFA expansion. The NH House didn't remove the income requirement, but they raised it significantly. The bill to take off limits entirely "fell eight votes short." Well, darn. Maybe someday…

  • AKA shooting the messenger. Andrew C. McCarthy says: On Hur Report, Democrats Shoot at Wrong Target. (It allows them to ignore the message, which might be the point.)

    From our non compos mentis president on down, Democrats are getting their licks in against Biden Justice Department–appointed special counsel Robert Hur — even after he bent over backward not to indict, despite concluding that Biden willfully violated the law in retaining national-defense intelligence. (And recall that one of the applicable statutes, Section 793(f) — which the other Biden DOJ special counsel has charged against Trump — requires only that prosecutors only establish gross negligence, a mental-state element much easier to prove than willfulness.)

    Democrats are firing at the wrong target.

    Hur was required by regulation to explain his rationale for charging decisions in a “confidential report.” (See Rule 600.8[c] of the Special Counsel Regs, Title 28, Code of Federal Regulations.) It is then up to the attorney general to decide whether to release all or part of the report to the public. (See Rule 600.9[c].)

    Andy knows this stuff, inside and out, so attention should be paid. When Kamala accuses Hur of

    …she's either lying or ignorant.

  • Here too, your choices are "lying" or "ignorant". Christian Britschgi reports that Elizabeth Warren's 'Shrinkflation' Rant Is an Incredible Exercise in Blame-Shifting. Commenting on her tweet:

    Imagine Britschgi emitting a deep sigh before replying:

    Another word for shrinkflation is an obscure concept economists call "inflation"—where general price increases erode the purchasing power of consumers' dollars. Inflation can appear when the price of a same-sized bag of chips increases, and when the size of a same-priced bag of chips decreases. Both phenomena are still just the per-unit cost of a good increasing.

    Warren's rant about shrinking Oreo packages is just the senator's way of adding a conspiratorial gloss to the painfully obvious effects of decades-high inflation the country's lived through during and after the pandemic.

    He goes on to note that "decades-high" inflation certainly was driven by Federal spending for which Warren enthusiastically voted. (And "corporate greed" didn't noticeably change during this period.)

    For additional comment, see the Issues & Insights editorialists: The Incredible Shrinking Elizabeth Warren.

    Warren can’t possibly be this obtuse, can she?

    Oh, sure she could. Or she could be (see above) acutely dishonest.

    (Sorry: geometry pun.)

  • "Mötley Crüe" is pronounced exactly the same as "Motley Crue". That's one of the invaluable insights Jeff Maurer makes in Mailbag Answers, Vince Neil's Birthday Edition!. I'll just excerpt something further down in the post:

    From Carina: Does recycling help the earth, or is it bullshit?

    The prevailing wisdom when I left EPA ten years ago — and which may have changed since then — was that it is almost always good to recycle cardboard and aluminum. The usefulness of recycling glass and plastic depends on where you live. Composting is a disgusting waste of time and serves only to mark the composter as a social degenerate.

    So, my answer is that recycling sometimes helps the Earth, but is often bullshit. However, in terms of providing a sense of moral superiority for very little effort, recycling is still pretty good for that.

    Good to know.

  • Speaking of providing a sense of moral superiority… A front-page story in my local paper, Foster's Daily Democrat, was headlined: Cartoons on an IPA can? Dover teens say labels need to sober up. It's a report from Todd Bookman of New Hampshire Commie Public Radio. If you click over, you'll see a pic of three very serious-faced young ladies, including the 12-year-old quoted below:

    Last month, the members of an after-school club called Dover Youth 2 Youth took a field trip to the State House in Concord. They arrived armed with empty beer cans, part of their planned testimony before lawmakers.

    “For example, we have this brand of beer from Concord Brewing Company that has cans designed like the kids animated movie we’ve all seen: ‘Finding Nemo,’ ” explained Megan Merrigan, 12, during public testimony on the bill.

    State senators were handed a can with an illustration of a brightly colored fish resembling a character in the Disney movie.

    In typical NHPR/Foster's journalistic accuracy, they managed to get the name of the company wrong: it's "Concord Craft Brewing Company". I was able to track down a pic of the offending can.

    Not that it matters, but it appears the brewing company now markets their IPA under the name "Safe Space" and the can no longer features fish. Instead, there's a rainbow hovering over a winged unicorn.

    No, I am not making that up.

    Let's stipulate that the (old) can is based on a not-particularly clever pun and may have run afoul not only of 12-year-old sensibilities, but also of the copyright-defending lawyers of the Disney Corporation. I'm dubious that this has ever drawn even one kid into a downward spiral of alcoholism and copyright violation, but let that go as well.

    I mentioned the "Youth 2 Youth" organization once before, back in 2018, when I called it an "organization that earnest upwardly mobile students join to burnish their résumés for their college applications." The latest article only reinforces that opinion. (They have a website; judge for yourself.)

    But really: this is what kids are learning to do these days:

    1. Find some issue you can pretend you're upset about. No doubt prompted by earnest well-meaning adults. (Does any kid go around looking at beer cans?)
    2. Nag your local legislators to allow you to come to Concord and demonstrate your earnest concern, and demand legislation! Those well-meaning adults will help with that, too!
    3. Get plenty of media coverage!
    4. And don't forget to put all this on your college application!

    All in all, Y2Y is a beginner's course in nanny-statism, a breeding ground for tomorrow's horde of activists that will look for things they're "concerned" with, and plead with the goverment to Do Something. Yeesh. Whatever happened to Junior Achievement?


Last Modified 2024-02-11 6:04 AM EDT