It is no secret that good business practices are not exactly the strong point of government; what is a rounding error to the government, due to their handling trillions of dollars every year, is a staggering amount to the average person on the street.

A professor of criminal justice, Kim Rich, at Los Angeles Pierce College in Woodland Hills was tasked with training faculty during the covid transition to online classes. According to Rich, many colleges use a software called Canvas to run their programs. The students sign in and need to perform certain tasks to received credit for the courses. So far, so good.

As she proceeded, Rich came to realize that one individual was doing the class work of four students. The real students simple sign up for the courses, get financial aid and then pay another individual, not necessarily a student, to complete the class assignments. In one course, eleven of her suspected students were all anthropology majors (that is called beating the odds).

The article linked below tell the whole story of widespread fraud in the student aid system. Fake students can apply for and received financial aid from numerous sources (Federal, State, private, etc.) and seem to operate with immunity. Meanwhile, legitimate students and their parents go into debt that they may never be able to repay.

Does anyone think that these felons will ever be brought to justice?

In the mid-seventeenth century in the Polish Commonwealth (at that time the largest nation in Europe), a terrible war broke out between the Cossacks let by Bohdan Chmielnicki (a national hero of the Ukraine) and the Poles. The Cossacks, long time allies of the Poles in battles against the forces of Islam had become alienated from the Poles due in part to the actions of the great Polish magnates, the differences in religion (Catholics vs. Orthodox), the Cossacks and Ukrainian view of being exploited by the Jews brought in by the magnates and a lack of opportunity for plunder by the peace between the Commonwealth and Islam.

The ensuing war lasted about nine years during which much of the Ukraine, parts of Poland and Lithuania were laid to waste as hundreds of thousands were killed in battles, sieges, and local slaughter. Invited into the Ukraine by the Cossacks, both Tartars and Turks rampaged across the land and took so many prisoners that the slave prices in the Crimea and Constantinople were drastically lowered.

Some simple questions:

1. How is it possible that after a hundred years of free public education forty-three million adults are illiterate?
2. The Los Angeles Unified School District managed to graduate 78.1% of its students in 2019 despite:
   1. Only 32% of fourth graders could read to their grade level
   1. Only 10% of blacks and 19% of Hispanics in eighth grade could read at their level
3. What are taxpayers getting when they spend $20,000/student (California) and over $25,000/student (New York).

Remember, we are talking about human lives; those children who graduate and who are not able to adequately read, write, or do math are going to lead disappointing and bleak lives. They are condemned to a life that is more difficult and less rewarding, a life with fewer options and opportunities.

Victor David Hanson has published an excellent review of Robert E. Lee: A Life by Allen C. Guelzo. After the destruction of so many statues by the Woke Left, this seems to be a balanced scholarly examination of Lee who was considered as an icon for many in the South, the military and Civil War Historians.

I have always been skeptical of the leadership of Lee, as he was slow to learn the destructive fire power of state-of-the-art military hardware. General Longstreet understood the brutality of the weapons of the time before Lee as was proven by his reluctance to commit General Pickett to the suicidal charge at Gettysburg. Somehow, Lee failed to understand that the war had turned into a war of men against machines and that the South was doomed if Lee practiced a type of warfare that belonged to the previous century (this mistake would be repeated fifty years later by both the French and Germans during the opening phases of World War I). Amazingly enough, he failed to realize that even if the charge were successful, he had no reserves to consolidate any gains while his opponent who outnumbered him, could quickly move in reinforcements to swamp the tattered remains of his divisions.

There are three groups of people. There are the rich who are never satisfied because their wealth is never enough for them-these citizens are totally useless for the city. Then there are the poor who, because their daily bread is never enough, are dangerous because they are deceived by the tongues of crooked politicians and by their own envy and so they aim the arrows of their hatred towards the rich. And the, between these two, there is a third. This one is between them. It’s there to keep the order, it’s there to keep the city safe.”-Euripides in Suppliants

Fortunately for the world, the United States has a First Amendment, which guarantees in part, the freedom of speech. This radical concept is coming under fire in an area which depends on the free flow of ideas and concepts; that of science.

In the article linked below, we find a short, concise discussion on those in our society who seem to have or wish to set themselves up as arbitrators of what is permitted and what is forbidden in discussions of science. These arbitrators include social media, the press and even many leaders in the scientific community. If these individuals and groups can “control what science says, they can control what is considered true.”, then we face the decline of science with all that it implies.  We have seen that before, in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and today in various authoritarian nations around the globe. When we have a lifelong bureaucrat state that “If you discredit me, you discredit science” we face a serious threat to true science and the benefits that can flow from it.

https://www.city-journal.org/in-defense-of-misinformation-restrictions-of-scientific-free-speech

I was recently invited to participate in a whiskey tasting/seminar, and being of strong intellectual curiosity, I was persuaded to attended (someone must do it!). It turned out to be quite interesting and cleared up some questions I have had for years. So, let’s see what we found out!

The tasting was of three quite different whiskeys:

• From Japan, Kikori, a rice whiskey
• From the U.S., from the Hirsch distillery, The Horizon, a straight bourbon whiskey
• From Scotland, Old Pulteney, a single malt scotch whiskey

Firstly, there are a few simple things to know regarding some terms in the whiskey world. For example, a single malt is simply a malt whiskey from a single distillery, while a blended is a blend from two different distilleries. One might believe that a single malt might be “purer” in the sense of having a consistent taste, but the taste can vary based on a number of factors, such as the outside temperature. A hot or cold year impacts how the wood of the barrel expands or contracts which affects the taste.

Talk about great timing! If you caught yesterday’s posting (Fifty Years of Crying Wolf), you would think that I had inside information regarding the column in today’s Wall Street Journal by Walter Russell Mead (see link below). The recent global environmental conference, attended by 30,000 world “leaders”, national beggars, press, etc. ended with the usual false promises (they have a wonderful record of not achieving promised goals), demands for hundreds of billions of dollars for dubious projects, silence on why they have not been able to achieve any of their previous promises, etc.

How long will we who pay the bills for these gabfests have to put up with being told how we have to cut back on our standard of living while we fail to see any of the attendees lead by example? Private jets, limos, umpteen course dinners served in the finest locations, etc. are the norm for the “elite,” and the “best and the brightest” who seem to believe that the average citizen has no memory about past failed conferences.

Isn’t it time we demanded real accountability from those who live off the public trough?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-the-global-age-of-shams-cop26-glasgow-agreements-crisis-emissions-globalism-11637010052?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

For fifty years we have heard Presidents, scientists, spoiled children, professors, etc. telling us that we have only ten years to save the planet. Fifty years of hand wringing, spending trillions of dollars on wind and solar power, creating carbon credits, etc. have apparently not been successful as the claims of pending disaster continue unabated. Let us look at some of the predictions over the past half century:

• 1972: “We have ten years to stop the catastrophe” said UN “environment protection boss.
• 1982: The opening of the second UN conference as reported by the NY Times was not a happy meeting. Mostafa K. Tolba, executive director of the UN environmental program stated at if action were not taken, in 2000 we would face, “an environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible, as any nuclear holocaust.”

Similar warnings were issued in 1998, 1989 and 1990; always disaster within the next ten years. Massive crop failures, even “nations wiped off the face of the Earth” were predicted. The year 2000 came and went and we survived. In 2004 it was reported that the Pentagon told President Bush that climate change would “destroy us”. Among the disasters was Siberian winters in Britain, major European cities sinking beneath rising seas, etc.

A massive biography which covers the first half of Wellington’s life. Not being the first son, he was relegated to joining the military (under British custom, the first son inherited the title, the second went to the military and the third son entered the Church of England).

As was common at the time, Wellington had an unhappy childhood and like many men of that time, he made his mark and fortune in India. His military victories and diplomatic skill in India allowed him to assume command in the Peninsula during the Napoleonic wars where he reorganized the army of Portugal and created the famous defensive lines which the French under a number of Napoleon’s generals refused to attack. In a series of brilliant maneuvers, he out generaled every force sent against him as he slowly pushed the French out of the entire peninsula. That does not mean that he had an easy time as Napoleon poured men and material into the fight, but his real struggle was with various politicians and powers in London who were jealous of his successes and who kept Wellington’s forces on a strict leash.