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.

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

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.

The world, and the United States in particular has done much to protect our environment. Yet, the nature of mankind is to move forward, and we often find that our own laws and regulations which are designed to protect our environment hinder our natural desire to grown. How do we balance protection vs. growth? The link below provides some examples of the imbalance that can occur with the best of intentions. It should not take years, often up to a decade, tens of thousands of pages and many lawsuits to achieve balance. Unfettered grown can be a blight for all of us, but laws which increase the costs of progress many times delay growth and can lead to even greater environmental problems. Congress, even a split Congress should be able to act to solve the problems, but those who oppose change, including the Federal bureaucracy itself must be challenged. Obstruction is not free and the ones who ultimately pay are the taxpayers themselves who receive smaller benefits at a greater cost.

https://www.city-journal.org/when-environmental-regulations-backfire

The linked article provides, and embedded videos provide excellent examples of the pros and cons of each side. Be sure to spend time on the video with Jordan Peterson at the University of Toronto as he presents his case vs. two opponents who come at him from two different angles.

Peterson rise to wide social prominence during the discussions in Canada regarding C-16, an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act by adding “gender identity or expression” as a prohibited ground of discrimination. It also extended hate speech laws to include these two terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” and made it a hate crime to target someone for being transgender, publicly inciting hatred or advocating genocide. The question during debate, is the definition of “hate speech;” is disagreement in speech a right of free speech or can it be interpreted as “hate speech”? For example, can a woman be charged with hate speech if she objects to a trans individual using the same changing or rest room? Can a male inmate who “identifies” as a woman demand to be housed in a female prison and can female inmates who object be charged with a hate crime?

If you are not conversant with this subject, be prepared!

https://quillette.com/2021/09/21/the-progressive-case-for-renouncing-gender-extremism-last-of-a-three-part-series/

As Bjorn Lomborg states in his article, Africa produces more energy from renewables than anywhere else in the world, but they also have 700,000 deaths from indoor pollution caused by renewable energy. It is a tragic figure yet it is all but ignored by those who lead the charge towards renewable energy.

Equally as disturbing is the fact that by now, world leaders realize that there is no way to reach their green energy goals in 2030, 2040, or 2050. In short, now is not the time to sell your old energy technology stocks as there is not enough time, money nor technology to rid the world of fossil fuels.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-lockdown-climate-fossil-fuels-electricity-energy-production-africa-carbon-emission-11632943155

“The best laid schemes of mice and men can still go wrong” and so it is with the plans of the nations and their egos. Mankind has always tried to move forward but history has shown us that there is a natural progression to our progress. We cannot force an issue and all the fabricated rules and laws written to support a policy fail when faced with reality. As much as we use technology, it only works when it is developed reasonably and naturally. Any rush to implementation by mankind always runs up against reality.

There is no doubt that in many parts of the country, the term “starter house” means entering a bidding war where the starting point in California is $440,000 and the median cost is about $800,000. Could it be due to, in California, a Code of Regulations on housing is over 21,000,000 words in length, or because all new houses must have solar panels which add about $8,000 or more to each new house? Of course not, as the government, both State and Federal are there to “solve” the housing problem. We might very well have a housing problem because of the State and Federal regulations which aim at taking away local control of housing and centralizing all decisions by bureaucrats far from those who lives they attempt too “better.”