Monthly Archives: February 2021

Couple Problems

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…with the New Jersey Middlesex Borough schools assistant superintendent response to a parent’s objections to the district’s refusal to reopen its schools for in-person, and socializing, teaching and learning.

Following repeated virtual learning complaints from a New Jersey parent, a school official fired back with an email shaming that mom.
“We know that parents and students are not following the same CDC guidelines that you continue to share with us that detail the importance of social distancing and mask wearing,” assistant superintendent of Middlesex Borough schools Paul Rafalowski wrote, according to a Feb 11 email obtained by NJ Advance Media. “Case in point, we were provided a number of photos that illustrate the precise reason our school community remains in Phase 1 (virtual).”

A fair enough beef, were the response accurate.

However.

The first problem is that school district’s management is not acting in accordance with the science. That science strongly indicates that it’s safe for the kids to be in school—safer, in fact, than keeping them home and asocial—and safe for the teachers and school staff, who are not at risk of the kids spreading the Wuhan Virus to teachers and staff (not to each other).

The second problem was pointed out by one of the parents responding to the assistant superintendent’s shameful response. Middlesex Borough parent Roger Sanchez regarding the photos that Rafalowski published along with his email:

The point is a government body should never be allowed to document the lives of private citizens and their children.

YGTBSM

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Another in the annals. This one, in Australia, illustrates another failure of those secondary schools that are trapped in the gaols of the Woke Left.

Australian National University have a new Gender-Inclusive Handbook out—fortunately not authoritative, only “advisory,”—giving “guidance” on the correct terms professors should use.

A couple examples:

  • not “mother,” but “gestational parent”
  • not “father,” but “non-birthing parent”
  • not “breastfeeding,” but “breast/chest feeding”
  • not “mother’s milk,” but “human/parent’s milk”

After all, according to a Lauren Dinour bit of…research…

heterosexual and woman-focused lactation language…can misgender, isolate, and harm transmasculine parents and non-heteronormative families.

Right.

I have a question. What if the father identifies as the mother?

OK, two questions. Why is the handbook only in English? There are five Asian and Middle eastern languages spoken in Australia, and over 250 indigenous Australian languages spoken there. I thought they were serious about inclusivity.

Win Customers, Raise Revenue

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That’s the Post Office’s goal. Doesn’t seem like they have a viable plan for that, though.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is preparing to put all first-class mail onto a single delivery track, according to two people briefed on his strategic plan for the US Postal Service, a move that would mean slower and more costly delivery for both consumers and commercial mailers.
[They plan to] eliminate a tier of first-class mail—letters, bills and other envelope-sized correspondence sent to a local address—designated for delivery in two days. Instead, all first-class mail would be lumped into the same three- to five-day window, the current benchmark for nonlocal mail.

And

The plan also prevents first-class mail from being shipped by airplane….

After all,

The Postal Service spent more than $457 million flying first-class mail in 2020, according to data it filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission, and spent $314 million transporting mail by truck.

Of course, putting all that air cargo onto trucks won’t increase truck transport cost. Uh, uh.

Oh, and the Post Office is planning to raise postage rates in order to make up for this degradation of service.

Brilliant.

A Survey of Southeast Asian Nations

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This one was done by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute a research institute established by the government of Singapore.

Organizers sent the survey late last year to government officials, academics, and other stakeholders from the 10 countries comprising the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Here are some interesting tidbits from the report. First, the nations’ overall concern about the situation in the South China Sea:

Notice that—even concerns about a US-PRC confrontation are a distant 3rd to concerns about the PRC’s misbehaviors. And of those 12.5% concerned about our own military presence, Singapore (6.3% [of those 12.5%]), Vietnam (4.6%), and the Philippines (4.5%) have little qualms about it. These are the nations most directly threatened by the PRC’s acquisitive adventurism.

Next, the nations’ preferred response:

The vastly preferred solutions are the nations’ enforcement of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which aligns to a large degree with the US’ position on freedom of the seas, and the conclusion of a Code of Conduct with the PRC, which agreement would severely hamstring the PRC’s seizures since the nations’ view of a legitimate COC would have it align tightly with the UNCOS.

And this:

The left pie chart reflects the view of the nations concerning who has the largest economic influence in the region: 76.3% view the PRC as havng the largest influence. The right pie chart shows that nearly ¾ of the nations are concerned about that economic dominance.

These results, excerpted from a broader-reaching report, show the opportunities that former President Donald Trump was working to exploit, and that remain for President Joe Biden to exploit.

The entire report is worth reading, and it can be read here.

h/t to Just the News

The Biden Budget

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Carol Platt Liebau, Yankee Institute for Public Policy President, wrote in her Friday Wall Street Journal op-ed about President Joe Biden’s dangerously expensive Wuhan Virus “relief” bill. A truly Pyrrhic relief it would be, too, even were it not occurring on an already dangerously expensive pair of “relief” bills enacted over the prior year.

She had one statement, though, that particularly jumped out at me, perhaps because it centers on a matter I’ve been on about for a bit already.

President Biden wants to send $350 billion in unrestricted cash to state and local governments to fill their budget holes.

Money is fungible. It doesn’t matter whether a dollar is “restricted” or unrestricted in its use. Even if it is, its mere existence frees up another dollar for the supposedly restricted-from use.

Aside from that, the States don’t need the Federal (which is to say our taxpayer) money. State revenues are much higher than initially expected, even in Progressive-Democrat-locked down and -run States.

In addition, the public union shakedowns of which Leibau wrote further demonstrate the lack of need.