Monthly Archives: December 2025

No Government Bailout

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Not even by city governments, and not even for this.

The Wall Street Journal‘s editors noted that

The New York Housing Conference, a nonprofit that promotes so-called affordable housing, warns in a new report that landlords will need $1 billion in government aid to avoid default. “A significant number of affordable housing buildings in New York City are experiencing operating deficits, where rents are not covering expenses,” the report says.

The buildings are publicly financed, and their costs are skyrocketing—costs ranging from insurance to maintenance to unpaid rents.

This is the problem with government paying for stuff, no matter how glitteringly wonderful the intent might seem.

The city government, the State government, the Federal government—none of them—should be forking over any more of the taxpayers’ money for this sort of thing. The best way to solve this kind of shortfall does not include throwing ever more money into the ever expanding maw of city resident dependency.

Instead, cut the buildings’ costs: get out of the way of rent collections, greatly reduce insurance regulations, property taxes (even public housing must pay these), zoning requirements. Lower sales taxes that drive up the cost of maintenance supplies. Let the market determine wage rates, not bureaucrats snug in their government job sinecures.

College and Basic Arithmetic

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As Allysia Finley noted in her Wall Street Journal op-ed,

Kids in elementary school learn—or are supposed to learn—how to add fractions and round numbers. But many students at the University of California, San Diego—a top public university ranked sixth nationally by US News & World Report—can’t do either, according to a new analysis from the university. Read, and weep for the future of America.
Roughly one in eight freshmen lack rudimentary high-school math skills, defined as geometry, algebra, and algebra 2. It gets worse: students who had been placed in a remedial high-school math class in 2023 had roughly fifth-grade-level abilities. Only 39% could correctly round the number 374,518 to the nearest hundred—a third-grade skill.

The absolutely wrong answer is what UCSD is doing—setting up its own remedial arithmetic classes for its entering freshmen.

No.

Colleges/universities are not places for remedial education. They’re places in which to extend legitimate high school education. The managers of the so-called higher education institutions need to take two steps to reinstall that purpose and capability.

The first is to reject from admission who cannot do proper math—at the very least geometry (including executing proofs) and trigonometry, and then basic differential and integral calculus (Finley accurately described the current nominal requirement, but it’s much too light: algebra is a junior high level of arithmetic)—and dismiss those mistakenly admitted. One way to reduce the latter is to go beyond SAT and ACT scoring, which have dumbed down their math sections, and administer their own mathematics tests, emphasizing geometry, trigonometry, and calculus.

The other step is to start tracking high schools whose applicants cannot do that basic math, and simply reject out of hand applicants from those high schools that have not taught math to that basic level. Those high school administrators will have demonstrated that they do not take education seriously, and so their schools are not worth the trouble of consideration.

Campus Extremism

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Robert George, multiply-titled Professor at Princeton University, had some thoughts on how to deal with this.

So what should we do? The answer isn’t complicated, but acting on it will take determination and courage. Colleges and universities must return to offering a rigorous liberal arts education that refuses to engage in indoctrination and challenges groupthink. College courses must actively cultivate the virtues of curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual humility, analytical rigor, and above all, dedication to the pursuit of truth.

He added this:

This might seem like an unattainable ideal, but it isn’t. I’ve seen firsthand that it’s possible. Twenty-five years ago, Princeton University authorized me to establish and direct a program in civic education dedicated to helping young men and women become determined truth seekers, courageous truth speakers, lifelong learners, and responsible citizens.

He succeeded in his small world, and he cited a number of examples at other schools. But these are anecdotes, not a general trend of success. At many of the other schools he touted, antisemitic and terrorist-supporting riots mostly peaceful protests seized buildings and common grounds, vandalized the buildings and generally prevented the sort of free-exchange of ideas George touted. Those destructive disruptions occurred while school managers meekly watched and many of the schools’ professors participated in the disruptions.

No. The only way to achieve George’s ideal, extremely worthy that it is, is to remove from schools those school administrators and professors, whether ideologues or simply too timid to oppose ideology over education. Both kinds are worthless wastes of payroll.

The detritus must be removed before cleanup can begin.

A Thought on Crimes by Children

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Serious crimes are adult crimes, regardless of the age of the perpetrator. The perpetrator needs to be seriously punished for the crime, too. But sentencing a 14- or 15-yr-old to life in prison for a murder? What about the 6-yr-old who brought a gun to school and shot his teacher? I doubt if he understood the magnitude of his act, even though he likely knows the words to say and could say them.

I tend to agree with the Supreme Court Justice who worried about life sentences for children.

Serious crimes are adult crimes. Full stop. But who’s responsible for them, really? The child who did the deed needs punishment, as I said, but he’s also able to be reeducated, or at least worth the attempt.

However. It’s the parent or parents, whether biological or adoptive, who raised the child, who led the child astray or who let him wander astray through negligently absent parental attention.

I suggest this alternative: try the child as an adult for his adult crime, but put him into a juvenile detention and education environment. Adjudicate a suitable jail term for the crime; apply the sentencing guidelines for the crime committed, but apply the upper end of the guidelines to the parents—both of them if they’re present in the family.

Mom and pop should be in jail for the crime their child, for whom they are irrevocably responsible, committed.

Jokes This Time

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Q: Why don’t blind people go skydiving?
A: It scares the hell out of the dog.

There were three ninjas, and each thought they were the best ninja in the land. So, one day, they went to the old master and asked him who was the best ninja in the land.
“Hmm…,” he replied, “we shall see.”
The next morning, the three ninjas met by the riverbank with the old master. He withdrew a small box from underneath his robes and went to the first ninja.
He opened the box, and a fly flew out. With one swish of his sword, the first ninja sliced the fly neatly in half.
“Very impressive,” said the old man, “but we shall see.”
He went to the second ninja. The ninja’s sword swished through the air twice, and the fly fell neatly into four pieces.
“Very impressive,” said the old man, “but we shall see.”
He then went to the third ninja and took out a small box. The ninja swished his sword, and the fly flew away.
The third ninja stood with a smug look on his face.
“Why do you look so prideful? You failed; the fly flew away!” the old man said.
“Yes,” the third ninja said, “but he will never have children.”

Graffiti on wall of a hotel room:
Werner Heisenberg might have slept here.

Why did the elephant change his socks? Because they were dirty.
Why do elephants paint their toenails red, yellow, orange, green, and brown? So they can hide in a bag of M&Ms.
Which elephants live in the Arctic? Cold ones.
How can you tell if there are three elephants in the bathtub with you? You count them.

Buddy Hackett told this one:

This guy is driving down the road at about 45 mph when he notices a chicken running beside him on the passenger side keeping up. This amazes him so he decides to speed up a bit. Now he’s doing 50 and the chicken is right there next to him. It’s at this time he notices the chicken has three legs. He increases his speed to 55 and the chicken leaps out ahead of him and crosses over in front of him and runs down a side street.
The guy slams on his breaks turns around and follows the chicken up the side street. There standing in the road is this farmer. The guy asks the farmer if he’s seen a three-legged chicken go by and the farmer says yep, matter of fact that’s my chicken. I raise three legged chickens. To which the guy asks, why would anyone raise three legged chickens? The farmer says well now think about it. Do you like drumsticks? Yes, the guy says. and your wife? Does she like drumsticks? Of course, says the guy. Well now suppose you have a guest over for dinner and he likes drumsticks? That’s pure genius says the guy. How do they taste? he asks the farmer and the farmer replies, I don’t know, we’ve never caught one.