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January 26, 2005

Can I get smart?

Filed under: Education,International — Bunker @ 9:51 am

I have looked at getting some more education several times in the last few years. I love to learn. I know a lot already, but most of my knowledge is stuff that is of no real value to anybody for anything. I did one semester trying to get myself started in golf course design by getting a masters degree in environmental engineering. I’m too far behind in biology and chemistry to make a solid go of it. I have also considered getting teacher certification, but can’t bear the thought of taking elementary-level education theory courses after having taught for so many years–especially 27 hours of those courses.

I have a masters in international relations, and I enjoy the subject. Texas A&M has a program that interests me–the George Bush School of Government offers an Advanced International Affairs Certificate Program.

Many careers as well as personal interests demand a more advanced understanding of the various dimensions of international relations. The Bush School’s Advanced International Affairs Certificate Program is designed to provide individuals with both meaningful frameworks with which to interpret global interactions, but also practical and useable knowledge on such matters as cross-cultural communications and negotiations.

The courses are taught by some very high-level, experienced people. These aren’t your standard academics. They include names you’ve heard and read about in the actual workings of international affairs. Seminar lecturers include folks who are making policy today.

A shortened list of course offerings whets my appetite:

Technical Collection Systems
World Cultural Geography
Homeland Security and America’s New Long War
Terrorism in Today’s World
International Economic Development
Fundamentals of the Global Economy
National Security Policy
The Role of Intelligence in Security Affairs
Technical Collection Systems
International Energy Policy

These are distance-learning courses. I can do that. I need four to get my certificate, but the piece of paper isn’t why I would take them. They interest me. Especially the ones in bold. I’m almost drooling on my keyboard.

At $1400 per course, I have to ponder this for a while. That’s a hobby more expensive than golf!

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Going for the Gold (or Zinc)

Filed under: General — Bunker @ 7:26 am

Apparently, Jim Lago has now hit the big time! He has now been written up in Fort Wayne’s Journal Gazette.

It all started with the survey I wrote about last week which cited Fort Wayne as the dumbest city in the country. Corpus Christi came in second (or next-to-last, your choice).

Competition is in the wind, although neither city is really sure they want that medal.

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American History

Filed under: Education — Bunker @ 7:24 am

My darling wife bought me a couple of books for Christmas–always a welcome gift in the Mulligan household. One that she was particularly proud of finding for me is Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. After reading a couple of chapters, I went to the bookshelf and picked up an old American History book, Conceived in Liberty written by Marshall Smelser and Harry Kirwin, professors of history at Notre Dame and Loyola respectively. It was first published in 1955. My revision is from 1959.

I have this book because I love American History. It was not my textbook, but I believe it is an earlier version of the one I had in school. Many of the illustrations are very familiar, and so is the layout.

What is striking to me, though, is the sense of the book compared to those used in schools today. From the Preface:

An ideal has been in the minds of those who co-operated to write and produce Conceived in Liberty. They aimed at the highest possible standards of accuracy in stating facts and in a truthful, impartial interpretation of them, while at the same time they wished to accomodate the book successfully to right principles of pedagogy and practical classroom study. The style of writing was to be well adapted to the minds of young people, but not in the spirit of condescending to them, and not without a lively challenge to them to improve their taste and ability at reading.

I read the first two chapters last night, and it is a wonder read. If our history interests you and you can locate a copy, grab it. I checked Powell’s for a used copy, but no luck. It’s one you’ll probably only find at a garage sale or local used book store.

What strikes me most about it is the parallel to Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. We have reached the point in our education system where a good, unbiased history of this country is considered to be politically incorrect! How does something like that happen? High school history should be providing fact to students to use as a base for their own further analysis as they read more in their lives. High school history should be teaching students an appreciation of people who accomplished great things, set in context of the time.

I intend to continue reading these two books together.

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Voter Fraud

Filed under: Government,Politics — Bunker @ 6:24 am

Something about voter fraud you may not have considered. When everyone with an agenda talks about disenfranchised voters, do they ever understand that every vote cast illegally disenfranchises another, legally cast vote?

Both Hindrocket and Glenn Reynolds have some examples from the last election, and offer suggestions for changes before the next.

People tend to talk about these things before elections, and then forget about them afterward. Now’s the time to address these issues, so that we can do something about them before 2008.

I agree with Professor Reynolds. The problem is that the issue is a political hot potato. Advocates for illegal immigrants claim that legal ones will be frightened about registering. The Jesse Jacksons of the world will find all kinds of arguments for how it would hurt their constituencies.

The voter rolls in this country are bloated. The listings contain the names of many people who no longer live in the same district, and names of people who no longer live. They contain names of people who never existed, and people who are not legally entitled to vote.

The problem is that each state must make the changes. The Constitution leaves that up to individual states–part of the reason for the problems we now have. No, I don’t mean the federal government would do a better job. But I believe there should be some standard applied for identification across the nation. It was not something that could even be envisioned in 1789, at a time when less than half the population was literate, and the primary requirement for voting was to be a land-owner.

When you have to present a photo ID to buy alcohol or tobacco or Playboy, doesn’t it make sense that you would need to show one to do something far more important, and something that affects everyone else?

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January 25, 2005

Reform

Filed under: Government — Bunker @ 5:05 pm

The latest post at Lexicography is about laws being implemented to “reform” some federal program.

My first question is: why do our current laws require so much reform? Why are our laws in such dismal shape that almost every major one is in need of not only improvement but “reform” as in reform school? How did we get such bad laws in the first place?

Amen.

Laws and programs need to change because they are almost never given any real thought except in regards to their expected political outcome. Which group can the politicians mollify with dollars?

I’ve often considered how to force our Congress to take a simple step which would make government not only cheaper, but more efficient. Here it is:

Every law which expands or creates a new organization must, at the same time, reduce or eliminate another government organization a like amount.

Every increase in funding for a program must be balanced by a decrease in funding for another program.

If you want an efficient government, you must replace something with something better. Improvement is hard to achieve without doing so. “Reform” hasn’t worked in the past except by doing just that.

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Fermi nuclear power plant shut down

Filed under: General — Bunker @ 9:40 am

Story Here.

The reactor at the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant was shut down Monday afternoon after a coolant leak was detected, officials said.

I’m no expert on nuclear power, but I do know something about heat exchangers–vital components in all nuclear power plants. What happened in Michigan was that a heat exchanger developed a leak. No radioactive material escaped.

American nuclear power plants are the safest, most monitored facilities in the world. There are multiple safeguards in place, and alarms to indicate not only problems with the system, but with these safeguards. Instantly, a pressure differential in the cooling water system or a humidity sensor tripped an alarm and the system was shut down until the reason could be discerned and fixed.

Perhaps we’ve matured in this country. The headline on Drudge, once flashing red, is now gone. I had to do a Google search to find anything about the “nuclear accident” as something like this was once called. That eases my mind about our collective reaction to such events.

We live in a country which requires copious amounts of energy–just stating the obvious. We are consumers, every one of us, including the activists who whine about our level of consumption. We fight “wars for oil” and destroy the ozone layer by using things which create ozone-depleting vapors or increase the greenhouse effect with carbon monoxide and dioxide. Yet the very people who complain about such things are the same ones who would march and lie down in the streets if any community attempted to provide the cleanest, most efficient power production vehicle known to man–nuclear power.

“I don’t want an atomic bomb in my back yard.” Well, a nuclear power plant cannot explode. It can burn, and it can melt, and it would release nasty things if that ever happened. But it can’t explode. But the emotion trumps any logical discussion.

What about waste?

Yes, there is waste. Yes, it is radioactive. It is about as radioactive as natural uranium which is scattered underground throughout the western US. It can be easily contained and buried in such a way as to not even be detectable.

We have had nuclear power plants operating in this country for forty years. The only “accident” we’ve had in that time was Three Mile Island, which resulted in panic by the usual environmental suspects. Unnecessary panic:

Estimates are that the average dose to about 2 million people in the area was only about 1 millirem. To put this into context, exposure from a full set of chest x-rays is about 6 millirem. Compared to the natural radioactive background dose of about 100-125 millirem per year for the area, the collective dose to the community from the accident was very small. The maximum dose to a person at the site boundary would have been less than 100 millirem.

When politicians and activists complain that we have no energy policy (as did Hillary Clinton this week), someone needs to point out the safety record of nuclear power and demand that we build and use such generation capability until the time when the Holy Grail of alternative energy becomes known.

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