Monthly Archives: February 2006

Don’t Give Up Your Fingerprints Lightly

This entry was posted in Anarchism Economics Education Privacy on by

Would you trust your school with your fingerprints?

The Iowa Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would allow the use of fingerprint scanners in school lunch lines.
Sen. Frank Wood, D-Eldridge, led the support for the bill, arguing that it gives schools useful options for managing their lunch programs. The measure passed 40-9.
Parents would have to approve their children using the scanners, which would replace tickets or cards for participants. The fingerprint record would be required to be erased once a student no longer attends the school.

This is one to which all parents should just say no.
Apparently more traditional methods of payment will be available so just use’m.. There is no justification for the use of what should be very private biometrics to buy a school lunch. these programs have been easily managed with cash, tickets and cards for years.
On the other hand, why the heck does it take legislative approval to approve business practices within a school system. One of the huge problems today is legislative micromanagement in all aspects of our society.

Both are reasons to keep your kids out of public schools or, for that matter, any other schools based on the same herd the cattle model.

Already Holding Pens

This entry was posted in Education on by

Some private myth focused schools are busy looking for dupes in Pennsylvania about which Myers says:

That’s 777 students getting a sub-standard education in the sciences, and $4,083,200 getting flushed down a rathole. It’s an odd situation, where the wealthy yank their kids out of the public schools and put them in an expensive pit of ignorance by choice, and at the same time fight to underfund the public education they’ve abandoned and turn the schools the poor and middle class rely on into holding pens. We all lose.

No quibbles with the first part of the above and a couple with the latter part.
First, if it is the wealthy that are sending their kids to these private myth based indoctrination centers then we can expect that the wealth will disappear. The kids thus trained will not have any skills beyond the use of force to retain their privileged position.
Second, it is not a matter of turning the public schools into holding pens. That is what they have been for the last century. Luckily some kids do well in spite of the system and go on to be successful professionals and scientists. But for all students, especially the 60 to 70 % who do not achieve basic proficiency in reading, math, science or writing skills, the public school system is and has been little more than a set of holding pens, glorified and overcrowded day care centers.

As an education system public schools are a dramatic failure and need to be completely redone.

Catallarchy Writer Supports government Expansion….

This entry was posted in Anarchism bush Economics Libertarianism Socialism US Foreign Policy on by

…the nation and blog readers die of shock.
A writer at the noted libertarian oriented site Catallarchy posts this headline and statement:

Bush Supports Free Trade; Nation Dies of Shock

Regardless of any backroom deals and ulterior motives that may have led to it, Bush’s support of Dubai’s bid for P&O is good news.

Perhaps Sean has posted this somewhat tongue in cheek but the post doesn’t read that way.
So, please explain how the expansion of a government owned business in any way qualifies as free trade.

Update: Sean was good enough to reply in comments. Below the fold is his reply and my responses. We still disagree on some aspects of this.

(more…)