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Several years ago, Robert Prechter predicted that President Bush would likely leave office early under a cloud based on his theory of how market movements serve as a reasonable measure of mass emotion. Now, like every market analyst, Prechter has been wrong more often than he’s been right, but the sheer brass of that prediction at a time when Bush was riding very high in the polls made it very memorable. I mention it now because of the mysterious malaise that seems to be surrounding the current White House of late, especially in light of how the mainstream media – in the form of George Stephanopolous on ABC – recently mentioned for the first time the possibility that both the President and the Vice-President have already been indicted.

Some of you may recall that I mentioned this potential indictment once before, as it’s a piece of information that’s been floating around the more conspiracy-minded parts of the blogosphere for about a month. If memory serves me correctly, the indictments have been made by a Chicago prosecutor and have the potential to cripple the present administration far more seriously than Clinton’s during the Lewinsky affair. If this turns out to be the case, I expect that both Bush and Cheney will be forced to resign, as there’s no way they could continue in office during “wartime”.

These indictments may also explain explain, in part, the president’s sudden desire to find an excuse, any excuse, for declaring martial law. I don’t believe he’ll have the nerve to do it, but the notion has been brought up so often since Katerina that it’s beginning to sound more than a little like a trial balloon. I readily admit that i’s quite possible I’m seeing patterns that aren’t actually there, but then, who would have ever thought that an overweight, unattractive young woman would have a DNA sample from a popular president in her possession. Anyhow, where’s the fun in only looking at the obvious and the undeniable.

Interesting times, my friends, interesting times.

From the NYT:

Ms. Rosenstein has every right to brag about her school’s 2005 test scores. The percentage of her fourth graders who were at grade level in English was 40 points higher than in 2004. How did she do it? New teachers? No, same teachers. New curriculum? No, same dual-language curriculum for a student body that is 96 percent Hispanic and poor (100 percent free lunches). New resources? Same.

So? “The state test was easier,” she said. Ms. Rosenstein, who has been principal 13 years and began teaching in 1974, says the 2005 state English test was unusually easy and the 2004 test unusually hard. “I knew it the minute I opened the test booklets,” she said.

The first reading excerpt in the 2004 test was 451 words. It was about a family traveling west on the Oregon Trail. There were six characters to keep track of (Levi, Austin, Pa, Mr. Morrison, Miss Amelia, Mr. Ezra Zikes). The story was written in 1850’s western vernacular with phrases like “I reckon,” “cut out the oxen from the herd,” “check over the running gear” for the oxen, “set the stock to graze,” “Pa’s claim.”

Ms. Rosenstein said such language was devastating for her urban Hispanic children. “They’re talking about a ‘train’ and they mean wagon train,” she said. “Our kids know the subway. I walked into a class and there was a girl crying. I took the test booklet and read it. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, we’re in trouble.’ “

In contrast, the first reading in the 2005 test was 188 words about a day in the life of an otter. A typical sentence: “The river otter is a great swimmer.” Ms. Rosenstein said: “The otter story was so easy, it gave our kids confidence. It was a great way for them to start the test.”

She said the pattern continued throughout the two tests. In 2004, on the “hard test,” the second passage was about the Netherlands thanking Canada for its support during World War II by sending 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa. The third story was about a photographer, Joel Sartore, who embedded himself in Madidi National Park in Bolivia to get rare nature shots….

In 2005, on the “easy test,” the second passage was about hummingbirds. The third was about a boy who thought he won a real horse, but it was a china horse. The story was told mainly in dialogue that read like the old Dick and Jane primers:

” ‘What’s going on?’ asked Beth.

‘I just won a horse,’ said Jamie.”

I wasn’t aware that otters were a significant part of Hispanic culture. Interesting. Also interesting is to see that what was once considered to be second-grade level only twenty years ago is now fourth-grade, and even with this “improvement” only 59 percent of New York’s fourth-graders can manage it. At this rate, in another two decades homeschoolers are going to have to go to college at ten because they can read a newspaper, do multiplication and avoid drooling on themselves.

Oh, if only the government would spend more money on the public schools! If only the American people were willing to make education a real priority and pay teachers like the superstars they are!

From SI’s Truth and Rumors:

An 80-minute meeting Mike Tice called with his players earlier in the day left some wondering if their coach was on the verge of resigning. Some players praised Tice, with one veteran calling the meeting very “useful.” But three players said Tice told them he contemplated resigning hours after the Vikings’ blowout loss to the Falcons, a point two players considered deplorable. One starter said Tice delivered a “rambling resignation speech.” “He quit on us,” the starter said. “I lost all respect for him.” “You could tell he gave up on us,” another player said. According to that player, Tice also said he would not be surprised if Vikings owner Zygi Wilf made a coaching change.

We can only hope…. But Zygi’ first move – announcing that the next Vikings stadium will be open to the elements – gives one some cause for optimism that he’ll soon do the right thing with regards to Mike Tice.

Bush wants right to use military if bird flu hits

President George W. Bush asked Congress on Tuesday to consider giving him powers to use the military to enforce quarantines in case of an avian influenza epidemic. He said the military, and perhaps the National Guard, might be needed to take such a role if the feared H5N1 bird flu virus changes enough to cause widespread human infection.

“If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?” Bush asked at a news conference.

“It’s one thing to shut down airplanes. It’s another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?” Bush added. “One option is the use of a military that’s able to plan and move. So that’s why I put it on the table. I think it’s an important debate for Congress to have.”

Bird flu has killed more than 60 people in four Asian nations since late 2003 and has been found in birds in Russia and Europe.

The key words being “wants right to use military”. I don’t think the particular excuse really matters, except that enough people will buy into it. On a tangential note, isn’t it interesting how a virus that has killed 60 people in 18 months should justify quarantine and martial law, while thousands of AIDS-carriers are allowed to roam around the world infecting others freely?

A 39-year old woman finally gets around to considering children:

As certain as I am that now is the right time for me to have my children, it’s hard not to blame myself for how difficult it’s turning out to be. My husband tells me we don’t know if it was any easier for our friends because no one talks about the trying, only the success….

So, now that you know, what do you say next time you see me? Don’t say anything. I’ll tell you when I’m pregnant, and in the meantime you can stop wondering whether every decision I make means I am. After all, I don’t ask you if your interest in Gyrotonics is just a sign that your kids are growing up and you have nothing else to do. I don’t blame you for being able to have your beautiful children. And I’m learning not to blame myself for my difficulty having my own.

This woman would appear to be more than a little slow. She’s still convinced it’s the right moment for her to have children, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. But if it’s not her fault, then whose fault is it? After all, decades of sex education classes have taught us that babies don’t simply appear out of the sky, carefully dangled from the beaks of storks, right? Perhaps society is to blame….

This is simply an evasive, feeble and ultimately futile attempt at self-deception. She knows perfectly well it’s her fault; life is about nothing if not opportunity cost.

If a woman decides that she wants to have children – a decision that everyone concerned with the long-term fate of the West should wholeheartedly support in every way – it’s really not all that difficult. A few suggestions:

1. Don’t engage in casual dating relationships after eighteen. They tend to keep one occupied in a manner that prevents one from examining more serious possibilities.
2. Make your potential relationships the top priority. If you put your career first, there’s a reasonable chance that a career is all you’ll have at forty.
3. Settle earlier rather than later. I can’t tell you how many women I know who have blown off perfectly decent men in their late teens and early twenties. Most of them who are now married are married to men I would consider to be of lower quality than those they blew off. Remember, your choices narrow as you get older, while men’s choices broaden.
4. Let those around you know that marriage and children is your goal. Too many women, fearing the wrath of the Sisterhood, secretly wish for it while publicly and piously professing feminist-approved cant. Screw the Sisterhood. They’re stupid, toothless bitches with third-rate minds and they don’t give a damn about you, your hopes or your dreams.
5. Don’t hesitate to end relationships that aren’t leading towards marriage or with men who are anything less than completely positive about the prospect of children. Men are very good at learning how to string women along and they know they’ll have no problem replacing you when you finally show your cards. Don’t confuse conflict avoidance for malleability.
6. Shed your toxic friends as well as those loyal to the Sisterhood. Misery loves company and miserable women love to make everyone else miserable. They’ll do their best to sabotage any potential relationship with a decent man.

Freewheeling young women in the United States and Canada first have intercourse at the age of 15, partake more in oral sex than previous generations and are far less prudish, according to a landmark new report by researchers at California’s San Diego State University.

Between 1943 and 1999, the age of first intercourse dropped to 15 from 19 for females, while the percentage of sexually active young women rose to 47 percent from just 13 percent in 1943, according to the study that appears in the most recent issue of the Review of General Psychology.

If there’s still any doubt as to who won the sexual revolution, this should clinch it. On the one hand, men face declining real wages and a court system that actively discourages them from marrying. On the other, there’s a never-ending supply of hot young lovelies eager to roll over on command for the first alpha male they encounter.

Sure, it’s a complete disaster from the moral, spiritual and historical perspectives and the lovelies are showing an appalling tendency to beef up far too fast, but from the average red-blooded male American’s very short-term point of view, it’s hard to see a whole lot of downside. Throw in birth control, breast implants, fast CPUs, the NFL Sunday Ticket and free Internet porn, and it’s apparent that history has never known a more wildly hedonistic time to be a young man.

My friend’s German cousin, overcome with pure masculine delight, may have said it best upon the occasion of his second visit to the United States. “I love zee American bitches!”

We are so doomed….

From The Sports Guy’s Q&A:

Q: I am a senior in high school, and it is about time to write our Senior Quotes. I really want mine to be funny. Any suggestions?
— Christopher Burk, Bellport, N.Y.

Well, Christopher… you came to the right place. I have been kicking myself about my high school yearbook quote for years. Here’s what I actually chose:

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through
— David Bowie

Translation: I’m an enormous dork.

And it wasn’t just me; almost everyone screws up their high school yearbook quote. It’s like a rite of passage. My buddy Jim and I were on the phone this week sifting through our yearbook … it was like a 100-page car crash. Why in God’s name did everyone take it so seriously? Quote after agonized quote from The Police, Rush, Styx, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Boston, Journey … you would have thought we were these anguished, miserable, disaffected kids. Please. We were going to prep school!

A genuine and precocious horror of teen angst was what led me to select an uncharacteristically philosophical quote from Duran Duran. I recall considering selections from Herman Hesse and Ayn Rand, but in the end, I decided that you simply couldn’t sound too pretentious quoting a hair band. Also, there was a genuine debt to acknowledge as Duran Duran completely turned around my social life in high school.

People tell me I haven’t changed at all
But I don’t feel the same.
And I bet you’ve had that feeling too
You can’t laugh all the time.
– Duran Duran, Hold Back the Rain

Of course, if I could do it all over again, I’d do it very differently, most likely with an untranslated and borderline inappropriate line or three from Juvenal. In high school, everyone wants so desperately to be understood, primarily because they really don’t understand themselves. Once enough water has flowed under the bridge, it becomes significantly more difficult to give a damn whether anyone understands you or not, including yourself.

In fatto, sto pensando che quando sviluppero’ una scioltezza completa in italiano, magari scrivero’ solo in italiano, or forse nel’una polilingua consitente di italiano, latina, tedesco e le parole diverse che i piccolini stanno inventando. Che cos’e’ il punto di communicazione quando non fa niente? E se questo blog e’ sopratutto un diario dei pensieri, che significa se nessuni altri possono – o vogliono – capirgli?

Va bene. Non mi interesse tanto in queste domande della filosofia. Preferisco l’argumento ontologico, se quello e’ la cosa giusta. L’esiste perche l’esiste. Anch’io non devo capire.

Upon deeper reflection, however, I wish I’d gone with this.

EVERYTHING SAID SO FAR HAS THE APPEARANCE OF MERE PARADOX, AND BY WAY OF REASSURING THE TIMID WE CAN CONFIRM THAT THIS IS SO.
– Umberto Eco, Apocalypse Postponed

IN2N asks a reasonable question:

I am curious though, why the copyright citation? Seems like a lot of folks around here ascribe to the notion that a man’s ideas are not his own…

If you want to take a shot, IN2N, then by all means, take a shot! As I’m the only possible target – being the party responsible for posting a copyright notice – there’s no need for this slyly oblique critique.

Anyhow, the reason for the copyright notice is twofold. While I am completely unconcerned about my works being copied and distributed electronically, I do not wish to see them promulgated without being identified correctly. I may be dubious about the ability to own ideas, but I do not deny that there is usually an original source for them, even if it is nothing more than a blending of ideas first conceived by other invididuals.

Second, my publishers and the overwhelming majority of my potential publishers do not subscribe to my skeptical view of copyright. If I wish to work with them – and I do – then I am compelled to respect their views. This is why there are no free downloadable versions of my novels posted here ala Charles Stross’s Accelerando, although I have repeatedly requested permission to do so from my publisher.

From the Telegraph:

Research suggesting that it is better for mothers to stay at home to look after children up to the age of three is sexist and mistaken, the Equal Opportunities Commission said yesterday.

It said there was no reason why the father could not look after the children rather than the mother. It also said that full-time working mothers whose children were looked after in day nurseries or by child minders or nannies had perfectly “healthy and happy” offspring.

Except, of course, when they don’t. I find it very interesting how Science rules all, except of course when it violate the progressive agenda of the Equalitarian Society, in which case it can be dismissed as “sexist and mistaken” on the sole basis of its conclusions. There’s no criticism of the methodology, (as there is, for example, in the supposedly anti-scientific criticisms of evolution), just a blanket statement that the study is wrong because its conclusions violate the Equal Opportunities Commission’s core belief.

Because we are all the same, there is no difference between any two individuals and if you happen to perceive any such differences, then you are sick and in need of behavioral and attitudinal adjustment.

I imagine the irony inherent to that mindset likely escapes those who hold to it.

Ramesh Ponnuru writes on NRO’s Corner:

THE PICK It’s an inspiring testament to the diversity of the president’s cronies. Wearing heels is not an impediment to being a presidential crony in this administration! I can only assume that the president felt that his support was slipping in this important bloc, and he had to do something to shore it up.

It’s beginning to sound as if Ramesh is about one more presidential speech from defecting to the Libertarian Party.

Chief John-John and Harriet. I wonder how many you who flirted with third parties before returning to the Republican fold in 2004 on the basis of the Supreme Court nominations now wish you hadn’t?

UPDATE: “The President’s nomination of Miers is a betrayal of the conservative, pro-family voters whose support put Bush in the White House in both the 2000 and 2004 elections and who were promised Supreme Court appointments in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. Instead we were given ‘stealth nominees,’ who have never ruled on controversial issues, more in the mold of the disastrous choice of David Souter by this President’s father.

“When there are so many proven judges in the mix, it is unacceptable this President has appointed a political crony with no conservative credentials. This attempt at ‘Bush Packing’ the Supreme Court must not be allowed to pass the Senate and we will forcefully oppose this nomination.” – from Drudge

All together now… I TOLD YOU SO!