Dumbed Down Democrats?

I'm confused. Last night the Governor of Massachusetts spoke to the Democratic Convention and made a fiery speech making fun of Republican stands on Education.

"They [Republicans] want to get rid of the Department of Education! And we need full funding of NCLB!"

Have the Democrats lost their minds? Fully fund NCLB! Why not just brainwash kids at Guantanamo and call it an education?

NCLB shouldn't be funded. It's proponents should be tarred and feathered and NCLB destroyed forever as the worst idea of the new century.

And eliminating the Department of Education is change I can believe in. I can't think of a more miserable lot of idiots in Washington deserving to be shown a pink slip. One can only hope ending NCLB and eliminating the Department of Education is in McCain's plans.

And I'm wondering why it isn't a Democratic goal as well. It's one way to reach across the aisle and actually perform a national service.

Whoever is advising the Democrats on Education should be locked away. This stuff is so out-of-touch and reactionary that McCain is looking like a visionary.

And this article in Slate, Dems Rally Against Unions!OK, teachers' unions. Still ... by Mickey Kaus makes me scratch my head as well.

One panelist--I think it was Peter Groff, president of the Colorado State Senate, got the ball rolling by complaining that when the children's agenda meets the adult agenda, the "adult agenda wins too often." Then Cory Booker of Newark attacked teachers unions specifically--and there was applause. In a room of 500 people at the Democratic convention! "The politics are so vicious," Booker complained, remembering how he'd been told his political career would be over if he kept pushing school choice, how early on he'd gotten help from Republicans rather than from Democrats. The party would "have to admit as Democrats we have been wrong on education." Loud applause! Mayor Adrian Fenty of D.C. joined in, describing the AFT's attempt to block the proposed pathbreaking D.C. teacher contract. Booker denounced "insane work rules," and Groff talked about doing the bidding of "those folks who are giving money [for campaigns], and you know who I'm talking about." Yes, they did!

I have many issues with teachers unions but the D.C. teacher contract is misguided and the AFT is smart enough to have figured that out.

I Miss Lever Voting Machines

They just felt so much more like flushing than filling in little toilet bowl ovals next to candidate's names. I dunno, something counter-intuitive about the whole thing.

On the eve of the election I can only offer you some sage advice about this year's most important issue; How to Detect Bullshit (By Scott Berkun)

The first rule of BS is to expect it. Fire detectors are designed to expect a fire at any moment: they’re not optimists. They fixate on the possibility of fires and that’s why they save lives. If you want to detect BS you have to swallow some cynicism, and add some internal doubt to everything you hear. Socrates, the father of western wisdom, based his philosophy around the recognition, and expectation, of ignorance. It’s far more dangerous to assume people know what they’re talking about, than it is to assume they don’t and let them prove you wrong. Be like Socrates: assume people are unaware of their own ignorance (including yourself) and politely, warmly, probe to sort out the difference.

And from the Onion;
Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

The IRS and your Political Privacy

This is slightly off-topic but there's always so much noise about how taxes are spent - as if education were a criminal enterprise.

Just Friday, this extremely disturbing article appeared in Tacoma Washington's paper. It talks about the IRS' indirect collection of party preference information from taxpayers. It also talks about a mysterious third-party database housing this data (is this secure and local or maybe outsourced and available for dubious purposes).

You'll notice that Connecticut taxpayers were targeted. Ah, the joys of a Bush presidency.

Read it and weep (I'm out of tears),

IRS tracked taxpayers’ political affiliation

The News Tribune
Published: January 6th, 2006 02:30 AM

WASHINGTON – As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS, said the practice was an “outrageous violation of the public trust” that could undermine the agency’s credibility.

...and...

Kelly said Thursday that several IRS employees had complained to the union about the practice. She said IRS officials weren’t even aware of it until she wrote them in late December.

In a letter to Kelly, Deputy IRS Commissioner John Dalrymple said the party identification information was automatically collected through a “database platform” supplied by an outside contractor that targeted voter registration rolls among other things as it searched for people who aren’t paying their taxes.

“This information is appropriately used to locate information on taxpayers whose accounts are delinquent,” he said.

Murray and Kelly, however, remained skeptical. Kelly said the collection of such data was even more troubling because the IRS intends to start using private collection agencies later this year to go after back taxes.

“We think Congress should suspend IRS plans to use private collections agencies until these questions have been resolved,” she said.

According to Murray’s office, the 20 states in which the IRS collected party affiliation information were Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.