"Making gentlemen out of savages"

In his superb book Managing the Non-Profit Organization*, Peter Drucker talks about the Do's and Don'ts of writing mission statements.

One of our most common mistakes is to make the mission statement into a kind of hero sandwich of good intentions. It has to be simple and clear. As you add new tasks, you de-emphasize and get rid of old ones. You can only do so many things. Look at what we are trying to do in our colleges. The mission statement is confused - we are trying to do fifty different things. It won't work, and that's why the fundamentalist colleges attract so many young people. Their mission is very narrow. You and I may quarrel with it and say it's too narrow, but it's clear.

One example Drucker seemed to like:

Arnold of Rugby, the greatest English educator of the nineteenth century, who
created the English public school, defined its mission as making gentlemen out of savages.

Compare this to the BCPS mission statement, which is too long for my taste and comes too close to the problematic "hero sandwich":

... provide a quality education that develops the content[,] knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will enable all students to reach their maximum potential as responsible, life-long learners and productive citizens.

For good measure, here's the "vision" statement that BCPS came up with:

Baltimore County Public Schools’ graduates will have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to reach their potential as responsible, productive citizens in a global economy and multicultural society.

*If you can find it, listen to the audio version. His rumbly Viennese accent is soothing and inspiring, and his personality shines through.

Webtools for online polls and project management

A polling tool and an online project management tool for websites via WebWorkerDaily

Time Magazine officially dead

My parents used to subscribe to Time. I recently scanned a few issues. It has gotten badder than bad.

Exhibit I is Joel Stein's recent exercise in self-reference titled Give Hockey (And Me) One More Shot. It includes this delusional statement:

TIME is one of the last places that tries to satisfy the intellectually curious.

Mmmm-kay.

Exhibit II is a piece by Josh Tyrangiel, who writes about his attempt to bankrupt the New York Yankees by overeating at a luxury box buffet. Tyrangiel is Stein's boss (a factoid that I picked up from Stein's navel-gazing effort).

The setup from How to Beat the Yankees with Your Stomach:

I was gifted a $325 ticket to the new Yankee Stadium to see Satan's pinstriped nine play my beloved Baltimore Orioles. It turns out that $325 buys not just an excellent seat but access to the all-you-can-eat buffet in the superswanky Legends Suite.

The plan:

[It] was simple: eat enough so that at the end of the season, the accountants would say ... We lost so much on concessions that night that we can no longer afford to steal a small-market team's best starting pitcher."

I fasted all day [in preparation]...

Tyrangiel serves up standard MSM snark delivered from on high and down low -- with a grating tone that mixes the sensibilities of middle school and the Ivy League. And he bites the hands that feed him:

Sure enough, upon entering the Legends Suite with my ludicrously expensive [free] ticket ... After a survey of the rest of the buffet ... I began to wonder where my seat was.

It goes on:

Turns out you can't really see the game from the buffet area, and it dawned on me that I had been in a room like this before — at Foxwoods Resort Casino. During a brief foray into high-stakes gambling, a friend and I got comped and dove into a mountain of shrimp and lobster tails before stepping out into the casino jacked up on seafood and self-loathing. Well, the Legends Suite is just like that. So many bankers and so much excess that I felt kind of gross for enjoying myself so much.

Hunter Thompson sans personality, insight, talent and style.

More self-reference and cynical snark-as-humor, plus gluttony:

When I arrived at my seat — after grabbing a movie-theater-size bag of peanut M&Ms ($5) to tide me over for the walk — I could admit to being impressed. Third row behind the Yankee dugout. So close I could see the spot where Alex Rodriguez injects his steroids. The great thing? That statement's not even slanderous.

The article dribbles off into nothingness:

I forget who was winning.

Ugh.

R.I.P. Time Magazine.

The art of apology

Tom Peters interviews John Kador on how to make and effective apology. According to Kador, executives who apologize are more success than those who don't. And they make more money.

The five elements of an apology:

1. Recognition
2. Responsibility
3. Remorse
4. Restitution
5. Repetition

I made one a few weeks ago. In retrospect, I only covered the first three. Next time I'll try for all five.

[Webtool note: Peters links to the book using a site called LinkBaton.]

First things first

Now that I'm looking into the BCPS curriculum, I thought I'd take a look at the definition of curriculum:

The set of courses, coursework, and their content, offered at a school or university.

The schools my kids go to (or have gone to) in Baltimore County don't seem to publish even a basic list of course titles on their websites. Nor does the central BCPS website have a list.

"All experience hath shewn" ... insights on parents & schools in the Declaration of Independence

I read the Declaration of Independence yesterday on the 4th of July.

The public school system came to mind when I read this part from from the second paragraph:

all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Most parents don't bother trying to change or improve the public school system. They just try to game it as best they can while their kids are enrolled.

If a president wants to create jobs, the essential first step is to create a predictable regulatory environment

According to Jerry Bowyer, business people think Obama is failing at this. Or at least they are behaving that way:

America isn't hiring precisely because of government policy. Small business owners, who are usually the first into and the first out of the job pool, are standing by the fence and watching. They are paralyzed by regulatory uncertainty. If they hire someone who ends up doing poorly, will they be able to fire that person? Will they have to pay their health care bills after they've been terminated? If so, for how long? ...

Jobs aren't languishing despite the government's best efforts. They're languishing because of them.

via Glenn

Black & Decker hiding green benefits of cordless mower under a bushel basket?

It costs only about a nickel to charge B&D's cordless electric mower (model CMM1200 ) from a fully depleted state. Here's the math: 0.38 KWH (see reading above on a Kill-A-Watt energy meter) x $0.14 cents/KWH = 5.3 cents.

I wonder why B&D doesn't compare the CMM1200 to a two-stroke gas mower and brag about the difference in cost of fuel and carbon emissions.

And here's another green thing you can do with it.

"Top Secret" curriculum at BCPS?

Can someone explain to me why public school administrators talk incessantly about "the curriculum", but seem determined to ensure that parents don't get to see it?

The mission of the Baltimore County Public Schools' Department of Curriculum & Instruction includes this bit:

development of curricula, based on research and best practices, provides teachers, students, and parents with a quality instructional program

But the BCPS website hides nearly all details of the curriculum behind a password-protected intranet.

All we parents get to see on the website is fluff, peripheral material, and educational mumbo jumbo about "seeds", "clarifications", "sample assessments", "thinking skills", "Articulated Instruction Modules", "Core Learning Goals toolkits", "parent summaries" that don't exist yet, and so on. And this comes in an Alice-in-Wonderland format that is impossible to skim in an efficient way.

UPDATE: Joanne Jacobs links, and asks her readers, "Do other school districts make it hard for parents to access the curriculum?" Thanks Joanne. The comments she gets are enlightening. Another thing I'd like to know: which largeish school systems out there (1) have an excellent curriculum, and (2) make the curriculum easily accessible on the web?

Health care reform: Obama shies from the cold stove because Clinton was burned by a hot one

David Brooks explains:

The great paradox of the age is that Barack Obama, the most riveting of recent presidents, is leading us into an era of Congressional dominance. And Congressional governance is a haven for special interest pleading and venal logrolling.

When the executive branch is dominant you often get coherent proposals that may not pass. When Congress is dominant, as now, you get politically viable mishmashes that don’t necessarily make sense.

Clive Crook on cap & trade bill: "a travesty"

I haven't looked at the details yet, but this doesn't sound promising:

The cap-and-trade bill is a travesty. Its net effect on short- to medium-term carbon emissions will be small to none. This is by design: a law that really made a difference would make energy dearer, hurt consumers and force an economic restructuring that would be painful for many industries and their workers. Congress cannot contemplate those effects. So the Waxman-Markey bill, while going through the complex motions of creating a carbon abatement regime, takes care to neutralise itself.

It proposes safety valves that will ease the cap if it threatens to have a noticeable effect on energy prices. It relies heavily on offsets – theoretical carbon reductions bought from other countries or other industries – so that big US emitters will not need to try so hard. It gives emission permits away, and tells utilities to rebate the windfall to consumers, so their electricity bills do not go up. It creates a vastly complicated apparatus, a playground for special interests and rent-seekers, a minefield of unintended consequences – and the bottom line for all that is business as usual.

Dutch Ruppersberger votes for Waxman-Markey cap and trade "travesty"

Clive Crook of the Financial Times has some choice words for the bill: it "neutralizes itself", it would create a "vastly complicated apparatus", the "net effect ... will be small to none", and it constitutes a "minefield of unintended consequences".

Many green lobbyists don't like the bill either.

The official name of Waxman-Markey (HR 2454) is the American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009. I haven't looked at the details yet, but from 30,000 feet it doesn't look promising:

The cap-and-trade bill is a travesty. Its net effect on short- to medium-term carbon emissions will be small to none. This is by design: a law that really made a difference would make energy dearer, hurt consumers and force an economic restructuring that would be painful for many industries and their workers. Congress cannot contemplate those effects. So the Waxman-Markey bill, while going through the complex motions of creating a carbon abatement regime, takes care to neutralise itself.

It proposes safety valves that will ease the cap if it threatens to have a noticeable effect on energy prices. It relies heavily on offsets – theoretical carbon reductions bought from other countries or other industries – so that big US emitterswill not need to try so hard. It gives emission permits away, and tells utilities to rebate the windfall to consumers, so their electricity bills do not go up. It creates a vastly complicated apparatus, a playground for special interests and rent-seekers, a minefield of unintended consequences – and the bottom line for all that is business as usual.

This is one very large black mark for Dutch.

UPDATE: Looks like Dutch probably didn't even read the bill .

You are not a credible environmentalist unless

you seek out and understand the arguments of thoughtful skeptics like Bjorn Lomborg, Steven Hayward, and the folks at PERC.

A "criminally stupid war on drugs"

Clive Crook of the Financial Times looks with 20/20 vision at the total failure of the US war on drugs:

How much misery can a policy cause before it is acknowledged as a failure and reversed? The US “war on drugs” suggests there is no upper limit. The country’s implacable blend of prohibition and punitive criminal justice is wrong-headed in every way: immoral in principle, since it prosecutes victimless crimes, and in practice a disaster of remarkable proportions. Yet for a US politician to suggest wholesale reform of this brainless regime is still seen as an act of reckless self-harm.

Even a casual observer can see that much of the damage done in the US by illegal drugs is a result of the fact that they are illegal, not the fact that they are drugs. Vastly more lives are blighted by the brutality of prohibition, and by the enormous criminal networks it has created, than by the substances themselves. This is true of cocaine and heroin as well as of soft drugs such as marijuana. But the assault on consumption of marijuana sets the standard for the policy’s stupidity.

It's time for my state legislators in Maryland District 42 to step up to the plate. Are you listening, Sue Aumann, Jim Brochin, Bill Frank and Steve Lafferty?

Same goes for Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger, Senator Cardin and Senator Mikulski.

In my book, all of them get an "F" for their (non)effort on drug policy.

Carefirst listened and responded ... I like it

They redesigned their health insurance cards just as I suggested last year. Nice going Carefirst, and if you played a role Chet Burrell, thank you.

Shelby Steele on why people change

Something about this phrase (at 5:00 min) stopped me short, in a good way:

People don't change because the government intervenes with a social program. People change when they become exhausted with their suffering.

Despite the subtitle, his book on Obama is well worth reading today.

On the happiness of roadkill-picker-uppers & the "war on work"

Gary Jones at Muck & Mystery wrote recently about thinking and manual labor.

It reminded me of a wonderful short talk that Mike "Dirty Jobs" Rowe gave about an epiphany he had while castrating a lamb.

Rowe also skewers the tendency of semi-informed staffers at places like the Humane Society (and the SPCA and PETA) to lecture the rest of us when far too often they don't have personal experience and don't really know what they're talking about.

I wonder whether any of these groups have responded to Rowe's video.

UPDATE: Gary and his readers area way ahead of me. Here's his take on the Dirty Jobs show:

My reaction is usually that I wish he'd explore the thinking side of the dirty jobs, though I understand that this isn't the show's purpose.

For example, his show on insemination of dairy cattle focused on the squick factor of palpating a cow rather than the knowledge and skill of doing the right thing at the right time. Dairies fail because of lack of knowledge and management skill rather than because someone is too delicate to shove his arm into a cows rear.

If he did a show on office workers the emphasis would be on paper cuts and carpal tunnel injuries, the horrors of the shared coffee station, and the indignities of the daily commute. Those are real issues, and popular TV fare, but not the ones that intrigue me

I don't think you can say it any better than that.

"Green jobs": PERC punctures politicized projections parroted by progressive policy wonks

PERC (the Property & Environment Research Center) is a Montana-based think-tank specializing in free-market environmentalism. They have a new report, 7 Myths About Green Jobs. It critiques four recent reports put out by (1) the American Solar Energy Society, (2) the Center for American Progress, (3) the US Conference of Mayors, and (4) the UN Environment Program.

There are many convincing arguments in the PERC critique. Here's a memorable one:

No doubt it is true that requiring all public buildings to be retrofitted or offering "strong financial incentives" to private building owners to engage in retrofitting would created jobs (CAP 2008, 6-7). Of course, so would requiring all public buildings to be painted purple or offering tax incentives to private building owners to paint their buildings purple. Painting jobs would increase, paint manufacturers would increase production of purple paint, paint stores may hire additional delivery help, paint brush manufacturers would increase production, and so forth.

The question is: What would have happened to the resources used to meet the purple paint mandate in the absence of the government program? Those resources would have been put to the building owners' highest and best use, and those uses would have also created demand for goods and services, even if not for purple paint. The same is true of [green] retrofitting mandates. The implication of the necessity of a mandate is that profit-seeking building owners are too foolish to make investments in energy saving despite the alleged short-term paybacks.

Here are the seven myths that PERC debunks:

1. Everyone knows what a "green job" is.
2. Creating green jobs will boost productive employment.
3. Green jobs forecasts are reliable.
4. Green jobs promote employment growth.
5. The world economy can be remade by reducing trade, relying on local production, and lowering consumption without decreasing our standard of living.
6. Government mandates can substitue for free markets.
7. Wishing for technologicial progress is sufficient.

There's also a long version of the PERC report.

I have nothing against green jobs per se (I've held a few myself) but it seems to me that most of the people hyping the concept are either (1) political types whose technical knowledge and economic reasoning are shallow or just plain wrong, or (2) opportunistic government contractors maneuvering for a place at the subsidized feeding trough.

UPDATE: For some "green jobs" excitement, watch this YouTube exchange between Harry Alford and Barbara Boxer.

Are ophthalmologists thinking "outside the eyeball"?

Perhaps not, if my recent experience is any indication.

A family member was suffering from eye pain whenever she moved her eyeball, so I took her to the Wilmer Eye Institute. After Dr. B examined her, the gist of what he told me was something like this:

Dr. B: Her eyes are fine. I don't see anything wrong.
Me: So if the pain comes back, should she see a doctor or can we safely ignore it?
Dr. B: I can't say that. It depends.
Me: What do you think caused it?
Dr. B: I have no idea.
Me: If a thousand patients like her were to come in with these symptoms, what are the odds that it's a serious problem that needs treatment?
Dr. B: I haven't seen any cases like this--ever--where there was a serious problem.

Dr. B's answers didn't ring true. Like so many other doctors in my experience, he was unwilling to give any type of probabilistic estimate. [Why is that, I wonder? - Ed.] I asked some more questions but eventually gave up trying to elicit anything of use from him.

For the record, we later discovered that my family member had Lyme disease, which apparently can cause eye pain. It was serious, and she did need treatment.

My guess is that Dr. B is a fine doctor within his specialty, recognizing and treating diseases of the eye. But in our case it seems that he was thinking only inside the eyeball. When the symptom was in the eye and the cause was elsewhere, he essentially was implying to us that "It's not my problem". And he didn't seem to be in a mood to think about or discuss what the real problem might be.

Somehow I expected more than that.

Four-eyes vs. half-wit -- a thought for everyone who wears glasses

Years ago a third-grader complained to me that a mean kid at school was calling her "four-eyes". She was bothered and wanted to know how she could put an end to the name-calling. I suggested this reply:

"Half-wit."

It gives a nice symmetry to the exchange. One person multiplies by two and the other divides. And if the sequences continue, the numbers characterizing the tormentor shrink to nothingness (1, 1/2, 1/4, ...) while those describing the victim (2, 4, 8, ...) grow to infinity and beyond.

By the way, it worked very well at school the next day, and it still makes me smile when I think about it.

A great resource for learning who's who in the MD General Assembly

Whether you lean left or right, the place to go for info on the Maryland state legislature is the Roster of Maryland Elected Officials put out by the Maryland Business for Responsive Government (MBRG).

It's nicely laid out, with plenty of photos that help you recognize every delegate and state senator. Plus committee and subcommittee assignments.

Service Learning, Part II: a response to comments on Joanne Jacobs's blog

One of Joanne Jacobs's readers, Catherine, commented on my earlier Service Learning post:

>Actually, service experiences are often
>more meaningful when tied to curriculum
>and thoughtful systematic analysis.

Catherine's assertion sounds good at first blush, but is it really true? If a student shovels a sidewalk for an elderly neighbor or delivers meals to a shut-in, does "thoughtful systematic analysis" really make the experience more meaningful? I don't think so.

Even if you accept her assertion, reality gets in the way. At BCPS, the thoughtful systematic analysis is not happening for the kids that I know:

1. In most cases, the students don't even realize that in-class projects are part of Service Learning,
2. Students don't fill out the reflection forms for in-class projects, and
3. Even if they were to fill out the forms, what teenager would do anything but roll his eyes at the questions? One example: "How did you build character from your service learning activity?"

>It’s true that service integrated into a course
>probably doesn’t fit the definition of “volunteering.”
>That’s probably why it’s called “service learning”
>instead.

"Service learning" is educational jargon. Most people outside the school system don't know the official meaning. No matter how schools define it in their manuals, parents and kids will take it to mean community service. And because there is no pay, parents and kids will call it volunteering. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend led the effort to create Maryland's service learning graduation requirement. On her own website, she does not use the term "service learning". She calls it "community service".

I wonder how she feels about the state of her brainchild now.

Here's yet more evidence that BCPS's official definition of Service Learning ("not volunteerism") contradicts the reality of the program: The Dulaney High School website encourages Service Learning students to apply for Prudential's Spirit of Community Award, a "youth recognition program based solely on volunteering".

>I think you’ve taken something out of context

I don't think I've taken anything out of context. If anyone with knowledge of the BCPS system believes that I've done so, I'm happy to listen.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In a second comment, Catherine says:

>It’s not because service learning is inherently
>bad or a waste of time, as [BaltoNorth] suggests.

I am not suggesting that service learning is inherently bad. I am suggesting that:

(1) Mandatory service learning, as implemented in Baltimore County and throughout Maryland, has not succeeded and never will.
(2) The current BCPS implementation of Service Learning does not live up to the vision of its creators. Not even close.
(3) The BCPS implementation is worse than a waste of time. By breeding disrespect and cynicism, it damages our kids in a real--if small--way.
(4) The General Assembly in Maryland should 'fess up to its mistake, eliminate the graduation requirement, and divert all Service Learning resources (a non-trivial amount that includes administrators at the state, county, high school and middle school levels) to programs that are far more worthy.

Oxymoron squared! Mandatory volunteerism now optional in Baltimore County Public Schools

If a student at Ridgely Middle School reads his report card carefully, he might well ask, "why do the Service Learning hours on my report card go up every semester even though I haven't done any community service work yet?"

The answer: Over the past decade or so, Service Learning has slowly become "infused" in the curriculum. Students get community service credits just for going to class! They don't have to leave the school or do any extra work!

This means, of course, that community service in Baltimore County Public Schools has come full circle. Before 1992, it was voluntary. Then, thanks to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and the Maryland General Assembly, volunteering became mandatory across the state. Now, thanks to infusion, mandatory volunteerism is optional.

Lovely.

On the bright side, the only kids who need to volunteer now are the ones who actually want to do community service. But there's a dark side too. Failed programs like Service Learning look ridiculous to students, breeding disrespect for schools and cynicism about government.

UPDATE: Joanne Jacobs linked, with a great headline. There is some interesting discussion in her comments. In response to Catherine's comments I wrote this.

UPDATE: Peter Wood at the National Association of Scholars says students have another name for mandatory volunteerism: voluntyranny.

Service Learning background: the Dulaney High School website

The service learning coordinator at DHS, a school librarian, suggests that students fulfill their requirement by doing community service projects in ... the school library:



The DHS service learning web page:



The DHS Service Learning "reflection form" asks students, "How did you build character from your service activity?":

Service Learning background: Ridgely Middle School

An official student handbook describes "infusion" of Service Learning in the curriculum:

Service Learning background: "preparation, action, reflection"

Good intentions from the MSDE service learning web page:

Service-learning projects must include academic preparation, service activities, and structured reflection...

Service Learning background: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's role in Maryland

According to her website, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend "founded the Maryland Student Service Alliance to make Maryland the first, and still only state that requires young people to engage in community service as a condition of graduation."

Service Learning background: Maryland's graduation requirement

From the MSDE website, here's the requirement:

General Instructional Programs 13A.03.02.06

D. Student Service. Students shall complete one of the following: ....

(1) seventy-five hours of student service that includes preparation, action, and reflection components and that, at the discretion of the local school system, may begin during the middle grades;
or
(2) a locally-designed program in student service that has been approved by the State Superintendent of Schools.

Service Learning background: MSDE's Maryland timeline

UPDATE: New link for the updated MSDE timeline for service learning is here]

Apparently not much of note has happened in the past five years. The last entry is from 2004:

1988 - [...] the Maryland Student Service Alliance (MSSA) is created as a public/private partnership with the State Department of Education to enhance service-learning efforts in Maryland. [...]

1990 - State funding adds full-time technical assistance capacity to MSSA staff. [...]

1992 - The State Board of Education adopts the current mandatory service requirement which becomes effective in 1993 and affects the graduating class of 1997 and beyond.

1992-93 - Considerable publicity, some of it hostile, was given to the mandatory requirement, focusing almost exclusively on the 75 hour option. Most local school boards, teachers organizations and student groups initially opposed the requirement.

1992-93 - MSSA conducts a vigorous public education campaign focusing heavily on having involved and engaged students change other students' attitudes toward the requirement. [...]

January 1993 - An effort by state legislators to overturn the Board of Education requirement is defeated. Similar efforts in later years will likewise fail.

March 1993 - All 24 school districts opt to design their own service-learning programs and submit plans to the State Superintendent. [...]

June 1997 - 42,000 Maryland public school students graduate with their service-learning requirement fulfilled. Only 49 students in the state did not graduate solely because of the service-learning graduation requirement. [...]

October 2000 - "Statewide Quality Review" initiative begins with MSSA specialists visiting every school district during the school year to monitor service-learning implementation policies and assess quality of service-learning activities. The State Board requests an annual presentation on the status of this initiative. [...]

June 2004 - The Maryland Student Service Alliance disolves as a public/private partnership between the Student Community Service Foundation, Inc. and the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). The service-learning program is fully integrated MSDE and supported through the Youth Development Branch. The many contributions of MSSA and its staff through the years are greatly appreciated and helped make Maryland a pioneer in service-learning.

Sen. Cardin proposes bailout for newspapers

Oy:

"With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, [Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD)] on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks."

Edible landscaping

From KnoxNews.com via Glenn:

Ornamental kale and cabbages have long been a mainstay for adding winter interest to flower beds ...

Okra, for example, has lovely pale yellow flowers with a dark purple center and makes a great border. Like many vegetables, eggplants and squash begin with pretty blossoms.

"We didn't see any real use for grass or holly bushes when we can have blueberries, and wild plums and cherries and herbs, like oregano and thyme, rosemary, sage and savory," Epperson explained. ... Out of Eden will sell ready-to-go containers filled with a variety of gourmet lettuce and easy-to-assemble planters for raised beds.

Another idea for a container is to plant it with nasturtiums, lettuce, curly parsley, oregano and chives for salads. Or put a tomato plant in the center with salsa plants like peppers, cilantro or onions at the base. Also, try marigolds as a companion plant to keep pests away naturally, she said.

Slate lists 20 worst Gerrymandered Congressional Districts

Maryland has two of the twenty. I live in one and next to another.

This is a big problem, but I've never heard either Dutch Ruppersberger or John Sarbanes mention it. They certainly don't highlight it on their websites.

[UPDATE: Well, at least California is starting to fix things even if we aren't doing much here in Maryland.]

Doodle proudly in meetings ... it improves your memory

FuturePundit points to these results of a scientific study:

doodlers recalled on average 7.5 names of people and places compared to only 5.8 by the non-doodlers.

Saving energy with hot water heaters

Ask Mr. Electricity has a concise page that compares installation and operating costs for different types of hot water heaters. It covers gas vs. electric and tank vs. tankless.

Installing timers can save energy in some cases, but not always:

A $40 timer can automatically turn off an electric heater . . . after you go to bed, and on again right before you get up. These don't save as much money as you'd expect, though. That's because a typical electric water heater only runs about three hours a day anyway, and modern energy-efficient water heaters run only 1.3 hours or so. . . . (In fact, if your heater was made after 1998, it's possibly not worth using a timer at all.) . . . A timer for an old (pre-1998) heater will save about 25kWh/mo. for a family of two using 40 gallons a day with the heater off four to six hours a day, but only 14kWh/mo. for a family of four using 80 gallons a day.

There's also a nice tidbit about health considerations when setting the temperature on your heater:

Bacteria fram Legionnaires Disease can grow in water up to 122°F, so many people set their heater tanks to at least 123°F.

More perspicacity from Alexis de Tocqueville

Instapundit:

In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville cautioned, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

On being pigeonholed as victims

Stephen Green commenting on President Obama's speech last week:

Why is it Democrats always speak to soldiers as veterans as just another grievance group in need of more benefits? Support the mission — lead, command! — and the troops will follow. Treating them as victims… well, I can tell you from the veterans who make up damn near my entire neighborhood… that stuff doesn’t play here.

What doctors don't know

I went to a birthday party recently where several guests were 50-ish doctors.

Most of what they said I had heard many times before. They grumbled about lawyers and explained that "we went to med school to treat patients, not to spend half our time filling out forms and fighting with insurance adjusters."

But two bits were new to me. First, none of them knew the story of how health insurance came to be tied to employment. Second, none of them seemed to understand how consumers might benefit from knowing prices before walking into a doctor's office.

Amazing.

They really need to learn the basic facts about the system they've been operating in for decades. Especially before opining on how to fix it.

Mickey Kaus, please report to your assignment desk

Gerrymandering alert!

From MSNBC:

Sen. Judd Gregg yesterday declined all comment on reports that the White House will strip him of his authority over the federal Census Bureau even before he becomes Secretary of Commerce.

Glenn Reynolds to Judd Gregg: "Wimp"

Moe Lane objects:

Does anybody have a link to where the President (or the President-elect, or the candidate) talked about how we need to take oversight of the director of the census away and hand it to the White House? Note that the examples needed here would have to be from before Democratic special interest groups started screaming about the potential loss of gerrymandering possibilities racism

Marijuana: Drug-bust of choice for lazy, self-promoting, risk-averse cops

One of Andrew Sullivan's readers lays it out:

from a law enforcement perspective, it's easy. [Marijuana users] are far less likely than other drug users to carry a weapon or get violent with an officer . . . Busting college kids for holding weed and taking down grow houses is a terrific way [for police] to keep [their arrest] numbers up . . . . . . [and] because its so widely used, especially among the young, no amount of crack downs is going to get rid of weed in our society. So it's a well that never goes dry. And it's a win-win on the PR end: every marijuana bust can be used as both evidence of a problem, and evidence that law enforcement is confronting that problem. Perfect.

This way of looking at it just gives more support to those of us who think that the War on Drugs is a complete failure.

For my "to read" list: "Searching for Safety"

It's by Aaron Wildavsky.

John Stossel recommends it in this interview. Years ago I read a wonderful book on Stossel's recommendation. It's called In Pursuit: of Happiness and Good Government by Charles Murray.