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Showing posts from January, 2010

Writing on the wall?

A few years ago, there was a remarkable show on NBC called " The West Wing ". It was set in the white house and based around the presidency of a democrat. It was about national politics and all the machinations that go on in Washington DC . The show won 8 Emmy awards in its 7-year run so it wasn't that bad. Anyway, this morning as I heard about the loss of Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts to a republican, I wondered how Jed Bartlet 's staff would have handled the race. Knowing that the democrat's candidate in such a must-win election was running a lackluster campaign, I can just see Jed Bartlet dispatching Toby Ziegler and Josh Lyman to go to Massachusetts and straighten things out. I can see Josh moving in, taking over the campaign and telling the local people how stupid they've been. I know it was just a tv show but I can't imagine that Obama's people didn't see this coming from afar. If they didn't, that's just proof of their la

Why should homeschooled students participate in school activities?

If you decide to homeschool your child, should he/she be allowed to participate in school activities? I think the answer is no. Now I know there's a lot of reasons why a parent will decided he/she can do a better job than the school. But if you've made that decision, why should you be allowed to pick and choose which school activity you want your child to participate in? Specifically, I am talking about high school football players that are homeschooled and thus at a disadvantage when it comes to college recruiting. Well guess what? Tough luck. If the school isn't good enough for your child academically and your solution is to take him/her out of the school (instead of augmenting what the school does), why should there be a spot for you on the school football team, debate team or other extracurricular team? That's some other kid's spot you're taking up. I especially like this parent's reason for homeschooling his children: The Douglases, who are devout e

Is Nigeria capable of democracy?

They say democracy is the best form of government. And truly it is. But is there some level of maturity needed for it to work? Or do countries like Nigeria just have to work their way through the "growing pains" of early democracy? It's easy to look at America's democracy and wonder "why can't Nigeria just work like that?" Why can't there be respect for the rule of law ? Why can't people just do things are logical? Anyway, in today's Nigeria, the president ( Yar'Adua ) has not made a public appearance in 49 days! That's 49 days without anyone hearing from or seeing the president of a country of over 150 million. Even after the US puts Nigeria on a terrorist-prone country watch list. Even after armed gunmen attacked Togo 's players en route to a country that Nigeria has sent its best 23 soccer players and officials. Even after there's public outcry for him to show his face. I'll be the first to admit that I don't foll

Odds and Ends

I haven't really been paying much attention to politics. So I can't really write a full post about that. Except to say that I am really disappointed in the democrats and their leader, Obama. Apart from giving a bunch of banks free money with no strings attached; spending oodles of money on vague recovery projects in imaginary districts; pushing through a non-reformative Health Care Reform and giving sub-par gifts to visiting heads of state, what exactly has Obama accomplished in 12 months in the white house? What have the democrats done with their majority if they still had to kowtow to Lieberman on the so-called health care reform bill? Where's the reform if all you've done is force everyone to buy insurance (hooray for insurance companies) or pay fines? If people's health care choices are still tied so strongly to their employers? Where's the reform without any sort of public option? Anyway, enough about politics. In technology, Google, in a move to kneecap th