Why the Media Should Back the Anti-Acorn Activists
It’s hard to take seriously the loopy, conspiratorial conclusions drawn by conservative activists digging up dirt on ACORN.
But the methods they use to dig up that dirt are important – and admirable.
The best thing about the anti-ACORN reporting is that it may revive two journalistic methods that have long been dismissed as sleazy: surreptitious taping and dumpster diving on journalistic subjects.
In a skeptical age, there is no substitute for getting the goods: the video that shows the subject damning herself with her own words, the documents that demonstrate malfeasance. As institutions become more sophisticated about dodging journalistic inquiry, journalists need every investigative tool to hold institutions accountable.
But mainstream news organizations have shied away from these tactics, in large part because of terrible state laws and precedent that, in the name of privacy, protect powerful people and institutions against investigation.
Time to Chill on Global Warming
I’m not a climatologist. I had to look up the word just to spell it. I don’t pretend to understand the science behind global warming.
But it turns out that some big-name climatologists apparently don’t understand what’s going on with global temperatures, either. And they may have hidden what they don’t know.
In the last week or so, we learned that computer hackers broke into the Climatic Research Unit at a British university and pulled out about 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents. And now, for all the world to see, are indications that some of the world’s top climatologists were manipulating data that baffled them or trying to hide evidence that didn’t support their belief in man-made climate change.
And they didn’t like anyone asking pesky questions, either. They wrote of the need to maintain a unified front against skeptics, to blacklist researchers who dared to question some of the man-made global warming science and to cut off scholarly journals that published contrary opinions. One wrote of how he’d delete stuff if he got hit with a Freedom of Information Act request.
Where is the Insolvent California Unemployment Insurance Fund Headed?
Lost in the avalanche of bad news this Fall about the state budget is the recent fund estimate for California’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) Fund. In its October report, EDD projected the fund to have a deficit of $7.4 billion by the end of 2009, growing to $18.4 billion by the end of 2010, and an amazing $27 billion deficit by the end of 2011.
What does this mean? Should employers, employees or current UI recipients be worried? What options does the state have?
The condition of the fund is shown in the chart compiled by EDD below, and contained in EDD’s October UI Fund Balance report. The full report can be accessed at EDD’s website, www.edd.ca.gov.
California must participate in the Race to the Top
It isn’t every day that implementing a series of common sense reforms to fix
our schools can also infuse our cash-strapped state with hundreds of
millions federal dollars. President Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative,
however, presents our state with a unique opportunity to not only transform
our antiquated public education system for the 21st century, but also to
have it paid for by the federal government.
The Race to the Top reforms being presented in SB 1 represent an almost
textbook definition of the term “win win,” and our legislature must not
squander this opportunity.
As parents examine the package of reforms being proposed, they will likely
be shocked to find these sensible policies do not already exist in
California. SB 1 would pave the way for Districts to reward their best
teachers, making sure they can stay in the classroom where they are
desperately needed. It would promote the use of student achievement data as
a factor when evaluating teachers, so we can finally know which teachers are
producing the biggest student gains.