It's human nature to seek to prevent calamity. When children die, we ask, "How could that have been prevented?" Sometimes, the result is legislation that circumscribes danger. Other times, we make cultural adjustments to save lives ( Read more... )

It may not be something you pay much attention to. It belongs to a class of events so common that it's difficult to know how often it's happened. The fact that its so common makes the state look really bad. The fact that it's not more common has more to do with the amount of money spent on investigating old crimes ( Read more... )

"It hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be," Barron said. "I really wasn't for beer. `Course, we had the country club here and I didn't like that either."source


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Since I brought it up here the other day, I felt I should mention the final outcome of the Gillian Gibbons affair. But I can't do it here. I've finally completed a project I've been meaning to get to for over a year. Yay, me. At last, I can spin off the political diatribes into their own happy place ( Read more... )

The big news this morning is the resignation of Texas Education Agency’s Science Curriculum Director, Chris Comer, just a few scant months before the State Board of Education is slated to review the science portion of the state curriculum. Word is that the resignation comes on the heels of a move to fire Comer for blasting out an email advertising ( Read more... )

A 54-year-old British schoolmarm is in a Khartoum prison for allowing her 6 and 7-year-old students to name a toy stuffed bear "Muhammad", or so we're told here by the BBC. Each child was given a weekend with the bear, and was supposed to write a story about what they did with the bear. Some parents complained, and now British officials are ( Read more... )

I think that the way that sports organizations are penalizing alleged "dopers" is hypocritical madness. The recent meltdown of Marion Jones is only the most recent chapter of this sordid novel. Witness the gentle implosion of this year's Tour de France as another example ( Read more... )

There has been quite a bit of debate over the last decade over the use (and overuse) of ADHD drugs, like Ritalin. Now this from BBC:

In 1999, the American study concluded that after one year medication worked better than behavioural therapy for ADHD. This finding influenced medical practice on both sides of the Atlantic, and prescription rates in ( Read more... )

One running question that seems to follow me from place to place lately, like some lost puppy: what's it really for?

Reading Scott Henson's blog about the 'Texas Criminal Justice Reverse Lottery' and the abysmal clearance rates for serious crimes, and I've got to wonder about every part of the justice system. What's any of it really for ( Read more... )

A major difficulty in even bringing up problems with the criminal justice system is an apparently universal assumption that any convicted felon is worthy of any torment we can lay upon him. Only in the case of an innocent man executed by the state can there be the appropriate sense of indignity at the incompetence of the system. For if the other 99 ( Read more... )