Generic Issues
7th February 2007
by Alon
The red dot indicates when Giuliani assumed office; the blue dot indicated when his predecessor, Dinkins, did (link to data)
1. Tyler blogs about a right-wing nut who complains that Israel is recognizing gay marriages performed in other countries: “The pro-family official’s concern, he explains, is that Israel’s acceptance of same-sex marriage will give ammunition to its Islamic enemies and fuel their propaganda.” Tyler notes that this is just the Dinesh D’Souza strategy of saying that conservative values are good because the terrorists hate liberal values.
My own comment on that is that the greatest number of Palestinian terrorist attacks is on settlers, who are fairly religious, and on targets in Jerusalem, a conservative city. Attacks on liberal Tel Aviv are the most spectacular, but while half of Israel’s Jewish population lives in Tel Aviv metro, far fewer than half of Palestinian attacks are on Tel Aviv metro.
2. Hat-tip to JD2718: Ray of Education and Technology rips into the Wall Street Journal, which decided to resurrect the meme that public school teachers work 7 hours a week. Based on calculating the number of hours they spend teaching, it arrived at an hourly pay figure of $34/hour. Based on calculating the actual number of hours they work, including teaching, staff meetings, and grading, $15/hour is closer to reality.
Also due to JD2718, the NYC Department of Education’s fetish for small schools combines the worst features of small schools and large schools. Ordinary small schools have their own buildings and are self-contained enough to teach 400-500 students independently. New York’s small schools share the same building with other schools, so they have to coordinate things like bells; a better way to describe them would be large schools supervised by committee.
3. Wal-Mart’s dreadful history of discriminating against women is finally resulting in a trial. Wal-Mart isn’t even denying that the discrimination exists, but instead tries weaseling out of a class action lawsuit and says individual women should sue individual stores.
In a way this is significant beyond Wal-Mart, because the company’s ridiculous claim that it “did not have a policy of discriminating against women” can help underscore a strict liability doctrine in civil rights cases. A corporation is responsible for making sure it’s an equal opportunity employer; if it isn’t aggressively punishing managers who discriminate, it’s exposed to class action lawsuits. It’s just how states are responsible for making sure their militaries don’t murder civilians when occupying a foreign country.
4. Hamas and Fatah are negotiating in Mecca. They’ve been negotiating for a while; while their leaders are talking to each other about how to forge a unity government, their foot soldiers are killing each other as well as any civilians who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
February 7th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
I appreciate the link to my site, but FYI, I’m the original blogger on “Teachers are Underpaid” JD2718, just linked a trackback to my blog. I also appreciate his trackback as this is an important subject which his trackback has generated alot of interest. But, it would be appropriate to credit the proper author for bringing this topic to light.
Ray
February 7th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
You’re right… I knew you posted the rebuttal, but the phrasing I used assumed people would click the links and see who deserves the credit.
February 7th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Thanks for clearing that up. Credit to Ray, both for the research and the spot on analysis.
And thanks for the link on the small schools thing, though it is a borderline rant. Very few people know what a mess the NYC Dept of Ed has made.
February 7th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Ray–
You know who’s really underpaid? Bloggers.
February 7th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Hey, I do no work and get paid $20,000/year. That’s infinitely many dollars per hour.
February 7th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Alon–
I’m sorry to break the news to you, but I lied when I said I’d pay you $20,000 to be my co-blogger.
February 7th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Does that mean I’m not getting my $500 per comment either?
February 7th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Katie–
That money wasn’t for commenting.
February 8th, 2007 at 1:10 am
oh dear. oh…. dear. I guess i’ll find out when you come visit eh?