Gender neutral housing temporarily neutered at Yale

Yale University has delayed the implementation of "gender-neutral" student housing so the school can "study" the idea some more. Stupidity apparently becomes more appealing after it has been researched and analyzed:

A proposal to offer gender-neutral housing for Yale upperclassmen in fall 2009 has been tabled, the Yale Daily News reports. School officials say they need more time to form a task force and study the implementation of similar programs at peer schools.

It would probably be a mistake for anyone to think that the members of the school's administrative staff have suddenly turned into vertebrates. If they actually had backbones, they would tell the students that the reason they are students is because they are ignorant and the reason their parents are paying Yale exorbitant amounts of money is to relieve them of that ignorance. Instead, they are going to affirm their ignorance by giving it some kind of scientific credibility by "studying" the issue.

The impetus behind the change is coming from the gay and transgendered "community", who are none to pleased with the fact that the administration hasn't gotten word that college administrations always give in to student demands, no matter how utterly ridiculous they are:

The decision also prompted students to hold a "sleep-in," during which more than a dozen students camped in the middle of campus to, as one said, "protest the type of metaphorical displacement we, and by we I mean the [ gay and transgender] community and allies, are faced with by this decision."

"Metaphorical displacement"? First intolerance, then persecution, and now ... "Metaphorical displacement."

It's a cruel world.

Governor reverses himself on mandatory school age change

First Gov. Beshear came out and questioned the cost of raising the mandatory school attendance age to 18, and then, next day, "clarified" is comments--meaning he came out and said the exact opposite.

Did the Governor get new cost figures? Nope. Someone apparently just told him that it wasn't the right political thing to say.

Raising the mandatory school age is just simply a stupid idea. If the public school system has failed a child for twelve years, exactly what makes anyone think it's going to repair the damage by adding two years in a system that has already proven it's lack of worth?

Churchill Downs reports earnings of $71 million

As reported by Mark Hebert at WHAS-TV:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (March 4, 2009) - Churchill Downs Incorporated (NASDAQ: CHDN) ("Company") today reported results for the fourth quarter and year ended Dec. 31, 2008.

For the full year, net revenues from continuing operations grew to $430.6 million, a 5 percent increase from the prior-year total of $410.7 million. Net revenues from continuing operations for the fourth quarter of 2008 were $85.9 million, down 3 percent from the previous year total of $89.1 million...

Keep repeating to yourself that the horse industry is in trouble.

The continued search for intelligent life at Page One

Sigh.

Jake goes nuclear on David Williams

Jake at Page One Kentucky, the National Enquirer of the Kentucky blog world, didn't like State Senate President David William's challenge to Kathy Stein at The Family Foundation's press conference yesterday in the Capitol Rotunda to apologize to the state's foster parents by implying they didn't want the children who they were fostering.

Jake took his own swipe at the state's foster parents and went nuclear on Williams:

Really, Marty Cothran and David Williams? If those 7,000 children in foster care are wanted– why are their parents doing horrible, ******* jobs? And why are you haters trying to make it even more impossible for them to find good homes? Kathy Stein should tell David Williams to [this part has been censored as it refers to activity which some of us find distasteful but which Jake and his friends have made a whole political movement out of], publicly, on the Senate floor. And David having anything to do with Martin means he and his staff are now off our list– including our close friends– until King David publicly distances himself from the bigoted hatemonger.

No! How can Jake do this? Take David Williams off his "list"! Has he no mercy at all? And Jake's "close friends" too [who apparently also have "lists," although it is unclear exactly what these lists are for and we are not sure we really want to know anyway because it might gross us out]?

Poor David Williams. Just imagine how he must feel after finding out he is no longer on Jake's "list". He's probably at his therapist's now, trying to put his life back together.

This Jake. He really means business.

Teachers from another planet

Okay, I'm not getting this. At all. Kentucky School News and Comment reports on the Met Life Survey of the American Teacher. It reports on what teachers believe after 25 years of reform. Among them:

• Academic standards and curriculum are stronger.
• Teachers are better prepared.
• Students are better prepared, more ambitious, and more trusting of teachers.

I have not yet verified on which planet the report conducted its research, but on this one I don't know if there are three beliefs more thoroughly discredited. Does anyone really believe this? Especially teachers?

No wonder we're in so much trouble.

Page One continues to publicize gay pedophilia

It's just plain strange for a blog that doesn't believe gay pedophilia is a problem to keep talking about the issue. As we predicted, Jake at Page One Kentucky insists on talking about it. After accusing us of invoking the issue in the debate over Senate Bill 68 when we never did, and after explaining that we really would rather talk about something else, Jake continues to bring it up. We now count five times he's mentioned it on his blog. We couldn't have brought more attention to it if we had wanted to.

In his most recent post, Jake accuses us of employing "18th century arguments". Now, we're pretty confident that Jake's reading has never brought him into contact with an 18th century argument or, for that matter, any argument from any century, take your pick. And we're also fairly certain that 21st century arguments are generally unfamiliar to him. At least, we have a hard time remembering if we've ever seen an actual argument employed on his website.

Why employ arguments when you can question people's motives, accuse them of being closet homosexuals, or Photoshop pictures of them to make some lewd point?

Or you could simply employ logical fallacies like the one he uses in the comments section of the same post after someone told him that the post was in bad taste and that they expected more of Page One, at which point Jake responds, "It’s something we’ve done dozens of times."

Wow. So the more you do something the more ethically justified you are? Jake may just have discovered the way to reduce the evil of the "bigotry" which he's always bemoaning: Just encourage people to be bigoted all the time. Then, when someone accuses them of engaging in repeated acts of bigotry, they just just say, "It's something we've done dozens of times."

And if someone asks you where they got that cockamamie argument, they just refer him to Jake at Page One.

The same commenter who said the last post was in bad taste also told Jake to "grow up." But this is a procedure that many of us grown ups are not sure can be easily accomplished.

Sen. President Williams calls on Kathy Stein to "apologize" to the state's foster parents

Senate President David Williams called on State. Sen. Kathy Stein "apologize" for comments she made on the floor of the Senate yesterday in the debate over a bill requiring doctors to give young women an opportunity to see an ultrasound of their unborn child saying that we already have 7,000 children now in foster care who are "unwanted." Williams remarks were made to a crowd of 150-200 in the Capitol Rotunda this morning who had gathered for the announcement of the "Covenant with Kentucky Families," a set of five family-friendly bills now being considered by state lawmakers.

Stein “owes a public apology to the state’s foster parents,” said Williams, who pointed out that it was pretty obvious they were wanted, "otherwise they [the parents] wouldn’t be foster parents.” “Some mother loved those 7,000 children enough to let them come into the world to be born,” he added.

And anyway, why is it so important for Stein to make people think they are unwanted? After all, it's too late to abort them.

Are portfolios necessary for good writing instruction?

Susan Weston of the Prichard Committee says the following, under the heading "Why portofolios matter":

"A writing assignment orders your thinking."

Representative and Former Speaker Jody Richards, ninety seconds ago, and so right!

But how do we get from "A writing assignment orders your thinking" to the fact that portfolios matter? And how does this comport with the fact that there were writing assignments and programs (good ones, in fact) before portfolios were even invented?

The idea that portfolios are somehow necessary for good writing instructions has absolutely no basis in reality. In fact, I'm trying to think of one great writer who learned to write through a program that emphasized portfolios.

Maybe Susan could name one.

You are. Am not, you are. Am not, you are. Nuh uh, you are...

This is the number of times Jake has now brought up the issue of gay pedophilia. We predicted Jake would continue to bring up the issue of gay pedophilia after he accused us of bringing it up when we never did, and after we have said several times that we really don't want to talk about it. Well, here he goes again.

Why would anyone else want to call attention to it? Jake seems to be doing a pretty good job of it all by himself.

And in the course of doing so, he completely misrepresents the text of the Senate Bill 68, which would, as David Edmunds accurately stated it in Saturday's Louisville Courier-Journal, place foster and adoptive children "in homes where there is no live-in sexual partner — either homosexual or heterosexual."

"Not true," says Jake, who apparently needs a pair of glasses in addition to remedial training in basic English. The proposed legislation targets gays specifically because it would, as he quotes the language in the bill:

[P]rohibit the approval of foster care, relative caregiver services, or adoption of a child by an applicant who is cohabiting with a sexual partner outside of a marriage that is legally valid in Kentucky… [emphasis Jake's]

The italicized section, he says, is proof that it targets gays. No, he offers no other evidence than this: language which clearly does not target gays.

Would someone please inform Jake that two straight people shacking up without being married, in addition to not being the greatest arrangement in the world for raising children (as the social science on the matter has shown again and again), IS NOT A LEGALLY VALID MARRIAGE IN KENTUCKY?

Now we're pretty sure that Jake will respond with something he perceives to be an argument, and we're pretty sure that it will involve bringing up gay pedophilia again.

Just watch.

Encylopedia of Christian Civilziation censored?

Don't count on hearing about this during "Banned Books Week," a little holiday the liberals have every year where they publicize the liberal books censored by conservatives, and all but ignore the cases where conservative books are censored by liberals.

Turns out the Wiley-Blackwell, an English academic publishing house that commissioned the Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, has decided to withdraw the book because, according to the project editor, it is "too Christian, too orthodox, too anti-secular, and too anti-Muslim, and not politically correct enough for being used in universities."

Imagine that. A positive portrayal of Christianity in a book about Christian civilization. What were they thinking?

The whole thing apparently started when several editorial board members complained that there weren't enough positive vibes directed toward Islam and a few other religions. According to the editor, a scholar with a stellar record of editing reference works, the criticisms were meant

to sabotage the project and strip it of its Christian content. Among the words or passages they want deleted are “Antichrist,” “Enemy” (as referring to Satan), BC/AD (as chronological markers), “Beloved Disciple,” “Gates of Hell,” “Witness,” “Virgin Birth,” “Resurrection,” “Evangelism” “Harvest,” and any reference with an “evangelical tone” or citing the “Uniqueness of Christ and Christianity.” They also object to historical references to the persecution and massacres of Christians by Muslims, but at the same time want references favorable to Islam.

Here is Roger Kimball on the controversy. And here Edward Feser.

Now, back to our regular ACLU programming on the evils of conservative censorship of liberals...

Education bureaucrats caught taking credit for private school success

Another Kentucky Department Education KERA success claim exposed. For years the Kentucky Department of Education has reported ACT scores that didn't look half bad. But the data they reported didn't separate out private school scores. Some of us have wondered all along whether the scores that the Department was reporting didn't make make public schools look better than they were by incorporating higher nonpublic school scores.

Well, whadya' know.

Dick Innes at the Bluegrass Institute got his hands on the numbers which the Department apparently didn't want to publicly release. Here they are:

Private schools outperform public schools in all years but one, which Innes attributes to an influx into the private schools of less well-prepared public school students.

Read the rest of his analysis here.