Did you see the news clip on the 15th of that suicide-bent man who terrorized a school board in Bay City, Florida? The guy brandished a gun and drew a big red "V", for Vendetta, within a circle on the wall. It looked like he fully intended to shoot the school superintendent, but the trigger squeeze threw his aim off. The outcome was not tragic - a security guard was able to shoot the guy in the leg, then the unwelcome guest finished himself off with his own gun. Since the security guard also got shot, but not hurt severely, he got to be the hero.
One educator commented, "This is why we have security." Except that security were the ones who checked all the law-abiding citizens and the school board members for weapons before allowing them to enter the room, leaving them defenseless to the criminal who sneaked a gun in. Security were the ones who were outside the room when the jerk was waving his gun around, and did not know what was happening until he got off several shots, barely missing the superintendent, and forcing the male board members under their desks.
This is why we have Amendment Number Two in our Bill of Rights, which I paraphrase thusly: "Organized training in the care and responsible use of weapons by all citizens being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms in all places at all times, and teach the same to their children, shall not be infringed."
What if the female board member who hit the gunman's gun from behind with her purse had instead concealed a gun in her purse and shot him from behind? What if the superintendent or at least one of the board members had a gun hiding behind their desk in preparation for just such an event?
My educator friend, the one who credited security with the not-so-tragic outcome, had previously mentioned how out-of-control and dangerous things get at some of the high schools here in metro Atlanta. In fact, bullying in schools has become such a problem our state legislature is taking action to prevent it. But I dare say, if teachers were allowed to carry weapons and if students who pass certain levels of training were allowed to carry certain weapons, the wild, unruly behavior at those schools would disappear.
The recent event in Florida was just a lucky break in a long history of such events since the fall of the free state. The Columbine high school and Virginia university tragedies particularly come to mind.
Along these lines, I also wonder if the airports handed out box-cutters, whether airline staff and passengers wouldn't fly more securely and wouldn't need to be groped on the way in. And we would not need to pay tax money or extra fees for TSA and their X-radiation/microwave energy, virtual strip-searching machines!
No security guards or educators were harmed in the writing of this blog post. However, the Second Amendment lies bleeding and dying on the floor. Let's do what we can to help pull it back to life.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
A Vision for PRIVATE Education in Georgia
Submitted today to the website of "A Vision for Public Education in Georgia:
"My vision for the future of education in Georgia is that, by 2035, there will be NO MORE TAXPAYER-SUPPORTED EDUCATION in Georgia. Formal education will no longer be mandatory. The stakeholders in education will be the parents and students and teachers ONLY.
If students want to learn something or their parents want their children to be taught something, the students and/or parents will pay the tuition. Teachers will receive the full benefit of the tuition paid. Private schools which directly meet the educational needs or desires of families will proliferate, and children will learn to be responsible for their own learning. Grandparents, uncles and aunts, friends, neighbors, and charities will step forward to voluntarily contribute.
Non-stakeholders will no longer be forced to financially support the uncontrollable mass of administrators and teachers who in turn force the institutionalization of an unknown mass of children. The burden of state and local claims on our homes, our incomes and our purchases will be more than halved.
Your website states that 'everyone has a stake in the success of our public education system.' Actually, many of us have a stake in its failure."
David Montane
"My vision for the future of education in Georgia is that, by 2035, there will be NO MORE TAXPAYER-SUPPORTED EDUCATION in Georgia. Formal education will no longer be mandatory. The stakeholders in education will be the parents and students and teachers ONLY.
If students want to learn something or their parents want their children to be taught something, the students and/or parents will pay the tuition. Teachers will receive the full benefit of the tuition paid. Private schools which directly meet the educational needs or desires of families will proliferate, and children will learn to be responsible for their own learning. Grandparents, uncles and aunts, friends, neighbors, and charities will step forward to voluntarily contribute.
Non-stakeholders will no longer be forced to financially support the uncontrollable mass of administrators and teachers who in turn force the institutionalization of an unknown mass of children. The burden of state and local claims on our homes, our incomes and our purchases will be more than halved.
Your website states that 'everyone has a stake in the success of our public education system.' Actually, many of us have a stake in its failure."
David Montane
Monday, January 4, 2010
A Simple Explanation of Atmospheric Temperatures
When the sun heats the ocean’s surface, the temperature of the water is moderated by the mass of liquid sloshing around. So it does not immediately lose its heat into the atmosphere at night. The planet Mercury has neither ocean nor atmosphere, so its solid surface has a huge range of temperatures between day and night.
How long does our ocean and atmosphere take to lose it's heat? Notice the long lag time from winter solstice to the cold of February. The coldest time of the year comes a few weeks after the shortest day.
The warm waters of the Gulf Stream are a good example of the temperature moderating effect of our ocean. That is why on my Bahamas yacht adventure in the summer of 1975, I could sleep all night on deck in only my swimming trunks, without a blanket.
When I lived near the coast of northern California, the summer sun would heat the land surface to a very high temperature in the afternoon; let's use 100 degrees F as an example. The heated atmosphere rose, drawing in cool breezes from the ocean so that if you were within 3 miles of the shore, the air may only be say 50 degrees F. As soon as the sun went down, the land was no longer being warmed by the sun, so the cool breezes would extend much further inland, making a quick transition to cool temperatures. If I wore short sleeves in the morning and was caught without a sweater at dusk, my lips and fingernails would turn blue and I would seek fire or an artificial heat source as soon as possible.
There is no atmospheric greenhouse effect. There is only an ocean heat storage effect and a lesser atmospheric heat storage effect. The Earth is as cool as it is because it only has an average of about 2 miles of ocean across only 3/4 of its surface. Venus has well over 40 miles of high-pressure carbon dioxide that is more like our ocean than our atmosphere - the same pressure at its surface as our ocean has more than half a mile down. The large volume of high-pressure gas blowing around the whole planet at 300 MPH is what stores the heat on Venus and keep it an even temperature between day and night. It has nothing to do with the fact that the particular gas in the atmosphere happens to be carbon dioxide. In fact, IF the greenhouse conjecture were true (which it is not), what would cause the greenhouse effect on Venus would be sulphuric acid clouds, not CO2!
The sulphuric acid clouds on Venus are the equivalent of our "dihydrous monoxide" clouds (H2O, commonly known as water). The moisture in our clouds is more dense than the atmospheric gases and so it stores more heat. During the day, this is somewhat offset by the reflection of sunlight from the tops of the clouds.
If one allows oneself to really stop and think about where the heat of our planet comes from and how it gets stored, it is really not that difficult or complex. Some of the heat comes from the core of the earth, but most comes from the sun. I recently read a website that claimed more than twice as much heat comes from the greenhouse effect than from the sun! That seems laughable, but it is sad that people don't think things through before they speak or write. They so often just regurgitate what they've been force-fed by a scary movie or a political document.
How long does our ocean and atmosphere take to lose it's heat? Notice the long lag time from winter solstice to the cold of February. The coldest time of the year comes a few weeks after the shortest day.
The warm waters of the Gulf Stream are a good example of the temperature moderating effect of our ocean. That is why on my Bahamas yacht adventure in the summer of 1975, I could sleep all night on deck in only my swimming trunks, without a blanket.
When I lived near the coast of northern California, the summer sun would heat the land surface to a very high temperature in the afternoon; let's use 100 degrees F as an example. The heated atmosphere rose, drawing in cool breezes from the ocean so that if you were within 3 miles of the shore, the air may only be say 50 degrees F. As soon as the sun went down, the land was no longer being warmed by the sun, so the cool breezes would extend much further inland, making a quick transition to cool temperatures. If I wore short sleeves in the morning and was caught without a sweater at dusk, my lips and fingernails would turn blue and I would seek fire or an artificial heat source as soon as possible.
There is no atmospheric greenhouse effect. There is only an ocean heat storage effect and a lesser atmospheric heat storage effect. The Earth is as cool as it is because it only has an average of about 2 miles of ocean across only 3/4 of its surface. Venus has well over 40 miles of high-pressure carbon dioxide that is more like our ocean than our atmosphere - the same pressure at its surface as our ocean has more than half a mile down. The large volume of high-pressure gas blowing around the whole planet at 300 MPH is what stores the heat on Venus and keep it an even temperature between day and night. It has nothing to do with the fact that the particular gas in the atmosphere happens to be carbon dioxide. In fact, IF the greenhouse conjecture were true (which it is not), what would cause the greenhouse effect on Venus would be sulphuric acid clouds, not CO2!
The sulphuric acid clouds on Venus are the equivalent of our "dihydrous monoxide" clouds (H2O, commonly known as water). The moisture in our clouds is more dense than the atmospheric gases and so it stores more heat. During the day, this is somewhat offset by the reflection of sunlight from the tops of the clouds.
If one allows oneself to really stop and think about where the heat of our planet comes from and how it gets stored, it is really not that difficult or complex. Some of the heat comes from the core of the earth, but most comes from the sun. I recently read a website that claimed more than twice as much heat comes from the greenhouse effect than from the sun! That seems laughable, but it is sad that people don't think things through before they speak or write. They so often just regurgitate what they've been force-fed by a scary movie or a political document.
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