SeaViews: Insights from the Gray Havens  April 2001 (formerly the _Rochester Rag_, formerly the _News from Detroit_) Motto: The surest way to get a reputation for being a trouble maker these days is to go about repeating the very phrases that the Founders used in the struggle for independence. -- C.A. Beard Editorial: email Steve Anon ftp site News Archives Standard disclaimers apply. In addition, the author makes no guarantees concerning the grammatical accuracy of his writing. Submitted text files must be in raw or compressed (.Z, .gz or PK Zip) ASCII. Image files must be in raw or compressed (see above) GIF89 (or older). On last month's Fix; the answer to last month's Fix, ""What should be done about the US crew members being held hostage in China?"" is Apparently the resolution if this before print time discouraged anyone from responding. Well, what happened? The Chinese wanted an apology, and GW gave them one, sort of. He didn't apologise for the fact that we were running an intelligence gathering plane over international waters, but he did express regret over a) That we damaged our plane and b) That a Chinese pilot was killed. Now granted, would this event have occured in a Clinton White HOuse? No, becuase the Chinese had bought and paid for Bill, and they were not about to embarass him. But GW is another animal. GW has gone on record that he intends to arm the Taiwanese, and you can bet that a trade and Olympic embargo were discussed behind closed doors over this episode. GW will not endorse trade and open borders at any cost with these people, evn if the cost is some of our people in uniform, and this may make some who joined the Clinton army a bit nervous. Guest Editorial: Phyllis Schlafly (back to story) May 1, 2001 Day Care Bombshell Hits Smack Amid the 'Village' The advocates of "it takes a village to raise a child" are having a rough month. They are scurrying around trying to come up with arguments to refute the new study showing that children who spend most of their time in day care are three times as likely to exhibit behavior problems in kindergarten as those who are cared for primarily by their mothers. Children who spend more than 30 hours a week in day care were found to be more demanding, more noncompliant, and more aggressive. They scored higher on things like: gets in lots of fights, cruelty, bullying, meanness, talking too much, and making demands that must be met immediately. The study found a direct correlation between time spent in day care and a child's aggression, defiance and disobedience. The findings held true regardless of the type or quality of day care, the sex of the child, the family's socioeconomic status or the quality of the mother care. Why is anybody surprised that social science research is confirming reality? True science always verifies reality; it's only junk science that manufactures illusions based on ideologies. The new study followed more than 1,100 children in 10 cities in every kind of day-care setting, from care with relatives and nannies to preschool and large day-care centers. The study was financed by the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development, a branch of the National Institutes of Health that produced a day-care-friendly report in 1996. The "village" advocates are swarming all over the media with their feeble rebuttals. They argue, without evidence, that better quality day care might produce different results, that the real problem is that employed parents are tired and stressed, and that the study hasn't undergone rigorous peer review. Of course, there are other variables, including viewing television, the divorce of parents, and the amount of father care. But this new study is the most comprehensive to date and its findings are by significant margins. The new study corroborates the 1986 findings of one of its principal investigators, Dr. Jay Belsky, who shocked the child development world with an article titled "Infant Day Care: A Cause for Concern?" Belsky reported on the evidence then piling up that infants who spent long hours in day care were at risk of behavioral problems later. At that time, the day-care industry and the "village" advocates in the child-development field were preparing to launch a national advertising campaign for federally funded, federally regulated day care as a new middle-class entitlement. They felt threatened by Belsky, then just a young associate professor at Pennsylvania State University. So, the day-care industry lowered the professional boom on the upstart professor who dared to challenge the then-prevailing feminist notion that commercial day care was what infants really needed so that their mothers could be fulfilling themselves in the labor force. The word went out: don't buy Belsky's textbook, shun him at professional meetings, label him a misogynist. The reason the day-care issue arouses such bitter antagonism is not only that it challenges the liberals who want to expand government social services by having the "village" take over raising children. The day-care issue also strikes at the heart of feminist ideology that it is oppression of women for society to expect mothers to care for their own children. Feminist ideology teaches that equality for women depends on the government relieving women of the burden of child care so they can be advancing in the labor force. Any evidence that shows commercial day care inferior to mother care, therefore, must be destroyed and the messengers vilified. Remarkably, Belsky didn't kowtow to the Politically Correct gestapo, as so many academics have done. He is now a professor at the University of London and this time he was joined in his research by some of the country's most respected child-development experts. In 1988, the day-care industry, with lobbying help and media access from the Children's Defense Fund, went ahead with its lavish national advertising campaign, proclaiming the lack of sufficient day care a national "crisis," and offering the ABC Child Care Bill sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) as the solution. Their three-year Congressional and media battle failed; the American people are not willing to provide tax-paid baby-sitters for other people's children. Hillary Clinton made another attempt to peddle the notion of a day-care "crisis" as her "frontier issue" in 1997. She hosted an exclusive shindig at the White House featuring all the usual suspects of those who want the "village" to raise children, such as her friend Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund, but the American people turned a deaf ear to her cries of "crisis." The conservative solution to child-care needs has always been tax credits, i.e., let the parents spend their own money for the child care of their choice, and don't force mothers taking care of their own children to subsidize baby-sitters for employed moms. Fortunately, we've made some progress in legislating child credits into the income tax code.       Letters: none this month Quote(s) of the month: Who has resulted in the deaths of more people? a) Adolf Hitler b) Joe Stalin c)  Rachel Carson Answer: C --Rush Limbaugh, 26 April 2001 For those who don't know, Hitler got about 7 million people. Stalin about 30 million. In 1963 Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring" and told the story of how world wide use of DDT was harming birds and amphibeans. DDT was banned around 1970. Since then, the World Health organization estimates that world wide excess malaria deaths from unDDTed mosquitos has been about 2 million per year. Fix of the month:            "Should pregnant mothers in jail be aloowed to keep their children when born?" News: Washington; 1. April 30, Seattle: Well I finally had to file my taxes yesterday. "What's that Steve? Aren't you late?" Nope, and I didn't need to file for an extension either. Since western WA was declared a National Disaster Area in teh Feb earthquake, those of us in the stricken counties got an extra 2 weeks. 2. May 1, Columbia River: For the first time in 24 years, they are catching and selling Sockeye Salmon on the indian reservations. "The hell you say Steve, you know them fish are on teh endangered list." Yes, its true, but this is the best run of Sockeye in 70 years, and this time tribal rights prevailed and the tribes are catching and selling the endangered fish for $3/pound. Of course, DNR biologists are concerned that even though this run and likely next years will be great, the low water that we are currently experiencing will make it tough on the fry to survive their swim downstram in a few months. California; 1. San Francisco, 25 April: City council voted 9/2 to support tax payer funded sex change operations for city employees. Ed: We wonder if the surplus testicles will be sent to DC to stiffen up some Rep Sen and Congressmen on the tax bill   2. Sacramento, 1 May: For some time the state has forbidden smoking within public buildings and even multi-unit private dwellings. SanFrancisco has even banned smoking outside in public areas. But until now one location has been left inviolate. No more. Starting in June, it will be illegal to smoke in Tobacco stores.       Arizona; 1. Scottsdale, April 28: A man traveling in an AMTRAK sleeper car was relived of his cash courtesy of the DEA. A little known feature of Amtrak's billing computers is that anyone who pays cash for an expensive ticket (and its not clear what that threshold is) can expect that info will be flashed to the next DEA office. If the DEA officers are so inclined, they will board the train and check out said passengers with sniffing dogs. IN this case the DEA boarded the train in AZ and went to the sleeper of the passenger who was going from NV to FL. They knocked and the man opened the door, whereupon the agents noted thatm "he had his hands in his pockets and looked nervouse." This then formed the basis for their probable cause and they initiated a search without a warrent. They found a bag containing over $100, 000 but nothing else incriminating. They brought in 1, then a second drug dog. Neither found anything to bark at. A third dog was brought in and yelped. Well, that proved it for the DEA and they siezed all but $1000 of the man's money (which he claimed he won in Vegas). The suspect will not be charged, but has to appear in AZ court to prove that he should get his money back. Oh and Amtrak splits the $$ with the DEA.   England; 1. London, 28 April: For the first time in 150 years, the national census is requiring people to state their religion in the freedom loving British Isles. Failure to comply will result in stiff fines starting at 100 pounds. Worse yet is the fine for putting down a frivolous religion - 500 pounds. This does not sit well with the leaders of teh Anglican Church of Jedi, who are espousing that some fans of the Star Wars saga take the Jedi teachings to heart as their real religion. If over 8000 censor responses declare Jedi, under British law it will be a recognized religion.     Net News; > ================================================= >            from Gilder Publishing >              THE FRIDAY LETTER >    e-mailed weekly, for friends and subscribers > ================================================= >            | http://www.gilder.com | > > April 6, 2001  THE WEEK/Hot Air > > The global warming debate reveals that plutomores-rich fools-have reached > high positions in the Administration of George W. Bush. Apparently fooled > by copious coverage of the Democratic "victory" in Florida, many > Republican grandees remain baffled by the presence of conservatives in > Washington. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill actually came to believe that > he was moving to the city to serve as a token Republican in the > administration of Al Gore. The Alcoa corpocrat devoted his first Cabinet > presentation to an earnest tract on global warming, urging his baffled > companions to save the planet from Republican religionists apparently > awaiting the second coming in rubber boots on Long Island beaches and golf > courses. He all but said the Earth Is In the Balance. > Washington is not alone. In a scientific establishment fifty percent > financed by government, scores of scientists have undergone the pressures > that befall any critic of the cult of human-caused global warming. > Fortunately, not all. My friend Arthur Robinson has been battling climate > doom sayers for a decade from his Oregon redoubt. Craig and Keith Idso's > Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global > Change--www.co2science.org --picks up pieces the heat-addled press won't > touch, including a trenchant summation by Columbia's National Medal of > Science winning climatologist Wallace Broecker in the prestigious pages of > Science earlier this year. Entitled "Was the Medieval Warm Period > Global?," Broecker's answer is a resounding "yes," and builds the case for > a series of climatic warmings spaced at roughly 1500 year intervals. > Harvard astrophysicists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon, citing evidence > from peat bogs in northeastern China, have extended the record of such > swings back a full six millennia. They report changes in the Sun's energy > output 70,000 times more significant than all human activity put together. > In the end, the global warming panic will take its place in the history > books next to other environmental chimeras, such as the threat of DDT (but > not of pandemic malaria), the peril of nuclear power (but not of coal > mining), the brain curdling effect of cell phones (but not of far more > potent sun rays), the menace of power lines (but not of poverty). > > Politicized scientists with government grants and dubious computer models > persuaded the world's politicians to make pompous fools of themselves in > Kyoto. Socialist politicians were happy to join a movement to impose > regulation over the world energy supply, and thus over the world economy. > The science is blowing up in their faces. But rather than admit error they > persist in fear-mongering. When this happened with DDT, hundreds of > millions of people died of malaria. They continue to die. How many people > would die as a result of an energy clamp on global capitalism? > > George Gilder