Whatsthatsmell?

One cheery note...

I enrolled for the final class that will allow me to graduate and get my Bachelors degree in March.

There was a little button in my online account marked: Apply for Graduation.  I clicked that button, selected Winter 2009 quarter, and felt that I've really hit a milestone.  It has been 21 years since I first stepped foot in a university class.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel at least a little verklempt.

Wa-Hey!

My grade just in for the Entrepreneurial Finance class I took this past quarter...

Another "A"...My GPA is now 3.856...

Four more quarters to go to get my Bachelors Degree in Business Finance...

(Mind you, it would have been easier to finish my Bachelors the first time around, 20 years ago...)

On to "Investments and Portfolio Management" at the end of next week.

Educashun, Educashun, Educashun

I came across this story originally in the print version of the Evening Standard last week.

Mary Bousted, the leader of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers has been making a few waves with her assertion that schools shouldn't be teaching facts like what happened in 1066, but should take up a skills-based curriculum, just like in Sweden.

I tell you what, if you let us have school vouchers, like they do in Sweden, we'll let you dumb down the kids teach life skills in  state schools.

So, who really won the Cold War?

Particularly here in Great Britain:

How many citizens who were robbed knew that the police didn't even bother to look for the criminals, didn't even set a case in motion, so as not to spoil their record of completed cases - why should they sweat to catch a thief if he would be given only six months, and then be given three months off for good behaviour?  And anyway, it wasn't certain the bandits would even be tried when caught.

Finally, sentences were bound to be reduced, and of course for habitual criminals especially.  Watch out there now, witness in the courtroom!  They will all be back soon, and it'll be a knife in the back for anyone who gave testimony!

Therefore, if you see someone crawling through a window [...] shut your eyes! Walk by!  You didn't see anything!

Three guesses as to who wrote that. 

Peter Hitchens?  No.

Melanie Phillips?  No.

Theodore Dalrymple?  No.

Whew! Glad that's over...

Just finished my final assignments for this quarter's course in Risk Management.  Looks like I'll chalk up another A.

Entrepreneurial Finance next quarter, just five more quarters to go and I will have my Bachelors....It's so close now, I can taste it.

Ignorance and Freedom vs. Education and Slavery, Part II

Carrying on from my earlier e-mail conversation with my friend.

He replied, tongue-in-cheek, with two salient points:

you’re saying ignorant bliss is preferable to educated slavery. Both, very poor options, no? The problem with freedom-loving yokels is that you can give them any facts at all and they can’t fight it except on whether it “feels” right or not. The people interviewed mostly seemed switched off in almost all socio-political issues (ask them about sport or entertainment and you might get a different reaction) which is open season for the unethical or even well-intentioned leader with an agenda.

and

I mean Vietnam too! Apart from when you guys stepped in at the end of WWII has the US actually “won” a war it got itself involved in (forget Hollywood please)?

What follows is my reply:

Ignorance and Freedom vs. Education and Slavery

A very dear English friend of mine who lives in Portugal sent me this link.  I'm sure you have probably seen it before.  He asked me what I thought of it, and how it made him think that maybe having the voting franchise extended to everyone in the US may not necessarily be a good idea.  He wanted my reply because he knew he could count on something out of me...So here it is: