Civitas Review Online

Monday night’s House session was recessed in order for an Appropriations Committee meeting to occur.  Once the House Appropriations Committee made their way out of the chamber and down to a meeting room, Approps. Chairman Mickey Michaux (D-Durham) relayed the news:  "We’re deadlocked."  Rep. Leo Daughtry (R-Johnston) asked what were the sticking points.  Michaux responded that the House and Senate were too far apart on the education and capital expenditures. 

The committee then approved a measure designed to continue the budget process through July 15th.  When asked about a future timetable Michaux declined to speculate.

Rumors in the halls of the legislature say that the Appropriations chairs are thinking about adding money to teacher’s first two pay steps by taking the cash from Governor Easley’s More At Four program.  Given the Governor’s fondness for this program, he won’t let it die without a fight. 

More to come on Jones Street.

… so send in the entrepreneurs.

Annually, commuting for Americans is now costing the average citizen over $2,000 dollars, according to the US Department of Energy.  The world forecast for energy consumption over the next 20-25 years will double.  With negative news regarding energy production flooding daily headlines and prices at the pump steadily climbing, Americans want to know what is being done to reverse this course?  This story is off the beaten path but nevertheless will address domestic production in a way never thought of before.

This kind of entrepreneurship is needed and that kind of entrepreneurship will eventually lead us out of our current energy crisis. 

LS9’s idea may not be the golden goose. But enough cases of trial-and-error will provide substantial results and most importantly, increased domestic energy production that is needed to lower prices.  Some American’s want Uncle Sam to step in and artificially deflate energy prices.  A minority of voters want windfall profit taxes on oil producing companies.  Neither option leads to increased supply and actually both may be dis-incentives for oil companies to invest in exploration and drilling.

Many argue that if ANWR or off shore drilling were suddenly allowed tomorrow, it would take 10 or more years to realize any increased production (and when oil did start to flow it would only lower prices by a few pennies).  Should LS9 give up now even if their possible solution is not completed in the next 5 -10 years?  What if the prices that are ‘a few pennies lower’ are in terms of $2.29 versus $2.27 a gallon?  (Not saying they will be).  If in the next decade domestic oil production is not increased, what will the future look like without the additional supply?  Would the price per gallon go up by dollars instead of going down by cents?      

(Note: LS9 was a private start-up company, where investors in our free-market saw the increasing value for alternative energy sources and decided after weighing risk and potential reward to invest at their free will.  Absent were government planners and bureaucracy; Present were incentives and ideas.)

Your next thought should be that the person uttering this phrase is challenged in terms of economics.

Here’s a good explanation.

The Congressional leadership would like to find a scapegoat for energy prices. "Speculators" have been blamed for everything from the Great Depression to the housing bubble. But a fundamental understanding of futures markets – not to mention supply and demand – will help us cool our heads and temper our blame-laying. Indeed, if we look at the basic issue of supply (particularly in a lack of any real increase in domestic supply), the problem lies at the feet of those shouting the loudest about "speculators" on Capitol Hill.
-Max Borders

As reported below, Blue Ridge Community College is renting out space tomorrow to the Mexican consulate’s mobile unit which will be meeting with illegal aliens to supply them with consular ID cards (matricula consulars).

The college is making $360 from the deal — to rent out the space beginning 6 pm tonight and ending 9 pm tomorrow.

See the application here: Download aplication.pdf

The matricula consular is still accepted by the North Carolina DMV as proof of residency.  Yet, the FBI warns that matricula consulars are "vulnerable to fraud and forgery."

According to officials at Blue Ridge, the public is not invited to the event and "groups or individuals may not come on campus to monitor." Added Director of Public Relations Lee Anna Haney, "We have no reason to believe that any illegal actitivity will take place on Saturday."

U.S. law prohibits using any building to conceal, harbor or shield from detection an illegal alien. Yet, providing illegal aliens with ID cards is an attempt to conceal or obscure the fact that they are "undocumented." And Blue Ridge Community College is providing the building.

In what may become a campaign issue for some candidates in the mountains, Republican nominee for the U.S. House Dr. Carl Mumpower has issued a press release on this issue and is organizing a protest.

One can only hope Henderson County Sheriff Rick Davis — who as an elected official has taken an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution — will be there too.

NC Listen is reporting that the Mexican consulate’s mobile unit is going to be on the campus of Blue Ridge Community College issuing matricula consulars (Mexican IDs) to illegal aliens on Saturday, June 28, 2008.

Read the press release:

This story is developing … updates to come soon!

Just yesterday, I wrote about how unpopular the British healthcare system has become. Today comes news that the man largely responsible for Canada’s conversion to a single-payer health care system has admitted the system’s failure:

"Back in the 1960s, (Claude) Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.

The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: "the father of Quebec medicare." Even this title seems modest; Castonguay’s work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast."

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."

"We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

As more and more nations throughout the world seek to infuse more private, market-based solutions into their government-controlled healthcare systems, for some reason lefties in this country want to make the same mistake that countries like Canada made decades ago. Let’s hope voters in North Carolina and across the US wake up, or else we may be forced to confront "rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money" into a system that even one of its pioneers admits to being a failure.

There’s been much publicity (News & Observer) about a recent National Research Council study that says students taught by teachers with National Board of Professional Teaching Standards Certification (NBPTS) do better in school than those whose teachers are not nationally certified. Educators and teacher groups around the state are touting the study as proof that not only are North Carolina’s 12,770 nationally certified teachers making a difference, but also that the state’s 12 percent salary differential it awards to certified teachers is a good investment.

The study — which included a large sample of NC students and teachers — was intended to put to rest some of the questions that have hovered around the certification program. A closer look at the study and news reports suggests that results in North Carolina aren’t quite what we’ve been led to believe. Instead of answering these questions, the study may have only raised more. Education Week (6.18.08) reported that students with nationally certified teachers seemed to score higher than students with teachers without the credential. However when researchers analyzed studies, most of them struggled to assess the exact impacts of NBPTS.

‘Most of the studies asked: When students have nationally certified teachers are test scores higher, and the answer is unambiguously yes,’ said panel member Mark Dynarski, a senior fellow at Mathematica  Policy Research Inc, in Princeton New Jersey and director of the federal What Works Clearinghouse.

The committee struggled though over how to characterize the size of the programs impact on students’ test scores. In North Carolina, for instance, the effect sizes ranged from .04 to .08 – the latter translating to about 1 point on a test with a mean score of 150 (emphasis mine), according to the report.

On the question of what happens to teachers once they acquire NBPTS certification,   Education Week continued…

While one study showed that board certified teachers were more likely to stay in teaching, data from North Carolina suggest, that once they achieve certification, they change jobs at a higher rate than do unsuccessful applicants for the credential.  And when they move, the statistics show, they end up in teaching jobs where student achievement levels are higher and student poverty levels are lower.

The disappointing findings regarding student achievement scores and teacher migration raise obvious questions about the cost effectiveness of NBPTS. While the NRC study was unable to draw any firm conclusions about cost effectiveness, a few quick calculations might contribute to this discussion. 

North Carolina has 12,770 nationally certified teachers. Staff at the Fiscal Research Office tells me NBPTS teachers received an average $527 more per month. On an average 10 month schedule, that’s $5,270 in additional NBPTS pay per year.  A conservative estimate of annual state salary costs for 12,770 certified teachers is $67.3 million ($5,270 x 12,770).  Sixty-seven million for a 1 point increase in student test scores?  Does NBPTS really make a difference in NC?  I’m not against teachers. However,  I don’t think the NRC study can be used to tout the benefits of certification in North Carolina. If someone wants to forward evidence that this program is cost effective, I’m waiting.   

So much for giving peace a chance.

Darling of the left and one of the original "Deaniacs" – Visiting Duke University Law Professor Zephyr Teachout – apparently got a little rough with former Senator and WWII veteran Bob Dole at AFP’s Take Back Our State rally. Classy.

Word has it former Senator Dole ended up with bruises after the Duke Prof grabbed the man’s arm rather forcefully. Was she trying to make a point? Was she trying literally to pull information about the man’s lobbying activities out of him? Was she over-exuberant in thanking him for his military and public service? Can’t say. Wasn’t there. But here is some insight from Dallas Woodhouse who posted in the comments over at the socialist website Progressive Pulse:

"I saw many faces from the far left at the event, and I was glad to see them. With one exception…

Zephyr R. Teachout, Visiting Assistant Professor of Law did far more than “approached Dole to ask him if he would make public all of his foreign lobbying clients.”

Teachout grabbed Sen. Dole’s wrist and would not let go. I saw the deep bruises in his wrist. This of course was the wrist on his one good arm. He lost use of his arm right arm in World War 2. He is a true war hero and should not be assulted by a Duke professor.

Duke University should think long and hard about being involved with a woman who would treat any human being like that.

I would not treat [a] dog like she treated a American hero yesterday."

Wow.

Here’s Professor Teachout’s reply to Dallas:

"Dear Dallas,

Thank you for alerting me to this, and I have sent Senator Dole my apologies.

I did not grab his wrist. I shook his hand. I appreciate your calling my attention to shaking it too hard. I certainly did not mean to hurt him.

Zephyr"

Hmmm. Funny, all those Iraq War veterans shook his hand and managed not to hurt him. How did he get bruises on his wrist from a hand-shake from a rather spritely Duke Prof? Stranger medical mysteries have occurred, but it’s more probable that Professor Teachout’s zeal and freedom-hatred led her to get too rough. Bob Dole can take it. It’ll likely go no further.

But if the situation had been reversed, Teachout would probably have spun the whole event into felony charges — much like her Duke colleagues (Inquisitors), the Gang of 88 would have spun it in the down-is-up world of the postmodern left.

(Teachout is known for applying distributed, voluntary networks to politics. Sadly, she supports the exact opposite for the economy: rigid, hierarchical control by interest seekers and socialist do-gooders.)

Looks like business as usual again in Raleigh as budget-makers stage behind closed door meetings to determine how to spend your tax money.

As this N&O article notes:

"House and Senate leaders held such a meeting on Thursday morning. But when a News & Observer reporter tried to enter, they barred him."

So much for government for the people, by the people. When a news reporter is kicked out of a budget negotiation meeting – what are we to infer from the dealings in that meeting? What are these lawmakers doing that they don’t want reported to the public?

But then the plot thickens:

"Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, could not cite a reason under the public meetings law why a reporter would be excluded. But he said the meeting had nothing to do with the budget.

‘Because we were just hearing a report from staff," Rand said. "It had nothing to do with negotiations.’"

And then there’s this:

"Budget negotiators were the only ones attending. A glimpse into the meeting showed Dan Gerlach, senior budget adviser to Gov. Mike Easley, and legislative fiscal workers addressing the lawmakers.

Gerlach left several minutes later.

What were they meeting about?

"Talking about the budget," Gerlach said as he walked away."

So, either Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand or Governer Easley’s top budget aide Dan Gerlach is lying about what was being discussed in that meeting. 

Why all the secrets and lying? And more important, why do liberals in this state want to entrust more of our money and power in the hands of these folks?

Love this from the Anti-Planner: That’s why Joseph Perkins, head of the Northern California Home Building Association (who happens to be black) says that “smart growth is the new Jim Crow.”