Going to New Orleans

Not that I have been the best about keeping up my blog recently, but work has actually been work recently. (I'm actually quite happy about that.)

But, no blogging til at least next Tuesday. Going to party at Mardi Gras. I feel I am doing my part to stimulate the Gulf Coast Economy.

Hell, I can't do a worse job than FEMA.

Paying Kids to 'Rat'

In an era where kids get suspended for touching and hugging in school, it is not hard to find examples of school administrators going overboard. Yet this story strikes me as particularly troubling:

School administrators in Howard County have decided to continue offering cash to students for informing on their classmates, a practice that was sharply criticized after a high school principal offered to pay for information about a cafeteria food fight in December.

The school defends the practice:

"These are criminal actions to a large extent," she said, mentioning hate crimes, destruction of school property and the pulling of a fire alarm as examples of incidents that could warrant offering reward money. Students apprehended in such situations, she said, "are still given due process."

Exactly where do food fights fall between racially-motivated beatings and throwing cherry bombs in toilets?

Who knows? This may be a good thing. After all, paying confidential informants always works well in the real world.

Weekly Standard Develops Sense of Humor

In the upcoming issue of the Weekly Standard, the always funny P.J. O'Rourke has a masterful column describing the American electoral process to Europeans:

Hillary Clinton is "America's ex-wife."

A man can be a Democrat to the core, going into the voting booth to pull the lever with the donkey label no matter what. Then he sees Hillary's name on the ballot. And it all comes back to him .  .  . the first marriage .  .  . the time he came home a little late, it wasn't even midnight, and he'd only had four or five beers, and she threw his bowling ball down the storm sewer.