But Can They Be Declared "Legally Stupid?"

Sometimes the mainline news is just too strange to be true. A New York (could have been anywhere else other than California?) court is today weighing arguments that three convicts cannot be guilty of murder because they were "too intoxicated" to realize that they were a danger to themselves or others.

Yes. You read that right. It's amazing the lengths some people will go to in order to avoid taking personal responsibility for their own actions. Worse, it's amazing what lengths attorneys will go to in order to help them do so.

From MSN:

The murder convictions of Martin Heidgen, Taliyah Taylor and Franklin McPherson all hinge on the prosecution's contention they acted with "depraved indifference to human life" in fatal crashes that share a number of common threads: driving too fast in the wrong lane while under the influence.
Defense attorneys argued prosecutors failed to prove their clients acted with depraved indifference and, in fact, their clients were too impaired to know what they were doing.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims, and with the judge in the case hoping common sense will prevail on the bench.

Sic vis pacem parabellum.

MT

Arizona to Require Citizenship Proof for State Elections

Illegal Immigration and Arizona, next round.

From MSN:

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 in June to strike down a voter-registration law designed to stop illegal immigrants from casting ballots in the state, which borders Mexico and has been at the heart of the U.S. national battle over immigration.
The law had required would-be voters to show proof of citizenship both when registering to vote and when casting a ballot, but the court ruled that the measure was trumped by federal law.
On Monday, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne spelled out the new policy in an opinion issued in response to a request from Secretary of State Ken Bennett, seeking clarification in light of the top court's ruling.
"Those who registered to vote using the federal form, which does not require evidence of citizenship, should not vote in state elections or sign petitions," Horne, a Republican, concluded in the 16-page opinion.
Related: Southern states are moving to tighten voting rules
But he said the rules outlined in the Arizona voter registration measure, Proposition 200, were still valid for local elections.
"Persons seeking to register to vote must comply with Proposition 200's evidence of citizenship requirement in order to become ... eligible to vote in state and local elections and to sign candidates, initiative, referendum or recall petitions," he added.

It should be noted that illegal immigration is not as tolerated in Mexico, which has, traditionally, had some very harsh penalties for persons found to be in Mexico illegally. Under pressure from the U.S., Mexico has begun to implement changes to their own policies regarding illegal immigration within Mexican borders.

One has to wonder how many "undocumented workers" have been furloughed by the U.S. federal government during the shutdown.

Does the government practice what it preaches in the hiring of  the "undocumented?"

Or is this something that the government, once again, expects for the rest of the country to tolerate and promote while exempting itself?

Sic vis pacem parabellum.

MT

American Kids Aren't the Only Ones With Low Test Scores

For years concern has been raised that American children do not fair as well as children from other countries in academics. Public education has been trying, in my opinion unsuccessfully, to rectify this problem by introducing standardized curriculum and standardized testing across the country, but it hasn't seemed to make the impact that was desired.

Unless you ask the companies who create the standardized subjects.

From MSN:

WASHINGTON — It's long been known that America's school kids haven't measured well compared with international peers. Now, there's a new twist: Adults don't either.
In math, reading and problem-solving using technology — all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength — American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.
Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test. Beyond basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileage reimbursement due to a salesman, sorting email and comparing food expiration dates on grocery store tags.
Not only did Americans score poorly compared to many international competitors, the findings reinforced just how large the gap is between the nation's high- and low-skilled workers and how hard it is to move ahead when your parents haven't.

The study does note that children of college graduates do preform better than those children of parents who did not attend college.

The point is this: we are too concerned with teaching political trends in our school systems today, especially at the younger ages, than we are in teaching our children how to do one simple thing, the art of thinking. We have removed the thought process, the practice of using intellect and reason, from our classrooms and school systems, teaching a watered down, spoon fed, agenda driven curriculum in the classroom, that agenda mainly being the content of what will be on the standardized tests that students take at different points throughout their school years. Our kids are becoming experts on filling in the little bubbles on a card that will be scanned in to check their responses, but give them an essay examination  and the results are often frightening. Correct grammar is hard to find, as text message lingo often is used in place of correct grammatical entries. Throwing in the allowance of cell phones into the classroom,  kids today have learned a new way of getting answers that they've found on television, most notably from game shows, by using the "phone a friend" method of getting answers to questions they don't know themselves.

If the United States (I still, personally, cringe at using the generalized "Americans," as there is no nation called "America") is to succeed internationally in competition with other countries, then we're going to have to revert to an older method of teaching, and that is to include using rational thought processes back in the daily curriculum

Sic vis pacem parabellum

MT