The dangers of homeschooling!
Posted on August 9, 2005 by voxday
Deborah Robinson didn't call a doctor, prosecutors said yesterday, when her daughter botched an attempt to pierce her own belly button and a life-threatening infection set in. She didn't call one when the girl, in excruciating pain, took to the living room couch three weeks ago and basically stopped eating or moving, prosecutors said. And she didn't call when her daughter lost control of her bowels; instead, prosecutors say, Robinson put her 13-year-old in diapers….
"She walks her kids to school and picks them up every day," said Pamela Gray, a friend and neighbor who said she has known Robinson for nine years. "She was really involved."
Um, wait a minute…. okay, never mind, call off the media hounds.
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Lisa Lisa tickles her tonsils with her toes:
Yes. It's defintely the influx of WOMEN into the workforce that casued this low 'real wage'. It's not:
a) the exponential increase in child births
b ) the exponential influx of immigrants (both legal and illegal)
c) the increase in the retirement age, thus putting exponential increases of people working later in life in the work force
d) the exponential growth of corporations in this country
e) drops in economy because of exponential offshoring of jobs
Jesus….for a woman….I just made this guy look like an idiot. I better get back in the kitchen. What are these shoes doing on my feet?
Let's deal with this intelligent, liberated woman's points one at a time, shall we?
a) US birth rate 1970: 18.4. US birth rate 2004: 14.1. It would appear that Lisa Lisa is making use of a hitherto unknown usage of the term "exponential increase".
b) Immigrants increase consumption demand as well as labor supply. This mitigates their impact on labor pricing. Domestic women, already being consumers, can only drive the price of labor down by increasing its supply.
c) "Census and Social Security data show that between 1975 and 1990, the labor force participation rate among 55- to 64-year-olds changed differently by gender. Men's labor force participation rate fell to 68 percent from 76 percent, while that of women rose to 45 percent from 41 percent. For women older than 65 years, the labor force participation rate rose slightly to 8.7 percent from 8.2 percent, although among men older than 65 years, it fell to 16 percent from 22 percent." Again, Lisa Lisa has it backwards. The net effect of changes in the retirement age was beneficial to the price of labor.
d) More corporations = less labor? (shakes head in disbelief)
I have to go mow the lawn, so I'll address e) in a bit, as well as provide some BLS statistics I've got somewhere for c) that cover the full range of years from 1972 to 2003 and make the picture more clear.
But she sure made me look stupid, didn't she! I don't think it would be wise to leave this woman alone in the kitchen with sharp objects, let alone a voting booth.
UPDATE: Where were we? Ah, yes, BLS statistics… let me see….
c) In 1970, 83 percent of men 55-64 and 26.8 percent of 65+ men worked. In 2000, those numbers had dropped to 67.3 percent and 17.5 percent. Women went from 43 percent (55-64) and 9.7 percent (65+) to 51.8 percent and 9.4 percent. As I already stated, the net effect on the price of labor was positive.
e) Globalization is a mixed bag. Jobs go elsewhere, reducing demand for labor, but the opening of foreign markets to US products also creates demand for it. This is Lisa Lisa's one potentially salient point, but its net effect cannot quantified or even characterized with any degree of certainty, whereas supply/demand effects are pretty obvious. The labor force grew from 60 percent of the population in 1970 to 67 percent in 2000, a 11.7 percent increase. Only those completely ignorant of basic economic theory could believe that the simultaneous 16.3 percent decline in real wages is purely coincidental.
The Bible scores again
From Drudge:
Workers repairing a sewage pipe in the old city of Jerusalem have discovered the biblical Pool of Siloam, a freshwater reservoir that was a major gathering place for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city and the reputed site where Jesus cured a man blind from birth, the LOS ANGELES TIMES reports.
The pool was fed by the now famous Hezekiah's Tunnel and is "a much grander affair" than archeologists previously believed, with three tiers of stone stairs allowing easy access to the water, according to Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archeology Review, which reported the find Monday.
"Scholars have said that there wasn't a Pool of Siloam and that John was using a religious conceit" to illustrate a point, said New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth of the Princeton Theological Seminary. "Now we have found the Pool of Siloam … exactly where John said it was." A gospel that was thought to be "pure theology is now shown to be grounded in history," he said.
You'd think those foolish scientists would have learned by now. From Assyrians to Hittites, from obscure Greek honorifics to the Pool of Siloam, the Bible repeatedly proves to be more reliable than the conceit-filled opinions of modern archeologists.
That's an impressive series of coincidences for an ancient book of fairy tales with no historical value whatsoever.
Mailvox: everyone's a critic
Spacebunny writes:
I don't actually pick the movies. These are just the ones that happen to be on t.v. I haven't actually rented a movie in years. Besides, the last movie Vox picked was Van Helsing for pity's sake.
It was a movie with Kate Beckinsale wearing a tight corset! I apologize for nothing. Sure, it wasn't as good as the movie with Kate Beckinsale in a vinyl catsuit, but… oh, who am I kidding. Van Helsing was the worst movie I have seen in a long, long time. The writers should have VH branded on their foreheads just so no one will ever make the mistake of hiring them again, and the director should be rolled in bat guano then forced to parade through Hollywood wearing nothing but a black cape and plastic fangs.
Yes, these are MY readers
The Sports Guy doesn't have a monopoly on those who tread the borderlands between sanity and lunacy:
I've survived the diversity training courses they made me take, ala "A Clockwork Orange". They can't break me. I may end up on the desk like Gibson in Braveheart screaming "Freedom!" but I won't be wearing any rainbows.
That's the spirit! Nice work, BillyD.