That's nothing. My high-school social studies teacher was the President of the California Radical Teachers Association. No joke.

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Guest commentary by Inigo Montoya: Freedom. You keep using that word. I do not think it means, what you think it means. American professor fired for showing cartoons to students in UAE. Here is the money quote:

Shaikh Nahyan emphasised that there is freedom of opinion and expression in the UAE, as well as academic freedom enjoyed by all educational institutions, but what happened in Zayed University does not relate, in any sense, to any relevant concept of freedom.

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Denmark is the only nation other than the United States that celebrates US Independence Day on July 4th as a national holiday. I found out about this when I was a stamp collector and came across a series of Danish stamps celebrating US Independence, issued on July 4th. Kinda cool.

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[Ed note: this post is a response to Dean Esmay's post which shows that at least two Muslim countries are considered 'liberal democracies', the conclusion being that Islam is not antithetical to liberalism, and Rusty's response which argues that a more meaningful measure would be to correlate the number of Muslims in a country with that country's freedom index. Demosophist and Rusty hash out the methodological problems associated with this statistical analysis here.]

OK, I did some coding last night and obtained the latest Freedom House Indices for 2006 as well as some numbers for the percent of the population that's Muslim for 164 countries. Although I have some fairly consequencial objections to Rusty's methodology regarding this data, I thought I'd go ahead and run some correlations and a quick regression using both of the composite Freedom House indices that I calculated. (Basically it's just the mean of civil liberty and political freedom, so doesn't include press freedom.) I'm not sure how to present the regressions, but since they show essentially the same picture as the Pearson correlation coefficients I'll just post those first.

Correlation between % Muslims and the 2001 Freedom House Index = 0.6044
Correlation between % Muslims and the 2006 Freedom House Index = 0.5650

For those not familiar with correlation, anything over 0.5 is considered large. But things at least seem to be moving in the right direction. As one might expect since the regression is on only one variable it shows pretty much the same pattern as the correlations. The raw coefficient for the percent Muslim for 2001 is 0.031. That means that for each increase of 1% in the percentage of Muslims in the population the level of freedom goes down by 0.031 points on a scale of 7. (Roughly 1 in 200.) The relationship is also highly significant.

In other words, the relationship has positive slope. (Remember that the dependent variable isn't freedom, but repression, because the higher the score the less free the society.)

Now, using the 2006 index the coefficient for the percentage of Muslims goes down a bit, to 0.029. However both numbers are within a 95% confidence interval. For those used to thinking in terms of beta coefficients, the betas are mathematically identical to the Pearson coefficients above, for a simple regression like this. Unlike the raw coefficients these are scaled to variation, which is why they're called "standard coefficients." They provide a little better sense of what's going on: about 0.04 for 5 years, or about 0.01 per year. (I guess it depends on when you start counting.) That's not very much in absolute terms, but it'd be interesting to know whether it's greater or less than the previous 5 year period. Is the trend toward freedom in the Ummah accelerating or decelerating?

I used only one set of numbers for the percent Muslim, because it was all I could find. For anyone who'd like to duplicate this effort, and possibly retain a few more cases, the data are here. They're for 2005 so the change in percent Muslim from 2001 to 2006 probably doesn't explain why the coefficient has dropped, since the percentage of Muslims has been growing. For the 2001 regression the percentage of Muslims is overestimated, so the actual coefficient would he greater relative to the 2006 number that this analysis shows. In other words the resistance to freedom in the Muslim world may be dropping faster than this suggests. It's hard to say how much greater unless one finds the percent Muslim data for 2001, which I don't have. But assuming the drop is real and significant (the coefficient for a "dummy variable" for 2006 is negative and almost significant at the 90% confidence level with a coefficient for the percent Muslim of 0.30) it's reasonable to suppose that the change is either part of a long term trend toward freedom, or it's a result of policies followed by the US. At any rate this analysis certainly doesn't support the Left's notion that Bush is making things worse. (We sort of knew that though, right?)

The bottom line is that Islam puts up considerable resistance to civil and political freedom, but that resistance is at least not increasing over time, and it is probably decreasing.

Well, make of it what you will.

(Cross-posted to Demosophia)

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Iran's official news agency bemoans the spread of Islamophobia in Europe:

"Unfortunately, Islamophobia is currently spreading in Europe in different forms and at an alarming speed.

"Insult to Islamic values and Muslims' sanctity in the West has been now turned into a main challenge facing the Islamic nations now. It is vital to seriously confront this challenge," Mottaki said.

The regrettable "Islamophobia" problem follows other evil Western obsessions like "Jew-burning-Naziphobia", "Mass-murdering-Communistphobia", and, of course, "Baby-blood-drinking-Mongolhordephobia".

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto and Vince Aut Morire.

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Former National Security Lawyer and Central Intelligence Agency Officer H. Bryan Cunningham has submitted a 24-page letter to Arlen Specter, Patrick Leahy, and ten other Congressional leaders that raises serious questions about the Constitutionality of the FISA law.

Taken to its logical extreme, the Critics' position would fundamentally alter the system of separation of powers and checks and balances created by our Constitution, transforming our governmental system into one in which Congress alone reigns supreme in virtually all spheres of governmental action

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto and Vince Aut Morire.

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OK, I'll just get this second post in under the wire if I'm lucky. And I wouldn't even bother were it not for the fact that I think the state of academia is important to the emergence of a New Liberalism (in the classic anti-statist sense). A friend of mine at the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions posted the following link to an article in Inside Higher Education that's about the details of a rather smarmy movement. I mean you really have to keep your wits about you to suss out what these folks actually intend, which is the educational establishment equivalent of selling a bullet-to-the-head as a cure for migraines. Excerpting:
more...

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From the LA Times:

A fledgling alumni group headed by a former campus Republican leader is offering students payments of up to $100 per class to provide information on instructors who are "abusive, one-sided or off-topic" in advocating political ideologies.

The year-old Bruin Alumni Assn. says its "Exposing UCLA's Radical Professors" initiative takes aim at faculty "actively proselytizing their extreme views in the classroom, whether or not the commentary is relevant to the class topic." Although the group says it is concerned about radical professors of any political stripe, it has named an initial "Dirty 30" of teachers it identifies with left-wing or liberal causes.

If you find yourself ashamed of your political views, it might be time to change them.

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto.

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Apparently in the U.K. they have affirmative action for the Irish. Which they need. Filthy drunks....

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Another traitor found teaching at another Florida institution of higher learning. Sami Al-Arian must be happy to know that he's not the only traitor running loose in South Florida's academy. I'm thinking they could get their buddies together for an annual conference of the University Association of Spies, Traitors, Jew Haters, and Terror Supporters of South Florida.

UPDATE: Here is what FIU's webpage says about Carlos M. Alvaraz.

Carlos M. Álvarez is associate professor in the department of educational leadership and policy studies and a member of the faculty coordinating committee of the graduate certificate program in conflict resolution. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Florida. Dr. Álvarez teaches graduate level courses and conducts research on topics related to conflict resolution and the construction of ethnonational identities. He recently published a book entitled Ethnic Identity: Understanding Contemporary Perspectives. He has also published essays on the issue of Cuban American identity from a social psychological perspective. Dr. Álvarez has worked for more than 25 years as a consultant, visiting professor, lecturer, and trainer at different educational institutions in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Spain.

Carlos M. Alvarez is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations and Professional Studies in the College of Education at FIU. He received a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Florida in 1972, and is a specialist in the psychology of ethnic identities, interactive conflict resolution,and higher education in Latin American and the Caribbean. Dr. Alvarez has chaired discussion groups and presented papers relating to Cuban-American ethnic identity, education and society in Cuba, and the political psychology of U.S.-Cuban relations at several international conferences. He has been a consultant for a number of educational institutions and organizations, including the Department of Educational Planning and Research for the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. Published works include "Ethnicity: A review of related concepts" in Cultural and Social Foundations of Education: An Interdisciplinary Approach (1996) and "La identidad Cubano-Americana en el sur de la Florida: Un analisis contextual" in Razon y pasión: Veinticinco años de estudios cubanos (1996).

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From the Edmonton Journal:

Canada's forests may actually worsen global warming rather than cool the planet, says a controversial study by a Stanford University physicist and environmental scientist.

Trees soak up massive amounts of energy from the sun. Much of this, he argues, is gradually released in the form of heat, especially in dark evergreen forests in the north, but also in temperate forests.

Unlike tropical forests, Canadian forests don't release much cooling moisture.

His computer model indicates that this warming influence is more powerful than the cooling job that forests do when they soak up carbon dioxide.

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto.

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From Breitbart.com via The Drudge Report:

An extraordinary burst of global warming that occurred around 55 million years ago dramatically reversed Earth's pattern of ocean currents, a finding that strengthens modern-day concern about climate change, a study says.

The big event, the Palaeocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), saw the planet's surface temperature rise by between five and eight degrees C (nine and 16.2 F) in a very short time, unleashing climate shifts that endured tens of thousands of years.

What unleashed the PETM is unclear. Most fingers of blame point to volcanic eruptions that disgorged gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, or coastal reservoirs of methane gas, sealed by icy soil, that were breached by warmer temperatures or receding seas.

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto .

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In the comment section of a recent post about an impending "Intra-Generational Conflict" one reader (IM) observes:

I call these trustfund babies the "rage against your allowance" generation.

VDH sees something similar, but afflicting the entire culture in "The Plague of Success:"

What explains this paradox of public disappointment over things that turn out better than anticipated? Why are we like children who damn their parents for not providing yet another new toy when the present one is neither paid for nor yet out of the wrapper?

more...

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This article, from the Chicago Sun Times explains why so many of these folks seem like such brats:

Harris, 19, is in her second year at Loyola University. But she has no desire to distance herself from her parents now that she no longer lives at home. Nor does she plan to rely less as a college student on her parents for help or advice.

"Something happens, your first thought is call Mom,'' she says. "Mom will fix it.''

The record number of students now at colleges and universities are bringing with them something not seen as much on campus in generations past: their parents. The current generation of students, experts say, increasingly chooses to maintain strong bonds with their parents. With cell phones and e-mail, they're able to stay in touch to a degree not seen among previous generations. The strings are so tight some experts have come up with a name for these college students -- the "coddled generation.''

I'm sure there are some good things about remaining close to your parents, but the contrast with the folks in this LA Times article by Robert Kaplan (who are from the same generation, ironically) could not be starker:

Regardless of whether you support or oppose the U.S. engagement in Iraq, you should be aware that that country has had a startling effect on a new generation of soldiers often from troubled backgrounds, whose infantry training has provided no framework for building democracy from scratch.

At a Thanksgiving evangelical service, one NCO told the young crowd to cheers: "The Pilgrims during the first winter in the New World suffered a 54% casualty rate from disease and cold. That's a casualty rate that would render any of our units combat ineffective. But did the Pilgrims sail back to England? Did they give up? No. This country isn't a quitter. It doesn't withdraw."

I see trouble brewin' when Group I clashes with Group II. More at The Belmont Club.

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A UCLA study linking news media reporting to Americans for Democratic Action political scorecards found a "significant" bias to the left:

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Via The Drudge Report.

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Two finals to give today. A haiku dedicated to the Scantron.

A, B, C, or D?
Number 2 pencil on thee
all hopes and dreams rest.

No blogging for me.

UPDATE: Consider this an open mike in comments section and open invitation for co-bloggers to, you know, pick up the slack.

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You ever notice that so many grandmothers seem to die during finals week?

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From the Boston Globe:

BENNINGTON, Vt. --The school superintendent whose district includes Mount Anthony Union High School has labeled "inappropriate" and "irresponsible" an English teacher's use of liberal statements in a vocabulary quiz.

"I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes," said one question on a quiz written by English and social studies teacher Bret Chenkin.

"A teacher would be of (below-average, unsound) mind to endanger his job over his own (radical, infantile) political views."

It certainly takes a well-below-average mind to think that teenagers are going to keep quiet about it. The school superintendent is not amused:

Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union Superintendent Wesley Knapp said he would not want his children subjected to such teaching.

"It's absolutely unacceptable," he said. "They (teachers) don't have a license to hold forth on a particular standpoint."

Knapp said he was recently informed of the situation and that it was a personnel issue that he took seriously.

After school, head for The Dread Pundit Bluto, where every liberal dork gets a free swirly.

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I hadn't planned any serious posts for Thanksgiving. However, opening the local newsrag this morning to a snotty little piece of disinformation from New York Times political hack Paul Krugman (and no, I won't provide the link) changed my mind. Since the enemies within won't take a break today, neither will I.

From the Associated Press via Yahoo!News:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration and military leaders are sounding optimistic notes about scaling back U.S. troops in Iraq next year, as public opposition to the war and congressional demands for withdrawal get louder.

While military leaders would not confirm the size of possible withdrawals, conversations with defense officials and analysts suggest troop levels could drop below 100,000 next year, contingent on the progress of the Iraqi government and its security forces. There are currently about 155,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Now we know the reason for increasingly loud Democrat attacks on the Administration and the troops. Democrat leaders got wind of (were most likely consulted on) contingency plans to lower the number of troops, and made a cynical decision to create the illusion that any planned cutbacks were the result of their "protests", knowing of course, that they could depend on their water-carriers in the mainstream media to help them make the case.

I am continually amazed at the willingness of Democrat party leaders to put US troops at risk to further their own political schemes. Of course, as someone educated in the purported principles of journalism I'm continually amazed at the overwhelming number of "journalists" who are willing to aid and abet such schemes.

Also at The Dread Pundit Bluto. Get there before the tryptophan kicks in.

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If you haven't been following how one Professor of History at the University of Northern Iowa has been trying to sink the academic career of Ph.D. student (and good friend of the Jawa Report) Paul Deignan of Info Theory, you should. It seems that Paul had the nerve to make a pro-life argument in the comments section of a liberal blog. And that, says the liberal professor, should disqualify Paul from getting a Ph.D.

Jeff Goldstein has summarized the exchange here along with phone numbers and e-mails of the relevant parties. Go give Paul your support.

Note to fellow non-tenured academic bloggers and graduate students: blog anonymously or risk your career. Yes, it is that bad at the modern university.

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