What the California 2016 Assessment of Student Performance and Progress Shows.

Academics are crowing about the small gains that have been made, overall, in the most recent tests of proficiency in English and Math in California high school students. However, they bemoan the fact that only 49 percent of California students are proficient in English and only 37 percent are proficient in math. More troubling to them are the marked racial differences in the test scores. The wide gap in performance between the Asian and white students on one hand and black and Latino students on the other, despite years of focused efforts and the infusion enormous amounts of state and federal funds to close this gap, is particularly perplexing to our educational leaders. State Superintendent of Education Tom Torlakson called the racial differences :"pernicious and persistent." It is not clear if Superintendent Torlakson understands the reason for the marked racial disparity we are seeing on our California schools, most likely he does not. "We'd like to see more of a state of urgency and more progress for English language learners and low income and African-American students in particular," said Carrie Hahnel of the Oakland advocacy Educational Trust-West. As I've said many times, they people do not have the slightest clue as to why racial differences in educational achievement persist despite over 50 years of effort and billions of dollars of funding to close the racial educational gap for the blacks and Latinos in our country. The statistics provided by Noguchi and Tsai in the August 25th edition of the East Bay Times provides the answer. Despite differences in the economic background of the students tested, the statistics never changed. In this respect, Asian students on average always outperformed all other racial groups, irrespective of their environmental background, and whites were only a few points behind them. On the other hand, blacks, irrespective of the economic circumstances of their parents and the environmental status of their childhood, always placed dead last in the English and math proficiency tests. Latinos, with one exception in Santa Clara County, always, marginally, outperformed blacks. Filipinos, the only other race included in the statistics, had mean scores that were only slightly lower than the whites tested. Anyone who has read Herrnstein and Murray's Bell Curve knows exactly what this latest group of educational statistics tell us. Asians, on average, do better in school, not because their superior study habits, but because their mean IQs are 3 to 9 points higher than that of the white population. Blacks and Latinos will always fair less well, on average, than their white and Asian counterparts in their educational endeavors because their mean IQs are 15 and 13 points, respectively, lower than that of the white population. Nothing the politicians can do will change the basic fact that there are marked disparities in inherited racial IQ. We should be spending more time and money dealing with the consequences of these differences and less of our limited resources trying to change the unchangeable (more jobs for the uneducated, reducing the birth rates of low-IQ single mothers, reestablishing the black family and reducing the numbers of low IQ Mexicans who are crossing our boarders illegally by hundreds with each passing day. In summary, the latest educational statistics for California High School students are, for the most part, simply a reflection of the racial disparity in the IQs of the students tested. Until we understand this fact, nothing will change and we will continue to waste monies, that we do not have and must borrow, on misguided social programs like school busing and head-Start. Finally, we should stop blaming the teachers for their inability to educate the uneducable in classrooms teeming with rowdy misfits who should be in reform schools, not the class room.

Yes, black lives matter, but not in way most people think.

Blacks make up less than 15 percent of the population. Yet 150 years after their emaciation, and after numerous attempts to make them normal functioning members of society, as a group, they remain one of societies biggest problems. All of our attempts to right the supposed wrongs of the past, including school bussing, numerous affirmative action and head start programs have failed to make the slightest difference in the lives of the average Black American. In fact, you can make the case that blacks who are not born with exceptional athletic ability are worse off now than they were in the days before Lyndon Johnson set in motion the federal welfare policies that broke up the black family. With 72 percent of young black males either in prison or on parole and over 70 percent of black babies being born to single mothers, one wonders how things could get much worse for blacks or the society in which they live. But, if things stay the same, it will. You can bet your last dollar on that! One thing we have learned from our futile attempts to stamp out all vestiges of racism and to make things better for the black community is this. With rare exception, black single mothers, aided by their mothers and grandmothers are incapable of raising black children so that they will become functioning members of society. This is especially true for black boys who, if they are fortunate enough not to have been gunned down by members of their own race, most often end up in prison. Of course, there are exceptions to this sad state of affairs. A few blacks, those with exceptionally high IQs, do become educated and make something of their lives. Invariably, these black men and women move out of the black communities in which they were born and settle in white suburbs where, for all practical purposes, they become white. These exceptional individuals flee the black ghettoes where they were born, leaving them unchanged in the slightest. In this respect, the slums of Oakland, Detroit, Chicago and Flint Michigan are, by any standard, in worse condition now than they were 50 years ago. When all is said and done, America is paying a heavy price for Blacks who, for whatever reason, have not been able to assimilate into the American way of life. Undoubtedly, the destructive social policies of Johnson's great society, and the many liberal boondoggles that followed have played a role in the Blacks failure to integrate into American culture. However, programs like Head Start do not fail because of lack of effort or lack of recourses. No, these programs fail, in large part, because the mean IQ of the average Black is 15 IQ points lower than that of the average white and there is little or nothing that can be done to change this disturbing fact after a child is born. Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray pointed out the problems facing those who are born with below average IQs, both black and white, in their masterpiece The Bell Curve. The data presented in this 871 page tour de force is a must read for anyone interested in tackling the social problems we face in twenty-first century America. The refusal of liberal politicians and educators to recognize the basic differences in inherited intellect between the races is largely responsible for the inner city decay we are experiencing in most of our large cities today. But you may be asking, how would recognition of the fact that there are racial differences in inherited intellect change anything for the better? There are several ways this might happen. First, we should stop paying low IQ women, both black and white, to have children. In fact we should be paying them not to have children. This can be accomplished by a state or federal program that would pay inner city single women a stipend, $5000 seems about right, to have a Norplant injection that would prevent them becoming pregnant for five years. The monies saved by not having to pay for prisons that would house the males that they otherwise give birth to during the five year period of volunteered sterility would, in the long run, more than pay for such a program. More significantly, over a period of 10 to 15 years it would greatly decrease the crime rate. Along these same lines, there should be financial, and other incentives, that would encourage educated females, again both black and white, to have larger numbers of children. In short, we must encourage smart women of all races to have more children, otherwise in a few generations we will become a land of dullards. At present the medical profession and the Silicone Valley are becoming more dependent with each passing day on foreigners who were trained in India, China and elsewhere to fill the jobs available because there are not enough educated Americans to meet the need. This problem would be alleviated, at least in part, if professional, well educated intelligent women of all races were having more babies. We should be doing more to make this happen! Finally, we should begin making things again in America so that there will be well paying jobs for those who want to work, but do not have the mental capacity to become educated. In this respect, there is no reason that tennis shoes that sell for over $150 cannot be made in America by American workers rather than by someone living in a third world nation where humans work for a few dollars a day and live in abject poverty. This will require stiffer tariffs on imports and tax incentives for manufactures who are willing to make the products they sell in the good old USA. Along these same lines, once the jobs are available, people who now depend on welfare should be forced to take them, or be directed to the nearest soup kitchen. This would go a long way towards decreasing America's staggering rate of obesity. So yes, black lives do matter but in a very negative way. Our inner city ghettos are teaming with blacks who can neither read or write and have no chance of making anything of themselves in today's high-tech world. Our political leaders should recognize the intellectual limitations of those living in black America and do whatever is necessary to rectify the problem. More government freebies, single mother families and earlier and earlier head-start programs are not the answer!

Two very bad choices, what to do?

Faced with the Clinton-Trump debacle, what is a conservative voter to do? On the one hand you have a congenital lying demorat who has spent most of her adult life feeding at the public trough and made hundreds of millions while doing so. This women is crookeder than a dogs hind leg and belongs in prison, not in the White House. There also is a real question of whether or not this women is healthy enough to serve. On the other hand you have the Donald, a egomaniac loose cannon who will say and do anything at the drop of a hat, irrespective of the consequences. If we have learned anything about this buffoon in the past year or so, it is that he is incapable of learning from his past mistakes and verbal blunders, continuing to step into it with both feet at every opportunity. If this guy has an IQ over 100 I would be greatly surprised. By the way, the reason Trump refuses to reveal his tax returns results from the fact that he is nowhere near as wealthy as he would have us believe. So what are we to do? The answer is not as complex as you might think. The key to the upcoming election is the status of the Supreme Court and the other federal benches in the decades to come. At least three, and possibly four, of the liberals on the present Supreme Court will either die or retire during the next president's term. If Hillary is elected they will be replaced with similar herd of liberal activists, of that you can be sure. In that case, our country, now teetering on financial and societal ruin, will go under, of that I have no question whatsoever. If Trump somehow prevails in the upcoming election it will be a crap shoot because no one, probably not even Trump, has the slightest idea what he will do when faced with proposing nominees for the federal courts. Some believe, as I do, that this guy is a wolf in sheep's clothing who will appoint a series of liberal jurists to the various federal courts. If this is the case, it makes no difference if the congenital liar or the buffoon is elected, we are doomed either way. But if Trump prevails, there is at least a chance that doomsayers like me are wrong and that Trump will actually build the damned wall, cut bureaucratic red tape and appoint conservatives to the federal courts. Thus, when all is said and done, we are left with no choice, holding my nose and crossing my fingers, legs and toes, I will begrudgingly vote for Trump and hope for the best. I suggest that you do the same.

The Orlando Massacre- A Couple of What Ifs

What if even one of the federal authorities who interviewed the mass murderer prior to the Orlando massacre had a brain in their heads? What if someone in that nightclub had a concealed weapon which could have been used to defend themselves when the rag-head went berserk? These are important questions that should be answered by the authorities and politicians who run this country. First the brain issue. Less we forget, a relatively low level female working for the FAA in Minneapolis concluded that something was a little fishy when she observed that the 9/11 rag-heads who were attending aviation classes there had no interest in learning how to land an airplane, they were only interested in learning how to fly them. When she brought this concern to the attention of her superiors they simply ignored her and, as a result, over 3000 people died. Just a smidgen of common sense by these mid-level bureaucrats might have avoided this disaster. Similarly, the feds had interviewed the most recent lunatic rag-head three times since 2013 and did nothing. During this time they also ignored numerous complaints from the ISIS murderer's associates who told them, in no uncertain terms, that this guy was as nutty as a fruit cake and a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off. Again the authorities did nothing but sit back and suck their collective thumbs! You have to ask yourself, when will these overpaid incompetent federal employees be held accountable for their negligence and lack of good sense? When will they start employing some kind of reasonable judgment, including racial profiling, to assure public safety? Let me assure you, the simple minded, time consuming screening of white grandmas and grandpas at airports is not the answer! Rather, it is an example of the stupidity of ruling class! Now, to the second and more important issue. How do we minimize the carnage at these increasingly more frequent ISIS terrorist attacks? Forty nine dead and a similar number wounded and scared for life, certainly we can do better. At this point in time, given the present liberal administration, eliminating the radical Muslim element from society is not feasible, so we must concentrate on reducing the damage caused by their irrational attacks on innocent civilians. For the same reason we have fire exits in large buildings and stairs in place to allow exit if the elevators malfunction during a disaster, we need to arm those working in the public sector, not disarm them as is the goal of most of the witless wonders running our country. There should be armed guards or, better yet, armed teachers, in every school, no exceptions. The pilots on all commercial airline should be armed as well as a significant number of their cabin attendants. All large establishments such as restaurants, nightclubs, grocery outlets and sporting events should have armed employees at the ready as well. They should be trained to shoot to kill and ask questions later! Finally, an of equal importance, we should encourage liberal gun carry laws in every state. Anyone who does not have a criminal record should be encouraged to learn how to shoot a gun safely and to carry a concealed weapon. There is a reason crime rates are down significantly in towns and cities that allow their citizens to carry a concealed weapon. Along these same lines, requirements for gun safes, trigger locks and all other gun safety devices should be declared unconstitutional. There is little use for a gun with a complicated trigger lock, or worse yet, a gun locked away in a gun safe, when the bad guy comes crawling through your bedroom window at three AM on a moonless night. You should be able to shoot the bastard to protect your family, it's as simple as that! Of these suggestions, the most important is the liberalization of our gun carry laws, especially for those working in the public sector such as school teachers and people employed in the transportation sector. In this respect, how many innocents, do you think, would have been killed in the most recent Jihadi Orlando massacre if even one or two of the people in that nightclub had been carrying a concealed weapon? Yes, I know drunks should not be allowed to carry firearms in public places but what is the alternative, 49 dead and an equal number badly wounded? When all is said and done, our government will not, or cannot protect us, from those who are intent on killing every last one of us! More guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens is the only feasible answer to the situation in which we now find ourselves. Strict gun laws that disarm the citizenry have not worked in France, Belgium or England and they will not work here either!

Was Muhammad Ali Really The Greatest Boxing Champion Ever?

Who knows. In the first place, it's difficult, or impossible, to compare athletes who lived in different eras. For instance, in Joe Louis's day the average weight of a heavy weight boxer was around 195 pounds, today it's closer to 235. Thus, any comparison between Muhammad Ali and any previous champion is meaningless. Pound for pound though, I believe Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest price fighter to ever set foot in a boxing ring. In any case, I want to address this issue from a slightly different angle and ask the question, "who was the most significant boxer ever?" Certainly it was not an earlier version of Donald Trump, the braggadocios Muhammad Ali who was behind another door when the humility genes were being passed out. No, the award for most significant boxer ever would have to go to the legionary Joe Louis. The stage was set for Louis by Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics. Owens, a black man, ran away with the 1936 Olympics winning four gold medals and he did it on German soil. More significantly, Owens's feat was the first nail in Adolph Hitler's coffin since it brought into question Hitler's claim of Aryan superiority in all things, big and small. Joe Luis drove the second, and final, nail in Hitler's intellectually deficient coffin when he knocked out the German heavyweight champion Max Schmeling in 124 seconds of the first round at Yankee Stadium on June 22, 1938. Because of its political implications this, arguably, was the most important sporting event of all time.It took a few more years for the west to eliminate Hitler and his axis partners but the bloom was definitely off the Aryan rose when Joe Louis made mincemeat out Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium on that summer evening in 1938. As for Muhammad Ali, great men do not wave their hands and gloat over their fallen opponents, only real low lives behave in this fashion.

Veteran Administration Hospitals- What To Do With Them

I worked in a VA Hospital for 22 years and never understood the need for a separate hospital system for veterans. Today, with administrative incompetence from top to bottom, there seems to be even less justification for VA hospitals than when I retired in 2000. I expect there are several reasons why, despite their deficiencies, these reflections of the distant past persist in 2016. First, the Veteran's Administration and their hospitals represent a giant corrupt political organization, much the same as the IRS, which is almost impossible to change despite, its obvious faults and multiple short comings. Second, VA hospitals exist because many, if not most, veterans cannot afford private medical care and do not have health insurance. In this respect, I rarely encountered a veteran who came to our VA hospital because they liked the care they would receive at out institution; rather, they came to us because they had no other choice. So, why don't they have another choice? As veterans who served our country, and put their lives on the line while doing so, they should have a choice, don't you agree? The solution to this problem is simple, straight forward and most importantly cost effective. All veterans should be given Medicare A and B and the VA medical care system should be phased out over a 5 to 10 year period. This would allow time for VA employees to relocate in the private sector. There is absolutely no reason for us to continue a two tiered medical system when there is a reasonable doable alternative. At least I can't think of one. Now, most doctors, worth their salt, will not accept Medicare patients who do not have supplemental health insurance because Medicare reinvestment for their services is inadequate to cover the costs inherent in running their practices, let alone allow them to make a reasonable profit. Thus, we will have to provide veterans with a supplemental insurance plan such as Federal Blue Cross and Blue Shield. This coverage will be expensive, but not nearly as costly as funding the 152 VA medical centers and 1400 VA outpatient clinics that now exist. The cost for running this bloated bureaucracy in 2014 was a whopping $152.7 billion. More to the point, it will provide veterans with the finest medical care possible, in a timely fashion, and eliminate a giant incompetent government institution whose sole purpose seems to be to provide jobs for incompetent administrators who can't cut it in the private sector.

Where We Are In The 2016 Presidential Election?

I can't think of two worst choices, can you? On the one hand we have a pathological liar who spent the first half of her political life covering up for her philandering husband Bill the womanizer and the second half bungling almost everything she touched the state department. Even crazy Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, has been giving her a run for her money on the demoratic side of the ticket. On the other hand, we have we have one of the loosest of all loose cannons running for a job that requires diplomatic experience and a level-headed approach to the problems he will inherit from the bumbling Obama administration. Never has there been a more childish uncouth man running for the highest office in the land, never! Almost every word that comes out of this man's mouth is an embarrassment. Has he no handlers or is to just too stupid to take their advice? It's difficult or impossible to believe a single word that come out of Trump's mouth. Reminds you of Hillary, doesn't it? Will he really build the wall? I, for one, do not believe a word he says in this respect. Will he deport a single illegal? Again, I doubt it. In fact, I believe he will make it easier for low IQ South American illiterates to cross our boarder. After all the Donald is a business man and business men want an endless supply of cheap labor, the American worker be damned! No, we are left with two extremely unacceptable choices, a woman who has failed at everything she has tried from her first job at the State department (fired for lying and incompetence) to the Benghazi fiasco where she was responsible for sitting on her hands doing nothing while our ambassador and three others were murdered. She should be in prison, not in the White House. In Trump we have a blustering school boy bully who attempts to sell himself a successful business man but has filed for more bankruptcies than most dogs have fleas on their backs. How does this record of business failures qualify one to be president? After all, when you are dealing with China or Russia there is no bankruptcy court to bail your sorry ass out if Putin or some other foreign leader calls one of your unreasoned bluffs. The republican establishment ultimately will swallow hard and support the Donald. What other choice do they have if they want to maintain their Washington power base and their handsome life styles? They will do everything possible to make Trump look reasonable. More importantly, they will move heaven and earth to make us conservatives believe this 59 year old juvenile delinquent is the second coming of Christ. Well, I'm not buying it! As my mother used to say, "You can put all the lipstick you want on a pig, but it's still a pig!" So what is one to do? Voting for the lying incompetent Hillary Clinton is not an option. Voting for the Trump the foul mouthed school yard bully is an unacceptable alternative. At this point in time, we can only hope that something unexpected will occur at the Republican convention and a more reasonable candidate will immerge that we conservatives can support. The chances of this happening are, admittedly, slim to none. So, I'll write in Ted Cruz's name and be done with it. America is in her last days as a prosperous viable national leader. I may not live to see the end but I bet my grandson will.