A tale of two institutions

This is the American economy:




This is the Congress:

On the upside, Donald Trump was telephoned by Neil Cavuto on FNC today; Trump predicted that because the bailout bill failed, petroleum prices will plummet. He said the decline in petro prices will be steep and rapid, in fact, he specifically predicted oil will be selling for $25/barrel, though he didn't put a date next to it. That decline, he said, will pump the economy enough to offset the presumed deleterious effects of the as-yet-unsolved financial crisis.

I'm not saying he's right, I'm just reporting it.

Debate format does not serve the nation

Well, I fell asleep on the couch last night at the halfway point in the Great Debate. The half that I saw did not impress me for either candidate, but impressed me less for the debate format itself. I credit Jim Lehrer for trying to get the two candidates to mix it up some, but the format of the debate does not lend itself to what Lehrer was trying to get them to do. Why? because the Q & A format is wholly inadequate for that purpose.

So if I were king, etc., this is how I would format the next debate.

One podium, two chairs. No questions, just topics, for example, "national security" or "space program." Topics would be given to each candidate a week before. Why do we have this compulsion to surprise each candidate with a question? It won't work that way in the White House. A serving president never has to lay out national policy on the spur of the moment. Every hard issue that reaches the Oval office - and as D.D. Eisenhower advised JFK, a president deals only with hard issues - will have been researched and optioned by a staff, with policy alternatives examined and potential decisions gamed and analyzed.

Never will the White House chief of staff rush into the O.O. and say, "Mr. President, Russia just invaded Georgia! You must come outside to the microphones right now and state your policy response in a two-minute sound bite!"

So in the Don-Sensing-moderated debates, the candidates would alternate speaking first, as they do now. At the beginning, the first candidate to speak goes to the podium, the other takes a chair just off camera. The moderator says to speaker, "The first topic is energy policy. You have four minutes. Please begin." Note: there is no "question," for questions serve only to falsely narrow a response. Besides, as last night's debate proved, the candidates already respond with prepackaged answers based not on actual questions, but on broad topics. No matter the wording of the question, within three or four sentences the candidate is reciting his pre-existing platform policy position, anyway.

In the present format, the moderator tries to steer the responses into cubbyholes that the moderator thinks are important. The candidates try to steer their responses to their own assessments. The candidates are right. Viewers need to know what the candidates themselves think is important on certain topics, not what Jim Lehrer or Tom Brokaw think.

After the first speaker's four minutes have expired (last night's putative two minutes for responses was too short), he sits in his own chair and the other candidate gets his four minutes on the same topic. If he wants to spend all four minutes rebutting his opponent, fine. Or he can talk only about his own position, or a mixture of both.

The candidate number one gets two more minutes, then so does number two. Then, as I said, the speaking order alternates for the rest of the debate.

All mice must die, except Mickey!

Correspondent and very occasional SOE contributor David High, emailing from Baghdad, says, "you can't make this stuff up." How right he is. Beirut's Daily Star reports on the intensive Muslim debate on whether Mickey Mouse should be killed along with all the rest of the mice in the world.

CAIRO: An Egyptian Muslim scholar has called for an end to risible religious edicts after a Saudi cleric said Mickey Mouse was an "agent of Satan" who should die, local media reported Wednesday. Sheikh Mohammad al-Munajid, a cleric who often appears on Saudi television and who is also a former Saudi diplomat in the US, said last week that mice were "agents of Satan" and should be killed.

"Sharia [Islamic law] calls for the extermination of all mice," he said. "That includes the rodents as well as 'the famous cartoon mouse.'"

He blamed Mickey Mouse - who for decades has pursued an ill-defined relationship with another cartoon mouse named "Minnie" - for causing people to become "soft on mice."

However, Suad Saleh, a female preacher who hosts a popular television program on fatwas (Muslim religious edicts), told the English-language daily Egyptian Gazette Munajid's ruling "tarnishes Islam's image."

"An edict should be based on knowledge, logic and reason," she said. "Yes, mice should be killed when seen according to Islam's teachings. But it is illogical to deal with a cartoon character as a live mouse and kill it."

Well, when the only thing we infidels have to worry about tarnishing Islam's image is arguments over cartoon mice, then I'd have to say all is well.

Once More Unto The Breach

Last night at 11pm Jerusalem, there was another incident involving an East Jerusalem resident attempting to kill as many pedestrians as possible. Although the estimates range from 15 to 19 persons injured, all sources agree that the only person killed was the assailant. YnetNews reports that,

A terrorist driving a black BMW ran his car into a crowd of pedestrians at a busy intersection in central Jerusalem near the Old City on Monday evening.

At least 17 people were confirmed wounded at Zahal Square, most in light-to-moderate condition. Magen David Adom paramedics evacuated those wounded to the Hadassah Ein Karem and Shaare Zedek hospitals for treatment.

Most of those wounded are reportedly soldiers belonging to the Artillery Corps who were on a 'Selichot Tour' in Jerusalem. Selichot are Jewish penitential prayers said during the High Holidays.

Ha'aretz, which reported that 19 persons were injured, explains further.

IDF Lt. Elad Amar, who killed a Palestinian who rammed a sedan into a group of his troops late Monday at a busy Jerusalem intersection, said Tuesday that he fired a hail of bullets into the East Jerusalem resident's BMW after it hit a wall, because he feared that the driver would restart the car and strike more passersby.

At least 19 people were wounded at around 11 P.M. Monday night when the Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem gunned the large black car into the troops. Most of the wounded were IDF troops on their way to the Western Wall to mark the upcoming Jewish New Year when the attack at the Tzahal intersection, close to the Old City, took place.

Amar told Israel Radio that the driver pointed the car directly at the group of soldiers and "floored it. I didn't see his face, just the car as it neared us."

"He ran into them, they flew into the air, some landing on the hood, people you were laughing with, joking with, just a moment before," Amar said. "They're my friends and I love them."

Debka.com suggests that Israeli accomodation for Ramadan may be associated.

This was the third vehicular attack in Jerusalem in recent months. In the first two, terrorists crashed bulldozers into traffic on main Jerusalem thoroughfares.

On the West Bank, an Israeli soldier at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus lost the sight of one eye when a Palestinian woman threw acid on his face.

Military sources report a proliferation of Palestinian attacks since Israel eased some counter-terror restrictions for Ramadan.

What everyone does agree on is that the guy was driving a BMW. So where did the money come from for this guy to get a BMW?

Partisan Politics

The post Shabbat news has several stories on the "second thoughts" of the anti I'm-mad-in-the-head rally in New York. It would appear that in an effort to keep the rally non-partisan, Sarah Palin has been disinvited--this after Hillery refused to appear when told Palin was going to attend.

Oh well. In the meantime, the US Israeli ex-pat community is busy registering the eligible for absentee ballots for November. Organizing meetings are being held throughout the country with the hopes of signing up 100,000 to cast their votes for the candidates of their choice. At the group meeting I attended in Ephrat, there was the uniquely American cultural feeling found throughout the US, which is so not Israel. Forms were passed out as people volunteered to sign up friends and family throughout Israel.

These meetings were also of a non-partisan variety, not unlike the community council forums I used to attend in Seattle where representatives from each campaign would come to make a pitch for their candidate and pass out bumper stickers and yard signs. Unfortunately, the Democratic representative did not arrive (maybe driving out to Ephrat was too much out of the way or maybe it was too partisan since there was a Republican present).

The host of the meeting told us that in 2004, Israeli ex-pats ranked fourth of all absentee ballots filed overseas for a total of 35,000 votes, of which 70% were cast for the Bush-Cheney ticket. With a goal set to register 100,000 voters, it is no wonder that Netanyahu is interested--that's more voters than Kadima party loyalists--consistent and committed voters, too.

On the other hand, the Republican guy had lots of posters and bumperstickers. All the more catchy if you read Hebrew, the implied text is superb. Playing on McCain's name, in Hebrew, the phenetic sound of the last syllable of his name, KAIN means Yes in Hebrew. Adding the locative/ablative prefix to Obama's name, the first two letters Lamed and Aleph spell the Hebrew word No.

Only the Beginning

Somehow,the title of a song by the group Chicago seems appropriate for the aftermath of yesterday's Kadima party elections. What was supposed to be a trouncing by Livni over Mofaz turned out to be so narrow a lead that by 2000 US political standards, the results should have been wrangled in the Israeli Supreme Court. Already critics are decrying that the new leader elected with less than 500 votes. As YnetNews explains,

More people will arrive at the Yarkon Park to see Paul McCartney perform than the number of people who bothered to show up at poling (sic) stations in order to elect the person who may become Israel’s next prime minister.

This is the bothersome fact that emerged from the Kadima primaries, which ended up culminating in a tight race. A total of 0.5% percent of the public – this is the mandate received by a leader during one of the most fateful and complex periods in the State of Israel’s history.

The real winner last night was Mofaz in terms of how much party support is actually behind him. Born in Iran, Mofaz represents an importantly significant group of New Israelis coming from Mizrachi immigrants at the start of the state. More to the point, however, he stands for a large segment of Israelis who insist on a tough stance against Iran and its allies.

It was how Mofaz responded to the results, however, that will not be forgotten in the eye of the electorate, regardless of what the pollsters and talking heads have to say. Unlike Olmert, Mofaz conceded the win despite legal advice. Having manifested the true nature of the Kadima faithful, he can bide his time. As Israel News reports,

With almost all of the votes counted, Livni won by less than 2%, and her margin of victory was a scant 431 votes. Mofaz's camp initially said he would appeal the results.

The exit polls for all three leading television channels in Israel misled the public into believing that Livni had an easy victory, giving her 47-49 percent of the vote versus 37 percent for Minister Mofaz. The Channel 2/Dahaf exit poll gave Livni 48 percent of the vote to 37 percent for Mofaz. The Channel 1 poll gave Livni 47.2 percent to Mofaz's 37.1. The Channel 10 poll gave Livni 49 percent and Mofaz 37 percent.

Had he filed a challenge to void the results at the polling station in the Bedouin city of Rahat, and had the appeal been accepted, Livni's margin of victory would have been a single vote.

So, what happened? Where was that landslide margin Livni possessed? Local pundits are sitting around like proverbial the three monkeys--hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil.

Channel 10 pollster Prof. Camil Fuchs said, "We rightly predicted the identity of the winner, as well as the fact that victory will already be secured in the first round."

However, Fuchs added, "the statistical error was massive - much larger than any incidental margin of error. There was clearly a deviation of votes."

Channel 2 pollster Mina Tzemach excused the miscalculation by saying "a large percentage of voters refused to say who they will be voting for." She added that "the weight of this percentage was especially high among Arab voters."

"We formulated ways to decipher people's voting patterns," Tzemach said. "I guess it worked in the Jewish sector, but failed in the Arab sector."

Isn't that precious--"I guess"! They could have done better reading a pigeon's entrails. In fact, that is been precisely the problem all along--they've been guessing. After last night, it would not be surprising that they paid someone to make the numbers up. Without an accurate sample frame, clearly laying out variables and expected deviations of opinion, the results follow that old message from the days of FORTAN--ZZDUMP. Garbage in equals garbage out.

For a considerable period of time, pollsters have not drawn their surveys from a proper representative sample of the Israeli Voter Population. Most polls have been constructed from weighted samples of target groups independent of the representation to the total voter population. Moreover, there is a consistent failure to break down the demographics of the surveys collected. In short, without proper data that can be generalized to the voting public, any "mathematical" results are as good as the data used--garbage.

Because polls are used in the Israeli political forum INSTEAD of elections, there is more weight to produce proganda than anything remotely close to something that could be called a public opinion survey. Israeli polls are simply marketing tools and, therefore, suspect. Intuitively, the majority of the Knesset Ministers know this. The theory behind a sample survey is that it reflects social reality. However, as any scientist or poker player knows, it is not the picture but the real deal that counts. Today, more than yesterday, the politicos are busy redefining what the political landscape looks like.

So, given the results of the lousy polls and the very interesting electoral results, what conclusions can be drawn and what lessons can be learned.

First, the so-called ruling party is in serious trouble. Statistically speaking, the party's rank and filed are divided between those who want to press on with the disengagement/oslo (small caps) theology versus those who feel that "sunk costs don't count". When the national elections are held early next year, Kadima will disappear as the Mofaz faction follows Likud.

Second, the call for direct elections of the prime minister, a Netanyahu mantra, will only become louder. The Chicago-style backroom deals and lack of direct accountability is exhausting the electorate. The current system presents the voters with a classic moral hazard--by infantilizing the voter's enfranchisement, the rational action is simply to free ride. As a result, the party rank and file stays home. "Why should I vote", they say, "if what I think doesn't matter". Afterall, the pollsters never ask MY opinion.

Third, for those fearful of adopting US style civic based accountability, they might reconsider the US MSM quarterback political play by play reportage, especially on election day. Given the free riding nature of the Israeli voter, proclaiming a Livni landslide is a sure thing to dampen voter turnout. Politicos might consider the disaster wrought by St. James Carter on election night, 1980. Resorting to legal machinations like extending the poll hours, moreover, is not a solution. Consider the 2000 miasma in Florida.

Finally, it is time that a proper social sample survey in Israel be conducted. With all those union academics standing around, it is outrageous that a proper, valid, and generalizable survey of the Israeli voting public has not been conducted that includes some very basic socio-economic status variables and some Sociology 101 crosstabs and a few correlations. And for goodness sakes, how about some questions that neither lead the respondent nor require a Ph.D. to understand.

As for last night's charade? Well, "It's Only The Beginning".

...In fact, I feel like dancing

Kadima went to the polls today to elect a new head of the party. About time. The current head, Olmert, should have departed two years ago, but in Israel, who's counting. The two contenders, Livni and Mofaz, are slugging it out with Livni ahead in the exit polls, 47% to 37%. However, the Jerusalem Post is also reporting that only 50% of the registered Kadima party members had turned out to vote, so the outcome is largely superficial.

Kadima loyalists amount to 74,000 voters and the party's political future is very doubtful indeed. Despite their showing in the last election, most Israelis feel less secure today than they felt in 2005 and the Disengagment, let alone Oslo, appears to most Israelis as a complete failure--Hamas, Hizbullah, and Jihad are stronger and any from of negotiated settlement is a dream.

The reality here is that whoever wins the primaries has 42 days to work out a new government coalition. This is a virtual impossibility. The current administration seems hellbound to work a deal with the devil and will give away everything to have an agreement. More horrific is that nothing will change from this election. Olmert has said he will continue as prime minister should the new party leader not form a government and stay until the time for the next scheduled elections.

Ha'aretz describes the scene at Olmert's polling station.

Olmert himself, who has been forced out of office due to a series of corruption charges, walked into the polling station surrounded by his secret service detail shortly before 2 p.m.

The polling station was plastered with pictures of his predecessor, the Kadima Party founder, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, but not one of the extremely unpopular Olmert himself.

"Hello there," Olmert said before shaking hands with all five election personnel and observers seated at the table in the middle of the room where he was provided with an envelope to cast his vote.

After disappearing behind a voting booth, and stopping to pose for the horde of cameramen at the scene, Olmert was asked who he voted for.

"A good vote," he said.

Pressed, he urged Kadima's 74,000 registered party members to come out and vote, and make the primaries a success.

"Goodbye," he waved to reporters on his way out. "We will see you again yet."

What a frightening thought! There will be nightmares throughout Israel tonight.

The Paradox of Participation

Like many folks in our Yishuv, we get our Shabbat meals from Kibbutz Lavi, across the valley. On Friday mornings, it is possible to meet many neighbors gather up authentic Galilean dishes to savor without the attendant slavery to a hot stove. There is always someone who is willing to talk politics, culture, or even astrophysics (my personal favorite).

This week, it was our friend Maude. Maude is one of those people, so upset with US politics back in the '70's that when someone said "love it or leave it"--she left. Today, she has a lot on her mind about a lengthy piece in the Yishuv weekly newsletter written by the Shul's worship committee. Although she said she was so exasperated by the article and could not speak, oddly enough, she found that she had quite a bit to say.

"It's outrageous! The committee was complaining that during last Shabbat services, there were women voices that were heard by the men in the front of the Shul! Women's voices! What about all the men who talk away without care during the Torah reading or the repetition of the Amidah?"

"Or all the children running around and screaming", I added--the comment did not appear to be heard.

"No, you don't understand! They want to silence the women! And there were even comments about the dress code!"

"Well, there are always complaints about my suit and tie--how I need to wear Kibbutz Standard--clean white shirt and long pants."

"Come on. That's different."

"Actually," I said, "it's not. The problem is that the Yishuv insists on only one Shabbat Minyan. "

"What's wrong with that? It's a participatory yishuv, afterall."

"Well, that's the point. You see the Yishuv is the Israeli Melting Pot in miniature. We have Yemenis and Iraqis; Sephardis and Ashenazies; right wing orthodox and liberals; people who where pants and people who wear suits. Everyone is forced into the same place to pray; no one is satisfied with the synthesized service--over where I sit, most would like to have their own Ashkenazi service--you know like the one they grew up with and their ancestors said for 900 years?"

"Well, there was an initiative to have an Ashenazie minyan but people had to commit to attending it?"

"But, that's so Israeli--condition the provision of choice ONLY if people commit to it. The secret here is to let people decide with which minyan they would like to pray. With greater choice, there will be more interest and, oddly enough, greater tolerance. Those who want a strictly orthodox service and those who want more singing or do not mind either talking or children playing in the shul will always find a service with which they will be happy."

"Look. You just don't understand. This is a Participatory Yishuv. We do things together. We vote on how we want to conduct our services or other aspects of our community life. It's in the by-laws."

"But the current results don't appear to satisfy anyone. Look at this letter from the Committee. No one is happy with the current system and this current complaint isn't helping. In fact, the way things are set up, with the Yishuv growing at it's current rate, it is doubtful that ANY solution can be found."

"What do you mean?"

"This is a variation of a problem that Kenneth Arrow wrote about a million years ago, back in 1951. It's called the Voter's Paradox, which Arrow stated was a specific case of something called the Impossibility Theorem. Check it out on Wikipedia on your son's computer. [Maude is looking at me very skeptically.] Basically, Arrow demonstrated that no voting system can convert individual preferences into a community wide system of preferences. Each person has a rank order of their preferred candidates. Here we have a group of people with some very different preferences about how to pray on Shabbat. Say, they prefer Yemeni to Sephardi to Mizrachi and lastly Ashkenazi. According to Arrow, and he won a Nobel Prize for his work, the only way we can get a solution is to drop down to each person's third or fourth preferred mode of prayer in order to find a majority to satisfy the participatory nature of the Yishuv. No one is happy."

"You don't get it. Participatory means everyone participates and goes with the majority. And we want none of that American stuff. When we vote, we vote. If you don't like it, you can go elsewhere."

Hmm. Where have I heard that before?

Permitted Pograms

Over the weekend,a group of individuals (ethnicity unspecified) infiltrated the Jewish village of Yitzchar in Samaria attacking residents seriously injuring a 9 year old boy. The shooters got away. In response, some residents from Yitzchar carried out their own attack on a neighboring Palestinian village.

Old Man Olmert was shocked that the settlers would take up arms. In his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, his prime ministership stated his outrage.

This phenomenon of taking the law into one's hands, ofviolent disturbances, of brutality by Jewish elements living in communitiesin Judea and Samaria, whether in recognized communities or in illegaloutposts, is intolerable and will be dealt with sharply and harshly by thelaw enforcement authorities of the State of Israel.

There will be no pogroms against non-Jewish residents in the State of Israel.

Only pograms against Jewish residents in Israel are permitted.

When is this guy going home?

Word clouding Obama and McCain

Richard Fernandez ran the texts of Sarah Palin's and John McCain's RNC speeches through a word-cloud generator and posted the results. Inspired, I did the same with Barack Obama's DNC speech and McCain's. Here is the result, Obama's speech first.

Quite a bit of thematic difference, I think. Note that Obama talked a lot more about McCain than vice-versa.

"Hope is not a method . . .

... and wishes are not plans." Charlie Foxtrot has more.

Who reads what

We have been busy setting up our office/study/work-week-lodgings (what New Yorkers might call "loft-space") in Efrat as well as mourning the loss of my Canon 20D (how sad). Despite the incredible beauty of the hills and sunsets as well as the strong Anglo culture, it still takes three to four weeks for a telephone/DSL hook up.

However, speaking for myself, I find it wonderful to be reminded that there really is life without the internet. That way, when I manage to get to the Touro College library for my internet fix (every three or four days), the world is fresh and anew! Events take on a blurred haze such as:

Condi was here (really?) and they brought the Olmert mannequin out of cold storage;

Mike Moore saved the city of New Orleans by prophesizing it would be destroyed by an Act of God;

Apparently the only people in the US who understand the world crisis of the Middle East are from Alaska and Arizona.

Despite the various flakkers writing in the Anglo MSM of Israel's net, arguing back and forth if Sarah Palin really is good for Israel, most Israelis are turning to Amazon's New York Times best seller list (for hardback, non fiction) to get a gauge of American opinion of Obama. Why is it, asked a buddy from Beit El, that three of the top ten best sellers are all anti-Obama and Obama's book is nowhere to be found?

It is only natural that for "The People of the Book", who reads which books is the critical measure of a literate electorate.

Calculated Risk

That's the name of a blog I serendipitously found this morning. Really interesting stuff, so go read.

$7 per gallon for gasoline?

When adjusted for both inflation and purchasing power, gasoline cost $7 per gallon in 1950, using 2006 dollars as the base rate. The Cato Institute has more.

TEOLAWKI still imminent

Let's go to the wayback machine and return to this warning from 2001: "Killer plasma ready to devour the Earth."

SCIENTISTS yesterday issued warnings of two new menaces to mankind that could either swallow up the Earth or turn the universe to jelly.

Particle scientists, who spend much of their time immersed in a theoretical world so arcane that anyone else struggles to understand it, warned yesterday of a wall of death expanding across the universe at the speed of light, obliterating everything in its path until no matter - anywhere - is left.

Dr Benjamin Allanach, a research associate at Cern, the European particle laboratory, said that a chance fluctuation of the "vacuum universe" would disintegrate all atoms.

he said: "The universe is perched on a terrible precipice. It could catastrophically tunnel to a new state, disintegrating every atom."

And if that does not wipe out all known life anywhere in the universe, Dr Allanach said so-called killer strangelets could "eat up the Earth from the inside out".

First there was the supernova and galaxy-attack scenarios. Then the predicted return of the comet Genondahwayanung, which pretty much annihilated most life in North America when it came here the first time. And then the massive gas cloud speeding toward a collision with the Milky Way! Then we learn that the earth's atmosphere may detonate. And then the asteroids. Then the black hole death stars! Then we'll be swallowed whole by the sun. Then the intense beam of gamma rays coming our way. Then there was the fear that "human society is very quickly headed to a violent and disturbing end." Then the earth began to kill people for changing its climate. Then there is the voracious, galactic Hoover in Switzerland that will suck the whole planet into a black hole. And the massive destruction along the coasts of countries like the USA, UK and many on the African continent, within a matter of hours.

I tell ya, I'm starting to think that sooner or later, every one of us is going to wind up dead.

Driving is safer than ever

The NHTSA announces,

WASHINGTON – The number of people who died on the nation’s roads dropped again last year, reaching historically low levels, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters announced today.

Secretary Peters said that in 2007, the overall number of traffic fatalities fell to 41,059, the lowest number since 1994. In addition, the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled was 1.37, the lowest fatality rate on record, she noted.

The Secretary added that 2.49 million people were injured in highway crashes last year, the lowest seen since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began collecting injury data in 1988.

The secretary credited "safer vehicles, aggressive law enforcement and our efforts" for the record low fatalities.

Sun goes cold - get your overcoat out

Our spotless sun - get ready for global cooling

I've pointed out before that a huge influence on earth's tempaertures is the sun, specifically sunspot activity. The more sunspots, the warmer the earth. Daily Tech reports that now the sun has tied a 94-year-old record: an entire month has passed without a single spot on the sun.

According to data from Mount Wilson Observatory, UCLA, more than an entire month has passed without a spot. The last time such an event occurred was June of 1913. Sunspot data has been collected since 1749. ...

... In the past 1000 years, three previous such events -- the Dalton, Maunder, and Spörer Minimums, have all led to rapid cooling. On was large enough to be called a "mini ice age". For a society dependent on agriculture, cold is more damaging than heat. The growing season shortens, yields drop, and the occurrence of crop-destroying frosts increases.

The relationship between sunspots and earth's climate is not fully understood, although the correlations are so strong over several centuries of empirical data that practically no scientist of the field doubts the relationship.

Birthin' babies, pt 1

Glenn Reynolds, commenting on the news that Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin's daughter, 17, is pregnant out of wedlock.

My daughter, meanwhile, got one of those robot babies -- I think it was called "Baby Think Twice" or something like that -- that wakes up and cries and has to be fed, changed, etc, and produces a printout of how well you did. But although it's clearly intended to make motherhood look less appealing, she liked it and, like several of her friends, said it made her want a baby more. Gulp.

He means she got the robot baby as a school assignment. This was done at my children's middle school, too, although since none of my three kids (two boys, ome girl) ever came home with the thing, I surmise the school discontinued the practice before my kids got to that grade.

Yes, the whole point was to make single parenthood - not just motherhood, as both boys and girls got the papoose - less appealing by making it darn incovenient for the kids to have to lug the robot around and shut it up when its robotoc crying started (one cry for "change me" and another for "feed me," IIRC).

But it didn't work, not in the slightest. Half the kids just ignored the darn thing, sucked up the failingn grade for the assignment, and that was that. The other half pawned the robot off on mom and dad and went right on with their regular schedule:

Child: "Mom, I've got cheerleeader/soccer/band/football/chess club after school, so Baby Roboto will be here with you."

Mom/Dad: "Okay."

I actually went to meetings of various kinds where in trundled mom and dad with the robot. By no means were the parents going to permit a robot baby interrupt their dreams of college scholarships for middle school child by telling her s/he had to stay home from practice to shut up the robot when it whined.

Which of course defeated the whole purpose. The whole point was for child to be tremendously inconvenienced by baby robot for the three days s/he had to "care" for it. I also suspect that the coaches of sports teams or competitive clubs rebelled, too.

I thought the whole program was pointless, not in itntention but in practice. Certainly something needed to be done - the high school these middle schoolers later attended had an on-campus child care center. It wasn't for the faculty or staff with small kids. It was for students.