I can vouch for that

When I mentioned my failing approbation for a school voucher system, my friendly free market pedagogue, George P. Burdell, said, "Have you gone all commie on me? I thought the voucher system was free market?" Unfortunately, I think it still lets Uncle Karl in the back door.

Now, lest anyone doubt it, I am all for free market education and an end to the government monopoly of our educational system. So, in general, I agree with the author's contention for less government intrusion in the lives of parents and their children. But before you get all supercilious on me, too, read this article: Are you smarter than a homeschooler?

Then read the linked article again: School voucher system has its benefits

I found this comment in the second article a little troubling: "Home-schoolers may not receive full funding, but instead a tax credit. Still, with more choice, there may be less need for home-schooling."

The assumption seems to be that parents chose home-schooling simply because of lack of quality and choice in government schools. But the mounting evidence is that home-schooling actually provides a superior education, not to mention the many other familial benefits. Why would anyone want to curtail the obvious successes of that? A voucher system may actually contribute more to the disintegration of the family by promoting less time with one's children.

Furthermore, if a voucher system went into place, and home-schoolers received a tax credit within that system, who's to say that the credit wouldn't be dependent on the home-schooling family conforming to the imposed government standards of education? The standards still represent the imposition of government regulation and the attendant propaganda, which will be present in any voucher supported school system. The voucher system simply makes the transmission of government propaganda more efficient.

Finally, until the financing of a voucher system is based entirely on the level of consumption of educational resources used by each family (i.e., each family pays for each of it's children and only its children) instead of the current method of taxing wealth, the voucher system will still represent a wealth redistribution program. Free education for all regulated by the government is still the 10th Plank of Communism [II -- PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS].

Let's just get government out of education all together. Now I can vouch for that.

Machismo when the party gets loud

Now this was fascinating: "Subjects who made incorrect decisions under "noisy" conditions tended to have extremely high confidence that their decisions were right. They were far more confident than the subjects dealing with a noncluttered image."

Hmmm...so, the "louder" and more confusing it gets, visually speaking, the more machismo shows up at the party.

The original article, "Visual Clutter Causes High-Magnitude Errors," can be found here.