Working on a neat, new techno-venture that requires reading a ton of things I don’t want to read about - I’ll get to Part 2 of the Mathews analysis when I’m able - but I wanted to take a minute to point out this little gem from a sharp guy.
John Derbyshire, a prolific writer who comments on everything from race to mathematics, has a great weekly podcast-type bit called RadioDerb. His commentary isn’t predictable - occasionally he throws even his National Review Online colleagues for a loop - and it’s always entertaining.
Derbyshire commented on Ireland’s rejection of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty and segued into a darling of a school budget comment:
So, what will the Eurocrats do after that debacle in Ireland? Well, they’ll probably do what my local school board does when we vote down their budget - which we do pretty regularly. They’ll brush some more lipstick on the pig, put it in front of us again, and ask us to vote again. And they’ll keep on doing that until we get sick of the whole business and buckle under.
A brief war of attrition and lipstick on a pig sums up about 99% of modified school budget proposals in our state. Derb’s on Long Island, I believe, but it’s no different up here in the wilderness.
Derbyshire’s Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra is in the mail. Lipstick on a pig below.
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