Stupid DC School Lockdown; Curmudgeon Finds Common Ground With WSJ

Shots (Not) Fired At Capitol--147 DC Schools In Silly Lockdown

It's no wonder DC's public schools are making so little progress improving these days. This one's from the stupid file:

Yesterday, Capitol Police locked down the Rayburn House Office Building after a Congressman reported he'd heard shots fired in the underground parking garage of the facility. Turned out to be a false alarm. Was locking down the building an overreaction? Probably not. And, unfortunately, it takes longer to figure out nothing happened than to respond to a real problem.

But how did D.C. public school officials react to reports from the Hill? They locked down all 147 public schools in the District, none of which are particularly close to the Rayburn Building, and many of which are miles away.

This is insane, inane and asinine. School Superintendent Clifford Janey ordered the two-hour lockdown--evidently without consulting any police. His excuse: he opted "to err on the side of caution."

C'mon people, get real. Even the Capitol Police locked down only one of nearly dozen House and Senate office buildings, and the reports were never more than of one instance of gunfire. If DC locked down its schools everytime there was a report of gunfire in the District, they'd never be unlocked!

Agreeing With The Wall Street Journal?

Heaven forbid--after taking the WSJ to task for using phony statistical arguments in support of the claim that Bush has been "soaking the rich" on taxes, the Curmudgeon recently finds itself in agreement with a series of WSJ editorials (three in one week--got to be a record).

First, the Journal's protectors of the rich wrote, earlier this week, about the abysmal federal flood insurance program, noting that it mainly subsidizes relatively well-off homeowners in coastal areas, many of whom have received two, three and as many as seven reimbursements from the program so they can just keep getting flooded.

The Journal took note of Dauphin Island, Alabama, a spit of sand with huge beach homes owned by wealthy families, which--duh--keeps getting wiped out by hurricanes. (That's it, above.) Without you and the Curmudgeon subsidizing these folks, they wouldn't be able to rebuild on a spot that shouldn't have houses to begin with.

By the way, the flood insurance fiasco is a joint effort of Dems and Republicans, both of which have protected various special interests and key contributors by continuing to authorize this awful program.

Then, today, we had a two-fer. First, the WSJ took a look at the "backdate" scandal--where companies backdated stock options to give executives more favorable treatment--and concluded not only that it is an affront to shareholders, but that Congress is partly to blame (although the Journal tries to spin the blame to Dems in a rather complicated argument).

Finally, the Journal's editors went after Congress for going "hog wild" on earmarks, particularly in the $18.4 billion agriculture bill passed by the House this week. Noting that the bill includes such items as a $229,000 earmark for "dairy education" and $100,000 for the National Grape and Wine Initiative, the WSJ singled out Republican Rep. Jeff Flake as the "loneliest guy on Capitol Hill" because his effort to rein in the earmark parade garnered only 93 votes.

While some Democrats have abused earmarks, this is clearly a much bigger problem on the GOP side, which controls the Appropriations Committees where the money gets doled out.

So much for free market economics--unless by "free market" we mean business lobbyists who, for a few measly campaign contributions, earn free money from their favorite congressmen and women.