- Oh, American Academy of Pediatrics, why are you so consistently wrong? On videogames, on food-ad bans, on guns, CPSIA…
- New book by Annette Fuentes, Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse [John Harris, Guardian]
- There are genuine problems with some countries’ international adoption practices, but should UNICEF really be pushing toward a “leave the kids in orphanages” alternative? [Nick Gillespie on Reason documentary to be released tomorrow]
- At expense of both federalism and religious accommodation, bill entitled “Every Child Deserves a Family Act” (ECDFA) would impose anti-bias rules on state adoption and foster care programs [Washington Blade]
- Cash-for-kids Pennsylvania judge: “Former Luzerne judge Conahan sentenced to 17.5 years” [Times-Tribune, our earlier coverage]
- “Met a guy who works at my old summer camp. Bunks still do raids on other bunks, but their counselors have to file raid forms first. How sad.” [@adamlisberg]
- Sex offender registry horror story #14,283 [Skenazy]
- “Safety rules rob pupils of hands-on science, say MPs” [Independent, U.K.]
- Gee, who could’ve predicted that? NJ’s aggressive “anti-bullying” law leads to new problems [NYT, Greenfield, PoL, NJLRA] Rapid growth in bullying law assisted by push from Obama administration [WSJ Law Blog, Kenneth Marcus/Federalist Society, Bader]
Filed under: bullying, child protection, CPSIA, family law, guns, Luzerne County judicial scandal, recreation, science and scientists, sex offender registries, United Nations, zero tolerance
2 Comments
The name of the new law, the anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, is an oxymoron. A Bill of Rights is supposed to protect individuals from the state, not allow the state to monitor everything you do. In the guise of protecting students from bullying, the State is given the right to monitor students 24/7 and have students report anonymously on other students. What a perfect little police state New Jersey has become.
I highly recommend the CPSIA link in the first item. I always admired medical doctors and researchers. They eliminated the horror of polio from the United States and are close to ridding the world of polio. The psychic rewards to protect children is great and not surprisingly the American Academy of Pediatrics have gone well beyond concern to obsession.
For lead there are two real problems. If lead causes loss of IQ points, why do schools seem to be worse now than they were decades ago before lead was removed from gasoline and paint? And the nerve to use IQ points as a measure in the case of lead but to fight the concept of IQ in every other context.
The second problem is in an inability to differentiate between lead being in an alloy or in a solid material and lead being freely available. The lead in the brass in a bicycle tire is totally isolated from blood streams. To believe the lead can go from the brass in the air value into a blood stream demonstrates derangement.
In a recent New Jersey case it was successfully argued that asbestos left the matrix of brake shoe linings, worked its way out of boxes, and deposited it self on top of the boxes to be inhaled by a boy who worked in a warehouse for one summer. As Don King proclaims: “Only in America”.
Lastly is the problem with the original research on lead paint problems whereby children with higher lead in their teeth had lower IQs. Aggression is positively related to biting and chewing on window sills and is inversely related to IQ. That would explain the observation.
Science has greatly improved living standards and has enhanced tremendously our understanding of how the world works . It breaks my heart when seemingly scientific institutions act so moronically.