Day: February 10, 2004

Common Sense Down 23 Percent at Associated Press

Here’s the headline on an Associated Press story about minority applications to the University of Michigan,

Minority applications to U-M decline 23 percent

Here’s the first paragraph of the accompanying story,

Seven months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the University of Michigan’s undergraduate affirmative action policy, the number of applications from blacks, Hispanis and American Indians is down 23 percent from the same time last year.

Oh that evil Supreme Court — without it killing affirmative action, minorities would be applying in droves to the University of Michigan. Well, maybe not since the information that you need to evaluate how significant this decline is gets buried in the fifth paragaraph,

Overall, applications for this fall’s incoming freshman class are down 18 percent, according to the preliminary data compiled Feb. 5 and released to The Associated Press Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

That’s right — the decline in minority applications is just barely lagging overall applications. The Associated Press conveniently leaves out any hint of what the absolute numbers were for both groups over the two years so we could do some additional analysis.

Why are applications so low across the board? Because we have a huge budget deficit here in Michigan and universities are responding with huge tuition increases at the same time that the state has been forced to cut back on the amount of financial aid they can offer low-income students. At the same time, there has been a huge level of manufacturing job loss in this state, causing some people to move to other states where job prospects are better.

Anti-Ford Protest

This weekend I accompanied my wife to Ann Arbor, Michigan, so she could visit
a library there. She also had her hair cut, and while I’m waiting for her to
finish there, these folks pull up outside:

They’re with or acting on behalf of a group called Bluewater
Network. In between shivering, since it was extremely cold out, they were
registering their displeasure with Ford Motor Company for not doing enough to
stop global warming.

Bill Ford — whose real crime is the sorry state the Detroit Lions are still
in — has had this habit over the past couple years of trying to appease environmentalists
with claims that Ford will do all it can to reduce the level of greenhouse gases
its cars emit, etc., and these folks were there to demand that Ford keep his
promises. (He should admit they were stupid promises to begin with).

Some of the rhetoric was a bit heated, such as this car, decorated with signs
like:

Ford: Oil wars kill innocent children. I’m assuming here they’re referring
to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait back in 1990, though I’m not sure how that’s Ford’s
fault. That’s the only major recent war fought over oil that I can remember.

This one’s a bit harder to make out — Global warming: The planet cannot afFord
it! Of course, I’m not sure how leaving a car window rolled down in the middle
of winter is exactly energy efficient either.

Presumaby by enrolling at Oil User’s Anonymous.

I’m still trying to figure out what “Steet” is. Or maybe Ford is
causing global spelling problemsas well?

Turn that CO2 frown upside down?

Ford can’t escape its broken promises. Well, maybe if they have Dale Jarett
driving they might have a shot.

Demand Clean Cars Now! Which is really the crux of their problem — they’re
angry at Ford for producing the sort of cars that I and millions of other people
actually want to buy rather than what Bluewater Network would prefer that they
sell.

Well, if they hurry they could get a really good financing deal.

Wizard of Oz Search Engine

Just because I can, yesterday I added a Wizard of Oz search engine to this site. You can hit that page and search all of the public domain Oz books by Frank Baum — and soon, all of Ruth Plumley Thomson’s Oz books that are in the public domain. It will return a list of any chapters where the search term appears, so, for example, you could find all of the places where Baum writes about Loonville.

The output is still a bit less helpful than I’d like, but I can fix that easily enough.

Federal Judges Tosses Five Year Old Animal Defense League Lawsuit

In 1998, the Animal Defense League sued New York’s Syracuse Police Department, accusing police there of illegally interfering with their First and Fourth Amendment rights. In October 2003, a judge dismissed that lawsuit, saying police acted appropriately.

The lawsuit stems from the arrest of seven Animal Defense League members by the Syracuse Police Department from February 1996 to January 1997. The arrests stemmed from protests the Animal Defense League held outside of fur stores in Syracuse, New York. Many of the charges that the activists were arrested on were never pursued in court.

The ADL argued that the arrests constituted an effort by police to “deliberately and systematically” deny them their Constitutional rights and sued. The ADL was seeking compensation for the violations of $1 million for the group, $500,000 for each activist who was allegedly wrongfully arrested, and $100,000 for each alleged example of police misconduct.

U.S. District Judge Neal McCurn ruled that police acted appropriately in arresting the activists and dismissed the lawsuit.

Sources:

Judge dismisses animal rights group’s lawsuit against police. Associated Press, October 17, 2003.

Animal Rights Activists’ Lawsuit Over Arrests Tossed. John O’Brien, The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York), October 17, 2003.

Animal Defense League Plan To Sue City Police. John O’Brien, The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York), March 31, 1998.