District 214’s apparent philosophy: if it ain’t broke, let’s think about breaking it. . .

Last updated on: September 16, 2015 at 9:02 am By Jane the Actuary

From a letter e-mailed to parents yesterday: Our Board of Education will be meeting tonight with our elementary school districts to discuss a variety of topics, including potential changes to the school calendar. In the coming months, we will be engaging parents, students, staff and community members in a conversation to determine what the school calendar could look like for the 2017-2018 school year and beyond. We will be launching an online survey to solicit your feedback on different calendars as well... Read more

And who is my neighbor?

Last updated on: September 16, 2015 at 8:40 am By Jane the Actuary

25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’c ; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’d ” 28“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29But he wanted to justify himself,... Read more

Dear Mutti (a wishful-thinking letter)

Last updated on: September 15, 2015 at 9:48 am By Jane the Actuary

Dear Mutti, From all appearances, neither you nor your top advisors, have any clue about how to handle the massive inflow of asylum-seekers. Everyone seems to just be muddling through, with no end in sight, except to the extent that Hungary saves the day by blocking refugee/migrants from entering the EU in the first place. What is the end result you want to achieve? Working backwards, what do you need to do to achieve that end result? Obama’s end result?... Read more

Some updates on the Germany refugee/migrant inflow crisis

Last updated on: August 14, 2016 at 12:44 pm By Jane the Actuary

It is really, really difficult to keep up with what’s going on, as refugee/migrants continue to flood into Germany. But: 1) In yesterday’s spiegel.de, “Fehlende Notunterkünfte: München rechnet mit bis zu 13.000 Flüchtlingen“, or “Insufficient emergency housing: Munich expects up to 13,000 refugees” — that is, at the time of the article’s writing, 13,000 refugees were expected to have arrived in Munich in a single day. The city is overwhelmed, and the article speaks of using a stadium as temporary... Read more

Because it’s RUDE to leave early, that’s why

Last updated on: September 12, 2015 at 1:21 pm By Jane the Actuary

Playing Jeopardy, of course, with the question being: “why should I wait to leave mass after the closing song has finished?” I’m getting on my soapbox here, but a post I wrote a week ago, and the reaction to it, both here, and in other forums, really has me p*&!ed off, what with people claiming that since the Roman Missal doesn’t have anything to say about the matter, they are allowed to leave after the dismissal, and anyone who suggests... Read more

About my crazy cat

Last updated on: September 11, 2015 at 11:00 pm By Jane the Actuary

For many years we had a cat, Nicky, who was abandoned by our neighbor at the apartment complex we lived in as newlyweds, when she was evicted. We had him declawed (not knowing about any raging debates about the issue), and kept him inside — except that he loved to escape the house, when we chased after him. We tried various strategies to keep him indoors but were never entirely successful. What’s more, when we were in Germany, we... Read more

More on culture and assimilation

Last updated on: September 11, 2015 at 10:40 am By Jane the Actuary

If I have to read, in a comment or out there in the wide world of the blogosphere, “the Irish were discriminated against, but no one thinks twice about being Irish in America any longer, so that proves that every immigrant group will always and invariably assimilate,” one more time . . . One topic I would like to read more about is, in fact, how the Irish arrival impacted the country they arrived in. They were, after all, unlike... Read more

What about the corporate income tax? (and other Jane Tax Plan issues)

Last updated on: September 10, 2015 at 7:47 am By Jane the Actuary

Back in March, I proposed the Jane Tax Plan: a proposal which retains the basic concept of an income tax with marginal brackets, but with a lot of clean-up. I linked to it the other day and got a link to it from instapundit.com, which produced a lot of new feedback on my ideas. With respect to complaints that the rates are too high: eh, maybe so; the idea is to outline a conceptual structure, with the rates and breakpoints... Read more

Your (OK, my) tax dollars at work, animal control edition

Last updated on: September 9, 2015 at 8:53 pm By Jane the Actuary

The Chicago Tribune had a depressing editorial today, “Why lost pets stay lost in Cook County” — horrifying both in the inability of Cook County Animal Control to unite a lost pet with its owner, and the stunning level of waste and incompetence. Animal Control is about rabies, mostly. It gets most of its funding from the sale of rabies tags — and spends much of that money to pay employees to type the rabies tag data into a very... Read more

Refugee-migrants for hire? A few bits & pieces in the news

Last updated on: August 14, 2016 at 12:44 pm By Jane the Actuary

Why is Germany so willing to accept migrants? Paul Mirengoff at Powerlineblog says it’s because of a short- and long-term population decline, citing projections that the population will decline from 81 to 67 million by 2060. He cites a Telegraph article, but you can also read more on these projections at the German statistics agency site. What’s particularly striking is this: most population projections include alternate scenarios based on higher or lower birthrates. Germany’s alternate scenario doesn’t assume an improved... Read more