More is being said here and here.
We’re home after a long (and great) Christmas vacation. So it’s back to work and back to whatever home-based blogging time permits.
Stuff I read today: Saddam’s Terror Training Camps by Stephen Hayes and U.S. shouldn’t have to do tap dance over bugging by Mark Steyn.
Money-quote from Hayes:
Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to The Weekly Standard by eleven U.S. government officials.
The secret training took place primarily at three camps–in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak–and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria’s GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000.
Money-quote from Steyn:
It shouldn’t be necessary to point out the obvious. But, unmoored from reality, wafting happily into fantasy land safe in the hermetically sealed Democrat-media bubble, Sen. Barbara Boxer and her colleagues are apparently considering impeaching the president for eavesdropping on al Qaida calls made to U.S. phone numbers. Surely, even Karl Rove can’t get that lucky.
BACKGROUND: Saddam Hussein and 9/11
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I just wanted to take the time to point out how correct I was on a previous post about the job of a professor modeling very closely with communism:
From Mark Elrod’s post today:
I have a friend who reminds me every now and then that the best three things about teaching are June, July and August. I could add to that list most of the month of December.
I usually make it a point not to say anything to my friends and relatives who are in non-teaching jobs about the generous amount of down time that comes with teaching. The theory is that we are supposed to use that time to get a little research done and get ready for the next semester. I usually pack my preparation into the last two days of our breaks.
Point - Baron.
Link for previous comment here.
or here: http://markaelrod.blogspot.com/2006/01/new-semesters.html
[Apologies for borrowing Extremist’s website, but the above comment touches a raw nerve…]
Please don’t generalize from Elrod’s schedule to an entire profession.
I did a careful time audit one recent semester and found that I worked 55 (fifty-five) plus hours every single week that school was in session. Over the last winter break, apart from one week, I worked on courses and research every single day (Saturdays & Sundays) for at least three hours. In the summers, I work at least five days a week for at least three hours a day–and I don’t teach summer school. Over the course of a year, this averages out to a healthy 40hrs/week. I have many academic friends my age who work as much or more than I do.
I get paid $40k before taxes. My highest-paid friend my age gets paid $60k and she works as much as I do. Many community-college profs get paid less than I do for as much work.
Obviously, some people slack off in every job. Please don’t overgeneralize and belittle the livelihood of many sincere people who bust their butts every day to serve people young and old from all walks of life.
Of course, I know that I am lucky to have my job, and I know that my students benefit from my hard work. I am sorry if you have had crappy Communist professors–most of the ones I know are not that way.
Please take it to the appropriate post for further discussion if you must.
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