I don't know how this happened, but I'd sure like to know so I can keep on doing it! I've already looked, and I'm not linked on Instapundit....Former President Bill Clinton was in Denver, Colorado, stumping for his wife yesterday.
In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."
I've always suspected that some environmentalists would only be happy when they had returned humanity to the Dark Ages, but I'd never expected this....Go see for yourself what "this" is =)
In a fiery Salon column, Garrison Keillor tells Democrats to stop bashing No Child Left Behind and Reading First. Teaching kids to read well is a lot more important than Bush bashing.
“Nice, caring, sharing people” — not “Republican oligarchs in top hats and spats” — are running the schools, Keillor writes. The failure to teach low-income students to read competently is their failure.
Berkeley council tells Marines to leave
Hey-hey, ho-ho, the Marines in Berkeley have got to go.
That's the message from the Berkeley City Council, which voted 8-1 Tuesday night to tell the Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."
In addition, the council voted to explore enforcing its law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against the Marines, and officially encouraged the women's peace group Code Pink to impede the work of the Marines in the city by protesting in front of the station.
In a separate council item, the council voted 8-1 to give Code Pink a designated parking space in front of the recruiting station once a week for six months and a free sound permit for protesting once a week from noon to 4 p.m.
Councilman Gordon Wozniak voted no on both items.
The Marines have been in Berkeley for a little more than a year, having moved from Alameda in December of 2006. For about the past four months, Code Pink has been protesting in front of the station.
SAN ANTONIO — An elementary school principal has been charged with molesting a 13-year-old student, and police said they're investigating the possibility that there could be other victims...
The affidavit said police confiscated images of the alleged victim, two compact discs that "depicted adult men having sex with adolescent male children" and handwritten notes from children that were "inappropriate and sexual in nature."
Police also seized pictures of other unidentified children.
"In these cases, historically, we are never done with one victim," Police Sgt. Gabe Trevino said. "Odds are good there may be more victims"...
The South San Antonio Independent School District said Alcoser (the principal) was placed on administrative leave from his position at Carrillo Elementary School pending the outcome of the criminal investigation.
Since the two candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination agree that neither of them should be supported or opposed because of their race or sex, how can either of them or their party continue to support the state distributing benefits and burdens on the basis of race? If presidents shouldn’t be selected or rejected on the basis of race or sex, why should college freshmen? Why is the “without regard” treatment Hillary and Obama seek for themselves not good enough for everybody else?
Obama insists he committed nothing like a snub, and eyewitnesses in the room didn't see Clinton reach for Obama's hand.
"Senator Clinton and I have had very cordial relations, off the floor and on the floor," Obama told reporters yesterday after the slight turned into a full-blown flap.
"I waved at her as I was coming into the Senate chamber before we walked over last night.
"I think that there's just a lot more tea-leaves-reading going on here than I think people are suggesting."
Gloria Steinem took Hillary Rodham Clinton's "I am woman, vote for me" approach to the limit in a New York Times op-ed by suggesting that it would be better to elect a white woman than a black man because women got the franchise 50 years later and have "no masculinity to prove."
...
"All the habits of verbal thuggery that have long been used against critics of affirmative action [and of] radical feminism," David Brooks observed in his New York Times column, "are now being turned inward by the Democratic front-runners."
Is it too much to hope that this embarrassing identity-politics brawl proves to be a learning experience for liberals about the dangers of reflexively attributing racist, sexist, and other bigoted motives to people who disagree with or displease them?
Happily, a lively new book by a man whose policy prescriptions are generally liberal offers a wealth of perceptive insights about the harms done by promiscuously crying racism -- and sexism, and homophobia -- when the real problem is not (or not necessarily) contemporary bigotry but the tragic legacy of our history of oppression. The book is The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse, by Richard Thompson Ford, a Stanford law professor.
...
Ford stipulates that plenty of racists still walk the earth. But he stresses a reality from which most Democratic politicians and liberal activists avert their eyes: "Many of today's racial injustices are not caused by simple prejudice; instead, they are legacies of the racial caste system of our recent past, entrenched by the inertia of class hierarchy and reinforced by the unforgiving competition of capitalist markets. As a result, many people have legitimate grievances but no racist to blame for them." Ford calls this "racism without racists."
Among Ford's other insights are these. (And he lists a few good ones--Darren)
...
Ford demonstrates brilliantly how the Supreme Court's insistence that racial preferences in education are illegal unless designed to promote "diversity" has forced liberals "to embrace what had once been the fringe position of black nationalists (and white supremacists): The races are fundamentally -- perhaps intrinsically -- different." This has helped to entrench in the academic world an obsession with multiculturalism and self-segregation -- all but displacing the ideal of integration that was the original and the best justification for racial preferences.
...
Democrats will be a healthier party when they start listening to thinkers such as Ford and tuning out demagogues such as Sharpton. Obama seems to get that, most of the time. Does Team Clinton?
Sen. Barack Obama says he has built a diverse coalition to win the presidency, blind to differences of race, gender or age.
The second man to walk on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, is a West Point graduate.
So are astronauts Frank Borman, Ed White and about 15 other men who have flown in outer space. At least another 20 West Point graduates were involved in the Explorer I and Apollo projects.
To remind the world of what an impact the U.S. Military Academy had on the early days of space exploration, the West Point Association of Graduates has invested heavily in the courtyard of the new building housing the Saturn V at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. The association bought bricks - at $100 a pop - and had the names of those noteworthy graduates etched on each.
In a dramatic proposal to reform eight chronically under-performing schools, Chicago Public Schools could fire hundreds of teachers and their principals next fall, replacing them with better-trained or better-performing educators, school officials said.
Of the 167 teachers deemed the worst of the lot among those seven schools and ousted by the board, more than half ended up back in Chicago public schools, including some targeted for improvement.
Though teaching positions in low-performing schools can be tough to fill, Duncan said there is "a huge amount of interest" among educators who are excited about getting in on the ground floor of reformed schools' future success. He said the district is interested in the best talent, including nationally board-certified and Golden Apple teachers.
As extra incentive, the district is offering annual performance bonuses of up to $10,000 to principals and master teachers.
In some cases, good teachers will have the chance to be hired back, but the vast majority will be fired, Duncan said.
"The simple premise is you can't fix the high school without also fixing the elementary school," Duncan said. "By doing this by neighborhood, we have a chance in a very short amount of time to dramatically impact the educational opportunities for children in that community."
"On Oct. 5, 2007, at another notorious middle school, I was deliberately body-slammed on the head by two to three large young men in a P.E. class of 53 students, while another teacher (someone I had never met before) was decent enough to give a formal declaration to school and police authorities of what he had witnessed. I sustained a concussion and sciatica nerve damage as a result of this personal attack intended to 'terrorize [me].' I have memory lapses and continued head and leg pain. I'm told by the local police that this sort of physical abuse on teachers occurs with disturbing regularity. The LAUSD case nurse assigned to my case labeled my attack 'boys will be boys.'" she wrote.
click to enlargeBut if your kids are taught math according to the principles of renowned University of Pennsylvania math professor Dennis DeTurck, they won't be able to do these things without an electronic gizmo to think for them. DeTurck, also dean of the college of arts and sciences at Penn, wants to get rid of fractions. He also wants to banish division, square roots, and multiplication.
That's right, say good-bye to real math. It's a liberal's outcome-based education wet dream. And it's gaining acceptance as Profesor DeTurck gets ready to release a new book attacking traditional math taught in schools. Just as our students are failing even more versus the rest of the world in math and the inextricably-linked science, we need to make them more dumb and ignorant in those disciplines? Yes, if Dr. DeTurck gets his way. They can do it on a calculator on their cellphone, apparently.
How can fractions be as obsolete as Roman numerals, and important for high-level mathematics too? Isn't Dean DeTurck losing it? It's said that old deans never die; they just lose their faculties.
More good news came this week for advocates of non-petroleum or alternative energy source vehicles when it was confirmed that Wal-Mart executives are thinking about selling hybrids. Motor Authority reports that the monster retail chain's CEO, H. Lee Scott, is a devout greenie and wants to help automakers get more clean vehicles to the market.I continue to be a fan of Wal*Mart.
Saddam Hussein allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction to deter rival Iran and did not think the United States would stage a major invasion, according to an FBI interrogator who questioned the Iraqi leader after his capture.
The Associated Press spoke to a close aide of Saddam's in August 2003, who said that Saddam did not expect a U.S. invasion and deliberately kept the world guessing about his weapons program, although he already had gotten rid of it.
Saddam publicly denied having unconventional weapons before the U.S. invasion, but prevented U.N. inspectors from working in the country from 1998 until 2002 and when they finally returned in November 2002, they often complained that Iraq wasn't fully cooperating.
Piro (the interrogator) added that Saddam had the intention of restarting an Iraqi weapons program at the time, and had engineers available for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
The short version: Bruce Randolph was once one of the worst schools in the state, but recent reforms have turned it around. Now the school's principal, teachers and union reps want exemptions from several provisions of the teachers' contract, which they say are hindering their efforts.
Guess what the union said...
In any event, it's going to get very interesting in Denver, because the Bruce Randolph administration and faculty refuse to back down. Greg Ahrnsbrak, a union rep at the school, said, "They [the union] are doing everything they can to block a real reform effort. Reform is happening. You're either going to be on the bus or beneath it. I want to be driving it."
There are tons of inconsistencies in the environmental movement such as plugging an electric car into an outlet that connects to the grid where the electricity is supplied by coal-burning, greenhouse gas emitting power plants or driving a Prius that leaves a larger carbon footprint than a Hummer.
This one beats them all however....
The enviros are getting sucked into this trap of hypocrisy and contradiction because they "act locally" in order to be self-righteous, and actually don't *objectively* "think globally" about their actions' complete contexts/costs.
Either because its too hard, or it gets in the way of feeling good (and superior).
Oh, and anyone who still thinks environmentalists are about the environment and not about being elite hasn't been paying attention. No nukes, no windfarms, no solutions are good enough. Contradictions are gonna result.
As they say inconsistencies are the hobgoblin of little minds, and the elites do not worry about such things.
Can you tell what city that is? Well, that's Market Street pointing to the gap between Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Islands, and that's Oakland and Berkeley on the other side of the Bay. The eastern end of Golden Gate Park is on the left.
The north side of the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Marin Headlands. Star Trek fans will note that this is the location of Starfleet Headquarters. Sausalito is in the background.
Point Reyes.
This 747 was 1000' below. The closing velocity was 950 knots.
Thousands of UC students are in line for refunds of part of their 2003 tuition after the state Supreme Court rejected the university's appeal Wednesday of a ruling that said UC broke its promise to hold the fees steady.
But nearly 40 years after his assassination in April 1968, after the deaths of his wife and of others who knew both the man and what he stood for, some say King is facing the same fate that has befallen many a historical figure -- being frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message.
"Everyone knows, even the smallest kid knows about Martin Luther King, can say his most famous moment was that 'I have a dream' speech," said Henry Louis Taylor Jr., professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Buffalo.
"No one can go further than one sentence," he said. "All we know is that this guy had a dream; we don't know what that dream was." (boldface mine--Darren)
What changes would you recommend if I told you that African-American children were:
four to eight times as likely to be drugged with Ritalin and other stimulants, which pediatrician Leonard Sax, calls “academic steroids.”
reading much more poorly than are other students.
five times more likely to commit suicide.
two and a half times as likely to drop out of high school.
severely underrepresented in college and even more so among college graduates, thereby locking them out of today’s, let alone tomorrow’s, knowledge economy.
You’d likely invoke such words as “institutional racism” to justify major efforts to improve African-Americans’ numbers.
All of the above statements are true except for one thing: I’m not talking about African-American children. I’m talking about children of all races, indeed half of all children, half of our next generation: boys.
When a disparity hurts females or minorities, major efforts are implemented to redress the situation. Why not with boys?
You'd think this confluence of social responsibility and double lattes, good business practices and lefty politics, would make Katzeff a happy man. But he and a growing number of roasters say the Fair Trade movement has lost its way. The movement has always aroused suspicion on the right, where free traders object to its price floors and anti-globalization rhetoric. Yet critics from the left are more vocal and more angry by half; they point to unhappy farmers, duped consumers, an entrenched Fair Trade bureaucracy, and a grassroots campaign gone corporate.
At some point we Californians should ask ourselves, how we inherited a state with near perfect weather, the world's richest agriculture, plentiful timber, minerals, and oil, two great ports at Los Angeles and Oakland, a natural tourist industry from Carmel to Yosemite, industries such as Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and aerospace—and serially managed to turn all of that into the nation's largest penal system, periodic near bankruptcy, and sky-high taxes.
If I had a label called "weird", this story would certainly merit that label.OSAKA, Japan — A junior high school soccer coach in Japan who made team members run laps in the nude killed himself on Thursday, the Mainichi Daily News reported.
Click here for the full story.
The 48-year-old coach, who was not named in the story, made several male players take off their clothes to run laps as punishment for missing penalties during practice.
On Thursday he jumped in front of a train.
“Sen. [Barack] Obama and I agree completely that neither race nor gender should be a part of this campaign,” New York Sen. Hillary Clinton saidYeah, right. And if you believe this, you’ll believe that if we have a Clinton-Obama or an Obama-Clinton ticket, you’ll never hear anything during the ensuing campaign about historical firsts, ceilings being broken, etc.
I wish, just once, that, upon hearing this “no race, no gender” nonsense from the Democrats’ dueling duo, some intrepid reporter would ask, “ Well, Senator(s), if you believe race and gender should play no role in selecting a president, why do you continue to believe they should play such large roles in selecting college students and employees?”
"Cascades 'peaking' through the clouds."
"Mt. St. Helens. Taken looking toward the sun so it is rather hazy. You can see the side that was blown away. "
"Another photo of Mt. Ranier. I have wanted to climb Rainier on the Liberty Ridge Route (it starts at the left of the photo). It looks very imposing and slopes up to 60 degrees towards the top. The photo and 39,000' flatten the mountain out. "
"Mt. Ranier from 39000'. This is cool. It was much more impressive looking out my window. "
I do not believe the Constitution is a living, breathing document. I am committed to appointing strict constructionist judges to the bench if I am elected President, strict constructionists who believe the Constitution has a fixed meaning that can be applied to cases that come before the courts today. They do NOT believe the Constitution is a “living, breathing document,” whose meaning, constantly changing with the sifting sands of our culture, can be determined and applied by unelected judges.
Ezra Levant was one of the few publishers in Canada to reprint the notorious “Mohammed cartoons” in 2006. Two years later, he’s been hauled before a “human rights officer” to explain why offending the delicate sensibilities of sharia-minded imams is legal, legitimate and necessary. Heather Cook reports on Levant’s video-captured testimony.
I am here at this government interrogation under protest. It is my position that the government has no legal or moral authority to interrogate me or anyone else for publishing these words and pictures... I believe that this commission has no proper authority over me. The commission was meant as a low-level, quasi-judicial body to arbitrate squabbles about housing, employment and other matters, where a complainant felt that their race or sex was the reason they were discriminated against. The commission was meant to deal with deeds, not words or ideas. Now the commission, which is funded by a secular government, from the pockets of taxpayers of all backgrounds, is taking it upon itself to be an enforcer of the views of radical Islam.
In the name of safety, the U.S. Naval Academy is considering an overhaul of one of its most bizarre traditions: the annual ritual in which a thousand first-year midshipmen struggle to conquer a 21-foot granite obelisk coated with 200 pounds of lard...
The scene is unforgettable to those who watch, as the sweating, grunting, red-faced midshipmen at the bottom, their arms linked, support a human pyramid surging to the top of the monument. The pyramid often collapses, but the plebes invariably make it to the top whether it takes them minutes or hours...
Deborah Goode, a spokeswoman for the academy, said that she could not recall any serious injuries resulting from the Herndon Climb and that the reevaluation was part of a broader reconsideration of the end-of-year events for plebes.
Alumni scoffed at the risk of someone's getting hurt, especially given the school's mission to prepare officers for combat.
A high school track star has been disqualified from a meet because officials said the custom-made outfit she wears to conform to her Muslim faith violated competition rules...
Kelly was wearing the same uniform she has worn for the past three seasons while running for Theodore Roosevelt's cross-country and track teams. The custom-made, one-piece blue and orange unitard covers her head, arms, torso and legs. Over the unitard, she wears the same orange and blue T-shirt and shorts as her teammates.
The outfit allows her to compete while adhering to her Muslim faith, which forbids displaying any skin other than her face and hands...
But meet director Tom Rogers said Kelly's uniform violated rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which sanctioned the event. Uniforms are required to be "a single-solid color and unadorned, except for a single school name or insignia no more than 2 1/4 inches," he said.
Rogers said he knew Kelly was wearing the uniform for religious reasons and that he offered her several options to conform to the rules while still respecting her faith, including placing a plain T-shirt over her unitard and then wearing her team uniform over it.
Kelly's mother, Sarah, and Roosevelt Coach Tony Bowden disputed that account.
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- Students who don't hand in homework won't receive a zero anymore under new rules for a new semester that started on Monday at Council Bluffs Community Schools.
Students and teachers are encouraged to use the new grading techniques. School officials said that under the old regime, a student who received a zero had a tough time recovering a grade in the course. Administrators said that by making the failing gap smaller, students still have a chance to bounce back and pass at the end of the semester, even after a mistake.
In 2006, voters in Michigan struck down racial preferences, as did Californians and Washingtonians a decade earlier. Up to five states will have that opportunity this year if proposed initiatives in those states qualify for the ballot.
But a new move is afoot to try to circumvent the intent of those initiatives in higher education. Unsurprisingly, the University of California is leading the effort, but it could spell trouble for higher education everywhere...
Now a UC policymaking board is considering sweeping changes in the admissions process that threatens to lower standards for admission for all students in hopes it will boost admission of more blacks and Hispanics (Asians already account for about 40 percent of the students). This board proposes lowering the GPA required to 2.8 and dropping the requirement for students to take SAT II tests in at least two academic subjects, among other changes.
The effect will be to lower standards — and the ultimate aim is to erode support for any objective measures of academic achievement.
If adopted, this plan will have far-reaching impact. In the academic world, as California goes so goes the nation.
The diversity crowd has long sought to eliminate standardized testing as an important factor in college admissions because blacks and Hispanics, on average, do worse than whites and Asians on standardized tests. But standardized tests are the most objective way to measure students' academic qualifications against each other.
There was some talk last Thursday about the possibility that "the college, ultimately, may opt for an 'aspirational' statement as opposed to a code," but the statement from a college spokeswoman Wednesday had been, "The pledge would not be optional .... If you don't agree, it is President Ryan's vision that you cannot attend the school."
Some of this just can't be taken seriously: "I promise to respect each and every member of the college community without regard to ... creed [or] political ideology ... sparing no effort to preserve the dignity of those I will come in contact with"? You have to respect people whose religious "creed" is that the Earth is flat, or that blacks or whites are morally inferior? You have to respect people without regard to political ideology, "sparing no effort to preserve the dignity of" Nazis or Stalinists?
You know, it appears more and more that the Democrat's cries of racism re:Republicans is a form of projection. David Duke is denounced in mainstream Republican circles for his racism. Those same mainstream Republicans pushed Pat Buchanan out of the Party for a whiff of anti-Semitism. Or look at the heat Ron Paul is getting from Republicans. Why do the Democrats give their race baiters and anti-Semites (often one in the same) a pass?
Could it be they can't win elections without them?
BATHURST, New Brunswick — A van carrying a Canadian high school boys' basketball team collided with a truck Saturday, killing seven students and the coach's wife on their way home from a game.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Derek Strong said the seven players — between the ages of 15 and 18 — were pronounced dead at the crash site after their van crossed the center line and hit the tractor-trailer shortly after midnight.
Nevada’s state teachers union and six Las Vegas area residents filed a lawsuit late Friday that could make it harder for many members of the state’s huge hotel workers union to vote in the hotly contested Jan. 19 Democratic caucus in Nevada.
The 13-page lawsuit in federal district court here comes two days after the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Nevada endorsed Senator Barack Obama, a blow to Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama addressed the Culinary Union at their hall earlier Friday.
A federal judge has ruled that the Democratic Party can go ahead with the 9
at-large caucuses on the strip. The ruling could have a decisive effect on the
result in the state given that recent polls show a dead heat between Clinton,
Obama, and John Edwards.
"If you dream it, you can do it" is a silly bit of twaddle told to eighth graders at "Be Somebody!" self-esteem rallies. Adults who consider themselves astute and savvy really ought not be indulging in such childish sloganeering.
The US is at risk of losing its top-notch triple-A credit rating within a decade unless it takes radical action to curb soaring healthcare and social security spending, Moody's, the credit rating agency, said yesterday.
The 48 parks (around the state) proposed for closure are scattered around the state and include redwood forests, a remote beach and numerous historic sites. Closing the sites would eliminate 136 positions, and help the parks department cut about 8.9 percent – or $13.3 million – from its general fund budget.
The parks would be put in caretaker mode, and reopened when the budget situation improves...
(In addition to Sutter's Fort): the historic Governor's Mansion at 16th and H streets, and the tiny State Indian Heritage Museum next to Sutter's Fort, where Swiss immigrant John Sutter established the first non-Indian settlement in the Central Valley at what is now 27th and L streets in bustling midtown.
That's pretty alarming, isn't it? Things must be pretty bad. The economy's in the dumps.
Weakest holiday season in years
Perkins, who tracks same-store sales at 43 retail chains, said combined November-December sales rose 1.7 percent, their weakest gain since 2002.
In the overall retail sector, Thomson Financial, which also compares monthly results at 43 of the nation's largest retail chains based on analysts' estimates, said total December same-store sales rose just 0.5 percent compared to its revised estimate for a 0.7 percent gain...
Even though November same-store sales rose a much better 4 percent overall, the average of the two months taken together showed a 2.3 percent rise, which Thomson said is the slowest pace of growth since 2004 when sales for the two months combined also rose 2.3 percent.
The National Retail Federation, the industry's largest trade group, expects total sales for November and December combined rose 4 percent this past holiday season, which would mark the slowest pace of growth since 2002.
GLENDALE, Ky. -- Bobby Thorn wanted to be the only boy on his school's cheerleading squad, but that didn't happen.Amazing.
The 13-year-old attends East Hardin Middle School in Glendale, but the controversial decision to cut him from the team expands beyond the district's boundaries.
Bobby's mother filed a discrimination claim with the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights two years ago, and now a settlement has been reached...
Despite his flips, his tryout was a flop. He didn't make the team.
“I was devastated,” he said.
So was Bobby's mother, Melissa Barner, who said she has sworn statements from other parents stating the coach admitted cutting Bobby because she didn't want a boy on her team.
In the settlement agreement, the school admits no wrongdoing but the commission has ordered mandatory training for the principal, teachers and coaches at the school.
Teen mothers-to-be attending a Denver high school are asking for at least four weeks maternity leave, saying they don't want to be penalized for absences while healing and bonding with their new babies, The Denver Post reports.
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Residents near a local middle school said they find it hard to believe that no one knew about the World War II bombing range the school was built on.
The Army Corps of Engineers detonated 400 pounds of explosives found on the school property on Saturday.
"We were able to explode and render safe 49 23-pound bombs," Mike Fulford of the Army Corps Of Engineers said.
The military is used to fight the enemies of the state. Police are used to protect the citizens of the state. When the military is used as a police force, it's very easy for citizens to become the enemies of the state. That leads to tyranny.
Democratic Candidates Squirm to the Iraqi Surge Dance
You've got to love the way that question was phrased.
ABC News commentator Charles Gibson gave the Democratic presidential candidates a thorough tongue lashing over their (wrong) stands on the Iraq War and in particular on their continual insistence that the troop surge had not worked. ABC started the segment with a video clip showing the remarkable success of the Bush troop surge.
The democrats still couldn't admit it even though the facts were just laid out in front of them.
I am prepared to believe that there may be some things (though not many of them) that are of such public benefit that they should be provided at the general expense. That is not to say that I think that if something is good it should be compulsory. Let alone that if it sounds like a good, that is justification for its being compulsory.
But when you are dealing with the state, "free" does not mean 'free as in free speech', nor does it mean 'free as in free beer'. It means 'compulsory'.
Parents could be required to provide their children with high-speed internet access under plans being drawn up by ministers in partnership with some of the country's leading IT firms.
