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Too much protection plays into the law of unintended consequences. Just today, we read that the ever increasing allergy to peanuts might stem from---not eating enough peanuts in the formative years, therefore not developing proper immunities to this allergy. So says the article written by . "Too much protection"  stories abound today.  When society offers and sometimes forces protection on the individual, the result is oftentimes that the people begin to lose their ability to avoid danger. It even happens with domestic cattle.  Many breeds of cattle are so domesticated that cows will not object to a predator attacking and carrying away a newborn calf.  Yet the Longhorn cow, not nearly as domesticated as, say, a Holstein cow, will not only "babysit" calves in a small group for other cows, but will get rather nasty if a predator shows up. Advocates of expanding breadth of  government need to pay heed to the risk of weakening society as a result of overly prote...

It appears from all the 5 years of experience of warfare with mice in the attic, a couple of things come to light. 1.  Mice, in there frantic effort to store food in a warm place for the winter, must carry the food in their mouths.  So, a baited trap on their path is sometimes ineffective---they pass right by it on their way to store their food at a preselected place.  Solution, should you know their path is to use a glue board. When they attempt to run over the glue board, they are finished. 2.  They need water, but not a lot of water. Often the small bit of water in their stored food is enough for a short time.  This means that they can live in an attic for some days without having to return to the outdoors for water---and to get more food to bring to the storage area. 3.  They are extreme in their habits. Once one finds a path to a good spot for wintering or nesting, the others are sure to follow.  For example, merely look at the pathways in deep...

In the 1930's the cost to educate one child was around $400 per year.  Now, its around $8000 per year.  Ya ya, times have changed, we all know that.  But that doesn't deter us from asking if school consolidation has really returned good benefits, or if there might have been a different approach to educating children. Recent studies on school consolidation--its been happening since the 1920's---have suggested that the drivers for school consolidation were two:  efficiency and quality of education.  So, how have each faired.  This report goes on to say that at first, efficiency was gained by consolidation, but then lost as large districts got to be more bureaucratic and government loaded them up with new requirements.  So far, that does not intersect with the quality of education---get to that later. Efficiency improvement might have been achieved by a different route: Some parts can be consolidated into central management, like purchasing, but that wo...