A better-late-than-never edition of reasons not to trust Naomi Schaefer Riley

As we used to say back in the Ozarks, I've been busier than a one-legged man at in an ass-kicking contest, so I still don't have time to go through the logical and factual problems with this piece in the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed section, but I have to take a moment to point out that Riley defines 'impossible' in much the same way that Newman defines 'rarely.'

In the spring of 1989 Wendy Kopp was a senior at Princeton University who had her sights set on being a New York City school teacher. But without a graduate degree in education or a traditional teacher certification, it was nearly impossible to break into the system. So she applied for a job at Morgan Stanley instead.

"Nearly impossible' in this case means 'mildly inconvenient.' It was no big deal. Lots of people did it. I know this because at around the same time Ms. Kopp was cranking out spreadsheets in Lotus 1-2-3, I was teaching high school despite the fact that I had neither an education degree nor traditional teacher certification.

I'm not saying Ms. Riley is woefully ignorant in her area of supposed expertise. I'm not saying that she's a liar. I'm just saying we've got the possibilities narrowed down.