An unaccountable and unelected bureaucracy making decisions behind closed doors? Nope, not the latest story out of DC, it's Travis county Government this time ... Travis County could spend $450,000 for abortions and refuses to discuss it with citizens. Will Travis county taxpayers foot tab for abortions? We'll be the last to be told.
So the left-wing hates Fox News. That's not news. What is news is the foolish Obama White House is attacking Fox News. The Other State-run media channels play ball and don't criticize Obama, but not FoxNews. FoxNews keeps finding embarrassing realities that the rest of the State-run Obamamedia willingly ignores - ACORN scandals, Van Jones, Obama's lies about what's in HR3200 and ObamaCare, Anita Dunn's love of Mao, etc. INCONVENIENT TRUTHS that need to go away.
Solution? Deride FoxNews and isolate them so the 'news' they report on doesn't 'leak' out into the official media. Leftie journalists like Joe Klein doing the bashing FoxNews while lamenting Obama's misguided attacks turns non-news into news. Ironic that last week the liberal media was fabricating quotes to bash Rush Limbaugh and this week they are tut-tuting about journalistic manners. Agit-prop media flak outfit Media Matters got tired of trying to do the CYA memo for their puppet-masters in the Obama administration and went to cut off the source of the 'problem' - the dissenting media, which is embodied in FoxNews.
Yet what is the purpose of the media if all they do is fall in line behind the Obama White House narrative? How many journalists are actually required if you are just parroting talking points from the DNC? There purpose is not to spread information, but to reduce it. The fewer things said, and the more trivial the story the better, to distract from the real stories that are left unreported and un-remarked.
Who needs "news" outlets to act as intermediary for the news, when their act is solely to edit out anything that doesn't fit The Narrative? It becomes a sorry act of manipulation and dumbing-down of reality. Media consumers are left with a different choice - stay uninformed or go online and pick and choose from among a variety of sources to find out what's going on. If you are reading this, you've picked Door #2 - don't forget to bookmark us and come back to find out what the MSM isn't telling you.
David Rothman, who hangs out at TeleRead calls for "Kindle in every backpack", to get e-books in the hands of students and others everywhere at low cost.
Eventually, this will come about. Paper books sales are declining while e-book sales rise. With Gutenberg and other projects like Google Books, we are getting to the point where a vast amount of public domain literature is available. What remains to be freely (and legally) accessible online is the vast amount of copyrighted matter. DRM and other techniques are being used to protect this IP when its sold for devices, but in the process this hampers the concept of borrowed library book. To implement the idea of a 'universal digital library' where such material is easily available on a borrowed basis, we will need some way to borrow that DRM key.
Some cautionary comments about the impact of Ebooks on the brain by David Gelertner:
The most important ongoing change to reading itself in today’s online environment is the cheapening of the word. ... the narrowing time between writing for and publishing on the Web is helping to kill the art of editing by crushing it to death. The Internet makes words as cheap and as significant as Cheese Doodles. ...
The tools (as usual) are neutral. It’s up to us to insist that onscreen reading enhance, not replace, traditional book reading. It’s up to us to remember that the medium is not the message; that the meaning and music of the words is what matters, not the glitzy vehicle they arrive in.
Postscript: Between starting this article and finishing it, I: opened up 2 dozen Firefox tabs on topics relating to e-books; read reviews of the Barnes & Noble Nook (a Kindle competitor); downloaded Linux E-pub reader Fbreader; read several powerpoint presentations from IDPF's events (IDPF is International Digital Publishing Forum); perused the Gutenberg list of 30,000 public domain titles; picked up my daughter from a High School Robotic competition, then went off for Chinese for dinner with kids, then came home and put the young ones to bed; then re-visited more sites; then dove into three texts downloaded from Google books as epubs and PDFs including P G Wodehouse and a history of the Revolutionary War; and found that last links via E-Reads.com and a blog item by Mark Curtis touting his book DISTRACTION with this marvelous quote:
As e-books move out of their infancy and into a dominant role in the reading life of our society, it is imperative that we recognize the significant psychological differences between reading on screen and reading on paper.
Touche. I have managed to touch dozens and dozens of thought-streams, dipping toes and fingers, and briefly the whole mind, but grazing and moving on, with no more than a quick perusal for most sources. This was non-linear, random-walk, reading. It is imperative that we understand that millions of books at one's fingertips - the Universal Digital Library - may change what those books do for us and mean to us.
UPDATE 10/25: How close we are to universal access to massive numbers of public domain books hit home with this news from March this year - a Sony deal with Google books:
Sony Electronics has struck a deal with Google in a major endorsement that makes more than half a million public domain books from its digitization project available for free on the Sony Reader in its e-book store.
According to a 2005 McKinsey and Company Global Institute labor study, only about 10 percent of China’s engineers, and 25 percent of India’s, can compete in the global market. That report found that a higher percentage of engineers in low-wage nations like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Malaysia, than in China and India, are competitive in the global job market.Can we relax then? Not really. Doing better than China on a per capita basis is hardly cause for celebration. Would we accept a standard of living just a bit above China's level?
"I hate to say we don't have the world's best universities. We may have the best minds, the best liberal arts education. The problem is it doesn't match the work anymore." (That is to say, not enough students are getting science and math degrees.)
A message from a school superintendant:
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is attacking the Code of Discipline in DeSoto County Schools. The ACLU has just filed the 3rd lawsuit against our school district. What some may not realize is that they are challenging our safe and orderly environment--the one characteristic that separates our school district from districts near us.The ACLU can make charges against the school district saying we have done something to a student. We cannot respond because of privacy issues.
In May of 2008, the ACLU ran ads asking students who were displeased with DCS disciplinary proceedings and their parents to come to a meeting in Olive Branch. I am told approximately 30 people attended.
As superintendent, I do not want any child mistreated. But I do believe in rules and regulations. We don't allow baggy pants, cell phones used during school, drugs, guns, knives, cursing or foul language. Our teachers and administrators work very hard to make DCS as good as it can be. We cannot have an outstanding school district if we ever lose the safety at school. Our number one priority is safety for our students and staff. ...
The ACLU is well-financed. Every dollar DeSoto County Schools has to spend on lawsuits is one dollar we could spend on educating students. It is a shame that the ACLU can file one suit after another without any accountability. I have one message that is echoed by the Board of Education: Everyone has the right to do what he wants at home; when he comes to the school house, he must obey the rules just like we did when we went to school. We are going to take the time to teach children right from wrong. We are going to enforce our Code of Discipline, and we will do everything within our legal rights, to keep our campuses safe. It is my prayer, and yes, I said prayer, that the ACLU will not chip away DeSoto County School's Code of Discipline on my watch.
Chris Simcox
Moderator
Apostates killing.
Beating women and stoning women to death for adultery.
Calling Jews pigs and monkeys.
Declaring war on non-Muslims to spread Islam after offering non-Muslims three options – subjugate to Islam, pay Jizia (a humiliating tax), or be killed.
Enslavement of other human beings.
Fighting and killing Jews before the “End of Days”.
Gay killing.
“Daniel, I swear that I will never let your name to be erased from history...and I will write your name on the mountain tops....They not only killed you but they killed civilization...If they killed you because you were a Jew then I too am a Jew.”Colin Hanna
Though not interviewed by the Reno Gazette-Journal reporter who wrote this article, Carolyn Polish, Michele Samuelson and Timothy Bradberry enthusiastically participated in the event:
The Republicans vying for the chance to challenge U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., paid homage to the more conservative wing of their party Friday, speaking at the National Federation of Republican Assemblies convention in Reno. (click here to read full story)Guess who Tim endorses to take Harry Reid's place? Her name is Sharron Angle and she is a grass roots conservative in actions, not just in words:
Patriot Rule: Don't let liberals define the words that describe who you are.
Patriot Rule: Don't be afraid to be hated for what you believe
"I wear their scorn like a badge of honor." - Vice President Dan Quayle
From Representative Ken Paxton's Capitol Steps Newsletter
Constitutional Amendment Election
Clarification on Propositions 2 and 3
I have received emails this week regarding two proposed constitutional amendments that will appear on the November 3 ballot. I would like to clarify the intentions of these amendments regarding Propositions 2 and 3 as these amendments do not create a statewide property tax.
Proposition 2 makes a change to the property appraisal valuation process. Under current appraisal procedures, appraisers value properties based on the highest potential use. In many cases, this means that residential properties are valued based on the ability of the individual to convert the property to a commercial development which drives the appraisal of the property up. In these cases, a person's county appraisal, which is the basis for property taxes, increases to the 10% allowable limit. This increase in the appraisal results in a direct increase in the homeowner's property tax unless the local taxing entity lowers their property tax rate.
Proposition 2 gives direction to the county appraiser to appraise a residential property based on its current use as a residential property instead of based on any other potential use. This will result in a fairer appraisal of an individual's property and should reduce property taxes in many cases.
Proposition 3 also makes a changes to the appraisal process to ensure uniform standards and methods are used. Currently, tax appraisal methods differ between each county which allow each county flexibility in determining their appraisal methods and standards to develop their property tax rolls. However, because school funding is based on the taxable values of property statewide, a similar procedure and method should be used across the state to ensure that properties are appraised fairly and accurately.
During this session, the Legislature made some changes to an annual study performed by the Comptroller known as the "Property Value Study." The changes to the study include allowing the Comptroller's office to give guidance and some oversight of the appraisal methods and process. Under Proposition 3, the state would have more direct authority in the property appraisal process which should result in a more uniform and fair appraisal.
The Texas Constitution does not allow the state to levy a property tax.
A complete summary of the Constitutional Amendments can be found at http://www.hro.house.state.tx.us/framer2.htm. This guide is put together by the House Research Organization, a non-partisan organization that supports the Texas Legislature with research and data. This summary includes the pro's and con's of each amendment.
Virginia Gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell is running on Pragmatic Conservatism:
“Bob’s approach,” says an adviser, “is to take conservative principles and apply them to practical problem-solving. His target audience is that average swing voter, who wants to know that your values are close to his and that you’re going to solve problems.”If McDonnell wins, and polls suggest he'll win in a blow-out, expect to hear more of that phrase, "Pragmatic Conservatism".
We are at a point in history when our intellectual life has already been massively unsettled by technological advancement. The printing press brought the gospel to the common man and undercut the power of the priests. The camera brought pictures of war to the widows and raised questions about political and military leadership. Radio and then television and satellites allowed us to hear and see events far from our own lives and challenged the comforts of tribalism.The key fundamental innovations in internet, communications, computing and storage technoloies have led us to this point:
The internet combines all of those technologies with an always-there availability, and an individual programming capability that allows us to choose entirely for ourselves what we will or will not see. At this time in history critical thinking, a basic grounding in epistemology, and some moral foundation in the central value of truth, is absolutely vital.
Penn Jillette ripped for appearing on Glen Beck program by Tommy Smothers (who?), and a key comment on it:
Readers of Orwell’s 1984 will remember Emmanuel Goldstein, enemy of the state of Oceania, whose face appeared daily on TV screens everywhere, with narration describing his latest wickedness against the state, and the “proles” whipped themselves into a frenzy of rage in what was called The Two Minute Hate. For US (pseudo)liberals, Beck is now Emmanuel Goldstein. And there are others: Bush, Cheney, and now Sarah Palin. The left’s irrational hatred of these figures resembles Nazi hatred of Jews, and it serves the same purpose. The hatred unifies the masses and distracts attention from the fact that US “liberalism” is philosophically bankrupt, utterly corrupt, and destructive of individual liberties. Smothers was just doing The Two Minute Hate as directed.
"The Roots and Perils of Eduspeak—The Language of Pretense and Evasion" discusses the 'bafflegab' of educational jargon, creeping into schools.
The roots again can be found in "Cults of Ignorance" errors of Progressive Education:
In developing his case against the "damaging bromides" of Spencer -- and their steady institutionalization by Dewey and Kilpatrick in teachers' colleges and K-12 public schools -- Egan looks carefully at the real effects of "child-centered" education, psychological "developmentalism," and what he usefully calls the "biologized view of mind" that changed curricula all over the Anglo-American world from common-sense transmitters of the cultural achievements of mankind to present-minded, experimental, experiential, naturalistic, and unchallenging approaches.
As a public educator for nearly 25 years and student of popular culture for nearly double that, I believe that attending to lesser things/arguments is also contributing to a “dumbing down” of the American public, and, therefore, public education in America. ... This diminishing of quality education is also the consequence of a passionate opposition to memorization, coupled with a breakdown in the teaching of and knowledge about American history, Western literature and values.
Why dance with the devil only to learn what others have been saying since Adam and Eve? Dance with the devil and he will surely step on your toes. Besides, experience is often overrated as a teacher.
Former Ontario college teacher Barry Kavanagh agrees. “Although jargon is used by bureaucrats of all kinds to facilitate their own interactions, it seems to me that, in education, bureaucrats additionally employ jargon to keep their real agenda (the socialization of students) and their dismal academic results hidden from parents and taxpayers.”
Democrats are aiming to have "Medicare for All", and are trying to revive the single-payer Trojan Horse known as Public Option by giving it a new name. Some reactions on the comments that make powerful arguments for how unrealistic and wrong-headed the concept is:
FLyer 574: I just love the quote that "Medicare is a public option." There's no option at all! You automatically are enrolled in Part A-Hospital and Part B-Medical. You have the right to opt out of Part B if you're still working, and your company insurance becomes your supplemental Duh!These fools—and I mean fools—don't know what they're doing. Shakepeare was right: "Full of sound and fury and signifying nothing" Oh yes, I'm a Senior, on Parts AB, and an insurance broker dealing with Seniors. Just for the record…My take:
Medicare is NOT free. To get Part A-Hospital coverage, one must have 40 quarters of contribution, which was a portion of FICA taxes in a working lifetime. If you don't have 40 quarters of coverage, you pay nearly $400 per month for Part A. Part B is also NOT free. Currently, Medicare beneficiaries pay $96.40 per month (adjusted for income at the higher levels). That covers approximately 80% of Medical Expense, and the 20% is covered by a purchased Medicare Supplement. Unless of course, you have a Medicare Advantage plan which is subsidized by Mediare. Offering Medicare to all those that want it will be a horrendous expense, since no monies have been contributed to cover ir. Gee, where will that money come from? My 6 and 8 year old granddaughters? No, probably from my unborn great-grandchildren…and yours!
Rebranding PelosoiObamaRei dCare (PORC) as Medicare Part E is just pink lipstick on a fraudulent, flatulent, and frighteningly fascist pig of a plan that threatens to violate the rights of patients, doctors, business owners, and insurers on a massive scale.This massive dose of statism in medicine would induce grave waves of arrhythmia - inflation, price controls, lower quality, doctor shortages, waiting periods, and rationing. These disturbances would become so emotionally distressing to the American people that Alinsky-inspired statists — opportunists that they are — would be able to exploit each new “health care crisis” as another opportunity to inject another dose of statism into the system.Call Congress NOW and tell them to oppose this War of Choice on Choice in Medicine.Dr. Gregory GaramoniDoctors on Strike for Freedom in Medicine
http://www.doctorsonstrike .comBY on 10/21/2009 at 11:59: TAXATION BY MISREPRESENTATI ON. 2010 can't come soon enough.It was only a few weeks ago that Obama said that Medicare is going bankrupt. Now they want to put 300 million people on a bankrupt system?
: Oh, yes, why not expand a government-run program that's running a deficit of $38 trillion and on the road to bankruptcy by 2017. Who elects these nincompoops?In his speech to Congress concerning his "plan," Obama stated, "The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that to to insurance companies. . . ."Can the same government that allowed this corruption to mushroom suddenly eliminate it? Inquiring minds want to know how and when!
Jam: Have they ever considered that some seniors might prefer to have the option of not taking medicare. I personally do not want IT and have never liked it because I think it is government intervention into my life. Yet, when I reach the age of retirement, I will be required to take it or not be allowed to get insurance. This takes away my freedom and eventually invades my privacy. I do not believe any one has ever challenged this. I have considered challenging it when I am REQUIRED to take MEDICARE OR HAVE NO INSURANCE. Why doesn't Congress give all of us a little more freedom. In addition to requiring insurance agencies to write policies for pre- existing conditions, why not ask them to stop requiring seniors to take medicare and just open it up to those who want it. Why should we be required to take medicare and have it automatically deducted from our social security yet still pay the full amount for social security as income? I would rather keep my present policy and not have it be affiliated with medicare.House Dems want medicare for everyone except themselves.BY on 10/21/2009 at 12:35Medicare only pays about half of the doctors bill now, causing many doctors to refuse Medicare patents, how do they expect it to get better upon expansion of the failed program . . . Duh!BY on 10/21/2009 at 12:35Talk about putting lipstick on a pig!!!!BYMedical Coverage for all. Save little Timmy. Whatever you want to call it, asnwer this FIRST… How are you going to pay for it when the program is is meant to work with is ALREADY 37 TRILLION in the HOLE..?!?!?!?!?!?That is 15 times the national debt. wrap your small liberal minds around that first and then lets talk you to do this.BY on 10/21/2009 at 13:04I am 71 and on Medicare.I pay out of my pocket $3700 per year for Medicare Part A, Part B and the drug benefit. Medicare is NOT free - nothing is free in this world.When will Liberals learn this?BY on 10/21/2009 at 13:05An important political negative of the public option concept has been the $500 million transfer from Medicare to fund the public option. This latest scam to rename the public option as a component of Medicare means the $500 million would appear to stay on the books in the Medicare program and the political hicky goes away. Regardless, current recipients of the Medicare program will be worse off.BY on 10/21/2009 at 13:17Payment from Blue Cross/Blue Shield to an orthopedic surgeon for a total knee replacement is $1750. Medicare is $840. Medicaid is $260. This is supposed to cover at least one pre-op office visit, surgery and post op hospital care, and at least 2 follow up office visits. With the amortized cost of at least$100 for someone to walk into the office each time, how long to you think Dr.'s will work for next to nothing or lose money? How long would you?BY on 10/21/2009 at 13:36If the Dems want to lower the cost of Health Care, eliminate the restrictions that interfere with health insurance competition across state lines. The Republicans have been saying that for months now, but are being ignored. We don't need another giant government bureacracy that will go bankrupt in a few decades. How about true market-based competiton?BY on 10/21/2009 at 13:37
Obama's strong approve/disapprove number at minus 13 (27% strongly approve, 40% strongly disapprove) and Democrats are behind GOP on 10 of 10 issues:
There are some other polls out there, but they may suffer from sampling bias. I believe the free-fall is related to the 6 million jobs lost since Democrat Nancy Pelosi became speaker and this ... they are screwing the young people with anti-jobs policies and spending us into bankruptcy:
There was an ad on the other night for these classics books. Nice idea to have classic books like Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" on your shelf, but the ad was for a book-of-the-month-club type deal, and they only told you the 'low price' of the first book - not the following books. Does anyone fall for that anymore?
In the same vein, the folks selling ObamaCare have done a job of back-loading and hiding the true cost of the huge ObamaCare bill. The Spectator's Philip Klein has exposed it with a neat graphic, where 90% of the cost of ObamaCare is backloaded to after 2014:
“The mere absorption of facts and truths is so exclusively an individual affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat.” (John Dewey, The School and Society, 1899)If 'education' is to ignore the 'selfish' aspect of 'mere learning', yet aspire to change society itself, for the sake of 'social gain', however that is defined, it will indeed stray far from a system that helps children learn.
"Even the best education cannot stop a brilliant mind." - My College Professor, quoting the scientist Enrico Fermi
John Dewey, in his long life, wrote dozens of books and hundreds of articles. A lot of it is murky and ambiguous. Whatever you wish to promote, you can find support from Dewey. But in the interest of speed, let me summarize: he and his buddies were Socialists. They were sick of individualism, the pioneer spirit, free enterprise, and people doing their own thing. John Dewey wanted you to be a happy member of a group. You didn’t need that much literacy or knowledge. Dewey actually saw these as impediments. He calls, especially in the early grades, for sharply curtailing the study of literature, history, math, science, geography and such, in order to make room for social activities, specifically, “cooking, sewing, manual training, etc.” (his words). So here, tragically and pathologically, John Dewey, Educator, metamorphosed into that most unexpected of things: John Dewey, Anti-Educator. To advance his sociopolitical visions, Dewey was eager to dilute content and diminish learning.Consider this. If the goal of education was socialization, then learning that took any individual above their station in life was of no use. The policy is dumb by design:
The policy of dumb by design, to the extent our educators can slip it past parents and politicians, guides them to this day. Isn’t it fair to say that not one educational reform crafted by educators actually leads to better education? My impression is that none of these reforms is truly intended to lead to better education. The self-esteem movement. New Math. Fuzzy math. Whole language as a way of learning to read. Bilingualism. Ebonics. Outcome Based Education. Numerous campaigns against testing, homework, standards, or discipline. All seek a lower common denominator.The author Bruce Price has quotes to explain further 'the agenda':
Counts, 1932: "Historic capitalism, with its deification of the principle of selfishness, its reliance upon the forces of competition, its place of property above human rights, and its exaltation of the profit motive, will either have to be displaced altogether, or so radically changed in form and spirit that its identity will be completely lost."Bruce Price asks the question:
Willard Givens, 1934: "We are convinced that we stand today at the verge of a great culture....But to achieve these things many drastic changes must be made. A dying laissez-faire must be completely destroyed, and all of us, including the owners, must be subjected to a large degree of social control."
Counts, 1934: "Cumulative evidence supports the conclusion that in the United States as in other countries, the age of individualism and laissez-faire in economy and government is closing and a new age of collectivism is emerging."
Counts, 1934: " [Our new magazine] assumes that the age of individualism in economy is closing and that an age marked by close integration of social life and by collective planning and control is opening. For weal or woe it accepts as irrevocable this deliverance of the historical process."
National Education Association Journal, 1936: "Let us not think...in terms of specific facts or skills [that children should acquire] but rather in terms of growing."
NEA Journal, 1937: "The transition of society from the philosophy of individualism to the new emphasis on group goals and cooperative action produces vexing problems in secondary education....Only education which seeks the reconstruction of society is [valid]....Teachers should play an active part in securing acceptance by their communities of new social ideas and ideals."
NEA Journal, 1946: "In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher has many parts to play...He can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children for global understanding and cooperation....At the very top of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher, and the organized profession."
Our educators seemed intent not on educating children but on creating a new kind of children...But who asked our educators to embark on this project? Who voted? Who discussed?Proposing that "Teachers should play an active part in securing acceptance by their communities of new social ideas" and asking teachers "to prepare the hearts and minds of children for global understanding" are examples of agenda-driven education, satisfying the ideological purposes of teachers and educational 'experts' while doing nothing for the children themselves. The call away from teaching facts, leaves the children sufficiently ignorant and malleable for other agendas. This cruelly
Projections versus Data: The Death of Climate Change. This is a long and worthwhile read, but delivers at the end a coup de grace to the UN models upon which global warming hysteria rests:
Looking at 11 distinct UN computer models, as temperature rises, outgoing radiation from the Earth is predicted to diminish, ostensibly because greenhouse gases will get in its way and prevent it from escaping to space as easily as before. But the truth has now been revealed, measured by the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment Satellite, and correlated with changes in sea surface temperatures. As the sea surface warms, outgoing radiation escaping to space increases. It is not, after all, trapped down here as the 11 UN models project. The paper in which this discrepancy between model predictions and observed reality was presented represents the undoing of the official “high-climate-sensitivity” theory. Six or seven times as much outgoing radiation is escaping to space per unit change in sea surface temperature as the UN’s models predicted. This is a discrepancy of astonishing magnitude. ... If these results are indeed confirmed, that is the end of the climate debate. Instead of a 3.3 K (6 F) warming in response to a CO2 doubling, we shall see just 0.5 K (less than 1 F). And that is all.
From Jared Bernstein's talk at The Jobs Deficit summit. It's a jobs 'Great Recession', as VP Joe Biden put it.
Google Wave has been touted as the 'Next Big Internet Thing'. It may well be, but here are the Top 10 Complaints about Google Wave by users who have been beta-testing it. It's sounds like a phenomenal product that has some kinks in it.
It's official. The Federal Govt spent $1.4 trillion more than it took in in the past 12 months.
"HOPE" poster artist lied about the photo source for his artwork. Nothing new here, RFK and Democrats since faked quotes from Aristotle.
But the Lies of Hope start at the top:
White House declares war on FoxNews, and Glen Beck does another "lights on a Team Obama cockroach" in response. White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said this June: "There's usually not a good reason and then the third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers - Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa..."
Mao Tse Tung is world history's #1 mass murderer, having beaten out Stalin (bronze), and Hitler (silver) for world's most deadly dictator, with democide that killed more than 40 million by initiating terror, famine and repression. But who's counting in China, there's so many of them, right?
CampusReform.org informs us in http://www.campusreform.org/blog/wednesday-leftist-abuse-winner that Austin Community College (ACC) has a new school policy: If you drive a new, pricey “green car” you get a preferred parking spot and avoid paying the parking meter. ACC published a list of approved green cars. None are older than 2000. The car at the top of the approved list is a 2009 Audi TT Coupe, which starts at $36,025.
The blog notes that this effectively discriminates against the cars and drivers frugally sticking to older cars.
Why is ACC engaging in such idiocy? Because ACC hired a Director on Environmental Stewardship and so is wasting money paying someone full time to come up with this nonsense. Mr Kim needs to go back to building stuff and get out of the eco-greenwashing racket - it will do more good for the world.
Wireless Innovation is Alive & Well: Two New Reports Set the Record Straight. The US has highest minutes of use, mobile user penetration, wider supplier and provider base, than any other country. We have a fiercely competitive and innovative market.
"At my age [68], I don't know what happened a year ago." - Rene Nuñez, D-El Paso, making the case for term limits.
State education board trustees failed to disclose gifts, says Dallas Morning News:
Two members of the Texas State Board of Education have received thousands of dollars in gifts from a company seeking a lucrative contract with the board, records show, and those members have not reported the gifts on financial disclosure forms.
Bidding documents submitted to the board by the company, AEW Capital Management of Boston, say its employees bought 53 gifts worth more than $5,000 for board finance committee members Rene Nuñez, D-El Paso, and Rick Agosto, D-San Antonio.
I honestly thought it was satire when I read first that President Obama won the Nobel Peace prize. How absurd! What has he done other than embolden violent enemies? A formerly important international prize has now reached the nadir of irrelevant tom-foolery by giving the current President an 'affirmative action' Nobel Peace Prize he did nothing to earn. It was just last week was satirized by SNL for lack of accomplishments.
Even the UK Times calls says: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize, saying: "Sadly, it seems they have so bedazzled the Norwegians that they can no longer separate hopes from achievement. The achievements of all previous winners have been diminished." The mockery made more notable for the fact that "The deadline for nominations was February 1, meaning Obama was nominated after being in office for just 11 days." National Review notes:
Every year since 1901, the peace prize has been given by a committee of five Norwegians. They are appointed by the Norwegian parliament, the Storting. The Nobel Peace Prize always reflects the consensus of Norwegian politics. And that consensus is, in a word — a word the Norwegians might well choose — “progressive.” Others might call it left-wing.The Nobel peace prize has gone off the rails into the deep end of left-wing identity politics and absurd peace awards before (Arafat, Gore, Carter, the fraud Rigobeto Menchu, etc.) Yet now, they are no longer even tethered to the excuse of some accomplishment. All this is about is how un-Bush Obama is supposedly is, and how he makes the left feel. In short, the Nobel Peace Prize has become the "un-Bush Prize" for the public figure these 5 Norwegians think is least like George W Bush.
The committee has said, “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future."
Really. Which hope? Is it the $13 trillion in deficits? The 4 million jobs lost since Obama was inaugurated? Or simply the hope of leftists that American supremacy is kaput and America is choosing to decline, and free market capitalism took a beating in the past year?
They said: "In the past year Obama has been a key person for important initiatives in the U.N. for nuclear disarmament and to set a completely new agenda for the Muslim world and East-West relations.”
Really. They say this just a week after a vicious attack by the Taliban in Afghanistan left 8 Americans killed. Two weeks after Iran announced more about their nuclear program (which we've known about since 2006).
The more things change the more things stay the same. Again this year - Five Norwegian Idiots Pick Another Leftist.
UPDATE: Perhaps I am wrong in the headlines. Perhaps it should be Five Norwegian Leftists Pick Another Idiot. Another thought: Bill Clinton surely is steamed right about now. Think about it. The logical name to pick, had Hillary won the past election, would have been Bill Clinton for the Nobel "un-Bush" prize as a celebration of her election.
UPDATE II: Someone who deserved it better - Irena Sendler.
Via Instapundit, the Cato analysis exposes the several hidden costs in Baucus bill:
The CBO scoring makes it clear that the Baucus bill's reduction in future budget deficits comes not from controlling government spending or reducing health care costs, but because of a rapid escalation in tax revenues. ...Official cost of this is about $1 trillion. Real cost is $2 trillion ...The Baucus bill will not reduce the deficit, and it would ultimately cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion—just like every other bill Congress has produced so far.
The biggest gimmick employed by the bill is that its individual mandate pushes more than half of the legislation's cost off-budget, and onto businesses and individuals who will have to shoulder that burden. ...
The second-biggest gimmick is assuming that Congress will let the "Sustainable Growth Rate" cuts in Medicare physician payments to occur. Starting in 2003, Congress has repeatedly blocked those cuts ...
Should we have a constitutional convention?
Short answer: NO! An open-ended rewrite of the Constitution permits few opportunities for improvement but has far to many opportunities for mischief and disimprovement.
As one commenter put it: “There is nothing wrong with our Constitution. The problem is with our politicians, and with the lazy citizenry who refuse to vote them out when they consistently violate that Constitution.”
However, the challenge of getting around the Congressional roadblock on Amendments that curtail the Congress (such as term limits) is a real one. So one very good idea did bubble up out of the discussion:
I would propose the language thusly:I would prefer to add a 3rd method of Amendment: If 3/4ths of the States pass an identical Resolution of Amendment within a fixed time window, then that Amendment is placed before the voters at the next Congressional election for ratification, majority vote.
This bypasses Congress when necessary, and strengthens the hand of the States with respect to the Federal Government.
State-initiated Constitutional Amendment ProcessThis itself is a Constitutional Amendment. Which means it needs to get through Congress.
When 3/4ths of the States have passed in their respective legislatures identical Resolutions of Amendment within the prior 7 year period, the proposed Amendment in that Resolution of Amendment shall be placed before the voters of all the States at the next Congressional election for their approval, in the form of a ballot referendum.
Such an Amendment shall be deemed to have passed the referendum under the condition where a majority of elector-equivalent votes are counted for the proposal, such elector-equivalent votes having been counted as follows: In each district or State where a number of electors are chosen for President, that number is used as the number of elector-equivalent votes. These elector-equivalent votes are considered for or against the Amendment referendum, depending on whether a majority of ballots cast by voters in that given district or State are for or against the proposed Amendment respectively.
Any such Amendment, having been approved through the above process, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution.
Travis County Republican Party Chairwoman Rosemary Edwards writes a thought-provoking op-ed in the Austin American Statesman today on the higher costs of energy that will be likely given current initiatives in Austin and Washington, D.C.
The Austin City Council needs to a better job reconciling their green dreams with the likelihood that one day Austin won't be Weird -- it will be unlivable because of the high cost of living for many people.
CNN takes an SNL skit way too seriously, showing the laughable overt liberalism of the lamestream media. BTW, I am willing to count that loss of over 3 million jobs as an accomplishment.
Austin Tech Republicans' next meeting is Weds, Oct 14th, 11:45am-1pm
Topic: Energy policy and the consequences of Cap & Trade
Speaker: Kathleen Hartnett White of the Texas Public Policy Foundation
White has served as Chairman and Commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
Her bio information: http://www.texaspolicy.com/staff_member.php?staff_id=59
Meeting Time: Wednesday October 14th, 11:45am to 1:00pm
Location: Mangia's Pizza at Mopac and Duval
this is right off Mopac (northbound access rd at Duval exit) at Duval and Burnet.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=12001+N+MO+Pac+Expy,+Austin,+TX&vps=4&jsv=164e&sll=30.41848,-97.711759&sspn=0.02561,0.055747&ie=UTF8&latlng=30407404,-97713679,9125205684671566230&ei=PTVESsX9KZ7uMvWprNsJ&sig2=5pcwkvIflYgpsHiEaI-UEQ&cd=3
Check out my analysis of Michelle Obama's poorly designed speech, on American Thinker today.
UN Climate Reports:"They Lie" reports on how UN IPCC reports keep using discredited and suspect information to hype up climate change fears. It includes the amusing use of Wikipedia as a source for UN reports. It also notes another coup at Climate Audit.
Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit has busted another hockey stick: He has shown that a tree-ring temperature proxy study (Yamal reconstruction, done by Briffa) had selected and cherry-picked a mere 10 tree-ring cores to create a 'hockey-stick' reconstruction of temperature trends, a trend that disappears if you include all nearby relevant tree-ring proxy data:
The red line is the reported temperature trends from the original study, a reconstruction is based on a sample of only ten trees, and the green line shows the updated trends inclusive of all nearby available proxy data. Briffa used a narrow, selected, set of proxy data to generate a trend that has been used to help 'prove' global temperature trends. In effect, he threw out data that disagreed with the temperature trend he was trying to validate. It's a fine way to fool yourself into 'proving' a preconceived hypothesis.
Bishop Hill's The Yamal implosion is a layman's guide to what happened to get this uncovered and what it means for climate science. The story is reverberating, with Briffa responding to McIntyre.
McKitrick explains the story, saying:
Thus the key ingredient in most of the studies that have been invoked to support the Hockey Stick, namely the Briffa Yamal series, depends on the influence of a woefully thin subsample of trees and the exclusion of readily-available data for the same area. Whatever is going on here, it is not science.The temperature 'hockey stick' is a myth, constructed out of bad scientific methodology, 'lying through statistics' by over-interpreting narrow and selected data sets, and the hubris of ignoring data that contradicts politicized conclusions. The climate doom-and-gloom fearmongers, such as Al Gore, used the hockey stick to 'prove' we faced a crisis. Yet current global temperature trends are not cooperating at all with the fearmongers.
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are rearranging their prejudices." - William James
"What makes one regard philosophers half mistrustfully and half mockingly is not that one again and again detects how innocent they are – how often and how easily they fall into error and go astray, in short their childishness and childlikeness – but that they display altogether insufficient honesty, while making a mighty and virtuous noise as soon as the problem of truthfulness is even remotely touched on. They pose as having discovered and attained their real opinions through the self-evolution of a cold, pure, divinely unperturbed dialectic … while what happens at bottom is that a prejudice, a notion, an ‘inspiration’, generally a desire of the heart sifted and made abstract, is defended by them with reasons sought after the event – they are one and all advocates who do not want to be regarded as such, and for the most part no better than cunning pleaders for their prejudices, which they baptize ‘truths’."
- (Nietzsche, 1886, Beyond Good and Evil)
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