Delaware's own Joe Biden

You know how it goes by now: If 'ol Joe was a Republican, the mainstream media would be on this story for at least a week. But, that same MSM has been busy anyway, y'know, ferreting out "racism" that's "within" practically anything someone in the GOP says (especially the presidential candidates). Nah, this isn't offensive is it?

Hat tip to American Glob, who also reminds us what Biden said before about Indian Americans in his home state (unfortunately, it's my state, too).

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Thanks for the black eye

Photo of sleeping Mustang substitute teacher investigated is a headline today at The Oklahoman. Yep -- a 9th grade student snapped a pic of a sleeping substitute teacher with a cell phone camera ... and was then suspended. Why? Cell phones, while permitted on campus, aren't allowed to be taken in class. Not to mention that the kid promptly posted the pic on a social media site.

What do 'ya think about this? My first principal (whom I worked for) had a saying -- "Rules with a human face." The result of this student's actions was a positive: He showed that the school had hired a lemon substitute teacher whose actions endangered a whole class of kids. The kid's principal has, according to the article, discretion on what disciplinary action to take against the photographer. Is suspension a little too harsh? If this kid's past discipline record is unblemished, I believe it is. If it's not, it's probably justified. What I would have done was go to the administration with the pic, and said, "Hey -- look at what we had to deal with in class today. I know I'm not supposed to take out my cell phone in class, but these were unusual circumstances." I doubt there would have been any consequences in doing that.

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Further proof no one watches MSNBC

Hilarious -- watch as none of the three contestants on "Jeopardy" last night recognizes Rachel Maddow in the category "A Real Rhodes Scholars":

Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters wonders if Maddow's MSNBC show has made her less recognizable; in 2009, Maddow was the answer to another "Jeopardy" question, and that time it was answered -- and correctly.

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If you didn't know this was coming by now, you're living in a cave

M-BS-NBC anchor Melissa Harris-Perry on Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's photographed "confrontation" with President Obama on the tarmac:

The fact is, when I see that still, I cannot help but to be reminded of the still photograph that was captured in 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, of the young woman Hazel screaming at a young Elizabeth Eckford on her way trying to get into Little Rock High School, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. And the reason I bring up that image is because what we’ve come to know about Hazel in the years later is that as a young woman, Hazel, the young woman who was screaming at Elizabeth Eckford, was not herself sort of particularly, you know, full of racial animus or anything like that. But she was, she was caught up in this moment of racial anxiety, of making this point against these people who were coming in and trying to force their way into the school, and she sort of enjoyed the show or being able to yell at Elizabeth Eckford in this moment. But that image captured all of the ugliness, all of the nastiness of the larger political milieu, and I feel that this picture does as well.

Here's the pic Harris-Perry is talking about:

And here's the "infamous" pic of Gov. Brewer and Obama:

Now, if Harris-Perry feels that "... image captured all of the ugliness, all of the nastiness of the larger political milieu," how does she reconcile

• that it was Obama who reportedly "started" things by chastising Brewer for how she portrayed him in her book Scorpions for Breakfast.
• that it was Obama's Justice Dept. that sued her state for its supposedly "tough" immigration law -- a law which, arguably, will be upheld by the US Supreme Court because it really doesn't do anything beyond what it's supposed to do.
• that it's Obama who has the "power" if you're looking at this from a "racist" angle. Liberal "racers" like Harris-Perry like to point this out all the time -- that racism also has a "power structure." So, who has more power than the president of the United States?? Answer: No one on the planet.

At any rate, that picture is but a snap instant in time, whereas the actual raw video shows that the governor and president greeted each other warmly and cordially. And Obama himself says there has been much ado about nothing:

“I think it’s always good publicity for a Republican if they’re in an argument with me,” Obama said of their most recent meeting. “But this was really not a big deal. She wanted to give me a letter, asking for a meeting. And I said, ‘We’d be happy to meet.’

Oh my God, and then there's this -- it begins again: The Moron Left and the A-hole Elite Media are harping on the "civility" issue thanks to the Brewer-Obama flap. Here's CBS's Bob Schieffer lecturing us peons on how it's [always] the Right's fault when it comes to political rudeness:

“This is just another sign of the growing incivility and really vulgarity of our modern American politics,” Schieffer declared, fretting “these campaigns have gotten so ugly and so nasty, that they’re now tarnishing the whole system.” He despaired it demonstrates “the coarseness of our culture in this age of social media.”

I can never recall a President stepping off Air Force One, which is itself a symbol of the presidency in American democracy, and being subjected to such public rudeness. I think really we’re a better people than this little incident illustrates.

Uh huh. To quote National Review's Jonah Goldberg, "To hell with you people."

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Watcher's Council results

• *First place with 3 2/3 votes! The Mellow Jihadi – Lance Corporal Donald Hogan, Marine Hero
• Second place with 3 1/3 votes – The Right Planet- Are We a Democracy?
• Third place with 1 2/3 votes – Joshuapundit- Obama’s State Of The Union – The Hollow Man
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey-What the Gingrich South Carolina victory could mean
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – The Glittering Eye-You Be the Judge
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room-Revolution Moves Into The Overton Window
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Razor-A Tale of Two Disasters: The Titanic and the Costa Concordia
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Bookworm Room –War is not, and should not be, sporting
• Sith place *t* with 1/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Going All The Way
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Simply Jews – Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey vs FUKUS
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Rhymes With Right – Am I Wrong To Be Troubled Here?
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Political Commentator – Doing away with the Electoral College! One man, one vote and majority wins!

The non-Council winner was Family Security Matters with Muslim Children in America are Being Taught to Hate.

Full results are here.

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Journalism is hard

Read this story and notice the whole thrust of the article is about the impenetrable mystery of the shooter's motive.

Whatever could it be? Surely the shouts of "Allahu Ackbar" couldn't be a clue, could it? Nah.

And he's taken it upon himself to deem virtually everything "racist"

M-BS-NBC's Chris Matthews, who's dubbed just about ANY utterance contrary to the beliefs of President Obama as "racist," had this to say about religious Americans today: "What is with the troglodytes? The Luddites? What is the party that used to believe in things?"

Video at the link, too.

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And the ridiculously biased headline says. It. All.

Yahoo.com's grabbing headline highlights idiot Stephanie Pappas' supposedly liberal elite "we knew all the time" story: Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice. After paragraph after paragraph of reading how conservative opinions = being stupid, there is this towards the bottom (imagine that):

The researchers controlled for factors such as education and socioeconomic status, making their case stronger, Nosek said. But there are other possible explanations that fit the data. For example, Nosek said, a study of left-wing liberals with stereotypically naïve views like "every kid is a genius in his or her own way," might find that people who hold these attitudes are also less bright. In other words, it might not be a particular ideology that is linked to stupidity, but extremist views in general.

Is that so. So ... what explains the headline again?

We know. We always have.

UPDATE: James Taranto has an interesting take on this, especially regarding how employers administering IQ tests became illegal after a SCOTUS decision in 1971 because of racial "disparate impact":

Higher-ed institutions also pump out an enormous quantity of dubious scholarship that purportedly proves the ideological presupposition behind this business model--namely, that white racism is the proximate cause of all racial disparity. Here's a funny example, reported by LiveScience.com (the study noted above by Yahoo -- Hube).

So IQ tests are racist, except when they're used to "prove" that people with "socially conservative ideologies" are racist and intellectually inferior.

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And we care why ...?

Numerous major media outlets picked up on the highly sought-after opinion of none other than Fidel Castro on the GOP primary battle. He called the Republican race the “greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance” ever seen.

Well, he'd certainly know!

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Um, whaaa ...?

The Messiah last night in his State of the Union Address:

I’m a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: that government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more. That’s why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and states. That’s why we’re getting rid of regulations that don’t work.

While it is accurate to say that Obama has been friendly to school choice and charter schools, how can he with a straight face say that he's offering "more control for schools and states?" Here in the First State, his Race to the Top monies have come with innumerable strings attached, from the same mandated tests statewide, to the same teacher evaluation system ... again, statewide. There's very little, if any, school (local) control anymore. The state DOE, if anything, is running things more and more rather than the individual districts. Which, unfortunately, means the vast majority of Race to the Top funds have done nothing but expand another bureauacracy.

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Earth to Romney

The GOP despises the mainstream media. Using this line of attack against Newt Gingrich ain't gonna get'cha anywhere:

"It’s very easy to talk down a moderator,” Romney said told Fox News, per The Hill. “The moderator asks a question and then has to sit by and take whatever you send to them. And Speaker Gingrich has been wonderful at attacking the moderators and attacking the media.”

As Charlotte Hays writes, "Siding with a group that epitomizes the values of the Democratic party and is justly loathed by conservatives just isn’t going to do Mitt any good in the primaries ..."

Yep.

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Watcher's Council nominations

• The Colossus of Rhodey – What the Gingrich South Carolina victory could mean
• The Political Commentator – Doing away with the Electoral College! One man, one vote and majority wins!
• The Noisy Room – Revolution Moves Into The Overton Window
• Simply Jews – Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey vs FUKUS
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Going All The Way
• Bookworm Room – War is not, and should not be, sporting
• Right Truth – Making Sausage
• The Right Planet – Are We a Democracy?
• The Razor – A Tale of Two Disasters: The Titanic and the Costa Concordia
• VA Right - Will Newt Survive His Ex-Wives With Knives?
• The Mellow Jihadi – Lance Corporal Donald Hogan, Marine Hero
• Rhymes With Right – Am I Wrong To Be Troubled Here?
• The Glittering Eye -You Be the Judge
• Joshuapundit-Obama’s State Of The Union – The Hollow Man
• New Zeal – Kyrsten Sinema: Communist Connected Arizona State Senator to Run For Congress

Honorable Mentions:

• Liberty’s Spirit – Abbott and Costello Discuss Unemployment
• The Independent Sentinel – Obama Reduced Our Dependence on Foreign Oil & I’m the Easter Bunny
• Ask Marion – Tic… Tic… GOP Toc… or Rather Talk
• Capitalist Preservation – The Fallacy Of The Minimum Wage Part Four

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News roundup

First up: Ann Althouse had an item the other day about why Apple took its jobs overseas and why they are not coming back:

One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. Essentially China is one huge factory town.   We did away with those a long time ago but those conditions still exist so we can have our iPhones. Where is the OWS crowd?  Remember the ones "standing up for the 99%"?  Where are the marches and rallies and calls for boycotting Apple?

Goldman-Sachs is pilloried but nary a word for Apple. How bad are things for the workers making Apple products?

The 13-year old said Foxconn doesn't really check ages. There are on-site inspections, from time to time, but Foxconn always knows when they're happening. And before the inspectors arrive, Foxconn just replaces the young-looking workers with older ones. In the first two hours outside the factory gates, Daisey meets workers who say they are 14, 13, and 12 years old (along with plenty of older ones). Daisey estimates that about 5% of the workers he talked to were underage. Some workers can no longer work because their hands have been destroyed by doing the same thing hundreds of thousands of times over many years (mega-carpal-tunnel). This could have been avoided if the workers had merely shifted jobs. Once the workers' hands no longer work, obviously, they're canned. One former worker had asked her company to pay her overtime, and when her company refused, she went to the labor board. The labor board put her on a black list that was circulated to every company in the area. The workers on the black list are branded "troublemakers" and companies won't hire them. One man got his hand crushed in a metal press at Foxconn. Foxconn did not give him medical attention. When the man's hand healed, it no longer worked. So they fired him. (Fortunately, the man was able to get a new job, at a wood-working plant. The hours are much better there, he says — only 70 hours a week).

Any company in the US would be a paraiah for conditions like this.  There would be public trials, Congressional hearings and endless hours of talking heads blaming everyone to the left of Lenin for such a horrid state of affairs.  Mr. Blodget (author of the second piece) sums it up nicely:

Apple's profit margins are so high that they could go down a lot and still be high. And some Americans would presumably feel better about loving their iPhones and iPads if they knew that the products had been built using American labor rules. In other words, Apple could probably afford to use American labor rules when building iPhones and iPads without destroying its business. So it seems reasonable to ask why Apple is choosing NOT to do that. (Not that Apple is the only company choosing to avoid American labor rules and costs, of course — almost all manufacturing companies that want to survive, let alone thrive, have to reduce production costs and standards by making their products elsewhere.) The bottom line is that iPhones and iPads cost what they do because they are built using labor practices that would be illegal in this country — because people in this country consider those practices grossly unfair.

Next time some lefty gives you hell about the horrors of capitalism ask them if they have any Apple products and when they say yes, show them this article.   I'd love to hear the rationalizations they come up with.

Next, here are two good roundups on last night's State of the Union address.  A short one from Neal Boortz and a longer one from  Conor Friedersdorf. Read them both.

What did the Obama Administration really know about the stimulus?  Pretty much what we've all been saying.  They knew the economy was worse than they were reporting.  They knew that there weren't any "shovel ready" jobs and that the proposed regulations would likely hurt the economy further.   None of that really mattered.  Obama was sinking and needed to take some sort of action to look like a leader.  This is the same thing he did with the healthcare mandate.  Do something to avoid doing nothing even if that something is horrible.

Occupy Wall Street crowd are worse than crackheads.

At West Park, Rev. Brashear walked into the church for a morning service to find the 18-inch-diameter bronze basin and lid missing from the baptismal font’s 800-pound base. Holy water — straight from the River Jordan — had been poured from the missing basin insert into the base’s bowl. About 60 occupiers had rolled out their sleeping bags between the pews the night before as part of their evening ritual, Rev. Brashear recalled. When they returned to the church later, following the pastor’s discovery, he issued a stern warning: “You have 24 hours to find it and to come up with an amends and to come up with a plan. ‘I’m sorry and it won’t happen again’ won’t work,” he scolded. The artifact vanished just three weeks after a $2,400 Apple MacBook vanished from Brashear’s office. He told the occupiers that even when the 100-year-old Upper West Side church extended help to addicts during the 1980s drug scourge, no visitors touched its $12,500 sacramental instrument. Not even crackheads messed with that,” he said.

Nice people.

Jerry Brown gives California the continued screwing it asked for.  His plan is (what else?) to tax the rich more to fund bread and circuses.  His own government is warning him that this isn't going to work.  I'm sure he'll continue full speed ahead as usual.  Jerry Brown;  Seldom right and never in doubt.  

In world new,  North Korea seems to have rebellion boiling ever closer to the surface.  Granted that reports from North Korea are always predicting collapse as Real Soon Now^TM.  However the latest reports of secret police being killed in broad daylight on a city street during a heightened security posture is unheard of.   I've also read other reports of miners striking and crackdowns that ended with hundreds and perhaps thousands dead.   Given that the leadership is in flux and things have been getting steadily worse year by year it's hard to see how much longer they can hang on.   To me this looks like it's going to end one of a few ways.  The Chinese are going to prop them up with food aid and they continue limping along.  They may even insist on some reforms to get them onto a "one country, two systems" footing that China has.   Complete collapse would likely end with the state security apparatus fighting with the Army for control.   This would be a bloodbath and would likely lead to the collapse of the state into something that has factional control over the country not unlike Iraq before it was stabilized.   The last would be if Kim Jong Un becomes a reformer (puppet or otherwise) and starts to slowly loosen control over markets in the hopes of drawing foreign (read: Chinese and South Korean) investment.   I don't know which way this is going to go but if things are as dire as they seem the collapse would be a very quick one.  It will be interesting to see if South Korea and China rush in to fill the vacuum.

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Tweet of the Day

No matter where you stand, watching Ann Coulter call Newt too much of a bomb-throwing populist is just hilarious. - @baseballcrank

Source

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Kill-mington

Police ID 17-year-old homicide victim:

A 17-year-old Bear teen, described by his high school leader as “a really nice kid,” was identified as the victim in Saturday’s slaying in Wilmington.

Larry J. A. Parks III was fatally shot in the chest shortly before 4 p.m. in the 300 block of New Castle Ave. where Wilmington officers found him lying in the street.

Detectives investigating the homicide have no suspects or witnesses in Parks’ slaying, said Master Sgt. Barry Mullins.

Parks was a 10th grade student at Pencader Charter High School of Business and Finance in Collins Park.

Just another day in Kill-mington.

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Right or wrong?

Numerous writers, mostly of the sports variety, are up in arms about Boston Bruins star goalie Tim Thomas snubbing the White House by not attending Barack Obama's hosting of the NHL champs:

Shabby. Immature. Unprofessional. Self-centered. Bush league. Need I go on? All that and more applies to what Thomas did, on a day when Cup teammates Mark Recchi (now retired), Shane Hnidy (a radio guy these days in Winnipeg), and Tomas Kaberle (a member of some Original Six team in Canada), all gladly joined the red-white-blue-black-and-gold hugfest at the White House.

I'm of the mind that Thomas should have attended. Regardless of who holds the presidency, it's about honor, respect, and team. However, again, the issue becomes about the media. What if George W. Bush was still in the WH and a player refused to attend such an event because of his personal stance against the Iraq War? As Shannen Coffin notes,

Notably, no one at the Boston Globe complained when Red Sox owner John Henry and general manager Theo Epstein, both dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, opted out of the invites to the Bush White House after the 2007 World Series.

Exactly. It's exactly like how the media portrayed the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement -- the former is inherently "bad," while the latter has a "legitimate" gripe. Henry and Epstein's snubs were, to the media I'm sure, "principled dissents" to Bush's policies. But Thomas's? "Shabby. Immature. Unprofessional. Self-centered." Coffin also notes how Globe writer Kevin DuPont is way off base in accusing Thomas of being un-American:

Mr. Dupont’s most woeful error, however, was in suggesting that Thomas’s disagreement with the current government equals a lack of love of country. “It was the same government yesterday, and will be today, that protected his country, his security, his family, and his right to make $5 million a year, all last season.” Tim Thomas was a U.S. Olympian and won a silver medal for his country. Mr. Dupont contends that someone “so disgusted with our government ought to turn in the sweater and the medal. It must be a horrible burden, if not a pox, to have them in his house.”

Tim Thomas’s objections to the excesses of government are entirely American, born of his love of country, not harbored in spite of it.

Right. And how many media types would have made that exact same argument regarding George W. Bush's presidency? It's always that way with the Left: when they're in power, dissent is "un-American." Where they're out of power, dissent is the "greatest form of patriotism."

UPDATE: Hockey News writer Ken Campbell nails it:

... that if a few years ago some stars “had snubbed the White House in 2004 to protest the Bush-led U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, my guess is they ... would have had all kinds of unwavering support in the media for taking such a courageous stance.” (h/t: Newsbusters.)

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Driving in DC

Things on the Beltway have been getting worse lately. I've attached a clip I shot on my way into work this morning.

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What the Gingrich South Carolina victory could mean

If Newt wins the GOP presidential nomination:

I'm worried that it could mean the entire country will become a macrocosm of Delaware's last US Senate race -- where upstart Christine O'Donnell defeated long-time public service stalwart Mike Castle in the GOP primary ... thus effectively giving the Democrats (in the person of Chris Coons) the win in the general election.

Castle consistently out-polled Coons head-to-head, usually by double digits. On the other hand, Coons consistently out-polled O'Donnell -- also usually by double digits.

Now, what do we see in this year's presidential election? At this moment, it looks almost exactly what we saw in the aforementioned First State US Senate race: Obama beats Gingrich 50.6% to 39.6%. However, if the GOP nominee is Mitt Romney, the race (currently) is within the margin of error -- Obama's 46.9% to Romney's 45%.

Delaware's issue is that it is a blue state -- a very blue state. Hence, Mike Castle was a moderate Republican. Republicans from blue states tend to be, y'know, moderate -- mostly out of necessity. Every poll in the DE US Senate race said that Christine O'Donnell would essentially get crushed by Chris Coons, but the state's GOP electorate didn't care. They were going to "send a message." Did South Carolina Republicans just do the same thing? Newt's favorable to unfavorable ratings are pretty damn bad.

These two examples differ in one main respect: Gingrich is quite intelligent, whereas Christine O'Donnell could only spout off generalized talking points. But would this be enough for Newt if he's the GOP nominee? I do not know. Certainly, Newt would mop the floor with Obama in any debate; however, Newt's got a ton of baggage, and we know what the mainstream media will do about that.

It's only January. And by no means has Gingrich cemented the nomination. But I am worried after last night's primary results.

UPDATE: Veteran political reporter Jeff Greenfield thinks otherwise: "Not just SC: Didn't GOPers nationwide love seeing Newt sticking it to the 'bad guys'? I'm betting on a BIG, quick shift in national polls."

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Thanks, but I'll pass

That is, until you provide a balanced lesson plan. Check out this lesson ... "plan" via the NY Times' "The Learning Notebook":

Overview | What does income inequality say about contemporary American society? What should be done to address income inequality? In this lesson, students examine Times infographics about income and wealth distribution in the United States and discuss what this information says about society.

Related | Paul Krugman’s column “How Fares the Dream?” examines income inequality in the United States:

If King could see America now, I believe that he would be disappointed, and feel that his work was nowhere near done. He dreamed of a nation in which his children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” But what we actually became is a nation that judges people not by the color of their skin — or at least not as much as in the past — but by the size of their paychecks. And in America, more than in most other wealthy nations, the size of your paycheck is strongly correlated with the size of your father’s paycheck.

Read the entire article with your class, using the questions below.

Questions | For discussion and reading comprehension:

• In what ways does Mr. Krugman believe that America has made progress since Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech?

• Why does Mr. Krugman believe that Dr. King would be disappointed in America today? Do you agree or disagree?

• What does Mr. Krugman mean when he says that “there are racial implications to the ways that our incomes have been pulling apart”?

• What phenomenon happened around 1980 that Mr. Krugman describes using the metaphor of a ladder?

• Do you agree or disagree with Mr. Krugman that income inequality should be discussed loudly and openly in American society?

I particularly like how Krugman claims Dr. King would be "disappointed," even though King actually addressed race and racism in his quote, and not income differences. Nice bait and switch there. Nevertheless, this goes to the very core of what ails American [humanities] education today: that progressives see absolutely nothing wrong with presenting a blatantly one-sided lesson like this in a civics class. I can think of several "counter" questions to use as discussion follow-ups; for example,

• Mr. Krugman writes that today "the size of your paycheck is strongly correlated with the size of your father’s paycheck." What does he mean by this? Is there something wrong with a father giving his wealth to his children? Is it acceptable for someone (or the government) to take away someone's money and give it to someone else?

Thankfully, it appears many agree with me. Just scan through the comments at the end of the lesson "plan."

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Watcher's Council results

• *First place with 3 2/3 votes! The Right Planet – The Talking Points Meme
• Second place with 2 2/3 votes – Joshuapundit- “I Got Bin Laden” – And Why Obama’s Big Boast Might Have Been A Huge Mistake
• Third place with 1 2/3 votes – The Political Commentator-Achtung! Antisemitismus, immer präsent doch in der Regel unter dem Radar, ist jetzt immer häufiger offene und ist in das Licht der Welt erscheinen!
• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Razor-In the Belly of the Swan
• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Mellow Jihadi- Move, Vets Coming Through!
• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Noisy Room-Don’t Worry… Nuthin’ Bad’s Gonna Happen…
• Fifth Place with 1 vote – Right Truth-Handcuffed, arrested, and now faces three and a half years in jail for firearms possession – for the crime of being unaware that the Second Amendment does not apply in New York City
• Sixth place with 2/3 vote – The Glittering Eye – Citizenship Skills
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – Bookworm Room –San Francisco Chronicle columnist warns city’s rational thinkers not to roll in the mud with one specific fringe group
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – New Zeal – DSA Marxists Take Over the Occupy Movement: Plan “Spring Offensive,” With Widespread Occupations of State Capitols, Schools and Workplaces
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote– Simply Jews–De Nada Ilse
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – VA Right! – Ron Paul Flying First Class on Taxpayer Dime

The non-Council winner was Allen West with Mr. President, please don’t play the race card in 2012… Complete results are here.

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Just for the sheer awesomeness of the moment

... here's Newt Gingrich's response to CNN's John King's first debate question last night:

Say what you will about Newt, the guy doesn't take any sh**. And on this, he's spot-on. The days of the dinosaur leftist mainstream media are dwindling. The standing O Newt got isn't because they believe him over his ex-wife; it's because people are fed up with a one-sided media -- period. And if you think ABC wasn't biased in doing the Newt ex interview, then read this. Also read this about their report on Mitt Romney's finances.

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Remind me to stay dressed while in Egypt

What is happening in this video?

It looks to my untrained eye that the woman is being beaten, punched, kicked and abused. Silly me. Let's ask Jimmy Carter what I'm actually seeing:

He stated that the widely promulgated videos showing military attacks on demonstrators and a woman "with the blue brassiere" were all falsified. He said the soldiers were actually helping the woman re-clothe herself with what was provocative attire.

Well, that's a relief. For a minute there I was worried. This will, of course, go unnoticed by anyone. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not. On one hand, it's good because it means that nobody is paying attention to him. On the other hand, he's a former US President and his words carry weight (unfortunately) and undoubtedly his words will be used by the Egyptian thugs to whitewash their behavior.

I shudder to think what kind of ex President Obama is going to be. As awful as it sounds it can't happen soon enough.

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Draft time again

OK. Here we go again. If you were magically granted the ability to draft anyone into being a candidate for the general election who would it be?

Rules:

Person must be legally eligible (i.e. age appropriate and US citizen)
Person must be living (i.e. no reviving Reagan or whatever)
Feel free to pick VP candidate and any cabinet level positions

Bonus question: what three things would want to see this President accomplish in the first 100 days (assuming fiat power)

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Still more absurd of the absurd

Folks, this is what we have to vote out of office this November:

As Obama called for passage of those bills, he also responded to a recent Republican push to require him to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. "However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline," he said, "they're going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance."

You follow that? Actual jobs that are, in The Messiah's parlance, "shovel ready," don't compare to the "jobs" "created" by the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance.

Meanwhile, The Messiah's own jobs council says "YES" to projects like Keystone.

Unreal.

UPDATE: ABC News: In Wake of Keystone Decision, Prime Minister Harper Tells President Obama that Canada Will Work on Sending Oil to Asia.

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More absurd of the absurd

The thing is, there's a thing called the Constitution that contains a thing called the 13th Amendment in it. Then again, the way this administration has been pissing all over the document ...

The founder and owner of one of the first and largest abortion clinics in the United States, Merle Hoffman, held a press conference Tuesday to discuss her study that found abortions in the United States are on the rise.

According to Hoffman, as the economy continues to decline, abortions continue to rise. Her study found that 73 percent of women who had an abortion reported that the reason was due to their economic situation.

Hoffman told TheDC that there will be “free states” and “slave states” if President Obama loses the 2012 election to any of the current Republican presidential candidates. (Link.)

Can supposedly intelligent people really be this dumb? Really? Hoffman is speaking about abortion here, keep in mind -- that women would be "slaves" to their unborn child (or something) if the GOP candidate wins the election. Now, let's see ... Hoffman says,

“Each and every [GOP] candidate has specified unequivocally that they would overturn Roe v. Wade. And if in fact they were in the power of the presidency and had the ability to do that … we can see a pre-Roe reality … where you’d have a country where there, in my mind, are free states and slave states.”

Did Hoffman fail Civics 101? No chief executive can "overturn" a Supreme Court decision. There would have to be either a SCOTUS re-examination of Roe, or a constitutional amendment "overturning" Roe. But the latter wouldn't revert abortion laws to the states as Hoffman says -- only the former would. But, again, none of the GOP candidates for prez could sign an executive order saying "Roe is hereby overturned."

Then again, if you look at Hoffman's words carefully, she does say "And if in fact they were in the power of the presidency and had the ability to do that ..." Ah, the power of a conditional clause. Is this some sort of ridiculously way-out there hypothetical? "... and had the ability ...?" But that's just it -- they don't have the ability! No president does. If he did, then why didn't previous pro-life GOP presidents "overturn" Roe (like Reagan)?

Then again, the way things have been going lately in this country, perhaps the Justice Dept. can create a novel legal theory that gives the president such power ...

But let's give credit where credit is due: Most people think that overturning Roe would ban abortion everywhere. False. As Hoffman correctly notes, it would leave it up to the states, which is as it was pre-Roe.

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Food stamps = G.O.P.'s fault

We should all know by now that nothing is The Messiah's fault. Nothing. Ever.

During Monday night’s GOP debate, Newt Gingrich observed that more Americans have been placed on the food stamps program under President Obama than any other president in the country’s history. Although Gingrich’s assertion was based on the current number of people on food stamps, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney attempted to spin the narrative 180 degrees by saying that it was in fact Republican policies that created the demand for food stamps. He cited a lack of Wall Street regulation as the catalyst.

“The economic policies that contributed to the great recession were supported by and are being proposed by I believe all the [Republican candidates],” Carney said during the press briefing Tuesday. Criticizing Republicans for opposing Dodd-Frank regulations, Carney added, “We look forward to the debate with whomever emerges from the primary process.” (Link.)

GEORGE W. BUSH:
There's NOTHING for which
he can't be blamed!

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Civilization continues to crumble

Check out (if you can stomach it) this video of a kid getting beaten by his fellow teen peers in Chicago:

And why are "hate crime" laws a joke? This is why:

The video shows five males striking the victim with kicks and punches as they swarm around him, yelling racial slurs. Police, however, claim that the incident “did not appear racially motivated.”

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If Tea Partiers did this, it'd be racism

'Occupy' protesters suspected of throwing smoke bomb over White House fence.

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Watcher's Council nominations

• The Political Commentator – Achtung! Antisemitismus, immer präsent doch in der Regel unter dem Radar, ist jetzt immer häufiger offene und ist in das Licht der Welt erscheinen!
• The Noisy Room – Don’t Worry… Nuthin’ Bad’s Gonna Happen…
• Joshuapundit-“I Got Bin Laden” – And Why Obama’s Big Boast Might Have Been A Huge Mistake
• Simply Jews – De Nada Ilse
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Preemptive Or Preventive
• The Right Planet – The Talking Points Meme
• Right Truth – Handcuffed, arrested, and now faces three and a half years in jail for firearms possession – for the crime of being unaware that the Second Amendment does not apply in New York City
• Bookworm Room – San Francisco Chronicle columnist warns city’s rational thinkers not to roll in the mud with one specific fringe group
• The Razor – In the Belly of the Swan
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Oh, no!
• New Zeal – DSA Marxists Take Over the Occupy Movement: Plan “Spring Offensive,” With Widespread Occupations of State Capitols, Schools and Workplaces
• The Glittering Eye -Citizenship Skills
• The Mellow Jihadi – Move, Vets Coming Through!
• Rhymes With Right – In Which I Argue That Scott Brown And Elizabeth Warren Don’t Understand The First Amendment
• VA Right! - Ron Paul Flying First Class on Taxpayer Dime

Honorable Mentions

• The Independent Sentinel – Marines Urinating on Dead Taliban – the Crime of the Century?
• Crazy Bald Guy – Mr. Electability
• Capitalist Preservation – Venture Capitalism Explained

And the non-Council nominations are here!

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Good news Hube!

You're OVERPAID.

Please return the overage to Delaware's Treasury.

Thanks,

Concerned Taxpayer.

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Blackout pages

For those of you trying to reach pages that have been blacked out today. Just press "esc" before the page finishes loading.

You're welcome. Now go to wikipedia and finish your homework.

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Just a reminder

Raising the debt limit is unpatriotic.

Remember this when the next request comes in.

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The absurd of the absurd

It just never ends. And it just gets nuttier and nuttier. Now, it's "racist" the way someone perceives you saying a name:

Chris Matthews says the way Newt Gingrich pronounced moderator Juan Williams' name at last night's debate was a racially charged moment. Matthews, who would later sum this up as a "dog whistle," made his case that this is racist because some people will "clearly hear" it while others "don't want to hear it."

Video at the link above. Un-freakin'-real, man. Election 2012 is gonna be a doozy.

SEMI-RELATED: Matthews lies about how well his book on JFK is selling.

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If you say stupid things ...

... it's probably not a good idea to go on Bill O'Reilly's show soon thereafter. Case in point: South Carolina Democrat Party Chief Dick Harpootlian the other day made a big deal ("It's RACIST!") out of the GOP prez candidates debating on Martin Luther King Jr.'s holiday. When O'Reilly had him on to debate the matter, well, see for yourself:

Nice use of the sound "uhhhhh" there, Dick. But yep, that's right: During the Democrat primary in 2008, the candidates debated in South Carolina on ... Martin Luther King Day. And who sponsored the debate? Yep -- the Congressional Black Caucus.

Ouch.

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About those Marines

who were seen pissing on dead terrorists...

The bookend to that argument is here:

In Federal Court in New Bern, NC today, three would-be Islamist terrorists were found guilty of a slew of terrorism-related charges in a planned attack on unsuspecting wives and children of Marine Corps personnel

Remember that when those Marines you saw in the video are thrown under the bus and given the Big Chicken Dinner.

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What a surprise

Back on the 3rd we wondered if third graders really wrote such lyrics. It seemed pretty incredible. Well, it turns out it wasn't so incredible:

The director of a children’s music program has admitted to steering a third grade class toward singing Occupy Wall Street-themed lyrics during a songwriting session at a Virginia elementary school.

According to its website, Kid Pan Alley “uses the group songwriting process to inspire and empower children to become creators of their own music.”

That changed this week, when the founder and director of Kid Pan Alley, Paul Reisler, took responsibility for the lyrics and said he should have avoided certain phrases to keep the song neutral.

Who'da figured, eh?

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Oh, pardon us, we forgot the distinction

... between "immigrant" and "illegal immigrant." Yahoo News headline: Anti-immigration tone alienating Hispanics.

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Potty training

(h/t to FSJ.)

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Watcher's Council winners

• *First place with 3 1/3 votes! Joshuapundit – The Tale Of The Swine
• Second place with 2 1/3 votes – The Razor- Is The Republican Party Stupid?
• Third place with 1 2/3 votes – New Zeal- Blinded by the Left: How Marxists Wrote Ron Paul’s Defense Cuts Plan
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Right Truth- The Unintended Consequences Begin
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – The Glittering Eye- What Creates Opportunity?
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – The Mellow Jihadi- My Harvard Story
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Bookworm Room-Which agenda really serves women’s rights?
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room – Sunlight Down The Spider Hole
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Political Commentator – A one-picture metaphor for the Obama regime plus a lot of words!
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Reckless
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Simply Jews – Richard (Dickie) Silverstein: a blogging dupe of the century?
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – VA Right! – Meet Mitt Romney: Corporate Raider and Vulture Capitalist

The non-Council winner was The City Journal with The New Authoritarianism. Full results are here.

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NFL Divisional Weekend picks

Went 2-4 last weekend -- Saturday picks were pretty good, while Sunday's were dismal. Let's see if we can do better this weekend:

SATURDAY:
4:30: Saints 30, 49ers 17.
8:00: Patriots 34, Broncos 20.

SUNDAY:
1:00: Ravens 16, Texans 13.
4:00: Packers 36, Giants 17.

Meanwhile, in related NFL news, my team -- the St. Louis Rams -- acquired Jeff Fisher as their new head coach. The Rams beat Fisher (who then coached the Tennessee Titans) for their only Super Bowl victory back in SB 34 (2000).

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Perspective

The NY Post takes the right approach to the Marines accused of pissing on dead Taliban (that's "Tah-lee-bahn" according to The Messiah) fighters:

For our part, we’re withholding judgment. There have been too many such seemingly shocking episodes that, upon investigation, turn out to be less than that.

The high-profile case of Marine Lt. Ilario Pantano — accused of murdering Iraqis, but exonerated late last year — certainly illustrates the point. But maybe they did do it. Marine Corps Commandant James Amos says he’ll get to the bottom of it all.

Still, as wartime atrocities go, this is pretty mild stuff. My Lai, for sure, it ain’t.

And, again, the Taliban sure ain’t — excuse the metaphor — choirboys.

Maybe somebody should ask Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl about it.

Oh, wait: The Islamists beheaded him — on videotape.

Perspective, folks. Perspective.

Indeed.

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Daily Show strikes again

This is made of awesome. It should be enshrined in the Television Hall of Fame.

Behold the very definition of irony

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Book Review

So I recently finished The Hunger Games trilogy. It will be coming to the big screen shortly so if you're not familiar with it you'll have plenty of opportunity.

The books are about a girl named Katniss who lives in a dystopian future which is totalitarian and rather bleak. I'll not go too into the plot so as to avoid spoilers. The first book, The Hunger Games, I rather enjoyed. It was well paced and fairly well written. The characters seemed plausible and the dialog was good. I do blame the editor for not knowing that arrows are carried in a quiver and not a sheath. Or that missiles are not "ground to ground" or "ground to air" but rather "surface to surface" and "surface to air". Other than that, a good book and suitable for younger readers

Next up was Catching Fire which furthers the plot from the first book with Katniss taking a pivotal role in the upheaval facing the Hunger Games universe. Like the first one, this book is quite good and exciting for young readers. It gets a bit graphic in terms of violence but nothing horrible. Katniss also starts to show some romantic interest in not one but two characters.

Lastly was Mockingjay. Ugh. You know how movies go wrong in the third act and ruin the whole thing? That's what we have here. There are characters acting in bewildering fashion, pacing problems (from too fast to too slow) and the book fails for me is the endless, torturous whining about her inability to choose between to boys. The boys, of course, remain friends despite their rivalry for her affections. I cannot tell you how aggravating this is. It is a trope that is the staple of every Lifetime movie or damn Romantic Comedy. Its unoriginal and unrealistic. I can make leaps of faith about evil governments and technology and so on but for me to believe that two teenage/twentysomething guys are going to remain friends when they're both after the same girl is beyond believable.

If re-edited to sanity the third book would be a good way to complete the story but as it stands you may want to read the first two and then go to Wikipedia to see how it plays out.

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Tweet of the Day

Via PolarCoug: "We will Barry you." - Nikita Khrushchev

Pic 'o the Day

Courtesy The Political Commentator:

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Debbie Wasserman-Idiot just doesn't get it

... and continues the outright lies:

“We need to make sure that we tone things down, particularly in light of the Tucson tragedy from a year ago, where my very good friend, Gabby Giffords, who is doing really well by the way, and I know everybody is so thrilled, as I am, to hear that, making tremendous progress,” said Wasserman Schultz, according to C-SPAN.

“But the discourse in America, the discourse in Congress in particular, to answer your question, very specifically, has really changed. And I’ll tell you, I hesitate to place blame, but I have noticed it takes a very precipitous turn towards edginess and a lack of civility with the growth of the tea party movement,” she immediately added.

Oh, right -- "hesitate to place blame." Does this absolute cretin exist in this reality? Did she just happen to miss the vitriol endured by George W. Bush the decade prior? Did she just happen to miss all the invective spewed by her ideological brethren in the media -- and the Occupy [Bowel] Movement?

I tell 'ya, if I was Mitt Romney (the likely GOP nominee), I wouldn't spare the rhetorical rod for anything this campaign. Wasserman-Idiot's ridiculous comments are just the beginning of the faux progressive push. In commercials I'd feature Obama alongside the Occupiers every chance I'd get, alongside Reverend Jeremiah Wright, alongside his moron attorney general, Eric Holder, showing our own guns cutting down innocents, alongside the New Black Panthers who're intimidating voters at a polling place, and alongside corpses and illegal aliens who're attempting to vote.

And every time the MSM complained about it (to me), I'd tell 'em "Too harsh and insensitive? Really? Have you complained to the other side about their rhetoric? Of course you haven't. So, next question."

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Oh, no!

I caught a bit of this story on ABC's "Good Morning America" this morning -- several US Marines were videotaped urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Now, while this is obviously inappropriate behavior, the national MSM is all over this story like flies on feces. I think Jonah Goldberg sums it up nicely in a Tweet this morning: "I think we'll be waiting a long time for the national outrage the media wants over the Marine peeing on Taliban story."

And he's right. Why should I or any American get worked up about a bunch of murderous barbarians being treated pretty much as they rightly deserve? But, you just gotta love the self-righteous hilarity:

• The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a D.C.-based human rights group, condemned what it called "the apparent desecration of the dead."

• "This is not the first time we see such brutality," Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said.

• President Hamid Karzai's government "strongly condemned" the video and called the actions by American soldiers "insulting" and "insane."

• Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday condemned the Marines' actions as "utterly deplorable."

Meanwhile, Panetta and his boss Barack Obama continue to order unmanned drone attacks to kill suspected terrorists. And who the f*** cares what the Taliban and Hamid Karzai think?? Until they can reconcile their barbarian existence with the 21st century, they should keep their radical Islamist mouths closed. If they'd just be content to keep their ultra-radical religious nonsense within their own borders, fine. But the reason our Marines are even there in the first place is precisely because they couldn't.

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Our MSM at "work"

I'm usually not a fan of Jon Stewart, but he nails CNN hard, here:

Three letters: W, T, and F?

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