Thursday, May 26. 2005
Monkeys alive and well in Kansas - More curriculum monkey business. The downside: They make religous folks look dumb. The upside: It's a free country. Being free to be dumb is better than not being free, and subject to the "experts." Think about it - how often do those "experts" turn out to be wrong? In this case, the expert theory is probably more right than wrong, but still... Child welfare dept. drops the ball again: WATERTOWN, N.Y. -- State and local authorities are investigating how a convicted rapist from Oregon failed to register as a sex offender in New York and was allowed to serve as a foster parent in an upstate county for four years before it was discovered.
"We are treating this matter very seriously," said Brian Marchetti, a spokesman for the state's Office of Children and Family Services. "Children's' safety and well-being are always our top priority. Every child deserves to be protected from sexual predators." Click here: Newsday.com: Authorities probe how convicted rapist became foster parent
Well, they're not showing any lights tonight
And there's no moon
There's just a hot-blooded singer
Singing "Memphis in June"
While they're beating the devil out of a guy
Who's wearing a powder-blue wig
Later he'll be shot
For resisting arrest
I can still hear his voice crying
In the wilderness
What looks large from a distance
Close up ain't never that big Never could learn to drink that blood
And call it wine.
Never could learn to hold you, love
And call you mine. Dylan, from Tight Connection to my Heart (Has Anybody Seen my Love?) - buy it here
I think this is a Mississippi River Channel Catfish. This is about as big as they get, Captain Ahab . Editor: Then tonight I get an email from Curt, saying "Is this a bait fish?"
Teach the Constitution in school, you must be kidding. From the Federal Register: SUMMARY: The Assistant DeputySecretary for Innovation and Improvement announces that, pursuant to legislation passed by Congress,educational institutions receiving Federal funding are required to hold an educational program pertaining to the United States Constitution onSeptember 17 of each year. This notice
implements this provision as it appliesto educational institutions receiving
Federal funding from the Department. "The rule puts into effect a provision that was inserted in the final federal-spending bill for 2005 by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat and the Senate's unofficial constitutional scholar. The Chronicle: Daily news: 05/25/2005 -- 03 ." "But many university presidents remain concerned that Senator Byrd's provision could establish a precedent for Congress's setting curricular requirements," said Becky Timmons, director of government relations at the American Council on Education. "Federal law prohibits the Education Department from establishing a national curriculum. Our members find it very intrusive," Ms. Timmons said. "They are concerned about the precedent it holds for Congress telling them what to teach."
It is inconceivable that the American Council of Education believes that teaching the Constitution is opening the door to Congressional edicts regarding curriculums at the elementary, high school and college level. It makes common sense to teach the Constitution of the United States if you are educating Americans who have the right to vote and decide who leads their city, state, and country. Isn't an informed public the best safeguard for Democracy? I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that Ms. Timmons is a card carrying ACLU member. People are always looking to pounce on anything remotely patriotic. It's a good thing Senator Byrd is a Democrat or we would be reading the how President Bush changed the American History curriculum. Editor's Note: I beg to respectfully disagree with the learned and honorable Opie. Of course, every kid should have a civics course in grade school and in high school - but that is the responsibility of the local school systems. I know it's getting late to close the barn door, but keep the Feds away from our schools. The real problem is that the schools want the Fed $, so they have to give up their own authority and judgement to get it. That isn't good.
Hedgies: Brother, can you spare a dime? From the NYT: ON average, according to Institutional Investor's most recent survey, the 25 best-paid hedge fund managers each took home $207 million in 2003, about double what they made a year earlier. That's $207 million in cash - not in equity or stock options. Meanwhile, the nation's 25 highest-paid chief executives each made an average of $37 million in total compensation last year, including options granted (but not those exercised), according to Business Week. Most hedge fund managers do make money for their investors. But even if a hedge fund manager doesn't make a cent for his investors, the manager invariably makes a fortune for himself. Think about it: just for showing up to work, the manager of a hedge fund with $1 billion in assets is guaranteed to earn $20 million a year in management fees alone. Why should he take any risks? Why should he alienate his cautious investors? If we add in his 20 percent cut of the gains, and assume that his returns last year were just average (in line with the S.& P. 500) he would have grossed a total of $41.8 million." Gunslingers No More: The Cautious Cash In - New York Times
Leaving the Left A fascinating piece from Thompson, with plenty of honesty: Nightfall: January 30, 2005. Eight million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I’m separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.
I’m leaving the left – more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.
I choose today because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives — people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere — reciting all the ways Iraq’s democratic experiment might yet implode.
My estrangement hasn’t happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades; yet refused to truly see. Now it’s all too obvious. Leading voices in America’s “peace” movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World people because it hates George W. Bush more than it loves freedom.
Where the rich put their money: Not in hedgies, right now. A Blog: The UN: One World United Under a Global Dictatorship Walking away with Birkenstocks? Here. Another Blogger for ya - from California: Thompson at Large Another Blog: Pave France - The British Need More Parking Stanley Kunitz Turns 100 this summer. McCain vs. Frist? McCain is running for sure. Bad Taste Humor - as bad as above item: A Michael Jackson cartoon. The Latest on Soros - Click here: Accuracy In Media - AIM Report: CNN's George Soros-gate - May B :The latest campaign by the Soros-funded operatives is to "save PBS" because Kenneth Tomlinson, the new Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), is demanding that public TV and radio adhere to federal law requiring fairness and balance in programming. The New York Times sparked the controversy when it reported that Tomlinson had authorized monitoring of the liberal bias on the Moyers PBS show and had backed a PBS show for Paul Gigot and members of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Lincoln Bedroom: Sorry - donors still sleep there.
Are Political Blogs a Waste of Time? To what extent do the conservative bloggers and readers just talk to each-other? And don't the DailyKos folks do the same? Is anyone influenced or convinced? Doubtful. But maybe at the margins. After all, Rush gave voice to millions of people who thought the way he did, but had no outside reinforcement for what they felt. The success of FOX news is the same - a crappy news program yet semi-entertaining if you have something else to do at the same time - but folks want to feel represented in the national dialogue. They need validation. Humans always want that - to not feel invisible. People enjoy information too, or they wouldn't be wasting time online - except for porn, or check-paying, or email, apparently. We are all yentas at heart. But people also want reinforcement - a feeling of community. The MSM takes care of the liberals, so the conservatives need all of these "alternative" outlets to feel reassured that they aren't out to lunch. There is no comparison between the numbers of traditionalist blogs and leftist blogs - and no comparison in their quality and intelligence (our blog excepted - it's not intelligent and is of low-quality...but ya like it, dontcha?). So I dunno. One thing I do know for sure - when new info is made widely available by blogs, it makes a difference in the "real news." Powerline has had true power, run as it is by three extraordinary Dartmouth fellows. But how do you reach other folks, to help them open up their closed minds? I do not have the answer to that one. Wish I did. One idea: Let's do an LBO of the NYT, and bring it balance! We will need a few very big players to do this deal...and the Sulzbergers must be bored with their toys by now.
The Siege of Western Civilization A DVD, by Herb Meyer. This 40 minute chat is getting around by word of mouth. Thanks, Right Thinking, who reviews it here.
From a church bulletin: This week's Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 pm. Please use the back door.
Wednesday, May 25. 2005
Hack's Memorial Service: Here. A Connecticut guy who gave a hell of a lot more than most of us ever will, and kept on giving.
Big Fish - Mississippi Catfish - story here.
A Cape Cod Day We have been having a Cape Cod day today, and, in fact, a Cape Cod week in New England. What that means is low 50s, 40s at night, strong wind, rain, clouds and fog. It is for hearty folks. Got a fire going right now, in late May. What a wonderful world.
If at first you don't succeed, then 'trial, trial' again. Mr. Posada has been tried and acquitted twice in Venezuela and pardoned in Panama. This is a tricky one for Bush. Cuban Exile Is Charged With Illegal Entry - New York Times "Mr. Posada spent nine years in a Venezuelan prison during trials and retrials on charges that he conspired to bomb the Cuban airliner. He escaped in 1985 and went underground to join a C.I.A. operation in El Salvador in an effort to help anti-Communist Nicaraguan rebels.He admitted masterminding bombings at tourist spots in Havana in 1997 that were intended to destabilize Cuba and terrorize people. One of the bombs killed an Italian visitor in Havana.He was jailed in Panama in connection with a bomb plot against Mr. Castro in 2000, convicted, and then pardoned by Panama's president nine months ago."
A Chinese Blogger for Justice- Audio-visual in the NYT
Seafarer's Friend. A worthy Yankee charity.
A Call for Information from the Blog-World We would like to collect information on the political activities and political agendas of innocent-appearing non-profit organizations. Our post today on the UCC was not our first on this topic, but the millions of blog-readers out there can collect the info better than we can. For example, we have been told by a reader that the National YWCA has a mission statement to "defeat rascism and sexism by all means necessary." We are all against racism and sexism, but what does that mean, is it true, and what do they do about it? This kind of stuff isn't on the organizational websites - you have to know it from the inside. We suspect that most people are not aware of what the national HQs of many non-profits are doing with their share of dues in Washington and in New York. Let's try to find out. Email us with hard data. Thanks.
Humanitarian Adventure Travel. Relief Riders International. How cool is this? Camel? Donkey? Elephant?
Class Warfare Gwynnie recalls that since the major Republican wins in November a number of Liberal politicians have expressed disappointment in their constituents not voting in accordance with the priorities attributed to their perceived “class” by liberal theoreticians. Indeed, blue collar employees are expressing resentment at being described as “working class” by ivory-tower liberals. Class warfare, an invention of Karl Marx, has just about disappeared in the United States, and with it, the block which the Democrat Party is accustomed to assembling, leading, instructing and patronizing. This week, Gwynnie, while using the New York Times for her normal doggie purposes, noticed the three-part series on Class differences and is highly entertained. The articles were entitled: - Class in America: Shadowy Lines That Still Divide
- Up From the Holler: Living in Two Worlds, at Home in Neither
- When Richer Weds Poorer, Money Isn't the Only Difference - Marriage between people of different classes often means moving outside comfort zones
The Times’ message was that class is really important, even if Americans don’t think so. To prove its theory, The Times took a poll: “To discover how Americans regard social class and where they place themselves, The Times conducted a nationwide survey in March. The poll uncovered optimism about a financial future, opportunities and the reward of hard work. While there are differences in the views of rich and poor and some respondents have a sense of tension and inequality, there remains strong faith in the American Dream, however defined. ” [emphasis added] Gwynnie was curious about the concluding spin concerning “some respondents” so she looked at the data. As usual, the quote was negative spin very much in line with The Times’ usual editorial tactics. [Although Mr. Bush was elected, some people (reporters?) think he should have lost in Ohio. Although there are no more public hangings of women in the soccer stadium in Kabul, some Afghanis {Talibani?) find the occupation repressive.] Here are their data: - Is it possible to start out poor, work hard and become rich? 80% said Yes, 19% said no, vs. 57% yes and 38% no in 1983. [The number of respondents having “a sense of tension and inequality” is not revealed]
- Current class vs. when growing up: 45% said higher, 16% said lower
- Likelihood of upward movement vs. 30 years ago: 40% said easier, 23% said harder
- Upward mobility vs. in the EU: 46% said easier, 13% said harder.
“Where,” says Gwynnie, “are the ‘shadowy lines’? Although The Times is trying hard to make class important and thus reopen class resentment (and benefit old-line Democrat tactics), their data disclose just the opposite. The Times says, “The movement of families up and down the economic ladder is the promise that lies at the heart of the American dream. But it does not seem to be happening quite as often as it used to.” Gwynnie suggests that maybe that’s because so many are now in the middle, but not “happening quite as often as it used to” could refer to 1946, 1935, 1920 or even 1815. Here are The Times’ statistics for the period 1988-1998: MOVED STAYED MOVED
UP SAME DOWNTop 20% 52.5% 47.5%Upper middle 55.6% 30.0% 45.0%Middle 37.5% 27.5% 35.0%Lower middle 40.0% 37.5% 22.5%Bottom 20% 47.5% 52.5%
Note the following: - The same percentage moved up from the bottom as moved down from the top.
- For the middle 3 categories, more moved up than down
- An average of 40% stayed in place
If this is not mobility, what is? It is hard to wage class warfare if 60% of us will be in another “class” in 10 years! View from 1776 has a companion piece.
The Obesity Scam - who is behind this hysteria? There is NO obesity health crisis. Pure BS and pure pseudo-science, yet another big fat arena for the trial lawyers. Fat ain't very appealing, it's fatiguing, it makes you look like an out-of-control person, it's a turn-off, and it damages your hips and knees, but being fat doesn't damage your health all that much, especially when balanced with the joys of good food. Get fat if you want! It's a free country! All it is, is gross and it won't help your sports. Disclaimer: Yes, I do own shares of McDonalds, but I can't eat that crap myself. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. And I hate the way they tie you down and force that Big Mac down my throat. Barf City. Global Warming - Antarctica ice cap is growing?!?!?http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050516/full/050516-10.html You call this a church? Photos and details of Oakland's new Christ The Light Cathedral, at Curt Jester. Amazing architecture. It would not go over in New England. The New Mai Lai. You can do 999 things right, and some jerk can do one stupid thing, and as far as the Left goes, you are now the Devil. Unless you're a Dem or a Lefty, in which case it is overlooked. I hear there are wives who think like that. Abu Graib is the current "one dumb" (trivial, tho illegal) thing. But Larry Summers is now being led around on a dog leash with a choke collar by rabid maiden schoolmarms in Cambridge, and no-one complains. Is it because he's not a Moslem? Where is Seymour Hirsch? On Abu Graib, there's even a new book out, and articles like this one. What I hate about this stuff is how delighted the hate-American-first crowd is when we screw up, and how depressed they get when things go well.
"In much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow."
Ecclesiastes
Tuesday, May 24. 2005
Judiciary Filibusters The Repubs have the votes, the power, the ideas, and the future - but they can't govern worth a damn.
Isikoff: It is a "blip" Innocent lives, far away, may be a "blip" to Isikoff - or is the main concern about the life of the magazine?
OPINION IN BRIEF
"It would be devastating to the egos of the intelligentsia to realize, much less admit, that businesses have done more to reduce poverty than all the intellectuals put together. Ultimately it is only wealth that can reduce poverty and most of the intelligentsia have no interest whatever in finding out what actions and policies increase the national wealth. They certainly don't feel any 'obligation' to learn economics, out of a sense of 'social responsibility,' much less because of any 'social contract' requiring them to know what they are talking about before spouting off with self-righteous rhetoric." --Thomas Sowell RE: THE LEFT
"How come it never occurs to liberals or Democrats that the very terms in which they phrase the question are part of their problem? These, after all, are people who are obsessed with politically correct terminology, from 'African-American' to 'fetus.' Yet somehow it never dawns on them that 'working class' is an insult. Think about it: Would you call a janitor, a secretary or a carpenter 'working class' to his face? The term connotes putting someone in his place: Your lot in life is to work. Thinking is for the higher classes. The questions the Democrats ask about the 'working class' reflect precisely this contempt: What's the matter with these people? Why don't they understand that we know what's good for them? Why do they worry about silly things like abortion and homosexuality? If they must believe in all that religious mumbo-jumbo, can't they keep it to themselves? Every time the Democrats lose an election, they make a big show of asking questions like these. Then, the next time they lose an election, they once again wonder why the 'working class' has forsaken them. Maybe it's as simple as: because they were listening." --James Taranto
It may have been only a crack, a small crack in the door of oppressive leadership but a glimmer of hope may have come through it. Castro was concerned enough to ship journalists and observers out before they had a chance to report on the Assembly held yesterday in Havana. In today's world of electronic media, and stringers blogging online, the days of an "iron curtain" are dwindling. "A reporter for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Francesco Battistini, was detained on his way to the meeting and put on a plane to Europe, the Italian foreign ministry said.Cuba expelled three Polish journalists Friday on a flight to Cancun, Mexico, a Polish diplomat said. They were among six Poles arrested at their Havana hotel Thursday night. The group, in Cuba to attend the dissidents' meeting, included a a photographer, a translator and an expert on Cuban politics.Two former Spanish senators were deported on Thursday, a day after arriving in Cuba for the meeting, and another legislator was expelled on Friday, officials said in Madrid.Police picked up Czech Sen. Karel Schwarzenberg and German Bundestag member Arnold Vaatz at their hotels on Thursday and drove them straight to the airport for flights home. Unbelievable as it sounds, Mr. Serrano of the Bronx claims that the New York delegation understands Cuban politics better than Florida."If there was no Jeb Bush in Florida, and no strong Miami community, we would perhaps treat Cuba differently."
PLEASE! Is he kidding? There is a strong Cuban community in Florida precisely because there is a Castro in Havana. Castro may have liberated Cubans from the oppressive dictator Batista but he has replaced one reprehensible government with another. The miserable Cubans who were left behind, who chose to stay behind have been swindled out of a future. "To encourage participants, the assembly has solicited and received expressions of support and solidarity from representatives of international organizations, including members of the European Parliament and members of the American Congress. Last Tuesday, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 193, which, among other provisions, extends "support and solidarity to the organizers and participants of the historic meeting." The resolution, introduced by a Republican of Florida, Mario Diaz-Balart, passed by a vote of 392 to 22. The bill had more than 50 co-sponsors, including a Democrat from New York, Rep. Eliot Engel of the Bronx.New York was the best-represented state among the resolution's opponents, however, with six New York Democrats among the 22 nay votes. They included Charles Rangel of Harlem; Jose Serrano of the Bronx; Edolphus Towns of Brooklyn; Nydia Velazquez of Brooklyn, and Gregory Meeks of Queens, as well as Maurice Hinchey, whose district stretches from Poughkeepsie to Ithaca."
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