Maggie's Farm

On this day in 1959, the "Big Bopper" J.P. Richardson, Buddy Holly, and Richie Valens died in a plane crash. This video is "Chantilly Lace," one of my favorites from that era. (My boys hid behind their chairs when I sang it at karaoke on a cruise. -- Today, I'm tormenting them with my version of James Brown, together with my imitation of that great performer's dance steps -- wish I had a cape, too, singing "I feel good.")

Symptoms of the higher education bubble include students and their families in debt for unemployable degrees, taxpayers and the economy weighed down to support colleges that put country-club campuses, lack of academic rigor, even outright bias, above excellence, and fervid resistance to change from college faculties and administrators.

Any organization that fails to identify and satisfy the legitimate needs of those who provide its inputs and consume its outputs -- stakeholders -- will ultimately fail. Higher education is not immune to this rule of markets.

Professors are not the only stakeholders in academic freedom, though they’d like others to think so and allow them exclusive sway over what occurs within higher education. Students, qualified outside observers, taxpayers, indeed society in general, are key stakeholders.

Loyola professor of business law Arthur Gross-Schaefer’s brilliant piece in the February 2011 Journal of Legal Studies in Business, “Academic Freedom: Moving Away From The Faculty-Only Paradigm” is must reading for anyone who is concerned for the future and success of US higher education. As Gross-Schaefer says, “A serious re-evaluation of the faculty-centered paradigm of academic freedom needs to be undertaken.” Gross-Schaefer gets to the point: “this article will challenge the Robinson paradigm of academic freedom, predicated on faculty as the single stakeholder, as limiting and self-serving.” He reviews what happens “when a professor’s personal analysis begins to interfere with objective inquiry and the honest review of diverse opinions.”

Usually, this abnormal situation occurs when a professor is dealing with a contentious topic and has only presented a single view that compromises the academic environment. Accordingly, university students need basic academic rights: the right to not have professors impose political or personal beliefs, the right to receive valid scholarly materials, and the right to have controversial topics fairly discussed by having diverse views represented and carefully examined.[84]

Military analyst Austin Bay points out,

“For the near-term, how the Egyptian military promotes, thwarts, and/or negotiates the inevitable redistribution of power among individuals and factions within the country is the most critical issue.”  Bay then reviews the reduced power of the military in Turkey and Iran following Islamists rise to power. Bay ends: “At some point, the Militant Islamists will resort to terror and assassination in their bid to secure unrivaled power. It will take a resilient alliance of Egyptian secularists, moderate Islamists and the military to defeat them. Encouraging this alliance should be America's foremost diplomatic goal.”

Jed Babbin, a former United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense who served during the first Bush administration, writes in his column: 

“given Egypt's culture and its military's low-paid status, it's entirely possible that a new Islamist regime could purchase the military's loyalty. That is the most likely scenario if radical Islamic influence - from inside Egypt and emanating from Iran and Syria - manage to tip the balance their way.” Babbin concludes with an alternative: “Many of our most senior generals have longstanding relationships with their Egyptian comrades, the kind of bond that can only be achieved by serving side by side in training and military exercises. These officers, if the president permits them, should be on the phone with their Egyptian comrades to offer assurances of aid and support if they choose to stand against a radical Islamic regime. That, and only that, would be an effective American influence on Egypt's immediate future.”

Brooklyn College President Karen Gould today announced the re-hire of Kristofer Petersen. His appointment to teach a graduate course on the Politics of the Middle East had been rescinded last week, after a furor over his avid pro-Gaza writings, activism and slanted syllabus was brought to light.

In her patently ridiculous statement, Pres. Gould mouths platitudes about academic freedom, and says of her decision:

Today, the Department of Political Science and its appointments committee voted unanimously to recommend Kristofer Petersen-Overton to teach a graduate course on the Middle East. Based on information that has come to light, they are confident he has sufficient depth of knowledge and the intellectual capacity to successfully lead a graduate seminar.

It was a professor in the Political Science who initially hired Petersen. I have his letter in which he recognizes Petersen’s troubling background but expresses confidence in his teaching anyway. That professor then issued a statement along with other PoliSci faculty bemoaning the choice to rescind the appointment. So, the decision to rescind the recission of the appointment was made by the same group that first made it.  Well, that’s comforting, isn’t it? Only in an academic bizarro-world.

The federal district court in Pensacola, FL ruled today the entire ObamaCare bill is unconstitutional. The case was brought by 26 states and the major group representing small business.

Their plead had two parts: 1) The mandate to require purchase of medical insurance exceeds the federal government’s authority under the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause of the US Constitition; and 2) The imposition of additional Medicaid costs upon the states violates the 10^th Amedment to the Constitution.

The court ruled against the second pleading, as – impractical as it may be – the states could refuse to participate in Medicaid.  Actually, in reaction to the increasing costs of Medicaid, many states are already, instead, paring back on Medicaid benefits they themselves have added onto the base required by the federal government.

The judge, however, did rule that the mandate is inextricably wound up with the complex interdependencies of ObamaCare and cannot be severed. Thus, the entire ObamaCare is ruled unconstitutional.  (See my earlier post about the Virginia federal district court ruling that the mandate is unconstitutional but can be severed, and the rest of ObamaCare stand.) But, pending appeals, the Florida judge will allow ObamaCare to stay in effect.

The Republican leader in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell – an able practitioner of Senate rules – says he will use the Senate Rule 14 to force a vote in the Senate on the repeal bill passed by an overwhelming majority of the House.  It would be a surprise if he can muster 60-votes, but it will force the Democrat Senators to each be on record.

The US Supreme Court is unlikely to rule for another year or two. In the meantime, however, the Obama administration will continue to issue regulations, and the insurance markets will continue to comply and adjust, making it more difficult to excise ObamaCare’s effects.

Some Democrat Senators are floating ideas to neutralize the mandate issue by other means of impelling purchase of medical insurance. Why didn’t they float and support these last year, one may ask.  It will take more than these ideas to right what’s wrong with ObamaCare.  I floated some in my Op-Ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune  ("No GOP Ideas? Try These 10") last year during the Congressional debates. Surely the Republicans in the House and Senate can even do better than I.  They better. Reform is needed in some areas, and the better ideas wouldn’t throw out the baby with the washwater as the Democrats did in federalizing control of virtually all aspects of our medical care by throwing out free choice and the freer market.

Those of you spending tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for your children’s college education, and paying taxes to support colleges, may be interested in a current brouhaha at my alma mater, Brooklyn College.

A doctoral student, 1 ½ years into his studies, was hired by the Political Science department to teach a graduate level course on the Politics of the Middle East. I wrote about his clear and one-sided pro-Palestinian writings and radical associations, and of his slanted syllabus of readings. Subsequently, others wrote to the college administration questioning this hire, including the New York State Assemblyman for the adjoining district. The hire was rescinded, the formal reason given that the hire was insufficiently credentialed.

Predictably, the hire complains that academic freedom has been trampled. Some on campus and the hire’s ideological friends in the blogosphere agree. The NYC press has covered the incident, repeating their charges. The hire himself appears in a TV report saying, “I have very vocal views in favor of the Palestinian cause for self-determination.” At his personal website, the hire says, “Unfortunately, due to external pressure, the Brooklyn College provost has chosen to suppress academic freedom and intervened to cancel my appointment. This is a profoundly unsettling outcome and I am currently challenging it.”

Au contraire writes a retired professor at the college to the Chancellor of the City University of New York:

By now serious academics realize that the propagandists work deliberately to confuse "academic freedom" with freedom of speech per se.  Academic freedom is the freedom to teach and write within the constraints and standards of one's discipline, which means paying methodic attention to the relevant sources and domains under a course heading.  This is the freedom that needs defending, and has been commendably defended in this instance.

Further, it does not appear this hire has any legal grounds to demand he be hired.

So, what is at stake: academic freedom or academic license, especially when abused, completely inviolate from legitimate concerns of students, parents, or knowledgeable critics?

The hire at Brooklyn College was, most charitably, a mistake, now corrected.

If you agree, you might email the Chancellor of the City University of New York ( chancellor@cuny.edu ) and the Brooklyn College President ( klgould@brooklyn.cuny.edu ).

I wrote on January 19 about the appointment at Brooklyn College, my alma mater, of a pro-Palestinian activist – just 1 ½ years into his own PhD studies -- to teach a graduate course on the Middle East. After that the New York State Assemblyman of the district adjoining the college protested in a letter to the college president and copied the Chancellor of the City University of New York (who had also received letters of protest from other influentials).

In reviewing Mr. Petersen-Overton’s writings and professional background, I was alarmed about the slanted nature of his works, as well as what can only be termed as his use of hateful invectives against the State of Israel….Moreover, Mr. Petersen-Overton’s course syllabus reads like a Who’s Who of Palestinian sympathizers and historical revisionists, with no equitable counterbalance….The responsibility of a true academic is to remain objective in imparting information and to allow students to draw their own conclusions. Instead, Mr. Petersen-Overton’s required and recommended reading selections intentionally stifle the passionate discourse of students who would challenge his political ideologies….I ask you, Dr. Gould, is Mr. Petersen-Overton, an overt supporter of terrorism, really the best candidate Brooklyn College could find to teach this course?  Surely, you must concede that the answer is a resounding “no.” Indeed, Mr. Petersen-Overton would be better suited for a teaching position at the Islamic University of Gaza.

Here’s the follow-up article. The Assemblyman says, “I am absolutely thrilled that Brooklyn College made the right decision and removed Professor Petersen-Overton from his post.”

So am I.  It should still be a serious concern to know more about the appointment, as I originally wrote,

It should be of interest what the vetting procedure is at Brooklyn College to select a pool of well-qualified candidates, the criteria by which Kristofer Petersen was selected to teach the Middle East, and how Petersen compared to other qualified candidates.  Academic transparency should not be – nor viewed as – a challenge to academic freedom but rather as its necessary bulwark of credibility.

Here’s the straight forward TV coverage from WPIX-New York.  Petersen says on TV, “I have very vocal views in favor of the Palestinian cause for self-determination.” The reporter says that Petersen hopes to rally support from other professors and that he plans to appeal. That would be an opportunity to further reveal the answers to how and why this pro-Palestinian activist was hired, and to reveal the CUNY professors who may believe Petersen is a qualified professor. -- Update: The PoliSci department chair who hired Petersen doth protest. Surprise, not.

Update: A pro-Palestinian supporter of Kristofer Peterson shares Peterson's email to him: “I was not contacted by Brooklyn College administration at any time during their decision-making process. This politically motivated action undermines CUNY’s longstanding legacy as a stalwart defender of academic freedom.” Here's a sample of the graphics that is featured with the writing of this friend of Peterson: "You must act now to stop the Holocaust in Gaza..."

This Irish group, The High Kings, sing The Fields Of Glory, not allowed to be embedded but watchable at Youtube. It was said that "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton."

As I've participated in and coached individual and team sports, I've watched how they build the best traits of character. Here's a review of a critique of not enough engaging young people's imagination beyond the rote.

This young lady speaks of her experiences and feelings as many gay friends have described them to me.  She is eloquent and, as far as I can know, correct. -- I'm sure there are as proportionately many straight kooks as gay.  I'm sure that, if there are proportionately more among gays, it may largely come from evolving in an atmosphere of fears. I, or you, may not support some aspects of the gay political agenda, but let's never discriminate against honesty and love. 

Here's a collection of photos of those who want to make hate, not love.  Far cry from the 60s, huh, or maybe not.

"A mighty river, wide with foamy waves
A breeze blows
Wheat blossoms fragrant on its shores
My home is on that shore
I hear the call of the boatmen
I see the boats' white sails
This is the beautiful ancestral land
The land where I was born and raised
On this expansive wide-ranging soil
Everywhere the sun shines...."

I read the online New York Times visits to various areas of New York City and, though born and raised there, hardly recognize what is described. I figured, maybe it's just me, since I've been gone from there for decades.  I'm not alone anymore. NBC News anchorman Brian Williams has fun mimicking the NYTs wonder at what it views as exotic Brooklyn.  

A Brooklyn College Political Science graduate student enrolled in a Middle East course offered at Brooklyn College for this Spring. The newly hired adjunct professor for the course is Kristofer Petersen. 

Dismayed after doing some online search on the newly-hired adjunct professor, the student wrote on January 12 to the Department Chair:

Mr. Kristofer Petersen is an active partisan of Palestinians in Gaza. As a recent graduate student, he has published his views in one of the most virulent pro-Palestinian forums and elsewhere, and I have found little else in his online record displaying either balance or a wider scholarly understanding of Israel and the Palestinians… His writings and associations point to an apparent one-sidedness with regards to the Middle Eastern issue of Israel and Palestinians.

Kristofer Petersen’s own description of his background includes: “Outside the academy, I worked for some time as a human rights activist in Gaza and the West Bank and I still maintain close contact with the Palestinian activist community.”

The student points out Electronic Intifada as the venue for two of Petersen’s writings and quotes a pro-Palestinian activist and journalist, Ray Hanania, Member of the National Board of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, who wrote, “Electronic Intifada, [is] a place where hypocrisy is the norm, factual inaccuracies are common place, and anger and hatred drive their mission….And they are the first to denounce the killing of Palestinians, but never denounce the killing of Israelis.” (NGO Monitor has a Fact Sheet on Electronic Intifada. The Dutch government told an interfaith organization it funds that it may cut off funding if it continues funding Electronic Intifada.)

For that matter, the Israel-Palestinian dynamics are a relatively small part of issues in the Middle East. As the WikiLeaks revealed, the principal Arab state preoccupation is threats from Iran. (BBC Middle East editor: “Now their own people can see that in private they are saying the same things about Iran as many Israelis and neo-conservative Americans.”)

Petersen is preoccupied with the Palestinian narrative, as evident in his syllabus on the course, Politics of the Middle East: “the course is structured around the broad theme of identity and will be conducted at two levels: (1) a macro level which focuses on the Arab Middle East in general—and does not include details about Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan or Pakistan—and (2) a micro level which focuses specifically on Israel/Palestine.”

There are two required readings in Petersen’s course syllabus.. The first is The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World by Mohammed Ayoob, who concludes writing:

Above all, it is the unstinted and unquestioning American support to Israel, especially to its policy of continued occupation of and settlement within Palestinian lands conquered in 1967, that demonstrates to politically conscious Muslims that the United States is committed to treating Muslims and Arabs not only with insensitivity but with utter contempt.

Ayoob footnotes John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt and Rashid Khalidi, strident critics of Israel.

I'm lucky to sorta get a straight line with my power saws.

The propaganda issued by the Obama administration to obtain support for ObamaCare is blatant and wrong. An example is touting that ObamaCare has helped small businesses to obtain medical insurance. The federal Department of Health and Human Services cites a Democrat-front organization. The real facts say otherwise.

The federal Department of Health and Human Services website HealthCare.gov offers this “fact”: “According to a new survey from the Small Business Majority, one third of employers that don’t offer health insurance said they are more likely to do so because of the small business tax credits included in the Affordable Care Act, which help small employers afford coverage for their employees.”

But, as an expose in the New York Times says, “As far as the Agenda knows, the Small Business Majority research is the only research that has found that small businesses buy in to pay-or-play. All of the other small-business advocates claim the opposite, and by greater margins.”

What is the Small Business Majority? According to the New York Times expose:

The group has been around since 2004, founded by a tech entrepreneur named John Arensmeyer….Small Business Majority has no membership — if it did, Mr. Arensmeyer says, it could no longer objectively represent all of small business, since memberships are by definition self-selecting. Nor is it funded by small businesses; instead the organization depends almost entirely on foundation grants…. Small Business Majority is nonpartisan only in the most technical sense, in that it is not formally allied with any party. Informally, however, it is allied with the Democratic Party. Mr. Arensmeyer serves as a board member of the Bay Area Democrats, which describes itself as “a network of private citizens active in national Democratic Politics.” Since 2002, Mr. Arensmeyer has given generously, and exclusively, to Democratic candidates, according to F.E.C. records. (“I’ve voted for Republicans,” he offers.)… But when Mr. Arensmeyer insists that his organization is not ideological, he appears to mean that it is not “conservative.” The whole project, frankly, seems fundamentally ideological, and clearly liberal. It’s received a leg up from Demos, the advocacy group that counts among its objectives “a more equitable economy with widely shared prosperity and opportunity” — no initiatives to foster Ayn Rand-style self-reliance here. (Demos serves as a fiscal agent, which allows the group to raise money as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.)

In Business Week, Prof. Scott Shane, of Case Western Reserve University, lays out the reality:

Sellers of small group policies report little change in demand for employee health insurance policies among small business owners. The sellers explain that compensation limits for employees make few small businesses eligible for the credit and that the low value of the credit does little to get business owners to provide employee health insurance.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that the uptick in the share of firms offering employee health insurance is an artifact of high failure rates of the most vulnerable small businesses (which tend not to offer employee health insurance) during the economic downturn. With more of the companies not providing insurance out of the sample, the share of those providing insurance has increased for purely mathematical reasons….

Another claim is that the new law is bringing down health insurance premiums. Even if the law might, possibly, maybe, at some time in the future, bring down premiums, it hasn't done that yet. Trade publication Employee Benefit News explains that private companies' spending on health insurance is expected to have increased by 4.3 percent in 2010, a rise from the 2.5 percent expected the month before the PPACA was passed because of changes in COBRA policies….

So why am I challenging the claims of the law's cheerleaders? Because its effect so far has been a net negative. That's because many business owners have formed negative expectations of the future effects of the law. For instance, a survey of 459 businesses conducted by Fidelity Investments in June revealed that 49 percent of small employers expect the new law to increase their costs. Many small business owners are responding to these expectations by passing on health insurance costs to employees, by changing the type of insurance they offer, and by planning to drop employee health insurance coverage in the future.

As to the reduced workforce, this USA Today study points out that employment recovery from this recession is slower and less than from prior ones: “This year's hiring should lower the 9.8% jobless rate to 8.9% or so by the end of the year, Moody's Analytics says. That would still leave about 13 million Americans jobless by year's end and many economists say it will take at least five years for unemployment to return to its normal 5% to 6% rate.”

Why are firms either not hiring or limiting hiring?

The President of the US Chamber of Commerce knows the primary reason, excess regulations and taxes sapping the ability and willingness by entrepreneurs to start or stay in business, or by businesses to expand employment or to retain benefits programs. ObamaCare, for example, “creates 159 new agencies, commissions, panels, and other bodies. It grants extraordinary powers to the Department of Health and Human Services to redefine health care as we know it.”

Barry Rubin asks: If One Extremist Gunmen Can Do So Much Damage in America, How About Ten Million Such People In The Middle East?

So, why do so many liberals excuse and leftists ally with the Arab and Iranian radicals and haters?

When one crazed or ideologically obsessed gunman starts shooting in Arizona, people condemn him and start bemoaning their society. How about a place with ten million people like that who are treated as heroes?...

Let’s say that the proportion of lies, slanders, and incitement in the American discourse is one-tenth of one percent of all the words spoken on controversial issues. The equivalent figure for the Middle East is well over 95 percent.

In addition to that tone, there is not only a total lack of balance but an absence of the other side altogether.

And in addition to those two points, the level of factual accuracy has a huge gap separating it from reality. (Though, admittedly, that gap has been narrowing in recent years as Western standards decline).

And in addition to those three points, while extremists tend to be marginal in the United States, they are in control--either politically or at least rhetorically--throughout most of the Arabic-speaking and Muslim-majority worlds….

Now, let me ask some questions:

--If America is horrified in claiming that a tiny amount of mostly marginal extremism inspires one mad man to murder six people and try to kill a politician, how much violence can be traced to hundreds of thousands of mosques, media, teachers, and mainstream politicians daily preaching hatred literally millions of times a day?

--If the discourse throughout the Arabic-speaking world, Iran, increasingly in Turkey, and generally in Muslim-majority countries is almost 100 percent incitement, how can there be partners for peace or a hope of stability? What good do concessions do when the next day the culture of incitement and hatred goes on at full speed?

--If the degree of anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Jewish, and anti-Christian incitement is 100,000 times more intense and mainstream than any “Islamophobic” discourse in the West, while mitigating discourse—i.e., empathy, positive images, etc., toward “the other”—is one thousandth of a percent less, then which of these phenomenon is a greater threat and problem?

Doyle McManus at the Los Angeles Times sums up the best that liberals can come up with for reducing income inequality: better education for the poor, to reduce The Upward Mobility Gap. He correctly points out that this goal is one of the few that Democrats and Republicans can agree upon. And, then he stops.

The goal is fine but how to get there is the question.

McManus says, “Opportunity in America isn't what it used to be.” Liberal nostrums fail to mention the biggest barrier to reducing income inequality – if considered needing reduction -- is government, whether one advocates more or less government programs.

To now, more government programs actually create more government workers, their pay and benefits unaffordable while diminishing basic public services. Less government programs tend toward wholesale cuts in unaffordable welfare and government worker benefits, while failing to refocus funding on productive education and related infrastructure.

As well, McManus passes over the “moral” or lifestyle elements that are necessary to taking advantage of educational and employment opportunities as being difficult to measure. Yet, these are crucial.

Three of the ways that the poor found rungs on the ladder of upward mobility, manufacturing jobs and small businesses, are under continuing pressure, while illegal immigrants reduce even sustenance jobs for citizens. US manufacturing employment has shrunk for repetitive tasks while requirements for technical education and skills has increased, overall production holding its own. Lesser costly environmental and workplace regulations, along with lower wages, has drawn much lower skilled manufacturing abroad. More government regulations and greater competition due to reduced transport costs and increased imports of staples has made small business less able to survive or thrive. Illegal immigrants – mostly uneducated -- mostly impact manual labor opportunities for the poorest American citizens, while consuming much government funding that could otherwise, maybe, hopefully, be redirected toward support and education foundations for poor American citizens.

Government programs that focus on useful job skills are un- or underfunded, in favor of expensive contemporary elite culture curriculums, especially victimology humanities. Legal immigrants – thankfully -- fill our sciences. Government programs that sustain or increase welfare dependency, and regulations that discourage risk taking, perpetuate a permanent lower income class. The virtues of stark choices may be overrated, but elimination of such choices is less virtuous. Corruption and self-dealing, either financial or ethical, is unacceptable. Fish stink from the head. The same standards must apply to chieftains of government as to of business.  Lack of performance must not be tolerated in government any more than it is in private enterprise.

Two examples of the difference culture makes, my father and my son. The common thread, across the generations, is work habits, learned young, family emphasis on useful education, and behavioral skills and focus.

My father, born 1920 in Detroit, from a large poor immigrant family, dropped out of high school, did manual labor and worked for local retailers, then went to trade school to become a tool & die maker (others in the family had similar life-stories), thereafter earning a decent worker’s income. His choices were stark, the path up clear.

My son, born 2000 in California, from a middle-class family, is an A student. The caliber of primary education in his school district is high, the primary differences among schools and their scores being the lesser parental involvement at the schools in the poorer areas. My wife and I are pretty demanding and involved. There are almost no manufacturing jobs locally, the few being highly technical. There are few local stores, and laws forbid he being hired for anything. Anyway, what retail jobs there are go to otherwise unemployed humanities college graduates! New Years eve he watched MTV’s Jersey Shore revelry, before getting bored and going to sleep. Last night, he watched Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees. After the movie, he said to me that people used to act nicer. On one side of my house are the two, contemporary culture, lazy 20s boys taking four years to complete two-year AA degrees, their courses being weak humanities type. Their father had gotten them manual labor construction jobs and, though they are big and strong, the illegal immigrants outworked them. On the other side is a former Eagle Scout, majoring in a technical field at a top college.

Today’s choices are no less stark than they once were. The only real difference is between those who recognize that and those who avoid the choices or enrich themselves by sheltering those who would otherwise benefit from starker choices.

The promo:

The Foam Weapon League is an alternative sports league that combines the best of live action role playing and martial arts, featuring male and female Warriors drawn from all walks of life, battling one-on-one in a combat circle using foam rubber weapons.

Like the WWE, each FWL Warrior has their own sci fi- or fantasy-inspired combat character name, as well as a distinctive costume to go along with it. Like a video game brought to life, Warriors wear whatever kind of makeup or costume they desire, and fight with the foam rubber armor and weapon of their choice.

Like the UFC, all FWL fights are 100% real and are not staged or choreographed in any way. FWL Warriors are real athletes who use real martial arts skills, but instead of grappling with or striking opponents with hands and feet, they are only allowed to strike each other with approved foam rubber weapons.

In order to simulate a battle fought with real weapons, Warriors wear harnesses with bags of fake blood attached at strategic points on the body. The first Warrior to break two of his opponent's blood bags wins.

 

Do foam or silicone breasts count as unfair advantage?

Calculating the unsustainable: 

By assuming these 19 million public sector retirees, on average, received a retirement pension equal to 66% of their average base pay of $68,000 per year, you may estimate the total public employee pension bill per year at $862 billion. Similarly, by assuming these 67 million private sector retirees, on average, received a retirement pension equal to 33% of their average base pay of $41,500 per year, you may estimate the total private employee social security bill per year at $920 billion.

The implications of these calculations are difficult to overstate. Using assumptions which are well documented and representative of the actual wage and benefit realities in California, extrapolated to the United States as a whole, it is clear that the California model would mean that public sector retirees would cost taxpayers $862 billion per year, which is only 6% less than the entire bill for social security for more than six times as many people.

The launch event for a year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan's birth, February 6, 1911, is the first-ever float in the New Years Day Rose Bowl Parade honoring a US President.

There are "replicas of 11 black-and-white photos of moments in Reagan's life, and those photos have been constructed by hand out of onion seed, poppy seed and rice....There's also a replica of the statue of Reagan now at the U.S. Capital, made of flax seeds."