Unwilling To Learn

A balding former roommate (and occasional reader) of mine tells a story of his youth.

When he was about ten years old he had his bicycle stolen from him. In an effort to get his bicycle back from the thief, he gave the thief's friend $10 to retrieve it for him.

While waiting listlessly for a bicycle that never returned, his Father disgustedly pointed out that "You live and learn, Son. You live and learn."

Tom Coburn, Mitch McConnell and Saxby Champliss are today seriously contemplating spending another couple trillion on their third stolen bicycle in the past few years.

Some people refuse to learn regardless of how many times they've been snookered.

The Good Old (hot) Days

You know it is hot when my 91 year old Dad is sporting blue jean cutoffs with black socks that are, as you have most likely pictured by now, pulled up as high on his calves as the elastic properties of a fine cotton-Coolmax-polyester-nylon blend could possibly allow.

And, you know it is really hot when my Mom hasn't yet made him go inside and change into something a little less offensive to the eye.

So, here we sit wearing whatever we can to stay cool inside a high pressure dome that is being advertised as the strongest to cover the country's midsection since the mid-90s. It has to be global warming or, at the very least, some global climate change action.

Which all made me wonder what my Dad was wearing some 75 years ago when a pre-global warming climate produced a steamy 112 degrees in Mio.

That was way back in 1936 when on July 13 of that year the all time record high for Michigan was recorded some ten miles from the farm on which my Dad was raised. My Mom was perspiring only two miles from Mio on the family farm where she was raised.

What would Al Gore be saying this week if, instead of temperatures that will flirt with 100 degrees, we were facing the temperatures my parents suffered through back before any rural homes enjoyed central air and before farm families even enjoyed insulation in their walls?

Perhaps this will be a good week to buy carbon credits on the open market because this high pressure dome is going to stay in place for at least a couple more days. But personally I think it would be a better investment to pick up a pair of old jeans and scissors. Just don't tell Mom.

We Could Use a Little Truth

Barack Obama has hinted that if the Congress cannot raise the debt ceiling that he could not guarantee that Social Security checks would be mailed out. We expect these sorts of scare tactics because they come right from the written works of Saul Alinsky, the Communist community organizer from whom Barack Obama learned most of his playbook.

But, any of us who have spent any time investigating this know it to be, as Joe Wilson might shout from the Capitol floor, a lie. There will continue to be money flowing into the treasury after a deadline. In fact, there will be more than enough money necessary to pay the interest on the debt, social security benefits, benefits to military personnel, Medicare, Medicaid and, with enough votes, they could still fund an all important study of AIDS transmission in Chinese prostitutes and maybe even build a library or two.

So, why doesn't Kay Baily Hutchinson say just that? Rather, the "establishment" GOP Senator from Texas says that social security checks can still be mailed out because it comes from another fund altogether.

On Fox News today with Shannon Bream:

[...]we shouldn't be having the President say he might not be able to send social security checks out, he can. He absolutely can. It's a different fund. They know that. So, I think it is a scare tactic."

Ms. Hutchinson, the only reason we are in this financial mess to begin with is because the other fund of which you speak does not exist. It has been used up. Spent. It is gone.

It would benefit Americans everywhere to know the truth about this financial mess. Covering up Obama's pessimism with your own brand of optimism is obfuscatory.

Speaking of an Overreaching Nanny State

Let's not leave the good people of Colorado out of it either.

The wonderful bureaucrats of the Rocky Mountain State are getting serious about turning themselves into the parents of every child in the state. They know what is best for the children and, in order to make sure that incompetent parents don't neglect to teach future citizens about tolerance and multiculturalism, they're writing regulations making it mandatory for all day care centers in the state to make available dolls that represent three different races.

It's bad enough that these red-tape artists have the gall to attempt such a foray into the private sector, but then they have the stone cold gall to spend months parading around the state wasting tax payer's money in order to implement "this [...] lengthy, thoughtful, deliberate process."

I wonder if an Irish, German, and French doll would suffice?

h/t Drudge

The Nanny State Is Coming For Your Vegetables

There are few things on Earth that tick me off more than self righteous bureaucrats using their authority to bully the people that pay their salaries.

It is bad enough that we have bureaucrats trying to tell us what we can eat, if we can invite other people to smoke on our own private property or if we might, pretty please, be able to add some salt to our food.

Now we have a benevolent overlord threatening a homeowner for growing vegetables on her own front lawn. Why? Apparently for no other reason than he doesn't want them to.

Michelle Obama can grow a whole garden on the White House green but Julie Bass, of Oak Park, Michigan should know a little bit better.

From My Fox Detroit:

"We thought it'd be really cool to do it so the neighbors could see. The kids love it. The kids from the neighborhood all come and help," she said.

Bass' cool garden has landed her in hot water with the City of Oak Park. Code enforcement gave her a warning, then a ticket and now she's been charged with a misdemeanor.

"I think it's sad that the City of Oak Park that's already strapped for cash is paying a lot of money to have a prosecutor bothering us," Bass told FOX 2's Alexis Wiley.

"That's not what we want to see in a front yard," said Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski.

Why? The city is pointing to a code that says a front yard has to have suitable, live, plant material. The big question is what's "suitable?"

We asked Bass whether she thinks she has suitable, live, plant material in her front yard.

"It's definitely live. It's definitely plant. It's definitely material. We think it's suitable," she said.

So, we asked Rulkowski why it's not suitable.

"If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster's dictionary, it will say common. So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what's common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers," he said.

But when you look at front yards that are unsightly and overgrown, is Bass' vegetable garden really worth the city's time and money?

Surely Julie Bass must have a crappy looking garden. I mean, how else could it bind the city planner's thong underwear into such a tight little knot that it would so thoroughly encroach on Kevin Rulkowski's already too retentive anal cavity?

Nope.



If George Washington was alive today he would beat Kevin Rulkowski's ass.

h/t The Agitator via Drudge

A Post That Repeatedly Bangs Its Head Against The Wall

We don't have the money. Our children don't have the money. Our grandchildren, if the fruits of our legacy remain a constant, will not have the money either.

And yet, despite the fact that everyone on the face of the planet knows that we don't have the money, Michigan's junior Senator, Debbie Stabenow, will be introducing fascist legislation designed to circumvent the energy free market by plowing another $2 billion into one of our government's most favored initiatives, advanced battery research.

That $2 billion will have to be either borrowed from the Chinese or pulled out of a secret vault Timothy Geitner keeps securely hidden inside his own large intestine. Did I mention that we don't have the money?

Debbie Stabenow is not an expert on much of anything other than identifying air turbulence as global warming. Yet, because of her cozy relationship with union boneheads in Michigan, she has been afforded multiple opportunities in office to push for additional graft that will benefit her most loyal voting subjects in the run up to future elections.

Environmentalists and jug head union members holding hands with socialist public officials have literally driven Michigan's signature industry out of state and out of commission. In its place these same dipsticks are pushing for "future alternative industries" that can only survive if kept on the perpetual life support pried from the wallets of future taxpayers by politicians like Stabenow.

The Kwame Doctrine

Full disclosure: I have neither read the book nor do I ever intend to read it. In fact, I vow at this moment in time to never engage in any activity that might put one red cent in the hands of the poster child for municipal corruption, Kwame Kilpatrick.

But, what's not to like about the book? Here I thought J.K. Rowling had an imagination.

Really, the reasoning printed on its enlightened pages puts blame squarely on those who cause sordid political downfalls--not on those such as Kwame who admit guilt of betrayal, of scandal, and of cover-up, but on those who uncover the crimes.

If his guilt had been successfully enshrouded he might still be mayor.

This is not the doctrine of someone who has hit bottom or understands his mistakes. This is the doctrine of a narcissist who believes that actions are justified by virtue of his own desires.

Cronyism, corruption, cover-up, misuse of public funds, conspiracy, etc., are all merely tools to be used in the administrations of elected officials to better one's pocketbook or political influence. And if the whole thing unravels we can blame the police.

Chomsky Denounces Chavez

...because leftists are reasonable in their expectations that all the narcissistic political tyrants they endorse should know exactly when they have reached the appropriate level of absolute power.

Or something.

Rationing the Necessities

Remember Elaine Benes begging for a square of toilet paper during an episode of Seinfeld?

Her situation is being repeated on Coney Island these days, only it isn't Jerry's date in the next stall from whom she must beg some two-ply.

From the New York Post.

The city is so hard up for cash that it's rationing toilet paper in women's public restrooms -- to the point where bathroom attendants are doling out a few measly squares per patron -- along the world-famous Coney Island boardwalk.

The Post witnessed stone-faced Parks Department employees leave toilet-paper dispensers empty last week and instead force astonished female beachgoers to form "ration lines" in the bathrooms.

Regina Ballone, 25, of Brooklyn visited a boardwalk bathroom at West 16th Street Wednesday and was "grossed out" at the thought of someone else handling her toilet paper.

"Never in my life have I experienced anything like this," she said. "I walked toward a stall, and a bathroom attendant stopped me by shouting, 'Hey, mami! There's no toilet paper here,' and she whipped out a big roll for me to grab some."

That socialist paradise that is New York is coming face to face with the realities of an economy that makes war against job providers--well, that is all private sector job providers because the government can apparently still afford pay people to hand out a square here and a square there when it cannot afford to stock up the wall dispensers.

Sheesh.

h/t Publius Forum

Hating on Old Dudes that Once Founded a Country

In the last few years, what many people believe of the Founding Fathers has gone from a group of wise men whose vision helped to found the greatest nation in the history of the planet, to a group of deeply flawed men with vision too narrow to even contemplate the circumstances that would surround the lives of needy Americans in the years following the country's founding.

Protein Wisdom (and Dr. Larry Arn) have something to say about that.

MLive Asks: Does West Michigan need more visible minority and gay faces to attract a creative class?

To which I have to ask, what in the heck is a gay face?

You know, gays have that certain...look. Really?

I mean, if I ever tried to define a "gay face" I would be ridiculed as homophobic and a hater. Yet, it would seem to be entirely reasonable for a whole class of artists to be attracted to a community that projects a look that we heterosexuals would be remiss to identify or, absent any obviousities, investigate.

Would it be wrong for masses of unemployed straight guys to pretend overt gayness in order to attract an expansion in the arts? If so, what exactly is overt gayness? Is it any more obvious that a gay face? Could such acting in itself be construed as anti-gay or would it be seen as an act of community bonding?

These are questions that only those in chosen identity groups should ask or answer and I renounce myself for the queries.

So, how long will we have to wait before a government sponsored job-training program is launched to attract any related industries?

Why We Are Here

What is too often forgotten when people consider the current situation our economy is in is that the brakes were being applied to growth and wealth creation even before Fannie May, Freddie Mac and AIG (among others) collapsed.

Months prior to the rest of us finding out that Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick had absconded with millions of taxpayer dollars as a reward for pimping insolvent home loans, the cost of energy was already climbing at a frenzied pace.

As a fill-up crashed through the $30, $40 and $50 barriers for those driving even pretend mostly plastic cars, consumers were already being forced to ponder the priorities of vacationing in upstate Michigan or putting away a little cash in order to be able to make it to work the following week.

And that was the plan.

If there is one certainty in this world, it is that elitist Americans hate them some wrong energy.

Energy that is inexpensive is considered wrong for America. Inexpensive energy by definition promotes the use of that energy. As such, energy a consumer can actually afford to painlessly use is part and parcel to the perceived problem. It had to be made more expensive!

The great American slowdown is, then, not a bug, but a price that has to be paid. While progressive politicians and sympathetic journalists alike lament the "unexpected" continuance of our economic malaise, the bright side is that not only has our energy thirst been somewhat slaked, but our carbon footprint has been downsized!

As Barack Obama promised in his run up to the presidential election "[energy] prices must necessarily skyrocket." He knew already, prior to his election, that his energy plan would raise energy prices, because it was necessary. His current energy secretary surmised that what needed to be done was to raise American gasoline prices to the levels suffered in Europe.

Our government's offensive against the American energy industry is a multi-pronged attack.

Obama's moratorium on offshore drilling has crippled employment along the Gulf coast while also driving a number of drilling rigs to waters off the coasts of other nations. (Not to worry, we'll be their biggest customer!)

While his EPA tries to put the kibosh to newly discovered west Texas oil fields, his EPA also tries to castrate an energy industry waiting to capitalize on tar sands, oil shale and natural gasa.

His new regulations against coal fired electrical plants are designed to raise electricity prices on those of us who now have the time to watch The View while anxiously awaiting our unemployment checks.

Interjected into the whole mix is the benevolent hand of a government that picks winners and losers among corporations that salivate at the ringing of a public bell.

A window company that buy into the government's ideology can expect a nice fat check to the detriment of its competition. Companies that agree to enter into the production of inefficient green energy can expect kickbacks that not only make the otherwise insolvent operations profitable, but can also ride their ill gotten profitability into a new and less competitive era once those companies who lost out on the blessings of government graft fall by the wayside.

A giant Michigan chemical companies that supports public/private partnerships in the development of solar energy might miraculously receive a huge grant to help develop facilities. A large national company that endorses the government's overall energy policies can inexplicably pay no corporate income taxes on billions of dollars in profits. And a corn ethanol industry that sprouted up at the behest of visionary bureaucrats can survive today because government dictates the use of its products while at the same time it bails out otherwise insolvent producers and growers. (Never you mind the rising cost of eggs.)

Ah, but it would be too easy to blame all of this on admitted progressives, for Republican voters share much of the blame. They have for far too long voted for members of the (R) party not knowing what the R stands for.

One such perpetually elected GOP whiz is former Michigan Rep. Vern Ehlers who is joining with other foundationless Republicans in endorsing yet more government involvement in private enterprise in order to achieve their desired outcome.

In a letter sent to President Barack Obama, the 15 signatories – including recently retired Michigan Congressman Vernon Ehlers – say that to reduce dependence on foreign oil and maintain a clean environment, upcoming Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for 2017 to 2025 should be aggressive.

Ehlers is a nuclear physicist for God's sake. He is a brilliant man, and yet he either misunderstands economics entirely or has unfortunately recognized the breadth and depth of his own unmatched brilliance. Who needs the free market or capitalist principles when one can merely project his own brilliance upon others? Ehlers is a member of a vast army of foundationless Republicans that wear the proud colors of the GOP in much the same way that a nation of die hard basketball fans jumped onto the bandwagon of the Miami Heat, at least that is, until game six.

It is discouraging that we cannot, as conservatives, make the effort to vet out even the most obvious of non-conservative stances among our own candidates. We have a full plate of candidates on the GOP side currently running for president, and yet the leader of that bunch of would-be nominees is an embracer of big-government solutions so vast it would make JFK blush.

Until the conservative movement is able to articulate effectively its message to not only the masses but to those who seemingly say they already identify with it, we will continue to languish within a society slowly losing its freedoms, its exceptionalism, its direction and, ultimately, its viability.

That we have not, to this point, is why we are here. That we may not in the near future is, most likely, why we would remain.

Shrinkage!

Finally, Anthony Weiner has spilled the beans and confessed to his inappropriate behavior. He betrayed his wife, he lied to the American people, he tried to blame the incident on those who made the evidence public, and he dragged a number of others into a feculent pool where only a betraying, lying and false witnessing politician should wade.

I don't give a hoot about Anthony Weiner's dilemma though I feel badly that those naive enough to hitch their wagon to him must suffer for his indiscretions.

He can stay in office for all I care. He doesn't belong to me--he is a Dem and that type of behavior is completely acceptable for a Democrat as far as I'm concerned. If he can hold onto his job--the simps in NYC are getting exactly what they deserve--a guy who is no more loyal to his wife than he would be to any one of his constituents.

Now, the next time a Republican does this sort of thing I'm going to be asking for his head on a plaque. As an independent that feels he was left by the Republican Party left over the past couple of decades, I still pine for the GOP of old, the GOP that tosses out horses' asses that look remarkably like Anthony Weiner.

San Fran Nan and her brain addled kin can demand that Republicans leave office whenever they foolishly text someone that they shouldn't. (Which they do.) Let her for all I care. I don't care what she says and the day that my actions bear in any way on her words is the day you might as well put a bullet in my aching skull.

After all, as conservatives, we expect more from those that represent us than do progressives.

Crossing Over

Bono enters the dark realm.

U2's Bono is what we would call a philanthropist. He has made his fortune and has, as a result, made efforts to steer the windfall of that fortune onto those who have not been as successful.

His charities are many but perhaps his best known is his work in Africa. Not only has Bono given millions to those on that continent, but he has teamed with others (even twisted a few arms) to maximize the financial efforts in toto.

Private giving and giving through taxation to the poor are two completely different things. One is divine, the other is a tragedy on multiple levels.

First of all, private charities are exponentially more efficient than are governmental agencies. Many private charities can (humbly) boast that over three quarters of the money that they collect is given directly to the cause. Government, by the time it has sucked out enough money to cover overpaid and inefficient bureaucracy, can brag about its contribution of about thirty percent.

Many conservatives lament what unending charity does to unquenchable recipients. I am of like mind. But, the most sinister thing about government benevolence is the long term impact it has on would be private givers.

With inefficient government taking on the role of wealth redistributor it has effectively allowed would be charitable givers to abdicate their moral responsibilities toward taking care of others. (Of course, with government taxation taking an ever larger bite out of earners' salaries there is substantially less money left over to give of freely, even if a person wanted to.)

Many a person depends on government to take care of others, and as long as they are taxpayers (never mind that about fifty percent of Americans pay no income taxes at all,) they feel that they have done their duty. Fail.

Which brings me back to Bono.

A tax protest group from Art Uncut will attend U2's performance on June 24 to campaign against the group's "convoluted" tax affairs, accusing them of avoiding taxes which could have helped exactly the sort of people Bono publicly cares about so dearly.

U2 moved a portion of their business affairs from Ireland to the Netherlands in 2006, reportedly in order to avoid a limit on lucrative tax breaks for artists in the republic.

The protest group have said that they do not intend to interrupt the band's performance, but hope to make sure their message is visible.

They plan to float a large bundle of cash from one section of the crowd under an Irish flag to another section under a Dutch flag. The message "Bono Pay Up" will be spelt (sic) out in lights.

An Art Uncut spokesperson said: "Bono claims to care about the developing world, but U2 greedily indulges in the very kind of tax avoidance which is crippling the poor nations of this world."

How many people has Bono employed? How many people have benefited from the charity of his free giving? How many others have been made aware of the plight of others through his many causes?

The cretin protesters would rather have government do their duty for them. It matters little to them that a quarter given privately does as much for the recipient as does a dollar taken forcibly from the pockets of the productive to be redistributed.

It is difficult to know who the protesters are, but I would hazard a guess that a good many of them work for government sponsored charities and therefore depend on Bono's taxes to grant them a paycheck.

Ignorance at the Top of the Teaching Profession

Are there any members of the MEA who teach (or understand) economics, history, or psychology?

Anyone?

If so, please explain to me how the MEA (and other teachers' unions) can spend its membership dues in a way that exposes its collective ignorance on these subjects so blatantly while not motivating any significant cries of protest from its membership?

If the membership of these huge and powerful unions truly believes that employers are the cause of our nation's economic strife, how can we ever expect the next generation of consumers, employees, and employers to to be any smarter than the horses' asses leading the MEA today?

Germany to Shut Down Nukes Permanently

An enlightened Germany has decided to cut itself off at the knees--it has determined that the wealth, and the modern conveniences it produces, are not worth the risk of a tsunami creating a nuclear accident on its soil. Or something.

Germany's coalition government has announced a reversal of policy that will see all the country's nuclear power plants phased out by 2022.

The decision makes Germany the biggest industrial power to announce plans to give up nuclear energy.

One has to wonder how the German populace will feel about such a decision in the next decade or so as substantially less efficient energy sources become exponentially more expensive and herald in the economic stagnation, poorer living conditions, and poverty that such a change in policy will surely cause.

This is not to say that nuclear energy is cheap energy. It is more expensive than is energy driven by fossil fuels, but it is substantially less expensive than the "green technologies" that are being praised as the answer to the world's growing energy crisis. Which all seems to fit the German psyche just fine as German environmentalists and bureaucrats also seek a world where the use of coal and oil are largely discontinued.

At this point in our history, we simply possess neither the technologies nor the wealth necessary to adequately replace fossil fuels and nuclear energy as drivers to our modern economies. We are slowly creeping toward these goals, but we are far from finding the solutions.

There are only two possible short term answers then, despite any shallow protestations to the contrary. One is to merely accept lower living standards on a par with those portions of the world that today riot over the suffering created by their poor current living standards. A second is to merely, and intentionally, motivate a vast reduction of human life on planet Earth.

Many environmentalists and bureaucrats believe that they can simply leverage great advancements in our energy future by shoving absconded (or borrowed) money at solutions they perceive might work.

Corn ethanol is just such a disaster--where bureaucrats decided outside the free market that burning a renewable fuel would be a great solution to an energy shortage. Now that corn and other agricultural products' prices have risen dramatically, after millions of people around the world have starved, after Iowa has turned itself into a net importer of corn rather than an exporter, and after numerous ethanol producers are operating via government subsidy and under the protection of bankruptcy, we are discovering that the production of corn ethanol for energy is a net energy loser.

Studies have shown that more energy is used in the planting, growing, harvesting, manufacturing, and transporting of corn and ethanol than energy it can produce. (Not to mention that it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol.) Oh, and if that doesn't rot your socks off, ethanol is significantly less efficient per gallon than is gasoline.

Similar discoveries are being made in the wind and solar realms--though I suppose we can be thankful that tens of thousands aren't starving over the installation of massive and hideous bird-killing whirligigs that many refuse to even have built in their own neighborhoods.

These emerging and government driven technologies produce energy that is vastly more expensive to produce, vastly less efficient, and vastly less reliable than is either fossil or nuclear energy.

Manufacturing costs are huge, and transporting the energy from areas that are sufficiently sunny or windy enough to provide ample production make the expense of the energy ridiculously high--all this for a product that is likely not to work when the need is greatest.

Which will leave Germany exactly where?

Tomorrow's ultimate energy solutions will only come to fruition with the investment of wealth that today's inexpensive energy helps to create. Germany feels it can get there, instead, by destroying its country's short term wealth, and then by forcing contrived and undiscovered government solutions onto a gullible and helpless public.

The US, while not quite so addled, has within its borders a substantial number of politicians willing to ransom the livelihoods of their subjects to do the exact same thing.

The human experience on Earth, that is, up until the wealth generated by the industrial revolution and a previously untried economic experiment called "capitalism," was misery. It was disease, blight, starvation, endless labor, and poverty. It is still the way that many people on this Earth live.

If German leaders have their way, it is the way that future generations of Germans will be living too.

Regulate the Internet!

There have been many movements designed to wrest control of the internet away from private interests.

Visions of usage fees, desires to stamp out ideologies, and a simple hankering to control all things human are the chief forces behind these movements.

The UN, Congress, and now the G8 are huddling in their palaces devising strategies in which to control, further regulate, and curb our human thoughts in this newest of human frontiers.

This quote in the New York Times got my attention, spoken by one who is considered one of Europe's most conservative statesmen:

[...] Mr. Sarkozy, who convened a special gathering of the global digerati in Paris on the eve of the G-8 meeting. Calling the rise of the Internet a “revolution,” Mr. Sarkozy compared its impact to that of two previous transforming episodes in global history: the age of exploration and the industrial revolution.

The Internet revolution “doesn’t have a flag, it doesn’t have a slogan, it belongs to everyone,” he said, citing the recent uprisings in the Arab world as examples of its positive effects.

Before an audience that included top executives of some of the world’s largest Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and eBay, he added, however: “The universe you represent is not a parallel universe. Nobody should forget that governments are the only legitimate representatives of the will of the people in our democracies. To forget this is to risk democratic chaos and anarchy.”

No, it doesn't have a flag and it doesn't have a slogan. And yet, Nicolas Sarkozy sees the internet, while being unowned by anyone, as a conduit for government control because government is the only legitimate representative of the people.

So much for the electronic economies that have burgeoned because of the internet outside of government control, the millions of jobs they have helped create, the efficiencies that have grown, the new sciences that have been expanded because of it, and the expansive personal freedoms that have exploded as a result of switches, routers, and the home computer.

All completely illegitimate.

Pipe it through the government and those geniuses in charge of it (such as Mr. Sarkozy himself,) and you might get his blessing. Otherwise, get bent.

Words and Actions

This is exactly what we need...good old fashioned conservative thought.

"We need to encourage this kind of change all across America. We need to reward the reforms that are driven not by Washington, but by principals and teachers and parents. That's how we'll make progress in education — not from the top down, but from the bottom up."

Such flowing truth.

Who is the genius that spoke these words?

Obama promoted his Race to the Top initiative, which has states compete for education money. But the program has drawn criticism and Republicans on Capitol Hill are unwilling to devote new money to it. He also renewed his call for Congress to send him a rewrite of No Child Left Behind, the nation's governing education law.

"We need to promote reform that gets results while encouraging communities to figure out what's best for their kids. That why it's so important that Congress replace No Child Left Behind this year — so schools have that flexibility," Obama said. "Reform just can't wait."

One has to wonder how a system that purposefully removes parents, teachers, and local school boards from the educational decision process will somehow miraculously allow parents, teachers, and local school boards to "make progress in education — not from the top down, but from the bottom up."

Or, am I assuming too much when I believe that Obama knows up from down?

I Know He's Exciting Because The Media Tells Me So

I was surprised to find out the other day that Jon Huntsman was taking the GOP presidential campaign by storm. I was so surprised because I only vaguely remember hearing his name, and that vague recollection had him pegged as the brave rescuer of Little Red Riding Hood.

Such mental ambiguity is odd for a guy like me who spends too much of his time worrying about the sad state of all things political and particularly worrying about the state of the saddest of all political parties, the Republican. (It's actually a tie between the GOP and Dems, but I'm rounding up.)

As a former student of journalism I am always skeptical of mass media when they tell me what I am thinking. Bias in journalism is not always so obvious as to be read within the articles posted above the fold on page 1A. No, where most of journalism's bias is manifest is in what it chooses to put on 1A versus what it buries on page 12 or doesn't write about at all.

In other words, a person has to investigate for himself what has been omitted entirely or pooh-poohed (a word I learned from the AP Handbook) sufficiently to land face first opposite Aunt Mildred's recipe for sweet onion and artichoke pie.

Jon Huntsman has become a favored candidate of the media. One could debate the reasons behind this, but I believe it is because of Huntsman's track record of political moderation and his propensity to "reach across the aisle."

When newspapers across the country were choosing their endorsements for the GOP presidential nomination during the last cycle, paper after paper opted for the moderate John McCain. And, why not? John McCain's politics were of the type that most editorial boards across this land would be thrilled to put up with if they had to choose among GOP conservatives. They weren't choosing what candidate best reflected the ideas and desires of conservatives, they were choosing which GOP candidate best reflected the liberal viewpoints harbored within the editorial board.

Herman Cain is a candidate who also has low name recognition. He is much more conservative than is Huntsman and is also a guy who rose to the top of corporate America rather than being born on the top rung. As a conservative person myself, and after researching a lot on the candidates that are currently crisscrossing America, I think Herman Cain, as well as any other candidate, reflects the conservative political values that I hold most important to me. (There are two or three others on par with Cain.)

Perhaps Jon Huntsman is the next John McCain; a man who the progressive media has christened as the best possible candidate to satisfy the political bent of liberal newspapers around the country. We can expect Huntsman to fill the editorial pages of more and more newspapers as they promote him in an attempt to raise his name recognition and tout his experience.

Then, should Huntsman ever get the nomination, the editorialists can turn on him as viciously as they did the Maverick--which, from my point of view, is the way they should have ravaged him from the get-go.

Herman Cain, on the other hand, will have his face pasted to a black and white ink portrait of a smiling Aunt Mildred located somewhere between the obits and the free pet classifieds. If anywhere.

Tomato, Tomahto

Certainly we could all use the wisdom of Whoopi Goldberg at a time like this--a woman so aware of the life forces around her that she can pronounce unerringly whether a sexual assault is either of the non-rape variety, or, you know, of the rape-rape species.

Such pronouncements can prove invaluable when the accused is of a particular political or artistic bent. We saw this in the case of Roman Polanski, an admitted pedophile whose actions of drugging an underage girl and then sodomizing her against her will were, according to Whoopi, of the previously undefined non rape-rape variety.

Roman's defense? All men like teenagers which, apparently, was enough for Ms. Goldberg. If Ms. Goldberg was in charge, all such universal and unassailable sexual impulses would carry with them immediate absolution, regardless as to whether the sinner actually asked for forgiveness or instead fled the shackles of his plea deal and lived out the rest of his free days gleefully enjoying the sweet memories of a drug addled minor decades his junior.

It was, however, Polanski's sensitive devotion to the arts that helped salve the rather casual objections of Polanski's transgression to artists such as Goldberg, Harrison Ford, Harvey Weinstein, Anne Applebaum, and the sadly aging Debra Winger. Who were we, after all, to stand between a man of the arts and his libido?

Another sex crime is rocking the world today, that of IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Now, certainly the Strauss-Kahn situation varies with the Polanski situation in that Strauss-Kahn is innocent until proven guilty and has admitted no guilt. Polanski admitted guilt but then fled.

What does remain the same is the inability for leftists to accept the potential evil of persons housed within their own ideological circle.

Seventy percent of French socialist party members believe that Strauss-Kahn is the victim of a conspiracy to ruin his political aspirations which include the potential presidency of France. That the uber socialist Strauss-Kahn was staying in a $3,000 per night hotel room is just nit-picking minutia and not indicative of any hypocrisy.

One thing that I like about conservatives. While our standards are not rigidly upheld by every member on every occasion, when a supposed member strays from his ideological foundation he is lambasted for it by those on the right. When Mark Foley is smitten with a house page, he is rousted from office. When Gary Studds does that and even more, he is elevated to a position of power within the Democrat Party.

We will have to see how all of this turns out in a court of law as Strauss-Kahn is not deserving of any diplomatic protections and he will be tried.

Perhaps we could get Whoopi to tell us what's up and save us all a lot of time.