August 10, 2006

"These formidable people"

Posted by Jon Ham at 9:15 PM

That's us, folks. Andrew Gimson, writing in London's Daily Telegraph, pays the United States one huge compliment:

We are inclined, in our snobbish way, to dismiss the Americans as a new and vulgar people, whose civilisation has hardly risen above the level of cowboys and Indians. Yet the United States of America is actually the oldest republic in the world, with a constitution that is one of the noblest works of man. When one strips away the distracting symbols of modernity - motor cars, skyscrapers, space rockets, microchips, junk food - one finds an essentially 18th-century country. While Europe has engaged in the headlong and frankly rather immature pursuit of novelty - how many constitutions have the nations of Europe been through in this time? - the Americans have held to the ideals enunciated more than 200 years ago by their founding fathers.

Read the whole thing. 

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Filling all your propaganda needs

Posted by Jon Ham at 6:47 PM

The People's Cube makes it easy for photojournalists in Lebanon to create heart-rending photos of women wailing over their destroyed dwellings. "Flat Fatima" makes aiding Hezbollah propaganda a snap.

UPDATE: Click on the image below and be sure to read the comments at the bottom. Lots of PhotoShop fun to be had. 

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You've got to be kidding

Posted by Jon Ham at 6:30 PM

Gay activists in Israel are upset because their parade was cancelled because of ... A WAR!!!  

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Dumb NBC

Posted by Jon Ham at 4:56 PM

NBC's Kevin Corke wondered on air today why the Bush administration didn't announce earlier this terrorist plot to bomb airlines. Right. BEFORE any arrests had been made. Where are these "news" people trained?

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Re: They are LEGO Robots

Posted by Daren Bakst at 4:09 PM

Terry,

Apparently, the robots can be used to retrieve and move things for the kids.  I wonder how long it will be before the LEGO robots are blamed for childhood obesity.

The robots also can develop a personality.  As if school isn't bad enough, now kids that get picked on will have to deal with bullies and their bully LEGO robots.

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Capt. Craig Marks, R.I.P.

Posted by Jon Sanders at 3:15 PM

He will be missed. Godspeed, sir.

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re: Surprising silence from JLF

Posted by Jon Ham at 3:12 PM

Chad, regarding your question, it's just that we all know this Red Alert thing was done just to distract everyone from the fact that Lamont defeated Lieberman in the Conn. Dem primary Tuesday night. Didn't you know that? 

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Advice to Roy on how to post like a kook leftist

Posted by Jon Sanders at 2:44 PM

You gotta mention Zionists, man!

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When will Air America...

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 2:08 PM

...demand the government stop subsidizing its competition for left-leaning talk radio?

Many NPR stations have squeezed or eliminated musical programming in favor of talking -- even including a game show.

And yet the Center for Media Research reports:

• National Public Radio is the 4th most listened to radio format.
  
• Today National Public Radio garners an adult audience 75% as large as News/Talk, the largest format in the nation.
  
• National Public Radio stations edged ahead of Country as the number two format for adults' in "most listened to" stations.
  
• Of the top 10 formats, National Public Radio is the top format converting listeners into loyal listeners.

All this and $400 million in taxpayer funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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Surprising silence at Locke today

Posted by Chad Adams at 2:04 PM

Other than Roy's post, that our blog isn't littered with smatterings of implications for the busted terrorist plot from the UK today.

Obviously, news reports are inundated with their own angles, but the sheer talent at Locke should give our readers lots of fodder on this subject.
 

On RED ALERT for the first time. . . .  

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Dumb AP

Posted by Jon Ham at 1:59 PM

The Associated Press says it can't understand how flight schedules, cell phones and lots of cash have anything to do with terrorism. The byline on this story should be Rip Van Winkle.

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The real culprits

Posted by Dr. Roy Cordato at 12:40 AM

Can there be any doubt among those who are not simply Bush sycophants that the culprits behind this alleged terror plot are George Bush and Tony Blair. Ever since 9/11 their goal has been to keep the war on the freedom fighters, aka the terrorists, alive so that taxpayer money will continue to flow to Halliburton and the rest of the military industrial complex. In the meantime real priorities like global warming and saving the cockaded woodpecker go neglected. This is what happens when the interests of the people and the interests of Exxon diverge.

(I'm practicing my left wing blogging techniques, what do you think? I know I have to work in some profanity but I'm just starting to get comfortable the idiom.)

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Who's Blackmailing Whom?

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 12:11 AM

A headline in the Progressive States Network daily email today:

Target Corp. Blackmails Chicago to Scrap Living Wage Ordinance

The story is that Chicago's city council passed an ordinance on July 26 that would impose a minimum wage "of at least $10 per hour with $3 in benefits by 2010" on stores larger than 90,000 square feet. Wal-Mart said it would cancel 20 stores in Chicago it planned to build over the next five years. Target said it would put three stores "on hold." Most of the stores are in low-income areas. Mayor Richard Daley has said he plans to veto the measure.

So Wal-Mart and Target are threatened with extortion to budget $13 per hour for their employees if they hope to open their large stores. They respond to the threat by saying it's not worth opening smaller stores, eating the labor cost, or passing it on to customers. And the left says the companies are blackmailing the city.

Wow. That's harder to swallow than a whole pizza from Gino's East.

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They are LEGO robots!

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 11:21 AM

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Robots To Teach Math, Science to Children

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Wisdom from Oscar Wilde

Posted by Jenna Ashley Robinson at 10:50 AM

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."

Oscar Wilde

 I think I'll mention quote this next time someone tells me to drive a Hybrid car, walk to work or support the arts.

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The Blueprint is Here

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 10:48 AM

The Blueprint for Excellence 2006, that is. This is the Wake County Public School System's pro-bond website.

It includes:

Threats

"If the referendum doesn't pass, the Board of Commissioners and Board of Education will consider solutions such as converting most elementary and middle schools to a multi-track, year-round calendar and using split shifts at high schools."

Tyranny of the Majority

"If the legislature lifts the cap on charter schools, it would barely make a dent considering 7,000 new students enroll in the Wake County Public School System a year. Currently, charter schools accommodate less than 3 percent of Wake County students. WCPSS's first priority must be ensuring the strength of the school system that serves the vast majority of students in Wake County." (Emphasis added)

Pass the Buck

"Class size is set by North Carolina law. Permission to raise class sizes would need to come from the legislature."

Good Ideas...from other school systems

"Before comparing counties’ school construction costs, find out what’s included in the amount. For example, the Wake County Public School System provides playfields and athletic fields; Forsyth County does not – the community pays for them."

Misplaced Priorities

"Relative to goals established by the school board, WCPSS is short 15,000 classroom seats today, and will need 58,000 seats by 2010." (See the Renovations List. They are adding much more than seats.)

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An ugly affair at Johns Hopkins

Posted by George Leef at 10:48 AM

Here is a revealing story about the thin-skinned administration at Johns Hopkins University.

The school has given student fee money to the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance (DSAGA), which used some of the funds to host a campus presentation by a speaker whose talk was the stuff of smut magazines and videos. (As Murray Sperber says, students these days need plenty of "beer and circus" to keep them interested in college; this was part of the circus -- a politically correct part.)

Bad enough for a university to squander funds on such non-educational junk, but when the Carrollton Record, JHU's conservative student newspaper covered the event and wrote about it critically, the JHU administration blew up like Krakatoa, seizing all copies of the offending issue.

This tells us quite a lot about the state of higher education in the US.

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Talk about Tough Love!

Posted by Michael Moore at 09:55 AM

Down in Sampson County, NC it seems when couples get in to disagreements they really like to drag them out according to this article.   

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Hezbollah's DeMille

Posted by Jon Ham at 08:52 AM

Much blogger suspicion has centered on a person dubbed Green Helmet Man who shows up in many newswire photos and TV coverage of the destruction in Lebanon. His specialty seems to be displaying dead children to the world press in events he himself has staged. Now there's proof. The German TV show "Zapp" has broadcast footage of Green Helmet Man cynically "directing" scenes in Qana. It has also uncovered a newspaper front page from 10 years ago when he did the same thing with dead children, also in Qana.

(Hat tip: Newsbusters) 

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politicians versus gasoline markets

Posted by George Leef at 08:40 AM

My old Michigan Senate staff colleague (now professor of economics at Hillsdale) Gary Wolfram has this excellent piece in The Detroit News on the folly of thinking that political action can improve the situation we face in the market for gasoline.

Unless, of course, "action" means undoing various impediments to the operation of the free market. There is plenty to be done there.

Most politicians want us to think that they have the ability to make everything better and after propagating that colossal misconception for generations, they've gotten to the point where the first thought in the minds of most Americans is "What should the government do?" The great virtue of the Constitution's delegation of very limited power to Congress was that it answered that question, at least for the federal government: Nothing.

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China coast wary of "Mr America"

Posted by Hal Young at 08:25 AM

I'm not sure what to make of this, but while we're all watching the British and U.S. news conferences this morning (scene at Heathrow airport: "Sir! You with the hair gel! Move away from the hair gel!"), Google's translation of this Chinese government web page suggests that they've dubbed the 160 mph storm "Mr. America".

Meanwhile Reuters reports that local officials in Wenzhou are using text messaging, satellite phones, and gongs to alert the populace.

(Lest we forget, Britain planned to use church bells in the case of German invasion, so it's just a matter of a different tradition.)

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No 'Leak' Warning

Posted by Hal Young at 08:17 AM

In the current press conference being held in Washington to explain how the investigation in Britian will effect the United States, notice how officials continue to stress that the investigation is ongoing, and, because of this, we cannot release more information.

Sounds like a warning to the press who may find more information prematurely.

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It's Asians, not Muslims

Posted by Jon Ham at 08:09 AM

Michelle Malkin points out how the Brit media can't bring itself to use the word "Muslim" to describe the plotters who wanted to blow up perhaps 20 airliners on their way from England to the U.S. They're calling them "Asians." In their PC zeal the Brit media are implicating millions of Asians so as not to upset a few Muslim extremists. 

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Holly Springs Gives Away the Store

Posted by Dr. Michael Sanera at 07:53 AM

Holly Springs gave out more incentives to Novartis than they have,  almost $9 million than they have.  Now local and/or state taxpayers must pick up the bill. When will the insanity end? Read the details here.

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