Saturday, February 28, 2009

You might be stupid if... (and by stupid, I mean woefully misinformed)

1) If you read the Huffington Post for anything other than comedic fodder.

Exhibit A.

This smear is easily refuted.

But, I bet if I ask any libtard in a few months, the "fact" that Jindal lied will have simply become a part of the liberal fact base right along side of the other bullshit they peddle.

h/t :Dan.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Granholm "no new Taxes" Granholm

Is a lying liar:

She has called for doubling the state tax on loose tobacco, cigars and snuff to help balance next year's state budget. That's on top of whopping increases in federal tobacco taxes -- including those for manufactured cigarettes -- that take effect April 1 to pay for expanding health insurance for low-income children, known as SCHIP.

The biggest federal tax increase hits roll-your-own tobacco, rising from $1.10 per pound to $24.78 per pound. Store-bought cigarette taxes are headed from 39 cents per pack to $1.01 per pack.

Granholm's budget wouldn't touch Michigan's $2-per-pack cigarette tax. But it would slam other tobacco smokers, chewers and puffers who've been a favorite tax target for states to balance budgets and, in the name of good health, discourage tobacco use.

If approved by the Legislature, state taxes on non-cigarette tobacco items would jump from 32% of wholesale price to 64% next year. Combined with the new federal tax, the average price of a one-pound bag of popular Gambler tobacco would skyrocket from $19 to $70 in Michigan.


These taxes are intended to pay for SCHIP. Lemme let you in on a little secret. If this goes through, fewer and fewer will smoke. OR, at least buy their tobacco in Michigan. So ... once the revenue dries up, what will they use to pay for SCHIP?

HA

Hope and Change.

Now, suddenly, Obama seems to appreciate the need for “state secrets” and surveillance on international communications involving suspected terrorists. That suits me fine, as I think the TSP program was on solid ground from the beginning, but it’s more than a little hypocritical for the Obama administration to suddenly switch sides and support the Bush position without so much as an “oops”. It certainly seems that Obama has endorsed the Bush policies that he once criticized in harsh terms, a remarkable turnaround for someone in office only a month.

How does that Hope and Change feel now, Obama voters? Anyone ready to give President Bush an overdue apology?

Oh, Frak off Sean/ Updated



Courageous artists? Please.

From Breit Bart :

The Oscars communicate post-modern, post-American liberal values more effectively than elected Democratic officials themselves. The liberal establishment understands this and uses the glamorous Hollywood elite and its incessant stream of left-leaning product and promotional vehicles as its proxy messenger.

This year´s cause celebre was not the ailing American work force or the heroic and underappreciated U.S. military, but an attack on California´s just passed traditional marriage amendment - as represented by the white ribbon worn by pliant celebrity throngs. Dissenters in the midst dare not wear their contrarian ribbons for fear of more punitive Proposition 8 backlash.

This year Gus Van Sant and his gay marriage public service announcement "Milk," garnered eight nominations while Clint Eastwood and his objectively conservative box office titan "Gran Torino" got completely shut out.


More:

The movie stars and the powerful creative minds congratulating each other Sunday night wield a greater role in shaping the political landscape than Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid combined. Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd and William Jefferson possess less power to sway the minds of the electorate than Brad Pitt, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Kate Winslet and even the late Mr. Ledger (James Dean continues to sway the public imagination).

Yet the public relations protection received by elected Democratic officials from the Hollywood media collective - who incessantly mock traditional American values and attack by name their Republican counterparts - allows for the corrupt and the contemptible to pull the lever in perpetuity for any cause the Hollywood elite holds dear.

Unchecked, Big Hollywood´s lobbying power only continues to grow. Mr. Obama has David Geffen and Oprah Winfrey to thank for his presidency - ask Hillary.


A few years back, I got into an argument with some moms about what they viewed as my inability to merely enjoy the fodder put out by Hollywood. I read too much into stuff, and I should be able to turn off my concern radar and simply enjoy "mindless" entertainment.

What they dismissed, was that absolutely EVERYTHING you read and watch affects you. The absolute worst thing a person can do is to allow themselves to shut their brains down while they are being "entertained."

Hollywood has an agenda, and even in it's most mindless entertainment offerings, they are still sending out their little messages. And, of course you don't have to agree with everything you watch or enjoy.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Busy today ...

I'm going to head down to the city to have one of those "honest" discussions about race the AG wants us to have. You know, the black AG hired by the black POTUS.

NO EQUALITY, NO JUSTICE.


I'll update when I can.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

I really don't know how you negotiate with these people

Swat region in Pakistan to follow Sharia Law, in a "peace" negotiation with Taliban militants. Despite publicly calling it a "negative development", Team O! privately backed the deal, according to The Telegraph.

On Tuesday night however, US officials in Islamabad privately backed the deal as an attempt to drive a wedge between Swat's Taliban, which is focused on its demand for Sharia law, and the al-Qaeda-linked Taliban led by Baitullah Mehsud, the notorious commander who controls much of North and South Waziristan and other tribal areas along the Afghan border.

While they expressed fears that the deal might yet be sabotaged by some Swat Taliban militants who support al-Qaeda, they said that if successful, the deal would break up the alliance between the two groups, which has caused alarm throughout Pakistan and in Washington.


Wednesday, a journalist was killed while covering a peace march led by Sufi Muhammad. These are warring factions of Taliban, folks. Swat v al-Queda linked.

Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM) chief Sufi Muhammad, who signed a controversial peace deal with the NWFP government on Monday, said he hated democracy and wanted supremacy of Islam over the entire world.

“From the very beginning, I have viewed democracy as a system imposed on us by the infidels. Islam does not allow democracy or elections,” he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in an interview held a few days before the government accepted his demand of enforcing sharia in the region. “Had the government accepted our demands in 1994, we would have not seen the violence we are seeing today,” he added. Sufi Muhammad’s son-in-law, Mullah Fazlullah, has fostered the violence in the name of Islam.

Sufi Muhammad said he was against shedding the blood of Muslims, however, added the government should have talked to the Taliban instead of taking military action. He pledged to work for complete peace in Swat if the government enforces Islamic laws, a demand which has now been met.

“I believe the Taliban government formed a complete Islamic state, which was an ideal example for other Muslim countries. Had this government remained intact, it could have led to the establishment of similar Islamic governments in many other countries,” he said.
(h/t: Gateway Pundit

Oh Boy!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Don't "Do It" for your country

An enivronmental organization in the United Kingdom advises that it's selfish to have more than two children:

"The more couples decide to have just one or two children, or even remain childless, the more they can relieve pressures on rapidly deteriorating ecosystems and alleviate demand for dwindling energy and food resources," says policy director Rosamund McDougall.


UK population growth is already below two children per woman. So ... I'm guessing the greenies are simply hoping that the human population dwindles away to nothing.

Here in the US, our 2.1 kids per women is driven up by Hispanics (2.9) and blacks (2.0). Among non-hispanic whites, the total fertility rate is 1.8.

So, who's gonna talk to those selfish hispanics and blacks? Go get 'em, Enviroweenies.

Where's teh Hope and Change?

VDH:

So when Barack Obama of Chicago lineage — with former associates like Tony Rezko, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Mayor Richard Daley, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — began offering moral platitudes about his soon-to-be-enacted revolutionary ethics, we expected the irony that always follows such hubris and brings in its wake nemesis.

Now we are witnessing one of the most scandal-plagued incipient administrations of the last half-century. And these ethical embarrassments are doubly ironic. The Treasury secretary and nominal head of the IRS is a tax dodger. The egalitarian liberal Tom Daschle, who was going to make health care accessible for the masses, was caught hiding from the tax man tens of thousands of dollars in free limousine service. Reformist cabinet nominees like Bill Richardson (who has already withdrawn) and Hilda Solis cannot themselves follow the laws they were asked to enforce. The would-be performance czar, Nancy Killefer, did not perform on her taxes. We are now awaiting a third try for commerce secretary. The more Obama railed about his new no-lobbyist policies, the more he issued exemptions for the dozen or more insider lobbyists he hired.

The list of ironies could be expanded. Reps. Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, and Gregory Meeks — infamous for their Fannie Mae laxity — now interrogate supposedly incompetent or greedy bank CEOs. Nancy Pelosi, who demanded that the Speaker of the House in novel fashion receive a government-financed private jet, rails against government-enabled private jets. Bush supposedly politicized the White House, so in reaction Obama moves control of the census — the very linchpin of the American political system — for the first time into the White House. Big Brother comes not through tapping a terrorist’s phone, but, perhaps soon, through having the state collect and centralize everyone’s medical records or monitor the content of talk radio.

Where's teh Hope and Change?

Monday, February 16, 2009

If you're not scared

Then you're just not fucking paying attention.

The Fairness Doctrine (or whatever name they will give it) is not a figment of the right-winger's imagination. And now there's this:

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is also looking at how it can put in place policies that would allow it greater oversight of the Internet. "Internet radio is becoming a big deal, and we're seeing that some web sites are able to control traffic and information, while other sites that may be of interest or use to citizens get limited traffic because of the way the people search and look for information," says on committee staffer. "We're at very early stages on this, but the chairman has made it clear that oversight of the Internet is one of his top priorities."

"This isn't just about Limbaugh or a local radio host most of us haven't heard about," says Democrat committee member. "The FCC and state and local governments also have oversight over the Internet lines and the cable and telecom companies that operate them. We want to get alternative views on radio and TV, but we also want to makes sure those alternative views are read, heard and seen online, which is becoming increasingly video and audio driven. Thanks to the stimulus package, we've established that broadband networks -- the Internet -- are critical, national infrastructure. We think that gives us an opening to look at what runs over that critical infrastructure."

Also involved in "brainstorming" on "Fairness Doctrine and online monitoring has been the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, which has published studies pressing for the Fairness Doctrine, as well as the radical MoveOn.org, which has been speaking to committee staff about policies that would allow them to use their five to six million person database to mobilize complaints against radio, TV or online entities they perceive to be limiting free speech or limiting opinion.
.

After all the faux outrage regarding Bush taking away our constitutional rights, the silence (or approval) on this issue highlights the hypocrisy and partisianship of the left.

The Power of a State Controlled Media

President Hugo Chavez won a referendum to eliminate term limits Sunday and vowed to remain in power for at least another decade to complete his socialist revolution. Opponents accepted defeat but said Chavez is becoming a dictator.

Fireworks exploded in the sky and caravans of supporters celebrated in the streets, waving red flags and honking horns. Thousands of people gathered outside Miraflores Palace, where the former paratroop commander appeared on a balcony to sing the national anthem and address the crowd.


President for life, potentially. Fireworks ... because the guy in power got the voters to do what he wants.

At their campaign headquarters, Chavez opponents hugged one another, and some cried. Several opposition leaders said they wouldn't contest the vote.

"We're democrats. We accept the results," said opposition leader Omar Barboza.

But they said the results were skewed by Chavez's broad use of state resources to get out the vote, through a battery of state-run news media, pressure on 2 million public employees and frequent presidential speeches which all television stations are required to air.

Opponents say Chavez already has far too much power, with the courts, the legislature and the election council all under his influence. Removing the 12-year presidential term limit, they say, makes him unstoppable.


They cried? They cried, because now THE ONLY MAN WHO CAN RUN [sarcasm] Venezuela now has finagled his people to vote him in as dictator for life.

More. Comparisons between Obama and Chavez. The goals are similar, and I'm afraid the tactics aren't exactly that different either.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Err, about those tax cuts for 95% of Americans ...

So, what are YOU going to do with your extra $13 a week?

You could buy 13 songs from iTunes.
Or order 13 things from the $1 menu at McDonalds.
Or you could put half-a-tank of gas in your car.

I'm breathing easier already. You?

I'm still unable to discuss the Spendulous biill w/o excess f-bombs.

Sarah Palin was right. Or, at least whoever wrote her speech was right:

What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger... take more of your money... give you more orders from Washington... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy... our opponent is against producing it.

Victory in Iraq is finally in sight... he wants to forfeit.

Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay... he wants to meet them without preconditions.

Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights? Government is too big... he wants to grow it.

Congress spends too much... he promises more. Taxes are too high... he wants to raise them. His tax increases are the fine print in his economic plan, and let me be specific.

The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes... raise payroll taxes... raise investment income taxes... raise the death tax... raise business taxes... and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.


h/t: Treacher

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Busy bees spinning

I the roar is getting louder. What roar? The roar of liberals declaring that Republicans are slitting their own throat by not backing the Stimulus Bill.

I though dissent was patriotic?

Apparently not when you're dissenting against the Chosen One.

So, today I see yet another article; "Republicans Take Huge Politicial Risk Opposing Obama Jobs Bill.

Well, one of the things we're opposing is that this bill is a "Jobs Bill." Or a Stimulus Bill. Or whatever else they want to call it. From my perspective, it's a "Give the Democrats Everything They've Dreamed of For the Last Thirty Years Bill." THAT is what we're opposing.

But, I've heard here, and at other blogs, warnings that if we don't abandon our (apparently misguided) principals, we're going to be a party that wanders in the wilderness for forty years.

And, that just amazes me. People are actually advocating that Republicans stop being whatever it is they are simply for political purposes. Can you folks hear yourselves?

Rush has a piece in Imprimis this month that speaks to exactly this issue.

There is no such thing, at least in America, as "big-government conservativism." A government that abides by teh Constitution and protects our God-given freedoms is by definition limited. Rather than carving out blocs of voters by surrendering their principles, conservatives need to continue to tell the American people asa whole that the ideas of individual liberty and limited government are right and that the policies that come from those ideas work best to produce prosperity. Conservatives don't need to reinvent themselves. They need the courage to be once again who they were.


I'm going to save you the trouble of screaming about Bush. Bush is a Republican, but that doesn't make him necessarily a good conservative. The Republican party should be the home for conservative ideas, but that doesn't mean it has been for the last eight years. The "Republicans" could have backed the Stimulus Bill, but then they wouldn't have been conservatives. I refuse to become a "Democrat lite" voter, and if the Republican party were to becomethat than I'd just have to find some mountain-top on which to live.

For now, I'll fight. Smaller government. Individual liberty. More from Rush:

The main idea that animated Reagan wasn't anti-communism or supply side economics. Reagan's main idea was the main idea of the American founding - the idea of individual liberty - and the policies that he supported, both internationally and domestically, grew from that. America was founded on the idea that our individual freedoms derive from God, not government, and that government should protect those freedoms and never violate them. Reagan argued, and history has shown, that America does best when it is true to its original idea.


There is nothing about this "Stimulus Bill" which stays true to what our founding fathers intended. It is an abomination. When/if the economy recovers, people will declare that it was because of Obama's wonderful bill. That will be one big, fat, horribly, awful lie.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Flicks

Have you seen this year's Oscar nominees? Well, neither has anyone else.

From Big Hollywood:

WEAKEST TOTAL GROSS FOR BEST PICTURE NOMINEES
- last 15 years -
1. 2005 - $245M
Crash, Brokeback, Capote, Good Night & Good Luck, Munich
2. 2009 - $293M (projected)
Slumdog, Ben Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader
3. 2006 - $296M
Departed, Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen
4. 1996 - $306M
English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies, Shine
5. 2007 - $357M
No Country, Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood
6. 1993 - $368M
Schindler’s List, Fugitive, Name of the Father, The Piano, Remains of the Day
7. 1995 - $378M
Braveheart, Apollo 13, Babe, Il Postino, Sense & Sensibility
8. 2004 - $401M
Million Dollar Baby, Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, Sideways
9. 1998 - $440M
Shakespeare in Love, Saving Private Ryan, Life is Beautiful, Elizabeth, Thin Red Line
10. 1994 - $543M
Forrest Gump, Four Weddings & a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, Shawshanke Redemption


2005's nominees, I'm batting 1000. Still haven't seen a single one of those moves. I tried to watch "Crash" but turned it off after about twenty minutes. And this year's nominees have a similar pull. I'll probably rent "Slumdog" when it comes out on DVD, but the others? Pass.

I have a dream ... when Hollywood decides it's time to stop moralizing and lecturing us. Only then will we be truly free to enjoy good entertainment.

Not wanting to be left out ...

I certainly don't want to miss out on the opportunity to pile on to this Stephen Fowler fellow:



I've watched this show a few times (not recently) and found the premise irritating; the clash of personalities a bit too orchestrated to be truly interesting. It over-reaches to find mismatched families, with a bias almost always in the favor of the cultured elite. The "elite" is either rich, or highly educated, or very Granola. The opposite family almost always can be described as "red neck." They don't eat well, never exercise, and watch too much tv. Uneducated. Uncultured.

But, this Fowler character ... he's the type for which I'd pay good money for the opportunity to go head to head. Of course, Hollywood can't help themselves but to throw at him someone wholly unable to represent the midwest in anything resembling a favorable light. They can neither defend themselves (much) or go on the attack. He says mean things but, nod to the coasts, isn't he "right?" They are fat, right? They are uneducated?

Many who think he was an asshole, do so only because he had the indelicacy of saying out-loud that which they keep to themselves. With his assessments? They will pretty much agree with the opinions and stereotypes Fowler holds for those who live in the fly-over states. They'll just keep it to themselves, and think they are better people.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

In the Crosshairs

Collins, Specter and Snowe.

Susan Collins, Senator from Maine. DC office (202) 224-2523

Arlen Spector, Senator from Pennsylvania. DC office (202) 224-4254

Olympia Snowe, Senator from Maine. (202) 224/5344

Stimulating the Colon

I haven't written much about the stimulous bill because, honestly, I don't know what else to say but We're Fucked. Really, and truly.

Luckily, others are able to expound upon that fucking:

Let us gaze upon our immediate future: the stimulus package is not an $800 billion jolt meant to defibrillate the heart of the American economy; it is a greasy mafiosi-style payoff to the bequeathers' collective patrons, from community outreach organizers to eco-terrorists to pork barrel profiteers to failure-sodden currency manipulators to public works defalcators. T'would be better in my estimation to give every man, woman, and child (and, yes, morphodite) in the country a check for $2500, and see how quickly the economy was stimulated. Even when a large percentage of the population frittered the money on extravagances like paying off credit card debt, or purchasing mail-order Ukranian brides, the economy would reply like one does after a sweet soft kiss in the ear.


And more:

Now comes the new administration. Before any of us proletarians even realized the deal was truly going down every government agency, state, city, city-state, town, hamlet, and village had a properly authorized wish list in front of their representative, and 800 pages of filthy garbage was duly issued forth like bubbles from a barnacle. There will be much backslapping over the miniscule revisions made to the stimulus bill, as the legislators congratulate themselves on their obeisance to the vox populi, but this thing will still reek of high heaven, and the patrons will have gifted the clients with that which the clients must have in order to survive in their socially acceptable, echo-chambered barnacle shells.

The Clientelism survives, and is indeed stronger for it. The 70% of the private sector that is small business? You, perhaps? You are fucked. You have no patron. You are the sap, the myrrh, that made this unholy thing possible in the first place. So shut up, por favor.


Us 70%'ers are fucked. Fucked fucked fucked. Who and what will be stimulated? Those who don't drive the economy anyway. Government workers, those who rely on government grants, and those who rely on government hand-outs.

And don't even get me started on Barney Franks's idea of limiting ALL executive pay in the whole United States to $500,000. We are headed straight toward a plutocracy, and that ruling elite class is going to be made up not of rich rebulicans but hypocritical democrats. Rangel. Daschel. Frank. Kerry. Gore. Soros. I could go on, but my colon is stimulated enough at the moment.

Friday, February 06, 2009

Don't say I never gave you nothing

Thanks to Happyfeet, you can now cornify this website if it's simply gotten too negative for you. UNICORNS and RAINBOWS for everyone!

McCarthy on Obama's lobbyists

Changy isn't what we thought it would mean.

On Daschle:

Not every lobbyist is a lawyer—though some non-lawyers, such as Tom Daschle, manage to get themselves paid more than a million dollars a year by top law firms. For what? Certainly not for lobbying. At the well-connected firm of Alston and Bird, known in Washington parlance as a “lobbying firm” because it represents lots of lobbyists, Daschle was retained as a “special policy adviser.”

But if you are paid by the legal agents of lobbyists to instruct lobbyists in lobbying, aren’t you, in fact, a lobbyist? Especially considering the fact that the top asset you bring to the table is your Rolodex? Obama thinks not, since Daschle never legally registered as a lobbyist.


So, if you are lobbying, but not a registered "lobbyist", it doesn't matter that you are getting paid for, in effect, lobbying. Have we cleared everything up? Daschle's problem in the end wasn't that he was a non-registered lobbyist, but that he didn't pay taxes.

But what about the other lobbyists in the Obama administration (AKA the administration with the strongest ethical standards in History)?

The order provides that these very stringent rules can be ignored whenever the scrupulous interpreting authorities decide it is in the public interest. Don’t be alarmed: The administration says waivers will only be approved for extraordinarily qualified officials.

Have you ever heard of an administration that did not portray its appointees as extraordinarily qualified? Already we have the extraordinarily qualified William J. Lynn III, the nominee for deputy defense secretary, who got a waiver despite being, up until recently, a lobbyist for the military contractor Raytheon. William Corr will serve as the No. 2 official at the Department of Health and Human Services regardless of the last year he spent as a lobbyist. And then there’s Mark Patterson. He’s now chief of staff to Timothy Geithner, this ethics-obsessed administration’s tax-cheating Treasury secretary, even though Patterson used to be a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs—the outfit that could have patented the revolving door even before scoring $10 billion in TARP money.


Ehtical standards obviously doesn't include tax cheats or lobbyists anymore. CHANGE you can BELIEVE in.

Milton Friedman V Phil Donahue

Yes, it's a youtube video, but no it's not music. Dicentra found it and I had to have it HERE.

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Debbie Stabenow's gotta go

Caught this on Sean Hannity's program a moment ago, and found it on NRO:

BILL PRESS: Yeah, I mean look: They have a right to say that. They’ve got a right to express that. But, they should not be the only voices heard. So, is it time to bring back the Fairness Doctrine?

SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I think it’s absolutely time to pass a standard. Now, whether it’s called the Fairness Standard, whether it’s called something else – I absolutely think it’s time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves. I mean, our new president has talked rightly about accountability and transparency. You know, that we all have to step up and be responsible. And, I think in this case, there needs to be some accountability and standards put in place.

BILL PRESS: Can we count on you to push for some hearings in the United States Senate this year, to bring these owners in and hold them accountable?

SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I have already had some discussions with colleagues and, you know, I feel like that’s gonna happen. Yep.


Stabenow is a fucking idiot. But, I have to thank her for voicing that which everyone else is too smart to bring up at this moment.

Baaa ha haaa haaa

MonicaCoyers, wife to John Conyers, wants the City of Detroit to sue Synagro for bribing city officials in order to pass their sludge contract.

Of course, Monica Conyers is one of those city officials.

It honestly just doesn't get any better than this.

The great college scam

It's been burned into our psyche for decades; to succeed in today's society a young person has to go to college. It's the key to their future. It's that step that puts them ahead of others. We've been scammed.

To begin with, your average students should be learning most of what makes up college education in high school. More significantly, college has simply become too expensive to be considered a good investment.

Mindy Babbitt entered Davenport University in her mid-20s to study accounting. Unable to cover the costs with her previous earnings as a cosmetologist, she took out a $35,000 student loan at 9% interest, figuring her postgraduate income would cover the cost.

Instead, the entry-level job her bachelor's degree got her barely covered living expenses. Babbitt deferred loan repayments and was then laid off for a time. Now 41 and living in Plainwell, Mich., she is earning $41,000 a year, or about $10,000 more than the average high school graduate makes. But since she graduated, Babbitt's student loan balance has more than doubled, to $87,000, and she despairs she'll never pay it off.

"Unless I win the lottery or get a job paying a lot more, my student debts are going to follow me to the grave," she says.

Babbitt is no oddity. In fact, one in four college grads takes home considerably less than the top quartile of high school grads, according to a College Board study. Even some people with doctorates earn less than people without so much as an associate degree, it shows.

For an indication of how out of touch the degree factories are with economic reality there's no need to pick on UCLA's course in queer musicology or Edith Cowan University's degree in "surf science." U.S. universities also minted 37,000 history degrees in 2006, including 852 Ph.D.s. That for a field with fewer than 500 job openings and average pay of $48,500. Plumbers, by contrast, enjoyed 16,000 new jobs that year and earned only $6,000 less than historians, census figures show.


Unless a person is exceptionally bright (or the parents are exceptionally wealthy and thus wasting money doesn't matter), college shouldn't be considered the standard next-step after high school.

Unless, of course, you really want have a burning desire to take that Baracky Lit Course.



h/t: NRO's Corner.

Unintended Consequences

Did Obama's bailout salary cap sound like a good idea to you? $500,000 limits for executives is a step toward socialism that today's progressives would like to see.

But, the bitch is, those folks in government (who live off of OUR dime) have no clue how complicated things are.


"Without the talent of Wall Street to bring us back into a position of leadership in the global economy, we're going to be in bad shape as a world economic power," said Kathryn Wilde of the Partnership for New York.

Wylde says the Obama salary cap will lead to a critical brain drain – China and the United Arab Emirates have already come to poach Wall Street talent. She also says lower salaries in the financial industry will mean dramatically lower tax revenues for the city and state.

"We also depend heavily on the financial services industry to fund our economy and our tax rolls," said Wylde. "Last year 20 percent of our income taxes in the states – 12 percent in New York City came from Wall Street."


h/t: Hot Air

ManBearPig advises kids to not listen to their parents

Al Gore to our kids:

There are some things about our world that you know that older people don’t know. Why would that be? Well, in a period of rapid change, the old assumptions sometimes just don’t work anymore because they’re out of date. New knowledge, new understandings, are much more widely available sometimes to young people who are at school, who aren’t weighed down with the old flawed assumptions of the past. Now, don’t get me wrong, your parents and your elders, as you’ve already figured out, know a lot that you can gain from, but in a period of rapid change, there are times when new understandings are more apparent to young people.


You see, your mom and dad are just stupid, basically.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

A shirt to wear to the Obama lit class mentioned below

Barack Obama the English Lit Course

The Derb over at NRO's Corner.

OSU is running a 5-credit course this Spring:

We know that the 44th President is an avid reader and writer [ed, we do?], but what do his favorite books and his own writings tell us about him and about his relationship of literature to politics? By examining some of Obama's favorite books and some of his own writing, we will look at the role of literature in contemporary American politics and culture - and hopefully have some great conversations indoctrination in the process.


Do I need to comment?

Monday, February 02, 2009

Someone's fucking with me

There is NOT a DC area radio station called Obama 1260. The talk station included liberal radio programs by Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow and Ron Reagan. Not the past tense, because apparently the station's ratings have TANKED.

I cannot believe this is the first I'm hearing of this. From Hot Air.

The very name “Obama 1260″ should have embarrassed the syndicated hosts who appeared on it. It paints them as nothing more than apologists for a man who hadn’t yet worked a single day in executive office. The name strongly suggests an overt campaign on behalf of Obama, and after the election, an effort to propagandize on his behalf. Would a station branding itself on Obamamania dare to criticize the One and ruin its own brand?


So no one, before the election, had a problem with a radio station calling itself Obama 1260?

Ok, cooling a bit down, and I see that it was a gimmick that had a conservative counterpoint. McCain 570 was also in the mix.

But, shouldn't the "gimmick" have ended the day of the election? State radio and all that is a creepy thing. It's pathetic that Obama 1270 is going away because it failed.

What Media bias? (a continuing series)

Hot Air notices that the media has now "outsourced" it's job as the fourth pillar government to India. The Times of India has notices that Obama has already issued 17 exceptions to his no-lobbyist rules. Add to that his appointees problems with paying their "fair share" of taxes ...

Says Ed Morrissey;

Well, that’s Hope and ChangeTM, isn’t it? When anyone has to issue more than a waiver a day on any standard, it ceases being a standard and becomes a joke. The no-lobbyist rule has become just that — an ironic joke on all of the saps who fell for Obama’s populist pap over the last two years.

Why do we have to go to the Times of India to hear how many exceptions to this rule Obama has invoked? If the Bush administration had publicly imposed such a restriction on itself and then quietly ignored it, we’d hear endless editorials about Bush’s hypocrisy and the influence of the rich and powerful on his administration.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

25 Things About Me or Song Lyrics

1. I planned on having two kids. I messed up, lost count. Something.
2. I wanna know what love is, and I want you to show me.
3. I secretly like two Madonna songs. The rest could disappear forever
4. I hate olives.
5. I know a girl, a girl called trampoline. You know what I mean.
6. I think Bono should shut his pie hole about politics.
7. Dogs I've had, by name, in order : Moe, Malcom, Greta, and Oscar.
8. My basement flooded last week and was under 8 feet of water.
9. When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
10. When I had my first baby, my water broke in the kitchen, and my dog Moe licked it all up!
11. I've got a secret, I cannot say. Blame all the movement to give it away.
12. I stopped dying my hair about 18 months ago, and now I have a wonderful head of silvery hair. I think it's kick ass.
13. I'm halfway done with the this list.
14. Josh Homme turns me into a teenage fangirl. I could be a groupie.
15. I haven't watched an awards show in, at least, a decade.
16. I wanna make it wit chu.
17. Am I almost done yet?
18. They say the devil is paranoid.
19. My hands are always cold.
20. I've become a major gym rat. I'm not sure if it's the workout, or the time to myself listening to my iPod at full blast that I prefer. Really, it's a win/win.
21. I'm rather a shy person, but I can be social in certain situations. Bartending did that for me, I guess. Can't be a shy bartender. Extroverts make more money.
22. If I were stuck on an island, and could only have one band there with me, it would be QOTSA. What? That's not the way the question goes?
23. I've got wine. And so do you. Mine came with a cork, I wish yours did too.
24. ALMOST done!
25. I was politically a liberal through college, and was converted by 1) my husband, 2) his brother and 3) one of my graduate level Ed courses.

YEA. God, that was painful.