I give up: how DO you place a vagina on a pedestal?

James Taranto struggles with modern Feminism.  And boy is it a struggle.

University of Arizona undergrad Eliza Meza writes in the Daily Wildcat, a student newspaper, that "each year, the UA Vagina Warriors puts on a production of Eve Ensler's 'The Vagina Monologues' to offer theatrical activism to women on our campus and in our Tucson community." How's that working out? Here's her report:

While waiting in line for my hourly cup of coffee, I overheard the conversation between two young men in front of me, wearing cut-off sleeve shirts, one of them ironically wearing an "I Heart Boobies" wristband. One guy said to the other, "Man, I wish they'd stop shouting 'Chocolate vaginas' outside. It's like, really?" The other guy snickered, "Yeah man, like, you don't see us selling chocolate penises out on the mall." He then ordered a fancy espresso beverage and proceeded on with his Beavis-like chuckling.

As I step onto my feminist soapbox, it's hard to ignore these situations. It's difficult to ignore situations when causes, like the Vagina Warriors, are meant to spread awareness of women's issues and get rhetorically dismantled by individuals who laugh at them. I wonder if they had stopped to see exactly why "chocolate vaginas" were [sic] being shouted outside. They would have learned about a beautiful movement happening on our campus to end violence against women.

It's not to place vaginas on a pedestal, but to end the comical undertone of a word that means more when placed in a social context.

In light of the reaction of the dudes at the coffee shop, the Vagina Warriors' effort to "end the comical undertone" cannot be said to be a success. And you're not helping, Eliza. That phrase "not to place vaginas on a pedestal" even got a snigger out of someone as jaded as this columnist.

Now this is Change: Andrew Sullivan enraged by The One's blithe indifference to the future

One wonders what led Captain Testosterone to think that a Chicago Machine raised pol would be anything but cynical and profligate.  Better dial back the macho meter, Andrew.  His headline:

Obama To The Next Generation: Screw You, Suckers

President Obama with a group of his Suckers.

Now, admittedly, this is fun: watching the self righteous Obamacrats and Bush smearers squeal in agony.  Hate to break it to you boys, but it's going to get a lot more painful.  After all, unlike The One, the Obamacrats ain't "Machine Made".  They're finding out that they're just little people.

And little people don't get squat.

Creative destruction: It never comes when or where you expect it.

That's what makes it so creative.  And destructive.  Facebook, by increasing the reach of authentic friendships and enabling 'virtuous' referral marketing, is not only changing how we communicate but also how we learn and how we buy.  Large, industrial age information utilities (schools, media giants) are starting to look more and more like dinosaurs.  And Facebook?  Well Facebook just might be that asteroid that everyone's talking about........'Boom'.

Clap Clap Clap Barack Hussein Obama!

It's time for us to thank BHO for not triangulating.  Everyone assumed that faced with the largest midterm electoral drubbing in a century, the Obami would alter course towards a Clintonian triangulation strategy.  But with the publication of his 'budget' which proposes budget cuts equaling less than 0.001 of next years budget deficit, it's clear that he is doubling down, thinking that leftism and his ownership of the MSM will keep him in the White House.

 “The proposed cuts are so insignificant — less than 1/10 of 1% of this year’s $1.65 trillion budget deficit  –  that they are essentially invisible on the pie chart.”

The problem for BHO is that the MSM is terminal and middle America is pissed.

Oprah was right:  he really is 'The One'.  God help us.

Rick Perry: The $10,000 BA

Some politicians are actually standing on the side of consumers.  Witness Rick Perry's efforts to get the State Regents to create a low priced on line college degree for Texans.  Hat tip Instapundit.

RICK PERRY CALLS FOR $10,000 B.A. DEGREE: Democrats Respond That Proposal Will “Dumb Down” Texans. Hmm. You can get a computer for a lot less than you could a few years ago. Is the new computer dumber? And maybe Texas can cut a deal with the Khan Academy — and maybe even answer the certification problem.

I'll bet there are no Dems on the consumer side on this one.  The Academy votes and gives 20 to 1 for the left.  Which is why liberalism is dying - they don't work for the people anymore.

"Protecting the investor" really means "excluding the small investor"

Felix Salmon points out in the NYT just how marginalized equity markets are becoming with more and more high return investments only available to the very rich.  It may turn out that the wages of ultra-regulation are increased income and ultimately social and political inequality.

Only the biggest and oldest companies are happy being listed on public markets today. As a result, the stock market as a whole increasingly fails to reflect the vibrancy and heterogeneity of the broader economy. To invest in younger, smaller companies, you increasingly need to be a member of the ultra-rich elite.

At risk, then, is the shareholder democracy that America forged, slowly, over the past 50 years. Civilians, rather than plutocrats, controlled corporate America, and that relationship improved standards of living and usually kept the worst of corporate abuses in check. With America Inc. owned by its citizens, the success of American business translated into large gains in the stock portfolios of anybody who put his savings in the market over most of the postwar period.

Today, however, stock markets, once the bedrock of American capitalism, are slowly becoming a noisy sideshow that churns out increasingly meager returns.

Somewhere Frederic Bastiat is smiling.  Hat tip National Review.

Sadat is there too. He's the one with the bullet holes.

Sadat is there too.  He’s the one with all the bullet holes.  Damn Reagan didn’t give  him our secret force field technology.

We really don’t have any influence on which cat gets to the top.  This is because our interests are more geopolitical than political (stability, keep your hands off of our pals in the yarmulkes, keep on pumpin’) anyone who does that is our friend.  Just ask whichever prince is on top of the house of Saud this moment.  The boys that get to the top of the greasy pole called Cairo will make a decision based upon our bux and rep vs. the imperatives of their political positioning.  We can’t influence the latter and frankly we don’t have the money to do much of anything more on the former.

Bam bam’s only mistake was to open his yap.  The AA prayer is apropos here:  Lord help us to change the things that we can and accept the things that we can’t and most importantly, to know the difference.  This is can’t land – always has been.  Unless you want the 101^st to pay a visit.

Newsweek sold for a dollar, Huffpo is 'deemphasizing (left wing) politics' and Time is a Joke

Ran Palin parody as truth.  And then pretended that they knew it was parody all along.  But when you've turned from journalism to advocacy some things are just 'too good to check'.  Which of course results in Time becoming 'too stupid to read'.

Prediction:  Time will sell for a dollar too.  There is a new seismic phenomenon:  Clare and Henry Lucy spinning in their graves...

I just love this interweb thingy....

Heh

Hattip NRO

Holy Fallout Batman, San Diego Port Director claims WMD found in US....

Check out the rest of the story at Jammie Wearing Fool.

But Mr. Gore, you said it was getting hot? "Worst freeze since 1957...

FOOD PRICE INFLATION UPDATE: Sysco declares force majeure, raises grocery prices.

Food inflation driven by freezing weather in Florida during December and in Mexico during February, is hitting the US supermarkets in the coming day’s. Sysco sent out an alert that announced an “Act of God”, to address their contracted supply issues.

The cold of the Superbowl weekend in Texas, has had a more lasting impact than on just the game plans for lots of travelers. The deep cold sank into the produce fields of northern Mexico, destroying fresh produce crops. This is the biggest page 16 story, about to hit a headline, that you have seen in a while. Your restaurants will be low on fresh produces for weeks. They will have to raise prices significantly or cut the produce out of the menu.

Worst freeze since 1957.

Republicans the party of Wall Street? Yeah, right.

Hat tip instapundit

WALL STREET LOBBYISTS TO G.O.P.: Hands Off Dodd-Frank. They bought the bill fair and square, I guess. . . .

Man bites dog: Boston Globe: Bush did something right

Hattip Instapundit

BOSTON GLOBE: Bush program helped lay the groundwork in Egypt. No, really, that’s the headline. In the Boston Globe. And the article even blames Obama for undermining the efforts: “When Obama took office, his administration halved the amount of money available for democracy funding in Egypt, to $20 million in 2008, and allowed Egypt to have a veto again over some funds.”

True

I would also eat at Haley Barbour's barbecue stand....

Taking Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment to a new level.  Class act from a class guy.  Hat tip National Review.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a potential presidential candidate go out of his way to laud the record of one of his most serious potential opponents—but that’s what Haley Barbour just did.
Politics is a team sport, as Grover Norquist likes to say, and Gov. Barbour went out of his way to be an impressive team leader. I said in my last post that Mitch Daniels was the only candidate so far who wants to run on his record. Haley Barbour wants to run not only on his own record as governor, but on that of other Republican governors too.
He singled out three governors (besides himself): Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie and Mitch Daniels:
“I watched Mitch Daniels give Indiana its first balanced budget in 8 years without raising taxes.”
After praising Daniels, Barbour went on to drive a stake into Mitch Daniels’ idea that tackling the big fiscal and economic problems requires ignoring the social issues. “Some say that while republican governors were attacking the fiscal and budget issues, we were ignoring social issues, but that’s not right,” he said proudly pointing to the pro-life legislation he shepherded through in Missisippi which he said caused “Americans United for Life to name Mississippi the safest place in America for an unborn child.”
“Governors get elected to solve problems. That’s why you see governors focused on economic problems, budget and spending. That year we passed the pro-life agenda, Mississippi had a $700 million budget shortfall—it took us two years, but we eliminated that deficit without raising anybody’s taxes.”
Haley Barbour has recognized his competitive advantage: he can run on his record in cutting government without raising taxes. And he can run on his pro-life record too.
Right now, Gov. Barbour pointed out “Republicans control only one-half of one-third of the government”. He quoted his friend Fred Smith, CEO of Fed-Ex, “’The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.’ And the main thing is: electing a Republican president next year.”

Mitch Daniels: I'd ride in his Harley Posse

Gov. Daniels turned heads at CPAC with a speech that can best be described as the 'anti-pander'.

Mitch Daniels gave an extraordinary speech at CPAC last night. As anyone who has ever done any public speaking at all knows, the hardest thing to do is to tell people things they don’t necessarily want to hear. For Daniels not to strike one pandering note, and even to challenge the audience at times, speaks to just how grounded he is. He even put in a good word for the occasional necessary compromise. Few potential presidential candidates would dare say such a thing in a CPAC speech.

Then, there was the amazingly frank core of Daniels speech: his endorsement of extensive changes in entitlement programs to ward off what he called the “red menace” of unsustainable debt. If Daniels runs for president and gets the nomination, Democrats will have an entire campaign’s worth of material to demagogue in just this one speech. It’s as forthright a presentation on these issues as you’re likely to hear this side of Paul Ryan.

Finally, as Maggie noted, Daniels didn’t even flinch on the (deeply mistaken, in my view) notion of a truce on the social issues, even though it has caused him untold political grief; he just disguised it a little. The logic of the truce is still in this line (somewhat hyperbolically) comparing the debt to an invading army: “If a foreign power advanced an army to the border of our land, everyone in this room would drop everything and look for a way to help.”

In short, a very notable speech, and one that makes you think after hearing it: “That guy should run for president–and probably won’t.”

You go, boy. Hat tip National Review

"The liberal project began to fail when it began to lie." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

From a review of a book on Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the NYT from last fall.  Very interesting.  DPM was arguably the last of the 'good government' liberals - ones who practiced an empirical liberalism:  focusing on what worked, not on implementing an ideology.  To my mind, his quote above refers to the point in time when liberalism became more of a philosophy of power than one of uplift - when it became more important to sustain the 'movement' than achieve the 'mission'.  In and of itself this isn't surprising:  all organizations and movements outlive their dynamic, useful phase and become ossified, cautious, primarily interested in self preservation.

We are witnessing the demise of liberalism - a great movement begun in such optimism and hope and now ending in venal squalor.  It will be interesting to see what replaces it.  Hat tip Bruce Bawer.

A map of how humans learn

Humans don't learn very much in the learning 'factories' that we call 'schools', they learn it from each other out in the marketplace:  of ideas, of products, of services, of friendships.  One example is the printing press.  In 50 years from its invention by Gutenberg, printing exploded across Europe (this map understates the rate of change because I'm sure output grew much faster than the number of locations for printing.  Yet there were no Devry Institutes or Harvards to teach printing, no printing programs at the local Community College.  People learned through apprenticeship, imitation and competition.



Which is the way that most things have always been learned.  The centralizing statists of the progressive era persuaded everyone that state funded learning factories run by them would make learning more 'efficient' - so long as all of the power was handed to them (of course).  Now a century later, we find we have a voracious monster taking more wealth and power and time from us every year without giving any more value for it.

The "educators" are not on your side, they are on their side.

Because Scandinavian social democracy makes people so kind and peaceful

Bruce Bawer relates the story of what it is like to be Jewish in Norway:

Today’s issue of the Norwegian newspaper Vårt Land (Our Country) includes an article by Line Madsen Simenstad about Anja Savosnick, a 23-year-old Oslo college student who’s routinely harassed in public for being Jewish. People have said to her: “Burn in Auschwitz!” She’s constantly tempted to lie about her background: “Always, when I’m at a party or out on the town,” she says, “I have uncomfortable experiences when it comes out that I’m Jewish.”

Although Muslim anti-Semitism is a widespread phenomenon in Oslo, as in other European cities, Savosnick says that most of the anti-Semitism she’s experienced has been directed at her by ethnic Norwegians. No surprise there: a college student in Oslo is less likely to have social contact with Muslims who learned in mosques that Jew-hatred is part and parcel of Islamic belief than with ethnic Norwegian fellow students who’ve learned since childhood – from teachers, professors, media commentators, and distinguished Norwegian authors alike – that Jew-hatred is the only civilized option for an educated, right-thinking Scandinavian.

Savosnick says that when people find out she’s Jewish, they “began to hold me responsible for Israel’s actions.” Her reaction: “I don’t understand why I, as a Norwegian Jew, must take responsibility for Israel’s actions.” Given what Norwegian college students (even Jewish ones) have been told all their lives about Israel, it’s no surprise that absolutely nothing in Savosnick’s comments, as reported by Simenstad, so much as hints at the possibility that any of Israel’s actions might actually be defensible.

One of the most persistent arguments for social democracy has been:  "OK, it retards economic growth, and it leads to massive bureaucracy and dependency, and it is financially unsustainable, but it eliminates the ancient hatreds between race and class so that we all are finally equal - look at Scandinavia".  Well read the evidence from one of the richest, most comfortable and most thoroughly 'socialized' nations in the world - Norway.

Social democracy doesn't work.  It doesn't change people, it can't make them better, thus it fails on its own terms.  The only force on this earth that can truly transform you or me and replace hate with love is redeeming faith in God.  All of the claims of the statists (and the marketeers, and for that matter, the televangelists) are ultimately false - they are false Gods.  Only Jesus who is the Christ can redeem our fallen, broken natures.  And our world.

Has Davidson's law broken down

Sid Davidson, longtime Accounting Prof and Dean of the University of Chicago Business school proposed a 'law' that the paid price of a B school education (or indeed any education promising higher earnings) should on average equal the first year compensation derived from said schooling.  Here's a datapoint from an instapundit reader:

While visiting with old college friends on New Years’ Eve we did a back of the envelope calculation on the cost and value of our BA degrees in Accounting from 1981. We attended a small well regarded Midwestern liberal arts college from 1977 to 1981. Tuition, room and board was between $3,000 and $4000 per year so around $16000 for our BA. As entry level accountants in public CPA firms we earned a salary of around $17,000 per year. So we earned in salary an amount equal to the cost of a BA degree in our first year of employment. Now that same college, which my youngest daughter is looking at attending costs $42,000 per year. If she earned her BA in Accounting it would cost her $168,000. Her possible first year salary as a CPA? Not even close to $168,000. Maybe around $45,000. What a change in 30 years in the value of that BA in Accounting.

This example would suggest that the value proposition has gone to hell.  However there are a couple of caveats:  First, list price is not paid price, I'm sure the average student pays far less than list.  Second, in most industries real prices go down over time as market contention drives innovation to reduce prices or at least to improve quality.  We know that real learning quality hasn't changed so why aren't the prices lower, much lower than they were 40 years ago?

Our educational establishment has suffered from incredibly wasteful and destructive state funding and manipulation that have done nothing but drive up costs and retard true market driven innovation.  We need to bust it up, bust it all up.

Now this is one college gender gap unlikely to receive any Federal attention

One of the best indicators that our government is not focused on equity but on power is to watch it in action when the shoe is on the 'other' foot.  For decades the Federals have been pushing 'gender equity' on college campuses, meaning fighting for the inclusion of more women and the elimination of barriers to women getting degrees.  It has gone so far that laws like Title IX have established de facto numerical quotas for things like intercollegiate athletics to the detriment of our nation's Olympic hopes.

But now women are graduating from college at rates that far exceed that of men.  If our statist establishment were true to its claims for 'equity' and 'justice', the Federal machine would have jumped into action a decade a go when this trend became evident and began demanding aggressive discrimination on behalf of men, even to the point of imposing numerical quotas.  But of course no such thing happened.  You see, our colleges and the Federal agencies who supervise them aren't interested in equity or justice.  They are interested in power.  And men, particularly white ones, are their political enemies.  Therefore they do not 'deserve' help.


This, of course, is one more reason why I describe our Federal government and its key subsidized sectors as 'fascist'.  Because in a fascist state it is power considerations that best explain state behavior, not 'justice' or 'equity' or 'liberty'.  Hat tip carpe diem.

Lots of unions, lots of chaos. No unions, no chaos. QED

Carpe Diem demonstrates the correlation.  Causal relationship?  I report, you decide.

Well isn't that special

TSA to unionize.  Cost, quality and responsiveness will defo go up, way up.  What did we do before we were saved by our big brothers in the union?

Watch out, terrorist, the shop steward is on the case!

NYC's opposition to Walmart isn't about economics it's about bigotry

NYC's hostility to Walmart while letting Target, Home Depot and Family Dollar in has more in common with the old Segregated South than a modern city:  back then, black owned stores were banned, while the same store if owned by whites was welcomed.  Likewise, in New York, Walmart has simply become a proxy for 'red state' culture the the elites of our bluest large cities despise.  The incumbent retailers simply exploit this irrational bigotry to make money off of blue city 'rubes'.

From today's WSJ, an editorial by Charles Fishman, on Wal-Mart's attempt to open stores in NYC, and the typical, expected opposition it faces (but which apparently Home Depot, Target and Family Dollar didn't face):

Yet like the old time segregationists of Jackson and Birmingham, the blue bigots believe that they are 'righteous' and 'principled', indeed, doing 'God's work'.  And like them, they guarantee slower rates of economic growth and genteel poverty when compared with more dynamic, less bigoted cities like Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Phoenix.

Pathetic, isn't it?

Hat tip Carpe Diem

What? Questions about another social science 'diagnosis'? Say it ain't so!

With the occasional exception of economics, most of the social sciences are simply Progressive Era vehicles for the translation of cliche and alarm into 'honest graft'.  All of their 'syndromes' and 'conditions' and 'issues' all have the same remedy:  more law, more regulation, more state intervention, more money and power for them.  You think we'd be wise to their scams by down.   Hat tip Instapundit.

NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT WHETHER “shaken-baby syndrome” is real or not.

Social Democracy: delivering downward social devastation

The Daily Telegraph has a story about a 'housing estate' in South Wales whose male life expectancy is below that of Haiti.  On the dole, with the state becoming provider, protector and enforcer, men no longer have a purpose for being.

So they kill themselves in the most banal ways:  drugs, drink, diet, suicide.

Expensive, socially destructive, economically stagnant, bankrupt:  Social Democracy is such a wonderful innovation, isn't it?

The key to winning new customers is not necessarily in perfection but in recovering well - and this goes for States too

I can't imagine Governor Lowbeam of California....or whichever unindicted co-conspirator currently occupies the Illinois governorship behaving in this manner.  They don't have the vocabulary, much less the conceptual range to even recognize the issue.  I'm not sure Rick Perry is a genius, but at least he understands where money comes from.  It would be wonderful if The One could grasp that same elementary fact.

Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, told The Examiner in an exclusive interview that Amazon's decision to leave the state was a result of a wrong decision by the state comptroller, and that he will work with legislators to make sure Amazon can stay.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/02/rick-perry-amazon-decision-wasnt-right-one#ixzz1DmfJdaKQ

War is peace and unemployment is down, no up...

Private pollster's estimates of unemployment diverge from the state's....in predictable ways. The Feds do lots of 'adjustments' to the raw data.  Which would be fine except that they all work for the government and are part of the 'party of the state'. Instatip.

GALLUP: Unemployment Up To 10.3 Percent. I’ve noticed a divergence between the Gallup numbers and the “official” numbers lately. I wonder why that is? Is it seasonal adjustment, or something else? Underemployment is up to 19.7 percent.

The wages of monetary sin...

....are ruinous inflation and the death of seignorage.   IMF calls for an alternative to US Dollar as world reserve currency.  Of course.  Having the world reserve currency is such a good thing for the US that the centralizing statists just had to wreck it.  Must be Anti-American.

Hattip Instapundit.

NY attempts to destroy one of the few remaining bright spots in its economy: The NY Pied a Terre

Now if you own an apartment in NYC or a Hampton's 'cottage' for recreational purposes you will enjoy NY taxes 24/7/365.  Short high end NY real estate.  As Forrest Gump would say:  "stupid is as stupid does".

THIS ISN’T GOING TO HELP HAMPTONS REAL ESTATE VALUATIONS: Court: NY Can Tax All Income of Owner of NY Vacation Home Used 17 Days/Year.

Damned farmers....

...are evidently responsible for weight problems.  High Fructose Corn Syrup has replaced sucrose as the principal sweetener due to the combined venality of sugar beet and corn farmers - one gets the quota on sugar imports way down, the other gets the subsidy on corn growing way up.

FRUCTOSE ALTERS BRAIN METABOLISM, makes you hungrier?

So next time your scale goes 'tilt', thank one of those salt of the earth, bedrock of our nation welfare queens:  the American Farmer.  Instatip.

Meet the new boss....same as the old boss

Sadly, it seems as if the Egyptians will get fooled again.  Military coup deposes Major General Mubarak who inherited his position from General Sadat who with Lieutenant-Colonel Nasser took power......in a Military coup.  Sigh.  Instatip.

MUBARAK has resigned.

GOProud party at CPAC - Are Gay Republicans coming out of the Log Cabin?

One of the signs of 'cool' in any culture is wherever gay men are.  And increasingly they are congregating in the libertarian wing of the Republican party.  And in general, I think that is a good thing.  This isn't because I necessarily agree with Gays on everything but libertarians of all stripes are 'live and let live' people.  Libertarians just want to be left alone.  So it is with Gay righties.  Gay lefties, well they want programs and laws and regs and funding, and, and, and.  You can't just tolerate their choices, you must affirm them.  And if you don't you're a bigot and very likely a criminal.

Me, I like being part of what Grover Norquist calls the "Leave us alone" coalition.   Instatip

ROGER SIMON: GOProud Party Breitbart’s Proudest Hour: “The party staged by Andrew Breitbart for GOProud — the gay Republican and conservative group — was as close to a game changer as things get and the most interesting event at CPAC by far, at least to this point — and that’s meant as no insult to CPAC. With sexy Sophie B. Hawkins singing to a boisterous, supportive crowd, the party almost obliterated in one night the conception that Republicans are anti-gay and gave the impression that young libertarians — and some not so young — are taking over the GOP. Pretty soon it may be cool to be a Republican and square to be a Democrat.”

.

Or more accurately, a sense of incompetence....

Instatip

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Crisis Flummoxes White House. “In the White House, frustration is giving way to a sense of powerlessness.”

Academe beginning to be receptive to new kind of affirmative action: Conservatives

John Tierney - the superb and fearlessly unbiased science reporter at the NYT writes about the growing acknowledgement among academics that they have excluded a wide range of perspectives on many issues and that might, in fact be bad.

Can social scientists open up to outsiders’ ideas? Dr. Haidt was optimistic enough to title his speech “The Bright Future of Post-Partisan Social Psychology,” urging his colleagues to focus on shared science rather than shared moral values. To overcome taboos, he advised them to subscribe to National Review and to read Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions.”

For a tribal-moral community, the social psychologists in Dr. Haidt’s audience seemed refreshingly receptive to his argument. Some said he overstated how liberal the field is, but many agreed it should welcome more ideological diversity. A few even endorsed his call for a new affirmative-action goal: a membership that’s 10 percent conservative by 2020. The society’s executive committee didn’t endorse Dr. Haidt’s numerical goal, but it did vote to put a statement on the group’s home page welcoming psychologists with “diverse perspectives.” It also made a change on the “Diversity Initiatives” page — a two-letter correction of what it called a grammatical glitch, although others might see it as more of a Freudian slip.

In the old version, the society announced that special funds to pay for travel to the annual meeting were available to students belonging to “underrepresented groups (i.e., ethnic or racial minorities, first-generation college students, individuals with a physical disability, and/or lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered students).”

As Dr. Haidt noted in his speech, the “i.e.” implied that this was the exclusive, sacred list of “underrepresented groups.” The society took his suggestion to substitute “e.g.” — a change that leaves it open to other groups, too. Maybe, someday, even to conservatives

Man bites dog.  Worth a gander, gang.

I would have been more nervous about the OU UConn game had I seen this first

I think we should bring back Quadroons and Octoroons...

The racist south used to have exquisite rules for categorizing race.  Now our oh so liberal Federales are 'tightening up' race classification so they can sustain their racist spoils system.  And people wonder why I call them fascists.  Hat tip Contentions

A front-page feature in today’s New York Times chronicles the difficulties that race counters are encountering in our increasingly multiracial society. According to the Times, government people-counters in agencies such as the Department of Education are frustrated by the fact that citizens who claim more than one ethnic or racial group in their ancestry no longer wish to be pigeonholed but instead prefer a label that takes into account their multiracial identity or no label at all.

The piece chronicles how University of Maryland student Michelle Lopez-Mullins, who describes herself as being of Peruvian, Chinese, Irish, Shawnee, and Cherokee descent, is considered to be merely “Hispanic” by the Department of Education because anyone with even partial Hispanic ancestry is categorized as Hispanic. Yet, for their own statistical reasons, the National Center for Health Statistics considers her “Asian.” But Ms. Lopez-Mullins usually fills out forms by putting down “other” when asked about her background. And in response to the demand from such people, government forms have often given them that option.

But government bureaucrats are pushing back. Under the new standards being promulgated by the Department of Education, students like Ms. Lopez-Mullins are no longer given the option to opt out of the race bean-counting but must be considered Hispanic in order to create data about distinct minority groups that the government can measure. Groups like the NAACP have complained that giving citizens the chance to be considered multi-ethnic has diminished the number of those who call themselves African-Americans. As one researcher for a group promoting this sort of racialism is quoted as telling the Times, allowing people to be called multiracial means that “They’re all lumped together — blacks, Asians and Latinos — and they all look the same from the data perspective.” And we can’t have that if we are to continue racialist programs that extend specific benefits and hindrances to specific groups based on past patterns of discrimination that might no longer be relevant to the individuals involved.

But in a country where the sort of rigid divides between the races are no longer relevant and where more or more Americans claim multi-ethnic and racial ancestry, the complaints of the researchers and the government apparatchiks who wish to implement policies based on such numbers are not as important as the right of each citizen to be judged and counted as an individual, not a racial statistic. Instead of seeking to enforce racial categorization as the Department of Education seems to be doing, what the government should be doing is stepping back from counting practices that are not only irrelevant to the lives of contemporary Americans but that also wish to hold in place measures that seek to divide rather than unite Americans.

Another example of the Europeanization of our labor markets

All of the extended and rextended and triextended benefits and the added hiring uncertainty have driven unemployment way up and labor participation way down.  Clusterstock points out that things actually look a lot better than they really are:  at 2000 labor participation rates (probably artificially high, but not that much) unemployment would be truly brutal.  As we make employment more expensive and riskier for employers we drive marginal workers out of the workforce to go on the dole or charity or to accept permanently straightened circumstances.

And our fearless leaders call this the "American Dream"

Just call this the Rachel Carson curve

Rachel Carson wrote 'Silent Spring' a hysterical (and hysterically dishonest) broadside against DDT that led to its worldwide ban just as its use had all but eradicated Malaria.  Unsurprisingly, Malaria made a huge comeback and has killed over 50 million people post Rachel.  The types of DDT uses that could have eliminated those deaths would have had virtually no impact on the environment.  Ms. Carson was told this many times and chose to remain silent unto death.  Therefore I propose that the catastrophic relationship between disease and IQ be named The Rachel Carson Memorial Curve for the person most responsible for it.  Hat tip Tyler Cowen.

Because things that are unregulated offer politicians no opportunities for 'honest graft'

New York, having driven every other part of their economy into the ground are targeting one of the few spontaneous things that work:  intercity luxury bus services.

A thriving business has developed over the last few years that delivers super low-cost express bus transportation between cities like Washington D.C. and New York City, for as low as $1 (see picture above), but with fares typically running more like $26 round-trip on Megabus, $55 round-trip on DC 2 NY, and $35 round-trip on Chinatown Bus for travel in February.

So what's the problem? The buses are clean, convenient, affordable, on time, and offer free wireless service, and the intense competition between many rival companies keeps it that way.   Well, there really is no problem; that is, unless you're a politician and can't fathom the idea that a market can exist without some kind of government regulation and oversight, i.e. no appreciation at all of "spontaneous order."

Worried that there is a "chaotic lack of rules" that could put travelers "at risk," New York lawmakers have introduced legislation to tame a "lawless bus industry that has left Chinatown like the 'Wild West'." Read more here. 

Because fast, safe, efficient mass transit is something that every politician opposes.  Hat tip Carpe Diem

These people are not on your side - they're on their side

A local St. Louis (Illinois side of the river, natch) case is getting some national press.  Rather typical of the Land (that used to be of) Lincoln.

A workers’ compensation arbitrator assigned to hear the case of an Illinois state trooper involved in a high-speed crash that killed two teenage sisters sought to keep a public hearing on the case secret.

Authorities say state trooper Matt Mitchell was driving 126 mph, talking on his cell phone and e-mailing when he caused the crash that killed 18-year-old Jessica Uhl and 13-year-old Kelli Uhl of Collinsville on Nov. 23, 2007. He is seeking worker’s compensation because of injuries suffered in the wreck, claiming the crash has left him with limited mobility.

Arbitrator Jennifer Teague wanted to keep the public hearing on his claim secret, according to e-mails obtained by the Belleville News-Democrat through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

“We are going to do it on the sly with no press,” Teague wrote in an e-mail to her court reporter.

In other good news: Postal Service Circling the drain

Due to grossly inflated union retiree costs, natch.  I think it's time to flush.

The Corner has the thread:

The USPS took $329 million loss this quarter and warns that it might default on some financial obligations later this year:

The USPS, a self-supporting government agency that receives no tax dollars, said it suffered a loss of $329 million in the first quarter of federal fiscal year 2011. That compared with a loss of $297 million a year earlier.

Declining mail volume is partially to blame, but the real culprit, of course, is pension costs:

Excluding costs related to retiree benefits and adjustments to workers’ compensation liability, the Postal Service said it had net income was $226 million in the first quarter, which ended Dec. 31.
Despite ongoing cost-cutting efforts, the USPS said it expects to have a cash shortfall this year and to hit its federally mandated borrowing limit by September, when the government’s fiscal year ends.
The agency said it will be forced to default on some of its financial obligations this year unless Congress changes a 2006 law requiring it to pay between $5.4 and $5.8 billion into its prepaid retiree health benefits each year.

More here.

Pigford - Obama had to know it was a fraud

Al Pires created a system to exploit black farmers in the South, who only numbered about 3,000 expected claimants at the outset. Pigford has ended up with about 94,000 claimants, thanks in no small part to Sen. Barack Obama’s sponsorship of a bill to extend Pigford when he was in the Senate. Meanwhile, black farmers who were actually discriminated against by the USDA were scammed to benefit the class action attorneys involved, who made a killing off of Pigford. The farmers, meanwhile, lost their land and continue to be victims of the entire process.
  Even before BHO was elected to the Senate there was massive evidence that Pigford was a fraud on the taxpayer.  Yet BHO sponsored a massive expansion of said fraud.  Of course when you grow up in the Chicago machine you really don't learn that you represent the taxpayers, what you learn is impunity.  This is what Boss Tweed of Tammany called "Honest Graft".

And its on display every day in the Executive Branch.  Like I've said before:  the real losers in the BHO saga are "Good Government" liberals.  Because after watching all of the self dealing and 2,700 page unread laws and 733 waivers and double paid government workers and Pigfords no one.  And I mean no one can look at our Federal government as anything but a rapacious beast serving its own ends.

Read the whole thing.

Executive Impunity - What one learns from the Chicago Machine

Obama Administration has two standards:  one for friends and one for everyone else (aka: enemies).

Eric Holder’s Justice Department has even politicized compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. According to documents I have obtained, FOIA requests from liberals or politically connected civil rights groups are often given same day turn-around by the DOJ. But requests from conservatives or Republicans face long delays, if they are fulfilled at all.

After all, why would anyone believe that a man who has grown up as a successful part of the most corrupt political culture in America would behave in any manner but that in which he was raised?

The real losers in Obamapalooza have been the 'good government' left.

Whaddya mean Pentagon Evacuations?

NRO is talking about whether the US can continue evacuating Americans from war zones here.  In my experience, they never did.

I lived in Jakarta in the '70s (actually when BHO was there) during epic riots which kept us off the street for more than a week at time.  I knew friends who had lived there in 1965 during the "year of living dangerously" when 500,000 mostly Chinese Christians were slaughtered.  The US Government evacuated government employees to Clark AFB in the Philippines and left the non-Federal 'proles' to fend for themselves.  They all congregated at the US Government owned American Club compound and protected it from roaming mobs.  The pathetic part about it was at the time, the only Americans eligible to be members of the "American Club" were US Government employees.  In the '70s they relaxed eligibility, letting us 'proles' join at vastly inflated monthly dues.

My experience (as evidenced by the current Federal compensation program) is that the Feds take care of their own.  The rest of us?  Not so much.

Rats. Sinking Ships. Arianna Huffington. Indeed.

Roger Simon points out that La Huffington is a leading indicator here.

Arianna has read the tea leaves. Progressivism, which was riding the crest of popularity on the election of Obama, is over. It is no longer good for business. And just as the stock market is said to be a leading indicator on business cycles, I submit Arianna’s track record has shown her to be a leading indicator on the zeitgeist. She knows when to get out. Obama, and by extension progressivism, is fini. It is best left to fringey looneys like Code Pink. Put simply: Progressivism is no longer good business.

Now this does not mean Arianna won’t tilt left publicly, at least somewhat. That’s what’s done in “polite society.” But in the real world of business, it’s over. Out with the healthcare crisis, in with divorce and Lindsay Lohan. Forget the puffery about “Citizen Journalism” coming to AOL. This is for show, to continue getting free content while suckering some of the old, disgruntled audience from the original HuffPo. This combination very well could succeed.

Hat tip Instapundit.

Sin's like that

You, know, rationalizations for things that one wants to do....or in this case, not do.

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

He only ran because he hated President Bush so much

Jim Webb has always been a quitter and had no real purpose for his Senate seat other than Bush Derangement Syndrome so it's not a surprise that he is running away.  His brand of 'moderate' Democrat really doesn't exist anymore anyway.  Instapundit.

POLITICO: Sen. James Webb (D-VA) won’t seek re-election. 

Well Castro is Anti-American

Why is Cuba not above Egypt on the list for 'liberation'?  Well Mubarak is 'pro-American', you see.  Our elites:  reliably taking our enemies' side for almost 50 years.  Or if they can't do that they at least will oppose our efforts to oppose our enemies.  That's what 'anti-anti-communism' was all about.

CUBA UPDATE: Cuban Dissidents Beaten And Arrested Outside Church In Havana. Cuba is worse than Egypt. Castro is worse than Mubarak. So why is there less enthusiasm in the commentariat for liberating Cuba?

MSM picks up the tale: Planned Parenthood's "Aw s**t" moment

Perhaps our benighted 'establishment press' is recognizing that shilling for the state borg isn't a winning strategy.

CBS NEWS: Planned Parenthood Video Fuels Abortion Debate: Undercover Video Shows Fake Pimp Seeking Abortions for Underage Sex Workers, Getting Advice from Planned Parenthood Employees.

Rhode Island: Itty bitty blue state fall down go 'boom'

Real Clear Politics explains:

Rhode Island's long-term obligations compare unfavorably with just about any other state, and that's saying a lot. An evaluation of state finances by theDaily Beast recently ranked Rhode Island the state most likely to go bust because of the combination of its budget deficit, outstanding debt and unfunded pension liabilities relative to economic capacity. Moody's, which recently issued a report on combined municipal debt and outstanding pension obligations for the states, ranked Rhode Island among the most troubled states on a variety of metrics, including combined liabilities as a percent of GDP and as a percent of state revenues.

Read it all

Obama starts bailing out the states

And of course the states that it is bailing out are the worst run, most hostile towards economic growth.  Rewarding antisocial behavior seems to be a core competence of The One.

OBAMA STARTS TO BAIL OUT THE STATES: “States that have borrowed billions of dollars from the federal government to cover the soaring cost of unemployment benefits would get immediate relief from the Obama administration under a plan to suspend interest payments for the next two years.” By letting states keep unemployment insurance taxes down, this is probably good for employment, but can the Federal government — which is also broke — afford it? And what it gives in lower taxes now, it takes back later, conveniently after the election. “Starting in 2014, Obama would target companies for sharply higher payroll taxes to help states replenish their depleted unemployment funds and repay their debts to Washington.”

Yes I knew this

The so called 'uncontrollable acceleration' scandal at Toyota turns out to have been 'driver error'.  This happened in the '80s with the Audi 5000.  The question is why our 'fearless avatars of Truth' - the press, couldn't figure this out.  Perhaps they weren't interested in, you know, the truth.  Which is why their audiences continue to leach away at 5 or 6 percent a year.  Couldn't happen to a nicer group of guys....Hat tip Instapundit

AS P.J. O’ROURKE PUT IT THE LAST TIME THIS HAPPENED, “Yes, the dumb buggers stepped on the gas instead of the brake.”

Government investigators have rejected claims that electronic defects caused Toyota cars and trucks to accelerate out of control, a finding released Tuesday that offers a measure of long-awaited vindication for the world’s largest automaker and shifts blame to the drivers who reported the incidents.

The report, based on work by NASA engineers, deflates accusations by drivers suing Toyota that mysterious electronic glitches instigated the episodes of runaway cars. It also supports the industry trend of entrusting critical engine operations to ever more sophisticated electronics and microprocessors.

So can we expect an apology from all the politicians and journalists who jumped at the chance to dump all over Toyota? Perhaps we could haveCongressional hearings in which the hacks publicly explain why they dumped on Toyota when it was pretty obvious that this was a rerun of the Audi 5000 hysteria.

UPDATE: More history here.

We know what works: Texas. We know what doesn't: California. Any questions?

Mark Hemingway has a fascinating column comparing flourishing Texas to tanking California.  Some of the most provocative bits:

Texas is home to 64 Fortune 500 companies -- more than any other state in the union. (California has 51 and New York has 56.) For five years in a row, Texas has topped Chief Executive magazine's poll of the best state to do business.

So why are businesses flocking to Texas and fleeing California? Well, as a recent headline from The Economist put it, in California "They paved paradise and put up the parking taxes."

The decline in tax revenues from households making over $200,000 accounts for 93 percent of California's total decline in tax revenues since 2007

While high-tax states like California are foundering, not-tax states are thriving. From 1997 to 2008, Texas and the other nine states with no personal income tax created 89 percent more jobs and had 32 percent faster personal income growth.

The lessons learned from California's progressive taxation apply to the whole country. A 2008 survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found "taxation is most progressively distributed in the United States" -- even more so than socialist Europe.

Anyone who's ever been to both states knows that California has all of the physical advantages.  Indeed, with high tech and entertainment, it has the industrial advantages.  To screw that up you really have to try.  It's like the Californian corporatists wanted to create an object lesson in the disastrous consequences of left think.  Read the whole thing.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/02/california-taxes-away-jobs-while-texas-adds-them#ixzz1DTFrqoRT

Sometimes one struggles to see what is right in front of you

Megan McCardle on the 'struggles' of left academics (is there any other kind) to recognize their towering bias.  Hat tip, the ever excellent Instapundit.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON UNBIASING ACADEMIA: “Trying to be more conscious of one’s own bias, and even to attempt to work against it, should not be such a hard task for people as brilliant, open-minded, and committed to equality and social justice as I keep hearing that liberal academics are. So it doesn’t really seem like so much to ask.”

Indeed

Hat tip my good friend Al Colby

Why doesn't this surprise me?

The Dallas District of the Fed leads all others in employment growth.  By a wide margin.  Look how badly the San Francisco (West Coast) district has tanked recently.  In general, the bluer a Fed district is, the bluer their economies are.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Are all of the President's 700+ healthcare waivers unconstitutional?

Of course not.  Barack Obama is a Constitutional 'Scholar'.  Therefore anything that he wants to do is 'Constitutional'.  QED  After all, how can you run a fascist state without executive impunity?  C'mon, work with him on this, guys....

COLUMBIA LAW PROFESSOR PHIL HAMBURGER: Are ObamaCare Waivers Unconstitutional? “The president cannot simply decide who does and does not have to follow the law.” But mama, that’s where the fun is.

Tippy the happy hat tipper honors Instapundit

Note: It's a great column - please read if you value a government of laws and fear dictatorship.

New York Times: Sexist Bastards

Most book reviews are by men.  Clearly a premeditated act of oppression by the cruel misogynists at the New York Times.  Damned liberals.

The hidden source of discontent in Egypt: The Corporatist state

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto explains:

"As in most developing countries, Egypt's legal institutions fail the majority of the people. Due to burdensome, discriminatory and just plain bad laws, it is impossible for most people to legalize their property and businesses, no matter how well intentioned they might be.

The examples are legion. To open a small bakery, our investigators found, would take more than 500 days. To get legal title to a vacant piece of land would take more than 10 years of dealing with red tape. To do business in Egypt, an aspiring poor entrepreneur would have to deal with 56 government agencies and repetitive government inspections.

All this helps explain who so many ordinary Egyptians have been "smoldering" for decades. Despite hard work and savings, they can do little to improve their lives."

Cui Bono? The incumbents, credentialed and connected. Corporatism (aka domestic Fascism) as practiced in third world countries or the United States always benefits the powerful. Always. The Tea Party is our attempt to throw off our parasitic overclass.

When President Obama and I lived in Jakarta it was effectively a fascist state. I guess that's where The One learned his 'moves'. Hat tipCarpe Diem.

More on the DLC Follies

UH OH: Bad news: Centrist group collapses after party is captured by ideological extremists. The centrist group is the Democratic Leadership Council, left behind as the Democratic Party apparat moves left, and those in the middle — even if they’re black — are switching to the GOP.

To paraphrase Reagan's surgeon after he was shot:  we're all Republicans now. Thanks for the help, Obami.  Instapundit

Way to cut to the bone

We have a 1.5 trillion dollar budgeted deficit.  Obama's OMB has just proposed $775 million in specific cuts that he is willing to make.  Hat tip National Review

No wonder the DLC is throwing in the towel:  it's hopeless.

They're all Republicans now

The DLC - the 'moderate Democrat' organization founded to combat the leftward drift of the party of the State is out of staff, out of money and out of time.  May close it's doors this week.  Hat tip National Review

The Democratic Leadership Council, the iconic centrist organization of the Clinton years, is out of money and could close its doors as soon as next week, a person familiar with the plans said Monday…  Its website currently leads a Harold Ford op-ed from last November, titled, “Yes we can collaborate.” It lists as its staff just four people, and has only one fellow. Recent tax returns weren’t immediately publicly available, but returns from 2004-2008 show a decline in its budget from $2.6 million to $1.5 million, and a source said funding further dried up during the financial crisis that began nine months before Reed took over.

Egypt's 'revolution' and global Dad

Ben Stein points out that no matter how the Egyptian 'revolution' turns out, the US is going to be unpopular.

Let's take it point by point. No matter how this turns out, it's not going to be good for America. The people in Cairo, Alexandria, and Suez demonstrating against Mubarak are not Jefferson, Madison, and Washington. They are not liberal democrats and believers in universal human rights. In the final analysis, they are not going to be pals of the United States or our only reliable friend in the area, Israel.

Dwight Eisenhower, a genuinely great President, stood up boldly against Israeli, French, and British seizure of the Suez Canal in an effort to befriend Egypt. Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Egyptians responded by kicking us in the teeth every chance they could. If there has been a fundamental change in the Egyptians' attitudes towards the U.S., it has been subtle indeed. Maybe too subtle to be detected.

This is the way it is when you're global dad.  Egypt is an adolescent country and dang it, they just resent us for being dad. Global dad has all the power and money and he's always telling you what to do and he won't leave you alone and every time you do something wrong he gets after you.  Global teens wish global dad would just buzz off.

Unlike the US, other developed countries like the UK or Canada get to play the role of global "uncle".  Uncles are cool and let you do stuff that you shouldn't do and don't tell your dad when you do them.  You like hangin' with uncle Canada.  But of course uncle Canada knows that if he were dad, he'd have to be a lot tougher.  He is secretly thankful that dad as the tough job but also resents his big brother a bit too:  after all global dad is the patriarch of the family and everything important goes through him.

So no matter what happens anywhere global dad knows this for certain:  1. We'll be dragged into the controversy and be expected to sort it out and 2. We'll be blamed by everyone.  For being too harsh and too lenient, for siding with one side or the other, for being wrong or being too right.

But as much as we wish there was, there just isn't anyone else to do the job.  And there are many little ones in this world that need protection from bigger crueler countries.  God gave us a job to do, so it's best we stopped whining and got it done.

Sigh.