College education cost\benefit analysis

Interesting points.

TIM CARNEY: In which I give in to Obama’s Nixonian demands on what the medi...

"...Obama doesn't act presidential. Presidents act presidential not because they're stuffy or out-of-touch, but because experience shows that when you don't act presidential, it often winds up handing opponents a club to beat you with. Obama might know this if he had had significant experience in national politics before running for President, but he didn't."

 

 

Sent to you by tom via Google Reader:

 

 

TIM CARNEY: In which I give in to Obama’s Nixonian demands on what the media should cover. Relat…

via Instapundit by Glenn Reynolds on 5/19/11

TIM CARNEY: In which I give in to Obama's Nixonian demands on what the media should cover.

Related: White House Snub Makes Boston Herald Gleeful. "Talk about handing your opponents a club to beat you with. . . . How foolish of the White House to play that game — and how dumb of the White House to get beaten at it."

As I have pointed out repeatedly, Obama doesn't act presidential. Presidents act presidential not because they're stuffy or out-of-touch, but because experience shows that when you don't act presidential, it often winds up handing opponents a club to beat you with. Obama might know this if he had had significant experience in national politics before running for President, but he didn't. His staff, alas, is taking its cues from him, instead of remedying his deficiencies.

 

 

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I guess I have to give them credit

for not pretending to be unbiased ... but it's hard not to laugh at this:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

Finally, a 'trustworthy encyclopedia'.

Romneycare a big bust

... as a political policy, Romneycare is nearly unparalleled in Republican history. It has destroyed one front-runner's presidential hopes (Romney's) and helped undermine an entire presidency. For, as Barack Obama's supporters keep reminding us, Romneycare was the precursor to Obamacare.

Link. 

English school principal announces zero tolerance for mismatched socks

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/LkiivuMV6RA/english-school-princ.html

Disturbing Doings in Wisconsin

The union-led effort is an outgrowth of a boycott campaign by the Wisconsin Professional Police Association and other unions in which M&I Bank and Kwik Trip were targeted because either the companies themselves or their executives supported Gov. Scott Walker's budget initiatives.

From here.

What exactly does it mean when the police boycott your business?
Nothing good, I think.
And that's why police unions seem like a bad idea to me.

At the cemetery

The sun was warm on our faces and shoulders. Old men in crisp uniforms moved deliberately or stood respectfully. My grandfather's children, my Mom and her brother and sister, sat with their spouses under the blue velvet funeral home tent. Two of the veterans ceremoniously unfolded a flag and held it as if over a casket, although there was no casket, only a slate gray urn holding Granddaddy's ashes.
When all was ready, an ancient marine, leaning on a cane, spoke with practiced eloquence of the nation's gratitude and of debts owed to its young men sent to foreign lands to fight for liberty. His voice was strong and his Appalachian accent made a kind of music of his speech.
A military chaplain prayed briefly and then warned us about the salute that would follow. Rifle shots echoed among the hills. Into the silence that followed poured the sound of Taps played on trumpet and bagpipes. The song was beautiful and haunting and perfect.
The two soldiers holding the flag refolded it and presented it to my Uncle. The marine who had spoken first turned the remainder of the service over to the ministers who spoke of dust and ashes and loss and peace.
And then it was over.
People stood for a moment and then gradually mingled and wandered and more gradually made their ways to cars and trucks and then away.

Heinlein says

Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.

Greatest time-suck

of all time.

"Forget Mandarin, Latin is the key to success"

"No doubt some people will persist in questioning the usefulness of Latin. For these skeptics I have a two-word answer: Mark Zuckerberg. The 26-year-old founder of Facebook studied Classics at Phillips Exeter Academy and listed Latin as one of the languages he spoke on his Harvard application. So keen is he on the subject, he once quoted lines from the Aeneid during a Facebook product conference and now regards Latin as one of the keys to his success. Just how successful is he? According to Forbes magazine, he's worth $6.9 billion. If that isn't a useful skill, I don't know what is. "
Read the rest.

Chris Christie

Speaking the hard truth.

How Many Real Rubes Were There?

Good question.

British backing away from nationalised health care

AS WE MOVE TOWARD THE BRITISH MODEL, THE BRITISH MOVE AWAY: UK Government Plans Major Health Care Reform. "The British leader, whose Conservative Party heads the country's coalition government, said he would save money and cut red tape by giving control over management to family practitioners rather than bureaucrats, and allow private companies, charities and social enterprises to bid for contracts within the public health service." Is there a lesson here?

from Instapundit

Really?

even the most inaccurate and excessive rhetoric on the left these days doesn't invoke violence

Scroll down to the pictures collected here, and try to tell me that with a straight face.

Or do what I did and google "Anti-bush signs" and then "Anti-obama signs" and compare the results. One search returns - to my mind, at least - much more violent imagery. Judge for yourself.

Looking back on movies of 2010

Good stuff.

If You Did Not Cry, You Are Made of Stone: The end of Toy Story 3

Obama wallet

This is funny.

blog has sent you a link

blog thought you'd be interested in the following article at Reason
Magazine:

Easy Money For College Can Mess You Up, Man.
http://reason.com/blog/2010/12/27/the-higher-ed-bubble-plus-kath

Michael Moore banned in Cuba

His movie, Sicko, supposedly depicted the superior medical system available under the Communist government of Cuba as opposed to the deficiencies of the capitalist system in the United States.

So a little ironic that his movie won't be shown in Cuba.

Castro's government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it "knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them." …

The info is from Wikileaks. The story from The Guardian 

...the only way a Cuban can get access to the hospital [depicted in Moore's movie] is through a bribe or contacts inside the hospital administration. "Cubans are reportedly very resentful that the best hospital in Havana is 'off-limits' to them," the memo reveals.

Yep, that sounds like a Communist model. Politics - who you know - determines who receives the best care. 

By its fruit, the tree is known.

Great discussion of Communism vs. Nazism at Instapundit.
One excerpt:

I'll repeat: The difference between Communists and Nazis is mostly PR, and the PR is better because more journalists and academics were communists than Nazis.

And reader Michael Ravine notes what Robert Heinlein said about communism: "I regard it as Red fascism, distinguishable from black and brown fascism by differences of no importance to me nor to its victims."

Some Communist apologists appear and are rebuked.

If California is the future of the nation ...

It doesn't look good.

Here's an anecdotal analysis from a longtime Californian.

It's a longer piece but it reads well. One bit I'll excerpt (but it's worth reading all)

Fresno's California State University campus is embroiled in controversy over the student body president's announcing that he is an illegal alien, with all the requisite protests in favor of the DREAM Act. I won't comment on the legislation per se, but again only note the anomaly. I taught at CSUF for 21 years. I think it fair to say that the predominant theme of the Chicano and Latin American Studies program's sizable curriculum was a fuzzy American culpability. By that I mean that students in those classes heard of the sins of America more often than its attractions. In my home town, Mexican flag decals on car windows are far more common than their American counterparts.

I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now terrified of being deported to Mexico. I can understand that, given the chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States. But here is what still confuses me: If one were to consider the classes that deal with Mexico at the university, or the visible displays of national chauvinism, then one might conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive and moral place than the United States.

So there is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, "Please do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate." I think the DREAM Act protestors might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What it is about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to the place of his birth?