Beware the bounce

The chattering hens on The View said in the wake of Osama bin Laden being killed that they might as well not even hold the 2012 election, because after taking down bin Laden, Obama guaranteed his reelection then and there.

Not so fast. I guess one of the easier things about being a leftist is that history always begins today. How quickly these ladies forget that high approval ratings now, can mean jack-diddly a year later.

Just ask George H.W. Bush. In March 1991, after an overwhelming U.S. victory in the Persian Gulf War, President Bush enjoyed an approval rating pegged at right around 90%. By November 1992, George H.W. Bush received only 38% of the popular vote and lost his reelection bid to Billy Jeff Clinton. This is because GHW Bush may have had his shining moment during the Gulf War, but too many other issues, such as going back on his "read my lips" no-tax pledge, sank him in the end.

I haven't studiously checked to see what kind of bounce in the polls Obama has received in the wake of bin Laden's killing, but from what I have read, it isn't much. Whatever bounce he does receive, keep in mind that just a few days ago, his poll numbers were not dropping like a rock because he had not yet found Osama bin Laden. Gas prices still stink and are getting stinkier, unemployment is still tragically high, ObamaCare is still wildly unpopular, and Obama seems to be fulfilling his promise to make sure that "electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket."

Put all that together, and I can easily surmise that by November 2012, Osama bin Laden will be way off people's radar screens, but the hits to their pocketbook - courtesy of our fascist-leaning president - will not be.

On the other hand, the Republicans need to field a candidate who can actually win. Good luck with that one.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

What does Nancy Pelosi think about taking out Osama bin Laden?

Well, I guess that depends on who the President of the United States happens to be at the time. I saw this incredible piece of juxtaposition on the website of Commentary Magazine, and I had to run it here, because this woman has some chutzpah.

Here is what Nancy Pelosi said during a press conference on September 7, 2006:

[E]ven if [Osama bin Laden] is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done . . . is done. And even to capture him now I don’t think makes us any safer.

Hmm, let's take a look at what Pelosi said just the other day in the aftermath of Osama's killing, and with her fellow Democrat Obama at the helm:

The death of Osama bin Laden marks the most significant development in our fight against al-Qaida. . . . I salute President Obama, his national security team, Director Panetta, our men and women in the intelligence community and military, and other nations who supported this effort for their leadership in achieving this major accomplishment. . . . [T]he death of Osama bin Laden is historic. . . .

And then the little two-faced backstabber called former-President Bush and congratulated him on his role in getting bin Laden:

Pelosi said she thought Bush appreciated the call.

“I wanted him to know the appreciation that many of us have in a bipartisan way ... that his role was important," she said.

The woman is just unbelievable. How can she stand to look at herself in the mirror?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

American women are giving it the old college try

In the United States, there are now more women attaining college degrees than men.

According to figures from the Associated Press, American women hold 10.6 million Masters Degrees to the mens' 10.5 million. For Bachelors Degrees, it stands at women: 20.1 million versus men: 18.7 million.

With that in mind, the hysteric questions always seem to immediately get thrown out there, asking why women make less than men if women are going to college more, receiving, on average, 77 cents for every one dollar earned by a man.

The important piece of the puzzle that the article does not address however is what those degrees are in. Reason Magazine has a wonderfully succinct article that fills in the holes and explains why men earn more average pay than women.

For instance:

But read more, and you learn things that don't get much notice on Equal Pay Day. As the report acknowledges, women with college degrees tend to go into fields like education, psychology and the humanities, which typically pay less than the sectors preferred by men, such as engineering, math and business. They are also more likely than men to work for nonprofit groups and local governments, which do not offer salaries that Alex Rodriguez would envy.

As they get older, many women elect to work less so they can spend time with their children. A decade after graduation, 39 percent of women are out of the work force or working part time -- compared with only 3 percent of men. When these mothers return to full-time jobs, they naturally earn less than they would have if they had never left.

My wife is a prime example of this. She is an elementary school teacher, and has been employed in that capacity since 1995. However, she does not get paid for that many years of teaching because she took a few years off to stay home with our children during their infant and toddler years. I, on the other hand, haven't taught as many years as she, but I continue to accrue seniority at an unbroken pace because I never took any years off after our kids were born.

In the meantime, the males of this country need to get their act together and start going to college again.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Tell me again why I live in California?

The title of the article says it all:

22 Facts About California That Make You Wonder Why Anyone Would Still Want To Live In That Hellhole Of A State

Some of those facts are rather regional, such as Oakland's police department having to disregard certain calls due to budget cuts. But I will list three more relevant facts to get you started:

#3 The state of California currently has the third highest state income tax in the nation: a 9.55% tax bracket at $47,055 and a 10.55% bracket at $1,000,000.

#4 California has the highest state sales tax rate in the nation by far at 8.25%. Indiana has the next highest at 7%.

#5 Residents of California pay the highest gasoline taxes (over 67 cents per gallon) in the United States.

The statists, environmentalists, and anti-business fanatics have taken this beautiful state and flushed it right down the toilet. It's a damn shame.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

I'm thinking this guy got beaten up a lot when he was a kid

He probably also received quite a few head swirlies in the boys' bathroom toilets, along with quite a few wedgies as well. Not to mention, he probably deserved every one of them.

Washington Times reporter Kerry Pickett was attending a recent presser where the mayor of D.C. was explaining why he opposed any school voucher program being implemented in the District. Pickett's earlier questions to the mayor (that had already been asked when the following footage began) obviously riled some in attendance, especially the pasty-faced second guy who literally looks like he just crawled out from under a rock and pipes up in this video footage from Pickett, who had her camera rolling during the event.

Kudos to Pickett for keeping her cool, as it made this insufferable so-called man increasingly hostile and obnoxious. Watch if you can stand it:



When I took psychology in college, I learned about something called projection. That is where you take your psychological defects and attribute them to your opponent. The Left is quite adept at doing this, and this creature is no different.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The planet they would save depends on which planet they are from

Brian Sussman, the morning talk host from conservative radio station KSFO in San Francisco (yes, there are conservatives in the Bay Area!) took a little trip down to Santa Cruz and went undercover at an Earth Day Fair being held in that hippie hot spot.

He went around with a video camera and asked some of the attendees a simple question:

"How can we save the planet?"

The answers, appearance, and vacant cult-like countenances of the interviewees is something to behold. I sat there in disbelief that people like this and people like myself actually live on the same planet.

Behold:



"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

TSA: Freedom of Speech, just watch what you say

So what helps TSA officials at the airport decide who to pick out of line for a goosing and who to let slide by?

Here's one indicator that will send up a red flag: Displays arrogance and verbally expresses contempt for the screening process.

CNN has a refreshingly candid story about this lesson in keeping your feelings about our all-powerful benevolent government to yourself if you know what's good for you.

Yup, uttering your disgust at watching your fellow passengers get the reach-around from TSA goons will likely get you a molestation session of your own.

Gosh, it makes me wonder what this six year-old girl said right before her lesson in the birds and the bees, courtesy of the TSA.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Tax Day TEA Party Rally - Cal Expo, Sacramento

Tomorrow (Saturday, April 16, 2011) from Noon to 3pm, there will be a TEA Party event being held at Cal Expo in Sacramento.

My son has a baseball game in the late morning, so I will be showing up late to the Party, but I do plan on attending. I will be wearing a gold t-shirt with a coiled DONT TREAD ON ME snake on the front and back. Don't be afraid to say howdy; I don't bite. However, I will most likely have both my kids with me, and they do bite. I'm just kidding. Not really.

For more information on tomorrow's rally, click here.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

It's the most... wonderful tiiiime... of the yeeeeear!

It's April 15th, and you know what that means, kids: It's Tax Day!

If you haven't already done so, it's time to pull out those checkbooks and hand over your blood, sweat, and tears to Uncle Sugar!

And if you were "fortunate" enough to receive a refund this year, remember not to get too giddy. Keep in mind that you still paid a fortune in income taxes; the refund is just the amount that the feds overcharged you. So instead of you having access to that money, where it could have been sitting in an interest-bearing account, it was instead residing with the federal government, where they were enjoying your little interest-bearing loan for a few months! My wife and I took a good-sized chunk of our refund and bought silver with it, but we had to wait for the refund. If we had access to the money earlier, we could have bought the silver at a much lower price. As it is, silver has gone up by $8 and ounce since we purchased ours at the beginning of March.

It does my heart well to think of President Obama's deficit speech from the other day and think about what he and his fellow kleptocrats in the Congress want to do with our hard-earned money.

Today's festivities arrive just three days after this year's version of Tax Freedom Day, which is the date when we have worked long enough to earn the money to pay off our local, state, and federal taxes. Hope you enjoyed working all of January, February, March, and half of April just to pay off the Man.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Loretta Sanchez steps in it again

I have previously written about the racist ranting of California congresscritter Loretta Sanchez in the days leading up to the 2010 mid-terms when her seat was on the line with a challenge from California state legislator Van Tran. Sanchez ultimately prevailed in her reelection, but not before using racist scare tactics by going on a Spanish language television station and informing viewers that the Vietnamese were trying to take her Hispanic congressional seat.

Now Sanchez is back, and this time, she not only reinforces her racist bonafides, but she also proves how ignorant she is of the Constitution.

While being interviewed in friendly radio territory by ultra-statist host Stephanie Miller, Sanchez went off on her Republican colleagues, complaining that they think everything she wants to do is unconstitutional, and then making fun of them by joining in with Miller by speaking with a stereotypical southern redneck accent.

Listen for yourself:



Stay classy, Loretta.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

California Teachers Association is planning on pulling a Wisconsin

Yet another reason that I am proud to proclaim that although I am a California teacher, I am not a member of the California Teachers Association (CTA). If I still was, my dues money would still be going to pay for what is scheduled to take place next month.

Although the infantile behavior by the public employee unions in Wisconsin was ultimately unsuccessful in achieving their goals, it seems that their California counterparts think they will prevail. Seeing as how California is in the grip of the political left in a way that Wisconsin is not, the CTA and their cohorts in the state's public employee unions are probably right.

The CTA has a plethora of activities planned for the week of May 9-13 of this year. To get a handle on all the fun, check out their online flyer that gives a day-by-day breakdown of their plans. My favorite is their quest for at least 300 volunteers to participate in a sit-in at California's capitol building in downtown Sacramento, with the sit-in scheduled to last throughout the week.

Seeing as how my teaching location is not too far from downtown, I will look into going down to the capitol after I get off work to see if I can record anything of note with my Flip camera.

I am a teacher in this state, and believe me, the budget affects me directly. That being said, I cannot agree with my fellow teachers and their precious union that there is not enough money in this state going toward education; there is plenty of money. The problem is that California's education budget is grossly misappropriated, mismanaged, and generally wasted away down countless bureaucratic black holes.

I will provide more information about this week-long event as it becomes available.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

So do "the rich" pay their fair share?

President Obama made it very clear in his campaign speech last night that he thinks that "the rich" are getting off easy in our economy. He even said that they can afford to, "pay a little more."

So how much exactly are they paying right now? It just so happens that the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) has the breakdown of who pays what when comes to our income taxes:

• The top 1 percent of taxpayers pay 38 percent of all the income taxes despite having just 20 percent of the income.
• The top 10 percent of taxpayers pay 70 percent of the income tax while having just 46 percent of the income.
• At the other end, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers pay just 2.7 percent of the income tax while having 13 percent of the income.

So percentage-wise, the people who are getting off the easiest are the people who Obama calls "the less fortunate."

My question is - and people like Obama never seem to have the answer - how much is enough? Exactly how much should we tax the rich? It is always described as, in the words of Obama, "a little more." How much more?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

My thoughts on last night's Obama campaign speech

You bet I called it a campaign speech. Just days after our Dear Leader made it official that he is going for another four years in the 2012 election, he came out last night and gave a speech that had all the right class warfare buzzwords and appealed to the basest emotions of his silly supporters who seem to never stop thinking of how they can get something for nothing.

Since I can no longer bear to listen to that lisping, clipped way of speaking at which our Dear Leader excels, I went to the White House's website this morning where last night's campaign speech is posted and I read what Obama had to say - and boy did he say a lot!

Just a few fisking comments about his rhetoric, and any emphasis you see is mine. First he sets us up with something people on my side can agree with:

From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America’s wealth and prosperity. More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.

Not bad except for using the word "faith." Having faith means you believe something is so, even though you have no evidence of it. Sorry, but that does not apply to our adherence to a free market system. But why quibble about a single word? After Obama sets us up with trying to find common ground with us conservative free-market people, he then slams down the big "But":

We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff may strike any one of us. “There but for the grace of God go I,” we say to ourselves. And so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, those with disabilities. We’re a better country because of these commitments. I’ll go further. We would not be a great country without those commitments.

First off, we don't "contribute" to these federal social programs; our so-called contributions are forcibly taken from us by the government simply because we draw a paycheck. As bad as the use of that word is, this paragraph ends with the end all, beat all of Obama's life philosophy, and the philosophy of so many statists of the political left. Obama thinks this country is great because of government, not because of our reputation as rugged individualists who exhibit self-reliance. What Obama failed to mention is that even though billions, if not trillions, of our tax dollars are forcibly taken from us in the name of government-mandated charity, we Americans are still the most generous people on the planet when it comes to giving to charity of our own free will. Imagine how much more we could give if our money wasn't first taken and squandered by an inefficient government.

My next point of contention comes when Obama said the following:

Now, for much of the last century, our nation found a way to afford these investments and priorities with the taxes paid by its citizens. As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally borne a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. Everybody pays, but the wealthier have borne a little more. This is not because we begrudge those who’ve done well -– we rightly celebrate their success. Instead, it’s a basic reflection of our belief that those who’ve benefited most from our way of life can afford to give back a little bit more. Moreover, this belief hasn’t hindered the success of those at the top of the income scale. They continue to do better and better with each passing year.

Seriously? Our nation found a way to afford these "investments"? Looking at our current national debt, I don't think that statement is very accurate, do you? And then Obama goes deep into the tried-and-true cliches of the class-warfare rhetoric. First he mentions "fairness." Apparently, it's not fair that some people make more than others. What, does he think a ditch digger should make the same income as a brain surgeon? Next he throws in the term "less fortunate." I am not a wealthy man, however my family and I live rather comfortably. This is not because I am simply "fortunate," - read "lucky." I worked my caboose off and risked my life in the military to gain the financial resources to pay for the opportunity to work my caboose off to finish a B.A, a teaching credential, and an M.A, so I could work my caboose off on a daily basis as I attempt to teach the next generation. All this did not happen from luck. It happened from conscious effort and preparation. After explaining all of that, it then makes no sense that if I give to charity to help those that Obama calls "less fortunate," I am not "giving back" to anyone. I am simply giving. To "give back," as Obama calls it, implies that I took something from someone else in the first place. I did no such thing, and I take offense when someone uses that term.

Now, we move to Obama's misinformation on the Bush tax cuts:

But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed. We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program -– but we didn’t pay for any of this new spending. Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts -– tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade.

How exactly does government "pay for" a tax cut, unless the government believes that all our income is theirs to begin with, and the government is simply letting us keep part of what we make in income? Not to mention, the Bush tax cuts did not reduce revenues to the government, in fact, revenues from income taxes increased after the tax cuts were implemented. Unfortunately, what also increased at an even greater rate was government spending, which outstripped the rise in revenues. And yes you can "thank" George W. Bush for that, even though the spending increases on which he signed off absolutely pale in comparison to what Obama has approved. Bottom line folks - and our governments at all levels are loathe to tell you this - we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

Next:

It’s a vision [of the Republicans] that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. Who are these 50 million Americans? Many are somebody’s grandparents -- may be one of yours -- who wouldn’t be able to afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some of these kids with disabilities are -- the disabilities are so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.

And worst of all, this is a vision that says even though Americans can’t afford to invest in education at current levels, or clean energy, even though we can’t afford to maintain our commitment on Medicare and Medicaid, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about that.

Everything that Obama just mentioned - and that I bolded - that he thinks it would be horrible if funding was reduced is unconstitutional for the federal government to fund. Those are all state functions. You can scream all you want about how the cow has already been let out of the barn on these federal functions, but I'm sorry, these are all state functions, not federal ones.

One last critique:

Indeed, to those in my own party, I say that if we truly believe in a progressive vision of our society, we have an obligation to prove that we can afford our commitments. If we believe the government can make a difference in people’s lives, we have the obligation to prove that it works -– by making government smarter, and leaner and more effective.

You want to know how the government can make a difference in people's lives? By getting out of the way, letting us live our lives without meddling in them, and only intervene if some people's actions are resulting in some sort of injury, be it physical or property.

There is plenty more of this speech I could dissect, but this post is already way too long. It just goes to show how off-base I believe our Dear Leader to be.

Hopefully, on January 20, 2013, we won't have to worry about speeches like these any longer.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Sowell's take on solving our budget crisis

I do love me some Thomas Sowell. In another outstanding column, he gives a criticism-proof plan of how to seriously reduce our deficits by cutting spending. When conservatives talk of cutting government spending, out come the usual canards from the Harry Reids and Nancy Pelosis of the world about how these spending cuts will kill children and the elderly.

Not so with Sowell's plan:

My plan would start by cutting off all government transfer payments to billionaires. Many, if not most, people are probably unaware that the government is handing out the taxpayers' money to billionaires. But agricultural subsidies go to a number of billionaires. Very little goes to the ordinary farmer.

Big corporations also get big bucks from the government, not only in agricultural subsidies but also in the name of "green" policies, in the name of "alternative energy" policies and in the name of whatever else will rationalize shoveling the taxpayers' money out the door to whomever the administration designates, for its own political reasons.

The usual political counterattacks against spending cuts will not work against this new kind of spending-cut approach. How many heart-rending stories can the media run about billionaires who have lost their handouts from the taxpayers? How many tears will be shed if General Motors gets dumped off the gravy train?

It would also be eye-opening to many people to discover how much government money is going into subsidizing all sorts of things that have nothing to do with helping "the poor" or protecting the public. This would include government-subsidized insurance for posh and pricey coastal resorts, located too dangerously close to the ocean for a private insurance company to risk insuring them.

This approach would not only circumvent the sob stories, it would also circumvent the ideological battles over whether to cut off money to Planned Parenthood or National Public Radio.

The money to be saved by cutting off agricultural subsidies to the wealthy and the big corporations is vastly greater than the money to be saved by cutting off Planned Parenthood or National Public Radio, much as they both deserve to be cut off....

By all means, read the rest!

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

California Federation of Teachers sets its priorities by passing a resolution supporting a cop-killer

I have to admit, I am more familiar with the work of the California Teachers Association (CTA), but apparently, there is also a California Federation of Teachers (CFT). During their recent annual convention, the CFT got down to business and approved a resolution where they expressed their support for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the perennial death row inmate who in 1982 was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

In the almost 30 years since Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook) was sentenced to death, he has become a cultish cause celebre for the Loony Left. People like these morons at the CFT are convinced that Mumia Abu Jamal is innocent of his crime and that he is a political prisoner.

Just check out their resolution:

Resolution 19

Reaffirm support for death row journalist
Mumia Abu-Jama

Whereas, Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial in Philadelphia was characterized by illegal suppression of evidence, police coercion, illegal exclusion of black jurors, and unfair and unconstitutional rulings by
the judge; and

Whereas, the trial judge, Albert Sabo, has been quoted in a sworn statement to have vowed at the time of the trial to help the prosecution ‘fry the n-----;’ and

Whereas, subsequent appellate rulings have bent the law out of shape to sustain the guilty verdict of that trial; and

Whereas, the appellate courts have also refused to consider strong evidence of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s innocence that has emerged continuously in the years subsequent to the trial; and

Whereas, the U.S. Supreme Court, in denying relief to Mumia Abu-Jamal, ignored key precedents such as its own ruling in Batson v Kentucky, which was supposed to prevent exclusion of jurors on the basis of race; and
Whereas, Mumia Abu-Jamal still is incarcerated on Death Row while awaiting a decision from the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals that could remove a stay on his execution; and

Whereas, Mumia Abu-Jamal has for decades as a journalist fought courageously against racism and police brutality and for the human rights of all people and has taken strong stands in support of working people involved in labor struggles and in support of well-funded, quality, public education;
and

Whereas, the continued unjust incarceration of Mumia Abu-Jamal represents a threat to the civil rights of all people; and
Whereas, the CFT has at a previous Convention voiced its support for justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal;

Therefore, be it resolved, that the California Federation of Teachers reaffirm its support and demand that the courts consider the evidence of innocence of Mumia Abu-Jamal; and

Be it further resolved, that the CFT introduce and advocate on behalf of a resolution at the 2012 AFT Convention reaffirming the AFT’s support for justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal should he not have been cleared of charges and released by that time.

If you just read that and nothing else, you might think that this poor guy got railroaded. But then of course, there is the other side of the story. These BS myths put forward by the CST and the rest of the "Free Mumia" crowd are thoroughly debunked here in case you are interested.

In the meantime, while our educational system is falling down in ruins around us, this is what our teachers are focusing on. It is crap like this that sometimes makes me ashamed to tell people I am a teacher.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The War Between the States: 150 years later

On this day 150 years ago - April 12, 1861 - South Carolina artillerymen opened fire on Fort Sumter, a federal installation on an island in Charleston Harbor. The War Between the States was underway.

Almost exactly 4 years later - April 9, 1865 - Robert E. Lee would surrender to Ulysses S. Grant, thus effectively ending the war. In that four-year period, 620,000 Americans - from both North and South - would perish. That number is roughly equal to the number of Americans killed in World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, combined. It boggles the mind.

The outcome of the War Between the States was an incredibly strengthened federal government that showed once and for all that it was superior to the individual states, even though it was the states that had created the federal government - Frankenstein's monster turning on the good doctor, if you will. By the way, you notice that I call this conflict "The War Between the States." I do this because as easy as it is to simply refer to it as the Civil War, technically, it was no such thing. A true civil war is when two factions are fighting for control of the national government. However, the Confederates were not trying to march into Washington D.C. and take over the federal government - in fact quite the opposite. They were trying to break away from the United States. You could even more accurately call this war the War for Southern Independence. Even if you disagree with the cause for which the South was fighting for independence, that doesn't change the fact that this was the outcome for which they were fighting.

I freely acknowledge that the situation in North America would have been detestable if the Confederacy had prevailed in this war - slavery would have most likely lasted a couple more decades, for instance - but as fashionable as it may be to unquestionably cheer a Union victory, an honest student of history must acknowledge that with the victory going to the federal leviathan, the damage done to our individual freedoms across this entire nation cannot be overlooked.

From the moment the War ended, the term "states rights" has been considered a code word for slavery and racism. We see this today when individual states attempt to push back against the mandates our federal government places upon them, and the first thing we hear from the federal government-loving statists out there is that it is racist for a state to assert its rights, even if the issue - like health care - has nothing to do with race.

The War Between the States came down to an impossible choice between the excesses of the individual southern states, and the excesses of the federal government. The difference however is that if an individual state becomes too oppressive, one can always move to a less-oppressive state, or the other states can put pressure on the offending state(s). However, when the federal government reigns over us all, there is nowhere to run.

The Confederacy learned this lesson the hard way.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Obama insults townhall questioners

I don't know how to more delicately say this: our president is an asshole... at least to the people from whom he took questions during a townhall meeting in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, April 6th.

Seriously, listen how he talks down to and insults these people:



The man is an embarrassment.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Wanna feel *this* small and meaningless?

Watch this simulation of what would happen if a 300 mile-wide asteroid hit the earth. Apparently, it happened before, as recently as 4 billion years ago.

If 10 minutes is too much for you, the first 2 or 3 minutes will give you plenty to ponder.

Yeesh.



"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Obvious question of the day about the impending government "shutdown"

So the U.S. government is scheduled to shut down come this Friday at Midnight if an agreement between the House, Senate, and President is not reached.

If you read a little deeper, you will find that the government will not actually shut down. What will happen is that non-essential federal employees will be sent home.

According to this article from Reuters, these employees are not to do any work from home. They are not to use government-owned Blackberries, laptops, or any other such equipment.

You probably know where this is going, so go there I will. If these employees are so non-essential that they can go home and not work, and the government will run without them, then why do we need them?

The Reuters article pegs at 800,000 the number of non-essential employees who would be sent home as a result of the so-called government shutdown.

I am not a math whiz, but I took that number and multiplied it by $81,258. That represents the average salary of a federal employee that I found cited at Factcheck.org.

The resulting dollar amount is $65,006,400,000. If that many numerals confuse you, we are talking just over $65 billion. It is a rather small amount in the Age of Obama, where our latest annual deficit is $1.65 trillion, but keep in mind that once upon a time, way back during the G.W. Bush presidency, $65 billion represented about one-half to one-third of one of his budget deficits. I figure $65 billion would be as good place as any to start cutting our deficits and slash spending. Let these non-essential employees find a job out there where they would be found to be essential.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

American military abides by Sharia law in Afghanistan by "encouraging" our female soldiers to wear the hijab

Take a good long look at that picture. Those are American servicewomen wearing one of the main symbols of Muslim oppression of women. To read more on this travesty, I highly suggest you take a look at this article from the Daily Caller (see blogroll).

While our female soldiers are merely "encouraged" to wear this headpiece when appropriate, I can see the writing on the wall. Having served 12 years in the U.S. Army, I can assure you that when were "encouraged" to do something, it meant, "do it."

Cultural and mysoginistic issues aside, if I was walking around Afghanistan, where bullets or IEDs could erupt at any second, I would much rather be wearing my kevlar brain bucket than a thin piece of cloth. On so many levels, this is a case of sacrificing our female soldiers on the altar of political correctness, including having many of them there in the first place. We still have a rule against putting our women into combat, however, the military has found ways around that rule by not putting our female soldiers into combat units like infantry and artillery, but putting them into designated non-combat units that are then sent into combat situations.

Disagree with me about female roles in our military if you like, but I can't see how you can defend forcing our female soldiers into the Islamic hijab.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

California's high speed rail boondoggle just got more boondoggle-y

I shook my head with amazed disgust back in 2008 when the voters of California approved a $10 billion dollar bond measure that would fund the construction of a high-speed rail system in our late, great state. Keep in mind that this $10 billion dollars was really nothing more than a down payment. Once construction was approved, then the real costs would start to pile up.

According to the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Reason Foundation, the projected cost for the San Francisco to Los Angeles line has already risen from $33B to $43B, with the $7B spur to Sacramento most likely not even being built now. An S.F-L.A ticket that was formerly estimated to be $55 is now projected to cost $105.

And my favorite statistic: The California High-Speed Rail Authority estimates that ridership would be as high as 117 million passengers a year. To put this overblown number into perspective, the Amtrak line that serves the corridor connecting Boston-New York-Washington D.C. serves just 3 million passengers a year, and the entire Amtrak system around the entire country serves just 27 million.

That's OK, though. California is in great financial shape. We can afford these losses. /sarc

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The New Untouchables

When I hear the word "untouchables," I think of two things: the 1987 movie starring Kevin Costner and Sean Connery, and the term for people in India who lived at the bottom of the caste system.

Now I have a third association with this word, and it's not a good one.

One morning a couple of weeks ago, a colleague of mine - a science teacher - came down to my end of the building and shot the breeze with me a bit. He has lived all over the world, and he likes to come to my classroom to ogle my 8' x 13' map on my wall. We were discussing the rapid deterioration of the behavior of many of our students. He told me that one cause of our behavior problems was from a hard-core group of students about whom he talked with the VP in charge of discipline. The VP told him that this small group of students - about 5 of them - were "untouchable." Word had come down from on high (the District Office, or D.O.) that they couldn't be expelled, they couldn't be suspended, they could not be disciplined in any meaningful way. When I asked why, my colleague didn't know exactly. Our best guess was that these students are special ed, and it is written into their Individual Education Plan (IEP) that their bad behavior is caused by their disability.

Fast forward to my bus duty after school today. As I was standing in the big parking area where the buses were lined up, I kept hearing a student in one of the buses yell to another student somewhere, "So-and-so is a bitch!" Then he yelled it again.

Over the eons, teachers have learned that if we want to catch a student doing something he shouldn't, you must first act like you don't see or hear what he is up to, but all the while, you are watching him out of the corner of your eye, waiting to get the visual and/or audio proof you need to nail him. That is what I did in this situation. When he yelled it a second time, I didn't snap my head in his direction and fruitlessly scan the bus windows; instead, I nonchalantly went about my business, but turned my body slightly toward the bus, so I could watch it out of the corner of my eye. Sure enough, a few seconds later, the kid leaned out the window and again let loose with, "So-and-so is a bitch," and then he punctuated this statement with an obscene flickering of his tongue. That was all I needed. I ran up to the bus driver and told her I needed to remove a student. I went to the window at which he was sitting and motioned for him to leave the bus. I then went to the bus door and waited for the kid to come out. Upon his exit, the kid pulled the old, "What did I do?" routine. I told him, "You can't act like that on the bus; you will have to call someone for a ride home."

As we walked toward the admin building, I asked the kid his name, and he said in a faux Hispanic accent, "You can call me 'Chinchito,'" or something to that effect. I asked him two more times what his name was, but all he would say was, "Don't worry about it." I told him that refusing to identify yourself to a staff member would get you a referral and a possible suspension, to which he replied, "I don't care, I hate this school." As we got closer to the admin building, the kid started getting more agitated and began telling me that he was going to go home and wasn't going to follow me to the VP's office. "Besides," he said, "It's after school; you can't do anything to me anyway." So many of our students don't realize that they are under our rules until they get home from school.

The whole walk from the bus to the VP's office, this kid seemed totally and utterly unconcerned about any consequences for what he did on the bus, how he was talking to me, or even what would happen to him when he had to call home to get a ride because he got kicked off the bus. I was soon to find out the source of his non-concern.

We reached the VP's office, and I told the kid to have a seat outside the door. The VP was standing right there, and when he saw who I brought in, he got the strangest look on his face. I told the VP, "I removed him from the bus for doing some nasty stuff, but I don't know who he is because he refused to identify himself."

The VP motioned me to our copy room, and what he told me about made my jaw drop. Rumor was about to become reality. The VP told me, "His name is ******. I can't do anything to him. His IEP says that the way he acts is because of his disability, so once he reaches ten days of suspension for the school year, we can't suspend him anymore. He reached ten days quite a while ago." I interrupted and said, "Is he one of these 'untouchables' that I have heard about?" The VP nodded his head, and I said, "So the rumor is true?" The VP said, "Yep, the rumor is true. The D.O. says we can't touch him."

People ask what is wrong with our educational system in this country? Right there is Exhibit A. When people find out I am a teacher, they often ask me what can be done to fix our educational system, and my primary answer is that we need to return to the concept that to receive a public education is a privilege, not a right.

Teachers, and more importantly, other students must endure disruptive, disrespectful, and dysfunctional kids like this in our classrooms because according to the California Education Code, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, this kid is entitled to a free and appropriate public education. Entitled, mind you. That must change.

I don't give a rip if this kid's behavior is caused by some disability. That means little to the students, the parents of the other students, and staff who must endure his disruptions. If his behavior is so out-of-control that he has become an "untouchable," then that means he needs to go elsewhere, to a special school that is designed to take on kids like him.

Instead, the situation with which we are currently presented regarding kids like this, and others like him, is sheer and utter madness. Only politicians and bureaucrats - especially ones who have never spent any significant time in your typical public school - could come up with a byzantine educational system such as ours.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Republicans help out Obama for his first 2012 campaign ad

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has given us a little slice of genius. You have to admit, the antics of Obama (and Biden) make for quite a target-rich environment. Oops, can I still say, "target"?



"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Celebrating Cesar Chavez: Anti-illegal alien activist

March 31st is Cesar Chavez's birthday. California state workers (but not teachers) are home right now on a state-paid holiday to observe the birthday of the former head of the United Farm Workers.

Two of my fellow teachers at my site are Chicano activists who have a poster in their classrooms that reads No Human is Illegal! They also unsurprisingly revere Cesar Chavez. How ironic that if Cesar Chavez in his heyday had walked into these two classrooms and saw those posters, he would have shaken his head in disgust.

I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating, that when Cesar Chavez was fighting for higher wages and better working conditions for southwestern farm workers, he despised illegal immigration, and went so far as to alert la migra - the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) - about cases of illegal immigrants working in the fields.

In 2005, newspaper columnist Ruben Navarette wrote a piece in which he praised then-President Bush's plan to put 2,000 more Border Patrol officers to work on our southern border. This got Navarette an invitation from the Minutemen to join them at the border. It turns out that Navarette was not a fan of the work of the Minutemen, and he turned down their invitation. But there was more to this story, and in telling it, Navarette fills us in on Chavez's work to curb illegal immigration:

The same column that got me the invitation to join the Minutemen also got me in hot water with some Mexican-American students at San Diego State University...

Here's the ironic part: Despite the fact that Chávez is these days revered among Mexican-American activists, the labor leader in his day was no more tolerant of illegal immigration than the Arizona Minutemen are now. Worried that the hiring of illegal immigrants drove down wages, Chávez – according to numerous historical accounts – instructed union members to call the Immigration and Naturalization Service to report the presence of illegal immigrants in the fields and demand that the agency deport them. UFW officials were even known to picket INS offices to demand a crackdown on illegal immigrants.

And in 1973, in one of the most disgraceful chapters in UFW history, the union set up a "wet line" to prevent Mexican immigrants from entering the United States. Under the guidance of Chávez 's cousin, Manuel, UFW members tried at first to convince the immigrants not to cross. When that didn't work, they physically attacked the immigrants and left some bloody in the process. It happened in the same place that the Minutemen are now planning to gather: the Arizona-Mexico border.

At the time, The Village Voice said that the UFW conducted a "campaign of random terror against anyone hapless enough to fall into its net." In their book, "The Fight in the Fields," Susan Ferris and Ricardo Sandoval recall the border incident and write that the issue of how to deal with the undocumented was "particularly vexing" for Chávez....

What I find vexing is watching all these supporters of illegal immigration yelling "Viva!" to Cesar Chavez, even though he opposed that which they fanatically support.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Holding students accountable for performance on state standards tests

I just got the newest issue (March 2011) of California Educator, the official union rag of the California Teachers Association. Although I am no longer a member of the CTA, my wife still is, so we still receive this sometimes unintentionally humorous magazine.

I must commend them though; they actually ran an article that touched on an important educational topic and didn't totally trash my views, as they are wont to do.

The article in question addresses one of my pet peeves about teacher accountability, and that is state standards tests. Too many members of the public out there do not realize that these tests, which are given every spring and are used to measure the success of a school and its teachers, leave the students more or less unaccountable. Every year, we have to buffalo our students into doing well on the tests by exaggerating or even straight up lying about the importance of the tests on their academic career. In reality, a student doesn't even have to take the test if the parent doesn't want him to, and if the student doesn't take the test, the school is held accountable.

Del Norte High School in Crescent City, California is trying something different. They are going to link student performance on these tests to the students' grades. This from the article:

If students score "proficient" or "advanced" on the California Standards Test (CST), they can raise their semester grade by one level. Students can go from an F to a D, for example, which can mean the difference between failing a class and passing. It's a radical departure from other schools, where students who perform well on standardized tests do not receive any direct benefit and teachers become frustrated by students filling in the bubbles at random.

The article address worries that students will slack off on homework and will depend on their CST performance to save their grade:

...those willing to take such a gamble are in the minority, and... if it does work for students, there's no harm done. "Homework is a learning aid," says [Junior Andrew] Napier. "This system rewards students based on their knowledge, and not on whether they complete meaningless busywork. If you understand the material and do well on your CSTs, what is the point of homework?"

While I will not completely agree with young Mr. Napier on the value of homework, I do agree that test performance should count more toward a final grade than completion of homework. As the article points out, testing out of a subject so you don't have to take a class is common in colleges. In fact, I tested out on several subjects to get my undergraduate degree.

Naturally, not everyone is a fan of Del Norte High's CST policy. Critics include the school's Social Studies department (what do those Social Studies guys know anyway?), some local parents, and the ACLU. The article doesn't do a great job of voicing their objections beyond a quote from one of the Social Studies teachers who "fears that the policy could be unfair to students who are unable to raise their grades."

My feeling on this policy is summed up by Del Norte High's principal, Coleen Parker, who says:

Because the state of California, our legislators, and the governor are holding schools accountable with the use of this exam and it has no bearing on a student's grade, I applaud my teachers for coming up with a way to utilize the scores to bring value of this test to students."

Hear, hear!

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Reagan Assassination Attempt: 30 years ago today

March 30, 1981.

I was in the third grade, and just happened to be home sick that day. I was sitting on the couch in our home in Oakdale, California watching The Price is Right, when the network cut away to a special news bulletin. It was then I saw the famous footage that we can all instantly recognize today:



How different the world would be today if Hinckley and his bullets had found their mark even worse than they had, especially considering the economic success of the Unites States during the 1980s, and the fall of communism in the Soviet Bloc.

As it is, it turns out that Ronald Reagan came much closer to dying that day then many of us realized for many years. I read somewhere recently that by the time he went into surgery, he had lost something like a third of his blood.

In true Ronald Reagan fashion, he managed to utter a memorable quip. Before his doctors began their surgery to remove the .22 caliber bullet from his lung, Reagan famously said to the medical staff, "I hope you're all Republicans."

Never forget that in addition to Reagan, three other people were shot that day. Press Secretary James Brady has never fully recovered from the injuries he received. His brain was permanently damaged by the bullet that entered the left side of his head. Washington D.C. police officer Thomas Delahunty was shot in the shoulder and neck, and took months to recover from his serious wounds. Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, who was not wearing a bulletproof vest, courageously turned his body toward the sound of the gunfire to act as a human shield to President Reagan, and took a bullet in the chest. McCarthy has been credited with saving the President's life.

We all remember those significant news events by which we chart our lives. For my parents, it was Kennedy's assassination. For me it was the Challenger tragedy. For many of us, it is now the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. Before all that, however, my first significant news story that I remember as a child was the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Uh Oh: Dissent is unpatriotic again

That is, of course, now that a Democrat is back in the White House. For eight long years, we were told by indignant, self-righteous statists that protesting or criticizing George W. Bush's actions in Iraq and Afghanistan was a patriotic act. For a reminder, just cue Her Shrillness, Hillary Clinton, who loudly talked about this concept in 2005. Do give a listen to this famous 16-second sound bite before continuing...

Let us fast-forward to 2011.

Now that Barack Obama has jumped in to his own little war in Libya, that whole "dissent is patriotic" thing? Yeah, to hell with that, say the statists.

MSNBC host Cenk Uygur - a more annoying twit you will have trouble finding - declared yesterday that it is "unpatriotic" to oppose Obama's Libya actions. His guest, Democrat congresscritter Gary Ackerman, stated that to criticize Obama regarding Libya is to "cheer for the wrong team."

These people are simply unbelievable.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

"Marchu Talai!"

I have previously blogged about American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan who showed courage and determination in combat and sometimes received our nation's highest award for valor. However, stories like the following help us to remember that our allies in these wars have outstanding men serving in their armed forces as well.

Read the story of Sergeant Dipprasad Pun, a member of a British Ghurka regiment serving in Afghanistan. Last summer, he took on 30 Taliban attackers, and came out alive. At least three of his attackers did not. If nothing else, read the article and watch the video to find out why Sergeant Prasad yelled the exclamation that titles this post.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

With Libya, Obama can't even say, "Bush did it too!"

In 2003, when President Bush unleashed the Gods of War on Iraq, he had first obtained clear and overwhelming consent from the U.S. Congress - Democrats included. You can disagree with his reasons for going there, but you cannot disagree that he didn't send U.S. troops there all on his own.

Can President Obama make the same claim about his actions toward Libya? Opinion seems to be pretty split in both major political parties about whether or not attacking Libya is the right idea, but that is exactly the point. Before Obama sent 100+ cruise missiles hurtling toward a sovereign country, he should have waited for the people's elected representatives to debate this issue and consent to any action before spending the smallest amount of blood or treasure on this little endeavor.

The U.S. Constitution says in Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 that only the Congress may declare war. I am aware that the Congress hasn't declared war against a country since 1941 - and I don't like that one bit - but in the absence of an official declaration, shouldn't the president at least obtain some sort of resolution or consent from the legislative branch? Is that too much to ask?

I am not the only one who thinks that the President of the United States should not act unilaterally when using military action.

Here is what Senator (and presidential candidate) Barack Obama had to say on the subject in 2007:

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” Obama responded. “As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States,” Obama continued. “In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch.”

Does Libya currently pose an "imminent threat to the nation"? Are we currently bombing Libya in "self-defense"? To borrow the oft-used words of those on the Left, we are attacking a country that has not attacked us; a country that has done nothing to us.

I am still waiting for tens of thousands of protesters to march down the Embarcadero or Market Street in San Francisco like they did when the U.S. invaded Iraq eight years ago. I am waiting for these protesters to be carrying signs showing Obama with bloody fangs and a Hitler mustache like all those signs depicted Bush all those years. Nothing yet. Where are you Lefties? Where is your consistency Lefties?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Arrogant much, Barack?

Our Dear Leader was talking the other day to some of the Democrat party faithful. While he has to know that his soaring, yet empty, rhetoric no longer dazzles the disgruntled independents out there who voted for him but now wish they hadn't, he apparently still thinks (and probably rightly so) that he can charm the true believers out there.

In an attempt to keep up the spirits of his audience, and get them jazzed for next year's campaign, here is what Obama had to say:

“The first time around it’s like lightning in a bottle. There’s something special about it, because you’re defying the odds. And as time passes, you start taking it for granted that a guy named Barack Hussein Obama is president of the United States,” Obama said. “But we should never take it for granted.”

“I hope that all of you still feel that sense of excitement and that sense of possibility, because we still have so much more to do.”

Is this guy for real? Unfortunately, there are still two groups out there who still eat out of this guy's hand: the true statist faithful, and over 9 out of 10 black Americans. These are the two groups of people who would read that quote and say, "Yeah, so?"

As for the rest of America, we can only shake our heads and wait for November 2012.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Instead of buying Brazil's oil, I have a better idea...

So the Obama administration is enthusiastically working out a deal with Brazil to buy oil from that country. Seems like a smart move, right? I mean, after all, just listen to the sales pitch that the president of Brazil puts forward as the reasons that the United States should depend on Brazil for a steady flow of oil:

"Which other country in the world has the oil reserves that Brazil has, that is not at war, that does not have an ethnic conflict, which respects contracts, has clear democratic principles and vision, is generous and in favour of peace?"

Oh, I don't know, how about OURS?! Obama and company seem perfectly content to have us spend our treasure to buy oil from other countries and prop up their economies, but Lord forbid we should tap into our own supply, thereby opening up a massive supply of jobs, revenue, and this supposedly elusive energy independence to which the statists give lip service, but don't really want us to have.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

How is this for symbolism?

Heh.

After being open for only a year, Barack Obama Elementary School in Asbury Park, New Jersey is being closed.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Federal government attempts to bully our public schools with unconstitutional meddling

Two interesting actions have come to light this week in which our overlords in Washington D.C. are attempting to use the power of the federal government to intervene in something that should have nothing to do with the federal government.

First action: Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA - surprise, surprise), wants a law passed that would require local schools to report to the federal government incidents of bullying involving students with disabilities. Speier says this law is necessary because, “What I want to do is create an environment where there is zero tolerance. I think that starts first with education and awareness. Then, when behavior is egregious, then people have to be called out on that.”

While I agree with Rep. Speier that bullying should be addressed, this issue is none of the federal government's business. This is a local issue, pure and simple. The article doesn't mention it, but I am sure Speier and other supporters would justify this proposed bullying law under either the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or even more likely, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Of course, since these two laws are also unconstitutional, piling more unconstitutional law on top of those doesn't change anything.

Second Action: As impressively moronic and disturbing as the first item, this one is even more astonishing, and it comes right out of the White House. In a gross violation of privacy, President Obama, through his Department of Education, has threatened school principals with lawsuits if these principals do not set up a system for monitoring their students' Facebook activity, even if that activity is taking place during non-school hours! Something like this is always painted with a noble purpose; in this case to curb online harassment and bullying. The problem with this whole endeavor is two-fold. First, once again, this is not within the constitutional jurisdiction of the federal government. Second, since when is a school responsible for what its students do when they are not at school? It is terrible that online bullying occurs, however it is not the job of the principal to enforce student behavior when those students are at home. Once the student is home from school, the students' actions are now the province of parents and law enforcement. To expect school principals to take up this job is beyond ridiculous; it is downright Orwellian.

Yet another action by our federal government to assume total control of our lives.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

If this is what you call slavery, then sign me up!

The NFL is currently undergoing labor negotiations between players and owners. In truth, I don't really give a rip about the NFL or any other professional sports. If all professional sports were ended tomorrow, it wouldn't bother me all that much. I didn't used to think that way, but I have for about the last decade.

Comments like the one made the other day by the players' union spokesman make me that much more cynical towards professional sports and the knuckleheads who dominate the rosters.

Speaking about the team owners, union spokesman and Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson had this to say:

"The players are getting robbed. They are. The owners are making so much money off of us to begin with. I don't know that I want to quote myself on that...
It's modern-day slavery, you know? People kind of laugh at that, but there are people working at regular jobs who get treated the same way, too..."

Looks like Peterson skipped his history classes at the University of Oklahoma. For the record, Adrian Peterson's base salary with the Vikings is $10.72 million, and that is not counting his endorsement deals. The minimum base pay for an NFL player is $310,000, with that amount rising to $460,000 after two years.

Slavery certainly has changed since the mid-19th century has it not?

If Adrian Peterson is going to remain the NFL players union spokesmen, then what little sympathy these overpaid participants in a child's game currently receive, is going to shrivel up to nothing.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Holder's Justice Department exhibits its racism toward blacks

There were and are many things I did not like about George W. Bush, but one line of his that I always thought was spot-on was his description of that other kind of expression of racism which he called the "soft bigotry of low expectations."

He mostly used this term to describe the conditions in some of our schools where not as much is as expected from our minority students as far as academic performance and standards of proper behavior, but the concept can apply just about anywhere in American life.

This soft bigotry is on full display right now in the city of Dayton, Ohio where, after too many blacks failed a Dayton Police Department entrance exam, Attorney General Eric Holder rushed his cronies into Dayton and told that city's government that they were going to have to lower their testing standards in order to ensure that more minority applicants qualified to be hired.

This is by no means the first time something like this has been done in America, but I never cease to be amazed by the implications. What Eric Holder and the Justice Department is effectively admitting is that blacks are too stupid to attain the normal objective standards, so the standards will have to be lowered. Not only that, Holder's actions poison the potential careers of the black applicants who did meet the objective standards. Unless everyone's test scores are out in the open, which I am assuming they will not be, then how is one to know which black members of the Dayton Police Department truly made it on their own intelligence and hard work, and which ones are substandard, but were allowed to sneak through by the Justice Department in the name of racial equity? If I were one of the black applicants who legitimately made it, I would be mad as hell that I will automatically lumped in with those who didn't legitimately make it.

What is also insulting, not only to the applicants, but to the city of Dayton, is that the passing scores for this exam have been lowered by the Justice Department to the equivalent of an F grade. What kind of effect will this have on the quality of policing in Dayton?

If the city leaders of Dayton, Ohio have any integrity, any fortitude, they will tell the federal Justice Department to mind its own business and go back to Washington D.C. This is a local police force, a local matter. Even if this situation did involve the federal government, where is the civil rights violation? In typical Alice-in-Wonderland fashion, applying a single standard to everyone is considered by the Justice Department to be a civil rights violation, while using different standards to accommodate designated groups of people is considered a-ok.

That Eric Holder would take these actions in the Dayton case is unsurprising. His mollycoddling of the New Black Panthers in their voter intimidation case from the 2008 election, and his description of black Americans as "my people" in recent congressional testimony make it quite clear where Holder's true allegiances lie. For Eric Holder, race takes precedence over the rule of law, while in the process, he insults the race he supposedly loves through his soft bigotry of low expectations.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Religion of Peace strikes again

In Israel on Friday (Saturday there), Palestinian Muslim murderers snuck into a Jewish home in the dead of night and killed five members of a family, including both parents, an 11-year old, a 4-year old, and a 3-MONTH old baby.

Pamela Gellar at Atlas Shrugged has crime (terrorist) scene photos posted, which might seem macabre were it not for the fact that family members of the deceased authorized Gellar to post the photos so that one may truly see the face of evil, and what to see what the Israelis face every day as they are surrounded by people who want to see every one of them dead. I posted the least offensive of the photos (that hand belongs to the 4-year old), but I couldn't bring myself to post any of the others.

The standard operating procedure at this point is for Muslim apologists and Palestinian apologists to insist that this was just an isolated incident and we shouldn't make a blanket judgement based on the actions of a few.

That argument might hold a bit more water were it not for the fact that as soon as word of this barbaric attack made the rounds in Gaza, people began celebrating in the streets and handing out sweets.

There are a couple people in my circle of coworkers, family, and friends who complain about the Israelis and talk about the raw deal the Palestinians have. I'm not quite sure how they would defend this.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The destruction of a tsunami

When I watched coverage of the Indonesian tsunami on the day after Christmas in 2004, I figured I was watching a once-in-a-lifetime event. How wrong I was. Here we are, less than a decade later, and our televisions have once again been jam packed with the incredible and tragic images of Mother Nature's indifferent fury.

Of all the footage I have seen of this tsunami, this particular one has seemed to stick in my mind, as it truly gets the point across of what a tsunami looks like, and what it can do:



Wow.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Cutting the federal budget... priorities, priorities

When the Republicans recently suggested trimming a paltry $32 billion dollars from Obama's budget-busting $1.65 trillion dollar deficit, even that insignificant sum of money proposed by the Republicans proved too much for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (who I find to be one of the most repulsive people in recent memory). Reid called the cuts "draconian" and "unworkable."

You want to see an example of what Reid believes to be a federal expenditure that absolutely cannot be cut - because to do so would be draconian and unworkable? Check out this 19 seconds of stupidity:



You know what this means? Harry Reid thinks it is more important that I fork over my hard-earned money to support these poetry-spouting cowboys than it is to be able to contribute to my kids' college funds or to fix the broken air conditioner in my car.

I continue to be astounded by how out-of-touch these bastards are.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

California's most horrendous number: 144,000

I just ran across an article that reminded me of an incredible statistic that I heard before but about which I have gotten around to blogging.

California is the Union's most populous state, with approximately 38 million people. Incredibly enough, 50% of California's income tax revenues are paid by a mere 144,000 people. The other 50% is paid by the other 37, 856,000. That 144,000 - which represents the top 1% of income earners in this state - represents a mere .004% of our state's population.

I even remember former Governor Schwarzenegger mentioning this statistic when I attended his State of the State Speech just over a year ago.

Just as disturbing, 144,000 just happens to also be the number of households that leave California every year in search of greener pastures. Thank goodness these two groups of 144,000 are not necessarily one and the same.

Nevertheless, it still seems like our Democrat-dominated state government is bound and determined to poke and prod the 144,000 mega-taxpayers into leaving.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The Boss from Hell: Congressional Edition

Think you have a boss at your job who is tough to work for? Thank your lucky stars that your boss is not Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (Democrat-Texas).

I have heard horror stories about her before - such as the famous "I expect to be treated like a queen" incident - but this article, which mentions that incident, puts all the horror stories together in one astonishing narrative.

Remember folks, this woman votes on legislation that affects all of us.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Branding Obama: The importance of iconography in politics

I urge you to watch this fascinating piece about branding and logos in politics, and how the ubiquitous "O" that our Dear Leader uses can be adopted by our side to hoist the Anointed One by his own petard:



"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

So when do we impeach Obama for the gas prices?

I continue to marvel at the people who give our Dear Leader a pass over the same issues for which they wanted to keel haul George W. Bush.

There is Guantanamo; the continued presence of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; and enforcement of the Patriot Act, however, one that I see overlooked so far is gas prices.

When the price at the pump began to spiral upward in the mid-2000s, I remember the gnashing of teeth from the Left as they blamed the rising prices on Bush and his ties to Big Oil. In fact, I delved back into my blog archives and came up with this photo right here:



I took that photo at a protest in Sacramento on August 5, 2006 during the short war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. As often happens with these protests, the signs come out for all kinds of issues, even if they have nothing to do with the reason for the protest. Now, notice that one of the reasons why this particular protester thought Bush should be impeached was because of gas prices; and if you will remember, gas prices were a common complaint about our 43rd president.

I looked it up, and the average price of gasoline around that time was $3.04 per gallon. That is indeed too high for my taste, but since right now, the average price of gasoline in the country is
$3.38, why should we not follow this sign-holder's advice and impeach President Obama?

I of course am being absurd in order to illustrate other people's absurdity. I realize that there are too many factors that determine the price of gasoline to just blame it all on the President of the United States. On the other hand, it certainly doesn't help that Obama only just today supposedly allowed drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to resume, even though he lifted a drilling moratorium back in October but wasn't handing out any permits.

The bottom line is that our illustrious president continues to either not be held accountable, or not be held to blame for the very same things for which President Bush was pursued with a hay hook.

There are many positions George W. Bush took with which I did not agree. My question is why was Bush rightly excoriated for these positions by the media, when Obama is not when doing the very same thing?

That question is rhetorical by the way. It is a simple matter of the Old Left Media supporting Obama and hating Bush, thus Bush's missteps are thoroughly reported, whereas Obama's missteps are largely overlooked.

It's that simple.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The end of an era: Our WWI vets are no more

After starting the count with 4,734,991, the last remaining American veteran of World War I has died. Frank Buckles was a Corporal in the U.S. Army when the Great War ended on November 11, 1918. Buckles lied about his age in order to enter service as an ambulance driver, so at age 16 or 17, he was quite a young buck when he served "Over There."

Buckles wasn't done with world wars, however. He was working in the Philippines in 1941 when the Japanese invaded that country. Buckles ended up spending World War II in a Japanese prison camp that had been set up to house foreign civilians. I can imagine the abuse his body withstood, what with malnutrition and exposure, which makes his longevity all the more amazing.

Being born on February 1, 1901, I have given thought to what Buckles's age means.

He was 7 months old when President William McKinley was assassinated.

He was 11 years old when he saw headlines in the newspaper about the Titanic sinking in the North Atlantic.

He had the opportunity to talk to plenty of Civil War veterans, who were only in their 70s by the time he was old enough to comprehend what they had to tell him.

He was born only three years after the end of the Spanish-American War, and as a child, was old enough to remember Teddy Roosevelt being president.

The Wright Brothers flew their first flight when Buckles was almost 3 years old, and he lived to see the end of the Space Shuttle program.

In the year of his birth, someone who died that same year who was the same age Buckles was when he died, would have been born in 1791 when George Washington was only two years into his presidency.

He was born 112 years after the Constitution went into effect in our country, which means, having died at the age of 110, his life spanned just under half of our country's existence under the Constitution.

And my favorite statistic: When Buckles was my age, the year was only 1940. That means if I live as long as he did, if the year was 1940 right now, I still have until 2011!

It truly boggles the mind.

Rest in Peace Mr. Buckles.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson (who died a mere 75 years before Frank Buckles was born!)