IS THE LEFT AGREEING WITH THE RIGHT ON OBAMA?

I have always enjoyed Mickey Kaus. . .he is a liberal Democrat who thinks outside of the box (of course this may get him kicked out of the Democrat establishment). He recently posted a comment on the left seemingly finally agreeing with the right on all of their criticisms of Obama as a poorly prepared candidate for President. He quotes Bryan York on a Drew Westen column from the Sunday NYT.

Perhaps Obama “is simply not up to the task” of being president. Perhaps the Democrats who were so dazzled by his campaign speeches should have noticed “some disquieting aspects of his biography.” Among those disquieting aspects: “that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted ‘present’ (instead of ‘yea’ or ‘nay’) 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.”

PRIVATE JET TAX

I believe in a progressive income tax, but my concern over raising taxes on the rich is that it can put people out of work and not raise as much tax money as expected because unemployment benefits and other cost consequences take place.

In 1991 the Democrat congress raised the yacht tax and it just ended putting people in certain states out-of-work. This is a post from 1991 from a blogger, but a Florida congressman was also concerned.

The workers at Cessna and Lear must be in fear of losing their jobs. And one could wonder why pick on yachts and private jets. . .why not a special tax on any automobile over $20,000 or a special tax if you shop at Nordstrom's vs. Walmart?

IMPACT OF OBAMA & BUSH ON SPENDING

An interesting comparison by Ezra Klein. You can't deny Bush's economic policy had some impact on where we are today. His policies generated the Tea Party and Obama's policies have continued to strengthen that movement.

CATHOLIC TAKE ON OBAMA

From the Vortex.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR McCAIN. . .

I have been following Glenn Reynold's Instapundit blog for a number of years now. I believe he would classify himself as a libertarian so I don't see him as highly partisan, but he does have his views.

He skewers Obama and the liberal Democrats for doing the same things they attacked McCain for in the 2008 election with his "they told me if I voted for McCain. . ." I started to collect the number of times Obama has done what he criticized McCain for possibly doing and have included some samples below (a person can do a search on Instapundit going back to 2009 if one wanted to do a statistical analysis on this subject).

All this is hypothetical because we can't say for sure what McCain would have done.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D HAVE A PRESIDENT WHOM ARABS DESPISED MORE THAN BUSH. And they were right! “Of course, world leadership is not a popularity contest, nor should it be. But it should be deeply worrying for the White House when a genocidal tyrant like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now viewed more favorably across many parts of the Middle East than the leader of the free world.” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 13, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D BE BLASTING MISSILES ALL OVER THE PLACE: And they were right! “At least 45 suspected militants were killed by missiles launched by U.S. drone aircraft in Pakistan’s northwest, local intelligence officials said on Tuesday, one of the largest death tolls to date in the controversial air bombing campaign.” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 12, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D BE BLASTING MISSILES ALL OVER THE PLACE: And they were right! “At least 45 suspected militants were killed by missiles launched by U.S. drone aircraft in Pakistan’s northwest, local intelligence officials said on Tuesday, one of the largest death tolls to date in the controversial air bombing campaign.” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 12, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, we’d be keeping troops in Iraq indefinitely. And they were right! Guess I should voted for that Barack Obama fellow, who promised to have them all out by 2011. Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 06, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D BE HOLDING TERRORISTS WITHOUT TRIAL IN SECRET FACILITIES. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! “A Somali man suspected of assisting al Qaeda was held abroad on a U.S. Navy ship for questioning for over two months without being advised of any legal rights, an administration official said.” (Via Gateway Pundit). Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 06, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, GOVERNMENT SPYING WOULD PROCEED UNCHECKED: And they were right! Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 04, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D HAVE TROOPS IN MORE COUNTRIES THAN I COULD COUNT. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! American Boots Hit the Ground in Somalia After Drone Attacks. Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 02, 2011

UPDATE: Heh: They told me that if I voted for John McCain reporters on Morning Joe would be calling the POTUS a dick on national TV… and they were right! Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 30, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MCCAIN, WE’D HAVE ONGOING WARS ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND FAT-CAT DONORS ENTERTAINED RIGHT IN THE WHITE HOUSE. And they were right! Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 26, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, DEMOCRATS WOULD BE COMPLAINING ABOUT A WARMONGERING IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! “A House Democrat warned Friday that the U.S. president is becoming an ‘absolute monarch’ on matters related to the authority to start a war.” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 24, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WHISTLEBLOWERS WOULD BE SUPPRESSED. And they were right! “Stephen J. Kim, an arms expert who immigrated from South Korea as a child, spent a decade briefing top government officials on the dangers posed by North Korea. Then last August he was charged with violating the Espionage Act — not by aiding some foreign adversary, but by revealing classified information to a Fox News reporter. Mr. Kim’s case is next in line in the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on leaks.” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 19, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D BE WAGING EXPENSIVE WARS AROUND THE GLOBE WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORIZATION. And they were right! “Obama’s unauthorized Libyan war costs $9,241,000 a day: Are you getting your money’s worth?” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 16, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D SEE LAUGHABLE LEGAL HAIRSPLITTING IN DEFENSE OF UNDECLARED AND UNPOPULAR WARS — AND THEY WERE RIGHT! When Is a War Not a War? When President Obama Says So. Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 15, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, we’d be bogged down in unpopular, undeclared foreign wars. And they were right! “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 26% of Likely U.S. Voters feel the United States should continue its military actions in Libya. Forty-two percent (42%) are opposed and 32% are undecided.” Hey, hey, Barack Hussein — how many kids did you kill today? Well, no. We won’t hear that unless they bring back the draft. Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 14, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MCCAIN, we’d have a President who pursued endless war. And they were right! Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 13, 2011

FAILURE OF OBAMA'S ECONOMIC POLICIES

From Reuters.

Rather, that the product of all the administration’s stimulating and regulating is an economy that’s in significantly worse competitive and productive shape than when Obama took the oath in January 2009.

BUSH & OBAMA

Changes between the Bush years and now.

MAVs: THE NEW AIRFORCE

Big brother is here! A new form of air warfare, but it could be used for other kinds of surveillance as well.

ISLAM IN GREAT BRITAIN

An undercover video from 2008 in which a British reporter records what was being taught in a mosque. Here is one response that is critical of the report. And another criticism. An imam responds.

THE OBAMAS AND GAY MARRIAGE

Politico says Michelle is not necessarily in favor of gay marriage. And in New York a lot of gays are not happy with her husband for his tepid approval of their position on gay marriage. They do seem to be sending mixed messages on this issue.

US DEBT DENIAL

Well, the BBC is doing a bit of counseling. . .is Washington in denial about the debt implications??? I am with the BBC on this one.

WEINER AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

From the American Thinker. Interesting. . .his wife's brother and sister are members of the Muslim Brotherhood (Sisterhood). His wife is also an important advisor for Hillary Clinton.

ANNIVERSARY OF START OF KOREAN WAR

I thought this was a good summary of the diplomatic issues surrounding the North Korean invasion of the South on June 25, 1950, especially with regard to the role of Stalin.

PALIN'S HISTORICAL STATEMENTS

The media argued Palin was wrong in her interpretation of Paul Revere's ride, but historians back her account up.

INSTRUCTOR ON HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE

An adjunct history professor at a junior college weighs in on the higher education bubble and what he is seeing. I think he covers all of the types of students we often see in higher education.

HAROLD CAMPING & RAPTURE

Here is a post-rapture interview with Harold Camping (I think the comments are most revealing).

Rapture Schadenfreude.

THE RAPTURE

The Rapture is now a musical! What has Harold Camping done.

In an interview on the online program TYT Now, he tells the host, Tina Dupuy, that the rapture will actually begin about 6 p.m. local time, which is to say that it will start on the International Dateline and roll across the planet. By our calculations, that means we should begin hearing reports of devastation and ascensions shortly after midnight EDT tonight. (From Chronicle of Higher Education)

HOW LONG WILL YOU LIVE?

Now they have a test that will tell you how long you will live.

A blood test that can show how fast someone is ageing – and offers the tantalising possibility of estimating how long they have left to live – is to go on sale to the general public in Britain later this year.

PHOTO LAURA BUSH & HASIDIC LEADERS

Former first lady was airbrushed out of a photo with Hasidic leaders. Reminds me of Stalin airbrushing opponents out of pictures.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Conspiracy theories abound throughout history and almost all of them prove to be wrong or unravel. But here are some instances when the conspiracies turned out to be true. But as conspiracy theories go, these are relatively minor because they were resolved rather quickly (historically speaking). But most of these conspiracies used are also pre-internet and email.

And for some people conspiracies are never resolved. I was visiting with someone who is convinced communists are in charge of the Islamic revolution and terrorism. I am not sure any proof would satisfy him. (And by the way Marxism sees a conspiracy by capitalist forces!)

ONLINE GULAG MUSEUM

An online collection of stories and pictures from the Soviet Gulag. Here is the museum link.

GANDHI AND MALCOM X

Two new biographies show the darker side of these cultural "heroes."

ROMAN CATHOLIC ANALYSIS OF OBAMA'S VIEWS OF EASTER

From RealCatholicTV. A theological analysis of Obama's Easter remarks.

ENERGY EFFICIENT LIGHT BULBS

I thought these new bulbs were here to help the environment and make us safer.

Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on.

CONSERVATIVE SATIRE

Andrew Klavan on Imagination Land.

DEOMOCRATS PROTEST

Dumping trash on Speaker Boehner's yard is the new Democrat form of protest.

MOCK OBAMA AD

Ad for Obama in 2012 prepared by Republicans.

FRENCH VIEW OF MUSLIMS

A right-wing view.

IRAN'S INTERPRETATION OF WORLD EVENTS

A production of the Iranian Islamic regime.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

It does not like the idea of gay marriage in America.

PBS FUNDING

Andrew Klavan's satirical take on PBS. If link doesn't work, do a YouTube search for: "Andrew Klavan: PBS Exposed! Hidden Camera Rocks Sesame Street."

LIBYA

I love this quote from an administration official trying to justify US actions in Libya:

In a briefing on board Air Force One Wednesday, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes took a crack at an answer. "I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone," Rhodes said. "Obviously that involves kinetic military action, particularly on the front end."

What is "kinetic military action?" And people complained about Bush's Texas English.

And then there is Vice President Biden who wanted Bush impeached if he went to war with Iran without congressional approval. But now he doesn't exactly see Obama's actions in the same light.

From The Daily Show.

ISLAM & DARWINISM

A British Islamic professor is forced to retract his thinking that Islam is compatible with Darwinism.

SELLING CARS THE RELIGIOUS WAY

Buying a new car the spiritual way.

2008 ECONOMIC CRASH

The Washington Times discusses whether outside terrorist groups were behind the financial meltdown of 2008.

MOSQUES

Tax money is being spent to refurbish mosques overseas.

SENATOR TED KENNEDY

Charges that he rented a brothel for an entire night in Chile.

US ECONOMY

By 2050 the United States will have dropped to the 3rd largest economy.

DECLINE OF THE WHITE COLLAR CLASS

A discussion ("Race to the Bottom") of what is happening to the middle class in the declining U.S. economy. Globalization is leading to a drop in the standard of living because of competition with lower wages paid to produce goods in the developing world and China.

Blue collar workers have been getting the shaft since 1973; white collar workers are starting to get the same treatment now. Two of the same forces that drove down blue collar wages are starting to hit professionals: competition from overseas and the use of technology to raise productivity so that fewer workers are needed to do the same amount of work. The US manufacturing sector has actually grown since 1973, producing more even as it has shed workers. There is no reason why the same thing can’t happen to lawyers, middle managers, government bureaucrats and many more white collar workers as computers get smarter and firms start outsourcing professional work overseas.

Tens of millions of Americans aren’t just reading about American decline; they are living American decline.

The educational system is also going to change in ways the unions and the guilds can’t imagine — and will fight to the death. Going forward, students need to be evaluated and credentialed on the basis of what they know, not on the basis of time served.

SOUTH KOREAN PSY-OP

Some South Koreans are conducting a psychological operation against the North. What is interesting is how low-tech it is.

South Korean activists sought to exploit the suffering, firing balloons carrying thousands of leaflets on waterproof pieces of plastic bearing insulting messages about Kim Jong-Il and his three sons. Beneath the headline, “Republic of Fat,” were photos of Kim Jong-Il quaffing a glass of wine and of the puffed-up faces of Kim Jong-Nam and Kim Jong-Un.

“They’re sick because they ate too much,” said the caption. Opposite those were pictures of emaciated children and a young woman whose body was discovered in a field after she starved to death. “This woman is picking clover not for a rabbit but for herself,” the caption says.

CONVICTED FOR CALLING MUHAMMED A PEDOPHILE

In Austria.

NIR ROSEN RESIGNATION

It took joking of Lara Logan's (CBS News Reporter) rape in Cairo to get him fired.

UNITED MUSLIM NATION

From Der Spiegel. This fellow is an evangelist for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Qaradawi advocates establishing a "United Muslim Nations" as a contemporary form of the caliphate and the only alternative to the hegemony of the West. He hates Israel and would love to take up arms himself. In one of his sermons, he asked God "to kill the Jewish Zionists, every last one of them."

ISLAMIC TERRORISM

A general's view of jihadism.

VIOLENT RHETORIC OF LEFT

Interesting world views.

FT. HOOD SHOOTINGS REPORT

Report out showing failure of supervisors to stop Major Hasan because of political correctness.

Today the Senate Homeland Security Committee released an independent report on the Ft. Hood shootings. The 91 page report is titled A Ticking Time Bomb: Counterterrorism Lessons from the US Government’s Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack. The gist of it is that the FBI and Hasan’s superiors had more than enough information to prevent the shootings and likely would have done so if not for political correctness.

CHINA'S CYBER-ESPIONAGE

How much info is being stolen? The consequences could be very serious in 8-10 years in the opinion of the author.

After photos surfaced recently of a prototype Chinese stealth fighter, Pentagon officials acknowledged that they have continually underestimated the pace of Chinese technological advances. Perhaps that’s because China is stealing technology from the West at a blinding pace, through cyber-espionage. And U.S. companies are doing little to stop it.

OBAMA, THE PERSON

An article assessing Obama's personal qualities.

INDEX OF ECONOMIC FREEDOM

The countries of the world are ranked -- the US is 8th in economic freedom. Canada is freer--that is hard for me to understand.

TUSCON SHOOTING

Views of shooter, especially from the left.

EGYPTIAN MUSLIMS PROTECT CHRISTIANS

You don't see many of these reports.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

KNOWLEDGE OF MIDDLE EAST AT UCLA

Don't know how this was edited, but there is a big difference between Hamas and hummus.

AMERICA IN DECLINE

From Foreign Policy. Conclusion: The United States still has formidable strengths. Its economy will eventually recover. Its military has a global presence and a technological edge that no other country can yet match. But America will never again experience the global dominance it enjoyed in the 17 years between the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 and the financial crisis of 2008. Those days are over.

OBAMA'S CHRISTIAN RHETORIC

Obama is using Christian terminology now.

POPE'S 2010 CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

The Pope is sounding like Hal Lindsary, et. al., with regard to the moral collapse of western civilization.

THE WARS OF 2011

Foreign Policy predicts where the wars of 2011 might take place. Mexico is on the list! But since 50 places are cited, it does not look like a good year.

WOMEN ISLAMIC TERRORISTS

Pakistani female Islam bombers may be the wave of the future.

Pakistani Taliban have established an all-women wing of suicide bombers to carry out terror missions across the country, dramatically revealed a 12-year-old girl who managed to escape from the clutches of the rebels from near the Afghanistan border.

Meena Gul's brother, a Taliban commander, told her: 'You will go to heaven before any of us, if you blow up yourself the way I tell you.'

OBAMA'S BIPARTISANSHIP

Obama's rhetoric is interesting and I haven't seen the media analyze it. But a headline "Obama Assails Republican Foes, Urges Bipartisanship" seem to be the message of the past year. I don't know how this will get Republicans to work with him even if they wanted to.

CONSTITUTION NOT UNDERSTANDABLE

If the U.S. Constitution cannot be understood because it is more than 100 years old, we might as well stop studying history. . .or maybe the Bible. . .or what about Plato????

CHINESE MISSILE

Article on how it works. If it can take out aircraft carriers, American naval power will be serverly limited.

CALIFORNIA, A THIRD WORLD STATE

Victor Davis Hanson describes rural California--it doesn't sound like the California I saw 30 years ago..

It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators’ defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?

CHINA vs. AMERICA IN EDUCATION

A discussion of why China's students are performing better than US students. Students are engaged and study. The quality of teachers doesn't seem to be critical.

HEALTH CARE IN THE US

Costs have escalated far more for in the US than other modernized countries since the 1980s.

RUSSIAN MOLE IN NSA

From the Washington Times. The National Security Agency (NSA) is conducting a counterintelligence probe at its Fort Meade, Md., headquarters in a top-secret hunt for a Russian agent, according to a former intelligence official close to the agency.

SCENES FROM NORTH KOREA

Film footage of the suffering in North Korea.

SPEAKING SOUTHERN

Bill Cosby tackles the "southern" language.

OBAMA'S FAITH

Jesusland is now in the White House. I think the secularists are having trouble dealing with Obama's faith statements. But on the other hand, I am not sure the religious right is willing to give him credit for his Christian faith.

WIKILEAKS

So much could be said about the Wikileaks documents, but this one on the role of China in not stopping North Korean missiles from being transported to Iran is particularly troubling.

Der Spiegel's analysis. Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information -- data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America's partners have in the country been as badly shaken. Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public -- as have America's true views of them.

Jimmy Carter, deja vu.

DEMOCRATS, THE PARTY OF THE FUTURE???

Democrats are dissing "older whites" and are expecting the Republicans to go down to defeat because of their reliance on the older voters. But I don't see how younger voters have gained much under recent Democrat proposals. It will be interesting to watch how the Democrats use the African-American and the Hispanic vote to leverage future victories.

Declining to pinpoint a Republican favorite, Carville said any GOP presidential candidate would be forced to “double-down on older whites” — a strategy that becomes less reliable each cycle.

“When you get into a presidential electorate, it decidedly favors Democrats, and every year it’s going to decidedly favor them more and more,” Carville said. “Demographics don’t do anything but get better for Democrats. Every election becomes less white.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45353.html#ixzz15kCXcG5H

STATE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

1 in 5 persons in the US has mental illness! This is troubling.

THE ROLE OF POLITICAL PARTIES

Michael Medved comments on the "pendulum swings" of voters as they switch between Democrats and Republicans.

TOP NATIONAL POLITICAL DONORS

A list of organizations giving to political candidates in 2010.

CHEATING SCANDAL

University of Central Florida. One student's response:

"This is college. Everyone cheats, everyone cheats in life in general," Ravvin said. "I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in this testing lab who hasn't cheated on an exam."

HISTORY & PROPAGANDA

History gets involved in the political battles of Washington.

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Fox News summary of the Fannie Mae decisions in the early 2000's--not helpful for Congressman Frank or Senator Schumer.

GETTING A PhD IN ENGLISH

Academia!

AMERICAN CORRUPTION GROWING

The United States has dropped in the global rankings with regard to government corruption.

BRANDS & POLITICAL ALLEGIANCE

A study of what brands are favored by Democrats and Republicans.

Google is the top brand for Democrats, according to an index incorporating consumer impressions of its quality, its value, their satisfaction with it, its reputation, their willingness to recommend it and their general impression of it. Google doesn't appear in Republicans' top 10.

Republicans, on the other hand, rank Fox News tops; Fox News, perhaps not surprisingly, doesn't appear on the list of Democrats' favorite 10 brands.

ATHEIST HYMNAL

Courtesy of Steve Martin.

ISLAM IN FRANCE

CBN report with hidden photography by a Frenchman.

ISLAM TO RULE THE WORLD

I didn't see this program onABC, but a Muslim cleric predicts that Islam will take over the world. Franklin Graham was also interviewed and was critical of the religion of Islam as "wicked" and "evil."

“We do believe as Muslims the East and the West will be governed by the Sharia,” Choudray. “Indeed we believe that one day the flag of Islam will fly over the White House. Indeed, there's even an oration of the Prophet where he said, ‘The day of judgment will not come until a group of my...’”

PICTURES OF THE RUSSIAN PAST

Old pictures on Russia around 1900 with color added. Little did they know the pain that the 20th century would bring them.

UN CONTACT FOR ALIENS

The United Nations has appointed a representative to be contacted by aliens who wish to communicate with earthlings. I am not sure if the UN can even communicate with Arabs and Jews.

COMPUTER ATTACK

Iran's nuclear facilities are facing a computer worm. I wonder who. . .

Mahmoud Alyaee, secretary-general of Iran's industrial computer servers, including its nuclear facilities control systems, confirmed Saturday, Sept. 25, that30,000 computers belonging to classified industrial units had been infected and disabled bythemalicious Stuxnet virus.

The experts say it is beyond the capabilities of private or individual hackers and could have been produced by a high-tech state like America or Israel, or its military cyber specialists.

SPASENIE

Enjoyed this group.

PARENTING OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Interesting.

I was reminded how we got this generation of students -- many of whom are not prepared to deal with setbacks and whose egos need to be stroked all the time -- when I was at a friend's home for dinner. The parents beamed as their 11-year-old son showed off a ribbon he got for coming in second in a race.

After he went to bed, I found out that in that particular meet, only two kids participated. Better yet, the school makes sure that every child gets at least one ribbon, so that his or her tender self-esteem will not suffer.

RANKING COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD

Newsweek has an interactive tool that gives the comparative data of countries in areas like education, health, the economy, etc.

HISTORY OF THE SOVIET UNION

Anyone remember the old computer game, tetris? The complete history of the Soviet Union!

AMERICAN CULTURE. . .IN DECLINE AGAIN???

"10 best places to survive the apocalypse". . .but they limit it to America. People spend time on this?

Farmville is a corporate conspiracy sucking in dumb Facebookers.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE

Barone sees the higher education bubble bursting.

Government-subsidized loans have injected money into higher education, as they did into housing, causing prices to balloon. But at some point people figure out they're not getting their money's worth, and the bubble bursts.

Some think this would be a good thing. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray has called for the abolition of college for almost all students. Save it for genuine scholars, he says, and let others qualify for jobs by standardized national tests, as accountants already do.

DARWIN'S THEORY QUESTIONED

An alternative theory. But a new study by researchers at the University of Bristol in England and published in Biology Letters suggests "living space," not competition between species, is responsible for evolutionary patterns throughout history.

AMERICAN BELIEFS

Weird things! 37% believe in haunted houses, for example.

CAUCAUS EMIRATE

A good article from Stratfor on what is happening in southern Russia. The potential for instability is very high.

HUNTINGTON'S THESIS REVIVED

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on "How to Win the Clash of Civilizations."

The greatest advantage of Huntington's civilizational model of international relations is that it reflects the world as it is—not as we wish it to be. It allows us to distinguish friends from enemies. And it helps us to identify the internal conflicts within civilizations, particularly the historic rivalries between Arabs, Turks and Persians for leadership of the Islamic world.

But divide and rule cannot be our only policy. We need to recognize the extent to which the advance of radical Islam is the result of an active propaganda campaign. According to a CIA report written in 2003, the Saudis invested at least $2 billion a year over a 30-year period to spread their brand of fundamentalist Islam. The Western response in promoting our own civilization was negligible.

Our civilization is not indestructible: It needs to be actively defended. This was perhaps Huntington's most important insight. The first step towards winning this clash of civilizations is to understand how the other side is waging it—and to rid ourselves of the One World illusion.

MORE PROBLEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Administration bloat: While enrollment at the nation's leading universities grew an average of 15 percent from 1993 to 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students ballooned by 39 percent, said Jay P. Greene, a senior fellow with the conservative Goldwater Institute of Arizona.

"Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student increased by 61 percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student rose 39 percent," wrote Greene, who also heads the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. They blame government for these trends, but somebody is making the decision to curtail faculty or student services.

From U.S. News & World Report, "Is a College Education Worth the Price?" Numerous studies show that tuition, which has far outpaced the cost of living, has been spent on things other than classroom teaching. Administrative staffs and lavish facilities top the list. After years of building palatial campuses, states faced with budget cuts now find that they are stuck with the fancy athletic center and have to slash faculty, resulting in packed classrooms detrimental to the learning experience. Doesn't seem like classroom teaching is much of a priority.

And in the Christian Science Monitor more indication of misplace focus of the use of money: We hope this will be a wake-up call that colleges are asking for lots of money and a major sacrifice by families, but in too many places they have really abdicated their responsibility to direct students to what they need to learn for success after graduation. It is not about learning for life.

The problem in Maryland. One might think that as enrollments increase, universities would need relatively fewer ‎administrators per student since they could spread those fixed costs over a larger base. ‎Instead, the opposite is occurring. As universities increase their enrollment and ‎receive more money, they expand the ranks of administrators even more rapidly.

THE FAILURE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Kathleen Parker's column, "Colleges Come Up Short on What Students Need to Know," makes a good case for a core curriculum.

Also a good article by William Deresiewicz on "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education."

And here is a comment by by Neal McClusky from the Cato Institute: The majority of people who are going to college today are really just getting a piece of paper," he said. "The bottom line is we always insist that everybody has to go to college without in any way discriminating or determining whether actually going to college is giving you the skills that makes you more employable. All that matters, especially to the politicians, is that everybody is getting a piece of paper -- a college degree.

LEADERSHIP

A great article on "Solitude and Leadership" by Yale literary critic, William Deresiewicz. He was addressing a graduating class at West Point. I especially liked his comments on bureaucracies, General Petraeus, the need to think, his criticism of multi-tasking, the importance of morality, and the shallowness of Facebook.

GROUND ZERO MOSQUE A PROVOCATION

From a column in the Ottawa Citizen written by two Muslims: New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it's not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshippers. The fact we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as "Fitna," meaning "mischief-making" that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.

COLLEGE STUDENTS STUDY LESS

College students study 10 hours less a week than they did in 1961.

CHINESE MISSILE

China is developing a missile that can take out US aircraft carriers. If it works, the US (and the navy) will face a major challenge politically and strategically. And billions of dollars spent on aircraft carriers suddenly goes down the drain.