Archive for February, 2009
Education or Edjukashun?
By Alan Caruba
My father used to say that there was no defense against stupidity. He was a very smart man. When he entered kindergarten in the early 1900’s, he spoke his parent’s native language of Italian. The teacher seated him beside a boy who spoke both English and Italian, and he learned English. Nobody gave it any more thought than that.
Dad passed through the K-12 grades in Newark, N.J., and then worked his way through New York University to gain a degree in accounting. Then he studied some more and was among the youngest men to become a Certified Public Accountant. All that study and hard work helped him survive the Great Depression. It is a classic American story.
In his time, American education was as basic as it comes. You learned the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic..
You were taught, not just history, but something called civics, lessons about the way the nation was governed and why our republic was a leading example of “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
In a report by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, released in November of last year, more than twice as many people (56%) who took the test knew that Paula Abdul was one of the “American Idol” judges than where those famous words came from. Only 26% identified Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as the source.
Of the 2,500 Americans who took the test that included college students, elected officials and other randomly selected citizens, nearly 1,800 flunked the 33-question test on basic civics. The elected officials scored slightly lower than the public with an average score of 44% compared with 49%; less than half.
There are two great threats facing America today. One is the vast ignorance of our history and of the way we govern ourselves, and the other is the growing numbers of functionally illiterate Americans.
Posted in A Simple, Inescapable Fact
By Thomas E. Brewton
Corruption can be reduced only by reducing the size of the Federal government.
Much is being written about unsavory political influence exercised by the army of Washington lobbyists, who act as conduits for large amounts of influence money from special interest groups. Those special interest groups range from business and environmental groups, to abortion advocates, and labor unions.
Tom Daschle's exit from nomination as the commissar of a national socialized healthcare system is among the headliners. Another is Leon Panetta, bound for the CIA, coming off large lecture earnings from groups doing millions of dollars worth of business with the CIA. Already fading into the background is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's husband's big-bucks connections with some of the less reputable characters on the international scene, people against whom Secretary Clinton must represent the interests of the United States.
On the other hand, limiting people's opportunity to contribute money to help elect and influence representatives friendly to their interests is, apparently to most everyone outside Congress and the Supreme Court, an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment rights.
If we are not to invade First Amendment rights, what then are we to do?
At the most fundamental level, the problem is what lawyers call an attractive nuisance. If you build a swimming pool it is likely to attract small children, with potentially dire consequences.
If we continually enlarge the size and scope of the Federal government, already the largest dispenser of money in the world, it is not rocket science to forecast that every scoundrel in the world will be looking for ways to game the system or to steal money outright. Notorious bank robber Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks, is supposed to have answered, "Because that's where the money is."
Stupid Answers to Serious Issues
By Alan Caruba
On “Jeopardy”, the popular quiz show, they have a category called “Stupid Answers” in which the answer is so obvious, posed in the question, that it is virtually impossible to get it wrong.
Unfortunately, we are afflicted by too many stupid answers to very real issues and needs, the most fundamental of which is energy. At the very heart of our society and economy is the dependence upon and need for uninterrupted and increased energy, primarily electricity.
The answers we have been hearing are the worst possible. Over and over again we are told that the U.S. must become more dependent on “alternative, clean” energy, meaning solar and wind energy. These represent about 1% of all the energy the nation consumes at present. Neither comes close to the energy produced by coal which represents over 50% of all the electricity we consume daily. Nuclear produces an additional 20%.
The utility that serves much of New Jersey, my home State, Public Service Electric & Gas recently ran an advertisement headlined “Caution: Blackouts Ahead…” The ad said that “The experts responsible for maintaining reliability on our electric grid flatly predict that we are risking catastrophic power outages in New Jersey if we don’t upgrade our system.”
In the great national debate about the nation’s infrastructure, perhaps no other issue is of more importance, other than the way electricity is produced, than the way it is delivered. Those power lines are the very heart of the way our nation functions. PSE&G is ready to spend $750 million to upgrade its part of the grid, estimated to begin suffering overloads in 2012. Opposing those upgrades is a phalanx of environmental organizations and a regulatory approval process that borders on the insane.
In the meantime, the cost of solar energy credits in New Jersey has jumped to as much as $675 a megawatt-hour for 2009. The credits are paid to solar developers for the energy they produce over a year. The purpose is to boost solar energy production despite the fact that it is the least efficient and most costly way of providing electricity.
$8.6 Billion of Stimulus Plan Earmarked for Pet Causes of Environmental Activists Should Be Jettisoned
$8.6 Billion of Stimulus Plan Earmarked for Pet Causes of Environmental Activists Should Be Jettisoned
Washington, D.C. – At least $8.6 billion of President Obama’s proposed $1.2 trillion stimulus plan is meant to fund dubious special interest policy initiatives of environmental activists and should immediately be jettisoned, says Deneen Borelli, full-time Fellow with the Project 21 national black leadership network.
"It's outrageous that taxpayer money is slated to be used to fund the agenda of environmental special interest groups. These special interest groups are using global warming alarmism to fund dubious projects while discouraging the use of fossil fuels," says Borelli. "If liberal lawmakers really cared about stimulating the economy, they would remove rules and regulations that block the development of more fossil fuels. This would provide good-paying jobs and lower energy costs for Americans. Instead, they appear only interested in using their combined force of money, power and influence to fleece taxpayers of their money and their freedom."
Among the green earmarks in the bill legislation cited by Borelli:
Securing the Future, Not Aborting It
Why was a massive expansion of family planning (which inevitably includes abortion promotion) contained in a bill that is supposed to jump start the economy?
Consider that according to the Social Security Administration, in 1950 there were 16.5 workers for every retiree, while today it is 3.3 workers to 1 retiree. Within 40 years it will be 2 to 1. There will not be enough workers to pay the tab for all the government programs and benefits that the Speaker and others want to give away in return for political support.
In reality the Stimulus bill is more about pork and political payoffs than economic recovery. Billions are earmarked for groups like ACORN, that have recently been the subject of criminal investigations, and the politically connected like labor unions that supported the new administration in the recent election.
Read the whole story at The Hill's Congress Blog
Obama Picks Porn Lawyer for #2 at Justice
CHICAGO – President Obama has made a major mistake and put America’s families at risk by selecting David Ogden to become Deputy Attorney General, says Fidelis, a pro-family organization.
“David Ogden is a hired gun from Playboy and ACLU. He can’t run from his long record of opposing common sense laws protecting families, women, and children. The United States Senate has a responsibility to the American people to insure that Mr. Ogden’s full record is fully reviewed before any vote on his nomination” said Brian Burch, President of Fidelis.
“Ogden’s record is nothing short of obscene. He has represented Playboy Enterprises in multiple cases, Penthouse Magazine, the ACLU, and the largest distributor of hard-core pornography videos. He has opposed filters on library computers protecting children from Internet smut, and successfully defended the right of pornographers to produce material with underage children.”
“David Ogden has collected checks from Playboy and Penthouse to fight any attempts to establish filters on federally-funded public libraries. Ogden even sued the federal government in an attempt to publish Braille versions of Playboy magazine – at taxpayer expense, of course,” said Burch.
As a lawyer in private practice, Ogden has argued for an unlimited abortion license, gays in the military, and has urged courts to treat traditional definitions of marriage as a social prejudice.
“A vast majority of Americans support parental notification before a minor’s abortion and protecting kids from Internet pornography in our libraries,” continued Burch. “Yet David Ogden has fought tooth and nail against these common sense laws protecting our children from harm. At a time when America’s families are under increasing assault, Mr. Ogden is a dangerous choice for a position whose responsibilities include the enforcement of our nation’s laws. “
For a full report on David Ogden’s disappointing legal record, visit www.fidelis.org
Playing God with “Endangered” Species
By Alan Caruba
In mid-August Barack Obama had this to say about a White House decision regarding the Endangered Species Act: “After over 30 years of successfully protecting our nation’s most endangered wildlife like the bald eagle, we should be looking for ways to improve it, not weaken it.”
The White House executive order would eliminate the need for the advice of government scientists and permit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior and NOAA Fisheries of the Department of Commerce to determine whether to list or de-list an alleged endangered or threatened species.
Here’s an example why this decision was issued. In an effort to ensure that no exploration or drilling for oil could occur anywhere in the habitat of the polar bear, this species was put forward for listing as “endangered” even though its population has been growing steadily since the 1950s.
The reason cited, however, involved the projection of melting sea ice over the course of the next fifty years resulting from global warming. That’s right. A perfectly fine population of polar bears that have been around for millions of years is deemed “endangered” based on computer models for something that is not happening. As Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne delicately put it, “It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species.”
Well, no. It is possible if you are a government scientist with lots of time on your hands, a commitment to the idiotic and discredited notion of global warming, and a need to justify your existence. Or dare I say your survival?
The Earth is not warming. It has been cooling for a decade and many scientists have concluded that the Earth is heading into either another mini-Ice Age or a full-scale one that will pretty much ruin everyone’s plans for anywhere between the next fifty or few thousand years.