So racial discrimination is okay now?

Or...how the UW diversity officers are making fools of themselves and of their students.




Ann Althouse posted this morning about the a report written up by the Center for Equal Opportunity alleging discriminatory practices in the admittance of whites and asians to the university (undergrad and law).  


Here are the numbers from the CEO report (obtained via an open records request to the UW admissions office):


By SAT and class rank:
• African Americans favored over whites 576-to-1
• Hispanics favored over whites 504-to-1
• Black SAT score 150 points lower than whites and Asians
• Latino SAT score 100 points lower than whites and Asians

By ACT and class rank: 
• Black favored over whites 1330-to-1 
• Hispanics favored over whites 1494-to-1

Chance of admission for grades and LSAT scores at the median for that race/ethnic group 
• Out-of-state Black: 7 out 10 chance 
• Out-of-state Hispanic: 1 out of 3 chance

• In-state Asian:1 out of 6 chance 
• In-state white: 1 out of 10 chance


Frankly, to anyone who pays attention, this shouldn't be surprising.  What makes this story interesting is the university's reaction.


The provost issued a campus-wide notice last night about something that "involves a threat to our diversity efforts" and called an emergency meeting so that the campus could react "as a community".  Since the report from CEO was not released until midnight, this means that the 'provost of diversity and climate' Damon Williams and the dean of students Lori Berquam put forth a call to arms to more than 150 students there without even having the full information of what the reports said.


According to this morning's report in the Badger Herald, students are already active making signs and preparing to protest Roger Clegg 's (the president of CEO) arrival in Madison.  Protestors, apparently tired of taking up space in the capitol rotunda, have set up shop at the DoubleTree Inn where Clegg is holding a press conference at 11am. And this is where I'm confused.  What are they protesting, exactly?  


Of course, they're protesting in support of Affirmative Action policies held by UW admissions. During the meeting yesterday, Williams organized a student rally "to express their solidarity and pride in UW and a sense of togetherness."  Do they have pride in the fact that their university actively practices racial discrimination?  Williams said: "I want students to be able to be in power; to say this is who we are, this is what we value."  Are you sure you don't want to think a bit more before you say that racial discrimination against whites is "who we are" and "what we value"?  


What this really brings home is the double-standard hypocrisy of academia.  No one here, except Roger Clegg, has any interest in addressing the actual published report.  No one has any interest is discussing the numbers and debating explanations.  There is simply a knee-jerk reaction that the "aggressive, right-wing" CEO has absolutely nothing to say other than garbage and should be shouted out of town.  That's how debate works in academia.  What kind of example is Mr. Williams setting for these students?  And what kind of education are they getting that the students' first reaction is not "this is interesting, but there are plenty of valid reasons why these numbers are so", but is rather "this is an assault upon who we are and we must destroy anyone who would criticize us"?


 And this is where I get really frustrated. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 says that the policy of the United States that discrimination on the ground of race, color, or national origin shall not occur in connection with programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance.  What troubles the "provost of diversity" is that Clegg is daring to point out that UW is claiming that discrimination on the ground of certain races is perfectly acceptable. "Diversity" obviously means "not too many whites and asians" and "everyone who agrees with affirmative action".  


Honestly, I would have less of a problem if Damon Williams would simply be honest. State it outright: "We're sure that if we held even standards for everyone getting into UW, there would be significantly fewer blacks and hispanics.  In modern days, a 'diverse' campus is necessary in order to gain federal financial support, and in academia diverse = blacks and hispanics on campus.  Therefore, we make it harder for Wisconsin students who have the unfortunate luck to have white skin to get in, while we make it easier for out-of-state dark skinned students to come to our school.  This way, we make sure to match whatever diversity quota has been set for us by some nameless bureaucrat. Don't blame the playa, blame the game." Of course, that doesn't work...namely because of that lovely law I mentioned in the previous paragraph.  Therefore, Mr. Williams and his ilk have to contort their arguments into something that doesn't sound like they're in favor of racial discrimination.


In this instance, so far, they're failing.  


Or, Williams could make the historical argument: "Blacks and Hispanics have suffered decades of sufferance under white people (and Asians?) in America.  It's only fair that we do everything we can to make sure that as many black and hispanic students that want to get the opportunity to come to UW and study. If that means that some worthy Wisconsin white students can't come here, it's their own fault for being born with the wrong color skin. Now they know how it feels."  


Because this is basically how people read the affirmative action argument.  It doesn't sound pretty, it certainly doesn't sound politically correct, and it doesn't sound fair.  But that's not the point.  "Fair" only applies to massive racial groups: "blacks", "Asians", "Hispanics", "Whites".  The individual kid who worked his butt off for his ACT scores and to graduate with an appropriate GPA to gain admittance to his state school, but was rejected in favor of an out-of-state kid with fewer qualifications won't be at the protest at the DoubleTree Inn today.  


Or, maybe there's a financial aspect.  UW makes a much larger profit off of out-of-state students (who have a much higher tuition level) than in-state students.  Perhaps Williams' argument could have gone like this: "With the downturn in the economy, UW depends upon out-of-state students to help fund the university.  Therefore, the admissions standards are adjusted according to our budgetary needs.  Additionally, students from out of state bring a varying perspectives toward life in Wisconsin, and can be counted on to increase the diversity of our campus [so that I can keep my $150,000 salary]."  (Maybe that last part was silent.)


And this is why academia is dying.  This is why Glenn Reynolds is forever talking about the "bursting of the academic bubble."  UW pays Damon Williams $150,000 to do what, exactly?  Talk about diversity?  He clearly doesn't do that very well, since he can't even honestly talk about what diversity means, or why discrimination is or isn't happening on UW's campus. He is, however, apparently very good as riling up a bunch of students to shout down a campus visitor who has honest complaints about the admissions process. Rather than being taught to think, assess, evaluate, debate, and conclude, these students are learning how to make signs and insult people. 


But, hey, they're doing it as a community.

Excerpt for the Day/This is the best thing I've read in a while

From Da Tech Guy:

"When I look at Perry the remarkable thing about him is how unremarkable he is. Anytime in the last 100 years his background and beliefs would be decidedly uncontroversial. In large swaths of the country where the traditional culture exists he is just another pol (with a good record on jobs).

The problem is in that parallel secular culture where so many of the left live, these views are totally alien and moreover the entertainment & news media that informs them (drawn primarily from that secular culture) alternates between mocking religious Americans as ignorant fools or painting them as murderous inbred fanatics.

It’s reached the point where the left fears the United States return to an imaginary past that only exists in their minds, bearing no resemblance to that time that still exists in living memory.

To them prior to Abington School District v. Schempp, the US lived in a Christian Theocracy where Jews and Gays are slaughtered and all culture was repressed. They are able to look at Pat Robinson and see Bin Ladenwhile at the same time can look at Major Malik Nadal Hassan and see nothing. They look at the era before the sixties and see only segregation and repression while still calling the architects of that era “The Greatest Generation” without blinking an eye."

You should definitely go and read the whole thing here.  

Excerpt for the day - May 8

"The most telling phrase in that article was ‘they’, which was used again and again, always in quote marks, to refer to ordinary Americans. Because much of the ‘uncomfortable feeling’ over the killing of bin Laden is really an ‘uncomfortable feeling’ with, if not outright disgust for, ‘them’, the people who make up America, and for the ideals of modern America itself...


It is extraordinary, and revealing, how quickly the expression of concern about the use of American force in Pakistan became an expression of values superiority over the American people. The modern chattering classes are so utterly removed from the mass of the population, so profoundly disconnected from ‘ordinary people’ and their ‘ordinary thoughts’, that they effectively see happy Americans as a more alien and unusual thing than Osama bin Laden. Where OBL wins their empathy, American jocks receive only their bile...


No, the now widespread ‘uncomfortable feeling’ with the shooting of bin Laden is really an expression of moral reluctance, even of moral cowardice, a desire to avoid taking any decisive action or expressing any firm emotion that might have some blowback consequences for us over here. It is the politics of risk aversion rather than the politics of anti-imperialism, the same degraded sentiment that fuelled the narcissistic ‘Not in my name’ response to the Iraq War in 2003."


- Brendan O'Neill @ Spiked

Zombie lays down some knowledge

"Most Hispanics are about 70-75% Spanish heritage, and 25-30% Native American.

Problem is “Spanish” means European which means “white.” So they have to pretend that their majority ethnicity component doesn’t exist; and the “Aztlan” types in the US act like the Europeans in North America are interlopers against whom they are opposed; problem is, they are the interlopers themselves. They are the descendants of the European conquerors, no less so than the “Anglos” north of the border.

But that fact doesn’t match the narrative, so is swept under the rug.

There are many other problems with their story, such as the fact that California and most of the Southwest were only part of Mexico for a brief 25 years (1821-46), while having been part of Spain for several centuries beforehand, and then an independent nation for a short time, and afterward part of the United States for 162 years.

Prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, Alta California was very sparsely populated, and the natives here had no knowledge of nor any interaction with the Aztecs or any other Mexican native tribes. So why these people who claim partial descent from Aztecs should have ownership rights to a bit of territory their ancestors never controlled or even heard of, and which was part of Mexico for just a tiny handful of years since 1492 — well, nobody knows."

http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/comment/76962/

Excerpt for the day - May 7

"Senator Obama opposed tribunals, renditions, Guantanamo, preventive detention, Predator-drone attacks, the Iraq War, wiretaps, and intercepts — before President Obama either continued or expanded nearly all of them, in addition to embracing targeted assassinations, new body scanning and patdowns at airports, and a third preemptive war against an oil-exporting Arab Muslim nation — this one including NATO efforts to kill the Qaddafi family. The only thing more surreal than Barack Obama’s radical transformation is the sudden approval of it by the once hysterical Left. In Animal Farm and 1984 fashion, the world we knew in 2006 has simply been airbrushed away."


-VDH @ NRO

Jobs are the means, not the ends in themselves

For today's excerpt for the day: 

Russ Roberts, from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and John Papola just released the sequel to their Keynes/Hayek economic rap video (yes, seriously).  

"You see slack in some sectors as a “general glut”

But some sectors are healthy, and some in a rut
So spending’s not free – that’s the heart of the matter
too much is wasted as cronies get fatter.

The economy’s not a car, there’s no engine to stall
no expert can fix it, there’s no “it” at all.
The economy’s us, we don’t need a mechanic
Put away the wrenches, the economy’s organic"

Check out more at econstories.tv

Arghhhhh!

Congress should consider cutting multibillion-dollar subsidies to oil companies amid rising concern over skyrocketing gas prices, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Monday.


Is this not basic economics?  I mean, I'm a history major, I'm not exactly an expert in this and I simply cannot see the logic in a conclusion like this.  The worry is that gas prices are too high.  So, the conclusion is to make gas more expensive?  Really?  That's what we're going for here?  


Let me elucidate how this works in my brain.  Gas is expensive for numerous, numerous reasons, not the least of which are as follows:


1) tornado and storm damage to refineries, which are the link between oil drilling and the gas you put in your motor; the US already has a dearth of oil refineries, largely due to federal regulation limitations, which limit how much oil is produced even more than drilling regulations might
2) the war in Libya (oh, sorry, what are we calling it now?), during which the oilfields of the Libya are being set aflame
3) a stop on new oil drilling in the Gulf, as per our President's executive order


I could probably keep going, but that's the low-hanging fruit.  Now, oil companies in the US have huge upfront costs involved in locating and obtaining oil from sources.  Much like medical research, it can take years and cost millions to find successful wells.  The price of gas is reflected in the combination of all these factors: to cover overhead, to account for refining costs, to cover any shortages, etc.  Oil companies receive so-called "tax breaks" just like any other company, in order to balance out how these costs and prices interact  for the company and the consumer.  


Now, lifting "tax breaks" for oil companies is going to do at least two things.  It's going to force smaller companies that rely on tax breaks in order to break even during development years out of business.  The larger companies, the ones that get all the bad press like Exxon and Conoco can absorb the increased costs that are going to accompany the removal of "tax breaks".  But what that will do is increase their overhead costs.  And in order to compensate, those costs are going to come down the pipeline as increased price-per-barrel.  The companies are built to make a profit.  They are not charitable institutions.  If they don't make a profit, they go under and hundreds of thousands of more people are out of work.  Therefore, if they lose their present profit margin to an increased tax bill, they will shift costs elsewhere, a.k.a. to the consumer.  


So Boehner's big plan here is apparently to (1) force smaller businesses out of business, and (2) increase the price of gas at the pump.  I'm confused as to how exactly this is supposed to help the consumer. 


But of course, it obviously isn't meant to the help the consumer.  The system is built so that the blame gets placed on the corporation, not the government official who forced increased tax prices through stupid legislation.  It's all part of the "Narrative" that big bad oil companies are out to squeeze you for every bit you're worth, and the nice government man is HERE TO HELP.  


I'm so frustrated that Boehner is the one stepping in this.  I know I should have know better, but I still stupidly expected the GOP leadership to stay away from the same populist bullshit.  Will Collier offers this nice explanation of rising gas prices related to drilling rules, but we've got to be better than beating our heads against this same damn wall.  

Excerpt for the day - April 21

"To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make."


- George Will, on Why Liberals Love Trains @ Newsweek

Obama's Budgetary Speech

"But the real problem here, as we saw most vividly in Wisconsin recently, is that today's "progressives" are politically, and perhaps also ideologically, committed to preserving the labor monopolies that produce stupid, bloated and ineffective government."

- excerpt from James Taranto's terrific analysis over at WSJ.com

And this:

“I thought the president’s invitation…was an olive branch. Instead, what we got was a speech that was excessively partisan, dramatically inaccurate, and hopelessly inadequate to address our countries fiscal challenges"

I wish my hopelessly ignorant friends on Facebook would face the reality of a failed welfare state.  But there are academics in my department who study the welfare state, who don't think there is any problem with the welfare state in Europe.  The DOOM (tm Ace) is upon them, and they think we can tax the top 2% earners to a balanced budget.  I feel like anyone who engages in such BS should read Iowahawk's budget pay-off breakdown or watch the video-ized version done by Bill Whittle to see why "eating the rich" is possibly the WORST idea to treat trillions in debt and double-digit unemployment.  

Oh, and this:

" Does no one else in the media notice this? That after sounding like an adult in the very beginning, and telling the public that any politician who tells you that we can reduce our deficit just by cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse" is a demagogic liar, he then goes on to only specify cuts targeting "waste, fraud, and abuse"? ...

Does no one else notice that we just heard that Obama is a demagogue, and a liar, and unserious about governance from the highest possible authority possible -- the mouth of Barack Hussein Obama himself?"

-Ace @ AOSHQ

Excerpt of the day - April 13

"As was revealed yesterday re the sham budget “cuts”, the government class’s response to its fiscal fraud is to obscure it via political fraud, a sleight of hand that demonstrates utter contempt for the citizenry. If this is the best they can do, they’re ensuring that everything is going to get worse. Real worse, real poor, real fast."


- Mark Steyn, @ the Corner




And in the comments:


"Indirectly, that evinces utter contempt for the citizenry which STILL reveres the Constitution. But it's the **limitations on their authority** for which their utter contempt is so virulent.

Mr. Steyn, this is what happens when a nation with a WRITTEN Constitution is led by people who deem our Constitution "dead" in the absence of "leaders" "resuscitating" it with injections of their own personal proclivities, aided and abetted by judges who -- with the legal academy as their cheering section -- subvert legal judgment with personal will."

Excerpt for the day, April 7

"...more taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood equals more abortions. In 2000, Planned Parenthood performed 197,070 abortions while making 2,486 adoption referrals. In 2009, they performed 332,278 abortions and made just 977 adoption referrals. That means an 80 percent increase in taxpayer funding resulted in a 69 percent increase in the number of abortions and a 61 percent decrease in the number of adoption referrals."


- Marjorie Dannenfelser, quoted @ the Corner


And apparently they have enough money to pay people $350 a week to campaign against the defunding of PP.  

Excerpt for the day - March 31

" I find it remarkable that prestigious U.S. institutions of higher learning, such as NYU or Yale — which recently announced plans to open a campus in Singapore – find it so easy to partner with dictatorships, communist autocracies, and one-party authoritarian states. These are the same prestigious U.S. institutions who so pride themselves on their liberal concern for human rights. But they are too busy opening campuses to think about those things now. By leasing out their names, academic prestige and credibility to some of the most repressive governments in the world, our leading universities are showing that they place ultimate value not on the principles of liberty or the free expression of ideas, but on corporate-style expansionism, power, and the almighty dollar.

We have reached the dawning of the age of the university as multinational conglomerate. Wherever you are in the world, NYU, Inc., is able to manufacture a genuine American educational experience for you (freedom not included); diplomas come in four convenient sizes. And it’s only a matter of time before McYale opens up a convenient drive-thru location in your hometown, village, or jungle tribe."

-Nathan Harden @ PhiBetaCons

Excerpt for the day - March 30

"The "feminized man" represents the perfect storm of collaboration between radical feminism and a particularly sappy and sentimental Christianity that dominates many of our evangelical churches. What do feminists and evangelicals have in common? Both factions increasingly re-classify typically masculine characteristics (say, aggression or adventurousness) as vices and typically feminine characteristics (such as emotionalism or an emphasis on relationships) as virtues...[Men are] told to be "Christlike" by pastors or Sunday School teachers who imagine a feminized Christ, a Jesus always washing feet (or giving foot-rubs) and never clearing out temples, a Jesus of gentle words and not fierce anger, a Jesus always serving, never leading."


-David French @ Patheos

Excerpt for the day - March 29

"Too often in the past, going all the way back to the days of Woodrow Wilson, we have operated on the assumption that a bad government becomes better after the magic of “change.” President Wilson said that we were fighting the First World War to make the way “safe for democracy.” But what actually followed was the replacement of autocratic monarchies by totalitarian dictatorships that made previous despots pale in comparison."

- Thomas Sowell, 'Measuring Force'

This makes me think about the lecture to my students about the American fight for independence vs. the French Revolution.  Sometimes the present system sucks; but more often than not, the destruction of one unpopular system has simply resulted in a far more oppressive system taking its place (see Napoleonic France, Nazi Germany, Bolshevik Russia, Iran under the Ayatollah).  It's also what's been worrying me about Egypt initially, and now Libya (among others).  Picking sides before having the whole story, pointing fingers about abuse and oppression without understanding what the other options are, does not seem like a good way to handle international military and diplomatic affairs.  Of course it is good to rid the world of oppressive dictators, but what then?  Having a plan for what comes after is often more important than doing something in the first place.  

Excerpt of the Day - March 28

Regarding Obama's speech on Libya:


"Translation: It now seems good to have removed Saddam, but too costly. It was good to remove Milosevic, but it took too long. So I will remove Qaddafi much more quickly and at far less cost, but I won’t do it by targeting Qaddafi, but by preventing his aircraft from flying and hoping Qaddafi goes away. Qaddafi deserves our special intervention because he is worse than other dictators, such as an Assad who is a “reformer” or Ahmadinejad whom we won’t “meddle” against. We successfully sought a UN resolution to protect the people, and will stick by it, but hope somehow someone will go beyond it and remove Qaddafi."


- Victor Davis Hanson, @ the Corner

This is old...

but I stumbled on it today, and wanted to include it.


"After assuring the world that he was "heartbroken" about the devastation in Japan, Barack Obama went golfing and delivered a comedy monologue for the Gridiron Press Club. Later, he used the entirety of his weekly radio address to talk about possible government actions to address the serious, urgent crisis in...pay inequality for women.

But today, all of that is changing. Because today the president will appear on national television...to give his NCAA College Basketball picks (having actually taped this crucially important announcement yesterday).

Hope n' Change could have a lengthy editorial today about presidential appearances and priorities, about allies and alliances, and about simple human decency and compassion. But frankly, we don't have the time, strength, or the inclination to document the fact that Barack Obama is a soulless bastard."

-Hope n'Change, a conservative web comic.  

Don't blame the state, blame the schools

and all those "free" loans.


"...a new report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity that illustrates that external factors such as decreasing state subsidies are not the main culprit behind skyrocketing prices. Student aid is, because it allows colleges to increase their prices with impunity. Evidence of this includes college prices considerably outpacing overall inflation; hugely declining faculty productivity; tuition growing far beyond instructional costs; and ballooning financial aid that hasn't been accompanied by decreasing net costs."


- Neal McCluskey @ Cato

Excerpt for the day - March 22, plus comments

"WaPo lefty Greg Sargent is really excited that Obama took a swipe at Bush while in Chile:

Crucially, Obama also took a tacit shot at Bush, comparing his own multilateral approach favorably to the former president’s:

“In the past there have been times when the United States acted unilaterally or did not have full international support, and as a consequence typically it was the United States military that ended up bearing the entire burden.”

Again, this is simply argument by assertion. When did Bush act unilaterally? When he had far more nations supporting the US in Iraq and Afghanistan than Obama does in Libya?"

-DrewM @ Ace

I become more and more convinced that Obama is possibly one of the most ignorant people in the national government.  He argues like a college student who only gets his information from the Daily Show.  Doesn't he have fact-checkers and staff writing his speeches?  Isn't there someone in the West Wing who could just re-word these statement so they aren't outright lies?  But I'm not convinced Obama knows he is lying.  I think he believes every word he says.  He's just too ignorant to know any differently, because he gets his information from useless sources.  It's like the show is being run by those children who protested the Michigan capitol this week.   They don't want to hear about state budget deficits and unemployment.  They refuse to argue cogently about options other than raising tuition: cutting down administration costs, removal of tenure, adjustment of fees across a need scale, giving up their free gym access and football tickets.  They certainly don't want to hear that giving them what they want will result in higher debt and higher unemployment, in addition to the increasing realization that your degree is worth less than the paper it is printed on.  

"We deserve free tuition and no fees!" Why?  Because they've been told they deserve it.  "Bush acted unilaterally" even though he had the approval of Congress, the support of the UN, a multitude of coalition countries, and a launching pad from Qatar.  Why?  Because he has been told it was so.  There is no deeper thought process.  Evidence only gets in the way.  They have been told this, and believe it, because it all seems so much simpler that way.

Excerpt for the Day - March 18

"Obama's waffling is likely costing Libyan lives. It would be better if he had committed U.S. support and then followed through than his present policy of committing U.S. support and then waiting to see all the Libyans who took him at his word get shot in the head.

The President needed to keep his trap shut while he decided what to do. This is one of those occasions when his endless speechifying actually has a demonstrable result. And that result is to get a whole bunch of people killed when his actions inevitably fall short of his words. That's Obama's MO: first, give a nice speech; second, golf."

-Gabriel @ Ace, about US intervention in Libya

Excerpt for the day - March 14

"Just as supply-siders are naïve to think that tax cuts are going to magically empower us to grow our way out of this mess, progressives are naïve to think that there is some magically delicious pot of Lucky Charms at the end of the IRS rainbow that is going to get us out of this in some kind of obvious or straightforward fashion. No, tax cuts do not pay for themselves, but supply-side effects are real things, and jacking up tax rates to the level necessary to sustain current levels of government spending is going to have real economic consequences, some of which could in aggregate mean that you don’t collect the taxes you thought you were going to collect."


-Kevin Williamson @ the Corner


which I got to from Ace, who added this:


"the only way to sustain the current levels of spending (or even the much lower spending of the year 2001!) is to increase taxes on the middle class by 20% or 30% or so...The Democrats want to just keep telling us who they'd tax first. Fine. They'll tax the rich first.  But who will they tax second, third, and fourth? Because their first round of increased taxation is only a bit more than a rounding error."

Excerpt for the day - March 11

"So: nationalize unions [UPDATE: and, I should note, tie them to one specific political party], nationalize businesses, eliminate large department stories, mandate profit sharing of corporations, force banks to write down loan principles and lower interest rates, disband state legislatures, make state governments mere appendages to a strong central National government, put the common interest above self-interest, have Party leaders enrich themselves while promoting socialism among their followers, and control or eliminate all Christian churches. Who does that sound like? The Tea Party?"


- Fritzworth @Ace, referring to a HuffPo piece attempting to ideologically tie Walker to Hitler.

O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue

To drown the throat of war! - When the senses

Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness,

Who can stand? When the souls of the oppressed

Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?

When the whirlwind of fury comes from the

Throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance

Drive the nations together, who can stand?

When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle,

And sails rejoicing in the flood of Death;

When souls are torn to everlasting fire,

And fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain,

O who can stand? O who hath caused this?

O who can answer at the throne of God?

The Kings and Nobles of the Land have done it!

Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!

- William Blake, prologue for King Edward IV

Excerpt for the day - March 9

Something non-political for Ash Wednesday:

"At his wake, the rooms were overflowing with scoutmasters and their wives, and with the scouts who kept coming, and coming; young men who had long-since left behind their sashes and medals and the external trappings of the Boy Scouts, but who carried within them the values they had learned and internalized though the influence of this man, who would be surprised to hear that his small jokes and warm demeanor had modeled another side of manhood for so many. Our elder son was not the only scout to travel from out-of-state—in torrential rains—to pay his respects for an hour or so, and to tell a grieving wife and son, “Yes, he mattered. His life mattered to me.”"


- Elizabeth Scalia (aka The Anchoress) at First Things

Parts Unknown, IL

Saw this on the Corner, and it cracked me up.  I suppose it's nice to know that the Wisconsin GOP seems to have a sense of humor (and of the ironic, perhaps).  It also elucidates the level of obsfucation that is ocurring within the Wisconsin protests and the media brouhaha surrounding the same.

Enjoy:

March 7, 2011

Sen. Mark Miller

Parts Unknown, IL

Dear Senator Miller,

Thank you for your hand-delivered letter with an offer to meet, in Illinois, about the businessand future direction of Wisconsin.

Let’s set aside how bizarre that is for a moment.

As you know, this legislation is designed to finally balance the state budget, prevent layoffs and create jobs in the real world. There are hundreds of thousands of unemployed or underemployed Wisconsinites, and at least 1,500 more whose jobs are in the balance because of your media stunt. We all deserve better than this.

In the meantime, members of your caucus have been meeting with the governor’s staff, talking to the media, trying to find a way back to Madison, and contradicting your message in public. In case you don’t remember, you were present yourself at one of those meetings with the governor’s staff. Your grasp of reality, and control of your caucus as minority leader, continues to amaze me.

As you know, your opportunity to compromise and amend the bill was on the floor of the state Senate. As you know, you forfeited that right and opportunity when you decided to flee the state instead of doing your job.

Your stubbornness in trying to ignore the last election and protect the broken status quo is truly shameful. While we wait for you and your colleagues to finally show up, Senate Republicans continue to stand ready to do the job we were elected to do, here in Wisconsin. I hope you are enjoying your vacation, and your vacation from reality.

Sincerely,

Scott Fitzgerald

Senate Majority Leader

CC: Governor Scott Walker

Originally posted by Katrina Trinko at the Corner. 

This is the saddest sentence I have ever read...

and it's even sadder because it is true.

"Union lobbying can occasionally be broken by direct democracy, although generally not when the stakes are high"


- Tim Cavanaugh at reason.com


Read the whole thing here.  To sum up: California is screwed.  

Excerpt for the day - February 26

"That's what "collective bargaining" is about: It enables unions rather than citizens to set the price of government. It is, thus, a direct assault on republican democracy, and it needs to be destroyed. Unlovely as they are, the Greek rioters and the snarling thugs of Madison are the logical end point of the advanced social democratic state: not an oppressed underclass, but a spoiled overclass, rioting in defense of its privileges and insisting on more subsidy, more benefits, more featherbedding, more government."


- "The Man" Mark Steyn


read more here

Why Public Employee Unions are a Menace

"Unions have come to rely on the public sector because government employees are easier to organize, and managers less resistent. Who's going to put up a fight over an organizing campaign with a politically active union when taxpayers are paying the bill? If the union wants nicer benefits, it's easy to cave in, tax dollars and budgets be damned. It's good for campaign coffers.

That mentality may have worked during a boom period, but it doesn't work in a bust when unemployment is rampant and the contrasts between haves and have nots are clear. Being a Wall Street banker may have some whiff of sin to the working man, but the loathsome element isn't merely the wealth of the AIG or Goldman Sachs executive, but that it has been compensated with taxpayer subsidies when taxpayers themselves are struggling to make ends meet. It's not so much about haves and have nots. It's about haves and have yours.

Taxpayers are becoming acutely aware of the have-yours as a class -- something like Angelo Codevilla's ruling class -- whose gains in salaries and benefits aren't associated with harder work and important innovations but political access. Public-sector unions rallying in Madison aren't even taking a hit for their political activism, given that their protest is made possible by paid sick days, negotiated for them by their collective bargaining units who, it must be said, donate to the very people with whom they negotiate."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/02/wisconsin-reveals-class-war-between-haves-and-have-yours#ixzz1Ee5kJLc1"