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.