Maranto, an associate professor of political science at Villanova University and co-editor of “Reforming the Politically Correct University,” to be published in 2008, on the lack of intellectual diversity on campus (HT Instapundit):

Ultimately, universities will have to clean their own houses. Professors need to re-embrace a culture of reasoned inquiry and debate. And since debate requires disagreement, higher education needs to encourage intellectual diversity in its hiring and promotion decisions with something like the fervor it shows for ethnic and racial diversity. It’s the only way universities will earn back society’s respect and reclaim their role at the center of public life.

The acknowledgment is that universities have lost society’s respect. Indeed they have. If all universities with walls went to distance learning and topic-focused education, who besides NCAA sports fans and far-left bitter-enders would miss them?

Due to intervening conflicts, the Weirauch posts (Robin Weirauch Takes Stealth Campaigning to the Next Level: Parts 2 and 3) will go up just after midnight on Sunday/Monday and will be kept at the top throughout the day Monday.

I haven’t had a lot to say about the Ohio’s Fifth Congressional District Special Election coming up on Tuesday.

That’s because the decision by the Club for Growth to go to the barricades for Steve Beuhrer against Bob Latta was very ill-advised, and such a complete turn-off. After a couple years of generally smart moves in congressional races in Texas, Michigan, and Colorado, and principled moves like the attempt to take out Lincoln “Chapstick” Chafee in the Rhode Island primary, I thought that the Club had learned its lesson to pick its battles wisely. But in OH-05, it reverted to what didn’t work in OH-02’s 10-person primary in mid-2005 (third item at link), and did it with a nasty vengeance that has me questioning its judgment going forward. The last thing economic conservatives need going into 2008 is a group that has shown it will waste its precious resources on a primary where there was so little difference between the two Special Primary GOP candidates.

After all, if you go to Bob Latta’s home page, he’s saying the right things, and appears to have the career voting record to back it up. Though it takes more work than it should to pull it together, after a few clicks it’s obvious that he’s fiscally conservative (signing the Americans for Tax Reform “No New Taxes” Pledge; scroll to very bottom at link), prolife, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-border security, does his job (100% voting record), and involved in the community.

Which brings us to Robin Weirauch.

Robin Weirauch is conducting the stealthiest congressional campaign I have yet seen, and that’s saying something. After all, she has topped the following doozies, just off the top of my head:

• The June 2005 Bob McEwen, whose lobbying past was totally invisible to voters in OH-02’s Special GOP Primary;
• Paul Hackett’s July-August 2005 pretend-Republican videos, while at the same time cursing President Bush in speeches and interviews, in OH-02’s Special Election;
• McEwen’s history of voting in Ohio while living in Virginia, exposed in the 2006 OH-02 primary;
• Charlie Wilson’s bemoaning the condition of OH-06’s economy in November 2006 — a district completely represented by fellow Democrat Ted Strickland the previous four years, and partially represented by Strickland during 8 of the 10 years before that;
• And finally, until now the current stealth campaign champion — Victoria Wells-Wulsin-Whatever’s November 2006 trifecta in OH-02 (undisclosed involvement in a medically unethical project; endorsement concealment; false “nuclear waste dump” claim, while privately supporting the project).

It’s not often that I find two BizzyBlog Dealbreakers within 5 minutes, but that IS what occurred with Robin Weirauch. (A BizzyBlog Dealbreaker is “something that completely justifies a person not voting for you, regardless of your party or your stands on the issues.”)

Unfortunately, it takes a lot more than 5 minutes to lay it out. So there are two additional parts to this post:
– Part 2 - The Horrific Hidden Endorsement
– Part 3 - The Issueless Web Site, and Campaign

From Mito, Japan:

Friday, December 7, 2007 at 16:04 EST

A 73-year-old woman suffering from dementia was kept warm by a dog during a freezing night after going missing from her home in the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, police said Friday. The woman went missing Wednesday morning before being found Thursday afternoon with the dog near a park in the city of Hitachinaka, some 5 kilometers from her home.

She is believed to have stayed outside overnight with the dog. “Her life was probably saved by the body heat of the dog,” a police officer said, pointing out that she was wearing only a thin sweater and a jacket. According to a local meteorological observatory, the lowest temperature Wednesday night around the area plunged into the sub-zero level. The male dog does not belong to the woman but seemed very attached to her, police said.