You would think that someone working for the self-described “Essential Global News Network” known as the Associated Press as an Education Writer might go beyond using the Copy and Paste commands in reporting on national college entrance exam test scores.

From all appearances, you would be wrong.

AP Education Writer Justin Pope’s report on the 2008 ACT exam results appears to contain nothing that isn’t already in ACT, Inc.’s press release. For whatever reason, Pope missed a shocking set of results out of Michigan that should deeply worry anyone concerned about the future competency of our workforce.

Here’s most of the early portion of Mr. Pope’s report (bold after the headline is mine):

ACT scores down, but more students college-ready

Average scores on the ACT college entrance exam dipped slightly for the high school class of 2008 as the number of students taking the exam jumped by 9 percent compared to last year.

This year’s results, released Wednesday, reveal that more than three in four test-takers will likely need remedial help in at least one subject to succeed in college. But the ACT’s creators said it was good news that average scores held nearly steady even as more students took the exam. That means the total number who’ve earned benchmark scores showing they’re ready for college-level work is rising.

….. The average ACT composite score was 21.1 for the class of 2008, compared to 21.2 a year ago, on a scale of 1 to 36.

….. A record 1.42 million - or 43 percent - of this year’s high school graduates took the ACT. It was the first time a full grade level of students had been required to take the exam in Michigan, which joined Illinois in Colorado as the only states mandating the ACT statewide.

Pope goes on later to tell us that nationwide, “ACT scores continue to show huge gaps remain between the preparation students receive in high school and what they need to succeed in college. Only 22 percent met a benchmark score for college readiness in all four subjects - English, math, reading and science. That’s a one-percentage-point decline from last year.” It’s hard to see how the headline matches the content, especially given the fact that after at least 13 years in school, so many incoming students need at least some remedial help.

But beyond that, you would think someone, somewhere might be curious about how Michigan’s ACT test results were affected in the first year it became mandatory.

I was. You’ll have a hard time believing what I found.

Here’s the raw data of interest contained at Page 7 of the organization’s Michigan report (link is to list of individual state pages downloadable as PDFs):

Now, let’s apply a bit of the math that many Michigan high school grads apparently are unable to do, in the form of an ACT-like word problem:

Assume that if it weren’t for Michigan’s 2008 mandate, the number of Wolverine State test takers would have been the same as in 2007, and that they would have turned in the same results on each section of the test as the similar group did in 2007. Also assume that the rest of the test takers would thus be those who only took the ACT because it was required.

Refer to the former group as College-Bound, and the latter group as Not College-Bound.

If the percentage of the College-Bound shown to be ready for college was the same in 2008 in the four primary subjects and “Meeting All Four Parts” as in 2007, what percentage of Not College-Bound test takers was ready for college in each of these five areas? Round your answers to the nearest 0.1%.

Here are the shocking answers:

In words, the chart shows that:

• Less than 28% of high school grads who aren’t going to college have the English skills necessary to be ready for college.
• Barely 5% of them have the requisite math knowledge and skills.
• Barely 15% can read well enough to be described as ready for college.
• Less than 6% have the requisite knowledge and skills in science.
• Less than 2% (less than 800 out of 45,000!) are college-ready in all four areas, i.e., 98% of them would need remedial help in at least one area if they chose to try going to college.

Although it would be easy, this isn’t a stab at Michigan. The Wolverine State’s switch to mandatory ACT testing provided a rare window into what those not going to college know and can do after being run through the educational sausage factory. I don’t doubt for a minute that similar depressing results for the Not College-Bound could be found in many, if not most, other states.

Look, we can argue all day long about how imperfectly the ACT test measures how ready someone who has no college plans is for the workplace. But can anyone deny that the required skill set necessary to go beyond the most menial of jobs, and thus to have a meaningful work career, is growing, and that the massive failures seen above — especially in English, math, and reading — are anything short of a disaster? In the global marketplace for labor, if employers can’t find the necessary skills here, they will find them somewhere else, and America’s dangerous slide into job-skills mediocrity will accelerate.

If the alleged journalists at AP like Mr. Pope would do some reporting and stop merely parroting press releases, maybe news like this would get out, and something might be done. Maybe.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From a Wall Street Journal editorial this morning:

The profound failure of inner-city public schools to teach children may be the nation’s greatest scandal. The differences between the two Presidential candidates on this could hardly be more stark. John McCain is calling for alternatives to the system; Barack Obama wants the kids to stay within that system. We think the facts support Senator McCain.

“Parents ask only for schools that are safe, teachers who are competent and diplomas that open doors of opportunity,” said Mr. McCain in remarks recently to the NAACP. “When a public system fails, repeatedly, to meet these minimal objectives, parents ask only for a choice in the education of their children.” Some parents may opt for a better public school or a charter school; others for a private school. The point, said the Senator, is that “no entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity.”

Mr. McCain cited the Washington, D.C., Opportunity Scholarship Program, a federally financed school-choice program for disadvantaged kids signed into law by President Bush in 2004. Qualifying families in the District of Columbia receive up to $7,500 a year to attend private K-12 schools. To qualify, a child must live in a family with a household income below 185% of the poverty level. Some 1,900 children participate; 99% are black or Hispanic. Average annual income is just over $22,000 for a family of four.

A recent Department of Education report found nearly 90% of participants in the D.C. program have higher reading scores than peers who didn’t receive a scholarship. There are five applicants for every opening.

….. The state of California just announced that one in three students in the Los Angeles public school system drops out before graduating. Among black and Latino students in L.A. district schools, the numbers are 42% and 30%. In the past five years, the number of dropouts has grown by more than 80%. The number of high school graduates has gone up only 9%.

The silver linings in these dismal clouds are L.A.’s charter high schools. Writing in the Los Angeles Daily News last week, Caprice Young, who heads the California Charter Schools Association, noted that “every charter high school in Los Angeles Unified last year reported a dropout rate significantly lower than not only the school district’s average, but the state’s as well.”

On recent evidence, the Democrat Party’s policy on these alternatives is simply massive opposition.

….. A visitor to Mr. Obama’s Web site finds plenty of information about his plans to fix public education in this country. Everyone knows this is a long, hard slog, but Mr. Obama and his wife aren’t waiting. Their daughters attend the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where annual tuition ranges from $15,528 for kindergarten to $20,445 for high school.

Sometimes it goes beyond massive opposition.

Having contemplated the disgrace I noted yesterday in Rochester, NY (”In Rochester, Almost Half of 7th and 8th Graders Fail Exam — Even When Given Some of the Answers”), I’m led to the inescapable conclusion that urban politicians who are overwhelming Democratic, and the overwhelmingly liberal media that cover them, would prefer to avoid criticizing their school systems — no matter:
- how poor the performance.
- how high the dropout rate.
- how much violent crime, including sexual assault, takes place.
- how derelict administrations and teachers are in doing their duties (as seen in Rochester).

The reason for this criticism avoidance — except occasionally, and even then usually in concert with please for more money, which is so not the problem — is that to engage in criticism will give legitimacy to the arguments of those who advocate alternatives.

They just won’t allow for that.

The hypocrisy of Democrats like the Obamas, who have the means to avoid the awful Chicago Public School system but refuse to contemplate giving poor parents the opportunity to do the same, is obvious.

The Obamas know you that only have one chance to get it right with their children’s education, and have chosen not to wait for the “we’ll have it right in a few years” mentality that pervades the education system. “A few years” never comes.

Poor parents also know that you only have one chance to get it right with their children’s education. But presidential candidate Barack Obama won’t let poor parents who want it choose a better alternative for that one chance.

Their kids be (educationally) damned. Literally.

Oh, and the long-terms needs of the US for a skilled workforce — despite the pretty rhetoric, the heck with that too.

Given how much grief charter schools and other creative initiatives get from the government-school establishment if they don’t instantly turn at risk kids into Einsteins, along with the hounding of homeschoolers that seems to be on the rise, this story shouldn’t be allowed to fall through the cracks, or remain confined to its local area.

Last Sunday’s Rochester Democrat and Chronicle story (HT One News Now), which really should be read in full, would be humorous (”Kids Get Answers, Still Can’t Pass”) if it weren’t for the fact that real children are clearly not getting educated. This systemic failure will affect them, and, to at least a slight degree, everyone reading this, for years to come (bolds are mine):

Rochester students get peek at exam questions

Thousands of city school students got a sneak peek at dozens of questions on two exams last month — a scenario that has baffled testing experts, outraged local officials and raised concerns about the validity of the exams and the Rochester School District’s method of test preparation.

The multiple-choice questions appeared in review materials produced by the district and issued to teachers to prep seventh- and eighth-graders for their final social-studies exams, one of four required district exams.

….. District officials could not say how many of the 4,329 students who took the exams had also participated in the review sessions or received copies of the materials. But those who did so were drilled on multiple-choice questions and answers that were identical to and presented in the same sequence as those on the tests.

….. Each of the exams totaled 100 points, and the multiple-choice questions were each worth one point. The exams, in turn, accounted for 25 percent of the final grade in each course.

….. District officials defended studying actual exam questions in advance of a test as a legitimate method of preparation and expressed little concern about the potential impact that repeated questions might have on the validity of the exam’s results.

They noted that the final social-studies exams, unlike those for math and English, have no bearing on whether a student is promoted to the next grade.

Connie Leech, the district’s supervisor for secondary schools, said the fact that the questions and their answers appeared in the same order on the review as the exam was “probably not in the best judgment” but added that she doubted any student could commit the order of so many questions to memory.

“I’m not concerned that it’s a cheat,” Leech said. “What we were doing is giving kids a better sense of the knowledge that they needed for the test. It’s like giving them an open-book test. This isn’t a Regents exam.”

….. Exactly half of the seventh-graders passed their exam, an increase of 6 percentage points over last year, according to the district. The passing rate in the eighth grade was 56 percent, compared with 51 percent a year earlier

In my opinion, the newspaper’s headline and text characterizations of the students’ exposure to answers as “peeks” represent a deliberate attempt to understate the seriousness of what is being described. The district is acknowledging that at least some students “received copies of the materials.” Some “peek.”

Reporter Dave Andreatta appeared not to ask if any disciplinary actions would be taken; based on Ms. Leech’s defense, it would appear not. Andreatta also used what happened as a jumping-off point to air teacher grievances over having to “teach to the test” — as if any of that is relevant to what really should be seen as an obvious case of cheating. Finally, even though the mulitple-choice questions were only a part of the exam, he seemed oddly indifferent to the appalling failure rate, even given the artificial help.

You can explore the paper’s pages over the week that has since transpired to gauge reader reaction, which you will see ranges from understandable calls for get-tough measures to inexcusable excuse-making.

This story is a more glaring example of what I believe is a common local media tendency to cut underperforming public schools — especially urban public schools — breaks they don’t deserve. Meanwhile, as noted earlier, media sympathies usually are not with ideas designed to help parents looking for better alternatives that will enable them to break away from the public school monopoly, or with those who choose to take on the serious responsibility of educating their children themselves, and tend to perform that task fairly well.

Why is that?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Of all the excuses (bolds are mine):

Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America’s addiction to “dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive” oil if he is elected U.S. president — and one of his first targets might well be Canada’s oil sands.

A senior adviser to Mr. Obama’s campaign told reporters it’s an “open question” whether oil produced from northern Alberta’s oilsands fits with the Democratic candidate’s plan to shift the U.S. sharply away from consumption of carbon-intensive fossil fuels.

….. The remarks amount to a shot across the bow of Alberta’s oil sands industry, which is planning to boost production from 1.3 million barrels a day to 3.5 million barrels over the next decade.

The industry has come under sustained attack from U.S. environmentalists over the past year because the production of its heavy oil emits an estimated three times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil.

….. Mr. Obama is committed to supporting energy sources that help slow climate change if elected — and he will reward industries that meet tough new greenhouse gas standards, Mr. Grumet said.

“It’s a meritocracy. We are going to support resources that diversify petroleum supplies, that bring more production to this hemisphere, and that meet our long-term obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “And I think it’s an open question as to whether or not the Canadian resources are going to meet those tests.”

Who died and put them in charge of the marketplace?

Once again, we see that “globaloney” — my term for the belief that the earth is warming (probably wrong), that humans are the primary cause of it if it is taking place (almost definitely wrong), and that drastic actions to reduce “greenhouse gases” is necessary to “save the planet” (how convenient for the command-and-control types) — leading to the conclusion that we can’t consume energy that is in abundance literally in our neighbor’s back yard.

Can’t drill offshore. Can’t drill in ANWR. Can’t build refineries. Can’t get use new technologies to get oil. Instead, bet on the come that some marvelous “alternative technology” will appear — and ridiculously quickly.

Isn’t it amazing that every time Barack Obama has a choice between continued economic growth and government control that either could or will jeopardize it, he chooses government control? Income taxes, capital gains taxes, energy, education, Social Security, health care — it goes on and on and on. Is there nothing he doesn’t want under his thumb?

Mark Levin is right — this guy is a blind ideologue, and a dangerously ignorant one at that. Facts don’t matter. Economic progress doesn’t matter. Only power does.

UPDATE: Catch of the Day — Eric the Red at Vocal Minority found out who American “historian” Allan J. Lichtman is (Wikipedia entry is here). Eric is right: “This guy is a hard-core radical leftist with a truckload of political axes to grind against Republicans!” If there was any doubt about “worst ever,” the sole-sourcing to an outright partisan disguised as a “historian” erases it.

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(original post)

Two Associated Press writers, with the help of accompanying photos at ABCnews.com, have dug down deep and reached a new low in dismal, depressive reporting.

You can be forgiven if, after reading the entire Saturday afternoon “report” by Alan Fram and Eileen Putman of the Associated Press, you worry that the two writers plan to jump from the nearest tall building — and take their readers with them — unless Barack Obama wins the White House.

This is how the pained pair’s incredibly over-the-top report begins (note how the headline answers the question before the text begins; excerpted text, and photos found at the ABC link, are included for fair use and discussion purposes):

Everything seemingly is spinning out of control
Out-of-control weather, gas prices, economy chip away at American self-confidence

Is everything spinning out of control?

Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.

The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country’s sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.

The sense of helplessness is even reflected in this year’s presidential election. Each contender offers a sense of order - and hope. Republican John McCain promises an experienced hand in a frightening time. Democrat Barack Obama promises bright and shiny change, and his large crowds believe his exhortation, “Yes, we can.”

Freaking-Out Fram and Put-Upon Putman then lament that “a barrel-scraping 17 percent of people surveyed believe the country is moving in the right direction.” It’s a wonder, given the tenor of press reporting during at least the past two years, that it’s as high as it is.

(By the way, did you notice that Fram and Putman didn’t mention who has been in control of Congress while much of this decay in confidence has taken place until the third-last paragraph? Or that Congress is the least-trusted institution in the country — less than HMOs and “Big Business”?)

Global warming, or what yours truly likes to refer to as “globaloney,” even makes an appearance:

Floods engulf Midwestern river towns. Is it global warming, the gradual degradation of a planet’s weather that man seems powerless to stop or just a freakish late-spring deluge?

Then the Disheartened Duo get to the real purpose of their piece: to convince us, now that we’re all completely miserable, that the only solution is a change in which party controls the White House (bolds are mine):

American University historian Allan J. Lichtman notes that the U.S. has endured comparable periods and worse, including the economic stagflation (stagnant growth combined with inflation) and Iran hostage crisis of 1980; the dawn of the Cold War, the Korean War and the hysterical hunts for domestic Communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s; and the Depression of the 1930s.

“All those periods were followed by much more optimistic periods in which the American people had their confidence restored,” he said. “Of course, that doesn’t mean it will happen again.”

Each period also was followed by a change in the party controlling the White House.

By the way, those familiar with the Venona Papers and the work of M. Stanton Evans know that there is a better word to describe the “hunts for domestic Communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s.” The word is “necessary.”

You’ll have to go to the final two paragraphs at the last page of the article yourself to read how these two wrap things up. One really has to wonder how they get through each day.

Fram’s and Putman’s despondent drivel isn’t labeled “analysis,” or “background.” It is apparently what these sad sacks, and their editors at the Associated Press, believe is “journalism.”

No it’s not, but it is this: Something you should save to the hard drive, and show to anyone still clinging to the misbegotten belief that the press hasn’t taken sides in the 2008 presidential election.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Not only that, the ignorance in on display is in what appears to be an official campaign video (HT Real Clear Politics):

(Excerpted comments begin at about 7:10 into the vid)

While you, most of you here have Social Security tax on every dime you’ve ever earned, you’ve got billionaires and millionaires who are paying on only a tiny ….. fraction of their income.

I’ve got a friend in Omaha, you may have heard of him, named Warren Buffett. He’s worth $56 billion. Y’know, if he’s only paying the first $100,000, that is .000001% of his income as he’s paying Social Security. I may have lost a couple of zeros in there.

The point is, it’s negligible to him, it’s not even noticeable. I think that’s why the best way forward is to first look to adjust the cap on the payroll tax, so that people like me, because I’m earning a bit more than $102,000, pay a little bit more and people in need are protected.

Folks, I cleaned up what Obama said as much as I could. Somebody ought to call Joe Biden and see if he wants to take back his comment about how articulate this guy is, instead of apologizing for having said it.

Anyway, here’s a translation of the bolded paragraph above I can (sort of) work with:

I’ve got a friend in Omaha, you may have heard of him, named Warren Buffett. He’s worth $56 billion. Y’know, if he’s only paying Social Security tax on the first $100,000, that is .000001% of his income on which he’s paying Social Security tax. I may have lost a couple of zeros in there.

You lost more than a couple of zeros, pal. You wanted your audience to mentally divide $100,000 by $56 billion (if you’re keeping score, that’s 0.00018%) — as if Warren Buffett’s income, which Obama never disclosed and probably isn’t known in total, is the same as his net worth. O,M,G.

Someone ought to tell Obama that:

• Income is what you earn.
• Net worth is what you have (after subtracting what you owe).
• Warren Buffett probably earns most of his income, which he said was more than $46 million in calendar 2006, from capital gains and dividends, against which there is no Social Security tax (yet).
• People pay Social Security tax on their income from work or self-employment, not on their net worth (yet).
• If Warren Buffett currently has earnings from work of $5.6 million (my recollection is that it’s probably lower than that), Obama was “only” off by a factor of 10,000 ($56 bil divided by $5.6 mil) in that element of his attempted “calculation.” Also, the current taxable earnings limit of $102,000 would be 1.8% of Buffett’s earnings from work, not “.000001%.”
• Under Obama’s proposal for Social Security, if Buffett’s earnings from work really is $5.6 million, he will pay over $663,000 more into the system —

  

• Warren Buffett, whose net worth is $56 billion, might indeed see this tax increase as “negligible to him …. not even noticeable.” I would suggest that someone with little previous net worth earning $5.6 million for the first time might more accurately see being forced to cough up an additional $663K as theft by government.
• Pile the 12.4% marginal tax just shown on top of the top federal income tax rate of 39.6% that would return if the current tax law isn’t extended, the 2.9% Medicare tax on all earned income, and at least 5% for state and local income taxes, and you’re at a marginal tax rate of just under 60%. That’s ridiculous.

Whether Barack Obama actually understands any of this is questionable.

This is the same guy who says that his earnings of roughly $4 million in 2007 (including book royalties, which are subject to Social Security taxation up to the current limit) is “a bit more” than $102,000. Some “bit.”

This guy is one election win away from being in charge of a $3 trillion-plus budget and responsibility for steering US economic policy.

O. M. G.

Here’s a site to check out – UCC Truths.

The United Church of Christ is the supposedly “mainstream” denomination the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) is a part of. TUCC is the church which the objectively unfit presidential candidate (second item at link) I refer to as BOOHOO (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama) insists he and his family will continue to attend, despite its new pastor’s refusal to renounce Wright’s extensively documented poisonous rhetoric and “black liberation theology” beliefs.

So why anyone be surprised that, at the national level, UCC isn’t really “mainstream”? At least the last time I checked, promoting FALN terrorists as freedom fighters (the Puerto Rican group’s name is translated as “Armed Forces of National Liberation”) was not a “mainstream” cause.

Here’s an “oh by the way” from Wiki which makes the FALN a twofer, as it also negatively affects the other Democratic presidential aspirant (paragraphing added by me):

On August 11, 1999, Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of sixteen members of FALN that set off bombs several times in New York City and Chicago, convicted for conspiracies to commit robbery, bomb-making, and sedition, as well as for firearms and explosives violations.

None of the sixteen were convicted of bombings or any crime which injured another person, and all of the sixteen had served nineteen years or longer in prison, which was a longer sentence than such crimes typically received, according to the White House. Clinton offered clemency, on condition that the prisoners renounce violence, at the appeal of 10 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, President Jimmy Carter, the Cardinal of New York, and the Archbishop of Puerto Rico.

The commutation was opposed by U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons and criticised by many including former victims of FALN terrorist activities, the Fraternal Order of Police, and members of Congress. Hillary Clinton in her campaign for Senator also criticised the commutation, although she had earlier been supportive.

In other words, the presidential candidate I refer to as HR4C (Hillary Rodham Cackling Crying Complaining Clinton) was for it, before she was against it.

This UCC Truths link describes those activities of those whose sentences were commuted, and claims that they did not really renounce violence as a condition of their release.

Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator has more.

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A lot of people don’t want to think about planning for retirement:

Planning for retirement is only slightly higher on the groan scale than dieting or starting a workout routine, according to findings from a survey of 1,000 Americans released April 1, 2008.

Whether it’s financial or physical fitness, it’s tough getting started.

Only one in three people surveyed is on track with retirement planning, and about one-fourth haven’t started planning at all. Nearly one-third view retirement planning as slightly more difficult than starting a workout regimen (29 percent) or a diet (28 percent).

….. Obstacles to retirement planning for many Americans, the survey found, include the following:
• Difficulty knowing what types of investments they should make, 42 percent.
• How much they will need to retire comfortably, 40 percent.
• When to retire, 33 percent.
• Where to begin in the planning process, 32 percent.

The federal government, which is in the process, like it or not, of trying to “get by” on a shrinking annual surplus from Social Security that it has become accustomed to gobbling up to paper over more serious deficits than those reported, doesn’t help in the retirement planning department. It’s way too late for anyone over 50 or so without a big stash to think about getting by with a much lower level of Social Security benefits than today’s retirees are receiving. Yet, despite all the denials made by politicians, the possibility exists that they will have to figure out how to do just that — if not during their early years of retirement, then in their later years, when it will be too late for many to even think about going back to work.

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Enviros are unhappy with the World Bank:

Developing countries and environmental groups accused the World Bank on Friday of trying to seize control of the billions of dollars of aid that will be used to tackle climate change in the next four decades.

“The World Bank’s foray into climate change has gone down like a lead balloon,” Friends of the Earth campaigner Tom Picken said at the end of a major climate change conference in the Thai capital.

“Many countries and civil society have expressed outrage at the World Bank’s attempted hijacking of real efforts to fund climate change efforts,” he said.

….. developing countries want climate change cash to be administered through the existing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), which they feel is much less under the control of the Group of 8 (G8) richest countries.

Likely translation: We’re really mad that the World Bank won’t just give the money to the corrupt kleptocrats at the UN, so they can give some of the money to corrupt governments in the developing world.

(Aside: What in the bleep is Reuters doing quoting a spokesperson for far-left eco-harrassers and possible terrorist collaborators [scroll down to “WALHI’s Strange Bedfellows” at link] like Friends of the Earth?)

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Karl at Protein Wisdom caught the so-called “Moderate Voice” blogger calling Phil Gramm a terrorist (sorry, no link to garbage such as that), because Gramm supported financial deregulation in the late 1990s. Far-lefties are very good at ruining words with plain meanings, aren’t they?

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This is really over the top (HT Hot Air Headlines):

DURHAM - Members of the 2006 Duke University lacrosse team are objecting to the city’s request to shut down a Web site that chronicles the legal proceedings in the players’ federal lawsuit.

….. Lawyers for Duke and the city claim the statements could prejudice a jury.

The more Duke and Durham lawyers keep this kind of arrogance up, the more likely it is that 2006 lacrosse team members will own the school and the town lock, stock, and barrel.

Liberal Fascism Lite (actually not-so-lite; HT Weapons of Mass Discussion) — As outrageous as this is, it has flown under way too far under the radar:

D.C. police are so eager to get guns out of the city that they’re offering amnesty to people who allow officers to come into their homes and get the weapons.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced yesterday the Safe Homes Initiative, aimed at parents and guardians who know or suspect that their children or other relatives have guns. Under the deal, police target areas hit by violence and seek adults who let them search their homes for guns, with no risk of arrest. The offer also applies to drugs that turn up during the searches, police said.

The program is scheduled to start March 24 in the Washington Highlands area of Southeast Washington. Officers will go door-to-door seeking permission to search homes for weapons.

I could handle this if parents voluntarily called the cops in themselves. But that’s clearly not what this is about. Instead, it’s about intimidation. In my opinion, it’s also a pre-emptive strike in advance of a Supreme Court ruling this summer that will more than likely declare DC’s gun ban unconstitutional, and that will hopefully (praying mightily), once and for all, establish that gun ownership is an individual right under the plain language of the Second Amendment.

A commenter at Weapons of Mass Discussion notes that Boston is undertaking a similar effort.

Is it a coincidence that Washington’s and Boston’s governments have been controlled by lib Democrats for decades? I think not.

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Speaking of flying under the radar, Debbie Schlussel has explosive info about the situation with Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (here and here) that should be getting more visibility, and isn’t.

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Powerline, which has been making hash of the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Nick Coleman for years, caught him repeating a howler about the Vets for Freedom (VFF).

On Thursday, supporting a Twin Cities high school’s last-minute revocation of an invitation to appear, Coleman wrote:

VFF says it is nonpartisan, but the liberal watchdog group the Center for Media and Democracy said it began as a Republican front group managed by White House insiders.

Of course, Coleman never attempted to contact VFF officials, and just took the far-left “Center for Media and Democracy’s” word for it.

Star Trib columnist and blogger Katherine Kersten got it right:

If we were a White House front group, we should have been awash in cash in our infancy,” says (Vets for Freedom Director Pete) Hegseth. In fact, the group was started by a handful of vets and initially could hardly make ends meet. “We had one staff member, and he could barely pay his own salary,” says Hegseth. “He literally put down his own credit card to start the organization.”

To suggest that Vets for Freedom marches lock-step in support of the Bush administration is equally untrue. When Hegseth returned from his tour in Iraq in Oct. 2006, he slammed the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq in a high-profile piece for the Wall Street Journal.

Minnesota educators and BDS-infected libs (but I repeat myself) have a history of trying to keep mission-supporting vets’ views from becoming widely known — and Coleman has a history of cheering them on.

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Embarrassments like the aforementioned Coleman are part of the reason why the bad financial news just keeps on coming in the newspaper business (”NAA Reveals Biggest Ad Revenue Plunge in More Than 50 Years”). I’m not saying that media bias is the only reason for declines such as the one most recently reported at Editor & Publisher, but that it has served to accelerate those declines.

More importantly for their long-term future, if the public were satisfied with the quality of news delivered by print newspapers, they would have followed those publications to their web sites as the Internet took hold. Look at the numbers in the E&P article, and imagine how different things would be if the papers’ online readerships were 3-4 times what they currently are. Online ad gains would come close to making up for the print ad losses. But that’s not what’s happening, because now that the public has alternatives, it is abandoning the newspaper ship. Newspaper execs who don’t think that bias hasn’t been a major reason for that are whistling past the graveyard.

Redefining chutzpah, Duke University’s administration is attempting legal action to shut down the information web site of the lacrosse players suing the university.

K.C. Johnson explains the obvious as to why the university has no case, and should know that it has no case.

It takes a lot for me to get to the point of suggesting that parents not send their kids to a particular university. The disgraceful two-year pattern of behavior at Duke in this case has me at that point.

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Angelina Jolie, in the Washington Post, last Thursday:

As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their (humanitarian) programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.

It seems to me that now is the moment to address the humanitarian side of this situation. Without the right support, we could miss an opportunity to do some of the good we always stated we intended to do.

Rush, on Friday:

She makes more sense than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or anybody on the Democrat side about this. It’s stunning.

Taranto at Best of the Web, on Friday:

(Jolie’s attitude is) quite a contrast with the attitude of Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama, who said last summer that even preventing genocide was not a sufficient reason for a continuing presence in Iraq. What does it say about the Democratic Party that it seems poised to nominate someone who, on the most pressing concern of the day, is less morally serious than a Hollywood starlet?

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A great question from Tom Maguire for Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, who on Thursday said that “they” used the “fear bomb” of her husband’s middle name (which, in case you didn’t know, is “Hussein”) against him in his 2004 Senate run:

OK, who is “they”? Today’s ChiTrib advised us that Alan Keyes, Obama’s final Senate opponent, never used “Hussein” …..

FWIW, the Chi Trib’s archive first kicks out a “Barack Hussein Obama” in Dec 2006.

So, again, who were “they” in 2004, Michelle?

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I said here that I might have to modify the names I use for the three remaining presidential candidates if circumstances warrant.

In one case, they do.

Thanks to stories such as this one, the lone remaining female presidential contender’s name has been upgraded from HR3C to HR4C (Hillary Rodham Cackling Crying Complaining Clinton).

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The globalarmists who believe in man-made global warming have suffered a serious setback: “Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming.”

I don’t recall any big reduction in driving or worldwide industrial output in the past year that would “explain” th drop, do you?

You know that globaloney, the term used around here to describe the belief that humans have a meaningful influence on climate and weather patterns, is well on its way to being intellectually routed when the New York Times does a defensive article like this one.

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Florida Governor Charlie Crist has a message for Democrats who want a “do-over” of the Florida Primary (my interpretation): “Go ahead, guys, make fools of yourselves before the entire country. The State of Florida will be glad to sponsor the spectacle.”

There’s Supply-side news from Hong Kong, and an interesting choice made in the tax targeted for elimination:

Booming Hong Kong cuts taxes as surplus soars

Hong Kong’s financial chief said Wednesday he will cut salary and corporate taxes and abolish duty on beer and wine after a booming economy pushed the city’s budget surplus to a record high.

….. Duty on beer and wine — currently at 40 percent — will be cut with immediate effect.

Tsang attributed the surplus to higher-than-expected tax revenues from the city’s booming stock and property markets as well as company profits and salaries.

Tsang fulfilled the government’s last year promise to cut salaries tax to 15 percent in 2008-09 from 16 percent and the corporate tax rate to 16.5 percent from 17.5 percent.

Tax rates went down and tax collections went up. How DID that happen?

Hong Kong residents will surely drink to that success.

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So ….. Basic medical hygiene may be less important than a kowtowed-to religion:

Muslim medics refuse to roll up their sleeves in hygiene crackdown - because it’s against their religion

Health officials are having crisis talks with Muslim medical staff who have objected to hospital hygiene rules because of religious beliefs.

Medics in hospitals in at least three major English cities have refused to follow the regulations aimed at helping tackle superbugs because of their faith, it has been revealed.

Women medical students at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool objected to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands and removing arm coverings in theatre, claiming it is regarded as immodest.

Similar concerns were raised at Leicester University -and Sheffield University reported a case of a Muslim medic refusing to “scrub” because it left her forearms exposed.

Some students have said that they would prefer to quit the course rather than expose their arms, but hygiene experts said no exceptions should be made on religious grounds.

It’s worth reminding folks that in a nationalized health care system such as the British NHS, patients often don’t have an alternative as to which hospital they go to, or which doctor will serve them. And besides, in a forced-uniformity system, the problem may exist anywhere there is a Muslim female doctor.

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Jonah Goldberg makes a great point in discussing the “respectability” of unrepentant 1960s radicals William Ayers (”I feel we didn’t do enough [violence]”) and Bernardine Dohrn (HT Instapundit):

What fascinates me is how light the baggage is when one travels from violent radicalism to liberalism. Chicago activist Sam Ackerman told Politico’s reporter that Ayers “is one of my heroes in life.” Cass Sunstein, a first-rank liberal intellectual, said of Ayers and Dohrn, “I feel very uncomfortable with their past, but neither of them is thought of as horrible types now - so far as most of us know, they are legitimate members of the community.”

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This USA Today article shows that those who want to tear us apart are making very real progress:

Teens losing touch with common cultural and historical references

Big Brother. McCarthyism. The patience of Job.

Don’t count on your typical teenager to nod knowingly the next time you drop a reference to any of these. A study out today finds that about half of 17-year-olds can’t identify the books or historical events associated with them.

Twenty-five years after the federal report A Nation at Risk challenged U.S. public schools to raise the quality of education, the study finds high schoolers still lack important historical and cultural underpinnings of “a complete education.”

This is what a large part of the educational establishment wants: No common culture, (except perhaps “US - bad; rest of world, good”). Combine this with the the influx of millions of illegal aliens who clearly are not picking up on our heritage, and in fact are often hostile to it, and you realize that they’re getting their way. And we’re letting them. If there is no cultural glue holding a nation together, it runs the risk of falling apart.

The argument presented in the article that learning basic reading and math skills is getting in the way of learning our culture is as bogus as it comes. How is it that the culture got passed on during the first half of the 20th century, when basic-skills curricula were much tougher? Answer: Because educators almost univerally cared about it.

This story isn’t ringing true for me:

Throughout the event, as (former president Bill) Clinton made his case for his wife, (Robert) Holeman’s dissenting voice could be heard. At times he simply shouted Obama’s name. When Clinton would set up a sure applause line, Holeman could be heard heckling. As soon as Clinton finished speaking, the Canton native made a beeline to the ropeline to give Clinton a piece of his mind.

“I asked the president to please stop the bickering between the campaigns,” Holeman said in an interview afterwards. “All this name calling is like the bully in the yard. He can’t get his way, he can’t get nothing done.” Holeman said he thought Clinton was “gasping for air.”

“This is the last hurrah. After March 4, Hillary Clinton will be out of the race for good, and Obama will take the commanding lead,” he said. “She should back him with her delegates immediately. That’s what I’m asking them to do.”

*** UPDATE *** Obama spokesperson Ben LaBolt said Holeman was “absolutely not” a plant by the campaign. And a spokesperson for President Clinton who was near the president said there was no physical contact.

There’s no Canton-area listing for “Canton native” Robert Holeman at InfoSpace, and no “home listing” (with or without a phone number) for ANY Canton-area Holeman at 411.com. In fact, there’s only one Robert Holeman listed for all of Ohio, and his estimated age doesn’t tie in.

I also find it interesting that security for the husband of The Queen of Plants allowed “Holeman,” or whoever he really is, to interrupt Mr. Clinton so frequently, and to get so close to him. Also, was MSNBC “encouraged” to follow up with the Obama campaign, which as far as I know has never been accused of placing plants, or did it follow up without prodding?

Finally, as to the “When Clinton would set up a sure applause line” part — Where does a lone heckler get that kind of impeccable timing?

Of course, I haven’t proven anything, but given Mrs. Clinton’s past record, “somebody” should be digging — and hard. I wonder if anyone who tries will be able to find Mr. “Holeman” today?

Posted in longer form at NewsBusters.org. NewsBusters has deleted its version of this post on the grounds that the evidence is too thin. I respect their decision to do as they wish with their blog, but I feel comfortable that what is presented above is presented properly as somewhat speculative but worthy of consideration. I intend to get more evidence on the existence or non-existence of “Robert Holeman” in the coming days, and will reveal it when known.

Also: Did Mr. “Holeman” self-characterize as a “Canton native” to avoid telling reporters where he’s really living now?

UPDATE, Feb. 19: According to the Stark County Board of Elections (county seat is Canton), a Robert Holeman was registered to vote until 1999, when his registration was cancelled for non-activity. The Stark County person I spoke with also did a statewide search, and found no other Robert Holeman besides the one mentioned earlier whose age doesn’t tie in.

I discussed registration cancellation procedures with an official at the Warren County Board of Elections (my home county). That person indicated that cancellation procedures begin after a person has not voted in two “general elections,” which, as they define it, only occur in presidential election years.

This would indicate, if it’s the same guy, that this person, who according to the MSNBC report “said he did support Bill Clinton during his campaigns,” didn’t support him enough to vote for him in 1996 or 1992.

So a guy who doesn’t vote, and who may not even live in the area (remember that there is no evidence has been found that he lives anywhere in Ohio), gets motivated to go out and heckle a former president, and then to get in his face in a rope line? Not, adding, up.

UPDATE 2, Feb. 19: There is other indirect evidence. There is only one Robert Holeman listed at 411.com in semi-nearby Pennsylvania — and he is in Philadelphia, about 250 miles away. Various Google searches yielded no results relating to any Northeast Ohio-based Robert Holeman.

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Fiddle-dee-oops.

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If you live in California, a Globaloney curriculum (”globaloney” being shorthand around here for “global warming” and “climate change” hysteria) appears to be on its way to a school near you.

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Even if I weren’t giving Ford grief about suicidally ignoring the boycott by the American Family Association over the company’s proactive gay-agenda support, I would calling out the following exercise in corporate self-delusion:

Ford hopes buyouts help morale, bottom line

The current round of early retirement and buyout offers to most of Ford Motor Co.’s U.S. hourly workers will give them options to move on with their lives, but it also will help the automaker’s bottom line, according to Ford executives.

….. Joe Hinrichs, group vice president of global manufacturing, and Marty Mulloy, vice president for labor affairs, said this week in an interview that getting to the lower-tier wage scale is not the prime reason for offering the packages.

Yes, they want to improve the company’s profitability, but they also believe the packages will keep up morale as workers adjust to a new, smaller Ford that is sized to match customer demand for its cars and trucks.

At least in the short-term, the “bottom line” part of the improvement is probably true, though what constitutes “improvement” may be a smaller loss and not a profit. It’s the “morale” part that is probably wishful thinking by Hinrichs and Mulloy.

Most who have been through buyout situations like these will tell you that in general, the people you’d rather keep are more likely to leave, and the ones you’d like to see take a hike all too often don’t. The better employees who leave take with them quite a bit of institutional memory that simply doesn’t get passed on to those who stay, and the newbies who come on board.

As covered by Michelle Malkin, W&M President Gene Nichol totally doesn’t get it.

Good riddance.

The accomplished economist, prolific author, and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow lists some “Economic Fallacies” in his latest Townhall column:

1. Government programs are needed to create “affordable housing.” (Actually, government intervention is what has made housing so unaffordable in places where even hovels are expensive.)

2. Employer discrimination is the main reason for differences in income between women and men. (Tons of evidence point in other directions.)

3. College tuition is going up so fast because of rising costs. (Only if you call voluntary increases in spending “rising costs.”)

4. Foreign aid helps poor countries become more prosperous. (Only if you don’t look at the evidence.)

5. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. (It all depends on whether you are talking about flesh and blood human beings or statistical brackets.)

“Economic Facts and Fallacies” (Sowell’s latest book — Ed.) also brings out some facts that seldom get much attention in the media.

1. The poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits since 1994.

2. The average income of the elderly is several times their earnings, and their wealth is far higher than among younger people.

3. Just as blacks are turned down for mortgage loans more often than whites, so whites are turned down more often than Asian Americans. (What does that do to racism as an all-purpose explanation?)

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Related, from November 18, 2007: Top Five Myths about the current economy. Sowell’s fifth item above is a large portion of that post’s Myth Number 1: “Income inequality is growing, the rich are getting richer, and they aren’t paying their fair share of taxes.”

Walter Williams, in a thoroughly excellent Townhall column, interrupts the hysteria over the economy to describe the impacts of what is being considered to “fix” the mortgage market situation, even though in historical context it’s not as bad as it was in other times (bold is mine):

The Bush bailout, as well as Federal Reserve Bank cuts in interest rates, is a wealth transfer from creditworthy people and taxpayers to those who made ill-advised credit decisions, and that includes banks as well as borrowers. According to Temple University professor of economics William Dunkelberg, 96 percent of all mortgages are being paid on time. Thirty percent of American homeowners have no mortgage. Delinquency rates were higher in the 1980s than they are today. Only 2 to 3 percent of all mortgages are in foreclosure. The government bailout helps a few people at a huge cost to the rest of the economy.

Williams wrote the above before this morning’s announcement of the 3/4-point Fed rate cut. The professor is correct that this is a wealth transfer, IF Bernanke & Co. are cutting rates beyond what is necessary to keep the whole economy going. I would suggest that at least a third of today’s announced cut is just that.

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Dennis Prager has never been accused of being pro-abortion, which is why this passage from his latest column deserves attention:

In fact, if it is Ronald Reagan that Republicans want, Giuliani is extraordinarily close to that venerated man. Ronald Reagan stood for two great beliefs: that big government is a big problem for a free society and that America must be militarily strong and lead the war against global communism.

Substitute “global jihadism” for “global communism” and you have Rudy Giuliani’s twin pillars. His one major weakness in appealing to all conservatives is that he is for abortion rights. Let me, then, briefly address all those who, like me, consider nearly all abortions immoral.

Ronald Reagan was pro-life, and it mattered little to the pro-life cause. Concerning abortion, what matters most in a president is the type of judges he appoints to the Supreme Court. As George Will wrote on behalf of Giuliani, “The way to change abortion law is to change courts by means of judicial nominations of the sort Giuliani promises to make.” It is extremely unlikely that John McCain would appoint similarly conservative judges. After all, why would he appoint judges like Scalia and Alito who apparently differ with him on the constitutionality of McCain’s own “campaign finance reform” laws?

Pro-life Republicans need to ask themselves: Will a Democrat or Giuliani as president render abortion less common in America? The best is the enemy of the better. And Giuliani is far better on abortion than any Democratic nominee.

The big question is whether you can trust Giuliani when he says he will nominate strict constructionist judges. I would suggest that, like his positions or not, at least you know where Rudy stands. What you see is what you get, and based on his career, what he promises is what you’ll get. With the Three Stooges, who knows?

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Here’s a tax loophole that should be plugged (HT Instapundit). I would note that while there are many universities earning unrelated business income and not paying taxes, the Christian Broadcasting Network is at the top of the list referred to. I should also note that what the list refers to as “total income from business activities” is probably tax-speak for “revenues,” not “profit.”

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From Michigan:

Michigan will no longer let illegal immigrants get driver’s licenses, a practice just seven other states continue to allow.

Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington do not require drivers to prove legal status to obtain a license.

How did that go unnoticed?

Here are important points made in a subscription-only op-ed in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend by Ernest Christian and Gary Robbins about an important, underappreciated type of “tax cut” that took place in 2002 and 2003:

….. the economy did not respond much to a Keynesian tax cut in 2001, consisting mostly of a new 10% bottom bracket for individuals and a child credit. In the first quarter of 2001, real investment began falling at an annual rate of 6%. The decline was stopped by the 30% partial expensing (of investments in capital equipment — Ed.) enacted in the spring of 2002. Investment started rising again at a real annual rate of 9% beginning with the enactment in 2003 of 50% partial expensing, in combination with lower rates of tax on capital gains and dividends.

….. An analysis for the Institute for Policy Innovation in 2001 concluded that, over time, each $1 of tax cut from first-year expensing produces about $9 of additional GDP growth. The high ratio occurs in large part because more capital investment leads to more employment and higher wages.

Keep in mind that this form of “tax cut” is really just a timing difference where more expense is reported in earlier years, and less in future years. Assuming rates don’t change, the amount of tax paid will ordinarily be the same over the life of a given capital investment.

Allowing more or even full expensing of investments in capital equipment beyond what is already allowed should be something that both parties in Congress can actually agree on. Given the documented return in GDP growth, how could anyone reasonably say no?

Of course, if the current congressional majority had a brain and was really willing to take on the economic slowing it is complaining about (or is the correct word “celebrating”?), it really should extend or make permanent the tax system that will have been in place for seven years past its current expiration date of 2010 (this is known more commonly as “extending or making permanent the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003″).

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In case you’re wondering, Joey Vento of Geno’s Steaks, the Philadelphia restaurant owner who insists that his customers order in English (first blogged on here in May 2006), is still under fire in Philadelphia. The city’s new mayor has this to say about the situation, noted by Jim Panyard in the Philadelphia Bulletin:

Asked about the nationally famous Geno’s Steaks squabble over owner Joey Vento’s sign telling customers to order in English, Mr. (Mayor Michael) Nutter said:

“I think the sign sends the absolute wrong message in a city that is trying to encourage a multicultural environment and encourage immigrants to come to Philadelphia.”

Translation: Mr. Vento may think it’s a private business, but such things no longer exist in the city. We have our sights on him.

Vento is still under investigation by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations. Investors Business Daily had this to say in December when the last hearing was held:

In 1906, Congress passed and President Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation requiring that people seeking to become naturalized citizens demonstrate oral English proficiency. Was Teddy a racist or a realist?

….. As we have said before, the official-English movement and requirements for speaking English on the job are not anti-immigrant. They are pro-assimilation.

English is the language of corporate America and the economic ladder all must climb. It is the difference between staying one of Joe Vento’s customers and becoming one of his competitors.

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A MarketWatch article on teen employment, (requires free registration), or more correctly stated, teen interest in employment, merits attention in the debate over immigration and “jobs citizens won’t do”:

Even as teens shun work force, job opportunities await

New data indicates that last year’s labor-force participation rate for 16- to 19-year-olds hit 41.3% — down from a peak of 57.9% in 1979, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Experts cite increasing competition for jobs, as well as low wages and high pressure for college admittance as factors keeping kids out of the labor pool.

….. In 2006, the typical earnings of more than half of working older teenagers were less than $200 per week, according to BLS. With wages like these, even parents see that extracurricular activities such as sports and clubs can be better options to help kids prepare for their future, Goodman says.

If currently available wages are seen as unacceptable in comparison to college and other costs that have to be met, consider these contributing factors:

• A pool of competing illegal immigrants artificially keeps wages in unskilled jobs lower than they otherwise would be.
• The current college-aid system penalizes “too much” work by teens. Available federal aid is reduced by $1 for every $2 in additional annual earnings by the student above roughly $3,000. So, no surprise, a lot of students stop working at the penalty threshold, or simply decide not to work.
• The college-aid system also gives the schools too much of an ability to raise tuition and fees without resistance. There is no good explanation, other than the explosion in federal student aid, as to why college tuition costs have consistent gone up at about twice the rate of inflation for at least the past 30 years.

Covering further Chinese clampdowns on the Internet, and following up on 2007 predictions made at the end of 2006 by Forbes’s Rich Karlgaard and Biz Weak:

(more…)

MAKING THE ROUNDS of what I believe is the largest single-state blog alliance in the USA:

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Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion thinks that if George Voinovich wants to increase his visibility in the state, he needs to be visiting Ohio’s counties himself, not just sending out staff members. That should be obvious.

He also catches the Columbus Dispatch using the false premise technique to underplay the significance of tort reform.

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Maggie Thurber wonders how the Toledo Public Schools can justify spending time monitoring the diversity practices of banks they do business with. So do I.

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Ohio Conservative predicts that Ted Strickland will be Hillary Clinton’s running mate if she is the Democratic nominee. Not if Ohio’s economy doesn’t improve, and not if Ted doesn’t stop criticizing the nomination process when such criticisms are of no current value and work to hurt Mrs. Clinton.

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One Oar notes that Charlie Wilson has filed for re-election in OH-06.

You would think that Mr. “Monumental Evidence That the Surge Is Working” should be satisfied now. Has anyone asked him?

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Smoke If You Got ‘Em blogs on a story about how a French physicist who doesn’t buy into globaloney (the name around here for the “global warming/climate change” nonsense) calling Al Gore a crook — specifically, one who is “presiding over an eco-business that pumps out cash.” Bingo.

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Taxman Blog has another reason why the death penalty needs to exist.

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Nix has news on the potentially nasty implications of a move by Dennis Kucinich, and general Democratic activist dislike of her, on Hillary’s prospects in the Iowa caucuses tonight. We’ll see.

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Nasty Brutish & Short predicts this for the Democrats in OH-02: “(Steve) Black loses in the primary. And (Vic) Wulsin, without a disaster in Iraq to campaign against, loses in the general.”

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Lead Us Forward has a great US map tracking what the polls would predict for delegate counts at the GOP convention. You’re going to have to click to see who’s winning.

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Cornell McCleary says that Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman has “return(ed) to power but fall(en) from grace.”

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Interested-Participant has a list (scroll down to 01/01/08 at 4:03 p.m. if necessary) of new laws that went into effect on 01-01-08. On balance, I’d say the illegal immigrant-protecting Nanny State gained.

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Patrick Poole at Central Ohioans Against Terrorism has the strangest pair of bedfell …. Ick. Just go see. To be fair, One Oar’s Brian Duffy believes this is a deliberate attempt to discredit the presidential candidate involved, and not a legitimate or desired endorsement.

Patrick also bids a “fond” farewell to a Columbus Islamic extremist, who is leaving for the friendlier environs of Dubai. At least the guy didn’t blame his departure on “bloggers,” as someone else did (see Update 5 at link).

About five times a year, the man who is probably America’s foremost legitimate intellectual, who has authored over 40 books (estimate after removing duplicate listings), and is a frequent Townhall columnist, devotes his Townhall column to brief “Random Thoughts,” most of which pack more wisdom into a few words than faux intellectuals are able to utter in a year.

IBDeditorials.com has the complete 2007 collection. Here are my top ten faves:

Teaching is very easy if you don’t care about doing it right and very hard if you do.

The culture of this nation is being dismantled, brick by brick, but so gradually that many will not notice until the walls start to sag — just before they cave in.

Now that the British television documentary, “The Great Global Warming Swindle” is available on DVD, will those schools that forced their students to watch Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth” also show them the other side? Ask them.

One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people’s motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans — anything except reason.

One of the great non sequiturs of the left is that, if the free market doesn’t work perfectly, then it doesn’t work at all — and the government should step in.

“A good catchword can obscure analysis for 50 years,” said Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. If so, then we may be hearing about “diversity,” “social justice” and “a living wage” for many years to come.

In contrast with today’s senators who try to get every Supreme Court nominee to pledge allegiance to Roe v. Wade, when Abraham Lincoln was considering nominees to that court, he said, “We cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise him for it.”

Too many people in positions of responsibility act as if these are just positions of opportunity — for themselves. The ones who simply steal money probably do less harm than teachers who propagandize their students, media who slant the news or politicians who sell out their country’s interests in order to get re-elected.

Amid all the media hysteria over the price of gasoline and the profits of “Big Oil,” one simple fact has been repeatedly overlooked: The oil companies’ earnings are just under 10% of the price of a gallon of gas, while taxes take 17%. Yet who ever accuses the government of “greed”?

Despite political spin about “tax cuts for the rich,” cuts in tax rates have led to increases in tax revenues — not only in this administration, but in the Reagan administration before that, and the Kennedy administration before that, not to mention in India and Iceland as well.

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UPDATE: Add one more, from a non-Random Thoughts column (HT to a Hot Air commenter)–

If Senator (Fred) Thompson can beat the odds and become president, he would probably be better than most of those who have been in the White House in recent times — though that is not extravagant praise.