Right As Usual

Y'all gotta read this post from Victor Davis Hanson , that explains why the average American taxpayer is so incensed about the "Stimulus/Porkulus". I never flipped a house; I never missed a mortgage payment; and I never took out a second, third, or fourth mortgage either. I didn’t even know there were such crazy things. So please don’t tell me that the 93% of us that played by our grandfathers’ rules are obligated to come to the rescue of the 7%, who did the exact opposite.

It's a hard-knock world, as Orphan Annie once observed. It's doubly hard in education lately. Due to the downturns in state and local budgets, many schools have had to lay off teachers, and slow plans to hire new teachers. Today, when a teacher leaves, their classes are often re-assigned to other teachers. High school classes are way past the numbers that are optimal, and many have reached the crowded levels that Baby Boomers may remember from their own childhoods - which worked, reasonably well, then. Today's teenagers are different, more distractable, less compliant, and, too often, not prepared for the rigors of academic high schools. I'd like to say that things will change for the better, but, even in the Age of Obama, I don't believe that it's a likely scenario. Which all means that private, charter, and home-schooling will look even more attractive.

It's hard to believe that The Cranky One will not be writing (on a free page, that is) any more. He does hold out the hope that he will write for pay, so maybe we'll still have a chance to read His Crankiness. Here's a few gems from the past: Instead of NASCAR or the NFL playoffs, all the televisions had some guy being enthroned as president of the US. It was awful. I can stand singing commercials for toilet paper. I once watched a half hour of Oprah and recovered, though with psychic scars. But twelve hours of embarrassing imperial pomp, chattered about by boringly dressed dullardesses with the intelligence of catfish? A freaking coronation with everything except inbred hemophiliac nobles? In a sane world, a president would sign in online. User ID, password, bingo, he’s president, spare me the media circus. Why involve the rest of us? When I get a new job, I don’t need a $150-million parade that blocks the streets everywhere. It’s a sign of a defective character. In fact...

What's funny is that many of these movies are also commercial successes. Perhaps that's the point. These are movies that speak to the common man (and woman). These are movies that have a POV that is similar to that of the culture of the Every Man. When did that become a dirty word? When did films that touched the heart of the people become such a bad thing?

When Obama was confronted with a protocol situation involving military procedure, he choked. Departing from the South Lawn, Obama broke from tradition as he boarded Marine One, the presidential helicopter. He seemed to stun the Marine standing at attention by reaching out to shake his hand. The Marine obliged, shaking the president's hand before returning to a steady salute. The Marine responded correctly, avoiding making the Anointed One feel the idiot he was. I'm not military, and even I know how to properly greet someone in the chain of command (uh, O-Man, you DO realize that you are the Commander-in-Chief, don't you? It isn't just a pretty title, it really means something).

A hot area of controversy will be the next census. Like many conservatives, I have concern that the enumeration will not be either accurate or fair. I have reservations about the honesty of some of Obama's more political allies; to be straightforward, I believe that they would lie, cheat, or steal to get the number for the liberal-leaning states. What? How can there be chicanery in counting people? After all, every citizen is entitled to be counted, right? Yes, they are. And, due to interpretations of the Constitution by Left-leaning radicals, ALSO included in that enumeration are non-citizens. Not a huge deal, if by non-citizens you mean resident aliens legally entitled to be here. Uh-uh. What the Leftists mean is EVERYBODY, illegals included, so let's load up the states with a mess of border-jumpers, so they get more representation in the Congress. Does that sound fair? It doesn't, to me. So, in addition to grabbing for warm bodies, legal or not, there is also a l...

I found this note on Facebook , from a friend named Bryan. The money quote: But Senators Snowe, Collins, and Specter, if in fact your decision is to support this massive social welfare expenditure - which ostensibly will do nothing to create jobs - then one has to wonder why you identify as Republicans. This bill goes to the very heart and soul about what is a fundamental division between Democrats and Republicans over the role of government in society and the obligation Government has to the individual. By massively subsidizing an unending mix of social programs, it is impossible for you to do so in good conscience and faith and claim to be true to the ideological basis for Republican policy.

Well, the news is that a compromise has been reached - God help us. I remember, in college, my advisor, Dr. Ramos, explaining how Hispanics thought of compromises. In English cultures, compromise means "I give a little, you give a little, and we're OK with not being wholly happy". In Hispanic cultures, compromiso means "you get your way this time, and you owe me", a completely different concept. The national animal is PORK - and every hoggish special interest is at the trough. News flash, peeps, using your future capital to fund welfare payments - to both poor people and to corporations and social service entities - is REALLY stupid budgeting. Even the CBO - the Congressional Budget Office - thinks this bill will NOT stimulate the economy. The trouble is, we'll have already spent all our cash by the time even the liberals have figured that out. At that point, what's our alternative? Socialism? That's not paranoia, BTW, that's the Cloward-Piv...

This article about loneliness and solitude , and the lengths to which the modern citizen of the world will go to escape them, is fascinating. I do like to stay connected, but I also cherish those times when I unplug. For me, being unplugged means: reading offline sitting in a public place, just enjoying the sights being outdoors - to be fair, I'm usually doing something, walking, gardening, etc. writing/making notes talking to someone That's not a very extensive list. I remember an old book by Agatha Christie about a woman forced, due to circumstances, to be in a foreign country, surrounded by strangers, with absolutely nothing to do for days. In the book, she ends up examining her life, and determining to make substantial changes (which, upon her return, she ends up NOT making). I suspect that most modern people spend too little time in introspection and contemplation, myself included. When my daughter was a novice, she spent several weeks not talking. It almost drove her...

I'm linking to this post from Ace of Spades , that links to the father of one of the murdered USS Cole's sailors . For those with short memories, that's the American Navy ship that was in Yemen waters, when it was hit by a boat loaded with explosives. From Wikipedia: The asymmetric warfare attack was organized and directed by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist organization.[4][5][6][7] In June 2001, an al-Qaeda recruitment video featuring bin Laden boasted about the attack and encouraged similar attacks. Further, about the scum who Obama wants to free: By May 2008, all defendants convicted in the attack had escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.[14] However, on 30 June 2008, Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, legal advisor to the U.S. Military tribunal system, announced charges are being sworn against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian citizen of Yemeni descent, who has been held at the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006. That'...

I just tried to access the US Senate forms for contacting my Senators (Yeah, Demint! Boo, Graham!), and the form is apparently kablooie . Displays the code, but nothing you can use to contact them. I suggest telephone calls and faxes - let them know you DON'T support the "porkulus bill" that they'll be voting on. The sooner, the better.

Instapundit has a link to an article analyzing the reasons why bankruptcies happen. The post, by Megan McArdle cites a new study that disputes an earlier study that bankruptcies happen due to unexpected medical crises. Number 1 cause? Over-consumption makes households financially over-stretched and more susceptible to adverse events. That's been my experience. Bankrupts often don't have a budget, or a plan to dig out of debt, once they get in over their head. Funnily enough, the free spending doesn't stop, even when it's clear, to them as well as their creditors, that they can't possibly avoid bankruptcy. Anyone can get in over their head, financially. Most of us no longer work for the same employer for a lifetime, or even in the same industry. We have periods of unemployment, more education (often quite expensive) to make ourselves more employable, and life events - birth, illness, family crisis. They all combine to leave us less solvent, more vulnerable t...

While I'm human enough to enjoy the spectacle we've all seen for the last 2 weeks (Obama the Anointed stubbing his toes on the foibles of his nominees), by taking too much pleasure in his humbling days, we risk Carterizing Obama. And that has major dangers, internationally. We cannot afford to have the American President so weakened that it emboldens our enemies. Yes, he needs to have his spanking administered, so thoroughly, that he gets the points - he was elected, not crowned. On the other hand, we cannot do to him what was done to Bush. If we humiliate him, we risk him trying for international diplomacy, the grand gestures, as a way of saving face. Think what our enemies will do, in that case. We could ALL lose, big. We can't afford to make him a laughing stock. Yeah, I know, the left had no problem trying to do that with Bush. There is a difference - Bush had sufficient dignity not to cozy up to our enemies, and give away the store. That's the difference be...

your Senators and Representatives, ASAP. We need to stop this "Recovery/Stimulus" bill pronto! Check the Blogroll for links to your Congresspeople.

That's TED, torrent episode downloader . With it, you can download episodes of your favorite shows that come on at inconvenient times. For me, that's The Big Bang Theory. I've been watching it on the Mac, and it's been great - MUCH better than network TV. In fact, I'm starting to ask myself why we have satellite TV at all?