"You have to pinch yourself - a Marxist radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshiped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it's considered impolite to say so."

- Melanie Philips, The Spectator (UK) 10/14/08

Not a Brit but Reagan wasn't bad at turning a phrase.

“Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp. Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.” —Ronald Reagan

The average couple gives up on romance just two years, six months and 25 days into a marriage, according to research.

As the economy walloped their finances, students and families saw little relief this fall from rising college costs, which jumped 6.4 percent at state universities, according to new figures out Wednesday.

Next year is already looking bad, too. More state budget cuts to higher education are virtually certain, and schools in at least two states—Michigan and Rhode Island—will take the unusual step of raising prices midyear.

"At a time of flattening wages, widespread job losses and shrinking home values, the last thing parents need is another big increase in the cost of college," said James Boyle, president of the group College Parents of America.

But that's what they got. More

An Israeli teenager has been arrested after he donned a mask and prowled the streets of his town with a big rucksack and toy gun for a school project.

The boy, 15, was seized by police in the southern town of Ashdod suspecting he was a Palestinian militant.

The student was quoted as saying he was researching police reactions in the town and "just wanted to get an A+". More

Do’s & Don’ts

Do share your personal reasons for voting for Barack Obama;

Do have confidence — your opinion matters to people who care about you;

Do read up on Barack’s positions on the issues you know matter to them;

Do find a good time when both you and they will be open to a conversation;

Do talk to them in person if you live nearby, or on the phone if you don’t;

Do ask your friends to talk to their parents and grandparents as well;

Don’t worry about knowing everything about policy positions before you have this conversation;

Don’t feel defensive. Stay calm, cool and collected;

Don’t wait until the last minute — it might take a few conversations for you to convince them, so start as early as possible;

Don’t catch them at a bad time — make sure you have their attention and enough time to have a conversation.

Ideas to Get the Conversation Started

Approaching your parents about who they are voting for can be intimidating if you’ve never talked about politics with them before. But this campaign has been built by supporters sharing their stories about what inspires them and why they want to see change in this country. Here are some ideas for ways you can talk to your parents about why you support Barack:

Call or ask in person if they saw the debate and what they thought about it.Tell them why you are voting for Obama and why it’s important to you

Print out for them information on some issues you know are important.

Share Barack’s speech from the Democratic National Convention or Meet Barack, a video about who Barack Obama is, where he comes from, and what his values are.

Email them and tell them why it’s important to you that they vote for Obama.

Think about their perspective. If they are Republican, or are concerned about Barack’s policies, think about where they are coming from and what makes them think the way that they do.

Dr John Coates, a former Wall Street trader, has revealed that testosterone and cortisol - associated with high stress levels - can cloud the judgment of the men paid to make big-money deals. Dr Coates said the traders he tested in the City of London were caught in 'feedback loops' where levels of the chemicals rose so high they affected their judgment. Saliva swabs taken from traders showed that at some point the levels reached a point where men became over-confident and took bad risks. He first noticed the effects and differences between genders while caught up in the dotcom bubble of soaring technology stock prices in the Nineties.

Across time, countries, and outcome measures,
private provision of education outshines
public provision according to the overwhelming
majority of econometric studies. Findings
of a statistically significant advantage for private
schooling outnumber findings of a significant
advantage for public schooling by a ratio
of nearly 8 to 1, and the statistically significant
advantage for private schools outnumbers by a
ratio of 5 to 1 statistically insignificant findings.
However, since the funding and regulatory
structures of “public” and“private” schools vary
widely, this breakdown of the research is insufficiently
detailed to be of real use to policymakers.
If we want to ascertain the merits of real
market reforming education, we must compare
genuinely market-like private school systems
(which are minimally regulated and are funded,
at least in part, directly by parents) with state
school monopolies protected from significant
market competition (such as the typical U.S.
public school system). When we assess the evidence
using these more specific criteria, the
results are more stark: There are 35 statistically significant
findings of market-like education systems outperforming
government monopoly schooling, and
only two findings of the reverse, for a ratio of more than
17 to 1 in favor of free education markets. There is
but a single statistically insignificant finding

These results discredit the notion, prevalent
in both conservative and liberal political
circles, that the content of schooling must be
overseen by the state in order for schools to
achieve optimum performance. It is in fact
the least regulated market school systems
that show the greatest margin of superiority
over state schooling.

In order to better serve families, policymakers
should thus endeavor to provide universal
access to minimally regulated education markets
in which parents, whenever possible,
directly pay at least some of the cost of their
children’s education. Education tax credit programs
capable of accomplishing that objective
have already been proposed elsewhere, and partial,
scaled-down versions of such programs are
already operating in several U.S. states.

Nearly three in every four (73.4 percent) respondents from counties of fewer than 25,000 people expressed that their love for their country was extremely strong, compared to only half of those in counties with more than 300,000 inhabitants. In the nation’s largest population centers, those expressing “extremely strong” love for country stood at only 46 percent. And over two-thirds of respondents from small counties reported that it is ”extremely important” to be American, compared to about half of big-city folk. More

Both the McCain and Obama plans would increase this number by expanding existing tax benefits or creating new ones. Senator McCain is proposing one expanded provision—the dependent exemption—and one new credit, a $5,000 refundable health care tax credit. The Obama plan contains seven new provisions, including a new “Making Work Pay Credit,” a “Universal Mortgage Credit,” and a plan to eliminate income taxes for seniors earning under $50,000.¹

Taken together, the Tax Foundation estimates the McCain proposals would increase the number of nonpayers by about 15 million, bringing the total number of taxpayers who pay no personal income taxes to 62 million, roughly 43 percent of all tax filers. Almost all of this is due to McCain’s health care credit, which dramatically realigns health care incentives and gives people a powerful motive to buy health insurance. This tax provision has a bigger impact on cutting people’s taxes than any single proposal from either party.

The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a "warm body" democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction.... [O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader — the barbarians enter Rome. - Robert A. Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987)

Replacing even 6 percent of total fuel usage with biofuel would require doubling agricultural production to maintain current output. “Where are you going to get the land and the water for this? This is irresponsible policy,” Brabeck-Letmathe said. If the US alone would reverse its policy to replace fuel with biofuels, food prices would stabilize, he stated.

Eventually, we will run short of arable land and fresh water to grow the crops that feed our cars instead of our mouths, and food prices will rise astronimically. We already saw this dynamic in 2008, and the reaction of governments was to pull back exports and keep food within their countries. This will lead to massive starvation and violent unrest. If you thought Islamic terrorism was bad, wait until two billion people realize they’ll starve to death because we didn’t want to drill for oil off the coasts or build nuclear plants for electric cars.

For their part, millennials believe they can afford to be picky, with talent shortages looming as baby boomers retire. "They are finding that they have to adjust work around our lives instead of us adjusting our lives around work," a teenage blogger named Olivia writes on the Web site Xanga.com. "What other option do they have? We are hard working and utilize tools to get the job done. But we don't want to work more than 40 hours a week, and we want to wear clothes that are comfortable. We want to be able to spice up the dull workday by listening to our iPods. If corporate America doesn't like that, too bad."

Sorry young missy but it will only be "too bad" till they discover that countries like India and China have a fast growing highly educated workforce. Enjoy the tunes on your iPod while flipping burgers.

Recall that Obama has said: “But it’s also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it’s important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some.
And by the way, we will deploy you in some difficult areas, but that’s part of what it means to be an American and to serve and to sacrifice...”

Combined with Charles Rangel already introducing legislation they have a valid point.

A classic 1944 study by Fritz Heider and Mary-Ann Simmel, then at Smith College, elegantly demonstrated this tendency. The psychologists showed people an animation of a pair of triangles and a circle moving around a square and asked the participants what was happening. The subjects described the scene as if the shapes had intentions and motivations—for example, “The circle is chasing the triangles.” Many studies since then have confirmed the human predilection to make characters and narratives out of whatever we see in the world around us.

As researchers continue to investigate storytelling’s power and pervasiveness, they are also looking for ways to harness that power. Some such as Green are studying how stories can have applications in promoting positive health messages. “A lot of problems are behaviorally based,” Green says, pointing to research documenting the influence of Hollywood films on smoking habits among teens. And Mar and Oatley want to further examine how stories can enhance social skills by acting as simulators for the brain, which may turn the idea of the socially crippled bookworm on its head.

Past research has investigated ideals of beauty and how these ideals have changed across time. In the current study, facial and body characteristics of Playboy Playmates of the Year from 1960-2000 were identified and investigated to explore their relationships with U.S. social and economic factors. Playmate of the Year age, body feature measures, and facial feature measurements were correlated with a general measure of social and economic hard times. Consistent with Environmental Security Hypothesis predictions, when social and economic conditions were difficult, older, heavier, taller Playboy Playmates of the Year with larger waists, smaller eyes, larger waist-to-hip ratios, smaller bust-to-waist ratios, and smaller body mass index values were selected. These results suggest that environmental security may influence perceptions and preferences for women with certain body and facial features.

Some thoughtful people simply have a tendency to confuse intelligence with the ability to be glib, or more precisely, to bs. And I think that is much of what it comes down to—if Palin doesn't know the answer to a question, she just isn't that good at making something up. Biden, by contrast, is a master bs'er, as his debate performance exhibited. As a general rule, the less informed he was about the answer to a question, the more assertive he was in answering it.... From Todd Zywicki

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

Great we are supposed to risk being blown up just to give the Community Organizer some experience. The inexperienced President Kennedy no precondition talks with the Soviet Union came within a frog's hair of turning the East Coast into a parking lot. Kennedy Talked Krushchev Triumphed

It was a remarkable speech even for Joe the Buffoon.

"I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value added, but this guy has it," the Senate Foreign Relations chairman said of Obama.

• One of 5 senators against the Alaskan Oil pipeline which provided the world a valuable source of energy while increasing the carbou herd.
• Against the first Gulf War without which a mad man would have been in control of the flow of oil from the middle east.
• Supporter of Pres. Clinton bombing aspiran factories in Sudan.
• After 9/11 said "Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran"
• For the Iraq Invasion.
• Predicted the Iraq elections would be an ugly violent affair.
• Against the successful surge.
• Wanted to divide Iraq which every knowledgeable person of the area thought would be a disaster
  
• Well into 2005, Biden pronounced that timetables for a U.S. withdrawal would be a “gigantic mistake.” Now he thinks that withdrawal timelines ar just fine.
  

The heart of the American Dream is aspiration. That’s why people came here from all over the world. Back in eastern Europe, the Joe Bidens and Diane Sawyers of the day were telling Joe the Peasant: “Hey, look, man. You’re a peasant in the 19th century, just like your forebears were peasants in the 12th century and your descendants will be peasants in the 26th century. So you’re never gonna be earning 250 groats a year. Don’t worry about it. Leave it to us. We know better.” And Joe the Peasant eventually figured that one day he’d like to be able to afford the Premium Gruel with just a hint of arugula and got on the boat to Ellis Island. Because America is the land where a guy who doesn’t have a 250-grand business today might just have one in five or ten years’ time.

Those who earn less than $40,000 a year just 39% have a favorable opinion of him while 44% provide an unfavorable review.

Those with a higher income have an even lower opinion of Joe—35% favorable, 52%.

CHINO, CA—In an unprecedented and historic event Monday, the "I Am Under 18" button, an Internet security device which if selected restricts access to websites featuring adult content, was clicked for the first time ever. "I knew I could simply claim to be over 18 and continue onto my desired destination, but I also realized that I would have to live with that lie for the rest of my life," said local resident Garrett Kinley, 17.

• Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families:Barack Obama and Joe Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief.
• Provide $50 billion to Jumpstart the Economy and Prevent 1 Million Americans from Losing Their Jobs: This relief would include a $25 billion State Growth Fund to prevent state and local cuts in health, education, housing, and heating assistance or counterproductive increases in property taxes, tolls or fees. The Obama-Biden relief plan will also include $25 billion in a Jobs and Growth Fund to prevent cutbacks in road and bridge maintenance and fund school re­pair - all to save more than 1 million jobs in danger of being cut.

An NHS trust has spent more than £12,000 on private treatment for hospital staff because its own waiting times are too long. The money was used to bring in physiotherapists to help workers recover from muscular-skeletal injuries at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds.

Bosses said it prevented them from leapfrogging NHS patients and enabled them to return to work more quickly.

However, the private treatment, which amounted to £12,116 for 271 appointments over the past year, was described by critics as “shocking”.

Mark Wallace of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Their staff should have to wait like everybody else. Perhaps if they experienced it as their customers - that is the taxpayer - experienced it, they might be a little keener to improve their waiting times.”

For a glimpse of what changes in educational policy could be in store during an Obama administration just have to look at what his mentor and a man whose book he praised. From a November 2006 speech by education professor and home grown unrepentant terrorist William Ayers.

President Hugo Chavez, … invited guests, comrades. I’m honored and humbled to be here with you this morning. I bring greetings and support from your brothers and sisters throughout Northamerica [sic]! Welcome to the World Education Forum. Amamos la revolucion Bolivariana! ...

[M]y comrade and friend Luis Bonilla, a brilliant educator and inspiring fighter for justice … has taught me a great deal about the Bolivarian Revolution [i.e., Chavez's movement] and about the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I’ve come to appreciate Luis as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle—I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane…. [For more information on the Venezuelan socialist Luis Bonilla-Montoya, see here.]

I began teaching when I was 20 yeas old in a small freedom school affiliated with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The year was 1965, and I’d been arrested in a demonstration. Jailed for ten days, I met several activists who were finding ways to link teaching and education with deep and fundamental social change. They were following Dewey and DuBois, King and Helen Keller who wrote: “We can’t have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution and see what it will do now.”

I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position—and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice. After all, the fundamental message of the teacher is this: you can change your life—whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, another world is possible. As students and teachers begin to see themselves as linked to one another, as tied to history and capable of collective action, the fundamental message of teaching shifts slightly, and becomes broader, more generous: we must change ourselves as we come together to change the world. Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion!

… [I’ve] learned that education is never neutral. It always has a value, a position, a politics. Education either reinforces or challenges the existing social order, and school is always a contested space—what should be taught? In what way? Toward what end? By and for whom? At bottom, it involves a struggle over the essential questions: what does it mean to be a human being living in a human society?

Totalitarianism demands obedience and conformity, hierarchy, command and control. Royalty requires allegiance. Capitalism promotes racism and materialism—turning people into consumers, not citizens. Participatory democracy, by contrast, requires free people coming together, voluntarily as equals who are capable of both self-realization and, at the same time, full participation in a shared political and economic life.

… Venezuelans have shown the world that with full participation, full inclusion, and popular empowerment, the failing of capitalist schooling can be resisted and overcome. Venezuela is a beacon to the world in its accomplishment of eliminating illiteracy in record time, and engaging virtually the entire population in the ongoing project of education.

… [W]e, too, must build a project of radical imagination and fundamental change. Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation.

Viva Mission Sucre!

Viva Presidente Chavez!

Viva La Revolucion Bolivariana!

Hasta La Victroria Siempre!

About 300 absentee ballots have been sent to voters in Brunswick, Nassau, Sand Lake, Schaghticoke and Schodack, New York listing the Democratic nominee as... "Barack Osama."

I think it would be an absolute cheap shot to blame the falling stock market on Wall Street's sudden realization that Barack Obama will very likely be the 44th president of the United States. But is fear of a potential Obama presidency playing any role at all in the weakness? How many investors, I wonder, buy into the theory of economist Peter Morici, hardly a conservative mouthpiece, who says, "Obama's tax and redistribute policies will not resurrect jobs, wages, or the price of stocks in American retirement accounts. Ordinary Americans who have to earn their livings outside the cosseted confines of Wall Street will be not much better off two years from now. In fact, Obama's policies may make economic conditions worse."

The premise of the film is that, sometime in the then-near future (actually 1998), the USA has run out of oil, and many Americans are literally living in their (now stationary) cars and either jog or ride bicycles to travel. The federal government, housed in "The Western White House" (a sub-leased condominium in Marina del Rey, California), is near bankruptcy and in danger of being foreclosed by a cartel of Native Americans in control of Nike Inc. (which has been renamed "National Indian Knitting Enterprise"). President Chet Roosevelt (John Ritter) hires television consultant Eric McMerkin (Peter Riegert) to help produce a national raffle. Instead, they decide that the only way enough money can be raised to save America is to run a telethon, and hire TV celebrity Monty Rushmore (Harvey Korman) to host it.

• The People's Republic of China embracing capitalism and becoming a global economic superpower.
• Cliques of Native Americans becoming wealthy (although in reality much of their wealth would come from the gaming industry, mostly from tribal casinos).
• Nike becoming a huge multinational conglomerate (In 1979, their "Tailwind" running shoe was just starting to gain popularity).
• Vietnam becoming a major tourist attraction among Asia's wealthy and powerful.
• The continued existence and popularity of The Beach Boys in 1998.
• The creation of a "Western White House" (however it would serve as a vacation home).
• The collapse of the USSR.
• The depletion of US crude oil production.
• Jogging suits becoming fashionable as casual wear.
• A panhandler asks for "$25 for a cup of coffee" -- predicting expensive specialty coffee.
• The televised boxing match between a mother and son predicts reality television
• The President of the United States is a relative of a prior President (and is considered by many to be inept)

Sentences per paragraph: statistically tied at 2.7 for Biden and 2.6 for Palin.

Letters per word: tied at 4.4.

Ease of reading: Biden, 66.7 (with 100 being the easiest to read or hear), versus 62.4 for Palin.

They meet discreetly once a month at a res­taurant in the Valley. At first, there weren't many--Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper--but now...there still aren't many. Nevertheless, they're a resolute bunch: proud, loud, and a little lonely. They are Hollywood's conservatives. "You sort of feel like you have to hide it," says director David Zucker. "When you meet, you give each other a secret look--'Are you a Republican too?' It's the new gay."

If anyone else was confused after last night's debate on how a $5,000 tax credit would cover $12,000 in insurance cost, found a simplified example at Diagnosis a health policy blog. No mention if it covers hair plugs.

Suppose a worker gets $50,000 in cash wages and $12,000 in health insurance.

Right now, he pays federal income taxes on the wages but not the health insurance. Let’s assume, for reasons of simplicity, that the tax rate he is paying is a flat 25% on his wages. He therefore pays $12,500 in federal income taxes. His after-tax, after-health-care income is $37,500.

Now, under the McCain plan, his employer keeps paying the premium, which is now counted as income to the worker. He therefore pays federal income taxes on $62,000, or $15,500.

But he also gets a tax credit of $5,000 for health insurance, which means that, all in all, he owes $10,500 in federal taxes, or $2,000 less than he does today. His after-tax, after-health-care income is $39,500.

If the worker decides to buy his insurance in the open market instead of through the employer, the result will be the same. His employer is indifferent to how he pays his worker as long as total costs are the same. So instead of paying premiums, the employer pays his worker $62,000 in cash wages and does not pay anything toward insurance. The worker again owes $15,500 in taxes on this compensation, and he also must buy health insurance costing $12,000. So, his pre-tax income is $62,000, he owes $12,000 in health insurance premiums, and he owes $10,500 in federal taxes (after claiming his credit). His after-tax, after-health-care income is the same: $39,500 ($62,000 – $12,000 – $10,500), or $2,000 more than today.

BIDEN: Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history.

BIDEN: The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there’s a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

Tax earmark “extenders” in the bailout bill.
- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
- American Samoa (Sec. 309)
- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
- Railroads (Sec. 316)
- Auto Racing Tracks (317)
- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
- Wool Research (Sec. 325)

Do we really need pork laden wool to solve economic problems?