Women prefer men with stubble for love, sex and marriage – via The Telegraph.co.uk

ya, that’s right… you heard it here first folks. I have, of course, long known this to be true from a rich history of personal experiences… but at least now I have a reputable source confirming my instincts.

a question for my palestinian comrades out there… what sort of acts would Israel be justified in doing when, as just happened again, the ceasefire is broken and rockets rain down…

I’d love to hear what you think is appropriate…

Two things* have grabbed my attention this week. First, Stanford University has a really interesting interview with Christopher Hitchens, an interview which isn’t necessarily recent, but is nevertheless relevant. Secondly, I have been trying to understand the almost religious fervor with which Democrats are opposing drilling of any kind. Prohibiting drilling seems to be the new ‘moral’ issue for Democrats: like abortion, drilling must be prohibited at any and every opportunity… at least, that’s what I used to think. What has recently become clear to me is that this issue is NOT, in fact a moral issue… it is actually a merely political one. To be a truly moral issue, one would expect outrage whenever the ’sin’ is practiced. Political issues, on the other hand, are selective–like taxes, only the wealthy get accused of not paying enough. What leads me to believe that drilling is merely a political issue is the almost deathly silence by members of the Left, particularly in the US congress in the face of new drilling projects only miles off our own Gulf by China, Venesuela, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. I began to wonder why this could be; what could cause this selective outrage–outrage aimed ONLY at US businesses and energy producers. The answer became clear after listening to Hitchens’ interview.

The interview begins with the following question:

“Why do you think they [the left] broke over Iraq, and to a lesser extent, over Afghanistan, since, both the ostensible reconstruction and what happened was a promotion of democracy? Why was the left angry, what currents do you see that alienated them from the policy since they were not a part of the realist politique of the 1970’s and 80’s?”

Hitchens responds by saying

“The crucial thing for most of the left now is what goes under the name of anti-globalization; a primitive … non-marxist form of anti-capitalism. ANd if that is your main concern, then by definition the United States is the main enemy, which with only a little displacement means that any potential enemy of the United States is at least a potential friend. I have certainly read articles… from quite prominent leftists that give the strong impression that Jihadism may have its drawbacks, but it is better than no anti-globalization at all. In other words, it is a move from a conservative position to a reactionary one.”

Now, my argument depends in part on the validity of Hitchen’s claim, so I want to spend at least some time establishing the evidence of his contention of the new anti-capitalist agenda of the modern Democrat party.

First, there is developing a preference within the Democratic party to replace private, capitalist institutions with their respective government counterparts. Health care policy is a prime example of this developing preference; Democrats want to turn an entire segment of our economy into a government institution. If Democrats believed in the capitalist system; why would they want to socialize a trillion-dollar business? The question, obviously, is rhetorical. Anyone with the slightest respect for capitalism wouldn’t be demanding a complete government takeover as the solution of first choice–especially when other approaches may be tried without such a fundamental shift.

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There is a certain paradox to political language. While the ideas to be communicated are often complex and nuanced, the way these ideas are expressed are often in elusively simplistic terms.   The political messages  often get boiled down into single words or phrases, creating an eerily understandable message–a message left often (intentionally) to the listener’s assumptions and wishes rather than to any substance the speaker intended.  In fact, each sound-byte or slogan most often most often exists to hide true intentions rather than to serve the education of the voting populace.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Obama campaign.  The entire campaign promises one thing: CHANGE.  There is no qualifier, no explanation, no plan… just the promise that things will change.  The utter obscurity of what this word might mean reminded me of a quote from my favorite French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard.  Allow me to re-word the quote just slightly with this political message in mind:

‘CHANGE’: the message we hear, see, and experience at every Obama campaign is mysterious, because we really have no option to not change.  If you elect a new president, change is inevitable..  It is like saying ‘I am the candidate of inevitability’  It is stupid, and yet it is enigmatic.  You could read it to mean that you should vote in order to realize destiny, but that is banal.  Following the model of ‘change or no change’, ‘the future or the present’, it would become ‘the future is the future!”.  Stupid again, since you cannot exchange the future for itself.  And yet there is poetic force in this implaceable tautollogy, as there always is when there is nothing to be understood.  In the end, the lesson of this political message is perhaps: ‘if you are stupid enough to vote in change, you get obama!

I was just listing to this on the way home… I really like the way it starts especially… the lyrics are also interesting–even if I don’t always know what Billy is trying to communicate, I always give him the benefit of the doubt that he is trying to communicate something…  I just wish I could figure out WHAT it is.

Speed kills
But beauty lives forever
Speed thrills
But beauty knows your name
I Fell ill inside eternal winter
And Stood still beside eternal flame
Because when I ride
With you tonight
We can move
At the speed of light
And all I ask and all I pray
Last rose of summer will stay
Last rose of summer will stay
First time that I ever saw you
Crashing hard through days of pain
You were one of god’s children
Left to cry out in the rain
Waiting to be saved again

for REALLY INTERESTING examples of CSS problems and solutions, take a look at Eric Meyer’s open directory of CSS tests and samples…

Intelligence gathering is a strange and sometimes fascinating business.

so I’m reading a great article/editorial titled Putting Children Last at the WSJ. I don’t usually discuss education policy on the pages of my blog but I felt that a discussion of educational policy was certainly warranted given both its importance to our nation’s children and its currently broken state. Allow me to first briefly re-cap the Wall Street Journal:

Democrats in Congress have finally found a federal program they want to eliminate. And wouldn’t you know, it’s one that actually works and helps thousands of poor children…

This fight has nothing to do with saving money. But it has a lot to do with election-year politics. Kevin Chavis, the former D.C. City Council member who sits on the oversight board of the scholarship program, says, “If we were going to do what was best for the kids, then continuing it is a no-brainer. Those kids are thriving.” More than 90% of the families express high satisfaction with the program, according to researchers at Georgetown University.

Many of the parents we interviewed describe the vouchers as a “Godsend” or a “lifeline” for their sons and daughters. “Most of the politicians have choices on where to send their kids to school,” says William Rush, Jr., who has two boys in the program. “Why do they want to take our choices away?

Ms. Norton contends that vouchers undermine support and funding for public schools. But the $18 million allocated to the program does not come out of the District school budget; Congress appropriates extra money for the vouchers.

The $7,500 voucher is a bargain for taxpayers because it costs the public schools about 50% more, or $13,000 a year, to educate a child in the public schools. And we use the word “educate” advisedly because D.C. schools are among the worst in the nation. In 2007, D.C. public schools ranked last in math scores and second-to-last in reading scores for all urban public school systems on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Opponents claim there is no evidence that the D.C. scholarship program is raising academic achievement. The only study so far, funded by the federal Department of Education, found positive but “not statistically significant” improvements in reading and math scores after the first year. But education experts agree it takes a few years for results to start showing up. In other places that have vouchers, such as Milwaukee and Florida, test scores show notable improvement. A new study on charter schools in Los Angeles County finds big academic gains when families have expanded choices for educating their kids.

If you want a more complete context, I suggest you read the full article but I hope that the selected passages give you at least a taste for what is at stake for DC children under this program. What is very apparent, however, is that the DC public school systems have deteriorated DESPITE the Liberals, the Federal Government (i.e. the Department of Education) running them for decades. Instead of ‘admitting defeat’ and ‘pulling the teachers out’, the Liberals in Congress have decided to FORCE students to attend under-performing schools. (aka, the “surge” strategy). Never mind the fact that every single congressman and senator can have a choice about where to send their kids… but inner city kids are being denied this privilege/choice by the supposedly ‘compassionate’ Liberals in Congress.

Now, although this is a valid criticism, it is incomplete. There are a number of arguments against school choice–each with varying degrees of validity. In fact, one of my good friends in college wrote a rather lengthy paper detailing many of these. I want to briefly discuss the arguments against school choice and their pitfalls.

1. Voucher programs take money away from public schools–where it is desperately needed to improve the education of the under-served.

Conveniently for purposes of this post, I would point out that the DC voucher program doesn’t take a penny away from the public schools! Now, this isn’t to say that all voucher programs are modeled after the DC system; some may, in fact, take money “away” from the public school system–but only money that was meant to be spent on that particular child’s education. If the child doesn’t attend, why should the public school get free money without having to spend the resources educating? Funding schools per-capita should produce the results a per-capita system is designed to produce–funding based on the number of students! Why is this so incomprehensible to liberals? What part of a per-capita funding system don’t they understand?

Furthermore (and particularly in the DC example), if private schools can provide the SAME (even dismal, for our purposes) level of education for half the price… why waste $600 PER STUDENT and get nothing more in terms of educational performance?

Liberals think Oil companies are getting too much profit (and they actually PRODUCE something of value) why would they allow Public schools to mooch $600 in taxpayer subsidies per student and produce NOTHING MORE than the the typical charter school? This is an example of utter hypocrisy within the Democratic party. They turn a blind eye to wasteful spending in one area, but threaten to punish businesses with 8% profit margins. It’s really maddening.

And if this weren’t enough; we are spending billions to support a NATIONAL education department… and for what? To figure out what to teach students??? Why on earth does it take a huge federal bureaucracy to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and the arts? Well, I hope it’s obvious to even those without a 133 IQ that… well.. IT DOESN’T. Follow the money, anyone?

Actually, that’s all I got; I can’t think of any other reasonable argument against school vouchers; but would be happy to entertain and discuss any that you may wish to mention in the comments.

I don’t know about you but I’ve been following the democratic primary fairly closely. I’ve noticed a few things… and they are not exactly encouraging. First, did you notice how the AP has been doing all it can to “call” the election? I mean, there is no possible way AP can “call” the votes of super-delegates when they HAVEN’T EVEN VOTED YET. These delegates are not locked in and can change their minds UP TO the convention.

Secondly, I listened to Obama’s “acceptance” speech… telling us his plans for the country and to be honest, it scared me. You can listen to it HERE or read my loose transcript:

what you won’t hear from this campaign… is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon… a politics that sees our opponents as competitors to challenge but as enemies to polarize. We are Americans first… we are always Americans first!

If we are willing to work for it, fight for it, believe in it… I am absolutely certain… that generations from now… we can look back and tell our children, “this was the moment we began to provide care for the sick… and good jobs to the jobless… when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal… when we ended the war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last best hope on earth.

This was the moment, this was the time we came together to REMAKE THIS GREAT NATION so that it my always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.

Many of you reading this may initially brush it off as typical political mantra… but when one looks at the content critically, it is astonishing. Obama implies that the right (aka republicans) are using religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon. But wait, who was it that criticized Americans as “clinging to their guns and religion?“. Is this not an example of Obama BLATANTLY using of religion AS a wedge issue? What a hypocrite!

To add to the hypocrisy, what party has, for the last 7 years, been treating the president as an enemy, as a traitor, as a dictator-in-chief? What party has been trying to DESTROY OUR PRESIDENT–”polarizing” him and his policies? How can Obama claim such sainthood when he is surrounded by such sinners?!

Until this point, Obama is not saying anything dangerous or scary… he is exposing his hypocrisy but not doing any harm. But look at the next paragraph… he is alluding to an unwritten history with HIMSELF at the center. He is claiming that the future is dependent on his presidency. He is claiming that his very presence in the white-house will be responsible for providing health care to the sick… giving people jobs, saving the planet, and creating a safe and secure world. In short, he is promising a perfect world to the masses. As Reverent Wright might say, “Believe in Obama and thou shalt be sav’ed’a!” Never once does he explain HOW he is going to accomplish these objectives; he just has the audacity to hope that his very anointment as leader of the free world will make all things better. This irrational self-centeredness is what is so dangerous about Obama.

And we have not yet gotten to the meat of his comments. Obama went as far as to say he wants to RE-MAKE America. Obama wants to take the greatest nation on earth… the nation that has become great by the sacrifices of our ancestors and… REMAKE IT. Why on earth would we need to RE-MAKE the greatest country in history… unless there is something wrong with it’s greatness??? Obama is not just promising to change course or adopt slightly different policies… but is advocating for a re-doing of American society based on a different mold… a mold one can only imagine is as liberal as his voting record would suggest.

I’m not making stuff up here, I’m just providing a rationale interpretation of his comments…. and their implications GREATLY concern me.

Toledo Silhouette, originally uploaded by jrossol.

A recent photo of mine at the docks…