The rush to defend Polanski

"A high-profile rush to defend Roman Polanski after the film director's arrest sparked a backlash on Wednesday, as a growing number of politicians called for him to face justice over a three-decade-old child sex case."

I'd sure hate to be on the side defending a guy who made bad movies, but in this case, I think the case should be dismissed. First, it looks like the judge in the first plea bargain for which he served time, really messed up, and second, the woman who was 13 at that time, wants it dropped. There are a lot worse things for 13 years olds than having sex with a movie director, and it happens all over the world--forced marriages, rape, incest, etc., baby mommas for high priced bad hip hop musicians and traumatizing movies called "art" from Hollywood. No one seems to care about these things except Christians, and then they are ridiculed if they try to get a smidgen or morality included in school curricula. The guy is scum, no doubt about it. But he has paid, and paid, and paid. Let it go.

The decline of English

As I've noted before, except for some Freshman composition, I didn't take anything in college that could be called "English," because I was a foreign language major. But I do think it's important, and I've been sad to see it's importance go down hill since the radicals took over the campuses of the USA in the 1970s. The decline of English by William M. Chace, formerly of Berkeley, Stanford, Wesleyan, and Emory, notes the following grim statistics, the numbers of those majoring in the humanities dropped from a total of 30 percent to a total of less than 16 percent in 30 years:

English: from 7.6 percent of the majors to 3.9 percent
Foreign languages and literatures: from 2.5 percent to 1.3 percent
Philosophy and religious studies: from 0.9 percent to 0.7 percent
History: from 18.5 percent to 10.7 percent
Business: from 13.7 percent to 21.9 percent

I did a few word searches on this article--Marxism, feminism, deconstructionism, etc.--and see he doesn't address any root causes driving students away who don't want to be harangued during class with political poop and Michael Moore movie mayhem. Chace thinks "at the root is the failure of departments of English across the country to champion, with passion, the books they teach and to make a strong case to undergraduates that the knowledge of those books and the tradition in which they exist is a human good in and of itself." Maybe the students figure out on their own that selecting an obscure female author from 1910, or a gay Mexican who died for a cause in 1930 doesn't mean much in the big picture? Ya think?

When I was doing my research on private libraries I tracked down a fabulous Professor of English who had taught at a prestigious school--past tense. He'd been driven out of his position (he had tenure and was a full professor, but there are ways by denying funds for assistants, research and rearranging offices), and was in another state teaching at a state school extension, basic composition and grammar. But at least he was free of the radical demagogues. And he was a liberal--but beaten down by the feminists and marxists in his department because he wanted to teach what was important, not their political theories. We talked for a long time on the phone and his assistance was invaluable, his knowledge of private collections enormous. He kept cautioning me to close the door of my office, to make sure no one was listening. And that was in the mid-90s.

The media are kind to Obama

But they lie to us. Here's an example. "Mixed data reflect fragility of economic recovery" by Sara Murray, WSJ, Sept. 30, 2009

I realize she didn't write the headline, but the graphs don't exactly show a "recovery," more an occasional blip. In most of those cities, the home prices are still above 2000 levels, despite the dramatic drop beginning when the sub-prime mess revealed the folly of the constant government interference in the housing market by using it as a carrot for politicians of both parties and non-profits like ACORN to look good to low income people.

Only one city, Detroit, owned for decades by Democrats pushing wealth transfer, dropped below 2000 levels. The upticks recorded in July were tiny, with Minneapolis the best, Las Vegas the worst.

But back to "words matter."

I know I sound like a broken record, but if this article had been written during the Bush years, there would have been considerable differences.

"Consumer confidence drops, despite a tiny rise in home prices in a few cities during July, underscoring the disastrous decisions of the Bush administration in how to lead us to a recovery."

I shouldn't provide Obama any hints, but if the media were as vigilant with him as they were with Bush, I think he would be ahead of the game with rising poll numbers instead of dropping. They could have been corrective. Just by telling the truth, which they didn't do during the Bush years.

What is a mixed metaphor?

A combination of two or more metaphors that together produce a ridiculous effect wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

In today's Wall Street Journal we had this gem:

"Housing is on life support. . .until market forces replace the prostheses of government."

Most people on life support don't need a prosthesis, let alone more than one. And usually the government pulls the plug with its plan, as it will seniors relying on Medicare.

Cash for Clunkers end result

According to this report from Edmunds, sales of new vehicles in September 2009 fell off a cliff, dropping 41% from August 2009 and down 23% from September 2008. This shows that the primary sales effect of the “Cash for Clunkers” program was to harvest sales that would otherwise have occurred later in the year and compress them into an earlier time period.
More details at Taxman Blog (another great Ohio blogger)

Lytham Road Exercise class

This works well as a hymn, and since the class is in the church fellowship hall, I'll sing it for you. The class meets Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9:15 for an hour at UALC Lytham campus, 2300 Lytham Rd., Upper Arlington, with three different instructors and work-outs. No matter what. I'm really not into exercise, but it's good for me. And you.


It's Wednesday
It's Wednesday
It's Exercise day (2x)

Oh card i o
Oh Weight lift
It's jump and repeat.

It's Wednesday
I hate it
It's Exercise day.

When I sang it for the class, demonstrating why I'm no longer in choir, Jan recognized the tune as "Immortal, invisible, God only wise," composed by Walter Chalmers Smith, and used with a Welsh melody.

What's wrong with calling it PLPCB?

"The five partners in the London office of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates have left to start their own practice, named PLP Architecture. The founders of the new firm are Lee Polisano, FAIA, former president of KPF, as well as David Leventhal, FAIA, Fred Pilbrow, RIBA, Karen Cook, AIA, and Ron Bakker, AIA. The move comes after the five made a failed attempt to buy out KPF's UK operations in July." Architectural Record

I guess it wasn't as pronounceable as PLP.

Response from Sherrod Brown

Yes, I know everone who wrote got the same response, but at least Sherrod Brown (D-OH) responded and he has been listening to the people. But here's what caught my eye and the only thing I'll direct this comment to:

"One thing is clear - we must keep what works and fix what is broken. We must protect health coverage for those who like what they have, and we must ensure those with no coverage have insurance options they can afford."

Keep our insurance, but fix what is broken and cover those who don't have it. Now I would have added--we haven't collapsed in the 17 years since we didn't pass Hillarycare, so we have time to look at all the angles, but then. . . I'm no longer a Democrat.

Now wouldn't that have been a simple plan--and we have all those laws and regulations in place, with some that need to be repealed. We could have tightened the oversite of Medicare and Medicare, imposed some penalties on the crooks, stopped the ridiculous testing with tort reform, there could have been a better effort to get people into the programs for which they were eligible without months or years of waiting, and we could have removed the laws that prevented competition across state lines. Nothing would have required the massive, tangled, intrusive, economy-deadening bills that have been proposed.

Except.

The sensible approach wouldn't have given the federal government more power over the people who manage just fine without it!

Adult stem cells used in hip replacement

Doctors in Southampton, England have successfully used adult stem cells to repair hip bones, allowing patients to avoid hip replacement surgery. After removing dead tissue in the hip, the cavity is filled with bits of ground up bone and the patient’s own adult stem cells. So far six patients have had the treatment with only one failure, doctors said. From FRC Blog.

If you read the original Telegraph article, you'll see the word "adult" isn't used, leaving the impression it might be embryonic, but if you're using cells from the patient, they aren't going to be from a killed embryo. The article actually mentions the controversy, although there is no controversy about using adult stem cells, only embryonic.

Adult stem cells, taken from sources such as bone marrow and cord blood, have now been successfully used to treat well over 70 medical conditions. None for embryonic.

Although I said it first

Glenn Beck quoted from the NYT tonight on their assessment (negative) of the 9/12 peaceful, trash-free gathering, at which no one was arrested, in Washington DC, and their puff ball piece covering the protests at the G-20 with 190 arrested. I'm really glad to see he had the video to back it up. The conservatives have been maligned enough on this issue. I had pointed out the silence of the left and Pelosi on this issue here. Really, you do wonder how they have any self-respect at the Times, although Glenn says they've assigned someone to watch Fox because they are missing so many stories.

Good analysis of Ahmadinejad's closing words of his speeches, by Joel Rosenberg, too--about how true Muslims have to bring about the chaos to usher in the end-times.

“Oh, God, hasten the arrival of Imam Al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attest to his rightfulness.”

Did NYT or LAT or WSJ object to any of this? Not to worry. The great one will snuggle up and make it all OK. I just checked Huff and Puff on this--those folks live in an alternate universe.

First beer sales are flat, then Obama happens

Poor Poland. No global warming (for a decade), and then Obama snubs them. "The Association of Beer Industry Employers, “Browary Polskie” (ZPPP), explains that the decline in beer consumption was prompted by the 13.6% increase in excise duty in March 2009, the economic recession, increases in beer prices caused by the higher costs of ingredients and packaging, and the cold weather reported at the beginning of the summer of 2009. Furthermore, the Polish beer market has reached saturation point – Poles consume 95 litres of beer per capita every year." Business Portal for Poland

HT Tom Nelson

Running for Kennedy's seat in the Senate

"We're in the second year of a major recession. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Our 401Ks and retirement plans have plummeted in value. Businesses have closed and are continuing to close. We have all seen examples throughout this state and certainly throughout the country.

Here in Massachusetts, as the unemployment rate rises toward double digits, the response of the Governor and the majority party has been to raise taxes of every type and make it tougher for businesses to survive. Remember they are the economic engine that will help us recover. I have stated on many occasions that higher taxes will further weaken our economy and put even more people out of work. In Washington, the politicians mistakenly believe that spending more money and growing the size of government is the answer. They are wrong. I believe that it is the private sector - small businesses and entrepreneurs -- that will get our economy moving again. Government can and will help, but it also needs to know when to step out of the way."

Grant fraud to wasting time on porn

If you go to work for the National Science Foundation as an investigative attorney, you never know what you might be called on to do. . .

"When established by President Harry Truman in 1950, the National Science Foundation's (NSF) budget was $150,000. Congress trusts the NSF with an ever-increasing responsibility to fund the most meritorious programs and initiatives in scientific and technological research and education, keeping the U.S. at the frontier of discovery. With an emphasis on advancing national health, prosperity, and welfare, NSF brings together scientific and education experts to shape the direction of national research and education in science and technology. NSF maintains a creative and collegial atmosphere . . . "[taken from an ad for a full time investigative attorney, Arlington, VA, $61,000 - $113,000] Job Board

“Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according to budget documents and other records obtained by The Washington Times.” Worker porn.

I called this the ACORN defense--the "retired" worker said he was helping--he frequented the porn sites to provide a living to the poor overseas women. NSF isn't the only government agency with this problem--only the most recent in the news. Very few firings, some brief suspensions.

Hillarycare 17 years later

Here’s a good analysis of Hillary care of 1992 (as it was known by its detractors) written in 2007. I was looking through it to see what the reasons were that it went down. The author, Paul Starr, was an insider, having been brought into the process by Ira Magaziner. He sites:

• right-wing misrepresentations
  
• malicious personal attacks on Hillary
  
• reporters and the public thought that Bill Clinton had handed over the policy to Hillary
  
• false charges
  
• misunderstanding the politics behind the plan
  
• distrust of the Washington bureaucracy
  
• no positive consensus about what to do among Democrats
  
• change in priorities by President Clinton
  
• charges of heresy from the Left and Right alike
  
• accusations of secrecy (30 working groups)
  
• began with a huge program that could be bargained away by layers
  
• lurid fears from talk radio that the federal government would control every detail of medical care

It all sounds quite familiar given what we've been going through since Obama tried to ram jam the mega-health bill through in August. Apparently, some of his supporters are too young (or too old) to remember that many of us remember 1992!

But in that entire list, which could be ripped right out of a report from Katie Couric this evening, there's not a single charge of racism. Odd isn't it? I'm sure personal animus toward Mrs. Clinton was part of it, particularly since she wasn't elected and according to Starr her role was misunderstood, but apparently no one said the conservatives dislike for her plan was based on her race. Yet faced with many of the same arguments, and an even bigger, more complicated and confusing plan/bill, now we're racists.

My note to Kilroy, Voinovich and Brown

"The Democrats are drumming up the public option AGAIN. The people of the USA have made this very clear; your poll numbers and Obama's and Congress's are dropping quickly. WE DO NOT WANT THIS. I won't need 72 hours to read the latest version and the internet will go down anyway. We want more competition to bring down prices, less fraud and waste in Medicare and Medicaid, and tort reform. Why is that so hard to understand, and why are those no where in this or any other plan (except Republicans)?

Speaking of privacy

Apparently there are some who don't believe the government (layers and layers of departments of people) can keep a secret, so Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) wants to exclude records about AIDS, STDs and abortion from the electronic health records that are going to be required of all of our doctors. Doesn't that seem a little odd? Is that a racist smear against the President, Pelosi and Reid to find one more thing wrong with this plan? I just don't recall seeing that before. Do you suppose it was slipped into another funding bill, like armored vehicles or old growth forests?

A glimpse of the future?

Our internet is down--I'm at the library with the other homeless and out of work. I'm looking around at the wonderful book collection, wondering. . .

Our neighborhood is so small it's hard to get the cable company to pay attention to us. Some have switched companies but their service is no better. I don't know when our cable lines were laid, sometime since my 30th birthday, but I'm sure they are frayed and fragile. And the faucet squeaks, and the dryer is broken, and the road tar is still on the van, and the bottom panel of the garage door is looking a bit funky from water damage, and the cat has a funny cough, and the racks in the dishwasher are still rusting, and I woke up at 1:30 thinking about all the things that aren't working.

However, the good news is the President is flying to Denmark and ignoring the war, the terrorists, and healthcare, and the USAToday says RV sales are up, so someone is doing well or at least planning some short trips.

Does anybody really know what Obamacare is

Guest blogger Murray sez:
"Ask yourself this. What is Obama selling? He has been campaigning for months on a healthcare plan that really doesn't exist. He expects you and I to buy into what he says might be a plan that promises everything that is good for us. But we all know how much we can trust any of Obama's campaign promises. There was a bill presented to require the latest proposal/bill to be posted on the Internet for a lousy 72 hours so not only could the legislators see what it was (if they would read it) but gee... ALL the citizens that it will affect could get a peek also. The people's friend, Nancy Pelosi, quickly squashed that idea. No, No, No, we must keep this as an ugly surprise for the taxpayer and just send them the bill.

Why is it ugly you ask? Well, it's ugly because it does not include the obvious provisions like tort reform, allowing insurance companies to cross state lines, flushing the illegals out of free healthcare and allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of drugs. Those four things would cost nothing and definitely lower the total cost of healthcare in this great country. Why aren't they in the proposal? BECAUSE THE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS DON'T WANT THEM!. Just like the Prescription Drug Plan that the Republicans pushed through that is draining the Medicare funds. That dog was created by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Now, I ask you, how in the world could we trust our federal government to manage a nationwide healthcare plan? They have destroyed Medicare and Social Security. These plans should have been a piece of cake to manage. But your legislator will tell you that both plans were nothing but Ponzi schemes that were doomed to fail. (This, of course, takes the responsibility of failure off their shoulders.) Well, as usual, they lie. A Ponzi scheme is one that fails because the perpetrators steal the money and when investors want to cash in and they run out of investors there isn't enough money for pay outs. Medicare and S.S. were designed NOT TO FAIL unless of course someone stole the funds or failed to manage the funds. In this case, our legislators did both. Both plans were designed to SUCCEED. Why? Because there were unlimited investors, the amount of money being invested into both funds could be controlled, and there would be many years to accumulate reserves BEFORE the masses began to draw benefits heavily. It takes a room full of idiots to allow something like that to fail.

So now we have a room full of idiots trying to sell us on their ability to run a nation wide health care plan. They want to manage doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, plus you and me via Obamacare. They don't know how much it will cost, but they don't care. You see, it's really not about health care. It's about POWER. Our freedom and way of life is now being threatened, not by terrorists, but by our own federal government. If you stand by and do or say nothing, your grand children will never forgive you. For it is you, right now, that needs to stand up and be heard. You are their only chance to come close to anything like the lifestyle that you have enjoyed while getting old. Hopefully it's not too late. Hopefully your final days will not be flat on your back waiting for your congressman to determine what treatment "the plan" will allow you to have. Ask you doctor, "Is this plan right for me?" He/she knows the answer!

Murray

He's got his I on us

This is what some Americans call eloquent; inspiring. Others arrogant; insipid.

"In mythology, Narcissus was the guy who fell in love with his own reflection.

In 2009, he’s the president of the United States.

Instead of adoring his own image, Obama loves to hear himself talk – about himself. In just 41 speeches this year, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times – 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 “I”s and just 77 “me”s.) And that just includes 34 weekly addresses and his seven major speeches. Count the hundreds of other public speeches and he’d be off the charts." Link on our self focused President.

Are you feeling safe yet?

While Iran tests nuclear missiles capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe (a purely peaceful exercise), Obama dashes off to Copenhagen to plead for Chicago Olympics. Oh yes, and our military in Afghanistan is vulnerable because of his inaction. He's just too busy to think about or talk to McChrystal. Remember? That's the war he wanted us to fight! When he was campaigning.

"Locked in a deepening dispute with the United States and its allies over its nuclear program, Iran was reported Monday to have test-fired long-range missiles capable of striking Israel and American bases in the Persian Gulf in what seemed a show of force," reports the New York Times' Alan Cowell.

"The reported tests of the Shahab-3 and Sejil missiles by the Revolutionary Guards were not the first conducted by Iran, but they came at a time of high tension, days after President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain used the disclosure of a previously secret nuclear plant in Iran to threaten Tehran with a stronger response, including harsher economic sanctions.

"Iran says it wants to develop a nuclear capacity for peaceful purposes but many in the west say it is seeking to create a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran says its missile tests have been planned for some time and are not linked to the nuclear dispute." NYT

Of course he's not thumbing his nose at Obama. That would be racist.