Idiotic Nationalist Quote of The Day
Here’s a quote from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 which the House approved last night:
SEC. 1110. USE OF AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL.
(a) In General- None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for a project for the construction, alteration, maintenance, or repair of a public building or public work unless all of the iron and steel used in the project is produced in the United States.
Folks are already mentioning Smoot-Hawley when criticizing this part of the Act. If FDR is his inspiration, why is Obama making such a Hooverian move?
“With all due respect…”
President Obama claimed on January 9th that:
“There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy.”
The Cato Institute, economics professors and Nobel laureates across the country beg to differ.
Click image to open the PDF
Lowering The Bar On Grades
What’s more important, learning or grades? I think the answer is obvious: learning. After all school is about getting an education, not about making honor roll. Right?
Wrong:
Residents of [Fairfax, County Virginia] have been battling the district’s tough grading practices; chief among their complaints is that scoring a 93 gets recorded as a lowly B+. After forming an official protest group last year called Fairgrade and goading the school board into voting on whether to ease the standards, parents marshaled 10,000 signatures online and nearly 500 in-person supporters to help plead their case on Jan. 22. After two hours of debate, the resolution passed
[...]
At most schools in the U.S., a 90 earns you an A, but in Fairfax County, getting the goods demands a full 94. Merely passing is tougher, too, requiring a 64 rather than a 60.
Disgraceful.
Those who complained about the grading criteria are clearly misguided about what attending school and receiving an education means.
Take the word “education” itself. It comes from the Latin “ex,” which can mean “out of” or “from,” and “ducere,” a verb meaning “to lead” or “guide.” The Latin word “educatio,” therefore, means “upbringing” or “raising up.” To be educated is a process of transition from a lower, immature stage of life to a stage where one can function as an adult. We still use “upbringing” and “raise” with this sense today, “education” on the other hand, seems to have lost any noble and worthy connotations.
Ask Not
Sorry kids, Obama is supposed to be an echo JFK with his calls for self-sacrifice.
Nice try, though.
How Embarrassing
If the following speakers didn’t thoroughly embarrass President Obama, I don’t know what could:
Pre-Existentialist Quote Of The Day!
The following quote is found in Søren Kierkegaard’s Either/Or in “A’s” section:
I can’t be bothered. I can’t be bother to ride, the motion is too violent. I can’t be bothered to walk, it’s too strenuous; I can’t be bothered to lie down, for either I’d have to stay lying down and that I can’t be bothered with, or I’d have to get up again, and I can’t be bothered with that either. In short: I just can’t be bothered.[¹]
Amen.
[¹] Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, A Fragment of Life, trans. Alastair Hannay (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 43.
I’m Afraid I Can’t Help It
Here’s a little song by Mr. Bowie, Mr. Reznor and Mr. Cube to express the feelings of many regarding the inauguration of our next President.
Marvel® Super Hero Test
I’m “The Punisher,” it seems.
This is fine with me because, even though I’ve never read Punisher comics, I did enjoy The Punisher movie from 2004 and I’m a fan of Ray Stevenson the actor who played the centurion Titus Pullo in HBO’s Rome.
Take the quiz yourself:
Ya Gotta Love Pragmatism
I keep hearing how Obama is a “pragmatist,” but, instead of concrete examples of his pragmatism, one is more likely to hear about his commitment to the status quo.
For example:
The Clock is Ticking
Countdown until Obama leaves Office in Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds. Click Image to View
http://obamaclock.org/
H/T – Melo
Obama at GMU
Yesterday President-elect Barack Obama paid a visit to the Fairfax campus of George Mason University. There he gave a speech to an invited crowd of politicians and academics. Here’s a round-up of some of the responses:
House Cleaning
It’s important for one to clean one’s own house, for if he doesn’t someone else might do it with less attention to detail.
Case in point:
Anglo-Irish &c. Family Mottoes
Here‘s a cool page I found that provides a list of family mottoes transcribed from The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales by Sir John Bernard Burke and Irish Family Mottoes by Tomás ó Baoill. Obviously, the families found here are from the UK, Ireland &c., but even if that doesn’t float your boat, there’s still some good Latin mottoes provided, with English translation.
The complete entries give
No Wonder She Endorsed Obama
Hey, Oprah, “gullible” is written on the ceiling… Made ya look!!!
Remember when Oprah praised James Frey, the author of the bogus memoir “A Million Little Pieces” ? I thought that was pretty funny, but I also thought that it made sense. After all, you’d have to be borderline illiterate to think that Oprah was qualified to recommend books.
Unsurprisingly, Oprah has been punked again:
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