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?

Filed under: Quote of The Day

“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

Filed under: Economy/Economics , Fiscal Reality, Obama, Stimulus

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.

Source

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.

Filed under: Education , Fairfax County, Virginia

Ask Not

Sorry kids, Obama is supposed to be an echo JFK with his calls for self-sacrifice.

Nice try, though.

Filed under: Internet

How Embarrassing

If the following speakers didn’t thoroughly embarrass President Obama, I don’t know what could:

Filed under: History, Poetry, Politics , Obama

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.

Filed under: Quote of The Day

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.

Filed under: Music , Bowie, I'm Afraid of Americans, Ice Cube, NIN, Trent Reznor

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:

Filed under: Art/Lit, Psychology

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:

Filed under: Politics , GITMO, Liar, Obama, Pragmatism, Torture

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

Filed under: Politics

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:

Filed under: Economy/Economics, Education, Politics , GMU, Obama

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:

Filed under: State of Israel, Terrorism, War

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

Filed under: Europe, History

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:

Filed under: Literature