More Multiculturalism

Started Persepolis - required reading for the Global Literature class. Brings back long suppressed memories of 9th grade and Mrs. Regan. Hated that woman. I may have actually become a Republican because she was a Democrat. I remember that when the Shah actually fell my friends and I couldn't believe that US was abandoning Iran. Here we are 30 years later and we are still paying for that one.

School started again today

It's a multi-cultural quarter as I finish off distribution requirements. World Literature, World Theater and hopefully Statistics (no multicultural aspect there so far but maybe we will have to use roman numerals or something).

Once again books are outrageously expensive, it would be nice if instructors would actually take that into consideration, but I guess that is asking to much from life.

In addition to the normal first day hassles my senses were assaulted by a bunch of Lynden LeDouche supporters (at least no Paulites were around) and some stupid ass paper called Eat The State. God I will be glad to get out of school.

This weeks rule 5 submission

courtesy of Death Race, Natalie Martinez.

It might just be me but the only way I see this girl being any hotter is if she were set on fire.

This is freaking amazing

I heard about this lady on NPR today. She is the winner of Ukraine's Got Talent for 2009. A sand artist, in this clip she tells the story of Ukraine's occupation by the Nazis from 1941 to 1945. An occupation in which 25% of the population was killed. I am not a super-sentimental person but I was almost in tears when it was over.



a couple more



I believe this is calle Birth Part 1

Draft national Math and English standards published yesterday

I am going to post more on this but I lost my links and can't remember where I saw them. For the moment I am going to once again risk my vast right wing conspiracy membership card by saying I support them. Once I find the links I will go a little more in-depth.

Ralph Peters - More troops aren't needed (in Afghanistan)

President Obama needs to make a decision: Either give the general the resources he believes he needs, or change the mission.

I can't disagree with that, but I do disagree with most of the rest of this article.

Peter's basic premise is that a classic counter-insurgency can't work, because Afghanistan can't be united , but this is the same argument he advanced against the Iraq troop surge in 2007, and he is wrong. The Taliban was able to take, hold and unite the country and Afghanistan existed as a kingdom from 1919 to 1973.

This isn't to say that the task will be easy but it is doable - If McChrystal gets the support he needs.

I do have a lot of reservations about using troops for nation building rather than combat but regardless of the actors the mission can be accomplished. If I had my way and a foreign service academy was established this would be a perfect mission for it's graduates.

Around the Moronosphere 9/22/09

Ace - McChrystal to reign if not given more troops for Afghanistan - Central Front in the War on Terror abandoned

Hot Air - Exclusive: CBO predicts Social Security cash deficits in 2010-11 - Score another one for Bush

Slashdot - Bringing Convenience and Open Source Methods to Higher Education- As you know I am a big proponent of this. I just wish it would happen faster

Belmont Club - Plan B for Afghanistan - sounds like we are screwed

Rightwingsparkle - Introducing the Americano-

Gingrich Communications, owned by Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, has launched a bilingual site for American Hispanics with a different take on news and opinion. "The Americano" offers a more balanced view on all the issues that concern American Hispanics today. It is a site for Hispanics to read and discuss similar traditional principles. News Hispanics can use!

I foresee a lot of opposition from the Malkinites but I say this is a good move

Word Around the Net - We were jut trying to help - This is why any government program should be viewed with skepticism

Around the Moronosphere 9/20/09

First for a Rule 5 input, Anyssa from SportsbyBrooks



Ace - Football Player with Downs Syndrome Scores Touchdown - Nice story.

Betsy's Page - The mistress loophole in campaign finance law


Hot Air - McCain-Feingold takes a hit - Yawn, it's old I posted this a couple days ago. (j/k)

Instapundit - An idea so crazy it just might be worth trying

Slashdot - Long tail effect doesn't work as advertised - This is a marketing strategy that works on the assumption that offering niche items along with more widely available items leads to increased sales of the niche items and therefore higher profits. This article disputes that. Personally I doubt Amazon et. al. would be using the strategy if it wasn't showing some results.

The Jawa Report - Milton Friedman destroys a fool before your eyes - From the 70's it appears but worth watching

The Other McCain - Remembering Hillary Clinton's Thesis on Saul Alinsky - He isn't impressed

Around the Moronosphere 9/19/09

Betsy's Page - Why FOX News is hoping ACORN will bring it on -

ACORN’s unavoidable problem, however, is that suing Fox News would give Fox — or any other media organization — the ultimate Christmas present: a legally enforceable way to compel ACORN to give up all its secrets.

Oh, please let this happen.

Hot Air - Great moments in government: Let’s take an insane killer to the Fair! - It would almost be funny if I didn't live in Seattle

The Other McCain has the weekly Full Metal Jacket Roundup

That's all for now. Have to go to a soccer game and then work on the never ending fence so... back later

SNL can manage to refer to it as the Tea Party Movement why does CNN et. al. insist in refering to tea baggers?

Smitty at The Other McCain has posted a Hulu clip of SNL making fun of Joe Wilson, which is relatively funny but what was really funny to me is that SNL can manage to refer to the Tea Party movement correctly while the majority of the MSM can't.

Appeals Court Throws Out Campaign Finance Limits

at least for non-profits. This case arises from a pro-abortion group that wished to run ads supporting Democrat candidates. The FEC told them that their contributions were limited and they sued under the 1st amendment. The appeals court overturned the FEC's ruling reasoning:

"The First Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, protects the right of individual citizens to spend unlimited amounts to express their views about policy issues and candidates for public office," the court ruling said. The First Amendment also "safeguards the right of citizens to band together and pool their resources as an unincorporated group or nonprofit organization in order to express their views about policy issues and candidates for public office."

This seems very similar to the case that was just argued before the Supreme Court regarding the group that wanted to show the Hillary Clinton film in last years election. Is this a hint on how they will rule. I can't believe that the appeals court would release their ruling if they believed that in a couple months it was just going to be overturned. Oh wait scratch that. The 9th circuit does it on a daily basis.

Olympia Snowe getting ready to pull a Spectre?

or just running a bluff on GOP leadership?

TPMDC leans towards the latter, speculating that she is laying down cover for a yes vote on health care.

The Washington Monthly seems to think it a little more likely that she may jump the GOP ship,

Personally, if she is just going to cave and vote with the dems anyway, I would prefer that she cross the aisle, but other wiser people probably have a bunch of reasons why that is a bad idea.

Around the Moronosphere 9/18/09

I return after an extended hiatus (Yay!). Of course during that time I skipped the entire ACORN implosion but I guess I can live with that.

Flopping Aces - Jay Leno Rips on ACORN I guess I didn't miss it all :-) Michelle Malkin had this too and being a link whore I am going to link her also

Instapundit - The Patriot Act blows but liberals accept it when it comes from Obama

The Other McCain - Boycott Little Green Footballs - I would but then how would I know who the fascists are? Oh Wait, according to Charles Johnson that would be everyone to the right of Che Guevera

Innocent Bystanders - RIP Norman Borlaug - as Instapundit would say "Indeed" this is the man who made movies like Soylent Green into camp science fiction, or as I saw elsewhere "Defused the population bomb". He deserves a national day of remembrance (as did Jonas Salk when he died. It still burns me that when he died it was barely mentioned in the news.

Al-Jazeera - Pyongyang open to nuclear talks - Of course they are. The administration already caved on face to face talks so Kim has every reason to expect they will cave on everything else.

BBC - More anti-government protests - I have figured it out. In order to get support from the Obama administration the protesters need to seize an American embassy hold hostages for more than a year and cut off a few reporters heads. That's the type of leader that President Obama's strong smart foreign policy is designed to engage with

CNN - NYC transportation hub probable target of foiled terror plot

also FBI questions suspect in terror plot for a second day

DAWN - Pakistan elected to IAEA board of governors - Irony alert

The country’s election to the Board of Governors is recognition of its long standing commitment to the aims and objectives of the IAEA, a Foreign Office statement said.

So that whole develop a nuke in violation of the non-proliferation treaty and then distribute the technology to places like Syria, Libya, Iran, and North Korea thing was in accordance with the the aims and objectives of the IAEA? Interesting.

Politico - Conservatives using liberal playbook - about time

computer crashed hard

Bluescreens as soon as I boot it. Borrowed a laptop and am trying to repair my computer but I am going to be down a bit longer. Not much has been happening anyway been on a couple job interviews, waiting to hear.

I know I said I would be back yesterday

I lied, but to make up for my Obama like fibbery I offer up Lara Douchette,



Lala from the Tiki Bar

Back tomorrow

I am refreshed - I think - and ready to resume.

A couple things that I miss

Typewriters and Fanzines. I love the sound of typewriters, the way the font looked on the page, the feel and smell of onionskin typing paper. Along the same lines blogs and fanzines filled a lot of the same needs but a fanzine required more effort and both putting one together and locating and buying them were a lot more rewarding.

I did this post in the typewriter font just for the hell of it.

Man, Have I been slacking off on the blogging

I have been doing some over at Doubleplusundead but mainly I have just been busy. Looking for work while school is on break, helping my dad build a fence, reading the Baroque Cycle again, reading the Manga guide to Calculus which is fairly amusing but if you are a student would be very confusing, and watching History lessons from UCLA. Dr. Courtney Raia if you read this I am available for marriage proposals. In short just enjoying the end of the summer and being lazy.

I really need to go to UCLA if they have professor like this

I actually found this lecture (Newton and the Enlightenment) by accident. I saw an article about Academic Earth and this lecture was on the front page. Since I had just finished re-reading The Baroque Cycle I decided to watch the lecture and she is actually a pretty good instructor as well as being cute. Amazing how life works out sometime.

Michael Barone - New facts undercut old positions on immigration

In his latest opinion piece Michael Barone validates my opinion on Immigration reform - Namely that if there is border and workplace enforcement economics will do the rest.

From this evidence I draw two conclusions. First, stricter enforcement -- the border fence, more Border Patrol agents, more stringent employer verification, state and local laws -- has reduced the number of illegal immigrants. Second, the recession has reduced the number of both legal and illegal immigrants.

CIS explicitly and Pew implicitly conclude that immigration will rise again once the economy revives. I'm not so sure. At least some of the stricter enforcement measures will continue. And the reservoir of potential immigrants may be drying up. Birthrates declined significantly in Mexico and Latin America circa 1990. And as immigration scholars Timothy Hatton and Jeffrey Williamson write, emigration rates from Mexico and Latin America -- the percentage of population leaving those countries -- peaked way back in 1985-94.

Moreover, people immigrate not only to make money but to achieve dreams. And one of those dreams has been shattered for many Hispanic immigrants. Most housing foreclosures have occurred in four states -- California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida -- and about one-third of those who have lost their homes are Hispanic. Immigration is stimulated by the reports of success that immigrants send back home. It may be discouraged by reports of failure.

Nice to be validated.