Harry Reid in bed with Abramoff?

(Ewww… now that’s an unpleasant picture… )

So Abramoff pled guilty to fraud. And Harry Reid has been linked to Abramoff(by AP stories and Fox, according to the Right Wing “NYT”, Newsmax).

Isn’t Harry Reid associated with Abramoff kind of like putting a chicken in a foxhouse?

heh

Well, time may well tell just how deep the ties are, if any. Let’s reserve judgement though, shall we? Otherwise, the Loony Left will have won another convert to “Shoot now; indict and convict later… maybe. If convenient.”

Did Bush Lie Us Into War?

OK, for really busy folks (or the one and only “reader” of this blog who has difficulty with multisyllabic words):

No.

For those who want the Reader’s Digest Version (but still much longer and more detailed than you’ll get from a blow-dried airheaded Mass media Podperson), check out

Judging the case for war

h.t. Hugh for sending me the link to this Chicago Tribune article.

Making the case at Those Bastards!

The cost of sticking our heads in the sand

Well, one of the costs of avoiding creating a rational energy policy is obvious:

13 W.Va. miners trapped by blast; rescue team sent (login required. Use Bugmenot 🙂

As one sage notes,

“…there are more people killed annually at grade crossings by coal trains than ever died from nuclear power.”

Hint, hint: pebble bed reactors are not only inherently safer to run, supply and in waste management/pollution, they are one of the best current technologies for energy production. Which is why the Chinese are building 20 (or is it 22?) of them, NOW. And PBRs are just one of many alternatives that beat the socks off solar, wind, etc., for cost/benefit results. IF one can keep the enviro-cultists on a leash.

Sad State of Education 0106-2

Here’s an update/addendum via Hugh:

College grads’ literacy shows ‘appalling’ drop
Test finds many cannot interpret tables, food labels

While more Americans are graduating from college, and more than ever are applying for admission, far fewer are leaving higher education with the skills needed to comprehend routine data, such as reading a table about the relationship between blood pressure and physical activity, according to the federal study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics.

I have a pdf of an article (well, book excerpt) that expands on this theme. I need to review that and see about posting it, too, I imagine.

But seriously, is this any surprise? Anyone who has been a voracious reader for 30, 40 or 50 years can certainly tell after a brief conversation or exchange of e-s or a few comments on a blogpost that recent crops of college grads (and from my experience, it doesn’t much matter where they graduated from) are extremely poorly read, and indeed largely lack certain qualities that widely-read people seem to almost universally possess. Among those possessions are a cultural liteeracy that transcends the pablum available through popular media; a sparpened ability to think logically; and a written vocabulary that reflects a.) an actual understanding of the meanings of words rthey use and b.) orthography that demonstrates they have read, not just heard the words they are using.

This morning My Favorite Librarian related to me some tragi-comic typos, word misuses and serious syntactical problems creating amphibolous meanings of whole passages… in a book about research into ways to improve reading.

heh

Might I suggest one way would be to write books that spelled words correctly, used words properly and had good, logical syntax? Oh. That was the theme of one of the SECTIONS of this book!

When subliterates are writing books on how to improve reading skills, then we are all in for a bumpy ride…

{EDIT/ADDENDUM} From Pournelle, again:

…one wonders if the champions of political correctness don’t send their kids to private schools or teach them to read at an early age themselves, so that by ruining the public schools they can keep the lower classes who can’t afford private schools in their places? If the system were designed to solidify class boundaries, ruining the public schools by preventing the teaching of reading would be the first step to take. Since this is the result produced, I wonder again if it is not intended. How can so many educated people be so stupid? How can they ignore all evidence that their imbecile meddling is producing disasters?

Are those in charge of education fools, or are they evil? Those are the only alternatives I come up with. Political correctness is not a game with inconsequential implications, it is a monstrous system for keeping the minorities down, solidifying class lines, and generally seeing that the worst stay on top.

Ditching a trip to the principal’s office for the Tuesday Specials at Jo’s Cafe

The Crux

I know no one who has not done stupid things or behaved dishonestly at some point or another in their lives. And I specifically include myself in that assessment. Only a pathological liar could live past the age of two and say that they’ve never done something stupid or dishonest with a straight face.

That said, what’s the difference between a common, ordinary decent person and the typical Mass Media Podperson, politician *spit*, Academia Nut or Loony Left Moonbat?

It’s this: an ordinarily decent person experiences genuine guilt when they catch themselves lying or decieving others and will repent and attempt to remediate their lie. An ordinarily decent person who does something stupid will make every effort to make whole anyone harmed by their stupidity and seek for ways to do better next time.

John F. Kerry, whose name really should be pronounced “Jean Fraud sKerry”, is the early 21st century poster boy for pathological liars and wilfull stupidity. From his first entry into public life, he has lived by lying and by slandering others. It’s his fundamental personality trait. It doesn’t matter to him or to anyone who supports him that his lies are largely a matter of public record, that they have been exposed as lies time after time after time, because he 9and his supporters) care not one whit for truth in any form.

And so, his blatant stupidities get a pass as well. He can contradict himself from one day to another, from one part of a speech or interview to another, from one part of a sentence to another, and to him snd his devotees, his stupidity is a sign of intellect.

Another lie.

So, where are the records Jean Fraud sKerry has promised time and again to make public? Nowhere, mon frere. But that’s perfectly sensible when one realizes that an “echo test”* performed on Jean Fraud would return a null value.

No More sKerry BS_button

Jean Fraud: no more B.S. Where’s the beef?

Sneered forth at The Liberal Wrong Wing and at Cao’s Blog, where the Free Kerry’s 180 all started (go there and sign up, eh?)

*The “echo test” was devised by the late, great Werner von Sam Browne as a field test for the presence (or absence) of gray matter between the ears of doofs, politicians and moonbats. Simply have the subject open its mouth, rap it sharply on the noggin a few times. No sound comes out the mouth (beyond the occasional “Ouch!” or the like)? Well, you know, sound doesn’t travel in a vaccuum…