Explaining the Financial Crisis

And You Expected Different?

Marquette Student McCain Supporter Assaulted Near Campus

From the Marquette Tribune:

A 19-year-old male not affiliated with Marquette pulled a gun on four Marquette students during a physical altercation early Sunday morning, according to the Department of Public Safety.

The wrangle started outside of Murphy’s Irish Pub, 1615 W. Wells St., around 2 a.m. when a 21-year-old male Marquette student was struck in the face while holding a “McCain Palin” campaign sign and yelling to vote for John McCain in the upcoming presidential election. The student said he was blindsided when a group of three individuals approached him, though he is not sure exactly which individual hit him.

Minutes later, the student returned to the porch of his home on the 800 block of North 17th Street where he was confronted by the same three men that had assaulted him outside of the bar. Words were exchanged and the spat migrated into the alley behind the victim’s house, the victim said.

By that time, three of the victim’s friends had heard the fracas and met in the alley. One of the students, a 21-year-old male, said that he wandered into the alley and came face-to-face with two suspects that were holding bricks. One of the suspects launched a brick and hit one of the students, another 21-year-old male, in the face. The suspects took off down the alley and the students chased after them, the victims said.

When the men reached the north end of the alley at Kilbourn Avenue, one of the suspects turned, pulled out a .38 caliber handgun, and pointed it directly at a student’s forehead.

Happily, the person who pulled the gun was arrested, along with one of his accomplices.

Les Aspin Center Discussion Series on Campus

We are a little late blogging this, but a potentially interesting speakers series has been put together by the Les Aspin Center. Currently scheduled are:

• U.S. Involvement in Foreign Affairs -- October 1, 5:30 p.m. in the Alumni Memorial Union, Monaghan Ballroom. Speakers are Prof. Barry McCormick (Marquette Political Science), Robert Ricigliano (UWM), Dr. Wolfgang Schmidt (Chair, Governor’s Commission to the United Nations), Prof. Jeffrey Drope (Political Science, Marquette) and Prof. Peter Tumanoff (Economics, Marquette).
• Politicking, Polls and Public Perception: Behind the Scenes of Campaign Advertising -- October 22, 5:30 p.m. in the Alumni Memorial Union, Monaghan Ballroom. Speakers will be Profs. Ken Goldstein and Charles Franklin (University of Wisconsin, Madison), Christopher Murray (Aspin Center).
• Conversations with WPR’s Kathleen Dunn -- October 30, 9 a.m. in the Alumni Memorial Union, Monaghan Ballroom

Funny Definition of Patriotism

New York Times: Things Vastly Better in Iraq

From yesterday’s New York Times:

BAGHDAD — At first, I didn’t recognize the place.

On Karada Mariam, a street that runs over the Tigris River toward the Green Zone, the Serwan and the Zamboor, two kebab places blown up by suicide bombers in 2006, were crammed with customers. Farther up the street was Pizza Napoli, the Italian place shut down in 2006; it, too, was open for business. And I’d forgotten altogether about Abu Nashwan’s Wine Shop, boarded up when the black-suited militiamen of the Mahdi Army had threatened to kill its owners. There it was, flung open to the world.

Two years ago, when I last stayed in Baghdad, Karada Mariam was like the whole of the city: shuttered, shattered, broken and dead.

Abu Nawas Park — I didn’t recognize that, either. By the time I had left the country in August 2006, the two-mile stretch of riverside park was a grim, spooky, deserted place, a symbol for the dying city that Baghdad had become.

These days, the same park is filled with people: families with children, women in jeans, women walking alone. Even the nighttime, when Iraqis used to cower inside their homes, no longer scares them. I can hear their laughter wafting from the park. At sundown the other day, I had to weave my way through perhaps 2,000 people. It was an astonishing, beautiful scene — impossible, incomprehensible, only months ago.

When I left Baghdad two years ago, the nation’s social fabric seemed too shredded to ever come together again. The very worst had lost its power to shock. To return now is to be jarred in the oddest way possible: by the normal, by the pleasant, even by hope. The questions are jarring, too. Is it really different now? Is this something like peace or victory? And, if so, for whom: the Americans or the Iraqis?

The reporter adds that:

There are plenty of reasons why this peace may only amount to a cease-fire, fragile and reversible. The “surge” of American troops is over. The Iraqis are moving to take their country back, yet they wonder what might happen when the Americans’ restraining presence is gone.

In short, we are winning the war.

But the war is not yet won -- not quite yet.

Which is why we don’t want to elect a president who will find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Obama Lying About McCain, Limbaugh and Immigration

We are a couple of days behind the curve on this, but we can’t pass up noting that an Obama commercial intentionally tore comments by Rush Limbaugh out of context, and then claimed that McCain and Limbaugh held the same views on immigration.

This is from ABC no less.

When even ABC admits that Obama is far out of bounds, it’s really bad.

Sarah Palin Derangement: Threatening Her With Rape

A supposed “comedienne” named Sandra Bernhard has been rather a hit attacking Sarah Palin.

She warned that Sarah Palin better not come into Manhattan lest she get gang-raped by some of Sandra’s big black brothers.

Her rant continued with a nasty anti-Christian riff.

Now you got Uncle Women, like Sarah Palin, who jumps on the s--t and points her fingers at other women. Turncoat b---h! Don’t you f--kin’ reference Old Testament, bitch! You stay with your new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bulls--t! Don’t you touch my Old Testament, you b---h! Because we have left it open for interpre-ta-tion! It is no longer taken literally! You whore in your f--kin’ cheap New Vision cheap-ass plastic glasses and your [sneering voice] hair up. A Tina Fey-Megan Mullally brokedown bulls--t moment.

You can see the bigoted tirade at this link.

The audience eats it up.

Nobody seems to have noticed that claiming that “black brothers” would gang-rape Palin plays on one of the nastiest (and historically most dangerous) racial stereotypes.

Which says something important about a large part of the left. They know perfectly well that words like “cunt” and “bitch” are unacceptable ways of referring to a woman, and that stereotyping black men as rapists is incendiary.

But when they think of Palin, the inhibitions disappear.

Uncle Sam to the Rescue

Deranged About Sarah Palin

We are not going to describe this page (which sells t-shirts).

And we warn you not to go there is you dislike nasty sexist language.

But the fact that these t-shirts actually have a market says volumes about the attitudes of a large part of the left.

Palin Derangement Syndrome: Canadian Version

If the video is not embedded above, click this link.

Indoctrination in English Composition

From a Denver TV station:

DENVER (CBS4) ― Metro State College is investigating a professor who asked students to write an essay critical of Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin. One student said the instructor singled out Republican students in the class and allowed others to ridicule them.

“I was shocked, I was holy cow, this is just an open door for him to discuss politics with us,” said Jana Barber, a student in the class.

Barber shared the first class assignment with CBS4. Instructor Andrew Hallam asked students to write an essay to contradict what he called the “fairy tale image of Palin” presented at the Republican National Convention.

“What the faculty’s responsibility is to provide opportunity for critical thinking and civic engagement so bringing something of relevancy into the classroom was the faculty’s goal,” said Cathy Lucas, spokeswoman for Metro State. “Should he have broadened it and included all the political figures, yes.”

Metro State officials are investigating claims of bias, harassment and bullying.

It’s dandy, but highly unusual in academia, for the claims of Republican and conservative students of bias, harassment and bullying to be taken seriously.

Most universities have codes that outlaw acts that might create a “hostile learning environment.”

In principle, this sounds fair enough. In practice, it is always enforced in an absurdly slanted way. Politically correct victim groups (women, gays, racial minorities) are allowed to claim “hostile environment” upon merely hearing civil arguments that they disagree with. “Oppressor” groups (Republicans, Christians, white males) have to endure being denigrated.

The latter ought to be highly aggressive in pushing claims of harassment, bias, intimidation and a “hostile learning environment.” Universities ought to face having to employ these doctrines in an even-handed way, or drop them entirely as an infringement on free expression.

So long as leftists can use them to shut up speech they doesn’t like, at no risk to themselves, censorship will continue.

Incidents like this aren’t uncommon at Marquette.

We encourage all students who are victims of this sort of thing to contact us. We respect confidentiality. We will investigate and if we find an abuse, we will publicize it, as we have done multiple times in the past. The most recent case we publicized involved bullying of a student who, in a class discussing how police interacted with minorities, gave, from his own personal experience, comments supportive of the police.

No student should have to tolerate being singled out, harassed and bullied. Not even Republicans.

Photos of Hurricane Ike

From the Boston Globe website, stunning photos of Hurricane Ike and the damage it brought.

Note: this page with massively large graphics may bring your computer to a halt for several seconds as it loads. Be patient. It’s worth it.

Polling in the Darling/Wasserman Race

We just got a call on our land-line asking us how we intended to vote in the Alberta Darling/Sheldon Wasserman state senate race.

The interviewer didn’t know how to pronounce “Wasserman.”

That was the one question. No demographics. No “push polling.” Just vote preference.

We asked him from where he was calling. He said “Central America,” and then quickly corrected himself saying “Florida.”

We asked him who was paying for the poll: Darling, Wasserman or some other organization. He said some other organization, but didn’t see to want to give more information.

We pressed him on the name of the firm that was doing the research and he said “WC Research.”
Whoever is paying for this poll needs to see that the interviewers at least know how to pronounce the candidates names.

Seven Years Since 9/11

Clinton Strategist: Media Especially Tough on Palin

From CBS News, an interview with Mark Penn, top aide to both Clintons:

CBSNews.com: Your former colleague Howard Wolfson argued that you all unintentionally paved the way for Palin by exposing some of the unfair media coverage that Hillary Clinton received. And, therefore, a lot of the media may now be treating Sarah Palin with kid gloves. Do you agree with that?

In what sort of alternative universe does CBS live?

The answer to that is simple: a universe where Republicans are bad and wrong, and if any Republican is popular or beats a Democrat in an election, it must mean that the media have fallen down on their job.

Mark Penn: Well, no, I think the people themselves saw unfair media coverage of Senator Clinton. I think if you go back, the polls reflected very clearly what “Saturday Night Live” crystallized in one of their mock debates about what was happening with the press.

I think here the media is on very dangerous ground. I think that when you see them going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed, if they don’t do that for all four of the candidates, they’re on very dangerous ground. I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race. And they continue to have growing credibility problems.

And I think that that’s a real problem growing out of this election. The media now, all of the media — not just Fox News, that was perceived as highly partisan — but all of the media is now being viewed as partisan in one way or another. And that is an unfortunate development.

CBSNews.com: So you think the media is being uniquely tough on Palin now?

Mark Penn: Well, I think that the media is doing the kinds of stories on Palin that they’re not doing on the other candidates. And that’s going to subject them to people concluding that they’re giving her a tougher time. Now, the media defense would be, “Yeah, we looked at these other candidates who have been in public life at an earlier time.”

What happened here very clearly is that the controversy over Palin led to 37 million Americans tuning into a vice-presidential speech, something that is unprecedented, because they wanted to see for themselves. This is an election in which the voters are going to decide for themselves. The media has lost credibility with them.

The de facto semi-alliance between the Clinton people and Palin supporters may seem a bit odd, but it actually makes a lot of sense.

Hillary Clinton was the first victim of the media’s infatuation with Obama. So in spite of partisanship and ideology, they recognize when it’s mobilized against Palin.

Palin, God and Iraq: Liberals Are Lying

Here is the famous video clip were Sarah Palin supposedly said that the troops in Iraq are engaged in a “task from God.”

YouTube Video
Liberals, of course, never seem to mind when religious types say that God is on their side. They never raised an objection, for example, when a bunch of leftist clerics started an anti-SUV campaign, asking “What Would Jesus Drive.”

In 1964, all the Mainstream Protestant organizations came out in favor of the Civil Rights Act. They took the position that God hates racial prejudice.

Then why should we object to saying that God hates terrorists? That’s just as plausible.

But in fact, Palin never said that the Iraq War is a “task from God.”

She said to pray that it is a task from God.

Here is the quote (go to approximately the 3:35 point):

Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God.

And further:

That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.

Linguistically, this isn’t difficult. She is telling people to “pray . . . that our leaders . . . are sending them out on a task from God.”

Both the Mainstream Media and the elites in the Democratic Party are highly secular, so we might suppose that they don’t know what a prayer request sounds like.

But can’t they read English?

In fact, what we have is secular cultural elites who hate Palin, don’t like Christians, and don’t especially care whether what they say about either is true.

Pig and Lipstick

Children’s Defense Fund = Big Government Defense Fund

From the Institute on Religion & Democracy:

Marian Wright Edelman’s Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) is organizing churches, synagogues and mosques once again this year for the annual “Children’s Sabbath” on October 17-18. As the Welfare State’s chief prophetess, Edelman infamously admitted years ago that Americans are supposedly not concerned about poor people, therefore “children” must be the declared objects of concern for CDF’s political demands. Naturally, the Religious Left hails Wright as though she were an Old Testament heroine, jousting not against the Philistines but against their perceived callous modern equivalent, the Republicans and other skeptics of Big Government as panacea.

The CDF explains its justification for the Children’s Sabbath:

• In our wealthy nation today, one in six children lives in poverty while the rich get richer and millionaires reap tax breaks they don’t need.
• In our powerful nation, we still resort to guns and violence rather than the power of non-violence to solve problems in our homes, neighborhoods and among nations.
• In our nation, founded on the truth that all people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, rampant racial and economic disparities in access to quality health care and education combined with zero tolerance laws that criminalize children at younger and younger ages put black boys born in 2001 at a one in three and Latino boys born the same year at a one in six lifetime risk of being incarcerated.

On the Children’s Sabbath, religious believers are summoned by CDF to the altar of big government, to pray for government controlled health care, for government enforced gun bans, for expanded government welfare programs, and for higher taxes and greater government regulatory control. Ostensibly, the children finally will be safe when the even more empowered gods and goddesses who reign from their temples in Washington, D.C., will smile down upon a completely pacified nation. Or at least, that is why Children’s Sabbath worshippers will pray for next month. Among the faithful endorsing the Children’s Sabbath are: Catholic Charities U.S.A., the Islamic Society of North America, the National Council of the Churches, several Jewish groups, the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, and 200 other religious groups who are largely happy for the state to displace religious institutions as the moral guardians of children. (In fairness to the Islamic Society, it probably is not quite so secularized as the other religious groups. Instead, it likely sees political cooperation with left-leaning Christian and Jewish groups as vital to its larger political goal of mainstreaming political Islam.)

Revealingly, the Children’s Sabbath never really talks about nurturing children in religious faith, or protecting unborn children, or providing children the security of two-parent families, or guarding children from the heightened risk of poverty, physical and sexual abuse, and reduced quality of education that illegitimacy and divorce precipitate. Nor does the Sabbath address the failed public schools to which poor children are often held hostage because private education is unavailable. Equipping children with virtues and the motivation for hard work, self-control and service to others also does not seem to rank high in the Children’s Sabbath. Instead, care for children seems to entail persuading them that they are the victims of American greed.

It’s interesting that, in addition to the usual suspects among liberal Protestantism, and the Islamic Society of North America (which is doubtless less secular than the other organizations and more concerned with making Islam “mainstream”) is Catholic Charities U.S.A.

A lot of people doubtless assume that if the word “Catholic” is in the name or an organization, it’s Catholic.

Bad assumption.

All sorts of “Catholic” organizations have been taken over by people who, although they may be nominal Catholics, are essentially secular. The Office of Student Development at Marquette and the Manresa Program come immediately to mind.

Catholic Charities USA is been closely tied to leftist priest Bryan Massingale, of the Marquette Theology Department.

Massingale is pretty much your standard race hustler along the lines of Jesse Jackson. His committment to Catholic teaching (or lack thereof) is shown by his opposition to a Wisconsin ballot measure that would have banned gay marriage in the state. Wisconsin’s Catholic Bishops supported the measure.

Anybody who wants to see that a genuinely Catholic agenda for helping the poor and children is should read John Paul the Great’s Centesimus Annus.

Catholics who are actually loyal to church teaching need to be careful about any organization -- and this includes universities -- that claim to be “Catholic.” Often, they are simply secular.

Ultra Sophisticated Foreigners Want Obama, and Not McCain

First, a typical news story from ABC News:

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be struggling to nudge ahead of his Republican rival in polls at home, but people across the world want him in the White House, a BBC poll said.

All 22 countries covered in the poll would prefer to see Senator Obama elected US president ahead of Republican John McCain.

In 17 of the 22 nations, people expect relations between the US and the rest of the world to improve if Senator Obama wins.

More than 22,000 people were questioned by pollster GlobeScan in countries ranging from Australia to India and across Africa, Europe and South America.

The margin in favour of Senator Obama ranged from 9 per cent in India to 82 per cent in Kenya, while an average of 49 per cent across the 22 countries preferred Senator Obama compared with 12 per cent preferring Senator McCain. Some four in 10 did not take a view.

“Large numbers of people around the world clearly like what Barack Obama represents,” GlobeScan chairman Doug Miller said.

“Given how negative America’s international image is at present, it is quite striking that only one in five think a McCain presidency would improve on the Bush administration’s relations with the world.”

A similar BBC/Globescan poll conducted ahead of the 2004 U.S presidential election found that, of 35 countries polled, 30 would have preferred to see Democratic nominee John Kerry, rather than the incumbent George Bush, who was elected.

A total of 23,531 people in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Turkey, the UAE, Britain and the United States were interviewed face-to-face or by telephone in July and August 2008 for the poll.

Many liberals have had freshman logic courses, so they ought to remember that the argumentum ad populum is a fallacy.

Especially when liberals are on the unpopular side of so many issues in the U.S.

But how does somebody who believes in the Superior Sophistication of Everybody Not an American deal with this?

From Reuters:

No consensus on who was behind Sept 11-global poll

Sep 10, 2008 08:28 EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, there is no consensus outside the United States that Islamist militants from al Qaeda were responsible, according to an international poll published Wednesday.

The survey of 16,063 people in 17 nations found majorities in only nine countries believe al Qaeda was behind the attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people in 2001.

U.S. officials squarely blame al Qaeda, whose leader Osama bin Laden has boasted of organizing the suicide attacks by his followers using hijacked commercial airliners.

On average, 46 percent of those surveyed said al Qaeda was responsible, 15 percent said the U.S. government, 7 percent said Israel and 7 percent said some other perpetrator. One in four people said they did not know who was behind the attacks.

The poll was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a collaborative project of research centers in various countries managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland in the United States.

In Europe, al Qaeda was cited by 56 percent of Britons and Italians, 63 percent of French and 64 percent of Germans. The U.S. government was to blame, according to 23 percent of Germans and 15 percent of Italians.

Respondents in the Middle East were especially likely to name a perpetrator other than al Qaeda, the poll found.

Israel was behind the attacks, said 43 percent of people in Egypt, 31 percent in Jordan and 19 percent in the Palestinian Territories. The U.S. government was blamed by 36 percent of Turks and 27 percent of Palestinians.

In Mexico, 30 percent cited the U.S. government and 33 percent named al Qaeda.

Of course, on issues like the Bush Administration and the Iraq War, the U.S. is faced with a (literally) unholy alliance of secular leftists who dominate Europe, and anti-Israel (and therefore anti-American) Muslims in a broad band from North Africa to the Far East.

And a large proportion of these people are simply yahoos. Certainly, at least as large a proportion as in the United States. And where American politics is concerned, or any policy involving Israel is concerned, the rest of the world has a much larger proportion of yahoos.

Foundlings

Sliming Sarah Palin

From FactCheck.org:

• Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn’t cut it at all. In fact, she tripled per-pupil funding over just three years.
• She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a “What if?” question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin’s first term.
• She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She’s been registered as a Republican since May 1982.
• Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a “courtesy” when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state.
• Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska’s schools. She has said that students should be allowed to “debate both sides” of the evolution question, but she also said creationism “doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”

All kinds of stuff goes around in a heated presidential year, and Obama has been the target of some of it too.

But Palin is positioned right in the middle of the Culture Wars. People who don’t much like conservatives, don’t much like Christians and don’t much like people who hunt, fish and carry guns particularly don’t like her. Which means they will accept nonsense defaming her.

Liberal Elites and Sarah Palin

Sometimes the most revealing things happen in e-mail exchanges, and this is one we got copied on.

From my good old friend Edd some interesting I’m sure known facts about Ms. Palin

Cousin,

I hope that you are keeping up with the seemingly never ending trail of white trash evidence that we are finding out about Sarah Palin and her family. I sure am. First of all, what would the late great George Carlin have to say about her kids names, Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow and Piper, not to mention the husband, Todd. We all have heard the bit. Some of my favorites from this weeks edition of “Are the Palin’s bigger pieces of White Trash than Lyndi England (you might remember Lyndi from her work stacking naked Iraqi’s into a pyramid and taking a picture giving a thumbs up)” Sarah’s Husband, Todd, not only has 2 DUI’s, races snowmobiles, and was a former member of the Alaskan secessionist party, but he recently referred to himself as “the first dude.” And what can we say about young Bristol? What a peach she is, and she sure knows how to pick ‘em too. Enter Levi Johnston, who describes himself as a “f**king redneck” on his myspace page. The only positive out of this is that if McCain were to be elected and something were to happen to him and he dies, we are now part of our own live version of “King Ralph.”

The friend of ours who forwarded this also forwarded his response:

Incredibly, incredibly judgemental and condescending, coming from someone who obviously considers himself part of the “diversity” crowd. . . . As if George Carlin’s comments or potential comments (were he still alive) are to be gospel for politics or... hmmmmm, let’s say.... religion? A further question--define “white trash” you guys... As opposed to what -- black trash? If you mean uncultured thugs who demean women and see white people as either sources for easy cash or an easy target for their own community’s failures, I would like to see the liberal elite “trash” them equally with hicks and their fellow travelers . . .

I, for one, much prefer the company of simple countryfolk (both black and white)--who at least have viable families and a discernable moral compass--over spoiled whiners who make up much of the voting base of the Democratic Party in places like River West, Shorewood, etc. . . . God f**king forbid that they actually take some responsibility for their actions and do some inner reflection! As opposed to smugly putting down snakehandlers and Alaskan snowmobilers to make themselves feel like part of some select few of Gnostic know-it-alls who can easily dismiss much of America as unworthy simpletons. . . . An overdeveloped guilt complex has proven to be, from what I know of human history, much more socially-constructive than moral relativism and outright hypocrisy in putting down other people’s lifestyles while making no apologies for faults in your own... It at least engenders quite a bit of humillity, while the latter makes one feel entitled to socially engineer to one’s heart’s content (see Wikipedia under “National Socialism” or “Stalinism,” for example)!

I have been involved in politics long enough to get to know people on both sides of the aisle and, I have to admit, the snobbery I’ve heard on the left wing far outshines the judgementalism of most conservatives I know (who often turn out to be a bit Manichean, yes, but at least honest more often than not). . . . On numerous occassions, I have heard liberal politicos and elected officials actually say: “People don’t know what’s good for them.... That’s why they voted for Bush, etc. etc.” People don’t know what’s good for them???? I, along with most of my fellow believers in the inherent value of moral agency in determining communal life, send to such people a well-deserved and long-coming “arm of honor” (as the French say)!!!!! I don’t know what’s good for me??? That’s for me and God to decide, you freaking walking windbag of complexes!

Guys, seriously--I will happily read such comments from serious and well-intentioned liberals that used to make up, say, FDR’s voting base. But outright garbage like this, please don’t send. . . . Mr. Pailin or future son-in-law at least have the gall to admit that they’re “f**king rednecks”... Why don’t Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, or the rest of the liberal cognisenti add to their MySpace pages the label: “f**king bleeding heart who knows what’s good for you -- Trust me, I do”?

Probably because they know that most of America retains the common sense God gave us all and upon which the Founding Fathers had such enduring trust that they would run them out of freaking town, much or less elect them to public office! I love you guys, but please don’t push my buttons like this! Serious and honest discourse, as you well I know, I absolutely love, but talking down to my well-intentioned, though sometimes misguided, countrymen frankly pisses me off! Amen!

Government Blunder Sends Duck Hunters to Sex Talk Line

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

WASHINGTON - People calling a federal phone number to order duck stamps are instead greeted by a phone-sex line, due to a printing error the government says would be too expensive to correct.

The carrier card for the duck stamp transposes two numbers, so instead of listing 1-800-782-6724, it lists 1-800-872-6724. The first number spells out 1-800-STAMP24, while the second number spells out 1-800-TRAMP24.

People calling that second number are welcomed by “Intimate Connections” and enticed by a husky female voice to “talk only to the girls that turn you on,” for $1.99 a minute.

Duck stamps, which cost $15 a piece, are required to hunt migratory waterfowl. The government uses nearly all the revenue to purchase waterfowl habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge System. In 2006-2007, the latest figures available, duck stamp purchases brought in nearly $22 million.

This year’s stamps, which feature a pair of northern pintail ducks, went on sale July 1 and are good through June 30 of next year. The error will not be corrected until next year’s duck stamps.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the program, printed about 3.5 million duck stamps attached to cards with the wrong number. An agency spokeswoman, Rachel Levin, said it would cost $300,000 to reprint them.

“I don’t know that it would be worth it to do a reprint,” she said Thursday. “That’s a lot of money we can be using for wildlife conservation. With all of the needs for conservation, it doesn’t make sense to divert money away from an important cause.”

Marquette College Republicans in the New York Times

OK, so it’s not like winning a Nobel Prize.

But it’s always nice to see one’s students in the national media, right in the middle of the action in this very unusual and important election year.

From Reuters, Allison Herre and Matt Dambach in the New York Times, watching John McCain speak in Cedarburg yesterday. They are the two people on the left side of the photo. On the right is Remington Tonar (Editor in Chief of The Warrior).

Sarah Palin: Leftists Can’t Resist the “B-word”

In the National Post in Canada, a very perceptive column by George Jonas about the candidacy of Sarah Palin.

But the hair raising thing here comes not from Jonas, but from the first comment following the article.

(It may not be the first comment if you go to look an hour or a few days from now.)

Sara Palin proudly described herself as Pit ball with lipstick. Is that what America needs, after eight years of Bush Cheney administration, a self proclaimed vicious bitch in a Vice President?

And from a leftist blog:

Haha, one more thing re: Sarah Palin shitting on community organizers/non-profit workers

Because she’s a bitch.

Well, hope you like this little video, you bitch.

We won’t bother to describe the contents of the video.

Then there is this blog entry complaining about the Republican convention using Heart’s “Barracuda” as theme music for Palin:

Sarah Palin, no Barracuda for you, Bitch

Then there is another blog entry:

Sarah Palin is a retarded bitch

And there are more like this.

And finally, a comment to a blog post.

WTF, does she mean by soldiers were sent into iraq as a task from god, what is this bitch talking about.

And yet another comment to the same post:

I hope the poisonous bitch chokes on a mooseburger.

A fair assessment of Palin is that she is a tough, smart women. But since she is a Republican that translates among leftists into “vicious bitch.”

Of course, if one should Google “Hillary Clinton” AND “bitch” one would doubtless find quite a lot of people using similar language toward the former first lady.

In fact, the leftist blogosphere contains one poorly sourced claim that Palin used the term to refer to Hillary, and the fact that she giggled when a shock jock called a political rival of her’s a “bitch.” In fact, the actual clip shows that Palin did giggle (apparently a nervous giggle) and then said “oh” or “no,” in apparent dismay.

This account also says she giggled when her rival was called a “cancer,” but the audio clip shows this to be flatly untrue.

But no doubt conservative bloggers have used the same language about Hillary, and done so often.

But then, the Democrats claim to be the party of feminism. They claim to eschew nasty racial and gender epithets. But confront them with a strong, intelligent and accomplished woman who disagrees with their political views, and the sexism surfaces with amazing speed.

That Would Work

Biden: Attacks on Palin “Outrageous”

From The Hill:

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden repeated a Republican line of attack Thursday, slamming reporters for their “outrageous” and “sexist” treatment of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R).

“I just think some of the stuff said has been over the top, totally unfair, and has been sexist and I think the way the governor has handled it has been admirable,” the Delaware senator said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I think this stuff about how can she be a governor and vice president and raise three kids, c’mon, whoever those folks are don’t know any strong women.

“The truth is, some of the stuff that the press has said about Sarah and that others have said about the governor, I think, are outrageous. Look, I think kids are off-limits, flat off-limits.”

One could, of course, one could posit that Biden and Obama (who has also condemned the attacks on Palin) are playing a cynical little game of making humane statements, knowing that the leftist bloggers and Mainstream Media attack dogs will continue to go after Palin.

But maybe they have simply made a shrewd calculation that the attacks are likely to backfire, and want them stopped for that reason.

Or maybe, just maybe, they honestly think the attacks have been unfair. Biden, after all, was the single parent of young children after his first wife died. He stayed in the Senate nonetheless.

Is it an embarrassment that Sarah Palin’s unmarried daughter is pregnant? Absolutely. But then Obama’s father ran off and failed to support his family, and Obama has a brother living in abject poverty in Africa.

Like most Americans, Obama has a few embarrassing situations in his family.

So maybe, just maybe, decency has prevailed in the Democratic ticket.

Ragardless, the statements of Biden and Obama have cut the legs from under the liberal attack squad.

Liberals: Fearing (and Therefore Hating) Sarah Palin

The attacks on Sarah Palin have been utterly unprecedented. Over the top. Obsessive.

And why is this?

Because Sarah Palin is a huge threat, both to their electoral prospects and (more importantly) to their worldview.

While her nomination certainly has its risks, it shakes things up thoroughly, and makes the election of The Anointed One more questionable. Ideological feminists won’t vote for her, of course, but a fair number of independent and conservative Democratic women may do so. They can identify with her.

But worse is the threat to the smug stereotypes of the liberals and leftist.

For those folks, all “real” women are feminists. Women who aren’t feminists are inert, reclusive lumps who stay home, bake cookies, and stay out of politics.

So now they are faced with a woman who is an achiever -- indeed an overachiever -- outspoken, aggressive, strong willed, and conservative.

It’s cognitive dissonance run wild.

In reality, of course, genuinely strong and independent women tend to be conservative. A passive “go with the flow” woman will quite likely be told by her high school teachers that she should be a leftist feminist, almost certainly be told the same thing by her college professors, and all the while be given this precise message by the media.

Conservative women have to be counter-cultural. They have to buck the stereotypes.

A Christian teen girl to resolves to abstain from sex has to have the strength to resist huge media pressures, and often high school teachers who sneer at the notion of abstinence. The “go along” teen who passively accepts the media message will be promiscuous.

Thus Sarah Palin is the sort of woman that liberals think does not exist. The fact that she does blows their minds.

Imagine a group of Klansmen faced with a black guy who is obviously smarter, more capable and more accomplished than they are. Eventually, the Klansmen will have a bunch of rationalizations about how the guy is not so smart, is corrupt and has no business being here.

But the first reaction will be hostility and fear. The liberals might be on average a bit more clever and verbal than the Klansmen (who isn’t?), but the basic dynamic is the same.

Bubbleheads: Not Getting Sarah Palin and the Evangelicals

A perceptive (as usual) comment from Peggy Noonan:

Let me say of myself and almost everyone I know in the press, all the chattering classes and political strategists and inside dopesters of the Amtrak Acela Line: We live in a bubble and have around us bubble people. We are Bubbleheads.

And again we know this, we know this is our limit, our lack.

But we also forget it.

And when you forget you’re a Bubblehead you get in trouble, you misjudge things. For one thing, you assume evangelical Christians will be appalled and left agitated by the circumstances of Mrs. Palin’s daughter. But modern American evangelicals are among the last people who’d judge her harshly. It is the left that is about to go crazy with Puritan judgments; it is the right that is about to show what mellow looks like. Religious conservatives know something’s wrong with us, that man’s a mess. They are not left dazed by the latest applications of this fact. “This just in – there’s a lot of sinning going on out there” is not a headline they’d understand to be news.

So the media’s going to wait for the Christian right to rise up and condemn Mrs. Palin, and they’re not going to do it because it’s not their way, and in any case her problems are their problems. Christians lived through the second half of the 20th century, and the first years of the 21st. They weren’t immune from the culture, they just eventually broke from it, or came to hold themselves in some ways apart from it. I think the media will explain the lack of condemnation as “Republican loyalty” and “talking points.” But that’s not what it will be.

One of the key failures of the liberal New Class is that fact that it is not only secular, it is actively hostile to Christians.

(It’s not hostile to Muslims, but that’s because they don’t actively contest with the secular types for control of American culture, and the Muslims can be treated as a politically correct victim group.)

The Democratic party is pretty much controlled by people with a secular orientation, and occasional claims of religious faith (which may be sincere, but are certainly superficial) aren’t fooling anybody.

But happily, the Democrats ignorance of people of faith and frequent hostility toward people of faith harms them politically. They just don’t get it, and therefore make serious political miscalculations.

Sisterhood is Powerfu . . . Oh, Never Mind

Media Double Standard: Wanting Bush Attacked at the Democratic Convention

From the Media Research Center, yet another example of the hypocrisy of the mainstream media.

After the McCain campaign released an ad lampooning Barack Obama as a celebrity, ABC anchor Charles Gibson grumbled how “It’s getting nasty. And it’s only July.” On August 13, CBS’s Dean Reynolds swiped at how, in his eyes, McCain had become disrespectful: “Now, it frequently seems respect takes a backseat to ridicule.”

But during last week’s Democratic convention, those same networks pleaded for the speakers to attack the GOP. “There is one big piece missing tonight,” CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin fretted on Monday, “and that is why the American people should throw the bums out. We haven’t heard one word about that.” The next night, CBS’s Bob Schieffer complained that in a normal keynote address “you get a lot of red meat. I didn’t hear a lot of that. . . . Isn’t somebody going to have to really draw some contrasts with the Republicans?” CBS’s Jeff Greenfield moaned that Mark Warner’s keynote speech was “not red meat . . . more like tofu with sprouts.”

Over on MSNBC, Chris Matthews fussed: “Why don’t they talk about Bush, who they see as a villain?...They’re pulling their punches.”

About a half-hour later, Washington Post columnist and regular MSNBC analyst Eugene Robinson wailed: “I am waiting for someone to take the podium and say the word ‘torture.’ I’m waiting for someone....to talk about all the reasons that Democrats want to get rid of George Bush.”

Obama’s Thursday night speech laying into McCain scratched network reporters right where they itched. “Four years ago, John Kerry and a lot of Democrats were held accountable for not being tough enough on George Bush,” ABC’s Gibson claimed, adding: “Barack Obama was obviously . . . not going to make that mistake.” NBC’s Chuck Todd applauded: “Obama was basically sending a message to Democrats: I’m not going to be Michael Dukakis, I’m not going to be Al Gore, I’m not going to be John Kerry, I’m going to fight John McCain, I’m going to take him on.” CNN’s David Gergen was overwhelmed, declaring Obama’s speech “a symphony” and “a masterpiece.”

Journalists have spent the last several campaigns tut-tutting “negative” campaigning, but they only seem perturbed when it’s a liberal who’s under attack -- yet another double standard in this year’s election news.

Abortion: Faced With the Choice

From 4-Block World, Obama vs. Palin on abortion.

Sometimes rhetoric isn’t needed. Blunt reality tells the story.

Only Some Families, Only a Very Few, Actually

Academic Indoctrination at Penn State

From Students For Academic Freedom, a report on stifling leftist orthodoxy in several courses at Penn State.

The biggest offender: Women’s Studies, which is no surprise.

A lot of this will seem routine to any observer of modern academia, but what is interesting is that Penn State has a policy designed to protect students’ academic freedom.

For more than fifty years, Penn State University has had one of the strongest and most clearly articulated policies on academic freedom of any institution of higher learning. Known as HR 64, the policy bars Penn State professors from indoctrinating students with “ready-made conclusions on controversial subjects.” It instructs professors, instead, “to train students to think for themselves, and provide them access to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently.” It warns that “in giving instruction on controversial matters the faculty member is expected to be of a fair and judicial mind, and to set forth justly, without supersession or innuendo, the divergent opinions of other investigators” – in other words to present students with more than one perspective on the subject.

Finally, the Penn State policy forbids faculty from using the classroom to discuss controversial subjects outside their field of study. “No faculty member may claim as a right the privilege of discussing in the classroom controversial topics outside his/her own field of study. The faculty member is normally bound not to take advantage of his/her position by introducing into the classroom provocative discussions of irrelevant subjects not within the field of his/her study.”

Of course, no policy enforces itself, and the power of leftist faculty and administrators on college campuses dictates that any policy demanding fairness won’t be enforced.

Marquette has clearly come down against academic freedom for students, refusing to recognize a chapter of Students for Academic Freedom on campus.

And departments such as English, Philosophy and Education sponsor courses that not only intend to indoctrinate students, but which are hostile to and willing to punish students who reject the view of the politically correct professor.

Students do have some recourse, however. They can go public. They can appeal to department chairs and deans.

And perhaps most important, they can report incidents of bias to us.