Gobbledygook in High Places

I think that right now in this, uh, in this economic very slow but, but, you know it's, return that we need to, uh, we need to have these prices well could have, well could affect the comeback of our economy and we're very worried about that. So of course we don't want the price of gasoline to go up we want it to go down (Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, responding to a question about whether he still believes we need to boost gas prices in order to encourage energy efficiency).

Uh....would you repeat that, sir?

Haha, this is what happens when your boss needs to change the narrative but fast in order to get re-elected.

Steven Chu's Europe Gas Quote Haunts President Obama (Politico)
Secretary Chu Recants on Higher Gasoline Prices (Breitbart)

Who Decides What We Should Be Aware Of?

Received the following in my in-box this morning from Michael Mufson, professor of theater at Palomar, sent on behalf of the PC3H Committee (and no, "PC" is not short for politically-correct, though it should be). Addressing the entire Palomar College community, including classified staff, counselors, administrators, faculty, district counselors, deans, directors, distinguished Governing Board members, and yours truly, Mufson writes: 

April is LGBTQ awareness month at Palomar and we are hoping to create a broad discussion amongst classes, faculty, staff and community about gender and sexuality in American culture.  We are planning a series of events to spark discussions across many disciplines.  An essential part of the project is participation of many classes in the discussion. There are many ways you can participate:

•  Have a discussion on any LGBTQ topic and encourage your students to share their thoughts on the blog.

•  Encourage students to use the blog for pre-writing or free-writing process and discussion

•  Give extra credit to students for attending one or more of the events.  Encourage them to post a response on the blog.

•  If you already have a written assignment that relates to the topic, post some quotes or conclusions from the assignment on the blog.

•  Create a written assignment that relates to the topic, post some quotes or conclusions from the assignment on the blog.

In these stressful times, it is important for us to remember that education is more than student learning outcomes and career training for corporate America.  This project is an expression of the ideal of education.  Let’s put the community in community college.

My initial thoughts:


Mufson's suggestion that faculty and staff incorporate discussions on LGBTQ in our courses is absurd, especially when you think in terms of your own course content (Physics? Calculus? Library Technology?). Our job as educators is to teach our course content, not to incorporate social values of any sort, no matter how commendable, that are not relevant to those objectives.


I have a feeling that Stanley Fish, who wrote Save the World on Your Own Time, might disagree with Mufson's final statement about education being more than learning outcomes and/or career training. Fish's entire book revolves around a simple thesis: Our job as educators is to teach content related to our own discipline, along with analytical skills related to that content. That's it. If we have passions or beliefs or morals or values that we want to fight for or protest or advocate, that's fine. Do it on your own time, and in your own name, not in the classroom and not as a representative the institution where you teach.


And who determines that April is anything month? Why do LGBTQ people get their own month? Lots of people could argue for special acknowledgment of their disenfranchisement. What about "Unborn Human Babies Awareness Month" or "Religious Liberties Under Assault Awareness Month" or . . . ?

One wonders how Professor Mufson would feel if the college encouraged faculty to incorporate discussions about the rights of the pre-born or of persecuted Christians in his theater classes? My guess is he would opt out. As I will be this April in my English classes.


Sorry, but this is infuriating. 


Notes: 


I posted this same entry on my other blog since it seemed to relate to education, but I think there's some cross-over issues that belong here. I'm thinking of merging the two but I don't know how.


Here's a description of Stanley Fish's book, which I read last semester for Professional Development hours (yes, I got paid to read!)

Contrasting Legacies

So the Los Angeles Times actually published my letter, nearly in its entirety.

Contrasting the Legacies of James Q. Wilson and Andrew Breitbart

This is Not Your Mother's Democratic Party

The nanny state strikes again...thank you Uncle Sam.

First $10 per gallon gas . . Next up: $50 light bulbs!

Chalk this up to another way the government has figured out how to save energy: make energy so expensive we won't drive and we'll go to bed early.

Welcome to Obama's America. 

.

When Crudeness Gets a Pass

To all those who are outraged by Rush Limbaugh's crude, sexist, offensive on-air remark calling a feminist activist a "slut" (for which he apologized), I assume you are equally outraged by Bill Maher's even more crude, sexist, offensive, even misogynist remarks targeting Sarah Palin?

No? What about crude, sexist, misogynist slurs against conservative women in general? Liberal Kirsten Powers writing on The Daily Beast provides a litany of what she refers to as "the routine misogyny of liberal media men." Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin has her own collection of vile sexist and racist slurs directed at her personally.

Outraged? Guess not. As Michelle says, "Enjoy the silence."

The War on Conservative Women, by Michelle Malkin

Rush Limbaugh Isn't the Only Media Misogynist, by Kirsten Powers

Interesting follow-up column by Kirsten Powers about how she was blasted by liberals for this earlier column on Limbaugh.

Why I Support Mitt Romney in Italics

I am bothered by the impression of late that a choice between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney is an either/or proposition in terms of which one is the conservative candidate. I don't believe it. Mitt Romney is conservative. His life choices reflect conservative values:

He's a man of faith. Even if doctrinally we differ, he is still a man of faith. Can't we at least concede this? Dennis Prager made a good point this morning on his radio program about this. Some Christians say they can't vote for Romney because of his Mormonism. Prager says, Jimmy Carter is a born-again Christian. Would these same people vote for Carter just because he says he's a Christian? They would not. Even Barack Obama claims to be a Christian (cynicism aside, let's just take him at his word). Let me see....Obama the "Christian" or Romney the Mormon?

He's a family man.

He is a charitable, philanthropic man.

He is an honest man, a decent man.

He's a patriotic man. 

He's a smart man, a business man, a pragmatic man.

He's a proven leader. 

I'm getting a little tired of hearing people (calling in to talk radio, for example) say they can't vote for Romney because he's robotic, or that doesn't have enough passion about social issues, or he doesn't speak for "the working class" person, or worse, that his Mormon doctrine is a deal breaker. Enough of this. If Mitt Romney is the nominee, which in all likelihood is going to be the case, what are these people going to do with Barack Obama's arrogance (give me robotic over arrogance any day), Barack Obama's passion on social issues like gay marriage or abortion, etc., Barack Obama's antagonism toward working class people, or Barack Obama's cynical disdain for people of faith, Barack Obama's hypocrisy and dishonesty.

Yes, it's time to stop the bloodletting in the Republican party so whatever damage has been done these past few months can hopefully be undone and these naysayers can be convinced to re-think their views and get them to unite behind the Republican candidate, as imperfect as he seems to them. I am absolutely terrified that this divisive rhetoric within the Republican party is doing irreparable damage to our chances to defeat this horrible president, and I wish social and religious conservative leaders would accept the inevitable, take the initiative, and unite 100% behind Romney.

Romney can't win if the conservative base is divided. It will be hard enough to win back the independents who have been turned off by this intra-party mudslinging. I consider myself a social and fiscal conservative, but I am also a realist, and this is how it appears to me from where I'm sitting.

Different Men, Different Era, Different Mission

Op-ed in today's LA Times called "Conservatism's Two Faces," by someone named Jim Newton, comparing Andrew Breitbart's legacy with James Q. Wilson's, both of whom died this month (link below). Here's the letter to the editor I just sent in:

Different era. Different mission. Different men. To contrast Breitbart disparagingly with Wilson is to miss an important distinction between the two. Wilson was born in 1931, Breitbart in 1969. Mr. Wilson turned 43 (the age Breitbart was when he died this month) in 1974. Contrast the 1970’s with today. The differences are many, not the least of which are a breathtaking incivility and an irrepressible 24/7 information cycle that spews out distortions in the same breath as the news. So Breitbart was engaged a different battle. What's more, Wilson had a lifetime to refine his legacy. Breitbart only recently emerged on the journalistic scene, and one could argue that he was only just getting started. We’ll never know what his ultimate legacy would have been had he lived into his eighties. Instead, we have only the work he began which is still in its infancy. Finally, to dismiss Breitbart as a ranting pugilist is to reveal an astonishingly limited understanding not only of what he accomplished in his short-lived career but also of what drove him to behave in ways that offend the refined and the polite. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. It’s treacherous business, and unfortunately people get burned, including, sadly, the firefighter. Andrew Breitbart died fighting, and he deserves better than this petty commentary by Jim Newton.

 "Conservatism's Two Faces," by Jim Newton

Remembering Andrew Breitbart, Part II

Coming back to this.



Video streaming by Ustream

Remembering Andrew Breitbart Part I

I'll come back to this later.




Video streaming by Ustream

Nous Sommes Tous Obstructionists, I Guess?

A report in this weekend's Washington Post Business section says that Social Security just passed what it calls a "treacherous milestone." It went cash negative. I guess this situation could be problematic. Why doesn't the president try to address this problem?

Oh wait, one president did. His name was George W. Bush. Here he is addressing both houses of Congress at a State of the Union speech, back in 2005. It appears the Democrats weren't all that supportive of Bush's attempts to privatize Social Security in order to prevent it from going bankrupt. In fact, they look downright giddy.

And Democrats like to call Republicans obstructionists?

An Unconventional Commencement Speech

I just listened to Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University. It's only about 15 minutes or so. It's probably the most unlikely message one would expect at a graduation speech, with its three key points focusing on dropping out, getting fired, and facing death, and summed up with the enigmatic slogan from the authors of The Whole Earth Catalog, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." At first glance, not the most inspiring words.

Yet why do I feel so, well, inspired?

What does it mean, I wonder, to "stay hungry, stay foolish"? I found a couple of explanations online that I like:

Stay hungry: always keep wanting something more, something new.
Stay foolish: always keep an open mind, never think that you know everything.

Stay Hungry: don't be too easily satisfied or grow too comfortable.
Stay Foolish: don't think that you know everything.. stay foolish and keep learning new things.

Other thoughts that I liked from the speech:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Steve Jobs, Commencement speech, Stanford University, June 12, 2005.

A Little Quiz

True or false? "It's a Republican-controlled Congress."

You can check your answer here.

Methinks Obama assumes the American electorate is (are?) idiots.

Mehopes he's mistaken. But according to this article, even though "Washington insiders and those who track politics know that the 112th Congress is divided . . . polls taken over the last several years show that many voters are unclear which party runs the House and/or Senate"

Are voters going to be less gullible this time?

Who is Occupying Wall Street and Why?

Here apparently is the list of "demands" presented by the Occupy Wall Street protesters:

• Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.a
• Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.
• Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.
• Demand four: Free college education.
• Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.
• Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.
• Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.
• Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.
• Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.
• Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.
• Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.
• Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.
• Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.
• These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

These are some fairly "out there" demands that strain credulity. And yet, now certain lawmakers in Washington are voicing support for the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Let's see who they are: 

John Larson from Connecticut

Louise Slaughter from New York

Raul Grijalva from Arizona

Keith Ellison from Minnesota

Russ Feingold, former senator from Wisconsin

What do these individuals have in common? Maybe it's the "D" that follows their name. 

Grijalva and Ellison said they were "inspired" by the protesters. Slaughter said she was "proud to see the Occupy Wall Street movement standing up to this rampant corporate greed and peacefully participating in our democracy” (I suppose by "peaceful" she's referring to things like peacefully blockading the Brooklyn resulting in hundreds of arrests).

Who else supports the Occupy Wall Street crowd? Let's see. George Soros. Michael Moore. Roseanne Barr. Susan Sarandon. Alec Baldwin. Yoko Ono. A veritable pantheon (to quote Alton Brown) of leftist celebs! Who's next? Barack Obama, maybe. Today he dipped his big toe in the water when he scolded Bank of America for raising fees on debit card users (but there's no connection between B of A raising its fees and the regulations imposed on banks by the Frank-Dodd bill, right, Mr. President?). 

Top Democrats Endorse Wall Street Protests

Feldstein and Goolsbee: Who Makes More Sense?

Listened to an interview on the PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff interviewing two noted economists about President Obama's American Jobs Act: Martin Feldstein (introduced as a "longtime conservative thinker" and a professor at Harvard... how refreshingly oxymoronic!), and a former adviser to President Obama, Austan Goolsbee, now returned to the University of Chicago. I'm embedding the clip below because I would like to return to it on occasion. I'm always amazed at how two obviously intelligent and highly educated people can examine the same issue and arrive at such different conclusions. Feldstein makes perfect sense to me here, talking about how impractical Obama's stimulus plan is, especially if you break down the actual cost per job that his stimulus would create (I think he said $200,000 per job). This does seem a bit extravagant. Goolsbee, when asked about these figures, insisted that it's a good investment since we're sailing into strong headwinds, or something like that. The more he spoke, the less credible he sounded. It was as though he had been given some talking points and was sticking to them, regardless of how illogical they sound when contrasted with Feldstein's analysis.

On a related note, I find it interesting that the "jobs act" that Obama keeps haranguing Congress to "PASS NOW!" has yet to be even introduced to Congress. Apparently the POTUS doesn't actually submit bills to Congress, only members of Congress do, and so far no Democratic congressman or woman has done so. In the meanwhile, while the Democrats dither, a Republican member of the House has gone ahead and submitted his own version of a Jobs Act to the House of Representatives!

It seems Obama's latest endeavor isn't about creating jobs for Americans. It's about trying to make Americans think Republicans are against creating jobs for Americans (that's the message Obama's taking out on the road). Interestingly, it's not just Republicans who are hesitating. I just read that some Democrats are also not in favor of Obama's plan. So it's just more political theater from this president. The only job he hopes to create with all his blather is his own second term.

Pshaw.

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Thoughts on the Tea-Party Sponsored GOP Debate on CNN

This was a bit livelier than the first debate. I liked how Wolf Blitzer moderated the debate. I like that the line of questioning began with a question read by someone in the audience (live or remote), and how Blitzer would then follow up with more pointed questions related to the initial question. The audience was enthusiastic, applauding and occasionally booing the candidates' comments. Gotta love them tea partiers. They'll let you know what they think one way or another. No pandering from this crowd.

Just a few observations then back to grading student essays:

Mr. Huntsman didn't seem comfortable on stage. Perhaps he sensed that he wasn't as "welcome" as some of the other candidates in this arena. His comments didn't receive any applause, as far as I recall.

Ron Paul was less offensive to me this time, with maybe one exception, when he started yammering about foreign policy. I also didn't care for his dig at Perry about his taxes going up in Texas.

Cain and Gingrich were their usual selves. I like them both. But neither will be our GOP candidate. I hope whoever is the candidate (and ultimately president) taps Gingrich for something in his administration. That man is a storehouse of information, insight, and experience.

Santorum was pretty aggressive last night. I guess some will say he came out swinging. He and Gingrich acted like old buddies up there and seemed inclined to prop each other up; he and Bachmann, on the other hand, seemed to have conspired together to take down Rick Perry. Neither of them gave an inch on the Gardasil issue (the issue came up when one questioner asked about executive decisions).

Bachmann went too far on this matter, in my view. Her repetition of the phrase "innocent 12-year old girls" came across as melodramatic, but she demeaned herself when she basically accused Perry of handing out favors to the drug company (Merck, who supplied the vaccine) because they donated to his campaign.

Perry was definitely put on the defensive most of the night. Probably his best moments came at the beginning when addressing the Social Security/Ponzi scheme issue. His worst moments had to do with his comments about illegal immigration.

Mitt Romney was the clear winner in this debate. I think he finally came up with a way to handle the question of how "RomneyCare" differs from "Obamacare." He definitely had his ducks in a row last night.

There's something about Rick Perry that impresses me. Was it the way he stood at attention during the National Anthem? Everyone on stage faced the flag, hand over heart, a few mouthing along with the words. Perry's stance was different, almost as though he were saluting. Maybe it's the way he would nod in agreement occasionally when his opponents spoke, as if the other candidate were not his enemy but his compatriot. Does a candidate really have to be able to enumerate seven points by memory, as Romney did, or make no mistakes, as Bachmann claims? I'm not so sure.

Once again, it's heart (Perry) vs. head (Romney), but today I'm leaning Romney. 

Rick Perry: Telling it Like It Like It Is?

Another interesting and insightful column by Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

He starts out by suggesting that GOP-presidential candidate Rick Perry's insistence that Social Security is a "Ponzi-scheme" is in no way original to him, nor is it original to conservatives. Kurtz then cites a number of liberals who over the years have called SS a Ponzi-scheme, including liberal economist and Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson; Stanford economists Victor Fuchs and John Shoven; Ben Wattenberg, author of The Birth Dearth; Robert Shapiro, co-founder of the Progressive Policy Institute; Pulitzer Prize winning-columnist William Raspberry; liberal columnist Jonathan Atler; Matthew Miller of The New Republic; journalist and commentator Michael Kinsley of Slate; and Max Frankel, formerly of the New York Times.

Kurtz raises the point that Perry's refusal to back down or tone down his rhetoric on this issue is a reflection of his political courage. His concluding comments:

Remarkably, [Max] Frankel ends by chastising the media — including his own paper — for failing to challenge false claims by politicians for the system’s soundness. Frankel seems to crave nothing so much as a politician or reporter courageous enough to boldly make the Ponzi-scheme point.

 Our historical tour of the claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme confirms what we already knew: Rick Perry’s remarks are uncharacteristically bold for a politician, most especially a candidate in the midst of a presidential race. Yet Perry’s Ponzi-scheme claim is in no way unprecedented. On the contrary, the Ponzi comparison has been a staple of conservative warnings about Social Security’s financial soundness for decades. More intriguing, the Ponzi scheme analogy was popularized by a liberal Nobel Laureate economist, who initially offered it as a defense of the system, acknowledging only later that his defense was at least partially flawed. In the decades that followed, many honest liberals have made the Ponzi scheme comparison in the course of calling for systemic reform. Those liberals have bemoaned bipartisan deception and timidity on the Social Security issue, and praised those rare and courageous political souls, such as Alan Simpson, who were willing and able to call a Ponzi scheme by its real name.

So the question today is not simply whether Rick Perry will be punished or rewarded for showing the honesty even many liberal commentators once pined for. The more interesting issue raised by this historical investigation may be the fate of the Democratic party and the media. Where today are the liberal and centrist Democrats who only yesterday called Social Security a Ponzi scheme and supported bold reforms? Where now are the columnists and editors at Newsweek and the New York Times willing to reward truth-tellers and to criticize reporters who cover for cowardly politicians? The fate of Rick Perry’s blunt talk may tell us more than we want to know, not only about Social Security, but also about who we are and what we have become.

Here's the link to Kurtz's article, "Perry and the Ponzis" (NRO, September 12, 2011)

Speechless

Due to the blackout in Southern California yesterday I missed "The Jobs Speech" (to be precise, Obama's campaign speech, paid for and sponsored by The American Taxpayer), which I had set to record on my DVR and watch after I got home from school. Driving home I did manage to catch the last five minutes, enough to be reminded why I hate when presidents speak to joint sessions of Congress. Within those five minutes alone Obama was interrupted at least four times by raucous applause. I think I may have even heard some whoops and hollers. Is that possible?

Though his admirers on the left are praising it, the speech as I perceived it when I heard snippets of it later came across as manipulative and, despite his needling others about the Importance of Bi-Partisanship, partisan. I'm fairly certain that Republicans in that chamber were not applauding. It was a one-sided pep rally, like a gym filled with fans of two teams sitting in opposite bleachers but only one school's cheerleaders leading the cheers.

Thinking about it today, it occurs to me that the speech, salted liberally with the repetitive mantra of "Pass This Jobs Plan Now!" comes across as mostly meaningless, especially when you realize that whatever jobs plan Obama was pressuring Congress to pass ("now!") was not in writing, so there was nothing actually to pass, now or later. And because there was nothing in writing, the costs of this amazing plan that needed to be passed now were also nonexistent. Yet another game of charades by the master charlatan.

Why does this all sound so depressingly familiar? Does anyone remember the 2,000+ page health care bill? Speaker Pelosi herself admitted (after the fact) that Congress had to pass the bill before they could know what was in the bill. Members of Congress hadn't even read it, but they went ahead and passed it anyway because there was Obama insisting it had to be passed now. And so they passed it. And what a mess it was and is.

Now here we are again, the president standing before Congress and essentially daring it not to pass his jobs bill which is not yet in writing and whose cost has yet to be specified, because if they don't, he will sick (sic?) the American people on them.

This is not leadership; it's political theater. Unfortunately this sort of theater what we have come to expect from Obama because it's all he knows. And his far-left base loves it.  I found this by John B. Judis of The New Republic: "Before Obama’s speech, commentators were saying that he stood no chance of getting his program through Congress. But when Obama shows leadership—when he plays the class card, as he did, and implicitly paints the opposition as the party of the wealthy and of the big corporations—then they quaver... ("Obama's Angry, Direct, and Eloquent Defense of Government").

Playing the class card is leadership? Playing the race card is leadership? Denigrating your political opponents and then denigrating the act of denigrating of one's opponents is leadership? Apparently so, if you're a left-leaning Democrat. My definition of leadership is a little different. Obama may have a plan, but so do others in Congress, some of them Republicans. Try working together with them again, Mr. President. Only this time, actually listen to and incorporate their ideas. It should not be an either/or proposition.

And yes, I know the Democrats like to say that it's the Republicans who are the obstructionists, the Republicans who are always saying "no." But that's part of the theater. The reality is, the president brushed aside the Republicans during the health care debate (I seem to recall him saying to one Republican senator, "I won--get over it"). Since this president doesn't play by the rules, I tend to ignore it when Democrats demonize the Republicans in these discussions.

In Search of a New President

Watched the GOP presidential debate trying to determine who among them would be our next president. I look for something that transcends promises that may not be kept. How refreshing it would be if just once a presidential candidate were to acknowledge the complexity of politics and accede to the reality going in that he might not be able to please everyone whose vote he seeks. I look for someone who is able to sift through the pettiness (could none of them have refused to dignify the moderator's line of questioning having to do with believing or not believing in science, for example?). 


Speaking of which, the moderators for this debate seemed determined to steer the debate off topic, which should have been focused on jobs and the economy. Especially that second guy (Politico’s John Harris). You could see him literally itching for a fight. I liked how Newt Gingrich reprimanded him early in the debate, basically telling him to lay off ("I know what you're trying to do here--you're trying to get us to tear into each other, but it's not going to work."). Unfortunately, I don't think all the candidates succeeded in avoiding his trap. Huntsman, while for the most part dignified and reasonable, did at one point rise to the bait and chastised Perry on the science issue. I thought that was a mistake. 


I also felt the moderators gave too much air time to that Paul guy, time that would have been much better spent listening to candidates who have a legitimate chance of becoming the nominee. On the other hand, even if Gingrich does not have that chance, I felt that he was actually being snubbed. I don't want him to be the candidate, but I did find myself applauding the few remarks he made. Ron Paul, on the other hand, I almost had to walk out of the room when he spoke. He's an embarrassment. 


On some levels I was sort of let down by Rick Perry. Maybe because his appearance was hyped and the expectations had been set somewhat high. Some of his remarks seemed scripted, in my view, and some seemed downright weak. I don't think it's necessary, for example, to continually tout successes in your own state (of course Huntsman and Romney did the same). Perry could have been better prepared to address the science issue. I know he's getting a lot of flak for his assertions that climate science is not yet a settled issue, and he didn't have an answer to the question of which scientists' views he respects. Regardless, his point is well taken. Economically speaking, trying to accommodate these climate issues is partly to blame for some of our economic woes. Bachmann, and also Romney, addressed this point when they talked about the need for tapping into America's own resources like oil, coal, nuclear, and renewable energy and not hamstringing businesses with oppressive environmental regulations (Barack Obama himself seems to have realized this, having actually overruled his own scientific advisors and halting the EPA's plan to tighten smog rules on businesses). Perry should also tone down the rhetoric a bit when discussing Social Security. I'm glad he's not backing down on the larger point (that it's unsustainable) but Obama would make mincemeat of him if he's the nominee unless he can start articulating specific ways to remedy the program. In this regard, perhaps Romney edges Perry.


Perry was steely-eyed on the issue of capital punishment, and I respect him for it. He also handled the controversy about his executive decision that young girls should be vaccinated against the HPV virus. I actually felt this was another attempt by the moderators to get off topic and attack Perry. The other candidates should have shrugged it off. Perry has already conceded this was a mistake, but I like the way he answered the question. Good for Mitt Romney to cut him some slack. I wasn't as impressed with Perry's response to the question about border security and immigration. I think he was the first candidate to get that question, and his response focused more on "boots on the ground," as he put it, and also a fence (I think). Some of the other candidates were more nuanced. Gingrich and Huntsman emphasized the need for compassion, underscoring the humanity of illegal immigrants, while Santorum talked about his own (legal) immigrant parents and the richness of America's ethnic heritage. On a side note, I liked the moderator from Telemundo who conducted this series of questions. 


I liked Mitt Romney last night. I felt he was reasonable, respectful, not petty, not easily distracted by the moderators. I also like Perry, despite his rough edges. I find Huntsman intriguing. Bachmann is sharp, but I'd rather she stay put, working for economic and social issues in the House of Representatives. I think she's an excellent lawmaker. I hope Palin doesn't get into the race. She has her place in the bigger picture of Republican politics, and that place is not as a candidate. 


As of today, my heart says Perry but my head argues for Romney.


These are my thoughts for now. I wonder what others are saying. 

A Little Bit Bizarre

I'm starting to be concerned about Nancy Pelosi's mental health. On one hand, you almost want to laugh at her. She is so over the top. But what if something's wrong with her? You would hate to have to go back into your blog posts and delete them if you find out down the road that she's mentally ill. Yet how else to explain the kind of illogical, irrational, nonsensical, even delusional remarks she makes here?

Held Hostage by California Democrats

Democrats are out of control.

"Babysitting Bill in California Legislature"

Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers' compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck. Failure to abide by any of these provisions may result in a legal cause of action against the employer including cumulative penalties, attorneys' fees, legal costs and expenses associated with hiring expert witnesses, an unprecedented measure of legal recourse provided no other class of workers – from agricultural laborers to garment manufacturers.