It’s Wednesday, May 30th, 2012….but before we begin, a brief thought relating to Memorial Day and the Left’s view of racism in America.

While watching a brief bit of AMC‘s Memorial Day movie-fest over the weekend, we were struck by the incongruity, indeed utter inaccuracy, of the Left’s continuing claim of White Guilt; specifically White REPUBLICAN Guilt: for the evils of slavery, Jim Crow and current state of race relations in our country.  It’s a fantasitcally fictitious fable unsupported by any historical evidence….and you wonder why the Liberal Education establishment is dumbing down our public schools.

Here’s a quick primer in U.S. History: though started in Great Britain, the Abolitionist movement in America was in large part the progenitor of the Republican Party, whose first successful candidate for President was one Abraham Lincoln. Democrats controlled not only the secessionist South, but were the mainstay of opposition in the North to both Lincoln and the Union war effort.  Slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings and Jim Crow were all the provinces of Democrats.

Not to mention a significantly greater percentage of Republicans on Capitol Hill voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Democrats.

Interesting you say; but, despite the patent prevarication inherent in almost any Liberal mythology, what’s the connection to Memorial Day?  On average, estimates of total U.S. war dead from all causes in all the conflicts in which America’s ever been engaged total just over 1.3 million.  Of that number, over 1/4, some 360,000+ dead, were suffered by Union troops during the course of the American Civil War.  And of that 360,000 plus, 99.99% of the dead were White; perhaps not White Republicans, but most certainly White….and most certainly dead.

They weren’t all Abolitionists cut from the same cloth as Robert Gould Shaw; in fact, many were neither fighting to end slavery nor considered freedom for Blacks worth any time or effort whatsoever, let alone loss of life.  Even Abraham Lincoln, unlike our current poseur, a truly great President, wrote in a letter to Horace Greeley:

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.“

Then again, the vast majority of the Southerners who died defending the Confederacy neither owned slaves nor necessarily supported the “peculiar institution”; like their Union brothers, they died for home, hearth, kin….but most importantly, their comrades. And died they did….in numbers sufficient to perhaps satisfy even the appetite of Edmund Ruffin, the firebrand South Carolina secessionist who inaugurated that unholy war by firing the first shot on Fort Sumter.

Our point is this: well over 2,000,000 WHITE soldiers, called to arms by a WHITE REPUBLICAN President and kept in the field by a WHITE REPUBLICAN Congress, fought to end slavery in America.  Over 360,000 of these, a full 18%, gave their lives as a result, the vast majority well after the Emancipation Proclamation made the overarching goal of the conflict, the end of slavery, obvious.

These are facts; not feelings, FACTS….which is why history in general, and the Civil War specifically, is no longer accurately accounted in our public schools.

Here’s the juice: what you don’t know CAN hurt you.  Democrats and their perverse policies, NOT White Republicans, are responsible for the current state of Black America (as if such a concept should exist); they’ve destroyed the Black family, emasculated Black men and condemned generations of Black Americans to drugs, desolation and dependency.

If 360,000 dead White men aren’t enough to convince you, your not interested in the truth….you’re out for personal gain and political privilege.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

We lead off the mid-week edition with our “That’s “Liberal”….spelled H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E” segment, courtesy of Mr. Hope & Change himself:

White House defends drone attacks, ‘kill list’

 

The White House responded Tuesday to criticism of the Obama administration’s use of drone attacks and a so-called “kill list,” saying President Obama will do what is necessary to protect Americans from harm.

 

Sure; whatever is necessary….outside of taking them alive and waterboarding ’til they spill their guts!  It’s the Liberal equivalent of Bizarro World:

Good!

Bad!

Do we find the policy objectionable or morally repugnant?  Hell no.  What we find objectionable and morally repugnant is its employment by a lying, hypocritical Liberal (like there’s any other kind!) whose anti-American rhetoric has cost an untold number of American lives, and who in the course of a desperate bid for reelection is sacrificing invaluable U.S. intelligence assets at an ever-increasing rate.

Now ask us how we really feel!

Speaking of hopelessly hypocritical Liberalism, it’s the subject of the latest offering from Thomas Sowell:

Meaningful Work

 

But it sure as hell beats unemployment!

“Education” is a word that covers a lot of very different things, from vital, life-saving medical skills to frivolous courses to absolutely counterproductive courses that fill people with a sense of grievance and entitlement, without giving them either the skills to earn a living or a realistic understanding of the world required for a citizen in a free society.

The lack of realism among many highly educated people has been demonstrated in many ways. When I saw signs in Yellowstone National Park warning visitors not to get too close to a buffalo, I realized that this was a warning that no illiterate farmer of a bygone century would have needed. No one would have had to tell him not to mess with a huge animal that literally weighs a ton, and can charge at you at 30 miles an hour. No one would have had to tell that illiterate farmer’s daughter not to stand by the side of a highway, trying to hitch a ride with strangers, as too many college girls have done, sometimes with results that ranged all the way up to their death.

The dangers that a lack of realism can bring to many educated people are completely overshadowed by the dangers to a whole society created by the unrealistic views of the world promoted in many educational institutions.

It was painful, for example, to see an internationally renowned scholar say that what low-income young people needed was “meaningful work.” But this is a notion common among educated elites, regardless of how counterproductive its consequences may be for society at large, and for low-income youngsters especially.

What is “meaningful work”? The underlying notion seems to be that it is work whose performance is satisfying or enjoyable in itself. But if that is the only kind of work that people should have to do, how is garbage to be collected, bed pans emptied in hospitals or jobs with life-threatening dangers to be performed?

Does anyone imagine that firemen enjoy going into burning homes and buildings to rescue people trapped by the flames? That soldiers going into combat think it is fun?

In the real world, many things are done simply because they have to be done, not because doing them brings immediate pleasure to those who do them. Some people take justifiable pride in working to take care of their families, whether or not the work itself is great.

Some of our more Utopian intellectuals lament that many people work “just for the money.” They do not like a society where A produces what B wants, simply in order that B will produce what A wants, with money being an intermediary device facilitating such exchanges.

Some would apparently prefer a society where all-wise elites would decide what each of us “needs” or “deserves.” The actual history of societies formed on that principle — histories often stained, or even drenched, in blood — is of little interest to those who mistake wishful thinking for idealism.

At the very least, many intellectuals do not want the poor or the young to have to take “menial” jobs. But people who are paying their own money, as distinguished from the taxpayers’ money, for someone to do a job are unlikely to part with hard cash unless that job actually needs doing, whether or not that job is called “menial” by others.

People who lack the skills to take on more prestigious jobs can either remain idle and live as parasites on others or take the jobs for which they are currently qualified, and then move up the ladder as they acquire more experience. People who are flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s on New Year’s Day are seldom flipping hamburgers there when Christmas time comes.

Those relatively few statistics that follow actual flesh-and-blood individuals over time show them moving massively from one income bracket to another over time, starting at the bottom and moving up as they acquire skills and experience.

Telling young people that some jobs are “menial” is a huge disservice to them and to the whole society. Subsidizing them in idleness while they wait for “meaningful work” is just asking for trouble, both for them and for all those around them.

It’s classic Progressivise policy….and the epitome of Einstein’s definition of insanity; what else explains over 50 years of rewarding destructive personal behavior with ever-larger amounts of unearned, no-strings-attached cash….and then blaming increased levels of the same destructive personal behavior not on the policies or the individuals, but on the insufficiency of the remuneration.

And since we’re on the subject of living with the consequences of misguided Progressivism, the WSJ details the battle brewing between what once might have seemed unlikely adversaries:

Rahmbo vs. Springfield

Chicago’s mayor says Illinois pensions are breaking his city.

 

As White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel helped stick the country with ObamaCare, but as Chicago mayor he’s trying not to let a crisis go to waste in a good way. If only lawmakers in Springfield would heed his advice on pension reforms.

Regarding benefits for public employees, Illinois makes California look tough. Many teachers don’t pay a penny toward pensions but can retire at age 60 with an annuity equal to 65% of their final salary plus a 3% annual compounded cost-of-living increase. The state’s pension bill, which has quadrupled in five years, consumes all $7 billion of additional revenue from last year’s income and corporate tax hikes. Even so, the pension funds are projected to go bust in a decade.

Rating agencies have threatened Illinois with a multiple-notch downgrade if lawmakers don’t restructure benefits in their budget due this week. The raters worry that pensions are causing the state to delay payments to creditors—Illinois has a $9 billion backlog of unpaid bills—and squeezing local budgets, thereby making municipal defaults more likely. Mr. Emanuel is warning that retirement costs could drive up Chicago’s property taxes by 150% over the next three years and increase class sizes to 55 students.

Maybe the embarrassment of being compared to Greece is finally getting to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn. Last month the Democrat proposed to increase worker pension contributions by three percentage points of their pay to 11% from 8% for most state employees, raise the retirement age to 67 from 60 and modestly reduce cost-of-living raises. The changes would be voluntary (“Voluntary”?!?  Yeah….that’ll work!), though Mr. Quinn wants to rescind retirement health benefits for workers who reject his plan.

Unions say they’ll sue if lawmakers approve the Governor’s reforms. (Now THERE’S a surprise!) They argue that reducing pensions for current workers and retirees is illegal and that the “voluntary” plan is coercive. But state and federal courts have ruled that lawmakers can tweak benefits if necessary to protect public welfare. Minnesota and Colorado defended their reductions in cost-of-living increases on such grounds.

Illinois could do the same by quoting Mr. Emanuel’s press conference earlier this month advocating bolder reforms: “Costs associated with maintaining the retirement system has come to a point that you cannot do the basic things that you need to do as a city, in providing for your residents—whether that’s garbage collection, recycling, areas of public safety—and maintain those obligations.”

Legislators are nonetheless skittish about passing significant reforms in an election year. While they want to get credit with voters for doing something about pensions and don’t want another credit downgrade, they fear union wrath. Which means they’ll likely water down Mr. Quinn’s reforms and serve up the resulting gruel to voters as creme brulee. House Speaker Michael Madigan has already taken the retirement age and employee contributions off the table. He also wants to exempt Chicago workers and judges who would hear constitutional challenges on the reforms.

Lawmakers are way behind the voters on this one. By a three-to-one margin, voters favor reducing pension benefits over paying higher taxes. Mr. Emanuel is offering good counsel.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of voters….at least the ones who cast only a single ballot….aren’t generally financing Illinois political campaigns.

Next, a brief follow-up to last week’s item detailing the Left’s hapless attempt to portray a drunken sailor as the soul of fiscal restraint, and Paul Ryan as Ebeneezer Scrooge.  Exhibit A, courtesy of Conn Carroll and the Morning Examiner:

Exhibit B, brought to us by Townhall.com:

And that’s just through 2010; it only gets worse from there….MUCH worse!

Next up, in the “Danger, Danger Will Robinson!” segment, Robert Zubrin, writing at National Review Online and courtesy of Conn Carroll is sounding General Quarters:

Red Alert: Don’t Confirm Allison Macfarlane as NRC Head

 

It’s the ’60’s all over again; they don’t anything about it….just that they’re against it!

On May 25, President Obama announced that he was nominating George Mason University Environmental Sciences Associate Professor Allison Macfarlane to succeed the disgraced Greg Jaczko as Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). As one of the latest complaints about Jaczko had involved improper behavior towards female members of the NRC staff, the administration’s decision to replace him with a woman found approval from various quarters.

However the more serious problem concerning Jaczko, a former aide to Representative Ed Markey (D., Mass.) and Senator Harry Reid (D., Nev.), was that he was an anti-nuclear fanatic who lied to Congress during his confirmation hearings to conceal his intent to use his office to attempt at all costs to prevent the establishment of a secure spent nuclear fuel repository under the Nevada desert. Regardless of what she tells Congress, an examination of Macfarlane’s publications and connections amply demonstrates that she is fully committed to following in Jaczko’s footsteps on this key policy issue.

Allison Macfarlane is the author of the book Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High Level Nuclear Waste. This book, which is endorsed by antinuclear activist Victor Gilinsky, makes the absurd argument that rather than risk unknown consequences 10,000 years in the future should geological conditions affecting remote underground desert repositories change, that high level nuclear waste should continue to be stored in cooling ponds adjacent to nuclear power plants located near heavily populated urban and suburban areas. Thus for Macfarlane, as for Jaczko, the clear goal is to not to make nuclear power as safe as possible — which is the purpose of the NRC — but to make it as unsafe as possible — which is the agenda of those seeking to shut down the nuclear industry.

Macfarlane’s fundamental commitments are thus directly at odds with the purpose of the organization she is being nominated to lead. In addition, Macfarlane has no experience or education in engineering, and is also technically unqualified to lead an organization whose purpose is to intelligently regulate the nuclear industry.

Beyond this, Macfarlane’s bias is also shown by her role as a member of the Science and Security Board of the deeply antinuclear Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Quite understandably, her nomination was instantly hailed by Jaczko’s former sponsors, Reid and Markey.

America does not need a nicer version of Greg Jaczko as head of the NRC. The nation’s effort to create safe and secure nuclear waste storage has been brought to a dead halt because Congressional Republicans fell for Jaczko’s transparently dishonest protestations of objectivity. They should not make the same mistake with Macfarlane. Her nomination should be categorically rejected.

Which brings us to today’s Environmental Moment, and something you might not have known but would never have doubted for a moment:

Global warming skeptics as knowledgeable about science as climate change believers, study says

 

Are global warming skeptics anti-science? Or just ignorant about science?

Maybe neither. A study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change finds that people who are not that worried about the effects of global warming tend to have a slightly higher level of scientific knowledge than those who are worried, as determined by their answers to questions like:

“Electrons are smaller than atoms — true or false?”

“How long does it take the Earth to go around the Sun? One day, one month, or one year?”

“Lasers work by focusing sound waves — true or false?”

The quiz, containing 22 questions about both science and statistics, was given to 1,540 representative Americans. Respondents who were relatively less worried about global warming got 57 percent of them right, on average, just barely outscoring those whose who saw global warming as a bigger threat. They got 56 percent of the questions correct.

“As respondents’ science literacy scores increased, their concern with climate change decreased,” the paper, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, notes.

Yale Law Professor Dan Kahan, the lead author of the study, cautioned that the survey results are not evidence for or against climate change. “This study is agnostic on what people ought to believe,” he told FoxNews.com. “It just doesn’t follow to say this finding implies anything about what people should believe on this issue.”

Kahan said that he thought another finding of the study was more important: That people’s cultural views – how much they value things like individualism and equality — affect their views on global warming much more than actual knowledge about science. Regardless of how much they know about science, individualists were relatively unconcerned about global warming, whereas those who value equality were very concerned.

Then again, maybe their knowledge and sense of individuality allows those unconcerned to better recognize a scam….

….when they see one.

On The Lighter Side….

And in News of the Bizarre, When Good Joeys Go Bad, courtesy of the Lan’ Down Undah and one terribly ill-tempered marsupial:

Australian mom says kangaroo stalked her for 2 days then attacked

 

An Australian mom has told of being “stalked” by a rogue kangaroo for two days before it savaged her, leaving her with a 12-inch scar.
Kirrily McWilliams was first confronted by the growling female eastern gray kangaroo in the backyard of her property south of Port Macquarie, in New South Wales — and the next day it got through her fence and attacked her dog, a 143-pound mastiff.

Despite worried calls to National Parks and Wildlife Services for help, McWilliams was told to ignore the animal and it would go away, The (Sydney) Daily Telegraph reported. That afternoon she was walking down the driveway to pick her daughter up from the school bus when she saw the mad marsupial heading towards her at high speed. With nowhere to hide she dropped to the ground and curled up in a ball.

“If you stand and confront them they can easily tear you apart because that’s what they do to each other,” McWilliams said. It pounded at her a number of times, clawing at her back with its powerful hind legs before bounding away. She sustained a large gash and other scratches on her back. “It was lucky it was cool weather and I had two layers of clothing, otherwise it could have been worse,” she said.

While she was at the hospital, her husband was attacked by the kangaroo in the backyard, but he kept it at bay with a shovel. A day later, NPWS officials issued a permit to hire a shooter and kill the kangaroo — but by that time it had moved on and attacked someone else.

There have been a number of cases of kangaroos lashing out. NPWS said the powerful eastern grays, which can weigh up to 145 pounds and stand almost six feet, were considered dangerous and its policy was to educate people on avoiding conflict.

Only if three .44 magnum hollow-points from about 15 yards constitutes conflict avoidance.

Finally, we’ll call it a day with the “Whatever It Takes” segment, courtesy of some very contented cows:

Dairy farmers pamper cows with massages, waterbeds

 

Dairy farmers have known for generations that contented cows give more milk. Now they’re coming up with creative, new options to help keep their cows as happy as possible. Some farmers are installing waterbeds for cows to rest on, while others play classical music. And some hire animal chiropractors to give older cows a tuneup and correct minor issues in calves. It’s all part of the effort to ensure maximum milk output.

Do the methods work? There’s no sound scientific data to back up the claims, but dairy farmers say they believe they’re seeing improved productivity. Veterinarian Sara Gilbertson recently did a chiropractic adjustment in Chilton, Wis., for a dairy cow that developed a limp. She says cows are only apprehensive about treatment until they discover how good it feels.

No word yet on whether cow massages include the option of a “happy ending”.

Magoo