Liberal Media Watch (Onyx Edition)

As I enjoyed one of my very simple pleasures in life last Sunday morning (cracking open the Sunday edition of the Times), I was surprised to find the following rather lengthy expose. Isn't the New York Times a pinko commie liberal rag?

Yeah, not so much.

I haven't done a Liberal Media Watch in awhile though Lord knows I've had the opportunity. A few months back they had a piece enshrining the glory that is Dick Armey. I thought of just dave's vehement assertions that the Times never glorifies people on the right. They've also done a number of pieces on a variety of conservative economists regarding our enormous deficit. But this one really gave me pause.

The next time someone throws the "GOP is all about big business" meme, show them this article. The CBC gets lavish amounts of money from donors like Wal Mart, Coke, and AT & T. It might be nice to think that this money is doing the work for the people.

The bulk of the money has been spent on elaborate conventions that have become a high point of the Washington social season, as well as the headquarters building, golf outings by members of Congress and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.

First of all...golf outings? WTF???!!!! So basically, groups like the CBC spend years ripping the old white man party of the GOP for playing golf and not paying attention to our country's needs only to FUCKING PLAY GOLF THEMSELVES!!!!

Most of you who know me personally have heard me, ad nauseaum, complain about the sport of golf. To put it simply, I loathe it. As Mark Twain once said, "Golf is a good walk spoiled." The fact that President Obama plays it now as well...instead of basketball...makes me fucking sick to my stomach. In fact, I'm going to go on record and say that for this reason alone he has lost a good deal of my respect.

Golf is a sport that wannabe short fat men with floppy boobs wearing dorky visors play...ignoring their three kids and hot wife's needs...so they can have time to pretend to be athletes whilst sexting their dim witted and mildly disgusting mistresses. I guess it should come as no surprise that this lifestyle has now become culturally diverse.

Equally as shocking as this sickening embrace of golf is this hypocrisy

“We’re unbossed and unbought,” said Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the caucus. “Historically, we’ve been known as the conscience of the Congress, and we’re the ones bringing up issues that often go unnoticed or just aren’t on the table.”

Bull fucking shit.

The board of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation includes executives and lobbyists from Boeing, Wal-Mart, Dell, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Verizon, Heineken, Anheuser-Busch and the drug makers Amgen and GlaxoSmithKline. All are hefty donors to the caucus.

Some of the biggest donors also have seats on the second caucus nonprofit organization — one that can help their businesses. This group, the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute, drafts positions on issues before Congress.

This also proves another one of my long standing arguments...corporations at virtually every level via every political slant...run our country. That's where the power is, folks. And see how clever they have been in incorporating progressivism?

I recommend reading the whole article. It's a little long but the details paint quite a picture. With SCOTUS ruling that corporations have the same rights as an individual regarding campaign donations, even the ghost of Paul Wellstone is being brought to you by Nike.

My Favorite Day of the Year

"I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot."

--Abraham Lincoln, our nation's BEST president.

"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

--John F. Kennedy, my FAVORITE president.

Chapman Nails It

I'm usually hot or cold with Steve Chapman, columnist for the Chicago Tribune, but he really hit the nail on the head with his latest column, "Palin Exposes the Partyers."

His basic assertion is that the Tea Party people--AKA "Classic Liberals"--basically use the Constitution only when it suits them.

Judging from the applause for Sarah Palin at its convention, the movement's suspicion of government power is exceeded only by its worship of government power.

I noticed that as well but had yet to formulate it so well.

Because if her speech made anything clear, it's that the shallow, ill-informed, truth-twisting demagogue seen in the 2008 presidential campaign is all she is and all she wants to be.

Hmm...I guess I'm not the only one who is "obsessed" with her.

When it comes to economic affairs, the tea partyers agree that — as Palin put it — "the government that governs least, governs best." When it comes to war and national security, however, her audience apparently thinks there is no such thing as too much government.

No shit. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites. I have to say that I am now finished with any amount of respect I have for these folks when they start talking about how they are "strict Constructionists." Come back to me when you actually give a shit about the Constitution. Until then, I have two words for you. "Fuck" and "off."

The conventioneers applauded when Palin denounced President Barack Obama for his approach to the war on terrorists. Why? Because he lets himself be too confined by the annoying limits imposed by the Constitution. "To win that war, we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law," she declares.

Is her point that Obama is allergic to the use of military power or can't bear to fulfill his responsibility as head of the armed forces? That would come as a surprise to Iraqis, who have seen Obama stick to President George W. Bush's timetable for withdrawal.

It would come as a surprise to Afghans, who have seen him embark on a massive buildup of U.S. troops in their country. It would come as a surprise to Pakistanis, who have seen an increase in U.S. drone missile attacks on their soil.

This would be the twisting of facts part that we have seen on this blog of late--President Obama is "weak" on terror. Like I have said many times, they just make whatever they want to fit their dream.

Her chief gripe, though, is that federal agents read the alleged Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, his Miranda rights shortly after his arrest, at which point, she claims, he "lawyered up and invoked our U.S. constitutional right to remain silent."

Not for long, he didn't. The FBI says Abdulmutallab provided a wealth of useful information under questioning after he got a lawyer. For that matter, as FBI Director Robert Mueller and National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said last week, he is still being interrogated.

Really? Hmm, I did not know that he provided a wealth of information. And still is. Let's double check Steve's assertion.

What do you know? He's right. Gee, I'm shocked.

In addition, some of these tea partyers may be begging to have those rights if they ever decide to launch their own holy war. I wonder if they will bitch then about not being mirandized.

But facts have never been Palin's strong suit. Nor do they matter because what infuriates her is the mere idea that constitutional protections would apply to "a terrorist who hates our Constitution and tries to destroy our Constitution."

As well as many others I know who like to whack off to people being tortured even though it has been show by experts that this sort of interrogation is pretty much worthless.

This is not some bizarre paradox. Lots of people who despise our Constitution — Nazis, communists, Klansmen, Alaska secessionists — enjoy its protections. Does she think the Bill of Rights should apply only to people who share her views?

Yes, Steve, she and they do.

Besides, Obama didn't invent the heretical notion of accepting limits on the government's latitude with jihadists. The Bush administration turned hundreds of terrorism cases over to the federal courts, without audible complaint from the right. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution extends even to accused foreign terrorists held at Guantanamo.

Yep.

The advantage of having a former law professor in the Oval Office is that he doesn't have to be tutored in such elementary realities. But Palin evinces a bitter resentment of any information that contradicts her blind faith in a benevolent, all-powerful security regime. She's more than willing to trade liberty for safety.

Didn't our very own last in line and just dave say several times on this blog that they were all too willing to allow the government to listen to their conversations? And yet they complain about their tax dollars spent in "un-Constitutional ways." Hmmm...

That went over conspicuously well in Nashville, where tea partyers cheered a leader who places excessive trust in government, disdains constitutional freedoms and promotes a cult of personality. So remind me: What is it they don't like about Barack Obama?

Right! Isn't that EXACTLY how they view Barack Obama? What a fucking riot...well done, Steve.

Proud to Be an American

Many of you who have been reading this blog for years probably think that I am a cranky, cynical fuck a lot of the time. If you know me in person, I'm not really that way. I use this blog to vent mostly but also to have a central hub for a lot of the issues that are going on in our country and hopefully provide a forum to discuss those topics.

One topic that has been on the minds of many lately is the closing of the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. To many people, this is a good thing. Former Secretary of State Rice and current Secretary of Defense Gates lobbied hard to have it closed during the latter years of the Bush Administration. Regardless of what went on down there, Gitmo has become a powerful rallying cry for hirabis. Strategically, it makes sense to close it. We want to take away and/or erode the one weapon they truly have which is propaganda. Your average hirabis has heard of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib but not of the dozens of prisons that currently house hundreds of convicted terrorists.

Sadly, though, we have some in this country (and we all know who I am talking about) that think that closing the prison and moving the detainees to US soil is a sign of weakness. In fact, many of these people have said that if we do that, we are inviting attack. Well, the residents of Carroll County, Illinois don't think this is true...AT ALL. Thank God.

Check out this slide show and accompanying audio over at CSM.com. First, moving the detainees there is good for jobs. Listen to the voices of the people in this presentation. They want the work. Second, security is not a concern. The prison is safe. Hear one resident chuckle at the thought of an hirabi getting lost. Third, the people there are not afraid much to the deep sadness of our own little version of Al Qaeda here in the states. Why aren't they afraid?

Y'see, folks, Carroll County was home to the Savanna Army Depot, a Defense Department facility that opened in 1917. It tested and manufactured munitions, though several wars, right up until the day it closed in 2000, putting 423 people out of work. Several generations of residents there understand what it's like to have their county be an actual target as opposed the boogieman one that is currently the product of our hyper paranoid "base." Nobody seems all that concerned about the prisoners being housed there. They have other, more pressing concerns like putting food on the table.

"Without understanding the nature of rural areas, it's harder to understand the devastating impact of losing 423 jobs," says Diane Kominskey, executive director for Savanna Depot Park, an organization that is trying to our economic development. Hmm...I guess the "base" doesn't understand rural America and their needs after all. Not surprising when their chief goal is to paint President Obama as "weak" on "terror." And to think that many of these people are probably part of the "Welfare State" now as well. Wouldn't these jobs take them off the government teat? What I am thinking? That just makes too much sense!

Anyway, this slide show honestly moved me. It goes beyond the MSNBC or Fox News version of this issue and let's the people be heard. As we say in the biz, they are primary sources. Their voices make me proud to be an American.

Shooting Themselves in Both Feet

As is usually the case, the reason why the Democrats have failed to pass health care reform is staring at them right in the mirror. No, I'm not talking about the failure to take Scott Brown seriously. I'm talking about the actually pieces of legislation themselves.

The Christian Science Monitor has a very insightful piece explaining all of this quite well. People are tired of finding out that a party that is supposedly for the little guy is...well...not...really.

In what may have been a fateful move, some touted what they had won for their states. For example, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) of Louisiana announced that reports that she had won $100 million for her state in exchange for a healthcare vote were inaccurate. "It's not a $100 million fix. It's a $300 million fix," she said on Nov. 21.

Well, that's nice. I'm sure she is looking out for the "little guy" in Louisiana (part of her job) but not the nation as a whole which will eventually affect everyone in every state. And the word "fix?" Not good.

Of course, Milk Toast Boy didn't help out much.

"There are a hundred senators here, and I don't know if there is a senator that doesn't have something in this bill that was important to them," he said in a Dec. 21 press briefing. "And if they don't have something in it important to them, then it ... doesn't speak well of them. That's what legislation is all about: It's the art of compromise."

And therein lies the problem. You can't say you stand up for the American people and seek to improve a broken system when in reality what you are doing is looking after the interests of your own state with taxpayer money. Does Senator Reid want us to believe that every Senator doesn't give a shit about the rest of the country except their own little corner?

Health Care reform has to be looked at from a bird's eye point of view. The Democratic majority in both the House and Senate was suppose to do that but they didn't. They failed to realize that, in this new information sharing age, people were going to be looking at these bills with mucho scrutiny...as well they should.

So when Ben Nelson says...

This was never just about Nebraska. It was to be a placeholder to try to get [the Medicaid extension] fully funded for all states. My priorities are Nebraska first, Nebraska always – not Nebraska only.

...he's actually full of crap because his vote was secured by exempting Nebraska from paying a $450 million dollar fee over 10 years. People can find this kind of stuff out very quickly now. What was he thinking?

What were any of them thinking? This was their chance to fix health care. President Obama told them to get it done and they failed. It wasn't his Waterloo.

It was their Waterloo. And they're going to find out all about it this November.

Um...Mr. President?

Being bipartisan cannot mean that Democrats give up everything they believe in, find the handful of things that Republicans have been advocating for, and we do those things, and then we have bipartisanship. That’s not how it works, you know, in any other realm of life.

---President Barack Obama, Feb 9, 2010, commenting on his meeting with Republican leaders regarding bipartisanship.

Ah, but Mr. President, that is how it works in their "realm of life."

Most Assuredly

I get a lot of grief on here whenever I put up a post that illustrates the complete insanity of the right. The responses I get are usually of the following

The left has just as many crazies!

Talk about the issues!!

Offer a solution instead of yelling!!!

You're being mean and letting your emotions cloud serious analysis!!!!

I still contend that serious discussions can't be had...truly had...until this situation is resolved. The numbers show that the left has nowhere near as many crazies, the right never talks about the issues, they have no real solutions, and operate exclusively on the emotions of anger and hate. I base these contentions on what they say and what they do not because "I just hate them."

Unlike most of my colleagues on the right, I am reflective. When you offer the above opinions, or something similar to me, I will listen. So when I saw this Daily Kos Research 2000 Poll, my first reaction was to not mention it at all on this blog. The Daily Kos is a left biased blog so was the poll truly accurate? And what purpose would it serve to list the results here?

So I ignored it for the last week but then a discussion over at The Smallest Minority regarding the BBC article I linked recently and the frustration that many on the left have in trying to explain reality to the right, I brought up the poll. I got the following response from Ed, a more regular poster here these days and most assuredly a conservative.

Actually, it appears to be a legitimate poll which was properly conducted. I didn't see any surprises in it.

So, the poll is properly conducted. Alright....

He then went on to say

So what?

In fact, we have tried to explain to Marxy over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and… (I gotta stop doing that) the facts and logic which lead us to the positions generally reflected in that poll.

Facts and logic. Alright, here are the "facts and logic' that I gleaned from the poll:

39 percent think that Barack Obama should be impeached

36 percent think that Barack Obama was not born in the US

63 percent think he is a Socialist

24 percent think he wants the terrorists to win

53 percent think that Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president

31 percent think that Obama is a racist and hates white people

23 percent think that there state should secede

77 percent think that the Book of Genesis should be taught in public schools

31 percent think that contraceptives should be outlawed

As Ed pointed out to me in his latest response, some of these are minority opinions. How, exactly, do facts and logic lead us to the conclusion that Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Barack Obama? First, this really an opinion based argument. But if one really wanted to look at simple facts...which one of them quit their elected post?

As the discussion over there degenerates into yet another debate about hyper paranoia and socialism, I am wondering here how it's possible to have any sort of serious discussion with a very large group of people who look at reality this way. I'm not sure what President Obama is hoping to accomplish in his sit down with Republican leaders on February 25th to discuss health care.

When a quarter of the people of the opposing party think that he wants Al Qaeda to win as our armed forces begin an assault an a key Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, how can there be an sort of reality based discussion?

Rock On, Sarah

As I watched Sarah Palin's address to the Tea party convention last Saturday, I was reminded of a concert. "The Frightening Weakness of Obama", "Country In Danger", "The Thumb of Big Government", "Fascist Agenda", and "Death Panel" were all played and enjoyed mightily by the crowd.

The encore was "I ♥ Jonah Goldberg" which sadly left the crowd wanting more.

The Budget

President Obama unveiled his budget last week and, predictably, the right went ape shit. The Times has a very detailed analysis of how the money is going to be spent. Click here to check it out. So, my first question to my fiscally conservative colleagues is this: what do you think about the 738 billion that is going to be spent on defense?

Personally, I don't have a problem with it. Defense spending creates jobs in addition to the very obvious funds we need to finish the job in AfPak. What I guess I'm curious about is the fact that defense spending represents one of the two largest chunks of money. If it was removed, would the classic liberal be happy? Or is it just the entitlement programs that are the problem?

I guess I'm trying to figure out why it's OK to defend our citizens against attacks-both foreign and domestic but it's not OK to defend them against pneumonia. This pathological hatred of the government, that we see from folks like the Tea Party people, doesn't make any sense when you seriously consider how our government is defined and how our culture has evolved.

How a Minority Wins An Argument.

Where..again...now?

Health care has come up again in comments and I thought I would point to an excellent (and short) piece written by Andy over at Electoral-Vote.com. It's a perfect summation of some of the conundrums of health care legislation.

If people could walk around uninsured and then be able to sign up when they got seriously sick, many people would adopt precisely that strategy. For the average family of four, health insurance costs something like $13,000 a year. If a family expected its medical costs to be below $13,000 it rationally it would forego insurance. Then if a member got seriously ill, it would sign up for insurance and couldn't be refused. The consequence of this new law would cause healthy people to cancel their insurance until the insurance companies were just insuring sick people, which would cause premiums to skyrocket and more people to drop their insurance.

The only way to prevent astronomical premiums is to make sure the pool of insurees contains very large numbers of healthy people who pay premiums and don't file many claims. That is what insurance is all about, after all, sharing risk. That is why all other industrialized countries have mandates--everyone has to buy health insurance under penalty of law, to fill the pool with healthy people. Both the Senate and House bills contain mandates, which are unpopular but essential to prevent premiums from skyrocketing.

So my question is...how do we prevent premiums from skyrocketing with no mandate? Can we really rely on having pools of health people?

Ah Hah!

Last in Line will be happy to know that I finally have an answer to his question "Why can't you get anything passed with Democrats running both the executive branch and the legislative branch?"

My answer?

It only takes one person to cause a panic by yelling "Fire!!!" in a crowded theater.

The BBC's answer?

This brilliant article from the BBC.

For Mr Westen, stories always trump statistics, which means the politician with the best stories is going to win: "One of the fallacies that politicians often have on the Left is that things are obvious, when they are not obvious.

"Obama's administration made a tremendous mistake by not immediately branding the economic collapse that we had just had as the Republicans' Depression, caused by the Bush administration's ideology of unregulated greed. The result is that now people blame him."

No shit.

"You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining."

Double no shit!!

The List

My friend Scott from the gym (an ultra conservative) made me promise him that I put this on the blog. He never reads it, barely checks email, yet was insistent that his thoughts be known to all of you. So, without further adieu, here is The List, by Scott, of the people/organizations that are destroying our country from within and without followed by a short explanation as to why this is so.

1. The Liberal Media-all of it is liberal including Fox News now. They seek to spread lies.

2. The Hollywood Elite-Scott hasn't seen a film since Titanic (or so he claims) because he refuses to fund the liberal agenda of Hollywood.

3. Democrats-well, we know why this is here.

4. Socialists/Communists-actually, just see #3.

5. Teachers-all liberal commie pinko faggots...thanks Scott!

6. Climate Changers/Environmentalists-they're all looney and want to take Scott's money.

7. Affirmative Action Supporters-taking away jobs from people who are more qualified. Also part of a commie plot.

8. ACLU-against all that is good and Holy about our country.

9. Unions-commies

10. U.N.-Anti American to the core.

11. Illegal Immigrants-go home. We don't want you.

12. RINOS-Republicans who, in any way whatsoever, support any of them previous 11 items.

Note: This list is real and Scott was very insistent that I put it down exactly like I did.

Export What?

President Obama recently announced that he wants to double the amount of exports from the United States. I'm curious as to what exactly he would like to export. And double.

Twice the amount of financial re-shuffling services?

Well, this is just....great....

Opened my copy of the Times this morning (ah...the simple pleasure of the Sunday New York Times) and found yet another example of why we need to get into the green energy game.

TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

Meanwhile, here in America, we have this sort of thing.

Climate Change Hoax: Inconvenient Lies Exposed

News Media Falls For Climate Change Hoax

Does Climate Change Exist?

Here's what I can't figure out...why are there millions of people in this country who I KNOW love making money and beating competitors out (especially China) blinded by the insanity of simply having to be right?

WHO THE FUCK CARES IF IT'S REAL OR NOT? PEOPLE WANT TO SPEND MONEY ON THIS STUFF!!!!!!

At this point, any person that claims to be a supporter of the free market and also believes that climate change is a liberal commie plot to fluoridate our drinking water is restricting innovation and being a complete fool.

In ten years, when China is sitting on a fat pile of cash, people will ask why the United States didn't step up as an international competitor in the green energy sector. The answer will be simple.

The Wrecking Crew.

Yet Another Game Changer

I'm going to be talking about this one for the next few days. This is a long video (1 hour and 7 minutes) so take your time with it.

Some initial thoughts....has anyone ever seen another president do this before? I'm not trying to be snarky...I honestly don't know or don't recall.

The first line bit that jumps out at me....

When asked about the later health care conferences not being televised, President Obama said "It’s a legitimate criticism. So on that one, I take responsibility.”

Funny, though. Isn't that actually the fault of congressional leaders? Last time I checked he ran the executive branch.

God Loves The Marines

A while back, I became a "friend" of the Department of Defense on Facebook. They put out a lot of cool info every day and so, from time to time, I thought I would share it with all of you.

American Forces Press Service
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., April 22, 2009 – All 64 major Air Force bases in the United States are participating in a campaign to change out incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs.

In the past year, beginning with Earth Day 2008, Air Force participants have changed out more than 228,000 bulbs. This will save millions of pounds of greenhouse gases and enough energy to power 3,841 homes for a year, officials said. The Air Force will save $7.5 million over the lifetime of the bulbs.

And that's not the only way that our armed forces are going green. In fact, they have a whole section of their web site devoted to it. Check it out.

Pretty cool, huh? Well, that is if you think that climate change is not a stinkin' commie liberal plot designed to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. If you are someone who thinks this way, what runs through your head when you see all of these green initiatives from the DoD? Heck, I'm not even convinced that man made climate change is happening with a hundred percent certainty yet I still think it's great.

Hats off to our brave men and women in the armed forces who, once again, are going above and beyond the call of duty.

Three For Thursday

1. State of the Union-I thought it was great but what does it matter? 30 million people hate him no matter what he says or does so I'm still feeling like a cynical and bitter fuck today. They want him to fail especially if it means success for this country...which would mean they were wrong about their ideology...which means the end of all that is holy.

2. No Ben-I think Ben Bernanke should not be elected to a second term as Fed Chair. Clearly, he wants to maintain the status quo on Wall Street. How about we nominate Jim Manzi? Or Bruce Bartlett?

3. Karma-Apparently conservative activist James O'Keefe, last seen dressed like a pimp and entrapping ACORN (aka actually being the person engaging in voter fraud) has now been arrested. Apparently, O'Keefe and some of his pals thought it would be cool to try to tap into Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu's phone system. Ah, the mid 20s mafia (geek conservative subset)....I take comfort in the fact that if they do go to prison, they can enjoy all the "luxuries" from our hard earned tax dollars:).

Bitterness Rising

I'm feeling bitter and cynical tonight. I've always been excited on the night of the State of the Union speech regardless of who was in office. The part when the Congressional Sargent at Arms yells, "Madame Speaker, the President of the United States!" But tonight, no matter what President Obama says, it won't matter.

The vomitous spew that is our current political climate will gnaw over the metaphorical piece of meat that is our president...removing all honor, dignity, and truth from anything he says. No doubt he has the best of intentions but does anyone really care any more?

No.

The chief concern of most media outlets is to sell advertising through higher ratings. They get these ratings by presenting what is essentially political porn. Whatever your political stripe, there is a channel for you to wax your poly-rod whilst thumping your chest and feeling happy that your side is "right."

Meanwhile, our country is falling apart and all of the solutions slip away in a vitriolic spew of propaganda.

State of the Union (Part Eight)

Manzi leaves us with two other broad reaching fix-its. The first one obviously hits close to home.

Over the coming decades, we should seek to deregulate public schools...We now need a new vision for schools that looks a lot more like Silicon Valley than Detroit: ­decentralized, ­entrepreneurial, and flexible.

To a certain extent, he's right. He ignores the central problem with teacher today, however...they are lazy. The real problem with our education system is that it is built to not force teachers to adjust their pedagogy to fit the times and culture. Tenure, for example, should be done away with forever. His idea of the entrepreneurial student intrigues me and this gets back to teachers being lazy. Instructors need to shift their focus from themselves and onto the students. Students should decide how best they learn and should choose how to assess themselves, not teachers.

His other idea is fantastic.

We should reconceptualize immigration as recruiting...we should think of immigration as an opportunity to improve our stock of human capital...It would be great for America as a whole to have, say, 500,000 smart, motivated people move here each year with the intention of becoming citizens.

No shit. Enough with the rants against illegals. Let's be realistic. They're here...let's embrace them...and get this country moving again.

And now, of course, we come to the key, concluding idea.

Balancing economic innovation and social cohesion is the challenge of every free nation today — but it is a particularly pressing challenge for the special nation that holds in its hands so much of the fate of democracy and capitalism in our world.

On this day, I declare that the central mission of this blog will be to search for this balance and, hopefully find some answers. I can't promise that I won't get off on a rant from time to time (I am only human) but Manzi will be in the back of my mind forever.

So much hangs in the balance...