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Unlearn

Higher education is remedial education, and the affliction it remedies is an American upbringing.

Quoted from: William Voegeli

Via: Maggie’s Farm

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Tinted Justice

The Barrister posts:

Black AG working for black President says Americans need to make "racial progress" and to deal with race better by somehow becoming more race conscious. I always thought the goal was color-blindness - to deal with individuals, not skin colors. It's not hard to do that, because there seem to be about a thousand different skin tones in the US.

I think we ought to speak - and think - less about race. It's a stupid subject.

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John, Paul, George and HAL

The math professor who solved the mystery of A Hard Day’s Night is featured in another video story. This time, Jason Brown has used mathematical analysis to write his own Beatles tune:

Rehumanizing the Victim

A standard tactic in politics is to dehumanize the opposition. Those who disagree are painted as extreme abstractions, and it becomes easy to forget that enemies remain persons. Contentious topics, with their increasingly strident debate, frequently devolve into the harshest depersonalizations.

Abortion is such a topic. The rhetoric is pure polarized abstraction. But as Vanderleun shows, abortion is intensely—and essentially—personal:

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Wisdom in a “Childish Thing”

I finally found the time to read No Enemy, But Peace:

…the true story of Sergeant Marco Martinez, a former gang-banger who found his true calling as a rifleman in the Marines. When his best friend and squad leader is injured during his first firefight, Sgt. Martinez rallies his embattled squad while single-handedly taking down a bunker full of jihadists. Written by Sgt. Richard C. Meyer, who served in the same unit as Sgt. Martinez and was present during the battle, this is the first comic produced by Iraq War veterans about the war itself.

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Approaching Zero

Those of us still paying attention noted last November that the war in Iraq is over. (And the good guys won!) As the current President harrumphs and blusters about withdrawal timetables, we noted that on January 1st, 2009, the “Green Zone” in Baghdad, all Iraqi airspace, and well, all of Iraq reverted to Iraqi control.

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In Context, They Had Cause to Fear

The ripples radiating from Barry’s inaugural address have revealed something about another famous address. FDR’s first inaugural offered the powerful rhetoric, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” A fan of speeches but no fan of Roosevelt, I’ve never paid attention to what the rich old cripple actually said:

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Forewarned is Forearmed

Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.

Quoted from: Saul Alinsky

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Black Like Me

I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America.

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In Your Face, Free Republic!

I do not begrudge anyone a celebration. Frequently I lament the absence of joy in a world preoccupied with the notion that someone somewhere might be hurt by a flash of exuberance.

The trick is to choose carefully what one celebrates. Victories deserve parties. Conducting business does not. An inauguration is just business. Victory came on election night. Yesterday seems comparable to a newly-hired cubicle worker inviting all his pals over to watch him fill out his W-4.

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BHO ≠ MLK

It is true that there could have been no Obama presidency had Dr King and the movement he sprang from not existed, but that simple fact of history does not amount to a King benediction from the grave for Obama's moral character and political policies.

Indeed, Dr King's life and words are indelible evidence that he and Obama represent opposing moral and political camps.

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Target-Rich Environment

The ongoing Obama spectacle is a party to which I was not invited. Thus, I’m trying to keep low profile. There are battles to be fought, but I will gain nothing by interrupting the march to communal O-gasm.

Roissy in DC, as a devout hedonist, sees an opportunity:

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Sully

Even after landing his powerless jetliner on the Hudson River, pilot Sullenberger maintained his cool:

One of the first rescuers on the scene said Sullenberger seemed impervious to the chaos around him.

"He looked absolutely immaculate," the rescuer said. "He looked like David Niven in an airplane uniform. He looked unruffled. His uniform was sharp. You could see him walking down the aisles making sure everybody got out."

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Parents are Nuts

The allergy epidemic in American kids cannot have a biological origin, argues Joel Stein:

Yes, a tiny number of kids have severe peanut allergies that cause anaphylactic shock, and all their teachers should be warned, handed EpiPens and given a really expensive gift at Christmas. But unless you're a character on "Heroes," genes don't mutate fast enough to have caused an 18% increase in childhood food allergies between 1997 and 2007.

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Joe the Reporter

I heard it from Anderson Cooper, in full sneer, on CNN. I join Michelle Malkin’s opinion:

If a community organizer can be president and a Saturday Night Live comedian can be a U.S. senator, why can’t a plumber be a reporter?

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Assume Doom

The lede to a weekend story on Marketwatch.com (an investing news site):

While most investors panicked or were forced to sell, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett put more than $20 billion to work last year, positioning his insurance-focused conglomerate to profit if the economy and markets recover in coming years.
[emphasis added]

If?

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Equal Time in the Classroom

TJIC has a suggestion to address the lefty bias our educational system:

I think that anarchists should be given equal time - every time the schools bring a politician in, anarchists should be brought in too.

“Hey, kids, do you want to go to Disney World?”

“Yeah!!!”

“Well, your moms and dads worked very hard, and now they have a lot of money, and they can all take you to Disney World, and maybe buy you a pony.”

“Yeah!!!”

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An Epiphany

Is today the end of the “Holiday Season”? Is “Happy New Year!” the last cheer to offer before we hunker down to our resolutions and resume our ordinary life patterns? The NRR has its own schedule of holidays, a mash-up of several religious, cultural and political observances from around the world. But we had found no clear ending for the current season, a date when our decorations and mannerisms should change from poinsettia to snowflake.

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The Slogan for Our Age

When I hear buzzwords like sprawl and McMansion and hyperconsumption and unsustainability and so forth, they are universally used as pretexts to allow the author to hate his fellow citizens without seeming snobby. No one needs what I don't want is the slogan of the age.

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Negative New Year

Tonight is New Year’s Eve. The headlines are suggesting celebrations will be scaled back due to the current economic conditions. That’s the conventional wisdom.

I will likely be staying in, too. Not because I’m broke. New Year’s is traditionally a big cultural festival, and there are plenty of ways to celebrate on the cheap. The chatter I overhear confirms a concern about overspending, but that’s not why folks are choosing to stay home tonight.

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