Obama: Gifted Orator?

I don’t think so. The clip below shows him belittling Americans abroad for not speaking the language of the country they’re in while people from all over the world speak English. As is usual with Obama and his elitist comments, he’s out of touch with what Americans really do. Since he didn’t attend public school he wouldn’t know what American students are taught, that 85 percent of America’s 17 million of them are graduating with two or more years of foreign language instruction and a third had three or more years. He himself doesn’t speak either the French or Spanish he deems so important for Americans to know.
Aside from that, I have read ad nauseam reports of how great an orator or gifted speaker he is, I’ve never seen his speech at the Dem convention in ’06 or seen any of his speeches whole, but watching this short clip I’m almost embarrassed for him at how halting and stumbling he is, how incompetent he is at getting out a few simple short sentences, verging on the inarticulate. He has been seriously mis-overestimated. He has neither style nor substance.
As a small point I also find the constant mechanical gesturing of his left hand most annoying.

Things are…..

…..worse than I thought in UK.

The Islamists launched their jihad against the West because they perceived it was so weak and confused it would not possess the wherewithal to defend itself. When it comes to Britain, they never spoke a truer word.
Melanie Philips.

This and That.

There has been an interesting series on the seven colours of the rainbow in The National Post.

…

We who are sensible down to earth people know that the Dhimmicrats have part of their brains missing, we know they are like little children who throw tantrums when they can’t get what they want, but do they have to be so unbelievably stupid that you wonder where the hell the party finds them all? From MoveOn’s General Betray-us, Pelosi sucking up to Assad, Kerry saluting and ‘Reporting for Duty’ after he slandered the Military, Clinton 1 on under the Oval Office desk with Monica, Clinton 2 and her willing suspension of disbelief, Obama, well where to start, where to finish!, Carter a one man bumbling disaster around the world, Murtha finding honourable brave American troops guilty of murder on the word of the enemy, you could go on all night. And now word is that Pelosi was in contact with the FARC terrorists while blocking a negotiated free trade deal with Columbia. They’re insane, all of them.

Update.
See this post at Powerline and ask why the execrable Pelosi shouldn’t be charged with conducting unauthorized and therefore illegal foreign policy.

…

Slowly, slowly Global Warming is being seen for the lefty agenda that it is.

But mother nature has opinions of her own. NASA now begrudgingly confirms that the hottest year on record in the continental 48 was not 1998, as previously believed, but 1934, and that six of the 10 hottest years since 1880 antedate 1954. Data from 3,000 scientific robots in the world’s oceans show there has been slight cooling in the past five years, never mind that “80% to 90% of global warming involves heating up ocean waters,” according to a report by NPR’s Richard Harris.

In “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” William James distinguishes between healthy, life-affirming religion and the monastically inclined, “morbid-minded” religion of the sick-souled. Global warming is sick-souled religion.

…

Another article on the Obamamessiah detailing the fascist aura emanating from his campaign and unlike the scatter gun use of the word fascist by the left, this is the genuine article.

…

Drive-by Posts

That slurping noise in the background is the sound of one of history’s greatest civilizations flushing itself down the toilet.

I am going to send you to read Moonbat Priorities first. Reading the short post that the sentence above is attached to will numb you to the further outrage that the following excerpts will inspire.
Oh, as far as the next great civilization whose climbing into the same toilet? Well, God forgive us, that would be us.

The New “Flip-Flop”

I picked California specifically because they seem to enjoy the spotlight so much. They flaunt themselves as the “trend-setting” state in the Union. The toughest emission laws, the toughest environmental laws, the loosest immigration laws, the first with state-wide bans on smoking tobacco, the first to “legalize” marijuana, the highest taxes, and the lowest income-to-jobs ratio in the country… even with an artificially high minimum wage in place for more than 22 years.

Cut California off from the Federal welfare system. Stop all Federal dollars going to state highway funds. End subsidies to California power companies that cannot build new plants due to stringent State regulations (resulting in the now infamous “rolling blackouts” of the late ’90s). Then let California marry all the gays they want. Let them sell pot on the street corners. See how long California makes it as the 7th largest economy on the face of the earth WITHOUT the SUPPORT of the rest of this country, let alone the Feds.

Ireland Gives the EU the Finger

A Red C poll, on behalf of the Irish Sunday Business Post, has been released showing that simpler and more visceral matters were in the minds of the Irish on June 12. Although the pro-life warnings about abortion were dismissed by the Electoral Commission, 58 percent of those who voted against the treaty believed that it would make abortion more likely in Ireland, against 28 percent who disagreed. Of those who believed Lisbon made abortion more likely, a massive 74 percent voted No, the Sunday Business Post reported.

A Eurobarometer survey found that fears about the economy or unemployment were not mentioned, and just 1 per cent of survey responses showed the No vote was in response to immigration.

I’m outraged by Muslims who can’t shut the hell up and go back where they came from….

If your religion thinks dogs are unclean, your religion is fucking retarded.
And no, this is not a joke:

UK: “Muslim outrage at police advert featuring cute puppy sitting in policeman’s hat”

What? Affirmative Action Mortgages Now?

Some interesting news at the Washington Post, about a wonderful deal that Barack Obama received on his home loan: Obama Got Discount on Home Loan.

Muslims Behaving Like Barbarians, As Usual

A gang of Pakistani militants executed two alleged U.S. spies in front of thousands of cheering supporters Friday…

[...]

“Whoever, for the sake of money, for the sake of America, harms the interest of the Islamic world will meet the same fate,” he said.

Gunmen with daggers then pounced on one of the men — identified as Jan Wali, 36 — decapitated him and waved his bloody head to the cheering crowd.

The militants then argued over how to kill the other man because he may have been a teenager, before one lost patience and shot him with an assault rifle.

The crowd erupted in cheers of “God is great!” and gunmen fired in the air in jubilation. The celebratory gunfire killed two bystanders and wounded six, local official Fazal Rabbi said.

The recently elected Pakistani government has supported negotiations that would give local tribes and militants broad authority over some tribal areas. The U.S. says those deals will only give Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in the border region more freedom to attack Afghanistan.

European Parliament Bans Opposition

The European Union, the “free trade organization with a few added extras,” is officially turning into a pan-European dictatorship. The Daily Telegraph reports:

The European Union assembly’s political establishment is pushing through changes that will silence dissidents by changing the rules allowing Euro-MPs to form political groupings. Richard Corbett, a British Labour MEP, is leading the charge to cut the number of party political tendencies in the Parliament next year, a move that would dissolve UKIP’s pan-European Eurosceptic “Independence and Democracy” grouping. Under the rule change, the largest and most pro-EU groups would tighten their grip on the Parliament’s political agenda and keep control of lavish funding.

Mr. Obama: Don’t Betray My People

It looks like Mr. Obama may well be the next resident of the White House. It also looks like my people are going to be betrayed once again by a badly misguided American president. Jimmy Carter helped give birth to the virulent Shiite Islamism by forbidding the Shah of Iran to crush the bloodthirsty Ayatollah Khomeini and his band of rabid Islamists. Now, Mr. Obama intends to confer legitimacy on the illegitimate child, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Jimmy Carter, the self-appointed touring ambassador of bad-mouthing America must be rejoicing in the prospect of Mr. Obama’s presidency. Mr. Obama holds the promise of not only carrying on the Carterian misguided policies, but taking them to their very ruinous end.

Creeping Sharia:Forcing Prayer in School

I didn’t think much of any faith based initiative under Bush. I am horrified that Barack Obama has endorsed it. Even more ominous, he intends to expand the list of faiths to whom it applies.

Christians I can handle. They have yet to threaten to kill me when I offend them. Real Christians (as opposed to the pseudo _christian left) have a healthy respect for free will. More so, they have a healthy respect for life. Islam respects neither, in fact, muslims respect nothing outside of Islam, least of all the right to worship any god, or no god at all.

Given Obama’s seemingly natural affinity for totalitarian systems, I clearly expect him to gravitate towards the autocratic dictates of Islam. And expanding faith based initiatives will open the door ever wider for Islam. More to the point, it isn’t as if they are a body of impoverished believers, hurting for money. Islam has a steady revenue of Wahabbi and Saud money flowing into their coffers. Let them fund their own freaking initiatives.The idea of adding American tax dollars is tantamount to handing ammunition to the enemy.

Islam is quietly crossing the threshold of our schools in this country while hysterical muslims scream “racism’ anytime parents protest. The lamentable and subversive ACLU does absolutely nothing about it. But of course, you have to grow a pair to confront Islam and the dhimmi ACLU are far to used to the easy victories they have had suppressing Christianity.

If American remains indifferent, they’ll be longing for the days when Christianity was the only religion they had to contend with. Don’t believe me. Start reading the blogs and news out of Great Britain. Below is only one small example.

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and ‘pray to Allah’ during a religious education lesson. [snip] “But not only did they have to pray, the teacher had gone into the class and made them watch a short film and then said ‘we are now going out to pray to Allah’. “Then two boys got detention and all the other children missed their refreshment break because of the teacher. “Not only was it forced upon them, my daughter was told off for not doing it right. [snip] Parents said that their children were made to bend down on their knees on prayer mats which the RE teacher had got out of her cupboard and they were also told to wear Islamic headgear during the lesson on Tuesday afternoon.
Continue reading….
Forcing children to pray to Allah and promoting sharia

Image Source

Obama Is Not a “Flip Flopper” – He Is, Flat Out, a Liar

Of course, in reProgressive double-speak, that’s called nuance.

The ad begins with the announcer telling us that Obama “worked his way through college and Harvard Law.” Actually, Obama took out loans to get himself through college, as we heard in a 60-second ad his campaign began running last month. We don’t know how much assistance his family provided.

But “worked his way” through college and law school? The only back-up the campaign provided for this claim was a quote from Obama’s book “Dreams from My Father” having to do with a construction job he had one summer while he was in college, and an article mentioning his job as a summer associate one year at a big Chicago law firm. We asked campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor if Obama held jobs during the school year, or other summer jobs, but he said only, “He had the two jobs I told you about.” Unless Obama had a good bit more employment than his spokesman was able to describe for us, it’s a real stretch to claim he “worked his way” through school.
[...]
The ad claims Obama “passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by 80 percent.” That’s going too far. First, the law in question wasn’t dreamed up out of thin air by its sponsors. It was the follow-up to the welfare reform act, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, that President Clinton signed on Aug. 26, 1996. That law gave states the ability to design their own welfare programs as long as they met certain federal requirements, including limits on how long recipients could get benefits. The bill that Obama cosponsored was Illinois’ version.

And far from having “passed” the bill single-handedly, Obama was among five Senate sponsors of the measure, as we said previously. It was passed by both chambers of the Illinois Legislature and signed into law by the governor.
Continue reading…FactCheck.org: Obama’s Work Claim

Via Sistertoldja

Adam Smith

It’s over 200 years since Adam Smith died, you’d think the argument would be over by now.

From The National Post

The genius of Adam Smith
PETER FOSTER
Today, outside St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh, on the cobblestoned Royal Mile, economics Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith will unveil a monument to the most influential figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. At long last Adam Smith, whose insights are still too rarely grasped more than 200 years after his death, will receive a fitting memorial.

July 4th is appropriate for such a tribute, as is the fact that Smith’s towering statue (pictured below) is being unveiled by an American. Not only was Smith’s great book, The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, the year of American Independence, but he had great sympathy with the colonists’ revolutionary cause. Smith had been a professor at Glasgow University when that city was booming from trade with the Americas, but he had realized that much of Glasgow’s wealth came from restrictions on what the colonies could produce for themselves. He also pointed out that the military costs involved in controlling colonies as part of a “mercantilist” system were greater than the benefits. He favoured a free trade relationship and even political union with North America, which he predicted would one day rise to become a greater power than Britain.

Smith’s statue was sculpted by Alexander “Sandy” Stoddart, the Scottish artist who also crafted the nearby tribute to Smith’s best friend, philosopher David Hume. The representational heroism of Mr. Stoddart’s work stands in stark and deliberate contrast to much of the trendy, leftish “art” of recent decades, which was either incomprehensible, or deliberately insulting to the viewer.

The driving force behind the new monument is the London-based Adam Smith Institute, but some credit must also go to a Scotsborn Canadian, Bob Lamond, a Calgary oilman who will be at today’s ceremonies. Mr. Lamond has been pressing for more than a decade to have Smith better remembered, and was instrumental in cleaning up Smith’s neglected tomb in the nearby Canongate Kirk.

One parodic view of Smith is that, as the father not only of economics but of perpetually demonized capitalism, he had no sympathy for those below plinth level. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Smith was very much concerned with improving the lot of ordinary people. In The Wealth of Nations, he pointed to the remarkable social — and international — benefits of self-interested interaction through trade and the division of labour. He noted that participants appeared to be guided by an “Invisible Hand” to produce a good that was “no part of their intention.” This truism has been the centrepiece of attacks on the capitalist system as motivated by “greed” and “selfishness” and thus morally indefensible. But the merely obvious observation that Smith’s famous “butcher, brewer and baker” are ser ving us primarily in their own interests in no way detracts from the value of that service, nor implies that they are rendered heartless by their business dealings.

One oft-repeated criticism of Smith is that his insights could not possibly apply to a world of supermarkets and giant corporations, of automobiles and air travel, of global financial institutions and the Internet, of alleged resource depletion and worsening pollution. But despite the fact that politicians and activists persist in biting the Invisible Hand, it continues its remarkable work. More fundamentally, Smith’s insights remain valid because he was not merely a supporter of markets and a critic of overweening governments, but also a student of human nature. Indeed, Vernon Smith has pointed out that Adam Smith should also perhaps be known as the “father of psychology.” While The Wealth of Nations permeates economics, modern scholarship has still not caught up with many of the remarkable insights of Smith’s “other” book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which received an unlikely boost earlier this year when it was commended by billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates.

Some have seen a fundamental contradiction between Smith’s two books, but the notion that one must choose between humans as either self-interested or sympathetic is ridiculous. Smith painted humans as complex and often internally conflicted creatures whose prudence, benevolence and ingenuity is nevertheless best encouraged in a free and open society with minimal government, clear laws and strong external defences. He would have been astonished by the redistributionist pretensions of the welfare state and the “global salvationism” of such organizations as the United Nations.

Indeed, in that regard, it would be intriguing to reflect on what Adam Smith might think of Vernon Smith’s participation in the “Copenhagen Consensus,” a distinctly wonkish exercise in deciding how authorities might most effectively spend $50-billion to achieve a “better world.” He might be similarly concerned at the “folly and presumption” of his new fan, Mr. Gates’ desire to “leverage” tax dollars. Adam Smith might ask what elite groups are doing lavishing huge amounts of other peoples’ money on countries whose lack of development is rooted in repressive government, something about which the Sage of Kirkcaldy knew a good deal. One of the Copenhagen group’s more welcome — but obviously controversial — conclusions was that fighting climate change was a waste of resources. We might imagine that climate change would be quite beyond Adam Smith’s ken, but although “negative externalities” were not much on the minds of 18th-century political economists, Smith thought deeply about both scientific theory and the fanaticism of religion. Among Smith’s philosophical works is a treatise on astronomy that notes that scientific theories are designed to cater to our desire for explanations, and are always and inevitably provisional. He would thus treat claims that science of climate change was “settled” with the greatest suspicion, particularly since they come accompanied by calls for draconian government action.

Adam Smith will doubtless witness much more folly and presumption from his new Edinburgh perch.

Barack Obama’s Muslim Family Featured on Al-Jazeera

Kenyans, and Africans in general, seem to have rather high expectations should Obama win the presidency. I’m sure Americans will be more than willing to foot the bill.

It is amazing that a country like Kenya, or any damn nation for that matter, dare to presume what America will do for them should Obama win. America does not belong to the world, but when you have a socialist running for office, the wolves lick their lips, scenting blood.

May Obama’s grandmother’s prayers die stillborn on her lips.

In Mombasa, the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya Organising Secretary, Sheikh Mohamed Khalifa, urged Obama to stick to his manifesto which has earned him wide support and to steer away from US President George W’ Bush’s “confrontational policies”.

“Apart from being close to Africa, we expect Obama to move away from confrontational policies and unite the US and the rest of the world if he finally wins the presidency,” Khalifa said.

ODM-Kenya nominated MP, Ms Shakila Abdalla, said Obama’s victory was an achievement for Kenyans and Africa.

“Because Obama has roots in Kenya, we expect the US and Kenya to forge close ties. We are praying for his victory in the presidential poll,” Shakila said.

And North Eastern Province on Wednesday took delight in Obama’s victory. The predominantly Muslim province came to the limelight during the primaries early this year when Obama’s rival, Mrs Hillary Clinton’s campaign team circulated pictures on the Internet of Obama in Somali traditional attire taken in Wajir.

An elder, Mr Mohammed Hassan Mumin, who was photographed dressing Obama during the senator’s visit to Wajir, said they were happy that Obama was a step away from the presidency.

Mr Maalim Hussein, a teacher at a Quranic school in Garissa, said: “He was a victim of smear campaigns from the Clintons for embracing our attire, but we kept praying for his success and we are celebrating today.”

He added: “We also pray that he becomes the next US president so that he can help our impoverished province and Africa.”

Mr Christopher Njoroge, who lives in Washington, Seattle, said on the telephone: “This is great victory. It is victory for all America that wants real change.”

And from Des Moines, Iowa, Ms Nancy Mwirotsi, a key Obama supporter and mobiliser in a State that gave Obama his first victory, shed tears.

“For me, Obama’s victory is not just about himself and his family, it is about many young Kenyans here who look up to him as their role model,” she said.(Source)
[ed:emphasis mine]

It seems that Kenyan expectations are well on their way to being met – on your dime. What are you paying for gas and groceries these days? Notice anything coming out of Obama’s mouth that bodes well for the American economy? Didn’t think so.

APA-Nairobi (Kenya) The United States government on Sunday pledged to give more than 1 billion shillings($15 million) towards the implementation of the coalition accord, as well as advancing reconciliation and reconstruction efforts.

APA-Nairobi (Kenya) United States will give Kenya $75 million in support of the grand coalition government formed between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga in February, US ambassador to Michael Ranneberger said on Thursday.

Addressing a press conference in Nairobi, he said the money will be granted to Kenya after the US Congress approves the funds.

He said the funds will be used for key reforms key including electoral, constitutional and land reforms.

Ranneberger said the funds are in addition to the $25 million already granted to resettle over 300,000 displaced persons left homeless following the post-poll violence triggered by December 27 presidential elections.

Pure Poetry

The Hubble Space Telescope took this image of the outer edge of a shockwave generated in our galaxy by an exploding supernova, and witnessed on earth in the year 1006 AD. The entire diameter of this massive galactic ripple is about 60 light years, and it’s still expanding at a speed of 6 million miles per hour.
Continue reading Science: A Galactic Shockwave

Please note that Obama will not support space programs. It will interfere with his plans of pouring our money into “impoverished nations.” See Obama as Dionysus: A Man of No Vision

Barack Obama Will Shackle America to the UN and Global Poverty

Barack Obama’s _amerikka bears no relation to the America of our founding fathers. As we approach the Fourth of July there sits on Capital Hill Hussein Obama’s Global Poverty Tax, a piece of legislation that makes a mockery of the Boston Tea Party and about every principle upon which this nation was founded.

Obama’s grand theme is to spread America’s wealth to the world’s poor, as the onetime community organizer from the streets of South Chicago goes global.

The species of hope that Barack Obama preaches is a first cousin of disappointment. He speaks to his followers as though they are victims, and it resonates with them because victimhood is a latent element of their collective self-image. Most of the younger ones in his audiences face historically unprecedented educational and vocational opportunities. Within the reasonable grasp of their individual initiatives is a future that is the envy of most of the world’s youth. Yet they look longingly for someone from the government to offer them hope.

He says, “It’s not too late to claim the American dream,” and they cheer wildly, and some even cry.

Don’t they know that the American dream isn’t a wish granted by a politician, or an entitlement from the government? Do they need a political seer to tell them what to hope for, and dream of, because they are unable to find it for themselves? (Source)

And that is how Obama weakens America. No, that’s how he eviscerates America’s very spine from her body. He summons forth from each citizen not the warrior, but the whiner, not the innovator, but the complainer, the wannabe dreamers with neither the will nor spine to capture their dreams on their own.

Can you imagine what this country would be like were America’s pioneers made of the same moth eaten material as Obama and his febrile supporters? They would have never made it inland from the east coast, let alone successfully execute a war against England and go on to building the greatest nation ever to be established on this planet. I can just see the Obama settlers waiting around for the government to build them a freaking road West and guarantee safe passage while they try to talk nice to some savage Indians (Yes, boys and girls, Indians could be very very nasty too) who just burned their houses down.

Obama supporters would not have had a Boston Tea Party, but a Boston Pity Party.

But let’s put aside the pilfering of our hard earned dollars by this glassy eyed socialist; “One estimate is 0.7% of gross national product, or an additional $845 billion over 13 years in addition to existing foreign aid expenditures.” Let’s look at the very real threat to American sovereignty that this travesty introduces.

These goals include a “standing peace force” (i.e. a U.N. standing army), a “U.N. Arms register” of all small arms and light weapons, “peace education” covering “all levels from preschool through university,” and “political control of the global economy.” The goals call for implementing all U.N. treaties that the United States has never ratified, all of which set up U.N. monitoring committees to compromise American sovereignty. (Virtual “Global Poverty Act” Tea Party)

and…

By adopting the Millennium goals in 2000, the U.N. escalated its demands to impose international taxes. Specifically, the Millennium called for a “currency transfer tax,” a “tax on the rental value of land and natural resources,” a “royalty on worldwide fossil energy projection — oil, natural gas, coal,” “fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels.”

It doesn’t bother U.N. sycophants that most U.S. handouts go into the hands of corrupt dictators who hate us and vote against us in the U.N., and that only 30% of our foreign aid ever reaches the poor. U.N. bureaucrats accuse the U.S. of being “stingy” in its handouts to underdeveloped countries.

There is much more to the Millennium goals than merely extorting more money from U.S. taxpayers. The goals set forth a comprehensive plan to put the United States under U.N. global governance.Obama’s 0.7% Solution For Poverty Gets Pass From Senate Republicans

Related Reading:
Be sure to see Velvet Hammer’s full piece on this issue; Virtual “Global Poverty Act” Tea Party – she includes important links for contacting your worthless senators who are idly watching this monster grow legs.

Don’t Forget the Global Governance Movement

Obama’s Global Tax

What are the Millennium Development Goals

Image Source

NRA: “We Look Forward to Showing Him ‘Bitter’,”

The Untold Story of Gun Confiscation After Katrina

The video you will see…is horrifying. The crimes committed against law-abiding gun owners are beyond comprehension. The arrogance of anti-gun politicians and government officials and their hate of freedom will churn your stomach.

The law is the law, the Constitution is the Constitution. If ONE local mayor or police chief can decide what the Second Amendment means, it opens the door to tyranny—where ANY mayor or police chief can say what the Second Amendment means.
[...]
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Police Superintendent P. Eddie Compass unleashed a wave of confiscations with these chilling words:
“No one will be able to be armed. We will take all weapons. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns.”

Thousands of firearms were then confiscated from law-abiding gun owners. The police gave no paperwork or receipts for those guns. They just stormed in and seized them. (Source)

Thank God for the NRA. They can see right through Barack Obama.

NRA plans $40M fall blitz targeting Obama

“Our members understand that if Barack Obama is elected president, and he has support in the Senate to confirm anti-gun Supreme Court nominees, [the District of Columbia v. Heller decision] could be taken away from us in the future,” Chris Cox, head of the NRA’s political arm, told Politico.
The politically powerful gun rights group will split its message efforts between communicating with its 4 million members and the tens of millions more firearms owners across the country.

Money quote…

“We look forward to showing him ‘bitter,’” Cox said, referring to Obama’s statement this spring that some in rural America “cling” to guns and religion out of bitterness.

Understanding Obama.

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education is the title of a marvellous essay at The American Scholar. It’s quite long but well worth the time it takes to read, not only for the understanding of what makes Obama tick but also Kerry and GWB, not to mention all the Ivy Leaguers who finish up as ‘leaders’, both political and business.

Our best universities have forgotten
that the reason they exist is to make
minds, not careers

By William Deresiewicz

It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League dees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.

It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy. As two dozen years at Yale and Columbia have shown me, elite colleges relentlessly encourage their students to flatter themselves for being there, and for what being there can do for them. The advantages of an elite education are indeed undeniable. You learn to think, at least in certain ways, and you make the contacts needed to launch yourself into a life rich in all of society’s most cherished rewards. To consider that while some opportunities are being created, others are being cancelled and that while some abilities are being developed, others are being crippled is, within this context, not only outrageous, but inconceivable.

I’m not talking about curricula or the culture wars, the closing or opening of the American mind, political correctness, canon formation, or what have you. I’m talking about the whole system in which these skirmishes play out. Not just the Ivy League and its peer institutions, but also the mechanisms that get you there in the first place: the private and affluent public “feeder” schools, the ever-growing parastructure of tutors and test-prep courses and enrichment programs, the whole admissions frenzy and everything that leads up to and away from it. The message, as always, is the medium. Before, after, and around the elite college classroom, a constellation of values is ceaselessly inculcated. As globalization sharpens economic insecurity, we are increasingly committing ourselves—as students, as parents, as a society—to a vast apparatus of educational advantage. With so many resources devoted to the business of elite academics and so many people scrambling for the limited space at the top of the ladder, it is worth asking what exactly it is you get in the end—what it is we all get, because the elite students of today, as their institutions never tire of reminding them, are the leaders of tomorrow.

The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you. Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race. With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals. At the same time, because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it. Witness the last two Democratic presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry: one each from Harvard and Yale, both earnest, decent, intelligent men, both utterly incapable of communicating with the larger electorate.

But it isn’t just a matter of class. My education taught me to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class. I was given the unmistakable message that such people were beneath me. We were “the best and the brightest,” as these places love to say, and everyone else was, well, something else: less good, less bright. I learned to give that little nod of understanding, that slightly sympathetic “Oh,” when people told me they went to a less prestigious college. (If I’d gone to Harvard, I would have learned to say “in Boston” when I was asked where I went to school—the Cambridge version of noblesse oblige.) I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to elite colleges, often precisely for reasons of class. I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to college at all.

I also never learned that there are smart people who aren’t “smart.” The existence of multiple forms of intelligence has become a commonplace, but however much elite universities like to sprinkle their incoming classes with a few actors or violinists, they select for and develop one form of intelligence: the analytic. While this is broadly true of all universities, elite schools, precisely because their students (and faculty, and administrators) possess this one form of intelligence to such a high degree, are more apt to ignore the value of others. One naturally prizes what one most possesses and what most makes for one’s advantages. But social intelligence and emotional intelligence and creative ability, to name just three other forms, are not distributed preferentially among the educational elite. The “best” are the brightest only in one narrow sense. One needs to wander away from the educational elite to begin to discover this.

What about people who aren’t bright in any sense? I have a friend who went to an Ivy League college after graduating from a typically mediocre public high school. One of the values of going to such a school, she once said, is that it teaches you to relate to stupid people. Some people are smart in the elite-college way, some are smart in other ways, and some aren’t smart at all. It should be embarrassing not to know how to talk to any of them, if only because talking to people is the only real way of knowing them. Elite institutions are supposed to provide a humanistic education, but the first principle of humanism is Terence’s: “nothing human is alien to me.” The first disadvantage of an elite education is how very much of the human it alienates you from.

The second disadvantage, implicit in what I’ve been saying, is that an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth. Getting to an elite college, being at an elite college, and going on from an elite college—all involve numerical rankings: SAT, GPA, GRE. You learn to think of yourself in terms of those numbers. They come to signify not only your fate, but your identity; not only your identity, but your value. It’s been said that what those tests really measure is your ability to take tests, but even if they measure something real, it is only a small slice of the real. The problem begins when students are encouraged to forget this truth, when academic excellence becomes excellence in some absolute sense, when “better at X” becomes simply “better.”

A long quote, it’s difficult to know where to cut it off.

H/T Sigmund, Carl and Alfred.

British Educayshun….

…..on which I’ve written before, hits a new low.

Just pray the same thing isn’t happening in the US.

This and That.

It’s Canada’s 141st birthday today and 41 years since I arrived here right on the 100th birthday, a sort of present to Canada. No, no inflated egos here! It’s changed a lot in 41 years of course. I thought coming to Toronto I was moving to a big city but it was just a big town and a somewhat backward one. Things that surprised me, no mini skirts! They’d been around for at least three years in UK. No pubs, just sparsely furnished taverns with separate entrances and seating areas, one for men and one for ladies and escorts. No bar, you sat at bare plastic tables and a waiter brought you beer. And you couldn’t have an open bottle of beer outdoors, even in your own backyard if I remember rightly. All the telephone wires were above ground strung from poles. Food was plentiful and cheap. Refrigerators were huge.
Nationally Canada was prosperous and optimistic, it was debt free, the debt incurred by the huge effort made by a small population to fight the war had been paid off. Then along came the charismatic Trudeau whose ‘with it’ persona fitted perfectly with the adolescence of the sixties and so we got Trudeaumania and with him came Socialism, massive spending on all kinds of feel good schemes and much meddling with business.
Fans of Obama take note, these inexperienced, sweet talking, think they know all the answers dilletantes are bad news.
As I’ve heard, Canada could have had English government, American know-how and French culture. Instead it got French government, English know-how and American culture.
The good news is that with Stephen Harper, the current PM, we seem to have reverted somewhat to the good qualities of the more staid fifties before the spoilt brats of the sixties screwed everything up.

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The Navy Invented Sex

A Marine and a sailor were sitting in a bar one day arguing over which was the superior service.

After a swig of beer the Marine says, ‘Well, we had Iwo Jima.’

Arching his eyebrows, the sailor replies, ‘We had the Battle of Midway.

‘Not entirely true’, responded the Marine. ‘Some of those pilots were Marines, in fact, Henderson Field on Guadalcanal was named after a Marine pilot killed at the Battle of Midway.’

The sailor responds, ‘Point taken.’

The Marine then says, ‘We Marines were born at Tunn Tavern!’

The sailor, nodding agreement, says, ‘But we had John Paul Jones.’

The argument continued until the sailor comes up with what he thinks will end the discussion. With a flourish of finality he says…… ‘The Navy invented sex!’

The Marine replies, ‘That is true, but it was the Marines who introduced it to women.’

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Check out The Eleven Best Foods You Aren’t Eating.

The raw beetroot sounds interesting, I never thought of eating it raw before. The leaves and stems of beetroot make excellent greens, steam them and dribble olive oil and vinegar on, add pepper and a bit of salt. Delicious!

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It’s good to see a major newspaper, albeit a British one, The Times, giving an optimistic report on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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Alan Sullivan with his sailor’s knowledge of climate, geology and astronomy has done a sterling job over the last few years in debunking the Global Warmists’ warnings of apocalyptic disaster. In this post he quotes in full an article from today’s WSJ entitled ‘Global Warming as Mass Neurosis’. Great stuff.

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Moan, Moan, Moan.

Old Fogey alert! I was a kid in the war and I was fifteen by the time the austere post war years with everything rationed ended. Old enough to remember and be fashioned by the prevailing culture that you didn’t complain, you ‘got on with things’, which is somewhat different to the modern advice to ‘get over it’, you didn’t even allow it to become serious enough to be ‘got over’. You put it in its place, you kept a sense of proportion. Oh people used to grumble, about the rationing, the weather, whatever, but grumbling was somehow a good natured activity, a social pastime. Complaining on the other hand is self centered with a sense of entitlement about it, an unspoken expectation that someone else should ‘do something about it’ for you.

Now there is a book about complaining, Complaint by Julian Baggini.

Publisher’s description
Starting with God’s protests to Adam and Eve and working through the French and American revolutions to the war on Iraq, this book examines what we complain about, why we do so, the kinds of complaints we make, why men and women complain about different things, why we complain less than Americans, and whether we should complain differently.

Read an excellent review of it by Theodore Dalrymple in The Guardian.

The best chapter in the book (or perhaps I should say the one with which I most heartily agree) is that about a prevalent modern form of wrongful, or perverted, complaint, namely litigation. In a society with few agreed moral boundaries, people increasingly look to the law to draw those boundaries. For them, anything that is legal is permissible; only the illegal is impermissible. ‘There’s no law against it’ or ‘There’s a law against it’ become incontrovertible moral arguments. This, however, means that we have abdicated our freedom and given legislators total moral authority over us. Nothing stands between the isolated individual and his egotistical whims on the one hand and the government and its diktats on the other. The result is a strange and unappealing mixture of inflamed individualism and collectivist conformism.

Freedom

Via American Infidel
H/T:LatterDays

Grandchildren

You’ll pardon, please, my light posting. A new grandchild has been born, my first granddaughter actually, already having three excellent grandsons. I’m finding it really hard to hold the promise of her, cradled in my arms, to imagine her bright future, and then put her down, take up the keyboard and and write about the very people and events that cast a long dark shadow over her future. I’ll be back Monday.

Quote of the Day.

From The Diplomad commenting on the SCOTUS decision regarding the Second Ammendment.

Last night I got all my handguns and spread them out on the floor in front of my framed picture of Charlton Heston. I read them the press accounts of the Court’s ruling. They were very happy . . .

Fred on Boumediene.

Fred Thompson gives his take on the Boumediene Supreme Court decision at Real Clear Politics. After showing what a bad decision it is, he adds this:

It should also be noted that Senator Obama thinks that the decision in Boumediene v Bush is an excellent one. I don’t know what’s worse: that he doesn’t understand what the Court has done … or that he actually does and still thinks this was a sound ruling. Good luck to all of us.

It’s really too bad that he isn’t the candidate for the GOP, on the plus side he is a long time friend of and advisor to Old Mac.

This and That.

A couple of worthwhile things I came across today on the loser Obamadhinejad.

First a wonderful piece at Townhall by Mary Grabar, You Need a Weatherman to Tell Which Way Obama Will Go.

When I heard a major part of Obama’s resume included a stint as a “community advisor”, I asked myself what the term meant.

Lovely take down of his pretensions and a clear statement of his lack of anything that would qualify him for any job requiring some sort of expertise.

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You’ve no doubt heard of one of Obama’s foreign policy advisors Richard Danzig citing Winnie the Pooh no less as a model for criticizing GWB’s ‘rigid inability to change direction’, well William Kristol at The Weekly Standard has intriguing thoughts on it, in a superbly titled piece, Obama’s Pooh-Bah.

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History Will Say That We Mis-underestimated George W Bush says Andrew Roberts in The Daily Telegraph.
Send it to any lefties you want to annoy.

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There seems to be a bit of an Obama-bashathon going on around here. Good thing too, apart from the danger that by a fluke he could become President, an even more scary thought than the bumbling Kerry winning, it’s such a target rich environment!

Richard Fernandez of Belmont Club says at Pajamas Media [I still have trouble not writing 'pyjamas'!]that Obama’s changing positions on Iraq coincide with the interests of his old pal Tony Rezko. Of course it will be dismissed by the Kos Kroud as a smear and a distraction but only because it is so damaging and they’ll try to sweep it under the rug, there being no more room under the bus.

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It was bad enough that the Goracle saw fit to put his lucrative amateur long range weather forecasts into a film and then a book, but an opera? On second thoughts since the Global Warming Scam is all smoke and mirrors then the opera house might be the best place to house it. I’m not the only one.

Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” first a film and then a book, is becoming an opera. Officials of La Scala in Milan say the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to write it for the 2011 season, The Associated Press reported.

Dear Mr. Gore,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on my draft of “Verità Inconveniente.” Rest assured that I and the management of La Scala are committed to a serious presentation of your scientific work. I will try to adopt some of your suggestions, but I hope you appreciate the constraints faced by the composer of an opera that is already five hours long.

I agree it would “round out the résumé” of Prince Algorino in the opening scene if he were to sing about his creation of a communications network. But the “Mio magnifico Internet” aria you propose seems to me a distraction — and frankly out of place in an 18th-century Tuscan village. I believe the peasants’ choral celebration of Prince Algorino’s wisdom suffices to establish his virtues.