From a suppose institution of higher education, City University of New York, via Susan Edelman New York Post:
A steering committee led by Joyce Moy, director of CUNY’s Asian Research Institute, ran faculty focus groups based on “identity.” The groups included “African-American/black, Asian, White/Jewish, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender, Hispanic/Latino, Individuals with disabilities, and Italian-American.”
Setting aside the merits, one of CUNY’s groups is not like the others. African-American, Asian, Jewish and Italian are all groups with some common ethnicity. Whereas, there is utterly no common ethnic components to a person’s sexual behavior. One is say a black or Italian from his moment of conception. Yet nobody has been conceived as a homosexual or bisexual.
So if CUNY has established de facto quotas for one behavior, what other behaviors should also be rewarded. How about set asides for chronic liars, like Elizabeth Warren, Brett Kimberlin and Barack Obama. What about a set aside for convicted felons ljke Kimberlin or O.J. Simpson?
Here’s another of my all-time favorite tracks: Koinonia – Countin’ The Cost, from the Celebration LP. This thing has a groove that is infectious. It’s just the audio from the LP.
If you prefer, here’s a vid of the same tune, different version. It’s not quite as solid a recording in my opinion, but it’s a nice alternate version.
That’s Abe Laboriel on bass… one of the very best of the period, or to now, for that matter.
Patterico, whos day job is assistant district attorney, demonstrates his professional skills by giving the Speedway Bomber, b/k/a Brett Kimberlin an on-line anal examination. Patterico makes his case in detail. From Patterico examination of Kimberlin, I draw two easy conclusions:
One, Kimberlin is hypersensitive:
KIMBERLIN: He wrote a blog post that said that I framed him for this alleged assault.
THE COURT: Framed?
KIMBERLIN: That I framed him for this assault, and that I forged the documents from Suburban Hospital, and that I photoshopped pictures of my black eye.
Two, Kimberlin, just isn’t very smart, or chronically dishonest:
WALKER: And you were known as the “Speedway Bomber,” were you not?
KIMBERLIN: I don’t know that.
Via, Patterico’s Pontifications.
The Speedway Bomber wants the court to believe that is of offended by blogs post, and Tweets about him, but his not aware that is known as the Speedway Bomber. Sure.
Hat tip, Karen, the Lonely Conservative.
ABC News is among those discussing this:
ABC News’ Ben Forer and Olivia Katrandjian report:
The soft drink industry is fighting back against New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on large sugary drinks, by running an eye-catching, full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times with an image of the mayor as a nanny.
The ad reads, “Bye Bye Venti: Nanny Bloomberg has taken his strange obsession with what you eat one step further. He now wants to make it illegal to serve ‘sugary drinks’ bigger than 16 oz. What’s next? Limits on the width of a pizza slice, size of a hamburger or amount of cream cheese on your bagel?”
Above and below the photo-shopped image of Bloomberg are the taglines: “You only thought you lived in the land of the free,” and “New Yorkers need a mayor, not a nanny.”
The Center for Consumer Freedom, which is behind the ad, refers to Bloomberg as the “Great Dictator” on its website.Bloomberg’s plan, which is part of an effort to curb obesity, would make it illegal for food service establishments such as restaurants, street vendors, sports venues and movie theaters to serve sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces.
The ban would apply to both bottled soda and fountain drinks containing more than 25 calories per eight ounces. It would not include alcohol, fruit juices, diet soda or any beverage that is at least half milk. Grocery stores and convenience stores would be exempt.
According to Bloomberg, New York City spends $4 billion a year on health care for overweight residents, and sugary drinks are the most significant factor in the increasing number of obese or overweight New Yorkers.
The consumer rights groups are correct, so far as they go. Clearly, this is the nanny state run amok, but now the question comes that very few people want to even address…. At what point did the stuff cross the line?
As a nation we sat idly by and watched this nonsense for decades, all the while our freedoms slipping away one by one. Why are we even pretending to worry about this now?
Our founders considered that the government which governs least governs best. This was in fact a foundational principle. Clearly, we have gone well beyond that to the point where there is no limitation on government power. Ask yourself; “Is there an area of my life that government doesn’t control?” The answer of course, is “no.” A bit euphemistic, but consider that your toilet is federally regulated. So is the toilet paper paper. So, for that matter, is the water in the bowl. Why, you can’t go to the bathroom without the Federal government sticking its nose into the process!
Similarly, when better than half of your income is going to government at some level…. (actually, it it far worse when you consider that better than half the money you spend on things, even absent direct taxes, go to taxes or unfunded mandates on businesses you buy from.., and usually pass on to the consumer in the form of higher prices, it’s more than that, even) I’d say there’s a lot I can’t do because of government… a lot of freedom has been lost right at the off.
Certainly, the current plans surrounding health care are a net loss for the cause of freedom. So to is the “environmental” movement, when given the force of government. These are just a couple of examples, of the all-inclusive list of things the government thinks it should have control over…These are things that affect your daily life. The founders understood all of this intuitively. They knew very well that government had to be limited in scope. Those limits placed on our Federal government by the founders are all but run over now.
Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want
bread. – Thomas JeffersonThe two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second
down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized
version of the first. – Thomas JeffersonGovernment big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
– Thomas Jefferson
So again, I ask the question; at what point did the government cross the line?
I suggest it was the first freedom lost. And think about how that happened; we thought it was a good idea at the time. We thought would provide us a little security. Franklin spoke to that;
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
~Benjamin Franklin
And, may I add, that other than in the shortest of terms, we won’t get it, either.
This issue speaks to the entire government health care takeover. Look at the mayor’s logic. He’s suggesting that because the government is spending backs number of dollars on health care, that gives him the right to make a law Banning that which current science thinks is costing the government healthcare system money. At what point does it stop? The fact is it doesn’t. As Jefferson points out the natural tendency is for government growth. I point to health care is an example, not as the whole enchilada. It is merely one of the myriad of places where government control has grown far too much for our good, and certainly irrespective of the concept of freedom.
We’re coming up on the Fourth of July, pretty quick. A little over a month’s time away. Isn’t it time we started remembering and respecting the principles that we were founded on? Certainly, our supposed “leaders” have lost their way. Perhaps it’s time we lost our current crop of “leaders”, hmmm?
California is paying the price for recycling a failed governor, Governor Moonbeam, a/k/a Jerry Brown. Can Governor Moonbeam read the writing on the wall and pull the plug on pipe dream of bullet train. I kind of doubt it, from CBS Money Watch:
LOS ANGELES — A new poll finds California voters are experiencing buyers’ remorse over a proposed $68 billion bullet train project, as the number of lawsuits against the rail system grows.Fifty-five percent of voters want to see the high-speed rail bond issue that was approved in 2008 back on the ballot, and 59 percent say they would now vote against it, according to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times survey (lat.ms/N9tTcm) published Saturday.Since the $9 billion borrowing plan was passed, the projected cost of the bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco has roughly doubled, and it will now share track with slower commuter and freight trains in some areas, the Times said.
A majority of voters have turned against the ambitious undertaking just as Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing lawmakers to approve the start of construction in the Central Valley later this year.
California already recalled on failed governor. Time to make it two.
Hat tip: Legal Insurrection
Evidently the democrats in Wisconsin are in full panic mode. There June surprise fell apart in an hour, from Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit:
Pathetic. Wisconsin Democrats dropped a Scott Walker love child story today – two days out from the recall election.
The far left Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op reported:[…]
How sad and desperate. Wisconsin Democrats should be embarrassed.
It took one call and about an hour to refute the bogus report.
The Daily Kos, not exactly a bastion of conservatism, reported on the developments.
A story too pathetic for even the Daily Kos.
I note with some sadness, the passing last night of Richard Dawson, of Family Feud and of Hogan’s Heroes, and a number of other projects. He was 79. Here he is talking about the British accent he took on in the Hogan’s Heroes show.
The Obama administration is confused. It wants to pretend illegal combatants have the same rights as citizens, but Obama desperateness wants to look like a commander-in-chief. So what do you do when your reprobate of an attorney general, Eric Holder forbids treating captured enemy combatants like captured enemy soldiers? Under Holder, captured enemy combatants have no intelligence value, there is no point in capturing them. So Obama simply orders them to killed, and he calls it bravery. From Charles Krauthammer, National Review:
This administration came out opposing military tribunals, wanting to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York, reading the Christmas Day bomber his Miranda rights, and trying mightily (and unsuccessfully, there being — surprise! — no plausible alternative) to close Guantanamo. Yet alongside this exquisite delicacy about the rights of terrorists is the campaign to kill them in their beds.
You festoon your prisoners with rights — but you take no prisoners. The morality is perverse. Which is why the results are so mixed. We do kill terror operatives, an important part of the War on Terror, but we gratuitously forfeit potentially life-saving intelligence.
The good doctor says more, a lot more.
This is one of my all-time favorite tracks… George Howard’s Dancing in the Sun… the title track from the LP. It’s a tune I played a lot of when I was doing Jazz radio years ago. Recorded in 1986, we lost him a few years later… 1998… to colin cancer, I think it was. Sad. Would have loved going to see him. Still, we have his music… and what a better theme to start June with?
Oh, wow. I NEVER knew this film existed.
I”ve raved for years about the “Friends and Love” concert, held 42 years ago this month, at the Eastman Theater in my home town of Rochester NY… what a concert… but never knew this film existed until about ten minutes ago.
This was the concert that started Chuck Mangione’s career. He was invited to conduct the event and was basically given full rein on the affair. He composed everything in the concert, arranged it. And then performed it, in front of a standing room only crowd of around 3600 people.
That’s Chuck up front, of course. Steve Gadd on drums, Don Potter, who is, along with Bat McGrath, were a duo that were something of a Rochester legend on guitar, and of course, the? Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. GERRY NIEWOOD doing that fabulous solo, on his soprano saxophone, (Niewood was one of Chuck’s band that died trying to land at the Buffalo airport) as well as Tony Levin who has been on everyone’s LP at one time or another, on Electric Bass and Marvin Stamm on trumpet.
This was pretty much a defining moment for modern jazz. And I wonder, in retrospect, if the people involved knew it at that time.
Heckled yes. shouted down, no. from Alica M. Cohn, Hill:
Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod was shouted down Thursday at an event in Boston that was staged to attack Mitt Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts.
Axelrod called the press conference to hammer home the Obama campaign’s critique of Romney’s time as governor, and brought along officials from around the state to reinforce the message.
But the pro-Obama speakers had to shout to be heard over the “boos” from Romney supporters who showed up for the event. Holding “Obama Isn’t Working” and other pro-Romney signs, they blew bubbles at the stage and loudly chanted, “Where are the jobs?” and “broken record.”
Video:
David, if you can’t take the political heat, stay out of the political kitchen.
David’s axe may be dull, like his boss’s mental faculties, but Axelrod was heard. Not that he had much to say.
I wonder if David Axelrod’s found the mole, yet?
Because it’s not precisely accidental that Axelrod got rhetorically ambushed today at his take-em-by-surprise press conference, while Mitt Romney did not.
Is the Obama campaign sinking. I am not a big Mitt Romney fan. Then who is? However unlike John McLame in 2008, Romney will go to the offensive, and unlike 2008, Obama has a record.
Underplayed, this one is. Too pop for Jazz stations, I guess, and too Jazz for pop stations, even soft rockers.
But it fits both, I’ve always thought.
With the Obama administration, gaffes are not a bug but, rather feature, via Doug Powers @ Michelle Malkin:
US President Barack Obama’s description of a Nazi German Holocaust site as a “Polish death camp” shocked Poland, whose leaders insist the record be set straight 67 years after World War II.
Obama on Tuesday labeled the Nazi facility used to process Jews for extermination as a “Polish death camp.” The White House later said the president “misspoke” and expressed “regret”.
Niles Gardner, Telegraph (UK) via Fausta:
President Obama has a long track record of insulting the Poles. In 2010 he chose to play golf on the day of the funeral of the Polish President Lech Kaczynski, the Polish First Lady, and 94 senior officials who perished in the Smolensk air disaster. Eight months earlier he humiliated Warsaw by pulling out of the agreement over Third Site missile defence installations in Poland and the Czech Republic.
It not a gaffe. It is a pattern.
