The New York Times published an editorial lamenting the fact that some teachers work summers:

It is a time when school lets out, and hundreds of thousands of teachers start their second jobs to keep their rents and mortgages paid. One day they're shaping minds, a moral force in the lives of the young people they teach and know, and in some ways the architects of the future of the nation. The next day they're serving cocktails and selling plasma TV's at the mall.

And this is a problem? Why should the taxpayers pay them to sit around the pool all summer? My father was a teacher, and he spent his summers at the pool - as a lifeguard. He loved it, and that job bought a lot of luxuries for our family. But to the pinheads at the Times, it is considered somehow demeaning.

Not counting those who teach summer school, about 20 percent of the country's teachers have second jobs (often during the school year, too), and the majority of those jobs could not be construed as enhancing universal respect for those who teach.

The authors go on to blame teacher pay for the "problem" of teachers working second jobs. They lament that the average teacher salary in 2003 was $45,771, not including a stipend for a master's degree. Across all professions, master's prepared professionals average $62,820.

Well let's run some numbers. $45,771 over nine months represents $5085 per month. So these bachelor's prepared teachers are really making the equivalent of $61,000 a year for the months they work, about equivalent to a master's degree in the private sector. Why shouldn't they contribute to the economy in some way during June, July, and August?

New Look

I replaced the "broken" template (Lord only knows how that happens - I haven't edited that thing for months), so things should be a little more readable around here. At least until this one breaks.

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Blogger is having a general html goof and is having trouble with sidebars.

Excuse our appearance until the powers that be at Blogger fix this

Conspiracy Theories from New Hampshire

A friend and colleague of mine, who I will refer to as "Mr. T from NH," has an interesting theory about NASA's upcoming Deep Impact comet research mission.

Now Mr. T likes to say that, "If you can remember the sixties, then you weren't really there." So that may give you some indications of the quality of this anonymous source.

But to get to the point, Mr. T wonders if the Deep Impact project isn't a trial run to attempt to obliterate a planet killing comet or asteroid.

Which leads to the question, does NASA know about a really big rock heading straight for us and they are just not telling us?

Where's Bruce Willis and a bunch of Oil Rig Drillers when you need them?

NH Live free or Die

From north of the Massachusetts border, comes this interesting news:


Developer Proposes Building Hotel on SCOTUS Justice Home Property

June 28, 2005 5:35 p.m. EST
Douglas Maher - All Headline News Staff Reporter


Weare, New Hampshire (AHN) - Developer Logan Darrow Clements filed papers with the Weare, New Hampshire code enforcement officer to get the ball rolling on a hotel project on property owned by Justice David Souter of the United States Supreme Court.
Souter voted in favor of the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision that "allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner."
According to a press release from Clements, he states, "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a public museum featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."
Clements says, "This is not a prank. The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter, we can begin our hotel development."

The Kerry Plan

Former presidential candidate, renowned war strategist, and fellow "C" student John Kerry has a plan for George Bush. Again.

The Man That Will Not Go Away has penned an editorial, faithfully printed in the New York Times, outlining just how to handle Iraq. Typically, the pedantic blowhard starts his forward thinking with some highly critical backward thinking:

Our mission in Iraq is harder because the administration ignored the advice of others, went in largely alone, underestimated the likelihood and power of the insurgency, sent in too few troops to secure the country, destroyed the Iraqi army through de-Baathification, failed to secure ammunition dumps, refused to recognize the urgency of training Iraqi security forces and did no postwar planning. A little humility would go a long way - coupled with a strategy to succeed.

John "I never fall, that son-of-a-bitch ran into me" is counseling humility? For failing to follow his advice? That's enough to make your head explode.

He should also say that the United States will insist that the Iraqis establish a truly inclusive political process and meet the deadlines for finishing the Constitution and holding elections in December.

With representatives voted upon to draw up a Constitution, isn't there already an "inclusive political process," Mr. Kerry? And how, pray tell, is insisting that the Iraqis meet a December deadline any different from what we are already doing?

The administration must immediately draw up a detailed plan with clear milestones and deadlines for the transfer of military and police responsibilities to Iraqis after the December elections. The plan should be shared with Congress.

Translation: write down what you intend to do and when, then submit it to the Democrats so we can belittle it and tear it to shreds while offering no alternative strategy.

Iraq, of course, badly needs a unified national army, but until it has one - something that our generals now say could take two more years - it should make use of its tribal, religious and ethnic militias like the Kurdish pesh merga and the Shiite Badr Brigade to provide protection and help with reconstruction.

When Bush did this very thing in Afghanistan, the Dems paraded gravely proclaimed that he had "outsourced the job." You can't win with this crowd.

If Iraqis, particularly Sunnis who fear being disenfranchised, see electricity flowing, jobs being created, roads and sewers being rebuilt and a democratic government being formed, the allure of the insurgency will decrease.

There's Kerry's "plan." Build stuff and everybody will like us. The jihadists will simply put down their Qurans, shout "The infidels have provided air conditioning and plumbing!" and go away. What a shallow and naïve world view.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

What's going on? Scroll Down . . .

When I view this blog, the first post doesn't start until after the sidebar ends. Does anyone else see it this way? If so, any ideas why? It just started on Friday.

Politicizing Mathematics

The Wall Street Journal Opinion site posted an interesting article Sunday in which Diane Ravitch exposes how the teaching of mathematics has been transformed into a tool for social engineering.

A stark illustration of this is the "F" index of a math text from 1973 versus one from 1998. Topics in 1973 included factors, factoring, fallacies, finite decimal, finite set, formulas, fractions and functions. By 1998, the topic list had become families (in poverty data), fast food nutrition data, fat in fast food, feasibility study, feeding tours, ferris wheel, fish, fishing, flags, flight, floor plan, flower beds, food, football, Ford Mustang, franchises and fund-raising carnival.

There's more for the mathematically outraged.

Eminent Domain For Marriott

This past week the Supreme Couurt of the U.S. of A. made a stunning decision, one that would have caused the original 13 colonies to dump topsoil by the truckloads into Boston Harbor.

The Supreme Court decided that the state of Connecticut has the right to seize private property from one private entity and give it to another private entity under eminent domain.

The question here is the construction of a hotel and convention center and riverwalk for the public good. I find it difficult to argue that any houses seized for the purposes of allowing another private entity like a hotel chain to build and profit from that land in any way shape or form can be justified under eminent domain.

Scarily but not surprisingly the NY Times Editorial has come out in support of the decision:

"In a blistering dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor lamented that the decision meant that the government could transfer any private property from the owner to another person with more political influence "so long as it might be upgraded." That is a serious concern, but her fears are exaggerated. The majority strongly suggested that eminent domain should be part of a comprehensive plan, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing separately, underscored that its goal cannot simply be to help a developer or other private party become richer.
That is not the situation in New London. Connecticut is a rich state with poor cities, which must do everything they can to attract business and industry. New London's development plan may hurt a few small property owners, who will, in any case, be fully compensated. But many more residents are likely to benefit if the city can shore up its tax base and attract badly needed jobs." - NY Times June 24, 2005

So for more taxes, it is OK to steal from one private citizen and give to another. This is communism pure and simple.

The New York Times has an interesting article on the rejuvination of the South Bronx. It seems that SoHo is now too trendy, so the hipsters are moving on.

Hundreds of artists, hipsters, Web designers, photographers, doctors and journalists have been seduced by the mix of industrial lofts and 19th-century row houses in the Port Morris and Mott Haven neighborhoods. Some now even call the area SoBro.

You would think this would be good news, but every silver lining is under a dark cloud.

"It's going to attract a class of people whose incomes and lifestyles are going to be radically different from those in the South Bronx, which is one of the poorest areas in the city," said Hector Soto, a lawyer active in developmental and environmental issues. Many of those fears coalesced around a rezoning measure passed by the City Council last March that essentially added another 11 square blocks of Port Morris to a five-block zone where, starting in 1997, apartments were permitted among the factories.

You read that correctly. The so-called "activists" are afraid that the Bronx won't remain poor enough. Never mind that poverty, at least as it is practiced in the South Bronx, breeds vandalism, arson, and rampant crime. It must be protected. Moreover, even the very people responsible for the rebirth of the area feel guilty about it.

"A lot of people in the Clocktower feel a sense of guilt," said Darcy Dahl, an artist whose work is exhibited at Haven Arts. "They feel they are part of the first wave of gentrification and they don't want the second wave to come, but they created it."

Only a liberal could apologize for lifting a neighborhood out of grinding poverty and crime.

Environmentalist Busybodies

The good news is that you've survived the 30 foot wall of water that left 128,000 of your countrymen dead. The bad news is that you and 500,000 others are now homeless. Time to gather some lumber and build yourself some shelter, right?Wrong.

Unauthorised logging has increased dramatically since the December 26 tsunami disaster as demand for the wood to be used in reconstruction phase has soared, said Frank Momberg of Fauna and Flora International.

"To prevent a bigger disaster in Aceh, illegal logging must be stopped," Momberg told AFP on the sidelines of an environmental conference in the provincial capital Banda Aceh.

He said 1,000 hectares of forests in Aceh Jaya district had been destroyed by illegal logging and only a small amount of legal wood was being used in Aceh's reconstruction.

It's almost breathtaking. Lecture after lecture from the environmentalists about "sustainability," and when someone uses a renewable resource for shelter, another lecture about illegal versus legal logging. Is there nothing these pompous do-gooders won't sniff there nose an pronounce judgement upon? The article goes on to explain why to these moonbats, war is good and peace is bad:

Environmentalists have said that three decades of separatist conflict in Aceh had protected the region from illegal logging that has destroyed vast tracts of Indonesia's forests.

But they said with peace talks underway in the wake of the tsunami disaster, the region may be targeted by timber barons keen to make fast cash supplying wood for the province's resconstruction.

Why not just write the headline: "Peace Talks Threaten Forest"

I didn't have much to say regarding the condition and death of poor Terri Schiavo, beyond observing that her husband's enthusiasm was somewhat creepy.

Well, the creep-factor has increased again: "Press reports said Michael Schiavo inscribed the phrase, 'I kept my promise,' on her grave marker"

Update:
Patterico has this to say: "Translation: every time you come to visit your daughter, remember: I won.

Michael Schiavo is using Terri Schiavo’s gravestone to take a dig at her parents."

We all know the drill. Bloggers are a bunch of computer geeks sitting around in their pajamas. Without editors, how can we really consider them reliable? Better to trust a graduate from a trusted school of journalism, writing under the direction of a wizened editor.

With that in mind, check out this gem from my hometown newspaper, The Ridgewood News (apparently the only newspaper in America without a website). From an article on the temporary closing of a grocery store and its effect on the New Jersey locals:

Resident Boyd Loving said he was not a loyal Stop & Shop patron, but that he has frequented the store on an occasional basis because of its proximity to his church.

With crack wordsmiths like that out there, blogging is certain to go the way of the dodo pronto.

PETA Employees Face Animal Cruelty Charges

Norfolk based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is never shy about telling you what you should wear and eat. Their pompous, dictatorial, and condescending tone never fails to annoy. It seems, however, the emporer has no clothes:

PETA is at the center of an animal cruelty case.

Police in North Carolina say after a month long investigation, they've arrested two people from Hampton Roads, charging them each with 31 felony counts of animal cruelty.

The claim: they dumped dead dogs in a dumpster.

Well that may take a little bloom off the rose. How many dogs, pray tell?

"Most every time it was between 18-25 dogs every time," said Harrell.

Harrell, who owns the shopping center, says for the past four weeks he's seen dead dogs dumped here, some puppies and others with collars still around their necks.

"Every case was the same it was always a black very thick plastic bag tied in a knot," added Harrell.

In last night's television report, Harrel made it clear that he had pulled well over 100 dog carcasses from his dumpster. PETA, typically, cites death in the name of compassion with president Ingrid Newkirk helpfully pointing out that it's not the killing that's the problem, it's the disposal.:

"I cannot comment on Ms. Hinkle's legal situation but I believe that it will become clear that Ms. Hinkle has only spared animals suffering, not caused it. It is not PETA policy to place animals in a dumpster and if that happened we are appalled."

Not surprisingly, PETA's website makes no mention of the issue.

The Bill of Rights

Why does it seem that so many in America desire to extend the Bill of Rights to non-US-citizens?

Politicians have made cases for due process for illegal immigrants and detainees in Guantanamo.

The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights was written for and about US citizens.

Even if you are a US Citizen a reading of Article V. surely suggests that you can be held without indictment if it is a time of war or public danger. I would suggest that the destruction of the WTC surely qualifies for this.

So where are these non-citizen rights coming from?

There's a precious pearl in every Ann Coulter column. As over-the-top as she can get, Ann always manages one observation that makes her columns worth reading. This week brings this:

American soldiers make do with C-rations. Dinner on an America West flight from New York to Las Vegas consists of one small bag of peanuts. Meanwhile, one recent menu for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo consisted of orange-glazed chicken, fresh fruit crepe, steamed peas and mushrooms, and rice pilaf. Sounds like the sort of thing you'd get at Windows on the World – if it still existed.

Today I wish my Mother "Happy Birthday." Thank you for all the whimsical places you took me and everything you and Dad did for me over the years to make sure I turned out okay. I love you, Mom.

Last Night on Fox News

Shepard Smith: “BREAKINGNEWS from Aruba in the case of the missing Alabama girl and Rick Leventhal is LIVEONTHESCENE. Rick?”

Rick Leventhal: “That’s right, Shep, authorities have narrowed their search to the immediate area around the young girl’s hotel.”

Shepard Smith: “So could this be the break in the case everyone’s been waiting for?”

Rick Leventhal: *sigh* “It looks that way, Shep. This could be it. The end of the line. No more missing girl in paradise.”

Shepard Smith: “Rick, is that a problem?

Rick Leventhal: I guess not for her parents. But for some people on this island, this is very, very bad news indeed.”

Shepard Smith: “I imagine the local boy implicated in her disappearance should be rightly concerned.”

Rick Leventhal: “Oh who cares about that moron. I’m talking about me, you idiot.

Shepard Smith: “RICKLEVENTHAL with a shocking revelation from Aruba.”

Rick Leventhal: “Knock off the melodrama, Shep. We both know that when this gig is over, Murdoch is sending my butt back to Baghdad. I mean, come on, where would you rather report from? The tradewinds or a blinding sandstorm? Who would you rather face? Arubans driving too fast in small cars or Iraqis driving too slow in exploding cars? That’s a no-brainer for this guy.”

Shepard Smith: “Sounds like DISCENSIONINTHERANKS. Rick Leventhal is here to report about a mutiny in FOXNEWS, and he’s LIVEFROMARUBA. Rick?”

Rick Leventhal: “Oh, please. You sit around in your limo in New York, canoodling with Laurie Dhue and Lauren Green, while I hop a military transport from Orangestad to Baghdad to face al-Queda terrorists. Do you know what these terrorists think about young Jewish reporters? Did you hear about Danny Pearl up there in New York, Shep? Huh? Did ya Shep?”

Shepard Smith: “Well, that’s all from Rick. Time to go AROUNDTHEWORLD in eighty seconds.”

Great moments in public education

From Kansas comes this story:OLATHE, Kan. -- A Kansas student faces a misdemeanor charge after throwing up on his Spanish teacher on the last day of school.

Johnson County, Kan., prosecutors have charged the boy with battery against a school teacher, and ordered him to juvenile court on July 1.The kid, for his part, claims it was the stress of final exams that induced him to upchuck. 30 years go, I'd have believed him, but with the level of respect offered by today's teenagers, I'm more skeptical.

It's hot in Norfolk today.
How hot is it?
It's so hot the freaking highways are falling apart:

NORFOLK - The Virginia Department of Transportation has closed one lane of eastbound Interstate 64 at 13th View Street, near the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, for emergency repairs due to heat expansion of the road surface.
[...]

"There is a gaping hole in the road that needs to be fixed immediately," said VDOT spokesman Sandy Shortridge.

Stuck

On Saturday the wife and I traveled to the North Carolina's Outer Banks for a little weekend R&R. We made the usual stops at Subway and Food Lion for provisions before taking our Jeep Liberty onto the beach south of Salvo.

This is not new terittory for us. We have been 4-wheeling the OBX beaches for over 10 years now. But Saturday we ran into some prettysoft extraordinarily soft freaking quicksand. Normally, it takes considerable work to get stuck, but we drove into it on the access ramp effortlessly. “This seems odd” was followed immediately by burial up to the axles, wheels spewing sand, and no way out.

Help arrived within seconds, as a couple fisherman took it upon themselves to drag us out of the mire. We hooked up a tow rope and it promptly snapped. A Virginia Tech Hokie soon arrived with a second nylon tow rope and shovel, and our crew of now four strong managed to drag the Jeep out of its hole. All were, of course, rewarded with “man dollars:” Ice cold Budweiser Select.

Once extracted from our dilemma, we continued our beach visit without further crisis. It’s nice to know there are so many people out there willing to help you when you screw up.

James D. Miller column at Tech Central Station is a handy, concise answer to attacks on Wal Mart's business model.

Paying higher wages would also cause Wal-Mart to substitute greater for lesser skilled employees. For example, at $8 an hour you might be happy to hire a neighborhood teenager to cut your grass, but if you were coerced into paying $20 an hour for lawn care you would probably drop the teen and hire a landscaping company. Like every firm, Wal-Mart always tries to hire the best people it can for the wage it offers. If Wal-Mart paid higher salaries, it would be able to attract employees with greater skills and so would employ fewer unskilled workers.

Miller also demonstrates how minimum wage laws cause higher unemployment:

American shoppers are accustomed to having others bag their groceries. Large supermarkets in France, however, require customers to do their own bagging. France has a much higher unemployment rate than the U.S., so it seems very inefficient for the French economy not to put some of its unemployed to work bagging groceries. About one-half of U.S. retail employees earn less than France's minimum wage. So although it's profitable for U.S. stores to hire bag packers, its high minimum wage makes it unprofitable for France's supermarkets to do the same. The result for France: less pleasant and more time-consuming shopping experiences for customers, and higher unemployment for workers. Do we really want to force Wal-Mart to pay higher wages, thereby causing them to make their customers bag their own groceries?

Nixon, Deep Throat, and Kennedy

Back in high school, I wrote a report on Nixon saying that his presidency did many good things like opening up China and the Salt I treaty with Russia, as well as eventually pull-out from Vietnam. I, of course, wound up getting a lecture from my history teacher about what an evil man Nixon was.

However, when one looks at the alleged goings-on in Nixon-Kennedy presidential race of 1960, it makes one wonder if the politics of the day weren't full of Watergate style shenanigans. Was the difference truly a media and press that was out to get Nixon while they were willing to cover up Kennedy's affairs, pain medication use, and illness ten years earlier?

In the end, Mark Felt helped bring down Nixon in a somewhat ironic way considering Mr. Felt himself was later indicted for authorizing the FBI to committ illegal break-ins on the Weather Underground.

Update on Milton Academy Hockey Hummers III

Hopefully unlike the Star Wars Saga, this will be the third and final episode of this unpleasant story. I will also try to avoid all bad Deep Throat puns.

Previous installments I and II are located here. In short, five Milton hockey players between the ages of 16-18 received oral sex from a 15 year old girl in the school locker room. All accounts suggest no physical force or threats of such were used by the boys to obtain these favors. Yet they were kicked out of the Academy while the girl was not.

The young boys negotiated a settlement in this case for probation until 2007, at which point the charges will be dropped and records expunged.

This is astounding because the girl was not charged with any wrongdoing or even kicked out of Milton for this act or even an earlier reported act where she performed oral sex on a 15 year-old boy which according to Alan Dershowitz could be considered an act of statutory rape committed by her.

Go figure!

The always upbeat Al Gore is at it again:

Without significant action, he said, the planet would see a dramatic increase in violent storms, infectious disease, deadly heat waves and rising sea levels that will force the evacuation of low-lying cities such as Calcutta, Shanghai and New York City within decades.

Thank goodness Doctor Doom never made it to the White House. What would four constant years of that sort of rhetoric have done to the national mood?

I love going to baseball games. The pace of the game is perfectly suited to a warm summer afternoon. No need to get all sweaty on the edge of your seat. Just sit back calmly, beer in hand, and watch the game unfold before. Surrounded by several thousand fellow baseball fans, a baseball game is second only to a busy airport for interesting people-watching.

Another attraction of baseball is that, at any given moment, you might see something you had never seen before, and are unlikely to ever see again. I recall one such moment at Yankee Stadium several years ago. The Yanks had runners on first and second with no outs. The Stadium was buzzing with anticipation of a rally. With the count 3 balls and 2 strikes, the runners took off in a hit-and-run situation. The batter hit a screaming line drive directly past the pitcher, seemingly headed for the outfield and at least one run. The crowd cheered and leaped to its feet. But the second baseman, who covered second when the runners took off, easily caught the liner. One out. He stepped on second base while the lead runner was nearing third. Two outs. Meanwhile, the trail runner was cruising into second, and tagging him completed the unassisted triple play. The crowd sat in stunned silence trying to figure out what had just happened, as the opposing team jogged back to the dugout. After a few seconds came the sound of 35,000 people talking amongst themselves. No boos, catcalls, cheers, or any other of the usual baseball noises. Just normal conversation, of the "did I just see what I thought I saw?" variety.

Another "you'll not likely see that again" occurred Sunday at Harbor Park. Down 5-0 in the bottom of the fifth, the Norfolk Tides scored 10 runs in one inning. 15 batters went to the plate, the first 10 reached safely, eight runs were recorded before the first out, and the only extra base hit was a double. Only one player failed to get a hit in the inning.

Port Folio Weekly is our local liberal “alternative” newspaper, Norfolk’s version of the Village Voice. This week’s issue included a one page essay by Lacy Hall, a young woman who moved from Virginia Beach to New York for a couple years and was shocked - shocked I tell you! - to discover overt racism. A New York University professor actually asked her to explain to the class how a cotton gin worked, under the assumption that anyone from south of DC must know such things. She didn’t.

If I said I was from the South, I would get a short lecture about how uneducated and racist people are from that part of the country. Two minutes later, I would hear complaints about the freaking Irish, the freaking Italians, or those shady Chinese over on Canal Street. [...] Some people think this is a good thing. They’re prejudiced but at least it’s out in the open. Yeah, it’s in the open, but it’s not being fixed. It’s not being fixed because New York would never admit to a racism problem. Why should they? Racists don’t live in New York, they live in the South.

As a resident of southeastern Virginia, with in-laws and relatives maintaining a toe-hold in northeastern New Jersey, I can vouch for the veracity of this argument. I have seen the superior attitude, the smug demeanor of people who think they live at the center of civilization. This while simultaneously castigating the Yankees broadcast team for having the temerity to employ a *gasp* Jewish announcer. Sure the South has its share of racists. But unlike the tolerant, educated New Yorkers, we’re ashamed of them.

The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot has this story about the arrest of a woman in New Jersey:

Melanie McGuire, 32, of Brick, was to be charged Thursday afternoon with first-degree murder in the killing of William T. McGuire, said John R. Hagerty, spokesman for the state Division of Criminal Justice.

That's pretty unremarkable. Spouses are accused of murder all the time. So why did a newspaper several hundred miles away report the arrest? Let's just say there's a local connection:

McGuire was killed April 29, 2004, Hagerty said. His dismembered body was found in his own matching luggage in several suitcases found in May 2004 near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, on the shore of Fishermen's Island on Virginia's Eastern Shore and in waters near Norfolk.

I remember when the first suitcase turned up and we were informed it contained a, shall we say, incomplete corpse. We weren't to keen on swimming much until they were able to assemble the complete body.

Pension Privatization

Via Ankle Biting Pundits comes this remarkable quote from Howard Dean's recent talk in Washington, DC:

"We need to have pension portability, so that pensions as we move from job to job to job, the pensions follow us. they don't stay in the company. That great Democrat, Jim Jeffords has been introducing this for 15 years."

Forgetting that Jeffords was a Republican for 13 of those years and is now an independent, consider what so-called "pension portability" would entail: taking funding out of a large investment pool and putting it in the name of the individual.

This is exactly what a private Social Security account attempts to accomplish. The Dems view apparently is that pension portability is such a good thing that the government should compel private businesses to "privatize" their pension plans, while steadfastly refusing to even talk about such a plan for Social Security.

Follow the link for more breathtaking Dean asshattery.

Perpetually pedantic John Kerry continues to amaze:

"I went back and reread the whole New Testament the other day. Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, that you ought to take the money from the poor, the opportunities from the poor and give them to the rich people," Kerry said.

Nothing like a lecture on taxes disguised as a lecture on theology from wooden bore like John Kerry to brighten your day.