In class the last several weeks we've been discussing the tendency to view other societies through the filter of our own. This afternoon I read a breif article which bright those lessons to focus on a current political question. Many on the right were surprised when, after the election results in Mass (and VA, and NY and NJ) the Donks seemed to redouble their efforts to pass what many of us (including the voters on Mass …. and Va and NY and NJ) deem to be a fiasco of a health care bill.

And that's when the light bulb moment hit. Donks view the voters as stupid (unless, of course, they're voting for Donks) and the Elphs as evil. (Elphs view the electorate as occasionally uninformed and the Donks as just wrong.) As a result, there was no NEED to change direction or actually analyze the results of these elections. Evil Elphs just duped the stupid voters. No policy adjustment need be made

The WaPo comes up with another Whopper. The Washington Post ignored a few historical facts when it proclaimed in a front page article Wednesday that President Obama is quote, “a rare President who comes from the middle class.” Well, there have actually been many Presidents who hailed from the middle class. Lyndon Johnson was born in a small farmhouse and worked his way through college. Harry Truman worked for the railroad and lived in hobo camps. Richard Nixon's parents ran a grocery store. Ronald Reagan was born in a small apartment above a bank in Northern Illinois. His father was a salesman. And Bill Clinton was born to a widow in Hope, Arkansas.

Blogging may be a little...different the next few days …. we're experiencing WHITE DEATH FROM ABOVE! I was advised by my local newscast that stores are selling out of milk, eggs, bread and toilet paper …. which seems to indicate that a major component of WHITE DEATH FROM ABOVE involves making French toast and contracting diarrhea.

My first class has reached it's hasty conclusion and my class load doesn't get heavy again unil March 1. And the lovely D will be winging it to Vegas for a week Sunday evening. So this modified time structure will probably lead to some bizarre postings. Forewarned is forearmed

I have this whole “good vocabulary “ thing nailed down, along comes something like this, from the Blogfather

...AN ODD STATEMENT BY OBAMA:

Obama said he would attempt to convince his party’s left wing to take a less ideological approach to economic challenges.

“We’ve got to make sure that our party understands that, like it or not, we have to have a financial system that is healthy and functioning, so we can’t be demonizing every bank out there,” Obama said. “We’ve got to be the party of business, small business and large business, because they produce jobs.”

Like it or not? Who wouldn’t like a “healthy and functioning” financial system? According to Obama, the answer is . . . Democrats.

Who writes this stuff?

At least by President Obama's definition.

In last week's State of the Union address, President Obama declared that his administration has "excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs."

Which is true! Well, it's true except for the 40-plus lobbyists that Washington Examiner columnist Timothy Carney has documented as holding jobs in the administration.

The White House, however, is standing by its claim. Here's Carney:

Did Obama speak falsely?

Well, it depends on what the definition of "excluded lobbyists" is.

I asked the White House if he chose his words poorly, but the media affairs office defended the president's statement: "As the President said," a spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail, "we have turned away lobbyists for many, many positions."

So, the country may have heard, "we haven't hired lobbyists to policymaking jobs," but the White House tells us Obama meant, "we only hired some of the lobbyists who applied for policymaking jobs." In other words, they've excluded some lobbyists.

As Carney notes, "Using Obama's grammar, we can say George W. Bush avoided wars in the Mideast (he didn't invade Iran), and Bush's father refused to raise taxes (repeatedly, for months)."

from Reason.com

ok... it's February ..... here's my College Basketball top 10....we'll do his again in a few weeks .....

1.  Kansas ..... 1 loss, tough schedule, solid program

2.  Duke ... 3 losses but a brutal schedule, solid program

3.  Syracuse

4.  Texas ..... could have a better schedule

5.  perhaps BYU should go here but a marginal schedule hurts, so we'll make the the Mountaineers

6.  Kansas State ...  seems like the Big 12 is replacing the ACC doesn't it?

7.  Purdue .... at least a Big 1(1)0 school!

8.  Wisconsin .... hey, wait .... where's e SEC???

9.  Kentucky .... ah, THERE we go!

10.  Villanova

fwiw, the Buckeyes would be next.  Best team to NOT make the Big Dance?  Right now I'd go with USC but the selectors will surprise me and leave somebody even better out like Virginia or Illinois

Twenty wins is usually enough to get it ... so New Mexico will make it, deservedly so.

Six months ago we kept hearing that "the other side had no ideas" regarding health care.  I made a brief post in that regard.  Being locked  out of hearings and having the camera pointed the other way all the time results in it APPEARING that there are no other ideas. So when the POTUS suddenly decided to start listen to us “little people” and put out the call for idea, those old ones come back strong … here are a couple of my favorites from over at www.biggovernment.com

Cross-State Purchasing

A loose interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause currently prevents the purchase of health insurance across state lines. Virtually all other forms of insurance—car, life, home—can be purchased by customers in a national, wide-open marketplace. If health care consumers were afforded the same freedom, individuals and families who reside in one state would be able to purchase more affordable health insurance domiciled or licensed in another state. Americans would no longer be restricted to the anti-competitive, counterproductive regulations and mandates governing the health insurance markets in many states.

This simple fix would multiply the markets consumers could access by a factor of fifty, allowing consumers to choose policies that fit their needs and budgets.

…..

Tort Reform

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean famously admitted medical malpractice reform was left out of the health care reform debate because the authors “did not want to take on the trial lawyers.” But medical malpractice abuse is a primary driver of our nation’s skyrocketing health care costs.  There isn’t a single provision in Democrat’s health care bills to address this.

Malpractice insurance and the need for “defensive medicine” make the practice of medicine unappealing and costly, reducing the number of primary care physicians and increasing costs to consumers. According to the American Medical Association, defensive medicine costs our health care system between $84 and $151 billion every year. In another AMA report, 45 percent of hospitals reported concerns over liability resulted in the loss of physicians or reduced coverage in emergency departments.

The regulatory and spending proposals currently on the table will at best avoid (though more likely exacerbate) the underlying problems of our current health care system. No amount of bureaucratic shell games or grandstanding against special interests will change that.

It needn’t take thousands of words and bitter, partisan battles to enact significant change that will help millions of Americans get affordable health insurance. If the President and his allies in Congress are serious about health care reform, they should start from scratch and consider serious solutions

Saw the movie this weekend in 3-D. Visually it is quite an achievement. It took Jurassic Park, made it 3D and threw in a bunch of bioluminescence. And it didn't rely on the old “spear coming at you” shots of old-school 3D. It was subtle and natural. Very nicely done.

Nice to see that in the future cigarettes are a delivery mechanism for vitamins and nutrition. OK – that's a spoof on all the online kvetching about S Weaver asking for a cig when she comes out of suspended animation. Why COULDN'T they be such a device? Is is after all supposed o be sci-fi.

The cultural anthropological D&D player had a LOT of questions. Why in the world did a culture which survives in a jungle/forest need/have horses? What do they eat? What do the Na'vi eat? Is a large successful civilization conceivable without musical instruments? I kinda get the feeling none of these questions are asked because to answer them makes the aliens less “noble savage” and more “like us.” What's the deal with six legged hammer headed rhinos in a raid forest? No WAY could they forage enough energy to survive long, let alone thrive. Some great further analysis of this nature here.

A couple interesting lines in passing:

"Science is about observing." Really? I thought it was about falsifying data to justify getting buckets of geopolitical cash.

“We'll fight terror with terror” uttered by the psycho former marine. It garnered the requisite chuckles from those ITK. But it presents a false choice as the Na'vi weren't using terrorism.

Why were the humans there? Our planet was dying and we found “Hardtofindium” and we needed it to survive. Is that it? I preferred to think that the element was instrumental in eliminating ignorance, bias and racism from the mainstream media here on earth. So I was cheering for the gyrenes and am convinced that we'll journey back to Pandora, kick Na'vi ass, and render the likes of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann useful to society.

Go see it. Just don't think too much. It's about the pretty flickering pictures.