Links and Minifeatures 2009 01 29 Thursday

Bill Gates: School Reform That Works

These successes and failures have underscored the need to aim high and embrace change in America's schools. Our goal as a nation should be to ensure that 80 percent of our students graduate from high school fully ready to attend college by 2025. This goal will probably be more difficult to achieve than anything else the foundation works on, because change comes so slowly and is so hard to measure. . . . If one school's students do better than another school's, how do you determine the exact cause? But the difficulty of the problem does not make it any less important to solve. And as the successes show, some schools are making real progress.

Sane, intelligent commentary on the state of our schools, and getting from where we are to where we need to be. Read the whole thing.

The Biggest Con -- Ever

He means that quite literally, and I agree. $825 Billion that won't accomplish anything positive, just wasted. Or worse, spent subsidizing things of negative value.

But please, let's stop calling this a "stimulus" plan. How does another $650 million for digital TV coupons (why don't we just buy a million new high-definition televisions and hand them out?) spur economic growth? What does $600 million for government vehicles do other than allow bureaucrats to do nothing more efficiently?

Here's one thing of negative value it's paying for: $5.2 billion to ACORN, which committed massive voter fraud in Obama's favor. ACORN is not in danger of going bankrupt, and they don't provide economic benefit anyway. Precisely what is the difference between this and any other political payoff with the public treasury? Do we really want to encourage voter fraud like this?

It�s not the first time ACORN has been entangled in a bailout controversy. In September, House Republicans objected that the original $700 billion bailout package included $100 million for ACORN � a tiny fraction of the sums for ACORN now being considered in the stimulus package.

The European Social Welfare State Bill

Only about 1/7th of the outlays occur in the current fiscal year. Substantially more of the outlays occur in 2012 or later than occur in 2009. How is this stimulus spending?

The celestial choirs of bailouts

More press in the tank for Obama: GOP defies Obama overtures

This is not what I would call an overture: From Republican leader Mike Pence "But know that there has been no negotiation [with us] on this bill - we had absolutely no say."

It isn't bipartisan when you don't bother to ask the other side for input. President Bush was far more bipartisan than this, even when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. His folks always asked the Democrats what they wanted on a given piece of legislation, and always compromised - even when they shouldn't have.

(The original version headline said "Analysis: GOP defying Obama overtures of bipartisanship")

Hollow victory: Republicans deliver slap in the face to Barack Obama

Might it be because he was only willing to listen - he wasn't willing to actually, you know, do anything to compromise with them?

Problem was, he wanted only to listen and did not want to act on what Republicans said. When he was asked if he would re-structure the package to include more tax cuts, he reportedly responded: "Feel free to whack me over the head because I probably will not compromise on that part."

Listening is good. But it you're not willing to act upon what you listen to, it's ultimately pointless. And I say good for the House Republicans in that every single one of them voted against this massive compilation of pork (along with 11 Democrats). It may be years too late, but it's a start.

Obama's Blank Screen Deception

President Barack Obama is a beguiling but confounding figure. As he said of himself in "The Audacity of Hope," "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."

It is indeed audacious that he should proclaim this consciously disingenuous attribute. And as one reads his inaugural address, it is hard not to conclude that it was crafted shrewdly to perpetuate such confusion.

Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity. Only the most gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the public. Such an effort is beyond ingenious; it is brazenly ingenuous.

He's saying what I've been saying for almost a year now - that Obama started winning because he was careful not to get specific, projecting a blank public persona onto which people could project their own desires.

(I'm already seeing proposals for a Republican slogan for 2012 (and for that matter, 2010): "Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me!")

Questions to ask Leon Panetta before he's confirmed as head of the CIA

Sure it's okay to advocate and expedite the pardon for political cash of a fugitive from justice. At least if you're a Democrat, it'll get you the slot for US Attorney General. Senate panel OKs Holder as attorney general

Obama can say he's looking to have an ethical administration all he wants. So far, his actual actions are pointing in the opposite direction. When it comes to a test of words versus actions, there isn't a whole lot of question as to which is more indicative.

Don't like what a newspaper reports? Don't like the conclusions in someone's book? Sue them

This is nothing new. But each and every one of these nitwits needs to get slapped down hard. Free speech and debate is what makes this country work.

Late last year, we--publisher and author--were named in a defamation suit brought in a state court in Dallas by H. Walker Royall. Royall is a wealthy man who, having volunteered to be the developer in a municipal construction project that involved eminent domain, does not care to have his actions scrutinized by the Fourth Estate

Rangel Rule proposed.

Since it seems to work for Democratic politicians, why not the rest of us?

Sentencing AIDS victims to die in the name of politics

Ill. gov unanimously convicted, tossed from office

Proving that even in Illinois, politicians will do the right thing after they have exhausted all other possibilities. Had the publicity not been so bright, perhaps they could have gotten away with sweeping it under the rug or just waiting until the outrage went away. But the media and comedians made it so that none of them could afford the repercussions of a voting for acquittal, or not voting to remove him.