College Courses That Will Ensure Your Career in Fast Food

Young America's Foundation has posted the 12 most bizarre and politically correct college courses. Here they are:

1. Occidental College’s The Phallus covers a broad study on the relation "between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism."

2. Queer Musicology at the University of California-Los Angeles explores how "sexual difference and complex gender identities in music and among musicians have incited productive consternation" during the 1990s. Music under consideration includes works by Schubert and Holly Near, Britten and Cole Porter, and Pussy Tourette.

3. Amherst College in Massachusetts offers Taking Marx Seriously: "Should Marx be given another chance?" Students in this class are asked to question if Marxism still has "credibility," while also inquiring if societies can gain new insights by "returning to [Marx’s] texts." Coming to Marx’s rescue, this course also states that Lenin, Stalin, and Pol Pot misapplied the concepts of Marxism.

4. Students enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania’s Adultery Novel read a series of 19th and 20th century works about "adultery" and watch "several adultery films." Students apply "various critical approaches in order to place adultery into its aesthetic, social and cultural context, including: sociological descriptions of modernity, Marxist examinations of family as a social and economic institution" and "feminist work on the construction of gender."

5. Occidental College—making the list twice for the second year in a row—offers Blackness, which elaborates on a "new blackness," “critical blackness," "post-blackness," and an "unforgivable blackness," which all combine to create a "feminist New Black Man."

6. Border Crossings, Borderlands: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Immigration is University of Washington’s way of exploring the immigration debate. The class allegedly unearths what is "highlighted and concealed in contemporary public debates about U.S. immigration” policy."

7. Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism is Mount Holyoke College’s attempt to analyze race. The class seeks to spark thought on: "What is whiteness?" "How is it related to racism?" "What are the legal frameworks of whiteness?" "How is whiteness enacted in everyday practice?" And how does whiteness impact the "lives of whites and people of color?"

8. Native American Feminisms at the University of Michigan looks at the development of "Native feminist thought" and its "relationship both to Native land-based struggles and non-Native feminist movements."

9. Johns Hopkins University offers Mail Order Brides: Understanding the Philippines in Southeast Asian Context, which is a supposedly deep look into Filipino kinship and gender.

10. Cornell University’s Cyberfeminism investigates "the emergence of cyberfeminism in theory and art in the context of feminism/post feminism and the accelerated technological developments of the last thirty years of the twentieth century."

11. Duke University’s American Dreams/American Realities course seeks to unearth "such myths as ‘rags to riches,’ ‘beacon to the world,’ and the ‘frontier,’ in defining the American character."

12. Swarthmore College’s Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism "deconstruct[s] terrorism" and "build[s] on promising nonviolent procedures to combat today’s terrorism." The "non-violent" struggle Blacks pursued in the 1960s is outlined as a mode for tackling today’s terrorism.

"We don't have to split the nation on this if we've got an alternative."

So says Representative Phil Gingrey. No, he isn't talking about the war in Iraq or President Bush's alleged proposal for a "surge." He's talking about stem cell research.

The embryonic stem cell research (paid for by taxpayers) crowd got a punch in the gut a couple of days ago when scientists at Wake Forest University discovered a new, readily available source of stem cells: amniotic fluid.

Scientists have discovered a new source of stems cells and have used them to create muscle, bone, fat, blood vessel, nerve and liver cells in the laboratory. The first report showing the isolation of broad potential stem cells from the amniotic fluid that surrounds developing embryos was published today in Nature Biotechnology.

The announcement severely pissed off the pro-killing embryos crowd, because finding alternative sources for stem cells means there's less support for forcing taxpayers to pay for destroying embryos.

Just to make sure we all know that we should support killing embryos and ignore the findings of his research, scientist Anthony Atala tells us essentially to pay no attention to his ground-breaking findings.

"Some may be interpreting my research as a substitute for the need to pursue other forms of regenerative medicine therapies, such as those involving embryonic stem cells. I disagree with that assertion," wrote Anthony Atala of Wake Forest University, the author of a study published this week and widely seized upon by opponents of embryonic stem cell research as a more moral option.

I don't know who doesn't want scientists to pursue alternative forms of "regenerative medicine therapies." They just don't want taxpayers footing the bill for research they find morally reprehensible.

But here's the kicker:

(S)cientists aren't sure that stem cells shed by a fetus and extracted from the surrounding fluid carry the same possibility for treatments and cures of diseases as those culled from embryos.

Because "possibility" is more important than results, I suppose, considering that there are 72 successful applications for adult stem cells and zero for embryonic stem cells. But keep wishing and hoping for that ONE application for ESCs. And try to persuade some private businesses to fund the research, will ya?

Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.

UPDATE: A senior fellow for life sciences says don't expect the news of amniotic fluid stem cells to quench pro-ESCRs' thirst for stem cells.

Word of the Day: Warblogger

At least, that's the word of the day for Eric Boehlert, who uses the term no less than 18 times in the column. Evidently Eric learned a new word in school today and just has to use it everywhere.

The funny part is, as someone at Patterico's Pontifications points out, the term seems to only apply to conservatives who blog at all about the war (I guess it would include me, amusingly enough). Lefties who rant and rave about the war are spared the appellation, presumably because they say things Boehlert likes.

Patterico points out in his post that for all Boehlert's ranting about warbloggers not admitting they were wrong about Jamil-Jamail Hussein, Boehlert has an error in his column, as well.

Boehlert’s error, you may recall from an earlier post of mine, was made in a recent column, in which he reported that Hussein “was under arrest” Thursday. As evidence, that column cited a report that said only that Hussein “faces” arrest — and which also makes clear that any prosecution is unlikely.

My guess: Boehlert wanted Hussein to have actually been arrested, so that he could pin that on bloggers. So he wished and hoped, and voila! in his mind, it was so. And so that’s what he wrote.

Is he unaware of the error? Nah. Not only did I do a post about it, I left a comment on the column where it occurred.

Ahh, karma.

For what it's worth, the flap over Hussein wasn't simply about his existence. True, there were some that questioned whether he existed at all, but many others questioned why A.P. used a source that was persona non grata, particularly because of other faulty information. In this case, the problem is that the original A.P. story claimed that four mosques were also burned, but that part of the story was later dropped without explanation.

Frankly, A.P. and the liberal lovers at Media Matters are really concerned with whether Hussein exists. This is only their opportunity to claim that bloggers--oops, warbloggers--have no credibility. But that's a difficult claim to make when your own column has unacknowledged errors in it.

"Chavez is turning Venezuela into the wasteland of nothingness that is communist Cuba."

That according to Publius Pundit, discussing dictator Hugo Chavez's decision to steal all the phone lines and electricity in Venezuela.

It's not hard to find lefties who admire Chavez's use of oil revenues, particularly when they are barbed attacks on American capitalism. In the alternet article, one Democrat says:

"The truth of the matter is that the Bush Administration is unhappy that the people of Venezuela democratically elected a president who does not pledge full allegiance to American interests," said Congressman Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., in an August press statement. "Therefore they cannot resist attacking President Hugo Chávez every chance they get and blaming him for every development in the region that they dislike."

Yes, that's exactly what the Bush Administration doesn't like. I'm sure confiscating all electricity and phone service is what every democratically elected president does, right? From Publius Pundit:

Chavez intends to control all the media and information all through the country. CANTV’s stock has now plunged 16% on the NYSE until it was yanked from floor trading, due to its precipitous fall. Nobody thinks Chavez is going to compensate anyone fairly for his forced expropriation and the market is responding accordingly.

But more significantly, with the prospect of Chavez owning the entire phone line system — oh and what a shame this will be because Venezuela’s phone lines are the clearest in all South America, and they’ll go to hell under state ownership — Chavez will be able to listen in on any phone call he wants, especially with all the great electronic help he’s getting from Cuba’s communist electronic warfare experts who are now in Caracas. Worse yet, he’ll be able to cut off electricity to any dissident or group, effectively ending any possible power to dissemimate news via electronic media. The only way to get any serious news out of Venezuela now will be to fly into Venezuela. If you can get a visa.

Notwithstanding some of the nuttier claims on the left that the government controls all the media in this country (if so, how do they get their information?), it should concern all Americans that Chavez is tightening his grip on the country.

This isn’t all the thug is up to, by the way. He’s also stealing the entire central bank, by ending autonomy for it. He’s turning that into an instrument for money-printing, now that he’s badly mismanaged the entire oil bonanza, wrecked the oil fields, fired all of the talent who could clean up this situation, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars of oil earnings on stealing, corruption and socialist mismanagement.

In short, Chavez is turning Venezuela into the wasteland of nothingness that is communist Cuba.

The article has links to stories from individuals in Venezuela. Read them while you can.

Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.

Tony Snow: Democrats Can Cut Off Funds, But Can't Stop President's 'Surge'

Editor & Publisher has an article on the Tony Snow press conference yesterday.

Snow reasserted the presidential authority to deploy troops in a war, while Congress still has the power of the purse.

Snow held out hope that the Democrats would come to their senses about opposing this but admitted it could even be a battle royal. But what about calls for the Democrats to halt the build up by denying funding? Snow admitted congress had funding control but also pointed out that the president could ultimately do what he wants. "You know, Congress has the power of the purse," Snow said, then added: "The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way."

Frankly, I think it is a smart move for the president to challenge Congress on this. Americans dislike when Congress seems disrespectful to the President, even though it is a co-equal branch of government. This has been one of the most frustrating angles of domestic policy when the presidency and Congress aren't held by the same party.

Americans don't like Congress to bully the President, whether it was the Iran-Contra investigations of the 1980s or the government shutdown stand off of 1995.

Dallas Pizza Chain to Accept Pesos

According to an article in the Dallas Morning News,

Starting Monday, patrons of the Dallas-based Pizza Patrón chain, which caters heavily to Latinos, will be able to purchase American pizzas with Mexican pesos.

Restaurant experts and economists said they knew of no other food chain with locations so far from the Mexican border offering such a service.

"We're trying to reach out to our core customer," Antonio Swad, president of Pizza Patrón Inc., said Friday.

Militant Atheists

R.J. Eskow has an interesting column over at Huffington Post titled 15 Questions Militant Atheists Should Ask Before Trying to "Destroy Religion."

The piece centers on a questionnaire Eskow gives for what he calls "fundamentalist atheists" who advocate the eradication of religion. The argument is that religion causes far more harm than good and therefore should be banished. This is an idea advocated by people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

Eskow's questions can be quite pointed ("Is all religious activity harmful, or just the fundamentalist variety (which one research project estimates involves roughly one-fifth of all religious populations)?") while at other times being rather esoteric ("Does the historical experience of nontheistic countries challenge the notion that religion is a major factor in causing internal oppression or external military conflict? (Note: I'm not suggesting that nontheistic countries went to war to defend nontheism," as one atheist writer characterized the argument. The question is: Does the absence of religion as a motivator reduce the likelihood of war, as the militants suggest - or not? Suggested countries of study: Cambodia, China/Tibet, USSR.)").

It's an interesting read, even for a Christian.

Dog Bites Man Story: Dems Already Breaking Political Promises

It's really a yawner, or maybe a "See? I told you so!" moment, but Democrats are already breaking their political promises. (Via Ann Althouse):

A Hoyer press release obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT boldly declares: "Monday, January 8, 2007: The House is not in session."

Hill sources claim The House is taking Monday 'off' this week, because of the championship football game between Ohio State and the University of Florida.

And, of course, the following Monday is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

100 hours...starting...soon

It's good to see Dems have their priorities straight.

The Democrats Are Determined to Make Iraq Vietnam

ThinkProgress has video from House Speaker Grandma Pelosi's interview on CBS's Face the Nation.

This morning on CBS’s Face the Nation, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced that Congress may refuse to authorize funding for an escalation of U.S. forces to Iraq if President Bush cannot justify the strategy.

Pelosi stated clearly that Congress will fully support all U.S. forces currently in Iraq. "But if the president wants to add to this mission, he is going to have to justify it," Pelosi said. "This is new for him because up until now the Republican Congress has given a blank check with no oversight, no standards, no conditions, and we have gone into this situation, which is a war without end, which the American people have rejected."

Those of us old enough to remember the Vietnam War, at least in the most cursory sense, can get a feeling of deja vu from this statement.

Yep, we've been in this defunding situation before and with Democrats. This is what they did in Vietnam. From Wikipedia:

In December 1974, the Democratic majority in Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974, which cut off all military funding to the South Vietnamese government and made unenforceable the peace terms negotiated by Nixon.

I was an 11-year-old kid in 1975 when Saigon fell, but I remember vividly the American helicopters loaded with people escaping the Viet Cong.

I rarely call the Democrats despicable, although I do find them corrupt and blind most of the time. But when Nancy Pelosi has stated repeatedly that Iraq is only a political situation to be solved, then she is obviously overstating what she thinks the American people want.

I would say, "Pass the popcorn, please," as I watch the Democrats make fools of themselves, but I think Iraq is more serious than the polical sniveling we will see from the Democrats.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman at the Moderate Voice has a different view.

UPDATE x2: Jules Crittenden says we are at a crossroads.

Option One: Pull out. Achieve short-term gratification for those who believe our absence from Iraq will solve our problems. Watch Iraq descend into further violence. Watch a nuclear-armed Iran come to dominate Iraq and the world's richest oil fields.

No longer a world power, discredited by our own choice, we can watch the pile of bodies mount. Maybe we'll be restored to our national senses, as we were a decade after Vietnam, when we woke up and realized we never really had the luxury of disengaging from the fight.

This time, it will be harder. It won't be so neatly contained as it was then. The only good side to this is the army gets to rest. Don't count on the Democratic Congress to refit or build it up, or to do anything but dither when we need to use it again...

Option Two: Fight now. Fight harder. Expend our precious blood and money now, so we don't have to spend more blood and more money later. Fight now, while we can.

They're simple choices, not easy choices. But we are fortunate. The Democratic Congress, so eager to abandon Iraq, is fortunate. The world that seems to revile us no matter what we do is also fortunate. Because it will not be their decision.

We have a president who understands what is at stake. This week he will tell us what it is going to be. All signs indicate he recognizes the mistakes of the past, errors such as are often made in war, and he intends to do what is right. That would be the harder choice, to fight now, when we are tired and feel spent. But, as another American once said, we have not yet begun to fight.

It is his decision to make, and it will fall to a small number of our fellow Americans to execute.

Apparently, Crittenden hasn't seen the clip from Pelosi. I think she's chosen Option One.

UPDATE x3: Bryan at Hot Air has a different analysis of the situation.

The New Anger

Betsy has a link to a new book by Peter Wood, A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Today.

Wood compares the difference in anger on the right and the left.

When I discuss the Left’s embrace of New Anger with people across the political spectrum, two not very satisfactory explanations keep coming up. One is that the party that is out of power has more to gripe about. Yes, but that doesn’t explain why the Left gravitated to a form of anger that exacerbated its unpopularity. Nor, why the Right, in similar circumstances kept its New Anger aficionados on the margins.

The other explanation that comes up, almost always from people on the Left, is that the extreme anger has an extreme cause. It is President Bush’s fault, because he has provoked beyond measure everyone outside his own Right-wing extremist base. According to this view, those on the Left who have resorted to flamboyant expressions of anger have done so because they are dealing with a historically unprecedented destruction by President Bush of the governing norms of American political discourse.

I think this explanation is even more dubious, requiring as it does a broad caricature of how President Bush has governed. In my book, I argue that the Left’s embrace of New Anger arises from something deeper: a generations-long shift in American culture and family life that connects much more profoundly with the Left’s worldview than with the conservative outlook.

Personally, I think the New Anger is less about the reasons for the anger and more about just being openly emotional without consequence (there's that word again). Let's face it, there are entire industries built around dealing with obnoxious and out-of-line behavior. We have television with shows like Dr. Phil. We have therapists trying to help people get in touch with their feelings. We have radio talk shows which get their ratings from people calling in with their anger (Rush Limbaugh, Randi Rhoades).

The truth is, the New Anger isn't new. It's just that these days it is perfectly acceptable to vent in public in a way that was condemned a generation ago. Especially in politics, there seems to be no end to the hyperbole. Comparisons between George W. Bush and Adolph Hitler are commonplace. Democrats consider Republicans by turn evil or clueless. Liberals despise "the rich," even as many of their leaders are among the very wealthy.

Of course, the Right has its anger-mongers as well, most notably Rush Limbaugh, who, at times, becomes almost un-listenable (is that a word?) to. For example, last week, Rush went into a long (and seemingly bitter) diatribe against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

While Wood has a point that anger in politics has a long American tradition, it can't be said that much of the New Anger has an historical basis. In fact, it seems largely to appeal to the Jerry Springer in the American electorate.

Music Players Raise Kids' Deafness Risk

Lifescript.com has a brief about a British health study that concluded that regularly listening to MP3 players can substantially increase a person's risk of deafness going into adulthood.

Approximately one-third of those surveyed reported early signs of hearing damage, such as ringing in the ears. Perhaps even more troubling, 40% of study subjects reported that they were not aware of the risks of portable music player use.

There have been several articles over the last few months on the damage earbuds can do to one's hearing.

A recent survey commissioned by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association finds that more than half of high school students polled have lost some hearing because of how they use the music players.

The survey found that high school students are more likely than adults to say they have experienced three of the four symptoms of hearing loss: turning up the volume on their TV or radio; saying "what" or "huh" during normal conversation and having tinnitus or ringing in the ears.

Given the number of teenagers who listen to MP3 players almost nonstop, this is a warning that needs to be heeded.

American Passports Found on Bodies of Al Qaeda Fighters in Somalia

According to this story from ABC News,

A senior official in the Somali government's new Ministry of the Interior told ABC News government forces had recovered "dozens of foreign passports," including several American passports, on the bodies of al Qaeda fighters killed in combat between forces affiliated with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and Ethiopian forces in Somalia.

I'm not sure what this means, really. Are Americans fighting in Ethiopia? Or did Al Qaeda operatives steal U.S. passports?

Dear Pat, Please Shut Up

You look ridiculous and you make Christians look ridiculous, too. You feed into all the stereotypes lefties have of Christians.

Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Sharon


tmatt over at GetReligion says basically the same thing. I just provided a link for it. Terry Mattingly (tmatt) explains it this way:

In other words, we have reached the point where some journalists are happy to see Robertson's face on television screens, because every time he opens his mouth he reinforces their stereotype of a conservative Christian. And they may sincerely believe that he remains a powerful leader among American evangelicals, someone who provides an appropriate "conservative" voice during coverage of controversial events.

If this is true, then why is it so hard to find mainstream evangelicals and traditional Catholics who defend Robertson? Outside of a cable TV niche, where are his legions? In short, I'm convinced it is time for journalists to drop Robertson from their lists of "usual suspects." That he ceases to be someone they turn to for quotes from "evangelical leaders." He is a straw man.

There's some discussion in the comments at GetReligion on the fact that Robertson still runs a very large organization and there are many, many people who watch The 700 Club (I confess to seeing part of it whenever I watch Who's Line Is It Anyway?, but I digress).

Even though there are people who watch Robertson's show or listen to him, that's not really why journalists (and bloggers) pick up what he says.

As my GetReligion.org colleague Douglas LeBlanc put it, after the Hugo Chavez affair: "Reporters recognize a good coffee-spewing remark when they see one, and I will not fault them for jumping on this one." Amen.

But you really do have to wonder how much more journalists (and bloggers) are missing by focusing on Pat Robertson or a lone nut who attacks a soap star with a Bible.

I suppose (at least, in the bloggers case) the reason is that they aren't interested in real stories about real Christians, but are only interested in anecdotes that reinforce their preconceived notions. But what about journalists? Is it too much to expect them to look for real stories as opposed to this sort of stuff?

Unprotected

Mona Charen has a column about the book Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student.

As I read her column, it seemed like I had Amanda from Pandagon reading over my shoulder. Oh, the shrill and dismissive commentary I'm sure she could give to stories like this:

(Author Dr. Miriam Goodman) believes that casual, promiscuous sex is tough on many women. They are hard-wired to bond with those they have sex with (the hormone oxytocin is implicated), and she sees countless female students reporting stress, eating disorders and even depression for reasons they cannot understand. After all, the world sells them on the notion that sex is pure recreation, that the "hook-up" culture is natural and even empowering to women, and that love and sex are two completely different things.

She describes a 19-year-old, "Heather," who is depressed. She has a "friend with benefits," but only with the help of psychotherapy is she able to acknowledge that the relationship is causing her pain. She'd like to do things with him, like see movies or go out for dinner, but he is interested only in sex. Dr. Grossman helps Heather to see that her needs are being neglected.

Another student, "Olivia," is devastated after her first serious boyfriend breaks up with her. Her grades suffer, she weeps constantly and suffers a relapse of an eating disorder, making herself vomit up to six times a day. "'Why, doctor,' she asked, why do they tell you how to protect your body -- from herpes and pregnancy -- but they don't tell you what it does to your heart?'"

I'm sure the Pandagonistas would explain that the problem was that these young women weren't using their secondary power of being able to manipulate male power for small favors.

In fact, in the post I reference there, Amanda explains:

Women think every guy they have a one night stand with wants to marry them. Gary knows, because he saw it on the teevee. And the teevee will never lie to you about how people really act in order to reinforce stereotypes, now would it?

Well, maybe not every woman feels this way, but there's evidently a sizable subset of female humanity who don't like how they feel after the one-night stands. As Charen puts it:

American campuses are, for the most part, laboratories of liberalism. You want an abortion? No problem. But if you grieve afterward, your pain is ignored or delegitimized. Dr. Grossman does not contest that most women may be emotionally fine after undergoing an abortion, but notes that a significant minority, perhaps 20 percent, do suffer depression and other symptoms afterward. Yet the politically correct position is to deny this medical reality.

I guess for some, that 20% isn't large enough to worry about.

What Will the Democrats Do?

Rich Lowry asks that question in his column at townhall.com.

If Democrats want to be faster than Gingrich, they don't want to be as grandiose. This is shrewd. Gingrich mistakenly thought he could govern the country from the speaker's chair and disastrously overreached as a consequence. Nancy Pelosi's only early overreaching will be exhausting all of her party's popular, largely symbolic measures in a matter of days. What will Democrats do to fill the countless other hours before their term is done?

What indeed? Lowry points out that reforming lobbyist rules is an important and worthy goal, but we'll have to see if these are real reforms (which will bite Democrats as well as Republicans) or more of the sort of window-dressing we've seen in reform efforts of the past.

The problem for Democrats is that they ran on little ("we aren't Republicans" basically), and they were largely elected for what they aren't (Republicans). That's a hard platform on which to accomplish much.

The Democratic substance is vanishingly thin. They will raise the minimum wage, but 29 states already have a minimum wage that's higher than the federal rate. The effect of the hike mainly will be to give a small boost to the wage of teenagers working summers or after school. FDR would yawn.

On prescription drugs, Democrats promised to have the government negotiate for lower drug prices. But the case for major overhaul of the Medicare prescription-drug program has weakened, as the program has proven reasonably popular with seniors and cheaper than expected. Democrats simply might give the Bush administration the authority to negotiate lower prices, which would be meaningless because the administration opposes such negotiations as de facto price controls.

Democrats already have abandoned their promise to immediately implement all the remaining recommendations of the 9/11 Commission because some would require solving nettlesome jurisdictional issues in Congress. They will pass federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, but might not be able to override a presidential veto. They want to cut interest rates on student loans, but that can be expensive at a time when they also want to impose pay-as-you-go rules mandating that new spending has to be paid for with tax increases or spending cuts.

An important political consequence of the Democratic takeover is that it liberates Republicans from the compulsion they had felt to abandon their principles in order to try to protect their majority. As Nancy Pelosi took the speaker's gavel, President Bush sounded the sort of clarion calls on fiscal responsibility --endorsing a balanced budget in five years -- and earmark reform that he never did when free-spending, earmarking Republicans controlled the Hill. He hopes to box in Democrats with their own anti-deficit rhetoric and force them either to forgo major new spending or embrace politically perilous tax increases.

You can already hear the whining from the left about Republican smugness in the minority, but it's really easy to carp and complain when you don't have to do anything (other than obstruct, I mean). That's what the Democrats have done, more or less, for the last four years and it is what Republicans did prior to taking control of the House in 1994.

Once the dust settles and the gimmick of the first 100 hours is gone, it could be a long two years for Democrats.

Respectful Arguments

Patterico has laid down the first rule of respectful argumentation:

Rule Number One of respectful argument is to phrase your opponent’s argument — the argument you’re responding to — in such a way that your opponent would agree with it.

The rule, when followed, has at least two benefits. First, helps to ensure that the argument is about actual issues, rather than a spiraling series of accusations that the other guy is misrepresenting your position, and vice versa. Second, it forces you to think a little more about what the other guy believes, and why.

Seems like it would be a good idea if more people practiced it, even if only occasionally. But then you wouldn't have stuff like this or 95% of what is written on Pandagon.

It's a lot easier for some people to make their points if they can distort what their opponents say.

New York Times May Dump Ombudsman After Abortion Distortion Flap

According to this story, the New York Times may eliminate its ombudsman position after "current public editor Byron Calame's confirmation that LifeSiteNews.com was correct in asserting the Times made a major error in reporting on criminal penalties for abortion in El Salvador."

I discussed the NYT story in this post.

According to the LifeSiteNews story:

The first recorded mention of the intention to axe the position was raised at a December 15 New York Times meeting where Times' executive editor Bill Keller raised the idea. That meeting was held about a week after Calame began asking very uncomfortable questions of senior editors at the Times, and receiving in response terse replies rejecting his warnings that the NYT magazine had been caught in a serious error which deserved correction.

With information from contacts in El Salvador, LifeSiteNews.com pointed out that the cover article in the NYT magazine of April 6 claimed falsely that some women in El Salvador were imprisoned for thirty years for illegal abortions. LifeSiteNews published the full court ruling in the case which showed that rather than being jailed for a clandestine abortion - as the Times magazine asserted - the case study cited actually concerned infanticide of a full-term baby. (see coverage: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07010208.html )

Calame requested an explanation from both NYT magazine editor Gerald Marzorati and standards editor (who makes up these titles?) Craig Whitney but both stonewalled him.

Certainly, the discovery that the story was, at best, an egregious factual error and, at worst, a deliberate lie does enormous harm to the New York Time's reputation as the newspaper of record. But it isn't like this is the first hit that ship has taken over the last few years.

Having an ombudsman, a person who is supposed to represent the readers' interests at the newspaper, is a valuable service. That the vaunted NYT might axe the position because the public editor stated that the emperor has no clothes is reprehensible.

Jamail-Jamil Hussein Found

I discussed somewhat briefly in two posts (here and here) the Jamail-Jamil Hussein controversy. Well, according to Patterico, Hussein has been found where the AP said he was: at the al-Khadra station.

I'm still suspicious about why it took so long to produce this source, given that the controversy started about six weeks ago. I understand that the man supposedly is afraid of arrest now, but evidently he wasn't afraid to talk to the A.P.

What I've always been more concerned about was the accuracy of the stories. As Patterico points out, the A.P. dropped its claim that four mosques had been burned, focusing solely on whether Hussein was a real guy or not.

I'm glad they finally found the guy and identified him as the source for more than 60 stories. But where's the information forthcoming about these burned mosques that nobody else verifies?

UPDATE: Kathleen Carroll basks in smugness over the finding of Hussein. But no discussion about the four mosques.

Democrat Civility on Display

I haven't said for a while how much I'm gonna love having Democrats in charge of Congress, so I'm saying it now. Digby can complain in typical, churlish, Democrat (yes, Democrat) mode about Republican glee at Democrats having to do something besides obstruct government, but I find nothing more amusing than watching Democrats deal with their moonbat base.

But I seem to recall that Democrats smugly announced there would be a return to civility when they took power. I guess Charles Rangel didn't get the memo.

Rep. Charles Rangel has evicted Vice President Dick Cheney from his office in the Capitol, and the Harlem heavyweight is moving into the prime digs today...

Gilded letters were freshly painted atop the office door yesterday proclaiming "Ways and Means Committee" - confirming that the office now belongs to Rangel, the House panel's new chairman...

Rangel was giddy at the prospect of giving Cheney the boot the day after Democrats delivered Republicans a crushing defeat on Election Day...

"I'm trying to find some way to be gentle as I restore the dignity of that office," Rangel chuckled at the time. "You gotta go, you gotta go."

Rangel was so eager to bounce Cheney from the office, he phoned new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) less than 12 hours after the polls closed to get her approval.

Cheney's office took the high road yesterday. Spokeswoman Mary McGinn told The Post, "It was always our understanding that that office was on loan."

Well, we knew that Democrat civility would last about as long as Bill Clinton's wedding vows.

Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.

On the Minimum Wage Increase

Now that the Democrats have taken control of Congress, a hike in the minimum wage can't be far behind.

George Will says, in this column, that the minimum wage should be zero. He knocks the legs out from under all those supporters of the minimum wage hike, looking at who actually gets the lowest salaries and why.

Most of the working poor earn more than the minimum wage, and most of the 0.6 percent (479,000 in 2005) of America's wage workers earning the minimum wage are not poor. Only one in five workers earning the federal minimum lives in families with earnings below the poverty line. Sixty percent work part time, and their average household income is well over $40,000. (The average and median household incomes are $63,344 and $46,326, respectively.)

Forty percent of American workers are salaried. Of the 75.6 million paid by the hour, 1.9 million earn the federal minimum or less, and of these, more than half are under 25 and more than a quarter are between ages 16 and 19. Many are students or other part-time workers. Sixty percent of those earning the federal minimum or less work in restaurants and bars and earn tips -- often untaxed, perhaps -- in addition to wages. Two-thirds of those earning the federal minimum today will, a year from now, have been promoted and be earning 10 percent more. Raising the minimum wage predictably makes work more attractive relative to school for some teenagers and raises the dropout rate. Two scholars report that in states that allow people to leave school before 18, a 10 percent increase in the state minimum wage caused teenage school enrollment to drop 2 percent.

I've spent some time over at Liberal Avenger says why I think raising the minimum wage is, at best, a feel-good measure that won't affect much of anybody. Locally, most of the traditionally minimum wage jobs are paying between $7 and $8 an hour.

It's understandable that Democrats are still in love with the minimum wage. They are stuck in the early 20th Century, when breadwinners made pennies per hour and babies starved because of it. But this is the 21st century and the people who tend to make the minimum wage are neither breadwinners nor supporting large families. But don't wake the Democrats from that fantasy.