Finding Your Indian Name

Well since Elizabeth Warren gets to be a self-declared Native American and it's now racist/sexist to question her status I figure we all can be too. So the first task for the Moron Nation is to come up with a more fitting name rather than the one your paleface parents gave you.

Here's mine based on this all-scientific-and-stuff computer-based generator.

But if you don't like the results of that one, well I gots this one:

Don't like these? Well then your name must be Yanishka Machakw meaning 'one who is never satisfied and whines like a woman'.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:54 PM | Comments (843)
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What?

Actually they're making a point about critics who have suggested that Elizabeth Warren dishonestly (or at least unwarrantedly) benefited from Affirmative Action, given her, um, purported Cherokee heritage. So one of her spykswymyn vents:

“If Scott Brown has questions about Elizabeth Warren’s well-known qualifications — from her high marks as a teacher to her nationally recognized work on bankruptcy and the pressures on middle class families – he ought to ask them directly instead of hiding behind the nasty insinuations of his campaign and trying to score political points. Once again, the qualifications and ability of a woman are being called into question by Scott Brown who did the same thing with the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan. It’s outrageous.”

So it's an attack on the qualifications of women, or something.

But if Elizabeth Warren's career was advanced owing something to this apparently bogus "family lore" about her Cherokee heritage -- well, that's already an issue. It becomes a Big Honking Issue if in fact she's lying about her "Cherokee heritage."

Posted by: Ace at 03:45 PM | Comments (460)
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Perfect!

We're not biased -- You are!

Here's the headline:

Public has its own biases about media

Chiefly, that the media is biased.

The guy's argument seems to be that the media, as a whole, has some conservative elements (Fox News, etc.) which "balance" the rest of it so that, as a whole, it's not liberally biased.

There are several problems with this. First of all, FoxNews and Rush Limbaugh cannot possibly balance ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The NYT, the LAT, the Washington Post, and all of the big newspaper conglomerates.

Further, even if it were the case that a few conservative elements of the media balanced, as a whole, the liberal parts of the media, the liberal parts of the media would themselves still be liberal.

Let's say that FoxNews can balance one major news organization's leftwing tilt -- say, CBS'. Okay, fine. CBS tilts left and Fox tilts right and they cancel each other out.

But CBS is still liberal, isn't it?

The guy simply seems bad at, what's the word, thinking.

UPDATE[DiT]: He's also bad at crawfishing. Today the headline reads "How Biased Are the Media Really?"

Posted by: Ace at 02:23 PM | Comments (205)
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She's now claiming she doesn't know if she told Harvard she was part Indian.

Somehow that just ended up in Harvard's bio of her -- but I suppose maybe they thought she just "looked Cherokee" or something.

Now she claims she doesn’t “recall” if she played the race card when she applied for her big-wampum $350,000-a-year job at Harvard Law. You see, it was so many moons — I mean years, ago. Sounds like a lot of bull — Sitting Bull.

She even said she knew nothing about Harvard Law bragging about her alleged Indian heritage until she read about it in the Herald. More Sitting Bull from the Veritas crowd.

Granny knows how this plays out from here. A group of Indians — real Indians — will demand that she release her employment application to Harvard Law, so we can see what box she really checked off under race, as if we don’t already have a pretty good idea.

Is this claim credible?

“I don’t even remember,” she added when asked about a 1996 Harvard Crimson article that quoted a then-law school spokesman touting her minority status. “You’re trying to raise something from 15 years ago.”

Her GOP Senate rival, U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, said today the story raises “some questions that need to be answered.” Brown’s campaign went further calling on Warren to apologize for allowing Harvard to claim she was part Native American.

“For years, Harvard has claimed special minority status for Professor Elizabeth Warren as a member of a Native American tribe and their first minority hire,” said Jim Barnett, campaign manager for Brown. “That Warren allowed Harvard to hold her up as an example of their commitment to diversity in the hiring of historically disadvantaged communities is an insult to all Americans who have suffered real discrimination and mistreatment, and Warren should apologize for participating in this hypocritical sham.”

Pictured: a wild-eyed savage delighting in the destruction of the civilization of the West; and a Cherokee warrior, ca. 1836

David Bernstein of Volokh looks into Warren's claim that she has no idea how Harvard got the idea she was an Indian.

The old AALS Directory of Faculty guides are online (through academic libraries) at Hein Online. The directories starting listing minority faculty in an appendix in 1986. ThereÂ’s Elizabeth Warren, listed as a professor at Texas. I spot-checked three additional directories from when she was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, including 1995-96, the year Harvard offered her a position. Elizabeth Warren, Elizabeth Warren, Elizabeth Warren.

So, we know one thing with almost 100% certainty: Elizabeth Warren identified herself as a minority law professor. We know something else with 90%+ certainty: (at least some) folks at Harvard were almost certainly aware that she identified as a minority law professor, though they may not have known which ethnic group she claimed to be belong to, and it may not have played any role in her hiring.

But it gets even more interesting: once Warren joined the Harvard faculty, she dropped off the list of minority law faculty. Now thatÂ’s passing strange. When the AALS directory form came around before Warren arrived at Harvard, she was proud enough of her Native American ancestry to ask that she be listed among the minority law professors. (Or, in the unlikely even that she just allowed law school administrators to fill out the forms for her without reviewing them, they were aware that she claimed such ancestry, and she didnÂ’t object when she was listed.) Once she arrived at Harvard, however, she no longer chose to be listed as a minority law professor.

You Know When I Said Nothing Untoward Would Occur In Your Mouth?

...that was just part of my "Family's lore." See, if it it's "family lore," it doesn't have to be true.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:19 PM | Comments (342)
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It just so happens that MSNBC crafted its own slogan a year or so back, and that was "Lean Forward."

So this is the one-word slogan to replace 2008's "Change."

More honest would be "Downward:"

Or maybe Upward, if we're talking debt.

RD did this one:

And this one too:

Posted by: Ace at 12:52 PM | Comments (232)
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A little earlier than scheduled -- because on that day the quarterly GDP growth estimate for the 3rd Quarter.

And it appears that the economy is slowing -- and it was already stagnant.

Now you may wonder if Obama would permit any sort of 1% or lower reading on the economy, or would demand it be fudged upwards.

But that's a silly thing to wonder. Of course he'll demand it be "revised."

[A Goldman forecaster] said she agrees with Goldman economist Jan Hatzius’s forecast of the second half being more “difficult” than the first. “We have seen some deceleration in economic activity” after a mild winter that might have “puffed up” seasonal growth in the first quarter, she said.

Pethokoukis almost exclaims:

Wait, the second half will be “more difficult” than the first? We might be lucky to have 2% growth in the first half.

This may be the best Obama can do.

But it's not the best America can do.

As Goes California... ...so goes the nation?

A lot of people throw the word "unsustainable" around without really appreciating its simple meaning: This will not be sustained. It will end.

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 PM | Comments (166)
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Wait 'till you hear this.

A controversial anti-obesity “slush fund” under Obamacare was used in Nashville, Tennessee to spay dogs and cats. The reasoning: stray dogs scare people from exercising outdoors.

And cats?

They fear cats, too?

Gee, it sure sounds like people are using government money, appropriated by Congress for specific constitutionally-approved uses, for any damn thing they like.

Maybe we should try that "Old System" where dollars were used for the purpose intended, and we didn't appropriate as many of them, so it was easier to keep a handle on whether or not our system of free government was actually operating as required by the Constitution.

via @slublog and @fredosso

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (177)
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Lovitz is surprised at the criticism he's getting--

Another good, sensible tweet at the link, where he proclaims the economy isn't "Democrat or Republican," it's "business and math." Or "profits and earnings ratio," as the Idiot King might say.

Here's a telling Tweet by Lovitz:

@AstroNerdBoy I have blasted Bush…. in my stand up act.. no one commented on it, though.—
Jon Lovitz (@realjonlovitz) April 29, 2012

Well, that's probably not true. I'm sure some conservatives did comment on it. But then, Lovitz didn't hear it. The Two Minute Hate wasn't declared.

He attempts to define "liberal" to non-liberals. And I don't mean conservatives. I mean what's typically termed "liberal," now, but is as illiberal as you can be.

@BowedOak excuse me… the President is lying… I just pointed it out. It's not my fault he's lying.—
Jon Lovitz (@realjonlovitz) April 29, 2012

I haven't gotten any backlash. I am a Democrat and liberalÂ…

Liberal, from the word "Liberty"
Freedom to be who you are..—
Jon Lovitz (@realjonlovitz) April 29, 2012

...

be it conservative, democrat, republican, libertarian..
liberal.. freedom to be true to yourselfÂ…
that's what liberal means.—
Jon Lovitz (@realjonlovitz) April 29, 2012

@HesDanTheMan I don't mind paying a little more. I pay my fair share now. The President is lying to get votes..it's obvious and transparent.—
Jon Lovitz (@realjonlovitz) April 29, 2012

@LawyerGraham @AP
well, you've proven my point. you believe the propaganda. I know what I am paying in taxes. You are being lied to.—
Jon Lovitz (@realjonlovitz) April 29, 2012

I was upset with the President LYING. I pay my fair share of taxes and so does everyone else I know who is in the same tax bracket.—
Jon Lovitz (@realjonlovitz) April 29, 2012

There's video of the comments at the link. Previously we heard only the audio.

Posted by: Ace at 11:17 AM | Comments (170)
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This isn't really news, but it's worth mentioning.

I'm going to bold-face some words from this story.

“We’re looking to maximize revenue and maximize the reputation of 1 World Trade Center,” Douglas Durst, who is building the Freedom Tower in partnership with the Port Authority, told The Post.

The antenna business alone could easily rake in $10 million in revenue, estimates show.

...

“You’ve got to get people back to thinking of the trade center not as a site of an attack but as a center of commerce,” said one person who has been involved with the reconstruction of lower Manhattan.

“You’ve got to think about it as a real-estate thing. And real estate is transactional — it’s about competition and retail and tourists.”

I don't know these people's politics. Given where they live, and their income level, I would put money on them being liberal Democrats.

So here's why I bolded those words:

The left frequently speaks as if Commerce Is Theft.

And yet here you have people, who I would bet are liberal, speaking of commerce and competition and "maximizing" revenue as if, get this, those are good things.

You will often hear Hollywood people demanding tax breaks for local production. Otherwise, they say, they cannot profitably make movies in the US, and will film them in Canada.

And then, having pronounced that Taxation Reduces Economic Activity, they will turn around and donate $1 million to Barack Hussein Obama.

In their hearts they know these things the left claims -- Commerce Is Theft, Profit Is Evil -- are false. In their daily lives, they know this.

But at voting time, they counterfeit their beliefs. They convince themselves that even though they know Profit is Not Evil, good people speak falsehoods, and good people declare things which are false to be true.

It's not true-- but good people insist it is. And so they do.

Very strange self-deception. And to what end? In what code is falsehood superior to truth?

Below, video of the tower, lower levels mostly finished, top levels still needing their skin.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:39 AM | Comments (116)
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Statistically insignificant, but you knew that.

But at least that six/seven point lead has evaporated.

This seems like a swingy poll to me. I can't imagine any actual motivating factors that might have pushed Obama into a seven point lead a week ago, or then taken that lead away this week.

I keep saying I'll ignore the polls. I guess I'm lying.

But I guess the take-away here is that seven point swings back and forth aren't any big deal in Gallup's polling.

Posted by: Ace at 09:21 AM | Comments (258)
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