To note the anniversary of the murder of 2,996 of our fellow citizens (and foreigners, too, working in the US) is "porn." Distasteful, crude, and leaving you with a dirty feeling.

If it is uncouth to note that Osama bin Ladin ordered the murder of 2,996 innocent civilians eleven years ago, why did we not hear more about this during Barack "Gutsy Call" Obama's big party in Charlotte?

If this is such a minor thing -- did the left get word to Obama? Because Obama was rather delighted with himself in making his "Gutsy Call."

Oh, meanwhile, NBC does it the way only NBC can -- they decide to skip the moment of silence for 9/11 to discuss the breasts implants of a Lesser Kardashian.

Glad they skipped the 9/11 porn for this edifying material.

Posted by: Ace at 12:39 PM | Comments (88)
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"For the children." Don't forget this. It's for the children.

I'm also re-posting this stuff from the previous post, because I added it late.

What Are They Striking Over? Not pay. They're specifically striking in opposition to 1, strict evaluations of their performance and 2, shockingly, their demand that bad teachers, previously laid off for poor performance, be rehired.

Let me note this very obvious but underappreciated fact: The most loyal troopers for any union are the worst performing at their actual jobs. And the union, in return, is most loyal to them.

Think about it: People who are doing their jobs well do not need the union as much, if at all. They might be pro-union, but at the end of the day, people who are good at their jobs know two things:

1. It is unlikely they will be fired or laid off. Well, in a normal economy it's unlikely. Even in this economy, it's less likely.

2. Even if they were, for some reason, fired or laid off, they would have a reasonable expectation of finding new employment after a short time of unemployment. Again, with the caveat: In a normal economy.

So, who really, really needs the union to fight like hell for bad workers? The bad workers do, of course.

And who then provides the unions with their most fervent shock troops? The bad workers-- because they are under small illusion about their employability without a union fighting to keep them in their jobs, despite their incompetence.

This is why the unions are so against evaluations and performance review -- while there are good teachers in the union, the good teachers are not the real clients of the union.

The real clients of the union are the bad teachers.

Consider performance-based pay. Now, in any group, one third of the people will get more money. One third will neither get less nor get more. One third will, in a regime in which pay is based on performance, get less.

So, in any union, there should not really be a firm opinion on merit-based pay. There is no overwhelming majority against it, nor for it. It breaks pretty evenly into pro/neutral/anti.

And yet the teachers unions are always stridently against merit-based pay. Why? Because their real clients are the bottom-feeders, the most marginal of workers.

The higher-performers know they really don't need the union -- and the union knows they know that.

Their dedicated shock troops, their most fervent street-beaters, are those who know that without a union, they wouldn't have a job, period.

I look at these videos of angry, spit-foaming chanters in the street and I don't hear their stupid rhymes. I hear one thing: I'm hanging by a thread and I know it.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:11 PM | Comments (275)
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Whose schools? Their schools, they chant.

Keep the following numbers in mind for the next time a public-sector union official starts lecturing you about social justice.

In Chicago, 85 percent of the roughly 400,000 public school students are either African American or Latino. A similar percentage receives free or reduced-price meals, which means these students live at or near the poverty line: $27,214 for a family of three, in a typical case.

Chicago teachers go on strike after talks with district officials fail: Tens of thousands of Chicago teachers and support staff went on strike Monday for the first time since 1987. The strike comes after school district officials and the Chicago Teachers Union did not reach an agreement over teachersÂ’ contracts.

The average public-school teacher in Chicago earned almost triple that amount — $76,000 per year, according to the school district. In contract negotiations this year, Chicago Public Schools offered an average total pay increase of 16 percent over four years.

...

[L]etÂ’s just say events in Chicago illustrate rather dramatically the contradictions between public-sector unionism and the efficient delivery of vital public services.

A very good post from a Green Room-er at Hot Air, which includes this video from the Illinois Policy Institute.

Whose schools? Yours, right?
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Posted by: Ace at 11:14 AM | Comments (266)
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Remember, Obama's now running as the Foreign Policy President.

Update at 2:07 p.m. ET: CNN reports that U.S. security guards fired a volley of warning shots as the crowd gathered outside the embassy walls.

CNN adds that the embassy had been expecting a demonstration and cleared all diplomatic personnel earlier from the facility.

Original post: The Associated Press reports that embassy officials say there was no staff inside at the time.

Reuters reports that protesters tried to raise a black flag carrying the slogan: "There is no god but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger."

Change without hope.

This is apparently about a film, which I don't see actually linked, and which may not even actually exist, which shows Mohammad, who married a 9 year old, having sex, which makes it a "desecration" of a "sanctity," or something.

The US embassy of course released a statement condemning the film (which, again, I'm not even sure even exists):

"We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others," the U.S. embassy said in its statement.

This just encourages them. Violence works. Why shouldn't they continue?

Meanwhile, The Foreign Policy President (TM) has refused to a request by Netanyahu for a meeting.

Note the mask warn by the "protester" at top right.
A Guy Fawkes mask, so beloved by Occupy.

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (439)
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Incidentally, the Democrats claim, and the media claims with them, that the drop in the US credit rating was due to Republican brinksmanship on the debt. That it was only the Republicans' pushing the debt deal to the brink that caused the drop in credit rating.

Two problems with that: 1, doesn't that mean that since the debt real was reached the credit rating should be restored? And yet it wasn't.

2, well, this story, making it clear that it was not Republicans' demands that we get debt under control that caused the drop in credit rating. Rather, it was, get this, the debt itself. The debt Republicans wanted to do something about.

If those negotiations lead to specific policies that produce a
stabilization and then downward trend in the ratio of federal debt to
GDP over the medium term, the rating will likely be affirmed and the
outlook returned to stable, says MoodyÂ’s.

If those negotiations fail to produce such policies, however,
MoodyÂ’s would expect to lower the rating, probably to Aa1.

Currently Moody's rates the US as AAA, but with "negative outlook." They do not think they will keep the rating that way through 2014 -- either the negative outlook will be cured, or it will result in a downgrade.

Germany's Worried, Too: The Narrative ignores the concerns of German ministers.

Ahead of the election in the United States there is great uncertainty about the course American politics will take in dealing the U.S. government's debts, which are much too high," Schaeuble said. "We need to remind ourselves of that sometimes and the global economy knows that and is burdened by it."

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (174)
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Pretty good video from Andrew Klavan.

Take-away quote:

This is called Keynsian economics, in which the government goes into debt by spending money it doesn't have to create jobs that don't exist which generate wealth that never was that can then be taxed to create more debt.

Andrew Klavan is the editor of Poop Magazine.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:38 AM | Comments (83)
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Among likely voters, it's 49-48, edge Obama, but that's statistically meaningless. It's also virtually unchanged since their last one.

But among a wider sample of all registered voters, Obama holds an apparent edge, topping Romney at 50 percent to 44 percent, and has clear advantages on important issues in the campaign when compared with his rival.

And? What do all adults think? Note they're spending a lot more money to poll likely voters (it takes more calls to find a good number of likely voters) and yet seem to immediately discard the expensive, better, more predictive data they found, in favor of the cheaper, worse, less predictive data they like a bit better.

People keep talking about the "Freak Out." I don't think there's been a huge Freak Out, although you always know something's going on when people start pitching advice to Romney.

It's less a Freak Out that we've fallen -- maybe -- slightly behind than exasperation that something we've been expecting -- for people to realize This isn't working -- isn't happening.

The race appears tied, pretty much. This exasperates many of us -- like me -- because, 1, how the hell???? and 2, I'm getting psychologically burned out from being in a state of anticipation/anxiety.

And one big possible shift has gone and passed, as Krauthammer says.

The problem for Romney is that there were only four events [that] could change the course [of the race]: the three debates and the conventions, and he apparently squandered the first. Â…

They had an opportunity, particularly in the last night of the convention, which ended up as a strange night. The big problem that Romney hasÂ… is the empathy gap. The reason that Obama is still in the race is because everybody thinks he cares. That word appeared 1,000 times in the Democratic convention. And they were trying to show it [of Romney] in Tampa. They had some wonderful character witnesses who didnÂ’t show up in [the] crucial 10:00 hour. Instead you had the Clint Eastwood show that monopolized all the water cooler discussion for three days. ThatÂ’s a tactical error and thatÂ’s an opportunity that is.

Which is something that's been occurring to me a lot lately -- why not take these testimonials and make ads out of them? If the public didn't see it the first time, spend some money, give them more chances to see it.

Those testimonials were deeply affecting. I know on this site, most were saying stuff like "Why do I want to hear from these people?" and fifteen minutes later were crying.

Drew's Take: I posted just a moment or two after Drew. Here's his take on this.

He references WaPo's urgent citation of Registered Voters:

I'll take "Things That Don't Matter One Whit for a thousand Alex. What are, "registered voter polls two months out from an election?" But hey, WaPo/ABC have to cheer up the home team somehow.

As Ed points out at Hot Air, this poll shows Romney up 11% with independents.

It seems screwy that Romney could be up that much with indys and yet be basically even with Obama overall. I guess you have to believe after 4 years of No Hope and Change for the Worse Democrats are going to turn out in even greater numbers than 2008. Good luck with that.

Meanwhile, you can by my damn electoral College predictor phone app (now for iOS devices) and play with the numbers til your heart's content! Apple, Droid and Kindle versions for everyone!

Posted by: Ace at 08:44 AM | Comments (440)
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I was debating whether or not to post this today since it's a day of mourning (my personal evolution on 9/11 remembrances are here) but the left is using the day to take shots at George W. Bush, so off we go.

The big story is a new book that basically says Bush had a lot more intel about possible attacks by al Qaeda but because he had his heart set on invading Iraq, he didn't take them seriously enough. I gather that's the gist of a new book on the topic from the author's op-ed in the New York Times today.

On April 10, 2004, the Bush White House declassified that daily brief — and only that daily brief — in response to pressure from the 9/11 Commission, which was investigating the events leading to the attack. Administration officials dismissed the document’s significance, saying that, despite the jaw-dropping headline, it was only an assessment of Al Qaeda’s history, not a warning of the impending attack. While some critics considered that claim absurd, a close reading of the brief showed that the argument had some validity.

That is, unless it was read in conjunction with the daily briefs preceding Aug. 6, the ones the Bush administration would not release. While those documents are still not public, I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administrationÂ’s reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed. In other words, the Aug. 6 document, for all of the controversy it provoked, is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it.

The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.

But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservativesÂ’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.

In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.

The author is careful to say that there's no way to know if the attack could have been stopped if Bush had been more active but you know, wink-wink-nudge-nudge.

Let's assume all of this is true (I don't but play along)...what exactly was Bush supposed to do? Even if he personally knew the names of the hijackers, their locations at any given moment and what planes they would use what was he going to do? He's not Batman.

If the CIA or any other government agency knew this information why didn't they a- Tell Bush and more importantly b- Stop the damn plot?

Did the CIA go running to the White House and say, "Look what we found! Can we stop it please?" Were there some authorities or tools they needed that Bush refused them? If the bin Laden team at CIA was so sure of their intel (not specific info on times, names, places) what did they want from the President? A pat on the back?

The real culprit for hampering the ability to "connect the dots" (if they could have been connected) is Bill Clinton and his FBI/CIA wall. Of course the people ultimately responsible for 9/11 are the murderous Islamists we've been killing by the score for 11 years. The rest is just political gamesmanship.

What I'd really like to see is a Venn Diagram of people who think there were dots waiting to be connected if only Bush had pushed for it to be done and people who deny Iran has a nuclear weapons program.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:16 AM | Comments (310)
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Eleven years, I can hardly believe it. As you go about your day, keep in mind not just the people who died on 9/11 but also our service members and allied service members who have died since then to ensure that 9/11 never happens again.

In news, I hereby officially declare the Obama Clinton convention bounce over.

A Democratic poll out of Minnesota has Rep. Bachmann up only 2 points over her challenger Jim Graves. I find it hard to believe, but it's something to keep an eye on.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (637)
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Battle Royale: In a Mass Knife Fight to the Death Between Every American President Who Would Win?

Of course I'd be remiss if I didn't cover this.

The rules are pretty simple -

• Every president is in the best physical and mental condition they were ever in throughout the course of their presidency. Fatal maladies have been cured, but any lifelong conditions or chronic illnesses (e.g. FDR's polio) remain. FDR gets a special combat wheelchair.
• Each president has been given one standard-issue Gerber LHR Combat Knife. Assume the presidents have no training outside any combat experiences they may have had in their own lives.
• There is no penalty for avoiding combat for an extended period of time. Hiding and/or playing dead could be valid strategies, but there can be only one winner. The melee will go on as long as it needs to.
• If it's your first time at presidential fight club, you HAVE TO fight.

So who would be the final winner?

Well my bet would be on Andrew Jackson or Zachary Taylor since they were both career fighting men used to killing people with axes and blades. Likewise Teddy Roosevelt would probably make the top 3.

I think George Washington would do well but still fall at another president's hand. And I suspect George H and George W. Bush in their prime would be strong contenders since they'd likely fight as a team and be willing to give their lives to protect the other. Then there are always wild cards like Chester Arthur or Nixon who might be worth taking a flyer on.

On the other hand most everyone seems to agree that Jimmy Carter would the first to be killed and that Jackson wherever he placed in the end would probably have the most kills.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:47 PM | Comments (749)
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