A pair of mismatched Houston Chronicle articles demonstrates the failed nature of Texas’ state education standards. First, the bad news: The number of Texas school districts rate by the state as “academically unacceptable” has increased to its highest level ever. Next, the even worse news: Texas’ new school rating system … helped record numbers of…
Month: July 2009
Twitter Updates for 2009-07-31
Touching interview with Neda's mother (http://bit.ly/kriVk) who wants her child remembered. Khameini should remember her too #iranelection # Powered by Twitter Tools.
U.S. Tax Policy Must Regress
In a short, direct article Scott Hodge debunks one of the radical left’s essential talking points, namely that the American rich don’t pay enough taxes to support their poorer countrymen. On the contrary, the U.S. system is more liberal than any other country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Another Pelosi-ism: Immoral Insurance Companies
Maybe Nancy Pelosi had a bad encounter with her auto insurance company recently. Admittedly I don’t know the speaker’s motivations, but that’s as good a way as any to explain her spastic attack on health insurance companies earlier today:
“It’s almost immoral what they are doing,” Pelosi said to reporters, referring to insurance companies. “Of course they’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure,” she said, adding, “They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way.”
Health care companies have been the villain in more than one end-of-life scenario in recent years. That’s not news. But are medical providers truly immoral organizations, corporations whose very existence demands that the government act to drive them out of business?
Twitter Updates for 2009-07-30
Kos says Repubs do committee chairs better than Dems (http://bit.ly/OSa1o). Problem is that replacing Baucus and Lieberman hurts the country # Sudan’s whipping of women called “degrading” (http://bit.ly/A73jd). True. But primitive, asinine, and criminal are more apt adjectives. # Obama DoJ official approved dropping Black Panther intimidation charges (http://bit.ly/1STWwY). It’s OK to bully people out…
Hiatus
Black Shards will be on hiatus until 8/1/2009. Please check back then for more updates. I’ll be making occasional entries on Twitter until then. Thanks, Marc
Obama Strikes the Right Tone on Africa
President Obama’s speech Ghana was televised across the African continent and in it Mr. Obama delivered the message that Africans have needed to hear for many decades, that after all of the history between the people of the continent and the outside world – western exploitation, remuneration, and billions in foreign aid – it’s up to Africans themselves to bring stability and hope to their own countries.
Sotomayor Backers Prepare to Oppo Firefighter
Is there no depth to which liberal ideologues will not stoop? It seems that some of Sonia Sotomayor’s more devoted advocates are preparing to aim a campaign of “scrutiny” at Frank Ricci, the New Haven, Connecticut firefighter who sued the city for promoting less-qualified minority firefighters at the expense of whites.
If they perform the same sort of murderous character assassination on Ricci as they’ve done in the past to Robert Bork and more recently to Joe the Plumber, and Sarah Palin, the dyslexic fireman won’t have a chance.
Mormons Murdered in Mexico Were Real Men
Two leaders of Colonia LeBaron, a Mormon community with roots in the United State, were murdered because they dared to defy the drug/kidnapping gangs that have killed more than 3000 people in Chihuahua, Mexico in the last 18 months.
Benjamin LeBaron, 31 and Luis Widmar were forced out of their homes earlier this week and shot multiple times by gangsters who want to ensure that people in Chihuahua stay afraid of them. Both men died.
The tactic may well work. It’s been said that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Sadly, doing nothing is the easiest thing to do in a conflict, a fact that goes a long way toward explaining the state of Mexico and the world at large.
Pic: Why Gun Control is a Bad Idea
Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own pantyhose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound. Enough said.