THE NEXT INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION IN WHICH THE U.S. WILL EXCEL: competitive texting. Of 34 countries participating in the Program for International Student Assessment, U.S. students ranked 17th overall in science, 14th in reading, and 25th in math. American students prefer to “text,” “socialize,” and “watch Youtube videos.”

According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the solution to our poor international standing is the adoption of national curriculum standards and revamping teacher pay to reward performance rather than credentials and seniority.

Marybeth Hicks responds:

Yo, Arnie. Merit pay for teachers is not the problem.

More likely, the problem rests at the feet of the teacher education elite, who long ago usurped American public education for the cause of social justice and social engineering. Thanks to their “child centered” pedagogy, we’re more concerned about righting injustice than teaching kids the knowledge and skills they will need to be truly competitive, self-sufficient and successful.

We’re infusing self-esteem, while in far away Finland, Australia and South Korea, they’re simply teaching math, science and reading to a eager population of knowledge-thirsty learners. This would explain why their kids are acing the tests, while ours aren’t.

We’re infusing self-esteem, while in far away Finland, Australia and South Korea, they’re simply teaching math, science and reading.

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE that sentient human beings can zealously adopt a political position so contrary common sense and remain glued to its premises in the face of all contradictory evidence?

The answer to the enigma ... may lie in the realm of molecular biology. A recent groundbreaking discovery suggests that there may well be a “second genesis” for life on earth, predicated on a microbe that has replaced the element of phosphorus necessary for life with the lethal element of arsenic in its structure, thus “break[ing] the unity of biochemistry.” Moreover, according to NASA astrobiologist Mary Voytek, the microbes “have the arsenic in the basic building blocks of their makeup,” implying the existence of a “shadow biosphere” on the planet.

Here we may have come upon the real explanation for the leftist and liberal orientation in the human mind. Since it is so not amendable to the lessons of experience and persists in opposition to the indisputable verities of political life, it must owe its vigor and longevity to a different chemical architecture at the very source of its engendering. Socialism is likely the product of a shadow biosphere and may have taken root in the halomonadaceae family of bacteria, from which it evolved into such notable, arsenic-based life-forms as Karl Marx, Saul Alinsky, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, George Soros, and even Barack Obama. Lounge liberals and lesser creatures like Frank Rich of the New York Times, Chris Matthews of MSNBC, or Aluf Benn of Haaretz would merely have lower concentrations of arsenic in their DNA.

I told you so.

WANT A VOICE IN WASHINGTON? Invest in a politician.

CALL IT THE ‘PORKBUSTER’ COMMITTEE. Republican Senator John R. Thune wants to create a permanent Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, which would recommend spending cuts that would receive expedited consideration by Congress: “Congress currently has 26 committees and subcommittees dedicated to spending money; I believe we ought to have at least one committee tasked with cutting spending.”

Linked from Fox News.

GOOD NEWS, AMERICA, Obama's been reined in.

BIG GOVERNMENT LOVES BIG BUSINESS - and vice versa: “Former OMB Director Peter Orszag taking a job at Citibank.”

WHATEVER. Most annoying word of the year.

NO LABELS: the Coffee Party by another name.

Democrat astroturf again. More here.

THE OBAMACARE ‘CHRISTMAS TREE’ gets trimmed.

"[T]he bill," Judge Hudson wrote, "embraces far more than health care reform. It is laden with provisions and riders patently extraneous to health care -- over 400 in all." He declined a deeper examination of Congress' intent with respect to severability because such an analysis "is difficult to apply in this case given the haste with which the final version of the 2,700-page bill was rushed to the floor for a Christmas Eve vote." The ruling highlights the amusing yet important lesson of Obamacare: Nothing good ever comes of thousand-page bills, legislative secrecy and extraneous special-interest riders.

Sheesh.

IT’S STUNNING, EVEN BY K STREET STANDARDS: The life insurance lobby spends millions to create the conditions (a high inheritance tax) from which it then promises to protect customers with its tax-free insurance products.

Save the rich (for a ‘small’ fee).

GOOD FOR HIM: Gov. Bob McDonnell proposes ending Virginia’s public broadcasting funding.

CONGRESS PASSES BILL to delay the Obama tax hike (more commonly known as the Bush tax cuts). Personally I wish this bill would also have been defeated, since I think the new Congress could drive a harder bargain next year. Now if Congress will just go home ....

THE DEATH OF THE OMNIBUS. You can thank your local Tea Party.