HEH: Fair trade coffee worse than regular coffee.

It's called 'gaming the system'.

MEN NEED NOT APPLY: Government sets aside contracts for women-owned firms only. And in practice, the rule is rather easy to get around. Back in the late 70's, when I was in graduate school and SBA preferences were first granted to women-owned businesses, a friend of mine and another doctoral candidate used the opportunity to put his little business in his wife's name to get a competitive advantage. At the time of his death in 2009, he was President of the same business he started in 1976.

For more information on women-owned set-asides, go here.

WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' CONGRESS: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Friday that he will unilaterally override the math and reading proficiency requirements of the No Child Left Behind law.

PRESIDENT OBAMA will speak to the nation at 1 p.m. EDT today. Does any one not expect him to announce that the Department of Justice will open an investigation into the rating agencies for downgrading the U.S. bond rating?

[Update] It's 1:45 p.m. and the President is still in his bunker.... And Bret Baier (Fox News broadcast) just made the same point I've been making: my 401K is nearing a 201K.

[Update II] Well, I was wrong -- he went back to "tax the rich" again.

OUR CHILDREN respond to our debt crisis solution.

PRESIDENT OBAMA is bringing the Left and Right together -- both hate his policies.

EARNED SUCCESS, not unearned income.

RYAN LIZZA has a profile of Rep. Michele Bachmann in the latest New Yorker. Lizza says Bachmann’s rise “is based on a collection of right-wing convictions, beliefs, and resentments that she has regularly broadcast from television studios and podiums since 2006, when she was first elected to Congress.”

Hmm. Then could her current popularity be the result of leadership as opposed to the President's followership?

GOES TO SHOW how important the Washington Post has become. When I went out to pick up the newspapers this morning, I found I hadn't bothered to pick up yesterday's Post (the Washington Times doesn't publish on weekends).

IT ISN'T CIGARETTES.

HMM. I just checked my Shadow's World sitemeter, and since 8:47 a.m. EDT and I've had a total of 5 hits (in less than an hour) to this post from last April. Could it be that there are a lot of internet users out there who are keyword searching "escape plan"?

IT'S A TEA PARTY DOWNGRADE. Oh, really?

Let’s take a walk down memory lane. What did the Democrats do with respect to federal debt during the four years they controlled both Houses of Congress? Here is a summary of the deficits the Democrats racked up during that time:

FY 2008 — $460 billion
FY 2009 — $1,410 billion ($1.4 trillion)
FY 2010 — $1,300 billion ($1.3 trillion)
FY 2011 — $1,600 (estimated) ($1.6 trillion)

Of the $14.5 trillion national debt, nearly $4.8 trillion–one-third of the total–was incurred during that four-year period when the Congress was exclusively controlled by the Democrats.

Read it all.

WHY REPUBLICANS must win in 2012.

THE SCULPTOR: Sometimes you have to pay attention to detail.

WHY IS OBAMA so clueless about the Tea Party?

He's not clueless; he's scared.

CIRCULAR REASONING.

THIS VIDEO came to me via a comment on an unrelated link.


Ignoring the mispellings throughout, it is a well-crafted, even touching, artistic effort. But ... on the same day I received this video, I received an email from a friend with photos of another Africa. Here are some of those photos:


Ghana

Tanzania

Sudan

Now the photos in the video are real, no doubt about that. But so are the photos above (more here). So why don't we hear about Africa's efforts to help their own?

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE is a pipe dream. It is as long as America cannot fully utilize our own resources.

VIDEO: Rich man, poor man?

THE MARKET IS CRASHING; what should I do? Vote in 2012.