ABOUT TIME: DOJ Inspector General will investigate Obama voting rights record. I credit Pajamas Media for supporting - and publicizing - former Justice Department lawyer J. Christian Adams’ assertions of DOJ skullduggery.

PARTICIPATION OF RELIGIOUS, MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS in the public discourse is “dangerous for America.”

LET THE PRIVATE SECTOR fund stem-cell research. Jeff Jacoby asks the fundamental question: Why should the federal government be funding controversial medical research in the first place?

But the question he asks is too limited: in more general terms, is there a real need for government sponsorship of any research? Much is just plain silly, and that which isn’t can almost certainly find private sector funding.

MATH ERROR: Improper use of statistics is widespread, and the error is valid. That said, it follows that there are at least two common assumptions about school and teacher performance that should be reconsidered: (1) smaller class sizes are better, and (2) teachers should be evaluated annually based on student test performance. The statistical properties upon which these assumptions are based are exactly the same.

THE MORE THE PLANS FAIL, the more the planners plan.

STATE FARM SIGN - in Mandeville , LA.


An insurance company I could learn to love.

PAJAMAS MEDIA CONTRIBUTOR ZOMBIE has a fascinating series of posts on American education. The first four (Ideological Warfare; What’s the Matter with Texas?; Indoctrination Nation; and In Pursuit of Cultural Hegemony) describe the state of American education. Read them all.

Part V (Proposals for an Educational Renaissance) contain his proposals for reform. In a nutshell, they are:

STRUCTURE

• Introduce competition into the educational marketplace
• Encourage homeschooling
• Break the monopoly of public education, but keep it as a safety net

CURRICULUM

• Get back to basics
• End the practice of mass-adoption of a few major textbooks
• Form centrist national pressure groups to make textbooks indoctrination-free
• Get politics and religion out of science classes
• Introduce and popularize “skills survey” courses

PEDAGOGY

• Group students by ability, not age or ethnicity; bring back “tracking”
• Have “small schools” or “departments” within large high schools
• Allow teachers with creative ideas to be idiosyncratic

TRANSPARENCY/INDEPENDENCE

• Parental notification
• Break the teachers’ unions
• Bring back competition and individuality

Some I agree with; others not. But all are worthy of consideration and discussion.

ARE VOTERS really “going to turn the reins of the Congress over to these [Republicans] people who are more and more dominated by the wacko right?"

Uh, yes. Of the three stages of grief (denial, anger, depression), Democrats are still in denial. Anger and depression will follow November 2nd.

IT’S MOOT TO ME: John Galt can vote any day of the week.

IN “THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW”, the New York Times’ op-ed columnist David Brooks continues to burnish his Goofus MacDuff credentials.

Republicans are right to oppose the current concentration of power in Washington. But once that is halted, America faces a series of problems that can’t be addressed simply by getting government out of the way.

So far, so good. But here’s where Brooks jumps to the wrong conclusion.

The social fabric is fraying. Human capital is being squandered. Society is segmenting. The labor markets are ill. Wages are lagging. Inequality is increasing. The nation is overconsuming and underinnovating. China and India are surging. Not all of these challenges can be addressed by the spontaneous healing powers of the market.

No conservative I know argues that “all challenges can be addressed by the spontaneous healing powers of the market”; rather we argue that most - if not all - these challenges have been created by an energetic - and unlimited - government.

GREEN SHIRTS and eliminationist rhetoric. Personally, I think we’re extraordinarily lucky so far that the violence-prone Left is so extraordinarily incompetent.

THE NANNY STATE HAS BLOWN THE BANK. ”The closest thing I can see to hope is currently invested in the tea party movement .... Notwithstanding the slanders heaped upon it, this movement is good-willed, riot-free, indeed situationally non-urban, and under the leadership of basically sane people.”

BIG SURPRISE: The public hates almost everything Congressional Democrats have done.

WELL, HE’S AN HONEST THIEF: Virginia congressman admits “If you don’t tie our hands, we will keep stealing.”

ANOTHER PROPOSAL FROM OBAMA TO THROW YOUR MONEY AWAY. It’s not about job creation, it’s about control.

PRETTY WORDS: the money of fools.

Read them all.

IN AN ERA in which university people proliferate in this administration and seem to make things far worse for the rest of us, we need to be reminded why we should not look to the university for answers.

FOR ALL MY COMPLAINING about House Minority Leader John Boehner, he is at least getting under the Obama media’s skin. Then scroll down a bit, to the next item:

These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For

The New York Times editorial page joins the attack on Boehner in a way that shows the Old Gray Lady to be especially out of touch with American culture:

For far too long, Mr. Boehner and others have been dominating the political debate with insincere sound bites, Jedi mind games and plain bad economics. How can they claim to care about the deficit and insist on more tax cuts?

Jedi mind games? Are the Times editorialists really unaware that in "Star Wars," the Jedis were the good guys? Next they'll be likening President Obama to poor, misunderstood Darth Vader, whom people mistrusted only because he was black.

Heh.

GLENN BECK has started a news site/blog.

I REALLY GET SCARED when you start to make sense....