Pat Sajak, of Wheel of Fortune fame, has written an interesting article concerning style of argumentation published in Human Events.

(H.T. World Magazine Blog.)

My boss has a blog now.

There's lots of info about the Taxpayer Bill of Rights - his main, but by no means only, topic.

Today's column is up. I may be about to piss some people off.

It is generally considered good public relations policy to occasionally help the poor. So that is exactly what the other members of our think tank and I intend to do here. We desire to help out the poorest of the poor; the Democratic Party.

The present status of the Party is one of extreme paucity of ideas. As the squeaky wheels, the loudest of the self-righteous belligerents, spew their vacuous venom, the expectations for gains in the House, Senate, or the Presidency dwindle well below the poverty line. It is becoming increasingly difficult to sway and hold slack-jawed voters with heady claims of Utopia-via-the-esoteric-elite versus the-end-is-coming-soon-if-Bush-and-his-minions-are-allowed-their-way-another-minute. Even as our culture is flooded with relativity and post-modernism, words are still often expected to mean something tending toward the concrete. High sounding words such as justice and compassion are supposed to have more content than gaseous molecules violently vibrating vocal cords and tympanic membranes with the subsequent impulses traveling along the auditory nerve, stimulating neural production of endorphins that produce the characteristic euphoric self-esteem, and sending out auto-erotic pheromones arousing members of the same sub-species.

Progress will be extremely difficult. Envisioning ideas, public reasoning for their acceptance, implementing them, and having them respond with measurable success in the real world requires much intellectual and physical labor and patience.

Unfortunately for the Democrats that is following somewhat of the same path as President Bush. In many important areas he has used this formula through the implementation aspect and seems to be having palpable success. The Democrats’ dilemma is two-fold. First, they are way behind in that they have yet to envision many ideas to contribute to their growth. Second, they cannot allow George Bush to receive any credit.

While this think tank cannot offer much assistance to the Democrats in their brainstorming, we do know how they can short shrift Bush in accolades. They must come out in enthusiastic support of the teaching of Intelligent Design in the public schools. This strategy, if implemented, will offer two highly effective aces in their holes. First, they will gain much needed support from the toothless, knee-jerk religious right in elections. Second, and most importantly, they will be able to proclaim that any success in the policies of George W. Bush was simply the Providential acts of the Designer in spite of Bush’s ineptitude.

And you are very welcome, Mr. Dean.

Yahoo! News - Australia Scientists Grow Adult Stem Cells from Nose

SYDNEY (Reuters) - With the help of the Catholic Church, Australian researchers have successfully grown adult stem cells harvested from the human nose, avoiding the ethical and legal problems associated with embryonic stem cells.

You don't have to be smart to pitch in the big leagues.

Orioles' DuBose arrested for DUI

The report states (Baltimore Orioles pitcher Eric) DuBose informed Clark he had "a couple" drinks at the Cafe Gardens and Daquiri Deck in Sarasota. When instructed to recite the alphabet, DuBose allegedly said, "I'm from Alabama, and they have a different alphabet."

DuBose's alcohol level registered at .113 more than an hour after being stopped. The legal limit in Florida is .08.

I'm reminded of a boxing match I saw once - one boxer was getting beat pretty good, so the doctor comes to his corner to check on him. Asks him "what's four plus five?" The boxer pauses a moment, then says "I never went to school, man."

The Wisconsin State Journal's Bill Wineke has the solution for Social Security:

Even as the nation's politicians have been arguing about how to "save" Social Security, we Americans have been busy finding the solution without their help.

I call it the "Caloric Solution," and if we keep at it, we'll no doubt find an answer to the pesky problem of living too long.

...

Researchers at Oxford studied 3,457 people, beginning in 1950, to see how various factors would influence their lives. They determined that fat people, when studied over a period of four decades, lived on average about seven years fewer than did thinner people.

...

The bright side is that most of the arguments about Social Security center on the so far undeniable fact that people are living longer and are, therefore, becoming an increasing proportion of our population.

However, if we start to die at younger ages because we are too fat, there will be more money left to support those geezers who bypassed the turtle sundaes.

So put your feet up, people, and pass the gravy. And another donut. Mmmmm, donuts.

This guy thinks it's ironic that Bush is pushing Social Security reform so hard, and I admit he makes a good point:

As it turns out, the voters who will benefit most if the Bush Administration creates private accounts are many of the same voters who formed the core of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s support during the 2004 election.

...

If you’re a 21-year-old entering the workforce this year, and you’d like to retire at age 65, projections show Social Security – on its current course – going broke several years before you retire. If this turns out to be the case, you’d be spending most of your working career paying for other people’s benefits. Clearly, the benefits of reforming Social Security will flow most directly to younger workers, because they have the most to lose under the current system.

However, the irony here is that younger voters are the only age demographic that went strongly against President Bush in the 2004 election. According to exit polling of 2004 presidential voters, Kerry won the 18 to 29 age bracket by a roughly nine-point margin. Bush, on the other hand, found his strongest support among older voters, running up a 10-point margin in the over-60 age bracket.

Fox News - Moderate Drinking May Prevent Type 2 Diabetes

...people who drank up to 48 grams of alcohol or up to four standard drinks per day were about 30 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes as nondrinkers. No differences in risk reduction were found between people who had low or high BMIs. In other words those benefits were seen regardless of whether a person was overweight or not.

Yahoo! News - Canadians Face Long Waits for Health Care

TORONTO - A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies.

...

Americans who flock to Canada for cheap flu shots often come away impressed at the free and first-class medical care available to Canadians, rich or poor. But tell that to hospital administrators constantly having to cut staff for lack of funds, or to the mother whose teenager was advised she would have to wait up to three years for surgery to repair a torn knee ligament.


It's like somebody's telling you that you can buy this car, and you've paid for the car, but you can't have it right now," said Jane Pelton. Rather than leave daughter Emily in pain and a knee brace, the Ottawa family opted to pay $3,300 for arthroscopic surgery at a private clinic in Vancouver, with no help from the government.

The article also says: "The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year."

Haven't read Althouse in a while, but when I clicked over there this morning, I found an amusing post about Social Security analogies.

Ann is annoyed by some of the analogies being used by anti-reformers - at least, she says, give us some animals!

So a reader suggests:

The Future is like a Lion: It EATS the old, sick, weak members of the herd!

Social Security is like having a snake in the toilet, it can really bite you if you aren't paying attention, but if you think about it the answer is quite simple (sound of toilet flushing)

Social Security reform is like putting a weasel in your freezer: it just Doesn't Make Sense!

Social Security is like a goldfish; it will grow to fill whatever tank you put it in.

Steve

Here are some excerpts from the talk and question/answer period given by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on March 14, 2005. It begins to address both the ambience of the modern federal courts as well as selection/opposition zeitgeist. The entire speech was transcripted by ThreeBadFingers.

Scalia:
"Today, barely twenty years later, it is difficult to get someone confirmed to the Court of Appeals. What has happened? The American people have figured out what is going on. If we are selecting lawyers, if we are selecting people to read a text and give it the fair meaning it had when it was adopted, yes, the most important thing to do is to get a good lawyer. If on the other hand, we’re picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience, a new constitution, with all sorts of new values to govern our society, then we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look principally for people who agree with us, the majority, as to whether there ought to be this right, that right, and the other right. We want to pick people that would write the new constitution that we would want."

(Q&A)Kent Hughes:

"Mr. Justice Scalia, what do you think has caused the emergence of the Living Constitution doctrine? What were the forces in society, were there pressures that were not responded to by the legislature? What caused the emergence of this new doctrine?"

Justice Scalia:

"I don’t know. Perhaps the question should be: how did we get away without having it develop much sooner. I mean it’s enormously seductive to a judge. The Living Constitution judge is a happy fellow. He comes home at night and his wife says, “Dear, did you have a good day on the bench?” “Oh, yes. We had a constitutional case today. And you know what? The Constitution meant exactly what I thought it ought to mean!” Well of course it does, because that’s your only criterion. That’s a very seductive philosophy. So it’s no surprise that it should take the society by storm. And it is the same thing for the man or woman in the street: to know that everything you care passionately about, whether it’s abortion or suicide, or whatever you care passionately about, it’s there in the Constitution. What a happy feeling. That’s what causes it. And that’s what makes it hard to call the society back from it. It’s tough medicine."

It is my contention that one of the intentions the Founders in constructing The Constitution and The Bill of Rights was to inhibit accumulation of power to anyone acting on behalf of the Federal Government. But as God has progressively been rejected in favor of cultural relativity and post-modernism, society naturally looks somewhere else to exercise almighty power, enforce justice, determine human righteousness, and provide salvation.

I thought this was an interesting passage in an otherwise nondescript addition to the "what's wrong with the Democrats" parade (emphasis added):

NDOL: What We Stand For by Al From and Bruce Reed

Americans in the heartland will stop thinking Democrats look down on them once we demonstrate that we honestly understand their concerns. Parents are right to worry about the coarsening of the culture, and about needing more time with their children. Sen. Hillary Clinton is right to make clear that our goal should be fewer unwanted pregnancies and fewer abortions. Sen. Barack Obama is right that there's a limit to what government can achieve if we forget about personal responsibility. Republicans will never step up as the responsibility party. Why can't we?

I'm not sure I follow that last sentence. The authors do not explain further. Democrats, the party of personal responsibility, while Republicans are not? Democrats are the party of government responsibility - for every problem, a government solution.

Republicans aren't perfect, but if you have to choose between them on the basis of which is quicker to promote personal responsibility, would you really pick the Dems first?

Just in case you have nothing else to do today: a complete list of all the things Bart has ever written on the chalkboard.

Boy, seems like forever since I've posted anything. Been really busy at work: did a complete re-design of my boss' website. Check it out.

No luck so far. The election is April 5. Go vote.

There is only one explanation for this sort of thing. We have all gone mad.

Steve

There have been several attempts to modernize the translations and paraphrases of the Biblical Greek texts into 21st Century American or British English. Some truly try to translate into the common language that people can more easily understand and some try to just make it palatable to the politically correct.

The Teflon Man, posting on Molten Thought, does some translating/paraphrasing of the Ten Commandments that should really do the trick.

Why not take this all the way?

Aren't the Ten Commandments too unhip?

Why not make them a little more 21st century, a Generation Y translation if you will:

1. I am the cool mack daddy of the dope hype flow. Give me props and mad respect.
2. Don't be kneeling for some bling bling.
3. Don't be throwing my name around, be it J. Hovah or Yah Diddy.
4. Yo, Sunday is "funday", ya dig?
5. Respect your moms, your pops, or whoever it was raised you, unless they whack.
6. Thou shalt not bust a cap in someone's ass.
7. Don't be running around on people like they don't know.
8. No five-finger discounts.
9. Don't front.
10. If your neighbor's got a fly crib or a pimped-out set of wheels, that's they bidness, not yours.

That should bring everything into the modern for at least a year or two.

(HT Michelle Malkin)

Author to women: quitcherbitchin.

John Leo: A wage gap?

Women are 15 times as likely as men to become top executives in major corporations before the age of 40. Never-married, college-educated males who work full time make only 85 percent of what comparable women earn. Female pay exceeds male pay in more than 80 different fields, 39 of them large fields that offer good jobs, like financial analyst, engineering manager, sales engineer, statistician, surveying and mapping technicians, agricultural and food scientists, and aerospace engineers. A female investment banker's starting salary is 116 percent of a male's. Part-time female workers make $1.10 for every $1 earned by part-time males.

Steve

I was wondering how quick this would become an issue in the Atlanta escape and murder occurrence. Michelle Malkin

Steve

Proof that Numerology is a rising religion in the U.S., and a mainstay of the Liberal's ideology. From Pat in North Carolina.

What Percentage Do You Give?
From a strictly mathematical viewpoint it goes like this:

What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:

H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

and

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+! 14+15+23+ 12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But,

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And,

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

AND, look how far ass kissing will take you.

A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that While Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it's the Bullshit and Ass kissing that will put you over the top .

Steve Re: Birth Announcement

I have started my own Blog.

Just put up a number of posts I had in the queue the last couple of days, but Blogger acting weird plus me busy at work prevented me from posting them.

Not that I'm complaining about a free service that usually works just fine, mind you.

So, big whoop, some guy from Texas says it's good. They steal land from other states.

Delay talks approvingly about Ryan reform bill

During a briefing with reporters yesterday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) gave an unprompted nod to Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan to reform Social Security.

Responding to a question about solvency and the creation of personal retirement accounts, DeLay said, “Paul Ryan’s bill makes Social Security solvent.”

DeLay’s praise is notable because it marks the second time House leadership has made a direct reference to the bill. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) mentioned Ryan’s bill twice during a discussion of Social Security reform on Fox News the Sunday after last November’s election.

I do believe I smell a precedent.

Carlsbad Current-Argus Senate votes to sue Texas over acreage

SANTA FE — The Senate voted Tuesday to sue Texas for the return of land in a move that the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Shannon Robinson, D-Albuquerque, likened to a “slap fight” between neighbors.

Robinson said there are 603,485 acres of land along the north-south boundary with Texas that was erroneously appropriated to Texas due to a surveyor’s error. The bill directs the attorney general to sue for the return of land, as well as compensation for mineral rights, oil and gas royalties, property taxes and grazing privileges that have been lost due to the mistake.

“The purpose of suing Texas, it’s like a slap fight with your neighbor — you don’t want to do a heck of a lot of damage, but we do want to wake them up to the fact that Texas has not always treated New Mexico well,” Robinson said. “We’ve kind of been treated like a stepchild.

“When we were trying to get into the union, they always demanded that we forsake this strip of land, and it ends up with Texas having this windfall. It’s all prime Permian Basin land.”

I tell you what, if New Mexico gets away with this, I say it's time to raise some money, hire a lawyer, and invoke the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

Hey, Al, you ready to be a Cheesehead?

Well, if being a punk thug worked for Randy Moss...SI.com - NFL - Vikings coach Tice investigated for ticket scalping:

"Minnesota head coach Mike Tice is being investigated by the NFL for allegedly heading up and profiting from a Super Bowl ticket-scalping operation within the Vikings organization, a violation of NFL rules that league sources say has been going on for years."

On the other hand, can you blame him? I mean, how else are the Vikings going to get to a Superbowl?

This is why Grandpa John doesn't want Todd and me living with him.

TOKYO (AP) - Police on Tuesday questioned three siblings after it was discovered they had been living with the decomposed corpse of their father for nearly a decade, an official said.

Police found the body of Kyujiro Kanaoka lying on a futon bed at the family's home in Itami city in Hyogo prefecture in western Japan, said a prefectural police spokesman, who declined to be identified.

Kanaoka's three elderly children, all in their 70s or older, told police they thought their father was still alive but that one of them recently had consulted a relative about the possibility that he might be dead, the spokesman said.

Police were investigating the cause of Kanaoka's death. Judging from the condition of his decomposed body, Kanaoka may have died as long as 10 years ago, the spokesman said.

Had he been alive, the man would be 107 years old. Hyogo prefecture had registered Kanaoka as its oldest living resident, public broadcaster NHK said.

UW-Madison's College Republicans have a nice response to the "hunger strike" other students are putting on at the Capitol, to protest increases in tuition.

If you're wondering why I put quotes around "hunger strike," it means you haven't read my column yet.

Medication alert: I found something I agreed with on Fighting Bob.

It's a guest post by Stacie, of The Vast Dairy State Conspiracy.

An excerpt:

...in every school I attended, visited, or worked in, four-year college was considered the ultimate goal. The military, two-year colleges and trade schools were considered alternatives for those students who couldn’t make it academically. And forget about going to work right after high school.

I've often thought this same thing: that we've elevated the college degree to such an extent, and made it so easy to get one, that going to college has simply become the path of least resistance.

I wonder how many art history and english majors today wish they'd gone to welding school, instead.

Steve

While watching parts of the UW-Milwaukee/Detroit Horizon League championship game last night, I was cracked up by an off-the-cuff observation be one of the announcers.

"Watkins passes up on an open look. He must've been gun-shy from that last brick he threw up."

Congratulations, UW-M.

Rep. Paul Ryan did an interview with Human Events Online regarding his Social Security plan. Follow the link to the whole thing. Here's a part of Ryan's plan I wasn't aware of:

So if your investments pay only $1,000 a month and Social Security would give you $2,000 a month, the government would make up the difference?

RYAN: Exactly. The government makes you whole. It's affordable because the government benefit grows at a certain pace and the market grows at a much better pace.

Now what if the government benefit was $2,000 and your investments are paying you $2,400?

RYAN: You get all $2,400, and the government's off the hook. You get zero from the government.

This is interesting: Robert Novak:

DEAN'S CANDOR

Howard Dean, who has minimized media exposure since his election as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, departed from the party line in telling a college audience that there are problems with the Social Security program.

Speaking at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., on Feb. 23, Dean totally opposed President Bush's advocacy of personal accounts as part of Social Security. However, he did not follow Democratic insistence that nothing need be done about the program. If Social Security is left alone, he said, benefits after 30 years would be 80 percent of what they are now.

Dean's divergence from the party line was reported only in the Cornell Daily Sun, the student newspaper.

Phew. Mark Steyn, Victor Davis Hanson...good thing Lileks doesn't publish anything new on weekends, or I'd really have an inferiority complex.

I think I need to challenge my 11 year old to an arm wrestle.

Mark Steyn, on being right and being wrong, and when it's good to be one or the other:

"By the way, when's the next Not In Our Name rally? How about this Saturday? Millions of Nionists can flood into Trafalgar Square to proclaim to folks in Iraq and Lebanon and Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority that all the changes under way in the region are most certainly Not In Their Name."

Victor Davis Hanson, on the differences between America and Europe - not so new, he says, as they seem:

"...the half-century aberration of the Cold War disguised our differences and lured us into collective amnesia...having a common enemy in the Soviet Union misled some of us into thinking that an identical Europe and American would always see eye to eye, when we never really had - despite our cultural and democratic affinities."

Nothing to see here. Added a few new links next door:

There's a guy named Harvey, who writes a blog called Bad Example. I've seen him comment at Boots and Sabers a couple of times, but didn't connect that he was the same guy until he became a group-blog member at one of my favorites, IMAO.

A Wisconsin guy writing for IMAO. Now we've hit the big time.

I'm resisting the urge to put a link to IMAO on my site now. Keeping it all-cheese. Harvey cross-posts his IMAO stuff on his own blog anyway, looks like.

By the way, do any of you remember that stuffed rabbit named Harvey we used to have? Whenever I look at this guy's blog, I picture a rabbit with a stupid smile on his face.

Also added a guy from Rhinelander (they have apparently discovered electricity there now), whose blog is called Teeth of the Constitution - heavy Second Amendment buff here. And a new Sheboygan-area guy, The Sheboygan Observer. I'll be observing closely, though, since he hasn't posted for a couple of weeks.

Oh, and I took Scofflaw's Subsidy off, since he's not there anymore. I don't suppose anybody knows what happened with that?

Finally, I've got a new entry in the "Foreigner" category. A guy named Joe Verica, a student in Pennsylvania someplace, who writes a blog called John Wayne's Holster. We exchanged several comments about Social Security recently. Joe, this is Al and Probligo. Al, Probligo, meet Joe.

Play nice.

We had friends over tonight, so today's column is really late.

Tough noogies.

Steve Re: Punxsutawney's Phil, meet Janesville's Chevy Suburban

I assume that everyone knows about the famous Punxsutawney Phil, the grizzled thickset marmot, who, each February 2nd is pulled out of his hole in Pennsylvania and asked whether or not he needs his Foster Grants. He is purportedly supposed to be able to tell us how long it will be before spring-like weather arrives. Phooey-ptuuui! Road kill!

While crossing Janesville's Veteran's Memorial Bridge after work the other evening, it dawned on me that we here have a tradition to predict the onset of the oncoming Spring that is a much superior prognosticator-- using a device that is built right here in 'The City of Parks'.

Each Winter the Kiwanas Club parks a Janesville-built Chevrolet Suburban on the ice in the middle of the Traxler Park Lagoon. When the vehicle plunges into the murky depths, Winter is over and Spring is here! 100% accuracy. Phil, the SUV (Surly, Unlovely Vermin) should hit the unemployment line bricks and damage W's reputation.

And besides, the Suburban provides a much smoother ride. (Although, I hear that groundhog tastes more like chicken. Maybe Al could tell us from his experience as a 'pioneer' preparing that famous Norwegian delight, lutewoodchuck.)

Steve Re: Unfortunately, a Janesville resident in the news.

I'd like to offer my condolences to the Feingold family for the death of Senator Feingold's mother yesterday.

Steve Re: Janesville in the news

Tuesday, President Bush mentioned an incident in Janesville in a speech to the Faith-Based and Community Initiative Conference.

"Let me give you an example of part of the issues that faith-based programs face at the state and local government. Janesville, Wisconsin, authorized the Salvation Army to use federal funds to help purchase a small apartment building to use for transitional housing for the homeless. The city council wisely said, why don't we go to an expert? The Army, the Salvation Army has done this for years; they know what they're doing. And that was good news. The bad news is, is that when it approved the funding, the city added a provision declaring that religious ceremonies are not to be conducted on the site initiated by the Salvation Army. That doesn't make any sense, to tell a faith-based provider that they cannot practice the religion that inspires them in the work of compassion.

And so when we learned what happened there with the city council, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the office we set up, sent a letter informing the city that as long as the religious services were not funded with federal money, in other words, the money was not -- federal money was not used to proselytize, and participation was voluntary. The city had no right to tell the Salvation Army that the price of running a center was to give up its prayers. It's an important concept that you just heard. I mean, it's a -- and, fortunately, the Janesville city council reversed its previous stand."

This can't be true.

Star Trek campaign 'raises $3m'

A campaign to save Star Trek spin-off show Enterprise says it has received a $3m donation from anonymous figures in the space flight industry.

TrekUnited, which is trying to raise money to make another series of Enterprise, says it has a 'legally binding pledge' from three donors.

Or, if it is true, we've finally found the Lost King of the Nerds.

The Heartland Institute - Majority Favors Private Accounts for Social Security, Cato/Zogby Poll Says

A majority of Americans believe younger workers should be allowed to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in individual accounts, according to a new poll conducted by Zogby International for the Cato Institute.

Despite a drumbeat of criticism for weeks by congressional Democrats and a concerted public relations campaign by powerful interest groups such as the AARP against Social Security choice, 51 percent of those polled by Zogby supported the introduction of individual accounts. Only 39 percent opposed individual accounts being part of any Social Security reform.

...

opposition by seniors dropped to just 45 percent if they were assured their own benefits would not be affected.

It's good to be the Prince.

Yahoo! News - Topless Dancers Greet Prince Charles

Oh, wait, I just looked at the pictures. Never mind - better to be a commoner.

Well, this seems borderline sacreligious.

Also via Vodkapundit: blogging is good for your brain.

Brain of a Blogger

...it looks as if blogging will be very good for our brains.

I bet that's why Grandpa John doesn't post anymore: he's afraid it will make him smarter, thus a conservative.

Alternate history by Vodkapundit.

George Will: We have no more need for PBS

The Public Broadcasting Service recently tried an amazingly obtuse and arrogant slogan: ``If PBS doesn't do it, who will?' What was the antecedent of the pronoun ``it'? Presumably ``culture' or ``seriousness' or ``relevance.' Or something. But in a television universe that now includes the History Channel, Biography, A&E, Bravo, National Geographic, Disney, TNT, BBC America, Animal Planet, The Learning Channel, The Outdoor Channel, Noggin, Nickelodeon and scads of other cultural and information channels, what is the antecedent?

Does anybody in the federal government have the guts to take this on, and the brains to do it in such a way that it doesn't become a spat over cartoon characters?

One more interesting bit:

Would it vanish without the 15 percent of its revenues it gets from government? Let's find out.

Fifteen percent? That's all they get from the feds?

I finally went ahead and put my two cents in on Ward Churchill, the not-really-an-Indian professor who says America deserved 9/11 and should get more of the same.

Then I go and find out that Kevin at Lakeshore Laments has already said exactly the same thing (ten hours earlier than I did), and other sites like Jiblog and http://www.theamericanmind.com/ have already posted a lot of the info that I do. Crap. Stupid Internet.

Mr. Pterry had a few things to say on the subject, too.

Congratulations, Jeffory!

The Chetek Alert

Jeffory Burri, that is: got straight As in the second term at Chetek High School.