Wednesday Morning Links
Congrats to the Celtics - I’ve not watched the NBA in any significant way since Reggie Lewis died, but if every NBA game was as fun and fast-paced as last night’s rout was, I’d watch more often. Absolutely dominating performance, quite fun.
* Another good point of evidence as to why Obama’s brand of “change” doesn’t quite hold up to scrutiny: the big swarm of the day is the tail end of Washington DC’s “Opportunity Scholarship” program, which is essentially a voucher program allowing a $7500 credit to follow a student into a private school. Now, as a matter of policy, you might be against the concept from the beginning - that’s all well and good. The evidence suggests, however, that the vouchers are working. The costs are down, and achievements on both ends in the DC schools are up. Now, would this trend across the nation? That I don’t know, and I’d be inclined to say “no,” given that I don’t think one size fits all education policies work within the United States demographics. However, this is where Obama fails at his “change” mantra - here’s a change a number of people believe in, that the evidence appears to believe in, and could act as a solid attempt at a change where things like No Child Left Behind has failed. Obama also sends his kids to private schools - he obviously perceives a benefit for himself on the matter (although he should not be held to any more scrutiny based on his personal decisions on the matter, and he’s not using vouchers to send his kids there). So why is he against this change? This would seem like a simple way to walk the walk, and actually do some good to boot.
* Another Haditha Marine case thrown out. This now makes 7 of 8 either thrown out or acquitted. Still no word from John Murtha or from Barack Obama that I know of.
* This is what’s hanging up the XM/Sirius merger. I’m not against any merger in principle, but there are some much more important mergers that go through quicker than this relatively unimportant one. Sheesh.
* A supermajority support offshore drilling for oil. Again - stonewalling on this issue 10 years ago is a contributor to the situation today. Imagine if we actually had extra production coming in right now. McCain smartly supports it.
* Perdue pays $800k for discriminatory hiring practices. What were the practices? Discrimination against non-Hispanic hirings.
* Real-world application of Barack Obama’s tax plan.
* Finally, enjoy this idiotic MoveOn ad:
It makes two political points, neither of which make any logical sense: McCain isn’t pushing for 100 year war, and no one’s calling for anything resembling a situation where the kid being pimped out would be forced into service. Has MoveOn become this irrelevant, and are you folks who are against McCain proud of this? I sure hope not.
‘Tis all.