The Transportation System of the Future

Seattle has been playing around with the idea of expanding their Disneyland-like monorail for years now. The last I heard they spent millions on the idea and then voted to kill the project. Now the original monorail has accomplished the remarkable feat of colliding with itself. I am not kidding, you have to see the photo.

Moonbat English Instructor Resigns

Certified moonbat and illiterate community college English instructor decided to resign today, after threatening a student group and calling for US soldiers to shoot their superiors. The only thing I can add to this is, why does Ward Churchill still have a job?

Late today, the Board was informed of Mr. Daly’s decision to resign his Adjunct position at WCCC effective immediately. In its meeting, the Board voted to accept the resignation agreement and instructed the administration to make certain that students in Mr. Daly’s class are offered the highest quality instruction in this interim period.

Hitler Wasn't Evil, He Just Had a Different "Perspective"

Talk about moral equivilency.

In a speech to political science students at the University of Toronto yesterday, the host of the CNBC current affairs show Hardball had plenty of harsh words for U.S. President George W. Bush, as well as the political climate that has characterized his country for the past few years.

"The period between 9/11 and Iraq was not a good time for America. There wasn't a robust discussion of what we were doing," Matthews said.

"If we stop trying to figure out the other side, we've given up. The person on the other side is not evil -- they just have a different perspective."

UW Beats Harvard

OK, we may have lost the Apple Cup, but the Seattle Times this morning announces that a UW student, at the age of 18, became the second youngest ever to win a Rhodes Scholarship.

Meanwhile, via Taranto, I noticed this headline:

Rhodes Scholars Named, None From Harvard

Too bad, better luck next year.

John "Long Gone" Daly

I did a little research on this moonbat, and it appears Warren County Community College is going to take some action regarding him.

Warren County Community College to Hold an Emergency Meeting

The Board of Trustees of Warren County Community College will convene an emergency meeting of the Board, Tuesday, November 22, 2005 at 6:30 PM. This meeting was called by Board Chair Edward Smith.

The Board of Trustees intends to consider the welfare and rights of its students, the college community, and the public in lieu of recent events. The Board will also consider personnel issues.

Also, to follow up my previous post, it appears he is actually called an "adjunct instructor" I guess holding an MA from Cal State Northridge and teaching remedial English doesn't quite qualify for that professor title. But hey, at least he didn't lie about being an Indian. Did you notice how many grammatical and syntactical errors he made in his e-mail? The sad thing is he is he teaches ENGLISH.

Moonbats in Academia and Persistant Ukrainians

A student at a community college in New Jersey arranged to have a retired colonel speak on campus, which earned her this threatening letter from a professor (if that is what they call them at a community college)

Dear Rebecca:

I am asking my students to boycott your event. I am also going to ask others to boycott it. Your literature and signs in the entrance lobby look like fascist propaganda and is extremely offensive. Your main poster "Communism killed 100,000,000" is not only untrue, but ignores the fact that CAPITALISM has killed many more and the evidence for that can be seen in the daily news papers. The U.S. government can fly to dominate the people of Iraq in 12 hours, yet it took them five days to assist the people devastated by huricane Katrina. Racism and profits were key to their priorities. Exxon, by the way, made $9 Billion in profits this last quarter--their highest proft margin ever. Thanks to the students of WCCC and other poor and working class people who are recruited to fight and die for EXXON and other corporations who earning megaprofits from their imperialist plunders. If you want to count the number of deaths based on political systems, you can begin with the more than a million children who have died in Iraq from U.S.-imposed sanctions and war. Or the million African American people who died from lack of access to healthcare in the US over the last 10 years.

I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like your won't dare show their face on a college campus. Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors and fight for just causes and for people's needs--such freedom fighters can be counted throughout American history and they certainly will be counted again.

Prof. John Daly

One could spend hours Fisking the lies in this idiotic rant, but this moron is hardly deserving of the effort. On a related note though, protesters are still demanding that the NY Times return Walter Duranty's Pulitzer Prize for covering up the death of 7 million Ukrainians (part of those 100 million people who were not killed by communism). H/T Don Luskin.

Battling chilly temps and uncooperative winds, a Ukrainian group assembled outside New York Times headquarters in Manhattan Friday to protest the 1932 Pulitzer Prize awarded to Times reporter Walter Duranty for his pro-Stalin coverage of Russia.

The Ukrainian famine of 1932-33 (Ukrainians call it the Holodomor) was engineered by Russian dictator Josef Stalin -- and whitewashed from Duranty's reporting for the Times. Duranty, who covered the country for the Times from 1922 to 1941, ignored Stalin's atrocities, including the famine that killed seven to ten million Ukrainians.

Duranty, who is "credited" for coining the phrase (referring to Stalin’s purges) "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs," said of the famine accusations, which were reported at the time by left-wing journalists like Malcolm Muggeridge: "Any report of a famine in Russia today is an exaggeration or malignant propaganda."

Another choice quote from Duranty: "Stalin is giving the Russian people-the Russian masses, not Westernized landlords, industrialists, bankers, and intellectuals, but Russia's 150,000,000 peasants and workers-what they really want, namely joint effort, communal effort.'"

So Much for the end of the US Economy

All we hear about is how the US economy is doomed and our companies can't compete, so I was interested in reading this (subscription required) in the Financial Times yesterday (although that pink paper still freaks me out).

In short the FT, a London based paper by the way, conducted an international survey of the most respected companies in the world. US companies took 24 out of the 50 spots, including 12 of the top 14. No other country had more than 6.

Meanwhile news reaches us of Boeing's recent success. China announced the order of $9 billion of their jets.

To plagiarize Mark Twain, the news of our death has been greatly exaggerated.

Excess Profit?

The National Review has a good article on this silly notion of windfall "excess" profit called "Who Profits at the Pump". I was curious so I decided to compare the profit of one of the evil oil companies, in this case Exxon, with two other prominent large companies. If I don't learn anything else, at least getting my MBA is making me a wiz at Excel.

The Fake Engineer Shortage

I have found this ridiculous for years. I don't know how many job postings I have seen with ridiculous requirements, such as 5 years of .NET programming experience, 2 years after .NET was released, but yet companies still insist that there is a severe shortage of trained engineers. Mostly this is because they don't know how to hire people, they use laundry lists of requirements in place of good HR practices in screening employees. The last contract I worked on needed someone who could program in C#, which I had never really done, it wasn't even on my resume. They realized I knew what I was doing though, and within a week I had figured out enough to get the job done.

Many companies say they're facing an increasingly severe shortage of engineers. It's so bad, some executives say, that Congress must act to boost funding for engineering education.
Yet unemployed engineers say there's actually a big surplus. "No one I know who has looked at the data with an open mind has been able to find any sign of a current shortage," says demographer Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

What's really going on? Consider the case of recruiter Rich Carver. In February, he got a call from the U.S. unit of JSP Corp., a Tokyo plastic-foam maker. The company was looking for an engineer with manufacturing experience to serve as a shift supervisor at its Butler, Pa., plant, which makes automobile-bumper parts.

Within two weeks, Mr. Carver and a colleague at the Hudson Highland Group had collected more than 200 résumés. They immediately eliminated just over 100 people who didn't have the required bachelor of science degree, even though many had the kind of job experience the company wanted. A further 65 or so then fell out of the running. Some were deemed overqualified. Others lacked experience with the proper manufacturing software. JSP brought in a half-dozen candidates for an interview, and by August the company had its woman.

To JSP, taking six months to fill the position confirmed its sense that competition for top engineers is intense. Company officials "struggle to fill" openings, says human-resources manager Vicki Senko.

But for candidates facing 200-to-1 odds of getting the job, the struggle seems all on their side. "Companies are looking for a five-pound butterfly. Not finding them doesn't mean there's a shortage of butterflies," says Richard Tax, president of the American Engineering Association, which campaigns to prevent losses of engineering jobs.

The Iraqi Cindy Sheehan

Maybe she will go on tour with Cindy, and Maureen Dowd can write fawning editorials on her "absolute moral authority."

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- The Iraqi woman who said she failed in her bid to blow herself up in an Amman hotel had three brothers killed by U.S. forces, friends of the woman said Tuesday. In a response to the bombings, Jordanian officials unveiled tough new anti-terror measures.

The killings of Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi's three brothers in Iraq's volatile Anbar province is being considered as a possible motivation behind her bid to take part in last week's triple bombings, which killed 60 people, including her husband and two Iraqi bombers.

The FAO

A must read article in the WSJ on the role of a Foreign Area Officer (FAO) in Iraq, and what it takes to battle an insurgency.

MOSUL, Iraq -- Last summer, two dozen U.S. Army Rangers headed for the Iraq-Syria border to figure out how foreign fighters were slipping through western Iraq's barren deserts.

As they had done in the past, the Rangers took positions around each village and Bedouin encampment. At one village, an officer named David, accompanied by a small security team, strode into the center looking for someone who would talk. Unlike the clean-shaven, camouflage-clad Rangers, David wore a thick goatee and civilian clothes. The Rangers carried long, black M-4 carbine rifles. David walked with a small 9mm pistol strapped to his leg. The Rangers spoke English. He spoke Arabic tinged with a Yemeni accent.

As he recounts the day, David met a woman with facial tattoos that marked her as her husband's property. As they chatted, the pale-skinned, sandy-haired North Carolina native imitated her dry, throaty way of speaking. "You are Bedu, too," she exclaimed with delight, he recalls.

From her and the other Bedouins, the 37-year-old officer learned that most of the cross-border smuggling was carried out by Shamar tribesmen who peddle cigarettes, sheep and gasoline. Radical Islamists were using the same routes to move people, guns and money. Many of the paths were marked with small piles of bleached rocks that were identical to those David had seen a year earlier while serving in Yemen.

Close Call O' the Month

I can see how serial liar Mary Mapes could be so shook up, after avoiding near death at the hands of the Vietcong and all...

KURTZ: You write in "Truth and Duty" that Bush didn't keep his promise to the country. He walked away from his duty. How strongly did you feel then, do you feel now, about that in terms of your pursuing this story?

MAPES: I think that's absolutely true. I have to say, when I grew up, if I'd been a little bit older and if I'd been a boy, I came from a social class where I would have had my rear end in Vietnam.

11/11

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

-Winston Churchill-

On this day just remember those whom we owe so much to.

My father, James F. Bennett Sr.

U.S.M.C. 1962-1964, Vietnam
Semper Fi

My grandfather, Fermin Bennett
US Army Air Corp 1942-1945, Europe
You will always be remembered

Stupid Letter to the Editor O' the Day

From the WSJ

As the author of the windfall legislation your editorial commented on, I must point out some misinterpretations. My bill offers a true windfall profits tax, unlike the 1970s excise tax on oil. The difference between these tax structures is critical to understanding the impact of my bill. I do not advocate an excise tax, which increases the price of oil because both cost of production and profit are taxed. The preferred approach is a windfall profit tax, because it is constructed to tax only excess profit, leaving production costs and reasonable profits unaffected.

A true windfall profits tax raises little revenue because it sends a signal to the industry that price gouging will not be rewarded. Therefore prices quickly return to a reasonable level. Any minor revenue raised gets returned back to the consumer via tax credits.

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D., Ohio)
Washington

Please explain to me Mr. Kucinich, where in the constitution exactly does it give Congress the power, not to mention the wisdom, to determine what is "excess profit"? Did Congress pass a five year plan or something while I was wasn't looking?

For a contrast to this bit of congressionally sponsored idiocy, read this post on Cafe Hayek (written by actual economists) on oil prices and taxes.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

First things first: given all the bad-mouthing the French receive, you may be surprised that I describe their society as "productive." Yet according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, productivity in France - G.D.P. per hour worked - is actually a bit higher than in the United States.

It's true that France's G.D.P. per person is well below that of the United States. But that's because French workers spend more time with their families.

Paul Krugman in French Family Values

France prides itself on its hourly productivity, among the world's highest. But Philippe Manière, director of the think tank Institut Montaigne, says the high productivity rate is achieved only by shutting out of the job market the immigrants who might cause it to fall. "In France, you employ the most productive people and you leave the rest in the street," he says.

Wall Street Journal, 9 November 2005

Fair Trade?

I needed my caffeine fix this morning so I stopped off at an espresso bar and got a mocha, with a large "fair trade coffee" sticker emblazoned on the side. This got me thinking, what the hell is "fair trade"? I assume they mean there is some minimum price they pay for the coffee to ensure the coffee grower gets a higher than average profit and can pay his workers above the going labor rate. Is this really "fair" trade? If I pay $5 a pound for coffee beans, when I could pay some other guy $4 for the same beans, it is not really fair, I am getting ripped off! What is fair about that?

Only in Bosnia

This is why I never played with the kids.

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - A hand grenade being used instead of a ball in a game of catch exploded early on Saturday killing three youths in this Bosnian town, police and news agencies said.

Productivity and Employment

Scrivener has some interesting comments on the fact that manufacturing jobs are down globally, not just in the US. This is not due to the fact that we are exporting our jobs (as many on the left complain) to Mars or some other extraterrerestrial competitor, but simply because productivity gains allow us to produce more goods with less labor. Whenever someone laments the loss of "good jobs" in manufacturing, I like to point out the fact that only a little over a century ago 90% of American were employed in agriculture, now it is around 3%. While obviously the people who had to move off of farms into cities were stressed by the change, does this mean that we should have banned the use of tractors and fertilizer in order to save those "good jobs".? Just look at the percentage of population engaged in agriculture. Uganda is at 97%, the US is at just 3%, does that mean that we should lament the loss of all those good farming jobs to Uganda?

Paul Krugman Was Right

Herr Krugman back in July:

First things first: given all the bad-mouthing the French receive, you may be surprised that I describe their society as "productive." Yet according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, productivity in France - G.D.P. per hour worked - is actually a bit higher than in the United States.

From the Wall Street Journal today:

It may be difficult nowadays to get people in what the French call the Hexagon to work on Friday afternoons, but not to riot, at least not in the "sensitive" quartiers that surround most towns and cities. The productivity of the rioters has been increasing rapidly of late, and France looks like it will be breaking its record for burnt-out cars: 1,295 on Saturday night alone and 750 on Friday night, 500 the night before, and 300 the night before that. This year so far, the tally is 29,000. If the trend of the last few days continues, geometric progression being what it is, it won't be long before the rioters will have to go to Germany or the Low Countries to express their social conscience in a practical way.

Stolen Valor: The Iraqi Years Part II

Sadly, I predicted this months ago.

For more than a year, former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey has been telling anybody who will listen about the atrocities that he and other Marines committed in Iraq.

In scores of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stories, at a Canadian immigration hearing and in numerous speeches across the country, Massey has told how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally, killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians.

Among his claims:

Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters.Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head.

A tractor-trailer was filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and children killed by American artillery.

Massey's claims have gained him celebrity. Last month, Massey's book, "Kill, Kill, Kill," was released in France. His allegations have been reported in nationwide publications such as Vanity Fair and USA Today, as well as numerous broadcast reports. Earlier this year, he joined the anti-war bus tour of Cindy Sheehan, and he's spoken at Cornell and Syracuse universities, among others.

News organizations worldwide published or broadcast Massey's claims without any corroboration and in most cases without investigation. Outside of the Marines, almost no one has seriously questioned whether Massey, a 12-year veteran who was honorably discharged, was telling the truth.

He wasn't.

Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated - according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the Post-Dispatch and reporters from The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.

H/T Michele Malkin