Swelling The Ranks Of The Poor

Republican congressmen/women like to talk a lot about class warfare. Their talk is really code for keeping the rich in the advantageous position they have, and preventing any new laws that might distribute income and wealth more evenly throughout the population. After years of funneling the nation's riches into the pockets of the rich, the very idea of "economic justice" is anathema to them.
But the truth is that there is a class warfare going on, and it has been happening for the last thirty years -- a war directed by Republicans on behalf of the 1% and waged against American workers. It started with Reagan's initiation of trickle-down economics about 1980, and was kicked into high gear in the presidency of George W. Bush. Over that thirty year period the income of the 1% of richest Americans has increased by over 270%, while the wages of the bottom 80% of Americans has been stagnant (and has actually dropped in the power of what those wages will purchase).
Republicans now want to blame the recession for the economic hurt that is being felt by far too many Americans. And in a way, that is partially true. But the truth is that the recession (brought on by the Republican economic policies) just hastened a process that was already well under way before the recession hit in late 2007. A report by the Economic Policy Institute tells us that during the period between 2000 and 2007 (before the recession hit), the real median income of working-age households fell by $2,114. That's a drop of over $176 a month, and that is a drop in real dollars, not purchasing power.
But while the Republican policies were making the rich richer and lowering the wages of workers, perhaps the most insidious and tragic effect of these policies has been to swell the ranks of the poor. We now have more than 46 million people who depend on the government food stamp program to put food on the table, and more than 15% of the total United States population now lives below the poverty line. 
President Johnson's War on Poverty had been reducing the number and percentage of people living in poverty in America since the 1960's. Poverty hadn't been wiped out, but the country was starting to get a handle on it. Now, thanks to the Republican economic policies, all of those gains have been wiped out and we are now once again at record levels of poverty in America.
And most tragic of all is the number of children who are being forced into poverty. Thanks to Republicans blocking job creation, denying extensions of unemployment benefits, and slashing the funding of many social programs, the number of children being thrown into poverty is reaching disastrous proportions. In just one year more than a million children were added to poverty rolls -- from 14.7 million children in 2009 to 15.7 million children in 2010.
This means that currently more than 20% (or one in every five) of all American children now live in poverty. In some states, like Texas, that rate is 25% (one in every four) or 1.8 million children -- and Texas is a state the Republicans hail as being the beneficiary of a Republican economic "miracle". The fact is that in Texas and in the nation the Republican policies may be good for the corporations and the rich, but they have been an economic disaster for everyone else.
The Republicans have driven the American economy into a deep ditch. How much longer will we allow them to force our economy to stay in that ditch? Can we really afford to let them retain even a semblance of power?

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/lhav/~3/rwLBTXYNMoI/swelling-ranks-of-poo
r.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Exposed To The Light

Political Cartoon is by Daryl Cagle at msnbc.com.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/lhav/~3/bh130uC-gGI/exposed-to-light.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Late Late Night FDL: Sam Interviews Spike

Sam The Eagle Interviews Spike Milligan from episode 317 of The Muppet Show.[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/IzoEVOFAPdU/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

OMG Cops pepper-spray UC Davis students, point
blank in face, who are just sitting there doing nothing

UC Davis Police Lt. John PikeHere's confirmation of who the cop is, and his contact info:
Lieutenant John Pike
530-752-3989
japikeiii@ucdavis.edu

Much better picture of this neanderthal assaulting the students. Clearly not justification whatsoever for what he did.

This is outrageous. Oh my God, watch this video, you'll see in the first seconds all you need to see. The cop walks up to a line of students just siting down on the ground, having a sit-in basically, and he pepper-sprays them, one by one, in the face at point blank range.

I'm sorry, this has gone too far. This has happened in police department after police department, and it has gone too far. Our police look like the goons in Russia and China. Please watch this video and send it to everyone you know. This has gone too far.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/ss7IAsJ8Xks/omg-cops-pepper-spray-u
c-davis-students.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

The Nightowl Newswrap

By BG&YD

• Seriously, @THEHermanCain? Or is this just another installment of your brilliant performance art piece? "At a press conference in Florida today, GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain -- whose foreign policy maxim is "peace through strength and clarity" -- attempted to clarify his stance on Libya following his epic whiffing of a question on the country this week. Unfortunately for the former pizza executive, he only muddled things further today. First he attempted to blame the interviewer for not being "specific" enough and for supposedly selectively editing Cain's response. (Over five uncut minutes of his remarks are visible on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's website.) Then, Cain erroneously claimed that the Taliban has taken control in Libya."

• She's a traitor to her race and her gender, so why the hell would anyone expect ethics and honesty from her in the first place? Save yourself the time and trouble and jsut assume she's corrupt as all hell. "A top Republican donor who helped recruit former Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) to run for South Carolina's top job filed a lawsuit accusing current Gov. Nikki Haley (R) of trading off her former job in the state legislature to earn big corporate paychecks. If the allegations against Haley are true, she may have earned as much as $150,000 from wealthy interest groups eager to enlist a sitting lawmaker as an advocate for their interests. ... According to the GOP donor's lawsuit, Haley failed to disclose $42,500 in secret income she earned from a company called Wilbur Smith Associates, and she failed to recuse herself from a vote that financially benefited Wilbur Smith. Haley also took a $110,000 a year job from a hospital company and then allegedly worked as an illegal lobbyist for the company while she was a sitting lawmaker."

• We're skeptical. We don't believe for a second that the Russians have two or more warships that can sail out of sight of the harbor without sinking. "Russia is preparing to move warships into Syrian waters, according to reports in Israeli newspaper H'aaretz. ... The move was allegedly announced by a Syrian news agency. It has not been confirmed at the time of writing. ... The warships are reportedly being readied as Moscow sends a message that Russia is opposed to international intervention putting an end to disturbances in Syria. Russia used a UN Security Council veto in October to block a resolution that would have condemned Syria's President Bashir Assad for the violence."

• Fox tries to paint the Idaho wingnut who fired shots at the White House with the "Occupy" brush. "Yesterday, authorities charged Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez with attempting to assassinate President Obama after he allegedly fired an assault riffle at the White House. Never missing an opportunity to politicize such an event, Fox News baselessly tried to tie Ortega-Hernandez to the 99 Percent Movement, running a chyron that dubbed the man the "'Occupy' shooter." ... Fox & Friends host Gretchen Carlson said the shooter "may have tried to blend in with the Occupy protesters in D.C.," and asked conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, "What would have happened if a tea party person had tried to do that?" Malkin took the bait, but admitted that "political ideology" was likely not a motivation of the man."

• If these fuckers keep this shit up, a real life Tyler Durden is going to surface, and there won't be a jury in the land that will convict that person. "With U.S. cities moving this week to crack down on Occupy Wall Street encampments - including the one in New York's Zuccotti Park - the staying power of the movement is in question. Whatever its future, it's clear that so far, the Occupiers haven't changed many minds on Wall Street over blame for the country's hard times. The cognitive disconnect between the protesters and the captains of finance is alive and well. ... David Mooney, chief executive officer of Alliant Credit Union in Chicago, one of the nation's larger credit unions, used to work at one of Wall Street's top banks, JPMorgan Chase. There's a vast cultural gap between Wall Street and his new world, he says: Old friends from the Street, he says, now jokingly refer to him as a "socialist." A credit union is supposed to be run in the interests of all members, he says, while commercial bankers tend to see consumers as customers who can be "exploited" by layering on more fees. ... Says Mooney: "I don't say this lightly, but the consumer is simply an income stream and exploiting that is the purpose of the banking organization." ... In conversations with nearly two dozen current and former bankers, finance professionals and money managers across the United States, the prevailing sentiment is that the anger at Wall Street's elite is misguided and misdirected. Blame the politicians and policymakers in Washington, many of them say, for encouraging people to buy homes they couldn't afford and doing nothing to stop or discourage U.S. consumers from piling on more than $10 trillion in household debt."

• Maybe that real life Tyler Durden is one of the million+ children who suddenly found him or herself living in poverty in the last year? "More than one in five children in the U.S. lives in poverty, according to 2010 Census data, rising from 14.7 million children in 2009 to 15.7 million in 2010. According to Census figures, the child poverty rate increased in 27 states. At 38.2 percent, African American children had the highest rates of poverty, while white and Asian children were below the national average. The rate for Hispanic children was 32.3 percent. "Children who live in poverty, especially young children, are more likely than their peers to have cognitive and behavioral difficulties, to complete fewer years of education, and, as they grow up, to experience more years of unemployment," the Census said."

• Christians who behave in a Christ-like manner, we have no problem with. "With Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) ratcheting up police crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street this week, the New York Times reports that several churches in New York City are sheltering protesters who can no longer stay in Zucotti Park. About 46 protesters spent Wednesday night in the United Methodist Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew. However, instead of respecting the sanctuary, police in plainclothes are entering churches to monitor their conduct. ... According to church officials, two police officers (one later identified as belonging to the intelligence division) asked to use the bathroom but instead "entered the sanctuary, one remaining near the door while the other advanced down the aisle, apparently counting the demonstrators in the pews." Then, one officer went downstairs to a homeless women's shelter and "asked for information about who was sleeping there" without identifying himself or showing his badge. The church's Rev. James Karpen called the police actions "invasive.""

• Democrats on the so-called "supercommittee" have stopped taking their republican colleagues seriously and started openly mocking their dumbfuckery. "Partisan tempers flared over how Democrats and Republicans describe the offer, which includes a trivial amount of new tax revenue, but doesn't touch entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. ... Only $3 billion of the total package comes from new tax revenues -- ending a tax preferences for owners of corporate jets. The rest came from spending cuts to federal agencies, federal pay, agricultural subsidies, higher fees and spectrum and land sales, and interest saved on the national debt. ... Democratic aides mocked the plan as wildly imbalanced -- a 200:1 spending cuts-to-tax revenue offer Republicans never should have made. That counts land and spectrum sales as spending cuts, which they really aren't."

• Would these bigoted old fuckers just die off already? "Santorum told TPM it's a kind of a policy of his not to correct someone when they say something inaccurate. When it's about the President's faith, that is. ... In Ottumwa, that person was Gerald "Bill" Jones, a 90+ year-old local who told Santorum he originally hails from Newcastle, PA. Before the town hall even began, Jones was telling the dozen or so gathered to chat with Santorum just what he thought of Obama. ... "We've got to get rid of that Muslim Communist," Jones said. ... He repeated the line to Santorum a few minutes into the session. ... "We've got to get rid of that Muslim Communist in the White House," he said again. "I make no apologies for that statement."" (Later the old bastard bitched that he has been shortchanged at the government trough. After calling the PRESIDENT a Communist. Hypocrisy, thy name is Gerald "Bill" Jones, and you live in Ottumwa, Iowa.)

• Karma, Bitchez. "In a spectacular case of instant karma, House Republicans' plan to roast Energy Secretary Steven Chu in Thursday's investigative hearing into Solyndra appears to have backfired. Chu seems reinvigorated in his effort to make the U.S. into global clean energy leader, calling for increased U.S. investment in alternatives on a tour of General Electric solar plant in Colorado on Friday, while Republicans seem at odds with their own message. ... "There are some in Washington who think we can't, or shouldn't, compete when it comes to producing solar panels, wind turbines and other clean energy technologies," Chu said at GE's PrimeStar plant in Arvada, CO, the Hill reported. "They're ready to wave the white flag and declare defeat. I disagree." ... The plant, which GE purchased along with the company PrimeStar in April, developed the highest-efficiency thin film solar panel ever publicly announced. GE plans to build a new PrimeStar factory in Aurora, Colorado, which would be the nation's largest. Before it was purchased by GE, PrimeStar received $3 million from the Energy Department, the Seattle Post Intelligencer reported. ... Meanwhile, House Republicans who participated in the Solyndra hearing have been tripping over one another."

• Where the voter fraud at? "New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran said earlier this year that her state had a "culture of corruption" and referred 64,000 voter registration records to police that she thought were possible cases of voter fraud. Now a new report from her office proves she was completely right, 0.0296875 percent of the time. ... Duran's interim report now alleges that 104 voters -- about one for every 10,577 on the rolls -- were illegally registered to vote. Of that group, just 19 -- or approximately one for every 57,894 registered voters -- actually allegedly cast a ballot they shouldn't have. ... The report says the Secretary of State's office "has no such role in the political process" and is "independent" from partisan debate, then goes on to preemptively criticize anyone who might take issue with the fact that, despite her rhetoric, she found such and extremely small amount of alleged incidents."

• The strange saga of the IWS "counter protesters." "When brothers John and Derek Tabacco showed up at the big Occupy Wall Street protest Thursday holding "Occupy a Desk" and "Get a Job" signs, they claimed they were engaging in an organic counter-protest against dirty hippies who were preventing them from getting to work.  The local, national, and even international media promptly picked up their story. ... But it turns out the Tabacco brothers have a long and sometimes checkered history of publicity-seeking and relentless self-promotion -- and their claim that 50 local businessmen are supporting the anti-Occupy protest is entirely unsubstantiated. ... Besides owning a finance company called LocateStock in lower Manhattan, John Tabacco is a Fox News contributor, a failed talk radio host, an unsuccessful city council candidate from Staten Island, and a onetime participant in the VH1 show "My Coolest Years." An endorsement John Tabacco received in his city council campaign was later alleged to have been part of a pay-to-play deal. Derek Tabacco, for his part, is the CEO of what appears to be a defunct social network company for sports fans."

• Both parties should tread carefully; Assad is not going to be overthrown as easily as Gaddhafi. "William Hague, the British foreign minister, has announced that he would meet with Syrian opposition representatives in London next week in an intensification of contact with opponents of President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian opposition members would also meet senior officials of Prime Minister David Cameron at his Downing Street office, the foreign ministry said on Friday. It added that Frances Guy, the former British ambassador to Lebanon, had been appointed to coordinate relations with the Syrian opposition."

• Power yields nothing except under pressure. "Tens of thousands of Islamist and secular protesters gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square and Alexandria on Friday for a mass rally to pressure the ruling military council to hand over power to a civilian government. The demonstration, dubbed the "Friday of One Demand," was called in response to a document of "supraconstitutional" principles floated by the government that declares the military the guardian of "constitutional legitimacy", suggesting the armed forces could have the final word on major policies even after a civilian parliament and president are elected. A wide spectrum of political groups including liberals and ultraconservative Islamists have decried the document even as they reportedly negotiate with the government to get it changed. Though opposition to the military's perceived power grab comes from all sides, Muslim religious movements are the most vocal. They fear that the document will push Egypt toward a more civil, secular state."

• The birthplace of the Arab Spring avoided trouble by keeping the military out of power. "Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party and its two coalition partners have reached agreement in principle to share the top three government posts between them, senior sources from two coalition parties told Reuters news agency. Under the deal, the most powerful post of prime minister will go to Hamadi Jbeli, secretary-general of the Islamist Ennahda party which won last month's election, sources said on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Moncef Marzouki, leader of the secularist Congress for the Republic, a junior coalition partner, is to be named Tunisian president, and Mustafa Ben Jaafar, leader of third coalition partner Ettakatol, will be speaker of the constitutional assembly, the sources said."

• The last time her party won election, the military just took over and jailed her. The key to democracy isn't elections; it's peaceful transition. "Myanmar's main opposition party led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has decided to rejoin politics and legally register to take part in future elections. Friday's decision signals its confidence in recent political reforms by the government that took power after the country's military rulers upheld their promise to hold elections in November 2010 and relinquish power. The National League for Democracy party (NLD) "has unanimously decided to re-register as a political party and will run in the elections'', according to a party statement issued at the end of a meeting of senior members from across the country. Earlier, senior members, including Myanmar's pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, spoke out in favour of joining the political arena because of reforms initiated by the government, which have drawn cautious approval from the United States."

And finally...

• There those commie gubmint regalaters go again, saving people's lives. "US drug regulators have rescinded approval of a breast cancer drug, saying it is not effective enough to justify the risks of taking it. The drug, Avastin, was approved for US use in 2008, but UK officials have also rejected claims that it prolongs life. Further research showed it did not help patients live longer or improve quality of life, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret Hamburg said. Avastin will still be used to treat other kinds of cancer. The drug is used to treat breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. It works by starving cancer cells of a blood supply. However, its side-effects include severe high blood pressure, massive bleeding, heart attack or heart failure and tears in the stomach and intestines, FDA studies have found. FDA approval of the drug had initially been given under a special programme that allows patients to start using promising treatments while the manufacturer finishes the studies to prove the medicine works as well as expected. The decision to withdraw the approval - which can happen if results of the research do not match predictions - was not easy, the FDA said. "

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheyGaveUsARepublic-FrontPage/~3/mqvqJ9R98dM/the-n
ightowl-newswrap

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Sunday Classics preview: A little
Bach(-Stokowski) and Chopin

Arthur Rubinstein

All of tonight's music will figure (in some fashion!) in Sunday's post, and some of it we'll hear again and talk about a little. -- Ken


BACH-STOKOWSKI: Chaconne (arr. from Partita No. 2 for Solo Violin in D minor, BWV 1004: v. Ciaconna)
Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, cond. Victor, recorded Nov. 30, 1934 [audio link: digital transfer by F. Reeder]


CHOPIN: Mazurkas (4), Op. 17:
No. 1 in B-flat
No. 2 in E minor
No. 3 in A-flat
No. 4 in A minor
Arthur Rubinstein, piano. EMI, recorded 1938-39 [audio link]
#

Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2010/11/sunday-classics-preview-bach-and-chop
in.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Number of poor children continues to rise in US

While the thugs at the NYPD and other local police forces are bashing heads to protect the interests of the 1%, the number of poor children in America grows. This should be a national disgrace, but no, too many in Congress are much more worried about protecting their friends on Wall Street, Big Pharma, the insurance industry, defense contractors and insisting on more giveaways for the rich.

Why are the poor and middle class so ignored by Washington?

The number of children in the United States considered poor rose by 1 million in 2010, the U.S. Census said on Thursday, with nearly one in three of the youngest Americans now living in poverty.

"Children who live in poverty, especially young children, are more likely than their peers to have cognitive and behavioral difficulties, to complete fewer years of education, and, as they grow up, to experience more years of unemployment," the Census said.

In 2010, when the Census survey was conducted, 32.3 percent of children across the country were poor, compared to 30.8 percent in 2009.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/as8e006ssQU/number-of-poor-children
-continues-to.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Random Japan

KIDS THESE DAYSA newspaper survey revealed that 26 percent of female high school students say using a cellphone is their favorite after-school activity, while just 11 percent of boys say so.On the other hand, 21 percent of guys said they devote[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Docudharma/~3/EqDyXKhcrH4/random-japan

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Is pepper spray a
vegetable yet Edition

Edward Glaeser welcomes you to the new old age, the one in which working till you drop is the norm.

The number of Americans over 65 in the labor force increased from 10.8 percent in 1985 to 12.1 percent in 1995 to 15.1 percent in 2005 to 17.4 percent in 2010. Until 2001, most workers age 65 and older had part-time jobs; since 2001, full-time work has been far more common.

Consider the difference between today?s extended work life and the average American work life during the mid-20th century in the midst of what was, in retrospect, a retirement boom. Again, the numbers present a vivid picture: from the ?40s to the ?80s, the percentage of men who were 65 and older in the labor force fell precipitously ? from 47 percent in 1949 to 15.6 percent in 1993. By the 1980s, retirement at age 65 was nearly universal for American workers. Today, however, 36.5 percent of 65- to 69-year-old men are still part of America?s labor force.

Glaeser paints much of this as a change in the type of job?apparently we all love our work so much we don't want to leave. He also goes out of his way to define a theoretical non-retiring baby boomer as someone who made bad fiscal decisions, investing in dot.com bubbles and frittering away loads of cash. He gives a tsk-tsk, then waxes lyrical on just what a boon all these experienced oldsters are to society. To which I say: shove it. 1) Just because I'm not juggling flaming chainsaws for a living doesn't mean I don't have something better to do with my time than give it to someone else, 2) many of us had zero choice in watching our pensions turn to "investment opportunities" turn to dust, and 3) while you might be happy to have someone with 30 years experience polishing your teeth, older workers being unable to retire is a far bigger problem than benefit. Think this only affects would be retirees? Think again. Young workers are not just competing against their cohorts, but increasingly against older workers who cannot afford to surrender their spot at the grindstone. Creating a pool of unemployment at the start of the economic ladder is only planting the seeds for a generation even less able to retire.

Of course, Glaeser does't see that as a problem.

The United States has always had a Calvinist backbone. We?ve long been comfortable with shorter vacations and longer workweeks. In this light, the mid-20th century retirement boom seems like something of an aberration. In a sense, the current rise in the working elderly is a reversion to form, and perhaps that?s not such a bad thing. While some older workers will have to work because they can?t afford not to, there remains the sunny possibility that others, like Galbraith himself ? who worked well into his 90s ? will do so because they find fulfillment in their jobs.

Really, shove it is too mild. What I really want to say should not be said this early on a Sunday morning. Sorry, but that is the biggest bunch of horse manure I've seen in the NYT in ages. The fiscal equivalent of advising people to "lay back and take it."

Nicholas Kristof says that those who are trying to put out the Occupy Movement are only fanning the flames.

You have to wonder: Could Mayor Michael Bloomberg and police chiefs around the country be secretly backing the Occupy Wall Street movement?

...

Occupy Wall Street isn?t about real estate, and its signal achievement was not assembling shivering sleepers in a park.

The high ground that the protesters seized is not an archipelago of parks in America, but the national agenda. The movement has planted economic inequality on the nation?s consciousness, and it will be difficult for any mayor or police force to dislodge it.

In pushing Occupy to the next stage, actions against protestors may be driving up the energy, but I suspect that those getting beaten or pepper-sprayed could do without friends like these.

Yunte Haung looks at the truth behind the smiles of "southern hospitality."

I?m waxing nostalgic because I miss the time when the sweet Southern air was, at least for this immigrant, not poisoned by fear, the malevolent phobia that haunts Dixie today. The new law is as much an ineffective solution to economic woes as a xenophobic reaction by an already bifurcated community to the arrival of new immigrants, be they Asians or Hispanics. As Charlie Chan might have asked, ?What in the name of Confucius happened to Southern hospitality??

Fear of immigrants is the new fear of blacks?though don't think for a second that the old fear of blacks has gone away. It's just that fear of immigrants had to be added to the mix, because it takes really high levels of fear these days to keep people from realizing what's really causing their problems.

David Mambrick and Elizabeth Meinz deliver the sad news that all the practice in the world won't make up for a lack of talent, and that exceptional ability may be just that.

How do people acquire high levels of skill in science, business, music, the arts and sports? This has long been a topic of intense debate in psychology. Research in recent decades has shown that a big part of the answer is simply practice ? and a lot of it.

...

But this isn?t quite the story that science tells. Research has shown that intellectual ability matters for success in many fields ? and not just up to a point.

Think of this as a good news / bad news thing. If you've been sweating bullets to overthrow Einstein or wondering why 10,000 hours with the violin hasn't made you the next Itzhak Perlman, odds are against you. On the other hand, think of everything you've heroically accomplished against all odds!

Alexandra Horowitz notes that the intelligence of dogs is often compared to that of a toddler. Is it a fair comparison?

One evening when he had just turned 2, [Child] proclaimed ?half moon up!? at the half moon rising in the dusk sky. By their second birthdays children may have vocabularies of hundreds of words. Impressed? Recently Chaser, a border collie, was trained to retrieve, nose or paw 1,022 objects by name. Still, Chaser, like all dogs, utters nary a word. [Child], like many 2-year-olds, speaks a blue streak. It might be that [Dog] has told me about the half moon; I just don?t understand his dialect.

A nifty little article with some nice comparisons and speculation. This morning I spent some time playing with a mixed-breed puppy up for adoption. I'm still in mourning for my sweet old Golden who died a couple of years ago at age 17, but I'm starting to think it's time for a new pup in the house.

Thomas Friedman notices that students have parents as well as teachers.

Monitoring homework; making sure children get to school; rewarding their efforts and talking up the idea of going to college. These parent actions are linked to better attendance, grades, test scores, and preparation for college,? Barth wrote. ?The study found that getting parents involved with their children?s learning at home is a more powerful driver of achievement than parents attending P.T.A. and school board meetings, volunteering in classrooms, participating in fund-raising, and showing up at back-to-school nights.?

Yes, I actually mentioned Friedman in APR. Unlike George Will, I haven't sworn a vow not to read Friedman. It's just that I usually don't think he's said anything worth repeating.

And speaking of George Will...

Patrick Pexton, pundit-excuser extraordinare, looks at what may be the most ridiculous issue ever tackled by a supposed ombudsman, namely: was George Will swayed to write pieces that were pro-GOP.

Will, a longtime friend of Nancy Reagan, got flak in 1980 for not disclosing until later that he helped Ronald Reagan with debate preparation. And although a consistent free-trader, Will was zinged in 1995 for his defense of free trade in automobiles without disclosing at the time that Maseng Will?s [George's wife] company was lobbying for Japanese car manufacturers.

Way too long story made short: Will's wife has been working for Bachmann. Will said nice things about Bachmann. Will's wife started working for Perry. Will said nice things about Perry. The conclusion: Will and his wife have a perfect track record in supporting losers and loons.

Kathleen Parker frets over the "Palinization" of the GOP.

It takes courage to swim against the tide of know-nothingness that has become de rigueur among the anti-elite, anti-intellectual Republican base. Call it the Palinization of the GOP, in which the least informed earns the loudest applause. The latest to this spectacle is Herman Cain, who has figured out how to turn his liabilities into assets. After fumbling for an answer during an editorial board meeting to a simple question about his position on Libya, a lead news item since February, Cain blamed ? who else? ? the media.

You know, Kathleen, when you've spent years greasing the slide, it seems harsh to complain when people hit the bottom.

This morning's columns are making me grumpy. Time to go look for that puppy.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/5xoKfck-ey0/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Ro
und-up:-Is-pepper-spray-a-vegetable-yet-Edition

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!