My Beauty Best Teacher

Via Big Government, Bill Ayers Apostle Appointed White House Education Initiative Director:

Jose Rico has been named the new director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, a key position that could help close the achievement gap between white and minority students. But if his history is any indication, his influence may do more harm than good.

Perhaps most troubling is Rico’s connection to unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and communist radical Mike Klonsky through the Chicago-based “Small Schools Workshop.” The “Small Schools Workshop” was founded by Ayers and Klonsky. According to a U.S. Department of Education biography, Rico worked for the Small Schools Workshop some 6 years... Rico’s CPSalumni.org bio... describes his time in Chicago working as a “community organizer.”

...Does it matter that an apostle of anti-American radicals like Ayers and Klonsky is now in such an influential position? Is it unfair to judge him by the company he kept for six years of his professional life? Perhaps his academic record will show a positive impact on students and could overcome any shocking associations he has?

Sadly, that’s not the case. During Rico’s tenure as principal of the Multicultural Arts High School, student performance was 584th out of 640 high schools in the state. And despite its low teacher-to-student ratio (less than 14-1) and Ayers/Klonsky-inspired “small school” philosophy, Rico’s school managed to produce a paltry 56% graduation rate. The Chicago Tribune reported the school “did not meet federal education standards.”

Why appoint someone with such a dismal track record to such an important position? Apparently Chicago connections (Rico is also a personal friend of Michele Obama) are more important that his professional performance. Being an apostle of Obama’s personal friends Ayers and Klonsky apparently doesn’t hurt, either.

Some of you may know that I have personally met Bill Ayers, and that that experience may have indirectly led to me losing my first job in education. I had a long interview with Larry Elder on this issue last year, and I've posted a briefer version of my experience on my blog (see my post My Experience Meeting Bill Ayers).

Jose Rico, as a community organizer who was immersed for many years in the filth that is Bill Ayers educational philosophy, is a poor choice to lead any sort of national initiative, but he likely shares the same educational ideology of Obama, and that is why he was picked. Bill Ayers, who founded and designed the schools that Jose Rico worked in, felt that teachers should use their classrooms to promote radical, leftist, communist values.

And Ayers vision of education is Obama's vision of education. Obama pushes a radical, leftist, communist vision of education that I talked about on my post Break Down Class System in Education by Moving to the Right, not the Left?:

But being the deeply liberal institutions that they are, schools always arrive at the same and incorrect conclusion of how to break down this class system. Schools and the educational world pushes that all students should be equalized by going through education at the same pace (one grade per year), that every student should graduate at the same exact time with the same exact number and sort of classes, that the pace and level of education that is delivered in the classroom should be directed at the average (or even the least) student in the room, that the curriculum that is taught in schools must be exactly the same, that the funding of the school systems should be exactly the same, that classes must be large groups of students all moving at the same pace, and that teachers should be paid the same (or have pay scales that advance the same for everyone, whether they are an effective teacher or not).

The solution that liberals have devised to break down the class system in the education world is a leftist one that attempts to redistribute and equalize effort from those who have it to those who don't- the leftists in education try to use schools to transfer to those students who don't the natural intelligence, curiosity, industry, effort, leadership, communication, writing skills, the right opinions, the right mindset, or whatever that the others students do have. And the result is predictable- an educational establishment that achieves less results with more resources consumed, that falls further behind when measured against the past or other nations, and that does not give students the knowledge and skills to succeed in the future.

President Obama, Jose Rico, Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky, and others are radical, leftist, communists who should not be in positions of power over our children's education. Help me remove them from their positions and replace them in 2012 by voting against them.

This is a reprint from last year, but I want to make sure everyone reads it again, especially conservative teachers in the classroom... I'm going to post it today, so that you teachers can read it over and run it on Friday (9/09) or Monday (9/12)...

One of my readers emailed me to ask me what I do as a teacher on 9/11 or Patriot Day, and I responded to him, but I should have let you all know what I do on 9/11. I know that there are some teachers who read my blog, and might be interested in my lesson for that day. Here is what I do as a teacher, every year on September 11.

First, as a teacher you will need to lay out why it is important for students to remember what happened in 9/11/01. It is a teachable moment, so does have educational value, especially for social studies classes. Our nation changed on that day- there is a pre-9/11 mentality and a post-9/11 mentality, and post-9/11 our nation is proactive about our security by passing legislation, engaging in wars, and having more aggressive interrogation techniques. Our nation changed that day because we lost so many people- people who might have cured cancer or invented the flying car- and because the terrorists hit us so hard in our homeland it destroyed our innocence and naive beliefs that they couldn't do that to us.

Next, review what happened for those students who are not fully aware of all the details. Make sure that your review is short - who did it, what they did, the number of deaths, the impact of those deaths, the impact on the US, and the lasting impact on the US. Also address at this time the heroes of 9/11- the leadership of Mayor Giuliani, the firemen and police, and the average people who were also heroes. Only spend a couple minutes on this.

Also at this time, address conspiracy theories and 'truthers,' and dispel those myths in no uncertain terms. Don't go into the myths with any detail and do not leave any doubt in students minds that these conspiracy myths and 'truthers' are wrong- they dishonor the deaths of those who died, they dishonor those who worked hard to stop something like this for happening again, and they dishonor you by insulting your intelligence. Students need to in the future confront 'truthers' the same way that they would confront a Holocaust denier. This introduction portion should take no more than 5 minutes.

9/11 is not part of history- it is a part of these students' present. It affects their lives, their world, and their government. These students are becoming adults and joining the world as educated people, and in order to join it fully, they need to experience what 9/11 was in order to fully understand it. It is important for students, especially those who were too young to remember, to feel that day. They need to feel what our nation felt on that day- they need to face the emotions and see the sights that we all saw, so that they can fully be a part of this world we live in today. This event has to be personal to them, an emotion that they feel, just like we all did. It can't just be worksheets and videos'- the teacher needs to have them discuss their feelings before and after the event.

For the next 5-10 minutes, discuss with students what they remember from that day and get them thinking about where they were, what they were doing, and how it impacted them. Try to encourage them to remember not just the events of the day but the emotions and feelings that they felt. For older students, they might still remember a bit of this, but the younger students might only remember vague impressions. That's okay- after today's lesson, they will remember it better. All you are doing here is simply activating the students, making them more receptive to the emotions that they will be feeling shortly.

Before showing the video, make sure that you ask students if they had any family members who worked in New York City during these events or lost anyone on 9/11. These students can leave if they become too emotional or if they feel they can't handle the lesson. Tell all the students that it okay to be moved by this video, and that if they feel moved to tears, they can step out of the room. All they have to do is say they have to use the restroom or something- if they really have to use the restroom, they can say that too- and the class won't know if they are leaving because they have to use the restroom or because they have to cry. Students need to feel safe and that it is okay to express emotions- many people openly weeped on 9/11 and there is nothing at all wrong with that.

Next, show the video. The video that I show is In Memoriam - New York City, 9/11/01 (2002). I choose this video because it does not have political commentary, it does not sugarcoat the events, it does not try to soften the events, and it is not edited for language or violence. It is the best video I found that simply shows the attacks on New York City, over and over again, from different angles, with pictures and video both mixed in. There are several interviews that are heart-breaking, but not too many of these to overwhelm the pictures from the attacks themselves. This video is disturbing- as was 9/11 itself. The video is bursting with tenacious and inspiring humanity- as was 9/11 itself. And the video provides an appropriate balance too, as it is narrated by the wisdom of New York City's then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani. This video in particular makes it virtually impossible to forget the 3,047 lives lost to terrorist brutality. This is not a journalistic endeavor, but a potent visual reminder that 9/11 was a day of unity, transcending the horrors witnessed here.

For a 60 minute class, only show about 30 minutes, or up to the part where they begin to look for survivors, and then down the volume and tell the students that they only found 11 people in rubble. For a 90 minute class, show the whole video, and afterwards just let the room remain silent for a minute or two before you begin the next portion of this lesson.

For the last part of this 9/11 lesson, you as a teacher will need to spend about 10 minutes asking students how they feel. First ask them if this was how they remembered it- if their memories or what they have seen since matches with the feelings that they have right now. Most students will be shocked and stunned by what they just saw- you will need to gently ask students or call on a couple that look like they are not too shaken and can get out an answer.

Then ask the students to try to describe some of the feelings that they have now. Explore these feelings and ask students to try to verbalize what they are feeling. Do they feel shock? Are they sad? A lot of students may feel angry, or be scared, or full of pride about the heroes, or determined, or confused, or feel like they want to help, like they want to lash out, like they want to do something to stop it from happening again. All of these feelings are okay- validate these students and let them know that it okay to feel these ways, since this was how we felt as a nation.

After each feeling is talked about and explored, follow up with the students and ask them what possible policy responses there might be to those emotions- ask them how they can translate their feelings into action and rise above the situation without losing sight of it. This part of the lesson is a great time to teach- spend a minute after each feeling talking about how America felt that same way and what we as a nation did and are doing about that emotion. This will help the students to understand why our nation responded the way we did to this event.

America was angry and wanted to punish those who attacked our nation- and not only those people directly involved, but those people who cheered when we were hurt so bad, those nations who supported terrorism or encouraged it, those peoples who helped those who attacked us. That's why we started the War on Terror, that is why we are in Iraq and Afghanistan, and after seeing the video, students will understand better these things. America was scared, and is still scared, and that is why the Patriot Act was passed and security procedures were stepped up, and we should still be scared as a nation and vigilant about our security. America felt like it wanted to do something, anything to help, and that is why this day to many becomes a day of service, and students can help out even today by giving blood or donating items to our troops. America felt like it had to do something to prevent this from happening again, and part of that is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if students want to help this effort, they can join the military or the CIA or the FBI. America was confused, and that is why we are making more of an effort to understand what may have motivated these people to do this to us, and students need to learn about other cultures and try to understand them better. America was sad, and are still sad today, and students can attend local vigils and remembrances around the area and express their sadness.

Validate the students emotions and then connect them to what we did as a nation and what the students can do now. When students are out of emotions and you have made all your teaching points, walk away from the students and just let them talk among themselves for the last couple minutes of class. Students will recover from their shock and gather themselves again before going back out into the world. Many will remember this lesson for a long time to come.

This is the lesson plan that I have for 9/11. Feel free to use it in your classrooms.

"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck."

If bad luck is the reason that our nation has struggled lately, I wondered to myself just what exactly our President and Commander-in-Chief was doing to combat this recent run of bad luck.

Never in my knowledge has any other President had to battle 'bad luck' before- a google search of past Presidents' speeches did not turn up any results of past Presidents, whether they were Republican like George W Bush or Ronald Reagan or Democrats like Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter, ever blaming 'bad luck' for the problems that the United States faced. Perhaps it was because these past Presidents were religious people, who did not believe in paganism and 'luck' so much as the divine will of God and his plan.

To combat a run of 'bad luck', past Presidents like George W Bush turned to prayer and Bill Clinton took to reading Scripture, but it appears from President Obama's speeches and comments that he has decided not to talk to God or read God's word to turn around the run of bad luck, but rather bemoan the run of 'bad luck' and sing 'woe to me'.

Although in our nation we do have a separation of church and state, that does not mean that there is a separation in our nation between those who believe in a higher power and those who serve in our political institutions. For most of our nation's history, our leaders on both side of the political spectrum have been religious and have prayed and read the word of God and saw in the actions of the world God.

President Bush often said that "these are trying times" when our nation faced tough circumstances like terrorist attacks, hurricanes, the total collapse of our banking system, a recession in 2001, or the difficult times of fighting two major wars against dedicated and evil groups. He did not say that our nation suffered through 'bad luck'- he recognized that God's plan and the free will of men sometimes tried our faith and offered a trial to our nation and its people, whether to fight harder for what is good and right or to not.

Bill Clinton, for all of his faults and failures, was well versed in the Bible and believed that he was doing his best to advance the values that he saw in it- love, hope, forgiveness, etc- and that when he faced trials, that those trials were presented to him by God or by those who freely choose to deny God, and that our nation would overcome those trials by sticking to our values and believing in God.

And yet, President Obama, who resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ after he judged that his affiliation with Jeremiah Wright would reflect badly on him politically, does not quote Scripture or talk about his time in prayer. So how exactly should Obama cope with this run of bad luck- an unaffiliated Christian who does not go to Church or regularly read the Bible or study theology of any sort of any religion?

At some point questions need to be asked about President Obama and his views on God and religion, and I don't just mean the sort of 'is he a Muslim' kind of questions that will lead us nowhere. He does not appear to be a Muslim, and his connection to Christianity is either very very private and unmentioned or thin at best, and since he isn't Buddhist or Jewish, one has to begin to wonder just what exactly does Obama see as the divine plan for our nation. I would suggest that Obama is atheist, but his reference to supernatural 'luck' does not fit with that theory either.

What are President Obama's religious beliefs and what role does 'luck' play in his view of the universe?

UPDATE: Get out of my head Charles Krauthammer! For the record, I posted my post before he came out with his editorial today, but it is amazing that both of us arrived at the same thought days after the event and then posted about it. In his article called Bad luck? Bad faith? he goes a slightly different direction, but struggles like me with Obama's comment about 'luck'.

Via memeorandum.

Those who are interested in learning more about Obama's religion should try The Faith of Barack Obama.

Today on my drive home from work I listened to both a liberal talk radio show (the Ed Schultz show) and a conservative talk radio show that was having liberals call in to debate (the Michael Medved show). The basic point of liberals, no matter what the topic, was that conservatives/tea party supporters/Republicans support tax cuts for the rich which is corrupt and wrong and takes money and jobs away from the poor people in society, and the better way to go is to support the liberal/progressive/socialist/Democratic policies best illustrated by President Barack Obama. Also, they like to bring up the fact that when Republicans are in charge no one likes America, and now that Obama is in charge everyone around the world loves us. That's pretty much the heart of every argument on every issue that comes up.

Does the recent news support that Obama's policies are better for the poor, are less likely to lead to corruption, and help build strong partnerships around the world? Based on a summary glance of stories this week, I think the answer is a pretty clear 'no'.

According to a recent study, Democrats policies could force vehicle prices up by nearly $10,000, reduce sales by 5.5 million vehicles annually and eliminate more than 260,000 jobs. Thankfully Republicans are able to block many of these policies from the one half branch of government that they currently control, where they are expending massive amounts of time and money to try to simply stop these policies. Imagine if they had control of the Senate and the White House- they might be able to put in the opposite policies leading to cheaper cars, increased sales, and more jobs. The rich and wealthy will be okay under the Democrats plans- they can afford to pay a little extra for their cars- but the poor and middle class will be the hardest hit by these Democratic policies. The record is clear- Democrats policies don't help the poor and the middle class, they hurt the poor and the middle class more than Republican policies.

The election of Obama and the implementation of his policies was supposed to lead to a new era in international relations, an era where our allies became more supportive of our nation and took over a larger share in conflicts like Iraq or Afghanistan (or Libya). Instead, reports indicate that our allies are increasingly frustrated by our policies, and are beginning to reconsider their friendly relationships with us. Last month it was Israel that was stunningly badly treated by the Obama administration- this month, we see in the news that the Czech Republic is withdrawing from our missile defense plans because they are frustrated that their nation was forced into a minor role at the request of Russia. This weakens the US, Czech Republic, and our allies in Western Europe, all to the advantage of Iran and Russia. The Bush administration and Czech Republic struck a groundbreaking deal to put interceptor missiles in the Czech Republic, missiles that would possibly be able to knock nuclear missiles launched by rogue or terrorist nations. Obama rolled in and decided that he'd change the deal and instead just give the Czech's an early warning center instead, and rather than waiting around to see if he'd alter the deal further, the Czech's withdrew in frustration.

Liberals are often upset at 'tax cuts for the rich', because in their minds they see some sort of corrupt deal going down when Republicans are in charge, where 'the rich' get to keep more of the money that they earned in exchange for some sort of kickbacks or something. Democrats hint that Republicans are more corrupt and are taking bribes and deals in exchange for giveaways, still cashing in on reputation of Nixon's shady dealings while conveniently ignoring the impeachment of Democratic President Bill Clinton for lying under oath. The truth is, while Bush may have given tax cuts to the rich, Obama is giving jobs, commissions, stimulus money, government contracts, and more to those who supported his Presidency. More than two years after President Obama took office vowing to banish “special interests” from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events, an investigation by iWatch News has found. This is the sort of real corruption that only a liberal Democrat who believes the purpose of government is to distribute gifts to those who help earn power can bring.

The record is clear- Democratic policies lead to more expensive cars, allies upset at us, and corruption in the White House.

For more on the direction that liberal policies lead, check out Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

In recent months, Obama has been compared to the likes of Jimmy Carter (recent Democrat who lectured to us as our nation dropped into malaise and high interest rates), Herbert Hoover (progressive Republican who thought active government and debts would stop a recession), and Woodrow Wilson (progressive Democrat professor who lectured to nation and strengthened unions while nation went into recession). These are all fair comparisons and each has its merits, but for some time now, I keep coming back to the idea that Barack Obama's Presidency is in reality a Michael Dukakis Presidency.

In Whatever Happened to the Massachusetts Miracle? I first wandered my way on to this idea when I realized that soon after Democratic Presidential-nominee Dukakis lost in 1988, the so-called 'Massachusetts Miracle' of prosperity also went bust, and his high-regulation, managed-growth, high-taxes, generous-welfare policies left a state that was mired deeply in debt, facing budget shortfalls, and not growing.

As the years have gone on, it has become increasing clear that Obama is Dukakis, as was written in my post Obama is Dukakis?:

...Both creatures of the liberal Northeast and of Harvard, with no sense at all of most of the rest of the country; both rationalists who impose legalistic criteria on emotion-rich subjects; both with fixed ideas of who society’s victims are, which do not accord with the views of the public; and both with a tin ear for the culture and a genius for creating wedge issues that split their own party...

In that post, I was highly critical of John McCain's campaign, which failed to capitalize on all of the weaknesses that Obama brought as a candidate, and contrasted it with George H.W. Bush, who was able to capitalize on all the weaknesses that Dukakis brought as a candidate:

...GHWB capitalized on the fact that Dukakis wasn't 'American', didn't like saluting the flag, blamed America for everything (later on Dukakis blames America for 9/11), and didn't reflect the values that made America great. GWB hammered away at how Dukakis was simply an elitist, no-nothing, Harvard-educated liberal who was purely smoke-and-mirrors and who, if put in charge of our nation, would never make the hard tough choices that have to be made. If you don't believe me, watch some of the ads yourself- check out at the website the ads "Tank Ride," "Revolving Door," and "Willie Horton." There is no coming back from those body blows that GWB inflicted on Dukakis.

On the other hand, for some reason John McCain didn't run a brutal, hard-hitting campaign that called Obama's policies, judgement, and character into question. He didn't go after Obama for his church, he didn't attack him for his terrorist friends, he didn't call into question his 'Americanism', he didn't question his patriotism, he didn't attack his naive views, he steered away from questioning his lack of experience, and he didn't attack Obama for his elitist schooling. On every major important point that McCain could have capitalized on, he pulled back, and only gently batted Obama around a bit. Oh, he hints here and there about stuff, but nothing smacks you in the gut with the full brutal face of a real battle that Obama could have brought against Obama. If you don't believe me, watch the ads yourself, and lick at the kitty milk that JSM poured playfully on Obama- see the ads "Celeb," "Education," and "Storm" for examples of how weak and unfocused the attack on Obama by JSM was.

So, I guess we have whoever ran GWB's campaign in 1988 to thank from saving us from the mess that we find ourselves in today, and we have whoever ran JSM's campaign in 2008 to thank for us finding ourselves in the mess that we are in today (may that person be smacked around by milk jugs)...

Months after I wrote these posts, it turns out that Dukakis actually visited the White House to give Obama advice- it was written in my post Dukakis Gives Advice to Obama: Obama Gets it?:

...Former Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis, the failed 1988 presidential nominee, recently visited the White House and delivered his strategy for the midterm elections: pound key precincts across the country with the message that Republicans want to implement the same policies that led to the Great Recession. Asked if the White House aides were receptive, he said, "I think they certainly get it." He declined to name the aides he met at the White House...

...Obama gets it- the Democrats in general are now all running on the 'blame Bush' strategy, even though they controlled (House for 4 years and Senate for over 6) and the White House for (3)....

Apparently, as usual, my instincts were right, because today my favorite numbers guy Jay Cost broke down the latest polling data, and Obama does not track like Clinton or Carter, but tracks most closely to Michael Dukakis:

...Accordingly, I think that at this point the Democrat that Obama most closely resembles is Michael Dukakis. To appreciate what I mean, let’s compare Obama’s current standing among different political groups with the 1988 exit poll results.

(see graph)

These are some very eerie similarities – Dukakis, unlike Carter, was able to hold together his party coalition. He lost the 1988 election because Republicans were firmly united behind George Bush, and independents broke decisively toward the GOP.

This is roughly how the current political landscape appears, which leads me to conclude if the election were held today, and the GOP nominated a reasonably attractive candidate, Obama would do about as well in the popular vote as Dukakis did. Given the geographical polarization of the electorate (i.e. the red state-blue state divide), Obama would surely capture more than the 111 electoral votes Dukakis carried. Even so, it would be a sizeable Republican victory. Not quite as smashing as Reagan’s victory in 1980, but still substantial.

Moving forward, I think that is the best way to compare Obama. Not so much to Carter, who was hampered by internal divisions that did not plague Obama, but more to Dukakis, whose final vote share is roughly consistent with Obama’s job approval rating over the last 18 months.

This is all good news- not good news that Democratic policies are destroying our nation, but good that we have been shown the way in the past by hard-campaigner George HW Bush how to defeat someone like Dukakis/Obama (new nickname for the list- Duke Bama?). One can only hope that the next Republican nominee will follow the path and defeat Obama, whether it is an establishment moderate like Romney or an outsider conservative like Bachman.

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever read anything Dukakis has written? Leader-Manager in the Public Sector: Managing for Results or Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story.

Every day that I get a chance to listen to liberal talk radio, they are raving about how "courageous" US President Barack Obama (Democrat) is and how every decision that he ever makes is so full of courage. When he votes to have the government take over the healthcare system and then provide insurance to millions of new people, it is a decision that is full of courage, even though it is paid for on the backs of jobs providers and the young and through debt. When Obama decides to take out a terrorist that our nation has been hunting for a decade, it is a decision that requires lots of courage, because there is a lot to gain and very little to lose. Today on the radio they were raving about how much courage Obama has shown voting to spend money that the government does not have, control industries that the government does not have the authority or skills to control, and how it is so courageous of Obama to give speeches to adoring crowds on issues that he is fully prepared for. You see, to liberals and Democrats and the talk radio that they listen to, the word courage means the exact opposite of its meaning, in yet another example of bizzaro world seeping through.

Courage is defined as the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Obama's decisions are decidedly lacking in courage- he is defensive, watching the polls, hedging his bets, and always risking nothing with his statements and actions. He does not act rightly in the face of discouragement- rather he slinks farther in himself when faced with discouragement, turning sully and cold and passive aggressive. His decisions- to attack Libya, kill Osama, raise taxes, pile on debt, give things to others which he does not own, allow abortions, associate with terrorists, etc- betray that he lacks courage.

Ask yourself- who would you rather have at your side when things get tough- if terrorists were attacking, if bad guys were threatening you, would you trust Obama to stand up and risk danger and his life to take on odds greater then himself? This is purely hypothetical, of course, so it really is your personal gut feeling about the guy.

On the other hand, I guess you have to give it to the guy- he sat there and got schooled by a real leader who has real courage, and although he was staring coldly at the guy and had steam coming out of his ears, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thoroughly embarrassed him he did sit there and face it with all the courage of a rat.

So I guess it does take a lot of courage for Obama to just get out of the House and go about his business, because he is nothing but a clown.

Includes the following Harry Bosch thrillers, award-winning and all voiced by standout Broadway veteran Len Cariou:

THE NARROWS (AudioFile Magazine Earphones Award Winner): FBI agent Rachel Walling finally gets the call she's dreaded for years, the one that tells her the Poet has surfaced. She has never forgotten the serial killer who wove lines of poetry in his hideous crimes--and apparently he has not forgotten her.
Former LAPD detective Harry Bosch gets a call, too--from the widow of an old friend. Her husband's death seems natural, but his ties to the hunt for the Poet make Bosch dig deep. Arriving at a derelict spot in the California desert where the feds are unearthing bodies, Bosch joins forces with Rachel. Now the two are at odds with the FBI...and squarely in the path of the Poet, who will lead them on a wicked ride out of the heat, through the narrows of evil, and into a darkness all his own...

ECHO PARK (2007 Audie Award Winner for Mystery): In 1995, Marie Gesto disappeared after walking out of a supermarket in Hollywood. Harry Bosch worked the case but couldn't crack it, and the 22-year-old woman never turned up, dead or alive. Now Bosch is in the Open-Unsolved Unit, where he still keeps the Gesto file on his desk, when he gets a call from the DA. Michael Connelly's suspenseful new novel pits the detective People magazine calls "one of the most complex crime fighters around" against one of the most sadistic killers he has ever confronted. It confirms that Michael Connelly "is the best writer of suspense fiction working today" (Richmond Times-Dispatch).

THE OVERLOOK: In his first case since he left the LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit for the prestigious Homicide Special squad, Harry Bosch is called out to investigate a murder that may have chilling consequences for national security. A doctor with access to a dangerous radioactive substance is found murdered in the trunk of his car. Retracing his steps, Harry learns that a large quantity of radioactive cesium was stolen shortly before the doctor's death. With the cesium in unknown hands, Harry fears the murder could be part of a terrorist plot to poison a major American city.

 

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In two recent separate posts, Scott and John of PowerLine highlight the hypocrisy of the left in our nation. To refresh your memory, I wrote this on the subject of the left's hypocrisy in my post Rand Paul to Obama Officials: You are pro-choice on abortion but not on toilets and lightbulbs?:

One word that he brings up several times and which I believe increasingly characterizes the liberal leftists who have seized control of the modern Democratic Party is hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie. Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues that one preaches- perhaps one advocates or preaches certain virtues but is unable to obtain those due to lack of self-control or strength or temperament- but rather, hypocrisy is play-acting or pretending to be something which you are not.

Let us be clear- a conservative cheating on his wife while preaching conservative values is wrong but is not a hypocrite, provided he recognized that he is weak and lacked strength or self-control. But a conservative who cheats on his wife but really doesn't think that it was wrong and yet then preaches conservative values, knowing that they are incompatible with his views, is a hypocrite.

Although the right and conservatives are not immune from hypocrisy, I believe it is found more so on the left and in liberals because increasingly they are the ones who are denying the truths of the situation and are employing double-speak to advocate for their political values. A good old-fashioned communist really believed in wealth-redistribution and the evils of capitalist pigs; a modern day liberal talks about 'spreading the wealth' and 'enhancing revenue on top earners'. A modern day liberal speaks of being pro-choice, but does not allow the baby to choose and doesn't support letting people choose their light-bulbs, toilets, or energy sources. A modern day liberal talks about and preaches being environmentally friendly, yet video after video demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that when liberals gather together, they trash the environment with their 'green concerts' or 'pro-union rallies'. Liberals tell us to do as they say but not as they do- but they see no problem in this because they truly do not believe in what they are saying so have no guilt or remorse about telling us to do things which they do not do. A liberal can give a press conference about how he has expanded energy production, all the time knowing that he has not and is actually working to lower energy production, because he believes that lying is okay because there is no real truths in the world. Of course examples can be found of conservatives being hypocrites, but the Democratic party today is increasingly a party filled with unbelievable hypocrisy.

Over at Powerlineblog, Scott wrote in his post Vindication:

In a biting column he titles "The first-person presidency," Victor Davis Hanson conveniently summarizes the national security positions asserted by then Senator Obama, with relevant quotations, and contrasts them with the positions he has taken as president. He then provides this convenient summary:

"Senator Obama opposed tribunals, renditions, Guantanamo, preventive detention, Predator-drone attacks, the Iraq War, wiretaps, and intercepts -- before President Obama either continued or expanded nearly all of them, in addition to embracing targeted assassinations, new body scanning and patdowns at airports, and a third preemptive war against an oil-exporting Arab Muslim nation -- this one including NATO efforts to kill the Qaddafi family. The only thing more surreal than Barack Obama's radical transformation is the sudden approval of it by the once hysterical Left. In Animal Farm and 1984 fashion, the world we knew in 2006 has simply been airbrushed away...."

John's post at Powerlingblog makes the connection between modern liberals and hypocrisy even more clear in his post Time to Celebrate?

No doubt, very few of those who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 anticipated that the high point of his administration would be the extra-judicial killing of a terrorist leader by a team of Navy SEALs. This, as our involvement in Iraq winds down on the Bush administration's timetable, the war in Afghanistan has been stepped up, and a third conflict in Libya has been commenced. But for the Democrats, any port in a storm: they are happy to celebrate victories wherever they can find them....

...One is, nevertheless, struck by the rapturous manner in which the liberal press has applauded Obama's role in the mission...

...All of this praise is due to the fact that Obama approved, rather than nixing, the killing of bin Laden. A good decision, to be sure. But is there a single person, anywhere, who doubts that George W. Bush would have made the same call? Or John McCain, if he had won in 2008? Of course not. The Democrats' jubilation results from the fact that their guy didn't wilt under pressure, but rather lived up to the standard that George W. Bush and John McCain easily met. For this, he is called "courageous" and "gutsy."

One wonders: if killing bin Laden was a courageous, gutsy decision by Barack Obama, where were the liberals when President Bush approved the killing of Zarqawi? Do you remember any of them praising that decision as courageous and "game changing?" No, neither do I. Or how about the apprehension of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? How many congratulations did that skillfully-executed operation draw from the Left? And how about Bush's decision to topple, and then capture, Saddam Hussein, one of America's bitterest enemies, whose forces tried to shoot down American airplanes and who attempted to assassinate a former American President? Was that a courageous and gutsy decision? We all know the answer to that question.

What we are currently witnessing is the strange spectacle of liberals trying to grab, for their guy, a mantle neither he nor they ever sought: cold-blooded assassin of anti-American terrorists. This has nothing to do with their true values and priorities, and everything to do with the fact that Obama's economic policies have put him in a deep hole as he seeks re-election next year...

America is a principled nation, founded on principles and inhabited by many with principles. And yet one of our major parties, the Democratic Party, has essentially abandoned any pretense of principles under the leadership of President Obama. The party is now about one thing- power, and maintaining power, by playing games with the American people, notably games of race and class division, all while still pretending to actually have real principles. Look, I know some of my readers are Democrats, and I increasingly wonder how they can defend this guy and support his presidency when it is increasingly becoming clear that he is above all else a hypocrite.

Obama is a deceiver who cares nothing for the values and beliefs of our nation but pretends to do so in order to get what he craves more than anything else- power and control over others.

Last week, President Barack Obama saw the site of the future Ground Zero Victory Mosque (or as it is sometimes called the Cordoba House Initiative Project, or Ground Zero Mosque, or Celebration of the Thousands Killed by Extremist Muslims, or Cordoba Initiative) for the first time, as he laid a wreath at the site of the collapsed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York to pay tribute to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States.

Obama last year gave his blessing to "the right of Muslims to build a place of worship" on Ground Zero and was supportive of the building of a 'victory mosque' on the site of the most successful attack ever on America by Muslim extremists by Muslim extremists, and last week he took time from his busy schedule to view this location before he laid a wreath at the foot of the Survivor Tree, which sustained damage during the attack but was freed from the rubble.

Obama also visited a fire station that lost 15 firefighters during the attack and almost drove within sight of the victory mosque before he stopped by another lower Manhattan police station. One year after he trumpeted that "as President, I believe that Muslims have... the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances", he stopped by New York City to bring meet with people after the U.S. commando raid in Pakistan killed 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack that bin Laden masterminded, Obama said: `'We keep them in our hearts. We haven't forgotten."

Obviously he hopes that people have forgotten that he supports building an Islamic victory mosque on the same ground that he visited to honor the fallen victims of 9/11- I guess when you are taking credit for killing an evil terrorist it is okay to say that the ground is holy and honor those who were killed on it, but when you are defending Muslims it is okay to say that the ground isn't holy and that anyone can build whatever they want on it, even a victory mosque that celebrates the attack (and also is a house of worship and is an educational center and other stuff too, but mostly a victory mosque).

The revelation again that Democratic President Barack Obama's biography Dreams from My Father was supposedly written by Bill Ayers reminded me again of the time that I had Bill Ayers come into my classroom. Since I have a lot of new readers who haven't likely taken to the time to go through my excellent old posts, I thought that I'd take you all on a trip down memory lane and repost on it below. Enjoy!

My Experience Meeting Bill Ayers

Yes, I have personally met Bill Ayers. At some point in my career, I was told that he would be coming in to speak to my class. As I am a little young, I looked him up, and immediately discovered his past connections with terrorism and the Weather Underground (memo to Obama- it's kind of easy to find out that information- you have to be an idiot not to know that Ayers was a terrorist).

So I went to my principal, and told him that I didn't want to have this guy come in to speak to my students. I am repelled by him- I don't want to be in the same room as this unrepentant terrorist. I wasn't even alive when he attempted to murder innocent and decent Americans, yet I don't want to be associated with him (unlike Obama, who wants to associate with terrorists).

My principal told me to just let him come in and talk. I guess the parent who was bringing in this terrorist was influential in the district, and had some pull with the administration. So I took my class in to hear him speak. He talked about the usual communist drivel.

Mr. Ayers gave me the impression that teachers should primarily be community organizers, dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. He said that teachers should be promoting radical, leftist, communist values. My brother forwarded me this link where he elaborated more on this stuff, and this other link too. This link talks about Obama's association with Bill Ayers.

Before my students met him and heard him speak, I wanted to talk to them about his ideas and discredit him; and after my students heard him speak, I wanted to talk to them about his ideas and discredit them. But I was told I was not allowed to do this. So I just pretended it had never happened and that that day was a snow day.

But it wasn't in reality. The students were given the impression that it was okay to be a terrorist, that it was okay to believe in communist ideas, and that Bill Ayers vision of the world was an accepted one. They were given the impression that being an Obama voter was okay. And personally, this day marked a turning point for me.

Months later, the administration let me go, and the union worked to make sure that I wasn't brought back. I was quickly grabbed by another district, where I have proven to be an exceptional teacher. One of the factors that led to my release was my disgust and verbal protests over having people like Bill Ayers come into the classroom. So that's my experience with this terrorist scumbag.

UPDATE: Several people have emailed me about this post, suggesting that if my new district ever finds out that I thought badly of Bill Ayers, I could be fired, and I would be wise to remove this post. But I refuse to be intimidated! They can not control my thoughts! Our nation may be turning towards fascism, but I am going to fight as long as there is fighting to be done. You can't stop the signal!

Doug Ross has put together an excellent summary of all of President Obama's recent foreign policy actions. Let us not forget that while we have a Congress to worry about and work on domestic policy, it falls on our President to worry about and work on foreign policy, and Obama has performed very poorly in it. This is some fairly harsh criticism of Obama, but it is not wrong:

• Pakistan is said to have increased its stockpile of nuclear weapons, secretly surpassing India's level of atomic arms. In addition, Pakistan is becoming 'enveloped by Islamists' as radicals hold more and more sway over the people and the government.
• The government of Egypt is about to fall, threatening a replay of the 1979 Iranian revolution in which a populist democratic movement was quickly subsumed by a well-organized and violent cadre of religious extremists. Unlike Iran, however, Egypt's "military is a powerhouse in the region, possessing hundreds of advanced tanks and fighter aircraft that could fall into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• Lebanon is under new management: the vicious, Iranian-backed group called Hezbollah, which is responsible for the terrorist attack that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut. Their aim is written into their charter -- to destroy Israel, Britain and the United States
• Tunisia is in the throes of its own revolution with hard-line radical Islamists poised to take control of the government
• Iran continues its work on nuclear armaments and intercontinental ballistic missile technologies, its steady progress delayed only by a clever cyber-attack
• Gaza's Hamas-led government is reportedly importing a new strain of Iranian extremists; Hezbollah agents are said to be making their way into the Palestinian enclave to train soldiers for an attack on Israel; in their spare time Hamas is lobbing missiles into Israel
• Venezuela, Hugo Chavez' dictatorship, is now said to be fielding Iranian military personnel and missiles with 'scientific' collaboration revolving around warhead design and nuclear technology
• The military regime of North Korea recently torpedoed a South Korean warship and is threatening to retest its nuclear weapons. It was also busted importing nuclear technology into Syria and has -- as a bonus -- assisted Iran with its development of missile guidance technologies
• China is on the move: building aircraft carriers, stealth fighters, locking up energy contracts all over the world, and generally preparing to occupy Taiwan and -- eventually -- regions closer to the U.S. All the while, it uses North Korea as a proxy for delivering advanced technologies to rogue regimes to ensure that the United States can never rest easy
• According to a disclosure in Wikileaks, Al-Qaida is "on the brink" of using a nuclear weapon and is far closer to deployment of chemical and biological weapons than previously believed.

Now I know that I have a lot of liberals and Democrats read my blog, so go ahead and list in my comment section all of the incredible foreign policy accomplishments of Obama, and we'll all compare. I predict that the best that Democrats and liberals can do is offer a laundry list of excuses and reasons why bad things occur whenever they are in charge, or lame attempts to pin the blame on someone else, or things that they can take credit for that were things they voted against or spoke out against when they were running for office. The balance is likely to be pointing one way on this one, and that is against the competence of the Obama administration's handling of foreign affairs.

Earlier last week I was critical of Obama's response to Tunisia's revolution, where it appeared that rather than take an active role in events, Obama's administration simply sat on the sidelines and tried to figure out where Tunisia was (I'm kidding- I heard that he had a 40 minute briefing on Tunisia after the revolution broke out- I'm sure he learned about it then). He is dangerously incompetent, especially on important world events that our President is supposed to be the primary actor on in our political system. The revolution in Tunisia though was just the start of something bigger, something that the Iranian Revolution of 1979 has taught us will have repercussions lasting decades, and that is the revolution that is taking place right now in Egypt.

For the past couple days I have been trying to get a handle on events there, much like our President, and like usual, my reactions have mirrored Obama's. First I first supported the young revolutionaries against the bad dictator, while Obama supported the bad dictator. But now I support the bad dictator over the evil militant terrorist groups who want to take power in Egypt, while Obama now supports the evil militant terrorist groups (he supports them by not saying anything bad about them while saying bad stuff about Mubarak- that's an upgrade over his usual 'voting present' by showing support for the bad guys). Obama is dangerously incompetent again and once again, anyone who voted for him or his party made our nation and world a worse place by doing so.

The best article that I have found to help me get a handle on what is going on in Egypt appeared today in the Jerusalum Post by Caroline Glick called Our World: Clueless in Washington. I am going to pass on some of the better parts of it to you to help you too understand a little bit better what is going on in Egypt...

The Egyptian multitudes on the streets of Cairo are a stunning sight. With their banners calling for freedom and an end to the reign of President Hosni Mubarak the story these images tell is a simple one as old as time.


On the one hand we have the young, dispossessed and weak protesters. And on the other we have the old, corrupt and tyrannical Mubarak. Hans Christian Andersen taught us who to support when we were wee tots.

But does his wisdom apply in this case?

Certainly it is true that the regime is populated by old men. Mubarak is 82 years old. It is also true that his regime is corrupt and tyrannical. Since the Muslim Brotherhood spinoff Islamic Jihad terror group murdered Mubarak’s predecessor president Anwar Sadat in 1981, Egypt has been governed by emergency laws that ban democratic freedoms. Mubarak has consistently rejected US pressure to ease regime repression and enact liberal reforms in governance.

This reality has led many American commentators across the political spectrum to side enthusiastically with the rioters. A prestigious working group on Egypt formed in recent months by Middle East experts from Left and Right issued a statement over the weekend calling for the Obama administration to dump Mubarak and withdraw its support for the Egyptian regime. It recommended further that the administration force Mubarak to abdicate and his regime to fall by suspending all economic and military assistance to Egypt for the duration.

The blue ribbon panel’s recommendations were applauded by its members’ many friends across the political spectrum. For instance, the conservative Weekly Standard’s editor William Kristol praised the panel on Sunday and wrote, “It’s time for the US government to take an active role… to bring about a South Korea/Philippines/Chile-like transition in Egypt, from an American-supported dictatorship to an American-supported and popularly legitimate liberal democracy.”

The problem with this recommendation is that it is based entirely on the nature of Mubarak’s regime. If the regime was the biggest problem, then certainly removing US support for it would make sense. However, the character of the protesters is not liberal.

Indeed, their character is a bigger problem than the character of the regime they seek to overthrow.

According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics. When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.

Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion.

When given the opportunity, the crowds on the street are not shy about showing what motivates them. They attack Mubarak and his new Vice President Omar Suleiman as American puppets and Zionist agents. The US, protesters told CNN’s Nick Robertson, is controlled by Israel. They hate and want to destroy Israel. That is why they hate Mubarak and Suleiman.

WHAT ALL of this makes clear is that if the regime falls, the successor regime will not be a liberal democracy. Mubarak’s military authoritarianism will be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism. The US’s greatest Arab ally will become its greatest enemy. Israel’s peace partner will again become its gravest foe.

What has most confounded Israeli officials and commentators alike has not been the strength of the anti-regime protests, but the American response to them. Outside the far Left, commentators from all major newspapers, radio and television stations have variously characterized the US response to events in Egypt as irrational, irresponsible, catastrophic, stupid, blind, treacherous, and terrifying.

They have pointed out that the Obama administration’s behavior – as well as that of many of its prominent conservative critics – is liable to have disastrous consequences for the US’s other authoritarian Arab allies, for Israel and for the US itself.

The question most Israelis are asking is why are the Americans behaving so destructively? Why are President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charting a course that will necessarily lead to the transformation of Egypt into the first Salafist Islamic theocracy? And why are conservative commentators and Republican politicians urging them to be even more outspoken in their support for the rioters in the streets?

Does the US not understand what will happen in the region as a result of its actions? Does the US really fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the Middle East if the Muslim Brotherhood either forms the next regime or is the power behind the throne of the next regime in Cairo?...

...As Prof. Barry Rubin wrote this week, “There is no good policy for the United States regarding the uprising in Egypt but the Obama administration may be adopting something close to the worst option.”
 
Unfortunately, given the cluelessness of the US foreign policy debate, this situation is only likely to grow worse.

Two more years remain in President Obama's term of office. Hopefully voters in America will wake up and realize how dangerously incompetent his administration has been and how destructive the impulse to take a flier on this unknown was.

Not sure if you followed this recent story, but a Reverend Terry Jones, the leader of a tiny Florida church, had been planning to burn a bunch of Quran's on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, extremist Muslim terrorist attacks. He has a tiny congregation of only 50 people and is not considered to be a leading authority or leadership figure in the wider Christian church. When word got out that he planned on doing this, a lot of people decided to write about it and advise him not to, including President Barack Obama, who urged him to listen to "those better angels" and give up his "stunt." Liberal bloggers and Democrat activists jumped out of the woodwork to condemn this pastor, and liberal talk radio was filled with criticisms and caricatures of him and 'crazy nut Christians'.

Reverend Jones prayed about what to do and probably listened to what people were urging him to do, and after all that the crazy nut decided that it was probably a better decision to not go ahead with the Koran burning. In the end, he made the correct decision and did the right thing for society. One other reason that he gave though was that he was promised that be calling off this inflammatory stunt, another inflammatory stunt would also be called off- that be cancelling his Koran burning, he says he was promised that the Ground Zero Mosque would not be built on Ground Zero but would be moved somewhere else.

Let's connect these two events, and compare the building of the Ground Zero Mosque to the Burning of Korans.

Liberals, Democrats, and liberal talk radio was filled with people defending the building of a mosque on Ground Zero because it was 'someone's legal right to do so' and that by Americans letting it be built would be a good demonstration of how tolerant our nation was. And yet those same radio stations, Democrats, and liberals were criticizing, mocking, and rejecting Jone's plan to burn the Koran, even though that is an even more clear example of First Amendment Freedom of Speech and that by letting him burn those Korans, it would be giving Muslims a great chance to demonstrate their toleration. It appears that these people pick and choose who they feel should get First Amendment rights, and they choose the opposite people than I would choose (if I could choose, which I can't). It appears that these liberals and Democrats are all about forcing America to show that it is tolerant and nice and welcoming to Muslims, but fearful and afraid that if Muslims are given the same chance that they'll demonstrate that they aren't tolerant, peaceful, loving, or welcoming in turn. The difference in liberals and Democrats feelings on these issues was striking.

For example, look at the reaction of the leader of the Democrat Party, Barack Obama, to the two planned events. Both building a mosque on the site of Ground Zero and burning Korans on 9/11 are inflammatory stunts designed to bring publicity and raise intense feelings. Both were destined to turn out badly- tying the mosque to 9/11 by building it on that location will increase anti-Muslim feelings in our nation, and burning the Koran will make Christians look intolerant and could lead to increased casualties in our War on Extremist Militant Islamic Terrorists. But Obama and the Democrats came out and supported the building of the mosque, but tried to put a stop to the building of Korans. This difference in reactions is troubling- why is Obama and the Democrats willing to cause damage to our society and inspire bad feelings in one situation, but unwilling in the other situation? I'll let you answer that question in your own mind.

And in the end, it was the crazy nut small time Pastor of some backward town in Florida who made the correct decision and decided not to go ahead with his plan, and it was the well-respected and esteemed Imam who is being paid by the US State Department to travel around the world as a spokesman for tolerance or something who is rejecting as 'radicals' the 70% of the nation who feels it would be wrong for him to build his mosque on that location in spite of the consequences. This demonstrates something else- one person made the correct decision and decided not to inflame the situation further, and another made the wrong decision and decided to inflame the situation further. Both of course had the legal right to inflame as much as they wanted to, both had the right to demonstrate which religion was more tolerant and accepting, but in the end, only one person decided correctly that just because you have the legal right to do something and just because it could send a message, that doesn't mean that you do it.

Pastor Jones eventually made the right choice, the Ground Zero Imam is making the wrong choice, and anyone who supports anyone who believes otherwise needs to really think about the choices they are making in their own lives.

This is a reprint from last year, but I want to make sure everyone reads it again, especially conservative teachers in the classroom... I'm going to post it today, so that you teachers can read it over and run it on Friday (9/10)...

One of my readers emailed me to ask me what I do as a teacher on 9/11, and I responded to him, but I should have let you all know what I do on 9/11. I know that there are some teachers who read my blog, and might be interested in my lesson for that day. Here is what I do as a teacher, every year on September 11.

First, as a teacher you will need to lay out why it is important for students to remember what happened in 9/11/01. It is a teachable moment, so does have educational value, especially for social studies classes. Our nation changed on that day- there is a pre-9/11 mentality and a post-9/11 mentality, and post-9/11 our nation is proactive about our security by passing legislation, engaging in wars, and having more aggressive interrogation techniques. Our nation changed that day because we lost so many people, people who might have cured cancer or invented the flying car, and because the terrorists hit us so hard in our homeland, destroying our innocence and naive beliefs that they couldn't do that.

Next, review what happened for those students who are not fully aware of all the details. Make sure that your review is short - who did it, what they did, the number of deaths, the impact of those deaths, the impact on the US, and the lasting impact on the US. Also address at this time the heroes of 9/11- the leadership of Mayor Giuliani, the firemen and police, and the average people who were also heroes.

Also at this time, address conspiracy theories and 'truthers,' and dispel those myths in no uncertain terms. Don't go into the myths and do not leave any doubt in students minds that these conspiracy myths and 'truthers' are wrong- they dishonor the deaths of those who died, they dishonor those who worked hard to stop something like this for happening again, and they dishonor you by insulting your intelligence. Students need to in the future confront 'truthers' the same way that they would confront a Holocaust denier. This introduction portion should take no more than 5 minutes.

9/11 is not part of history- it is a part of these students' present. It affects their lives, their world, and their government. These students are becoming adults and joining the world as educated people, and in order to join it fully, they need to experience what 9/11 was in order to fully understand it. It is important for students, especially those who were too young to remember, to feel that day. They need to feel what our nation felt on that day- they need to face the emotions and see the sights that we all saw, so that they can fully be a part of this world we live in today. This event has to be personal to them, an emotion that they feel, just like we all did. It can't just be worksheets and videos'- the teacher needs to have them discuss their feelings before and after the event.

For the next 5-10 minutes, discuss with students what they remember from that day and get them thinking about where they were, what they were doing, and how it impacted them. Try to encourage them to remember not just the events of the day but the emotions and feelings that they felt. For older students, they might still remember a bit of this, but the younger students might only remember vague impressions. That's okay- after today's lesson, they will remember it better.

Before showing the video, make sure that you ask students if they had any family members who worked in New York City during these events or lost anyone on 9/11. These students can leave if they become too emotional or if they feel they can't handle the lesson. Tell all the students that it okay to be moved by this video, and that if they feel moved to tears, they can step out of the room. All they have to do is say they have to use the restroom or something- if they really have to use the restroom, they can say that too- and the class won't know if they are leaving because they have to use the restroom or because they have to cry. Students need to feel safe and that it is okay to express emotions- many people openly weeped on 9/11 and there is nothing at all wrong with that.

Next, show the video. The video that I show is In Memoriam - New York City, 9/11/01 (2002). I choose this video because it does not have political commentary, it does not sugarcoat the events, it does not try to soften the events, and it is not edited for language or violence. It is the best video I found that simply shows the attacks on New York City, over and over again, from different angles, with pictures and video both mixed in. There are several interviews that are heart-breaking, but not too many of these to overwhelm the pictures from the attacks themselves. This video is disturbing- as was 9/11 itself. The video is bursting with tenacious and inspiring humanity- as was 9/11 itself. And the video provides an appropriate balance too, as it is narrated by the wisdom of New York City's then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani. This video in particular makes it virtually impossible to forget the 3,047 lives lost to terrorist brutality. This is not a journalistic endeavor, but a potent visual reminder that 9/11 was a day of unity, transcending the horrors witnessed here.

For a 60 minute class, only show about 30 minutes, or up to the part where they begin to look for survivors, and then down the volume and tell the students that they only found 11 people in rubble. For a 90 minute class, show the whole video, and afterwards just let the room remain silent for a minute or two before you begin the next portion of this lesson.

For the last part of this 9/11 lesson, you as a teacher will need to spend about 10 minutes asking students how they feel. First ask them if this was how they remembered it- if their memories or what they have seen since matches with the feelings that they have right now. Most students will be shocked and stunned by what they just saw- you will need to gently ask students or call on a couple that look like they are not too shaken and can get out an answer.

Then ask the students to try to describe some of the feelings that they have now. Explore these feelings and ask students to try to verbalize what they are feeling. Do they feel shock? Are they sad? A lot of students may feel angry, or be scared, or full of pride about the heroes, or determined, or confused, or feel like they want to help, like they want to lash out, like they want to do something to stop it from happening again. All of these feelings are okay- validate these students and let them know that it okay to feel these ways, since this was how we felt as a nation.

After each feeling is talked about and explored, follow up with the students and ask them what possible policy responses there might be to those emotions- ask them how they can translate their feelings into action and rise above the situation without losing sight of it. This part of the lesson is a great time to teach- spend a minute after each feeling talking about how America felt that same way and what we as a nation did and are doing about that emotion. This will help the students to understand why our nation responded the way we did to this event.

America was angry and wanted to punish those who attacked our nation- and not only those people directly involved, but those people who cheered when we were hurt so bad, those nations who supported terrorism or encouraged it, those peoples who helped those who attacked us. That's why we started the War on Terror, that is why we are in Iraq and Afghanistan, and after seeing the video, students will understand better these things. America was scared, and is still scared, and that is why the Patriot Act was passed and security procedures were stepped up, and we should still be scared as a nation and vigilant about our security. America felt like it wanted to do something, anything to help, and that is why this day to many becomes a day of service, and students can help out even today by giving blood or donating items to our troops. America felt like it had to do something to prevent this from happening again, and part of that is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if students want to help this effort, they can join the military or the CIA or the FBI. America was confused, and that is why we are making more of an effort to understand what may have motivated these people to do this to us, and students need to learn about other cultures and try to understand them better. America was sad, and are still sad today, and students can attend local vigils and remembrances around the area and express their sadness.

Validate the students emotions and then connect them to what we did as a nation and what the students can do now. When students are out of emotions and you have made all your teaching points, walk away from the students and just let them talk among themselves for the last couple minutes of class. Students will recover from their shock and gather themselves again before going back out into the world. Many will remember this lesson for a long time to come.

This is the lesson plan that I have for 9/11. Feel free to use it in your classrooms.

From Powerlineblog's The wages of not finishing the job:

Michael Oren, Israel's stellar ambassador to the U.S., is warning that Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of approximately 15,000 rockets in South Lebanon, near the border with Israel. That's about four times more than Hezbollah had in 2006, when it launched constant rocket attacks deep into Northern Israel. Moreover, according to Oren, Hezbollah's rockets can now reach every Israeli city, even Eliat in the South.

To make matters worse, this time Hezbollah has placed its rockets under hospitals, homes and schools. So, if Israel were to try to take the rockets out, it would face howls of protest from the "international community" including, I suspect, President Obama. Israel may well have to pay a steep price for its cautious approach to the 2006 fight against Hezbollah and for not finishing that fight.

Back in 2006 I began my attack on the MSM when I contacted the Managing Editor of the Detroit News, Dave Butler, to express my disappointment in their coverage of Israel's fight against Hezbollah in 2006. Now I know that pointing out that the MSM had a liberal bias was an exercise of pointing out the obvious, but back several years ago I was still figuring this out, and I wanted to know why the coverage was so one-sided. As I pointed out back then:

Every day there is a story about the number of Hezbollah and Lebanese civilians killed so far, and there are frequent stories in your newspaper focusing in an the specific deaths of these people, but I can not find any news reports focusing on the death count for Israeli civilians and defense forces, or a single in depth article on some poor Israeli mother who has lost her children to a Hezbollah rocket.

My point in writing was not just to point out the one-sided coverage- my fear was that by favoring a pro-terrorist organization like Hezbollah, the News would be siding with the bad guys, and everyone knows that when you side with the bad guys you always eventually lose (whether in this world or the next). In this particular case, I feared that by siding with an immoral and evil group that represents the worst in humanity readers would be driven away, which would result in less advertising revenue, which would result in cuts being made to the sports section and the comics- and I love my sports section and color comics.

In my conversation with Mr. Butler, he stressed that neither side was immoral or wrong- that this conflict was a nonpartisan affair between two combatants of equal morality, and thus he could defend his coverage of the conflict. To him, there was no difference between a terrorist non-state group launching random rockets into populated areas in Israel and Israel's response to kill those terrorists who were launching the rockets and to destroy those rockets. To him, there was no difference between a uniformed solider trying to kill an un-uniformed terrorist, and the un-uniformed terrorist who hid in schools and churches and launched his rockets from those locations. He saw nothing wrong in a free-thinking adult choosing to put women and children and the sick in harms way in order to defend himself from a retaliation attack as he launched weapons of random mass destruction (WRMD's?) at women, children, and the sick. The Managing Editor of the Detroit News thought that he was brave and fair and morally right in equating the two sides of this conflict. Clearly, he was wrong for doing so, and his paper suffered accordingly for choosing to equate evil with good and be 'unbaised and nonpartial' when covering a conflict that clearly had good guys and bad guys.

One other point- over the ensuing letters that Mr. Butler and myself exchanged several interesting points emerged, which I believe will come up again when Hezbollah once again attacks Israel and that good nation is forced to respond. The most important point that emerged is the MSM's reliance on outside sources for information- whether it be the AP or the Wire Service or something- the MSM is just like me- simply an organization that mostly takes news from other sites and filters it and rewords it and then passes it along, while doing a little bit of original reporting on the side (I do original reporting too). If conflict once again erupts in the Middle East, be careful that your news source isn't just recycling what some biased AP or Wire Service reporter wants to feed to you.

Surprisingly, Memorandum hasn't picked up this story and made it the number one story out there, but it should, because it demonstrates everything wrong with liberals and Democrats and their judicial philosophy. The story comes from Time and CNN and is called The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves:

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant.

If you are like me, you're stunned and shocked and angry from what you just read. My reaction was "you have got to be freaking kidding me!"

This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.

After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand.

If only Pineda-Moerno were a terrorist than I am sure the court would have found something wrong with federal agents sneaking onto his property to put a tracking device on his property.

Fortunately, other courts are coming to a different conclusion from the Ninth Circuit's — including the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court ruled, also this month, that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant. The issue is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.

When one reads the decision from the Ninth Circuit, one has to wonder just what the heck they were thinking, and what liberals in general are thinking. They blather about freedoms and rights, but when it comes down to it, these are not conservative judges agreeing with the government's claim that it can go on to your property and bug your car without a warrant- they are liberals. Liberal judges, appointed by Democrats, using 'empathy' and 'diversity' as guidelines, are fighting for the government to control your freedoms of speech ('fairness' on the radio or 'net neutrality' on the internet), these liberal judges are fighting to take away your right to guns (liberal dissents on recent gun cases), and these liberal judges are now chipping away at your Fourth Amendment rights.

The Ninth Circuit court is the court most closely controlled by Democrats and liberals, and thus is a great indicator of the type of society and laws that they'd put in place on us if they were in charge or get any more power.

The DC Circuit court has 11 judges on it, and 6 were appointed by Republicans, 3 by Democrats, and 2 empty spots. Since it is so controlled by Republicans and conservatives, it is a good indicator of the type of society and laws that they'd put in place were they in charge of us or given more power.

The thing is, it is up to you to decide what type of court we get. The way that our federal court system works is that federal judges are appointed by the President and then confirmed by the Senate. Democrats always nominate liberal judges, while Republicans nominate both liberal and conservative judges (they pick liberal judges to try to be balanced and fair in a mistaken belief that Democrats will return the favor once they're in power). If you're looking for someone to blame for this decision, the appropriate person to blame is Democrat Presidents who appointed them and Democrat Senators who confirmed them, and since Democrats continue to support them, you pretty much can blame any Democrat anywhere on the ticket.

In Massachusetts Miracle I wrote:

I found this fun fact about Dukakis on wikipedia- Soon after his loss in the 1988 Presidential election to George Herbert Walker Bush, the so-called 'Massachusetts Miracle' of prosperity also went bust, and Michael Dukakis was little more than a 'lame duck' Governor for his final two years in office. At the close of his tenure, Massachusetts was mired deeply in debt facing a budget shortfall of more than $1.5 billion.

Barack Obama is Micheal Dukakis.

From the Weekly Standard's Duking It Out: The Dukakis administration that never was:

As Barack Obama sees his ratings descend toward the high 30s, he is increasingly described as the second coming of James Earl Carter Jr., whose presidency, gone but hardly forgotten, lives on in masochists’ minds. The comparison is unkind and not quite on target: This is less Carter II than the lost presidency of Michael Dukakis, which seemed a sure thing at this date 22 years ago, and from which we were saved by the elder George Bush.

Of course, no one thought Dukakis could be the messiah, but in other ways the connections are strong: both creatures of the liberal Northeast and of Harvard, with no sense at all of most of the rest of the country; both rationalists who impose legalistic criteria on emotion-rich subjects; both with fixed ideas of who society’s victims are, which do not accord with the views of the public; and both with a tin ear for the culture and a genius for creating wedge issues that split their own party.

So what happened? If Obama is Dukakis, how did Obama win while Dukakis lost? It is time, boys and girls, for a little lesson in "How to Run a Campaign and How Not to Run a Campaign: Comparing HWB with JSM."

Let's take a look at one of my favorite websites, The Living Room Candidate. This website contains all the major campaign advertisements that were run on television from 1952 to today. They are sorted by year, theme, issue, etc. This is a great website because in watching it you learn one of the most important facts about being elected- it doesn't matter how good the candidate is, it only matters how good a campaign they run.

In 1988, Dukakis had a 17-point lead in mid-summer, lost to Bush by 8-points in the fall. What caused that 25 point swing? Probably some of the most brutal campaign advertisements you'll ever see (aside from LBJ). When I show these ads to my students, they gasp in shock at how utterly punishing those ads were, and when you're showing a crowd of high-school kids these ads for the first time in their life, they are a good judge of whether they are effective or not. When I ask them what they think about GWB's ads, they say "there is no coming back from those for Dukakis." What was so brutal and effective about GWB's campaign advertising? Back to the article...

It was a campaign that quite openly exploited primitive racial-sexual fears. More subtly .  .  . the Bush campaign exploited nativist prejudice. .  .  . Dukakis is not an American, Dukakis is different, this was the unwholesome subtheme that tied together the pledgehammer assault. .  .  .

That's right- GHWB capitalized on the fact that Dukakis wasn't 'American', didn't like saluting the flag, blamed America for everything (later on Dukakis blames America for 9/11), and didn't reflect the values that made America great. GWB hammered away at how Dukakis was simply an elitist, no-nothing, Harvard-educated liberal who was purely smoke-and-mirrors and who, if put in charge of our nation, would never make the hard tough choices that have to be made. If you don't believe me, watch some of the ads yourself- check out at the website the ads "Tank Ride," "Revolving Door," and "Willie Horton." There is no coming back from those body blows that GWB inflicted on Dukakis.

On the other hand, for some reason John McCain didn't run a brutal, hard-hitting campaign that called Obama's policies, judgement, and character into question. He didn't go after Obama for his church, he didn't attack him for his terrorist friends, he didn't call into question his 'Americanism', he didn't question his patriotism, he didn't attack his naive views, he steered away from questioning his lack of experience, and he didn't attack Obama for his elitist schooling. On every major important point that McCain could have capitalized on, he pulled back, and only gently batted Obama around a bit. Oh, he hints here and there about stuff, but nothing smacks you in the gut with the full brutal face of a real battle that Obama could have brought against Obama. If you don't believe me, watch the ads yourself, and lick at the kitty milk that JSM poured playfully on Obama- see the ads "Celeb," "Education," and "Storm" for examples of how weak and unfocused the attack on Obama by JSM was.

So, I guess we have whoever ran GWB's campaign in 1988 to thank from saving us from the mess that we find ourselves in today, and we have whoever ran JSM's campaign in 2008 to thank for us finding ourselves in the mess that we are in today (may that person be smacked around by milk jugs). Oh, of course if McCain was President we would have had a recession, and Democrats in Congress likely would have passed bloated budgets, but likely the national debt would have only exploded by a trillion or two a year, unlike what has happened now, and likely Iran would not be happily building a nuke to nuke Jews, and probably a mosque wouldn't be being built at Ground Zero, and likely we'd be emerging from the 'Bush recession' rather than already starting the 'Obama Depression.'

While Obama spent his time responding to the Gulf Oil spill by deciding "whose arse to kick", on my blog I took the correct approach to the spill. The correct approach to the spill was not to demonize a company, not to overreact to the events, not to try to make political hay out of the events, and not to make the damage worse.

The correct approach was to "gather the experts — federal, state, local, public and private — not to discover who is to blame but to secure their active and continuous involvement until the crisis is resolved". Mitt Romney said that, and I talked about it in my post Mitt Romney on Leadership, when I said that "what we need right now is someone who will use what power and authority and resources that the federal government has to help, and other than that stay out of the way." Obama didn't choose that correct approach- he closed his group and cast blame.

Another correct way to respond to the Gulf Oil spill would be to take a look at government policies and see if they are in any way making the situation worse. I did so when I was one of the early bloggers writing about the Jones Act- see my post Obama: Didn't Waive the Jones Act, Made Gulf Spill Worse. In that post, I wrote "Don't kid yourself- there is a lot that the government can do to help the situation in the Gulf- like getting the heck out of the way of people who want to help"- that's right, the correct approach would be to get government out of the way, not get it more in the way. Obama didn't do that either.

In Obama Can Help with Gulf Oil Spill I gave our clueless partisan hack of a President some advice on what to do when I wrote:

Obama CAN help to contain and clean up and prevent future Gulf Oil disasters- but he isn't doing that. He isn't helping to contain the spill- in fact, it appears that he is not repealing regulations that hinder fighting the spill and he is hindering efforts by states to build reefs and other means of protection. He isn't helping to clean up the spill- he has created a vacuum of leadership at the top of our nation, a vacuum that is sucking the oil right out of the ground and spewing it everywhere in a potent symbol of his inadequacy for the Presidency. And he isn't helping to prevent future Gulf Oil disasters, unless you consider his attempts to drive the US back into the Stone Age by killing energy production a way to help prevent future spills like this one. Obama can help the Gulf Oil Spill... but he isn't. The same things could be said for the Democrats who are running Congress as well.

One of the great things about being a policy advisor like me is that I can suggest solutions and options, and then compare the results of what politicians did to what I suggested. If Obama would have taken my suggestions, the Gulf Oil spill would have not been a hysteria-filled situation, would not have been front-page news, and would have appeared to everyone who asked about it to be 'not a big deal.' Oh, I know liberals would have been all upset that I was ignoring the situation and not giving it the attention that it deserved, but the most important thing about the Gulf Oil spill was to not make the situation worse- the rig had exploded already, the oil was leaking already, and freaking out after that would only make the situation worse.

But Obama and the Democrats in Congress did freak out, and now crashing visitor numbers and plummeting fish sales are devastating businesses in the region. Yeah, likely less people would have visited the Gulf region due to the oil spill, but after Obama and the Democrats promoted an image of oil everywhere that it resorts had to start planning on an 80% drop in revenues.

Figures show just 16 of the state's 180 holiday beaches are at all polluted, while the bulk of the spill appears to have dispersed, or be dispersing out at sea, but perception becomes reality, and President Obama and Democrats hyped the oil spill for political purposes and created a perception that oil is evil, and now the taint of their lies has tainted the entire Gulf economy.

Simon Jenkins, writing in The Guardian, writes:

The spill has been another classic of state terror in which incident and response are wholly out of proportion to one another. As the oil leak began back in April, Obama declared a disaster, banned fishing in 37% of the Gulf and ordered a halt to underwater oil exploration, putting some 27,000 jobs at risk. Columnists screamed it was "Obama's 9/11" and demanded he "harness the nation's outrage". He was attacked for playing golf within 58 days of the disaster. With dial-a-quote scientists howling blue murder, any who might have looked at previous spills and thought it might not be so bad would have been unpatriotic disaster-deniers.

Hardly a day passed without the president castigating BP, the hated "British Petroleum" – never its American site operators, Transocean and Halliburton, or his own regulators. It was a field day for xenophobes. The president used the sort of language normally visited on global terrorists. He was going to "get BP" and make them "pay for this". It was another Hurricane Katrina, but one that could thankfully be blamed on foreigners.
Now, mysteriously, Obama speaks of we, we, we … who "have this thing under control". His environment adviser, Carol Browner, says "the vast majority of the oil appears to have gone". Less than 10% of coastline saw any oil at all. There have been no sightings of dead fish floating in the sea and most fishing will soon be "back to normal". The Gulf is apparently "clean, safe and open for business", and a lovely place to take the kids. It is OK, everyone. Disaster has turned to triumph, so let us all think about the midterm elections.

So whose fault really was the collapse in the local economy? It began with a failed oil well, responsibility resting with BP, but blame still not apportioned. Yet as every terrorist knows, it is not the bomb that does the real damage, it is the publicity multiplier given it by the media and politics. The bomb causes the bang; the target is then relied on to supply the megaphone.

The great conflation of fear – often egged on by "the science" – is the result of government gladly allowing itself to go mad for a day, to raise a fear, glean a headline or win a budget rise. Obama grotesquely exaggerated the oil threat to advance his personal and party cause.

As voters, we have to hold those people responsible for doing the damage they have done to our economy and nation. Thankfully, as voters we can hold Democrats responsible this coming election. Please do so.