Rust Belt Raconteur

From a favorite blog of mine, Today in the Sky:

“Smoking pot will help keep airline passengers calm and could prevent incidents of air rage, according to the unorthodox claim being made by a group called Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER). The Denver Post says the group ‘held a press conference Tuesday outside the offices of the Federal Aviation Administration in Denver to propose a solution to the rash of in-flight disturbances on airplanes over the last year.’”

Meanwhile, ravers held a press conference outside the Federal Reserve to advocate for the use of ecstasy in increasing consumer confidence.

It takes a sophisticated political staff to devise a strategy like this. From the NY Times:

“The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.”

In related news, Dick Cheney hired Christo to wrap the Supreme Court in black cloth and says that the Boumediene decision never happened.

The first line in a Minneapolis Star-Tribune article on Lorena Ochoa:

“In a country of about 108 million people, fewer than 20,000 of whom play golf, Mexico somehow produced a 5-foot-6 wisp of a woman who is part Tiger Woods, part Mother Teresa, part Dora the Explorer and every bit the best female golfer on the planet.”

Thank you, Mr. Mark Craig, for authoring the pinnacle of uninspired, stereotype-ridden, and hyperbolic feature articles. I hereby present you with the anti-Pulitzer, the most prestigious award in the field of media nonsense. And if I may offer one thought that is particularly apropos:

“What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Identify the speaker and the topic being discussed:

“I’m not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I’m sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do.”

Would you believe Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) on telecom industry immunity?

This more or less encapsulates everything wrong with America today …

From the department of the insanely obvious:

A new study argues that the nation’s focus on helping students who are furthest behind may have produced a Robin Hood effect, yielding steady academic gains for low-achieving students in recent years at the expense of top students.

The study, to be released on Wednesday, compared trends in scores on federal tests for the bottom 10 percent of students nationwide with those for the top 10 percent and said those at the bottom moved up faster than those at the top.

In tests of fourth-grade reading from 2000 to 2007, for instance, the scores of the lowest-achieving students increased by 16 points on a 280-point scale, compared with a gain of three points for top-achieving students, according to the study, by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research organization in Washington.

The period of big gains for low achievers and minimal ones for high achievers coincides with the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind, which took effect in 2002. The study said that while it was impossible to know whether the law caused those scoring patterns, such a result would hardly be surprising, since the law made it a goal to reduce the gap separating low-scoring, poor and minority students from higher-scoring white students.

Under the law, schools are required to bring increasing percentages of students to proficiency in reading and math each year or face sanctions that can include the firing of staff members. As a result, many schools organize instruction around helping low-performing students reach minimal proficiency.

In the debate over the law, little attention has been paid to the languid growth among high-achieving students, a trend with troubling implications for the nation’s economic competitiveness.

“This is like sports,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., the institute’s president, who served in the Education Department under President Ronald Reagan. “If the only goal of a sports program is to get people over a three-foot hurdle, why would anybody be coached to get over a four-foot hurdle? They wouldn’t. So those who can already sail over a three-foot hurdle have no incentive to do anything except to sleep late.”

In other news, dog bites man, sun rises in east, film at 11.

[1] A Kansas law that allows for grand juries to be formed by petition is leading to tyranny-of-the-majority harassment of abortion providers.

[2] For three Saturday mornings this summer, NYC will close streets to create a pedestrian/bicycle corridor from Brooklyn to Central Park.

[3] When was the concept of the Internet invented? Would you believe 1934, with what was called a “Steampunk version of hypertext”?

[4] It turns out that sarcasm was an understudied neurological phenomenon — until now. What genius decided that was a good idea?

[5] David Brooks on Tiger Woods: “He’s become the beau ideal for golf-loving corporate America, the personification of mental fortitude.”

[6] The status of forces agreement we’re blackmailing Iraq into signing is exactly what the UK did in 1930. We get it, history. Dying empire.

[7] How does Barack Obama unite the Democratic Party and appeal to Hillary’s blue-collar supporters? Start smoking again. Yes, seriously.

That was the reaction of Reason to some horrifying news, courtesy of the Newark Star-Ledger:

It’s a hot topic in Republican political and fundraising circles: CNN’s Lou Dobbs is thinking of running for governor of New Jersey.

Several well-connected Republicans say they’ve heard the buzz that Dobbs, famous for his sharp commentary about Washington policies and politics, may be turning his sights on Trenton and has inquired about the steps necessary to start a campaign.

Reached by telephone yesterday morning at his home — a 300-acre horse farm in Wantage, Sussex County — Dobbs would not say whether he has any such plans. Asked if he wanted to deny it, Dobbs said, “I’m just not going to comment.”

Yikes. Of course, Gov. Corzine has done a spectacular job of trying to get the state’s horrible fiscal house in order and has been vilified for it; his approval rating has plummeted to a pathetic-for-anyone-not-named-Bush 38 percent. I’m legitimately scared that Lou could win were he to be nominated. In which case, I guess I’ll look for the “populist” brownshirts to round up Jersey’s hundreds of thousands of Latino immigrants.

(And as an aside, it would be one thing if he was just an uneducated, uninformed blowhard like Bill O’Reilly. But he has an economics degree from Harvard. He knows that what he says is bullshit and says it anyway. Scary.)

The 9/11 show trials begin.

They come up with an official cheer. China celebrates Fonzie’s triumph!

In other news, let the campaign begin: Obama 272, McCain 266. Strap in.