Clipping blog

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• When Reality Meets “Family Guy”
• Study: Women Marry for Money, Aren’t Terribly Interested in What the Left Says they Are.
• Clearing the Browser Tabs – Delivery Tuesday Edition
• President Obama to Introduce More Hopenchange with a New Chief of Staff
• For State Republicans, Budgets Had Better Be Job One

When Reality Meets “Family Guy” Posted: 04 Jan 2011 08:20 AM PST I suppose it was only a matter of time before our own laziness brought down a heretofore timeless classic. What is a word worth? According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books' upcoming edition of Mark Twain's seminal novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will remove all instances of the "n" word—I'll give you a hint, it's notnonesuch—present in the text and replace it with slave. The new book will also remove usage of the word Injun. The effort is spearheaded by Twain expert Alan Gribben, who says his PC-ified version is not an attempt to neuter the classic but rather to update it. "Race matters in these books," Gribben told PW. "It's a matter of how you express that in the 21st century." Alternately, it could provide a “teachable moment” as kids ask their parents why that word is part of a man’s name. Parents could then tell their kids about the days when Nigger Jim was not considered person but property and the great war we fought to end that practice forever. Nowadays, we can’t be bothered teaching context because… …well, I’m not quite sure why. Are you? I guess in the future, we can just slide our kids this video clip instead of the timeless words of Mark Twain. It’s the 21st Century, after all.

Study: Women Marry for Money, Aren’t Terribly Interested in What the Left Says they Are. Posted: 04 Jan 2011 07:11 AM PST I expect there will be some push back against this study. Woman still want to 'marry up' and naturally choose husbands who earn more than themselves, a report suggests. The idea of most women wanting to be financially independent is a myth, according to Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics. [...] In her report, published by the Centre for Policy Studies think tank, she suggests men dominate the top positions because women simply do not want careers in business. [...] The research, which drew on existing data drawn from Britain and Spain, showed that 20 per cent of British women married husbands with a significantly better education than their own in 1949. By the 1990s, the percentage of women deciding to 'marry up' had climbed to 38 per cent – with a similar pattern repeated in the rest of Europe, the US and Australia. The report concluded that equal roles in the family, where husband and wife shared employment, childcare and housework, was 'not the ideal sought by most couples'. I don’t know what else to say about this but, “Well, no kidding”. Women and men are not the same, so it can’t come as much of a surprise to anyone but those on the left who have been fighting the inevitable tide of biology that the life goals for women (in general) are quite different from those of men (in general). It’s nice to see some more empirical information to back up common sense and observation, though.

Clearing the Browser Tabs – Delivery Tuesday Edition Posted: 04 Jan 2011 03:10 AM PST This week has been a bumper crop of stories I can talk about on The Delivery tonight, so I think I’ll run a solo show and share what I’ve found. There is a chance that I’ll hve a guest for a relatively short interview about the Winter Classic, but I don’t have a confirmation yet. If it happens, you’ll like it; if not, well, I’ll have something good to talk about instead. It’s a win-win for you! And now, links! Clearing the Browser Tabs is a smash hit around the blogosphere! Of all the people for whom I’ll feel sorry when the budget axe falls, the people making bank off our tax dollars in the DC area are well down the list. In fact, I like Rob Long’s dispersal idea quite a bit. If we really want to help third world nations lift themselves out of poverty, we need free trade with them. Duane Lester needs help to get to CPAC, and he has a novel way you can get him there. Jobs are slowly coming back, but workers aren’t. My guess is that they’re not at all confident those jobs will stick around. A couple of years of unemployment benefits isn’t helping the matter either. It turns out that Cuban medicine was pretty darned good before the Communists showed up. If you like good space-related art, these posters celebrating seven years of Mars Lander missions are pretty darned good. You can print them out or use them as wallpaper for your computer.

President Obama to Introduce More Hopenchange with a New Chief of Staff Posted: 03 Jan 2011 07:55 PM PST Whatever pretense President Obama might have made of an administration free of shadowy special interests and politics as usual (like how I worked those catch-phrases in there?) have flown away like doves at an Olympic Opening Ceremony. Well, it’s more like they tried to fly away, then burst into flame and rained down on horrified onlookers who expected to see a beautiful and uplifting scene but instead got burnt fowl in their faces. ABC News’ Jake Tapper reports: Sources tell ABC News that President Obama is considering naming former Secretary of Commerce Bill Daley as his chief of staff. Daley, an executive with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., did not return a call for comment, and White House officials would not comment. Moe Lane nails the obvious Chicago angle. OK, let me see if I have this straight: Rahm Emanuel quits being White House Chief of Staff and runs for mayor of Chicago.  The retiring mayor of Chicago is Richard Daley, whose brother William Daley is reportedly being considered for the position of… White House Chief of Staff.  Presumably this would be followed with Richard Daley endorsing Emanuel. (pause) Brilliant – in its way. Oh, but the Chicago angle isn’t even the best part. See, Daley is an executive with a Wall Street financial firm — you know, one of the very same fat cats against whom the President has inveighed for two years. He accused Republicans of being in bed with Wall Street, but he’s going to invite one of their highest-placed members into his inner circle. And yet his falling approval ratings and the level of public disgust for his pet progressive programs are our fault. That, folks, is brilliant.

For State Republicans, Budgets Had Better Be Job One Posted: 03 Jan 2011 05:14 PM PST If I didn’t know that Reuters was a respectable, objective, non-biased news agency, I’d say there was a distinct undercurrent of sorrow in this lede. Legislators in U.S. states who are returning to work this month or entering office for the first time expect to spend much of the new year pinching pennies. According to a survey released on Monday by the National Conference of State Legislatures, most state lawmakers listed balancing the budget at the top of their fiscal agenda. “Diminishing federal stimulus funds, slow revenue growth and spending pressures have opened new budget gaps totaling $26.7 billion this fiscal year,” the survey found. It added that states already expect a total gap of $82.1 billion for fiscal 2012, which begins for most in July. The years of orgiastic spending are over. Now come the years of making sure we don’t stiff our kids with our bills. It’s not sexy, but then again, sexy doesn’t very often get the job done. Unless the job is being sexy. But that’s not a job for politicians. That’s a job for certain bloggers and podcasters and Diane Lane. Back to the point. I get the impression from this story that Reuters is just a little bit dismayed that America got sick and tired of speaking softly to the Democrats who were bound and determined to bankrupt us. It surely can’t be much of a surprise that we busted out a 2×4 and smacked our state legislators right between the eyes 680 times. We voters tend to do things like that to political parties that get a bit too full of themselves. We did it in 2006, 1984, and 1948. It was only a matter of time before it happened again. Of course, there’s always the chance that our new Republican legislatures won’t cut their budgets all that much. Republicans have a nasty habit of falling in love with big pork, big perks, and big power. Those things all exist at the state level like they do in Washington and no politician is immune to their siren song. But before any of them decide to get too comfortable, I’d just like to remind them that we are still watching and that we have not actually put down the big stick. If another lesson is required, we voters will have no problem administering it.

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