Filed Under: Can’t be race…as Obama says, he was Black when he was elected…it’s losing the middle…

(Headline)President Obama’s path to a second term may rely on states shaped by the same social forces he embodies.

By Ronald Brownstein

Friday, January 7, 2011 | 6:05 a.m.

“By any standard, white voters’ rejection of Democrats in November’s elections was daunting and even historic.
Fully 60 percent of whites nationwide backed Republican candidates for the House of Representatives; only 37 percent supported Democrats, according to the National Election Poll exit poll conducted by Edison Research. …Moreover, those results may understate the extent of the white flight from the Democratic Party, according to a National Journal analysis of previously unpublished exit-poll data provided by Edison Research.”

http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/in-2012-obama-may-need-a-new-coalition-20110105?page=1

“Because we can…”

There is an article today in the NC Times from the San Jose Mercury News, about a lot of appliances being made to connect to the internet – refrigerators, washing machines, etc.

Which raises the question we once had about how would we computers in the home – did we really need a computer to hold our food recipe cards? (And the answer is still the same – 3×5 cards work better for that.)

But the question about internet connected washing machines in the morning paper became real this morning when a friend came over with his complaint about his car battery.

He has a year old, 750 series BMW and the dealership says he needs a new battery – about $500!

I said “Call AAA, or go to American Battery in Escondido…”

“Can’t,” he says. “The battery is ‘special’ – it communicates duplex to the car computer.”

Now, this is a solution in search of a problem and it also means that you must use very expensive proprietary parts – I have a so-called “luxury” car and have never paid more than cents over $100.

My friend (who has a Ph.D in Engineering), knows all about the reasoning and is unhappy about it, but how would anyone know until it happens?

We are sure the engineers at BMW, looking to solve some minor problem or even just settle a question, said, “Hey…what if we put a few circuits in the battery, and have the computer talk to it?”

That is the way we also feel about having a washing machine talk with our home computer. To what end? Is there a current problem that begs for a solution, or is the answer no more complicated than, “because we can…”

California — Theatre of the Absurd

The outrages never stop!

Governor Schwarzenegger has appointed the wife of his former Chief of Staff to TWO California Commissions, where she will earn $170,000 a year, and the wife of another former aid to a commission where she will earn $128,000 a year!

(Remember that Schwarzenegger  promised eight years ago to end those commissions.)

On top of the much criticized Nunez sentence commutation, Schwarzenegger  leaves the office with so much egg on his face as to be unrecognizable!

(Schwarzenegger  has apologized both to the victim’s family and to the District Attorney for his not notifying them in advance and seeking their input – too little, too late.)

California continues its performance in the Theatre of the Absurd.

 

Constitutionally, Should There Be a Dept. of Education?

There are a NUMBER of items that COULD have been federalized in past times, but the citizens and the politicians were more attune to common sense and reading the actual words of the Constitution.

Education – certainly a subject of “general welfare” as defined by today’s liberals (and certainly using textbooks that pass across stat lines) are therefore, in liberal view, under the Commerce Clause – BUT EDUCATION has ALWAYS been a state function.

Why?

Simple. It is NOT an enumerated federal power and therefore under the 10^th Amendment it is a state function. It is the same with murder, and marriage laws, and business regulation (except that which passes across state lines), and THOUSANDS of other legal items.

But back to education – it is such a state function that the federal government cannot (yet) set a common curriculum. It can test. It can cajole, in fact it can bribe – but it CANNOT control. Since it has zero educational control – either defund it AS A DISCRETE DEPARTMENT, or better yet turn it into a DARPA-style agency that funds promising university studies without a huge bureaucracy.