That’s where I got my Twitter AVI and my AmRen avatar.

The fun is from 6:35 to 7:04.

He’s going to Alabama.  His mother wanted him to go to LSU, because she was insulted that ‘Bama head coach Nick Saban talked about football and nothing but football and said nothing about academics when he called on the highly recruited defensive back at his mother’s home.

Saban is a football coach, not a biology professor.  And Collins is being recruited for football, not because he sequenced the DNA of a garter snake for his senior science project.  It’s not Saban’s job to talk academics.  By the time Collins gets to campus, even if he’s not a legal adult by age, he will be a moral adult such that he is expected to handle his own academic affairs, in concert with counselors, advisors and certain faculty members who are there to guide any interested students in their academic affairs.  It’s not the job of the football coaches to be guidance counselors.

If his mother is worried about academics, then she should know that the latest USNWR rankings (problematic as they are) slot Alabama at 75th and LSU at 128th.  Even if it were the other way around, it’s not like a sheepskin from the 128th ranked school which happens to be the flagship public university in Deep South state won’t any fewer doors than one from the 75th ranked school which also happens to be the flagship public university in a Deep South state.  That is, if Collins never gets to shake Roger Goodell’s hand on a future draft day.

I’m talking about this now, for a month and a half from now, the dork in Orlando with a fax machine will be whining about graduation rates and racial disparities and basketball coaches not “graduating” their players.

Exclusive – Navy SEALs Rescue Made Obama Think of Own Daughters

President Obama today expressed sympathy with the father of the U.S. hostage rescued by Navy SEALs Tuesday, telling ABC News in an exclusive interview that the ordeal in Somalia made him think of his own daughters.

“I cannot imagine what he went through – given Malia and Sasha – and for him to be able to stay strong and then for our incredible men and women in uniform to do what they do, it makes you proud about this country,” Obama told ABC’s Diane Sawyer.

Fancy that.  We can’t talk about the daughters, and we shouldn’t talk about the daughters.  But every time you turn around, POTUS and FLOTUS are out there pimping out their daughters to hawk an agenda or a re-election effort.

Why is he thinking about his daughters in regards to rescuing the aid workers from Somalia?  Does he fear that they’re going to grow up to be the same kind of oblivious liberal do-gooders that will run over to Africa and run the risk of being turned into missionary stew?

FBI seeking social media monitoring tool

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking for a tool to mine social media for intelligence tips.

The US domestic law enforcement agency is asking information technology contractors about the feasibility of building a tool that would “enhance its techniques for collecting and sharing ‘open source’ actionable intelligence.”

The January 19 open request was published on a website offering federal business opportunities and was first reported by New Scientist magazine.

The FBI said it is seeking an “open source and social media alert, mapping and analysis application solution” for its Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC).

“Social media has become a primary source of intelligence because it has become the premier first response to key events and the primal alert to possible developing situations,” the FBI request said.

“Developing situations.”  As in a bunch of young blacks in a given city looking to start a mahogany mob to steal stuff and bash in some white people’s skulls, and organizing the affair on Facebook or Twitter.

That, and what I’m sure is the Federal crime of using an interstate communications network to plan and carry out a crime of violence — To Club Fed with them.

The only hitch?  The USAG is Eric “My People” Holder.

P-D:

Dramatic school plan offered for failing Missouri districts

JEFFERSON CITY • In exchange for addressing a vexing court ruling that has become a headache for many school districts, an influential state senator wants to fundamentally reshape the urban education landscape in Missouri.

On one end of the state, Sen. Jane Cunningham would dissolve the unaccredited Kansas City School District and require adjoining school districts to carve it up and operate the city’s schools.

On the other end, Cunningham would let St. Louis County districts open charter schools in the failing St. Louis district, even as students were allowed to transfer to better suburban public schools, if space was available.

This is basically a legislative end run around Turner v Clayton.

What does it sound like to me?  Sending the same low IQ black dummies to different schools.

Get back to me in 20 years and see how it all pans out.

As for the ad’s contention, I know this from personal experience.  Like I have said many times here in recent weeks, I only learned how to be a good coward when I started legally carrying a pistol around.  These things aren’t toys — Once you pick one up, you can’t really put them down.  Once you pull the trigger, you can never un-pull it.  If you hurt someone, you’ll never un-hurt them, and if you kill someone, you can never un-kill them.  The implications of finality that come with a firearm sure worked wonders for my self-control.

He’s obviously drunk.  There’s no way he’s ever going to get a legit job pulling down a big $10,000 a year.

Fox Deal Forces UFC to Gun Down Weapons-Related Sponsors

This past August, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) promotion company penned a seven-year deal with Fox Broadcasting reportedly worth as much as $90 million per year.

Many argue that the lucrative deal solidified the UFC’s position as the preeminent mixed martial arts brand.

However, the UFC and its affiliates have learned that signing such a deal comes with certain strings attached, that there are tradeoffs when an organization becomes bedfellows with a major television network.

One of those tradeoffs includes an advertising and sponsorship ban for all companies who sell, make, and/or distribute guns, knives, ammunition, and hunting-related products.

The ban, which took effect on Monday, extends to all UFC events, not just the ones that are scheduled to broadcast on Fox’s network of channels (Fox, FX or Fuel TV).

More blog post title sarcasm, ICYMI.

Pentagon Plan Includes Base Closings and Smaller Raises

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon took the first major step toward shrinking after a decade of war as it announced on Thursday that it wanted to limit pay raises for troops, increase health insurance fees for military retirees and close bases in the United States.

(snip)

Increasing health insurance fees for former service members and closing bases are also fraught with political risk, particularly in an election year when the Republican presidential candidates are charging that President Obama is decimating the military.

I was being glib in naming this post, and the emphasis within the blockquote is mine, in case you didn’t notice.

American Family Association:

Superintendent bullies Christian student, calls him ‘ignorant’

(snip)

Superintendent Todd Carlson told him that the column “went against the bullying policy,” and asked him if he “regretted” writing it. According to Liberty Counsel, when Mr. Wegner stated that he did not regret writing it, and that he stood behind his beliefs, Superintendent Carlson told him that he had “to be one of the most ignorant kids to try to argue with him about this topic,” that “we have the power to suspend you if we want to” and that the column had “personally offended me, so I know you offended other people!”

Admitting to using the power of student suspension capriciously because of a student’s creed, are we?  When a civil jury forces the Shawano School District to make one Brandon Wegner the richest 15-year old in Wisconsin, the district’s comptroller can take it out on their stuporintendent’s hide.

By the way, don’t you dare argue with the supernintendo of a public school district.  Don’t you know they all hold Ph.Ds in education, and that ed majors are the brightest bulbs in the box?  Unless they aren’t.

By the way, Part II, if you didn’t figure it out already, this leftist mania and paranoia about “bullying” is nothing more than an end run around the First Amendment, an attempt to make it a dead letter to please the Pink Lobby.

Oh I was so wrong on that.

Ed Martin has less emotional stability than all the Kardashians combined.

Now, it’s MOAG.

If Benedict XVI dies some time in the next few months, he’ll ditch that and run for Pope, which is the only thing he hasn’t said he’d run for this season.

Nation of Cowards.  You people that put me on your blogroll need to tell me so I can reciprocate.

I get the feeling that NYC’s Penn South projects’ “success” has a really practical explanation, but the NYT leaves me with nary a hint or opportunity to read between the lines.

But what can I say?  Whatever the poor overtaxed dear takes home on a 200-500 salary isn’t much to live on in an expensive city like Omaha, and secondarily, Phoenix.

On the other hand, she has a total clod for a boss.

Alan Grayson says that Richard Nixon George Romney Nelson Rockefeller John Schmitz George Lincoln Rockwell Gerald Ford Ronald Reagan George H.W. Bush John Ashbrook Phil Crane Bob Dole Pat Robertson Pierre DuPont Ross Perot Pat Buchanan David Duke Elizabeth Dole Alan Keyes Gary Bauer Howard Phillips Harry Browne George W. Bush Mike Huckabee Herman Cain John McCain Chuck Baldwin Mitt Romney Bob Barr Ron Paul Donald Trump Rick Santorum Newt Gingrich is running the most overtly racist Presidential campaign since George Wallace.

I don’t know what good will come of society for doing it.  After all, someone who wants to drop out at 16 or 17 probably can’t hack high school to begin with, so making him or her stay the extra year or two is just keeping that student in the same classes s/he already flunked once or twice before.  On top of that, it gums up the works for 14-year old Freshmen in Algebra I who actually want to pass and learn the material if a 17-year old Senior who already flunked it three times is making trouble in the classroom every day, simply because Obama wants him to be there.

There is a practical benefit for school districts:  The per capita per diem student attendance funds from the state.

1:48 to 2:08.  Probably they would apply existing truancy laws.  But Rand Paul is about to have that theoretical problem, because Kentucky is about to raise the dropout age to 18, though they’re going to phase it in over a long enough period that his current 17-year old son will be running for Congress from Nevada by the time it’s fully enacted.

Then again, Rand Paul does have powerful leverage to make his kids go to school — He can threaten to ship them off to their grandpa.  Believe me, I was the only 17-year old in the entire history of 17-year olds who wanted to hear old men talk about monetary policy.

There are a fair number of white high school dropouts who have no choice but to attend a heavily black or Hispanic high school, and they’re dropping out because the snails’ pace of teaching black and Hispanic students bores them, and/or they’re being used as punching bags.

In related news…This one is a real dumbass.  If he didn’t want to go to school, he could have walked right out the door, and that would have been a lot easier and a lot more convenient than trying to swim across a cold lake.  He’ 18, after all, and even if Obama gets what he wants, he’ll still be able to drop out.

I hope you’ve got your shopping done.

Where will Obama side on mud puddles?

(snip)

For 35 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has understood silviculture — the act of harvesting trees, as opposed to processing them — to be an agricultural activity, not a manufacturing one. The distinction is vital because of particulars in the Clean Water Act. Runoff from “point-source” manufacturing facilities (including saw mills) is closely regulated. Permits are required, and an involved monitoring and remediation process is prescribed.

On the other hand, the “natural runoff” from forest roads — basically mud puddles that accumulate in ditches — has never required such permits or monitoring. It is cared for through what is known as “best management practices.”

But in the case Georgia-Pacific West Inc. v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals turned this long-standing rule on its head. The court said that the EPA has been misinterpreting its own rules for 35 years, and that, in fact, forest roads must be regulated in similar fashion to factories and power plants.

The Ninth Circuit decision, if upheld, would crush forestry in the Pacific Northwest. As Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon put it, “One court would shut down forestry on private, state and tribal lands by subjecting it to the same, endless cycle of litigation.”

Don’t worry, the Ninth Circus is almost always reversed.

And if you couldn’t figure out how else I was going to respond to this news, well, then, you’re hopeless.

Romney is now the only remaining candidate for president who opposes amnesty for illegals. (Ever since President Bush’s amnesty plan cratered on the shoals of public opposition, no Republican will ever use the word “amnesty,” despite wanting to keep illegals here — just as Democrats refuse to say “abortion,” while supporting every manner of destroying human life.)

Romney supports E-Verify and a fence on the border. As governor he promoted English immersion programs for immigrants, signed an agreement with the federal government allowing state troopers to enforce federal immigration laws, and opposed efforts to give illegal immigrants in-state tuition or driver’s licenses.

At the same time, Romney says he’d like to staple a green card to the diploma of every immigrant here on a student visa who gets a higher degree in math or science.

Gingrich supports importing a slave labor force from Mexico under a “guest worker” program and wants to create government “citizen review boards” to grant amnesty on a case-by-case basis (i.e. all at once) to illegal aliens.

“Stapling a green card to non-American STEM/CSIT grads’ diplomas” is code for totally wiping out native born white Americans from that line of work and industry.  So, FAIL that.

However, she’s right to notice that Gingrich’s “25 years and citizen review board” malarkey is a Trojan Horse for full amnesty.  She must be a reader of mine.

The Australian (Melbourne):

Attack on Liberal leader Tony Abbott scripted by Hollywood

FEDERAL Transport Minister Anthony Albanese has been caught lifting lines from actor Michael Douglas.

In a speech to the National Press Club yesterday, Mr Albanese attacked Tony Abbott with language strikingly similar to that used by Douglas’s character in the 1995 movie The American President.

Manager of opposition business Christopher Pyne demanded he explain himself after the “humiliating blunder”.

In his speech yesterday, Mr Albanese said: “In Australia we have serious challenges to solve and we need serious people to solve them. Unfortunately, Tony Abbott is not the least bit interested in fixing anything. He is only interested in two things: making Australians afraid of it and telling them who’s to blame for it.”

The lines bear close resemblance to those delivered by Douglas in a scene in The American President. “We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them,” the fictional President Andrew Shepherd says. “I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.”

A spokesman for Mr Albanese said the speech was a “collective effort”.

I can overlook the faux pas.  Political rhetoric is so banal and deja le meme chose that it’s almost inevitable that you’ll hear the same words twice, or three times, or four times.  Hell, Obama just finished giving the same SOTU speech that he did last year and two years ago.  I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Mr. Albanese never even watched that movie.

Also, be mindful of the fact that I’m in no mood to defend Tony Abbott, who railroaded Pauline Hanson into jail, at least temporarily.  AFAIC, he can take a long walk off a short escarpment.  The only way I would ever recommend voting for him is if the ALP spits out a non-white leader.

He’s the last person you would have ever thought would have a political hard-on for the Good King Hopeychanger.

Two MUSIC posts in one day.  I’m on a roll.

SCHOOLS CANCEL SPORTS TO IMPROVE GRADES

‘Because we’re so far behind with student performance’

(FOX NEWS) — PERMONT, Texas – Eliminating high school athletics during a school year is unusual, especially in a sports-loving state such as Texas.

But that’s exactly what’s happening in this small ranching community where the school district is taking desperate measures to prevent a state-mandated closure due to poor academics. The Premont Independent School District is even deploying its superintendent, a constable and high school principal to the homes of truant students in an effort to improve dismal attendance.

The actions announced this week are not only part of a last-ditch effort to save the school district, but perhaps the entire community — which some parents already plan to leave because of the uncertainty surrounding the schools’ future.

“The school shuts down in this town, the town dies,” said Frank Davila, a Jim Wells County constable who also works as the school security officer and grew up here. “This is all we have.”

You already know Premont High School’s student demographics.  Not exactly Friday Night Lights.

Upcoming Event – The Criminology of Place
Street Segments and Our Understanding of the Crime Problem

For Immediate Release
Sunday, January 22, 2012

University of Missouri-St. Louis
Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice presents
The Criminology of Place:
Street Segments and Our Understanding of the Crime Problem

Monday, February 6th, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m
Millennium Student Center Century Room C

Professor David Weisburd, Distinguished Professor at George Mason University and Director of the Center for Evidence Based Crime Policy, presents findings from a forthcoming Oxford University Press Book (coauthored with Elizabeth Groff and SueMing Yang), that identifies a different way of looking at the crime problem by examining why specific streets in a city have specific crime trends over time.

They’re kidding.  Right?

Hey genius, the NYT Census Explorer lets you filter for black population.  If you had the ability further to drill down for age, specifically young men, that would correspond well with the most crime ridden streets.

“I think [Gunrunner] is another manufactured controversy by the second amendment, NRA Republican tea party movement,” [Hank] Johnson said.

The Second Amendment itself “manufactures” a controversy.

Gotcha.

Only goes to show you, when low grade black morons open their mouths, low grade moronic things come out.

U.S.: Taliban must renounce terrorist ties

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban must renounce ties to terrorists and endorse peace efforts as a condition for opening a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar, a senior U.S. diplomat said Sunday.

Marc Grossman, the special U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, called for quick work in setting up the office in Qatar, seen as a step to negotiating an end to the decade-long war in Afghanistan between the Taliban and the Western-backed government.

The issue underscores the complexity of efforts to wind down the war ahead of the scheduled departure of NATO combat forces by the end of 2014.

The conventional wisdom is that it’s insane and delusional for a terrorist organization to denounce terrorism.

I take a slightly different tack.

Remember, for Muslim extremists, terrorism is a means to an end, not the end itself.  The end game is spreading Shari’ah Law, aka Islam.  Don’t be surprised if the Taliban takes Obama up on this offer and gives up on terrorism, because they know Obama’s Justice Department (including our very own Richard Callahan) is suing cities and states to force the to accept Shari’ah Law.

Would you engage in violence to do something to someone who is willing to do it to himself?  Would you steal a cow if you already had a free lifetime supply of milk?

Totally unrelated MUSIC.  Not at all relevant to this story, but it’s kind of a cool song.