It’s the last line of a good article on the decline of academic relationships inside the academy itself (via Ann Althouse, via Glenn Reynolds). The very short version? Professors and teachers in the same college don’t hang out any more, which makes them easy meat every time somebody with a chip on their shoulder decides to offer one of them up on the altar of insensitivity. And the people running the colleges don’t actually mind, because this works out for them in the long run: makes it easier for them to do the diversity hiring that keeps the chip-on-their-shoulder people quiet. Of course, hiring primarily for diversity makes it harder to develop personal academic relationships (which leads to hanging out), so…

This would all be Nasty Fun hysterical, with a double helping of schadenfreude, except for one thing: in about sixteen years I have to send my kid to one of these places for an education. Having them collectively remove their craniums from their rectums before then would be optimal.

Moe Lane

PS: It’s been years since high school Latin, sorry. I don’t even feel like looking up what those two plurals would be.

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

It was Mary Katherine Ham’s article that tipped me to the problem:

Barack Obama’s administration may be promising the “greatest ethical standard ever administered to an executive branch,” and increased transparency over his predecessor, but it seems to be forgoing at least one transparency practice that was routine in the Bush White House— transcripts of the daily press briefing.

It’s been four days since Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ first (and widely panned) appearance before the White House press corps, but no transcript, summary, or video of the event has shown up on WhiteHouse.gov. The delay could be forgiven in a less tech-savvy bunch, but given the Obama team’s considerable online skill, the omission of the the transcript is clearly intentional.

The decision to withhold transcripts is not a departure from the Obama Team’s online posture during the campaign, and signals that’s exactly the posture they intend to take for the next four years. Team Obama got a lot of credit for being an active online presence, which indeed it was, but that presence was built for message control, not openness. (My.BarackObama, the campaign’s social networking platform, is a different story, but it was cordoned off from the official campaign material, which was pretty tightly controlled.)

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[UPDATE]: HA! In your FACE, Allahpundit. 60/34. Which still means that we’re putting in charge of our taxes somebody who can’t do his.

But Senator Collins (R-ME) wasn’t having any of it.

Oh, did I say “Obama’s advocate?” I meant to say “Andrea Mitchell, objective journalist for NBC News.” Be sure to go all to the end; the point where Ms. Mitchell plaintively asks why such a moderate Republican as Senator Collins (R-ME) is thinking to hold the line on this one is almost worth it right there. Mind you, Allahpundit’s right: Geithner is going to get confirmed.

But what the heck: I’ll take the under. 63/36.

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

It’s not doing its usual insane growth, but Mickey D’s isn’t losing money, either:

McDonald’s profit tops view, sales growth slows

NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp reported a quarterly profit that handily topped Wall Street estimates, but said it saw growth in some overseas markets soften as a U.S.-led recession went global.

Shares of the world’s largest hamburger chain were down 0.5 percent in afternoon trade after falling as much as 2.6 percent earlier in the session.

McDonald’s posted a 5.8 percent rise in worldwide December sales at restaurants open at least 13 months.

The results are still ahead of most other restaurant operators, but mark a slowdown from the company’s own November and October results, when McDonald’s said same-store sales rose 7.7 percent and 8.2 percent, respectively.

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Ride that puppy all the way down, Rod.

Impeachment trial to proceed without Ill. governor

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Gov. Rod Blagojevich, taking his defense to television rather than his impeachment trial, lashed out at his accusers Monday and revealed he had considered naming Oprah Winfrey to the U.S. Senate.

The embattled governor told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the idea of nominating the talk show host came to him as he explored potential candidates for the job that federal prosecutors allege he tried to sell to the highest bidder.

“She seemed to be someone who would help Barack Obama in a significant way become president,” he said. “She was obviously someone with a much broader bully pulpit than other senators.”

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Come, I will hide nothing from you: my basic criterion for a decent film is whether or not an exploding starship is in it at any point (although a sufficient number of explosions, preferably involving techno music, will make up for it). So the movie Fireproof neither pinged on my radar, nor am I particularly planning to see it when it comes out on DVD tomorrow.

But I have noticed that it’s being ordered through links to Moe Lane, and that made me curious enough to look it up. That led me to Big Hollywood’s article about how the directors have been quietly making successful Christian-friendly independent films for the last few years was very interesting: so was the fact that it managed to score positive reviews from The New York Times and Variety on Rotten Tomatoes. Fireproof has apparently grossed 33.4 million on a 500K budget; I understand that a certain contingent of my readership may roll their eyes at this particular part of the counterculture, but that’s one heck of an ROI. There are indy filmmakers who would hyperventilate at the thought of making half that.

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No, I will not link directly to the man – I suggest that you go to the Daily Beast main page via this article by Richard Cohen on the endlessly funny Kennedy-Paterson New York meltdown, or even this one by Tucker Carlson, and go look it up there – but I will tell you that he apparently “winced” at the way that his fellow Obama supporters urinated on the Inauguration ceremony by booing the former President. Let’s just get this out of the way: to every Obama supporter feeling similar “discomfort”?

Sit down, make yourself comfortable, and have a nice cup of Shut The Heck Up*. Your embarrassing comrades-in-Obama booed and taunted former President Bush because they were carefully taught over the last eight years to do so. You taught them to do this – or, in the case of Buckley the Lesser and his ilk, you joined the company, gratefully, of those that taught them to do this. And your “remorse” is a contemptuously empty gesture until such time as you back it with actions that would prevent such things from happening in the future. Which you will, of course, not do: after all, some day there will be another Republican in the White House.

Much more simply: the people who booed were at least honest in their hatred. You are not.

And we can tell. Quite easily, in fact.

Moe Lane

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(Via Glenn Reynolds) Smoothness. Professionalism. Competence.

Fire alarms.

Shortly after 4 p.m., the stench of smoke began filtering back to the press booths in the White House.

[snip]

None other than Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton who — on his third day in the White House — was still having a little trouble working the door.

Trying to get into the briefing room from the outside, Burton inadvertently short circuited the electronic door opener, causing small plumes of smoke to fill into the inside of the briefing room.

Crossposted on Moe Lane.

For those who don’t feel like risking the SAN/Intelligence loss that can come from reading one of Dowd’s columns, let me summarize: I like Blagojevich more than I like Paterson, because Blagojevich is clearly insane – do you hear that, Illinois voters? Insane – and Paterson did my friend Marquise Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg wrong by not picking her right away.  That let the awful, awful Clintons destroy the chances for the best choice for the NY Senate, and never mind all those Republicans out there who were revving their chainsaws and grinning evilly.  I hope that they primary that gun-loving, bailout hating Gillibrand – and that they primary that adulterous, drug-using governor, too!  That’ll show ‘em.

OK, I may have added a little subtext there, but really: the title is “Whose Governor is wackier?” and everything (via Hot Air Headlines).  That tells you something right there.

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(Whoops! Via AoSHQ)

Yes, I should be forgiven for the pun.

The first “sign” is a bit of a stretch for the pun: it’s a reference to “No Snickering: That Road Sign Means Something Else,” which is a pretty good filler article about some of the now-embarrassing place and road names that you can find in England (or, probably, any country that has a past*). I am far too refined to mention any of those names; suffice it to say that a good deal of the article revolves around slightly mortified people saying things like “It’s pronounced ‘PENNIS-tun,’ actually.” Not precisely news, but it’s not like they put it on the front page.

The second “sign” is something that I noticed in the online version: they linked the two books mentioned (Rude Britain and Rude UK) in the article to their Amazon.uk listings – presumably using either the author’s or their their Amazon Associates ID in order to get their cut. At least, that’s what I’d do; in fact, that’s what I just did. So obviously I’m not complaining about that. It’s a courtesy service.

You know what else is a courtesy service? Linking to websites and blogs that you mention in the online version of your newspapers and magazines. It’s easier than adding an Amazon listing to your article, and Amazon makes it pretty darn easy to do that these days.

Moe Lane

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As Hot Air notes, a man of few words. Their video doesn’t seem happy to work here, so below is a YouTube of his comments.

Check out the Hot Air link for his wife’s comments, which are very good.

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Whipped ones, in fact, as Environmental Republican demonstrates (via Glenn Reynolds).  You see, he went looking for the Usual Antiwar Suspects’ outrage at the drone strikes in Pakistan, and discovered… well, that apparently it wasn’t really worth noting at all, really.  His conclusion?

So what con we surmise from this little investigation? How about the left-wing of this country is populated with hypocritical ideologues who not only hated Bush but had a severe dislike for America. Now that they have a leader who they feel a kinship with, well, it’s all good.

You shouldn’t be surprised: the terrorists that got attacked weren’t Europeans – which is my polite way of saying that they weren’t sufficiently white and Western for the groups running the antiwar movement to particularly care, especially since caring might embarrass a President who isn’t a Republican. Was that too harsh? No? OK, let’s try again: the antiwar movement is run by racists who only like brown people when they can be used as clubs with which to beat anybody to the antiwar movement’s Right.

Well, anyone to their Right, and Jews. A quick perusal of the major players in question indicates that they’re all really upset that Israel isn’t baring its collective neck for the knife.

Moe Lane

PS: If you won’t respect yourself, don’t expect me to respect you, either.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) I mean, it’s not like I can’t see Ron Rosenbaum’s basic point – although I don’t think that, for example, Bruce Springsteen’s lost his contempt, merely redirected it. Springsteen always wanted to be the next Woody Guthrie, singing the songs of the people and showing how the system keeps folks like him down. The fact that the system instead decided to give him large amounts of money, fame, and influence instead pretty much wrecked Springsteen as an artist until he could flee into the welcoming embrace of traditional celebrity leftist activism. Seriously. The reception given to Born in the USA must have freaked him out, particularly when Reagan cheerfully stole the iconography and completely subverted it.

Anyway, Billy Joel. I can understand the entire “unearned contempt” argument (not sure if I buy it, but I can see it), and as somebody from New Jersey I can certainly grok the entire Burden Of Being The Place Where Billy Joel Comes From (it’s hard to explain; suffice it to say that both Joel and Springsteen have a complex relationship with the region). That being said, I wonder what triggered this? Did Joel get arrested again?

Moe Lane

PS: I’ve always liked “Pressure.”

Crossposted on Moe Lane.

I haven’t really been all that interested in tracking the saga of Natalie Dylan and her ridiculously overpriced / underpriced virginity: I’m not in the market for what she’s trying to peddle, and I kind of doubt that I would be, even if I wasn’t married and had a kid.  Still, this visual comparison from The Tiger in DC amused, because I can see the resemblance, too.  It’s something about the eyes – which, by the way, is yet another proof that your mom was right about a lot of things.  Your face will freeze that way if you’re not careful.

I sometimes think that kids today are unconsciously working under the assumption that they live in the world of Logan’s Run.

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

Guess what happened when we switched Presidents Tuesday?

Yup, it’s now triggering Obama. At least on Yahoo; Google fixed this problem a while back, although if I understand this fellow correctly Obama’s bio is going to be increasingly linked with “failure” until everything’s resolved. There’s a certain air of “the President’s tech team should have been on top of this:” I dunno if that’s fair. At any rate, Google’s going to go back in and fix this again – probably with the help of the aforementioned tech team.

And that’s pretty much the point of this post: I just felt like pointing out that if you played Googlebombing games with Bush’s name, congratulations: you’ve helped ensure that the Obama administration has more, fairly tedious work to do.

Have a nice day!

Crossposted on Moe Lane.

Allahpundit cannot believe that the talking head is sufficiently mind-numbingly stupid so as to say on national television that Governor Sarah Palin can’t read:

…Allahpundit, despite his dour demeanor, is surprisingly willing to believe the best of people at times. I respect that: but the Politico is under no such illusions about the talking head’s meaning, and neither am I. The talking head has notoriously taken sides with regard to the new administration, and in the final analysis I don’t see where there’s much difference whether that the talking head is malicious, or whether it is simply a fool.

Either way, I think that decent people should start reassessing their need to appear on the talking head’s program. Or their need to watch it.

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

For great justice.

CHICAGO — Illinois’ embattled but defiant governor, so fond of reciting poetry as he defends himself against federal corruption allegations, has turned instead to the history books to describe the emotional strain his arrest put on him and his family.

In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Gov. Rod Blagojevich compared his early morning December arrest by FBI agents to Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

He says it was a “complete surprise” but he’ll prevail, just like America in World War II.

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We see you.

More here.

OK, I understand that it was completely unexpected* that Gov Bill Richardson (D-NM) (and author of the book Leading by Example**) might have been caught up in pay-for-play shenanigans, but he dropped out January 4th. That was over two weeks ago: why are they still vetting people? Didn’t they have a backup?

You’d think that they would have had a backup for Commerce, given that we’re in the middle of one thoroughly messed-up economy. What if Richardson had been hit by a bus, or something?

Moe Lane

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As we all know, the President decided to not Executive Order the Mexico City policy out of existence yesterday – can’t imagine why, at all, at all – but today is another day, and the betting is that he’ll get around to it Real Soon Now. So the real question is, when? Does he do it first thing in the morning and get it over with, or does he do it just in time for it to miss the Friday night news?

Hey, this is actually an important question: this is going to be the first thing he does in office that is guaranteed – absolutely, completely, and unquestionably – going to bother a significant hunk of the people who voted for him. How he handles it is going be… ah, diagnostic.

Moe Lane

PS: Notice that I’m doing President Obama the courtesy of assuming that he has at least as much spine as President Bill Clinton did.

PPS: That being said, if I was a betting man I’d be betting for somewhere around 4:45 PM.

Crossposted at Moe Lane.