The Logic Connection

Haley Barbour: Fat Coward

2012-01-17T20:13:00.002-05:00

My latest post from Carolina Politics Online can be read here.

As the title implies, it's pretty much about why former Governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, is a fat coward. He's not really that fat, I just felt like throwing an additional invective in for effect, but he is definitely a coward of the highest order.

New Logic

2012-01-14T09:10:00.002-05:00

I've begun a new writing endeavor this month over at Carolina Politics Online. I am going to at least produce some new written material every Monday morning for CPO and hopefully blog some throughout the week as well. Let's face it, The Logic Connection hasn't produced anything close to a steady flow of new material in a long while. I'm hoping a new blog with a bigger audience will provide new motivation for me to keep pushing back against the frontiers of ignorace. I'll still be linking to my CPO articles here, but for the foreseeable future keep checking CPO to find new logic by yours truly.

Here is the link to last week's Monday Logic. It was an attempt to try and explain the feelings of so many I come across who are dissatisfied with Romney but aren't particularly enamored with the other Not-Romney candidates. I fear that if Romney receives the GOP nomination he'll simply repeat McCain's mistake from '08 and not fight hard enough against Obama to convince voters that we need a new president. Despite his many flaws, Gingrich would at least do his best to provide a clear contrast of visions at every opportunity throughout a campaign against Barack Obama, especially during the debates.

I will say this for Mitt, his New Hampshire victory speech last week was one of the best I've heard him deliver. He read off a teleprompter, but he was passionate, attacked Obama directly, and clearly laid out his vision for the country. The one cringeworthy line came when he claimed that his administration would rebuild our military and make it so strong that no one in the world would think about challenging America. My question, who is threatening to attack America right now? I just feel like that type of militarism isn't what his campaign needs to attract some of the so-called moderates. Most people I know are a little war weary at this point.

It's Christmas

2011-12-25T08:49:00.008-05:00

Merry Christmas to the entire Logic Connection audience!

I'm still waiting to see what all Santa left me this morning so I decided to be productive and pen a quick post before rushing down the stairs and diving into my pile of presents! (Ok, well I got too excited and had to rush down to open my presents before completing this post so it's now the day after Christmas but whatever)

I don't have much on the agenda for today's post, but there are three things I felt like discussing: personal information and retail transactions, ignorant people who refuse to acknowledge their ignorance, and the death of Christopher Hitchens.

- Seriously, is there a retail transaction these days that transpires without a sales associate requesting your name, address, phone number, email, date of birth, rank and file, social security number, zodiac sign, favorite color, and your mother's maiden name?? I've learned to simply state I do no wish to provide any personal information and the sales associate generally moves along without any remonstration. But, the other day, I made a small purchase at a used book store and it was the first time I was met with actual resistance to my refusal to provide any personal information to the point I thought the sales associate was going to decline to sell me her wares. She was simply dumbfounded as to why I wouldn't want to provide personal information that would then be used an untold number of times for advertising data resulting in an untold amount of email solicitation for products even Ron Popeil would be embarrassed to peddle. Oh I know, the book store probably has a strict privacy policy giving my personal information more protection than the Hope Diamond, except for those few exceptions where I give them permission to share my information with third parties for a small fee.

I was finally allowed to leave the store with my books after the sales associate was instructed by another employee to complete the sale without collecting my personal information. I think in the future I am going to begin requesting a copy of the store's privacy policy when I am asked for personal information. If an actual policy is presented, I think I'll take some time to read it over, all while annoying the other customers, and then bolt from the store leaving nothing but confusion in my wake.

But am I alone on this one? Am I the only one who refuses to submit when confronted with a demand to abandon my privacy? Or, am I just being over dramatic because it's Christmas morning and I still haven't seen what Santa left me yet?

- Also, a quick note on the ignorant insisting on maintaining their ignorance. I'm primarily referring here to the phenomenon of chain emails and email forwards, usually regarding something of a political nature, that purport to offer a fact or opinion (usually one the recipient agrees with) without any type of source or reference information whatsoever. To wit: a supposed screed written by historian David Kaiser that has been making the email rounds for over two years now. You can read Kaiser's response to this completely fraudulent email message here. I received this absolutely bogus email again recently with the subject being something along the lines of "What if he is right??" Well, instead of blindly accepting the truth of a message contained in a random forward simply because you are sympathetic to the idea that Obama is the modern day Hitler, how about taking two seconds to do some internet research so you can discover that David Kaiser did not write the message and that confirmation bias is a bitch.

And why does it seem that it's primarily those of the older generation that are more susceptible to such trickery? Whether it's emails comparing the Obama regime to the Third Reich, or emails about Mr. Rogers wearing long sleeves because of his battle tattoos from the Marines, maybe it's just because people my age and younger know that the number one rule of the internets is NEVER BELIEVE ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET... unless you've verified it on snopes.com of course. The internet seems to have bred a certain level of skepticism into most people, but that skepticism doesn't always seem to extend to chain emails containing political information. I don't think I have ever intentionally forwarded a random chain email to everyone in my address book and it's probably safe to say neither has anyone else my age, it's just not the cool thing to do. But if I ever do you can rest assured it will be after a thorough fact-check.

- Christopher Hitchens has passed. You can read remembrances galore here and here and pretty much everywhere else online. My introduction to Mr. Hitchens came during a brief stop on HBO while I was flipping through the channels and I just happened to tune in during this now famous exchange. Needless to say I was intrigued. I was fortunate enough to meet Hitchens after a debate at the SES Apologetics conference held in 2009 in Charlotte. I got his autograph, learned his middle name is Eric (the name we share in common with both his father and George Orwell), and also got the chance to ask him why Johnnie Walker Black label and not the Blue label. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the sharpest of wits being voiced with a british accent, but events will never quite be the same without knowing what Hitch thinks.

Back from hiatus

2011-12-01T09:17:00.003-05:00

It's been a few months but I've finally been inspired to begin blogging anew. Loyal Logic Connection readers everywhere can now rejoice in unison (or, feel free to rejoice in the comments). I'll be back soon to give an update on the status of the podcast and maybe even review Javier's new CD.

My most recent inspiration? an article from Creative Loafing - Charlotte (CL) about a crisis pregnancy center here in Charlotte. I read CL from time to time, usually when it's in the breakroom or I'm working uptown and I pass a new edition on the street. As a super uptight, conservative Republican I know I'm not the intended audience for the magazine, but I still enjoy reading the commentary and checking the music section so I don't miss an upcoming Javier performance. Even though I may not agree with everything written in CL, I still expect a certain level of professionalism from the writers, especially from those writing "news" pieces as opposed to opinion pieces. I felt compelled to respond to the piece linked above because I believe it fell well below the level of professional journalistic standards CL should strive for if it wants to maintain its credibility as a source of news in Charlotte.

I would encourage you to read the piece above even though it is somewhat lengthy, and then read my response below (also somewhat lengthy). I'm simply copying my response from the comments at CL, which was copied from the text of an email I sent the author, but since it appears Ms. Hodges doesn't respond to her commenters I'm also jumping back on the neglected twitter account to send her a tweet. If this were simply an opinion piece written by Ms. Hodges I wouldn't have as much of a problem with the article. The problem for me is the title of "News Reporter" given to Ms. Hodges on the inside cover of CL and the pretense of objectivity that title is supposed to convey. If you believe her article is an objective news piece I welcome your feedback in the comments.

My response:

I just finished reading your article, "Papa Don't Preach," and I wanted to send along my comments. Full disclosure, I am a Republican, but I do enjoy reading CL even if I don't always agree with the content. Although I do agree with some of the points you raise in your article like that these centers shouldn't receive taxpayer funding and how the PRC in Charlotte doesn't explicitly state their religious affiliation on their website, you lost credibility with me by failing to be objective. I'm not a journalist but it was my understanding journalists presented the facts and allowed the readers to draw their own conclusions? I could be wrong, but it seemed to me you had an agenda in writing the piece, why not just state your position from the beginning without hiding behind the pretense of objectivity?

- Was it really necessary to go undercover for this assignment? It seems like you could have received the same information by making a few phone calls.
- "Alexandria" is essentially an unnamed, off the record, source. I don't doubt she exists, but hers is only one story that seems to be in the article to confirm your own bias. How did you come across her and why not seek out other opinions of women who have patronized the center? Did Alexandria refuse consent to be prayed with or to watch the fetus video? You make it seem as if she had no choice in either. You didn't cite any forcible prayer in your own story.
- NARAL, aka Natl Assoc. for Repeal of Abortion Laws, aka Natl Abortion Rights Action League, do they not have an agenda of their own contrary to that of the "crisis pregnancy centers" your piece focuses on? Would their own bias not be relevant to your readers? Are they not one of the largest lobbying organizations for abortions in the country?
- Is there a direct connection between the results of the NARAL investigation you cite and this specific center in Charlotte? What specific inaccurate information did you receive upon your visit to the center in Charlotte? Is this specific center funded by taxpayer dollars or not? If none of the findings apply to this specific center, why not point this out to your readers?
- You state the information collected is not protected by HIPPA yet you failed to identify any instances of actual disclosure by any pregnancy center. Have there been such disclosures? If so, has there been legal action by patients whose privacy has been violated? How are the doctors and nurses who work at these centers allowed to keep their licenses to practice medicine if they knowingly violate patient privacy?
- You state Planned Parenthood does not have a financial interest in the decision to adopt or abort. But then in the next paragraph you state PP reinvests the money it makes back into health services, including abortions. If PP does not make money by providing abortions then how do they make money? If abortions don't cost patients, who does pay for them? That seems to me to be an issue of fact, easily resolved, without taking sides for or against abortion or taxpayer funding of PP. And doesn't PP received taxpayer funds itself much like some of the crisis pregnancy centers?
- Your final paragraph quotes Pope claiming an "ideological agenda" on the part of crisis pregnancy centers. Isn't it fair to say PP and NARAL have their own "ideological agendas?" Pope adds that that "agenda" puts the health of pregnant women at risk. Do abortions not also pose certain health risks to pregnant women?

The Two Greatest Things Ever Episode

2011-07-29T08:50:00.006-04:00

It's been a few days since I've posted, my apologies, but here's a quick post to tide everyone over until the posting begins anew.

Latest episode of the podcast is up on iTunes. If you download the show from iTunes, be sure to leave a comment or give it a star rating. Besides giving my ego a boost, I think it helps make the show more searchable in the iTunes directory somehow.

This episode is all about two of the greatest things ever: Javier Colon and (spoiler alert) The Wire. We had to break down Javier's performance on The Voice now that the show is over and he's been officially crowned as the first ever winner of the show. But we also needed to give our opinion on The Wire since we promised to do so a few episodes back. The Wire has been over for a few years now and our amateur analysis doesn't come close to emphasizing how amazing the show was, so if you really want to read a professional break down one of the greatest t.v. shows in history, read Alan Sepinwall. And if you're wondering, Javier still hasn't responded to my many, many emails congratulating him for winning The Voice, but I know in my heart he's reading every one of them and as soon as he gets a break from his super busy schedule he'll email me back.

- Here's my brief take on the ongoing debt debate, Cut Spending Now (h/t Mark Levin). Boehner's plan is a joke and so is Obama's plan... oh wait, nevermind, Obama doesn't have a plan, but I'm sure it would be a joke even if he did ever come up with something. The only thing that would actually begin to immediately address this astronomical debt problem we're facing is if we froze federal spending today. Feel free to share your thoughts on how to solve the debt problem in the comments and maybe we can save America right here at The Logic Connection!

All about Casey

2011-07-13T07:40:00.005-04:00

Are you tired of all the talk about the Casey Anthony trial? Then don't listen to this episode of the podcast because other than some small talk about chubbies eating in public and JR discovering espresso, it's all about the trial. But, if you want to hear an analysis of all things Casey Anthony like you won't hear anywhere else, then you definitely need to listen. As always, you can find the latest episodes of the podcast on iTunes by searching "The Logic Connection."

Here is Alan Dershowitz in the WSJ on why the Casey Anthony verdict was the correct one.

And am I the only one that's ever picked up a hitchhiker? That's the way it's looking given the paltry response to my latest poll. Maybe I won't be doing a post all about hitchhiking after all since apparently I'm the only weirdo who still picks up hitchhikers.

Edward Stringham is back

2011-07-06T21:02:00.008-04:00

The podcast is back with another awesome interview with the world famous Dr. Edward Stringham. We touched on quite a few topics during the interview ranging from President Obama's recent luddite like comment on ATM's (seriously, read Russ Robert's reply to Obama's insanely ignorant comment on progress, and remember, Obama has the highest IQ of any president ever) to the benefits of privatizing police and other public services. As always, you can find the latest episode on iTunes.

I know I'm a little behind on the Obama ATM comment, but there's no way I could let that one slide because a) it was truly ignorant, and b) it gives me another chance to extol the greatness of Frederic Bastiat. Let's not forget, Bastiat died in 1850, and yet people still seem to be as ignorant of basic economics today as they were in the past. Don't believe me? read Bastiat's Candlestick Maker's Petition.

Thanks again to Dr. Stringham for taking the time to appear on the show. I'm definitely planning to have him back on in the near future because I didn't get to half of the questions I had for him.

It's Javier Colon Day!

2011-06-28T09:21:00.007-04:00

That's right, it's Javier Colon Day here at The Logic Connection. I'm still working on getting President Obama to issue an executive order recognizing today as a national holiday but I keep getting the run around from his people so I'll keep you posted once today becomes official. Be sure to tune into NBC tonight at 8pm ET to see Javier (hopefully) become the first winner of The Voice. So far this morning Jav has been floating between number 2 and 3 on iTunes, which is a huge deal, but, unfortunately, Dia has been solidly at number 1 all morning long. And she still has about 12K more followers on twitter than Jav so needless to say I'm a little worried about the outcome tonight. I think the one thing that might be able to put Jav over the top though was getting a shout out from the Bieber on twitter last night! Did I mention yet that we had Javier as a guest on the podcast a few months back??

Now, for anyone still reading this post, here are a few non-Javier related stories.

- I love discovering super smart people who write awesome articles full of logic like Walter Russell Mead. That's the great thing about the internet, it provides you with instant access to a world of knowledge you never even knew existed five minutes beforehand. How many times have you started watching videos on youtube of intros to old tv shows like Today's Special only to hop on IMDB to look up an actor then ending up on Wikipedia trying to figure out what the hell Donnie Darko was about only to end up back on youtube researching time travel? Anyways, the point of all that is Mead wrote an amazing piece on Al Gore and the abysmal failure of the AGW cartel that is a must read. And this is only part one!

- Stephen Mauzy from the Ludwig Von Mises Institute with another piece on the insanity of the war on drugs and why it needs to end. Is anyone at the RNC listening? Why are Ron Paul and Gary Johnson the only candidates talking about this issue? Isn't the GOP supposed to be the party of individual liberty??

-Muchos kudos for the Wilmington StarNews for writing this story. Hmmm, a creepy old Democrat from a small town who's never been married, has been in power far too long, and has a penchant for boys... sounds so familiar... Tis a shame the residents of places like Tabor City continue to aid and abet these types by electing them to office time and time again, they only have themselves to blame.

- Finally, from the College Dems of America, "Why I Am A Democrat." The video was removed from its original site after it started making the rounds of the conservative blogosphere and was immediately mocked and ridiculed and mocked some more. And quite rightly so I might add. Check it out before it disappears again. Here's my contribution to Ace's "Top 10 Things Almost as White as the College Democrats' New Ad" list, The Tea Party! Ha, get it? The Tea Party is full of only white people who are full of white rage because a white person isn't in charge anymore. Man, the Tea Party is the whitest thing ever.

In case you missed it, here's Javier performing on last night's episode of The Voice:

Friday Logic

2011-06-24T16:21:00.003-04:00

Great News! Dr. Edward Stringham, economist extraordinaire, is scheduled to appear on the podcast again next week. If you'd like for me to ask him any questions, especially regarding his work in the areas of public choice and anarchy, submit them in the comments. If you missed his first appearance on the show, you can find it on iTunes or download it here.

- In case you missed it our friend MB submitted this video in the comments last week. It is simply an incredible delightful treat for your eyes and ears, unless you don't like treating your eyes and ears to the sights and sounds of singing Scientologists that is. If, however, like MB and myself, you revel in any opportunity to increase your self-esteem by reminding yourself that at least you're not a Scientologist, then you have to watch that video. And for those of you wondering, alas, I was not able to visit the Chicago branch of the Church of Scientology again during my time there last weekend. Instead, I settled for watching the Yankees beat the Cubs in Wrigley and checking out the view from the 94th floor of the Hancock Building, neither of which were half as exciting as the first time I laid eyes on this...

- Finally, the Ultimate Warrior dropped logic bombs all over Hulk Hogan's face this week!! Check out Warrior's blog for more info, but he had been teasing the release of a video for weeks now and it was definitely worth the wait. If I can rock an unbuttoned shirt half as hard as Warrior when I'm 52 years old, I will consider myself a winner at life. I was always a Warrior fan growing up because even when I was 9 I knew Hulk Hogan was a narcissistic dope head who had the lamest finishing move of all time. Seriously Terry, the Leg Drop?! What a loser. The first of eight of the eight video series is below. Be prepared to go run 5 miles and do lots of push-ups after you finish though because you will be super motivated to do man stuff even though you'll never be half the man Warrior is...

Tuesday Logic

2011-06-21T07:40:00.002-04:00

A few quick links before work this morning:

- Ayn Rand was a Satanist?

- Christopher Hitchens on David Mamet's new book

- I was in Chicago this past weekend and I found this article on Chicago's completely ineffective gun control laws in the Chicago Reader. The moral of the story, give people a choice between living in fear and taking control of their own safety, hard-working, productive members of society will almost always choose the latter. And let's not forget, Chicago has been under Democrat control for the past 50 years.

- Speaking of gun control, how is this not a national scandal yet? Americans and Mexicans are dead as a result of insane government beuracrats playing politics with guns and the only people covering this story are in the blogosphere... Maybe Jon Huntsman is planning to make this his central campaign issue when he announces his candidacy later today?

- Live in the Charlotte/Mecklenburg area? Bookmark The Meck Deck and Cedar Posts and check them often.

- And finally, if you need to catch up on the past 15 seasons of South Park, check out southparkstudios.com. Some people still doubt me when I tell them South Park is the smartest show on tv, those people are just silly.

How can you not vote for this guy??

2011-06-15T21:27:00.003-04:00

I'm talking about THE Javier Colon! Vote all this weekend and then tune in to NBC next Tuesday night, June 21st, to see him on The Voice. And even though he's too famous to return my emails anymore, be sure to check out our interview with him on the podcast.

Ayn Rand and Me

2011-06-12T08:22:00.004-04:00

So I finished Atlas Shrugged this weekend. What follows are my brief, personal thoughts on Ayn Rand based on my reading of Atlas, as well as The Fountainhead, which I completed back in February of this year. I was hoping to do a podcast on the topic with my Objectivist friend but, unfortunately, he is currently constrained by the political nature of his work so he was unable to go on record.

I read The Fountainhead first based on the recommendation of my Objectivist friend, and after reading both Atlas and Fountainhead, I would agree with that recommendation. I enjoyed Fountainhead more basically because I was able to relate to its message, it's an individual struggle as opposed to the epic, worldwide struggle in Atlas. I could relate more with Howard Roark than I could with any of the characters in Atlas, except maybe Eddie Willers.

Rand's work has seen a resurgence in popularity since the latest economic downturn and the election of President Obama. Some like to say it's due to the prescient nature of her work in how it so accurately describes the policies of the current administration, but collectivist thought was around before Rand wrote Atlas and it will be around long after Obama leaves office. What I may have appreciated most about Atlas though was Rand's attempt to tackle the question of what motivates the collectivist; why he thinks and acts like he does. This is something I've often wondered as well and even though I don't necessarily agree with her conclusions, I do appreciate the attempt to come to terms with the irrational, something I still struggle with myself.

I would encourage anyone who hasn't yet read Atlas or Fountainhead to do so, as long as you have ample time on your hands. Atlas is one of the best selling novels of all time (apologies to the Scientologists out there but I don't think it's fair to consider Hubbard since the the Church only buys his novels to inflate the sales), and it clearly still has an impact on many of our politicians today so it's worth reading if only to better understand the influence it still has on our leaders. I was surprised at the number of "Who is John Galt" signs I saw at the two tea party rallies I attended in '09 and '10, but what's been more surprising to me are the number of alleged Rand devotees who haven't actually read any of her work. I've had her books on my shelf for a while now so since I had some time this year (and since I also swore off buying anymore used books until I had actually read the ones I own) I decided I finally needed to educate myself in the ways of Rand so I wouldn't be like one of those holding a John Galt sign and not knowing anything about John Galt.

I'm glad I waited until I was 29 to read Rand's two major novels because I don't think you can fully appreciate or understand her philosophy as an impressionable teenager. Nathaniel Branden, Rand's former student and lover, deals with some of the Benefits and Hazards of Objectivism in an essay you can read here (H/T to The Brazen Heads who did an entire episode on Rand which you can find on iTunes, Episode 8).

If you'd like to know more about Ayn Rand you can simply do a search for her on iTunes, or check out one of her many biographies. I listenened to a podcast the other day featuring Jennifer Burns, the author of "Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right." It's a biography that came out in 2009 that attempts to "explicate the evolution of Rand's individualist worldview, placing her within the context of American conservative and libertarian thought." I would at least recommend listening to the interview with Burns if you don't have time to read her book (search Jennifer Burns Rand and it's the interview from PRI:RadioWest).

Here is the famous review of Atlas Shrugged by Whittaker Chambers that appeared in National Review in 1957. And here is William F. Buckley discussing that review as well as his thoughts on Ayn Rand. Apparently National Review Online still won't publish Buckley's obituary of Rand, but here is a short excerpt that I think sums up the common view on Rand from her detractors,

"The Fountainhead, read in a certain way, is a profound assertion of the integrity of art. What did Miss Rand in was her anxiety to theologize her beliefs. She was an eloquent and persuasive antistatist, and if only she had left it at that - but no. She had to declare that God did not exitst, that altruism was despicable, that only self-interest is good and noble. She risked, in fact, giving to capitalism that bad name that its enemies have done so well in giving it, and that is a pity. Miss Ran was a talented woman, devoted to her ideals. She came as a refugee from communism to this country as a young woman, and carved out a substantial career. May she rest in peace, and may she experience the demystification of her mind possessed."

Guest Logic

2011-06-09T21:26:00.005-04:00

The following was written by our old friend Robert Monnie who writes a weekly column for The Link. Unfortunately, the editor of The Link, Leighton Smells, decided to make the Link's website a pay site so this blogger can no longer enjoy Mr. Monnie's columns for free online. Alas, even though I can't read the text of the Letters to the Editor, I can still see the pretty pictures of all the Yards of the Month and the various ribbon cuttings attended by all of the local dignitaries. Enjoy.

Productive Politicians

"The Race to the Top program expands the federal role in education
by offering pieces of silver in exchange for strings attached to
Washington. More federal money for education will not solve our
problems. Schools need less, not more, federal intrusion to increase
student achievement. The previous two rounds of Race to the Top were
not competitive grant programs; they were top-down directives forcing
states to adopt programs favored by Washington. Respectfully, South
Carolina will not apply for this money.
"I urge President Obama and Secretary (of Education) Duncan to
spend their time supporting efforts to reduce the role of the federal
government in education by working with Congress to pass an Elementary
and Secondary Education Act that decentralizes education policy.
States and schools need flexibility, not more federal mandates, to
meet the academic needs of students, empower parents with more
choices, and reward excellent teachers for their success in the
classroom."
State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais in remarks last week
that South Carolina would not participate in a new round of the
federal Race to the Top program that was announced by the U.S.
Department of Education.
Zais is right, of course. With his ten year track record in
turning around the fortunes of Newberry College into one of the
premier small colleges in the state in addition to 35 years of
leadership experience in the Army, the retired Brigadier General knows
leadership. He is a productive politician.
One local example of many to prove Zais' point involves the
mathematics programs at Chesterfield and McBee High Schools.
Specifically, both of these schools have consistently been well above
the state average in passing rates for the end of course exams for
Algebra I which is taken by virtually all high school students at
least once during grades 9 through 12.
In the case of McBee, the past three years of Algebra I EOC
results have been particularly exceptional. In 2009, the passing rate
was 82.5 percent followed by an increase to 94.1 percent in 2010. The
preliminary data for 2011 for the exams completed earlier this month
indicates a passing rate in the 90th percentile range. For some
reason, it takes the state department of education four or five months
after the fact to release the EOC exam results for the four tested
subjects.
At any rate, South Carolina schools have to look no further than
McBee math teachers Omoro King and Susan Moore to learn how to develop
and maintain successful, if not superb, algebra programs. Washington
D.C. cannot fix local learning shortfalls with a 500 mile screwdriver
from the Potomac River to the Little Pee Dee River.
Another politician with the moniker of Mick has also been quite
productive the past few weeks with constituent visits in Chesterfield
and Darlington counties. Fifth District Congressman Mick Mulvaney
(R-S.C.) viewed operations at a multi-million dollar agri-business
prior to talking with McBee High School teacher agriculture Pat Earle
who recently earned the rare honor of selection to the National
Teachers Hall of Fame. Mulvaney also chatted with aspiring Eagle
Scouts and the McBee senior class.
After some briefings in the town of Chesterfield, Mulvaney took
time to relax by watching game two of the Class A baseball state title
series between Chesterfield and Lakeview.
Last Saturday, Mulvaney was the commencement speaker at the
graduation exercises of the prestigious Governor's School for Science
and Math in Hartsville. All GSSM graduates are planning to attend four
year colleges. Sixty-two percent of the GSSM class of 2011 will attend
college in South Carolina. Notable out-of-state schools that 2011
graduates will attend include Harvard, the Air Force Academy,
Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Georgia Tech.
Mulvaney gets it. Not only does an elected official vote on
legislation, he also votes with his time by telling his constituents
what he deems important. In the instances cited above, our
congressman demonstrated that he deems local businesses, youth
leadership development (FFA, Boys Scouts), sound education and
competitive athletics to be important.
State Sen Vincent Sheheen (D-Camden) and House Speaker Pro Tem Jay
Lucas (R-Hartsville) also get it. Both of these productive
politicians spoke at Earle's notification ceremony for the NTHOF in
addition to last week's World War II memorial ceremony in McBee.

Craig Fehrman

2011-05-27T12:15:00.008-04:00

The latest episode of the podcast is up at iTunes (search The Logic Connection).

Thanks again to Craig Fehrman for coming on, the conversation is well worth a listen if I do say so myself. If I continue to get Ph.D.'s to agree to come onto the show, I might be able to apply for some kind of iTunes U accreditation. I reached out to Craig initially after reading his article in the LA Times on the reaction to the death of Bin Laden to shower him with praise for articulating some of my same thoughts on the issue. If you haven't read the article yet, be sure to do so before listening to the interview. We also touched on a few other issues including writing, the state of baseball, and even a little Mitch Daniels talk. Unfortunately, I had many more questions for Craig that we didn't get to because he had to go watch Scotty win American Idol, so hopefully he'll agree to come back on when his book comes out.

- Here's a link to Craig's Feature article at CincinnatiMagazine.com on the Red's struggle to increase attendance at the ballpark.

Two other quick hits before I go enjoy the rest of this Memorial Day weekend on the lake:

- Reason.tv with another excellent video on abuse of power by the government and the police and why it's so important for you to know your rights

- And am I the only one who didn't know about these amazing little chocolate balls filled with delectable delight?? Feel free to share your Lindt love stories in the comments if you're also a huge fan.

The "People I Will Not Vote for" list

2011-05-16T16:19:00.005-04:00

Alas, I procrastinated long enough in writing this post that some of these will no longer apply now that both Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Trump have opted out of the race. And seriously, if you really thought Trump was going to run, you need to speak up now so you can be publicly shamed.

With 2012 GOP primary talk dominating talk radio and cable news, I decided to begin a checklist of sorts that will help narrow down who I will end up supporting for the GOP nomination. As of now I am tentatively supporting Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, but seeing as how he hasn't actually declared yet (Update: Daniels is out), I need a backup bandwagon ready for me to board. Herman Cain is trying to hard to win me over and if his next debate appearance is as impressive as the debate in Greenville, SC, then he might just win the official Logic Connection endorsement. But don't think I've written off the two libertarians quite yet. Gary Johnson may still have some work to do on his public appearances (stop twiddling your damn thumbs on tv!), but Ron Paul did the best job I've seen him do of defending individual rights and libertarian principles during the last debate, especially when he smacked down Chris Wallace's weak attempt at making a joke of drug legalization.

If any of the following applies to you, I probably won't be voting for you in the upcoming primary. Feel free to add your own addition to the list in the comments. Here's what I have so far:

- If you're an old, boring white guy; AND
- You're a family values hypocrite;
- You've ever pulled off to the side of the road to weep upon hearing that your racist church isn't racist anymore;
- You've ever been the governor of Arkansas;
- You've ever done a commercial about global warming with Nancy Pelosi;
- You've spent more time as a politician than as a productive member of the private sector;
- You're unable to intelligently and eloquently articulate free market principles and conservative ideals;
- You've ever sponsored an individual mandate to purchase insurance in your former capacity as governor;
- You've ever lost a Senate race by 18 points or more in Pennsylvania;
- You've ever been the ambassador to China while plotting to run against the president who appointed you to that position; or
- You refuse to actively engage President Obama in the arena of ideas for fears of being labeled a racist or because you're just a pussy.

That's the list so far. Thoughts?

Oh, three more things. Another list I started while writing this post, "Nuts I won't be buying anymore because they're too damn expensive:"

- Almonds
- Cashews
- Macadamia
- Pistachios
- Any other nuts that aren't peanuts

An article by Craig Fehrman in the LA Times that pretty accurately sums up my thoughts on the reaction to the death of Osama bin Laden. I emailed Mr. Fehrman so if he responds I'm going to try and convince him to come on the podcast (he has since responded and I'm now in the process of trying to recruit him for the show).

And a review of Thor from our favorite movie review website, Videogum.

Pete Kaliner

2011-05-02T10:44:00.009-04:00

Thanks to all my loyal fans for being so loyal and sticking around for this long, you're the reason I get up every morning and think about posting. And thanks to former co-hosts JR and Jeramy for their efforts. I've decided to go it alone for now strictly because it's just too hard to try and line up recording times with people who have lives, and families, and lives, but I may line up another co-host again in the future. Feel free to email me if you're interested, or if you're just super bored, logicconnection@gmail.

You can find the latest episode on iTunes. I was able to convince former radio talk show host, Pete Kaliner, to come onto the show this episode and we had a riveting conversation about how new media is shaping journalism and the radio industry, Pete's future in local politics (spoiler alert, he probably isn't going to have one anytime soon), and we also touched on the biggest news story of the day, the death of Bin Laden. I always enjoyed listening to Pete during his 9-Midnight slot on WBT, it's a shame the management decided to go in another direction and run a syndicated show instead. As big a fan as I am of podcasting, I still really enjoy listening to the radio late at night before bed and hearing people call in to talk about the issues of the day and share their stories, but I know I'm in the minority there. Be sure to follow Pete on twitter, @PeteKaliner, and do whatever it is you Facebook people do to find him on there as well.

One other small bit of news in case you're not aware, THE Javier Colon made his debut on NBC's The Voice last week and he pretty much won the entire show already! Check out that link in case you missed last week's performance or just go to iTunes and download the single from the show. He actually cracked the top 20 in iTunes last week with his rendition of "Time After Time" which tells me he's got a few other fans out there besides me and JR. The Logic Connection is still the only podcast that shows up if you search for Javier Colon in iTunes and we've gotten a few more downloads since the show aired last week, but if you haven't heard our interview yet, check it out because it's definitely the last time I'll be able to get him on the podcast now that he's famous.

Letters to the Editor!

2011-03-30T21:11:00.004-04:00

Word coming out of Chesterfield County, SC is that a major logic bomb got dropped in the pages of The Link yesterday in the form of a letter to the editor written by Mr. JR Joyner. As readers of this blog are aware JR is a co-host of the podcast and lawyer extraordinaire. JR felt compelled to respond to a letter written into The Link last week from someone out of Rock Hill who made a feeble attempt to attack an editorial written by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R) on the possibility of a government shutdown. JR's letter was anything but feeble. I know it's a little out of context without the letter he was responding to, but just imagine your average lefty talking points about social security, extreme Republicans, taxes being too low, etc. and you'll be able to figure out what JR was writing about.

From the March 29, 2011 issue of The Link, THE paper of record in Chesterfield County:

Proverbs 18:17 says, “The first to bring his case seems right, until another comes forward and cross-examines him.” With that in mind, I felt the need to address the letter to the editor submitted by our neighbor from Rock Hill last week.

I voted for Mick Mulvaney last November and I am glad that he is remaining true to his campaign promise and attempting what the people of the 5^th district elected him to do; bring fiscal sanity to Washington DC.

Rep. Mulvaney did not mention Social Security (the world’s biggest pyramid scheme), Medicare, or Medicaid in his op ed. He was specifically trying to explain the government shutdown, and yet our neighbor from Rock Hill cited them. Why? Fear mongering. It’s an age old tactic by advocates of big government to use fear instead of reason whenever discussing budget issues. This is what Rep. Mulvaney is trying to fight by writing letters to his constituents.

The Federal government is broke and as a result of trying to fix this there may be a government shutdown. One of the primary reasons we are in the current budgetary mess is because of John Spratt and the previous Congress failing to pass a budget solely for political reasons. Rep. Mulvaney and a small group of republicans are trying not only to pass a budget, but also attempt to cut Federal spending before we really are bankrupt.

Erskine Bowles, a democrat, may have said that Social Security does not have any immediate solvency issues, but that does not mean we should not wait to deal with Social Security until it goes broke. Our neighbor from Rock Hill may not plan on being around when Social Security goes broke, but I am only 33 and have a young child, and I would rather not pass the burden on to his generation. Speaking of Erskine Bowles, let me ask, how many recommendations did President Obama adopt from his own deficit commission co chaired by Bowles? Zero. This lack of leadership by the President stands in stark contrast to what Rep. Mulvaney is attempting in the House.

The Federal government is inherently inefficient and does almost nothing better than the private sector, so why would you trust it to provide for your education and retirement when it has already proven it can’t do either? If anyone thinks taxes are too low, I would strongly encourage them to voluntarily send more of their own income to the IRS. Personally, I already surrender too much of my income to the government and I don’t want to continue to be punished for trying to earn a greater income to support my family.

Confiscatory tax rates of 90% or higher were wrong under Eisenhower and would be wrong today. If you want to use fear tactics instead of reasoned arguments, how about this for a fear tactic; the government could confiscate every penny from every individual in the country and it still would not be enough to pay off the current national debt which stands at about 14 trillion dollars (14,000,000,000,000.00). Higher tax rates are not the solution to out of control government spending. If we don’t seriously deal with the budget now, one day we will have to explain to our grandchildren why we let politics blind us to reality.

- In case anyone thought JR may have exaggerated his claim that we could confiscate the wealth of everyone in the country and still not be able to pay off the debt, check this excellent video out:

The Continuing Resolution Battle

2011-03-16T07:10:00.003-04:00

The GOP voted to continue funding Obamacare yesterday by voting the Continuing Resolution out of the House. Fifty four Republicans voted against the measure. Click here to find out whether your representative was one of the members that voted in favor of the CR.

I called a number of GOP House members last week and got the standard talking point from their staffers that Representative X won't know how they'll be voting on the CR until they've actually read the bill (stifle laughter) but that they oppose all funding for Obamacare...

Well, it appears that the 186 Republicans that voted for the CR yesterday aren't really that opposed to funding for Obamacare after all. But I'm just a lowly voter who doesn't understand how things work on the Hill so I guess it's just crazy talk to expect people who were voted into office on the promise of making every effort to defund and repeal Obamacare to actually make every effort to defund and repeal Obamacare.

If you're interested in calling your representative to inquire into their reasons for supporting the CR (I didn't want the government to shut down, Steve King's motion was out of order, I wasn't really being serious when I campaigned on a platform of limited government and cutting spending, etc.), you can find their number by searching for them online or by clicking here.

- Here's former congressman Ernest Istook, now with Heritage, on "How Congress Can Limit the Damage from Obamacare." Well worth a read.

CPAC 2011

2011-02-13T14:40:00.004-05:00

CPAC 2011 wrapped up this weekend. If you missed any speeches you can find them all at their main site, conservative.org

HotAir and youtube also have most of the speeches if you don't feel like signing up for the free membership at the CPAC main site. I watched Mitch Daniels on Friday night and thought his speech was well delivered. I'm still not certain if he's going to run since it's looking like he's seriously considering running for Senate in Indiana instead, but if he does run for the GOP nomination, I'll definitely be supporting him. I plan on watching Herman Cain and Alan West when I get a chance because their speeches are being well received from what I've read. Oh, and Rep. Ron Paul won the straw poll again. Good for him. Here's my question for any Ron Paul supporters who may be reading this blog, who are you going to support once Paul decides he's no longer going to run for president?

Don't forget to vote in our latest poll, there are still 3 days remaining. Are you going to support Palin in 2012 if she runs? Thus far, the people have spoken and it's not looking good for her in the GOP primary. Personally, I still think she's not going to run, but I suppose we'll find out in the next few months. And after you vote, go ahead and tell me who you're supporting in the GOP primary if it's not Palin. Or, if you're undecided, let me know that too because I'm sure the vast majority of Republicans are in the same boat at the moment.

- Also, check out my new favorite site, flexyourrights.org It's always good to see other people standing up for Constitutional rights, something we've talked about on the podcast quite a few times.

Super Bowl predictions

2011-02-03T06:40:00.003-05:00

I was out of town this past weekend and I've been busy this week so there probably won't be a new episode of the podcast until sometime early next week. Therefore, I need to go ahead and make my Super Bowl prediction here so it can be forever set in print when I nail the score exactly on Sunday.

Green Bay - 31
Pittsburgh - 21

Leave your own predictions in the comments.

Another Episode

2011-01-16T17:04:00.006-05:00

We're recording it this Tuesday and we want your campaign finance related questions because we're going to have Dr. John Samples on the show. Dr. Samples is a campaign finance super scholar and author with the Cato Institute, you can read up on his credentials here. Got a campaign finance related question, or just a political question in general, then send it to us in the comments and we'll try to work it into the interview.

- The interview with Dr. Samples is now available on iTunes. We definitely appreciate Dr. Samples joining us for a lively discussion on campaign finance 101 and we hope to have him back on in the future.

- More 2012 talk. First, Mitch Daniels in Politico. Second, Romney wins a straw poll in New Hampshire. The good news from the NH straw poll, Mr. Huckabee didn't place in the top 3. The bad news, Mitch Daniels didn't either. I wish Daniels would go ahead and decide whether he's going to run or not because even though it's still early, Daniels is going to need some time to gain the name recognition that the Romneys and Palins already have. Someone else to keep an eye on though, Herman Cain.

THE definitive Javier Colon interview

2011-01-10T08:49:00.005-05:00

That's right everyone, Javier was live and in person for the most recent episode of The Logic Connection podcast! And it's available on iTunes.

We finally tracked down the greatest neo-soul singer alive today for a short conversation about all kinds of awesomeness. Be sure to listen to hear Jav talk about his favorite album, his Stevie Wonder story, what it's like being such an accessible entertainer, and how he never misses an episode of The Logic Connection (except he doesn't actually say that directly per se, but you can just tell by how excited he is to be on the show).

You can find out more about Javier and his music on twitter, @javstwtr, and on his myspace and facebook pages.

When we asked him what his favorite song to perform, and also what was his favorite song that he had written, the answer to both of those questions was "Ok, Here's the Truth." I'm posting a video of him performing the song below in case you've never heard it before. But if you're a loyal reader of this blog, then I feel confident you've already seen it since I've posted it at least two times before. Just watch it again even if you have seen it and don't even think about leaving any negative comments at all about anything Javier related or you will definitely get blocked from all Logic Connection related functions and activities 4 life!

Thanks again, Jav, for doing the show. We really appreciate it!

Oh, and here's Marcus Lattimore getting his internal bell rung luckily sparing him from having to watch the Univ. of South Carolina lameCocks get their faces beat by FSU.

Teeth talk, Obamacare, & New Years

2011-01-04T08:20:00.007-05:00

All that and more can be found in the latest episode of the podcast which you can find on iTunes. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes if you haven't already and leave us some feedback here at the blog if you're enjoying the show thus far. And if you're not enjoying the show thus far, that's fine too, we're an acquired taste, much like a perfectly aged lager, or black licorice.

We talked about campaign finance reform in this episode, a topic I don't think quite gets the attention it deserves. John Samples at the Cato Institute is the campaign finance expert I referenced and you can find out more about him and his work here.

Three quick stories for today:

- The bill being submitted by Rep. Eric Cantor to repeal Obamacare that will be introduced next Wednesday, Jan. 12. You gotta love the title, "Repealing the Job Killing Health Care Law Act." And, it's only two pages long! Maybe Rep. John Conyers will actually be able to understand this piece of legislation without the help of a team of lawyers...

- Another Mike Pence for 2012 floater, this time from Red State. I'm not the biggest fan of Red State so I'm linking the HotAir piece instead, but I am a fan of Pence and if he does end up deciding to run in 2012, he'll probably be the candidate I support early in the race. Of course, it's still early at this point and there's a good chance he ends up running for governor in Indiana to replace Mitch Daniels, so my support may be going elsewhere if that happens.

- From Pajamas Media, How Obama wins again in 2012. A rather depressing look at the numbers in the 2012 election, but there's plenty of time left to change the outlook so don't despair.

-If only the Daily Show would expose liberalism more often, maybe I'd find the time to watch more often. This clip is pretty awesome.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

San Francisco's Happy Meal Ban

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>

The Daily Show on Facebook

The Logic Connection is under attack!

2010-12-21T08:11:00.005-05:00

Net Neutrality, or "Net Fatality" as I like to call it, is getting a vote over at the FCC today. Will the assaults on liberty never cease? I don't have any direct evidence to show that this move is singularly directed at stopping this very website, but I also don't have any evidence to the contrary either. Whenever you speak truth to power like we do here at TLC everyday (everyday being a loosely used term to refer to the few times a month I actually post) you're bound to attract attention, but that's not going to stop us. If the FCC pushes through this new regulation on the internets, TLC will continue the fight over at iTunes with the podcast, if the FCC forgets to include iTunes in its list of regulated websites that is.

Bottom line, why fix something that isn't broken, aka the internets? Because the powers that be can't control it, that's why. Nothing scares those in power more than the unregulated flow of information.

Oh, and apparently Haley Barbour is a big, fat racist. I'm not sure if he is in fact a racist, but I do know that he is fat, and I do know that he needs a new PR person immediately.

- From the comments last week, MB chimes in with a NY Post article about one of our favorite movies ever here at TLC, Battlefield Earth. I would highly recommend viewing it with the accompanying Rifftrax though.

- Episode 13 is now available, click here. 4Lokos come up again, we also talk about fantasy football and gambling, and we finish up with our latest epiphanies on Crossfit.

- Reason.tv on the absurdity of banning 4Loko, and they ask the question, what's next?

John McWhorter gets mentioned in this episode, you can read his columns at the New Republic here, but you should also search for him in iTunes and listen to some of his audio entries, especially the Cato podcast on Race and Drugs.

You can find out more about health and fitness expert, Alan Aragon, here.

As always, leave us some feedback.

Christmas then Resolutions

2010-12-11T15:43:00.007-05:00

My early New Year's resolution is going to be to start back writing again so maybe I can get an awesome link at Reason.com like cockrockmag, aka Mark, aka one-half of the Brazen Heads, aka the podcast you should go download on iTunes immediately after downloading The Logic Connection.

We're also really hoping to improve the audio quality of upcoming episodes once we figure out our new Sony mics so stay tuned...

- Good people of Chesterfield County, take heart, if the corrupt former governor of NC, Mike Easley, can be convicted of a felony thanks in large part to the efforts of investigative journalists, there's hope yet. I mean who would have ever thought using money that wasn't your own to make improvements on your personal property and using your political influence to get your significant other a job they wouldn't have otherwise gotten would result in a criminal investigation??

- Christopher Hitchens totally vindicating us with his thoughts on the futility of TSA security measures at our nation's airports.

- Food, Inc. It's worth watching with an open mind if you haven't seen it yet, but only if you don't have anything better in your Netflix queue like Wild Things 2. Instead, I think I'm going to recommend "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer. I just listened to a Fora.tv interview with the author today and it basically sounds like a way more thoughtful, way less patronizing version of Food, Inc. I'll report back once I've had a chance to get Eating Animals from the library next week.

- My three favorite Christmas songs below, in no particular order:

The most awesome version of Carol of the Bells ever.

Economics with Dr. Edward Stringham

2010-12-04T08:30:00.005-05:00

The latest episode of the podcast is up on iTunes. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes if you haven't already.

This episode we proudly welcomed Dr. Edward Stringham to the show and basically fit a semester's worth of Econ 101 into an hour. If you're interested in learning more about economics and you've already wasted your college degree on a B.A. in Political Science like some people I know, check out Mises.org or FEE.org and spend some time perusing their extensive free archives. And if you want to become an economic genius like Dr. Stringham, you can start by reading "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt, which FEE provides free online. If you'd like to check out some of Dr. Stringham's research, visit the Social Science Research Network at ssrn.com.

The day before the morning after

2010-11-01T06:33:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow is election day 2010 and I'm about to make some predictions. These predictions are completely unscientific and possibly random, but if they turn out to be accurate, I plan on taking full credit. The Republicans will gain 62 seats in the House and 10 seats in the Senate.

My upset pick of the night, Meg Whitman beats Jerry Brown to become the next governor of California.

My disappointment of the night, Christine O'Donnell loses a close race to Coons in Delaware.

My east coast bellwether race to keep an eye on, NC's 4th District. If challenger BJ Lawson can pull an upset over longtime liberal incumbent, David Price, things may be even worse for the Democrats than anyone predicted. True story, I once parked the car Price was riding in during a fireworks celebration on July 3rd in Garner, NC only to have one of his aides exit the vehicle and attempt to explain to me why they were going to need a special parking spot because Mr. Price was the congressman and he might have to leave early. I then backhanded the aide and told him he'd park where I dang well told him to and if he gave me any more lip he'd be sorry. I then continued to park the remainder of the cars and the congressman was never heard from again. The preceding story may not have been entirely true, certain facts may have been changed, but certain parts were definitely true.

Feel free to leave your own predictions in the comments. And then check out the Reason.com video below in case you weren't able to make it to the comedy rally this past weekend in D.C. featuring everyone's favorite journalist, Jon Stewart. The guys at Reason.com never fail to disappoint.

Lightweight!

2010-10-28T06:33:00.004-04:00

Keep the comments coming, they're all wonderful and they make this whole thing worthwhile. We're so blessed to have the best fans in all of podcasting.

The election is five days from now. To get yourself properly excited about the tidal wave of victory that's about to wash upon the shores of America, watch Ronnie Coleman deadlift 800lbs. Yeah Buddy!

Some quick logic

2010-09-13T06:26:00.002-04:00

- Kenny Powers is back! Season 2 of Eastbound and Down starts Sept. 26.

- Newsweek with another "Who is Mitch Daniels and will he run for President?" story. Not much new, but if you're still unfamiliar with Daniels, it's worth a read.

- Apparently, Afghanistan has become the new HQ for NAMBLA. Can't we finally just agree sexual repression is why all the muslims in Afghanistan are so pissed off all the time and not because some wacko preacher in Florida talked about burning a few Korans? Oh wait, it's easier to focus on wacko Christian preachers in Florida because it fits the media's template rather than focus on child abuse by muslims in Afghanistan? Indeed.

- If you haven't seen it yet, here it is, the most passionate campaign speech for Treasurer in the history of Treasurer races. Alas, Phil Davison was not even able to capture his party's nomination to run against the incumbent Democrat Treasurer so this may be the last we hear from Mr. Davison for a while. Unless we can get him on the podcast somehow...

- And in case you missed it (which you probably did since Rep. John Spratt (D) refused to allow cameras to film the debate) Pundit House has video of the entire debate between Mick Mulvaney and John Spratt. According to reports after the debate, Spratt said he would allow cameras in during the next debate.

Robert Monnie offers up his weekly logic from The Link below and throws his support behind Mulvaney for the 5th District in SC.

Tax By Any Other Name

There are a few provisions of the trillion dollar 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) that are worthy that I have cited previously in this space. These provisions in the main involve the construction, overhaul, and repair of the nation's infrastructure, namely freeways, highways and their bridges.

One of the major accomplishments of the Eisenhower administration was the establishment of the interstate freeway system that is still being expanded 55 years after its inception. This vital transportation network is a correct and proper use of taxpayer funds as defined by Congress' delineated constitutional duty to "regulate interstate commerce" and "provide for the common defense."

Not surprisingly, since the great majority of his gerrymandered 6th Congressional District constituency is entrenched in the non-productive entitlement mentality, South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn has proposed a transaction tax on stock trades that he claims will generate $500 billion over the next six years.

Of course, true to the Orwellian tactics of the Obama administration, Clyburn refers to the one-quarter of one percent tax per transaction as a "fee". That is another blatant attempt by the radical liberals to take income from the productive citizens without the non-productive citizens toting any part of the load.

In the spirit of bipartisanship, I agree with Clyburn that raising gasoline taxes at the pump is not the best answer to fund the repair of our crumbling infrastructure. Furthermore, rather than implementing a new tax, I recommend to the House Majority Whip that we reduce the entitlement share of the federal budget that is the largest single area of expenditures from the taxpayer coffers (yes, it is larger than defense expenditures).

And the informed reader may understand why I am loath to trust Clyburn with any taxpayer dollars in light of the fact that he admitted last month that he doesnt know how S.C. State University spent $31.7 million in federal and state tax monies for transportation-related programs at the center that bears his name on the Orangeburg campus.

Mind you this admittance is after a recent investigation found that 12 years after the James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center began operations, no research was under way and school officials could point to only a few paltry accomplishments at Clyburn's alma mater.

In any event, my thoughtful and extensively researched compromise proposal to fund the repair and expansion of our transportation infrastructure is to limit "free" medical care and food to one child of an unwed mother under the Medicaid and food stamp programs.

Forty percent of children nationwide are currently born to unwed mothers with this appalling statistic reaching epidemic proportions of 70 percent in Clyburn's voting blocs (The American Interest, by Nathan Glazer) in the 6th District.

Seventh grade arithmetic reveals that about $20 billion in revenue annually nationwide would be realized by this common sense and humane recommendation by a compassionate conservative (An unfeeling and cold-hearted person would recommend the draconian measure of no taxpayer-funded groceries and medical care for illegitimate offspring).

If applied to our country's highways and byways, $20 billion would upgrade 20,000 miles of roads and bridges annually (based on $1 million per mile) including the 20 mile obstacle course between Middendorf and Cheraw, otherwise known as U.S Highway 1.

An added side-benefit would be the decrease of illegitimate births since the financial incentive would no longer be there to procreate profusely without responsibility and formerly deadbeat dads and malingering moms would be gainfully employed in the booming road construction industry. It is a win-win proposal.

But until Clyburn adopts my funding proposal, I must endorse his opponent, Republican Jim Pratt, in the general election on November 2.

Sidebar: In yet another show of bipartisanship, I suggest to readers who are unaware of Mick Mulvaney's platform (e.g, against the ARRA and Obama health care bill) John Spratt's positions (e.g, supported the ARRA and Obama health care bill) to conduct a search of the archives of The Link's website (enter the names of these 5th District congressional candidates' names and this reporter's name in quotes in the search window, then read all found articles). And as a side note, the readers will also discover that Democratic gubernatorial Vincent Sheheen supports most provisions of Obama's health care boondoggle including the expansion of childhood to 25 years of age so able-bodied youth in their early 20's can be carried on their mommies and daddies' health insurance policies.

September 11, 2001

2010-09-11T13:59:00.004-04:00

It's been nine years.

We still have a hole at ground zero. The biggest news story of the day is whether or not a nutjob preacher in Florida is going to burn a few Korans in protest. In other breaking news, muslims in Afghanistan are pissed off again. The third most listened to radio host in the country, Glenn Beck, was on the radio this morning praising muslims in Dearborn, Mich. bc they held football practices at night to accommodate those celebrating Ramadan and demonstrating how serious they took their faith, a position he hopes more believers will emulate. Scientology is still an actual religion and not just an idea the creators of Southpark came up with to make us all laugh. And at the 2010 World Basketball Championship, the cheerleaders are being forced to cover up in a "nod to muslim law."

Doesn't seem like much has changed.

Even though this day should be above petty partisan politics, indulge me momentarily. Here's how you give a speech without a teleprompter.

If anyone hasn't seen the 9/11 documentary shot by french brothers Gedeon and Jules Naudet, in honor of today I'm going to link all 11 parts from youtube below, I highly recommend it.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Episode 1

2010-08-26T19:20:00.005-04:00

That's right, it's official, the first episode of The Logic Connection is now available on iTunes. Check it out and give us some feedback, but be gentle because our feelings are easily hurt.

JR and myself want to make the show as interactive as possible and so for now we're planning to use the blog as a way for listeners to leave comments, suggestions, etc.

Part of the first episode focused on our Top 5 favorite movies so feel free to add your Top 5 as well. My super awesome, well thought out list, consisted of the following:

5. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
4. The Sandlot
3. Lonesome Dove
2. Good Will Hunting
1. Braveheart

Let's see if this works, click on the following link to directly download the first episode instead of going to iTunes. http://logicconnection.audioacrobat.com/download/b2371580-c504-f550-c665-86567bc88f42.mp3

Ground Zero Mosque open thread (updated)

2010-08-17T08:08:00.003-04:00

Well it doesn't appear that this mosque issue is going away anytime soon so consider this an open thread and share your thoughts on whether the mosque should be constructed.

I don't support the building of the mosque because I don't support the building of mosques anywhere, not because of it's proximity to the site of the attacks of September 11, 2001. But, I also respect the foundation of private property rights in this country and I don't see any reason why owners of private property shouldn't be allowed to do with their property as they see fit in accordance with local zoning laws. I also think there are legitimate questions that need to be answered like where the funding for this mosque is coming from, will money from the mosque be funneled to terrorist organizations, and how long are we going to continue the practice of granting tax-exempt status to religious structures? NYC might start to reconsider this decision when it looks at the loss of potential property tax revenue by having a mosque constructed instead of something that isn't tax-exempt.

- A few other thoughts since I posted yesterday. For me, this mosque debate comes down to a battle of ideas, Islam versus Freedom. Islam is the antithesis of individual freedom and critical thinking, and this is why I oppose the building of the mosque, because I am an advocate for freedom. We are not going to win this battle of ideas by prohibiting one mosque from being constructed. Unlike some (the president and his fellow Democrats) currently in favor of construction of this mosque, I have been a proponent of the constitution and private property rights for some time now, this is not a new position taken for political expediency. We've been told since the attacks of September 11, 2001, that we are not at war with Islam, this is a war against terror and "radical" Islam. If that is true, then why oppose this mosque? Unless this mosque will be home to a "radical" sect of muslims lead by an Imam preaching overthrow of America and the institution of Sharia, how can we keep it from being built?

Oh, and one other question, whose idea was it to make the imam of the proposed ground zero mosque an envoy to the Middle East? There's a question to ask your member of Congress at their next town hall meeting. Unless you're one of Melissa Bean's constituents that is...

Is this thing still on?

2010-08-04T07:28:00.003-04:00

Check 1, check check (blows into microphone)

Now that I'm no longer studying (at least until I have to start back up for February...) I figured I'd finally dust off the ol' Logic Connection and make an attempt at actually blogging again. A lot has happened since my last entry, the oil in the gulf keeps disappearing at a rapid rate, I was finally able to start reading Hitch-22, Basil Marceaux has become a national celebrity thanks in no small part to The Logic Connection linking to his website, and the journolist has exposed the national media for being slightly in favor of all things Obama. Well, maybe a LOT didn't happen, but a few things happened while I was away and I doubt you read that story about me starting Hitch-22 anywhere else in the media.

- Hitchens discusses his cancer.

- Dan Riehl continues to uncover more about Shirley Sherrod. Can we all stop saying she was summarily dismissed because of racism now?

- If Marc Basnight (D) is your NC state senator then check out Hood Richardson, his GOP opponent in November. Let's all join together and do what we can to make sure "Plastic Bags" Basnight enjoys an earlier than expected retirement from public service this year.

- In honor of the 100 year anniversary of Mark Twain's passing, here is a personal favorite of his many short stories, "The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm." I still laugh everytime I read it.

- The good news of the day, Missouri voters soundly rejected Obamacare yesterday. Couple that with the news that a federal judge in Virginia decided to allow a suit against the health care mandates to continue and opponents of Obamacare should be feeling kind of optimistic at the moment.

- And finally, the internet is still terrible after all these years. H/T Videogum, via Amber

Just this one thing...

2010-07-23T01:39:00.003-04:00

Via Wonkette, I present Basil Marceaux, the next Governor of Tennessee. Be sure to watch the video. Then please visit his website before his server crashes after his campaign goes viral tomorrow.

I think my most favorite part of his platform has to be this:

2.Equal Health care
a. a free gift program
b. take a look at and redo all mandtory insurance programs
c. See why dental is not in most plans a tooth aches hurt more than a back aches and no teeths depresses people

It's so true, no teeths does depress people.

Wednesday Logic

2010-07-14T09:18:00.003-04:00

I really have to start coming up with more creative blog post titles.

- In honor of the 100 year anniversary of Mark Twain's death, I'm going to start posting links to some of his lesser known pieces to help spread the Twain feevah that is building nationwide in anticipation of the release of his unedited autobiography. Here is an "Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven." Enjoy.

- An informed reply to the latest leftist meme regarding the NBPP case.

- Hugh Hewitt speaks with Christopher Hitchens about his new memoir, Hitch-22.

- The latest Democrat Representative to lose it in front of his constituents? Rep. Ciro Rodriguez of Texas. All I can say is I'm glad Bob Etheridge wasn't there or things could have gotten really ugly. Check out the video here.

- Below is Robert Monnie's weekly column from The Link. In response to Mr. Monnie I'll say this, if we can get muslims in other countries refocused on math and science instead of coming up with new ways to take over the world then I'm on board. That being said, I still think Bolden was probably telling the truth when he let slip his actual orders from on high as evidenced by how quickly he was thrown under the Obama bus.

Beam me up, Scotty

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering."

NASA administrator, Charles Bolden in an interview last month with Al Jazeera, the radical Arab media conglomerate, explaining his specified tasks from President Barack H. Obama (George Washington, Andy Jackson, Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan are spinning in their graves).

You remember Al Jazeera. The prolific purveyors of yellow journalism (as in tabloid media and cowardly adjective) who broadcast murders of American civilians over the Internet a few years ago and described it as swift justice.....that is a historical fact.

The NASA administrator, a retired Marine Corps two-star general (Chesty Puller is spinning in his grave), was in the Middle East in early June marking the one-year anniversary since Obama pontificated to Muslim nationals in Cairo. Bolden spoke a few weeks ago at the American University in Cairo -- in his conversation with Al Jazeera, he defined space travel as an international collaboration in which Muslim nations must play an active role.

So, we collaborate with the enemy in Iran, for example. No surprise there--- unearned affirmative action fast tracks and irrelevant job quotas based on meaningless demographics have been a staple for nearly a half-century in our country. Apparently, the White House is expanding this policy to Islamic terrorists. But I digress.

You remember Obama's Cairo speech in which he apologized for America's recent colonial transgressions in the the Muslim world and favorably compared issues of women's equality in Muslim majority nations (e.g., Pakistan, Turkey and Bangladesh where arranged marriages of prepubescent girls with adult males are quite common and stoning of suspected adulterers occurs all too frequently) with issues of women's equality in the United States. Please read that speech. It is a matter of historical fact.

Call me old-fashioned. But in my innocence and political ignorance, I thought that the mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was to "explore new worlds and boldly go where no one has gone before." Along the way, the new technology would result in exponential advances in the arenas of agriculture, medicine, engineering, and energy. So, what is the down side again?

"Darn it Scotty, I don't care if President Xerxes XIV has banned new mining for dilithium crystals. I want warp power and I want it now or you will be wearing a kilt and serenading red-cockaded woodpeckers in the sandhills of South Carolina"

Sorry, that was a flash-forward to Star Trek XIII, The Wrath of Literate, Mission-Focused and Discerning Americans Who Do Not Suffer Fools Gladly.

Sidebar: A distant cousin to George Patton, leatherneck legend Lewis "Chesty" Puller, who retired as a Marine lieutenant general, was awarded five Navy Crosses for valor in combat in the Banana Wars of the 1930's, World War II, and the Korean War. The Navy Cross is our nation's second highest award for bravery in combat. I doubt if this significant bit of U.S. history is mentioned in high school classes.

Guest Logic

2010-07-08T08:40:00.002-04:00

Luckily, Robert Monnie, columnist extraordinaire for The Link, has a much stronger work ethic than myself or else this blog might be totally devoid of new material. You'll find some kudos from Mr. Monnie in his latest column below.

A few other quick points of interest before I get back to studying.

- Mitch Daniels is really starting to get some media attention throughout the blogosphere. Volokh has an article up about him here, and you can read more about Daniels' reading preferences here. At least I can say I was the proud owner of Hayek's Road to Serfdom before Glenn Beck went and made him cool again.

- Ann Coulter fires back at the Michael Steele haters in her latest column. I'm with Ann, Rush, Dan Riehl, and the others defending Steele. Let the RNC handle this internally. Steele will most likely be voted out when his term is up in January 2011, not only because he's almost as gaffe prone as our V.P., but because of his inability to raise funds during this crucial election year.

- Via HotAir, meet Obama's latest recess appointment, Donald Berwick. And be sure to watch the youtube clip of Berwick praising the British health system. Am I the only one who sees this kind of stuff but still has complete faith that the Republicans can find a way to screw this up and lose the 2012 presidential election (aka make Huckabee a part of the ticket somehow)?

- And in case you haven't seen it yet, here is the person our DOJ decided not to prosecute for voter intimidation, King Samir Shabazz. J. Christian Adams was one of the DOJ attorneys involved with the case who has since resigned in protest, you can read more about his story here. So does this now make Attorney General Eric Holder the coward if he refuses to discuss why DOJ dismissed this case? I submit that it does.

Merited Kudos

Kudos to the University of South Carolina Gamecock baseball team for winning the 2010 College World Series. Numerous relatives, including my father (class of 1946), graduated from USC. They are pleased.

Kudos to the majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court who voted 5-4 that Chicago's ban on individual ownership of handguns was a direct violation of the Second Amendment. "Self-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day," Justice Samuel Alito sagely wrote for the majority. He correctly elaborated that "individual self-defense is the central component of the of the Second Amendment right"

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the delusional minority that also included Justices Stevens, Ginsburg and Sotomayor that handguns cause an estimated 60,000 deaths and injuries each year. Oh, really. While we are at it, let's ban cars, trains, buses, airplanes and reality TV shows.

Kudos to all local government entities in the county including all municipalities, county council and the school board for cutting budget expenditures for the second year in a row. Though one may take issue with the nature and amount of reductions, all reasonable people would agree that when income decreases, in this case taxpayer dollars, expenditures must decrease. At the end of the day, the elected representatives are required to make fiscally responsible business decisions. And if citizens do not vote, their complaining and whining lack credibility.

Kudos to Cheraw Mayor Scott Hunter for insisting that the town council conduct its interview process for town administrator in a professional and correct manner and eschewing the "good old boy" politics of smoke-filled rooms and dubious dealings of Boss Tweed wannabes.

Kudos to McBee American Legion Post 139 and the scores of corporate and personal donors who made a reality the installation of 104 U.S. Flags along the two main thoroughfares in McBee.

Kudos to retired Army Sergeant Major Lynn Widener for continuing the annual mission of delivering peaches and barbecue meat to wounded warriors, their families and caregivers at military medical facilities along the Atlantic seaboard.

Kudos to the U.S. Senate for unanimously confirming Army General David Petraeus to be the new commander of U.S. and coalition military forces in Afghanistan. Reliable scuttlebutt (yes, it is an oxymoron) has it that Marine General Jim Mattis is on the short list to succeed Petraeus as commander of Central Command and thus become Petraeus' boss. In that regard, I share this anecdote about Mattis during the first battle of Fallujah, Iraq in 2004 that was derived from several anonymous sources.

Abizaid met Mattis (a two-star general commanding the 1st Marine Division) in his command post outside the city, where he had been leading the battle from the front for weeks. Nearly forty soldiers, sailors, and Marines had died in the assault. Mattiss own command element had been attacked multiple times by this point and had suffered casualties. His uniform was soiled and dirty from the weeks of constant combat. When Abizaid (a four-star Army general in charge of Central Command) told Mattis (a two-star divisional commander) to stop the assault Mattis looked Abizaid in the eye and growled, "If you are going to take Vienna, take (expletive deleted) Vienna." Abizaid just nodded and Mattis stormed out of the room.

I doubt if the historical reference of taking Vienna is part of the standards of U.S. history as taught in high schools across the nation.

Kudos to all forthright, knowledgeable and discerning individuals who do not suffer fools gladly.

Guest Logic

2010-07-01T14:26:00.003-04:00

- Ann Coulter weighs in with her enthusiastic report on the Kagan hearings thus far.

- Robert Monnie delivers his weekly dose of logic from this week's issue of The Link:

The Stage is Set

Despite the significantly varied choices available, the voter turnout was abysmally low in last Tuesday's primary run-off election in the Palmetto State--15 percent statewide and about the same in Chesterfield County.

In all statewide Republican run-offs, the GOP nominees for the November 2 general election won decisively. By nearly a two to one margin, gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley trounced Gresham Barrett while the downstream races were somewhat closer.

Ken Ard (61 percent) and Alan Wilson (60 percent) are the Republican nominees for lieutenant governor and and attorney general respectively. And in a surprisingly close race considering the thin credentials of Elizabeth Moffly, Mick Zais defeated her 54-46 percent for the GOP slot for state superintendent of education.

With the exception of the superintendent contest where Moffly inexplicably received 62 percent of the vote, Chesterfield County results generally mirrored the statewide numbers. I pledge to do a better job of touting Zais' resume and platform that includes West Point alumnus, retired Army brigadier general, and ten year president of Newberry College where he revitalized that institution of higher learning.

Primarily thanks to the efforts of grassroots conservatives such as Bobby Jordan and local discerning, yet modest, journalists, Haley received a very impressive 76 percent of the 944 votes cast in the GOP run-off in Chesterfield County. Indeed, in Jordan's home precinct of Jefferson, Haley earned an astounding 88 percent of the vote. Well done, Bobby.

I also offer kudos to all poll workers particularly the team in the Black Creek precinct who stayed open the mandated 12 hours for a total of five voters.

In any event, come November, Haley, a truly conservative Republican will be pitted against Democratic state senator Vincent Sheheen of Camden in neighboring Kershaw County. Sheheen, an attorney from an established political dynasty, is on record as supporting both the 2009 American and Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the 2010 national health care act, major hallmarks of the Obama administration.

As befits a professional accountant and Clemson alumna, Haley does not advocate the spendthrift fiscal policies of President Obama as implemented by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Jim Clyburn and John Spratt.

Fortunately, for the Palmetto State, GOP state senator Mick Mulvaney of Lancaster County, is waging an effective campaign against Spratt in the battle to represent the South Carolina 5th District in the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. Chesterfield, Darlington and Marlboro counties are part of that 5th District

Also Tim Scott, another staunch conservative, is the Republican nominee in the South Carolina 1st Congressional District that includes Myrtle Beach and the Low Country.

The clarion has sounded for productive Americans to repudiate those politicians who see government as the solution to all domestic issues and freely spend the taxpayers' money while redistributing those citizens' hard-earned private income.

The deadline to register for the general election is October 2. To register, contact the Chesterfield County Voter's Registration Board at 416 West Boulevard in Chesterfield or call (843)-623-2265.

The stage is set.

Sidebar: A refreshingly positive trend that most media failed to report is the increasing military experience and ties of political candidates as exemplified by Wilson, an officer with a combat tour in Iraq and Bill Connor who served a year-long combat tour as a field grade officer in Afghanistan. Zais' background is cited above. Barrett served stateside in the peacetime Army. Haley's husband is an officer in the South Carolina Army National Guard while her brother is a military veteran.

Tuesday's Logic

2010-06-29T10:03:00.003-04:00

A few quick links:

- Scandal galore in this week's issue of The Link! I was shocked, shocked I say, to read that the former Mayor is involved in an attempt to influence the process of selecting a new town administrator in Cheraw. I find it hard to believe that a person of such high moral fiber would be involved in such questionable activities.

- Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square bomber, plead guilty in federal court last week, you can read the transcript of the proceedings here. Skip ahead to about page 18 to read Shahzad describe in his own words why he attempted to detonate a bomb with the intent to kill as many people as possible. His sentencing is set for the beginning of September where he'll likely receive life in prison.

- Sadly, the race for 2012 is going to swing into full effect the day after the midterms this year in part due to the freedom limiting legislation of the former Republican nominee for President, John McCain, which requires candidates to raise money from as many donors as possible due to limitations on campaign contributions. Thanks again S.C. Republican primary voters for helping to ensure McCain's horrific losing effort in 2008. In order to combat the usual suspects on the Republican side, people are going to need to take an early look at qualified candidates that may not be as well known nationally as Palin, Gingrich, Romney, or the formerly obese Huckabee. One of the potential candidates already starting to get some media attention is two-term governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels. If you're not familiar with Daniels yet, read more about him here.

- As always, you can follow Supreme Court developments at The Volokh Conspiracy. They already have plenty of articles up detailing the McDonald decision that was handed down yesterday. The actual opinion can be found here, although it's extremely lengthy. If you're pressed for time, I'd recommend reading Justice Thomas' concurring opinion starting on page 67 for an interesting discussion of the Privileges and Immunities clause and the historical basis for the right to bear arms.

- If you have a lot of time to waste this week and want to follow the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings, you can watch them here. Or, you can do like most people and catch the highlights on the blogs later that day, unless you live in Minnesota and you just can't stand to miss a second of the brilliant questioning from your junior Senator, Mr. Franken. Personally, I'd like to ask her if she think she's the most qualified candidate the President could have nominated, or was she just selected because she would be the easiest person to get confirmed?

Finally, if you're a podcastophile like myself, my iTunes recommendation of the week is The Brazen Heads podcast. And I am not recommending it solely based on the fact that I got a shout out in episode 35. Not at all.

Some quick Friday Logic

2010-06-25T09:42:00.004-04:00

So I did "Angie" this morning for the 2nd time, except I didn't use a band halfway through like last time, a small victory for me. My time on the other hand was not very victorious. But I digress...

- Al Gore is a crazed sex poodle. And everyone thought Bill was the only one who would ever be accused of sexual assault...

- CNN has hired Eliot Spitzer in a desperate attempt to get anyone to watch their horrific primetime lineup. Good luck with that, CNN.

- Ken Klukowski with the Washington Examiner writes a great piece about the DISCLOSE act that passed the House yesterday 219-206. Luckily The Logic Connection has managed to fly under the radar thus far so I doubt the DISCLOSE act will apply, although I have a had a few hits from D.C. before so maybe the President is keeping tabs on me after all...

- Congratulations to Nikki Haley for winning the Republican primary for governor in S.C. Let's just hope she can be a positive force for change in my former state of residence.

- A new website I discovered (H/T @derekbronish) that breaks with the norm, lists of 10, and sets the new standard, lists of 11.

- Carolina Journal Online discusses a small victory in the NC House this week, the defeat (albeit temporarily) of expanding the public financing of campaigns. This is definitely one of my biggest problems with Twitter. Instead of only having to worry about the daily assault on reason and liberty at the national level, Twitter makes it too easy to be aware of all the attempted restrictions on your rights at the state level as well. Even though the Republicans in the state house all voted in favor of banning internet sweepstakes earlier this week (a totally inconsistent position in a state with a lottery), at least they were able to defeat this measure until the Democrats are able to sneak it back in during another session.

- And finally, via HotAir, the painfully stupid public official of the week. It's making its way through the blogosphere pretty quickly today, but if you haven't seen the story yet, here is Milwaukee County Supervisor Peggy West (D):

Another election day (Updated)

2010-06-22T08:42:00.005-04:00

As of 8:07am, an astounding 8 voters had cast their ballot at my polling place (approx. 86 out of 2100 voted by the end of the day). After an hour of sitting out front, I decided my time would be better spent in the pursuit of knowledge than in attempting to persuade anyone else why they should become involved with the MeckGOP (but feel free to check out their website and sign up for their informative eblast). Besides, I was the only volunteer out there which never makes for a fun day.

Also, I understand how bothersome it can be when someone approaches you outside of your polling place in a last ditch effort to convince you why their candidate is the superior choice, but is it really necessary to be so unpleasant? It's not like I was out there campaigning for Johnson or D'Annunzio. And speaking of D'Annunzio, anyone care to venture a guess as to what his plans are after he loses the runoff today? I can definitely see another NC-8 run in 2012 as a warm up before running for the Senate in 2014 against Hagan and then a run for Governor in 2016. Personally, I'm still hoping for a D'Annunzio/Greene ticket for Pres/V.P. in 2012.

- It is now the day after and Harold Johnson has soundly defeated D'Annunzio. I still think Harold has a lot of work to do to win over conservative voters, but he has a very good chance to beat Kissell in November. D'Annunzio received approx. 6,000 votes yesterday, slightly more than half of his total from May, but how many of those 6K will end up supporting Harold in November? What really concerns me though is why 6K people would ever vote for D'Annunzio in the first place? SC is still the loser in this one though bc while D'Annunzio may have received 6K votes, Alvin Greene received 100,000!

- C. Morgan Edwards for NC Sen. district 37 in November!

On another note, some thoughts on the latest attack on liberty and logic from the NC General Assembly, the ban on internet sweepstakes.

John Hood pretty much nails it on the head in his latest article, this is not about morality, this is all about greater government control. If this were really about morality we wouldn't have a state run "education" lottery and we wouldn't allow gambling on indian reservations (yes, I know, it's federal territory and the state has no control). This is about the state maintaining a monopoly on gambling in an attempt to raise as much money as possible off the backs of the poor to continue their control over education.

I had some fun on Monday and called Sen. Basnight's office (since Sen. Clodfelter doesn't seem to return the phone calls of his constituents) and had a nice conversation with one of his legislative assistants. Basically, the LA agreed with me that there is no limit to the amount of money poor people can spend on the state lottery and that the only difference between internet sweepstakes and the lottery is that one has the color of law and one doesn't. The reason things like this bother people like me so much is the logical inconsistency. If the state wants to conduct a lottery ostensibly "for the children" then so be it, but at the same time don't try and ban other games of risk run by the private sector by claiming you're doing so to protect the poor. Either gambling is wrong or it's not, and if it's wrong for a private citizen to conduct games of risk, then it's wrong for the state.

Oh, and if you're wondering, the ban on internet sweepstakes passed with full Republican support in the senate.

- All hope is not lost! Please support Jason Phibbs (R) for NC Senate if you live in District 25.

If only we lived in a country where actual debate, not speech giving, and the exchange of ideas was truly valued...

Guest Logic

2010-06-16T22:03:00.002-04:00

A few quick links before I crash for the night:

- Today was another banner day for the Tim D'Annunzio campaign! If you live in NC's 8th District, check out his interview on the Keith Larson show today here, or download it on iTunes. If you have another 30 minutes to kill after listening to his "interview" with Larson, you can peruse a few public documents at TimTruth.com And if you're still voting for D'Annunzio in the runoff election next week... well good for you friend. I think it's safe to say even Ronald Reagan would make an exception to his 11th Commandment in D'Annunzio's case.

- The Logic Connection is happy to officially endorse Alan Teitleman for Soil and Water Supervisor in Watauga County this year. Good Luck in November, Alan.

- Videogum's Hunt for the Worst Movie reviews Benjamin Button and completely validates my opinion once again.

Below is Robert Monnie's latest column from The Link. It's only a matter of time before Monnie gets snatched up by The State to cover politics in the Pee Dee unless a certain super hunky local editor gets his act together and renegotiates Monnie's contract before it's too late...

Voting Speaks Volumes

Despite being the most significant midterm election cycle in the past century, the voter turnout was woefully low in last Tuesday's primary election in the Palmetto State--24 percent statewide and about 19 percent in Chesterfield County.

Statewide, the biggest pleasant surprise was Curtis Loftis scoring a decisive win over establishment candidate Converse Chellis for treasurer. There was no Democratic candidate so Loftis has secured that position.

The GOP will have a runoff election next Tuesday, June 22 to decide several party nominees who will square off against the Democratic opposition in November. In a hotly contested contest, Afghanistan combat veteran Bill Connor will face Ken Ard for lieutenant governor while Newberry College president Mick Zais, a retired Army brigadier general, will vie against Elizabeth Moffly for superintendent of education.

And Iraq combat veteran Alan Wilson earned a runoff spot against Leighton Lord for attorney general.

In a campaign that drew national attention, Nikki Haley outdistanced her competitors for the Republican nomination for governor but it was just shy of a majority so she will be matched against Gresham Barrett to decide who will run against Vince Sheheen this fall.

Conservative voters transmitted a loud and clear message to the "good old boys" by repudiating the Jake Knotts school of Neanderthal mentality and unsavory tactics. Knotts, who has a pervasive penchant for inserting both feet into his mouth, is the unofficial leader of a cravenly cabal that includes Larry Richter.

In a televised lieutenant governor debate with Connor, Richter, who has not served his country, questioned the veracity of Connor's military service with emphasis on his combat tour. A couple centuries ago, satisfaction would have been demanded on the field of honor. Connor did get the last laugh by eliminating Richter from the runoff.

Though Haley got 49 percent of the Republican ballots cast, her total vote total was more than twice the total Democratic votes for all gubernatorial candidates. There will be more discussion on the November governor's race at a more opportune date.

Another bellwether sounded last week that indicates the 150 year Democratic lemming-lock on local politics in Chesterfield County is weakening. Several formerly solid Democratic precincts showed even splits between GOP and Democratic ballots. For example, McBee had virtually equal numbers voting on the separate party ballots.

And in a local county council race, voters demonstrated by a 2-1 margin their scorn for carpetbaggers.

Not surprisingly, the Republican growth is occurring where the economic growth and individual productivity are occurring--in the western and southern sectors of the county. Conversely, the Democrats' bastions remain where the entitlement mentality is entrenched.

The clarion call for the conservative principles on which our Judeo-Christian nation was founded has sounded once again. Voting speaks volumes.

Sidebar: Russell Byrd, whose public education career spanned four decades with the past 32 years as a social studies teacher at McBee High School, has retired. To recognize his many contributions in the classroom and the coaching arena, the school's annual social studies award was named in his honor. Coach Byrd, a Vietnam veteran who was a role model for thousands of students, will be sorely missed by the McBee community.

- And in case you haven't seen it yet, this is actual video of an actual elected representative from the great state of North Carolina engaging in actual battery of a citizen.

Alvin Greene

2010-06-13T17:05:00.004-04:00

My thoughts on the Alvin Greene for Senate drama in S.C.

First of all, the whole thing is just odd and I'm still not 100% sure what to make of it, but I do think there are some legitimate questions that need to be answered.

Do I think this was some kind of vast right-wing conspiracy to help Jim DeMint easily win reelection in November? No. Would it surprise me if, in fact, this did turn out to be some kind of not so vast right-wing conspiracy, eg. a person not too fond of Rawls deciding to get back at him by not allowing him an uncontested primary? No. This is S.C. after all.

I think the more likely (but less exciting) scenario is that the SC Democratic party put very little effort into a race that they knew they had no hopes of winning and Democrat voters basically played eenie meenie miney moe in the voting booth.

The idea that Republicans would cross over to vote in a Democrat primary race in large enough numbers to actually influence the race is just silly. Besides the governor's race, there were other hotly contested Republican primaries taking place, many of which generated a lot of publicity, and I don't see too many Republicans giving up the chance to vote in those races just so they could vote for an unknown Senate candidate that Jim DeMint could beat in November. Senator DeMint is going to win in November. Period. It really didn't matter who the Dems put up to run against him, it was still going to be a political suicide mission. Like State Sen. Robert Ford said, "Ain't nobody in this state can even think about beating DeMint."

I am curious to find out how exactly Greene was able to afford the $10,400 filing fee and why he initially tried to pay the fee in cash. I'm also wondering how long it's going to take the Solicitor's Office handling Greene's felony case to move forward now that I'm sure they're receiving pressure from Democrats both locally and nationally to make sure they get a conviction in this case and fast. And I'm also hoping someone will come out and explain how exactly he received a political science degree from the University of South Carolina in 2000.

Alvin Greene has opened himself up to legitimate criticism and scrutiny by placing himself in the political arena, but I still can't help but feel sorry for him. I can only hope that something positive comes out of this whole debacle, namely, taking a closer look at the electoral process and coming up with creative ways to ensure uneducated voters don't blindly decide races in the future.

Public Policy Polling comes to a similar conclusion.

Jon Stewart adds his thoughts on the mysterious Alvin Greene.

Belated Logic

2010-06-09T22:28:00.003-04:00

If anyone is still bothering to check in daily, you're awesome.

Feel free to consider this an open thread. And take a moment to vote in the latest poll.

Possible topics to be discussed could include your thoughts on last night's primary elections, any new super cool podcasts you've found, whether or not you're following me on Twitter yet, your prediction on when Javier is finally going to release his much anticipated third album, is The Wire the greatest TV show of all time, creative ways BP can stop the oil spill, your favorite olympic lift/crossfit named workout, and the other blogs you visit after you come to The Logic Connection only to find I've still not updated.

I fully intend to get back to posting regularly soon. Very soon. But until then, I leave you with a Logic Connection favorite, Javier's enchanting rendition of "Come Through."

Letters to the Editor

2010-05-25T21:04:00.003-04:00

Or, what we in the biz like to call LTE's.

Letters to the Editor are quickly becoming a lost art as more and more of us no longer get our daily news in print. Whenever I do get my hands on a print newspaper though I still love turning to the Opinion pages and quickly perusing the pithy comments from local citizens regarding the pressing issues of the day. Even if I disagree with the sentiments expressed, I always respect anyone who takes the time to put their thoughts down on paper and submit it with their name attached. In the age of anonymous blogging and anonymous commenting, it's too often the case that someone states an opinion they would never otherwise state if it weren't anonymous. While online anonymity is something I'm in favor of in certain circumstances, it's definitely a double edged sword.

Now as some of you may know, I penned quite a few LTE's in The Link (the paper of record in Chesterfield County) during my time in Cheraw. But despite multiple requests for me to continue my unparalleled LTE campaign, I've sworn off any further entries now that I no longer reside in S.C. Needless to say, I know a great LTE when I see one, and there was indeed a great one prominently displayed on page 4 of this week's edition of The Link.

After being granted special permission by the author, The Logic Connection has been authorized to publish the first ever LTE by JR Joyner, aka Witness the Fitness. I know I'm not the only one who will be anxiously awaiting a response next week from the Chesterfield County school board or anyone else with the logical fortitude to confront Mr. Joyner in the arena of ideas.

Money is not the Key to Academic Excellence

Let me begin by saying that I apologize to all the teachers in Chesterfield County who ever had me as a student. Even if your salary was a million dollars, you would have been terribly underpaid to have to deal with me.

I received most of my education once I left Chesterfield County, at Camden Military Academy and at The Citadel, but it took me leaving the county to realize how important an education was to my future. Once I realized this I really started making a concerted effort with my studies. My point is teachers are very important, but if a student doesn't have a desire to succeed combined with a support network at home, it doesn't matter how much we spend per-student and how much blame we place elsewhere, our expectations will never be met.

The current budget crisis here in the county and state should be viewed as an opportunity to correct our mistakes and plan for the future, not as another opportunity to raise taxes. We should never again rely on federal handouts as a temporary fix to a problem that our leaders knew, or should have known, was going to reoccur. There is nothing stopping anyone from voluntarily paying higher taxes, or from using their own money to set up scholarship funds specifically for teachers from rural counties (like Chesterfield), but, personally, I don't want my taxes raised to help "fix" our budget. The problem isn't that we don't pay high enough taxes and it is misleading to suggest that we pay lower taxes in the south and in South Carolina as opposed to the other states. What about the 16 states that either use a flat tax or have no income tax at all, do we pay lower taxes than them? South Carolina consistently ranks at the bottom nationally in almost every way we measure education standards. It's going to take more than money to fix that.

As to bureaucracy in the education system, were any salaries cut for high level bureaucrats? Were any cuts made other than for the teachers that labor day to day educating our students? Are you bureaucrats planning on building anymore castles, I mean, schools in this county? Those in charge of school financing have been irresponsible. I only ask you to manage tax payers’ money with the same frugality you manage your own.

What do Thomas Paine, Aristotle, Isaac Newton, and C.S. Lewis all have in common besides all being intellectual giants? None of them had a computer in their classroom and none of them needed an oversized education bureaucracy to dictate how to best educate them while getting paid six figure salaries. And they also would have all been embarrassed at using children as political props to further their cause. It's a shame the people responsible for using those McBee elementary students on the front page of last week's paper don't feel the same way.

The start of the weekend Logic

2010-05-21T15:15:00.004-04:00

It's Friday at last. I'll be tailgating at the All-Star race tomorrow come rain or shine so hit me up if you're going to be out there as well.

Here are a few quick links to get you through the weekend:
- Jim Morrill at the Charlotte Observer with another story on Tim D'Annunzio and the NC 8th district congressional race. The Logic Connection is supporting Harold Johnson in the June 22 run-off.
- A bank bailout story you won't hear about in the national media
- Another shameless politician who refuses to go away. But hey, kudos to CNN for actually calling Blumenthal a "liar."
- If you haven't bookmarked the Volokh Conspiracy yet, you best rectify.
- In local news, the Mecklenburg County justice system fails again. Hopefully this piece of human debris gets his rape case handled by a prosecutor who doesn't know the meaning of the word "plea."
- Check out the newest blog in the Mecklenburg blogosphere, PunditHouse. Information is power my friends (no matter what the president says) and this article about the Mecklenburg County Commission is some powerful stuff.

Finally, back for another addition is Robert Monnie's weekly column from The Link:

Points to Ponder

For your general fund of basic knowledge and to increase your level of situational awareness, I have compiled the following summary of recent events as a free private service.

Last week, it came to light in the Lone Star State that a local high school basketball player who claimed to be 16 years old last winter actually was a grown man of 22. But the important thing for those folks with incorrect priorities is that he helped Permian High School make a deep run into the round ball play-offs last winter.

Predictably, high school teachers and administrators, including the faculty member who was providing the child-man free room and board, claimed ignorance of the lad’s true age. I agree. Ignorance and incompetence was indeed demonstrated by public school leadership who failed to conduct a thorough background check of the erstwhile hoops star who is a legal Haitian immigrant who had transferred from Florida.

Speaking of public schools, all school districts in the Palmetto State including Chesterfield County, have been coping with significant funding reductions for nearly two years. However, some local residents experienced a magical epiphany in the past few weeks that caused them to exercise their First Amendment rights at this month’s school board meeting.

Specifically, the board decision based on district input to consider working retirees as the first employees to not be offered contracts for next year has been germinating for over a year. Whether or not these newly motivated citizens have been heeding the extensive and thorough coverage of public education as reported in this publication and other media is another matter.

On the subject of other media, Barbara Zia, president of the S.C. League of Women Voters, penned a letter to the editor of The State newspaper last week in which she made several incorrect assertions as cited below.

“Estimates put the cost of voter photo ID at more than $1 million annually. This includes lost revenue from elimination of fees for DMV-supplied photo ID cards and additional training for poll workers”

“Our message to legislators: Stop playing politics with voting rights, and focus on the real issues that are affecting citizens. Disenfranchising 178,000 South Carolinians at a cost of $1 million a year during a fiscal crisis is politics at its worst. We deserve and expect more from our elected officials.”

“Photo ID requirements are one of the greatest threats to fair and equal voting rights today.”

As cited in this column last winter, requiring a photo ID is a financial hardship for no one since the cost of a state photo ID is a mere five bucks for ten years. And the individual should bear this cost, not the taxpayer. And it would take about 30 seconds to train a poll worker on photo ID card procedures

It is neither a burden nor an imposition on senior citizens as personified by ten close relatives of mine who range in age from 70 to 93, all of whom have possessed government issued photo ID cards for decades.

Voter fraud was rampant throughout the country in the 2008 election. Only alert poll workers and local conservative columnists kept the ACORN rabble-rousers at bay in South Carolina. State legislators who voted against the voter photo ID requirement did a disservice to their productive constituents.

It's Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

2010-05-20T08:24:00.005-04:00

That's right, May 20, 2010 is the first annual Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! If you're not familiar with Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, check out this article at Reason.com to get up to speed. HotAir has a few Quotes of the Day on this new holiday as well. I'll check back in later with some visual updates once the contest winners are announced. In continuing solidarity with freedom loving peoples everywhere, The Logic Connection is proud to celebrate this momentous occasion.
- Logic Connection favorite, Mark Steyn, with his take on EDMD
- Reason.com announces the winner of EDMD

And now, by popular demand, below is what some are calling "the greatest political ad ever."

Another day, another post (updated)

2010-05-17T06:46:00.006-04:00

Just a quick Monday morning update on this rainy start to the week.

- So where are all the Muslim death threats over this? How long before Donald Trump holds a press conference defending his new Miss America? And one more thing. Can we all agree to just stop asking Miss America contestants politically motivated questions and then actually wasting time analyzing their answers? I'm not saying these women aren't intelligent enough to handle a few current events questions, but this isn't a poli sci class and the focus is being shifted away from the contestants and towards the question itself. If you want to make a political statement, go start a blog like Perez Hilton.

In the Obama administration's "misguided attempt at moral relevance" file, we can now add the comparison between our human rights record with China's. I understand how complicated our foreign policy is and I'm far from an expert in the field, but Ambassador Huntsman (former Republican governor of Utah lest ye forget) and the State Department really should be called out on this one. I'll be anxiously awaiting this story to appear somewhere other than the blogosphere...
- Michelle has some further commentary on Michael Posner and his statements

Tomorrow is primary day in Arkansas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Oregon. You can follow the most recent tracking polls at RealClearPolitics. The notable races include Democratic primary fights involving Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln in the Senate and the special election in PA-12 to fill the seat formerly held by Jack Murtha. You also have another test of the tea party movement with Rand Paul running for Senate in Kentucky. Paul has been endorsed by Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin, among others, while his opponent, Trey Grayson, is being hailed as the more traditional Republican candidate with support among the party elite in Kentucky. The Logic Connection will be following the results as they come in tomorrow night, although I probably won't be able to stay awake long enough for the Arkansas and Oregon polls to close. It's tough to stay up past 10 anymore. I'm getting old.

And speaking of getting old, I'd be embarrassed to be a member of the AARP. I've been meaning to include this ad in a post for a few weeks now but I kept forgetting (another sign of my decreasing mental faculties). This ad from the supposed non-partisan AARP is just one reason why (if I ever reach retirement age) my retirement dollars will be going to another lobbying group for the elderly. Who were the ad wizards that came up with this horrible, condescending, not to mention completely corny, commercial?

Some Friday Guest Logic (Updated)

2010-05-14T12:49:00.003-04:00

For my S.C. readers, don't forget that the primary is coming up on June 8. Take some time to find out who the candidates are and where they stand on the issues that matter to you. I no longer live in S.C., but if I did, I know I'd be casting my vote for Nikki Haley. She's the only one in the race that may actually bring some conservative ideas to Columbia and I'm pretty sure you won't have to worry about her running off to hike the Appalachian Trail during her tenure as Governor.
- Ok, so I stand corrected about that last line, if Haley is elected you MAY have to worry about her running off to hike the Appalachian Trail. I will be completely surprised if her campaign is able to come back from this revelation.

Robert Monnie opines this week on the recently passed Arizona immigration law that has caused our friends on the left to engage in their usual demagoguery. If you'd like to actually read the text of the bill (something our Attorney General hasn't had time to do yet), you can find it here. As always, you can find all of Mr. Monnie's columns in the paper of record in Chesterfield County, The Link.

Solid Facts Always Facts Trump Hysteria

"Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him."

1. The above quote is part of which of the following laws on the books in the United States today:
a. Arizona's state law enacted last month to deal with 500,000 illegal immigrants
b. A statement that all actors in science fiction entertainment must sign prior to acting in such productions as ALF, Avatar, Star Trek and Star Wars.
c. A federal statute enacted in 1952 during the Truman administration
2. When traveling in a foreign country, American civilians must have the following items in their possession at all times.
a. Bona fide passport and visa
b. Bottled water
c. Digital camera
3.. When stationed in a foreign country, U.S. military personnel must have these legal equivalents of a passport and visa in their possession at all times.
a. Military ID and written orders posting them to that country
b. Bottled water
c. Digital camera
4. When passing through a law enforcement traffic check point in the United States, drivers of motor vehicles are required by local law to present these documents.
a. Drivers license, proof of vehicle registration and insurance
b. High school diploma
c. Public library card.
Answer key: 1. c 2. a 3. a 4. a
Not surprisingly, the liberal dominated mainstream media controlled by the Washington Post, New York Times, ABC, CBS, and NBC conveniently omitted the germane facts from the above quiz when reporting on Arizona's new law for dealing with illegal immigrants. They failed to do their homework and flunked this simple quiz.
And, to focus on the crucial point of the Arizona statute, law enforcement personnel can only ask for appropriate documentation from people they are questioning for other legitimate reasons such as traffic violations, shoplifting and domestic violence. If these persons of interest turn out to be illegal immigrants, then steps will be initiated to deport them to Mexico, Venezuela, Pakistan, etc..
Since Arizona shares a 389 mile border with Mexico, the vast majority of these illegal aliens are of Hispanic descent. That fact is caused by geography and economics not by by ethnic profiling as claimed by pandering politicians and juvenile journalists who appeal to the misinformed public who are not aware that illegal immigrants are directly involved in half the major crimes in the Grand Canyon State. Oh, and in several polls conducted by CBS, its compatriots and its competitors, about two-thirds of legal Arizona residents support their state's new immigration control law.
Do your homework, Janet Napolitano, while keeping the airlines informed about suspected Pakistani terrorists who place car bombs in Times Square. That is two strikes on you Janet----the diaper bomber and the Times Square terrorist.
The federal law requiring proper documentation of all aliens has been in force for 58 years and is very similar to requirements for Americans traveling abroad. Police traffic check points, in common use in this country for a quarter-century, routinely stop law-abiding motorists of all ethnic origins and ask for necessary documentation.
Thus, I offer kudos to Arizona governor Jan Brewer and the state legislature of the 48th state (1912) for taking courageous and correct action by enacting their immigration control law that protects their citizens while filling the leadership vacuum in our nation's capital.
Update: Last week, the South Carolina House of Representatives passed a voter ID bill that would require registered voters to present a valid photo ID at the polls. The bill now proceeds to committee where the House and Senate members work out a compromise. Predictably, most Democrats are against this sensible measure that will severely curtail ACORN instigated voter fraud that was pandemic in the 2008 general election.

Some quick SCOTUS Logic (Updated)

2010-05-10T11:38:00.005-04:00

- Non SCOTUS related, but this type of deceitful campaign propaganda is only one of the reasons I'm supporting Harold Johnson for Congress in the June 22nd run-off election here in NC's 8th district. Harold's opponent is aware of the recent history of congressional run-off elections in NC and he is now showing his desperation by trying to paint Harold as irresponsible with taxpayer money. Harold's opponent spent over $1 million of his own money and only received 37% of the vote (9,548 actual votes, or approx. $104 per vote), just think how many future teachers that money could have helped attend college if it had been devoted towards a scholarship fund...

An interesting comparison by Paul Campos over at the Daily Beast between Elena Kagan and Harriet Miers. But will Kagan face the same criticism from the media that Miers received? Doubtful.

Powerline on whether Kagan is indeed a "stealth" nominee.

And as always, check out The Volokh Conspiracy for all your in-depth Kagan news.

My prediction, her lack of judicial experience and scant intellectual paper trail will be the main talking points from the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee but she will be confirmed nonetheless. Since this is an election year, I'd say she gets less votes than normal, probably somewhere between 65-70, but unless some type of bombshell drops over the next few weeks, the SCOTUS will have its fourth female justice by the end of the summer.

Post-election Logic (Updated)

2010-05-06T06:33:00.006-04:00

- Michelle Malkin has some information on how to help out those suffering in Nashville, aka the national disaster no one is talking about.

- Click here if you want to see some guy doing his best impression of me at the gym.

The primaries in North Carolina are over and it's obvious no one really gave a s#*t. 7.5% turnout in Mecklenburg and 14.3% statewide. Definitely not the numbers you would have expected after the past year of hearing about Tea Parties and how Republicans and Independents are ready to throw all the bums out. Public Policy Polling has a more thorough breakdown of the numbers here.

Now that the NC-8 race is into a run-off (my man Lou didn't fare too well), I am throwing my support behind Harold Johnson. If you live in the 8th district and you actually care about the Republican party having a chance to win in the general election in November, you'll be supporting Harold as well (even though he doesn't live in the district and doesn't like to respond to questionnaires).

At least Morgan Edwards won his primary for NC Senate 37.

But hey, on the bright side, the Boondocks season 3 premiere was Sunday night! You can check out the episode here if you missed it.

Below is our friend Robert Monnie's latest piece from The Link:

Summer Job Primer

Numerous high school and college students have begun their summer job search. Not surprisingly, due to insufficient knowledge or perhaps misguided nurturing, most of these potential productive members of society are operating from a distinct disadvantage.

Thus, as a free private service to enable these young people to "get on board or get left behind", I offer this quiz so job applicants, who may be caught up in the progressivism rhetoric, have a fighting chance at achieving the American dream.

1. What are the documents that an astute job seeker will have in his possession when conducting his job search?

a. photo ID (drivers license or state ID card)

b. social security card

c. birth certificate (unless you were born in Hawaii)

d. all of the above

2. While completing the job application in green ink and listening to rhythmic noise from your headphones in the prospective employer's office, you answer five phone calls and three text messages from your Star Trek cell phone. The personnel manager of your prospective employer takes the following action (s):

a. Rips the headphones from your ears and crushes them with her shoes

b. Snatches your cell phone and destroys it with a five pound sledge hammer kept handy for just such occasions

c. Escort you outside where she burns your job application while you watch without comprehension.

d. All of the above

3. After successfully completing the job application legibly in black ink and submitting it with all necessary documentation to the personnel manager, you are scheduled for an interview the following day. Which of the following is the proper dress code for males for the job interview?

a. a collared shirt with conservative colors tucked into the waistband of trousers with conservative colors and a belt holding the waistband at the waist; only jewelry is a plain wristwatch and a high school or college ring and a religious necklace (e.g. a small Christian cross or Star of David) inside your shirt; shoes are low cut loafers with dark socks; hair neatly trimmed less than six inches in length.

b. a pull-over shirt with gaudy colors three times too big hanging to mid-thigh over baggy blue jeans with the waist band one foot below the waist; tawdry trinkets the size of coffee saucers hanging around the neck; ear rings in both ears; tattoos resembling creatures from the underworld on the neck and arms; untied high-top sneakers; Medusa hair style.

4. Who is primarily responsible for ensuring that children are properly prepared for the work place, higher education, or military service?

a. Oprah

b. Vice-President Joe Biden

c. K-12 public education

d. Parents and their children

Answer key: 1. d 2. d 3. b 4. d

Update: In a stunning development last week with 50 uniformed law enforcement personnel present and lobbying their legislators, the state house of representatives voted 75-37 to override Governor Mark Sanford's veto of a bill that would allow warrantless searches of those on probation and parole. Two weeks ago, the house fell 16 votes short of the required two-thirds majority to override the governor's veto.

The new law that is effective immediately will allow police officers to bypass going to a judge for a warrant before searching a probationer or parolee who is obeying the conditions of his release from incarceration. Their vehicles and all possessions could also be searched. Residences are exempted from these searches. Inmates will have to agree to the warrantless searches before they're released. If they do not agree, they could stay in prison for their full term.

James Madison could not be reached for comment.

Sidebar: To correct some misrepresentations by one of my loyal readers, all noncommissioned officers, including sergeant majors, in the U.S. military receive their authority from their commissioned officers whether they be wet behind the ears second lieutenants or starchy field grade officers such as myself. Thus, field grade officers constantly lead and mentor all noncommissioned officers and junior officers while noncommissioned officers lead and mentor junior enlisted personnel under their charge.

As a matter of law dating to George Washington, all commissioned officers receive their authority directly from the President of the United States.

Some new Logic

2010-05-03T08:36:00.002-04:00

So it's been a few days since I've updated, did I miss anything?

Primary day is tomorrow in North Carolina, have you voted yet? I'll be voting early in the morning and then doing a little campaigning for Lou Huddleston the rest of the day. John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, shares his thoughts on what politics is about and why you should participate in elections even if you're one of the many voters currently disgusted with the political system. Judicial races in NC are non-partisan so if you aren't sure of who to vote for you can go here to see which judges the NCGOP is supporting.

Confused about how General Motors paid back their taxpayer funded bailout so quickly? The NY Times is too. Gretchen Morgenson delves into the truth behind GM's claim to have paid the taxpayers back in full and ahead of schedule. Nick Gillespie at Reason TV breaks it down into even simpler terms. At this point, are there any Logic Connection readers who still support GM?

While I don't always agree with Peggy Noonan, she's pretty much on the money with her most recent piece, especially her conclusion of why the federal government acts the way that it does, "Because so many within it are stupid and unimaginative and don't trust the American people." I couldn't have said it better myself, Peggy. Mark Steyn also weighs in on the ongoing immigration debate regarding the recent Arizona law. And you can check out the latest edition of Uncommon Knowledge featuring Mr. Steyn here.

Well after repeatedly hearing how great The Wire was and how it's "the greatest show in tv history," I had to check it out for myself. It's no Golden Girls, but with one episode left to go in season one I can definitely say it's a great show so far. If anyone has another recommendation for "greatest show ever" just post it in the comments. But unless you want to be banned from The Logic Connection forever, don't even think about posting Two and a Half Men. Not even as a joke. Because we do not joke about that around here.

Tuesday's Guest Logic

2010-04-27T07:08:00.002-04:00

I apologize for the longer than usual delay between posts but I just haven't had much to say lately. Keep checking in and hopefully I'll get back to a more regular schedule after the primary election next week. Primary day in NC is May 4 so don't forget to go vote. The Logic Connection is endorsing Lou Huddleston for Congress in NC8 and Morgan Edwards for NC Senate 37.

Even though I continue to disappoint loyal readers of this blog with my paltry posting efforts, thankfully Robert Monnie is still as productive as ever and is still allowing me to reprint his columns from The Link. So until I get my act together, here's another Monnie classic. Enjoy.

We Like It

"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."

President Barack Obama in his closing remarks at the conclusion of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington April 13, 2010.

True to form, the Eastern liberal elite dominated manipulative mainstream media virtually ignored Obama's historically ignorant and completely condescending remark that disparaged every American who honorably served our country, particularly those who have been at the sharp end of the spear.

The news finally broke on several conservative Internet blogs two days after our commander-in-chief, who has no military experience and very little American military heritage, once again kowtowed and apologized to the world.

For the record, Mr. President, I am thankful and humbled every day that the United States, the greatest country and force for good in the history of the world, remains the dominant military superpower. There is no "whether or not" about this fact. I like this continuing state of geo-political affairs as do tens of millions of other Americans and I suspect millions more all over this third rock from the sun.

I like it that hundreds of our ancestors turned the tide of the Revolutionary War in1780 by soundly whipping the British at King's Mountain along the the North and South Carolina border and giving rise to the establishment of the United States.

I like it that the children and grandchildren of those first patriots fought under Andrew Jackson at New Orleans in 1814 and defeated the British again resulting in the rock-solid Anglo-American alliance that is now nearly two hundred years old.

This alliance was tested a century later in World War I when soldiers and Marines of the American Expeditionary Force under Black Jack Pershing pulled Europe's bacon out of the fire and temporarily put the kibosh on the Kaiser and I like it that we won compared to the alternative.

And I really like it that my parents' generation fought and defeated the tyranny and genocidal regimes of Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo in World War II and did the same on the Korean peninsula a few years later against a minor despot supported by both communist China and the Soviet Union.

And I am extremely grateful that after fifty years of the Cold War, that American leadership provided by President Ronald Reagan, British leadership provided by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and spiritual leadership provided by Pope John Paul II sounded the death knell for the Soviet Union and its plans for worldwide communism two decades ago.

And I am personally quite proud that in the past nine years, American military might has been primarily responsible for eradicating thousands of Islamic terrorists worldwide who pervert the teachings of the Koran through their cowardly tactics in pursuit of abhorrent worldwide religious dictatorship.

And for the record, these terrorists are enemies of the United States and are to be treated as such--e.g. President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the execution of six German saboteurs who were captured on our eastern mainland during World War II.

If a wet-behind-the ears Army or Marine second lieutenant made a remark within my hearing similar to the "presidential" quote at the beginning of this column, I would be duty bound to question his moral fitness to protect and defend our country against all enemies foreign and domestic.

Sidebar: Last week, the White House released the Obamas' 2009 tax return that revealed $5.5 million of income, most of it from book sales, with payment of $1.8 million in federal taxes and $329,000 in charitable donations (about 6 percent of their income), There was no comment from the White House whether or not the First Family liked their personal wealth that would have not been possible in World War II Germany or Japan, not to mention present day Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran.

Robert Monnie, a resident of McBee, SC and columnist for The Link, is a retired Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army Reserves, who completed six overseas tours in his military career including postings in Kuwait, Horn of Africa and Afghanistan after September 11, 2001.

Wednesday's Guest Logic

2010-04-07T07:24:00.004-04:00

In today's Guest Logic Mr. Monnie pokes a little fun at the SC Legislative Black Caucus. If you're not aware of their recent boycott demands directed at black recruits who have committed to the Univ. of South Carolina, you can catch up on the story at FitsNews.

I, for one, was appalled to learn that Palmetto State Cosmetology University does not have a bald middle-age man among their board of trustee membership. As much as I disfavor boycotts, until this travesty of justice is remedied, The Logic Connection is calling upon its readers to stop patronizing PCSU in any way as well as any graduates of PCSU whether they be your local hairdresser or nail technician. Baldism can no longer be tolerated in 21st century America.

Diligent Denizens of Diversity

As virtually all of my legions of loyal readers know, I am an extremely sensitive person who truly cares about the opinions of other people, regardless of their obvious vacuum of serious knowledge and lack of proper upbringing.

But, I must say that it has become necessary for me to draw a line in the sand in response to a recent condition that discriminates against American males of my ilk---namely those erudite and reasonably prudent men who are in the terminal stages of male pattern baldness.

Apparently, this bit of disconcerting news dipped under the radar of the manipulative mainstream media who were occupied with a tempest in a teapot about the membership of the board of trustees for one of the state’s flagship universities.

Are you ready for this earth-shattering condition that may dramatically alter the fabric of life as we know it in these United States?

It came to my attention last week through a confidential source (code-named Billiard Ball) that the board of trustees overseeing the Palmetto State Cosmetology University (PSCU) does not have a bald middle-age erudite and reasonable man among its membership.

That is correct. The PSCU board of trustees does not have a diverse membership representing South Carolina's population. All seven of the members are either female or vegetarian lactose-intolerant males who spend an average of $100 per month to maintain their elegant coifs.

Thus, as a means to bring attention to this blatant disregard for the prime directive of head hair diversity as mandated in the U.S. Constitution, I have mounted a broad-based communication campaign to all prospective scholarship badminton players who plan to attend PSCU in Hirsute Crossroads, S.C.

To wit: I am telling these scholar-athletes not to attend PSCU until completely equal representation of bald middle-aged men is installed on its board of trustees. Equal representation would be two bald men on the seven member board.

For those other victims of head hair discrimination, I strongly advise that you sign the petition that began circulating April 1 in Chesterfield County in an effort to get this measure on the ballot in the November general election.

Sidebar: Two weeks after I dutifully mailed my 2010 Census Form to Essex, Maryland, I received another census form last week to complete and mail to the same place. Hundreds of acquaintances throughout Chesterfield County have experienced the same census conundrum. To date, no one has assumed responsibility for this multi-million dollar boondoggle by the current administration in our nation's capital. The possibilities for voter fraud, preferential changes in congressional apportionment and padding of the welfare rolls are endless.

Robert Monnie, a 1975 graduate of Oregon State University, is a resident of McBee, SC and a staff reporter and columnist for The Link weekly newspaper.

Monday's Logic

2010-04-05T09:17:00.005-04:00

- Still no response from the Ph.D. on her blatant hypocrisy. I encourage you to fight back against this type of smear tactic wherever you come across it online and elsewhere. Those who cannot compete in the arena of ideas and instead choose to engage in lies and slander should be ridiculed at every opportunity. A good piece at the American Thinker details some of the actual crimes committed against Republicans over the past few years.

- For my NC readers in the 8th Congressional District, have you checked out Lou Huddleston yet? Don't forget, the primary is coming up on May 4th. Take the time to become informed about the candidates running in the primary in your district today.

- Hitchens continues his series of columns slamming the Catholic Church and the Pope for continuing to obfuscate their role in the sexual abuse of children. And on a similar note, Selwyn Duke at The American Thinker has a piece detailing the sexual abuse in our public school system and asks why the same level of media scrutiny that's being applied to the church isn't being applied to the schools?

- NC Rep. Patrick McHenry (R) wrote a piece the other day defending the Census and why you should return yours as soon as possible. He's right. After hearing all kinds of talk on the radio and the blogosphere before the census came out about how invasive the questions were and how it was unconstitutional, I was surprised at its brevity when I finally received it in the mail. The only question I objected to was the race classification, but I still dutifully checked the "white" box even though I have no idea how "white" I actually am. How else are we supposed to continue to gerrymander every electoral district the way we do without all these stats on race though? If you haven't turned your census back in yet, send it in today. Seriously? Do you actually think the government doesn't already know your age, social security number, and race anyways?

- And finally, I present Rep. Hank Johnson, an actual member of Congress. This is just one of the people in charge of voting on a myriad of issues that will determine the future of this country. Think about that while you're trying to enjoy your lunch today. Can we not get one credible person elected in Georgia's 4th District? Alas, he's still better than his predecessor...

Today's Guest Logic

2010-03-31T11:21:00.002-04:00

This column was featured in the March 30th edition of The Link:

Wrong Again

"What we are doing with this legislation is establishing health care as a fundamental right in this country."
Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-SC, 6th District), House Majority Whip, March 21, 2010
On yet another late night weekend vote on March 21, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 219-212 to put health care, one-sixth of the economy, under the complete control of the federal government.
All Republicans, including South Carolina Congressmen Barrett, Brown, Inglis and Wilson voted against this major step towards socialism. 34 Democrats found the moral courage to support their constituencies and also voted no on this health care bill given the Orwellian title "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (PPACA)" that includes $570 million in immediate tax increases and $10 billion to hire 17,000 IRS agents to enforce this mandate.
I might support the following provisions of this insidious legislation if it had these conditions.
1. Require health insurers to allow children to stay on their parents' policies until they turn 26 - as long as these leeches give up other normal adult privileges such as student loans, lottery play, drivers' licenses, tobacco and booze as verified by monthly screenings and computer records.
2. Subsidies for moderate income families to purchase health insurance - as long as no members of these families used drugs, booze or tobacco as verified by monthly screenings or played the lottery as validated by computer records.
Regardless, as succinctly and correctly put by The Patriot Post, "There is no provision in the United States Constitution giving the central government the authority to nationalize health care, but liberals have never let the Constitution stand in the way of their incremental efforts to socialize the U.S. economy."
Nor is there anything in the Declaration of Independence that guarantees a sound education, a good job, health care or comfortable retirement. This founding document states that our unalienable rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, American citizens have a myriad of opportunities to pursue their education, career field and financial security but there are no guarantees of results mainly due to the wide range of individual human abilities, strengths and frailties.
Requiring individuals and private businesses to purchase health insurance, major tenets of this debt-producing bill signed by Obama last week, is unconstitutional. As a former constitutional law professor, Obama should know better. But, then again, our commander-in-chief does not know how to pronounce the phrase "Navy corpsman" as evidenced by a military awards ceremony a month ago.
So once again, Clyburn, who is one of the PPACA chief advocates, is wrong in his belief that health care is a fundamental right. For a S.C. State alumnus and former history teacher, Clyburn is woefully unlettered about the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere is health care mentioned in that bedrock document.
But it is understandable, though still unconstitutional, that Clyburn would support this expansion of wealth transfer and welfare expansion since the majority of his gerrymandered 6th District, especially in Orangeburg, Marion and Williamsburg Counties is entrenched in the entitlement mentality.
However, it is an unforgivable abomination that S.C. Congressman John Spratt, the Democrat representing the 5th District voted yes on the trillion dollar PPACA. Though there are isolated pockets of entrenched entitlement mentality in his district, the majority of his constituents, including voters in Chesterfield, Darlington, Lancaster, Kershaw, Cherokee and York counties, are productive self-reliant Americans.
Spratt has once again proven through his unabashed support of the Obama radical liberal agenda that he is out of touch with the majority of his district. He also supported the trillion dollar 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) signed into law by Obama.
No amount of local political favors or pork barrel infrastructure projects are worth the damage Spratt has done to our economy, state and nation particularly since January 20, 2009. To express your displeasure, contact Spratt through his web site at www.spratt.house.gov or at his Darlington office at 843-393-3998.
Sidebar: There are candles in the darkness as Congressman Larry Kissell (D-N.C.) proved with his vote against nationalization of health care. This reasonable Democrat represents the N.C. 8th District that includes Anson, Richmond and Scotland counties.
And ACORN, the nefarious rabble-rousing group of community organizers, announced last week that it is closing its doors after filing for bankruptcy. Apparently, widespread voter registration fraud, embezzlement of taxpayer funds, and human trafficking are against the law. Obama, who was joined at the trunk with ACORN in the 1990's, could not be reached for comment.

Robert Monnie, a 1975 graduate of Oregon State University, is a resident of McBee, SC and a staff reporter and columnist for The Link weekly newspaper.

Tuesday's Logic

2010-03-30T07:29:00.003-04:00

First of all, the big lie that the entire Tea Party movement and anyone opposed to Obamacare is a racist, bigot, homophobe is still being spread by the MSM. This lie is purposefully being perpetuated to demoralize and delegitimize an entire movement but it is not having the effect the MSM desires. Thanks to people like @andrewbreitbart and other members of the new media, the lie is being fought back against and the truth is continuing to pierce through the ever eroding veil of media dominance so long held by the left. People like Nsenga Burton, Ph.D, and Gary Pearce, feeble minded Democrat, can continue to live in their fantasy worlds but only if they willfully ignore the logic of their opponent's arguments. I guess ignorance really can be bliss.

- Powerline sums up Obamacare: costs are going to increase and quality is going to decrease. Luckily, people are starting to fight back.

- If you haven't seen "The Invention of Lying," queue it up today, it's fantastic.

- Robert Samuelson destroys the notion that Obamacare is going to reduce the deficit while totally depressing anyone that reads this piece at the same time.

And for your daily good news, here's Javier singing "Indecent Proposal." I think this may be MB's favorite Jav song.

Wednesday's Logic (Updated)

2010-03-24T10:52:00.007-04:00

Apparently, this is what passes for intellectual commentary according to the Creative Loafing in Charlotte. I've commented on Burton's blog before but never received a response, but this time I posted on her blog AND I tweeted about it; now she has to respond. Did I mention that she has a Ph.D and is a professor?

I'm not sure whether this actual post will appear in the print version of Creative Loafing but this lie has to be fought back against. RedState had a piece up about this the other day that is worth reading, you can find it here. Breitbart's BigJournalism also had a piece by Logic Connection favorite, Kyle-Anne Shiver, that you can read here. At this point, there is still no evidence that any of these events actually occured, no video, no audio, not even any other witnesses. In this age of twitter, youtube, and cell phone video, are we really to believe no one was able to capture these epithets being hurled? And forgive me if I don't take the word of someone simply because they're a member of Congress. Because we all know members of Congress have never lied to us before. It's like I said in the comments of Burton's blog, trying to label an entire movement as racist in order to avoid confronting their ideological arguments in the arena of ideas may have worked in the past, but this tactic has grown tiresome and the average American will see right through it.

Join me in the fight.

- Another feeble mind attempts to further the narrative of right-wing hate mongers. Feel free to comment at his blog as well.

- Here is the relevant video. Skip ahead to the 1:20 mark and judge for yourself whether Rep. Cleaver was spat on.

It's High Noon in D.C. (Updated)

2010-03-20T12:00:00.004-04:00

The Kill the Bill rally is underway in our nation's capitol, but will it be much ado about nothing? We'll find out tomorrow afternoon.

It's the first day of Spring and it's really beautiful outside so I've decided to go enjoy the day instead of depressing myself watching anymore Rules Committee hearings on C-Span, or the all day rally coverage on FoxNews. It's really encouraging to see so many people on the lawn of the Capitol building but I just don't think it's going to stop Obamacare from being pushed through. I hope I'm wrong.

This country is beyond bankrupt and anyone with any sense knows it. We simply cannot afford this bill. We can't afford the "jobs" bill that the Senate passed last week (that Sen. Burr voted for) and we can't afford to continue paying for extended unemployment benefit packages. We can't afford to continue to fund Social Security and Medicare the way we have in the past, and the longer the politicians continue to ignore the problem, the worse it's going to be. We cannot afford to be ignorant of basic economics any longer.

You can follow continuing coverage this weekend at HotAir or at Michelle Malkin's page. Or, if you're on twitter, just search for #killthebill.

There is some good news today at least, ACORN is preparing for bankruptcy!

The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal sums it up nicely, what is ultimately at stake on Sunday is what kind of country America will be.

- Have you joined Twitter yet? Because that is where the action is. Start following the right people and it's like Drudge on crack; the news never stops breaking. Seriously. You can find me at http://twitter.com/LogicConnection.

Thursday's Logic

2010-03-18T06:37:00.002-04:00

It's been a busy week, not much time to post. Consider this an open thread for anything that needs discussing. Or we can try and figure out what the smartest President to ever occupy the Oval Office meant when he said that the "Louisiana Purchase" provision in the healthcare bill will help Hawaii, which went through an earthquake. Um, what earthquake? And when? And this has what to do with healthcare? Is it 2012 yet?

Civitas has more on some of the special "deals" found in the healthcare bill.

If you haven't called your congressional representative yet to voice your opposition to Obamacare, you might want to do so today. The number to the switchboard is 202-224-3121. Just ask for your Democrat Representative or Senator. Or feel free to call all of the Democrat Representatives and Senators if you have the time.

Guest Logic

2010-03-14T16:01:00.004-04:00

Robert Monnie is a friend of mine from Chesterfield County who writes a weekly column for The Link. He has agreed to allow to me to reprint his columns at The Logic Connection up and until the time The Link comes up with a more hyperlink friendly website. As usual, comments are encouraged. But not about State losing to Ga. Tech yesterday. Any comments about State's poor performance will be deleted immediately.

And if you want to meet Republican candidate for Congress in NC's 8th district, Lou Huddleston, come out to UNC-C tomorrow night for a meet and greet. I'll be there too if that's any added incentive.

Correct and Courageous Change

Last week, the school board of Wake County Public Schools (WCPSS, Raleigh, N.C. metro area), the second largest school district in North Carolina and the 23rd largest district in the country voted 5-4 to pass the first of two resolutions to end the WCPSS mandatory social engineering student busing policy.

For nearly 35 years, WCPSS has been using irrelevant and happenstance categories, initially ethnicity then family income beginning in 2000, to assign students to schools in the district with a total student enrollment of about 125,000.

The resolution requires WCPSS to be divided into community, or neighborhood, zones, each with magnet, year-round and traditional calendar schools. If final approval is given March 23, board members and district administration would take about a year working out details. The new policy would be phased in over the next three years.

Supporters of the board's ruling coalition praised the vote as a step toward providing families more stability. But critics whined the measure would lead to resegregation and increase the achievement gap between older and newer schools.

"It's insulting to all the people who actually lived in the horrendous segregated schools to compare that to letting people simply stay in neighborhood schools," said Dallas Woodhouse, state director of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group.

Under the decades old cultural diversity school assignment policy, students are bused as far as 25 miles rather than attending the school nearly always less than five miles from their residences. In addition to substantially increased travel time, WCPSS records have clearly shown significant increases in fuel and maintenance costs for the bus fleet.

Predictably, the Raleigh rabble-rousers, sensing a reduction in ethno-centric entitlements for their power base, put on a dramatic, Tartuffian and clownish demonstration of opposition to the proposed sensible policy. These churlish foes of neighborhood schools narrowly avoided arrest according to the Raleigh News-Observer.

Indeed, Wake County Superintendent Del Burns, a strong supporter of the Wake district diversity busing policy, may have participated in the planning stages for his professional wake. There was a closed-door session by the board to decide whether Burns would be fired before he retires June 30.

The primary goal of any reputable K-12 school is preparation for productive membership in our society or as succinctly stated by the local school district, "The Chesterfield County School District ascribes to a democratic education philosophy designed to produce well-informed citizens who can become productive members of home, community and nation. Recognizing the dignity and worth of each individual, they strive to provide an appropriate educational program designed to recognize students' individual needs as well as providing for a basic education in language, mathematics, social studies, science, physical education, career and technology training and the arts."

Chesterfield County wisely and judiciously uses residential geography as the basis for school attendance with the option for county residents to send their children to any school in the district with the caveat that parents provide transportation if their desired school is outside the designated attendance area.

So, what children's advocates like Bennettsville native Marian Edelman, ought to be doing with their considerable communication skills is calling for public schools to perform to the high academic standards that Chesterfield County has demonstrated on several occasions recently. Rather that coining such catchy phrases as "cradle to prison pipeline" to describe the incorrect priorities of her target audience at last week's pretentiously titled Great Gathering in Columbia, Edelman and her adherents should insist their local under-performing schools emulate the culture and teaching methods that produced the following stellar results, all well above the state averages.

McBee High School led the district in 2009 Algebra I end-of-course exam results with an 82.5 percent passage rate closely followed by Chesterfield with an 82.3 percent passage rate. McBee seventh grade math achieved a passage rate of 88.7 on the 2009 PASS exam while Panther seventh grade science and writing achieved 84.5 percent and 79..2 percent respectively. And 100 percent (17/17) of Plainview fifth graders passed the English exam. Other commendable results have been previously noted in this publication.

By rightfully eschewing irrelevant and happenstance diversity categories such as ethnicity, gender and income level and returning to the concept of neighborhood schools, the school board of Wake County, N.C., is taking correct and courageous action to improve their children's education. Diversity is not the goal. As noted by Edelman and others, embracing the values of a demonstrably entitlement culture leads to perdition. Academic proficiency resulting in productive American citizens is the mission of public schools as listed above. Embrace our Judeo-Christian values and their resulting superb academic results.

Robert Monnie, a 1975 graduate of Oregon State University, is a resident of McBee, SC and a staff reporter and columnist for The Link weekly newspaper.

It's ACC Tourney time! (Updated)

2010-03-11T10:47:00.004-05:00

Ahh yes, the first day of the ACC Tournament, a great day in the lives of all ACC basketball fans, if only I could be in Greensboro right now. It was always a rewarding day when you could convince your teachers to turn on the Tourney during class and just give up trying to teach for an hour. I can't imagine how hard it is to try and vie for the attention of today's youth with all their hand-held technology that allows them instant access to scores and even live video of the games.

Since I know MB is in Greensboro today probably not reading The Logic Connection, I'll refrain from too much Clemson bashing. But know this. The Wolfpack will win tonight in glorious fashion. Oliver Purnell can't possibly match the intensity of Sid's Red Coat of Victory. Tracy Smith will make Booker look like a mere ACC 2nd teamer with his unstoppable low-post game. And one of our point guards may possibly limit their turnovers just enough to not lose the game for us. So it has been written and so it shall be.

In case you get bored during the break between the afternoon and night games, you can read the classic essay by Leonard Read, "I, Pencil." After that, you can further your economic education by visiting the the Foundation for Economic Education's website here.

That's right, Sidney, you are the man.

Wednesday's Logic

2010-03-10T08:47:00.004-05:00

Just one more day until the start of the greatest four days of college basketball in the history of the world. Tickets are still available if you want to see NC State beat Clemson in person.

- Jonah Goldberg saying what everyone already knows, women civilize men.

- Andy Richter isn't that fond of Jay Leno and NBC?? And for the record, I still haven't watched the new Leno Tonight Show. But I have been following Conan on Twitter.

- In NC 8th Congressional District news, Tim D'Annunzio has lost another campaign adviser. Full disclosure alert, I am supporting Lou Huddleston for Congress here in the 8th. That being said, I've written about D'Annunzio before and this latest news doesn't surprise me. He doesn't seem to take criticism very well, constructive or otherwise. The 2010 midterms are going to be very important in shaping the immediate future of this country and there are a lot of people running this year that may have never thought of running before based on the dynamics of this election cycle. The consequence of that is you're going to have candidates like D'Annunzio who appeal only to the fringe of their party and have no appeal to "moderates" or members of the other party. But that's why we have primary elections, right?

- Hitchens has another column up at Slate dealing with the Danish cartoon "controversy." Controversy is in quotes because it should have never been a controversy to begin with. It is still a national tragedy that only a handful of American publications ever reprinted the cartoons. In continuing solidarity with freedom loving peoples everywhere, The Logic Connection is proud to join the long list of blogs that have reprinted some of the cartoons.

The NY Times on Scientology

2010-03-06T20:22:00.002-05:00

The Logic Connection's favorite pseudo-religion, Scientology, is getting some major attention in the Sunday Times this week. There doesn't seem to be any ground breaking info in the story but what's unusual is that it's coming out in the NY Times and not the St. Petersburg Times where Scientology stories are normally found. If you want to do some more research on Scientology after reading the above story, be sure to check out Xenu.net.

And now, the video Scientology never wanted you to see...

All eyes on Wake (Updated)

2010-03-02T06:47:00.006-05:00

The Wake County school board is scheduled to vote today on whether to end its socioeconomic busing program. I think it's a safe bet that there are going to be some rather spirited public comments at today's meeting before the actual vote takes place. When even the NY Times starts paying attention to local school board matters in Wake County, you have to ask yourself why? I would submit that if this policy takes effect and doesn't prove to be a total disaster, other school districts both locally and nationwide may attempt to replicate it and that would be a travesty in the eyes of those on the left. "Diversity" is one of the main tenets of the religion known as liberalism and therefore that tenet cannot be proven fallible. If students succeed at the same rate (or are shown to be even more successful) at schools with lower levels of racial diversity, what will that say about the emphasis on diversity in other areas of life? This is why there were protests in Raleigh over the weekend and why our friends over at BlueNC are resorting to their usual approach of name calling instead of reasoned debate; if diversity is shown to be unnecessary (or even detrimental), then liberalism can be shown to be unnecessary (or even detrimental).

If you'd like to actually read the school board resolution itself, you can find it here.

Carolina Politics Online had a post about the school board elections last fall that you can read here. And for some truly rational discussion, check out TWW's take on the whole diversity issue here.

- The board voted to abolish the 10 year old diversity policy last night.

- Here you go WTF, Jim Bunning explains in his own words why he took a stand this week.

Random Saturday Logic (Updated)

2010-02-27T13:16:00.004-05:00

- More "global warming" news you won't find in our country's newspapers.

- Niall Ferguson with some fun thoughts on the future of America.

- The battle for the ACC basement begins today at 2 when UNC plays Wake, but the main event gets underway at 4 when NC State battles it out with Miami. Will UNC finish last in the league this year for the first time in their history? If they don't, Hitchens may be right...

- After all the votes (all 20 of them) were tallied in last week's poll, the non-scientific conclusion was very surprising; Logic Connection readers hate America. An overwhelming 45% said they were not making a conscious effort to watch the Winter Olympics, another 20% said they would watch only if nothing else was on, and 25% of you said you were outright boycotting the games simply because they were on NBC. For Shame! Only 2 of you were patriotic enough to admit you were making the effort to watch the winter spectacle, ice dancing and all. Well I know one thing, if you don't tune in tomorrow, 3:15 ET, to watch the USA Men's Hockey Team drop the hammer on Canada, you're officially worse than a Two and A Half Men viewer in my opinion.

- Don't forget to follow me on Twitter

- Steven Crowder's latest video detailing the national embarrassment that is Ground Zero.

- And speaking of embarrassing. Seriously, voters of Los Angeles, what is wrong with you?

- Your 2010 winners of the Sprite Step Off competition. Apparently this is causing some controversy? Anyone that can remember 9 mins of choreography gets my respect. Skip ahead to about the 7 min mark to see the stepping get really steptastic.

- Finally, one of the best Celebrity Jeopardy sketches of all time that I just saw for the first time last night. Inexcusable. What's the point of having loyal readers if none of you are going to alert me whenever SNL comes up with something that's actually funny?? (Spoiler Alert: Norm makes a cameo!!)

Possibly NSFLC?

2010-02-23T17:00:00.002-05:00

NSFLC (or Not Safe For Little Children), the slightly less well known cousin of NSFW.

I found this today at Little Green Footballs. You might like it. But you probably won't.

Blind Spot from Cécile Dubois-Herry on Vimeo.

Monday's Logic (Updated)

2010-02-22T14:48:00.004-05:00

- It Begins...

- State pulled out its 3rd ACC win of the season this weekend. But I'm still standing by my totally thought out, not in any way a random uneducated guess that Wake is going to win the ACC Tournament this year.

- CPAC 2010 concluded over the weekend and Dan Riehl basically sums up my thoughts on Glenn Beck's keynote address. I did watch a few minutes of his speech but I only happened upon it while flipping through the channels after the State game. Beck is definitely in his element in front of the cameras and if you're a Beck fan you undoubtedly enjoyed his speech. While I tend to agree with Riehl that there are more important things to worry about than the chatter over Beck's speech, he cannot be ignored. But I also agree with Jonah Goldberg that the keynote address at CPAC isn't the time for some dry, boring speech dealing with policy minutiae. After a three day conference, there's nothing wrong with throwing the conference attendees a little red meat to send them off filled with enthusiasm.

- The Heritage Foundation already has an analysis posted of the President's health care plan. I think the only positive thing you can say about it is that it's only 11 pages long.
- Who knew the CBO had a blog? Apparently the President's new proposal doesn't provide enough specifics to allow the CBO to score it. I'm sure more details will be forthcoming as soon as no one is paying attention...

- Guess who won't be watching Sarah Palin's appearance during Jay Leno's first week back hosting the show he stole from Conan (aka The Tonight Show)? (Just to clarify, it's not because of Palin, it's because Jay is an evil show stealer and I won't be watching The Tonight Show again until it gets a new host.) I can't wait to see what she's going to complain about though. All you Palin fans out there gotta admit, Fits is right about this one, she is not doing herself any favors with her detractors by constantly complaining about everything mean said about her. I am all for pointing out the double standard in the media and calling out people who need to be called out, but that's what PR people are for.

- Milton Friedman using Leonard Read's story, "I, Pencil," for his PBS series, "Free to Choose."

Thursday's Logic (Updated)

2010-02-18T08:25:00.008-05:00

- The situation in Austin is still developing but it is looking more likely that it was intentional. HotAir already has what is allegedly the pilot's website spelling out his problems with the IRS. Exit question: Once they make sure this guy wasn't a muslim, how long before the media begins referring to this incident as an "act of terrorism?"

Nothing new to report on the "State sucks" front. We lost to Maryland again last night. Luckily, I didn't bother staying up to watch the second half. The ACC Tourney should be interesting this year because there really hasn't been one dominant team during conference play. I'm predicting Wake will make a run and win the Tourney behind the senior leadership of Ish Smith. Clemson will undoubtedly finish another underwhelming year with an early exit.

- C-Span is live streaming CPAC.

- The Mount Vernon Statement was released this week. It's an interesting read but I agree with HotAir that it is problematic on a few levels. I also agree with the point Rush made yesterday about these type of statements, ultimately they end up doing more harm than good because if a signatory deviates ever so slightly from a stated principle, it just gives opponents a ready made "flip-flop" attack ad. Real life always seems to get in the way of principles and that's why not everyone is cut out to be a politician. Ace of Spades with his thoughts on the reality of politics.

- John Drew has been getting a lot of attention this week for his interview that was aired on breitbart dealing with his impressions of a young Barack Obama, you can read his blog here. I think the general consensus regarding Mr. Drew has been, "No S$#t sherlock. This information might have been a little more helpful during the campaign." At least that's the general consensus here at The Logic Connection.

- Apparently J.D Hayworth is a birther. Fantastic, six more years of Senator John McCain.

- In local news, the race for the 8th Congressional District here in NC is still up in the air. I'm starting to lean towards Lou Huddleston because he has the support of the NRCC and because I haven't been very impressed with any of the other candidates. I'm hoping to meet Mr. Huddleston in the near future so I can get an actual feel for the man in person. For those of you on Facebook, his page can be found here.

Call me an ageist, but Harold Johnson is just too old. If it weren't for our corrupt campaign finance system that is nothing more than incumbent protection, maybe we'd have more viable candidates under the age of 40 running for office. Hal Jordan seems to be a good guy with plenty of business experience, but he doesn't seem to be campaigning with enough energy to win the primary. And then there's Tim D'Annunzio. You can read my thoughts on Mr. D'Annunzio in the comments here. You can read Mr. D'Annunzio's thoughts on life at his personal blog.

Any Logic Connection readers in the 8th District want to share their thoughts on the race?
- The Charlotte Observer has a piece on Mr. D'Annunzio in today's paper that has already generated quite a few comments. And it appears that his personal blog has now been made private... wonder why?

- It would be very worthwhile to familiarize yourself with Niall Ferguson. Maybe I'm just a sucker for an accent, but Mr. Ferguson is slowly becoming one of my favorite public intellectuals. He might have a chance to overtake Hitchens if had a better sense of humor. The following video is a few months old but just go to YouTube if you're interested in hearing more.

Saturday's Logic (Updated)

2010-02-13T17:07:00.006-05:00

It's halftime, State is down by 2, they better get it together and start dominating in the 2nd half. (They didn't get it together. We suck.)

- Details begin to emerge regarding Amy Bishop, the woman who murdered three colleagues at the Univ. of Alabama last week. How long before the media outside of Boston begin picking up on this tragic story?

- "There has been no global warming in 15 years." "The world may not be warming." These and other headlines can be found throughout the British Press. I guess the news just takes a while to make it across the pond but I'm sure the major American papers are going to start running these stories on the front page any day now. The American Thinker has more on Phil Jones and his role in the global warming hoax.

- Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit with his take on the Tea Party Convention.

- The Logic Connection stands in solidarity with Erick Erickson over at RedState in banning birthers, truthers, and all similarly associated groups. This is more of a preemptive thing for The Logic Connection because we haven't had too many problems with those people posting here yet, but you have now been warned. I agree with one of the commenters that a large part of this whole "birther" controversy was brought on by Obama himself. If he wasn't so secretive about his past, and the media hadn't done everything in their power to protect him from criticism during the campaign, maybe people wouldn't be so distrustful of the man. And just in case you needed one more reason NOT TO WATCH TWO AND A HALF MEN, Charlie Sheen is basically the Commander in Chief of the truthers. Think about that the next time you're wasting another 30 minutes of your life watching the most watched sitcom in America... I can only dream about an America where I can happily go about my blogging without ever having to write that last sentence again.

America, please stop watching Two And A Half Men. Thank you.

- Bloomberg with an article on the next "stimulus" plan. This one is being touted as a "jobs bill" because calling it a "stimulus plan" will get it laughed out of Congress now that the American people have seen how much of a failure the first "stimulus" plan was. Our friends over at the Cato Institute have put together a video about "Stimulus II."

- What I'm reading at the moment: And the Band Played On.

- Wake County, NC stops paying for abortions for its employees. The Meck Deck wonders if Mecklenburg is next? I am in favor of this decision, but I do wonder how many employees actually used their county insurance to cover an abortion.

- Below is the latest MSNBC meltdown making the rounds in the blogosphere. I think the thing that bothers me most about this clip is Joe's vest. What the heck is he wearing? I'm a big proponent of the sweater vest, but sweaters with buttons are pretty much unacceptable under any circumstances.

Thursday's Logic

2010-02-11T20:24:00.003-05:00

I don't actually have anything to write about tonight (well that's not true but I'm just being lazy, I'll get something up in the next day or two), but I do have two pictures from the Javier concert I went to Tuesday night! Jav was amazing as always and I finally got my picture taken with him after the show. I've been lucky enough to meet him all three times I've seen him live and he's just super nice.

As far as the latest poll, it's good to see a few of you sticking to your resolutions so far this year. I'm not doing too well myself. I've really been making a conscious effort to stop using Uncle Jesse's infamous catch phrase, "Have Mercy," every time I get excited but it's really hard to give it up cold turkey. One day at a time, I just keep taking it one day at a time.

Skip ahead to the 1:50 mark for a "Have Mercy" compilation.

Thursday's Logic

2010-02-04T18:56:00.004-05:00

I gotta make this quick tonight, my chicken is about done. Speaking of dinner, let me just say I recently discovered roasted broccoli and it is the greatest thing ever. Every time I bake up some chicken in the oven now I just throw a few pieces of broccoli in with it. Sprinkle some pepper, salt, and garlic powder over the broccoli, and then when it's done toss it with just a little balsamic vinaigrette, and you have yourself a meal! A delicious, healthy meal.

Today at work my new found ability to hold my tongue in the face of ignorance was tested to the limits. Allow me to share. I work in a small, open area and it's hard not to overhear the conversations of everyone around you. Somehow, the conversation behind me turned to Haiti and the alleged kidnapping that involved some Americans trying to take Haitian orphans to the Dominican. This further lead to a discussion about whether or not America would be temporarily housing a few Haitian refugees during the rebuilding process that's ongoing and if this was necessarily a good thing. At this point I still hadn't turned down my iPod completely to really listen to what was being said because I was listening to another brilliant oration by Christopher Hitchens and nothing anyone else was saying at the moment was eclipsing the eloquence of Mr. Hitchens. It wasn't until my Lewis Black "If it weren't for my horse" moment that I decided to pause my iPod and listen a little closer. Essentially, one of my coworkers pondered whether or not the Haitian refugees would be better or worse off if they came to America. This person (who is a licensed attorney ostensibly making them a rational thinking individual) actually vocalized a thought process that went something along the lines of, well Haiti sucks, they just had a huge earthquake, crime and AIDS are rampant, their economy is in shambles, the average life span is around 50 years, their government is corrupt, and no one sees any hope of the situation improving anytime in the future, but maybe some of those Haitians might like it better in Haiti.

Now I may be a little biased considering I'm an American, but I'm pretty sure there aren't too many people saying, "Man, I wish I was in Haiti instead of America" right about now.

But instead of inserting my two cents, I practiced my new found restraint and thought to myself, it's probably better to not say anything, just go home and write a post about this later. So that's what I did. And now my chicken is ready. So I leave you with Senator Judd Gregg actually taking a strong, principled stand against the Obama budget. We can only hope some of his fellow Republicans in Congress were watching.

I am done! (Updated)

2010-02-02T21:20:00.007-05:00

Devastating workout tonight. I'm going to be hurting in the morning.

So, I'm watching the Lost season premiere tonight. I've never watched more than about three episodes of Lost before but how hard can it be to catch up? When you don't have cable your choices are kind of limited. Besides, it gets old listening to Bill Simmons discuss all these shows that I never watch on his podcast, I always feel left out. If you haven't made the B.S. Report a regular podcast download then you need to do that before you do anything else tonight. Go subscribe to it on iTunes during the next commercial break of Lost.

By the way, anyone have any good song recommendations? I got an iTunes gift card for Christmas but I'm having a hard time finding enough music to buy. One of the many consequences of listening to nothing but AM radio for the past 8 years or so is that you end up spending your whole iTunes gift card on old episodes of C-Span's Q&A with Brian Lamb.

I think John over at Powerline sums it up best, "Obama parts company with reality." He's referring, of course, to the unveiling of Obama's budget. $3.8 Trillion in proposed spending for 2011 sounds perfectly reasonable to me...
- More budget analysis from the American Thinker

As for my Superbowl pick, it's gotta be the Colts. The Saints haven't been looking too good the past few games and they barely made it past the Vikings. I don't think you can expect Peyton Manning to throw the same stupid pass Favre did when the game is on the line in the 4th quarter. Colts 31, Saints 20.

- Always good for a laugh, the 50 funniest Homer Simpson quotes

- Justice Thomas responds to the former law professor turned president. For someone so lauded for his intelligence and oratorical skills, it's funny to me that you never heard from any of Obama's former students during the campaign...

Two things...

2010-02-01T22:33:00.002-05:00

- Bill Watterson gave an interview to the Cleveland Plain Dealer that ran today. You can read it here. In case you didn't know, Watterson is the creator of the greatest cartoon strip ever to grace the Sunday funny pages, Calvin and Hobbes. They also ran a companion piece about some other aspects of the strip that you can read here. Watterson doesn't grant interviews too often so it's always a pleasure when he comes out of hiding, no matter how briefly. I'm a huge fan of Calvin and Hobbes and I own all of the collections. They're all fantastic but my personal favorite has to be "Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons." Taking "Snow Goons" off of the shelf on a lazy Sunday afternoon and reading it cover to cover is definitely one of the simple pleasures I enjoy most in life.

- Check out Bluegrass Pundit if you get a chance. That guy seems to get out 5-10 posts a day so if you're ever sitting around waiting on The Logic Connection to get updated (a regular occurence), head over to his blog for a while until I get my act together.

Some quick Thursday logic

2010-01-28T17:24:00.002-05:00

I was going to get some thoughts up earlier today about last night's SOTU but some important stuff came up and I was away from the laptop most of the day. My apologies, MB.

First of all, I didn't watch it. I don't think I missed much. But I can't truly analyze a speech I didn't bother to watch so here are a few links I read today from people who actually did bother to watch. Linda Greenhouse at the NYT sticking up for Alito, Michelle Malkin, Mark Steyn, RedState on the Chris Matthews gaffe, and of course, Rush.

One of the few practical uses for twitter I've discovered is reading live tweets from people covering events like the SOTU. I kept up with my twitter feed throughout the night and that way I didn't end up yelling at the tv and getting my blood pressure up before bedtime. It's almost like watching an MST3K version of the SOTU except without the robots and way less funny.

- Two more quick links I meant to get to yesterday. The Haiti article that got Paul Shirley fired from ESPN, and a Civitas breakdown of ACORN's connections in North Carolina.

- Should I be concerned that YouTube is now recommending videos for me to watch when I click on the main page? Here's what was recommended today.

Tuesday's Logic (updated)

2010-01-26T16:17:00.007-05:00

- Conan's last show was Friday. RIP CoCo. Until September 1st.

- I received an email from Team Obama, aka Organizing for America, a few days ago asking me to host a State of the Union viewing party. I politely declined to RSVP to host a party myself, but I found this particular RSVP rather interesting. Of course, it could just be some right-wing whacko who infiltrated the inner workings of Organizing for America and is attempting to demoralize Obama's followers, but I prefer to think of it as anecdotal evidence of the continual decline in support for our president, even amongst his own.

I'm sure it won't remain up for long.

- I wanted to share the following passage from Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson."

The analysis of our illustrations has taught us another incidental lesson. This is that, when we study the effects of various proposals, not merely on special groups in the short run, but on all groups in the long run, the conclusions we arrive at usually correspond with those of unsophisticated common sense. It would not occur to anyone unacquainted with the prevailing economic half-literacy that it is good to have windows broken and cities destroyed; that it is anything but waste to create needless public projects; that it is dangerous to let idle hordes of men return to work; that machines which increase the production of wealth and economize human effort are to be dreaded; that obstructions to free production and free consumption increase wealth; that a nation grows richer by forcing other nations to take its goods for less than they cost to produce; that saving is stupid or wicked and that squandering brings prosperity.
"What is prudence in the conduct of every private family," said Adam Smith's strong common sense in reply to the sophists of his time, "can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom." But lesser men get lost in complications. They do not reexamine their reasoning even when they emerge with conclusions that are palpably absurd. The reader, depending upon his own beliefs, may or may not accept the aphorism of Bacon that "A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." It is certainly true, however, that a little economics can easily lead to the paradoxical and preposterous conclusions we have just rehearsed, but that depth in economics brings men back to common sense. For depth in economics consists in looking for all the consequences of a policy instead of merely resting one's gaze on those immediately visible.

I just finished this book and if you haven't read it yet, it is well worth your while. It is relatively short, only about 200 pages, and in the words of Dr. Thomas Sowell, "Any book that is still in print after half a century obviously has some strong merits, especially in a field like economics where all the statistics have long since become out of date and numerous economic events since its publication are of course not covered. I would be very pleased if I thought my "Basic Economics" would still be in print half a century from now." That last quote came from an email I received from Dr. Sowell a few days ago. Yes, it's true, The Logic Connection has some friends in very high places.
- What can't you find on the internets? Here is a link I found today to the text of "Economics in One Lesson" if you're up for some leisurely weekend reading.
- Ok, I just found another great website after tracing where the above text came from, the Foundation for Economic Education. Check it out immediately. It's getting added to the Mandatory Logic Connection reading list.

And speaking of Dr. Sowell, here is a classic YouTube clip I found the other day. It's a short three part series, but skip ahead to about the 4:00 minute mark of the video below to find my favorite reaction of Dr. Sowell's when confronted with the illogical.

Sunday's Logic

2010-01-24T18:13:00.006-05:00

This is going to be a short post because I only have 20 minutes until the NFC championship game. The Colts just made it official, they're going back to the Super Bowl. Let's go Vikings!

Now, on to more important matters like Citizens United v. FEC. The Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case last week and you can read the lengthy opinion here. Basically, the Court struck down a provision of McCain-Feingold that limited the rights of corporations to contribute to political campaigns and candidates. I've long been an opponent of campaign finance reform (aka McCain-Feingold) laws and I was glad to see the court strike a blow for the First Amendment last week. You can read more analysis of Citizens United at NRO Bench Memos, Volokh, Powerline, and the Washington Examiner. Both President Obama and Senator McCain were quick to condemn the court's actions after the decision was released.
- Jeff Taylor over at The Meck Deck shares his take on the court decision.

My stance on campaign finance can be summed up pretty easily; let anyone who wants to contribute to a candidate or cause give as much as they would like as long as there is full disclosure.

- If you're a Republican voter in NC's 8th District then you have a primary election coming up in May (and you Democrats may end up with one as well if dissatisfaction with Larry Kissell continues to mount). You can read my thoughts on one of the primary candidates, Tim D'Annunzio, over at Carolina Politics Online.

- Below is a bit from Jimmy Kimmel that adequately sums up the recent Late Night wars.

We are the Champions!

2010-01-21T07:32:00.003-05:00

N.C. State was victorious over Duke last night. Enough said.

Oh, and UNC lost again.

What a great night.

- Just a quick thought on this Friday morning. Now that Scott Brown is heading to the Senate, Obamacare is DOA. But the common talking point now seems to be that "we all agree something needs to be done about healthcare..." This type of sentiment is coming from both parties. Here's my problem with that. Government intervention in the healthcare industry is why we're in the mess we're in now. When you hear a politician say, "well catastrophic illness should be covered and we should make insurance policies affordable for everyone," ask that politician how they define a catastrophic illness and how exactly do you make anything affordable, not just insurance. Don't just accept the premise that we still need to do something about healthcare. Instead, ask yourself how we got to this point to begin with?

Wednesday's Logic

2010-01-20T08:33:00.004-05:00

Who would have thought we'd be commemorating the one year anniversary of the Obama presidency by welcoming Scott Brown to the US Senate? I must say I'm still a little shocked that he was able to pull out a win in Massachusetts, now let's just hope he gets seated as soon as possible. As long as the Republicans don't manage to screw this up somehow, Obamacare, cap and tax, and immigration reform are basically DOA until the mid-term elections in November.

Here are a few links with more on Scott Brown's victory: biggovernment.com, redstate.com, Michelle Malkin, Byron York at the Washington Examiner, and of course, the Daily Kos.

We Democrats and Republicans (and even you Independents) may not completely agree on every issue, but all of us understand that we have to stop spending money we don't have. The runaway spending in Washington that continues to increase the national debt has become the one issue people on both sides can rally around. A republican becoming governor in New Jersey should have been enough of a warning to the democrats that the country was not on board with their agenda. Maybe a republican replacing Ted Kennedy in the Senate one year after the election of Barack Obama will finally cause some of the democrats up for election this year to wake up and stop ignoring the will of the people lest they be the next ones committing political suicide for Obama.

I think it's fair to say we can also all rally behind Conan O'Brien this morning. Although to be fair, the guy is going to walk away with about 30 million, so I don't feel that bad for him. You can read the latest on the Tonight Show drama here. The Logic Connection is with Team Coco (even though we can't stay up late enough to watch him anymore) (except on Hulu, thank god for Hulu!).

Is this the end of Obamacare?

2010-01-19T07:47:00.002-05:00

If all the polling data is correct, than it appears the Democrats won't have that elusive 60th vote in the Senate for much longer. Voting is underway already in Massachusetts and The Logic Connection will be following the returns as they come in all night. Can Scott Brown do the impossible? Will the Democrats delay seating him if he wins by a comfortable margin? Will the Democrats still try and force through Obamacare using reconciliation? Stay tuned to The Logic Connection for the answers to these questions (if I can find the time to update more than once a week) and many more.

- Troy Patterson at Slate thinks Conan should have seen it coming.

We're all winners

2010-01-14T06:59:00.004-05:00

when Carolina loses. Good job Clemson.

RIP Teddy P. Your voice will live on forever in my iPod.

Gabe nails it with this title, "Jimmy Kimmel is an American Hero." If you haven't seen Kimmel on Leno's show yet, it's worth watching. I really don't think Leno has figured out that no one is laughing with him, we're all laughing at him.

- Question: If Scott Brown manages to pull out a victory Tuesday, how long before campaign finance laws are restructured to further restrict our freedom by limiting campaign contributions to candidates within your state?

Wednesday Logic

2010-01-13T06:05:00.004-05:00

- January 19, 6 days from now, all eyes will be on Massachusetts to see if Scott Brown can pull off a victory. If a Republican can actually win Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat, the Democrats are in more trouble than I thought in 2010. Check out HotAir.com for more on the Senate race and watch the video posted here.

- In the words of Tony Kornheiser, Tom Shales "eviscerates" Jay Leno in his most recent column. You can read it here.

- A new addition to the list of mandatory daily reading, Ace of Spades.

- If I were a Tennessee football fan, I'd be pretty pissed this morning too. I understand college football is a business and it generates lots of money for lots of people, but there is no justification for Kiffin's departure in my opinion. He sold his soul and I hope he fails miserably at USC. The players he recruited at Tennessee were lured there under false pretenses yet they have no cause of action against Kiffin. Of course, they are still playing for Tennessee and they are still playing in the toughest league in college football, the SEC, so I don't feel too bad for them, but it's the principle of the matter dangit. Exit question: Why exactly is Lane Kiffin such a desirous hire? Remind me again how many championships he has won?

- Back by popular demand, I present the greatest neo-soul singer alive today, Javier.

Monday Logic

2010-01-11T06:34:00.006-05:00

A few quick links on this frigid Monday morning.

- Awesome game last night between the Packers and Cardinals. Methinks the Cards are still a little upset over that whole losing the Super Bowl thing last year.

- Harry Reid made some comments about then candidate Obama that came to light over the weekend. He quickly apologized for making those comments. You can read more about it here and here. In this era of post-partisan, post-racial politics, isn't it nice that we don't have to waste time anymore on stories about comments that may or may not make the commenter a racist and whether that person should resign immediately because of their possibly racially tinged comments? And yes, there is a double standard when Democrats get caught saying these things, no need in wasting anymore time pointing this out.

- The Logic Connection is officially calling on RNC Chair Michael Steele to resign. And I'm not the only one. I was glad he won at the time but only because the alternative would have been having this guy as Chair. Steele made another idiotic comment over the weekend on Meet The Press in response to a question about Harry Reid's comments when he claimed Reid could either resign now or "I" can retire him in November. Steele didn't say that the voters of Nevada would retire Reid, he didn't say the Republican Party would retire Reid, he said "I" will. Steele has turned into the Joe Biden of our party, you never know what he's going to say when he gets in front of a television camera.

- NBC has officially thrown Conan under the bus. Needless to say I will not be watching Jay's new show (unless he has Rush on again). Conan is an acquired taste, I understand that, but I think it's a little soon for NBC to give up on him so publicly. I have always enjoyed Conan more than Leno and Letterman (even before all of Letterman's indiscretions came to light) but I never thought he should have moved to 11:30. Conan's show had developed a devoted following at 12:30 where he could do the type of humor that would never go over with the 11:30 crowd. In honor of the late, great Late Night with Conan O'Brien, I present the following clip.
- Conan has released a statement, read it here. The downfall of NBC continues.
- The Logic Connection stands behind you, Conan. You can cry on our shoulder anytime.

Friday's Logic

2010-01-08T16:30:00.002-05:00

It is cold and windy. It wouldn't be quite so bad if it weren't for the wind. I don't know how you people in Chicago stand it winter after winter. I actually turned my heat up to 64 today when I got home from work.

I'm still waiting to hear exactly what happened to Colt McCoy's shoulder last night.

If you're looking for an excellent (while concise) read this weekend, pick up Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson." I'm almost through it and the theme is similar to what you'll find in most of Thomas Sowell's books on economics, looking past Stage One. Hazlitt breaks down economics into one sentence, "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups." Definitely a lesson most of our elected officials at all levels could learn.

For all of my North Carolina readers, an interesting read on why liquor costs what it does in our state. (H/T Carolina Politics Online) After you're done reading about how expensive it is to purchase a mixed drink thanks to the monopoly that is the ABC Commission, make sure you catch up on the latest shenanigans involving the Mecklenburg Co. ABC Board. Jeff Taylor at The Meck Deck has been following this issue closely as well. I know I've never been in an appointed or elected position before, but is it really that hard to do an honest day's work and just go home without wasting taxpayer money?

And just for old times sake, and because the comments have been blowing up again lately, here is a link to Fits' last story on the drama filled town of Cheraw.

A year in review

2010-01-06T06:24:00.004-05:00

The Logic Connection celebrates it's one year anniversary this week and I just wanted to take a second to thank all twelve of my loyal readers for helping to make this past year a success. The stated objective of The Logic Connection is to speak truth to power and, in the words of Dr. Walter Williams, to help push back the frontiers of ignorance, and I hope to continue that same tradition throughout the next year. If this blog caused just one person to reevaluate an illogical position they held, or to look at an elected official in a different light, then it's been a success. If a conversation was started in the comments that helped further the discussion, or if someone has begun reading from the Mandatory Logic Connection reading list on a daily basis, then this blog has been a success. If I helped one person discover the comedic genius of Brian Regan, I have succeeded. If I could retire tomorrow and live off the profits from writing this blog then I would definitely consider it a success, but luckily success is not defined in terms of monetary gain for the author here at The Logic Connection.

Now I'm not trying to take sole credit for Senators Dodd and Dorgan deciding to retire, but I think it's safe to say that The Logic Connection probably had a little to do with it. Just another example of how influential this blog has become in just one year.

The upcoming election season is going to be an exciting one and I am looking forward to bringing you my thoughts along the way. And hopefully those thoughts will come a little more often than once a week. Stay tuned...

- In case you're still one of the few people who believe Obama's "stimulus" money was actually used to stimulate the economy, Old Dominion Watchdog has a story you might want to check out. First it was fake congressional districts, now it's fake zip codes. The real breaking news would be if someone actually came up data showing the stimulus actually stimulated an economy somewhere.

- HotAir.com's Chart of the Day. Exit question, is this trend reversible? Would federal workers ever knowingly vote for a candidate who campaigns on a platform of reducing government spending and cutting government programs?

Some quick Wednesday Logic

2009-12-30T06:47:00.002-05:00

It's almost been a whole year of posting here at The Logic Connection and I'm hoping to have a "highlights" post up in the next day or so. Until then, feel free to share your favorite Logic Connection memories of the past year in the comments.

- Apparently, Senator Baucus is upset that a few people have posted a video of his floor speech from last week in which he appeared to be less than sober. Like Allahpundit says, with all the other allegations surrounding the good Senator at the moment, he shouldn't be too worried about this video making the rounds. And if you haven't seen the aforementioned video yet, just scroll down to the last post below.

- This can't be good. Maybe I need to consider switching over to Sprint because I'm not sure if Verizon is a 3G provider yet. Not that any of my mobile phone conversations are worth intercepting anyways.

And in case you were wondering, I was triumphant in both of my fantasy football leagues this year.

Sunday Logic

2009-12-27T19:58:00.004-05:00

Now that the holidays are over it's time to get back to a regular schedule of posting here at The Logic Connection. For now, I present to you a video from the floor of the U.S. Senate, the so called "greatest deliberative body" in the world. Who knows if he's actually intoxicated. Does it really matter? Would he make any more sense if he was stone cold sober? I submit to you he would not, because he's a leftist.

On an unrelated note, I'm down by 2.1 points in my fantasy league that matters right now. As long as the Dallas defense doesn't lay an egg tonight I will be crowned the 2 time champ in this league. Let's go Dallas Defense!!

- The "Fire Janet" movement is gaining momentum after the latest thwarted terrorist attack.

Monday Night Logic

2009-12-21T21:21:00.006-05:00

Some quick words of logic.

The Obamacare marathon continues this week and if all goes as planned it's going to be a slightly depressing Christmas Eve this year. But Rich Lowry at NRO gives us 5 reasons to be optimistic here.

- Update: It appears Senator McConnell was overwhelmed with the Christmas spirit because he has now agreed to let the Democrats go home a little earlier on Christmas Eve after they vote in favor of Obamacare. Not everyone is happy about this. Nor should they be. The most damaging piece of social legislation the Congress has attempted to pass in decades and the minority leader can't even bother to make the case against it for just a few extra hours. This is just one reason why the Republicans are such a minority in both houses at the moment. The party is devoid of real leadership and the ability to promulgate ideas, and until Republican voters demand more, the party will continue to exist as just the "other party" in Washington.
- Sarah Palin with her latest Facebook post on this debacle.
- Byron York with a different view of McConnell's surrender.

Michelle Malkin has the list of which Senators sold out their constituent's freedom and for how much.

If you want to have some fun this week, call up your Democrat senator's local or D.C. office and ask the youthful staffer that answers why Senator (insert your freedom loathing senator's name here) is opposed to freedom and in favor of tyranny. When the youthful staffer inquires as to your meaning, inform them that a vote for Obamacare is a vote against freedom, and then sit back and enjoy the humorous response as the youthful staffer attempts to find the correct talking point to rebut your claim.

And if you're a resident of South Carolina's Fifth congressional district, John Spratt is your 14 term congressman. 14 terms equals 28 years in Washington. 28 years in Washington is about 20 years longer than any one person needs to serve in the House of Representatives in my opinion. If you want to help Spratt's early retirement effort, check out his opponent's website here.

Finally, the D.C. cop who overreacts to a snowball fight over the weekend. Maybe he was just really upset at all the snow caused by man-made global warming?

Friday Logic

2009-12-18T15:26:00.002-05:00

It's freezing outside.

- Howard Dean is doing a better job of making the case against Obamacare than 99% of the Republicans in Washington.

- www.ccgop.org has expired because, well, I guess because the members of the Chesterfield County GOP just couldn't find the time renew it. If you're in the market for a slightly used domain name, hit up godaddy.com this weekend and you can be the newest owner of ccgop.org!

- Come on South Carolina, you're really going to elect this guy as your next Governor?

Since we had such a great response to the last round of questions, let's keep this choo-choo train rolling with another question in need of discussion here at The Logic Connection. Did you vote for Obama in 2008? If so, are you happy with his administration up to this point? If you voted for him and you're not particularly happy with the direction he's taken thus far, tell us why. And if you didn't vote for Obama and just want to complain about everything he's done, we'd love to hear from you as well.

And finally, since all the other cool blogs are doing it, here's the latest viral video going around the conservative blogosphere. Notice he talks passionately for 6 minutes without a teleprompter.

Monday Night Logic

2009-12-14T21:57:00.003-05:00

Almost a whole week without a post, almost.

This week it's just going to be questions and dialogue. At least that's what I'm hoping for. The Logic Connection was intended to be a place where the discussion was free flowing and the weakest ideas were devoured like an injured gazelle on the African savannas. I don't like writing just to hear myself write. I write in the hopes that someone reading my ramblings on will stop and think and maybe even reevaluate a position they previously held. So for the 10 or so loyal readers of The Logic Connection, comment, drink, and be merry this week.

- Based on the latest poll results, it appears we have a few global warming skeptics amongst us. For the latest on Climategate and the ongoings at Copenhagen, check out Climatedepot.com.

- Read and sign this petition if you want to help out a few of our finest defenders of freedom.

- Now for the questions. I have two to start us off this week.

1. In light of the continually unraveling Tiger Woods drama, I want to know if you have ever actually been persuaded by a celebrity endorsement to purchase a product or service. If so, examples?

2. Let's talk Palin. If Sarah Palin runs in 2012, would you vote for her in the Republican primary? And if she won the primary, do you think she has a realistic chance of defeating President Obama?

Some Wednesday links

2009-12-09T06:26:00.002-05:00

It's 39 degrees and pouring outside and I am not looking forward to my five block walk into the office this morning. Let's hope the rain subsides long enough for me to make it in without getting soaked.

Here are just a few links of interest to get you through the day.

- Two different opinions on Sarah Palin: Hitchens on Palin here, and Malkin on Palin here.

- Robert Samuelson on health care here. I've said it before and I'll say it again, STOP STEALING MY MONEY OLD PEOPLE! First it was social security, now it's going to be health care. Why can't old people just learn to save their own money without having to rely on us young people to subsidize them until they die? Remind me again why I, or any other young, working person, has an obligation to support old people that aren't my relatives and that I've never even met?

- The obligatory Harry Reid compares health care opponents to slavery proponents YouTube clip here. In the words of the great Thomas Sowell, Reid's absurd statement is "a classic of propaganda in its ability to use distracting or dismissive rhetoric to evade a need to confront opposing arguments with evidence or logic."

- And finally, poetic stanzas of poetry from Al Gore. Even Biden knows better than to do something as embarrassing as writing poetry about a hoax in a book that very few people will read.

Saturday musings

2009-12-05T12:02:00.003-05:00

A few random thoughts from throughout the week on this cold and rainy Saturday.

- Texting while driving officially became illegal in North Carolina this week. First of all, I don't think anyone would disagree that texting while driving is distracting and dangerous. But does this mean the legislature needed to pass a law declaring it illegal?

Here are a few problems I have with the new law. How is an officer supposed to distinguish between someone using their phone for texting or for dialing a phone number? Almost everyone has a cell phone these days, and almost all cell phone owners use their phones while driving. Cell phones are small. Unless an officer is riding beside you the entire time you're typing out a text, I would argue that it would be extremely difficult to confidently testify in court that you were certain the person you pulled over for texting while driving was in fact, texting while driving.

This is where phone records come in. Prosecutors are now going to have to regularly subpoena phone records in order to prove that someone was texting while driving. Absent a confession (which is going to occur entirely too often, READ THE 5TH AMENDMENT PEOPLE!), how else is a court going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone was texting at the exact moment an officer spotted them and pulled them over? You can easily erase a text from your phone between the time the blue lights come on and the officer is able to make it to your window. Moreover, how much of a time lapse is going to be acceptable in court even if phone records are produced? We're talking seconds here, not minutes or hours. If a stop occurs at 12:05 in the afternoon and a text was sent at 12:04, is that enough to convince a judge this was the text that the officer used as justification for the stop? What if the text was at 12:03, or 12:01? Is this enough of a time lapse for the case to be dismissed?

Furthermore, aren't there plenty of other distracting activities that occur while driving that are still legal? Should we outlaw changing the radio station while driving? What about eating and drinking while driving? Or putting on makeup while driving? And everyone knows how distracting the sights and sounds of just driving can be. Ever caught yourself staring a little too long at the accident on the side of the road only to find yourself in an accident of your own? Does that mean we need to outlaw staring at roadside accidents as well?

I would submit that irresponsible drivers are the problem, not texting. If texting while driving is so distracting that we need to pass a law banning it, why aren't there laws against every distracting activity? This new law will stop very few people from texting while driving. But it will most definitely add to the amount of money being paid in court fees and legal fees.

- This book is a joke. Don't bother reading it if you are serious about the study of apologetics.

- Obama's speech on Afghanistan last Tuesday was purely political. All we know at this point is that we're sending 30K additional troops (much less than the number requested) into war until July of 2011.

Many questions remain unanswered.

What if the situation is worse in July, 2011? What if the Afghans are in no way ready to take control of their own security by then? Unless a permanent American presence is established in Afghanistan, how do we prevent the eventual return of the Taliban to power? What if the Taliban attacks Kabul in August, 2011? Do we send troops back in to defend our democratic ally? Afghanistan no longer poses an imminent threat to America, should we be focusing more of our attention to places like North Korea and Iran (both of which have long range missiles and dangerous leaders) instead?

- Brian Regan on Pop Tarts

Hmmm...

2009-12-02T06:38:00.004-05:00

I wonder what the mood in the crowd was before the President's speech last night? Michelle Malkin has a little more information on the soldier pictured below. And no, I didn't watch the speech last night so you'll have to get your analysis elsewhere today. I recommend any of the links conveniently found under mandatory Logic Connection reading to the left.

- James Delingpole with the latest commentary on Climategate.

- Cheraw is back in the news again. Fitsnews has the story here. I feel bad for the poor Cheraw Chronicle though. The link at Fits will give them the most free hits they've had in months (since a certain column stopped running there...) and they get joked for their poor grammar. I guess that's what happens when you run off the greatest (and sexiest) editor in Chronicle history.

How did I miss this?

2009-12-01T06:45:00.004-05:00

8 million views and no one has emailed this to me yet?? This video perfectly captures my thought process upon first seeing the Snuggie commercial. The whole phenomenon still frightens and confuses me.

Happy Sunday

2009-11-29T18:39:00.005-05:00

Only a few more hours until the work week begins anew. I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving and took some time to relax over the weekend.

Below is a quote from german philosopher, Gotthold Lessing, that I came across today while finishing up my personally signed copy of Hitchen's "god is not great." I think it speaks to the raison d'etre of not only The Logic Connection, but all of the other blogs and websites like this one that exist to speak truth to power and to help push back the frontiers of ignorance.

The true value of man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand.

- Just another reason conservatives shouldn't even consider voting for Mike Huckabee in the 2012 primary.

- Still think Obamacare is going to save money? Here is a fun, optimistic read about the future of our country if this debacle passes.

Some thoughts on Climategate

2009-11-25T17:04:00.006-05:00

As you're probably aware by now, "Climategate" broke last Thursday and the MSM is still acting like maybe if they just ignore the story it might go away. Well, ignoring it they are, but going away it isn't. The Logic Connection (along with just a few other blogs) is helping to ensure the truth about man-made global warming is promulgated despite the media blackout.

- 3 things you must know about Climategate

One has to wonder where all the journalists have gone. Where are the reporters knocking down the door to Al Gore's extremely large house with an extremely large carbon footprint asking him about his thoughts on Climategate? Where are the reporters questioning President Obama's decision to attend the upcoming conference in Copenhagen in light of this new evidence exposing the hoax of man-made global warming? Where are the reporters questioning Obama about all of the stimulus funds that are earmarked for "green jobs" and the new "green economy?"

And why is the upcoming conference in Copenhagen entitled the "United Nations Climate Change Conference?" If the ostensible purpose of the conference is to cut worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, thereby lowering global temperatures as a result, why isn't it being called the "United Nations Global Warming Conference?" Oh right, we stopped using the term "global warming" a few years ago after it became too obvious that the globe had in fact stopped warming.

Much to the pleasure of the new atheists (one of whom I recently had the pleasure of getting to sign a copy of his book for me), there may be a decline in this country in those who choose to refer to themselves as religious, but there doesn't seem to be the corresponding rise in an appeal to logic and reason that the atheists suggest will occur. It takes the same leap of faith to believe in man-made global warming as it does to believe in the events of the Bible, the Koran, or the writings of L. Ron Hubbard (ok, ok, it takes a MUCH bigger leap of faith to be a Scientologist than it does to be a Christian or a Muslim), yet you never seem to hear atheists decrying the faithful followers of climate change. Nor do you hear those same forward thinking champions of reason pointing out the fallacy that the minimum wage helps low income workers, or that recycling may not actually be that beneficial, or that Obama's stimulus plan hasn't kept unemployment from reaching well over 10%, or that (insert any leftist social policy begun with the best of intentions that has failed miserably here).

Will Climategate reach outside of the blogosphere, talk radio, and Fox News? If ACORN being exposed by two citizen journalists and subsequently de-funded as a result is any indication of the influence of the new media, the answer to that question is a resounding Yes.

If you feel like doing some independent research over the Thanksgiving holiday, you can read all of the leaked Climategate emails here.

- A quick follow up on the previous post. From the genius creators of MST3K, I present to you the Twilight Rifftrax. Plus, you can read the 20 unfortunate lessons girls learn from the Twilight movies here.

Tuesday's links

2009-11-24T06:42:00.003-05:00

- Hitchens on Hasan

- Powerline with more details on the emails detailing the global warming hoax

- FitsNews with the latest on Gov. Mark Sanford. 37 different ethics charges. Is there anyone still out there who doesn't think Sanford should resign immediately? He could save South Carolina a lot of time and money by doing the right thing and stepping down before impeachment proceedings can begin.

- Videogum discusses the number one movie in the world this week. This just begs this question, if I'm ever the father of a 14 yr old girl who wants to go see the number one movie in the world that's about glittery vampires who climb trees like spider monkeys and are really good at baseball, do I consider myself a complete failure as a parent?

And yes, I dominated in both my fantasy football leagues again this week.

- Looks like the "Dump Steele" movement is gaining some momentum. I'm still glad he beat out Katon "I belong to a whites only country club" Dawson, but Steele has been a huge disappointment ever since taking over the RNC. I do wonder how many of these solicitation forms he reads himself. Keep it up, Michelle!

What a surprise...

2009-11-22T19:33:00.003-05:00

The "circus" of the century is going to be used as a soapbox. Of all the inexplicable actions of the Obama administration thus far, bringing KSM and friends to trial in New York may be the most inexplicable of all. The American Thinker has some additional thoughts on this issue.

SNL took another shot at Obama this weekend. You can check out the video below. At least Fred Armisen finally seems to be putting a little more effort into his Obama impersonation.

Thursday's Logic

2009-11-19T21:19:00.005-05:00

I really wish the Dolphin's QB wasn't so bad because I really need Ricky Williams to get some touches tonight. Of course, I also need the other Williams, DeAngelo, to get a few touches of his own. Basically, it would be super if both RB's had four TD's a piece and the Panthers still won. In case you couldn't figure it out, I'm playing Ricky and DeAngelo on my fantasy team this week.

- Update: Ricky Williams has 2 TD's with 10 mins to go in the 4th! Too bad the Panther's QB situation is rather craptacular right now or DeAngelo might have have a TD too.

- shameless plug of the night: let's see if we can't push my last article in the Cheraw Chronicle over 1,000 views.

If you're on Twitter, feel free to begin following me. @LogicConnection, or just search for Logic Connection, I'm pretty sure I'm still the only Logic Connection on Twitter. And if you actually understand how to use Twitter in some productive fashion, feel free to share that information with me and the rest of my loyal readers.

So Harry Reid is trying to force a vote on the Senate health care bill this Saturday night. Watching C-Span is torture for most people, but even us hard core political observers loathe watching C-Span on a Saturday. Thanks, Harry. I'm sure this move is going to win you a lot of votes in Nevada next year. Apparently you didn't learn any lessons from the last democrat senate majority leader, Mr. Daschle. I would encourage everyone to take a few minutes and call your Senator tomorrow and implore them to vote against Obamacare this weekend. You can find your Senator's telephone number here.

With a total of 18 votes tallied, the overwhelming majority of Logic Connection readers believe that Obamacare will NOT pass the Senate. I'll guess we'll find out if you were right this weekend. And much like Alec Baldwin's famous promise to leave the country if George W. was re-elected in 2004, some of you are even swearing you'll move to Estonia if Obamacare does end up passing. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. I really can't afford to lose any readers right now. The Logic Connection is barely making ends meet as it is.

And in honor of Sarah Palin selling 300,000 books in one day, below is Ann Coulter discussing Palin's new book on the CBS Early Show.

Have you purchased your copy of "Going Rogue" yet? If so, we'd love to hear your thoughts. I might have to stop in to Barnes and Noble this weekend and read a few pages myself.

- Here is the link to part 1 of her interview with O'Reilly last night.

Wednesday's Logic

2009-11-18T18:25:00.004-05:00

Much like the double standard in the media isn't even worth commenting on anymore, Obama's missteps are becoming so commonplace that it takes numerous blogs to even keep track of them all. And it hasn't even been a year yet. I think he realized that he set the bar a little too high to begin with (it wasn't that long ago that Evan Thomas was calling him a god) and so ever since the inauguration, he's set about lowering expectations at every opportunity.

Let's just take the past few days for example.

Obama bowing to the Japanese emperor.

Obama apologizes to the Chinese for our imperfections, and then explains how American women aren't that well off either:

Now, there may be some people who disagree with us, and we can have a dialogue about that. But we think it's important, nevertheless, to be true to our ideals and our values. And we -- and when we do so, though, we will always do so with the humility and understanding that we are not perfect and that we still have much progress to make. If you talk to women in America, they will tell you that there are still men who have a lot of old-fashioned ideas about the role of women in society. And so we don't claim that we have solved all these problems, but we do think that it's important for us to speak out on behalf of these universal ideals and these universal values.

It's funny how he forgot to mention that women in America aren't subjected to forced abortions due to a one child policy. But us American men are the ones that still have some work to do apparently...

And last but not least, the KSM affair. There have been numerous pieces (American Thinker, the Examiner, HotAir) written about this ludicrous idea since AG Holder broached it last week and I can't really add much to the discussion. I just think the question has to be asked, with so many people opposing the idea of bringing KSM to trial in NYC, why is the Obama administration continuing to defend their position on this matter? This is not just partisan rhetoric at work, there are serious objections being raised. If other Gitmo detainees are being brought to trial in military tribunals, why does KSM need to be tried in a civilian court? If this does actually end up happening, it may very well be the death knell for Obama's re-election hopes.

Your thoughts?

Saturday musings

2009-11-14T15:47:00.002-05:00

Nothing beats enjoying an adult beverage in your recliner while watching football on a beautiful Saturday. Of course, it helps if your team doesn't lose, but that just gives you an excuse to open up another adult beverage.

I will be attending the National Apologetics Conference tonight and I am hella excited. Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza will be going head to head in a debate for the ages, and afterwards I'm hoping to get both of them to sign copies of their books. If all goes as planned, I'll be able to talk Hitchens into having a glass of Johnnie Walker Black with me at the nearest bar before he departs.

As far as the news of the day... our president prostrated himself before another world leader, former Democrat congressman, William Jefferson, was (surprisingly) sentenced to 13 years in prison, Chesterfield got an above the fold, front page story written about them in the Charlotte Observer yesterday (it must have been a really slow news day), people are still paying attention to this person for some reason, and the OJ trial is set to be eclipsed as the "trial of the century" when this circus comes to town. Let's bring terrorists to trial in a civilian court in NYC, what could go wrong?

And now, more Brian Regan for your pleasure and enjoyment.