Barack Obama isn't bilingual. Neither are his children. But he's "embarrassed" because the rest of us are just like him. More condescending nonsense from the Obama camp:

[Investors Business Daily] Obama peddled his Ameriphobic nonsense at a town hall meeting Tuesday morning in Powder Springs, Ga. Asked a simple question about what he'd do to stop teenagers from dropping out of school — more of a job for a student body president than a U.S. president — he lost the plot, as the (English-speaking) Australians like to say, venturing into dangerous (for him) no-teleprompter territory.

"I agree that immigrants should learn English," he ranted. "But understand this: Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — they'll learn English — you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. "You know, it's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say (is), 'Merci beaucoup.' "

Does he think that one day the rest of the world will stop speaking English just to keep single-language Americans out of the loop? Is he aware that English, as an example, is the worldwide official air-traffic-control language? Has he ever talked to foreign businessmen — or any businessman at all, for that matter — who have different native tongues, yet speak English to each other so they can be understood? Or is he trying to establish some cosmopolitan street-cred with the hipsters who fawn over him?

English became the global language because Britain spread its mother tongue through colonization and trade. And the U.S. sailed capitalism, ambition, a tireless work habit, fairness, justice, the rule of law and a rigorous military defense against tyranny to the top of the world. It's not fashionable to say so in the circles that Obama travels in, but the power and universality of the English language confirm — and strengthen — America's way of life.
Exactly. The world's citizens don't learn English because they have some enlightened attitude that Americans do not. They learn it because so many of them, for several hundred years, had to in order to be successful and compete. Example, just as a greater percentage of American military and politicians spoke French, say, circa 1780 -- it served a necessity! Today, Europeans learn English because the United States conducts business globally, has an annual Gross Domestic Product of $13 trillion -- grossly more than any other country on the planet -- and because they're (Europeans) more likely to vacation here than we are there.

And here I was told that Obama was supposed to be brilliant. His opening comment, the idea that if we learn Spanish our overwhelming influx of illegal immigrats -- mostly from Mexico -- will be more likely to learn English, is juvanile. If Bush said such a thing, he'd be ridiculed, and justly so.

On the contrary to Obamanomics, the opposite is true. Why bother learning English if everyone speaks Spanish? Were you to move to Japan you'd learn Japanese because you'd have to do so, but you wouldn't bother if they all spoke English, right? Else, what's the point?

And while we're on the topic, why should any American bother learning a European language, especially French? The last time I checked, France wasn't exactly becoming an economic powerhouse. Seems to me, if you're going to make the argument, we better learn Chinese.

Finally, Obama's point doesn't sit well with Americans at large (hat tip to Jim Geraghty)

Eighty-three percent (83%) place a higher priority on encouraging immigrants to speak English as their primary language. Just 13% take the opposite view and say it is more important for Americans to learn other languages.
But what do they know? I mean, how dare they question the hypocrisy of the messianic Rockstar-in-Chief Barack Obama.

Labels: 2008, academic bias, Economics, media bias, Obama

I don't know if the website Obamamessiah is a promotion of Barack Obama as a religious figure or a subtle criticism of those who seem to be promoting Obama as just that -- but in any event it's chocked full of creepy examples of liberals and "progressives" (i.e., fascism by another name) who view Obama as something more than just another politician.

One such example comes from television and soccer-mom magnate Oprah Winfrey.

It isn't enough to tell the truth, Winfrey said. "We need politicians who know how to be the truth. I do believe, I do today, we have the answer to Miss Pittman's question – it's a question that the entire nation is asking – is he the one?" Winfrey said. "South Carolina – I do believe he's the one
Oh, really?

What's creepy about this isn't so much regarding Obama, but his followers.

As we've just started to discover - because of the main-stream media only now doing its job and covering Obama more critically - through the Tony Rezko link, or through Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is that Obama is a politician no different than any other.

Today's Washington Post: Regarding Obama's claim that his "very existence" can be traced to the Kennedy family "the key details are either untrue or grossly oversimplified."

In other words, Obama isn't one who tells "the truth" but just another politician who will exaggerate for influance sake. Politics is defined as the art of influancing people. Obama isn't the "New Testament," as NBC's Chris Matthew's labeled him (shamelessly, given he's "objective" reporter, right?), he's just another guy running for president.

Contrary to Obama's claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama's father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton acknowledged yesterday that the senator from Illinois had erred in crediting the Kennedy family with a role in his father's arrival in the United States. He said the Kennedy involvement in the Kenya student program apparently "started 48 years ago, not 49 years ago as Obama has mistakenly suggested in the past."

...In his speech commemorating the 42nd anniversary of the Selma civil rights march, Sen. Obama linked his father's arrival in the United States with the turmoil of the civil rights movement. Although the airlift occurred before John F. Kennedy became president, Obama said that "folks in the White House" around President Kennedy were looking for ways to counter charges of hypocrisy and "win hearts and minds all across the world" at a time when America was "battling communism."

"So the Kennedys decided 'we're going to do an airlift,' " Obama continued. " 'We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.' This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great-great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves. . . . So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born."

A more accurate version of the story would begin not with the Kennedys but with a Kenyan nationalist leader named Tom Mboya, who traveled to the United States in 1959 and 1960 to persuade thousands of Americans to support his efforts to educate a new African elite. Mboya did not approach the Kennedys for financial support until Obama Sr. was already studying in Hawaii.
Read the rest.

Will the Kool-Aide drinking Obama acolytes begin to see their leader as a politician, not a savior?

Don't count on it.

Labels: 2008, academic bias, Hollywood bias, media bias, Obama

ABC News has attained an alleged video of a US Marine tossing a puppy off a cliff and then laughing alongside his buddies once the dog hits the ground dead. Naturally, ABC News then spends the next couple dozen paragraphs compiling psycobabble from various "experts" to rationalize that the behavior is simply a natural consequence of the War in Iraq.

I've got two words: Scott Beauchamp.

Until this is verified I've got no reason to believe it's true. Indeed, we have EVERY reason to believe this is nothing more than a fabrication that our "willing-idiots" media will gladly promote without further investigation -- See, Beauchamp or Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair or Hassan Fattah or Adnan Hajj or Eason Jordan (a CNN bigwig at that) and so on and so on.

Here's some of the illogical bile which ABC News peddles as science:

The motivation for such an act, if it did indeed occur, may be as complex and deep as the U.S. war that has dragged on for more than four years, experts told ABCNEWS.com. Chief among them: Having to live with the constant fear of being injured or killed might have led this Marine to take his aggression out on a defenseless animal, several psychologists said.

..."They're on such a power trip about what they're doing that it doesn't dawn on them how disgusting it is," said Stanford's Siegel. "A person can get set to such levels of psychological arousal that ordinary life can seem kind of drab, and the only way to keep yourself feeling kind of good is to do things that are dangerous or anti-social." ..."One of the horrible problems is that we have men and women coming [home] who have participated in horrendous violence," said Stanford's Spiegel. "They've crossed the line [of violence] once, and it makes it easier to cross the line again."
Blah, blah, blah. Pass the sick bag. They call these people experts?

Maybe it's because the Marines were shot at the other day... or, if the story is even true, maybe they're just sick punks who happened to join the military.

Someone needs to remind Mr. Siegel that we had an entire generation of war veterans who saw plenty of combat, "lived in constant fear," etc., and indeed had experiences (Normandy's first 12 hours for example) when we suffered more combat dead in one day -- IN ONE DAY! -- than during the entire War in Iraq.

Thus, if war automatically made such monsters, as Siegel Psychobabble implies, then we've got to believe that the Greatest Generation should have been filled with puppy killers.

Just one problem... it wasn't.

And it seems to me that there are plenty of sickos right here at home -- old men shooting up people at Wendy's -- that were never even in war.

The reasoning being peddled is a pile of garbage. It's an insult to common sense blanketed in the comfy fabric of the all-knowing academic. It's an agenda to undermine our troops. Having failed to end the war through logic or argument, having failed in the marketplace of ideas, the reactionary Left (so often employed as journalits, academics, etc.) will simpy make stuff up.

Labels: academic bias, Beauchamp, Iraq, Journalism scandals, media bias

Last month The Canadian Islamic Congress and some Canadian law students successfully pressed two of Canada's three human rights commissions to judicially review Mark Steyn's new book "America Alone: The End of the World as we Know It" and determine whether it violates the human rights of Canadian consumers (presumably, those who would purchase and read the book as those who have no interest thus cannot have their "human rights" violated).

Beyond the question of why does any nation need THREE human rights commissions, author Steyn ponders when it became that "the most fundamental 'human right' in modern Canada is apparently the right not to be offended."

Indeed. The notion offends my human rights. Whom may I sue?

Worse, the complaints against Steyn are not even for things he wrote, rather for things he quoted in print from others!

If you examine Dr. Mohamed Elmasry's formal complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission about my article, Grievance #16 objects to the following assertion:

"The number of Muslims in Europe is expanding like 'mosquitoes.' "
That claim certainly appears in my piece. But they're the words not of a notorious right-wing Islamophobic columnist but of a big­­shot Scandinavian Muslim:

" 'We're the ones who will change you,' the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. 'Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children.' "
Given that the "mosquitoes" line is part of the basis on which the HRC accepted Dr. Elmasry's complaint of "Islamophobia," I'm interested to know what precisely is the of­­fence? Are Mullah Krekar's words themselves Islamophobic? Or do they only become so when I quote them? The complainants want a world in which a Norwegian imam can make statements in a Norwegian newspaper but if a Canadian columnist reprints them in a Canadian publication it's a "hate crime." It's striking to examine the Canadian Islamic Congress's complaints and see how many of their objections are to facts, statistics, quotations - not to their accuracy but merely to the quoting thereof. But, of course, they've picked the correct forum: before the human rights commissions, truth is no defence.
Read the rest.

Labels: academic bias, activist courts, political correctness

It's a pretty sad day if scientists are watering down criteria and inflating statistics so they can meet their previous predictions of doom and gloom, "this will be the worst year for hurricanes ever," etc... Just another casualty in the agenda of Global Warming proponents.

With another hurricane season set to end this Friday, a controversy is brewing over decisions of the National Hurricane Center to designate several borderline systems as tropical storms.

Some meteorologists, including former hurricane center director Neil Frank, say as many as six of this year's 14 named tropical systems might have failed in earlier decades to earn "named storm" status.

"They seem to be naming storms a lot more than they used to," said Frank, who directed the hurricane center from 1974 to 1987 and is now chief meteorologist for KHOU-TV. "This year, I would put at least four storms in a very questionable category, and maybe even six."

Most of the storms in question briefly had tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph. But their central pressure — another measure of intensity — suggested they actually remained depressions or were non-tropical systems.

Any inconsistencies in the naming of tropical storms and hurricanes have significance far beyond semantics.

The number of a season's named storms forms the foundation of historical records used to determine trends in hurricane activity. Insurance companies use these trends to set homeowners' rates. And such information is vital to scientists trying to determine whether global warming has had a measurable impact on hurricane activity.

Forecasters at the hurricane center deny there's any inconsistency in the practice of naming tropical storms.

"For at least the last two decades, I am certain most, if not all, the storms named this year would have also been named," said Bill Read, deputy director of the Miami-based center.

What everyone agrees has changed is the ability of meteorologists to more accurately analyze tropical systems, thanks to an increased number of reconnaissance flights with sophisticated tools and the presence of more satellites to monitor storms from above.

Scientists generally agree that prior to the late 1970s and widespread satellite coverage, hurricane watchers annually missed one to three tropical storms that developed far from land or were short-lived.

But this season's large number of minimal tropical storms whose winds exceeded 39 mph for only a short period has ignited a separate debate: whether even more modern technology and a change in philosophy has artificially inflated the number of storms in recent years.
Read the rest.

Labels: academic bias, climate, global warming

Titled: Not Nobel Winners, this tongue in cheek op-ed underscores how great a joke the Nobel Peace Prize has become.

In Olso yesterday, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks captured the attention of the Free World.

The prize was also not awarded to Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe opposition leaders who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.

Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.

Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.

Or to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who has fought tirelessly to end the violence wrought by left-wing terrorists and drug lords in his country.

Or to Garry Kasparov and the several hundred Russians who were arrested in April, and are continually harassed, for resisting President Vladimir Putin's slide toward authoritarian rule.

Or to the people of Iraq, who bravely work to rebuild and reunite their country amid constant threats to themselves and their families from terrorists who deliberately target civilians.

Or to Presidents Viktor Yushchenko and Mikheil Saakashvili who, despite the efforts of the Kremlin to undermine their young states, stayed true to the spirit of the peaceful "color" revolutions they led in Ukraine and Georgia and showed that democracy can put down deep roots in Russia's backyard.

Or to Britain's Tony Blair, Ireland's Bertie Ahern and the voters of Northern Ireland, who in March were able to set aside decades of hatred to establish joint Catholic-Protestant rule in Northern Ireland.

Or to thousands of Chinese bloggers who run the risk of arrest by trying to bring uncensored information to their countrymen.

Or to scholar and activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour and other democracy campaigners in Egypt.

Or, posthumously, to lawmakers Walid Eido, Pierre Gemayel, Antoine Ghanem, Rafik Hariri, George Hawi and Gibran Tueni; journalist Samir Kassir; and other Lebanese citizens who've been assassinated since 2005 for their efforts to free their country from Syrian control.

Or to the Reverend Phillip Buck; Pastor Chun Ki Won and his organization, Durihana; Tim Peters and his Helping Hands Korea; and Liberty in North Korea, who help North Korean refugees escape to safety in free nations.

These men and women put their own lives and livelihoods at risk by working to rid the world of violence and oppression. Let us hope they survive the coming year so that the Nobel Prize Committee might consider them for the 2008 award.

Labels: academic bias, climate, global warming, Gore

Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia, was evidently taken aback by the criticism he got for inviting Ahmadinejad and so found himself backed into what, for a conventional soft-leftie of academe, was a ferocious denunciation of his star guest, dwelling at length on Iran's persecution of minorities, murder of dissidents, sponsorship of terrorism, nuclear ambitions, genocidal threats toward Israel, etc. For a warm-up act, Bollinger pretty much frosted up the joint. The Iranian leader sat through the intro with a plastic smile, and then said: "I shall not begin by being affected by this unfriendly treatment." He offered many illuminating insights: There are, he declared, no homosexuals in Iran. Not one. Where are they? On a weekend visit to Kandahar to see the new production of Mame? Alas, there was no time for follow-ups.

And afterwards Mr. Bollinger got raves even from the right for "speaking truth to power." But so what? It's like Noel Coward delivering a series of devastating put-downs to Hitler. The Fuhrer's mad as hell but at the end of the afternoon he goes back to killing and dear Noel goes back to singing "The Stately Homes Of England." Ahmadinejad goes back to doing — to persecuting, to murdering, to terrorizing, to nuclearizing — and Bollinger cuts out his press clippings and puts them on the fridge.

The other day National Review's Jay Nordlinger was musing about our habit of referring to some benighted part of the world's "humanitarian needs," and wondered when we'd stopped using the term "human needs," which is, after all, what food, water and shelter are. And his readers wrote in to state the obvious: That "humanitarian" prioritizes not the distant Third World victim but the generous western donor — the "humanitarian" relief effort, the "humanitarian" organizations, the NGOs, the western charities: it's about us, not them. Bill Clinton's new bestseller on charity is called Giving — because it's better to give than to receive, and that's certainly true if the giver is busying himself with some ineffectual feel-good "Save Darfur" fundraiser while the recipient is on the receiving end of the Janjaweed's machetes. The Sudanese government appreciates that, as long as we're allowed to feel good about ourselves and to participate in "humanitarian relief," the killing can go on until there's no one left to kill. Likewise, Ahmadinejad knows that, as along as we're allowed to do what we do best — talk and talk and talk, whether at Columbia or in EU negotiations — his regime can quietly get on with its nuclear program.

These men understand the self-absorption of advanced democracies. The difference between Winston Churchill and Ward Churchill, another famous beneficiary of "academic freedom" who called the 9/11 dead "little Eichmanns," is that for Sir Winston talking was a call to action while for poseurs like Professor Churchill it's a substitute for it. The pen is not mightier than the sword if your enemy is confident you will never use anything other than your pen. Sometimes it's not about "freedom of speech," but about freedom. Ask an Iranian homosexual. If you can find one.
-- Mark Steyn

Labels: academic bias, defending liberty, Hypocrisy, Iran

"The fact that one of the American universities invited the Iranian president to raise whether the Holocaust happened proves that in the American people and leadership there is a hidden will to raise a serious discussion about these Zionists lies and propaganda."
-- Abu Mosaab, an Islamic Jihad spokesperson and leader in the Gaza Strip.

Thanks Columbia U... You've elevated Holocaust denial to a mainstream debate topic, just like in parts of the world -- to quote Ralph Peters -- where "religio-social societies restrict the flow of information, prefer myth to reality, oppress women, make family, clan or ethnic identity the basis for social and economic relations, subvert the rule of secular law, undervalue scientific and liberal education, discourage independent thought, and believe that ancient religious law should govern all human relations."

Real nice.

Labels: academic bias, capitulation, Iran, Islamic extremism, terrorism

Overall, I have to agree with the former Education Czar Bill Bennett: the decision by Columbia University officials to allow Iranian "president" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on their campus was hypocritical, foolish and deeply naive.

Here's an excerpt of Bennett's comments from his show this morning.

My personal opinion of University President Lee Bollinger improved somewhat from prior posts -- he did not pitch soft balls, as I worried, but instead used clear logic and hard facts in an attempt to pin down Ahmadinejad.

To an extent - such as when Ahmadinejad was mocked for suggesting there are no homosexuals in Iran - this worked.

However, as Bennett mentions, Bollinger went over the top in personal attacks of Ahmadinejad and as a result played into Ahmadinejad's hands, allowing him to slip into the role of the underdog, the victim, and earn sympathy not only from outside (world community) observers but from an often cheering and clapping Columbia student body! That Bollinger spoke truth cannot be denied, but delivery of one's points, especially in a formal debate, matter.

Worst of all, as I mentioned yesterday, Columbia officials displayed amazing arrogance in misunderstanding that the scene was not so much about demonstrating American liberty -- see, even an illiberal autocrat may debate here -- as it was undermining opportunities to correct the Iranian lack thereof.

Iranian and Arab media, whose editing ability would make Michael Moore blush, have begun a spin campaign that will only empower Ahmadinejad and the mullahs, while disheartening and weakening the moderate and pro-democracy Iranian movements.

Michael Rubin's roundup of the Iranian media include the following:

* The Iranian press' take on Ahmadinejad's rapturous welcome and masterful speech at Columbia University.

*Ahmadinejad plans to lay wreath at ground zero.

*Despite Rice objection?

*Iranian parliamentarian: Bush should be hanged like Saddam.

*Iran headlines that Ayatollah Sistani refused Bush request for meeting.

*Former IRGC head (now Supreme Leader's advisor) states, "Iran has become an extra-regional power."

*Warns that Iran is conducting surveillance on U.S. troops.

*CIA and Rice still argue IRGC is separate entity from Iranian government

*Ahmadinejad: Iran will never recognize Israel.

*Russia seeks expansion of ties with Iran.

*Labor union organizer Mansour Osanlou's 76th day in prison.

*White House, State Department still working on statement?

*Washington Post, New York Times afraid reporting on labor crackdown might undercut access?

*Photo of the Day: Ahmadinejad receives rapturous welcome in New York.

Labels: academic bias, capitulation, Iran

The issue we see with Columbia is deeper than freedom of speech but rather the inconsistency with which university faculties choose to support it. If men like Richard Bulliet and Lee Bollinger, and women like Lisa Marie Anderson cared about freedom of speech, they might want to enable those who don't have it, rather than celebrate the men who have taken it away.
That point is from NRO's Michael Rubin, who cites many pro-democracy foreign activists whom our academic institutions ignore, choosing instead to empower those who are already empowered.

These academics hide behind, or perhaps themselves do not understand, the issue of free speech. Under a guise of "protecting speech," one columnist noted, an academic institution could invite a speaker who championed the random mass shootings of Cho Seung-Hui at Virginia Tech. But would that ever occur? Or would that institution, rather, appreciate that the topic is so fringe, so beyond the pale, as to ever warrant discussion?

The question needs no answer.

Columbia U's hypocrisy has also been well noted: Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain reminded in a statement that Iran executes homosexuals but Columbia U bars the ROTC from their campus for the military's homosexual policy. Perhaps if the US military began executing homosexuals the wise academics at Columbia would see fit to bring them back on...

Another point to be made is that one shouldn't expect a dictator who obfuscates at home in order to keep his own illegitimate, unelected power to be suddenly honest and open once outside his borders.

This futility is obvious after reading the Q&A a 60 Minutes reporter (Scott Pelley) conducted with Ahmadinejad -- at one point Ahmadinejad even accuses Pelley of working for the CIA. The interview was pointless.

On the brighter side, at least two notible Columbia U officials, the Law and Business school deans, David M. Schizer and Glenn Hubbard, respectively, both called the university decision a disgrace.

Hubbard said, "Some would argue that a University should be a place of intellectual freedom and open debate, but others ­ including me ­ argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is responsible for the death of American soldiers, denies the Holocaust, and calls for the destruction of Israel, has proven himself incapable of engaging in a true and honest academic discussion."

Schizer added, "It would be deeply regrettable if some misread this invitation as lending prestige or legitimacy to his views."

David Feith and Jordan Hirsch opine, "By its invitation, Columbia has chosen to give Ahmadinejad a valuable political gift that he does not deserve, and that he will use to further repress his people and threaten his neighbors."

Indeed.

Nonetheless expect Arab media worldwide to propagate the appearances at Columbia, the National Press Club and on CBS 60 Minutes as just that. Columbia U proponents miss the forest for the trees - there are those within Iran who are observing our treatment of Ahmadinejad. We bestow legitimacy to an illegitimate figure. We strengthen him and his mullah puppet masters, but worse, in the process we weaken the pro-democracy figures in Iran.

Labels: academic bias, capitulation, Iran

At first glance, it's shocking that Columbia University is going to allow Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at their campus -- thus, Columbia U will give the Iranian president speech and assembly freedoms he denies to his own people on a daily basis.

At second glance, however, we shouldn't be surprised that academics and officials at our one of our nation's top universities is so hypocritically backwards in their priorities, as noted by Bill Kristol:

As Columbia welcomes Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia students who want to serve their country cannot enroll in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Columbia. Columbia students who want to enroll in ROTC must travel to other universities to fulfill their obligations. ROTC has been banned from the Columbia campus since 1969. In 2003, a majority of polled Columbia students supported reinstating ROTC on campus. But in 2005, when the Columbia faculty senate debated the issue, President Bollinger joined the opponents in defeating the effort to invite ROTC back on campus.

A perfect synecdoche for too much of American higher education: they are friendlier to Ahmadinejad than to the U.S. military.

Labels: academic bias, antiwar loonies, Iran, Moonbats

[Yale Daily News] When it comes to the "money primary," Yale employees favor Democratic presidential candidates over their Republican rivals — by a margin of 45 to one.

Federal Election Commission filings from the first two quarters of the year show that University faculty and staff have given $44,500 to Democratic presidential candidates — most often to Sen. Barack Obama — and just $1,000 to Republicans.

...Charles Lockwood, the chair of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and the only faculty member known to have contributed to Giuliani, joked that, "Most people in my department are slightly to the left of Joseph Stalin."

Labels: academic bias

If you've never visited Brain Terminal, run by the young Evan Coyne Maloney, you should. I discovered him years ago after my buddy at FrogBrother sent me a link to his documentaries on political correctness, war protesters and a few other campus topics. He's smart. So smart, in fact, that even Michael Moore had to give him props for his intelligence and cajones -- Maloney on camera surprised and confronted Moore over Hollywood's left-wing slant, with Moore responding basically, 'yeah, you're right.'

Anyway, moving along, the following is Weekly Standards' Sonny Bunch comparing the NY Times review of Maloney's latest film, Indoctrinate U, to their review of Moore's latest film. Guess which one got the praise?

The good folks over at the New York Times finally got around to taking a look at Indoctrinate U in the education section yesterday. As we might have expected, the Times's take on the film was less than flattering--indeed, the author seems to use Evan Coyne Maloney's film as little more than an introductory device to tell us how few restrictions are placed on free speech on campus.

Maloney has done a fine job dismantling the Times piece, which went so far as to praise university administrators for reopening newspapers they'd previously shut-down for what they perceived as objectionable political content:

Oddly, one of the examples cited in the article (but not the film) was the case of a student paper published by Vassar's Moderate, Independent and Conservative Student Alliance. The paper was de-funded and shut down for a year after publishing a piece criticizing the school's funding of special "social centers" for minority and gay students. But because the paper was eventually allowed to start publishing again--the following year--the Vassar case is presented as one in which "[u]ltimately, free speech was respected."

Sorry, but shutting down a paper for a year is not a benign event, and it is certainly not one in which we can say "free speech was respected." If Homeland Security shut down the Times for a year after exposing ways that we track terrorist financing, I'm sure they'd understand my position on this.

I've already written up my own thoughts on the film, so I won't go into it any more here. But it is useful to contrast the treatment this documentary received with that of another controversial flick making the rounds: Sicko. A.O. Scott reviewed the new Michael Moore picture for the Times in a modestly celebratory manner. While Maloney's film is dismissed as "just a pastiche of notorious events," Moore's is praised for making an "argument [that] is illustrated with anecdotes and statistics--terrible stories about Americans denied medical care or forced into bankruptcy to pay for it; grim actuarial data about life expectancy and infant mortality; damning tallies of dollars donated to political campaigns."

Those interested in seeing some other "anecdotes and statistics" that argue America's health care "crisis" is overblown and that socialized medicine is dangerous to your health can check out Free Market Cure, a project brought to us by one of the primary financiers of Indoctrinate U, Stuart Browning.

Labels: academic bias, media bias