Information matters

Don't you get tired of being treated like an idiot?
If you are one of the few remaining readers of the local daily newspaper published in the mornings (always referred to by one leading politician years ago as "The Morning Mistake"), that is how you are treated.
Just one example: local schools.
Not only in the news columns but also in the opinion columns, readers constantly are harangued about the supposed problem of "school funding."
It is too little, they say.
But are you ever told (a) how much it is, (b) how much it has changed or (c) why it matters?

Herewith, information that is relevant.

School spending

What this shows, obviously, is that spending is higher than it was five years ago, although down from 2008.
Rational human beings, however, would be more interested in knowing whether children are learning more or less.
That information is more difficult to find. The Web pages of the government school system contain data, but most of it is not current and there does not seem to be any that shows year to year progress.
Competent journalists, however, easily could unearth the information -- if their intent was to inform rather than proselytize.
One thing you can count on is that the politicians who run the government schools will assure you that the schools are improving under their watchful eyes.
They expect that you will not ask how that is possible if the amount of money thrown at the system is the only factor involved.
If it should turn out that children are learning less, and they attempt to attribute that to lack of funding, the relevant question would be: How would greater funding improved learning?
Ask them to cite the research showing any correlation between school spending and student achievement.
Good luck getting an answer. Don't bother to look for it in the newspaper.
Mark Twain said, "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." Until newspapers begin fulfilling their responsibility to inform the public, that will continue to be true, and they will continue to lose readers.

Let's look at the record

Candidate Barack Obama promised hope and change.
He criticized George Bush for spending too much. Obama has added $4 trillion to the debt.
He criticized Bush for the tax relief Bush had championed. Obama allowed the tax relief to be extended.
He criticized Bush as a "warmonger." Obama has continued one Bush military operation, escalated another and started another of his own.
He criticized the imprisonment of terrorists at Guantanamo. Obama has allowed the terrorists to continue being house at Guantanamo.
He criticized Bush for being too close to Wall Street. Obama has bailed out big banks, General Motors, General Electric and other Wall Street moguls.
He criticized Bush for America's standing among other nations but world leaders now regard Obama as weak and indecisive and America appears to have lost respect since Obama took office.
He criticized Bush for his Medicare prescription plan, then Obama rammed through Congress a health care plan overwhelmingly opposed by the American people, via trickery.
He promised transparency and honesty in government but passed his health care plan in secrecy, making dozens of deals with various players, deals he has begun to renege on.
Obama has no plan to meet the looming economic crisis, other than inflating the currency and imposing punitive taxes on all Americans.
Where is the change? Where is the hope?

Timing

Tomorrow, socialists around the nation are being urged to attend a great "teach in" at which they will try to "take back" America. Commies and pot-bellied, grey-haired '60s hippies also are expected to attend.
Maybe they will be shouting "Ho ho, BHO has got to go." Or, maybe not.
Coincidentally, I'm sure, George Soros is hosting a series of events April 8, aimed at destroying capitalism.
Other events coming up include a special "aid for Gaza" event to highlight the plight of the terrorists in Gaza, who daily fire rockets into civilian neighborhoods in Israel, and send forays to murder entire families. Old Obama pal Bill Ayers is in on that one.
These events come right on the heels of Obama's announcement that he will run for re-election, and the simultaneous announcement that he will not try terrorists in civilian courts, as he previously had promised to do. American voters are overwhelmingly against the idea of giving terrorists special rights and a public show.
There certainly are a lot of things going on. None of them seem to be very good for America. Next year we will find out whether Americans care or not.

Delusional

The president of the United States is either totally delusional or, more likely, totally convinced that he is more intelligent than anyone else in America.
That's the only conclusion you can reach when Obama says his budget would not add to the national debt when, in fact, it doubles the national debt in the next decade.
Budgets are not a matter of opinion. They are basic math.
Sure, you can make up assumptions such as fabulous growth and fictional interest rates. He does that, too.
But even without that, his budget does not do what he said it would do, and the falsity is easily shown, as in this piece on NRO.
Everything he has done since taking office has shown that Obama fully believes he is the Chosen One, more witty, brilliant, handsome, eloquent and clever than anyone else in the room.
But, he has no accomplishments to support his belief. Instead, he has a long list of failures that will be with the American people for a long time.
America cannot afford another four years with someone in the White House who is willing to blatantly lie to the American people.

Invest in this, sucker

While you are hearing all the wailing and despair over "cuts" to education, ponder this:
K-12 public education costs four times as much as it did in 1970, after adjusting for inflation.
But that is just measuing inputs. How has the "investment" paid off? Zero increase in education, measured by test scores.
Meanwhile, test scores are improving in most other countries, which spend far less.
Liberals ignore the facts, and continue to throw money at the problem, as long as taxpayers allow them to do so.
Barack Obama, after saying we must stop spending money on wasteful programs because of the budget deficits he has increased, proposes a huge increase in the budget of the Department of Education, which has no successful programs.
Meanwhile, schools are shutting down in Wisconsin because teachers are protesting in the state capitol and getting fake doctors excuses to shield them from accountability. A number of people who say they are either socialists or communists are supporting the union effort. Why wouldn't they?
The huge increase in spending roughly tracks the rise of the teacher unions, which now virtually run the school systems in many urban districts. They also fight off any attempts at reform, while using the forced union dues to get more big-spending liberal politicians elected.
The governor of Wisconsin is rocking the boat. He promised to do that when he ran and the voters of Wisconsin supported his stand. So it is unions, socialists and communists vs. the people of Wisconsin currently. Other states, including Florida, also are targets of the education elites who are fighting to prevent their empire from toppling.

Everything is OK

Gasoline is $3.13 a gallon.
The national debt is equal to our Gross Domestic Product.
The dollar is a joke throughout the world.
China's military might is increasing rapidly.
Unemployment is (officially) at 9 percent, nearly two years after a recession (officially) ended.
Several cities and states are (unofficially) bankrupt.
Strife and chaos are erupting throughout the Mideast. It could be an eruption of democracy or it could be the start of an Islamic revolution against Western civilization, capitalism, and Christians and Jews.
But, don't worry. President Obama is in charge. He has everything under control, as he promised in 2008.
All of the above is the fault of George W. Bush. Obama may not have it corrected completely by 2012, so he may need four more years to finish the job.
By the end of that time, peace and prosperity will have returned and all will be well.
I have it on good authority from George Soros. He has a slightly different view of the United States than the Founding Fathers, but what did a bunch of dead white guys know?

Changing times

Let's imagine for a moment that sharia law prevails in the United States.
Don't quibble about which "denomination" of Islam. Let's suppose it is the one used by the barbarians in Bangladesh, who whipped a 14-year-old girl to death because she had been raped by a 40-year-old relative.
So the multicultural, tolerant and wonderfully worldly progressives get their way and Islamists are in charge in America.
Now, what would they do about:
The Hollywood hedonists.
Cable television.
San Fransisco's homosexual community.
Playboy magazine and all its imitators.
And, finally, the National Organization for Women.
The "progressives" want a "fundamental transformation" of America? They would get it, and more.