Quickies

A round-up of news items, columns, articles and blog posts that caught our eye this past week or so.





You think Congress is "gridlocked" and/or "dysfunctional"? Occupy Wall Street (the Zuccotti Park chapter) has 79 different working groups. What could possibly go wrong?






We've seen how the housing bubble set up. How about an impending education bubble...

... which the President, in shameless pandering to the OWS set, is intent on worsening by, uh, exectutive order. Here's how it works under the Obama plan:

If Suzy Creamcheese gets into George Washington University and borrows from the government the requisite $212,000 to obtain an undergraduate degree, her repayment schedule will be based on what she earns. If Suzy opts to heed the president’s call for public service, and takes a job as a city social worker earning $25,000, her payments would be limited to $1,411 a year after the $10,890 of poverty-level income is subtracted from her total exposure.

Twenty years at that rate would have taxpayers recoup only $28,220 of their $212,000 loan to Suzy.

The president will also allow student debtors to refinance and consolidate loans on more favorable terms, further decreasing the payoff for taxpayers.

B-Daddy breaks it all down, here.

As holders of a Bachelor of Science degree (mechanical engineering) and being gainfully employed because of it, we're big believers in the advantages of higher education but we're beginning to think that we, as a nation, are becoming absolutely obsessed with higher education.

Related anecdotal side note: On the occasion we have to call in our plumber, it always seems like he's just getting back from or about to leave to Cancun or Hawai'i... like how is it that we ever get a hold of this guy?

Related anecdotal side note Pt. II: Given that much of the political class of this country of late possesses Ivy League degrees, please give us some good reasons as to why we should give so much deference to that Harvard law or business degree? How has that been working out?






Here's some more of that new civility we've been hearing a lot about...

MSNBC analyst on Herman Cain's appeal with conservatives with the GOP:

"One of the things about Herman Cain is, I think that he makes that white Republican base of the party feel okay, feel like they are not racist because they can like this guy," Finney said. "I think he giving that base a free pass. And I think they like him because they think he's a black man who knows his place. I know that's harsh, but that's how it sure seems to me."

Know his place? As in, the President of the United States of America, the most powerful position on the planet... that place?

It's blatantly obvious that Beltway libs-types are absolutely horrified that a black man, wildly successful in private industry and who is running for President, has strode off the plantation, resoundingly rejecting the paternalism of standard Great Society Democratic party policy.




How do you know that a tax payer-funded government operation is of no longer any benefit to the country? When it will take 6 months to look into the following:

The Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights confirmed that it is investigating allegations that Catholic University violated the human rights of Muslim students by not allowing them to form a Muslim student group and by not providing them rooms without Christian symbols for their daily prayers.

The investigation alleges that Muslim students “must perform their prayers surrounded by symbols of Catholicism – e.g., a wooden crucifix, paintings of Jesus, pictures of priests and theologians which many Muslim students find inappropriate.”

A spokesperson for the Office of Human Rights told Fox News they had received a 60-page complaint against the private university. The investigation, they said, could take as long a six months.

Catholic University is a private... catholic institution. If the Muslims there feel offended by the pervasive and omni-present catholic imagery and iconography, perhaps they should decamp Catholic University and locate a destination more to their liking.

We don't like putting words into anybody's mouth but we feel as we have just done a service to the American public free of charge that will apparently take this Office of Human Rights 6 months to perform.

By the by, the Office of Human Rights falls under the watch of the Justice Department and of course, that miserable hack that runs Justice. Just sayin'.





Here's some more of that tea party civility we've been hearing so much about:

Flyer at Occupy Phoenix rally asks: When Should You Shoot a Cop?

An Olympics without black athletes?

Go here for an excerpt from Olympian John Carlos' book, The John Carlos Story and of a boycott of the '68 Olympics by American black athletes that almost was.

And finally, from the Hygiene Department of BwD: News you can use:

The germiest place in America

Take a guess before going to the link. It may surprise you.