Great news.  I'm looking forward to the rendezvous attempt.

Yes, and Tabula Rasa too.  Let's all meet in a graveyard at midnight outside the Citadel sometime.

In the 2004 campaign, John Kerry refused to release his SAT scores (all while the Democrats were saying that George Bush was "stupid").  Finally, a long time after he lost, the scores were released;  lo and behold, they were lower than those of President Bush.

Like you, I expect that "brilliant" Obama had mediocre SAT scores.  My guess is he probably had a verbal score that was slightly above average, and an awful math score.

I hadn't until you posted the link, Midge.  Thanks--it's a good essay.

Stealth Book of the New Sun reference?

This is why, a few years ago, liberals proudly proclaimed themselves to be part of the "Reality Based Community".  It's why a lot of people become teachers:  they believe that true education involves making students into liberals, because liberals are the only people who see reality as it truly is.  It's a moral calling, they believe, and the end goal is to produce a nation of enlightened, evolved people:  i.e.,  faithful supporters of left-wing politics.

It's more than that.  Some months ago I attended a talk by a post-secondary mathematics teacher who was well meaning and very, very liberal.  Her presentation was about a project she had given her class that culminated with her students acting as political advocates for a left-wing cause in her city.  She presented this proudly as an example of what true education is all about.

Jonah Goldberg nailed it when he said that liberals don't believe they have an ideology.  She certainly didn't seem to think of herself as an ideologue.  She thought she was educating her students.  This is a widespread attitude among liberal teachers at all levels.  They think they're opening their students' eyes to The Way Things Really Are.  (Continued below.)

And public school teachers wonder why the public holds them in low regard.

I think Rob Long or James Lileks predicted in a recent podcast that by the time November comes around, we will all be experts on LDS doctrine and history, thanks to the press.  It's starting.

Of course, any reference to Barack Obama's 20 years in Jeremiah Wright's church is race baiting, and don't you forget it.

I have the Yelp app.  It's useful for finding nearby restaurants.  Drawback: some of the reviewers regard food (and themselves) with a pretentious earnestness that makes me want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them.

Great headline!

Yes.  I was thinking of "Catholic Church" mainly in the sense of the people in it, not the official leadership.  But I also wonder if someone in the Vatican might be encouraging this unofficially.

I think of Bill Kristol's article as preventative medicine.  The left hates Kristol so much that they're more likely to do the opposite if they read this.

I'm a civilian, but I worked with the US Army for a few years and got to know some very fine people in uniform, both male and female.  There were some exceptional females who were physically just as capable as the average male, but they were quite rare.  The vast majority of female officers were physically much weaker than their male counterparts.  The Army Physical Fitness Test standards are different for females, because if the standards were the same, very few females would pass.  

If female soldiers are going to make it through the (incredibly harsh) Ranger School, there will have to be a different set of standards for them--otherwise almost none will make it through.  And who would get the blame?  The Ranger School instructors and their officers, who would be blasted for "sexism" in all of the media.

So the standards will change.

I'm listening to the podcast right now, and I just want to say that James' segueway at 12:14 is a miniature work of art.  One of his finest, I think.

I love this:

the electronic logging system onboard the truck (whose voice is that of a scolding, grating female) was nagging and warning me

Sounds like a passage from one of Robert Sheckley's short stories.