The Daily Top Five

Some good posts for your consideration:

1. As a Navy Brat and a Navy Veteran, the Sea Service holds a special place in my heart and my heart was warmed over the weekend when the Navy decided not to hold the commissioning ceremony for the U.S.S. Makin Island in San Francisco, the city that Michelle Malkin calls the City that Hates the Military. Check out Michelle's Latest Vent on this issue as well as other coverage here.

2. Jack Kelly (via Dean Barnett) has this great editorial which takes on the Leftist mindset regarding the military as being populated with morons and other assorted mental midgets (as opposed to our so to be majority party in Congress). The first thing to note is how stuck in Vietnam Sen. Kerry and Rep. Rangel are. The draft Army that fought that war was comprised chiefly of young men unable to obtain college deferments. Soldiers then had less education and lower intelligence than the youth population as a whole.

But this hasn't been true since Ronald Reagan became president. The average service member today has more education and a higher IQ than do his or her civilian counterparts.

Currently, about 98 percent of enlisted personnel have high school diplomas, compared to about 75 percent of 18- to 24-year olds as a whole. In 2005, more than 70 percent of recruits scored in the upper half on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, the military equivalent of an IQ test. Only half of the youth population, of course, scores in the upper half.

About 92 percent of officers have college degrees, and a higher proportion of military officers have advanced degrees than do college graduates as a whole. (Between 2000 and 2005, the proportion of officers with advanced degrees ranged between 35 and 45 percent.)

But this to me is the money quote:

For many Democrats, being an American is all about rights, not duties. Though the rights they demand would not exist were it not for the dwindling number of Americans willing to perform the duties of citizenship, they regard with barely concealed contempt those Americans whose sense of duty causes them to go in harm's way. If America's "leaders" have such attitudes, can the nation long survive?

I wonder.

3. Ryan Boots at Edspresso brings us the story of a $6 billion education budget largess and the people lining up to get it. Odd thing though, no one seems to be talking about the kids.

4. Honoring the fallen.

Rest easy, sleep well my brothers.

Know the line has held, your job is done.

5. What if the Supreme Court were rock stars, who would they be. Jack Balkin lets you in on his opinion. While Balkin's selections were interesting, the best one comes from the comments:

Scalia is Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson. Histrionic, operatic, but knocks you on your ass when he opens his mouth.

How true.