If Your State is Fiscally Responsible, Congress will screw you over.

Particularly if you are a state with a Republican Governor, in this case Texas

The provision in question, an amendment authored by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, an Austin Democrat, would deny Texas its share of the bill’s education funds unless its governor “provides an assurance” that it will not reduce the percentage of total revenues it spends on education at any time in the next three years. Gov. Rick Perry argues that this is impossible: The state legislature controls education funding in Texas, not the governor, and the governor cannot bind future legislatures to any level of spending. Because Perry cannot provide the kind of assurance the Doggett amendment appears to require, he argues that it would deny Texas, and only Texas, over $800 million in education funds.

So instead of rewarding a state for being fiscally prudent, Congress--spurred on by a TEXAS REPRESENTATIVE will deny funds to one and only one state.

NICE!.

This is just more fodder for me that Congress is no longer interested in legislating for the general welfare of all Americans, but is more interested in either
a) self-aggrandizement and beneft, or
b) punishing political enemies or people they consider inferior for what ever reason.

Governor Perry should be going on every single news program that he can get on and blasting this move by Congress.

NCAA Rules Change Big News for MLS

Jason Davis at Match Fit USA has a brief link to a recent NCAA Rules change that will benefit the MLS directly and probably benefit NBA basketball and maybe even baseball (not that I give a toss about those leagues).

For a long time, if an athlete played along side a professional in an organized match, that student athlete would lose their amatuer status--forever dooming their college athletic career. But even with NBA rules and NFL rules requiring athletes play or wait for a given number of years before jumping from high school to the pros, there is still a great deal of raiding of high school talent (particularly by the NBA and to a lesser extent MLB and NHL) the problem of moving young players into the league before they are truly ready to play at the necessary level (anyone remember Kwame Brown) either on the playing surface or off the surface.

But the rule change will allow amateur players to play alongside professionals so long as the amateur player is not paid for his appearance. As Davis points out, the biggest beneficiary will be the MLS reserve league which is coming back, probably in 2012, maybe as early as next year. MLS rules require each club to have an academy team of U18 and U16 players. More and more clubs are putting together U14 and U15 teams as well. With the rebirth of the Reserve league, those U18 and select younger players, will get an opportunity to play right alongside professionals in a competitive game and test their mettle. If they make the grade-a la Andy Najar, they can move to the senior team. If they don't make the grade at age 17 or 18, they can still make the move to college soccer and have a good career in college.

Jobs picture dims as unemployment claims rise - Yahoo! Finance

How will the President spin this: Jobs picture dims as unemployment claims rise to 484,000 new claims and could reach 500,000.

the problem of course is that the method by which the government calculates unemployment is seriously flawed and obscures the real impact.

Anchor Babies the Immigration Problem Du Jour

Rick Moran at American Thinker Blog highlights a rather stunning statistic, 8% of babies born in the United States are "anchor babies" that is children born to what the Pew Hispanic Center calls "unautorized immigrants" (which is just P.C. for illegal immigrants).

there is a movement afoot to alter the 14th Amendment to get rid of birthright citizenship. Aside from the practical hurdles of amending the Constitution itself, this is just a really bad idea. The problem is not anchor babies. If I were poor and I could come to the U.S. to have my child in a clean, professionally staffed and equipped public hospital in this country where infant mortality is very, very low, I would. That is just common sense.

Rather the problem is not denying birthright citizenship, but perhaps curtailing the right of anchor babies to sponsor their illegal unauthorized immigrant parents into citizenship. Yes, the process would take 18 years before mom and dad could be sponsored into the country legally, but since no enforcement of immigration rules exists now, many illegal immigrant families will just sit out the time, since ICE can't deport a U.S. citizen and ICE is extremely unlikely to split up families.

Are anchor babies a policy problem? The babies themselves aren't the problem, the fact that the U.S. does such a poor job policing immigration is.

Dee Snider Gets the Last Laugh

I remember back in the 1980's Twisted Sister was one of my brother's favorite bands. I never got as much into their entire library, but they were an entertaining group. In the 1980's Tipper Gore (Mrs. Al Gore) and a number of wannabe nanny staters were saying that heavy metal was causing suicides among young people. Tipper Gore was leading a charge to censor music and as part of that whole circus, Dee Snider testified before Congress about effors to censor music that discussed violence or sexuality. Hey Tipper, it got worse didn't. Anyway, I just came across this tidbit: Dee Snider Gets the Last Word

Say what you will about guys like Dee Snider, he is right. Almost invariable the power of ideas will win out.