Sheesh, no wonder the stimulus didn’t work. Mike Flynn at Big Government:

The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (the Stimulus Bill) has been such an epic failure, that even the mainstream media has started to notice. The White House has tacitly acknowledged this and recently announced that it would no longer ‘count’ jobs ‘created or saved’ by the Stimulus. The basic problem is that the bulk of the spending went to programs or projects that have nothing to do with economic growth.

The latest example of this is a $500,000 grant to Michael Mann, Professor at Penn State University and unintended c0-star of the ClimateGate e-mail scandal. The leaked e-mails revealed collaboration among scientists to stifle dissenting views on the extent of man-made global warming.

Mann is also the creator of the “Hockey Stick” graph, which purported to show a sharp increase in recent temperatures. That work has been thoroughly discredited by researcher Stephen McIntyre. Yet, in June 2009, the National Science Foundation awarded Mann a three-year $500,000 to further study the climate’s response to human activity. According to the grant award:

The broader impacts involve supporting postdoctoral scholars and graduate students and contributing to the understanding of abrupt climate change.

So, the research is supposed to give us a better ‘understanding of abrupt climate change.’ Mind you, the research isn’t to determine whether there is abrupt climate change occurring. Given that Mann is known for using “tricks” to finesse his data, the National Science Foundation will not be pleased with the results.

David Brooks:

Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.

Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction.

In his book, “The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement,” Steven L. Pease lists some of the explanations people have given for this record of achievement. The Jewish faith encourages a belief in progress and personal accountability. It is learning-based, not rite-based.

Most Jews gave up or were forced to give up farming in the Middle Ages; their descendants have been living off of their wits ever since. They have often migrated, with a migrant’s ambition and drive. They have congregated around global crossroads and have benefited from the creative tension endemic in such places.

No single explanation can account for the record of Jewish achievement. The odd thing is that Israel has not traditionally been strongest where the Jews in the Diaspora were strongest. Instead of research and commerce, Israelis were forced to devote their energies to fighting and politics.

Milton Friedman used to joke that Israel disproved every Jewish stereotype. People used to think Jews were good cooks, good economic managers and bad soldiers; Israel proved them wrong.

But that has changed. Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms, the arrival of a million Russian immigrants and the stagnation of the peace process have produced a historic shift. The most resourceful Israelis are going into technology and commerce, not politics. This has had a desultory effect on the nation’s public life, but an invigorating one on its economy.

Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurial hot spots. Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth, by far. It leads the world in civilian research-and-development spending per capita. It ranks second behind the U.S. in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq. Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined.

As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle,” Israel now has a classic innovation cluster, a place where tech obsessives work in close proximity and feed off each other’s ideas.

No doubt some Leftist will decide the new wealth created by this mix of good government policy, education and entrepreneurial spirit was somehow stolen from the less fortunate.

Today, moviegoers will have the chance to see Denzel Washington in the umpteenth post-apocalyptic movie in months. (Warning: movies with big stars released in January are usually crap.)

Meanwhile, people in Haiti are living a real apocalypse. It’s hard to fathom the misery there.

I’ve never been to Haiti but I got to know some Haitians while living in Miami during the ’80s. We lived in a neighborhood called Morningside Park, after the park that bordered Biscayne Bay.

It was a charming area, two blocks wide, of vintage houses sandwiched between the bay and Biscayne Blvd., which at the time was the haunt of hookers and pandhandlers. On the other side of the boulevard was “little Haiti.”

Many refugees arrived in Miami by boat, boat meaning anything that could float. When Cubans arrived, they were granted sanctuary. (If interdicted at sea, they were sent back.)

Haitians who washed up on our shores had to slip into the city and make their own way. They were welcomed by no one, least of all Miami’s poor blacks who called them nigger.

The Haitians we met always seemed sweet and grateful. On Sunday, they would gather in the park for picnics, assembling in a semi-circle wearing their finest clothes as one of their own addressed them. They were a community.

One day a man named Johnny knocked on our door looking for work. He became a semi-regular and could do things with a machete that, if everyone had his skills, would put Black & Decker out of business.

One day he came by to share his good fortune: he showed us an envelope promising him that he’d won $100,000. It was tough finding an easy way to break the bad news to him gently.

Another time he stopped by, beaming with pride, to show us his driver’s license. To him, it signaled his true arrival as an American.The dashboard of his beat up car bore a white lace doily with a statue of Jesus.

Like many others, he eventually moved to join the Haitian community in New York city, although he did return once on vacation just to say hello.

In January 1986, the Reagan administration had been pressuring Haiti’s hated dictator  Baby Doc Duvalier to get lost. One morning I came out to get my newspaper and heard car horns honking, people beating on pots and pans and celebratory cheering — all coming from the Haitian side of the boulevard.

Baby Doc had been overthrown. There was hope in the air that maybe, just maybe, Haiti’s suffering was nearing an end.

by J.C. Phillips

Harry Reid is not racist and Republican calls for his resignation are misguided. There I said it.

The senate majority leader has recently come under fire for remarks attributed to him in the new book “Game Change.” Authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann say that in 2008 Reid described then candidate Obama as a ” ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.’” The comments have been seen by some as being racially insensitive.

Reid’s defenders argue that he was merely making the point that Americans were ready to elect a black president (or at least a light- skinned black president. Baby steps.) DNC chair Tim Kaine insisted that Reid’s remarks were offered in the context of saying something positive about the Obama candidacy and why his candidacy would be strong.

What remains unclear is why we weren’t treated to an equal amount of gushing about Obama’s vast executive experience and his readiness to lead. Instead, these titans of liberalism were most impressed that Obama was Black but not too black and well spoken enough not to offend the racial sensibilities of voters. It was also a plus that he was able to turn on a “negro dialect” when speaking to Black audiences. (Actually the same could have been said of Hillary Clinton. She is also light skinned with a habit of turning on a “Black dialect” when speaking before black audiences. Recall her chicken necking as she quoted lyrics from an old “negro” spiritual: “I ain’t no ways tired.” Really Hillary? But I digress.)

I would be remiss if I failed to point out that the racial sensibilities Reid and company were concerned with offending were those of liberals. Reid was not mentally tallying the votes of Republicans, but Democrats!

Certainly Senator Reid is behind the times. Who uses the word “negro” anymore? The accepted term is “people of color,” which, for what it’s worth, sounds way to close too colored people for my tastes. But do Reid’s comments really rise to occasion GOP outrage, which, let’s be honest is a bit contrived?

Is there a double standard? Absolutely! There is also a growing sensitivity to public speech that has corrupted our sense of proportion. If one must resign for speaking the truth – Obama is light skinned, well spoken and does have a habit of turning on the “flava” when he speaks before Black audiences – what is the penalty for saying something truly outrageous? Calling for the head of Harry Reid only succeeds in making legitimate liberal outrage over the similarly innocuous utterings by others. If we continue down this path I fear we will end up a nation unable to govern itself because we will be unable to speak lest we offend someone…somewhere.

Moreover, these displays of outrage miss the real substance of Reid’s intimations.

What is now clear for all to see is the new left’s political calculation vis-a-vis race. For the left there can be no post racial America because for the new left race is a chief weapon in their arsenal. Their use of race and racism is premeditated; it is a commodity to be traded in the political market. THAT should be the focus of GOP outrage; that should be what the media is talking about; that should be the cause of our national indignation.

There was another interesting bit of “dish” found in “Game Change.” In an effort to gain the endorsement of Massachusetts senator Edward Kennedy for his wife, former President Bill Clinton reportedly said to the liberal icon about Obama, “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.” According to the book, Kennedy was offended by the remarks and ultimately gave his support to Obama. In a subsequent conversation Clinton griped, “The only reason you are endorsing him is because he is black. Let’s just be clear.”

According to Harry Reid and Tim Kaine, Clinton was quite correct; were it not for his light skin and his ability to speak like a “Negro” when he has to he would still be a junior senator from Illinois and not the President of the United States.

2+2=4