h/t Robert S.

Something I would have never guessed.

Indeed.

Despite the rhetoric employed, the current dominant idea in the United States seems to be not so much that the “rich” (and, in practice, the middle class) have to pay “their fair share” to those who are starving to death in rat-infested squatter camps (of whom there aren’t many), but that they must subsidize upper middle class people who are non-productive yet living very nice lives, often better lives than those who are hard-working and subsidizing them. Those to be subsidized include those who want to work in cushy, unproductive, useless but prestigious jobs but cannot find them, or those who want to work in cushy, unproductive, useless but prestigious jobs and do find them working directly or indirectly for the government, supposedly doing good things.

h/t Revnant Dream

Here’s a most excellent video, full of great facts, that you may want to bookmark:

In a recent column, James Delingpole provided a link to this video and went on to explain how incredibly sad it was that many of the Occupy supporters essentially want the same end results as Tea Party supporters, except that each group is diametrically opposed about how to get there.
Quite frankly, Delingpole is being exceptionally charitable to the Occupy crowd. Most of them appear to be poster boys & girls of the Entitlement Generation or just downright communists. One wonders, if some basic questions about what fiscal conservatives stand for were given to this lot, whether even 1% would have any clue as to what their ideological opponents believe in?

h/t Darcy
Related third year college student.

And that’s why I’ve taken up biathlon;

“Increasingly, undergraduates are not prepared adequately in any academic area but often arrive with strong convictions about their abilities. So college professors routinely encounter students who have never written anything more than short answers on exams, who do not read much at all, who lack foundational skills in math and science, yet are completely convinced of their abilities and resist any criticism of their work, to the point of tears and tantrums: ‘But I earned nothing but A’s in high school,’ and ‘Your demands are unreasonable.’ Such a combination makes some students nearly unteachable.”

An abusive young freeloader in Scotland gets thrown off the train:

Follow-up interview with the MSM

Related.

Strange happenings have been occurring along the coasts of North America with the OWS nitwits shutting down the ports. A series of photos can be seen here. Even Vancouver was affected. Michelle Malkin has more coverage.

This hasn’t just happened spontaneously, of course. It’s being coordinated by socialist and communist groups who would love nothing more than to destroy the economies of the U.S. and Canada.
The question is, how much lost pay will the dockworkers and truckers accept before they retaliate in their own special way?
Update: Publicly, the union officials are not pleased. Privately, if this continues, OWS participants may not be so giddy once individual union members “occupy” their personal space.
For those who can stomach it, here’s the Twitter feed of Kari Koch, the young woman talking with Neil Cavuto. It would be very interesting to see an intrepid reporter interview her parents and elucidate the public on what her home life was like.

And that’s why my broom gently weeps.

h/t AtlanticJim

The patterns seem extremely similar to the housing bubble with certain segments taking up the roll of subprime lenders and the entire industry getting excited by easy finance and an unrelenting line of demand. The only problem of courses is the debt is being backed by the U.S. government (i.e., taxpayers) and we all know what happens when the bubble pops.

Plenty of charts at the link. (h/tInstapundit)

David Thompson;

I suppose it was inevitable. A laughable, profoundly dishonest, narcissistic “movement,” cheered on by leftist academics and their credulous protégés – David Graeber and Priya Gopal, take a bow – becomes a subject for “study” by leftist academics and their credulous protégés.

Related: “occupied” … “vacant”… let’s not quibble over definitions!

The Left constantly celebrates actor Alec Baldwin for his “brave” stances against conservatives. Turns out though that he’s nothing more than a pompous, arrogant windbag who is now on the Bad Boy List of both American Airlines and Greyhound.
Taiwanese animators have their own humorous take on Baldwin’s recent “princess” moments:

We are the 99.539% !

Click to enlarge

Sucks to be you, “Occupy Saskatchewan”.

And that’s why I’m building a Bug Out Bag;

A “food insecure” Muppet is helping to promote a national “Food for Thought” campaign that teaches poor families to seek out nutritious food and to eat on the taxpayers’ tab.
At the National Press Club on Thursday, Lily the Muppet – who worries about her family not having enough money to feed her properly — pitched free food at school:
“Sometimes we can’t always afford to buy all the food that we need,” Lily said. “I mean, but we’ve been finding lots of ways that we can get help…Yeah, for example, at school I get a free breakfast and a lunch…part of the meal plan.”

Adam Carolla was on Dennis Miller’s show yesterday to discuss his now infamous anti-OWS rant and other current events.

And that’s why we should be ripping the heating systems* out of our public schools.

And that’s why I’ve been practicing my long division. Via email;

I am a university graduate with a bachelors of science in mathematics, and I am currently pursuing graduate studies. I do a lot of marking, tutoring and lecturing in the mathematical sciences so the following issue is something I care a lot about and have first hand experience with.
The current state of high school math education in the western Canadian provinces is deplorable. The standard algorithms used to add, subtract, multiply and divide have been replaced with a holistic approach that puts an emphasis on discovering one’s own understanding of math in order to solve problems.
While this idea may be a great idea for the already gifted and bright students, for the general populace this is absolutely useless.
Coupled with the poor level of teacher training, we have a grade school math education system that is categorically failing kids and parents.
The sad thing is that this is mostly a policy problem. Curricula are being revised in order to stop parental bitching. They remove all the difficult parts about math. Most importantly they remove the part where you are forced to follow instructions (gasp!) or be wrong and have your feelings hurt.
Because they learn in only this way, they come to university completely unprepared and ignorant of the skills needed to learn even basic calculus (ie. the backbone of engineering and physics) or computer science (ie. the backbone of modern society).
It has gotten to the point where certain western professors of mathematics are speaking out about this problem to the media. Parents and educators alike are finding frustration with the current curriculum. One professor has “gone public” with his thoughts on the issue, as highlighted in this CBC article.
This same professor, along with a number of our colleagues, has begun an campaign to try to call attention to this problem. Below my message is a forwarded email linking to their website. It includes a mission statement and a petition for people to sign. This has attracted the attention of professors across all western universities as this problem is prevalent from BC to Manitoba (except it might not be as bad in Alberta).
In a century where basic and advanced math skills are becoming increasingly important to both finding and keeping a job, we cannot ignore this problem. It will put western children at a competitive disadvantage compared to the rest of Canada, and the rest of the world.
As you can see there is already some coverage of this problem, but my concern is that the CBC will see this as just some “western problem” and shuffle it aside as some daily interest story and move on to more politically lucrative ventures. On the other hand, your readers are closely connected to western issues, and I believe that they care about things like math education and keeping our students nationally and globally competitive.
This issue NEEDS attention, kids are dumb…but they don’t have to be.

You can read more here:Western Initiative for Strengthening Education in Math, or WISE Math.
(John Gormley LIve is also covering the topic this morning at 11am Saskatchewan time)