From USA Today

The former Ludlum Elementary School, in Long Island’s Hempstead Union Free School District, was renamed at a school board meeting Thursday — effective immediately.

School officials say most of the 440 students there are black or Hispanic, and Obama’s victory is a source of great pride.

Ok, as a black man in America, I understand the whole pride issue, but, and this is a humongously big but. Is winning an election enough cause to rename a public institution after someone? No offense to those who support Barack Obama, but an election is a popularity contest, nothing more, nothing less. It is what a person does with his/her mandate that matters. Obama has not been in office for even 24 hours, he has not done anything remotely significant as President, and he has not finished his term with his reputation intact.

As Ed Morrissey over at Hotair noted, imagine what would have happened if a school was renamed after Richard Nixon before he even got sworn in.

On my part, I think there are tons of black heroes that schools can be named after, people who have actually done something to advance the cause of humanity, and not merely been celebrities.

The Black Collegian provides a listing of a few of them:

• Benjamin Banneker
• Mary McLeod Bethune
• Ralph Bunche
• George Washington Carver
• Frederick Douglass
• W.E.B. DuBois
• Paul Lawrence Dunbar
• Marcus Garvey
• Fannie Lou Hamer
• Matthew Alexander Henson
• Dr. Percy Lavon Julian
• Jan Ernest Matzeliger
• James Weldon Johnson
• Jesse Owens
• A. Philip Randolph
• Paul Robeson
• Sojourner Truth
• Harriett Tubman
• Ida B. Wells
• Granville T. Woods
• Carter G. Woodson
• Phillis Wheatley
• Whitney Moore Young

A cult of celebrity is a dangerous thing, especially when the celebrity is the President of the United States of America. The reason public institutions are not named after serving leaders is because they are still in office and that gives them an unfair advantage at the polls.

Since schools are usually polling places, imagine which Presidential candidate has an advantage in that polling place  going in on November 4th, 2012…

UPDATE: It seems another school is about to be named in honor of the deal leader, this time in Portland, OR…

Scores of students at Clark K-8 @ Binnsmead, a clumsy name that combines the former names of two schools which merged in the Montavilla neighborhood last summer, have stuffed a suggestion box advocating Barack Obama as the new name for their school at 2225 S.E. 87th Ave.

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I guess that pesky little thing known as the  First Amendment does not matter to Obama and his cabinet.

Here’s the interview with Holder, and the First amendment follows immediately after…

The transcript, courtesy of Newsbusters:

The court has really struck down every government effort to try to regulate it. We tried with regard to pornography. It is gonna be a difficult thing, but it seems to me that if we can come up with reasonable restrictions, reasonable regulations in how people interact on the Internet, that is something that the Supreme Court and the courts ought to favorably look at. - May 28, 1999 NPR Morning Edition

The 1st Amendment, couresty of the US Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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As I saw the towers fall, like other New Yorkers, I was in a state of shock, and initially panic too. However, when George Bush came on air to personally reassure a frightened nation that he shall keep us safe moving forward, I sensed that he was sincere, and promised to give him a chance to succeed or fail on his own merits.

My main concern was that this nation would remain safe, and remain safe, as I seriously doubted we could survive another 9/11. Thankfully, George Bush delivered on his promise, and 7 years have gone by without another major incident on US Soil. Our enemies might not have liked George, but they not only respected him, but feared him as well.

Anyway, he is currently in the process of saying his farewells to his staff and their families, a nice and thoughtful gesture by all accounts.

Excerpts from CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – During a midday appointment at the White House, it is a surprise to see a young boy in a blazer and tie, walking in the West Wing corridor just steps from the Oval Office and anxiously clutching a shiny new baseball.

It is a sign of the times – and a sign of the president’s respect for those who keep the government working.

In his final weeks in office, President Bush just about every day he is in Washington is blocking out an hour of time to take farewell photographs with Executive Branch staffers and their families.

Aides say Mr. Bush wanted a chance to say thank you to those who work in the administration – as well as a chance to thank their spouses and children for putting up with the long hours. Not to mention sign a few baseballs.

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These Shi’ites should stop fretting, Obama is going to be in “Power” on January 20th, all US troops shall be out of Iraq by January 21st…
Excerpts From AP:

Thousands of followers of a radical Shiite cleric protested a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security deal Friday, burning an effigy of President George W. Bush in the same square where Iraqis beat a toppled Saddam Hussein statue five years ago.

Chanting and waving flags, Muqtada al-Sadr’s followers filled Firdous Square to protest the pact that would allow American troops to stay for three more years.

The protesters placed the Bush effigy on the same pedestal where U.S. Marines toppled the ousted dictator’s statue in one of the iconic images of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The effigy held a sign that described the pact as “shame and humiliation.”

After a mass prayer, demonstrators pelted the Bush effigy with plastic water bottles and sandals. One man hit it in the face with his sandal. The effigy fell head first into the crowd and protesters jumped on it before setting it ablaze.

The uproar this week suggests that the security pact could remain divisive as the country struggles for reconciliation after years of war.

Oh boy, I wonder what will happen when Barack Obama realizes that as President he actually has to make decisions and not merely vote “present”…

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To pay homage to Barack Obama, fare cards bearing his image shall be created and sold. I guess it is important that those who ride the metro in DC know who the new boss is. It is that plain and simple.

At this rate, I wonder how many public projects shall bear Barack Obama’s name in the next few years…

Somewhere in North Korea, the Dear Leader is smiling…

Check this out:

Metro hasn’t yet formally announced the sale of a special edition SmarTrip card commemorating the impending inauguration of President-Elect Barack Obama, but this image was circulated at this morning’s regular Board of Directors meeting, along with

details on their production schedule and cost.

Metro spokesperson Steven Taubenkibel confirmed that the commemorative SmarTrip cards should be available for sale in early January, while special paper Metro farecards marking the inauguration will be sold somewhat earlier, in late December.

There was some discussion at the board meeting about the cost and availability of the commemorative SmarTrip cards. Currently, Metro plans to sell them for $10 per card, with no value added to the card at the time of initial purchase, which would make them $5 more expensive than regular SmarTrip cards. They may also be hard to come by, as Metro will only have an initial order of 35,000 on hand to begin with, though Taubenkibel said the agency hopes to have more available as time permits. The short time period during which the cards have had to be ordered, produced, and eventually shipped to D.C. and processed was cited as the main reason for their higher price and small number.

“We’re going to have get them out really quickly in order for them to be sold,” Taubenkibel explained.

Check his latest blog posting out:

A new study suggests the Mayan civilization might have collapsed due to environmental disasters:

“‘These models suggest that as ecosystems were destroyed by mismanagement or were transformed by global climatic shifts, the depletion of agricultural and wild foods eventually contributed to the failure of the Maya sociopolitical system,’ writes environmental archaeologist Kitty Emery of the Florida Museum of Natural History in the current Human Ecology journal.”

As we move towards solving the climate crisis, we need to remember the consequences to civilizations that refused to take environmental concerns seriously.

If you haven’t read already read it, take a look at Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse.

I am no expert on the environment, but I think the biggest crisis facing most of the people in the world is economic, not environmental. When people live on less than $1 a day, their biggest concern is putting food in their stomach, and not the effect of pollution on the Andes Mountains…

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Truth is, the market continues to hemorrhage because of Obama not in spite of him. Why is this happening?

How about his promise to “redistribute the wealth” by taxing people at a rate higher than they have been taxed in the last 8 years.

Most people would rather keep more of their money, not less of it, consequently, bearing in mind what Barack Obama has promised to do, most people will take their money out so they can avoid paying taxes on future growth plain and simple.

Sure the argument can be made that he merely wants to go back to Clinton era tax levels, but let’s not forget something extremely important. Exponential growth. The reason the economy was flush during Bill Clinton’s administration is because of the investments people made when Ronald Regan was in office, those investments grew exponentially and yielded the returns that made a higher tax level palatable.

George Bush was NO Ronald Regan, although to his credit he did cut taxes.

So while I believe that the market is going to rebound eventually, it always does, the fact of the matter is the last thing the USA needs in 2008 is more taxes, and everyone other than Barack Obama and his economic team seem to realize this.
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Like him or loathe him, Dubya is still the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.  I don’t expect them to hi-five him or do backflips upon seeing him, but at the very least, some acknowledgment of his presence would have been good, if for no other reason than sheer respect for the country he represents…

Then again, George Bush hosted the summit, so he probably interacted with all of the leaders at length before the photo opp, so there might be absolutely nothing to it…

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People who have sense and money to go along with their sense are obviously voting with their wallets and bailing out of the markes as fast as they can. Can you really blame them?

From Marketwatch:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 427.47 points, or 5.1%, to 7,997.28, its lowest close since March 31, 2003. All of the Dow’s 30 of its components finishing lower.

Volume on the New York Stock Exchange topped 1.6 billion, and for every stock on the rise, more than 15 fell. On the Nasdaq, nearly 1.1 billion shares traded, and decliners topped advancers more than 8 to 1.

Never thought I’d be one to say this, but at the rate things are going, after all is said and done, George Bush’s term shall look like a period of economic prosperity compared to what we shall have to endure under Barack Obama…

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Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites.The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies. Ayman al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites, that Obama is “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.

In al-Qaida’s first response to Obama’s victory, al-Zawahri also called the president-elect—along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice—”house negroes.”

Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term “abeed al-beit,” which literally translates as “house slaves.” But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as “house negroes.”

He said Obama’s plan to shift troops to Afghanistan is doomed to failure, because Afghans will resist.

“Be aware that the dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands to them,” he said.

Al-Zawahri did not threaten specific attacks, but warned Obama that he was “facing a Jihadi (holy war) awakening and renaissance which is shaking the pillars of the entire Islamic world; and this is the fact which you and your government and country refuse to recognize and pretend not to see.”

He said Obama’s victory showed Americans acknowledged that President George W. Bush’s policies were a failure and that the result was an “admission of defeat in Iraq.”

But Obama’s professions of support for Israel during the election campaign “confirmed to the Ummah (Islamic world) that you have chosen a stance of hostility to Islam and Muslims,” al-Zawahri said.

Harry Belafonte had similary called Colin Powell a house negro when the latter became Bush’s Secretary of State…

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