US teachers spend the most time in the classroom teaching. So much for the idea that American teachers are lazy.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

Among 27 member nations tracked by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ), U.S. primary-school educators spent 1,097 hours a year teaching despite only spending 36 weeks a year in the classroom — among the lowest among the countries tracked. That was more than 100 hours more than New Zealand, in second place at 985 hours, despite students in that country going to school for 39 weeks. 

The OECD average is 786 hours.And that’s just the time teachers spend on instruction. Including hours teachers spend on work at home and outside the classroom, American primary-school educators spend 1,913 working in a year. According to data from the comparable year in a Labor Department survey, an average full-time employee works 1,932 hours a year spread out over 48 weeks (excluding two weeks vacation and federal holidays).

One of the things that can piss me off faster than just about anything else in the world is listening to people slam teachers. That absolutely makes my blood boil.

I have had the privilege of working with some of the finest educators in the country, and I can tell you from my own experiences with schools in the Anchorage area, that I have only rarely, and I mean RARELY, come across a teacher who I considered less than completely dedicated to the children they taught.

When I worked at the local elementary school for those four years, I would often receive calls from the teacher that I worked with, who was still at the school sometimes as late as seven o-clock in the evening inputting data on the computer or preparing her lessons.

Now this article goes on to say that despite these many hours of classroom instruction that America is still not doing as well as it could with educating our young people. But I would suggest that it has much more to do with the lack of parental involvement, the "dumbing" down of the textbooks around the country,  and the focus on "teaching to the test" that has been the focus of education in our public schools since the introduction of NCLB.

Nor does it help to provide a multifaceted educational experience with the dramatic increase in the banning of books from our school libraries:

On Monday at the Republic, MO school board meeting, four Republic School Board members reviewed a year-old complaint that three books are inappropriate reading material for high school children. In a 4-0 vote, the members decided to ax two of the three books from the high school curriculum and the library shelves: Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson was spared. The resident who filed the original complaint targeted these three books because “they teach principles contrary to the Bible“ 

There have been 20 books banned in the last six months from school libraries. And instead of responding to complaints from a single parent, like in times past, these days the complaints are coming from organizations that seem determined to "clean up" the libraries in response to a religious or political agenda:

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, says he believes the challenges are increasingly influenced by politics and the economy. 

" Districts are dependent on budgets, and politically motivated school boards try to determine what we read, what we think and what we teach," he says. 

Here is the list of banned books.

Cutting school funding at every opportunity, demanding high exam scores even in low income/high crime  areas, and removing intellectually stimulating reading material that does not comport with a right wing political agenda, and we want to blame TEACHERS for the lack of success in our classrooms?

Thin skinned Sarah Palin reveals her vicious side to reporters.

"Hey Tawd, you better remember who wears the pants in this family. Got it buster?"

Now as you read this REMEMBER it comes from uber-right wing blog, the American Spectator:

What happened was that Alex Pappas of The Daily Caller, one of the rising stars among political scribes and a meticulously careful and wonderfully polite, fair-minded young man (an aside: I've known him since he was in junior high school), wrote a perfectly fine story about Palin's current stances vis-a-vis the presidential race. In it, one of the things she said was that if Mitt Romney is the nominee, well, of course she would endorse him over Barack Obama.

Fox Nation picked up the story and, in its own headline (not Pappas', not the Daily Caller's, but its own headline completely apart from anything Pappas ever wrote) played up the "Romney endorse" angle in a way that apparently did not make it clear that the endorsement might be in the general election, rather than the primary campaign. (The headline is no longer available at Fox Nation, so I can't say exactly what the wording was.)

Anyway, the Palin team pounced. Specifically inviting over reporter Kasie Hunt from Politico so she could hear the exchange, Palin called Pappas' cell phone and began berating him in a very scolding manner for writing a headline suggesting she supports Romney.

Courtesy of Politico:

"So you’re saying that I said that I support Mitt Romney?" she said to the reporter. "And what’s your headline? You need to be clear, otherwise people really lose faith in the state of journalists today and that is, I said ‘ABO’—anybody but Obama. And I would support the candidate who surfaces to take on Barack Obama. But no, your headline leads readers to believe that I’m supporting Mitt Romney at this time in this process, and no that’s not accurate." Pappas didn't even know what she was talking about. When he tried to say that neither he nor his editors had written such a headline, she said she didn't have time for this, that she needed to go back to the "real people" at the State Fair, and hung up on him.

Later, when it became clear that Fox Nation, not Pappas or The Daily Caller, had written the semi-offending headline, a Palin press aide called Pappas back not to apologize but to say that they now realized it was Fox and that the headline had been taken down.

"No," Pappas said, far more bemused than angry or upset, "he didn't come close to apologizing." 

Now see THIS is the Sarah Palin that Alaskans have come to know and loathe. The "attack first and get the facts later" Palin that once chased me out into a parking lot. The same woman who tried to destroy the career of an ex-brother-in-law, as well as her Public Safety Commissioner when he refused to help with that endeavor. The same woman who once penned a poorly crafted screed to the ADN after confusing a reference to Lisa Murkowski's father to one aimed at her own dad. (By the way if you have never read that letter, do yourself a favor and look it over.  It is one of the few authentic examples of Palin's writing that you will find on the internet.)

You see the reason I have never really been terribly concerned that Palin was ever going to win the White House, or even win the GOP nomination, is that no matter how hard people work to groom the pitbull to look like an inside house poodle, sooner or later it will rip your throat out.

And eventually even the MOST supportive conservative cable news networks and right wing blogs were going to have no choice but to call her out on that kind of behavior.  As evidenced by the last line from the American Spectator article:
 
If Palin wants to get rid of the image of being a difficult diva with a rude streak, she needs to stop acting like a difficult diva with a rude streak.

In other words folks, the next time you are looking for Sarah Palin in a crowd, just look for the giant fork sticking out of her.

For those who are concerned that President Obama is giving in to the Republicans and their Teabagger masters, this might help to alleviate those fears.

Somebody sent me this link today, and reading it kind of changed my perspective on a few things.

Here is just a sample.

I’m not angry often. I don’t believe anger is an emotion that makes things better for anyone but yourself, and even that is rare. This is generally a political blog, and in politics, anger is poisonous. I can’t say this enough; the average voter in this country (NOT voters on either extreme side of the political spectrum, but those who actually decide elections) is NOT motivated by anger, cannot be motivated by anger (usually), and actually reacts to expressed anger with disgust, for the most part. They don’t want to elect angry people, they want to elect competent people. They don’t care what WE think the issues are; they want to elect someone who knows and understands the issues and will do something about it.

Put simply, the general public already thinks all politicians suck, so you reiterating that politicians suck does nothing to advance the political process. 

But I’m becoming angry with the far left these days, not just because they’re being unfair to the president and the Democrats, but because they pose as political “experts,” despite the fact that they seem to know nothing about how politics actually works.

Let’s start this rant by reminding you that the man occupying the White House currently got to where he is in spite of the fact that:

• He is a black man;
• He had a father who was a Kenyan Muslim;
• He has an unusual name;
• He didn’t have a ton of political experience when he ran and;
• He had to beat one of the most established legacies in Democratic politics in the primary, and a respected war hero politician in the general election.

Barack Obama could very well be the most brilliant politician of our day. He knows what’s up far better than we do. To NOT defer to his judgment except in extreme circumstances is much like hiring a mechanic to repair your car and then telling him how (s)he should rebuild your carburetor. Put simply, if you think you can do it better, then do it. Otherwise, shut the hell up, because you sound stupid when you criticize an expert. 

That is why all of you Monday morning quarterbacks out there – those of you who are constantly going on about how big a screw-up Obama is, and how he “should have” done something that YOU think would have “worked better” -- just look pathetic. Seriously, you look sillier than shit, and it’s pissing most liberals off, because you’re affecting the discourse, and you’re making it more difficult to beat the right wing, which absolutely MUST be our first order of business for the next several election cycles. Pardon my French, but FUCK the Blue Dogs. THEY are NOT the problem. The problem is the extreme right, who are hell-bent on dismantling this country, one brick at a time.

As many of my long time visitors are aware I have avoided being too critical of the policy decisions made by this President, or acting like a spoiled brat because my pet causes (Ending the wars, criminally investigating the Bush administration, and outlawing the Diebold voting machines) have either never been addressed, or are being addressed much slower than I would have liked.

And just like this Milt Shook guy, I have come to realize that the President is making progress, and out maneuvering the Right Wing, behind the scenes and out of the view of many of his critics.

I have confidence in this President, and believe he is doing the best he can within perhaps the MOST divisive political climate since the beginning of the Civil War.

Is it fast enough for some of us?  Clearly, the answer is no.

Could anybody else do the job with more competence?  Again I believe the answer is no.

So for all of you morons who keep talking about finding a Democrat to challenge Obama in the primary, I have but one question for you: "Are you out of your fucking minds?"

The Right Wing is apoplectic at being accused of inspiring terrorism. I guess all of these people came up with the idea on their own.

Photo courtesy of the Red Phoenix

All of these incidents were compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

January 21, 2009
On the day after Barack Obama is inaugurated as the nation’s first black president, Keith Luke of Brockton, Mass., is arrested after allegedly shooting three black immigrants from Cape Verde, killing two of them, as part of a racially motivated killing spree. The two murders are apparently only part of Luke’s plan to kill black, Latino and Jewish people. After being captured by police, he reportedly says he planned to go to an Orthodox synagogue near his home that night and “kill as many Jews as possible.” Police say Luke, a white man who apparently had no contact with white supremacists but spent the previous six months reading racist websites, told them he was “fighting for a dying race.” Luke also says he formed his racist views in large part after watching videos on Podblanc, a racist video-sharing website run by longtime white supremacist Craig Cobb. When he later appears in court for a hearing, Luke, charged with murder, kidnapping and aggravated rape, has etched a swastika into his own forehead, apparently using a jail razor.

May 31, 2009
Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion extremist who was involved with the antigovernment “freemen” movement in the 1990s, allegedly shoots to death Kansas late-term abortion provider George Tiller as the doctor is serving as an usher in his Wichita church. Adherents of “freemen” ideology claim they are “sovereign citizens” not subject to federal and other laws, and often form their own “common law” courts and issue their own license plates. It was one of those homemade plates that led Topeka police to stop Roeder in April 1996, when a search of his trunk revealed a pound of gunpowder, a 9-volt battery wired to a switch, blasting caps and ammunition. A prosecutor in that case called Roeder a “substantial threat to public safety,” citing Roeder’s refusal to acknowledge the court’s authority. But his conviction in the 1996 case is ultimately overturned. In the more recent case, Roeder is charged with murder and faces life in prison.

Feb. 18, 2010
Joseph Andrew Stack, who had earlier attended meetings of radical anti-tax groups in California, sets fire to his own house and then flies his single-engine plane into an Austin, Texas, building housing IRS offices. Stack and an IRS manager are killed, and 13 others are injured. Stack leaves a long online rant about the IRS and the tax code, politicians and corporations.

March 27-28, 2010
Nine members of the Hutaree Militia are arrested in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana and charged with seditious conspiracy and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. The group, whose website said it was preparing for the imminent arrival of the anti-Christ, allegedly planned to murder a Michigan police officer, then use bombs and homemade missiles to kill other officers attending the funeral, all in a bid to set off a war with the government.

April 30, 2010
Darren Huff, an Oath Keeper from Georgia, is arrested and charged with planning the armed takeover of a Madisonville, Tenn., courthouse and “arrest” of 24 local, state and federal officials. Authorities say Duff was angry about the April 1 arrest there of Walter Francis Fitzpatrick III, a leader of the far-right American Grand Jury movement that seeks to have grand juries indict President Obama for treason. Several others in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement accuse Duff of white supremacist and anti-Semitic attitudes in Internet postings.

May 10, 2010
Sandlin Matthew Smith detonates a pipe bomb at a rear entrance to a mosque in Jacksonville, Fla., while worshippers are inside. Armed only with a fuzzy videotape, authorities only identify Smith, based on talking to witnesses to whom he admits the attack, a year later. They track Smith, a bus driver from Julington Creek, Fla., to a campsite near Fairview, Okla., where he resists arrest with a gun and is killed. A search of Smith’s two homes turns up explosive materials.

June 8, 2010
A bomb packed into a soda can is planted outside Osage Baptist Church in Carroll City, Ark., where a polling station for a Democratic Senate primary runoff between Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is located. The device does not explode, although authorities say it was capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. Officials later receive a tip from contractors who hired to clean out the foreclosed home of self-described “Patriot” Mark Krause, where they find bomb-making materials, manuals, and materials related to antigovernment militias. Krause, who earlier posted antigovernment messages to MySpace, eventually is arrested in Seattle.

July 18, 2010
An unemployed parolee with two bank robbery convictions, apparently enraged at liberals and what he sees as the “left-wing agenda” of Congress, allegedly opens fire on California Highway Patrol troopers who pull him over in Oakland. No one is killed, but two troopers are slightly injured and Byron Williams is shot in the arms and legs. Williams allegedly later tells authorities that he was on his way to attack offices of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Tides Foundation, a liberal organization that, although little known to most Americans, has been repeatedly pilloried on air by Fox News host Glenn Beck.

Sept. 2, 2010
A pipe bomb is thrown through the window of a closed Planned Parenthood clinic in Madera, Calif., along with a note that reads, “Murder our children? We have a ‘choice’ too.” The note is signed ANB, apparently short for the American Nationalist Brotherhood. Six months later, law enforcement officials arrest school bus driver Donny Eugene Mower, who allegedly also threatened a local Islamic Center and has the word “Peckerwood,” a reference to a white supremacist gang, tattooed on his chest. Mower reportedly confesses to the attack.

Sept. 7, 2010
The FBI arrests 26-year-old Justin Carl Moose, a self-described “freedom fighter” and “Christian counterpart to Osama bin Laden,” for allegedly planning to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. After earlier receiving tips that Moose was posting threats of violence against abortion providers and information about explosives on his Facebook page, the FBI set up a sting operation to capture him. Moose later pleads guilty to distributing information on manufacturing and use of an explosive and is sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Jan. 14, 2011
Federal agents in Arizona arrest Jeffery Harbin, a member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, for allegedly building homemade grenades and pipe bombs that he apparently intended to supply to anti-immigration groups patrolling the Mexican border. A prosecutor says that Harbin constructed the devices, using model rocket engines and aluminum power, “in such a way as to maximize human carnage.” Harbin is indicted on two counts of possessing a destructive device and a third of transporting destructive devices. Jeffery Harbin is the son of Jerry Harbin, a Phoenix-area activist with past ties to the neo-Nazi National Alliance and the racist Council of Conservative Citizens.

Jan. 17, 2011
Bomb technicians defuse a sophisticated improvised explosive device (IED) found in a backpack along the Spokane, Wash., route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade with 1,500 marchers. Using forensic clues found in the dismantled bomb, officials about two months later identify and arrest Kevin William Harpham, a long-time neo-Nazi. Harpham had posted more than 1,000 messages to the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network since 2004, when he was a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Harpham also had contributed to the white supremacist Aryan Alternative newspaper. He is indicted on one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of possessing an IED. Later, federal hate crime charges are added.

We could have course quibble at a few of the incidents listed above as to whether the individuals were inspired by the "Right Wing" as most of us understand it, or more fringe elements, but we do have to admit it is a chilling list to see all put together like this.

I would also like to add our own Alaska grown terrorist Schaeffer Cox to the list as well. just to round it out.

These are just the incidents that have taken place since Barack Obama became President. You can see a much more comprehensive list over at Addicting Info.

Right Wing gets all worked up because Department of Health and Human Services will now offer free birth control to women. Because you know that is just abortion BEFORE conception. Tricky liberals!

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

Starting in 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday, insurance companies will be compelled to cover a wide range of women’s health services, from testing for gestational diabetes to counseling about domestic violence, without requiring a copayment. But it was HHS’ inclusion of free contraception in the slate of services to be classified as preventive care that grabbed all the headlines.

The news comes shortly after the Institute of Medicine issued a report recommending what services should be offered without extra cost to female patients. Even those in the reproductive-health community who have long advocated for free birth control as common-sense policy were surprised at the haste with which HHS announced the adoption of the IOM’s recommendations. The idea of free birth control for all falls in the rarely acknowledged gray area between boring old medical regulations and the promise of unrestrained sexual ecstasies—or at least so I’m told by some of the angrier pundits on Fox News—and the department’s quick turnaround allowed it to sidestep an opposition that was just starting to heat up its arguments. Still, Bill O’Reilly did manage to squeeze in one memorable statement, claiming that free birth-control pills wouldn’t work because women who get pregnant are too drunk to use their birth control when they have sex. (No one on O’Reilly’s show bothered to correct his false assumption that you have to take the pill during sex for it to be effective.)

Apparently O'Reilly does not realize that most women take their birth control pills in the morning, nor does he seem cognizant of the fact that if women did not some times drink until their judgement was impaired that he would likely have NEVER gotten laid. 
  
Personally I think this is long overdue, though I also hope that DHHS continues to stress the importance of using a condom, and to avoid the allure of wine coolers and a damp tent.


And speaking of Bristol, I don't know why the Right Wing is so upset about free contraception since it will undoubtedly only help their numbers grow while diminishing the number of liberals born in the coming years.

I mean let's face it the kind of intelligence it takes to remember to take the damn pill seems to be beyond the capabilities of certain segments of the population.

In other words this new access to birth control will certainly NOT keep any more Palins from being born into the world. As a matter of fact I understand that the newest Palin progeny should be entering the world any day now.

I imagine the Mat-Su school district shudders with anticipation.

For those who have been asking if there is a connection between the Oslo terrorist and Sarah Palin, your wish is my command.

In a revelation that should come as no surprise to most of us, Norway terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, is a fan of the American Tea Party, in particular crazed anti-Muslim firebrand Pamela Gellar.

Breivik was a fan of Tea Party darling Pamela Geller's rabid, anti-Islam website Atlas Shrugs, and made frequent comments there. Indeed Breivik's irrational fear and hatred of Islam and marxism, coupled with his Christian fundamentalism, makes him an ideological twin to many of the most dangerous members of the American Tea Party.

For those who were unaware, Gellar has a vicious, anti-Muslim website called Atlas Shrugs, and she is also on the national Advisory Committee of Jews for Sarah:

JewsForSarah is proud to have the dynamic Madame Geller as a member of our national Advisory Board.

Here is Gellar defending her idol on Canadia TV earlier this year.



Yesterday Gellar quickly put up a post condemning Breivak's murderous rampage and quickly going on the defensive:

According to this report, he started planning this attack nine years ago. I wasn't blogging back then.

Gellar misses the point.  It does not matter if the initial spark for his Muslim hatred did not come from the American Tea Party, Sarah Palin, or Gellar herself, there is increasing evidence that their rhetoric added fuel to inflame his hate until he could not longer take it and felt the time was right to act.

And as movie critic Roger Ebert pointed out in his review of "The Undefeated":

"The Undefeated" takes opposition to the Democratic party for granted, and focuses on Republicans and establishment conservatives, who should apparently share the blame. It praises only the Tea Party, and assigns credit to Palin for Tea Party victories in the 2010 elections. As Palin continues to prolong her entry into this year's GOP Presidential primaries, one wonders if Stephen K. Bannon has his money on a third-party bid by Palin as a Tea Party candidate. I suspect that's where his heart lies.

I myself have seen no evidence that Adolph Hitler ever personally murdered a Jew, but whose name is forever linked to the extinction of six million Jewish people?

So to date Sarah Palin placing a bullseye over Gabrielle Gifford's district had NOTHING to do with her being shot, her hate filled rhetoric during the McCain campaign had NOTHING to do with the insane number of death threats against our President, and her participation in the anti-Muslim hate speech coming from the Tea Party had NOTHING to do with what happened in Oslo, Norway.  Is that what we are supposed to believe?

That is quite a number of coincidences, and what is it that Palin believes about coincidences again?

“There are no coincidences” is a favorite maxim.

 I could not have said it better myself.

(I would like to give a hat tip to the anonymous commenter who sent me some of the links I used in this post.  Thank you very much for your help.)

What was the motivation behind the Oslo killings? And are they destined to happen in America next?

This is pretty chilling stuff folks so you may want to have at the very least a cup of coffee before reading this.

Courtesy of the Foreign Policy blog:

I have just finished reading through what appears to be the 1,518-page manifesto and handbook of the alleged perpetrator of the worst terrorist attack in Norwegian history.

The manifesto, bylined by someone calling himself Andrew Berwick, is entitled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence" and was posted on Stormfront.org, a white supremacist website, and discovered by American blogger Kevin I. Slaughter. [UPDATE: Norwegian TV has confirmed that the author is indeed the Oslo shooter, according to the New York Times.]

In it, "Berwick" declares himself a "Justiciar Knight Commander," a leading member of a "re-founded" Knights Templar group formed at an April 2002 meeting in London. He claims the founding group has 9 members, whom he does not name, and that three other sympathizers were not able to attend the original meeting.

"Our purpose," the document reads, is to "seize political and military control of Western European countries and implement a cultural conservative political agenda."

In grim, apocalyptic language, it advocates attacks on "traitors" across Europe who are supposedly enabling a Muslim takeover of the continent.

"[W]e should… not exceed (per 2010) aprox. 45 000 dead and 1 million wounded cultural Marxists/multiculturalists in Western Europe," the author writes. "The time for dialogue is over. We gave peace a chance. The time for armed resistance has come."

The manifesto also provides detailed instructions for everything from making a bomb to raising funds to preparing physically and mentally for what the author describes as a coming three-stage "civil war" between patriotic nationalists and "multiculturalists" who are, wittingly or not, destroying European civilization.

Filled with hateful rantings against Muslims -- whom the author claims are on a trajectory to take over Europe and erase its culture patrimony -- the writing bears a great resemblence to online comments attributed to Anders Breivik, 32, the confessed perpetrator of a massacre that has so far claimed nearly 100 lives.

The author also claims to be Norwegian, and says that English is not his native language. And at the bottom of the document are several pictures of Breivick in different outfits, including the frogman costume pictured above.

There is much more which you can read for yourself by clicking the link above.

This is very frightening information indeed, and I am sure I am not the only one amongst us who immediately thought of Jared Lee Loughner, or Timothy McVeigh, after reading of this tragedy and then wondered if, in this time of vicious political bickering, the very same kind of horrific incident wasn't in America's immediate future as well.

I can tell you with certainty that Frank Schaeffer has very little doubt:

There is a growing movement in America that equates godliness with hatred of our government in fact hatred of our country as fallen and evil because we allow women choice, gays to marry, have a social safety net, and allow immigration from other cultures and non-white races.

According to the Guardian newspaper, the killer wrote:

"Today's Protestant church is a joke," he wrote in an online post in 2009. "Priests in jeans who march for Palestine and churches that look like minimalist shopping centres. I am a supporter of an indirect collective conversion of the Protestant church back to the Catholic."

It seems Anders Behring Breivik longed for a "pure" and ultra conservative religion. He was a man of religious conviction, no liberals with their jeans need apply! Liberals beware.

Norway is just a first taste of what will happen here on a larger scale.

I certainly hope that this time Mr. Schaeffer is incorrect, but I cannot pretend not to see the same gathering storm clouds of which he is speaking.

And for those who have recently questioned why I still bother to call out Sarah Palin on her lies, and reveal to the world just how insane she, and her political points of view, are, this is why. Because the people behind this kind of hatred, and plans for Christofascist domination, are looking for an attractive package behind which they can broadcast their message of hate and divisiveness until the country is so splintered that they can then step in to grab hold of the reins of power.

I have long been convinced that Sarah Palin WAS the vessel that they chose to further their agenda.  But we, with no small amount of help from Palin herself, have managed to damage her credibility to the point that I don't believe they find her useful any longer. By no means am I suggesting that she is not still somebody whose activities should be monitored carefully, because she is.

However there are others like Bachmann and Perry with which we still to contend.  And hidden in the shadows there can be no doubt that America has its version of an Anders Behring Breivik, just waiting in the wings for that last straw to snap his emotional camel's back, or perhaps for direction from a Right Wing radio host or Fox News talking head, to provide a clue as to which enemy he needs to place in his crosshairs.

In other words my friends when it comes to unveiling the dangerous agendas of the lunatic fringe, or shining the light of truth on dark plots of nefarious political operatives, we have really only just begun.

In the immortal words of Robert Frost:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.