Noting the approach of Cost of Government Day in the States, Jeff Goldstein offers the following:  

Come sundown on Sunday, you all are free of your 2012 obligations to the government. Which now takes 197 days out of your year. My advice: you begin telling every “progressive” and Democrat you know who tries to engage you or approach you or talk to you or ask something of you, that you’re now closed for business, and would they kindly piss off.

Our own Tax Freedom Day, when Britons start working for themselves rather than for the state, fell on May 29th. Which is to say, for 149 days of the year, every penny earned by the average UK resident will be taken by the government in tax. And,  

Tax Freedom Day only measures the money actually raised by the government in taxes, not the full amount it spends. The government borrows one pound for every four it raises in taxes, so if the full cost of government is considered the Cost of Government Day, this would fall on 23rd June.

So don’t start feeling all superior.

John Ellis and Charles Geshekter on academia’s growing political lockstep:

The slant is even now rapidly increasing. At Berkeley the 2004-5 imbalance in political affiliation for the most senior faculty (full professors) was 8.3-1, but for the next rank (associate professors) it was an overwhelming 30-1. And for the most junior level (assistant professors) the figure was almost exclusionary at 64-1. Assistant professors are the most recent hires, and associate professors the ones immediately preceding. These strongly suggest that the university of tomorrow will virtually exclude political or social perspectives that are not left of centre. Attempts to stop this trend, or even to draw attention to it, are dismissed as partisan. Campus liberals are too comfortable with the status quo to worry about a problem that seems to trouble only people unlike themselves. What will happen when the world of academia has finally taken an ideological shape completely unlike that of the world beyond the campus gates?

Readers who wish to see that lockstep in action – and how the lock-steppers respond to criticism – should revisit this nugget from the archives. And remember, these are caring, enlightened people building “friendly, progressive communities.” Just don’t dare to disagree with them.

Howie Carr on when racial exoticism misfires:  

But [Elizabeth] Warren’s real downfall was the total unravelling of her alleged Native American heritage. No one still believes she’s even 1/32 Cherokee, and her refusal to release her Ivy League employment records only seems to confirm that the blue-eyed, blonde-haired white woman “checked the box” to jump-start her sputtering academic career in the mid-1980s. In the spring, when Warren was still clinging to her flimsy stories of “family lore,” she said she identified herself as Indian only because she “wanted to meet people like myself.” She also cited her Aunt Bee as pointing out that her father, Warren’s grandfather, had high cheekbones, “like all the Indians do.”

A couple of weeks ago, several Cherokee who had been most critical of Warren’s scam arrived in Massachusetts to confront her. A perfect opportunity for Liz to meet people like her. But she snubbed the real Indians, claiming they were part of a vast right-wing Cherokee conspiracy. The Native Americans couldn’t even arrange a powwow with one of Warren’s whitebread campaign staffers. Finally they returned home, and Twila Barnes, an indefatigable Cherokee genealogist, went back to her digging – and came up with the 1999 death certificate of Aunt Bee Veneck, who imparted the “family lore” to young Lizzy about her proud high-cheekbone heritage. The form offered as choices for race: Native American, white and black – and the family member who supplied that information listed Aunt Bee as white. That family member was Elizabeth Warren.

Oh, and this is the kind of comment that the Guardian deletes as objectionable. Because, you know, “facts are sacred.”

Update: 

And speaking of the Guardian, yesterday the paper saw fit to romanticise tube train vandals. Apparently the culprits are being artistic and individual, and freeing us from fear. With sledgehammers, spray cans and a repair bill of £10m. The author of the piece, Tom Oswald, tells us, 

I was 12, indestructible and wondering who I was when I first awoke to the adventure of graffiti train writing. It represented a chance to define myself. 

Because, obviously, that’s what trains and tube stations are for. Letting adolescents define themselves by making the place ugly, degraded and vaguely threatening. Even when those adolescents are well into their thirties and looking rather sad. But hey, don’t be so square. It’s a subculture, man. Though, as noted previously, I can’t help wondering how the Kings Place Massive would feel if similar graffiti were applied to the offices of the Guardian or the homes of its writers.

Feel free to add your own.

The flatulence deodoriser is worn “taped inside the underwear next to the buttocks.” And for bedtime, there’s the gas sack. // Every woman wants a chainsaw handbag. // Crab and dachshund meet on a beach. // Kiev in infrared. // Fireworks filmed from above, via balloon. // Papercraft heads. // Full-size Hot Wheels. // Laughing rats. // Landscapes made of wool. // Whale chair, obviously. // What causes a hangover? // Octopus hatchlings. // Russian army, circa 1892. (h/t, Coudal) // Photographs of unusual humans, circa 1870-1880. // The films of Harold “Doc” Edgerton. // Einstein in mandals. // Do not grip fireworks with your buttocks. 

Steve Hoefer explains how to turn matches into very small rockets.

Via Laughing Squid. And if you need a little more oomph from your tiny apparatus, there’s always this old friend: 

Thomas Sowell takes a look at political rhetoric. Part 1 includes the words “greed” and “compassion”:  

In the political language of today, people who want to keep what they have earned are said to be “greedy,” while those who wish to take their earnings from them and give it to others (who will vote for them in return) show “compassion.”

And so we see people who don’t regard themselves as greedy or selfish demanding a “fair share” – i.e., more – of someone else’s earnings. But who’s the more greedy and selfish – Michael Caine or these people? And what about this guy? Which of them is the exploiter and which the exploited? 

Part 2, on “access”: 

Making a distinction between external and internal reasons for failing to reach one’s goal would clarify the meaning of the word “access.” But clarification would destroy the political usefulness of the word, along with the government programmes that this word is used to justify.

Parts 3 and 4 tackle “welfare,” “choice” and of course “social justice.”

Bill Whittle on the higher education bubble:  

Total student loan debt in America has passed the trillion dollar mark – more than total credit card debt and more than total auto loan debt. But as prices have been going up, learning seems to have been going down. A recent book, Academically Adrift by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, found that 45% of students did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning during the first two years of college, and 36% of students did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning over four years of college. The primary reason, according to the study, is that courses aren’t very rigorous… Simply put, the cost of higher education has far outpaced its actual value. The bubble is going to burst.

And yes, we have a similar problem here. In the UK there are currently around 20,000 students of fine art, 10,000 philosophy students and 27,000 enthusiasts of media studies. But is there a corresponding economic need? If the investment of time, effort and (other people’s) money doesn’t pay off with a lucrative and fascinating career in the private sector and a return via taxation, then how is the process justified in its present form? Is it sustainable?

Finally, via Kate, some lovely racial brotherhood from our leftist betters.

As always, feel free to add your own.