Who is the best rapper of them all? It depends on your criteria. Is there anyone that overall comes close to challenging KRS-ONE?

From DC Thornton: Quote:

I watched the debate concerning "Ebonics" on Hannity & Colmes last night with jimi izrael and Charles Polk. Transcript links to follow.

In a nutshell, I disagree with izreal's call to accept and embrace black English. Broken English (the old-school term for it) should not be taught in our schools as a language. Doing so will only legitimize poor communication skills and hinder the academic/career potential of blacks.

While "Ebonics" might be fine and dandy for chillin' out in the 'hood, try using it in a job interview sometime. Let me know if you got the job.

John Hiller makes a convincing argument of blogs as... parasites.

(Link via Virginia Postrel

Micheal Barone has a good piece on gun control and affirmative action.

( via InstaPundit

Jonah Goldberg had a good piece on blogs in the Washington Times! Goldberg even admitted NRO's The Corner is blog! Finally.

(via Vodka Pundit )

There has been a lot of posting on this teen sex issue. Personally, I don't think it is such a bad thing. I have some responses to make to some of Ben Domenech's statements.

Quote: Today's baby boomer moms and dads worry chiefly about the following three things affecting their teens, in this order: 1. Crime and Violence; 2. Drugs; 3. Alcohol. Sexual activity doesn't even break the top five. Shouldn't parents be worrying about their child's safety first? Sex is not necessarily a bad thing.

Ben comes to the conclusion from quoting a poll that teenagers are highly worried about sex. From what I know this is not the case. Where is the evidence?

War Now! is a good blog run by a former liberal. This blog gives good focus to the issues in the Middle East.

(Link via USS Clueless

The Mexican army fired on U.S. Border Patrol on Friday night.

Jay Greene at National Review Online argues that recent attacks on special education are unwarranted. He doesn't prove that special education spending doesn't move funds that could be used elsewhere but rather would have people attacking the teacher's unions.

Schools get funding based on the number of students in special education. Special education has little to do with kids with learning problems. I knew of more kids in my public school with learning dissabilities outside of special education than inside of special education. Outside of the kids with down-syndrome level learning dissabilities, who were sectioned off from the rest of the school, special education is made up mostly of kids who do not even try to put in a decent level of effort into their schoolwork. A problem with special education exists and to just ignore it so can you can shoot fish in a barrel does not make a whole lot of sense to me.

John Walters thinks that if D.C. passes a medical marijuana law that lots of violent potheads will run wild in the District. Have you spent any time with any pot heads John Walters? They are more likely to forget to go to work than cause trouble. Or maybe John Walter is afraid of the cancer suffers surviving who may be helped me medical marijuana.

I am afraid Cranky Professor Micheal Tinkler is right in saying that most of the time spent in schools is a large amount of time spent doing busy work. The amount of time that students actually spend in schools doing learning is minimal.

via InstaPundit

InstaPundit indirectly calls Cornel West decent saying Harvard proffesors should be really good. I think this gives Cornel West too much credit giving him the qualifications of being "decent."

Even Chris Matthews has joined into this blogging game. Not that I am necessarily going to read his blog. I can't stand Chris Matthews he is a populist in the worst sense of the world.
(Link via Ken Layne

Damn it blogspot is acting up! Republish your page or write a meaningless post like this one and your page will not appear if your page will not load.

Andrew Stuttaford is wrong in his belief that the X-Files has been made irrelevant by September 11th. The X Files had already become irrelevant because even its own stars could not be bothered to appear in the episodes.

The federal government has admitted that the anti-drug ads have been a failure. Along with other educational programs, such as D.A.R.E., the federal government has wasted the public's money on a bunch of feel good ads that really are not effective in stopping kids from using drugs.

The National Post gives a good history on the rise of baseball caps and relates it to hip-hop culture. Quote:

The ascendance of hip-hop culture in the '80s can be seen, in hindsight, as the single biggest contributor to the rise of the baseball hat. Though some early rappers wore Kangols or bucket hats, the baseball hat was the headgear of choice among hip-hop's pioneers and those who identified with their culture. Spike Lee, for example, has not been seen in public without a baseball hat since about 1986.

More significantly, rap didn't just boost interest in baseball hats, it infused these hats with meaning. Suddenly the hats weren't just hats, they were signifiers -- an easy shorthand by which you could identify like-minded people. As Monica Lynch, president of the hip-hop label Tommy Boy, said in 1992, "Baseball hats are to hip-hop what Chanel is to couture. They immediately identify who you're down with."

Rappers, for example, wore baseball hats as a way of declaring a geographical affinity. When Mike D of the Beastie Boys donned a New York Mets hat, it wasn't to declare his love for the team but for his hometown. Such identification was important to rappers' personae -- witness the fabled East Coast-versus-West Coast rivalry.

Also, like many early hip-hop styles, the wearing of sports insignias -- on hats, jerseys and jackets -- was borrowed from, and influenced by, gang culture. Urban gangs often identified themselves by their colours, and an easy way to outfit yourself in a single colour was to stick to the uniform of a single sports team. (It didn't hurt that baseball hats also referenced an arena -- that of pro sports -- that was dominated by African-Americans.) So the Greenwood Street gang in Boston, for example, outfitted themselves in Green Bay Packers garb, while a rival gang wore only Cincinnati Reds clothes.

These two influences -- an affinity with sports culture and affinity with gang culture -- collided when the L.A.-based gangsta-rap pioneers N.W.A. appeared in 1988. The members of the group sported all-black outfits, modeled on prison wear, and the black-and-silver hats of the L.A. Raiders -- chosen partly because they were a way of proclaiming the group's L.A. roots, and partly because the Raiders had a reputation as an outlaw team, given to dirty on-field tactics.

Soon, ball caps became a totem for disillusioned black kids and the white kids who emulated them. All of a sudden, a kid in any city or suburb on the continent could show up for class wearing a seemingly innocuous L.A. Raiders hat -- which, for those who recognized it, meant that you associated yourself with hip-hop's subversive attitude. And unlike other sportswear, hats were cheap, so kids could collect several and swap old ones for the newest popular style. Don a new hat, adopt a new persona -- what could be easier? (Not surprisingly, once the grown-ups got wise to the hidden meanings, they banned baseball hats from many American schools.)

Bush signed the massive farm bill despite his objections to the bill. I wonder if Bush realizes he can veto legislation like this farm bill or campaign finance reform that he objects to it. The protectionist side of Bush seems to be pretty strong. Bush adopted steel tariffs, tariffs on lumber, broke a promise with the Pakistanis to lower the textile tariffs and now this farm bill. Bush seems to be willing to take any protective stance, if he believes it may help a specif group give the Republicans some electoral victories, ignoring the goals of the common welfare.

Bush may not realize but in his goal to secure electoral victory in the heartland, Bush may wind up inadvertently helping terrorists. The agricultural subsidies given to farmers and large agro-business, in the United States and other contries, artificialy inflates the agricultural prices that consumers around the world have to pay for farm goods. Without the subsidies a global agricultural market would emerge. This would provide an oppurtunity for farmers in third world countries to make large profit growing crops other than narcotics. The American farm subsidies may indirectly leave third world farmers with no choice but to grow narcotics. The administration of course has told us that narcotics fund terrorism.

Hey Bush! Fight the war on terrorism by ending the agricultural subsidies!

"A new study came out saying 41% of Americans have sex on the job. The numbers may seem high, but you have to remember that includes the clergy." - Craig Kilborn

Jeff Jarvis suggests a blog foundation. Sounds like a good idea. One problem. Where does the money come from?

Rappers are takimg over Hollywood. In rap's early existence the only rappers in moviews would be appearances where they might come out for a quick rap appearance. They wouldn't even play the main charachters in overtly hip-hop movies such as Wild Style, Krush Groove, and Beat Street.

Through talented actors such as Tupac and Will Smith as well as Ice Cube pushed their way in to mainstream films. Now Hollywood is dying to stick a rap star in to a movie because it will sell tickets.

I'm glad to see that Alex Knapp is back too.

I'm back. Enough said.