Republican insanity

I accept that plenty of people aren’t going to agree with me and that we will value things differently in the political realm.  That said, oh how I wish these people were actually sane (from the N&O):

Long after the controversy over President Obama’s birthplace seemed settled, some Republican congressional candidates in North Carolina have brought new attention to the issue as they seek advantages in hard-fought primary races.

Richard Hudson, considered a leading Republican candidate in the race to unseat Democratic U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell in the 8th Congressional District, told a Tea Party group in Rowan County recently that “there’s no question President Obama is hiding something on his citizenship.”

Dr. John Whitley, one of Hudson’s opponents in Tuesday’s primary, declared Obama’s birth certificate a “poorly reproduced forgery” after comparing it to the Hawaiian birth certificate of one of his campaign workers…

George Hutchins, a candidate in District 4 [ my district, no less!], is convinced the birth certificate is a forgery. He promises if elected in the fall to help lead an investigation of the birth certificate, regardless of whether Obama is re-elected or not. The Republican winner in the 4th will face Democrat David Price in the general election.

Oh for the good old days when Republicans were reasonable– like Jesse Helms .

Photo of the Day

From my own archives.  Thursday was Wake County Public Schools Special Olympics and Kim, Sarah, and I went to watch/help Alex participate.   Here’s Alex with his 2nd place ribbon for 50m dash.

Of course, just the day before I saw him run easily twice as fast when we were on our “walk.”  Also, he could have easily won the softball throw if he were throwing it off our deck (oh, the things he throws off the deck) instead of actually being asked to throw something.  Still, pretty cool.

Paying for college football

Interesting Bloomberg article on just how much Rutgers students subsidize their football team.  A little-known truth is that all but a handful of the most successful college football programs are a net drain on their university budget.  Rutgers has taken it to an extreme level, with the average student paying $1000/year to field a persistently mediocre football team.  Rutgers is not along, they are just the worst.  Bloomberg also put together a really interactive chart that looks at total support for the football team out of the university budget for public universities in major conferences:

Click here for the interactive version where you can see spending per/student when you move the mouse over a school.  Very please to see that the NC State subsidy is only $50/student.  Now, that seems more like it to me.  I’m sure its pretty high at Duke because it’s got to be expensive to compete in the ACC and Duke sure doesn’t bring in a lot of revenue.  As a private school, though, they don’t have to provide the financial data.  As for my graduate school alma mater, Ohio State’s football team is one of those lucrative few that is a net plus for the university.