A few things worth noting

The kids’ school is closed for a teacher in-service day, so blogging will be light. (On the other hand, I’ve already discovered that I’m quite a good soccer coach, since I had the kids’ running around the field actually thinking about what they were trying to do, and not just moving the ball randomly.) So, since my original writing will be limited, as it often is on Monday’s, let me at least make you aware of other people’s good stuff.

On the top of my list is the fact that, even as Lee Bollinger pays homage to the Holocaust denying, homosexual murdering, nuclear hoarding, Shia fundamentalist from Iran, California has actually done a good thing: Today, the Governator is signing a bill that the California Congress passed that prohibits CalPERS and CalSTRS from investing public employee retirement funds in a company with business operations in Iran. This isn’t just window dressing. CalPERS, the state’s employee retirement fund, is the largest pension fund in the nation and CalSTRS, the state’s public education retirement fund, is the second largest pension fund in the nation. You can read more here. (Hat trip: Rocket’s Brain Trust.)

Ahmadinejad’s visit, of course, is something that a lot of serious, intelligent people are thinking about. Not the fact that he’s visiting, of course, which he can do because (God alone knows why) he’s a UN member going to the UN, but the fact that Columbia is hosting him for a meet and greet. Patrick, at Paragraph Farmer, writes an elegant, lucid post looking at the way in which the Left will invariably jettison even-handed policies when it comes to advancing their principles. I love how Patrick writes that “Lee Bollinger of Columbia really does think that ROTC caters to warmongering instincts, but politicians who’ve publicly expressed a desire to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ are all about dialog.” As he points at, this may not always be a bad idea, but it’s certainly trouble when (1) those principles are so hostile to their own country and its interests and (2) the principles are applied with a shocking lack of logic (see my quote, above, from Patrick).

For wall to wall Ahmadinejad coverage, Michelle Malkin seems to be the best game in town. She’s got photos, and constant updates about his appearances and those who are taking a stand against his appearances.

The Chronicle has an interesting article about the problems the Democratic Congress is facing when legislating against Climate Change:  it’s actually hard to do, partially because of political considerations and partially because Mother Nature has repeatedly proven that, contrary to our maniacally anthropocentric world view, she’s actually calling the shots.  That makes targeted legislation about as useful as gunshots against a ghost.  I’ll say again, I’m all for reducing the Petrodollars that flow to fascist, genocidal Middle Eastern regimes and so I support reasonable, market based steps to get us into alternative energy technologies.  I continue to be doubtful about the hysteria of Global Warming, and am not surprised that Washington can’t just step in and fix it.

He’s going to lose — big time, ’cause we’re in Blue territory — but I think it’s absolutely great that Bob Giles is running an anti-teacher’s union campaign to get onto the Reed Union School District board.  If you’re not conversant with Bay Area politics, the Reed Union School District is the district for Tiburon and Belvedere, two very wealthy Marin County communities).  Incidentally, he may lose on more than just policy grounds.  The same article makes him sound a bit too aggressive, not to mention flaky, but his candidacy alone might make Marin voters aware of issues that have always been handled in the usual knee jerk fashion:  kowtow to unions and demand money from residents.  The same article is also interesting because it shows the usual pattern of liberals investigating a conservative rival background, something that Michael Medved talked about during his Friday, September 21 radio show.  (You’ll eventually find the link here, although they haven’t uploaded Friday’s show yet.)