How to spot a commie kindergartener

El Cabrero is on high alert. I have a grandson who started kindergarten in a public school this year. This means there is a fair degree of possibility that he could have been exposed, however briefly, to President Obama's speech to American schoolchildren and as a result may well be a hardened and disciplined professional communist revolutionary.

Perhaps you too have a loved one who may have been indoctrinated in Bolshevism as well. Here are some telltale signs and tests you may administer:

*First, listen for any new and unusual phrases, such as "means of production," "expropriation of the expropriators," "surplus value," and/or "exploitation of the proletariat."

*Second, check for Marx, Engels or Lenin action figures. If you don't recognize them, suspect anything with a beard.

*Third, check reading material for comic book editions of things like State and Revolution, What is to be Done?, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, and Critique of the Gotha Program.

*Fourth, look for new and unusual behavior, such as attempting to sell subversive newspapers at factory gates.

*Fifth, try the Internationale test. Walk up to the child in question and sing the following words: "Arise, you prisoners of starvation." If the child responds by belting out "Arise, you wretched of the earth," we can reasonably suspect indoctrination.

If the worst has happened, all hope is not lost. There is a fair to middling chance that the child may split from or expelled from the Party over doctrinal and sectarian disputes. With any luck, he or she may even in time become a neo-con.

DON'T CLICK HERE or you might become a commie too.

PUBLIC OPTION. Here's Paul Krugman on why it matters for health care reform. And here's something on how the prospects for reform look at the moment.

MONEY ON THE TABLE. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act set aside $5 billion in emergency funds for states to help needy families, but so far few have taken advantage of it.

IF YOU'VE BEEN PONDERING WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH SEVERED GECKO TAILS, click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED