Thatcher Saved Britain With Message of Freedom

At the Wall Street Journal, "Not for Turning":

In that dreary winter of 1979, the piles of uncollected trash in London's Finsbury Park seemed to stretch for miles. The garbagemen were on strike. So too, at one time or another, were hospital workers, ambulance drivers, truck drivers, railwaymen. Also gravediggers: In Liverpool, corpses had to be warehoused as they awaited burial—yet another long queue that socialist Britain had arranged for its patient masses.

This was the "Winter of Discontent," when Great Britain came about as close to economic collapse as at nearly any point in its peacetime history, and it was the country Margaret Thatcher inherited when, on May 3, she defeated the Labour government of James Callaghan to become Prime Minister—the first woman in the office and 49th in a line that includes some of the greatest figures of Western civilization: Winston Churchill, Benjamin Disraeli, the Duke of Wellington, William Pitt the Younger.

***
Thatcher died in London Monday, at age 87, having earned her place among the greats. This is not simply because she revived Britain's economy, though that was no mean achievement. Nor is it because she held office longer than any of her predecessors, though this also testifies to her political skill. She achieved greatness because she articulated a set of vital ideas about economic freedom, national self-respect and personal virtue, sold them to a skeptical public and then demonstrated their efficacy.

Consider economic policy...

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Socialists 'Rejoice' at Death of Margaret Thatcher

It's no surprise, although the left's reaction to Thatcher's death is an amazing statement on today's polarized politics in the age of social media.

Image via Louise Mensch and Nick Sutton on Twitter:

Tuesday's Socialist Worker front page - "Rejoice!" #tomorrowspaperstoday #Thatcher (ht @bysshe1) twitter.com/suttonnick/sta…
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) April 8, 2013

Plus, Glenn Greenwald reverts to form with a defense of progressive grave dancing, "Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette" (at Memeorandum).

BONUS: The ghouls at Lawyers, Gays and Marriage throw Greenwald some linkage despite the latter's prodigious pissing on the blog. Disgusting partisan hacks put partisanship above principle, again. Assholes.

Katherine Heigl Bikini Pics

At London's Daily Mail, "Katherine Heigl shows off her killer beach body in floral bikini as she relaxes during girls' holiday."

'Vitriol infests Warren family grief: Thousands are responding to Pastor Rick Warren’s grief with compassion but others use the moment to attack him and his Christian message...'

The culture these days.

Sick. And that would be progressive culture, a culture of intolerance.

At Instapundit, "THE SENSITIVE, COMPASSIONATE LEFT."

And at Twitchy, "It gets better? Sickos continue to grossly gleefully gloat ‘Bet Rick Warren’s son Matthew was gay’."

Margaret Thatcher Dies at 87: 'The outstanding peacetime leader of the 20th century'

At Telegraph UK, "Margaret Thatcher: obituary":

Baroness Thatcher, who has died aged 87 from a stroke, was not only Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, she was also the outstanding peacetime leader of the 20th century.

For more than a decade Margaret Thatcher enjoyed almost unchallenged political mastery, winning three successive general elections. The policies she pursued with ferocious energy and unyielding will resulted in a transformation of Britain’s economic performance.

The resulting change was also political. But by discrediting socialism so thoroughly, she prompted in due course the adoption by the Labour Party of free market economics, and so, as she wryly confessed in later years, “helped to make it electable”.

As for the effects of the Thatcher phenomenon upon British society, these were both more ambiguous and more debatable. Her remark “there is no such thing as society” was wrenched altogether out of the context of the interview in which it was made, and made to seem to be an advocacy of naked individualism, when she was really calling for more personal responsibility. Yet, rightly or wrongly, the 1980s came to be seen as a time of social fragmentation whose consequences are still with us.

Margaret Thatcher was the only British prime minister to leave behind a set of ideas about the role of the state which other leaders and nations strove to copy and apply. Monetarism, privatisation, deregulation, small government, lower taxes and free trade — all these features of the modern globalised economy were crucially promoted as a result of the policy prescriptions she employed to reverse Britain’s economic decline.

Above all, in America and in Eastern Europe she was regarded, alongside her friend Ronald Reagan, as one of the two great architects of the West’s victory in the Cold War. Of modern British prime ministers, only Margaret Thatcher’s girlhood hero, Winston Churchill, acquired a higher international reputation.

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Indeed, she was the towering figure of postwar international politics. Next to Ronald Reagan, there is no one who stood more strongly in defense of the West and Western values in the face of the totalitarian ideological onslaught.

It's no wonder her enemies are just ripping into her and dancing on her grave.

See London's Daily Mail, "'Tramp the dirt down': George Galloway's extraordinarily crass tweet leads the Left’s sickening 'celebration' just minutes after Baroness Thatcher’s death." (At Memeorandum.)

And behold the hatred, at Twitchy, "‘Crack open the champagne’: Twisted Twitter users dance on Margaret Thatcher’s grave," and "#DingDongTheWickedWitchIsDead: Disgusting depravity continues over Margaret Thatcher’s death."

You Can Feel It All Over

My wife was tripping on the Academy of Country Music Awards. The show was broadcast from the Arena at the MGM Grand, where we just saw the Eagles a couple of weeks ago. I was watching Mad Men, but when I went down to get something to drink I see Stevie Wonder playing "Sir Duke" and hung out to watch for a minute. I don't see a video from the show but here's an old clip. Everyone can really feel it.

And Eddie at My World live blogged it:

They are rushing things at this point, they must be behind. Hunter Hayes, aka the 12 year old looking kid is performing. Apparently Stevie Wonder is singing with him. That's, um, an interesting collaboration. He's a pretty good performer, I have to give him that. He plays guitar & piano. He's like Bieber with an accent, musical talent, and no punk attitude. Ooh, a horn section, cool! And the Hunter & Stevie on Sir Duke (You Can Feel It All Over) was actually pretty decent.

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Miranda Lambert is Academy of Country Music Awards' top winner."

Vegans and Pagans Win 'Equal' Workplace Rights in Britain

This is another one of the stories that's just wow.

At London's Daily Mail, "What an insult to Christians! After crucifixes are allowed at work, human rights quango tells firms: Give vegans and pagans special treatment too":

Druids, vegans and green activists should be given special treatment at work, according to ‘lunatic’ advice from the equalities watchdog.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) warns employers that they risk ‘potentially costly legal action’ unless they allow staff to follow their ‘religion or belief rights’ in the workplace.

This could include giving believers time off to go on pilgrimages, such as druids and pagans going to Stonehenge, while environmentalists should be free to lecture other staff about their car use.

Also at Telegraph UK, "Vegans and druids to gain workplace rights under new equality rules."

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Here's a poignant clip from CBS News Sunday:

And see the U.S. Holocaust Museum's website, "Days of Remembrance."

RELATED: "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Remembered By Holocaust Survivor Aliza Mendel" (via Instapundit). And following the links takes us to Yad Vashem, "Voices from the Inferno: Holocaust Survivors Describe the Last Months."

More at the Jerusalem Post, "Israel prepares for Holocaust Remembrance Day," and "On Remembrance Day, Canadian PM vows to fight anti-Semitism."

And at the Times of Israel, "Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day," and "30% increase in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide in 2012."

'Heartbreaker'

Heard yesterday on The Sound L.A.

Homosexuals George Harasz and Douglas Wirth of Glastonbury, Conn., Accused of Raping Their 9-Year-Old Adopted Son

Oh yeah, because children of homosexual parents do "as well" as those with biological, mom and dad parents.

Democrat family values.

At London's Daily Mail, "'They took turns raping me': New claims of child sex abuse revealed as gay couple accused of molesting two of their 9 adopted children withdraw guilty plea and decide to go to trial."

And at the Hartford Courant, "Plea Agreement For No Jail Blows Up; Glastonbury Couple Accused of Abusing Boys Headed to Trial."

We'll see how much the mainstream media reports on this, although so far it's not been getting a lot of national coverage --- although it should.

#Angels #Pregame Prep

They're down right now after a tough first inning.

Nice play yesterday, though, at LAT, "Angels power up to defeat Rangers, 8-4."

The Definition of Cyberstalking

Robert Stacy McCain's dealing with the deranged troll rights harassment freak Bill Schmalfeldt again.

See: "Harassment Is Not Journalism."

CYBERSTALKER (noun) -- Person who obsessively follows someone online, for purposes of harassment. See: Bill Schmalfeldt.
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) April 7, 2013

And here's this in Schmalfeldt's timeline:

When you write a column about me, but don't allow me to comment in the comment section, that IS the DEFINITION of soliciting tweets, Stace!
— Bill Schmalfeldt (@LiberalGrouch) April 7, 2013

We MAY be handing out the home addresses and phone numbers of the various Breitbots who are pimping this dumbass "Everybody bother the...
— Bill Schmalfeldt (@LiberalGrouch) April 7, 2013

I have troll rights harassers obsessed with me and this blog, although so far none of them has released my home address and phone number. Knock on wood. I should be careful about giving these ghouls any ideas, the idiots.

More at The Other McCain, "Bill Schmalfeldt’s Very Bad Idea --- UPDATE: Maryland Resident Brandishes AR-15, Recently Banned in Maryland UPDATE: Schmalfeldt’s Gun Is a Toy UPDATE: No, Says Schmalfeldt, He’s Actually Armed; Dangerous? Maybe."

Despicable Leftist Fearmongers

From Charlotte Allen, at the Weekly Standard, "King of Fearmongers: Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center, scaring donors since 1971" (via Memeorandum).

Also at Legal Insurrection, "SPLC — milking old northern liberals for decades."

Ruby the Heart Stealer

At London's Daily Mail, "I have never been a prostitute: Bunga Bunga girl Ruby the Heartstealer denies her past as a friend says she 'did half of Milan in six months'."

Also, "'I'm not a prostitute': Silvio Berlusconi's 'bunga bunga' teenager 'Ruby the Heartstealer' stages protest at sex-for-hire trial demanding she be allowed to testify."

Clayton Kershaw Blasts Momentum for DH Rule in NL

At the Los Angeles Times, "There's no need for a designated hitter in the National League — ever":

The memories could last a lifetime. You could tell the kids, and the grandkids, about the tingles in the Dodgers' season opener.

Sandy Koufax shyly emerged from the dugout to throw out the first pitch, serenaded and beloved. Clayton Kershaw dominated on the mound, as unhittable today as Koufax was in his day.

Yet, Dodger Stadium did not erupt into bedlam until the eighth inning, when Kershaw ended a scoreless tie by launching a home run that instantly became part of Dodgers lore.

"Pretty stirring," Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti said.

Here come the killjoys, lobbying to eliminate the possibility of any such magic ever again. The start of the season, the first with interleague play every day, brought forth a new wave of calls for the National League to surrender its tradition and adopt the designated hitter.

Should the NL confiscate the bats of its pitchers so both leagues can play by the same rules? We'll take up that issue in a moment, but first: among those who could change the rules, there is no momentum to do so.

Joe Torre, the executive vice president who handles on-field matters for Commissioner Bud Selig, said the issue has not come up in the commissioner's office. Angels Manager Mike Scioscia, who serves on the Major League Baseball committee that would discuss the issue, said it has not come before the committee.

Colletti said the general managers have not debated the issue. Neither has the players' union, according to Executive Director Michael Weiner.

The current collective bargaining agreement, in force through the 2016 season, calls for up to 20 interleague games per year. The agreement specifies that the designated hitter "shall be used" for interleague games in American League ballparks and "shall not be used" for interleague games in NL parks.

In the bargaining talks, Weiner said, the players were much more interested in minimizing the number of interleague games than they were in standardizing the rules. At one point, the owners had proposed about 30 interleague games.

The greater the number of games between the leagues, the greater the potential effect on teams assembled under the rules of their own league.

The Angels, for instance, put together a fly-ball pitching staff, under the premise that Mike Trout and Peter Bourjos could run down just about any fly ball. Then they opened the season in Cincinnati, where Scioscia benched Bourjos so the Angels could keep Mark Trumbo's bat in the lineup.

If owners and players were to agree on one set of rules, the designated hitter would come to the NL, just as it has to the minor leagues and to virtually every other professional league in the world.

"For the baseball purists who say, 'Just get rid of the DH,' I don't see that happening," Scioscia said.

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France Getting Sucked Into Mali Quagmire

Well, France knows as much about strategic quagmires as anyone, I guess.

From John Irish, at Reuters, "Analysis: Mali insurgency endangers French pull-out plan."

And here's video that says France will stick to withdrawal plans:

If Only I Had a Tiger Mom or Started a Fake Charity...

From Suzy Lee Weiss, at WSJ, "To (All) the Colleges That Rejected Me":

Like me, millions of high-school seniors with sour grapes are asking themselves this week how they failed to get into the colleges of their dreams. It's simple: For years, they—we—were lied to.

Colleges tell you, "Just be yourself." That is great advice, as long as yourself has nine extracurriculars, six leadership positions, three varsity sports, killer SAT scores and two moms. Then by all means, be yourself! If you work at a local pizza shop and are the slowest person on the cross-country team, consider taking your business elsewhere.

What could I have done differently over the past years?

For starters, had I known two years ago what I know now, I would have gladly worn a headdress to school. Show me to any closet, and I would've happily come out of it. "Diversity!" I offer about as much diversity as a saltine cracker. If it were up to me, I would've been any of the diversities: Navajo, Pacific Islander, anything. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, I salute you and your 1/32 Cherokee heritage.

I also probably should have started a fake charity. Providing veterinary services for homeless people's pets. Collecting donations for the underprivileged chimpanzees of the Congo. Raising awareness for Chapped-Lips-in-the-Winter Syndrome. Fun-runs, dance-a-thons, bake sales—as long as you're using someone else's misfortunes to try to propel yourself into the Ivy League, you're golden.

Having a tiger mom helps, too. As the youngest of four daughters, I noticed long ago that my parents gave up on parenting me. It has been great in certain ways: Instead of "Be home by 11," it's "Don't wake us up when you come through the door, we're trying to sleep." But my parents also left me with a dearth of hobbies that make admissions committees salivate. I've never sat down at a piano, never plucked a violin. Karate lasted about a week and the swim team didn't last past the first lap. Why couldn't Amy Chua have adopted me as one of her cubs?

Then there was summer camp...

She's hilarious ---- but so true!

I love the "two moms" part. Yeah, that'll get you right in! Overcoming the bigotry and oppression straight to Harvard Yard!

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Sears Portrait Studio Closes Down

When my oldest son was born, we had Sears portraits done at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and one year. The prices were reasonable and we got to know the staff in the portrait studio. My second son just wouldn't sit long enough to really do the portraits, so I think we only took him a couple of times.

Now a tradition has ended, at the Wall Street Journal, "Lasting Memories? The Sears Portrait Studio Shuts Down: Photographer Had Been Experiencing Financial Troubles":

The lights have gone off on another American tradition.

The photographer that ran the portrait studios at Sears Holdings Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT and Babies "R" Us abruptly closed its business, at least temporarily ending a longtime retail tradition at those stores.

CPI Corp., CPIC -13.04% in a statement on its website, said it closed all of its U.S. studios "after many years of providing family portrait photography." The St. Louis-based company didn't explain the hasty closure, and calls to CPI went unanswered. However, the company has struggled financially, hurt by the rise of digital photography.

The news came suddenly to the retailers. "We were notified Thursday that CPI is ceasing its U.S. operations at retailers across the country immediately," Sears spokesman Howard Riefs said. CPI has provided photo services for Sears's customers since 1959 and has been the store's only portrait studio operator since 1986, currently located in all 788 Sears stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Sears "is exploring all options" to potentially provide portrait services as soon as possible, Mr. Riefs said.

The look and feel of the photographs—cloth backdrops, wide smiles and subjects looking slightly off-camera—became part of the visual dictionary of creative artists, being re-appropriated for everything from a band photo by the Red Hot Chili Peppers to the film poster for "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

One former customer, Becky Schaaf, used to take her 4-year-old son to a Sears Portrait Studio every three months during the first year of his life, until she decided she could get the same result, or better, on her own or by finding local professionals.

"We started to realize that with a decent camera we could be taking strong photos," said Ms. Schaaf, now a mother of two in Ashland, Ohio. "I just got an iPhone…[and] for the day to day, we're just as happy with that."

Actually, I'm surprised the company didn't fold sooner. It's not like photography is just now changing or anything.

More at that top link.

Six Americans Killed in Afghanistan Attacks

At the Washington Post, "Six Americans, including three civilians, killed in attacks in Afghanistan."

Three American civilians and three U.S. troops were killed in two attacks in Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said, including a powerful blast that struck officials traveling to a school to donate books. Among the dead was the first State Department diplomat to be killed in the country since the war began.

The bloodshed Saturday, the deadliest day this year for Americans in Afghanistan, underscored how dangerous the country remains as the United States proceeds with the withdrawal of its remaining troops over the next 20 months, leaving security in the hands of Afghanistan’s fledgling army.

The attacks suggested that even as the military coalition’s focus shifts to managing the drawdown, the United States appears likely to face an intense “fighting season,” the springtime period in Afghanistan during which violence typically in­creases.

More at that top link, and at Long War Journal, "Taliban suicide bomber kills 5 ISAF personnel in southeastern Afghanistan."

Mean Tweets Are Mean!

This is hilarious!

The main solution? Just block the f-kers. Toxic. Hate-filled progressive idiots. Just block the losers.

Government Agencies Respond to 'Sovereign Citizens'

I consider people like this crackpots, although the Los Angeles Times is leaning toward the "right wing terrorist" meme with this piece.

See, "Police teach tactics for handling 'sovereign citizens'":

GREENSBORO, N.C. — With his shaggy hair, bushy mustache and obstinate ways, Jeffrey Allen Wright was well known to sheriff's deputies in Santa Rosa County, Fla.

Wright, 55, drove around with a phony license plate. When stopped, he refused to produce a driver's license. Once he threatened to sue a deputy who pulled him over.

After he was fined for traffic offenses in September, Wright paid with counterfeit money orders. When deputies served warrants for felony counterfeiting March 8, Wright barricaded himself in his garage and declared that he would not be "a servant of the king."

He broke out windows with a handgun, then pointed the weapon at officers, police said. Three deputies fired, killing Wright.

When Det. Rob Finch of the Greensboro police department heard about the incident, two words came to mind: sovereign citizen.

Finch teaches police and public officials around the country how to deal with self-described "sovereign citizens" like Wright. Finch and his partner, Det. Kory Flowers, have trained nearly 15,000 police and 5,000 public officials to combat sovereigns, zealots who refuse to recognize government authority in virtually any form.

Violent confrontations are rare, but the FBI says at least six police officers have been killed by sovereigns since 2000. A man tied to the movement shot and killed a California Highway Patrol officer who stopped him in Contra Costa County last year. A responding officer shot and killed the assailant.

The agency calls sovereigns — who number between 100,000 and 300,000 — a "domestic terrorist movement."...

Continue reading.

Amazing how Occupy Wall Street, a group that claimed anarchism as a founding tenet, was rarely described like this in the press. Well, not amazing, actually. We don't have an objective press anymore, if we ever did.

MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry: Children Are Collective Responsibility

Folks on the right are pretty shocked at this new "Lean Forward" ad featuring Melissa Harris-Perry at MSNBC.

Here's William Jacobson's post, "MSNBC — All your children are belong to us":

There is something wrong at MSNBC.

Terrifying-->MSNBC Host Melissa Harris-Perry » All Your Kids Belong To Us: youtu.be/N3qtpdSQox0 via @youtube
— Anna Maria Hoffman (@AM_Hoffman) April 6, 2013

Actually, I don't think there's anything wrong at MSNBC.

Remember, this is who they are. This is what they do.

Harris-Perry is perfectly comfortable spouting party propaganda, complete with all its Orwellian lies (that we don't spend enough on education, for example, a fact belied by comparative U.S. public and educational spending among the Western industrial democracies).

But that's okay. I think we're reaching a point in American politics where members of the progressive left are badly overreaching due to a perception of total liberation from the normal constraints of politics. As we saw with Krystal Ball, the left has no problem using 4-year-old children to spread homosexual marriage propaganda. In Ball's case, as least she was using her own child. But with Harris-Perry, the implication is that families are selfishly hoarding their children, denying to the state privately-minded generational capital that should instead be a proper public resource. For if children belong to the collective --- as in communal ownership --- then everyone is legally responsible for their education and well being, and political leaders can forcibly extract even more revenues for financing their education and welfare. This is socialist collectivism at its finest. And it's clearly un-American in the U.S. historical context. This country prizes individualism. Even a public educational system like ours promotes individualism because we see formal schooling as the means of promoting individual self-sufficiency and upward mobility. And schools have always been under the authority of local communities, since that way families can better control political leaders charged with their administration. It has never been true that children were seen as social capital subject to collective responsibility, much less that of a national collective of the sort that Harris-Perry envisions. That's a Marxist notion, or a Maoist one, as other blogs have noted. See Weasel Zippers, "MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Advocates Maoist “Collective” Child Raising, America’s “Kids Belong to Their Communities”…"

Also at Moonbattery, "MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry: Children Are Communal Property":

To a moonbat, the community = the government. The voice of the community is the voice of the government, which is becoming increasingly synonymous with the establishment media.

Anyone still think it is hyperbole to call these people totalitarian?

Actually, it's not hyperbole at all. Harris-Perry sounds fascist even, in the sense of European interwar fascism of the individual being folded into a superior essence of the all-powerful state. Again, it's bizarre in the American experience, but progressives are really taking their political capital and running with it. The downside for them is that flyover America isn't at all in tune with this kind of collectivist fascist intellectualism. There will be a reckoning around election time. Indeed, I expect that MSNBC might have bitten off more that it's able to chew. We might be hearing more about "Lean Forward" very soon, and not in a good way.

Added: A great discussion, at Patheos, "All Your Children Are Belong to Us…"

Child Development Experts 'Stunned' by Supreme Court's Doubts on Homosexual Parenting

This piece is a riot, at the Los Angeles Times, "Three justices' concern over gay parenting surprises experts."

The depraved leftists have been desperately trying to normalize same-sex parenting, and have recently been bullying anyone who defects from the approved narrative on how children with same-sex parents fare "as well" as children with biological, mom and dad parents. The justices were right: There isn't enough data to know the effects of same-sex marriages on the well-being of children. And note this part from the Times' piece, buried way down toward the end of the article:

Not all of the academic experts find this research [on same-sex parenting] convincing.

Douglas W. Allen, a Canadian economist, says the many positive research reports on gay parents and their children were questionable. "The samples are small and biased. The people are self-selected," he said. "If you start with a biased sample, you can't make a statement about the population as a whole."

He published data from a Canadian census survey in 2006 that found children with lesbian or gay parents were less likely to graduate from high school.

You don't say? Wouldn't want to promote those findings too much, or anything.

Small samples, political and ideologically biased. That's going to be the case on this kind of research for a long time.

But we'll see how the Court rules in June. This is going to be something else.

Hollywood Glorifies Communists, Leftists, and Marxists

I guess there's another leftist whitewashing communist movie out, "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners."

Communist Angela Davis is still around, making the lecture circuit last I checked. I met her years ago when she was teaching at San Francisco State. My older sister fell under her wing for a bit. Amazing how times change. Greg Gutfeld just rips into to these people at the clip:

Lucy Pinder Photoshoot for Nuts Magazine April 2013

I got some Rule 5 requests landing in my inbox. I'll get to those ASAP.

Meanwhile, here's some lovely British hotness to hold folks over, at Egotastic!, "Thank God It’s Funbags! Lucy Pinder’s Perfect Play Plays Our Friday Song."

Ms. Pinder's on the cover of the April edition of Nuts, so you know what that means.

Hey, I Thought Those Muslima Wenches Were Supposed to Be Hip Swingers?

I guess not.

Muslim women apparently don't want hot liberated Western women interfering with their battle against the patriarchy. Good luck with that.

At BCF, "Pseudo-Feminists Agree: Islam Just Peachy- Femen Bad":

"FEMEN needs to recognize that Muslim women do in fact have agency, and the idea that Muslim women are helpless, passively indoctrinated by the alleged evils of Islam, and desperately need of Western feminist help is oppressive and orientalist.

"Agency." That's a big word, right? Click through for the full article.

#Femen #muslimahpride #toplessjihadday "I do not need patriarchal states or eurocentric feminists to dictate to me!" twitter.com/sofiaahmed1/st…

— Sofia Ahmed (@sofiaahmed1) April 4, 2013

MSNBC: A Televised Blog for Really Dumb People

Well said, from AoSHQ, "MSNBC, Kindergarten for Bored, Angry Unemployed People":

The MSNBC Messaging Machine finds new ways to be stupid just about every day.

MSNBC is a televised blog. I keep saying this because it's true: part of blogs' charm, at least initially, was that they gleefully ignored any standards of professionalism. The honesty about the slapdash nature of them was bracing. And the honesty about agenda -- to wit, we have one -- was liberating.

But that upside of blogs also comes with a downside. Blogs speak relentlessly to one side of the aisle (are there any actual centrist blogs out there? It's a business model I don't think can actually work). We look for new ways to provoke -- because it's fun and profitable. And I don't mean that in the cliched joke way; I mean, it's literally both fun and profitable (at least in the sense of hit-whoring) to find exciting new manners of juvenile tweaking of one's political enemies.

The medium tends towards two things: emotional hotness and intellectual dumbness. Those aren't cast-iron rules, of course. (Present company excepted!)

MSNBC has fully embraced the blogger ethos of hit-whoring provocation first, second, last, and always. As well as exploring all the new and inventive ways to call people you don't like Nazis.

There simply is no professionalism at MSNBC, no aspiration to any kind of standards at all. It's Dumb By Design (TM), because Dumb is Easy and Easy is Holy.

Dumb, and morally bankrupt.

PREVIOUSLY: "Call Child Protective Services: MSNBC's Krystal Ball Pimps Out Daughter in Depraved Homosexual Marriage Segment."

Pam Bondi Hotter Than Kamala Harris? The Debate

Well, I'll tell you. Kamala Harris was freakin' smokin' the cables on MSNBC a couple of weeks back. The lady his hot.

But no doubt it's a tough match-up going against Florida AG Pam Bondi, as pointed out by Chris Joseph, at the Daily Pulp, "Obama Got It All Wrong With California Attorney General; Florida Attorney General Is Way Hotter." (Honestly though, by politics alone Pam Bondi smokes the competition. As beautiful is Kamala Harris, the leftist ideology she spews will make you puke sooner or later.)

BONUS: Additional commentary at The Other McCain, "If Obama Has Lost Garance …"  And Power Line (via Memeorandum).

The Tolerance Enforcers Will Not Tolerate Dissent

From Mark Steyn, at National Review, "The ‘Vigilance’ Vigilantes":

He who controls the language shapes the debate: In the same week the Associated Press announced that it would no longer describe illegal immigrants as “illegal immigrants,” the star columnist of the New York Times fretted that the Supreme Court seemed to have misplaced the style book on another fashionable minority. “I am worried,” wrote Maureen Dowd, “about how the justices can properly debate same-sex marriage when some don’t even seem to realize that most Americans use the word ‘gay’ now instead of ‘homosexual.’” She quoted her friend Max Mutchnick, creator of Will & Grace:

“Scalia uses the word ‘homosexual’ the way George Wallace used the word ‘Negro.’ There’s a tone to it. It’s humiliating and hurtful. I don’t think I’m being overly sensitive, merely vigilant.”

For younger readers, George Wallace was a powerful segregationist Democrat. Whoa, don’t be overly sensitive. There’s no “tone” to my use of the word “Democrat”; I don’t mean to be humiliating and hurtful: It’s just what, in pre-sensitive times, we used to call a “fact.” Likewise, I didn’t detect any “tone” in the way Justice Scalia used the word “homosexual.” He may have thought this was an appropriately neutral term, judiciously poised midway between “gay” and “Godless sodomite.” Who knows? He’s supposed to be a judge, and a certain inscrutability used to be part of what we regarded as a judicial temperament. By comparison, back in 1986, the year Scalia joined the Supreme Court, the chief justice, Warren Burger, declared “there is no such thing as a fundamental right to commit homosexual sodomy.” I don’t want to be overly sensitive, but I think even I, if I rewound the cassette often enough, might be able to detect a certain tone to that.

Nonetheless, Max Mutchnick’s “vigilance” is a revealing glimpse of where we’re headed. Canada, being far more enlightened than the hotbed of homophobes to its south, has had gay marriage coast to coast for a decade. Statistically speaking, one-third of 1 percent of all Canadian nuptials are same-sex, and, of that nought-point-three-three, many this last decade have been American gays heading north for a marriage license they’re denied in their own country. So gay marriage will provide an important legal recognition for an extremely small number of persons who do not currently enjoy it. But, putting aside arguments over the nature of marital union, the legalization of gay marriage will empower a lot more “vigilance” from all the right-thinking people over everybody else.

Mr. Mutchnick’s comparison of the word “homosexual” with “Negro” gives the game away: Just as everything any conservative says about anything is racist, so now it will also be homophobic. It will not be enough to be clinically neutral (“homosexual”) on the subject — or tolerant, bored, mildly amused, utterly indifferent...

No, they don't tolerate much, do they. See College Insurrection for just one more quick example that comes to mind: "Gay Students Seek Campus Chaplain’s Removal from George Washington U."

'Merchants of Despair'

I spent the day reading Robert Zubrin's book, Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism. I haven't been reading many books cover to cover recently, but I made it a point to blow this one out yesterday. What a great read. I expect to have more later, but the chapters on the eugenics movement were jaw dropping. American eugenicist Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood, and Zubrin's quotes from Sanger and her henchmen were literally beyond shocking. Racist, anti-human, and totalitarian --- chilling, to put it mildly. And after seeing the video of Planned Parenthood lobbyist Alisa LaPolt Snow unable to denounce botched late-term abortions during that Florida legislative hearing, it's a reminder that this stuff ain't ancient history, despite the despicable denials of the death-cult baby killer progressives.

More on Zubrin's book later...

Leftists Attack New York Community Activist Majora Carter for 'Selling Out' to Corporate Interests

Well, it looks like the lady's holding up pretty well. Is she hypocritical? Perhaps. She won some big money grants and started livin' large, but she's savvy and expanded her consulting firm to help maintain business access to the Bronx community. Sounds like she's gonna help folks a lot more than the progressive NIMBY freaks.

At NYT, "Hero of the Bronx Is Now Accused of Betraying It."

The Gory Details About Terrorist Teacher Kathy Boudin

That's Kathy Boudin at the clip below, via iOWNTHEWORLD, "Newly Hired NYU Employee, Murderer Kathy Boudin, Wishes Her Murdering Buddies Could Be There With Her."

And here's Lee Stranahan, at Big Government:

Katherine Boudin is an adjunct professor at Columbia University and has been named the Sheinberg Scholar-in-Residence at NYU Law School. She is also a communist, a Weather Underground radical, a terrorist, and a convicted felon.

Whatever you’ve heard about Boudin, the fully detailed reality is far worse. The story of Kathy Boudin’s crimes and her victims is bloody and ugly. Many details get left out or smoothed over, even by her critics. There’s a wider importance to Boudin’s story: it’s yet another example of how the left uses America’s most respected universities as both a breeding ground and a retirement home for radicals; a way to give violent ideologically driven criminals both legitimacy and a paycheck, often at taxpayers' expense.

These American terrorists and advocates of overthrow like Dr. Kathy Boudin are given a pass by academia and lauded in the arts because they promote communism, socialism and bloody revolution. As such, they are idolized by the left establishment, who view them as ideologically pure embodiments of their ideals, carnage be damned.

Continue reading.

And ICYMI, from earlier this morning, "The Daily Beast’s Disgraceful Interview With Bill Ayers."

U.S. Department of Transportation: Cellphone Laws Aren't Working

As we we're driving out to Temecula the other day, I kept noticing people talking on their cellphones. I mentioned it to my wife. Basically, the risk of being pulled over is far outweighed by the benefit of being able to use mobile phones. I doubt there's much of a moral calculation either, since folks probably think the laws are stupid.

In any case, at the Los Angeles Times, "Laws against driving and cellphone use aren't working, study finds."

Benji Backer, 15-Year-Old at Appleton North High School in Wisconsin, Harassed by Teachers for Conservative Views

Being around a public community college with a far-left teachers union and loads of socialists professors, I can tell you what young conservatives face if they dissent from the progressive party line.

An interview with Megyn Kelly. His worst teacher was in English, where he was being hassled week after week, apparently. English? These union hacks are pathetic. Here's his essay: "15 Year Old Wisconsin Conservative Meets Bullying From Teachers."

Also at the Green Bay Press Gazette, "Appleton teen claims teachers harassed him over politics."

Rebel Throws Explosive Down Barrel of Manned Syrian Army Tank

I never liked tanks.

They're always sitting ducks in war movies and this Syria confrontation doesn't turn out too well for Assad's forces. At the second half of the clip, via Pat Dollard.

Leftist Hypocrisy: Socialist Leaders Condemn Wealth But Still Get Rich

At IBD, "French Socialist Jerome Cahuzac Hides Swiss Account":

This hypocrisy is found in the U.S., as well.

We don't have a working socialist party in this country, but the "progressive" Democrats are doing quite well at holding up the standard. So we ask: Who among Democratic lawmakers and party leadership is in middle-class solidarity with the working man?

And which big mouth of the Hollywood left, who votes Democrat and pretends he or she believes in equality, actually exercises it?

They all inveigh against capitalism. And all have made it work for them in their personal lives.

RTWT.

They're hypocritical assholes, but you knew that.

And at Guardian UK, "France's former budget minister admits lying about secret offshore account":

Jérôme Cahuzac's sudden admission that he hid €600,000 (£510,000) offshore for more than two decades is the biggest scandal to hit Hollande's presidency.

The public admission by the man who led France's fight against tax evasion that he secretly defrauded the taxman and was "caught in a spiral of lies" is a huge embarrassment for Hollande, who promised that his government would be beyond reproach after the corruption allegations that dogged previous French administrations.

What Jobs Report? Hey Look, Gay Marriage!

From Walter Russell Mead:

If a Republican president got very busy on social issues at a time of economic stagnation and disappointment, there would be earnest hand-wringing of the “What’s Wrong with Kansas” variety about how American rubes were being diverted from their true economic interests by the skillful manipulation of emotionally charged social issues and identity politics. This would be taken as a sign of the cynicism of the ruling party and the clueless credulity of the hypnotized voters.

Fortunately, we aren’t going to have to listen to any of that depressing rhetoric now. Social issues are good and important; economic questions like jobs and incomes and growth are a distraction from the real business of the people.

Yes, if a Republican president... Isn't that the leitmotif of progressive politics during this administration?

The Daily Beast’s Disgraceful Interview With Bill Ayers

I saw the interview. "Fawning" comes to mind.

David Horowitz sets the record straight, at FrontPage Magazine:

Below is an email that David Horowitz sent to the editor of The Daily Beast in response to their recent interview with Bill Ayers.

When you interview a shallow, murderous liar like Billy Ayers, you should assign someone who is at least familiar with the basic facts. The Weather Underground was created in 1969, not after the Townhouse explosion which took place in 1970. The Underground was created with a formal “Declaration of War” against “Amerikka.” By their own account at the time (not in retrospect of course) Ayers and his friends were intending to start a race war in America, which is why they idolized Charles Manson. Their first political act was to destroy SDS (which they called “Offing the pig”). Not surprisingly, they had virtually no support in the anti-war left. Far from being innocent of attempting to kill others (you actually let Ayers imply that he had nothing to do with his friend Kathy Boudin’s plan to kill teenagers at Fort Dix), Ayers and his wife incited people to conduct a “war” against their own country, and famously urged others to “kill your parents.” They are still being investigated for the cold case murder of a policeman in Los Angeles who was killed by a Weatherman bomb.

Ayers tries to wrap the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War around his crimes to exculpate himself and your fact challenged interviewer lets him do it. But Ayers was conducting bombing runs long after American troops were withdrawn from Vietnam , and when Jimmy Carter was president, he and his wife provided material aid to their friend Kathy Boudin to carry out a bank robbery which left nine children without fathers. Ayers has no regrets about launching a war that left his former lover and two other of his comrades and friends dead, and that ended pathetically when it became apparent even to them that their brand of violent extremism had completely marginalized them not just in the American mainstream but in the left itself. Shame on you for giving a platform to this malevolent narcissist to glorify himself once again.

Syria: A Collection of Images

At the Big Picture:

The Associated Press recently re-transmitted a collection of images from the Syrian conflict. It remains an incredibly dangerous situation for working journalists who document the ongoing conflict and the conditions of those living in constant danger and with constant risk. Many continue to die for their beliefs, hoping that peace will come to their country eventually. The images that follow are storytelling, intimate and worth seeing again and again.

Obama Leads Effort to Map Human Brain

Via the People's Cube:

Brain mapping of Dems and Repubs reveal 2 types of brains wtim.es/YVeqkY @wtcommunities #tcot twitter.com/ThePeoplesCube…
— The People's Cube (@ThePeoplesCube) April 4, 2013

Also at USA Today, "Punchlines: Leno, Fallon on mapping the human brain."

Rule 5 Diversions

At Knuckledraggin My Life Away: "I KNOW!!!!!"

Melissa Cunningham for Zoo Magazine

At Guyism, "MELISSA CUNNINGHAM HAS A BRIGHT FUTURE IN GLAMOUR MODELING."

15-Year-Old Sarah Merkle Interview With Gretchen Carlson on Fox & Friends

Maryland law bans the reentry to the state of guns owned by legitimate gun owners? Sounds unconstitutional. And the young lady's looking to get into Harvard on a shooting scholarship? Doesn't fit the left's ignorant yokel meme. Indeed, it's the leftists who're proving themselves a bunch of ignorant f-ks.

Call Child Protective Services: MSNBC's Krystal Ball Pimps Out Daughter in Depraved Homosexual Marriage Segment

Via William Jacobson, "Obligatory — Krystal Ball uses daughter as prop."

And see the comments at NewsBusters, "MSNBC Now Uses 4-Year-Old Daughter of Anchor to Push For Gay Marriage."

The child is 4-years-old. That's literally child abuse. As William writes:

Regardless of your position on gay marriage, it’s very disturbing to see a child used this way on television — but then again, it’s Krystal Ball and MSNBC, so almost nothing is surprising.

Another Syrian Rebel Dude Gets His Head Blown to Bits

At Blazing Cat Fur.

They're cracking me up in the comments: "Syrian Rambo Takes a Headshot."

'Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out For' Listed in Amazon's 'Must Read Lesbian Books for Teens'

So I'm over at Theo Spark's and he's got this post up, "What Liberals Read."

One of the titles is "Pre-Teen Lesbianism: Tips, Tactics, Tools."

And I'm thinking, okay, that's got to be a Photoshop, so I check Amazon for the title. And what comes up? Well, it's worse: "Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out for: Cartoons." Seriously. There's a whole section over there: "Must Read Lesbian Books for Teens."

Parenting these days. It's harder than you think.

President Obama Apologizes to California Attorney General Kamala Harris

I tweeted on this yesterday:

Okay, so O outs himself as a playa appreciating him some fine black booty. Who knew?

And now at the Los Angeles Times, "Obama apologizes for Kamala Harris remark; some cry sexism."

And from Garance Franke-Ruta, at the Atlantic, "Why Obama's ‘Best-Looking Attorney General’ Comment Was a Gaffe." And Althouse responds, "'Women today operate" in "two worlds": "the system of beauty, and the system of power'."

I thought there were 2 systems, beauty and power. But beauty is a system of power. Franke-Ruta stumbles over her own jargon. The word "system" was already too much. What makes beauty or power a "system"? Back in the 1960s, we were always complaining about "the system." It's the system, man. So it's a word that sets off my bullshit detector. What does it mean to say "Beauty is a system of power, deeply rooted, preceding all others, richly rewarded"?

Via Memeorandum.

Site Meter Domain Name Expires — UPDATE: It's Working! Site Meter's Working Again! Hallelujah!

Doug Ross reports, "Epic fail by analytics company Sitemeter: forgets to renew domain name."

Site Meter's been sucking for awhile. Here's James Joyner from last summer, "Is SiteMeter Finally Dead?"

I think it's dead now. When it worked well, the service was the best for instant feedback on your visitors. But it's not the only service I use. Feedjit Live is more fun, especially during traffic surges. And eXTReMe Tracking is way more reliable.

I don't see a post from Althouse yet, but she's been a full subscriber at Site Meter for years. She'll no doubt  have some complaints posted soon enough, especially as Site Meter apparently threw in the towel without any formal notification to customers.

UPDATE: Site Meter's back. Amazingly, I've been offline throughout the interlude. Robert Stacy McCain reports, "Did SiteMeter Commit Suicide? - UPDATE: It’s Working Again, But Unfortunately, My Traffic Sucks."

And Ed Driscoll reflects on the service, "Sitemeter Suicide?":

Sitemeter must have rolling server repair issues, as my counter was out yesterday and — knock on Formica — appears to be back, but now others are experiencing issues today. Also, as with their mammoth outage last year, their technical support seems to have fallen into a black hole; while the product still works (most of the time), Sitemeter reps never respond, beyond an automated ticket, to outage issues. Needless to say, this is not good customer support.

Well, as I mentioned at the main post above, I use other stat-counters in addition to Site Meter, although when it's working, I go to Site Meter first. It's got a great layout and attractive display of information, and the information is delivered in real time. Enjoy.

Oops! Jeremy Irons on Homosexual Marriage: 'Could a Father Not Marry His Son?'

Well, shoot. Some folks keep drawing all these politically incorrect conclusions, and now Jeremy Irons? I'm impressed. He's libertarian, apparently.

At Astute Bloggers, "I LOVE JEREMY IRONS — LIBERTARIAN."

Sure to give paroxysms to the depraved progressives.

Martin Luther King Jr. Was Assassinated 45 Years Ago Today

I read this piece earlier, on my iPhone during the drive home from Temecula. It's from 1968 at the New York Review:

The Apotheosis of Martin Luther King by Elizabeth Hardwick (1968) #longreads j.mp/Zb2Oq2
— NY Review of Books (@nybooks) April 4, 2013

In the march and at the funeral of Martin Luther King, the mood of the earlier Civil Rights days in Alabama and Mississippi returned—a reunion of the family at the grave. And no one could doubt that there had been a longing for the reunion among the white ministers and students, the liberals from the large cities. The “love”—locked arms, songs, comradeship—all of that was remembered with nostalgia and feeling, like Irish Revolutionaries remembering Easter Sunday. This love, if not actually refused, was seldom forthcoming in relations with new black militants, who were determined to break the dependency of the black people even on the cooperation, energy, and checkbooks of the guilty, longing, loving whiteys. Everything separated the old Civil Rights people from the new militants, even the use of language. The harsh, obscene style, the unforgiving stares, the insulting accusations and refusal to make distinctions between bad whites and good—this was humbling and perplexing. Many of the white people had created their very self-identity out of issues and distinctions. They felt cast off, ill at ease with the new street rhetoric of “self-defense” and “self-determination.”....

The murder of Martin Luther King was a national disgrace. This we said over and over and it would be cynical to hint at fraudulent feelings in the scramble for suitable acts of penance. Levittowns would henceforth not abide by local rulings, but would practice open housing; Walter Reuther offered $50,000 to the poor sanitation workers of Memphis, the Field Foundation gave a million to the Southern Christian Leadership movement; New England boarding schools offered scholarships to the King children; Congress acted on the open housing bill. Nevertheless, the mundane continued to nudge the eternal. In 125 cities there was burning and looting; smoke rose over Washington.

RELATED: From Joel Pollak, at Big Government, "The Left Has Been Undermining Dr. King's Legacy for Decades."

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, Takes Disabled Parking Spot as Government Slashes Programs for the Disabled

Folks are outraged, at Mirror UK: "George Osborne parks in disabled bay: Tory Chancellor causes outrage by ignoring restrictions" (via Memeorandum).

Friday's front page exclusive: George Osborne caught parking in disabled bay after cruel cuts to disability benefits twitter.com/DailyMirror/st…

— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) April 4, 2013

Meh. Worst thing is giving the idiot progressives a ready target. Not smart, Osborne. (He claimed he didn't know he was in a handicapped spot.)

'You’re a pussy. I know and you know it. If you want to delete my comments, just do it. Don’t pretend it’s because you’re adhering to some hard and fast rule out of some sense of online integrity...'

From Jeff Goldstein on Twitter last night:

Brave lefty blogger demands engagement, then deletes /leaves in moderation all products of that engagement. COURAGE! hisvorpal.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/blo…
— proteinwisdom (@proteinwisdom) April 4, 2013

You violated his comment policy, dicentra. Somehow. And your comments have been removed, as have many of mine.

So here’s the exchange we’ve been having, posted here for posterity...

Click that link for idiot's post at "His Vorpal Sword." The dude's a screenwriter for porn films? Well, no wonder he deleted the comments. The dick's getting torn to shreds at Protein Wisdom.

Doug Robert Figueroa, Student Body President at Riverside Community College, Outed as Registered Sex Offender

Saw this last night on Twitter:

Riverside college in shock after student body president revealed to be sex offender: cbsloc.al/10xPFKo
— CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) April 4, 2013

There's video at the link, and see the San Bernardino Press Enterprise, "RIVERSIDE: RCC student body president is registered sex offender."

More here: "California Sex Offender Archive Record For: Doug Robert Figueroa." Well, from here on out associated student government campaigns won't be complete without the requisite Google records searches. It's a shame too. This guy looks like a diligent radical left-wing apparatchik. Amazing. And those flyers went out anonymously. Somebody wasn't about to let this criminal get a pass by the campus mobs of political correctness.

Pro-Gun Laws Gain Ground

At the Wall Street Journal, "Since Newtown Massacre, More States Ease Regulations Than Bolster Them":

President Barack Obama made another push Wednesday to build support for gun-control laws in the wake of December's mass school shooting in Connecticut. But since then, states have passed more measures expanding rather than restricting the right to carry firearms.

Arkansas eliminated prohibitions on carrying firearms in churches and on college campuses. South Dakota authorized school boards to arm teachers. Tennessee passed a law allowing workers to bring guns to work and store them in their vehicles, even if their employer objects. Kentucky shortened the process for obtaining licenses to carry a concealed gun.

Those laws, along with the long odds for major federal gun-control legislation, show how the march toward expanded gun rights in recent years has hardly slowed since Mr. Obama pledged to use the "full force" of his office to tighten limits after 20 children and six adult staffers were killed at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

This year, five states have passed seven laws that strengthen gun restrictions, while 10 states have passed 17 laws that weaken them, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which tracks and promotes gun-control laws.

Gun-control advocates have scored some victories. In New York and Colorado, which was the site of a movie-theater shooting last July that left 12 dead, new laws require background checks for all firearm sales and limit the size of ammunition magazines. Connecticut lawmakers Wednesday were debating legislation to expand the state's ban on certain semiautomatic weapons and require background checks for all firearm sales, among other restrictions. Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, has said he would sign such a measure.

Kristin Goss, a Duke University professor of public policy who supports gun-control legislation, said these measures are more sweeping than the gun-rights expansions in other states, which she called "technical and incremental."

Still, gun-control bills have faltered in Congress and other states, while pro-gun-rights bills move along elsewhere. On Tuesday, an Indiana House committee passed a bill that would require an armed staffer in every school.

Actually, those gun-control "victories" are already backfiring, at Instapundit, "FOR ANDREW CUOMO, A HASTY LAW IS IN TROUBLE ALREADY," and "HASTE MAKES WASTE — AND ANDREW CUOMO LOOKS STUPID: Cuomo’s 7-Bullet Limit to Be Suspended Indefinitely, Skelos Says."

Also out of Colorado, "Just days after Colorado Governor Hickenlooper signed them into law, new gun control measures are being declared by state sheriffs to be unenforceable due to ambiguities and constitutional concerns. And businesses are fleeing the state, at Denver Business Journal, "HiViz intends to follow Magpul's example, leave Colorado."

Yeah, those are some most excellent victories!

Yay idiot progs! Keep winning those gun control victories!

White Privilege Wristbands

This isn't like George Will. He's more of a high-brow wonky conservative, with ample Burkean sensibilities. He doesn't often deign to debunk the more common fare of the blogosphere, but  it turns out the left's program of totalitarian propaganda is too much even for Washington's establishment conservatives to ignore. See, "Schools Push Curriculum of Propaganda":

The real vocation of some people entrusted with delivering primary and secondary education is to validate this proposition: The three R’s — formerly reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic — now are racism, reproduction and recycling. Especially racism. Consider Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction. It evidently considers “instruction” synonymous with “propaganda,” which in the patois of progressivism is called “consciousness-raising.”

Wisconsin’s DPI, in collaboration with the Orwellian-named federal program VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America; the “volunteers” are paid), urged white students to wear white wristbands “as a reminder about your privilege, and as a personal commitment to explain why you wear the wristband.” A flyer that was on the DPI Web site and distributed at a DPI-VISTA training class urged whites to “put a note on your mirror or computer screen as a reminder to think about privilege,” to “make a daily list of the ways privilege played out” and to conduct an “internal dialogue” asking questions such as “How do I make myself comfortable with privilege?” and “What am I doing today to undo my privilege?”

After criticism erupted, the DPI removed the flyer from its Web site and posted a dishonest statement claiming that the wristbands were a hoax perpetrated by conservatives. But, again, the flyer DPI posted explicitly advocated the wristbands. And Wisconsin’s taxpayer-funded indoctrination continues, funded by more than Wisconsin taxpayers.

In Delavan-Darien High School’s “American Diversity” curriculum, students were urged to verify white privilege by visiting a Wal-Mart toy section and counting the white and black dolls. After objections, the school district is reconsidering this curriculum.

Such distractions from the study of calculus and literature are encouraged by CREATE Wisconsin (the acronym stands for Culturally Responsive Education for All: Training and Enhancement), which is funded with federal tax dollars from IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The disability being rectified here is, presumably, the handicap of insufficient guilt — arising from false consciousness — about white privilege.

There's more at the link.

And being Wisconsin, such indoctrination didn't escape the watchful eye of Ann Althouse, although it took George Will to nudge her toward blogging it: "George Will considers Wisconsin's Department of Public Propaganda."

A quick search turned up this graphic below from 2006, apparently recycled for Wisconsin's Department of Education. So much for originality. The progs don't require much thinking --- they just toe the party line, again, and again, and again! And hey, "Find a person of color who is willing to hold you accountable for addressing privilege." Yes, idiot progressive readers of American Power. I'm holding you racists accountable!

Spending the Night at Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula

My wife had a free night and we're all off this week for the holiday.

The rooms are luxurious:

Our room faces north, overlooking Temecula's south side:

'If you look at all of Amanda Marcotte's positions and writings, isn't it rather obvious she despises men and will always...'

Well, it's been a rough week for the old anti-Catholic hate-blogger Amanda Marcotte. James Taranto has been hammering her relentlessly, and now here comes AoSHQ, "Amanda Marcotte Feels the Need to Weigh In on the High-Schooler-Who-Asked-Kate-Upton-to-Prom Controversy."

Wait, did we just go from a silly video asking Kate Upton to prom to a rape/domsteic-violence-ending-in-murder-scenario?

We sure did. That's Our Amanda (TM)!

Heidi Klum Saved Her Son and Two Nannies From Drowning in Riptide Over the Weekend

At the Los Angeles Times, "Heidi Klum calls heroic ocean rescue 'what any mother would do'."

Also at WWTDD, "Heidi Klum Did Rescue a Nanny from Drowning!"

New Center for American Progress Study on 'Gun Violence' Includes Suicides as Indicator of 'Gun Violence'

Here's the CAP report, "STUDY: States With Loose Gun Laws Have Higher Rates of Gun Violence." (At Memeorandum.)

I don't normally click the crap from CAP, but the headline is precisely the opposite of statistics cited by firearms advocates, that crime is higher in locations with aggressive gun control laws. Or, conversely, "more guns = fewer murders."

But I clicked through anyway, and my first objection is that CAP doesn't define "gun violence." What kind of gun violence are we talking about? Is gun violence being committed by people who bought firearms legally? Or what? The piece doesn't say. But it does spout a bunch of scholarly jargon about "regression," "empirical evidence," and so forth, so it sounds really awesome!

And wouldn't you know it, but the New York Times picked up on the piece as TOTALLY AUTHORITATIVE MAN! See, "Report Links High Rates of Gun Violence to Weak State Regulations."

That endorsement pretty much proves CAP's suckage, although Tom Maguire went through the Times' piece with a fine-toothed comb, "Gun Magic, Or, More Fun With Numbers at the NY Times." Tom notes that "violent" states with the "loosest" gun control laws score high with suicides as a leading indicator, such as Montana. He writes:

It will be interesting to peruse the study when it hits the intertubes. The lead tells us that low control states score high on "numerous" indicators, such as "gun homicides and suicides, firearm deaths of children, and killings of law enforcement officers". Yet I think we will find states like Montana ranking high on just one factor. The suspense mounts!

Should suicides be counted in the overall gun violence statistics? I would boldly say "No", and "Maybe". If the topic is making mental health part of a robust background check system, and denying guns to people judged to be at risk of suicide, then yes, the suicide rate is relevant. And there is evidence that the suicidal impulse can be transitory, so lack of access to something quick and decisive like a gun can have an impact on the suicide rate (1, 2, 3).

But when Obama et al start talking about gun control in terms of assault weapons and limiting magazine capacity, I think it is fair to note that the link between those factors and suicide is not firmly (or even vaguely) established. Are we facing a national crisis of suicides by people who shoot themselves sixteen time and then bleed out? I missed that report.

More at the link.

The depraved gun-grabbing left will stop at nothing to push their un-American gun control agenda. It's truly evil. Seriously. Un-American and evil.

'I've Been to the Mountaintop' — Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Santitation Workers Speech Was 45 Years Ago Today

King spoke on April 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. The Wikipedia entry is here. He was assassinated the next day. I showed this clip during my classes on civil rights a couple of weeks ago. One of my students, a conservative who is Vietnamese, told me that watching it almost brought her to tears.

PREVIOUSLY: "Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Easter Epistle."

Hey Idiot Progs, How's It Feel Getting Smoked on Gun Control by a 15-Year-Old Young Lady?

At Independent Review, "MUST SEE: 15-Year Old Girl Smokes Gun Control Arguments."

Topless Jihad Day

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Holy Smokes I Almost Forgot! Today Is Topless Jihad Day! Viva Titslamism! Free Amina!"

Background at Vlad Tepes: "Tunisian muslims want woman severely punished who showed her breasts on Facebook."

ADDED: From Instapundit, "BARE BREASTS AGAINST ISLAMISM: Femen Stage “Topless Jihad.” (NSFW)."

Ben Howe Slams Tea Party Film at Reviled BuzzFeed

I saw this controversy yesterday on Twitter, where Jimmie Bise was refusing to even read Howe's essay at BuzzFeed.

See John Nolte, at Big Hollywood, "RedState's Ben Howe Rips Tea Party Film On Pages of BuzzFeed."

@jimmiebjr you won't read it because it's on BuzzFeed? And you wonder why we're labeled 'closed minded'.@benhowe
— Tracy Lee (@RememberComeNov) April 2, 2013

More from John Nolte, "An Open Offer to Ben Howe's Defenders."

Here's the BuzzFeed essay, "Another Terrible Conservative Movie."

Apple Preps iPhones

At the Wall Street Journal, "Apple to Begin iPhone Production This Quarter":

Apple Inc. plans to begin production of a refreshed iPhone similar in size and shape to its current one in the second quarter of the year, according to people familiar with the device's production, teeing up a possible summer launch for the next version of its flagship device.

At the same time, Apple continues to work with its manufacturing partners in Asia on a less expensive iPhone that could be launched as soon as the second half of this year, these people said. The four-inch device likely will use a different casing from the higher-end iPhone. Apple has been working on different color shells for the phone but its plans remain unclear.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that the company was working on a less expensive iPhone that could go on sale as soon as this year. Analysts have said they expect Apple to launch its next iPhone around the summer.

The two devices reflect new pressures on Apple. The Cupertino, Calif., company has long commanded unique premiums for the iPhone, but consumer demand for cheaper products is spiking. A flood of smartphone entrants and the rise of Samsung Electronics Co. have commoditized the market, squeezing margins and dividing profits among an array of devices.

"There isn't really any major differentiator between the players at this phase," said Neil Mawston, an analyst at research firm Strategy Analytics. He said to cope, Apple needs to take a page from Samsung and launch more products faster.

"The panacea is to transform the industry with a revolutionary design," Mr. Mawston said. Until then "you have to do the traditional business school implementations like manage costs and move quicker than rivals."

I'm really impressed with my iPhone. It'll be interesting to see how the product improves.

More at that top link.

This Is Columbia University

From David Horowitz, at National Review:

People who ask how it is possible that a convicted killer — a participant in a failed plot to blow up a social dance attended by 18-year-old draftees and their dates; a murderess who abetted the cold-blooded massacre of three law-enforcement officers, including the first African-American on the Nyack police force; a woman whose actions left nine children fatherless and who has shown no genuine remorse for that — should be hired as an adjunct professor at an elite school like Columbia University haven’t been paying attention to what’s happened to our educational system from kindergarten to the university level, which has long been under the academic thumb of a Left that is comfortable supporting Islamic supremacists and anti-American terrorists both at home and abroad. After all, it was at Columbia that, in the wake of 9/11, Professor Nicholas De Genova told 3,000 Columbia protesters against America’s war on terror that he wished for “a million Mogadishus” and that a peaceful world would have no place for America.

The prestige of Columbia derives from its scientific and professional divisions (Social Work and Education excepted), in which traditional standards drawn from the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution and including two sides to controversial questions are still observed. Over the past several decades, the liberal-arts divisions and the aforementioned professional schools have reverted to their religious origins, except that the doctrines being rammed down students’ throats without the benefit of opposing views are Marxist rather than Christian.

Continue reading.

Thumping: Bill O'Reilly Blows Up at Laura Ingraham

Over the top bluster. That's O'Reilly's schtick. And I think Ingraham's got a good point too. (Via Memeorandum.)

Mick and Mairead Philpott Guilty of Manslaughter in Deaths of Children

Also guilty was friend Paul Mosley. But the Philpotts were despicable welfare dependency cases.

At London's Daily Mail, "Vile product of Welfare UK: Man who bred 17 babies by five women to milk benefits system is guilty of killing six of them."

More:

* "Michael Philpott is a perfect parable for our age, writes A.N. WILSON: His story shows the pervasiveness of evil born out of welfare dependency."

* "Group sex on a snooker table, dogging and a girlfriend who shared his marital home: The sordid sex life of 'manipulative' Mick Philpott and his wife Mairead."

And see Telegraph UK, "Lies behind death fire couple's mask of grief," and "Derby fire: Sex-obsessed Philpott lived tawdry lifestyle."

Shooters Were Dems

Via Twitter:

Shooters were liberals /Dems. Hmm...? #tcot #tgdn twitter.com/JamieLee0817/s…
— Jamie (@JamieLee0817) April 3, 2013

RELATED: At London's Daily Mail, "Revealed: The never-before-seen photo of Newtown killer Adam Lanza and the college records which show he refused to identify his own gender." I don't see anything on Lanza's party registration, but he was not a member of the NRA.

Dana Loesch Destroys Liberal Leslie Marshall on Hannity's Show

Ms. Marshall basically conceded the whole debate to Dana Loesch. I mean really. The left's got nothing on this. All they can do is pray for another Newtown, as some have been pointing out on Twitter. Think about that. All the left can do is hope that more babies will die, or else they won't get their confiscation program passed.

RELATED: At New York Business Journal, "Connecticut set to pass landmark gun law." And the Washington Post, "Obama planning to visit Connecticut Monday to step up pressure on Congress to pass gun control."

Project Veritas: 'Act Against Arms'

I need more information about this production, especially the line about the Project Veritas activist's daughter being shot and killed at 4 years old. That has to be true or the investigation's in bad faith. You can't lie to people to get them to sign a petition. Otherwise, it's yet another outstanding illustration of how fundamental hypocrisy is to the radical left's ideological program. Hypocrisy and lies. That's all the left has. People just need to see through it.

See: "Hypocrites in Hollywood Want Guns Confiscated, But Won’t Remove Them From Their Own Violent Films."