'God is Watching Over Me...'

Says Bethany Storro, who was attacked with a cup of acid in Vancouver on Monday. ABC News reports, "Woman Badly Burned in Acid Attack Still 'Happy': Bethany Storro Horrifically Burned in Seemingly Random Acid Attack, Glasses Purchase Saved Her Sight":

Bethany Storro doesn't normally wear sunglasses. She said she just doesn't like them.

But for some reason the 28-year-old had the impulse to buy some shades Monday. It was a decision that may have saved her eyesight.

Not 20 minutes after that spontaneous purchase a complete stranger attacked her with a cup of acid.

"A woman approached her and said, 'Hey pretty girl,' and she turned around and she asked if she wanted something to drink and my daughter said, 'No,'" Storro's mother, Nancy Neuwelt told reporters.

The attacker then threw a cup of liquid into Storro's face.

"Once it hit me, I could hear bubbling and sizzling in my skin," Storro said from the hospital, her face covered in bandages.

The seemingly random attack took place in broad daylight, just outside a coffee shop in Vancouver, Wash.

"When I first saw her, [the attacker] had this weirdness about her. Like jealousy, rage," Storro said.

After the attack, Storro was rushed to surgery at Legacy Emanuel Hospital and underwent surgery.

"Who wakes up in the morning and says, 'I'm going to burn somebody's face?'" Neuwelt said. "It is pretty bizarre, but hopefully they catch her because I don't want this to happen to anybody else."

Despite feeling what she described as the greatest pain of her life, Storro said she will eventually forgive her attacker.

"Because if I don't it's hard to move on," she said. "God is watching over me. … I believe in him. That his hands are on me and I can't live the rest of my life like that – in fear. I can't let what she did to me wreck me life.

"I have an amazing family and friends that love me and I'm blessed," she added.

Reforming Our Universities: The Campaign For An Academic Bill of Rights

At FrontPage Magazine, David Horowitz has some background on his new book, Reforming Our Universities:

The campaign we launched can only be understood in the context of previous developments in higher education. The modern research university was created in the second half of the 19^th Century during the era of America’s great industrial expansion, its curriculum shaped by two innovations: the adoption of scientific method as the professional standard for knowledge, and the extension of educational opportunity to a democratic public. Before these developments, America’s institutions of higher learning were “primarily religious and moral” schools of instruction. In the words of James Duderstadt, president of the University of Michigan, “colleges trained the ministers of each generation, passing on ‘high culture’ to a very small elite.” The avowed mission of these early collegiate institutions was to instill the doctrines of a particular religious denomination. It was not to foster the analytic skepticism associated with modern science but to pass on the literary and philosophical culture that supported a specific faith.

By contrast, “the core mission of the research university,” as recently summarized by one of its leaders, “is … expanding and deepening what we know.” In pursuit of this goal, “the research university relies on various attributes, the most important of which are the processes of rigorous inquiry and reasoned skepticism, which in turn are based on articulated norms that are not fixed and given, but are themselves subject to re-examination and revision. In the best of our universities faculty characteristically subject their own claims and the norms that govern their research to this process of critical reflection.” This has been the credo of American higher education throughout the modern era and is still the norm in the physical and biological sciences and most professional schools throughout the contemporary university.

Liberal arts colleges within the university are the divisions through which all undergraduates pass, and have been traditionally viewed as cornerstones of a democratic society, where students are taught how to think rather than told what to think. The curriculum of the modern research university supported these objectives. It was designed to inculcate pragmatic respect for the pluralism of ideas and the test of empirical evidence, and thus to support a society dependent on an informed citizenry.

All this began to change when a radical generation of university instructors matriculated onto liberal arts faculties in the 1970s and began altering curricula by creating new inter-disciplinary fields whose inspirations were ideological, and closely linked to political activism. Women’s Studies was one of the earliest of these new fields and remains the most influential, providing an academic model emulated by others. The curricula of Women’s Studies programs are not governed by the principles of disinterested inquiry about a subject but rather by a political mission: to teach students to be radical feminists. The formal Constitution of the Women’s Studies Association makes this political agenda clear:

Women’s Studies owes its existence to the movement for the liberation of women; the feminist movement exists because women are oppressed. Women’s studies, diverse as its components are, has at its best shared a vision of a world free not only from sexism but also from racism, class-bias, ageism, heterosexual bias–from all the ideologies and institutions that have consciously or unconsciously oppressed and exploited some for the advantage of others….Women’s Studies, then, is equipping women not only to enter the society as whole, as productive human beings, but to transform the world to one that will be free of all oppression.

Thirty years later, the academic landscape had undergone a sea change as a result of the political pressures from feminists, ethnic nationalists, and “anti-war” activists, and the curricular innovations they were able to institute. In 2006, state legislators in Pennsylvania gathered at Philadelphia’s Temple University to hold hearings on academic freedom. Among the witnesses was Stephen Zelnick, a former Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies and a member of the Temple faculty for 36 years. Zelnick told the legislators of his concern that Temple faculty had grown increasingly monolithic and politically partisan in the years he had been there: “The one-sidedness of the faculty in their ideological commitments and a growing intolerance of competing views [has] resulted in abuse of students, occasionally overt and reported, but most often hidden and normalized, and the degrading of the strong traditions of intellectual inquiry and free expression.”

Zelnick then spelled out what this meant in terms of the instruction he had personally reviewed: “As director of two undergraduate programs, I have had many opportunities to sit in and watch instructors. I have sat in on more than a hundred different teachers’ classes and seen excellent, indifferent, and miserable teaching… In these visits, I have rarely heard a kind word for the United States, for the riches of our marketplace, for the vast economic and creative opportunities made available for energetic and creative people (that is, for our students); for family life, for marriage, for love, or for religion.”

I think I was lucky, especially as an undergraduate, but in graduate school as well, to have taken courses with very few of the radical, anti-Americanists that Horowitz's discusses. In fact, I'd be perfectly willing to confess that I wasn't much affected by hard-left activism in college, only inasmuch as I was a registered Democrat myself, sympathetic to civil rights, anti-poverty and other issues often central to the progressive agenda. It's when I became a professor, and especially my experience at my college since the Iraq war in 2003, that I've come to fully appreciate how institutionalized is the radical left's program of anti-Americanism and indoctrination. As some readers might recall, I've recently adopted a new textbook, American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship, and I'm thrilled that the text offers an uncommonly robust cultural approach while remaining objectively respectful of other nations and their unique historical and political trajectories. And in shifting my approach along with the book, I'm more frequently having students attempt to defend their more anti-American positions during discussions, and there's been a couple of highly critical students who've been unable to acquit themselves when faced with some Socratic questioning. (And that's interesting from a learning perspective, if it's the case that ideology is crowding out critical thinking, which sounds obvious upon reflection.) And I know that my college has some hardline historians and sociologists pushing basically a neo-communist, post-materialist curriculum --- heavy on the antiwar and racist/sexist oppression junk --- although my political science colleagues are pretty balanced overall. I've had my run-ins with leftists over a lot of these issues, for example when I covered the campus screening of Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story," which excoriated the U.S. market system as "evil." My experience --- and my recommendations --- at the institutional level is to stand firm against the leftist backlash, which will include allegations of "hate speech" and so forth, while upholding values of rigorous engagement with the facts over ideology; and of course professionalism in interactions with others. And I'm happy to report that I've beat back attempts at censorship, and of course outside attacks --- from folks like E.D. Kain and The Swashzone communists --- that have been dismissed as gratuitous attempts at harassment.

In any case, I encourage folks to read Restoring Our Universities, and also check in regularly at FrontPage Magazine and NewsReal Blog, where I'm now a contributing writer.

New Yorkers Oppose Ground Zero Mosque by Two-Thirds Margin

Astute Bloggers has the scoop, and it is big. See New York Times, "New York Poll Finds Wariness About Muslim Center." (And click the image for the full survey.)

The most amazing thing here to me is that a full 69 percent of those polled approve of President Barack Obama's job performance, but an almost equal number disapprove of the Victory Mosque at Ground Zero. Seriously. Is there possibly a more powerful statement on how far outside the mainstream are the netroots terror-enablers and the al Qaeda apologists in the elite ranks of the Democratic Party? New Yorkers obviously know WTF is going on. They even give Mayor Bloomberg strong majority approval, but clearly, liberal New York thinks Imam Rauf's Mosque Monstrosity is an abomination. Even more pathetic, but no surprise, is how the editors at New York Times diss their city's own residents. See, "Mistrust and the Mosque." According to the Solons of the editorial suite, "it is appalling to see New Yorkers who could lead us all away from mosque madness, who should know better, playing to people’s worst instincts." Appalling? Who, really, has the superior instincts here? Shoot. It's just common sense NOT to erect a Conquest Mosque at the site of the worst attack on the continental U.S. And it's not like the reputations of the Wayward Imam and Lying Miss Daisy have improved throughout the increasing uproar. I mean c'mon, critics are beneath anti-Semitic eliminationism? Well no, obviously (and sick for the suggestion). Folks are simply asking mosque backers to think again, to be considerate. The Times poll even finds 72 percent agreeing that backers indeed have the right to build. So who really in all of this is outside the mainstream of American tolerance? This is why Americans hate the leftist elite, in the media, the party system, the universities, and in the diversity shakedown industry of the corporate world. Common sense is demonized in America today. But folks can see November from their kitchen windows, and things do look promising on the political horizon.

'It Was the Longest 16 Seconds of My Life'

Painful to watch is putting it mildly. Gov. Jan Brewer told KTAR radio in Phoenix that her debate blackout was "not the finest hour. It was the longest 16 seconds of my life."

Tammy Bruce comments on it: "AZ Gov. Brewer’s Moment of Silence." Personally, we all freeze sometimes. Brewer screwed up, sure. Maybe she wasn't feeling well. Maybe she was just overcome by the moment, but these things count in politics, and that makes thorough preparation and readiness all the more important. She'll no doubt be seeing her 16-second freeze in attack ads, but she can hold herself high nevertheless for having a brief episode of human frailty. It's how we learn.

Slow Start to Middle East 'Peace Talks'

At LAT:

Reporting from Washington - Israeli and Palestinian leaders formally reopened peace talks Thursday by setting a work plan for the next year, but adjourned without progress on their conflict over Israeli housing construction in disputed areas, an issue that threatens to quickly undermine the negotiations.

Meeting at the State Department, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to meet again on Sept. 15 and to work out an outline as the first step to reaching a final peace deal by next September. The two leaders, whose last face-to-face session was 20 months ago, plan to hold discussions every two weeks.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hosted the four hours of talks, praised the two leaders.

"The decision to sit at this table was not easy," she said. "We've been here before and we know how difficult the road ahead will be."

But diplomats said officials on both sides as well as their American colleagues remain deeply anxious over the settlement construction dispute. A partial Israeli moratorium on new settlements in the occupied West Bank ends on Sept. 26 and Jewish leaders are reluctant to extend it. At the same time, Palestinians have threatened to walk out on the talks if construction resumes.

U.S. officials have urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders to stop publicly declaring their positions, in hopes that it will be easier for each to give ground in coming weeks, according to diplomats who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks.

U.S. officials are hoping that if the talks gain momentum in the coming weeks, it will give officials on both sides the political cover to make compromises that, at the moment, only are likely to inflame their constituencies.

As talks continue, it also will become more difficult for the leaders to break off their participation, diplomats noted.

I don't expect any progress frankly, and I don't support the "peace process" while this administration is in power. No doubt Netanyahu is hoping to retain a decent relationship with the U.S., despite the fact of having already been dissed, and dissed badly.

Besides, most Democrats are likely to see the situation from the vantage point of Robert Malley and Peter Harling at Foreign Affairs, "How Obama Can Chart a New Course in the Middle East." Basically, the piece is one long screed blaming all the problems in the region on the Bush administration. Seriously. It's that bad:

The George W. Bush administration's approach to the Middle East and its response to the 9/11 attacks fundamentally altered the region's security architecture. By ridding Afghanistan of the Taliban and Iraq of Saddam Hussein, Washington unwittingly eliminated Tehran's two overriding strategic challenges, thus removing key impediments to Tehran's ability to project power and influence across the region. At the same time, after the breakdown in the Israeli-Palestinian talks, the Bush administration redefined the core principles underpinning the peace process. It made meaningful advances dependent on preconditions, such as changes in the Palestinian leadership, the establishment of statelike institutions in the occupied territories, and the waging of a nebulous fight against an ill-defined terrorist menace. The end result was polarization of the region in general and of the Palestinian polity in particular. This approach also heightened the costs of the U.S.-Israeli alliance in the eyes of the Arab public. Finally, the United States overreached when -- not content with having secured Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon -- it pursued the unrealistic three-part goal of isolating Damascus, disarming Hezbollah, and bringing Lebanon into the pro-Western camp.

Although U.S. policy at the time helped put an end to the impasses that had long plagued Iraq and Lebanon, this came at a heavy human and political cost. More broadly, the resumption of crises in the Persian Gulf, Lebanon, and between the Israelis and the Palestinians prompted an ongoing, persistently vicious, and periodically violent renegotiation in the balance of power among nations (involving Egypt, Iran, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey) and within nations (in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories). Suddenly, everything seemed up for grabs.

This proliferation of conflicts and emergence of new threats to U.S. interests occurred just as U.S. power was eroding and regional rivals were gaining strength. Serious limitations to the United States' military capabilities were exposed directly (in the quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq) and indirectly (when Washington's ally, Israel, suffered setbacks in the Lebanon and Gaza wars).

Meanwhile, Washington made the promotion of liberal values a pillar of its Middle East policy, putting forth a profoundly moralistic vision of its role, precisely at a time when it was trampling the very principles underlying that vision. A president whose foreign policy was predicated on an ability to inspire Arabs with the rhetoric of democratic values undercut any such inspiration by occupying Iraq, rejecting the results of the Palestinian elections in January 2006, showing excessive deference to Israeli policies, and permitting human rights violations to take place, most notably at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

The "with us or against us" philosophy underpinning the U.S. war on terrorism placed Washington's Arab allies in a relationship that was becoming increasingly uncomfortable and politically costly as animosity toward the United States became widespread. Meanwhile, Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah benefited from renewed popular sympathy and were driven together despite their often ambiguous relations and competing interests.

Washington's enemies were finding that the impediments to their geographic expansion and political ascent had disappeared: with the collapse of the Iraqi state, Iran was free to spread its influence beyond its borders toward the Arab world; Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon unshackled Hezbollah, helping transform it into a more autonomous and powerful actor; and the bankruptcy of the peace process boosted Hamas' fortunes and deflated Fatah's.

Right.

No mention of the extreme Jew-hatred roiling all of these states, who were obviously "increasingly uncomfortable" that the GOP regime in Washington circa 2001-2009 wouldn't kowtow to terror.

So, let the Democratic interregnum pass, I say. Start the "peace process" again when the party in power not only respects Israel, but actually knows WTF is going on.

Terror-Appeasing White House Yet to Announce Plans for Anniversary of 9/11 Attacks

Figures.

See Politico, "Few Options for Barack Obama on 9/11":

Every year it’s a challenge for the White House: how to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This year is especially awkward, given the controversy around President Barack Obama’s remarks in support of an Islamic cultural center and mosque planned for a neighborhood near ground zero in lower Manhattan.

The White House has not yet announced the president’s plans for next week, though a source familiar with the matter was doubtful Obama would travel to New York.

But the president’s options are otherwise limited: Last year, he marked the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the Pentagon, and a return appearance there seems unlikely. This year, first lady Michelle Obama and former first lady Laura Bush will travel together to Shanksville, Pa., to honor the 40 passengers and crew members who died in the crash of United Airlines Flight 93.

That leaves the former World Trade Center site in New York, where Obama hasn’t been since the 2008 presidential campaign. But a presidential appearance at ground zero on Sept. 11 — where an activist group plans to protest the Islamic center project that day — will almost certainly reignite the political firestorm.

Yeah, I'll say. There's going to be lots of activity in New York on September 11. I doubt too many families want Barack Hussein Obama on hand to help leftists spit on the remains of the fallen.

RELATED: "A special message for all 9/11 Family members - from fellow 9/11 Families Regarding the September 11 Rally against the Ground Zero."

Rep. Frank Kratovil: Not So Independent

Via Freedom's Lighthouse. (And a response to this, sorta: "In first ad, Kratovil stresses independence.")

Man it's rough out there. James Pethokoukis asks: "Will Democrats lose 100 House seats?"

RELATED: Jim Geraghty, "After November."

No Time for Losers

Be awed at the sea of humanity swaying at about 2:15 minutes:

Revving Up Weekend Rule 5 — Wendy Combattente!

The Washington Rebel's been posting all kinds of good stuff, and not just babes. See, "Eight-Twenty-Eight: Too Big To Ignore."

Plus, American Perspectives will be good for another Rule 5 entry. And keep your eyes peeled for Sir Smitty's Sunday roundup.

**********

And be sure to visit some of other friends of American Power:

* Another Black Conservative.

* American Perspective.

* Astute Bloggers (Honorary).

* Blazing Cat Fur.

* Bob Belvedere.

* Cold Fury.

* Classical Liberal.

* Daley Gator.

* Fausta.

* Hall of Record (Honorary).

* Left Coast Rebel.

* Mind Numbed Robot.

* Not a Sheep.

* Paco Enterprises.

* Panhandle Perspective.

* Political Byline.

* POWIP.

* Proof Positive.

* The Other McCain.

* Reaganite Republican (Honorary).

* Right Klik (Honorary).

* Saberpoint (Honorary).

* Serr8d (Honorary).

* Snooper's Report (Honorary).

* Stormbringer.

* Theo Spark.

* TrogloPundit.

* Washington Rebel.

* WyBlog.

* Yid With Lid (Honorary).

BONUS: Don't forget Instapundit.

And drop your link in the comments to be added to the weekly roundups!

Recovery Summer

From the Heritage Foundation (via Glenn Reynolds):

Maggie's Farm in the News

Actually, it's Bruce Kesler, one of the regular contributors at Maggie's Farm, and he's in California, not New England. That said, his criticisms of Brooklyn College have been picked up by the New York Times, "Brooklyn College Furor Is More Heated Online." And he's interviewed at New York Daily News, "Alum to cut Brooklyn College out of will over required freshman reading by 'radical' prof":

A Brooklyn College grad cut his alma mater out of his will because the school is requiring freshmen to read a book he calls propaganda by a "radical pro-Palestinian professor."

Bruce Kesler, Class of 1968, said he made the decision to cut what he called a "significant bequest" with "a very heavy heart."

"I am very fortunate to have gone to Brooklyn College back in the 1960s," said Kesler, 62, who described himself as a former "poor boy from Brooklyn" who lives in Encinitas, Calif.

"That book was a poor and insulting choice. I'm sure Brooklyn College is still a great avenue for education, but I don't think that I should send it any more money."

The book that upset Kesler is called "How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America" by a Swiss-born Brooklyn College professor named Moustafa Bayoumi.

It chronicles the stories of seven Arab-Americans in post-9/11 Brooklyn.

On his blog, Kesler wrote that Bayoumi's book "consciously draws a parallel, ridiculous on its face, between the horrible and pervasive discrimination and injustices that blacks were subjected to a century ago and Arab-Americans today."

Kesler, a Vietnam vet who has written blogs highly critical of President Obama, said his old school was a liberal bastion in the '60s and remains one still.

"But, there was no official policy to inculcate students with a political viewpoint," he wrote. "Now there is. That is unacceptable."

Bayoumi did not return a call for comment.

In a statement, Brooklyn College said it was "regrettable that Mr. Bruce Kesler misunderstands the intentions of the Common Reader experience and the broader context of this selection."

One point at issue is Bayoumi's edited volume, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara: The Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and How It Changed the Course of the Israel/Palestine Conflict. Bayoumi compares the plight of the Palestinians to the freedom struggle for black Americans in the 20th Century. It's a stretch, I agree.

In any case, Bruce has a post up on this, "New York Times Reports (Sorta) On Brooklyn College’s Indoctrination Book (UPDATES)." And follow all the links, because this is breaking out as an even bigger controversy.

Another Offshore Oil Rig Explosion in Gulf of Mexico

At LAT, "Oil Platform Explodes off Louisiana":

The opening scene was all too familiar. Black smoke rising from a burning oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico and workers plucked from the sea. But Thursday's fire on an oil production facility 100 miles off the Louisiana coast appears to have ended without disaster.

None of the 13 workers on board the platform was injured. The Coast Guard found no evidence of an oil leak, and by Thursday afternoon the fire was out.

The accident — the cause is unknown and under investigation — happened a little more than four months after BP's Deepwater Horizon rig blowout, which killed 11 workers and resulted in the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Thursday's fire sent shudders along the Gulf Coast, but Houston-based Mariner Energy Inc. reported that it was able to shut in the wells connected to the oil and gas platform, averting leaks.

"Automated shutoff equipment on the platform safely turned off the flow of oil and gas from the platform's seven producing wells before the fire occurred and the crew evacuated," the company said in a news release.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the company told officials that the fire burned an oil product stored on the platform — unlike the BP drilling rig blaze, which was fed by an uncontrollable gush from its blown-out well.

"That's a very important point," Jindal said.

Thursday's accident occurred farther west than the BP blowout, on an oil and gas platform in shallow water south of Terrebonne Bay, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

Coast Guard officials said they received a call at 9:18 a.m. Central time that the platform was engulfed in flames. Crews on a nearby oil facility reported seeing an explosion on the platform.

The 13 workers, wearing red floatation suits, apparently leaped into the water, which is about 340 feet deep. They were picked up by a supply vessel and flown by helicopter to an onshore hospital. Mariner said were no reported injuries.

See also Memeorandum.

Iraq: The Necessary War

Daniel Henninger's piece is good: "If Saddam Had Stayed." (Via Memeorandum.)

But check Jay Ambrose as well:

Bush came to power with lots more on his mind than Saddam and little inclination to mess with him. Then came 9/11, and he had to consider that Saddam, a nation-invading, genocidal maniac responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and unendingly hostile to the United States, was harboring an al Qaeda chieftain, had supported terrorist groups and had paid for terrorists to be trained by al Qaeda. Experts said he still had a lot of WMD around.

At Bush's urging, Congress voted to back action against Saddam if he could not otherwise be curbed and Secretary of State Colin Powell convinced the United Nations to adopt a resolution authorizing military intervention if necessary. Though Saddam did allow weapons inspectors back in, his government dodged their demands, and as a U.S. senator named Joseph Biden said, there was "little option but to act."

We did just that, no WMD were found and critics screeched that President Bush lied us into war. In fact, an official search group did find weapons programs in contravention of the resolution. The head of the group thought some WMD remained hidden in Iraq and some had been shipped to Syria. As Herman notes, he told a Senate committee that "the world is far safer with the disappearance and removal of Saddam Hussein."

All could still have been lost if Bush had not faced up to his failures and then faced down widespread opposition in authorizing more combat troops operating under a new policy of keeping neighborhoods safe from terrorists that had been chased away. The effort set the stage for political stability, which remains uncertain.

It's an anti-historical contrivance that this war was an imperialist adventure to secure oil. Wars are always awful, and this one is no exception, though its monetary cost was no more than Obama spent on one ineffectual, politically corrupt stimulus bill. The war reduced risks from deadly menaces and could continue to do more of the same. That now depends on people other than Bush. Let's hope they perform as well as he did.

See also Cold Fury and Hot Air.

Teenage Girl Throws Puppies in River

I'm a little late on this, but it's nevertheless unfathomable. At Telegraph UK, "Teenage girl throws puppies into a river in online video."

Click the image to watch.

No doubt JBW thinks this is hilarious — no evil in the world, and all that, dontcha know?

Peace Through Strength

Beautiful.

Via Paco Enterprises and TrogloPundit:

Hillary Clinton for President

It's a novelty, and that's it. I don't for a minute expect a primary challenge to Obama in 2012, although if anyone could possibly bump Hussein off the ticket it's Hillary.

Israel Buries its Dead

The pictures are heartbreaking: "Islamic Antisemitism and Jewish Genocide: The Funeral."

And at Israel National News, "Shooting Victims Buried":

The victims of the Tuesday night terrorist attack near Hevron – Yitzchak Imas, his wife Talia Imas, Kokhava Even-Chaim, and Avishai Shindler – were buried Wednesday. The funeral procession began in Beit Chagai. As the town does not have its own cemetery, the burials were conducted in various cities around Israel.

Yitzchak and Talia Imas, parents of six children, were buried in the Mount of Olives (Har Hazeitim) cemetery in Jerusalem.

Their daughter Rut eulogized them, saying, “For 19 years you raised me... G-d, thank you for giving me wonderful parents.” She recalled their 25th wedding anniversary just two weeks earlier, “You promised you would reach your golden anniversary as well.”

“Mother, I promise to look over our family, to keep doing the things that were important to you, and to keep the family together,” she added. “I'll be there for the little ones, who will grow up with no mother or father.”

Kokhava Even-Chaim was buried in Ashdod. Her husband Momi spoke at her funeral. “I can't believe that I'm reading a goodbye letter to you, my wife, my beloved, the mother of our family. I've been to so many funerals, I want you to stay here with us.”

He spoke of the terrorists who murdered Kokhava and three others, saying, “Evil cowards, who harm innocent civilians... Only wicked people could call that war.”

Speaking to his wife, he said, “We are not the ones accompanying you. You are accompanied by the angels you created by the learning of a daily page of Gemara, by saying Tehillim [Psalms] - just in the past two weeks you finished the book of Psalms 22 times – and by the angels you created by guarding your speech. Few people know that you led a group of women committed to avoiding speaking ill of others.”

More at the link.

Larry Sabato's Labor Day Predictions

At the clip is Time's Mark Halperin, making the case for a massive blowout in November, with a tidal wave washing out as many as 60 Democratic House incumbents.

But Political Scientist Larry Sabato provides a more scholarly projection, "The Crystal Ball's Labor Day Predictions":

For decades I’ve advised students to let the facts speak for themselves, while avoiding the indulgence of shouting at the facts. In other words, we should take in all the available, reliable information; process it; and let the emerging mosaic tell its story—whether the picture pleases or not. The human (and partisan) tendency to twist facts into pretzels in order to produce a desired result must be avoided at all costs.

We’ve been patient and cautious here at the Crystal Ball as a year’s worth of facts has accumulated. We’ve sifted the polls, cranked up the models, and watched the candidates and campaigns closely. All political observers have “gut feelings” about an election year, but feelings make for good songs and lousy predictions. Forecasting is an imprecise art. People who get too far ahead of the facts or are too insistent about what will happen are usually partisans—openly or in disguise.

The Crystal Ball’s predictions are clinical. We are fond of people in both parties. We cheer for no one.

2010 was always going to be a Republican year, in the midterm tradition. It has simply been a question of degree. Several scenarios were possible, depending in large measure on whether, or how quickly, the deeply troubled American economy recovered from the Great Recession. Had Democratic hopes on economic revitalization materialized, it is easy to see how the party could have used its superior financial resources, combined with the tendency of Republicans in some districts and states to nominate ideological fringe candidates, to keep losses to the low 30s in the House and a handful in the Senate.

But conditions have deteriorated badly for Democrats over the summer. The economy appears rotten, with little chance of a substantial comeback by November 2nd. Unemployment is very high, income growth sluggish, and public confidence quite low. The Democrats’ self-proclaimed “Recovery Summer” has become a term of derision, and to most voters—fair or not—it seems that President Obama has over-promised and under-delivered.

Obama’s job approval ratings have drifted down well below 50% in most surveys. The generic ballot that asks likely voters whether they will cast ballots for Democrats or Republicans this year has moved increasingly in the GOP direction. While far less important, other controversies such as the mosque debate and immigration policy have made the climate worse for Democrats. Republican voters are raring to vote, their energy fueled by anti-Obama passion and concern over debt, spending, taxes, health care, and the size of government. Democrats are much less enthusiastic by almost every measure, and the Democratic base’s turnout will lag. Plus, Democrats have won over 50 House seats in 2006 and 2008, many of them in Republican territory, so their exposure to any sort of GOP wave is high.

Given what we can see at this moment, Republicans have a good chance to win the House by picking up as many as 47 seats, net. This is a “net” number since the GOP will probably lose several of its own congressional districts in Delaware, Hawaii, and Louisiana. This estimate, which may be raised or lowered by Election Day, is based on a careful district-by-district analysis, plus electoral modeling based on trends in President Obama’s Gallup job approval rating and the Democratic-versus-Republican congressional generic ballot (discussed later in this essay). If anything, we have been conservative in estimating the probable GOP House gains, if the election were being held today.

There's more at the link (and Sabato discusses GOP Senate prospects, the view on the governors' races, etc.).

As noted at the few times I've written about this, I personally wouldn't make predictions unless based on a district-by-district analysis of partisan electoral trends. So here we have in Sabato's analysis the kind of approach that's probably best for making projections, and that's topped off with the electoral modeling and the shares of the generic ballot. See my previous post, "How Bad For the Democrats in 2010?"

So, yeah, I guess JBW was smart not to take me up on the wager challenge. But bet or not, I'm not going to hesitate from a bit of gloating on election night. The administration is awful and the Dems just suck. And I'm not going be shy of saying good riddance.

Refusing to Give Up Books

From Emma Silvers, at Slate:

On the 2 train uptown during the morning commute the other day, I was in my usual state of sleepwalk -- face crammed into a fellow passenger's armpit -- when a young woman standing 3 feet away from me removed an Amazon Kindle from her oversize designer purse and began to read. A surprising wave of disgust overcame me as I stared at the smooth metallic back of the thing, at her manicured fingernails positioned against it, at her face as she read ... whatever it was that she was reading.
That was part of it, I realized, trying to analyze my own ridiculous, knee-jerk judgment of this stranger. I couldn't see what she was reading, and it bothered me. I couldn't peer in that tiny window onto someone's interior world, or delight in the juxtaposition that a book choice sometimes presents -- when you notice a stuffy, 90-something grandma buried in a trashy romance novel, or a would-be gangsta engrossed in "Love in the Time of Cholera."
But at 26, a supposed child of the Internet generation (who, I recently discovered, must henceforth be referred to as "The Millennials," and discussed in the media mainly in reference to our refusal to get real jobs or move out of our parents' basements), I've begun to feel out of step with this particular aspect of youth culture. I'm starting to understand what my grandmother must feel when she heads to the library once a week to dutifully check the e-mail account my uncle created for her. As I stared at the woman, fully engaged, happily using this very practical and very expensive device that, for all I know, she saved her pennies for a year to buy, I felt something entirely out of proportion with the situation: I felt personally slighted.
I never thought my lack of interest in e-readers made me particularly unique -- until recently, when Consumer Reports and national headlines started implying I was actually in a freakish minority. Earlier this summer, you could practically hear the collective weeping of small publishers nationwide when Amazon announced that Kindle books were outselling hardcovers by a 180-to-100 margin. Then came the drumbeat for the thinner, cheaper Kindle model forthcoming in September, and the competitors' accompanying rush to stay in the game. A crop of stories attempted to sort out the so-called e-reader wars: Kindle vs. iPad vs. Nook – which is right for you? More service-oriented articles provided tips for all the people who aren't me: "Copying Text From Your Kindle to Computer," or "The Best Way to Highlight Passages on Your Nook" (hint: not with an actual highlighter). These articles all had slightly different aims, but their bottom line was the same: Of course you need to buy an e-reader. What are you, a Mennonite?

One recent story in the New York Times went so far as to claim that iPads and Kindles and Nooks are making the very act of reading better by -- of course -- making it social. As one user explained, "We are in a high-tech era and the sleekness and portability of the iPad erases any negative notions or stigmas associated with reading alone." Hear that? There's a stigma about reading alone. (How does everyone else read before bed -- in pre-organized groups?) Regardless, it turns out that, for the last two decades, I've been Doing It Wrong. And funny enough, up until e-books came along, reading was one of the few things I felt confident I was doing exactly right.

More at the link.

I haven't made the leap yet, although I doubt I'm as opposed to e-reading as our essayist here. 

We're Gonna Disappear...

The lead guitar is irresistible, and interestingly, the song has a long shelf life in pop culture.