At LAT: "Andrew Breitbart, whose posting of video clips got a Department of Agriculture official fired, was a liberal Westside child of privilege whose political epiphany transformed him into a conservative. "
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Althouse at the Cool Reflection Café...
Ann's always got something beautiful going on over there. I'm still holding off on a new camera (for obvious financial reasons), but seeing this kind of lovely photography almost makes me want to take a second job:
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Time's Richard Stengel is 'Sad' That Israel's Security Wall 'Has Actually Worked'
Newsbusters has the full story. And click the image to watch:
So the truth is sad, presumably, because the deaths of innocent Israelis would be a worthwhile price to pay for the progression of Middle East peace talks, by Stengel's account. That is what Stengel is saying: the wall has succeeded, but at the price of impeding the peace talks. He says that fact is sad, meaning no wall, or a less effective wall would be preferable. More Israelis would die from car bombings, but at least the peace talks would move forward.Solomonia has more:
Was that the reason for the fence? To separate people? Well...kinda. It was to separate blood thirsty murderers from their victims. In that matter, it has been successful. Singularly successful. That's what its proponents always said they wanted, not a sociology experiment on a mass scale. But Stengel can't admit it. He begins noting the obvious good it has wrought, and has to, needs to, twist it into something it's not.
Tony Blair — Radical Islam is World's Greatest Threat
Astute Bloggers breaks the story, once again. But see BBC story (via Memeorandum). This is a feature interview with the former prime minister, on the eve of the publication of his memoirs, where he indicates that:
"There is the most enormous threat from the combination of this radical extreme movement and the fact that, if they could, they would use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons."Blair is consistent, and kudos to him for not kowtowing to the radical left's "war criminal" lies. In fact, Blair wrote one of the most important policy articles while he was still in office, at Foreign Affairs, "A Battle for Global Values." It's even more vital today:
This is not a clash between civilizations; it is a clash about civilization. It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace the modern world and those who reject its existence -- between optimism and hope, on the one hand, and pessimism and fear, on the other.And what does that kind of moral clarity get you in today's upside-down world? Well, an egg attack, for one thing. See Gateway Pundit, "Radical Leftists Chuck Eggs & Shoes at Tony Blair in Dublin (Video)."
In any struggle, the first challenge is to accurately perceive the nature of what is being fought over, and here we have a long way to go. It is almost incredible to me that so much Western opinion appears to buy the idea that the emergence of this global terrorism is somehow our fault.
For a start, the terror is truly global. It is directed not just at the United States and its allies but also at nations who could not conceivably be said to be partners of the West.
Moreover, the struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan are plainly not about those countries' liberation from U.S. occupation. The extremists' goal is to prevent those countries from becoming democracies -- not "Western-style" democracies but any sort of democracy. It is the extremists, not us, who are slaughtering the innocent and doing it deliberately. They are the only reason for the continuing presence of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is also rubbish to suggest that Islamist terrorism is the product of poverty. Of course, it uses the cause of poverty as a justification for its acts. But its fanatics are hardly champions of economic development.
Furthermore, the terrorists' aim is not to encourage the creation of a Palestine living side by side with Israel but rather to prevent it. They fight not for the coming into being of a Palestinian state but for the going out of being of an Israeli state.
The terrorists base their ideology on religious extremism -- and not just any religious extremism, but a specifically Muslim version. The terrorists do not want Muslim countries to modernize. They hope that the arc of extremism that now stretches across the region will sweep away the fledgling but faltering steps modern Islam wants to take into the future. They want the Muslim world to retreat into governance by a semifeudal religious oligarchy.
Yet despite all of this, which I consider fairly obvious, many in Western countries listen to the propaganda of the extremists and accept it. (And to give credit where it is due, the extremists play our own media with a shrewdness that would be the envy of many a political party.) They look at the bloodshed in Iraq and say it is a reason for leaving. Every act of carnage somehow serves to indicate our responsibility for the disorder rather than the wickedness of those who caused it. Many believe that what was done in Iraq in 2003 was so wrong that they are reluctant to accept what is plainly right now.
Some people believe that terrorist attacks are caused entirely by the West's suppression of Muslims. Some people seriously believe that if we only got out of Iraq and Afghanistan, the attacks would stop. And, in some ways most perniciously, many look at Israel and think we pay too great a price for supporting it and sympathize with those who condemn it.
If we recognized this struggle for what it truly is, we would at least be on the first steps of the path to winning it. But a vast part of Western opinion is not remotely near this point yet.
This ideology has to be taken on -- and taken on everywhere. Islamist terrorism will not be defeated until we confront not just the methods of the extremists but also their ideas. I do not mean just telling them that terrorist activity is wrong. I mean telling them that their attitude toward the United States is absurd, that their concept of governance is prefeudal, that their positions on women and other faiths are reactionary. We must reject not just their barbaric acts but also their false sense of grievance against the West, their attempt to persuade us that it is others and not they themselves who are responsible for their violence.
Michaele Salahi Playboy Rumors? — Well Yeah...
Look, the Salahis' entire lives feed off rumors and scandals, and with the way Michaele Salahi looks in that bikini, why not? And she's 44 years-old to boot! But check CNN, "Salahi in Playboy? Just 'Another Rumor'." (Via Daily Caller and Memeorandum.) The story is sourced to TMZ, "White House Crasher Goes Naked for Playboy."
Michaele Salahi is about to crash another party -- the one in your pants -- because TMZ has learned the "Real Housewives of D.C." star is taking it all off for Playboy magazine ... And not just artsy "top half" naked -- we're talking full-frontal, birthday suit naked.The Salahis are out for fame and profit. And with a figure like that, who's to begrudge Michaele a few more minutes in the spotlight.
Postcards From the Obama Economy
How long can leftists continue to blame Republicans for the epic disaster of Obama's jobless recovery (summer)? Pretty long, it turns out. Of course, you'd have to take a stroll outside of the "reality-based" neighborhood to actually get a grip. Even the Obama-enabling MFM is getting the picture. See, "It Isn't Just Lost Jobs—It's the Lost Jobs Machine," and "On Economy, Democrats Face a Lack of Unity." Still, some of the news is totally WTF. The Democrats are pushing "fiscal austerity" as a campaign issue? Well, not exactly. The White House doesn't seem to be getting the message: "Obama to Link Tax Plan, Hiring."
The Absolution of Barack Obama
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter just doesn't get it. See, "‘The Illustrated Man’." Obama's certainly socialist --- or neo-socialist, as Jonah Goldberg has explained --- and that's to say nothing of "terror-coddling."
Our maddening times demand that the truth be forthrightly stated at the outset, and not just that the president has nothing in common with the führer beyond the possession of a dog. The outlandish stories about Barack Hussein Obama are simply false: he wasn’t born outside the United States (the tabloid “proof” has been debunked as a crude forgery); he has never been a Muslim (he was raised by an atheist and became a practicing Christian in his 20s); his policies are not “socialist” (he explicitly rejected advice to nationalize the banks and wants the government out of General Motors and Chrysler as quickly as possible); he is not a “warmonger” (he promised in 2008 to withdraw from Iraq and escalate in Afghanistan and has done so); he is neither a coddler of terrorists (he has already ordered the killing of more “high value” Qaeda targets in 18 months than his predecessor did in eight years), nor a coddler of Wall Street (his financial-reform package, while watered down, was the most vigorous since the New Deal), nor an enemy of American business (he and the Chamber of Commerce favor tax credits for small business that were stymied by the GOP to deprive him of a victory). And that’s just the short list of lies.And of course it's not Obama's fault that these perceptions --- right or wrong --- stick like melted marshmallows. It's that like many things, there's another side to it. Language, for one thing. Obama just doesn't have the knack for appearing American, much less resoloute. I mean, he spent the first year touring the globe apologizing for America's allegedly racist, imperialist history. And on foreign policy, every big decision in the war on terror has been worse than removing impacted molars. Minimizing our threats and prolonging tough decisions on troop requests is just the start of it. Forget sympathy for sharia, Obama sympathizes with Iran's frantic efforts to get the bomb. And the bills are coming due. Worse than Jimmy Carter is a pretty accurate dismissal at this point, but we'll know more on November 2. Most voters are probably thinking along more pragmatic lines, like job-creation, and because this administration focused on such non-socialist agenda items like non-socialist nationalized health care over restoring the economy, the Democrats are looking to a defeat of bloodbath proportions. "Obama's Waterloo" is sounding pretty accurate these days, although folks dismissed the idea back in the day.
Suicide at Virginia Quarterly Review
At LAT:
On July 30, Kevin Morrissey printed a note, gathered his identification and called the Charlottesville, Va., police to report a shooting at the coal tower, a local landmark. When they arrived, it was Morrissey they found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, his papers laid out neatly beside him.RTWT.
Morrissey was the 52-year-old managing editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, an award-winning literary journal published by the University of Virginia. He had worked at the journal since 2004, handling accounting, payments, contracts and other administrative details. "Kevin’s job was his life," said co-worker Waldo Jaquith.
Morrissey’s death might have affected only his small circle of friends and colleagues, but it has also had an unexpected impact, spurring the university to conduct an audit of the finances and management of the VQR. And now, a month after Morrissey’s death, the Virginia Quarterly Review is on indefinite hiatus.
The move follows a stream of reports and extended online discussion about Morrissey’s suicide. Those reports have focused on the VQR workplace and have been critical of the magazine’s editor, Ted Genoways. Genoways, who has been locked out of the office by university officials since Morrissey’s death, has been labeled a “workplace bully” in media reports with few actual details. The "Today" show reported that Genoways was “under investigation for allegedly driving one of his employees to suicide.”
But although contributing editors, writers and associates found Genoways “professional, tactful and respectful” -- as two dozen wrote in an August letter of support -- it is clear from comments after Morrissey’s death that most of his five-person staff was, to some degree, unhappy. It is their complaints that have dominated media accounts of Morrissey’s death and the subsequent cloud over the VQR.
Won't You Lay Me Down in the Tall Grass and Let Me Do My Stuff...
This live clip is pretty raw, but stay with it for a few seconds and it'll go visual. Some "Second Hand News" (from Rumours, 1976):
Fewer Young Voters See Themselves as Democrats
I mean, seriously, if this is some kind of sign of the times we might be in the midst of the most important de-realignment in the post-1964 party era. I'll have more on this later, but check NYT:
Well, maybe not.
FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The college vote is up for grabs this year — to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Barack Obama.But they have ObamaCare, right?
Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008.
“Is the recession, which is hitting young people very hard, doing lasting or permanent damage to what looked like a good Democratic advantage with this age group?” asked Scott Keeter, the director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan group. “The jury is still out.”
How and whether millions of college students vote will help determine if Republicans win enough seats to retake the House or Senate, overturning the balance of power on Capitol Hill, and with it, Mr. Obama’s agenda. If students tune out and stay home it will also carry a profound message for American society about a generation that seemed so ready, so recently, to grab national politics by the lapels and shake.
All those questions are in play here in Larimer County, about an hour north of Denver, for the more than 25,000 students at Colorado State University.
Larimer, like much of Colorado, was once solidly Republican but went Democratic in the last few elections and is now contested by both sides. It is seen as a signal beacon for an increasingly unpredictable state.
Kristin Johnson, 23, like many other students interviewed here in recent days, said that a vote for Democrats in 2008, however passionate it was, did not a Democrat make. But she bristles just as much at the idea of being called a Republican.
“It’s like picking a team when you really don’t want to root for either team,” said Ms. Johnson, a communication studies major, who said she was undecided about parties and politics going into the general election campaign.
She is not the only one. Because the university draws about 80 percent of its enrollment from within Colorado — mostly from Denver and its suburbs — it is also a sort of mirror within a mirror for Colorado’s political culture. Moderate and conservative views are common; a campus monoculture of liberalism is not.
Leah Rosen, a history major from Denver, still vividly remembers witnessing a fistfight outside her dormitory room on election night in 2008 between Obama supporters and McCain supporters. National exit polls back then gave Mr. Obama a 66 percent edge among young people, to 32 percent for Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee.
Larimer is the focal point for a nationally watched House race in Colorado’s Fourth District, where Betsy Markey, a Democrat, is fighting for a second term in a traditionally Republican seat, against a Republican challenger, Cory Gardner.
Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat appointed last year to fill a vacant seat, is also in a toss-up contest against a Republican candidate, Ken Buck, who has local connections as the Weld County district attorney in Greeley, 20 miles southeast of Fort Collins.
Many students here, especially seniors nearing graduation, said that worries about the economy, and about getting a job after graduation, had filtered through the campus, dampening enthusiasm for Democrats in Congress and Mr. Obama.
Well, maybe not.
Clever Carpeting
At GIZMODO:
Hat Tip: Maggie's Farm, where beer is on the menu.
I have a friend who teaches at Cornell's famous School of Hotel Administration; she has a lot of casino designer contacts. According to her, the carpets are deliberately designed to obscure and camouflage gambling chips that have fallen onto the floor. The casinos sweep up a huge number of these every night. So the carpets are just another source of revenue.Yet ... some are calling bull on that theory, at the link.
Hat Tip: Maggie's Farm, where beer is on the menu.
'I Give up. We’re F**ked. The Terrorists Won...'
That's racist demonologist TBogg's brilliant analysis of this clip, from New Left Media, which specializes in searching for Circle K, Dollar Store, and Wal Mart rejects to foist off as representative conservative activists in the tea party movement. Yeah, I know, lefties are spinning awful weird scenarios these days (considering the epic blowout they're facing), and searching high and low for stuff to cheer them up.
Queering Education
From Mary Grabar, at American Thinker:
The gay-positive lifestyle is being promoted aggressively in K-12 schools, often under the cover of anti-bullying efforts, under the leadership of Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary, Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools. Before his federal appointment, Jennings founded and ran GLSEN, (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network). Under Jennings' direction, GLSEN was involved in activities that affirmed homosexuality to children with explicit materials. Jennings also wrote the foreword to a book titled Queering Elementary Education.RTWT, at the link.
GLSEN, which in the 2008-2009 year enjoyed a $157,500 contribution from the NEA, the largest teachers union in the country, pitches its materials and training services to schools. It targets not only high school students, but middle school students. For example, the video and teachers guide for Out of the Past, about a 17-year-old who begins a gay-straight alliance group in her public school, is targeted for grades 7 through 12.
But this spring, the Eagle Forum reported that the American College of Pediatricians urged all 14,800 U.S school district superintendents to avoid prematurely labeling children as homosexual. The College president cited studies showing that most adolescents who experience same-sex attraction no longer do so by age 25.
Such studies are ignored by the organizations that put out a brochure titled "Just the Facts about Sexual Development of Youth." These organizations include not only the two largest teachers' unions, but also the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association. Who else is on the list? Why the American Counseling Association, the very group that provides the "professional" standards for the public universities where Ward and Keeton studied.
Furthermore, "Just the Facts" is promoted aggressively on the (GLSEN) website.
In such a way, the peer reviewers, the accrediting organizations, and professors assert their power; they actively exclude not only opposing religious views, but also studies and professional opinions of those who disagree with them. It's a problem that plagues our entire educational system.
It happens certainly in the humanities, as I can attest from my experience over nearly twenty years in earning a Ph.D. in English and then living on the crumbs of part-time teaching. Sure, one can have an opinion. She can value the writing of a conservative, Christian writer like Walker Percy, but unless she does scholarship that deals with the presumed privileges of his gender, class, and race, she will not have a scholarly paper accepted at the prestigious conferences, nor have her job application considered seriously. In the meantime, my colleague, a full professor, can direct the Sexuality Studies program in the English department and display a pornographic line drawing of a homosexual act on his office door.
While undergraduates become acclimated to graphic displays of homosexual sex, they will not be exposed to the serious ideas of someone like Walker Percy.
Perhaps there has been no outcry during the last year the drawing has been posted because students are used to such displays. A look through MTV or Comedy Central will reveal how cool and edgy homosexuality has become among teenagers and young adults.
Such an attitude is nurtured by years of classroom exposure to the narrative of victimhood and tolerance. The troubled, confused, and abused young person, if he seeks counseling, will then have the benefit of someone sealed with the approval of the American Counseling Association and the radical gatekeepers at the university. This is what passes for "professional judgment" these days.
Such prevailing "professional judgment" must be exposed for what it is: an assertion of power that promotes an agenda of "queering" education. This is where the public with its good sense must invade the ivory towers and demand that its tax dollars no longer fund the academic frauds.
Feminazis Open Fire on Taylor Swift
From Cassy Fiano, at NewsReal Blog:
There is no limit to the amount of control that feminazis want to have over our lives. If women do not adhere to the unbelievably strict rules set down for us by the fascist feminist Left, then they are labeled anti-feminist and anti-woman. The latest example of the femisogynist litmus test is Taylor Swift, denounced as unfeminist… for writing about true love and having a wholesome image. The nerve!
Friday, September 3, 2010
Oh, Give Me the Beat, Boys, and Free My Soul...
I've been inadvertently neglecting my good friend Anton over at PA Pundits International. He's got a great background piece on Dobie Gray, who I used to enjoy way back in about 5th grade. Here's "Drift Away" for some very late night soft jams:
Leftists Create False Controversy Involving '9/11 Families' Against Ground Zero Mosque Protest
We've got something of a protest against the protest of the Ground Zero Mosque on the anniversary of 9/11. And this guy leading the charge at the clip, David Paine, isn't actually a "9/11 family member." He's a left-wing organizer piggybacking off the loved ones, and he's long campaigned against conservative moral clarity on 9/11 (at the Huffington Post sleaze-hole, for example):
AND PREVIOUSLY: "New Yorkers Oppose Ground Zero Mosque by Two-Thirds Margin."
But check out the statement from the 9/11 Parents & Families of Firefighters & WTC Victims:
“While we respect the rights and opinions of others, we feel that no one should attempt to inhibit the expression of free speech for the large number of 9/11 family members who wish to participate in opposing the construction of this mosque and cultural center,” Riches and Regenhard wrote.Check the link for the list of signatories, including Debra Burlingame, who wrote last week against Mayor Bloomberg's crass pro-jihad grandstanding:
“This project represents a gross lack of sensitivity to the 9/11 families and disrespects the memory of all those who were murdered at the WTC both in 1993 and 2001.”
“We affirm that the 9/11 Anniversary is a very special and precious commemoration for all of us. However, we feel that by attending and participating in this rally, families can endeavor to ensure that the sacred ground will continue to be respected for posterity.”
“Many of our family members feel that they have a moral obligation to their loved ones to raise their voices as the world looks upon us and sees our plight.”
It is bad enough that Mr. Bloomberg covers himself in the memory of the heroes who died on 9/11 in order to silence legitimate criticism of the mosque project, it is even more shameless of him to do it while misrepresenting the position of their loved ones. Mr. Bloomberg cited that his chairmanship of the memorial board made him privy to what family members think. Mr. Bloomberg knows full well that family members on the memorial board have grave concerns about this project, and that some of us have publicly opposed it. If he really cared what we think, he would have come to us and asked. We’re still waiting for the call.See also, "FDI: 9/11 Families Support Ground Zero Mega-Mosque Rally of Remembrance on 9/11."
Mr. Bloomberg has now crossed the line from merely supporting the mosque to participating in a public campaign aimed at silencing its critics. He has improperly invoked private conversations of 9/11 family board members who, unfortunately, are all too aware of his power, both as chair of the foundation which will memorialize their loved ones and as mayor of a city where that memorial will be built. He is recklessly wreaking havoc among families, running from media event to radio interview to photo op to Comedy Central gagfest, shamelessly hawking this narrative that we, those whose family members were the true victims of religious intolerance, must also carry the burden of proving we’re not intolerant. He’s a disgrace.
AND PREVIOUSLY: "New Yorkers Oppose Ground Zero Mosque by Two-Thirds Margin."
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