WBBM-TV's Vince Gerasole Goes for Air Show Ride Along

He's not enjoying it.

Watch: "Reporter freaks out on air show ride-along."

French Industrial Policies Are Killing Peugeot

At Der Spiegel, "Peugeot on the Brink: How Paris Is Killing French Industry":

French carmaker Peugeot is fighting for its survival. But, by keeping its plants in-country and supporting wage hikes, the government is ignoring the rules of survival in the age of globalization. In the end, the workers it is trying to help might be the biggest losers.

Well-meaning people can often be particularly dangerous. Take French President François Hollande and Minister of Industrial Renewal Arnaud Montebourg, for example. They want to rush to the aid of French automaker PSA, which has driven itself into a crisis with its Peugeot and Citroën brands. Representatives of the CGT trade union, such as Jean-Pierre Mercier, also want to help. "We will fight for our jobs and the livelihoods of our families," says Mercier.

The French government and the unions want to prevent Peugeot from closing its plant in Aulnay-sous-Blois, outside Paris, and slashing 8,000 jobs. But if politicians and labor leaders are successful, they will only make things worse. Perhaps they'll manage to save a few thousand jobs in France in the short term. But, by doing so, they will put the company's future into even greater jeopardy. The company, which has been making cars since 1890, is fighting to survive. Sales have plummeted, and plants are not operating at anywhere close to capacity. PSA is currently losing €140 million ($173 million) a month.

For the 3,000 Peugeot workers in Aulnay-sous-Bois, their work ended temporarily at 10:30 p.m. on July 26. The plant was closed for five weeks, as it is every year for the summer vacation. But, this time, things were a little different. The commencement of the annual vacation period had a bitter aftertaste. Workers had just learned that the plant was to be permanently shut down in 2014.

President Hollande reacted immediately, saying that PSA's downsizing plans were "unacceptable" and had to be renegotiated. Minister Montebourg said that he had little faith in company management and speculated that perhaps the car company was merely playing the "imaginary invalid." He also said that he had a "real problem" with the company's strategy and the behavior of its main shareholder, the Peugeot family, which owns more than a quarter of its shares and received a substantial dividend last year.

Both CEO Philippe Varin and Supervisory Board Chairman Thierry Peugeot were called on the carpet, and the Peugeot family was forced to hear Montebourg deliver a lecture on patriotism. The company, the minister said, doesn't just belong to its shareholders, but also to "the history of France, a territory, a national idea."

The French state owns a share of Renault, the country's second-largest automaker, but not of Peugeot. Nevertheless, the government behaves as if Peugeot actually were a state-owned company. In this respect, it is demonstrating how matter-of-factly French politicians intervene in the management of major corporations.

Continue reading.

Shut Up: Too Much Debate's a Problem in the Modern Academy

From Naomi Schaefer Riley, at the New York Post, "Peter Wood, Mark Regnerus, and Me":

For the second time in three months, the Chronicle of Higher Education has allowed a violation of academic orthodoxy — and professors are calling for the head of another Chronicle contributor.

The higher-ups seem to have decided it’s not worth the trouble and are shutting down two of its blogs entirely next week. If you can’t take the heat, close the kitchen? Last month, Peter Wood, the head of the National Association of Scholars, published a post on the Chronicle’s Innovations blog in which he suggested that Jerry Sandusky’s serial child molestations weren’t the only thing Penn State had tried to cover up in recent years.

Wood pointed at the university’s investigation into the conduct of Prof. Michael Mann, who played a major role in the “Climategate” memos.

The probe, he said, hardly rigorous; it was conducted by a university vice president – who, as others have noted, had clear incentive to go easy, since Mann brought a lot of research money to the university.

In short, Wood argued, “Penn State has a history of treading softly with its star players.”

The comments section lit up with accusations that Wood had libeled Mann. A blogger called “Profmandia” launched an online campaign demanding that the Chronicle retract the post and apologize.

What might lead Profmandia — whose day job is in the physical sciences department at Suffolk Community College — to believe the Chronicle would respond to his demands? Well, he had history on his side.

Schaefer Riley talks about her story of being fired after a fascist firestorm at the journal (she criticized black studies), then continues:

Perhaps the only idea that competes with these two for their sacredness at universities today is the notion that gender is a social construct and its corollary that children of gay parents have the same (if not better) outcomes than children of heterosexual parents.

Mark Regnerus, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin, recently challenged this idea with an article in Social Science Research, in which he suggested that children of gay parents tend to have lower levels of economic success and more problems with mental health.

Some scholars have reasonably disagreed with Regnerus’ methodology, but interest groups and the guardians of sociology’s orthodoxy have demanded his head. As a result, UT has launched an investigation into accusations of scientific misconduct.

Though the article was peer-reviewed and published by a respected academic journal, one columnist wrote that Regnerus’ study was “designed so as to be guaranteed to make gay people look bad, through means plainly fraudulent and defamatory."

Reasonable people may disagree about Regnerus’ conclusions, Wood’s views of climate science or my opinions on black studies, but on these topics, there is no room for discussion in the Ivory Tower.

And the enforcers of this orthodoxy are shameless. A study out next month in Perspectives on Psychological Science finds: “In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists admit that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues. The more liberal respondents are, the more willing they are to discriminate.”

At least they’re honest.

'Putin Lights Up the Fires'

The new Pussy Riot single is here.

And at the National Post, "‘Putin Lights Up the Fires’: Pussy Riot puts out single as conviction sparks protests around the world."

Animal Rights Activists Decry Massachusetts Monster Shark Hunt Contest

Well, this is one case where I don't blame them.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Battle for sharks off Martha's Vineyard":

This was the moment Matt Connelly had waited years for: the sudden yank on the line, the violent tug that dragged him to the edge of the boat and nearly into the cold Atlantic.

After 90 exhausting minutes, the battle was over.

Connelly and his crew mates peered down at the massive fish beside their 29-foot boat, Rogue Angel. They pulled out a tape measure to make sure their eyes weren't playing tricks on them. Finally, convinced the fish was big enough to haul in, they gaffed it, guessing its weight at 275 pounds.

They were off by more than 50 pounds. The fish weighed 334 pounds when it was hoisted onto the scales on Day One of the Monster Shark Tournament, which depending on your point of view is a premier sportfishing contest, a bloody assault on an elegant species, or a chance for scientists to get a close-up look at some of the ocean's biggest predators.

"Controversy sells," said Steven James, the tournament organizer, dismissing the opposition to the 26-year-old grandaddy of shark tournaments.

"Are they hurting me? No, they're not," James said of his critics as he drove through the quiet streets of Martha's Vineyard before dawn, delivering 40-pound buckets of chum and boxes of bait to competitors.

By the time he finished, hundreds of anglers would be heading out to sea, hoping to bring in the biggest catch of the two-day tournament and claim tens of thousands of dollars in cash and prizes.

It is one of dozens of shark-fishing contests held each year in the United States. In recent years, some have bowed to pressure from animal rights and environmental groups to require competitors to release what they catch. But the Monster event goes on as is, its popularity fueled in part by a spate of shark-human encounters in the area that evoked images of "Jaws," the 1975 blockbuster film that was filmed nearby.

"The very most fundamental human, primal fear is the thought that you might be eaten alive," said James, who runs a charter fishing boat business south of Boston and is on a National Marine Fisheries Service advisory panel on migratory species.

It's a little much.

More at the link.

BDS: More Than Just a Boycott

From Peter Kurti, at the Australian, "Anti-Israel campaign is more than just a boycott":

The BDS campaign is cast in rights-based, non-violent and tolerant terms that are smooth and soothing to Western ears; this is why secular bodies such as trade unions have embraced the campaign. So too, as might be expected of religious bodies that thrive on victimology, has the National Council of Churches in Australia.

Yet behind the rhetoric, the BDS objectives disclose a darker purpose: to damage and delegitimise the Jewish state by questioning the basis of its creation and its continued existence as a liberal democracy.

Read it all.

Paul Ryan 'Is the Embodiment of the Machine That Our Music Has Been Raging Against...'

Well, if they say so.

See the New York Times, "Rage Against the Machine Isn’t Returning Ryan’s Love."

San Francisco's Municipal Railway Doesn't Support This Message

At Atlas Shrugs, "CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO TO PLACE SHARIA-COMPLIANT DISCLAIMERS NEXT TO EVERY AFDI PRO-ISRAEL BUS AD."

And Pamela's organization was branded by the SPLC as a "hate group," and the progs have run with it, "Hate group places Islamophobic advertisements on San Francisco buses."

Express an opinion the left disagrees with and you wind up in the crosshairs.

Occupy's Pussy Riot Outrage

At the Daily Beast, "Occupy Wall Street Veterans Mass to Protest Pussy Riot Verdict."

PREVIOUSLY: "Topless FEMEN Activist Chainsaws Memorial Cross in Kiev, Ukraine (VIDEO)."

David Coulthard, Formula 1 Grand Prix Driver, Speeds Through Lincoln Tunnel at 190mph

At London's Daily Mail, "Ever wondered what it feels like to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel at 190mph? Cockpit video shows F1 car taking less than 30 seconds to speed through NY crossing."

Watch it here.

'Run, Joe. Run'

Via Theo Spark:

Between "Back in Chains" and "niggerization" the left once again has bludgeoned race relations with a hammer. It's not carelessness, especially on Biden's part. These people think that others agree with them. Turns out, not so much. At Politico, "MSNBC's Toure apologizes for 'N-word'."

Doubts Grow Over Mark Zuckerberg's Role as Facebook CEO

And I'm sure the doubts will continue growing even if he's replaced. Frankly, I don't see how Facebook's going to perform for its investors. It's basically a fad. (And anecdotally, I never click their ads --- and that's if I even log on, which is hardly ever.)

At the Los Angeles Times, "Is Mark Zuckerberg in over his hoodie as Facebook CEO?":

The deepening slide in  Facebook Inc.'s stock is fueling talk once considered implausible on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.

Should Mark Zuckerberg, the social media visionary but neophyte corporate manager, step aside as CEO to let a more seasoned executive run the multibillion-dollar company?

In that scenario, Zuckerberg would remain as the creative force propelling Facebook's technological innovation. But the 28-year-old would cede the CEO title to someone better suited to overseeing operations and building rapport with finicky investors — mundane but essential duties for which Zuckerberg has shown little appetite or aptitude.

"There is a growing sense that Mark Zuckerberg, talented though he may be, is in over his hoodie as CEO of a multibillion-dollar public company," said Sam Hamadeh, head of research firm PrivCo. "While in many cases a company founder can, and does, grow into the job, things are happening so quickly that there is precious little time here for Zuckerberg to do that."

Doubts about the Facebook founder intensified Thursday as the stock closed below $20 for the first time. The shares, which slipped to $19.87, have shed nearly half their value since Facebook's disastrous initial public offering three months ago....

*****

Zuckerberg's indifference to traditional corporate etiquette — he wore sneakers and his trademark hoodie for Facebook's first big investor meeting — is viewed as disrespectful of the corporate world he needs to win over.

"His behavior is what I would expect of someone his age — the hoodies and everything else," said Chris Whalen, senior managing director at Tangent Capital Partners in New York. "He's trying to appeal to his audience instead of being responsible to his investors. His job now is to run the company."

Even Apple Inc.co-founder Steve Jobs, who was known for favoring turtlenecks and jeans, donned a suit in his early days when he was touting his upstart.

More here, "Internet users debate Zuckerberg's future at Facebook." And at Techmeme.

PREVIOUSLY: "Facebook Shares Fall to New Low as Investors Dump Holdings."

Left-Wing 'Wave of Hatred' Greeted News of Family Research Council Shooting

From Michelle's morning appearance on Fox & Friends:

And all the day's related FRC news at Memeorandum.

Grim Frustration: Plight of California's Jobless Cracks Window on Depths of Obama Depression

An interesting piece on the depths of the human toll from the Obama depression, at the New York Times, "Unemployment Depths Seen in California Peer Group":

CORONA, Calif. — The analysts pore over the numbers every month, the full menagerie of economic indicators. President Obama and Mitt Romney trade barbs over who is at fault for a sluggish recovery. But here, in a region with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, other numbers often loom larger.

There are the roughly 1,600 résumés that Byron Reeves has sent out since he lost his job in accounting nearly four years ago, and the paltry 10 or so interviews they have produced. There is the $300 check that Yundra Thomas could not write to send his daughter to band camp, because he has been out of work for six months.

Each week, Mr. Reeves and Mr. Thomas gather with 40 or so other unemployed workers in a small, barren and fluorescent-lit room here, in a kind of self-help program that is part of California’s official effort to help residents find jobs. Most have been unemployed for months or years. Time spent with them at several gatherings over many months reveals a postrecession landscape where grim frustration battles with the simple desire to find a way out.

RTWT.

PREVIOUSLY: "LBCC Plans Full-Time Faculty Layoffs: Administration Cites Need to Cut $2 Million in College Programs." And Governor Brown wants to raise taxes, which will drive more businesses out of state and put more people out of work. We're in the best of hands!

Topless FEMEN Activist Chainsaws Memorial Cross in Kiev, Ukraine (VIDEO)

This is a serious story, actually. The New York Times reports, "Russian Band Given 2-Year Term for Stunt Deriding Putin."

But FEMEN cutting down a memorial to Stalin's victim's is a bit over the line. At the Sun UK, "Topless blonde's Pussy Riot chainsaw protest."

More at Blazing Cat Fur, "Oh yea, that'll help: FEMEN saws down cross for Stalin victims in aid of Pussy Riot."

NSFW:

Reaganite Repubican Hates Kim Kardashian!

My good friend Reaganite took issue with my recent Kim Kardashian blogging:

This one never did anything for me - NO class...

And I responded:

Are you kidding, she's got a body that won't quit!

And Reaganite replies:

More plastic in her than your wife's Honda lol...

My wife drives the Jeep, actually, but that's beside the point, ha!

Frankly, I thought Kim was all natural.

It turns out she's posted some old Playboy pics for her Flashback Friday tweets, seen at London's Daily Mail, "Now Kim Kardashian digs out racy behind-the-scenes snaps from 2007 Playboy shoot for another tweet treat." I'm not seeing the silicone, but then again, Robert Stacy McCain's the expert, not me.

And Kim's also been tweeting some Hawaii vacation pics:

They say Kim's getting marriage-serious with Kanye (complete with the high-profile denials), so the dirtbag digs do have some credibility. But as long as she keeps tweeting those hot bikini bod pics, I'm down for some Rule 5 blogging on that.

LBCC Plans Full-Time Faculty Layoffs: Administration Cites Need to Cut $2 Million in College Programs

LBCC President Eloy Oakley sent out a campus-wide internal email yesterday, and the faculty union president followed-up, indicating that the administration personally contacted those full-time faculty members facing lay-offs.

And here's the report at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "Long Beach City College to cut more programs, staff to save $2 million":

LONG BEACH — Long Beach City College is planning to eliminate several instructional programs next year in an effort to cut $2 million from its budget, officials announced Thursday.

The cuts, planned for the 2013-2014 school year, could include the loss of up to 20 programs and layoffs for around 10 full-time faculty members, said LBCC President Eloy Oakley.

The college has about 200 academic programs and 308 full-time faculty.

Oakley said the latest round of reductions is part of the college's ongoing plan to remain fiscally stable in the face of severe state budget cuts. The college has seen an overall 7.4 percent reduction in state funding.

In April, the Board of Trustees approved a plan to lay off 55 employees and reduce contracts for 96 positions for a savings of more than $5 million. The reduction in staffing was one of the largest in the college's history.

While LBCC has made some difficult decisions, even tougher cuts loom on the horizon if voters fail to pass a November tax initiative designed to fund education, Oakley said.

More at the link.

California can't afford a tax increase --- we're already the nation's economic basket case. But the Democrats are pushing hard for it anyway, "Gov. Jerry Brown formally kicks off Prop. 30 tax hike campaign."

PREVIOUSLY: "LBCC Announces 55 Layoffs — Tensions High as Faculty Union Prepares Jobs Actions and Protests," and "Dr. Gaither Loewenstein Appointed New Vice President of Academic Affairs at Long Beach City College."

RELATED: LBCC's in the national news, at the Chronicle of Higher Education, "At Calif. Public Colleges, Dreams Deferred." (The entire text is cross-posted to the LBCC website.)

Reckless Rhetoric: Southern Poverty Law Center Threatened With $100 Million Lawsuit

The Christian Group LivePrayer may sue the SPLC. National Review reports, "Christian Group to File $100 Million Lawsuit against SPLC" (via Memeorandum):

Bill Keller’s group just issued a press release warning the Southern Poverty Law Center to remove him and LivePrayer from their hate-group list within 72 hours or face a lawsuit. SPLC was founded in order to use civil litigation to bankrupt genuine hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, interestingly enough. Any lawyers out there who could evaluate LivePrayer’s prospects for success?

Check the link for the press release.

Plus, at Legal Insurrection, "Neo-Nazis in Rhode Island? SPLC exaggerates again." And The Other McCain, "Rhode Island Neo-Nazis and Other Mysteries of 21st-Century Hate."

More from Da Tech Guy, "Dana Milbank on SPLC “hate” or What a difference a little bloodshed makes." It turns out that the Washington Post disabled comments to the Milbank piece. No doubt the "tolerance" brigades were getting a little intolerant. Check Memeorandum for the link.

PREVIOUSLY: "Is SPLC a 'Hate Group'?"

Is SPLC a 'Hate Group'?

The left's über race-baiter Mark Potok of SPLC responds to the Family Research Council, "SPLC: Family Research Council License-to-Kill Claim ‘Outrageous’" (at Memeorandum):

... FRC President Tony Perkins attacked the SPLC, saying it had encouraged and enabled the attack [on the Council's headquarters] by labeling the FRC a “hate group.” The attacker, Floyd Corkins, “was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Perkins said. “I believe the Southern Poverty Law Center should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology.”

Perkins’ accusation is outrageous. The SPLC has listed the FRC as a hate group since 2010 because it has knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people — not, as some claim, because it opposes same-sex marriage. The FRC and its allies on the religious right are saying, in effect, that offering legitimate and fact-based criticism in a democratic society is tantamount to suggesting that the objects of criticism should be the targets of criminal violence.

The gentleman doth protest too much (and apologies to the noun "gentlemen").

Labeling every single person or group you disagree with on policy grounds is not "fact-based criticism." It's demonization, which is why SPLC is under fire for giving cover to hate.

Here's your hate, on steroids: "Depraved Homosexuals Blame Family Research Council for 'Climate of Violence' After Leftist Attempts Massacre."

More from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "After DC Attack, Law Center Deserves Flak":

After holding off on making any statement about the shooting attack on his group’s Washington headquarters by a critic of their positions on social issues, the Family Research Center’s Tony Perkins spoke out today and placed at least some of the blame for the incident on the Southern Poverty Law Center, a generally respected liberal watchdog group. This will come as a shock to many whose knowledge of the SPLC comes from the good press it gets for its work over the years monitoring extremist hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan. But in recent years, they have expanded their definition of a hate group to include not just the likes of David Duke and neo-Nazis but non-violent conservative advocacy groups. While the SPLC says it condemns violence, their actions have placed a bull’s eye on groups it dislikes and rendered them vulnerable to intimidation.

According to the SPLC’s way of thinking groups like the Family Research Center that oppose abortion and gay marriage are pretty much the moral equivalent of the Klan. Shockingly, the SPLC also lists on their website’s roster of haters people like Washington think tanker Frank Gaffney because of his position on the threat from Islamist terror groups like the Muslim Brotherhood which they interpret as a form of Islamophobia. Indeed, Gaffney is listed on the SPLC’s website on a roster of profile of hatemongers such as Louis Farrakhan and a leader of a white nationalist militia. While one may disagree with the Family Research Council’s religious conservatism or Gaffney’s ideas about the threat from shariah law, the idea that they deserve to be placed in such a context is outrageous. In doing so, they are also responsible for creating an atmosphere in which those who take such positions are to be intimidated into silence. Yesterday’s events ought to cause the Law Center to rethink its irresponsible labeling of political opponents.

The Law Center gained a certain degree of fame and respectability as a more secular counterpart to the Anti-Defamation League, which also monitors hate groups from a Jewish perspective. But the SLC seems to have made a strategic decision in recent years that it might be easier to raise money if it increased its scope from activities monitoring genuine hate groups to advocates of causes that they dislike like such as the Family Research Center who are deeply unpopular among liberal donors.

Recently, the Law Center has also taken up the largely bogus charge that America is suffering from a wave of Islamophobia. In doing so, it put Gaffney in their cross hairs and has now taken to treating the former Reagan administration Defense Department official as being no different than David Duke or Farrakhan. Just as outrageous is that, as Lori Lowenthal Marcus writes in the Jewish Press today, they have teamed up with the likes of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Center for American Progress (CAP) to support the branding not just Gaffney but scholar Daniel Pipes and his Middle East Forum and investigative journalist Steven Emerson as part of a network of hate against Muslims. Again, one needn’t agree with Gaffney, Pipes or Emerson on every position they take, but the idea that they can be treated like KKK members is a frightening example of the way the left operates these days...

Well said. And Tobin goes on to note the irony of the SPLC allying with genuinely hateful groups like the Center for American Progress, which has been roundly criticized by Jewish organizations for its reprehensible anti-Semitism. But as Tobin points out, that's the way it is on the left nowadays. The SPLC, by its own logic, could be smeared as a "hate group."

And here's David Sessions at the left-wing Daily Beast, "Is the Family Research Council Really a Hate Group?":

Conservatives were outraged when the SPLC revised its list of hate groups in 2010, adding the Family Research Council and the American Family Association. The shooting on Wednesday brought the ire flooding back, as conservative journalists and bloggers insisted that the SPLC is the true hate group. Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, linked to a 2010 article that quoted a SPLC research director saying her group sees no difference between anti-gay evangelical groups and white supremacists. “Trying to lump Tony Perkins with the guy who shot people at the Sikh temple is morally bankrupt on its face,” Gallagher wrote.

William Jacobson, a professor at Cornell Law School and author of the conservative blog Legal Insurrection, has attacked the SPLC for, in his view, expanding its focus to include more mainstream conservative political groups as well as racist groups. On Wednesday, Jacobson repeated the implication that the SPLC’s designation of the Family Research Council as a hate group is based on FRC’s opposition to gay marriage. “SPLC gave cover to those who use the ‘hate speech’ and ‘hate group’ labels to shut down political and religious speech, and now it has spiraled out of control,” Jacobson wrote.

There is no doubt that Perkins, the Family Research Council, and other conservatives are deploying the shooting to score political points. But they have raised a substantive concern that defies a simple answer, especially in a situation fraught with political and religious tension: which organizations can fairly be called hate groups? Can a word like “hate,” packed with visceral connotations, be part of a civilized debate about a public-policy issue?

More at the link.

Even Brian Levin, of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at CSU San Bernardino, cited by Sessions, rejects the "hate group" designation for FRC.

Tony Perkins comments are seen at the video here, "Before Shooting: Southern Poverty Law Center Put Family Research Council on ‘Hate Map’."

IMAGE CREDIT: Digger's Realm, "Hate and Slander For Profit - Part 1."

World Freedom Congress, September 11, 2012

At Atlas Shrugged, "September 11, 2012: D-Day in the Information Battle-Space."

More "ADL's Defamation of Proud Jews," and "VIDEO: Pamela Geller on NBC News Report on AFDI's “Islamorealism” Ads."