And from yesterday, "Sabine."
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Radical Feminist Takeover at Harvard Business School
You've heard it a thousand times: radical leftist ideology strives fundamentally for the total reengineering of society, the complete makeover of social relations, by any means necessary, including coercion and force.
But we don't often have perfect case studies of this at the highest levels of institutional power and prestige, especially at Harvard University, a private university where the normal decelerating processes inhibiting disruptive social change would be least in play.
So read this piece at the New York Times as a window to the programmatic world of the leftist institutional subversion. Importantly, mentioned at the top of the piece is Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, a gender-drenched radical historian pushing an extreme-left program, including booting the university's ROTC program from campus.
See, "Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity":
Now, it's a long piece and folks need to read it all.
Part of the program's reengineering is the focus on women faculty members, who are considered badly disadvantaged relative to men, who've often had long careers in real world business, compared to most of the women who were academics. Administrators have bored down on improving the teaching ability of these women, recall with those private coaches and by jettisoning the famed HBS case-study method in favor of scripted "Field" groupings that assign students into problem-solving teams to avoid the kind of cold-calling case teaching made famous by John Houseman's character, Professor Kingsfield, in "The Paper Chase." Inexplicably (really, administrators can't say why), faculty evaluations improved dramatically for the female members of the school. (Perhaps teaching evaluations went up along with student grades, you know, with those "stenographers" installed in every classroom like Communist Party apparatchiks to equalize student performance in the classic mode of egalitarian leveling.)
But of note more than anything is that so much of the problems at HBS are the things that can't be easily controlled by administrative fiat. There's a huge hierarchy of wealth and prestige among students attending. Surely if administrators could destroy these inequalities they would, but the sources of such difference originate outside the confines of the campus laboratory. Women students realized that much of their success would be climbing these social ladders and making connections beyond the classroom.
The article implies that this isn't such a great thing but in the real world, outside of such rarified laboratories, it's called "networking." Moreover, women are judged on their physical attractiveness, which proves that even the most determined gender feminist administrators will always contend with that most sublime human lottery known as the gene pool. And one of the most successful women of the class, Brooke Boyarsky, was something of an ugly duckling who figured out that to succeed she had to both blow off hopes of winning the hotness factor sweepstakes while simultaneously losing 100 pounds as she made her way through the program, eventually turning herself the woman who everyone wanted to emulate. In other words, she grew personally and adapted, just like anyone does in any challenging environment. The article doesn't credit the administration's gender equality enforcement as the basis for Ms. Boyasky's success. It was her own willingness to break out personally and open up about painful issues of social acceptance. She gave a speech at the concluding Baker Scholars Luncheon, where only the top 5 percent of the class are invited. Her theme was to discuss how she developed the courage to overcome painful obstacles to change.
But again, Ms. Boyarsky's successes aren't credited to the gender equality experiment. It looks more like she simply bucked herself up and stood tall against the competition. That's what happens in a place you'd expect to be predicated on excellence, like Harvard.
In any case, one more thing really sticks out about story, and that's the situation with Professor Frances Frei, who is described at the beginning of the piece as sparking "student ire" for her militant stand as "unapologetic about the changes we are making." There's more on Professor Frei deeper into the article, at the beginning of the section titled, "A Lopsided Situation":
Professor Frei's pictured second from right at the photo below (from the article), although I'm sure readers would figure out so much on the basis of (an obvious) stereotypical assessment as to which of these four best fits the model of the crusading queer feminist smashing the hetero-normative gender hegemonies of America's hetero-patriarchical social order. Seriously, a chunky butch lesbian dressed like a man? No wonder the woman's generating all that "student ire." She ramming the "radicalism of the women’s movement" right down the throat of every business student in the program.
Professor Frei's administrative style might be called "jackboot helicopter mentoring." She uses loaded feminist terminology such as the purported "incredibly hostile environment" to justify an authority profile in which she literally controls faculty outcomes herself, from "watching virtually every minute of every class" to barring "other professors" from giving advice to female faculty members, lest they be "confused" by their mansplaining troglodyte colleagues. (And I love how she considers herself a "guardian," an image of control that could be ripped perfectly from the totalitarian system of Plato's "Republic.")
And it bears noting that HBS is considered the premiere business school in the nation, but here you have top administrators who are essentially cultural Marxists whose main goal is smashing the capitalist-embedded systems of male domination, gender apartheid, and alleged epidemic cultures of sexual harassment. It all boggles the mind. Reading the stories of female students who arrived at HBS after very successful undergraduate careers and business experience, it makes sense that they asked themselves if they "had made a bad choice." One is Neda Navab, the "daughter of Iranian immigrants" who'd "been the president of her class at Columbia, advised chief executives as a McKinsey & Company consultant and trained women as entrepreneurs in Rwanda." She was shocked to find, in 2011, that a women's seminar on learning how to raise one's hand to be recognized was considered conducting "an assault on the school’s most urgent gender-related challenge."
No kidding. Behold regressive leftism at its most infantilizing manifestation.
I personally would be very hesitant to recommend any student for Harvard Business School, to say nothing of any major radically-submerged institution of higher education. But at least with the Harvard case study we have hard proof that fish indeed rot from the head down.
But we don't often have perfect case studies of this at the highest levels of institutional power and prestige, especially at Harvard University, a private university where the normal decelerating processes inhibiting disruptive social change would be least in play.
So read this piece at the New York Times as a window to the programmatic world of the leftist institutional subversion. Importantly, mentioned at the top of the piece is Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, a gender-drenched radical historian pushing an extreme-left program, including booting the university's ROTC program from campus.
See, "Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity":
The country’s premier business training ground was trying to solve a seemingly intractable problem. Year after year, women who had arrived with the same test scores and grades as men fell behind. Attracting and retaining female professors was a losing battle; from 2006 to 2007, a third of the female junior faculty left.Well, naturally. These Harvard hacks are Stalinist bureaucrats implementing five-year plans. They're infantilizing fully-grown adults and attempting to crush their individuality and creativity in order to squeeze them into their self-described Utopian one-size-fits-all laboratory boxes. It's obscene.
Some students, like Sheryl Sandberg, class of ’95, the Facebook executive and author of “Lean In,” sailed through. Yet many Wall Street-hardened women confided that Harvard was worse than any trading floor, with first-year students divided into sections that took all their classes together and often developed the overheated dynamics of reality shows. Some male students, many with finance backgrounds, commandeered classroom discussions and hazed female students and younger faculty members, and openly ruminated on whom they would “kill, sleep with or marry” (in cruder terms). Alcohol-soaked social events could be worse.
“You weren’t supposed to talk about it in open company,” said Kathleen L. McGinn, a professor who supervised a student study that revealed the grade gap. “It was a dirty secret that wasn’t discussed.”
But in 2010, Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard’s first female president, appointed a new dean who pledged to do far more than his predecessors to remake gender relations at the business school. He and his team tried to change how students spoke, studied and socialized. The administrators installed stenographers in the classroom to guard against biased grading, provided private coaching — for some, after every class — for untenured female professors, and even departed from the hallowed case-study method.
The dean’s ambitions extended far beyond campus, to what Dr. Faust called in an interview an “obligation to articulate values.” The school saw itself as the standard-bearer for American business. Turning around its record on women, the new administrators assured themselves, could have an untold impact at other business schools, at companies populated by Harvard alumni and in the Fortune 500, where only 21 chief executives are women. The institution would become a laboratory for studying how women speak in group settings, the links between romantic relationships and professional status, and the use of everyday measurement tools to reduce bias.
“We have to lead the way, and then lead the world in doing it,” said Frances Frei, her words suggesting the school’s sense of mission but also its self-regard. Ms. Frei, a popular professor turned administrator who had become a target of student ire, was known for the word “unapologetic,” as in: we are unapologetic about the changes we are making.
By graduation, the school had become a markedly better place for female students, according to interviews with more than 70 professors, administrators and students, who cited more women participating in class, record numbers of women winning academic awards and a much-improved environment, down to the male students drifting through the cafeteria wearing T-shirts celebrating the 50th anniversary of the admission of women. Women at the school finally felt like, “ ‘Hey, people like me are an equal part of this institution,’ ” said Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a longtime professor.
And yet even the deans pointed out that the experiment had brought unintended consequences and brand new issues. The grade gap had vaporized so fast that no one could quite say how it had happened. The interventions had prompted some students to revolt, wearing “Unapologetic” T-shirts to lacerate Ms. Frei for what they called intrusive social engineering. Twenty-seven-year-olds felt like they were “back in kindergarten or first grade,” said Sri Batchu, one of the graduating men.
Students were demanding more women on the faculty, a request the deans were struggling to fulfill. And they did not know what to do about developments like female students dressing as Playboy bunnies for parties and taking up the same sexual rating games as men. “At each turn, questions come up that we’ve never thought about before,” Nitin Nohria, the new dean, said in an interview.
The administrators had no sense of whether their lessons would last once their charges left campus. As faculty members pointed out, the more exquisitely gender-sensitive the school environment became, the less resemblance it bore to the real business world. “Are we trying to change the world 900 students at a time, or are we preparing students for the world in which they are about to go?” a female professor asked.
Now, it's a long piece and folks need to read it all.
Part of the program's reengineering is the focus on women faculty members, who are considered badly disadvantaged relative to men, who've often had long careers in real world business, compared to most of the women who were academics. Administrators have bored down on improving the teaching ability of these women, recall with those private coaches and by jettisoning the famed HBS case-study method in favor of scripted "Field" groupings that assign students into problem-solving teams to avoid the kind of cold-calling case teaching made famous by John Houseman's character, Professor Kingsfield, in "The Paper Chase." Inexplicably (really, administrators can't say why), faculty evaluations improved dramatically for the female members of the school. (Perhaps teaching evaluations went up along with student grades, you know, with those "stenographers" installed in every classroom like Communist Party apparatchiks to equalize student performance in the classic mode of egalitarian leveling.)
But of note more than anything is that so much of the problems at HBS are the things that can't be easily controlled by administrative fiat. There's a huge hierarchy of wealth and prestige among students attending. Surely if administrators could destroy these inequalities they would, but the sources of such difference originate outside the confines of the campus laboratory. Women students realized that much of their success would be climbing these social ladders and making connections beyond the classroom.
The article implies that this isn't such a great thing but in the real world, outside of such rarified laboratories, it's called "networking." Moreover, women are judged on their physical attractiveness, which proves that even the most determined gender feminist administrators will always contend with that most sublime human lottery known as the gene pool. And one of the most successful women of the class, Brooke Boyarsky, was something of an ugly duckling who figured out that to succeed she had to both blow off hopes of winning the hotness factor sweepstakes while simultaneously losing 100 pounds as she made her way through the program, eventually turning herself the woman who everyone wanted to emulate. In other words, she grew personally and adapted, just like anyone does in any challenging environment. The article doesn't credit the administration's gender equality enforcement as the basis for Ms. Boyasky's success. It was her own willingness to break out personally and open up about painful issues of social acceptance. She gave a speech at the concluding Baker Scholars Luncheon, where only the top 5 percent of the class are invited. Her theme was to discuss how she developed the courage to overcome painful obstacles to change.
But again, Ms. Boyarsky's successes aren't credited to the gender equality experiment. It looks more like she simply bucked herself up and stood tall against the competition. That's what happens in a place you'd expect to be predicated on excellence, like Harvard.
In any case, one more thing really sticks out about story, and that's the situation with Professor Frances Frei, who is described at the beginning of the piece as sparking "student ire" for her militant stand as "unapologetic about the changes we are making." There's more on Professor Frei deeper into the article, at the beginning of the section titled, "A Lopsided Situation":
Even on the coldest nights of early 2013, Ms. Frei walked home from campus, clutching her iPhone and listening to a set of recordings made earlier in the day. Once her two small sons were in bed, she settled at her dining table, wearing pajamas and nursing a glass of wine, and fired up the digital files on her laptop. “Really? Again?” her wife, Anne Morriss, would ask.That passage does a lot of explanatory work. Notice that without any fanfare the piece slips in the bit about Professor Frei's wife, Anne Morris, with which she has "two small sons." It's all so casual to be unexceptional, that is, if you're a New York Times correspondent or a faculty member at Harvard University.
Ms. Frei been promoted to dean of faculty recruiting, and she was on a quest to bolster the number of female professors, who made up a fifth of the tenured faculty. Female teachers, especially untenured ones, had faced various troubles over the years: uncertainty over maternity leave, a lack of opportunities to write papers with senior professors, and students who destroyed their confidence by pelting them with math questions they could not answer on the spot or commenting on what they wore.
“As a female faculty member, you are in an incredibly hostile teaching environment, and they do nothing to protect you,” said one woman who left without tenure. A current teacher said she was so afraid of a “wardrobe malfunction” that she wore only custom suits in class, her tops invisibly secured to her skin with double-sided tape.
Now Ms. Frei, the guardian of the female junior faculty, was watching virtually every minute of every class some of them taught, delivering tips on how to do better in the next class. She barred other professors from giving them advice, lest they get confused. But even some of Ms. Frei’s allies were dubious.
Professor Frei's pictured second from right at the photo below (from the article), although I'm sure readers would figure out so much on the basis of (an obvious) stereotypical assessment as to which of these four best fits the model of the crusading queer feminist smashing the hetero-normative gender hegemonies of America's hetero-patriarchical social order. Seriously, a chunky butch lesbian dressed like a man? No wonder the woman's generating all that "student ire." She ramming the "radicalism of the women’s movement" right down the throat of every business student in the program.
Professor Frei's administrative style might be called "jackboot helicopter mentoring." She uses loaded feminist terminology such as the purported "incredibly hostile environment" to justify an authority profile in which she literally controls faculty outcomes herself, from "watching virtually every minute of every class" to barring "other professors" from giving advice to female faculty members, lest they be "confused" by their mansplaining troglodyte colleagues. (And I love how she considers herself a "guardian," an image of control that could be ripped perfectly from the totalitarian system of Plato's "Republic.")
And it bears noting that HBS is considered the premiere business school in the nation, but here you have top administrators who are essentially cultural Marxists whose main goal is smashing the capitalist-embedded systems of male domination, gender apartheid, and alleged epidemic cultures of sexual harassment. It all boggles the mind. Reading the stories of female students who arrived at HBS after very successful undergraduate careers and business experience, it makes sense that they asked themselves if they "had made a bad choice." One is Neda Navab, the "daughter of Iranian immigrants" who'd "been the president of her class at Columbia, advised chief executives as a McKinsey & Company consultant and trained women as entrepreneurs in Rwanda." She was shocked to find, in 2011, that a women's seminar on learning how to raise one's hand to be recognized was considered conducting "an assault on the school’s most urgent gender-related challenge."
No kidding. Behold regressive leftism at its most infantilizing manifestation.
I personally would be very hesitant to recommend any student for Harvard Business School, to say nothing of any major radically-submerged institution of higher education. But at least with the Harvard case study we have hard proof that fish indeed rot from the head down.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Disgusting Alex Jones Misogynist Attack on @Alyssa_Milano
So, on Twitter this afternoon Becca Lower tweets her post on Alyssa Milano's sex tape. It's a Funny or Die joint (and not really a "sex tape"). But I checked Google to find a YouTube copy and up pops this vile segment featuring the despicable Infowars assclown Alex Jones.
I'd rather not repeat all the misogynist slurs he flings at the lovely Ms. Milano, who for all her "liberal" views is a nice lady and an ambassador for Major League Baseball. She's cool on Twitter too.
In any case, Robert Stacy McCain long ago befriended Ms. Milano on Twitter. I suggested he might defend the lady's honor with a smackdown of the woman-hating Infowars ghoul. And so he has, "@Alyssa_Milano Releases Sex Tape as ‘Social Statement’ (Alex Jones Is Nuts)." To wit:
And follow R.S. McCain on Twitter.
I'd rather not repeat all the misogynist slurs he flings at the lovely Ms. Milano, who for all her "liberal" views is a nice lady and an ambassador for Major League Baseball. She's cool on Twitter too.
In any case, Robert Stacy McCain long ago befriended Ms. Milano on Twitter. I suggested he might defend the lady's honor with a smackdown of the woman-hating Infowars ghoul. And so he has, "@Alyssa_Milano Releases Sex Tape as ‘Social Statement’ (Alex Jones Is Nuts)." To wit:
“War whore”? Alex Jones is a despicable conspiracy theorist who spent years pushing 9/11 Truther nonsense. At the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Alex Jones spotted Michelle Malkin at a protest and he started shouting “neocon” and a bunch of other stuff, which incited some protesters to start chanting, “Kill Michelle Malkin.”More at the link.
If it hadn’t been for Charlie Martin and Jim Hoft being there to defend her, who knows what might have happened?
I’ve hated that dangerous kookball ever since, and the fact that Alex Jones is now smearing a liberal like Alyssa Milano (while, characteristically, ranting about the “New World Order”) goes to show just how little Alex Jones’s paranoid anger has to do with actual politics.
Alex Jones is worse than those idiot liberals who were raging because Alyssa Milano appeared on Fox and Friends this week.
If anybody needs rational arguments against the Syria intervention, I’ll be happy to provide them, but you’re not going to get any rational arguments from Alex Jones about anything.
And follow R.S. McCain on Twitter.
#Angels Owner Arte Moreno Threatens to Abandon Anaheim Stadium, Move Team
I missed these stories earlier this week, at LAT, "Anaheim OKs Angels lease talks amid mention of team's ability to move," and "Angels' owner has means to move team, Anaheim City Council told."
And then reading the sports page today I saw this, "Letters: Where will Arte Moreno go?":
In any case, the City of Anaheim as made a generous offer on a lease agreement, covered in Bill Shaikin's commentary at LAT, "Angels' Arte Moreno could pay off in a big way for city of Anaheim."
Below is your humble blogger before the game earlier this summer, "#Angels Beat #Cardinals in Spectacular 6-5 Walk-Off Win on 4th of July." Here's hoping to many more like that right here in the O.C.
And then reading the sports page today I saw this, "Letters: Where will Arte Moreno go?":
After reading about Arte "I have the means to move the team elsewhere" Moreno and the lease negotiations with the city of Anaheim, it sure makes me glad I'm a Dodgers fan. It would seem the one angle Mr. Moreno has forgotten about is the fans. You know, the ones who give him 3-million-plus attendance every year, while all they've gotten from him is a lousy, overpriced team and lower beer prices 10 years ago.Pretty well said, especially the part about the 3 million fans. I've been an Angels fan since I was about 10 years old. Needless to say I'd be bummed if Moreno picked up stakes.
There once was a time he was an owner to be admired, but now at least when it comes to Angel Red, maybe we are seeing his true colors.
David Parsons
Fontana
In any case, the City of Anaheim as made a generous offer on a lease agreement, covered in Bill Shaikin's commentary at LAT, "Angels' Arte Moreno could pay off in a big way for city of Anaheim."
Below is your humble blogger before the game earlier this summer, "#Angels Beat #Cardinals in Spectacular 6-5 Walk-Off Win on 4th of July." Here's hoping to many more like that right here in the O.C.
Britain Sold Nerve Gas Chemicals to Syria
Oh, a little lax security controls there, you think?
Here's the front-page story at tomorrow's Daily Mail, "Britain sent poison gas chemicals to Assad: Proof that the UK delivered Sarin agent to Syrian regime for SIX years":
More from earlier this week at the Independent UK, "Revealed: UK Government let British company
export nerve gas chemicals to Syria."
And at the Daily Record, "Revealed: Britain sold nerve gas chemicals to Syria 10 months after 'civil unrest' began."
Here's the front-page story at tomorrow's Daily Mail, "Britain sent poison gas chemicals to Assad: Proof that the UK delivered Sarin agent to Syrian regime for SIX years":
British companies sold chemicals to Syria that could have been used to produce the deadly nerve agent that killed 1,400 people, The Mail on Sunday can reveal today.
Between July 2004 and May 2010 the Government issued five export licences to two companies, allowing them to sell Syria sodium fluoride, which is used to make sarin.
The Government last night admitted for the first time that the chemical was delivered to Syria – a clear breach of international protocol on the trade of dangerous substances that has been condemned as ‘grossly irresponsible’.
More from earlier this week at the Independent UK, "Revealed: UK Government let British company
export nerve gas chemicals to Syria."
And at the Daily Record, "Revealed: Britain sold nerve gas chemicals to Syria 10 months after 'civil unrest' began."
'I Hate White People' — New York Man Left Brain-Dead After Racial Hate Crime in Union Square
At Gateway Pundit, "HORROR! NYC Race Crime Leaves 62 Yr Old Victim Brain Dead" (via Memeorandum):
Well, it's all black privilege racism these days.
A couple of local news stories and that'll be it, because Justice for Trayvon!
More at Memeorandum.
And at NewsBusters, "NY Man Left Brain Dead By Attacker Shouting 'I Hate White People' - Will Media Report It?"[Jeffrey] Babbitt [62 yrs old] was minding his own business as he walked through the crowd near the chess boards in Union Square when a man made a hateful announcement and began his rampage, witnesses said.No comment from Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama, or any of the other prominent dishonest cowards AG Holder referenced above. They don’t care about race relations. They only care about race exploitation.
“He said ‘the next white person who walks by I’m going to [expletive],’” one woman said. “His fist went in and the man’s head bobbed and he hit the ground and you could hear his skull hitting the ground.”
Well, it's all black privilege racism these days.
A couple of local news stories and that'll be it, because Justice for Trayvon!
More at Memeorandum.
Barack Hussein Obama Planned Syria Chemical Weapons Attack as Pretext for War?
I'm just asking
The premise, in any normal presidency, would be outlandish.
But this administration is not normal. This administration is so shifty, so dishonest, you simply cannot blithely dismiss any reasonable hypothesis of Obama's deceit as conspiracy. This is especially true since the treasonous Obama "enemedia" has covered for this juvenile narcissist traitor since Day One.
So, with that let's leave it to Pamela Geller, who is second to none in debunking this administration's lies and treason against America.
Here, "Did the White House Help Plan the Syrian Chemical Attack?":
We may never know the full truth. This current regime is itself a conspiracy on the American people, from Obama's Marxist-Kenyan roots, to the cover-up of his Weather Underground ties, to his hidden academic transcripts, to the Rashid Khalidi tape and Barack Hussein's backing of the terrorist PLO and Hamas, to President "Community Organizer's" ties to ACORN criminals and mobs, to the Fast and Furious gun-running murders, to the deaths of our American diplomats in Benghazi, to the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to the...
This list is f-king endless!
The premise, in any normal presidency, would be outlandish.
But this administration is not normal. This administration is so shifty, so dishonest, you simply cannot blithely dismiss any reasonable hypothesis of Obama's deceit as conspiracy. This is especially true since the treasonous Obama "enemedia" has covered for this juvenile narcissist traitor since Day One.
So, with that let's leave it to Pamela Geller, who is second to none in debunking this administration's lies and treason against America.
Here, "Did the White House Help Plan the Syrian Chemical Attack?":
Yossef Bodansky’s sources reveal that on August 13 and 14, there was a high-level meeting in Turkey that included the al-Qaeda Syrian rebels, along with U.S., Turkish, and Qatari officials, in which the Obama regime planned a bombing campaign after a “war-changing” moment that was set to occur within days. This “war changing” moment, of course turned out to be the gassing of 1429 people, including hundreds of children, to be blamed on Bashar al-Assad.Read it all. (Via Memeorandum.)
We may never know the full truth. This current regime is itself a conspiracy on the American people, from Obama's Marxist-Kenyan roots, to the cover-up of his Weather Underground ties, to his hidden academic transcripts, to the Rashid Khalidi tape and Barack Hussein's backing of the terrorist PLO and Hamas, to President "Community Organizer's" ties to ACORN criminals and mobs, to the Fast and Furious gun-running murders, to the deaths of our American diplomats in Benghazi, to the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to the...
This list is f-king endless!
Caitlin Heller Viral Twerking Video
At the New York Post, "Girl sets herself on fire in twerk fail."
Well, you think she shoulda locked the door, lol!
Well, you think she shoulda locked the door, lol!
Arabella Drummond
For Front Magazine, "ARABELLA DRUMMOND IS A HUMAN DOUBLE RAINBOW."
BONUS: "TEN SEXY GIRLS… BUMMING AROUND."
BONUS: "TEN SEXY GIRLS… BUMMING AROUND."
Mercedes S550: Could One Day Be the Best Car in the World
My dad always drove a Mercedes, but nothing like this.
Just watching the video I'm jonesin' to go out and get one right now, lol.
But see Dan Neil, at WSJ, "Mercedes S550: A Technological Tour de Force":
That's why my dad always bought pre-owned. And if I get one someday I'll probably go pre-owned as well.
In any case, continue reading. Clearly astounding, if not the best in the world.
Just watching the video I'm jonesin' to go out and get one right now, lol.
But see Dan Neil, at WSJ, "Mercedes S550: A Technological Tour de Force":
THE REDESIGNED 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-class, the serene, cetacean presence you see before you, this sack of krill, is probably the world's most technologically rich automobile.Oh yes, the checkbook.
The company's new flagship sedan/limousine/state car requires the services of 60 onboard computers, up to 100 servo motors (operating, among other things, the powered door and trunk closures, seat-belt tensioners, and the elaborate articulation of the seats), and more than 500 LED lighting units, from its taillamps to its (amazing, game-changing) headlamps. Under the flat, brooding instrument binnacle are two high-res, 12.3-inch TFT screens, arrayed cinema style in a single, broad bezel that, at night, floats in a pool of suffused LED backlighting, like something signed out from the Starfleet motor pool. Holy mother of awesome.
Gorden Wagener, Mercedes-Benz head of design, told me that the new S-class was the "best car in the world." I am not ready to make such a pronouncement, and I'd be unlikely to do so anyway about a car that looks like it was swallowed by a manatee. But the S-class is unquestionably a tour de force, a showy, almost arrogant display of auto-making genius (assuming it all holds together). The important thing here is Stuttgart's willingness to invoke "best car" verbiage, which historians associate with icons such as the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, Duesenberg SJ, Mercedes-Benz 300SL, Bugatti Veyron and—a late entry on the list—Tesla. Cheeky monkeys.
For four decades and five generations of the S-class, the car has traditionally been the company's technology icebreaker, introducing now-fundamental systems such as stability control and ABS braking, adaptive cruise control and adaptive body-roll control. In that time, S-class product planning has also become increasingly a victim of its own rhetoric, with each generation obliged to blow buyers' minds anew, sometimes with trivial, half-baked "technologies" (the shambolic first edition of the infrared night-vision system comes to mind).
This new car represents a genuine break with the past on several fronts, and they are, in descending order of importance: active safety; cabin materials and construction; in-cabin electronic functions and amenities. Indeed, the sheer weight of innovation in this car—more than 2,000 patents flutter in its slipstream—is itself theatrical, a message to consumers and competitors alike: A giant has awakened. Checkbooks, run for your lives.
That's why my dad always bought pre-owned. And if I get one someday I'll probably go pre-owned as well.
In any case, continue reading. Clearly astounding, if not the best in the world.
Electronic Eitquette in the Classroom
On the first day of classes I post the department's policies on electronic equipment on the projection screen during classes. (I didn't write the policies and I don't make students apologize to class if their cellphones ring.) It helps keep kids focused, or at least for a time. I've already had a few of the more "popular type" of young ladies texting and goofing off in class. And it's only been two weeks!
Last semester I had a woman who looked at her phone all semester, had it stashed right behind her purse on the top of her desk. I don't think she was doing well in class, and I probably docked her some "progressional points" on her semester grades (which are basically freebie extra credit points for students who behave themselves).
In any case, technology in the classroom's a net negative in my experience. Some students will used their laptops appropriately, taking notes and accessing their textbooks during lectures. But otherwise I've long railed against the distractions of cellphones. It's interesting how many students have to "go to the bathroom" these days, or those who just step out routinely to take a call. Most of all, though, the focus of the students is not on what's being taught but on their social lives. And for young students around 18 and 19 years-old, that social life obsession --- fueled by ubiquitous social media applications --- is the bane of their personal and professional development.
In any case, there's more on this from Evan Selinger, at the Wall Street Journal, "Should Students Use a Laptop in Class?":
Continue reading.
The part about student emails is hilarious, but I cut my students a lot of slack there. Learning professionalism takes time. I just draw the line on excessive distractions and disruptions in the classroom.
Last semester I had a woman who looked at her phone all semester, had it stashed right behind her purse on the top of her desk. I don't think she was doing well in class, and I probably docked her some "progressional points" on her semester grades (which are basically freebie extra credit points for students who behave themselves).
In any case, technology in the classroom's a net negative in my experience. Some students will used their laptops appropriately, taking notes and accessing their textbooks during lectures. But otherwise I've long railed against the distractions of cellphones. It's interesting how many students have to "go to the bathroom" these days, or those who just step out routinely to take a call. Most of all, though, the focus of the students is not on what's being taught but on their social lives. And for young students around 18 and 19 years-old, that social life obsession --- fueled by ubiquitous social media applications --- is the bane of their personal and professional development.
In any case, there's more on this from Evan Selinger, at the Wall Street Journal, "Should Students Use a Laptop in Class?":
There's a widely shared image on the Internet of a teacher's note that says: "Dear students, I know when you're texting in class. Seriously, no one just looks down at their crotch and smiles."This guy's a riot.
College students returning to class this month would be wise to heed such warnings. You're not as clever as you think—your professors are on to you. The best way to stay in their good graces is to learn what behavior they expect with technology in and around the classroom.
Let's start with the million-dollar question: May computers (laptops, tablets, smartphones) be used in class? Some instructors are as permissive as parents who let you set your own curfew. Others are more controlling and believe that having your phone on means your brain is off and that relying on Google for answers results in a digital lobotomy.
Professors are united, though, in the conviction that the classroom is a communal space and that students share the responsibility for ensuring that nobody abuses it by diminishing opportunities to learn. An instructor who lets you squander your tuition by using class time to fuss with your iPhone is likely to have zero tolerance for distracting activities that make it hard for the rest of the class to pay attention.
One of my colleagues has resorted to a severe policy that he calls the "Facebook rule," which turns the classroom into a wild west of bounty hunters and social media outlaws. Students are encouraged to earn extra credit by busting classmates who use their computers for activities like social networking, shopping or gaming during his lectures.
Other professors prefer imposing the scarlet letters themselves. One colleague became so fed up with a student who played games whenever the class went to a computer lab that he installed speakers on the offender's machine. Halfway through the class, the speakers got turned on and everyone stared as the post-apocalyptic sound track started blaring.
Ultimately, rule-breakers are their own worst enemies. Students may be savvy enough to text the occasional query to partners-in-crime during exams. But it is only a matter of time before the mute button isn't pushed and the whole class gets to hear your "I'm sexy and I know it" ringtone.
Continue reading.
The part about student emails is hilarious, but I cut my students a lot of slack there. Learning professionalism takes time. I just draw the line on excessive distractions and disruptions in the classroom.
My Military, Mine!
Neener-neener-neener!
Poor baby.
From the hilarious hashtag on Twitter, #WarofChoice:
And at Twitchy, "Whose military is it anyway? President Obama claims it for himself — again — at G20 summit [video]."
Poor baby.
From the hilarious hashtag on Twitter, #WarofChoice:
And at Twitchy, "Whose military is it anyway? President Obama claims it for himself — again — at G20 summit [video]."
The Libertarian Case Against Intervening in Syria
It's Nick Gillespie on C-SPAN, via Reason.
Unfortunately, he's mischaracterizing Charles Krauthammer's positions at this shorter clip below (full interview at that top link). And his overall critique might as well have been cribbed off Lawyers, Bungholes and Murderers, to say nothing of the racist misogynist TBogg at Hammering Jane Hamsher's skeezy stink hole.
More Gillespie here, FWIW, "3 Reasons Not to Go to War with Syria."
Unfortunately, he's mischaracterizing Charles Krauthammer's positions at this shorter clip below (full interview at that top link). And his overall critique might as well have been cribbed off Lawyers, Bungholes and Murderers, to say nothing of the racist misogynist TBogg at Hammering Jane Hamsher's skeezy stink hole.
More Gillespie here, FWIW, "3 Reasons Not to Go to War with Syria."
Black Sabbath Concert Review
From the band's performance Tuesday night at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, from Randall Roberts, at LAT, "Review: Black Sabbath visit hell at a sweaty L.A. Sports Arena":
The band played the MGM Grand last Sunday. I tweeted from the hotel:
When we were checking out on Monday we saw a couple of tween girls with Black Sabbath t-shirts in the elevator on the way down. Turns out the parents let the girls attend on their own. I saw them and said, "So, how was it"? The kids just smiled and Dad said he'd given his tickets to them. Pretty cool.
My wife and I had two tickets on offer from MGM, by the way, but chose instead to be comped four nights at the hotel. Maybe another time, if Ozzy's still rocking, that is.
Oh, that video at top's from Birmingham, England, 2012, at the Black Sabbath YouTube page. High quality. They're really tuned in.
If you listened very closely on Tuesday night during Black Sabbath's return to the city, you could hear the Big Bang of heavy metal echoing through the sweat-drenched Los Angeles Sports Arena.More at that top link.
It was buried in the slow, menacing guitar lines of guitarist Tony Iommi, and propelled by Geezer Butler's cavernous bass lines. And it was in the unholy yowl of Ozzy Osbourne, 64, shuffling along the stage like a retired vampire in search of a blood nurse, who long ago moved beyond a parody of himself to become a virtual trademark in black.
Performing songs from the band's first decade (before Osbourne was booted from the group for drug-fueled debauchery, replaced by Ronnie James Dio), Sabbath offered distorted rock music as simple yet as inarguably useful as your basic table or chair. That they all wore black is understood.
The band played the MGM Grand last Sunday. I tweeted from the hotel:
Black Sabbath playing @MGMGrand tonight. Punk rockers must love Ozzy. They're swarming the place. #Vegas pic.twitter.com/pdGr7VknGi
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 2, 2013
When we were checking out on Monday we saw a couple of tween girls with Black Sabbath t-shirts in the elevator on the way down. Turns out the parents let the girls attend on their own. I saw them and said, "So, how was it"? The kids just smiled and Dad said he'd given his tickets to them. Pretty cool.
My wife and I had two tickets on offer from MGM, by the way, but chose instead to be comped four nights at the hotel. Maybe another time, if Ozzy's still rocking, that is.
Oh, that video at top's from Birmingham, England, 2012, at the Black Sabbath YouTube page. High quality. They're really tuned in.
14 Principled Anti-War Celebrities We Fear May Have Been Kidnapped
From John Ekdahl, hilariously, at BuzzFeed.
Sheryl Crow tops the list:
Sheryl Crow tops the list:
LAST KNOWN PRE-2009 COMMUNICATION:
“I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies.”
— Sheryl Crow
Public Support for War in Syria Lower Than for Any Other Conflict in Last 20 Years
Well, the public's ball-busting President Blurred Lines.
At Gallup, "U.S. Support for Action in Syria Is Low vs. Past Conflicts":
Public support is up from May, in light of allegations of WMD use by Syria's Assad. But clearly, Americans are burned out on international conflict.
Yeah, and that no doubt explains why Barack "Blurred Lines" Hussein is on the verge of abandoning his Syria strike plans altogether.
How embarrassing. And I mean for Americans to have this idiot in the Oval Office.
At Gallup, "U.S. Support for Action in Syria Is Low vs. Past Conflicts":
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' support for the United States' taking military action against the Syrian government for its suspected use of chemical weapons is on track to be among the lowest for any intervention Gallup has asked about in the last 20 years. Thirty-six percent of Americans favor the U.S. taking military action in order to reduce Syria's ability to use chemical weapons. The majority -- 51% -- oppose such action, while 13% are unsure.Continue reading.
Public support is up from May, in light of allegations of WMD use by Syria's Assad. But clearly, Americans are burned out on international conflict.
Yeah, and that no doubt explains why Barack "Blurred Lines" Hussein is on the verge of abandoning his Syria strike plans altogether.
How embarrassing. And I mean for Americans to have this idiot in the Oval Office.
Friday, September 6, 2013
Neocon Elizabeth O'Bagy's Controversial Op-Ed at the Wall Street Journal
Here's the lady's commentary, which was out last weekend at WSJ, "On the Front Lines of Syria's Civil War."
Folks should read that first, before diving into the controversy, which has unusually steep policy implications.
While Ms. O'Bagy is identified at the op-ed as "a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War," it turns out she's also affiliated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), an anti-Assad political action committee with a pending application for 501(c)(3) non-profit status at the IRS. Foreign Policy cited the lady's credentials in June as the "political director at SETF." And here's the group's press release, "SETF Welcomes Dr. Elizabeth O'Bagy to DC Staff."
Recall that the Institute for the Study of War is Kimberly Kagan's neoconservative foreign policy think tank. It's pretty interesting that O'Bagy's piece was cited by Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator John McCain during hearings this week. But the pushback was enough for the Institute to publish an addendum to Ms. O'Bagy's biography at the website:
Corsi's a spinmeister himself, so take that FWIW. He does link to an interesting Reuters piece out Thursday, "Kerry portrait of Syria rebels at odds with intelligence reports."And see the commentary at Wintery Knight, "Intelligence reports show Islamic extremists dominate Syrian opposition."
There's also a Memeorandum thread with the salacious headline, "Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Draws Scrutiny Over Writer's Ties to Syrian Rebel Advocacy Group."
So who's right?
Ms. O'Bagy's traveled frequently to Syria, as recently as one month ago. The territorial division of control among rebel groups she describes sounds both logical and realistic. But the appearance of outside militants aligned with al Qaeda wasn't a factor over a year ago, when the administration would've had less worry over arming terrorists. At this point it's hard to believe that "moderates" still dominate the opposition. Indeed, recall what Edward Luttwak wrote a couple of weeks ago:
ADDED: Here's Daniel Greenfield's report that indicates that the Free Syrian Army forces under General Idris is riddled with Islamists, "The Wall Street Journal’s Misleading Report on the 'Moderate' Syrian Opposition."
And don't miss Rusty Shackleford, "Study: Red Unicorn, Rainbow Brigades Dominate Syrian Opposition."
Folks should read that first, before diving into the controversy, which has unusually steep policy implications.
While Ms. O'Bagy is identified at the op-ed as "a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War," it turns out she's also affiliated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), an anti-Assad political action committee with a pending application for 501(c)(3) non-profit status at the IRS. Foreign Policy cited the lady's credentials in June as the "political director at SETF." And here's the group's press release, "SETF Welcomes Dr. Elizabeth O'Bagy to DC Staff."
Recall that the Institute for the Study of War is Kimberly Kagan's neoconservative foreign policy think tank. It's pretty interesting that O'Bagy's piece was cited by Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator John McCain during hearings this week. But the pushback was enough for the Institute to publish an addendum to Ms. O'Bagy's biography at the website:
Press Advisory- September 6, 2013:As far as I can tell, Ms. O'Bagy's a Ph.D. candidate at Georgetown University. She's young, 26 years-old. All this seems to bother Jerome Corsi, who writes at WND, "Obama relying on student's spin on Syria?"
The Institute for the Study of War employs Elizabeth O’Bagy as a senior analyst on its Syria portfolio. She also has a role in the Syria Emergency Task Force that she wishes to clarify. She states:
“The Syrian Emergency Task Force has filed with the IRS to register as a 501 (c) 3, and has been an important subcontractor for the United States and British governments in providing aid and assistance to the Syrian people. I work with the Syrian Emergency Task Force in an advisory capacity on a number of humanitarian aid and governance building contracts. I am hired on a contractual basis in my role as the Political Director and Humanitarian Aid Coordinator, but do not receive a salary from the organization. In this role with the Task Force, I have worked on a number of contracts with the United States Department of State to provide an evaluation of the current aid and assistance programs inside Syria and provide guidance on how to better implement these programs.
“The Syrian Emergency Task Force does have a registered 501 (c) 4 and does engage in political advocacy. However I do not work with this office and I do not lobby on their behalf. My role within the organization has been limited to humanitarian efforts funded through the United States Department of State and the British Foreign Office.”
Kimberly Kagan, President of the Institute for the Study of War, writes, “I have great confidence in Elizabeth O’Bagy and her work. She has written numerous, fully documented reports on the Syrian opposition. Her nuanced arguments, the evidence on which she bases them, and the citations of her sources are available for all to examine.”
Corsi's a spinmeister himself, so take that FWIW. He does link to an interesting Reuters piece out Thursday, "Kerry portrait of Syria rebels at odds with intelligence reports."And see the commentary at Wintery Knight, "Intelligence reports show Islamic extremists dominate Syrian opposition."
There's also a Memeorandum thread with the salacious headline, "Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Draws Scrutiny Over Writer's Ties to Syrian Rebel Advocacy Group."
So who's right?
Ms. O'Bagy's traveled frequently to Syria, as recently as one month ago. The territorial division of control among rebel groups she describes sounds both logical and realistic. But the appearance of outside militants aligned with al Qaeda wasn't a factor over a year ago, when the administration would've had less worry over arming terrorists. At this point it's hard to believe that "moderates" still dominate the opposition. Indeed, recall what Edward Luttwak wrote a couple of weeks ago:
The war is now being waged by petty warlords and dangerous extremists of every sort: Taliban-style Salafist fanatics who beat and kill even devout Sunnis because they fail to ape their alien ways; Sunni extremists who have been murdering innocent Alawites and Christians merely because of their religion; and jihadis from Iraq and all over the world who have advertised their intention to turn Syria into a base for global jihad aimed at Europe and the United States.That sounds more like it, although perhaps more "on-the-ground" research reports will clear things up. But that's not my problem. It's Obama's and his bomb-happy allies in the Senate. And so far I don't think they're making the sale.
ADDED: Here's Daniel Greenfield's report that indicates that the Free Syrian Army forces under General Idris is riddled with Islamists, "The Wall Street Journal’s Misleading Report on the 'Moderate' Syrian Opposition."
And don't miss Rusty Shackleford, "Study: Red Unicorn, Rainbow Brigades Dominate Syrian Opposition."
Dr. Benjamin Hafensteiner!
This is great.
At the Daily Star, "WATCH: Man pretending to be university professor gets caught in the act."
HAT TIP: Pepper_10 on Twitter.
At the Daily Star, "WATCH: Man pretending to be university professor gets caught in the act."
HAT TIP: Pepper_10 on Twitter.
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