Everything Has Been Turned on Its Head

From Phyllis Chesler, at Arutz Sheva:

Last night, I lectured at a synagogue in Westchester. Afterwards, a man came up “to shake my hand.” He had asked me this exact question about Western survival and I had answered him partly based on the Arutz Sheva article I recently wrote on the question. Then he told me:

“Our son was supposed to be at the finish line at the Boston Marathon. Luckily, something prevented him from going but we spent the weeks afterwards calling up many of his Boston-area friends to see how they were. What will it take for Americans to wake up and to take Jihad seriously? If 9/11 and Ft Hood and the Boston Marathon Bombing did not do it, I am afraid to think of what will.”

A young college student said: “If I say any of the things you have just said, my friends would call me crazy.”

Said I: “So what? If you opt for popularity and conformity you will never develop the strength to stand up to evil or to tell the truth. Remember: Evil always prevails when the good people are afraid to stop it, lest they not only become pariahs--they may also lose their livelihoods and their lives.”

I thought she was going to faint.

When I was asked something about President Obama I cut right to the chase. However, in passing, I said that “of course he is considered a Muslim by the Ummah. He is the son of a Muslim father and by definition this is all that counts". Taking it a step further, Obama might also be seen as an apostate because he embraced Christianity or at least attended a black nationalist Christian church in Chicago.

Again, some people heard me say something else, namely, that I thought Obama is a secret Muslim and that this accounts for his pro-Islamic world policies and statements and his extraordinary “sensitivity” to Muslim feelings. Another college student said that if she said this to her friends they would say she was “crazy.”

Said I. “That’s nothing. Wait until they call you a Zionist and start harassing you in your dorm.”

What will it take for Europeans to wake up?

A colleague who lives in Germany read the piece and sent me the following email:

“Your suggestions about Europe have little chance of  happening. Many don't (blame) or call it Islam, including Hollande himself. Many blame the Israeli conflict with Palestine as a major cause. Europe and it's churches, intellectuals, etc., are more concerned about " islamophobia". Yesterday, 100, 000 marched against islamophobia in Germany, but did not bother with the rally in central Berlin in September against anti-Semitism, despite the fact that the rally was addressed by Merkel and president Gauck. They could only raise 4000, mostly Jews, from all over Germany."

The political will and honesty are simply not there! Germans now see themselves as victims of Hitler, Muslims also now see themselves as victims. Palestinians are victims...everything has been turned on its head...

Still more.

A great piece. And remember, political correctness will be the death of us.

New Class Conflict: Obama-Democrats in Bed with Wall Street Rich?

Joel Kotkin speaks with Glenn Reynolds at Pajamas Media's "InstaVision."

Watch: "Is Obama in Bed with Big Money on Wall Street?":

New Geography's Joel Kotkin talks to Glenn Reynolds about the Obama Administration's love-hate relationship with Wall Street. Kotkin reminds viewers that President Obama has always had a cozy relationship with the financial services industry, notwithstanding his negative rhetoric regarding banks and banking.

And buy Kotkin's book, The New Class Conflict.

Elizabeth Hurley Still Smokin'!

At Celebslam, "Still Freakln' Hot: Liz Hurley Poses for 2015 NBC/Universal Press Tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena."

Obama Seeks Federal Mandate on Paid Family Sick Leave

He's always mandating something, usually by unconstitutional executive action. So it'll be interesting to see if the GOP stands up against another federal mandate boondoggle.

At the cover of today's business section, at the Los Angeles Times, "Obama pushes paid sick/family leave for workers":

President Obama embarked on an effort Thursday to make paid family leave the new norm in America, using a strategy that garnered him some success last year in increasing the minimum wage for certain workers.

Obama signed an order to give up to six weeks of paid leave to all federal employees when a new child arrives and publicly called on Congress to pass a federal law guaranteeing seven days of paid sick leave for all Americans.

He also announced that Department of Labor money would be made available for states and cities that want to study implementing their own such policies.

Then, after a lunchtime meeting with coffee shop owners and working parents in Baltimore, Obama unveiled a pitch to corporate America: Paid family leave is good for companies' bottom lines.

"When they make that investment in their employees, there's a dividend," Obama told reporters at Charmington's cafe. "They end up being more profitable over the long term."

The president's approach to paid leave draws heavily on his experience over the last year with the minimum wage, a proposal he rolled out in the State of the Union address last January by asking Congress to raise workers' base pay to $10.10 an hour from $7.25. His first steps were to sign an executive order raising the wage for people working on federal contracts and to set off on a speaking tour to plug the idea.

Today, Obama has yet to persuade the Republican-led Congress to hike the wage. But the idea has picked up currency: 17 states and the District of Columbia have raised the requirement to increase the pay of an estimated 7 million workers.

One Obama aide called the momentum "heartening," and the president's team is embracing the strategy as one of the best tools at his disposal as advisors prepare to reuse it for paid leave.

Still, the newest sales pitch faces the same challenges as the one for minimum wage. Republicans scoff at the idea of imposing more costly requirements, especially on small businesses.

Americans already have "great freedom" when it comes to work, said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), noting that workers have latitude to choose a career and negotiate for the benefits that matter most to them. American businesses operate with far fewer restrictions than the rest of the world, he said.

"One more government mandate, however well-intentioned, will only reduce those freedoms, making it harder for employees to find jobs, negotiate for the things they need and open and run businesses," he said.

Sounds good. But time will tell if these congressional RINOS hold the line against Obama's latest bid to cement is bankrupt socialist legacy.

Pamela Geller on Rick Amato Show: 'There Is No Other Choice' But to Defend Freedom and Fight Radical Islam

I was able to log onto Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs early this morning as I signed off from the Internet. I tweeted:

.@PamelaGeller's Atlas Shrugs is up and running: http://t.co/HCowAPFQ3J #PamelaGeller

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 16, 2015

But the DDoS attacks are continuing and Pamela's blog has been taken down again. She's been putting the word out on social media, and requesting support to keep her work going. Bob Belevedere reports on that at TCOTs, "DDoS ATTACK ALERT: @PamelaGeller Needs Our Help."

And at the end of his interview with Pamela, Rick Amato asks if she worries for her safety amid "this current climate we're in." The question caught Pamela a little by surprise but not without a ready response: "Of course ... but the alternative is laying down and dying, and abridging my freedom..."

Watch: "Pamela Geller on One America News, Rick Amato Show: Jihad, Islam and the West's Denial."

The First-Ever CVS-Receipt Fashion Show

On Jimmy Kimmel Live, "CVS Receipt Fashion Show."

Yeah, this is a thing. From November, at ABC News Los Angeles, "MAN MOCKS RIDICULOUSLY LONG CVS RECEIPTS WITH HILARIOUS COSTUME."

'This transformation into a nanny-state, snitching culture has severe negative long-term repercussions for U.S. society, as well as the economy, if the trend isn't reversed...'

I'm not holding my breath on reversing things anytime soon. Best to just hold ground for now, and fight fire with fire. Make the nanny-state idiots live up to their own standards.

At Zero Hedge, "Maryland Parents Investigated for Neglect After Letting Their Kids Walk Home From School Alone."

More from ABC News, "'Free-Range' Parents Under Investigation for Child Neglect."

Veteran CNN Anchor Jim Clancy Fired After Anti-Semitic Twitter Exchange with Elder of Ziyon Blog

I saw this blowup the other day, and frankly it didn't make much sense. And whatever his differences, getting all anti-Semitic on Twitter certainly wasn't worth the price.

But hey, the establishment folks think they can do whatever they want when dealing with "just a blogger."

At Elder of Ziyon, "Elder gets results! Jim Clancy fired from CNN."

Also at Algemeiner, "Anchor Jim Clancy Leaves CNN Following Abusive Twitter Exchange With Pro-Israel Activists."

More at Twitchy, "‘Wonder if Al-Jazeera is hiring': Jim Clancy out at CNN after nutty anti-Israel tweets."

And at the click through, "Don't drink and tweet." Heh.

Bar Rafaeli Throwback for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit

The new swimsuit edition will be out in a couple of weeks, so Sports Illustrated posted this throwback to commemorate the good times.

F&R Auto Sales Shamefully Forces Pizza Delivery Man to Return Tip, Gets Ripped by Internet

Heh, this is pretty good.

Background at London's Daily Mail, "'The Internet has your back bro': Car dealership cruelly shames pizza delivery man by calling him back and taking away his tip and then posts the video - which backfires spectacularly."

And Jeanne Moos has fun with it at CNN:

How 'American Sniper' Leaped Over 'Selma'

By now you've no doubt heard of the "racist" snub of "Selma" in the Oscars nominations race. Hollywood obviously hasn't overcome.

Here's the headline at the Hollywood Reporter from yesterday, at Memeorandum, "Oscars: Acting Nominees All White."

I'm sure we'll be seeing affirmative action nominees in coming years.

Meanwhile, perhaps "Selma" wasn't that great a movie, with limited demographic appeal. Oh, that's racist! And Paramount Pictures botched its rollout of early-screening DVDs to academy members? Well, you won't be hearing much about that in race-mongering MSM denunciations of the "racist" film industry.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Oscars 2015: How 'American Sniper' leaped over 'Selma'":

"Selma" and "American Sniper" premiered at the AFI Fest on the same November night. Those standing in line outside the Egyptian Theatre for the 9 p.m. "Sniper" showing could hear the ovation from inside when "Selma" ended and the clapping continued long after writer-director Ava DuVernay, actors David Oyelowo and Common, and producers Oprah Winfrey, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner walked onstage for a post-screening Q&A.

It felt like a best picture powerhouse premiered that night. And it did. It just wasn't "Selma."

Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper," a tough-minded portrait of Chris Kyle, the real-life U.S. Navy SEAL who became the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history (160 confirmed kills over four tours in Iraq), received six Oscar nominations Thursday, including nods for picture, actor Bradley Cooper and screenwriter Jason Hall.

"Selma" received a best picture nomination too. But outside of a nomination for its original song, that was it for DuVernay's civil rights drama.

How did "Sniper" elbow its way past "Selma" and into the hearts of academy members? Demographics offer a partial explanation. A 2013 Los Angeles Times survey of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters found the academy membership to be 93% white, 76% male with an average age of 63. In other words, this is the target audience for an Eastwood war movie, not necessarily the one for a historical drama made by a black woman that shows black people changing the course of American history.

Yes, just last year the academy gave its best picture prize to "12 Years a Slave" and an Oscar to its black director, Steve McQueen. And the academy has been making real attempts to add youth and color to its membership over the past three years, an effort that "will increase," academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs reiterated Thursday morning.

So race may be a part of the story — but perhaps just a small part. "Selma" and "American Sniper" screened unfinished prints at AFI. But Eastwood's crew finished its post-production faster than DuVernay's did, enabling DVD screeners of "Sniper" to be sent to guild members, many of whom are also academy members. Paramount did not order the 150,000 DVDs necessary to blanket the guilds, and it cost "Selma" dearly. These groups vote early and feel entitled to view contending movies from the comfort of their homes. "Sniper" ended up scoring six guild nominations, including from the producers, directors and writers organizations. "Selma" landed only makeup and costumes.

"With the late arrival, they needed to make the DVDs a priority," one veteran awards consultant told me. "They didn't, and it cost them. They didn't have time to build momentum."

There's also the issue of another kind of timing, that of locking in with how American audiences want to feel about themselves — and their country — right now. "Selma" remembered the 1965 voting rights struggles led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and, in doing so, felt contemporary to the nationwide protests over the deaths of unarmed black men killed by white police offers. It's also relevant, as DuVernay has often noted, as recent laws have weakened the Voting Rights Act in many states. These are thorny issues, and they make many people uncomfortable.

DuVernay's movie found itself in the news, not for these reasons but for the accuracy with which it portrayed the relationship between King and President Lyndon B. Johnson. Joseph Califano, a former senior aide to Johnson, wrote a Washington Post op-ed column saying that "Selma was LBJ's idea" (a claim he later backtracked on) and that the movie should be "ruled out ... during the ensuing awards season."...

Still more.

Two Suspects Killed in Belgium Antiterror Raid

I turned on CNN early yesterday afternoon and everyone was all over this story.

Europe's Islamic jihad is totally messed up right now. And European governments are freaking out across the board.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Belgium Antiterror Raid Leaves Two Suspects Dead: Move Disrupts Imminent Terrorist Plot, Belgian Authorities Say":

BRUSSELS — Belgian police killed two people in a firefight on Thursday evening, disrupting what authorities called an imminent terrorist plot just a week after Islamist extremists set Europe on edge with massacres in Paris.

The plot was aimed at attacking the police, authorities said, and involved people who had returned from Syria, possibly fighting alongside terrorist groups there.

The police operations, which resulted in 10 raids, were the product of an investigation that began several weeks ago, before last week’s killings in Paris at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery, authorities said.

“This group was on the verge of committing a terrorist attack in Belgium,” said Thierry Werts, spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office.

The authorities raised the nation’s terror alert and said police operations continued Thursday evening. A Belgian police spokesman said extra security measures were being taken. Police wielding machine guns were seen patrolling near Brussels’s main courthouse. The Belgian government convened an emergency meeting to discuss the security situation, officials said.

The raids come as a spate of terror attacks and failed plots linked to Islamist extremists have unsettled the Continent, often fueled by turmoil in the Middle East.

Last May, Belgium was involved in the first terrorist attack believed to have been conducted by a person who fought in Syria, when a Frenchman authorities say fought with Islamic State killed four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels.

The firefight on Thursday evening occurred in the eastern Belgian town of Verviers, the authorities said. The police also executed search warrants in Brussels and the Brussels suburb of Halle-Vilvoorde, targeting people who were believed to be involved in the plot.

When the police went to execute the search warrants in Verviers, they were met with automatic gunfire. They also arrested one person after the gunbattle. That person hasn’t been identified. No police were injured, authorities said.

Evidence uncovered later Thursday suggested the plot was sophisticated and ambitious. Belgian media reported that police found explosives in a house they searched in the Anderlecht neighborhood of Brussels, but that the occupants of the house couldn’t be located. Further police searches in a different part of Verviers turned up four Kalashnikovs, bomb-making materials and police clothing, Belgian daily La Libre reported.

Officials declined to discuss whether there was a connection between the plot and Amedy Coulibaly, the French Islamist who killed four people at the kosher grocery last week...

More.

Swiss Franc Moves Set Markets Aquiver

This is interesting.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Swiss Move Roils Global Markets: SNB’s Surprise Scrapping of Euro Cap Triggers Turmoil Among Bonds and Currencies":

ZURICH—Switzerland’s central bank triggered turmoil in the markets Thursday when it unexpectedly scrapped its cap on the Swiss franc’s exchange rate against the euro, a move that unleashed new volatility in credit and currency markets around the world and further underscored growing concerns about global economic prospects.

Against the cloudy backdrop of collapsing oil prices, a sharply rising dollar, fresh doubts about the stability of the euro and mounting global concerns over deflationary pressures, the move by the Swiss authorities was the starkest sign yet of the pressure policy makers face in dealing with unusual financial conditions that threaten the world’s already fragile economic conditions.

Some of the fallout was felt early Friday in Asia as FXCM Inc., the biggest retail foreign exchange broker in Asia and the U.S., said it suffered “significant losses” that wiped out its equity.

The abandonment of the cap, which had essentially pinned the currency at 1.20 francs per euro for the past 3½ years, prompted a collapse of as much as 30% in the euro versus the franc—the biggest single-day move in a developed market traders could recall. Swiss stocks fell 8.7% as traders worried the stronger franc would hurt Switzerland’s exports, especially to Europe.

The currency move was accompanied by further cuts in interest rates by Swiss authorities, pushing some European government bond yields deeper into negative territory.

The Swiss National Bank became the first monetary authority to act ahead of the European Central Bank’s expected launch of a new bond-buying program to boost the currency area’s sagging economic prospects. The reaction shows the ECB’s bond-buying program is having a big impact on markets before it has even launched. ECB President Mario Draghi’s signals in recent months that it was coming have already pushed the euro down substantially. That would also likely be the main goal of bond purchases, since interest rates are already very low in most of Europe.

Jeremy Stein, a former governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve and now a professor at Harvard University, welcomed the likely ECB policy makers’ action next week, saying that while was unclear how it will benefit the eurozone, “they are doing absolutely the right thing.” But the SNB’s move also increases the market glare on the ECB’s action next Thursday, and potentially sets investors up for disappointment if the central bank doesn’t deliver a convincing package to fight off deflation.

Tim Adams, president of the Institute of International Finance, said given the market expectations for the ECB, not acting could spark a market firestorm. “I think markets would be incredibly disappointed if it doesn’t happen,” Mr. Adams, a former U.S. Treasury undersecretary of international affairs, said in a recent interview.

A big package or an open-ended commitment to buy more if needed could have the desired effects: an even weaker euro, a surge in risky asset prices like stocks, lower rates on European corporate bonds. But a small package or an approach that makes the public doubt the ECB’s commitment to follow through could leave investors underwhelmed and might even reverse some of the effects the trumpeting of QE has already created.

While the lower euro does make life harder for the eurozone’s neighbors, most policy makers would prefer a stronger eurozone economy to a weak one...

Basically, the Swiss had established a fixed exchange rate with the Euro in 2009, where it took 1.2 francs to buy a euro. By removing the fixed rate, markets caused the franc to appreciate against the euro by 30 percent, 0.9 francs to the euro. It thus takes more euros to buy francs, and it's more expensive for consumers to buy Swiss goods and for travelers to visit Switzerland (a terrible blow to the Swiss economy). All of this roiled financial markets, as exchange brokerage houses saw their equity balances wiped out.

More at the link.

And see the New YorkTimes, "Franc Soars After Swiss Drop a Cap on Its Value."

Sarah Palin: Obama's 'Being a Chicken' About the #ParisAttacks and Radical Islam

I love her.

Hackers Take Down Pamela Geller's 'Atlas Shrugs'

I just tried to log on to Pamela' site and got a huge error warning.

She's got an update on Twitter here. And via Twitter, the current message at the error page is here.

It's more than a DDoS attack.

Dana Loesch Review of 'American Sniper': 'I felt completely inadequate and in awe of the sacrifice...'

I'd hoped to see the movie tomorrow, but my son needs my van for work. So, I'll be heading out Saturday morning first thing. I can't wait. And according to Dana, it's going to be a transformational experience.

See, "American Sniper: Movie Review And Self Reflection":

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of being invited to the Dallas, Texas premier of one of the rare movies that Hollywood gets right. "American Sniper” is based on the life of Chris Kyle, for those of you who don't know Chris was a Navy SEAL and is known as "Legend" throughout the military world for being the deadliest sniper in US history with over 160 confirmed kills. I predict that because of the truthful, ethical and real way the subject matter was treated that it won't win a single Hollywood award even though technically it is a superior film and Cooper's performance is magnificent. The film follows his life from before his days in the U.S. Navy, through his BUD/S training, meeting his wife Taya, his first deployment to the Middle East shortly after they were married and his time doing his job as a frogman sniper. If you have read the biography you already know much of the film but unless you are a combat veteran you will probably find some of the visceral realness of this movie to be challenging.

I will try not give away any spoilers here as to specific scenes in the film but I will tell you that the movie is not appropriate for children or young teens (I will revisit the review after it has been out a few weeks to discuss scenes and themes). I try not to shield my children from too much, I'd rather use the opportunity to teach them a little about the situations that arise in violent films as long as it is within reason. That being said, my children will not be seeing this film for some time. Unlike most war films, this film depicts a reality in situations that really puts you as close to the painful decisions that you can emotionally get without actually having to do the job. I am struggling to find the words to describe the adrenaline rushes and dumps that Clint Eastwood has perfectly captured and timed in this movie so I will tell you how I felt immediately afterwards.

I felt completely inadequate and in awe of the sacrifice...

Keep reading.

'They're Back...': Hysterical Limits to Growth Nutjobs Revamp with New End-of-Times Earth's Boundary Forecast

We've seen this movie before.

Back in the 1970s, the radical left's "limits to growth" nutjobs began their apocalyptic warnings about the global environment's finite resources and the inevitable risk to the human race from the exponential growth of the world's population. Virtually every single warning offered then has been proved wrong, debunked, and mocked in righteous waves of pro-growth repudiation. (See Bjorn Lomborg, for example, "Environmental Alarmism, Then and Now: The Club of Rome’s Problem -- and Ours.")

But, obviously to the surprise of no one, they're back.

Here's the OMG SCARY headline at the New York Times, "Unprecedented Level of Human Harm to Sea Life Is Forecast." And not to be outdone, here's the Washington Post, "Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond four of nine ‘planetary boundaries’":

At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings. That is the conclusion of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world.

The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They include the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.

“What the science has shown is that human activities — economic growth, technology, consumption – are destabilizing the global environment,” said Will Steffen, who holds appointments at the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Center and is the lead author of the paper.

These are not future problems, but rather urgent matters, according to Steffen, who said that the economic boom since 1950 and the globalized economy have accelerated the transgression of the boundaries. No one knows exactly when push will come to shove, but he said the possible destabilization of the “Earth System” as a whole could occur in a time frame of “decades out to a century.”

The researchers focused on nine separate planetary boundaries first identified by scientists in a 2009 paper. These boundaries set theoretical limits on changes to the environment, and include ozone depletion, freshwater use, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol pollution and the introduction of exotic chemicals and modified organisms.

Beyond each planetary boundary is a “zone of uncertainty.” This zone is meant to acknowledge the inherent uncertainties in the calculations, and to offer decision-makers a bit of a buffer, so that they can potentially take action before it’s too late to make a difference. Beyond that zone of uncertainty is the unknown — planetary conditions unfamiliar to us.

“The boundary is not like the edge of the cliff,” said Ray Pierrehumbert, an expert on Earth systems at the University of Chicago. “They’re a little bit more like danger warnings, like high-temperature gauges on your car.”

In other words, these enviro-freakazoids have no idea when the global system will reach its "finite" breaking point. We're overheating, and the remedy's not just a cooling system flush, but the total abandonment of carbon-propelled automobiles, and then some.

The problem of course is that these hysterically bogus "environmental" theories tend to work their way into to public policy, to disastrous effect. We're at the point, for example, according to Forbes, where the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is recommending new federally-mandated "sustainable" food guidelines arguing:

“A diet higher in plant-based foods . . . and lower in animal-based foods, is more health promoting and is associated with less environmental impact than is the current U.S. diet.”

Oh brother.

As always, push back against these crazed leftist anti-human eugenicists with raw facts and data. We've fought this battle before and won. The left's global warming, er, climate change, shucksters will simply transmogrify their agenda into some new hysterical end-of-times doom scenario.

Amal Clooney — You're No Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Funny, but I posted Lee Radziwill's biting criticism of Amal Clooney the other night, "Lee Radziwill Disses George and Amal Clooney."

However, I didn't link to Ms. Radiziwill dissing Ms. Clooney's gloves, "Dear #AmalClooney, This is how opera gloves are worn."

And thus it's interesting to see this at today's New York Times, "The Uproar Over Amal Clooney’s White Gloves":

At the Golden Globes on Sunday night, the fastidious Amal Clooney made what passed for red carpet history, turning the proceedings at the Beverly Hilton hotel into something resembling an affair of state. For better or worse, depending on which critic one consults, she pulled off that dubious feat by accenting her dramatic one-shoulder Dior haute couture dress with a pair of pristine opera gloves.

Incandescently white against her regal black gown, and scrunched below her elbow, those gloves — her own — brought down on her head a storm of controversy. Kathy Griffin, in her Monday morning debut on “Fashion Police,” fired off one of the first salvos: “She had on those gloves that remind me of, like, a porn scene, where the guy goes home and there’s the naughty dishwasher, and she only has the gloves.”

Ms. Griffin was just one in a chorus of critics taking potshots at Ms. Clooney for a fashion choice that, however respectfully intended, struck some as uppity, or at the least, unsuitable. “They make this look like her prom, or her debutante ball,” sniped a blogger who signed herself only as Jessica on a celebrity site. “If Amal A. Clooney is anything,” she posted, “it is not a blushing teen or fresh young debutante.”

So hotly debated was Ms. Clooney’s fashion statement that it rated its own Twitter account, @msclooneygloves. Elsewhere, tweeters singled out the offending armwear as pompous or pretentious, charging that she appears to think of herself as royalty. Another joshed, perhaps accurately, “Amal wore the gloves to protect the engagement and wedding rings from prying eyes.”

White gloves are not a look to try lightly, The Telegraph of London cautioned: “Too glitzy and you risk comparisons with Michael Jackson; too starched and you look like the Queen.”

Was it a breach of fashion etiquette that raised such consternation? Not likely, as Ms. Clooney had committed no obvious faux pas, her gloves perfectly suited to her floor-length black gown.

Or was it simply that those gloves, which according to the mischievous George Clooney, his wife had stitched up at home that very morning, didn’t seem to fit? Though there is nothing in the 1961 style primer “Gloves: Fashion and Etiquette” to suggest it, common sense would seem to dictate that opera gloves be stretched taut, pulled in an unbroken line from fingertips to elbows.

If Ms. Clooney made a blunder, it was merely that she opted for an old-school flourish that invited unfavorable comparisons to flawless style-world denizens like Jacqueline Kennedy, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn, the latter flaunting her gloves with perfect élan in films like “Sabrina” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”...

Paris Attacks: Photos at the Big Picture

From the Boston Globe, a spectacular photo-roundup.

Paris attack http://t.co/Og500wF4Js #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/eqsx790QPz

— The Big Picture (@big_picture) January 7, 2015

Jewish Home Party's Yehudit Shilat: 'Homo-Lesbian Agenda is Suicide for the Collective...'

So I gather the left's depraved homosexual agenda hasn't quite gather critical mass in Israel.

Never heard of this lady before, but she certainly nails it.

At the Times of Israel, "Jewish Home candidate: Gay agenda ‘suicide’ for society":

Yehudit Shilat cited lower birth rates and late marriage to explain her stance on same-sex relationships.

Yehudit Shilat, expected to receive a realistic slot on the Jewish Home party’s upcoming Knesset election list, spoke out strongly against homosexuality during a 2013 radio interview, calling same-sex relationships “suicide for society.

Shalit cited late marriage and lower birth rates to explain her stance on same-sex relationships during the interview, Haaretz reported Thursday.

“Legislation that benefits homosexuals, that is, the pushing of a gay-lesbian agenda through legislation, creates a public discourse that changes the social climate… and makes gay and lesbian ideas a progressive and legitimate phenomenon,” she told Guy Zohar of Radio 103 FM.

Shilat, who serves as the director of Takana, a forum against sexual abuse, also expressed her disapproval of legalizing gay marriage in Israel during the interview.

“If we accept the creating this climate of homo-lesbian values, together with the phenomenon of staying single until later in life and marrying late and declining fertility rate — we cannot ignore that demographically. We are talking about the suicide of certain collectives,” Shilat continued.

Host Guy Zohar responded to his guest that homosexuality was not a choice. Shalit answered that the majority of people who identify as gay choose to live their life that way. Immediately, Zohar interrupted her and said he would not allow her statements on his show.

In a video produced by the Jewish Home party and the religious news site Kipa released ahead of the primaries earlier this month, Shilat reiterated her stance on same-sex relationships. “There is no such thing,” Shilat said when asked what she thought of gay marriage, without explaining her statement further.

Similarly, the majority of the Jewish Home party candidates profiled in the segment came out flatly against Israel recognizing same-sex marriages, saying it went against Jewish values or normative principles.

The video quickly elicited harsh criticism by the gay community and left-wing politicians, who blasted the party members for what they called ‘homophobic’ statements, and demanded an apology be issued.

Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett refused to apologize for the video, and said his party would not support same-sex marriage legislation in the Knesset, during an interview with Channel 10 News last week.

PREVIOUSLY: "Yes, Homosexuality's a Lifestyle Choice."