Light My Fire

At Saberpoint, from last week, featuring this clip of The Doors: "Jim Morrison: Dionysian Shaman or Acid-Addled Freak?" Stogie watched the Oliver Stone flick and did a write-up.

Newlyweds Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr

Some news-related midweek Rule 5.

At People Magazine, "Newlyweds Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr Show Off Wedding Bling."

And ‎"PIRATE BOOTY: Orlando with Miranda (VIDEO: Miranda Kerr's new Victoria's Secret ad)":

Sexual Interactions of the Orgasmic Kind

At Feministe, "My Sluthood, Myself":

Last summer, I suffered the breakup of a relationship that I had thought would be permanent. Now, I’ve been through my share of break-ups, even of quite serious relationships, but nothing ever broke me like this one.

Since then, I’ve had sexual interactions of the orgasmic kind with 9 different people, none of which I was at any time in a committed relationship with.

I’m not telling you this to shock (though I am specifying the number because we all need to get over the whole “OMG! Be ashamed of your NUMBER! It’s either too big or too small!” thing). I’m telling you this because of something else that’s also true about me: I’d really like to be in a long-term, probably monogamous relationship. That’s right, folks, I’m a slut who craves a stable, loving, committed relationship. File me under “Lookin’ fer luv: ur doin it wrong.”

That’s the story we get sold, right? That women who sleep around are destroying their chances at True Love. Something to do with bonding hormones getting all used up? Or is it that we have so little self-esteem that no one could love us? Or maybe it’s that we’re all used candy wrappers or dirty masking tape. I can never remember.

Thing is: I’ve done it the other way. Until my mid-30s, I was largely a serial monogamist. Not for any grand ethical or philosophical reasons – it was just what felt comfortable to me. That’s not to say that I didn’t have some wild adventures in college, or never went to bed with someone on a first date – I did on occasion. It’s just that when I did, I’d often wake up the next day in a relationship. Let me tell you: not the best recipe for partnership bliss.

I’m thinking of one particular instance in which I had what was for me a very painful dry spell: a year and a half in which I barely got to kiss anyone, and didn’t get to do anything other than that at all, sexually speaking, with anyone. It… yeah. Didn’t feel too good. Made me feel like I would never be touched or loved again. Made me feel, in a word, desperate. You know what’s not a great emotional state for making important life decisions? Desperation.

To wit: after this year and a half of nothing, I went to bed with a woman I barely knew on our first date. Nothing wrong with that, we had a great time, and seriously, did I mention a year and a half? The problem came the next morning, when it became obvious that she was much more into me emotionally than I was at that point. Did I tell her that? And potentially get exiled back to my affectionless desert? I bet you know the answer. What followed was a two-year relationship in which we were unhappy for about the last year and a half ...

Lots, lots more at the link (amazingly).

I guess this is why feminists decry "slut shaming." They wanna be out and proud about their slutishness (and their sexual orientation?) and don't think they should hafta catch any flak for it.

And on a related note, I've never even heard of "Craigslist Casual Encounters" (the miracle that saved our orgasmic friend here, but RTWT).

No shame there, I guess.

Lindsay Beyerstein on JournoList

The Daily Caller's trickle of JournoList e-mails is providing a treasure-trove of insight into the twisted minds of radical leftists.

See, "Raw Journolist emails on ‘Palin’s Downs child’." (Via Memeorandum.)

Breathtaking is Lindsay Beyerstein's comments, for example:

"In the post-Rathergate era, journalists should be on their guard for Republican dirty tricks."

Dana Loesch picked up on this in a one-word titled post, "Irony."

But Ms. Beyerstein's extended discussion of Sarah Palin is almost unreal:

The story is far-fetched and as yet unsupported by evidence. Kathy’s right: So far, there’s not enough evidence for any responsible commentator to discuss this. Public speculation without proof is cruel and counterproductive.

However, if some reporter thinks this rumor is worth investigating further, and he or she absolutely nails this story, that would be great.

If I had the smoking gun, I’d proudly publish the evidence. (I don’t think the story is plausible enough to bother looking, but that’s a separate question.)

Anyone who decided to raise her granddaughter as her daughter is a liar and a hypocrite, not to mention an abuser of two generations of children. What kind of parent would force her family to live that kind of lie?

What warped values would give rise to such a decision? Lots of grandparents raise their grandkids. That’s admirable and commonplace. Barack Obama spoke movingly before a crowd of 84,000 about how his own grandmother helped raise him.

Why lie about the baby’s origins, except to spare Palin political embarrassment? She’s a self-professed Bible believing Christian whose mommy cred might be diminished by the revelation that she raised an unwed teen mom. That said, I imagine that she would have scored a lot of points for openly raising her daughter’s disabled child–and rightly so. A hoax would suggest extreme selfishness and blind ambition, not to mention vanity and a distinctly irrational preoccupation with keeping up appearances.

The fact that baby Trig has Down Syndrome isn’t the weakest link in the story. Yes, older mothers are at increased risk of bearing children with Down Syndrome. The majority of children with DS are born to younger mothers–because most babies are born to younger women, period.

My cousin, a pediatric nurse, mentioned a couple months ago that moms in their early teens are also at increased risk of bearing children with DS compared to women in their late teens and twenties. Does anyone know of a study to support that? The papers I’ve seen tend to put everyone under 25 in one category, instead of breaking the data down further.

Cheers,

Lindsay

Warped values?

Right.

The left is warped. Lindsay Beyerstein is the personification.

**********

Wait!

There's more! Turns out Andrew Sullivan, M.D., specialist in forensic gynecology, sees the JournoList as vindication!

Plus, William Jacobson's got a post up as well, "Journolist Trig Emails - All About The Story Line."

Crazy On You

I little music to brighten the afternoon?

Recall that Heart played Harrah's Rincon in May, which must have been awesome. This clip's from the 1970s. Enjoy "Crazy on You":

With Governor Jan Brewer...

...is my good friend Chris at Panhandle's Perspective, "Texas Business and Arizona Politics":

Haiti: Living in Limbo

An exremely moving photo-essay on Haiti earthquake survivor Alescandra Simin, from Carolyn Cole at the Los Angeles Times:

"Simin bathes Midjalannda in a large metal bowl, the same one the family uses as a latrine at night. She worries about her daughter's weight loss."

See the whole thing, at the link.

Arthur C. Brooks on Reason.TV

Via Theo Spark:

Julian Assange Alleges U.S. War Crimes in Afghanistan

At WSJ, "WikiLeaks Founder: Documents Suggest Evidence of War Crimes":

The Afghan war documents published by WikiLeaks appear to contain evidence of war crimes, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told a news conference in London Monday.

"There does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material," he said, adding that it would be "up to a court" to make judgements on any crimes.

He cited in particular Task Force 373, which he described as a U.S. military "assassination unit" that he said killed seven children in a "botched raid."

He strongly suggested a coverup of civilian deaths during the war, pointing to U.S. military reports on the number of people wounded or killed during specific incidents. In some of these, a high number of those killed or wounded are classified as "enemy" while very few are classified as "civilians," which Mr. Assange called "suspicious."

Asked how many incidents could potentially be investigated for possible war crimes or other reasons, he said "thousands," adding that the U.S. military would probably be forced to investigate some. "You need enough investigated to create deterrents" against similar behaviour in the future, he said.

Mr. Assange added that the information in the documents "really doesn't paint a flattering picture of the Taliban, either," noting that there are many reports of Taliban-planted explosive devices resulting in "significant loss of human life."

He said the documents don't just "reveal abuses" but paint a detailed picture of "the last six years of war," including the kinds of weapons used and the progress or setbacks experienced.

There's more at the link.

Noteworthy is Assange's claim that "he doesn't 'really have an opinion about whether the war should stop'."

Actually, he does care if the war stops, because his whole agenda is to stop the United States, and he's backed by the global transnational network of neo-communist activists who're gunning for America.

That said, lots of folks are unimpressed (and hence it's a media hayride mostly).

See Jawa Report, "Noted Liar and Conspiracy Theorist Leaks Documents Which Shock and Awe No One." And at Abu Muqawama, "Scoop!":

Here are the things I have learned thus far from the documents released via Wikileaks:

1. Elements within Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) support the Taliban.
2. The United States integrates direct action special operations into its counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan, targeting insurgent leaders through capture/kill missions.
3. Civilians have died in Afghanistan, often as the result of coalition combat operations.

I'm going to bed, but if I were to stay up late reading more, here is what I suspect I would discover:

1. "Afghanistan" has four syllables.
2. LeBron is going to the Heat.
3. D'Angelo Barksdale didn't actually commit suicide in prison. Stringer Bell had him killed.
4. Although a document dated 17 October 2004 claims the Red Sox were down 3-0 in a seven-game series with the Yankees, they actually went on to win 4-3.
5. Liberace was gay.
6. The Pathan remains wily.
7. Julian Assange is a clown.

But more seriously, see this piece at Mother Jones (of all places):

The other interesting data are notes from what the military calls KLEs—key leader engagements. Military officers, as well as officials from State, USAID, and other agencies regularly meet with important players in a war zone to get their take on the situation. Often they're dull and tell the interviewers little they didn't already know; sometimes, though, they give insight to "atmospherics"—how Afghan locals feel about US forces or the Taliban. Many of these key leaders take their lives into their hands; from my experience in Iraq, I know that numerous Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds with high standing among their tribes—and among our enemies—took time to brief US officials, often to dish dirt on crooked or violent elements in their vicinity. If they were ever outed as collaborators with American forces, they'd be as good as dead. And Wikileaks has 16 pages of secret military KLEs with individuals and groups in Afghanistan, spanning six years. No names are redacted. In this case, what retired general James Jones, the White House national security adviser, said yesterday is correct: WL is putting some lives at serious risk with that particular data dump.

Wikileaks Defends Release of Afghanistan War Logs Documents

Julian Assange defends the release of secret military files on the war in Afghanistan. Plus, an update from the Russian news channel:

I'm still working through the information, but see my earlier entry, "WikiLeaks and the Afghanistan War Logs." Also, at Politico, "W.H. condemns 'irresponsible' leaks, dismisses stories." And especially, Blake Hounshell, "The logs of war: Do the Wikileaks documents really tell us anything new?":

Three news organizations -- the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel -- today published explosive reports on a treasure trove of more than 91,000 documents that were obtained by Wikileaks, the self-proclaimed whistleblower site.

I've now gone through the reporting and most of the selected documents (though not the larger data dump), and I think there's less here than meets the eye. The story that seems to be getting the most attention, repeating the longstanding allegation that Pakistani intelligence might be aiding the Afghan insurgents, offers a few new details but not much greater clarity. Both the Times and the Guardian are careful to point out that the raw reports in the Wikileaks archive often seem poorly sourced and present implausible information.

"[F]or all their eye-popping details," writes the Guardian's Declan Walsh, "the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity."

The Times' reporters seem somewhat more persuaded, noting that "many of the reports rely on sources that the military rated as reliable" and that their sources told them that "the portrait of the spy agency’s collaboration with the Afghan insurgency was broadly consistent with other classified intelligence."

Der Spiegel's reporting adds little, though the magazine's stories will probably have great political impact in Germany, as the Wikileaks folks no doubt intended. One story hones in on how an elite U.S. task force charged with hunting down Taliban and Al Qaeda targets operates from within a German base; another alleges that "The German army was clueless and naïve when it stumbled into the conflict," and that northern Afghanistan, where the bulk of German troops are based, is more violent than has been previously portrayed.

Otherwise, I'd say that so far the documents confirm what we already know about the war: It's going badly; Pakistan is not the world's greatest ally and is probably playing a double game; coalition forces have been responsible for far too many civilian casualties; and the United States doesn't have very reliable intelligence in Afghanistan.

'We Were Soldiers'

Watched it yesterday. Interesting to see a film with Mel Gibson amid his personal meltdown. I always admired Gibson in this one. I think it's when he tried to become American. Wikipedia's got a good page on the history, "Battle of la Drang." I also love Madeleine Stowe in this film, and I miss her in more recent movies. A truly classy woman:

The Left’s Default Response is Fascism

From John Nolte:

As a former Leftist I do, however, understand the knee-jerk leap to fascism. Being a Leftist sucks when it comes to political debate. You really only have two choices to try and convince others that your progressive ideas and values aren’t toxic, and that’s emotionalism, lies, or both. I remember how frustrating that was and so it only makes sense that Leftists would find appealing everything from a literal “shut up” straight through to wishing that America wasn’t a democracy but instead the kind of country with a government willing and able to permanently silence those opinion and broadcast outlets a chosen few don’t agree with or don’t think “advances us in this country.”

WikiLeaks and the Afghanistan War Logs

It's strange, since I was just listening to a 20 minute interview with Julian Assange yesterday at TED. I had planned to write about that as soon as this latest breaking news cycle winds down (JournoList, Shirley Sherrod, etc.), and now we've got the release of the Afghanistan war logs, which had been expected. Yeah, since the Iraq Apache video smear (and the detailed coverage at Jawa Report, et al., and my own), I've been gaining a sharper understanding of Assange and his hard-left enablers worldwide. It's simply more clear by the day that America's enemies are not just on the battlefield, but also among the global transnational issue networks working to bring down the United States and its Western allies.

I need to research the war logs and find out more on this, so expect updates. Below is a clip featuring Julian Assange for The Guardian. There's also a big exposé at The Guardian as well, so it's clear that the newspaper's coordinating its coverage with WikiLeaks. See, "Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation." And of course, the New York Times is on the case, seemingly as deeply involved as is The Guardian. See, "Inside the Fog of War: Reports From the Ground in Afghanistan."Also at NYT (FWIW), "Piecing Together the Reports, and Deciding What to Publish":

The articles published today are based on thousands of United States military incident and intelligence reports — records of engagements, mishaps, intelligence on enemy activity and other events from the war in Afghanistan — that were made public on Sunday on the Internet. The New York Times, The Guardian newspaper in London, and the German magazine Der Spiegel were given access to the material several weeks ago. These reports are used by desk officers in the Pentagon and troops in the field when they make operational plans and prepare briefings on the situation in the war zone. Most of the reports are routine, even mundane, but many add insights, texture and context to a war that has been waged for nearly nine years.

Over all these documents amount to a real-time history of the war reported from one important vantage point — that of the soldiers and officers actually doing the fighting and reconstruction.

The Source of the Material

The documents — some 92,000 individual reports in all — were made available to The Times and the European news organizations by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to exposing secrets of all kinds, on the condition that the papers not report on the data until July 25, when WikiLeaks said it intended to post the material on the Internet. WikiLeaks did not reveal where it obtained the material. WikiLeaks was not involved in the news organizations’ research, reporting, analysis and writing. The Times spent about a month mining the data for disclosures and patterns, verifying and cross-checking with other information sources, and preparing the articles that are published today. The three news organizations agreed to publish their articles simultaneously, but each prepared its own articles.

Classified Information

Deciding whether to publish secret information is always difficult, and after weighing the risks and public interest, we sometimes chose not to publish. But there are times when the information is of significant public interest, and this is one of those times. The documents illuminate the extraordinary difficulty of what the United States and its allies have undertaken in a way that other accounts have not.

Most of the incident reports are marked “secret,” a relatively low level of classification. The Times has taken care not to publish information that would harm national security interests ...

There's more at the link, but I stopped at this line. "The Times has taken care not to publish information that would harm national security interests"?

Don't believe it for a second. The New York Times has been the radical left's institutional organ working to bring about an American defeat in Iraq and the War on Terror, and now in Afghanistan.

Recall Heather MacDonald's piece from 2006, on the Times' reporting that helped killed the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program. See, "National Security Be Damned":

BY NOW IT'S UNDENIABLE: The New York Times is a national security threat. So drunk is it on its own power and so antagonistic to the Bush administration that it will expose every classified antiterror program it finds out about, no matter how legal the program, how carefully crafted to safeguard civil liberties, or how vital to protecting American lives.

The Times's latest revelation of a national security secret appeared on last Friday's front page--where no al Qaeda operative could possibly miss it. Under the deliberately sensational headline, "Bank Data Sifted in Secret by U.S. to Block Terror," the Times blows the cover on a highly targeted program to locate terrorist financing networks. According to the report, since 9/11, the Bush administration has obtained information about terror suspects' international financial transactions from a Belgian clearinghouse of international money transfers.

RTWT.

See also, Michelle Malkin, "NY Times Blabbermouths Strike Again."

I'll have more later after I read and research a bit. Meanwhile, readers can check WikiLeaks directly: "Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010." And the Der Spiegel piece is here: "Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It" (via Memeorandum).

Correcting the New York Times

This post is a revised and update version of an entry that was scheduled to go live early Monday morning (see the original post below). Some readers might recall that last weekend I caught New York Times' political reporter Matt Bai publishing a 100 percent falsehood that claimed a "shower of hateful epithets" had allegedly met Rep. John Lewis outside Capitol Hill last March. Full details below, but it's a pleasure to revise and update with a correction from the editors published in today's newspaper:

Corrections

Published: July 25, 2010

NATIONAL

The Political Times column last Sunday, about a generational divide over racial attitudes, erroneously linked one example of a racially charged statement to the Tea Party movement. While Tea Party supporters have been connected to a number of such statements, there is no evidence that epithets reportedly directed in March at Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, outside the Capitol, came from Tea Party members. (Go to Article)

There's no perma-permalink, so here's the screencap for posterity. (The orginal article has been revised, however, and the correction is appended at bottom: "Beneath Divides Seemingly About Race Are Generational Fault Lines.")

And this correction is an extremely limited one at that. John at Power Line picked it up, and he notes:

Someday the Times may go all the way and admit that the epithets "reportedly" directed at Lewis (reported by Lewis himself, that is) never occurred. In the meantime, the paper is careful to assure its readers that Tea Party members have made "a number of" racially charged statements, all of which are unspecified.

Hat tip to Pirate's Cove, who links to Linkmaster Smith at The Other McCain. And thanks to Glenn Reynolds for originally linking and spreading the word. My original post is below:

**********

Interesting piece at NYT (FWIW), "In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger":

Such is the state of the media business these days: frantic and fatigued. Young journalists who once dreamed of trotting the globe in pursuit of a story are instead shackled to their computers, where they try to eke out a fresh thought or be first to report even the smallest nugget of news — anything that will impress Google algorithms and draw readers their way.

Tracking how many people view articles, and then rewarding — or shaming — writers based on those results has become increasingly common in old and new media newsrooms. The Christian Science Monitor now sends a daily e-mail message to its staff that lists the number of page views for each article on the paper’s Web site that day.

The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times all display a “most viewed” list on their home pages. Some media outlets, including Bloomberg News and Gawker Media, now pay writers based in part on how many readers click on their articles.

Once only wire-service journalists had their output measured this way. And in a media environment crowded with virtual content farms where no detail is too small to report as long as it was reported there first, Politico stands out for its frenetic pace or, in the euphemism preferred by its editors, “high metabolism.”

The top editors, who rise as early as 4:30 a.m., expect such volume and speed from their reporters because they believe Politico’s very existence depends, in large part, on how quickly it can tell readers something, anything they did not know.

RTWT.

The golden nugget of today's high-octane online journalism is the breaking news report. And what's not mentioned so much at the piece is how newspapers are in fact threatened by all the alternative media. Notice how at the piece reporters aren't working a beat so much nowadays as trawling the web for interesting and exclusive tidbits of information. Also important is the premium of fresh content so as not to lose readers.

Sounds a lot like blogging, actually.

Speaking of which, I had a great time of it last week. I broke a story.

On Sunday night I published "Calling New York Times: Congressman John Lewis was NOT 'Showered With Hateful Epithets Outside the Capitol' Last March." I e-mailed it out to some on my bloggers' distribution list, and Glenn Reynolds picked it up (and I had an Instalanche rockin' the blog when I got back online at 3:00am Monday morning.) That was followed up by Andrew Bolt at Australia's Herald Sun, and then a little later by Power Line and NewsBusters. (I'm especially proud of the Power Line link --- that's a first for me, and Power Line was one of the very first blogs I discovered years ago before I picked up blogging for myself.) And it turns out a Power Line reader has written "An open letter to Matt Bai." (Via Glenn.)

So, head on over there and check it out. That's cool!

BONUS: It turns out Mark Levin linked to my post as part of his 7-19 program on "race based politics."

That's too cool!

Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea

I'm about half way through C. Bradley Thompson's new book, Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea. Yeah, it's an attack on neoconservatism, by one who was sympathetic to the ideology at one time. It's an excellent read, although I disagree with its conclusions, and it'll take me some thinking to put those disagreements in more detailed writing here. I can say that Thompson's focus so far is primarily on Irving Kristol and how he was informed by Straussian political philosophy. Hence, Thomspon reads an allegedly extreme authoritarianism into the movement that --- it is argued --- is at odds with the vision of the American founders. I'd simply note that neocons are way more eclectic than is postulated at the book, and again, I'm not done yet. I have peeked ahead to the conclusion, and Thompson takes his thesis to its logical conclusion to find neoconservatism anti-democratic. More on this later. Meanwhile, this is the kind of response I'd offer outside of the Irving Kristol exegesis, from Max Boot:

"Neocons Are Liberals Who Have Been Mugged by Reality"

No longer true. Original neoconservatives such as Irving Kristol, who memorably defined neocons as liberals who'd been "mugged by reality," were (and still are) in favor of welfare benefits, racial equality, and many other liberal tenets. But they were driven rightward by the excesses of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when crime was increasing in the United States, the Soviet Union was gaining ground in the Cold War, and the dominant wing of the Democratic Party was unwilling to get tough on either problem.

A few neocons, like philosopher Sidney Hook or Kristol himself, had once been Marxists or Trotskyites. Most, like former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, simply had been hawkish Democrats who became disenchanted with their party as it drifted further left in the 1970s. Many neocons, such as Richard Perle, originally rallied around Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a Democratic senator who led the opposition to the Nixon-Ford policy of détente with the Soviet Union. Following the 1980 election, U.S. President Ronald Reagan became the new standard bearer of the neoconservative cause.

A few neocons, like Perle, still identify themselves as Democrats, and a number of "neoliberals" in the Democratic Party (such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman and former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke) hold fairly neoconservative views on foreign policy. But most neocons have switched to the Republican Party. On many issues, they are virtually indistinguishable from other conservatives; their main differences are with libertarians, who demonize "big government" and preach an anything-goes morality.

Most younger members of the neoconservative movement, including some descendants of the first generation, such as William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, and Robert Kagan, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, have never gone through a leftist phase, which makes the "neo" prefix no longer technically accurate. Like "liberal," "conservative," and other ideological labels, "neocon" has morphed away from its original definition. It has now become an all-purpose term of abuse for anyone deemed to be hawkish, which is why many of those so described shun the label. Wolfowitz prefers to call himself a "Scoop Jackson Republican."

BONUS: At Dr. Sanity, "WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW...":

...is not love or global orgasms, but more neoconservatism.

'Mama Grizzlies'

I love this clip. All three of these women, wives and mothers with busy lives at home and in the workplace, are running for elective office. It takes a lot, especially fundraising. Some day I may throw my hat in the ring, although this blog probably wouldn't help my campaign, LOL!

RELATED SCORCHER: At Fox News, "100 Days to Decide: Republicans Bank on Anti-Dem Strategy, Platform Unclear."

PLUS: At The Hill, "Franken warns that GOP Congress would bring ‘truly dangerous agenda’" (via Memeorandum). And at Sweetness & Light, "Franken: GOP Brings ‘Dangerous Agenda’."

Sunday Cartoon Roundup

More at Flopping Aces and Theo Spark.

The Secular Inquisition

From Chapter 4 in Melanie Phillips, The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power:

What have the issues of anthropogenic global warming, the war in Iraq, Israel and scientism got in common? Not a lot, you might think. But in fact a number of threads link them all. Most fundamentally, they involve the promotion of beliefs that purport to be unchallengeable truths but are in fact ideologies in which evidence is manipulated, twisted and distorted to support or "prove" their governing idea. All are therefore based on false or unsupported beliefs that are presented as axiomatically true. Moreover, because each assumes itself to be proclaiming the sole and exclusive truth, it cannot permit any challenge to itself. It has to maintain at all costs the integrity of the falsehood. So all challenges have to be resisted through coercive means. Knowledge is thus forced to give way to power. Reason is replaced by bullying, intimidation and the suppression of debate.

This makes them all deeply regressive movements of thought, which corrode the most fundamental concept of the Western world. The principle characteristic of Western modernity is freedom of thought and expression and the ability to express dissent. The eighteenth-century Enlightenment ushered in the modern age by breaking the power of the church to control the terms of debate and punish heresy. Church and state were separated, and a space was created for individual freedom and the toleration of differences --- the essence of liberal society.

Academic Tenure and the 'Damascus Conversion to Unpopular Views'

I generally don't like the academic tenure system. For the most part, it promotes college "sinecures" for professors, who won't have to perform up to the standards required upon hiring at an institution. But tenure has its usefulness. One of the main arguments you always hear is about "academic freedom," which is really an argument about protecting faculty from those who disapprove of their views. The academic freedom argument's been something I've thought about more recently, considering the various attacks I've been subject to on account of blogging. The most invidious of course are the workplace harassment episodes featuring E.D. Kain and Octopus at The Swash Zone. On top of that is a corps of radical leftists at my college which has objected to my conservative views and, most recently, my conservative bulletin board, which in turn devolved into a full-scale civil rights investigation (with the gunsights eventually turned on me for alleged "libel" and "hate-speech," blah, blah ...).

So, I'm taking an interest in this debate on tenure over at Volokh Conspiracy. See, "Debating Tenure" (via Instapundit). In responding to a feature at NYT, author Ilya Somin links to "Do We Need Tenure to Protect Academic Freedom?", and this passage (with the key sentence in paragraph #4 in bold):

In recent weeks, a number of prominent professor-bloggers have criticized the tenure system, including Bryan Caplan, Freakonomics author Steve Levitt, Brian Tamanaha, and our own David Bernstein. These writers all point out that tenure protects shirkers and mediocre scholars. I would add that it also protects professors who are bad teachers or mistreat students in ways that fall short of the very severe offenses (i.e. - serious sexual harrassment or other criminal misconduct) that would allow the school to fire a tenured faculty member. I also agree with Bryan Caplan and David Bernstein's suggestion that tenure persists despite its inefficiency in large part because universities are nonprofit or governmental institutions that have little incentive to adopt efficient policies.

However, none of these writers fully address the main argument in favor of tenure: the claim that it is needed to protect the academic freedom of professors with unpopular political views. That argument is not completely without merit, but is very much overstated.

As David mentions in his post (linked above), the institution of tenure is not enough to prevent ideological discrimination in academic hiring. A faculty that wants to discriminate can still do so in entry level hiring or at the point when it is decides whether or not an assistant professor gets promoted to tenure. If the faculty or administration is intent on enforcing ideological conformity, it can usually do so quite effectively even without having the ability to fire tenured professors. If it is not, then tenure is probably not needed to protect academic freedom at that particular institution.

At most, therefore, tenure will only protect the academic freedom of professors who either 1) manage to keep their unpopular views hidden from their colleagues until after they get tenure, or 2) have a road to Damascus conversion to unpopular views after getting tenured status. Such cases are not unheard of, but they are likely to be extremely rare. Tenure might also occasionally protect a professor whose views are generally acceptable to his colleagues and the administration, but who occasionally makes a stray unpopular or un-PC remark. For example, Ward Churchill's far left views were apparently acceptable to the University of Colorado administration and faculty (at least to the extent that they didn't want to get rid of him) until he really went off the deep end by calling the victims of 9/11 attack "little Eichmans." I suspect, however, that, even in the absence of tenure, it is unlikely that universities will often seek to fire professors just for making one or a few isolated controversial comments.

There is no way of perfectly protecting professors who convert to political views unpopular with their colleagues or make controversial remarks. However, perfect protection is probably unnecessary, because cases of firing for such reasons are likely to be rare ...

Readers can guess what my "Damascus conversion" was, but I had one, around 2003.

IMAGE CREDIT: The Conversion of Saint Paul, Caravaggio, 1600/1601.

Age of Ragin' Partisan Journalism

It's worth a read, at Politico:

Here’s the optimistic case: The embarrassment of the Shirley Sherrod story — with its toxic convergence of partisan combat and media recklessness — will be a tipping point. It will remind journalists and politicians alike that personal reputations and professional credibility are at stake, and a bit more restraint and responsibility are in order.

Here’s the realistic case: Get ready for more of the same.

Every president since the first George Bush has delivered an inaugural address including as a main theme an appeal for more civility and less cynical conflict. Barack Obama is the fourth in a row to be thwarted in this mission — frustrated by forces that have grown far stronger over the past two decades and aren’t abating any time soon.

That is because there are two big incentives that drive behavior at the intersection where politics meets media. One is public attention. The other is money. Experience shows there’s a lot more of both to be had by engaging in extreme partisan behavior.

The Sherrod controversy is only a somewhat exaggerated version of the new normal. The usual signatures of this new breed of incentive-driven uproar were also on display in another of this week’s controversies, over JournoList, the defunct liberal listserv.

Both stories featured sharp personal attacks against political opponents. Both revolved around indignant claims from people claiming to be victims of bias and the corrupt ideological agendas of their opponents — all the while stoking and profiting from the bias and conspiratorial instincts of partisans on their own side.

Responsible people in power and in the mainstream media are only beginning to grapple with this new environment — in which facts hardly matter except as they can be used as weapon or shield in a nonstop ideological war. Do you dive into the next fact-lite partisan outrage — or do you stay out and risk looking slow, stupid or irrelevant? No one is close to figuring it out.

So, despite a new burst of hand-wringing and talk of “lessons learned,” many commentators predicted in interviews that the situation involving Shirley Sherrod would soon enough be regarded as merely another footnote in the Age of Rage.

RTWT.

I don't think we're in any new age that's newer than any collapse of what political scientists used to call "objective journalism." It's just a faster news-cycle these days, with more participants to add to the spin.

From the Heart Attack Cafe

Via my sources at the O.C. Fair:

Anita MonCrief to File Federal Election Suit Against Obama Machine

At Emerging Corruption, "The Obama Donor List"

For a number of years traditional print media has been on life support, but after the revelations from Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller, it looks like someone finally pulled the plug. The expose on Journolist, a now defunct, listserv that included hundreds of liberal journalists, detailed:

the Journolisters’ attempt, during the 2008 presidential campaign to kill and bury stories about Obama’s relationship with “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright;

their push to deliberately smear innocent conservative journalists and politicos as “racists” and “bigots”

their twisted passion to see Rush Limbaugh killed off and dead;

their intolerant desire to have the government censor and shut down Fox News; and

their baldly partisan effort to coordinate liberal talking points that would discredit Sarah Palin and John McCain, while helping to elect Barack Obama president.

Considering that Journolist included journalists from Washington Post, the New York Times, National Public Radio, New Republic, and Time, one has to wonder if the biggest story covered up in 2008 was the illegal coordination between ACORN and the Obama campaign ...

And check the video at Big Government, "Breaking: Anita MonCrief to File FEC Charges Against Obama Administration."

Also, at No Sheeples Here!, "BOMBSHELL: EmergingCorruption.com Has Released The Kraken On The White House."

Affirmative Action Gone Wrong

From Al the Fish (via Blazing Cat Fur):

At this point in time I have to admit I used to be a swivel servant employed by the Government of Canada. While serving my time, I had the opportunity to apply for many jobs within the Public Service.

I can attest that as late as 2007, the application process involved either a paper or on-line application form. At the very end of the form, the applicant was afforded the opportunity to voluntarily self-identify if they belonged to an an underrepresented group in the Public Service. At the time the underrepresented groups included women; first nations' persons; visible minorities; and persons with a disability. The explanation for the collection of that data was that the information could be used as a tie-breaker in screening applicants. Should two persons score equally, if one fell into an underrepresented group, they could be chosen ahead of the other person, only if the competition's initial posting specified that criteria could be used.

The rest is a must read.

RELATED: "Woman denied government job because of race." (That would be Sara Landriault, who is white, and pictured here: "Race prevents Kemptville woman from applying for job.")

Matt Lewis Interview with Andrew Breitbart

At Politics Daily (via Memeorandum). I love this passage:

Q: How does the Shirley Sherrod story relate to the JournoList story where liberal journalist Spencer Ackerman suggested deflecting attention from the Reverend Wright story, which was hurting Obama, by wrongly accusing a prominent conservative of being a racist?

A: That collusion to slander by Ackerman -- and the sin of omission of the other 400 people on the list -- to abide by that calculated evil -- shows that we have a tremendous problem in journalism today -- and then they come and ask me about my tactics. I'm trying to end JournoList collusion that goes well beyond the [listserve's founder] Washington Post's Ezra Klein's 400 friends and collaborators, and that includes Politico and Bloomberg. Where are they firing people? Where are the questions about this monumental act of journalistic fraud? Where are the mass firings?

'Sub-Subgenius' Charles Johnson: New York Mega-Victory Mosque 'Two Blocks Away' From Ground Zero

Charles Johnson's been practically ejaculating at the chance to get some good digs in against the "Bigot Brigade" of late, with the Breitbart/NAACP controversy and what not. And of course C.J.'s long-running attacks on "Nazis" Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer got a shot in the arm last week when Sarah Palin spoke out against the Ground Zero Mosque. King Charles wrote a post (safe Google link) pointing out Palin's "idiocy" for posting that "refudiate" thing on Twitter. See, "Sarah Palin Calls on 'Peaceful Muslims' to 'Refudiate' Their Own Religion." And here's this from an update at the post:

It should be pointed out (again) that the “Ground Zero mosque” these idiots are ranting about is actually a proposed community center with an auditorium, swimming pool, and restaurants, in addition to a mosque. It would be housed in an existing 13-story building that’s two blocks away from Ground Zero and has no view of the area; there are two very big buildings in between the proposed community center and Ground Zero. Here is an embedded Google Map in which you can clearly see that the idea of this being a “Ground Zero mosque” is a ridiculous paranoid fantasy.

I was just now tooling around at LGF. King Charles continues with his attacks on all his "Neanderthal" opponents (he slurs Dan Riehl, who wrote one of the best essays all week at Human Events, as "sub-sub-genius"). I might not have even posted on this had I not seen Mike Lester's cartoon on the Ground Zero Mosque, which is the political cartoon equivalent of "a picture's worth a thousand words." Take that, Sir Charles Genius of Lizard Land:

Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran: Better Safe Than Sorry

Reuel Marc Gerecht, at Weekly Standard, "Should Israel Bomb Iran?":

There is only one thing that terrifies Washington’s foreign policy establishment more than the prospect of an American airstrike against Iran’s nuclear-weapons facilities: an Israeli airstrike. Left, right, and center, “sensible” people view the idea with alarm. Such an attack would, they say, do great damage to the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Tehran would counterattack, punishing “the Great Satan” (America) for the sins of “the Little Satan” (Israel). An Israeli strike could lead to the closing of the world’s oil passageway, the Strait of Hormuz; prompt Muslims throughout the world to rise up in outrage; and spark a Middle Eastern war that might drag in the United States. Barack Obama’s “New Beginning” with Muslims, such as it is, would be over the moment Israeli bunker-busting bombs hit.

An Israeli “preventive” attack, we are further told, couldn’t possibly stop the Islamic Republic from developing a nuke, and would actually make it more likely that the virulently anti-Zionist supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, would strike Israel with a nuclear weapon. It would also provoke Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to deploy its terrorist assets against Israel and the United States. Hezbollah, the Islamic Revolution’s one true Arab child, would unleash all the missiles it has imported from Tehran and Damascus since 2006, the last time the Party of God and the Jewish state collided.

An Israeli preemptive strike unauthorized by Washington (and President Barack Obama is unlikely to authorize one) could also severely damage Israel’s standing with the American public, as well as America’s relations with Europe, since the “diplomacy first, diplomacy only” Europeans would go ballistic, demanding a more severe punishment of Israel than Washington could countenance. The Jewish state’s relations with the European Union—Israel’s major trading partner—could collapse. And, last but not least, an Israeli strike could fatally compromise the pro-democracy Green Movement in Iran, which is the only hope the West has for an end to the nuclear menace by means of regime change. This concern was expressed halfheartedly before the tumultuous Iranian elections of June 12, 2009, but it is now voiced with urgency by those who truly care about the Green Movement spawned by those elections and don’t want any American or Israeli action to harm it.

These fears are mostly overblown. Some of the alarmist scenarios are the opposite of what would more likely unfold after an Israeli attack. Although dangerous for Israel, a preventive strike remains the most effective answer to the possibility of Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards having nuclear weapons. Provided the Israeli air force is capable of executing it, and assuming no U.S. military action, an Israeli bombardment remains the only conceivable means of derailing or seriously delaying Iran’s nuclear program and—equally important—traumatizing Tehran. Since 1999, when the supreme leader quashed student demonstrations and put paid to any chance that the Islamic Republic would peacefully evolve under the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, Iran has calcified into an ever-nastier autocracy. An Israeli strike now—after the rise of the Green Movement and the crackdown on it—is more likely to shake the regime than would have a massive American attack in 2002, when Tehran’s clandestine nuclear program was first revealed. And if anything can jolt the pro-democracy movement forward, contrary to the now passionately accepted conventional wisdom, an Israeli strike against the nuclear sites is it.

There are many voices out there—“realists” in America, Kantians in Europe—who believe this discussion is unnecessary since Iran doesn’t really pose an existential threat to Israel, America, or anyone else, and whatever threat it does pose can be countered with “strategic patience” and the threat of Israeli nuclear retaliation. Tehran may support anti-Israeli terrorist groups, but there is no need to overreact: The regime is as scared of Israel’s military power as Israel is scared of mullahs with nukes. America’s preeminent job should therefore be to calm the Israelis down—or, failing that, arm-twist them into inaction.

RTWT.

RELATED: At Israel Matsav, "Iran's representative in the US cries 'the sky is falling'." And at PuffHo, "Resolution Green-Lighting Israeli Strikes on Iran Introduced by House Republicans" (via Memeorandum).

Canadian CF18 Pilot Ejects Moments Before Crash at Alberta International Airshow

At Chicago Ray's, "Canadian CF-15 Pilot Escapes Death Ejecting Moments before Fiery Air Show Practice Mishap..."

And at Boston's WCVB TV, "Jet Crashes During Air Show Practice: Canadian Pilot Able To Eject Before Aircraft Hit Runway":

LETHBRIDGE, Alberta -- A Canadian air force jet crashed and exploded in a ball of flames during a training run for a weekend international air show in Alberta, but the pilot was able to eject from the plummeting plane before it hit the runway.

The pilot, Capt. Brian Bews, who sustained a sore back and scraped-up arms, was treated at a hospital and released Friday.

Bews was practicing Friday in a CF-18 Hornet jet over Lethbridge County Airport for an international air show. The CF-18 he was flying is a model specifically used for air shows.

"All of a sudden you could hear 'pop, pop, pop,' " witness Roland Booth told CTV News. "I saw sparks come out of the one engine. The plane started banking over to the side. That's when the pilot bailed out with his parachute."

Another witness, aviation buff Darren Jansens, says the pilot was just starting a maneuver known as a High Alpha pass before the accident.

"It's a high-angle pass, very low speed, fairly close to the ground. It's the lowest-speed maneuver the Hornet generally performs," said Jansens.

"The pilot did eject safely but was dragged several hundred feet unconscious along the ground," he added.

The military and the Department of Transport immediately launched an investigation into the accident. There was no indication of the cause of the accident.

And check the spectacular pictures at the Calgary Herald, "Pilot survives after CF-18 crashes, burns at Lethbridge airport: 'This is an isolated incident with one aircraft'."

Imam Feisal and the Ground Zero Mosque

It's amusing that Charles Johnson, who was once perhaps the country's lead anti-jihad blogger, has done a 180 degree turn, and is now an apologist for radical Islam. Here's his post today (at a Google-safe link): "An Interview with the Lead Developer of Park51." C.J. smears Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer (and their supporters) as members of the "Bigot Brigade." And his "evidence" is an interview with Sharif el-Gamal, who is the CEO developer of the "interfaith" center at Ground Zero: "Q&A with Sharif el-Gamal about Park 51, NYC." Sharif waxes profoundly about what a uniter is Imam Feisal, chief sponsor of the Cordoba Initiative.

Don't believe it for a second.

I've previously laid out my position on the topic ("To Build or Not to Build? Mosque Protests Go Nationwide"). I'm not one to back suppression of Islam in America, although my commenters have been extremely critical of Islam, at a 2-1 ratio. I do have problems with the Ground Zero project. It's especially chilling how the left has used this to demonize those still recovering loved once from Ground Zero. In any case, we have more in the news, for example Frank Gaffney's new video, "Center says ‘No’ to ‘Shariah Beachhead’ at Ground Zero":

Plus, see Andrew Bostom at yesterday's NY Post, "Behind the mosque :Extremism at Ground Zero?":

Imam Feisal Rauf, the central figure in the coterie planning a huge mosque just off Ground Zero, is a full-throated champion of the very same Muslim theologians and jurists identified in a landmark NYPD report as central to promoting the Islamic religious bigotry that fuels modern jihad terrorism.

This fact alone should compel Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg to withdraw their support for the proposed mosque.

In August 2007, the NYPD released "Radicalization in the West -- The Homegrown Threat." This landmark 90-page report looked at the threat that had become apparent since 9/11, analyzing the roots of recent terror plots in the United States, from Lackawanna, NY, to Portland, Ore., to Fort Dix, NJ.

The report noted that Saudi "Wahhabi" scholars feed the jihadist ideology, legitimizing an "extreme intolerance" toward non-Muslims, especially Jews, Christians and Hindus. In particular, the analysts noted that the "journey" of radicalization that produces homegrown jihadis often begins in a Wahhabi mosque.

The term "Wahhabi" refers to the 18th century founder of this austere Islamic tradition, Muhammad bin Abdul al-Wahhab, who claimed inspiration from 14th century jurist Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah.

At least two of Imam Rauf's books, a 2000 treatise on Islamic law and his 2004 "What's Right with Islam," laud the implementation of sharia -- including within America -- and the "rejuvenating" Islamic religious spirit of Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Wahhab.

RTWT.

Also, previously at NY Post, "Imam Unmosqued: Ground Zero Booster Tied to Sea Clash":

The imam behind a proposed mosque near Ground Zero is a prominent member of a group that helped sponsor the pro-Palestinian activists who clashed violently with Israeli commandos at sea this week.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a key figure in Malaysian-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, according to its Website.

Perdana is the single biggest donor ($366,000) so far to the Free Gaza Movement, a key organizer of the six-ship flotilla that tried to break Israel's blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip Monday.

Nine passengers aboard the largest ship died in clashes with Israeli commandos, and a new confrontation loomed today, when another Free Gaza Movement ship was due to reach Gaza waters in defiance of Israel.

RELATED: At Discover the Networks, "FEISAL ABDUL RAUF."

Weekly Republican Address, July 24 2010

From the House GOP Conference:

Mark Ruffalo Signs as 'Incredible Hulk' in Upcoming 'Avengers' Film

I'd be interested to know the decision-making processes here. Mark Ruffalo, who is very talented, is a "sensitive guy" actor (IMHO), most famously in films like "13 Going on 30." He's also starring in "The Kids Are All Right," currently in theaters:

Anyways, check it out: "Mark Ruffalo Signs On to Play Hulk in THE AVENGERS."

And apparently Deadline's got my wavelength: "... imagine the Hollywood actor whom you'd least expect to play The Incredible Hulk in The Avengers, and maybe, just maybe, you'd come up with the Ruffalo's name."

RELATED: "Comic-Con 2010: 'Harry Potter,' Mark Ruffalo (maybe) and more on day three."

Robert Stacy McCain From 'Right Online' Las Vegas

Click here and enlarge for the full close-up image.

My good blogging buddy Robert Stacy McCain is in Las Vegas for the Right Online Conference. That's Ed Morrissey sitting with Stacy.

And for some news out of Vegas, well, Fox's Carl Cameron is reporting the news and a subject of the news. See, "Left & Right Blogospheres Collide in Sin City," and "Did Carl Cameron Sell Out Fox News to DailyKos? Not According to Cameron."

Drew Barrymore ELLE Cover Shoot — August 2010

Drew Barrymore looks fabulous in the latest ELLE Magazine:

More pics here and here.