Archive for 2015
August 10, 2015
TO OBAMA, THAT’S NOT A BUG, BUT A FEATURE: Odierno: Army ‘dangerously close’ to being cut too deep.
THE LAWS OF ECONOMICS HAVEN’T BEEN REPEALED: Latest Seattle Employment Numbers: Is Minimum Wage Hike Already Costing Jobs?
AT AMAZON: $5.00 Albums.
GOOGLE IS TURNING INTO a company called Alphabet. “What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies.” Will the “don’t be evil” philosophy survive the change?
ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS: British grandfather leaves family and dachsunds to join militants fighting Isil in Iraq.
ORIN KERR disagrees with me on jury nullification. “We might disagree with a prosecutor’s decision, of course. But the prosecutor at least has access to the information needed to make the decision.”
Plus Ilya Somin responds to Orin Kerr. “I certainly agree that jury ignorance is a genuine problem, and have even written an entire article on the subject. It is probably true that prosecutors are more knowledgeable than jurors are, and therefore less likely to err out of ignorance. However, in a world of rampant overcriminalization, this virtue of prosecutors is counterbalanced by serious defects. Prosecutors are a self-selected group disproportionately drawn from those who believe that the current scope of criminal law is reasonable. . . . In addition, prosecutors are often rewarded based on conviction rates. That may incentivize them to pursue cases that are morally dubious, but easy to win, because there is little question that the defendant did in fact commit the offense in question. Jurors don’t suffer from this type of perverse incentive. Unchecked discretion by unrepresentative prosecutors is particularly dangerous when the scope of the criminal law is so broad that almost everyone violates it at one time or another.”
WELL, IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER FOR ME THAN THIS: “I don’t think Reynolds is entirely wrong in his claims.”
TO LIVE AND DIE IN THE BIZARRO WORLD: In Dubai, Father Keeps Lifeguards from Rescuing Drowning Daughter to ‘Save Her Honor’: The father “who is apparently very strong — restrained the lifeguards from doing their job because ‘he prefers his daughter being dead than being touched by a strange man.'”
ACTUALLY, BOTH ARE KIND OF AWESOME: Miley Cyrus: ‘I’m Not Sure How Titties Are Worse Than Guns.’
CLINTON FEEDS OFF MEGYN KELLY’S “WAR ON WOMEN” QUESTION: Hillary Clinton has unsurprisingly begun to capitalize on the “war on women” narrative amplified by Fox News’ Megyn Kelly during the GOP presidential debate. Kelly reignited the narrative with the following question posed to Donald Trump:
Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don’t use a politician’s filter. However, that is not without its downsides, in particular, when it comes to women.
You’ve called women you don’t like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” . . .
Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who was likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?
Afterwards, Trump amped up the rhetoric and made matters worse when he told a CNN host,”You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”
It was utterly predictable that Clinton would eventually capitalize on this #waronwomen opening, and today she did so, according to the Daily Caller:
At a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Monday Hillary Clinton slammed Donald Trump’s recent remarks about Fox News host Megyn Kelly as “outrageous” but said that other Republican men running for president have made equally “offensive” remarks. . . .
“But I think if we focus on that we are making a mistake,” Clinton said of Trump’s remarks. “What a lot of the men on that stage and that debate said was offensive.”
“When one of their major candidates, a much younger man, a senator from Florida, says there should be no exceptions for rape and incest, that is as offensive and as troubling a comment as you can hear from a major candidate running for the presidency.”
So Clinton is equating Trump’s crude comment directed at a woman with Rubio’s substantive position on abortion? Nice move. Because, you know, those Republican men “offend” women by supporting human life. And while a recent Gallup poll shows that a slim majority of women presently self-identify as “pro-choice,” longitudinal polling has shown that women’s views shift, with pro-choice versus pro-life majorities altering from year to year. Presumably, according to Clinton, women who hold a pro-life position are “offending” women?
I’m no fan of Trump’s post-debate comments about Kelly. It wasn’t “presidential,” and it was unnecessary. But his initial response to Kelly’s debate query was fundamentally correct, that he (and the country) doesn’t “have time for total political correctness.” And Kelly is a professional woman in a high profile position, and she can certainly handle some insults. She has appropriately said that she is a “big girl” and can “take it.”
The thing that bothers me most about the Kelly-Trump exchange is that Hillary Clinton is now going to accept the invitation–issued by Kelly–to reopen and amplify the “Republicans hate women” narrative. In an overt attempt to bring down Trump a notch or two, Kelly’s query has reignited Hillary Clinton’s key campaign issue.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Woman Arrested for 1st Degree Child Rape. “The Kennewick Police Department said they received information on August 4th that 44-year-old Dawn Preston has repeatedly sexually abused a child in Kennewick. Preston denied the allegation of rape but confessed to inappropriately touching the child victim from 2014 to the present. Preston was booked into Benton County Jail for Rape of a Child in the first degree.”
MILO YIANNOPOULOS: Mean Girls: Why the Only People Women Should Fear Online Are Other Women. “Women are alarmingly quick to grab for the proverbial weave, and just like a real-world catfight, dirty tactics are the norm – as is foul, sexualised and degrading language. Research from the Demos think tank has found that women are just as likely, if not more so, to use words like ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ as terms of abuse directed at women. Yet the media continues to present these stories as male-on-female cruelty, when the situation is, to say the least, more complicated than that. Why pass up on the chance to play another round of pin the tail on the patriarchy? . . . As usual, the truth resists political correctness. Women are more likely to be internet harassers than men. And they have been calling each other all manner of horrible things for millennia. They’ve even come up with a name for it: ‘trashing.’ It’s often a way for high-status women to bully and ridicule poorer or less attractive girls; as ever, it’s all about social status and attracting the best quality husband.”
Read the whole thing. “Mariah Carey’s favourite movie Mean Girls was, if anything, a low-key version of the truth: research from evolutionary psychologist David Buss has found that women are hardwired to detect flaws in the appearance and character of fellow women. As the world’s preeminent hag specialist, your correspondent must agree. There’s a reason Tina Fey’s character in that movie says: ‘You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores.’ Where do you think bros get the idea that it’s an effective put-down in the first place, ladies? Yep, you!”
LIFE IN TODAY’S NEW YORK: Officials Expand Efforts to End Legionnaires’ Disease Outbreak. “At a news conference at the city Office of Emergency Management, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that 108 people have been infected since the onset of the outbreak in July — up from a tally of 101 on Friday. But the new diagnoses were made several days ago, the mayor said. He expressed optimism that diagnoses and emergency room visits were declining.”
DONALD TRUMP IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CRY WOLF: “If there was ever a man who was suited for a national moment because of his flaws rather than his virtues, it’s Donald Trump,” Mytheos Holt writes at the Federalist:
Trump’s candidacy should also serve as a cautionary tale about just what happens when you try to brand even the smallest indiscretions as evidence that someone is of the Devil’s party. To illustrate this, ask yourself this question: what label can the Left (or the Right, for that matter) apply to Trump that hasn’t already been so devalued by overuse?
That he’s a racist? So is anyone who criticizes President Obama’s golf swing these days.
That he’s a sexist? So is anyone who defends due-process rights.
That he’s a phony? What politician isn’t?
That he’s a fascist? So were the last two presidents, depending on which books you read.
That he’s a crypto-Nazi? Yeah, because Lyndon Larouche hasn’t beaten that one to death at all.
See the problem? Even if all of these labels were true of Trump, they’ve all been used to cry “wolf” so many times that now no one thinks they mean anything anymore. Short of openly waving a Nazi flag, eating black babies, or sexually assaulting someone on live television, there’s little Trump could do to actually give these labels the power to scare people. So instead of dismissing him with labels, people actually have to engage with his arguments, such as they are, and even if he’s proven to be gloriously, hilariously wrong, the fact of having to engage with him still lends him some degree of legitimacy.
“If anyone can brave the slings and arrows of American Bulverism, it’s Donald Trump, and maybe, just maybe, if he manages that, we’ll stop wringing our hands over the existence of ideas and actually go back to the hard work of refuting them.”
VIDEO: AMY SCHUMER AND THE CREEPY POLITICALLY CORRECT POLICE:
ARGUE WITH THE PHILOSOPHY OF HAYEK AT YOUR PERIL:
To be fair, it is surprisingly easy for some to confuse Salma and Friedrich. Likely the same economic illiterates who dispute that Obama is a secretly a Keynesian.
BULLETS & BOURBON UPDATE: Nina Yablok drops by the Michael Graham radio show in Atlanta talks about the upcoming Bullets & Bourbon event in December in Texas featuring Glenn, Dana Loesch, Ed Morrissey, Roger L. Simon, Steve Green, Kevin D. Williamson, and Mark Rippetoe. Click here to listen; full details of the event here.
#HANDSUPDONTSHOOT #WARONMEN: Special Assistant to Obama Arrested for Shooting at Her Boyfriend.
Needless to say, MSNBC and the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank would be orgasming over this story if the parties were reversed.
I’M NOT SAYING THAT IT’S ALIENS. BUT IT’S ALIENS. The 4-mile-tall pyramid mountain on dwarf planet Ceres is glowing.
Good grief. Wake up, sheeple!
ROGER SIMON: “Although not surprising these days, news this morning that China has been reading the emails of top U.S. officials should provide yet more impetus to the emerging campaign of that ‘other woman candidate,’ Carly Fiorina. . . . Getting a hold of Hillary’s emails during all this should have been a walk in the park for the Chinese. In fact it should have been a walk in the park for just about anybody, including precocious seventh graders in Sandusky, Ohio. Mrs. Clinton, it will be recalled, informed us she wasn’t even aware you could have two email accounts on one cellphone. Of course, that was a lie, but the kind of lie only a technological illiterate would make. It was absurd and almost daffy. Carly Fiorina, on the other hand, is the only presidential candidate with any kind of real tech expertise.”
NEXT, GOLD AND SILVER COINS: The Rise Of Artisanal Cash.
These are small-batch currencies designed by locals and lovingly handled by millennials, who came of age during the rise of the Internet, the meltdown of the stock market and Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency revelations, and would be forgiven for becoming more wary of credit and debit cards. Many are already opting for standard paper money over plastic (when not resorting to freeganism or bartering, that is).
Once a marker of a business with suspicious tax practices, the phrase “cash only” has come to signify hipster entrepreneurialism at places like Stumptown Coffee at the Ace Hotel in Midtown Manhattan or the Emerson Bar in Brooklyn. The term even arrived as a motto on a 3.1 Phillip Lim tank top sold by the boutique Blue & Cream (and now that it’s been marked down 50 percent to $97.50, you won’t need a suitcase of bills to pay for it).
Many of the new alternative currencies have the look and feel of the regular legal tender accepted at such places. Most include anticounterfeiting measures like holograms and serial numbers. But they are more eye-catching.
Hmm.