IT’S COME TO THIS: ‘Mikado’ Production Canceled Over Racial Concerns.

A production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” planned for New York this December was canceled after it drew criticism over how its largely non-Asian cast planned to portray the stereotyped Japanese characters and culture that are often seen as central to the work, the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players announced on their website.

The troupe “never intended to give offense and the company regrets the missed opportunity to responsively adapt” the show this December, the troupe’s executive director, David Wannen, wrote in a statement on the website. The company plans to mount another popular Gilbert and Sullivan work, “The Pirates of Penzance,” in its place for six performances at the Skirball Center at New York University from Dec. 26 through Jan. 2.

“Penzance” is offensive to pirates, and it is even more offensive that they would announce this change on Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Seriously, these are the people in our society who regard themselves as intelligent freethinking types.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Is Legal Education In Crisis? A Dean Responds.

UTAH SUPREME COURT PROTECTS RIGHT OF EMPLOYEES TO DEFEND THEMSELVES AT WORK: “We conclude that the policy favoring the right of self-defense is a public policy of sufficient clarity and weight to qualify as an exception to the at-will employment doctrine.”

SPACE: Good News for Bezos Rocket Biz as Boeing Rejects Takeover. “Jeff Bezos just got some good news: a Boeing spokesperson told Reuters that the company will reject a $2 billion bid for United Launch Alliance, the rocket-launching company that it co-owns with Lockheed Martin. That’s good for Bezos because the bidder was Aerojet Rocketdyne, which competes with his rocket-making company Blue Origin. Last year Blue Origin inked a deal to build engines for ULA’s Vulcan launching system, a deal it just expanded last week. Had Aerojet Rocketdyne taken over ULA, it’s possible the company would have opted to use its own engines instead of Blue Origin’s.”

ILLUSTRATING ABSURDITY BY BEING ABSURD: This Dad Wrote Out a Common Core Math Check to the School and It’s Brilliant.

NEW FRONTIERS OF CHEAPNESS: Amazon Hopes Its New Tablets Are So Cheap You’ll Buy Several: As tablet sales slow, Amazon sees a way to widen its share: by enticing ultra-budget-minded buyers.

NEWS YOU CAN ABUSE: Making It Up As You Go Along: How To Fake a Roleplaying Campaign On Five Minutes Notice, from Moe Lane at PJ Lifestyle Website.

THE MEAN STREETS OF MACKINAC ISLAND: “Most people think of Mackinac Island as a family place. A dot of green in a great lake of blue topped with B&B’s, fudge shops, and horse-drawn carriages. But there’s another side to Ol’ Mac. A darker side.” A place where Marco Rubio’s campaign manager “literally physically assaulted me by punching me in the face.”

Read the whole thing from Ricochet’s Jon Gabriel, who makes Scorsese’s Mean Streets seem populated by a bunch of pantywaist beta males who don’t even know their fudge shops and horse-drawn carriages.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Review of artificial molecular machines and their controlled motions.

OUR SUPREME LEADER RELEASED 5 TOP TALIBAN FOR A DESERTER: Platoon leader describes grueling 2009 search for Bergdahl. The military prosecutor introduced evidence that Bergdahl snuck away “under cover of darkness” and “mailed home items such as his Kindle and laptop and tried to have his pay diverted to his godmother before he left his post.”

But the Army General who has led the investigation into Bergdahl’s flight thinks jail time for Bergdahl would be “inappropriate”:

Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl said he interviewed Bowe for a day and a half and “did not find any evidence to corroborate the reporting that Bergdahl was … sympathetic to the Taliban.”

Instead, Dahl said, Bergdahl wanted to call attention to what he considered poor leadership of his unit. Bergdal believed that by leaving his observation post and running 23 kilometers (about 14 miles) to a nearby base he could cause a stir and gain access to a high-ranking officer to complain, Dahl said. . . .

Dahl testified that he thought Bergdahl was “very bright and well-read.”

When asked what in Bergdahl’s background might have caused his behavior in the military, Dahl said that the combination of growing up in rural Idaho on the “edge of the grid … being home-schooled” and the fact that he “internalized a lot of what he read” resulted in him having “idealistic and unrealistic expectations of people.”

Yet Dahl isn’t contesting the fact that Bergdahl is a deserter.  So let’s get this straight: There’s an Army Major General who thinks that being home-schooled and well-read–culminating in being “idealistic”–means that one should not be punished for deserting your fellow soldiers? Intelligent, home-schooled individuals thus cannot be reasonably expected to be patriotic, follow orders and serve honorably in the military? Huh?  Talk about liberal/progressive victimology.

Sounds like this Major General Dahl is trying mighty hard to impress Great Leader Obama and is gunning for a promotion. I guess in Dahl’s world, the military–to be effective–needs to recruit only poorly read, public-schooled individuals of low IQ.  After all, under Dahl’s (il)logic, only these types of individuals can reasonably be expected to do their jobs.

Bergdahl is a man the Obama Administration said “served with honor and distinction” and honored with a special White House ceremony. The Taliban 5 for whom Bergdahl was traded were among the most dangerous at Gitmo.

It’s almost like the Commander in Chief hates the military or something.

MATHEMATICS IS THE LANGUAGE OF NATURE: The Fuzzy Logic of Fleeing for Your Life: Computer models are becoming more attuned to human fear during crowd evacuations.

I’D LIKE ONE OF THESE: Forgotten Weapons: The Burgess Folding Shotgun. “Because Burgess’ slide design was all located behind the chamber of the gun, it allowed him to make the most interested version of the gun: a folding variant. Using a spring-loaded locking lever and a clever hinge, the Burgess Folding Shotgun could be folded in half at the chamber and made into a very compact and concealable package, despite being a full-size 12 gauge shotgun with a 20″ barrel and a 5-round tube magazine. In fact, Burgess even sold a belt holster to go along with the gun!” One of these would be nice for car carry. The video of drawing the Burgess from the holster is cool.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 863.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: The South China Sea is Not Beijing’s Next Battlefield: Think Taiwan Instead.

No one likes to admit they made a mistake, especially in Washington. But what if America’s top strategic thinkers have gotten China’s military buildup all wrong?

The definition of military deception is “actions executed to deliberately mislead adversary decision makers…thereby causing the adversary to take specific actions (or inactions) that will contribute to the accomplishment of the mission.” Could Beijing be using the South China Sea to this end? By creating a constant stream of provocations in an area it cares relatively little about, China has diverted attention from an area it cares a lot about. This could be leading the Pentagon toward bad planning assumptions and investments. . . .

Each of Beijing’s moves appears carefully calibrated to maximize foreign fear and minimize Chinese risk. Nothing has happened in this war of nerves that might result in a shooting war. China knows it would lose such a fight. But more important, and often missed by observers, the South China Sea is not a top priority.

China’s military buildup is about Taiwan, not the South China Sea. According to reports from the Pentagon and Office of Naval Intelligence, conquering Taiwan is the core mission that drives the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Why? Because China’s authoritarian leadership is deeply insecure. Beijing views the Republic of China (ROC, or Taiwan), which exists as an independent and sovereign state, to be a grave threat to the communist party’s vice grip on power. Taiwan is dangerous because it serves as a beacon of freedom for Chinese speaking people everywhere.

Hmm.

ACCOUNTABILITY IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: EPA Administrator: No One’s Lost Their Job Over Agency’s Mine Spill.

Related: Watchdog: VA not firing officials for botched veteran care.

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FEDERAL APPEALS COURT STRIKES DOWN MUCH OF D.C.’S GUN REGISTRATION LAW. The court only applied “intermediate scrutiny,” which I believe is an error as gun ownership is a fundamental right that deserves strict scrutiny. Still it’s amazing how little gun control regulation can survive even intermediate scrutiny.

I’D LIKE TO SEE SOME PRANKSTER AMEND THIS BILL SO THAT IT ALSO APPLIES TO MICHIGAN LEGISLATORS: Michigan lawmakers to introduce ‘yes-means-yes’ consent bills.

Michigan has had a rough month so far when it comes to campus sexual assault.

Earlier this month, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights determined that Michigan State University had violated the federal anti-discrimination law Title IX in part because the school didn’t open an investigation into an alleged sexual assault, even though the accuser didn’t want one.

And just last week, the University of Michigan agreed to throw out its sex assault finding against Drew Sterrett, who had sued the university alleging his due process rights had been violated and that he had not committed the assault.

But despite what should be a wakeup call to rethink the way the state treats accused students, Michigan lawmakers have decided to introduce a bill that would result in more lawsuits like Sterrett’s, and maybe more investigations from OCR. “Yes-means-yes” — or “affirmative consent” — bills broaden the definition of sexual assault while narrowly or vaguely defining consent.

It labels drunk sex as rape, in some cases even if the woman (men are not absolved from drinking, but women are) had only one drink. In fact, under these laws, the only kind of sex that isn’t rape is question-and-answer-style sex, where each person in the encounter must ask and answer constant questions about consent. “May I touch you here?” “Yes, may I touch you here?” and so forth. Of course, an accuser never has to prove that she also asked such questions, or that the questions weren’t asked, or that consent wasn’t given.

No, the burden of proof is on the accused student, after the fact.

These bills are unAmerican, and in a just America their sponsors would fear tar and feathers.

ROLL CALL: McConnell Faces More Calls for ‘Nuclear Option’ in Senate. It would be nice to see McConnell act as aggressively has Harry Reid did when he was majority leader. It might also discourage such action by future Democratic majority leaders.

DOES ANYBODY IN THE BELTWAY PERMA-BUREAUCRACY EVER LOSE HIS JOB? EPA Administrator: No One’s Lost Their Job Over Agency’s Mine Spill.

RUSH LIMBAUGH’S DEFENSE OF DONALD TRUMP IS SHOCKING: For someone whose conservative bona fides was once praised by no less than William F. Buckley, it is fascinating to see Rush jump in hard on the Trump bandwagon.

JUSTICE IN THE OBAMA ERA: To get my father, Xiaoxing Xi, FBI twisted America’s ideals: Joyce Xi.

This is not the America I thought I knew.

I did not know FBI agents could wake my family in the early morning and enter our home, point guns at my mother, sister and me, and forcefully drag my father away in handcuffs without real evidence of a crime. I did not know they could then obtain a search warrant to flip through our entire home and seize our belongings, including some of my little sister’s things. I did not know the government could restrict my father’s freedom for months and force him to fight for his innocence with only false and reckless claims against him.

I know, sorry, you thought you lived in America. You’re not the first Asian to make that mistake in the Obama era. But, you know, we’ve been “fundamentally transformed.” Hopey Changey!

Alternate: They told me if I voted for Mitt Romney, we’d live in a dystopian national security state where incompetent thugs trampled the rights of innocent Americans. And they were right!

FUNNY, THEY NEVER COMPLAINED WHEN ANDREW SULLIVAN WAS CLAIMING, REPEATEDLY, THAT TRIG PALIN WAS ACTUALLY BRISTOL’S BABY: White House rips Trump over birther reaction.

See, you can’t persuasively pull the “have you no decency?” posture off when you so obviously have none yourself.