WHEN I MENTIONED EDWARD HERRMANN’S DEATH THE OTHER DAY, a reader recommended his film Harry’s War, about one man’s struggle with the IRS. Maybe it’s time for a remake.
Archive for 2015
January 2, 2015
THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY 427 Shelby Cobra.
IN THE MAIL: From John Ringo, Strands of Sorrow.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 603. With an appearance by Dave Barry.
SUSAN GOLDBERG: The Plan to Take Back Feminism in 2015: Will the real feminists please stand up!
Take one look at Mic’s list of feminist triumphs for 2014 and you’ll get the feeling that most of us have over the course of this rather petty year: American feminism doesn’t know what to do with itself. Sure, it pays lip service to international women with its only PC figurehead Malala Yousafzai taking the list’s lead. And yes, the editors made sure to include a proportional number of women of color on the list, even if they included Ferguson protestors, leading one to ask why the feminist movement would want to associate itself with the kind of race riots we haven’t seen in this nation in nearly 50 years. But when your greatest triumphs include hashtag activism, conquering “manspreading,” and harassing Bill Cosby over decades-old alleged rape accusations, you do more to illustrate how pathetic you’ve become than how much you claim to have accomplished.
A few of these so-called feminist triumphs were listed among the top feminist fiascos of 2014 in the LA Times, along with some real head-hanging, shame-filled moments stretching from #ShirtStorm to #BanBossy. One item on the list, however, strikes a sobering note: Rotherham. The complete lack of American feminist response to the sex trafficking of women in this British town for over two decades should be enough to shame feminists into pursuing a new direction in 2015.
Yeah, I don’t think they’re capable of shame.
FAMILIES: The Importance Of Eating Together. We’ve always made that a family priority.
AT AMAZON, 20% off on Athletic Shoes.
Also, trade in your Video Games.
Plus, today only: 51% Off Select H&R Block Tax Software.
And, also today only: Up to 30% Off Gaiam Balance Ball Chairs.
FROM PLAY-DOH TO DIL-DOH: Bad Designs.
PLENTY OF ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT: Cathy Young: A Better Feminism for 2015. “The perception of pervasive, one-sided male power and advantage can create a disturbing blindness to injustices toward men—even potentially life-ruining ones such as false accusations of rape. A true equality movement should address all gender-based wrongs, not create new ones. . . . Choosing sides on the basis of gender is textbook sexism—and insisting that women are entitled to belief is a feminist version of the old-fashioned pedestal.”
JUSTICE: Police Chief Magazine: Generating Revenue Streams.
A group of experts in the fields of city government, business, real estate, and entrepreneurship assembled in April 2008 to identify possible new income streams that could be initiated by law enforcement.2 Their suggested new revenue streams serve as an example of ideas that can be generated in a short period of time. Each idea must be weighed against the feasibility of implementation, profit potential, and appropriateness for law enforcement involvement. Their most prominent recommendations were
fees for sex offenders registering in a given jurisdiction,
city tow companies,
fine increases by 50 percent,
pay-per-call policing,
vacation house check fees,
public hours at police firing range for a fee,
police department-run online traffic school for minor traffic infractions,
department-based security service including home checks and monitoring of security cameras by police department,
a designated business to clean biological crime scenes,
state and court fees for all convicted felons returning to the community,
allowing agency name to be used for advertisement and branding,
triple driving-under-the-influence fines by the court,
resident fee similar to a utility tax,
tax or fee on all alcohol sold in the city,
tax or fee on all ammunition sold in, the city,
public safety fees on all new development in the city,
9-1-1 fee per use,
police department website with business advertisement for support,
selling ride-a-longs to the public, and
police department–run firearm safety classes.
In addition to concepts that may lie ahead, there are also many examples of revenue-generating ideas that have been tried and proven in actual use.
Uh huh.
PROGRESSIVES AND DISORDER: The next two years may be the most dangerous since the Cold War ended.
As the calendar turns toward the final two years of the Obama Presidency, this is a moment to consider the world it has produced. There is no formal Obama Doctrine that serves as the 44th President’s blueprint for America’s engagement with the world. But it is fair to say that Barack Obama brought into office a set of ideas associated with the progressive, or left-leaning, wing of the Democratic foreign-policy establishment.
“Leading from behind” was the phrase coined in 2011 by an Obama foreign-policy adviser to describe the President’s approach to the insurrection in Libya against Moammar Gaddafi. That phrase may have since entered the lexicon of derision, but it was intended as a succinct description of the progressive approach to U.S. foreign policy.
***The Democratic left believes that for decades the U.S. national-security presence in the world—simply, the American military—has been too large. Instead, when trouble emerges in the world, the U.S. should act only after it has engaged its enemies in attempts at detente, and only if it first wins the support and participation of allies and global institutions, such as NATO, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and so on.
In an interview this week with National Public Radio, Mr. Obama offered an apt description of the progressive foreign-policy vision. “When it comes to ISIL, us devoting another trillion dollars after having been involved in big occupations of countries that didn’t turn out all that well” is something he is hesitant to do.
Instead, he said, “We need to spend a trillion dollars rebuilding our schools, our roads, our basic science and research here in the United States; that is going to be a recipe for our long-term security and success.”
That $1 trillion figure is one of the President’s famous straw-man arguments. But what is the recipe if an ISIL or other global rogue doesn’t get his memo?
You cannot judge Obama’s success or failure without a clear understanding of his goals, and I’m not sure that either his conservative critics or his liberal defenders have that.
WELL, YES: Harvard Law Professor: Feds’ Position on Sexual-Assault Policies Is ‘Madness.’
While Harvard pledged to make changes, Elizabeth Bartholet, a veteran law professor at Harvard Law who teaches civil rights and family law, called the federal government’s recent campaign against colleges “madness” and said history would prove it wrong on the law. (Prof. Bartholet has been an outspoken opponent of policies that she and other law professors say strip students accused of sexual assault of their due-process rights.)
In an email to Law Blog on Wednesday, she wrote:
The federal government’s decision that Harvard Law School violated Title IX represents nothing more than the government’s flawed view of Title IX law. The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which issued the decision, is not the ultimate decision-maker on law. The courts are responsible for interpreting the law. And I trust that the courts will eventually reject the federal government’s current views. The courts’ decisions to date, including the U.S. Supreme Court, show a much more balanced approach to sexual harassment, one which recognizes the importance of vindicating the rights of those victimized by wrongful sexual misconduct, while at the same time protecting the rights of those wrongfully accused, and protecting the rights of individual autonomy in romantic relationships.
Prof. Bartholet said that Harvard University failed to challenge the government, and that other schools throughout the country need to show leadership by resisting the Department of Education’s position.
“I believe that history will demonstrate the federal government’s position to be wrong, that our society will look back on this time as a moment of madness, and that Harvard University will be deeply shamed at the role it played in simply caving to the government’s position,” she wrote.
She’s right, of course.
FROM TRUESBURY, THE YEAR IN REVIEW.
January 1, 2015
JIM TREACHER: OUT: ‘Go Away, Cops!’ IN: ‘Where Did You Go, Cops?’
JANE THE ACTUARY: The “health of women in academia.” “I probably should have known better, but (remember, I’m an actuary) I was pretty appalled at this survey design. If these women think they can draw any conclusions from their results, then they are justly ‘presumed incompetent’ despite the complaint in their manifesto that this is an unjust assumption. A self-selected survey, destined to be completed only by those with grievances, in which the respondents are asked explicitly to make the connection that their systematic oppression harms their health cannot make any contribution to knowledge on the subject.”
To be fair, “contributing to knowledge” isn’t the point. Agitprop is.
ORGANIZING: Deals galore in kitchen organizing gear.
BUT OF COURSE: The Duke lacrosse rape accuser is back in court. “The Associated Press reports that Crystal Mangum, whose accusations of gang rape against Duke University lacrosse players were revealed to be fake, has appealed her conviction in the stabbing death of her boyfriend: Attorney Ann Petersen asks that Mangum get a new trial. Petersen says the jury shouldn’t have been allowed to hear evidence about an attack on another man in February 2010.”
Remember when all the feminists called her a victim who should be believed just because she had a vagina?
SHADES OF NIGHT SHIFT: “Wharton taught me how to be a proper sex worker.”
JOHN HINDERAKER: Liberals Can’t Argue, They Can Only Bully. “Of course, no such evidence is cited. As always, when liberals say the debate is over, it means they are losing. Actually, the evidence shows that the places with the strictest gun control–Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example–have more gun violence than average, not less. More broadly, the homicide rate today is only about half what it was during the Clinton administration. It has steadily declined as gun rights have expanded. The causal relationship certainly can be debated, and lots of ink has been spilled analyzing data, but the argument is empirical and the New Yorker contributes nothing to it.”
It’s not meant to, merely to comfort the New Yorker’s poorly educated and easily led followers.
UPDATE: From the comments:
The anti-gun writers seem to be engaging more in social signaling than in argument. Their articles are asserting their own membership in the Great and Good, unlike those awful gun owners, who are probably toothless, married to their sisters, and church-goers. You don’t want to be like THEM, do you?
Gopnick’s article is hilariously pretentious, even by the lofty standards of the New Yorker. “Moral work?”
Heh.
MAXIM LOTT: Botched Environmental Predictions For 2015.
THIS IS OBVIOUSLY PROOF THAT ALL DEMOCRATS SUPPORT ISLAMIC TERROR: Congressman Walks Back Appearance At Islamic Terror Group’s Chicago Convention. You know, just like Todd Akin proved that all Republicans are pro-rape.
I DOUBT THIS IS TRUE, BUT I WOULDN’T MIND IF IT WERE. DOES THIS MAKE ME A BAD PERSON? Iraqi and Kurdish Media Reports: ISIS Fighters Have Contracted Ebola.