READER BOOK RECOMMENDATION: from A.P. Andes, John the Angelic: Volume I (The Latecoming West Book 1).
Archive for 2015
January 14, 2015
MICHAEL WALSH: Got hate? Part Deux — The Return Of Tanya Cohen. “While she’s a terrible, turgid writer, she is worth paying attention to for the crude way in which she gives the entire ‘progressive’ project away: appearing to be arguing in favor of something (in this case, ‘free speech’), while in fact making the case against it, and then appealing to authority to back up her position.”
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Can You Really Make Drinkable Beer From Concentrate?
SO THERE’S NO FRACKING IN CONNECTICUT, but they’re experiencing swarms of small earthquakes like those that have been blamed on fracking in states where fracking is underway. So maybe these “swarms” are just being noticed now, perhaps due to better detection?
MIKE MODICA: Chevy Bolt: As Lame as its Name? “It is great news that GM is considering building cars that ‘could be profitable.’ Unfortunately, the potential profitability will again come from the use of smoke and mirrors along with taxpayer funding.”
PROFESSOR MARK PERRY TAKES APART NORTH DAKOTA “HATE SCHOLARSHIP” ON MEN AND RAPE: No polling organization would ever be taken seriously if its sample size was 73, and neither should this ‘study’ on college rape.
To fully comprehend just how bogus this “study” is, imagine the public and media reaction if a polling organization like Gallup, Rasmussen Reports or Pew Research ever tried to release survey results on presidential or Congressional approval or any other topic with a sample size of 73 (instead of the typical random sample sizes of between 1,000 and 1,500 necessary to achieve standard margins of sampling errors)! Those polling organizations would immediately lose credibility and would never be taken seriously again by the public and media – and that should be the same reaction to this “study,” these “researchers” and this “journal.”
Actually, imagine if you did a study with a sample size of 73 that purported to show that blacks were strongly predisposed to rape, and then promoted it with that racial finding. This piece of “hate scholarship” is just as bad.
IN THE MAIL: From Ryk E. Spoor, Spheres of Influence (Grand Central Arena).
Plus, today only at Amazon: 50% Off Lucky Brand Jeans.
And, also today only: 40% off Patagonia shoes & boots.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 615.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Can Europe Find a Way to Discuss Integration?
It’s unsurprising that the issue is coming to a head in Germany, which has the highest right-left differential on views of Islam in Europe, according to Pew. As the BBC points out, the marchers are a mixed bag, ranging from concerned voters to seriously questionable, neo-Nazi types. That’s not entirely the marchers’ fault (though they certainly bear responsibility for the company they keep): almost no mainstream party in mainland Europe will touch immigration with a ten-foot pole.
The result, as Mark Steyn and Andrew Stuttaford have been pointing out at National Review, is that when, “the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain topics, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable ones.” The respectable Swedish center-right, for instance, has just committed itself to a minority role in a left-wing government until 2022 to keep the Swedish Democrats, an anti-immigration party with neo-Nazi roots, out of office. The SD is now the only party discussing immigration at all in Sweden, however, and so is likely to grow. Germany’s not that bad off, yet, but it’s only the nascent AfD—once seen as a small, almost upper-crust anti-Euro party but now a bit more ambivalent about its relationship with the populist protests—is challenging the consensus.
That’s unfortunate, not least because Europe really does have immigration and assimilation problems—as the immigrants, who often face discrimination, experience alienation, and are shut out from many of the guarantees of European life, will tell you themselves. . . . Europe writ large has not found a way to offer its immigrant populations the same opportunities given to “natives” (a distinction that often stretches to the second or third generation), but at the same time it has been largely unwilling to decrease the volume of immigrants or discuss new measures for integrating them.
Yeah, that’s a recipe for failure.
Related: Stratfor: A War Between Two Worlds. “The current crisis has its origins in the collapse of European hegemony over North Africa after World War II and the Europeans’ need for cheap labor.”
THE BITTER FRUITS OF SMART DIPLOMACY: Christians Slaughtered in Post ‘Arab Spring’ Libya.
AT AMAZON, Big Game Day Essentials.
ED DRISCOLL ON DAVID BROOKS, DEAN BAQUET, ET AL: ‘Kids Say the Darnedest Things.’
CHANGE: TurboTax Customers Angry Over Change In Tax Return Software. “People are just livid. They feel deceived.”
FIGHT THE POWER: UVA fraternities are refusing to sign new campus requirements.
So far two University of Virginia fraternities are refusing to sign a new Fraternity Operating Agreement to resume social activities.
Alpha Tau Omega and Kappa Alpha have released nearly identical statements refusing to sign U.Va.’s new requirements that fraternities alter their activities following a two-month suspension on social activities. The new rules require a certain number of fraternity brothers to be sober and present and different places around the house and set limits on what kinds of alcohol can be served and in what containers.
The fraternities state two reasons for their refusal to sign on to these new rules.
The first reason is that U.Va., “for reasons that were found to be untrue, unfairly punished all members of fraternities and sororities.” This is in reference to the Rolling Stone article claiming a woman was gang raped at a Phi Kappa Psi party, which resulted in the social activity ban (without any evidence other than the uncorroborated accusation).
“Because we do not accept the validity of a suspension imposed in contravention of the existing FOA, university policy, Virginia law and the constitutional rights of our members, we are not compelled to sign a revised FOA to continue operations on campus,” the fraternities wrote in press releases that were put out separately but shared the same language. . . .
The fraternities have released these statements just one day after Charlottesville police found “no substantive basis” for the allegations set forth in Rolling Stone to have occurred at Phi Psi.
Next, Title IX suits.
IT SUCKS. Venezuela’s Bishops Have A Message For Pope Francis on Communism.
In a refreshingly powerful and direct statement, Venezuela’s bishops Monday blamed “Marxist socialism” and “communism” by name for the horrors and chaos gripping their country, according to a story in El Universal.
The bishops said the long lines of people trying to buy food and other basic necessities and the constant rise in prices are the result of the government’s decision to “impose a political-economic system of socialist, Marxist or communist,” which is “totalitarian and centralist” and “undermines the freedom and rights of individuals and associations.”
The Venezuelan bishops specifically stated that the private sector was critical for the well being of the country. The document, read by Monsignor Diego Padron in Spanish, said the country needs “a new entrepreneurial spirit with audacity and creativity.”
So not only did these bishops diagnose the cause of the misery correctly; they also warned that communism harms the poor most of all.
This should be obvious, even to an Argentine.
PROF. MARK PERRY: My Top Ten Gender Charts For The Year 2014.
A couple of highlights:
Oh, and what the hell, one more:
ROGER SIMON: Is the White House a ‘Sleeper Cell’?
LIFE IN OBAMA’S AMERICA: Jewish-owned D.C. business targeted by self-described ISIS militants.
January 13, 2015
I BLAME VOX AND MSNBC: Ohio Bartender Charged With Threatening to Murder John Boehner.
JEREMY WILSON: The Harrowingly Oppressive Burden of Female Privilege.
JIM TREACHER: People Keep Bugging Obama About This Paris Thing.
RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Sisi’s Brave New Egypt? The struggle for the soul of Egypt.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Campbell County Woman Charged With Child Sex Abuse Denied Bond.
Campbell County, A judge has denied bond for a Campbell County woman facing multiple child sex abuse charges. Melissa Edwards faces four felony charges including two counts of taking indecent liberties with a child under the age of 15.
Monday the prosecutor told the court Edwards is obsessed with the 14-year-old boy, with whom she had sexual relations at least four times from late 2013 until December of last year.
She said Edwards admitted to the relationship, attributing it to going through a “change of life” that her hormones were out of control, and she fell in love with the boy, even though she knew it was wrong. She also said it was the boy’s mother who got deputies to investigate, after becoming concerned the relationship between her son and Edwards was “unnatural.”
I’m still not sure if these cases are becoming more common, or are just being reported more often.