THAT’S BECAUSE OUR RULING CLASS IS MADE UP OF AUTHORITARIAN BOZOS: Laws meant to protect young people from sexual predators are instead being used to charge them as felons and put them on sex-offender registries for life. And our courts are unwilling to apply common-sense due process protections.
Archive for 2015
September 3, 2015
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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Despite Demagogy By Leaders, Ordinary Americans lead the way on racial healing.
SILLY MEGYN. THE LEFT DOESN’T HAVE RULES, IT HAS SLOGANS: Megyn Kelly gets angry: Why don’t the left’s “civility” rules apply to Black Lives Matter protesters? “In fact, incredible as it may seem, at about two-thirds of the way in here the guy debating Katie Pavlich (and Kelly) actually repeats the lefty smear that Loughner was a tea partier. Pavlich tries to call him on it but he doesn’t miss a beat. Even here, with Kelly demanding accountability from the left for its double standard on incendiary rhetoric, the lie that the tea party somehow bears responsibility for Giffords’s near-murder slides easily into the conversation. And you know what? I bet Fowler really believes it. I don’t think he was knowingly lying in repeating the long-ago debunked theory that Loughner was some sort of right-wing crazy instead of a regular ol’ crazy. I think left-wing opinion makers built that narrative so quickly and solidly after the shooting that even now, four years later, it remains an article of faith among some Democrats that Loughner was moved by conservative rhetoric to try to kill Giffords. We’re never going to get Stalinists to apologize for this game. They invented it and they’re better at it than we’ll ever be.”
They’ll do it as long as it works. Make it painful and they’ll stop.
EUROPE’S IMMIGRATION CRISIS: Hungary’s leader to migrants: ‘Please don’t come.’
A HOSTILE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT FOR MALE STUDENTS: University lifts suspension on accused student — months after charges dropped.
The San Diego district attorney’s office declined to bring charges against a student accused of sexual assault, but that didn’t stop his university from keeping his suspension in place for months afterward.
Francisco Paiva Sousa was arrested for alleged sexual assault on Dec. 9, 2014, but posted bail. Charges were dismissed on Jan. 28. The district attorney declined to give a reason for dropping the charges.
Despite the dropped charges, the school Sousa attended, San Diego State University, kept his suspension in place while it continued its own investigation into the matter. When Sousa was first arrested, the school sent out a campus-wide email about the arrest. But it didn’t send a follow-up email announcing that the charges had been dropped or that the suspension had been lifted after finding the allegations to be unsubstantiated.
Sousa, a transfer student from Portugal, sued the university to try and learn the evidence against him and the specific accusation. Sousa’s attorney says he will now sue SDSU for his legal fees, which are estimated to be roughly $100,000.
I’d add a couple of zeroes there. Related: NYC commissioner: ‘Validate the experience’ of sex assault accusers. What if they’re lying, like “mattress girl” Emma Sulkowicz, New York’s most famous accuser?
DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY: O’Malley urges protest at DNC HQ over debate schedule.
Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley is urging supporters to join a protest outside of the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters over the decision to hold only six debates.
In an email to supporters with the subject line “Time to protest,” the O’Malley campaign said “it’s time to take it up a notch” and pressure the DNC to expand the number of debates by joining the protest of another group, #AllowDebate, that is planning a Sept. 16 rally outside the committee’s headquarters in Washington.
“It’s important that we bring our call for more debates directly to the group that is restricting candidates’ ability to debate,” the email says. “It’s, frankly, undemocratic. Enough tweeting. Let’s take action.” The email asks recipients to RSVP using a link that takes them to O’Malley’s website.
In recent weeks, O’Malley has been singularly focused on pressuring the DNC to expand the debate scheduled.
The former Maryland governor has struggled to gain traction in the polls, having been squeezed on the left by the rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He has just 2 percent support in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls in the Democratic race. Vice President Biden, who has not said whether he will run, has 14 percent.
O’Malley needs as much exposure as he can get, and the debates present the best opportunity for him to make his case.
True.
JUST YESTERDAY I WAS WARNING ABOUT THIS KIND OF THING: Livid over crime, some Venezuelans resort to mob justice.
When a man they believed to be a thief sneaked into their parking lot in the Venezuelan city of Valencia, angry residents caught him, stripped him and beat him with fists, sticks and stones.
They tied him up and doused him in gasoline, according to witnesses, in one of what rights groups and media reports say are an increasing number of mob beatings and lynchings in a country ravaged by crime.
That August night, as locals say is common, three people had sneaked into Valencia’s Kerdell residential block. In past such break-ins, thieves have made off with car tires, batteries and radios.
But this time, one resident spotted the trespassers and alerted other neighbors, according to the witnesses.
“‘Kill him, give it to him,’ they shouted,” recounted Trina Castro, 82, in this once middle-class and peaceful area that is now plagued with garbage and graffiti. One reads: “Get ready, thief, here we burn you. Regards, Kerdell.”
“I tried to stop the mob but the level of violence endangered anyone who opposed them,” said another witness, asking to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.
The unconscious man, who was not torched, was evacuated and is now in the local hospital’s trauma ward, according to witnesses and Valencia’s police. The police said they had no further details and did not identify the man.
A source at the Interior Ministry, who asked to remain anonymous because the minister is the only person authorized to speak on the record, said it does not usually comment on cases under investigation. Venezuela’s state prosecutor’s office said it had not issued a statement on the incident.
When civil society breaks down, and people no longer believe in the rule of law, this is the kind of thing that happens.
TOKYO’S ABANDONED HOMES “are the most visible sign of human retreat in a country where the population peaked a half-decade ago and is forecast to fall by a third over the next 50 years:”
The demographic pressure has weighed on the Japanese economy, as a smaller workforce struggles to support a growing proportion of the old, and has prompted intense debate over long-term proposals to boost immigration or encourage women to have more children.
For now, though, after decades during which it struggled with overcrowding, Japan is confronting the opposite problem: When a society shrinks, what should be done with the buildings it no longer needs?
Many of Japan’s vacant houses have been inherited by people who have no use for them and yet are unable to sell because of a shortage of interested buyers. But demolishing them involves tactful questions about property rights, and about who should pay the costs. The government passed a law this year to promote demolition of the most dilapidated homes, but experts say the tide of newly emptied ones will be hard to stop.
“Tokyo could end up being surrounded by Detroits,” said Tomohiko Makino, a real estate expert who has studied the vacant-house phenomenon. Once limited mostly to remote rural communities, it is now spreading through regional cities and the suburbs of major metropolises. Even in the bustling capital, the ratio of unoccupied houses is rising.
RELATED: Back in 2011, Glenn Beck contrasted the fates of 21st century Detroit and Hiroshima: “Motor City, Mon Amour.”
(Via SDA.)
ONCE THE REACTION TO FERGUSON BECAME VIOLENT, AND THE #BLACKLIVESMATTER MOVEMENT GOT STARTED, IT WAS PRETTY MUCH OVER: Violent Crime Wave Could Swamp Prison Reform.
EVERYTHING HE TOUCHES: After renaming, Obama officials cut Denali’s elevation by 10 feet.
Federal geologists on Wednesday reduced the estimated height of the mountain Denali by 10 feet, just days after President Obama made the controversial decision to drop the name Mount McKinley.
Using modern Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) found that Denali is 20,310 feet high, not the 20,320 feet that was previously measured in the 1950s.
Denali is still comfortably the tallest mountain in North America, 759 feet taller than Canada’s Mount Logan, the runner-up. Mount Saint Elias, on Alaska’s border with Canada, is a distant second to both Denali and Logan, at 18,008 feet. . . . The new elevation reading took place three days after the president renamed the Alaska mountain Denali, from Mount McKinley.
Cutting America down to size since January 20, 2009. . . .
WOULD HILLARY’S ELECTION CAUSE AN AMERICAN CIVIL WAR? That’s what Roger Simon is pondering at his Diary of a Mad Voter blog:
Almost no one who voted against her would be giving her the benefit of the doubt. Why should they? They would be looking for ways to reject her presidency. Tax avoidance would be endemic. Why give money to a country where the president abjures the rule of law? (Yes, that’s already happened but this would, after a political campaign, be a force multiplier.) With the national treasury under threat, all sorts of results could occur — a stock market meltdown beyond what we are experiencing now, full scale depression like the 1930s, urban riots that make Baltimore and Ferguson look like Kiddyland, nonstop demonstrations of all sorts from all sides, millions of people opting out á la John Galt (most without knowing who he is), an American decline beyond recognition (if you think things are bad now, you haven’t seen anything), little border control with giant Islamic spillover from Europe, terror attacks routine, and, yes, remote a possibility as it may be, a violent civil war between between sides in a hugely split society.
Who would believe a President Hillary Clinton — already a documented liar — to prevent or ameliorate all this?
Is this a screenwriters fantasy or the reality of, say, 2018? You decide.
Call it “The Coming Middle Class Anarchy,” to coin a phrase.
JERRY BROWN FLOUTED GAY MARRIAGE LAW. WHY NOT KENTUCKY CLERK KIM DAVIS? As did Brown and Davis’ fellow Democrat, then-mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom in 2004.
MARK RIPPETOE: Government Exercise: See the NIH’s Embarrassing Fitness Recommendations. “If ‘exercises’ less strenuous than your daily activity actually worked, you’d already be fit.”
It’s like he wrote a book on this stuff or something.
IF IT’S NOT LUCHA LIBRE I’M NOT INTERESTED: Exclusive audio of Putin’s workout. (Why? Just… WHY?)
DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION: How Airbnb actually makes NYC affordable.
READ IT BEFORE IT VANISHES: Treason of the Professors.
ANTI GAMERGATER, ANTI SAD PUPPIES, PRO WHAT: Smells like… Pedo Bear.
FINE, YOU WEAR THE BURKA: Women should dress modestly or expect to ‘entice a rapist’ – claims singer Chrissie Hynde. (Though I’m all in favor of not being drunk and stupid.) Isn’t it curious that this is from the Telegraph? Well, curious or sad. You decide.
September 2, 2015
ONCE YOU GO METAL YOU NEVER BACK PEDAL: 15 per cent of British men (and a few women) would have sex with a robot.
A MASTER OF THE FORCE WEIGHS EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTS TO: I Used Physics to Calculate How Much Yoda Weighs.
FROM JASON PYE, A HEARTFELT PLEA: Please, for the love of everything, don’t call it “emo.” For the record, Avril Lavigne isn’t emo, though she’s actually not bad — though her best work was when she was being produced by The Matrix.