OSAMA’S BEEN TILTIN’: “1949: Communists detonate their first nuclear weapon. 2016: Terrorists deploy their first compassionate head tilt.”
From Tim Blair, the man who put lefty tilty-head spotting on the map.
Archive for 2016
October 16, 2016
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ABLE TO forgive yourself for failures.
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FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Americans are losing faith in democracy — and in each other.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION: InfoGalactic, an alternative to Wikipedia.
Well, my entry doesn’t have me in an “I had an abortion” t-shirt, the way Wikipedia’s once did. So they’ve got that going for them.
Meanwhile, here’s my current Wikipedia entry. Note the rather unfair treatment of my Charlotte rioters tweet, and that they’ve blocked edits until after the election.
What would I add if I were allowed to edit it? Maybe this from Knoxville News-Sentinel columnist George Korda: “Anyone who knows Glenn Reynolds, has spoken with him, read anything he’s written, or anything else about him, understands that he was calling for self-defense. There is no way under heaven’s sun he was advocating that anyone be targeted with a vehicle.” But that’s not allowed. Also, Wikipedia’s editors insist on calling the Charlotte Interstate rioters “protesters,” when what was going on was clearly rioting:
The city of Charlotte has released a number of 911 tapes, including calls made from gridlocked motorists on Charlotte streets who feared for their lives as protests over the death of Keith Scott moved to block highways going in and out of the city. Dozens of vehicles were stopped on I-85 and other major thoroughfares. According to some of the motorists trapped on the streets, protesters jumped on cars, mobbed trucks, and threw rocks.
“I’m trapped,” one motorist told the 911 dispatchers. “They’re all in the street … Oh my God, they’re coming!” Screams could be heard in the background, according to local media who reviewed the tapes.
One family who had their window smashed by a rock was instructed by a 911 dispatcher to get to safety before pulling over to inspect the damage. “I’m still stuck in this,” the driver told emergency services. “I would like to get out of it before I pull over.”
The dispatcher responded, “I don’t want you to stop there, period. Just follow traffic and get out of the area.” . . .
Another trucker admitted to being terrified. “I’m so scared,” he said. “They’re just taking stuff and running with it. They’ve got the doors of the trailer open.”
Truckers also reported that rioters had started fires on the highway. That made a getaway in the truck impossible, and leaving the truck on foot too dangerous.
According to police, the demonstrators held vehicles on I-85 at bay for nearly two hours, shutting down all lanes of traffic and horrifying trapped motorists. Reports indicate the police were able to finally clear the highway a little after 3am, and only by firing tear gas into the rampaging crowd.
But narrative, you know.
NO. NO, IT ISN’T.
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Obama Administration Intensifies Secret War In Somalia. “The Somalia campaign is a blueprint for warfare that President Obama has embraced and will pass along to his successor. It is a model the United States now employs across the Middle East and North Africa — from Syria to Libya — despite the president’s stated aversion to American ‘boots on the ground’ in the world’s war zones. This year alone, the United States has carried out airstrikes in seven countries and conducted Special Operations missions in many more. American officials said the White House had quietly broadened the president’s authority for the use of force in Somalia by allowing airstrikes to protect American and African troops as they combat fighters from the Shabab, a Somali-based militant group that has proclaimed allegiance to Al Qaeda.”
BOMBARDING MOSUL WITH LEAFLETS: Before dawn today the Iraqi Army began dropping leaflets in and around Mosul.
The leaflets carried several messages, one of them assuring the population that advancing army units and air strikes “will not target civilians” and another telling them to avoid known locations of Islamic State militants.
The Iraqi government has since announced that the attack to re-take the city has begun.
VENN DIAGRAM OF THE DAY: If a 20% tax reduces consumption of sugary drinks, what about a 106% increase in min wage?
(Via Newsalert.)
IT’S A BIG KILLER, BUT IT DOESN’T GET CORRESPONDINGLY BIG PRESS: How Many People Die From Tuberculosis? Epidemic Killing Millions, Disease Runs Rampant, World Health Organization Reports.
YOU WENT FULL REICHSTAG, MAN. NEVER GO FULL REICHSTAG: The New Republic on the firebombing of the GOP’s North Carolina HQ:
It’s a rather ironic post, considering that TNR tweeted this during the government “slimdown” in the fall of 2013:
As Jim Geraghty tweeted at the time, “The New Republic: Your first choice for violent, authoritarian, eliminationist rhetoric!” And now conspiracy theories as well. Come back Marty Peretz, all is forgiven!
Related: Look what happened to this Trump/Pence vehicle at the Iowa campaign headquarters.
IT’S FINE TO “UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY” IF YOU’RE DOING IT FOR THE RIGHT PARTY:
RUSSKIS! UNDER MY BED!
CHRIS MATTHEWS: This is agitprop, this is Lenin stuff… Anything that advances the cause of the Communist Party is what we do. Is the Kremlin, is it your understanding, they still go with that ethic, screwing up elections to the advantage of someody they may dislike less than the other person.
EICHENWALD: They’ve done it in Estonia, they’ve done it in Ukraine, the Netherlands, they have a done in it Germany and now they’re doing it here.
I’m old enough to remember when worrying about the Russians was risible 1980s nostalgia, mocked by all right-thinking people.
UPDATE: Flashback: Nostradamus Chris Matthews Mocked Mitt Romney’s ‘Latest Misstep’ on Russia, a ‘Faux Pas.’
CHANGE: Tuberculosis Comes To Minnesota.
BILL CLINTON WON TWICE WITHOUT GETTING AN ACTUAL MAJORITY: Hillary Clinton is so far ahead — so seemingly almost locked in — and yet she still can’t get to 50%. Divide-and-conquer is the Clinton playbook.
THE ANSWER TO SPEECH YOU DON’T LIKE IS MORE SPEECH. THIS IS MORE SPEECH: Buffalo Bills fans boo Colin Kaepernick, chant ‘USA’ before he kneels.
THE MAN WHO STOOD UP TO FACEBOOK.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Watch Leftist Students Say Science Is Racist and Should Be Abolished:
Essentially, these students believe that modern scientific understanding is too Eurocentric. One explained:
“I have a question for all the science people. There is a place in KZN called Umhlab’uyalingana. They believe that through the magic’ you call it black magic’ they call it witchcraft’ you are able to send lightening to strike someone. Can you explain that scientifically because it’s something that happens?”
Many people laughed at this remark because, well, witchcraft is not something that happens. But according to the student, witchcraft is like Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity—it’s just one way of explaining the world, among many.
“Decolonising the science would mean doing away with it entirely and starting all over again to deal with how we respond to the environment and how we understand it,” the student continued.
Straight outta Oceania!
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I’ll vote for Mr. Trump—grimly. But there is no alternative, no shadow of a responsible alternative.
Mr. Trump’s candidacy is a message from the voters. He is the empty gin bottle they have chosen to toss through the window. The message begins with the fact that voters hear what the leaders and pundits don’t: the profound contempt for America and Americans that Mrs. Clinton and President Obama share and their frightening lack of emotional connection to this nation and its people.
—David Gelernter on Trump and the Emasculated Voter — There’s only one way to protect the nation from Hillary Clinton, and that is to vote for Donald Trump. Read the whole thing.
(Via Maggie’s Farm.)
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: 39% Fewer Law Schools Participate In AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference (Compared To 2012).
UPDATE: Link was wrong before Fixed now. Sorry!
OUR CULTURE IS BLOWIN’ AWAY IN THE WIND, Andrew Klavan writes:
On hearing that Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, my son Spencer emailed me to ask, “When do they announce the Nobel Prize for Best Supporting Actress?”
It’s a funny line, but for those of us who care about the state of the arts, it’s gallows humor. The Dylan prize is a cry of victory from a generation of vipers — my generation — that has succeeded in sending what was once the greatest culture on earth into a spiral of decadence.
Read the whole thing.
Related: David Solway on the state of the art of actual poetry, not songwriting lyrics: The Noble Art Is Not So Noble.
ROGER KIMBALL: Do We Even Need Elections Anymore?
HILLARY MUST BE ASKED IF SHE DISAVOWS THIS ACT OF DOMESTIC TERROR: Republican HQ in North Carolina firebombed:
Hillsborough police are investigating an apparent firebombing of the Orange County Republican headquarter, an incident that one state GOP official called an act of “political terrorism.”
Police say the incident occurred when a bottle of flammable liquid was thrown through the front window of the office on Ja-Max Dr.
“The office itself is a total loss,” said Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of state GOP. “The only thing important to us is that nobody was killed, and they very well could have been.”
Police said the words, “Nazi Republicans get out of town or else” were spray painted on the side of an adjacent building.
“This highly disturbing act goes far beyond vandalizing property; it willfully threatens our community’s safety via fire, and its hateful message undermines decency, respect and integrity in civic participation,” Hillsborough Mayor Tom Stevens said in a statement.
Given Hillary’s incendiary rhetoric, this sort of act of hatred was pretty much inevitable.
STEVE DITKO: THE RECLUSIVE COMIC BOOK LEGEND WHO CREATED DOCTOR STRANGE — AND FELL OUT WITH MARVEL’S STAN LEE:
Ditko hasn’t given a formal interview since 1968 and has avoided fans for almost as long. He has become the comic industry’s J.D. Salinger, though with much more extreme political views. Ditko became a devotee of Ayn Rand, a man who practices a strict philosophy of self-reliance*, creative control and absolutely no truck with the supernatural. And yet he lost control of much of his signature work, while one of his most famous creations uses magic to travel to other dimensions. So how did one of the industry’s legends become such a contradictory figure?
* * * * * * * *
It was positively bizarre that Ditko was the man to invent Strange. The weirdness of those comics is hard to overstate: Strange went into bizarre realms of twisting, Escher-like shapes that reflected Ditko’s history in 3D work, and faced enemies with names like Nightmare and Eternity (a galaxy in human form). Yet since about 1960, Ditko had been a devotee of Rand, the strict Objectivist who mandated a hyper-capitalistic* philosophy of rational self-interest, small government and the moral primacy of creators.
The above passage brings new meaning to the phrase “magical thinking.” Why, it’s like Ditko was a creative writer imagining fiction or something! Next thing you’re going to tell me is that Bob Kane didn’t live in a mansion with cave under it before envisioning Batman, and Gene Roddenberry never flew on a NASA space flight before creating Star Trek.
* I’m old enough to remember when the London Telegraph didn’t view self-reliance and free markets as evil scary things.