Archive for 2016
June 1, 2016
SEE, UNIVERSITIES CAVE TO SJW TYPES BECAUSE THEY’RE NOISY AND PRESUMED RIGHTEOUS, BUT THEN THEY MEET THE CONSEQUENCES: Exclusive: Internal Documents Show Backlash Over Virginia Tech’s Disinvitation of Jason Riley.
NOW BERNIE COULD SAY THE SAME ABOUT HILLARY: Clinton On Obama in 2008: If He’s So Great, “Why Can’t He Close The Deal?”
LIFE IN THE AGE OF OBAMA: Smiling Is Now Racist, Because “White Fragility.”
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Aldine ISD teacher accused of sexual relationship with 13-year-old released from jail; Report says teacher became pregnant with student’s baby. “Court documents said Vera had an abortion because she got nervous when Child Protective Services showed up at school in February to question her and the student about their relationship. The DA’s office said Vera denied the relationship then. . . . She faces a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child.”
SCOTT JOHNSON: Dartmouth And Double Standards. PC culture effectively makes black students “lesser breeds outside the law,” not expected to live up to the standards of behavior expected of others. This is racist, of course, but PC was never about getting rid of racism, merely redirecting it in politically useful ways.
JOURNALISM: ‘Ethical lapse’: Photoshop scandal catches up with iconic photojournalist Steve McCurry. “American photography blog PetaPixel broke the story earlier this month after Italian photographer Paolo Viglione posted a botched image from McCurry’s trip to Cuba he discovered on the Magnum photographer’s blog. The photo in question showed remnants of a traffic sign sticking out of a passerby’s leg.”
My favorite bit: “However, the world-renowned American photographer, known for the National Geographic magazine front-cover image titled ‘Afghan Girl,’ told Time Magazine that despite ‘years of covering conflict zones,’ he now considers himself a ‘visual storyteller.'”
When I was a kid, “telling stories” was a polite euphemism for lying. Here, too. . . .
CLAIRE LEHMANN: Thiel vs Gawker: Why a Defensive Media is the Real Threat to Free Speech.
The lengths to which some writers have gone to defend Gawker’s behaviour cast doubt of whether the industry is capable of recognising unethical or illegal actions in its own ranks. . . .
Read enough of these flaccid excuses for bullying from media types and one comes away feeling vaguely sick. The real threat to freedom of expression is not a lawsuit funded by Peter Thiel. It is a vampiric industry that is ready to suck the blood of the public in an effort to cope with its economic stresses.
The media’s response to the Thiel vs Gawker affair has been to make much of Thiel. But the paramount issue is the conduct of the media itself. Journalism fails as a profession when it cannot adequately police itself. Thiel vs Gawker demonstrates the blindness of the press to the unseemly excesses of those within their ranks.
You don’t have to be an amoral narcissist to work in journalism — but it helps!
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Forms Replace Lawyers In Maryland.
At the lower levels of the profession, general-practice lawyers are being eaten up by things like LegalZoom and RocketLawyer. At the top, OCR technology and databases and AI are shriveling the once-lucrative discovery process. All of this is explored and explained in my colleague Ben Barton’s book, Glass Half Full: The Decline And Rebirth of the Legal Profession, which is a must-read if you care about this stuff.
MICHAEL WALSH: DEMS THROWING HILLARY UNDER THE BUS?
As her former boss would probably say, there’s always room for another down there.
I’M NOT SURE WHETHER TO FILE THIS UNDER HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, OR 21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Villanova Law Graduate: One Degree, 2+ Sugar Daddies, Zero Debt.
I wonder how she was able to pull this off?
I GUESS HIS INITIAL RESPONSE TO TRUMP’S COMPLAINTS WAS . . . INJUDICIOUS: Judge in Trump University case reseals some documents.
IT’S CUTE WHEN THE PEOPLE IN THE COMMENTS try to pretend political correctness is just about good manners.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Student Who Disappeared From Columbia Explains Why She Fled.
AT AMAZON, deals galore on furniture.
MAYBE OBAMA HAS SEEMED SO BUMBLING IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS BECAUSE OUR ENEMIES KNEW OUR PLANS BEFORE HE DID: How EmailGate Weakened America’s National Security: It’s safe to say that Moscow, Beijing and Tehran know a lot more about Hillary Clinton than the American public does.
BREAKING: TWO SHOT DEAD AT UCLA ENGINEERING BUILDING.
LIBERAL DEATH MATCH: Nau’s Enfield Drug and the Old Austin Neighborhood Association:
The neighborhood hanky-twisters purport both to love Nau’s, even if they don’t actually buy anything there, and to prefer the Labay family’s unairconditioned and collapsing house over literally anything else that might be built there. Since the sale of the latter is considered essential for the survival of the former (please do not ask us to explain that reasoning, we only report on the Austin liberal’s mind), this has put the Old Austin Neighborhood Association in to a defensive crouch. And, as everybody knows, an activist’s defensive crouch is comedy gold for normal people.
Or as Iowahawk quips sardonically, “Sorry we can’t let you sell your ‘historic’ dilapidated shack on a $1.5 million lot, but please pay the taxes.”
Read the whole thing.
WHY PROVIDE FOR YOUNG THAT MAY NOT BE YOURS? Sparrows with unfaithful ‘wives’ care less for their young.
Sparrows form pair bonds that are normally monogamous, but many females are unfaithful to their partner and have offspring with other males. Biologists believe that the male birds are unfaithful to ensure that they father as many chicks as they can, while females are unfaithful with males of better ‘genetic quality’ – ones that are fitter and could produce stronger offspring.
However, cheating comes with a cost – the cheating female’s partner will provide less food for their nest of young. It has long been suspected that males know that not all the chicks in their nest are theirs, and so make a decision to provide less. But an alternative explanation is that cheating females and lazy males tend to pair up naturally.
Lessons for human relationships abound.
GOP CONGRESS DISCOVERS IT’S THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH!: The WSJ has a hilarious and/or depressing piece, “McConnell, Ryan Use Balance-of-Powers Argument to Reassure Voters.”
When asked about Mr. Trump, his effect on the party, or his prospects this November, each responds by talking about the importance of the legislative branch. Congress, they say, will assert itself again after eight years of an administration they see as having severely skewed the balance of powers.
Implied in their message is the assumption that they will be able to protect the prerogatives of the institution because they’ll still be running it. And that’s part of their underlying point: Keep us in charge, and we’ll keep the president—whoever it is—in check.
Mr. McConnell invoked the balance-of-powers argument when asked in a CBS interview Sunday about divisions within the party and Republican voters who might be part of a “never Trump” movement.
“What protects us in this country against big mistakes being made is the structure, the Constitution, the institutions,” he said. “No matter how unusual a personality may be who gets elected to office, there are constraints in this country. You don’t get to do anything you want to.” . . .
So let me get this straight: Now the GOP Congress is ready to assert its constitutional prerogatives, prophylactically flexing its muscles in anticipation of a Trump Administration? I’m in full support of Congress protecting its sole constitutional power to legislate, and using all available tools to do so against an overreaching President.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this latest “assurance” from GOP congressional leaders of their ability/willingness to check a runaway potential future President, whether Trump or Clinton (the latter of which I think is a far more realistic threat). Their track record for the past seven years says otherwise. Res ipsa loquitur.
JONAH GOLDBERG: Could Bernie Sanders Put Mitt Romney In The White House?
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why It’s Not Time to Panic About Cellphones and Cancer.
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