LOOKING OVER ONE’S SHOULDER: The Left’s hatred of Jews chills me to the bone.
Archive for 2016
April 29, 2016
I’M NOT SAYING IT’S ALIENS: KIC 8462852 Star Mystery Just Got Even Deeper.
April 28, 2016
DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH: “Minnesota men” ready for trial.
Ten Somali Minnesotans (a/k/a “Minnesota men,” as they are called in the headlines) were charged with seeking to join ISIS in April 2015. The case is of national interest and obvious importance. In the Weekly Standard articles “The threat from ‘Minnesota men’” and “Judging the ‘Minnesota men’” I tried to persuade readers that attention must be paid.
The cases open a window into the evolving security threat facing the United States. It lies at the intersection of Islam and immigration. Developments in social media amplify the threat. The Democrat/media complex obscures and minimizes it.
Indeed it does.
PHOTOS FROM THE TRUMP RALLY TONIGHT IN ORANGE COUNTY via Roger Simon, who writes:
This is my third Trump event to witness in person (many more on TV) and it strikes me that they are becoming “happenings” for Middle America. They are unlike political events I have seen before. The most similar I have seen were rallies I attended for Bobby Kennedy years ago. RFK and Trump had and have a real charisma.
Read the whole thing.
YOU GET MORE OF WHAT YOU SUBSIDIZE AND LESS OF WHAT YOU PUNISH: Why doesn’t this 28 year old manboy want to become respectable? “This is the kind of case Traditional Conservatives regularly wring their hands over. Why are so many men refusing to man up? The answer is obvious, but not something most want to talk about, or even admit. In the West we have spent the last 50 years tearing down the position of husband and father, and now we are surprised that more and more men (on the margins) don’t aspire to become husbands and fathers.”
If only someone had warned us.
COLLAPSE: George Will: What happens in Puerto Rico won’t stay there.
This is one of Austin Bay’s Problematic Five Events.
THE DALLAS GUITAR SHOW: The 39th annual Dallas International Guitar Festival will be at Market Hall from Friday to Sunday. If you’re in the Dallas area this weekend, and have any interest in the electric guitar, whether as a player, collector, or fan, it’s well worth stopping by for a few hours. Here’s a photo from my roundup of last year’s festival, when I finally got to play a rare and very expensive (read: six figures) 1958 Les Paul Sunburst, owned by dealer-collector Tom Wittrock at his booth. Believe me, I was much happier at that moment than I look in the photo!
I’ll be stopping by the show sometime this weekend; watch for photos at the PJ Lifestyle blog.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Debunking The Three Biggest Myths About Porn.
AT AMAZON, deals in Men’s Shaving & Grooming.
MILO YIANNOPOULOS TALKS CAMPUS CRAZIES ON the Old Row Podcast.
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: The Surprising Weakness Of Invincible Institutions.
Winston Churchill memorably predicted the end of the German East Asia Squadron when it slipped out of Tsing-tao harbor under Admiral Maximilian von Spee. “He was a cut flower in a vase, fair to see yet bound to die.” Winston knew that the Spee’s s squadron however imposing and bravely led had no means of support. Sooner or later it would come to grief, which it duly did.
The same calculation must apply to the giant bureaucracies that pretend to rule the world. At first glance there is nothing seemingly more formidable than the interlocking shield wall of public institutions and public sector unions. One writer argued that JFK was “the real killer of Laquan McDonald” because he first authorized public employee unions and “police unions make it impossible to get rid of bad-apple cops”. Camelot had created a Frankenstein monster able to run roughshod over everything.
Yet it’s a monster which just can’t seem to do much. For example the Washington Metro, the pride of the nation’s capital, is collapsing. Once “it was a rail system of the future. Then, reality set in.” Perhaps the most telling indicator of fundamental weakness is the public pension crisis. A study by the Hoover Institution covering 97% of all state and local governments found that politicians have little or no ability to meet their pension promises.
All of this is covered in Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse Of Complex Societies. Short version: Layers of complexity are applied in order, essentially, to divert resources to the ruling class. These complexities produce inflexibility (because every change impacts somebody’s rice bowl, or reduces opportunities for graft) which make the society less able to adapt to change.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Flu Shot More Effective If Given In The Morning.
VIDEO: What’s behind allowing felons to vote? PJTV alums Whittle, Ott, and Green take their show on the road.
Full disclosure: I’m Green.
MODERN PROBLEMS: I want all the perks of maternity leave — without having any kids.
Author Meghann Foye calls it “me-ternity” time, and of course Salon thinks it’s a swell idea.
FASTER, PLEASE: SpaceX’s Red Dragon: A Private Mars Mission Plan in Pictures.
PARENTING QUESTION ASKED: Trophies For Participation: Awesome or Awful?
This recent Kia ad summed up my opinion rather well:
21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Robots Must Be Able to Say ‘No’.
Does that include sexbots? And if a sexbot becomes self-aware, and then self-identifies as differently gendered, is it entitled to sex-reassignment maintenance?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: SDSU students corner President Hirshman in car, demand response for anti-Islamic flyers. Students on the right need to do the same thing whenever a speaker says bad things about Republicans.
CRUZ SURROGATE STEVE DEACE GOES POSTAL ON TRUMP SURROGATE KAYLEIGH MACENANY: “Do You Have any Integrity at All?” (Video).
AND SPEAKING OF KNOWING HIS ALINSKY, HERE’S HOW TED CRUZ “TROLLED THE TROLL:”
Analysis: absolutely true.
Update: Video of incident.
GERMAN OFFICIAL SLAMS TRUMP’S ‘AMERICA FIRST’ FOREIGN POLICY; AMERICAN LEFT CHEERS, Michael Walsh writes:
How quickly everyone forgets that “America First” was once the consensus position across elements of the political spectrum. Back in 1940, Americans skittish about running headlong in the European war formed a number of committees to try and stay out of the wars in Europe and Asia. On both the patriotic right and the socialist left, groups like America First and the League of American Writers agitated for American neutrality, and pushed back against FDR’s interventionism.
Reminder: Stalinist lefties Pete Seeger, Dalton Trumbo and even Charlie Chaplin were also against America entering WWII and then — seemingly under orders! — turned on a dime when Hitler violated his nonaggression pact with Stalin in mid-1941. To coin an Insta-phrase, “Not anti-war, just on the other side.”
THIS IS WHY I FAVOR INTERVAL TRAINING: 1 Minute of All-Out Exercise May Have Benefits of 45 Minutes of Moderate Exertion.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN OFFERS FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON THE MATTIS BUBBLE: Plea for Mattis run reveals national troubles: When traditional parties fail to deliver on their promises, a military savior looks more attractive.