Archive for 2017
September 25, 2017
AXIS OF EVIL: Iran’s New Ballistic Missile Looks a Lot Like a Modified North Korean One.
Needless to say, the demonstration of the Khorramshahr has added a certain weight to calls in the United States to pull out of or otherwise reconsider the future of the JCPOA. Critics of pulling out of the arrangement say that it could only hasten Iran’s development of both newer and more advanced ballistic missiles, as well as a nuclear weapon.
However, Khorramshahr may prompt additional concerns that Iran may already be working along both of these lines with help from North Korea and other allies. Observers were quick to point out that the missile shares a number of similarities, especially in its apparent engine configuration, with the North Korean BM-25 Musudan, also known as the Hwasong-10.
Iran claims that the new missile is an entirely domestic effort, but it makes similar statements about almost every weapon system it unveils, even those that are clearly derived from foreign designs. Its existing Shahab-3 medium range ballistic missiles are a known derivative of North Korea’s earlier Hwasong-7.
I’m so old I can remember when suggesting that Iran and North Korea cooperated as a terror axis was the punchline to unfunny jokes told by comedians and network news reporters.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Stop giving to your alma mater until they commit to these common-sense reforms.
Yale University, with more than $25 billion dollars in its endowment, is about to launch a new capital campaign to raise several billion dollars more. For decades, Yale and other elite university alumni, grateful for the education they received, gave back to help their alma maters build their financial war chest. The idea was simple: With greater resources, the elite schools could make financial aid more generous, hire more professors, and upkeep their infrastructure.
But in recent decades, universities have changed. They have prioritized politics and social justice activism over education. In the name of combating racism, they encourage it; indeed, campuses have become ground zero for 21st century segregation in the name not of conservatism but rather of progressive theory. And they have hired administrators at rates far greater than they have professors. For all their talk about diversity, they are superficial in its application: Skin color and sexuality count toward diversity, economic background less so. Intellectual diversity and respect for alternate viewpoints – what should be the basis of any serious education – hardly merits university consideration.
In 2012, for example, 97 percent of Yale faculty political donations went to Democrats. Three-quarters of Yale faculty members consider themselves liberal or very liberal, and the proportion is likely above 95 percent in the humanities and social sciences.
And the problem is only going to get worse: Humanities and social science programs are producing record numbers of Ph.D.’s, many in narrow, obscure, politicized fields so consumed with theory that they have little to no real-world relevance. There simply are not enough teaching jobs in universities to offer graduates of these programs, nor do they have much qualification to work outside. To have an ever-expanding administrative class hiring from the pool of failed or failing academics solves that problem, and the politicized academics, sheltered from real-world accountability, then begin to impose their racial, gender, or political agendas upon college students, essentially treating them as postmodern lab rats.
So, what to do? It’s reasonable to question why Yale, whose endowment surpasses Estonia and Nepal’s gross domestic product, or Harvard, whose endowment surpasses Bahrain’s GDP and is equivalent to oil-rich Azerbaijan’s, need to solicit additional donations, especially given that they charge upwards of $60,000 per year in tuition, room, and board. Even with financial aid factored in, the inflow of cash is impressive.
Fatcats.
RIGHT ON SCHEDULE: The NFL Protests Are Patriotic.
Protest is patriotic. Protest has played a critically important role in elevating the voices of the most vulnerable in our nation. Protest in America has been essential to ending war, to demanding equal rights, to ending unfair practices that keep citizens marginalized. If we quell protest in the name of patriotism, we are not patriots. We are tyrants.
Would there have been a Civil Rights Act without the Birmingham protests? When Bull Connor unleashed his fire hoses and dogs on the schoolchildren taking to the streets, racial disparities and the violence facing people because of the color of their skin became the issues of the times. With savage images of the brutal attack in the news every day, President John Kennedy had little choice but to push for a Civil Rights Act that demanded equal services and equal rights.
Protests in Selma, Alabama, changed the trajectory of this nation and catapulted the Voting Rights Act into being. Soon after images of Bloody Sunday flooded television sets, President Johnson presented to Congress the Voting Rights Act, which would remove barriers to voting like literacy tests. If you think these protests were irrelevant, consider Johnson’s words to Congress: “[A]t times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom … So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.”
And so it is now for multimillionaire athletes showboating at taxpayer-subsidized football stadiums for the ultra-high-definition videocameras of multibillion-dollar media complexes.
UPDATE (from the comments): “We must remove the Confederate flag because it is racist. Now the standard of the northern armies that ended slavery, is racist.”
Racism is whatever the Party requires it to be, comrade.
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WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? NFL Broadcasting Stocks Slump As Protests Rise And TV Ratings Fall.
Related: NFL picked sides in the culture war, now it has to live with the consequences.
Given the toxicity of today’s politics, keeping sports as a refuge from politics would have been very smart. They chose . . . poorly.
UPDATE: Don Surber: Why Trump Picked On The NFL.
What’s funny is, institutions can completely immunize themselves to Trump simply by behaving in ways thought unexceptionally proper and dignified just a couple of decades ago. And yet, from the news media, to universities, to the NFL, they seem utterly incapable of doing so.
KURT SCHLICHTER: Conservative, Inc., Is Being Replaced By Us Militant Normals. “Gosh, I would have thought from all those cruise panels about how our crumbling culture is slouching toward Babylon and the need to resist the liberal onslaught that maybe we ought to actually resist the liberal onslaught, but see, that was my mistake. I took it seriously when Conservative, Inc., promised to fight the leftist blitzkrieg against normal Americans. It was all a scam, a lie, a pose for us rubes. The Tru Cons didn’t actually mean it. There’s a lot of that not meaning it going on in the GOP right now. . . . Conservatism has become a racket, and everything happening now is a result of its members hoping to wait out Trump and the demand for change he represents. Maybe if they do nothing, but say all the right things, we normals will get tired and go back to our jobs and keep providing those votes and renting those cruise cabins. But that’s not happening. . . . Militant normalcy is the result of normal people roused to anger and refusing to be pushed around anymore. We prefer a free society based on personal liberty and mutual respect. But if you leftists veto that option, that leaves us either a society where you rule and oppress us, or one where we hold the power.”
DETERRENCE: U.S. Flies Unprecedented Show of Force North of DMZ.
The Pentagon said B-1B bombers from Guam, along with F-15C Eagle fighter escorts from Okinawa, Japan, flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea on Saturday. The U.S. characterized the flights as extending farther north of the Demilitarized Zone, than any U.S. fighter or bomber had gone off the North Korean coast in the 21st century.
B-1 bombers are no longer part of the U.S. nuclear force, but they are capable of dropping large numbers of conventional bombs.
U.S. Pacific Command would not be more specific about many years it had been since U.S. bombers and fighters had flown that far north of the DMZ, but a spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Dave Benham, noted that this century “encompasses the period North Korea has been testing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.”
Non-proliferation is dead in Northeast Asia, and Chinese support for North Korea helped to kill it. You have to wonder if the possibility of a nuclear-armed Taiwan, South Korea, and/or Japan would change Beijing’s attitude.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Police Reports Suggest Dem IT Scandal Ringleader Abused Several Muslim Immigrant Women. Why is the Democratic Party’s Congressional staff such a cesspit of crime and misogyny?
MEANWHILE, OUTSIDE THE FOOTBALL STADIUMS: Puerto Rico governor: ‘We still need some more help’ from Washington.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: The NFLOL, Healthcare on Life Support and Much, Much More.
I WONDER WHY? WaPo:Like Germany’s Social Democrats, left-wing parties are losing ground across Europe.
The 2017 German election fits at least three bigger trends. There was Merkel who convinced Germans to grant her a fourth term in office, reaffirming her position as the preferred choice in the center. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) joined a number of other far-right parties across Europe in gaining seats in parliament for the first time, becoming the most likely choice of those drawn to the political side-lines on the right.
And then there was the Social Democratic Party (SPD) which suffered a humiliating defeat, in yet another indication of the challenges some traditional left-wing groups across the continent are facing.
Denmark’s Social Democrats were ousted by a center-right coalition headed by the mainstream Venstre party in 2015. In Austria, the Social Democrats are similarly facing record-losses in upcoming elections, and France’s Socialist Party remains in a deep crisis following its defeat earlier this year.
The decline of Europe’s social democrats is closely associated with the rise of the far-right, experts said.
In Germany, core issues usually believed to play into the hands of the Social Democrats, such as social justice and fair wages, have become less of a concern over the last four years. Instead, immigration and security are now some of the most dominating topics.
Weird how that happened.
HOWIE CARR: The Liberal Media Hated the NFL – Until Yesterday.
“Get that son of a bitch off the field right now!” the president imagined one of his fellow billionaires bellowing. “Out! He’s fired! He’s fired!”
Which would be the owner’s right, obviously. And surely a huge percentage of what used to be the NFL fan base is fed up with the endless PC posturing, both on the field and in the ESPN studios and on the sports pages.
The NFL’s appeal has faded, but not just among the deplorables. There’s a reason they are called “soccer moms,” after all. They wouldn’t dream of letting Junior put on shoulder pads. A football field is the furthest thing from a snowflake’s safe space.
But now the lemmings of the left feel compelled to defend something they loathed a mere 48 hours ago, because if Trump likes something, it must be bad. And vice versa.
It’s different now because shut up.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: UC is handing out generous pensions, and students are paying the price with higher tuition.
GOOD NEWS FOR MY LINE OF WORK: Law Firms Plan To Increase First Year Associate Hiring By 22%; Average Salary Is $68,000.
LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: In Venezuela, they were teachers and doctors. To buy food, they became prostitutes.
It’s a mystery how this sad state of affairs came into being.
STEVEN HAYWARD: Civil War on the Left, Part 48: Asian Supremacy? “Are Asians an oppressed minority in America, or not? We know for a fact that elite universities are nowadays discriminating against Asian applicants in much the same way they discriminated against Jewish applicants decades ago.”
CHRIS BUSKIRK: Kaepernick and Curry Pop the Sports Bubble. “Several new studies prove what we already suspected: Fans are leaving the NFL because of the players’ political activism that disrespects our country, its heritage, and its people. Sports executives such as CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus get it, too, but they’re caught in a crossfire that is only partly of their own making. . . . Sports have traditionally been a refuge from cultural and political controversy where Americans could come together and enjoy time with family, friends, and even complete strangers. Entering the stadium, they could check the cares of the world at the turnstile. That’s changed recently.”
Politics are ugly. If you let politics into your field, it will become ugly. You may think you can only let in a little bit of politics, the kind you think is pretty. But you can’t control that, and it will become ugly. The NFL, and ESPN, and many other institutions should have adopted a non-political stance, but couldn’t resist opening the door, and now they don’t like what’s come inside.
IT’S A TRUMP TRAP AND THE NFL, NBA AND DEMS WALKED RIGHT IN.
As Peter Ingemi of DaTechGuy blog wrote in his email containing the link, “I’m old enough to remember when the Democrats were the party of the little guy instead of rich millionaire athletes.”
THE HILL: Trump allies see vindication in reports on Manafort wiretapping. “It is possible, experts say, that if Manafort spoke to President Trump during the period he was under surveillance, that the president’s communications may have been collected as well — a legal practice known as ‘incidental collection.'”
JON GABRIEL: Red Team? Blue Team? Start Your Own Team.
LEFTIST VIRTUE-SIGNALLING HURTS THE LITTLE PEOPLE: London Uber drivers in shock as some face unemployment: ‘Who is going to give me a job now?’ asks Pal Singh as he echoes concerns of others.
Pal Singh cannot believe the decision. “Is Uber really going to close?,” he asks, sitting behind the wheel of his Vauxhall Insignia.
The concern is palpable after Transport for London on Friday said it would not renew the ride-hailing company’s licence, which expires next week. At 60, Mr Singh is the sole breadwinner in his house because his wife does not work.
“I need this job for living. I have bills to pay. I’m almost 61, who is going to give me a job now?”
For 10 years he worked for a private hire company in Ilford, east London, for lower pay and less flexibility.
Crawling along Embankment in midday traffic, he scrolls through his phone, showing his weekly earnings: £1,050, £897, £841 and £541 — a week when he took some holiday — after Uber has taken its cut.
By only working during the day because he prefers not to drive at night, he is making more money than he did in his previous job. He is also happier.
“You always had problems with customers, some who didn’t want to pay,” he says of his job at the private hire company.
“With Uber for two years now, I have never had a customer problem, never had a problem at all.” . . .
Mohammed Nizam Jearally has not heard the news. He sits in silence when told about the ruling. “How can they do that?” he asks. Another pause. “How can they do that?”.
Uber was a lifeline for Mr Jearally when he was made redundant just over eight months ago.
He had worked in an office role for the NHS for almost 12 years. But when Capita, an outsourcing company, won the contract for the work it moved the jobs to Leeds, where labour and office space are cheaper.
At first, he drove customers while he focused on applying for new roles.
But after discovering he could earn as much driving for Uber as sitting in an office, he gave up looking at new vacancies.
Why do leftists hate working people?
NEW FROM PAM UPHOFF: Flying (Wine of the Gods Book 33).
YEAH. I’M SURE JAMES PATTERSON IS SIMPLY TAKING DICTATION AND CLEARING UP MINOR INCONSISTENCIES: Bill Clinton’s upcoming thriller novel being turned into TV series. The question of the year is: why are people still trying so hard to bribe the Clintons? (Also, on the missing president, if this was written with Clinton’s help, has anyone checked under the desk?)