Archive for 2017
September 9, 2017
TROLL LEVEL, GALACTIC OVERLORD:
Made better because it’s true. In fact, today’s rape hysteria has a lot in common with Jim Crow era rape hysteria.
IN THE MAIL: THE BETA MALE REVOLUTION: Why Many Men Have Totally Lost Interest in Marriage in Today’s Society.
Plus, fresh Gold Box and Lightning Deals
DON SURBER: Anatomy Of A Sleazy Editorial. “Shall we begin deciphering it? I draw on 27 years of experience in writing editorials.”
I’M SO OLD I CAN REMEMBER WHEN THE NATIONAL LAWYERS’ GUILD FOUGHT MCCARTHYISM INSTEAD OF SUPPORTING IT: Professor who argued ‘all cultures are not created equal’ targeted for removal from teaching law class.
A law group at an Ivy League university is encouraging the school’s administration to consider barring a professor from teaching a mandatory first-year law course, citing her “segregationist” worldview, “bigoted views” and “cultural elitism.”
In a statement posted to the group’s blog, the National Lawyers Guild chapter at the University of Pennsylvania Law School condemned Penn professor Amy Wax’s recent op-ed at The Philadelphia Inquirer, in which Wax, along with a co-author, lamented the “breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture” and declared: “All cultures are not created equal.”
The members of Penn’s National Lawyers Guild wrote that Wax’s comments are a “textbook example of white supremacy and cultural elitism” and alleged she is a “segregationist” with “bigoted views.”
“We call on the administration,” Penn’s National Lawyers Guild wrote, “to consider more deeply the toll that this takes on students, particularly students of color and members of the LGBTQIA community, and to consider whether it is in the best interests of the school and its students for Professor Wax to continue to teach a required first-year class.”
Professor Wax is the instructor for a mandatory course at Penn’s law school titled “Civil Procedure.”
But like most commie groups, the Guild has always been happy to change its principles to conform with the party line of the moment. Still, I hope that Thomas Emerson, were he still alive, would be opposing this.
NEW YORK TIMES: Betsy DeVos Ends A Campus Witch Hunt.
The travesties of justice carried out under the new Title IX guidelines have been the subject of some excellent books and superb journalism, none better than Emily Yoffe’s in The Atlantic. And yet the response of the progressive left has been indifferent or worse.
On Thursday, the social activist Amy Siskind tweeted that the conservative writer David French should “STFU with your hackneyed due process talking point” after the latter pointed out that “campus kangaroo courts violate fundamental rights.”
Siskind’s activism revolves mainly around pointing out the Trump administration’s creeping authoritarianism. Yet Trump’s election was itself a response to the creeping authoritarianism of his predecessor. Liberals trying to grasp what happened last November would be well served revisiting this ugly saga, and perhaps even murmuring a word of thanks that Secretary DeVos means to bring it to a close.
The Left’s response embodies a kind of unreasoning hate that ordinary Americans have come to recognize, which is why Trump won.
BLUE STATE PROBLEMS: What The Rich Won’t Tell You.
AT AMAZON, fresh new releases, updated hourly.
Plus, new Kindle Daily Deals.
MARINE STALLION WITH A FIFTY CALIBER STING IN THE TAIL: An armed USMC CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter participates in an exercise in Japan. Good action photo.
BEYOND IRMA: Waiting for Jose. Hurricane Jose is already a CAT 4 storm.
THE FIX IS IN: GOP lawmakers furious after DOJ declines to prosecute ex-IRS official Lois Lerner.
Trump and Koskinen are old buddies. I suspect that Koskinen is covering for Trump on taxes, and Trump is leaving the IRS alone in exchange. This is pure speculation on my part, but it fits the behavior.
NEWS I HOPE YOU DON’T HAVE TO USE: Five Essential Tips for Disaster Preparedness.
IT SELDOM ENDS WELL FOR PEOPLE WHO GO AFTER BLOGGERS: Sheriff Forced to Pay After Ordering Raid on Blogger Who Criticized Him: “In our case, he stepped on the wrong people’s constitutional rights because we knew our rights.”
Bloggers usually do, and tend to be kind of feisty.
ANGELO CODEVILLA: Can the U.S Military Hold the Line in the Gathering Political Storm?
Defense Secretary James Mattis’s words last month to U.S troops in the Middle East came from his patriotic heart: “And you just hold the line, my fine young soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines. You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it, of being friendly toward one another . . . We are so doggone lucky to be Americans.”
Had he tried to tell them that their sacrifices on behalf of current U.S policy in the region are of transcendent importance, he would have used words that neither he nor they believed. Instead, in front of a few, he let slip what must weigh on this thoughtful Marine’s mind: what role can the armed forces play in the socio-political revolution which is gathering force among Americans? What role should they play?
“Hold the line,” he said, meaning: be a rock of stability in the midst of partisan strife, a beacon from which all may gratefully recall America’s true meaning. But what, in practice, can “holding the line” mean? Is it even possible?
One reason it may not be is that Mattis’s noble sentiments seem to be based on the factually incorrect premise that two sets of Americans are aggressing against one another. If it were so, the mutual infliction of damage might exhaust both sides’ ardor, eventually. But in fact, our troubles are consequent to a ruling class that defines itself by the contempt that it pours on the rest of the country—and to the rest of the country’s resistance thereto.
What could possibly induce a class that defines itself as superior to redefine itself as equal to those it deplores and despises? Moreover, these troubles are happening in conjunction with a collapse of standards—professional, educational, and moral, and of respect for the rule of law—at all levels of society. In short, what is happening in America is not the sort of thing that abates with time.
We need a better ruling class.
NOT GOOD: New North Korea photos reveal hidden details of missile program.
“This is the North Koreans showing us, or at least portraying, that their solid-fuel missile program is improving at a steady rate,” David Schmerler, research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told CNN.
One photo of Kim reveals a poster on the wall clearly mentioning a missile called “Pukguksong-3,” a potential successor to the previous two versions of the missile which were both solid-fuel, medium-range projectiles.
North Korea’s desire to build solid-fuel missiles is driven by their need for projectiles they can launch quickly and subtly, said Michael Duitsman, also a research associate at the James Martin Center.
“Solid fuel missiles are much faster to deploy … a solid fuel missile is always fueled so all they have to do is drive it to the place they want to launch it,” he said.
“It’s much easier to put into action, much harder to catch before it launches because they’re a lot less in terms of launch preparations that could be done.”
Developing… all too quickly.
WHEN YOUR ACTIONS ARE CHARACTERIZED BY A BIZARRE MIXTURE OF FRIVOLITY AND VICIOUSNESS, PEOPLE LOSE RESPECT FOR YOU: Americans Losing Faith in College Degrees, Poll Finds. “The findings reflect an increase in public skepticism of higher education from just four years ago and highlight a growing divide in opinion falling along gender, educational, regional and partisan lines. They also carry political implications for universities, already under public pressure to rein in their costs and adjust curricula after decades of sharp tuition increases. Overall, a slim plurality of Americans, 49%, believes earning a four-year degree will lead to a good job and higher lifetime earnings, compared with 47% who don’t, according to the poll of 1,200 people taken Aug. 5-9. That two-point margin narrowed from 13 points when the same question was asked four years earlier.”
If only someone had warned them.
IN HIS LAST BLOG ENTRY, JERRY POURNELLE OFFERS THOUGHTS ON DEALING WITH “DREAMERS:”
The Constitution says the President must take care to see that the laws are faithfully enforced. Mr. Trump didn’t want to deport the “Dreamers”, particularly those who have integrated into the society, but the law gives him no leeway, and the Presidential Order Obama signed giving them amnesty is unconstitutional. He solved that dilemma by giving it back to Congress who created it. We’ll now see what happens.
I can solve part of the problem. Any volunteer of any age who serves 7 years overseas in Army or Marines gets a Green Card and an application to apply for Citizenship along with his honorable discharge. The Citizenship application and test need not be very difficult and I would expect all who applied to pass it. The swearing should be public and conducted by an officer of rank Colonel or above.
As to girls, we can think of something similar or suitable; they need not join the combat arms. Surgical Assistant comes instantly to mind.
Their parents are a more difficult problem, and it will take ingenuity to find a path that does not offend the legal immigrants who obeyed the law.
More sensible than what we’ll probably get.
SAW FOLKS FROM TOWER OF PIZZA IN KEY LARGO on Fox, and they’re staying. They say their house was designed to survive a Cat 5 hurricane. Well, they’ve been there a while. My family has a longtime connection to that place, and I hope they’re okay. Me, if I were in South Florida I’d be out of there if I had to charter a jet to do it.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: “NOWHERE IN THE FLORIDA KEYS WILL BE SAFE.”
***THIS IS AS REAL AS IT GETS***
***NOWHERE IN THE FLORIDA KEYS WILL BE SAFE***
***YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO EVACUATE***
Please RT. #Irma pic.twitter.com/VWLMEDWoUs
— NWS Key West (@NWSKeyWest) September 8, 2017
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Texas Special Ed Teacher Indicted for Allegedly Kissing, Sexting, Soliciting Sex from Boy.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Kurt Schlichter: Curse Of The Woke Conservatives. “Look, here’s how you Fredocons screwed up – well, one of the ways you screwed up, anyway. You miscalculated our tolerance for failure and confused our patience with apathy. Eventually, your failure grew so great that we just had to pay attention even though we have lives and better things to do. . . . Look normals, we’re in for the long haul here – hopefully not one that ends violently for our divided country, which it absolutely could. Those are the stakes, and that is why we can’t just walk away from this game. We can’t hide and wait it out. We either get in there and win or we lose everything. Step One was getting woke. Step Two was electing Trump. Step Three is regulating the Republicans. Slowly and surely, we’re going to need to purge these punks from our team.”