MERCHANTS OF HATE: Gothamist condones violence against political enemies, women. “I don’t know the name of the woman behind the camera. But according to Del Signore, she deserves whatever she gets for daring to disagree with him. Y’know. Because of the left’s respect for women. . . . Maybe Del Signore has been listening to the latest from Bruce Springsteen.”
Somebody tell the SPLC!
MIKE TREDER IS MISSING.
REPORT: “Tea Party Leader” charged with rape not actually affiliated with Tea Party group.
Funny how they jump on this and ignore all the genuine Occupy rapes.
TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: Victor Davis Hanson is quoted:
But there is one final consideration for those smug utopian architects in our state department and Europe that is completely forgotten in all this. There will be no second Holocaust. If almost all of the West Bank is returned, as is likely, and in a few years hostilities nevertheless resume as they did during phases 1-3 of the Middle East wars, as is also likely, the battle will be over Israel itself, not Palestinian land. That will be a war Israel will not lose, and it will be fought outside not inside the Jewish state. And that will be a nightmare compared to the current crisis. Those in Europe and in the United States who now lecture about morality will then prove to be not only amoral, but also answerable for far, far more still.
Worth noting now. One wonders, however, if some of the Metternichs involved actually hope to provoke an Israeli/Iran gotterdammerung, so that Israel can solve a lot of problems and take the blame too.
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WHAT PHOTOGRAPHERS HAVE AGAINST PINTEREST.
WELL, THAT WAS A MISERABLE FAILURE: Video: Eric Holder in 1995: We Must “Brainwash” People Against Guns.
JIM GERAGHTY: Today the president’s schedule includes six separate fundraisers, a new personal record.
And yet the donations are lagging. “President Obama is struggling to draw in big-dollar donations, with half as many people writing large checks to his campaign than at this point four years ago.”
UPDATE: Reader Steve Gombosi writes: “How is the poor man going to find time to golf???”
IT’S ONLY UNFAIR to make Democratic constituencies look bad. Duh. How could Alexandra Pelosi have missed that? Plus, from the comments: “Maher criticizes the whites and finds excuses for the blacks. That’s because he has adult expectations for whites while having only child-like expectations for blacks.” Yeah, well, that’s how racists think.
Also from the comments: “One more question and then I’m done – why didn’t Pelosi ask the Black people in NY about homosexuality?”
I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Iran and Syria are Getting Blown Up. And Sometimes Shot. “It’s all the rage. Literally. Two explosions at Iranian military/nuclear weapons sites. Four explosions in Syria, including three suicide bombers in Damascus on Saturday, two of which were aimed at Syrian security forces buildings, all in the past few days. Today’s explosion was in Aleppo, and also ‘near a government security building.’ The Iranian blasts are seemingly more dramatic, and probably part of the ongoing campaign being waged against the installations of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, especially, but not solely, those connected to the nuclear weapons project.”
THAT SEEMS RATHER UNJUDICIOUS: 29 Wisconsin Judges Sign Walker Recall Petition. That’s 12 percent, and it’s not just abstract advocacy. “Dane County Judge David Flanagan has been under fire for not disclosing his support of the recall before he issued a temporary restraining order against a Walker-backed voter ID law.” It’s like these people don’t believe in civil society or something.
The left has often invoked the authority of law and the learned professions, but Wisconsin — from things like this to the phony doctors’ excuses for protesters — is suggesting that they’re just a bunch of partisan tools.
UPDATE: Ann Althouse: “Why would a judge sign a recall petition? You’re just one name. It can’t make that much difference. And then there you are, your reputation shot to hell. You’re politicized. Biased. All those things you strive to deny when you assume the role of judge.”
They’re selected for loyalty, not intelligence.
ANOTHER UPDATE: “That was no lady. That was Glenn Reynolds.”
THE USA: An Oil-Rich Nation After All?
LIFE AMONG THE RULING CLASS: Average Congresscritter gets 1,452% raises when they turn corporate lobbyist.
See, this is just another argument for my 50% surtax on post-government earnings. Or maybe it should be 75% . . . .
A ROMNEY WIN IN PUERTO RICO. I should’ve gotten PJTV to send me there to cover this race. What was I thinking?
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Also, today only: $0.99 Each for Michael Wallace’s “Righteous” Thrillers (Kindle Books). (Bumped).
PAST ITS EXPIRATION DATE: Obama in 2004: I’d launch airstrikes to stop Iran from going nuclear.
SYRIA DESCENDING TOWARD MADNESS. “The Syrian government and its opposition are each their own worst enemy. Butcher Assad is the worst of all combinations: a bumbling murderer. He can and will kill, but he cannot govern. Yet the opposition has lost credibility even as Syrians put their lives on the line every day. Its inability to organize a coherent alternative to the government underlines the key point of Assad propaganda: that the only alternative to the goon squad currently in power is anarchy and, perhaps, genocidal wars of revenge by fanatical sectarian killers. The longer this tragedy continues, the more dangerous it becomes — for Syrians and for others in the region.”
READER MICHAEL BOHL WRITES:
Dear Professor Reynolds,
I just finished reading Douglas Laycock’s Vicious Stereotypes in Polite Society and, after initial indignation about Professor Brown’s anecdote, I came up with a few questions. I don’t actually expect any answers based on the time line but they would be interesting.
After more than 20 years how is this incident remembered by the principals? If it affected her so much that she wrote about it for the Yale Law Journal it must have had a lasting impact. Has she realized that it was an irrational fear based solely on visual cues that she didn’t like but have no real bearing on what she was afraid of? Does she understand that (in her mind anyway) she all but accused someone of a heinous crime when he only tried to help? Has she blown it up in her mind so that she wakes in a cold sweat about her narrow escape from the cast of Deliverance? (Have to stick with the stereotypes.)
Does he even remember it? If he does, does he remember anything more than “Some tree hugging chick* went hiking and left her lights on.”?
I know that I have been (and probably will be again in the future) guilty of exactly that sort of behavior. I have, however, usually been forced after the fact to look at my own beliefs and prejudices to try to see where I was wrong. After slogging through her original article I sort of doubt that she has learned anything.
* ”Chick” used advisedly and deliberately.
I have no idea about any of these questions, but it would be interesting to know the answers.
A. BARTON HINKLE: What Ever Happened to “Extremism in Defense of Liberty is No Vice”?
JEFF GOLDSTEIN RESPONDS TO STANLEY FISH: Progressivism And The Authoritarian Impulse. “Fish’s single standard, distilled and properly understood, is that liberals are (they’ll claim) morally superior by virtue of their very belief in their own political identities — which identity is tied to an ideology that, manifested politically, privileges governmental theft, sanctioned inequality as a function of tribal identity, and a giant foundational question beg: namely, that moral superiority comes from being on the left, so therefore being on the left means you can really do no fundamental moral wrong.” Progressivism is a religion that preaches salvation by faith, and utter damnation for the nonbelievers.
UPDATE: An illustration: “You and I are not racists. I just gave my imaginary child’s college fund to Barack Obama, and your mother is Nancy Pelosi. So of all the people in the world — we are not out to fuck black people.” Democrats can’t be racist. Just ask Bull Connor.
SCIENCE ASKS: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
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AIRBUS SUPERJUMBO JET GETS ITS WINGS CLIPPED. “In an industry where safety is an absolute necessity, any defect can be devastating to an aircraft maker. The European company Airbus is learning that the hard way: small cracks on wing brackets of the A380 have angered operators, who have demanded compensation for the time their fleets have been grounded for repairs. As the FT reports, the cracked brackets are minor defects that both Emirates and Airbus say do not make planes unsafe to fly, although regulators disagree. But still, the defect has been found on ten A380s operated by Emirates, who has 69 more of the plane on order. All of Singapore Airlines’ ten A380s have similar cracks as well.”
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