Liberals are chomping at the bit to label the Colorado abortion clinic attack "domestic, homegrown, Christian terrorism."
It certainly seems most likely that the killings were motivated by anti-abortion sentiment in the heart of Robert Lewis Dear, perhaps particularly fired by the Planned Parenthood controversy, just as they think, though of course it could turn out that it was all to do with something entirely different.
But in any case that would still not be terrorism.
A campaign of terrorism against abortion providers and women seeking abortions would by no means be impossible, by one or more organizations or by self-coordinating "lone wolves," but I am not aware anything like that is or has been under way.
Which is not to say nobody among the anti-abortionists wishes there were such a thing; just that wishing doesn't make it so.
But were it so that sort of thing would be far less a danger to the public, and have far less impact on government policy, than the Jihad, given differences in target selection, choice of weapons, and intended and actual body counts achieved by single attacks.
And I would think it would be a lot easier to put a stop to.
And PP does traffic in body parts, pettifogging denials notwithstanding.
Some people just want to label anything they don't like as terrorism.
Oddly, of Muslim terrorists we hear from liberals that their violence originates in anything but Islam, which they have hijacked to provide themselves the phony legitimacy of a bogus cause.
Hmm.
Monday, November 30, 2015
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Loooosers
Why some conservatives say Trump talk is fascist
Jeb Bush adviser John Noonan.
Rubio adviser Max Boot.
Ted Cruz supporter Steve Deace.
Ooooo, the big, scary Donald is coming!
Jeb Bush adviser John Noonan.
Rubio adviser Max Boot.
Ted Cruz supporter Steve Deace.
Ooooo, the big, scary Donald is coming!
How many is Japan taking?
Syrian refugees.
China?
Thailand?
Why not this, by the way?
Though, indeed, Jordan needs somebody's help.
China?
Thailand?
Why not this, by the way?
Though, indeed, Jordan needs somebody's help.
Palling around with mushheads
Nobody writing about politics is much more interested in speaking honestly than Humpty Dumpty.
Medicare is not communism, deportation of illegal aliens is not fascism, and ideological violence is not terrorism.
In this case, the pretense that certain words seem to defy definition and are just soooo hard to get a grip on plays a role in the oft repeated left wing lie that homegrown non-Muslim terrorism is a greater threat to America than that posed by Jihaders.
How to simultaneously whitewash Muslims while slandering the right.
Who is a bigger threat to America and the Occident than ISIS?
The loon left.
Global Climate March
4 Arrested in Magnificent Mile Protests
More #BLM stuff.
Medicare is not communism, deportation of illegal aliens is not fascism, and ideological violence is not terrorism.
In this case, the pretense that certain words seem to defy definition and are just soooo hard to get a grip on plays a role in the oft repeated left wing lie that homegrown non-Muslim terrorism is a greater threat to America than that posed by Jihaders.
How to simultaneously whitewash Muslims while slandering the right.
Who is a bigger threat to America and the Occident than ISIS?
The loon left.
Global Climate March
4 Arrested in Magnificent Mile Protests
More #BLM stuff.
Saturday, November 28, 2015
The Guardian
Their writers are just fine with the notorious obscenity of "gay pride," but they just can't quite get comfortable with boys' lust for girls.
About that they are the most crippling, nasty, old maid prudes imaginable.
O praises police, is petulant about guns
Obama urges gun control after Colorado Springs shooting: 'Enough is enough'
He is not a dictator and the pro-gun rights party controls the legislature.
Most long guns are not weapons of war and right now we don't have more information about this guy's gun.
Nobody reacted to John Brown's raid by demanding gun control.
Friday, November 27, 2015
Demon rum
If it didn't have an upside, who would drink?
Unlike pot, the upside is sociable, based on lessened anxieties and diminished inhibitions.
Alcohol is Paxil without the prescription, with flavors and other sensory enjoyments added in.
Four adults and two kids killed 2 bottles of red and one of white with the turkey, this evening.
Stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, and all that stuff.
And there were cocktails.
And one of us went for that crappy White Zinfandel Sangria.
The kids got sips just enough to taste and make a face.
A fun family meal, all in all.
Digby says Trump is "actually" a fascist
Digby.
Bernie Sanders is closer to being "actually" a communist, and it may not be long before Hillary or her surrogates start to say so.
Trump is just actually opposed to a lot that Digby is for, and for a lot to which she is opposed.
Digby is shocked, shocked, that Republicans getting their clocks cleaned by Trump are finally reduced to name-calling.
Perhaps she has forgotten how O's and Hillary's campaigns and allies smeared each other in 2008, and how two leading US senators spoke for television, telling conservative audiences they were pretty sure Obama was a Communist.
Ho-hum. Nothing to see here.
Barry Goldwater a fascist?
Sure, and Santa Claus is a raging queen.
Rick Perlstein an historian?
He's a left wing pamphleteer who writes long propaganda pieces about who and what he hates.
Dibgy is much like him, only her pieces are shorter and she doesn't seem as smart.
She's far from alone.
Other people opposed to Trump's policies are getting into this, branding the policies themselves as well as their proponent "fascist."
Just another day in the political life of a country in which the right has never stopped calling Social Security and Medicare "communistic."
Bernie Sanders is closer to being "actually" a communist, and it may not be long before Hillary or her surrogates start to say so.
Trump is just actually opposed to a lot that Digby is for, and for a lot to which she is opposed.
Digby is shocked, shocked, that Republicans getting their clocks cleaned by Trump are finally reduced to name-calling.
Perhaps she has forgotten how O's and Hillary's campaigns and allies smeared each other in 2008, and how two leading US senators spoke for television, telling conservative audiences they were pretty sure Obama was a Communist.
Ho-hum. Nothing to see here.
Barry Goldwater a fascist?
Sure, and Santa Claus is a raging queen.
Rick Perlstein an historian?
He's a left wing pamphleteer who writes long propaganda pieces about who and what he hates.
Dibgy is much like him, only her pieces are shorter and she doesn't seem as smart.
She's far from alone.
Other people opposed to Trump's policies are getting into this, branding the policies themselves as well as their proponent "fascist."
Just another day in the political life of a country in which the right has never stopped calling Social Security and Medicare "communistic."
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Wilson and Rhodes
They were indeed racists, both of them.
Wilson segregated DC and Rhodes brushed aside savages and other locals in support of both colonialism and imperialism in Africa.
Of the two, Wilson, whose politics were even more deplorable on other grounds - think of The Great War and its aftermath - , was probably the "visceral" racist.
Rhodes was just a civilian conquistador, playing his part in the ebb and flow of history driven by power and money, the rise and fall of the wheel of fortune.
And he was a marvelous builder of works of civilization; think of the Cape to Cairo railway.
Far more horrific than either in his treatment of black Africans was King Leopold of Belgium.
I have no idea whether or how far racism had anything to do with his psychopathic dealings with black Africans.
But I don't think he had anything to do with any American universities, anyway.
Of course, whining about any of this at this late date is driven by nothing but hatred of certain features of Western Civilization that are key aspects of it to this day such as capitalism and, oh yeah, being mostly an affair of white people - male white people.
You know, "Hey, hey, ho, ho. Western Civ has got to go!"
And the college administrations, well knowing they would receive no support from elites were they to do anything else, surrender everything like the empty suits they are, like liberal punching bags in the pages of Dostoevsky.
Neither Wilson nor Rhodes - nor indeed Leopold, I suppose - is celebrated today for racism or for racist acts or policies.
But never mind.
They and pretty much all the major figures of Western Civilization for the last two or three centuries were racists of one stripe or another, or in one degree or another, and so every one of them, nearly the entire panoply of political and cultural leadership of the Occident, offers an easy target for anti-racist outrage and victim rhetoric.
Nearly all of them (some women excepted) were sexists, too, with similar caveats.
If no racist (or sexist) can be honored or celebrated pretty much nobody of importance to the Occident over the last few centuries can be honored or celebrated.
Yep.
Now you're catching on.
They will be pushed aside to make way for the culturally marginal women, mulattoes, Asians, Indians, and LGBT sexual outlaws the cultural revolutionaries have already spent decades grooming to replace them as the new heroes of the new, post-white, post-male, post-Christian Occident.
Anyway, that's what they are trying to do.
Wilson segregated DC and Rhodes brushed aside savages and other locals in support of both colonialism and imperialism in Africa.
Of the two, Wilson, whose politics were even more deplorable on other grounds - think of The Great War and its aftermath - , was probably the "visceral" racist.
Rhodes was just a civilian conquistador, playing his part in the ebb and flow of history driven by power and money, the rise and fall of the wheel of fortune.
And he was a marvelous builder of works of civilization; think of the Cape to Cairo railway.
Far more horrific than either in his treatment of black Africans was King Leopold of Belgium.
I have no idea whether or how far racism had anything to do with his psychopathic dealings with black Africans.
But I don't think he had anything to do with any American universities, anyway.
Of course, whining about any of this at this late date is driven by nothing but hatred of certain features of Western Civilization that are key aspects of it to this day such as capitalism and, oh yeah, being mostly an affair of white people - male white people.
You know, "Hey, hey, ho, ho. Western Civ has got to go!"
And the college administrations, well knowing they would receive no support from elites were they to do anything else, surrender everything like the empty suits they are, like liberal punching bags in the pages of Dostoevsky.
Neither Wilson nor Rhodes - nor indeed Leopold, I suppose - is celebrated today for racism or for racist acts or policies.
But never mind.
They and pretty much all the major figures of Western Civilization for the last two or three centuries were racists of one stripe or another, or in one degree or another, and so every one of them, nearly the entire panoply of political and cultural leadership of the Occident, offers an easy target for anti-racist outrage and victim rhetoric.
Nearly all of them (some women excepted) were sexists, too, with similar caveats.
If no racist (or sexist) can be honored or celebrated pretty much nobody of importance to the Occident over the last few centuries can be honored or celebrated.
Yep.
Now you're catching on.
They will be pushed aside to make way for the culturally marginal women, mulattoes, Asians, Indians, and LGBT sexual outlaws the cultural revolutionaries have already spent decades grooming to replace them as the new heroes of the new, post-white, post-male, post-Christian Occident.
Anyway, that's what they are trying to do.
Smug citation of precedent
For More Than 200 Years, America Has Shunned A 'War On Islam'
Both use of the expression and the actual thing.
The piece of the Treaty of Tripoli so often quoted only explains that the government of the US, being essentially secular and moved by essentially secular interests, would not go to war against the Barbary States or any Muslim power for any "pretext arising from religious opinions."
Article 11.
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
There is not a word in it about what might have moved Muslim states or Muslims at that time, much less to contradict the blatantly "religious pretexts" for so much Muslim violence today, most of it against other Muslims but some of it, from time to time, against the US or other non-Muslim states.
And of course, the Barbary Pirates didn't take out the biggest buildings in New York and blow up the Pentagon on the same day, killing more than 3,000 people, alleging as their key reason the religious opinion that the temporary stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia was sacrilegious.
Both use of the expression and the actual thing.
The piece of the Treaty of Tripoli so often quoted only explains that the government of the US, being essentially secular and moved by essentially secular interests, would not go to war against the Barbary States or any Muslim power for any "pretext arising from religious opinions."
Article 11.
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
There is not a word in it about what might have moved Muslim states or Muslims at that time, much less to contradict the blatantly "religious pretexts" for so much Muslim violence today, most of it against other Muslims but some of it, from time to time, against the US or other non-Muslim states.
And of course, the Barbary Pirates didn't take out the biggest buildings in New York and blow up the Pentagon on the same day, killing more than 3,000 people, alleging as their key reason the religious opinion that the temporary stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia was sacrilegious.
If your allies are assholes and you are sworn to go to war for them . . . .
Putin Sends Air-Defense Missiles To Syria To Deter Turkey
This is a modest and not unreasonable response to the Turks deliberately shooting down a Russian plane with the flimsiest of stupid excuses.
The Turks are and have been pretty much AWOL from the war on ISIS, being far more concerned to get rid of Assad, whom they perceive as a client of Iran and friend of Shiites, than to crush ISIS, a Sunni state/organization.
The US and the Europeans are opposed to every form of Islamoextremism, of course, and pretty much nobody in the entire region shares those priorities, excepting maybe Israel, the government of Jordan, and (up to a point) the government of Egypt.
Did you need more proof we should have dropped out of NATO when the Soviet Union collapsed?
From the story.
Putin has dismissed Turkey's claim that the Russian warplane intruded its airspace [the media report it was in Turkish airspace for 9 seconds, crossing a sliver of Turkish territory on a routine flight - PV], voicing particular annoyance about Ankara turning to NATO instead of speaking to Russia, "as if it were us who shot down a Turkish plane."
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in turn said that the downing of the plane "highlights the need to strengthen mechanisms to avoid such incidents in the future."
"We should not sleepwalk into unintended escalation," he wrote in an op-ed that is to be published Thursday and was made available to The Associated Press.
This is a modest and not unreasonable response to the Turks deliberately shooting down a Russian plane with the flimsiest of stupid excuses.
The Turks are and have been pretty much AWOL from the war on ISIS, being far more concerned to get rid of Assad, whom they perceive as a client of Iran and friend of Shiites, than to crush ISIS, a Sunni state/organization.
The US and the Europeans are opposed to every form of Islamoextremism, of course, and pretty much nobody in the entire region shares those priorities, excepting maybe Israel, the government of Jordan, and (up to a point) the government of Egypt.
Did you need more proof we should have dropped out of NATO when the Soviet Union collapsed?
From the story.
Putin has dismissed Turkey's claim that the Russian warplane intruded its airspace [the media report it was in Turkish airspace for 9 seconds, crossing a sliver of Turkish territory on a routine flight - PV], voicing particular annoyance about Ankara turning to NATO instead of speaking to Russia, "as if it were us who shot down a Turkish plane."
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in turn said that the downing of the plane "highlights the need to strengthen mechanisms to avoid such incidents in the future."
"We should not sleepwalk into unintended escalation," he wrote in an op-ed that is to be published Thursday and was made available to The Associated Press.
The Grand Inquisitor
Why on Earth should D have presented this scornful attack on the RC Church as Ivan's?
Why, when Ivan is revealing his most intimate, personally crucial thoughts to his brother, Alyosha?
Karamazov, Dostoyevsky.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
No, thank you.
Ivan rejects creation, refusing to pay with the tears of a single child for endless and infinite bliss for all others of mankind, even supposing it is not an unspeakable, mad, baseless cruelty that this price should be demanded.
Imagine what he would make of the Machiavellian principle.
Karamazov, Book 5, chapters 3 and 4.
The idiocy of voters is bottomless
Paris and the Presidential Election
To this day, stupid and vacuous bellicosity is what they want to hear.
Nobody has learned a thing from all the lunacy since 9/11.
To this day, stupid and vacuous bellicosity is what they want to hear.
Nobody has learned a thing from all the lunacy since 9/11.
Chicago police officer shoots a man 16 times
The man was in no way threatening the officer, as video shows, though he was armed with a knife and refused police demands to surrender.
The officer has been charged with first degree murder.
Meanwhile, police in Baltimore in very similar circumstances shot a man in the wrist and arrested him, after unsuccessfully trying to subdue him with a taser and bean bags.
In the last few days there have been several reports of police shooting knife-weilders dead.
The officer has been charged with first degree murder.
Meanwhile, police in Baltimore in very similar circumstances shot a man in the wrist and arrested him, after unsuccessfully trying to subdue him with a taser and bean bags.
In the last few days there have been several reports of police shooting knife-weilders dead.
Stop at nothing for "the greater good"
Blacklist, Minority Report, Limitless, Blind Spot, and Donald Trump continually raise the question of the acceptability to the American public of Machiavellian realism, that the state may and indeed sometimes must stop at nothing.
Pop stars and scientists get the Medal of Freedom
President Obama uses the presidential medal of freedom as the Brits nowadays use knighthoods.
George Will attacks Trump
For everything but his real sin of not being a Wall Street conservative out to sink Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, Obamacare, and every regulatory agency of the federal government while abolishing any control of our borders concerning trade or immigration, to which he alludes only by indirection.
In effect, he damns Trump for being closer to George Wallace than Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley, though his only explicit comparisons with Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond are ludicrous misdirection.
The reader may recall that Goldwater and Buckley differed from Governor Wallace by rejecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid but, like him, not only accepted but insisted on the constitutional validity and abiding value of American Apartheid.
That is the movement conservatism that Will reveres to this day, and whose hold on the Republican Party lends its only meaning to his life and work.
And Trump is very much loosening that hold.
WAPO attacks Trump
In this editorial.
They say his lies wildly exaggerate the number of Syrian refugees O wants to admit as well as the percentage of murders of whites attributable to black killers, playing on divisive fears and hates.
They charge that his proposals to deport tens of millions of people, restore waterboarding, and deport some aliens who are here legally display great brutality and cruelty.
Elsewhere, the media echo the claim that some of the other Republican candidates have joined those who have been calling Trump and his policies fascist.
Of course, neither he nor his policies are that, any more than Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare are communist.
On the other hand, if he isn't just throwing sops, Bernie might still have a true soft spot for red revolution.
The Russians are right, it was a provocation
That Russian plane was over Turkish territory for 9 seconds and they shot it down anyway.
All the same, the media are nuts today, demonizing Russia and Putin big time, demanding "American leadership" and one airhead on CNN even demanding America "lay down the law."
The media narrative today is that the Paris attacks have shifted the focus of the election to national security and terrorism, in support of the jackasses and right wing boobs who want exactly that.
All the same, the media are nuts today, demonizing Russia and Putin big time, demanding "American leadership" and one airhead on CNN even demanding America "lay down the law."
The media narrative today is that the Paris attacks have shifted the focus of the election to national security and terrorism, in support of the jackasses and right wing boobs who want exactly that.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Everybody has to have a mission
Apart from keeping up with my lazy cardio regime and eating well within my 2000 calorie diet, mine is sampling the wealth of highballs and cocktails already invented by the year I turned 21, legal drinking age in those days, in 1970.
That year I was still a student at the then still men's only College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Considering the calorie load in alcohol, this is rather a long term thing.
Still, I am optimistic that all will be well unless the political leaders of our age seriously screw up, as of course they may.
Or Muslims or other fanatics ruin everything.
My Aunt Rose, Grid rest and bless her soul, would be amused.
As would her third husband, Gil, also deceased.
Forbidden truth, again?
Sun's 'Muslim poll' faces growing criticism
The Sun is facing a backlash against its front-page report of an opinion poll purporting to show that one in five British Muslims had “sympathy for jihadis”, with more than 1,200 complaints made to the press regulator.
Readers and Muslim organisations accused the paper of misrepresenting the results of the poll, conducted by Survation, which showed that 5% of respondents agreed with the statement “I have a lot of sympathy with young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria” and that 14.5% said they had “some sympathy”.
Critics argued that the use of the term “sympathy” was ambiguous and that it was not clear who was meant by “fighters in Syria”.
Most of the backlashers don't actually dispute the literal truth of the Sun story, it seems, but attack it for being, er, unhelpful.
The Sun is facing a backlash against its front-page report of an opinion poll purporting to show that one in five British Muslims had “sympathy for jihadis”, with more than 1,200 complaints made to the press regulator.
Readers and Muslim organisations accused the paper of misrepresenting the results of the poll, conducted by Survation, which showed that 5% of respondents agreed with the statement “I have a lot of sympathy with young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria” and that 14.5% said they had “some sympathy”.
Critics argued that the use of the term “sympathy” was ambiguous and that it was not clear who was meant by “fighters in Syria”.
Most of the backlashers don't actually dispute the literal truth of the Sun story, it seems, but attack it for being, er, unhelpful.
How far?
After the surprise in Argentina, there will be a shift to the right.
In some respects, Argentina needs that.
In some respects.
In some respects, Argentina needs that.
In some respects.
A GMO quandry
'Anti-malarial mosquitoes' created using controversial genetic technology.
Hundreds of genetically modified mosquitoes that are incapable of spreading the malaria parasite to humans have been created in a laboratory as part of a radical approach to combating the disease.
The move marks a major step towards the development of a powerful and controversial technology called a “gene drive” that aims to tackle the disease by forcing anti-malarial genes into swarms of wild mosquitoes.
The procedure can rapidly transform the genetic makeup of natural insect populations, making it a dramatic new tool in the fight against an infection that still claims over 400,000 lives a year.
The same technology is being considered for other human diseases and infections that devastate crops.
“This is a significant first step,” said Prof Anthony James at the University of California, Irvine.
“The mosquitoes we created are not the final brand, but we know this technology allows us to efficiently create large populations.”
The enviro-weenies of the left are right that humans cannot be trusted to safely use nuclear power.
Are they right about deliberately tampering with Mother Nature?
Hundreds of genetically modified mosquitoes that are incapable of spreading the malaria parasite to humans have been created in a laboratory as part of a radical approach to combating the disease.
The move marks a major step towards the development of a powerful and controversial technology called a “gene drive” that aims to tackle the disease by forcing anti-malarial genes into swarms of wild mosquitoes.
The procedure can rapidly transform the genetic makeup of natural insect populations, making it a dramatic new tool in the fight against an infection that still claims over 400,000 lives a year.
The same technology is being considered for other human diseases and infections that devastate crops.
“This is a significant first step,” said Prof Anthony James at the University of California, Irvine.
“The mosquitoes we created are not the final brand, but we know this technology allows us to efficiently create large populations.”
The enviro-weenies of the left are right that humans cannot be trusted to safely use nuclear power.
Are they right about deliberately tampering with Mother Nature?
Actual innocence
A bad argument against punishment arbitrarily spun as a good one against only the death penalty.
He will never get those sixteen years back.
If the reformers weren't so obsessed with the death penalty someone might realize conviction of the innocent is far too widespread regarding all sorts of crime, and think up ways to address that.
Of course, being liberals they would probably just spin the whole thing into their race war against whites.
He will never get those sixteen years back.
If the reformers weren't so obsessed with the death penalty someone might realize conviction of the innocent is far too widespread regarding all sorts of crime, and think up ways to address that.
Of course, being liberals they would probably just spin the whole thing into their race war against whites.
Hollande tries to straddle
It's this simple.
The Russians prioritize keeping Assad in power over the fight against ISIS.
The US prioritizes his removal.
Hollande wants to prioritize the fight against ISIS, leaving the fate of Assad's regime to be settled later - which means acceding to the Russians in the near term and letting Assad stay at least until the nascent ISIS state in Iraq/Syria is stamped out.
This question splits both the right and the left in Europe and America, the new cold warriors and the democracy exporters who so celebrated the imaginary Arab Spring on the one side and the realist anti-Islamists and anti-cold warriors on the other.
Hillary as well as those now in power in the White House and the Department of State are both cold warriors and democracy exporters, Hillary even more than the others.
But of course even she is not as bad as the Republican neocons who have so constantly ached for war both against Russia in Ukraine and against Iran over nukes.
The Russians prioritize keeping Assad in power over the fight against ISIS.
The US prioritizes his removal.
Hollande wants to prioritize the fight against ISIS, leaving the fate of Assad's regime to be settled later - which means acceding to the Russians in the near term and letting Assad stay at least until the nascent ISIS state in Iraq/Syria is stamped out.
This question splits both the right and the left in Europe and America, the new cold warriors and the democracy exporters who so celebrated the imaginary Arab Spring on the one side and the realist anti-Islamists and anti-cold warriors on the other.
Hillary as well as those now in power in the White House and the Department of State are both cold warriors and democracy exporters, Hillary even more than the others.
But of course even she is not as bad as the Republican neocons who have so constantly ached for war both against Russia in Ukraine and against Iran over nukes.
Surenchère
Trump would resume waterboarding.
The Donald is on a roll, repeatedly over-bidding himself to stay in front, each outrage more outrageous than the one before.
To PC or even just to the conventional moral wisdom.
The Donald is on a roll, repeatedly over-bidding himself to stay in front, each outrage more outrageous than the one before.
To PC or even just to the conventional moral wisdom.
Freedom of association for thee, but not for me
At least 30 social media profiles of so-called “white student unions” have been set up in the last week, in response to nationwide student protests demanding action to address campus racism.
The pages claim to represent students at universities like Stanford, New York University and UC Berkeley, as well as at the University of Missouri, where protests this month forced the ouster of president Tim Wolfe and inspired activism on campuses elsewhere.
It appears that the first of these WSUs was the “Illini White Student Union”, created at the University of Illinois just hours after students gathered for a black solidarity event on campus last Wednesday.
Its page has since been taken down by Facebook at the request of campus administrators.
BSU's are and have always been hotbeds of black hatred of whites.
The pages claim to represent students at universities like Stanford, New York University and UC Berkeley, as well as at the University of Missouri, where protests this month forced the ouster of president Tim Wolfe and inspired activism on campuses elsewhere.
It appears that the first of these WSUs was the “Illini White Student Union”, created at the University of Illinois just hours after students gathered for a black solidarity event on campus last Wednesday.
Its page has since been taken down by Facebook at the request of campus administrators.
BSU's are and have always been hotbeds of black hatred of whites.
If the Turks start a shooting war with Russia, can the American elites resist?
Russian plane shot down over Syria.
Even Obama might not want to resist the temptation at last to confront Russia militarily and directly in the area, given how much so many among the American and even European elites seem to have been itching for a fight since Putin's actions on Ukraine.
Does the obsolete NATO treaty commit the US to war in case a member state stupidly provokes attack by another member state by shooting down its planes, Russia in particular?
Today's American cold warriors, who after all include Obama and everyone in his administration, will find it hard to resist, if push comes to shove.
The Russians are a little pissed off.
Even Obama might not want to resist the temptation at last to confront Russia militarily and directly in the area, given how much so many among the American and even European elites seem to have been itching for a fight since Putin's actions on Ukraine.
Does the obsolete NATO treaty commit the US to war in case a member state stupidly provokes attack by another member state by shooting down its planes, Russia in particular?
Today's American cold warriors, who after all include Obama and everyone in his administration, will find it hard to resist, if push comes to shove.
The Russians are a little pissed off.
Trump on US Muslim glee at 9/11
I don't recall seeing the kind of public Muslim celebration here in the US that Trump is talking about, but every Muslim I knew at the time - and there were several - was individually thrilled and cheered bin Laden's attacks.
I was astounded and angry about it.
Some of these people were my friends.
Given that and given the extent of the public celebrations in parts of the Muslim world that I saw on TV, I find claims that no public Muslim celebrations happened anywhere in the US incredible.
Within a week, the left in America was in total, aggressive denial that any Muslim, anywhere in the world, had been openly cheering the most successful blow against America, "the far enemy," struck by any Muslim up to that time, insisting that there had only been mass demonstrations of Muslim sympathy of the sort TV news had begun broadcasting.
When the America political and media elites want it to, a really hot, days-long, continuous story involving a flood of images and seemingly constant narration can disappear in an instant, as did the story of new cases of Ebola springing up in the West during the quarantine controversy, and as did the story of mass public celebrations of OBL's stunning blow throughout the Islamic world.
Meanwhile, some in the media grow ever more frenzied in their attacks on Trump.
I was astounded and angry about it.
Some of these people were my friends.
Given that and given the extent of the public celebrations in parts of the Muslim world that I saw on TV, I find claims that no public Muslim celebrations happened anywhere in the US incredible.
Within a week, the left in America was in total, aggressive denial that any Muslim, anywhere in the world, had been openly cheering the most successful blow against America, "the far enemy," struck by any Muslim up to that time, insisting that there had only been mass demonstrations of Muslim sympathy of the sort TV news had begun broadcasting.
When the America political and media elites want it to, a really hot, days-long, continuous story involving a flood of images and seemingly constant narration can disappear in an instant, as did the story of new cases of Ebola springing up in the West during the quarantine controversy, and as did the story of mass public celebrations of OBL's stunning blow throughout the Islamic world.
Meanwhile, some in the media grow ever more frenzied in their attacks on Trump.
The insulted and injured
Snegiryov and his entire family of hateful hysterics are ridiculous.
Dostoyevsky's poor are always overdone.
Another inch and they would be despicable.
Karamazov, Lacerations.
Dostoevsky's books are full of contemptible hysterics, by no means all women, but some of them.
Katerina, Dmitri's betrothed, for example.
Monday, November 23, 2015
Oxymoron
Karamazov, Signet Classic pb., p 194.
There was a bed against the wall on each side, right and left, covered with knitted quilts.
The translator or the author?
The former, I think.
Jeremy Corbyn does a blurt
JC says Jihadi John should have been arrested.
He was supported by other Labor office holders, and criticized by others.
Some people, some Americans included, actually said OBL should have been arrested - including Corbyn.
A few more said it about this fellow.
Cameron, going in the other direction, is doubtless please the Labor leader is so far from where the public is, and as little able to keep his mouth shut about it as Bernie Sanders is to shut up about his lingering loyalties to various Soviet inspired and supported red regimes and movements of the long over Cold War.
He was supported by other Labor office holders, and criticized by others.
Some people, some Americans included, actually said OBL should have been arrested - including Corbyn.
A few more said it about this fellow.
Cameron, going in the other direction, is doubtless please the Labor leader is so far from where the public is, and as little able to keep his mouth shut about it as Bernie Sanders is to shut up about his lingering loyalties to various Soviet inspired and supported red regimes and movements of the long over Cold War.
The law is an ass
Addiction doesn't matter if the underlying cause of chronic pain is never going to go away.
As to life-threatening or life-shortening, what good is a long life if it's a long, uninterrupted session of torture?
20 degrees F at 0800 hrs EST this morning.
As to life-threatening or life-shortening, what good is a long life if it's a long, uninterrupted session of torture?
20 degrees F at 0800 hrs EST this morning.
Lost opportunities
What if Schopenhauer had also written novels?
Or poetry?
Thomas Hardy is close, but still.
Reading Karamazov.
Sexual desire
It appears that men are more lustful than women and more prone to promiscuity, though, shall we say, the variance is considerable.
It also appears they are notably less engaged with or satisfied by parenthood.
And it seems that, as is appropriate for the breastless and stronger, they are much less accepting of the tasks of infant and child care.
A truly satisfied house husband, as a housewife may be, is a rare thing, even something unbelievable.
Nature has no more interest in what is politically correct than in what is moral or Godly.
Or in our individual interests, happiness, or well-being.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Winter approaches
The WeatherBug says it's 23 degrees F at 2306 hrs EST at Seton-Lasalle Catholic High School here in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
That's 11:06 pm, for you civilians.
Going down to 19 degrees.
No snow, yet, but there was a flake or two in the air, this afternoon.
It's starting.
Drat.
Whiskey
I have recently made the experiment of several ryes and I don't like any of them.
I find Bushmill's and Black Velvet are far too much alike.
I dislike Bourbons, and I have tried several, but I like Jack Daniels Old Number 7.
Must be that filtration process.
I like J&B well enough, but I think I prefer Jack.
I used to swear by Jameson.
We'll see.
Buchanan on Trumbo, "Trumbo," and the Hollywood Blacklist
Pretty good, on the whole, though of course it's very hard to say what Bernie Sanders is.
It is perhaps worth noting that PB here cites against the reds only objections that used to be central for anti-communist liberals, socialists, Marxists, and anarchists, and ought to be sufficient to damn them today.
He does not make objections that could only appeal to conservatives.
And his remarks about the anti-communism of the late nineteen forties and early fifties are spot on.
Trumbo, by the way, was certainly not totally wrong about the role of racism in American history, though it is going too far to call it the keystone of American policy, both foreign and domestic.
But that did not make him one whit less a traitor in his heart.
Some fine films to his credit, as well.
John Kerry said what?
Charles Cook quotes the Secretary in one of those revealing blurts that are so scary.
Kerry on the Paris attacks:
There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that.
There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.
This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.
It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong.
It was to terrorize people.
It was to attack everything that we do stand for.
That’s not an exaggeration.
It was to assault all sense of nationhood and nation-state and rule of law and decency, dignity, and just put fear into the community and say, “Here we are.”
And for what?
What’s the platform?
What’s the grievance?
That we’re not who they are?
They kill people because of who they are and they kill people because of what they believe.
And it’s indiscriminate.
Cook's paraphrase:
Even if Kerry’s assumptions were all correct, the moral problem here would be obvious.
We hear a great deal about “blaming the victim” in our domestic debates, especially as it relates to sexual assault.
Does this not apply to other realms?
In essence, the American Secretary of State just announced before the world that he could grasp why the woman in the short skirt was raped but that he had been left scratching his head by the attack on the woman in the pantsuit and the overcoat.
“Sure,” he said, “I get why they knocked off the hate speakers, but why would they go after progressive kids at a concert? Now things are really serious.”
Of course, we have known all along how liberals felt and feel about people who publicly refuse to be intimidated by Muslim violence into accepting and obeying Muslim rules of blasphemy, as well as anyone who opposes that violence as exactly what it is, a hateful and hate-motivated effort by some Muslims to violently enforce Muslim law not only on other Muslims (it is mostly that) but also on anyone their destructive hate can reach.
But in any case it seems Cook is joining Kerry and everybody else in missing the point.
People are right to note the Charlie Hebdo attack was about violently punishing the magazine and its key personnel for violation of Islamic prohibitions on blasphemy, while the Paris attacks were not about that.
But the Western political elites are generally not telling the truth about what they were about.
France, before the Paris attacks, had already been bombing ISIS territory, killing many every day.
This was ISIS striking back at France.
It was a blow struck deliberately against French civilians in that country's very capitol, and its purpose was to force France to stop bombing ISIS just as the Madrid bombings were - successfully - aimed at getting Spain to drop out of the war against al-Qaeda.
The point was to knock France out of the war against ISIS, and that is and has been from the first moment crystal clear.
And it's also crystal clear that neither the French government nor the Americans nor any other spokesmen for or allies of those at war with ISIS in Syria, Iraq, or elsewhere wanted to make the point right in the noses of the French public that they had been hit, and hit quite hard, only because their government had itself been hitting ISIS and, if they wanted ISIS to stop hitting them their best move would be to get the French government to stop hitting ISIS.
Understandably not wishing to say that, Kerry blathered.
Kerry on the Paris attacks:
There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that.
There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.
This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.
It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong.
It was to terrorize people.
It was to attack everything that we do stand for.
That’s not an exaggeration.
It was to assault all sense of nationhood and nation-state and rule of law and decency, dignity, and just put fear into the community and say, “Here we are.”
And for what?
What’s the platform?
What’s the grievance?
That we’re not who they are?
They kill people because of who they are and they kill people because of what they believe.
And it’s indiscriminate.
Cook's paraphrase:
Even if Kerry’s assumptions were all correct, the moral problem here would be obvious.
We hear a great deal about “blaming the victim” in our domestic debates, especially as it relates to sexual assault.
Does this not apply to other realms?
In essence, the American Secretary of State just announced before the world that he could grasp why the woman in the short skirt was raped but that he had been left scratching his head by the attack on the woman in the pantsuit and the overcoat.
“Sure,” he said, “I get why they knocked off the hate speakers, but why would they go after progressive kids at a concert? Now things are really serious.”
Of course, we have known all along how liberals felt and feel about people who publicly refuse to be intimidated by Muslim violence into accepting and obeying Muslim rules of blasphemy, as well as anyone who opposes that violence as exactly what it is, a hateful and hate-motivated effort by some Muslims to violently enforce Muslim law not only on other Muslims (it is mostly that) but also on anyone their destructive hate can reach.
But in any case it seems Cook is joining Kerry and everybody else in missing the point.
People are right to note the Charlie Hebdo attack was about violently punishing the magazine and its key personnel for violation of Islamic prohibitions on blasphemy, while the Paris attacks were not about that.
But the Western political elites are generally not telling the truth about what they were about.
France, before the Paris attacks, had already been bombing ISIS territory, killing many every day.
This was ISIS striking back at France.
It was a blow struck deliberately against French civilians in that country's very capitol, and its purpose was to force France to stop bombing ISIS just as the Madrid bombings were - successfully - aimed at getting Spain to drop out of the war against al-Qaeda.
The point was to knock France out of the war against ISIS, and that is and has been from the first moment crystal clear.
And it's also crystal clear that neither the French government nor the Americans nor any other spokesmen for or allies of those at war with ISIS in Syria, Iraq, or elsewhere wanted to make the point right in the noses of the French public that they had been hit, and hit quite hard, only because their government had itself been hitting ISIS and, if they wanted ISIS to stop hitting them their best move would be to get the French government to stop hitting ISIS.
Understandably not wishing to say that, Kerry blathered.
Sorry, what was that?
Jonah alludes to a remark attributed to Thoreau, "Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
The remark is arresting but also baffling.
That would be circumstantial evidence of what, exactly?
JG is writing to discreetly support the laments of other Republicans that Hillary and other leading Democrats do not find the roots of Muslim terrorism in the text of the Koran, in the practice and preaching of Mohammed, in the history of Islam over many centuries, in the brutal violence at the very heart of Islam.
And yet, as he himself notes, some things though obvious are best left unsaid, as saying them would force unwanted consequences - perhaps unwanted to all involved or most of those with a stake.
But perhaps the best thing in his piece is this.
Well, the most amusing.
When Obama does talk about terrorism, he’s only comfortable when he frames the issue in a way that puts the blame on America.
That’s why we are constantly hearing that ISIS is inspired by Gitmo.
I wonder: Is there a jihadist anywhere in the world who will pause in his desire to behead an infidel, never mind drop his scimitar mid-swing, upon the glorious news that a prison in Cuba has been closed?
Actually, I haven't heard that lately.
But never mind. Close enough.
The remark is arresting but also baffling.
That would be circumstantial evidence of what, exactly?
JG is writing to discreetly support the laments of other Republicans that Hillary and other leading Democrats do not find the roots of Muslim terrorism in the text of the Koran, in the practice and preaching of Mohammed, in the history of Islam over many centuries, in the brutal violence at the very heart of Islam.
And yet, as he himself notes, some things though obvious are best left unsaid, as saying them would force unwanted consequences - perhaps unwanted to all involved or most of those with a stake.
But perhaps the best thing in his piece is this.
Well, the most amusing.
When Obama does talk about terrorism, he’s only comfortable when he frames the issue in a way that puts the blame on America.
That’s why we are constantly hearing that ISIS is inspired by Gitmo.
I wonder: Is there a jihadist anywhere in the world who will pause in his desire to behead an infidel, never mind drop his scimitar mid-swing, upon the glorious news that a prison in Cuba has been closed?
Actually, I haven't heard that lately.
But never mind. Close enough.
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Early start to winter in the American heartland
Big snow, early
North Dakota, home of my mother and brother and his family.
Drudge has two concerns, today, this big snowstorm and Obama's pro-Muslim fecklessness.
North Dakota, home of my mother and brother and his family.
Drudge has two concerns, today, this big snowstorm and Obama's pro-Muslim fecklessness.
Sanders on Democratic Socialism
This is Bernie's much awaited speech on what democratic socialism means, what his calls for a political revolution mean, and what is his political philosophy.
Democratic? Sure.
Socialist? Not at all.
The transcript.
He speaks many times of FDR, but much of what he says sounds like that earlier great progressive, TR.
He defends himself against conservative charges he is a socialist by defining down socialism, democratic socialism, to TR's strong progressivism both regarding matters economic and regarding political arrangements to strengthen the hand of the many and weaken the grip of the few.
But that's all right.
So much of what the great white hunter urged in 1912 is still undone, after all.
A stirring excerpt.
So the next time you hear me attacked as a socialist, remember this:
I don’t believe government should own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a fair deal.
I believe in private companies that thrive and invest and grow in America instead of shipping jobs and profits overseas.
I believe that most Americans can pay lower taxes—if hedge fund managers who make billions manipulating the marketplace finally pay the taxes they should.
I don’t believe in special treatment for the top 1 percent, but I do believe in equal treatment for African-Americans who are right to proclaim the moral principle that Black Lives Matter.
I despise appeals to nativism and prejudice, and I do believe in immigration reform that gives Hispanics and others a pathway to citizenship and a better life.
I don’t believe in some foreign “ism”, but I believe deeply in American idealism.
I’m not running for president because it’s my turn, but because it’s the turn of all of us to live in a nation of hope and opportunity not for some, not for the few, but for all.
The last portion of his speech contains much sensible stuff about the struggle against ISIS and the financing and spread of Jihader ideology, where of course he makes much more sense than the Republicans and sounds rather less vainly bellicose than Hillary.
He sounds like he wants regional, Muslim powers to provide the boots on the ground and take the lead, with the US playing an ancillary role through NATO and a broader alliance of European and Muslim powers against radical Islam.
Hillary, on the other hand, sounds very much like the "American leadership," "indispensable nation" kind of girl she is.
And all of that is good stuff that can readily appeal not only to committed Democrats and progressives but also to a pretty good swath of the American Center.
But right in the middle of his speech Bernie goes out of his way to renounce successful, perfectly sensible, and not very costly moves in the Cold War, half a century ago, that did not involve actual warfare, the point of which was to prevent successes for the Soviet Union and its Cold War allies.
To put himself thus openly on the wrong side of these long-ago fights with not the least contemporary relevance was an unnecessary shout to the leftover radical left that he is one of them in spirit that can only cost him votes in the American center and make it easier for the right to attack him.
In other words, if the right chooses to run against him by saying that, though he invokes FDR and LBJ and though his agenda is solidly progressivist but not at all socialist, his heart is with the reds and was throughout the last years when it mattered, they will be telling the truth and can prove it by pointing to such foolishness as this where, ostensibly writing of ISIS, he says this.
Our response must begin with an understanding of past mistakes and missteps in our previous approaches to foreign policy.
It begins with the acknowledgment that unilateral military action should be a last resort, not a first resort, and that ill-conceived military decisions, such as the invasion of Iraq, can wreak far-reaching devastation and destabilize entire regions for decades.
It begins with the reflection that the failed policy decisions of the past—rushing to war, regime change in Iraq, or toppling Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, or Guatemalan President Árbenz in 1954, Brazilian President Goulart in 1964, Chilean President Allende in 1973.
These are the sorts of policies do not work, do not make us safer, and must not be repeated.
It may seem odd that he says not a word about the unnecessary Korean and Vietnam Wars, actual boots-on-the-ground wars, the first a useless success and the second an insignificant failure, both fought against purely national communist movements without the least intention or ability to reach beyond their own borders and posing never the least threat to the United States.
But that is because he wishes to signal, not retrospective disapproval of the more inept and too costly applications of the policy of containment that began with Acheson and Truman, but of the anti-communism that was its basis.
A point that will not escape the Republicans and may not escape notice by Hillary, and will quite unnecessarily weaken his candidacy.
And that is very regrettable, what with him being in so many ways preferable to Hillary or any other Democrat.
That he muddied the waters some by praising the post-war rise and European role of NATO will not much help.
Democratic? Sure.
Socialist? Not at all.
The transcript.
He speaks many times of FDR, but much of what he says sounds like that earlier great progressive, TR.
He defends himself against conservative charges he is a socialist by defining down socialism, democratic socialism, to TR's strong progressivism both regarding matters economic and regarding political arrangements to strengthen the hand of the many and weaken the grip of the few.
But that's all right.
So much of what the great white hunter urged in 1912 is still undone, after all.
A stirring excerpt.
So the next time you hear me attacked as a socialist, remember this:
I don’t believe government should own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a fair deal.
I believe in private companies that thrive and invest and grow in America instead of shipping jobs and profits overseas.
I believe that most Americans can pay lower taxes—if hedge fund managers who make billions manipulating the marketplace finally pay the taxes they should.
I don’t believe in special treatment for the top 1 percent, but I do believe in equal treatment for African-Americans who are right to proclaim the moral principle that Black Lives Matter.
I despise appeals to nativism and prejudice, and I do believe in immigration reform that gives Hispanics and others a pathway to citizenship and a better life.
I don’t believe in some foreign “ism”, but I believe deeply in American idealism.
I’m not running for president because it’s my turn, but because it’s the turn of all of us to live in a nation of hope and opportunity not for some, not for the few, but for all.
The last portion of his speech contains much sensible stuff about the struggle against ISIS and the financing and spread of Jihader ideology, where of course he makes much more sense than the Republicans and sounds rather less vainly bellicose than Hillary.
He sounds like he wants regional, Muslim powers to provide the boots on the ground and take the lead, with the US playing an ancillary role through NATO and a broader alliance of European and Muslim powers against radical Islam.
Hillary, on the other hand, sounds very much like the "American leadership," "indispensable nation" kind of girl she is.
And all of that is good stuff that can readily appeal not only to committed Democrats and progressives but also to a pretty good swath of the American Center.
But right in the middle of his speech Bernie goes out of his way to renounce successful, perfectly sensible, and not very costly moves in the Cold War, half a century ago, that did not involve actual warfare, the point of which was to prevent successes for the Soviet Union and its Cold War allies.
To put himself thus openly on the wrong side of these long-ago fights with not the least contemporary relevance was an unnecessary shout to the leftover radical left that he is one of them in spirit that can only cost him votes in the American center and make it easier for the right to attack him.
In other words, if the right chooses to run against him by saying that, though he invokes FDR and LBJ and though his agenda is solidly progressivist but not at all socialist, his heart is with the reds and was throughout the last years when it mattered, they will be telling the truth and can prove it by pointing to such foolishness as this where, ostensibly writing of ISIS, he says this.
Our response must begin with an understanding of past mistakes and missteps in our previous approaches to foreign policy.
It begins with the acknowledgment that unilateral military action should be a last resort, not a first resort, and that ill-conceived military decisions, such as the invasion of Iraq, can wreak far-reaching devastation and destabilize entire regions for decades.
It begins with the reflection that the failed policy decisions of the past—rushing to war, regime change in Iraq, or toppling Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, or Guatemalan President Árbenz in 1954, Brazilian President Goulart in 1964, Chilean President Allende in 1973.
These are the sorts of policies do not work, do not make us safer, and must not be repeated.
It may seem odd that he says not a word about the unnecessary Korean and Vietnam Wars, actual boots-on-the-ground wars, the first a useless success and the second an insignificant failure, both fought against purely national communist movements without the least intention or ability to reach beyond their own borders and posing never the least threat to the United States.
But that is because he wishes to signal, not retrospective disapproval of the more inept and too costly applications of the policy of containment that began with Acheson and Truman, but of the anti-communism that was its basis.
A point that will not escape the Republicans and may not escape notice by Hillary, and will quite unnecessarily weaken his candidacy.
And that is very regrettable, what with him being in so many ways preferable to Hillary or any other Democrat.
That he muddied the waters some by praising the post-war rise and European role of NATO will not much help.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Nearly all of the wretches voted to give GW his wars, too
Profiles in courage? Not.
House passes bill that could limit Syrian refugees
The House easily passed a bill Thursday that would suspend the program allowing Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the U.S. until key national security agencies certify they don't pose a security risk.
The vote was 289-137, with 47 Democrats joining 242 Republicans in favor of the bill, creating a majority that could override President Barack Obama's promised veto.
The high number of Democrats voting against the White House is a clear sign Obama is increasingly isolated in his position on refugees in light of the ISIS terrorist attacks on Paris.
House passes bill that could limit Syrian refugees
The House easily passed a bill Thursday that would suspend the program allowing Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the U.S. until key national security agencies certify they don't pose a security risk.
The vote was 289-137, with 47 Democrats joining 242 Republicans in favor of the bill, creating a majority that could override President Barack Obama's promised veto.
The high number of Democrats voting against the White House is a clear sign Obama is increasingly isolated in his position on refugees in light of the ISIS terrorist attacks on Paris.
Jared Vogle sentenced
Personally, I think it was excessive given the actual law, and that the actual law is excessive.
Jared Fogle sentenced to more than 15 years
Prosecutors asked for 12 1/2 years and the girls were 16 and 17, and stories elsewhere say they provided sex for hire.
The defense suggested 5 years.
These were not date-raped virgins or little girls enticed into his car with candy and teddy-bears.
Jared Fogle sentenced to more than 15 years
Prosecutors asked for 12 1/2 years and the girls were 16 and 17, and stories elsewhere say they provided sex for hire.
The defense suggested 5 years.
These were not date-raped virgins or little girls enticed into his car with candy and teddy-bears.
Let me know when someone complains of a picture showing only blacks
The Hollywood Reporter cover rendered black actors invisible
When it happens, you won't see it in The Guardian, unless they write about it to deplore it.
When it happens, you won't see it in The Guardian, unless they write about it to deplore it.
Now there's a bold ad
There is so much wrong with this ad.
Most revolvers won't fire if dropped, at least if not cocked.
But unless you want to insist a kid pulling the trigger is not actually an accident . . . .
From The Guardian.
Though in questionable taste and some of them a bit kinky, I don't see the ads as the searing violations of PC taboos that The Guardian sees.
Hillary goes all John McCain after Paris attacks
Hillary Clinton calls for more ground troops as part of hawkish Isis strategy
The GOP, the neocons, and Hillary are considerably more aggressive than the public in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.
When the only planes flying are Assad's, Russian, French, or others in our coalition, what is the point of her demand for a no-fly zone?
When the French were attacked and have vowed "pitiless war," why does she want to send American ground troops, and even though over 75% of Americans polled after Paris actually opposed that idea?
Still, she talked sense on some other things like refugees and refusing a war against Islam.
And pushing the Turks and others to engage more seriously against Muslim radicalism.
And she is right in wanting to see ISIS smashed and not just contained.
The GOP, the neocons, and Hillary are considerably more aggressive than the public in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.
When the only planes flying are Assad's, Russian, French, or others in our coalition, what is the point of her demand for a no-fly zone?
When the French were attacked and have vowed "pitiless war," why does she want to send American ground troops, and even though over 75% of Americans polled after Paris actually opposed that idea?
Still, she talked sense on some other things like refugees and refusing a war against Islam.
And pushing the Turks and others to engage more seriously against Muslim radicalism.
And she is right in wanting to see ISIS smashed and not just contained.
CNN thinks Americans have had their heads up their asses for the last fourteen years
CNN's Aaron David Miller thinks nobody noticed.
Also, the title is inapt for the story.
The title is "Fighting ISIS will be a long war," but is should be "Fighting Jihaders will be a long war."
That's actually what the story tells us.
What every politician with an ounce of brains has said since and even before 9/11/2001.
Also, the title is inapt for the story.
The title is "Fighting ISIS will be a long war," but is should be "Fighting Jihaders will be a long war."
That's actually what the story tells us.
What every politician with an ounce of brains has said since and even before 9/11/2001.
Reprise of the terror elections of 2004?
More claptrap playing to right wing hysteria
Islamic State has become an existential threat to the West
Hogwash, bullshit, and nonsense.
There's a flood of this rot out there, right now.
An absolute lunatic riot of balderdash.
Paris and the fall of Rome, for example.
Maybe we should just turn off everything to do with news and public affairs for a week or so, to give the idiots with the megaphones time to shout themselves hoarse and collapse of exhaustion.
Is the right wing noise machine going to try to turn this into the election of 2004, again, when they simply terrified America into voting for the Republicans?
Well, they certainly can't campaign on their real agenda, can they?
Hey, vote for us because we want to abolish the minimum wage, outlaw union shops, end overtime and workers compensation, and abolish Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid along with every piece of Obamacare legislation.
We want America to continue to pay more for prescriptions than anyone else in the world.
We think rising inequality is just wonderful.
We want to abolish government controls on the financial system and, for that matter, on anything at all except every single one of everyone's communications and everybody's sex lives.
We want to drastically lower taxes for the rich, buy off the middle class with chump change, and raise taxes on the poor.
Food and drug watchdogs? You don't need them. E coli is the new normal.
Environment watchdogs? Hell no. Better boil your water, friends, and load up on iodine pills.
Car safety recalls? Product safety controls for anything? Hey, caveat emptor, baby.
Islamic State has become an existential threat to the West
Hogwash, bullshit, and nonsense.
There's a flood of this rot out there, right now.
An absolute lunatic riot of balderdash.
Paris and the fall of Rome, for example.
Maybe we should just turn off everything to do with news and public affairs for a week or so, to give the idiots with the megaphones time to shout themselves hoarse and collapse of exhaustion.
Is the right wing noise machine going to try to turn this into the election of 2004, again, when they simply terrified America into voting for the Republicans?
Well, they certainly can't campaign on their real agenda, can they?
Hey, vote for us because we want to abolish the minimum wage, outlaw union shops, end overtime and workers compensation, and abolish Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid along with every piece of Obamacare legislation.
We want America to continue to pay more for prescriptions than anyone else in the world.
We think rising inequality is just wonderful.
We want to abolish government controls on the financial system and, for that matter, on anything at all except every single one of everyone's communications and everybody's sex lives.
We want to drastically lower taxes for the rich, buy off the middle class with chump change, and raise taxes on the poor.
Food and drug watchdogs? You don't need them. E coli is the new normal.
Environment watchdogs? Hell no. Better boil your water, friends, and load up on iodine pills.
Car safety recalls? Product safety controls for anything? Hey, caveat emptor, baby.
WAPO editorial: Trump is a liar
Like we didn't know that.
Mr. Trump spreads dangerous lies about Syrian refugees
After detailing and denouncing the lies, the Post concludes.
After the Paris attacks, it’s understandable that Americans ask questions about the quality of U.S. refugee screening.
But the discussion must be based on reality, not phantoms.
The risk from a small number of vetted refugees is far outweighed by the humanitarian imperative to help innocent people escaping from Syria’s evil rulers and from the Islamic State.
Mr. Trump spreads dangerous lies about Syrian refugees
After detailing and denouncing the lies, the Post concludes.
After the Paris attacks, it’s understandable that Americans ask questions about the quality of U.S. refugee screening.
But the discussion must be based on reality, not phantoms.
The risk from a small number of vetted refugees is far outweighed by the humanitarian imperative to help innocent people escaping from Syria’s evil rulers and from the Islamic State.
The story headline says it all
The Man Who Thought Sarah Palin Would Make A Great VP Attacks Kerry As Inept
Senator John McCain joined the Fox News Exploitation Of Paris Tragedy party today with attacks on John Kerry and President Obama.
Senator John McCain joined the Fox News Exploitation Of Paris Tragedy party today with attacks on John Kerry and President Obama.
ISIS attack gives GOP a boost
Which is odd when you consider Americans don't actually want to fight.
Might be the refugee thing.
Steve M.
Might be the refugee thing.
Steve M.
Leader of the Paris attacks killed by French security forces
Abdelhamid Abaaoud dead
Meanwhile, ISIS continues its charm offensive.
Beijing vows justice as ISIS kills Chinese, Norwegian hostages
Not sure what Norway might have planned.
Meanwhile, ISIS continues its charm offensive.
Beijing vows justice as ISIS kills Chinese, Norwegian hostages
Not sure what Norway might have planned.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
France will take 30,000 refugees over the next two years, says Hollande
Who, now, are the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"?
French President Francois Hollande Welcomes Refugees Despite Paris Attack
Trump: We can't take the chance
GOP going nuts with this one, much worse than their behavior regarding flights from Africa during the Ebola crisis.
French President Francois Hollande Welcomes Refugees Despite Paris Attack
Trump: We can't take the chance
GOP going nuts with this one, much worse than their behavior regarding flights from Africa during the Ebola crisis.
Kasich is often spoken of as one of the sane Republicans
Kasich Plans 'Judeo-Christian' Agency
Establishment, anyone?
Remember, the GOP is the party that just loves the constitution to itty bitty pieces.
On the other hand, the values he wants to pitch are actually those of the Enlightenment.
But calling them that would discredit them to the GOP masses, and suggesting an agency to propagate them would horrify those masses.
Better to go with the egregious, ridiculous lie.
On the other hand, since the idea is to sell those values to the Muslim world, calling them "Judeo-Christian" is probably even more unhelpful with that audience than calling them what they are.
And maybe he's just stupid.
Anyway, does congress actually have constitutional authority to set up an agency for global propaganda?
Where is that in the constitution, exactly?
Establishment, anyone?
Remember, the GOP is the party that just loves the constitution to itty bitty pieces.
On the other hand, the values he wants to pitch are actually those of the Enlightenment.
But calling them that would discredit them to the GOP masses, and suggesting an agency to propagate them would horrify those masses.
Better to go with the egregious, ridiculous lie.
On the other hand, since the idea is to sell those values to the Muslim world, calling them "Judeo-Christian" is probably even more unhelpful with that audience than calling them what they are.
And maybe he's just stupid.
Anyway, does congress actually have constitutional authority to set up an agency for global propaganda?
Where is that in the constitution, exactly?
It doesn't take him long to lay it out
In the interview with Zossima right at the beginning, Dostoyevsky lays it all out.
Karamazov.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Pat Buchanan defends O, trashes Mitt and other GOP loonies, on ISIS
A very nice, detailed take-down of damned silly ideas.
And of course he denounces McCain and Graham and urges, as he has all along, cooperation with Putin and Iran and Hezbollah, as Hollande and others move in that direction.
And of course he denounces McCain and Graham and urges, as he has all along, cooperation with Putin and Iran and Hezbollah, as Hollande and others move in that direction.
Blame Snowden
The claim was made even during the Paris attacks that the Jihaders involved had found a way to communicate totally under the radar - and the nature of the radar had been revealed to them and lots of other people with equally bad intentions by Edward Snowden.
David Perera at Politico is skeptical because the likes of Glenn Greenwald deny these claims and the people accusing Snowden haven't produced detailed and compelling proof in public.
As for me, I have said all along Snowden belongs in prison, as does Greenwald and as do some people still working at The Guardian.
David Perera at Politico is skeptical because the likes of Glenn Greenwald deny these claims and the people accusing Snowden haven't produced detailed and compelling proof in public.
As for me, I have said all along Snowden belongs in prison, as does Greenwald and as do some people still working at The Guardian.
A thaw in the new Cold War?
For a long time some people across the political spectrum have opposed the new cold war and urged global cooperation with the Russians and to an extent with the Chinese against Jihaders.
Things could be happening.
But by no means everybody is on board.
Republicans like these are part of why there is a Cold War II.
The other part is Democrats like Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Of course, ZB is also Exhibit A in any argument that immigrants ought to be kept as far away as possible from positions of political power or even influence in the US.
Think Madeleine Albright.
Think Henry Kissinger.
Things could be happening.
But by no means everybody is on board.
Republicans like these are part of why there is a Cold War II.
The other part is Democrats like Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Of course, ZB is also Exhibit A in any argument that immigrants ought to be kept as far away as possible from positions of political power or even influence in the US.
Think Madeleine Albright.
Think Henry Kissinger.
Sanders attacks Republicans for calls to close the door
27 governors, some Democrats, refuse Syrian refugees.
The Republican congress is seeking ways to stop or delay admission.
The Republican candidates also oppose admission, though the suggestion has been made to allow in Christians among them.
You can imagine what The Nation has made of that, and I did say the other day the left would claim writing religious criteria into immigration policy is unconstitutional.
The claim is ludicrous and the argument absurd arm-waving.
Bernie Sanders promptly labeled these actions "stupid," "racist," and "Islamophobic."
Am I the only one reminded of how quarantine became a partisan issue during the Ebola outbreak several months ago?
Probably not.
And though the attitude of the left at the time was greatly annoying they turned out to be right about the measures demanded by the right being unnecessary.
And this time? Oh, I think so.
Though a radical or two, and maybe even a Jihader, might be planted among the true refugees, just to push our buttons, of course.
WSJ has some interesting comment on this topic, including the bit about admitting Christians.
The Republican congress is seeking ways to stop or delay admission.
The Republican candidates also oppose admission, though the suggestion has been made to allow in Christians among them.
You can imagine what The Nation has made of that, and I did say the other day the left would claim writing religious criteria into immigration policy is unconstitutional.
The claim is ludicrous and the argument absurd arm-waving.
Bernie Sanders promptly labeled these actions "stupid," "racist," and "Islamophobic."
Am I the only one reminded of how quarantine became a partisan issue during the Ebola outbreak several months ago?
Probably not.
And though the attitude of the left at the time was greatly annoying they turned out to be right about the measures demanded by the right being unnecessary.
And this time? Oh, I think so.
Though a radical or two, and maybe even a Jihader, might be planted among the true refugees, just to push our buttons, of course.
WSJ has some interesting comment on this topic, including the bit about admitting Christians.
Not another American war, thanks.
That appears to be how the US public feels in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.
Crank up use of the US military against ISIS? Sure.
Boots on the ground, or even more special forces? No, thanks.
So, let the French do it, eh?
Meanwhile, the Russians have joined the French, who increased their air assault right away after the Paris attacks, in flying sorties against ISIS, pounding their capitol.
The Russians have announced that a bomb brought down their airliner last month over Sinai, killing all aboard.
Hollande has asked his legislature to extend the state of emergency for three months, and to make various constitutional changes enabling more vigorous action against terrorism.
The WSJ story describes some of the legal facets of a state of emergency, under French law.
Meanwhile, Canada will diminish its participation in military action against ISIS.
Crank up use of the US military against ISIS? Sure.
Boots on the ground, or even more special forces? No, thanks.
So, let the French do it, eh?
Meanwhile, the Russians have joined the French, who increased their air assault right away after the Paris attacks, in flying sorties against ISIS, pounding their capitol.
The Russians have announced that a bomb brought down their airliner last month over Sinai, killing all aboard.
Hollande has asked his legislature to extend the state of emergency for three months, and to make various constitutional changes enabling more vigorous action against terrorism.
The WSJ story describes some of the legal facets of a state of emergency, under French law.
Meanwhile, Canada will diminish its participation in military action against ISIS.
Monday, November 16, 2015
"Her nostrils were too far apart."
Manuel Komroff in his forward to The Brothers Karamazov, Signet Classics, 1958, foreword copyright 1957.
Describing Anna, 18 years old when Dostoyevsky married her.
He was 45 and, according to Komroff, soon to become the world's greatest novelist.
That's what he says.
Romney joins the liars
Mitt in this article implicitly promises that war can make us, and apparently even France, safe from Islamoterrorist attacks and even end Jihader Islam.
Those are lies.
It is also a lie told by many Republicans since the attacks in Paris that those attacks prove O was wrong when he said the Islamic State, a creation of ISIS the terrorist and guerrilla organization that lives chiefly within it but has affiliates and members operating elsewhere and has been doing its level best to expand on the ground in Syria and Iraq, has been contained, and Mitt repeats that one, too.
The extent of American on the ground warfare he demands is excessive and would be not only useless but probably just as counter-productive as was taking down Saddam Hussein.
And of course he joins the president and pretty much everybody else in blandly retailing the lie that Jihader Islam is somehow not the real Islam and not the traditional Islam.
(Peter Beinart has attacked Marco Rubio for trimming the edge of this useful, perhaps even necessary lie, though of course he writes as though he believes the lie to be true; and perhaps he does.)
On the whole, hysterical Republican bullshit of the kind made oh so familiar by Republicans since 9/11, that very day.
I wonder if there is any chance Mitt will jump into the race.
Krugman has sensible things to say, apart from that bit about the relative threats of global warming and Jihader Islam (he of course just calls it terrorism).
Only the latter would nuke us if it could - in other words, will nuke us as soon as it can.
And that is a reason to dread an Iranian bomb that seems to have escaped Pat Buchanan.
Those are lies.
It is also a lie told by many Republicans since the attacks in Paris that those attacks prove O was wrong when he said the Islamic State, a creation of ISIS the terrorist and guerrilla organization that lives chiefly within it but has affiliates and members operating elsewhere and has been doing its level best to expand on the ground in Syria and Iraq, has been contained, and Mitt repeats that one, too.
The extent of American on the ground warfare he demands is excessive and would be not only useless but probably just as counter-productive as was taking down Saddam Hussein.
And of course he joins the president and pretty much everybody else in blandly retailing the lie that Jihader Islam is somehow not the real Islam and not the traditional Islam.
(Peter Beinart has attacked Marco Rubio for trimming the edge of this useful, perhaps even necessary lie, though of course he writes as though he believes the lie to be true; and perhaps he does.)
On the whole, hysterical Republican bullshit of the kind made oh so familiar by Republicans since 9/11, that very day.
I wonder if there is any chance Mitt will jump into the race.
Krugman has sensible things to say, apart from that bit about the relative threats of global warming and Jihader Islam (he of course just calls it terrorism).
Only the latter would nuke us if it could - in other words, will nuke us as soon as it can.
And that is a reason to dread an Iranian bomb that seems to have escaped Pat Buchanan.
Ah, Europe is the model
Trump joins a wide variety of mainstream pols in Europe in proposing to close radical mosques.
The only shocking thing is that the American left and the American media continue to treat this as a shocking idea.
Ditto restricting Muslim immigration or even Muslim sojourns (student visas, say).
At any rate, it looks like all or most of the GOP candidates are opposed to accepting Syrian refugees, or anyway non-Christian Syrian refugees, though O continues to insist we are morally obliged to accept them and others among the current wave of Muslim illegals flooding Europe, though most of them, as even the sympathetic left admits, are not war refugees at all but merely people "fleeing poverty" and "seeking a better life."
Indeed, O has denounced "a religious test" for admission to the US as wicked, un-American, and (as he says about so many things) "not who we are."
At a guess, one of the things people like about Trump is that he is totally unintimidated by PC attacks on him and his ideas as racist.
Those punches just seem to miss him altogether.
He doesn't even have to shrug them off.
BTW, First Amendment worries?
Please, absolutely nobody wants to comply with the First Amendment's flat prohibition on federal interference with freedom of speech.
Courts just tell different lies to license or deny license to different kinds of restrictions, reflective of nothing but their own will.
And a propos of lying about the constitution, expect liberal liars to claim the constitution forbids restrictions on admission to the US based on religion.
As to that, the liars will throw in race restrictions, while they are at it, just to get it on record.
Libertarians and other open borders types might second these lies.
Here are interesting comments by Ayaan Hirsi Ali in WSJ about a long-term, extensive propaganda war against Jihader Islam.
The only shocking thing is that the American left and the American media continue to treat this as a shocking idea.
Ditto restricting Muslim immigration or even Muslim sojourns (student visas, say).
At any rate, it looks like all or most of the GOP candidates are opposed to accepting Syrian refugees, or anyway non-Christian Syrian refugees, though O continues to insist we are morally obliged to accept them and others among the current wave of Muslim illegals flooding Europe, though most of them, as even the sympathetic left admits, are not war refugees at all but merely people "fleeing poverty" and "seeking a better life."
Indeed, O has denounced "a religious test" for admission to the US as wicked, un-American, and (as he says about so many things) "not who we are."
At a guess, one of the things people like about Trump is that he is totally unintimidated by PC attacks on him and his ideas as racist.
Those punches just seem to miss him altogether.
He doesn't even have to shrug them off.
BTW, First Amendment worries?
Please, absolutely nobody wants to comply with the First Amendment's flat prohibition on federal interference with freedom of speech.
Courts just tell different lies to license or deny license to different kinds of restrictions, reflective of nothing but their own will.
And a propos of lying about the constitution, expect liberal liars to claim the constitution forbids restrictions on admission to the US based on religion.
As to that, the liars will throw in race restrictions, while they are at it, just to get it on record.
Libertarians and other open borders types might second these lies.
Here are interesting comments by Ayaan Hirsi Ali in WSJ about a long-term, extensive propaganda war against Jihader Islam.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Figaro editorial
Alexis Brézet, editor of Figaro, calls for tougher domestic security, silencing of radical clergy and radical mosques, imprisonment or deportation of people returning to France from service with ISIS or other Jihaders elsewhere, and so on.
He calls, too, for prioritizing the struggle against ISIS in Syria over ideological objections to Assad and squabbling with Putin.
Sarkozy, who wants Hollande's job, urges the need to cooperate with the Russians.
He also called for changes to Europe's immigration policies, though I have not seen more specific reports.
He sounds a little like Marine Le Pen.
He calls, too, for prioritizing the struggle against ISIS in Syria over ideological objections to Assad and squabbling with Putin.
[Update 111615.
Looks like some on the left are seeing glimmers of light on this matter, though they still clearly think the US and the West are obliged to eventually get rid of Assad because his is a nasty regime.
They mostly denounced that as a silly reason for taking down Saddam Hussein, back in the day when GW and his gang were in charge, and of course they still do, retrospectively.
/Update.]And he urges more control over immigration.
Sarkozy, who wants Hollande's job, urges the need to cooperate with the Russians.
He also called for changes to Europe's immigration policies, though I have not seen more specific reports.
He sounds a little like Marine Le Pen.
Madonna last night in Stockholm
In tears, en francais, she sang La vie en rose.
The story with a video/audio of her doing the Piaf song.
Madonna a chanté en français, seule à la voix s'accompagnant à la guitare, La vie en rose, samedi soir à Stockholm, pour rendre hommage aux victimes des attentats de Paris.
"Nous avons observé une minute de silence pour les victimes et leurs proches à Paris", a raconté à l'AFP une spectatrice, Maria Palm, à l'issue du concert au Tele 2 Arena de Stockholm.
"J'ai besoin de prendre un moment pour évoquer la tragédie, le carnage tragique, ces assassinats, et la fin absurde de vies précieuses hier soir à Paris", a dit Madonna, qui se produisait pour un concert unique en Suède.
La star a expliqué avoir hésité à annuler cette étape européenne du "Rebel Heart Tour" à laquelle plus de 40.000 personnes ont assisté, vingt-quatre heures après les attaques terroristes survenues dans la capitale française.
"Je suis déchirée (...) alors que les gens pleurent la perte d'êtres chers", a-t-elle lancé, en sanglots. "Mais c'est exactement ce qu'ils veulent (les auteurs des attentats), ils veulent nous réduire au silence.
Nous ne nous laisserons pas faire, nous ne nous laisserons jamais faire", a conclu l'interprète de Like a Prayer, avant d'entonner, seule sur une petite guitare aux accents de yukulélé, La vie en rose, titre le plus célèbre d'Edith Piaf.
A story in English about the same event.
She spoke in English though she sang in French.
The story with a video/audio of her doing the Piaf song.
Madonna a chanté en français, seule à la voix s'accompagnant à la guitare, La vie en rose, samedi soir à Stockholm, pour rendre hommage aux victimes des attentats de Paris.
"Nous avons observé une minute de silence pour les victimes et leurs proches à Paris", a raconté à l'AFP une spectatrice, Maria Palm, à l'issue du concert au Tele 2 Arena de Stockholm.
"J'ai besoin de prendre un moment pour évoquer la tragédie, le carnage tragique, ces assassinats, et la fin absurde de vies précieuses hier soir à Paris", a dit Madonna, qui se produisait pour un concert unique en Suède.
La star a expliqué avoir hésité à annuler cette étape européenne du "Rebel Heart Tour" à laquelle plus de 40.000 personnes ont assisté, vingt-quatre heures après les attaques terroristes survenues dans la capitale française.
"Je suis déchirée (...) alors que les gens pleurent la perte d'êtres chers", a-t-elle lancé, en sanglots. "Mais c'est exactement ce qu'ils veulent (les auteurs des attentats), ils veulent nous réduire au silence.
Nous ne nous laisserons pas faire, nous ne nous laisserons jamais faire", a conclu l'interprète de Like a Prayer, avant d'entonner, seule sur une petite guitare aux accents de yukulélé, La vie en rose, titre le plus célèbre d'Edith Piaf.
A story in English about the same event.
She spoke in English though she sang in French.
Put the accent on the wrong syllable to sing a tropical song
If Hollande wants to deploy 10,000 troops the place to do it is the Syria/Iraq border region, where ISIS is.
Conscience voters are so annoying
Remind you of the folks who voted for Ralph in 2000?
How did that work out?
Meanwhile, the war Democrats at The New Republic like Hillary.
How did that work out?
Meanwhile, the war Democrats at The New Republic like Hillary.
One, at least, came in with the wave of refugees
ISIS is not run by fools.
Perhaps they smuggled this guy in among the refugees as a provocation, aimed at sowing disarray and dissension among the French and other Euros as they try to work out their response.
O still wants to get rid of Assad.
And not every criticism of him and the typical Democrat response to radical Islam is quite entirely nuts.
Global warming denial may not be a real thing, but Jihader Islam denial certainly is.
Still, while it would be possible to defeat and destroy ISIS, I suppose, the idea that Muslim terrorism, radical Islam, or contemporary Jihad can be defeated and destroyed actually is entirely nuts.
Or it is a lie, not terribly different in nature and intent from the lies told about Saddam Hussein, the 9/11 attacks, and WMD to provide a fraudulent justification for the invasion and destruction of Iraq.
Nothing short of a war of extermination - a successful war of extermination - against the entire Muslim population of the planet could achieve such a goal militarily, and I take it that such an unimaginably horrific undertaking is definitely off the table.
And though we should not omit to seriously engage in a war of propaganda on behalf of an acceptable and peaceable Islam, we should have no illusions.
Over the decades, RFE and its like may have played an important role in causing the ideological rot that finally brought down the Soviet Union and Communism in Europe - and communism, though not the Communist Party, in China - , but we should remember how little success we had at "winning hearts and minds" in Vietnam.
Perhaps they smuggled this guy in among the refugees as a provocation, aimed at sowing disarray and dissension among the French and other Euros as they try to work out their response.
O still wants to get rid of Assad.
And not every criticism of him and the typical Democrat response to radical Islam is quite entirely nuts.
Global warming denial may not be a real thing, but Jihader Islam denial certainly is.
Still, while it would be possible to defeat and destroy ISIS, I suppose, the idea that Muslim terrorism, radical Islam, or contemporary Jihad can be defeated and destroyed actually is entirely nuts.
Or it is a lie, not terribly different in nature and intent from the lies told about Saddam Hussein, the 9/11 attacks, and WMD to provide a fraudulent justification for the invasion and destruction of Iraq.
Nothing short of a war of extermination - a successful war of extermination - against the entire Muslim population of the planet could achieve such a goal militarily, and I take it that such an unimaginably horrific undertaking is definitely off the table.
And though we should not omit to seriously engage in a war of propaganda on behalf of an acceptable and peaceable Islam, we should have no illusions.
Over the decades, RFE and its like may have played an important role in causing the ideological rot that finally brought down the Soviet Union and Communism in Europe - and communism, though not the Communist Party, in China - , but we should remember how little success we had at "winning hearts and minds" in Vietnam.
About those Paris attacks, where is Bill Maher?
Hollande called the attackers cowards and angrily denounced them as "an act of war."
French forces have been part of the effort to bomb ISIS into the stone age and reportedly at least one attacker and ISIS communiques since have said the attacks were in retaliation for that French role in the war on ISIS, and that more is coming.
Some are suggesting Hollande said that because he means to go to NATO for a formal commitment from the allies to go the whole way and use their own forces to get rid of ISIS.
Though I suppose none of them would object to the French crushing ISIS with a real, all-out, all-in war, Hill has already said this is a job for local powers like Turkey and the gulf states and both Bern and O'Malley seem even less bellicose.
On the other hand, LBJ promised America he would not send American boys to fight a war Asian boys should fight on their own.
So there's that.
French forces have been part of the effort to bomb ISIS into the stone age and reportedly at least one attacker and ISIS communiques since have said the attacks were in retaliation for that French role in the war on ISIS, and that more is coming.
Some are suggesting Hollande said that because he means to go to NATO for a formal commitment from the allies to go the whole way and use their own forces to get rid of ISIS.
Though I suppose none of them would object to the French crushing ISIS with a real, all-out, all-in war, Hill has already said this is a job for local powers like Turkey and the gulf states and both Bern and O'Malley seem even less bellicose.
On the other hand, LBJ promised America he would not send American boys to fight a war Asian boys should fight on their own.
So there's that.
Mandela
When the South Africans locked him up, he was a communist and a terrorist.
When they released him, he was neither.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
For the record
Democratic capitalism - even secular and progressive democratic capitalism - is the natural shape of the modern world.
But that is only to say things tend in that direction.
For now.
That is my view.
For the record.
Battle of the Democrats
Democrats debate IS after Paris attacks
Bernie is wrong to say global warming is the greatest threat we face today, even supposing it is real and not just a convenient anti-capitalist fraud.
(Remember Naomi Klein. Remember the Kyoto Treaty, so egregiously stupid for the Occident. These things make one mistrustful.)
Radiological weapons?
Nukes?
Does he not understand what these people would do if they could?
And Hillary is only less wrong to insist this is something we should leave to others.
Quasi-Islamist Turkey and the even worse Gulf states? Really?
We could let the French take the lead, if they want to and are able, but we have to join with the Russians in prioritizing the fight against radical Islam over moon-eyed Wilsonian exportation of democracy.
Is anyone among the candidates of either party, Trump excepted, willing to do that?
Not that I know of.
Not the Democrats, ostensibly because of their Wilsonism but perhaps also because of Cold War II.
Not the Republicans, and only because of Cold War II.
Sheer, great power geopolitics.
Read Brzezinski, to see what they think.
Who knows everyone's secrets controls all
GW and his White House gang used 9/11 as a pretext to pursue an irrelevant, preexisting, and damaging agenda, hiding the useless and foolish destruction of Iraq behind the equally useless and foolish, but not apparently so, destruction of Afghanistan.
Today those with an irrelevant, preexisting agenda will urge the further development of the total surveillance state served by security forces that "stop at nothing."
As politicians devoted to oppo research and terrified of it well know, and as every student of St. Paul should understand, under the law, everyone is guilty of something.
Sejanus and Macro did not control the Roman Senate for Tiberius only through physical intimidation.
Update, 111515, 0835 hrs EST.
The Irish Times, a propos.
Fortunately for the world, Islam is more divided today than Communism was during its heyday
Hezbollah chief denounces Paris attacks
Bloodthirsty Shiites vs. bloodthirsty Sunnis.
There are French and Americans, many but not all of them conservatives of one sort or another, who quite agree with this.
Elsewhere in the GWOT.
Bloodthirsty Shiites vs. bloodthirsty Sunnis.
There are French and Americans, many but not all of them conservatives of one sort or another, who quite agree with this.
Elsewhere in the GWOT.
Aversion therapy to cure us of forbidden thoughts
That's what PC is all about.
Use of a technique in politics that the very same people deplore when used by others to "cure" homosexuality.
It is not enough, to give a made-up example that could become real any day, to disagree with Aristotle's defense of slavery or Heidegger's Nazi politics.
One has to find it morally and emotionally searing to learn that some, at least, of the works of both are required study for students of philosophy, even black or Jewish students, unless those studies are somehow accompanied with numerous and urgent reminders of their utter wickedness and perhaps also of the utter wickedness of white people, Christians, or Germans that is proved by their criminal politics.
It is not enough to disagree with or even deplore these opinions.
One must hate those who hold them and at least be ashamed to read them or to agree with or approve anything else they say or do - or, hopefully, of being white, Christian, or German.
Use of a technique in politics that the very same people deplore when used by others to "cure" homosexuality.
It is not enough, to give a made-up example that could become real any day, to disagree with Aristotle's defense of slavery or Heidegger's Nazi politics.
One has to find it morally and emotionally searing to learn that some, at least, of the works of both are required study for students of philosophy, even black or Jewish students, unless those studies are somehow accompanied with numerous and urgent reminders of their utter wickedness and perhaps also of the utter wickedness of white people, Christians, or Germans that is proved by their criminal politics.
It is not enough to disagree with or even deplore these opinions.
One must hate those who hold them and at least be ashamed to read them or to agree with or approve anything else they say or do - or, hopefully, of being white, Christian, or German.
WSJ urges that France take exceptional measures
From the editors.
Paris would not be out of bounds to consider some combination of preventive detentions and, if necessary, renditions to foreign countries.
Civil libertarians will object, but civil liberty is also a function of security, and right now Paris has neither.
Oddly, a French paper suggesting such things would face prosecution, if the fate of General Aussaresses is any indication, thanks to the power of the left and the fear of Muslim violence in that country.
And here we have O assuring us he will close Gitmo before he leaves office.
Needless to say, he deplores "harsh interrogation techniques" and renditions, though he has refused to seek prosecution of American officials involved in either.
I suspect WSJ does not share his scruples.
The news last night included word that these terrorists have found novel ways to communicate that successfully got past Western intelligence services, whose methods were made known to the world by Mr. Snowden.
Snowden is, of course, a hero of the left currently residing in Russia who still faces extradition to the US and prosecution if he leaves that safe haven, to the dismay of many who otherwise like Obama.
Here is Marine Le Pen on the matter.
So far the French show no signs of reacting to this as the Spanish did to the Madrid attacks.
Paris would not be out of bounds to consider some combination of preventive detentions and, if necessary, renditions to foreign countries.
Civil libertarians will object, but civil liberty is also a function of security, and right now Paris has neither.
Oddly, a French paper suggesting such things would face prosecution, if the fate of General Aussaresses is any indication, thanks to the power of the left and the fear of Muslim violence in that country.
And here we have O assuring us he will close Gitmo before he leaves office.
Needless to say, he deplores "harsh interrogation techniques" and renditions, though he has refused to seek prosecution of American officials involved in either.
I suspect WSJ does not share his scruples.
The news last night included word that these terrorists have found novel ways to communicate that successfully got past Western intelligence services, whose methods were made known to the world by Mr. Snowden.
Snowden is, of course, a hero of the left currently residing in Russia who still faces extradition to the US and prosecution if he leaves that safe haven, to the dismay of many who otherwise like Obama.
Here is Marine Le Pen on the matter.
So far the French show no signs of reacting to this as the Spanish did to the Madrid attacks.
In response to the Paris attacks, the usual bullshit from the right
Of course, some of what they are writing today is true and sensible.
But mostly, overwhelmingly mostly, not.
And another.
Everybody is pretending this attack proves O is feckless and maybe a traitor, that we need to fight a more aggressive and militarily committed war against ISIS, Boko Haram, the loons in Yemen, etc., etc., etc., much as Geraldo Rivera, horrified at the danger to his daughter who was at that stadium for the France/Germany game, demanded last night on Fox News, to the evident dismay of Shepard Smith, who reminded everyone that 14 years of war in the region begun by GW's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq did not make Paris safe.
[Was that a run-on? Oh, my, yes.]
This writer comes close to the truth.
He says we won't finally end the terrorist attacks by killing Jihaders, no matter how many we kill, and that is true.
He says we can and should do so by opposing and ending the underlying enemy, Islamist ideology - which is to say without saying, the real historic Islam.
What's needed, then, is an ideological struggle on behalf of modernized, liberalized Islam just as faithful to the real thing as liberal, modernized Christianity is to actual, historic Christianity,
Would part of that struggle be a kind of Radio Free Islam, beaming news and views to, say, Saudi Arabia and Iran, designed to undermine the traditional, medievalist Islams prevalent in those countries, ostensibly in favor of a sort of Islam even Ayaan Hirsi Ali could live with?
I have no doubt such a thing would provoke at least as many attacks on the West as do bombing runs over Syria, and significantly enhance enmity toward us among key Muslim states.
The violence won't end so long as the current wave of hard core Muslim hate of everything that isn't Muslim continues.
And no one can say when or why it will stop, or even diminish.
Meanwhile, those who fear these guys controlling more states and the financial and military resources of more states are very right.
And that alone is sufficient reason to stop ISIS establishing itself, and to prevent the emergence of a radical Muslim state anywhere else, if possible without costs greater than those involved in allowing their existence.
If there were a way to bring down the republic of the Ayatollahs with no more than an acceptable level of risk, that would be lovely, always supposing a successor regime would be less menacing.
[Did Carter miss a chance to save the regime of the Shah?]
And if there were such a way to get hold of Pakistan's nukes, that, too, would be lovely.
Would you tell a lie to save a baby?
Sure, you would.
At issue are restrictions both justified as protecting women's health and, apparently, admitted to be medically pointless.
Abortion foes contend that a law is not an undue burden unless it takes a major toll on abortion access, while abortion rights advocates argue that a law is an undue burden if it serves no actual medical purpose.
Which argument prevails could make the difference between a tidal wave of anti-abortion bills and a trickle.
Conservative state lawmakers have enacted hundreds of new abortion restrictions in the past five years that mainstream medical organizations say carry no real health benefits.
On the other hand, Roe was probably the most outrageous and egregious lie ever told by that junta of liars, the US Supreme Court.
Friday, November 13, 2015
"Never again"
Never say "never again."
Hollande promises "pitiless war" against whoever did this.
Speculation wavers between ISIS and al-Queda in Yemen.
No one yet claims responsibility.
Speaking of ISIS.
Update, 11/14, 0809 hrs EST.
It was ISIS.
So was this, apparently.
Update, 1517 hrs EST.
O was about to play another card against ISIS.
Fat City
The obesity crisis in Mexico City, covered by The Guardian.
Machines reward squat thrusts with free metro tickets.
Machines reward squat thrusts with free metro tickets.
Ann Coulter: Ted Cruz is not a "natural born citizen"
Was she kidding?
Mocking birtherism?
Is she trying to get herself drummed out of the Legion of Conservatives?
She continues to tout Trump and even his deportation plan, and here she even attacks another pillar of Wall Street conservatism.
Republicans also clarified their position on tax hikes: OPPOSED.
We're still waiting for a GOP consensus on child labor.
I don't think taxes are that big a deal to most people.
Reagan got all the low-hanging fruit: No one's tax rates are in the 90 percent bracket anymore.
Mocking birtherism?
Is she trying to get herself drummed out of the Legion of Conservatives?
She continues to tout Trump and even his deportation plan, and here she even attacks another pillar of Wall Street conservatism.
Republicans also clarified their position on tax hikes: OPPOSED.
We're still waiting for a GOP consensus on child labor.
I don't think taxes are that big a deal to most people.
Reagan got all the low-hanging fruit: No one's tax rates are in the 90 percent bracket anymore.
The bipartisan propaganda, today
"Trump and Carson are not up to the job."
Democrats have taken this line all along, laughing at the GOP "clown car."
Now Democrats are delighted to spin Wall Street Republican dismay at the Main Street values and ideas of Trump and, in lesser degree, Carson as panic at their incompetence and fear of the damage to our country if they might actually win.
Yeah, right.
Democrats have taken this line all along, laughing at the GOP "clown car."
Now Democrats are delighted to spin Wall Street Republican dismay at the Main Street values and ideas of Trump and, in lesser degree, Carson as panic at their incompetence and fear of the damage to our country if they might actually win.
Yeah, right.
The frustration and fury of Wall Street conservatism
Bill O'Reilly blasts Trump's deportation plan
Push come to shove, the Murdoch empire never gave a damn about guns or the agenda of Christian social conservatism.
All of that is and always was pandering for suckers.
And all of Murdoch's media outlets are devoted to Wall Street, 24/7.
Trump, the voice of Main Street, is not their boy.
Push come to shove, the Murdoch empire never gave a damn about guns or the agenda of Christian social conservatism.
All of that is and always was pandering for suckers.
And all of Murdoch's media outlets are devoted to Wall Street, 24/7.
Trump, the voice of Main Street, is not their boy.
What if your mother had aborted you, huh? What about that?
O rightly raises the issues of the monetary and PR costs of deporting 12 million people.
The latter, of course, is just the very real threat that the American left would go insane, flooding the Internet with videos and screaming about the Gestapo, about racism, and all the stuff you already know they would scream, blood flowing from their eyes, frothing at the mouth and nearly hemorrhaging with rage.
And then he makes the idiot argument so often made in the idiot media for open borders, so closely analogous to the similar and similarly idiotic argument made by propaganda addressed to the idiot masses against abortion.
Remember the bell curve?
Half the population is sub-normal and most are just dumb enough.
The latter, of course, is just the very real threat that the American left would go insane, flooding the Internet with videos and screaming about the Gestapo, about racism, and all the stuff you already know they would scream, blood flowing from their eyes, frothing at the mouth and nearly hemorrhaging with rage.
And then he makes the idiot argument so often made in the idiot media for open borders, so closely analogous to the similar and similarly idiotic argument made by propaganda addressed to the idiot masses against abortion.
Remember the bell curve?
Half the population is sub-normal and most are just dumb enough.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
The Wiz for Christmas
Cultural appropriation is a tool of subversion.
Think of the people putting up Idris Elba to play Bond, or even a girl.
What are they really up to?
Well, imagine the uproar if someone - say, Mel Gibson - was preparing to make a movie about MLK with a white actor chosen to play the role, and not in blackface.
Just fiction, you know; not actually history.
So it's OK, right?
Ho!
What are they really up to?
Well, imagine the uproar if someone - say, Mel Gibson - was preparing to make a movie about MLK with a white actor chosen to play the role, and not in blackface.
Just fiction, you know; not actually history.
So it's OK, right?
Ho!
The culture wars in America are not only directed against the hegemony of Christianity and its sexual morality but more broadly against that of white, Occidental civilization, several of whose features are widely loathed by so many of the warriors.
Think of capitalism, monogamy, and especially the infuriating weight of thousands of years of achievements in all fields of culture of white people, mostly male.
I hear echoes of students, mostly female, disproportionately colored, chanting, "Hey, hey, ho, ho. Western Civ has got to go."
Think of all those students, for example, mostly women nowadays and disproportionately not white, studying English Literature, devoting semester after semester to the productions of white men from Chaucer to Robert Lowell, from Beaumont and Fletcher to Eugene O'Neill.
And then trying to wash off such a soaking bath of white testosterone by assiduously studying Marxist, black, radical feminist, and gay Lit Crit.
Think of all those students, for example, mostly women nowadays and disproportionately not white, studying English Literature, devoting semester after semester to the productions of white men from Chaucer to Robert Lowell, from Beaumont and Fletcher to Eugene O'Neill.
And then trying to wash off such a soaking bath of white testosterone by assiduously studying Marxist, black, radical feminist, and gay Lit Crit.
What if?
What if things had gone otherwise and the forces under the Republican flag had pushed Franco and the Nationalists to the wall.
Would the anarchists and the communists - the latter fighting under Stalin's orders - have let the real republicans return to power, presiding over an unrevolutionized capitalist society and economy they loathed?
As things actually happened, Stalin's communists threw the war to Franco by attacking the anarchists.
In hindsight, it certainly looks like the Republic, both attacked and defended by enemies, was doomed the day the first troops set foot on Spanish soil, transported from Morocco.
No?
Update, 111415, 1535 hrs EST.
We should eat like those Asians
See the story.
Obesity rates are rising again among American adults, despite national efforts to promote healthy lifestyles.
Rates of obesity had been climbing dramatically since the 1980s but started levelling off in about 2004.
This latest study means they are rising again - to nearly 38% in 2013-14, up from about 32% a decade ago.
The numbers come from a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using a national survey of about 5,000 people.
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