MERCHANTS OF HATE: Gothamist condones violence against political enemies, women. “I don’t know the name of the woman behind the camera. But according to Del Signore, she deserves whatever she gets for daring to disagree with him. Y’know. Because of the left’s respect for women. . . . Maybe Del Signore has been listening to the latest from Bruce Springsteen.”
Somebody tell the SPLC!
MIKE TREDER IS MISSING.
REPORT: “Tea Party Leader” charged with rape not actually affiliated with Tea Party group.
Funny how they jump on this and ignore all the genuine Occupy rapes.
TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: Victor Davis Hanson is quoted:
But there is one final consideration for those smug utopian architects in our state department and Europe that is completely forgotten in all this. There will be no second Holocaust. If almost all of the West Bank is returned, as is likely, and in a few years hostilities nevertheless resume as they did during phases 1-3 of the Middle East wars, as is also likely, the battle will be over Israel itself, not Palestinian land. That will be a war Israel will not lose, and it will be fought outside not inside the Jewish state. And that will be a nightmare compared to the current crisis. Those in Europe and in the United States who now lecture about morality will then prove to be not only amoral, but also answerable for far, far more still.
Worth noting now. One wonders, however, if some of the Metternichs involved actually hope to provoke an Israeli/Iran gotterdammerung, so that Israel can solve a lot of problems and take the blame too.
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WHAT PHOTOGRAPHERS HAVE AGAINST PINTEREST.
WELL, THAT WAS A MISERABLE FAILURE: Video: Eric Holder in 1995: We Must “Brainwash” People Against Guns.
JIM GERAGHTY: Today the president’s schedule includes six separate fundraisers, a new personal record.
And yet the donations are lagging. “President Obama is struggling to draw in big-dollar donations, with half as many people writing large checks to his campaign than at this point four years ago.”
UPDATE: Reader Steve Gombosi writes: “How is the poor man going to find time to golf???”
IT’S ONLY UNFAIR to make Democratic constituencies look bad. Duh. How could Alexandra Pelosi have missed that? Plus, from the comments: “Maher criticizes the whites and finds excuses for the blacks. That’s because he has adult expectations for whites while having only child-like expectations for blacks.” Yeah, well, that’s how racists think.
Also from the comments: “One more question and then I’m done – why didn’t Pelosi ask the Black people in NY about homosexuality?”
I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Iran and Syria are Getting Blown Up. And Sometimes Shot. “It’s all the rage. Literally. Two explosions at Iranian military/nuclear weapons sites. Four explosions in Syria, including three suicide bombers in Damascus on Saturday, two of which were aimed at Syrian security forces buildings, all in the past few days. Today’s explosion was in Aleppo, and also ‘near a government security building.’ The Iranian blasts are seemingly more dramatic, and probably part of the ongoing campaign being waged against the installations of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, especially, but not solely, those connected to the nuclear weapons project.”
THAT SEEMS RATHER UNJUDICIOUS: 29 Wisconsin Judges Sign Walker Recall Petition. That’s 12 percent, and it’s not just abstract advocacy. “Dane County Judge David Flanagan has been under fire for not disclosing his support of the recall before he issued a temporary restraining order against a Walker-backed voter ID law.” It’s like these people don’t believe in civil society or something.
The left has often invoked the authority of law and the learned professions, but Wisconsin — from things like this to the phony doctors’ excuses for protesters — is suggesting that they’re just a bunch of partisan tools.
UPDATE: Ann Althouse: “Why would a judge sign a recall petition? You’re just one name. It can’t make that much difference. And then there you are, your reputation shot to hell. You’re politicized. Biased. All those things you strive to deny when you assume the role of judge.”
They’re selected for loyalty, not intelligence.
ANOTHER UPDATE: “That was no lady. That was Glenn Reynolds.”
THE USA: An Oil-Rich Nation After All?
LIFE AMONG THE RULING CLASS: Average Congresscritter gets 1,452% raises when they turn corporate lobbyist.
See, this is just another argument for my 50% surtax on post-government earnings. Or maybe it should be 75% . . . .
A ROMNEY WIN IN PUERTO RICO. I should’ve gotten PJTV to send me there to cover this race. What was I thinking?
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Also, today only: $0.99 Each for Michael Wallace’s “Righteous” Thrillers (Kindle Books). (Bumped).
PAST ITS EXPIRATION DATE: Obama in 2004: I’d launch airstrikes to stop Iran from going nuclear.
SYRIA DESCENDING TOWARD MADNESS. “The Syrian government and its opposition are each their own worst enemy. Butcher Assad is the worst of all combinations: a bumbling murderer. He can and will kill, but he cannot govern. Yet the opposition has lost credibility even as Syrians put their lives on the line every day. Its inability to organize a coherent alternative to the government underlines the key point of Assad propaganda: that the only alternative to the goon squad currently in power is anarchy and, perhaps, genocidal wars of revenge by fanatical sectarian killers. The longer this tragedy continues, the more dangerous it becomes — for Syrians and for others in the region.”
READER MICHAEL BOHL WRITES:
Dear Professor Reynolds,
I just finished reading Douglas Laycock’s Vicious Stereotypes in Polite Society and, after initial indignation about Professor Brown’s anecdote, I came up with a few questions. I don’t actually expect any answers based on the time line but they would be interesting.
After more than 20 years how is this incident remembered by the principals? If it affected her so much that she wrote about it for the Yale Law Journal it must have had a lasting impact. Has she realized that it was an irrational fear based solely on visual cues that she didn’t like but have no real bearing on what she was afraid of? Does she understand that (in her mind anyway) she all but accused someone of a heinous crime when he only tried to help? Has she blown it up in her mind so that she wakes in a cold sweat about her narrow escape from the cast of Deliverance? (Have to stick with the stereotypes.)
Does he even remember it? If he does, does he remember anything more than “Some tree hugging chick* went hiking and left her lights on.”?
I know that I have been (and probably will be again in the future) guilty of exactly that sort of behavior. I have, however, usually been forced after the fact to look at my own beliefs and prejudices to try to see where I was wrong. After slogging through her original article I sort of doubt that she has learned anything.
* ”Chick” used advisedly and deliberately.
I have no idea about any of these questions, but it would be interesting to know the answers.
A. BARTON HINKLE: What Ever Happened to “Extremism in Defense of Liberty is No Vice”?
JEFF GOLDSTEIN RESPONDS TO STANLEY FISH: Progressivism And The Authoritarian Impulse. “Fish’s single standard, distilled and properly understood, is that liberals are (they’ll claim) morally superior by virtue of their very belief in their own political identities — which identity is tied to an ideology that, manifested politically, privileges governmental theft, sanctioned inequality as a function of tribal identity, and a giant foundational question beg: namely, that moral superiority comes from being on the left, so therefore being on the left means you can really do no fundamental moral wrong.” Progressivism is a religion that preaches salvation by faith, and utter damnation for the nonbelievers.
UPDATE: An illustration: “You and I are not racists. I just gave my imaginary child’s college fund to Barack Obama, and your mother is Nancy Pelosi. So of all the people in the world — we are not out to fuck black people.” Democrats can’t be racist. Just ask Bull Connor.
SCIENCE ASKS: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
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AIRBUS SUPERJUMBO JET GETS ITS WINGS CLIPPED. “In an industry where safety is an absolute necessity, any defect can be devastating to an aircraft maker. The European company Airbus is learning that the hard way: small cracks on wing brackets of the A380 have angered operators, who have demanded compensation for the time their fleets have been grounded for repairs. As the FT reports, the cracked brackets are minor defects that both Emirates and Airbus say do not make planes unsafe to fly, although regulators disagree. But still, the defect has been found on ten A380s operated by Emirates, who has 69 more of the plane on order. All of Singapore Airlines’ ten A380s have similar cracks as well.”
RETINOPATHY A MARKER FOR COGNITIVE DECLINE. “One thing noteworthy here: the vascular system is incredibly important. If I had to choose just a few rejuvenation therapies out of a much larger set then one I’d be tempted to go for is a complete rejuvenation of the vasculature. Aging blood vessels do not deliver enough nutrients. They also rupture, causing dead of neurons in the brain. The damaging effects are manifold.”
A QUARTER-CENTURY OF data lost and found.
SEXISM ON TV: I keep seeing commercials with Joan Lunden hawking A Place For Mom. What about dad?
DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE ARRESTED FOR AGGRAVATED ASSAULT. “Boise Police arrested Cynthia Clinkingbeard, 58, Boise, on Friday after she reportedly walked into a store at Eagle Road and Chinden Boulevard and threatened employees with a gun.”
ILYA SOMIN ON the politics of The Hunger Games. “The series is subject to such widely disparate interpretations in part because Collins’ world-building is relatively weak. We don’t learn very much about the political and economic system of Panem, and some of what we do learn is internally inconsistent.”
You want your libertarian kids’ fiction, you gotta go with Harry Potter.
MARK TAPSCOTT: Is lefty “grassroots activism” just one Potemkin Village after another?
That seems like the way to bet, especially after seeing how they astroturfed campaign finance “reform,” and then bragged about it. But they’ve got this going for them: “It helps when so many journalists covering American politics desperately want to believe these Potemkin villages are reality.”
IN THE MAIL: Foundations of Tort Law and Foundations of Administrative Law.
AN INTERESTING PROJECT: Crowd-Sourcing James Madison’s Notes of the Convention.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD ON SCHOOL LUNCHES, REGULATORY CAPTURE, AND THE NANNY STATE.
LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Placement Data Controversy Hits Elite Law Schools. My Dean has been steadfast in his insistence that we not lie about this stuff. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s the only one to feel that way. Upside: He doesn’t have to worry about jail.
BIDEN BOOED at St. Patrick’s Day parade. “A chorus of boos rained down on Biden and his supporters.” Video at the link.
NERVOUS: The Hill: Vulnerable Senate Dems Don’t Rule Out Voting Against Obama Cost-Control Board. ObamaCare doesn’t seem to have won people over.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Will Bill Maher Go The Way of Keith Olbermann? When he’s no longer an asset.
JACOB SULLUM: Did Dharun Ravi Commit a Hateless Hate Crime? The mob was angry and demanded a sacrifice.
Related thoughts from Ann Althouse. “That sounds like Ravi was found guilty because he couldn’t disprove a motivation that was inferred based on Clementi’s subjective perception. And yet the defense was deprived of much of the evidence of Clementi’s subjective state of mind.”
The mob was angry and demanded a sacrifice.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Short sales and foreclosures made up 52 percent of all recent Southern California home sales.
FARHAD MANJOO: It’s the battery, stupid: The looming 4G smartphone crisis.
Whatever other features it may have, a phone’s battery is its limiting factor. If the battery doesn’t work, nothing else does. This week J.D. Power and Associates put out its 2012 smartphone customer satisfaction survey, and the results bear this out. The study shows that battery life is one of the most important factors in determining whether people love or hate their phones. Owners of 4G phones were less happy with their devices’ batteries than owners of 3G phones, mainly because 4G phones don’t live as long as 3G ones. What’s more, among people with 4G phones, battery life was the deciding factor in whether or not you’d be willing to buy the same brand of phone again. If you give your phone a 10 out of 10 for battery life, you’re definitely buying that same phone next time. If you give it anything less, you’re going to look elsewhere for your next device.
That underlines a looming problem in the smartphone business, one that will haunt every manufacturer and may undermine the post-PC revolution over the next few years: Every year, everything about phones keeps getting better—except the battery.
Batteries don’t follow Moore’s Law.
UPDATE: Reader Matt Andrade writes: “If Batteries followed Moore’s Law, by now my MacBook Pro, fully charged, would be able to power my house.”
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Eric Klien emails:
PLAYBOY PARTY JOKE FROM APRIL 2012 ISSUE
The economy has become so bad that wives are having sex with their husbands because they can’t afford batteries.
The bloom is off the lily.
AMERICA’S FASTEST-SHRINKING INDUSTRY: Newspapers.
CROSS-CULTURE: Chinese Fish For Meaning In U.S. Carp Rampage. “To understand why Chinese netizens have taken such an interest in the story, it’s absolutely essential to know that the most popular dinner-table fish in seafood-crazy China is carp, bar none. Thus, news of America’s carp problem doesn’t set off alarm — it makes Chinese mouths water. Add the fact that Chinese covet wild carp — an expensive treat compared to cheaper, more common farmed carp — and poetry ensues. . . . The dominant thread in the ongoing discussion is this: The Chinese people, and their voracious appetites, are the solution to America’s carp woes.”
Instead of an invasive-species problem, let’s think of it as a solution to the trade deficit! It’s just a bigger version of my lionfish solution.
THIS LETTER TO THE EDITOR is typical of something I’ve heard a lot of: Andrea Yates’ husband, we are told, is guilty too. The writer, as usual, is a woman.
Had Mr. Yates killed his children, would these women be blaming his wife for failing to take responsibility for his mental health? Or for having children to such a father?
Some things haven’t changed a bit.
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TOM MAGUIRE ON TRAYVON MARTIN: Who Are You Going To Believe, Me Or Your Lying Ears?
SOMEONE SHOULD ASK HIM: How will President Civility explain Cee Lo Green to Sasha and Malia?
A ST. PATRICK’S DAY KINDLE DEAL: Jay Dolan’s The Irish Americans: A History for 99 cents.
SOME OF THEM, YES: “Have academics really become so political that we are now required to write partisan pamphlets rather than scholarly treatises?”
I remember when Doug Laycock wrote Vicious Stereotypes In Polite Society, he told me that he was disturbed to have people call it “courageous.”
WHAT IS GOING ON in Missouri?
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES TAKES OFF. Hey, now it’s hip to be Hayes! And why not? “The period of American history that followed the Civil War was one of the greatest and most successful ever experienced by any nation.” Reader Michael Wallace writes: “Who knew that one of Obama’s greatest accomplishments would be reviving interest in Rutherford B Hayes?” Yes, that is one of Obama’s greatest accomplishments.
And people are still having fun:
Related: Obama’s History Lesson: Future Generations Will Laugh At Us For Taking Him Seriously. Some of us are already laughing . . . . Including Professor Jacobson.
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PELOSI’S DAUGHTER: HBO Uncomfortable With ‘Freeloading Welfare Queen’ Video.
Alexandra Pelosi debuted a video she made for HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” last night. The video shows multiple welfare recipients in New York City proclaiming they were at the welfare office to get their “Obama bucks” and that they supported Obama because he “gives me stuff.” Pelosi reported that people at the HBO headquarters in New York had said to her “you can’t show this” even though just last week the ran a controversial video showing Mississippi voters saying inflammatory things against the president.
To her credit, and to Bill Maher’s, they showed the video and openly discussed how liberals would hate it. Pelosi said “I didn’t have to go far to find ‘freeloading welfare queens.’” They were, in fact, right across the street from her New York City home.
Seems like there’s even less reason to subscribe to HBO. I don’t.
UPDATE: Reader Michael Grass writes:
HBO’s reluctance to show both sides of the story (re: Alexandra Pelosi’s video) was the final straw. I called Direct TV and asked that they cancel my subscription to HBO tonight. When they asked why I answered that I was fed up with their role as political propagandist for the democratic party as evidenced not only by their support of Bill Maher, but their movie Game Change and now their desire to stifle a documentary that conflicts with their narrative via Alexandra Pelosi. The customer support person said he understood and would get it removed from my account right away. While I didn’t ask how many if any other calls he had received like mine, I did make a mental note that he didn’t miss a beat or seem taken aback by the reasons I gave for cancelling. As you would say…hmmmm…
I’d really like to see their numbers.
BLOOD TESTS WON’T STOP GENE CHEATS. “Athletes trying to cheat by loading their bodies with genes that make muscles bigger and more efficient could be caught if forced to supply muscle biopsies, but not through the analysis of urine or blood samples.”
ROGER SIMON: Romney Derangement Syndrome. “Really? The co-founder of Bain Capital is a Marxist? Well, I suppose if Bain were wildly unsuccessful you could hypothesize some kind of Cloward-Piven covert sabotage of our economic system was being attempted. But it wasn’t — and isn’t.” Not by Romney, anyway.
HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY! We lunched at the Crown & Goose, which was all done up for the day, but only beginning to enjoy the influx of thirsty customers.
UPDATE: No, I won’t be going out to celebrate. I’m staying in and working on a writing project, though I may have a Guinness, and possibly a wee dram of Tullamore Dew, later.
Pics taken with the Lumix GX-1 using the 7-14 ultra-wideangle lens.
OH, GOODY: Pakistan Carts Its Nukes Around In Delivery Vans.
Tom Clancy should be suing Pakistani generals for ripping off the basic idea behind The Sum Of All Fears. You’ll recall that Pakistan is home to al-Qaida, a particularly fearsome version of the Taliban, the leadership of the old-school Taliban, its friends in the Haqqani Network and a host of anti-Indian terrorist groups that the Pakistani intelligence service employ as proxies. Sometimes the Pakistani military helps these terrorist and insurgent groups attack US troops in Afghanistan. And any one of these groups would love a chance to wield a nuclear weapon.
Except that Pakistan isn’t trying to safeguard its nukes from them. It’s trying to safeguard its nukes from us. The Navy SEAL raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden has made important Pakistani generals think that the US military’s next target is Pakistani nukes. So off the vans go, along what Ambinder and Goldberg term “congested and dangerous roads,” trying to throw off the scent of the US, with little more than hope to protect them from an adventurous highwayman.
The irony is that the US isn’t planning to steal Pakistan’s nukes — but Pakistan’s cavalier attitude toward nuclear security is making the US think twice about whether it should revise some worst-case-scenario contingency planning.
So why haven’t we addressed this problem with some of that “smart diplomacy” we were promised?
A SHOCKING DISCOVERY FOR THE FOLKS AT POLITICO:
President Barack Obama promised over and over during the health care debate that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”
It turns out that, for a lot of people, that isn’t true.
A Congressional Budget Office report issued this week says that 3 to 5 million people could move from employer-based health care plans to government-based programs as the Affordable Care Act takes effect. And in the worst-case scenario, it could be as many as 20 million.
For Obama, it’s an inconvenient truth at a really inconvenient time — coming less than two weeks before the Supreme Court begins oral arguments on the law and just as the administration touts the law’s early benefits on its second anniversary.
And it’s not the only hard truth Obama and the law’s supporters are facing. No matter what they said about rising health care costs, those costs aren’t actually going to go down under health care reform.
If only someone had pointed this out before the bill was passed. . . .
IT’S OKAY, HE’S A DEMOCRAT: Sen. Sherrod Brown denounces ‘niggardly’ colleagues. Otherwise it would be a dog-whistle, or something.
HE’S BACK: Whit Stillman and the Song of the Preppy. “When we started production he said, ‘I think 12 years is the right amount of time between movies.’” I didn’t realize that Stillman was an Avalon Hill fan. Plus, “I detest Parfit!”
SCIENCE: With Relentless Testing, A Professor Watches His Body Get Sick. “For two-and-a-half years, he’s had regular blood samples drawn, and tracked the ebb and flow of 40,000 different molecules within his cells, from hormones to blood sugar, to the proteins of the immune system and mutated genes. Snyder also watched as his genetic vulnerability to diabetes turned into actual disease. . . . His story marks the first time anyone’s physiology has ever been followed this closely, and portends the future of personalized medicine, according to Snyder and others.”
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OLD-FASHIONED S.F. LEAPS TO LIFE: A review of John Carter.
STILL MORE FUN WITH RUTHERFORD B. HAYES:
LOL. Related: Top 20 #BarackObamasPresidentialFacts Tweets.
Here’s one: “James A. Garfield loved lasagna and hated Mondays.”
BREITBART IS THERE: At OccupyMidwest. Heh. “I went out to grab some wine earlier and was walking home when I saw these posters. They’re all over. I only took photos of the ones on my side of the street but I could make out others down the block. Breitbart is here!” More pics at the link. The “Stop Raping People!” is a nice touch, too.
Related: Whose Town? Our Town!
VIDEO: Obama’s War On Women.
Related: In Early Obama White House Female Staffers Felt Frozen Out.
Gosh, I wonder why?
SO IS SHE A RICK SANTORUM SUPPORTER? Raquel Welch Thinks Porn Has Made Us All Sex Addicts.
UPDATE: Reader Jeff Johnson writes: “Raquel Welch really can’t say much since she made me a sex addict.”
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Bride Marries Herself. “Here comes the single bride. Last week, Nadine Schweigert married herself in a symbolic wedding ceremony. The 36-year-old divorced mom of three wore blue satin and clutched a bouquet of white roses as she walked down the aisle before a gathering of 45 friends and family members in Fargo, North Dakota.”
IN THE MAIL: From Catherine Crier, Patriot Acts: What Americans Must Do to Save the Republic.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Jews On The Run. “Jews are abandoning Third World countries where historically they had been persecuted and moving to large and generally free First World countries.”
ROSIE O’DONNELL’S TV SHOW WAS JUST CANCELED: “Did you even know she had one? Yes, it was on the ‘little-watched’ Oprah Winfrey network. It was little-watched on the little-watched network.”
Oprah’s brand sure has declined since 2008. Did she do something to alienate her audience back then?
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SOCIAL MEDIA MAKING SPRING BREAK TAMER?
In this era of “Jersey Shore” antics and “Girls Gone Wild,” where bikini tops vanish like unattended wallets, it would seem natural to assume that this generation of college student has outdone the spring break hordes of decades past on the carousal meter.
But today’s spring breakers — at least some of them — say they have been tamed, in part, not by parents or colleges or the fed-up cities they invade, but by the hand-held gizmos they hold dearest and the fear of being betrayed by an unsavory, unsanctioned photo or video popping up on Facebook or YouTube.
Late one March evening at Rick’s Bar on rum-soaked Duval Street, college students alternated Jell-O shots with iPhone shots.
“We are very, very reserved,” said Mia Klein, 22, a University of Connecticut senior from Amityville, N.Y., who stood around a table at Rick’s with friends and cups of beer. “You don’t want to have to defend yourself later, so you don’t do it.” The “it” being get sloppy, word-slurring drunk in an unvetted crowd.
“People do regret it later,” chimed in her friend and sorority sister Kelsey Tynik, who had just finished checking e-mail amid the screaming house music.
Life in the panopticon.
ARTISTIC INTEGRITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Mike Daisey Lies on This American Life; Theaters Won’t Cancel Performances or Issue Refunds. Hey, it’s not like he called someone a slut. And by “someone” I mean a Democratic party activist.
TESTOSTERONE: Threat, or menace?
WAR AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHY UPDATE: Man Wins $1.4 Million Settlement From Boston Police In Video Recording Incident.
A man who was tackled by a cop and placed in a chokehold while video recording a traffic investigation won a $1.4 million settlement this week.
Michael O’Brian said the 2009 incident left him brain-damaged and unable to return to work as a corrections officer for the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office.
The Boston police officer who tackled him, David Williams, was fired in January. . . .
In November 2011, Maury Povino filed a lawsuit against the Boston Police Department after they arrested him for video recording them.
Paulino was charged with felony wiretapping along with assault and battery on a police officer, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in the 2009 incident.
The wiretapping charge was quickly dropped and he beat the other charges in court.
At this stage, even filing the wiretapping charges should be grounds for additional discipline. And I guess I should provide one more plug for Morgan Manning’s article on photographers’ rights. Plus, my forthcoming piece in the Washington University law Review on a due-process-based right to record the police.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Real Hourly Earnings Decline in February. “Earnings are up a fraction of a percent in February, but the CPI is up four times as much. The result is ‘real’ earnings are down once again, having peaked in October 2010.”
PEGGY NOONAN: The Left’s War On Women.
It would have been good if President Obama had discussed this in his news conference, instead of dodging a question about misogyny on the left. He called Sandra Fluke, he explained, because he wants public life to be safe for his daughters, if they choose to enter it. He would have made a braver, truer, more meaningful statement if he’d noted that Bill Maher has become so rich on sexism he had a million dollars to give to Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. And now, so as to discourage the bad treatment of women, Mr. Obama is handing it back.
That would have made an impression. That could have been a step forward.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda: The story of this Administration.
REX MURPHY: Oil Sands Jobs Are Essential For The Human Environment. “There is another wider, larger, humane dimension to the environment — larger and more vital than any reference to landscape. That is the human and social element, the business of supplying reasonable support for workers and their families, towns and communities, and ultimately wealth for the entire nation. We owe something, it is true to the rocks and trees. We also owe something to human beings as well. . . . It mightn’t have the smug appeal of a panda face, and you will not see it on the vivid posters of the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, but having a job and earning a living is a great thing. Those who have been out of work know what a cruel ‘environment’ that is — an emotional and psychological assault of frightful power.”
AMERICA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS: San Diego student complains of being forced to urinate in bucket. “A tenured teacher at a San Diego high school has been put on paid leave while the district investigates an allegation that she refused to allow a 14-year-old student to leave class to go to the toilet and instead told the girl to urinate in a bucket.”
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): The Go-Nowhere Generation Speaks: ‘I’d Love to Move, but I Can’t.’
IS NEWT DESPERATE?
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DESTROY ALL CHURCHES: “If the pope called for the destruction of all the mosques in Europe, the uproar would be cataclysmic. Pundits would lambaste the church, the White House would rush out a statement of deep concern, and rioters in the Middle East would kill each other in their grief. But when the most influential leader in the Muslim world issues a fatwa to destroy Christian churches, the silence is deafening.”
It’s a temporary condition. Within a few years, the Knights Templar will be back. It’s all in the incentive system.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Angelica Huston: U.S. Returning To the Dark Ages.
A GOOD TACTIC is one your people enjoy.
PUBLIC EDUCATION UPDATE: Two More Teachers Accused Of Sexing Up Students.
WASTED DAYS ARE THE BEST: My brother and I spent the day touring music shops. (My wife is at the indie film festival, and my daughter is weekending with cousins). We managed to avoid buying anything, which is no small feat, and we had lunch at a Knoxville institution: the 25-year-old “Ali Baba’s Time Out Deli,” a hole-in-the-wall place that’s run by Arabs and serves “kosher-style deli sandwiches.” Although it’s in the middle of the ‘burbs, it has a campus-like ambience. The crowd today included a doctor in scrubs, a rather busty woman in shortshorts and a “Coyote” tank top, some young Arab guys, and a dreadlocked Jamaican. The food was good, as always, and cheap. Then we sat on the patio at Charlie Pepper’s and had a beer. Ah, a good day.
Don’t do that enough any more.
DON SURBER: My prediction: On January 21, 2013, Barack Obama will be out of the White House and Rush Limbaugh will be on the radio. “If I owned a business, I would take out an ad on the Rush Limbaugh show. Conservatives are loyal. They never forget.”
MORE FUN WITH RUTHERFORD B. HAYES:
UPDATE: A reader emails: “I’m enjoying the Rutherford B Hayes riffs. As a Civil War general, Hayes surely knew the value of the telegraph and would have had an even greater appreciation of the telephone. Obama can’t open a door without hitting himself in the face it seems. His memory and legacy will receive far more justifiable mockery over the next century than Hayes’ did during the last one.”
METAPHOR ALERT: Bad Smell Blanketing The DC Metro Area. “Reports of a really bad odor blanketing the metro area have been reported from downtown D.C. to Fairfax County to Oxon Hill!”
Related thoughts from Don Surber.
HMM: White Rice Link Seen With Type 2 Diabetes. “Health researchers said on Thursday they had found a troubling link between higher consumption of rice and Type 2 diabetes, a disease that in some countries is becoming an epidemic.”
And we’re back to Gary Taubes . . . .
THE ROAD WE’VE TRAVELED.
I DON’T BELIEVE THIS STORY. Why would Osama bin Laden have wanted to kill Barack Obama? Obama’s doing more damage to the country than Osama ever managed. . . .
EMILY MILLER ON FACEBOOK: “George Clooney paid $100 to post bail in DC. It cost me $465 to register a gun. It’s cheaper to be a criminal in this city.”
#NYTIMESFAIL: What If They Gave A Scandal And Nobody Came? “But hold the front page! The TR Price managers have put roughly 1% of their assets into Baidu, the Chinese search engine famous for its repression of dissent. Really, Barack? And another 1% is in Peabody Energy, ‘the largest private-sector coal company in the world’. Seriously, Michelle?”
