ROGER SIMON: Trump Kills on SNL: What It Means.

STEVEN HAYWARD: What The Yale Shame Should Teach Us.

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FUNNY HOW STUFF LIKE THIS IS ALWAYS LEFT OUT WHEN IT’S COVERAGE OF A LEFTY EVENT: Lost in the media’s reportage of Quentin Tarantino’s using rhetoric scripted by Black Lives Matter is the fact that the Rise Up October event at which Tarantino spoke was organized by revolutionary communists who advocate the armed overthrow of the United States of America.

WAR ON BOYS: “I don’t understand treating the football team differently. They’re the ‘the center of the sexting ring’? It sounds like a huge group of students — female and male — were communicating, sending selfies voluntarily. It’s obvious that the authorities won’t accuse them all of felonies. I can’t see any justification for treating the boys differently from the girls or for demonizing the football team.”

Because the football team is a symbol of the hated masculinity.

I’M NOT A LAWYER, BUT I PLAY ONE FOR A TV NETWORK: General Counsel For Al Jazeera Appears Not To Have A Law License.

AND YET PEOPLE IN THE GOVERNMENT THOUGHT OBAMACARE WOULD BE EASY: A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just 1 is online. “Heaving under mountains of paperwork, the government has spent more than $1 billion trying to replace its antiquated approach to managing immigration with a system of digitized records, online applications and a full suite of nearly 100 electronic forms. A decade in, all that officials have to show for the effort is a single form that’s now available for online applications and a single type of fee that immigrants pay electronically. The 94 other forms can be filed only with paper.”

Innovation At The Speed Of Government!

SIERRA LEONE: Finally Ebola-Free?

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Court records: City of Oak Ridge employee kept wife virtual prisoner under Sharia law. “A city of Oak Ridge employee paid the bride’s father $2,000 for his daughter in a forced marriage in Africa, court records allege, and then kept her as a virtual prisoner in their Oak Ridge home.”

HE’S JUST ANOTHER WHITE GUY SCAMMING PEOPLE OF COLOR: Black Activists Turn on Shaun King for Collapse of ‘Justice Together’ Org, Financial Irregularities.

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE: Hilton is the latest hotel suspected of blocking customers’ personal Wi-Fi.

It always seemed improbable that Marriott was the only one. Last year the hotel chain paid $600,000 to America’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to settle a complaint that it had blocked customers’ personal wireless modems and hotspots at “at least one” of its hotels, forcing customers to sign up for expensive in-house internet access instead. Now Hilton has found itself in hot water over the same charge. In August 2014, the FCC received a complaint from a customer alleging that the Hilton hotel in Anaheim, California, was also blocking visitors’ Wi-Fi hot spots unless they paid $500 to access the hotel’s own wireless service. The FCC says it has also received similar complaints involving other Hilton properties. . . .

Other than Marriott and Hilton, two other firms have been charged in connection with blocking guests’ Wi-Fi. In August 2015, Smart City Holdings, a telecoms firm, was fined $750,000 for blocking hotspots at several convention centres across America where it was providing internet access. The commission recently also said it intended to fine M.C. Dean, a technology firm, $718,000 “for apparent Wi-Fi blocking at the Baltimore Convention Centre”.

More power to the FCC’s elbow. After Marriott was caught, it lobbied for a change in the law that would allow it to interfere with its guests’ connections. Fortunately it backed down in the face of widespread incredulity.

Don’t mess with my personal wi-fi.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG ON Bernie Sanders’ Problematically Sexist Supporters. “[Sanders has] unleashed a minor plague of progressive white men confidently explaining feminism to the rest of us.”

UNEXPECTEDLY: Great news: the EPA’s new smog rules will only cost 40 times as much as they said.

ANALYSIS: LIKELY TRUE. “The advent of modern polling seems to be crippling the process it was intended to analyze.”

DONALD TRUMP ‘SNL’ EPISODE BEATS HILLARY’S RATING BY 47%: “Trump gave ‘Saturday Night Live’ its largest rating of the season this weekend, beating the previous high: The episode hosted by Miley Cyrus with special guest Hillary Clinton. Trump’s episode was seen by 47 percent more viewers, according to Nielsen.”

Related: “Review: Trump on SNL Was Dull, Unfunny.” “Feels like they deliberately underwrote this show,” Greg Gutfeld theorizes.” “They deliberately wrote nothing, as a protest. It’s like a restaurant cook spitting on someone’s food.”

WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST, FACE THE NATION HOST STRICKEN WITH MYSTERIOUS CASE OF COLLECTIVE AMNESIA:

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius blasted the GOP presidential candidates for daring to complain about the biased questions asked during last month’s CNBC debate.

Moderator John Dickerson teed up Ignatius by playing a clip of President Obama who mocked the Republicans’ debate complaints which prompted the Post columnist to declare the American public want someone who does more than “whines about media coverage.”

Really? Because for the last six years, we’ve seen constant headlines such as these:

• WhiteHouse.gov Plays Media Critic: Calls Krauthammer’s Washington Post Column ‘Wholly Inaccurate.’
• White House Defends Attacks on Fox News: ‘They Will Say Anything.’
• Video: White House Emails MSNBC During Joe Scarborough Show.
• Vice President Joe Biden accuses ‘people’ of very bad journalism.
• White House uses Twitter to bully critics.
• Sharyl Attkisson Testifies: If You Cross The Obama Administration, You Will Be Attacked and Punished.

Oh, and as a casual aside, John Dickerson, the host of Face the Nation, wrote a column at the start of 2013 for Slate, when it was still owned by the Washington Post, advising Mr. Obama to “Go for the Throat! Why if he wants to transform American politics, Obama must declare war on the Republican Party.” It carries the alternative headline, “Why Obama Should Seek To Destroy the Republican Party.”

PETER EGAN: The Most Egregious Fake Flourishes on Cars Today.

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SKYNET SMILES: This Surveillance Drone Never Needs To Land.

WHAT AIRPORTS LOOKED LIKE IN THE 1970s. Downside: Dull late-period modernism, ubiquitous earth-toned color schemes. Upside: Better-dressed passengers — and most importantly, no giant Ministry of Truth-style CNN monitors. (No CNN at all of course; it wouldn’t be invented until 1980.) Advantage — something I very rarely say — 1970s.

IN WHICH I AM REPROVED ON GENDER EQUALITY by Delaware State Senator Karen Peterson.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Oxford University Releases Map of Acceptable (and Taboo) Touch Zones.

THIS IS BASICALLY AN ADMISSION THAT MUCH OF THE STUDENT BODY IS MENTALLY ILL: Yale administrators apologize for not creating “safe spaces” on campus. “So it’s no longer good enough to admonish the actual practitioners of controversial speech (assuming there’s anything controversial actually taking place.) Now the faculty needs to go on the chopping block if they don’t proactively go out and squelch any offensive thoughts.”

So far, my covert plan to bring down the Ivy League using moles from within is working beautifully.

RECIPE: Breeder’s Cup Bourbon Cocktail. This seems a bit fussy to me, but then I tend to like my whiskey neat, or with just a little water and ice.

IN THE MAIL: From David Hopkins, PhD, First Defense: Anxiety and Instinct for Self Protection.

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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 913.

UNEXPECTEDLY! Cost Of Cheapest ObamaCare Plans Is Soaring.

Contrary to expectations, the mandate really doesn’t seem to be doing much to get people to buy insurance, at least yet (the penalty is set to go up again this year, and that may get people to pay attention). The subsidies, on the other hand, clearly have a large effect, which is why the customer base for the exchanges is so disproportionately composed of folks who are getting large amounts of taxpayer assistance to buy insurance. Anything that increases the gap between the cost of the insurance and the subsidy they are getting is therefore worrisome, if you want the exchanges to get and stay healthy.

It is possible to find out what different rates are being charged by insurers in many states; I have a giant spreadsheet of the 2016 rate increases for those states that make them available, and boy does that make me popular at cocktail parties. Unfortunately, we still don’t know what rate increases people are facing, because we don’t know what individuals had in 2015, or what they’ll buy in 2016.

This is frustrating. But a consulting company, Avalere Health, has provided at least slightly more data than we had before, supplementing the administration’s release of the information on benchmark plans by looking at the cost of the cheapest Bronze and Silver policies. It’s still far more limited than one would like, but looking at those rates does give us additional information.

The biggest thing they tell us is that, as I suspected when I wrote about the CMS release, the whole bottom of the market is undergoing a fairly massive repricing. In most states, the cost of the cheapest Silver plan, relative to the cheapest one last year, rose even more than the benchmark rate. And in most states, the cost of the cheapest Bronze plan went up by more than the cost of the cheapest Silver plan.

Good news! You’re now required to buy health insurance that you can’t afford! Also, the deductibles are huge. . . .

HMM: Survey Finds Gamers Will Be Pivotal to 2016 Presidential Election.

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IF I WERE THE PRESIDENT, I’D USE THIS AS AN EXCUSE TO CANCEL THE FOOTBALL PROGRAM: Missouri football players to boycott season until university president steps down.

A VOICE OF SANITY: Female student pens scathing review of ‘rape culture’ for college course.

A pre-med student attending college in California has penned a scathing review of the current climate surrounding sexual assault on college campuses.

The student, who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote her essay in response to a public-health class assignment asking students to watch a video in which Emma Sulkowicz, the former Columbia University student who carried a mattress around protesting what she claimed was rape, discusses her mattress project. Students were asked a series of questions pertaining to the video, including “What do you think of her approach in responding to her case of rape?” (notice the absence of “alleged”) and “Look into her story and see how her alleged rapist responded. How do you think the university handled this delicate situation?”

The student responded by condemning Sulkowicz’s behavior as “a parody of all the worst parts of radical or ‘Tumblr’ feminists” and said she was “ashamed to even belong to the same species as her.” The student was outraged by Sulkowicz’s accusation, especially after having followed the accused student’s side closely.

“Not only was Emma’s false accusation abhorrent and did she inflict physical and emotional trauma on Paul [the man Sulkowicz accused], but her response to the widespread media attention is the most immature and attention-seeking action she could’ve possibly taken,” the student wrote.

True.

SHE’S RIGHT. FOR THAT, WE HAVE EVERY NEWS MEDIA ORGANIZATION IN AMERICA. Fiorina defends not correcting ‘black Muslim’ remark about Obama.

Carly Fiorina is defending her decision not to correct a man who characterized President Obama as a “black Muslim” at a diner in New Hampshire.

Fiorina said it wasn’t her job to defend the president, noting that he “isn’t on the ballot.”

“I’ve said on many occasions: President Obama tells me he’s a Christian; I take him at his word,” she said on Fox News on Friday. “But the truth is, President Obama isn’t on the ballot.”

The former Hewlett-Packard CEO said it’s her job to defeat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“The person who’s on the ballot, who’s going to be on the ballot on the Democratic side, is Hillary Clinton,” Fiorina said.

“And so I talk about the issues that face our nation, and I talk about how it is that I can beat Hillary Clinton, because in the end, we have to win the White House,” she added.

While Fiorina was campaigning in New Hampshire on Friday, a man referred to Obama as a “black Muslim” and said “he doesn’t want this country to get ahead.”

Why would anyone think that?

ADDITION THROUGH SUBTRACTION? “Overall, there’s nothing wrong with the Democrats that losing the presidency probably won’t fix, and by the same token, the best way for the Republicans to risk their majorities in the Senate, House, and governorships is to win the White House in 2016,” claims a Vox.com article titled “The Democrats’ woes are overstated.”

Or as Matt Vespa paraphrases at Hot Air, “Democrats have been decimated at the state level, but a presidential loss could turn things around.”

But will Hillary be willing to take one for the team? (And note that in 2011, it was conservatives who were reading the following year’s tea leaves and writing “winning by losing” articles, such as Noemie Emery’s piece in the Washington Examiner titled “For 2012, GOP’s best hope may be losing.”)

TWO CNNs IN ONE!

● “Climate change is killing our sex drive, bringing down U.S. birth rate, study says.”

—CNN headline, this past Friday.

● “Ted Turner Wants Population Reduction Through China’ s ‘One Child Policy.'”

—Headline linking to a YouTube clip of Turner’s 2008 appearance on the Charlie Rose Show talking population control, which has long been one of Turner’s obsessions. As the CNN founder told Rose, “We’re too many people. That’s why we have global warming. We have global warming because too many people are using too much stuff. If there were less people, they’d be using less stuff.”

Related: Actual New York Times headline and subhead: “The Ozone Hole Is Mending. Now for the ‘But.’ — Scientists Say Ozone Hole’s Repair May Worsen Global Warming.”

Doesn’t everything? (And yes, last year, the New York Times also went down the same Malthusian “Reducing Carbon by Curbing Population” route as Turner.)

IF YOU STRIKE ME DOWN. . . Carson thanks ‘biased media’ for $3.5M fundraising haul.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson claims his campaign has pulled in $3.5 million in fundraising dollars this week thanks to “biased media” coverage.

“We the People have made 10,000 donations each day this week, raising $3.5M this week alone. Thank you biased media,” Carson tweeted Saturday.

Carson’s dig at the media comes amid heightened scrutiny of the his extraordinary life story as he has risen to the top of the GOP primary polls.

Punch back twice as hard.

CONSERVATIVES NEED TO RALLY AROUND BEN CARSON: “As a group we have to say: ‘Enough of this. We won’t allow you to destroy conservative minorities any longer.’”

OLD WOMAN YELLS AT CLOUDS: Hillary Clinton: Climate change has contributed to refugee crises, including Syria.

Related: Video shows Hillary Clinton boarding private jet just hours after launching global-warming push – and she’s using a FRENCH aircraft that burns 347 gallons of fuel every hour!

IT’S ALWAYS NICE to make Twitchy.

INSOMNIA THEATER (SILVERGLATE EDITION): This week our beloved co-founder of FIRE, Harvey Silverglate, decided to step down from his position as chairman of FIRE’s Board of Directors. Harvey served as chairman for ten years and will remain an active board member. I encourage everyone to read Harvey’s official comments on the founding of FIRE, his ten years as Chairman, and what his future holds.

On a personal note, Harvey is the man who found me post-law school and brought me to FIRE. He has been a mentor and friend to me ever since, and I am deeply honored to know him.

This week’s video features Harvey discussing the importance of free speech and academic freedom, as well as Harvard’s deception when it comes to academic freedom.

SEE THE DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENTS: Why Are Middle-Aged Whites Dying At Such High Rates?

NOPE: For You, Volkswagen, Ze PR Battle Iz Not Yet Over. I recommend the stage-3 Hillary Clinton Defense. Stage 1: We didn’t do anything. Stage 2: If we did, it was a mistake. Stage 3: Emissions laws are stupid and nobody could be expected to understand them.

UNSETTLED SCIENCE: Peer Review Fraud on the Rise at Scientific Journals: Two large publishers of scientific journals have retracted more than 100 papers in the last year. Every successful system accumulates parasites. Western science has been very, very successful.

WELL, WITH THE WORST POLITICAL CLASS IN HISTORY, THERE’S PLENTY TO BE ANGRY ABOUT: Americans’ Mood Darkened by Widespread Anger, New WSJ/NBC News Poll Finds.

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THE 21st CENTURY IN A SINGLE HEADLINE: “War memorial to be left blank for fear of mistakes.”

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Western Pacifism Has Driven Warfare Underground, At Some Cost. “The infrastructure to support the secret wars has been growing over the years. The rise of foreign and domestic surveillance deserves an essay all to itself. But today, a network of secret bases, landing strips, agents in place, spotters and communications networks has been laid over the length and breadth of the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Fleets of unmarked planes, swarms low visibility drones and and secret warriors make up a ghostly army that is endlessly engaged.”

It might have been easier, safer, and cheaper, to deliver a sound, brutal defeat at the front end. And by “might have been,” I mean “would have been.”

ROGER KIMBALL: People Of Color At Yale. “Of all bogus politically correct phrases, I think ‘people of color’ is the most reliably emetic. What, after all, does it mean?”

It means people who are privileged on campus by virtue of their pigmentation.

JOURNALISM: NY Times Public Editor Acknowledges Errors in Nail Salon Expose In Response to Reason’s Reporting. But notice their excuse for taking so long: “Until now, The Times has not responded to that series because editors believe they defended the nail salon investigation fully [to a previous critique] and because they think the magazine, which generally opposes regulation, is reporting from a biased point of view.”

Epistemic closure, anyone?

FRONTIERS IN HYPOCRISY: Bernie Sanders bashes “unregulated” Uber, uses it for 100% of his taxi rides.

HEH: Take a bow Obama, Democrats: You’re becoming this year’s best gun sales team.

Also, this is a clever reverse-psychology tactic to get people to arm up against the alien invasion.

BUT HECK, ISN’T EVERYTHING? Agriculture is “capitalist, racialized patriarchy,” declares Ithaca College professor:

Zillah Eisenstein, a professor politics at Ithaca College, declared in a lecture last Friday that agriculture is “capitalist, racialized patriarchy.”

* * * * * * * *

Though an author of 12 books with titles such as Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism and her memoir Manmade Breast Cancers, Eisenstein has never worked in or studied agriculture. The professor explained that she was speaking as part of a seminar series on women in agriculture by stating, “[m]y point here is you’re thinking agriculture and I’m thinking capitalist racialized patriarchy.”

With those qualifications, she’s a shoe-in for the next Secretary of Agriculture in Barry, Bernie or Hillary’s administration.

IMMIGRATION: PICTURES: AfD Protest In Berlin Demands Stronger Borders, Calls For Merkel To Resign.

BRITISH GOVERNMENT CONFIRMS PASSENGER JET DODGED A MISSILE IN EGYPT EARLIER THIS YEAR: “In other developments, European aviation experts who have examined the two flight recorders from the doomed Russian jet are categorically saying the crash was not an accident. And the head of the Egyptian team investigating the crash says a noise was heard in the last second of the cockpit recording that could indicate a bomb going off.”

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: One-directional rotation in a new artificial molecular motor.

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DONALD TRUMP SAYS HE REJECTED ‘SNL’ SKITS THAT WERE ‘TOO RISQUÉ.’

Of course, it’s the sketches he’s not appearing in where SNL could inflict their damage — as then-writer Rosie Shuster (who was also married to the show’s producer and creator Lorne Michaels) said when Gerald Ford’s press secretary Ron Nessen appeared in the show’s first season, “The President’s watching. Let’s make him cringe and squirm.”

They did just that, as Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, the show’s early historians wrote in 1985. “The writers knew that Nessen would be on guard for material that was politically dangerous. Thus, they went in a different direction — ‘feinted left and went right,’ as one put it — by writing instead some of the raunchiest material ever presented on Saturday Night.”

On the other hand, Trump’s personal brand is already just a tiny bit more downmarket than Gerald Ford’s was prior to NBC savaging him on a weekly basis, so he’s probably bulletproof. The other issue he’ll have to deal with: “’Saturday Night Live’ on Heckling High-Alert for Donald Trump Appearance,” the Hollywood Reporter claims.

I wonder if Lorne is weighing the pros and cons of watching his host heckled on national TV, and Trump sending his security guards out on national TV to deal with hecklers, ala the Jorge Ramos incident. It would certainly make for great theater.

MILO YIANNOPOULOS: Kotaku Hates Steam Curators, So I’ve Become One, Obviously.

11 WAYS TO NOT BE A TOTAL JERK ON AIRPLANES: “Seriously, just don’t be a psychopath.”

For most passengers, all of this is common sense. Of course, the problem with articles such as this one is that the people who need the advice the most will never see it — or they’ll assume they’re not the person it was intended for.

SORRY, MEDIA, YOU WON’T DESTROY BEN CARSON:

At the end of the day, what are we left with? An admirable though imperfect man who rose from abject poverty to the pinnacle of one of the most challenging professions in the nation — all while never forgetting his roots, maintaining grace and humility even as he earned riches and honors. In fact, his life story — and his character — would make him one of the most inspiring Americans ever to occupy the Oval Office. But he’s a direct threat not just to leftist narratives regarding race and class but also to the leftist stranglehold on the black vote. And for that reason alone he must be destroyed.

A “high-tech lynching” is again underway, but if recent history is any guide, the Left’s attempt to strike down Carson will only make him stronger. The media can launch its attacks, but it cannot change the fundamental facts: Ben Carson is a good and decent man, an American hero.

Related: The Audacity of Myth: How the Media Ignored Obama’s Lies About His Own Biography and Memoir.

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” In 2015 US denies oil market access to its ally Canada but grants access to Iran.

REPORT: Full Text Of TPP Released: And It’s Really, Really Bad.

WHEN THE PAST IS HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC: Breaking Taboos: Sensitive Topics in Your Historical Roleplaying Game Campaign.

CUSTOMER SERVICE: Don’t say “data cap”: Highlights from a Comcast customer service script.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Spanking May Not Be Harmful to Children and Appropriate Corporal Punishment May Benefit Them.

REVIEW: Generac iQ2000 Inverter Generator.

It’s reasonably priced.

IN THE MAIL: DBT® Skills Training Manual, Second Edition.

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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 912.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Politicians, press pile on Politico. If the GOP is smart, they’ll unite against their common enemy — the press. If they want to win, it’s important to establish now, during the primaries, that no Crowleyism will be permitted in the general election, and that individual reporters and editors will pay a price for trying.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? EU Projects Three Million Refugees and Migrants in 2016.

If this is true, Europe will explode. This is triple the 2015 yearly rate of about a million (which itself was an over three-fold increase from the 282,000 that came in 2014). That current rate has already led to the rise of the far right, serious stresses on national and local governments, and the partial breakdown of the Schengen system. So far, many of these stresses have been manageable and perhaps reversible—but if things get three times as bad as they are right now, that will all change. Strong polls for the far right will likely become an election (or elections) in which a party like the Sweden Democrats or Front National takes office; Schengen hiccups could become an outright collapse of the system; and both inter- and intra-national tensions will skyrocket.

The majority of immigrants are streaming to Germany and Sweden, with the Germans expecting to accept this year 800,000 newcomers or more into a nation of 80 million. As we have noted before, that’s about the same rate as the U.S. took in during the “Great Wave” of immigration, our historic peak, in 1880-1924. That wave eventually resulted in a popular backlash in the U.S. that shut down immigration almost completely for two generations. If Europe, which is far less culturally, legally, economically, and popularly prepared to take in immigrants than the United States was then, is hit by a rate triple that, expect politics as the Continent knows them to change dramatically.

Indeed.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Dorms for Grownups: A Solution for Lonely Millennials?

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THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Hackers breach FBI-run site, email account of top bureau official. “The hackers, who call themselves Crackas With Attitude, on Friday posted personal data of law enforcement officials that appears to have been stolen from the Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal. The site connects local and federal law enforcement officials and allows local, state and federal agencies to share information, including of ongoing investigations. Three U.S. law enforcement officials confirmed the site, also known as LEO.gov, was breached and user personal data was stolen.”

ASHE SCHOW: College student speaks out about ‘rape culture,’ ‘hookup culture.’

A student at the College of William and Mary took to the opinion pages of the student newspaper to express his views about so-called rape culture.

The student, sophomore Thomas Briggs, insisted that America doesn’t have a “rape culture,” but it does have a “hookup culture” where students get drunk and engage in sexual activity. Briggs described what he sees as rape culture in the Middle East, and provided an example of a Saudi gang-rape victim who was sentenced to 200 lashes for being in a car with a man. She was punished for her suffering on the false pretext that she had caused her own rape.

“What aspects of our society lie within the realm of a rape culture?” Briggs wrote. “There is simply no systemic tolerance for rape, no prosecution of victims and the general disgust for rape and rapists may only be trumped by the general disgust for pedophilia or murder; indicating that it is not, contrary to what many say, an institutionalized part of our ‘culture.'”

Briggs wrote that by redefining hookups as rape, society has started to “overlook the true contributing factors in these instances: alcohol and the disregard for personal responsibility and safety that hookup culture so shamelessly advocates.”

The comments section on Briggs’ post is exactly what you would expect, with some vehemently denying his premise and insisting that rape culture exists and is prevalent, with others supporting his article.

Much of the dissent seems to focus on “victim-blaming,” the act of supposedly telling a victim they are at fault for the crime perpetrated against them. This is an abhorrent thing to do, as everyone can agree, but what gets labeled as victim-blaming these days includes a broad range of issues, including common-sense crime prevention techniques such as being aware of one’s surroundings. These prevention measures are still suggested for every other crime, but when suggested as techniques to prevent rape, they’re called victim-blaming.

Indeed.

PRESCIENCE REWARDED:

Like many of you, I look at Europe, and think: this cannot end well. I can imagine civil order breaking down in Greece, riots, political paralysis, and a coup. Is it absurd to imagine Italy splitting? A German co-prosperity sphere with Euro-rule transferred from Brussels to Berlin? Perhaps I’ve been watching too many WW2 documentaries lately, but they have a necessary reminder: things fail. And another: tribalism is bred in the marrow. Everything modern about Europe is transnational – the architecture, the politics, the thin smear of high culture that passes for art, it has a brash modern style divorced from national identities. Divorced from Europe’s sullen husband, History.

People don’t want to be cut off from national identity; the more you suppress it, the nastier it gets when it’s let out of the hole. I think the idea of war in Europe is ridiculous – the question of “over what” is matched only by “with what,” but it just seems as if some Great Shuddering is due.

—James Lileks, the Bleat, June 20th, 2012.

● “STICK A FORK IN EUROPE: It’s Done.”

—Headline, Director Blue, this past Thursday.

Related: Found via Kathy Shaidle, Mark Steyn adds,”Frau Merkel will have achieved what Bomber Harris and the Red Army couldn’t: she will have wiped Germany off the map.”

NOPE. STICK IT TO ‘EM AND THEIR UNION PALS. Reid, Pelosi pushing for repeal of ObamaCare’s ‘Cadillac tax.’ You guys rammed it through on an abusive party-line vote, using “reconciliation” inappropriately to keep Scott Brown from stopping you. Eat it.

UNION: OBAMA THREW WORKERS UNDER THE BUS: “LIUNA represents about 500,000 workers in the construction industry, one of the sectors hardest hit by the 2008 economic collapse. Keystone, which was expected to create 42,000 construction jobs, has been awaiting approval for about seven years. [Terry O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America] said that Obama’s attempt to minimize job gains demonstrated his ‘utter disdain’ for blue-collar workers.”

Hey rube! What took you so long? The rest of us figured that out even before Obama took office.

FELL THE LIES: Bernie Sanders Says ‘I disagree with Hillary Clinton on virtually everything’. Even though They voted the same way 93 percent of the time in the two years they shared in the Senate.

And the two certainly agree on the importance of obfuscation to advance the cause of socialism — so much so that Bernie essentially ended his campaign rather than actually landing a punch against hers when it counted.

ASSIMILATION — YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG: Really? Illegal Immigrant Group Proposes Their Own Bill of Rights.

CAMPUS STABBER PLANNED TO ‘PRAISE ALLAH’ AND BEHEAD SOMEONE DURING ATTACK.

Related: MO-TIVATION UNKNOWN: “These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves a fellow called Mohammed.”

MICHELLE MALKIN: Who’s burning black churches? Oh.

I WOULD SAY THAT THESE ARE AMERICA’S FUTURE LEADERS — BUT, ACTUALLY, I DOUBT IT OF THESE UNHINGED TWITS: Yale Students Demand Resignations from Faculty Members Over Halloween Email.

Tensions at Yale University hit a boiling point yesterday after an email about Halloween costumes created a week-long controversy on campus.

Students called for the resignation of Associate Master of Silliman College Erika Christakis after she responded to an email from the school’s Intercultural Affairs Council asking students to be thoughtful about the cultural implications of their Halloween costumes. According to The Washington Post, students are also calling for the resignation of her husband, Master of Silliman College, Nicholas Christakis, who defended her statement.

FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff recorded video of students confronting Nicholas Christakis yesterday in the courtyard of the Silliman College dormitory complex at Yale. Lukianoff was on Yale’s campus to speak at a conference on issues related to free speech in higher education.

Yale’s admissions committee would seem to be falling down on the job. Video at the link.

And, really, if you want to undercut the value of a Yale degree, just keep this crap up. Nobody respects you.

SO, THEY TOO HAD POLITICIANS? Giant Rat Fossils Help Track Human Activity in Southeast Asia.

THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY IS NOT ALL ABOUT LIGHT SABERS: Distant world’s weather is mixed bag of hot dust, molten rain.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Earthquakes: Fact versus Fiction.

BACKBONES HAVE BEEN AROUND A LONG TIME: Complex skeletons evolved earlier than realized, fossils suggest.

LIKE ANYTHING ELSE, COMPATIBLE IS BETTER: Dating and politics — a perilous mix.

YEP: This Isn’t A Culture War. It’s A War On Culture.

BECAUSE THEY NEVER TRIED THE REST OF THE WORLD: ‘Shark Tank’ star Robert Herjavec says only Americans think there are no opportunities in America.  (Video.)

OH, LIGHT BRINGER, SON OF THE MORNING MEDIA, HOW HAST THOU FALLEN: The Obama Legacy: Over 1,000 Democratic Seats Lost to Republicans.

SOME CATS ARE USEFUL:  Apparently.  Not that I have any experience of this. Cat Helps Man Pull a Cable Through a Hole. (Video.)

AND WHY I’M NOW DEAD: How I told my parents I’m a porn star.  (Well, I’d be dead if I told my parents that, even at my age.  Eh.)

ONE OF THEM IS TO LEAVE THEM VULNERABLE TO THEIR OWN NARRATIVE: Academia’s Rejection of Ideological Diversity Has Consequences.

I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED LIKE A MAN SNUGGLING WITH AN ELECTRIC EEL: Adventures in Immigration Non-Enforcement.

WELL!  IT IS THE 21st CENTURY: There’s Finally Battle-Safe Foam Lightsabers That Actually Glow.

NO ECONOMY NO JUSTICE: A $15 wage could cost half a million NY jobs.

NO. IN MY CASE IT’S BECAUSE I FORGOT THE ECZEMA MEDS: This Is Why You Scratch an Itch.

JUST BECAUSE: A Raquel Welch Photo Gallery.

WELL, THAT’S A BUMMER OF A DIAGNOSIS: Man’s Headaches Turn Out to Be Tapeworm in Brain.

METEORS: Be Alert For Taurid Fireballs This Week.

AT AMAZON, Sale on Truck Parts & Accessories.