VAN PLOWS INTO PEDESTRIANS OUTSIDE OF MOSQUE IN LONDON: “One report says that the man arrested shouted ‘kill all the Muslims’ during the attack. You can draw your own conclusions about the veracity of that statement. We will certainly hear more about this incident as the day goes on. Right now, we can only hope there were no fatalities and that the injured are not too badly hurt.”
FROM JACK SHAFER AT POLITICO: “MEGYN KELLY PANTSES ALEX JONES:”
“The censorious powers of the heckler’s veto have evolved now to the point that people are willing to call for the banning and shunning of works of journalism not yet published. Former Fox News Channel and current NBC News anchor Megyn Kelly got the treatment this week as news of her Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly interview with InfoWars mainspring Alex Jones, well before it was scheduled to air July 18, made the rounds. At least the Ayatollah Khomeini waited for the publication of Satanic Verses before he issued a fatwa ordering the murder of its author, Salman Rushdie.”
Heh, indeed.™
YOU STAY CLASSY, MSNBC: Host Joy Reid Labels Rep. Scalise an ‘Extremist’ While He Lies in Hospital Bed.
ANDREW KLAVAN: THE ATTACK ON ‘JULIUS CAESAR’ WAS WRONG IN EVERY WAY.
A wide swatch of Andrew’s readers don’t seem to agree with him. What’s your take? Let us know in the comments, either here, or at Andrew’s column.
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I’m LOOKING FORWARD TO GUEST-BLOGGING while Glenn and Helen are m̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶e̶a̶l̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶P̶u̶t̶i̶n̶ on vacation and contributing some thoughtful or at least interesting stuff! www.charlesglasser.net
IRAN FIRES MISSILES AT ISLAMIC STATE TARGETS IN SYRIA: The missiles were launched in western Iran. Their flight path traversed northern Iraq. According to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the missiles struck targets “in the Deir Ezzor region in Eastern Syria.” The missiles were “retaliation” for the Islamic State terror attacks in Tehran (June 7).
MORE FROM THE COMBAT ZONE: U.S. Navy Super Hornet shoots down Syrian jet. Here’s a rather cool photo of two Super Hornets — one’s on the verge of breaking the sound barrier. Or maybe just broke it.
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DOWNBEAT REVIEW: Downbeat Magazine reviews the Ojai, California classical music festival (held June 8 to June 11). The Ojai Festival is now “safe for jazz.” The article goes on a bit but it’s a good read for fans of classical and jazz music.
HOUSING POLICIES THAT LED TO 2008 COLLAPSE STILL IN PLACE, SAYS FREDDIE MAC ECONOMIST.
What could go wrong?
SPIRIT RIDER IN THE SKY: Fine photo of a B-2 bomber banking — an interesting angle. It was taken at an air show held at Scott Air Force Base. I’d like to have been at the air show and seen this fly-by firsthand.
TRULY A BOOK FOR OUR TIMES: The Social Justice Warrior Handbook. “Whether you’re a militant feminist, social media activist, workplace warrior, privileged college student, or Hollywood actress desperate to be taken seriously, The Social Justice Warrior Handbook will help you navigate the complex, exciting world of activism with minimal effort.”
Every policy difference, no matter how trivial, has been cast as a matter of life and death. Proposed changes in federal Medicaid reimbursement practices will consign “tens of thousands of people” to early death, according to Senator Bernie Sanders, while rolling back federal guidelines on transgender bathroom signage will cause more teenagers to kill themselves, according to ThinkProgress. Abandonment of the non-enforceable and voluntary Paris Accord on Climate
Change will doom the world to “catastrophe” and imminent mass extinction, according to Jill Stein.
In the last few weeks, the violent rhetoric crossed a fever line. CNN personality Kathy Griffin posed deadpan holding a severed and bloody head resembling Donald Trump; on television the next day, she tearfully denounced the many “old white men” who have supposedly bullied her. New York’s venerable Shakespeare in the Park is currently performing a modern-dress version of Julius Caesar, in which a Trump-qua-Caesar character is murdered every night in a particularly bloody and graphic staging.Following the shooting, liberal Twitter erupted in cynical snark. Op-ed writer Malcolm Harris wondered if the shooter could plead self-defense, in the event he had a pre-existing condition. Sonia Gupta, a Louisiana former prosecutor, counseled her followers not to be too sad about the wounding of Representative Steve Scalise, because “he’s a racist piece of shit and hateful bigot.” David Frum, though not a liberal, reminded us that “the president is the country’s noisiest inciter of political violence,” though the violence he has supposedly incited appears to be mostly from the other side.
As Iowahawk asled today on Twitter, “I’m genuinely curious. Has this assassination attempt caused anyone to engage in self reflection, other than Ted Nugent?”
WEEKLY STANDARD: Don’t Look Now, but Congress Is Getting Stuff Done.
THEY DID NOT SEE THAT COMING: “Leftists said if Trump won, that there’d be violent mobs of hate, and intolerant fascists would try to silence those with whom they disagree. And they were right. It just was by a group of people from which they didn’t expect it: themselves. What is happening, in the larger sense? Historians will study this election and our times as unique, but what seems to be unfolding in politics and America overall is stunning not only in its scope, but hypocrisy.”
As the photo atop the article suggests, today’s violence from the left isn’t happening entirely “unexpectedly.”
Related: Extremism Experts Are Just Starting To Worry About The Left Now?
Bill Ayers, Leonard Bernstein, and the folks who brought you the blue-on-blue riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention could not be reached for comment.
BATTLE FOR MOSUL CONTINUES: Iraqi units are pushing into the Old City. The ISIS holdouts are dug in for a last stand.
RELATED: The slow build to the battle of Mosul. The column is from October 2016.
JOEL KOTKIN: IS AMERICA NOW SECOND RATE? And note this:
Xi has played the gullible West with a skill that would have delighted his fellow autocrat, Joseph Stalin, who did much the same in the 1930s. (“Purges? What purges?”) Of course, Xi does not have to worry much about criticism from the media — or anywhere else. Trump may tweet insanely and seek needless fights with the media, but critics of the Chinese Communist Party end up in prison — or worse. To accuse Trump of loving dictators and then embrace Xi seems a trifle dishonest.
It does rather undercut the narrative the left created to save face after Hillary imploded, that Trump is the Manchurian Candidate, when, as Kotkin notes, Jerry Brown is swanning about with the man in who’s actually in control of Manchuria.
Read the whole thing.
IN THE MAIL: Just in time for Father’s Day, Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto.
NOTE THAT THIS IDIOTIC EFFORT TO OUTLAW “CULTURAL APPROPRIATION” IS BEING PUSHED BY AN AMERICAN LAW DEAN:
Speaking to the committee Monday, James Anaya, dean of law at the University of Colorado, said the UN’s negotiated document should “obligate states to create effective criminal and civil enforcement procedures to recognize and prevent the non-consensual taking and illegitimate possession, sale and export of traditional cultural expressions.” . . .
Anaya is one of several Indigenous leaders at this round of negotiations who are questioning just how seriously some member states are taking the negotiations.
The committee has been working on three draft documents for 16 years, and member states are now going through them line by line.
It is a painstaking, slow process, and some Indigenous leaders say they are frustrated and disenchanted about the committee’s future.
Good, because it shouldn’t be taken seriously. Nobody owns a culture — and if someone can, then these people are appropriating the Anglo-American legal culture of complaint, and should be forced to stop. . . .
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NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why We Should Look For Alien Megastructures Around Pulsars.
SO I’M HEADING OFF TO A SECURE, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, and leaving the blog in the capable hands of my co-bloggers, and with some additional guestblogging from Charles Glasser, a media law expert, guitarist, Jaguar collector/restorer, and generally cool guy. I’ll be pretty much offline, which at this point is a much-needed respite. See you later!
PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Wesleyan must pay fraternity nearly $400,000 for shutting it down over coed dispute.
Warning to social justice warriors in presidential palaces: Juries don’t automatically share your enlightened authoritarianism.
A jury found that Wesleyan University President Michael Roth grossly exceeded his authority when he shut down Delta Kappa Epsilon’s house shortly after it submitted a plan to comply with the school’s new coed mandate on the eve of the 2015-2016 academic year, Hartford Courant reports.
DKE sued the school more than two years ago, claiming it let every other identity group live together in its own housing but fraternities.
Roth’s emails brought to light during the trial suggested he was only willing to take on the fraternities if Wesleyan – a Yale wannabe that’s opening a $220,000-a-year center for social justice – could obtain their valuable real estate in the end.
Shortly after DKE’s lawsuit, the school’s last remaining residential fraternity (and early adopter of the coed mandate) accused Wesleyan of shutting it down on the pretext of a drug bust whose drugs the school refused to name. (It has since recovered its status.)
See, on TV it’s always greedy capitalist businessmen who act this way.
Now the fraternities need to go on the offensive, demanding pro-Bro diversity training for all administrators, and pushing gender diversity at the Title IX office.
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WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUCH A CESSPIT OF SEXISM AND MISOGYNY? Female Democratic senators ignore 2 women activists at hearing on Islamism, pose questions only to male witness.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A CROOK TO BE NEW YORK’S ATTORNEY GENERAL. BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO NOT BE A CROOK, EITHER. Schneiderman Used a Secret Alternate Email Address While Pursuing #ExxonKnew Crusade. “All of this occurred after Schneiderman’s office claimed that a search for personal email addresses was not necessary because their office has a policy that personal email is ‘prohibited.'”
Rules are for the little people.
WITH MY BROTHER BRAD AND MY DAD, on a Father’s Day several years ago.
READ THE NEW NATHAN LOWELL BOOK. It’s good. He gets more mileage out of ordinary stuff than just about any writer I know — I think it was Quarter Share where I realized I’d been rapt for 100 pages over basically preparing some meals for the ship’s crew and selling some stuff at a flea market — but in this new book stuff actually happens.
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THOSE PEOPLE LEAVING IN LIFE BOATS, THE BUSINESS MODEL IS JUSSSST FINE: ESPN reshuffles management amid subscriber struggles.
OH, PLEASE. MAYBE COMEY NEEDS TO BE IN A BURKA? NY Times Op-Ed: Trump Pressuring Comey Was Just Like Sexual Harassment. Except, you know, by not being at all like…
THIS SHOCKED FACE IS GETTING WORN OUT: D.C. Is a Swamp, ‘Washington Post’ Story Confirms.
POSSIBLY NOT HIS BEST CAREER MOVE: Colin Kaepernick Compares Modern Day Police To Slave Catchers. Besides being actually crazy delusional, you know in case someone is keeping score at home.
SO TRUE FEMINISTS HANKER AFTER NOT DRIVING; BEING HONOR KILLED AND LIVING IN A MULTI-WIFE HOUSEHOLD? GOOD TO KNOW: Muslims Are the True Feminists. Leftists and Stockholm Syndrome. It’s a thing.
IN PRAISE OF ARMED HOMEOWNERS: Hero homeowner holds escaped Georgia inmates at gunpoint until arrests.
READY FOR NEHEMIAH SCUDDER: Breatharians .
WAIT, WHAT? We have officially entered the twilight zone .
MEH, OR AN ABLE MANIPULATOR OF THE MEDIA: Sounds familiar, also everything new turns out to be very old. Ben Franklin was the country’s first fame whore.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE. Video: The “Anti-Fascist” Fascist Freak Show At Evergreen State.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Student Agreed to Orgy, But Later Called It Sexual Assault, Lawsuit Claims.
NBC WENT TOTAL COELO SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: Adults are safer eating children than laundry pods, NBC News seems to report.
Classical reference in headline:
I HAD A GIRLFRIEND WHO LIKED GAY PORN: “It’s twice as much of what I like,” she said. And nobody’s surprised that men like lesbian stuff. 37% of Pornhub’s viewers of gay-male porn are women.
MICHAEL BARONE: The Violent Political Left.
Unfortunately, it’s not hard to find left-wing tweets advocating violence against President Trump and Republicans. And the “arts” community contributes its share. Comedian Kathy Griffin posted a picture of her holding a bloody severed head of the president. In New York Shakespeare in the Park is staging “Julius Caesar” with an orange-haired Caesar being stabbed to death by political rivals.
And there have been multiple violent threats and some actual violence against Republican House members. Virginia’s Tom Garrett canceled town halls in response to a message that “we’re going to kill your wife.” The message to Upstate New York’s Claudia Tenney was, “One down, 216 to go.”
A Tucson school official was arrested for making threats that Arizona’s Martha McSally’s “days were numbered.” A woman was charged with felony reckless endangerment for trying to drive Tennessee’s David Kustoff’s car off the road.
Read the whole thing.
POPEHAT: Free Speech, The Goose, And The Gander.
And yet, the “we’re just applying their rules to them” theory has some heft. It’s not because of the nasty, disruptive little totalitarians themselves. Antifa scum and pseudo-educated campus thugs are not legitimate foundation for any adult’s philosophy. No, the bit of plausibility comes from the reaction of people in authority, people who ought to know better, people whose conduct is somewhat more fairly attributed to a larger political groups. A few hysterically censorious kids screaming for a professor’s termination for crimethink do not threaten the foundations of free speech, but Yale lauding them does. Relatively few thugs disrupting a speech and even physically assaulting a professor don’t call into question the culture’s support for free speech, but Middlebury offering weak slaps on the wrist and shrugs for that violent behavior does. A violent mob in Berkeley does not undermine the legitimacy of free speech doctrine — a mob is a mob — but Berkeley’s timorousness or indifference in the face of violent censorship does. Students furious at a professor disagreeing with them don’t call into question the nation’s commitment to freedom, but state officials refusing to guarantee a professor’s safety do. In short: the regrettable behavior of officials who have failed to stand up to disruption of speech are the people most responsible for legitimizing further disruptions of speech, whoever commits them.
But we can, and should, do better.
But sometimes, to get people to stand behind a norm, you have to focus their mind on the consequences of losing it. It’s extremely sad that we’ve reached this point, but this is what happens when the people who are supposed to maintain the norms and institutions of liberal democracy in some sort of principled fashion decide that they’d rather be culture warriors instead.
And as IowaHawk notes, sometimes you need a coupon war to get people’s attention.
GOOD ADVICE: When You’re Trying To Lose Weight, Don’t Starve Yourself. Note that in the second photo, she’s also been lifting.
IT’S WEIRD BECAUSE ALL THE LEFTY TWEETS I’VE SEEN ON THIS SUGGEST THAT TRUMP MUST HAVE HATED IT:
To realize that the “gay rights” crowd is really just a bunch of Democrat shock troops, all you have to do is look at how badly they’ve treated the most pro-gay president ever elected.
R.I.P. FLOUNDER: Animal House actor Stephen Furst has died.
A LINK BETWEEN INFLAMMATION AND MENTAL ILLNESS? Inflammation seems to be linked to a lot of problems.
DO YOU WANT MORE TRUMP, BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU GET MORE TRUMP: A New York Times column about the need for mass deportations of native-born Americans, because they don’t live up to Ruling Class expectations. “Bottom line: So-called real Americans are screwing up America. Maybe they should leave, so that we can replace them with new and better ones: newcomers who are more appreciative of what the United States has to offer, more ambitious for themselves and their children, and more willing to sacrifice for the future.”
Yeah, it’s not serious. Except that, really, it pretty much is. The problem with all the immigration talk is the strong sense that the ruling class wants to dissolve the people and elect another, one more tractable to their schemes. Stuff like this doesn’t help, though I suppose NYT readers think it’s clever. But unpack it a bit — and break down which classes of native-born Americans are pulling down the averages — and it looks pretty awful.
Plus: “Because I’m the child of immigrants and grew up abroad, I have always thought of the United States as a country that belongs first to its newcomers.”
MATT WELCH: If You Think Campus Free Speech Is No Big Deal, Watch This Shocking Vice News Report From Evergreen State College. And remember that this atmosphere didn’t just “happen.” It happened with the support of the faculty and administration.
I think Evergreen should have its accreditation revoked, and be investigated by the federal Department of Education.
SECOND CHILDHOOD: Older adults can improve movement by using same motor strategy as babies. “A motor mechanism that has been attributed primarily to early development in babies and toddlers can also help older adults improve movement accuracy, according to new research from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).”
A proposed tax on imports is central to the House GOP plan to lower the overall corporate tax rate. It would generate about $1 trillion over the next decade to finance the lower rates without adding to the budget deficit.
But the tax faces strong opposition from retailers, automakers and the oil industry, and a growing number of Republicans in Congress have come out against it. They worry that it will increase the cost of imports, increasing consumer prices.
I’m not making any bets on how this plays out on the Ways and Means Committee.
SCIENCE SO FAKE EVEN MOTHER JONES IS NOTICING: A Scientist Didn’t Disclose Important Data—and Let Everyone Believe a Popular Weedkiller Causes Cancer.
BY WANTING TO IMMEDIATELY LOOK IN THE MIRROR? How does the brain respond to a single bout of exercise?
I DON’T LIKE MOSQUITOES: Six Pregnant Texas Women Test Positive For Zika.
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MORE ON LAST NIGHT’S ANTI-VIOLENCE PROTEST AT THE TRUMP/CAESAR PLAY: After Caesar Is Knifed to Death, Protesters Emerge: New York’s Public Theater reimagining of the play is interrupted Friday night. I’d rather live in a world where this sort of thing wasn’t done at all. But it’s not clear that we’re better off living in a world where it’s done all the time, but only by lefties.
Plus, a good observation: The audience was there to be part of a political statement, not to enjoy Shakespeare.
SHIPWRECK DISCOVERED AND IDENTIFIED: In 1917 the Coast Guard cutter McCulloch sank off the California coast. The ship had an interesting history. In 1898 the vessel was part of Commodore Dewey’s squadron in the Battle of Manila Bay. The wreck site has now been positively identified.
REMEMBER, FREE MARKET COMPETITION ISN’T THERE TO MAKE BUSINESSES HAPPY. THEY PREFER COZY OLIGOPOLY: Wall Street Still Annoyed That Competition Forced Wireless Carriers To Bring Back Unlimited Data Plans.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: Former college co-ed, 19, who falsely accused two football players of rape at a party to get sympathy from a prospective boyfriend faces TWO YEARS in jail in plea deal.
In February, then-18-year-old Yovino was charged with falsely reporting an incident and tampering with or fabricating evidence.
Police alleged Yovino made up the rape story last October to gain the sympathy of a prospective boyfriend because she worried he would lose romantic interest in her when it became known she had sex with two football players in a bathroom during an off-campus party.
The players told police they had consensual sex with Yovino and were eventually cleared in the case. . . .
Other students who were at the party later confirmed to police that Yovino was seen following the two men into the bathroom willingly.
Another witness said he overheard Yovino telling the men she wanted to have sex with them, according to an affidavit.
When pressed by police about the inconsistences in her story, Yovino allegedly confessed, saying she had made up the rape allegations.
The affidavit stated: ‘She admitted that she made up the allegation of sexual assault against (the football players) because it was the first thing that came to mind and she didn’t want to lose (another male student) as a friend and potential boyfriend.
‘She stated that she believed when (the other male student) heard the allegation it would make him angry and sympathetic to her.’
Weird, because I’m always hearing that this sort of thing doesn’t actually happen.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Here’s the Only Father’s Day Gift Guide You’ll Need This Year.
I can personally vouch for the Anker battery and the Dyson car vac.
AND YET THE YOUNG ARE DUMB ENOUGH TO SUPPORT REDISTRIBUTION: The Old Are Eating the Young: Around the world, a generational divide is worsening.
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK IN THE WATER: A chlorine-resistant parasite could be lurking in your swimming pool this summer, CDC warns.
POWERFUL WHITE WOMAN, OUT TO HOLD A BLACK MAN DOWN. Bill Cosby’s Spox: Tell Gloria Allred to ‘Go Back to Law School.’
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WORD, JUST WORDS: J. Christian Adams visits Alexandra, spots plenty of lefty virtue signaling, and we all know it’s just a pose: “It’s hard to square all these calls for civility with the bullet holes and blood.”
My father was possibly the most cheerful person I’ve ever known. He worked long hours as a real estate agent, but I’ve no doubt he did way more than 50 percent of the housework. He shopped for groceries on his way home from work. He very often did the laundry, dishes, and cooking. He habitually brewed the morning coffee, put breakfast on the table, and got us kids off to school.
It wasn’t easy for my mother to keep up with four closely spaced children. I’d later come to truly appreciate her many sacrifices and deep love for us all. But she viewed housework as a total waste of time. Her primary concern was to write great poetry, which was often published in an Armenian literary journal.
As an adult I can appreciate the profound beauty of her poetry. As a child, though, I just remember her chain-smoking Kools and pounding at the typewriter. Her days were punctuated with passionate phone conversations in which she’d often rail against various Republicans as the source of all evil. She’d sometimes pause at the greasy stove, where she’d turn on a gas burner, bending sideways to light another cigarette.
The house could go to hell, as far as she was concerned. And it did. My father’s valiant daily efforts amounted to a bit of damage control. It got so bad that when I was about ten I asked my mom why the house was always so messy. Appalled, she said, “If you want a clean house, go ahead and clean it yourself!” . . .
But long live traditionally male household labor, too. Maybe part of the reason I grew up in a house without the so-called gendered division of labor is because my father was not a handyman.
My husband, by contrast, has been unbelievably handy. That’s despite his high-powered career as a national security expert on Capitol Hill, at the Pentagon, and in industry. When we married I was a career intelligence analyst. But once we had kids, I stayed home full-time and never returned to that career. I also did all of the housework. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way because my priority was to have him spend kids-awake time interacting with them (reading, playing, bathing, and diapering) rather than squandering any of that time on chores I was able to do myself.
In any case, why would I have wanted my husband to do housework instead of big-ticket projects I wasn’t as able to do? For example, here’s a partial list of what my husband contributed to our sweat equity over the years:
Built ceiling to floor bookshelf system across 80 square feet of wall
Gutted the old kitchen in our first house
Remodeled that kitchen, installing all cabinets, flooring, and appliances
Did demolition work to prep for kitchen remodel in second house
Installed seven ceiling fans
Installed landscape timbers, terraced, planted shrubs
Built and installed backyard fence and gate
Jackhammered broken up patio and took concrete to landfill
Jackhammered old driveway, and took concrete to landfill
Tore out old walkway, poured cement, installed flagstone walkway
Sanded and refinished about 1,000 square feet of oak flooring in the first house
Sanded and refinished about 2,000 square feet of oak flooring in the second house
Built a pergola and arbors in the backyard
Planted several trees, grapevines, and other cultivars
Installed ceiling insulation in attic
Installed insulation in crawl space (nasty job)
Over the course of 20 years painted about 20 rooms, at least two coats
Installed five toilets
Installed dozens of outlets and light fixtures
Shopped with me for furniture, appliances, draperies
Built custom sandbox for the kids, with built-in benches on the sides
Installed a ceramic tile floor in the laundry room
Installed two sinks and a granite countertop in the bathroom
Installed four large medicine cabinets
Replaced and hung 21 interior doors (which I sanded, stained, and finished)
Built a work station across the back wall of a two-car garage
Installed 12 replacement windows
Installed three exterior doorsThat’s just what comes to mind at the moment. . . . If you’re going to put a price tag on the work mothers do, you need to also put a price tag on these “traditionally masculine” contractor tasks as well.
None of that counts because shut up. Also feminism.
SARAH HOYT: How We’re Losing the War to Save The Islamic World: Part II When Cultures Clash.
What most people mean when they talk about “a clash of cultures” is actually a clash between two subcultures, say corporate America and ghetto. This is difficult enough but can be overcome because one is at least aware of the other, even if the habits of one are completely different from the others.
When you’re dealing with completely different cultures suddenly clashing, it’s completely different. You see, the people in each of the cultures are not aware that they’re having a cultural conflict. They just interpret other people’s actions according to the norms of their culture. Internally, at a gut level, well before thought gets involved, we assume everyone has the same basic assumptions we have, and therefore we judge other cultures as we judge our own.
Read the whole thing.
FAKE NEWS: Mattis Hasn’t Decided to Send 4K More Troops to Afghanistan.
A spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday pushed back against news reports that he’s already approved sending 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
“Secretary Mattis has made no decisions on a troop increase for Afghanistan,” Dana White, an assistant to Mattis and the chief Pentagon spokesperson, said in a statement.
White noted that Mattis in testimony to Congress through this week had repeatedly said that decisions on troop increases would await the presentation to President Donald Trump of a new strategy for Afghanistan that would be ready in mid-July.
The Associated Press on Thursday reported that Mattis as early as next week may announce that he supports deploying 4,000 more troops in response to the request of Army Gen. John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who had requested between 3,000 and 5,000 additional forces.
In her statement, White said that Trump had delegated authority to Mattis to set troop levels in Afghanistan, but any decision would have to await consultations with other government agencies, the Afghan government, NATO allies and other coalition members.
What happened to all those layers of editors and fact-checkers?
YOU WANT PRESIDENT DUTERTE? THIS IS HOW YOU GET PRESIDENT DUTERTE. Extremism Experts Warn: There’s ‘Something Coalescing On The Hard Left.’
LOST IN A SEA OF FAKE NEWS: Roger L. Simon notes a grim milestone.
WELL, THEY’VE ALWAYS BEEN MOSTLY A LEFTY PROPAGANDA OPERATION: Extremism experts are just starting to worry about the left now? Or in the case of the SPLC, entirely a lefty propaganda operation.
Related: This List Of Attacks Against Conservatives Is Mind Blowing.
WORM DIPLOMACY UPDATE: Dennis Rodman has returned from North Korea. He says his trip was “really good.”
“Everybody’s going to be happy. It was a good day. It was a good trip. A really good trip,” Rodman said.
Wearing black clothing with the PotCoin logo – a crypto-currency used by the legal marijuana industry – Rodman fended off questions from dozens of journalists at the arrival gate.
Asked repeatedly if he had met Kim, Rodman said: “You’ll find out.”
MORE:
Rodman, nicknamed “The Worm” during his playing career and known for his tattoos, body piercings and multicolored hair, is considered one of the best defensive players and rebounders in NBA history.
Rodman gave the Kim regime a copy of Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal. I guess we could call it very special delivery.
RELATED: Very very very special delivery. In case North Korea ignores The Worm.
PEOPLE NEED TO BE ABLE TO DEFEND THEMSELVES. YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN A BERNIE SANDERS SUPPORTER MIGHT COME ALONG: Republicans Target D.C. Gun Laws in Wake of Shooting: GOP lawmakers want reciprocity for concealed carry permit.
SOUTH CHINA SEA: The U.S. and Japan have conducted a joint naval exercise.
The Japanese newspaper and All-Nippon News Network reported the exercises mark the first time a U.S. aircraft carrier and Japan’s maritime SDF trained together in waters where China has been flexing its muscles with the rapid militarization of disputed islands in the South China Sea.
Nope, Beijing isn’t pleased.
RELATED: China’s slow and deliberate imperial war in the South China Sea.
BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: 171 House Dems slam Trump’s Paris agreement withdrawal.
IF ONLY SOMEONE HAD WARNED THEM: Restaurant die-off is first course of California’s $15 minimum wage.
In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?”
The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark.
Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they get pink-slipped in increasing numbers. And the wage there hasn’t yet hit $15.
As the East Bay Times reported in January, at least 60 restaurants around the Bay Area had closed since September alone.
A recent study by Michael Luca at Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca at Mathematica Policy Research found that every $1 hike in the minimum wage brings a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of a 3.5-star restaurant on Yelp! closing.
Another telltale is San Diego, where voters approved increasing the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 per hour from $10.50, this after the minimum wage was increased from $8 an hour in 2015 – meaning hourly costs have risen 43 percent in two years.
The cost increases have pushed San Diego restaurants to the brink, Stephen Zolezzi, president of the Food and Beverage Association of San Diego County, told the San Diego Business Journal. Watch for the next mass die-off there.
But what of California’s less affluent inland counties? How will they fare?
Worse.
LEFTIES AREN’T GOING TO LIKE THE NEW RULES: BREAKING: Right-Wing Activists Jack Posobiec and Laura Loomer Rush Stage, Disrupt Controversial Rendition of ‘Julius Caesar.’ Is this dumb? Yeah, but that never stopped lefties and now they’re getting to see what it feels like to have your hair pulled.
Related: Ace: It is imperative we begin emulating the left in its tactics.
SHE’S GOT A DECENT CLAIM HERE, EVEN WITH THE “ACTUAL MALICE” RULE: Palin Might Lawyer Up After NYT Correction.
RUSSIA IS ABOUT AS ACCURATE AS RACHEL MADDOW: The Middle East Institute evaluates Russia’s claim that it killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an airstrike.
Key observation:
Russia has a long track record of issuing fake claims and deliberate misinformation during its campaign in Syria.
I’ll wager Instapundit commenters will get my drift.
WELL, I WASN’T ON THE JURY BUT THIS SEEMS LIKE A BAD VERDICT TO ME: Philando Castile shooting: Officer Yanez acquitted of manslaughter, dismissed from police force. I still don’t see any good reason for shooting Castile, much less for firing his gun into a car containing a woman and her child. For that he was also charged, but acquitted.
“Yanez, who is Latino, ‘did what he had to do’ when he shot Castile, a defense attorney argued during the trial. Yanez testified that he feared for his life after Castile refused to not pull out his gun, despite the officer’s commands. Prosecutors argued that Yanez never saw the gun, and that he overreacted to a non-threat. The trial included squad-car video of the traffic stop between the two, but footage did not show what happened in Castile’s car, leaving it up to the jury to believe Yanez’s testimony.”
“Refused to not pull out his gun” is, I think, incorrect. Castile never pulled a gun; according to his girlfriend he was pulling out his ID as ordered.
Of course, the fact that Yanez is a Latino means this doesn’t fit the standard racial narrative, but I doubt that will matter.
HMM: Consumer Reports says liquid laundry detergent packets pose risk for people with dementia. “The nonprofit organization Consumer Reports stated the popular liquid laundry detergent packets, sometimes referred to as ‘pods,’ may pose a ‘lethal risk’ for adults with dementia, who may mistake the highly concentrated detergent packets for food.”
