Monday, August 11. 2014
h/t, Carpe
Sunday, August 10. 2014
Woops, my error. They do not seem to care at all. I guess it's good to know that feminists are so multiculturally tolerant and so understanding that the Islamists must have their comforts with their victims. ISIS Captures ‘Hundreds’ of Yazidi Women (Updates)
Women Stoned To Death By ISIS For Adultery
The Obama-Paul paths in foreign policy are immoral in
undermining self-preservation and in tossing lives into avoidable horrors. Barack
Obama and Rand Paul’s foreign policies are similar in their appeal to tiredness
to argue for US non-involvement with the difficulties of the world. This
amounts to an existential defeatism to avoid the difficulties of being involved
in the world by avoiding the moral and physical exertion of US power even when
and where it could be effective. The extremism of this withdrawal endangers our
security by encouraging the spread of barbaric enemies sworn to our
destruction. Along the way, many millions of innocents are slaughtered or
brutally enslaved.
Both Barack Obama and Rand Paul are products of trends in
thinking about foreign policy that are imbued with erroneous lessons.
Barack Obama epitomizes those who at a young age adopted the
anti-Vietnam war mantras of the US evilly standing athwart the path of leftist
myths supporting communist expansionism thinly masked as harmless peasants
uprising against overlords. Although letting themselves be manipulated by hard
leftists at root they were selfishly trying to avoid the draft and continue
their peaceful existences in the bosom of US wealth and comforts. Some became dedicated
to foreign foes but most to leftist myths. They ignored that the incrementalism
that dribbled our military into the Vietnam war shucked the tried-and-true
military and political strategy of applying overwhelming force and allowed the
enemy to match and adapt. At every opportunity they created new myths of our
brutality and did all they could to blacken the reputation of US soldiers and
Marines, while ignoring the gross and purposeful policies and practices of
terror and slaughter practiced by the communists. Then, when at huge costs we
still succeeded by 1972 in eliminating the communist threat to the South and
building largely self-reliant Asian nations that were formerly at risk, the
dedicated anti-Vietnam apparatchiks led hysterics in canceling our pledges to
the South of arms, air support and logistics, which led to the loss of South Vietnam
in 1975.
Defense of this mindset requires belief that Vietnam was
unwinnable among Barack Obama and most of his foreign policy supporters. Adherence
to this critical error has led their attachment to opposition to every forceful
US foreign policy exertion since.
Rand Paul was raised in this defeatism as spread through the
media and academia by the anti-Vietnam cohorts of Obama. But Paul does not see
the US as evil. Instead his defeatism masks itself in an isolationism based on
a selfishness that believes it can ignore and be insulated from the threats
from abroad and believes that the application of US power is not worth the
bother. In these key respects it shares the existential defeatism among Obama
supporters. This attachment among Paulist isolationists similarly requires
ignoring US successes and concentration on less beneficial outcomes.
Due to the shortage of US military forces following the
demilitarization during the Clinton years, Bush did not have the time nor
support among those more interested in domestic policies to build our forces to
the levels needed to match our commitments. We withdrew from Afghanistan after
2002 and then haltingly re-committed US forces after allowing the taliban to
rebuild, we committed too few forces to Iraq until the temporary and winning “surge”
of 2008 and then too hastily and excessively withdrew our military thus wasting
movement toward a functioning and more representative government and allowing
Iran to expand its influence in Iraq.
The results in encouraged and enlarged hostile terrorists
across the Middle East, furthered by the Obama delusions about an “Arab Spring”
allowing extremists to wipe out those more moderate, are highly threatening to
the security of the US and the West. The terrorists have spread widely in the
territory and resources they command. They are vocal about and capable of
striking us at home.
The Obama administration and most of the media are being as
avoiding and negligent as before 9/11. The Rand Paul isolationists are allies
of this avoidance of self-preservation, while also avoiding the widespread
horrors suffered by millions in the region.
The very limited and very late small measures by the Obama
administration are unlinked to a strategy but mere thin window
dressing to hide its negligence and unlikely to bear positive results. Rand Paul, at least
avoids these lies but also avoids the paths that are necessary.
Hillary Clinton mouths empty words about being a bit more forceful than Obama. She tries to position
herself as wiser despite the contrary evidence of her uselessness as Secretary
of State. Given a choice between Hillary
Clinton and Rand Paul in 2016, the world will suffer more insecurities,
millions more suffer, allies defect, and the US and West will likely be
punished by more 9/11s or worse.
Both the Obama and the Paul
foreign policies share a common immorality of failure to protect ourselves nor
care about the fate of others. The big question is whether the American
electorate will endorse their immorality.
Does the "Libertarian attitude" have any political power? Has the ‘Libertarian Moment’ Finally Arrived?
Comment on the above from Williamson (who is on a roll these days): The Man Who Wouldn’t Be King -Rand Paul becomes an object of liberal curiosity.
Saturday, August 9. 2014
 Wellesley Gives Honest Grading a Try
Is aging a disease?
I do not want that disease. Does Obamacare cover it?
A short sermon
Drone Records Muslims Going at It With Goats
Midnight at the oasis
Split infinitives are sort-of OK
A Deadly Strain of PMS
Trailer Homes Aren't Just for Millionaires
In 1997, the FDA Set Out to Regulate Tic Tacs. They're Still at It.
Gotta stock up before they are illegal
Minnesota Cafe Charges “Minimum Wage Fee,” Liberals Outraged
Re-posted because it is so intelligent: Washington’s Perfect Storm Of Policy Failure: On The Folly Of Massive Money Printing And America’s Collapsing Imperium
Dead Broke Clintons Downsizing August Vacation To $100K
Super Party-Boy Has Advice for Young People with "Right-Wing *ssholes" for Parents
Cool music, too - if you can term it music
The shocking discovery about evangelical Christianity that I made after becoming a father
Sheesh
Welcome to Wal-Mart, the Doctor Will See You Now
I use the eye man at Costco. He's great. Complete exam, dilation, retina, pressure, etc.
Big gender split: WSJ poll shows women and men disagree on the economy, minimum wage and mid-term elections
Obama's Amnesty Would Be Like Lincoln's Emancipation
What is Israel up against? Amazing video
Kerry: Starving Africa Shouldn’t Build More Farms Because It Would Contribute to Global Warming
Thornton: The failure of the EU:
The E.U. is just the latest example of the powerful Enlightenment idea that human nature and civilization, through the expansion of scientific knowledge, are progressing away from the cruelty, oppression, and collective violence created by irrational superstition, religion, and ethnic or nationalist loyalties. Once liberated from this destructive ignorance, people can create political and social orders that will promote peace, social justice, political freedom, and prosperity. Most important will be what Immanuel Kant, in his influential 1795 essay “Perpetual Peace,” called a “federation of free states” that would form a “pacific alliance . . . different from a treaty of peace, . . . inasmuch as it would forever terminate all wars.” Kant predicated the possibility of such global peace on “the uniformity of the progress of the human mind.” A universal human nature progressively becoming more rational and possessing more knowledge about itself and the world can craft a global order that would lessen if not eliminate the evils that had afflicted the human race for all of its previous history.
Hamas Executes One of Its Leaders - Then Blames Israel
"We Don't Understand Real Evil, Organized Evil, Very Well. This is Evil Incarnate."
The U.N. Handmaiden of Hamas
Washington Opened The Gates Of Hell In Iraq: Now Come The Furies
I basically agree with Tyler's view (wait, it's David Stockman again, via Tyler). Iraq is not a real nation.
Friday, August 8. 2014
Are there any limits to what is in America's interest, diplomatically or militarily? Leader of The Free World (not that there is much of that to lead). I do understand that in a globalized new world, everything affects everything else so everything directly or indirectly affects the US, but nasty and wicked things happen everywhere all the time, and always have since the Fall of Man.
Where to draw the line? Some thoughts: How To Mind America’s Business
 Updated list of 29 – Actually 30 – excuses
for the 18 year ‘pause’ in global warming – ‘If you can’t explain the
‘pause’, you can’t explain the cause…’
Porn production plummets in Los Angeles
Bones from Ur
Where Did All the Entry-Level Jobs Go?
Why Technology Won’t Shorten Your Work Week
An atheist contemplates the death of a bug
Fitness May Help Ward Off Depression in Girls - Being in good physical condition likely to help boys avoid the blues too, expert says
Schools for Scandal - The astounding waste, corruption, and self-dealing of university student governments
Amnesty as Impeachment Bait -- The president’s breathtakingly cynical plan to ward off a midterm shellacking
Talkin' Obama Blues - Obama's words can move factions, but not a people.
Americans worry that illegal migrants threaten way of life, economy
Tough talk from the Swedish Democrat party (video)
Hamas warns of more rocket attacks unless all demands are met
At Mead:
The modern territorial state, as a post-imperial era expression of nationalist ideology in the West, does not so well fit the Arabs (and many other non-Western ethno-linguistic groups) whose history supplied none of the predicates.
Archbishop: Hamas Fired Out of Our Church in Gaza (VIDEO)
Hamas' Phony Statistics on Civilian Deaths
Three Men, A Tent and Some Shrubs: The Backstory of Our Hamas Report
Thursday, August 7. 2014
Who could? The UN, the UK, Germany, France, the US, Israel, the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, Italy, the Saudis, Turkey, Quatar, Iran, Russia, Iraq, etc. - all could help easily, within hours. Who will step up today?
All they need is water, food, tents, shovels, and maybe some machine guns air-dropped to them prevent a Biblical-style genocide. Where is everybody? On vacation?
I see no reason for Americans to give a darn about Ukrainian politics. Putin may be a lowlife, but he is simply pursuing his national interests as he sees them, and that is fine with me. Trade wars are juvenile. It seems as if at least half of Ukrainians want to be affiliated with Russia. Who cares?
Let the Europeans deal with their own problems: Putin Responds to U.S., EU Sanctions by Blocking Agricultural Imports
Wednesday, August 6. 2014
Somebody found the Hamas game plan. A devastating article: The Media’s Role in Hamas’ War Strategy
It sounds as if many Africans are. Video.
Related: White Messiah Complex - Why do liberal interventionists think the Third World needs them?
Why do we find more moral gratification in having good intentions than in producing good outcomes? Why do we accept mere symbols of being good—the Facebook photo with the orphan, the public diplomatic démarche, the battleship steaming toward the Oppressor—as evidence of good outcomes, or even as good outcomes in themselves?
It's called "moral narcissism" but some would term it "moral imperialism" or "cultural imperialism." Kipling had the last word on that topic.
 I'm sorry but I forget where I found that new racist anti-racist logo for Cleveland
How To Play The Bass. Lesson One: Don't Play The Bass, You Idiot, Play Something Else
Her Throne Defunct, a Princess Fights Eviction From Her Manhattan Walk-Up
The dad in this ad is not an idiot
This food blog is amusing: Culinary Bro-down
Patricia Krenwinkel talks feelingly about how she threw her life away for Charles Manson, 45 years ago.
I don't think she is dangerous anymore
Scrabblers rejoice: 5,000 new words are on the way
Environmentalists Shocked That Local People Protect Forests Better Than Do Governments
Andrew Cuomo’s Moreland Commission episode may prove worse than Chris Christie’s
Bridgegate—but you wouldn’t know it from the news coverage.
Driscoll:
Scotland has passed and is beginning to implement a law which assigns every child in Scotland from birth to age eighteen a “named person,” selected by the government, whose job it is to “promote, support, or safeguard the wellbeing” of the child. Parents will not have a choice about whether or not to accept the assignment of an outside government busybody to their children. Some proponents of the law claim that “Families are not required to accept advice” from the named person.
Pardon me if I consider that to be patently disingenuous...
Not your grandfather's Scots
Sunday’s Gaza UNRWA School Bombing Was COMPLETELY STAGED
Pallywood is effective
Migrants clash in France as camp tensions soar
The Malaysian Air Shoot Down Changes Nothing: America Cannot Save Ukraine
Save it from what? It's not our issue.
US is racist for not paying for every Child in the World
“Americans Got $2 Trillion in Benefits from Federal Government in 2013″
I did not see a penny of it
Steve King to Illegal Immigrant Protester: 'I'm Really Sorry That You Come from a Lawless Country'
NYC: Spontaneous Pro-Israel Rally Erupts in Response to Protestors
Haha. Don't mess with NYC's Diamond District
Maliki finally aids Kurds; will Obama?
Egypt starts digging new section of Suez Canal
ISIS slaughtering Shiites
“Americans
Got $2 Trillion in Benefits from Federal Government in 2013″ - See more
at: http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=54669#sthash.3L3f9gsC.dpuf
Tuesday, August 5. 2014
Excellent stuff: Washington’s Perfect Storm Of Policy Failure: On The Folly Of Massive Money Printing And America’s Collapsing Imperium
When I read this, I wish he were back in the government. A quote:
If you look at the entire radar screen of things developing both domestically and internationally, we are plunging deep into a perfect storm of policy failure. The American Imperium is collapsing. There is blowback everywhere. The wreckage of prior policy mistakes from our interventionist foreign policy is coming home to roost. The Ukraine is one area at ground zero for that.
But second, monetary central planning is now reaching a dead-end. It is inflating the third financial bubble of the century and the Fed is now clueless as to how it will manage to unwind the massive balance sheet expansion it has been undertaking.
And third, the fiscal doomsday machine continues to crank on. Washington is ignoring the fact that we are six years into a business cycle expansion and we are still running massive deficits and there is no cushion for the next upset that comes to the economy.
 A Kate Bush update
Ten things men want from a relationship
The Magna Carta Plays Boston - Without it we are not what we became
Oldest critter in the world
Poor thing has not had a date in years
What a little kid can do
Every little boy's dream and an argument for child labor. We all misunderestimate the competence of kids.
The Pursuit of Happiness And The Kingdom of God
Kids and TV: How Much is Too Much?
Any of it is too much. It's called the boob tube.
Don’t Buy This Dip: The Fed Is Not Your Friend
7 essential truths that most investors understand intellectually, but don’t accept emotionally despite empirical evidence
Science Is Not Democratic
Kerry Trying To Out-Feminize Obama, Spotted Riding Pink Girls’ Bike…
Why Obama Is Concocting An Impeachment Threat: Because He Has Nothing Else.
From Braised Lamb Mexican Pizza & Occupying the Fusion Movement: (h/t Am. Digest)
I don’t remember what the “Occupy” movement was about. I remember being really mad about stuff, and others being mad at the same thing, I just can’t remember what it was. I went to a few rallies, yelled at things with a megaphone, became a Marxist for a few weeks, and I threw a brick through the windshield of a PT Cruiser, but for the life of me I can’t remember why. It just made so much sense at the time. Something about numbers, there were definitely numbers involved. I might be off here, but I believe 1% of the population currently owns 99% of the nation’s wealth, and 99% of the population only owns like 12% of the nation’s wealth. Which is much too low. Or too high. I don’t know. Anyways, the semantics aren’t important – I’m mad, and I want things to change, immediately. And my straw fell into the juice box, and now I’m thirsty.
The recipe looks delicious
Mythical Carbon Pollution Is “An Affront To God” Or Something
We Are The World
Dumbest song ever?
True Or False: America Desperately Needs More STEM Workers
CA Gov. Jerry Brown: Nothing Stops This Train
Not even logic
The invisible hand at work: But..but..who will build the roads without government? UK guy built one in 10 days so drivers can bypass 14-mile detour
Put Down the Cupcake: New Ban Hits School Bake Sales
Thank God for the government, saving our children from demonic cupcakes
Beyond ‘Beyond Stagnation’ - Dissent’s symposium shows the limits of the Left’s thinking about our economic problems:
“Beyond stagnation” is indeed where we, Right and Left alike, want to be. Conservatives can try to educate the Left and those who are attracted by its policies and rhetoric, and we can try to defeat them in the political sphere, which is of course necessary — but it is not sufficient. As a matter of political reality, we are at some point simply going to have to understand why a not-unsubstantial part of the electorate finds the Left’s policies attractive; as I have argued at some length, the conventional, popular conservative explanation — that the Left appeals to the lazy, the juvenile, and the unambitious — is at the very least incomplete, if not flatly wrong. Conservatives’ more thorough rooting in the dismal facts of supply and demand, scarcity, and tradeoffs may give us an intellectual head start, which would be much more exciting if this were a race. But it isn’t a race at all — it is a journey that all of us are going to have to take together.
MEDVED: Confessions Of A One-Time "Peace Protester”
ISIL Controls More Resources, Territory than Any Extremist Organization in
History
Venezuela: Keep the people poor and dependent
Monday, August 4. 2014
Leaked CBP Report Shows Entire World Exploiting Open US Border
The usually calm VDH is ticked off. He lives on the front lines of this insanity. Happily, these law-breakers mostly avoid the Northeast.
Where Do Cocktail Prices Come From?
Requiem for an Egg Cream: In Search of a New York Classic
How Your Face Shapes Your Economic Chances
What’s Almost as Certain as Death? Not Talking About the Inheritance
Caring for Ebola Patients Deeply Scary For Health Care Workers
Will mandates for doctors come next?
Justice Ginsburg: Buying Contraceptives for Others is One of the ‘Obligations That Citizens Have'
Rep. DeLauro: Tax Every Teaspoon of Sugar
Apparently, the Clintons don't think authors should be allowed to write unauthorized books about them.
US Biofuel Boondoggle Is Bureaucracy at Its Worst
Reynolds: Public servants acting as public masters
NYT: Hope Dwindles for Hondurans Living in Peril
The “New” Middle East
To the Students for Justice in Palestine, a Letter From an Angry Black Woman
The IDF has destroyed Hamas’s flagship terrorism project: its network of tunnels
that snuck into Israel.
Toon below from Sultan's One Million Ceasefires
Caring
for Ebola Patients Deeply Scary For Health Care Workers - See more at:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/02/caring-for-ebola-patients-deeply-scary.html#sthash.DfwkQFJ1.dpuf
Saturday, August 2. 2014
The last thing in the world that Hamas wants is peace - except for long enough to re-load and to repair their attack tunnels. Netanyahu to US: Don't second guess me on Hamas. This is not America's fight, so I would just leave it alone.
Related, even David Frum confesses: Photographs as Weapons of War in the Middle East - Why it's so difficult to see the reality behind the images
Golda Meir's famous quote: "We will have peace when Palestinians love their children more than they want to kill Jews."
Does anyone wonder why no other Arab states will accept Pali immigrants or refugees? They don't trust them and don't want any of them - not one. I'm sure many of them are fine people, but their reputation is terrible as a group. During all these years, Pali governments could have built a mirror Israel next door but instead of working for their population, they just want to kill Jews. They have had their chance to be civilized, prosperous, and happy.
FYI, here's the long history of Gaza.
Paul McCartney, Still on the Run at 72
Now that Richard Dawkins is attacking Muslims and feminists, the atheist Left suddenly discover he’s a bigot
10 Great Things About Young Nannies
All Education Is For-Profit Education
Severe Ancient Droughts: A Warning to California:
The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur.
Learning Law Without First Getting the JD
Porn-surfing feds blame boredom, lack of work for misbehavior = Employees rarely face criminal prosecution for time and attendance fraud
4 Reasons to be Pissed Off About Social Security and Medicare
Rand Paul: The Unintended Consequences of Interventionism -Libya’s civil war should have never been our fight.
The world has been free-riding off of America for decades on many fronts; Barack Obama’s legacy may be to put an end to that. . . .
Poll Shows GOP Standing Tough On Border Most Important Issue
Bloomberg Everytown Anti-Gun Ad Reinforces Pro-Gun Rights
California School District Drops Mandatory Geography Class, Replaces It With Course On “Diversity And Inclusion”…
Obama's Inexplicable Love for the Dark Side - Even the American left is finally realizing that this is the strangest administration in living memory.
A tale of two hospitals: One in Israel, one in Gaza - Israel saves its enemies; Hamas endangers its friends
Social Media Jihad: Islamic State ramps up gruesome Internet campaign
Friday, August 1. 2014
Commenter "Monster from the Id" on Belmont's Lost in Translation:
Evil exists because human beings exist. No other living thing, and no inanimate object, is capable of being, thinking, feeling evil or of committing evil acts. Only us.
"The world" is not a wicked place. And Humanity is not a wicked thing. Evil is just one of many capabilities we possess. We have to recognize it and (if we're sane) choose not to indulge in it. That's not easy. Most of all, we shouldn't deny evil or act all surprised when it turns up. Like it or not, it's business as usual for us humans.
Fortunately, it's not the WHOLE business. We can do better...
Thursday, July 31. 2014
Is there any reason for NATO to exist now? I don't think so, but typically organizations, once born, find reasons to rationalize their immortality. Just like government programs.
Here's a case in point: Ukraine Crisis Reminds Americans Why NATO Should Not Expand
Europe is not part of the US. They are old enough to put on big boy pants. Russia is not scary, just corrupt, obnoxious, and untrustworthy. It's their culture.
 Image from Am. Digest.
Similar to Mark Twain's "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still trying to get its pants on."
A taxicab's day - This visualization displays the data for one random NYC yellow taxi on a single day in 2013. See where it operated, how much money it made, and how busy it was over 24 hours.
Totten: Welcome to Vietnam
The Overblown Stigma of Genital Herpes
"Overblown"?
Here's what the numbers on your credit card really mean
Sipp: I've written from time to time about homeschooling, but no one pays any attention to anything I say about it:
There is no new math, or old math for that matter. No matter how many other approaches other people try, how much mewling is transcribed on the Internet about socialization, or how many tennis balls you put on the bottoms of the legs of your kindergarten chairs, it's all wrong and it doesn't work. Like a volume knob that makes the radio louder when you turn it clockwise, and diminishes the sound when it's turned counter-clockwise until it clicks off, the design was perfect on the first attempt and cannot be improved. Every variation after that will be worse. People who want to break new ground without doing anything constructive will change the way that knob operates to become notable for the novelty, but it's always worse.
Michelle Nunn: Favorable Media Bias Part of Democrat Campaign Strategy
Duh.
Obama Administration Suing Pa. State Police Over Physical Fitness Tests
De Blasio’s Policing Dilemma - The Gotham mayor must decide whether to listen to his police commissioner or the New York Times.
Boudreaux:
Healthy skepticism – or realism – about the nature of politics is foreign to many advocates of government intervention. These advocates believe in miracles - and, in addition, they too often reason inconsistently about the play of incentives and the incompleteness of information across different institutional settings.
Italian journalist leaves Gaza, tells truth once free from Hamas retaliation
Italy Suddenly Gets Ugly for Jews
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Photo via 