Monday, December 15. 2014
From How the Common Core Went Wrong:
Critics have tagged the Common Core with the pejorative "ObamaCore." The gibe is more instructive than many realize. The Affordable Care Act and the Common Core both involve ambitious efforts to change whole swaths of American life, though the practical impact of each was intentionally shrouded in uncertainty. Both would have benefited from more scrutiny early on but are now increasingly entrenched. In health care, critics have found it a losing strategy to talk about simply repealing the ACA without talking about what should replace it. They need to offer plausible alternatives to have a shot at policy or political success. Meanwhile, the ACA has started to change American medicine. The same is true of the Common Core. Five years on, it has started to change instruction, textbooks, and curriculum.
 What Is Fatigue?
It's complicated
The Cheapest Generation - Why Millennials aren’t buying cars or houses, and what that means for the economy
Study proves high heels do have power over men
Pope Francis Confirms Cats Still Going To Hell
Declare CO2 a nutrient
“Rape Culture,” Debunked
Police: Armored Military Vehicles Needed for ‘Constitutionalists’ with Firearms
Greenfield: Life in Post-Truth America
Al Sharpton Leads March in DC as NYC Protesters Chant: 'What Do We Want? Dead Cops!'
Back in Saigon: The Senate Intelligence Committee Report
Gaza Is Almost Totally Cut Off From The World, And It's Getting Ugly
Sunday, December 14. 2014
Saturday, December 13. 2014
 Lots of good Yale photos. Scroll down
Rat problem worsens at One World Trade Center offices of Conde Nast
Hahaha.
78-year-old Iowa legislator is prosecuted for having sex with his wife, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s
I doubt she was suffering. It's real clear reality that causes suffering.
The Joy of Old Age
Dogs in Heaven? Pope Francis Leaves Pearly Gates Open
Whew, that's a relief. But what about rats, mosquitoes, and snakes?
Colleges are run by morons
Laughing gas found helpful as treatment for severe depression
Hahahahahahaha.
Glenn, my friend, you are nuts
Will reviews plague 'Exodus'?
‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’: Differences Between the Movie & the Bible
SHOULD CHILDREN MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS ABOUT RELIGION?
Courtship today: Atheist Coffee and Feminist Envy
How Much White Privilege Do You Have?
I worry about this constantly
What Jonathan Gruber Got Right
Democrats Prep Media for 2016 Anti-GOP Onslaught
What if Obama had been honest?
A.B. Stoddard: Dems sick of ObamaCare
iAl Sharpton at the White House - It sometimes seems as if he spends more time there than anywhere else. Why?
"Sometimes I wish I could just passively accept what my government monarchs and their mainstream media mouthpieces feed me on a daily basis. Why do I have to question everything I’m told? "
Life would be much simpler and I could concentrate on more important things like the size of Kim Kardashian’s ass, why the Honey Boo Boo show was canceled, the Victoria Secret Fashion Show, whether I’ll get a better deal on Chinese slave labor produced crap on Black Thanksgiving, Black Friday, or Cyber Monday, fantasy football league standings, the latest NFL player to knockout their woman and get reinstated, Obama’s latest racial healing plan, which Clinton or Bush will be our next figurehead president, or the latest fake rape story from Rolling Stone. The willfully ignorant masses, dumbed down by government education, lured into obesity by corporate toxic packaged sludge disguised as food products, manipulated, controlled and molded by an unseen governing class of rich men, and kept docile through never ending corporate media propaganda, are nothing but pawns to the arrogant sociopathic pricks pulling the wires in this corporate fascist empire of debt.
The whole thing is a splendiferous rant
The ‘Cycle of Violence’ Fantasy in the Middle East
Sultan: Leftist lynch mobs
Sweden: "We feel that we have lost our country forever to Islamists."
Yup. Asked for it. Enjoy!
The torture report as the ultimate harvest of media bias
"The report is nothing more than a death rattle from the “blame America” crowd within the liberal Democratic majority."
I would torture anybody to save a family member. Who wouldn't?
Fury as Mention of Israel is Banned from Forthcoming Holocaust Memorial Day in Ireland
Friday, December 12. 2014
 19 Secrets of UPS Drivers
Insurers in New York Must Cover Gender Reassignment Surgery, Cuomo Says
"One mother called a personal-injury lawyer about forcing the city to remove the rocks. Another suggested that something be done to 'soften' them. 'I am actually dreading the summer because of those rocks,' still another complained.""
Never let kids play outdoors. Too dangerous.
The euro is heading for disaster - what luck for David Cameron!
Why Does Hillary Want To Be President, Anyway?
Public overwhelmingly disapproves of Obama’s handling of immigration, healthcare
Record Global Temperature—Conflicting Reports, Contrasting Implications
CIA Director Brennan Admits Info From Enhanced Interrogations Led US to Osama Bin Laden
Congress’ Only Navy SEAL: Torture Report Threatens Lives
ISIS Publish Pamphlet On How to Treat Female Slaves
Nuclear Vigor: Russia, China and Iran
The Land of Magical Thinking: Inside Putin’s Russia
A friend emailed me a pic of his DU raffle winning. I said that was just fine, but what impressed me most was the tidiness of his garage.
Good grief. That looks like a German garage.
Thursday, December 11. 2014
Americans should be pleased to know that the incidence of sexual assault (except in prisons) has been steadily in decline for many years. There is no epidemic and there is no rape culture in the US - indeed there is a strong Judeo-Christian anti-rape culture - but there are some individual sexual predators and rapists around, and there always will be. Here's a real rape culture:
Consider a genuine phenomenon of “rape culture:” the widespread practice of Pakistani pimps “grooming” underage English girls to be raped en masse by themselves and their clients.
and this one: Raping and Beheading the Faithful
Also interesting is that the incidence of violent sexual assault on campuses appears to be about half of that which occurs out in the real world. That is remarkable in some ways, considering that the campus today jams frequently-alcohol- or drug-intoxicated adolescent boys and girls too-close together in a generally sexually-disinhibited and hypersexualized atmosphere.
My view has always been this: if assaulted, sexually or otherwise, call the cops. It's a civic duty really, because odds are that the perp will strike again with someone else.
Best, most reasonable and comprehensive piece I've seen on the topic: The College Rape Overcorrection - Sexual assault on campus is a serious problem. But efforts to protect women from a putative epidemic of violence have led to misguided policies that infringe on the civil rights of men.
I am not sure why campus sexual assault is so often the focus of the media when sexual assault and violence of all sorts is far more frequent off campuses.
Related, Lena Dunham's Assault on Humanity
Also,
New DOJ Data On Sexual Assaults: College Students Are Less Likely To Be Victimized
UVA Refuses to Reinstate Fraternity Activities
Rolling Stone's UVA Rape Story Just Took Another Massive Hit
Colleges Now Buying Special Insurance to Cover Campus Rape Scandals
 Assume that all Santas are perverts
How Victoria’s Secret and its fashion show went primetime — after its founder killed himself
McDonald's Menu Is Completely Out Of Control
Lena and Grace Dunham: Life in the Shame-Free Zone
Treasury Department Seeking Survival Kits For Bank Employees - Emergency masks, solar blankets to be delivered to every major bank in the U.S.
Whatever Happened to California Republicans? How California has become almost completely blue.
NY Times Reports on Columbia Exam Postponement
Berkeley Prof Offers Students Extension on Homework If They Are Injured at Riots
BERKELEY PROTEST RULES: Let Blacks Beat Non-Blacks, Don’t Photograph Rioting Blacks
University of Iowa Pulls Anti-Racism Display for Being 'Deeply Offensive'; Head of Journalism School Cheers:
David Ryfe, director of UI's School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UI, has different ideas, however. "If it was up to me, and me alone," he told The Daily Iowan, "I would follow the lead of every European nation and ban this type of speech."
College President Criticized for Saying All Lives Matter
Did you know that the topic of cotton is racist?
George Will:
The scandal of mass incarceration is partly produced by the frivolity of the political class, which uses the multiplication of criminal offenses as a form of moral exhibitionism. This, like Eric Garner’s death, is a pebble in the mountain of evidence that American government is increasingly characterized by an ugly and sometimes lethal irresponsibility.
“You’re Bosnian,” one of the suspects allegedly said. “I should just kill you now.”
He remembers the word "mokita"
For the warmists, a Diesel Powered Gaia
Hinderaker:
I don’t know what the Agency did to get on the wrong side of Dianne Feinstein, but the report is, seemingly, an act of revenge. I suspect that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself would render a more sympathetic account of the CIA’s interrogation program than we got from Senate Democrats.
Palestinian Rights Activist Exposes U.N. Duplicity At Relief and Works Agency
Gathering Evangelical support for Israel
Wednesday, December 10. 2014
 The Ugly Christmas Sweater: Still Ugly, but No Longer Ironic
Bank of America sees $50 oil as Opec dies
Feathered Fossils Give Scaly Dinosaurs a Makeover - Plumage may have adorned even the earliest dinosaurs, long before flight.
Parking-lot-challenged Canadian BMW driver has now been watched 4 million times
Sultan: Fat people and class warfare
A Devastating Takedown of America’s Most Overrated Gay Power Couple
The Rustbelt Roars Back From the Dead
From Bill Clinton and From Fat Albert to the Rev. Al: All the enablers
Bill slanders his cops - Mayor de Blasio’s suggestion that NYPD racism killed Eric Garner – and fuels police-community tension – is baseless and odious
A nation with insane leaders: The Gods Have Made Them Mad
Thornton: The End of Feminism
From Why I Left Feminism (Or, How Feminism Left Me) :
1. Current Feminism Lies to Young Women About Sex
Feminists like to tell young women many crazy lies, so it’s hard to cover them all. Most of them, however, surround sex. Here are a few:
Sex is a purely physical act and is completely meaningless.
Casual sex is not only a right, but it is also empowering!
Casual sex will leave you with no emotional or psychological damage.
There’s a “sexual double standard”: Guys get away with rampant casual sex, so why shouldn’t we encourage the same behavior for women?
VDH: Lying for the Cause - If myths do more for social progress than facts — then why worry?
Obama: Ferguson, Garner Protests 'Necessary' to Trigger 'Country's Conscience' with 'Some Inconvenience'
When you interfere with people getting to work, conscience is not triggered
Social Injustice Ate My Homework
The “national crisis” that has been provoked by the cases of Garner and Brown, they argue, has left them with no choice but to “stand for justice rather than sit and prepare for exams.”
What the Numbers Say on Police Use of Force - Two decades of data show police interactions with Americans of all races decreasing in number and improving in quality.
Ex-CIA Directors: Interrogations Saved Lives
Germans protest fascism; liberals complain
Among the stereotypes you are allowed to have is that all German conservatives are Nazis.
Among the stereotypes you are not allowed to have is that all Islamist terrorists are terrorists.
Tuesday, December 9. 2014
Monday, December 8. 2014
 The Spiritual Shape of Political Ideas - How it is that we once again find ourselves rooting out sin, shunning heretics, and heralding the end times
Time To Take The Sippican Cottage Basic Human Decency Test
Can You Ever Exercise Too Much? Some evidence shows that intense endurance workouts can put stress on the heart—but it's probably temporary.
Great Horned Owl Takes Relaxing Swim in Lake Michigan
How stoned is too stoned to drive?
Where to Move If You Want a Job, More Money, or Lots of Single People
What the Fate of The New Republic Reveals
Hiya, Big Spender! For good or ill, Nelson Rockefeller’s legacy lives on.
Explaining Hillary’s ‘Sympathy for the Devil’
The Democrats have been reduced to the party of the rich elite (George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Jonathan Gruber-types, edit al.) and the party of the poor exploited by those elites — a lethal combination that takes society exactly nowhere. In essence, they are the party of racism and sexism — that’s about it.
Eric Holder believes all cops are racists, targets ‘unconscious bias’
Obama: Racism ‘deeply rooted’ in U.S.
Is this right? Here’s Jackie Coakley “Rape Obsessed”
Via Driscoll:
[Erdely was] going from campus to campus auditioning rape victims, contacting advocacy groups and asking for introductions. But the rapes she found at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Penn didn’t have the right narrative feel. They were just rapes, and she needed a cover-worthy rape. So she kept shopping until she found someone who would tell her a version of the story she had already decided to tell. She needed a big rape — something splashy, something with wild details and a frat house. She needed a rape that would go viral. You can’t do that with just some regular boring rape.
Holy Russia, Holy Everybody Else
Britain Unveils World's "Toughest" Counter-Terrorism Law
Iconic Mideast Photo Is a Fake — and Heartbreaking One at That
Toon via Lucianne
Saturday, December 6. 2014
Federal Judge on NSA: 'Privacy Is Actually Overvalued'
Because of national security, of course. I thought he was a smart guy.
Thursday, December 4. 2014
Resist arrest. It rarely works out well.
The darn guy turned a little misdemeanor arrest into a deathly accident. Stupid, pointless, and provocative as hell. Never do that, dear readers.
Is Obama Set To Act on Cuba?
I think he is, and I'd support the idea of easing relations with Cuba.
Wednesday, December 3. 2014
Tuesday, December 2. 2014
Rape is forced sexual interaction. Rape is a felony in the US and no 18 year-old does not know that. It's a male crime. Women can seduce, and they often do quite easily because men can become aroused with little effort, but female use of force for sex is a rarity. Why on-campus rape and sexual assault is such a hot topic today I cannot figure out. From my standpoint I do not see why it should matter where you were raped.
Maybe the growth of co-education brought rape out of the shadows and onto campuses. In any event, rape and any other crime are matters for the police no matter where they occur.
College administrations need play no role in that. Colleges can, however, try to do what they used to do in the good old days: require honorable and gentlemanly behavior from the men and honorable and ladylike behavior from the women. Punishment is expulsion. Why does that sound quaint today?
Where UVA Went Wrong: Students Need to See Rape as a Felony, Not Just a Campus Infraction
UVA Should Help Police Catch Alleged Rapists -- Now.
The Right and Campus Rape - Calling in the cops is not enough.
“It is impossible to overstate the growing weirdness of the college sex scene.”
 Driving the Seam of Hispaniola
P. D. James, An Appreciation - The treasure that was Phyllis Dorothy James.
Meet the professor every conservative student should know about
Harvard’s Asian-American Problem Has a Solution, Chapel Hill’s Does Not
Fear of vaccinations
Via Carpe:
Economic Fact of the Day. For every $100 in sales, the average discount retailer like Walmart and Target earns $3.10 in profits, while the average take for the states with state and local sales taxes is more than twice that amount — almost $7
FDA Plan to Make Americans Slimmer Will Reduce Fresh Food Options - Mandate for more nutritional labeling comes with a hefty price tag.
iCass Sunstein thinks the FDA's new requirement that food sellers post calorie counts "could turn out to be a game-changer.
The Tempering Effect of the Oceans on Global Warming
Muslims Discovered Earth is Round, says Religion That Believes It’s Flat
“I only deemed it lawful to kill whoever claims that the sun is static and refuses to repent of this after clarification. This is because denying the circulation of the sun constitutes a denial of Allah (Glorified be He), His Great Book, and His Honorable Messenger. It is well established in the Din (religion of Islam) by way of decisive evidence and Ijma` (consensus) of scholars that whoever denies Allah, His Messenger or His Book is a Kafir (disbeliever) and their blood and wealth become violable. It is the duty of the responsible authority to ask them to repent of this; either they repent or be executed. Thanks to Allah that this issue is not debatable among scholars.”
The key to Obama's struggle with white working class voters is not 'white,' but 'working.'
VDH: When the Law Is a Drag
Surber: Do not rebuild in Ferguson
NY Times Propagandist Who Publicized Whereabouts of Darren Wilson’s Home Discovers Karma
'Morning Joe' Panel: Michael Brown Was A 'Thug,' Protests Are Based On 'Lies'
Ferguson Shooting: Why did the officer not shoot Brown in the legs?
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On Pearl Harbor Day, Boston Globe (Said) 
Key elements of Rolling Stone’s U
Pic is the 35,000 year-old 
Mixed race: