Rape Crisis Hysteria: Former GWU President Accidentally Speaks The Truth, Is Vilified

Still more insanity.

Will Trachtenberg be forced to publicly admit to counter-revolutionary thinking, and to recommend a stint at re-education camp for himself?

The advice "don't blame the victim," like so much we got from old-school feminism, was sound. In the current climate of hard-left rape hysteria, however, this has become: it is thoughtcrime to entertain the idea that there is anything women can do to decrease the probability of being raped. To suggest that women might lower their odds of being raped by drinking less--or by doing or refraining from doing anything whatsoever--is blaming the victim. (See: the recent freak-out about anti-rape nail polish...)

This is, of course, the utterest hogwash.

It is simply a fact that women--especially in a typical college environment--can tilt the odds in their favor by, for example, not getting black-out drunk. Again: that is a fact. 

To insist, on daft ideological grounds, that this very sound piece of advice not be uttered is to be willing to sacrifice the well-being of actual people to an insane political commitment. And that is either evil or damn near to it.

The crazies are ascendant in contemporary feminism, and that feminism is at the forefront of the effort by the loony left to lead liberalism over the cliff.

Edmonton Teacher Fired For Giving Well-Deserved Zeroes Wins Appeal

So this guy got fired for the sin of giving students zeroes for not turning in work...

WTF other grade should one give out?

(Incidentally, if students simply turn in a piece of paper that says "I don't know" I give them 50%. Not passing, of course, but it prevents a lot of bullshitting and forces them to admit ignorance. I give a lot of zeroes for bullshit answers--answer that are 0% correct. But just admit--to yourself and to me--that you don't know, and you can dodge a zed.)

Everything Is Racist: The Ice Bucket Challenge Is Racist

...because its purpose is to make us forget about Ferguson...

WARNING: Jezebel

Do not click!

Some more lowlights:

...more than any other story, Ferguson defines and encapsulates modern-day America. 

The case itself, combined with everything surrounding it and the centuries that made it possible, makes Ferguson quite possibly the most important story of the past decade. 

...we should feel guilty, not just as white people but as human beings, that we even for a second forgot about the prevalence of systemic racism in America

Now, I grew up with an evil racist father, and even fairly mild instances of racism make me see red...  But... Idiocy is idiocy... Since there's absolutely no justification for being idiotic in one's (alleged...) anti-racism, and since blatant idiocy in anti-racism just gives aid and succor to racists...and since there's more than a hint of (anti-white) racism in this kind of bullshit anyway...I've got no patience for it.

So...this is just one more instance of idiotic clickbait from a website that makes money by being idiotic.

(Remember the Jezebel business model summed up in one picture?)

But here's an actually important question lurking in the background of all of this stuff:

A wave of loony left nonsense is sweeping the country. Will American liberalism fall for it, or repudiate it?

The fate of sane American liberalism hangs in the balance.

Everything Is Racist: Being A Busybody Is Racist

Whelp

Both parties seem pretty off-putting to me.

The one dude seems like a busybody of jaw-dropping/world-historical proportions...

But not every asshole is a racist. And I'm just not seeing racism being a plausible charge here.

Also, of course, I'm sick to death of the charge of racism being thrown around indiscriminately.

Racism is a serious thing. One shouldn't level the charge lightly.

Anyway.

(Sidebar: "transracial"? Seriously?)

Don't Forget: Conservatives Heart Putin...

He's so dreamy...

GOP Not Doing Too Well With Women

link

My own view is that women are marginally less irrational than men, on average...  So it doesn't surprise me that they pose a problem for our friends across the aisle...

The 1033 Program: YOU NEED A TANK

video, one naughty word

Eric Hoffer: Causes: Movement, Business, Racket

Eric Hoffer:

"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."

(h/t J. Carthensis)

Rape Hysteria: Anti-Rape-Drug Nail Polish Backlash

facepalm

This literally-not-from-The-Onion collection of facepalmery is like a concentrated shot of web feminism.

Look.

There is a reason why a significant majority of Americans support sex equality, but only a small-ish minority consider themselves feminists.

Feminism has a problem.

I don't doubt that your average feminist-in-the-street is as sane as ever. Johnny Quest, for example, literally the most reasonable person I have ever met, if forced to say, says that she considers herself a feminist--though she doesn't go around talking about things in those terms.

But the most prominent current public representatives of feminism are batshit crazy.

And a fair bit of it is on display here. Anti-rape-drug nail polish? A little gimmicky, perhaps...but if invented by women, would be lauded...however, invented by...dudes.  Ergo: not cool. Also: falls afoul of perhaps the most insane bit of contemporary webfem orthodoxy: there is absolutely nothing any woman can ever do to lower the odds of rape! Is impossible! Also: it is wrong to try to stop some rapes if you are not stopping all rapes.

Contemporary feminism is deranged.

It has abandoned any effort to be rational or reasonable, and replaced those things with a kind of ideological primal scream.

And it isn't just that these people make feminism seem crazy. Rather: they are actually making it crazy. These are the people influencing the direction of the movement.

As I've often said, I try not to hold the lunatic fringe against any movement. For example, if the GOP merely had its nutty fringe like the Dems have theirs...well...that plagues even the best of political movements and parties. But when the crazies take over, it's a different story...  In the case of contemporary feminism, the nuts have taken over. And, almost as bad: the rank-and-file seem hesitant to criticize them.

Look:
Rape drugs are a factor in only a small number of rapes. See? That is what we call a good point. That is a reasonable and important thing to point out.

Contrast that with this, written by Jessica Valenti:

"I'm appreciative that young men like want to curb sexual assault, but anything that puts the onus on women to 'discreetly' keep from being raped misses the point," writes Jessica Valenti for the Guardian.
"We should be trying to stop rape, not just individually avoid it."

The mind, it reels...

"We should be trying to stop rape, not individually avoid it."

Hey, let's apply this principle generally, shall we?

Don't exercise or eat right--we should be trying to stop heart disease, not individually avoid it!

Don't lock your doors--we should be trying to stop burglary, not individually avoid it!

Don't wear your seat belt--we should be trying to stop car accidents, not individually avoid them!

If physically attacked, do not fight back--we should be trying to stop ass-kickings, not individually avoid them!

Two. Seconds'. Thought.

That's what it takes to see how insane this is.

Two. Seconds'. Thought.

This is basically a paradigm of a false dilemma. Nothing about seeking to individually avoid rape is in any way inconsistent with stopping rape. In fact...it's a kind of turbocharged false dilemma. Individually avoiding rape is, in fact, a step toward stopping rape.

Also from Valenti:

Valenti argues that promoting products like Undercover Colors is not only ineffective, but also can lead to "victim-blaming," if women don't take all the suggested precautions.

Analogously: telling people to exercise to avoid heart disease is bad, because then if they don't exercise, it might lead to people blaming others for not exercising...

Don't blame the victim: sound advice.

Criticizing methods of avoiding victimization because they might lead to victim-blaming if you don't use them: nuts.  (In Vaelenti's words, they "leave room for" victim-blaming...  Egad.)

Again: criticizing them because they are ineffective is perfectly reasonable.

But criticizing them because someone might conceivably blame someone who didn't use them, or because they do not end all rape everywhere, or because they are not the methods you prefer...is just nuts.

Boehner's Lawyer Is Charging Us All $500/hr To Sue Obama

Yeah, you really can't make this stuff up.

Thanks, party of fiscal responsibility!

(via /r/politics)

Drum On the Latest Conservative IRS E-Mail Conspiracy Theory

News Flash: American conservatism is cracking up.

link

Driverless Cars In D.C.?

Godspeed, robo-bros...

Drum: Current Republicans Really Are Unprecedented In Their Obstructionism

In case there was, somehow, any doubt in your mind...

Women v. ISIS

Get killed by a female, no heavenly virgins for you

Get 'em, grrrls

Everything Is Sexist: Ladies' Night Is Sexist

As a Tar Heel: facepalm

Buzzword bingo highlights: rape culture, "Blurred Lines," objectify, commodify.

Most embarrassing paragraph:

“I don’t think a lot of women really realize that they are actually the product being sold,” Sekay told The Daily Tar Heel. “By advertising ladies' night or by offering no cover to women, that tells the male audience that this is where all the women are going to be. And not only is that objectifying the women, but it’s also commodifying them as well, which is pretty harsh.”

Yes, I know. This site seems to be several steps down even from Buzzfeed... So this is likely to be deliberately stupid clickbait...  And yet...the crazy is metastasizing...

By doing something that women like, thus allowing men to predict that women will take advantage of it, you are "objectifying" women. Oh and: "commodifying" them...

This is hard-core bullshit from stem to stern.

And this is why feminism is disintegrating. So much of it is built on nonsense. Throw in a few lefty/po-mo-y all-purpose bullshit buzzwords, rely on your target to flee in terror at the charge of misogyny and related sins, and rely on your audience not to think too hard about how cracked your accusations are.

How the mighty have fallen.

Jame's Foley's Murderer Identified?

Somebody is about to get a visit from Delta Force and/or Seal Team 6 and/or the SAS...

link

The Irrational/Twitter Left: Drum and deBoer Take Notice

I've been bitching about the rise of the loony left on Tumblr/Twitter/etc. for awhile now. Here's Drum mentioning the phenomenon. Drum is largely referencing Freddy deBoer, here. deBoer, I'd say, gets it largely right until the last paragraph...well, I mean...he's really just saying that he agrees with a bunch of things...I'm not denying that he agrees with them, of course...but I disagree with some of the things he agrees with...

Still, it's good that even people fairly far on the left are finally starting to acknowledge that the left has a problem. It's largely a tone problem--though, of course, one of the internet left's devices for deflecting criticism is the cry of "tone policing!"...

One thing deBoer mentions is particularly worrisome if true--and Iv'e been warning of this for quite awhile. He says that he thinks that many college-aged kids are refusing to describe themselves as liberals because of this stuff (just as many stopped identifying themselves as feminists because of it). This is what happened during the PC madness of the '90's, and I predicted it'd happen again, just as I predicted that the loony left would rise again if Obama won a second term.

Damn I hate being right all the time...

Larison: ISIS And The Administration's Ridiculous Threat Inflation

link

Of course the administration has a lot more information than I do--and more than Larison does--but, given what I've seen, I have to agree with DL. They seem to be exaggerating the threat.

OTOH, Larison weighs the national interest too heavily, and frequently seems to ignore moral considerations.

I expect he's right that it's in our interest to just ignore them.

But our interest is not the only legitimate interest.

I'm inclined to want us to bomb the bastards.

(And, of course: administrations sometimes exaggerate the threat to us when they have some other reason--e.g. moral reasons--for attacking. Bush invented a threat from Iraq because Cheney, PNAC et al. wanted to invade for their own wacky reasons. Clinton mostly resisted the urge to pretend that our interest was crucially at stake in the former Yugoslavia...but when the moral case for intervention seemed to be on the ropes, he did play the national interest card at a few points. My guess is that Obama and other members of the administration believe that ISIS needs an ass-kicking, but they know that the prudence card beats the morality card in such discussions...)

Special Forces Raid Failed To Find James Foley

Damn.

ISIS Spokesman Gets Killed By Syrian Army In Lieu Of "Raising Flag Of Allah In The White House

Whlep, serves him right for being a major league jackass with delusions of grandeur

My favorite bit is the "come over here and fight like a man" bit...where, presumably, that means, roughly: come over here where we can threaten to murder people's families unless they carry out suicide attacks against you

Sometimes it really sucks that there's no Hell...

(via Reddit)

U.S. Strikes ISIS Targets After Foley Murder

link

Go get 'em boys.

I really want us to be out of Iraq for good...but I'm willing to make an exception for these mother****ers.  It really would be extremely gratifying to see the free world go in and light those psychos up...  But obviously they aren't going to be interested in a stand-up fight...

78 Arrested in Ferguson, Only 4 Local

On the night of the 18th.

Jeremy Hammond: "The Immoral Case For Drones"

This is an absolute piece of crap.

It's basically an extended, frothy ad hominem against Scott Shane for writing"The Moral Case For Drones." That latter piece is very good, actually. 

Hammond's response is just godawful.

It should go without saying that the drone question is a tough one, and there are good reasons for being very  concerned about the use of drones. But Hammond's criticisms of the arguments Shane reports on are drivel. (Note: for all of Hammond's anti-Shane vitriol, there is no indication that Shane is endorsing the arguments of Strawser et al...he's merely reporting on them.)

I'm going to the Marine Corps War College at Quantico tomorrow to give a workshop on reasoning/critical thinking, and among other things we're going to discuss the Shane piece and the Hammond piece. If I get all worked up I might post in detail on the Hammond thing...but it's a little hard for me to think that anyone who wasn't irrationally, dogmatically anti-drone-warfare would take it seriously after the first few paragraphs.

"Sex Robots Are Becoming A Better Option Than Western Women"

From the inimitable Return of Dipshits Kings, I present to you: 

Like The Title Says

These guys...I...just can't figure out what motivates these guys...nor whether they are serious.

Probably just looking to fill their copious spare time... I mean...it's not like they're getting laid...

(via /r/Tumblrinaction)

Things Go To Hell Again In Ferguson

bad

Is It Impossible To Tax The Wealthy?

Ok, somebody 'splain this to me.

Obviously not true...but why?

Note: to my shame, I have never had an economics class. I am an economic nincompoop. All I know is what I've learned in the gutter

Surprising Development In The Ferguson Shooting

Wow.

This seems to flip things around completely.

I foolishly let myself be jerked around by both sides in the Treyvon Martin case, and I think I ended up being wrong in all the available ways...so I'm working extra hard to suspend judgment in this case.

GOP Chicanery: Fake News Sites Bashing Democrats

First, the NRCC builds bogus websites that pretend to be the sites of Democratic candidates.

Now, they've built a series of fake news sites--sites that appear to be local news sites, and initially project the appearance of objectivity--but then simply bash Democrats.

These people are despicable.

And check out their response to criticism:

Responding to criticisms of the first evil ploy:

The NRCC bought up hundreds of URLs on potential weak Democratic candidates and created sites that mimic the real ones.
It may sound deceiving, but [NRCC press secretary John] Scarpinato insists the well-thought out, well-planned program is pure genius.
”Well, we are very proud of this program.”

But their response to criticism of their second evil ploy is even worse:

Josh Schwerin, a spokesman for the DCCC, still criticized the approach. "House Republicans' campaign strategy to overcome their own historic unpopularity is to resort to deception—again," he said.
[NRCC communications director Andrea] Bozek's response? "They're just jealous," she said, "that they didn't think of this strategy first."

It's like we're dealing with a bunch of evil six-year-olds.  Who control the House. And may soon control the Senate...

The Dems need to trumpet this from the freaking rooftops. Eventually evidence does--often at least--have some effect on the American electorate. It's really crucial that the Dems do something to break the grip of the false equivalence that has such a grip on low-information voters. "A pox on both their houses" is the battle cry of those who don't actually know what's going on. It sounds even-handed and world-weary...but, given the facts of the case, it just means that they're not paying attention.

[h/t Statisticasaurus rex]

Rape Hysteria: Say Anything Is "Rape Culture"

facepalm

(via the inimitable /r/TumblrInAction)

Carolina 109, Bahamas All-Stars 52

Biscuits!!!

Go Tar Heels! Beat The Bahamas All-Stars

DOO EET

Right-Left Agreement About Police Overreach?

maybe

Seems to me that American cops need to try to be more like British cops than like the American military... (though, of course, some cases call for more of the latter and less of the former...) The pervasiveness of video recordings are making it more and more clear that there are a lot of bad cops in the world. Sometimes the cops are rogue...but sometimes its bad culture and bad policy. Add in a bunch of body armor and assault weapons, and it's a blueprint for disaster.

Needless to say, there are lots of good police officers, too. Just for the record.

It's good to hear that our friends on the right might be easing up a little with respect to their law-and-order-ism...

Streets of Fire

A Rock And Roll Fable

Great movie?

Or greatest movie?

Starts with Diane Lane singing Jim Steinman...ends with a sledgehammer duel...what's not to love?

Well, it actually really ends with Diane Lane singing more Jim Steinman...which is even awesomer...

Do not EVEN try to say anything bad about this movie, or I will NOT publish your ignorant comment...

EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heels drop first exhibition game to Providence Storm in the Bahamas

Dogs and cats, living together...mass hysteria...

Congratulations to the Storm! Nicely done! Too bad we couldn't see it, but Tar Heel nation was glued to the tweets...awesome ending...I hope someone, somewhere posts the video...

Nixon Sends In The Highway Patrol

very good move

Go Tar Heels: Beat The Storm!

Carolina is in the Bahamas, playing the Providence Storm.

Git 'em, boys!

More WebFem Nonsense About Misandry: Amanda Marcotte Outdoes Herself

link

Wow. Marcotte just seems to be getting worse and worse.

One hardly knows where to begin with this screed. And I've got better things to do.

So I'll just say this and move on:

Feminism has a problem. A big problem. Very few people identify as feminists anymore--and for good reasons.  I'm in lots and lots of good company when I say: I used to be a feminist; feminism was, in fact, very important to me; but now I don't consider myself one anymore. Feminism isn't what it used to be.

To paraphrase Saint Ronnie of Hollywood (with whom I disagree about almost everything, incidentally):
I didn't leave feminism; feminism left me.

Feminism's problems are caused largely by its vocal lunatic fringe. But that fringe is not really a fringe--it's the vanguard, or something like it. This vanguard is significantly populated by illiberal, irrationalist radical leftists. That might possibly be forgiven, but more mainstream feminists tend to refuse to criticize the radical vanguard, and often even refuse to acknowledge that it exists.

And: actual anti-male attitudes are extremely common in the vanguard of feminism.

Look, as I've said, I'm not a humor cop. And I think misandry jokes are just fine...so long as they're really jokes. However, given the fact that a fair number of influential neo-feminists really do seem to dislike men...well, it's fairly clear that the "jokes" aren't always 100% jokey.

They seem like yet another attempt by certain feminists to eat their cake and have it to. In this case, a fair number of them are, by many indications, at least semi-serious. They obviously have very negative views of men--at least men who disagree with them--and so their claim that it's all just a joke rings hollow. Though the very same jokes made by my female friends, or anyone else who I knew to be pure of heart, would be funny. Because that's how humor works.

This is all exacerbated by the fact that the extremist fringe of feminism is renown for its humorlessness and humor policing--and would never tolerate equal and opposite humor.

Me, I don't care much about this. Though I do care that the vanguard of feminism is corrupt and awful. Nobody's getting all upset about the popularity of misandry jokes among web feminists, except insofar as it does highlight the actual existence of real misandry in the relevant sectors.

I do have to say that I think that gif from 9 to 5 with everybody dressed up like fairy godmothers and toasting misandry is pretty freakin' funny...

Eliminate 90% Of Males?

The Femitheist

It's dopey...but...it's another wee data point if you're interested in the fetid backwaters of our current cultural conversation about men...

Mt. Everest In 3D

This is really cool

(via Reddit)

Fascism in Ferguson: Rogue(?) Cops Arrest Washington Post Reporter

Though, to be fair, dude was RWB (reporting while black)...

So he was kinda asking for it...

Dumb Post Of The Day: Policy Mic: "Here's The Disturbing Way St. Louis Residents Are Responding To The Unrest in Ferguson"

This is too stupid even for a 'lol'...

Of course a puerile shitshow like Policy.Mic/News.Mic is just clickbait on parade...so pointing out that they post stupid things is like pointing out that the Weekly World News prints stupid things. Their response, if honest, would probably be something like: you say "stupid" as if it were a bad thing...  

Clicks are clicks...

First: "stockpiling": bullshit. There is no mention of "stockpiling." Gun stores showed a spike in sales. Purchasing is not "stockpiling." Even the original TPM story doesn't say "stockpiling"...and you know what TPM is like on firearm issues...

Second: Um...the riots are just dandy, but buying a gun to protect yourself in the shadow of riots is "disturbing"?

Then there's the jewel in the crown of this bit of stupidity:  "More guns won't relieve racial and class tensions in Ferguson." Jesus. This is one of the most egregious straw men I've ever seen.

Look: suppose there is a national famine and people start stealing food from each other. You acquire a firearm to protect your family. I say: "that gun won't end the famine."

Good point...or extremely, embarrassingly, hyperbolically stupid point?

The guns are not intended to "relive racial and class tensions." And, in the thought-experiment, they're not intended to solve the famine. They're for self-defense.

This is like a case in which someone loses an arm in an accident, the doctor prepares to cauterize the wound, and someone objects: "that won't bring his arm back!"...

So very, very stupid...

Then there follows a fairly typical selection of confused and cherry-picked statistics alleging to show that guns make things worse, decrease safety, and all that nonsense. It's just mindless liberal anti-firearm gibberish, debunked many times in the past.

Which is not to say that buying a gun is always the greatest idea...  IMO, most people are better off without them...  But a sane, responsible, honest person on the fringe of a riot is better off with a firearm than without one. In fact, the whole neighborhood is better off.

None of this, of course, is to say that anyone needs to buy a firearm in response to the Ferguson "unrest."

But this NewsMic post is just trash. It's mindless anti-firearm propaganda.

And, yes, I'm more than well aware that there is mindless pro-firearm propaganda out there as well.

But that's a different story for a different day.

"Don't Do Stupid Stuff" Is, In Fact, A Damn Fine Principle Of Foreign Policy

And not a "gaff"

Imagine how much better off the world would be if Bush and Cheney had had even the dimmest grasp of that principle...

Basically, this is why I'm so pro-Obama: he can be trusted to do very little stupid shit.

With Bush (to take an extreme and obvious example), you held your breath every day when opening up the Washington Post. What godawful trainwreck might have been set in motion by administrative incompetence while you slept? You just never knew...

Obama can be trusted to consistently make decisions that are, at least, in the ballpark.

And that is Job One for a president.

Don't try to save the world...just try not to set it on fire...

And HRC, who has complained that the principle is too modest, was not herself able to accord with it in the Senate, having voted to authorize the Iraq debacle.

So, while we can aspire to more under certain circumstances, just living up to Obama's modest, negative principle has proven to be too difficult for many.

But a damn fine principle it is.

Obama Should Speak Now In Support Of The War Powers Act

Amen, brother Kevin.

The Whistleblower Blew Smoke

Yep, that's about the size of it...

Despite a dedicated coterie of ABCers dumping immense amounts of time, effort and money into trying to dig up something....anything...to link Carolina basketball to the AFAM scandal...so far, it has all come to nothing. But, since allegations go on page 1, and retractions on page E17, just below "Your Pergola And You!," Carolina is getting crucified in the court of public opinion.

This will add an extra layer of agony if Wainstein does dig anything up. After years of obvious nonsense being propagated as fact by people with grudges against Carolina hoops, it will really, really suck if something real and damning does turn up.

But all we can do is wait.

Of course there is no evidence on God's green earth that will convince the N&O and the Raleigh-Durham Axis of Evil that Roy and Carolina hoops are innocent. But, then, that's not the goal. The News and Observer is dedicated to the proposition that Carolina is guilty. Their selective presentation of the facts, cherry-picking of evidence, and obviously slanted coverage have made that abundantly clear. The goal is to have yet another investigation--but an investigation to end all investigations. Wainstein is above reproach, Nyang'oro is now willing to testify, and this one should put an end to it all.

So we wait...

The Bob McDonnell Trial / The Bob McDonnell Trial According To Pat Robertson

Reality

Reality through the lens of the right-wing media

Bush/Cheney, you see, was a fine administration. Obama, on the other hand, is destroying the nation.

Crazy On The Web Left: Samantha Allen / Feminists Against Free Speech Edition

Possibly the most nauseatingly dumb thing you'll read on the web all...well...I was going to go with 'month'...but then I remembered: the web...

...so...day?

Anyway: this is godawful.

Web feminism is just eaten up with this kind of crazy. Rabidly anti-male, illiberal screeds.

This is not worth my time, nor yours...except insofar as it's a token of a really crazy type.

In it, we do hear the unhappy story of one Redditor who discovered that her bf is a pathetic, evil troll. We're told that he seems/seemed like a nice guy (note: 'nice guy', incidentally, is now a derogatory term in the WebFem lexicon...but here the term is used straight). If true, it's another tiny little punch in the gut to humanity...people who are nice in their normal lives sometimes turn into psychos when they logon to the Web of Gyges...

But that's really just an occasion for the author's real points, which are:

1. All trolls are men

2. Men who like Seth McFarlane are horrible and are probably "mean" to women on the internet

3. Men who disagree with Anita Sarkeesian are horrible

4. Supporting certain parts of the Bill of Rights is verboten. E.g. the Second Amendment, of course. If your bf is pro-Second-Amendment, you should "run." And then there's the First:

This could be a huge warning sign. Trolls cite the First Amendment as frequently as college application essays cite “The Road Not Taken.” They think that it gives them the right to verbally harass, stalk, and threaten whomever they want without any consequences. If your man picks the First Amendment, just ask him to explain what it means. If he thinks it means that “it’s a free country” and “people can say whatever they want,” tell him to go back to the playground he learned his politics from and find a new boyfriend.

The mind, it reeleth...

5. Women should suddenly ask for their bf's laptops, and make sure said bf does not log out of his accounts first, the purpose being to snoop into the dude's online habits, because:

If he spends thirty seconds meticulously logging out of his email and social media accounts before handing it to you, there might be something going on with him and trolling is definitely on the table. It’s 2014, after all. Men don’t just cheat on you and watch too much porn anymore. They also obsessively track down and harass people who are different from them in order to feel the fleeting sense of control and superiority that defines their particular version of masculinity.

Wow.

That's a whole lotta crazy right there.

lessee...just for the record:

1'. According to one commenter, there is evidence that a significant number of trolls are female. (I don't know whether that's true. Can anyone confirm or disconfirm that?)

2'. Seth McFarlane is lame.

3'. Anita Sarkeesian has some good points, but, overall, I'm not a fan. She frequently uses the method of cherry-picking and free-associative interpretation so beloved by the left. If anything can be interpreted so as to support her thesis, then that's how she interprets it. Obvious counter-evidence is typically ignored.

4'. "Favorite Amendments"? Really? What childish drivel. Though, of course, I'm pro-Second, and very extremely pro-First...so there's that. It's really, really creepy how anti-First-Amendment the WebFems have become. It's a kind of meme with them. Appeals to the First Amendment are commonly met with shrieks of "FREEZE PEACH!" (Note: I am not making this up.) No arguments, really: just the "freeze peach!" mantra, which is intended to deride...but just sounds really stupid...

Remember: these people are not liberals. They are illiberal--in fact anti-liberal--in the extreme.

5'. At that one, I can only shake my head in disbelief. If I had a gf who did something like that with the intention of snooping on me, that would be the end of the story. (Wonder what the author thinks about NSA spying? Is it permissible to support the Fourth Amendment, one wonders?)

Oh and, incidentally:

Samantha Allen is a doctoral fellow in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Emory University. In addition to writing regularly for the feminist gaming blog The Border House, her writing has also appeared on Salon, Jacobin, Kotaku, and First Person Scholar. 

Let me just say: I cannot imagine anyone being surprised by that.

Ok.

Sure, it's just one stupid piece of clickbait.

But eventually that excuse for failing to take this stuff seriously fails to hold water. Just one crazy post...just one crazy post...just one crazy post...eventually, you see, it's not just one anymore...

There is a trend here, and it's not a good one. Rabid sexism prevails in a certain very vocal sector of web feminism (and academic feminism...that is, in the vanguard of feminism...). Feminism in particular and liberalism in general are insufficiently critical of this stuff. Feminism has already been dragged toward the crazy left, and liberalism, typically helpless/feckless when confronted by illiberal threats from that direction, is easily dragged there-ward.

It's not like the Brown Shirts are marching down Pennsylvania Avenue or anything...but this idiocy has become a real force on the web. If you can't get yourself to criticize it, at least--or so I suggest--refrain from making excuses for it.

A Witness Gives His Account Of The Mike Brown Shooting That Led To The Ferguson, MO Riots

link

This sounds bad, bad, bad.

(via Antonio French's Twitter page)

Republican Takeover Of Senate More Likely

This is very, very bad news.

Imaginary Racism: Gardener's Question Time Edition

Pure, unadulterated idiocy

Certain sectors of academia are rife with this nonsense, and it's infected much of lower-middle-brow social and political thought . Not-terribly bright people get brainwashed by sophomoric theories as undergraduates, and become convinced of their own infallibility since, hey, you can't go too far to the left! The lefter the better! And racism is bad, ergo there is no such thing as being too anti-racist... Even patently absurd claims and false accusations are not to be lamented.Extremism in defense of silly theories is no vice...

(h/t J. Carthensis)

Outer Banks

Been gone to the Outer Banks (mostly Kitty Hawk and Nag's Head...couldn't make it down to Ocracoke...)

Back now.

Basically didn't look at the web for 4 days.

Much better for it.

Mary Willingham Plagiarized In Her Master's Thesis?

link

So, this is the person pushing hard to try to expand the academic/football scandal at UNC and convince people that the basketball program was also involved. In fact, she might be considered the prime mover. She's already been caught out lying, her main conclusions have been rejected by actual experts, and evidence of flat-out incompetence has emerged.

Now it looks like she also plagiarized in her thesis.

CNN and ESPN have fawned over her, trumpeting her accusations on their front pages...but their retractions, when they've appeared at all, have been buried. Let's see whether they mention this at all.

Impeachment Fever: Catch It: Obama Made It All Up Edition

Whlep, after six years of impeachment chatter from our friends on the right, Obama finally started judoing them by using their own wingnuttery against them in fundraising campaigns. Out-maneuvered by the Antichrist-In-Chief yet again, the new GOP talking point is:

Obama made up all that impeachment stuff

Warning: there's Douthat on the other end of that link. Try not to get any on you...

Over there you'll also find more of the currently hot GOP gibbering point: ZOBAMA IZ TEH LAWLESS DICTATORZ!!!111

It's too bad that this is all playing out as it is. I tend to be against expansions of executive power. But the GOP, by having no real goals beyond obstructing Obama, has more-or-less forced him to take the kinds of actions he's contemplating on illegal immigration.*  Granting illegal aliens some temporary legal status seems to me to be a reasonable response to the current crisis. It, might, of course, make the problem worse in some important respects...but no one seems to have a better plan.

Anyway, unless I'm missing something here, here's how things have gone:

GOP starts chattering about impeachment before Obama is even elected
...
GOP makes destruction of Obama Job One
...
GOP shrieks about crisis at border.
GOP implements new impeachment-relevant talking point: Obama as lawless dictator!
GOP blames Obama for crisis at border
GOP refuses to pass bill addressing crisis at border
Obama contemplates executive action to address crisis at border
GOP "lawlessness" chatter intensifies
Obama uses GOP impeachment chatter as fundraising tool
GOP denies ever having heard anything about this...what is it? Im-peach-ment?
(Douthat's variation: and Obama made that all up...which, y'know...might just be an impeachable offense...)

Look, the Democratic party really does seem to me to be analogous to an asylum...but at least the doctors and orderlies are still in charge there, and the most dangerous and deluded patients are largely isolated and/or under control. But the GOP is similarly analogous...and over there, the lunatics are running the show.


* Sidebar: WTH is it with the national media continually talking about "anti-immigrant sentiment" with respect to illegal immigration? I've never met a single person in my life who was "anti-immigrant." What we have (mostly on the right--those guys aren't wrong about everything, you know) is anti-illegal-immigrant sentiment. Or, more properly and in most cases: anti-illegal-immigration sentiment. Or, again, more properly: an anti-illegal-immigration position. The repeated attempts to paint those who are concerned about illegal immigration as anti-immigration is loathsome. NPR is really bad about this, but the tendency is pretty widespread.

Possibly The Most Amazing/Hilarious Video You'll See This Week: Lenar Whitney: Global Warming Is A Hoax

Called "fact-averse" and "the most frightening candidate [he] met in seven years of interviewing congressional hopefuls" by David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, heeeeere's Lenar Whitney (member of the Louisiana House of Representatives) ladies and gentlemen!:

Global Warming Is A Hoax

Maria Baghramian, "A Brief History Of Relativism"

Good paper

I've read it before, but had forgotten about it. Not monumental or anything--but it doesn't aim to be. Just a very solid intro to the history of the subject and term.

Philosophers screw a lot of things up, but they certainly write better papers on relativism than people in other disciplines, by a long shot.

Anyway, Baghramian is generally good on this subject, and I recommend this piece.

CIA Did Hack Senate Computers

link

Suggestion: come down on them like the ****ing fist of God

Should Your Smart Car Kill You To Save A Child's Life?

Goddamnit

The smart-trolley problem

Race Is Real: Race In Medicine

link

Back a few years ago it was all the rage to claim that medicine was racist because it focused too much on whites. Now it's all the rage to claim that race is fictional/"socially constructed".

Only the conclusion stays constant: YOU'RE ALL A BUNCH OF RACISTS

Look, liberals need to stop falling for this nonsense. Race is real, though it's less important biologically than the racists of yore thought it was, and no race is morally inferior to any other, again contrary to the cherished views of said racists. But you can't just close your eyes and cover your ears and repeat "race isn't real, race isn't real" over and over again and hope it'll become true.

Race is real.

That's why we have a problem with racism.

If race weren't real--if we really couldn't tell at all who was what race--we probably wouldn't have a goddamn problem with it.*

It's not like goddamn biorhythms or something.

And, while I'm ranting:
If you're going to try to deal with the racism problem by claiming that race isn't real, how the hell are you going to deal with the sexism problem?

Though actually...the same route is open to you with respect to sex. The same terrible arguments that are used to support racial anti-realism are available in the sex case: sometimes you can't tell someone's sex by looking...there are borderline cases of male and female... So, hey, if you're a racial anti-realist, looks like you're going to have to be a sex antirealist, too...

Anyway, something something horns of a dilemma or something...

C'mon, liberals. Don't be idiots about this.

Pleeeeeeease?


* That is probably a shitty argument right there. But not the rest of it.

Sweden Declares Race A Social Construct or: Lysenkoism In Action

facepalm

Oh Sweden...you so crazy...

It's so refreshing to see a country that's being ruined by flipped-out crazy lefties...  The opposite is so common...but since the fall of communism, the right-wing crazies have really retaken the lead in country-ruining...

But man, the far left really seems to be turning Sweden into Crazy Town.

Check this out:

"We know that different human races actually do not exist," Swedish Integration Minister Erik Ullenhag told Sveriges Television (SVT). 

HAHAHAHAHA no.

No, we do not know that, Mr. Ullenhag.

We do not know that because it isn't true, but knowledge is only of the true. You can't know something false.

I'm going to grouse about this more later, but there it is for now.

Man, the far left really is just batshit delusional, willing to deny the plain facts in front of them on the basis of crackpot theories. I know, I know, the righties do it too...  But look...denying climate change...that's...way, way more destructive of course...but it doesn't require you to deny the plain facts right in front of your eyes, that people from different backgrounds often exhibit different, obvious physical characteristics.

What's really funny is that this breed of lefty seems to be incapable of recognizing the plain fact that there are different human races, but that they all deserve equal rights and respect. This is yet another respect in which liberals are superior to far lefties: we are capable of recognizing racial differences without it shaking our commitment to equal rights. Far lefties can't seem to do that--so they produce obviously false theories that deny the very differences that made the struggle for equal rights so difficult.

The big thing to be concerned about here, though, is Lysenkoism. Batshit lefties have gained control in Sweden, and such people are willing to twist science to fit their political agenda. Again: yeah, it happens here, too--though generally from the right. (See: North Carolina and climate change...) That's more destructive, probably. But just, somehow, not as flat-out creepy...

Distilled Essence Of Magazines In the Checkout Aisle

NSFW

(via Reddit)

The Williams Guard

Hey, this is new to me, and looks pretty cool.

(Warning: jiu-jitsu relevant. Not of interest to normal people.)