March 31, 2014

Teh Wimminz Shud Rool

So says WA saintly Senator Patty Murray:
If women ruled the country, the government wouldn't be on the brink of shutting down or defaulting on its debt, according to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

Murray spoke to a largely female audience on Wednesday, at an event that was part of The Atlantic's Women of Washington series.
Things like college attendance and completion make it plausible that the US is headed for gender equality at the very least. Why then the relentless feminist pounding on the victim drum?

Because some feminists aren't interested in gender parity and equal opportunity...because they're using victimology to establish a hard-to-dismantle legal framework for future female dominance? Consider how men are depicted, here for example, in the Lean In Collection. The traditional role of the sexes has been reveresed, not equalized; the males look like adjuncts, not partners. I doubt that's accidental.

I question whether an American gynarchy is sustainable. Maybe it will be sustainable for a time among US whites, whose cultural confidence is being browbeaten out of them. That said, I'm open to the notion that women could run a static, bureaucratic society better than men could. However, I question whether the US can transition to such a society without major quantitative external and internal setbacks. (Of course, especially in a prosperous democracy, the general welfare is often (usually?) a peripheral concern to those who have their eyes set on power.)

March 30, 2014

" Senate Democrats struggle to define a message that can save their majority"

The above headline is copied from the Washington Post (HT: Instapundit). According to WaPo, the Democrat strategy is to focus on their base rather than on swing voters.

Will it work? Well, I remember a right-of-center blog or two mocking the Life of Julia ads in 2012...until the election returns came in. The mockers completely overlooked that the ads were not directed at them.

The GOP has done well in recent spot elections. Maybe they've learned from losing the 2012 election they should have won, but they're called the Stupid Party for a reason(s).

March 28, 2014

Jen Psaki, You Go Grrl!!

She responded to Russian aggression in Ukraine with...a tweeted selfie. Who, you ask, is Jen Psaki?---
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was mocked Thursday after posting a photo of herself on Twitter holding a sign that read #United­For­Ukraine @State­Dept­Spox.”

Psaki, who has worked closely with President Obama since his 2008 campaign and is the chief communications adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry, is smiling and giving a thumbs-up in the photo.
"Vladimir Putin must be quaking in his boots."

I don't know what's worse, the risible message or th smug look on her face.

2014 = 1914 + 100.

March 25, 2014

High Tech Rigs Recruitng to Hold Down Salaries

Here. CEO salaries, stock options, and perks, not so much. There was a piece on this some time ago by a Silicon Valley reporter, but not the documentation which has now come out. HT: Instapundit, who writes:
You can see why they want a lot of temporary visas for cheap foreign workers.
A golden age of STEM has been just around the corner for 30+ years. Talk of critical shortages is a cynical lie.

(Again via Instapundit, here's a bit about St. Steve.)

Embarrassing

There's the montage of Putin vs. Obama. That was assembled to make Barry look bad.

It's hard to make that excuse for Michelle vs. Peng Liyuan when they're standing next to each other.

We are governed by people whose primary talent is lying to line their pockets.

March 24, 2014

Top Web Comics

The site, which ranks indie webcomics via online polls, is here. It surprised me that the great majority of protagonists are female.

(I read science fiction regularly in youth and remain an off-again-on-again reader. I used to thinks nothing of heroines like Telzey Amberdon or Susan Calvin. Now that there is a push to highlight Strong Empowered Women and/or People of Color, I scrutinize potential reads with such protagonists more closely. Great job, diversicrats!)

March 20, 2014

All-Encompassing Regulation, Selective Enforcement

That's the governing philosophy I associate with today's PC Left and with many on the Right. David French:
For much of my life as a lawyer, a writer, and an advocate for Christian and conservative causes I’ve made a terrible mistake. I can remember exactly when I started down the wrong path. It was the year 2000, and Tufts University had just kicked a Christian student group off campus because the group (*gasp*) required its leaders to agree with the organization’s statement of belief. I represented the group, and when trying to explain why the group’s alleged act of “discrimination” was in fact an act of total common sense, I would say things like, “Would a gay student group want Christian fundamentalist leaders? Would a Muslim student group want Jewish leadership?”
...
I went on to present hypotheticals like this again and again, convinced I was making headway largely because everyone who already agreed with me found them convincing. I now understand that this messaging failed. Utterly and completely. Dozens of universities followed Tufts’ example, and religious free association is precarious, at best, on campus after campus.

...there is no chance that a Muslim student group would be forced to admit a hostile student because that would constitute discrimination against the Muslim student group. (In fact, when I once tried to persuade a Muslim leader to join with Christian groups in protecting religious liberty, he looked at me and said, “The college will never touch us. That would be discrimination.”)
They're interested in power. Justice and good governance are pretexts.

Sex Work: Live and Let Live?

Live and let live has been my attitude, but I've been reading about feminist Duke student Belle Knox/Miriam Weeks's porn gigs. The university's support contrasts with its attitude during the phony rape allegations against the lacrosse team.

Some on the Left use justice as a pretext to grind down traditional values. A caveat from a gay marriage supporter:
When weak, the left preaches tolerance. When strong, conformity.
How did live and let live work out wrt the homosexual community? Sometimes with accusations of bigotry.

If you're going to be innocent as a dove, be wise as a serpent too.

March 18, 2014

Bravo, Mr. President!

With the kerfluffles in Ukraine, Iran and Venezuela adroitly attended to & with better, more economical healthcare in place, Barry can return his attention to America's real problems: rape culture, homophobia, and white privilege. And climate change and islamophobia, of course.

March 14, 2014

Why Is Downton Abbey Popular with the PBS Viewership?

Because it's a pretext for watching an all-white show?

I'm such a cynic (who hasn't watched the series).

'No Compulsion in Religion''

Should a binding oath to this effect be a precondition for residency or citizenship?

(With the risk of losing citizenship if the violation is serious enough. While I am skeptical about making distinctions between naturalized and native-born citizens, IMHO there's room for discussion of the above concept.)

Obama Tops Carter's Giving Away the Panama Canal

He's giving away the Internet. (After all the hanky-panky by US spy agencies, he may not have much choice. See this and this.)

Meanwhile, Putin is seizing Ukraine. Weak horse, strong horse...

The elite fools who govern us think there are no consequences to their arrogant stupidity. Of course, their response is to demand more power when the chickens come clucking home.

UN-type transnational kleptocrats would love to tax the Internet, and I bet some American politicians would go along for a cut of the loot. Human progress be damned.

March 11, 2014

Preaching to the Choir, Not Making Converts

That's the trouble with conservative & libertarian media, IMHO. Suggestion:
...it might be useful to have awards recognizing people who spread the conservative message to skeptics and people who haven’t heard it. Best Conservative Evangelist, with categories like Blogging, Press, Radio, Television, Policy Analysis, etc. Ditto for libertarians.
But nooo...

_____ _____ & Rand Paul & Ted Cruz

Paul and Cruz are running for President. (Paul won the CPAC straw poll for the second year in a row.)

First-term senators with politically extremist parentage and no executive experience...sounds good to me. What could go wrong?

Added 20140311: Which leaves, I suppose, Scott Walker and Rick Perry.

Perry is qualified, but...somehow meh. His apparent strong alliance to the Religious Right puts me off, and, as somebody wrote, No New Texans. Walker me in mind of a sales manager at a used-car dealership, or of Reggie in old Archie comic books. The concocted Bridgegate "scandal" does not change my reserve toward Christie, who always struck me as a lout: more to the point, as a lout who has reached his maximum level of competence. (Instapundit's online straw poll did not even include Jeb "Two Losers But Third Time's the Charm" Bush.)

March 7, 2014

Don't Give Them Ideas, Rep. Polis

After Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) called for a federal ban on bitcoins, Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) proposed that the government ban paper currency. He warned:
I write today to express my concerns about United States dollar bills. The exchange of dollar bills, including high denomination bills, is currently unregulated and has allowed users to participate in illicit activity, while also being highly subject to forgery, theft, and loss. For the reasons outlined below, I urge regulators to take immediate and appropriate action to limit the use of dollar bills.

By way of background, a physical dollar bill is a printed version of a dollar note issued by the Federal Reserve and backed by the ephemeral “full faith and credit” of the United States. Dollar bills have gained notoriety in relation to illegal transactions...
...
Printed pieces of paper can fit in a person’s pocket and can be given to another person without any government oversight. Dollar bills are not only a store of value but also a method for transferring that value. This also means that dollar bills allow for anonymous and irreversible transactions.

The very features of dollar bills, such as anonymous transactions, have created ubiquitous uses from drug purchases, to hit men, to prostitutes, as dollar bills are attractive to criminals who are able to disguise their actions from law enforcement. Due to the dollar bills’ anonymity, the dollar bill market has been extremely susceptible to forgers, tax fraud, criminal cartels, and armed robbers stealing millions of dollars from their legitimate owners. Anonymity, combined with a dollar bills’ ability to finalize transactions quickly, makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to reverse fraudulent transactions.
...
The clear use of dollar bills for transacting in illegal goods, anonymous transactions, tax fraud, and services or speculative gambling make me wary of their use. Before the United States gets too far behind the curve on this important topic, I urge the regulators to work together, act quickly, and prohibit this dangerous currency from harming hard-working Americans.
Congressman, your heart is in the right place, but be careful what you ask for. The regulatory state would love to record every single financial transaction. We might be shocked to learn how much information they already collect on credit cards, banking, etc.

(Whether the bitcoin implosion will turn out to be partial or complete, one should not forget that technology often/usually advances via trial and error.)

Ukraine Is a Trifle

Yours truly, at Dinocrat:
2. This crisis is nothing compared to what looms ahead. Russia’s GDP is about 12% of that of the USA or EU; China’s, more than 50%.

Wait till the Chinese leadership assesses their economy to be robust enough to underwrite a military of global reach. There are already a few indications, but we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
Where next? The South China Sea is an obvious candidate, but there are others.

March 3, 2014

Unusual K-12 Malpractice

The narrative is not unusual: elementary school traumatizes disabled child, punishes him, gets parents in trouble with authorities for suspected child abuse, lies, experiences no consequences. (HT: Instapundit.)

What struck my eye is where this happened: Princeton, NJ. The father is a Princeton psychology professor, composer, and successful writer of children's and literary fiction; the mother is a PhD/MD and also a Princeton professor.

I had assumed that people this successful and accomplished have enough status and clout to be immune from this kind of hassle. Apparently not. (If Princeton, NJ does not offer first-class public schools, who does?)