Monday, September 8, 2014

Nosegay

1. "Optics"

It has become distressingly clear that the Narcissist-in-Chief is a soulless monster:

President Barack Obama told NBC News on Sunday that he regrets the "optics" of going golfing just minutes after making a speech about the beheading of American journalist James Foley by ISIS terrorists.

"I've got to ask. During that vacation, you made the statement on Foley. You went and golfed. Do you want that back?" asked NBC News' Chuck Todd.

"You know, it is always a challenge when you're supposed to be on vacation because you're followed everywhere," said Obama. "There's always going to be some tough news somewhere....I should have anticipated the optics."

Obama said he held back tears after speaking with the parents of the beheaded.

Obama added, "Part of this job is the theater of it."

This, from the man who blew up spectacularly when Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress in a fashion he deemed contradictory to his preferences. This, from the man who forced his way into a meeting of heads of state who had tried their best to exclude him, snarling "Are you ready for me?" This, from the man who, clearly nettled by John McCain's reminder of his campaign promises, dismissed him with a sarcastic "The election is over."

Obama's emotions only engage events that threaten his self-image.


2. Same Dudes You Misuse On Your Way Up...

Andrew Cuomo was minded to treat Zephyr Teachout, his challenger for the New York Democrat Party's gubernatorial nomination, as a minor nuisance. That might have been a major mistake:

It’s official: The New York Times says we’re having “a Teachout moment,” by which the paper’s editorial board means it’s time for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to stop trying to knock progressive challenger Zephyr Teachout off the ballot and to debate her instead. It’s a play on “teachable moment,” and it makes you wonder what’s intended to be taught.

Does the paper believe Cuomo should be taught a political lesson in the wake of the Moreland Commission scandal, after a scorching Times report revealed he’s being investigated for meddling in and protecting allies from the anti-corruption probe? Or does the Times think that Cuomo should learn that he can afford to play nice, for a moment, and give state voters an opportunity to examine his four years in office, alongside a barely known rival with an odd name who declares that he’s been “a failure as a Democrat”?

Andrew Cuomo isn't bulletproof. His SAFE Act alienated many upstate residents, plus sheriff's departments in nearly all of New York's sixty-two counties. Summarily shutting down the anti-corruption probe when it began to cast a gaze near him has put his claimed intent to "clean up Albany" under a dark cloud. His treatment of a challenger on his left as someone to be invalidated procedurally if possible, treated disdainfully if not, could cost him heavily in the megalopolis that elected Bill De Blasio its mayor.

No one thought Westchester county executive Rob Astorino had a Chinaman's chance against the Cuomo machine. We might see a reassessment of that position. Remember that no one thought George Pataki could beat Mario Cuomo, either.


3. Do You Really Want To Let This Go On, Black Americans?

This suggests that "it's on" is more than figurative language:

Late on Saturday night, a mob of black teens swarmed a Kroger grocery store in Memphis, Tennessee and proceeded to beat two store employees and one customer to the ground.

Police reported they had received a September 6 surveillance video showing the swarm of black teens pushing, punching and kicking the young store employees at the entrance to the store.

According to Memphis police, the group emerged from a restaurant in the same strip mall and immediately attacked a 25-year-old man as he left his car in the parking lot and headed for the grocery store.

Two grocery store employees ran to the man's aide, and the black mob attacked them as well, brutally beating all three victims into unconsciousness.

Police report that the crowd of up to 20 teens were laughing and yelling "fan mob."

All three victims were treated on the scene and refused transportation to the hospital.

Video taken by customers on the scene attest to the viciousness of the attack. It shows screaming, joking, laughing black members of the mob attacking and kicking a white Kroger employee lying immobile on the ground.

Memphis Police Department Director Toney Armstrong released a statement on Sunday morning, making no mention of a possible hate crime.

"Hate crime?" Of course not! How could it be a hate crime when the assailants were black and the victims were white?

Tennessee isn't the deepest of the deep South, but it shares the prevailing attitude toward going armed. If black parents -- such as there are -- haven't yet reminded their unruly spratlings of that, they'd better do it soon. Far too many Tennesseans remember Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, to say nothing of the liberating effects of the contretemps in Ferguson, Missouri.


4. Is Homosexual Sodomy Becoming Popular?

Ordinarily, I'd expect just about anyone, regardless of political orientation or affiliation, to answer that question emphatically no. We don't often speak of "popularity" when we address these conditions, for two reasons:

  • Most Americans accept the contention that homosexual orientation is inborn and fixed;
  • Homosexuals themselves are relentless about claiming that "they wouldn't have asked to be born this way."

Yet Matt Barber's column of today leads off with a surprising opening statement:

None can deny the fast-rising popularity and approval of the “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender” (LGBT) lifestyles. Most especially, perhaps, the “bisexual orientation,” which has become rather fashionable and, hence, more frequently practiced among today’s blindly “tolerant” millennial generation.

That snapped my eyelids back against their stops. Does Mr. Barber really mean that the way it looks? Are young persons of normal sexual orientation choosing to practice homosexual acts? Who are they? What's gotten into them?

Yes, I know that last little sentence can be read more than one way. To quote Peter Sellers, I did that on purpose.

Bisexuality among women doesn't raise a lot of eyebrows. Female sexuality is far more fluid and far less aggressive than male sexuality. But bisexuality among men is a tougher proposition to accept, specifically because insertive male sexuality carries strong connotations of "one who acts upon another" rather than that of "one who is acted upon." With rare exceptions, men see themselves in the dominant role when it comes to sexual congress. So if young American men and teens are choosing to practice bisexuality (or more striking yet, homosexuality), it goes against virtually everything we believe we know about sex and the male psyche.

If there are some studies behind Mr. Barber's words, I'm anxious to see them.


5. When Will They Give Up?

Surface and lower-atmosphere temperature measurements are in agreement that there has been no rise in overall global temperatures for 17 years and 11 months. Arctic ice cover is at an all-time high. Severe and sudden weather events have declined in frequency over the past decade. Astrophysicists are speculating about an approaching Maunder Minimum, if not an even more dramatic reduction of the Sun's energy output.

In short, the contentions of the warmistas belong in the toilet. So why won't they give up and admit their errors?

  • Because it would cost them funding.
  • Because it would tarnish their reputations.
  • Because governments are eager to see their thesis promoted.

This is the nature of politicized scholarship. What serves the regime's agenda will be promoted even if it should be utterly without foundation. Persons who claim the title of "scholar" or "researcher" but are more interested in money, prestige, and perquisites than knowledge will climb aboard the State's wagon and cling to it until their contentions have been too thoroughly destroyed to elicit anything but laughter. So we can't expect to be rid of the warmistas for some time to come...especially given how useful complete totalitarian control of the American economy would be to the Left.

Keep your laugh reflex properly tuned up. Ridicule is the only thing that will reliably make a warmista pull in his horns. And after all, the notion of a law against bad weather is the second oldest laugh line in the book.

(The oldest? "I'm only going to put it in a little way, and I'll take it right out." Attributed to Adam, but probably apocryphal.)

6 comments:

Adrienne said...

"Are young persons of normal sexual orientation choosing to practice homosexual acts? Who are they? What's gotten into them?"

Why, yes - yes they are.

As you say, not so much the males, but there is an explosion among the younger high school girls here in Post Falls toward lesbianism. It surfaced suddenly about two years ago. It's all openly displayed on their Facebook pages and completely accepted by their peers and, in many cases, their family.

Weetabix said...

3. I've long since decided that if I see anyone kicking someone on the ground, the sidearm is coming out because there is clearly imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm. Coma, death, and brain damage are serious risks to the person on the ground.

lelnet said...

Declaring oneself homosexual is a pretty big step...especially when it would be motivated far more by a desire for group-identification than a desire for...you know...sodomy. At some point one's new friends would become confused as to why one was not actually initiating romantic and/or genital relations with anyone of the same sex. And then what does one do? Suffer the shame and embarassment of the poseur? Or get over one's aversions and just do it?

Bisexual? Much, much easier. One can go on pursuing relationships exclusively with persons of the sex one actually prefers, more or less indefinitely, without running any risk of being called on it, yet one gets nearly all of the social benefits that would attach to self-identifying as "gay".

(Of course, some members of the "gay community" are as aware of this incentive and as skeptical of self-identified bisexuals as I am...but they're not the ones defining the social norms of the broader society and culture, these days.)

Roy Lofquist said...

"Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address

DAN III said...

Re: #3. The felony assault by those who kicked their fellow American in the head is justification for the use of deadly force against the assailants. This is the type of event where those of us who carry concealed are going to have to make the almost instantaneous decision to put a bullet(s) in the perp(s) attacking innocent people with the intent to kill, maim and injure those unfortunate folks.

Anonymous said...

In my book SCIENCE FUNDING: POLITICS AND PORKBARREL, I argued the case that Federal funding of science has corrupted the American scientific establishment. I think the global warming hoax is simply more evidence of that.