Thanks for all the support I’ve been getting.

“A Dutch publisher says a well-known political cartoonist has been arrested on suspicion of violating hate speech laws with his work. A spokeswoman for Uitgeverij Xtra said Friday that the cartoonist who works under the pseudonym Gregorius Nekschot was arrested Tuesday and held overnight before being released.

“He was arrested with a great show of force, by around 10 policemen,” the spokeswoman said. She asked that her name not be used because the cartoonist and publisher have received death threats.

Nekschot is known primarily for cartoons mocking Muslims and leftists, though the spokeswoman said he is a satirist who targets “any strong ideology”. Amsterdam public prosecutors did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

Source

It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don’t forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

She claims that her students violated her civil rights. She says student’s “anti-intellectualism” made her life a living hell. So, this ex-Dartmouth professor is threatening to sue her students for the temerity to have doubted her harebrained theories on “ecofeminism” and the “French narrative theory.”

Oh, professor Priya Venkatesan was all in high dudgeon that students would dare question her efforts to “problematize” science all right. She was all discombobulated that her students were “irrational,” and “subversive” with their questions. She even thought them filled with “fascist demagoguery” — after all, isn’t it “fascist” to ask questions and not t just swallow whole what a professor dishes out? Why, it was so horrible for her that she felt she had to consult a physician for her symptoms of “intellectual distress.”

Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal has some more of the details.

Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of “French narrative theory” that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will “name names.”

Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. “My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful,” she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. “They’d argue with your ideas.” This caused “subversiveness,” a principle English professors usually favor.

If it’s “subversiveness” to challenge a theory, then what exactly is college for? But, Venkatesan was having none of that silly exchange of ideas stuff.

After a winter of discontent, the snapping point came while Ms. Venkatesan was lecturing on “ecofeminism,” which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out. One student took issue, and reasonably so – actually, empirically so. But “these weren’t thoughtful statements,” Ms. Venkatesan protests. “They were irrational.” The class thought otherwise. Following what she calls the student’s “diatribe,” several of his classmates applauded.

Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was “fascist demagoguery.” Then, after consulting a physician about “intellectual distress,” she canceled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation.

But, I have to say that we really cannot blame Ms. Venkatesan. After all, this is where our institutions of higher “learning” are headed. Venkatesan can certainly be excused for imagining that such off the wall theories as feminist “thought” et al are to be accepted as gospel, never to be questioned. This is the atmosphere we have engendered in our so-called universities. Out with the old (white men) and in with the new (gender based) truths is the ticket for the learned these days.

It has become pervasive in our colleges that all that came before is to be erased and replaced by more politically correct, group-think concepts that will re-make our world into something ostensibly better, more liberal, freer… and if you disagree the pod people will surround you, point you out to mark you as an apostate, and screech to drown you out. A recent book by Anthony T. Kronman takes up this very subject. In Education’s End (Yale, 2008, $27.50), Kronman decries the loss of the search for the meaning of life in today’s universities and pegs that loss to the constant search for “originality.” In other words, folks looking to earn their Doctorates are so intensely interested in finding a “new” angle by which to view any subject in the humanities that any understanding of context and meaning has been eschewed for the search for that “new” take.

Individuality or originality becomes the goal as opposed to an attempt to understand the wider points of a philosophical system or the finer points of great literature, according to Kronman. Was the author gay? Did his sexual proclivity “inform” his views? Was he rich? Did that wealth infuse his work with a predetermined viewpoint? These sorts of investigations into minutia drills down well past the greater value of the work in question and makes such a focus somewhat pointless. It certainly makes useless any attempt to teach about great literature when the philosophical point of the work seems so entirely lost in the halls of academia.

It would be like discussing a great movie like Citizen Kane and focusing on costuming alone instead of dwelling on the theme of the movie and its greater implications of the era in which it was filmed. Much would be lost by such a narrow focus. But it sure would be “original” research.

As Liam Julian writes in the Weekly Standard:

We’ve moved away from using facts to deduce larger lessons and toward using facts to uncover even more facts, which makes it necessary to specialize in pinpointed topics… But according to Kronman it has forced the humanities to reject Oakeshott’s “conversation” (with thinkers present, past, and future) by championing all new paradigms and rejecting all the old. Thus, instead of interacting with Aristotle, students learn to overturn his modes of thinking, to derive their own ways of making sense of life. These new worldviews do not seek to build upon the foundations of history but to tear down those foundations and replace them.

I find this sentiment revealing of where we’ve gotten to in universities today. A classic education has been sacrificed to the God’s of political correctness. We no longer graduate well-educated people, but people who are so narrowly trained as to be mere technicians. We no longer offer the world generations of people who have been exposed to ideals that might enrich all our ethical lives by training leaders who know from where we’ve come and where it might behoove us to go.

From the outside looking in, we see “minority studies,” “gay studies,” or “women’s studies” and laugh at the foolishness of such “original” thinking. We see the twisted logic of Venkatesan’s “ecofeminism” and shake our heads at the idiocy of it all. Unfortunately, it seems that our institutions of higher learning have become bastions of the silly and feckless.

I did not get a classic education either. But, I wish I had had the opportunity. But, at least I have some inkling of what I might have been missing. Most kids today aren’t even aware that there is more to this existence of ours, or at least that there could be. The classic notions of the sublimity of our existence and the ideas and ideals of men are entirely lost on too many.

But, if one professor can sue her way to a greater understanding, I say more power to her. Now, if only someone could get through to her that it is she, rather than her students, that exhibits those traits of “fascist demagoguery” so woefully common in feminist thought and its mother, PCism.

Of course, no one could expect less of organized labor but to attack Republicans, even John McCain. But the amount of money proposed to be spent to destroy McCain really makes one wonder if every last union member would approve of such vast expenditures of their dues money?

To answer that question, the AFL-CIO, for its part, intends to “talk to their members,” at least according to the Associated Press. In fact, if one weren’t paying too close attention, one would think that the union is asking permission about who to endorse — and if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you…

The AFL-CIO, which has not endorsed anyone in the Democratic primary, announced Wednesday that it is sending more than 6,000 of its people to more than 22 states during the next two weekends to talk to more than 200,000 union voters about McCain.

As if their not endorsing anyone at this time is meaningful? Hardly. Besides, what does it matter if it is so obvious that they are attacking McCain? By process of elimination, if the unions don’t support McCain, who might they support? Answer: ANY Democrat! So, their specific endorsement is pretty meaningless.

The SEIU is also “focusing on McCain.”

Meanwhile, the nation’s largest union, the Service Employees International Union, is increasing its focus on the likely Republican presidential nominee. The union’s political action committee is already running commercials critical of McCain’s health care plan.

So, the unions are gearing up to attack McCain. The sort of massive union spending we always see against Republicans could be made a bit less overwhelming, though, if we could get laws passed all across the nation so that members can opt out for their dues to be spent on political efforts of which they do not agree. But, these sorts of laws, while making headway in places like Ohio and Washington state, have made headway, a landslide Democratic victory in November will put a major crimp in the success of future efforts and further step on the rights of individual union members.

Anyway, when Huckabees ad come out there was a brouhaha over a bookcase that was lit in such a way that the front edges of it formed a cross. Whether it was intentional or not is not the point of this rant. The point of this rant is Barack Hussein Obama has a flyer out that shows him standing at a church pulpit, with a huge cross in the back ground.

Nobody has been complaining about that flyer have they? One would think Huckabee was making threats to sneak into our kids rooms at night and baptize them by the uproar over Huck’s Christmas ad, but nobody ahs tossed one whit of a fit over Barack Hussein Obama’s flyer trying to show him as an outstanding and upstanding Christian fellow.

Here’s the whole story.

Obama’s Christian message is being broadcast over the radio as well. In a Kentucky.com news story, the organization reports that “Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, who endorsed Obama on Sunday, narrated a new radio spot for Obama that highlights the Illinois Senator’s upbringing and values, including how Obama is ‘a strong Christian.’”

First, as a Christian, let me state that one’s religious beliefs should never be excluded from political discussion. That is not the point here. The point is that Obama is blatantly campaigning not on issues, but rather on religion, and he is getting a pass from the media. Huckabee was criticized for a Christmas ad, and Obama’s blatant pandering to Evangelicals is not being covered.

That, dear readers, is hypocrisy from the media at its best.

Disgusting isn’t it?

Of course someone will come along and say the rules stomp on their rights to marry their housecat or the sexy oak tree in their backyard, but hey, this is progress right? Honestly I have never understood the whole drive to be married legally anyway, except in the case of who is legally able to decide to pull the plug on you when you are laying there old, wrinkly and drooling on yourself which of course leads us to who is going to inherit all the stuff you accumulate over your lifetime. Sometimes families don’t like the fact that their relative is gay and they fight the will. So a marriage contract would nullify that little problem.

On that note I want to point out that gay men tend to have quite a bit of extra spending money, from what I have seen, and I am not sure if it’s because they seem to have two income houses, no kids (and no women) and have lucrative jobs or if it is due to some other factor I am not aware of yet. Of course the other side of the coin is every lesbian I have known so far is nowhere near as financially comfortable as the gay men I have met, so maybe there is something to that income disparity thing I keep hearing about.

Anyway, on to the story.

SAN FRANCISCO — Gay and lesbian couples in San Francisco rejoiced Thursday over a California Supreme Court decision affirming their right to marry even as political leaders on both sides of the issue girded for an extended fight in the courts and at the ballot box.
“It’s just amazing to feel like I am a full citizen — I am not a second-class citizen,” said Christmas Laubrile, a nurse, who was with her partner, Alice Heimsoth. “I don’t have to sit in the back of the bus, and I don’t have to take second best.”

OK, so a chick names Christmas finally feels like a full citizen? I have heard some illegals say the same thing about getting their greencard. So the story goes on;

“What a day for San Francisco, what a day for California, what a day for America, what a day for equality,” Mr. Newsom said before a crowd of several hundred jubilant supporters at San Francisco City Hall.

OK, I haven’t seen the video of Mayor Newsome saying this quote, but I picture him saying it, well, flamboyantly and with a lot of sweeping hand gestures and maybe fanning himself with his hand afterwards and asking an assistant named Lance for a banana daiquiri, but that’s just me.

Ok maybe that was a little, I don’t know, snarky, but come on people. The gay community has been shoving their agenda down the throats of the majority of us that don’t have a gay bone in our body (and no I don’t want one so don’t offer) and have been more and more outspoken. You should get no special consideration or protection just because you like to do the mambo cha cha with someone that has the same plumbing as you do, and you have every right if you want to do that, but I also have the right to tell you that I find it abhorrent and don’t really want to shake your hand.

Although President George Bush did not mention and party or politician by name, it is being reported it was a direct “sharp but veiled attack” on Barack Obama and the Democratic party.

Bush’s statement regarding appeasement, which was part of a longer speech made in Jerusalem, included the following comment:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

Although no specific names were mentioned by Bush, Barack Obama immediately lashed out in statement to CNN, saying:

“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack,” Obama said in a statement released to CNN by his campaign. “It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel….”

“George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel,” Obama’s statement said.

Obama asserts that he he has never supported “engagement with terrorists” but according to his own website on the Foriegn Policy page, it states, “Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions….”

On that same page, under the “talk to friends and foes” category, it states, “Obama is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe.”

Enter Joseph Lieberman, Independent Democratic Senator for Connecticut who has endorsed Republican presidential candidate John McCain and in his statement he asserts that president Bush is “exactly right”.

“President Bush got it exactly right today when he warned about the threat of Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is imperative that we reject the flawed and naïve thinking that denies or dismisses the words of extremists and terrorists when they shout “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” and that holds that—if only we were to sit down and negotiate with these killers—they would cease to threaten us. It is critical to our national security that our commander-in-chief is able to distinguish between America’s friends and America’s enemies, and not confuse the two.”

This war of words between Bush, Obama and Lieberman is starting to create even more controversy with the Democratic bloggers thinking it was a direct political attack aimed at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders as well as the continuing of the hard feelings that Democratic supporters feel about Joseph Lieberman, especially since he announced his support for John McCain.

Obama has often suggested that he would speak with leaders of countries that are listed as terrorist states and as his own website says, he is prepared to do without “preconditions“, so his protests now in saying that he has “never supported engagement with terrorists” is directly contradictory from his previous words and statements on his website.

[Update] John McCain weighs in on this newest controversy saying, “Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain. I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.’’

Asked if he thought Mr. Obama was an appeaser — the Democratic candidate has said he would be willing to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran — Mr. McCain sidestepped and said, “I think that Barack Obama needs to explain why he wants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terrorism, that is responsible for the killing of brave young Americans, that wants to wipe Israel off the map, who denies the Holocaust. That’s what I think Senator Obama ought to explain to the American people.’’

Joe Biden (D-Delaware) who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called Bush’s statement “bullsh*t“.

[Update #2] Pelosi’s response.

The American Spectator nailed her right to the wall with this:

But I thought the most ironic criticism of the speech came from Nancy Pelosi, who called it “beneath the dignity of the office” for President Bush to visit our staunch ally and make the case against appeasement. This is the same Pelosi, you may recall, who visited the terror state of Syria amid State Department protest and told President Bashar Assad that Israel was ready for peace talks with its longtime enemy, when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied saying anything of the sort.

GAME.SET.MATCH.

What is that old expression about not learning the lessons that history teaches?

by Nathan Bradfield

In California, four judges think they are smarter, better, more tolerant, more intellectual, and more advanced than 4,618,673 citizens of their state. By a 4-3 vote this afternoon, the breathingist judges struck down a law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman adopted in 2000 by 61% of California voters called Proposition 22. Here is the full opinion (pdf).

Gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California, the state Supreme Court said today in a historic ruling that could be repudiated by the voters in November.

In a 4-3 decision, the justices said the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the “fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship.” The ruling is likely to flood county courthouses with applications from couples newly eligible to marry when the decision takes effect in 30 days.

The ruling set off a celebration at San Francisco City Hall.

It’s one thing when voters in a state overwhelmingly deny a state marriage amendment. Oh wait, that’s never happened before. They’ve all passed, except Arizona last year which narrowly lost because of some language technicalities that independent voters weren’t comfortable with. Even Oregon and Hawaii have succeeded. California had as well. But not if four breathingist, elitist judges can help the matter. Is it any wonder that it was in California that Snob-ama delivered his not-yet-but-will-be-soon famous “cling to religion and guns” speech?

Liberty Counsel, which argued in favor of the marriage laws, released a statement indicating California residents will now need to work overtime to re-gain their rights:

California residents have submitted petitions to place a state constitutional marriage amendment on the November ballot. If the requisite number is certified in the next few weeks, California voters will have the opportunity to amend their state constitution so that it expressly defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Such an amendment is necessary to protect marriage from being undermined by a mere majority of four justices of the California Supreme Court.

The ACLU acknowledges that the court gave them this gift, thereby admitting that it is NOT the will of the majority of the people:

Even more important, the rest of the country recognizes that California is America’s cultural trendsetter, that cultural change in California is usually a preview of what is to come in the rest of the United States. Most Americans already believe that marriage for same-sex couples is bound to happen sooner or later. I think marriage in California will help persuade many of them that this is an issue of basic fairness, and that the time for it is now

“It might happen” doesn’t mean they support same-sex marriage. 27 states have already spoken clearly on the issue. I don’t think four judges are going to suddenly change millions of minds. Hysterical. ROFL!!!!!

Now, of course, we have to hold on to it. It appears fairly certain that anti-gay forces have gotten enough signatures to put on the November ballot an initiative that would amend the state Constitution and overrule the decision.

That initiative is scary. We lost a different vote on marriage only eight years ago. And our opponents, recognizing that marriage in California is a great prize, will fight with all their might. Which means that to win, we’ll have to raise a great deal of money and run a very smart campaign.

Socialist translation: We can’t convince the majority of voters to support us, so we’ll need to force our will on them, just like we did today.

Here’s the kicker:

No more will our opponents be able to call marriage the child of “activist judges” or out-of-control local officials. The court has given us the chance to win marriage for ourselves, and push the fight for full equality ahead by years.

So, the court has given you the opportunity to win the gold medal. A gift in your hands. If you defeat the will of a vast majority of Californians, then it won’t be from activist judges. So, by default, the ACLU admits this decision IS a result of activist judges. Thank you, ACLU, for this gem of political hypocrisy.

Try speaking to a supporter of Barack Hussein Obama and ask them the following questions;

What does Barack, specifically, propose to change in this country and how is he going to change it?

What will be the results of the changes he enacts?

How does his message give you hope?

Are you insane?

Them: “He wants to bring us all together and change how the government works.”
Me: “Yes but HOW does he want to change it?”
Them: “Well, he wants to make it work better.”
Me: “Do you think things are more efficient when they are larger or smaller?”
Them: “Smaller.”
Me: “Do you think the government has shown that it works better when it is larger or smaller?”
Them: “Smaller.”
Me: “And Barack wants to make it bigger. How is that going to make government more efficient?”

At this point they usually give me a glare and storm away!

What they won’t (or can’t) admit is Barack’s plans are simply tax and spend, with heavier regulations on virtually every industry, causing prices and unemployment to rise and wages to fall.

As it stands I defy you to show me one thing outside of bearing a child that the government does not regulate in some way. Try to start any business, any business at all, and there are government agencies left and right that you must deal with, from the local to the federal level, everything is regulated by some bureaucrat in some way. Barack’s plans will make the regulations of today seem simple, possibly almost quaint, and we will be pining for the days when starting a business only took a huge effort, and not one of Herculean proportions.

The countless pictures of Barack supporters with moon-eyed adoration are indicative of people mindlessly enthralled with a personality. Add in the images of Barack with his hand held up in the midst of one of his Old Time Revival Style Speeches, backlit by a light creating a halo effect and one can certainly draw the conclusion that many people are looking to Barack as a savior of sorts, a man promising salvation if we’d only believe in him and his nebulous plans of Change and Hope.

Now, I am not calling Barack Hussein Obama the Anti-Christ, but only because in our world of sound bites, bumper sticker politics and thirty second attention spans the words “Anti-Christ” carries connotations that are unpalatable and mean spirited. Classically the Anti-Christ is one who is in place of Christ, and given the well known distaste the American Left has for Organized Religion (especially Christianity), the leap to Anti-Christ status for Obama would not be a hard one to make if one is prone to making leaps of logic, which of course, I am not.

I prefer a slow stroll down Logic Lane, as opposed to bounding from one issue to another. Not The Left it seems, whose phenomenal leaps of faith and bounds of logic simply ignore Barack’s voting record, lack of experience and outrageous promises to bring them everything from “free” healthcare to billions in new programs without ever taking the small step of asking “How will you pay for it?” when Barack says “I will give this to you.” When most right thinking people I know hear “I will” they ask “How much?”

Barack’s plans so far have a price tag almost to the trillion dollar range, with an energy policy plan priced at $150 billion, a $60 billion dollar National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank (whatever THAT is-I think “reinvestment” is code for tax and spend) a health care plan at 65 billion a year, with all of this and more brought to you by ending the Iraq war, cutting corporate tax breaks and higher taxes on the rich.

When corporations lose their tax breaks they pass along the cost to us, then scale back, cut jobs and salaries and try to recoup losses by being leaner and more efficient. When corporations do this we all lose. The trickle down effect begins with the checkout girl who is first to lose her job, continues with layoffs in related industries when companies receive fewer orders for their goods and services coupled with higher costs which eventually may spiral out of control into a depression.

The people that do not understand a healthy free market must be left alone as much as possible are the very same people that are blindly following Obama.

So why the blindness? Can it be that Americans are now so disgusted with the government that any huckster with a glib tongue and empty promises can grab their attention?

Can it be that thirty plus years of leftist education policy is coming home to roost (to use the hottest phrase of the season) and that Americans are no longer intelligent enough to understand Obama’s policies are heavily socialist and will lead us down a road that has failed everywhere it has been tried?

Could it be that so many Americans have simply become socialists or bought into the lie that government is there to take care of us?

Is it possible that so many Americans have bought into the multiculturalism that the left has shoved down our throats for the last thirty years?

Whatever the reason for the blind faith so many people seem to have regarding Barack and his rhetoric of Change and Hope the fact remains that this movement is akin to a cult. Blind allegiance to nebulous promises and devotion to a magnetic personality who is all set to lead us, unquestioned and highly praised, into a socialist utopia is certain to destroy the last vestiges of freedom we possess.

14 people were wounded Wednesday evening, including a mother and her three-year-old daughter, when a Grad rocket fired from Gaza hit the Hutzot Shopping Center in Ashkelon. The rocket ripped through the roof of the mall, causing a large chunk of the roof to collapse in a huge pile of rubble and twisted metal. Four windows were blown out of the side of the building. The top floor of the building, which bore the brunt of the attack, is where offices and clinics are located.

A hospital official said a woman and her young daughter were seriously wounded, along with another child. Another woman was seriously wounded, and several other people were lightly wounded, said the official, Leah Malul of Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.

MDA said 14 people were wounded - three seriously, two moderately and nine slightly, adding that all the casualties had been evacuated from the site of the attack, including four people who were briefly trapped under the rubble.

(IsraelNN.com) Arab terrorists in Gaza fired two Grad Katyusha missiles at southern Ashkelon late Wednesday afternoon, and one rocket scored a direct hit on a children’s medical clinic inside a shopping center. Parts of the building collapsed, trapping four people for a half-hour. Many ambulances rushed to the scene.

Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don’t forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH