Overnight Open Thread (4-21-2014)

Pixy on the Democrats and Their Love for Totalitarian Iconography

The Hillary poster in particular seems to come from some weird alternate universe in which Eva Peron was an admiral of the Imperial Japanese navy.

"Shut Up Culture" Takes on Dissent Over Campus "Rape Culture"

So Cornell student Julius Kairey wrote a thoughtful, reasoned column in the campus newspaper pointing out how the movement to end 'rape culture' on campus has seriously eroded the due process rights of students.

But the belief that rape must be prevented by "any means necessary" has been used to justify the elimination of key protections for students accused of rape in campus judicial systems. Some want the claims of the alleged victims of rape to be accepted as true, and not scrutinized in a fair legal proceeding. Just two years ago, Cornell stripped those accused of sexual offenses of the right to retain an attorney in University proceedings and the right to cross-examine their accusers. A student accused of a sexual offense at Cornell is now not able to directly ask the person who is making a potentially life-ruining accusation a single question about the incident. This is an inexcusable erasure of the fundamental right to confront one's accuser, a right that has existed for all of our country's history. Such rights are not superfluous. They protect us against arbitrary action by those who hold the levers of power.

And outrage!! from the usual campus suspects ensued blaming Kairey for fomenting sexual assault as well as the newspaper for disrespecting rape survivors by having the temerity to even publish his trigger of a column:

We disagree with the decision to publish "The Truth About 'Rape Culture,'" by Julius Kairey '15. Kairey blatantly disrespected a sensitive subject by reducing and delegitimizing the scarring experiences of survivors. This newspaper erred in publishing this article and should now also take responsibility for the harmful, triggering effects that articles like these cause.

...Those, like Kairey, who have the power to create change by advocating for survivors instead choose to ignore their voices, erase their rights and refuse to hold perpetrators accountable..

Now to even disagree with those obsessed with 'rape culture' makes you a cheerleader for sexual assault as well as a common thought criminal.

Because Animal Rights Activists Hate NYC's Horse-Drawn Carriages

They've come up with this electric, truck-sized 'eCarriage' to replace it. It only travels at 5mph and costs a mere $150,000+.

At the New York Auto Show last week, a very large electric vehicle--effectively a larger-than-life electric scale model of a Brass Era touring car--was shown to the public by NYClass.

The animal-rights advocacy group has long advocated for the removal of horse-drawn carriages from Central Park on the grounds of animal cruelty.

It proposes that the 68 carriages now operating in and around the park be replaced with the so-called eCarriage, which would operate at 5 mph in the park, to replicate the open-air horse carriage experience for tourists as closely as possible--minus the clip-clop and the odor of horse manure.

The prototype electric car shown last Thursday is the size of a seven-passenger full-size SUV, seats eight, weighs 7,500 pounds, and rides on 26-inch truck tires. It uses a number of existing components from other vehicles, including the Ford F-450 heavy-duty commercial truck.

Kate Humble: We don't value food because it's not expensive enough

But of course one of the long proclaimed 'freedoms' of socialism was freedom from hunger. But then once food became plentiful and cheap, the new complaint becomes that we just don't appreciate it enough. Which is a big clue that it's really all about control and thinking the proper way.

Prager University: Jonah Goldberg Explains 'Social Justice'

And the noxious assumptions embedded into the term itself.

And fittingly Vox just published this article by Matt Yglesias: Beyond the Laffer Curve - the case for confiscatory taxation

Here he basically admits that it's not about the money - it's all about social engineering. And control.

The Laffer Curve - the idea that tax cuts can sometimes increase tax revenue - is one of the most influential and widely debated ideas in the past two generations of American politics. Beloved by the right and despised by the left, one thing that both sides have tended to agree on is that knowing what side of the curve we're on should be a key driver of tax policy.

But in an era of surging inequality, it's time to revisit that assumption. Maybe at least some taxes should be really high. Maybe even really really high. So high as to useless for revenue-raising purposes - but powerful for achieving other ends.

First Time in a Drive-Through Car Wash

Full disclosure: When I was very little (and normally fear-less) for some reason drive-thru care washes absolutely terrified me. I think it was a combination of the noise, shaking, and movement that convinced me that we were being attacked and eaten by robots or maybe possibly some kind of sea creature. More often than not I would end up in the back seat in tears attempting to curl up into the foot rest area.

In time I came to accept the car wash attacks and no longer fear them. These days I now use that time to check my email and toss trash into the backseat area. But I have to admit that every time I go through one the holy-shit-I'm-being-eaten part of my amygdala still twitches a bit.

Human Barbie is Kind of a Dumb Bitch

And yes thanks to modern materials and plastic surgery this is a real person.

And it turns out that Human Barbie, Valeria Lukyanova, believes you can subsist off of sunshine and air alone (Breatharianism) and is very concerned about racial miscegenation and mongrelization.

Ethnicities are mixing now, so there's degeneration, and it didn't used to be like that. Remember how many beautiful women there were in the 1950s and 1960s, without any surgery? And now, thanks to degeneration, we have this."

And no Human Ken Doll doesn't like her much either. He considers her an unserious dress-up-doll poseur as well as his arch-nemesis.

"She's a cute girl.I don't really get her. I don't get why people think she's so interesting. She has extensions. She wears stage makeup. She's an illusionist.Unlike me, who has spent nearly $150,000 permanently transforming myself into a human Ken doll, Valeria just plays dress up. But as soon as you wipe away all that makeup, she's just a plain Jane and there's absolutely nothing special about her."

The Yahoo AoSHQ group. Bla bla bla.

And my twitter thang.

Tonight's post brought to you by wasn't this a Twilight Zone episode:

And wouldn't make more sense for people to disappear while going through a drive-thru car wash? Those things are scary.

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posted by Maetenloch at 10:31 PM

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