Overnight Open Thread (6-8-2015)

Quote of the Day I

"Nobody is equal to anybody. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days."

-- Thomas Sowell

Quote of the Day II

This David Brooks column on  "campus crusaders" misses a key point. These aren't good, well-meaning people who have just gone a bit too far. They're awful, nasty people using the excuse of "social justice" to justify indulging base desires of power and control. Awful, nasty, horrible people who should be recognized for what they are, denounced for what they are, and shamed for what they are. Because what they are is evil.

-- Glenn Reynolds

The Orwellian Nature of Transgender Politics

Strikingly, the Guardian writer says people like Bruce/Caitlyn have 'always been women. even when they were "fathering" children'. Notice it's the 'fathering' bit that is in scare quotes, suggesting it wasn't real, while the description of Bruce as a woman is treated as an incontestable truth. War is peace, freedom is slavery, man is woman.

This trans Orwellianism is increasingly finding expression in the law itself. In Ireland last year, a trans woman won the right to have her sex changed to female on her actual birth certificate. This is alarming. The midwife who said 'This is a boy' when this trans woman was born was telling the truth, and that truth was recorded on a public document. No matter - truth and history are putty in the hands of the trans lobby. Just as Big Brother thinks it can force people to accept that 2 + 2 = 5, so trans activists want us to chant: 'Bruce Jenner is a woman and has always been a woman, even when she was producing sperm, impregnating women, and winning gold medals in men's sports.' And the small matter of Bruce's birth certificate, his proven paternity of children? Forget all that; shove it down the memory hole.

Madness.

And I'm old enough to remember when this was considered over the top satire and not orthodox au courant thought that you publicly cross at your peril.

How Hard Up is Obama For Accomplishments?

This much.

Why Are These Men Shaking Hands?

The very fact that they're doing it in public tells you how much more chaotic, and dangerous the world has become under Obama's non-leadership.  Just because the Obama administration disapproves does not mean that other countries won't act to protect their own interests, even if it goes against the interests of the Obama Administration.

Jon Gabriel on the Non-Political Relevance of L'Affaire Jenner

What Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) don't get is that every cultural story is not a political one. No conservative politicos are outlawing reassignment surgery or banning trans Americans from public office. There is no effort to toss Jenner in jail or force E! to drop their latest reality show (unlike similar leftist demands about "Duck Dynasty" and the Duggars' program).

Serious presidential candidates don't feel the need to write press releases about every blip on the pop culture radar. They would rather focus on those issues they can affect, such as taxes, health care policy, and national defense.

Nevertheless, it's only a matter of time until reporters demand GOP candidates take a position on l'Affaire Jenner. My recommendation is to ignore them completely.

Can You Keep Men Out of the Ladies Bathroom?

Not if they feel themselves to be women according to a recent OSHA guide. Oh and you can't have a third tranny bathroom either. And can women sue you because there's a man in the ladies room? Probably. Welcome to 2015.

Barnard College Will Admit Men Who Think They Are Women But Not Women Who Think They Are Men

How would they know, why should they care?

A 'Kind Reminder' From Our Chinese Friends and Partners in Peace

Crises have a logic all their own so it's best to avoid them lest you end up in an 'unavoidable' state of conflict that no one actually desired.

The whole thing reads like it was written by somebody who really thinks he has the U.S.'s number. That's dangerous. The American political system makes the mechanism for going to war a politically complicated thing, and no one person ultimately knows just how resolute the U.S. as a whole is in opposing China's regional aggression. Given the right set of circumstances, America could easily escalate things to a level that the current Chinese regime simply couldn't survive, even while taking a painful but ultimately recoverable hit itself.

History shows that threatening the freedom of navigation in important sea lanes (like the South China Sea, through which an estimated third of all global sea trade passes) is one of those things that can make America become very bellicose very quickly. Let's hope the Chinese aren't being blithe about assuming that U.S. policy is dominated by capitalist realists whose sober conception of the immediate national interest would never lead them to actually get involved in a war.

Denmark Spends £41m Sending Criminal Youths on Caribbean Cruises in a Bid to Rehabilitate Them

And recidivists are sent again.

Debunking the Batterizer

The Batterizer is a new device getting a lot of buzz that claims it can extend the functional life of a battery by up to 8x normal by harvesting unused energy inside the cell. What it really is a boost converter in a very small form factor that slips over the battery. And here Dave Jones shows that for real world devices it will at most gain you something like 5-20% longer battery life. Which is something but hardly the miracle it's claimed to be.

Electronic Toys of the 70s

How could they not include this classic?

The Yahoo AoSHQ group - it's got electrolytes and shit.

And my twitter thang.

Tonight's post brought to you by Ray-O-Vac:

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Do that thing now. Or not. Because not choosing is also a choice.

posted by Maetenloch at 10:33 PM

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