Overnight Open Thread (7-5-2015)

Quote of the Day I

John Kerry, his secretary of state, is one scary dude. A newspaper headline captured the problem perfectly when it said that Kerry was looking for a "legacy hit." "For Kerry, Iran deal would be a legacy hit after many misses."

He won his party's presidential nomination, but didn't win the presidency. He was in the Senate for a jillion years but did basically squat (except for voting the party line). A nuke deal with the mullahs would be his "legacy hit."

Beware the man who wants to be something. That man is often a very dangerous character. How about the epitaph "He did no harm"? Not sexy enough. But men who do no harm are better than most, probably.

-- Jay Nordlinger in Beware the Legacy-Seeker

Quote of the Day II

Greece before it joined the euro was pretty much what it had always been: a slightly ramshackle, inefficient Balkan economy, rife with cronyism and corruption. But it got by. It took the special magic of the euro to turn Greece into the epicentre of a major financial crisis. The single currency has a kind reverse alchemy: everything it touches quickly turns to rubbish. Greece ran up too much debt, and spent a bit too much. But in normal circumstances, it could have devalued its currency, and renegotiated what it owed, just as [Milton] Friedman argued.

-- Matthew Lynn in the Spectator

Well saying Greece spent a little too much is quite a bit of understatement. When Greece joined the EU, it basically got a credit card with the same limit and interest rate as Germany and then went crazy with it. But it turns out that if you want to live like Germans, you have to actually work like Germans.

Quote of the Day III

Something that can't go on forever, won't. Debts that can't be repaid, won't be. Promises that can't be kept, won't be. Plan accordingly.

-- Glenn Reynolds on the Greek No vote

Quote of the Day IV

Recently I've been hearing a lot of conservatives saying things like, "It's over. The left has won. This is no longer America. I'm not even going to celebrate the Fourth of July this year." I confess this disturbs me. I expect feminists to squeal like hysterical little girls. I expect Social Justice Warriors to act like small boys who pretend to be heroes against imaginary enemies then run away from actual danger.

I expect conservatives to act like men and women - men and women who understand they are part of a fight for liberty that began when Moses killed the Egyptian slavedriver and will not end until Jesus comes again.

Open your eyes. The hills are filled with chariots of fire. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

-- Andrew Klavan

Note that fighting may require you to get off your ass rather than just sit around bitching about the state of things in some blog forum.

Greece Decides to Do Grexit the Hard Way, Votes No on the Bailout Referendum

Banks are supposed to reopen on Tuesday but with cash reserves dangerously depleted it's not clear if this will actually happen. Meanwhile ATM withdrawals are now limited to only 50 euros a day.

So what's a desperate cash-strapped government to do?

Greece Plans Cyprus-Style Raid on Bank Deposits

That's right - they're going to steal depositors money from their bank accounts or as they call it a 'bail-in' of people's money:

Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible "bail-in" of depositors amid fears the country is heading for financial collapse, bankers and businesspeople with knowledge of the measures said on Friday.

The plans, which call for a "haircut" of at least 30 per cent on deposits above ?8,000, sketch out an increasingly likely scenario for at least one bank, the sources said.

A Greek bail-in could resemble the rescue plan agreed by Cyprus in 2013, when customers' funds were seized to shore up the banks, with a haircut imposed on uninsured deposits over ?100,000.

Meanwhile the State of Texas is Repatriating Its Gold

Texas is the only state that owns an actual stockpile of gold, according to public sector and financial industry experts - not just gold futures or investment positions, but approximately 5,600 gold bars worth around $650 million. The holdings, stored at a New York bank, for some harken back to century-old fears about the security of currency not backed by shiny bullion.

Ouch

George Takei Finally Apologizes for His Racist Rant

Ashe Schow: Has the Federal Government Ever Had Sex?

Thanks to proposed changes to the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code 'affirmative consent' may become the law of the land for everyone - not just students. Which means that every sexual act is considered sexual assault/rape unless you get explicit verbal consent from the other person. Yes this applies to married couples too. And yes this is insane. And unenforceable.

The law wouldn't apply only to first dates or similar new encounters, but would apply even in committed relationships. This means affirmative consent would be mandated for every sexual encounter, even to married couples. Given that divorce and custody cases frequently produce false accusations of child abuse, it's easy to imagine false accusations of sexual abuse proliferating if Schulhofer and Murphy's rules aren't followed every time a couple has sex.

We are all rapists now.

Hey Remember When the Left Was All About Keeping Government Out of the Bedroom?

And the crazy ideas that start on campus have a tendency to escape from the asylum. Thus, the Washington Examiner's Ashe Schow reports that the campus system of "yes means yes," in which lovers must receive express permission for every minor stage of a sexual act or risk being prosecuted by a regretful partner after the fact, is now being proposed as the legal model for criminal prosecution nationwide. As Schow puts it, this is a standard "so stringent that it would criminalize millions of Americans overnight," and is "part of a push to bring authoritarianism into the bedroom."

And it's not just what goes on behind closed doors. Every statement about sex, every public depiction of anything that remotely connotes sex-from movies to music to video games-has to be loaded up with social and political significance and policed for evidence of forbidden sexual attitudes.

These days, if you want to hear someone tell everyone to lighten up when it comes to sex and to stop making everything a crime, you're far more likely to hear that from the right. Frankly, there are a lot of us who are just wishing we could hear less about what is going on in everybody else's bedrooms.

Why the Left Had to Have Gay Marriage Through SCOTUS

It is no accident this was not done through the state courts or by referendum, state by state. The common wisdom is that supporters of same-sex marriage didn't want to wait for such a slow process, because although public opinion was changing in their favor it was not changing as universally or as quickly as they wanted. No doubt that was true.

But there were several other, more basic reasons to do it the SCOTUS way. The first is that if it had been done merely in those first two ways, law or referendum, state by state, it would continue to be subject to repeal in those states or to a new referendum outlawing it in those states. Too easy to accomplish a reversal, if people changed their minds after the law was passed and they decided they didn't like it for some reason.

The second is that people could opt out of servicing same-sex marriages (the florist/baker crowd), because the states usually were passing provisions to protect the rights of the religious to refuse to participate....I repeat, it is no accident whatsoever that same-sex marriage activists wanted this case before SCOTUS, and not just because they were impatient. They wanted to cement the institution of same-sex marriage in a way that would be nearly impossible to undo.

Mexican Illegal Alien, Deported 5 Times, Randomly Murders San Francisco Woman

Advantage: Donald Trump

Why the Dukes of Hazzard Really Offends

But the story behind "The Dukes Of Hazzard" makes the show so dangerous that I am surprised that CBS ever aired it. It is a brother of "A Christmas Story," the "Porky's" trilogy, and every slasher film ever made. Beneath all the veneer of Good Old Boys running around is a protest of a corrupt government, and the dangerous advocacy of self-reliance. The government took their guns. The Dukes used compound bows, baby.

...Of course, the TV show was lighter and Clark had nothing to do with it (although he kept some rights to it). But them good old boys, never meaning no harm, were very dangerous rebels. Not the kind that kept slaves, but the kind who could take care of themselves. They fought an amoral corrupt political boss and a guilt-ridden corrupt sheriff.

In other words, typical Democrats.

And that was what the South was back in the day.

The audience for the Dukes is dying off, as unfortunately is the willingness to defy the government.

What Real Feminism/Idiocy Looks Like

Steven Haywood points admiringly to this story of a pregnant woman in California who give birth in a forest, fought off bees, and started a wildfire after getting lost. But WeaponsMan points out correctly that she did everything wrong and was on track for a Darwin Award except that she got lucky. Here are just the first four things she did wrong:

• She was driving around (not sure why) when she knew she was nine-ninths pregnant. What she apparently didn't know was the fuel state of her vehicle. she was already at bingo fuel when this whole evolution began.
• She started to go into labor, and decided the right thing to do was take a long drive to her parents' house. Look, we're all about taking personal responsibility here, but there's a time to call 911.
• Since she was going to the folks' house, and time seemed to be of the essences, she decided that this was the optimum time to check out a short cut she'd heard about but didn't actually know. "I was told about this back road and people had shown it to me a few times but I'd never driven it myself." Oh, brother. The shortcut ran through the remote Plumas National Forest.
• She told nobody what she was doing, or where she was going.

No Police Call is Ever Routine

In this incident, the officer was responding to a landlord's call to address a suspected case of trespassing at a trailer park. What the officer didn't know at the time was that the man hiding inside was an armed criminal with two active warrants who had escaped from a correctional facility, and that he had no intention of being taken alive.

The shooting captured on the body camera is chaotic, and the video afterward captures an incredible amount of detail of the officer's physiological response, from goose bumps, to shakiness, to labored breathing, to forgetting some basic rules of gun safety after the shooting (you'll know it when you see it).

Unfortunately I can't embed the video so you'll have to follow the link to see it. What's interesting is how the video keeps rolling and you get to see what the aftermath of a police shooting is like for the officer involved.

The Death and Resurrection of the American Convertible

Ellen Pao Faces a Reddit Revolt

"Reddit is in meltdown. The hugely popular link-sharing site is in a state of virtual lockdown after the volunteers who run some of the site's biggest communities (known as "subreddits") went on the digital equivalent of a general strike. This followed the sacking of Victoria Taylor, a popular site admin, after a Reddit Q&A with the Rev. Jesse Jackson went badly for the activist preacher."

Thank Shale and Fire Up the Grill This Summer

Fracking has been bery, bery good to America.

Propane prices are at their lowest level since 2002 as shale has nearly doubled domestic propane production since 2009. These are, in other words, boom times. Cheap propane isn't just a boon to the country's grilling aficionados (though some might spurn the gas in favor of charcoal)-many homes are heated on propane. In that sense, cheaper prices can have a real impact on the heating bills of many American households. Remember, too, that cheap energy, and in this case cheap heating, is especially welcome in poorer households, whose power bills constitute a larger percentage of their budgets.

So fill up your propane tanks, America! Now we're cooking with gas.

7 Comedians Who Did Great Things for Humanity

1. DANNY THOMAS

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is a world-class pediatric research and treatment facility in Memphis, Tennessee that treats approximately 7,800 patients every year - none of whom are charged for their care. Instead, the nonprofit's $2 million daily operating costs are covered mainly by donations, and it's all thanks to sitcom star Danny Thomas. The St. Jude website explains how the TV funnyman came to found a world-renowned healthcare facility:

Unsure of his life's direction, a young Danny Thomas sought guidance from St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes. If the saint would point to the path he should take, Danny vowed to build a shrine in his name. Success followed Danny's plea and soon after, the legendary entertainer set about fulfilling his vow to St. Jude. The result was St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Weekly Commenter Standings

Top 10 commenters:
1 [399 comments] 'AllenG (DedicatedTenther) - Not dead yet' [55.99 posts/day]
2 [344 comments] 'Mike Hammer, etc., etc.'
3 [333 comments] 'Ricardo Kill'
4 [321 comments] 'Anna Puma'
5 [293 comments] 'logprof'
6 [293 comments] 'J.J. Sefton'
7 [280 comments] 'Pappy O'Daniel'
8 [275 comments] 'Vic  We Have No Party'
9 [272 comments] 'Jay Guevara'
10 [271 comments] 'Slapweasel (Cold1) T)'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [84 names] 'The Political Hat' [11.79 unique names/day]
2 [53 names] 'Joe Biden'
3 [50 names] 'Caitlyn Jenner'
4 [50 names] 'davidt'
5 [42 names] 'Uncle Busyhands'
6 [42 names] 'not that anyone really cares'
7 [37 names] 'Cicero (@cicero)'
8 [33 names] 'Mike Hammer, etc., etc.'
9 [33 names] 'Bertram Cabot Jr.'
10 [32 names] 'Turd Ferguson'

The group. Banned on 12 universities.

Where it's at - the Twitter

Tonight's post brought to you by new photo enhancement technique reveals all:

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to maetenloch at gmail. Otherwise send tips to Ace. I suggest a new strategy, R2, let the ewok win.

posted by Maetenloch at 10:44 PM

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