Overnight Open Thread (11-1-2015)

Quote of the Day I

First of all, the fact that there was even a need for a law such as this demonstrates just how far off the beam we've gone as a country. The actions of several liberal enclaves around the nation and the permissive attitude of the White House toward them has brought us to the point where a state had to pass a law saying, in essence, that it's against the law to break the law. That is, quite frankly, insane. If we had a hand on the tiller in Washington which wasn't willing to effectively hamstring the immigration services by turning a blind eye to states and cities which choose to flaunt the law, none of this would be needed.

-- Jazz Shaw

Quote of the Day II

The enemy of the Jew becomes the enemy of the world. That simple, albeit mysterious, historical rule has been repeatedly demonstrated. Regimes and ideologies that target Jews never stop there; they are imperialistic by nature, and begin by identifying the "other" - and Jews have been the quintessential other - and move on to target ever-larger circles.

So why is there not more sympathy for the Jewish people? Among the thousand theories perhaps there is no improving on Maurice Samuel's simple declaration: "No one loves their alarm clock." Jews have been the disturbers of the world's sleep. Long before the Western world knew it was fighting a battle with radical Islam, Jews knew. That realization brought them more indifference or contempt than affection.

-- Rabbi David Wolpe

Quote of the Day III

We are born immortal, as far as we know at the time, and slowly we learn that we are going to die. For most children, death is not fully understood until after the first decade of life - a remarkable amount of time to comprehend the most basic truth of our existence.

-- Vaughn Bell

Quote of the Day IV - Am I Raping You Now Edition

Consent from the person you are kissing - or more - is not merely silence or a lack of protest, Shafia Zaloom, a health educator at the Urban School of San Francisco, told the students. They listened raptly, but several did not disguise how puzzled they felt. "What does that mean - you have to say 'yes' every 10 minutes?" asked Aidan Ryan, 16, who sat near the front of the room. "Pretty much," Ms. Zaloom answered. "It's not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask.

-- From a NYT article on sex education for teens that unintentionally makes the case for video recording all sexual encounters

RIP Fred Thompson

Fred Thompson, a former U.S. senator for Tennessee, GOP presidential candidate, Watergate attorney and longtime "Law and Order" star, died on Sunday. He was 73.

Mr. Thompson died after a recurrence of lymphoma, according to a statement issued by the Thompson family.

"It is with a heavy heart and a deep sense of grief that we share the passing of our brother, husband, father, and grandfather who died peacefully in Nashville surrounded by his family," the statement reads.

 

Meanwhile the vile site Gawker maintains their rep.

Thought Question: Should TransIncomed people be able to identify with their lower-income identities?

Welcome to Barack Obama's Syrian War

Or that you have to scratch your head and think about whether you should prefer IS, or the Russian-backed Assad regime

...Trick question, of course: you should prefer neither. You should prefer the one people in the region who actually like Americans, who can conduct ground operations on their own*, and who are busily putting together a for-real, legitimate, and reasonably free and democratic nation-state. But God forbid that Barack Obama ever listen to anybody who isn't him. Ever.

One last note: the fact that I even had to write out 'Russian-backed Assad regime' should act as an endlessly-full Reservoir of Shame for every idiot in the current administration who managed to get us in this mess. It won't - they're all too busy blaming George W Bush, despite the fact that he knew how to win wars and Barack Obama largely does not - but it should. And maybe some day they'll learn better.

In a Shift Pentagon Deploys Obsolete, Unnecessary Weapon to Fight ISIS in Syria

The Toxicity of Social Justice Tumblr

Wherein SJWs drove an artist to attempting suicide over the following 'crimes':

• "Drew an Indian character purposely with a smaller nose twice";
• "Reacted to being called out for antiblack art stating she can draw what she wants";*
• "Drew the 'boys in dresses are funny' trope";
• "Drew genderbents";**
• "Ships murderer x victim"***

Sonny Bunch summarizes the whole auto-da-fé here:

You really should read the whole thing, but the short version is this: A fan artist (that is, someone who draws images of fictional characters for fun) faced mountains of criticism for creating "problematic" depictions of characters for a popular cartoon show beloved for its commitment to diversity. The criticism was so monumental and so withering that she (allegedly) tried to kill herself. The creators of the show also found themselves drawing fire after they defended the fan artist's right to create fan art without being bullied to death.

...You get the idea. After the show's creators came to the aid of the bullied fan artist-saying, in effect, that no one should be driven to suicide by jerks on the Internet because they drew a fat character slightly thinner-SJW Tumblr turned on them, attacking older works of art and labeling the creators pedophile apologists, or something.

...This isn't the mindset of a group of fans or even a group of social critics. This is the mindset of a mob. And a mob only knows how to do one thing: burn shit down.

Truly Useful Output of a University Program

More useful than 99.2% of what most university departments produce.

Thanks to WHO Report California May Require Bacon, Coffee To Carry 'Prop 65' Cancer Warnings

The meat industry, which disputes the findings of the cancer study, says courts have been clear that Proposition 65 conflicts with federal policy on meat labeling at stores.

California officials say it's not clear how courts would approach warnings on processed meats. Legal precedent cited by the beef industry, including an 2009 state appellate ruling, dealt with fresh meats, not processed products.

Starbucks and other big name coffee chains are being sued in California in a bid to get them to label their coffee products as containing a carcinogen. A non-profit is claiming that because of the levels of acrylamide in these chains' coffee consumers need to be warned.

...Stanley Omaye, a professor of nutrition and toxicology at the University of Nevada, US, says the coffee companies have the stronger case. 'Based on the animal studies, you would have to drink probably over 100 cups of coffee a day in order to get to that dangerous dose, so it is totally absurd,' he tells Chemistry World.

Before There Was Cable TV or VCRs You Watched What You Were Shown

And in 1976 the TV networks decided to show this.

Then: Text From Dog. Now: Text From Vagina.

Why Lena Dunham is New York's Fault

You look at this squirrelly self-satisfied jelly roll and her mediocre talent and her bold literary tales of fingering her little sister and wonder who the hell is backing her? It's New York. In certain parts of the city, the parts that matter in terms of media influence, she is invoked like Jesus at a Huckabee family reunion. New Yorkers love to hype their multicultural international immigrant United Colors of Benetton We Pals PBS melting pot. It's all bullshit. New York is a roughly assembled federation of disparate clans the whitest and most assuredly self-righteous among them adoring Lena Dunham as cutting edge and fresh. Smell her. That's not fresh.

...New York, this is on you. Tokyo took Godzilla even if they did kind of blame the U.S. nukes. Own up. Line up the model tanks. Take out your monster.

Has Someone Ever Died in Your House?

Well thanks to DiedInHouse.com you can now find out for a small fee.

Weekly Commenter Standings

Top 10 commenters:
1 [531 comments] 'Bruce Boehner' [74.11 posts/day]
2 [371 comments] 'Vic-we have no party'
3 [331 comments] 'grammie winger, watching the fig tree'
4 [316 comments] 'FenelonSpoke'
5 [305 comments] 'Misanthropic Humanitarian, Model Citizen '
6 [297 comments] 'ThunderB, Money Will Not Overcome Voter Rejection'
7 [295 comments] 'Nip Sip'
8 [289 comments] 'L, Elle'
9 [278 comments] 'Bruce With a Wang!'
10 [274 comments] 'Tammy al-Thor'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [90 names] 'Cruz Missile/DeathBlimp 2016! campaign committee' [12.56 unique names/day]
2 [70 names] 'Cicero (@cicero)'
3 [68 names] 'Turd Ferguson'
4 [58 names] 'The Political Hat'
5 [52 names] 'Bertram Cabot Jr.'
6 [42 names] 'Mike Hammer, etc., etc.'
7 [40 names] 'Bruce Boehner'
8 [38 names] 'wth'
9 [37 names] 'Grump928(c)'
10 [36 names] 'Doctor Fish'

The group. Banned on 12 universities.

Where it's at - the Twitter

Tonight's post brought to you by the costume life cycle:

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp - division of YoyoDyne Systems. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to maetenloch at gmail. Otherwise remain vigilant and also generous.

posted by Maetenloch at 12:17 AM

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