• MLB Seeks To Suspend 20 Players For PED Use (auto play)
  
• Majority Believe Obama Is Lying That He Leaned About The IRS Scandal In The Media
  
• OK Tornado Was The Widest On Record And An F5
  
• Marco Rubio: We Don't Have The Votes For Amnesty
  
• WH White Washes First Lady's Temper Tantrum
  
• IRS Refuses To Turn Over Documents To The Senate
  
• EPA Targets Conservative Groups
  
• Susan "Youtube Did It" Rice Named National Security Advisor
  
• US Attorney For East Tennessee Doesn't Get A Warm Welcome At A Forum
  
• Antonin Scalia, Bleeding Heart Liberal
  
• Rich Woman, Poor Man
  
• OPEC Sweats, How Low Can Oil Prices Go?
  
• Why Chris Christie Might Be A Genius
  
• Lost Egyptian City Found Under Sea
  
• My Dagestani Brother's Keeper
  
• CIA Releases Analyst's Tale Of Cracking The Kryptos Sculpture
  
• Marco Rubio's Eleventh Right
  
• Assad's Forces Are Gaining Momentum
  
• Not A Great Place To Be Standing During a Ship Launch
  
• Happy 290th Birthday Adam Smith
  

Thanks to Doreen for the lost Egyptian city story.

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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:25 AM | Comments (257)
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Happy Wednesday.

Iowahawk found something from last month that, well, let's say it's right in line with the NOM thing Ace posted yesterday: EPA acknowledged releasing personal details on farmers to environmental groups. Just a coincidence, surely.

Aurora shooter James Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity yesterday. Next comes the psych eval and, after that, a jury trial.

President Obama's favorables are headed back down to where they were during the Shellacking of 2010. They were also that low during the special election of Sen. Scott Brown.

There's a new 15-minute featurette on Man of Steel. Really looking forward to this movie.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (333)
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The others were good, and you can watch them at the Right Scoop.

But this was the one that got me emotionally. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:33 PM | Comments (232)
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He named his kids Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation, and HonszLynn Hinler. This happened in 2009, in Hunterdon County, NJ.

By the way: What the hell is "HonszLynn Hinler"?

He came the attention of social services when he tried to get a ShopRight clerk to write "Happy Birthday Adolph Hitler" on a birthday cake. (She refused.)

He was set to appear in front of the judge to argue to have visitation rights returned to him. He wanted to tell the judge he was a good father, and missed his kids.

"If they're good judges and they're good people, they'll look within, not what's on the outside," he planned to tell the judge.

So, if you got your kids taken away for naming your kid "Adolph Hitler Campbell," and you just want the judge to look at the person on the inside, not the outside, what would you do?

You know what you'd do -- you'd come to court dressed in a full Nazi uniform, that's what you'd do!

I don't know who Eva Braun is there, in this Sexy, Sexy Scenario. I don't think it's the kid's mom, as she has left him and has also voluntarily given up her rights as a parent.

One more thing:

He showed up for the hearing on the wrong day. So he went down to the courthouse due to a "scheduling error." Wore his Sontag best for nothin'.

His actual hearing will take place later this month.

I have a feeling I know what the judge's decision will be.

I understand this story has certain implications beyond the giggle-factor, about the State taking away your kids just because they don't like your beliefs and political associations.

And yet. And yet.

There's something about the one-two punch of showing up to court on the wrong day and, of course, wearing the full Nazi garb while doing so, that makes me think maybe they got this one right. Maybe he's not such a good parent.

There's also this:

He told the TV station that whether wearing his Nazi uniform might sway the judge's decision, depended on the judge.

I think he means "If the judge isn't a Jew." And of course he's wrong about that. He actually thinks that a good Christian judge will understand and be down with the whole Third Reich Thing.

And there's also this:

Court records from previous hearings show that the oldest child, Adolf, frequently threatened to kill people.

The mother reportedly had also once given a note to her neighbor saying she was terrified of her husband, who had threatened to kill her.

An Adolph Hitler is threatening to kill people? Well now I've heard everything.

Good video, where he says, if I may paraphrase, that he wants people to stop looking at him as the person he is on the outside, which is, superficially, a Nazi uniform and swastika neck tattoo, and start looking at the person he is on the inside, which is also a Nazi at the core.

Like Hitler, this guy just doesn't seem to know when he's beaten. He's planning a judicial blitz with armies that haven't existed for two years.

Oh, quick update: He just emailed me to say that calling his kid "Adolph Hitler" was a clerical error caused by a rogue low-level staffer who did not have the most recent iteration of the birth certificate.

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 AM | Comments (437)
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Yahhh. Lot of that going around.

From the New York Times. I call this a Tuesday Tickle Your Funny Bone special.*

The claim occurred on grant proposals, seeking money from you, via the NEH. (Of course.) Her actual résumé, she says, does not contain the false claim.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the prestigious 233-year-old scholarly society in Cambridge, Mass., said on Tuesday that it is standing behind its president, Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, after accusations that she had falsely claimed on at least two grant proposals to have a doctorate.

...

But a spokesman for the academy, Ray Howell, said that Ms. Berlowitz had never claimed to have earned a doctorate, and blamed the mistakes on “an iteration of her résumé created at the staff level.”

...

In 2010, she became the academyÂ’s president, previously an unpaid position held by a distinguished scholar.

Previously it had been an unpaid position.

How about after she assumed the position? Did that compensation package change?

Hells yeah it did.

Her total compensation for the fiscal year ending March 2012 was more than $598,000...

She did sign one of the grant applications. (The NEH gave her stupid club $300,000 for one of them. Yayyyy.)

The Boston Globe, which broke the story, says she's done more than the NYT is willing to tell you about. The NYT report stresses that the society is standing by her, and emphasizes her side of the tale (my résumé didn't contain this claim!), and withholds the following bits about her pre-prepared obituary.

In other words, the NYT is defending one of its own.

So let's see what they left out:

Obituary

Berlowitz also mentioned her non-existent doctorate in an obituary prepared by her staff in the event of her death. It also mentions a job title NYU said she never held.

Job posting

An employment ad for the academy repeatedly referred to Leslie Berlowitz as Dr., further conveying the impression that she earned a doctorate degree.

BTW, people call working under her a "nightmare." So if you're wondering why the Boston Globe would bother to FOIA a random grant application from the president of an Arts society, there you go: It's almost a guarantee that one of the workers she pissed on ratted her out.

I'm now prepared to render my own ruling on this matter.

* A commenter informs me it's... Wednesday.

Let me explain how this happened.

Actually I did think it was tuesday. But then, I also wrote this piece (most it) last night, which is why the Tuesday thing was in there.

I'm not sure why I continued to believe the *following* day was *also* Tuesday.

So actually I don't know how this happened.

Except... I guess it's one of those little mysteries I deliberately insert into this blog to keep you interested, and to keep you engaged. I try to keep the blog interactive, by keeping you "on your toes" at all times with a stream of false information, misspellings, and f'd up HTML.

Posted by: Ace at 09:30 AM | Comments (316)
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Isaiah's Job (and Yours)

Depressed and despondent over the political course of the country? Bewildered that the LIVs can be so ignorant and unconcerned about what's going on in Obama's government?

So why even bother trying to change people's minds at this point. Well let Albert Jay Nock's classic essay, "Isaiah's Job", explain what your real purpose is.

This essay was first published in the Atlantic in 1936 near the height of FDR's New Deal and it still applies today. Except that now the Remnant also have the internet.

The prophet's career began at the end of King Uzziah's reign, say about 740 B.C. This reign was uncommonly long, almost half a century, and apparently prosperous. It was one of those prosperous reigns, however - like the reign of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, or the administration of Eubulus at Athens, or of Mr. Coolidge at Washington - where at the end the prosperity suddenly peters out and things go by the board with a resounding crash.

In the year of Uzziah's death, the Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and warn the people of the wrath to come. "Tell them what a worthless lot they are." He said, "Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don't mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you," He added, "that it won't do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life."

Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job - in fact, he had asked for it - but the prospect put a new face on the situation. It raised the obvious question: Why, if all that were so - if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start - was there any sense in starting it? "Ah," the Lord said, "you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it."

What chiefly makes it so, I think, is that in any given society the Remnant are always so largely an unknown quantity. You do not know, and will never know, more than two things about them. You can be sure of those - dead sure, as our phrase is - but you will never be able to make even a respectable guess at anything else. You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you do know, and no more: First, that they exist; second, that they will find you.

Read the rest here.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:47 PM | Comments (886)
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It appears to be a pretty serious rebellion.

I wonder what YouTube video they all watched. more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:34 PM | Comments (150)
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Consider this a brief flash of hope in a sea of Republican gubernatorial and legislative disappointment.

Wisconsin liberals, always quick to find a favorable judge, quickly managed to bungle up the Voter ID law passed in 2011, but now an appeals court has determined one of those decisions was horseshit, from Reuters:

The Fourth District Court of Appeals overturned a March 2012 decision by Dane County judge Richard Niess, who ruled in favor of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, which claimed that the law is too burdensome, denying potential voters the right to vote.

The organization "makes no effective argument that, on its face, the requirement makes voting so difficult and inconvenient as to amount to a denial of the right to vote," the appeals court wrote in its decision.

Now for the asterisk:

The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin is considering its options with regard to further legal review, Andrea Kaminski, the organization's executive director, said in a statement.

"We're going to take some time and review the substance of the decision and decide whether or not to petition the Wisconsin Supreme Court," said Lester Pines, the attorney for the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin.

The law is currently not in effect as another state appeals court has yet to decide on different challenge. Two federal lawsuits also are pending on the state's voter ID law.

"While today's decision is an important step toward full vindication of the law, we recognize that other challenges are still pending that address different issues," said Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, in a statement.

No time to party just yet. But Act 10, still facing a few minor kinks here and there,is now effectively law despite a plethora of early legal challenges and the failed recall.

The Republican legislature, emboldened by the recent ruling, has introduced a new bill, AB225, that would not only reinstate the Voter ID law, but also limit early voting and alter the criteria for tossing out bad ballots. Lead author of the bill, Milwaukee-area rep Jeff Stone, spoke with WPR and offered a simple yet strong defense of the new legislation, which the awesome Governor, his pen all aquiver, would surely sign:

I also think... that having a government and elections that operate in a way people believe is accurate and fair is something that is also an important duty that we have as the legislature.

Wisconsinites, enjoy your majestic leader while you can. He's ours in a few short years.

Posted by: CAC at 02:53 PM | Comments (403)
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I think this is a "Whoa." Not only are these people dependent on fan goodwill for their livelihoods, but they're people with skin in the game who could lose big for their show of defiance.

And yet they're defying.

I'll quote the soccer-team part later, but this piece from City Journal echoes what's being said in other papers-- although it seemed, and still does seem, really, that Erdogan is popular and his position is assured... I don't know. Maybe some plates are shifting.

As you know, the military in Turkey was always a bulwark against tyranny and a protector of the Turkey's constitution (such as it is). They seem to have rolled over for Erdogan up until now.

But if popular revolt is now intense enough that soccer players are joining it... I don't know. I don't know.

More than about the razing of a slum of a park, the protests are about...

... a nationÂ’s fury with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoğanÂ’s growing authoritarianism, symbolized by IstanbulÂ’s omnipresent police, the phalanxes of so-called Robocops. They are so notoriously trigger-happy that journalists on Twitter post a daily tear-gas report.

Of late, almost every sector of the electorate has felt unease about one part or another of ErdoğanÂ’s agenda. Restrictive new alcohol legislation, rammed through parliament, as usual, with contempt for the minority opposition, has prompted outrage; the so-called peace process with the PKK, which no one understands, has caused great unease. Anxiety is growing as well, not only about press censorship, but also about the prosecution of those who insult government officials or “Islamic values” on social media.

[Further complaints and incidents of repression omitted.]

Two weeks ago in Ankara, a disembodied voice on the subway, having apparently espied them by means of a security camera, denounced a couple for kissing. The voice demanded that they “act in accordance with moral rules.” In return, incensed Ankara lovers staged kissing protests: as the couples shyly smooched outside the subway station, a group of young men confronted them, chanting “Allahu Akbar!” It was reported but not confirmed that one of the kissers was stabbed; but given the mood of hysteria here right now, it would be unwise to believe every rumor one hears.

Erdoğan, it seems, severely underestimated the degree of his subjectsÂ’ displeasure, confident that God, a strong economy, and a weak opposition were all he needed to ensure his hegemony. He brusquely dismissed the tree protestersÂ’ concerns: “WeÂ’ve made our decision, and we will do as we have decided.” An AKP parliamentarian then unwisely announced that some young people “are in need of gas.”

...

Rather than dispersing for good, the protesters returned—and more gathered to support them. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The police panicked. At dawn, they attacked with pronounced violence, injuring not only students, but also journalists and opposition members of parliament who had come to show their support.

...

It is confirmed that rubber bullets have knocked out the eyes of at least six people. Gas has covered the city like a volcanic cloud. Everyone, even those who stayed indoors, has been weeping and coughing....

But as news of the injuries and deaths spread by word of mouth, and particularly as photos and videos of the clashes and the wounded began circulating on social media, the entire city rose up in fury. The three largest Turkish football teams, usually mortal rivals (in some cases literally), announced that they would unite to join the protests.

The greatest advertisement for liberty is slavery.

Every Rebellion Needs an Iconic Symbol: And thus, "The Woman in Red."

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (148)
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