Not your television, silly. Egyptian TV. Update: The speech in progress at Al Jazeera's website, thanks to Niedermeyer's Dead Horse (@mflynny). Also from NDH, a feed which has been quoting Morsi. He won't stop yapping about "legitimacy." It's his version of "false choice."

He's already asked the military to withdraw their 48 hour ultimatum, but that's really asking them to cancel their coup, which sounds sort of funny.

There was word earlier that the president and the military would announce a joint statement -- suggesting that perhaps they'd reached some kind of agreement. But that seems to have been an erroneous report; it's just Morsi who'll be giving a statement.

The embattled president called for the Egyptian Army to withdraw a statement in which it extended Morsi 48 hours to defuse the mass protests that have rocked the country since this weekend or face military intervention. Morsi also called for rejecting foreign interference in the developing situation.

I like that last part-- these embattled Islamist tyrants always suggest it's "foreign" elements stirring up trouble, by which they usually mean Jews. Erdogan has been playing this card for a while.

Morsi says he's not going anywhere:

"President Mohammed Morsi asserts his grasp on constitutional legitimacy and rejects any attempt to deviate from it, and calls on the armed forces to withdraw their warning and refuses to be dictated to internally or externally," a tweet from the Egyptian presidency account said, according to Reuters.

The military, on the other hand, says he is going somewhere:

Morsi is now on TV:

I can't see the address, but this seems to sum it up:

Hey baby remember what good times we had in 2011? Let's not give that up, baby.

Reports had gone out that Obama was urging Morsi to agree to hold early elections. But the White House denies they would do something so useful.

The White House on Tuesday pushed back on a report that American officials are urging Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi to call early elections, in response to the largest anti-government demonstrations Egypt has ever witnessed. The comments seem intended to reduce any perception that Washington is trying to dictate a course of action to the Egyptian leadership.

Posted by: Ace at 01:47 PM | Comments (253)
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Based on a careful frame-by-frame analysis of the SHARKNADO trailer, I see the following four themes strongly hinted at:

1. Sharks

2. Tornado

3. Sharknado

4. Tara Reid

I'm going to sue the filmmakers for plagiarism -- they looked inside my brain and stole my most wonderful dreams.

Oh, and Open Thread. Plus, the worst parents in America who didn't murder their children.

Oh, and this might be important at some point.

Posted by: Ace at 04:14 PM | Comments (484)
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@moxiemom doesn't like the War on Higher Ed meme and draws my attention to the college's president's statement, which I honestly hadn't read.

She is right, though: this seems like a fairly fulsome confession of error.

University spokeswoman Susan Kashack confirmed to Fox News that the incident occurred and expressed extreme regret.

“Someone who works here was concerned that the cross might be off-putting to students who are coming to campus for the first time,” she said, adding that the supervisor was “completely wrong.”

“It was absolutely an inappropriate action for him to make that request of her,” she said.

Kashack said Sonoma State President Ruben Arminana was “angered” by the incident and they are trying to contact Jarvis so they can apologize.

“The president was very upset about it and asked me to contact Miss Jarvis and give a profuse apology,” she said.

Well, you can't really offer much beyond a profuse apology, or branding the request "absolutely inappropriate."

However -- I was wrong not to include that (my eyes had glazed over before I read down that far), but it still seems to me that there's something wrong here.

That is, when someone establishes guidelines -- wait, let's think about a guideline. A guideline, literally, is a guide for keeping you on the path. It keeps you from going off into the woods and ditches on either side, right?

Now, if you're explaining a guideline to your underlings, and you mostly teach them how to avoid going off the left side of the path, that is, now not to offend those on the left, and do not spend much time at all telling them how to avoid the ditch on the right side (the individual liberty side), well, a stupid underling, having heard mostly about avoiding the ditch on the left side, is going to go too far over on the right side, because all this idiot is thinking is "avoid crossing the left."

Any rule for keeping behavior on a straight path must contain two lines, as two lines mark a path, right? The left boundary and the right boundary. (Sorry to keep on this metaphor but it's useful.) If this universities just talk about the left boundary all day, and don't give their Idiot Employees (who are largely lefties in the first place) careful instruction about the right boundary, we're going to have idiots crossing the right boundary all the time. The right boundary hasn't been sufficiently demarked for them, and, being Stupid as F*ck, that means they're going to be traipsing off into the deep woods unless you afford them the sort of serious minding you'd give to a baby who just learned how to toddle.

@moxiemom is right that the college president certainly seems to be effusive in her apology, but I wonder if this college president has thought about the natural consequences of a very one-sided guideline for university personnel behavior, a guideline that is focused constantly on PC crap and rarely speaks at all to the individual liberties of individual students. A guideline that talks all day about "not offending other students" but does not then lay down the other side of the line, that students have a basic right to express themselves even if some very sensitive idiots might be offended by this expression.

I don't think that latter idea was communicated to this moron. And that is on the college. And in fact that is on almost every college.

They have created an environment in which Emotion and Censorship, rather than Reason and Expression, are the king and queen of the ivory tower. And the stupid, ass-kissing courtiers will follow the lead of the king and queen they wish to impress.

Posted by: Ace at 10:15 AM | Comments (320)
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First of all, the crowds are rocking again tonight. Livefeed there.

Regarding yesterday's report that ten cabinet officials resigned from Morsi's government -- it was five, but two other high ranking officials quit too.

Ministers of foreign affairs, telecommunications, tourism, legal affairs and environment had announced their resignations on Monday and Tuesday. Two presidential spokespersons also quit on Tuesday. Their resignations come amid massive protests across Egypt demanding early presidential elections.

In addition to the resignations, the Muslim Brotherhood reportedly has asked the Prime Minister, Hesham Qandil, and some other Muslim Brotherhood ministers to resign, in order to appease those Hoping for Change.

And here's what the Egyptian military is contemplating-- a more thoughtful transition to democracy in which different political groups have time to organize. Remember, last time, Obama's demand for an immediate transition was faulted because only the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic parties were organized enough to win elections. It was obvious the Muslim Brotherhood would win due to this unfair advantage, and that seemed perfectly copacetic to Obama.

Egypt's armed forces would suspend the constitution and dissolve an Islamist-dominated parliament under a draft political roadmap to be pursued if Islamist President Mohamed Mursi and his opponents fail to reach a power-sharing agreement by Wednesday, military sources said.

...

The sources said the military intended to install an interim council, composed mainly of civilians from different political groups and experienced technocrats, to run the country until an amended constitution was drafted within months.

That would be followed by a new presidential election, but parliamentary polls would be delayed until strict conditions for selecting candidates were in force, they said.

I don't know what "strict conditions" means, but I'll circle back to that later.

The armed forces planned to open talks with the main opposition National Salvation Front and other political, religious and youth organizations once a deadline set for Mursi to reach a power-sharing agreement expires on Wednesday.

The sources would not say how the military intended to deal with Mursi if he refused to go quietly.

Now, if Obama were as thoughtful, introspective, and comfortable with doubt and reevaluating past positions as his leftist booklickers insist he is, you'd think he'd be interested in helping to fix an error he himself made in inflicting this scourge on Egypt.

But of course he's none of those things, but rather a vain man whose first, second, and last impulse when confronted with his own errors is to stubbornly double down, and that's what he's doing.

Officials have also warned the Egyptian military that a military coup would trigger U.S. legislation cutting off all U.S. aid, which totals about $1.5 billion per year.

“There are specific consequences,” the senior official said. “As much as we appreciate their statement that they intend to protect the Egyptian people, they need to be careful about how they inject themselves into the situation. We are telling them that playing a role with their ultimatum to get the two sides together is completely appropriate, but anything that looks like a military takeover is walking a very thin line.”

As much as the idea of a military coup is anti-democratic, it should be noted that in most countries, there is some power center or some procedure for removing a very unpopular (or criminal) chief executive. Whether it's a figurehead king or queen whose one real power is to call for new elections in extraordinary situations, or our own Superlegislators of the Supreme Court, who daily take more and more political power out of citizens hands for fear we will make Bad Decisions, most systems of government do in fact have some sort of Big Red Button somewhere to draw on a reservoir of anti-democratic power.

So, in Egypt, it's the military. I don't like that, but I don't like the idea of Judges/Lawyers as Guardians of the Republic either.

Allah's link discusses the possibility that something even worse may come from the elections -- for example, the elections may install a Salafist regime worse than the Muslim Brotherhood.

Possibly. But let's consider this possibility, too: There is nothing that succeeds for democracy and liberal values like the catastrophic failure of fascist ones. Fascism has always been a powerful lure for people-- the Man on the White Horse who will save the country "for the people" and install a regime that pushes a strict regimen of Values on the sinners.

Sometimes, though, perhaps there's a silver lining in letting an Islamofascist government into power-- because the people who suffer under it will no longer just live in the dream hypothetical of what Islamofascism Can Do For You, but are confronted with the reality of what Islamofascim actually does.

And that might be the most potent anti-Islamofascist propaganda possible. Not a radio station like VoA telling tales about the perils of fascism and authoritarian rule, but the real experience of the real misery and incompetence of such rule.

One more thing: The military spoke of "strict conditions" for candidate selection. I'm curious as to what that means. I'm thinking it could mean, possibly, some sort of return to the previous rules about candidates of outlaw parties (such as the Muslim Brotherhood) not being permitted to run for office.

That would be an anti-democratic step, and possibly against Egypt's long-term interests. (In as much it is much better for a country to simply not wish to elect Nazis than to have to forbid them from doing so -- in the latter case, the Nazis would always be able to play the martyr card and the card of How Much Better The Country Would Be If They Let Us Pursue Aryan Ideals.)

But, if that were the case, the election would be rigged against the Islamists. Not a democratic step, certainly, but one even advanced countries have taken -- America didn't permit elections in the south for years and years after the Civil War, after all.

Unfair to Obama: Thinking about it, I don't know if it's fair to hold Obama's public utterances warning against a coup against him. To say any differently would be extremely provocative, after all. And what if, somehow, Morsi escaped while holding power?

I suppose, if I'm being honest, I'd grant that if I were advising him, I'd probably suggest a similar course of public pablum. I certainly wouldn't advise him to go blundering into another country's internal politics again.

I guess my problem isn't with his public utterances but with what I think are his actual thoughts. He has been entirely too supportive -- eager, even -- for a Muslim Brotherhood victory.

And the Egyptian people notice this more keenly than even his American critics do.

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (375)
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The Onion's AV Club has a neat running featured called "Hate Song," wherein they ask some musician about the song they hate the most. Several of them are sort of funny (Anthrax's Scott Ian hates Morrissey, not just a particular song, but Morrissey's voice and everything he's done), but I thought this one was the best.

First of all, the guy they asked, Dean Ween (a made up name), did this minor alternative-radio hit in the 90s. That's his claim to fame. I think it's a decent claim, you may disagree. Importantly for our purposes, though, he seems to have a sense of humor.

The song he hates is 4 Non Blondes' godawful earth-mother/hippie chick/faux Goth power anthem "What's Up?:"
more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:19 PM | Comments (651)
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Are the other students vampires?

Unbelievable.

I don't know how "official" a demand this was; the story says a "supervisor" told her to remove the necklace. I don't know if this is a professor, or some idiot administrator, or some thuggish student empowered to direct other students.

I know it's terrible either way, but it's more terrible if this is the official, considered position of a state funded university, which therefore acts as an agent of the state.

A Sonoma State University student has filed a religious accommodation request after she said she was ordered to remove her cross necklace because it might offend other students.

On June 27 Jarvis was working for the universityÂ’s Associated Students Productions at a student orientation fair for incoming freshmen. During the event, her supervisor directed her to remove the cross necklace.

Sasser said the supervisor told her that the chancellor had a policy against wearing religious items and further explained “that she could not wear her cross necklace because it might offend others, it might make incoming students feel unwelcome, or it might cause incoming students to feel that ASP was not an organization they should join.”

“My initial reaction was one of complete shock,” Jarvis told Fox News. “I was thrown for a loop.”

I imagine so. I'm thrown for a loop just reading about it third-hand.

Posted by: Ace at 09:09 AM | Comments (346)
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This link itself is safe and will give you a written description of the news.

The Catholic news service quotes local sources who report that the radical Al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, or Al-Nusra Front, was behind the savage killing.

In video posted by Live Leak purporting to show the execution, dozens of men and boys are seen cheering on as three men are seated on the ground awaiting their grisly fate.

The men are methodically beheaded one at a time by men holding what appears to be a simple kitchen knife after which the heads are placed on top of the bodies.

According to Catholic Online, the first victim was Murad.

A frenzy ensues, with dozens drawing out their smartphones to capture the bloody scene, as a chorus of Allahu Akbar (“Allah is the greatest”) are sung with jihadi rapture. Several observers are seen moving within inches of the bodies in an effort to capture close-up photos.

I don't know who the other butchered men are.

This link is also safe, though it doesn't add too much to the Blaze report. At the bottom the red link at the bottom of this article, "CLICK HERE TO VIEW," takes you to the LiveLeak video of the savage butchery. That is a very disturbing video and you should consider whether you really need to see it and if it's too awful for viewing at work. I'm insulating it via a two step process (that is, I'm not putting the LiveLeak link on this site, to avoid accidental clicks).

I've attempted to see the possible merits in pushing Assad out of power but as bad as he is, any effort aimed at destabilizing him will just give Al Qaeda its own country and of course access to all of Assad's chemical weapons (and whatever other nasty things he's got in his military basements).

Has anyone seen this reported anywhere except on the online right? I thought I was being overly conspiratorial in suggesting that the American media were downplaying the second Egyptian revolution in order to help buttress their Dear Leader Obama.

But, unless I've missed the coverage, the media is also covering up this horror, and it does seem that they are deliberately embargoing any news stories which might tend to upset Obama's foreign policy goals.

Posted by: Ace at 08:32 AM | Comments (297)
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Yesterday, Arkansas officially joined Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming and Vermont as a Constitutional Carry state.

Arkansas law will now consider people carrying guns the same way many state laws handle possession of any kind of hand tools, so-called “tools of burglary.” Normally, you can get away with carrying common hand tools anywhere you otherwise have a right to be. But if you are caught trying to use them in an attempt of breaking and entering or even trespassing, you can be charged with a crime based on obvious intent to use that tool in a crime. As long as you are not harming, or attempting to harm others with a weapon, then possession alone should not be a crime.

Interestingly, three of the five Constitutional Carry states have enacted their laws during Obama's reign of destruction. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 06:39 AM | Comments (458)
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• Immigration Reform Won't Make Social Security Solvent
  
• Obama Phones Morsi
  
• News Networks Need To Stop Sending Women To Egypt
  
• Gabrielle Giffords Hits The Gun Range For Photo-op
  
• Fisher And The Obsession With Racial Preferences
  
• Dominican Cardinal Goes Full Baldwin On New US Ambassador
  
• 'Cracking' The Case
  
• Fat NYC Mayoral Candidate Seeks To Impose Nutritional Standards On New Yorkers
  
• Zimmerman's Side Of The Story
  
• CNN 'Accidently' Broadcasts Zimmerman's Social Security Number
  
• Feel Good Gun Story Of The Day
  
• Democrats Trying To Hide The Cost Of Obamacare
  
• Does Jeb Bush Ever Blame Democrats For Anything?
  
• Why Is European Unemployment So High?
  
• Why The Reagan Democrats Departed
  
• Bebo Founders Buy Back Social Network For 1 Million Dollars Just Years After Selling It To Yahoo For 850 Million
  
• Guess Who The Bad Guys Are In The White House Down Movie
  
• Michelle Obama Lives In A Hundred Million Dollar Prison
  

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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:08 AM | Comments (450)
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Happy Tuesday.

Ed Snowden continues to make threats. On the other hand, he's managed to piss off Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa.

WSJ on student loan rates.

You may have seen a news story on NSA spying that was posted very briefly over the weekend at UK's the Guardian and its sister site, the Observer. The claim was that several European countries were spying for the NSA. (The inverse of this story -- the NSA was spying on several European countries -- actually turned out to be true.) Here's the "Anatomy of a Fake 'Observer' Story" explaining how the Guardian went wrong.

Whoops. Massachusetts officials have realized that Obamacare will cause “extreme premium increases” (their words) in Massachusetts, so they're seeking a waiver from the "affordable care" law.

I wrote a bit yesterday on Twitter about the 20-week abortion ban debate and theatrics down in Texas. My advice to folks talking about this is to use "six months" instead of "20 weeks." Emphasize the familiar: we all know what six months of pregnancy looks like. Banning abortions after 20 weeks means banning abortions inside the sixth month. 20 weeks is almost clinical and nobody really thinks in those terms, anyway.

We all have an instinctive feel for two weeks' time, four weeks' time, maybe even six weeks' time. But after that, most people think in terms of months. And, as I said, everybody knows what six months of pregnancy looks like. There's no way to make the usual intellectual dodge -- "it's just a clump of cells" work at that point. Not even close.

By six months, the baby and mother, if they're receiving standard care, will have had at least two ultrasounds. The baby's organs and limbs will have been inspected. The little sucker will have been moving about for a while. The mother, if she's not a monster, (and hopefully the father, too) will have listened to the heartbeat. All that comes before the Wendy Davises of the world say that you should be able to kill that baby for any reason or no reason at all.

I get that for medical and legal purposes, using 20 weeks is necessary. For purposes of communicating what 20 weeks is, I think we get further by reminding folks as often as possible just what pregnancy after 20 weeks looks like.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (328)
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