Who Are You Calling "White," White Boy?
To me, this is just a funny little bit of inside-baseball commentary. Following an article in Haaretz called "Jews, White Privilege, and the fight against racism in America," there's been a tug of war going on about whether Jews are, or are not, white. A blogger at the Times of Israel says definitely not. Another blogger who writes at a place called "Jewnited Nations" says that, actually, Ashkenazi Jews are totally white.
This is obviously not my fight, and I don't care about the outcome of the argument. I'm just amused by the fact that they're having an argument over it. Personally, I don't care whether Jews want to think of themselves as white, not-white, white but Jewish first, Jewish and not anything else, or what have you. If they want to be white, I'm fine with that. If they don't, I'm happy to accept their desire to be left out.
It's not an easy question to answer anyway. The word means almost nothing. The underlying concept -- a "white race" or a set of "white races" -- was believed to exist in the 19th century, but now we don't believe there is anything real to which the term refers. In America, we use it very loosely compared to the way it was used a hundred years ago when people thought it meant something important.
In any case, there's probably no better marker for whiteness today than to be concerned about whether you have "white privilege."
This is obviously not my fight, and I don't care about the outcome of the argument. I'm just amused by the fact that they're having an argument over it. Personally, I don't care whether Jews want to think of themselves as white, not-white, white but Jewish first, Jewish and not anything else, or what have you. If they want to be white, I'm fine with that. If they don't, I'm happy to accept their desire to be left out.
It's not an easy question to answer anyway. The word means almost nothing. The underlying concept -- a "white race" or a set of "white races" -- was believed to exist in the 19th century, but now we don't believe there is anything real to which the term refers. In America, we use it very loosely compared to the way it was used a hundred years ago when people thought it meant something important.
In any case, there's probably no better marker for whiteness today than to be concerned about whether you have "white privilege."
Civil Disobedience by a Small-Town Mayor
"It was the right thing to do," Panto said Saturday afternoon. "Sometimes the inappropriate thing is the right thing. I'm sure the president just forgot."That's a very generous sentiment, Your Honor.
According to flag code, only the president and governor can order flags be flown at half-staff.
Panto freely admitted he overstepped his authority.
"I'm fully aware I don't have the authority to do this but I feel I just had to remind the president," he said. "He just needed a little reminder and I'm happy to do that. There's so many other things going on. I don't think he realized that this was something that he should do."
Ranger School Update, And An Alternative View
Havok Journal tells us that the three women who were recycled yet again did manage to complete the Darby phase on the third try. They will now go on to the Mountain Warfare phase in north Georgia.
The author posits that the reason women have been failing so badly at Ranger school is that the Army is doing it wrong. The lesson to be learned is the Marine Corps':
IOC is also longer, as is Ranger school, and a lot of the difficulties for women with these standards show up over time through higher injury rates.
In any case, congratulations to the three women at Mountain Warfare school. They've done more than any of their peers before them, and those who do best at the hardest things deserve the greatest respect.
The author posits that the reason women have been failing so badly at Ranger school is that the Army is doing it wrong. The lesson to be learned is the Marine Corps':
A three-week pre-Ranger course or Ranger Training Assessment Course... is designed to ensure prospective Ranger students can meet the week 1 Ranger Assessment Phase standards, and to hone the patrolling and fieldcraft techniques they already know. Notice I did not say, ‘learn the patrolling and fieldcraft techniques,’ I said ‘hone.’It is true that the USMC experienced a much higher pass rate with female enlisted than the 0% rate for female officers. On the other hand, the enlisted course is also easier -- easier than either IOC or Ranger School -- and it appears that the USMC lowered upper body strength standards for the women at ITB but not IOC.
Pre-Ranger courses are designed to improve the knowledge of basic infantry tasks, patrolling techniques, and troop leading procedures a Ranger student already possesses, not to learn them for the first time. The women who entered the Ranger School did not have this baseline knowledge, and were thus set up for failure.... The Marines sent their female enlisted to the Marine Infantry Training Battalion (ITB) course at Camp Lejeune, NC and their officer volunteers to the Infantry Officer’s Course (IOC). 122 of the 358 women who entered ITB graduated (34%), while all 29 female Marine officers failed to complete IOC.
You cannot be successful at advanced training unless you demonstrate proficiency in the fundamentals. If the Army wants women to be successful at its premier combat arms course, they must send women through foundational combat arms training.
IOC is also longer, as is Ranger school, and a lot of the difficulties for women with these standards show up over time through higher injury rates.
In any case, congratulations to the three women at Mountain Warfare school. They've done more than any of their peers before them, and those who do best at the hardest things deserve the greatest respect.
Hypocrisy Is Better Than This
I told the wife, when we were first married and discussing such things, that if she ever met another man who really sparked a special love in her heart she'd better stay away from him just as she loved him. She understood, and appreciated the sense of commitment implied by the willingness to deal harshly with any man who thought to trouble our union. Apparently they do things differently in New York.
Old Merle tried to hit the middle ground, where 'Friendly Henrys' could exist as long as they knew the right time to scram. But I saw a lot of guys in Iraq have their spirit broken by a woman -- admittedly young, with their men admittedly gone for 15 months at a time -- who betrayed their trust, and often their wedding vows.
Here's Ranger UP on Jodie, with the usual warnings about their videos.
Old Merle tried to hit the middle ground, where 'Friendly Henrys' could exist as long as they knew the right time to scram. But I saw a lot of guys in Iraq have their spirit broken by a woman -- admittedly young, with their men admittedly gone for 15 months at a time -- who betrayed their trust, and often their wedding vows.
Here's Ranger UP on Jodie, with the usual warnings about their videos.
Saturday Night on the Slide Guitar
The Whiskey Daredevils show us the way.
UPDATE: H-Bombs rollin' through the night. If I read the Iran deal right, we might as well get used to the idea.
UPDATE: H-Bombs rollin' through the night. If I read the Iran deal right, we might as well get used to the idea.
What An Ass
I assume none of you were even remotely considering supporting this character anyway, but good night.
Texas & the Gold Standard
Texas is apparently launching a gold-backed bank, much to the scorn of its enemies.
Texas lawyers are so unbelievably stupid.The Tenth Amendment Center doesn't agree with this analysis, nor does the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
...
Though this does bring us to the actual reason for the bill: a symbolic gesture to convince morons that Texas is an independent realm instead of a wasteful drain on U.S. tax dollars. Having their own money bin and currency system — writing checks based off stockpiled metals creates, for all intents and purposes, an independent, gold-backed currency — goes a long way toward fluffing the illusion that Texas holds sway over the rest of America. It’s also why the law includes this provision:
And in case the Fed or Obama wants to confiscate Texas’s gold, nice try Fed and Obama! In keeping with this suspicion of the Fed and Washington, the new law also explicitly declares that no “governmental or quasi-governmental authority other than an authority of [Texas]” will be allowed to confiscate or freeze an account inside the depository. Gold that’s entrusted to Texas will stay in Texas.
Nope. Not how it works. “Don’t Mess With Texas” does not supersede the “Supremacy Clause.”
Tenth Amendment Center chief Michael Boldin, whose organization promotes states’ rights to rein in the feds under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, called the law “an important first step towards gold and silver as commonly-used legal tender in the state.” He said the move has the potential to open the market to sound money, even in day-to-day transactions. “By making gold and silver available for regular, daily transactions by the general public, the new law has the potential for wide-reaching effect,” Boldin added.It does look as if there is an explicit Constitutional warrant for gold and silver tender, as long as Texas does not undertake to "coin money." In any case, the advantages of a gold-backed system in an age of soaring national debts are explored by Forbes magazine. If we're looking for an exit from the Greece problem that the USA is definitely going to face sooner or later, maybe this is one.
The Tenth Amendment Center also highlighted the constitutional implications. Noting that Article I, Section 10, of the U.S. Constitution prohibits state governments from making anything other than gold and silver a tender in payment of debts, Boldin said the bill takes Texas a step toward fulfilling that long-ignored constitutional obligation. “Such a tactic would undermine the monopoly the Federal Reserve system by introducing competition into the monetary system,” he said.
Other experts also highlighted those effects. “Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a ‘reverse Gresham’s Law’ effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes),” explained constitutional-tender expert William Greene in a paper for the market-oriented Ludwig von Mises Institute.
“As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state — as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money — and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions,” added Greene, who also testified in favor of the law in his capacity as a private citizen.
Folsom Prison Blues
All right, I'm out. Here's a introduction to the weekend by the Reverend Horton Heat, once again stepping off their rockabilly platform.
Allahpundit on the Deal
By cutting Congress out of the agreement and running to the UN, Obama has heaped even more pressure on congressional Democrats not to defy him on this by making them guilty of breaching international law if they do. He’s crushed Congress at every turn — first in refusing to submit this deal to the Senate as a treaty, as the Constitution requires, then in negotiating that horrible deal with Bob Corker that would let the Senate effectively ratify the deal with just 34 votes, and now by ignoring Congress’s authority in the text of the final agreement itself and moving quickly to get this passed in the Security Council before Congress has even considered it. In a saner world, where the American public gave a wet fart about ridiculous power grabs by the executive, the House would be threatening him credibly with impeachment at this point.So is this a high crime, or a misdemeanor? Neither one, obviously, unless you want to go all out and call it 'aid and comfort to the enemy.' The Islamic Republic of Iran certainly has been our enemy, its whole existence.
Instead they’re gearing up for another performance of failure theater, where the Senate pretends to try really hard to stop Obama and almost musters the votes needed to do so, but falls just a bit short. The whole thing is a simulacrum of democracy, designed to put Shiite fanatics on track to build a nuclear weapon in 10 years because rapprochement with Iran will look really cool on Obama’s and Kerry’s CVs.
Up The Militia
I suppose I'll start carrying a revolver again. I haven't regularly carried a gun for years, not since I came back from Iraq in 2009. But he's right. We need to be prepared at all times in all places. We need to harden the society again, as we did after 9/11. We have to show that these acts are without profit, that America is always and everywhere ready to respond. You don't see skyjacking attempts on American airliners anymore.The morning after a deadly attack on two military centers in Chattanooga, residents in Hiram are standing watch outside the local recruiting office with their personal firearms. It is their unique way of honoring the fallen Marines and they said to protect the lives of those who serve in the military.Good. And the idea of having lots of armed citizens everywhere makes sense. When you face a diffuse, widely-distributed threat, you need a diffuse, widely-distributed defense. You can’t do that with police and military because there aren’t enough of them. But you can do it with ordinary citizens. And there’s one group of responders that will always be on the scene of any attack — the citizens who are already there. If they’re able to respond, things are much better than if they’re not.
“I teared up. I think any human being would be touched by what happened yesterday. Any U.S. citizen that has a heart and a soul to hear what had happened,” said Crystal Tewellow, who organized the watch.
Recruiting offices are designated as being “gun-free zones” which means officers working there cannot carry their sidearm into the building. Tewellow, whose son just enlisted and the army and has a brother who is a recruiter, felt compelled to organize the watch.
“To think the people who are supposed to protect and serve us are unable to protect and serve… protect themselves,” said Tewellow. “So if us, the citizens, who carry permits, are able to help protect them that’s, that’s what we’re gonna be able to do.”
News Radio 106.7′s Nathalie Pozo was at the recruitment center on Friday morning and reported that about 30 people answered the call to arms.
Greatly Appreciated, Dr. Sugrue
A good piece, and an honest one, by a professor at New York University.
Economic segregation is most severe in America’s Northern metropolitan areas, as well, with Milwaukee; Hartford, Conn.; Philadelphia; and Detroit leading large cities nationwide, according to an analysis of 2010 census data by the Atlantic. White suburbanites across the North — even in Bill and Hillary Clinton’s adopted home town, Chappaqua, N.Y. — have fought the construction of affordable housing in their neighborhoods, trying to keep out “undesirables” who might threaten their children and undermine their property values. The effects of that segregation are devastating.
Chesterton in America
Via AVI, a letter on America.
America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just....It's interesting that he found in the creed "that governments exist to give them justice" and not, as the Declaration actually says, that government exists to protect their rights. In a sense that is giving justice, but it is largely a project of abstention rather than provision. Mostly, on the original American ideal, the government 'gives justice' by refraining from doing anything to you, or for you, at all.
Now a creed is at once the broadest and the narrowest thing in the world. In its nature it is as broad as its scheme for a brotherhood of all men. In its nature it is limited by its definition of the nature of all men. This was true of the Christian Church, which was truly said to exclude neither Jew nor Greek, but which did definitely substitute something else for Jewish religion or Greek philosophy. It was truly said to be a net drawing in of all kinds; but a net of a certain pattern, the pattern of Peter the Fisherman. And this is true even of the most disastrous distortions or degradations of that creed; and true among others of the Spanish Inquisition. It may have been narrow about theology, it could not confess to being narrow about nationality or ethnology. The Spanish Inquisition might be admittedly Inquisitorial; but the Spanish Inquisition could not be merely Spanish. Such a Spaniard.... might burn a philosopher because he was heterodox; but he must accept a barbarian because he was orthodox....
[America is] a democracy of diverse races which has been compared to a melting-pot. But even that metaphor implies that the pot itself is of a certain shape and a certain substance; a pretty solid substance. The melting-pot must not melt. The original shape was traced on the lines of Jeffersonian democracy; and it will remain in that shape until it becomes shapeless. America invites all men to become citizens; but it implies the dogma that there is such a thing as citizenship.
The "John Doe" Proceedings
Or, "How The IRS, FBI and Justice Departments are Agents of Modern American Tyranny."
Imagine having a vision for your country.We have still the freedom to write about it. At least, we do if we haven't been placed under a gag order.
You worked hard to start an organization to promote the ideas and values that you believe can fix our nation.
When you apply for tax-exempt status, which should be a simple matter of paperwork, you face repeated delays and demands from the government that stretch the process across months and years.
Then you learn—not from the government, but from an outside source—that your private information was shared with multiple government agencies, all of whom wanted to “piece together” criminal charges against you.
Imagine being awakened in the middle of the night by a gang of police, shouting and waving their weapons at you. They turn your house inside-out, steal your laptop and phone, then order you not to tell anyone they were there.
All this happened because your political beliefs landed on the wrong side of those officials in power.
Jonah’s father may have been the target of the raid on his home, but according to the family, investigators went well beyond the scope of the warrant to seize business records in his mother’s possession, including confidential donor and financial information for two conservative Wisconsin nonprofits, which were paralyzed for weeks as a result. Yet despite the overly expansive search, to this day, no one in Jonah’s family has been charged with a crime. The damage to the family’s reputation was immense. Soon after the raid, and despite court orders mandating confidentiality (orders that prevented the family from publicly defending themselves), their names leaked to the press.
Heh.
Shapiro’s point is that Zoey Tur, formerly Bob Tur, is male genetically and therefore a man in fact, however he/she may identify. Tur’s reply is to grab him by the neck and threaten to knock him into the middle of next week, which is … about as cartoonishly masculine a response to an insult as I can imagine.It's true. A woman would have slapped him.
"The Little Sisters of the Poor v. the Big Sisters of the Rich"
Excerpt:
While Planned Parenthood does not call itself a religious order, it clearly has many of the trappings of a passionate and serious cult.... Our President, as the unofficial high priest, has asked God’s blessing to come upon them, making them too big to fail with even more business directed their way through Obamacare regulations.
The love and faith of the Little Sisters is perhaps most evident at the end of the lives of the residents they care for. The sisters bring them joy through socializing and even a little dancing, no matter what their physical limitations. And then when they are very close to dying, a sister is assigned around the clock so that no one will die alone.
As for the Big Sisters of the Rich, who have a government allowance of $528 million—nearly 100 times the annual budget of the Sisters of the Poor—their end of life story is slightly different.
Some Positive Eid al-Fitr News
American Muslim groups have raised $90,000 to help rebuild the black churches that have recently burned.
“In the time of the prophet (Muhammed), peace be upon him, there was a really strong history of Muslims working with Christians very closely — some of the first Muslims were sent to seek shelter under a Christian king in Ethiopia,” Islam said. “That connection has always been there.”
To Defend The Weak
``Deny it not, Sir Knight---you are he who decidedA meditation on that duty from the National Review. I agree: it is the foremost duty of a man to defend the weak. It is why God sent you strength. You will answer for how you used that strength.
the victory to the advantage of the English
against the strangers on the second day of the
tournament at Ashby.''
``And what follows if you guess truly, good
yeoman?'' replied the knight.
``I should in that case hold you,'' replied the
yeoman, ``a friend to the weaker party.''
``Such is the duty of a true knight at least,'' replied
the Black Champion; ``and I would not willingly
that there were reason to think otherwise of
me.''
Happy Eid Al-Fitr
Six things to know about today's terrorist attack on US Marines.
UPDATE:
UPDATE:
'Brothers and sisters don't be fooled by your desires, this life is short and bitter and the opportunity to submit to allah may pass you by.... Take his (Allah's) word as your light and code and do not let other prisoners, whether they are so called "Scholars" or even your family members, divert you from the truth. If you make the intention to follow allahs way 100 per cent and put your desires to the side, allah will guide you to what is right.'
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