Resistance requires a sense that there is something worth defending. But decades of dumbed-down education have produced people with no sense of the importance of a moral framework within which freedom and civil discourse can flourish. Without a moral framework, there is nothing left but immediate self-indulgence by some and the path of least resistance by others. Neither can sustain a free society. Disruptive activists indulge their egos in the name of idealism and others cave rather than fight.
O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas
Hear my prayer.
h/t Richard
YNoKyoto
Mock Obama Day observed in Georgetown: Zero Attendance for Climate Change Rally
h/t Rich
Mind Over Matter
If at first they can’t succeed, just lower the standards! 🙁
Col. Ellen Haring, on the staff of the U.S. Army War College, says commanders need to downplay obstacle courses and judge a service member’s ability to stay calm and think quickly.
“Perhaps it is time to take a hard look at what really makes a competent combat soldier and not rely on traditional notions of masculine brawn that celebrate strength over other qualities,” Col. Haring says in the current issue of Armed Forces Journal.
Reader Tips
You want us to release Morsi / Hey Obama, you are a stupid, bad man… ♫
Clearly, the entire world loves him.
h/t
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Oh, Frack! (EXCLUSIVE)
Via a source in the Canadian energy industry;
… at least four crude IEDs have been discovered at Pennsylvania gas wells near the Susquehanna River. Anti-fracking groups are suspected.
I can’t provide a weblink for this so keep an eye out for stories as they emerge.
Meanwhile, search “The Anti-Fracking Pledge of Resistance” and “Earth First!” for a backgrounder on this movement.
Emphasis mine.
Clown Vs Clowns
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
1994;
The big white gate flew open. The bull came out bucking. The rider flopped from side to side and the bullfighters held back, letting the bull make his moves until the rider dropped off. Licciardello crouched in a heavily padded barrel, a human target should the bull decide to charge. Hawkins waited near the barrel, holding his big inner tube. A dummy with a George Bush mask stood beside the clown, propped up by a broomstick.”
The fair also said if the association is to ever sponsor a rodeo again, it must first show proof that “all officials and subcontractors … have successfully participated in sensitivity training.”
Hunting the Wild Cunning Linguist
Exclusive: After Multiple Denials, CIA Admits to Snooping on Noam Chomsky
Where was NSA when you needed it? Just kidding. Maybe.
Are We Still A Member Of This Thing?
When even the Guardian objects…
In 1989 – four months after Libya bombed Pan Am flight 103, killing 270 people from 21 countries – Ziegler launched the annual Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize in Tripoli, boasting it was the “Anti-Nobel prize of the third world”. Winners have included Fidel Castro, Louis Farrakhan, and a leader of a Ba’ath party women’s organisation in Saddam’s Iraq. In 2002, the recipients included the convicted French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, and Ziegler himself.
In 1986, Ziegler acted as an adviser to the Ethiopian dictator Mengistu, helping draft his one-party constitution. In 1993, Le Monde reported on “Jean Ziegler’s trip to visit Saddam Hussein and Kim Il-sung.”
Ziegler proclaimed “total support for the Cuban revolution” shortly after Fidel Castro had imprisoned many journalists. While visiting Cuba as a UN official he refused to meet Cuban dissidents but lavished praise on Castro.
In 2002, he praised the Zimbabwean dictator, saying, “Mugabe has history and morality with him.”
Jean Ziegler has been elected to the advisory committee of the
UN Human Rights Council.
Frankly, My Dear
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
CBC: A Saskatchewan First Nation has accepted the resignation of — and has agreed to pay severance to — the ex-chief who sexually assaulted a teenage girl.
Support Your Local Skeptic
President Alinsky is at it again.
Sarah Palin made a list like this once and was blamed for a shooting because of it. http://t.co/5exQEsl0Zl
— Eric (@eriContrarian) August 13, 2013
Twitter users: Click on “Call them out”, then edit the forms to send your support. (You don’t need to provide your email.)
Get Outta My Neighbourhood, You Stinky Hippies!
Far away from the coffee shops of Vancouver, a bunch of hippies learn an important lesson about Canada’s Left Coast. More here.
Gore Tower
The Bank of America Tower, a billion-dollar, 55-story crystal skyscraper on the northwest corner of Manhattan’s Bryant Park […] would be “the most sustainable in the country,” according to its developer Douglas Durst. At the Tower’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, Gore powwowed with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and praised the building as a model for fighting climate change. “I applaud the leadership of the mayor and all of those who helped make this possible,” he said.
Gore’s applause, however, was premature. According to data released by New York City last fall, the Bank of America Tower produces more greenhouse gases and uses more energy per square foot than any comparably sized office building in Manhattan. It uses more than twice as much energy per square foot as the 80-year-old Empire State Building. It also performs worse than the Goldman Sachs headquarters, maybe the most similar building in New York–and one with a lower LEED rating. It’s not just an embarrassment; it symbolizes a flaw at the heart of the effort to combat climate change.
h/t Sid Vicious
Benghazi: “What difference at this point does it make?”
A former U.S. Attorney who represents whistle-blowers with knowledge of what happened when armed militants attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya last year says 400 surface-to-air missiles were ‘taken from Libya’ during the attack, and that the U.S. intelligence community is terrified they might be used to shoot down airliners.
Joe diGenova, whose wife Victoria Toensing – a former deputy assistant attorney general – also represents Benghazi witnesses and others with knowledge of the terror attack, told WMAL radio that the loss of those missiles is also one the reason the U.S. State Department shut down 19 embassies across the Middle East last week.
The Tolerant Left
Intellectual superior, take your pick…
h/t Black Mamba
Reader Tips
Life can be a crapshoot. Even if you have a high level of situational awareness, and you go out of your way to avoid bad parts of town after dark, you still might find yourself unexpectedly confronted at some point in your life by a thug or a “gangsta” wielding a knife or a gun. Tonight, an expert in hand-to-hand combat shows us a couple of basic but highly effective self-defense techniques that will have your attacker saying “uh-oh!”
h/t J. Minty
The comments thread is open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Honey, I Finished The Internet
Mythical Plants of the Middle Ages
Via
Take Me, Obama
Fired Chattanooga Times Free Press editor Drew Johnson – “This person is like this cult … almost a prophet, almost a religious figure, and if you dare say anything against him, then the media way overreacts.”