... you can talk about whatever you want.
September 15, 2012
"By sending — literally — brownshirted enforcers to engage in — literally — a midnight knock at the door of a man for the non-crime..."
"... of embarrassing the President of the United States and his administration, President Obama violated that oath. You can try to pretty this up (It’s just about possible probation violations! Sure.), or make excuses or draw distinctions, but that’s what’s happened. It is a betrayal of his duties as President, and a disgrace."
Instapundit demands the resignation of Barack Obama. (He also quotes a portion of what I said in this post earlier today.)
I read that right after reading this piece in The New Yorker, by Andrew Marantz, analyzing the movie "The Innocence of Muslims."
"90% of everything is crud," said Theodore Sturgeon. It's Sturgeon's Law... to which I humbly offer the Althouse Corollary:
If there's a crud exception to freedom, we are only 10% free.
Instapundit demands the resignation of Barack Obama. (He also quotes a portion of what I said in this post earlier today.)
I read that right after reading this piece in The New Yorker, by Andrew Marantz, analyzing the movie "The Innocence of Muslims."
The video is crude, both aesthetically and ideologically.... Some have compared its director... to Theo van Gogh, the Dutch provocateur who was murdered in retaliation for a short film he made. Van Gogh’s film was bad in many ways, but at least it strove for political and artistic merit....You see where that's going. A commenter there — Gudmundsdottir — said it well:
I love the continued focus on this idiot as if he has ANYTHING to answer to. He is an American citizen, therefore he has the right to say much worse about "the prophet" Muhammad, "the son of god" Jesus Christ and any other "god" or "prohpet" that he wants to. The American media, predictably, is acting as if this man has something to answer for (or answer to). Good video or not, effective video or not, offensive video or not, untruthful video or not, this man has NOTHING to answer for. Anyone who claims otherwise is an enemy of America, because they are an enemy of the First Amendment (which is what makes America America). This man may have to face civil action from the actors or other participants in the film, but that is a side matter. The film in and of itself is not anything he owes anyone an explanation for.This is similar to what we were talking about in my 8:55 a.m. post "The Invisible Man." Mark O said:
How is this not an assault on the First Amendment? Who cares how bad the movie was? Do any but the obsessed believe the movie is the reason for the killing? If it is, then so what? Our response should be to champion our freedom, not pander to the mob.And I said:
If bad movies aren't protected:Imagine if you had to make a good movie or a well-written book to have the freedom to disseminate it. What power the critics would have! They could be expert witnesses at our blasphemy trials.
1. The vast majority of movies are not protected.
2. The legal authorities will have to distinguish good from bad.
"90% of everything is crud," said Theodore Sturgeon. It's Sturgeon's Law... to which I humbly offer the Althouse Corollary:
If there's a crud exception to freedom, we are only 10% free.
"Nipplegate: The Exciting Conclusion."
"Huzzah! Facebook reversed the ban on our cartoon!" — writes Robert Mankoff in and of The New Yorker. Facebook censored a cartoon that appeared in The New Yorker. Too much tit! But it's okay now. It was The New Yorker. Come on!
On the Capitol Square, today in Madison...
A Farmers Market day...
No protesters around the Hans Christian Heg statue. The sun is shining on the strings of peppers, and everyone seems pretty happy.
Around on the State Street side of the Square, there was protest activity...
... of a tired, embarrassing kind.
No protesters around the Hans Christian Heg statue. The sun is shining on the strings of peppers, and everyone seems pretty happy.
Around on the State Street side of the Square, there was protest activity...
... of a tired, embarrassing kind.
Kindle Paperwhite...
... has what I've most wanted (and not yet found) in a Kindle: "Crisp, dark text against a brilliant white background." I haven't seen that yet, but it's enough to make me buy another Kindle... especially considering that Kindles are weirdly cheap, in this case, $119. Also: "New Time to Read feature uses your reading speed to let you know when you'll finish your chapter." (Note: I get a percentage if you buy yours at that link... or buy anything after you enter Amazon through that link.)
"Obama Polishes His 'Regular Guy' Image With Beer."
NPR chooses a good Saturday to polish Obama's image with a puff piece about the President and beer.
Polls show President Obama has been winning that likeability contest. And he's been raising a lot of frosty mugs on the campaign trail, hoping to press his advantage over the teetotaling Mitt Romney.Did anything else happen this past week? Anything relevant to the election? I mean, more relevant that that Obama drinks beer and the White House has its own homebrew with "a secret recipe [that] was just declassified with a video on the White House website."
The strategy could come to a head in the swing state of Colorado.
As President Obama was holding an outdoor campaign rally in Golden this past week, the signature smell of beer brewing washed over the audience, a reminder of the nearby Coors brewery.
The White House beer is flavored with honey from the first lady's beehive....Speaking of teetotaling Mitt Romney, the beehive is an important symbol to Mormons (and Masons):
When a Dane County Judge throws out the Wisconsin collective bargaining reform law, should progressives or conservatives celebrate?
It's not obvious, though the protesters at the Capitol yesterday — they were there to support the Chicago teachers strike — exulted at the news.
If you step back for the long view — like between now and November 6th — and consider the near certainty that the decision will be reversed on appeal, the spectacle of liberal judicial activism is good for the conservative cause.
(Here's some info on the case, if you're not familiar with it.)
If you step back for the long view — like between now and November 6th — and consider the near certainty that the decision will be reversed on appeal, the spectacle of liberal judicial activism is good for the conservative cause.
(Here's some info on the case, if you're not familiar with it.)
Who gets free school dinner in Madison, Wisconsin?
"Unlike the lunch program, eligibility for a free dinner is based on whether the school qualifies for the program based on school poverty rates, rather than the income level of an individual student. So any student participating in an eligible after-school program can eat the dinner meal for free."
Eligible schools for the dinner program must have at least 50 percent of students qualify as low-income. In Madison last year, 18 elementary schools, seven middle schools and East and La Follette High schools met that requirement.
To be eligible, students must take part in an academically focused after-school program, not an after-school sport. Memorial is looking into setting up a homework club for athletes between practice and the free meal so that they can participate in the free meal.
The Invisible Man.
I went looking for the classic Claude Rains depiction of The Invisible Man. (Here's a nice variation, staged by a photographer.) Here's the great old movie. The Invisible Man wraps himself up like that to get as close as he can to having a human face.
I went looking, because I saw the news today. Oh, boy... an unlucky filmmaker the feds dragged in. And though the news was rather sad, well, I just had to laugh. I saw the photograph.
This was a man who, unlike The Invisible Man, had a face. But we haven't seen his face before, and he's not inclined to let us see it now... now that he's at the center of an international rage-storm, and our government seems to want the maniacs to focus their attention on him.
In the comments at the earlier post, EDH said: "The picture reminds me of the 'Invisible Man.'" And I said I'd thought of that myself. And I wonder whether the filmmaker intended the allusion. He's a man of movies. The movie he's associated with right now is so badly made, but we don't know the story of the man who got caught up in that crude, low-budget production. We don't know that he doesn't know film, that he's incapable of making an allusion to the Hollywood classic.
We'll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there, murders of great men, murders of little men, just to show we make no distinction.
I went looking, because I saw the news today. Oh, boy... an unlucky filmmaker the feds dragged in. And though the news was rather sad, well, I just had to laugh. I saw the photograph.
This was a man who, unlike The Invisible Man, had a face. But we haven't seen his face before, and he's not inclined to let us see it now... now that he's at the center of an international rage-storm, and our government seems to want the maniacs to focus their attention on him.
In the comments at the earlier post, EDH said: "The picture reminds me of the 'Invisible Man.'" And I said I'd thought of that myself. And I wonder whether the filmmaker intended the allusion. He's a man of movies. The movie he's associated with right now is so badly made, but we don't know the story of the man who got caught up in that crude, low-budget production. We don't know that he doesn't know film, that he's incapable of making an allusion to the Hollywood classic.
We'll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there, murders of great men, murders of little men, just to show we make no distinction.
"You start disputing my God, and you've got a problem."
Says a man the filmmaker mocks as crazy. Are the federal authorities calling on the L.A. Sheriff to drag this filmmaker out of his mansion in the middle of the night?
Authorites in Los Angeles bring in a moviemaker to question him about that movie that offended Muslims.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (AKA Sam Bacile) was not arrested, the L.A. Times updates to say, after it published an article that began like this:
Apparently, he acceded to questioning because he's on probation, having been convicted of a federal crime — bank fraud. The terms of his probation, we're told, say he "shall not access a computer for any other purpose" than his work. This obviously makes him less free than most U.S. citizens and much more vulnerable to requests to submit to questioning about his speech, but the photograph at the link in chilling.
Gaze on that picture and see our government in a sad, shameful display, staged — presumably — to cajole the enemies of free speech into blaming a private individual instead of our country — our country, the caretaker of the freedom that allowed him to speak.
ADDED: That's a scarf wrapped around his face, not a "towel." Is the L.A. Times nudging us to think of this man as a "towelhead"? And look at this headline in the Daily Mail: "The man who set the Middle East ablaze hides his face in shame...." Shame? If I were imputing a motivation to this man, I'd say he has a fully justified fear of becoming a recognizable face.
But I think our government is delusional if it thinks the people who are rioting in Africa and killing our diplomats would — if they knew the facts — see individuals like Nakoula as the proper focus of their rage. They don't believe the necessary premise: freedom as the superior value. As long as they favor a system in which blasphemy is outlawed and severely punished, they will continue to blame the American government for standing back and allowing blasphemy to flourish and flow everywhere. What good does it do to ask them to please understand our system? They hate this system.
Meanwhile, our government would scapegoat afree citizen. It's not even effectual scapegoating.
Just after midnight, authorities descended on the Cerritos home of the man believed to be the filmmaker behind the anti-Muslim movie that has sparked protests and rioting in the Arab world.I'm troubled that a newspaper in the United States would publish this article without seeing the need to say whether the man was arrested. Now, we're told he went in voluntarily.
Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies escorted a man believed to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula to an awaiting car. The man declined to answer questions on his way out and wore a hat and a towel over his face. He kept his hands in the pocket of a winter coat.
Apparently, he acceded to questioning because he's on probation, having been convicted of a federal crime — bank fraud. The terms of his probation, we're told, say he "shall not access a computer for any other purpose" than his work. This obviously makes him less free than most U.S. citizens and much more vulnerable to requests to submit to questioning about his speech, but the photograph at the link in chilling.
Gaze on that picture and see our government in a sad, shameful display, staged — presumably — to cajole the enemies of free speech into blaming a private individual instead of our country — our country, the caretaker of the freedom that allowed him to speak.
ADDED: That's a scarf wrapped around his face, not a "towel." Is the L.A. Times nudging us to think of this man as a "towelhead"? And look at this headline in the Daily Mail: "The man who set the Middle East ablaze hides his face in shame...." Shame? If I were imputing a motivation to this man, I'd say he has a fully justified fear of becoming a recognizable face.
But I think our government is delusional if it thinks the people who are rioting in Africa and killing our diplomats would — if they knew the facts — see individuals like Nakoula as the proper focus of their rage. They don't believe the necessary premise: freedom as the superior value. As long as they favor a system in which blasphemy is outlawed and severely punished, they will continue to blame the American government for standing back and allowing blasphemy to flourish and flow everywhere. What good does it do to ask them to please understand our system? They hate this system.
Meanwhile, our government would scapegoat a
September 14, 2012
"Google will leave a controversial video clip about the Islamic prophet Muhammad on YouTube..."
"... despite a White House request that the company review it under its own policies, the company said Friday."
“We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions,” a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement. “This can be a challenge because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere. This video — which is widely available on the Web — is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube.”Thanks to Google, a corporation, with stronger free-speech values than the United States government is willing to support.
"I look pretty good, don’t I?"
What George Bush said to Ann Romney after she... oh, she didn't really see him naked! And he was only trying to put her at ease because she was so embarrassed.
"American RW conspiracists and pro-Romney hate sites are all ablaze with the 'news' that Ambassador Stevens was repeatedly raped..."
"... by his assailants before they killed him. This is obviously false since his assailants did not kill him face-to-face. He was murdered, of course, but he died from asphyxiation by smoke inhalation in a burning building."
Discussion at Democratic Underground.
Discussion at Democratic Underground.
Jennifer Granholm on "The Dating Game" in 1978.
She's only 19. Introduced as "curvaceous," she's wearing suspenders.
Via WFB, which includes the famous clip from her DNC speech. The hair is tamed, the chest is conservatively bejacketed, but the wild eyes burn on and on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
