Student 'Twitters' his way out of Egyptian jail

(CNN) — James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone.

Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested April 10.

On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.

The message only had one word. "Arrested."

Sometimes it's good to be wired..

More about Twitter and other apps like Jott and Phone Tag

Via the Australian: Esteem for US rises in Asia

...in a world supposedly awash in anti-US sentiment, pro-American leaders keep winning elections. Germany's Angela Merkel is certainly more pro-American than Gerhard Schroeder, whom she replaced. The same is true of France's Nicolas Sarkozy.

More importantly in terms of Green's analysis, the same is also true of South Korea's new President. Lee Myung-bak, elected in a landslide in December, is vastly more pro-American than his predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun.

Even in majority Islamic societies, their populations allegedly radicalised and polarised by Bush's campaign in Iraq and the global war on terror more generally, election results don't show any evidence of these trends. In the most recent local elections in Indonesia, and in national elections in Pakistan, the Islamist parties with anti-American rhetoric fared very poorly. Similarly Kevin Rudd was elected as a very pro-American Labor leader, unlike Mark Latham, with his traces of anti-Americanism, who was heavily defeated.

Even with China, the Iraq campaign was not a serious negative for the US. Beijing was far more worried by the earlier US-led NATO intervention into Kosovo because it was based purely on notions of human rights in Kosovo...

...Green cautions that a US failure in Iraq, a retreat and leaving chaos in Iraq behind, would gravely damage US credibility in Asia.

What is clear from Green's analysis is how different the Asian environment is from the European environment, or even from the US domestic debate.

It is a form of Orientalism, but not quite what Edward Said had in mind.

Patrick Lasswell wonders: if Congressman Broun is so worried about harmful addictive masturbation, why doesn't he focus his attention on earmarks?

In the NY Times, Barry Gewen describes the similarities and the differences between "Muslim Rebel Sisters" Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji:

Both Ms. Hirsi Ali and Ms. Manji come from non-Arab Muslim backgrounds. By itself, this may be one reason for their opposition to Islamic orthodoxy, which they see as inherently Arab, or Arab-dominated. Ms. Hirsi Ali was born in 1969 in Somalia, and lived in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya before fleeing to the Netherlands when she was 22 to avoid an arranged marriage. When her family was in Saudi Arabia, she remembers her father’s complaining that the Saudis had perverted the true Islam. “He hated Saudi judges and Saudi law,” she writes. “He thought it was all barbaric, all Arab desert culture.”

Ms. Manji was born in 1968 in Uganda, but her family, part Egyptian and part Indian, moved to Canada when she was 4 to escape Idi Amin. She is even more insistent than Ms. Hirsi Ali in drawing a distinction between Islam and Arab tribal culture, its “dictatorship from the desert.” Who elected the Saudi monarch “to be Islam’s steward?” she asks. “We’re not in the Saudi sand dunes anymore.”

Ms. Manji has a broader and more flexible idea than Ms. Hirsi Ali of what Islam is and can be. Ms. Hirsi Ali says, “Saudi Arabia is the source of Islam and its quintessence.” Ms. Manji, on the other hand, is convinced that her religion can escape what she sees as its Arab domination. “We need a take-no-prisoners debate about Saudi Arabia, a cauldron of duplicity.” ...

...No element more thoroughly informs the work of both women than feminism; its influence on their thinking can hardly be overstated, and in this sense they might be considered crown jewels in the history of the modern women’s movement. Yet because they are risking their lives for their beliefs — constantly, every day — they may have more in common with antitotalitarian dissidents like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn than with Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. As feminists, Ms. Hirsi Ali and Ms. Manji are demanding more than equality; they are very self-consciously challenging the foundations of an entire way of life....

...Clearly, this is a debate of importance not only to Muslims but to non-Muslims as well, and for a Westerner listening in, the best way to understand it may be to translate it into the language of European history. Irshad Manji sees herself as moving Islam into the 16th century; Ayaan Hirsi Ali wants to move it into the 18th. It’s as if Luther and Voltaire were living at the same time.

Comparing these brave women to Luther and Voltaire is more appropriate than comparing them to Steinem and Friedan. This is definitely an article worth reading.

[cross-posted at Solomonia]

Fighting terrorism by fighting terrorists. What a concept!

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) recently unveiled her “Wake Up America” agenda to a select group of media representatives, including Family Security Matters. Her agenda features a ten-point strategy to alert and educate Americans to terrorist threats posed by radical Islamic extremists here at home.

One of Myrick’s goals is to “explain to people what the roadblocks are” regarding the fight against terrorism in the United States. She also feels “very strongly about the infiltration” by those who would do us harm “that’s taking place in America.”

(and, no, she's not talking about Mexicans crossing the border looking for jobs washing dishes)

A few of her proposals:

3. Will call for the Government Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate the selection process of Arabic translators in the FBI and DoD.

4. Will call for the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) 501(c)(3) non-profit status which restricts “lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.”

5. Introduce a bill to make the preaching, publication, or distribution of materials that call for the death of American citizens, attacks on the United States Government or Armed Forces, or the financing of the means and/or operations to accomplish these acts, acts of sedition and/or solicitation of treason.

6. Will call on the Government Accountability Office to conduct an audit to verify the total sovereign wealth fund investment in the United States.

7. Will attempt to cancel scholarship student visa program with Saudi Arabia until they reform their textbooks.

NYC, 2008

Hillary Clinton wants to extend our nuclear umbrella over our beloved Gulf state allies:

Asked if “it should be US policy now to treat an Iranian attack on Israel as if it were an attack against the United States,” Clinton astonishingly responded that she’d use American nukes not just to defend Israel, our traditional strategic ally, but also other neighboring states such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait from an Iranian nuclear attack.

Hillary Clinton is willing to risk millions of American lives to protect the sponsors of 9/11 and the hub of world terrorism. This is a proposal that's so stunningly drenched in idiocy, it transcends standard perceptions of logic and existence.

In contrast:

Barack Obama’s far more sensible answer was simply to commit to definitively and aggressively extend our deterrent protection to Israel - period.

Go Obama!

The latest food crisis news: Aid group to cut food ration to millions

In Haiti, where food riots forced a change in government last week, the next major food shipment is not expected before June, and that will not meet the need, Wolff said.

"Though we're able to feed people, we're not feeding people as we would like, and those people we are feeding are getting less than we would like."

She cited two primary, interconnected causes: an increase in food prices and an increase in the need for food.

Wolff said the magnitude of the shortfall is unprecedented and predicted that the situation "probably will get worse as the year progresses."

"What's unique about this is that it's happening all over the world," she said.

Among the causes is the diversion of corn to the production of ethanol rather than food, she said.

The spiraling price of fuel has aggravated the problem by boosting the cost of fertilizer and transporting food.

Well, if high fuel prices are causing these problems, we can always ask our good friend, Saudi King Abdullah to increase oil production and bring prices down.

Uh, no.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer, has put on hold any plans to further increase long-term production capacity from its vast oil fields, its most powerful policymakers have said.

In a series of statements, including one by the king himself, the kingdom has warned consumers it does not believe there is a need for further expansion, an assumption disputed by the world's biggest developed countries

In previous years the Saudis didn't want the price of oil to go too high, because it would encourage consumers to look for alternatives. Since we are now looking for alternatives, and since this food crisis threatens them too, it would make sense for them to open the taps a bit.

But they're not. The only reasonable explanation is - they can't. It's becoming obvious that they don't have the kind of oil production capacity we thought they had.

Since we were basing our estimates on what our terror-supporting allies told us (and the estimates of some guy in a little office over a grocery store in Geneva), this shouldn't be a surprise. On April 13th, King Abdullah dropped this bombshell:

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah said he had ordered some new oil discoveries left untapped to preserve oil wealth in the world's top exporter for future generations…

"When there were some new finds, I told them, 'no, leave it in the ground, with grace from god, our children need it'," King Abdullah said…

Saudi production capacity stands at around 11.3 million bpd, and is scheduled to rise to 12.5 million bpd next year.

The King's remarks seem to confirm a statement made last year by Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi who, when asked "How high can your production go?" replied, "We'll get to 12.5 million barrels a day and then we'll see."

Of this announcement, Jeffrey Rubin, chief economist, CIBC World markets says:

"A far more plausible explanation for faltering growth in Saudi production and exports is that they are rapidly approaching maximum production. Given soaring rates of internal consumption for oil, they will soon be exporting less not more crude to world oil markets.

For years, Matt Simmons has been trying to tell the world that there was a looming oil production crisis in Saudi Arabia. For years, the KSA's friends in the State Department portrayed him as a kook.

Of Abdullah's announcement, Simmons says:

It is a reflection that Twilight set in on the oilfields of Arabia a few years ago."

If the Sauds and other Gulf states have maxed out, they are in a very tight spot right now. People who have been living under unpopular regimes like the ones in Haiti and Egypt are rioting, mostly about food, but also about their hated leaders. The Gulf state leaders are more beloved by our government than they are by their own people.

The Gulf states are currently experiencing a tulipmania bubble. If workers apply pressure, or if they can't keep oil profits steady, their economies will crash sooner than later.

With their depleted resources, their massive support of terrorism, and the fact that their bubble is about to burst, even the most determined realist must acknowledge that if we continue this codependent alliance, we will be flushed down the toilet with them.

I know it's hard, but it is time to let go.

I've been offline for a while, taking a poorly planned cross-country trip, heading to Austin (but I only got as far as Nashville). I will never again plan a trip that involves traveling for more than 400 miles per day.

But I was encouraged to hear that it's official - women drivers rule!

Danica Patrick

Britons fear race violence

...the poll, carried out by Mori, found three out of four people thought there was now a great deal or a fair amount of tension between races and nationalities.

And almost two in three feared tension was certain or likely to lead to violence, although it is not clear whether people are imagining full-blown street riots or minor scuffles.

Mr Phillips told BBC News: "What worries me is if that friction starts to catch fire - if people do genuinely believe it's going to catch fire then we're in trouble...

...Asked if they thought immigration meant their local area didn't feel like Britain any more, a quarter of the sample agreed - double the amount who felt this three years ago.

Six out of 10 said immigration had made parts of Britain feel like a foreign country.

I love neighborhoods like Little Korea and the almost entirely Russian-speaking Brighton Beach neighborhood in New York. Traveling to these places is like taking a trip to a foreign country, for the low cost of one Metro-card swipe.

Being a fan of foreign neighborhoods and curries, I also sought out the 'ethnic' neighborhoods in London. The feeling one gets in those neighborhoods is different. Little Korea is open and lively, and despite some neighborhood clannishness, most businesses welcome anyone. From what I saw, there is prejudice in England, but the problem is with the immigrants' severe prejudice against the natives.

Instapundit says:

I HAVEN'T SEEN BEN STEIN'S EXPELLED, and I regard "Intelligent Design" theory as pernicious twaddle. But it's interesting to see Stein clobbering Morgan Spurlock in box office. At any rate, according to the comments, at least, there's more to the film than I.D. twaddle.

I haven't seen Stein's film either, and I also agree that "Intelligent Design" theory is pernicious twaddle. Most academics also believe that ID is pernicious twaddle. But then again, so is Marxism. So, why do we still allow one entirely discredited theory (Marxism) to still be taught in schools while refusing to acknowledge the other?

If we allow Marxism to be taught, why not Intelligent Design? And what about alchemy and phrenology? The average academic garden party is entirely bereft of qualified phrenologists, yet you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a marxist. Why is one discredited pseudo-science more equal than all others?

Michael Totten's latest from Iraq: Now They Have Turned to the Tribes

Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha, leader of the Iraq’s Anbar Salvation Council before he was murdered by a car bomb in front of his house in late 2007, summed up the Anbar Awakening movement in a few concise sentences to Johns Hopkins University Professor Fouad Ajami. "Our American friends had not understood us when they came," he said. "They were proud, stubborn people and so were we. They worked with the opportunists, now they have turned to the tribes, and this is as it should be. The tribes hate religious parties and religious fakers." The tribal system in Anbar Province is ancient. Attempts to overthrow it are not wise. Both Americans and Al Qaeda learned that the hard way.

..more

The Village Voice is trying to start up a right vs. left flingfest [with caricatures by Tom Tomorrow], doing their best to piss off moderates and liberals.

I guess this is a good excuse to bring back my "Mr. Yesterday" series, featuring Tom:

Which was taken from this cartoon, parodying Congressman Rangel's efforts to re-instate the draft (click on the cartoon for the larger version)

And this, inspired by his first anti-right-wing blogger cartoon

..and this pre-election cartoon

I've been mostly ignoring left-wing blogs and rags like the Voice, mostly because these poo-flinging games get boring after a while.

But cartoon wars are still fun (even if they do give you carpal tunnel..)

Artists selling their work directly - without sitting in the hot sun at a crafts fair, getting nauseous from the oily smell of frying funnel cakes...

A Painting a day

With videos

Despite my late arrival and lack of a reservation, I was able to attend the NYC Premier of Indoctrinate U.

[however, since I did arrive late, I missed the free pre-show hors d'oeuvres, wine and t-shirts. *sigh*]

You must see this movie! If you can't get to a showing, it's available online.

Indoctrinate U director and narrator Evan Coyne Maloney uses an ironic, often subtle sense of humor to contrast our idealized image of free-thinking university to the grim reality of current university life, where expressing ideas that are defined as conservative, or republican, is a de-facto crime punishable by harassment, theft, legal prosecution and even death threats.

After spending a few hours in the company of the communists and terror-supporters who make up our country's educational 'collective', I'm not surprised that free speech is so restricted, but I was surprised to see that these neo-Stalinist attitudes are so pervasive. 91 percent of campuses restrict student speech. Causing 'offense' to any left leaning special interest group on campus is prohibited. Brown University banned words that cause “feelings of impotence, anger, or disenfranchisement.” The University of Connecticut has outlawed "inappropriately directed laughter." Colby College has banned any speech that could lead to a loss of self-esteem.

College life is supposed to be a smorgasbord of intellectual and philosophical varieties. But the edu-Stalinists have turned this smorgasbord into a Soviet-style grocery store, where students dutifully line up for moldy cabbage and some brown bread.

It's a grim subject, but Maloney lightens the tone with a series of imaginative contrasts. One example: at the University of Tennessee, five white students from Jackson attended an off-campus Halloween party dressed as “The Jackson Five,” in costumes and dark makeup. When they were walking through the campus, they offended someone. As a result, the University de-certified the fraternity that hosted the party.

To illustrate the absurdity of this so-called political correctness, Maloney interviewed a very integrated bunch of people at what looked like Greenwich Village's Halloween Parade. Most in the very diverse and open minded crowd said they wouldn't be offended by white guys dressed as the Jackson 5. So let's just dispense with the illusion that this is about freedom or diversity.

Like any successful authoritarian regime, our modern universities keep their subjects supplied with entertainment to release the pressure valve. The Soviets may have had bread shortages, but vodka and cigarettes could usually be found. University students are still encouraged to indulge their impulses. They're even allowed to be as offensive as they want to be - as long as they're being offensive towards our military recruiters. Maloney stood with the recruiters and filmed students taking political action - mostly a lot of bratty shouting, foot stomping and bird-flipping.

Can you imagine what would have happened if students at Columbia had treated Ahmadinejad as rudely as they treated our own soldiers or the MinuteMen? The fact that it never occurred to anyone in that crowd of New Yorkers to even give the acknowledged enemy of everything we stand for the finger - and the fact that educators objected to Bollinger's mild criticism of this fascist shows just how effective this brainwashing has become.

FIRE, an organization whose mission is to "defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities" was featured often in Indoctrinate U. Like Maloney, FIRE often points out the contrasts between genuine free speech and university-inflicted political correctness.

Maloney's conclusion: if Americans want to bring free speech back to our universities, we're going to have to tell them 'no justice, no peace.'

From what I've seen of the power structure in academia, while students and non-tenured faculty have some power to bring about change, the alumni and various donors have more influence. The parents who are paying tuition can also make their voices heard. A donation to FIRE, buying a copy of Indoctrinate U will help spread the word. As NYU's defenders of collective "academic freedom" were so quick to point out, even the hard-core commies know it's all about the benjamins.

[cross posted at Solomonia]

[edited for clarity]

The Times Online, by Eleanor Mills: Too scared to stop the violence

At half-term I was on a bus with my five-year-old daughter. She had wanted to see Buckingham Palace, so we saluted the Queen and walked back up The Mall to get a bus home from Trafalgar Square. The bus was packed, around us were a friendly posse of young people of all races, bantering, cracking jokes, smiling. I felt happy - when the capital’s mad melting pot works, it’s great.

Suddenly there was a kerfuffle among the packed-in bodies by the doors. From the shouts, it seemed that a middle-aged white guy had stepped on a young black man’s foot. The bus stopped and as the doors opened, the young guy started punching the older man in the head. He wrestled him off the bus, kicked him to the ground and left him there. Calmly he got back on the bus.

Silence fell. My daughter looked at me anxiously. I hugged her and whispered not to worry, but when I looked up I inadvertently caught the thug’s eye. “What you f****** looking at?” he yelled. I cast my eyes down quickly, glad that there were many bodies rammed in between me and him. No one moved, said or did anything. We all tried, desperately, to mind our own business. The bus continued on. About three stops later he got off. The chatter resumed as if nothing had happened.

I don’t think that bus was full of cowards. We were just realists. We read the papers, we know the story about the man who got stabbed on a bus for asking a young guy to stop throwing chips at his girlfriend. The reality of the level of violence among a particular subsection of society is such that sometimes it’s just not safe to intervene any more. I didn’t want to be a hero if death could be the consequence. I just wanted to get home from a day out with my daughter with both of us in one piece. Like everyone else on that bus.

Afterwards I felt ashamed and found myself murmuring, “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”..

Boris Johnson says that if he becomes mayor of London he is determined to tackle the violence: he wants conductors back on buses (who might have intervened on my bus, I suppose) and says he’ll take free travel away from teenagers who abuse that right. That’s all a step in the right direction - but it’s not going to put the genie back in the bottle.

In New York, through tough, plentiful policing, Rudy Giuliani reclaimed the subway and public spaces for ordinary people. Boris, can you do that for London?

I'm in my twenties and sixteen stone of boxer. Could I have intervened? Yes. Would I? No.

And why not: It's because I can't risk the little dear being armed with a knife. Because then I might have to do some serious damage to him very quickly to avoid being stabbed. And though I probably could, I wouldn't want to. Because I don't trust the law. I can't risk losing my job, house, and all the things I've built up to a pc police force.

Show me a legal system that will stand up for me, and I'll intervene. Until then, enjoy the fruits of a socialist utopia.

-- MD, London

All those who have undeserved faith in the police need to get a grip. While I was in Amsterdam, I was robbed with a knife to my neck a few hundred yards from a police station, and when I went to tell them about it, they told me I couldn't report the crime until the next day. THE NEXT DAY! I don't believe this is just a function of them being Dutch, and the criminals know they can get away with these things, and that's why this type of stuff continues.

The woman was with her five year old daughter. How many people would risk even potential death in front of their very young child? Give the woman a break.

-- Becky, Santa Cruz, CA

"I don't think the bus was full of cowards." No, but the bus driver should have stopped the bus and the police should have been called. Until the law is taken seriously things will only get worse.

I have seen incidents on American public transport, much less serious than the above, and, without hesitation, the police are called to investigate.

-- Eddie Pratt, San Francisco, USA

In Britain, it's different. Even punching a thug in the nose can get you hauled off to jail. Since Britain has worked to discourage any form of self-defense or community watch groups, they're even worse off than New York was back in the bad old days. If they don't give people the right to protect themselves and their communities, the problem will get worse.

[cross-posted on Solomonia]

..by dressing up their ghosts in American costumes. Projection anyone?

At a German opera house, Austrian director Johann Kresnik is staging Verdi's "A Masked Ball" using naked masses of "people without means", Nazi mustaches and Sieg Heil salutes.

These are all horrific, yet familiar images that the world associates with German and Austrian atrocities in WWII. But for some reason, these descendants of the Anschluss have chosen to put Mickey Mouse masks on their memories.

Guilt can cause some strange behaviour - and some sad, soon to be forgotten "entertainment."

France: How to deal with pirates

Bandits Nabbed, Yacht Hostages Rescued in Somalian High-Seas Adventure

England: How not to deal with pirates

Pirates can claim UK asylum: THE Royal Navy, once the scourge of brigands on the high seas, has been told by the Foreign Office not to detain pirates because doing so may breach their human rights.

Times reader responses to the UK "asylum for pirates" story:

Piracy is a criminal offence against the law of nations triable anywhere. If the pirates cannot be handed over to some countries because of the way those countries treat criminals, they can be tried under English law.

The recent decision on selling arms to Saudi Arabia would suggest that if there is a prima facie case against captured pirates, the CPS will be obliged to prosecute them, irrespective of their human rights elsewhere. The same will apply to any pirates who claim asylum.

If this fact is made more widely known, it might discourage people from seeking to claim asylum.

Until recently, this was one of the crimes that still carried the death penalty even after it was removed from murder.

-- Dru Brooke-Taylor, Bristol

... There is no pride left in what was a very great country. No longer do I claim to be British - I claim to be Scottish as it lessens the embarassment a bit.

-- John Campbell, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

To our American friends...can you please invade us and install Mr Bush as Prime Minister or even Dictator....it couldn't be worse than the route we are taking.

-- chris, st ives, cornwall

Have we gone completely crazy? Thank God this country wasn't always run like this!

-- Gill, Southampton, what used to be England

My Old Man and the Sea

My father had always had the notion of sailing across the Atlantic, and this we did in 1975. The story is told in his book Airborne. We set off from Miami on June 1. A month and 4,400 miles later, we dropped anchor in the shadow of Gibraltar.

He taught me on that trip how to navigate by the sun and stars with a sextant. It’s a skill that today, in the age of satellite navigation, fewer fathers impart to their sons. As I look back, it seems to me one of the most fundamental skills a father can teach a son: finding out where you are, using the tools of our ancestors.

I was 23 at the time. I’d spent a year between high school and college working on a Norwegian tramp freighter. I’d gone around the world, been in rough situations among rough people. I’d steered a 20,000-ton ship through 60-foot seas in a Force Ten gale in the South Atlantic. I knew my way around a boat.

One midnight, I relieved my father on the 12-to-4 watch. He told me to put on my safety harness. “Yeah, yeah,” I said, “I’ll get around to it.” He let me have it, in harsh words — perhaps the second time in 23 years he’d spoken to me that way. Falling overboard at night in the middle of the ocean without a safety harness isn’t a thing to be taken lightly.

I obeyed, but later that night, still simmering over my affronted manhood, I made an entry in the log to the effect that Captain Crunch could take his safety harness and shove it where the sun didn’t shine. The next morning, upon examining the log, he smiled, delighted at the mutiny.

What a trip it was! We sailed into the Azores, accompanied by a thousand dolphins; camped out in the crater of an extinct volcano; sailed through the spot where Nelson sank the French and Spanish fleets; and finally through the place that had once been called the Pillars of Hercules, end of the known world.

...more

Link thanks to Fresh Bilge

Thanks to building inspector Ben L., who always has the best views..

Last Friday I attended New York University’s "Academic Freedom in the Age of Permanent Warfare" conference.

Here's the report I wrote for Campus Watch:

Victims on Parade at NYU "Academic Freedom" Conference

The speakers and attendees gathered around the pastry-laden table at NYU’s new Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center last week didn't appear to be oppressed or under attack. But once they wiped the sugar from their mouths and stood up to speak, they assured the audience that they were, in fact, victims in an "age of permanent warfare."

According to keynote speaker Roger Bowen (of "Revolting Behavior" fame), director of the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows Program, the purported enemies of academic freedom include the "rabid right" and/or "Republicans, conservatives, the elderly, and the uneducated."

Joan Scott of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, decried the loss of academia as a sanctuary, both from public opinion and the "enmity of patriots and trustees." David Hollinger, professor of history at UC Berkeley, noted that fellow academics in engineering and the hard sciences often felt "no solidarity with the humanities."

Sheila Slaughter, professor of higher education at the University of Georgia, criticized the influence of neo-liberalism and globalization. Most agreed with Barbara Bowan of the City University of New York, who equated true “academic freedom” with financial security and tenure for all academics in the social science/humanities "collective." Under this worldview, anyone who does not support pampering the humanities collective with a lifetime sanctuary is an enemy. That’s a lot of enemies.

...more

Also posted at FrontPage Magazine

UPDATE: Also posted at University of New Mexico Israel Alliance (UNMIA)

Cinnamon Stillwell says:

Exit Zero blogger Mary Madigan attended an NYU conference on "academic freedom" (i.e. paranoid professors who equate outside criticism with censorship) last week and she wrote about the experience for Campus Watch. Her funny and informative article, "Victims on Parade at NYU 'Academic Freedom' Conference," is posted today at Frontpage Magazine.

In PJ Media, "Sandmonkey" describes recent riots in Egypt:

It all started two days ago, when a nationwide strike was called by a number of political parties and worker movements to protest their low income, the skyrocketing cost of living, and the open corruption and blatant nepotism of the Egyptian government. All eyes that day were on Mahalla, which was supposed to kick-start the strike by having its 30,000 textile factory workers go to the factory and stage a sit-in. The security forces in charge immediately rounded up the strike leaders, pressuring some of the weaker ones to accept a compromise. They also arrested and isolated every other strike organizer who wouldn’t budge. The government forced the workers to work at the point of a gun, and announced that the strike was canceled. This rang true until the workers got off work and found their union leaders detained and arrested. They then started confronting the security forces, which lead to clashes that lasted till midnight that day and led to two casualties and some 95 arrests.

[* photos added by .ed]

The following day, yesterday, around 2,000 demonstrators demonstrated peacefully in front of the police station, demanding the release of their detained co-workers, relatives, and friends. The Egyptian police responded by shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at the demonstrators, and attacking them physically. When word of this reached the demonstrators’ family members and friends, they responded by taking to the streets and attacking the security forces wherever they could find them. The people threw rocks at the security forces, destroyed their cars, and tore down the pictures of Mubarak all over the city. The security forces continued shooting and arresting people, all the while sending plain-clothed police thugs to destroy stores and ransack schools. This was done in order to make it look like as if the people were destroying everything in their path and had to be cracked down on and stopped. The death toll rose to 5 the second night (including a 12 year-old and a 15 year-old), while the arrest total rose to 195. Countless people were injured.

Egyptian police wrecking a truck

The news of what took place in Mahalla is now spreading all over Egypt, with the pictures of their stand against state forces circulating across the internet. There is a sense of dread among those who are following the news. They fear what will happen to those who dare revolt against the government and wonder whether or not the spirit of their revolt will survive the crackdown. There are also those who fear that the severity of the clampdown will frighten the people into complicity and discourage them from revolting again.

While you can find news about what's happening in Egypt, most media sources blame it on 'food riots' - and most media sources have no pictures of Egyptian police wrecking trucks.

Food riots seem to be happening around the world on a near-daily basis lately. Foreign Policy reports:

U.N. peacekeepers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at an angry mob that tried to storm the National Palace in the Hatian capital, Port-au-Prince today. Riots began in Haiti last Wednesday and five people have already been killed in the violence. According to Reuters, the price of rice has doubled over the last six months and Haiti's poor are growing desperate.

Here's a fairly alarming video of UN peacekeepers firing at apparently unarmed demonstrators

More on the Haitian protests:

"We are hungry! He must go!" protesters shouted as they tried to break into the presidential palace by charging its gates with a rolling dumpster. Moments later, Brazilian soldiers in blue U.N. helmets arrived on jeeps and assault vehicles, firing rubber bullets and tear gas canisters and forcing protesters away from the gates...

...The protesters also are demanding the departure of the 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers, whom they blame in part for rising food prices. The peacekeepers came to Haiti in 2004 to quell the chaos that followed the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In this video, Haitian Prime Minister Alexis blamed "drug dealers" for manipulating the protests. He also says that "when they blame the UN for the high cost of living, the Haitian government does not pay the UN's budget." Apparently Haitians have been unhappy about the UN occupation of their country for some time.

An increase in the price of rice is causing unrest in Asia. In their 'food riot watch'.** Foreign policy notes that other riots worldwide have been sparked by shortages of palm oil.

The Chinese are buying up large supplies of palm oil. It's also being used as a biofuel.

Is the current demand for biofuels the source of the crisis? According to the "Socialist Worker", the problem is caused by a combination of "neo-liberalism", the falling dollar and ethanol-based speculation.

However, the Economic Times of India believes that we can have both food and fuel, if we improve agricultural productivity.

Although some of the same environmentalists who raised fears about global warming also strongly oppose genetically modified foods, these so-called frankenfoods could be part of the solution.

As we see in Egypt and in Haiti, the problems are more complicated than a food shortage. It's not clear what's causing the food shortages and higher prices, but the fact that food riots are occurring on a near-daily basis worldwide definitely deserves more attention than it's been getting.

** link thanks to Double Plus Ungood

Michael J. Totten in Iraq: Builders of Nations:

“This is my hardest deployment,” Marine Sergeant Cooley said as he unfastened his helmet and tossed it onto his bed. “We weren't trained for this kind of thing.” He's been shot at with bullets and mortars, and he's endured IED attacks on his Humvee, but post-war Fallujah is more difficult and more stressful than combat. He isn't unusual for saying so. Many Marines I spoke to in and around the Fallujah area said something similar.

“We're trained as infantrymen,” Captain Stewart Glenn said. “But here we are doing civil administration and trying to get the milk factory up and running.”

“We make up all this stuff as we go,” Lieutenant Mike Barefoot added.

While most Americans go to school, work traditional day jobs, and raise their families, young American men and women like these are deployed to Iraq, Kosovo, and Afghanistan where they work seven days a week rebuilding societies torn to pieces by fascism, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and war. It is not what they signed up to do. Some may have geeked out on nation-building video games like Civilization, but none of the enlisted men picked up any of these skills in boot camp.

..more

Sandmonkey: Revolution in Egypt

The Mhalla riots are going into their second strong day. 50,000 people are rioting. The police is shooting tear gas, rubber bullets, you name it, and IT'S NOT WORKING. The demonstrators were originally only like 2000-3000, but the government crackdown forced the people on the street. And until today, it's a War Zone...

[response to people in the comments]...First of all, Mahalla is not a MB stronghold, no more than any other city is. The MB's power is greatly exaggerated and hyped, and they are too chicken to be behind this revolt. If anything they are distancing themselves from it and criticizing the actions of the Mahalla people. So no, that's not what's going on. What's happening is that the people there are ignored and fed up, and refsue to shut up while their family members and friends get arrested. They have a semblance of diginity that has somehow eluded the rest of the population. So, yes, we should encourage this.

Secondly, if you are following what's happening there as much as I am, here is something you might not know: The people are not the ones burning stores and cars; the police is. It's being done to be used as pretext to arresting people, The people are setting tires on fire and throwing rocks at the police who are unlawfully arresting their friends, shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at them and have killed so far 4 people, the last of which is a 15 year old boy, who got shot in the head. The people are finally pushing back against a regime you both know is autocratic and tyrannical, and yet you only take issues with them refusing to eat shit. That, on its own, says volumes about you.

..more

...with great vengeance and furious anger

The CNN interview.

Alan Sullivan, who is also a fan of the John Adams series on HBO says:

Episode five bears witness to the emergence of political parties in the United States, a development regarded with suspicion by both Washington and Adams. It came to me as I watched certain scenes how the two American parties remain imprinted to this day by the controversies of that time. Democrats from Jefferson to John Kerry have shared an affinity for revolutionary France; Republicans from Lincoln to Bush I & II have valued continuity and authority, following British precedent. Euro-blurred England and France today differ less from one another than do the followers of America’s two parties, who continue to quarrel over the great issues of the Eighteenth Century.

I’ve always favored Jefferson’s point of view, but that doesn’t stop liberal/leftists from calling me a right-wing death beast. The people who call themselves ‘liberals’ (like Kerry) don’t believe in any form of defense. They have very little in common with Jefferson.

From Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates:

Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America’s minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, “I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro’ the medium of war.”…Jefferson’s plan for an international coalition foundered on the shoals of indifference and a belief that it was cheaper to pay the tribute than fight a war. The United States’s relations with the Barbary states continued to revolve around negotiations for ransom of American ships and sailors and the payment of annual tributes or gifts…

..When Jefferson became president in 1801 he refused to accede to Tripoli’s demands for an immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000. The pasha of Tripoli then declared war on the United States. Although as secretary of state and vice president he had opposed developing an American navy capable of anything more than coastal defense, President Jefferson dispatched a squadron of naval vessels to the Mediterranean. As he declared in his first annual message to Congress: “To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . . .”

..and Jefferson planted the first vineyards in America

Vive la revolution!

Al Gore likes to pretend that he's not a Luddite, but if he's so 'tech', why was he proposing that global warming could be slowed by using old, stupid, politically charged 'solutions' that didn't work the first time around?

Via the NY Times:

The charged and complex debate over how to slow down global warming has become a lot more complicated.

Most of the focus in the last few years has centered on imposing caps on greenhouse gas emissions to prod energy users to conserve or switch to nonpolluting technologies.

Leaders of the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change — the scientists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year with former Vice President Al Gore — have emphasized that market-based approach. All three presidential candidates are behind it. And it has framed international talks over a new climate treaty and debate within the United States over climate legislation.

But now, with recent data showing an unexpected rise in global emissions and a decline in energy efficiency, a growing chorus of economists, scientists and students of energy policy are saying that whatever benefits the cap approach yields, it will be too little and come too late.

The economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, stated the case bluntly in a recent article in Scientific American: “Even with a cutback in wasteful energy spending, our current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy. If we try to restrain emissions without a fundamentally new set of technologies, we will end up stifling economic growth, including the development prospects for billions of people.”

What is needed, Mr. Sachs and others say, is the development of radically advanced low-carbon technologies, which they say will only come about with greatly increased spending by determined governments on what has so far been an anemic commitment to research and development. A Manhattan-like Project, so to speak.

Scientists and people in general, including this green republican have been suggesting this since 2001. But when he had a soapbox, politician Gore used it to promote ideas that sounded cheesy and unworkable back in 1978.

Another reason to shrink the influence of government - politiicians are usually years behind the curve.

Yes, I also survived the Spring Blog Fest East. Many thanks to Fausta and Jim of of Parkway Rest Stop. I saw old friends and met some new ones, had some fine food, drank a little bit of good wine (I had to drive home) and had an altogether wonderful time!

Thanks also to Judith at Kesher Talk for using her all-purpose iPhone to take some photos and find our way home. She sent me a shot taken by the iPhone, including Fausta and I having a fairly calm discussion. Funny effects - I literally have a clear head, and I know Fausta wasn't flapping her hands...? But the iPhone's "Google Earth" feature was cool.

Dr. Helen asks: Why are Men Being Dragged to Sephora?

In my PJM column from yesterday, I mentioned that men were being dragged into the make-up retailer, Sephora, by women, looking puzzled and dazed. Ann Althouse is a bit dissatisfied with the pathetic lingering of some of these men

..some women had in fact dragged men along with them, and way these men looked made me want to slap them back to consciousness and shout at them to get the hell out of there. I'm not saying that men must be very masculine or that there's something wrong with a man who actually wants to go into Sephora and buy something. (They have plenty of men's products, and beautiful salesladies will eagerly help you select great gifts for women.) But these particular men looked as though they had atrophied into mere appendages of women. They were willingly and weakly standing there discussing the women's products. They were placidly accepting their diminished existence. That's how I saw it anyway.

This isn't a new phenomenon. I've been shopping for, well, a while, and I've always seen men who are dragged along to places they wouldn't go on their own. When their feet get tired, their wives/girlfriends usually find someplace to park them until their services as baggage handlers are required. That's why there are usually men sitting on the chairs outside of fitting rooms, around the fountain in a mall. In New York, the sidewalk around Macy's has always been filled with 'parked' guys, smoking, waiting, watching the girls walk by. Even in the groovy years of happy housewives, single-paycheck families, and orange/avocado living rooms, guys were doing this.

Why do they do it? I have no idea. My Dad never went along with the baggage-handler routine - if my mom dragged him along shopping, he'd complain about the cost of everything she bought. She learned very early in their relationship that he should be left at home. She didn't drag him to the mall and he didn't take her along on his day-long trips to the hardware store. Everyone was happy.

I love Firefly (and Buffy), so I'm just as annoyed by this so-called feminist rant as ShrinkWrapped:

SW says:

I have long been a fan of Firefly, a wonderfully complex, character driven science fiction western that emerged from the fertile mind of Joss Whedon. What elevates the series is the humor, warmth, and depth of the characters. However, Firefly is not for everyone (though almost everyone who I have introduced to the show has instantly become a fan.) allecto (who does not capitalize her name, perhps in order to avoid having one letter seem bigger than another) has been able to resist Firefly's charms:

A Rapist's View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly

This is a really long rant about Joss Whedon's Firefly. Why? Because I'm angry and I think it is really important that feminists don't leave popular culture out of the equation. Especially considering that popular culture is increasingly being influenced by pornography...

What the fuck is this feminist man trying to say about women here? A black woman calling a white man ‘sir’. A white male captain who abuses and silences his female crew, with no consequences. The women are HAPPY to be abused. They enjoy it. What does this say about women, Joss? What does this say about you? Do you tell your wife to shut up? Do you threaten to duct tape her mouth? Lock her in the bedroom? Is this funny to you, Joss? Because it sure as fuck ain’t funny to me.

Well, at least in Joss Whedon's future, women don't have potty mouths.

ShrinkWrapped responds to allecto's rant:

...allecto's world is a world filled with abusive men and abused women. She sees most women as one-dimensional objects devoid of power and most men as one-dimensional objects suffused with power. (Presumably the men and women she surrounds herself with have managed to transcend such typicality.) In her need to support her world view she reduces everything to black and white, (and the red of rage) losing all the beauty and complexity that makes life the marvelous experiment that it can be. Her world is a poor and humorless place; it is a great tragedy that someone chooses to live there.

Firefly is definitely an equal opportunity show in that the men are abused as often as the women. In one of the first episodes, Mal has to deal with a female bandito (Patience) who shot him during their last encounter. The crew has no sympathy for him at all, and it is implied that he needs Zoe along to protect him.

All of the characters regularly tell the tall, strong and dopey (male) Jayne to shut up.

allecto's entire argument is baseless. This woman has no real reason to launch an attack against Whedon, but she's doing it anyway because the first rule of being a whiny bully is to hit someone who actually cares about your pointless, hysterical rage. Sure, she can rant and rave about genuine pornography, but genuine pornographers are too busy counting their money to care. Poor Joss and his fans will actually listen to allecto's tripe.

Feminism used to be about equal opportunity, but when the lefties took over the movement, feminists became whiny bullies. They launch pointless, nasty attacks, and they claim that our pornographic, evil capitalistic modern culture makes them do it. It's a victim thing, evil/capitalist/male/hegemons will never understand.

The whiny bully routine has a history of being successful in politics and war. The Palestinians have gotten a lot of attention and money through their long careers as whiny bullies. Most Islamists follow whiny-bully rules, now the Serbs are giving it a try. In our post-war, post-post modernist 'I'm the victim here' age, being a whiny bully is the new black.

Sorry allecto, even when you wrap your argument in darkness it still looks fat.

She's one of my favorite singers, she's on my iPod, Tuesday Night Music Club is a work of art - but sometimes she says the looniest things.

Music writer Irwin C. asked:

I can read, but I can't read minds. Can someone please explain these lyrics to me?

Gasoline

Way back in the year of 2017
The sun was growing hotter
And oil was way beyond its peak
When crazy Hector Johnson broke into a refinery
And the black gold started flowing
Just like Boston tea..

...Gasoline
Will be free, will be free
Gasoline
Will be free, will be free

When the Mounties stormed the palace of the Saudi family
They held them up for ransom
Without disturbing their high tea
But their getaway was shaky
They stalled in the Riyadh streets
Cause you can't make it very far
When your tank is on empty...

...Gary ran a market way down in Tennessee
Where all the farmers got together and talked about this great country
But when the government turned its back on farming
Man, what I hear
They dragged the pumps out of the ground
With a big vintage John Deere

I've got soldiers on my payroll
Standing guard on my front drive
Snipers on the roof poised at those
Who don't want me alive
Cause they audited my taxes
My family under threat
Cause I've got a message and a megaphone
And I'll scream it to the death

Gasoline
Will be free, will be free

To me, it sounds like Sheryl (or her friend Rafael) has been watching too many Mad Max movies while reading misanthropic peak oil conspiracist James Kunstler, who does indeed have a megaphone which he uses to scream his mesage "to the death".

In any case, the government hasn't turned its back on farming. However, according to Cinnamon Stillwell, the farmer-friendly ethanol boom has had some unintended consequences.

Not only is ethanol less productive than gasoline as a fuel source, its production is hurting the environment it was intended to preserve, particularly in the Third World. The amount of land needed to grow corn and other biofuel sources means that their production is leading to deforestation, the destruction of wetlands and grasslands, species extinction, displacement of indigenous peoples and small farmers, and loss of habitats that store carbon.

Scientists predict that the Gulf of Mexico, already polluted by agricultural runoff from the United States, will only get worse as demand for ethanol, and therefore corn, increases...

When you've managed to survive a variety of predicted apocalypses (apocalypsii?) you become more cynical about predictions like Crow's. The future is never as exciting as promised. It's more a series of slowly repaired unintended consequences than soldiers on one's payroll and snipers on the roof. But at least her apocalypsii have a beat that you can dance to.

Via the International Herald Tribune: UN rights council passes Islamic resolution on religious defamation*

GENEVA: The top U.N. rights body on Thursday passed a resolution proposed by Islamic countries saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it.

The European Union said the text was one-sided because it primarily focused on Islam.

The U.N. Human Rights Council, which is dominated by Arab and other Muslim countries, adopted the resolution on a 21-10 vote over the opposition of Europe and Canada.

EU countries, including France, Germany and Britain, voted against. Previously EU diplomats had said they wanted to stop the growing worldwide trend of using religious anti-defamation laws to limit free speech.

The document, which was put forward by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, "expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."

So, to prove that Islam is not identified with violating our human rights, the OIC votes to violate our human rights. Makes sense, but not to me.

This is our cue - it's time to kick the bums out and dismantle this wretched hive of torture, corruption and villainy. New York needs to turn 1 UN Plaza into a condo/office building. It might take some time to renovate (scummy residents of wretched hives never keep up with maintenance) but by the time it's done, the real estate market will probably be rebounding.

To pay for the renovations, let's throw the scum in jail until they pay off their parking tickets.

* Link thanks to Noga

Is this really necesssary?

Via CNN: When he's a cheat, revenge seems sweet

(LifeWire) — Teri Garr is known for her acting roles in "Tootsie" and "Friends," but one man in Hollywood will probably remember her best for the way she wields a hammer.

"My phone rings at 4:30 in the morning," says Garr, "and this woman says 'Is this Teri Garr? Because I've been sleeping with your boyfriend since August.''"

The caller had decided to spill the beans after catching the guy in bed with yet another woman.

"I went into the closet to get some of his stuff because he'd practically been living with me," says Garr. "I threw it all in a box — I even had his baby pictures. And then for some reason I saw a hammer and I threw that in the box, too."

Enraged, Garr says she drove to her boyfriend's house in 1990 and did what many a scorned woman has only dreamed of: She smashed all his windows.

Vengeance can be appealing when a relationship ends badly. But should you indulge?..

I'm a great fan of vengeance, and I can understand this reaction if she's being physically abused, but doing this when he's cheating? What is this psycho behavior supposed to accomplish?

It's certainly not going to make him say "what a wonderful woman, I certainly was a fool to let her go".

Honestly, just walk away and don't look back. Living well is the best revenge.