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Two American journalists detained last week by North Korean soldiers are likely to become bargaining chips for North Korea in its feuds with the outside world, according to analysts and politicians in South Korea.

They must have a higher estimate of their worth than we do. Shoot ’em — we got plenty more. In fact, we’ll ship you another jumbo-jet full and never miss ’em. Or better yet, keep ’em around for a few years, so that they learn what it’s like in a real dictatorship.

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If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

Of course, if NATO weren’t a bunch of useless wankers, this problem wouldn’t be a problem.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Don’t think of it as selling out — think of it as buying in.

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If you’re interested in studying left-wing social movements like organized labor, civil rights or feminism, there are dozens of universities and colleges that have created special programs and research centers devoted to the subject. But hardly any similar institutions exist in academia for those looking for a place to study the right wing in America and abroad.

The distinction, of course, is that left-wing social movements are studied in order to promote them, while any study of the right wing will be after the manner of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Case in point:

Now, with backing from an anonymous donor, the University of California, Berkeley, where ’60s-era students stood atop a police car and ignited free-speech protests, is creating a Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements. According to experts in the field it is the first of its kind in higher education.

What kind of a study of right-wing movements will you get in Berkeley? Oh, sort of like the study of ebola you get at the Center for Disease Control.

The New York Times, of course, is totally clueless:

For more than 30 years the right in America has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into education and research efforts, lending support to efforts like establishing an extensive network of research institutes outside of academia and pumping up efforts to teach Western civilization and American history on campuses. But little effort has been expended toward studying the movement’s own history or putting it in a global context.

Let’s see: Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, George Nash…. Naw, not much effort at all.

From which political direction the financing for this latest effort is coming is masked.

Oh, really? What a surprise.

The donor’s request for anonymity may be more to ward off requests for other contributions than for political reasons. The donation, $777,000, is relatively small, but enough, Mr. Rosenthal said, for the center to sponsor lectures, conferences and colloquiums; offer fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students; and publish papers.

No doubt on how to “fix” it.

Ms. Bacchetta insisted that researchers’ own political orientation was irrelevant. “It’s a question we always get asked,” she said. “But we really like to think of ourselves as scholars in the academy,” working on evaluating these groups without any agenda. “We’re not a political organization.”

Yeah. And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one.

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Or maybe not.

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We may have the technology.

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America, land of achievement.

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What a revealing development.

A science teacher who secretly filmed shocking scenes of pupil misbehaviour for a Channel 4 documentary has been found guilty of unprofessional conduct.

I guess “being professional” means “not ratting out your colleagues about the dirt swept under the rug”. Well, I’ve always suspected that. No wonder it’s such a behavioral sink over there.

1. Thank God you don’t live in Britain.
2. Without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. Probably anywhere that the NEA holds sway.

Martin Feldstein points out some inconvenient truths about alleged-smart-guy Obama’s plan to mutilate the charitable giving deduction.

In effect, the change would be a tax on the charities, reducing their receipts by a dollar for every dollar of extra revenue the government collects. It is hard to imagine a rationale for taxing schools, hospitals, medical research budgets and arts organizations in this way. I suspect that the administration officials who drafted this proposal did not understand that it would have this perverse effect.

Well, it’s not as if anybody in the Obama Nation has demonstrated any understanding of how money and the tax system actually work. For people with a lot of advanced degrees from spiffy upper-class institutions, these guys don’t give any appearance of being the sharpest knives in the drawer.

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“Travellers” are what the Brits call gypsies and other itinerant riff-raff, very roughly equivalent to the American concept “white trash”.

An elderly couple who complained in a survey about mess left behind by travellers’ groups have been told their comments will be ignored because they were deemed to be racist.

Although “travellers”, like “Muslims”, aren’t a race — but that really doesn’t matter, these days; “racism” is merely a convenient term to use for “not liking a politically fashionable fringe group”.

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As a Navy vet I’m certainly as appreciative of Medal of Honor winners as the Congressman, but I can’t escape this nagging feeling that there are more important things on which he might spend his time — and the taxpayers’ money.

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I don’t think I’ve used a phone book in ten years. Of course, I don’t often have occasion to call anybody I don’t know, so maybe that’s just me. Certainly for businesses I just look them up on the Internet.

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We have the technology.

(Hey, tenure doesn’t grow on trees, you know.)

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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Uh, because they’re not part of the Favored Class? That’s just a guess, you understand.

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I have a little list, they never would be missed….

Read it. And watch the video.

Female. Black. Democrat. Lunatic. The gift that keeps on giving.

I guess Barbara Jordan was the last black female Democrat that was a functional adult.

Pity.

Read it.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

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We have the technology.

Tyler Cowen takes a look at Paul Collier’s latest book, which I intend to buy.

The claimed takeaway is that African nations have too much sovereignty, not too little.

Steve Sailer is always worth reading.

The point is that despite all that sophomore silliness that cultural anthropologists teach about how race doesn’t exist, the forensic anthropologists usually don’t have much trouble figuring out which Race box to check on the “Missing Person” ID form. In fact, they are now so good at it, that they can often tell a Swede from a Greek or whatever from the shape of the skull, supposedly “contradicting the classic biological race concept of physical anthropology,” (although not my partly inbred extended family model).

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Just another day in Londonistan.

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Notice that you will never see a headline that says “U.S. Seeks Reduced Power”.

Think about that.

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And that additional period of uncertainty will, of course, have no effect on the financial markets or job productivity.

What is it about being elected to public office that lowers the IQ by 20 points?

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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It was only natural that the most renowned private security company develop its own rifle. Two factors stand behind this statement. Service and support to the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, as well as other numerous hotspots, has given this organization a unique insight into what works in combat.

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And the Law of Unintended Consequences strikes yet again. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

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With online social networks becoming ever more important in our lives, they’re also becoming an important element in our deaths. Mr. Spangenberg, who died suddenly from an abdominal aneurysm at age 57, was unprepared, but others are leaving detailed instructions. There’s even a tiny industry that has sprung up to help people wrap up their online contacts after their deaths.

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Homeowners choose cul-de-sacs because, they say, they offer safety, security and a sense of community.

“Cul-de-sacs are the safest places in America to live,” said Mike Toalson, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Virginia, which opposes the new rules. “The first lots sold are often on the cul-de-sacs because they are safe.” As for developments with single entrances and exits, Toalson said, such configurations ensure that all traffic is local, neighbors watch out for each other and speeds are kept down. “Crooks look for multiple exits.”

Apparently safety, security, and a sense of community are against public policy in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Suffolk City Council member E. Dana Dickens, who is on the state panel that approved the changes, said cul-de-sac dwellers like the privacy and “fear traffic and all those types of things. But those are often the same people who also complain about paying for building capacity on the collector road if you don’t have the connectivity.”

No party affiliation listed, which means he (she?) is almost certainly a Democrat. Which isn’t surprising. State nanny knows better than the people that actually live there.

The new requirements also call for roads that are dramatically narrower, 24 feet to 29 feet wide for local streets. Now subdivision streets can be 40 feet wide — wider than three highway lanes — and cars often share the asphalt with baby carriages and joggers. Montgomery County also recently approved new rules for narrower streets. Narrower roads reduce speeds, decrease storm water runoff and save on maintenance costs, officials say.

Thereby promoting the very congestion that (in theory) they are attempting to fix. Sort of makes the rationalization rather transparent, doesn’t it?

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I am not making this up.

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I guess putting somebody’s eye out is not the worst that could happen.

Sorry, Mom. I’ll never doubt you again.

Read it.

Fascists of a feather flock together.

Almost certainly not.

The people who make that case are mostly affluent, upper-middle class folks. They want to eat local (preferably organic) food, buy stuff that isn’t made by children or slave labor, and avoid supporting activities that deplete fisheries or promote global warming. Their choices are limited, though, because there aren’t enough people like them. In order for the choices they want to be readily available, they need to expand the market–by getting the poor, working class, and middle class to buy into the whole “vote with your dollars” notion of supporting local production of food and crafts.

Think AlGore. Think the Obama Nation.

Yes, the folks shopping at the big box stores and eating at chain fast food restaurants are sending out of town money that local businesses might have used to hire them or buy from them, but they’re still coming out ahead. And that’s especially true of the poor and working-class folks.

Yes, if everyone tried to buy local, the money would stay in town–ready to be turned around to buy other local stuff and hire other local folks. The production wouldn’t end up in China or India or Bangladesh, and the profits wouldn’t end up on Wall Street. But the young couple trying to furnish their first apartment would have to sleep on the floor for months to cover the difference between a bed from Ikea and a bed made by a local woodworker. How long should they eat out of cooking pots to save up enough money to buy ceramic dishes produced by a local potter when they could buy some Corelle for just a few dollars? I’ve seen stainless steel flatwear on sale cheaper than plastic–what local producer could come close?

Read it.

Perhaps it’s just looking for a position in the present Labour government.

Wouldn’t surprise me.

Read it.

Once a hippie, always a hippie. It never fails to astound me that people whose main desire seems to cancel the Industrial Revolution are nevertheless accepted as “progressives”. Prior to 1965 these people would be regarded as reactionaries, of a particularly hardcore type.

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“But you don’t understand,” the Colombian said. “We’ve seen this before.”

“He’s right, my good friend,” the Cuban said. “We Latin Americans know the pattern. Believe me we do.”

“It starts with a cult of personality,” the Cuban explained. “One man declares himself the jefe, the caudillo, the big leader.”

“After the cult of personality,” the Colombian explained, “what comes next is nationalization.” Fidel had nationalized the Cuban sugar mills, Chavez the Banco de Venezuela, Morales the Bolivian oil and gas industries.

“The last step?” asked the Cuban. “Censorship. It won’t be obvious at first–they’re always too smart for that. But it will come.”

“Never,” replied the American. “We have the First Amendment.”

“And soon enough,” the Cuban said, smiling sadly, “you will also have the Fairness Doctrine.”

Quite possibly.

The essence of “single payer” medicine is that no one other than the government is allowed to pay for medical care. Thus the term “single payer.” There are a few exceptions in Canada but, by and large, the more serious the ailment, the more stringent the ban. So, for example, if you want to be treated for cancer in Canada, you can not do so legally and any doctor or hospital that tries to charge you faces serious penalties, up to and including a prison sentence. In that sense, Canadian health care is one of the most totalitarian systems in the industrialized world and is far more extreme than the National Health Service of Britain.

And yet this is the system that Barry’s Boys (and Girls) want to establish in this country. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Read it.

(In light of the death threats, when Mr. Cuomo received the list of A.I.G. bonus recipients on Thursday, he promised to consider “individual security” and “privacy rights” in deciding whether to publicize the names.)

Would you trust your safety to the discretion of Andrew Cuomo, a politician on the model of Elliot Spitzer and Chuckie Schumer? I wouldn’t. The only thing you can trust him to do is to sell out for the highest price.

How can you run a company when the rules keep changing, when you have to worry about being second-guessed by Congress? Who can do business under those circumstances?

Answer: You can’t. And you can’t get intelligent people to sign up for such a crap shoot.

This program could help revive the consumer credit market. But at this point, most Wall Street bankers would rather be attacked by wild dogs than take part. They fear that they’ll do something — make money perhaps? — that will arouse Congressional ire. Or that the rules will change.

So the only people who are willing to run a large company these days are the sort who are former boyfriends of powerful Congressmen, or equivalent, who are sufficiently connected to remain protected.

What the country really needs right now from Congress is facts instead of rhetoric. Instead of these “raise your hand if you took a private jet to get here” exercises of outraged populism, we need hearings that educate and illuminate.

Good luck getting that from this Congress.

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Two dozen black lawmakers angrily stalked out of the Georgia House on Friday amid assertions that a decision by white Republican leaders to delay passage of a resolution honoring President Obama had racist overtones.

House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R) said the proposal to make Obama an honorary member of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus required changes to its language and sent it to a committee. Supporters of the resolution said the move was a snub to the nation’s first black president.

So legality doesn’t matter when it stands in the way of the Half-Blood Prince being honored. Henry VIII would be right on board with that.

Let’s just see how much more efficient that legislature can be without two dozen race-obsessed politicians. But of course that’s an experiment that will never be tried.

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An interesting concept. Would that rejected legislation got the same opportunity.

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I am not making this up.

Ruben Noe Coronado, 25, from Spain, postponed the process of becoming a man so that he could keep his female reproductive organs and give birth.

‘He’ fell pregnant after undergoing fertility treatment when doctors told his girlfriend, the mother of two children from a previous relationship, she couldn’t have any more children.

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Islamization proceeds on all possible fronts: political, judicial, commercial, cultural, academic, and social. It affects the media, the classroom, the courts, the marketplace, and all other areas of human activity. Sharia law prescribes and proscribes all categories of behavior. Nothing is exempt.

Reminder for the dimwitted: Muslims want to rule the world. It’s a key and essential part of their religion.

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Mr. Quinn ran as Mr. Blagojevich’s Lieutenant Governor on a platform of no new taxes. But now he defends his huge tax increase by saying this will only hit those who have the “ability to pay.” Of course, employers and the wealthy also have the ability to leave — which they have been doing. In the last decade 736,000 more Americans have left Illinois than have entered, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

It’s amazing how many politicians and bureaucrats believe that taxpayers, like sheep, will stand still and be fleeced. When they don’t, of course, the immediate reaction is to attempt to shave them on the way out — as witness the many proposals in Congress for confiscatory taxation on American citizens who are tired of being bled white and decide to leave for greener pastures.

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In an Islamic state governed by sharia, the relationship between the rulers — the Muslims — and the ruled — the dhimmis and the slaves — is very straightforward.