Monthly Archives: January 2013
National Endowment for the Arts gives $100k taxpayer money for video game featuring Black Female superhero
Feminists hate video games. The culture and structure of the industry makes it difficult for them to penetrate the way they penetrated the movie and television industries.
The National Endowment for the Arts is funding a new interactive game from filmmaker and digital media artist Ayoka Chenzira, Ph.D. It’s called HERadventure, a science fiction-based, multimedia platform project intended to target women 18-25 with the aim of bringing awareness to social issues affecting women like depression, discrimination, or pollution. The star of the project is HER, a black female superhero from another planet.
Inside Spelman asks, “What would happen if the societal issues affecting women put other planets at risk?” The answer is HER, the superhero created by Chenzira. Spelman College was recently awarded a $100,000 grant from the NEA to pursue HERadventure and one of four nonprofit organizations to receive a grant for a gaming project.
(Read more)
Here’s the Ted talk given by the recipient of the $100k. It’s astoundingly unimpressive:
Is Rand Paul A ‘Christian Zionist’?
Joining Netanyahu in his denunciation of those pushy Americans was none other than “libertarian” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Gooberville). Fresh from a recent trip to Israel paid for by the American Family Association, a Christian fundamentalist activist group, the “libertarian” Senator and wannabe presidential candidate declared:
“’That’s an arrogant and presumptuous point of view and doesn’t further progress on anything,’ the senator said, and he returned to that view throughout the call as he discussed the location of Israel’s capital and Israeli settlements. Paul decried U.S. politicians who display ‘this flippant and arrogant’ attitude about internal Israeli affairs, saying that ‘no one can really know as much as people in the region’ about such matters. ‘It is not up to the U.S. to dictate’ to mayors and West Bank officials where housing goes, Paul added. Paul said he considers himself more pro-Israel than some pro-Israel audiences because ‘I’m for an independent, strong Israel that is not a dependent state, not a client state.’”
Siding with a foreign leader against an American President is always problematic for any US politician, but lest one think this is an example of political courage on Sen. Paul’s part, consider the context of his remarks. US military aid to Israel now exceeds $3.5 billion a year – not counting the value of special projects like the “Iron Dome” missile defense system the Senator is so enthralled by. Those billions pay for a program of systematic ethnic cleansing: Arabs are being forced off their lands, and “settlements” are being erected on the ruins of their former homes.
Surely the Senator – who, despite appearances, is no dope – knows this. And if he didn’t know it, surely he was educated on the subject in his meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas – although, oddly, in all the news reports of Paul’s trip to Israel, where hear nothing about this scheduled encounter.
. . . .
Pretending not to grasp the significance of the settlements issue, or of the larger issue of Palestine and the two-state solution, simply will not do – not for an alleged “leader” of the libertarian wing of the GOP, and certainly not for a somewhat over-eager presidential candidate who flaunts his ambitions. Since Israel could not exist – let alone bomb, invade and subjugate its Palestinian and Lebanese neighbors – without extensive US military and economic aid, it is viewed as America’s regional proxy. This is what “the people in the region” know and Sen. Paul appears not to want to know.
Paul has long since backed off his stance of wanting to end aid to Israel: he now says he would do it gradually, and would start cutting the aid budget by immediately ending it for countries “where they burn our flag,” singling out Egypt and Pakistan and specifically exempting Israel.
Previously under attack by the Israel lobby for saying US aid to Israel ought to be ended – and just because he is, after all, his father‘s son – the Israel trip was meant to make amends, and Paul earned plaudits from the Lobby in this country for his efforts.
The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin took a breather from her frantic campaign to impugn the character of Chuck Hagel to give the lesser Paul a thumbs up, having earlier contrasted him favorably with his father.
Phil Klein exulted in the birth of “Zionist non-interventionism,” which apparently means we pay the bills and don’t bother the Israelis as they ethnically cleanse Palestine of the Palestinians. Seth Lipsky, writing in the New York Post, hailed Paul’s comments as “the most supportive of Israel since Sarah Palin.”
Dave Weigel reveals more of the tortured rationalization for Paul’s conversion on the road to Jerusalem:
“I asked Paul to revisit the settlement question. Had his trip taught him anything that was being incorporated into his new thinking?
“’One question is: If I’m the mayor of Jerusalem, or if I’m looking at places in the West Bank and settlements in the West Bank, obviously there’s either advisability or inadvisability with regard to ultimately finding places to build, whether it’s antagonistic or provacative,’ said Paul. ‘Where I distinguish myself, though, is while there might be right or wrong answers to these questions, it’s not American politicians’ business to be dictating the answers. The answers need to come from the participants who live on the ground in these areas. I think it’s just presumptuous and arrogant of us to think, well, we’re going to go down to a roadmap of Jerusalem and decide where the neighborhoods can be expanded? It did influence me some that I did see the map of the neighborhoods, and I did see that there are neighborhoods being expanded in the Arab areas as well as the Jewish areas of Jerusalem, but the comments I heard from officials were: What does America want? Do they want there to be a religion test on who’s going to buy land? How would we feel in America if land that was designated for development, we said you have to prove what religion you are before you can build on the land? You can see how it’s a funny sort of bias we’re asking for, how we want them to develop the land.’”
Shorter Sen. Paul: Who cares about “right” and “wrong”? Let the Israelis go wild with our tax dollars.
. . . .
Having been granted observer status by an overwhelming vote of the General Assembly – with even America’s European allies deserting Washington – why shouldn’t the Palestinians participate in the UN? Sen. Paul and his flock of “born again” Israel Firsters don’t want that to happen because it recognizes the legitimacy of Palestinian statehood – and delegitimizes the occupation. There are many humanitarian services the deprived and long-suffering people of Palestine might enjoy as a result, but the petty cruelty of “born again” Rand would deny them even that.
So the Senator did go see Abbas, and took the opportunity to threaten him with sanctions – and to demand that he drop the “no more settlements” precondition for resuming the peace process. Of course, not even that kind of servility to the Greater Israel lobby will satisfy the Jonathan Tobins of this world, but no one can say Sen. Paul didn’t try. (Read more)
The late, great Joe Sobran on Lincoln
Media Creating a New Enemy for a New War
How bad are the bad guys in Mali? The answer, in four powerful paragraphs
SEGOU, Mali — On a sweltering afternoon, Islamist police officers dragged Fatima Al Hassan out of her house in the fabled city of Timbuktu. They beat her up, shoved her into a white pickup truck and drove her to their headquarters. She was locked up in a jail as she awaited her sentence: 100 lashes with an electrical cord.
“Why are you doing this?” she recalled asking.
Hassan was being punished for giving water to a male visitor.
… [R]efugees say the Islamists are raping and forcibly marrying women, and recruiting children for armed conflict. Social interaction deemed an affront to their interpretation of Islam is zealously punished through Islamic courts and a police force that has become more systematic and inflexible, human rights activists and local officials say.
Doesn’t this type of thing happen among Islamists in London?
Oklahoma Doctors vs. Obamacare
Another School Finger Shooting Reported
Holder Begs Court to Stop Document Release on Fast and Furious
Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of Justice have asked a federal court to indefinitely delay a lawsuit brought by watchdog group Judicial Watch. The lawsuit seeks the enforcement of open records requests relating to Operation Fast and Furious, as required by law.
Judicial Watch had filed, on June 22, 2012, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking all documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious and “specifically [a]ll records subject to the claim of executive privilege invoked by President Barack Obama on or about June 20, 2012.”
The administration has refused to comply with Judicial Watch’s FOIA request, and in mid-September the group filed a lawsuit challenging Holder’s denial. (Read more)
West Point center cites dangers of ‘far right’ in U.S.
I suppose it was only a matter of time. Expect more of this.
A West Point think tank has issued a paper warning America about “far right” groups such as the “anti-federalist” movement, which supports “civil activism, individual freedoms and self-government.”
The report issued this week by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., is titled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right.”
The center — part of the institution where men and women are molded into Army officers — posted the report Tuesday. It lumps limited government activists with three movements it identifies as “a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement.”
The West Point center typically focuses reports on al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists attempting to gain power in Asia, the Middle East and Africa through violence.
But its latest study turns inward and paints a broad brush of people it considers “far right.”
It says anti-federalists “espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement.”
Read more: p.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/17/west-point-center-cites-dangers-far-right-us/#ixzz2IQNvj8fK
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
(Read more)
Study of Crime Data
* Both murders and violent crimes dropped by half over the last 20 years in the US
* Most crimes happen in small communities within large cities
* Though a lower murder rate, Britain’s violent crime rate is double that of the US’s
* The Big Media is useless
Krugman on Bill Moyers (Government Broadcasting Praises and Promotes Big-Government Propagandist)
Watch closely. This is what propaganda looks like:
Bill Moyers starts by promoting the idea that our obsession with slashing the deficit and cutting spending is killing us. Nevermind spending is NOT getting cut and federal deficits have NOT been slashed.
The government has gotten everything it wanted in terms of spending. This interview bolsters the fear of enemies who are denying our central planners their need for EVEN MORE spending.
I’m proud to now own a weapon that is illegal in NY State
Here’s The List of 23 Anti-Gun Executive Actions President Obama Announced Today
Nothing about firing Eric Holder for giving guns to Mexican drug lords. Nothing about looking whether psychotropic drugs send the school shooters over the edge. Nothing about the effects gun have on the overall crime rate.
This sounds like a whole bunch of meaningless bureaucratic shuffling, plus creeping centralization and control. What the hell is that in #16 about doctors asking you whether you own guns? Will Obamacare force doctors to become federal snitches?
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health. (Read more)
They can’t even fix the post office!
As part of my recent interest in feminism, I’m reposting this: Wendy McElroy on Individualist Feminism
1) You are one of the leading dissident voices in the gender debate. Could you please explain your vision of individualist feminism, what are its main tenets and how it differs from mainstream feminism?
The main tenet of individualist feminism is that women and men deserve equal treatment under just law. A just legal system is one that seeks to protect the person and property of individuals equally, and it is applied to all individuals.
Mainstream feminism advocates social and economic egalitarianism, which necessarily violates the property rights of individuals. For example, affirmative action and non-discrimination policies dictate who should be hired by private companies, who risk sanctions such as lawsuits if they do not comply. Mainstream feminists applaud this use of governmental force to violate the property rights of individuals — including business owners — in order to distribute money and power within society from men to women.
2) Is the free-market enough to allow a full emancipation of women, or should the government intervene in order to reduce the gender gap and change things more rapidly?
The answer depends on what you mean by “full mancipation”; frankly, I think every individual has to decide its personal meaning for themselves. But if you mean “complete fairness” or “social justice,” then ‘no’, the free market will not provide that in and by itself. Other peaceful forces may well be necessary, such as moral suasion applied to those who are unfair, offensive, denigrating, etc.; this is largely what happened in the American civil rights movement before it was co-opted by government. What I do contend about the free market is that it delivers emancipation better than any other competing system, such as state interference. Indeed, any governmental interference aimed at providing social justice actually provides the opposite. That is to say, it violates individual rights which must be the basis of all justice.
3) In spite of the undeniable distance from mainstream feminism, libertarian feminists chose to contend the label “feminism” rather than picking a different name. Do you believe that this strategy is effective? Is there a risk this choice can reduce the appeal of your ideas among that silent majority who associates feminism and leftist statism, while hardly gaining ground among tradition self-identifying feminists?
Yes, there is not merely a risk but an inevitability that some people will automatically reject individualist feminism because of the word “feminist.” I have experienced this frequently.
Nevertheless, I persist in the label for a few reasons. First, I want the roots of American feminism to be recognized and acknowledged; those roots were profoundly individualist and grounded in the early 19th century abolitionist (anti-slavery) movement. Happily, this is happening. Individualist feminism was unheard of in academia when I started to write but it is now generally recognized. (Read more)
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This is a nice counter-point to the Stefan Molyneux video I posted a while back “Feminism is Socialism with Panties.” Here it is again: