Or, Correcting Wrongthought. Bill Whittle on campus censorship and the narrowing of minds:  

65% of the 392 top colleges surveyed maintain speech codes and other restrictions on expression that violate First Amendment principles… No wonder a study of 24,000 students conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities in 2010 revealed that only 30.3% of college seniors strongly agreed with the statement that, “It is safe to hold unpopular opinions on campus”… The students were downright optimistic compared to the 9,000 campus professionals surveyed. Only 18.8% strongly agreed that it was safe to hold unpopular opinions on campus… As the sociologist Diana C. Mutz discovered in her 2006 book Hearing the Other Side, those with the highest levels of education had the lowest exposure to people with conflicting points of view, while those who have not graduated from high school can claim the most diverse discussion mates. In other words, the most educated among us are also the most likely to live in the tightest echo chambers. 

Background on three of the incidents mentioned in the video can be found here, here, and here. See also this demonstration of “social justice education” and just how creepy it can get. And if you can, make time to watch this eye-opening lecture by David Horowitz.

Rummaging through my images files, I found this.

It’s one of the less baffling signs from Zombie’s report on Occupy LA, May 1st, 2012. Zombie’s caption reads, “Narcissistic personality disorder, coupled with delusions of grandeur.” Which seems fair enough. I suppose the placard might have been a little more honest if it had said, “I expect to be paid for a job that doesn’t actually exist and which no-one has asked me to do.” Or, “I’ve decided I’m an artist and therefore you owe me money.” Or, “I’m not prepared to do any of the things that you unenlightened people would be willing to pay me to do, but I’m still going to demand that you give me your earnings anyway because, yes, I’m that important.” Though admittedly the last one might be a little wordy for a slogan. Readers may wish to devise captions of their own.

Thomas Sowell on some popular misconceptions: 

The media misconception today is that what we need to speed up economic recovery is to end gridlock in Washington and have bipartisan intervention in the economy. However plausible that may sound, it is contradicted repeatedly by history. Unemployment was never in double digits in any of the 12 months following the stock market crash of 1929. Only after politicians started intervening did unemployment reach double digits – and stay in double digits throughout the 1930s. 

There is nothing mysterious about an economy recovering on its own. Employers usually have incentives to employ and workers have incentives to look for jobs. Lenders have incentives to lend and borrowers have incentives to borrow – if politicians do not create needless complications and uncertainties. The Obama administration is in its glory creating complications and uncertainties for business, ranging from runaway regulations to the unknowable future costs of ObamaCare and taxes. Record amounts of idle cash held by businesses and financial institutions are a monument to the counterproductive effects of Barack Obama’s anti-business policies and rhetoric. That idle money could create lots of jobs – net jobs – if politics did not make it risky to invest. 

Complication, regulation and uncertainty – yes, shocker, all of it costs. 

Via Protein Wisdom, Tyler Durden on Big Government economics: 

Obama has already laid the foundation for his next four years of Presidency – more green jobs, tackle global warming, raise taxes on the rich and create jobs for the poor. That will come at a hefty price of further government spending. In the first four years of his term Obama increased the Federal Debt by more than 45%; however, with more than $5 trillion spent in promoting everything from solar panels to housing, the economy only grew by 7.1% during the same time frame (or a total of $905 billion.) In other words it took more than $5.60 of debt to create $1 of economic growth… The amount of debt required today to create a single dollar’s worth of GDP today is clearly unsustainable. 

Or as Mark Steyn puts it: 

In the course of his first term, Obama increased the federal debt by just shy of $6 trillion and in return grew the economy by $905 billion. So, as Lance Roberts at Street Talk Live pointed out, in order to generate every dollar of economic growth the United States had to borrow about five dollars and 60 cents. There’s no one out there on the planet – whether it’s “the rich” or the Chinese – who can afford to carry on bankrolling that rate of return. 

Meanwhile, tick, tock. 

Feel free to add your own links and snippets in the comments. 

Golfing interrupted by live shark falling from sky. // Gas
masks of yore. // Horse head sculpture. // This clock is still ticking. // Carbon
fibre sled of note. // How
many BB guns would it take to stop a train? // Rave
hell, Antwerp, 1997. // At last, laser
tweezers. // Arsenious
acid. // Approaching
Heathrow. // Over-designed
air freshener of note. // Tiny
gardens. // Tiny
tools. // Fibonacci
cabinet. // More Guild
of Evil real estate. // Power
your iPad by sitting and rocking. // Caterpillar
caravan. // Ironic
retro drum machine. // A
visual history of turntables and loudspeakers. // When
mattress jumping is a job. // What’s
it to be, bath or walk?

Via Samizdata, Frank J Fleming ponders the role of President:

What was the concept of the U.S. government when it was created? That it’s our servant — we’re in charge of it. The president serves at our pleasure. So the president trying to lead us is like your butler dictating your agenda for the day. What would you do if your butler tried that? That’s right: You’d lock him in a small room in the wine cellar for a couple of days to teach him his place. Yet somehow we not only put up with the president trying to lead us, but we’ve come to expect it.

Related, Jeff Goldstein on two visions of government:

Either you believe the government owns you, and therefore you owe it tribute which it will then, in its wisdom, distribute as it sees fit; or you believe you own the government, and that while you keep more of your money and the fruits of your labour and allow the bureaucracies to molest you less, the federal government can learn to make do with what we decide to give it in revenue. And if that means, for instance, Big Bird or Planned Parenthood or solar energy companies have to compete in the marketplace with Cartoon Network or Wal-Mart or frakking, oil drilling, coal mining, and natural gas pipelines, then so be it.

Somewhat related, Zombie is compiling a “complete list of Barack Obama’s scandals, misdeeds, crimes and blunders.” It’s an ongoing crowd-sourced project so submissions are welcome.

And from the vaults, Heather Mac Donald on fatherhood and poverty:

The premise of the Young Men’s Initiative, like that of its predecessors, is that government has the capacity to produce upstanding, bourgeois citizens – if it just gets all its agencies to act in a coordinated fashion. […] Since Mayor Bloomberg claims to be a fan of managing by information, here are some more data for him to focus on: in the Bronx’s Mott Haven neighbourhood in 2009, 84 percent of births were to unmarried women, according to city health statistics, followed by Brownsville, Brooklyn, at 81.2 percent; Hunts Points, the Bronx, at 80.4 percent; and Morrisania, the Bronx, at 79.1 percent. East Tremont (the Bronx), Bushwick (Brooklyn), and East New York (Brooklyn) all had out-of-wedlock birth rates well above 70 percent. Compare those with the rates in largely white neighbourhoods, such as Battery Park (6.8 percent), the Upper East Side (7.9 percent), and Murray Hill (8.6 percent).

The breakdown of the family lies behind all other urban dysfunction. Until marriage is restored as the norm for child-rearing in the inner city, black and Hispanic crime rates and education failure will continue to be disproportionate. No government programme can possibly compensate for the absence of fathers in the home and the absence of the cultural expectation that men will be responsible for their children. […] The mayor is eager to talk about marriage for gays and lesbians, but he cannot bring himself to use the word when it comes to black and Hispanic heterosexual couples.

But hey, let’s do what Laurie Penny says instead. Yes, “fuck marriage,” “fuck monogamy” and fuck all of those other “small ugly ambitions.” Because, rather like Laurie herself, it’s all so incredibly radical and defiant. Just don’t look too closely at the practical results.

Update:

Speaking of practical results, or the denial thereof, let’s not overlook the bewildered educator Grover Furr. A Professor of Medieval English and a devout Marxist, Furr has been mentioned here before and readers may recall his indignation at the fact that a few non-leftists still have the temerity to remain in the humanities, despite the professor’s wishes for ideological purity. Well, it seems our unhinged academic is still sharing his wisdom with students.

Feel free to add your own links and snippets in the comments.

Victor Davis Hanson ponders a certain, quite common kind of leftist mindset. Among its attributes, this:

For some, especially those who are well-educated and well-spoken, a sort of irrational furore at “the system” governs their political make-up. Why don’t degrees and vocabulary always translate into big money? Why does sophisticated pontificating at Starbucks earn less than mindlessly doing accounting behind a desk? We saw this tension with Michelle Obama who, prior to 2009, did not quite have enough capital to get to Aspen or Costa del Sol, and thereby, despite the huge power-couple salaries, Chicago mansion, and career titles, felt that others had far too much more than the Obamas. “Never been proud,” “downright mean country,” “raise the bar,” etc., followed as expressions of yuppie angst. The more one gets, the more one believes he should get even more, and the angrier he gets that another – less charismatic, less well-read, less well-spoken – always seems to get more.

So do not discount the envy of the sophisticated elite. The unread coal plant manager, the crass car dealer, or the clueless mind who farms 1000 acres of almonds should not make more than the sociology professor, the kindergarten teacher, the writer, the artist, or the foundation officer. What sort of system would allow the dense and easily fooled to become better compensated (and all for what – for superfluous jet skis and snowmobiles?) than the anguished musician or tortured-soul artist, who gives so much to us and receives so much less in return? What a sick country – when someone who brings chain saws into the Sierra would make more than a UC Berkeley professor who would stop them.

Speaking of professors, remember Jere Surber, whose nuanced and complex socialism – and resentments about status – are exceeded only by his self-flattery? Of course you do. But still, the last paragraph should bear some repetition. And while we’re on the subject of superior beings and their benign and selfless wisdom, here’s a cheering thought. Occupy announces that the ongoing flooding and destruction,
and the hospitals without power, along with the frightened, the cold, the injured and the dead… all
of this is good for us. With capitalism “in retreat,” we’ve been “unchained,” you see.

Update:

In the comments, rjmadden notes how socialist bloviating often implies the need for a corrective caste system, under which society will be reorganised, regulated and, oh yes, made fair. Indeed, it’s surprising just how often professed egalitarianism coincides with assumptions of superiority and hierarchical entitlement. There are dozens of examples in the archives. Among them, John Jordan, an “artist and activist” and co-editor of We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism. Writing in the Guardian, Mr Jordan demanded taxpayer subsidy on the basis that he is “showing us how to live differently.” You see, talentless, recidivist anti-capitalists are our teachers – messiahs, in fact – and so we should be forced to hand over our earnings. It may be your money, the money you had to work for, but he, being so special, is more deserving.

An assumed caste system might also explain why George Monbiot flies around the world to promote his own books while insisting that other, less enlightened, less important people shouldn’t. Mr Monbiot is also annoyed by the fact that some people can afford to buy jet skis, and therefore go jet skiing, of which he disapproves. So much so that in 2007 he prayed for a recession to teach us all a lesson and put us in our place. Beneath him, presumably. And maybe that’s why Polly Toynbee grumbles about non-leftwing people earning almost as much as she does. Perhaps, like George, she imagines herself as part of the impending nomenklatura, and therefore entitled, unlike those boorish nobodies who just run businesses. Know your place, peasants. Our betters have big plans.

As quite a few readers on the eastern coast of the US will be in bunker mode due to a very large storm named Sandy, this seems apposite. A moving, zoomable map of wind.

Stay safe, people.

From the vaults, Theodore Dalrymple on why prison works:

[Former Justice Secretary, Ken] Clarke was quite right to say that short prison sentences are not effective but, with the practised lack of logic of a man who has spent far too long in politics for the good of his own mind, he has drawn precisely the wrong conclusions from it. His error will cause much unnecessary suffering. There are indeed many arguments against short sentences. The recidivism rate after such sentences are completed is very high. They pose large administrative costs on the prison system. They do not reassure victims that the suffering or loss inflicted upon them by criminals has been taken seriously by the state. They discourage and demoralise the police, who labour mightily, if mainly bureaucratically, to procure a conviction for very little result. They promote intimidation of witnesses…

But it is quite wrong to suppose that if something is not very effective it has no effect at all. Short prison sentences are ineffective by comparison with long ones, but that is not to say that they are ineffective by comparison with no prison sentences at all. It is a fact that a large proportion of crimes are committed by a relatively small number of people. It is not unusual for career criminals to commit a hundred or more offences a year. Therefore, keeping them in prison for six weeks, say, prevents the commission of 12 crimes. Of course, if they were kept in prison for four years, 400 crimes would be prevented. But it is better to prevent 12 crimes than no crimes at all.

See also this. 

Christina Hoff Sommers on the alleged gender pay gap:

The 2007 report does give readers the impression that millennial women are facing serious workplace discrimination. But buried on page 18, we find this qualification: “After controlling for all the factors known to affect earnings, college-educated women earn about 5 percent less than college-educated men earn. Thus, while discrimination cannot be measured directly, it is reasonable to assume that this pay gap is the product of discrimination.” As Steve Chapman noted in Reason, “Another way to put it is that three-quarters of the gap clearly has innocent causes – and that we actually don’t know whether discrimination accounts for the rest.”

And Jeff Goldstein ponders Obama’s hipster mythology:  

To me, Obama was never cool, was never substantive, was never a man of gravitas, was never capable of being the post-political, post-racial healer he was sold as. Instead, he was a man of constructs and mannered rhetorical tics; a man of tone, not of ideas. He was a fraud, and to those who don’t find comfort in belonging to a hipster ethos — which is no different than belonging to, say, a chess club or band camp, only on a grander scale — he was a fraud who was trying to turn statism and tyranny into the new cool, the new black, if you will… None of these attacks on individual sovereignty were ever cool or hip. Rather, they were an attempt to turn collectivism into a hipster pose, and reduce individualism to a superficial denial of certain truths: namely, that you didn’t build that, you aren’t ever going to be self-reliant, and that rugged individualism is a punch line, as trite and G-rated as an episode of Little House on the Prairie. What happened that turned conformist statists chanting Obama’s name into the epitome of cultural hipness? What made submission to the state an act of supposed defiance of The Man?

Feel free to add your own links and snippets in the comments. 

Urine flavour wheels. (h/t, MeFi) // Beluga whale mimics human voices. // The Blitz in colour. // Bipedal robot masters tightrope. // Orphaned baby echidna likes milk, warm blanket. // Yusuke Oono’s 360° book. // Yes, but can you name them all? // Alan Rickman makes tea. // “Turin had the highest concentrations of atmospheric cocaine.” // Hand-blown glass straws. // Glass anatomy. // Real life escape pods. // High-performance hand-mounted slingshot. // Iron Man 3. // Attack of the big blue snails. // Clearing land mines. // When William Shatner sold Commodore computers. // Hallowe’en is coming. // And so costumes for everyone. 

Or, “Mommy, What’s a Cock Ring?”

Further to this comedic excursion from September last year, Zombie visits San Francisco’s latest radical nude-in, where a coalition of “nudists and leather folk” unveil their big ambitions:

From the Castro District they seek to expand the nudity zone outward to all of San Francisco; if the movement gains momentum, could it expand to all of California, and then eventually nationwide?

Viewer discretion advised.

Update:

In the comments, David Gillies captures the protest’s essential neediness: “Look how transgressive I am!” We can, I think, assume that the ‘activists’ aren’t trying to share a glorious aesthetic experience. Even many of the locals, who I’d guess are fairly accustomed to juvenile displays, are finding the ‘activism’ a little intrusive and annoying. Zombie cites an article in the Bay Area Reporter, in which the protestors’ need for attention and provocation is pretty obvious, if not actually pretty:

They have become more aggressive in the Castro. Some don cock rings – euphemistically referred to as ‘genital jewellery’ – to simulate an erection. Others, according to witnesses, shake their dicks at oncoming traffic, obviously seeking a reaction.

Unsurprisingly, local businesses and other residents, especially those with children, aren’t terribly impressed. As Zombie says,

Although the Castro may be a gay mecca, it is not exclusively populated by single gay men, nor are the surrounding neighbourhoods gay. Many families with children live in and around the Castro, which means that children are out in public, occasionally encountering the nudists. In fact during the protest itself families with children needed to get from Point A to Point B along Market Street, and had no choice but to navigate their way through the crowd of naked penises.

Which may strike some as funny, at least initially and from a distance. But imagine you’re out shopping with the kids in tow and having to weave your way through large groups of unattractive men waving their tackle at you. And the standard blather about “civil rights” and “body image” isn’t very convincing. One doesn’t have to have “unrealistic issues of body shame” to find the exhibitionism tiresome or inappropriate.

And the denials of any sexual aspect are also unconvincing, especially given that so many of the participants are enthusiasts of fetish clubs and websites catering to people who like public sex and scandalising others, and for whom the whole point is to have an audience, whether titillated or repelled. It’s rather like how the people at last year’s ‘protest’ claimed they just wanted to be left alone – while squealing for attention on a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection.

A supporter of the exhibitionists pops up, as it were, in the comments at Zombie’s place and insists,

It’s only your selfish control freak streak that wants to dictate what other people wear; your disrespect for the opinions and lifestyles of anyone whose opinion and lifestyle doesn’t match what you consider ‘proper’… Your statement reminds me of how selfish, childish and disdainful of anyone else’s rights so-called ‘conservatives’ are.

It seems to me this is more than a little dishonest. Setting aside the issues of exposing oneself to children, the impact on local businesses, etc., I think what’s objectionable is that random people are being made participants in the exhibitionists’ psychodrama, whether they wish to be or not.

For many, if not most, of the ‘activists’, this isn’t even about an enjoyment of being naked per se. It’s about confronting other people with unsolicited nakedness. That’s the enjoyment – it’s a juvenile kink. Being nude in private or among consenting nudists in dedicated bars, clubs, spas, on nature trails, at specialist beaches, etc., of which San Francisco has plenty, doesn’t give the ‘activists’ enough of a thrill. Because the people there are willing.

Hence the demand to display their genitals in front of random passers-by, including children. An audience is required in order to feel transgressive and it’s pretty obvious that’s what matters. They want to be naked near you. They want you to witness their daring. It’s essentially a kind of challenge – an imposition on others, and the act of imposition is, for some, the whole point. And so the source of the “selfishness,” “childishness” and “disrespect” is also pretty clear.