Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

Yazidi Child Soldiers

2 Comments

…take revenge on ISIS:

Their support of youth participation in the YBŞ—especially for women and girls—is made all the more striking by the fact Yazidis in rural Sinjar are often part of traditional patriarchal families. So-called honor killings of Yazidi women believed to have shamed their families have even survived into the present. A gruesome video that drew headlines and condemnation in 2007 showed a 17-year-old Yazidi girl named Dua Khalil Aswad being stoned to death by her own people on suspicion she converted to Islam to elope with a Muslim.

But the PKK/YPG model preaches equality of the sexes, something gaining ground among the Yazidis rescued by the militias.

Vian, the teenage PKK commander and drill instructor, claims for her part that the threat to ISIS fighters they’ll be killed by women gives coed units a psychological edge. “We have heard ISIS is afraid of fighting women,” she says. “We think ISIS is saying ‘if not for women, we’d control all the world.’”

“They don’t want to be killed by us,” she adds smugly.

It’s appalling that they have to rely on groups like the PKK for help.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

The 70th Hiroshima Anniversary

27 Comments

“Thank God for the atomic bomb.”

It’s always tempting to second-guess things like this, but it was the best decision that could have been made at the time with the information available at the time. Hundreds of thousands of troops were expecting to have to fight (and die) to take the home islands as hard as they just had for Okinawa. And countless Chinese were still being tortured and murdered.

[Update a few minutes later]

More thoughts from Roger Kimball:

The idea that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima — and, since the Japanese failed to surrender, of Nagasaki on August 9 — was a ‘war crime’ has slowly acquired currency not only among the anti-American intelligentsia but also among other sentimentalists of limited worldly experience.

Yes. And years ago, Bill Whittle took on the ignorant and not-to-be lamented Jon Stewart on the subject.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Hillary’s FBI Investigation

15 Comments

Sorry, apologists, but yes, it is a criminal probe.

With all the laws being violated, how could it not be?

I’m trying to recall the last time the presumptive nominee of a major party was under investigation by the FBI. And failing.

[Update a while later]]

“People need to know whether she’s a crook.”

Really, after the history of the 90s, is there any doubt about that? But she’s their crook, supported by a party of long-time thieves and liars.

Business, Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Cholesterol

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Finally. The feds are on the verge of withdrawing decades of unscientific warnings about eating it. But they’ve still got it wrong:

The finding follows an evolution of thinking among many nutritionists who now believe that, for healthy adults, eating foods high in cholesterol may not significantly affect the level of cholesterol in the blood or increase the risk of heart disease.

The greater danger in this regard, these experts believe, lies not in products such as eggs, shrimp or lobster, which are high in cholesterol, but in too many servings of foods heavy with saturated fats, such as fatty meats, whole milk, and butter.

There is zero scientific evidence that eating saturated fat is a problem. Zero. And yet they persist.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Weird

The Upside-Down World Of Robert Reich

7 Comments

One group leaves its demonstration sites cleaner than they found them, and wants to clean up an overgrown corrupt federal government. The other poops on police cars and has rape tents. Guess which ones he calls “wreckers” and which he calls “rebuilders”?

[Update a couple minutes later]

This seems related, somehow: Hillary’s big donors are giving to Jeb, too. It’s almost like it’s all just one big-government party.

[Update a few minutes later]

This seems related, somehow, too: Chelsea Clinton is the closest thing America has to a princess. Just what we’ve always needed.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Thoughts on Princess Chelsea, from Jonah Goldberg:

As for the bit about her being the closest thing America has to a princess, well, when you think about it for a second, I think that’s right. The problem is that the closest thing to a princess in America is very, very, very far from an actual, you know, princess. We don’t do royalty here very well. The thing that makes her most princess-like is that she really doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself except get caught up in the lie of her family business. What I mean is that she may actually believe that the Clintons are a kind of secular royalty and a dynasty. No doubt she’s been told that a lot. No doubt her parents don’t loop her in on the seamier side of how the Tudors of the Ozarks operate. She probably thinks the primary purpose of the Clinton Foundation is philanthropy rather than extending the Clinton brand and empire, in much the same way descendants of the original medieval robber barons believe their family has always been about public service. Bless her heart.

And Jim Geraghty:

The comparison to a princess is a pretty accurate one, and you’re right, the profile piece in the Post doesn’t quite gush. But throwing jobs, awards, opportunities, speaking fees, and other honors at Chelsea seems to have been a pretty easy way to build goodwill with an ex-president and a future president, and I feel like we’ve all been asked to avert our eyes from this.

[Afternoon update]

Heh.