My thoughts on what Barack Obama cries about, and what he does not, over at PJMedia.
The Lamest Duck
“I don’t question Obama’s sincerity. I question his sanity.”
Guns In America
People who spout nonsense about the “gun show loophole” have probably never legally purchased a gun.
“We Want Our Safety Back”
Women protest their insane government in Cologne.
As I noted on Twitter yesterday, this was the biggest mass rape of German women since the Soviets invaded.
[Update Saturday afternoon]
This seems related somehow: Swedish women request segregated jacuzzis, due to being groped. It seems to be a recent problem, for some reason that just has me scratching my head.
[Sunday-morning update]
Another report of hundreds of “Arabic” men attacking women on New Years Eve.
Nope, nothing coordinated about this at all.
[Update Sunday afternoon]
Why we can’t remain silent about the Cologne assaults:
Street sexual violence is also—obviously—not exclusive to Arab and Muslim-majority countries. Indeed, among the worst offenders is Papua New Guinea, where two-thirds of women are subjected to some kind of physical or sexual violence, and rapists from “raskol” gangs are happy to pose for photos after their latest rape.
Having said that, what is infuriating and totally counterproductive is to deny that a specifically cultural problem around immigration patterns and European sexual norms has been steadily rising across the continent. To pretend this is not the case only further stigmatizes us brown Muslim men. That the problem requires attention is clear.
German police unions and women’s right groups have recently accused authorities of underplaying cases of rape at refugee shelters. “There is a lot of glossing over going on. But this doesn’t represent reality,” police union chief Rainer Wendt told Reuters. Henry Ove Berg, who was a police chief during Norway’s recent spike in rape cases, said, “people from some parts of the world have never seen a girl in a miniskirt, only in a burqa… when they get to Norway, something happens in their heads.” He added that “there was a link but not a very clear link” between the rape cases in Norway and immigrants. Hanne Kristin Rohde, former head of the violent crime section of the Oslo Police Department, was criticized in 2011 when she went public with data suggesting that immigrants committed a hugely disproportionate number of rapes. “This was a big problem… but it was difficult to talk about,” she remarked. There was “a clear statistical connection between sexual violence and male migrants.”
Any solution to this emerging issue must simultaneously seek to deny the far right the ammunition it desires while preserving Europe’s hard-earned progressive social values.
This is all controversial, but it must be said. Anecdotal attitudes point to the same conclusion. Abdu Osman Kelifa, an Eritrean asylum seeker to Norway, recently told The New York Times that in his home country, “if someone wants a lady, he can just take her and he will not be punished.” He confessed that it was still hard for him to accept that a woman could accuse her husband of rape.Between denying the problem and using it to fuel bigoted far-right rhetoric, an approach grounded in data and a level head is vital. Any solution to this emerging issue must simultaneously seek to deny the far right the ammunition it desires while preserving—not reneging on—Europe’s hard-earned progressive social values.
I hope it’s not too late.
[Update a few minutes later]
The tension between the forces of political correctness and the pent-up forces of repressed cultural traditions is now bursting like a spring wound up beyond containment. Things may start slowly at first but ramp up rapidly, mirroring Cornelius Ryan’s famous description of the Berlin Philharmonic’s last performance as the Red Army stood at the gates of Berlin.
…Seventy years later, the question facing people caught in the middle is where to run. There is nowhere obvious. In Europe, Ross Douthat argues, all exits are temporarily blocked. The left has destroyed the middle, leaving only a choice of extremes. “Just last week Merkel rejected a proposal to cap refugee admissions (which topped one million last year) at 200,000 in 2016.”
…Everywhere one looks the matches are being lit. The sudden outburst of resistance comes the end of what Jonah Goldberg called “a bad day” for the Narrative. A bad sequence of decades since 2001, more like it.
These will be the worst days for Europe in seventy years, I’m afraid. As he notes, the Constitution may save us, but it doesn’t help that the left has trampled all over it for a century, and continue to do so.
[Update a while later]
Sex crimes across Germany. The cover up unravels.
The Smoking Gun
In the latest batch of emails, evidence that Hillary ordered an underling to deliberately mishandle classified information.
I’m sure you’re as shocked as I am.
In a sane world, this woman would never have gotten anywhere near any position of responsibility or consequence, let alone be the putative nominee for president by a major political party.
[Update a few minutes later]
“If she were a Republican, the mainstream media would have (appropriately) disgraced and branded her as a traitor by now.”
Yup. Because she is.
The Second Amendment
Even Barack Obama gets it better than the leftist activists:
In order to argue with a straight face that the right to keep and bear arms is inextricably linked with “service in an organized and sanctioned militia,” you would have to believe the following unbelievable things: 1) that the Founders’ intent in codifying the Second Amendment was to protect the right of individuals to join an organization over which the federal government has constitutionally granted plenary power; 2) that unlike every other provision in the Bill of Rights — and every other constitutional measure that is wrapped in the “right of the people” formulation — the Second Amendment denotes something other than an individual right that can be asserted against the state; and 3) that every major judicial figure of the era was mistaken as to its meaning — among them, Joseph Story, William Rawle, St. George Tucker, Timothy Farrar, and Tench Coxe, all of whom explained the Second Amendment perfectly clearly — whereas a few judges and politicians in the 20th century have been bang on in their comprehension.
I’m just glad that we got Heller before the court drifted too far from the Founders. But we are at the point at which any attempt to deprive us of our rights will result in insurrection. And fortunately, those defending their rights have the guns and knowledge to use them.
Homer Hickam
Just got back from a very pleasant lunch with him in Manhattan Beach. Huge surf today, because of the storm. Gave him a signed copy of the book (he’d already read the PDF, and reviewed on Amazon).
Eric Drexler
Haven’t heard from my old friend (in both senses of the word these days), but Ray Kurzweil has an interview.
Haven’t listened to the whole thing, but so far, he doesn’t seem to have mentioned that he got interested in the subject of nanotech via his interest in space.
The Ghosts of Charlie Hebdo
Thoughts on the first anniversary, that started a terrible year of terrorism, from Mark Steyn:
Both Paris and Copenhagen were twofers: the attacks on free speech were followed by attacks on Jews, at a kosher supermarket and a synagogue, respectively. To Obama, this second group of victims were merely a “random” “bunch of folks”. Couldda been anyone, but just so happened to be “a bunch of folks” who like kosher food. As I commented:
Bank robbers rob banks because that’s where the money is. In Europe, Islamic supremacists shoot up kosher markets, synagogues, Jewish museums and Jewish schools because that’s where the Jews are.
I think most of us understand that a huge percentage of Muslims really hate Jews. I have a high degree of tolerance for hate: I spent a lot of time in Northern Ireland during a period when many Catholics and Protestants seriously hated each other, and I came rather to appreciate the way they were entirely upfront about their mutual hatred. The problem here is that in the biggest resurgence of Jew-hate since the Second World War we’re not allowed to say who hates Jews.
That’s why free speech matters. Without free speech, there are only the official lies – about who’s killing Jews in Copenhagen, who’s sexually assaulting women in Cologne – and there is nothing to say in response to either except to crank up the old joanna for one more chorus of “Imagine”.
Also, from Bosch Fawstin: “if you’re Not drawing Mohammad, then you’re not Charlie Hebdo, and you can’t say ‘Je Suis Charlie’.”
Beyond SpaceX
Ten other space companies to watch this year.
I’m pretty sure that XCOR’s hangar isn’t over ten thousand feet long. I also think he overstates the difficulties with getting a payload on the ISS. Nanoracks has made that pretty painless. I wonder why he didn’t mention VG, which is rolling out the new SS2 next month?