TO SERVE AND PROTECT: Video: Officer “Failed To Render Aid” For Dying Crash Victims.
The dash camera video showed the officer standing with her hands in her pockets watching Ortiz try to help the stricken female student.
Ortiz said he begged her to help.
“I said it again and again and again,” Ortiz said. “There were people, civilians, yelling at her to please do something and she did absolutely nothing.” . . .
Her proposed punishment was a one-week suspension without pay.
VOX DAY: Protect yourselves, ladies.
Men have been subjected to forty years of propaganda telling them that those old codes are outdated no longer apply. They have been taught from kindergarten that men and women are exactly the same. So, women shouldn’t be surprised when bad men no longer treat them with kid gloves, but prey upon them as mercilessly as they do upon other men.
Nor should they be surprised when good men won’t lift a finger or run any risks to defend them.
HOW THE TEA PARTY Cornered John Boehner On Immigration.
Boehner told reporters that distrust of Obama was an insurmountable hurdle to bringing forward legislation. The real story of Boehner’s sudden reticence was the building fury of hardline amnesty opponents in Congress and the grassroots activists who had been melting the Capitol phone lines.
And while it would be deeply naïve to believe the push for amnesty is dead, Boehner’s retreat Thursday was just the latest time his conservative critics have been able to thwart his determined push to tackle the issue since the 2012 elections.
FOR THE LADIES: Why Women Fail with Men. “And for the eleventy billionth time: Men are NOT attracted to your job, your salary, your credentials, your professional achievements, or your accomplishments. Burnishing your curriculum vitae will not help you one iota in finding a man for a lasting relationship. Adding initials after your name denoting advanced degrees or certifications will not help you one iota in finding a man for a lasting relationship.”
WE’RE IN SAFE HANDS: Government Passwords Are Incredibly Easy to Hack.
Passwords like “password,” “qwerty,” and users’ names have left Homeland Security Department data vulnerable, says a report released Tuesday by the Republican staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
And the password fiasco, the report says, is only the tip of the iceberg—plenty of other agencies have lost sensitive data as well.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission left nuclear-plant security details on a shared drive with no protection. Hackers swiped Information on the nation’s dams—including their weaknesses and catastrophic potential if breached—from an Army Corps of Engineers database.
STEVE SAILER: The Atlantic: Beards are racist. “Rather than promoting two complicated theories of how Americans and Brits came up with the same look at about the same time for separate reasons involving African-Americans and American Indians in America but presumably not in England, isn’t it more plausible that provincial Americans like Abraham Lincoln were mostly following fashions being set in Dickens’ London, the richest, most progressive, most dominant city in the world around 1860?”
NO. NEXT QUESTION? Is rewarding straight-A students a problem? “A Maryland middle school has sparked heated controversy by holding an end-of-day pizza party for high-performing students. As Donna St. George reported in yesterday’s Washington Post, Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring only invited straight-A students to the final period celebration, while allowing B and C students to join after school. Students with less than a C average (306 of Eastern’s 865 students) weren’t invited at all. Some parents and education professors complained bitterly, with one Mount St. Mary’s professor denouncing the school for ‘creating a caste system.'” Sounds like some people need to lighten up.
BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE: The Obamacare Security Nightmare: It Gets Worse.
SUNSHINE MARY: Seven ways to make sure your daughter rejects traditional sex roles and ends up a miserable androgyne. “We’re teaching our daughters to be monstrous whores rather than nurturing mothers, but the alternative isn’t to teach them to be boys.”
A blackout was avoided thanks to quick-thinking utility workers, who rerouted power around the site and asked power plants in Silicon Valley to produce more electricity. But the substation was knocked out for a month. . . .
Smith and colleague Tom McGinty assembled a detailed chronology of the attack that includes some amazing details, including more than 100 fingerprint-free shell casings similar to ones used by AK-47s that were found at the site and small piles of rocks that appeared to have been left by an advance scout to tell the attackers where to get the best shots.
A U.S. Navy investigation ordered by Wellinghoff determined “it was a targeting package just like they would put together for an attack,” he said.
Other utility officials disagree with Wellinghoff’s assessment, and say the electric grid remains highly resilient.
IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE: Germany Aiming to Become More Muslim Friendly. “Muslims have been quick to respond to Maizière’s multicultural concessions. They have issued a list of demands that include the official recognition of Muslim holidays in Germany, as well as the installation of Muslim clerics in German hospitals, nursing homes, prisons and military units.”
JILLIAN KAY MELCHIOR: In NYC, the teachers’ union tries to grab some more taxpayer money. “The New York United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is demanding up to $3.5 billion in ‘back pay’ for a raise the union says teachers should have received five years ago. If the teachers’ union succeeds, the repercussions will be felt in other labor negotiations at a time of precarious city finances.”
COMPREHENSIVE SEX ED: The sex initiation camps of Malawi where ten-year-old girls are sent by their families to lose their virginities.
Girls as young as ten are being sent to initiation camps in Malawi to be taught about how to have sex and in some cases lose their virginity. The girls are told by their families they are attending a camp with their friends, but when they arrive they are shown how to have sex and told they must lose their ‘child dust’ as soon as they can or they will get a skin disease. The horrifying practice is not new – it is a time-honored ritual passed through generations and the girls are sent by their families to make sure they are accepted into their communities as adults.
When she was aged 10 Grace was sent to an initiation camp which took place not far from her home in Golden Village, where Grace lives with her grandmother, reports CNN. During her week-long stay she said she was taught her about respecting her elders and doing household chores, but also how to have sex by the women that led the camp who are known as he women, known as anamkungwi, or ‘key leaders’. She told a group of journalists visiting Malawi with the United Nations Foundation that the women demonstrated sexual positions and encouraged girls to do ‘sexual cleansing,’ also called kusasa fumbi, which meant they should get rid of their inexperience with sex through practice.
“PROGRESS”: Venereal diseases found in children as young as 12 in Scotland.
Figures from 2010 to 2012 show that Scottish doctors are diagnosing STIs in 400 Scottish under-16s every year, according to the Health Protection Agency.
Chlamydia was the most common, with 1,670 cases, mostly in the greater Glasgow and Clyde area, as well as some children as young as 12 in Lothian and Lanarkshire. . . .
The figures come as research from the University of Aberdeen confirms that around 17,000 girls between the ages of 12 to 15 have been provided contraception, in many cases without parental consent.
ANN CORCORAN: Sri Lankan illegal alien poster boys for critics of US asylum system. “First question of course is where did poor struggling ‘refugee’ fishermen get $55,000 each? And, since we learned they traveled through Dubai, Moscow, Cuba and Haiti why didn’t they ask for asylum at their first stop, second stop, third stop? Legitimate asylum seekers are to ask for asylum in the first safe country in which they land! (Amazing that the reporter seems not at all interested in answers to these two important questions!)”
NOT REALLY: Can the negative effects of fatherlessness be attributed to other factors, like poverty? “Many of these negative outcomes are associated with the higher poverty rates of single mothers. In many cases, however, the improvements in child well-being that are associated with marriage persist even after adjusting for differences in family income. This indicates that the father brings more to his home than just a paycheck.”
IF I HAD A SON: Mother Jones Is Promoting Another Trayvon Story ; Will They Ever Report On White People Killed By Black Teens?
We await some reporting from MJ on this murder, the perpetrators being black “teens” who, police allege, beat a white bartender to death, as Paul Kersey reported at his website. It was another “robbery gone wrong,” as Kersey notes, which brings to mind Lawrence Auster’s ruminations about those terms.
If MJ doesn’t think that one is worth covering, there’s this one, or this one, and this one and these. Or the magazine could try looking into this one or this one or this one.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Anti-Gun Violence State Rep. Jailed for Punching Woman Who Refused Sex.
MARK PERRY: Who’d a-thunk it? Politicians who support raising the minimum wage pay their own interns $0.00 per hour.
Related: Pelosi’s Double Standard on the Minimum Wage. I like the part of the interview when she calls security.
RADISH on social science, confirmation bias, and more. “Conservatives are crazy and racists are stupid, according to the latest research by college professors who could not possibly be biased. It’s scientastic!” Nice roundup.
SUNSHINE MARY: Women are heavily influenced by men’s opinions.
A notable follow-up in the comments: “Men’s opinions will ALWAYS carry more weight with women than other women’s opinions do. The problem here is that men have been heavily pressured in a feministic society in two ways: 1. to deny what they really find attractive in women and 2. not to express any kind of judgement of women. When men are not expressing outloud any opinion about women’s looks or behavior, that allows other women to be the opinion-expressers about what men like. And that allows women to sabotage each other quite easily because men aren’t providing the reality check.”
APOSTGAYCY ISN’T REAL. SO LET’S BAN IT. Hope and Change? Not for Gays.
After Smith entered into reparative counseling, including weekend retreats called “People Can Change” and “Journey into Manhood,” he said his “homosexual feelings have nearly vanished.” At that point, married for eight years, he said, “In my 50s, for the first time, I can look at a woman and say, ‘She’s really hot!'”
The internet is replete with testimonials like Smith’s, at websites such as NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality), PeopleCanChange, Liberty Counseling and Recovery, and JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality). As to the last-mentioned, followers of American Thinker read here last week that tiny JONAH is being sued by a big, fat, rich whale, the Southern Poverty Law Center, for “consumer fraud.” . . .
This cruel philosophy is reflected in the California state law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2012, which forbids counselors and therapists from addressing unwanted same-sex attraction. Last summer, Governor Chris Christie saw fit to imitate California, making New Jersey the second state with such a law, prohibiting therapists from assisting minors with “sexual orientation change efforts.”
And just last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to re-hear a challenge to the California law, thus denying therapists their First Amendment freedom to speak about healing painful unwanted same-sex attraction. One of the dissenting judges said, “The Supreme Court has chastened us lower courts for creating, out of whole cloth, new categories of speech to which the First Amendment does not apply. But that is exactly what the panel’s opinion accomplishes in this case.”
Earlier: Appeals Court Upholds Calif. Ban on Gay Conversion Therapy for LGBT Youth.
MIKE RAPPAPORT: A Record Year for Exonerations. “The article and report treat these cases as exonerations. But these cases do not necessarily involve convicted persons who were innocent. Rather, the report often includes cases where there was enough new evidence to vacate the conviction and the prosecutors decided not to have a new trial. Typically, this means that there was some mistake at the original trial, but it does not prove that the person is innocent. Still, if the defendant’s trial was seriously faulty, it is appropriate to vacate it and that may lead to release.”
COLLECTOR’S ITEM: Gibson Celebrates with Limited Edition Guitar with Government-Seized Wood. “Great Gibson electric guitars have long been a means of fighting the establishment, so when the powers that be confiscated stocks of tonewoods from the Gibson factory in Nashville—only to return them once there was a resolution and the investigation ended—it was an event worth celebrating. Introducing the Government Series II Les Paul, a striking new guitar from Gibson USA for 2014 that suitably marks this infamous time in Gibson’s history.”
ADOBE Releases New DRM For eBooks, Plans To Screw Over Anyone Using Old DRM. “So, just to put a nice little bow on all of this, Adobe is releasing a new version of its DRM which was previously cracked, with the new DRM sure to be cracked, and which has little practical value beyond annoying eBook customers and driving sales for the competition. If one were writing a script of why DRM is a silly idea, one couldn’t write it up better than Adobe has.”
DADDY ISSUES: Paternal Disengagement And Female Promiscuity. I don’t think much of the first study cited there; it relies on “priming,” which may very well be bunk. The rest look interesting, though.
BRENDA WALKER: Fifteen States Subsidize Illegal Aliens’ College Educations. “The Associated Press story was careful not to speak unkindly of the alien scholars, subtly noting at the end that ‘their future work prospects are limited’ — meaning they cannot be legally employed following their expensive-to-taxpayers college educations.”
THE WEAKNESSES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE: That Gay Steroid Story.
I don’t buy this study which found that gay and bisexual boys use steroids at much higher rates than straight boys . . .
A researcher at Cornell recently asserted that National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health may have been tainted by ‘jokesters’. The Longitudinal Study showed a high rate of adolescents switching their answers from “gay/bisexual” to straight over the course of the study, and the Cornell researcher hypothesized that those inconsistent answers were coming from kids who weren’t taking the study seriously. And, the adolescents who took the study less seriously also happened to be troubled in other ways, thus making gay and bisexual students seem more disturbed than they might actually be . . .
Assuming that these two studies share similar designs – and similar design flaws – it’s possible that the latest steroid study was influenced by teens who don’t take these types of things seriously.
HEH: Poster Child For Why *NOT* To Major In Women’s Studies. “The only job I can find is as a bartender at a local restaurant. I owe over 60K in student loans.” Bonus: She’s a single mother.
NO, REALLY? SNL’s Lorne Michaels: Republican Politicians Can Take a Joke Better Than Democrats. “Republicans are easier for us than Democrats. Democrats tend to take it personally; Republicans think it’s funny.”
BREAKING NEWS FROM 146 B.C.: Carthaginians sacrificed own children, archaeologists say. “We like to think that we’re quite close to the ancient world, that they were really just like us – the truth is, I’m afraid, that they really weren’t.” Yes, because it’s not like we murder our own children.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Case study: how to fight the Sierra Club with no money.
NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT: Famous Gay Rights Activist Now Also Famous for Child Pornography Habits.
It’s possible to be quite specific about Larry Brinkin’s pornographic preferences, but “forcible sodomy of infant boys” is perhaps about as specific as we need to get. Oh, and also this: Larry Brinkin enjoyed interracial child pornography, and used the “n-word” when expressing his erotic enjoyment of these images and videos.
You stay classy, “veteran gay rights advocate“!
STEVE SAILER: NYT: Having female loved ones makes men into sexist Republicans. “New York Times columnist Charles Blow discovers a new engine fueling the War on Women: having female loved ones makes men more sexist. Apparently, being around women they love causes males to notice average differences between men and women, and Noticing, as we’ve all been warned, leads to conservatism.”
LYDIA MCGREW on “France’s Terri Shiavo”:
Lambert was in a car accident five years ago and is in what is known as a “minimally conscious state.” This is a more responsive state than Terri was alleged to be in (though of course that should not matter to one’s right to life). Even the doctors seeking Lambert’s death acknowledge that he has sensory experiences and is responsive to “pain or well-being.” He also appears to react to the presence of his loved ones, and I gather that this is acknowledged by those seeking his death. He is not able to communicate. He is not dying in any way but is tetraplegic.
Dr. Eric Kariger, representing the hospital, and Lambert’s wife and nephew all want him starved and dehydrated to death. The argument is that that is what he “would have wanted.” Vincent’s parents oppose his being killed by starvation and dehydration. . . .
Significantly, one of Kariger’s “experts” stated to the media that Vincent Lambert “no longer exists as a person[;] he has been erased.” That, presumably, is supposed to be some kind of technical expert opinion. If it doesn’t send a chill down your spine, nothing will.
ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: Betrayed by the President and ObamaCare.
For me, the impact of ObamaCare is a health plan that is both unaffordable and uncaring. For a law named “The Affordable Care Act,” this is both backward and perverse.
It’s also not what you promised me when I voted for you, Mr. President. When you were on the campaign trail, you promised that ObamaCare would help me with my medical problems. You promised that people like me with pre-existing conditions would be better off. And you promised that if I liked my health-care plan, I could keep it.
Mr. President, you’ve now broken all of these promises — and not just to me.
CONTROL BANKING, CONTROL EVERYTHING: Banks Steering Clear of “Targeted” Businesses.
Wall Street Journal reporter Robin Sidel, along with Andrew Johnson, reported on the success that the federal government is having in barring access to the banking system for a number of businesses. As we’ve discussed previously, “Operation Choke Point” and related arm-twisting efforts by the Feds are aimed at making life difficult for a variety of targeted businesses. Among those disfavored businesses are online lenders, payday lenders, check cashers, virtual currency dealers, gaming businesses, and marijuana-related businesses (although our beloved US Attorney General has been making noises that he simply will look the other way when it comes to enforcing federal drug laws against marijuana businesses that are operating legally under state law).
Even at a time when many banks can use every dime they can scrape up, the risk is simply not worth the potential pain.
TUMBLR MELTDOWN IMMINENT: The Time Is Right For Traditional Sex Roles To Return. “I’m proud to announce the launch of Traditional Sex Roles week. For the next seven days, we will be offering you over a dozen articles that explore the societal benefits and implications of having traditional sex roles.”
APOSTGAYCY WILL NOT BE TOLERATED: Appeals Court Upholds Calif. Ban on Gay Conversion Therapy for LGBT Youth.
Wednesday’s decision to not rehear the suit was not unanimous, as three Ninth Circuit justices joined a dissent written by Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain.
“The State of California, in the statute at issue here, has prohibited licensed professionals from saying certain words to their clients. By labeling such speech as ‘conduct,’ the panel’s opinion has entirely exempted such regulation from the First Amendment,” wrote O’Scannlain.
“In so doing, the panel contravenes recent Supreme Court precedent, ignores established free speech doctrine, misreads our cases, and thus insulates from First Amendment scrutiny California’s prohibition–in the guise of a professional regulation–of politically unpopular expression.”
Earlier: When Government Keeps Teens from Seeing the Therapist.
GEE, I WONDER: Why Is A Woman-On-Woman Murder Involving Two Minority Groups Being Buried? “From what I have read in the Los Angeles Times, the victim in the case was Vietnamese-American and the alleged perpetrators were Hispanic. If this is true, the victim identity politics industry will have a tough time spinning this. I have noticed that due to the lack of the traditional scapegoat, this news story is not is getting as much traction as I thought it would.”
ROGER PEARSE: No, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. Even if it seems to confirm your misconceptions about the early Church. “There are perils in using reference works a century old, as Mr Bushby might have realised. In 1900 it was true to say that the oldest physical copies of the New Testament were 4th century (that is, much older than the oldest copies of most classical texts). But since then a host of fragments and portions of books of the New Testament, written on papyrus, have emerged from the sands of Egypt, notably at Oxyrhynchus. A look at Metzger’s Text of the New Testament will put this one to rest.”
DALROCK: How Christians can take credit for Game.
While Christians can’t claim credit for collating and codifying the information, we can take credit for creating the conditions required for such an activity to take place. . . .
As Christians we (collectively) can take credit for making all of this happen. Christians have provided the moral cover for both the sexual revolution and the divorce revolution. At the core of the Christian backing of the sexual/divorce revolution is the modern Christian rebellion against biblical headship. A woman who marries as a young virgin is far more likely to be willing to submit to her husband, and (modern) Christian fathers everywhere are terrified of such a prospect. For existing marriages Christians endorse the use of threats of divorce to ensure that a wife feels secure in her position of authority over her husband, and groups like FOTF make it a point to remind divorcing women not to forget to collect their cash and prizes. Likewise the modern Christian rebellion against headship has lead Christians to endorse an entirely new and perverted sexual morality. If you have ever wondered why the Protestant churches in the US have been so quiet on the divorce revolution taking place within their very congregations, or why the RCC responded to the explosion in divorces in the US by firing up the annulment mill, this is why.