17 August 2009 @ 10:33PM >> Last week, I called the office of Jerrold Nadler, my congressman, to see if he would be holding any constituent meetings on health care.

Today, I got a recorded call from Congressman Nadler inviting me to participate in a “live telephone town hall” at 8PM this evening. The call came in at 7:35PM.

Of course, this timing left constituents with a mere 25 minutes warning. (I didn’t even get a chance to listen to the voicemail until the “town hall” was long over.)

I’m sure the short notice caused many folks to miss the opportunity to question their congressman directly. Perhaps that was by design.

A cynical political observer might conclude that Congressman Nadler wanted as few people calling as possible.

13 August 2009 @ 8:48AM >> During the last few centuries, a number of Muslims have followed the belief that Islam bans images of their prophet Mohammed. This was one of the excuses for the worldwide orgy of riots and killings that followed the publication of the infamous Mohammed cartoons.

The New York Times recalls the scene:

[W]hen the 12 caricatures were first published by a Danish newspaper a few years ago and reprinted by other European publications, Muslims all over the world angrily protested, calling the images—which included one in which Muhammad wore a turban in the shape of a bomb—blasphemous. In the Middle East and Africa some rioted, burning and vandalizing embassies; others demanded a boycott of Danish goods; a few nations recalled their ambassadors from Denmark. In the end at least 200 people were killed.

As the Times report notes, the publishing arm of Yale University recently released a book on the topic, “The Cartoons That Shook the World.”

Yale University and Yale University Press consulted two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, and the recommendation was unanimous: The book, “The Cartoons That Shook the World,” should not include the 12 Danish drawings that originally appeared in September 2005. What’s more, they suggested that the Yale press also refrain from publishing any other illustrations of the prophet that were to be included, specifically, a drawing for a children’s book; an Ottoman print; and a sketch by the 19th-century artist Gustave Dore of Muhammad being tormented in Hell, an episode from Dante’s “Inferno” that has been depicted by Botticelli, Blake, Rodin and Dali.

Yale University takes political correctness to its absurd conclusion, one in which a book claiming to discuss “the cartoons that shook the world” will not actually include the cartoons that shook the world. This is from an alleged learning institution dedicated free thought and intellectual inquiry.

But it’s even more chilling than that: Yale University is now in the business of actively enforcing Sharia law on behalf of radical jihadists.

7 August 2009 @ 9:06PM >> Does someone at London’s Telegraph newspaper believe that Barack Obama is a country? Or do they just think that he’s so amazingly awesome that he deserves to be only human listed alongside the countries and continents in the World section on their website?

(Hat tip: Jonah Goldberg.)

5 August 2009 @ 11:59PM >> The Obama White House may be breaking the Privacy Act of 1974 by asking citizens to report “fishy” political speech.

On Tuesday, Macon Phillips, President Obama’s Director of New Media, wrote on the White House blog asking citizens to rat out fellow citizens who are spreading “disinformation” about Obama’s plans for more government control over the health care system. Phillips wrote:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

One wonders, what constitutes “fishy” speech or “disinformation”? Is it anything that runs counter to what the White House wants you to think? And what, precisely, is the White House planning to do about someone who’s speech has been “flagged”?

It turns out, even asking for citizens to report on each other may be illegal. According to the Department of Justice, “the purpose of the Privacy Act is to balance the government’s need to maintain information about individuals with the rights of individuals to be protected against unwarranted invasions of their privacy stemming from federal agencies’ collection, maintenance, use, and disclosure of personal information about them.”

Further, anything is considered a “personal record” if it identifies an individual (an e-mail address would qualify), and “federal agency” specifically includes “the Executive Office of the President.”

I’m no lawyer, but it sure sounds like the White House is violating the law by asking people to snitch on their friends and neighbors for engaging in “fishy” political speech. Anyone want to try this one in court?

In the meantime, I’m going to report myself. I’m obviously not thinking the way our Dear Leader wants...

---

Update: Renowned attorney David T. Hardy identifies another area where the Obama White House appears to be breaking the law:

5 US Code §552a(e)(7) commands that any Federal agency

“(7) maintain no record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained or unless pertinent to and within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity;”

3 August 2009 @ 4:52PM >> The tentacles of Big Brother are reaching further into homes in the U.K.:

Thousands of the worst families in England are to be put in “sin bins” in a bid to change their bad behaviour, Ed Balls announced yesterday.

The Children’s Secretary set out £400 million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour [closed-circuit television] supervision in their own homes.

They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.

It’s just the first step, and one that likely won’t be criticized, since these are problem families and someone must think of the children!

But the way incrementalism works, once this step is taken, it makes it easier for the next step to be taken.

That’s why further government involvement in healthcare is worrisome; it will lead to more extreme versions of proposals like these:

• Sodas should be taxed more to fight obesity
• Fat people should be subjected to added food taxes to try to make them healthier
• Eating meat is unhealthy and contributes to global warming, so let’s encourage vegan diets

If the Nanny Staters have their way, the government will be controlling your diet in the future, maybe even installing closed-circuit cameras in your fridge to make sure you’re not midnight snacking.

Think it can’t happen? Open your eyes.

27 July 2009 @ 4:15PM >> Peggy Noonan identifies one of the many reasons that I’m concerned about the government getting more control over our healthcare system:

We are living in a time in which educated people who are at the top of American life feel they have the right to make very public criticisms of . . . let’s call it the private, pleasurable but health-related choices of others. They shame smokers and the overweight. Drinking will be next. Mr. Obama’s own choice for surgeon general has come under criticism as too heavy.

Only a generation ago such criticisms would have been considered rude and unacceptable. But they are part of the ugly, chafing price of having the government in something: Suddenly it can make big and very personal demands on you. Those who live in a way that isn’t sufficiently healthy “cost us money” and “drive up premiums.” Mr. Obama himself said something like it in his press conference, when he spoke of a person who might not buy health insurance. If he gets hit by a bus, “the rest of us have to pay for it.”

Under a national health-care plan we might be hearing that a lot. You don’t exercise, you smoke, you drink, you eat too much, and “the rest of us have to pay for it.”

It is a new opportunity for new class professionals (an old phrase that should make a comeback) to shame others, which appears to be one of their hobbies. (It may even be one of their addictions. Let’s stage an intervention.) Every time I hear Kathleen Sebelius talk about “transitioning” from “treating disease” to “preventing disease,” I start thinking of how they’ll use this as an excuse to judge, shame and intrude.

So this might be an unarticulated public fear: When everyone pays for the same health-care system, the overseers will feel more and more a right to tell you how to live, which simple joys are allowed and which are not.

21 July 2009 @ 7:06PM >> Earlier today, my hosting provider, OpenHosting, notified me that Brain-Terminal.com had come under a denial-of-service attack and was knocked offline for several hours.

The source of the attack isn’t yet clear, but it has subsided and service has been restored for the time being.

I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if the attack resumed later. So, please forgive any site instability in the coming hours and days.

One bright spot out of all of this is that I discovered my hosting provider has stunningly good service. I’ve been with OpenHosting for a number of years, and the service has been remarkably stable. And today, OpenHosting’s support personnel responded very quickly, providing detailed technical assistance along the way.

I’ve used many hosting providers over the years, and I’ve been conditioned to expect a certain level of service (that level of service being “not very good”). My experiences with OpenHosting have been far better than with any other vendor.

Bad service is a pet peeve of mine, and I’m often quick to criticize businesses that treat customers poorly or don’t live up to their promises. It’s nice to know that, every once in a while, I run across a company whose service is worthy of praise.

19 July 2009 @ 7:22PM >> An insightful observation from a reader of Instapundit.com:

Notice how there was no “antiwar” movement during the ’90s, even though we were at war the entire time in Iraq, Haiti, Kosovo, a dab here and there in Afghanistan and Sudan. Then, after 9/11, it was the “Next Vietnam” with a passionate “antiwar” movement with the [New York Times]’s full treasonous participation, just like the good old days. And now, even though the daily death count has matched the highest daily rate we ever saw in Iraq, there is no “antiwar” movement or daily casualty count in all the newspapers. It’s like the “antiwar” movement can be turned off and on like a switch, depending on which party is in the White House.

15 July 2009 >> Britain’s Daily Express reports:

Police will be ordered not to charge Muslim extremists in many hate crime cases — to stop them becoming more militant.

[...]

Examples of crimes to which a blind eye may be turned include incitement to religious hatred or viewing extremist material on the internet.

Last night critics warned that the move could mean Islamic radicals being give the freedom to encourage violence.

Some saw the move as a politically correct attempt to appease extremists who hate Britain.

It could even mean officers tolerating many activities of Muslim preachers of hate like the hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza.

Tory MP David Davies said: “This sounds like abject surrender. Everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law.

“It doesn’t matter whether someone is suspected of incitement to hatred or shoplifting — they should all face the same risk of prosecution.

“There should be no special favours or treatment for any section of the community.”

“Inciting religious hatred” and “viewing extremist material” are crimes? Sounds like the British are policing thought.

I think it’s dangerous for a society to punish thought and speech, no matter how despicable or unpopular.

But it is interesting that, while the British are ignoring the “crime” of “inciting religious hatred” among Muslims, they are enforcing a ban against American talk radio show host Michael Savage, who is not allowed to enter the country. Why? Because of his views and comments about radical Islam, which the British government says incite religious hatred.

So, if you live in Britain and follow a religious ideology whose adherents set off bombs around London, you can do all the hatred inciting you want. But if you caustically criticize the bombers and the people who inspired them, you might just find yourself banned for life.

“Thought crimes” are a bad idea. They’re even worse when they’re selectively applied.

14 July 2009 @ 9:11AM >> This weekend, while walking around NYC, I noticed a couple more propaganda posters put up by members of the Cult of Obama.

The first, “Siddhartha Obama,” is a large mural on the side of a building in Chelsea. It shows Obama as The Enlightened One holding solar panels, and features Dick Cheney popping out of a stars-and-stripes-painted Hummer and gas pumps bearing the Republican Party logo sitting atop coffins draped in American flags.

Whatever words you can use to describe these cult members, “subtle” is not one of them.

The second propaganda display was spotted inside the Blades board and skate store on Broadway near Great Jones. Adorned with pictures of Barack, Michelle and the campaign logo, it says simply, “Obey.”

“Siddhartha Obama” appears on a wall outside an art gallery, which is at least an understandable venue for over-the-top Obama worship; it’s almost a job requirement for artists that they be driven purely by emotion. The political naivete of assuming one politician will be Our Savior is the sort of thinking artists are almost expected to adopt.

But I find it strange that businesses keep attaching themselves to the Obama Cult, because in theory, they should want to minimize the number of customers they drive away with partisan propaganda.

And as Obama’s poll numbers continue to ease towards mediocrity, I suspect the use of religious-themed Obama imagery in corporate marketing will increasingly backfire.

Then again, in America today, as government takes over more and more companies and tightens regulatory control on the rest, customers matter less and less to companies.

“The customer is never wrong” is last century’s business maxim. Now, it’s “the government is never wrong.” So maybe companies are just making business calculations and deciding that it’s smart to make a public spectacle of their allegiance to Obama.

9 July 2009 @ 6:14PM >> USA Today reports:

Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year’s presidential election.

That aid—about $17 billion—is the first piece of the administration’s massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation.

“There’s no politics at work when it comes to spending for the recovery,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says.

Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college.

The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.

7 July 2009 >> Fredric U. Dicker—regarded as the pre-eminent political reporter in New York’s state capital—recently published a column decrying the complete breakdown of the state legislature, which has been unable to conduct business for the past month.

Buried way down in Dicker’s piece, starting at the 19th paragraph, we learn:

During the first five months of this year, with the Senate under the control of its first African-American majority leader, [State Senator Malcolm] Smith, top Democrats bemoaned the lack of minority Senate staffers.

But instead of trying to recruit new hires, they fired nearly 200 almost exclusively white workers and replaced them with a large number of minority employees, many of whom were seen by their fellow workers to be unskilled at their new jobs.

The move produced severe racial tensions, made worse by the fact that, as a high-level Democratic staffer confided, “We’ve been told to only hire minorities.'’

So, nearly 200 people lose their jobs in New York State because of their race? And not at the hands of some evil corporation, but our own elected officials?

It’s quite telling that, in our political age, mass firings can still happen because of one’s race. It’s even more telling that—the only time I’ve seen this story get any coverage at all—it was in the 19th paragraph of an otherwise unrelated column.

6 July 2009 @ 8:11AM >> Perhaps, with the celebration of our national independence fresh in our memories, it would be appropriate to take a look at the continued decline of the kingdom we rejected in 1776:

Civil servants have refused to name inmates who have fled prison even though individual police forces will often identify them if they pose a risk to the public.

They say releasing their names would breach obligations under the Data Protection Act.

It echoes a row in 2007 when Derbyshire Police refused to release pictures of two escaped murderers.

Yes, you read it right: in today’s Great Britain, authorities may not release pictures of escaped murderers, because doing so would violate those escaped murderers’ privacy rights.

29 June 2009 @ 8:41AM >> PC World reports on a significant development in the evolution of new media:

A tectonic shift has taken place for the digital age: ad rates for popular shows like The Simpsons and CSI are higher online than they are on prime-time TV. If a company wants to run ads alongside an episode of The Simpsons on Hulu or TV.com it will cost the advertiser about $60 per thousand viewers, according to Bloomberg. On prime-time TV that same ad will cost somewhere between $20 and $40 per thousand viewers.

Online viewers have to actively seek out the program they want to watch, so advertisers end up with a guaranteed audience for their commercial every time someone clicks play on Hulu or TV.com. Online programs also have an average of 37 seconds of commercials during an episode, while prime-time TV averages nine minutes of ads.

David Poltrack, chief research officer at New York-based CBS, cited a Neilsen discovery that fewer online ads means viewers are twice as likely to remember a commercial they’ve seen on Hulu than on television, Bloomberg reported.

Despite higher ad rates, online viewing is not about to save television from declining ad rates and viewerships, because online sites like Hulu and TV.com do not yet have wide enough audiences to replace television viewers. Consider that 17.6 million people crowded around TV sets on April 6 to watch this year’s NCAA basketball championship, while online viewing for the entire March Madness tournament leading up to the championship game came to only 7.52 million viewers. The online audience simply isn’t there yet.

Even though the audience is small, higher online ad rates for The Simpsons means the digital ceiling has been broken. In the future, as more people gravitate toward on-demand Internet viewing, it’s entirely possible sites like Hulu and TV.com might, just might, replace traditional television viewing.

It’s interesting to note that sites like Hulu and TV.com are becoming successful simply by dusting off an old format and making it more palatable for online audiences. Instead of loading up shows with commercials, just throw in a few ad spots here and there. Instead of running shows at a specific time, put them online for a limited run and let people enjoy them at their leisure.

Reviving an old format is exactly what Apple did with the iTunes Store, an another online success story. Instead of going for subscriptions or some other newly-thought-out pay format, Apple just did away with the physical store, while still selling people something they could take home — a digital file instead of a CD or LP. There are some who object to buying digital music, since some prefer the tactile feel of having an album with cover art and liner notes. The quality of sound you get from digital files versus a CD has also been pointed out as a drawback. But the success and widespread adoption of the iTunes Store shows that a large segment of people are happy with Apple’s digital retail model.

26 June 2009 @ 8:42AM >> On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Associated Press picked up a story about my alma mater, Bucknell University, and its latest attacks on free speech. The following afternoon, the school announced the resignation of current president Brian C. Mitchell.

Since its inception in 2001, the Bucknell University Conservatives Club (BUCC) has been repeatedly singled out for political censorship by school administrators. The latest media coverage focuses on two more instances of the university silencing the political speech of the BUCC’s student members.

(Full disclosure: Several years ago, as an invited guest of the BUCC, a Bucknell administrator threatened to have me arrested during a screening of Brainwashing 101, a precursor to my documentary Indoctrinate U. The school objected to my videotaping the event, even though I was granted permission by the event’s organizers, who routinely taped their own events. The school was aware that my screening might be disrupted by protesters; apparently, Bucknell didn’t want me getting that on tape.)

In one incident, the BUCC held an “affirmative action bake sale,” which was intended to both illustrate and criticize racial preferences. University administrator Gerald Commerford shut down the bake sale, saying it was discriminatory.

But if an affirmative action bake sale is discriminatory, it’s only because affirmative action itself is discriminatory. And given that the university implements affirmative action, it’s really quite Orwellian to claim that an affirmative action bake sale is any more discriminatory than what the school itself is doing.

The BUCC also protested President Obama’s stimulus plan by handing out “Obama bucks,” mock Monopoly money with the president’s face on it. Administrator Judith L. Mickanis struck a law-enforcement tone with the students, telling them, “you’re busted,” and grabbing one female student by the arm while demanding that the group stop their protest. The administrator claimed that the students were not allowed to hand out materials without prior approval, a standard that never seems to have been applied to any other student group.

The university attempted to justify this, saying that by giving out Obama bucks, the students were committing a transgression akin to “handing out Bibles.” (Perhaps it is obvious to Bucknell administrators—but not to me—why handing out Bibles poses such a grave threat that it would need to be stopped by the university.)

As the school’s excuses continued to evolve, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)—the free speech advocacy group that has been defending the students—concluded that Bucknell’s general counsel Wayne A. Bromfield is now resorting to flat-out lies to cover up the school’s speech suppression. Unfortunately for Bucknell, their tactics have been documented on video and audio, so FIRE’s claims are verifiable.

President Mitchell will keep his position for one more year, so he isn’t exactly being shoved out the door. Still, it is interesting timing that Mitchell announced his resignation the day after the story began to get traction in the national media. Bucknell’s public relations office has to know that announcing the resignation the day after all this bad press would cause at least some people to conclude that the two events were related. So was the timing intentional, intended to mollify Bucknell’s critics by making them think that swift action had been taken?

Considering the last few days have probably brought him plenty of Maalox moments, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mitchell felt a wave of relief as the send button was clicked on his resignation letter. Now he’ll be free to continue ignoring the controversy and running out the clock on his time at Bucknell.

With a lame duck president who broke his pledge to run a university that respects free speech, Bucknell’s administrators will likely feel free to continue their harassment of students who dare disobey the dogma of political correctness.

But today’s students are armed with video cameras and the Internet, so alumni can keep a close watch on Bucknell’s actions from afar. The school may not care what students think, but if there’s one thing you can count on, Bucknell wants us alumni to keep opening up our wallets.

After all, the school knows that a conservative’s money is just as green as anyone else’s.

Maybe Bucknell just needs a reminder.

25 June 2009 @ 8:50AM >> The mullahs in Iran have unleashed an even more brutal wave of violence against protesters opposing the recent questionable election. CNN reports:

Security forces wielding clubs and firing weapons beat back hundreds of would-be demonstrators who had flocked to a square in the capital on Wednesday to continue protests against an election they have denounced as fraudulent, witnesses told CNN.

[...]

They were among the more than half a dozen witnesses who told CNN that security forces outnumbering protesters used overwhelming force to crush a planned demonstration in Baharestan Square, in front of the parliament building. The witnesses said police charged against the demonstrators, striking them with batons, beating women and old men and firing weapons into the air in order to disperse them.

The melee extended beyond the square, according to one woman, who told CNN that she was traveling toward Baharestan with her friends as evening approached “to express our opposition to these killings these days and demanding freedom.

[...]

According to official figures, 17 people have been killed in clashes with government forces over the past 11 days. Anti-government demonstrators have taken to the streets in at least four cities outside Tehran.

But CNN has received unconfirmed reports of as many as 150 deaths related to the popular uprising. The government’s response to it appears to have hardened in recent days. CNN has received numerous accounts of night-time roundups by government forces of opposition activists and international journalists from their homes.

Some Tehran residents said they were too afraid to talk about the political crisis over the phone to anyone in the United States or Europe. Many protesters debated whether to venture into the streets.

“I am not going outside my house at all,” a 21-year-old college student from Tehran said. “The streets are too dangerous, and just so very busy with police. Ahhhh, when will our lives get back to normal?”

Worried the government was monitoring their phone conversations, some residents said the Internet was the best way to transmit information. However, the spotty connection made it difficult to rely on the Web.

“It’s beyond fear,” said a woman who arrived at a U.S. airport from Iran, but still did not want her name used for fear for her safety. “The situation is more like terror.”

[...]

Asked why the government has made it impossible for nearly all international journalists to report from Iran, [Iranian ambassador to Mexico] Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri accused the media of not accurately reporting events. “In Tehran, there were much bigger demonstrations in favor of the government that you didn’t report about,” he said.

Asked about the shooting of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan, whose death, captured on video, has become emblematic of the crackdown on protesters, he said, “It is not clear who killed whom.”

However, the malice of the Iranian regime is self-evident in their treatment of Neda Agha-Soltan’s surviving family, as The Guardian reports:

The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world.

Neda Soltan

Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.

“We just know that they [the family] were forced to leave their flat,” a neighbour said. The Guardian was unable to contact the family directly to confirm if they had been forced to leave.

The government is also accusing protesters of killing Soltan, describing her as a martyr of the Basij militia. Javan, a pro-government newspaper, has gone so far as to blame the recently expelled BBC correspondent, Jon Leyne, of hiring “thugs” to shoot her so he could make a documentary film.

Soltan was shot dead on Saturday evening near the scene of clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators, turning her into a symbol of the Iranian protest movement. Barack Obama spoke of the “searing image” of Soltan’s dying moments at his press conference yesterday.

Amid scenes of grief in the Soltan household with her father and mother screaming, neighbours not only from their building but from others in the area streamed out to protest at her death. But the police moved in quickly to quell any public displays of grief. They arrived as soon as they found out that a friend of Soltan had come to the family flat.

In accordance with Persian tradition, the family had put up a mourning announcement and attached a black banner to the building.

But the police took them down, refusing to allow the family to show any signs of mourning. The next day they were ordered to move out. Since then, neighbours have received suspicious calls warning them not to discuss her death with anyone and not to make any protest.

A tearful middle-aged woman who was an immediate neighbour said her family had not slept for days because of the oppressive presence of the Basij militia, out in force in the area harassing people since Soltan’s death.

The area in front of Soltan’s house was empty today. There was no sign of black cloths, banners or mourning. Secret police patrolled the street.

“We are trembling,” one neighbour said. “We are still afraid. We haven’t had a peaceful time in the last days, let alone her family. Nobody was allowed to console her family, they were alone, they were under arrest and their daughter was just killed. I can’t imagine how painful it was for them. Her friends came to console her family but the police didn’t let them in and forced them to disperse and arrested some of them. Neda’s family were not even given a quiet moment to grieve.”

Another man said many would have turned up to show their sympathy had it not been for the police.

“In Iran, when someone dies, neighbours visit the family and will not let them stay alone for weeks but Neda’s family was forced to be alone, otherwise the whole of Iran would gather here,” he said. “The government is terrible, they are even accusing pro-Mousavi people of killing Neda and have just written in their websites that Neda is a Basiji (government militia) martyr. That’s ridiculous - if that’s true why don’t they let her family hold any funeral or ceremonies? Since the election, you are not able to trust one word from the government.”

Given what’s going on in Iran, the Obama Administration is finally taking a harder line:

The Obama administration is seriously considering not extending invitations to Iranian diplomats for July 4 celebrations overseas, senior administration officials tell CNN.

No, that’s not a line from a news spoof in The Onion. It’s true: the only tangible action taken by the Obama Administration in response to the violence in Iran is to disinvite Iranian diplomats to Fourth of July barbecues.

After the Soviet Union expanded the Iron Curtain by invading Afghanistan in 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter showed his steely resolve... by not allowing American athletes to attend the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

Thirty years later, in response to the appalling oppression in Iran, President Obama shows his steely resolve by yanking some BBQ invites.

24 June 2009 @ 8:50AM >> The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world’s most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale.

Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections.

Instead, in confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts.

The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed.

The “monitoring center,” installed within the government’s telecom monopoly, was part of a larger contract with Iran that included mobile-phone networking technology, Mr. Roome said.

“If you sell networks, you also, intrinsically, sell the capability to intercept any communication that runs over them,” said Mr. Roome.

[...]

Human-rights groups have criticized the selling of such equipment to Iran and other regimes considered repressive, because it can be used to crack down on dissent, as evidenced in the Iran crisis. Asked about selling such equipment to a government like Iran’s, Mr. Roome of Nokia Siemens Networks said the company “does have a choice about whether to do business in any country. We believe providing people, wherever they are, with the ability to communicate is preferable to leaving them without the choice to be heard.”

23 June 2009 @ 8:23AM >> Blogger Shannon Love argues a point about media transparency and bias disclosure that I’ve been making for years:

Obama’s Federal Trade Commission have decided to regulate blogs based on the premise that undisclosed financial relationships between bloggers and businesses could lead bloggers to deceive their readers as to the value of products they blog about. [h/t Instapundit]

If we’re going to regulate speech based on inducements to bias why stop with mere financial relationships? I think we should require all media sources to reveal all possible sources of bias starting with the political affiliations of the publishers and reporters. After all, the media sells stories they advertise as accurate and objective. Shouldn’t consumers have ready access to the information they need to decide if those claims are true?

Politics is more important than money. If you buy a toaster based on a biased recommendation, you’re only out the cost of a toaster. If you vote based on a biased political recommendation, you could lose your freedom. If the government has both the duty and the ability to protect you against bias in product recommendations on blogs, why doesn’t it have the same duty and ability to protect you against biased reporting on political matters?

Political beliefs matter. Soldiers fight and die for their political beliefs, not their paltry pay. Our political beliefs are closely tied to our moral sense of right and wrong and our sense of the just order of society. Political beliefs influence us on an unconscious level. Political beliefs do, without doubt, bias people even more strongly than money does.

This Wednesday, ABC is turning an entire day of news programing over to the Democrats’ health care plan. Wouldn’t viewers alter their judgment of the accuracy and objectivity of ABC’s reporting on the subject if they knew that the ABC employees donated to Democrats 80 times as much as they did to Republicans? Certainly, I can’t help but note that if the circumstances were reversed, most people who see nothing wrong in ABC’s actions now would suddenly see ABC’s donations as profoundly undermining the integrity of ABC’s reporting.

I’m not arguing for the government to mandate such disclosure, merely that if the government is going to be in the business of forcing disclosures of some types of information—which is what the Obama Administration is pushing—why not be consistent and thorough about it?

(Of course, I think we already know the answer, considering the “80 times” figure cited above.)

22 June 2009 >> “The federal government is spending $423,500 to find out why men don’t like to wear condoms,” reports Fox News.

I’ll give the government a hint in language they can understand: the words no, stimulus and package could be used in a valid answer.

19 June 2009 @ 8:24AM >> Remember when passing the Obama Administration’s stimulus plan was vital to saving the republic? The administration made all sorts of projections intended to demonstrate the necessity of their plan.

Well, now we’ve got a few months of data, so we can see how their plans panned out.

This chart shows Obama’s unemployment projections without the stimulus (the light blue line) and with the stimulus (dark blue line). Actual unemployment figures are shown as red dots:

(Hat Tip: Innocent Bystanders.)

18 June 2009 @ 9:07AM >> The Washington Times reports on an appearance made by former President George W. Bush:

He lamented the politics of personal destruction that he said is rampant in Washington, noting, though, that it has always been thus. Recalling how a treasury secretary and a vice president once fought a duel, he joked: “At least when my vice president shot somebody, it was an accident.”

15 June 2009 @ 9:04AM >> London’s Telegraph reports:

For the second time in little over a year, it looks as though the world may be heading for a serious food crisis, thanks to our old friend “climate change”. In many parts of the world recently the weather has not been too brilliant for farmers. After a fearsomely cold winter, June brought heavy snowfall across large parts of western Canada and the northern states of the American Midwest. In Manitoba last week, it was -4°C. North Dakota had its first June snow for 60 years.

There was midsummer snow not just in Norway and the Cairngorms, but even in Saudi Arabia. At least in the southern hemisphere it is winter, but snowfalls in New Zealand and Australia have been abnormal. There have been frosts in Brazil, elsewhere in South America they have had prolonged droughts, while in China they have had to cope with abnormal rain and freak hailstorms, which in one province killed 20 people.

[...]

There are obviously various reasons for this concern as to whether the world can continue to feed itself, but one of them is undoubtedly the downturn in world temperatures, which has brought more cold and snow since 2007 than we have known for decades.

[...]

It is now more than 200 years since the great astronomer William Herschel observed a correlation between wheat prices and sunspots. When the latter were few in number, he noted, the climate turned colder and drier, crop yields fell and wheat prices rose. In the past two years, sunspot activity has dropped to its lowest point for a century. One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that [carbon dioxide] is causing global warming that most of them haven’t noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat.

It is appropriate that another contributory factor to the world’s food shortage should be the millions of acres of farmland now being switched from food crops to biofuels, to stop the world warming, Last year even the experts of the European Commission admitted that, to meet the EU’s biofuel targets, we will eventually need almost all the food-growing land in Europe. But that didn’t persuade them to change their policy.

13 June 2009 @ 4:34PM >> Received in an e-mail forward recently:

Sam, a U.S. Naval Officer, visits New York City for Fleet Week.

With the afternoon off, he decides to see the Bronx Zoo. Dressing in civilian clothes so as not to attract attention, he blends in well with the other tourists.

As Sam strolls by the lion’s cage, he notices a little girl leaning into the bars, grabbing towards the lion to try to pet it.

Suddenly, the lion snatches the girl by the cuff of her jacket and yanks her against the bars, trying to pull her inside. As the girl cries out in fear, her parents stand by helpless, screaming.

Sam runs to the cage and stuns the lion with a powerful punch square on the nose. The lion jumps back, whimpering, and lets go of the girl. Sam brings her to her terrified parents, who gush an endless stream of thanks.

“Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do in my whole life,” the girls’ father says.

“Why, it was nothing, really,” Sam replies. “The lion was behind bars. I just saw a little girl in danger and I acted.”

The girl’s father thanks Sam again and says, “I’m a journalist with the New York Times. I’ll make sure your heroics will be on the front page in tomorrow’s paper. So, give me a little background about yourself. What does a hero like you do for a living?”

“Well,” Sam says, “I’m in the Navy, and I’m visiting the city as part of Fleet Week.” He spends the next hour answering the reporter’s questions before they finally part ways.

The next morning, Sam wakes up and rushes out to buy a copy of the Times. The headline on the front page says:

“MILITARY THUG TORTURES AFRICAN IMMIGRANT — AND STEALS HIS LUNCH”

12 June 2009 @ 9:26AM >> My alma mater disappoints again:

Student rights are under assault at Bucknell University, where a conservative student group’s protests against affirmative action policies and President Obama’s stimulus plan have repeatedly been shut down or forbidden by administrators using flimsy or patently false excuses. After the Bucknell University Conservatives Club (BUCC) had three events censored in two months, the students turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help.

“Bucknell promises free speech, but it delivers selective censorship,” said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. “Bucknell administrators have gone out of their way to abuse and even invent policies in attempts to silence these students, all the while professing to respect free speech.”

Bucknell’s recent forays into censorship began on March 17, 2009, when BUCC members stood at Bucknell’s student center and passed out fake dollar bills with President Obama’s face on the front and the sentence “Obama’s stimulus plan makes your money as worthless as monopoly money” on the back. One hour into this symbolic protest, Bucknell administrator Judith L. Mickanis approached the students and told them that they were “busted,” that they were “soliciting” without prior approval, and that their activity was equivalent to handing out Bibles.

The students protested, but despite the fact that Bucknell’s solicitation policy explicitly covers only sales and fundraising materials, Mickanis insisted via e-mail that prior permission was needed to pass out any materials—”anything from Bibles to other matter.”

“Distributing protest literature is an American free-speech tradition that dates to before the founding of the United States,” said Adam Kissel, Director of FIRE’s Individual Rights Defense Program. “And why is Bucknell so afraid of students handing out ‘Bibles [or] other matter’ that might provide challenging perspectives? Colleges are supposed to be marketplaces of ideas, but Bucknell is betraying this ideal.”

Bucknell’s misguided crusade against free expression continued on April 7, when administrators shut down BUCC’s “affirmative action bake sale” protest. Affirmative action bake sales are a widely used form of satirical protest against affirmative action policies that treat people of different races differently. Organizers typically display suggested pricing in which African-American and Hispanic students are asked to pay lower prices than Asian and white students for the same items. The protests are thus intended to satirize and spark debate about affirmative action policies, not to raise revenue.

A video recording shows that an hour into BUCC’s protest, Associate Dean of Students Gerald W. Commerford arrived and informed the students that he had the “opportunity” to shut down the sale because the prices they were charging were different (lower) than what they had listed on their event application. The students offered to change the prices on the spot, but Commerford refused and insisted that they close the event immediately and file another application for a later date.

Accordingly, BUCC members filed an application to hold the same event two weeks later, but were then told that they would have to obtain the permission of the Dean of Students to hold a “controversial” event. No such permission is required by Bucknell policy. When the students nevertheless attempted to get this special permission, Commerford rejected the request. In a recorded conversation, Commerford said that such a bake sale would violate Bucknell’s nondiscrimination policy, even with satirical recommended (not actual) pricing, and that the only event he would approve on the topic would be a debate in a different forum altogether. This novel restriction also does not exist among Bucknell’s official policies.

What’s odd about Bucknell’s non-discrimination claim is that, by definition, affirmative action discriminates based on race. Bucknell clearly believes it is acceptable to discriminate sometimes, because they do it when deciding who to admit to the school.

So by Bucknell’s Orwellian logic, discrimination is not allowed unless they’re the ones doing it. Discrimination with real-world consequences (where you go to college, for example, or whether you get that job), that’s acceptable to Bucknell, but the tongue-in-cheek “discrimination” of an affirmative action bake sale (which is meant to mock real-world discrimination, not increase it)... well, we simply can’t have that!

The school’s latest assault on free speech prompted me to write an e-mail to Bucknell’s president. I copied the alumni office, the office of the general counsel, the affirmative action office, and Dean Gerald Commerford, who shut down the bake sale:

From: Evan Coyne Maloney
To: President Brian Mitchell
Subject: Concerned about the recent FIRE report on Bucknell
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:23:16 -0400
Cc: Dean Gerald W. Commerford, Bucknell Alumni Relations, General Counsel Wayne A. Bromfield, Affirmative Action Officer Linda L. Bennett

President Mitchell:

As a Bucknell alumnus deeply concerned about free speech issues at my alma mater, I was disturbed by this report issued earlier today by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:

http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10735.html

When you began your term, President Mitchell, you made some supportive statements on free speech and indicated that your administration would be more respectful of different views than previous Bucknell administrations.

Your seeming commitment to free speech put me and a number of other alumni at ease. That’s why I was disappointed to hear that the school may be backsliding on your promises.

Of course, so far, I have only heard the facts as laid out by FIRE. Do you have any comments on the FIRE report that would shed a little more light on this? I know I’m not the only alumnus who will want some answers.

We’ll be closely watching how the university responds to this. I’m hopeful that the university will reaffirm your previously-stated commitments to free speech and free thought.

Best regards,
Evan Coyne Maloney
Class of 1994

Although I haven’t heard back from Bucknell directly, several hours after my e-mail, one of the recipients—Bucknell’s general counsel Wayne A. Bromfield—issued a statement [PDF] changing the university’s original story. (FIRE has already poked holes in Bucknell’s latest story.)

Unfortunately, it is clear from Bromfield’s statement that Bucknell still has no plans to reverse their effective ban on free speech.

---

Full Disclosure: Before releasing Indoctrinate U, I visited Bucknell to screen my earlier film, Brainwashing 101. The group that invited me was same BUCC from the story above. With the group’s permission, I was taping the screening of Brainwashing 101 after I was tipped off that the event would be disrupted (fortunately, it wasn’t).

But because the school didn’t want any bad publicity if my screening was disrupted, instead of trying to prevent the threatened disruption, the head of security was sent to threaten me with arrest—in front of the entire audience, no less—if I continued filming the screening of my own film. (I continued filming anyway, and Bucknell’s threat turned out to be empty.)

11 June 2009 @ 8:15AM >> President Obama’s former “spiritual advisor” is making news again:

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright says he does not feel any regrets over his severed relationship with President Barack Obama, a former member of the Chicago church in which Wright was the longtime pastor.

[...]

Asked if he had spoken to the president, Wright said: “Them Jews aren’t going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office. ...

“They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ... I said from the beginning: He’s a politician; I’m a pastor. He’s got to do what politicians do.”

I have a hard time believing that the supposedly brilliant Barack Obama never figured out—after 20 years of listening to this guy—that he’s a loony bigot.

9 June 2009 @ 12:21PM >> I’m often coming across interesting links online that I don’t get a chance to include in Brain Terminal posts. Recently, I’ve begun using a Twitter account to broadcast these links, so you can benefit from my obsessive online reading.

But you don’t have to use Twitter to see these links. Brain Terminal pages now include a left-hand sidebar that lists the links I’ve posted to Twitter.

I’ve also updated the RSS feeds on the site to incorporate the Twitter links. There are now four RSS feeds available:

• The full Brain Terminal feed includes posts to the site and all links posted to Twitter
• The Brain Terminal posts-only feed, which contains only Brain Terminal posts, no Twitter links
• The full Twitter feed, which contains my Twitter posts, but no posts to Brain Terminal
• The Twitter links-only feed, which contains only the links I post to Twitter, no posts to Brain Terminal

If you want the full Brain Terminal experience and you use RSS to keep up with this site, I recommend subscribing to the full Brain Terminal feed.

3 June 2009 @ 8:49AM >> Joe Paladino of Lake Mary, Florida e-mailed in response to my piece on President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. And, no, the reason I’m posting this is not because of the first paragraph... I keep telling myself.

Joe writes:

First off, let me say that I love your site. There have been very few times were I seem to disagree with your posts. But what I like most is that you seem fair with the issues you write about and present all facts, then state your opinion. And still have time acknowledge the letters of those who disagree with you, even though there have been instances when they don’t seem worthy of anyone’s time. That is far more than I can expect from many other sources.

But for this most recent post, I have to express opinion. To most people, this nomination seems to clearly be a case of affirmative action. Understand that I’m certainly not doubting her qualifications, which may be sufficient. Of course that is to be decided during the Senate confirmation hearing. However, what infuriates me (and should disturb her as well) is that Sotomayor was only considered on the luck that she is female, and better yet, Hispanic. I believe it is safe to say that a majority of this country has no problem working and going to school with whoever desires to be there, so long as they deserve to be there. And by that I don’t mean because a college Dean or the President of the United States wants to even things out a bit.

This inforrmation you provide about her outrage while in college concerning the lack of hispanic students on campus is ridiculous. How is it anyone’s fault that only 66 Puerto Ricans applied to Princeton that year? Perhaps her time would have be better spent encouraging the potential students to consider Princeton as the college of choice. To support my argument I’m going to quote a great man who’s influence is still seen today though the messge is often passed over.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.—Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think it is safe to say that the way our colleges, and appearently supreme courts, are run is not exactly what Dr. King had in mind. It’s common sense that we should judge all people by their character. But it is absurd that in the year 2009 people still want racial equality, unless of course you are white. We already had our run.

But I don’t suppose I can blame her. It would take a extraordinary person turn down such an incredible opportunity and immense honor.

But a black man now holds the highest office in the land. While that certainly does not undo all of the racial oppression this country has seen, it does show that Americans are ready to move forward. Unfortunately, there are some who still think that things just aren’t fair yet.

2 June 2009 @ 8:34AM >> Another example of government regulation run amok:

A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold Bible studies in their home, 10News reported.

Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.

Broyles said, “The county asked, ‘Do you have a regular meeting in your home?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you say amen?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you pray?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you say praise the Lord?’ ‘Yes.’”

The county employee notified the couple that the small Bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of County regulations, according to Broyles.

Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed “unlawful use of land” and told them to “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit” — a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

[...]

Broyles also said this case has broader implications.

“If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly at home for poker night? What about people who meet for Tupperware parties? What about people who are meeting to watch baseball games on a regular basis and support the Chargers?” Broyles asked.

(Hat tip: Reason.)

1 June 2009 @ 7:41AM >> In the mid-1970s, Sonia Sotomayor—President Obama’s nominee for a seat on the Supreme Court—was a student at Princeton. Back then, when Sotomayor led a group called Acción Puertoricaño, she was an “outspoken activist” well-versed in the language of leftism and identity group grievance politics.

In a letter to the Daily Princetonian published 10 May 1974, she describes a complaint from “the Puerto Rican and Chicano students of Princeton”:

The facts of the complaint are these: 1) There is not one Puerto Rican or Chicano administrator or faculty member in the university; 2) There are two million Puerto Ricans in the United States and two and a half million more on the island itself. Yet there were only 66 Puerto Rican applicants this year, and only 31 Puerto Rican students on campus. While there are 12 million Chicanos in the United States, there were only 111 Chicano applicants and 27 students on campus this year; 3) Not one permanent course in this university now deals in any notable detail with the Puerto Rican or Chicano cultures.

Although she herself was a Puerto Rican student receiving a free ride on a full scholarship, Sotomayor concluded that a “lack of commitment on the part of the university to the Puerto Rican or Chicano heritage seems self-evident” and that it “reflect[s] the total absence of regard, concern and respect for an entire people and their culture.”

Hyperbole comes naturally to the college-aged, so I’m willing to believe that the Sotomayor of the Woodstock era is not the woman who sits on the court today because, as she might say, I would hope that an older Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a young Puerto Rican girl who hasn’t lived that life.

Legal blogger Tom Goldstein conducted a survey of her record on the court of appeals, where he says “Sotomayor has decided 96 race-related cases.” Sotomayor has been on the United States Court of Appeals since 1998, where she serves on panels of (typically) 3 judges that hear each case. Goldstein’s survey found:

Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous.

If that’s true and is reflective of her record being better than her rhetoric, then that’s a bit of a relief. And although there is at least one highly-controversial racial discrimination decision in the record Goldstein cites, the fact is, Republicans don’t have the political juice to oppose her anyway. So, barring Obama withdrawing her for some reason or a new fact emerging that moves enough Democrats to vote against her, Sotomayor will be confirmed.

Nevertheless, her seeming inevitability doesn’t mean that Sotomayor should get a pass for her rhetoric or her fierce support of affirmative action and racial preferences in hiring. Her philosophy on racial preferences and “social justice” should be questioned thoroughly during her Senate confirmation hearings.

Since Sotomayor endorses the idea that a judge’s ethnic background affects judicial decision-making, shouldn’t we know how her heritage has influenced her thinking in cases she’s judged? Could she point to specific cases where “being a Latina woman” lead her to a “better” decision than a “white male” would have made?

I don’t expect the Democratic majority to ask these questions, so Republicans should. That is the minimal duty of an opposition party. We’ll see if they have the stomach to do it.

31 May 2009 @ 5:18PM >> Slate’s Mickey Kaus looks at the the Obama Administration’s bailout of the United Auto Workers union and asks:

Why should the government tax unskilled workers making $18 an hour, who haven’t bankrupted their employers, in order to protect unskilled workers making $28 an hour, and who have bankrupted their employers, from having to take a pay cut?