STICKY: Blog has been suspended, probably discontinued

STICKY: In case you haven't noticed, I have abandoned this blog, having moved on to being a full-time commenter elseweb. Please do click on the links in the blogroll though, as those sites are still quite worth a visit. No greatest hits list, as most of my best bloggage was topical & is well past its sell-by date. You can follow me in the links on the sidebar, "Me on Disqus", etc. New posts may occasionally appear below. Thanks for a diverting ten years of blogging, internet!

I made the front page of Reddit today....

Congressional hearings from 1922 on the Armenian Genocide

Can be viewed in Google Books here.

The Armenian Genocide at 100--It Could Have Been Worse, If Not For America

The U.S. effort to save the Armenians, Near East Relief, deserves to be praised more prominently. The refugees were resettled around the Middle East, fed, clothed, housed, & given remoralizing work to do. It and Herbert Hoover's American Relief Administration, which conducted famine relief in the Soviet Union, were among the biggest humanitarian projects of that era. So much so that wits in Kiev said that ARA stood for "Amerike Ratevet Aleman"--"America Rescues Everyone".

NJ Teacher Defends Assignment To Write To Cop Killer

"Nothing has changed"

This seems to be the emerging line for contemporary racial affairs commentary. From reading Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic to Jeet Heer & co. in The New Republic, the time is forever 1963, and the past half century never happened. Like la Rochefoucauld says, "Philosophy triumphs over past and future evils, but present evils triumph over it." That's natural enough, as is the impulse to identify oneself with a time of heroes, as the early 60s Civil Rights movement surely was. But can it really be sound analysis to exclude the Great Society and its fallout, the successes and shortcomings of affirmative action, the rise and struggles of the black middle class, etc. entirely as though Black America had no agency at all? Nobody's asking anybody to forget anything; it is right, good and necessary that our past be openly considered, as the U.S. uniquely does among most nations. But a bill of narrowly circumscribed indictments --which is all that some universities seem to have taught the students who are now taking the helm of opinion journals--is not enough, isn't analysis or reflection at all. Tell the whole story, and consider all the facts!

#Equality

The Coptic Martyrs of Libya, 2015

From Patheos blog. May there be a God, may there be a heaven, and may they be received into it.

A scene from the Jihad

"I grew up in colonial Africa. And I remember in 1955,... [m]y father
took me down to the quayside in Dar-Es-Salaam harbor. And he pointed
out a dhow in the harbor and he said, "You see that dhow there? Twice
a year it comes down from Aden. It stops here and goes down [South].
On the way down it's got boxes of machinery and goods. On the way back
up it's got two or three little black boys on it. Now, those boys are
slaves. And the United Nations will not let me do anything about it."

"The conversation went on. "Look, boy. There is not going to be a World
War between Russia and the United. The next World War will be between
Islam and the West."

"This is 1955! I said to him, "Dad, you're nuts! The Crusades have been
over for hundreds of years!"

"And he said, "Well, I know, but militant Islam is on the rise again.
And you will see it in your lifetime."

"He's been dead some years now. But there's not a day that goes by that
I don't think of him and think, "God, I wish you were here, just so I
could tell you that you were right." "

-- John Rhys-Davies, interview, 2003

Coptic Martyrs (no gore)

"Radicals" and "Moderates"

Look at who is committing these jihadist attacks. They are quite radicalized. Look at who is complaining about "islamophobia" and "backlash", the split-second the jihadists commit another atrocity. They are quite peaceable and moderate, seemingly--but yet they will still brook no criticism of Islam from infidels. So these moderates transfer blame for the attacks, by tortured rhetoric, from the attackers to the victims, and injury from the victims to themselves. If you need examples just look at any given press release from CAIR.

How to Be Miserable in the Land of Opportunity: Scott Ott's 7 Secrets| S...

Remy: I Need a Hashtag!

Notable Tweets from the State Of The Union speech

I can't wait to be lectured about misogyny during Hillary's campaign by the same people now cursing Joni Ernst.

— Will Antonin (@Will_Antonin) January 21, 2015

THIS. RT @petersuderman: The State of the Union response job is basically the Kobayashi Maru of national politics.

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) January 21, 2015

Joni Ernst is showing me that my seat back is inflatable in an emergency.

— Brea Tremblay (@BreaTremblay) January 21, 2015

For a guy that was elected on “hope” by a public desperate for someone to bring us together, that display of petulance is despicable. #sotu

— Charlie Harper (@IcarusPundit) January 21, 2015

Pres. Obama said, "join me to make voting easier for all Americans... black, white, Hispanic, legal, illegal, alive and dead alike..." #SOTU

— Walter Cronkite (@CronkiteSays) January 21, 2015

"There's not a conservative America, a liberal America.....SHUT UP I WON TWICE"

— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizWFB) January 21, 2015

"The right 2 vote is 'sacred'" (as if anyone is kept from it.) but the right 2 to not have your vote negated by illegal aliens IS that right

— Evan Sayet (@EvanSayet) January 21, 2015

Obama gets it right: Even if we don't agree on abortion, we should all agree that it should be subsidized

— Salon (@Salondotcom) January 21, 2015

The guy who weaponized gov’t agencies to persecute people who didn’t like his health care is lecturing on kindness. #SOTU

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) January 21, 2015

Crumbling infrastructure, poor education, high energy costs: man, I hope Obama can save us from whoever's been in charge these last 6 years.

— Will Antonin (@Will_Antonin) January 21, 2015

1. ISIS beheads journalists 2. Obama does nothing in response 3. Obama claims ISIS isn't advancing 4. Journalists let him get away with it.

— Will Antonin (@Will_Antonin) January 21, 2015

Obama 30 mins ago: Look how our oil production has grown! Obama just now: Look at all this climate change!

— Kyle Wingfield AJC (@kwingfieldajc) January 21, 2015

Flash: Government that will be insolvent in 2025 has plan to change temperatures in 2075

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) January 21, 2015

“No foreign nation should be able to... invade the privacy of American families…" Because that’s NSA’s job dammit! #CatoSOTU

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) January 21, 2015

"When what you're doing doesn't work for fifty years, it's time to try something new!" - Obama not talking about War on Poverty #SOTU

— el Sooper ن (@SooperMexican) January 21, 2015

If Obama would get to the part of the speech about France and rip his shirt open to show a JE SUIS CHARLIE t-shirt I would forgive him a lot

— Blasphemous Hat (@Popehat) January 21, 2015

Antisemitism In Turkish Media, Government, Mosques Continues To Rise; Turkish Governor Announces: 'With Great Hatred In My Heart,' The Grand Synagogue Now Undergoing Restoration Will Not Reopen For Worship But 'Will Become Only A Museum, With No Exhibits In It'

Meanwhile, in Turkey, the campaign against that nation's Jews rachets up another ugly notch.  How appalling to have this evil spreading over the earth again!

Antisemitism In Turkish Media, Government, Mosques Continues To Rise; Turkish Governor Announces: 'With Great Hatred In My Heart,' The Grand Synagogue Now Undergoing Restoration Will Not Reopen For Worship But 'Will Become Only A Museum, With No Exhibits In It'

Christina Amanpour calls Charlie Hebdo terrorists "activists"

Dear God in Heaven, how do libs wrap their thoughts into these contortions?

Relations with Cuba to be normalized

Well, it's finally happening, for good or ill. It will be good for people to more freely meet their relatives, of course. Will a lifting of the embargo spread freedom in communist Cuba? I hope it turns out that way. It didn't in China, which figured out a way of providing material prosperity to its people, while keeping them firmly under boot. I hope one part of the deal normalizing relations is that forensic teams will be allowed to exhume the graves of the regime's victims. Probably need regime change for that, though.

Looks like the Sixties Left will get to have their youthful "idealism" validated after all. Hope Cuban communism's victims won't be forgotten by everyone else. El Jefe always had a gift for schmoozing First World entertainers and intellectuals. Now the Sixties Left and the generations they've indoctrinated in college can finally claim validation of their youthful "idealism". They've always excused or denied communist tyranny in Cuba by claiming that the U. S. backed right wing police states that were as bad. The difference of course is that the U.S.'s backing of right wing dictatorships during the Cold War was understood as grim realpolitik, rightly or wrongly. The Left's support of communist regimes was a positive love affair. When First World proggs begin sneering about how crass and commercialized Havana is becoming, we'll know that liberty and prosperity are finally coming to the Cuban people.

I do want to see who will be the first of the entertainment industry glitterati to fly down and congratulate Castro for outlasting the embargo, though. It'll be beyond rich if it's someone connected with Sony studios.

Glad Alan Gross and the unnamed intelligence officer are out of that hellhole, btw.

Scenes of shopping mayhem in Britain on Black Friday

"As always, the British especially shudder at the latest American vulgarity, and then they embrace it with enthusiasm two years later."
-- Alistair Cooke

Can YOU spot the murderer? - Eyewitness - BBC Two

This is probably also why the Ferguson eyewitnesses were contradicting one another.

Welcome back, Hoder!

Iran releases 'Blogfather' Hossein Derakhshan

A song made out of a comet.

Philae lands on comet...

Best tweets I've found on this historic event:

If the world were socialist, the solar system would have a shortage of comets. #Philae @Socialist_party

— Bruce Thompson (@BruceThompson51) November 12, 2014

Eagerly anticipating the moment #Philae hits, the comet explodes and a giant 'level compete' sign flashes on the Moon. #Rosetta

— theuglygame (@uglygame) November 12, 2014

I always thought we'd land on comets the day when Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois all got GOP governors.

— Razor (@hale_razor) November 12, 2014

I have hazy recollections of watching moon landings on b/w tv. I watched #Philae land on a comet on my phone. A PHONE #sheesh #mazin

— Eric Murray (@ericjmurray) November 12, 2014

1989 Year of Miracles

The years 1989-1991 were the most momentous historical years in Europe I had ever lived through.  I missed 1789, 1848 and 1917, but I'm humbled that I can say I witnessed & comprehended 1989--even if it was just on TV from Atlanta.

Quite a diverse election, this was...

A couple of milestones to note: A black Republican woman of Haitian heritage, Mia Love, was elected to Congress from Utah. A black Republican from South Carolina, Tim Scott, is the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction. And Republican Elise Stefanik, the new representative from New York's 21st Congressional district, is the youngest person ever elected to Congress.

And the only reason all three of these people, embodying diversity, youth and female power, are not going to be on the cover of this week's TIME magazine is because of the R after their names.

10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman

 This video resonated with me secondhand.  I'm a straight male, but sometimes when I'm walking downtown I'll seemingly set off a false alert on someone's gaydar.  It doesn't happen often, but it makes me uncomfortable enough that I can sympathize with Ms. Roberts in the video.  

On the other hand, for perspective, let her try her walk through a haredi Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem, and she might get stones thrown at her.  Let her try it in Khandahar, and she might get acid splashed in her face.  So, while I acknowledge that this street harassment is very annoying and unwelcome, it is also very much a First World Problem.

RIP to Cream bassist Jack Bruce

So long to one third of the greatest British trios in rock history.  Over the years Eric Clapton permitted the idea to build that he was the whole show.  But although Jack Bruce did not have anything like the solo success that Clapton did, it was Bruce's adventurousness that made Cream more than just a loud blues revival band.  "Onstage Cream was a jazz band," he once said. "We just didn't tell Eric."
RIP.

Andrew Klavan: Europe is for Real

FEAR OF EBOLA

So why don't Millennials "Rock The Vote"?

Maybe they don't vote because they think the system is broken. No one has informed them that our institutions are designed to clang against each other, to keep one from running away with the whole country. Perhaps they hold the widely held and perfectly understandable misapprehension that the purpose of American politics to sweep the bad guys out and bring the good guys in, rather than transfer authority from one set of imperfect leaders to another. Add to that the relentless cynicism and calumnies they are fed by 1960s radicals in college, and elections must seem like quite a turnoff to them indeed.

But they are undeniably smart folks, and they will live and learn. They will see that when Democrats have things all their own way, they run Detroit and California into the ditch. They will see that when Republicans have things all their own way, they run Kansas into the ditch. The Millennials will draw the appropriate conclusions, once they are finished with the usual adolescent outrage at the world's tardiness in remaking itself to their liking. The country will be in good hands.

Laughing at the new Inquisition

Oldest known Jewish items in the news...

How about this:

World’s ‘oldest known siddur’ [prayer book] unveiled in Jerusalem

One of Oldest Known Synagogues Seized by ISIS in Syria

Liberal Logic from Twitter

Some of my favorite recent Liberal Logic pictures from Twitter...

RT @WagaMuffin1: @sadiehawke1108 @oceanbcake the real #waronwomen pic.twitter.com/aIA4fuw9i0 #LiberalLogic #feminism

— Bruce Thompson (@BruceThompson51) August 31, 2014

#LiberalLogic #NOBAMA pic.twitter.com/AO2FjqhQPO

— Polyticks (@p0lyticks) September 14, 2014

#LiberalLogic pic.twitter.com/Qky8DtRLqa

— Young Conservatives (@YoungCons) September 13, 2014

#LiberalLogic in a nutshell. pic.twitter.com/UrddLwIrGS

— Bow Ties & Politics (@BowTie_Politics) September 4, 2014

Makes as much sense as #gunfreezones #liberallogic @HarleyandGuns: @atomiktiger This should help. pic.twitter.com/aCR6qRef8A

— Sassyfrass (@SassafrassSass) September 14, 2014

#LiberalLogic #WarOnWomen pic.twitter.com/ALoHlGnoV0

— God's Not Dead (@Ar15Fight) September 10, 2014

Hurrah for the Industrial Revolution....!

Over at The Atlantic, there's an article decrying "progress". Is 'Progress' Good for Humanity? So many of these types of articles just assume that the writer would still occupy his privileged position, whether or not all this whirl of progress was present to annoy him. But if not for the Industrial Revolution, and the general civilizational uplift it spurred, hardly one person in a hundred reading that article would be alive today.

I regret that I cannot do my duty as a true modern, by cursing everybody who made me whatever I am. ~ G. K. Chesterton

Moderate Islam: A MYTH! (Featuring Dana Loesch)

The Reformation of Manners

Go read Mark Steyn, now, on the horror in Rotherham: The Reformation of Manners
And have a vocabulary word: "immiscible".  Example: "The free, democratic, civilized West and Islam are immiscible."