Want to guess who Bill Clinton is voting for? Read this:
‘Governor Romney’s argument is, we’re not fixed, so fire him and put me in,’ said Clinton. ‘It is true we’re not fixed. When President Obama looked into the eyes of that man who said in the debate, I had so much hope four years ago and I don’t now, I thought he was going to cry. Because he knows that it’s not fixed.’
Not only is it [ie the economy] not “fixed”, it’s getting worse.
Rowan Atkinson, the genius behind Mr Bean and Black Adder in an article in the UK’s Daily Mail:
Rowan Atkinson is demanding a change in the law to halt the ‘creeping culture of censoriousness’ which has seen the arrest of a Christian preacher, a critic of Scientology and even a student making a joke.
The Blackadder and Mr Bean star criticised the ‘new intolerance’ behind controversial legislation which outlaws ‘insulting words and behaviour’.
Launching a fight for part of the Public Order Act to be repealed, he said it was having a ‘chilling effect on free expression and free protest’.
He went on: ‘The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult.’
Oh how we know it here. And how right he is.
As I noted yesterday, the AFR ran a number of articles on misogyny particularly one by Susan Sheridan. It seems that piece must have been a step too far. Here is an editorial that says much the same as I did although not quite in the same sort of way. And I must say I am happy to find that there still is a step that is too far.
Dr Sheridan, an adjunct professor in English and women’s studies at Flinders University, argues that Mr Abbott is a misogynist because he inhabits and reflects a culture “with a long tradition of hatred and fear of women”. She claims even women who do not consciously resist our modern society’s long tradition of sexism may speak and act in ways that are misogynist. This type of feminist fundamentalism bears similarities to other fundamentalist ideologies including Marxism, green environmentalism and religious fanaticism, all of which draw on notions of oppression and hierarchical power structures that jar with the reality of our modern pluralist culture.
Dr Sheridan’s suggestion that even women can unconsciously act and speak in a misogynist manner harks back to the Marxist idea of “false consciousness”, whereby even the consuming middle classes don’t understand they are being oppressed. The proletariat may have been “oppressed” in the early industrial revolution that prompted Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to publish The Communist Manifesto in 1848. Rather than revolting, however, the working class has long ago mostly morphed into a prosperous middle class that itself increasingly owns the means of production. As Paul Keating notes, Labor has failed to embrace the aspirational class that its own economic reforms encouraged in the 1980s.
Already yesterday’s news. From CNN:
Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafism, a 21-year-old man, has been arrested on suspicion of planning to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, federal officials said. Authorities say he attempted to detonate what he believed was a 1,000-pound bomb.
Man attempts to blow up the Federal Reserve in the US, pushes the detonator but finds that the bomb is a dud because the people he had contacted for assistance were from the FBI. The intent was there, just as it was in Bali a decade ago, but because of Homeland Security in the US, the bomb did not go off and hundreds of people were not killed in an explosion. So as I asked yesterday:
Will this story be major or even be reported anywhere else?
My guess was that it would not be a big story. And this morning, there is nothing I can find in any of the local papers I read, and if it’s there, it’s a small story which I may have overlooked. Yesterday I also noted this:
Just checked out The New York Times Online edition. For New York, it is not only an international story of quite some significance, it is not only a national story of quite some significance, but it is even a local story of quite immense significance. And true to form, there it is on its online edition, right underneath this:
Painkiller Crackdown Targets Drug Distributors
That was at 4:15 am in New York. And after that, at 9:00 am US east coast time, to go with the above, I checked out the online pages of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The LA Times and USA Today. Not one mention other than in USA Today as about the tenth item on the list of stories covered.
Again I ask, why do you suppose that is? Because it’s not good for Obama is the reason that I gave yesterday but there must be more to it than that.
Reading the Australian Feminist Review (AFR for short) and there are four – count them – four articles on misogyny. To me it seems to reveal a certain state of mind. The dread dangers of misogyny are being displayed across the paper:
on page 2: “MacMisogyny with fries” by Jennifer Hewitt;
on page 3: “Defining moment in war of words” by Gemma Daley;
on page 67 “Rural blokes lap up Julia’s bit of biffo” by former Labor Senator John Black;
and the pièce de résistance, on page 66 “The ugliness of misogyny” by Susan Sheridan.
The killer quote from Ms Sheridan, taken from Germaine Greer, is this:
Women have very little idea how much men hate them.
No man I have ever known has expressed nor shown a hatred of women, not ever. But in discussing over the past week this business about misogyny with quite a number of women of my acquaintance, the amazing part is that what is much closer to reality is this:
Men have very little idea how much women hate them.
Sheridan equates misogyny with racism – “the parallel with racism is clear” – and calls Tony Abbott a misogynist, in her eyes a completely damning characterisation. And why is he so? Because all men are equally guilty of this same crime:
Because he inhabits a culture with a long tradition of hatred and fear of women – and he reflects that culture. He mirrors it, as Prime Minister Julia Gillard so rightly said.
Of course, the parallel with racism is complete nonsense. Men and women live together, raise children together and have daughters for whom their fathers want to ensure the finest possible outcomes that they can assist in bringing about. Not much of a parallel with Nazis and Jews, is it?
My thanks to the AFR for bringing these views to our attention.
How behind the times our PM is: Just found this from The Daily Express Online. The title is “Feminism is over . . . say women”. Here is the most interesting passage especially given Ms Sheridan’s views:
FEMINISM in the modern world is viewed as outdated and aggressive and is being shunned by women, research has found. . . .
They believe single mother turned multi-millionaire author JK Rowling is a better example of a strong independent role model than feminist icon Germaine Greer.
In fact, almost a third (28 per cent) of British women describe the radical feminism of Ms Greer as ‘too aggressive’ towards men and a quarter no longer view it as a positive label for women.
Rotten Tomatoes has it at an unheard of zero percent from its list of critics. Audiences give it a 65% which given the biases of the normal movie going public (say 30% ALP, 5% Green and the rest rational) means for those of our persuasion, a movie not to be missed. You only must hope that some money making capitalist dog distributor will actually bring it over. Never did see Part I. Must get a DVD player.
Thanks to Gab for bringing it up in the open thread.
Is this the kind of story that now ends up as an Odd Spot or as part of Also in the News? From CNN:
Editor’s note: Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafism, a 21-year-old man, has been arrested on suspicion of planning to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, federal officials said. Authorities say he attempted to detonate what he believed was a 1,000-pound bomb. This story is developing.
Will this story be major or even be reported anywhere else? The story doesn’t mention whether the alleged bomber is an Austrian economist but I will try to find out.
I’m advised in the comments: that it’s a big story. Good and it should be. Now we only need to find out if the alleged bomber was of the Austrian economic persuasion. Do the stories mention what his motivation was in trying to blow up the New York Fed?
Just checked out The New York Times Online edition: For New York, it is not only an international story of quite some significance, it is not only a national story of quite some significance, but it is even a local story of quite immense significance. And true to form, there it is on its online edition, right underneath this:
Painkiller Crackdown Targets Drug Distributors
Why do you suppose that is? Can’t be good for Obama is all I can think of.
This is from The Washington Post this morning:
Who won the debate?
Mitt Romney 53%
Barack Obama 47%
49343 people have taken this poll.
That is, it comes from readers of The Washington Post which should tell you something. It comes at the end of an article by Jennifer Rubin who discusses the remarkable three-way exchange over Benghazi. The question had come from Kerry Ladka and this is at the centre of Rubin’s article:
Was Ladka satisfied with how the president responded? Simply no. ‘I really didn’t think he totally answered the question satisfactorily as far as I was concerned,’ Ladka tells the Erik Wemple Blog.
But don’t you know. That’s why the media moderator intervened to help the helpless Obama out.
Update on The Washington Post Poll:
Who won the debate?
Mitt Romney 57%
Barack Obama 43%
60412 people have taken this poll.
Sally Zelikovsky at The American Thinker had the same reaction to the two minute set up from the Obama-Crowley exchange. If media impartiality were even a remote factor in today’s world, this would be a major storm.
Obama finished his 2+ minute answer to the initial question with ‘You know that I mean what I say.’
Romney then gave his 2+ minute response starting out saying many days passed before we knew if the Benghazi tragedy was a terror attack or resulted from a spontaneous demonstration. He asserted that we KNOW it was a terror attack but took a long time before the American People were told that and it was either misleading or they didn’t know and, if the latter, we have to ask why. So far so good.
Romney then continued that after 5 days, the Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice went on TV and said the attack was because of the spontaneous demonstrations. Romney asked again: ‘How could we not know?’He then recited how on the day following the death of Ambassador Stevens (which is the first time this has happened since 1979) when ‘apparently’ we didn’t know what happened, the President went to Vegas and the following day to Colorado for campaign events–which actions have symbolic and possibly material significance. He pointed out it was clear this was not a demonstration and called into question the President’s Middle East policy. Romney then used this opportunity to go into some detail about Obama’s failed Middle East policy.
Candy Crowley then asked the President about the buck stopping at his desk and he launched into his tirade about being offended by Romney calling him out the Sunday morning after the murders and said ‘The day after, I stood in the Rose Garden and told people this was an act of terror.’
Bam! For a lawyer — any lawyer–even one who never practiced like Romney — this is the stuff movies are made of. This is the kind of admission we are always sniffing out and Obama, a lawyer himself who was obviously trying his hand at Clintonian hair splitting, offered it up knowing full well that’s not what he said. And he got Candy to go along with him. Bad Candy.
But before the pundits continue to beat up on Romney for lost opportunities and a flubbed answer, Romney pounded Obama on his Rose Garden claims. With deadly seriousness he looked at Obama and said ‘I think it’s interesting the President just said something which is that on the day after the attack, he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.”‘
Obama interjected: ‘That’s what I said.’ Bam!
Romney continued: ‘You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror; it was not a spontaneous demonstration. Is that what you are saying?’
Obama haughtily invited Romney: ‘Please proceed Governor.’ Bam!
Romney responded: ‘I wanna make sure we get that for the record because it took him 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.’ Bam!
At which point Obama called for Candy to ‘Get the transcript’ and she came to his rescue ruling that Obama did say it was an act of terror–applause–and that Romney was also correct that it took 14 days for clarification–applause.
Romney, with a bit of stuttering, says: ‘The administration indicated that this was a reaction to a video and was a spontaneous reaction….It took them a long time to say this was a terrrorist act by a terrorist group….On Sunday…the Ambassador to the United Nations went on the Sunday television shows and spoke about how this was a spontaneous reaction.” Bam! Bam!
Obama–desperately wanting to change the subject–announced ‘I’m happy to have a longer conversation about foreign policy….’ as Candy tells them that she wants to move on. And the President concedes ‘Ok, I’m happy to do that, too…. I just wanna make sure all these wonderful folks are gonna have a chance to get some of their questions answered.’
And now we run the tape. And note this when you watch. When Obama says, “get the trasncript” Crowley the moderator, actually seemed to have the transcript in her hand because she pulls a bundle of papers out which she is holding just as she declares that “he did indeed call it an act of terror” (1:30 in the video). A setup?
The moderator in the second presidential debate, Candy Crowley, did everything she could to skew the result towards the president but the most despicable moment was when Romney and the President were going at each other over whether Obama had understood that the murder of the American ambassador in Benghazi was part of a premeditated terrorist attack. One hardly had to have been paying attention to the news to know that for many days (two weeks apparently) the White House had insisted that it had all been in response to a video that had been put up on Youtube. Now everyone knows this is absolutely not the case (although the video’s producer does remain in jail), but this is only because the actual facts had become impossible to hide. The dearest wish of President Obama was that everyone would forget about his massive incompetence and outright lies and deceit.
The most dramatic moment in the debate was therefore when Romney was making the point that Obama had refused to call the attack terrorism for two weeks and Obama said that he had. Into this exchange, Crowley inserted her CNN-far-left-media-Democrat-ignoramus two cents worth to say in front of millions that yes, Obama had indeed called it a terrorist attack. Now, however, in front of the paltry few thousands that watch CNN she admits she was wrong. Watch the tape:
“Picked the wrong word!” Who did she think she was and what kind of an adult name is Candy anyway? Nor was that the only way in which she defended Obama. She cut Romney off on a couple of occasions which she never did for Obama and gave the president four extra minutes which is quite significant over a mere 90.
It was disgusting but nothing new. But a day of reckoning is coming and if Romney wins as he should, that day of reckoning will be not very far off in coming.
Law of Markets 