Mazurland Blog

A Week of Shockers

Coming off the heels of the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts, another HUGE revelation in the world of politics has just come about:  John Edwards admits he is the father of Rielle Hunter's love child!

Oh wait, what's the opposite of "shocking"?  Yeah, I meant "to the surprise of absolutely no one except the MSM".  My bad.

I have nothing else to add except to strongly exhort readers to engage in more open mocking, hijinks, and tomfoolery in the comments, preferably at ex-Senator Edwards' expense.

Update:  Jim Geraghty makes the case I was too lazy to.

The Time For Gloating Is Now

As most of the readers here already know, Scott Brown won the Chappaquiddick Chair-for-Life in Massachusetts in what has to be the most stunning turn-around/upset in living memory.  The conservative base should be proud of itself.  I'm sure more level-headed individuals will talk about how now is not the time to get a big head, or say mean things to poor widdle wiberals, or what-have-you.  But I disagree.  As my title indicates, now is the time to gloat.  This is such an absurd and once-in-a-lifetime situation to be in (indeed, if such electoral successes are repeated elsewhere -- say, California -- they will be the result of last night's victory, not a stand-alone phenomenon) that it would be a waste NOT to rub it in the face of your nearest and dearest Obamaphile. 

So to celebrate, I hereby dedicate this thread to the open mocking of Democrats by predicting both serious and completely unserious reactions/outcomes from last night's victory.  I'll get things started:

Serious:  In response to people showing up to work wearing the color brown, Keith Olbermann will replace "teabaggers" with "Brown Shirts" as his favorite epithet

Only-half-serious:  Democrats will start spinning Brown's victory as "Republicans voting in a pretty face"

Completely unserious:  Andrew Sullivan (and his favorably quoted readers).

Also, some bonus observations, in no particular order:

• This completely repudiates the notion that Obama's election was anything other than a desire for "the other".  It was not a "mandate for change", it was not a public outcry for a leftward lurch; it was nothing of the sort.  It was wishful thinking and he's-not-Bush.
• The Left worked very hard to portray Brown, and indeed, the entire "Tea Party" movement which was partially responsible for Brown's ascent, as extremist, fringe, and dangerous. So I suppose, then, that 52% of the residents of Massachusetts are dangerous extremists, including the 20% of registered Democrats that voted for Brown.  Including the union workers, soccer moms, and other schmoes who voted for him. 
• I keep hearing that the Dem spin is that "local issues" were in play.  Really?  So Obama himself had to step in because the local issues were getting out of hand?  The people of Mass. were rebelling against decades of liberal rule because of local issues?  The entire country was focused on the election because of LOCAL ISSUES?  That dog won't hunt.
• I suspect many moderate Democrats whose terms expire in the next 0-2 years are  breathing a huge sigh of relief.  With a filibuster-proof majority, even they were being railroaded by the Dem machine to get the wildly unpopular healthcare legislation passed, and they knew that meant curtains for them with their constituents.  With a 41st filibuster vote that will likely stall or outright kill healthcare "reform", they now have their bases covered:  a) if healthcare somehow becomes popular in their constituencies again, they can blame Brown and those dastardly Rethuglicans for blocking it; b) if it remains unpopular and the Tea Party momentum grows, they can safely vote against it without taking heat from the Party Leaders for being the "killing vote". 
• It wasn't just a clever campaign by Brown and a piss-poor campaign by Coakley that won the day, but Praise the Lord for their respective managers anyhow.  
• Speaking of their campaigns, how can any Democrat claim any moral high ground any more?  The Brown campaign was singular in almost all of recent politics in that it was upbeat and issues-focused, while the Coakley campaign was relentlessly negative.  I'm sure the Brown camp will let bygones be bygones, but I would really like to see them pursue some litigation over some of the more outrageous slander/libel against him (the "rape mailer" comes to mind).

That is all.

New Life To Old Bones

Or just a death rattle one year too late?  I report, you decide. 

Where the Problem Lies

Over at Phi Beta Cons, note is made on the passing of "prominent feminist theologian" Mary Daly, who apparently:

left [Boston College] after a male student threatened suit when he was denied a place in her class on feminist ethics. She had long limited enrollment in some advanced women’s studies classes to women only, maintaining that the presence of men there would inhibit frank discussion.

Of course, my gut reaction to this was to be outraged at the exclusion of men from her class.  And, indeed, her Wikipedia entry makes it clear that she was the very archetype of a "feminazi", with this hilarious-if-it-weren't-true little tidbit:

She created a dualistic thought-praxis that separates the world into the world of false images that create oppression and the world of communion in true being. She labeled these two areas Foreground and Background respectively.  Daly considered the Foreground the realm of patriarchy and the Background the realm of Woman...  

...In her view, the Foreground creates a world of poisons that contaminate natural life. She called the male-centered world of the Foreground necrophilic, hating all living things. In contrast, she conceived of the Background as a place where all living things connect.

So, yeah, bat-shit crazy, if you'll pardon my patriarchal French. 

Anywho, I thought about it a bit more, and came to the conclusion that, only in so far as it applied to her opinion about the teaching environment, I actually agree with her.  As a product of an all-male high school, I can attest to the fact that gender segregation is actually a great thing when it comes to fostering a better environment for learning.  And in a class (in a BS major though it may be, and I don't mean Bachelor of Science) with such potential to polarize the sexes and cause a hostile environment, you can't fault her logic. 

The problem, of course, lies in that hobgoblin of small minds, consistency.  Would she condone this sort of segregation in any major?  Or just gender "studies"?  Would she even support a "Men Studies" program aimed at teaching men about... men (which I misogynistically argue would never exist because we men are fully assured that we can know ourselves without a college degree)?  If it could be shown that men learn, say, mathematics in a completely different manner than women, should it be okay for a Mathematics Professor to exclude women from his class because his teaching style is geared toward men?  (As it happens, I think it should be). 

A secondary, and subtler, problem with this situation was the outcome:  she was sued by two male students who were represented by the Center for Individual Rights, labeled by that infallible source of wisdom Wikipedia as a "conservative or libertarian" group.  The ultimate outcome appears to be that she chose to retire rather than accept any judicially-enforce gender integration of her classroom.  While I mean to cast no aspersions toward the group responsible for this lawsuit, it is indicative of a "me too" politicking that I have no taste for, and that I think is destructive to the integrity of the conservative cause.  Do we (as conservatives) think it's a good idea for federally-enforced coeducational classrooms?  Yes or no?  Should private institutions have the liberty to separate classrooms along those lines?  If we believe this is the case (as I unapologetically do), we shouldn't pursue court cases to enforce the letter of the law, even when the law is on our side, and the (short-term) outcome is apparently favorable to our causes. 

One could argue that pursuing this case holds the "other side" accountable, and this is true.  Additionally, it can aptly demonstrate the flaws in their agenda.  But I challenge Mazurland readers to point to a situation where conservatives turned the tables on a liberal piece of policy with the ultimate result that the law was changed in a way favorable to a conservative worldview.  It certainly wasn't in this case. 

All The News That Fits In Print

By now, I'm sure all of you are aware of the shooting at Fort Hood.  As of right now, 8:00 a.m. on the day after the shooting, the "facts" seem to be:  a single shooter, Major Malik Nadal Hasan, an Muslim army psychiatrist, has shot and killed 12 people, wounded dozens more, and is presently alive and in custody.  Are those facts completely accurate?  Well, follow the chain of events, much of which I am piecing together from memory:

1) Shooting reported with no information
2) Army (or possibly law enforcement) spokesflacks swiftly announce that there is no connection to terrorism
3) Number of dead reported at 7 people with roughly a dozen wounded
4) Reports that one shooter is dead with one more in custody
5) Reports that one shooter is dead with (at least) two more in custody
6) Reports of second shooting in a movie theater
7) Non-Fox MSM swiftly unifies around PC-friendly PTSD diagnosis, apropos of nothing
8) Number of dead rises to 12
9) Dead shooter ID'ed as Maj. Hasan.
10) Maj. Hasan ID'ed as a Muslim.
11) Maj. Hasan ID'ed as a Muslim convert.
12) Maj. Hasan reported to have sympathized with Islamic terrorists, resented pending Iraq (Afghanistan?) deployment, cheered on bombings (so much for PTSD and no connection to terrorism!)
13) Number of dead revised to 13
<I went to sleep at this point, but by morning:>
14) Ft. Hood commanding General announces that Maj. Hasan is alive and in custody, and was the only shooter
15) Maj. Hasan comes from a family of life-long Muslims, and is not a convert
16) Number of dead re-revised to 12
17) 13th victim dies of wounds

So there we are, so far.  Still no definite motive, although now that he's in custody I expect we'll get one soon, depending on how much the government wants to keep under wraps (I don't have particularly high hopes there).  I think several lessons are borne out here:

1) The media (all of it, sorry, not just the MSM) absolutely sucks at its job in a time of major crisis.  Has this always been the case?  I don't know.  Maybe there was a "golden age" where it didn't suck so much, and now they've lost their edge.  This is not to say that anyone else could do it better -- I think it's fair to say that if anyone could do it, it should be the news media (both new and old).  But considering the "facts" that were let fly so quickly, as outlined above, it's frightening how little confirmation of anything was done, and how much speculation, rumor, or misinformation was reported as "emerging fact".  The Punditry, on both sides of the fence, were all to quick to believe the reports from the very Media (MSM on the right, Fox on the left) they deride, as well.  The real lesson here is:  don't believe one red cent that anyone reports as objective fact until well after the smoke has cleared.

2) It's not like most of us who spend time around these parts didn't know this already, but:  the MSM will carry water for Islamic Extremism until the sun burns out.  It always seems like the immediate reaction is "THERE IS NO CONNECTION WITH ISLAMIC TERRORISM", regardless of the amount of information available.  And yes, such a statement, in the complete absence of information, might be technically true (well, vacuously true), it is also true to say "there is no reason to believe the incident is not connected with Islamic terrorism".  It is particularly laughable that the MSM jumped on the PTSD diagnosis at a time when it was thought that there were up to three shooters -- has "group PTSD" ever been an observed malady?  Anywho, apart from the punditry at NRO and other places, even after the (supposedly dead) shooter's name was revealed, I still failed to hear any connections to Islamic terrorism, which is astounding.  How could he have PTSD if he hadn't even been in combat yet?  So far his entire military experience was apparently a string of government-funded medical training fellowships! 

Particularly considering that the "suspect" is still alive, I will be very interested in seeing how things unfold.  Expect the media to paint Maj. Hasan as a victim, and for Pres. Bush to somehow take the blame.  Because Obama, of course, has already ended all wars and made the Ummah love us.  Assuming the reports of Maj. Hasan's "cheering on" of US troop deaths and justification of Islamic extremism bear out, I will be paying close attention to any policy changes the US Military makes to Muslims in its own ranks -- failing to censure (or outright court martial) an officer who cheers on the enemy seems like a pretty big deal to me.

HOLY SHUCKING FIT

So... didja hear that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize?  What, are they giving those things away at the  bottom of Cracker Jacks boxes now?  Has the last two years of American politics been some surreptitious reality show, the "game" in which is to destroy one's own country, and the ultimate prize of which is a Nobel Freaking Prize?  Seriously, did I miss something?  The seething hordes still hate us.  The Chinese are less warm at us today than ever.  We're not exactly #1BFFs with the Islamosphere.  Oh, and that whole globaleconomicmeltdownmumblemumble.  So far, the only tangible difference Obama has wrought in the world is that he has put us (let's hope not inexorably) on the path to being just a little more like everyone else in the world.  And for THAT he gets the Nobel Prize?  Slap my ass and call me Suzie!  I could have just instructed my children to stop bathing, and I would have accomplished much the same thing, at least in spirit! 

I suppose the jig should have been up when Carter and Arafat won.  At this point, one would think, the Nobel Peace Prize ought to be considered as much a joke as the Pulitzer.  And in the right circles, sure, it is.  But seriously, Norway, double-yew-tee-eff?

A Nice Segue Into the Weekend

If this doesn't put a smile on your face, yer a hopeless, soulless Yankee bastid:

HT: a certain fascist website administrator whose site I refuse to link anymore

It's Still Not News, It's CNN

So Obama's mouthpieces (in this case, Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner) have been making noise about how tax increases for the middle class, specifically rule out by Campaign Obama™, might be entirely on the table for President Obama.  And how does CNN break this less-than-flattering news regarding its Anointed One?  By comparing it to the dastardly deeds of an awful Republican rather than letting it stand on its own.  That's right:  rather than just coming out and telling the world "Hey, Obama might raise taxes on you middle class rubes that elected him after all", they provide the link via the text "Obama may fall into Bush 41 Tax Trap".  This really reminds me of the way a small child might attempt to cover for himself when confronted with some misdeed:  "Mooommm, Jimmy said a bad word...  ohandibrokethelamp".  Except in this case, CNN isn't even covering for itself, but for their Lord and Savior.  Am I surprised?  Of course not.  But I do enjoy pointing it out every time it happens.

I Told You So!

Ok, well, I never actually got around to telling you so.  But I thought about it!  View the following:

I am completely and unambiguously convinced. Discuss.

Our Black President

So by now everyone is familiar with... what shall we call it, "Gates-gate"? I'm referring, of course, to the recent uproar over the arrest of of Black College Professor™ Henry Louis Gates and subsequent fallout.  Now, I should go on record by saying that, maybe, just maybe, the cops could have kept their cool a bit better, and my inner libertarian is frothing over a private citizen being arrested in his own house for his behavior toward police when no crime had  been committed.  Whatever. 

But... then our Community Organizer In Chief Barack Obama decided to open his big dumb mouth.  "The Cambridge police acted stupidly", he said, "in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home."  In spirit, I actually agree with the president.  But he goes on:  "there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact."  So our president makes it abundantly clear that he believes that race was a major factor in what transpired.  And indeed, Professor Gates, likewise, made it clear in his ranting and raving that he believed race was involved in what transpired -- which is so readily apparent in the picture above.  After all, look at the way that WHITE cop was slandering both the BLACK professor and the BLACK cop behind their backs by making the well-known racist "PLEASE CALM THE F*** DOWN NOW, SIR" hand gesture in the picture to the left. 

Anywho, my immediate reaction to reading Obama's "stupidly" statement was "Wow, how completely unpresidential for him to take sides so early on."  But then I thought more about it.  And I quickly realized (or rather, remembered) that Obama, our first black president, is really just that -- Our Black President.  Not, mind you, Our American President, as any president should aspire to be.  Immediately jumping on the side of the race-grievance academic is not a way to move this country to a post-racial future.