URLs du Jour

2017-04-27

■ Proverbs 27:22 advises on efficacy of one popular tactic against foolishness:

Though you grind a fool in a mortar, grinding them like grain with a pestle, you will not remove their folly from them.

Thanks to the Proverbialist, we don't do that any more. No matter how tempting it might seem at times.

■ I'm not a huge Ann Coulter fan, but you don't have to be one to be saddened/outraged by recent efforts to keep people from hearing her speak. There are many comments out there, but let's go with this: FIRE statement on the cancellation of Ann Coulter’s speech at UC Berkeley.

Today, Ann Coulter announced that she will no longer attempt to speak at the University of California, Berkeley tomorrow, Thursday, April 27, because of safety concerns. This latest success for those willing to threaten or engage in violence in order to silence a campus speaker establishes a genuinely dangerous precedent.

But on the plus side, we can add another stanza to our Niemöller pastiche:

Then they came for Ann Coulter, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not Ann Coulter.

■ And (gosh, they're coming thick and fast these days) here's another stanza:

Then they came for Multnomah County Republicans, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Multnomah County Republican.

One of the staples of Portland, Oregon—”Portlandia” to TV viewers— is the annual Rose Festival, now in its 82nd year, and it has for several years now featured a kickoff parade, akin to the Rose Parade in Pasadena on January 1 every year. But this year’s parade, scheduled for this weekend, has been cancelled. The reason: It was going to include—gasp—Republicans! And this is too much for the hardened left, which threatens to shutdown the parade by violent means if it includes Republicans. And the city of Portland has caved.

What next?

■ At NR, KDW has an immodest (but entirely correct) proposal: End the Corporate Tax.

Mitt Romney was mocked for insisting “corporations are people,” but he was right: A corporation is a cooperation, a group of people acting together as one corpus for a particular purpose. And it would be easier and more simple to tax the people.

He notes that "untaxed" money has to go somewhere, and can be taxed when it lands in peoples' pockets, almost certainly at a higher rate than it would have been at the corporate level.

■ Cato's Ross McKittrick makes The Case for Pulling the U.S. Out of the Paris Climate Accord.

EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt has argued that the Paris Agreement on Climate Change is a bad deal for the U.S. because it doesn’t bind China and India. But that implies it could be fixed by imposing the same ruinous terms on developing countries—which would in fact just spread the damage. The real reason for pulling of the Paris Accord is that it is a futile gesture based on empty and dishonest premises.

The details McKittrick lays out will shock you! OK, if you're reading this blog, they probably won't.

■ Someday we'll stop ragging on her, but today is not that day, because: Chelsea Clinton Gets Another Award For Doing Nothing Special

Like her mother before her, Chelsea Clinton appears to be creating a cottage industry for herself in receiving random awards for her unparalleled contributions to society, scintillating takes on current events, and incredibly generous heart.

Not content with just her Variety-sponsored “achievement award,” Chelsea on Tuesday night accepted the annual City Harvest Award for Commitment in fighting hunger in New York City.

Her participation was: "On a single day in 2017, she helped City Harvest pack some grapefruit."

But is was no picnic growing up Clinton. Literally. A Daily Mail article relates her hellish childhood:

'I wasn't allowed to have sugar cereal. We only had dessert on the weekends or special occasions. I also loved cheese, so the healthy foods I wasn't maybe so thrilled about, my mother just melted cheese on top of broccoli until I learned to love broccoli.'

If only Hillary had become President! She would have melted cheese on top of all sorts of nasty crap until we learned to love it.