Likelihood of Success

Ron Coleman’s pretty good blog

Social catastrophe

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 19, 2007

ABC News — scooped by its rival NBC, which itself is playing the ultimate media whore by celebrating a mass murderer’s public tantrum — reports an interview with a psychiatrist who says, quite credibly, that showing Cho Seung-Hui’s video is a “social catastrophe”:

“If anybody cares about the victims in Blacksburg and if anybody cares about their children, stop showing this video now. Take it off the Internet. Let it be relegated to YouTube,” Welner said. “This is a social catastrophe. Showing the video is a social catastrophe.”

(Fedora tip to Mrs. Likelihood.) The blood of the victims of the “next one” is on the hands of everyone in the decision-making chain at NBC for this utterly inexcusable decision. But this is merely Son of Frankenstein, for it was the 1995 publication by the New York Times and Washington Post of the Unabomber’s nutty, blood-soaked “manifesto” that established the recent precedent of media outlets providing the most highly-sought-after reward in today’s world — fame, and a “platform” for grievances — to killers.

The Times and the Post could argue, though not convincingly, that they at least sought to assuage a killer who was still on the loose. That argument was absurd because there was no quid pro quo nor any way to enforce a “deal,” and the calculus contained no factor for the “next one,” whose incentives would now be twisted in a new way due to the media’s compliance with such demands.

Still NBC’s decision is far worse, not only because no such rationale is available, but because the Times and Post circulations were unlikely to increase meaningfully as a result of printing the neurotic “manifesto” that no one could read past the first paragraph. In contrast, the NBC move is striking in its venality. Because of the traffic that this video will get — with that cute little NBC peacock in the upper corner, it doesn’t matter if it’s on YouTube or anywhere else — NBC is simply making an ice cold, murderous money decision.

Cho was the “next one.” But, no thanks to NBC, not the last.

UPDATE: Kaus says the same thing (but doesn’t link to the videos!); now it appears that this view, though far from unanimous (see the comments below), represents a majority of public opinion. Oh, well.

Posted in Medialites, O Mores! | 46 Comments »

Rudy skootches right

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 18, 2007

TheHill.com:

“The Supreme Court reached the correct conclusion in upholding the congressional ban on partial birth abortion,” Giuliani said in a statement on the 5–4 decision. “I agree with it.”

 

When Giuliani ran for Senate in 2000, he said he would not vote to restrict a woman’s right to undergo the procedure.

Now, with social conservatives believed to be a major factor in the GOP primary, Giuliani joined the other top-tier Republicans in applauding the court’s ruling.

The Court made this easy for Rudy, because it is really so very incremental of a change, although it is an increment in a different direction, admittedly. It was tailor-made for Rudy to change fields, though. And, I must say, he is right.

Posted in Lex scripta, O Mores!, Politics and Poker | 3 Comments »

REALLY stunning Pakistani model!!

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 18, 2007

Now I understand how Ali does it — rocket science, it ain’t!

Well, two can play at that game! I want the big time so bad I can taste it.

Check out THIS honey!

Posted in Blogophilia, Jocularity | 1 Comment »

Common sense on Virginia Tech

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 18, 2007

Someone has gotten to the core of the issue — again.

Many people will use this terrible tragedy as an excuse to put through a political agenda other than my own. This tawdry abuse of human suffering for political gain sickens me to the core of my being. Those people who have different political views from me ought to be ashamed of themselves for thinking of cheap partisan point-scoring at a time like this. In any case, what this tragedy really shows us is that, so far from putting into practice political views other than my own, it is precisely my political agenda which ought to be advanced. . . .

Of course the World Trade Center Virginia Tech attacks are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that I am right on every significant moral and political issue, and everybody ought to agree with me. Please, I ask you as fellow human beings, vote for the political party which I support, and ask your legislators to support policies endorsed by me, as a matter of urgency.

It would be a fitting memorial.

To disagree with this, is to let them win. Via Boing Boing.

Posted in O Mores! | Leave a Comment »

Nice Jewish Doctor

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 18, 2007


Nice Jewish Doctor

Originally uploaded by Ron Coleman.

Perhaps I have never acquainted you with “Doctor Toast.”

It’s a restaurant in Jerusalem.

People should visit foreign countries.

Posted in Orient | 1 Comment »

Rudy’s true soft spot

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 17, 2007

It’s gun control, and he’s going to have a harder time crawling out of that problem than abortion, Guns of Battleship New Jerseydivorce or his (old) comb-over (I am a theoretical* Giuliani supporter, by the way):

With bloggers in the lead, Dems have gotten past the gun-control issue and helped reclaim majorities with help from netroots backed pro-gun candidates . . . . As Rudy Giuliani faces heat from social conservatives for telling them they need to “get beyond issues” like abortion, one wonders how many elections the GOP has to lose before they embrace a similar evolution.

I had not thought of this angle. Like all New York City politicians, Rudy is a gun control absolutist. It’s the religion of municipal government here and, regardless of what his state of nature views might have once been — as on homosexual rights, abortion and other social issues — by the time he was a mayoral candidate, Rudy was a true believer.

Very interesting. Hat tip to Insty.

—

*I say theoretical because I keep trying to volunteer but my emails go off into cyber-nowhere-land. His campaign is interested in my money only. But I have no money. I do have other things, I think. But I guess they’re things Rudy doesn’t need…

Posted in Politics and Poker | 10 Comments »

Thought crimes of the depraved — criminalizing Holocaust denial

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 17, 2007

The European Union is not so concerned about future holocausts (God forbid) but feeling very self-righteous about the one perpetrated by its grandparents, is seeking to make Holocaust denial a crime. (It already is in Germany and a few other countries.)

This is a bad idea. It makes Holocaust deniers — who are scum, absolute vermin, and the moral equivalent of Nazis — heroes among their own sleazy kind. It focuses undue pressure and interest on expressions of hate that should mostly be ignored or ridiculed. It is a restriction of free speech in what are supposed to be free speech regimes. And it puts authorities in the awkward position of being the “Jews’ policemen,” which is bound mainly to cause resentment.

And it is hypocritical, not only because Europe has reverted to its Jew-hating ways, but because the very same Holocaust denial that will be a crime in Europe is the official policy of those Arab and Muslim countries that provide the manual labor for today’s barren, decrepit Europe of today, the oil it runs on and the foreign policy orientation that makes Europe a cash cow for causes such as the Palestinian Authority and a sure voice for condemnation of Israel every day with a Y in it. How can Europe take such a high and mighty stand on Holocaust denial within its own borders (and even then quite selectively and often grudgingly) but ignore its currency among its valued friends of the Levant and beyond?

Oh, and on hypocrisy — there’s also this beaut:

In an attempt to assuage Turkish fears, several EU diplomats said the provisions would not penalise the denial of mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman troops in the aftermath of the 1915 collapse of the Ottoman empire. Turkey strongly rejects claims that this episode amounted to genocide.

I don’t really know if the Armenian killings were genocide or not. But neither does Europe. They may have been; but “Europe” has decided on political grounds that denying what may have been genocide in Armenia is not the kind of denial that should be criminalized on solely political grounds. Truth is not, however, a matter for parliaments to decide — much less the one in Brussels.  What a disaster for a policy — as any content-based restriction on free speech (I except pornography, as the U.S. Constitution theoretically does) must be.

Europe: When it comes to regretting the killing of Jews, or any innocents, this isn’t what we need from you.

Posted in Euroids, Oppression, Past is prologue | 11 Comments »

No opinions allowed

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 17, 2007

Bryan Ferry apologizes for Nazi remarks:

British singer Bryan Ferry apologized on Monday for remarks he made in an interview with a German newspaper in which he praised the Nazis’ iconography as “just amazing” and “really beautiful”.

The 61-year-old lead singer of Roxy Music told Germany’s Welt Am Sonntag newspaper last month: “The way that the Nazis staged themselves and presented themselves, my Lord!

“I’m talking about the films of Leni Riefenstahl and the buildings of Albert Speer and the mass marches and the flags — just fantastic. Really beautiful.”

The reason Ferry should be spanked is that his taste in design runs toward the fascist. But expressing admiration for the “Heroic Realism” style in design and art, which was really a variation of Socialist Realism, makes you a poor aesthete, not a Nazi. Nonetheless:

Jewish leaders in Britain, some of whom had condemned Ferry’s comments and questioned whether he should be dropped by the Marks & Spencer retail chain that employs him as a model, welcomed Ferry’s clarification.

I’d welcome a new group of “Jewish leaders.” What an embarrassment — does it never end? These guys should go learn some Aleph-Beis and worry about some real problems.

Posted in Faith and Works, O Mores!, Oppression | Leave a Comment »

Ali Eteraz on the Islamist paradox

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 17, 2007

I never thought of it this way:

Isn’t it odd that the same people who agitate for Shariah because of its greater ability to introduce “order” and “justice” are the same people who take violent and vigilante action?

They want to put in place a system so crushing that it would allow them the freedom to not have to come to terms with their own violence. That their own misanthropy would be addressed by someone outside of them.

This sounds like a sort of infantile or adolescent disorder. What Ali wants to see happen is for people not to generalize from Islamists to Muslims. Is that entirely unreasonable? I know that some people think it is — the argument being that even if not “all Muslims” think this way, “most” or (as even as I have said) “enough of them” do; and that to “pretend” otherwise is to invite disaster.

I do think it is more subtle than that. For one thing, there is no question but that Islamists have, for the moment, taken hold, if not of the wheel on the deck, the bullhorn of the Ship of Islam.

Will the Ali Eterazes of the world make a difference?

Posted in Faith and Works, Orient | 4 Comments »

Some did fight back

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 17, 2007

We can talk about the guns, but also there are hearts. Mrs. Likelihood sends along the following:

Fatally shot as he protects students – NY Daily News:

Virginia Tech University Prof. Liviu Librescu, described as a family man who once did research for NASA, sacrificed his life to save his students in the shooting rampage yesterday.”When he heard the gunfire, he blocked the entrance and got shot through the door,” his daughter-in-law Ayala Schmulevich said.

“He realized he had to save the students,” she said. “That was the kind of man he was.” …

Alec Calhoun, 20, said the last thing he saw before he jumped from the window was Librescu, blocking the door against the madman in the hallway.

He died trying to protect the students.

Librescu taught aerospace and ocean engineering but focused much of his time on research.

He leaves a wife and two sons. His family is planning to bury him in Israel.

He was, in fact, Israeli. And:

Ryan Clark was shot as he went to investigate a disturbance in the dorm where he was the resident student adviser, witnesses said.

Who knows what other shining moments will yet emerge from this horror.

UPDATE: Instapundit collects more.  And here is a unique link (fedora tip to Jeff Ballabon) that is heavy on the Yiddish-English jargon but worth looking at even if you don’t understand every word.

Posted in Americana | 5 Comments »

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