Posts Tagged ‘Michel Foucault’

LinkSwarm For August 21, 2026

Friday, August 21st, 2026

Trump’s winning in Iran, Russia’s losing in Ukraine, Democrats committing fraud left and right, the data center debate rages on, a crappy movie in China gain sudden popularity because it’s crappy, and Orlando PD get to wrestle an alligator.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • National Review comes to the shocking conclusion that Trump’s Iran strategy might actually be working. 

    The “rhetoric” coming from both sides of the conflict over the Strait of Hormuz has “caused considerable confusion and doubt,” CNN’s David Goldman understatedly observed. Yet, at present, “The evidence is clear,” he conceded: “Iran is losing much of its control over the critical waterway.”

    One month ago, the number of commercial ships transiting through the strait via the U.S. approved route along the Omani coast was close to zero. Today, however, over 80 percent of the vessels that have made it through the strait are taking the U.S.-authorized lane. And even though the United States has not responded with kinetic force to every Iranian attack on commercial traffic in the strait, sometimes to the consternation of America’s Gulf partners, that has not dissuaded countries like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates’ tankers from making “dark traffic” runs on the strait.

    CNN could not independently verify Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s claim that “combined oil transits through the strait and rerouted around the waterway totaled around 15 million barrels per day,” which approaches the pre-war average of 20-million barrels. But it couldn’t gainsay the experts. As one industry analyst conceded, “It increasingly looks like Iran has at least partially lost control of the strait.”

    The Iranian regime is feeling the pain. As Hot Air’s Duane Patterson explained, the economic conditions on the ground inside the Islamic Republic are catastrophic. “Iran’s economy is currently experiencing around 90 percent inflation, and it turns out the worst may be yet to come,” he wrote. Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow Miad Maleki concurs. “Nearly every part of Iran’s oil economy,” he wrote, “owes massive, growing sums to each other, with no real money moving through the system to pay any of it back.”

    The gas lines are growing, and the petrol that Iranians are allowed to buy may soon be rationed. Iranian authorities are triaging their resources by prescheduling hours-long blackouts. The regime is ramping up executions and cracking down on dissent as the prospect of economic collapse brings with it the risk of renewed civil unrest.

  • “Socialists Now Say That Shoplifting Is A-OK.”

    Brooklyn Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-50th District) wants New Yorkers to believe that walking out of a CVS with a fistful of stolen toothpaste isn’t a crime. It’s a “biological need.”

    Yes, really.

    Gallagher, who represents Greenpoint and other parts of northern Brooklyn, made her case Thursday at a news conference outside Manhattan Criminal Court, flanked by fellow far-left officials and activists from Court Watch NYC. The group said it monitored 360 arraignments over four days and found that more than half involved misdemeanor offenses. Gallagher used those numbers to argue shoplifters swiping basic necessities shouldn’t be prosecuted at all.

    “Most of what we saw were crimes of poverty-people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap,” Gallagher said. “And that means if you’re stealing those things, you need them.”

    Funny how all those films of riot never show people stealing soap and toothpaste, just flat screen TVs and Nikes. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) 

  • “Minnesota Government’s ‘Outstanding Refugee’ Charged With Medicaid Fraud Connected To Sex-Trafficking Ring.”

    Salman Ahmed Elmi was charged last week with three counts of aiding and abetting by swindle and five counts of aiding and abetting by false representation.

    He made his first court appearance on Monday. Authorities say some of Elmi’s co-conspirators at Reva Health in Golden Valley have connections to a sex trafficking ring bust last week.

    Elmi is accused of billing Medicaid for more than $1 million in services that were not provided or not eligible. Reva Health provided autism services and adult rehabilitative mental health services.

    “The Minnesota Department of Human Services awarded Elmi an ‘Outstanding Refugee Award’ in 2021.” Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that “Outstanding Refugee” is an award for those that stole the most taxpayer money to give to Democrats?

  • “FBI Raids Eric Swalwell’s Home, Seizes Electronics in Connection with Sexual Assault Investigation.”

    FBI agents seized electronic devices from former Representative Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) at the San Francisco airport on Saturday and then raided his home in connection with an investigation into sexual assault allegations against him, according to several reports.

    Federal authorities executed a search warrant at Swalwell’s home in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, law enforcement sources told CNN and the Associated Press.

    The FBI declined to comment.

    Swalwell resigned from Congress and suspended his campaign for California governor in April after a former staffer came forward with allegations that he had sexually assaulted her twice, including once at a hotel while he was in New York City for a charity gala in 2024.

    Three other women then accused Swalwell of sexual misconduct as well. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department opened criminal investigations into Swalwell in response.

    At the time, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg encouraged “survivors and anyone with knowledge of these allegations to contact our Special Victims Division.”

    The reports that the FBI’s investigation into Swalwell is picking up steam comes days after the White House Transparency Task Force released FBI files indicating Swalwell previously admitted to having “physical relations” with suspected Chinese spy Christine Fang on a “handful of occasions,” providing confirmation of the public sphere’s longstanding suspicion that a sexual relationship had transpired.

    I’m hoping the investigation also sheds light on Swalwell receiving money from communist China.

  • Ukraine continues its war on Wildberries. “Best Wildberries Strike Yet! Koledino Near Moscow–Biggest Wildberries Hub in Russia.”
  • “Ukrainian forces hit at least five workshop buildings at Russia’s Kombinat Kamensky defense plant in Rostov region, penetrating several layers of air defenses from Pantsir to S-300 systems. The plant produces solid rocket fuel for Uragan, Smerch and Tornado-S MLRS, as well as other missile and aviation systems. Key workshops had anti-drone protection and were surrounded by earthworks. Several air-defense vehicles were also hit.”
  • “Drone Strike on Moscow Region: Atlant Warehouse Complex Hit.” Not technically a Wildberries warehouse.
  • “Big Flamingo Missile Strike on Russian Rocket Factory in Samara! Only Soyuz Rocket Factory.”
  • “Russian Convoy of Trucks Destroyed on Berdiansk-Mariupol Supply Road.”
  • Updated damage assessment from last week’s Novorossiysk strike. “Admiral Makarov & Admiral Essen Confirmed Out of Action in New Imagery!”
  • The Russian fuel situation has gotten so bad that even Russian newspapers are talking about it. “As of the 16th of August, across Russia, 28.1% of petrol stations had fuel. A week before, it was 41%.” Imagine more than two thirds of stations having no gas and long lines at the ones that do.
  • “Two federal agencies routed taxpayer dollars to terror-linked charities.”

    The State Department worked with World Vision to distribute $2 billion in global health foreign assistance even though an Israeli court convicted the nonprofit’s Gaza affiliate operations manager of sending up to $50 million to Hamas in 2022. Separately, the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) provided nearly $80 million to 14 organizations linked to terrorism and extremism.

    The Middle East Forum (MEF) recently reported that 14 terror-linked and extremist organizations, led by CAIR, collected nearly $80 million from HHS through the Refugee Resettlement, Health, and Mosque Renovation grants. Through this fund, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) California chapter received the most of any Islamist group, collecting $42.2 million in funding from the HHS to provide legal and social services to Afghan refugees.

  • Concerning: “Chinese Spy Official Who Is Also A Trained Sniper Buys Property Overlooking White House.”

  • “Liberal white woman fights fascism by defacing national memorial to soldiers who died fighting Hitler.” ‘This morning, we are filing two felony charges, Depredation Against Property of the United States and Destruction of Veterans’ Memorials, in Federal District Court against Melissa L. Farris, offenses that carry penalties of up to ten years in prison.” TDS strikes again.
  • How is this legal? “Karen Bass brags that Los Angeles will use tax dollars to provide a 6:1 match for every dollar donated to her campaign.”

    Karen Bass is very worried about losing her mayoralty to left-winger Nithya Raman, who squeaked past Spencer Pratt in the primary election due to a bunch of election shenanigans, and Bass has an interesting campaign strategy.

    Using city tax dollars to fund her campaign!…

    The city of Los Angeles “donates” money to Bass’s campaign in a matching program? If you give $10, the city chips in another $60? And she’s pushing this program?

    Through the foreign-donation-taking ActBlue, no less.

    Per the City Ethics Commission (I kid you not), the city charter allows for “public matching funds.”

    Left-wing group Common Cause California brags about “strengthening” this public match fund in 2019.

    The program is intended to help less-funded candidates get access to funding, but in actuality, all it does is take YOUR tax dollars to fund politicians you hate.

  • Background on the Frankfurt school, one of the intellectual fathers of the poison that is social justice.

    The Frankfurt School. You should know what it was, what it built, and why you are still living inside it.

    1. The Institute for Social Research was founded in Frankfurt in 1923 and relocated to Columbia University in 1934 when Hitler came to power. The civilization they had decided to dismantle gave them refuge when another tried to kill them. They spent the next five decades producing the theoretical infrastructure for that dismantling. Western civilization itself was the problem: reason, the Enlightenment, the family, tradition, authority. Not reformed. Dismantled.

    2. They called it Critical Theory – and the name is the program. Everything is to be criticized; nothing is to be built. In The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), Adorno and Horkheimer argued that Western reason — the reason that produced Newton and the rule of law — contained the seeds of Auschwitz. Not that reason had been misused, but that reason itself, taken to its conclusion, produces the death camp. This was not a critique of institutions. It was an indictment of the civilization itself.

    3. Adorno gave them the psychological weapon. The Authoritarian Personality (1950) classified conservatism, religious faith, patriotism, and the traditional family not as political positions but as symptoms of a proto-fascist personality. If you believe in the nation or the father’s authority, you are pre-fascist. The opponent was no longer wrong – he was sick. You don’t argue with a pathology. You treat it.

    This made dialogue impossible. You don’t persuade someone who is wrong; you diagnose someone who is sick. Politics becomes therapy, and disagreement becomes pathology.

    4. Marcuse gave them the political weapon. Repressive Tolerance (1965) argued that tolerating wrong ideas is itself oppression. True tolerance therefore requires suppressing intolerant ideas. The left decides which ideas are intolerant. Everyone else is silenced – not despite tolerance, but “in its name.” Censorship dressed in the vocabulary of liberation.

    5. The generation that read Marcuse at Columbia, Berkeley, and Yale went on to run universities, media, foundations, NGOs, content moderation departments, and the EU regulatory apparatus. They implemented the argument sincerely because they had been taught it as philosophy. This was the Frankfurt School’s greatest achievement: it produced true believers.

    6. French Theory picked up the tools and made them aesthetic. Foucault made the critique of power literary. Derrida made the critique of meaning philosophical. Deleuze made the critique of identity elegant. A political program became a cultural sensibility. You can argue with a program. A sensibility is in the air you breathe. By the time these ideas reached the American campus through the French conduit, they were no longer ideology. They were the water. The fish did not know they were wet.

    7. A civilization stands on three pillars: truth exists and is accessible to reason; good is distinguishable from evil; and there is an inheritance worth transmitting. The Frankfurt School attacked all three – systematically and with considerable intellectual sophistication. It produced a generation that knows how to deconstruct and has forgotten how to build. That sees power everywhere and beauty nowhere.

    The ultimate achievement was to make destruction feel like progress. Every inherited institution became suspect; every constraint became oppression; every act of preservation became reactionary. Deconstruction became the default, while construction became something that needed to justify itself.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Kurt Schlichter: “The Death of Academic Fraud Jason Arday Won’t Shut Us Up.”

    Fake Professor Jason Arday was found dead in the wake of being exposed as a complete fraud, and if it were my choice, he would still be alive and suffering the humiliation that should be the result of his crimes. I would prefer that he did not likely choose to kill himself instead of facing the consequences of his actions. My preference is irrelevant. If he decided to do himself in, it’s crushing for his wife and kids, and that was a selfish, cruel, and stupid decision. But it was his decision, as was his decision to commit fraud upon fraud. I don’t celebrate his death, and his death changes nothing. We’re not going to stop rooting out the charlatans.

    Of course, the entirely predictable response of the institutional left to his cowardly and apparent self-deletion has been to insist, loudly and with quivering outrage, that his death is our fault. You see, we normal people pointed out that he lied about his background, his achievements, his credentials, and his work. The fact that we did what a functioning institution should’ve done itself outraged his boosters, so these moral illiterates now invert the moral calculus to keep the exposure of academic fraud from happening again. Arday lied pathologically and endlessly, enabled by a ridiculously solicitous academia, then likely killed himself when his lies were exposed. Obviously, the villains are the people who did not lie and did not choose to end his life.

    And you’ll never guess their key accusation in a million years.

    Okay, you guessed it: RACISM!

    Snip.

    Regardless, it was entirely predictable that the left would use his unfortunate demise to try to shut us up, to place all criticism of woke charlatans off limits because the subject of the critique might decide to do something desperate. They can’t help themselves but act out irrationally, you see. The fact that this tactic deprives the minority of any agency is no shock; there’s no racist like a leftist, who considers minorities to be nothing more than political marionettes unable to control their own actions. We’re supposed to give them a pass because the targets of our criticism have no agency. It’s like that NSFW scene in Blazing Saddles where the sheriff keeps the townspeople from lynching him by sticking a gun to his head—“He’s just crazy enough to do it!” Except this time the townspeople were not trying to lynch an innocent man and didn’t back off, and he did pull the figurative trigger.

    We’re not going to play their game. We’re not going to hold fire for fear of feelz. We’re not going to ignore the truth lest the liar lash out at himself or others. Sometimes the truth hurts, but the only people the truth hurts are people exposed doing something they shouldn’t be doing. The truth is more important than feelings. And the truth is more important than Arday’s life. If the choice we are presented with is that Jason Arday will go on living a lie and degrading our civilization by doing so, or that Jason Arday might hurt himself, it’s Option 2 every day of the week. We’re not going to be held hostage or intimidated or shamed into silence and, therefore, complicity.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • “Here’s a Look at the State of Firearms Access in Texas Tribal Territories.” The problem is tribal law enforcement seems to fall between state and federal stools.

    Texas has three federally recognized Native American tribes: Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, located in the western part of the state in El Paso; the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, located near Eagle Pass along the Rio Grande; and the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, located in the eastern part of the state near Livingston.

    And two of those are along the Mexican border, which means drug smuggling is a big problem.

  • Bookseller Scott Brown has his own piece on destructive scanning of books for AI. I’m quoted in here, but Brown also points out that a lot more companies are doing such destructive scanning, including:
    • Anthropic
    • Meta
    • Amazon
    • He says Elon Musk has promised that SpaceX/xAI will not to do such destructive scanning, but expresses doubt.

    He also lists the company’s buying books for destructive scanning:

    • Zoom Books
    • Far Corner
    • Last Token
    • Innodata
  • “Here Are the Data Center Companies That Agreed to Comply With Gov. Greg Abbott’s Standards.”

    I’m going to quote a largish chunk here just so I can tag the various companies.

    In June, Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to require data centers to pay for their own electric infrastructure costs, scuttling at least one project planned for East Texas.

    Then, earlier this month, Abbott asked these agencies to audit all data center projects in the process of connecting to the Texas grid. According to his directive, data centers in the pipeline must provide and verify information about their water usage; their noise, light, and traffic mitigation efforts; how they plan to obtain electricity; whether they receive taxpayer money; and the real identities of their owners.

    A flurry of affirmative replies ensued, including assurances from some of the best-funded users and most prolific developers of data centers in the world.

    Many of these companies have already made use of a sales tax exemption for data center equipment — a 13-year-old state law passed before the remote work boom of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) this decade propelled the industry well past the state’s expectations.

    Here are the data center companies that have agreed to comply with Abbott’s standards, cross-referenced with the state’s list of companies that benefit from the tax break.

    QTS Data Centers

    On August 6, Virginia-based Quality Technology Services (QTS) “applauded” Abbott’s “efforts to increase transparency on power use, water and resource consumption, and community considerations associated with data center development.”

    QTS data centers built after 2019 use fans rather than water for cooling, according to the company.

    The company operates three facilities in Texas and has three more in the pipeline, according to its website. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts certified one QTS facility, a 56-acre campus in Irving, to benefit from the state sales tax exemption.

    Vantage Data Centers

    Vantage Data Centers sent a letter of support to Abbott on August 7.

    The company, based in Denver, Colorado, only lists one active data center in Texas, at an undisclosed location in Shackelford County. However, it has secured a sales tax exemption for 12 projects listed by the comptroller, all for Oracle.

    Skybox

    Texas-based Skybox Datacenters agreed to Abbott’s standards on August 7.

    The company has built nine data centers around the state. Besides one in Wichita Falls, all are in the Dallas, Austin, and Houston metropolitan areas, according to its website. The comptroller’s list of qualifying data centers doesn’t include a project with Skybox in the name or one associated with its address at 3131 Turtle Creek Boulevard in Dallas, based on a search of the state’s franchise tax database.

    Digital Realty

    Digital Realty stated on August 7 that it would comply with Abbott’s standards. The Austin-based company claimed in its statement to be “the world’s largest cloud- and carrier-neutral data center platform.”

    Digital Realty operates more than 300 data centers that serve companies including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Nvidia and IBM. Twelve of its 14 Texas data centers are in the Dallas area, its website shows.

    Stream Data Centers

    Dallas-based Stream Data Centers agreed to Abbott’s standards on August 7.

    Altogether, nine Stream data centers are either active or in development across Texas, with one on the outskirts of Houston, three in San Antonio, one in Austin, and four in the Dallas area.

    Mara

    Mara agreed to abide by Abbott’s standards on August 7.

    The Florida-based company operates a Bitcoin mining fleet, and it “colocates data centers with power sources to convert stranded energy into digital capital,” its website states.

    The company name doesn’t appear on the comptroller’s list of qualifying data centers, nor do any subsidiary companies registered under the address of its Florida headquarters.

    Rowan

    Rowan Digital Infrastructure, another developer based in Denver, issued a press release in support of Abbott’s orders on August 7.

    The company owns and operates four data centers in Texas that benefit from the sales tax exemption, including one in Temple for Meta and another in Cinco for Google.

    Meta

    Meta, the California-based parent company of Facebook, pledged to comply with Abbott’s standards on Monday.

    Meta’s three Texas data centers are in Fort Worth, Temple, and El Paso, according to its map.

    Multiple data centers owned or used by Meta benefit from the state’s sales tax exemption. One subsidiary company, Polmer LLC, owns the certified data center in Temple and occupies two other data centers on the comptroller’s list of certified projects. The El Paso facility is owned by a Meta subsidiary, Wurldwide LLC, which also makes use of the exemption.

    OpenAI and Oracle

    California-based company OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, agreed to comply with Abbott’s standards on Monday. Oracle, also based in California, made the same commitment on Tuesday.

    OpenAI is collaborating with Oracle and SoftBank on Stargate, a $500 billion AI infrastructure project based in Abilene and funded in part by chipmaker Nvidia. Lancium, a company backed by New York-based investment firm Blackstone, is constructing the facility, according to its website.

    Eleven Lancium data centers and projects appear on the comptroller’s list, spanning Fort Stockton, Turkey, Childress, and Abilene. Seven projects in Abilene are associated with Stargate, with Oracle listed as an occupant.

    Core Scientific

    Core Scientific issued a press release in support of Abbott’s directives on Monday.

    The company, based in Miami, Florida, operates three data centers in Texas: one in Austin, one in Denton, and one in the Callahan County town of Cottonwood, according to its website.

    All three benefit from the state tax exemption, the comptroller’s list shows.

    Google

    The California-based Big Tech titan expressed support for Abbott’s standards on Monday.

    The comptroller lists Google as the owner or user of nine data centers that benefit from the sales tax exemption.

    CleanSpark

    Data center developer CleanSpark Inc. agreed with Abbott’s standards on Monday.

    The Nevada-based company doesn’t publish a comprehensive map or list of its data center locations, but as of February, it owned two plots of land in Brazoria County and Austin County with plans to develop facilities there, according to an investor relations press release.

    Neither CleanSpark nor the only Texas entity registered to its corporate address, Eagles Nest 138 LLC, appear on the comptroller’s list of data centers.

    EdgeConneX

    Virginia-based EdgeConneX announced support for Abbott’s standards in its Tuesday press release.

    The company doesn’t specify how many discrete data centers it operates in Texas, but it’s only active in the Houston and Austin areas, according to its online map.

    The state has certified two EdgeConnex projects for the tax exemption, both in the Austin area.

    SB Energy

    SB Energy sent Abbott a letter on August 6 expressing support for his directives and publicized it on Tuesday.

    The Redwood City, California-based company is building a facility in Milam County in support of Stargate, with Orion listed as an occupant on two projects that benefit from the state sales tax exemption.

    Data Center Coalition

    The Data Center Coalition, a trade association that represents data center companies, expressed support for Abbott’s directives on Tuesday.

  • Speaking of data centers, Trump is in the pro-data center camp.
  • “Former Fauci Adviser David Morens Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Hide Covid-Related Records.”

    David Morens, a former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to hiding federal records from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests during the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Morens, a senior adviser at NIAID’s Office of the Director from 2006 to 2022 under Dr. Anthony Fauci, was charged by the Department of Justice in April with five counts related to the scheme.

    He agreed to a deal with federal prosecutors this week that would see him plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses or to defraud the United States. The charge carries up to five years in prison.

    Snip.

    The indictment came after the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic found evidence that Morens had used his personal email to discuss Covid-19’s origins and National Institutes of Health grants with EcoHealth Alliance, including a terminated coronavirus grant, in an attempt to keep the communications hidden from hypothetical future FOIA requests.

    The committee obtained a communication between Morens and EcoHealth President Peter Daszak in which Morens wrote, “I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”

    Why it was almost like their was a conspiracy of secrecy against the American people…

  • “Tajik killer who avoided jail due to insanity ruling flees U.S. the moment his mental hospital grants him a day pass.”

    Abdulloi Toshpulodzoda left the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute (NVMHI) on July 6 for an authorized 48-hour pass. He was required to return two days later, but he never did, FOX 5 reported, citing court documents.

    Instead, Toshpulodzoda traveled to Washington Dulles International Airport and boarded a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul before continuing to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, court documents show.

    Snip.

    FOX 5 reported that Toshpulodzoda had previously been allowed to travel to Washington, D.C., in 2024 to obtain a passport, with support from the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office.

    Sorry, a what? Passport? And then they gave him a 48-hour pass? And then they were surprised that he fled the country and never came back?

    Well done, everyone.

    You may not be surprised to learn that it was the office of far-left Steve Descano, the prosecutor for Fairfax County, that allowed him to get the passport.

    The Trump admin is suing Descano for releasing violent criminals. You may recall that Descano went viral for allowing a registered sex offender to change in the girls’ locker room at multiple HIGH SCHOOLS because the sex offender now identifies as a woman.

    Is Descano backed by George Soros? Of course he is.

  • It’s quite concerning that the USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, was was dead in the water for four days in the South China Sea due to a power systems failure.
  • Nigel Farage wins his election and returns to Parliament.
  • Very suspicious: “Bastrop City Council Holds Official Workshop 100 Miles Away from their Constituents.”

    On August 7th, the Bastrop City Council conducted official workshops not in Bastrop (where one might reasonably expect), but more than one hundred miles away in Fredericksburg. The posted agenda lists the location as the John Wm. Klein Meeting Room at 115 N. Crockett Street in Fredericksburg, roughly a two-hour drive from the city those officials were elected to serve.

    And no, these were not informal “retreats” for city council members to relax and blow off steam. These were formal City Council workshops covering the very decisions that hit taxpayer’s wallets and daily lives hardest: the city budget, setting the tax rate, Hotel Occupancy Taxes, capital projects, the Master Transportation Plan (including an East/West connection north of Highway 71), water and wastewater planning, street projects, and “Future Goals” that include a recreation center, expanded fire and police service, data center policies, and Legislative “advocacy.” An extensive list of hot-button issues all to be discussed far away from their constituents.

    State Rep. Stan Gerdes (R-Smithville), whose district includes Bastrop, correctly called out the problem: “The City of Bastrop is holding a City Council meeting hours away in Fredericksburg, making it nearly impossible for the people they represent to attend and participate.” He noted the agenda’s weight on budget, tax rate, data centers, and surveillance technology and announced plans to file legislation requiring city council meetings to be held inside the city they serve so residents can actually show up, speak, and hold officials accountable.

  • Flock says “I can change!” 

    Security camera company Flock Safety has announced changes to its privacy safeguards amid public opposition to use of the devices and concerns about law enforcement abuse.

    However, U.S. Rep. Keith Self (R–McKinney) told Texas Scorecard that although these changes are welcome, Flock is obviously “trying to gain acceptance and put lipstick on a pig amid the intense pushback they have received from Americans across the nation who are rightfully concerned about their privacy.”

    “The bottom line is Americans do not want to be spied on, and they reject the surveillance state operating in America,” said Self. “The Fourth Amendment is not a suggestion. Federal and state legislation are still needed to ensure the government cannot access this data without a warrant—and that taxpayer dollars are not spent purchasing or installing this invasive spyware. That’s why Congress needs to pass my bill, the PRIVACY Act.”

    Self filed the PRIVACY Act last month. It would require federal law enforcement to obtain official warrants before accessing or querying data collected by state and local systems, including automated license plate readers.

    Powered by artificial intelligence, Flock cameras have been a hotly debated topic across the U.S., with concerned Texans requesting that state lawmakers create guardrails for the technology during the upcoming legislative session.

    Since law enforcement officials do not need a warrant to access the Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) database, citizens are raising concerns about potential Fourth Amendment violations.

    Among the technology updates is a new default setting of 7-day data retention instead of the previous 30 days. This change is based on Flock’s analysis that all searches “without a full plate are done within a week.”

  • “Cami Clark, the low-profile wife of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, tried to court Jeffrey Epstein as an investor for her “luxury porn company.”
  • WNBA Reddit bans mention of WNBA player.
  • The Critical Drinker/Gamer covers a hacker group penetration of Rockstar games, evidently including full playable source code of the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6. They’re even threatening to release the ending if Rockstar don’t promise to eschew the greedy enshitification of games (like ending physical media) that’s now standard practice in the industry.
  • Orlando PD vs. one pissed off alligator.
  • Ubobtanium cars.
  • Rick Beato and The Professor of Rock interview take 2.
  • Merica:

    (Hat tip: According to Hoyt.

  • Niu Lai is a sleeper hit in China, mainly because the animation is so bad, something that might have been a 3D animation demo reel in 1994. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has a new episode where a transporter malfunction turns most of the crew into Muppets.

  • In news that may be of interest only to me, both BattleSwarm and Futuramen had huge upticks in Views this week, at least ten times normal traffic, though a smaller uptick in unique Visitors, and I notice no single post generating such traffic. I can only assume some AI scanned the entirety of the site. 
  • “DeSantis Explains To Newsom Secret To Counting Ballots In One Night Is Not Committing Fraud.”
  • “Kentucky Derby Convenes Committee To Determine What Is A Horse.”
  • “Chicago Principal Concerned As High School Senior Only Assaulting Teachers At Fifth-Grade Level.”
  • You made me love you…

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ..)

    • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Technology, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 8 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for June 23, 2023

    Friday, June 23rd, 2023

    Busy as hell and I have a cold, but I soldier on. LinkSwarm! Russian coup! Texas! Pedophiles! Portland! Braaaaiiiinnnnnns!

    I cover the world!

  • “The owner of the Wagner private military contractor made his most direct challenge to the Kremlin yet on Friday, calling for an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russia’s defense minister. The security services reacted immediately by calling for the arrest of Yevgeny Prigozhin…Prigozhin claimed early Saturday that his forces had crossed into Russia from Ukraine and had reached Rostov, saying they faced no resistance from young conscripts at checkpoints and that his forces ‘aren’t fighting against children.'” Unconfirmed reports of fighting elsewhere in Russia. Developing…
    

  • Dallas city employees are being forced to attend transexual reeducation camps.

    The City of Dallas is requiring employees to undergo taxpayer-funded transgender reeducation training any time one of their co-workers comes out as “transgender.”

    According to internal documents obtained from the City of Dallas by The Dallas Express, “non-transitioning” employees are being forced to undergo reeducation training “to support an inclusive and productive workplace environment for all employees.”

    The City of Dallas’ “gender transition toolkit” explains that a transitioning employee should find a “trusted” supervisor or manager as a “first point of contact” to help them through their workplace transition.

    The document includes a list of gender terms and definitions. It then moves on to require employees to work with gender-confused co-workers, allowing the “transitioning” employee to use whichever bathroom or locker room at work they feel most comfortable with, ignoring the comfort of other employees.

  • “Foucault, Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, Judith Butler… the list goes on. There’s almost no queer theorist who doesn’t also argue for pedophilia.”
  • Speaking of pedophiles: “A former CNN television producer who had pleaded guilty to luring a 9-year-old girl into illegal sexual acts was sentenced Tuesday to more than 19 years in prison and an additional 15 years of supervised release during a U.S. District Court hearing in Vermont. John Griffin of Stamford, Connecticut, pleaded guilty in federal court in December to using interstate commerce to entice and coerce the girl to engage in sexual activity at his Vermont ski house.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Sex club founder kicked out of sex club after revealing that Hunter Biden was kicked out of said sex club for being too big a scumbag. In other news, Hunter Biden was too big a scumbag for an LA sex club.
  • Your tax dollars at work: “Homeland Security is funding college programs that compare Christians and Republicans with Nazis to fight “‘terrorism.'”
  • Middle schoolers told to wear gay rainbow colors. Instead they revolted by wearing red, white and blue.

  • Completely unsurprising headline: “IRS Whistleblower Says Justice Department Slowed and Stymied the Hunter Biden Tax Investigation.” Also, water exhibits high degrees of wetness. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Is Portland sobering up?

    In the summer of 2020, Portland, Oregon, became the poster child for American urban disaster zones. During the day, tens of thousands of citizens protested peacefully against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But everything changed after dark. Nonviolent demonstrators with jobs, school assignments, and kids to raise went home; hundreds of anarchists swarmed in to take their place and waged a low-grade insurgency against the city. They fought pitched battles with the cops—throwing rocks, frozen water bottles, fireworks, buckets of excrement, and even Molotov cocktails. They attacked coffeehouses, immigrant-owned restaurants, mom-and-pop retail stores, banks, museums, churches, bus stops, and the Multnomah County Democratic Party headquarters with baseball bats, crowbars, and hammers. Most were military-age white males wearing all-black clothing and hiding their faces. The violence kept up, night after night, week after week, and month after month, into the winter, long after the rest of America had calmed down. My city had become the most politically violent place in the country, and I got worried e-mails from people I knew around the world—even in the Middle East!—asking me if I was okay and why on earth this was happening.

    A crime wave followed. Shootings and homicides exploded 300 percent between 2019 and 2022, robberies rose 50 percent in 2022 alone, vehicle thefts hit record highs, and work-order requests for graffiti removal shot up 500 percent between 2020 and 2022. The City of Roses suffered 413 shootings in 2019 but 1,306 in 2022 and nearly twice as many homicides as San Francisco, though Portland is only three-fourths its size. Meantime, statewide crime actually declined from 2019 to 2021.

    The homelessness crisis also intensified. The slow-motion collapse of Oregon’s mental-health infrastructure, a dramatic surge of cheap and deadly fentanyl and a far more potent and addictive form of psychosis-inducing meth, and a crippling housing shortage led to the formation of more than 700 tent cities in residential neighborhoods and business districts across the city.

    But while it’s too soon to declare that Portland’s troubles have passed, the worst may now be over. Despite ongoing woes, Portland looks and feels much better than it did in dystopian 2020. The riots stopped, and the crime wave seems to have peaked, with shootings down by nearly 40 percent and homicides down more than 50 percent in the early months of 2023. A sober mood shift has taken over the city. Voters passed a ballot measure to restructure city government, while the three newest elected officials on the city council are steering Portland in a different direction. The city, county, and state are taking steps to reverse the decline.

    Portland is suffering a serious livability crisis. Eighty-eight percent of respondents in early 2022 told the Portland Business Alliance that the quality of life is worsening. Portland is hardly the most dangerous city in America: the homicide rate in St. Louis is more than four times higher, with 65 murders per 100,000 people, compared with Portland’s 15 in 2022. Portland’s rate peaked at more than double the national average, but of all the cities with higher crime rates than Portland, only Chicago gets as many national headlines. That’s probably because Portland’s increase in crime was the worst in the country. No other city’s homicide rate rose so spectacularly. And unlike St. Louis, Baltimore, and other notorious hot spots, Portland was recently a destination city that touted its high quality of life as a reason to move there.

    Of late, though, rather than attracting new residents, Portland has actually lost population, either to the suburbs or out of state. “I’ve never seen money move out of here,” commercial real-estate salesman Stu Peterson told Willamette Week. “Nobody ever wanted to leave Oregon. It’s a beautiful place. Most evacuees are high-wage earners who are fed up with the crime, taxes, and homelessness, in that order. There’s an ugly spiral.” Real-estate agent Justin Harnish described a client who left downtown Portland for the suburb of Lake Oswego after she saw a woman stab another woman in the face with scissors.

    Accompanying the crime wave is a drastic staff shortage at the Portland Police Bureau. Portland now has fewer than 800 sworn officers, a smaller number than it had decades ago, when the city was barely half the size it is now. And with the surge in violent crime, the police have little time to deal with anything that isn’t life-threatening. Prioritizing shootings and other emergencies, they’re forced to neglect break-ins, stolen cars, vandalism, and just about everything else. The traffic police unit has been defunded, reduced to a single full-time traffic cop—not for ideological reasons but because the city has no one to staff that division.

    Part of the blame rests with the months of demoralizing anti-cop violence in 2020, but Portland would probably be short of police officers anyway. Every city agency, from fire and rescue to the transportation bureau and the public defender’s office, faces staff shortages now. And while a shrunken police force didn’t cause Portland’s crime wave on its own, a police department that can barely react to anything but emergency calls aggravates the problem. Criminals behave as though they can get away with essentially anything and commit far more crimes than they would if they were investigated, arrested, and prosecuted swiftly. The Woodstock neighborhood, where Joe Biden won 88 percent of the vote, is considering hiring its own private security force.

    Snip.

    I spent more time talking to my neighbors that year than I ever had before or have since. A lot of us suddenly became friendlier outside our houses, and we weren’t talking about sports and the weather. Residents and business owners alike worried about where things were headed and expressed dismay at the city’s inability to defend itself. I didn’t talk with a single person who thought that everything was okay, that city hall was on top of it, or that the anarchists were not a menace. And nobody could understand why the homeless camps at the elementary school down the street or at the park hadn’t been cleared. No, I didn’t conduct my own scientific public opinion survey, but it was obvious that regular people were nearing the end of their rope and that the status quo was bound to be upended.

    In 2021, that’s exactly what happened. A tsunami of outrage inundated the mayor, the city council, and the police bureau. Phones rang nonstop. Furious citizens shouted at meetings. Newspaper editors published scathing letters, and journalists at mainstream outlets covered distressed neighborhoods and interviewed disgruntled citizens while largely ignoring the activist set that booed every conceivable solution and told civilians that the problems were in their heads. Lawsuits against the city proliferated. Polls showed city council members languishing on political death row, with approval ratings in the teens.

    Though most residents still wanted accountability for bad cops and citizen oversight of the police bureau, the complaints were primarily about crime, about how the police hardly ever show up anymore, and about disorder dragging neighborhoods down. Even some of the fashionable middle-class neighborhoods endearingly satirized in the Portlandia comedy series were enduring weekly gunfire.

    In the fall of 2022, 82 percent of Portland respondents in an Oregonian poll said that they wanted more cops. If some Portlanders felt overpoliced a few years ago, hardly anyone felt that way after the chaos, with a mere 15 percent saying that they wanted fewer officers in 2021.

    Before the city council elections got going in 2022, voters fired repeated warning shots in public opinion surveys. An overwhelming 85 percent of respondents said that they found the city council ineffective, with a clear majority describing it as “very ineffective.” For a while, it looked as though Portland was gearing up to fire every single official in a landslide election.

    Two city council members, Dan Ryan and Jo Ann Hardesty, ran for reelection last year. Ryan managed to defy expectations and win despite the temper in the city, though it’s easy to understand why: he set aside his ideological views and changed with the times. Though he first ran during a special election in early 2020 on a campaign promising to cut police funding, he soon reversed himself. Anarchists vandalized his home seven times because he refused to cut the police budget.

    Hardesty didn’t fare as well. Pushing bills to defund the police and opposing the cleanup of homeless camps, she put herself wildly out of step with her constituents. Mingus Mapps, a moderate on the council who had easily dispatched the left-wing populist Chloe Eudaly two years earlier, endorsed Hardesty’s challenger, Rene Gonzales, and bluntly said: “It is time to put ideology aside and elect people who will fight for Portland. I need colleagues who use debate, reason, and logic to solve our many crises.” Gonzales said, “Our once beautiful city is struggling in ways that were unfathomable a short time ago. . . . City hall’s ineffective, ideologically driven policies are ruining the city we used to proudly call home.” Gonzales won, and Portland replaced the city council’s last progressive firebrand with a centrist. It was the kind of event that marks the end of an era.

    Sounds a lot like Austin, except for the sobering-up part. (Also, it’s good to read Michael Totten again. He seemed to disappear from view for several years. Probably because he was writing for The Bulwark…)

  • Speaking of Portland, the homeless drug addict who said that living on the streets of Portland was “too easy” is now back with her family and getting treatment. They thought she was dead…
  • “FBI Groomed Developmentally Challenged 16-Year-Old To Become A Terrorist, Then Arrested Him.”
  • Is Fox News going full woke?
  • “Guy who bought $37k in stolen human organs literally put “braiiiiins.” in the memo line on PayPal.” On the one hand, that’s really stupid. On the other hand, how could you not? (Bonus: Stolen body parts were coming from Harvard.)
  • European flopball match breaks out in the most vicious slap fight you’ve seen this side of Fire Island.
  • Not to walk on two legs, this is the law. Are we not dogs?

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ pet thread.)

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for March 17, 2017

    Friday, March 17th, 2017

    Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Insert your own Irish-related drinking joke here.

  • President Trump’s approval ratings rise.
  • Did Obama use a British intelligence agency to spy on Trump? (Maybe not.)
  • Did the Obama Administration use Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac as a slush fund to pay for ObamaCare?
  • Senate Democrats are paralized what do to over Neil Gorsuch. Everyone agrees Gorsuch is extremely qualified, but the leftwing nutroots are threatening to primary any Democrat who votes to confirm him. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Finally: “A House panel held a hearing on possibly splitting the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday morning.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • In talking about the House GOP’s pathetic ObamaCare replacement, Stephen Green hits the nail on the head: “Congress is warped because the American electorate has yet to accept that other people’s money does eventually run out — and that we are all the other people.” That’s why we need someone committed to reform in the White House, and Greece and Venezuela’s examples fresh in the public’s eye…
  • Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey: “What we reject is immigration without assimilation.” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • ICE arrests 248 illegal aliens, most in the sanctuary city of Philadelphia. “20 had a conviction and/or pending charges or 48 percent (88 of those arrested had criminal convictions and 32 of those arrested have pending criminal charges). In addition, 50 had been previously removed from the United States and subsequently illegally re-entered.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Meanwhile, in Australia: “Teacher quits after primary school students threaten to behead her.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Iraqi government forces besieged Islamic State militants around Mosul’s Old City on Thursday, edging closer to the historic mosque from where the group’s leader declared a caliphate nearly three years ago.”
  • Former Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich says that one of his phonecalls was wiretapped. “If a member of Congress can have his phone tapped, this can happen to anybody.”
  • “Ten Senate Democrats are vulnerable in 2018. They’re prime targets for takedowns in the midterm elections. But the process starts now, not then…In order of vulnerability (most to least), the target list features: 1) Joe Donnelly-IN; 2) Bill Nelson-FL; 3) Sherrod Brown-OH; 4) Claire McCaskill-MO; 5) Heidi Heitkamp-ND; 6) Tammy Baldwin-WI; 7) Jon Tester-MN; 8) Joe Manchin-WV; 9) Debbie Stabenow-MI; 10) Bob Casey, Jr.-PA.” Agree with the list, but not the order, since Heitkamp hails from a state Trump won by 36 points. But seeing Stupak bloc flip-flopper Donnelly go down at last would be extremely satisfying…
  • Breakdown of 2016 Presidential race demographics. Least likely to vote for Trump: Black single women. Most likely to vote for Trump: Mormons. Usual poll caveats apply. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Remember convicted felon Brett Kimberlin? There’s always some Kimberlin news floating around the blogsphere, usually in relation to his latest ludicrous lawsuit getting laughed out of court. But this week he made the news for being involved in selling hoax documents designed to bring down Donald Trump. “The entire set of documents appear to have been forged as part of an elaborate scam.” So, like most Kimberlin escapades, the story ends in embarrassing failure. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Cenk Uygur: Why the Democratic Party is useless. 1. As with all these critiques of the Democratic Party from the left, it’s right about the party being a corrupt institution for entrenched interests and wrong about America being gung ho for socialism. 2. Boy, that “not being polite” stuff sure helped Democrats recall Scott Walker! 3. “Cenk Uygur” sounds like a dark, forbidding fortress at the edge of Mordor.
  • Holland is the canary in the European coalmine of radical Islamization. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Speaking of Holland, Geert Wilders placed second in Dutch elections, which falls short of a serious challenge to the Islamophillic and Eurocentric establishment.
  • Dear Sen. McCain: (Sigh).
  • Rand Paul fires back: “He makes a really, really strong case for term limits. I think maybe he’s past his prime. I think maybe he’s gotten a little bit unhinged.”
  • Germany wants to fine companies for not censoring fast enough. What do you want to bet that objections to the rousing success of their Muslim immigration policy are first on the list of things to be censored?
  • Camille Paglia has a new book out, and offers up an interview where she talks about modern feminism (against), southern women (for), working class men (for), Michel Foucault (against), and pornography (for).
  • “Soros Fellow Flees Country While Wife Arrested For Welfare Scam.” It seems that earning $1.5 million a year at the Washington, D.C., offices of Mayer Brown LLP just wasn’t enough for Fidelis Agbapuruonwu… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Three #BlackLivesMatter protestors arrested for beating up a homeless man.
  • Man gets a C when he should have gotten an A for a school assignment. So he did what any of us would have done: Successfully amends the Constitution. (Hat tip: Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett’s Twitter feed.)
  • Dwight has some Austin-related memoes from the police beat.
  • “Coming up next on Most Shocking…Mormon Justice!”
  • King Kong burns.
  • He divided them again!
  • Schumer steals again. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Singer Kelly Clarkson is selling her Tennessee mansion. I like how it’s half typical rich-person mansion, and half Bass Pro Shop…

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    Camille Paglia Bashes Weiner, Hillary, Victimhood Feminism, and Foucault

    Thursday, August 22nd, 2013

    Camille Paglia is always good for an orthogonal view on current pieties, and this interview with her (warning: Salon) is no different. She also has a gift for intellectual putdowns that work at a much higher level of reference than Maureen Dowd’s.

    Take, for example, her take on Anthony Weiner:

    Two words: pathetic dork. How sickeningly debased our politics have become that this jabbering cartoon weasel could be taken seriously for a second as a candidate for mayor of New York.

    Hillary Clinton and Benghazi:

    It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton (born the same year as me) is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? She’s certainly busy, busy and ever on the move — with the tunnel-vision workaholism of someone trying to blot out uncomfortable private thoughts.

    I for one think it was a very big deal that our ambassador was murdered in Benghazi. In saying “I take responsibility” for it as secretary of state, Hillary should have resigned immediately. The weak response by the Obama administration to that tragedy has given a huge opening to Republicans in the next presidential election. The impression has been amply given that Benghazi was treated as a public relations matter to massage rather than as the major and outrageous attack on the U.S. that it was.

    Throughout history, ambassadors have always been symbolic incarnations of the sovereignty of their nations and the dignity of their leaders. It’s even a key motif in “King Lear.” As far as I’m concerned, Hillary disqualified herself for the presidency in that fist-pounding moment at a congressional hearing when she said, “What difference does it make what we knew and when we knew it, Senator?” Democrats have got to shake off the Clinton albatross and find new blood. The escalating instability not just in Egypt but throughout the Mideast is very ominous. There is a clash of cultures brewing in the world that may take a century or more to resolve — and there is no guarantee that the secular West will win.

    On feminism:

    Oh, feminism is still alive? Thanks for the tip! It sure is invisible, except for the random whine from some maleducated product of the elite schools who’s found a plush berth in glossy magazines. It’s hard to remember those bad old days when paleofeminist pashas ruled the roost. In the late ‘80s, the media would routinely turn to Gloria Steinem or the head of NOW for “the women’s view” on every issue — when of course it was just the Manhattan/D.C. insider’s take, with a Democratic activist spin. Their shameless partisanship eventually doomed those Stalinist feminists, who were trampled by the pro-sex feminist stampede of the early ‘90s (in which I am proud to have played a vocal role). That insurgency began in San Francisco in the mid-‘80s and went national throughout the following decade. They keep dusting Steinem off and trotting her out to pin awards on her, but she’s the walking dead. Her anointed heirs (like Susan Faludi) sure didn’t pan out, did they?

    While it’s a big relief not to have feminist bullies sermonizing from every news show anymore, the leadership vacuum is alarming. It’s very distressing, for example, that the atrocities against women in India — the shocking series of gang rapes, which seem never to end — have not been aggressively condemned in a sustained way by feminist organizations in the U.S. I wanted to hear someone going crazy about it in the media and not letting up, day after day, week after week. The true mission of feminism today is not to carp about the woes of affluent Western career women but to turn the spotlight on life-and-death issues affecting women in the Third World, particularly in rural areas where they have little protection against exploitation and injustice.

    And one need not share her fascination with bondage and discipline to enjoy her artful takedown of the Cult of Foucault:

    My principal complaint about those three books, all from university presses, was that their intriguing firsthand documentation of the BDSM community was pointlessly shot through with turgid, pretentious theorizing, drawn from the slavishly idolized but hopelessly inaccurate and unreliable Michel Foucault.

    In this tight job market, young scholars are in a terrible bind. They have to cater to and flatter the academic establishment if they hope to survive. Furthermore, they have not been taught basic skills in historical investigation, weighing of evidence, and argumentation. There has been a collapse in basic academic standards during the theory era that will take universities decades to recover from. I was incensed that none of those three authors had read a page of the Marquis de Sade, one of the most original and influential writers of the past three centuries. Sade had a major impact on Nietzsche, whom Foucault vainly tried to model himself on. Nor had the three authors read “The Story of O” or explored a host of other crucial landmarks in modern sadomasochism. No, it was Foucault, Foucault, Foucault — a con artist who will one day be a mere footnote in the bulging chronicle of academic follies.

    Paglia can still be spectacularly wrong (such as her neo-Freudian take on Weiner later in that section), but she’s always thought-provoking and never dull. Read the whole thing.

    (Hat tip: Ace.)

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