“Obama refuses to ‘meddle’ in Iran“. I guess letting the world know that the President of the United States stands behind people who’re being beaten and shot by “security forces” for demonstrating against corrupt elections might run the risk of “offending” Iran.

The President is in full-on “grovel” mode, it seems. Martin Peretz has some related thoughts regarding the “Cairo Speech”.

For those who don’t know, I’m travelling to Prague for a couple of weeks as part of the Collegiate Network’s Geo-Strategic Journalism Course*. If you’re some sort of creeper and want to see what I’m up to, you can check out the CN Prague Blog, where I, along with the other members, will be posting.

* The Collegiate Network is a cool group that gives support to independent college publications and journalists through grants and trips like the one I’m on.

Well, anyone who’s been following the news in the last few days knows that the European Left took a bit of a drubbing in recent elections. In some ways it’s heartening. But then you remember that fascists like the BNP won some seats and that kind of puts a damper on the whole thing.

Anyways, the preceding paragraph merely served as an excuse for me to link to this YouTube video:

Scientists brew beer derived from 9,000-year-old recipe. The stuff’s going to be marketed by Dogfish Head, which means here in Eugene we’ll probably stand a reasonable chance of finding it on the shelves at Market of Choice, Sundance, the Bier Stein, or some other place that stocks specialty beers. The Beer Babe Blog has a review of the stuff, being sold under the name “Chateau Jiahu”, describing it thusly:

It’s pretty cloudy and smells like sweet grapes, with an amber color and some carbonation that isn’t overwhelming but reminds you that it isn’t wine. I think this would be a good candidate for aging, and I am hankering to have this on a moonlit summer night for some reason.

It is very smooth, not overly sweet but the honey is a delightful compliment.

No word yet on how much it’s going to cost, but being Dogfish Head, I’m sure it’ll come in a 12-oz. bottle and won’t be cheap.

Well, campus today is all aflutter for the impending “march on Johnson Hall“. In what seems to be a deliberate attempt to rekindle past glories, the “Step Up, Oregon!” faction is going to demand that Oregon distance itself from a clothing manufacturer accused of employing sweatshop labor, breaking the law, and generally being very, very bad.

Even the ASUO is trying to get in on the action.

I want to avoid weighing in on whether Russell is an evil company or not; They may very well be, and I’m in no position to say they aren’t.

The problem I have with virtually every argument that I’ve seen advocating breaking with Russell (apparently in violation of OUS rules) is that they do little more than repeat Workers Rights Consortium talking points without even a hint of skepticism.

We’re told that closing down a factory “…prompted Worker Rights Consortium investigations, which found that the decision to close the factory was at least partly because of [unionization attempts], constituting a violation of Honduran labor laws.”

That’s all very well and good, but did anyone honestly expect them to come to any other conclusion? The WRC has painted a proverbial target on Russell’s back, and I think everyone would be absolutely shocked if they didn’t reach the exact conclusion that they did, in fact, reach.

To put it another way, I find the WRC’s “findings” about as convincing as a report reading something along the lines of “an investigation by the Democratic National Committee found that George W. Bush was a bad President” or “investigations by the Communist Party of the USA found that capitalism is bad”. Those statements may or may not be true, but, like anything coming from the WRC, they’re not exactly unbiased.

As part of their college education, students are expected to show at least a modicum of skill in critical thinking.

It would be nice if those skills could be put to use questioning the veracity of claims of corporate wrongdoing made by an organization whose express purpose is to accuse corporations of wrongdoing.

I’m not necessarily disputing the claims that Russell may in fact be a rotten company. I’d just like to see people be a bit more careful about repeating what amounts to little more than propaganda.

Then again, hope springs eternal.

A sneak preview of our possible upcoming issue of “The Comic Pravda.”

I usually like Matt Petryni’s columns. I don’t always agree with the guy, but he usually seems genuinely thoughtful and I’d put him at the top of the list of this year’s otherwise… lackluster opinion roster over at the Emerald. That said, today’s piece, which attempted to link industrial farming with swine flu (or pandemics in general), was all sound and fury (well, sound at least, and only if you were to read it aloud), signifying… nothing in particular.

(more…)

Swine Flu is all the rage this week, and we just learned that it does not mean we like to pork fatties.

So far it has killed 152 people, with the only deaths being in Mexico. In the United States there have been reported cases in California, Ohio, Kansas, and New York.  The virus that normally infects pigs has began to infect humans causing The World Health Organization to raise it’s pandemic warning level from 3 to 4 meaning that we are one step away from declaring a global pandemic.

With the Virus being tested for in Santa Clara County, Oregon is starting to worry. But have no fear, the Oregon Government is on it, Lane County has been apparently prepared for years, and even our very own Health Department has started preparing for the flu.

But don’t forget it’s going to kill us all.

*

I spend my time studying the Caucasus. It’s what I do in my free time. It’s what I’ll be doing for the better part of the next decade as a graduate student.

So, while it’s no secret that I’m not a fan of our current President, I respected Barack Obama’s repeated promises to recognize the Armenian Genocide for what it was: the systematic murder of ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

Unfortunately, as with so many other cases, the candidate of “Hope” and “Change” has once again revealed himself to be little more than a cynical opportunist who’s more than content to blow smoke up the electorate’s ass and otherwise continue with the policies of the past, in this case choosing to kowtow to Turkish “sensibilities” rather than live up to promises he’s made in the past.

Christopher Hitchens writes:

President Obama comes to this issue with an unusually clear and unambivalent record. In 2006, for example, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, was recalled for employing the word genocide. Then-Sen. Obama wrote a letter of complaint to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, deploring the State Department’s cowardice and roundly stating that the occurrence of the Armenian genocide in 1915 “is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.” On the campaign trail last year, he amplified this position, saying that “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president.”

[…]

It is now being hinted that if either President Obama or the Congress goes ahead with the endorsement of the genocide resolution, Turkey will prove uncooperative on a range of issues, including the normalization of the frontier between Turkey and Armenia and the transit of oil and gas pipelines across the Caucasus. When the question is phrased in this thuggish way, it can be slyly suggested that Armenia’s own best interests are served by joining in the agreement to muddy and distort its own history. Yet how could any state, or any people, agree to abolish their pride and dignity in this way? And the question is not only for Armenians, who are economically hard-pressed by the Turkish closure of the common border. It is for the Turks, whose bravest cultural spokesmen and writers take genuine risks to break the taboo on discussion of the Armenian question. And it is also for Americans, who, having elected a supposedly brave new president, are being told that he—and our Congress too—must agree to collude in a gigantic historical lie.

For several years, as the the Somali state has spiraled down into deeper and deeper chaos, piracy in Somali and international waters around the failed nation has threatened to close off vital shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Piracy has only gotten worse in the last couple years as the political situation in Somalia has deteriorated even further.

This last year alone, there were over 40 successful hijackings and over 15 ships are currently being held for ransom, with over 250 crew members held hostage. The first mistake that the civilized world is not taking more forceful action against these pirates. It doesn’t help that the ships’ crews are lying down and waiting for the ships’ owners to pay up the ransom. The fact that these ransoms are being paid is encouraging piracy, because these impoverished young Somali men know they can get a (relatively) easy payout from this. (more…)

“One dead in pie factory explosion“

A United Nations “human rights” body has approved a proposal that urges UN member states to outlaw criticism of religion under the guise of “protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion.” Uh huh.

Thankfully, the motion isn’t binding, and there’s virtually zero chance that any state, outside of the collection of Islamic dictatorships, Belarus, and “progressive” darling Venezuela that supported in the first place will take any actual steps toward implementing any of its recommendations.

Still, it’s something to keep in mind the next time someone starts singing the praises of the United Nations and getting all misty-eyed thinking about the possibility of enshrining “tolerance” in law.

[UPDATE]

More here. (via Instapundit)

People who walked past 13th and Kincaid around 12:30 today were greeted by the sight of a group of young boys and girls dressed in traditional garb holding large cardboard signs bearing slogans such as “UO Gives PhD in Akha Genocide!” and “Richard Haugland Loves Baby Akha girls for Their DNA!”

Pictures and a little bit about what this is all about below the fold.

(more…)

From The Sun:

A SEX-MAD Russian died after guzzling a bottle of Viagra pills to keep him going for a 12-hour orgy with two women pals.

The women had bet mechanic Sergey Tuganov £3,000 that he wouldn’t be able to satisfy them both non-stop for the half-day sex marathon.

But minutes after winning the wager, the randy 28-year-old dropped dead with a heart attack, revealed Moscow police.

One of the women, named only as Alina, said: “We called emergency services but it was too late, there was nothing they could do.”

I would like to confer upon Tuganov the posthumous title of Ol’ Polecat – the highest honor the Commentator awards. The last person we bestowed the title on was a 112-year-old WWI veteran who claimed his longevity was the result of “cigarettes, whiskey and wild women.”

Hat tip to Fark, where commentors have declared Tuganov “a modern day John Henry.”