My Zen Arcade

No, you twit. Liberals hate what you’ve done to the word. Patriotism used to mean beliving in your country and standing up for it. You and your cronies have changed the definition to mean “blind obedience, regardless to consequence or even fact, to the standing powers that be and hatred for those who don’t fall in line”.
Michelle Malkin » NPR journo suggests politicians quit using the P-word.

So, politicians, please make no mention of patriotism on Independence Day. Liberals hate it when you say the P-word.

Since 9/11, there’s been a theme in the U.S. that if you are critical of U.S. policies, you are basically a terrorist.  This, of course, has dimished significantly as those people opposed to things like the Iraq war have been shown to have been correct in their predictions.

But in a similar vein, it seems that if you oppose Israel’s policies you must then be an anti-semite.

Now, as a jew (and a rational person), I find that pathetic. 

Most people in the U.S. disapprove of the policies in place in China (many of them).  Does that mean most people in the U.S. hate the Chinese?

I think that England is being too soft on the issue of Sharia law.

Does that mean I’m anti-anglo?

I think that Communism doesn’t work.  Do I then hate all communists?

Obviously, the situation is extreme.

Tossing around extreme words does not help.

Parents Keep Veterans From Giving Talk At School
A group, Veterans For Freedom is going around giving talks and whatever.  Anyhow, they were signed up to speak at a high school which was eventually cancelled due to the politics of the event.  Michelle Malkin has kittens.

Ms. Malkin quotes the Star Tribune, but doesn’t want to give all the information.

We have not endorsed a presidential candidate. We’re not in the business of doing that.” According to the Veterans for Freedom website, the national tour “is about supporting our troops, honoring their commitment and rallying the country to complete the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
When asked whether the part about “rallying the country to complete the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan” could indeed be construed as political, Hegseth said that the group agreed not to advocate about the “progress made in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“It’s Iraq and Afghan veterans talking about what they saw and what they did there, and about what it means to put on the uniform of your country,”

Exactly how are you going to talk about what you did and saw in Iraq without promoting one side or the other?  Especially given that this group has a political agenda, it seems pretty unlikely that they’d be able to avoid any kind of ‘rallying’.    And, even if they didn’t have an agenda, how can they possibly explain the horrors of war?  Of being shot?  Of losing a limb?  Its easy to describe the good.  The bad isn’t so much.  And given that these kids are, or soon will be, of age to sign up, I think a balanced report is required.
Here’s balanced.
“We went in to this village and cleared out all the bad guys.  We then stayed a few days to get the town water supply running.  Three women brought us their children to let them thank us for saving them from the terrorists and Saddam.  Unfortunately, during all this, one of my best friends was blown to pieces by an IED.  He spent a long time screaming as he died, his left leg no where to be found.  I still hear him screaming at night.”
They’d be happy to go on about the first part, but do you realy think they’d include that last part?
They might mention that people die, but I doubt they’d feel comfortable talking about it in equal detail to the help they provide.

One has to wonder, what if a group came around taking the opposite stance.  Oh, right, they’d obviously be traitors or simply bad soldiers, no matter how long they’d served or how much they’d lost. 

God forbid, though, that anyone has a frank talk about sex with these kids.  We don’t want them going off and having sex now.  Just give’em a gun.

Well, I hate it when I agree with Ms. Malkin, but I ended up at the following link from her site.
While I think it is probably a good idea to shift the narrow focus of how science programs and research are handled, the idea that, because the nature of the beast isn’t pleasant to many women (”where winning is everything, and women find it repulsive”) is, well, just plain old tough titties.  I find the nature of working a job, being rated based on accomplishing tasks and how hard I work, to be VERY unpleasant.  I wanted to go to law school, but memorizing everything was really annoying.
My point is that there probably is a great deal to be gained by shifting how science/research/engineering programs (both academic and professional) are structured, but the fact that many women don’t like how it works now is hardly a justifiable reason.  Title IX should prevent women from being actively discriminated against, should ensure that women have equal access to such positions and programs, should ensure that women are not arbitrarily ignored based on their gender.  But it should not be used to change how research is run just so women are happier with it.
Thats a change that has to come because it HELPS science, not just to make it prettier.

Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man? — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

There is another essential difference between sports and science: in science, men and women play on the same teams. Very few women can compete on equal terms with men in lacrosse, wrestling, or basketball; by contrast, there are many brilliant women in the top ranks of every field of science and technology, and no one doubts their ability to compete on equal terms. Yet a centerpiece of STEM activism is the idea that science, as currently organized and practiced, is intrinsically hostile to women and a barrier to the realization of their unique intellectual potential. MIT biologist Nancy Hopkins, an effective leader of the science equity campaign (and a prominent accuser of Harvard president Lawrence Summers when he committed the solecism of suggesting that men and women might have different propensities and aptitudes), points to the hidden sexism of the obsessive and competitive work ethic of institutions like MIT.“It is a system,” Hopkins says, “where winning is everything, and women find it repulsive.” This viewpoint explains the constant emphasis, by equity activists such as Shalala, Rolison, and Olsen, on the need to transform the “entire culture” of academic science and engineering. Indeed, the charter for the October 17 congressional hearing placed primary emphasis on academic culture: “The list of cultural norms that appear to disadvantage women…includes the favoring of disciplinary over interdisciplinary research and publications, and the only token attention given to teaching and other service during the tenure review process. Thus it seems that it is not necessarily conscious bias against women but an ingrained idea of how the academic enterprise ‘should be’ that presents the greatest challenge to women seeking academic S&E [science and engineering] careers.”

So, apparently there are illegal immigrants working to get more LEGAL voters registered. So, really, this has nothing to do with immigration reform (regardless of how you stand on the topic).
Michelle Malkin is having kittens over it.

Ms. Malkin, while you may not like illegal immigrants, does it not occur to you that having more registered voters is both legal AND a good thing? The more people who vote, the more democratic the process is.
Oh, wait, of course not. The more voters there are the less likely you are to get your way. The more people who vote, the more likely it is that the conservative movement will be relegated to the shadows.

Michelle Malkin » Terrific: Illegal alien students registering US voters

Sovereignty? What sovereignty? The Tri-Valley Herald headlines a story about illegal alien students registering voters and lobbying for the shamnesty college tuition break DREAM Act this way: “Legal or not, immigrants are getting political on campus.”