Various links for your enjoyment (In every case, go read the whole thing):

Right-Thinking from the Left Coast — Political Lynching:

For black Americans, racism is the catch-all, get out of jail free card. It explains everything, and removes any responsibility from the black in question by portraying them as a victim of a large nebulous racial conspiracy. If a white guy gets shitty service at a Denny’s, well, it’s just shitty service at a Denny’s. If a black guy gets shitty service at a Denny’s it’s obviously a racial incident. If a white guy gets promoted over a black guy it’s institutional racism. If a black guy gets fired it’s because the boss is racist.

Clublife – Wholesome Entertainment:

I’ve written repeatedly about how the entire club experience is a sham — a show put on for you, by us, for the sole purpose of separating you from your money as expeditiously and efficiently as we can suck it out of your pockets. Trust me, you’re not cool. We’re all so thoroughly jaded by this business that we legitimately dislike you as soon as you strut through our doors. You prance past in your silk shirt, give me your ultracool handshake and slip me a twenty, and you won’t get five paces into the VIP room before I’m rolling my eyes at Johnny and shaking my head in disgust. We’re selling you a dream, albeit an unhealthy, distorted, delusional one bereft of any redeeming value whatsoever, rotting from the inside out. The bouncers don’t like you, those gorgeous female bartenders think you’re a tool, and we all want 4 AM to come around as quickly and painlessly as possible so we can get our little envelopes full of cash and go the **** home.

Vodkapundit – Moral Exhaustion:

Do I want a world where the US can retreat behind its borders and pursue a foreign policy of peaceful commerce? Oh, dear Whomever, yes I do. We’d all be happier, richer, and in some cases, far less dead. But that day is far off. The Civil War showed that slavery and freedom couldn’t coexist in a single country. 9/11 showed that freedom and tyranny cannot coexist on a single planet. It’s us or them, baby, and no libertarian daydream can wish that fact away. Tyranny breeds the fanatics who, thanks to modern technologies we created, are empowered to raze our mightiest skyscrapers.

It’s us or them. It’s our way or theirs.

An older post from Waiter Rant – Seig Heil!:

Uber patron asks me if I’ve ever traveled abroad. I suspect he is wearing lederhosen under his pants.

“No sir I have only been to Canada.” (Sad but true)

The man throws up his hands and laughs. He speaks in rapid fire German to the others. They laugh. I don’t understand the words but I can gauge the meaning.

Sometimes when you wait tables people can make you feel very small. When that happens I get angry. I lose my professional reserve.

“Well my uncles went to Germany once.” I say.

“Oh yes? Where did they go? he says still laughing.

“They took the grand tour of the country in 1944 and 1945.”

Finally, a news story I wanted to comment on, but haven’t had the time to write about:

AccessNorthGa.com – Teacher Fired After Lowering Grade of Sleeping Athlete:

A Gwinnett County teacher was fired early Friday after refusing to raise a student athlete’s grade he lowered because the student appeared to be sleeping in class.

…

Neace, who has taught at Dacula High for 23 years, was removed from class after he refused to raise the grade he had given a football player on an overnight assignment. Neace said he cut the student’s perfect grade in half because he thought the student had fallen asleep at his desk the day the assignment was made.

As always, we don’t know the whole story, but if this is it, if the teacher cut a kid’s grade because of a discipline problem (and not staying awake is a lack of self-discipline as much as fighting would be), it seems rather ludicrous to fire him for being a good teacher.

( þ Say Anything)

Is anyone really thinking of the new Batman or Superman movies as part of their respective previous series of movies? I gather that Bryan Singer definitely intends his Superman movie to be a continuation of the original series, but the Batman one? I have trouble seeing Batman Begins as having any real relation to the series of movies that eventually brought us Arnold as Mr. Freeze.

I’ve been thinking about it, and I’d really like to see a good series of Batman movies that takes the time to do some of his villains right. Of the last series, I only really enjoyed the first two, and both of those had some serious flaws. I think the last series had the personalities of the Joker and the Riddler backward. The Joker should be completely insane, right down to the maniacal laughter and exaggerated movements that we saw from Jim Carrey’s Riddler.

On the other hand, I tend to think of the Riddler as someone who’s completely serious. The riddling shouldn’t be a joke to him. He’s showing off his superior intellect, trying to demonstrate how much smarter he is than, well, everyone else. He feels that he has to give them clues; otherwise, it wouldn’t be a fair competition. (I should note that this is my take on the characters, not necessarily supported by the comics)

While I’m on the subject of Batman, has anyone seen the new WB cartoon series? What is Warner Brothers thinking? The voices are bad (Batman sounds about as threatening as a twelve-year-old girl), and the character designs are even worse. I watched about half of the episode Bats in the Belfry, and the design of the Joker just made me sick. (It’s still bad, but I’ve seen an “updated” version of him that at least has the purple suit, which is at least a little better.)

If those are the kinds of “creative” decisions that Warner Brothers supports, maybe they should just pull the plug on the new Batman and Superman movies now.