The Greatest Threat To Western Civilization

The Time I Was Drunk With Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King didn’t know I was drunk. By all accounts, I was an affable fan with shades of a speech impediment.

I wasn’t black-out, per se. But it was that time of the night. You know, the whites whiten. The blacks blacken. The eyes shift from video mode to photo.

Short, choppy snapshots documenting my conversation with sports’ most famous lesbian: Her GEICO commercials. My stoner college roommate. The top-shelf open bar selection. The U.S. Open. Just call it The Open, Billie Jean King corrected me. The players do.

The Open lacks the strawberries-and-cream mystique of Wimbledon. The earth-tone majesty of Roland Garros. But what The Open does offer is size on an All-American scale.

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Drag Me To Your Door

Moon and Moon by Bat for Lashes off of Two Suns.

What’s Behind The Right’s War On Voting

Above is a mathematical analysis of predicting voting habits developed by William Riker and Peter Ordeshook in the 1968 article A Theory of the Calculus of Voting. They predicted the likelihood of voting as a combination of several factors: probability that a vote will make a difference, perceived benefit gained from a vote, plus the duty to participate, which must be greater than the perceived cost of voting.

Voters are a rare thing in the United States. They mostly come out for Presidential and national elections, while rarely for local polls, and almost never for primaries. Typically, voters are well-educated, well-off, and well-ripened.

As expected, African-Americans, Hispanics, women, and other minority groups voted heavily for Barack Obama in 2008, as did those under 30. Unexpectedly, however, the difference in voting pattern between the younger voters and older voters surpassed any seen before. According to Pew Research Center, “… 66% of those under age 30 voted for Barack Obama, making the disparity between young voters and other age groups larger than in any presidential election since exit polling began in 1972.”

To be clear, 66% of voters under the age of 30 voted for the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008, with more young people identifying with the Democratic party. These demographic trends presented the GOP with a challenge: change political direction, hold onto current political beliefs at the expense of future elections, or work to marginalize the political impact of non-Republican demographics. They opted for voter suppression.

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On The Future Of The Revolution In Syria

The Article: Is Civil War in Syria Inevitable? by Hussein Ibish in the Atlantic.

The Text: The prospects for a full-blown and largely sectarian civil war in Syria are mounting by the day. Much of the Syrian opposition, dedicated to non-violence, appears extremely reluctant to even consider the prospect. But as President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown worsens, as the options for any other means of achieving regime change seemed to dwindle, and with the Libya model presenting itself, however imprecisely, as an alternative stratagem, the drift towards conflict is starting to feel palpable.

The Syrian Powder Keg

In some senses, all of the required element are already in place for a civil war to erupt. In recent weeks some of the opposition has been slowly suggesting a greater willingness to accept the use of arms. There are hints that arms and financing for weapons are being delivered by outside forces. And increasing numbers of the rank-and-file Syrian military are defecting. Together, these factors could prepare the nucleus for an armed rebel group. The emergence of a significant and potentially effective armed rebel group in Syria is now readily imaginable.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that Lebanese arms merchants are noticing a huge spike in prices, which they attribute to vastly increased demand for black market weapons in Syria. Mohammed Rahhal, a leader of the Revolutionary Council of the Syrian Coordination Committees (one of many opposition groups), last week bluntly told the pan-Arab newspaper Ash Sharq al-Awsat, “We made the decision to arm the revolution, which will turn violent very soon, because what we are being subjected to today is a global conspiracy that can only be faced by an armed uprising.” According to David Ignatius, “a newly emboldened Saudi Arabia has been pumping money to Sunni fighters in Syria.”

The most important factor pushing Syria in the direction of civil conflict may be that the Assad regime has left the opposition few other options for anything resembling success. The largely nonviolent protests have brought nothing in the way of serious reform or to weaken the regime’s grip on power. The protest movement, as it is presently structured, does not seem capable of either. If anything, the regime seems to have consistently worsened its behavior. With the opposition basing its strategy primarily on embarrassing the regime and increasing international pressure, rhetoric, and sanctions, the nonviolent tactic has been almost all pain with very little gain. At some point, other options will have to be considered — or the fight against Assad abandoned.

The battle lines are already drawn in Syria, and they are largely sectarian

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