The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Out on a Limb
“Maybe Iran and North Korea will come to their senses and behave. Maybe Mr. Assad will finally fall. Maybe the Syrian insurgents will prove to be pro-American democrats after all. Maybe opportunistic senators and journalists will not play politics and one day abandon the very policies that they once urged their president to adopt. And then again, maybe not.”–Victor Davis Hanson, Washington Times, May 10
Violence Never Solved Anything
“Michelle Obama Beats Hundreds of Women to Get Closest to Britain’s Most Eligible Bachelor Prince Harry”–headline, BeforeItsNews.com, May 9
“Enough Already! 3 Overused Phrases That Drive Me Crazy”–headline, Huffington Post, May 9
“Do Annular Electrodes Present a Scalable PCM Solution?–Part 1”–headline, EETimes.com, May 7
News of the Tautological
“Hayward Police Shoot at Man With Gun”–headline, San Francisco Chronicle website, May 8
Bottom Stories of the Day
“Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Stages Anti-Israel Rally”–headline, Times of Israel, May 10
Fahrenheit 451
Sometimes even we are astonished at the lack of self-awareness evinced by supposedly intelligent people on the liberal left. Check out this FoxNews.com report:
Two San Jose State University professors took a picture as they held a match to a book that takes on the idea of global warming, and the photo landed on an official school website until some realized the idea of academics burning books is not exactly scholarly. The image depicted Alison Bridger, a professor and chairwoman of the university’s department of meteorology and climate science, holding a lit match beneath “The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania” as the 312-page paperback was held by assistant professor Craig Clements.
“This week we received a deluge of free books from the Heartland Institute,” the original caption read, according to an archived version of the webpage. “. . . Shown above, Drs. Bridger and Clements test the flammability of the book.”
SJSU’s Department of Meteorology and Climate took the photo down from its website after a science blogger called attention to it. The department called it “an ill-conceived attempt at satire.”
No doubt that’s an accurate description. They seem to have thought it was funny. But why? Aren’t they aware that book-burning is associated with censorship and totalitarian regimes? The only way the joke makes sense is if the ones telling it are its butt.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.
