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Posted by Bryan Jacoutot on March 22, 2014 18 Comments
Recently released commercial satellite images have revealed the Iranians are attempting to reconstruct a replica of one of the United States’ largest and most powerful warships, the USS Nimitz.
Construction on the crude model appears to be in full swing at a shipyard near Bandar Abbas, as shown in newly released commercial satellite images. 'They got this barge and threw some wood on top of it to make it look like the USS Nimitz. That's all we know for sure,' a U.S. defense official told AFP... The wooden, non-operational aircraft carrier made to look like a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered American vessel was first spotted on the Persian Gulf last summer, the New York Times reported. Besides having the shape of the 1,100-foot-long carriers, such as USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Carl Vinson, the shipbuilders also replicated the distinctive white markings on bow. A satellite flying over Gachin shipyard also photographed a fake plane parked on the deck of the equally fake carrier.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 22, 2014 41 Comments
Last month racist writing on a dormitory door shook Grand Valley State University near Detroit in Michigan. Here's a photo of the student's dorm door: Grand Valley State Dorm Door Racist Writing Much like the notorious Oberlin College racism hoax, the incident caused much turmoil on campus, as reported by MLive:
Students who live in the residence hall said they were surprised by the incident, saying signs of racial tension haven’t been present in the past. One resident, Andrew Seawood, a freshman from Stevensville, said the slurs were upsetting because the residents of Copeland typically get along with one another. “It was a little surprising when they did say something was written,” he said. “Everybody gets along with everybody.” Others were angry.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 22, 2014 4 Comments

I have been very grateful for the media experience gained by being a contributor at Legal Insurrection and the Executive Producer for Canto Talk. Professor Jacobson has been a big inspiration behind a project I have been working on and which is now ready to launch: ...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 21, 2014 32 Comments
Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, endorsed the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement in 2011. Since then, his rhetoric has gotten more and more extreme, including comparing Israelis to Nazis. He uses a giant balloon of a pig at his concerts, featuring a Jewish Star of David on its side. Waters has lashed out at Scarlott Johansson, among others, and actively seeks to lobby other musicians and artists not to visit Israel. On March 17, 2014, Waters wrote an "exlusive" column for Salon.com, Why I must speak out on Israel, Palestine and BDS.

Roger Waters Salon.com BDS

In the Salon.com "exclusive," Waters details the routine justifications, but then pulls out a supposed quote from Mahatma Gandhi to prove that Waters is on the right side of history (emphasis added):
In the furor that exists in the U.S. today about BDS and the right and wrong of a cultural boycott of Israel, a quote from one of my heroes, Mahatma Gandhi, has been on my mind. He prophetically said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” The BDS movement is fulfilling its promise and fits Gandhi’s description. Once dismissed by many as a futile strategy that would “never work,” BDS has gained much ground in recent weeks, bringing with it the expected backlash. ....  I think it’s safe to say BDS is in the “then they fight you” stage.
This is a common quote used by the BDS movement. The anti-Israel Mondoweiss website used it, as has a Northeastern Students for Justice in Palestine Facebook commenter and a commenter at the anti-Israel Electronic Intifada. This student at the recent Northeastern University anti-Israel protest used it to fire up the crowd: The only problem is that it's a fake quote. All available evidence is that Gandhi never said it, as The Christian Science Monitor noted in 2011, Political misquotes: The 10 most famous things never actually said:

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Posted by New Neo on March 21, 2014 18 Comments
The wall-to-wall coverage of Flight 370, despite the relative absence of new information, is not all that surprising. Much of the other news of the day---be it Obamacare, the Crimea takeover and Putin's anschluss-type designs on other former Soviet satellites, Iran and its nuclear ambitions, or any other of several large stories both worldwide and domestic --- are undoubtedly bigger and more important in any objective sense. But once they are covered they are covered, until something new happens. The Flight 370 saga is different. It's a true mystery, at least so far, an international one. Although it directly affects fewer than 300 people and their families, that's a lot of people and we all can identify because nearly all of us fly in planes. That, and its aspect of Twilight-Zoneish unknown, grab people in a very different, and very visceral, way compared to a news story of the more conventional type. The search for Flight 370 "has exposed the technological limits of satellites" which can see the globe but are not designed to hone in on every section of it equally. Understandably, they concentrate their strongest attention on parts of the world other than the vast stretches of uninhabited ocean. As for those pieces of supposed debris spotted near Australia:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 21, 2014 11 Comments
Anne Helen Petersen announced that she is leaving academia to join Buzzfeed. https://twitter.com/annehelen/status/447045864305868800 Who is Anne Helen Petersen? Someone who holds a Ph.D in 2011 from UT-Austin in Media Studies, and teaches Feminist Media Studies, among other things.  Here's her Whitman College faculty description:
Anne Helen Petersen received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, where she wrote her dissertation on the industrial history of celebrity gossip and spent a lot of time eating breakfast tacos.  At Whitman, she teaches classes in television, stardom, feminist media studies, and theory.  She has published articles in the Journal of Film and Video, Television & New Media, Feminist Media Studies, Celebrity Studies, and Film & History, authored several book chapters, and writes a regular column on classic Hollywood for The Hairpin.  Her first book, Scandals of Classic Hollywood, is forthcoming from Plume/Penguin in 2014.   You may find her blog, “Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style,” at annehelenpetersen.com.
Why is Petersen joining Buzzfeed?  Here's a portion of an interview announcing the move (emphasis added):
I’ve known for some time that my work, and the sort of audience I love writing for, is not a very good fit for academia, but I thought that I could wedge/force/hipcheck my way into a position that would reconcile the type of work that I wanted to do with the teaching that I love. But as a friend of mine said amidst her time on the market, “academia is drunk”—not belligerent or irresponsible so much single-sightedly focused on things that may or may not ultimately matter. In other words, no one wanted to hire me! I want to be super explicit about that because I think people will assume that because of all the writing I do, both on and off the internet, that I somehow had some cornucopia of choices and was like “show me the money.” OH MAN I WISH. I get so much satisfaction from teaching, but there was no way to keep doing so—and continue the writing I find fulfilling—and make a sustainable salary. BuzzFeed gives me the platform and support to do the type of writing (and reach the type of audiences) that I love, but can also provide me with a living wage.... Oh I was, but “fully funded” is a myth, especially at state schools, even “state Ivies” like the University of Texas. You have a salary, but that salary just about pays your rent, and then you get nickeled-and-dimed for all sorts of fees, insurance, buying food that’s not rice, and somehow surviving the summer, when you’re not getting paid but are expected to do scholarship and research. DON’T GO TO GRAD SCHOOL KIDS....

Posted by Andrew Branca on March 21, 2014 29 Comments
On Thursday, March 20, 2104, the Florida House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly (93-24) in approval of HB-89 (the so-called "warning shot" bill), and HB-7029 (the so-called "Pop-Tart" bill). These developments are reported in the Bradenton Herald, and other news sources (h/t to commenter pjm--thanks!). The Florida Senate has not yet taken a full vote on its parallel "warning shot" version of the House bill (SB-448), but their bill has easily passed their Criminal Justice committee (5-0), Judiciary committee (9-0), and Rules committee (12-1, and which made some modest changes to conform with the House bill).  The full state senate is scheduled to vote on SB-448 next Wednesday. We have previously covered this "warning shot" bill in some detail here Florida “Warning Shot” Bill Advances, as well as exploring how a "warning shot" had nothing whatever to do with the Marissa Alexander case (Angela Corey Reminds FL Legislators of Facts of Marissa Alexander Case and The Myth of Marissa Alexander’s “Warning Shot”) and fisking a hilariously error-filled post on the bill by Adam Weinstein over at Gawker (Gawker analyzes Florida’s “Warning Shot” bill, implosion follows). This local news story is a good example of how the media misunderstands and misreports the nature of the "warning shot" bill:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 21, 2014 23 Comments

Giving California Crazy a run for its money. From @SGLawrence: This Prius was parked in Edgewater, the hottest, newest and trendiest section of Miami, Florida, where condominiums are now being snapped up for $400-$600/square foot. (A bargain, still, compared to South Beach and some sections of downtown...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 20, 2014 23 Comments
University of North Carolina at Wilmington professor Michael Adams has won his discrimination lawsuit, in a jury verdict rendered today. The judge now will rule on damages. The Jury Verdict form and Judgment are embedded at the bottom of this post. Adams was the professor who wrote the viral response to another professor who called Adams an "embarrassment" to higher education. The case involved claims that Adams was subjected to discriminatory retaliation for expressing his Christian religious and politically conservative views. We have uploaded the Amended Complaint and Answer to the Amended Complaint. Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Adams, described the case as follows:
Dr. Mike Adams, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina–Wilmington, frequently received accolades from his colleagues after the university hired him as an assistant professor in 1993 and promoted him to associate professor in 1998. At the time he was an atheist, but his conversion to Christianity in 2000 impacted his views on political and social issues. After this, he was subjected to intrusive investigations, baseless accusations, and the denial of promotion to full professor even though his scholarly output surpassed that of almost all of his colleagues. In a lawsuit filed against the university on Adams’ behalf, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys contended that the university denied Adams a promotion because his nationally syndicated opinion columns espoused religious and political views that ran contrary to the opinions held by university officials.
The jury found that Adams' "speech activity [was] a substantial or motivating factor in the defendants' decision to not promote" Adams, and that the defendants' would not have reached the same decision "in the absence of the plaintiff's speech activity". Adams v UNC - Wilmington - Jury Verdict Form Answers The Judge now will resolve the damages, as set forth in the Judgment:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on March 20, 2014 18 Comments
President Barack Obama on Thursday announced a new round of expanded sanctions in response to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. The additional sanctions target 20 Russian officials and influential individuals, as well as a Russian bank, according to Obama's statement and a list published by the Treasury Department.  These follow an initial round of sanctions announced earlier in the week that targeted 11 Russian and Ukrainian individuals. Speaking from the South Lawn of the White House Thursday, the president again denounced Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine, including its move to annex Crimea, and he outlined additional sanctions the United States would be imposing in response. “Over the last several days, we’ve continued to be deeply concerned by events in Ukraine,” Obama said. “We’ve seen an illegal referendum in Crimea, an illegitimate move by the Russians to annex Crimea, and dangerous risks of escalation, including threats to Ukrainian personnel in Crimea and threats to southern and eastern Ukraine as well.  These are all choices that the Russian government has made, choices that have been rejected by the international community, as well as the government of Ukraine.” “And because of these choices, the United States is today moving – as we said we would – to impose additional costs on Russia. Based on the executive order that I signed in response to Russia’s initial intervention in Ukraine, we’re imposing sanctions on more senior officials of the Russian government. In addition, we are today sanctioning a number of other individuals with substantial resources and influence who provide material support to the Russian leadership, as well as a bank that provides material support to these individuals.” The president’s announcement came shortly after Russia's lower house of parliament on Thursday approved a treaty to annex Crimea from Ukraine. From Reuters:
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