Hat tip to Bird Dog.

Vampires face discrimination… or worse!

Katherine Timpf, in National Review, reports that sociologists have identified a new class of victims with a long history of oppression and discrimination based upon societal intolerance grounded in traditional religious beliefs.

Sociology researchers are now insisting that we as a society start accepting people who choose to “identify as real vampires” — so that they can be open about the fact that they’re vampires without having to worry about facing discrimination from people who might think that that’s weird.

The study, titled “Do We Always Practice What We Preach? Real Vampires’ Fears of Coming out of the Coffin to Social Workers and Helping Professionals” was conducted by researchers from Idaho State University and College of the Canyons and the Center for Positive Sexuality in Los Angeles.

“Most vampires believe they were born that way; they don’t choose this,” said Dr. D. J. Williams, the study’s lead researcher and the director of sociology at Idaho State.

The study is based on the experiences of eleven “real” vampires — which, by the way, are different from “lifestyle vampires.”

“Lifestylers,” the study explains, are people who just do things like wear fangs and sleep in coffins as lifestyle choices, and although “real vampires” may do these things too, they all also have one major thing in common that distinguishes them from the “lifestylers:”

“The essential feature of real vampirism is their belief in the need to take in ‘subtle energy’ (called feeding) from time to time from a willing ‘donor’ in order to maintain physical, psychological and spiritual health,” the study explains.

“Unlike lifestyle vampires, real vampires believe that they do not choose their vampiric condition; they are born with it, somewhat akin to sexual orientation,” it continues.

Read the whole thing.

The calming, new-idea-free zone will be open around the clock to comfort students who have read or heard opinions that are at odds with their preexisting worldview.

From The Onion:

LYNNFIELD, MA—In an effort to provide sanctuary for Lynnfield College students exposed to perspectives different from their own, a new campus safe space was dedicated Wednesday in honor of Alexis Stigmore, a 2009 graduate who felt kind of weird in class one time.

Addressing students at the dedication ceremony, parents Arnold and Cassie Stigmore noted that while the college had adequate facilities to assist victims of discrimination, abuse, and post-traumatic stress, it had until now offered no comparable safe space for students, like their beloved daughter, who encounter an academic viewpoint that gives them an uncomfortable feeling.

“When our Alexis felt weird after hearing someone discuss an idea that did not conform to her personally held beliefs, she had no place to turn,” said Arnold Stigmore, standing outside the $2 million space that reportedly features soothing music, neutral-colored walls, oversized floor cushions, fun board games, and a variety of snacks. “God forbid any of you, in your years at this institution, are ever confronted with an opinion you do not share. But if you are, you will have a refuge on this campus.”

“If unfamiliar thoughts are ever provoked in your mind, or in the mind of someone you know, you can come to this place and feel safe again,” he added.

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip to Robert Laird.

Hat tip to Peter Somerville.

Paul Krugman

What do you suppose ever happened to Hemingway’s tommygun? It was kept on his fishing boat, Pilar, during the WWII era. If he didn’t sell it, it may have fallen into the hands of the bearded ones after the Cuban Revolution.

Milo Yiannopoulos celebrates the publication of the novel version of Ayn Rand’s generally forgotten play, Ideal, with a nice essay poking fun at Rand-hating, Rand-villain progressives.

There’s just one problem with all the preening and posturing this author is subjected to: In order to sneer at Rand, you have to read her. That’s why you’ll sometimes see ridiculous social media spectacles of angsty liberal bloggers and overwrought students burning copies of the Fountainhead. And just how many Vox bloggers have made it all the way through Atlas Shrugged ? The next time someone is rude about that novel in your earshot, ask him to name a single character besides John Galt and you’ll see what I mean.

In a sense, Ayn Rand is a victim of her own totemic success. By appealing to such atavistic human drives, she has become shorthand for a whole range of gauche, aspirational working-class anxieties about other people that the liberal left likes to sneer at. Mock Ayn Rand and you are mocking the entire value system of the right-wing media, the Koch brothers, Wall Street, the Tea Party, and whomever else you don’t like—in a manner every bit as mean-spirited as anything Rand ever wrote.

Which is not to say that Ayn Rand was a particularly nice person in print. She is ruthlessly unforgiving in her mocking portraits of spoiled middle-class train wrecks. And if there’s one thing earnest socialists hate, it’s being mocked. Rand skewers the preoccupations and hypocrisies of metropolitan liberals with such ferocity that their only response is slack-jawed horror and social ostracism. …

History can be unkind to progressives, so their impotent fury is understandable. It has a habit of reminding us that, regardless of noble intentions, progressivism tends to make the world a worse place to live and further impoverish the poor. Rand predicted almost everything that ordinary people loathe about state-sponsored late capitalism, in particular the rampant corruption and bailout cronyism of an overweening government. Far from being pleased at the power Wall Street wields, if Rand were alive today she’d pull her hair out over the state of the state. Atlas Shrugged is no longer fanciful; if anything, it was a conservative prediction.

Rand’s critics might argue that she appeals to the worst of human nature—that her writing plays on our jealousies, our insecurities, our most antagonistic impulses. Ayn Rand is right-wing porn: capitalism, self-reliance and self-interest at their most outrageously unapologetic. But that, of course, is what makes her so fabulously readable.

Read the whole thing.

“I’ve been sent from the future to stop Harper Lee from complicating the legacy of a beloved fictional character.”

John Hinderaker explains why Obama’s Nuclear Agreement is a great deal for the Iranians.

[W]hat does Iran get?

First, and most important, it gets in excess of $100 billion in currently-frozen assets. This will happen in the near future, on or about the agreement’s Implementation Date. I think this prospect is what is making Iran’s leaders so jubilant. With that money, they can step up their support for allies in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and their support for terrorism everywhere. (By way of perspective, the entire United States military budget for the current fiscal year is only $560 billion.) To the extent that they spend some of it at home, it will help cement their position domestically.

Second, the agreement grants Iran international legitimacy. Since the revolution of 1979 and the seizure of America’s embassy in Tehran, Iran has been treated as a rogue state. Under the agreement, that status comes to an end. Investment in Iran will be permitted and likely will flourish. Sanctions will be removed and Iran’s nuclear program will not only be tolerated, it will be explicitly recognized and to some degree supported by the international community. The agreement contemplates that upon implementation, “the Iranian nuclear programme will be treated in the same manner as that of any other non-nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT [non-proliferation treaty].” It is hard to overstate how important this legitimacy is to the regime.

The third benefit to Iran’s rulers is perhaps the most important, and is closely linked to the first two. The agreement guarantees that, at least for the foreseeable future, the mullahs will remain in power. Realistically, the only way Iran could be denied a nuclear arsenal in the long term is through regime change. Early in the Obama administration, that seemed like a plausible scenario, but the administration declined to aid, or even encourage, anti-regime forces when such support might have made a difference. Now, with the mullahs both flush with cash and blessed with international legitimacy, their grip on power is probably stronger than ever. Nuclear weapons will follow, sooner or later, at a time of the regime’s choosing. And in the meantime, Iran’s ability to make mischief in the Middle East and around the world (e.g., through its newfound alliance with Venezuela) has been greatly enhanced.