Demand for Property in Alys Beach, Planned Community on Florida's Panhandle, Has Soared Over the Past Few Years

 At the Wall Street Journal, "The Houses Must Be White, and the Designs Preapproved. Everybody Wants In":

When Covid hit in 2020, Iain and Ronni Watson were planning a cruise in Greece with their friends David and Jackie Weill. So instead of heading to the Mediterranean, the Watsons ended up visiting the Weills at their new home in Alys Beach, a coastal planned community on the Florida Panhandle. 

But the Watsons quickly discovered that Alys Beach had more in common with their intended destination than they thought. With its all-white, stucco homes and cobblestone streets, Alys Beach reminded them of the Greek Islands.

The Watsons were so besotted with the community that they made an offer on a five-bedroom home during the visit. By December, they had moved full-time from California to Alys Beach with their two daughters.

White walls and roofs are among the requirements that create the unusual aesthetic of Alys Beach, a 158-acre community on the Gulf of Mexico off Scenic Highway 30A. The look has proven popular with home buyers: Over the past several years, demand for homes there has increased and prices have ballooned, according to local real-estate agent Jonathan Spears with Compass. In the first quarter of 2023, the average sale price in Alys Beach was $5.74 million, up about 25% from $4.59 million during the same period of last year, he said.

“Most of the families that we’ve met here, 20 to 25 families, have bought in the last three years,” said Dr. Weill, 59, an organ-transplant specialist and author. He and his wife live primarily in New Orleans and spend about 170 days a year in Alys Beach.

When Alabama residents Elton B. Stephens and his wife, Alys Stephens, started vacationing on the Panhandle about 70 years ago, what is now Alys Beach was vacant land. At the time, the area had yet to become a popular vacation spot, according to their granddaughter, Alys Protzman. “I can only imagine what the roads must have been like,” she said. “Many people were not vacationing down there at that point.”

In the 1970s, Mr. Stephens purchased the land that would become Alys Beach through his company, the Birmingham-based conglomerate Ebsco Industries. The Stephens family held on to the land for decades as beach communities grew up around it. In the early 2000s, they felt the time was right to develop the land into a second-home community, Ms. Protzman said. They named it after her grandmother, Alys Stephens, who had died by the time construction commenced in 2004.

Ms. Protzman’s cousin, Jason Comer, spearheaded the project with urban planners Andrés Duany and Galina Tachieva of DPZ CoDesign. Mr. Duany had been part of a team in the 1990s that coined the term New Urbanism, which refers to the creation of mixed-use, walkable communities. DPZ CoDesign has been behind the design of several New Urbanist communities on the Panhandle, including Rosemary and Seaside.

In designing Alys Beach, Mr. Duany said the goal was to create a community that was both walkable and private. To do this, many of the homes are built around individual courtyards, a design that was inspired by courtyard homes in Guatemala. They are also close together, some sharing party walls, which creates a cohesive sea of white along the community’s narrow streets. “With the conventional American house, you need a large lot to achieve privacy,” Mr. Duany said, “but the courtyard provides privacy in a relatively small lot.” This allows Alys to have a high density and enough people to support the restaurants and public life, he said.

Most people in the community walk or ride bicycles, said Dr. Weill. “We stay most of the summer there, and I can go a month without getting into the car,” he said.

Home designs in Alys Beach must be approved by Marieanne Khoury-Vogt and her husband Erik Vogt, the designated town architects, and other members of a review committee. At first, the style of the homes in the community was inspired by Bermudian architecture, according to Mr. Duany. But it has since evolved into an unusual blend that includes everything from Mediterranean to Moorish influences, Ms. Khoury-Vogt said. Alys Beach has a list of approved builders and architects that homeowners can choose from, although they can apply to use a different architect.

White is the color of choice, Ms. Khoury-Vogt said, because it is timeless and reflects heat. (Elements such as doors, window surrounds, shutters and gates can be different colors, she said.) The absence of color pushes architects to give each house distinctive carvings and parapet walls, said Jeffrey Dungan, an architect who has been designing homes in Alys Beach for over a decade. Homes are also required to be masonry, although materials like wood, stone and metal can be used judiciously to introduce warmth and texture, Ms. Khoury-Vogt said.

There are also guidelines for vacation rentals in Alys Beach. In order for homeowners to rent out their homes, for example, they are required to have specific glasses, linens, and serveware: cotton-sateen blend Garnier-Thiebaut linens, and dinnerware and flatware from Fortessa. These items are purchased through the community’s vacation rental program.

Alabama-based real-estate agent Matt Curtis and his wife, Courtney Curtis, bought their four-bedroom, roughly 3,900-square-foot home in Alys Beach for about $6.4 million with the intention of spending a few weeks there with family, then renting it out the rest of the year. They spent about $5,170 to purchase the required linens, Mr. Curtis said, plus a $100 monthly replacement fee. No family photos can be displayed while a property is being rented, he said...

Kyiv Residents Prepare for the Arrival of the Russians

 At Der Spiegel, "The Ukrainian Capital Under Fire":

The people of Kyiv spend their nights in subway stations and their days preparing for the arrival of the Russians. Fear is rising, but so too is the resolve to defend their country from Putin’s invasion.

It is a restive night in the subway car. Those sleeping on the floor or narrow benches snore, rustle and cough their way through the night as cold air seeps through the cracks in the doors. From above, from the surface, the muted sounds of war can sometimes be heard. Kyiv is under attack, on this night as well.

"It’s rumbling longer than usual. What is that?" asks a woman in the half-light.

"No idea. Why don’t you go up and have a look," a man’s voice jokes, earning a giggle from someone.

Kyiv these days is a city on the frontlines. It is a city where the subway stations are for sleeping, providing protection against rocket attacks. It is a city where the streets are blockaded with automobile tires and cement blocks. Where men with yellow armbands made of tape examine identity papers at roadblocks and hunt down spies and saboteurs. A city with burned-out cars standing at intersections and long lines of people in front of the grocery stores. Where bizarre signs are ready to greet the enemy troops who hope to force their way into the city: "Russian soldier, go fuck yourself!"

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war against Ukraine a week ago. And even if he wasn’t able to rapidly take control of Kyiv, one thing is clear: This city remains his primary objective. On both sides of the Dnieper River, which runs through the Ukrainian capital, Russian troops are advancing from the north in the hopes of cutting the city off from the surrounding countryside. It is a city where just a few weeks ago, the cafés were full and the streets bustling with life – and which is now preparing for a long siege and house-to-house fighting. For the residents of Kyiv, dark days are upon them.

On Tuesday evening, a few colleagues and I do the same thing many Kyiv residents do every evening: We pack up pillows, blankets and food and descend into the subway. The heavy metal doors that can seal off subway stations in Kyiv are almost completely closed, we have to slide through a gap to enter the station at Poshtova Square. It’s 6 p.m. and an air-raid warning has sounded. Our plan is to make our way to the Obolon station to meet up with my colleague Krystyna Berdynskych, a Kyiv journalist.

The nightly curfew is set to begin in two hours. Those who remain on the streets after that will be treated as saboteurs or spies, city officials have warned. Fears of Russian spies and of a pro-Moscow fifth column are widespread in Kyiv. And they are growing as Russian troops advance on the city, especially from the north. The first Russian soldiers have long since reached the Kyiv suburbs.

The Obolon District is also in the northern part of the city. On just the second day of the war, on Feb. 25, shooting erupted there, with Ukrainian military leaders reporting the incursion of Russian agents. For Kyiv residents, it was a shock that the enemy had turned up in the heart of their city so early on in the conflict. In hindsight, there is much to suggest that it was a false alarm.

As we head north, I look into the tired faces of the passengers and begin wondering if those in the subway far below the city would even realize if Kyiv were to fall to the Russians in the night...

Still more.

 

Save on Cuisinart MultiClad Pro Set (8-Piece)

At Amazon, Cuisinart MCP-8NW MultiClad Pro Set (8-Piece).

Plus, check all of Today's Deals.

More, Brother MFCL2700DW Compact Laser All-In One Printer with Wireless Networking and Duplex Printing.

Here, Lamicall Adjustable Universal Phone Stand.

And, JanSport Unisex SuperBreak Backpack.

Still more, Back to School Pens, Pencils, Paper Supply Bundle Box (Wide Ruled).

Also, Medical Ear Thermometer with Forehead Function - iProven DMT-489 - Upgraded Infrared Lens Technology for Better Accuracy.

Even more, Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop, Intel Quad Core i7 Processor, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Graphics, VR Ready, 15.6" Full HD, 16GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, Red Backlit Keyboard, Metal Chassis, G3-571-77QK.

BONUS: Neal Stephenson, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel.

The Palestinian Mountain of Hate

Following-up, "Omar al-Abed, Hamas-Allied Terrorist, Murders Three Israelis in Jihad Knife Attack in West Bank's Halamish Settlement (VIDEO)."

From Liel Leibovitz, at the Tablet, "How the Noble Sanctuary, sacred to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount, was transformed into a megaphone for bigotry, murder, and genocide":

Tens of thousands of faithful Muslims pack Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque every week. Things have been particularly tense in the holy site this week, after Palestinian terrorists murdered two Israeli police officers last Friday. Israel responded by putting up metal detectors, an act that led thousands of Palestinians to riot and assualt Israeli soldiers with rocks, bottles, and clubs.

What could make folks gathered for prayer so rowdy? Listen in on some of the mosque’s sermons, and the answer becomes painfully obvious.

“The Israelites,” roared Khaled al-Mughrabi, one of al-Aqsa’s top preachers, in the summer of 2015, “have a holiday, Passover. Every holiday, each group would look for a small child. They would kidnap the child, steal him, and put him inside a barrel, called ‘the barrel of nails.’ They would put the small child inside the barrel, and his body would be pierced by the nails. At the bottom of the barrel they would put a faucet, and that faucet would run with the boy’s blood. This is because Satan demanded of them, in return to doing everything they want, that they eat bread kneaded with the blood of children.”

When they’re not ritually slaughtering babes, Mughrabi said on other occasions, the Jews have a full agenda of evil: they’re the real culprits behind the 9/11 attacks, are planning to take over the world, and are actual blood-drinking vampires, which is why the industry they control, Hollywood, loves making so many movies about the Jew Dracula.

Not to be outdone, Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, is fond of using the mosque to talk about one of his favorite topics, the Holocaust. Which, to hear the renowned sheikh tell it, never happened. “Six million Jews dead? No way, they were much fewer,” he told an interviewer. “Let’s stop with this fairytale exploited by Israel to capture international solidarity. It is not my fault if Hitler hated Jews, indeed they were hated a little everywhere.”

 Still more, but you get the idea.

Mel Gibson's 'Hacksaw Ridge': Sadism and Pacifism Go to War (VIDEO)

That's the message from this great review from Justin Chang, at LAT, "Andrew Garfield goes to war in Mel Gibson's pacifist bloodbath 'Hacksaw Ridge'":

“Hacksaw Ridge,” Mel Gibson’s latest high-minded cinematic massacre, tells the story of Desmond T. Doss, a God-fearing American pacifist who served as a combat medic during World War II and personally carried 75 wounded soldiers from the Battle of Okinawa, ultimately becoming the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor.

His journey straddles two war zones — the first a largely psychological one, in which Doss endures the scorn and harassment of his fellow soldiers, and the second an intensely physical one, atop a treacherous 350-foot escarpment that gives the movie its title. Steeped in blood, guts and Christian iconography, “Hacksaw Ridge” is a tribute to one man’s courageous adherence to his deepest beliefs, made by a director whose commitment to his aesthetic principles is no less unswerving.

As he did in “Braveheart” and “The Passion of the Christ,” Gibson equates spiritual virtue with a hellish corporeal endurance test. His favorite subject is the testing and purification of a man’s moral mettle — a goal that can be achieved only through a sickening, uncompromising display of brutality.

His new film differs in that its hero nobly refuses to participate in the slaughter. Unlike William Wallace — or Jaguar Paw, the warrior protagonist of Gibson’s previous film, “Apocalypto” — Doss has sworn a sacred vow that he will never use a weapon. And unlike the flayed and battered Jesus we meet in “The Passion,” Doss does not personally endure the bulk of all that digital and prosthetic carnage.

He is an altogether unique kind of hero: a healer, a witness, a patriot and a pacifist. His commitment to nonviolence is established in the first 15 minutes, when, as a spirited young boy (played by Darcy Bryce) growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, he strikes and almost kills his brother, Hal, with a brick.

That near-fatal mishap brings Desmond to a powerful, almost Damascene moment of reckoning, one that Gibson dramatizes with anguished close-ups, swelling music and a heavy-handed reference to Cain and Abel. By the time we see a grown-up Doss in 1942, with the American war effort in full swing, he is a changed man — quite literally, as he’s now played by Andrew Garfield, whose reedy physique and gawky charm immediately cast him as an unusual kind of soldier.

A Seventh-day Adventist who refuses to bear arms, Doss nonetheless longs to serve his country and enlists in the Army — though not before falling in love with a pretty nurse, Dorothy (Teresa Palmer), whom he pursues with the same cheerful, ingratiating stubbornness that characterizes his every decision. He doubtless inherited some of that iron will from his father, Tom (Hugo Weaving), a scarred, embittered World War I veteran who regularly erupts in fits of drunken abuse at his children and their long-suffering mother, Bertha (Rachel Griffiths).

As a filmmaker, Gibson has a certain genius for the familiar: Even when tackling ancient settings and foreign dialects, his command of the Hollywood blockbuster idiom is such that all cultural differences are effectively rendered nil. That’s very much the case with “Hacksaw Ridge,” a thoroughly American concoction (despite all the top-notch Australian and British acting talent) that eases before long into the sturdy, straightforward rhythms of the platoon picture.

The men Doss meets at boot camp are a predictable mix of tough guys and comic archetypes, none funnier than than a barking drill sergeant wittily played by Vince Vaughn as a benign riff on Gunnery Sgt. Hartman from “Full Metal Jacket.” All these soldiers — including a surly alpha dog, Smitty (Luke Bracey), and a steely commanding officer, Capt. Glover (Sam Worthington) — turn on Doss when they learn he has no intention of touching a rifle. Yet even as he faces accusations of cowardice and enormous pressure to drop out, Doss doubles down on his training, as well as his belief that an important destiny awaits him in Okinawa.

In reconstructing one of the Pacific theater’s deadliest conflicts, “Hacksaw Ridge,” to its credit, seeks to strike a balance and honor the fighters whose courage made Doss’ valor possible. For lengthy stretches of Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan’s script, we are not with Doss at all but instead with his comrades in the heat of battle — charging, shooting, stabbing and immolating an equally vicious enemy...

Keep reading.

An excellent review.

I'm heading out to see the movie right now.

More blogging later.

Here's Drunken Stepfather: 'STEPLINKS OF THE DAY'

I'm always a little beat by this time on Thursdays.

I probably haven't had enough sleep for the week (I'm up at 5:15am on T-TH). And I'm done with my four-day stretch of teaching.

So, Here's Drunken Stepfather to get things off the ground for end-of-the-week blogging and into the Full Metal Weekend.

See, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY: Girls Not Wearing Bras – Showing Off Nipples (And More)."

BONUS: At Egotastic!, "'Game of Thrones' Red Head Hottie Sophie Turner Cleavage," and "Sara Sampaio Amazing Bikini Model."

Rule 5 Sunday

I haven't been doing the huge Rule 5 roundups because they take a long time to write, and the payoff in terms of reciprocal full-metal jacket reach-around is often negligible. That said, hats off to those stalwart Rule 5 bloggers who religiously post the tasty totties each and every weekend.

See Pirate's Cove, for example, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is heat created snow, you might just be a Warmist."

Also from Dana Pico, "Rule 5 Blogging: Sailors!"

BONUS: From Drunken Stepfather, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY," and "LADY GAGA NOT LOOKING LIKE LADY GAGA FOR BILLBOARD OF THE DAY."



Photo Hat Tip: Tactical Peaks.

Peter Kassig

Poor bastard.

Thought by going to Syria he'd be performing some noble humanitarianism. Instead, they doffed off his bloody head.

At Atlas Shrugs, "New Islamic State VIDEO shows beheading of US hostage Kassig."

And at Bare Naked Islam, "Peter Kassig, American aid worker in Syria beheaded by ISIS Islamic State (WARNING: Graphic Video)." The caption at the video page reads:

Islamic State murder video of 18 Syrian soldiers in a brutal and deliberately cruel fashion as the camera stares into the eyes of the condemned. The video production is smooth and a moment is taken to quash any idea that this is a “fake video” as ‘Jihadist John’ looks into the camera mid beheading with a menacing full metal jacket stare.

More at Telegraph UK, "Peter Kassig may have defied captors' demand to film propaganda video before he was murdered."

Professor Tyler Cowen Attacked While Teaching Class at George Mason University

A freakin' left-wing nut job tried to place him under citizen's arrest, and pepper-sprayed him.

At Instapundit, "I HOPE THE STUDENTS HURT THIS GUY SOME WHEN THEY CAUGHT HIM AND HELD HIM FOR THE COPS":

I encourage Tyler to show no mercy to this sorry subhuman. I wouldn’t.

From the comments: “Progs really are going Full Metal Retard these days.”

Indeed.

And like I always say, block, ban, and report the f-kers.

Save Us From the SAT

From Jennifer Finney Boylan, at NYT:

BELGRADE LAKES, Me. — I WAS in trouble. The first few analogies were pretty straightforward — along the lines of “leopard is to spotted as zebra is to striped” — but now I was in the tall weeds of nuance. Kangaroo is to marsupial as the giant squid is to — I don’t know, maybe D) cephalopod? I looked up for a second at the back of the head of the girl in front of me. She had done this amazing thing with her hair, sort of like a French braid. I wondered if I could do that with my hair.

I daydreamed for a while, thinking about the architecture of braids. When I remembered that I was wasting precious time deep in the heart of the SAT, I swore quietly to myself. French braids weren’t going to get me into Wesleyan. Although, in the years since I took the test in the mid-’70s, I’ve sometimes wondered if knowing how to braid hair was actually of more practical use to me as an English major than the quadratic equation. But enough of that. Back to the analogies. Loquacious is to mordant as lachrymose is to ... uh ...

This was the moment I saw the terrible thing I had done, the SAT equivalent of the Hindenburg disaster. I’d accidentally skipped a line on my answer sheet, early in that section of the test. Every answer I’d chosen, each of those lines of graphite-filled bubbles, was off by one. I looked at the clock. Time was running out. I could see the Wesleyan campus fading before my eyes.

I began moving all my bubbles up one line, erasing the wrong answers. The eraser on my No. 2 pencil hadn’t been at full strength when I’d started, and now I was nearly down to the metal.

Then there was a ripping sound.

I picked up the answer sheet. Through the gaping hole in the middle of it, I could see the hair of the girl in front of me.

That braid really was a remarkable thing.

I remembered this sequence, like something from a Hitchcock film, when the College Board announced this week that it was rolling out a complete do-over of the SAT. Starting in 2016, gone will be the tristful effect of arcane vocabulary words such as “tristful” and “arcane”; gone will be the penalty for guessing wrong instead of leaving the answer blank; and gone will be the short-lived mandatory essay section, a test that reportedly places a higher value on loquaciousness than logic.

All in all, the changes are intended to make SAT scores more accurately mirror the grades a student gets in school.

The thing is, though, there already is something that accurately mirrors the grades a student gets in school. Namely: the grades a student gets in school. A better way of revising the SAT, from what I can see, would be to do away with it once and for all.

The SAT is a mind-numbing, stress-inducing ritual of torture. The College Board can change the test all it likes, but no single exam, given on a single day, should determine anyone’s fate. The fact that we have been using this test to perform exactly this function for generations now is a national scandal...

Keep reading.

Also at LAT, "SAT overhaul to make essay optional, end penalty for wrong answers.

#Sochi Safety Questions Linger After 2010 Luge Death Nodar Kumaritashvili

He died instantly. The IOC played hush-hush so his death wouldn't affect the television ratings.

The full run is here, with bloody photos.

At the New York Times, "A Swift and Fatal Luge Plunge, and Then an Abyss of Sorrow":

BAKURIANI, Georgia — To reach this tiny skiing village, carved into the north side of the Trialeti mountain range, one must weave through a long progression of switchbacks rising more than a mile above sea level. When it is snowing — which is often — the trip from the capital city of Tbilisi can take nearly three hours.

Dodo Kumaritashvili makes the journey back and forth almost every week. Her daughter has a baby girl, and so Dodo goes to Tbilisi to help take care of her granddaughter. Upon returning home one weekend recently, Dodo entered her house and called out, “I’m home, son.” Then she began cooking.

Dodo’s son, Nodar, has been dead for four years. But she makes food for him every day, usually fruit or cake or meat but never soup, not even on the coldest days. Her son hated soup. When she finishes cooking, she brings the food into her son’s room and sits among the photographs and trophies and posters on the walls. After a few hours, she clears the food away and gives it to children who live nearby....

Of the three Olympic sliding sports — luge, bobsled and skeleton — luge is generally considered the most dangerous. Riders lie back on their sleds and zoom down icy tracks while peering through the space between their feet. To steer, they shift the runners of the sled with their legs or shoulders.

Generally, speeds are 80 to 90 miles per hour. Crashes are not uncommon, but according to luge’s governing body, which is known by its French acronym, FIL, the crash rate for Whistler’s track was in line with other tracks around the world. In the three years before the 2010 Olympics, there were 203 crashes there over more than 30,000 runs in luge, bobsled and skeleton, FIL said.

Still, the track at Whistler was different. Speeds were higher among all riders and, at least anecdotally, the chance of a serious crash seemed greater. Armin Zoeggeler, the Italian legend who has won two Olympic gold medals, had a rare crash on the same day as Kumaritashvili’s accident. A female luger from Romania had a bad crash two days earlier and was knocked unconscious.

A year before the Olympics, when a luger set a world record of 95.65 m.p.h. at Whistler, Josef Fendt, the president of FIL, was blunt about his concern. “It makes me worry,” he said then....

According to the report, Kumaritashvili committed “driving errors” that led to his sled’s catapulting out of control. Generally, when a luge hits a wall, it either breaks or pushes the rider toward the opposite wall. In either situation, the rider stays inside the track. In Kumaritashvili’s case, however, he flew out of the track and slammed into a metal support pole. The cause of his death, according the coroner, was “multiple blunt force injuries” after a “collision with fixed structures.”

Record Temperatures in Southern California

It's expected to hit 129 degrees in Death Valley today, 119 in Palm Springs, and 105 in Victorville.

At KABC-TV Los Angeles, "Southland sizzles under summer heat wave":

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Summer is here and Southern California is sizzling under a heat wave with temperatures reaching 100 degrees in many areas.

In the Santa Clarita Valley, the mercury passed 90 even before noon. Temperatures were expected to reach high 80s for Los Angeles and Orange counties, high 90s for the Inland Empire and Valleys, mid 80s for the local mountains and the low 100s for the High Desert communities.

Large swaths of the Southland will remain under an excessive heat warning until Sunday night.

Residents are urged to avoid outdoor activities if possible and stay hydrated. People who were out and about said they were trying to get things done quickly and get inside to a cool place.

"It's going to be staying at home with the air conditioner and not going out as much as you can," said Tiffany Friddle of Palmdale.

There's a news video at the clip, which incidentally features Gunny Lee Ermey of "Full Metal Jacket."

And click on the station's weather page, here.

The Death of Collaboration in the Independent Blogosphere

Robert Stacy McCain published an interesting post the other day, "Where Were You in 2002?"

He's asking about where folks were 11 years ago when the independent blogosphere was the vital forum for news reporting and analysis independent of the mainstream media. 2002's a long time ago. I don't think I was reading blogs intentionally at that point. It was still early in my career at LBCC and I was focused mostly on teaching and  research in political science. It was Dan Drezner's 2004 blogging piece in Foreign Policy that turned me on to the blogosphere and there's been no turning back (see, "Web of Influence"). At that time I was reading Drezner and Virginia Postrel. A little later Althouse became my favorite blog, and by 2006 I decided to get my blogging feet wet. American Power went live in October 2007. I've had a good run so far and I expect to be plugging away until I get bored or the progressives are successful in getting me fired. (Hell, that wouldn't stop me anyway, so WTF).

I've never considered myself an influential blogger (although my inbox, filled with all kinds of free books and promotions from publishers and blog newbies, often tells me otherwise). It was during the 2007 GOP primaries when I got really serious about having an impact and in 2008, when John McCain won the Republican nomination, I felt some vindication for my efforts. One result was that I got picked up by RealClearPolitics later that year. But honestly, I've had more fun these last few years following The Other McCain's advice on "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year." Sure, the babe blogging around here's become a major pastime, but actually, the idea of building community through "reciprocal linkage" has been one of the more important elements of my program. Folks need to exercise the "The Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around":

Reciprocal linkage is the essential lubricant that makes the blogosphere purr with contentment. If somebody's throwing you traffic, you should either (a) give them a link-back update, or at a minimum (b) keep them in mind for future linkage. Because you don't want to end up on the wrong end of a kharmic unbalance in the 'sphere, where you're always taking and never giving.

As blogging has become almost exclusively professionalized in the last few years, the notion of "The Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around" seems kind of quaint. But don't be fooled. We've still got lots of independent bloggers out there doing what the mainstream press refuses to do. For example, Robert mentions Professor William Jacobson's Legal Insurrection as a model of high-impact professional blogging to which we should all aspire. And of course Glenn Reynolds continues to plug away at Instapundit, resisting the lucrative lure of a huge corporate sponsor (even more lucrative, that is, as Glenn's already got great model of monetization). There are lots more examples --- and apologies to some of the great new blogs, like Rebel Pundit and SOOPER Mexican, for not highlighting their work more often --- although it's clear there are increasing sustainability issues for smaller "mom and pop" blogging outfits. Here's how Robert describes the problem at The Other McCain:

This network/community concept seems to have been lost by (or, more likely, was never known to) newer arrivals in the ‘sphere. The idea that each of us is contributing to a common project is not just some kind of “Stone Soup” idealism, but is in fact the only way to build any genuinely meaningful alternative to that pathetic exercise in groupthink we call the Mainstream Media. Bloggers who don’t help build the alternative can complain about the MSM “borg” all they want; they aren’t really making a difference. There are two ways in which bloggers actually help sabotage the blogosphere:

Turn your blog into a series of lectures...

Never link another blogger. It’s weird that some bloggers would rather link a story in the New York Times or the Washington Post than to link a fellow blogger. Why this is, I don’t know. Sometimes it seems like everybody has the same idea: Grab an MSM headline off Drudge, link it, include a brief blockquote and add some political snark. Not only does this effectively surrender content control to Drudge — so that bloggers are merely replicating the headline selection there — but nobody’s snark ever goes beyond their own readership, because no blogger ever quotes another blogger.

Be sure to read the rest for additional insight.

Those bloggers who "never link another blogger" are the kinds I generally avoid. Sure, few bloggers can worry about linking all their buddies all the time, but throwing some hits to your friends once in a while is the friendly thing to do, especially when you've been a mensch yourself, linking and forwarding your posts with breaking news and so forth. Which is why I was surprised yesterday at popular pro-life blogger Jill Stanek. I woke up about 4:00am and wrote a post on WND's piece on Planned Parenthood's grotesque sex education promotions ("Sex-ed cartoons 'too graphic' for N.Y. Times." I later tweeted it to Robert and cc'd Jill:

.@rsmccain Planned Parenthood Sex Education Graphics Too Grisly for the New York Times is.gd/HBetXJ @jillstanek @directorblue
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) April 29, 2013

Then checking back on Twitter about an hour later I see Jill in my timeline with a new blog post:

Ew, gross! @nytimes,@washingtonpost reject THIS @amerlifeleague ad of Planned Parenthood sex ed images jillstanek.com/?p=122100
— Jill Stanek (@JillStanek) April 29, 2013

Jill's post is time-stamped at 4:14pm in the afternoon, 1:14pm Pacific time, 50 minutes after I tweeted my link to her. Now, perhaps Jill had her entry all queued up or was already familiar with WND's reporting. I don't know. I can say that Jill isn't a big proponent of the Full Metal Reach Around community-building strategy. I've sent her lots of stuff in the past and have been linked perhaps a couple of times at her blog. I don't know. Perhaps she wanted to have this Planned Parenthood "scoop" all to herself, with no hat tip to WND, much less myself. That's how some bloggers roll. It's not the best way to build community, in any case.

Again, maybe Jill got that post going without ever seeing my tweet. But if it were me, I'd probably have replied on Twitter in the first place and then posted a hat tip if I blogged it. Your mileage may vary.

Either way, I couldn't help thinking that yesterday was one good example of the lack of collaboration in the blogosphere. And it's not an insignificant issue. Now more than ever American democracy needs alternative voices. American politics needs citizens to upend the establishment narrative. People frankly need to build on the social media revolution to bring greater accountability to government at at time when the press has abdicated its historic role as freedom's watchdog. Bloggers are upsetting and will continue to upset the accepted memes and force big media to report real news that's important to real Americans. Along with other forms of citizens' social media, blogs promote accountability and deliberation. William Jacobson had something on that yesterday, "If not for prior #Gosnell Twitter campaign, would MSM be covering Bronx and DC revelations?"

But "social" means you can't do it alone. The best of the top bloggers recognize the vital role newbies play in keeping the 'sphere an essential place for alternative reporting. And new bloggers entering the arena might heed the warnings of The Other McCain (and others) on the dangers of the death of collaboration in the independent blogosphere.

Wade Michael Page Identified as Suspect in Sikh Temple Massacre

The guy was a freak. If this guy got in my face I would have kicked his ass, as I would if a neo-commie terrorist was hassling me.

Michelle has this, "Sikh temple shooting: Details on gunman emerge; donation drive for victims launched":

I’ll leave the vulgar politicization of this evil massacre to others. The usual suspects are in full-blown Blame Righty Syndrome mode. They are as ghoulish and galling as the disgusting Westboro publicity hounds.

And right on cue, No More Mr. Nice Blog smears conservatives for the actions of a purported neo-Nazi, from the comments:

Unfortunately, a la McVeigh at al., the MSM won't for the most part draw the connection between this killer on the one hand, and the whole hate-thy-political/cultural/religious/racial-enemy toxicity that has permeated the Right's rhetoric for decades, on the other hand. I personally think the connection is indisputable and glaringly obvious, but so what?

That is disgusting.

More at Wizbang, "Sikh Temple Investigated As Domestic Terrorism, Ft. Hood Shooting Is Still Just “Work Place Violence”."

Yeah, that's what I said:

Neat how #WI shooting called "domestic terrorism" so soon. After Ft. Hood we were told by DHS that it wasn't terrorism just "isolated" case.
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 6, 2012

The Other McCain reports as well, "PRESS CONFERENCE: ‘Heroic Actions’ of Police Saved Lives in Oak Creek Shooting UPDATE: Shooter Reportedly Played in Hate-Metal Rock Band ‘End Apathy’."

Check Memeorandum for more. And from My Pet Jawa, "Shooting At Sikh Temple (Updated/Bumped Killer Identified as Wade Michael Page)."

And remember, conservatives repudiate people like this, on the extreme right-wing fringe. Progressives, on the other hand, embrace their fringe extremists.

I expect Rachel Maddow to launch a new series tying the suspect's purported hate-group affiliations to the GOP. Someone like that does not speak for conservatives. All Americans should be condemning this violence. It's too bad that the leftists jumped immediately to destroy their political opponents before the facts were in, and it's especially awful now, considering how unrepresentative is the suspect to any mainstream organizations on the right.

PREVIOUSLY:

* "At Least 7 Dead in Sikh Temple Shooting in Wisconsin."

* "Progressives Call for Gun Control Before Facts Come Out in Wisconsin Temple Shooting."

* "Labor Historian Erik Loomis Attacks Governor Scott Walker on 'Bargaining Rights' Following Sikh Temple Massacre."

* "ABC News Claims Slain Suspect in Wisconsin Massacre Was 'Skinhead' or 'White Supremacist'."

* "CNN's Eric Marrapodi: Sikhs Often 'Misinterpreted as Followers of Islam'."

Britain's Iron Lady

Well, I'm putting up another post to spread some linkage around.

The Lonely Conservative has the Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher video, and it's excellent. See: "Saturday Night Link Fest."

Check the roundups as well at Proof Positive, "Saturday Linkaround," and Pat Austin's, "Full Metal Jacket Reach Around: The Good Friends, Good Times Edition."

Dan Collins has a roundup too, "Browser Tab Dump, 1-14-12."

And some pushback against the rank progressive attacks, at Marooned, "I Stand By Our Marines (and Dana Loesch)." More at Hall of Record, "Horrifying Marines."

And check Teresamerica, "Alyssa Milano - Rule 5." More Rule 5 back over at Proof's, "Friday Night Babe: Ana de la Reguera."

More later...

Kate Beckinsale in Flaunt Magazine

Well, first let me give a big shout out to Teresa who's got a fabulous roundup: "Kate Beckinsale - Rule 5."

And speaking of the lovely Kate, see London's Daily Mail, "Flaunt it! Kate Beckinsale shows off her endlessly long legs in hotpants and boots on sexy cover." And at Flaunt, "Kate Beckinsale in the Revolving Ballroom by the Sea."

And here's the Flaunt video:

In lieu of a full-on Rule 5 roundup, see The Pirate's Cove, "If All You See…is a massive carbon footprint delivered by Santa, you might just be a Warmist."

I'll have more Rule 5 with additional linkage to Rule 5 bloggers in upcoming posts.

Meanwhile, there's a Full Metal Reach-Around at The Other McCain, "FMJRA 2.0: Toys In The Attic."

Street-Corner Hot Dogs on the Way Out in New York?

After watching years of "Law and Order," with Lennie Briscoe cracking wise right before ordering a hot dog, I made sure to grab a dog when I was out there last year. And that's the first thing that came to mind while reading the New York Times, "Redefining the Hot Dog, a Cart at a Times":

If you’ve passed through the city in the past century or so, you might expect that pushcart to be serving what everyone (even a drooling aficionado) likes to call a “dirty-water dog,” a hot frank plucked with tongs from a metal vat full of warm, salty liquid.

The delivery system is simple. The cooking method is rudimentary. And the result, with the way that soft bun sops up spare droplets of broth, is so essential to the New York gestalt that visiting world leaders must take a ceremonial bite for the cameras when strolling our sidewalks.

Water-heated wieners can be found on countless blocks of the city, and plenty of people are still ordering and devouring them. The other day, Gerri Queren, an airline employee from Queens, was picking up one with sauerkraut and mustard near the southeastern corner of Central Park.

“This is like a staple of New York,” she said. “It’s a little soggier, but it’s the way New York is.”

But the way New York is has been changing. Parents who insist on wholesome, natural franks in Central Park are one of many challenges quietly, slowly chipping away at the street-corner dominance of the dirty-water dog.

Left Coast Rebel Gets 1 Million Hits

And The Other McCain responds with a hilarious headline: "Blogger Reaches 1 Million Hits; Celebrates by Linking Entire Freaking Blogosphere."

The blogger is Sam Foster, on behalf of Tim Daniels, "Left Coast Rebel Finally Crosses the 1-million Visitor Rubicon!"

I'm thanked voluminously at the post, which is nice. But go read the whole thing. And while I'm not seeing it at the sidebar, Tim used to have some advice on networking to build attention and traffic. So, as always, I'm doing the Full Metal Reach-Around here in hopes of some reciprocal linkage, courtesy Grand Funk Railroad, "We're an American Band":

Check out Pat in Shreveport, "Full Metal Jacket Reach Around: The I've Been Reading Edition," and also Blazing Cat Fur and Director Blue.

Plus, Astute Bloggers, Bob Belvedere, CSPT, Dan Collins, Gator Doug, Irish Cicero, Left Coast Rebel, Mind-Numbed Robot, PA Pundits International, Pirate's Cove, Saberpoint, Snooper, WyBlog, The Western Experience, Yankee Phil, and Zion's Trumpet.

Plus, see the Rule 5 action at American Perspective, Maggie's Notebook, and Theo Spark.

As always, drop your link in the comments to be added to the roundups.

Britney Spears — 'Hold It Against Me' — Rule 5

I've been getting some updates on Rule from, from American Perspective and Maggie's Notebook, for example. And no updates needed from Theo, who's always on fire.

That said, I'm on a Rule 5 semi-retirement currently, and thus haven't been posting a lot of hotties. Not to worry, though. The Other McCain hasn't let the Tucson tragedy detract from the issue at hand: "Ignoring Public Outcry for ‘Civility,’ Britney Spears Releases New Single." I planned to post the clip at some point, so here you go. Sony Records has been aggressively pulling down unauthorized "Hold It Against Me" videos from YouTube. But at top is the audio from Britney's VEVO page, and Daily Motion has the full theatrical clip below --- but no guarantee how long that stays up. Britney's hot. And later down the road on I'll reprise some of the hot Britney blogging that had been a staple around here in the past.

I also found this production video from 2008, and it's pretty killer.

And don't miss all the great blogging at Blazing Cat Fur and Director Blue.

Plus, Astute Bloggers, Bob Belvedere, CSPT, Dan Collins, Gator Doug, Irish Cicero, Left Coast Rebel, Mind-Numbed Robot, Pirate's Cove, Snooper, WyBlog, Yankee Phil, and Zion's Trumpet.

Thanks for all the linkage friends.

As always, drop your link in the comments to be added to the roundups.

ADDED: See also Pat in Shreveport, "Full Metal Jacket Reach Around: The 'True Grit' Edition," and Saberpoint, "Moving On":

The Left is more than ruthless, they are evil. They seek to rule, not by persuasion or honest debate, but by any means necessary. They revel in slander, character assassination and violence. They are steeped in hatred for all who oppose them. They seek to create and hold a monopoly on news media and editorial opinion; they support voter fraud and stolen elections; they prosecute political opponents on trumped-up charges in kangaroo courts. They have raised "the politics of personal destruction" to a high art form. Fairness, civility and common decency are unknown to them. I do not see the American Left as fellow citizens, I see them as sworn enemies for whom I feel little or no commonality or fraternity.

Added: "AN IMPORTANT RULE 5 WARNING! - Do NOT tell Robert Stacy McCain that Morena Baccarin is now on Twitter!"

Explosive Powder, PETN, Target of Airport Screenings

Yeah, could be deadly, but sheesh.

At LAT:

Full-body scans and aggressive pat-downs now under scrutiny are designed to seek out the explosive powder that was used in several failed terrorist bombings recently, officials say.

New airport security procedures that have stirred the emotions of air travelers — full-body scans and aggressive pat-downs — were largely designed to detect an explosive powder called PETN, which has been a staple of Al Qaeda bomb makers for nearly a decade.

It was PETN that was molded into the sole of Richard Reid's black high-top sneaker when he walked onto American Airlines Flight 63 bound for Miami in December 2001.

It was PETN that was sewn into the underwear of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, authorities say, when he boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

And it was PETN that suspected Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen packed inside computer printer cartridges that were shipped Oct. 28, intending to blow up planes en route to Chicago.

None of the plots succeeded in taking down an aircraft, but top U.S. officials are concerned about fresh indications that Al Qaeda remains determined to get PETN on airplanes by trying to exploit vulnerabilities in passenger and cargo screening.

Not only has the terrorist network acknowledged its role in bomb plots, it is also sharing what it knows about building bombs on the Web and elsewhere.

PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, presents some vexing problems for security experts. A powder about the consistency of fine popcorn salt, it will not trigger an alarm on a metal detector. Because of its more stable molecules, PETN gives off less vapor, making it more difficult to detect by bomb-sniffing dogs and the trace swabs used by the Transportation Security Administration.

PETN's stability makes it easy to hide and easily transformed. When mixed with rubber cement or putty, it becomes a rudimentary plastic explosive — a baseball-sized amount can blow a hole in an airplane fuselage.

"PETN is hard to detect and lends itself to being concealed," said an intelligence official who was not authorized to speak on the record. "It packs a punch."

RELATED: At The Hill, "Next step for body scanners could be trains, boats, metro" (via Memeorandum).