Barrett Brown Doesn't Read Well

Barrett Brown has a new post up, entitled "Donald Douglas Answers My Questions and Then Some."

He's apparently upset that I suggested previously that he doesn't read well, and he responds:

Let us set aside the irony of someone claiming that his opponent “doesn’t read well” or “comprehend” particular brands of “dialogue” before going on to misspell a common word.

Hey, he's got me there! I really did misspell "merchandising," although it's not like I haven't addressed the point previously! See, "Blogging PNSfW; or, Now Hiring at American Power: Neocon Copy Editor!" So, yeah, it's true: I really do need that copy editor!

That said, seriously, Barrett Brown desperately needs to develop his critical reading skills. For one thing, I absolutely did not "respond" to his smear jobs. Stogie at Saber Point did. Brown writes, for example:

Having gotten into a dispute a while back with Donald Douglas of the prominent conservative blog American Power, I last week posted seven questions for Douglas regarding Robert Stacy McCain’s white supremacist activities, which Douglas, of course, does not recognize as such. Still, he has been kind enough to answer me ...

And:

Let’s take a look at how he’s managed to deal with them ...

Brown then proceeds to quote the entire set of responses to his post, "Seven Questions for Donald Douglas on the Question of R.S. McCain’s Racism." Of course, those are Stogie's responses, as I noted at the time:

Folks can read the whole essay for themselves. It's the same old worthless allegations ... In fact, I was actually going to ignore 'em. But since I had just spent the day with Robert Stacy McCain last week (and Brown's been reading my blog, suggesting that I'm "very close" with McCain), I thought I'd send the entry over to my good buddy Stogie at Saber Point. To my surprise, Stogie sent back a point-by-point rebuttal to Brown's "seven questions" (questions by the way which are themselves based in unsubstantiated assertions). So, here you go, in any case ...

And then at the end of Stogie's response, I wrote again:

Barrett Brown concluded his essay by saying he hoped that I'd "choose to answer these questions." Well, Stogie's answered them eminently well here, and I wouldn't have done so too much differently. But again I probably wouldn't have bothered to answer them at all, since Barrett Brown obviously didn't take care to address what I'd written in the first place (I've read American Renaissance, for example, and said what I thought about it already). Frankly, Brown stonewalled and mischaracterized my post, and I doubt he has the kind of decency that I'd expect in one worth engaging at a serious, substantive level altogether.

It's hard to see why Barret Brown thought that I'd responded to his seven questions, when Stogie actually had. Indeed, the very first comment at the post, from Dana at Common Sense Political Thought, took issue with Stogie's interpretation of the Old Testament. So, I'm restating the point for the record: BARRETT BROWN DOESN'T READ WELL! Perhaps Mr. Brown was so excited to nail me on misspelling "merchandising" that he frankly ejaculated prematurely dropped the ball on the big picture.

Indeed, that reminds me that I might as well restate my main contention from my previous entry, which is that Brown has "stonewalled and mischaracterized my post," and now on top of that he's calling me a "liar." That is, he quotes me as saying, that "I’ve looked through everything he’s linked," and then wrongly infers that I've read everything HE'S EVER LINKED WITH RESPECT TO ROBERT STACY MCCAIN. And thus, that allegedly makes me a liar. Actually, as anyone even vaguely familiar with blogging would know, when I say that "I’ve looked through everything he’s linked," that's an ovbvious reference to "everything" at the very post in which he attacked Robert as racist, which would be, "A Reply to Donald Douglas and a Restatement of My Offer to R.S. McCain."

Folks can read my original post if they're so bored that they've got nothing better to do. See, "A Theory* of Racist Smears and the Case of Robert Stacy McCain."

In any case, that's enough time-wasting with this True/Slant airhead. Barrett Brown has never addressed the main point of contention, which is that he's an unprincipled smear merchant who has nothing on Robert Stacy McCain which hasn't been addressed elsewhere. The question to Barrett Brown is why? Why devote an entire chapter in a book to rehashing years-old debates on Robert Stacy McCain's confederate ties. Stogie responded to those allegations perfectly well. But I'm looking for something a bit more illuminating. When I mentioned Barrett Brown's atheism, the point was to illustrate that gay rights and civil rights activists have one thing they can hang their hats on -- allegations of bigotry, racism, etc. I've already debunked the claims that McCain's racist, and Stogie's added additional commentary to cast futher light on the issues from a southern perspective.

I wouldn't spend time with Robert Stacy McCain if I thought he was a white supremacist. Whatever sins of racial insensitivity Robert's guilty of they happened before I met him. Had Robert attacked me or my family with bigoted slurs or deeply immoral racial prejudice I would have written about it by now, and repudiated them.

Perhaps Barrett "I Need to Learn How to Read" Brown might address those issues instead of beating around the bush of obfuscation, prevarication, and denial.

Sarah Palin Signs Multi-Year Deal With Fox News

This post gives me a chance to report on two developments in the news today. I was thinking about putting up a post on Tucker Carlson's new website the Daily Caller. Carlson hired Jim Treacher, and he's linked my blog a bunch on Twitter, so I thought I've give him a shout out. Jim's new blog is the "DC Trawler." You can read all about it here.

I first heard about Carlson's new online start-up last week. I read somewhere that the Daily Caller was going to be like the right's Huffington Post. Well, if this frontpage screenshot is any indication, I'd say the early reports were on the money -- and I kinda love those huge banner headlines with the big pictures at HuffPo, even though it's a leftist site that I don't read or link. So, let's welcome the Daily Caller, where the first big story I'm linking is the news that Sarah Palin has signed on at Fox for a multi-year contract as a political commentator.

Checking Memeorandum, the Palin story is leading the headlines there. Howard Kurtz and Ed Morrissey have reports, and here's this from the latter, which sounds about right:

It’s a good move on Palin’s part ....

However, a multi-year deal may mean that Palin will wait to run for higher office. She could either go for the Senate or the presidency next, but either way, she’d have to start building a campaign no later than a year from now. Media outlets generally cut off analysts when they start building campaigns to avoid the necessity of giving opponents free air time for responses. A multiyear deal doesn’t preclude the possibility of entering into a campaign in 2011, but it indicates that Palin isn’t yet envisioning such a step.

That’s not necessarily a bad idea anyway. Palin is young and has plenty of opportunity to run for office, with 2016, 2020, and 2024 all being very realistic for her in terms of presidential campaigns. The Fox appearances will give her an opportunity to hone her craft while keeping expectations in check. Taking her time would be a smart move, and at least since her resignation from office, Palin has been making a series of smart moves.

I'd add though, that even with the Fox News gig, Palin could lose her "it girl of the moment" status, and thus the kind of popular momentum she'll need to make a run for the GOP nomination.

In any case, like Morrissey, I too suggested that Palin might do well to wait until later election cycles before making a White House bid. See, "Can Palin Win the 2012 GOP Nomination?" But having a year of developments since the Democrats took power, a Palin run for the nomination looks better than ever at this point. So, it's got to be a tough call on Palin's part to perhaps delay the big presidential run, at least if there's indeed a multiple-year deal in the works that puts a crimp on her campaign style. (Howard Kurtz above thinks the move's going to help Palin get situated for 2012, so this is all pretty much guesswork.)

I think rank-and-file conservatives are winners all around, in any case, as now they'll have Palin on Fox News leading the media charge against the Democratic-Obamunists.

More later ...

Seventy-Eight Percent Okay With TSA Full-Body Scanners

From USA Today, "Most OK With TSA Full-Body Scanners":

Air travelers strongly approve of the government's use of body scanners at the nation's airports even if the machines compromise privacy, a USA TODAY/Gallup poll finds.

Poll respondents appeared to endorse a Transportation Security Administration plan to install 300 scanners at the nation's largest airports this year to replace metal detectors. The machines, used in 19 airports, create vivid images of travelers under their clothes to reveal plastics and powders to screeners observing monitors in a closed room.

"It would seem much more thorough than the process that we're doing now," poll respondent Joel Skousen, 38, of Willcox, Ariz., said. "It would put me more at ease getting on a plane."

In the poll, 78% of respondents said they approved of using the scanners, and 67% said they are comfortable being examined by one. Eighty-four percent said the machines would help stop terrorists from carrying explosives onto airplanes. The survey was taken Jan. 5-6 of 542 adults who have flown at least twice in the past year.

More at the link. Also, at Gallup, "In U.S., Air Travelers Take Body Scans in Stride." (Via Memeorandum.)

I suppose folks like Paul Campos and Glenn Greenwald will now call the great majority of Americans "hysterical wingnut fearmongers"!!

Either that, or they'll saw we should be like Germany! See, "From Granny to Nearly Nude Germans, Everyone's Raising Cane at the Airport."

Arguments in Perry v. Schwarzenegger

A year ago, I wrote more on gay marriage than anything else. On the heels of passage of Proposition 8, Californians witnessed one of the most vicious campaigns of partisan demonization witnessed in post-civil rights American politics. I noted this briefly the other day, in my essay, "The Coming Prop 8 Show Trial."

The question of gay marriage to me is extremely complicated, but what most upsets me is that while I've argued against same-sex marriage on both religious and secular grounds - and as well in terms of democratic self-determination - it's almost always the case that my positions are attacked as "bigoted" or "Christianist." And of course, it hardly helps that the neo-communust America-bashers of International ANSWER are the biggest interest group advocates of the pro-gay marriage movement. It's hard to get excited about a cause that's being most vigorously promoted by the same folks who support the killing of America's soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, or by those who would tear down American sovereignty in a cross-border terror-campaign of open-immigration extremism. But these are the same people. And as Michelle Malkin reminded us the other day, they don't play by the rules (see, "The Anti-Prop. 8 Mob Strikes Again").

That's why it's extremely interesting that Theodore B. Olson, the former U.S. Solicitor General and long-time Republican Party insider, is one of the lead attorneys arguing for repeal of Proposition 8 tomorrow. Olson's essay is here, "The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage," and there's a video as well (via Memeorandum). If you read the essay, you'll see that Olson argues mostly on the basis of constitutional law, and he states his case eloquently. But constitutional, states-rights issues are beyond what I want to address here (and I've handled them ad nausea previously). My basic point all along is that on a national controversy this big, it's best to let the will of the voters prevail, for no court ruling will have the same kind of popular legititmacy as that found in a majority vote of the electorate. And gay marriage is not equivalent to Jim Crow segregation, so those arguments suggesting that only the courts can bring about fundamental change are deeply flawed. The fact is, the push for gay marriage is a hate-based campaign. A hardline interest-group constituency, with deep ties to the communist left, decries traditional values as based in bigotry and religious oppression. Advertisements like this below, from One Iowa, are in that sense deceptive in their appeals to history and values. The policy goals of such groups will by definition destroy the very history they're purporting to uphold.

But to get an idea of how deep-seated is the left's hatred of traditionalism, get a load of Michael Stickings' attack on Theodore Olson. Again, be sure to have read Olson's essay and to have watched the video. Olson is deeply authentic. And recall that his wife, attorney Barbara Olson, died on Flight 77 on September 11 when al Qaeda terrorists drove it into the Pentagon. Here's Stickings' attack on Olson, and thus conservatives in toto:

It is indeed extremely helpful that Ted Olson, a prominent conservative Republican legal figure, is a prominent supporter of same-sex marriage, and the "conservative case" he makes for it is indeed a strong one ....

Conservative opposition to same-sex marriage, rooted in bigotry (what else?), is indeed deeply hypocritical given conservatives' admiration of the institution of marriage, but what Olson doesn't seem to understand, or at least to acknowledge, is that conservatism, or at least the dominant strains of contemporary conservatism, does not consider the "principle of equality" to be anything "bedrock" or "central." If it did -- if conservatives really were committed to "the revolutionary concept expressed in the Declaration of Independence" -- Olson wouldn't be such a rare exception among his own kind.

Olson has a leading voice on the right, but he's speaking rationally inside a hurricane of irrationality and about justice to a political movement that has embraced injustice as a driving force. I admire him for this, but I fear he'll get nowhere.

In other words, Olson's a outlier from the bastion of evil, or something.

So, with this kind of hate-based gay rights advocacy in mind, it's important to recall that leftists won't stop at gay marriage. Kids will be getting "fisting" in the schools in no time, abortion on demand for young girls, and just about every other hardline-leftist agenda item you can imagine.

So just think ahead, beyond tomorrow. If we break down the traditional institution of marriage as it's stood in this country throughout our history, we'll break down our country itself.

In any case, see also Edwin Meese III, "Stacking the Deck Against Proposition 8."

Baltimore Hammers New England, 33-14, in AFC Wildcard Upset

It was already 24-0 when I turned on the game! But see the Pittsurgh Tribune-Review, "Rice leads Ravens run game to 33-14 win over Pats":

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) -- From the very first play, Ray Rice and the running Ravens made the team of the last decade look like the pushovers of the new one.

Rice burst up the middle for an 83-yard touchdown with frigid fans still settling into their seats, Tom Brady turned the ball over three times and Baltimore knocked off New England 33-14 on Sunday in a stadium where the Patriots had never lost a playoff game.

The Ravens (10-7) were only slight underdogs to the team that won three Super Bowls from 2002 through 2005. Now, if they beat Indianapolis next Saturday night, they'll reach the AFC championship game for the second straight year as a wild-card team.

Well, the Ravens play in the AFL divisional playoffs next week. Here's hoping their cheerleaders are as hot at New England's! Fishersville Mike likes Ashley, but the whole squad is something else. Like our friend, Kelsey:

Added: Theo Spark, "Bedtime Totty ..."

Macho Radicals: U.S. Reduced to 'Wimpering Giant' by 'Incompetent Criminals', 'Scary Sounding Websites', and 'Bombs That Fail to Detonate'

I thought Spencer Ackerman took the cake with his macho Christmas Day tweet, but I guess not.

It turns out that Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money is upping the stakes for the most vacuous left-wing machismo on the web. Campos has a piece up at the Wall Street Journal. See, "Undressing the Terror Threat: Running the Numbers on the Conflict With Terrorists Suggests That the Rules of the Game Should Change." Here's the gist of it:

It might be unrealistic to expect the average citizen to have a nuanced grasp of statistically based risk analysis, but there is nothing nuanced about two basic facts:

(1) America is a country of 310 million people, in which thousands of horrible things happen every single day; and

(2) The chances that one of those horrible things will be that you're subjected to a terrorist attack can, for all practical purposes, be calculated as zero.

Consider that on this very day about 6,700 Americans will die. When confronted with this statistic almost everyone reverts to the mindset of the title character's acquaintances in Tolstoy's great novella "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," and indulges in the complacent thought that "it is he who is dead and not I."

Consider then that around 1,900 of the Americans who die today will be less than 65, and that indeed about 140 will be children. Approximately 50 Americans will be murdered today, including several women killed by their husbands or boyfriends, and several children who will die from abuse and neglect. Around 85 of us will commit suicide, and another 120 will die in traffic accidents.

No amount of statistical evidence, however, will make any difference to those who give themselves over to almost completely irrational fears. Such people, and there are apparently a lot of them in America right now, are in fact real victims of terrorism. They also make possible the current ascendancy of the politics of cowardice—the cynical exploitation of fear for political gain.

Unfortunately, the politics of cowardice can also make it rational to spend otherwise irrational amounts of resources on further minimizing already minimal risks. Given the current climate of fear, any terrorist incident involving Islamic radicals generates huge social costs, so it may make more economic sense, in the short term, to spend X dollars to avoid 10 deaths caused by terrorism than it does to spend X dollars to avoid 1,000 ordinary homicides. Any long-term acceptance of such trade-offs hands terrorists the only real victory they can ever achieve.

It's a remarkable fact that a nation founded, fought for, built by, and transformed through the extraordinary courage of figures such as George Washington, Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. now often seems reduced to a pitiful whimpering giant by a handful of mostly incompetent criminals, whose main weapons consist of scary-sounding Web sites and shoe- and underwear-concealed bombs that fail to detonate.

Campos, at LGM, then adds an obligatory disclaimer denying "relativism":

The notion that terrorists want to kill "us" -- me and you specifically, or even Americans as a class -- because they hate us personally, or if you prefer "hate our freedoms," is pure narcissism. It's very much like imagining the the US military actually wants to kill Iraqi or Afghani civilians. From a logistical and political standpoint killing civilians is a pain in the ass for the US military and I'm quite sure they would very much prefer to avoid it altogether if they could, all ethical considerations aside. From a logistical and political standpoint trying to kill US civilians by blowing yourself and the plane you're on is a pain in the ass (sometimes literally) for terrorists and they no doubt would prefer to pursue their goals in a less unpleasant manner, again all ethical considerations aside ....

I'm not drawing a moral equivalence here between terrorism and "collateral damage" in arguably legitimate military operations. What I'd like to insist on is that both kinds of death are highly impersonal and essentially random.

Get that? "Essentially random." I'm not wishing the worst or anything, but hypothetically, perhaps some randomness will place Campos on the subway platform for the next Madrid-style bombing. No doubt his family would take comfort in his WSJ op-ed pieces:

And note that Campos' link abvoe goes to Glenn Greenwald, which is of course huge confirmation of how far out this line of thinking is. And recall that I've addressed these arguments before, which are actually a prelude to leftist totalitarianism.

The fact, of course, is that it's impossible to apply simple, economistic cost/benefit analysis to the phenomenon of global jihad. It's not just "wingnuts" fanning the flames of some alleged fearmongering hysteria. Americans aren't likely to declare war on earthquakes and hurricanes because they know natural disasters happen and we deal with them through preparedness. But global jihad and Islamist terrorism is not random, and of course it's the same folks who tell us we should take a law enforcement approach to terrorism who are the quickest to downplay any evidence of total ideological war against the West. And this is what it looks like with these idiots in charge:

RELATED: If you can stomach more from these fools, here's useful idiot Frank Rich at NYT, "The Other Plot to Wreck America" (via Memeorandum).

Arnold Schwarzenegger on Meet the Press: 'Pay No Attention to My Crumbling Administration'!

It's not often that an earthquake hits while the Governor of California is being interviewed for Meet the Press. But watch the picture fall at about 25 seconds. Schwarzennegger quips, "pay no attention to the picture ... these things happen all the time in California ..."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I guess you'd have to be a Californian to appreciate the symbolism. Earlier in the interview Schwarzenegger protests that California is getting "ripped off" by the Obama administration's healthcare reform:

DAVID GREGORY: Is that how you think about health care reform? As something that ultimately would beat up on California?

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, it is. Right now, it is-- and I just cannot imagine that why we would have-- like I said, you know, for instance, you know-- our Senators and Congressional people, how they would vote for something like that. Where they're representing Nebraska and not us? And-- by the way, as I said in my State of the State, that's the biggest rip-off. I mean that is against the law to buy a vote?

DAVID GREGORY: You're talking about Senator Nelson?

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Senator Nelson. That's like buying a vote. To say, "Hey--"

DAVID GREGORY: The Federal Government will pay for their Medicaid expansion

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: "I'm holding out my vote, unless I get some extra kind of benefits here." I mean if you do that in Sacramento, you know, you'll be sued. It is illegal to do that, to buy votes.

But if this isn't pure posturing, what is? One of the most vivid memories I'll have of this administration is of the governor flying to Washington to make deals with President Obama and the Democrats on cap and trade legislation:

This was May 19, the same day that voters crushed Schwarzenegger's ballot initiatives that would have increased taxes by $16 billion! It wasn't until July that Schwarzenegger saw the light, seen in the governor's total flip-flop with the launch of "Stand for California," his limited-government media initiative.

He's been all talk and swagger, while the walls have been falling down around him. Schwarzenegger predicts that this will be a Republican year, that the party is going to make big electoral gains. The "momentum" is shifting back to the GOP he says, but that's because voters are rejecting the spineless big-governmentalism that Schwarzenegger represents. Like the 6.5 quake that hit the state on Saturday, government has crumbled under Schwarzenegger's leadership in Sacramento. We need an administration that will make tough choices, not one that looks to free ride off those who do.

See also, Left Coast Rebel, "The Ghost of Ronald Reagan Has A Message for Arnold Schwarzenegger or Was it the 6.5 Magnitude Quake?"

Obama Administration to Back Iran Opposition

From the Wall Street Journal, "U.S. Shifts Iran Focus to Support Opposition" (via Memeorandum):

The Obama administration is increasingly questioning the long-term stability of Tehran's government and moving to find ways to support Iran's opposition "Green Movement," said senior U.S. officials.

The White House is crafting new financial sanctions specifically designed to punish the Iranian entities and individuals most directly involved in the crackdown on Iran's dissident forces, said the U.S. officials, rather than just those involved in Iran's nuclear program.

U.S. Treasury Department strategists already have been focusing on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has emerged as the economic and military power behind Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In recent weeks, senior Green Movement figures -- who have been speaking at major Washington think tanks -- have made up a list of IRGC-related companies they suggest targeting, which has been forwarded to the Obama administration by third parties.

Names on the list include Iran's largest telecommunications provider, Telecommunication Company of Iran, which is majority-owned by the IRGC, and the Iranian Aluminum Co. A U.S. official involved in Iran said the administration wouldn't comment on whether it was acting on the information.

American diplomats, meanwhile, have begun drawing comparisons in public between Iran's current political turmoil and the events that led up to the 1979 overthrow of Shah Reza Pahlavi.

"In my opinion there are many similarities," the State Department's chief Iran specialist, John Limbert, told Iran-based listeners this week over U.S. government-run Radio Farda. "I think it's very hard for the government to decide how to react to the legitimate and lawful demands of the people."

Since the opposition movement's demonstrations recently peaked after the death of reformist Islamic cleric Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a number of Iran scholars in the U.S. said they have been contacted by senior administration officials eager to understand if the Iranian unrest suggested a greater threat to Tehran's government than originally understood.

"The tone has changed in the conversation," said one scholar who discussed Iran with senior U.S. officials. "There's realization now that this unrest really matters."

In a signal of the White House's increased attention to Iran's political upheaval, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gathered over coffee at the State Department this week with four leading Iran scholars and mapped out the current dynamics, said U.S. officials. One issue explored was how the U.S. should respond if Tehran suddenly expressed a desire to reach a compromise on the nuclear issue. Mrs. Clinton asked whether the U.S. could reach a pact without crippling the prospects for the Green Movement.

U.S. allies are mixed in their response to the new focus. One senior Arab official said he told State Department officials this week they were deluded if they though Iran was close to experiencing a revolution reminiscent of the Shah's overthrow. "The IRGC has its hands on the Iranian people," the official said.

Cartoon Credit: Sparks from the Anvil.

Democrats Look to Scrap Filibuster in Senate

As they say: "It's come to this"?

From Janet Hook, at the Los Angeles Times, "Some Democrats Want to Modify Filibuster Rules":

The Senate filibuster has emerged as the bane of President Obama's legislative agenda, igniting anger among liberals over a tactic that is now hogtying Congress even on noncontroversial bills.

The threat of filibusters has become so common that congressional leaders take it for granted that any bill of consequence will not pass the 100-member Senate with a simple majority of 51. Instead, 60 votes -- the number needed to cut off the interminable speeches of a filibuster -- has become the minimum required.

Frustration has intensified in the wake of Senate Republicans' no-holds-barred effort to block the healthcare bill, which forced Democrats to scrounge for 60 votes at every legislative turn to prevent a filibuster.

Now, facing the prospect of losing seats in this fall's midterm elections, some Democrats are seeking to change the rules.

While Democrats have large majorities in the House and Senate, the 60-vote threshold for action in the Senate has become a powerful curb on the scope of the Obama agenda. To prevail over united Republicans, all 58 Democrats, including a small but influential faction of conservatives, have to stick together, along with the Senate's two independents.

The Democrats' vulnerability will be even greater given the announcements of Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) that they will not run for reelection this year.

The demands of hitting that 60-vote bar have dashed liberal hopes of including in the healthcare bill a new government insurance option to compete with private companies. Earlier last year, filibuster threats from Republicans and conservative Democrats effectively forced Obama to accept a smaller economic stimulus bill than many Democrats wanted. Obama's Senate allies have been hard-pressed to round up 60 votes for a major initiative to address global warming.

It is the Senate's own rules, not the Constitution, that set 60 votes as the benchmark for cutting off debate. Sen. Tom Harkin (D- Iowa), chairman of the Senate health committee, argues that current rules have made it too hard for Democrats to exercise the mandate they received from the voters in 2008.

"Elections should have consequences," Harkin said in a recent letter to his colleagues urging a change in filibuster rules. "Even when a party loses, it too easily can prevent the majority elected to govern from legislating."

Classic.

If you don't have electoral and popular support for your policies, obfuscate, obstruct, obscure, overrule, override, and re-organize. Dems know that 2010's going to be a bitch, so they'll ram home their ObamaCare monstrosity any which way, and damn the people.

And Hook's absolutely right about the party's "liberal" base, well, all except that they're socialist, not "liberal." Folks like Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias have been beating the drums on the filibuster for months. Much of their commentary has been among the more outrageous things I've ever seen on domestic policy: That Joe Lieberman wanted hundreds of thousands to die rather than pass the public option? Or that Republican resistance to Democratic socialism was tantamount to murder? I mean seriously.

At one point I wrote, "Keep the Filibuster; or, Matthew Yglesias Needs to Respect Minority Rights" (with a scholarly take on protecting against majority tyranny). And when Ezra Klein interviewed congressional expert Barbara Sinclair of UCLA on the filibuster, he found a sympathetic voice for changing the rules. As quoted below, Sinclair, who has written books on the U.S. Senate, responds to two questions on the rise of the filibuster, and prospects for "reform":

So part of it is polarization, but part of it, you're saying, was a strategic realization that the American people do not reward the majority if it fails to deliver on its promises, and the minority recognized it had the power to keep the majority from delivering on its promises.

That's right, and we're seeing the result. It seems pretty clear that at some point early in this Congress, the Republicans really did decide their best approach was to bring Obama and the Democrats down. It is hard to make yourself popular, but to make the other guys look incompetent is not that difficult, and it worked for the Republicans in the first Clinton Congress, and the Republicans would argue the Democrats used these techniques as well.

What about filibuster reform? What's your assessment of the chances for that sort of project?

This goes way, way back. During all those years that the Southern Democrats were blocking civil rights legislation, every Congress began with liberal Democrats trying to change the filibuster rule and not getting anywhere. You do get a change in 1975, but part of why that was possible was the big Civil Rights stuff was off the table.

Technically, the rules made cutting off debate easier, because now it only required 60 votes rather than 67. But in reality, you had to do it more often. There was less restraint. The underlying cause is that the Senate -- our whole political system, really -- changed, and opened up in many ways. There were all kinds of ways that you could become a really big player through being partially outer-directed -- aiming yourself at the media and interest groups and the like. It was less necessary to simply be on really good terms with the most senior members of the Senate.

I followed up on this with an e-mail query to Professor Sinclair on December 26th:

I just read your interview with Ezra Klein at Washington Post. Some liberals like Klein want to abolish the filibuster. It sounds as if you endorse the notion at the interview. Yet, in my seminars with Eric R.A.N. Smith at UCSB, I was always taught that the filibuster was a valuable tool to protect minority rights.

Which view is correct? A vehicle to thwart the will of the majority or a tool to frustrate needed progress by a determined faction?

Professor Sinclair responded on December 29th. I'm just quoting briefly, since I did not request a formal interview. First of all, she did not reject my suggestion that she "endorsed" reform of the filibuster (and for radicals like Klein and Yglesias, that means abolition). Second, support for reform was "a matter of perspective." Demands to eliminate the filibuster depend on who's in the majority. But structurally, when the rules protecting the minority are combined with hyper-polarization, "the effect on the Senate's ability to legislate is huge."

In other words, a determined minority can shut the place down, and in this case it's the GOP, so that's bad. To be honest, I was a little disappointed that Professor Sinclair didn't offer a more robust defense of the Senate's procedural safeguards.

In any case, back at the Los Angeles Times, Hook notes that:

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) has launched a petition drive urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to push for cutting from 60 to 55 the number of votes needed to cut off a filibuster.

"Why should launching wars and cutting taxes for the rich require only 50 votes, while saving lives requires 60?" asked Grayson, who cited a number of major bills that were passed by the Senate with less than 60 votes while President George W. Bush was in office.

Democrats used the filibuster against Republicans when the GOP was in the majority, most recently in 2001 to 2006. Back then, Democrats were great defenders of the right to filibuster Bush's judicial nominations. At one point in 2003, Reid spent more than eight hours on the Senate floor protesting the fact that Republicans spent so much time on four disputed judges instead of on joblessness. Reid read six chapters from a book he'd written about his tiny hometown of Searchlight, Nev.

Today, Reid is the Senate majority leader and complains bitterly about GOP delaying tactics.

To make it easier to end a filibuster, Harkin has proposed gradually reducing the number of votes needed to cut off debate -- from 60 votes on the first attempt, to 57 votes if another vote was held two days later, and eventually to 51 votes if the debate dragged on long enough.

"Under this proposal, a determined minority could slow any bill down," Harkin said in his recent letter to colleagues. "A minority of members, however, could not stymie the majority by grinding the Senate to a halt, as sadly too regularly happens today."

But few senators show much inclination to tamper with a tool that gives enormous leverage to either party when it finds itself in the minority.

Well, thank goodness for that.

Because I Love You Too Much Baby...

I've got two clips of Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds." Presley's birthday was yesterday. The American music icon would have been 75 years-old. "Suspicious Minds" was Elvis' last #1 hit before his death, and it's probably one of his biggest songs that I can remember from my childhood. While not my generation, Elvis' music grew on me as I got older and became more of an rock aficionado - and especially during the rockabilly revivial of the early-1980s, when all the great pioneer bands of the 1950s were rescued from obscurity to pop culture's youth of the day. The first clip is a live performance, circa mid-1970s. It's Elvis in his final years (and watch for Sammy Davis, Jr., in the audience toward the end of the clip). The second is a montage of Elvis images played to the "Suspicious Minds" studio version. I know older readers will especially enjoy these, bittersweet as they are:

From Pat Dollard...

At Big Hollywood, "Feed Your Head — (Warning: Explicit Content)":

From the Scott Brown Headquarters

William Jacobson reports:

From the moment I arrived until I left about 5 hours later, the atmosphere was electric. I had not expected the frenzy of phones ringing, people walking in the door to write checks, dozens of people making calls to voters, and generally ebullient mood.

Those of you who follow this blog know that I am a big supporter of Scott Brown. So I claim no neutrality. And you can believe me or not when I tell you that there is an air of excitement and movement which is beyond belief.

They are out of lawn signs and bumper stickers. Completely. Nothing left, but people kept calling all day wanting to find out where they could get them. I was told it has been this way for days.

I made calls. I won't get into the details of their phone operation, but let me say I was impressed with the computerized sophistication. I can say that the number one concern expressed by voters I spoke with and from what I heard from other callers, was jobs and the economy. The small sample I saw bears striking resemblance to what happened in Virginia and New Jersey; it's still the economy, stupid.

There also was a lot of animosity surrounding the announcement that the Democrats would delay Brown's certification if he won. People were calling in about that issue, and it was brought up on phone calls by the voters (the issue was not on the call script). The attempt to delay certification has the potential to be a defining issue in the campaign because it crystallizes in voters' minds everything that is wrong with politics.

There are plenty of anecdotes I could tell you, about people who usually vote Democratic who are voting Brown, but I'm not really sure I should be giving out that information. I also can tell you generally that the response from the phone calls (not just mine, but campaign-wide) has been overwhelmingly positive for Brown, and we called only independents. You can believe me or not, your choice.

Brown stopped by the office twice on his way to and from campaign appearances. Note to the Hillbuzz guys: He's even better in person.

More at Legal Insurrection, and at William's Twitter page. And Memeorandum.

Think Progress Goes After Michael Steele - And Dana Loesch!

Interesting!

I linked to Dana Loesch's webcast on Michael Steele's radio cancellation. Be sure to listen Dana's "Fake Interview with RNC Chair Michael Steele." Dana's the coolest!

So, calling the RNC Chair a "butt-sniffer" gets you some props from Soros-backed communists, or something? At Think Progress, "Right-Wing Radio Host Incensed That ‘Butt Sniffer’ Michael Steele Canceled Appearance On Her Show." I guess this is one of those "eat your own" things, as indicated by the comments. But Think Progress hopes to take down everyone on the right, from the "evil" tea-parties to the Re-"thug"-licans.

Note that if Steele was a Democrat, Dana would be getting smeared as a "raaaaacist"!!

(Via Memeorandum.)

Right Wing Nation, Resting

I only knew him as "C.B." in our e-mail communications, but he ran an interesting blog and we exchanged some thoughts on teaching and assessment. I have been informed that C.B., a.k.a. "Right Wing Prof" at Right Wing Nation, has passed away. I don't know enough to say anymore, although C.B had retired from Right Wing Nation and was posting at blog called Central Pennylvania Orthodox. This passage is from the last entry there, entitled "Glorious Nativity":

I’m sorry I haven’t posted. I’m daunted by the task, and can’t give you as much as I’d like, for all of the expected reasons: Increased pain and shortness of breath, weakness and shakiness (?). Forgive typos ....

Christmas Day began very bad, Christmas here, and all. Christopher arrived in his Santa cap when Sharon, Brook, and Stacy, three nurses aides, were here and I was recovering from a particularly excrutiation pain spam.

Sharon was crying as she took my hand and said this was going to be the best Christmas ever because I was surrounded by people who loved me. That’s when I started crying, when I realized the truth of what she said, and we had a room of ten wet eyes.

Everything was uphill after that ....

I treasure the (good) people I meet through blogging and social networking. Though I can't be with everyone in person, I'm with folks in my heart.

Please say a prayer for C.B.'s family, and hold tight and enjoy togetherness with your loved ones today and always.

Altadena Tea Party Leads 2010 Grassroots Movement

Don't know if it's the first of the year, but there's a tea party today up in Altadena. The event's sponsored by my friends at the Pasadena Tea Party. I'm not sure if I'll make it up there (school starts Monday and I've still got some planning to do, but we'll see). Robert Stacy McCain's still in L.A., however, and he's expecting to cover it.

There's a lot of news on the tea party front, that's for sure. Fox News had this report yesterday, "Tea Party Movement Poised for Strong Start in 2010." And see also Newsbusters on Kate Snow's report on the tea parties at ABC News.

Dana Loesch, the St. Louis blogger and tea party activist, has her "Fake Interview with RNC Chair Michael Steele." It's a great live-streaming webcast:

And of course, Sarah Palin's at the center of a lot of the buzz. From Politico, "Palin's Tea Party Raises Eyebrows":

Sarah Palin’s plan to deliver the keynote address — for a fee — at next month’s first-ever National Tea Party Convention is getting renewed attention in light of her rejection Thursday of an invitation to speak at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

The decision to blow off CPAC — traditionally seen as the year’s must-attend event for the conservative establishment — in favor of a little-known convention is prompting some soul-searching among CPAC supporters, and is being interpreted as a calculated play by the former Alaska governor to cast herself as the potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate of the high-energy, anti-establishment tea party movement.

But it’s also renewed questions about her political judgment and brought scrutiny on the Tea Party Convention, which kicks off two weeks before CPAC’s Feb. 18 start date and has cast itself to some degree as a more homegrown, grass-roots alternative to the traditional conservative conference.

“It’s a missed opportunity for her, for sure,” said GOP operative Brad Blakeman. “CPAC is an established mainstay of conservatism that those seeking to be active in 2010, 2012 and beyond should take advantage of to be seen and heard, while the tea parties are a manifestation of frustration that is loosely organized and hasn’t proven itself at the polls.”

Palin has committed to speaking at April’s Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, considered a must-attend for prospective candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination.

Still, the CPAC snub, combined with the tea party commitment, were clearly intended to send a message, asserted Erick Erickson, founder of the influential conservative blog RedState.com, which is owned by a publishing firm that is co-sponsoring CPAC. “I get why she did it,” he said. “It is a purposeful decision on her part to try to claim a segment of the conservative movement as her own.”

Though he said it has caused some conservatives to question whether CPAC is losing relevance as new conservative activists affiliate more with the tea party movement than with establishment conservative and Republican groups, Erickson predicted that CPAC is “going to draw a lot more people and a wider range of both conservative voices and conservative age groups” than the Tea Party convention.

More at the link (via Memeorandum).

Plus, Doctor Zero, at Hot Air's Green Room, dicusses the coordinated effort on the left to destroy the tea party movement, "Targeting the Tea Party":

The Tea Party movement has grown with astonishing speed. Swaddled in discussion-board posts and nursed with e-mail over the past year, the movement is now a month away from speaking with a unified voice for the first time, at its first national convention in Nashville. The transition from demonstrations to conventions marks an evolution from expressing need to taking action… from describing what is wrong to declaring what would be right.

A concerted attempt to discredit and marginalize the Tea Party movement has developed with equally amazing speed. The dimmer bulbs in this pinball machine of contempt, such as Chris Matthews, have worked hard to make the derogatory, sexually tainted slang term “teabaggers” popular. The term spread to supposedly mainstream, “impartial” journalists with viral efficiency. It’s hard to imagine a comparable grassroots movement, with a racial or collectivist agenda more agreeable to the Left, suffering this kind of crude insult. Mocking nicknames would never be slapped on a group of illegal aliens agitating for greater welfare benefits. That level of elite contempt is reserved for middle-class folks who object to paying for those benefits. The media covers Tea Parties with the same condescension they show to any unseemly spectacle of tax serfs refusing to “pay their fair share.” To those who believe all virtue resides in the compassionate power of the State, resistance always equals greed.

The Tea Parties became impossible to dismiss after the massive demonstration in Washington, following the 9/11 commemoration. It therefore became necessary to slander them. The original strategy was to portray them as violent lunatics, a bit of intellectual crabgrass planted as far back as the infamous Defense Intelligence Estimate released by the politicized Department of Homeland Security last April. Even as Major Nidal Hasan was praising jihad in seminars and peppering al-Qaeda with Facebook friend requests, and the Underwear Bomber was singing the praises of the World Trade Center murderers, Janet Napolitano squeezed her eyes closed and finger-painted “right-wing extremists” as the hot new terrorist threat. The report came out a week before the big Tea Party protests on Tax Day.

The domestic terrorist smear didn’t stick, so the race card was hauled from the bottom of the deck. Once again, MSNBC muppet Chris Matthews served up the fast-food version of this poison, with his deranged insistence that “every single teabagger in America is white.” Remember: Matthews didn’t write this script, he’s just doing a clumsy job of reading it. Someone slipped him instructions to carefully insinuate the Tea Party movement is tinged with racism, and he responded by turning pink and screaming “They’re all white!”

Ignoring this drivel based on the pathetic audience of MSNBC hosts would be a mistake. These cellar dwellers do the ground work for the media slander machine, sending toxic clouds of smoke upstairs for the more “respectable” journalists to notice after a discreet interval. After a few months of Chris Matthews confusing Tea Party footage with “Birth of a Nation,” the NBC anchors who don’t have to suffer wearing the MS Of Shame can start talking about the clouds of controversy swirling around the allegations that Tea Parties are suspected of reportedly harboring racist thoughts. Laughing at Matthews isn’t enough. It’s essential to laugh at anyone who even thinks about taking him seriously.

Not all of the Tea Party’s enemies are on the Left. Some of them are nominally conservative elitists like David Brooks, who haven’t thought elitism all the way through, and realized it leads inevitably to collectivism – because if the “educated class” is so magnificent, it makes sense for them to run the world, and resistance to their brilliant designs is stupid by definition. You can see the first glimmers of this truth in Brooks’ dismissal of the Tea Parties as “a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against.” Being against things is reactionary and blockheaded, you know. Intelligence demands progress!

The Tea Party convention made a bold choice in selecting Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker for their convention. It was also very considerate of them – since the same people hate Palin and the Tea Parties, for the same reasons, their enemies can reduce their carbon footprint by carpooling to Nashville.

It has been suggested that Palin might not have been the most strategic choice for a keynote speaker, since she’s not running for any office in 2010.

More at the link.

And be sure to check Doctor Zero's bio-page. The dude's a killer analyst!

Siraj Haqqani, Top Taliban Commander in Afghanistan, Outed as Islamist Porn-King Rapist

The exposé is at Jawa Report, "Taliban’s Siraj Haqqani: Rape, Murder & Videotape." As indicated at the post:

Siraj Haqqani is the chief operating officer of the deadliest terror network in the Afhanistan/Pakistan (Af/Pak) theater, the Haqqani terror network. It was established by Siraj’s father, the senile Jed Clampett of jihad, Jalaluddin Haqqani. A heretofore remorseless criminal organization, the Haqqanis realized the real growth industry (i.e. money) for the group laid in embracing the jihad. In a stunning come to Jesus, (whoops) come to Allah moment, the Haqqanis magically embraced the war against the Infidel, as well as defenseless Muslims who didn’t toe their Sharia line. What many don’t know is how much dirty laundry hangs off that line.

When Siraj, who is said to rival Mullah Omar for Taliban leadership, isn’t sending his toughest soldiers to roam the bazaars in search of the little blue pills he uses to fuel a thirst for young boys that would have made Michael Jackson blush, he is busy making sure the closet door remains firmly shut on one of the Taliban’s most damning skeletons, the Haqqani pornography ring.

The ring features Siraj’s physician, Dr. Hassan Duraz as its Ron Jeremy, Siraj’s uncle, Ibrahim as the impresario producer/director and Siraj’s cousin, Ishak as the auteur cinematographer.

Here’s how the Haqqani’s horror films “art” movies are put together. Siraj extorts encourages poor Muslim families to do the “right” thing according to Islam and push their sons into jihad. As their magnanimous benefactor, he then sends Ron Jeremy, Dr. Hassan Duraz into their villages to provide medical care. Duraz sets up clinics and the villagers pour in, often in desperate need of medical attention. As the “good” doctor treats them, he keeps his eyes peeled for the cute ones; the ones with that "something special" that the camera will absolutely love.

Once Duraz targets his prey, he whistles Ibrahim and Ishak Haqqani (whom he never travels without) into the office. As the bewildered young girl looks on, Siraj Haqqani’s uncle and cousin set up their equipment. Then its thumbs up and pants down as the monster physician forces himself on his unwilling victims patients.

When the horrible rape movie scene is complete, it’s humiliation, remorse, and despair cut, print, and ship. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Haqqani's home theater; somebody squawked.

Siraj Haqqani now had a big problem on his hands. Righteous Muslims, pious Muslims who send other Muslims to martyr themselves in jihad should be above reproach. They should be living a virtuous life in keeping with the tenets of the Qur’an and the Hadith. At the very least, they should be more virtuous than the Infidel they are fighting.

The video is below -- CONTENT WARNING: BRUTALLY GRAPHIC IMAGES --TOTALLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!

JammieWearingFool has background on the Haqqani network. In December, the New York Times described Siraj Haqqani as "the strongest Taliban warrior in Afghanistan."

The guy is a fanatical terrorist mastermind. He called for worldwide Arab support for the Afghan insurgency in April:

Our jihad against Amer­ica has reached to such a stage where our suc­cess against them is immi­nent. Praise to be God, the NATO and USA are now cry­ing out for help and assis­tance for more troops, despite the fact that they have lots of resources at hand. It’s because that Mujahideen are backed by the com­mon Afghans. We ask our peo­ple to fur­ther increase their sup­port for Mujahideen. Afghans should not sup­port the Afghan gov­ern­ment and USA in their designs to build an Afghan mili­tia or army. They should not sup­port such a move. Because, this is aimed at to be used against the Afghan nation and put them fight­ing among them­selves. We don’t want to fight against our own Afghans. We ask the whole world to come for the sup­port of Tal­iban. If they can­not come in per­son, they should sup­port us finan­cially. We espe­cially request the peo­ple in Gulf coun­tries to increase their aid for Mujahideen in Afghanistan. It’s a pro­pa­ganda that some coun­tries are giv­ing aid to Tal­iban. Our only aid comes from the Mus­lim indi­vid­u­als, and we want them to increase it more.

Back up at Jawa's entry, Brad Thor writes:

I’m sure Siraj is not going to like my outing him. Ibrahim and Ishak Haqqani aren't going to like it either. In the spirit of civil discourse, all I can offer is a hearty Fuck You to the entire Haqqani family. You are an insult to Muslim people everywhere and deserve an eternity roasting in hell for what you have done.

Scott Brown Within Reach in Massachusetts

As readers know, I've been busy with a lot of different things this last couple of weeks, not the least of which has been sports-related. But with school starting next week, it's time to get back up to speed on politics. Frankly, I've been behind on the Scott Brown story in Massachusetts. But tuning in now I see things are looking quite good, and Brown's an extremely interesting candidate (a 30-year Massachusetts National Guardsman who once did a semi-nude photo-spread for Cosmopolitan - how's that for the ladies!!??).

Brown was interviewed last night on Hannity's show:

Here's Brown's recent ad buy:

Some of the best blogging on the Massachusetts race has has been over at William Jacobson's Legal Insurrection. Here's this morning's entry, "Call Dems Bluff On Refusing To Seat Scott Brown ." The word is that Democrats see a Brown victory as possible, and have developed contingency plans to pass ObamaCare without certifying the Massachusetts election results (and that way avoiding a renewed filibuster in the Senate). Pundit & Pundette has more on that, "Refusal to Seat Brown if Elected?"

Anyway, HillBuzz has an interesting take on the sheer terror among the left's Obamabots, and the all-out campaign to demonize and destroy Scott Brown that's been bubbling. See, "An Open Letter to Scott Brown Supporters Regarding Eeyorism and Concern Trolls":

To Scott Brown and all his supporters,

We are writing to you as moderate Democrats who fought for Hillary Clinton all through 2007-2008, then became Democrats for McCain/Palin and remain supporters of former Govenor Palin now. This means that for almost three years now, we have been on the receiving end of everything the Left has dreamed up to throw at us. Dr. Utopia, our current president, and his supporters are truly the most vile and malicious people we’ve ever been up against. In the primaries, in particular, their viciousness, hatred, and stop-at-nothing/ends-justify-means attitude was sobering. We learned many lessons in the trenches we won’t soon forget — and need to pass on to you now.

For the next ten days, the most effective thing the Left will do is to demoralize Scott Brown’s supporters to convince them to sit their butts home on election day. It is a time-proven and successful tactic of the Left. Frankly, it’s the best tool in their arsenal. We call this Eeyore-breeding and concern-trolling.

Here’s what they’re going to do ....

RTWT.

South Quad Complex Opens at Long Beach City College

Well, I'm not seeing a report at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, although I expect they'll have a story there soon. My school's paper, the Viking, had an item in November, "South Quad to Open Over Winter Break." I was on campus yesterday, at the copy shop, to get my course syllabi ready for next week. After that I visited the South Quad building for the first time. I have a new office. My college division has been relocated across the street. This the view of the building from the pedestrian overpass above Carson Street, looking east:

Walking up to the second floor, look at the lovely center lawn area below. The college financed the building with a $176 million bond measure passed by the voters in 2002. The early word was that the facility was going to be ready by late 2006. I was not involved with the planning committees, but the college changed contractors after a year or two (I heard stories of wasteful spending). And over the last couple of years department faculty kept getting news that we we're "moving," only to hear of delays and pushbacks. It's been a long time coming:

Here's my office. Nameplates haven't been mounted yet. And I don't mind posting a picture of my office number. It's public information, and my partisan enemies know where I am, obviously; and I have no persecution complex:

I'm quite pleased as I walk in to see my desk and workspace. I'd been having some problems with my desktop PC last year, and I put in a request with academic computing for an overhaul. This was in November, so the chief technologist suggested he'd simply have a new system ready to go for me when we moved across the street. And there it is. Processor speed is really fast and the Internet connection is a snap. I was having problems with Flash Player error-warnings, which were causing pages to close. Hopefully that's not going to be too bad. I do a lot of blogging at work during office hours:

You can see more of my office below. I received an e-mail today about some bookshelves that've been delayed. There might be some kind of fitted bookstand or hutch to go over that cabinet/bookshelf here. At right is the end of my workstation, which has that overhead shelf as well. I have a lot of books and journals packed away in those boxes, in addition to a lot of old administrative files, official records and grades from previous semesters, and curriculum materials (exams, handouts, etc.). I hope everything fits:

Walking back out into the hall, looking right, here's a little open study area. I can envision students hanging out in here, looking for professors, and taking makeup exams. I'll have nice set of tables outside the office to meet with groups of students for brief study sessions:

Here's the view looking left out my office door:

I took a picture while seated at my desk, but the windows don't open from the inside (for security reasons), and thus I couldn't get a good shot. So, I walked back outside to snap a picture of my view across Carson Street. That's the college's main administration building straight ahead:

I'm getting ready to leave now, but first I want to check out the classrooms. I'm guessing the political science classes are downstairs, since I can't get into the second floor rooms. I'm standing in the back of the classroom here, facing the front whiteboard. Desks are picked up off the floor:

Here's the instructor's work station. I'm not pleased with the window-shades. It's about 4:00pm, and the late-afternoon sun is going to make it a little bright in there for some students. I won't normally be teaching at that time, but it's something to consider in terms of classroom design and teaching efficacy:

Walking back to the east parking lot, I snap a photo looking back up toward my office location. The grass area is like a ponding basin for drainage. It's really nice out here. I'm excited:

These two rabbits were a little skittish. We don't usually seen them on this side of Carson. They've set up a little "cave" under that cement overhang. We had a portable building out on this side of campus, and demolition was just finishing up. Not sure where the rabbits were living, in any case, although we have lots of them around:

I didn't take photos of myself, since this was the day after my BCS freelance blogging, and I was still plumb tuckered out. (I do like this photo of me, however.) I'm hungry, so I stopped for a snack at 7-11:

I'll take some pics of me in my crib later ...