Comparative Interrogation: Ahmed Ghailani and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

It's still unreal that none in the Democratic Party have taken the Flight 253 Christmas bombing attempt seriously. Especially troubling is the completely amateurish arrest and detention of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. It's not always this bad, and interesting, the Obama administration's epic failures have given us additionally important arugments against the Holder Justice Department's approach to terrorism. So says Rivkin and Thiessen in their new piece at Opinion Journal, "A Tale of Two Terrorists":

The Obama administration's decision to read the Christmas Day bomber his Miranda rights has rightly come under withering criticism. Instead of a lengthy interrogation by officials with al Qaeda expertise, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was questioned for 50 minutes by local FBI agents and then later advised of his "right to remain silent."

It's well understood that the focus on gaining evidence for a criminal trial was an intelligence failure of massive proportions. Not well understood is that the most powerful recent argument for aggressively interrogating terrorists, keeping them in military detention, and prosecuting them in military commissions comes to us from the Obama Justice Department itself.

On Dec. 18, 2009, days before the Christmas attack, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, made a secret filing in federal district court that was aimed at saving the prosecution of Ahmed Ghailani, another al Qaeda terrorist. Ghailani is facing charges for helping al Qaeda bomb U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Ghailani argues that those charges should be dropped because lengthy CIA interrogations have denied him his constitutional right to a speedy trial.

Mr. Bharara, on behalf of the Justice Department, filed a memorandum with the court stating that Ghailani's claims are dangerous and off the mark. Interrogating terrorists must come before criminal prosecution, he wrote in language so strong that even a redacted version of his filing (which we have obtained) serves as a searing indictment of the administration's mishandling of Abdulmutallab.

"The United States was, and still is, at war with al Qaeda," Mr. Bharara argued. "And because the group does not control territory as a sovereign nation does, the war effort relies less on deterrence than on disruption—on preventing attacks before they can occur. At the core of such disruption efforts is obtaining accurate intelligence about al Qaeda's plans, leaders and capabilities."

Mr. Bharara is right. The interrogation of a high-value terrorist is a critical opportunity to obtain intelligence. As Mr. Bharara pointed out in regards to Ghailani, "the defendant was . . . a rare find, and his then-recent interactions with top-level al Qaeda terrorists made him a potentially rich source of information that was both urgent and crucial to our nation's war efforts." Abdulmutallab's recent interactions with leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula made it likely he could give up actionable intelligence. He possessed unique information about those who deployed him, bomb makers who prepared him, and operatives who trained with him.

As Mr. Bharara's memorandum notes, "The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 . . . naturally resulted in a heightened focus on intelligence gathering to preempt another attack." He went on to say that "when the United States took custody of the defendant . . . and it justifiably believed that he had actionable intelligence that could be used to save lives, it reasonably opted to treat him initially as an intelligence asset."

The Justice Department did not bring Ghailani to a civilian court immediately after he was captured in 2004, preferring, after his lengthy interrogation was completed, to prosecute him in a military commission. It wasn't until June that his case was shifted to the criminal justice system.

Moreover, the government "did not Mirandize the defendant at any point to preserve the possibility of later using his inculpatory statements. It did not maintain a strict chain of custody with respect to physical evidence in the manner of a law enforcement agency. . . . Indeed, the goal of the [CIA interrogation program] was remote from law enforcement; the program's purpose was to gain intelligence, not to get admissible confessions or to gather admissible evidence."

More at the link.

Woman Claims Sexual Assault on Disneyland's 'Tower of Terror'

My wife and I took our oldest boy to Disneyland shortly after Tower of Terror opened in 2004. It's a pretty intense ride, and frankly I doubt I'd be looking to cop a feel to the guests next to me. But it looks like Christina Esquivel's got the evidence to support her allegations that she was criminally groped during the ride. See, "Woman Allegedly Groped on Disney Park Ride":

A woman says a visit to Disneyland with her daughter turned into a nightmare while aboard one of the rides because of what another park guest did. A man and his friend are wanted for questioning as police investigate whether the woman was a victim of sexual battery.

Christina Esquivel looks at a photo of the man she alleges sexually assaulted her with her 12-year-old daughter Alexus right next to her while riding the Tower of Terror at Disney's California Adventure Park last Friday afternoon.

"The lights go out, and you drop, and when the lights went out is when he grabbed my left breast," said Esquivel. "I grabbed his hand and tried to shove him off of me. I didn't know what to think at the time -- just shock."

The photo was shot during the ride, then later sold to customers. The picture was taken just seconds after the alleged incident. The photo shows Esquivel looking at the unidentified man. She says he then reached across and said he was sorry.

"My mom kind of leaned over to me and tried to get away from him as much as possible," said Alexus, Christina's daughter. "And she told me, 'That guy just grabbed my boob.'"

Christina, 31, alleges the man's friend, who was seated behind him, cheered.

"After the guy grabbed me, his friend behind him was laughing and clapping," said Christina.

What do you think? A case for Gloria Allred?

So Tired of All the Darkness in Our Lives...

I saw Joe Jackson twice in concert during his 1983 tour. As per ace commenter Kreiz (who still has a Smashing Pumpkins request in the queue), here's a nice clip of Jackson's "Stepping Out":

I'll never forget bassist Graham Maby, who still tours with J.J.

And as always, check Theo Spark's "Bedtime Totty ..."

Cynthia Yockey Declares War on Gay Patriot Daniel Blatt

When I had that blow out last summer with Cassandra over Erin Andrews, it wasn't long before Cynthia Yockey piled on with this lovely graphic:

The real issue was not that I blogged the Erin Andrews nude video, but that I'm an advocate for traditional marriage. Never mind the fact that I've never "destroyed" anyone's life (that'd be Michael David Barrett, actually). Cynthia went after me when she saw an opportunity -- and frankly, I'd never had any contact with her prior to that. And then here she was basically advocating physical attacks on me. What's up with that? And this is supposed to be a conservative woman?

Well, she's turned her sights on Daniel Blatt of Gay Patriot. See, "Gay Patriot West, With Friends Like You, Same-Sex Marriage Equality Doesn't Need Enemies." Cynthia's alleging that Daniel's never been in a "long-term, committed relationship," and this is supposedly the reason why he's not toeing on gay marriage totalitarianism. I recall Daniel arguing the issue should be decided by the states, as I have recently as well. But for his principled stand on the issue, Cynthia has declared a personal jihad against him:

... it is time for me to put Daniel on notice that I am going to start matching any further denunciations of the quest of gays and lesbians for equality, especially with regard to marriage, by ridiculing him as a man who has never been able to maintain a long-term, committed relationship. Therefore, I suspect Daniel’s rejection of marriage for ALL homosexuals really has to do with his personal inadequacy. But, if I am wrong, and Daniel has found someone, then I think truth and justice will still be better served if Daniel STOPS writing about gay marriage altogether until he has had one for at least five years.

This is all-out war, Daniel. You do NOT deserve to kill the hopes and dreams and aspirations of worthier people who NEED equality to have the same advantages and supports straight people do to build their lives together and support one another through prosperity and adversity until death parts them. Until YOU’VE been married to the man who is the love of your life for at least FIVE years, you do NOT know enough to write about same-sex marriage equality.

Notice how Cynthia offers no underlying argument here. It's really all hatred and prejudice, which is what she's supposed to be against. Why folks like Cassandra and Robert Stacy McCain continue to promote Cynthia is a mystery, but it's certainly not for any purported "conservative" values Cynthia claims to represent. She's simply a leftist who doesn't want to pay high taxes, basically, so any conservative blogger who doesn't toe her line ends up in the crosshairs.

In any case, Daniel's got more on what provoked Cynthia's ire. See, "On Monogamy & Marriage."

John Edwards Would Have Aborted Baby Frances Quinn

The place to be reading this week, for important coverage of Super Bowl-related politics, is Jill Stanek's. She points us, surprisingly, to a New York Times editorial calling out the radical pro-abortion lobby for its attacks on CBS, which is embroiled in the controversy over the Tim Tebow pro-life ad (scheduled to run during the game Sunday).

But last week, Jill reported that John Edwards wanted to abort Frances Quinn Hunter, the beautiful child he brought into the world with Rielle Hunter, the woman with whom he had an affair while his wife was ungoing treatment for cancer. Jill links to this piece at the Wall Street Journal: "Book Report: ‘The Politician’ By Andrew Young." As noted there (with emphasis added):

According to Young, Hunter called him in May 2007 to say she was pregnant. Young says that when he informed Edwards, the senator told him to “handle it,” to which he replied: “I can’t handle this one.” Young writes that Edward unloaded on Hunter as a “crazy slut,” said they had an “open relationship,” and put his paternity chances at “one in three.” Young says that Edwards asked him for help persuading Hunter to have an abortion. Young writes that Hunter believed the baby to be “some kind of golden child, the reincarnated spirit of a Buddhist monk who was going to help save the world.”

As I've reported recently, there is no other issue that's more important to society than the protection of human life, from conception to natural death. I am not one to say that a woman should never, ever have an abortion, but my commitment to protecting the innocents has become much more profound in response to the abortion-on-demand extremism of the Democratic Party, and people like John Edwards.

Now, one of my favorite writers of late is Doctor Zero, who's a co-blogger at Hot Air's Green Room. He wrote a post on the CBS controversy, and it's worth sharing in the context of the pro-choice extremists and John Edwards. From, "The Power of Women and Life":

My own opposition to abortion-on-demand is not religious in nature. I believe there aren’t enough people in the world. The decision to deny a human being his, or her, opportunity to enter the living world and make the choices that compose a lifetime should never be made lightly. For people of religious faith, the exercise of free will was a parting gift to creation from its Author. For the atheist, the expanding nova of human choice brings light and meaning into a universe of cold dust and searing plasma. Either way, life is precious, and it follows that those who follow Pam Tebow’s path are worthy of respect. How can we render that respect, if we insist her choice was absolutely equivalent to terminating little Tim, right up to the moment when his head emerged from the birth canal?

We’re nowhere near the repeal of Roe vs. Wade, a naked exercise of raw judicial power… which is apparently so fragile that a son thanking his mother for the gift of life could tear it to shreds. I wonder how many of the other iron laws supporting statism are actually written on tissue paper. If Roe were repealed, the question of abortion restrictions would return to the states, and people contemplating the examples of Sarah Palin, Bristol Palin, and Pam Tebow would gain the dangerous freedom to express their beliefs through smaller, more responsive governments. I can understand why NOW and its fellow travelers would be terrified of that possibility. It has nothing to do with “keeping abortion legal,” for there is no chance Americans would ever vote to outlaw it completely, in every state. It has everything to do with siphoning power from the useful fantasy of a world that will never exist, and the ugly caricatures who tower above it with scourges and holy books.

I especially like that part about pro-life atheism. But read the whole thing.

Also, more on Andrew Young's book on potential baby-killer John Edwards, also at the Wall Street Journal, "The Hazards Of Loyalty: Hypocrisy, Hubris and Rielle Hunter." (Via Memeorandum.)

RELATED: From the NY Daily News, "John Edwards' Ex-Aide Andrew Young Speaks on Alleged Rielle Hunter Sex Tape - And Fears For His Life."

Stephen Walt on USS Harry S. Truman

That's him on the right. And from his essay, "Naval-Gazing: My Visit to the USS Harry S. Truman":

Last week I had the privilege of visiting the USS Harry S. Truman, a Nimitz class aircraft carrier that was conducting training exercises off the coast of Florida in preparation for an overseas deployment. The other guests and I were flown aboard the carrier (on a C2 transport) for a tour of the ship and aseries of briefings about the ship’s operations. We also spent a good chunk of the afternoon and evening observing a variety of air exercises, including night-time takeoffs and landings by the F-18s, EA-6s, and E-2s that make up the ship’s air wing. The following day we breakfasted with members of the ship’s crew, flew via helicopter to the USS Winston S. Churchill (an ArleighBurke class destroyer operating in the area) and then returned to the Truman before catapaulting off the ship and flying back to shore. (Yes, we used a plane to do that, too).

There's lots more at the link.

I guess being a professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government has its privileges!

In 1999, as I've mentioned before, I visited the USS Abraham Lincoln. Two years before 9/11, the Navy was interested in maintaing popular support for the fleet, given that we'd been almost a decade without a traditional great power challenger. The ship made a port of call visit in Santa Barbara, and local sightseeing boats took visitors out to the ship, anchored about a mile out from the harbor. Of course, it would have been nice to fly in and out, although the brief tour included being shown around the below-deck operations platform, where the ship's planes are stored, maintained, and readied for operations. I was also permitted to run around on top, on the flight deck. I sat down at the front of the carrier and gazed out over the Pacific. The sun was going down, but not on American power. Sometime shortly thereafter, I picked up a copy of Tom Clancy's, "Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier." This is over ten years ago, but I can never forget the majesty of Clancy's discussion, including the rationale for the deployment, and the operational requirements, of the world's largest warships. He notes there, as a sample:

A nation's warships are legally sovereign territories wherever they might be floating: and other nations have no legal influence over their actions or personnel. Thus, an aircraft carrier can park an equivalent of an Air Force fighter wing offshore to conduct sustained flight and/or combat operations. In other words, if a crisis breaks out in some littoral (coastal) region, and a carrier battle group (CVBG) is in the area, then the nation controlling it can influence the outcome of the crisis.

Anyway, be sure to read Stephen Walt's "3 of the most vivid impressions and/or conclusions I took from the trip". I can't say that I'm not envious!

At the Grammys...

I didn't watch the whole thing, although Pink's aerial performance was awesome, as was the duet featuring Taylor Swift with Stevie Nicks. From Randy Lewis, "Ladies Night at the Grammys":

On a night in which Beyoncé set a record for women with six Grammy Awards, the reigning diva of R&B still had to share the spotlight with 20-year-old country-pop princess Taylor Swift, who collected four awards, including album of the year, for "Fearless," the biggest-selling album of 2009.

Swift's win at the end of Sunday night's 3 1/2 -hour ceremony seemed to stun the music-industry audience inside Staples Center in Los Angeles.

"I just hope you know how much this means to me . . . that we get to take this back to Nashville," a breathless Swift said onstage at the 52nd awards. "Oh, my God. Our family is freaking out, my dad and little brother are losing their minds in our living room. This is for my dad and all those times he said I could do anything I wanted."

Beyoncé's stellar evening included song of the year, a writer's award, for her effervescent endorsement of matrimony, "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)." But she and Swift lost their bids for record of the year to the dark horse win by the Southern rock group Kings of Leon for their hit "Use Somebody."

Beyoncé and Swift's combined 10 awards honored recordings that sold in numbers last year that defied the beleaguered music industry's downward trend in recent years, saluting broad-based success at a particularly difficult time in the record business.

"For me, genres have really become something that I don't think people focus on anymore," Swift said backstage. "Country music is my love. [But] when you're making music, I think the healthiest thing to do is remove titles or stereotypes from what you're trying to do. It's not country versus rap . . . it's not anything you don't make it. It's about trying to make an album you hope is good enough to win album of the year."

RTWT at the link.

Photo Credit: Ann Powers, "Ann Powers on the 2010 Grammy Awards: It's Not All About the Music."

'The White Ribbon' and Comparative Politics

Okay, as promised, here's a little update on The White Ribbon. I went to last night's late showing at Irvine's Westpark 8:

I saw Spiderman at Westpark in 2002, but the theater's an art-house cineplex now. Below is a poster of the Village Voice's movie review "Certainty and a Sure Hand Behind The White Ribbon's Unsolved Mystery":

The White Ribbon is Michael Haneke's first German-language film since the original Funny Games (1997) and, addressing what used to be called "the German problem" while dodging the filmmaker's own likeability issues, it's his best ever.

A period piece set on the eve of World War I in an echt Protestant, still-feudal village somewhere in the uptight depths of Northern Germany, The White Ribbon—which won a deserved Palme d'Or at last May's Cannes-fest of Cruelty—is as cold and creepy and secretly cheesy as any of Haneke's earlier films, if not quite as lofty. Instead of sermonizing, Haneke sets himself to honest craftsmanship. Detailed yet oblique, leisurely but compelling, perfectly cast and irreproachably acted, the movie has a seductively novelistic texture complete with a less-than-omniscient narrator hinting at a weighty historical thesis: It's Village of the Damned as re-imagined by Thomas Mann after studying August Sander's photographs of German types while perusing Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism.

Actually, it's still called "the German problem," at least for students of comparative politics and international relations. No doubt such descriptions are unfashionable in the postmodern academy, but a key problématique in comparative political science is in explaining transitions to democracy, especially among the nations of the advanced industrialized West. The German case is perhaps the most fascinating for late-developing democracies, which for Germany doesn't come until after WWII. Perhaps more than any other nation before the 1920s and interwar period, Germany's political culture of paternalistic authoritarianism overdetermined the political regime toward the rise Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich. As Lawrence Mayer has written, in Comparative Politics: Nations and Theories in a Changing World:

Among the themes in the German culture that have been identified as conducive to the emergence of the Nazi dictatorship are the following: a submissive, authoritarian culture; an anti-intellectual and antirational romanticism; what has been called Volkishness -- a combination of anti-intellectual romanticism and a distorted form of populism and xenophobia; an exaggerated form of nationalism with a corresponding rejection of internationalism; a glorification of war and martial values; a hostility to the West and modernism and their values; and a deeply rooted hostility to the Jews.

Several scholars conducted immediate postwar studies whose data indicate a strong strain of authoritarianism in the German familly and in other social relations, such as those between teacher and student, employer and employee, and even husband and wife. Related to this is the finding of the classic Civic Culture study that, compared to the citizens of the Anglo-American democracies, citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany felt less competent to participate effectively in political activity.

Mayer goes on to stress that such an explanatory scheme is grossly inadequate in explaining the enormity of the origins of Nazi totalitarianism, and Germany was not uniquiqely isolated in its oppressive cultural attributes when compared to Eastern European regimes. But in the totality of things, this cultural composite, which came together with the specific geographical factors contributing to a sense of German praetorianism in the 19th century, provides a powerful framework for understanding the regime prior to the 1920s and 1930s, and of course for explaining the reengineering of German culture after 1945.

Thus, with this in mind, the critical acclaim for The White Ribbon is entirely understandable. It's not just the film's cinematic exellence and powerful acting, but its complete authenticity of historical presentation.

Readers might check the review at the Los Angeles Times as well, "'The White Ribbon': Michael Haneke Attempts to Explain the Seeds of Nazism in his Cautionary Tale."

Obama One Year Fail

From the Kansas City Star, "President’s Ineptness Quite Clear After a Year":

What happened to the bright dreams, the hope and change? A year ago, fate handed President Obama one of the most tantalizing political opportunities in history.

His party enjoyed a blowout election. The Republicans were leaderless and devoid of ideas. The Democrats had hefty majorities in both houses of Congress. Obama had stratospheric approval ratings and the support of a nation profoundly fearful of the future.

And then he threw it all away. He outsourced chunks of his job to a left-wing congressional leadership that has learned nothing and forgotten nothing for the past 35 years.

What came next was one appalling legislative blob after another: the stimulus package that hasn’t stimulated, the cap-and-trade monster, the health care power-grab.

When Obama assumed office, he was still something of an enigma. Many asked: Who is this guy?

Well, now we know a lot more. The bottom line: He isn’t a good politician. Politics is an art, and Obama’s basic competence is highly suspect. He lacks the personal radar an effective politician must have — the instinct to know when you’re on solid ground and when you’re tilting at windmills. Obama has spent a year tilting at windmills.

The “art of the possible” isn’t static. With steady accomplishments, an effective leader can expand the zone of the possible. A winner draws new adherents, builds coalitions, acquires new strength for the next challenge.

For a weak leader, the opposite applies: His credibility shrinks, and so do the ranks of his followers. His ability to accomplish anything becomes doubtful.

This is the vicious circle that now ensnares Obama. He has succeeded mainly in uniting his opposition and dividing his own camp. House and Senate Democrats are openly sniping at one another. The hard left — Obama’s base — is writing him off as inept.

The sense of disarray was only reinforced by his State of the Union speech ....

More at the link.

Cartoon Credit: Flopping Aces.

A New American Tea Party

Wordsmith asked if I bought a book last night while out shopping. He suggested March Thiessen's, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack. And I almost bought it, but thought I'd hold off after deciding on a copy of John O'Hara's A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes.

See also the book preview at John Wiley & Sons.

And by the way, Thiessen's book looks great, but at $30.00 I'll probably wait for it in paper.

RELATED: Glenn Reynolds, "More Impact is What's Next for the Tea Party Movement" (via Memeorandum). Also, Dan Riehl, "Will The Tea Party Movement Fragment?"

Anticipation for Kings of Leon at Tonight's Grammys

From the Los Angeles Times, "Kings of Leon: Pop's Unlikely Royal Family is Back at the Grammys":

Kings of Leon has become the emblematic band of the new decade by resurrecting the sound and spirit of rock's classic era for a generation that doesn't view the music as necessarily heroic or transformative. Combining the blues strut of the Rolling Stones with the jitters of post- punk bands like Joy Division and, more recently, the reach of U2, the Kings of Leon do what great pop does -- they transcend any specific root or subculture to make something universal. And "Use Somebody," with its churchy chorus and what Caleb [Followill] calls its "double meaning" of mercenary lust melting into loneliness and soul hunger, was a perfect anthem for a troubled year like 2009.

Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga might wind up trumping the Kings for Grammy statues, but "Use Somebody" stands as a song that's crossed borders and made many unlikely fans. It's one of only four rock songs in recent history to top four Billboard charts at once, including the mainstream and alternative Top 40 tallies. No less than Jay-Z called it his favorite song of last year in a recent Village Voice interview, saying it was rivaled in his book only by the Kings' more carnal but equally lofty "Sex on Fire" (which last year earned the Grammy for best rock performance by a duo or group with vocals).

Artists can't stop covering "Use Somebody." Nick Jonas and Nickelback both perform it in concert; English soul songbird Pixie Lott, avant-pop chanteuse Natasha Khan ( Bat for Lashes) and Jay-Z protégé Bridget Kelly have recorded it; Nashville emo band Paramore scored a YouTube hit after performing it live for the BBC.

"It was a perfect song for us to cover because I enjoy singing anything that's soulful," said Paramore's lead singer, Hayley Williams, in an e-mail. "All Caleb's vocal lines are extremely soulful. It could almost be any genre. And that versatility really shined when we were able to strip the song down acoustically. It didn't affect the power of the lyrics or anything because good art is good art no matter how someone translates it."

All this praise makes Caleb Followill uncomfortable. He's recently taken to telling journalists that he wants to "shoot himself in the head" when he hears "Use Somebody" -- he's sick of it and prefers to listen to late Texas troubadours like Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley, whom he claims as a current main influence. Yet he admits that he hit on something special when he followed through on the phrase he first uttered to his siblings on a desolate night during a long tour.

"It's kind of a hook," he said. "When you see it on paper and you think, it's Kings of Leon, he's going to be talking about some one-night thing. But really it's just the opposite of that. At the end of the day no matter who you are, you're gonna have those moments when you need someone to help you out."

RTWT at the link.

Scott Brown Interview With Barbara Walters on 'This Week'

For the moment, this was the only clip I found of Scott Brown's interview with Barbara Walters on 'This Week':

Obama's Question Time

I was actually watching this -- or at least the TV was on -- the other day when President Obama met with congressional leaders. Folks have been calling this "question time," which is of course the British parliamentary practice of the PM taking questions from the members in the Commons. Just about everyone was making a big deal of Obama's effort yesterday, but frankly I'm so tired of the Narcissist-in-Chief I didn't pay much attention and I ignored the blogospheric attention. I'll be more thrilled about these meetings if the president indeed proves that he means that he's open to other ideas:

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

Shopping the O.C.!

Okay, some pics from the day's shopping excursion with my son, American Power Progeny #1. This is Tilly's at The District in Tustin. That's Borders on the right, and upstairs is a bowling alley:

My son bought five shirts, but I got a couple for myself as well. I was stoked to find this Independent Trucks t-shirt in XX-Large!

I like this mall, but we had gift cards to Barnes and Noble, so off we went, headed south to the Spectrum Center. But did you know that The District is part of a massive development project located at the old Marine Corps Air Station at Tustin? I snapped this shot as we were about to get on Jamboree north. The blimp hangers housed military blimps used during WWII coastal missions. I watched Pearl Harbor (Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Alec Baldwin) over the Christmas holidays, and I noticed the film's scene for the launch of Doolittle's Raid on the Japanese mainland was filmed at MCAS Tustin. (A pretty cool Saab commercial from a few years back was filmed there as well, and many others I imagine.)

Here's the Spectrum's carousel:

I checked my blog at the Apple store. I asked an associate about the iPad. They're pretty affordable, actually, and there are accessories like keyboard docks so the unit can be used for traditional blogging or writing:

The Spectrum also has a huge ferris wheel. I took my boy on it when he was smaller, when the center opened a few years ago:

I bought some new slacks and a couple of casual button-down shirts at Nordstrom's. I'm down a few pounds, but I could use to drop a lot more (and thus I'm holding off on a suit for work until later):

Here's Barnes and Noble. That's AmPower Progeny #1 walking inside:

My boy bought a DVD and he was impatient to watch it. So, I took him home and then went back to the mall to get something to eat and buy some shoes to go with my new pants and shirts. If you come to SoCal, let me know and we'll have a nice healthy lunch at Wahoo's Fish Tacos:

On business days, at lunch time, the line wraps around to the left of this woman and her daughter, and then out the front door into the mall (I'm standing in the doorway):

But you can have a seat while you're waiting, on this bench, made of skateboards:

Beautiful Lupita was nice enough to let me take her picture!

I had the chicken tacos with black pinto beans, brown rice, and water with lemon. The service is wonderful:

I'll have some pictures of my new clothes tomorrow. I'm heading back out right now to the movies, to see The White Ribbon. I should have a report on that as well, so check back!

Tea Party Nation

I've been out all day, and I've got some photos from my shopping trip. Check back for those a little later. Meanwhile, the New Yorker's got a piece on the rise of tea party populism (and the threat to Obama). See, "The Movement: The Rise of Tea Party Activism." It's not that great a piece, actually. But with the main thesis suggesting that the tea partiers are for real, it's a step in the right direction.

My first immersion in the social movement that helped take Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat away from the Democrats, and may have derailed the President’s chief domestic initiative, occurred last fall, in Burlington, Kentucky, at a Take Back America rally. My escort was an exceptionally genial sixty-seven-year-old man named Don Seely, an electrical engineer who said that he was between jobs and using the unwanted free time to volunteer his services to the Northern Kentucky Tea Party, the rally’s host organization, as a Webmaster. “I’ve never been a Webmaster, but I’ve known Webmasters,” he explained, with a chuckle, as he walked around a muddy field, near a horse-jumping ring, and introduced me to some of his colleagues, one of whom was a fireman. “And he’s also our finance guy.” Being the finance guy, from what I could gather, entailed volunteering a personal credit card to be used for the group’s PayPal account. The amateur nature of the operation was a matter of pride to all those who were taking an active interest, in many cases for the first time in their lives, in the cause of governance. Several of the volunteers had met at Bulldog’s Roadhouse, in a nearby town named Independence, where they assembled on weekdays for what you might call happy hour, were it not for the fact that Bulldog’s is a Fox News joint and five o’clock is when Glenn Beck comes on, warning from a studio that he likes to call the “doom room” about the return of a Marxist fifth column.

Seely wore a muted plaid shirt, rumpled khakis, and large, round glasses that seemed to magnify his curiosity, a trait that he attributed to his training as an engineer—an urge to understand the way things work. He told me that he used to listen to Beck on the radio, before Beck got his Fox show. “I didn’t like him,” he said. “He was always making fun of people. You know, he’s basically a comedian. But the reason I like him now is he’s kind of had a mind-set change. Instead of making fun of everybody, he started asking himself questions. His point was ‘Get out there, talk to your neighbor, see what they feel. Don’t sit back under your tree boohooing.’ ” The Bulldog’s gang was a collection of citizens who were, as one of them put it, “tired of talking to the TV.” So they watched Beck together, over beer, and then spent an hour consoling one another, although lately their personal anxieties had overtaken the more general ones of the host on the screen, and Beck’s chalkboard lectures about the fundamental transformation of the Republic had become more like the usual barroom ballgame: background noise. “We found that you really have to let people get the things off their chests,” Seely said.

Burlington is the seat of Boone County, and the rally took place at the Boone County fairgrounds, on an afternoon that was chilly enough to inspire one of the speakers, the ghostwriter of Joe the Plumber’s autobiography, to dismiss global warming, to great applause. A second-generation Chrysler dealer, whose lot had just been shut down, complained that the Harvard-educated experts on Wall Street and in Washington knew nothing about automobiles. (“I’ve been in this business since 1958, and what I know is that the American public does not want small cars!”) The district’s congressional representative, Geoff Davis, brought up the proposed cap-and-trade legislation favored by Democrats, and called it an “economic colonization of the hardworking states that produce the energy, the food, and the manufactured goods of the heartland, to take that and pay for social programs in the large coastal states.”

Boone County borders both Indiana and Ohio, and was described to me by a couple of people I met there as “flyover country,” with a mixture of provincial anxiety and defensive skepticism—as in “What brings you to flyover country?” The phrase is not quite apt. Home to the Cincinnati airport, which serves as a Delta hub, the county owes much of its growth and relative prosperity over the past two decades to large numbers of people flying in and out, not over. But Delta’s recent struggles, and rumors about the impending contraction of its local subsidiary, Comair, have contributed to a deeper sense of economic anxiety. “You go to the warehouses around the airport, probably at least a third or twenty-five per cent are empty,” Seely said. “We need to give somebody a break here, so people can start making money.” As it happens, the largest employer in northern Kentucky today is the I.R.S.

Another Bulldog’s regular, a middle-aged woman dressed in jeans, a turtleneck, and a red sweatshirt, stood beside some stables, hustling for signatures to add to the Tea Party mailing list. “I tell you, it’s an enthusiastic group,” she said. “Talk about grassroots. This is as grassroots as it gets.”

“And she works full time,” Seely added.

“Not as full time as I’d like.”

About a thousand people had turned up at the rally, most of them old enough to remember a time when the threats to the nation’s long-term security, at home and abroad, were more easily defined and acknowledged. Suspicious of decadent élites and concerned about a central government whose ambitions had grown unmanageably large, they sounded, at least in broad strokes, a little like the left-wing secessionists I’d met at a rally in Vermont in the waning days of the Bush Administration. Large assemblies of like-minded people, even profoundly anxious people anticipating the imminent death of empire, have an unmistakable allure: festive despair. A young man in a camouflage jacket sold T-shirts (“Fox News Fan,” for example), while a local district judge doled out play money: trillion-dollar bills featuring the face of Ben Bernanke. An insurance salesman paraded around, dressed as though guiding a tour of Colonial Williamsburg. “Oh, this is George Washington!” Seely said. “Hey, George, come over here a minute.”

“I’m back for the Second American Revolution,” the man said. “My weapons this time will be the Constitution, the Internet, and my talk-radio ads.”

If there was a central theme to the proceedings, it was probably best expressed in the refrain “Can you hear us now?,” conveying a long-standing grievance that the political class in Washington is unresponsive to the needs and worries of ordinary Americans. Republicans and Democrats alike were targets of derision. “Their constituency is George Soros,” one man grumbled, and I was reminded of the dangerous terrain where populism slides into a kind of nativist paranoia—the subject of Richard Hofstadter’s famous essay linking anti-Masonic sentiment in the eighteen-twenties with McCarthyism and with the John Birch Society founder Robert Welch’s contention that Dwight Eisenhower was “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.” The name Soros, understood in the context of this recurring strain—the “paranoid style in American politics,” Hofstadter called it—is synonymous, like Rockefeller or Rothschild, with a New World Order.

The Soros grumbler, who had also labelled John McCain a Communist, was dressed in jeans pulled up well above his waist with suspenders, and wearing thick, oversized shades. When he saw my notebook, he turned to Seely and asked, “Where’s he from, supposedly?” Informed that I live in New York, he replied, “There’s a nightmare right there.” What he had in mind was not a concentration of godless liberals, as it turned out, but something more troubling. “Major earthquake faults,” he said. “It’s hard in spots, but basically it’s like a bag of bricks.” Some more discussion revolved around a super-volcano in Yellowstone (“It’ll fry Denver and Salt Lake at the same time”) and the dire geological forecasts of Edgar Cayce, the so-called Sleeping Prophet, which involved the sudden emergence of coastlines in what, for the time being, is known as the Midwest. I asked the man his name. “T. J. Randall,” he said. “That’s not my real name, but that’s the one I’m using.”

Seely saw our encounter with the doomsayer more charitably than Hofstadter might have. “That’s an example of an intelligent person who’s not quite got it all together,” he said. “You can tell that. But he’s pretty interesting to talk to.” Seely’s own reaction, upon learning where I’d come from, had been to ask if I was familiar with the New School, in Greenwich Village. His youngest daughter, Amber, had gone there.

I asked Seely what Amber thought of the Tea Party. “We kind of hit a happy medium where we don’t discuss certain things,” he said, and added that at the moment Amber, who now works for a nonprofit that builds affordable housing in New Orleans, was visiting his son, Denver, who is enrolled in a Ph.D. program in mechanical engineering at Mississippi State.

RELATED: A pretty bizarre piece from Tea Party Nation defending their TFUBAR convention. Also, from Gateway Pundit, "Eric Odom on Tea Party Nation Organizers: They Don’t Know What’s Going On & Haven’t From Day One (Video)."

The Left's Lynch Mob Rush-to-Judgment on James O'Keefe

From yesterday, FWIW, a MSM report at CNN, "Activist Proclaims Innocence in Landrieu Office Incident." Also at Los Angeles Times, "Activist Issues Statement About Landrieu Incident."

See O'Keefe's entry at Big Goverment yesterday, "Statement from James O’Keefe."

Media Matters is pathetically freakin' over this whole thing, the smear-masters they are. See, "Not-So-Breitbart and the Story of James O'Keefe." And who knew that the ACORN sting was a white supremacist power grab? Desperate much?

But as I've reported here, the real story's been the left's lynch mob rush-to-judgment. The radical left's Marcy Wheeler has yet to retract her scurrilous libels. But see Kyle-Anne Shriver, for the overview: "James O’Keefe Reveals an MSM Drowning in its Own Leftist Ideology."

Plus, at Big Journalism:

* "Correction Request: Newsweek."

* "Correction Request: Talking Points Memo."

* "Correction Request: Los Angeles Times."

* "Correction Request: Associated Press."

* "Correction Request: The Atlantic."

* "Correction Request: The Huffington Post."

* "Correction Request: MSNBC."

* "Correction Request: CBS News."

* "Correction Request: Daily Kos."

* "Correction Request: The Hill."

I'm heading out to go shopping ... more blogging tonight!

Alessandra Ambrosio's St. Bart's Photo-Shoot

At Fox News, of all places, "Pure Ambrosio: Alessandra Ambrosio's St. Bart's Shoot." And at Celebrity Gossip, "Alessandra Ambrosio: St. Bart's Beach Babe":

Alessandra just had a baby, it turns out. But sheesh, I'd have been happy for her to keep a little of the mama-fat. A little too skinny for me, but I'm sure Gator Doug and Troglo don't mind. And I know R.S. McCain's got no quibbles!

But Without All of These Things I Can Do ... Without Your Love I Won't Make It Through...

"Who knew Rush Limbaugh could bust a move?"

That's from Mary Sue at Ruby Slippers, laying down the news on Rush Limbaugh's boogie creds. Mary Sue's got some Lady Gaga at the link, but if memory serves me I think she really digs The Clash. So check it out:

The "Train in Vain" Wikipedia entry is here. Incredible music.

Tall Women and Heightism

Folks recall my post, "At 5' 6½", George Stephanopoulos Debuts at Good Morning America - UPDATED!!"?

I didn't think that much of it at the time, but Rusty Walker raised some objections, so I've been thinking about the issue of "heightism." For an interesting take on that, see "Dating Dilemma: Am I A Heightist?":

I’m sure there are all sorts of goes-back-to-the-Stone-Age psychological and physiological reasons. A taller man may subconsciously suggest to a woman that he’s more likely to provide for her than, say, a shorter dude. True or not, animals conditioned to believe one thing over untold millennia are hard to reprogram. The guy I went out with who was 5’10” was shorter than me, sure, and neither of us minded, but he was a big guy, stature-wise. The 6’6” guy I dated weighed 300 pounds and was a professional offensive lineman. I liked feeling uniquely small(er) than him and, well, girly when we were together. But it seems like I’m leaving out a hell of a lot of fish in the sea by casting my line this way. What if the man of my dreams is 5’6”—and I can’t see him because I’m too busy scanning the room for the tallest guy in the crowd?

It could be awkward, though. How do you kiss a guy who’s six inches shorter than you? I don’t know. But I guess, in a way, love is like porn. I’ll know it when I see it.

Read the whole post (which includes a link to Jeff Wong and Erin Martin's wedding announcement).

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds.

I Accept Dana Pico's Apology

It was a misunderstanding.

Dana has written a post, "An Apology to Donald Douglas":

There are times in which my sense of humor covers things which other people do not find humorous, and I’ve run up on a couple of those instances. The first, which our friend from as far away as it’s possible to be, New Zealand, has mentioned frequently, was a snarky comment that said it would be better for Republicans to win elections through cheating than for Democrats to win elections honestly. The Phoenician upbraids me both frequently and often for that one, but I’d point out here that it was just snarkiness.

That's very good of Dana to apologize. But I'll just make an observation: Snark is generally designed to go beyond playful ribbing, and sometimes when folks snark, especially with those on the same side, they put little a "snark alert" in parentheses to avoid misunderstandings. I read David Denby's Snark about a year ago. As he notes there, "some of those who professionally attack others intend their words to be strong enough to 'make their victims disappear - go away, give up, even kill themselves'."

Dana's a good man, and for that reason I was all the more surprised at his snarky comment at the post. I accept his apology and I'm glad this was a misunderstanding and not something worse.

Fourth Quarter GDP, the iPad and American Power

There's some debate over the significance of today's revised GDP report, indicating that economic growth reached an annualized rate of 5.7 percent for the 4th quarter. And while it may well be the case that consumer purchasing power is still way down, and unemployment is still super sticky upwards, the large measure of gross product nevertheless reminds me of some of the big boom numbers during the 1990s. We had at that time the longest sustained expansion on record, and that period marked the emergence of a universally acknowledged quality of American preponderance globally. While the end of the Cold War left the U.S. as the single "pole" atop the global hierarchy of states, by the end of the decade the U.S. had pulled out such a phenomenal lead in all the major indices of great power capabilities, expectations were for decades of unrivaled mastery in the international realm.

Just a few years later, especially after a couple of years of the Iraq war, and especially at the end of 2008, with financial crisis and the virtually unprecendented steps taken by the U.S. government to restore confidence, many commenters were quick to trumpet their predictions of impending American decline. I never personally buy the doomsayer scenarios, because they've been recycled from earlier eras of cyclical economic change, and they're totally predicated on the emergence of a utopia of global governance.

In any case, I always remind my students to never count the U.S. out of the race for international preeminence. Frankly, I'm not convinced that the 21st century won't be a repeat of the 20th -- an American one. I'm reminded of this debate not just by the surging GDP numbers (of which there will be more, in a couple of years from now, especially), but by this week's huge buzz over Apple's iPad. (See Midnight Blue for the specs, "iLove the iPad.") This report is especially interesting in terms of the market-moving implications of Apple's dominant innovation, "The iPad Big Picture" (with emphasis added):

There was a meta-message in today’s Apple event, not about the iPad in particular, but rather about Apple as a whole. Jobs’s brief preamble included a bit of extra emphasis on the fact that the Apple now generates over $50 billion per year in revenue. (Apple also emphasized this $50 billion revenue thing in their PR two days ago announcing their Q1 2010 financial results.) He also said that when you consider MacBooks as “mobile” devices, Apple generates more revenue from mobile hardware than any other company in the world; the three competitors he singled out were Sony, Samsung, and Nokia. The adjective he used was “bigger”.

Lastly, there’s the fact that the iPad is using a new CPU designed and made by Apple itself: the Apple A4. This is a huge deal. I got about 20 blessed minutes of time using the iPad demo units Apple had at the event today, and if I had to sum up the device with one word, that word would be “fast” ....

In the late-1990s, the American economy saw explosive economic growth as the first huge Internet-related technology-era matured and the leading sectors of the economy -- think Silicon Valley on top of a soaring service-sector juiced by globalization -- outstripped U.S. competitors in the first-mover fields then driving the intense pattern of intenrational integration and growth. Watching all the buzz this week over the iPad was one thing, but just last week market reports suggested a wider pattern of long-term dominance for Apple, in phones, music, and related services. It's still early to say, but these kinds of developments at the macro level (economic growth) combined with those at the micro level (industry innovation and market dominance), are generally encouraging for the larger questions of American world leadership in the years ahead.

Dave Mason to Play 'The Canyon', in Agoura Hills, April 23rd

I can't make it to the Eagles at Hollywood Bowl (Stogie thinks I should go, but it's Easter week, and my wife and I are planning a family vacation), but I am getting excited to attend a live concert again soon. I just got a notice from Ticketmaster that Dave Mason will play The Canyon in Agoura Hills on April 23rd. That's north of Los Angeles, so it's way too far away for a nightclub act. But Dave Mason's "We Just Disagree" was a staple on FM playlists in the '70s. So enjoy this clip, which features Mason on "Midnight Special":

The Canyon looks like a hot club, by the way ...

Hot Patriotism!

Image snagged from GSGF:

SEIU Tied to 'Tea Party is Over' Smear Outfit

Remember Scott Erik Kaufman's attack on Michele Bachmann and the tea parties? Well, he's aligned with folks like this, "The Tea Party is Over":

It turns out this smear outfit is financed in part by the SEIU. As Gateway Pundit notes:

Lee Doren did his research and found out who is behind this anti-freedom website:

I just came across a new website titled: http://www.theteapartyisover.org/

It is paid for by the American Public Policy Committee. Well, according to opensecrets.org, the two donors for American Public Policy Committee this year are Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority West.

However, according to opensecrets.org, the 2nd largest contributor in 2008 to Patriot Majority was SEIU and other top Unions around America.

It figures. When the SEIU is not out cracking heads and stomping on tea party vendors they’re working on other ways to destroy the tea party movement. They will do anything to force their radical agenda on America.

Scott Eric Kaufman: If You Smear My Grammar at Least Edit Your F**KED UP Prose and Use Spell Check

Apparently, Scott Eric Kaufman actually holds a Ph.D. in the "Philosophy of English." Don't know if he actually holds an academic position. He can't write for shit, so it'd be no surprise if he's unemployed.

I'm block-quoting his entire post at Lawyers, Guns and Money, just in case he decides to proofread later and make corrections in a belated attempt to appear less an asshole than he is. See, "Phony Political Scientist Sees Morons at Fake Indepedence Hall and is Impressed":

With all apologies to J.D. Salinger, I can't resist reading Donald Douglas's account of a Michele Bachmann event at Knott's Berry Farm in Holden Caulfield's terms. This is contemporary conservatism boiled to the bone: some morons convince of a phony of their patriotism by speaking before a replica of an actual American institution. Douglas's photo-essay captures what history signifies when you subscribe to Tea Party logic even more starkly than those fake patriots who demonstrate their solidarity with the Founding Fathers by showing up at rallies with tea-bags.

Did I say rallies? I meant "sparsely-attended speeches by purported conservative celebrities in the most conservative county in the country," because as Douglas's own photos attest, David Horowitz and Michele Bachmann have little drawing power within spitting distance of the birth place of Richard Nixon. Not that Douglas would care, mind you, because he can't tear his authentic eyes away from all the ersatz history. Even his grammar becomes ambiguous in the presence of all this fakery:

As you can see, the park's Independence Hall is an exact replica of the original historic landmark in Philadelphia, PA. Both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were signed there.

The Decleration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were signed in Knott's Berry Farm's Independence Hall? According to Knott's Berry Farm, they most certainly were:

Douglas then produces:

[a] shot of the [Knott's Berry Farm's replica of the] bell's famous crack.

The faked crack on the fake Liberty Bell is famous? All morons hate it when their grammar reveals that they're morons.

Not that it's just the grammar, as his caption to this picture demonstrates: "[t]he sweeties at the gift counter, in 18th century dress." If you press your ear against the monitor, you can almost hear him declaiming: "That is too an authentic 18th century windbreaker!" But perhaps the best part of Douglas's account is the definitive evidence that Tea Party patriots don't know from English. He notes that Michele Bachmann

came to California straight from Washington and the last night's SOTU. She reminded the crowd that this time last year the big talk was Joe Wilson's "you lie," while this week it's Samuel Alito's "not true," and she turned that into a little chant to fire up the patriots in attendence.

If that chant sounds like Douglas suggests it does—"You lie! Not true! You lie! Not true!"—then those patriots sure told Joe Wilson a thing or two.

I guess quite a few folks have a problem with historical replicas, but you might notice that when SEK quotes and ridicules he omits the hyperlinks. For example, with reference to Philadelphia's Independence Hall, the link (and thus context) is at my original passage: "Both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were signed there." That's "signed there," as in Pennsylvania, yo!

Besides that, how's this for a piece of F**KED UP writing? "This is contemporary conservatism boiled to the bone: some morons convince of a phony of their patriotism by speaking before a replica of an actual American institution."

If "convince" is being used as a verb, it needs to precede an object. For example, "This is contemporary conservatism boiled to the bone: some morons convince OTHERS of a phony ... patriotism by speaking before a replica of an actual American institution."

(And from Aaron Baker's comment at the post, "Could you please unjumble 'some morons convince of a phony of their patriotism' for us?")

And while I don't normally stress typos and misspelled words, if someone's going to smear me with dishonest distortions of my grammar, they might as well at least use a spell-checker: "The Decleration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were signed in Knott's Berry Farm's Independence Hall?"

Never said that, Scott. But your "Decleration of Independence" is priceless.

You're in good company, in any case. See "The Moral Abomination of Robert Farley."

P.S. I personally think Charli Carpenter has demeaned herself by joining LGM as a co-blogger.