Newsweek: Don’t Give Readers What They Want

A fabulous essay at Commentary, by Andrew Ferguson:

In early May, on the evening of the day his magazine got shot out from under him, the editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham, appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, seeking fellowship, commiseration, and a platform from which he might discourse upon the larger significance of the day’s developments. Discoursing upon larger significances is one of Meacham’s particular gifts. No one was surprised then that he would seek to apply it to the unexpected news that the owner of Newsweek, Donald Graham of the Washington Post Co., was putting the magazine up for sale, with the implication that the place would be shuttered for good unless a buyer was found, and soon.

As Stewart listened, rapt and unusually smirkless, Meacham noted the explosion of journalism now available for free on the Internet. The moral that Meacham drew from this new competition, together with Graham’s announcement, was this: “If you’re not gonna pay for news, then you’re gonna get a different kind of news.” (I’m transcribing his pronunciation of “going to” in honor of his Tennessee twang, which gets folksier as his words get more portentous.)

It was an odd thing for Meacham to say, given his efforts to reposition his magazine in the media universe—to offer, that is, his own kind of “a different kind of news.” His efforts peaked last year, when he unveiled a new business and editorial plan with three main elements. He raised the magazine’s price per issue, to a whopping $6 on newsstands. He cut costs by laying off staff and by letting half his subscribers drop off the rolls. And he recast the magazine’s content for those readers who were stubborn enough to hang on. His newsweekly, he said, would no longer even pretend to offer the traditional summary of the previous week’s events, as it had been doing, with dwindling enthusiasm, for nearly 80 years. Instead, readers would find “argued essays” and “reported narrative ... grounded in original observation and freshly discovered fact.” It would become a “provocative (but not partisan)” magazine of opinion—a liberal magazine written by liberals who didn’t want to admit they were liberals.

This final reinvention of Newsweek left Meacham’s customers with a choice. They could turn to the Web and get “a different kind of news” for free, or they could go to Newsweek and get “a different kind of news” for $6 a week. He seemed startled that so many of them turned out to be skinflints.

To Jon Stewart—still rapt, still unsmirking—Meacham went on to cast Newsweek’s unhappy fate as an “existential crisis,” confusing the consequences of his own terrible business sense with a calamity afflicting the whole country. “Let me say this,” he said, portentousness rising. “I don’t think we’re the only catcher in the rye between democracy and ignorance, but I think we’re one of them, and I don’t think there are that many standing on the edge of that cliff.” Indeed, Newsweek was one of the few “common denominators left in a fragmented world.” And it’s not his fault that the denominator business isn’t what it used to be.

RTWT.

Immigration, Gay Marriage Could Define Elena Kagan's Early Tenure

From David Savage, at Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Washington — This summer, as Elena Kagan quietly moved toward confirmation to the Supreme Court, three major legal disputes took shape that could define her early years.

The justices soon will be called upon to decide whether states like Arizona can enforce immigration laws, whether same-sex couples have a right to marry and whether Americans can be required to buy health insurance. Kagan's record strongly suggests she will vote in favor of federal regulation of immigration and health insurance and vote to oppose discrimination against gays and lesbians.

What is less clear is whether she will be voting with a center-left majority that includes Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, or as liberal dissenter on a court whose five Republican appointees outvote the four Democratic appointees.

Kagan, 50, is the fourth new justice in five years. And for the first time, the high court has three women. But the ideological divide is unlikely to change much.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. form a solid conservative bloc. The liberal bloc includes Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, with Kagan now set to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired at age 90.

In the major cases that divide the court, however, the outcome almost always depends on Kennedy, 74.

Interesting piece. More at the link.

Legalizing Cocaine?

JBW's jonesin' for some kind of debate --- any debate, I guess --- but frankly it seems useless trying to respond to some effete leftist "libertarian" who at most can string together "NANNY STATE", "NANNY STATE", NANNY STATE" until you've had just about enough of that faux intellectualism to last a lifetime. Not only that, JBW's calling for the decriminalization of cocaine, which I can't see how that's going to improve society much. But hey, JBW thinks he knows everything, and apparently that includes all the things I've seen and experienced in my few decades on this Great Green Earth.

That said, just read Sandy Banks' essay at LAT, "The crack epidemic's toxic legacy." Perhaps reducing some of the harsher criminal sentencing guidelines will ease historical racial disparities (putting aside the causes), but Banks isn't going in for full-blown decriminalization, not by a long shot:

As a reporter, I spent more than 20 years covering South Los Angeles, and the impact of drug addiction was a reality I encountered with painful regularity.

Crack's reach was made plain in big, public ways: exploding foster care rolls, rising crime, overloaded emergency rooms, skid row's growing underclass.

But it hurt most to hear the individual stories that documented the drug's societal toll:

From the police officer who took a 9-year-old into custody for stealing food from a liquor store and then found that the boy was trying to feed his three young siblings. Their mom had been out on a drug binge for days.

The teacher who told me about a bright student who dropped out of Jordan High because he was tired of being teased by classmates who bragged that his mother had offered them sex for drugs.

And a social worker who had rescued a 12-year-old girl from a crack house, where she had been traded by her father for a $20 rock.

Those memories came flooding back last month when I visited the street where the accused murderer in the Grim Sleeper cases lived, and then again this week as I read Chris Goffard's skid row series and another story in The Times about the serial killers who stalked South L.A. decades ago.

More than 100 women were killed during a period, 1984-1994, in which at least five serial killers — including Grim Sleeper suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr. — stalked the streets of South Los Angeles, according to our front page story. An addiction to crack cocaine was a common ingredient.

Franklin's elderly neighbor William Harris remembers when the crack epidemic was raging three decades ago and dealers and gangbangers descended on his quiet block along 51st Street near Western Avenue.

Drug buys took place on his front lawn, murders at the apartment building on the corner. You couldn't let your children play outside, he said, or open your windows, even in the heat.

His street looks peaceful now, but the era's collateral damage remains: homes with iron gates and window bars, a converted garage where crack smokers still gather and a void in many homes left by family members — Harris' two grown sons included — who are missing and still lost to drugs.

And there is a new status quo, made evident by the glass crack pipes that are for sale and on display next to the condoms at gas stations and liquor stores.

"It's a cold attitude now, like anything goes," Harris told me. The crime and mayhem have diminished, but what bothers him most is the casual acceptance of petty crime and disrespectful treatment of "young ladies" that the epidemic spawned. "It's changed the way we feel about each other."

And that's a problem that can't be resolved by tweaking jail terms and sending inmates home.

***

Statistics suggest the epidemic has passed. Crime rates, hospital admissions, foster care rolls have all declined. The crack smokers are getting old, winding down or dying. The open-air drug markets are gone, and the rituals have moved inside.

Now, the dealer is less likely to be the gangbanger calling out from the street corner than the young, jobless neighbor who grew up watching his mother cooking crack on the kitchen stove and learned how to hustle to survive.

Crack addiction has proved to be notoriously difficult to dislodge. "There are so many triggers for relapse," said former addict and drug counselor Don Hashima. And there are so few clear paths to redemption for people hurled by addiction to society's margins.

The sentencing changes are a good first step. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the new guidelines should save $42 million over the next five years by reducing the prison population.

Some of that money should go into creating drug abuse programs tailored to the special challenges posed by crack addiction.

But more ought to go into ameliorating the social problems — damaged children, fractured families, overwhelmed schools and social institutions — that will outlast the epidemic and the addicts.

The wave may have crested and passed. Now it's time to take a look at what the tide brought in.

Be sure to check the Times' skid row series as well.

No doubt Mr. "Libertarian" JBW's down with that kind extreme pain, dislocation, and hopelessness as well.

Bill Ayers, Unrepentant Domestic Terrorist, Announces Retirement From University of Illinois at Chicago

The Hot Joints has it, and also Chicago Tribune, "Ayers set to retire from UIC":

For leaders at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the planned retirement from teaching of former Vietnam War-era radical William Ayers will be a great loss.

Never mind that, in hopes of quelling a political storm two years ago, UIC was compelled to release more than 1,000 files detailing the activities of an education reform group that brought together Ayers and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Or that the university was inundated with questions in 2001 after the release of Ayers' memoir, "Fugitive Days," where he wrote about helping with bombings of the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and other government sites.

While controversial and even hated by some, Ayers, who has served as an education professor at UIC since 1987, is celebrated on campus for his academic contributions, particularly in the area of school reforms, said UIC education Dean Vicki Chou.

Ayers was unavailable for comment Thursday. But Chou confirmed Thursday that he will retire at the end of the summer.

RTWT.

Also at Founding Bloggers.

Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947

An update to my post yesterday on the decision to drop the bomb on Japan. Glenn Reynolds' reader Josh Fagan writes:

I read Giangreco’s Hell to Pay recently. I believe it was you who linked to it a while back that made me aware of this book; and what a good book it is. It thoroughly details what it would have taken to invade the jap home islands, and left me wondering whether we could have actually ever forced them to surrender without the additional shock to their regime of using the few atom bombs we had in our arsenal against them.

Maybe give it another plug. This book certainly counters the pervasive anti-American narrative under which we exist.

And that anti-American narrative is powerful, as I've experienced with my students. It gets quite emotional even, I think from the extreme frustration some have in resisting a rational explanation to why we dropped the bomb. In any case, I hadn't heard of the book and I'm putting on my list for birthday presents.

Rule 5 Update

Hat tip to Theo Spark on the bikini babes. It looks like Linkmaster Smith's got some reserve requirements coming up this weekend, so the rest of us have to pick up the slack:

Check out Say Anything Blog for some non-hotness linkage. (Added: Proof Positive cross-posts to Say Anything.)

But as always, look for some wonderful posting at MAinfo. (Today's entry, "My Memories of Marilyn.) And, at The Point of a Gun, "Republican Scandal That's Shocking! Marcela Hoeven Bikini Scandal That Is Scandalous! And Shocking!"

**********

And be sure to visit some of other friends of American Power:

* Another Black Conservative.

* Astute Bloggers (Honorary).

* Blazing Cat Fur.

* Bob Belvedere.

* Cold Fury.

* Classical Liberal.

* Daley Gator.

* Left Coast Rebel.

* Mind Numbed Robot.

* Not a Sheep.

* Paco Enterprises.

* Panhandle Perspective.

* Political Byline.

* POWIP.

* Proof Positive.

* The Other McCain.

* Reaganite Republican (Honorary).

* Right Klik (Honorary).

* Saberpoint (Honorary).

* Serr8d (Honorary).

* Snooper's Report (Honorary).

* Stormbringer.

* Theo Spark.

* TrogloPundit.

* Washington Rebel.

* WyBlog.

BONUS: Don't forget Instapundit.

And drop your link in the comments to be added to the weekly roundups!

Who's Telling the Truth?

Andrew Breitbart on citizens' journalism (via Voting Female):

Single and Looking? Head Over to Post-Prop 8 West Hollywood

Bryan Safi's a riot!

California's Proposition 25 Would Have 'Majority Rule' on Budgets

I just finished up an essay for Pajamas Media on the top-ticket campaigns in California 2010. The piece should go live tomorrow or Monday, and I'll post it at that time. Meanwhile, I'm intrigued by Proposition 25, which would lower the legislative threshold for state budgets to a simple majority vote. The Howard Jarvis folks are squawking that the measure contains built-in hidden tax increases, and I agree that's not good. But we need some change around here. California's government sucks. I doubt either Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman will make things any better. I'm interested to see how thing develop at the grassroots. We need structural reforms, so this initiative might be a place to start.

In any case, at Stateline.org:

SACRAMENTO — California’s Democratic and Republican parties both held mock bake sales last month at the Capitol to protest each other’s “half-baked” budget ideas for plugging a $19 billion deficit for the year that began July 1 without a new plan.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has installed a clock outside his office ticking off the days without a budget and the growing size of the deficit, suggested last week he might leave office in January without signing a budget at all.

While this year’s stalemate has provided colorful political theater, late budgets are practically the norm in California. Since 1980, the Legislature has met the June 15 constitutional deadline for sending a budget to the governor only five times. Only ten times has the brokering been done by the July 1 start of the fiscal year.

Many people in Sacramento have come to believe that California’s restrictive budget rules are a big part of the problem. California is one of only three states that requires a supermajority vote of the Legislature to pass a state budget (Arkansas and Rhode Island are the others). In November, voters will weigh in on Proposition 25, a ballot measure that would lower the vote threshold down from two-thirds, so that lawmakers could pass budgets with a simple majority.

Supporters say the change would help California to wrap up its budget process on time and reduce the strain on state workers and contractors who this time of year get to wondering whether they’ll continue to be paid. The current system has “strangled democracy and put the minority party in control of major decisions to manage the system,” says Dennis Smith, secretary-treasurer of the California Federation of Teachers, one of several unions responsible for getting the measure on the ballot. The League of Women Voters of California also endorses Proposition 25.

In addition to changing the budget vote threshold, the measure would dock lawmakers’ pay and daily living allowance for each day the budget is not approved. Supporters insist that the measure would not change California’s constitutional requirement that any new taxes or tax increases pass both houses of the Legislature with a two-thirds vote. But business groups and other opponents say that’s not the case.

A coalition of taxpayers and employers called Stop Hidden Taxes, sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce and California Taxpayers’ Association, says Proposition 25 includes “hidden” ways to allow legislators to raise taxes as part of a budget bill with a simple majority vote. “It should come as no surprise that the special interests behind this measure would try to sneak a measure by voters that makes it easier for the state Legislature to raise taxes on Californians,” says Teresa Casazza, president of the California Taxpayers’ Association.

More at the link.

Schwarzenegger: 'Let My People Go'

Arnold delivers teh gays from slavery, at the Sacremento Bee, "Let gays begin marrying, Schwarzenegger urges" (via Memeorandum):

In an extraordinary court filing, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked Friday that gay marriages be allowed to resume immediately in California after a federal ruling that the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

The Republican governor filed his brief with U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker before a Friday deadline to submit arguments on whether to continue a stay of Walker's decision against Proposition 8.

"The Administration believes the public interest is best served by permitting the Court's judgment to go into effect, thereby restoring the right of same-sex couples to marry in California," wrote Kenneth C. Mennemeier, an attorney representing Schwarzenegger, in the brief. "Doing so is consistent with California's long history of treating all people and their relationships with equal dignity and respect."

Christopher Hitchens Talks About Cancer

And God too (and he's not religious), on "Anderson Cooper 360":

Left/Islamist Alliance

Via STOP OBAMA 2012:

What Mosque 'Inside' the Pentagon?

For some reason leftists think they've pwned conservative opponents to the Ground Zero Mega Mosque. The title of Think Progress' post is misleading: "Reminder to critics who think a mosque is offensive to the legacy of 9/11: There’s already one at the Pentagon" (via Memeorandum):

In opposing the planned Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City, conservative stalwarts have picked up on right-wing extremists’ paranoid hysteria over the initiative.

Read the whole thing. Think Progress argues that there's a mosque "inside" the Pentagon and cites a Salon essay by Justin Elliot as the source, a post titled, "Why did no one object to the 'Pentagon mosque'?" The only problem is that there is no "mosque" at the Pentagon. Elliot cites Navy imam Chaplain Abuhena Saifulislam in an attempt to smear conservatives as unhinged hypocrites, and then Elliot got picked up by Daily Kos and then finally back over to Think Progress. Elliot's essay at Salon is also illustrated with imagery designed to ridicule some kind of irrational conservative "fears" of Islam:

This at minimum caricatures the views of Ground Zero Mosque opponents, and I'd be too generous to say Think Progress et al. are mostly just dishonest. Elliot links to an article at the Washington Times from 2007, "Pentagon observes Muslim holy month." Notice the key difference in language: The Pentagon "observes" Muslim holy month, which is Ramadan. Thus the context is the Defense Department policy of allowing sectarian services for Muslims at the Pentagon building. And that is a far cry from building a "conquest mosque" at the site where 184 people died on September 11th. The left's false analogy decontextualizes the concerns of those who perished at WTC, those who view the development of a new Islamic center as a victory monument to Islam. Such opposition is strengthened by the fact that Ground Zero Imam Abdul Rauf has ties to the Gaza flotilla and is an ideological spokesman for modern Islamic jihad.

On top of that, it's not like conservatives HAVEN'T objected to the actual construction of Muslim facilities at military installations. Imam Saifulislam, who as far as I can tell is the only Muslim cleric being cited by Salon and Think Progress, was at the center of controversy in 2006 when an "Islamic Prayer Center" was being established at the United States Marine Corps training center at Quantico, Virgina. See, "Taxpayers fund Islamic center: Prayer building on Marine base not really mosque, officials say." And note the key information at the passage:

An announcement that the U.S. Marine base at Quantico, Va., has refurbished a building to be used as a prayer room for Muslim soldiers and civilians on base is a "bad signal," one critic has concluded.

The Marines announced earlier this summer that one of the buildings on the base had been repainted so that Muslims would have a place to pray and hold religious services

The new "Islamic Prayer Center" is the first of its kind on a Marine base, and "serves to express the Marine Corps' recognition of diversity among service members and the commitment to provide continued support to all Marines regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or gender," the base announcement said.

However, Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer said he wonders why the Marines do not seem concerned such facilities might to used to generate anti-American sympathies.

"It's going to go up as part of a testament to American multiculturalism and so on without any indication of the possibility that this could be a source of what we're fighting against," he said. "It just sends a bad signal."

At the dedication ceremony, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England praised the estimated 4,000 Muslims in the U.S. military. Joining him were leaders of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

CAIR describes itself as America's largest Muslim civil liberties group and boasts 32 offices, chapters and affiliates nationwide and in Canada. Its mission, it says, is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

However, CAIR is a spin-off of the Islamic Association for Palestine, identified by two former FBI counterterrorism chiefs as a "front group" for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Several CAIR leaders have been convicted on terror-related charges.

"It is sadly ironic and lost on most that the plan to dedicate the prayer center and build a new mosque was approved by military leaders occupying a building that was attacked on 9/11 – the Pentagon – where more than 100 of its occupants were killed on that day," was the conclusion of those at Homelandsecurityus.com, a private security organization.

Justin Elliot and Think Progress might want to revise their posts. Robert Spencer (along with Pamela Geller) is among the leading opponents of the New York Mega Mosque. Thus, not only is there not a "mosque" at the Pentagon, but an earlier initiative to establish a fully designated "Islamic Prayer Center" met with the same kind of opposition that we're now seeing with the Cordoba Center. I'd add as well that the same folks who protest the erection of Islamic victory mosques have stressed repeatedly their respect for freedom of religion. Imam Saifulislam's Pentagon prayer services allow Muslim service-members to worship their faith as fully protected members of America's pluralist religious order. The U.S. did not prohibit Islam after 9/11. And our armies in the field are working with Muslim populations in Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world to defeat militant jihadis who kill indiscriminately, regardless of faith.

Mega Mosque opponents are asking Muslim religious leaders to exercise their rights responsibly. No one is attempting to take away those rights.

The essays at Salon, Daily Kos, and Think Progress are simply additional examples of the anti-intellectual smear tactics disguised as "debate" that are found routinely on the left. Just watch. More people will die from this kind of conservative-bashing. Talk about political opportunism. It's pretty sick.

RELATED: At America.gov, "Bangladeshi American Is First Muslim Chaplain in Marine Corps: Abuhena Saifulislam counsels troops from all backgrounds and faiths."

Added: Linked at JustOneMinute, "Geez, It's Almost As If 'The Right' Is Not Reflexively Anti-Muslim."

The Lady Gaga/Katy Perry Boobular Arms Race

From Luke Lewis, "Does Katy Perry really have to strip off to get on the cover of Rolling Stone?"

Lewis says no but I say yes, that is, if Katy Perry wants to compete in the strategic arms race with Lady Gaga. Nudity is mainstream nowadays. The latest cover of Vanity Fair features Gaga nude. Katy Perry was recently featured semi-nude on the cover of Esquire. The first conclusion of course is that this sells magazines — with the prominence of virtually no-holds-barred web publishing, dead-tree magazines are going nuclear to keep up. As for Gaga and Perry, it's a strategic (boobular) arms race, and there's a theory for that:

The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During the Cold War, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries also developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers.

In the boobular arms race neither side has developed a strategy of deterrence, since the threat of mutual assured destruction has yet to appear inevitable at the top-tier of celebrity competition. But as this is an existential superpower rivalry between Gaga and Perry, second-tier stars are hoping for an arms (boobs) reduction treaty to bring the world back from the brink of boobular annihilation.

The superpowers have eschewed strategic restraint (see, "Katy Perry Strips Down for Rolling Stone: Photos From Her Sexy Cover Shoot"), and the danger of a boobular holocaust has forced the issue to the heights of transnational cooperative efforts for reductions in force and norms against boobular violence (see, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women" and "Pornography Is a Civil Rights Issue".)

A Brief History of the Bikini

Via Diana Adams.

Which gives me a chance to post a Katy Perry bikini shot:

Hat Tip: R.S. McCain.

Churchill Ordered UFO Cover-Up?

At Astute Bloggers, "EISENHOWER AND CHURCHILL COVERED UP PHENOMENAL UFO SIGHTING DURING WW2." The link's to the BBC, "Churchill ordered UFO cover-up, National Archives show":

Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the MoD, said: "The interesting thing is that most of the UFO files from that period have been destroyed.

"But what happened is that a scientist whose grandfather was one of his [Churchill's] bodyguards, said look, Churchill and Eisenhower got together to cover up this phenomenal UFO sighting, that was witnessed by an RAF crew on their way back from a bombing raid.

"The reason apparently was because Churchill believed it would cause mass panic and it would shatter people's religious views."

Reports of sightings of UFOs peaked in 1996 in the UK - when science fiction drama The X Files was popular.

I was trying to think of a hefty wisecrack here, but see Brain Fung at Foreign Policy, "Either the tin hats were right all along, or Churchill was as crazy as the rest of 'em." (Via Memeorandum.)

'Green Lantern'

Green Lantern is scheduled for release in June 2011.

Blake Lively stars as Carol Ferris. No doubt she'll heat up the screen (as an aerospace executive at that):

Hat Tip: Tom Cruise.

65 Years After Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima

At Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, "65 years later, survivor of first atomic bomb still has vivid memories":

UPLAND - Sumi Umemoto has no memory of the destruction that descended on her hometown of Hiroshima 65 years ago today. She was just 4 months old, a baby girl born at the dawn of the nuclear age.

Although she never saw the mushroom cloud, she definitely heard about it when she was old enough to understand.

"It was a different kind of bombing," Umemoto said. "That mushroom cloud was something different, and everybody was so scared."

The nightmare lasted long after World War II ended, and Umemoto remembers the aftermath - her blood-stained walls, the post-war hunger and countless checkups by doctors studying the effects of radiation.

Umemoto, now an Upland resident, grew up in a home more than a mile from ground zero. But on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, she was at her grandmother's house, about 20 miles away. Her father and cousin were home and both miraculously survived.
That day, Umemoto and her family became hibakushas, or survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place three days later on Aug. 9.

Hibakushas are entitled to government compensation and health care in Japan. To this day, Umemoto meets with visiting Japanese doctors in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo for physicals on an occasional basis. Her cousin, who suffered severe burns after the bomb, was worried over the stigma of radiation exposure and never applied for hibakusha status.

World leaders, including the U.S. ambassador to Japan, will mark the anniversary in the port city where the American plane dropped a 9,700-pound bomb 65 years ago. The event, claiming some 140,000 lives in the months following the Hiroshima bombing and some 80,000 more after the Nagasaki bombing, led to the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, thus ending the deadliest war in history. It forever changed Japan, bringing a pacifist identity to national discourse and its constitution.

More at the link.

Readers might recall my discussion last weekend of the case study method. (I had shown the opening scenes of "The Paper Chase" during summer school, including the part where Professor Kingsfield discusses the Socratic method). Well, for a time I organized my World Politics classes around case study analysis, and I used Carolyn Rhodes', Pivotal Decisions: Select Cases In Twentieth Century International Politics. One of the best chapters is "The Decision to Drop the Bomb on Japan." A lot of students were overwhelmed by the case studies, and I imagine that's because Rhodes' cases were extremely in-depth and rigorous, and thus required more advanced training than many entry-level students possessed. That said, there were some beefy discussions. I can remember at least one student --- and a couple of others to a lesser degree --- who basically broke down during the discussion of whether the U.S. should have used nuclear weapons to end the war. I mean, really, the discussions were almost traumatizing for some. So while the article above notes that the Japanese are perhaps the world's most pacifist people, especially with regards to nuclear weapons, some the post-'60s cohorts of neo-socialist youth have internalized tremendously strong feelings about this as well. Of course, I don't think such ideological sentiment leads to rigorous thinking, but at least those views are deeply held.

More on this at NYT (FWIW), Kenzaburo Oe, "Hiroshima and the Art of Outrage."

Mary Hart Leaving 'Entertainment Tonight' After 29 Seasons

I write about 1980s pop music quite a bit ... so, how about a television flashback as well?" Mary Hart's leaving "ET" after 29 seasons. (I used to be a fan):

After nearly three decades as host of "Entertainment Tonight," Mary Hart is calling it quits.

Hart announced Thursday that she plans to leave the show after the upcoming season, which launches Sept. 13. Her exact departure date has not yet been revealed.

Hart joined the syndicated showbiz newsmagazine in 1982.

“I've reached a point when I clearly realize it's time for a change," Hart said in a statement. "There are many things I want to do in my life and I'd better get on with them. It will certainly be with mixed sentiments that I say 'goodbye' at the end of the season, but it will definitely be with a sense of celebration…30 years of Entertainment Tonight, are you kidding me? That's an accomplishment and something I'm very proud of!”

Lara Spencer, Hart's lovely replacement at "ET", will be 70 years-old if she too does 29 seasons: "Exclusive: 'Insider's' Lara Spencer Will Replace Mary Hart on 'ET'."

Developments in the Gulf

At Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "BP prepares to finish up 'static kill' with cement":

And see, "Factbox." Plus, "Gulf Update: Some Oil Disappears, Static Kill Seems to Be Working."

Birtherism Lives? Only 42 Percent of Americans Believe Obama Is a Citizen

It's kinda funny, but it just occurred to me that the folks so insistent that President Obama is fully eligible to be president of the United States have themselves turned into a cult that mirrors those who they so often criticize: the "birthers." This is evident by reading through the comments at Steven Taylor's post, "Birtherism Lives." What interested me was Steven's appearance of absolute certainty of President Obama's eligibility for office, which even from my perspective hasn't been shown conclusively. At issue is the new poll from CNN showing that 6 in 10 have doubts about Obama's birth: "CNN Poll: Only 42% Of Americans Believe Obama is a Citizen, Only 23% Of Republicans." The survey was released on Obama's birthday. In response, MSNBC's Chris Matthews nearly had a heart attack, "Chris Matthews: Birthers Are Trying To “Assassinate” Obama “With Their Lies”."

It's all pretty funny to me. Since the left's attacks on the birth eligibility issue is pretty much like being attacked as RAAAAACIST! --- that is, it's simply a means of shutting down debate and dissent. The MSM plays it up, and all of a sudden you're lumped in with the 9/11 truthers if you question why no one's ever released the long form birth certificate, which was issued in August 1961 by the State of Hawaii. (The computer generated COLB is incomplete documentation, and includes no signatures from medical professionals witnessing the birth.)

In any case, for some related humor, see Jerome Corsi, "Oops! Obama Mama Passport 'Destroyed'":

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the State Department has released passport records of Stanley Ann Dunham, President Obama's mother – but records for the years surrounding Obama's 1961 birth are missing.

The State Department claims a 1980s General Services Administration directive resulted in the destruction of many passport applications and other "nonvital" passport records, including Dunham's 1965 passport application and any other passports she may have applied for or held prior to 1965.

Destroyed, then, would also be any records shedding light on whether Dunham did or did not travel out of the country around the time of Barack Obama's birth.

The claim made in the Freedom of Information response letter that many passport records were destroyed during the 1980s comes despite a statement on the State Department website that Passport Services maintains U.S. passport records for passports issued from 1925 to the present.

The records released, however, contain interesting tidbits of new information about Obama's mother, including the odd listing of two different dates and locations for her marriage to Obama's Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro.

Image Credit: The Astute Bloggers, "Naughty Obama Mamma."

BONUS: I have a long response to Steven Taylor at Outside the Beltway. He claims there's irrefutable proof of Obama's birth eligibility. I have raised questions there that so far he's not answered.

Mary Jo Kilroy: Enemy of Israel

A new clip from the Emergency Committee for Israel:

PuffHo is not pleased.

Background from Jennifer Rubin, "Defending the Gaza 54." Also, at Timothy Birdnow, "Open borders with Gaza? 54 Democrats sign letter for it."

How Communists Exploit WikiLeaks

It's one thing when you have communist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviewing convicted computer hacker and communist activist Julian Assange on the U.S. government's response to WikLeaks. It's quite another thing when mainstream newspaper editors also come down on the side of the WikiLeaks/communist alliance. But that's what's happening today at LAT, "WikiLeaks and a Journalism 'Shield Law'." Speaking of Senator Schumer's legislative effort to police criminal organizations like WikiLeaks, the Times notes:

Rather than trying to figure out who should be protected and who should not, Congress should focus on what it is trying to accomplish — namely, to preserve for citizens of this democracy the information they need to govern themselves, information that sometimes only becomes public if those who have it can supply it anonymously.

Spoken like a true hardline communist apparatchik.

If you travel around the horn of the Internet, you'll find a clear split between those patriots who recognize that WikiLeaks' criminal activities put lives at risk (military and civilian) and those anti-Americans who want to damage the United States at all costs.

This Ain't Hell has more, "Left Plots Exploitation of WikiLeaks Documents":

The Left didn’t waste any time getting together in New York City yesterday looking for ways to use the documents from the Wikileaks drop for their own nefarious purposes. Someone dropped a link to me Saturday about the conference. They highlighted the luminaries that they had invited to speak;

* Dahr Jamail, journalist, author of “Beyond the Green Zone”
* Cindy Sheehan, antiwar leader, author, Director, Peace of the Action
* Josh Stieber, Army veteran of Bravo Company 2-16
* Matthis Chiroux, Army veteran, Iraq war resister
* Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace
* Ray McGovern, former CIA Agent, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
* Jeff Paterson, Courgage to Resist, spokesperson for Bradley Manning Support Comm
* Elaine Brower, military mother, World Can’t Wait
* Debra Sweet, Director, World Can’t Wait

Debra Sweet calls them “a strong group of resisters and truth-tellers”. They resist common sense and none would know the truth if it bit their collective ass. Dahr Jamail has made a career of ignoring facts that get in his way, Cindy Sheehan you all know, Josh Stieber bears witness to the “Collateral Murder” video yet he was still behind the wire during the events of that day. Matthis, well he’s a celebrity here. TSO dealt with Jeff Paterson’s hyperbole last year. Elaine Brower, hiding behind her son’s service, calls other troops baby killers.

That's Debra Sweet of the communist World Can't Wait organization: "Webcast: Anti-War Leaders and Veterans Respond to the WikiLeaks Revelations."

This is the leftist coaltion we're dealing with. Or, this is the domestic/international enemy coalition stabbing our troops in the back. (And recall also that the New York Times has been right at the center of this entire criminal leaking enterprise. Treasonous and disgusting.)

Michaele Salahi of 'D.C. Housewives' on 'The View'

I'd almost forgotten about the Salahis. I guess Whoopi Goldberg touched Michaele on yesterday's episode of "The View'. Now it turns out the "Real Housewives of DC" star (and former White House gate-crasher) is claiming she was "abused." And attorney Lisa Bloom (Gloria Allred's daughter) is on the case. At CBS News, "Michaele Salahi's Lawyer: 'View' Appearance Degrading." Plus, at ET, "'The View' update: Whoopi says she used 'choice words' backstage but 'didn't hit' Michaele Salahi."

The key moment's at about 1:50 at the clip. Looks like Whoopi simply touched her:

Mosque is No Way to 'Build Bridges'

From Thomas Kidd, at USA Today:

On Tuesday, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission voted, correctly, to deny landmark status to a fairly nondescript building that formerly housed a Burlington Coat Factory retailer. The only reason that the notion of landmark status had come forward (despite weak arguments about the building representing mid-19th century economic growth) was because a Muslim organization wants to build a mosque there, and the building stands near Ground Zero, the former site of the World Trade Center. Building the mosque near the epicenter of the 9/11 tragedy is in extremely bad taste, but the Constitution's protection of religious freedom should allow it to be built.

This case is a perfect example of the delicate nature of religious freedom. Religious freedom is most tenuous when the religious act in question is unpopular, and the building of this mosque is unpopular, to put it mildly. The proposed Islamic center shows an incredible lack of sensitivity on the part of the Cordoba Initiative, the group backing the mosque. One wonders whether Oz Sultan, spokesman for the group, can be serious when he says that the project will "build bridges" and that the Cordoba Initiative is "committed to promoting positive interaction between the Muslim world and the West." Could this group really be so out of touch, or is it intentionally trying to provoke a harsh reaction to prove some point? We don't know, but the overwhelming consensus of public opinion is that the idea of building this mosque on this property is deeply offensive. It insults the memory of those who died at the hands of jihadist terrorists.

More at the link.

Cartoon Credit: Sean Delonas.

In the Mail: The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election

Came to my home address, which is unusual. Available at Amazon.

And from the publisher's page:

Barack Obama's stunning victory in the 2008 presidential election will go down as one of the more pivotal in American history. Given America's legacy of racism, how could a relatively untested first-term senator with an African father defeat some of the giants of American politics?

In The Obama Victory , Kate Kenski, Bruce Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson draw upon the best voter data available, The National Annenberg Election Survey, as well as interviews with key advisors to each campaign, to illuminate how media, money, and messages shaped the 2008 election. They explain how both sides worked the media to reinforce or combat images of McCain as too old and Obama as not ready; how Obama used a very effective rough-and-tumble radio and cable campaign that was largely unnoticed by the mainstream media; how the Vice Presidential nominees impacted the campaign; how McCain's age and Obama's race affected the final vote, and much more.

Briskly written and filled with surprising insights, The Obama Victory goes beyond opinion to offer the most authoritative account available of precisely how and why Obama won the presidency.

'I Never Swallow'

This dude's a riot. Impeccable timing as well: "Obama does not endorse gay marriage. As a candidate for president, he consistently said marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman." Freakin' homophobe!

Plural Marriage is Waiting in the Wings

Flashback.

Stanley Kurtz, from 2005:

ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2005, the 46-year-old Victor de Bruijn and his 31-year-old wife of eight years, Bianca, presented themselves to a notary public in the small Dutch border town of Roosendaal. And they brought a friend. Dressed in wedding clothes, Victor and Bianca de Bruijn were formally united with a bridally bedecked Mirjam Geven, a recently divorced 35-year-old whom they'd met several years previously through an Internet chatroom. As the notary validated a samenlevingscontract, or "cohabitation contract," the three exchanged rings, held a wedding feast, and departed for their honeymoon.

When Mirjam Geven first met Victor and Bianca de Bruijn, she was married. Yet after several meetings between Mirjam, her then-husband, and the De Bruijns, Mirjam left her spouse and moved in with Victor and Bianca. The threesome bought a bigger bed, while Mirjam and her husband divorced. Although neither Mirjam nor Bianca had had a prior relationship with a woman, each had believed for years that she was bisexual. Victor, who describes himself as "100 percent heterosexual," attributes the trio's success to his wives' bisexuality, which he says has the effect of preventing jealousy.

The De Bruijns' triple union caused a sensation in the Netherlands, drawing coverage from television, radio, and the press. With TV cameras and reporters crowding in, the wedding celebration turned into something of a media circus. Halfway through the festivities, the trio had to appoint one of their guests as a press liaison. The local paper ran several stories on the triple marriage, one devoted entirely to the media madhouse.

News of the Dutch three-way wedding filtered into the United States through a September 26 report by Paul Belien, on his Brussels Journal website. The story spread through the conservative side of the Internet like wildfire, raising a chorus of "I told you so's" from bloggers who'd long warned of a slippery slope from gay marriage to polygamy.

Meanwhile, gay marriage advocates scrambled to put out the fire. M.V. Lee Badgett, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and research director of the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, told a sympathetic website, "This [Brussels Journal] article is ridiculous. Don't be fooled--Dutch law does not allow polygamy." Badgett suggested that Paul Belien had deliberately mistranslated the Dutch word for "cohabitation contract" as "civil union," or even "marriage," so as to leave the false impression that the triple union had more legal weight than it did. Prominent gay-marriage advocate Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, offered up a detailed legal account of Dutch cohabitation contracts, treating them as a matter of minor significance, in no way comparable to state-recognized registered partnerships.

In short, while the Dutch triple wedding set the conservative blogosphere ablaze with warnings, same-sex marriage advocates dismissed the story as a silly stunt with absolutely no implications for the gay marriage debate. And how did America's mainstream media adjudicate the radically different responses of same-sex marriage advocates and opponents to events in the Netherlands? By ignoring the entire affair.

Yet there is a story here. And it's bigger than even those chortling conservative websites claim. While Victor, Bianca, and Mirjam are joined by a private cohabitation contract rather than a state-registered partnership or a full-fledged marriage, their union has already made serious legal, political, and cultural waves in the Netherlands. To observers on both sides of the Dutch gay marriage debate, the De Bruijns' triple wedding is an unmistakable step down the road to legalized group marriage.

More important, the De Bruijn wedding reveals a heretofore hidden dimension of the gay marriage phenomenon. The De Bruijns' triple marriage is a bisexual marriage. And, increasingly, bisexuality is emerging as a reason why legalized gay marriage is likely to result in legalized group marriage. If every sexual orientation has a right to construct its own form of marriage, then more changes are surely due. For what gay marriage is to homosexuality, group marriage is to bisexuality. The De Bruijn trio is the tip-off to the fact that a connection between bisexuality and the drive for multipartner marriage has been developing for some time.

Photo Credit: "The Polygamists - FLDS: An exclusive look inside the FLDS."

And from the comments at Christianity Today:

Big deal. Sticking a reproductive organ into an excretory canal will never constitute grounds for biblical marriage. Also, it's not over, yet. This will be appealed to the SC where it will be a 5 to 4 decision against homosexual marriage. If not, there is no logical reason to prevent plural marriage or any other arrangement. This federal judge must be a crackhead.

RELATED: From Dale Carpenter, "A Maximalist Decision, Raising the Stakes" (via Memeorandum).

WikiLeaks: Criminal Enterprise

From Marc Thiessen, at Washington Post, "WikiLeaks Must be Stopped":

Let's be clear: WikiLeaks is not a news organization; it is a criminal enterprise. Its reason for existence is to obtain classified national security information and disseminate it as widely as possible -- including to the United States' enemies. These actions are likely a violation of the Espionage Act, and they arguably constitute material support for terrorism. The Web site must be shut down and prevented from releasing more documents -- and its leadership brought to justice. WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, proudly claims to have exposed more classified information than all the rest of the world press combined. He recently told the New Yorker he understands that innocent people may be hurt by his disclosures ("collateral damage" he called them) and that WikiLeaks might get "blood on our hands."

With his unprecedented release of more than 76,000 secret documents last week, he may have achieved this. The Post found that the documents exposed at least one U.S. intelligence operative and identified about 100 Afghan informants -- often including the names of their villages and family members. A Taliban spokesman said the group is scouring the WikiLeaks Web site for information to find and "punish" these informers.

Beyond getting people killed, WikiLeaks' actions make it less likely that Afghans and foreign intelligence services (whose reports WikiLeaks also exposed) will cooperate with the United States in the future. And, as former CIA director Mike Hayden has pointed out, the disclosures are a gift to adversary intelligence services, and they will place a chill on intelligence sharing within the United States government. The harm to our national security is immeasurable and irreparable.

RTWT.

Interesting discussion (FWIW), from Charli Carpenter, "Wikileaks and 'War Crimes'."

Cameras in the Supreme Court

Making the case at Reason:

HAT TIP: Glenn Reynolds.

Most Americans Want ObamaCare Changed or Repealed

At Fox News, "Most Voters Unhappy with Health Care Law":

Few American voters like the new health care law — and most want it changed or repealed.

In addition, according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday, almost twice as many voters think changes in the law "go too far" as think they "don't go far enough."

Nearly half of voters — 45 percent — think the changes go too far, while 25 percent think the changes don't go far enough. Some 16 percent think the law includes the right amount of change.

Just 15 percent of voters like the new health care law and think it should be implemented as is. Most don't like the law in its current form: 42 percent think it needs to be changed, and another 36 percent would repeal it all together.

The full article and questionnaire at the link.

Palin Talks Tough

On Hannity's:

Hezbollah Ambush of IDF Troops at Lebanon Border

YNET has the story, "IDF: Journalists were tipped off."

Journalists and photographers were briefed in advance of the intention to ambush IDF troops and were therefore present at the site of Tuesday's deadly clash between Israeli and Lebanese forces, IDF officials charge.

The lethal skirmish ensued after IDF forces performing routine operations in a border-area enclave came under Lebanese fire. The Israeli troops fired back, killing three Lebanese soldiers and a local journalist.

The killed correspondent, Assaf Abu Rahal, worked for Hezbollah-affiliated Beirut daily al-Akhbar.

Another journalist, Ali Shuaib from Hezbollah's al-Manar station, was wounded in the incident and was taken to hospital for treatment.

IDF officials raised questions about the presence of journalists and even broadcast trucks at the scene even before the clash ensued, charging this further reinforces suspicions that the incident was a well-planned Lebanese ambush.

But see the detailed report from Melanie Phillips, "Here we go again...":

About the strategic significance of these events and their possibly momentous consequences for the region and world peace, the western public is today -- thanks to the uselessness and worse of the mainstream media -- almost wholly ignorant.

Phillips cites Yossef Bodansky, "Clash on Israel-Lebanon Border Holds Potential for Strategic Escalation."

But you don't get the full story at FDL, naturally: "IDF Tree Removal Kills Three in Lebanon."

Rule 5 Preview: Katy Perry at Esquire

Gettin' ready for the weekend!

Nihad Awad, Executive Director of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Attacks Pamela Geller on 'O'Reilly Factor'

Nihad Awad is an outspoken supporter of Hamas and an unindicted co-conspirator in the FBI's Holy Land investigation. In a frankly bizarre appearance on last night's O'Reilly show, Awad smeared Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs as blaspheming Islam:

And Pamela responds:

I am perplexed not only by CAIR's presence on legit media, but by the absence of their true identity. O'Reilly has them on quasi-regularly and never identifies them as co-conspirators in the largest Hamas (also Muslim Brotherhood) terror funding trial in US history. The Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words, according to a captured internal document released during that same trial, to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house...so that Allah's religious is made victorious over other religions."

CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East.

CAIR is not only an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case -- so named by the Justice Department. Also, CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror, and CAIR's cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements.

Pamela made a short appearance last night, but as is usually the case, it didn't seem like she had enough time to make her case. Interesting, either way: