"She finished in 37th place, with a time of 20 minutes 15 seconds, giving University the title it would not have won without her struggle over the line."
HAT TIP: Gateway Pundit, "INCREDIBLE VIDEO - High School Runner Crawls Over Finish Line to Win Title For Her Ailing Coach."
I watched the president's speech live. He declared that terrorists will never again attack us on American soil — a dramatic claim that could potentially provoke even greater attempts by our determined enemies. I'll post the video when it's available.
And here's Progressive Manchild #1: Glenn Greenwald, "WikiLeaks Debate With Steven Aftergood." And seriously. Is Julian Assange a hero? Hardly. The dude should be dead.
RELATED: Just now seeing another manchild, "Doctor Science" at Obsidian Wings (hmm, could be a womanchild), "The culture of conspiracy, the conspiracy of culture" (via Memeorandum). This isn't all that complicated, as I discussed yesterday: "Misunderstanding WikiLeaks." Indeed, it's pretty much broken down to a debate between serious folks on national security and antiwar nihilists. And yes, idiotic manchildren, or in the case of Charli Carpenter ... well, I won't go there: "What is Wikileaks?"
The U.S. economy added fewer jobs than expected in November and the unemployment rate rose to its highest level since April, indicating the economic recovery remains weak 17 months after the recession ended.Unemployment is a serious thing. Beyond the politics, folks are hurting. I started to post on the debate over unemployment extension, but thought second of it considering some blogger-buddies who aren't working. That said, R.S. McCain isn't shy: "As a Freelance Independent Blogger Consultant, I Have Enormous Sympathy …"
Nonfarm payrolls rose by 39,000 last month as private-sector employers added only 50,000 jobs, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast payrolls would rise by 144,000 and that the jobless rate would remain unchanged at 9.6%.
The unemployment rate, which is obtained from a separate household survey, unexpectedly rose to 9.8% last month. More than 15 million people seeking work can't get a job.
The October payrolls number was revised up slightly to show a 172,000 increase from a previous estimate of 151,000.
The weaker-than-expected data caused the dollar to weaken against the yen and euro and other major currencies. Treasurys rallied on the report.
The U.S. unemployment rate has now been above 9% since May 2009, or 19 months. That matches the longest stretch at such an elevated level since World War II. In the deep recession of the early 1980s, the jobless rate crept to 9% in March 1982 and remained above that mark until September 1983.
Federal Reserve officials believe the jobless rate could still be around 9% a year from now.
Since I told part of the story in this space last week, many people have asked why the diagnosis took so long. The answer is that I didn't have much of the telltale body rash that goes with this type of typhus; moreover, blood and spinal fluid tests suggested that what I had was viral, not bacterial.I think that's why my dad never liked animals, but I'll no doubt keep an eye peeled for downed palm trees.
Even more people have asked if they should be afraid of encountering the bacteria in their own backyards. The answer is no. There were 18 cases of murine typhus reported in Los Angeles County in 2008, the most recent year for which data are available. Many more cases probably went unreported because the subjects were barely affected. The chances of getting the disease in any form are very small. The chances of getting as sick as I did are infinitesimal.
Besides, I hardly ever went into the backyard of the north-central Pasadena house my husband and I have been renting. That's probably why I didn't care much that there were piles of leaves left over from last year and that two palm trees on the property were harboring flea-infested rodents. Nor did I fret much in late September when I noticed that my ankles were covered with fleabites, most likely transmitted by our dog, who did sometimes go into the backyard and who sometimes also slept at the foot of the bed. After all, why be scared of a flea?
But a month later, in the hospital, after the results of my lumbar puncture came up positive for typhus, it was apparent we should have been a bit more discriminating about our landscaping. Either that or we shouldn't have let the dog on the bed. Of course, I could have gone to the doctor sooner, but ironically my general good health may have worked against me. I kept thinking recovery was around the corner. Instead, the disease was gaining momentum on its way to a full-blown attack.
Amid all the conjecture about what had happened to me, one thing was certain: I'd gotten better, and that made me exceedingly lucky. I was lucky not only to be alive but to have somehow avoided brain damage, deafness, blindness, loss of limb and paralysis. I was lucky, perhaps above all, to have countless friends and family members pulling for me.
He's a charismatic, bold, and pugnacious fiscal conservative who has absolutely no qualms about taking on Democrats, the unions, the media, and anybody else who tries to separate the taxpayers of New Jersey from their hard earned money. At a time when the people are terrified that our country is spending itself into bankruptcy while our politicians are too scared to do anything about it, Chris Christie has proven that one man with courage can make a real difference.Sarah Palin was runner up, but check the post for the full details.
The House of Representatives has narrowly passed a measure to keep lowered tax rates for individuals earning less than $250,000 a year.And from Patricia Murphy, "John Boehner Calls Vote on Middle-Class-Only Tax Cut 'Chicken Crap'."
The final vote was 234-188, with 20 Democrats joining a nearly unanimous block of Republicans against the plan.
The vote in Congress' lame-duck session was a symbolic one boosted by Democrats, still in the majority, who sought to force Republicans to vote against a tax cut.
Republicans, who want an extension of the lower rates at all income levels, framed the vote as one that would raise taxes on small-business owners who create jobs.
Ohio Rep. John Boehner, who will take the gavel as speaker in the new Congress, called the Democrats' maneuver "chicken crap."
"We are 23 months from the next election and the political games have already started, trying to set up the next election," he said.
"I really do not believe we have disagreement on what this bill intends to do. It's just that some believe it does not do enough," Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on the House floor shortly before the vote.
The Senate is expected to hold a similar vote this week, though it is less likely to pass because of the threat of a Republican filibuster.
Scientists said Thursday that they had trained a bacterium to eat and grow on a diet of arsenic, in place of phosphorus — one of six elements considered essential for life — opening up the possibility that organisms could exist elsewhere in the universe or even here on Earth using biochemical powers we have not yet dared to dream about.And at National Geographic, "NASA Life Discovery: New Bacteria Makes DNA With Arsenic." With a link to NASA's homepage.
The bacterium, scraped from the bottom of Mono Lake in California and grown for months in a lab mixture containing arsenic, gradually swapped out atoms of phosphorus in its little body for atoms of arsenic.
Scientists said the results, if confirmed, would expand the notion of what life could be and where it could be. “There is basic mystery, when you look at life,” said Dimitar Sasselov, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and director of an institute on the origins of life there, who was not involved in the work. “Nature only uses a restrictive set of molecules and chemical reactions out of many thousands available. This is our first glimmer that maybe there are other options.”
The government has a monopoly on violence; the media has only words. We should encourage underdogs like WikiLeaks who continue to fight an uphill battle, not against the United States – this country is more than its government, after all – but against the over-reach of the state. We have ceded so much of our own privacy to our government, perhaps now we would like to return the favor.If this were just a philosophical excursion vis-à-vis theories of federalism and government devolution, that'd be one thing. But it's not. We're talking about a 21st century non-state actor conducting information warfare against the United States. It's not a big surprise that WikiLeaks' most enthusiast backers are found among the world's anarcho-communist contingents. What's pathetic --- although not new, just even more pronounced --- is how willingly the libertarians jump on board this lame new vehicle toward alleged greater government accountability.
WikiLeaks may be a small player, really, in the bigger scheme of things. But to some degree it is also a bellwether, a forecast of things to come as information and technology continue to nip at the heels of the state. Perhaps we really are approaching a time when government becomes less relevant, less necessary, where other institutions both real and virtual can begin to supplant the role of the state in our lives, subversively at first but then more openly as time passes. I don’t know. I’m not even sure what that would look like in practice. Predicting the future is not among my talents; I cannot see where frying pans leave off and fires begin. But if I am at all correct then we should also realize that when an institution is threatened it reacts accordingly. Things will get worse before they get better.
WikiLeaks's release of the "Collateral Murder" video last April was a pretty scrupulous affair: an objective record of combat activity which American armed forces had refused to release, with careful backing research on what the video showed. What we got was a window into combat reality, through the sights of a helicopter gunship. You could develop different interpretations of that video depending on your understanding of its context, but it was something important that had actually taken place.A lot of commentators apparently act as though they're offering profound insights of democratic theory when expounding on WikiLeaks. I note E.D. Kain as one exhibit, although Glenn Greenwald comes to mind as well. But it's really not such a super sophisticated or intellectually glamorous issue. WikiLeaks wants to destroy authority. People are going to get killed, and not in the name of any state interest that could be otherwise checked by the processes of democratic governance. IBD had a great editorial on Julian Assange the other day, and I'll close with this, "An Infoterrorist?":
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the soon-to-be chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is absolutely correct in calling for Assange's outfit to be classified a terrorist organization under U.S. law. King has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to charge Assange with a crime under the Espionage Act. While Holder's office has announced an investigation, don't hold your breath.
But what of Assange's accomplices in the U.S. and foreign media?
The New York Times, where Assange gets to dump "all the secrets fit to leak," boasts that its collaborations with WikiLeaks give "the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions" — hardly a rationale for endangering our liberty.
This is a continuing, slow-motion disaster for the U.S., and our government has done little beyond having a State Department lawyer send a huffy letter to Assange's lawyer in Sweden.
These leaks must be plugged — by force if necessary — before it is American blood we find flowing.
At the video, more radical left-wing Wiki-boosting from communist Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!
But to be fair, Gwar's bipartisan, as a commenter indicates:
Thanks again Ann for your one sided fanning of partisan hate. This crappy band according to Wikipedia has trashed on stage every president since Reagan, also John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. But don't let the facts get in the way of throwing more red meat to your Althouse Hillbillies. They might just buy a toaster on Amazon for you!
That would be Dr. Douglas, Ms. Barbara. Problem is, I “took my lumps” and moved on. You, on the other hand, have ignored the substantive points I’ve raised. It’s one thing to call folks “stupid.” It’s another to be willfully ignorant, as is your wont. You continually call me out, Ms. Barbara, while allowing the most vile personal invective to pollute your comment threads. You, my dear, are an enabler of hatred and an anti-intellectual. Chill that.The Mahablog is a hate site. The commenters there as as bad as anything on the web, further substantiated by the demonic racist Repsac3.
Reps. Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva were elected co-chairmen of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Wednesday night, according to liberal lawmakers. Rep. Donna Edwards finished third in the three-way race for two spots.And on Keith Ellison see:
* "Keith Ellison, CAIR, and Ties to Terror."On Raúl Grijalva see:
* "Keith Ellison, CAIR, and Hamas."
* "Keith Ellison shills for Hamas."
* "Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Congressman Keith Ellison Smears Defenders of Freedom."
* "Rep. Keith Ellison, the Islamists' Man on Capitol Hill."
* "Despicable AZ Boycotter Rep. Raúl Grijalva Falling Behind in Polls, Rocket Scientist Conservative Ruth McClung Pulls Ahead."RELATED: "Communist: 'Progressive Caucus... Will Now Have a More Prominent Role Within... Democratic Caucus."
* "‘MEChA Boy’ Raúl Grijalva Tries to Save Face on Push for Arizona Boycott."
* "Mexican Reconquista Raul Grijalva in the U.S. Congress."
* "Open-borders extremist Raul Grijalva running scared."
* "Mexican Reconquista Slob, Congressman Raul Grijalva Evades Border Security Question."
To hear him tell his story, John Wesley Ewell was the victim of an overly harsh criminal justice system.No word on this from LGM's resident (non)constitutional expert Scotty Lame-ieux.
The South Los Angeles hairstylist complained to journalists over the last decade about the unfairness of the state's tough three-strikes law, saying he lived in fear that even a small offense would land him back in prison for life.
He even appeared on the "The Montel Williams Show" to argue the case against three strikes. A caption that flashed on the screen when Ewell spoke read: "Afraid to leave his house because he has 2 'Strikes.'"
But Ewell is now charged with murdering four people in a series of home invasion robberies that terrorized the South Bay this fall. On Tuesday, he pleaded not guilty during a brief appearance at the Airport Courthouse.
Far from embodying the severity of the justice system, Ewell benefited from its lenience over the last 16 years, according to a Times review of court records and interviews.
Ewell has a lengthy criminal history that includes two robbery convictions from the 1980s. Nevertheless, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office decided on four occasions against seeking to use the full weight of the three-strikes law when he was charged with new crimes.
And this year, after Ewell was arrested three times for allegedly stealing from Home Depot stores, a judge agreed to delay sending Ewell to prison so he could take care of some medical problems.
It was during that delay, authorities say, that Ewell robbed three homes and killed the victims.
"He should have been in prison a long time ago," said Leamon "Kelly" Turnage, whose parents were among the victims. "It is a shock to me that no one is willing to take responsibility for letting this killer go."
Ewell's case is likely to fuel more debate about the practice of many California prosecutors to seek less than the maximum sentence for some three-strikers.
When I started my little blog, it didn't occur to me that trolls would come out in droves. Why would leftists expend their energies on me? And why would they subject themselves to scrutiny by a licensed psychotherapist?Robin is more analytical than me. They're evil, plain and simple. This is why I've switched permanently to comment moderation, and I've closed comments on some post when the LGM and Sadly No! demons are sent my way. And that's to say nothing of the freaks at American Nihilist, for whom no undomesticated attack is out of bounds.
But apparently, numerous trolls have been drawn to me, like venomous bees to honey. These trolls use the same weaponry of other extreme progressives: shame and degradation. They try to use ridicule as sort of stun gun, immobilizing the other. (Another interesting tidbit: People with character disorders do the very same thing. Coincidence?)
As a psychotherapist, I can see right through them to who they are and how they operate. Nonetheless, I still remain curious about these creepy crawlers, whom I have dubbed "My Friends, the Enemy." (This is my generally futile attempt to be magnanimous like the Dalai Lama, who uses the phrase to describe the Chinese.)
I wonder to myself: Where do these trolls come from? Where do they live and breed? ...
The most hardcore of the leftists seem almost feral, wild, and undomesticated. Many lack even the most rudimentary of social skills; some people may very well be diagnosable on the autism spectrum.
Many militants are devoid of an essential ingredient of being human: empathy. While they exude endless compassion for an endangered snail, they are contemptuous of living, feeling human beings. This is why they can cavalierly imagine snuffing out Granny, a late-term fetus, or, in fact, anyone who gets in their way.
With the progressives in charge, we now live in "interesting times," to quote the Chinese curse. There's a breakdown in the basic rule of law that keeps a society knitted together. Without the moral fiber to stitch us, it's survival of the fittest -- every man and woman for themselves.
It's no coincidence that God has also been shunned, because God is the thread that weaves together the rich tapestry of life. With Judeo-Christian values missing in action, the left engages in a manic free-fall-all. They afford themselves free rein to act out their basest of impulses.
Speaker-designate John Boehner (R-Ohio) intends to commandeer a swanky office space adjacent to the House floor and build a women's restroom for female lawmakers.Amazing how outgoing Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't think about "opening up the people's House." Well, okay. It wasn't really the people's House. It was the Politburo's House.
For years, men have had the luxury of using facilities located adjacent to the House floor, just outside the Speaker's lobby. But women have had no such option.
If women need to powder their noses, they must instead go downstairs or to a restroom several halls away from the chamber.
But Boehner wants that to end, and plans to direct the Architect of the Capitol to construct a women's bathroom in the space currently occupied by the House Parliamentarian.
Boehner said on Wednesday evening of his decision that "as we continue to evaluate ways to open up the people’s House, it’s encouraging to be able to make changes like this that are long overdue.”
Mark L (Snooper) Harvey began serving this nation straight out of High School. First, as a police officer and then as a member of an anti-terrorist tag-team. Mark started paying greater attention to the highly volatile political circumstances of the late 1960s after his brother was killed in action during the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. The things he observed during that time often left him troubled and wondering what was happening in America. Why was radically anti-social and dangerously irresponsible behavior being appeased and then excused as nothing more than normal “teenage angst”. Why were so many Americans willing to allow the enemies within to run amok virtually unopposed? Mark served the United States honorably both in and out of military from 1976 to 2004. During that time he began a crusade to inform and educate others about the often subtle, sometimes radical reeducation and indoctrination efforts.
Is China really willing to dump its old ally, North Korea? Would Beijing support a German-style reunification of the Korean peninsula in which economic powerhouse South Korea absorbed its wretchedly poor communist neighbor?RTWT.
These may have been the impressions left by a stash of U.S. diplomatic cables relating to North Korea made public this week by WikiLeaks. But analysts who have followed the long entanglement of China and North Korea say that much of the information in the outed memos amounts to little more than dinner party chatter that reflects outdated opinion or wishful thinking.
The reclusive Kim Jong Il has made two trips to China in 2010, receiving lavish red carpet welcomes, and in October, Chinese Politburo member Zhou Yongkang had a front row seat at a military parade where Kim's son and designated successor made his public debut.Right.
WikiLeaks, the website that published a quarter-million sensitive diplomatic cables on Sunday, is using Amazon.com Inc. servers in the U.S. to help deliver its information. It sounds like an odd choice, but it could make sense.Maybe it's no so bad after all: "It’s Good That Wikileaks Is Using Amazon’s Servers."
The site cablegate.wikileaks.org, which WikiLeaks is using for the diplomatic documents, is linked to servers run by Amazon Web Services in Seattle, as well as to French company Octopuce. Wikileaks.org, the site’s front page, links back to Amazon servers in the U.S. and in Ireland. Several Internet watchers, including technologist Alex Norcliffe, reported earlier on WikiLeaks’ use of Amazon services.
Amazon and WikiLeaks did not return requests for comment.
The choice of Amazon, a U.S. company, seems strange given the amount of criticism WikiLeaks has received from the U.S. government. Rep. Peter King of New York, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Sunday saying he supported charging WikiLeaks activist Julian Assange under the Espionage Act.
But experts said it was unlikely that Amazon would face legal action for selling services to WikiLeaks. For one thing, now that the information disclosed by the site is already public, it might not be considered contraband, said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of law and computer science at Harvard University.
“If that data happens in the moment to be in the U.S., that’s really good because we have a First Amendment,” said Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia Law School.
Mr. Moglen added that, although where hardware is located can make a difference legally, there wouldn’t be much point in getting Amazon to stop providing services to WikiLeaks. “For all practical purposes … if the law is unfavorable, that Web server process will go somewhere else,” he said.
Palin's two biggest goals can be summed up thus: Iowa and New Hampshire. Politically, Palin needs money. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama raised $100 million in 2007, the year leading into the primaries. The "entry fee" for the 2012 primaries will probably be twice that.I expected Palin to be a blockuster fundraiser, and it's happening. See Jay Newton-Small (via Memeorandum):
Sarah Palin raised $469,000 between Oct. 13 and Nov. 22 bringing her total for the year to over $3 million, Tim Crawford, SarahPAC's treasurer, told TIME exclusively. Crawford attributed the surge of funds to energy surrounding the midterm elections, Palin's endorsements and her TLC reality show “Sarah Palin's Alaska.” Her second book, America By Heart, came out Nov. 23.
The PAC spent $64,000 buying advance copies of her books, “just as we did last year” with her first book, Going Rogue, Crawford said. “They're a great fundraising tool for us.” Palin is in the midst of a two-week cross-country book tour.
Overall the PAC spent $581,000 between Oct. 13 and Nov. 22. ...
DON’T click on AmericanNEOCLOWN’s link!!!I've seen c u n d gulag's similarly crude remarks before. Sadly representative of the intellectual firepower of today's netroots secular demons. I'm frankly astonished sometimes at the depths of leftist vulgarity. And the commentary is hardly better at LGM, where I also tracked back. Serves me right, in any case. I'm idealistic enough to believe that a reasoned, evidentiary argument would elicit a reasoned response. Call me stupid. Oh, wait, they already did.
This turd pops up on the web and does this all the time, hoping to get people to go to his insipid website. Hey, NEOCLOWNIE, I’m sorry to see you back. I figured the cops finally had you on moral’s charges when you exposed your thimble-sized member to the JH School boys gym class. I guess there wasn’t enough evidence, huh?
07:08am Black Water by Doobie Brothers
07:04am Sunshine Of Your Love by Cream
06:59am Magic Man by Heart
06:50am From The Beginning by Emerson Lake & Palmer
06:46am Walk This Way by Aerosmith
06:44am Paperback Writer by Beatles (remastered)
06:35am Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd
06:30am Come Sail Away by Styx
06:23am Just A Song Before I Go by Crosby, Stills, And Nash
06:19am White Wedding by Billy Idol
You remember Laura Richardson, right? She’s the Democrat congresswoman who defaulted six times on her home loans and has left a trail of unpaid bills in her wake. Well, she’s back. On behalf of taxpayers in her district, she’s now trying to get money back from Lehman Brothers after an investment gone awry. Hat tip to reader Thomas, who e-mails: “The irony is mighty thick.”This is why folks want term limits on Members of Congress.
Assange's indiscriminate approach may have caused undue collateral damage this time around, the extent of which might never be known. But this doesn't mean that the weapons of his trade should be banned or written off altogether. A more targeted whistle-blowing architecture of this type could save civilian lives in warfare -- which is the whole point, after all.I responded to Charli at "Bloody WikiLeaks." And to repeat:
Charli Carpenter wants to save lives, particularly civilians who are killed or injured in what is otherwise the lawful exercise of military power. The problem is that's not what Julian Assange wants, nor is it what his worldwide backers want. Frankly, I don't think these people care about "human rights" except as a vehicle to chain the United States to supranational norms and to limit America's international power. Thus, I don't think Assange and WikiLeaks should be the agents of the kind of military transparency that Charli proposes.That opinion still stands.
Attaturk from Firedoglake.That's a roundup from Memeorandum, although I could add a few more to Spree's list. For example, at Newshoggers, "Wikileaks Cablegate: Nothing New But The Truth," and Matthew Rothschild, "Wikileaks and the Reactionary Impulse to Repress."
AmericaBlog.
Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars.
Digby.
BradBlog.
Robert Farley of Lawyers, Gays and Marriage.
Paul Rosenberg from Open Left.
John Cole from Balloon Juice.
RELATED: "Whack WikiLeaks."
And see John Hawkins, "5 Reasons The CIA Should Have Already Killed Julian Assange."
Kirk's got a report from yesterday: "Disillusioned South Korea Weighs Response to North Korean Flare-Up."
It's information warfare, of course. Assange thinks he's some kinda hero who's creating a marketplace for government and business accountability. Yet he admits he has no respect for state legitimacy nor the international system's regime of legalized rules and norms.Admire him or revile him, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange is the prophet of a coming age of involuntary transparency, the leader of an organization devoted to divulging the world’s secrets using technology unimagined a generation ago. Over the last year his information insurgency has dumped 76,000 secret Afghan war documents and another trove of 392,000 files from the Iraq war into the public domain–the largest classified military security breaches in history. Sunday, WikiLeaks made the first of 250,000 classified U.S. State Department cables public, offering an unprecedented view of how America’s top diplomats view enemies and friends alike.
But, as Assange explained to me earlier this month, the Pentagon and State Department leaks are just the start...
Anyone remember that exactly one year ago President Obama's original deadline for Iran expired?RTWT.
Back in the halcyon days of hopeychange, newly minted President Barack Obama articulated his master plan for dealing with Iran. Mr. Peabody, set the Wayback Machine for May of 2009 ...
