Matthew Yglesias, Destroyed

This is too good, "Matt Yglesias: The One Man Mistake Factory . . . Or “I Laugh at the Inferior Intellect”" (via Cold Fury):

Genuinely smart people see through Yglesias, and recognize him as a blowhard. Add to his many defects as a pundit and a thinker his particularly fervent advocacy of dishonesty, and his resort to obscenities when challenged (more on this later), and you have a blogger thoroughly and completely out of his depth, and exposed as a fraud.

And I thought Diary of Daedalus was thorough in its destruction of Charles Johnson. Man, this is like a nuclear detonation.

That said, I'd pay good money to see the husky pony-tailed blogger don terrorist garb while idiotically wielding a meat-cleaver:

Arianna Huffington Wastes No Time

In doing video promotions for her site.

We'll see how this works out, "Arianna Takes On The 'Cult Of No-Sleep' (VIDEO)":

Meanwhile, Robert Stacy McCain is not impressed: "HuffPo/AOL Deal: On Second Thought … Hell, No, It Still Doesn’t Make Any Sense."

Plus, David Dayen's backpedaling from his gleeful response this morning, "Asking Uncomfortable Questions Not a Matter of Left or Right." Dayen's responding to Politico, "HuffPost to AOL: Leaving left behind?":

The Huffington Post may have been founded as the liberal answer to the conservative Drudge Report, a place for progressive wound-licking in the wake of George W. Bush’s re-election.

But on Monday, Arianna Huffington was distancing herself from the lefty label as she announced the sale of HuffPost to AOL for $315 million.

“We don’t see ourselves as left,” she told POLITICO. “And I think it’s one area where news consumers are ahead of the media, because they know that continuing to see everything that’s happening as a right-left issue is missing what’s happening, and is also making it much harder for us to be properly informed.”

Some on the left worry that the sale to AOL could mean an end to HuffPost in its current incarnation — away from its roots in the progressive community, which were its first bloggers, commenters and readers, and toward a more middle-of-the-road posture, to make it more broadly appealing.

I doubt progressives have much to worry about. The Huffington Post will hardly be turning into a web copy of the Wall Street Journal. And Arianna Huffington's a progressive through and through, despite her well-documented hypocrisy.

What Huffington Post Means for Journalism's Future

Ann Althouse and William Jacobson have initial, snarky reactions to the news of AOL's $350 million purchase of Huffington Post (here and here).

My first reaction was complete non-surprise. In the online world, few media entrepreneurs have been as savvy as Arianna Huffington. And while it may take a while, the HuffPo deal will serve as a powerful consolidation of progressive media operations in the increasingly digital news industry. What's especially interesting about this is Arianna's the ultimate personification of the left's hypocritical socialist elite. Not only do progressives like Arianna love money --- lots of it --- they love telling other people what they should do with theirs. When the Mayhill Fowler story broke in 2008 --- Fowler first reported Barack Obama's "clinging to their guns and religion" comments at a ritzy San Francisco fundraiser --- Huffington was vacationing on a yacht in Tahiti. Progressive eviscerated Mayhill Fowler for her reporting, especially since the media's establishment Obama-enablers would have bottled up that juicy "clinging" tidbit. Expect more of such distortions as big media giants consolidate. The media industry already tilts heavily left, so conservatives will continue to battle the progressive narrative (recall the left's coverage of campaign 2008, for example). What's interesting is how well the HuffPo deal is being welcomed by progressives. Matthew Yglesias writes, "I continue to be an optimist about the Internet and the news." And check David Dayen, at the communist Firedoglake:

I probably have a very unusual view of things, but pretty much everything I read on Huffington Post comes from their original reporting wing, and they have a growing staff in that department delivering very strong content. It’s good for progressive media in general to see a business model thriving, and while there are concerns about a general flattening of the online space that’s already happening, and this at least plants a flag on the left side.

RELATED: From former Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman, "The Huffington Post and AOL: 'Going There' Goes Global."

Advertisers Raided the National Memory Banks on Super Bowl Sunday

It's a cultural thing, no doubt.

At New York Times, "Super Bowl Ads Mine Decades of Americana":

The advertising bowl that took place inside Super Bowl XLV on Sunday offered a wild — and somewhat welcome — ride through six decades of popular culture.

Thankfully, many viewers had probably fastened their seat belts before tuning in to Fox, considering that almost half the companies that bought commercial time in the game had something to do with the auto industry, among them nine car brands from A (Audi) to V (Volkswagen), along with Bridgestone, CarMax and Cars.com.

The traffic jam may be another sign of the postrecession recovery on Madison Avenue, but it made for occasional difficulty in distinguishing the Elantras from the Optimas.

It would also have been difficult to figure out most of the 60-plus commercials without a working knowledge of Americana or, at least, access during the game to Wikipedia (if not WikiLeaks). The spots dished up a dizzying — and at times ditzy — mélange of celebrity star turns, movie references, homages to television shows, snippets of songs and even hat-tips to other spots.

To fully appreciate the commercials, it helped to be at least passingly familiar with “Almost Famous,” “Back to the Future,” Roseanne Barr, Busby Berkeley, Justin Bieber, Adrien Brody, David Bowie, Diddy, the “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings, Howdy Doody, early video games, Thomas Edison and Eminem (who turned up in two spots, for Chrysler and Lipton Brisk).

Also, Facebook, geeks, “Glee,” Jimi Hendrix, Faith Hill, home-improvement TV series, Timothy Hutton, Janis Joplin, Kenny G, “Lassie,” Richard Lewis, nerds, “1984” (the novel) and “1984” (the Apple commercial from the 1984 Super Bowl).

Plus, Joan Rivers, silent movies, the Snickers spot from the 2010 Super Bowl, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, spy movies, “Star Wars,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” “Tiny Dancer,” “The Twilight Zone,” western movies, the “Where’s the beef?” commercial for Wendy’s and yuppies.

Whew. That is a big barrel of borrowed interest, to use the marketing term for wooing consumers by filling ads with familiar elements. The Super Bowl sponsors last year did it, too, rolling out proven draws like Kiss, “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and Betty White, but they were pikers compared with the advertisers and agencies that raided the national memory banks on Sunday.

RTWT.

Why Some Twitter Posts Catch On, and Some Don't

At New York Times:

AMID the talk last week of a Facebook revolution across the Middle East, Americans and other English speakers took to Twitter — to post about their love lives.

Hashtags — the community-driven shorthand used to identify conversation themes — like “icantdateyou” and “worstpickuplines” were vastly more popular a few days ago than ones like “Egyptians” or “jan25,” a reference to Day 1 of the Egyptian protests. In just one hour last Tuesday, “icantdateyou” racked up nearly 274,000 mentions on Twitter, with posts like “icantdateyou if all you wanna do is fuss” and “icantdateyou if you look like your brother.”

Alas, poor “Mubarak” rated fewer than 11,000 during the same hour. (Many Egyptians could not post on Twitter because their government had temporarily cut off most Internet and cellphone service.)

Sure, many of us are more inclined to toss off frivolous posts than politically charged ones. But a new study of hashtags offers some insight into how and why some topics become popular quickly online while others don’t.

People generally pass on the latest conversational idioms — like “cantlivewithout” or “dontyouhate” — the first few times they see them on Twitter, or they never adopt them at all, according to the study by computer scientists. The researchers analyzed the 500 most popular hashtags among more than three billion messages posted on Twitter from August 2009 to January 2010.

“Idioms are like a sugar rush,” explains Jon Kleinberg, a professor of computer science at Cornell and a co-author of the study. “You see it once, you either use it or you don’t, but the rush wears off.”

More contentious themes like politics take longer to catch on, the researchers found. People tend to wait until they have seen a more polarizing phrase — like “sarahpalin” or “hcr,” short for health care reform — four, five or six times on Twitter before posting it themselves.

We already know that people often influence one another’s behavior. That is the monkey-see-monkey-do premise behind advertising. And it may seem intuitive that different kinds of information spread differently on the Web.

More at the link.

Frankly, I haven't the slightest interest in those throwaway hashtags, and while I find it boring sometimes, there's still nothing like Twitter to get real-time information.

Best Super Bowl Ads

Glenn Reynolds says he was unimpressed, but there's always a couple of good ones:

More here.

Video: Reagan Centennial Ceremony in Simi Valley

Folks are debating the politics surrounding Ronald Reagan's legacy.

Some stories out today, Andrew Coffin, "Exclusive: Governor Palin Visits Reagan Country," and Patrick Edaburn, "Ronald Reagan Would Have Wanted Balance" (via Memeorandum). And from yesterday, a despicable piece from Michael Kinsley, "Obama channeling Reagan? Let's hope not: Ronald Reagan was a nice enough man -- but a terrible president":

Time magazine's cover this week features a Photoshopped picture of Ronald Reagan with his arm around President Obama. The cover story purports to answer the question of why Obama is channeling Reagan, a question no one was asking until Time brought it up. It's a standard newsmagazine technique to add a "why" to the thesis of a story. It makes it seem deeper, even while skipping over the hard part of whether it's true.

If Obama is attempting to emulate Reagan, there is no mystery about why. Reagan carried 49 states in 1984, the year he was reelected. But Time contends the 44th president is following the example of the 40th in some unusually profound way.

I hope that's not true. Reagan was a nice enough man — but a terrible president. I know, I know, you're not supposed to say this. Even political opponents are supposed to recognize and applaud his sunny disposition, his death grip on various bromides, his mystical connection with the voters, the wisdom in his simple view of a complicated world and so on. I am unpersuaded.

Actually, I think Kinsley's got a simple view, but RTWT if you're up to it.

Obama can't shine Reagan's shoes.

Anyway, be sure to watch Jim Lehrer's interview with President Reagan from 1989: "Ronald Reagan's Legacy." After a while, it's the moral bearing each president brings to the office, and the legacy of security and prosperity that he leaves behind. Reagan did well on both counts, and Americans love him for it.

And for a corrective, see Mark Steyn, "We Need Him Now" (via WyBlog).

Now Available: Video of Super Bowl I, 1967 Packers-Chiefs

Really cool story, at Wall Street Journal, "Found at Last: A Tape of the First Super Bowl":

Football fans know what happened in Super Bowl I. The game, which was played on January 15, 1967, was the first showdown between the NFL and AFL champions. It ended with the Green Bay Packers stomping the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10.

Unless they were one of the 61,946 people at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that day, or one of the fans who watched it live on NBC or CBS, there's one thing that all football fans have in common: They've never actually seen the game.

In a bizarre confluence of events, neither network preserved a tape. All that survived of this broadcast is sideline footage shot by NFL Films and roughly 30 seconds of footage CBS included in a pre-game show for Super Bowl XXV. Somehow, an historic football game that was seen by 26.8 million people had, for all intents and purposes, vanished.

HBO executive Rick Bernstein, who produced a two-part history of sports television in 1991, is one of many who have searched for a tape. He says his team chased numerous leads, from a reported copy in Cuba to rumors that Hugh Hefner might have recorded the game on a videotape machine in the Playboy Mansion. Nothing turned up. "It's the holy grail," Mr. Bernstein says.

The long search may finally be over. The Paley Center for Media in New York, which had searched for the game footage for some time, has restored what it believes to be a genuine copy of the CBS broadcast.

More at the link.

Just in time for today's game.

The Death of Blogging

I noticed the other day, with some interest, Chris Bowers' announcement that Open Left, the far-left progressive blog, was shutting down. I'd already noticed that Bowers had migrated to Daily Kos, and no explanation was needed: more readers, and more exposure. I didn't think too much of it beyond that. And then I read Ben Smith's post, where he wrote:

There's been a bit written recently on the death of blogs, and while there will -- I hope -- remain space for some, there's little doubt that the online world of politics is no longer limited to this form ... Some of the older blogs on right and left are still thriving, while others -- like TPM and the Hot Air bloggers -- have worked to turn themselves into broader news platforms. But the form now feels a little quaint.

So, the death of blogs. I hadn't actually seen too much on that. Or, mostly, what I have seen and written about is the fascination with new media, especially Facebook and Twitter. But I just found a report on the death of blogs at New York Observer, "The End of Blogging." Folks can read it at the link. All of this is mostly a matter of definition. Blogging per se isn't going anywhere. Twitter is micro blogging. It's the hippest medium right now, but it may well be replaced with some new application or publishing format soon enough. The larger issue is the future of news publishing altogether. Folks might check James Rainey's piece yesterday on the SoCal newspaper industry: "Consolidation seen as inevitable for Southern California's newspapers." The dead-tree news model is nearly a thing of the past. Consumers get their news online nowadays, and those formats best able to attract advertising revenue will keep publishing. My sense is that, yeah, reverse-chronology blogs are someone quaint, as Ben Smith notes, but the power of blogging remains as great as ever. Top bloggers breaking top stories will survive. And the numbers will include a lot more than those mentioned by Ben Smith, who, incidently, made his own "quaint" blogging comment on a blog. Perhaps folks will just shift over to the online newspaper format. Think Daily Caller or Huffington Post, or on a smaller platform, Maggie's Notebook, NewsReal, or PA Pundits – International. And then there's Althouse. She keeps plugging away on Blogger, and if it's good enough for her it's good enough for me! I'll be keeping American Power running, whether on Blogger or Wordpress, a switch that remains in the contemplation mode. I'm also in talks for my own blog at NewsReal, which means I might be joining the David Horowitz publishing house as a formal member. Again, that's just in the discussion phase, but I'll know more after CPAC next week, where I'll be hooking up with some folks.

Meanwhile, perhaps The Other McCain might weigh in on the topic.

And for a reminder on why I'll be blogging somewhere, no matter what, head back over to Open Left, where Daniel De Groot bids farewell with a parting attack on the right, "Farewell thought: Conservatism is still the enemy":

Shortly after Kerry's loss in 2004, at MyDD, Chris wrote "Conservatism is our enemy" which I think is the first time I ever encountered a direct ideological assault on conservatism itself. Along with Phil Agre's rightly famous essay on the subject, it began me on a road and mission to better understanding this beast. Everything I have learned to date from then continues to bolster Chris' original thesis. Conservativism is still the primary enemy of progress, justice, fairness and widespread happiness for humanity. It remains a destructive and corrosive force on the institutions of democracy and the single biggest obstacle to world peace ....

These fights will have to go on. Conservatism is a destructive system of hierarchy and zero-sum power seeking that has no place in the running of a modern society. It is some kind of evolutionary anachronism, the ingrained desire to accumulate power and resources to the exclusion of "the other" against times of need in Hobbes' jungle. Since about 1850 we (in the West at least) have lived in the world of surplus resources where there really is enough stuff for everyone to go around, but still we live with about half the population intuitively working the politics of a Malthusian state where every hamburger you eat is one of my kids going hungry. Even today in the shadow of the Great Recession, world GDP per capita (PPP) stands at over $10,000 per year. About 1 billion live on less than $400 a year. Another billion live on less than $750 a year. Clearly there is enough to go around, we just suck at distribution. Is it really so crazy to imagine we could get those bottom 2 billion up to $1000 or $2000 a year?

In the field of pursuing the ideal human society, liberalism is the science of pursuing human well being. It combines the empiricism and rationalism of science with the goal of maximizing human happiness. The process is iterative and the specific means change as well meaning ideas are found wanting, and as science improves our understanding of humans themselves and what it takes to make them happy. There is no other school of thought that both seeks to improve the lot of all, and actually can do it. The ultimate goal of liberalism is that we should not need the word "liberalism" because no one would need a special word to describe the self-evident way people determine solutions to societal problems. That's what liberalism is, and why it must win or all humanity will fall back into ruin, scarcity, ignorance and fear. We live in a world with plenty of those things, but also a world where solutions to them are in reach, which was never true any time before. Après liberalism, le déluge.

Look, that's not "liberalism" — that's radical progressivism. And as long as these f**kers keep agitating for the neo-Stalinist revolution, I'll be out pushing back, smacking these freaks down like a whack-a-mole.

Ronald Reagan's Legacy

Peggy Noonan's reflections, "Being a good man helped him become a great one." Also, at WaPo, "Reagan at 100 casts shadow over Republican Party."

Plus a couple of clips:

British Prime Minister David Cameron Attacks 'State Multiculturalism'

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Someone Turned On David Cameron's Brain! Muslims Should Embrace British Values!"

Yara Naoum Rule 5

Inspired by Maggie's post last weekend, "Rule 5 Saturday Night: Egyptian Women," here is Yara Naoum:

And continuing the Rule 5 series, here's American Perspective: "Britney: Still Hot? Or Not?" Asked and answered on that.

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

BONUS: Amusing Bunni's Musings and Eye of Polyphemus. And Theo's Saturday night bath totty.

And at TOM, "The First-Ever Dan Collins Chubby Chaser Pre-Super Bowl Overnight Open Thread."

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

The Way Forward in Egypt? Defeat the Left's Red-Green Alliance and Build the Secular-Representative Alternative to Mubarak

Over the last few days, William Kristol has been among the most vocal supporters of dramatic democratic change in Egypt. And in today's essay he pushes back against Glenn Beck and others on the right who fear a Red-Green Alliance of communists and Islamists. Kristol also disagrees with Charles Krauthammer, but that seems secondary to him slamming those positing "one-world conspiracies theories" of a communist-backed caliphate across the Muslim world. The problem is that while Glenn Beck's show sometimes comes off as half-baked, the neo-communist left has indeed aligned with global jihad in a campaign against the West. In fact, today was the progressive-left's "international day of mobilization and solidarity with the Egyptian people." The neo-Stalinist ANSWER homepage has the announcement, "Emergency demonstrations: Stop all U.S. aid to Mubarak dictatorship!":

Emergency demonstrations in solidarity with the uprising of the Egyptian people are taking place across the country to demand that the U.S. government stop all aid to the Mubarak dictatorship.

As I've reported many times, the ANSWER contingents have been at the center of every left-wing mobilization over the past decade, from the Iraq war to Proposition 8 to the anti-SB 1070 campaign last year. The left's all-purpose protest machine, ANSWER is bolstered by Democrats and progressives, many of whom have ties to the Obama administration. Code Pink's Jodie Evans, for example, served as a top campaign fundraiser for Barack Obama, and now her organization is leading a fundraising operation for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: "Code Pink: Obama, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood Ally Raising (Tax Exempt) Money to Overthrow Egypt Gov’t:

As we reported previously, Code Pink has been on the ground in Cairo since the beginning of the uprising. The group has made nine trips to Egypt in the past two years as part of a campaign to undermine the Egyptian government and the blockade against Hamas-controlled Gaza.

For over a week now we've had international solidarity protesters calling for an anti-American, anti-Zionist revolution in Egypt, so, folks might want to step back and go easy on the freedom euphoria just a bit (in favor of a prudent democratic realism).

In any case, Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey, a.k.a. Mahmoud Salem, offers a way forward for Egypt's democracy:

So here are my two cents: next time when you head to Tahrir, alongside blankets and food and medicine, please get some foldable tables, chairs, papers, pens, a laptop and a USB connection. Set up a bunch of tables and start registering the protesters. Get their names, ages, addresses & districts. Based on location, start organizing them into committees, and then have those committees elect leaders or representatives. Do the same in Alex, In Mansoura, in Suez, in every major Egyptian city in which the Protesters braved police suppression and came out in the thousands. Protect the Data with your life. Get encryption programs to ensure the security of the data. Use web-based tools like Google documents to input the data in, thus ensuring that even if your laptops get confiscated by State Security Goons, they won’t find anything on your harddrives. Have people outside of Egypt back-up your data daily on secure servers. Then, start building the structure.

You see, with such Proper citizen organization and segmentation, we’ll have the contact information and location of all the protesters that showed up, and that could be transformed into voting blocks in parliamentary districts: i.e. a foundation for an Egyptian Unity party. That Egyptian Unity Party will be an Umbrella party that promotes equality, democracy & accountability, without any ideological slants. It should be centrist, because we don’t want any boring Left vs. Right squabbling at that stage. Once you institute the structure, start educating the members on their rights and their obligations as citizens. Convince them to bring their friends and relatives into meeting. Establish voters’ critical mass , all under that party.

The Egyptian Unity Party, however, will not be a permanent structure, but rather a transitional entity with a clear and direct purpose: create the grassroots organization to take back the parliament and presidency in the next elections. Once sufficient votes and seats have been obtained, the party will amend the constitution to promote civil liberties, plurality, and truly democratic elections. Once that constitution is in place, the party can disband, and its elected members can start forming their own parties and collations, based on their personal beliefs and ideologies, or they can join any of the existing parties, and breathe some life into their decaying carcasses. We will end up with an actual political process and representative political parties that will actually discuss policy and have to represent those who voted for them so that they can get re-elected. Democracy in action. An old but brilliant concept. A way to ensure that no matter what, we will have a huge influence on who becomes the next Egyptian President come election day in September.

That sounds awesome. The only problem is that during revolutionary crises the most highly organized factions often seize power through divide, conquer and assassination politics. We know now that Egypt's Arab street will not be silenced. But the shape of developments is still extremely fluid, and given the left's heavy investment and mobilization in the Muslim Brotherhood, a certain caution is well warranted.

Political Transition in Egypt — Reports: Mubarak Resigns National Party; Opposition Leaders Resist Negotiations, Demand Regime Change

This just in at Los Angeles Times, "Leadership of Egypt's ruling party resigns; opposition groups resist meeting with vice president." And at New York Times, "West Backs Gradual Egyptian Transition." Also, conflicting reports on the situation earlier, at The Lede, "Ongoing Confusion about Mubarak's Role." And on Twitter, "Mubarak NOT resigning from Egypt's ruling party: AlArabiya reporter." And Enduring America:

It seems news of Mubarak's resignation as head of the ruling National Democratic Party may have been premature. Confirmation cannot be obtained by many news outlets and the state TV seems to be reviewing its earlier announcement of the move.

And check this, at NY Daily News, "Katie Couric fires incorrect tweet saying that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down." That's getting way ahead of events. Way to go CBS!

Expect updates:

Long Beach Boeing C-17 Tour

I have a good friend who's a Manufacturing Operations Analyst at Boeing's Long Beach C-17 production facility. He's been with Boeing for years, and he's also a longtime reader of American Power. He invited me for a tour of the plant, and I took him up on the offer yesterday.

I had a great time and learned a lot. Mostly, though, I feel privileged to have had the opportunity. The production crew modeled extreme professionalism, and the plant itself was even more impressive than I'd imagined. Thinking about it, it's almost impossible to consider the end of this place. Here is the apex of American manufacturing capabilities, but history's moving toward a new era, which may not include Southern California combat aerospace. My host indicated that there may be a longer life for the plant than indicated by the more ominous press reports (recall, "The End is Near for Southern California's Conventional Aircraft Manufacturing"), but the Pentagon side of things is definitely winding down.

Here I am at the start of the tour, standing in front of a scale-model layout of the entire facility. Notice that I'm wearing a visitor's identification badge. It was almost like being at a military installation, and the security procedures were first class:

And here's the huge promotional poster next to the entrance there:

Here's some information from the company's homepage:

C-17 Globemaster III -- The C-17 is the world's premier heavy-airlift aircraft and has proven itself as a versatile strategic and theater airlifter in every recent worldwide operation, from Operation Iraqi Freedom to humanitarian relief missions. Worldwide, there are currently a total of 209 C-17s in service. Boeing is under contract with the U.S. Air Force to design, build and deliver 213 C-17s through July 2011. Boeing has delivered 202 aircraft to the Air Force as of September 2010.

My host took me through each production area for every phase of the manufacturing process. It takes about six months for the construction of each finished aircraft. Each unit contains well over a million individual components, including everything from wiring and insulation, from cargo fasteners to jet engines, to the aviation cockpit equipment. It's pretty awesome.

There's a delivery condominium at the south end of the plant. This is where customers will come to take ownership of the aircraft. This suite featured a meeting room setup, with a television monitor here, and along the walls pictures of previous delivery ceremonies:

Then back outside we were able to tour a brand new C-17, on the tarmac and ready for delivery to Charleston. No pictures allowed inside the plane, but on the way back we took this lovely shot:

Again, it was quite a privilege to be afforded this tour, and I thank my host for his friendship and hospitality.

More information a Boeing's Globemaster page here.

Facebook Exchange With Alex Knepper

Here's Alex Knepper's Facebook status at about 4:30 this afternoon:

Psychiatry is the most lamentable, malevolent, tragically destructive pseudoscience that the modern West has ever dealt with. Baseless conjecture built upon a nonsensical dualism -- and backed up by state power.

He had over thirty comments, and I added mine:

Alex: Psychiatry is indeed a medical science, based on empricism, etc. How can you seriously claim otherwise? What is your evidence?

Alex responds:

Donald, you malicious cunt. After playing into that demented, psychotic monster Swindle's vendetta and libeling me on your blog as a pedophile and accusing me of wanting to rape children, you have the gall to ask me a casual question like we're old buddies? Get the fuck out of here and don't speak to me ever again, unless it's in the form of your begging for an apology from me for the horrid way that you treated me.

I guess he's not over that whole "pedo" scandal thingy, and still lashing out pretty heavily. I responded:

If you hate me so much you would have deleted my friendship, Alex. Do so now if you choose. I "played into" it because I thought you were wrong. Have you learned anything?

Alex responds:

Deleting your friendship would be irrelevant; my Facebook is public and anyone can post on my statuses.

What have I learned, though? I've learned that I cannot trust that creepy middle-aged men like you won't be snooping on forums for young ...people to try to destroy a college kid's reputation. There's something infinitely creepier about a middle-aged man snooping into a 19/20-year-old's posts on a gay forum advertised for people aged 14-25 than a 20-year-old having (legal) sex with a 16-year-old, which you were so appalled by. (By the way, since you worship psychiatry, I should note that the DSM-IV says that all of my attractions are completely normal.)

I also have a lostpainting account on a Britney Spears forum, breatheheavy.com/exhale. Would you like to go investigate that, too? Since you're so obsessed with digging into my private (that is: non-political, non-public) life.

If Swindle thought the material was troubling, he should have first approached me with it in private for an explanation and discussion, like any normal person would do. Instead, his -- and your -- first reaction was to think "What a great blog post! Let's write about it and take him by surprise so we can try to ruin him!" That shows your true intentions, and it reveals you for the monstrous, morally-bankrupt piece of shit you are. The fact that you are old enough to be my father only compounds the creepiness. I spend countless hours every week feeling miserable about you people's horrific smears and how they have affected my life. It's like being raped over and over again. I'd rather have been raped, in fact, than have been subject to such a hit job.

My response:

I didn't investigate you, Alex. You're lashing out pretty hard here. At the time, I commented on the debate as a friend. We had had some pretty decent exchanges, and I had no vendetta.

Alex responds:

You may just possibly be more deranged than Swindle if you thought that your post was 'friendly.'

My response:

Go pull up the post and link it. I didn't investigate you, and I said that we indeed had had exchanges. That's not true?

Alex responds:

...You said that I was a "pedophile posing as a conservative," that I was fired in a "pedophilia scandal," that I promote "man-boy" sex, and that I "have contempt for the rights of the most vulnerable." All because I had legal sex with som...eone four years younger than I am.

It's a real mystery as to why I'd take offense to that, isn't it?

http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/pedophile-posing-as-conservative-alex.html

....

Here's you: "Alex Knepper has protested ad nauseum that he's within his legal right to engage in sexual intercourse with a 16 year-old boy. And while that may be so (depending on the state, incidently),"

Um, yes, Donald, I follow the laws OF... THE STATE I LIVE IN. Not sure about you.

"there are no exceptions for adult sexual intercourse with 8 year-old children."

This is completely true but also completely fucking irrelevant, given that the guy I had sex with was sixteen and not eight.

My response:

I still stand by the argument, Alex. I think most folks were concerned with a higher law, a moral standard, which many thought you'd crossed.

And that was it. No further responses from Alex Knepper. I gather he wants to protect the cocoon of denial he's built up to justify his pursuit of adolescent boy sex. He still digs Justin Bieber, that's for sure:

UPDATE (8:40pm): Alex updates the thread with this:

Deleting this shit at my mom's request; you've caused enough anxiety to me; no need to torture her, too.

Well, how about that? Alex's mom monitors his Facebook threads? That's something else? Maybe she should have been monitoring some of those man-boy chat threads, and perhaps I wouldn't be having an exchange like this.

True Conservatives

I'm trippin' on this graphic, from Melissa Clouthier, "Should Libertarians Be Banned From CPAC?" (via Memeorandum). It's not developed from Melissa's discussion, but can we say the tea party represents "true conservatism" if large numbers of tea partiers are closer to the libertarian position on defense? I'm neocon, and firmly is the defense and social conservatives circles, but I'm also a tea partier and would like to see more fiscal restraint in government, although that circle's less defining of my ideological identity. Anyway, folks'll have to read Melissa's post to see if she'd boot libertarians from CPAC. (And folks should check Midnight Blue's CPAC updates, while I'm thinking about it.)

P.S. I doubt Dan Riehl would be a "true conservative" as measured by the graph. He's not a big defense kinda guy, but nevertheless touts himself as an ideological gatekeeper.

Democratic Realpolitik and Egypt

From Dr. Robert Bunker, "Realism, Idealism, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Islamic World" (via Great Satan's Girlfriend):

National self-interest now requires that we reevaluate our relationship to autocratic states, both client and otherwise, in the Islamic World and, for that matter, everywhere else. Our interests are now best served by implementing a new U.S. foreign policy approach—one that is sum-sum for our country and the burgeoning masses who live under the yoke of oppression in autocratic Islamic states. Under this new sum-sum strategy, we „play the old diplomatic game‟ and hold our friendly despots even closer while we do everything in our power, short of getting caught (and of course not engaging in crimes against humanity), to seize upon golden opportunities that are now presenting themselves in Egypt and in other Islamic lands to support Democratic revolution. We should not instigate it and we should not invade like in Iraq— Democracy should be seductive, something that is desired and not necessarily forced upon others. If the spark of Democratic revolution should come about spontaneously due to the actions of flash mobs and social network-inspired rioting or is orchestrated from within by more organized bodies, we should support it from the shadows. If a critical tipping point is approached—one in which relative superiority hangs in the balance— and if the stakes are worth it, we may even need to show our hand and threaten or buy off the targeted despot and his military forces in order to make them stand down.

RTWT.

Talk about nuance. Dr. Bunker adds this, for example, "Realism and idealism must always exist in balance, with one not sacrificed for the benefit of the other, if our nation is to remain strong." Yet he warns of obvious and inherent dangers, that some states will succumb to Islamist extremism --- like Egypt today, right? Sure, but see the Wall Street Journal, "Hamas, the Brotherhood and Egypt":

Those who believe that a democratic Egypt is doomed to fall into the Muslim Brotherhood's hands frequently cite the 2006 elections as Exhibit A. But the lesson of those elections is that Hamas should not have been allowed to participate, not that elections should never have been held.

If the Brotherhood wants to participate in elections, it should have to promise to play by democratic rules, respect religious and social pluralism, and honor Egypt's treaty commitments, especially to Israel. And because promises can be broken by those in power, Egypt needs a constitutional system of checks and balances to withstand any attempt to impose one man, one vote, once. Egypt can have a viable democratic future, provided that the democracy is for democrats.

See also Charles Krauthammer (the father of "democratic realism"), at WaPo, "Toward a soft landing in Egypt": (via Memeorandum):

The overriding objective is a period of stability during which secularists and other democratic elements of civil society can organize themselves for the coming elections and prevail. ElBaradei is a menace. Mubarak will be gone one way or the other. The key is the military. The United States should say very little in public and do everything behind the scenes to help the military midwife - and then guarantee - what is still something of a long shot: Egyptian democracy.

More at Los Angeles Times, "Egyptian throngs have a word for Mubarak: 'Leave!'," and New York Times,"Egyptian Government Figures Join Protesters."

Egypt Crisis Intensifies — Suleiman Could Take Power as Washington Plans for Mubarak Exit

At New York Times, "White House, Egypt Discuss Plan for Mubarak’s Exit":

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately, turning over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday.

Even though Mr. Mubarak has balked, so far, at leaving now, officials from both governments are continuing talks about a plan in which Mr. Suleiman, backed by Lt. Gen. Sami Enan, chief of the Egyptian armed forces, and Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the defense minister, would immediately begin a process of constitutional reform.

The proposal also calls for the transitional government to invite members from a broad range of opposition groups, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, to begin work to open up the country’s electoral system in an effort to bring about free and fair elections in September, the officials said.

Democracy v. Stability in Eygpt?

Just posted: "Egypt Crisis Intensifies — Suleiman Could Take Power as Washington Plans for Mubarak Exit."

And from earlier, a big shout out for National Journal's coverage of developments in the Middle East:

The "democracy v. stability" them is picked up by James Kitfield, "Obama's Risky Idealism: Reversing the 'Devil's Bargain'?"

This is a much better analysis than E.J.Dionne's (mentioned previously), and this is especially good:

In the short term, the democratic upheavals in the Middle East will almost certainly spread instability and cause furrowed brows in Washington and Tel Aviv. In the longer term, however, the strategic interests of both the United States and Israel could be well served by the death of the venerable idea that the only choice in the Middle East is between autocrats and theocrats.

“Regime change is coming to Egypt whether we like it or not, so for the Obama administration to continue to back an ill, 82-year-old dictator like Hosni Mubarak would have been both short-sighted and unwise,” said Michael Rubin, a Middle East expert and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The United States should instead seize a rare opportunity to embrace a mostly secular, democratic opposition that is on the march throughout the Middle East, Rubin said in an interview.

And speaking of Barry Rubin, he's got more here: "Whose Afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood? Answer: Sensible People." Rubin's responding to this at New York Times, "As Islamist Group Rises, Its Intentions Are Unclear." (And at Memeorandum.)

There are reports that the Muslim brotherhood has pledge an attack on Israel should they come to power, although perhaps the Times doesn't "get" the Internet. See, "Report: Muslim Brotherhood Wants Egyptians to ‘Prepare for War With Israel’." Maybe the Times is feigning ignorance? Wouldn't want some credible journalistic reporting to lead here: "U.S. 'held secret meeting with Muslim Brotherhood'."

RELATED: Get your kicks watching Conor Friedersdorf self-immolate: "Sophistry And Defining The Muslim Brotherhood, Ctd."

Hey, he claims to have lived in Egypt, so who knows, although the fact that he's posting at Sully's rabidly anti-Semitic blog doesn't much pump up the credibility factor.

Christiane Amanpour Interviews Hosni Mubarak

At ABC News, "Mubarak: 'If I Resign Today There Will Be Chaos' - In an Exclusive Interview, Egypt's President Says He's Fed Up and Wants to Resign, 'But Cannot for Fear of the Country Falling into Chaos'."

Updates on Egypt Protests

Well, it's been another big day in Egypt. Analysts are all over the place on what happens next. Last night, at Foreign Policy, Robert Springborg wrote that the immediate threat to the regime was over and, "The chance for democracy in Egypt is lost." But not so fast, writes Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "Get Ready for the Muslim Brotherhood." She adds that it's "highly likely but not inevitable that the Muslim Brotherhood will win the elections to be held in Egypt this coming September." Ayann's essay is perhaps the most perceptive and insightful I've read since the crisis began on January 25th. She specifically and succinctly indicates why secular forces are at a disadvantage relative to the Islamists. At any rate, the first clip here includes video of a utility van mowing down protesters in the streets. Content warning, by the way, since it's quite graphic:

Civility Watch: Progressives Rally to Lynch Clarence Thomas

Christian Hartsock goes easy on these folks. God, it's a vigilante mob: "White Political Ralliers Call for Lynching of Black Justice (Sorry MSM, No Tea in this Blend)."

This is the "Uncloaking the Kochs" protest last weekend in Palm Springs. Actually, I think the protesters are uncloaked. Better get those Klan sheets out of the trunk. Might even get a bit more mainstream media coverage out of it:

Ed Morrissey adds this:

Yes, these comments come from the attendees, not the speakers at the protest organized by Common Cause at the Koch political conference, but according to the media rules on covering the Tea Party, that makes all liberals racists, and also responsible for the murders committed by Kermit Gosnell in his abortion clinic in Philadelphia. Right?

Or, as Jeff Goldstein notes, "What’s say we string us up some Uncle Toms!"

Chipotle in the Open-Borders Crosshairs

Pretty unreal, actually.

Michelle's got the larger story, "Stop the hate campaign against law-abiding American businesses."

But dig this comment at the video:

Lets face it, nothing got accomplished by the protesters other than some sheeple got manipulated by the SEIU (basically a communist organization). Who really cares if some ILLEGALS got fired because they couldn't prove that they were legal? The ILLEGALS are still fired and Chipotle is still selling burritos.

Freakin' commies.

Egypt and the Realists

Following up on "Egypt and the End of History," here's this from the Wall Street Journal:

For most of recent diplomatic history, American policy in the Mideast has tended to emphasize the stability of friendly regimes over the democratic aspirations of Arab populations. This approach is sometimes called foreign policy realism. The reality on the streets in Egypt is one result.

In the week since demonstrations began against Hosni Mubarak's regime, that U.S. ally and the Arab world's largest state has been gripped by disorder and uncertainty. Mr. Mubarak said last night he won't seek re-election later this year, though he intends to remain in power until then to negotiate a peaceful transition. This announcement is welcome, though it may not be enough at this late date to satisfy an opposition that now controls the streets. Other than the army, the group best organized to run Egypt if order breaks down is the Islamist and anti-American Muslim Brotherhood.

So much for that vaunted stability.

.....

In Egypt ... the Obama Administration has been caught on its back foot, scrambling to keep up with events. Some of the same people who reviled Mr. Bush for pushing democracy—Senator John Kerry—are now even saying the U.S. should demand Mr. Mubarak's ouster. Yesterday in advance of Mr. Mubarak's remarks, White House officials leaked that Mr. Obama had urged the Egyptian not to run for re-election—another frantic effort to get some political credit for events that were already inevitable and still may be too little, too late.

Now our policy choices are few and risky. How much better positioned would we be in Egypt today if we were able to take some credit for the calls for freedom and democratic change?

As always, we need to balance both goals, the need for stability and the aspirations for human freedom. Actually, I doubt either would be possible with Mubarak in power. But given that American policy on Egypt wasn't ahead of demands for freedom, pragmatism now calls for slow change. Remember to guard against the Islamists taking power, but don't get romantic about our alliance with the dictator.

Planned Parenthood Fires Employee After Video

I posted a video of Live Action's Lila Rose a week or so back. This was before news of the big Planned Parenthood video sting broke. It's huge story. I've been busy with my Egypt reporting, and haven't had a chance to comment. The progressives have been mounting a intense push-back campaign, which has been successful to the extent folks are impugning the credibility of Lila Rose. (Allegedly, Planned Parenthood notified government authorities a week before the Live Action video went viral.) But I watched Ms. Rose on O'Reilly's last night, and she indicated that the Democrat-Media-Complex is freakin' at the magnitude of the national pro-life wave, and any negative exposure has been attacked as either un-newsworthy or right wing extremism. Anyway, if the New York Times is reporting on this now, then Live Action can definitely chalk up a victory:

Planned Parenthood has fired a clinic manager who was seen on videotape advising a man posing as a sex trafficker, and anti-abortion groups seized on the episode to step up their campaign to cut off public financing for the organization.

The manager was videotaped covertly in a clinic in Perth Amboy, N.J., by actors working for an anti-abortion group, Live Action. The manager gave advice on how to get medical care for under-age prostitutes. The tape’s release on Tuesday embarrassed Planned Parenthood, which provides contraceptives, gynecological care, cancer screening and abortions across the country, mainly to low-income women.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America said that immediately after the “highly unusual” visit, its affiliate had notified prosecutors.

The organization said last week that people claiming to be sex traffickers visited at least 12 of its clinics in six states in January and that it had concluded that the visits were a hoax by Live Action. But Planned Parenthood officials expressed dismay at the statements of the office manager in the videotape, and fired her on Tuesday night.

“We were profoundly shocked when we viewed the videotape,” Phyllis Kinsler, chief executive of the agency’s central New Jersey branch, said in a statement. Ms. Kinsler said the tape “depicted an employee of one of our health centers behaving in a repugnant manner that is inconsistent with our standards of care and is completely unacceptable.”

Stuart Schear, vice president for communications of the national federation, said in an interview on Wednesday that Planned Parenthood had “zero tolerance” for unethical behavior and that the behavior filmed in the video was “very isolated.”

“We cannot lose sight of the bigger picture that we have opponents who are in many cases opposed to birth control, honest sex education and legal abortion, and are coordinating with allies on Capitol Hill to defund Planned Parenthood,” Mr. Schear said.

See what I mean?

It's the pro-life forces who're portrayed at the bad guys, and the meme is that the director at the Perth Amboy clinic was an aberration.

I should have more pro-life reporting soon. Egypt is dominating the news and I've been extremely fascinated by developments. So, more on that as events warrant, and then some social issues as well.

RELATED: At The Blaze, "Vid Shows Planned Parenthood Advising Pretend Pimp About Underage Sex Slaves":

Watch This: Leftist Media to Push Meme of Obama as Wise Foreign Policy 'Realist'

It may have started already, but I'm just now seeing E.J. Dionne's really dishonest op-ed at WaPo, "A Conservative Split Aids Obama on Egypt."

What's interesting is that Dionne gets most of this wrong. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter is cited as standing for some large conservative groundswell in support of propping up Mubarak. Even Henry Kissinger was way beyond that possibility the other night, so it's mostly now about how to transition from Mubarak without causing an Egyptian bloodbath and/or a new Middle East war. Even the New York Times notes that the administration's making major adjustments in its foreign policy in light of events, and of course you won't read any quotes from Victor Davis Hanson at either Dionne's commentary or the Times' reporting. Where there's been really substantial debate is among the neoconservatives. And while Dionne's meme suggests Obama's getting a boost by an alleged "conservative split," the truth is more likely that the administration's been dragged along by events, with ad hoc adjustments made possible only after the cold splash of reality snapped the White House out of its stupor.

More at Memeorandum.

Glenn Beck and the Muslim Brotherhood

From David Horowitz, at FrontPage Magazine:

Those of you who have been watching Glenn Beck, and particularly those who watched last night’s show will see that he is bringing before an audience of millions the message we have been sending from these sites for nearly a decade — that the global Islamic jihad against the West has formed a working alliance with the secular socialist left both at home and abroad. This “unholy alliance” as we called it was first clearly visible in the anti-American demonstrations opposing the Iraq War. These were mislabled “anti-war” demonstrations by the general media. If they were truly anti-war demonstrations there would have been protests at the Iraq embassy calling on Saddam Hussein to honor the Gulf War truce agreement he had signed and the seventeen UN resolutions that attempted to enforce those agreements. But there was not one such demonstration. Not one.

We pointed out at the time that the steering committee of the largest coalition against the Iraq War — that is against toppling Saddam Hussein — included on its steering committee the Muslim Students Association, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2003, we laid out the facts in an 80 page booklet edited by John Perazzo and me, called Who Is The Peace Movement? We have updated the information in our online encyclopedia of the left at http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/.

Everything we know about the collaborations of the Communist left with the Soviet police state, about the collaborations of the New Left with the Vietnamese and Cuban Communists, and about the committees of leftists in solidarity with the communist dictatorship in Nicaragua and the Communist guerillas in El Salvador told us that the current left would be in bed with the Islamic Nazis who now confront us ...

The unholy alliance between Islamo-Nazis and the American left described in these pages is the gravest threat our country has ever faced.

Obama Rift With Mubarak Alters U.S. Mideast Calculus

You don't say?

At New York Times:

WASHINGTON — After days of delicate public and private diplomacy, the United States openly broke with its most stalwart ally in the Arab world on Wednesday, as the Obama administration strongly condemned violence by allies of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt against protesters and called on him to speed up his exit from power.

Egypt’s government hit back swiftly. The Foreign Ministry released a defiant statement saying the calls from “foreign parties” had been “rejected and aimed to incite the internal situation in Egypt.” And Egyptian officials reached out to reporters to make clear how angry they were at their onetime friend.

Separately, in an interview, a senior Egyptian government official took aim at President Obama’s call on Tuesday night for a political transition to begin “now” — a call that infuriated Cairo.

But the White House was not backing down. “I want to be clear,” said Robert Gibbs, the press secretary. “ ‘Now’ started yesterday.”

The Obama administration seemed determined Wednesday to put as much daylight as possible between Mr. Obama and Mr. Mubarak, once considered an unshakable American supporter in a tumultuous region, with Mr. Gibbs once again raising the specter of a cutoff of American aid to the Mubarak government if the Egyptian president failed to bend.

“There are things that the government needs to do,” he said. “There are reforms that need to be undertaken. And there are opposition entities that have to be included in the conversations as we move toward free and fair elections.” Those elections are currently scheduled for September, but the State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said, “The sooner that can happen, the better.”

The open rupture between the United States and Egypt illustrates how swift and dramatic changes in Cairo are altering the calculus of the entire region and the administration’s foreign policy agenda. Besides Egypt, there were upheavals this week among other close American allies in the fight against Al Qaeda, and in the long struggle to reach a Middle East peace. Israeli officials expressed concern that Mr. Mubarak’s abrupt exit could jeopardize the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

Maybe the White House is reading my blog?

Obama Approach to Mubarak Exit Questioned as Violent Clashes Erupt

Well, I guess I'm not a lone voice in the wilderness.

From Fox News:

As resistance turns to revolt in the streets of Cairo, some are starting to question the Obama administration's handling of the unfolding crisis in the heart of America's most important Arab ally.

For the most part, President Obama's cautious, but firm, tone has won praise from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Though the Obama administration was clearly caught off guard by how quickly a regime's ouster in Tunisia inspired uprisings across Egypt and other Middle Eastern capitals, the president was applauded for striking a delicate balance.

He did not take sides from the outset, but at the same time also urged President Hosni Mubarak to fix the problems in his broken government. When the momentum shifted further away from Mubarak, so did Obama, telling the 30-year ruler it's time to step aside.

But something went wrong. Though Mubarak announced Tuesday night he would not seek re-election, the vigil-like scene from that night has given way to a bloody series of clashes between protesters and pro-government supporters.

Analysts and diplomats say the administration now must be even more cautious about what it says publicly, and they worry that the president may have slipped in the way he pushed for Mubarak's exit.

More at the link above. Quoted there is Elliot Abrams, who suggests that Obama should be calling on Mubarak's resignation. Sen. John McCain's cited to that effect as well.

Bush Deserves Credit For What's Happening in Egypt

Okay, a follow-up to "Egypt and the End of History."

Here's Jonathan Kay, from the National Post:

Via Blazing Catfur, "The Least of Egypt's Problems: Virtual Looting."