Change! Growth in Retail Sales Slows From Last Year's Numbers

At the New York Times, "Retail Sales Fell Short in June":

Some of the nation’s biggest retail chains reported on Thursday that sales growth slowed in June, as shoppers held back amid wavering consumer confidence and unemployment.

A survey by Thomson Reuters of 18 retailers showed that sales at stores open more than a year were up 2.5 percent in June, well below the 7.7 percent increase recorded in June 2011. The same-store sales results surpassed Wall Street analysts’ forecasts of a 2.4 percent rise.

Retailers have seen lower spending over all by domestic customers, a drop in consumer confidence as millions of people remain out of work and fewer tourists are willing to spend amid a global economic slowdown.

Nancy Liu, a retail strategist for Kurt Salmon, a consulting firm, said that one of the reasons for the lower June results this year was that the sales numbers were being compared with a strong performance in June 2011.

“Retailers were coming out of the gate” a year ago, she said. “They would have had to outperform to beat those numbers.”

Global economic issues were weighing on consumers. Ms. Liu said the euro zone crisis, the potential slowdown of growth in Asia and unemployment rates that had not recovered as quickly as people expected had prompted retailers to promote and discount heavily to get customers to buy.

In addition, because of a mild winter, retailers may have benefited from some of the summer spending earlier in the year, and inventories are being discounted and cleared to allow for back-to-school buying.

Retailers have been keen to attract cautious consumers in a recovery weighed down by constraints in employment, housing and credit as well as, until recently, high gasoline prices.

“The second quarter is proving to be a real downer for retailers and consumers alike,” said Chris G. Christopher Jr., a United States economist for IHS Global Insight. “Job prospects are looking dimmer, equity markets are more volatile, the European debt crisis has reared its ugly head and consumer confidence is back into recession territory.”

Arizona Mom Faces Child Abuse Charges After Arrest for Pouring Beer Into Her 2-Year-Old's Sippy Cup

It's hard to believe.

The main thing is the kid is doing fine.

See the Los Angeles Times, "Arizona mom admits putting beer in 2-year-old's sippy cup."

More at London's Daily Mail, "Mother arrested after allegedly pouring beer into the drinking beaker of her two-year-old son."

F-king Despicable Global Warming Progressives Exploit Colorado Wildfires to Stoke Climate Change Hysteria

LGM communist Erik Loomis couldn't resist exploiting the wildfires to stoke global warming hysteria: "Colorado is the Future."

Loomis is too predictably stupid to merit a response. Anthony Watts calls the Colorado-inspired hysteria "crazy": "‘What global warming really looks like’ – Michael Oppenheimer FAIL."

But see Michelle Malkin, who was evacuated from her home due to the Waldo Canyon Fire, "Global warming blame-ologists play with fire":

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Good news: The Waldo Canyon fire, which forced 32,000 residents (including our family) to flee, claimed two lives and destroyed 347 homes, is now 100 percent contained. Bad news: Radical environmentalists won’t stop blowing hot air about this year’s infernal season across the West.

Al Gore slithered out of the political morgue to bemoan nationwide heat records and pimp his new “Climate Reality Project,” which blames global warming for the wildfire outbreak. NBC meteorologist Doug Kammerer asserted: “If we did not have global warming, we wouldn’t see this.” Agriculture Department Undersecretary Harris Sherman, who oversees the Forest Service, claimed to the Washington Post: “The climate is changing, and these fires are a very strong indicator of that.”

And the Associated Press (or rather, the Activist Press) lit the fear-mongering torch with an eco-propaganda piece titled “U.S. summer is what ‘global warming will look like.’”

The problem is that the actual conclusions of scientists included in AP’s screed don’t back up the apocalyptic headline. As the reporter acknowledges under that panicky banner:

“Scientifically linking individual weather events to climate change takes intensive study, complicated mathematics, computer models and lots of time. Sometimes it isn’t caused by global warming. Weather is always variable; freak things happen.”
So, this U.S. summer may or may not really look like “what global warming looks like.” Kinda. Sorta. Possibly. Possibly not.

Furthermore, the AP reporter concedes, the “global” nature of the warming and its supposed catastrophic events have “been local. Europe, Asia and Africa aren’t having similar disasters now, although they’ve had their own extreme events in recent years.”

A more hedging headline would have been journalistically responsible, but Chicken Little-ism better serves the global warming blame-ologists’ agenda.

More inconvenient truths: As The Washington Times noted this week, the National Climatic Data Center shows that “Colorado has actually seen its average temperature drop slightly from 1998 to 2011, when data is collected only from rural stations and not those that have been urbanized since 1900.”

Radical green efforts to block logging and timber sales in national forests since the 1990s are the real culprits. Wildlife mitigation experts point to incompetent forest management and militant opposition to thinning the timber fuel supply.

Another symptom of green obstructionism: widespread bark beetle infestations. The U.S. Forest Service itself reported last year...

More at the link.

Jobs Numbers Could Affect Presidential Race

At the New York Times, "Stakes for Jobs Figures Rise as Voters’ Views Start to Solidify":

WASHINGTON — Economists are slashing their already tepid growth forecasts. The unemployment rate seems stuck at around 8 percent. It is a tense time for the American economy. It is also the time that some experts believe the country’s undecided voters are beginning to cement their presidential picks.

That is why many political scientists and consultants consider Friday’s jobs report and the ones immediately following it to be so important — perhaps more so than those of the previous three years.

“I don’t know whether it is because American voters are myopic, or because they are forward-looking,” said Andrew Gelman, the director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University. “But they appear to care most about change in the economy in the year preceding the election,” rather than the state of the economy over an incumbent president’s first four years.

Some narrow the critical period even more, arguing that what happens from April until October of an election year weighs especially heavily on voters’ minds.

“It’s difficult to sort out the electoral effects of specific slivers of economic conditions,” said Larry M. Bartels, a Vanderbilt University professor of political science. But he cited the economic climate of the middle of the election year as unusually important — a time when even wavering voters begin to lock in decisions on the presidential race and lock out conflicting reports about the economy.

This political reality is not lost on the Obama and Romney campaigns, which have sparred over the state of the economy to the near exclusion of every other issue.

Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, has centered his campaign on the notion that President Obama’s incompetence as an economic steward has made recovery weaker than it need have been — with unemployment too high and job growth too slow.

Mr. Obama has countered that Mr. Romney’s business record at Bain Capital epitomizes the profits-at any-cost philosophy that has cut middle-class jobs. As for his own record, he argues that pushing the 2009 stimulus program through Congress has helped the economy rebound and that without it, the nation would be in worse economic straits.

“Throughout history, it has typically taken countries up to 10 years to recover from financial crises of this magnitude,” Mr. Obama said recently, noting the sustained recessions in Europe. He added, “Our economy started growing again six months after I took office, and it has continued to grow for the last three years.”

The question now is which economic messages will sink in among the pool of voters — roughly one in 10 — who tell pollsters they are undecided.

RTWT.

Also, a surprisingly lame piece at the Los Angeles Times, "Analysis: Impact of jobs report on presidential contest minimal."

I think O's looking like Carter in 1976, or perhaps G.H.W. Bush in 1992 --- in other words, I expect him to lose. Romney's had a rough week coming out of the NFIB decision and the campaign's lame response, but he'll get back on top of his game. He's going to be hammering this president. And there's still a while to go.

See also James Pethokoukis, "June jobs swoon: America’s labor market depression continues."

And at Instapundit, "INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: 10 reasons why jobs market even worse than weak June employment report."

Mitt Romney: Jobs Report a 'Kick in the Gut'

At the Christian Science Monitor, "Bad jobs report jolts Obama, gives Romney a break":

The weak June jobs report ends a three-week stretch of momentum for President Obama. For Mitt Romney, it interrupts cries from conservatives to shake up his floundering campaign.

WASHINGTON - On balance, it’s a bad day for President Obama. The June unemployment report came in Friday below expectations, with only a net 80,000 jobs created and unemployment stuck at the high rate of 8.2 percent.

That makes 41 straight months above 8 percent unemployment, Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney was quick to remind at an early-morning press conference.

The discouraging jobs report ended three weeks of momentum for Mr. Obama, which began with his new policy halting deportations for some young undocumented immigrants - a highly popular move in the crucial Latino voting bloc – and continued with the Supreme Court’s surprise ruling last week that upholds most of his health-reform law.

The jobs news also interrupted Mr. Romney’s damaging narrative of discontent among prominent conservatives, after he and his campaign fumbled their response on health care and news reports about his business practices and off-shore bank accounts.

Now, the discussion has jolted back to the core issue of the campaign: the economy.

“There’s no way around it, the jobs numbers are a loss for Obama,” says Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Wall Street Journal Critique of Romney Shows Rupert Murdoch's Doubts on Candidacy

An interesting piece at NYT, "Shots by Murdoch at Romney Play Out to Conservative Core." And this paragraph is a keeper:

Fundamentally, Mr. Romney and Mr. Murdoch are very different. Mr. Romney is said to respect Mr. Murdoch as a visionary business mind and deeply admire how he built the company he inherited from his father into a $60 billion global media power. But a teetotaling Mormon from the Midwest and a thrice-married Australian who publishes photos of topless women in one of his British newspapers are bound to have very different world views.

Yeah, that's quite a difference.

RTWT at the link.

Click though at the link for the WSJ editorial: "Romney's Tax Confusion."

The Socialist's Constitution

Progressives are at base socialists in the Marxist mode. They won't admit it, because socialism has been discredited historically; but because markets will always produce winners and losers, and because different outcomes (inequality) are inherent to capitalism, the left's ultimate goal remains the eradication of the institutional structures that give rise to those patterns of difference.

In the American experience, however, the nation's founding saw the establishment of such robust institutions of liberty that the progressives have had to work piecemeal, evolutionary rather than revolutionary, in order to erect a structure of state socialism here at home. A central part of that program, clearly, has been the delegitimation of the American regime. All the recent attacks on American exceptionalism are right in that vein, along with the deranged periodic outbursts by leftists, screaming things like "I hate this G**-damned country!" (because they have to take personal responsibility for their own health).

And now three years into the Obama interregnum, left-wing radicals are becoming more aggressive in enunciating fundamental reforms to the constitutional order, designed to limit the classical liberal vision of the Founders. (Nancy Pelosi's call to amend the Constitution to limit conservative speech is one key example.) The protection of property rights was central to the constitutional project. As James Madison warned in Federalist #10, the mischiefs of faction could work to bring a majority to power that was determined to expropriate private property in the name of the people. It's no surprise then that our republican form of government, along with the separation of powers, was designed to protect minorities from the will of an unruly mob. The Founders feared "mobocracy" in pure majority rule. The signal achievement of the founding was to elevate the notion of individual liberty above that of collective rights, and that is today what is most despised by contemporary progressives qua socialists.

This is all frankly long-established and well-known. The problem for the left is that the constitutional order stands in their way. So what's the solution? Same as it's always been: change the narrative, lie and deceive, and then leverage into power a false epistemology that functions to radicalize the pre-revolutionary cadres and bolster the vanguard leaders to "fundamentally transform" the nation in the mold of the Marxist collective.

Today's New York Times provides a particularly good example in the op-ed from William Forbath, a radical labor historian at the University of Texas School of Law. Here's a long sample from Forbarth's essay, "Workingman’s Constitution," which is the lead commentary at the top of today's New York Times op-eds (p. 21):

WORK and opportunity, poverty and dependency, material security and insecurity: for generations of reformers, the constitutional importance of these subjects was self-evident. Laissez-faire government, unchecked corporate power and the deprivations and inequalities they bred weren’t just bad public policy — they were constitutional infirmities. But liberals have largely forgotten how to think, talk and fight along these lines.

And they’ve done so at the wrong time. The Supreme Court is again putting up constitutional barriers against laws to redress want and inequity. While it handed liberals a victory on the Affordable Care Act, it also gave a boost to conservatives to revive the old laissez-faire Constitution in the polity and courts: new doctrine and dictums for their attack on the welfare and regulatory state.

But there is a silver lining for liberals as well: in much the same way that the conservative court of the 1930s forced Franklin D. Roosevelt and his allies to construct the constitutional foundations of the New Deal state, today’s court challenges the White House, the Democrats and the liberal legal community to reassert a constitutional vision of a national government empowered “to promote the general Welfare” and — in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s terse formula — “to regulate the national economy in the interest of those who labor to sustain it.”....

The majority opinion of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., along with the jointly written dissent of the other four conservatives, outlines the doctrinal and rhetorical bases for assailing much of the New Deal-Great Society constitutional order over the coming years....

Liberals have too often been complacent and purely defensive. The Constitution, they often declare, does not speak to the rights and wrongs of economic life; it leaves that to politics. Laissez-faire doctrines were buried by the New Deal.

Until last week, this response may have been understandable. But it was always misleading as history, and wrong in principle, as well. And it was bad politics, providing no clear counternarrative to support the powers of government now under attack from the right.

That’s a major failing, because there is a venerable rival to constitutional laissez-faire: a rich distributive tradition of constitutional law and politics, rooted in the framers’ generation. None other than Madison was among its prominent expounders — in his draft of the Virginia Constitution, he included rights to free education and public land.

Likewise, many framers of the Reconstruction amendments held that education and “40 acres and a mule” were constitutional essentials that Congress must provide to ex-slaves. They also held that equal rights and liberty for white workingmen required a fair distribution of initial endowments, including free homesteads and free elementary and secondary education, along with land-grant-funded state colleges.

In the wake of industrialization, turn of the century reformers declared the need for a “new economic constitutional order” to secure the old promises of individual freedom and opportunity. America was becoming a corporate oligarchy, making working people wage slaves, impoverished and ill-equipped for democratic citizenship.

The New Deal brought this progressive vision to partial fruition. In the preindustrial past, Roosevelt explained in countless speeches, the Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights “in acquiring and possessing property” joined with the ballot and the freedom to live by one’s “own lights” to ensure the Constitution’s promise of “liberty and equality.”

But the “turn of the tide” came with the closing of the frontier and the rise of great “industrial combinations.” New conditions demanded new readings. “Every man,” he said, has a “right to make a comfortable living.” Alongside education, “training and retraining,” decent work and decent pay, his Second Bill of Rights set out rights to social insurance, including health care.

The distributive tradition has evolved, but its gist is simple and durable: you can’t have a republican government, and certainly not a constitutional democracy, amid gross material inequality.

That, my friends, is a manifesto for the modern socialist agenda in the United States. I've highlighted the key sections and phrases. For example, progressives have bastardized the "General Welfare" clause of the Preamble to mean the social welfare state rather than the pursuit of general well-being and happiness (as stressed by the Declaration of Independence). We should regulate the economy in the name of labor, according to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, which in essence means to regulate for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Also, "laissez-fair died with the New Deal" and in its wake emerged a new constitutional "distributive" order based on collectivism and collective rights rather than liberty for the individual, in contrast to what the Founders had established in 1787.

And more: Not only would post-Civil War America promise 40-acres and a mule for the former slaves, white workingmen would be guaranteed "a fair distribution of initial endowments." What are those initial endowments? Land? Capital? Property? To provide those endowments would require expropriating them from those who had them, which could be done only by force and through the wholesale evisceration of the constitutional guarantees for private property. This, then, is the left's "new constitutional order," one that would bend "the Constitution's guarantee of equal rights" into the distributive guarantee of "acquiring and possessing property" in a redefined conception of what constitutes "liberty and equality" in the United States. Indeed, the call for a "Second Bill of Rights" is nothing less than the demand for economic leveling and the rape of the wealthy in the name of the masses. Only then, after "republican government" is destroyed would the progressives be able to secure their long-cherished utopia of "constitutional [mob] democracy" free from the despised "gross material inequality" of the capitalist system.

Forbath's "Workingman's Constitution" is a cheap spinoff from his Dissent essay from earlier this year, "Workers’ Rights and the Distributive Constitution." And according to his bio, Forbath is a regular contributor to the Nation, the left's pro-Soviet literary outlet throughout the Cold War and after. Indeed, Forbath's work is all about economic redistribution, but it's veiled in legalistic and political garb that is central to the stealth neo-Marxist progressive agenda. So just make a note of it. The "Workingman's Constitution" is in fact the "Socialist's Constitution." The only thing missing is the more explicitly aggressive class conflict language one finds at, say, the Trotskyite "Worker's World."

So, there you have it. The bonus being that it's no surprise that Forbath's flaming anti-Americanism finds a ready home at the New York Times editorial pages.

UPDATE: Linkmaster Smith links: "Forbath Lost Me at ‘Laws to Redress Want and Inequity’." Thanks!

Royal International Air Tattoo 2012

Via Theo Spark:

And more here: "Royal International Air Tattoo 2012 Wednesday 4th July."

Rosie Jones Rule 5 Update

Actually, at one point Rule 5 was supposed to be safe for the entire family. You know, wholesome ladies frolicking at the beach and all that.

Well, forget about it. Rosie Jones is smokin'!

At Egotastic, "Rosie Jones Outtakes Highlight Her Black Lingerie Lusciousness."

And previously: "Smokin' Rosie Jones Rule 5."

South Africa's ANC Condemns Cartoon Depicting President Jacob Zuma as Erect Penis

Well, it figures, they say he's a dick.

See BBC, "Jacob Zuma penis cartoon by Zapiro 'disgusts' ANC" (via Memeorandum).

The cartoon's at the Mail & Guardian. That reminds me of another black commie president also known as a dick.

Someone should draw up another cartoon.

The ANC's condemnation is here: "ANC condemns the cartoon by Zapiro and the Mail and Guardian Newspaper." And here's the update at the Mail & Guardian: "Zapiro defends cartoon, while ANC call for apology."

The Shard of London

The Wall Street Journal has a slide show.

And at Telegraph UK, "The Shard opens with laser light show":

The Shard's inauguration ceremony was rounded off with a laser light show that lit up the capital.

More at the Daily Mail, "Flying high: Laser show lights up the sky in London as The Shard is officially unveiled."

Warship Museums Not Assured Success

At LAT, "Warship museums are not assured victory as tourist draws":

When the battleship Iowa was commissioned in 1943, it was a powerful weapon in yet another war to end all wars.

Now its huge guns are pointed at a string of seafood restaurants in San Pedro, and it's about to join America's fleet of floating museums — some 48 warships that have been donated to coastal communities eager for tourist dollars and upgraded waterfronts.

Although some of the attractions have thrived, others have been swamped in debt or racked by age.

In San Diego, the aircraft carrier Midway has topped 1-million visitors per year. Another carrier, the Intrepid, is a must-see museum in Manhattan, especially with the recent arrival of the space shuttle Enterprise.

But near Houston, the century-old battleship Texas closed indefinitely last week after holes opened up in its corroded hull and it started taking on more than 1,500 gallons of water a minute. In Alameda, the aircraft carrier Hornet is getting by. But it was nearly shut down a few years ago when officials couldn't cover the rent and electric bills. In Camden, N.J., the battleship New Jersey now has five full-time employees — down from a peak of 50.

The difference comes down to a real estate adage: "Location, location, location," said Robert Kent, director of the Pacific Battleship Center, which will operate Los Angeles' newest museum.

Keep reading.

Plus, at Des Moines Register, "Branstad visits hospital briefly after choking on carrots: The governor was in California for the commissioning of the USS Iowa battleship."

Leisure is Not a Traditional American Life Goal

A very interesting essay from the Barrister at Maggie's Farm, elementary, in fact: "Americans and Europeans: Leisure is not a traditional American life goal."

And that reminds me of this, so unfortunately, we've gotten more like Europe under Obama: "Alexandra Pelosi's Latest Video Slams 'Welfare Queens' and 'Obama Bucks'."

What is the Higgs Boson?

It's one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in generations, for one thing. But what is it? Well, it's a hypothesis in theoretical physics that explains the origins of mass in atomic particles that have mass. Here's the brief explanation at the Los Angeles Times:

Quantum theory says that the universe is made of two types of elementary particles, fermions and bosons. Fermions are matter, like the electron or the proton. Bosons are energy and can transmit forces, like the photon. In 1964, two groups of three theorists each proposed that the universe is pervaded by a molasses-like field, now called the Higgs field. As fermions pass through the field, they acquire mass. Without the field, the universe would literally fall apart; even atoms would no longer exists.

The piece continues:

One of the physicists, Peter Higgs of the University of Edinburgh, predicted that if this field were hit by the right amount of energy, it would produce a unique particle, which came to be known as the Higgs boson. Higgs was present at the CERN announcement Wednesday and said afterward that, "For me, it is an incredible thing that has happened in my lifetime."

And at the video is Professor Higgs:

See also Instapundit: "CATCHING YOU UP ON the Higgs Boson."

And especially, "WHY THE HIGGS-PARTICLES IS SO IMPORTANT!"

BONUS: At the Economist, "The Higgs boson: Science’s great leap forward."

Report: U.S. Military Close to Lifting Ban on Women in Frontline Combat

This is something I talk about every semester in my classes, when we cover gender equality. Students who rarely speak will often pipe up when the debate gets going. And I'm surprised to hear a lot of the guys spout very backward views on the role of women in society. Indeed, it's not unusual to hear some say that women should be wives and mothers exclusively. That said, some of the ladies are frightened to death with the prospects of military service; they like old-fashioned gender roles just fine. As always, it should be a matter of open access: If women want to serve, they should not be prohibited, even in the most sensitive or intimate combat roles.

See the special report at the Christian Science Monitor, "Women in combat: US military on verge of making it official."

RELATED: At the New York Times in April, "Marines Moving Women Toward the Front Lines."

Air France Crash Investigation Finds Pilot Error and Faulty Equipment

The jet crashed in 2009. Here's the story at the Los Angeles Times, "Probe of Air France crash in Atlantic blames pilots, training":

The investigation of the 2009 crash of an Air France jet into the Atlantic Ocean concludes that the cockpit crew took the wrong steps to correct a high-altitude stall and blamed the errors on poor training of those piloting today's highly automated aircraft.

In its final report issued Thursday, the French civil aviation authority's Bureau of Surveys and Analysis said its review of flight data recorders recovered almost two years after the crash disclosed that the two junior pilots at the controls of AF 447 were "completely surprised" by the failure of cockpit instruments to guide them out of the disaster.

All 228 passengers and crew on board died in the June 1, 2009, crash of the jet en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The Airbus A330-203, built by a European consortium that includes the French government, suffered a rare cruising-altitude loss of power while the flight captain was outside the cockpit on a scheduled break, the French investigative agency reported.

It said the two copilots, both in their 30s, didn't know what to do when ice accumulation caused the aircraft's autopilot to disconnect, and that they took the opposite action from what was needed, which was nosing the plane down to recover lift.

RTWT.

Also at CSM, "Lessons from Air France Flight 447 Rio-to-Paris crash."

Aaron Worthing Beats Brett Kimberlin on Appeal of Peace Order

Just for the record, I like using Aaron's screen name, "Aaron Worthing," since he continues to use it on Twitter, and to some extent on his blog ("A.W."). His real name is Aaron Walker and he was outed by Brett Kimberlin.

In any case, congratulations to Aaron. His post is here: "Today in Circuit Court, Brett Kimberlin Lost and the First Amendment Won..."

And some of the reactions so far:

* David Hogberg at IBD: "‘Great Day For the First Amendment’: Walker Wins Appeal Vs. Kimberlin Peace Order."

* Hogewash, "WOOT! #BrettKimberlin Loses!"

* Legal Insurrection, "Walker beats Kimberlin in court."

* Matthew Vadum, "‘Great Day For The First Amendment’: Walker Wins Appeal Vs. Kimberlin Peace Order."

* Popehat, "Aaron Walker Defeats Brett Kimberlin, Retains First Amendment Right To Blog About Him."

* The Other McCain, "Aaron Walker (and Freedom) Win Maryland Appeal vs. Brett Kimberlin."

* Twitchy, "Freedom to blog: Judge rules Aaron Walker is free to write about Brett Kimberlin."

Plus, there's a Memeorandum thread.

BONUS: Aaron has an update: "Just a Reminder: Team Kimberlin Still Wants to Ruin My Life."

Would Iran Nuclear Balancing Mean Stability in the Middle East?

I mentioned that I would update on Kenneth Waltz and Iranian nuclear proliferation when I'd read his full Foreign Affairs piece in hard copy. Here's the essay: "Why Iran Should Get the Bomb: Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability."

As noted, Waltz's theory is "structural" in that it abstracts away from the decision-making processes of leaders to focus on systemic factors like the balance of military and economic capability. This is parsimonious theory. But it simply cannot explain why states deviate from the theoretical expectations derived from objective factors alone. My beef here is that Waltz assumes the Iranian leadership to act as a perfect rational actor, and thus target states shouldn't worry about the Iranian bomb --- Iran will follow the logic of deterrence and a cold peace will emerge. I'd say this gets it wrong not just on rationality, but on intentions as well, which in the case of Iran have not been hidden or concealed in any way. Notice how Waltz handles these concerns at the essay:

One reason the danger of a nuclear Iran has been grossly exaggerated is that the debate surrounding it has been distorted by misplaced worries and fundamental misunderstandings of how states generally behave in the international system. The first prominent concern, which undergirds many others, is that the Iranian regime is innately irrational. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, Iranian policy is made not by "mad mullahs" but by perfectly sane ayatollahs who want to survive just like any other leaders. Although Iran's leaders indulge in inflammatory and hateful rhetoric, they show no propensity for self-destruction. It would be a grave error for policymakers in the United States and Israel to assume otherwise.

Yet that is precisely what many U.S. and Israeli officials and analysts have done. Portraying Iran as irrational has allowed them to argue that the logic of nuclear deterrence does not apply to the Islamic Republic. If Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, they warn, it would not hesitate to use it in a first strike against Israel, even though doing so would invite massive retaliation and risk destroying everything the Iranian regime holds dear.

Although it is impossible to be certain of Iranian intentions, it is far more likely that if Iran desires nuclear weapons, it is for the purpose of providing for its own security, not to improve its offensive capabilities (or destroy itself). Iran may be intransigent at the negotiating table and defiant in the face of sanctions, but it still acts to secure its own preservation. Iran's leaders did not, for example, attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz despite issuing blustery warnings that they might do so after the EU announced its planned oil embargo in January. The Iranian regime clearly concluded that it did not want to provoke what would surely have been a swift and devastating American response to such a move.

I mentioned some of this at my previous entry, and there are additional links there: "A Nuclear-Armed Iran May Be the Best Path to Stability to the Middle East."

And recall that Saddam's Iraq is the key recent example of decision-makers either deviating from pure rationality, or more generally leaders subject to strategic misperception resulting in calamitous security outcomes: "Chronic Misperception and U.S.-Iraq Conflict."

RELATED: At the Wall Street Journal, "Iran Tests Missiles After EU Oil Move." And see the ITN video here: "Iran launches long-range missile."

Radical Activists Seize on San Onofre in Post-Fukushima Attack on Nuclear Energy Programs

This plant has been around as long as I can remember. I've always been personally fascinated with it, and nuclear energy generally, and haven't worried that much at all about a nuclear disaster. Years ago, right at Basilone Road (which follows along next to the plant), my skate buddies and I used to run across the 5 Freeway to reach some huge Ameron pipes being built there. The last thing we were worried about was radioactivity. We used to skate with Tony Alva down there, and he talks about it at this essay.

In any case, see the report at the New York Times, "Troubles at a 1960s-Era Nuclear Plant in California May Hint at the Future":

SAN ONOFRE STATE BEACH, Calif. — More than seven million people live within 50 miles of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which is about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. But for decades, residents here largely accepted, if not exactly embraced, the hulking nuclear plant perched on the cliffs above this popular surfing beach as a necessary part of keeping the lights on in a state that uses more electricity than all of Argentina.

“I don’t think about it too much,” said David Vichules, 55, who has been surfing here since before the plant opened in 1968. “I guess it’s risk and benefit.”

All that changed, however, after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in Japan last year, followed in January by a small leak of radioactive steam here caused by the deterioration of steam tubes that had been damaged by vibration and friction. The twin generators at the San Onofre plant have been off-line for five months, and the plant has subsequently become a point of contention in the fight over nuclear power in the United States.

The leak has galvanized opposition to the nuclear plant among local residents, who are calling for San Onofre to remain shuttered for good.

Antinuclear activists from across the country have seized on problems at San Onofre as an opportunity to push California toward a future without nuclear power.

“A lot of people have gotten involved since Fukushima, and now especially since San Onofre has been closed,” said Gary Headrick, the founder of San Clemente Green, a local environmental organization. “It’s really not worth living with this risk. We should shut it down.”

The plant will remain shut through at least the end of the summer while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Southern California Edison, the utility company that operates it, investigate the cause of the leak from the steam tubes.

Officials have said repeatedly that the generators will restart only if they are deemed safe.

Still, any efforts to permanently close the nuclear plant face the ever-growing appetite for electricity in Southern California. San Onofre, the largest power plant in the region, produced 2,200 megawatts, enough to power 1.4 million homes, and also helps import power to the region.

It's always something with the loony left.

These people are freaks --- and their "green" energy alternatives have proven to be boondoggles time and again. You gotta beat these people back like flies. It's ridiculous.

PHOTO CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons.

Angry Left-Wing Racist Attacks Rep. Allen West as 'Bought Mother F*cker'

Maybe the dude's sucking back too many of those Miller Lites.

At the Shark Tank, "Allen West Called a “Bought Mother F*cker”" (via Memeorandum and Marooned in Marin).

Americans Say Presidential Campaign Will Be 'Exhausting'

Presidential campaigns are too long and have gotten longer the past too election cycles. (I think the GOP primary debates stretching back as far as mid-summer of 2011 is a first.) The good news from the Pew survey is that folks think the campaign will be informative. See, "Partisans Agree: Presidential Election Will Be Exhausting":

Republicans and Democrats find little to agree on these days, but they have some similar reactions to the 2012 presidential campaign. Nearly identical percentages of Republicans and Democrats say the election will be exhausting. On the positive side, there also is widespread partisan agreement that the campaign will be informative.

The national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 7-17 among 2,013 adults, finds that just 49% expect the election to be exciting. Nearly six-in-ten Democrats (59%) say the election will be exciting, compared with 51% of Republicans and just 41% of independents.

The expectation that the election will be exhausting is in line with perceptions of the campaign so far. Most Americans say the campaign has been too long and dull (56% each), while 53% say it has been too negative. At the same time, an overwhelming majority (79%) views the presidential campaign as important.

Comparable percentages of Republicans, Democrats and independents say that the campaign has been too long and too negative. And more than eight-in-ten Republicans (85%) and Democrats (83%) say the campaign is important, as do 77% of independents.

However, there are partisan differences in views of campaign 2012. Notably, fewer Republicans than Democrats say the campaign is interesting. Republicans are less likely to say the campaign is interesting – and more likely to view it as dull – than they were in late March, before Mitt Romney effectively wrapped up the GOP nomination.

Currently, 33% of Republicans say the presidential campaign is interesting down from 52% in late March (March 22-25). The share of Republicans describing this year’s campaign as dull has spiked from 42% to 60% since then. By contrast, Democrats are finding the campaign increasingly interesting as the general election gets underway. Currently, 45% say it is interesting, up from 36% in March.

I'm a bit surprised Republican identifiers are now finding the campaign dull. Earlier polls showed 90 percent enthusiasm for Mitt Romney's campaign, and there's a burning fire of opposition to this administration and especially ObamaCare. But if Team Romney keeps blowing the messaging they'll no doubt turn off more potential voters. That Wall Street Journal editorial on that today really nailed the point. As Ben LaBolt demonstrates at the clip, the White House is freaking about the tax issue in the ObamaCare ruling. So it's up to Romney to get it right on the messaging and to fire up the troops for the long battle.

Katy Perry Performs at Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Celebration

My wife loves Katy Perry and wants to see her live in concert. Hey, I'm not going to fight it.

At Celebuzz, "Katy Perry Performs on ‘Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular’ (VIDEO)."

Also, at Toronto's Globe and Mail, "Why is Katy Perry an unstoppable hit machine?"

BONUS: At London's Daily Mail, "Keeping abreast of her calls: Katy Perry places her phone in her cleavage as she enjoys July 4th bike ride around Venice Beach."

The Return of Marxism

I don't think the new communists will pull off the full scale proletarian revolution, but there's no doubt that Marx's revolutionary program has seen a resurgence in global politics. And I only disagree with the Guardian's Stuart Jeffries in assuming that the phenomenon is something new. Communists the world over cheered Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency, and when the markets crashed in 2008 the left saw that as the classic crisis of capitalism. In any case, see "Why Marxism is on the rise again":

Capitalism is in crisis across the globe – but what on earth is the alternative? Well, what about the musings of a certain 19th-century German philosopher? Yes, Karl Marx is going mainstream – and goodness knows where it will end...

Later this week in London, several thousand people will attend Marxism 2012, a five-day festival organised by the Socialist Workers' Party. It's an annual event, but what strikes organiser Joseph Choonara is how, in recent years, many more of its attendees are young. "The revival of interest in Marxism, especially for young people comes because it provides tools for analysing capitalism, and especially capitalist crises such as the one we're in now," Choonara says.

There has been a glut of books trumpeting Marxism's relevance. English literature professor Terry Eagleton last year published a book called Why Marx Was Right. French Maoist philosopher Alain Badiou published a little red book called The Communist Hypothesis with a red star on the cover (very Mao, very now) in which he rallied the faithful to usher in the third era of the communist idea (the previous two having gone from the establishment of the French Republic in 1792 to the massacre of the Paris communards in 1871, and from 1917 to the collapse of Mao's Cultural Revolution in 1976). Isn't this all a delusion?

Aren't Marx's venerable ideas as useful to us as the hand loom would be to shoring up Apple's reputation for innovation? Isn't the dream of socialist revolution and communist society an irrelevance in 2012? After all, I suggest to Rancière, the bourgeoisie has failed to produce its own gravediggers. Rancière refuses to be downbeat: "The bourgeoisie has learned to make the exploited pay for its crisis and to use them to disarm its adversaries. But we must not reverse the idea of historical necessity and conclude that the current situation is eternal. The gravediggers are still here, in the form of workers in precarious conditions like the over-exploited workers of factories in the far east. And today's popular movements – Greece or elsewhere – also indicate that there's a new will not to let our governments and our bankers inflict their crisis on the people."

Read it all at the link (via Memeorandum).

Apple Preps Launch of New Smaller iPad

At PC World, "Report: Apple Preps iPad Mini to Battle Nexus 7, Kindle Fire."

And at WSJ, "Apple Preps for Smaller Tablet: Parts Makers in Asia Gear Up to Produce Device With Smaller Screen Than iPad":

Apple Inc.'s component suppliers in Asia are preparing for mass production in September of a tablet computer with a smaller screen than the iPad, people familiar with the situation said, suggesting a launch for the device is near.

Two of the people said that the tablet's screen will likely be smaller than eight inches. The iPad's screen measures 9.7 inches, unchanged since the first model was released in 2010.

Officials at the component suppliers, who declined to be named, said this week that Apple has told them to prepare for mass production of the smaller tablet. The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Apple was testing such a device but hadn't yet decided whether to proceed with production.

One person said the screen makers Apple is working with include LG Display Co. of South Korea and Taiwan-based AU Optronics Co.

An Apple spokeswoman in California declined to comment.

Analysts said a smaller tablet could help Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple maintain its dominance in a market that keeps getting more crowded. Competitors include Samsung Electronics Co. and Amazon.com Inc., while Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. recently unveiled tablet devices.

Last year, the iPad held a 62% share of the world-wide tablet market, according to market research firm IHS iSuppli, which expects overall tablet sales this year to surge 85% to 126.6 million units.

Continue reading.

San Diego Shoots Its Wad: Entire 'Big Bay Boom' Goes Off in 15 Seconds

The ultimate bummer, at KNSD-TV San Diego, "Fireworks Shot Off Early in Bay" (via Memeorandum).

And for the gay sexual abandon, see Towleroad: "It was an embarrassing moment [for] organizers, to be sure, but provides the viewing public with an incredible, though short-lived, orgy of sparkles, crackles and pops."

WikiLeaks Syria Emails

The news on WikiLeaks' Syria emails has rekindled everything about Julian Assange, the rape allegations, and the U.S. government's effort to indict the cyber-terrorist on espionage charges. FYIW, Glenn Greenwald lays out the stakes at the video. Unlike (the goon) Greenwald, I'd love to see an indictment. And see also Telegraph UK, "Wikileaks begins release of 2.4 million emails from Syrian government."

And if you stay with the video to the second half, Greenwald slams the Obama administration on the SB 1070 immigration decision. It's interesting that Greenwald stresses a major victory for Arizona, as the Court upheld the so-called "show your papers" provision of the law. The administration, goes the argument, was hindered in making the case against that element of the law because it has followed an aggressive deportation program, and hence could only oppose SB 1070 on federalist grounds, not on substance. What Greenwald implies, but doesn't say, is that therefore the Justice Deparmtent's attack on Arizona was purely political, since the administration is already working with local law enforcement to apprehend illegals. Of course, Jan Brewer's been arguing along similar lines the whole time, but it's great to hear the admission from an America-bashing leftist.

Anyway, LAT has more on WikiLeaks and I expect there will be much more news on this throughout the day: "WikiLeaks has data from 2.4 million Syrian emails."

Mitt's Messaging Mismatch

Team Romney's botched response to NFIB is at WSJ's lead editorial, "Romney's Tax Confusion" (via Memeorandum).

And Althouse covers the CBS News interview from yesterday, "Mitt Romney says "The Supreme Court has the final word. And their final word is that Obamacare is a tax":

[Reporter Jan] Crawford moves in with the challenge Romney will always have to deal with: You did the same thing in Massachusetts. It this was a tax, then that was a tax. And we expect him always to answer in about the same way: There's a difference between doing something at the federal level and doing it at the state level.

Read it all at the link.

Jewish Anti-Zionists Attack Israel Online

Ben Cohen is one the best writers on the left's hatred of Israel.

Here's his new essay at Commentary, "Attacking Israel Online":

Throughout the greater Middle East, opposition to the concept and existence of a Jewish state is an idée fixe for hundreds of millions of Arab and non-Arab Muslims. A hatred of Jewish political sovereignty that frequently dovetails with more traditional anti-Semitism animates café discussions and street protests as surely as it prohibits regional political progress. Yet the strand of anti-Zionism that has lately come to attract the most attention in the West is the one articulated by a tiny minority of left-wing Jews at a handful of websites.

Full-time antagonists of Israel such as M.J. Rosenberg, Max Blumenthal, Philip Weiss, and Peter Beinart have accumulated an influence that vastly exceeds their single-digit numbers. This is in part due to the financial sponsorship of successful and well-established media institutions. Until March 2012, Rosenberg was employed by Media Matters for America (MMfA) at a salary of some $130,000 per annum. Weiss was supported for years by the Nation magazine’s Nation Institute. Peter Beinart’s new Open Zion blog is hosted by the Daily Beast, an online publication jointly owned by the Harman family and the Internet media giant IAC.

But Rosenberg, Weiss, and Beinart take a different view of their place in the media conversation. They believe themselves to be fearless truth-tellers who actively resist a censorious tribal culture that bulldozes any hint of discord. Rosenberg offered a pithy insight into this in an April 2012 opinion piece for the website of Al Jazeera. After claiming that pro-Israel advocacy organizations were hindering efforts to secure a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, he concluded with an exhortation. “Being pro-Israel means caring about Israel,” wrote Rosenberg, whose career has been built on the fact that he briefly worked for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee three decades ago. “It does not mean using it as an excuse for power brokering and suppressing dissident voices.”

Dissident voices? Properly understood, the word dissident describes intellectuals and activists operating in oppressive societies. What they do frequently results in imprisonment, torture, and even death. The dissidents of whom Rosenberg speaks so modestly, since they include himself, are not silenced, but rather celebrated, by media establishments ranging from the Huffington Post to the BBC.

The persistent inclusion of these “dissident voices” in discussions of America, Jews, and Israel has proven very useful indeed, since their membership in the tribe is deemed to give them special standing in presenting their indictment of Israel—and, somewhat more subtly, inoculates Gentile critics of the Jewish state against the charge that their attacks on Israel might be anti-Semitic. How can they be if they are merely echoing the arguments made by such passionate, such moral, such fearless, such dissident Jews?

In an Internet age characterized by instant, rolling comment, they have helped to reactivate a set of ideas that many thought had perished with the grubby pamphlets published in the old Soviet Union, screeds that bore titles such as “Zionism: A Tool of Reaction.” Whereas the true dissidents of the Cold War era introduced words such as samizdat into the vocabulary of the West, the ersatz dissidents of the Jewish left have popularized a host of expressions—Judaization, Israel-firster, Zionist apartheid, and so forth—that were once relegated almost entirely to the openly anti-Semitic fringe.

Continue reading.

The Signers of the Declaration Pledged 'To Each Other Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor', and They Made No Empty Boast

A great essay, from Daniel Flynn, at FrontPage Magazine, "Remembering the Founders' Sacrifice."

Theo's Fourth of July Totties

ICYMI, "Independence Day Totty..." and "Bonus 4th Totty..."

What's at Stake This Fourth of July

From Elizabeth Shaw and Michael Novak, at National Review, "On This of All Fourths of July":

On this Fourth of July, religious people of every American tradition are meditating as never before on the foundations of the American practice of religious liberty. On this Fourth of July, as on every other, we celebrate those sacred words of our Founding: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And we celebrate also, as implied in that affirmation, the first clause of the First Amendment to our Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

This year this meditation is more important than ever. For the actions of our government have suddenly made a radical and troubling break from the American tradition of religious liberty. With the force of federal law, President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services has claimed to define what a religious organization is. The definition is narrow and legalistic: “one that (1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets.”

This definition falls woefully short of the full Jewish and Christian conception of religion...

RTWT.

Mitt Romney: The Best of America

Via Theo Spark:

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs: 'Arafat Truther'

I saw this earlier and wasn't going to post, but Israel Matzav administers the epic smackdown, and it's worth spreading viral. See: "It's come to this: Chuckles the Clown becomes an Arafat truther":

...just when you thought that Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs could not possibly sink any lower, we find that @Lizardoid is now giving credibility to the notion that 'someone' ('Israel is going to be the most likely suspect') poisoned Yasser Arafat. I would rate that as being the Middle East equivalent of claiming that George W. Bush hired 19 hijackers to fly two jets into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one into the ground in Pennsylvania on 9/11/2001.

Yes, Charles Johnson - the guy who gave so many of us our start in conservative blogging - has become an Arafat truther.

Also at Diary of Daedalus, "According to al Jazeera":

This is just a sign of Charles now embracing all he was once against. His past support of Israel was one of the major hindrances for the Left to embrace him. Clearly this post is a wink and nod to the Israeli haters on the Left. Will Charles soon be linking to Hizb’Allah’s al Manar next?

MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry Loves Her Some 'Imperialism, Genocide, and Slavery' This Fourth of July

It happens every year.

The progressive freaks step out with their disgusting anti-American attacks on the Fourth of July. Angry White Dude has this, on the black radical feminist hack, "THIS IS HOW MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY VIEWS INDEPENDENCE DAY!":

Dudes and Dudettes…this is a perfect example of leftist lunacy…this is their mindset. This time the topic is celebrating our Independence Day. I don’t know if many of you know who this gal is, but she has a two hour show on the week-ends at the msDNC Funny Farm. She also fills in on different segments of other shows there as well. In this segment she includes genocide, imperialism and of course slavery. So, I’ll cut to the chase display what she states herself… you read, you watch, you decide.

There's excerpts and video at the link.

And see also NewsBusters, "MSNBC's Harris-Perry Marks July 4 By Noting American Imperialism and Genocide, But Also Prisoners with GEDs."

BONUS: Here's more for your pointing and shaming pleasure, via Twitchy, "Shameful: Aaron Sorkin, Left celebrate Independence Day by slamming America; Update: Chris Rock joins in."

Hill Country Barbecue Market

I think we're just having chili and cheeseburgers, but boy does this sound delicious.

At the New York Times, "An Homage to Texas, by the Pound":

Moist brisket on greasy paper is not the only reason to eat at Hill Country, but it’s a convincing one. The term “moist brisket” is the restaurant’s euphemism for the deckle and tip of the brisket, upholstered in fat that will slowly render and baste the meat during the 13 or 14 hours it spends in the smoker. Carved just before serving, the meat is juicy throughout, but the parts that really get me going are the blackened edges that give way to a mahogany-tinted quarter-inch or so of smoky borderland between crust and interior.

The moist brisket, along with the beef and pork ribs that carry a similarly peppery, crunchy top layer, show Hill Country’s rotisserie barbecue pits at their finest. The restaurant is a state-of-the-art Manhattan homage to the preindustrial craft of Texas barbecue, particularly as it is practiced in the town of Lockhart.

The flavors Hill Country achieves in its pits are not precisely the ones I remember from meals at Lockhart’s legendary rivals, Smitty’s Market and Kreuz Market. At both places, the smoke was deeply entrenched in the meat.

Prime Minister Netanyahu Sends Fourth of July Greetings to the United States

Via Israel Matzav:

X Games Double Loop

At Motor Authority: "Double Loop World Record Set at X Games: VIDEO."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "X Games: Duo sets world record with Hot Wheels double-loop dare."

David Blankenhorn and the Power of Left-Wing Intimidation

I was thinking of writing about David Blankenhorn after he came out for homosexual marriage a couple of weeks back at NYT. He was bullied into changing his position. He barely wimpered in defense of traditional marriage at the Prop. 8 show trial. So I wasn't surprised in the least.

Anyway, see this outstanding essay, from Dennis Prager, at Townhall, "Roberts, Blankenhorn, and the Power of Liberal Intimidation":

Given how many more Americans define themselves as conservative rather than as liberal, let alone than as left, how does one explain the success of left-wing policies?

One answer is the appeal of entitlements and a desire to be taken care of. It takes a strong-willed citizen to vote against receiving free benefits. But an even greater explanation is the saturation of Western society by left-wing hate directed at the right. The left's demonization, personal vilification, and mockery of its opponents have been the most powerful tools in the left-wing arsenal for a century.

Since Stalin labeled Leon Trotsky -- the man who was the father of Russian Bolshevism! -- a "fascist," the Left has labeled its ideological opponents evil. And when you control nearly all of the news media and schools, that labeling works.

The liberal media even succeeded in blaming the right wing for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy even though his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a pro-Soviet, pro-Castro communist. Similarly, just one day after a deranged man, Jared Loughner, attempted to kill Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and murdered six people in the process, The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote that it was right-wing hate that had provoked Loughner: "It's the saturation of our political discourse -- and especially our airwaves -- with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence. Where's that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let's not make a false pretense of balance: it's coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. . . ."

Krugman made it all up. But what matters to most of those who speak for the left is not truth. It is destroying the good name of its opponents. That is the modus operandi of the left.

It works.

Two examples in the last month bear testimony to its efficacy. One was the overwhelmingly likely motivation of Chief Justice John Roberts to declare the ObamaCare individual mandate constitutional despite his ruling that, as passed, the mandate was in fact unconstitutional.

The other was an op-ed column that David Blankenhorn, the prominent conservative advocate for marriage and against same-sex marriage, wrote for The New York Times.

First Blankenhorn.

David Blankenhorn has committed his professional life to fighting for the institution of marriage. And as recently as 2010, he testified on behalf of California Proposition 8, which, in 2008, amended the California Constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman -- and which was immediately challenged in the courts, where liberal judges overturned it.

Blankenhorn was vilified throughout the liberal and gay media (which, in their invective against proponents of retaining the man-woman definition of marriage, are indistinguishable). As Mark Oppenheimer, editor of the "Beliefs" column in The New York Times wrote:

"During the trial [over the constitutionality of Proposition 8] and in the immediate aftermath, Blankenhorn became a national figure; he was . . . the butt of ridicule . . . . And now, he has decided to give up that fight.

"Blankenhorn would be ridiculed in The New York Times, and he would be . . . [ridiculed] in a play by an Oscar-winning screenwriter, starring a bevy of Hollywood stars."

Blankenhorn told Oppenheimer:

"I had an old community organizing buddy who wrote a note to me after the trial and said, how does it feel to be America's most famous bigot? I used to think you were a good person. Now I know you're a bad person. How does it feel to know that your tombstone will read that you're just a bigot."

Two weeks ago, Blankenhorn wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times in which he announced that he now supports same-sex marriage....

And from the conclusion:

David Blankenhorn's change -- he has admitted he is tired of fighting the culture wars, and he has gone from being the object of New York Times derision to being a New York Times hero -- and Justice Roberts' change -- New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote a column lauding Roberts for his "statesmanship" -- reassure progressives that ridicule, demonization, and character assassination work. With the stakes so high in the forthcoming election, expect it to only increase.

Well, it's already happening. In fact, Jonathan Krohn, who wrote an excellent little free-market treatise when he was just 14, has allegedly had a "change of heart" about conservatism. It's reported that he backs most positions on the left but hesitates to call himself a progressive, lest he end up looking like the pathetically spineless douchebag loser that he is now. I'm not going to be surprised if he comes out homosexual in the years ahead as well. Seems like everyone else is nowadays, the freaks.

See the book here: Defining Conservatism: The Principles That Will Bring Our Country Back.

Military Personnel Take Oath of Citizenship From Flight Deck of USS Midway

A great story, at the Los Angeles Times, "On the Midway's deck, military personnel take oath of citizenship":

SAN DIEGO — After the ceremony was complete, after he had listened to the speeches and repeated the 141 words that made him a U.S. citizen, Marine Lance Cpl. Hua Fan admitted to being a bit overwhelmed.

"It's going to take a while before it settles in," said Fan, smiling broadly. The 23-year-old, who was born outside Beijing, added: "I've felt like a part of America for some time, but now I'm an official part."

It was a common sentiment among the 35 active duty U.S. military members from 19 countries and territories who took the oath of allegiance in a short but emotional ceremony Monday on the flight deck of the carrier museum Midway.

"It's been a dream of mine for a long time: to become a real American," said Marine Lance Cpl. Andre Baxter, 22, from Jamaica. "And now it's real."

The federal government has a program to expedite citizenship applications from military personnel. Three times each year — just before Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Veterans Day — the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services holds naturalization ceremonies in San Diego strictly for members of the military.

Officials tailor their remarks to the specific holiday. In this case, it was a discussion of the early days of the American Revolution.

"Our nation was founded by young patriots like yourself," retired Rear Adm. Mac McLaughlin, president and chief executive officer of the Midway Museum, told the gathering.

'The Amazing Spider-Man' in Theaters

As I was saying, I'm way behind on my movies. I took the boys to see "The Avengers" on Sunday --- and we were all quite pleased with that.

But I'm not sure if I can warm up to a new Spider-Man franchise so soon. We'll see. Kenneth Turan has a review at the Los Angeles Times and he says it's not too bad after all. See: "Review: 'The Amazing Spider-Man's' Peter and Gwen are super."

The trailer, on YouTube, is here.

'Unpatriotic Debt'

Via Lonely Con (via Memeorandum):

The Truth About the Homosexual Left

From a gay conservative, Terrence Jackson, at Right Wing News:

The gay Left must come to an end.

This isn’t to say that I wish harm to the minions of the liberal gay community, but rather that the time has arrived for a more reasonable and rational debate, freed from the intolerance and bigotry of the champions of far-left gay advocacy. And this debate can never, and will never, occur as long as people like Dan Savage remain the best possible choices to represent a growing collective of activists.

I, along with many other gay conservatives, took issue with the creator of the ‘It Gets Better’ series of videos for his comments recently on Twitter, where he referred to gay conservative group GOProud as “house faggots”. As this is a man that has been known for representing millions of young gay men and women, it is far from inspiring to see one of the most well-known gay figures hurling hateful insults in the direction of people just like him. And for what? All because they choose to support a candidate that doesn’t align with their personal views on gay issues? It seems that Mr. Savage and his ilk suffer from something far more severe than a disdain for GOProud. They have a disdain for Americans and their values.

The evidence is all around us. From the gay rights activists captured on film giving the middle finger to a picture of Reagan, to Joy Behar claiming gay conservatives only “think with their penises”, the gay Left and its most impassioned wingnut allies have shown significant hatred for anything that differs from their defined norms. It is common practice to insist that the republican party is the party of anti-gay bigots ( though it was Reagan’s voice that helped prevent the passage of the Briggs Initiave), and while many on the gay Left will speak of the injustices suffered at the hands of cruel, hateful people, they take no issue with comparing gay conservatives to “jewish nazis“, and so on. It is this double standard that divides us further, and endangers not just an important political discourse, but the livelihood of decent, hardworking people.

The gay Left has made a name for themselves by being unreasonable, combative, and unabashedly shameful in their conduct. They claim to care about the political system that so many of us respect and value, but would never vote for even the best ecomonic strategist for office if his views on gay marriage weren’t completely in support of it. They condemn every comment made by someone who they have pegged as anti-gay, but as of late, have been completely silent on the divisive comments that come from within their own community. In a community of politically-active gay leftists, to dissent is to be cast out, no matter what you stand for as a person. And this is troubling.

It is the lack of patriotism and respect for American ideals that pushes so many away from the gay liberal agenda...

A devastating takedown of the radical left's agenda of hate. More at the link.

RELATED: "Oh God, What Next? California Bill Would Allow Children to Have More Than Two Parents."

VIDEO: Bar Refaeli Under Water

Time for a swim?

See London's Daily Mail, "Specs appeal: Bar Refaeli gets her sexy geek look on and goes for a swim in her clothes to promote new underwear line."

It's an Unconstitutional Penalty

As noted early, the Supreme Court's ObamaCare ruling is an electoral gift to the GOP, but Team Romney can't fail on the messaging. See Hot Air, "Team Romney: No way are we declaring a “ceasefire” on health care."

Patterico has the background on "it's an unconstitutional penalty." Republicans need to push back hard against the Democrats, who won't stop denying the mandate is a tax. See: "Romney Advisor: Romney Thinks Mandate Is a Penalty."

And when you have folks like Wolf Blitzer (unusually) hammering Team Obama and the DNC, there's not a moment to waste in beating back against this monstrosity. See Randy's Roundtable, "One More Time...It's A Penalty!"

More at Legal Insurrection, "Beware journalists turning conservatives into a circular firing squad."

Let Freedom Ring: “We Can Do Better Than an America Where Uncle Sam Sheds Tears”

Via Freedom's Lighthouse, "New Hard-Hitting Ad Shows “Uncle Sam” Shedding a Tear and Holding a Tin Cup Thanks to Four Years of Barack Obama: “We Can Do Better. We are Not a Beggar Nation.” – Video 7/3/12":

Former Teen Prostitute Zahia Dehar Shows Lingerie Collection at Paris Couture Week

She's 20 now, and prostitution is legal in France, but it's 18 or over and some star soccer players apparently paid her for sex when she was 17.

At London's Daily Mail, "Call girl to catwalk queen: Former teen prostitute accused of underage sex with footballers shows lingerie collection at Paris couture week."

'The Glorious Fourth'

Boy, Bill Whittle's been busy!

Here's another great clip, from the Afterburner series, via Glenn Reynolds:

Dependence Day

From Gretchen Hamel, at IBD, "On This Independence Day, We're Dependent On Deficits and Debt":

As we celebrate the July 4th holiday marking the U.S.' historic break with Great Britain, it's worth considering: Are we as independent as we think we are?

In fact, the numbers suggest that we are deeply dependent — on deficit spending and debt. Our nation's current debt, nearing $16 trillion, and our annual budget deficit of $1.2 trillion, indicate that our government's addiction to spending is nowhere near its limit.

Of that $16 trillion debt, the U.S. owes more than $5 trillion to foreign nations, an all-time high. So much for independence. We're now a debtor nation, and unless we get our fiscal house in order, that debt will endanger our nation's prospects for long-term growth.

If that sounds alarmist, consider this: In August 2011, Vice President Joe Biden visited China. This wasn't just any diplomatic visit — it was the supplication of a debtor, in which Biden undertook to reassure our Chinese debtors that their investment is sound.

Biden assured his hosts that they had "nothing to worry about" when it comes to the U.S. honoring its obligations. It wasn't the first time a high-ranking U.S. official has had to offer soothing words to our creditors, and at this rate it won't be the last....

Ultimately, our heavy reliance on foreign debt is the symptom of a much larger problem, which is our nation's relentless addiction to government spending that drives up deficits and demands continued foreign investment, regardless of the risk and the cost.

So as we commemorate our independence, it's worth reflecting on the ways in which our nation's leadership has made us deeply dependent on other nations, and the risks that dependence brings. If there's good news, it's that this crisis can be averted — if policymakers in Washington take action to cut spending, reduce the deficit and pay down our nearly $16 trillion debt.

That achievement would be almost like a second declaration of independence and well worth celebrating.

Read the whole thing.

Photo: Gretchen Hamel, Executive Director of Public Notice.

Battle Hymn of the Republic

Via Nice Deb:

The Wikipedia entry is here.

Holiday Rule 5 Roundup

I need to do a Rule 5 roundup for my blog buddies.

First up is Theo Spark: "SaBo-FX - Gspot (SFW Just)."

And at Astute Bloggers, "YAMILA DIAZ-RAHI: GUARANTEED NOT HALAL.... FOR NOW..." And Camp of the Saints, "Rule 5 Saturday: Gio Ott."

Plus, Reaganite's going for the conservative women of late, 'cuz they're hot, "RED HOT Conservative Chicks: Townhall Editor Katie Pavlich!"

More at the Last Tradition, "The CW's bikini babes of The Catalina frolic in their swimsuits on South Beach."

At Pirate's Cove, "If All You See…is an ocean that will rise up and swamp us all sometime in the future, you might just be a Warmist." And Randy's Roundtable, "Thursday Nite Tart (on Friday): Yasmin Jordao."

Even more at Proof Positive, "Friday Night Babe: Danneel Harris Ackles!" And Gator Doug's, "DaleyGator DaleyBabe Jessica Biel."

See The Other McCain as well, "Rule 5 Sunday: Exile On Duke Street."

BONUS: At BCF, "Just In Time For Canada Day...Shera Bechard - Canadian Genius!"

Happy Fourth of July!

From Wendy Fiore on Twitter, wishing you bountiful freedom.

Charles Krauthammer: Justice Roberts Was 'Intimidated' By the Left

He nails it.

See Bill O'Reilly's interview with Charles Krauthammer at RealClearPolitics.

And more here: "Custodian of the Court: Charles Krauthammer Explains Chief Justice John Roberts' ObamaCare Ruling."

And in case you haven't read it yet, here's the opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius.

The strange news keeps coming out about this. See Owen Kerr at Volokh, "So Now We Have Supreme Court Leaks Disagreeing With the Substance of Other Supreme Court Leaks" (via Memeorandum).

And John Podhoretz thinks Roberts caved to the bullying, "Roberts the Coward":

Our system grants federal judges lifetime tenure precisely to shield them from political pressure. Of course, the Supreme Court has often fallen short of that ideal. The early 20th century political wit Finley Peter Dunne, writing in the voice of Chicago saloonkeeper Mr. Dooley, famously declared flatly that “the Supreme Coourt follows th’ illiction returns.”

Yet the polls show the unpopularity of ObamaCare, as did the overwhelming results of the election in November 2010 that followed the bill’s passage. So, if Roberts had been following election returns and public opinion, he wouldn’t have hesitated to overturn.

No, he seems to have flip-flopped over worries about the hostility a 5-4 decision overturning ObamaCare would generate among pundits. No, let me be more precise — among liberal pundits like E.J. Dionne and the editorialists at The New York Times.

It seems astonishing that the chief justice of the United States would be motivated by fear of E.J. Dionne and the like.

But there it is. And if this is indeed why the chief justice changed his vote — out of fear of attacks on the court’s legitimacy by scribblers like me — then the court’s legitimacy deserves to be challenged.

What legitimacy does a decision on the most important case of the last decade have if a justice came to it for reasons other than his understanding of the law?

Not to mention that the naked intellectual cynicism on display in the Roberts opinion has satisfied no one.

In her concurring opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg heaps scorn upon it. The dissent by the four conservatives whom Roberts abandoned “deliberately ignored Roberts’ decision,” according to Crawford’s reporting, “as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.”

That's sounds overly harsh, actually. Roberts was bullied, but I don't think it's immoral that he switched. People change their minds for many reasons. And depending how Team Romney plays it, the Supreme Court might have helped deliver the election to the Republicans. More on that later.

Meanwhile, Ann Althouse argues that Roberts has made it extremely difficult for Democrats to use Commerce Cause powers to expand government going forward: "'The commentary on John Roberts's solo walk into the Affordable Care Act wilderness is converging on a common theme: The Chief Justice is a genius'."

Ashley Tisdale 27th Birthday Party in Malibu: Actress Perfectly Toned in Teaser Bikini Top and Skimpy Shredded Denim Shorts

The Iconix Brand Group sent me a public relations notice: "Birthday Girl Ashley Tisdale with Her Brand New Op Vespa."

I guess my babe blogging is getting some results! I'm right up there with London's Daily Mail, "Ashley Tisdale celebrates her 27th birthday with a wild beach party in a hot yellow tassel bikini."

Also at E! Online, "Bikini Shot of the Day: Ashley Tisdale Shows Off Her Birthday Suit!"