2012 London Olympic Games Opening Ceremony

It's starting.

At NBC, "Britain stages a spectacular welcome for the world."

And at CNN, "London 2012: Live blog."

4:45PM Pacific: At the Guardian, "The best of today's pictures in the build up to the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony."

5:17PM Pacific: The New York Times is live-blogging: "Live Coverage of the Opening Ceremony."

5:28PM Pacific: London's Daily Mail has a thrilling roundup: "Going for gold! Team USA (complete with Made in China berets) makes star-spangled entrance at London 2012 Olympics."

5:44PM Pacific: More spectacular photos at Daily Mail: "Britain fires up the world: London gets the 2012 Games under way with the Greatest Show On Earth (rounded off by Macca, of course)."

5:51PM Pacific: Yes, I've been think the same thing, at WSJ, "Olympic Boos for NBC Arrive With No Delay."

During the opening ceremony to the 2012 London Olympics, many U.S. viewers were upset they couldn’t watch it live. NBC waived its right to live-stream the ceremony, choosing to show it on tape delay later in the evening, during primetime coverage.

Viewers vented their frustrations on Twitter. Some expressed anger at NBC directly. Others said they were disappointed they couldn’t watch the ceremony while simultaneously live-tweeting it, as British viewers did. We called NBC for comment, and will update this post if they respond.

Check the link for the response.

6:07PM Pacific: Now at the Times of Israel, "No Munich tribute as Olympics open with dazzling ceremony":

Israel TV commentary goes silent for 30 seconds in tribute to the Munich 11 as Israeli team enters stadium. Flag-bearer Shahar Zubari sports national flag cut into his hair-do. IOC chief Rogge, who rebuffed Munich campaigners, hails Olympic spirit. Sports Minister Livnat stands, head-bowed, to honor victims.

The London Olympics 2012 opening ceremony made for riveting viewing for almost four hours on Friday night. Its artistic content was overseen by director Danny Boyle, and was eccentric, compelling, and frequently surreal. Then came the delegations of athletes. And then the speeches.

Sports Minister Limor Livnat, wearing a black ribbon on her arm, stood in head-bowed, silent tribute to the 11 murdered Israeli athletes of Munich 1972, as International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge spoke — an image not shown on the Olympic feed broadcast by Israel’s IBA.

6:23PM Pacific: At the Times of Israel, "Sports minister stands silently at Olympic opening event":

Limor Livnat’s tribute to murdered Munich athletes, during IOC president’s speech, not broadcast on official Olympic TV feed; Israel TV shows picture after ceremony ends.

6:32PM Pacific: At the Los Angeles Times, "Let the Olympic Games begin: Unity is message as youth light torch":

LONDON -- Organizers of the London Olympics did exactly what they intended.

They surprised the world.

Roger Bannister, the first man to break the four-minute barrier in a mile race, did not take the final torch leg to light the Olympic flame as many had expected. Instead it was a ceremony of inclusion.

Seven young athletes, the hope of the sports future in Britain, were joined by past icons in the torch ceremony Friday night in the opening ceremony. The youngsters moved to the center of the field of play and each lighted a stem that ignited more than 200 petals. This eventually converged into a "flame of unity."

Others thought to be in contention for the final honor were rower Steve Redgrave, decathlete Daley Thompson and even soccer icon David Beckham. Earlier in the week, one bookmaker, anticipating the choice of Bannister, quit taking bets on him.

Beckham, of course, was involved in the torch's journey to Olympic Stadium, driving a speedboat on the Thames with soccer-playing youngster Jade Bailey aboard. Bailey handed the torch to Redgrave, who carried it into the stadium.

It culminated a magical night in London, the return of the Olympic Games here for the third time. The last time was 1948, and, often, the opening ceremony felt like it took 64 years to complete, a long journey deep into the night ... and morning.

The ambitious production, engineered by filmmaker and artistic director Danny Boyle, took more than 3 hours 45 minutes. Occasional rain fell on Olympic Stadium in the early part of the program.

But the showers were long gone by the time the youngsters supplied the emotional punch.

7:56PM Pacific: At the New York Times, "A Five-Ring Opening Circus, Weirdly and Unabashedly British":

LONDON — With its hilariously quirky Olympic opening ceremony, a wild jumble of the celebratory and the fanciful; the conventional and the eccentric; and the frankly off-the-wall, Britain presented itself to the world Friday night as something it has often struggled to express even to itself: a nation secure in its own post-empire identity, whatever that actually is.

The noisy, busy, witty, dizzying production somehow managed to feature a flock of sheep (plus a busy sheepdog), the Sex Pistols, Lord Voldemort, the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a suggestion that the Olympic rings were forged by British foundries during the Industrial Revolution, the seminal Partridge Family reference from “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” a group of people dressed like so many members of Sgt. Pepper’s band, some rustic hovels tended by rustic peasants, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and, in a paean to the National Health Service, a zany bunch of dancing nurses and bouncing sick children on huge hospital beds.

It was neither a nostalgic sweep through the past nor a bold vision of a brave new future. Rather, it was a sometimes slightly insane portrait of a country that has changed almost beyond measure since the last time it hosted the Games, in the grim postwar summer of 1948.

Britain was so poor then that it housed its athletes in old army barracks, made them bring their own towels and erected no buildings for the Games. The Olympics cost less than £750,000, turned a small profit and made the nation proud that it had had managed to rise to the occasion in the face of such adversity.

There was that same sense of relief intermingled with self-satisfaction this time. But such was the grandeur of 2012, even in these tough economic times, that 80,000 people sat comfortably in a new Olympic Stadium, having traveled by sleek new bullet trains and special V.I.P. road lanes to a new park that has completely transformed once-derelict east London.

A little rain fell, but it hardly mattered. Queen Elizabeth II was there, after co-starring with a tuxedoed Daniel Craig, also known as James Bond, in a witty video in which she appears to parachute from a helicopter (in fact, she entered the park the usual way). Looking mystified at times — the ceremony was pitched to a generation different from hers — she presided over a bevy of lesser royals and Prime Minister David Cameron.

The first lady, Michelle Obama, was in the audience to cheer on the United States athletes, who, it must be said, did a lot of cheering for themselves anyway during the athletes’ procession. And Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was there, too, although he was practically Public Enemy No. 1 around here after he appeared to question the British capacity for enthusiasm, something only Britons are allowed to do...

Israel Underwhelmed by Surprise Munich Memorial

At the Jerusalem Post.

Families say unannounced minute of silence in London was a PR stunt aimed at deflecting criticism against IOC.

Also, Limor Livnat, Israel's Minister of Culture and Sport, will protest at the opening ceremonies. See: "Limor Livnat to stand in protest at Games opening ceremony."

More from Paula in Israel, "Munich 11 - They're All Gone."

Palestinians Cheer IOC's Rejection of Moment of Silence for Munich Massacre

At Yediot Ahronot, "Palestinians welcome IOC's rejection of moment of silence."

RELATED: At Atlas Shrugs, "LEBANESE OLYMPIC TEAM DEMANDS BARRIER SEPARATION FROM ISRAEL SQUAD (AND IOC COMPLIES)." (Via Memeorandum.)

And Astute Bloggers, "DISGUSTING: DHIMMI OLYMPIC COMMITTEE KOWTOWS TO RACIST ARAB ANTISEMITISM."

More at Memeorandum.

EXTRA: From Deborah Lipstadt, "No, Open Zion, Deborah Lipstadt Won’t Shut Up: Jews shouldn't be satisfied by an impromptu Munich commemoration."

Investors Flee Facebook

At the New York Times, "Facebook Delivers an Earnings Letdown":

SAN FRANCISCO — Unhappy with Facebook’s first financial report as a public company Thursday, investors fled the stock in droves even as Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, extolled its growth prospects to industry analysts.

The disillusionment of investors was clear in after-hours trading, and when the market opened on Friday the depth of the disappointment was even more pronounced. Shortly before 11 a.m., the stock was down 14 percent, to slightly under $23 a share, a new low. That came on top of an 8 percent decline in regular trading on Thursday, even before the earnings announcement, on the chill from weak earnings from the social gaming creator Zynga, a major Facebook partner.

Since going public two months ago at $38 a share, Facebook has seen its stock lose 40 percent of its value.

Mr. Zuckerberg has rarely spoken publicly about the company he built in his dorm room eight years ago. But nothing he and his lieutenants said Thursday about their plans to make money by advertising to Facebook users seemed to reassure investors.

“Obviously we’re disappointed about how the stock is traded,” said David Ebersman, the chief financial officer. “But the important thing for us is to stay focused on the fact that we’re the same company now as we were before.”

The financial report for the company’s second quarter did contain some good news. Revenue was up 32 percent, beating analysts’ predictions. But profits were not impressive, and the total number of users inched up only slowly.

“With the unprecedented hype around the company’s I.P.O., some investors believe more upside would have materialized — higher revenues, higher earnings,” said Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus.

This don't look so good, do they?

Why the Obama Campaign is Suddenly So Worried

"Four Little Words," according to Kimberly Strassel:

What's the difference between a calm and cool Barack Obama, and a rattled and worried Barack Obama? Four words, it turns out.

"You didn't build that" is swelling to such heights that it has the president somewhere unprecedented: on defense. Mr. Obama has felt compelled—for the first time in this campaign—to cut an ad in which he directly responds to the criticisms of his now-infamous speech, complaining his opponents took his words "out of context."

That ad follows two separate ones from his campaign attempting damage control. His campaign appearances are now about backpedaling and proclaiming his love for small business. And the Democratic National Committee produced its own panicked memo, which vowed to "turn the page" on Mr. Romney's "out of context . . . BS"—thereby acknowledging that Chicago has lost control of the message.

The Obama campaign has elevated poll-testing and focus-grouping to near-clinical heights, and the results drive the president's every action: his policies, his campaign venues, his targeted demographics, his messaging. That Mr. Obama felt required—teeth-gritted—to address the "you didn't build that" meme means his vaunted focus groups are sounding alarms.

The obsession with tested messages is precisely why the president's rare moments of candor—on free enterprise, on those who "cling to their guns and religion," on the need to "spread the wealth around"—are so revealing. They are a look at the real man. It turns out Mr. Obama's dismissive words toward free enterprise closely mirror a speech that liberal Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren gave last August.

Ms. Warren's argument—that government is the real source of all business success—went viral and made a profound impression among the liberal elite, who have been pushing for its wider adoption. Mr. Obama chose to road-test it on the national stage, presumably thinking it would underline his argument for why the wealthy should pay more. It was a big political misstep, and now has the Obama team seriously worried...

Continue reading.

Smokin'! — Britney Spears Steps Out in Slinky Sequins for 'X-Factor' Boot Camp

Lovely.

At London's Daily Mail, "Bringing the seXy Factor! Britney Spears steps out in tiny shorts and slinky sequins as her outfits appear to get even racier."

Suspect James Holmes Was Seeing Psychiatrist at University Before Massacre

Some news out that signals bad news for the University of Colorado Denver, IMHO.

At USA Today, "Defense: Shooting suspect seeing psychiatrist":

DENVER (AP) – Court papers say the former graduate student accused in the Colorado movie theater shooting was being treated by a psychiatrist at the university where he studied.

The revelation was disclosed Friday in a defense motion. The motion sought to discover the source of leaks to some media outlets that a package that James Holmes sent the psychiatrist contained a notebook with descriptions of an attack.

The motion says the package contained communications between Holmes and Dr. Lynne Fenton that should be shielded from public view.

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Colorado judge bars school from releasing James Holmes documents."

Plus, Holmes is claiming amnesia: "Batman killer claims he has amnesia and doesn't remember opening fire in crowded movie theater... as he complains the food in jail is making his stomach hurt."

Horrific Death: 12-Year-Old Amaro Viana Drowned in Boiling Hot Water After Watching Both Parents Murdered by Black South African Thugs

The legacy of Mandela.

At Telegraph UK, "South African 12-year-old drowned in boiling water after seeing parents killed":

A 12-year-old boy was drowned in boiling water after seeing his mother raped and killed and his father hacked to death by three men who broke into his home south of Johannesburg, South Africa.

And at London's Daily Mail, "The murders so brutal they shocked even South Africa: Couple shot dead, then son aged 12 is drowned in scalding bath."

So much for truth and reconciliation.

More at the San Francisco Chronicle, "Divided South Africa honors Mandela's birthday."

President Obama Has Traveled All Over the World — But Not to Israel

Not during his presidency, at least.

Via the Weekly Standard, "'Where's Obama?' Anywhere but Israel."

Also at Israel Matzav, "Where's President Obama?"

Bar Refaeli in Elle France

A nice pictorial, via Hollywood Rag.

Parlez-vous français? The French Elle is here.

Smokin' Supermodels, Then and Now

Some beautiful women.

At the New York Times, "When Beauty Fades: Supermodels as They Age Are Focus of Documentary."

Notice Paulina Porizkova at the clip, one of the greatest of all the Sports Illustrated hotties.

Those were the days.

U.S. Economy Skyrockets as Growth Surges at 1.5 Percent of GDP!

Just kidding.

The economy's not skyrocketing. See NYT, "U.S. Economy Slowed to a Tepid 1.5% Rate of Growth."

Ed Morrissey has more, "Breaking: Q2 GDP 1.5%; Update: 2011Q4 revised upward 1.1 points to 4.1%?"

VIDEO CREDIT: Marathon Pundit.

#RomneyShambles

I wasn't even on Twitter yesterday, but I'll venture a guess "#RomneyShambles" was the leading hashtag.

The Independent UK has it, "#Romneyshambles: 'Some Americans just shouldn't leave the country', says Carl Lewis." (At Memeorandum.)

Also, at Althouse, "'Romney book: Britain is a tiny island that makes stuff nobody wants'." (At Memeorandum.) Ann posts crucial excerpts from Romney's book, No Apology, something that Foreign Policy didn't do, because Romney's conservative, no doubt:

Now Foreign Policy — a respected journal? — ends its out of context squib with snark: "Its roads and houses are small? The trees probably aren't the right height either." I'm giving you the whole context that Foreign Policy didn't want to deal with. It's about the British decline into socialism. What do you say we take that seriously?

Socialism/capitalism — that's how campaign 2012 has been framed. Let's stare that issue in the face. Sorry if the Brits' feelings are hurt, but this is about us.

She's right, but no one can help Romney on the gaffes, except Romney. Get it together man, sheesh.

More from Robert Stacy McCain, "Ungrateful Limeys!"

Progressives Attack Professor Mark Regnerus Over Same-Sex Parenting Research

This is a must-read article from Andrew Ferguson, at the Weekly Standard, "Revenge of the Sociologists."

Folks should read the whole thing, especially for the methodological discussion of Professor Regnerus' study, "How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study."

Here's part of Ferguson's synopsis:

Regnerus hired the public polling firm Knowledge Networks to interview a random sample of 15,508 Americans. From these another sample of nearly 3,000 was taken of young adults born between 1972 and 1992. Roughly 60 percent of the respondents said they spent their entire childhoods with both their biological mother and father. The rest were identified according to the type of family they grew up in: single-parent, adoptive, “blended” or stepfamily, divorced. Another category comprised those who said that one of their parents had a same-sex relationship before the respondents were 18. The group was very small—175 said their mothers had been involved in a same-sex relationship, 73 said their fathers had. Still, it was large enough, according to Regnerus and his consultants, to yield to statistical manipulation.

Only one large nationally based sample had been used before in gay parenting research. The Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfield looked at how the children of gay parents compared with their counterparts from straight families on one outcome: whether the kids performed at an “age-appropriate” level in school. Rosenfield found no difference between the two groups. Regnerus and his colleagues were more ambitious. They checked for 40 different long-term outcomes that would carry over to adulthood. Are you happy in your current romantic relationship? Are you on government assistance, or were you as a child? Any thoughts of suicide in the past 12 months? Respondents were asked to classify their sexual orientation, whether they’d ever been in therapy, whether they’d been convicted of a crime, and to list their income, educational level, and employment history. Several questions explored whether they had been bullied in school or sexually abused as children.

One basic finding immediately leapt out—how few Americans between the ages of 19 and 39 say their father or mother had ever had a same-sex relationship: 1.7 percent. It was also clear that the nature of gay parenting has changed quite a bit from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, when these young adults were children. Typically, Regnerus said, they were born from heterosexual unions that went bust; nowadays the children of homosexual couples are often “planned”—brought into a family through adoption, in vitro fertilization, or surrogate motherhood.

Regnerus found much to contradict the “no difference” view. On 25 of the 40 outcomes, young adults who said their mother had a lesbian relationship (he calls these respondents LMs) differed in a statistically significant way from young adults reared by their parents in intact biological families (IBFs). Among those whose fathers had a gay relationship (GFs), 11 outcomes were different from the IBFs.

And the differences were almost always negative for LMs and GFs. LMs in particular were far more likely to be on public assistance and to have received public assistance as children; to suffer depression; to be cohabiting; and to describe themselves as unhappy in their romantic relationships. Their income on average was lower, and so were their educational attainments. More of them were unemployed. And they were far more likely to report that they’d been abused by an adult as children. The differences between the GFs and the IBFs were smaller and less significant—there was no difference, for example, in reports of childhood sex abuse. And GFs were much more likely to have voted in the last election. In case you were wondering.

Regnerus wrote up his findings and submitted them to the editor of Social Science Research, who in turn submitted the paper to a panel of peers for approval. Three other scholars wrote critiques to appear alongside Regnerus’s paper. He also turned over the findings to the Witherspoon Foundation, which prepared a publicity campaign to unveil the new research: press interviews with Reg-nerus, op-eds by him and others, and background briefings for reporters and friendly scholars.

Then he sat back waiting for publication, expecting not much more than heck to break loose.

As of mid-July, a month after his paper was published, these are some of the things that have happened to Mark Regnerus. Three of his colleagues in the sociology department at UT joined with a fourth to -publish a widely distributed op-ed in the Huffington Post accusing him of “besmirching” the university through his “irresponsible and reckless misrepresentation of social science research.” Led by Gary Gates, the UCLA demographer who had declined Regnerus’s offer to help design the study, more than 200 “researchers and scholars” signed a letter to the editor of Social Science Research. The letter demanded that the editor “publicly disclose the reasons” why he published the paper and insisted that he hire scholars more sensitive to “LGBT parenting issues” to write a critique for the journal’s next edition. UT’s Director of Research Integrity sent Regnerus a letter informing him that a formal complaint of “scientific misconduct” had been lodged against him. The complaint, made by a gay blogger/activist/“investigative journalist” called Scott Rose, triggered an official inquiry into Regnerus’s research methods and his relationship with the Witherspoon Foundation; he’s now preparing to appear before a panel of faculty investigators. Requests have been filed with the Texas attorney general’s office demanding that Regnerus, as an employee of a state-run institution, make public all email and correspondence related to his study. And he has hired a lawyer.

A large number of his fellow social scientists—members in good standing of the guild of LGBT researchers—would like to destroy his career.

Now, be sure to finish reading Ferguson's report. The main problem with the Regnerus study is that the sample of children raised by same sex couple was minute. There are simply not enough kids raised by intact homosexual couples to generate statistically significant findings, so Regernus had to expand categories, which courted controversy. All of this was anticipated in the paper, however, and apparently these are the exact same problems of all previous research on such families in the LGBT literature over the past few decades. But that didn't stop gay activists from seeking to destroy Regnerus. It's a vicious inquisition, and frankly an ugly commentary on the sociology profession.

Indeed, that's what leftist sociologist Christian Smith discussed in a piece this week at the Chronicle of Higher Education, "An Academic Auto-da-Fé." Smith notes that Regnerus is an exemplary scholar in the field, with first-class training, and that the paper was rigorously conducted, peer reviewed, and the editorial board of the journal stands behind it. But...

The Regnerus case needs to be understood in a larger context. Sociologists tend to be political and cultural liberals, leftists, and progressives. That itself is not a problem, in my view. (I am not a conservative.) A critical progressive outlook is part of sociology's character and contribution to the world, making it an interesting and often useful discipline, especially when it comes to understanding poverty and inequality, determining whether social policies are effective, and establishing why education systems succeed and fail. But the ideological and political proclivities of some sociologists can create real problems.

Many sociologists view higher education as the perfect gig, a way to be paid to engage in "consciousness raising" through teaching, research, and publishing—at the expense of taxpayers, donors, and tuition-paying parents, many of whom thoughtfully believe that what those sociologists are pushing is wrong.

It is also easy for some sociologists to lose perspective on the minority status of their own views, to take for granted much that is still worth arguing about, and to fall into a kind of groupthink. The culture in such circles can be parochial and mean. I have seen colleagues ignore, stereotype, and belittle people and perspectives they do not like, rather than respectfully provide good arguments against those they do not agree with and for their own views.

The temptation to use academe to advance a political agenda is too often indulged in sociology, especially by activist faculty in certain fields, like marriage, family, sex, and gender. The crucial line between broadening education and indoctrinating propaganda can grow very thin, sometimes nonexistent. Research programs that advance narrow agendas compatible with particular ideologies are privileged. Survey textbooks in some fields routinely frame their arguments in a way that validates any form of intimate relationship as a family, when the larger social discussion of what a family is and should be is still continuing and worth having. Reviewers for peer-reviewed journals identify "problems" with papers whose findings do not comport with their own beliefs. Job candidates and faculty up for tenure whose political and social views are not "correct" are sometimes weeded out through a subtle (or obvious), ideologically governed process of evaluation, which is publicly justified on more-legitimate grounds—"scholarly weaknesses" or "not fitting in well" with the department.

To be sure, there are many sociologists—progressives and otherwise—who are good people, scholars, and teachers. But the influence of progressive orthodoxy in sociology is evident in decisions made by graduate students, junior faculty, and even senior faculty about what, why, and how to research, publish, and teach. One cannot be too friendly to religion, for example, such as researching the positive social contributions of missionary work overseas or failing to criticize evangelicals and fundamentalists. The result is predictable: Play it politically safe, avoid controversial questions, publish the right conclusions.

Those who are attacking Regnerus cannot admit their true political motives, so their strategy has been to discredit him for conducting "bad science." That is devious. His article is not perfect—no article ever is. But it is no scientifically worse than what is routinely published in sociology journals. Without a doubt, had Regnerus published different findings with the same methodology, nobody would have batted a methodological eye. Furthermore, none of his critics raised methodological concerns about earlier research on the same topic that had greater limitations, which are discussed in detail in the Regnerus article. Apparently, weak research that comes to the "right" conclusions is more acceptable than stronger studies that offer heretical results.

What is at stake here? First, fair treatment for Regnerus. His antagonists have already damaged his chances of being promoted to full professor. If his critics are successful at besmirching his reputation, his career may be seriously damaged.

But something bigger is at stake: The very integrity of the social-science research process is threatened by the public smearing and vigilante media attacks we have seen in this case. Sociology's progressive orthodoxy and the semicovert activism it prompts threaten the intellectual vitality of the discipline, the quality of undergraduate education, and public trust in academe. Reasonable people cannot allow social-science scholarship to be policed and selectively punished by the forces of activist ideology and politics, from any political quarter. University leaders must resist the manipulation of research review committees by nonacademic culture warriors who happen not to like certain findings.

Well, progressives aren't "reasonable people." They're fascist thugs. Wintery Knight has more on that, "Mark Regnerus and the progressive war against science."

Anyway, homosexual blogger Scott Rose has his complaint published at The New Civil Rights Movement, "Opinion: Regnerus Study — Official Misconduct Allegations."

More later, because this battle is just starting.

Warner Brothers, Maker of 'Dark Knight Rises,' Has History of Violent Filmmaking

An interesting piece, at the New York Times, "A Studio With Violence in Its Bones: Warner Brothers and Its Decades of Violent Films." There's no pullout quotes. Just read the whole thing. Warner Bros. made "Sudden Imapact," famous for "Go ahead, make my day." And also "The Matrix."

Protesters Disrupt Chick-fil-A Grand Opening in Laguna Hills

At the O.C. Register, "Gay youths protest at Laguna Hills Chick-fil-A."

This is how stupid these people are:

Locally, Cathy's comments prompted members of Youth Empowered to Act, a group with The Center Orange County, to plan the protest.

The youth group decided Chick-fil-A's latest Orange County restaurant opening would be "the perfect time and place to bring attention to the discriminatory policies and beliefs of Chick-fil-A," executive director Kevin O'Grady said.

Youth program director Laura Kanter said the purpose of the protest is to let consumers know "where the charitable arm of this corporation sends its money.

"We want to alert consumers that if they're spending their money at Chick-fil-A, some of that money can be spent against LGBT people and their families," she said.

Kanter noted donations to organizations such as the Family Research Council by WinShape Foundation, a nonprofit charity started in 1984 by Cathy's parents, Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy and his wife, Jeannette.

The Family Research Council "believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large," according to its website.

So far no one has demonstrated that Chick-fil-A discriminates. And of course, the owner is free to his political opinions, and he can contribute to any interest group he so pleases. There's video from the Register as well: "Chick-fil-A cancels camp out amidst protest." And see NBC News Los Angeles, "Orange County Chick-fil-A Opening Greeted by Gay-Rights Protesters."

In related news Glenn Greenwald is pushing back against the fascism in Chicago, "Rahm Emanuel’s dangerous free speech attack" (via Memeorandum):

It’s always easy to get people to condemn threats to free speech when the speech being threatened is speech that they like. It’s much more difficult to induce support for free speech rights when the speech being punished is speech they find repellent. But having Mayors and other officials punish businesses for the political and social views of their executives — regardless of what those views are — is as pure a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech as it gets, and beyond that, is genuinely dangerous.

RTWT.

Scott Lemieux at LGM agrees with Greenwald, although his commenters really, really hate Chick-fil-A (and would like to shut 'em down):

[CEO] Cathey has, in fact, committed [discriminatory] acts. Donating money to organizations that seek to deny me equal rights under the law is an act, and if he and his company and his precious little dog suffer for it, tough shit. If conservatives wanna dish it out, then they can damn well take it.

Fuck him, his chickens, and the drooling Jesus goons who support him.

It goes back and forth like that at the post

Now, somewhat surprisingly, Steve M. at No More Mr. Nice Blog agrees with Greenwald only on practical grounds, and thus disagrees with the First Amendment argument (which shows Steve's a fascist). And here's idiot left-wing fascist Tom Hilton in the comments:

I basically agree with you on the practicalities of the thing. (On the other hand, I think if it does come down to that war the yahoos lose out way more than we do, simply because the most economically dynamic areas of the country are mostly very liberal.)

But Greenwald is, in typically libertardian fashion, full of shit on the principle of the thing. Advocating discrimination is fundamentally not the same thing as advocating anti-discrimination--and in certain contexts, the law actually recognizes that (e.g., the law does not protect speech that creates a hostile environment for a protected class).

Again, how stupid can one be? Boston and Chicago are discriminating against Chick-fil-A, on the basis of political speech no less, constitutionally protected. The progs are going batsh*t crazy on this, and it's really disgusting. Stupid and disgusting. And fascist.

More at Memeorandum.

Mitt Romney Changes His Tune on London 2012 Olympic Games

At the clip, these are Romney's updated comments apparently.

The New York Times reports on the earlier remarks, which were unwise, "Romney’s Remarks on Olympics Cause Stir in London":

LONDON — Mitt Romney’s carefully choreographed trip to London caused a diplomatic stir when he called the British Olympic preparations “disconcerting” and questioned whether Londoners would turn out to support the Games.

“The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging,” Mr. Romney said in an interview with NBC on Wednesday.

That prompted a tart rejoinder from the British prime minister, David Cameron. “We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere,” an allusion to Salt Lake City, which hosted Games that Mr. Romney oversaw.

Mr. Romney’s verbal slip came on the first day of a highly anticipated trip that was expected to test his skills on foreign diplomacy, terrain in which he is not necessarily as comfortable as when dealing with economic issues. His remarks quickly threatened to usurp the news cycle of his overseas trip, which will also include a visit to Jerusalem to meet with Israeli leaders on Sunday.

Ouch.

So much for rekindling Anglo-Saxon relations.

More at Memeorandum. And see especially Alex Spillius at Telegraph UK, "Commentary: if Mitt Romney doesn’t like us, we shouldn’t care."

Social Unrest Exposes Long-Simmering Ethnic Divisions in Anaheim

Anaheim's a large urban area with a huge minority population, especially Latino (53 percent of the population) --- it's like Santa Ana, except you've got the "happiest place on Earth" bringing in $ billions of taxable revenue every year, and providing postcard images of a resort nirvana at the center of the O.C.

But last weekend's shootings have brought ethnic tensions to a head. The Los Angeles Times reports, "Protests reflect deep divisions in Anaheim":

In a city best known for Disneyland, the Angels and the Ducks, the fatal police shootings of two Latino men over the weekend have uncorked days of furious, sometimes violent protests.

The unrest has exposed long-simmering divisions in Anaheim between the glitz of Disney and professional sports and the struggles in some of the less prosperous Latino neighborhoods in Orange County's largest city.

Of the city's estimated 340,000 residents, 53% are Latino, and the protests have occurred in the city's flatlands, where many of those residents live. Most City Council members hail from the more affluent Anaheim Hills neighborhood to the east. The American Civil Liberties Union recently filed suit claiming the current at-large system of electing the council leaves Latinos poorly represented. The suit said that Anaheim has had only three Latino council members in its history.

The extent of the ethnic discord is hard to assess, as are accusations from some protesters that the Anaheim Police Department mistreats nonwhite residents. City leaders have asked federal and state officials to conduct independent examinations of the shootings and deny that the police harass Latino residents.

Rusty Kennedy, executive director of Orange County Human Relations, said anger over the weekend shootings reflects wider woes in Anaheim's poorest communities, which suffer from unemployment, overcrowding and gang activity. "It's a hot summer, school's out, and frustrations from the economy are certainly being felt," Kennedy said. "There are really good families in these neighborhoods that are just struggling to survive. They have fears their child will get in between the gang members and police."

Continue reading.

It's hard to say for sure, but at least in the first killing, of "Stomper" Diaz, the cops may have overreacted. Diaz was unarmed and shot twice, the second time in the head after he'd already fallen to his knees. The left is getting up in arms about this, because it gives them agenda items to expand social welfare programs and "diversify" the police departments. See Firedoglake, "Four Days of Protests in Anaheim Against Police Brutality of Hispanic Population." And at communist Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!, "Anaheim Police Brutality Sparks Outrage After 2 Latinos Shot Dead and Demonstrators Attacked." Gustavo Arellano, the radical editor of the O.C. Weekly, is interviewed at the piece. It's compelling, and I think he's right about how citizen journalists can debunk the police department's narrative. The department's call to buy citizens' videos of the riots is especially underhanded. Watch it.

UPDATE: Linked at Instapundit. Thanks!

Beyond 7 Billion: Global Hunger

This is part 3 of the L.A. Times series, "Hunger persists on massive scale":

Around the world, population is rising most rapidly in places where life is most precarious.

Across Africa and in parts of South Asia and Latin America, hundreds of millions of people live on the edge of starvation. A drought, flood or outbreak of violence can push them over the brink.

Many end up on the march, crossing borders in search of relief. Some arrive in places like Dadaab, famished and desperately ill. Millions more are displaced within their own countries.

They represent one face of hunger in a world that, on paper at least, produces enough food to feed all 7 billion inhabitants.

Somalia, a nation of 10 million, has one of the highest birthrates in the world, averaging 6.4 children per woman. Runaway population growth, food scarcity and political strife have combined to cause a mass exodus. One-fourth of Somalis have fled their homes.

Last year, during the worst of a three-year drought, shortage turned to famine. Forty percent of Somali children who reached the refugee camps in Dadaab were malnourished. Despite emergency feeding and medical treatment, many died within 24 hours.

More commonly, children live on tenuously, the effects of chronic malnutrition masked by the swelling caused by kwashiorkor. By the time their parents realize how sick they are and take them to the camp hospital, it can be too late.

It has been four decades since advances in agriculture known as the Green Revolution seemed to promise relief from this kind of mass suffering.

An American plant breeder named Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for helping to develop high-yield, disease-resistant varieties of wheat and other grains, making it possible to triple harvests around the world.

Mankind finally seemed to be gaining ground on its longtime nemesis: pervasive hunger.

Yet Borlaug cautioned against hubris: "The frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed," he said. "Otherwise, the success of the Green Revolution will be ephemeral only."

Today, with nearly twice as many people on the planet, his words seem sadly prescient.

As noted previously, this series is taking a "limits to growth" approach, and it's frankly coming off as eugenic. See: "Beyond 7 Billion: The Biggest Generation."

And here's Tuesday's segment at the Times, "BEYOND 7 BILLION | TINDERBOX OF YOUTH: Runaway population growth often fuels youth-driven uprisings."

U.S. Women's Soccer Beats France, 4-2, in Opener

At the New York Times, "U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Beats France":

GLASGOW — Four years ago in Beijing, Carli Lloyd provided the climax to the women’s soccer tournament at the Olympics with a wicked shot that was, for the United States at least, a truly golden goal. On Wednesday, Lloyd produced another dazzling finish that the Americans can only hope will send them along a similar path.

An enterprising YouTube savant might find the shots suitable for a mash-up, as they were virtually mirror images. In China, Lloyd’s strike came off her left foot from outside the left edge of the penalty arc in the final against Brazil; here it was her right foot, from the right side, in the first match of the London Games, a wondrous dart that pushed the Americans ahead in a 4-2 comeback victory over France.

Although the Beijing blast surely came under more meaningful circumstances, Lloyd’s latest might have been more impressive to witness. After dribbling a few steps to her right, Lloyd — who was left out of the starting lineup and only came on as a first-half substitute — unleashed a rising shot that zoomed past goalkeeper Sarah Bouhaddi and broke a 2-2 tie in the 56th minute.

Lloyd immediately turned and sprinted toward the United States bench, sliding on her knees near the touchline before being tackled by a mob of teammates. Lloyd said afterward that she took an extra measure of satisfaction in the goal because she began the game on the bench, an assignment she is still getting used to.

In 2011, Lloyd started all 19 games in which she played; this year, she had started 13 of 16. Still, she said she was “at peace” with Coach Pia Sundhage’s decision and was determined to make an impact if she got a chance to play.

That opportunity came when the veteran midfielder Shannon Boxx injured her right quadriceps and was replaced in the 17th minute. Lloyd quickly fell into her familiar routine with teammates but said she was not expecting to hit such a pure shot from distance because she and other players had struggled to get comfortable with the Adidas balls being used in the Olympics.

The balls are a little bit harder, Lloyd said, so “it’s not very often you hit in the sweet spot.” She added, “Fortunately on that one, I did.”

'I do not believe that proponents of same-sex marriage have done a good job explaining why they want same-sex marriage legalized...'

An essay from David Robertson, at Wizbang, "Thoughts On Same-Sex Marriage."

The rights of people residing in the USA are spelled out in the U.S. Constitution and the various state constitutions. The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of a right to marry whomever one wants to marry. The right to regulate marriage belongs to the individual states, in accordance with the 10th Amendment.

I consider it wrong to claim that same-sex marriage is a right if such a right is not stated in a state’s constitution or other legal documents.

It is also an error to claim that heterosexuals always have the right to marry whomever they want to marry. For example, half of the states ban marriage between First Cousins. The New York Times carried a story about First Cousin couples who had to go out of state in order to get married.

Same-sex marriage, indeed, is not a civil right, and it's never been considered a key item of the American civil rights agenda. See: "Same-Sex Marriage: Hijacking the Civil Rights Legacy."

The homosexual extremists are not working from history or reason --- they're working off intimidation. And it's working, which is why they keep escalating the thuggery. They've been shifting to fascist attacks on freedom of speech now, and big city Democrats are enabling it. It's not a good time for this country's traditions of liberty, so thank a Democrat for that. See the Chicago Tribune, "Alderman to Chick-fil-A: No deal."

Is the U.S. Headed for Recession?

From David Wessel, at the Wall Street Journal, "When Even Pessimism May Be Too Optimistic."

Tony Blair: West Asleep About Islamist Extremism

At Telegraph UK, "Tony Blair: 'The West is asleep on the issue of Islamist extremism'."

And Piers Morgan interviews the former prime minister at the clip, and Blair's comments are wise:

I'm reminded of Blair's 2007 essay at Foreign Affairs, "A Battle for Global Values." It's amazing how time flies --- it doesn't seem that long ago.

Killer Whale Nearly Drowns Trainer at SeaWorld in San Diego

At LAist, "Video: Terrifying Footage Shows Killer Whale Attacking Trainer At Sea World."

My wife and I took the boys to SeaWorld sometime last year. We took a few photos but I never did blog about it. It's not as fun as it used to be. The Shamu show was really different from when we took my first son in the late 1990s. I don't think the trainers got in the water with the whale, there were none of the super high jumps out of the water, and the music played at lower volume, more subdued. There might even have been less lighting. I think I recall strobe lights and all that back in the 1990s, with booming music like a summer beach party. And the dolphin show --- in the past really one of the highlights of the park --- has been changed into something like Cirque De La Mer. It's called Blue Horizons, but mostly it's human performers taking up a lot of time rather than the dolphins performing. And again, none of the old huge high jumps that the dolphins used to do. It was interesting, but I doubt I'll be back any time soon.

Anyway, Anderson Cooper's segment is here, although I don't believe the theory of his guest, David Kirby.

Here's the raw video, from Telegraph UK. The trainer is lucky to be alive. Dawn Brancheau was held under and drowned in 2010.

Imogen Thomas Bikini Top Shots

At London's Daily Mail, "'When the sun comes out, the slimeballs come out!' Imogen Thomas complains of unwanted attention... as she spills out of bikini top."

The Left's Fascist Response to Chick-fil-A

See Elizabeth Scalia, "Chick-fil-A: if you’re not sure, this is how fascism works."

RELATED: From Robert Stacy McCain, "It’s Homophobolicious!"

PREVIOUSLY: "Homosexuals Plan 'National Same-Sex Kiss Day' to Protest Chick-fil-A," and "Chick-fil-A Punches Back Against Homosexual Extremist Agenda."

Jennette McCurdy of 'iCarly' Says Michelle Obama Invited Herself on the Show

Disney Channel's 'iCarly' is winding down. My kid watches it. I think Jennette McCurdy's a riot. She still working with Nickelodeon, and I expect she'll move on to situation comedies ultimately, or even movies if she keeps up the way she's going. But I love how she says First Lady Michelle Obama just called her right up, didn't go through the producers or anything, and got on the show to push her agenda. Notice how at the outtake from one of the episodes Mrs. Obama says she doesn't mind being called "your excellency." Art imitates life, or what?

At WSJ, "Jennette McCurdy On Eating Veggies, Michelle Obama, and the End of ‘iCarly’."

RELATED: At the Los Angeles Times, "Rush Limbaugh criticizes First Lady Michelle Obama's weight, nutritional campaign." Also at the Blaze, "FOOD HYPOCRISY? MICHELLE OBAMA CAUGHT ORDERING CHEESEBURGER AND FRIES."

Shifting Dynamics Favors Republican House Majority

I don't recall hearing that the Republican majority was in any danger, but this is important in any case.

At the New York Times, "G.O.P. Edge as Dynamics Shift in House Races."

Syrian Crisis Evokes U.S.-Soviet Cold War Competition

An interesting report at the Los Angeles Times, "As Syria diplomacy falters, U.S., Russia trade verbal blows":

BEIRUT -- The Syria crisis has at times taken on the trappings of a Cold War conflict, featuring a steady flow of nasty invective between Washington and Moscow, a pair of global heavyweights unable to agree on a way to stop the carnage.

On Wednesday, as battles continued to rage across Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took another swipe at his Western adversary, lambasting Washington’s failure to condemn last week’s Damascus bombing, which took the lives of four of President Bashar Assad’s top security lieutenants.

“This is a direct justification of terrorism,” Lavrov said of the U.S. reaction, Interfax reported. “What should we make of this?”

Asked later about the comments, Victoria Nuland, U.S. State Department spokeswoman, was unapologetic. She distinguished between an attack against civilians and one targeting officials of Assad’s government.

“We condemn all terrorist attacks, all bombings of targets, of civilians,” Nuland told reporters in Washington. “I would note that these were not civilians. These were the organizers of Assad’s military campaign who lost their lives.”

As the superpowers exchanged rhetorical blows about Syria, international diplomacy seemed close to running its course.

PREVIOUSLY: "U.S. to Focus on Forcibly Toppling Syrian Government," and "Vitaly Churkin, Russian Ambassador to U.N., Blasts Western Nations for 'Propaganda' on Syria, Defends Moscow's Veto of Sanctions Resolution Against Assad."

'The Jeffersons' Star Sherman Hemsley Dies at 74

A very interesting obituary at the New York Times, "Sherman Hemsley, ‘Jeffersons’ Star, Is Dead at 74":

Sherman Alexander Hemsley was born in Philadelphia on Feb. 1, 1938. He dropped out of Edward W. Bok Technical High School in the 10th grade to join the Air Force and was stationed in Asia after the Korean War. He returned to Philadelphia after his discharge and, while working at the post office, attended Philadelphia’s Academy of Dramatic Arts in the evening.

'Replay'

Via Nice Deb, "Video: American Crossroads “Replays” Obama’s “Gaffe”."

And see Mary Katharine Ham, "Obama has ‘no patience’ for frequent quoting of dumb thing he said" (at Memeorandum).

Suspect James Holmes Sent Chilling Notebook to Psychiatrist at University of Colorado Denver

Fox News broke the news this morning, "EXCLUSIVE: Movie massacre suspect sent chilling notebook to psychiatrist before attack."

And see the Los Angeles Times, "Colorado suspect described massacre in notebook, reports say":

Citing unidentified law enforcement sources, multiple news outlets reported Wednesday that mass-shooting suspect James E. Holmes mailed a notebook before Friday's early-morning theater massacre to the University of Colorado's medical campus, where he had been a doctoral neuroscience student.

The university said it received a suspicious package Monday, three days after the assault in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 dead and 58 injured. The package was "immediately investigated and turned over to authorities within hours of delivery," a university statement said. The school did not comment on the contents, citing a court-imposed gag order.

The notebook contained drawings of stick figures being shot and a written description of a coming attack, and was addressed to a psychiatrist at the university, according to Fox News, which first reported the mailing. The Wall Street Journal also reported that a source said the notebook contained drawings of a massacre.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies refused to confirm the reports.

It was unclear whether Holmes, 24, had had any previous contact with a psychiatrist at the university. The neuroscience program from which he withdrew on June 10 included professors of psychiatry.

NBC News, citing unidentified sources, reported that Holmes told investigators to look for the package and that it described killing people.

The spiral-bound notebook was "full of details about how he was going to kill people," an unidentified law enforcement source told Fox. "There were drawings of what he was going to do in it, drawings and illustrations of the massacre."

And more at London's Daily Mail, "Batman killer sent notebook with chilling plans to 'kill lots of people' to college psychiatrist just DAYS before the massacre - but it sat unopened in campus mail room."

Mitt Romney: 'The Context Is Worse Than the Quote'

From Alana Goodman, at Commentary, "Obama Video on “Context” Doesn’t Even Play Speech Clip":

The Obama campaign is pushing back against attacks on the president’s “you didn’t build that” remark with a new web video claiming the Romney campaign took the line “out of context.” Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter says the following:

“Mitt Romney recently launched a new TV ad that blatantly twists President Obama’s words on small business owners and entrepreneurs. Romney’s not telling the truth about what the president said and is taking the president’s words out of context. Romney claims the president told entrepreneurs they didn’t build their own businesses. Actually, he didn’t say that. And even the Washington Post called this attack ‘ridiculous.’ Anyone who’s seen the president’s actual remarks knows the truth. The president said that together, Americans built the free enterprise system that we all benefit from.”

Cutter then goes on to defend Obama’s record on small businesses, but doesn’t even play a clip of his comments in whatever “context” she claims is missing from Romney’s ad. Instead, viewers are asked to click a link over to the Obama website if they want to see it. Why? Probably because the campaign knows the context sounds just as bad as the line in question.

Mitt Romney touched on this point in one of his strongest interviews of the campaign so far:

Finish Goodman's post here.

Greg Sargent went after Romney last week, "Romney video deceptively edits Obama speech to make it sound anti-business." He provided the "missing" context, but again, you can't put lipstick on a pig.

Here's the whole thing, in any case:

And the caption at the video:

This is the same clip President Obama is using to try and recant his comments that denigrated small business owners, but we know the truth. He said it and he meant it. If you keep attacking success, you'll continue to have less of it. It's as simple as that. See for yourself -- you be the judge http://mi.tt/OCJ3Cv.

But wait!

Still more push back from the left!

Here's Sargent again, "What the war over `didn’t build that’ is really about." Sargent's a socialist spin doctor. Read it all at the link, if you want. And here's Obama's "rapid reaction" video released yesterday, which shows the president once again making the same argument that "you didn't build that" on your own, you had help, you had roads and bridges, etc., which is basically what Elizabeth Warren said some time back and has been taking grief for it. See: "President Obama Pushes Back On Romney Campaign's Small Business Attacks."

Americans aren't buying the Democrats' snake oil, which is why the Obama campaign is pushing back so hard, desperately trying to get out from the hole they've dug for themselves.

Al Qaeda's Hand Now Detected in Syria Conflict

At the New York Times, "Al Qaeda Taking Deadly New Role in Syria’s Conflict" (via Memeorandum):

CAIRO — It is the sort of image that has become a staple of the Syrian revolution, a video of masked men calling themselves the Free Syrian Army and brandishing AK-47s — with one unsettling difference. In the background hang two flags of Al Qaeda, white Arabic writing on a black field.

“We are now forming suicide cells to make jihad in the name of God,” said a speaker in the video using the classical Arabic favored by Al Qaeda.

The video, posted on YouTube, is one more bit of evidence that Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists are doing their best to hijack the Syrian revolution, with a growing although still limited success that has American intelligence officials publicly concerned, and Iraqi officials next door openly alarmed.

While leaders of the Syrian political and military opposition continue to deny any role for the extremists, Al Qaeda has helped to change the nature of the conflict, injecting the weapon it perfected in Iraq — suicide bombings — into the battle against President Bashar al-Assad with growing frequency.

The evidence is mounting that Syria has become a magnet for Sunni extremists, including those operating under the banner of Al Qaeda. An important border crossing with Turkey that fell into Syrian rebels’ hands last week, Bab al-Hawa, has quickly become a jihadist congregating point.

The presence of jihadists in Syria has accelerated in recent days in part because of a convergence with the sectarian tensions across the country’s long border in Iraq. Al Qaeda, through an audio statement, has just made an undisguised bid to link its insurgency in Iraq with the revolution in Syria, depicting both as sectarian conflicts — Sunnis versus Shiites.

More at that top link.

The first video's referenced at the Times' piece, and the second is from CNN earlier this year.

North Koreans Meet Their First Lady

At the New York Times, "North Korean Leader Marries."

Newsweek Projected to Lose at Least $22 Million This Year

Well, I wonder why?

See Bloomberg, "Newsweek Owner Says Magazine Will Eventually Shift Online."

British ex-pat and Newsweek executive editor Tiny Brown denies it, "Scaremongering."

But see The Other McCain, "Not Surprising: Tina Brown’s ‘Newsbeast’ Still Losing Millions of Dollars a Year."

IMAGE CREDIT: "Barebackers for Barack, UPDATED! — Andrew 'Milky Loads' Sullivan Cover Story at Newsweek, 'The First Gay President."

Voula Papachristou, Greek Olympic Athlete, Expelled for Mocking African Immigrants on Twitter

At Telegraph UK, "London 2012 Olympics: Greece athlete Voula Papachristou expelled for racist comment on Twitter":

Team GB athletes have now been reminded to keep their tweets “in a tasteful manner” or risk breaching their athlete team agreements, which allow for expulsion from the Games.

Papachristou a supporter of the far-right political party Golden Dawn, posted the offensive tweet two days ago, which she now claims was a joke.

The tweet said: “With so many Africans in Greece, at least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat home made food!!!”

But the Hellenic Olympic Committee came under pressure from within Greece to take action against 23-year-old Papachristou, who had also publicly supported the Golden Dawn politician Ilias Kasidiaris, when he criticised Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s immigration position.

She had previously retweeted promotional videos from the political party, which gained seven per cent of the vote in the recent Greek elections.

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Greek triple jumper booted off Olympic team in disgrace after she mocked African immigrants on Twitter."

Boy, mock African immigrants and the IOC comes down on you like a ton of bricks. But request one minute of silence for the Israeli athletes murdered in 1972? Nope, that's too political. See: "Olympic Committee Won't Hold Moment of Silence for Slain 1972 Israeli Athletes."

Iraq Veteran Sgt. Robert Delgado Touts Rep. Allen West in New Campaign Ad

At the Los Angeles Times, "Iraq war vet: 'Allen West saved my life'."

WASHINGTON – An Iraq war veteran has come to the aid of his former boss, Rep. Allen West, to tell how the Florida congressman handed over his body armor on the way to combat in Iraq, an act that might have saved the soldier’s life.

In a campaign spot that will air on Florida television during the Olympics, Sgt. Robert Delgado (Ret.) says he worried when he was deployed to Iraq that he might not make it home to see his new child – his wife was eight months pregnant at the time.

“I’m going to make sure you come home to your wife and your newborn baby,” Delgado recalls West saying to him. West, who was Delgado’s commander at the time, handed his body armor to the soldier.

“This car came flying by and this AK-47 just starts firing,” Delgado says. “And I got shot. If I hadn’t had that body armor, though, I don’t think I’d really be here because where it hit is where my lung was.”

“Because of that, I’m here today,” Delgado says in the ad, which was first reported by Politico.

Homosexuals Plan 'National Same-Sex Kiss Day' to Protest Chick-fil-A

At OC Weekly, "Gay Rights Advocates to Protest Chick-Fil-A With Same-Sex Kissing In Front of Restaurants."

This whole thing has gotten way out of hand.

Recall that first it was Boston Mayor Thomas Menino who went authoritarian on Chick-fil-A. See Legal Insurrection, "When political correctness runs amok, it will look like the Mayor of Boston."

Now we have the idiots in Chicago following suit, at Volokh, "No Building Permits for Opponent of Same-Sex Marriage." (Via Memeorandum.) And check Jeff Goldstein, "“Alderman to Chick-fil-A: No deal”":

So now a Chicago petty tyrant pol joins with the bigoted mayor of Boston to declare that, to the contemporary “liberal,” tolerance is nothing more than policing conformity of thought — and that he will proudly cast himself as intolerant of intolerance!

Well, yeah. Gay rights advocates are the biggest bigots of them all.

More at Weasel Zippers, "Another Dem Politician Moves to Ban Chick-Fil-A Restaurants – Update: Mayor Rahm Emanuel Backs Ban, “Chick-Fil-A Values Are Not Chicago Values”…"

Look, this is what the Democrat Party has come to in America. Even the far-left Los Angles Times called out the left's bigotry and bullying, "Free speech and Chick-fil-A":

The Muppets are well within their rights to shun Chick-fil-A after the chain restaurant donated to anti-gay groups and its president, Dan Cathy, made statements implying a strong, biblically-based stand against same-sex marriage. They're private, um, puppets. But public officials have a responsibility to carry out their ministerial tasks fairly and evenhandedly — and to uphold the principle of free speech — whether or not they like a business executive's social or political stances. We disagree heartily with Cathy, but are far more troubled by the reaction of Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who vowed to block Chick-fil-A's effort to open an outlet in that city.

Boycotts are a time-honored way for consumers and groups to express their views through their spending power, though it's worth noting that just as Americans have split along more divisive lines politically, so have their shopping habits. Some people won't travel to Utah because of Mormon support for Proposition 8; others won't step foot in aJ.C. Penneybecause of its ads featuring same-sex couples. As both a private citizen and a prominent public figure, Menino is welcome to abstain from fried chicken sandwiches and urge others to do likewise.

It's a different matter if he attempts to trample the free-speech rights of others by using the power of his office to fight against a business license for Chick-fil-A. Menino suggested that it would be appropriate to block the chain from opening in Boston because Cathy's views amount to discrimination. That would rightly apply if Chick-fil-A were to refuse service to gay customers; the city has a right and an obligation to prevent discriminatory actions against its residents and visitors. But there's no evidence that any such thing has occurred.

More at Michelle's, "Hey, Boston: Leave Chick-fil-A alone." (Via Memeorandum.)

PHOTO CREDIT: OC Weekly.

Sheldon Adelson Courts Jewish Voters for GOP

A front-page report at the New York Times, "Mogul’s Latest Foray Courts Jews for the G.O.P." (via Memeorandum). An excerpt:

The advertising campaign features a testimonial from Michael Goldstein, 48, a community college administrator from New Jersey, who said he enthusiastically supported Mr. Obama’s candidacy but became disillusioned by his administration. A lifelong Democrat, he said he was planning to support Mr. Romney by casting his first vote for a Republican in a presidential race.

“I was enamored with Obama,” Mr. Goldstein said in an interview. “I thought he was sharp, intelligent and brought a new sense of wonder to politics. The fact that we were helping elect the first African-American president of the United States made me very proud, but I don’t believe anything he says anymore. I go more by his actions than by what he says.”

Mr. Goldstein said he gradually became disenchanted with Mr. Obama when his promises to change Washington did not come to pass. He said he was particularly incensed by the administration’s stance toward Israel, particularly the president’s view that the 1967 borders should be a starting point for negotiations for a two-state peace solution. He said he also believed that Mr. Obama showed disrespect to Mr. Netanyahu.

It remains an open question how many voters share the views of Mr. Goldstein, who conceded that some of his frustrations at Mr. Obama were also a result of what he saw as the president’s failure to uphold liberal principles on gun control and some social issues. But he said that his discontent was strong enough that he would cast a vote for Mr. Romney and that he intended to campaign aggressively in Pennsylvania.

“It doesn’t take a lot of buyer’s remorse to potentially shift the outcome,” said Ari Fleischer, a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s board and a former press secretary to President George W. Bush.

RELATED: From ABC News, "Sheldon Adelson May Stop By Romney Jerusalem Fundraiser." (Via Memeorandum.)

Anaheim Shooting Protest Turns Violent

The local channel KCAL 9 had live coverage last night. The police presence was massive, with essentially SWAT-style gang units out in front. See: "24 Arrested Following Clash Between Protestors, Anaheim Police."

And see the Orange County Register, "ANAHEIM PROTESTS: 1,000 demonstrators clashed with Anaheim police."

More at the Los Angeles Times, "Scattered crowds roam Anaheim streets to protest officer shootings."

Kyrsten Sinema, Bisexual Israel-Hating Antiwar Radical, is Face of Today's Democrat Party

Look, while even some Democrats might take pause at the extreme left-wing candidacy of Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema, who's running for Congress from the state's Ninth Congressional District, the fact is as more and more younger activists rise up the party ranks, this is what you're going to get. Sinema is the mainstream of today's Democrat Party.

Alana Goodman reports, at Commentary, "The Reinvention of an Anti-War Activist":

You wouldn’t normally expect Washington Democrats to spend much time fretting over a congressional primary in Arizona. But the three-way Democratic race between Kyrsten Sinema, Andrei Cherny, and David Schapira is getting a surprising amount of attention from national Democrats, the pro-Israel community and the political media.

Ten years ago, Sinema was one of those radical left-wing activists who donned pink tutus at anti-war rallies and organized with anti-Israel groups. Today, the 36-year-old is running for Congress as an AIPAC-supporting moderate who would have voted in favor of the Afghanistan intervention.

The problem? Some Democrats say her evolution doesn’t add up. For one, Sinema’s been involved with anti-Israel and anti-war groups much more recently than her campaign has acknowledged. And while she recently released a strongly-worded pro-Israel position paper, her latest comments on foreign policy issues have been dodgy and confusing.

“Is she for or against killing bin Laden?” asked former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block. “Based on her record, you don’t know. You would think when you’re considering a member of Congress, you would know their positions on these issues.”

One Democratic Arizona state representative who has worked with Sinema said her views are impossible to decipher.

“When she wanted to be an activist, she was anti-war, all these kinds of things that now she says she never was,” he said. “I don’t think she actually has a foreign policy core, I think she has a political core.”

According to the Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo, Sinema didn’t just dabble in radical circles; she helped organize and lead extreme anti-war groups that took anti-Israel positions on issues like the right of return and Israel’s self defense. Townhall’s Guy Benson reported that she was involved in anarchist riots that encouraged property destruction.

Sinema’s campaign disputed the claim that she was involved with anti-Israel activism, calling it a smear tactic by opponents.

Continue reading.

Look, obviously the woman wants to hide her really despicable past. She wouldn't talk to Goodman on the phone, told her to schedule an interview with her staff, and after Goodman called back she hasn't returned her messages. I guess that's getting too close to home.

It's so bad that even Philip Weiss has denounced Sinema at the anti-Israel Mondweiss, "Once she joined ‘Women in Black’ and opposed aid to Israel. And then – she ran for Congress and went to AIPAC."

Following the links, it turns out that Marc Tracy has a report on the Ninth District race at the Tablet, which has this on Sinema:

Soon after 9/11, at 25 years old, she co-founded Local to Global Justice, a local advocacy group. Its initial mission was to oppose the invasion of Afghanistan, but in 2007 it signed a petition calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and another in 2008 decrying Israeli “human rights violations against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and against civilians in Lebanon.” Sinema joined Women in Black, a group founded by Israelis during the First Intifada to protest human rights abuses in the territories—a history of which Sinema claimed to be unaware. (That’s pretty hard to believe, since the group was founded in 1988 and is easily located on Google.) Also in 9/11’s aftermath, she helped organize the Arizona Alliance for Peaceful Justice; its motto was, “military action is an inappropriate response to terrorism.” According to The Hill, this was her position, too. At least as late as 2010, she continued to associate with these groups, speaking, for example, at an antiwar rally several sponsored. She has since severed ties.

The post is documented with lots of links, damning links.

BONUS: Sinema is a switch hitter, according to the Advocate, "Bi Politician Announces Congressional Bid":

Arizona state senator Kyrsten Sinema has resigned from her post to pursue a U.S. House seat that has been created due to redistricting. If elected, Sinema would be the first openly bisexual member of Congress.

More at the Washington Free Beacon, "Adult Sinema."

PHOTO CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons.

Suspect James Holmes No Easy Fit for Mass Murderer Profile

Okay, there's a couple of new articles that relate to Colorado suspect James Holmes' acadmic difficulties (which I discussed here and here).

First, Holmes did indeed take the first year oral exams in his neuroscience department, according to a report from the Denver Post, "CU officials defend academic, personal support available to Holmes (via Bob Agard). Key officials from the University of Colorado Denver are seen at the video below. And according to the Post:

The officials, referring to the ongoing investigation, would not answer specific questions about him or his academic standing. They did say that Holmes withdrew from the program June 10, three days after taking a preliminary oral examination before three professors.

Clearly, officials realized immediately the massacre's implications for the university. They talk about how the support system was the envy of the world, as if it would have been impossible for students to slip through the cracks. And listen to the Graduate Dean Barry Shur at the clip, saying "it's very unusual, very unusual, for a student to withdraw from our program." Also, the department apparently allows struggling students to take their exams over again.

So, I'll refer folks back over to my earlier entry on this, "James Holmes' Academic Frustration and Social Isolation."

What's interesting now is how extremely hush hush university officials have handled their response. Numerous reports indicate that campus personnel were told by administration not to speak to the press, but to refer questions to the university's public relations office. And you get that feeling as well at the clip, when Chancellor Don Ellman erects the stonewall on personal questions about Holmes immediately. So, this is going to be something to watch. Something I didn't mention the other day is that although Holmes may have done well during his orals, he might in fact have been abused by one of his examiners. I mean "abused" in the sense of a particular line of questioning. Research professors can be arrogant pricks and their egos can take over during situations like a formal exam, etc. If Holmes felt as though he'd been condescended to, perhaps that sent him off a bit, even if he did well otherwise. But there's the university gag order now, so we may never know that aspect, or at least not in the near term.

That said, the one faculty member apparently spoke out before the gag order was distributed. According to Jenna Johnson at the Washington Post:

A colleague of mine just spoke with a neuroscience faculty member who said he taught shooting suspect James Holmes in a class at the University of Colorado medical campus.

The faculty member, who asked for anonymity because of privacy concerns, said Holmes was “very quiet, strangely quiet in class,” and said he seemed “socially off.”

When the staff member heard Holmes’s name in connection with the shooting today, he thought that the suspect could well be his student, and he was not surprised to find out later that it was.

When Holmes and other neuroscience students took their comprehensive exams last semester, Holmes did very poorly, he said. The school’s staff wasn’t going to toss him out, the educator said, but they were planning to do something remedial, and contemplated putting him on academic probation.

Given this information, if correct, it appears if Holmes' disaffection could date back to his first semester at the school. Also key is that the suspect had begun to amass his arsenal before his first year orals in June, so whatever rage he felt could have been building up for some time. That might help explain why university officials are keeping such a heavy-duty lock on information. Perhaps Holmes was that one super exceptional case of a student about to be dismissed from the program.

A second piece that relates here is at Reuters, "Accused Colorado killer no easy fit for mass murderer profile." Here's a key bit:

As experts in forensic psychiatry try to figure out from afar what is wrong with Holmes, they are focusing on three details of the shooting: The targets were strangers to the killer, not colleagues or acquaintances; the shooter did not commit suicide or invite his own death at the hands of police; and Holmes warned authorities about his booby-trapped apartment before the explosives he rigged killed anyone.

Murdering 12 strangers and shooting dozens more points to a generalized paranoia and rage against the world rather than a specific grudge, forensic psychiatrists say.

"Most mass murderers kill specific people for specific reasons," said criminologist James Alan Fox of Northeastern University, who with colleague Jack Levin has studied every mass murder in the United States since the early 1980s. "They kill the bosses who fired them, the professors who wronged them. These are revenge killings."

One of the many mass murderers who fit this profile is Nathan Dunlap, who killed four employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora in December 1993, after he was fired and reportedly felt his boss had "made a fool" of him.

Holmes was in the process of withdrawing from the University of Colorado's graduate program in neuroscience, which has prompted speculation that academic failure might have played into his motives. But he did not target either professors or fellow students.

That he did not target people from the university points away from the hypothesis that the orals or something else like that drove Holmes to violence, but only to a point. As the article continues:

If the victims did not represent a category of people Holmes specifically hated or resented, then he would fall into the category of mass murderers who target strangers indiscriminately, the least common profile.

In such cases, "the perpetrator has a grudge against the world and feels that if it were not for the system, things would have gone better for him," said Fox. "He doesn't care who he kills as long as he kills a lot of people."

About 16 percent of mass killings target complete strangers, said Levin, professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern. They are not necessarily more or less severely mentally ill than murderers who target acquaintances or people who belong to a group they resent, but their pathology takes a distinct form.

Wide-ranging suspicion that the world has treated you unfairly can be a sign of paranoid personality disorder. The American Psychiatric Association defines that condition as "a pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent, beginning by early adulthood."

The condition has an estimated lifetime prevalence in the United States of 4.4 percent; schizophrenia affects 1.1 percent of U.S. adults, according to the National Institutes of Health. There is no evidence Holmes felt paranoia, nor have any records emerged showing he was ever diagnosed with or treated for any form of mental illness. But the absence of such evidence does not rule out the disorder, experts said.

"Of all the psychoses, paranoia is the most difficult to detect," said John Jay's Schlesinger. "Unless you broach a particular subject - like work, if someone thinks his boss is out to get him - they might very well seem normal if you sat down and talked to them. In Holmes' case, it could have been an encapsulated paranoia, focused on one particular area of life where he thinks people are out to get him."

If so, Holmes would fit the profile of the mass murderer whose act has been triggered by a severe strain and led him to externalize blame, Levin and Fox's studies have shown.

"They blame everyone but themselves for their frustration and disappointment," said Levin. "Then there is some acute strain, which usually takes the form of a catastrophic loss - of a job, of money, of a child in a custody battle, or of academic standing. ... The catastrophic strain sets the stage for the planning phase of the mass murder."

By all accounts, Holmes displayed no signs of mental illness during his upbringing. At this point the key will be either statements from the suspect himself or more information released though the investigation. Basically, Holmes was a relatively isolated individual, shy buy not completely asocial, who had some difficulties making the transition to the very competitive world of professional education. The exact catalyst is missing, but some kind of stress sent him off on a really dark and terrible direction.