Curiosity's Descent to Mars

Via the Los Angeles Times, "Stunning Video Shows Curiosity's Descent to Mars."

Dan 'Hurricane Porn' Drezner Slams APSA for Holding Annual Convention in New Orleans During Hurricane Season

Can you say "chutzpah"?

Professor Daniel Drezner's got a not-so tongue-in-cheek post slamming the American Political Science Association for scheduling its annual convention in New Orleans for Labor Day Weekend, at the height of hurricane season, "How not to take political scientists seriously":

Readers might be aware that Tropical Storm Isaac appears to be bypassing the Republican National Convention in Tampa and is instead headed.... right for New Orleans. It's scheduled to his the NOLA area on Wednesday. This is a wee problem for political scientists because, well, the American Political Science Association annual meeting is scheduled to be held in - wait for it -- New Orleans from Thursday to Sunday. APSA has already cancelled all Wednesday pre-meeting activities, and based on the storm path, I'd place a 50/50 bet on the whole convention being scrubbed (the other possibility is APSA Hunger Games, which would end badly for all the post-materialists).

This gives rise to a very simple question of mine: why, in the name of all that is holy, did any political scientist think it was a good idea to have the annual meeting in a hurricane zone... DURING HURRICANE SEASON??!!

Okay. Makes sense, right? Perhaps Drezner's the calm, cool observer of convention scheduling protocols? I'd believe it myself, except when it comes to hurricanes, you'd think Dr. Drezner might withhold judgment, considering his epic blogging blunder from 2005, "We interrupt normal blogging about the rest of the world to freak out about THE BIG STORM!!!!" You have to read the post to believe it. Two days later, on August 29th, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the rest is history. Needless to say, Drezner f-ked up, "Hurricane Porn Open Thread":

CROW-EATING UPDATE: The post below was written 24 hours before the waters of Lake Ponchatrain broke through the levee, devastated New Orleans, and video footage came in on damage to the Mississippi Gulf coast. I must concur with James Joyner that the coverage of this hurricane was not overhyped in the end, and at this point is a rather trivial issue compared to the damage at hand...

See? There's more of that chutzpah, trying to save your hypothesis whilst one of the country's deadliest hurricanes was destroying New Orleans really takes a lot. Talk about not taking political scientists seriously.

We all screw up blogging here and there. The trick is to not fool yourself into thinking people won't remember.

And in Drezner's case, I'd be more forgiving if the dude had a record of speaking out in defense of Israel over the last few years. It's bad enough that his fellow FP blogger is Stephen "The Israel Lobby" Walt. But in Drezner's case I literally don't remember him really ever sticking his neck out on a question of Middle East politics that might challenge the academy's orthodoxy on the extermination of the Jewish state. And Drezner's Jewish. I generally quit reading him years ago, so I could be wrong and would be glad to correct the record. But early impressions matter. And there's something to be said for integrity when it comes to Israel and the political science profession --- we could use more.

In any case, the APSA's website is here. They've cancelled Wednesday's events and plan to proceed with the convention on Thursday. I'll say a prayer for the political scientists and all the residents of the Gulf Coast. Even the dates of landfall are almost the same.

Reince Priebus Slams Chris Matthews for Sowing Division: 'He Made the Case For Us. This Is the Barack Obama Surrogate of 2012'

You gotta admit, Matthews is practically blowing smoke out his ears. And Chairman Priebus handles it well, but the later remarks slamming "Tingles" are classic, from Jim Geraghty, at National Review, "Priebus on Chris Matthews: ‘He Made the Case for Us’" (at Memeorandum).

Mitt Romney's Neoconservatism

James Kitfield has an interesting piece at the National Interest, "Mitt Romney's Neocon Puzzle."

It's a decent piece, although windy, and inaccurate, IMHO, on the public's perception of foreign policy this season (it's not that people don't care about world affairs, but that the economy is the overwhelmingly dominant issue). Here's an interesting bit, however:

In emerging as the Republican nominee for president, Mitt Romney vanquished primary opponents representing venerable strains of GOP thinking. Representative Ron Paul, the libertarian from Texas, was the strongest voice for a more isolationist foreign policy. Former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania gave the most authentic voice to the populist nationalism of the Tea Party movement. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich most closely aligned with the neoconservatives who were ascendant in George W. Bush’s first term with their staunch support for the Israeli Right and disdain for talking with distasteful adversaries. Gingrich blasted the Obama administration for being “wrong on Iran, wrong on the Muslim Brotherhood [and] wrong on Hezbollah.” Former governor Jon Huntsman of Utah, former ambassador to China, stood in for the realist or liberal-internationalist wing of the party that dominated the George H. W. Bush administration.

Romney must reconcile these competing camps and weave their various policies and rhetorical positions into a coherent foreign-policy narrative. His task is complicated because the old Republican orthodoxy of staunch anticommunism and a strong defense was upended at the Cold War’s end, and George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion still generates controversy and dissention within the party. Beyond that, there are the added challenges of the country’s deep partisan divide and political dysfunction, as well as a shifting global landscape.

Actually, I don't even think it's fair to call Ron Paul isolationist --- that then becomes a slur against folks who hold traditionally isolationist views without attacking Israel or courting 9/11 truthers (e.g., Eugene Gholz, Daryl Press, and Harvey Sapolsky, "Come Home, America: The Strategy of Restraint in the Face of Temptation").

Not only that, I'd argue Romney's clearly in the neoconservative camp --- it's not really a puzzle to me. Romney's 2010 book, "No Apologies," laid out a fairly standard national greatness foreign policy. I'd have to break out my copy to be more specific (and I may just do that later), but between that and the pool of top neocon advisors working with Team Romney, it's pretty straightforward. Here's the announcement from the campaign, from last November, "MITT ROMNEY ANNOUNCES FOREIGN POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISORY TEAM." I'd point to Eliot Cohen, Robert Kagan, and Dan Senor as some of the more prominent neocons at the announcement, but don't take my word for it. Ari Berman at The Nation just about had a fit over Team Romney's neoconservative bona fides, "Mitt Romney's Neocon War Cabinet."

Berman mentions Ambassador John Bolton as an advisor to Romney, although he's not cited at the campaign's announcement. Bolton has repeatedly rejected the neoconservative label, although that hasn't stopped the left from attacking him mercilessly, at Daily Kos, for example, "Knuckle-dragging ultrahawks dominate Mitt Romney's foreign policy team."

Plus, listen Romney's CBS News interview at the clip above, and at Twitter, "Mitt Romney tells CBS News' Scott Pelley it's "unacceptable" for Iran to get nuclear weapon." That sounds more bellicose than the "evil" George W. Bush administration.

In any case, the question ultimately is whether Romney's foreign policy will be an improvement over the Obama administration's. I'd say that's a no brainer as well, but the proof is in the pudding, so let's hope #RomneyRyan win it in November.

New York Times Says GOP Riven by Factions, Cites Mostly Establishment Types Who Spite the Tea Party

I don't recall George Pataki as a big tea party champion, and former veep Dan Quayle is interviewed. Dan Quayle? See, "A Party of Factions Gathers, Seeking Consensus":

It is common for parties out of power to suffer an extended identity crisis. The Democrats struggled for 12 years until Bill Clinton emerged to unite left and center in an uneasy alliance to capture the White House. It has been happening to Republicans for at least four years as different conservative factions have competed for dominance and as outside forces, from the grass-roots Tea Party activists to “super PACs” and other groups financed by wealthy conservatives, have to some degree undercut the party establishment.

But in some ways, the Republican Party today appears more factionalized — ideologically, politically and culturally — than Republican leaders said they could remember in recent history.

There are evangelicals, Tea Party adherents, supply-siders who would accept no tax increases and a dwindling band of deficit hawks who might. There are economic libertarians who share little of the passion that social conservatives hold on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. There are neoconservatives who want a hard line against Iran and the Palestinians, and realists who are open to diplomatic deal-cutting.

More than anything, the party is racked by the challenge to the establishment from Tea Party outsiders, who are demanding a purge of incumbents who play by a set of rules that many of these Republicans reject.

“The party itself is in a transition time,” said Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the No. 3 Republican in the House. Highlighting a shift in the House to a younger and less traditional generation of conservative leaders, he said, “My theory is the Senate is like a country club and the House is much like having a breakfast at a truck stop.”

Representative Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican running for the Senate, said that if Republicans won in November, the magnitude of the country’s fiscal problems — and the general agreement among Republicans about addressing them by reducing spending — would overcome any jockeying among factions.

“I think the fiscal issues we face are so big and so overwhelming that there’s little reason to focus on the other things,” Mr. Flake said. “That makes it by definition easier to manage, because those issues are so big and require so much work.”

It may not be easy. When Republican leaders sought to push the party’s nominee, Representative Todd Akin, out of the Senate race in Missouri, for saying women who are victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant, Mike Huckabee, the conservative talk-show host and 2008 presidential candidate, came to his defense.

“In a party that supposedly stands for life, it was tragic to see the carefully orchestrated and systematic attack on a fellow Republican,” Mr. Huckabee wrote in an e-mail to supporters.

This article's the lead story at the paper's front page, so no doubt the editors think "factionalism" is the defining element of the party. But remember, this is the paper marked by a "progressive worldview," as Arthur Brisbane put it, so limited government principles --- and living within one's means --- are ridiculed as "extremist" (or "racist," if you're criticizing the president).

More at that top link, FWIW.

'The Fountainhead'

I watched it on TCM this morning. What a movie. Wikipedia's entry is here.

Should CNN Abandon Traditional 'Objective' News Format?

The longstanding news model in American journalism has been professional objectivity. I've argued many times that we've reached a new era of partisan journalism that harkens back to the late-18th century model of the partisan press. Between Fox News and MSNBC on cable, and the Rupert Murdoch properties (NY Post, WSJ) versus just about everybody else in print journalism, the battle lines have been drawn now for almost two decades. But CNN keeps plugging away under the premise that its reporting is non-partisan. Put aside Soledad O'Brien for a moment, or Don Lemon perhaps. As noted earlier, Wolf Blitzer and a few others continue follow the old fashioned "watchdog" style of journalism that treats government skeptically and which stands up for the interests of the public. But with the ratings challenges at CNN, perhaps it's time to junk that approach and go balls out for an ideological framework?

The Los Angeles Times reports, "Is CNN looking for its own game change?":

With the Democratic and Republican national conventions just days away, there's already suspense behind the camera: CNN is staring down one of the worst crises in its 32-year existence.

The cable news network that dominated the political discussion during the 1990s has slumped to record ratings lows this year, with its prime-time audience plunging by more than 40% compared with four years ago (No. 1 Fox News and runner-up MSNBC have each posted double-digit increases). Critics are attacking the Time Warner-owned network's coverage as dull and rudderless. CNN Worldwide President Jim Walton recently announced he will leave at the end of the year, observing that CNN needs "new thinking."

Many industry watchers say change is long overdue, but CNN sees the presidential campaign as an opportunity to prove the doubters wrong. Its new multimillion-dollar studio in Washington is arriving just in time for the President Obama versus Mitt Romney showdown, even if the convention coverage itself doesn't necessarily promise changes that will make viewers snap to attention. The network will start the convention coverage every morning at 5 Eastern time and continue right through a midnight interview show hosted by Piers Morgan, who hosts its flagship prime-time interview program.

As during the primaries this year, there will be round tables overseen by Anderson Cooper — perhaps the network's biggest star — and other anchors, along with a stable of commentators such as the liberal James Carville and his conservative commentator wife, Mary Matalin. Statistics guru John King will work his hands over the "magic wall" of the electoral college once more — in fact, the new studio has two such computerized graphics boards, for even more "Minority Report"-like razzle-dazzle. It will be the first time CNN has managed its convention coverage from Washington.

"In the next six months, there's going to be a huge amount of viewer interest," said Wolf Blitzer, the veteran CNN anchor and reporter who will be a prominent face at the conventions. "I think people will come back and watch us."

More at the link.

Wagner in Israel: Promoting Anti-Semitism or Fighting Censorship?

From Professor Michael Curtis, at American Thinker:

Should the music of Wagner be played in Israel?

There is, in fact, an Israeli Wagnerian Society, but attempts to play the music -- by Zubin Mehta in 1981, by Daniel Barenboim in 2001, and most recently in June 2012 at Tel Aviv University -- have been opposed by groups in Israel. The TAU president stopped the private concert on his campus, arguing that it would offend the public, especially Holocaust survivors, of whom 200,000 remain alive in Israel.

Wagner was an unremitting anti-Semite, as shown both in his prose and in his music expression. His article Das Judenthum in der Musik (Jewishness in Music), written in 1850 under a pseudonym, is a strong criticism of the role of Jews in German culture and society in general, and a more personal attack on the composers of Jewish origin, Giacomo Meyerbeer and Felix Mendelssohn, of whose success he was jealous.

More pertinent to the issue than his anti-Semitic writings is the fact that the music of Wagner and the persona of Wagner became linked with and embedded in Nazi propaganda. Hitler, at least in official pronouncements, spoke of the Wagnerian opus as the best expression of the German soul and in his Table Talk expressed admiration for Wagner. Indeed, the composer became a symbolic and even mythological figure in the Nazi regime, with its racial and genocidal anti-Semitism. Hitler had a special seat at the opera house in Bayreuth, which Wagner built. Recordings of Wagner's opera Rienzi usually opened the Nazi Party conferences.

The case of Wagner is unique. No one objects to hearing the music of Chopin, who disliked Jews and also made anti-Semitic utterances, though they were casual rather than virulent. The piece Carmina Burana by Carl Orff has been played in Israel, though Orff was close to the Nazi Party and obliged the Party by writing new incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream to replace the original music of Felix Mendelssohn, who had been banned as a Jewish composer. More difficult to assess politically was the pragmatic Richard Strauss, who was not a Nazi but who was president of the Reichsmusikkammer (German State Music Chamber), 1933-35, a period during which Jews were prevented from performing, and then president of the Nazi-controlled Permanent Council for the International Cooperation of Composers. The difference between these other composers and Wagner was not only the prominent use made of him in Nazi ideology but also the claim, which may be unfounded, that his music was played in Dachau and in the death camps to accompany the murders...

I can't imagine there'd be much of a market Wagner in Israel, in any case. But it's good to debate censorship. I say let the marketplace sort things out.

More at the link.

New Romney Ad: 'It Ain't Right'

An excellent clip:

The Evolution of the Republican Party Voter

From Michael Barone, at the Wall Street Journal:

The core of the Republican Party throughout its history has been voters who are generally seen by themselves and by others as typical Americans—but who by themselves don't constitute a majority of what has always been an economically, culturally and religiously diverse nation. But, as the electoral data cited above suggest, the nature of that core group has changed over time.

In the 19th century, the Republican core consisted of northern Protestants (and any blacks who were allowed to vote). It was founded as a North-only party, and its first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont in 1856, received no votes in slave states.

So enduring was the trauma of the Civil War that for nearly a century afterward the Republican Party had much the same base, while the Democratic Party's base, sometimes united but sometimes deeply divided, consisted of white Southerners and big-city Catholics. In 1944, Republican presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey carried the popular vote outside the five boroughs of New York City, Chicago's Cook County and the South (defined as the 11 formerly Confederate states plus West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma). Dewey got only 10% of his popular votes and no electoral votes in the South.

Over the next four decades the biggest partisan shift was among white Southerners, while blacks since 1964 have voted about 90% Democratic. By 1984 and 1988, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were getting about one-third of their popular and electoral votes in the South. In the presidential elections since 1988, Republican nominees have gotten 34% to 39% of their popular votes and 60% to 69% of their electoral votes in the South.

A party that attracts new support from a segment of the electorate tends to repel part of its old coalition. As the 1990s began, political pundits were opining that Republicans had a lock on the Electoral College—just before Bill Clinton, with assistance from Ross Perot, picked the lock and ripped open the door. Democrats won the popular vote in four of the five next presidential elections.

Republicans similarly embarrassed the pundits who said two decades ago that Democrats had a lock on the House of Representatives. Republicans won the most popular votes and most seats in seven of the nine congressional elections beginning in 1994.

As a result, the Republican core going into the 2012 election is no longer northern Protestants but white, married Christians...

RTWT.

Code Pink Women for Peace Take Their Vagina's to Tampa

Vulgar.

Really vulgar. Skanky even.

At The Shark Tank, "U.S. Military Presence at Republican Convention, Code Pink Comes Dressed as Pink Vaginas."

PREVIOUSLY: "Respect Women! Dress Up Like a Vagina for Equal Rights!"

Wolf Blitzer in Tampa Bay for the Republican National Convention

Another Howard Kurtz interview with Wolf Blitzer:

Howard Kurtz Interviews Wolf Blitzer

This interview's from just a couple of days ago, from CNN's Situation Room:

CNN's been doing well lately, and not just Wolf. Anderson Cooper questioned Debbie Wasserman Schultz surprisingly hard the other day, and Dana Bash acts like a serious journalist most of the time.

Mitt Romney's Convention Interviews on Fox News Sunday

At The Right Scoop, "FULL INTERVIEWS: Mitt Romney on Fox News Sunday."

And at the Wall Street Journal, "Romney: Obama Wages ‘Campaign of Anger’":

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Barack Obama’s political struggles can be chalked up to the president’s “campaign of anger and divisiveness,” which Mr. Romney said was a sharp contrast to the Obama message of 2008.

“I think his whole campaign has been about dividing the American people,” Mr. Romney said on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace. “I think it’s one of the reasons why his campaign, despite spending massively more than our campaign, that his campaign hasn’t gained the traction that he would have expected. I think people have seen this campaign of character assassination and divisiveness as being very different than the campaign of hope and change that he ran on originally,” Mr. Romney said.

The most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found Mr. Obama leading Mr. Romney 48% to 44%, which was within the margin of error.

In an interview at Mr. Romney’s summer home ahead of the Republican national convention, the candidate touched on several other key topics...

Keep reading.

And the Washington Post's new poll has Romney up 47 to 46 percent, via Michelle Fields on Twitter.

A Dame to Kill For: Jessica Alba Takes Target Practice in Los Angeles

At London's Daily Mail, "Ready to shoot! Jessica Alba gets some target practice at Los Angeles firing range as she trains for new role."

She's starring in the upcoming movie, "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For," a sequel to 2005's "Sin City."

'Midnight Train to Georgia'

Gladys Knight is Mormon, something I learned when working on yesterday's Mitt Romney entry.

Mitt Romney: A Charitable Man With a Sense of Faith, Not the Mean, Rapacious Businessman the Democrat-Media-Complex Foists on the American People

A surprisingly good cover story from Maeve Reston, at today's Los Angeles Times, "A Mitt Romney most of America doesn't know":

BOSTON — Edward Albertian had been working for only a few weeks at his new job, managing the first two Boston-area Staples stores, when he got an unnerving call from his wife. As Staples staffed up, Albertian had been poaching talent from his old company, and his former boss was piqued.

That morning, a courier had delivered papers to Albertian's wife threatening them with eviction unless they immediately repaid the $250,000 loan from Albertian's former company that they had used to buy their home.

A few days later the couple, with their newborn son and 2-year-old daughter in tow, were invited to Staples' Watertown headquarters and found themselves sitting across from Mitt Romney, whose company, Bain Capital, had invested money in Staples. He had heard about their predicament from the chain's co-founder, Tom Stemberg.

They talked for less than half an hour about the young store manager's goals and his role in the company. Then, "Mitt opened his checkbook and wrote a check for $250,000," Albertian, who is now chief operating officer of the Massachusetts-based Transnational Group, said of the 1987 encounter.

"He said, 'You're going to be great. As soon as you sell the house, then you can pay me back, but I want you to focus on Staples and building this into a great company,'" Albertian said. (Stemberg later assumed the loan, and Albertian paid it back over a number of years).

That was the Mitt Romney known to friends and business associates: a man generous to those in need, whose charitable acts stemmed from a deeply rooted sense of duty to help his neighbors.

While Ms. Reston points out that Team Romney's been careful in rolling out personal stories, especially relating to Romney's Mormonism, the Obama-enabling press has been itching to fill in the details, as unfavorably as possible:

George W. Bush connected with voters by revealing his struggle with alcoholism and his path to redemption through his faith. President Obama shared stories about growing up with a single mother. Romney has forgone those sorts of personal anecdotes; instead, his narrative has focused on others — like his father's path from being a carpenter who sold paint cans from the trunk of his car to becoming the head of American Motors.

For more than a year, Romney relentlessly hammered at President Obama on economic and budgetary matters, only recently switching to attacks centered on welfare. That strategy left largely unspoken by the candidate three of the most important elements of his life: his Mormon faith and related acts of charity; his time at Bain Capital; and his signature achievement as governor of Massachusetts, the state's healthcare plan — all matters deemed politically problematic.

As a result, 10 weeks before the election Romney remains an enigma to many Americans.

Democrats have done their best to fill in the blanks, pairing stories about Bain deals that led to layoffs with Romney's plans to shrink federal programs for the poor or shift them to the states. The result: Some of his closest friends and former colleagues say the portrait of Romney as a cold, calculating businessman bears little resemblance to the man they know.

Romney's advisors have long shrugged off his likability problem, arguing that voters care most about competence and insisting that Obama's middling job approval rating is a far more important number.

But in recent days advisors have signaled an intent to fill in the portrait of Romney. Last Sunday, for the first time, his campaign invited reporters to watch Romney attend church, one of its first formal recognitions of his faith. This week's Republican National Convention looms as their biggest opportunity to flesh Romney out with testimonials from people he has helped throughout his business career and through his church.

While some might see a contradiction between Romney's private acts of generosity and his plans to shrink government programs that help the poor or college students, those close to him say there is none. It stems from his belief in individual responsibility and self-reliance, and the view that every American has a duty to help others either through their community or through their church.

"He believes government has a certain role as far as helping people, or helping provide an infrastructure in areas where you can help create opportunities," Romney advisor Kevin Madden said. But his guiding principle is a belief in "putting our faith in individuals and free markets and free enterprise" rather than "government being the only engine."

Keep reading.

This is an amazing piece, and I'm giving Maeve Reston a major shout out here: good on you, lady, this is the kind of reasonably balanced journalism that should be the standard in campaign coverage.

Ms. Reston gives a number of examples of personal charity, but this story below is particular interesting, on the refugees from Hurrican Katrina who wound up in Massachusetts in 2005:

The Rev. Jeffrey Brown, who heads a faith-based gang intervention group in Roxbury, Mass., and spoke frequently to Romney during his governorship, saw two facets of the man — the executive and the spiritual counselor — come together after Hurricane Katrina when the Massachusetts Legislature provided shelter on Cape Cod for evacuees. Romney wanted members of the black clergy to attend to the arrivals — because he said some would rather talk to pastors than mental health professionals — and asked Brown to lead the effort.

Romney arrived a few days later, telling Brown he wanted to hear the stories directly from the victims, many of whom were from New Orleans' hard-hit Lower 9th Ward.

"He wanted to make sure that their needs were being met," Brown said. "He brought 50 state agencies down there, and everybody's needs were attended to. I'm talking about people who left their houses in such a rush that they forgot their teeth. He had dentists down there to get them their dentures.… He was on it."

But Brown was most surprised watching Romney interact with victims — praying with them, sitting with them on park benches asking about their families, scooping up children and asking for hugs.

"He was pastoral," Brown said. "He was that person with those people."

Not mentioned there is that Rev. Brown is black, and most of those from the Lower 9th Ward are black. Since Mitt Romney has been repeatedly attacked as racist on the basis of his Mormonism (the Mormon Church discriminated against blacks in the ordination of priests until 1978, a point the left has been extremely eager to exploit), the story of the New Orleans refugees should be a particularly powerful comeback to the left's racist cult of personality destruction.

The Boston Globe reported on Rev. Brown at the time, "1,350 miles away, they find a haven." Also, Rev. Brown is quoted at this piece from the Massachusetts GOP, citing another Boston Globe report, "Boston ministers skeptical of Elizabeth Warren."

Yeah, there's a lot about Mitt Romney --- and the Republican Party --- that folks aren't getting from the MSM. Thanks again to Ms. Reston for getting out a decent piece on the eve of the convention.

Recall in 2008 the Pew Research organization reported on the horribly biased media coverage favoring "The One." Doug Ross has that, "Pew Research Center confirms media bias affected race."

RELATED: I would bet this Politico piece is more representative of the media coverage of Romney's campaign, "Romney defends Swiss bank account" (at Memeorandum).

Tweet this story out here. Spread the word.

Thanks.

UPDATE: Blue Crab Boulevard links:

Reading this, one gets a feeling for Mitt Romney completely different from the usual media smears. This man is not at all like the villain the media/left tries to paint him. He sounds like someone who would be a good friend. And a good man.

He is a good man --- and thanks Gaius!

Also linked at An Ex-Con's View. Thanks!

More! Power Line links at the "top picks" widget. Thanks!

Penélope Cruz to Headline Toronto International Film Festival

Maybe Blazing Cat Fur will provide some local coverage.

At CBC News, "Penelope Cruz, Robert Redford among TIFF's stars."

The Toronto International Film Festival rounded out its 2012 program Tuesday with new titles by master directors like Michael Haneke and Bernardo Bertolucci as well as a star-studded guest list spanning Robert Redford, Penelope Cruz, Johnny Depp and Vanessa Redgrave.

Organizers unveiled a slate of announcements, including final additions to the festival's movie lineup, details of its popular Mavericks talk series, its annual list of expected attendees and news that the fest was opening up its previously industry-only documentary conference to the public.

Set to present 372 films in total (289 feature-length and 83 short films), TIFF expects a galaxy of international stars to descend on Toronto for this year's festivities.

More at that top link.

And be sure to cruise around at BCF, who's bringing you the hot counter-jihad news out of Canada.

Grizzly Bear Kills Man In Alaska's Denali National Park

At the Los Angeles Times, "Grizzly bear kills hiker in Denali National Park":

A hiker in Denali National Park has been killed by a grizzly bear, the first known fatal bear attack in the Alaska park's history, officials said Saturday.

The victim, whose identity was not released because his family has not been notified, was backpacking alone along the Toklat River when he spotted the bear, officials believe.

Photos recovered from the victim’s camera show that he stopped to take pictures of the animal for at least eight minutes before he was attacked, they said in a telephone conference with reporters Saturday.

Park Superintendent Paul Anderson said he believes the victim came within 50 yards of the grizzly before it went on the attack. He said the photos show the bear grazing in the willows and not acting aggressively.

Backpackers are told to stay at least a quarter mile from bears when in the park, he said. There have been various bear attacks in Denali over the years, though none have been fatal, officials said.

Park service workers were alerted to the attack Friday by three day hikers who saw an abandoned backpack, torn clothing and blood along the river, according to a park service statement.

Rangers found the body late Friday but could not recover it because the sun was fading and they believed multiple bears were nearby. When they returned in a helicopter Saturday afternoon, a grizzly bear was near the body. It was shot and killed by rangers from above.

It was the first time Anderson said he could recall in two decades that a bear was shot and killed in the park.

I'm sorry the man died, and I'll say a prayer for his family, but what purpose does it serve to kill the bear? He was in his natural element and behaved according to his natural instincts. And it's not like the bear was a domesticated animal with a continued risk if place back with a family. Any of the bears out there are a risk. You're hiking in freakin' Alaska, for chrisakes.

New Blue: Dodgers Revamp With Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett

And Carl Crawford and Nick Punto too.

Amazing. The Dodgers are two games back in the National League West, but all eyes are on Los Angeles to lead the league toward the World Championship.

What a monster trading deal this weekend. The Los Angeles Times has lots of coverage. See, "Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett introduce themselves to L.A."

And, "Adrian Gonzalez makes great first impression":

Only two pitches and Adrian Gonzalez was already illustrating the vision the Dodgers had when they inherited $260 million in salary commitments to acquire him from the Boston Red Sox.

Gonzalez redirected an inside fastball from Josh Johnson inside the right-field foul pole for a three-run home run, and the same fans who were on their feet when he first stepped into the batter's box were standing again, only this time they roared even louder.

When Gonzalez completed rounding the bases after his first-inning blast in the Dodgers' 8-2 victory over the Miami Marlins, Matt Kemp was waiting for him at the plate. Hanley Ramirez was in the on-deck circle. Andre Ethier was climbing up the dugout steps.

The centerpiece of a historic nine-player trade that was completed earlier in the day, Gonzalez was far removed from the drama of the Red Sox and now part of a middle-of-the-lineup quartet that was arguably the best in baseball.

Talking of what the addition meant to his lineup, Manager Don Mattingly recalled how he was once a coach on a New York Yankees team that batted a young Robinson Cano ninth.

"It's getting there," Mattingly said.

Mattingly unveiled what he said would be the Dodgers' everyday lineup: Kemp batting third, followed by Gonzalez, Ramirez and Ethier.

"How do you mix and match them?" Mattingly said. "They're all stars. They all can't hit third."

The four players have made a combined 14 All-Star appearances. They are all still in the primes of their careers, between the ages of 27 and 30.

"It's great, man, it's awesome," Kemp said.

And even more good news, "Vin Scully will be back in the booth next season."

Still more coverage here, "An extraordinary day in Dodgers history: A recap."

Sophia Amoruso's 'Nasty Gal' is Hot

This lady's clothing line is smokin'!

At the Los Angeles Times, "Nasty Gal clothing company — as red-hot as its founder's lipstick":

Sophia Amoruso doesn't care if you're offended by the name of her company.

"If it's a big shock when you hear it," she says, "you're probably not our customer anyway."

She's earned the right to be dismissive. Amoruso, 28, is the founder and chief executive of Nasty Gal, a fast-rising e-commerce site that has managed to keep a low profile despite a cult following of young women who can't get enough of the company's edgy and provocative clothing.

Sales rocketed 10,160% from 2008 to 2011, making Nasty Gal the fastest-growing company in Los Angeles and the fastest-growing retail company period, at least according to the Inc. 5000 list released this month. After securing a $9-million investment in January from Index Ventures, which has also backed Facebook and Etsy, Nasty Gal just scored an additional $40 million from the venture capital firm.

That would be hugely impressive for any 6-year-old start-up. But Amoruso isn't your typical entrepreneur.

She's a community college dropout who has never taken a business or fashion class and admits she doesn't know how to make a PowerPoint presentation. Nasty Gal, expected to bring in more than $100 million in sales this year, is her first company. Previously, she was checking student IDs at the entrance to a college dorm for $13 an hour.

With slightly unkempt hair, bright red lips and a daring sense of style, Amoruso is, employees say, the ultimate nasty gal. Much of what the brand sells is a reflection of her own fashion whims.

"There is not an ounce of pretension about her," said Deborah Benton, who left Kim Kardashian's start-up ShoeDazzle in June to join Nasty Gal as president and chief operating officer. "That core value of authenticity — it comes through loud and clear in the brand."

Some photos of the Nasty Gal line here.

Hundreds Dead in Syria Massacre

At the Los Angeles Times, "Syria massacre reportedly leaves more than 200 dead":

BEIRUT — Syrian activists Saturday reported a massacre in a suburb of Damascus that may have claimed more than 200 lives in the last few days.

Some activists were estimating that the death toll could reach 300 as government forces continued an onslaught against Dariya, a suburb of the capital, using tanks, warplanes and snipers.

Residents found 122 bodies in the basement of a building still under construction, said Abu Kinan, an activist in Dariya. All appeared to have been executed, he said.

Independent confirmation of fatalities and specific events in Syria is difficult because of severe government restrictions on news coverage of the conflict.

Activists reported that about 70 people were killed elsewhere in Dariya on Saturday by government troops storming their homes or by snipers.

"There are many snipers. Every street has a sniper," Abu Kinan said. "They entered the town, and they control all of it now. If someone goes into the street, the snipers begin firing."

Ambulances trying to transport hundreds of wounded, as well as families attempting to flee, are navigating the streets at night without headlights to avoid becoming obvious targets, he said. But the ambulances don't have many options on where to take their patients.

"There are no more field hospitals; they were all shelled," Abu Kinan said. "The injured are considered dead."

Also at the Times of Israel, "Syrian rebels say 440 killed across country in ‘massacre’."

The clip above is unauthenticated but purports to show government forces beating detainees.

Arthur Brisbane Speaks Truth to 'New York Times' Power

This, literally, is too good to be true, from the Times' ombudsman, "Success and Risk as The Times Transforms":

I ... noted two years ago that I had taken up the public editor duties believing “there is no conspiracy” and that The Times’s output was too vast and complex to be dictated by any Wizard of Oz-like individual or cabal. I still believe that, but also see that the hive on Eighth Avenue is powerfully shaped by a culture of like minds — a phenomenon, I believe, that is more easily recognized from without than from within.

When The Times covers a national presidential campaign, I have found that the lead editors and reporters are disciplined about enforcing fairness and balance, and usually succeed in doing so. Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.

As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in The Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects.

Stepping back, I can see that as the digital transformation proceeds, as The Times disaggregates and as an empowered staff finds new ways to express itself, a kind of Times Nation has formed around the paper’s political-cultural worldview, an audience unbound by geography (as distinct from the old days of print) and one that self-selects in digital space.

It’s a huge success story — it is hard to argue with the enormous size of Times Nation — but one that carries risk as well.

You have to read it all. This is the dude's last essay as "public editor," and looks like he's ripped a new asshole for some of the stuffed shirts over there. Politico has that, "NYT's Abramson rebuts Brisbane charge."

How Long Do You Want to Live?

This is good, from David Ewing Duncan, at the New York Times:

How long do you want to live?

Over the past three years I have posed this query to nearly 30,000 people at the start of talks and lectures on future trends in bioscience, taking an informal poll as a show of hands. To make it easier to tabulate responses I provided four possible answers: 80 years, currently the average life span in the West; 120 years, close to the maximum anyone has lived; 150 years, which would require a biotech breakthrough; and forever, which rejects the idea that life span has to have any limit at all.

I made it clear that participants should not assume that science will come up with dramatic new anti-aging technologies, though people were free to imagine that breakthroughs might occur — or not.

The results: some 60 percent opted for a life span of 80 years. Another 30 percent chose 120 years, and almost 10 percent chose 150 years. Less than 1 percent embraced the idea that people might avoid death altogether.

These percentages have held up as I’ve spoken to people from many walks of life in libraries and bookstores; teenagers in high schools; physicians in medical centers; and investors and entrepreneurs at business conferences. I’ve popped the question at meetings of futurists and techno-optimists and gotten perhaps a doubling of people who want to live to 150 — less than I would have thought for these groups.

Rarely, however, does anyone want to live forever, although abolishing disease and death from biological causes is a fervent hope for a small scattering of would-be immortals.

One hundred would be good for me, but we'll see. I think blogging shortens your life.

Read the whole thing.

Celine Dion in 'V Magazine'

Boy, V Magazine upped the ante this month.

See London's Daily Mail, "Near, far... wherever is my bra? Celine Dion's lingerie doesn't 'go on'... in racy topless photoshoot'."

And at V Magazine, "The Voice":

WITH MORE THAN 200 MILLION ALBUMS SOLD WORLDWIDE, ONE OF THE GREATEST AND MOST GLAMOROUS VOCAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME CONTINUES HER REIGN AS AN INTERNATIONAL ICON WITH A HIGH-FLYING VEGAS REVUE. SEE CELINE DION AS YOU'VE NEVER SEEN HER BEFORE.

'The Other McCain' in Tampa Bay

He's down there, with reports: "Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Fear, Loathing and Deficient Hygiene," and "Monday GOP Convention Schedule Postponed Due to Anticipated BlogBash Hangovers and Approaching Hurricane …"

'The A Team'

From Ed Sheeran:

White lips, pale face
Breathing in snowflakes
Burnt lungs, sour taste
Light's gone, day's end
Struggling to pay rent
Long nights, strange men

And they say
She's in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since 18
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries

And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us
Cos we're just under the upperhand
And go mad for a couple of grams
And she don't want to go outside tonight
And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland
Or sells love to another man
It's too cold outside
For angels to fly
Angels to fly

Ripped gloves, raincoat
Tried to swim and stay afloat
Dry house, wet clothes
Loose change, bank notes
Weary-eyed, dry throat
Call girl, no phone
And they say
She's in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since 18
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries...

Irina Shayk Shows Off Her Incredible Body in New Photo Shoot for La Clover

Quite lovely, at London's Daily Mail, "In bed with Irina Shayk! Supermodel shows off her incredible body in new underwear photoshoot for La Clover."

Anarchists Plan to Take Down Emergency Medical Services at RNC

According to Brandon Darby in an interview with John Sexton, at Big Government:

Yesterday, I interviewed my co-worker Brandon Darby as he was traveling toward the Republican National Convention in Florida. The interview focused on strategies used by anarchist protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention and how those strategies will be used once again next week by the Occupy movement.

In addition to trying to shut down bridges to prevent delegates from reaching the convention center next week, Brandon has learned that a subgroup of Occupy is looking to shut down EMS communications throughout the city.

Continue reading.

'America Doesn't Need a Birther-in-Chief'

That "birther" joke is working like a charm. And remember, this is all "fake umbrage."

The Democrats are liars and losers.

Via Weasel Zippers:

Newsweek's 1957 Review of 'Atlas Shrugged'

From Cary Schneider and Sue Horton, at the Los Angeles Times, "Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged': What the critics had to say in 1957."

Newsweek

Gigantic, relentless, often fantastic, this book is definitely not one to be swallowed whole. Throughout its 1,168 pages, Miss Rand never cracks a smile. Conversations deteriorate into monologues as one character after another laboriously declaims his set of values. One speech, the core of the book, spreads across 60 closely written pages. Yet once the reader enters this stark, strange world, he will likely stay with it, borne along by its story and its eloquent flow of ideas.

There's a whole bunch of reviews there as well, from people you haven't heard of unless you're a real literary person. Most of them are not very favorable. Even Whittaker Chambers, at National Review, sniffed at it.

BONUS: At American Glob, "Liberals Don’t Get Ayn Rand."

The Architecture of the Republican National Convention

An art review, interestingly, from Christopher Hawthorne, at the Los Angeles Times, "Party Crasher: The GOP Drew Inspiration From Frank Lloyd Wright for Its Stage Design, but An Unintended Message Might Be Sent":

Barack Obama had his Greek columns. Mitt Romney is turning to Frank Lloyd Wright.

When the Republican National Convention begins Monday inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum, a 19,500-seat arena in Tampa, Fla., that's home during hockey season to the NHL's Lightning, the stage will be crowded with large video screens framed in wood. Actually the "wood" will be made of vinyl and various laminates, but it'll read on television as cherry, mahogany and walnut.

The inspiration for the set, said Jim Fenhagen, lead production designer for the convention, is Wright's residential architecture, which often featured long horizontal bands of wood-framed windows.

The Wright references, which Fenhagen said he pulled together after a couple of simple Google searches, are relatively faint. They draw from the architect's most approachable domestic designs — mostly the Prairie Style houses of his early career — rather than his most radical buildings. They're more Oak Park than Fallingwater, more Robie House than Guggenheim Museum.

Still, in the context of a national political convention, where every symbolic choice is sure to be scrutinized, there are more than a few risks in going with Frank Lloyd Wright as your architectural touchstone. And I wonder how many of them the Romney campaign has fully considered.

Continue reading.

Why Unions Fear California's Proposition 32

In one word: accountability.

See this essential essay, from Larry Sand, at the Los Angeles Times, "Prop. 32: What really scares California's big unions":

Michael Hiltzik infers in his column Sunday that Proposition 32 is a big lie -- because it prohibits both corporations and labor unions such as the California Teachers Assn. from extracting involuntary political contributions from the paychecks of workers. Hiltzik argues that its prohibition of corporate deductions is of minor impact, but that union political fund-raising will be crippled.

He is amazingly untroubled by the fact that taking such payroll deductions for political purposes without consent is patently immoral. Why should a worker have some of his forced union dues spent on candidates or causes that he doesn't agree with? As Thomas Jefferson said, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.”

Oddly, Hiltzik seems concerned only that the CTA and other public employee unions maintain the ability to build massive political war chests so they can pour tens of millions of dollars into the same types of independent spending efforts that so offend him.

Does it trouble Hiltzik that the CTA's inexhaustible tap on more than a quarter of a million teacher paychecks has deluded parents into the false belief that their kids are getting a good education? Does it bother him that California's deteriorating public school system has cheated two generations out of a decent education?

Having been a teacher for more than 28 years, it troubles me. It also troubles Gloria Romero, the California director of Democrats for Educational Reform and the former majority leader in the state Senate. As a former teacher, she endorsed Proposition 32 because it's California's best hope for the implementation of urgently needed reform that would rescue the next generation of its children from bad schools that will cheat them of attaining their full potential....

When lobbyists for corporations or unions hand a check to a public official who is about to vote or take action on their special interest, what happens to the public interest? In April, a Times article on AT&T's enormous lobbying efforts showed that after contributing to every single Sacramento legislator, the company has succeeded in blocking any consumer protection effort that threatens its profits.

Hiltzik has the temerity to defame the reformers who put Proposition 32 on the November ballot, calling it the "fraud to end all frauds." He notes two prior efforts to stop special-interest money corruption of state and local politics both were defeated.

Yes, they were defeated -- by being grossly outspent by union money making the same misrepresentation that Hiltzik has employed in his obtuse column. Hidden beneath a cleverly crafted attack on the credibility of Proposition 32 is Hiltzik's central argument -- that the status quo must be protected from the power of the voters.

Public employee union bosses aren't spending millions of dollars because they're worried that the elected officials negotiating their benefits will become accountable to rich people. They're worried that politicians might become fiscally accountable to the taxpayers.

The CTA bosses aren’t worried that education reform decisions will be made on behalf of corporations. They’re worried about reforms made on behalf of the parents and children of our state.

Accountability must be a very frightening thing to unions. If it wasn't, they’d be a little less worried about allowing their own members to contribute political funds voluntarily.

Unbelievably shameful.

Prop. 32 may be the most important item on the California ballot this November.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ringo's Pictures via Zombie, "SEIU drops mask, goes full commie."

Isaac Cancels First Day of Republican National Convention

Actually, Reince Priebus announced the cancellation, on behalf of the National Committee.

At CNN, "BREAKING: GOP delays start of convention until Tuesday."

A lot's at stake. Here's this from The Hill, "Priebus predicts ‘real’ and ‘visible’ bump for Romney after Tampa":

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus looked ahead to next week’s convention in Tampa, predicting a “visible” boost for Mitt Romney and mocking Vice President Joe Biden’s plans for a counter rally, in an interview airing this weekend.

During the interview with Bloomberg’s Al Hunt, Priebus said he expected Romney to receive a “real” and “visible” boost from the GOP convention.

“I think we are going to get a bump; I think we have a better opportunity for the bump as a party, as a challenging party,” said Priebus.

The party chairman said that as “people get to know Mitt Romney and get to know who he is and the decent man he is and his story of the American Dream and his generosity,” he expected that Republicans would gain across the board.

But Priebus refused to peg a specific number. “I can’t give you a scope, but I can tell you I think it’s going to be real and it’s going to be visible, but I don’t know what it will end up being.”

Both parties get a bump, so these tend to wash out. The bigger implication is the media coverage at stake for the Republicans. Next week is the chance for the Romney campaign to break out and define the stakes for November. It's the time when a lot of Americans start tuning in more carefully to campaign messaging. And the GOP ticket is going to be fresh and exuberant, in contrast to the stale, listless lies of the Obama/Biden scandal machine. That's why Mother Nature needs to shine on Tampa Bay this next week. The party can't afford to miss this opportunity.

More at the New York Times, "With Storm Approaching, Republicans Cancel First Day of Convention." And at Memeorandum.

Tiger Escapes at Germany's Cologne Zoo, Kills Keeper

At the Los Angeles Times, "Tiger escapes, kills keeper in German zoo":

The tiger slipped through a passage between the enclosure and an adjacent storage building, where it fatally attacked the 43-year-old keeper, said police spokesman Stefan Kirchner.

"It appears the gate wasn't properly shut," Kirchner told The Associated Press....

This is the darkest day of my life," the zoo's director, Theo Pagel, was quoted as saying by Cologne newspaper Express.

Neil Armstrong, Earth's First Moonwalker, Dead at 82

At the Air Force Times, "Moonwalker, former Navy pilot Armstrong dies."

And the Los Angeles Times, "Astronaut Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on moon, dies at age 82" (via Memeorandum).

VIDEO HAT TIP: Weasel Zippers.

Nicole Kidman in 'V Magazine'

Now this is a first-class woman.

See, "Truth or Bare":

For a while, the shoot was going ordinarily enough. The woman of the hour primped and posed in pieces from Chanel, Lanvin, Miu Miu, and the like. But then, her figure being just too sick for words, the clothes came flying off. We have now reached the point at which Kidman is lying on the ground in a bra and panties with a red fur coat falling off her, in what is sometimes referred to in fashion circles as the dead girl pose. Most any other actress of her caliber (there aren’t many) would likely say, “You know what? I don’t think so.” Or someone from her camp would swoop in and with a tap on the shoulder inform the stylist and creative team that things were going just a bit too far. But not Kidman. In fact, the only protestations coming from her rep, Leslee Dart, are that 1) the shoot is running over and Nicole could miss her plane, and 2) who on earth is going to help get all this bronze body paint off her?

And at Telegraph UK, "Nicole Kidman strips off for 'V Magazine'.'

Natalie Portman to Campaign for Barack Hussein

I'm surprised, actually. She's a Jewish neocon.

At the Hollywood Reporter, "Natalie Portman to Campaign for Obama in Nevada."

'Republican Women for Obama' Aren't Republican

Well, at least one of the women in this ad isn't Republican, and none of them are conservative. Also really misleading is the argument that if you're for "small government" you should vote for Obama, since he won't deprive you of your right to abort your baby in the 9th month of pregnancy. Family values, you know.

As I was saying yesterday about how stupid these people are, via Hot Air, "Busted: “Republican” woman in Obama ad has been a registered Democrat since 2006."

Watch the ad here.

This lady below, featured in the ad, is Maria-Ciano Adrian-Dillingham. There's perhaps also one other "Republican" imposter. John Hinderaker scoped out Ms. Maria on Facebook. Check out her "likes":

* Democracy For America
* Tar Sands Action
* Amy Goodman
* Barack Obama
* Costoftaxcuts.com
* Being Liberal
* MoveOn.org
* Bernie Sanders Tells You A Secret the GOP Would Rather You Didn’t Know
* Miss Piggy Delivers the Best Takedown of Fox News We’ve Seen All Month
* Think Progress
* The Best Quote From Barack Obama We’ve Seen This Week
* Dow and Monsanto Join Forces to Poison America’s Heartland
* Climate Reality
* Grist.org
* The Amazing Victory Scored With Obama That More People Should Be Talking About
* The Sierra Club
* The Buffett Rule
* Obama For America–Colorado
* UniteWomen.org
* Denver Young Democrats
* Obamacare
* Latinos For Obama
* Michelle Obama
* Veterans For Obama
* I Love It When I Wake Up In the Morning and Obama Is President
* Obama Truth Team
* Democratic Party

Shayzus, she's a freakin' communist!

"Republican Women for Obama." More like "Marxist-Leninist Women Shilling for Obama"!

'Premium Rush'

The previews are wild, and Betsy Sharkey gave it two thumbs up, at the Los Angeles Times, "Review: 'Premium Rush' a thrilling bike ride

Bad New York cop plus a guy on a bicycle make for a tightly wound, radically fresh slice of street action in the film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon.

Obama Campaign's Outrage Over Romney 'Birther' Joke is 'Most Absurd Example of Fake Umbrage in the History of Fake Umbrage'

Charles Krauthammer nails the left's hypocrisy as only Charles Krauthammer can:

RELATED: As promised, here's Adam Serwer tossing out the race card:

Romney is not himself a birther. He was engaging in ironic post-birtherism—showing solidarity with birthers by making a humorous remark that can be plausibly denied as a joke later. This is a necessary device for a Republican politician who wants to rile up the base without seeming like a lunatic, because the belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States is still held by nearly half of self-identified Republicans even after the very public release of the president's birth certificate. Birtherism remains the most frank and widespread evidence of racial animus among some of the president's critics. As Ta-Nehisi Coates writes in The Atlantic this month, the birthers, strapped in their waxen wings, aim for nothing less than the sun: "If Obama is not truly American, then America has still never had a black president."

And interestingly, it's the smell of fear at No More Mister Nice Blog.

Romney took a knife to the progressives with that birther joke. As I said earlier, it was f-king brilliant. Way to shift the outrage immediately. CNN was playing the clip all  day yesterday afternoon. That took up hella lot of airtime. And remember, what's especially good is how Romney's closing the gap on likability, and if he's able to get a zinger in there to rile up the base at the same time, what a bonus. It's a dead heat election at this point. The Dems will try mercilessly to destroy the GOP bounce coming out of Tampa. I mentioned earlier that Tropical Storm Isaac might be an act of God, and maybe so --- it's sucking the wind out of MSM attacks on Republicans on the eve of the convention. Interesting how things work like that. Progressives are such hypocrite hacks. They've been playing "tax return birtherism" for months, but when the shoe's on the other foot it's RAAAAACISM!!

We have a party of idiots to defeat. God, these people are so bad it's unmentionable. Man. At this point it really is about saving the country, sad to say.

Tropical Storm Isaac Unlikely to Cancel Republican National Convention

At LAT, "Isaac looks unlikely to shut down GOP convention."

Barack Obama's Joyless Slog Towards Reelection

Joyless --- and ruthlessly dishonest.

From Toby Harnden, at London's Daily Mail, "Low blows, lower turnouts and low expectations: Four years after he was swept to victory, how Obama's election campaign is a joyless slog" (via Instapundit):

Barack Obama was swept to the White House in 2008 by a wave of idealism and inspirational campaigning in which he encapsulated the mood of the nation with his slogans of ‘Hope’, ‘Change’ and ‘Yes we can’.

Then, his message was a fundamentally positive one. Americans wanted an end to the Bush era but that almost went without saying. Obama pointed to his own vision of the country; a post-partisan, post-racial America in which gridlock in Washington was ended and common-sense centrist solutions were adopted.

What a difference four years makes. Obama is campaigning ferociously for a second term – and he is a candidate who would have probably have been disdained by the Obama of 2008.

Obama is waging a relentlessly negative campaign of changing the subject from the one that, overwhelmingly, most Americans care about – the economy. Every week there is a new issue his campaign seizes on, preferring to talk about something, anything other than jobs and 8.3 per cent unemployment.

While Obama is still drawing sizable crowds, they are nothing like the size of those who flocked to see him in 2008. In Las Vegas, Obama held a rally in a high school before more than 2,000 people but there was space for plenty more.

Continue reading.

Apple Wins $1 Billion in Samsung Patent Trial

A billion dollars ain't no chump change either.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Apple Wins Big in Patent Case: Jury Finds Samsung Mobile Devices Infringed Six Apple Patents, Awards $1.05 Billion in Damages":

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Nine jurors delivered a sweeping victory to Apple Inc. in a high-stakes court battle against Samsung Electronics Co., awarding the Silicon Valley company $1.05 billion in damages and providing ammunition for more legal attacks on its mobile-device rivals.

Jurors Friday found that Samsung infringed all but one of the seven patents at issue in the case—a patent covering the physical design of the iPad. They found all seven of Apple's patents valid—despite Samsung's attempts to have them thrown out. They also decided Apple didn't violate any of the five patents Samsung asserted in the case.

The damage award is shy of Apple's request for more than $2.5 billion, but much larger than Samsung's estimates and still ranking among the largest intellectual-property awards on record.

"Today's verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer," Samsung said. "It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices."

An Apple spokeswoman said, "The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung's copying went far deeper than even we knew."

More at that top link.

And a bunch of commentary at Techmeme.

Jeffrey T. Johnson, Empire State Building Shooter, Nursed Grudges Before Killing Co-Worker

I can't escape the idea that part of this was copycat, considering all the recent gun violence.

See the New York Times, "Long Before Carnage, an Office Grudge Festered":

The two men at the center of a fatal shooting outside the Empire State Building on Friday had brushed shoulders for years — often literally, two large egos stuffed into a small office — and yet could hardly have been less alike.

Neighbors and co-workers described them: Jeffrey T. Johnson, 58, a slight, meticulous artist, the first one to work in the morning and the last one out, without so much as a look outside for fresh air in between; Steven Ercolino, 41, a well-built, confident salesman used to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. The artist chafed at what he saw as the salesman’s casual bossiness, they said, and the two never got along.

Years passed this way at the company, Hazan Imports, which sold handbags and belts, until Mr. Johnson was laid off almost two years ago.

And yet, the casual observer would not have known it, to look at him. He put on the same suit every morning: the Upper East Side’s own Willy Loman, dressing for a job he no longer had. He picked up his newspaper on the front stoop and walked two blocks to McDonald’s for breakfast. Months after his dismissal, he showed up at the building where he once worked, across West 33rd Street from the famous skyscraper, and confronted the salesman, a much larger man, in an elevator. The two came close enough to blows — Mr. Johnson throwing an elbow, Mr. Ercolino grabbing his throat and threatening him — that it was reported to the police.

The feud ended Friday. Mr. Johnson left his East 82nd Street walk-up in his suit, as he did every other day. And Mr. Ercolino took the PATH train from Hoboken, N.J., where he lived with his girlfriend, to the West 33rd Street building near Fifth Avenue. A co-worker saw him and shouted for him to wait, then they walked toward the entrance together. They were almost there when the co-worker, Irene Timan, 35, saw Mr. Johnson lurking behind a white van.

Continue reading.

This Johnson dude was a loser.

That said, my wife has repeatedly mentioned her worries about the crazed progressives who've attempted to have me fired at my work. You never know what some people may do. The LBPD even said to take extra precaution, saying that even New York City is just a few hours away by plane. I was told to report any suspicious activity to officers right away. Again, you never know with crazy people like this.

RELATED: "Carl Salonen Libelous Workplace Allegations of Child Pornography and Sexual Harassment at Long Beach City College," and "The Lies of Scott Eric Kaufman — Leftist Hate-Blogger Sought to Silence Criticism With Libelous Campaign of Workplace Harassment."

Big Brother Star Ashleigh Hughes in Zoo Magazine

See, "Big Brother's Ashleigh Hughes..."

And at the Sun UK, "BB's Ashleigh Hughes: TOWIE's got boring, they need me to spice it up."

The Week in Blogs

Via Theo Spark:

Farmers Feed Candy to Cows Amid High Corn Prices, Outrage Over Ethanol Quotas

At the Los Angeles Times, "Farmer feeds candy to cows to cope with high corn prices":

The worst drought in decades has destroyed more than half the U.S. corn crop, pushing prices to record levels and squeezing livestock owners as they struggle to feed their herds.

To cope, one Kentucky cattle farmer has turned to a child-tested way to fatten his 1,400 cows: candy.

"It's so hard to make any money when corn is eight or nine dollars a bushel," said Nick Smith, co-owner of United Livestock Commodities in Mayfield, Ky.

The chocolate and other sweet stuff was rejected by retailers. It makes up 5% to 8% of the cattle's feed ration, Smith said. The rest includes roughage and distillers grain, an ethanol byproduct.

The candy's high caloric content is fattening up the cows nicely, Smith said.

Paul Cameron, who heads a California Cattlemen's Assn. feed committee, said Smith's candy strategy is "awfully creative" but also extremely unusual.

"There are people that feed vegetables and potatoes and stuff like that … to offset the high price of grains, but I've never heard of that," said Cameron, managing partner of Mesquite Cattle Feeders, an operation that feeds up to 35,000 head of cattle in Brawley, Calif. "He's probably at an advantage by doing that."

And see, "Calls to lower ethanol quota rise as U.S. corn crop withers,' and "U.S. drought pushing corn prices toward record highs."

Plus, "As drought widens, 50.3% of U.S. counties declared disaster areas."

PHOTO: "Rancher Gary Wollert inspects a dead cow on dry grasslands near Eads, Colo. He speculated that it ate a poisonous weed in search of food," c/o the Los Angeles Times.

Obama's America

Everyone's talking about this film, even Nikki Finke, "Anti-Obama Docu Expands To #3 Friday; Other Newcomers & Holdovers Weak B.O.; Only ‘The Expendables 2′ Can Break $10M." (At Memeorandum.)

VIDEO CREDIT: Nice Deb.

Snap Decision: Questions Emerge After Police Gun Down Shooting Suspect on Crowded City Street

There's a lot of questions, frankly. One concerns the decision of police to open fire with so many people in close proximity. The New York Times has that, "Decision by 2 Officers to Open Fire in Busy Midtown Leaves Bystanders Wounded."

As the two officers confronted a gunman in front of the Empire State Building on a busy Friday morning, they had to make a snap decision: Do they open fire in the middle of Midtown?

From a distance of less than 10 feet, the officers, Craig Matthews and Robert Sinishtaj, answered in unison; one shot nine times and the other seven.

Investigators believe at least 7 of those 16 bullets struck the gunman, said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. But the officers also struck some, if not all, of the nine bystanders who were wounded. This was the second time in two weeks that the police were

Keep reading.

By the looks of the security-camera video above, it was an easy call, frankly. Self defense. The suspect stopped, pulled out a gun, and appears about to fire on the officers.

But another question emerging tonight deals with the graphic media coverage of the shooting. The New York Post has all these graphic videos, for example, and the New York Times posted an image of the shooter's victim, in what looks like a pool of blood. Poynter reports on the reaction, "New York Times explains graphic photo from Empire State Building shooting." The photo appears at that link and can still be seen at the front page of the paper as this post goes live. It's the 5th shot in this slideshow, "Steve Ercolino lies dead on West 33rd Street on Friday morning after being shot by Jeffrey T. Johnson, a former coworker."

See also, "How the media handled graphic images of Empire State Building shooting."

There's a less a question on the police opening fire, unless the public expects officers to take bullets, offering no defense, any time there are civilian presents. I wouldn't make that call. Why would anyone expect police to take a bullet in that kind of situation. It goes against human nature. Moreover, had officers stood down (possibly getting shot), the suspect might have gotten away, which could have endangered the lives of others.

As for the media coverage, I'm actually a little surprised with all the graphic imagery, especially in the video clips. Although I don't think the New York Times' photo is inappropriate.

Oh My! New CNN Poll Shows Romney Topping Obama 48-to-45 Among Likely Independent Voters!

Shoot, this is getting to be "Oh My!" Friday.

Here's this from CNN, "CNN Poll: Obama 49%-Romney 47% among likely voters." And the survey sampled likely voters:

With three days to go until the start of the Republican convention, President Barack Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney remain deadlocked in the race for the White House, according to a new national survey.

A CNN/ORC International poll released Friday also indicates Romney's favorable rating among those likely to vote in the presidential election is in the same ballpark as the president's, and the survey also points to a slightly higher level of enthusiasm for Republicans than Democrats.

According to the poll, 49% of likely voters say they're backing Obama, with 47% supporting Romney. The two point margin is within the survey's sampling error, meaning the race is a statistical tie....

In the horserace, 48% of likely voters who are independents say they support Romney, with 45% backing Obama. The gender gap and generational divides seen in polling so far this cycle continue, with the president holding a 54%-42% lead among female likely votes and Romney holding a 53%-43% lead among male likely voters. Obama has a 55%-43% advantage among those under 50, with Romney holding a 50%-45% margin among likely voters 50 and older.

More at the link.

In recent polling, some analysts have stressed how Romney needed to close the likability gap. He's done that now, but then analysts --- Ronald Brownstein this afternoon, in this case --- said that Romney needed to appeal to suburban women voters, with the implication that today's "birther" joke was simply preaching to the choir. The joke was meant for the media, not the conservative base. Romney was looking to throw a monkey wrench into the Democrat-Media-Complex meme-machine before the RNC kicks off over the weekend. In any event, Romney's on the tall side of the margin of error with those independents, and the convention might help draw a few more over to the GOP --- even a few women, come to think of it. Wait until they hear Mrs. Romney speak. She's a knockout.

And AoSHQ has some queries and conjectures, "CNN Poll of Likely Voters: Obama's Ahead (Huh?) 49-47 (MoE); But Romney's Favorables at 50%":

John King said that Romney "stepped on" this good news with his Birth Certificate joke.

I wonder if Romney didn't do that on purpose. Since our unserious, unprofessional, unintelligent, partisan press is determined to talk about distractions (given that all substance favors Romney), why not give them a distraction of your own choosing?

If the choice is between Rape!!! and Birth Certificate, isn't it better to talk about Obama's Birth Certificate? Neither is what Romney wants to talk about, but the press is determined to only report on irrelevancies; so give them one that doesn't much hurt you.

Anyway, the poll. It's a deadlock, the 2% lead statistically meaningless. Romney leads independents 48-45 (which itself is statistically meaningless).

Keep reading.

Oh, and the poll found that 83 percent thought that abortion should be legal in the case of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother --- which is another way of saying there's a massive pro-life majority out there willing to make exceptions. Meanwhile, the Democrats dropped the "rare" standard from their party's previous doctrine of "safe, legal, and rare." The pro-infanticide progressives simply don't give a f-ck about the lives of unborn children:

The DNC platform supports all abortion and does not contain any language opposing partial-birth abortion, nor does it distinguish that practice from first-trimester abortion. It is the official position of the Democratic Party to not only be able to shove the scissors into the skulls of newborns and suck out their brains — they don't even pretend to harbor the expectation that the practice be "rare."

Baby-killing progressives --- the party of President Infanticide. It's like a f-king holocaust with these ghouls.

More at Memeorandum.

Memphis Barbecue

Via Theo Spark: