Jordan Downs' Project Fatherhood

When I read Joseph Stiglitz's piece at the New York Times, "Equal Opportunity, Our National Myth," I thought, "Okay, I agree. We have these enormous problems. It might not be as bad as you say --- where's the comparative historical data for advancement, for example? --- but no doubt we have problems. But does more government expansion --- so much more --- always have to be the answer? What about helping to change the cultures of poverty that prevent social mobility?"

Then a later I read this piece at the Los Angeles Times, and thought, "Okay, if only we had more of this, a lot more?" See, "REMAKING JORDAN DOWNS: The father of all support groups":

It started in 2009 on a patch of grass outside the Jordan Downs gym. A group of ex-Crips gave haircuts and grilled hamburgers, hoping families and fathers would show up, relax and begin to talk.

"Growing up the way we did, during the time we did, a lot of the dads might as well have been in some other world," says Andre "Low Down" Christian, one of the leaders. "It's a big reason why things ended up as rough as they did here."

He tells of getting into a fight and tracking down his father for advice. His father gave him brass knuckles and a sawed-off shotgun.

"There had to be a better way of looking at being a dad," he says. "That's what we wanted people to think about."

Those initial weeks in front of the gym, five people came. The local fire station donated steaks and a barbecue. Time passed. Twenty arrived. Then 25.

John King, the Los Angeles Housing Authority official who oversees the community center, was already trying to change the culture in Jordan Downs as preparations were made to rebuild the 700-unit apartment complex. He offered his support and told the men to use his conference room.

By the summer of 2011, backed by a $50,000 grant from the nonprofit Children's Institute, the loose amalgamation of men became something more formal. Now they had a name, Project Fatherhood, and were part of a regional network of meetings the institute sponsored, focusing on men and their kids.

The Watts group has the feel of an urban barbershop: full of jokes and jealousy, grace and anger. Early on, two street toughs entered the room as the men spoke. Wearing trench coats, not saying a word, they walked around the oval of tables, suspiciously checking out the scene.

"They were wondering what exactly was going on with these older dudes," says the UCLA professor, Jorja Leap, who, assuming the toughs were carrying shotguns, followed the fathers' lead and didn't say a word. "They had to see for themselves what this meeting was about. Was it a threat to them? When they found out what we were doing, they gave their OK."

Project Fatherhood became part of the fabric of Jordan Downs. As the Wednesdays piled up, the men grew comfortable talking about their problems. They "were carrying deep troubles, questions and fears about being dads," Leap says. "Problem was, they didn't have many examples of good fathering, so they were coming up with answers from scratch."

RTWT.

But in the public community colleges, I see first hand the kind of investments the state is making in public education. I'm sure we could do more, but it all costs, and the economy can't support increasing "investment." On the other hand, when students are attending classes, they're not bringing anywhere near the needed social requisites for success in college education. And they come to us without those skills, from the K-12 system. More government spending isn't the solution to all of the problems Stiglitz identifies. But he's a big government progressive. Talking about the culture for people like that is "racist." In turn that consigns generations of Americans to poverty. Start changing the culture --- combined with making equal opportunity truly available --- and you'll see more upward mobility. We should be talking about it. From the president on down, we should be talking about it.

The New #CPAC Schedule is Here!

I'm not joking with "The Jerk" headline at top.

Rachel Maddow starts out her sensational report on CPAC 2013 with a Steve Martin clip. She then cherry picks a few of the more offbeat panels to highlight --- wait for it! --- just how filled with fringe freaks are the CPAC conferences.

Robert Stacy McCain had more on this propaganda earlier, "Another Controversial CPAC Scandal!™":

How long have I been covering the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)? Forever, it seems, and every year the liberal media find some reason to denounce CPAC as extreme, fringe, controversial.

From my perspective, the biggest CPAC controversy this year is that they moved it from the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in northwest D.C. — near the Adams-Morgan district and a short taxi ride from downtown — to the new Gaylord National Harbor resort, eight miles south of town in Prince George’s County, Md.

I could think of a dozen arguments against this move, and have heard only one argument in favor of it: They got a great rate.

Well, so much for my CPAC controversy. The really big controversy according to liberal Sarah Reese Jones is this:

CPAC: White Supremacists and Wayne LaPierre are Welcome, but GOProud is Banned

Students of propaganda techniques should ponder how Jones manages to suggest that Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association is somehow as controversial as “white supremacists.”

But wait a minute: Who are these “white supremacists” being welcomed at CPAC? Looking over the announced schedule, I don’t see any, unless Sarah Reese Jones is using the liberal definition of “white supremacist” as “someone who didn’t vote for Obama.”

Continue reading.

The real conspiracy is how the progressive collectivists have perverted the culture to fool a majority of Americans that the left's Marxist agenda is mainstream. But they thrive on propaganda and Maddow's show is one of the left's top propaganda outfits.

What is 'Natural Born'?

I'm not sure why it's important, but William Jacobson feels he must respond to attacks from "birther" conspiracy-mongers. I guess these are not infrequent, as William explains, "This will be dealt with."

Read it all at the link above. The email William posts in pretty fascinating:

JACOBSON: First you display your inexcusable contempt for the law by keeping the fact of Obama’s ineligibility from your readers, for whatever discreditable reasons. Now you double down and defend and promote the candidacies of two more ineligibles, Rubio and Jindal. (The reason the Democrats have to paint Rubio and Jindal as crazies is because they know that thanks to people like you, the Republicans would actually put up an ineligible candidate.) What is wrong with you? Don’t you have any respect for the Constitution? Or for a government of laws? You enable, aid and abet lawbreakers. You are a Professor of Law and your conduct is so egregious you are an indelible stain on the profession.

Debate me, defend your conduct in any public setting. Or defend in writing your enablement of Obama and promotion of other ineligible candidates. You can’t, can you? There is no honorable defense, is there? No. You and your ilk are largely responsible for Obama’s tremendously destructive foreign and domestic policies of the past four years. Had you and your colleagues in the Conservative MSM spoken up four years ago, the Federal Courts would have removed Obama and avoided so much damage done and so much damage yet to be done.

Such lawlessness. Such dishonesty. Such cowardice.

I can't comment on Jindal et al.'s eligibility just yet, but if folks are making a natural born case against Obama then they're accepting as fact that he was born in Hawaii (which would confer automatic eligibility under the 14th Amendment) but that it takes two American parents for a child to be considered natural born (and that's apparently regardless of the same birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment). I always thought the question of Obama's birth certification by the State of Hawaii a bit fishy, and Obama hasn't helped matters by refusing to release his full authenticated birth certificate (with vital medical information, witnesses, etc.) rather than the cheap-ass computer print-out claiming "certification of live birth." (Obama is all about hiding who is he, on his academic transcripts, as another example; the left fears the truth, while the right has obsessed over it.) No matter. The courts ruled against challenges to Obama's eligibility and after awhile it gets to be a bit like Captain Ahab. In any case, William must be facing a lot of hostility because he's researching it and will post his findings for the record. A quick search turned up some information, which is interesting, no matter how you view the issues: "Birther Claims Debunked: Two Citizen Parents." What's also interesting is that this president has engendered so much hatred, so much conspiracy theorizing, that no matter how deranged it is, there's some kind of weird legitimacy to the movement in the sense that Obama really is "post-American" in his ideological outlook and Marxist orientation to the state and political culture. It's definitely a unique manifestation. It's what drives most of our polarization. The question is centrally about the meaning of being an American and living under the law and according to a traditional set of values that are exceptional. The left has abandoned that exceptionalism. The president is the standard bearer for the destruction of that decency and history. All of this was inevitable when the Democrat Party ended up nominating Obama and when the American people bought the lies and elected him. We'll be digging out from this monstrosity for decades, if we ever fully recover.

As for the citizenship thing, at this point it's moot, in any case. Barack Hussein ain't going anywhere. So I'll be interested to see what happens with Jindal and the others. Stay tuned as far as that goes.

'Take It Easy'

My wife and I caught Showtime's "History of the Eagles" last night. It's worth your time if you get the chance. And it was even more fun since my wife just got an invitation from the MGM Grand to see the Eagles live in Las Vegas on March 23rd. We saw the Eagles at the Honda Center in Anaheim in 2010 and Don Henley at Harrah's Rincon in 2011. But this time we'll be talking our two sons to the show.

In any case, when Travis Tritt made this video for his cover of the Eagles' "Taking It Easy," he asked the original band members to appear, and it turns out that they enjoyed being together again and decided to make their comeback. The Showtime documentary covers all of that and more. A great American band.

Rand Paul on Fox News Sunday: Can Obama Kill Americans on American Soil With Drone Strikes?

A great segment with Senator Paul:

As always, it's more about the left's hypocrisy with me, although I just can't reconcile killing Awlaki's 16-year-old kid.

Also at Fox News, "Graham, Paul split on U.S. drone strikes, impact of upcoming $85B spending cuts." And more video here, "Sen. Rand Paul : I'll Decide in 2014 on a Presidential Run." Plus, at Reason, "Rand Paul: Not Running for President Except to Win, America Ready for Libertarian Republican."

You Might Be a Democrat

More cartoons, via The Looking Spoon on Twitter:

#YouMightBeADemocrat if you enjoy the support of the Communist Party twitter.com/TheLookingSpoo…
— The Looking Spoon (@TheLookingSpoon) February 17, 2013

Also, from Trevor Loudon, "“On the Current Marxist Revolution”."

Sunday Cartoons

Via Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Econocide."

Also at Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's Sunday Funnies," and Theo Spark, "Cartoon Roundup..."

And at Jill Stanek's, "Stanek Sunday funnies 2-17-13."

Raphael Golb Created 82 Sock Puppets, Harassed Scholars Who Ignored His Father's Work, and Was Charged With 51 Counts of Identity Theft, Aggravated Harassment, Criminal Impersonation, Forgery and Unauthorized Computer Use at NYU

This is an amazing story, and especially relevant, consider the left's depraved war of lawfare and intimidation against conservatives. The dude was pissed off that scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls --- the Dead Sea Scrolls! --- were ignoring his dad's scholarly contributions so he waged a criminally-obsessed online jihad against them. Sounds familiar, I know.

See the New York Times, "Online Battle Over Sacred Scrolls, Real-World Consequences":

Between 2006 and 2009, he created more than 80 online aliases to advance his father’s views about the Dead Sea Scrolls against what he saw as a concerted effort to exclude them. Along the way, according to a jury and a panel of appellate court judges, he crossed from engaging in academic debate to committing a crime.

What he accomplished through this manner of intellectual warfare is, like the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves, a topic on which opinion is passionately diverse, with no shortage of bad blood.

“This has nothing to do with scholarly debate,” said Lawrence H. Schiffman, vice provost of Yeshiva University and a widely published authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls, who became the prime target of Mr. Golb’s online activities. “It has to do with criminal activity.

“Fraud, impersonation and harassment are criminal matters,” he continued. “This was actually designed to literally end my career.”

Mr. Golb’s father, Norman Golb, 85, a professor of Jewish History and Civilization at the University of Chicago, placed the wrong squarely on the other side. “The D.A. took a scholarly quarrel and makes a case against Raphael Golb and not against what those other people are doing, which was worse,” he said. “The vindictiveness, the anger, the ugliness, that’s O.K. because it comes from the other side.” ...

*****

In 2006 and 2007, when several American museums announced exhibits of the scrolls, Raphael Golb was incensed that his father’s theory had not been acknowledged in the shows. “They teach scorn for my father,” Mr. Golb said, accusing rival academics of “indoctrinating students in a culture of hatred.”

“This is a system where they suppress people by excluding them,” he added.

At the time, the younger Mr. Golb was researching a book about French secularism and working just enough as a real estate lawyer to pay his bills. He also received money from his parents. The Internet offered ways for him to argue his father’s case. He wouldn’t have to use his real name, which others “would simply use to smear my father,” he said. Instead, he could post under an alias — or four, five or six. He began posting comments on the museums’ Web sites, complaining that the exhibits were one-sided.

He started a blog; then another and another, each under a different name. The aliases begot other aliases, known on the Internet as sock puppets: 20, 40, 60, 80. The sock puppets debated with other posters, each time linking to other sock puppets to support their arguments, creating the impression of an army of engaged scholars espousing Norman Golb’s ideas. Using the alias Charles Gadda (from the Italian writer Carlo Emilio Gadda), Raphael Golb published articles on the citizen news Web site NowPublic and linked to them in comments and blog posts written under other aliases. The writings all championed Norman Golb as an honest scholar bucking a well-financed, self-serving conspiracy.

He acted as an online troll, stirring up controversy. “Was it appropriate for a scientific institution to allow a group of Christian academics to impose their agenda on an exhibit of ancient documents taking place under its auspices?” he asked of an exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum, in an Oct. 6, 2007, article. That article, he said, drew 16,000 views.

“They saw this happening and they were furious, because I was sabotaging their Internet campaign,” Raphael Golb said of the museums. His father’s rivals, he suspected, used sock puppets to answer his comments.

“It became a kind of war,” he said. “It was very ugly. But I was glad it was happening. I was like, this is great. This draws more attention to my father’s work.” To a family member he wrote, “they are faced with a dedicated, in-the-know adversary who is out to get them, and there’s simply nothing they can do about it.”

One of Mr. Golb’s targets was a graduate student named Robert R. Cargill, who created a virtual tour of Qumran for the San Diego museum.

Norman Golb posted an article on the Web site of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago complaining that the film’s script ignored his theory.

Raphael Golb went further, sending pseudonymous e-mails to Mr. Cargill’s professors at U.C.L.A.

“I said this person should be compelled to answer the published criticisms of his work at his Ph.D. defense,” Raphael Golb said. Some of the e-mail messages suggested that Mr. Cargill, who describes himself as agnostic, was a fundamentalist Christian and an anti-Semite.

Mr. Cargill, who is now 39 and an assistant professor of classics and religious studies at the University of Iowa, remembered Mr. Golb’s campaign as a frontal assault meant to thwart his career.

“Any time someone hears the name Robert Cargill, they hear, he’s anti-Semitic,” Mr. Cargill said. “Let’s say I’m applying for a job and I’m in a pool of 10 finalists. When they do background checking, they see this Cargill looks like he’s being criticized as anti-Semitic. We don’t know if it’s legitimate, but it’s safer to go with someone else.”

The e-mails kept coming. According to papers filed by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, from June 2007 to June 2009, Mr. Golb’s aliases Steve Frankel, Carlo Gadda, Don Matthews, David Kaplan, Emily Kaufman, Jesse Friedman and Robert Dworkin sent dozens of e-mails to hundreds of people at U.C.L.A., all attacking Mr. Cargill. “The volume of defendant’s alias creation,” the court papers read, “and his planning with others, speaks to the deliberate intent in conducting defendant’s operation.”

Mr. Cargill fought back. A typical e-mail message or blog post has an Internet protocol address that identifies the computer used to create it. Using simple software that identified the I.P. addresses, he traced the e-mails and blog posts of 82 aliases to the same few computers. Beneath one of Mr. Golb’s pseudonymous comments, he posted a message, using the pseudonym Raphael Joel, a combination of Mr. Golb’s first name and his brother’s. The message was: We know who you are....

*****

Raphael Golb was naked and asleep when police officers came to his apartment early on the morning of March 5, 2009, arresting him on 51 charges of identity theft, aggravated harassment, criminal impersonation, forgery and unauthorized use of the computers in an N.Y.U. library. He had been up all of the previous night writing comments or blog posts under his various aliases. The officers seized Mr. Golb’s computers and led him handcuffed from his building. Waiving his rights to a lawyer and to remain silent, Mr. Gold denied sending any bogus e-mail messages, telling the investigators that Dr. Schiffman had filed a false complaint “out of maliciousness toward my father.” He added, “I find the guy a bit nauseating, to tell the truth.”

Mr. Golb later rejected a plea deal that would have kept him out of jail.

At his trial in September 2010, Mr. Golb admitted to all of his writings, but defended his use of pseudonyms as a time-honored vehicle for criticism and debate — and a staple of Internet culture. He wasn’t trying to defraud anybody or gain anything, his lawyers argued; he just wanted his father’s views represented. If he was guilty of slander or libel, his victims could sue him in civil court.

“I’m not saying anybody here acted well,” Mr. Kuby said. “I just don’t think anybody acted criminally.”

This should be interesting to some of our friends on the right, especially Robert Stacy McCain, "Deranged Cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt Charged With Deranged Cyberstalking." And discussed there is Lee Stranahan, who's been quite busy of late. For example, "My Statement About Criminal Harassment Charges Against Bill Schmalfeldt." Also, "Bill Schmalfeldt’s Double Dip Harassment Part 1," and "Bill Schmalfeldt’s Creepy Obsession With Photos Of My Wife (NSFW)."

And Lee tweeted some of Schmalfeldt's deranged ravings:

Exhibit Y | breitbartunmasked.com/the-stranahans…
— Lee Stranahan (@Stranahan) February 16, 2013

And I'll tell you, I'm eternally thankful that all the Internet harassment and stalking I beat back never escalated to this level. Either way, folks should know that if you're out here standing up for decency and right, the despicable left knows no depths of viciousness, deceit and dishonor. You will fight for your life because the left will attempt to destroy you. Recall that Stranahan had to move away at one point and relocate, to protect the safety of his family. And Robert Stacy McCain did the same. It's hard out there for a righteous mofo, but remember that this Rafael Golb dude --- whether you think he's right or wrong, and I think he went overboard --- is looking at an almost certain 6 months behind bars, so be assured that when lines get crossed on the Internet --- and they do get crossed --- people go to jail.

As California Goes, So Goes the Nation

On unchecked immigration, that is, from Mexico and lands beyond.

At the New York Times, "California Eases Tone as Latinos Make Gains":

LOS ANGELES — A generation ago, California voters approved a ballot initiative that was seen as the most anti-immigrant law in the nation. Immigrants who had come to the country illegally would be ineligible to receive prenatal care, and their children would be barred from public schools.

But the law, which was later declared unconstitutional by the federal courts, never achieved the goal of its backers: to turn back the tide of immigrants pouring into the state. Instead, since the law was approved in 1994, the political and social reality has changed drastically across the state. Now, more California residents than ever before say that immigrants are a benefit to the state, according to public opinion polls from the Public Policy Institute of California.

As Congress begins debating an overhaul of the immigration system, many in California sense that the country is just now beginning to go through the same evolution the state experienced over the last two decades. For a generation of Republicans, Gov. Pete Wilson’s barrages on the impact of immigration in the 1990s spoke to their uneasiness with the way the state was changing. Now many California Republicans point to that as the beginning of their downfall.

Today, party leaders from both sides, and from all over the state, are calling for a softer approach and a wholesale change in federal policies.

The state’s changing attitudes are driven, in large part, by demographics. In 1990, Latinos made up 30 percent of the state’s population; they will make up 40 percent — more than any other ethnic group — by the end of this year, and 48 percent by 2050, according to projections made by the state this month. This year, for the first time, Latinos were the largest ethnic group applying to the University of California system.

Towns that just a decade ago were largely white now have Latino majorities. Latinos make up an important power base not only in urban centers like Los Angeles, but also in places that were once hostile to outsiders. There are dozens of city councils with a majority of Latino members, a Mexican-American is the mayor of Los Angeles and another is the leader of the State Assembly. Nearly all of the 15 California Republicans in Congress represent districts where at least a quarter of the residents are Latino.

“The political calculus has changed dramatically,” said Manuel Pastor, a demographer and professor of American studies at the University of Southern California. “Immigrants are an accepted part of public life here. And California is America fast-forward. What happened to our demographics between 1980 and 2000 is almost exactly what will happen to the rest of the country over the next 30 years.””

They may or may not be accepted, but they're certainly not fully assimilated. There's a lot of Latinos who barely speak English, if they do at all, especially in the ethnic enclaves where folks don't have to interact with the outside world. Victor Davis Hanson continues to be the best on this, in his book, for example, Mexifornia.

More at that top link.

Catholics React to Pope Benedict's Resignation

From Peggy Noonan, at the Wall Street Journal, "A Faith Unshaken but Unsettled":

It is disquieting, the resignation of the pope. "We are in uncharted territory," said a historian of the church. An old pope is leaving but staying within the walls of the Vatican, and a new one, younger and less known, will come before Easter.

In a week's conversation with faithful and believing Catholics, I detected something I've never quite heard before, and that is a deep, unshaken, even cheerful faith accompanied by a certain anxiety, even foreboding. I heard acceptance of Pope Benedict's decision coupled with an intense sympathy for what is broadly understood to be his suffering, from health problems to the necessity that his decision was a lonely one, its deepest reasoning known only to him. There was a lot of speculation that attempting to run the Vatican in the new age of technology, of leaks and indiscretions and instant responses, would have been hard on him.

So here are some things Catholics have been telling me...

RTWT.

Erick Erickson Brings Down the Hammer on GOProud's #CPAC Bashing

Everyone's all abuzz about the upcoming CPAC conference, especially as it turns out that the event sponsors have renewed the ban on GOProud's official participation. I wasn't so impressed with the GOProud idiots in 2011 when I was there, especially since they acted just like any other radical progressive group with regard to the political controversy. Now lots of the libertarian conservatives are whining about how mean the CPAC honchos are, or whatever, although I couldn't care less about making the tent bigger for these homosexual bullies.

In any case, here's Erick Erickson's smackdown, "This is Too Much For Me."

Read it at the link.

A lot of this is deja vu for me, but it's interesting nevertheless.

Blast in Crowded Market Kills Dozens in Pakistan

At the New York Times, "Explosion in Crowded Market Kills Dozens in Pakistan":

KARACHI, Pakistan — A devastating explosion ripped through a crowded market in the western city of Quetta on Saturday, killing at least 63 people and wounding at least 180, the police said.

The attack occurred in a neighborhood dominated by Hazaras, a Shiite ethnic minority that has suffered numerous attacks at the hands of Sunni militant death squads in recent years.

A previous attack on Jan. 10, when a Sunni group bombed a snooker hall in Quetta, killed almost 100 Hazaras, prompting domestic and international outrage.

The police said that Saturday’s bomb was apparently set off by a remote-controlled device, possibly hidden in a rickshaw. The explosion caused a building to collapse and the death toll to rise sharply.

RTWT.

Reeva Steenkamp Hid From Oscar Pistorius: Details of Murdered Star's Last Moments

At New York Daily News, "Model girlfriend fled to bathroom as Oscar Pistorius shot her through the door: neighbor":

Details of the Valentine’s Day murder emerged as Pistorius sobbed inside a South African courtroom before prosecutors alleged the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp was a cold-blooded killing.

THE MODEL girlfriend of Olympic hero Oscar Pistorius spent her final minutes cowering behind a bathroom door after a late-night fight with her gun-loving boyfriend. The internationally acclaimed double-amputee sprinter pumped four bullets through the door and into the helpless blond beauty, a neighbor told a South African newspaper.

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Oscar Pistorius 'tried to resuscitate dying girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp after shooting her four times': Blade Runner carried model downstairs after she was shot."

Added: "Was Reeva's skull crushed with bloodied cricket bat 'found' at Blade Runner's House? Horrific new claims about model's death."

Rising Gun Ownership Among Women is Statement of Independence and Personal Power

To hear radical feminists, you'd think that guns are the biggest threat to the very existence of women. (See Amanda Marcotte's deluded rants here, here, here, and here.) But according to the New York Times, amazingly, it's women who are now an increasingly robust demographic for gun sales. They are feeling independent and empowered --- exactly the opposite of what radical feminists want for women.

See, "Rising Voice of Gun Ownership Is Female":

PAINESVILLE, Ohio — Mary Ann Froebe stood feet apart with knees slightly bent and aimed the .22-caliber Ruger semiautomatic.

“You’ve got some adrenaline running through you right now,” said Esther Beris, the coordinator of the northeastern Ohio chapter of A Girl and a Gun Women’s Shooting League. “It’s O.K., just relax.”

Ms. Froebe, 42, a small-business owner who described herself as a “virgin gun shooter,” concentrated and pulled the trigger. “It was awesome,” she said, her face flushed, after emptying the 10-round magazine. “The sense of control, of being in charge of me.”

In the debate over firearms regulations, the voices of gun owners have largely been those of men. But at firing ranges across the country, a growing number of women are learning to use firearms and honing their skills.

Women’s participation in shooting sports has surged over the last decade, increasing by 51.5 percent for target shooting from 2001 to 2011, to just over 5 million women, and by 41.8 percent for hunting, according to the National Sporting Goods Association.

Gun sales to women have risen in concert. In a survey last year by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, 73 percent of gun dealers said the number of female customers had gone up in 2011, as had a majority of retailers surveyed in the two previous years.

Manufacturers have increasingly geared advertising toward women, marketing special firearms models with smaller frames, custom colors (pink is a favorite), and accessories like the “concealed carry” “salmon kiss” leather handbag offered by Cobra Firearms or the leopard shooting gloves and Bullet Rosette jewelry sold by Sweet Shot (“Look cute while you shoot!” is the company’s motto).

Women’s shooting clubs have also proliferated — not just in small towns like Painesville, but also in Atlanta, Houston, even Manhattan, where a women’s gun club meets regularly at a firing range in Chelsea, a neighborhood better known for art galleries.

On a recent Friday, Ms. Froebe and eight other women attended the Painesville shooting league’s inaugural Breakfast and Bullets gathering at Perkins Family Restaurant for brunch and then moved on to Atwell’s Shooting Range. There, Ms. Beris taught them how to hold and load a handgun safely and then coached them on the range.

Though they may share a fierce belief in the Second Amendment with their male counterparts, female gun owners often learn to shoot for different reasons, their interest in and proficiency with firearms not just a hobby or a means for self-defense, but a statement of independence and personal power.

Continue reading.

Van Jones Falls for Hilarous Fox News Meteorite Photoshop

This is funny. At Weasel Zippers, "Former Obama Czar Van Jones Falls For Blatant Hoax Smearing Fox News…"

And at Twitchy, "Hilarious: Van Jones falls for ridiculous Photoshop smearing Fox News as Russian meteor truthers."

.@weaselzippers @vanjones68 @stevensinger3 FOX News is already reporting on this hoax story => twitter.com/LeftyBollocks/…
— Lefty Bollocks (@LeftyBollocks) February 16, 2013

And flashback to 2009, at ABC News, "Controversial Obama Administration Official Denies Being Part of 9/11 “Truther” Movement, Apologizes for Past Comments."

Lefties like Rachel Maddow are all about attacking conservatives as conspiracy freaks, but the MSNBC idiots should stay focused on their own backyard.

Deneen Borelli to Dr. Ben Carson: 'The Black Liberal Establishment is Not Going to Be Happy With You...'

One of the highlights of Dr. Carson's town hall with Sean Hannity:

'No Human Being Is Illegal'

Folks might remember radical open-borders activist Jose Antonio Vargas, who was featured last year in Time Magazine's disgustingly lawless cover feature on American's so-called "undocumented immigrants."

Well the douche testified before Congress this week. The Washington Times reports, "Illegal immigrant tells Congress not to call him illegal."

And here's Katie Pavlich from this morning's Fox & Friends, shredding the idiotic logic that "no human being is illegal":

Paleocons Attack Rand Paul for Backing Israel's National Security Interests

iOWNTHEWORLD gets right down to the nub of the issue.

See: "We Have Our Answer – Rand Paul is not the Jew Hater His Dad Is."

And amazingly, MSNBC hack Rachel Maddow aligns herself with the crackpot paleo Jew-bashers in trying to other-ize Rand Paul as a crazed conspiracy-monger: "Maddow blasts ‘space cadet’ Rand Paul’s conspiracy theories."

The paleocon freaks are joined with the anti-Israel left in an unholy alliance of hate and anti-Semitism.

Everything's pretty f-ked up these days  — except Rand Paul, who's been righteously right-on in his recent speeches and commentary.

Another Jennifer Nicole Lee Bikini Booty Slip!

She does this every time, at London's Daily Mail, "Oops! Jennifer Nicole Lee reveals more than she bargained for as her tiny string bikini slips during dip in the pool."

PREVIOUSLY: "Yet Another Batch of Jennifer Nicole Lee Bikini Pics!", and "Oops! She Does it Again! Smokin' Jennifer Nicole Lee Bikini Malfunction in Las Vegas."

Bonus Saturday Rule 5: Sabine Jemeljanova

This young lady just popped up in my timeline, and as I'm doing some Saturday Rule 5, enjoy:

RT @nutsmagicmon: #ff @sabinejofficial twitter.com/NutsMagicMon/s… :)
— Sabine Jemeljanova (@SabineJofficial) February 8, 2013

Rule 5 — On Demand

Folks are sending me their Rule 5 links, so I might as well get with the program.

See First Street Journal, "Rule 5 Blogging: In Iraq," and Reaganite Republican, "Ooh-La-La! Miss France 2012 is Marie Payet."

More at Pirate's Cove, "If All You See……is a drought world by a fossil fueled vehicle, you might just be a Warmist."

And at Bob Belvedere's, "Rule 5 News: 16 February 2013 A.D.", and "Rule 5 Saturday,February 9: Saskia Howard-Clark."

Also at Randy's Roundtable, "Thursday Nite Tart: Carly Foulkes." And Woodsterman, "The Brunette ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

More at Eye of Polyphemus, "Amanda Seyfried," and Laughing Conservative, "Nikki Cox."

And from Wirecutter, "Camel Toe." And Subject to Change, "Rule 5 Hotties."

Now over at 90 Miles from Tyranny, "Rule 5 - Girls with Guns."

And at Theo Spark, "Saturday Totties...", and "Bonus Totty..."

LAUSD's John Deasy Wants Test Scores to Count for 30 Percent of Teacher Evaluations

He'll be firing a lot of teachers. Basing teacher evaluations on student performance blames teachers for student learning problems over which they have little control.

At LAT, "Deasy wants 30% of teacher evaluations based on test scores":

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy announced Friday that as much as 30% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on student test scores, setting off more contention in the nation's second-largest school system in the weeks before a critical Board of Education election.

Leaders of the teachers union have insisted that there should be no fixed percentage or expectation for how much standardized tests should count — and that test results should serve almost entirely as just one measure to improve instruction. Deasy, in contrast, has insisted that test scores should play a significant role in a teacher's evaluation and that poor scores could contribute directly to dismissal.

In a Friday memo explaining the evaluation process, Deasy set 30% as the goal and the maximum for how much test scores and other data should count.

In an interview, he emphasized that the underlying thrust is to develop an evaluation that improves the teaching corps and that data is part of the effort.

"The public has been demanding a better evaluation system for at least a decade. And teachers have repeatedly said to me what they need is a balanced way forward to help them get better and help them be accountable," Deasy said. "We do this for students every day. Now it's time to do this for teachers."

Deasy also reiterated that test scores would not be a "primary or controlling" factor in an evaluation, in keeping with the language of an agreement reached in December between L.A. Unified and its teachers union. Classroom observations and other factors also are part of the evaluation process.

But United Teachers Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher expressed immediate concern about Deasy's move. During negotiations, he said, the superintendent had proposed allotting 30% to test scores but the union rejected the plan. Deasy then pulled the idea off the table, which allowed the two sides to come to an agreement, Fletcher said. Teachers approved the pact last month.

"To see this percentage now being floated again is unacceptable," the union said in a statement.

Fletcher described the pact as allowing flexibility for principals, in collaboration with teachers, first to set individual goals and then to look at various measures to determine student achievement and overall teacher performance.

"The superintendent doesn't get to sign binding agreements and then pretend they're not binding," Fletcher said.

I couldn't care less about these union hacks, but the district will only punish teachers for students who refuse to learn, who live in disfunctional families, and who are influenced by the norms of hip-hop gang-bang culture 100 times more than the long lost culture of scholarly commitment.

More at that top link.

Three-Pointers Have Fundamentally Transformed the NBA

I don't often watch basketball, but when I do, there's few plays more exciting that a nothin'-but-net three-pointer.

At LAT, "Three-pointers: NBA's convenant of the arc":

Steve Kerr vividly recalls being a 10-year-old kid, with a basketball tucked under his arm, staring up at the rim from behind an imaginary three-point line he had paced off in the driveway.

The basket looked a block away.

"I remember thinking, 'How does anybody ever make one of these?'" said Kerr, 47, who never could have dreamed he would end a 15-year NBA career as the league's most accurate three-point shooter.

That long shot — once dismissed as a publicity stunt — has fundamentally changed professional basketball. It has reshaped offensive and defensive philosophies at all levels, and significantly enhanced the value of players who can make shots from long range.

"You always want to have a knock-down three-point shooter or somebody who can actually have the ability to create a three-point shot for anybody else," said guard Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers, one of six competitors Saturday in the Three-Point Shootout, a highlight of NBA All-Star Weekend in Houston.

The three-pointer, first used by the NBA on a trial basis in the 1979-80 season, has morphed from a lightly used gadget to a cornerstone of the game. In that first season, teams averaged fewer than one three-point basket per game. Thursday night, for example, the Clippers made 16 three-pointers in a romp over the Lakers.

Three-point shooters were once specialists parked at the end of the bench who typically made brief appearances late in games. Occasionally, if they got hot at the right time, those sharpshooters might bring their team back from the brink of defeat.

These days, a player who can hit shots from downtown has undeniable upward mobility.

The NBA has a slew of power forwards in the 6-foot-10 range who can consistently drain long shots, thereby stretching defenses to their limits. That outside threat draws big defenders to the perimeter, and creates more room for guards to drive to the basket.

The NBA three-point line measures 23 feet 9 inches from the basket at the top of the free-throw circle and 22 feet at the corners, the spot most shooters prefer. To bump up scoring in the mid-1990s, the league briefly tried moving the line to a uniform 22 feet before returning to the current configuration. The three-point arcs in college (20-9) and high school (19-9) are closer to the basket.

"Where big players 30 years ago were confined to the low block, a lot of guys can shoot that shot now," said Mitch Kupchak, general manager of the Lakers. "Look at Pau Gasol. He's taken more threes in the last year or two than he took in the first eight or nine years of his career."

In the last 11/2 seasons with the Lakers, Gasol has made 15 of 53 three-point attempts. That approaches the total of his previous 11 seasons, in which he made 19 of 85.

The once-fluid pro game that was predicated on spacing and flow and movement is now more dominated by two groups of players: those clogging the middle and those sharking outside the arc and waiting to take their shot. Many experts believe that has had an impact on how well players perform in the area inside the arc but outside the key — the jump shot that once was a staple of the league.

"Very few players now can take one or two dribbles, pull up at 15 or 17 feet, and make shots," Lakers assistant coach Chuck Person said. Perhaps 15 or 20 players out of roughly 450 in the league, Person added, excel at the mid-range jump shot. "Teams just don't work on it anymore."

More at that top link.

I'm Thinking North Dakota or Montana Might Be Nice Places to Retire

Yeah, it's a while before I'll be able to retire, and then my wife will be working for some time after that. But we talk about it. Maybe California's a lost cause and it's time to start thinking about a nice place to live, lower taxes and a more traditional social environment.

A couple of weeks back Gallup mentioned North Dakota as one of the most conservative states in the union. See, "Alabama, North Dakota, Wyoming Most Conservative States." I'm not sure about Alabama, but Wyoming might be nice.

And what about Montana? Next to North Dakota it's got the lowest percentage of self-identified homosexuals, so my wife and I won't be bombarded with the radical left's depraved rim-station ideologies all the time. See, "LGBT Percentage Highest in D.C., Lowest in North Dakota." North Dakota's at 1.7 percent homosexual self-identification, and Montana's at 2.6 percent. Check the piece for the full results. Most of the Mountain States look excellent. And of course it's not just the numbers, but the culture. California's trending away from American exceptionalism. That's not cool. We're not quite like the Nation's Capital yet. But it's not for trying.

(Note: Nevada's a little on the homosexual high side, but it's a no income tax state, so in the end it'll be a balance of factors. It ain't teh gays so much as the crushing collectivist ideologies that they're so hopelessly identified with.)

What It Feels Like Being a Conservative on the Internet

This is funny, at Buzzfeed.

Saving America: Dr. Benjamin Carson on Sean Hannity's Show

Dr. Carson spoke last Thursday, when I was traveling. Here's his speech criticizing President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast, "Dr. Benjamin Carson Addresses National Prayer Breakfast, Criticizes Obamacare."

And here's the opening segment from tonight's Hannity, which was just awesome:

And the interview continues here, here, here (focus group!), and here.

Also, Hannity's earlier interview with Dr. Carson, "Hannity Interviews Dr. Ben Carson About National Prayer Breakfast Speech."

And see Star Parker, at WND, "BEN CARSON OWES NO APOLOGIES."

#Dorner Died of Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound

At NBC News 4 Los Angeles, "Sheriff's Officials: Dorner Died of Single Gunshot Wound to Head":

At a news conference Friday, sheriff's Capt. Kevin Lacey said the autopsy showed Dorner's cause of death to be a single gunshot wound to the head. He said he would not speak about the "manner of death."

"The information we have right now seems to indicate that the wound that took Christopher Dorner's life was self-inflicted," Lacey said.

Rifle found among #Dorner's weapons cache was inscribed with the word "vengeance." 4.nbcla.com/Up9zYN twitter.com/NBCLA/status/3…
— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) February 16, 2013

'This is the Most Transparent Administration in History...'

Kira Davis questioned President Obama during yesterday's Google hangout event, at the second half of the video here.

O's lying again, of course. That's what he does best.

See Jim Harper at Cato, "With All Due Respect, Mr. President, That Is Not True," and also Mary Katharine Ham, at Hot Air, "Obama: Have I mentioned this is the most transparent WH in history lately?"

Plus, some pointed thoughts from Glenn Greenwald, "Obama DOJ again refuses to tell a court whether CIA drone program even exists."

Obama lives in a world of doublethink, and that's dangerous for democracy.

Another Syria Rebel Dude Bites the Dust

Keeping up with the Syria fighter dude blogging, this guy takes it in the gut or lower, and his lights go out at the 20 second mark:

More at Jawa Report, "War Porn: Why Did The Syrian Rebels Cross The Road?", and at Blazing Cat Fur, "Syrian Rebel Shows Marked Lack of Common Sense - 72 Raisins Are His."

Rand Paul Is the Republican to Watch in 2013

I've been thinking as much this last week. I like Rand, and if his recent turn on foreign policy is a longer-term indication, this is someone I could support in 2016.

From Josh Kraushaar, at National Journal:

One of the most intriguing sideplots from Senate Republicans’ successful filibuster blocking Chuck Hagel from becoming Defense Secretary was that one of the GOP ringleaders was recently tagged by critics as someone who shared his more-isolationist worldview.

But freshman Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who openly talks about his presidential ambitions for 2016, is playing the long game – and his politically savvy positioning suggests he’ll be a major national player. Unlike his father, he’s not interested in pursuing ideologically charged issues just for the sake of making a point, he’s learning how to make an impact in Washington.

One senior Republican leadership aide gushed with admiration over the freshman senator, emphasizing that he’s been able to tailor his libertarian ideology toward legislation that holds broader appeal. The adviser touted his involvement on right-to-work legislation, his call to audit the Federal Reserve, and even his leadership on legalizing industrial hemp – legislation first pushed by his father, which has now won support from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“Rand is somebody who has the generational know-how to turn it into 21st century machine. He gets branding. He understands there’s a need for credibility,” said the adviser. “He understands he doesn’t have the answers to everything. He’s not afraid of input, but is totally confident in listening to input to help achieve his goals.”

One of the areas where he’s taken a lot of feedback is on foreign policy, which critics have tagged as being synonymous with his father’s controversial views. But in a sign that he’s looking beyond just his next re-election, Paul made a high-profile trip to Israel, gave a foreign policy speech to the Heritage Foundation designed to smooth over the rough edges of his foreign policy worldview, and joined most of his Republican colleagues in blocking Hagel. He reached out to Israel supporters, framing his distaste for overseas interventions as one that would prevent the U.S. from putting undue pressure on Israel, getting a jibe at President Obama in the process.

More at that top link. Rand made that Heritage speech the day before I flew out to North Carolina and I've been meaning to watch on video. I might do that today some time and update with my thoughts. His emerging support for Israel is the clincher for me. His tea party background is already phenomenally appealing. More later.

Meanwhile, see Robert Stacy McCain for more, "Ron Paul Supporters Slam Rand After Republicans Block Hagel Nomination."

#Dorner Researched Irvine Couple Before Murders

The Orange County Register reports, "Dorner studied Irvine pair before killing, detectives believe":

Irvine police detectives believe fired police Officer Christopher Dorner gathered intelligence on his first two victims before he shot them on the rooftop of an Irvine parking structure, documents reviewed by the Register show.

The slayings of Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence opened what police say was a murderous campaign carried out by Dorner in retribution for his firing several years ago from the Los Angeles Police Department.

The two former basketball standouts, newly engaged, were shot so many times with a 9 mm pistol that investigators concluded the killer had used a high-capacity magazine, the court documents show. Orange County prosecutors were poised to file murder charges against Dorner and indicated that they would have sought the death penalty.

Instead, Dorner died earlier this week in a mountain cabin where he had barricaded himself for a last stand with law enforcement officers. The cabin burned after a volley of incendiary tear-gas canisters; the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department confirmed Thursday that charred remains found in the basement were those of Dorner.

"It is believed that Dorner conducted background on his intended targets ... and may be in possession of ... documents containing personal and professional information for Keith Lawrence, and the entire Quan family," Irvine Detective Jonathan Sampson wrote in an affidavit in support of a search warrant.

The couple were found shot to death in a car Feb. 3. The court documents reveal that Orange County authorities pinpointed Dorner as a suspect in the killing of Quan and Lawrence as early as Feb. 5. The next day, detectives requested permission to search Dorner's house immediately. By then, they were aware of an online statement titled "Last Resort," attributed to Dorner, that promised war against those he blamed for his dismissal from the LAPD.

Continue reading.

And at the Los Angeles Times, "In wake of Dorner shootout, questions over use of 'the burner'," and "Dorner manhunt: Setting fire to cabin justified, some experts say."

Also at the San Bernardino Sun, "Photos: Dorner’s Body ID’d in Burned Cabin," and "Roadblocks from Dorner shootout all removed."

More at CBS News, "EXCLUSIVE: CBS2 Gets First Look At Gun Believed To Have Been Used By Dorner."

Hagel Nomination Stalls

At the Wall Street Journal, "GOP Stalls Vote on Pick for Pentagon."

And from John Podhoretz, at the New York Post, "New Hagel Horrors":

Yesterday’s Senate stunner — a filibuster blocking President Obama’s nominee to head the Defense Department — isn’t the final act in this drama. At least two Republicans say they’ll let Chuck Hagel’s nomination go through later in the month — provided no new shoes drop.

But that’s not such a good bet.

The case against Hagel is coming together like a pointillist painting, with data points like tiny dots that join to form a distressing overall portrait of a disreputable whole.

The latest dot is a talk he gave at Rutgers University in March 2007, uncovered by Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon. A friendly blogger covered the talk the next day, noting — with approval — that Hagel had said the State Department was under the control of Israel.

“The State Department,” the blogger quoted Hagel as saying, “has become adjunct to the Israeli Foreign Minister’s office.”

This should be disturbing for two reasons. First, like many other data points emerging since Hagel’s nomination, this one emits a faint but distinct odor of a classic anti-Semitic stereotype — Jews as secret marionetteers, pulling the strings of unsuspecting Gentiles.

Second, it should trouble everyone who must vote to confirm Hagel — because the remark is spectacularly stupid.

RTWT.

And here's Alana Goodman's piece at the Free Beacon, "Report: Hagel Said State Department Controlled by Israel."

BONUS: As Charles Krauthammer wrote a couple of weeks ago:

The puzzle of the Chuck Hagel nomination for defense secretary is that you normally choose someone of the other party for your Cabinet to indicate a move to the center, but, as The Post’s editorial board pointed out, Hagel’s foreign policy views are to the left of Barack Obama’s, let alone the GOP’s. Indeed, they are at the fringe of the entire Senate.

New Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Attacked as Racist

Serves 'em right.

SI turned all progressive lately, so it's a taste of their own medicine

At the New York Times, "Sports Illustrated’s New Swimsuit Issue Rouses Ire Over ‘Ethnic Props’."

And see Althouse's response, "'This photo cements stereotypes, perpetuates an imbalance in the power dynamic, is reminiscent of centuries of colonialism (and indentured servitude)...'"

Hugh Jackman's Wife Not Pleased With Gay Rumors

Man, the dude's a freakin' stud. And with a lovely wife of longstanding. Turns out she's "bothered" by the rumors of her husband's homosexuality. And who does this benefit? The radical left's homosexual freaks, no doubt, who would be thrilled to have Jackman on their side of the backside boogie fence.

At LAT, "Hugh Jackman: Rumor that he's gay 'bugs' his wife of 16 years."

Michelle Williams Looks Fabulous for 'Oz' Hollywood Premiere

And she's flashing as well.

At London's Daily Mail, "Spellbinding! Michelle Williams flashes her underwear in dress split to the thigh at Oz: The Great and Powerful premiere."

Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz also seen at the link.

Russia Meteor Shower

This is trippy.

At Reuters, "Possible meteor shower reported in eastern Russia."

More dashboard cam footage of meteorite crash youtu.be/90Omh7_I8vI
— Joe Brooks (@joebrooks) February 15, 2013

Added: At the New York Times, "Earth May Not Be Ready for the Next Close Encounter."

Businesses Will Raises Prices and Cut Employee Hours Under Obama Minimum Wage Hike

Here's the key quote from the Los Angeles Times piece on the administration's collectivist proposal to hike the minimum wage, "Reaction mixed to Obama's bid to hike minimum wage":

With unemployment at nearly 8%, and more than 12 million workers officially unemployed and millions more who have dropped out of the labor market, economists worry about what a bump in the minimum wage may do.

"I just see it as a nonstarter at this point," said Sophia Koropeckyj, a labor economist at Moody's Analytics. "I'm afraid it could have a bigger [negative] effect when there's more slack in the economy."

Employers in industries that typically pay minimum wage were also mixed in their views.

Selwyn Yosslowitz, co-founder of the California restaurant chain Marmalade Cafe, with 600 workers in 10 locations, said it was a bad time to raise the rate.

He already feels beleaguered by higher costs from Obama's healthcare overhaul, he said. Should a new wage hike take effect, Yosslowitz said, he may have to repeat what he did in 2007 after California's latest minimum wage law took effect. It gradually raised rates to $8 an hour a year later.

"You increase your menu prices and you reduce hours," he said. "People who come in normally at 9 o'clock in the morning, you try to get them to clock in at 9:30 and save half an hour. We also stopped hiring people. You can't stay in business if you don't."

Some business owners said a wage hike wasn't going to be a big deal, although economic research shows that raising the minimum wage displaces workers most likely targeted by such policies: the poorest workers with the least competitive job skills. See Erika Johnson, "Schultz: No way will raising the minimum wage hurt small businesses."

Friends in Shock at Loss of Reeva Steenkamp, 'Sweetest, Kindest Soul...'

At Guardian UK, "Reeva Steenkamp: friends in shock at loss of 'sweetest, kindest soul'."

And at the Daily Beast, "Blade Runner's Beauty Queen." And at London's Daily Mail, "'This should be a day of love - model Reeva Steenkamp's tragic Valentine's tweet hours before she was gunned down (PHOTOS)."

The full press conference is here.

Obama Lied About Deficit Reduction During #SOTU Speech

He's a liar who lied his way back to a second term as Liar-in-Chief.

At IBD, "Obama Peddles a Dangerous Fantasy About the Debt Crisis":

President Obama now says the deficit problem is all but fixed, so we can stop all this unpleasant talk about spending cuts and get on with government spending. Maybe this is good politics, but it's reckless policy.

In the run-up to his State of the Union speech, Obama was running around telling everyone how we've already "cut our deficit by more than $2.5 trillion," and are now "more than halfway towards the $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists . .. say we need to stabilize our debt."

Clearly Obama wants all the dreary talk of deficits off the table. That way he can attack Republicans who try to impose deeper spending cuts, and push for more federal "investments" to help grow the economy.

But there are just two problems with Obama's claim.

First, despite what Obama says, the debt crisis is nowhere near fixed — as anyone who's looked at the report from Obama's own debt commission would know.

That report opened with this stark statement: "Our nation is on an unsustainable fiscal path." Left unchecked, it said, the rising debt "will put America at risk," and that "continued inaction is not a viable option."

The panel also made it clear that stabilizing the debt would require a huge, long-term commitment to spending restraint at every level of government, as well as an overhaul of out-of-control entitlement programs.

When the commission filed its report in 2010, the national debt was $9 trillion, or about 63% of the nation's GDP. The national debt today is over $12 trillion, and has already surpassed 76% of GDP.

Had the debt commission's plan been adopted, the deficit this year would be $646 billion, and on its way down to $279 billion by 2020. And the debt would be holding steady at about 65% of GDP.

Instead, this year's deficit will be $845 billion — even after the alleged $2.5 trillion in savings that Obama touts — and will start climbing again in three years, reaching back up to $1 trillion by 2023, according to the latest forecast from the Congressional Budget Office.

The national debt, meanwhile, never drops below 73% of GDP, according to the CBO, and starts climbing after 2018, reaching 77% of GDP by 2023.

Even that forecast is optimistic, since it assumes ObamaCare costs don't explode and that there's no recession over the next decade.

Meanwhile, on the same day Obama delivered his State of the Union speech, the head of the Congressional Budget Office warned Congress that the country will continue its charge toward the fiscal cliff unless "significant changes" are made to entitlements.

More at that top link.

President Obama Touts Community Colleges in Asheville, North Carolina

After visiting the St. Lawrence Basilica, I cruised back over to the other side of town and came across the Citizen-Times building. While taking photos I noticed the headline at the newspaper in the rack, "Obama to visit Asheville," seen at the bottom photo.

And from yesterday's paper, "Obama touts community college training."

Also, "Obama's Asheville visit stirs protests."

North Carolina Approves Steep Benefit Cuts for Jobless in Bid to Reduce Debt

All of a sudden I find myself interested in the news out of North Carolina.

At the New York Times:

North Carolina lawmakers approved deep cuts to benefits for the jobless on Wednesday, in a state that has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates.

In a debt-reducing effort, the Republican-controlled legislature voted to cut maximum weekly benefits to $350 from $535, a 35 percent drop; reduce the maximum number of weeks for collecting benefits to between 12 and 20 weeks from 26 weeks; and tighten requirements to qualify. The cuts would begin with new jobless claims on July 1.

If the bill is signed by Gov. Pat McCrory, as expected, North Carolina would be the eighth state to roll back jobless benefits under the growing financial burden of the recession.

The measure’s sponsors said it would spur job growth by paying down $2.5 billion in debt to the federal government. The bill passed the State Senate by a vote of 36 to 12.

“North Carolina owes the federal government $2.5 billion because of a broken unemployment insurance system,” said Mr. McCrory, a Republican. “We’re going to pay down that debt, make the system solvent and provide an economic climate that allows businesses, large and small, to put people back to work.

But critics warned of dangerous consequences. The state has the nation’s fifth-highest unemployment rate, at 9.2 percent, compared with the national average of 7.9 percent.

“We have a jobs crisis — there are about three unemployed workers for every job,” said Bill Rowe, the director of advocacy for the North Carolina Justice Center, which aids low income workers. “We’re turning down money to make cuts for what are not really legitimate reasons.”

Right.

"Not legitimate." As if improving the business climate isn't, the freaks.

More at that top link.

#Dorner Standoff: Hostages Set Up Endgame

At the Los Angeles Times, "Dorner hostage: 'I really thought it could be the end'":

Christopher Jordan Dorner was apparently holed up inside a Big Bear area condo for as many as five days before he took the husband and wife who own the property hostage, the couple said Wednesday night.

Dorner tied the husband and wife up with plastic zip locks, stuffed small towels in their mouths so they couldn't scream and covered the heads with pillow cases, they said.

“I really thought it could be the end,” 56-year-old Karen Reynolds told reporters.

She and husband JIm Reynolds, 66, provided new details on some of Dorner's movements in the apparent final hours of his life before he is believed to have died in a fire following a mountanside gun battle with officers. Law enforcement authorities previously said the fugitive had held two cleaning women hostage. The Reynolds spoke to reporters to end the confusion.

The Reynolds said Dorner had been at the condo since as early as Friday when they arrived to do maintenance in the yard. He told them he was watching them while they worked during the day before leaving to sleep at another property nearby.

When they entered the condo about noon Tuesday, they said, they were surprised to find the fugitive former Los Angeles police officer inside. They said they were held captive for about 15 minutes.

The couple stumbled upon Dorner when they went upstairs. Once they saw him, they said, he brandished a gun and yelled, “Stay calm.”

 Karen Reynolds said she tried to run down the stairs, but Dorner chased after her and caught her. He then took the couple to a bedroom, where he tied them up.

Dorner was a menacing presence but at other times tried to reassure the couple that he did not want to harm them, they said.

Continue reading.

#Dorner Standoff: Police Scream 'Burn This Motherf-ker Down!'

Here's that clip that's been getting a lot of play:

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Dorner: Sheriff's officials defend cabin-to-cabin search."

And at Reason, "We’re Not Going to Have an 'Adult Conversation' About State Violence, Are We?"

Rand Paul's Response to Obama's State of the Union Speech

Paul delivered the "tea party response" to Obama's SOTU.

And see Reason, "Brian Doherty on Rand Paul's State of the Union Response."

BONUS: Doherty at the New York Times, "After Ron Paul, Then What for Libertarians?"

Everything You Wanted to Know About Drones

At Popular Mechanics, via Instapundit.

Julie Borowski: Oppose the Violence Against Women Act

Via Right Wing News:

How Napoleon Chagnon Became Our Most Controversial Anthropologist

I read Chagnon's work in college, his research on the Yąnomamö.

At the New York Times:

Among the hazards Napoleon Chagnon encountered in the Venezuelan jungle were a jaguar that would have mauled him had it not become confused by his mosquito net and a 15-foot anaconda that lunged from a stream over which he bent to drink. There were also hairy black spiders, rats that clambered up and down his hammock ropes and a trio of Yanomami tribesmen who tried to smash his skull with an ax while he slept. (The men abandoned their plan when they realized that Chagnon, a light sleeper, kept a loaded shotgun within arm’s reach.) These are impressive adversaries — “Indiana Jones had nothing on me,” is how Chagnon puts it — but by far his most tenacious foes have been members of his own profession.

At 74, Chagnon may be this country’s best-known living anthropologist; he is certainly its most maligned. His monograph, “Yanomamö: The Fierce People,” which has sold nearly a million copies since it was first published in 1968, established him as a serious scientist in the swashbuckling mode — “I looked up and gasped when I saw a dozen burly, naked, filthy, hideous men staring at us down the shafts of their drawn arrows!” — but it also embroiled him in controversy.

In turning the Yanomami into the world’s most famous “unacculturated” tribe, Chagnon also turned the romantic image of the “noble savage” on its head. Far from living in harmony with one another, the tribe engaged in frequent chest-pounding duels and deadly inter-village raids; violence or threat of violence dominated social life. The Yanomami, he declared, “live in a state of chronic warfare.”

The phrase may be the most contested in the history of anthropology. Colleagues accused him of exaggerating the violence, even of imagining it — a projection of his aggressive personality. As Chagnon’s fame grew — his book became a standard text in college courses — so did the complaints. No detail was too small to be debated, including the transliteration of the tribe’s name. As one commentator wrote: “Those who refer to the group as Yanomamö generally tend to be supporters of Chagnon’s work. Those who prefer Yanomami or Yanomama tend to take a more neutral or anti-Chagnon stance.”

In 2000, the simmering criticisms erupted in public with the release of “Darkness in El Dorado,” by the journalist Patrick Tierney. A true-life jungle horror story redolent with allusions to Conrad, the book charged Chagnon with grave misdeeds: not just fomenting violence but also fabricating data, staging documentary films and, most sensational, participating in a biomedical expedition that may have caused or worsened a measles epidemic that resulted in hundreds of Yanomami deaths. Advance word of the book was enough to plunge anthropology into a global public-relations crisis — a typical headline: “Scientist ‘Killed Amazon Indians to Test Race Theory.’ ” But even today, after thousands of pages of discussion, including a lengthy investigation by the American Anthropological Association (A.A.A.), there is no consensus about what, if anything, Chagnon did wrong.

Shut out of the jungle because he was so polarizing, he took early retirement from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1999. “The whole point of my existence as a human being and as an anthropologist was to do more and more research before this primitive world disappeared,” he told me bitterly. He spent much of the past decade working on a memoir instead, “Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes — the Yanomamö and the Anthropologists,” which comes out this month. It is less likely to settle the score than to reignite debate. “The subtitle is typical Chagnon,” says Leslie Sponsel, an anthropologist at the University of Hawaii and a longtime critic of Chagnon. “Some will interpret it as an insult to the Yanomami and to anthropology in general.” Sponsel despaired that what is known as “the fierce controversy” would ever be satisfactorily resolved. “It’s quicksand, a Pandora’s box,” he said. “It’s also to some degree a microcosm of anthropology.”

He retired from UCSB the same year that I received my Ph.D. I never met him, however. I'm not that cross-disciplinary.

More at that top link. And note that Chagnon isn't a idiot radical leftist anthropologist, which explains a lot of the controversies surrounding him. As the piece points out:

Chagnon sensed that his access to the Yanomami was ending. Anthropology was changing, too. For more than a decade, the discipline had been engaged in a sweeping self-critique. In 1983, the New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman delivered a major blow when he published “Margaret Mead and Samoa,” charging that Mead had been duped by informants in her pioneering ethnography, “Coming of Age in Samoa.” Postmodern theory precipitated a crisis. Under the influence of Derrida and Foucault, cultural anthropologists turned their gaze on their own “texts” and were alarmed by what they saw. Ethnographies were not dispassionate records of cultural facts but rather unstable “fictions,” shot through with ideology and observer bias.

This postmodern turn coincided with the disappearance of anthropology’s traditional subjects — indigenous peoples. Even the Yanomami were becoming assimilated, going to mission schools, appearing on television in Caracas and flying to the United States to speak at academic conferences. Traditional fieldwork opportunities may have been drying up, but there was still plenty of work to do exposing anthropologists’ complicity in oppressing “the other.” As one scholar in the journal Current Anthropology put it, “Isn’t it odd that the true enemy of society turns out to be that guy in the office down the hall?”

One way to confront the field’s ethical dilemmas was to redefine the ethnographer’s role. A new generation of anthropologists came to see activism on their subjects’ behalf as a principal part of the job. Chagnon did not; to him, the Yanomami were invaluable data sets, not a human rights cause — at least not primarily. In 1988, he published a provocative article in Science. Drawing on his genealogies, he showed that Yanomami men who were killers had more wives and children than men who were not. Was the men’s aggression the main reason for their greater reproductive success? Chagnon suggested that the question deserved serious consideration. “Violence,” he speculated, “may be the principal driving force behind the evolution of culture.”

Marc Lamont Hill Cheers Cop-Killer Christopher Dorner as 'Exciting Real-Life Superhero'

From John Hayward, "Columbia Professor Hails Mad-Dog Killer as 'Exciting Real-Life Superhero'."

And see Katie Pavlich, "Columbia University Professor and Dorner Sympathizer Co-Authored Book With Cop-Killer Mumia Abu-Jamal."

Also at Twitchy, "Prof. Marc Lamont Hill: Dorner saga is ‘like watching ‘Django Unchained’ in real life. It’s 
kind of exciting!’"

'Water Bottle-Gate'

Kirsten Powers and Kate Obenshain discuss the left's response to Marco Rubio's response to last night's State of the Union speech:

And at Twitchy, "Biggest ‘news’ of the night: Marco Rubio’s awkward water grab; Update: Video added; Update: #Rubioing, #RubioFilms," and "Snort! DNC’s ‘thirsty for new ideas?’ Rubio water ad is a total fail."

Christopher Dorner is Dead: Police Recover Suspect's Remains at Big Bear Cabin

Police won't officially confirm the identification of the body until tests are concluded, and I'll update if it's not Dorner.

See the Los Angeles Times, "Dorner manhunt: Investigators work to ID charred human remains."

And here's the background report from this morning's hard-copy of the newspaper, "Dorner manhunt leads to deadly standoff":

Last week, authorities had tracked Dorner to a wooded area near Big Bear Lake. They found his torched gray Nissan Titan with several weapons inside. The only trace of Dorner was a short trail of footprints in newly fallen snow.

On Tuesday morning two maids entered a cabin in the 1200 block of Club View Drive and ran into a man who they said resembled the fugitive, a law enforcement official said. The cabin was not far from where Dorner's singed truck had been found and where police had been holding press conferences about the manhunt.

The man tied up the maids, and he took off in a purple Nissan parked near the cabin. About 12:20 p.m., one of the maids broke free and called police.

Nearly half an hour later, officers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the stolen vehicle and called for backup. The suspect turned down a side road in an attempt to elude the officers but crashed the vehicle, police said.

A short time later, authorities said the suspect carjacked a light-colored pickup truck. Allan Laframboise said the truck belonged to his friend Rick Heltebrake, who works at a nearby Boy Scout camp.

Heltebrake was driving on Glass Road with his Dalmatian, Suni, when a hulking African American man stepped into the road, Laframboise said. Heltebrake stopped. The man told him to get out of the truck.

"Can I take my dog?" Heltebrake asked, according to his friend.

"You can leave and you can take your dog," the man said. He then sped off in the Dodge extended-cab pickup — and quickly encountered two Department of Fish and Wildlife trucks.

As the suspect zoomed past the officers, he rolled down his window and fired about 15 to 20 rounds. One of the officers jumped out and shot a high-powered rifle at the fleeing pickup. The suspect abandoned the vehicle and took off on foot.

Police said he ended up at the Seven Oaks Mountain Cabins, a cluster of wood-frame buildings about halfway between Big Bear Lake and Yucaipa. The suspect exchanged gunfire with San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies as he fled into a cabin that locals described as a single-story, multi-room structure.

The suspect fired from the cabin, striking one deputy, law enforcement sources said. Then he ducked out the back of the cabin, deployed a smoke bomb and opened fire again, hitting a second deputy. Neither deputy was identified by authorities. The suspect retreated back into the cabin.

The gun battle was captured on TV by KCAL 9 reporter Carter Evans, who said he was about 200 feet from the cabin. As Evans described on air how deputies were approaching the structure, he was interrupted by 10 seconds of gunfire.

Deputies drew their weapons and sprinted toward Evans. Someone yelled for him to move — then about 20 more seconds of shooting erupted.

"Hey! Get … out of here, pal," someone shouted. Evans was unharmed.

The gunfire gave way to a tense standoff. Mountain residents locked their doors and hunkered down.

Holly Haas, 52, who lives about a mile from where the shootout unfolded, said she heard helicopters buzzing on and off until about 3:30. One dipped so close to her home, she said, "I could throw a rock and hit it."

Others watched the standoff unfold on television. At her home, Candy Martin sat down to watch TV when, to her surprise, she spotted her rental cabin on-screen — where the suspect was believed to be holed up.

She contacted police and told them that the furnished, 85-year-old cabin had no cable, telephone or Internet service. No one had booked it for Monday.

"There should have been nobody," she recalled saying. "Nobody in any way."

Within hours, authorities moved in on the cabin. The fire broke out, setting off ammunition that had apparently been inside. On TV, viewers saw only the orange flames and curls of black smoke.

As night fell, authorities had yet to enter the building, said San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Bachman. "They believe there is a body in there," she said.

Botched Media Reporting on Fate of Christopher Dorner

News reports claimed earlier this evening that the body of suspect Christopher Dorner had been recovered from the burned out cabin, only later to be retracted as police denied confirmation.

The Los Angeles Times reports, "Dorner manhunt: Confusion over whether body was found."

And at the New York Times, "Conflicting Reports Over Fate of Christopher Dorner." (At Memeorandum.)

Also at CBS News Los Angeles, "Transcript: Reporter Carter Evans Trapped In Center of Dorner Gunfight."

Another Syria Dude Shoulda Ducked!

At BCF, "Syrian Rebel Forgets to Keep Head Down."

PREVIOUSLY: "Shoulda Ducked: Syria Fighter Dude Shot Dead in Wicked Roadside Sniper Pick Off."