Here's That Video of Ann Coulter Slamming Libertarians as 'Pussies'

This is very entertaining. And I'll tell you, Ann Coulter pretty much nails it on the idiocy of libertine libertarians (on a host of issues, they're interchangeable with radical leftists).

Via Erika Johnson, at Hot Air, and Memeorandum:

BONUS: At Legal Insurrection, "Coulter on Stossel shows foolishness of Fordham’s cancellation."

'59% Think Most School Textbooks Put Political Correctness Ahead of Accuracy...'

Althouse has the report, from Rasmussen, and she writes:

Anybody putting together a schoolbook has to think about inspiring children and building ideals and character. I'm saying that even though I lean strongly in the direction of straightforward, factual information, and I think that it's a serious moral wrong to use compulsory education to indoctrinate children.

Well, my American government textbook is probably politically incorrect from the radical left's perspective. One of the main selling points is its strong emphasis on American exceptionalism and our founding beliefs in individualism, liberty, and self-government. Students are unfamiliar with these things when they get to my classrooms. They have only a passing acquaintance with what it means to be an American. Whether the problem's families or the schools, we have a lot of work to do in transmitting the democratic beliefs of our founding generation.

Dude Recreates '70's Pan-Am 747 in City of Industry Warehouse

You gotta love this story. I still daydream about the old 747s. As a kid, I was fascinated by the idea of a cocktail lounge in the sky. And now it turns out that a Southland man has recreated the Jumbo Jet '70's experience for guests to "fly" back in time.

At the Long Beach Press Telegram, "California man's lifelike model recreates Pan Am 747 in warehouse":

On an unusually warm December night, more than 25 years after her final flight with Pan American World Airways - 11 hours from Frankfurt to Los Angeles - Anna Gunther once again put on her pantyhose and blue uniform with white trim, so she could serve dinner on the upper deck of a Boeing 747.

But this airplane wasn't going anywhere. It was a model, like a child's playhouse, built by a man who had dreamed of re-creating the plane he loved as a boy.

This was a chance for Anthony Toth to unveil, for the first time, what he had created inside a 3,000-square-foot warehouse in the City of Industry. Here was his opportunity to show why he hired a contractor, spent more than $100,000 and used almost every vacation day he ever earned to reconstruct a major chunk of the interior of a Pan Am 747.
Sure, he had shown off airplane models before. He once even had a smaller replica inside the garage of his Redondo Beach condo. But at home there was no upper deck. And what's a 747, even a replica, without a second level?

There was another problem with his garage. Other than running to the kitchen, Toth had no way to prepare meals for his faux travelers. But the warehouse was different, and that's where Gunther came in.

She had never met Toth, a sales executive at United Airlines based in Los Angeles, but, almost on a lark, she agreed to help him. Toth wanted to pretend as if he were flying some of his co-workers and friends to another continent, and he wanted former Pan Am flight attendants to serve drinks and dinner, just as they might have three or four decades ago.

On the big day, Gunther arrived at 3 p.m., wearing high heels, a bowler hat and a uniform (white blouse, blue they walked into his warehouse and past the ticket counter with the bright blue Pan Am logo. They saw a sign indicating Flight 21 to Tokyo would leave soon. Then they walked onto a short jet bridge, through a real aircraft door and turned left into first class.

On board, they took amenity kits tucked in plastic and filled with goodies like slippers and a damp "refresher towel." They picked up a real set of Pan Am headphones, ones they could plug into a jack on their seats to listen to music or watch the movie projected overhead. They grabbed vintage magazines protected by a Pan Am branded sleeve.

They took their plush seats - the cabin has 18 of them arranged in an alternating blue and red pattern - raised their leg rests and reclined. They looked around. Everything was accurate, from the distance between seats to the overhead bins to the aircraft's shell to the galley Gunther and her three colleagues used to ready drinks. Using his iPad and hidden speakers, Toth had even piped in the humming of jet engines.

It was so true to the real thing, it blurred the line between reality and fiction.

It was as if Pan Am was flying again.

Continue reading.

Washington's Ruling Class Orphans Millions of Voters

Angelo Codevilla updates his theory of America's morally bankrupt politics of the ruling class.

At Forbes, "As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned":

On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. Two thirds voted no, following the people who had elected them. For generations, the Republican Party had presented itself as the political vehicle for Americans whose opposition to ever-bigger government financed by ever-higher taxes makes them a “country class.”  Yet modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been partners in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.” They have relished that role despite their voters. Thus these leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans. In short, at the outset of 2013 a substantial portion of America finds itself un-represented, while Republican leaders increasingly represent only themselves.

By the law of supply and demand, millions of Americans, (arguably a majority) cannot remain without representation. Increasingly the top people in government, corporations, and the media collude and demand submission as did the royal courts of old. This marks these political orphans as a “country class.” In 1776 America’s country class responded to lack of representation by uniting under the concept: “all men are created equal.” In our time, its disparate sectors’ common sentiment is more like: “who the hell do they think they are?”

The ever-growing U.S. government has an edgy social, ethical, and political character. It is distasteful to a majority of persons who vote Republican and to independent voters, as well as to perhaps one fifth of those who vote Democrat. The Republican leadership’s kinship with the socio-political class that runs modern government is deep. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. Yet far has it been from the Republican leadership to defend them. Whenever possible, the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office – especially the Presidency – who have ignored, soft-pedaled or given mere lip service to their voters’ identities and concerns.

Thus public opinion polls confirm that some two thirds of Americans feel that government is “them” not “us,” that government has been taking the country in the wrong direction, and that such sentiments largely parallel partisan identification: While a majority of Democrats feel that officials who bear that label represent them well, only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side. Again: While the ruling class is well represented by the Democratic Party, the country class is not represented politically – by the Republican Party or by any other. Well or badly, its demand for representation will be met.

Representation is the distinguishing feature of democratic government. To be represented, to trust that one’s own identity and interests are secure and advocated in high places, is to be part of the polity. In practice, any democratic government’s claim to the obedience of citizens depends on the extent to which voters feel they are party to the polity. No one doubts that the absence, loss, or perversion of that function divides the polity sharply between rulers and ruled.

Continue reading.

And then check Gateway Pundit, "Rush Limbaugh: “For First Time in My Life, I’m Ashamed of My Country” (Video)."

And the introduction at this video is excellent (although you're on your own after that), from Greta Van Susteren, "Manufactured Mess? - Rush Limbaugh Says Sequester Crisis Is Bogus."

Walter Russell Mead on Joseph Stiglitz and Higher Education Reform

I mentioned Joseph Stiglitz's recent NYT commentary at my essay the other day on fatherhood at the Jordan Downs housing project.

Well it turns out Walter Russell Mead has some additional thoughts, "Blues Missing the Mark on Higher Ed Reform":

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has a wide-ranging piece in the New York Times addressing the problem of income inequality in America, arguing that the U.S. is actually falling behind the rest of the developing world when it comes to social mobility. The piece touches on many issues, but the most interesting parts to us are his comments about how skyrocketing higher-ed costs are depressing upward mobility for the nation’s poor:

Unless current trends in education are reversed, the situation is likely to get even worse. In some cases it seems as if policy has actually been designed to reduce opportunity: government support for many state schools has been steadily gutted over the last few decades—and especially in the last few years. Meanwhile, students are crushed by giant student loan debts that are almost impossible to discharge, even in bankruptcy. This is happening at the same time that a college education is more important than ever for getting a good job.

Young people from families of modest means face a Catch-22: without a college education, they are condemned to a life of poor prospects; with a college education, they may be condemned to a lifetime of living at the brink. And increasingly even a college degree isn’t enough; one needs either a graduate degree or a series of (often unpaid) internships. Those at the top have the connections and social capital to get those opportunities. Those in the middle and bottom don’t. The point is that no one makes it on his or her own. And those at the top get more help from their families than do those lower down on the ladder. Government should help to level the playing field.

As time goes on, we’re seeing a growing consensus of the left, right and center that something is seriously wrong with our higher education system. But while Stiglitz gets the problem right, his solution, that government should be responsible for “leveling the playing field,” leaves much to be desired.

Continue reading.

Recall though that while Mead focuses on other problems at issue besides funding, I'm concerned about improvements in higher education that begin at the level of the family. Our problems are largely cultural. Sure, the state-led bureaucratization of education is enormously wasteful and ineffective, but that doesn't mean that even with moderate reforms it can't be made to lift and improve the lives of more people. Until we work on restoring a culture of learning in society, along with strengthening the centrality of traditional families in the economy, we'll continue to flail away on college success and higher education reform.

BONUS: My good friend Norm has some additional comments on Stiglitz, at the link.

Geert Wilders' Right to Speak

Dutch parliamentary leader Geert Wilders is speaking in Australia this week. Here's the editorial on the controversy, at the Australian, "Geert Wilders's right to speak":

FOR a liberal democracy that thrives on liberty, plurality and vigorous political discourse, the visit by controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders to these shores presents an opportunity to reaffirm these fundamental principles. When Mr Wilders was granted a visa last year, then immigration minister Chris Bowen rightly argued that Australian multiculturalism, our political system and our commitment to freedom of speech were strong enough to survive a visit by the Dutch MP.

Mr Wilders's views on the impact of large-scale Islamic immigration in Europe and the challenge that it presents to established cultures and the obligations of citizenship in Western countries are part of an important debate that Australians should be aware of.

Mr Wilders is the founder and leader of The Netherlands Party for Freedom. His political mission is to halt what he says is the "Islamisation" of his country. He argues that Islamism is a totalitarian political ideology enforced by violence and rigid adherence to it, quite different from the faith of Islam. In his article in The Australian earlier this week, Mr Wilders outlined his views that many will find challenging, but they were respectfully put and hardly deserve the vilification he has received from extremists. Mr Wilders's visit provides Australians with a window into a sociopolitico challenge in the northern hemisphere. How Islam can be absorbed into Western democracies, given the cultural differences between the two, is being debated and discussed in journals such as the centre-left magazine Prospect, where a recent contributor argued: "Islam's accommodation with the liberal-democratic societies of Europe and North America is one of the most urgent questions of our times."

Mr Wilders is welcome here, provided that he abides by the law, as all visitors must. Our laws include prohibiting racial vilification and inciting violence, but there is no suggestion he has come close to violating them. So far, it is his opponents who have displayed the illiberalism they accuse him of. A core duty of citizens in a free society is to welcome debate on contentious subjects. A mature country that is comfortable with its own laws, cultures and traditions would defend the right to express views that some of its citizens may not agree with. Last year, British preacher Taji Mustafa addressed a gathering in Sydney and argued for Islam to be spread throughout Australia, not as a religion but as a system of government. These views are repugnant to most Australians, yet they were allowed to be expressed. Moreover, a group of Muslims marched through the streets of Sydney last year under the black flag of jihad - also the flag of al-Qa'ida - spreading a message of religious hatred. Muslim leaders quickly denounced the vile protests.

While we do not face the same challenges that exist in Europe, flashes of Islamic extremism surface from time to time. The lesson is that our non-discriminatory immigration policy and the continuation of our largely harmonious multi-ethnic society - one of the most diverse in the world - depends on a tolerance for this diversity and a commitment to Australian values. Citizenship is not only about rights; it is also about civic responsibility, whether the citizens are Muslim, Christian or neither. Not everyone will agree with Mr Wilders's views, but we should all defend his right to express them.

More at Tundra Tabloids, "GEERT WILDERS SPEAKS IN AUSTRALIA, PEOPLE LISTEN…"

Also at Bare Naked Islam, "GEERT WILDERS IN AUSTRALIA," and Bill Muehlenberg's, "Why Geert Wilders is Right."

And at PA Pundits International, "Geert Wilders In Australia – If You Need This Much Security For Criticising Islam ..."

PHOTO: "Faith, Freedom, and Memory: Report From Ground Zero, September 11, 2010."

Milton Friedman on C-Span's 'Book Notes' in 1994

I hadn't planned to watch the whole thing --- and this interview's an hour long --- but I got sucked in after just a couple of minutes listening to Dr. Friedman. The other day, when I was renewing my kid's colonial history books at the library, I bought a paperback copy of Friedman's "Free to Choose" for 25 cents at the library's bookstore. I'm just getting into the book, but I've been watching videos online and came across this one. Friedman's lamentations about the creeping socialization of democratic societies --- a trend seemingly inexplicable in 1994, since "everybody agrees that socialism has been a failure" --- are particularly relevant in the age of Obama.

Watch this video in full. If you don't have time, bookmark it for later. It's amazing.

And buy the book, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement.

President Armageddon

A great editorial on the sequester, at WSJ, "The Washington Monument ploy and other Obama gambits":

Americans need to understand that Mr. Obama is threatening that if he doesn't get what he wants, he's ready to inflict maximum pain on everybody else. He won't force government agencies to shave spending on travel and conferences and excessive pay and staffing. He won't demand that agencies cut the lowest priority spending as any half-competent middle manager would.

It's the old ploy to stir public support for all government spending by shutting down vital services first. Voters should scoff at the idea that a $3.6 trillion government can't save one nickel of every dollar that agencies spend. The $85 billion in savings is a mere 2.3% of total spending. The agencies that the White House says can't save 5% received an average increase in their budgets of 17% in the previous five years—not counting their $276 billion stimulus bonus.

Continue reading.

BONUS: Speaker Boehner's op-ed at the paper, "The President Is Raging Against a Budget Crisis He Created" (via Memeorandum).

Bill Schmalfeldt is Disgusting

The Other McCain's continuing coverage of Bill Schmalfeldt, which is really just the residuals of the freedom to blog battles of last year, which generated a lot of attention nationwide at the time of the swattings, is endlessly fascinating. This is so especially since while Schmalfeldt is truly bizarre, he's not that bizarre in the context of the left-wing ideology that is the foundation of his evil. He's really quite representative of the depravity of progressivism.

See, "Dishonest Bill Schmalfeldt Got Banned from Daily Kos for Anal Rape 'Satire'."

Read it all at the link, but worth adding here is the link to Lee Stranahan's post, "Bill Schmalfeldt: Too Disgusting For Daily Kos":

R.S. McCain has been putting the career of Bill Schmalfeldt into proper perspective over at The Other McCain and it felt it was time to highlight another aspect of Schmalfeldt’s work and personality.

Bill Schmalfeldt is disgusting.

That sounds like a petty insult. It’s not. In the case of Mr. Schmalfeldt, it’s true and very specific.  He is intentionally sickeningly repulsive and his writings show a sexual obsession that is profoundly disturbing.

I’m not a prude. I’m not easily offended. This isn’t even a liberal / conservative thing. Bill Schmalfeldt actually managed to offend the readers at the Daily Kos so much that he was essentially run off the website back in May of this year in an article entitled The REAL Conservative Case Against Gay Marriage.

Here’s just one paragraph from that article. Welcome to the mind of Bill Schmalfeldt...

Keep reading both of those posts at the links.

Schmalfeldt's Photoshops are too disgusting to post here, and that's a lot, since I post just about anything.

3 Reasons to Build the Keystone XL Pipeline

From Reason TV:

RELATED: At PuffHo, "Obama Golfed With Oil Men as Climate Protesters Descended on White House."

Funny that.

Majority Says Illegal Immigrants Should Be Deported

Well, I can't see how the administration would get much GOP support, in any case. But we're not in a normal political cycle. Texas Gov. Rick Scott caved on the ObamaCare exchanges today, so who know's who many Republicans will cave on amnesty?

At Reuters, "Majority of U.S. citizens say illegal immigrants should be deported" (via Memeorandum):

(Reuters) - More than half of U.S. citizens believe that most or all of the country's 11 million illegal immigrants should be deported, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday that highlights the difficulties facing lawmakers trying to reform the U.S. immigration system.

The online survey shows resistance to easing immigration laws despite the biggest push for reform in Congress since 2007.

Thirty percent of those polled think that most illegal immigrants, with some exceptions, should be deported, while 23 percent believe all illegal immigrants should be deported.

Only 5 percent believe all illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay in the United States legally, and 31 percent want most illegal immigrants to stay.

These results are in line with other polls in recent years, suggesting that people's views on immigration have not changed dramatically since the immigration debate reignited in Congress last month, according to Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.

More at the link.

$50 Million in Diamonds Stolen in Brash Heist at Brussels Airport

Someone on Twitter yesterday snarked that this had to be an inside job.

And amazingly, it's the front-page story at this morning's Wall Street Journal, "Gunmen Waylay Jet, Swipe Diamond Trove":

BRUSSELS—As 29 passengers sat aboard a Zurich-bound flight here Monday evening waiting for the last bags to be loaded, gunmen wearing police uniforms raced up to the plane and stole more than 120 packages of diamonds worth at least $50 million, and possibly much more.

Some of the eight masked robbers stood in front of the Helvetic Airways jet plane with machine guns, pointing laser sights at the pilots, while others forced ground workers to open the plane's cargo doors, according to Belgian prosecutors and other people familiar with the events.

The thieves snatched the parcels of jewels and sped off in minutes without firing a shot, said Belgian prosecutor Ine Van Wymersch. Many travelers on the plane and inside the terminal didn't know what was happening. "It was well-prepared and very professional," she said.

The theft rattled Antwerp, a world hub for trading in gems and precious metals. Nearly all of those valuables pass through Brussels Airport.

The thieves appeared to have detailed information about both the cargo and operations at the airport, and likely had help from people at the airport, according to an aviation-security specialist knowledgeable about the incident. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, international law-enforcement officials have been concerned about security threats posed by people working inside airports and other sensitive facilities.

he brazen heist is Europe's highest-value airport-tarmac holdup in a decade, aviation-security exports said. Authorities on Tuesday didn't detail exactly what was stolen, so estimates of the value of the goods varied. The declared value of the stolen diamonds, a mix of rough and polished stones, was about $50 million, according to a spokeswoman for the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, a coordinator for local diamond traders. The aviation-security specialist knowledgeable about what happened said the jewels could be worth up to $350 million.

Ms. Van Wymersch, the prosecutor, declined to place a value on the stolen gems.

That is rad.

Front-Page Los Angeles Times Coverage of Orange County's Ali Syed Murders

Just tweeted:

Cover at today's @latimes. twitter.com/AmPowerBlog/st…
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 20, 2013

And at the paper, "O.C. shootings leave four dead, many questions."

Check the search results for more, at the link.

Soledad O'Brien Out at CNN!

Robert Stacy McCain reports, "Ratings-Killer @Soledad_OBrien Fired by Obscure Third-Place Cable News Network."

And oooohhh, Jezebel is so sad, "Oh Crap: Soledad O’Brien Is Rumored to Be Pushed Out at CNN." No, Soledad isn't "whip-smart." She's an unprincipled hack Obama lap-dog journalist who turned CNN's morning programming into a black urban ghetto. Zucker ain't stupid and he certainly ain't politically correct. Now let's just wait for the left's attacks on the network for RAAAAACISM! Or, well, crickets!

PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons.

Murders, Carjackings Leave Four Dead in Orange County

Honestly, there are indeed some people who should not have access to guns.

I was on the road a little after 6:00am yesterday morning, and when I got to the college I saw the news on Twitter.

Sad.

And strange that this kind of thing happens nearby right as you go along your morning business.

A video report at KABC 7 Los Angeles, "Orange County shooting spree: Suspect kills 3, commits suicide; motive sought."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "O.C. shootings: College student attacked randomly, police say," and "O.C. shootings: Ladera Ranch neighbor heard a 'bunch of ruckus'."

More at the O.C. Register, "Slaying shocks, saddens Ladera Ranch community."

China's PLA Unit 61398 Behind Hacking Attacks in U.S.

An extremely fascinating story at yesterday's New York Times, "China's Army Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S."

It's a detailed report. Read it all at that link.

Why the Hell Should Anyone Vote For the Republican Party?

Yeah, why the hell?

From John Hawkins, at RWN.

John nails this part: Where are the Republicans on law and order?

Law and order? Americans in bad neighborhoods who are suffering terribly because of gangs and drugs are apparently of no interest whatsoever to any Republicans in charge of anything judging by the amount of time they spend discussing this issue — which is close to zero. Additionally, the biggest law and order issue on the table today is illegal immigration, where the Republican Party is working hand and glove with the Democrats to reward 11 million people who are here illegally with amnesty.

Continue reading at the link.

Heidi Montag Shows Off Her Big Guns!

Well, not those big guns.

She's got some real firearms, at London's Daily Mail, "We need protection! Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt show off guns at home admitting they feel unsafe from crazed fans."

Also at New York Daily News, "Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag pose with firearms during ‘Spedi: Scandal, Secrets and Surgery’ UK documentary."

Here's That Video of Megyn Kelly Covering the 'Vomit All Over Your Rapist' Story

Twitchy has the background, "While most of the media stay silent, Megyn Kelly addresses Salazar, UCCS rape remarks."

And the video is here, "Controversy Over a Woman's Right to Defend Herself With a Firearm."

Also, I cribbed the title of this post from Katie Pavlich:

. @megynkelly covering the "vomit all over your rapist" story
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) February 19, 2013

PREVIOUSLY: "Colorado Democrat Rep. Joe Salazar: Women Don't Need Guns If They 'Feel Like They’re Going to Be Raped'."

Samsung Challenges Apple's Cool

This is something I've been thinking about more often since getting an iPhone. It's an amazing piece of technology, but what's the competition? Who makes a better device? Remember, I mentioned the iPad had a huge glitch with the browser crashing, so that experience really tarnished the user vibe for Apple products. Their stuff is still the most invulnerable from malware --- or, that's what they say. But criminal programmers will get to them sooner or later.

In any case, at the New York Times, "Samsung Emerges as a Potent Rival to Apple’s Cool":

Apple, for the first time in years, is hearing footsteps.

The maker of iPhones, iPads and iPods has never faced a challenger able to make a truly popular and profitable smartphone or tablet — not Dell, not Hewlett-Packard, not Nokia, not BlackBerry — until Samsung Electronics.

The South Korean manufacturer’s Galaxy S III smartphone is the first device to run neck and neck with Apple’s iPhone in sales. Armed with other Galaxy phones and tablets, Samsung has emerged as a potent challenger to Apple, the top consumer electronics maker. The two companies are the only ones turning profits in the highly competitive mobile phone industry, with Apple taking 72 percent of the earnings and Samsung the rest.

Yet these two rivals, who have battled in the marketplace and in the courts worldwide, could not be more different. Samsung Electronics, a major part of South Korea’s expansive Samsung Group, makes computer chips and flat-panel displays as well as a wide range of consumer products including refrigerators, washers and dryers, cameras, vacuum cleaners, PCs, printers and TVs.

Where Apple stakes its success on creating new markets and dominating them, as it did with the iPhone and iPad, Samsung invests heavily in studying existing markets and innovating inside them.

“We get most of our ideas from the market,” said Kim Hyun-suk, an executive vice president at Samsung, in a conversation about the future of mobile devices and television. “The market is a driver, so we don’t intend to drive the market in a certain direction,” he said.

That’s in stark contrast to the philosophy of Apple’s founder Steven P. Jobs, who rejected the notion of relying on market research. He memorably said that consumers don’t know what they want.

Nearly everything at Samsung, from the way it does research to its manufacturing, is unlike Apple. It taunts Apple in its cheeky advertisements while Apple stays above the fray.

And the Korean manufacturer may even be putting some pressure on Apple’s world-class designers. Before Apple released the iPhone 5, which had a larger screen than earlier models, Samsung had already been selling phones with even bigger displays, like the 5.3-inch screen Galaxy Note, a smartphone so wide that gadget blogs call it a phablet.

Samsung outspends Apple on research and development: $10.5 billion, or 5.7 percent of revenue, compared with $3.4 billion, or 2.2 percent. (Samsung Electronics is slightly bigger than Apple in terms of revenue — $183.5 billion compared with $156.5 billion — but Apple is larger in terms of stock market value.)

Samsung has 60,000 staff members working in 34 research centers across the globe, including, Russia, Britain, India, Japan, Israel, China and Silicon Valley. It polls consumers and buys third-party research reports, but it also embeds employees in countries to study trends or merely to find inspiration for ideas.

Designers of the Galaxy S III say they drew inspiration from trips to Cambodia and Helsinki, a Salvador Dalí art exhibit and even a balloon ride in an African forest. (It employs 1,000 designers with different backgrounds like psychology, sociology, economy management and engineering.)

“The research process is unimaginable,” said Donghoon Chang, an executive vice president of Samsung who leads the company’s design efforts. “We go through all avenues to make sure we read the trends correctly.” He says that when the company researches markets for any particular product, it is also looking at trends in fashion, automobiles and interior design.

Continue reading.

And see Steve Kovach, at CNN, "How Samsung Is Out-Innovating Apple."

Jimmie Bise Blasts Epic Manifesto of Youth Empowerment and Independence on Twitter

I mentioned that someone needed to curate this, and I don't see that anyone's done it, so here goes:

I have been talking, pleading, coaxing, begging about this for a long while. Conservative have nothing like it. At all. legalinsurrection.com/2013/02/upwort…
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

"GReen" politics isn't anti-capitalism. It's anti-you. "Green" zealots want you to live in cold, dark places, eating cold, horrible food.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

You see someone who wants you to give up light bulbs and warm houses? Laugh at them, then make sure they never touch political power. Ever.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

You know those people who want to raise the minimum wage? They don't want young people in the job market. They want them dependent.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Why on Earth do you think the same "raise the minimum wage" people also want to keep people locked into their parents' health insurance?
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

It's not because they're being *kind*. It's because they get a few more years of control. They are control-freaks. Power-hungry tools.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Take a good look some time at what the minimum wage has done to employment rates of young people. It's brutal.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

But once those entry-level, "learn as you earn" jobs get priced out of the market, what's left? College. Specifically, college loan debt.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

And who just spent a couple years putting college loans in the hands of the same government that jacked up the minimum wage? *DING DING*
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

So, the very same people who ran young people out of entry-level jobs and pushed them into college also took control of college loans.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

And those *very same* people are locking young people into their parents health insurance plans until they're 26. Well, hmmm...
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

What might a reasonably intelligent person say about someone who did all three of those things in the past four years? Come on. Think.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

For goodness' sake, think like a politician who just shunted young people into *at least* a decade of debt for which they hold the note.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Think like the political who holds paper on how many college graduates who also depend on that politician's lackeys for health insurance.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

For Pete's sake, THINK!!
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

But wait, you say! I can open a small business, you say. Maybe do some grunt work to pay off that debt, you say. Haul junk. Landscaping.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

*BUZZ!!* No dice, dude. you don't get to do *any* of that without at least two permits from, guess who, MOAR BUREAUCRATS!
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

So now they control your debt, your health care, your job prospects, and your ability to work for yourself to pay off the debt.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Now here's the funny part, really. Okay, not so much funny as heart-breakingly sad. Ready? Listen closely. Bend in so you hear it.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

YOU VOTED FOR THESE PEOPLE!!
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Do you feel like a sap? No? Well, you will, in just a couple years when the bills come due. Oh, wait. Did I mention bills? Hang on.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

I have one more thing about those bills. See, it's about that health care. You know, the police you're on with your parents? Yeah.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

The second you get off that policy, you're going to have a choice. You can buy a policy of your own, approved by the bureaucrats, or...
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

...you can pay a fine. Umm...I mean a tax. See, the government says you *have* to pay them even if you don't want. Even if you don't need.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

You can't just set money aside in case something bad happens, and pay the bill with your savings. Oh, no. You have to pay every year.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

And you're not paying for you. You won't use as much health care as you pay for. You'll pay for the health care of -- TA DA -- your parents.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

So that policy you rode on until you were 26? Congrats. You'll be paying for it once you get off it. More than you want or need.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

But this isn't about your need. It's about control, and you are not your own person any more. You're not in control any more. You're a cog.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

You're a little cog in a huge machine and you have a job. Work. Work every day. For someone else. Not for you. Never for you.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

This is your life now. You belong to THE MAN. Youtake THE MAN's wage, go to THE MAN's doctor, retire when THE MAN says.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

You buy what THE MAN allows you to buy, drive the car THE MAN wants you to drive, watch movies THE MAN says get made.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Sucks, huh? Sucks hard. Well, you did choose it. You liked it on Facebook and RTed it on Twitter, and up-voted it on Reddit.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

You sucked down the happy juice and shared it with all your friends and now...what? What's it look like for you?
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Look, I'll be honest. This new world THE MAN has put together, it's pretty good for folks like me. I'm heading into the sweet spot.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

I'm about in my mid-40s now. I should be starting businesses and hiring you guys and setting you up for your own businesses and success.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

I should have loads of disposable income on which I can shower you. Buy your stuff. I'm tech-savvy. I want your apps and tunes and movies.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

But that tax bite is tearing me down, setting me up for when I'm in my 60s and you're paying my freight. I hate that.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Let me say that again. I hate that. With a passion you can't even begin to imagine. I want it to be different. I want to help you succeed.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

I want to teach you every single trick I know and I want you to rock the whole freaking planet. I want you to invent and cure and live.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

I want to kick this world in its ass and get it moving then hand you the torch so you can light the fuse and make it really take off.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

I can't do it without you, though. I need your help. I need your enthusiasm, energy, humor, and savvy. I have lots of my own. I need more.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Seriously, we can fix this. We can make things right. We can put the country back in your hands and in mine. We can. WE CAN!
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Listen to me. WE CAN DO THIS.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

You have to stop buying the hype. You have to push your friends and family to stop buying the hype. I promise I'll do the same. Promise.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

I will not leave you hanging. I will not abandon you. Get right beside me and let's do this. Let's throw those control freaks out. Every one
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

I don't give a rat's ass what their party is. Democrat, Republican, don't matter. If they want to control your life or mine, they're done
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Washington can not make the calls anymore. They're blown it. Wrecked the whole thing. Look around. See the #Fail.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

They blew it and they don't get a second chance. End their careers. Throw them out and all their puling little bureaucrat buddies.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Get on my shoulder. We will handle our business. We got this. You know we do.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Really, the only question today is: ARE YOU READY TO DO THIS? I think you are. Let's go.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

BY the way, I'm not telling you to follow me. I'm not even asking. CRap, the last thing I want is for you to follow me. Stop following.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Following is what got us into this godawful mess. We follow too much. We get in line too often. Don't follow me. Do. Not.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Get beside me. Cover my flank. Get my back. Get your friends' backs. Cover each other. Everyone moves forward. Lead. Go. Do.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

Don't ask permission from anyone. Not me. Not a politician. Not a so-called leader.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

You like what I'm doing? Share it. Make stuff like it. Share that. Build your own groups. You do it. Yes, you.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

You're not a leader? Cool. Neither am I. I don't know what I am. I'm just a guy. I blog. I write. I do a podcast. I tweet.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

But I figure if there are enough of us who look at the control-freaks right in their beady, greedy eyes and shout "NO!!!!!", we'll win.
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

So, there. That's all. :)
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) February 17, 2013

I caught Jimmie posting this manifesto midstream, but if that top tweet is any clue, it's William Jacobson who got him going: "Upworthy — or, How we are losing the internet to lowest of low information young liberals."

Jimmie's manifesto is a thing of beauty, and since I had the time to curate it, I thought, "Why in the heck not?"

About the Uses and Abuses of Paternalism

Folks might find this interesting, for while government imposes decisions on the individual "because it's good for them" all the time, there's something extra freakish (totalitarian) to this.

From Cass Sunstein, Obama's former Czar of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, at the New York Review, "It’s For Your Own Good!":

In the United States, as in many other countries, obesity is a serious problem. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to do something about it. Influenced by many experts, he believes that soda is a contributing factor to increasing obesity rates and that large portion sizes are making the problem worse. In 2012, he proposed to ban the sale of sweetened drinks in containers larger than sixteen ounces at restaurants, delis, theaters, stadiums, and food courts. The New York City Board of Health approved the ban.

Many people were outraged by what they saw as an egregious illustration of the nanny state in action. Why shouldn’t people be allowed to choose a large bottle of Coca-Cola? The American Beverage Association responded with a vivid advertisement, depicting Mayor Bloomberg in a (scary) nanny outfit.

But self-interested industries were not the only source of ridicule. Jon Stewart is a comedian, but he was hardly amused. A representative remark from one of his commentaries: “No!…I love this idea you have of banning sodas larger than 16 ounces. It combines the draconian government overreach people love with the probable lack of results they expect.”

Many Americans abhor paternalism. They think that people should be able to go their own way, even if they end up in a ditch. When they run risks, even foolish ones, it isn’t anybody’s business that they do. In this respect, a significant strand in American culture appears to endorse the central argument of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. In his great essay, Mill insisted that as a general rule, government cannot legitimately coerce people if its only goal is to protect people from themselves. Mill contended that

the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or mental, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right.

A lot of Americans agree. In recent decades, intense controversies have erupted over apparently sensible (and lifesaving) laws requiring people to buckle their seatbelts. When states require motorcyclists to wear helmets, numerous people object. The United States is facing a series of serious disputes about the boundaries of paternalism. The most obvious example is the “individual mandate” in the Affordable Care Act, upheld by the Supreme Court by a 5–4 vote, but still opposed by many critics, who seek to portray it as a form of unacceptable paternalism. There are related controversies over anti-smoking initiatives and the “food police,” allegedly responsible for recent efforts to reduce the risks associated with obesity and unhealthy eating, including nutrition guidelines for school lunches.

Mill offered a number of independent justifications for his famous harm principle, but one of his most important claims is that individuals are in the best position to know what is good for them. In Mill’s view, the problem with outsiders, including government officials, is that they lack the necessary information. Mill insists that the individual “is the person most interested in his own well-being,” and the “ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else.”

When society seeks to overrule the individual’s judgment, Mill wrote, it does so on the basis of “general presumptions,” and these “may be altogether wrong, and even if right, are as likely as not to be misapplied to individual cases.” If the goal is to ensure that people’s lives go well, Mill contends that the best solution is for public officials to allow people to find their own path. Here, then, is an enduring argument, instrumental in character, on behalf of free markets and free choice in countless situations, including those in which human beings choose to run risks that may not turn out so well.

Mill’s claim has a great deal of intuitive appeal. But is it right? That is largely an empirical question, and it cannot be adequately answered by introspection and intuition. In recent decades, some of the most important research in social science, coming from psychologists and behavioral economists, has been trying to answer it. That research is having a significant influence on public officials throughout the world. Many believe that behavioral findings are cutting away at some of the foundations of Mill’s harm principle, because they show that people make a lot of mistakes, and that those mistakes can prove extremely damaging.

For example, many of us show “present bias”: we tend to focus on today and neglect tomorrow. For some people, the future is a foreign country, populated by strangers. Many of us procrastinate and fail to take steps that would impose small short-term costs but produce large long-term gains. People may, for example, delay enrolling in a retirement plan, starting to diet or exercise, ceasing to smoke, going to the doctor, or using some valuable, cost-saving technology. Present bias can ensure serious long-term harm, including not merely economic losses but illness and premature death as well.

People also have a lot of trouble dealing with probability. In some of the most influential work in the last half-century of social science, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky showed that in assessing probabilities, human beings tend to use mental shortcuts, or “heuristics,” that generally work well, but that can also get us into trouble. An example is the “availability heuristic.” When people use it, their judgments about probability—of a terrorist attack, an environmental disaster, a hurricane, a crime—are affected by whether a recent event comes readily to mind. If an event is cognitively “available”—for example, if people have recently suffered damage from a hurricane—they might well overestimate the risk. If they can recall few or no examples of harm, they might well underestimate the risk.

A great deal of research finds that most people are unrealistically optimistic, in the sense that their own predictions about their behavior and their prospects are skewed in the optimistic direction.6 In one study, over 80 percent of drivers were found to believe that they were safer and more skillful than the median driver. Many smokers have an accurate sense of the statistical risks, but some smokers have been found to believe that they personally are less likely to face lung cancer and heart disease than the average nonsmoker. Optimism is far from the worst of human characteristics, but if people are unrealistically optimistic, they may decline to take sensible precautions against real risks. Contrary to Mill, outsiders may be in a much better position to know the probabilities than people who are making choices for themselves.

Emphasizing these and related behavioral findings, many people have been arguing for a new form of paternalism, one that preserves freedom of choice, but that also steers citizens in directions that will make their lives go better by their own lights. (Full disclosure: the behavioral economist Richard Thaler and I have argued on behalf of what we call libertarian paternalism, known less formally as “nudges.") For example, cell phones, computers, privacy agreements, mortgages, and rental car contracts come with default rules that specify what happens if people do nothing at all to protect themselves. Default rules are a classic nudge, and they matter because doing nothing is exactly what people will often do. Many employees have not signed up for 401(k) plans, even when it seems clearly in their interest to do so. A promising response, successfully increasing participation and strongly promoted by President Obama, is to establish a default rule in favor of enrollment, so that employees will benefit from retirement plans unless they opt out. In many situations, default rates have large effects on outcomes, indeed larger than significant economic incentives.

Default rules are merely one kind of “choice architecture,” a phrase that may refer to the design of grocery stores, for example, so that the fresh vegetables are prominent; the order in which items are listed on a restaurant menu; visible official warnings; public education campaigns; the layout of websites; and a range of other influences on people’s choices. Such examples suggest that mildly paternalistic approaches can use choice architecture in order to improve outcomes for large numbers of people without forcing anyone to do anything.

In the United States, behavioral findings have played an unmistakable part in recent regulations involving retirement savings, fuel economy, energy efficiency, environmental protection, health care, and obesity. In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister David Cameron has created a Behavioural Insights Team, sometimes known as the Nudge Unit, with the specific goal of incorporating an understanding of human behavior into policy initiatives. In short, behavioral economics is having a large impact all over the world, and the emphasis on human error is raising legitimate questions about the uses and limits of paternalism.

RTWT.

Professor John Keane Interviews Julian Assange

I don't like Assange, although this is definitely out of the ordinary, at RealClearTechnology, "Julian Assange in Prison."

Colorado Democrat Rep. Joe Salazar: Women Don't Need Guns If They 'Feel Like They’re Going to Be Raped'

From Dana Loesch, at Red State (via Instapundit):

This is the real “war on women” I’ve talked about: the progressive insistence that women disarm. Women, according to Rep. Salazar, are hysterical things which shoot indiscriminately at any and everything.

Take it From Calvin Coolidge on Taxes and Spending

Following up on yesterday's post, "The Calvin Coolidge Comeback."

Here's Amity Shlaes, at WSJ, "The Coolidge Lesson on Taxes and Spending":

Only Reagan could fix this.

That's the intuitive reaction to the surge of spending and budgetary challenges in Washington today. It's hard to think of another Republican with the fortitude to push back against the outlays, to make government smaller, to lower taxes. And to show that such moves can yield prosperity.

The "only Reagan" assumption is too narrow—especially when it comes to the fiscal challenge. For while Reagan inspired and cut taxes, he did not reduce the deficit. He did not even cut the budget. But if you look back, past Dwight Eisenhower and around the curve of history, you can find a Republican who did all those things: Calvin Coolidge.

A New Englander and former Massachusetts governor, Coolidge came to Washington as vice president and moved into the White House only in 1923 after the sudden death of President Warren Harding. He later won the office himself and served until 1929. The 30th president cut the top income-tax rate to 25% (lower than the 28% of the historic Reagan cut of 1986). Coolidge reduced the national debt and balanced the budget. When he departed the White House for his home in Northampton, Mass., he left a federal budget smaller than the one he found.

Three factors gave Silent Cal the ability to cut as he did, each suggesting a governing approach that would be useful today...

Continue reading.

Abraham Lincoln Was Gay?

When school started a couple of weeks back, I mentioned to my classes that research shows that college students have little historical grounding in our founding institutions. I also mentioned that a lot of young people don't keep up with the news, that they're not informed about current events and how politics affects them. But then in one of my classes a young man piped up about how he really loves politics, and that he'd won awards in high school for the debate team, or some such thing. In any case, I was reminded of the Ron Paul libertarians and perhaps even the more whacked Paulbots. I was talking about the Gettysburg Address last week, which is cited in my textbook's discussion about the different definitions of democracy, and the student got going about how Lincoln was a gay atheist who ran concentration camps for some group or another. I ignored the atheist part, since almost all of Lincoln's most famous addresses are deeply grounded in God and divine provenance. But that gay bit was funny and some of the other students were practically gasping. And interestingly enough, Joan Rivers mouthed the gay smear on late-night TV a couple of days ago. See NewsBusters, "Joan Rivers: 'Abe Lincoln Was Gay'."

Anyway, I looked it up the other day and found this at USA Today, "200 years later, a more complex view of Lincoln":

* Lincoln the homosexual: A gay man in the White House?

Some writers, such as the late sex researcher and gay rights activist C. A. Tripp (The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, 2004) have argued that Lincoln was sexually attracted to men.

Lincoln's long friendship with Joshua Speed, a young store owner in Springfield, Ill., when Lincoln arrived there at age 28 in 1837, has attracted the most attention. Lincoln, whose worldly possessions at the time fit in two saddlebags, accepted Speed's invitation to save money by sharing the double bed in the room he was renting, according to many of the biographies, including David Herbert Donald's Lincoln.

Most historians don't think they were lovers. As Donald points out, bed-sharing was not unusual at the time because of financial necessity. Many boys grew up sharing a bed with one or more brothers.

Burlingame says speculation persists about a Speed diary and letters in which he wrote explicitly about a relationship with Lincoln. Burlingame doesn't buy it; nor does Berry, who says Lincoln wasn't homosexual, but homosocial.

"He cried too much to be a man's man, but he was a guy's guy," Berry says. "He liked nothing more than to sit around the stove, telling jokes and stories."

I have Donald's, Lincoln, and reading the USA Today piece reminded me about him sharing a bed at one point. But I can see how libertarians might attack Lincoln as a homosexual, since the paleocons deride him as a tyrant already, and they might want to smear him. But progressives might think a homosexual Lincoln is flaming cool. Barack Hussein likens himself to Lincoln and has sworn in twice on the Lincoln inaugural Bible. So if Lincoln was switch hitting, leftists can argue that Obama's not the first homosexual president after all.

(And I need to check back with the student on the concentration camp part. I was overwhelmed with the homosexual allegations and attacks on Lincoln the tyrant are pretty common already. But camps? More on that later...)

Al Jazeera Criticized for Lack of Independence After Arab Spring

Al Jazeera's been in the news big time since Al Gore sold his failed Current TV to the network. But also important is the proposed expansion of Al Jazeera's programming in the U.S. It's controversial, although I don't care that much because I doubt the network will do very well. More interesting is the epic hypocrisy in the news of radical feminist Naomi Wolf negotiating a deal with Al Jazeera. James Taranto has some choice words on that:

"Naomi Wolf, the author and activist, is in early-stage talks with the global news network Al Jazeera," reports Politico. In a way this makes sense: Wolf is a hysterical critic of America's antiterrorism efforts. In 2007 she published a book called "The End of America," in which she claimed that the Bush administration was taking us down the road to fascism.

Still, the first thing one thinks of upon hearing this news is the irony of a leading "third wave" (i.e., hypernarcissistic) feminist joining a pro-Islamist news network. Is she going to wear a veil? Probably not, but it turns out she doesn't mind if Muslim women do. She spelled it out in a 2008 Sydney Morning Herald article...

Continue at the link.

And there's a full report on the network at Der Spiegel, "After the Arab Spring: Al-Jazeera Losing Battle for Independence":

For over a decade, the Arab television broadcaster Al-Jazeera was widely respected for providing an independent voice from the Middle East. Recently, however, several top journalists have left, saying the station has developed a clear political agenda.

Aktham Suliman's wristwatch was always ahead. Although he lived in Berlin, it always showed him the time in Doha, the capital of the emirate of Qatar -- which is also the home of Al-Jazeera, the television news network that had been employing Suliman, born in Damascus, as a correspondent for Germany since 2002.

"Doha time was Jazeera time," he says. "It was an honor to work for this broadcaster."
One and a half years ago, Suliman, 42, re-set his watch to German time, having become disenchanted with Al-Jazeera. And it wasn't just because the broadcaster seemed less interested in reports from Europe. Rather, Suliman had the feeling that he was no longer being allowed to work as an independent journalist.

Last August, he quit his job. "Before the beginning of the Arab Spring, we were a voice for change," he says, "a platform for critics and political activists throughout the region. Now, Al-Jazeera has become a propaganda broadcaster."

Suliman is not the only one who feels bitterly disappointed. The Arab TV network has recently suffered an exodus of prominent staff members. Reporters and anchors in cities like Paris, London, Moscow, Beirut and Cairo have left Al-Jazeera, despite what are seen as luxurious working conditions in centrally located offices. And despite the fact that the network is investing an estimated $500 million (€375 million) in the US, so as to reach even more viewers on the world's largest television market -- one in which its biggest competitor, CNN, is at home.

Al-Jazeera has over 3,000 staff members and 65 correspondent offices worldwide -- and viewers in some 50 million households throughout the Arab world. But it also has a problem: More than ever before, critics contend that the broadcaster is following a clear political agenda, and not adhering to the principles of journalistic independence.

Such accusations have been leveled against Western broadcasters as well, of course. But the charge would place Al-Jazeera on a par with Fox News -- which pursues the agenda of conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch in the US -- rather than CNN.

Continue reading.

Daisy Watts for ZOO Magazine

She's on Twitter:

Last chance to buy @zoo this week with me on the cover ;) twitter.com/daisywatts/sta…

— Daisy Watts (@daisywatts) February 18, 2013

And the video's here, "Daisy Watts' Peachy, Booby and Sexy Lingerie Video For ZOO Magazine in HD."

Conservatives Not Forgiving Mark Sanford

At Twitchy, "Mark Sanford: ‘None of us go through life without mistakes’; Many conservatives not in forgiving mood."

Video at that link and at Legal Insurrection, "Just Say NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Executive Accused of Slapping Toddler is Fired

At ABC News, "Executive Charged With Slapping Toddler on Plane Gets Slapped With Pink Slip."

The boy's adopted and he's a beauty. The executive called him the "n-word." Are you kidding me? Ask to sit somewhere else. I would have changed seats. Sheesh.

Bulgaria Seeks Sanctions Against Hamas

At the Times of Israel, "Bulgarian FM to EU colleagues: Sanction Hezbollah":

Presenting evidence from Burgas bombing probe in Brussels, Nikolay Mladenov urges Europe to finally blacklist the Shiite group as a terror organization.

A senior Bulgarian official on Monday called on the European Union to adopt harsher measures against Hezbollah in light of his country’s finding that the Lebanese Shiite group was responsible for a terror attack that killed five Israelis and a local bus driver in the coastal town of Burgas last summer.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the EU’s foreign ministers in Brussels, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov implicitly but unmistakably urged the union to designate Hezbollah a terrorist group.

Asked whether the EU should blacklist Hezbollah, he responded: ”Given the fact that we’ve already made quite firm statements about where we believe the responsibility for that attack lies, I think the answer is quite obvious.”

Mladenov was scheduled to present to the union’s Foreign Affairs Council a detailed report on the Bulgarian police investigation into the July 18 attack in the Black Sea resort town.

On February 5, Bulgaria announced that Hezbollah bombed the bus, with its investigators describing a sophisticated attack carried out by a terrorist cell that included Canadian and Australian citizens. Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said one of the suspects entered the country with a Canadian passport, and another with one from Australia. “We have well-grounded reasons to suggest that the two were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah,” Tsvetanov said.

In an op-ed in the New York Times on Monday, the US National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon urged the EU to act against Hezbollah. “Now that Bulgarian authorities have exposed Hezbollah’s global terrorist agenda, European governments must respond swiftly,” he wrote. “They must disrupt its operational networks, stop flows of financial assistance to the group, crack down on Hezbollah-linked criminal enterprises and condemn the organization’s leaders for their continued pursuit of terrorism.”

More at the link.

Israeli Soldier Mor Ostrovski, 20, Posts Crosshairs Photo of Palestinian Child to Instagram

Oh, great.

You know? Let's not give Mondoweiss and the rest of the left's Israel-hating anti-Semites any more, er, ammunition.

At Guardian UK, "Israeli soldier posts Instagram image of Palestinian child in crosshairs of rifle":

An Israeli soldier has sparked outrage by posting a photograph appearing to show the back of a Palestinian boy's head in the crosshairs of his sniper rifle on a social networking site.

The context of the picture, posted on the personal Instagram site of Mor Ostrovski, 20, could not be verified but the aggressive message is clear. The minarets and Arabic architecture of the village captured in the background suggest the boy and the town are Palestinian. Ostrovski is an Israeli soldier in a sniper unit.

The Israeli military said the soldier's commanders were investigating the incident. His actions "are not in accordance with the spirit of the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] or its values", a spokesperson said.

Ostrovski, who has closed his Instagram account, told the army he did not take the picture but found it on the internet.

Breaking the Silence, an organisation of veteran Israeli combat soldiers campaigning to raise awareness about life in the West Bank, condemned the image. "This is what occupation looks like. This is what military control over a civilian population looks like," one member wrote on the group's Facebook page.

The image has been heavily criticised online. Electronic Intifada, a news site focused on Palestinian issues, described the photograph as "tasteless and dehumanising". The site published several other images from Ostrovski's Instagram page, including snaps of the soldier posing with heavy-duty guns.

These soldiers need to understand that the war over the information battlespace is right up there with the ground war against Hamas and its progressive allies. Don't be stupid. Don't give ammunition to our enemies on the left.

More stupid examples at that top link.

Burger King Twitter Account Hacked

Whoa, this is nasty.

At Twitchy, "Oh dear: Burger King’s Twitter account hacked; Updated."

And Sarah Rumpf comments:

I'm honestly surprised it has lasted this long this morning (over an hour so far). But hey, if companies and politicians want to keep delegating social media to 17 year old interns, then the rest of us will continue to be entertained by stories like this.

No doubt. Also at the Los Angeles Times, "Burger King's Twitter account hacked, made to look like McDonald's."

#Benghazi Cover-Up: No, Progressives Couldn't Care Less That Four Americans Died

Leftists don't care about the truth, but we already knew that. I'm just reminded of how reality is distorted into a cartoon by this post on "John McCrankypants" at the loser-blog His Vorpal Sword.

And here's the clip:

Also at Reuters, "McCain claims ‘massive cover-up’ on Benghazi" (via Memeorandum).

Shovel Ready

Flashback to 2009, "Shovel Ready":

And BCF links to my previous entry, "Shocker: L.A. Times Front-Page Story Slams Surging Insurance Premiums Caused by ObamaCare." Thanks!

More, the Rhetorican links as well, "Bucking the narrative: Prof. Douglas catches the L.A. Times Slamming Surging Insurance Premiums Caused by ObamaCare…on its front page!" Thanks!

Shocker: L.A. Times Front-Page Story Slams Surging Insurance Premiums Caused by ObamaCare

There's really no way to sugarcoat this, although the editors tried at the front page of the hard-copy newspaper this morning ("costly at first...").

But there's no getting around things at the website, "States worry about rate shock during shift to new health law":

WASHINGTON — Less than a year before Americans will be required to have insurance under President Obama's healthcare law, many of its backers are growing increasingly anxious that premiums could jump, driven up by the legislation itself.

Higher premiums could undermine a core promise of the Affordable Care Act: to make basic health protections available to all Americans for the first time. Major rate increases also threaten to cause a backlash just as the law is supposed to deliver many key benefits Obama promised when he signed it in 2010.

"The single biggest issue we face now is affordability," said Jill Zorn, senior program officer at the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, a consumer advocacy group that championed the new law.

Administration officials have consistently downplayed the specter of rate increases and other disruptions as millions of Americans move into overhauled insurance markets in 2014. They cite provisions in the law that they say will hold down premiums, including new competitive markets they believe will make insurers offer competitive rates.

Exactly how high the premiums may go won't be known until later this year. But already, officials in states that support the law have sounded warnings that some people — mostly those who are young and do not receive coverage through their work — may see considerably higher prices than expected.

That is because of new requirements in the law aimed at making insurance more comprehensive and more affordable for older, sicker consumers.

Insurance regulators in California, which has enthusiastically embraced the law, cautioned the Obama administration in a recent letter about "rate and market disruption."

Oregon's insurance commissioner, another supporter of the law, said new regulations could push up premiums for young customers by as much as 30% next year. He urged administration officials to slow enactment of the new rules.

A leading advocate for consumers in their 20s, Young Invincibles, sounded a similar caution, suggesting in a letter to administration officials that additional steps may be needed to protect young people from rising premiums. Young Invincibles mobilized in 2010 to help pass the healthcare law.

And regulators in Massachusetts, which was the model for Obama's law, recently warned that although many residents and small businesses in the state "will see premium decreases next year, a significant number will see extreme premium increases."

The law does include many new protections for consumers. Even those now sounding alarms emphasize the importance of those provisions, including guaranteed coverage for Americans with preexisting medical conditions.

"For most people, this will be a dramatic improvement," Zorn said.

No it won't. Younger people are just getting reamed. And the predicted savings aren't going to materialize, because the law mandates lower premiums on those who use health services most: the elderly. Here's the key bit:

The healthcare law also includes a new tax and new fees on insurance companies that the industry says it will pass on to consumers.

The provision that will prevent insurance companies from charging older consumers more than three times what they charge young consumers has generated particular concern among regulators. In many states, insurers now can charge five times as much or more to people in their 50s and 60s.

The requirement was a top priority of the influential AARP. It is designed to make insurance more affordable to a group that often most needs insurance. But as rates come down for older people, they may increase for consumers in their 20s, regulators worry.

If that happens, young, healthy people could elect not to get health insurance and pay the small penalty in the law for not having coverage. That, in turn, would leave an older, sicker population in the insurance pool, a phenomenon that typically inflates premiums.

It sucks. People are waking up, even if it's just a little. The push for greater "equality" is destroying not only liberty, but the quality of life for millions of Americans. That's the price for voting for this f-king amateur politician soaking in communist ideology. Gawd, what a disaster for this nation.