'God Hate Fags'

Look, I slam the homosexuals pretty often, but this is a bit much.

At E! Online, "Singer Michelle Shocked Goes on Anti-Gay Rant During San Francisco Show, Cancellations Follow":

Michelle Shocked stunned last night in San Francisco—and not at all in a good way.

"I live in fear that the world will be destroyed if gays are allowed to marry," the 51-year-old singer-songwriter reportedly told an appalled crowd at live-music venue Yoshi's.

She summed up by saying, "You can go on Twitter and say ‘Michelle Shocked says God hates f-gs,'" according to Matt Penfield, who was live-tweeting the show from the stage. "all cool. 2nd set, she got up went full hate speech," he wrote.

Former Michelle Shocked fan Lisa Hubbert was at the concert, tweeting with great anticipation (here and here, for example), and then this:

@dolface wow, she's a total bigot and said so on stage. It was unreal. We had to leave. I am so disappointed.
— Lisa Hubbert (@lisahubbert) March 18, 2013

Lots more commentary at Memeorandum.

Talk about going the full Westboro. Ms. Shocked is a born again ex-lesbian, or something. Schizophrenic as well, apparently.

Hate the ideology. Don't hate the hater-homosexuals. Sheesh.

GOP After-Action Report Calls for Major Changes

Pardon my language, but the Republican Party is f-ked.

The New York Times reports, "G.O.P. Report Is Blunt in Its Call for New Direction."

And at Townhall, "Post Mortem: RNC Report Calls for Major GOP Overhaul":

Republicans have gotten their backsides kicked in the last two presidential election cycles, which are essentially the "Super Bowls" of American politics. The party's standard-bearers have lost the popular vote in five of the last six contests, with the lone exception of President Bush's 2004 re-election. Bluntly stated, the GOP's national political model is broken. The Republican National Committee has just published an exhaustive report about what went wrong in 2012, when a Democratic president with mediocre approval ratings and historically poor economic indicators won a second term by a comfortable, 3.5 million vote margin. The political bubble and its inhabitants are infamous for self serving ass-covering, which is why the RNC's new autopsy deserves significant credit for its refreshing -- and at times startling -- frankness. Though various elements within the conservative coalition will surely identify elements to criticize, the 100-page report advances some hard, unvarnished truths about the party's deficient mechanics, assumptions and strategies -- as well as the changing face of the electorate. It draws conclusions based upon raw data and feedback from tens of thousands party organizers, political practitioners, pollsters, candidates and elected officials, technology experts, grassroots activists, and swing state focus group participants.

Here's the report: "Growth and Opportunity Project."

More at WSJ, "GOP Issues Scathing Self-Analysis." (Via Memeorandum.)

And see especially, at the Washington Examiner, "RNC chief retreats after report endorses immigration reform." Like I said, these people are completely screwed.

Surviving Obama's Drone Strikes

From Diogenes' Middle Finger:

Obama as Satan?

Well, yes, it's a striking resemblance.

At London's Daily Mail, "Why does the devil in ‘The Bible’ look exactly like President Obama?"

And Althouse explains things, "This is actually an easy question to answer" (via Memeorandum).

I don't really care. Obama's not Satan, but as the folks at the People's Cube point out:

#ObamaIsNotSatan but you might have a different opinion if you've just survived an abortion and been left in a closet to die #tcot
— The People's Cube (@ThePeoplesCube) March 18, 2013

The Source of Obama's Power

Via the Looking Spoon, "Everyone Knows Where Obama's Power Comes From Except The Source Itself":

The Left's CPAC Lies

Robert Stacy McCain reports, at the American Spectator, "The Liberal Media Lie About CPAC." (via Memeorandum):

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — The liberal media covered the 40th Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) pretty much like they cover everything else — deceitfully, with a partisan bias that is transparent to every honest and intelligent person who actually pays attention. On any subject of potential political significance, there is a yawning chasm between (a) actual events and (b) the deliberately dishonest portrayal of those events by the hired liars whose biggest fraud is their ludicrous pretense to objectivity. If the New York Times could find a way to put a liberal spin on sports, they certainly would: “Louisville Gets Top NCAA Seed; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.”

Take, for example, the young comedian Steven Crowder. While serving as emcee on the Potomac Ballroom stage Saturday at CPAC, Crowder made a joke about actress (and, it is rumored, future Kentucky Senate candidate) Ashley Judd: “This just in, Ashley Judd just tweeted that purchasing Apple products is akin to rape — from her iPhone.” Which is pretty doggone funny if you know that, as Alex Pappas of the Daily Caller reported, Judd has claimed that the purchasers of the iPhone and other Apple products are “financing mass rape” by using minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Judd has a penchant for throwing around “rape” in her far-left political rants. She has compared coal-mining in Kentucky to rape and, also, to genocide in Rwanda. Judd’s long history of such outrageous comments has Republicans laughing mirthfully at the prospect of the actress challenging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky next year. But according to liberal journalists — whose cheerleading for Democrats is now so unapologetically blatant that it is taken for granted — the real outrage is that any Republican would criticize Judd’s lunatic utterances.

This is apparently why the Huffington Post decided to lie about Crowder’s joke. “Steven Crowder, a Fox News contributor who hosted part of Saturday’s activities at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference, made a questionable remark about actress and possible Kentucky Senate candidate Ashley Judd,” a post at the site described it, omitting both the factual context and the first part of the joke, quoting only Crowder’s follow-on comment: “What is this obsession with Ashley Judd and rape? It’s pretty unnerving.”

By tagging Crowder as a “Fox News contributor,” the writer of the HuffPo item signaled to liberal readers that the young comic is a hate-object. Evidently, the unnamed writer – the cowardly HuffPo liar didn’t put a byline on this cheap smear-job – didn’t trust his readers to have enough sense to decide whether or not Crowder’s joke was “questionable.” And, of course, there was the clever ju-jitsu reversal: The story is not about whether Ashley Judd’s rhetoric was too over-the-top for a Senate candidate — Judd’s own remarks aren’t even quoted — but rather whether a comedian’s joke about Judd is “questionable.”

Continue reading.

Recall that the leftist media goons were tracking Pamela Geller down like a pack of hyenas. These people are vile. And the work they do aids the enemies of the United States.

Rep. Tom Cotton: 'Just and Noble War in Iraq'

It's the ten-year anniversary of the Iraq war and the left is using this as a chance to (hypocritically) delegitimize the use of force in national security policy. But Rep. Tom Cotton, an Iraq war veteran and freshman Member of Congress from Arkansas, is having none of it. He's a very articulate spokesman for the nobility of the mission and for the sacrifices Americans have made for freedom in the Middle East:

Also at the video is Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. She's also very articulate, but unfortunately is typical of the Democrat Party stab-in-the-back mentality on Iraq.

Plus, more leftist treason from Howard Fineman, at PuffHo, "Iraq War 10th Anniversary Reminds Us of the Questions We Didn't Ask" (via Memeorandum).

More, typically antiwar in tone, at USA Today, "10 years later, many see Iraq War as costly mistake."

I think this ABC News poll captures the trajectory of the politics of the war. Iraq was popular at the beginning, but Americans rejected the prolonged deployment. See, "A Decade on, Most are Critical of the U.S.-Led War in Iraq." Especially interesting is the partisan breakdown:

There are lingering political and ideological differences in views on Iraq, with support much higher among Republicans and conservatives compared with others. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans and 55 percent of conservatives say the war was worth fighting; just 35 percent of independents and 27 percent of Democrats, respectively, agree, as do just three in 10 liberals and moderates alike. Results on Afghanistan are similar among partisan groups.

The Democrats: the party of defeat and treason.

Pope Francis is Obstacle for Argentines Who Want Their Country to Be the Next Venezuela

From Mary Anastasia O'Grady, at WSJ, "Behind the Campaign to Smear the Pope":

Argentines celebrated last week when one of their own was chosen as the new pope. But they also suffered a loss of sorts. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a tireless advocate of the poor and outspoken critic of corruption, will no longer be on hand locally to push back against the malfeasance of the government of President Cristina Kirchner.

Argentines not aligned with the regime hope that the arrival of Francis on the world stage at least will draw attention to this issue. Heaven knows the situation is growing dire.

One might have expected a swell of pride from Argentine officialdom when the news broke that the nation has produced a man so highly esteemed around the world. Instead the Kirchner government's pit bulls in journalism—men such as Horacio Verbitsky, a former member of the guerrilla group known as the Montoneros and now an editor at the pro-government newspaper Pagina 12—immediately began a campaign to smear the new pontiff's character and reputation at home and in the international news media.

The calumny is not new. Former members of terrorist groups like Mr. Verbitsky, and their modern-day fellow travelers in the Argentine government, have used the same tactics for years to try to destroy their enemies—anyone who doesn't endorse their brand of authoritarianism. In this case they allege that as the Jesuits' provincial superior in Argentina in the late 1970s, then-Father Bergoglio had links to the military government.

This is propaganda. Mrs. Kirchner and her friends aren't yet living in the equivalent of a totalitarian state where there is no free press to counter their lies. That day may come soon. The government is now pressuring merchants, under threat of reprisals, not to buy advertising in newspapers. The only newspapers that aren't on track to be financially ruined by this intimidation are those that the government controls and finances through official advertising, like Mr. Verbitsky's Pagina 12. Argentines refer to the paper as "the official gazette" because it so reliably prints the government's line...

Continue reading.

Rob Portman ABC News Interview on Support for Homosexual Marriage

It's a compelling interview, although I don't believe that Portman didn't know is son was gay. But whatever, this was a bonanza for the homosexual leftist media.

RELATED: From Bryan Fischer, at Renew America, "Rand Paul's view of marriage would be a disaster for America":

The fatal weakness of libertarianism is that it inevitably and ineluctably deteriorates into license. That's not the America our Founders established. They predicated the entire American experiment on ordered liberty, the capacity of Americans to govern themselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.

Everyone in society was expected, by scriptural teaching, social custom and public policy, to arrange their lives according to the moral standards of the Judeo-Christian tradition. America was not, and can never be, a culture in which every man does what is right in his own eyes. If we get to the point where that becomes the official position of the government, America will no longer be America. That is a recipe for social fragmentation and eventual destruction.

D-Day for Press Freedom in Britain

At Instapundit, "IN BRITAIN, IT’S D-Day For Press Freedom, as political hacks try to muzzle newspapers."

States Using 'Civil Protection Orders' to Roll Back Second Amendment Rights

You can see that hand of the radical feminists at work in this, and it's amazing how sympathetic the New York Times is to the meme. See, "Ruled a Threat to Family, but Allowed to Keep Guns." A felony conviction is required to strip an individual of the right to bear arms, but the left is working hard to take guns away from anyone who runs afoul of the feminist victims' power lobby. It's obscene.

Read it all at the link. Strange how hard the gun-grabbing push has become in the wake of Newtown.

Democrat Post-Natal Abortion

Via the People's Cube:

Cyprus Rescue Risks Backlash

At WSJ, "Unprecedented Move to Levy Fee on Island's Bank Accounts Stokes Worry in Euro Zone; Asian Markets Open Lower":

The euro zone took the unprecedented step of taking a bite out of depositors' accounts in Cypriot banks to help pay for its bailout of the island's financial system, a high-risk decision that could erode savers' confidence across the currency bloc and add to popular anger over its handling of the crisis.

The decision to raise €5.8 billion ($7.6 billion) from taxes on depositors—including individuals with small amounts in their accounts—risks a political backlash for the newly elected center-right government on the Mediterranean island and a wider political fallout for the euro-zone leaders who are guiding the bloc's crisis strategy.

Asian shares and the euro fell sharply in early trading Monday as markets reacted to the bailout. Japan shares dropped 1.8%, Australia fell 1.5% and South Korea fell 0.5%. "The feeling is that the euro crisis could be back and that you could see full-on contagion," said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy and chief economist at Amp Capital in Sydney. "But I suspect that we are going to hear reassurances from other countries."

A tax on depositors—6.75% on deposits up to €100,000, and 9.9% above that level—was the only way out for the bloc's finance ministers after Germany, the euro zone's biggest economy, and the International Monetary Fund insisted that financial aid to Cyprus should be limited to €10 billion.

With the money due to have been withdrawn electronically from bank accounts over the weekend, politicians in Nicosia were discussing how they might adjust the levy to make it appear fairer. Monday is a public holiday on the island, when banks are closed, but European officials said contingency plans were being put in place to calm any turmoil in the country's financial system when the banks eventually reopened.

Since the global financial crisis began in 2008, few European bank depositors have taken losses. Denmark forced some large depositors to do so in 2011, when two midsize lenders collapsed. Iceland also decided not to repay foreign depositors when it suffered a bank crisis in 2008—although the British and Dutch governments stepped in to make sure savers didn't incur losses. In 1992, Italy imposed a small tax on its depositors.

More at Zero Hedge, "Cyprus: The World’s Biggest 'Poker Game'." And Journal 14, "€urosclerosis: The bank account levy in Cyprus."

And from Megan McArdle, at the Daily Beast, "After Cyprus, Is Rest of Europe Next?"

Rae Stabosz, 63-Year-Old Catholic Grandmother, Viciously Attacked While Filming Botched Abortion Incident

At Astute Bloggers, "VIDEO: HOW LEFTISTS REACT TO A FREE PRESS WHEN IT EXPOSES THEM."

More here, "Praying Catholic Grandma Violently Attacked at Planned Parenthood While Filming Botched Abortion Incident."

Establishment Hack Karl Rove Lashes Out at Sarah Palin

This story was trending yesterday at Memeorandum. Here's the clip:

He's an ass. An ultimate ass.

Sunday Cartoons

Here's the late evening edition, via A.F. Branco, "Size Matters":

More at Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."

Also at Reaganite, "Reaganite's Sunday Funnies," and Theo Spark's, "Cartoon Round Up..."

Why is Obama Determined to Crash and Burn?

Because he couldn't care less about destroying the economy in furtherance of the left's egalitarian Utopia?

From Ted Van Dyk, at the Wall Street Journal, "My Unrecognizable Democratic Party":

As a lifelong Democrat, I have a mental picture these days of my president, smiling broadly, at the wheel of a speeding convertible. His passengers are Democratic elected officials and candidates. Ahead of them, concealed by a bend in the road, is a concrete barrier.

They didn't have to take that route. Other Democratic presidents have won bipartisan support for proposals as liberal in their time as some of Mr. Obama's are now. Why does this administration seem so determined to head toward a potential crash and burn?

Even after the embarrassing playout of the Obama-invented Great Sequester Game, after the fiasco of the president's Fiscal Cliff Game, conventional wisdom among Democrats holds that disunited Republicans will be routed in the 2014 midterm elections, leaving an open field for the president's agenda in the final two years of his term. Yet modern political history indicates that big midterm Democratic gains are unlikely, and presidential second terms are notably unproductive, most of all in their waning months. Since 2012 there has been nothing about the Obama presidency to justify the confidence that Democrats now exhibit.

Mr. Obama was elected in 2008 on the basis of his persona and his pledge to end political and ideological polarization. His apparent everyone-in-it-together idealism was exactly what the country wanted and needed. On taking office, however, the president adopted a my-way-or-the-highway style of governance. He pursued his stimulus and health-care proposals on a congressional-Democrats-only basis. He rejected proposals of his own bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission, which would have provided long-term deficit reduction and stabilized rapidly growing entitlement programs. He opted instead to demonize Republicans for their supposed hostility to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

No serious attempt—for instance, by offering tort reform or allowing the sale of health-insurance products across state lines—was made to enlist GOP congressional support for the health bill. It passed, but the constituents of moderate Democrats punished them: 63 lost their seats in 2010 and Republicans took control of the House.

Obama'a an amateur president and a professional asshole.

More at that top link.

The High Cost of Drug Decriminalization in Czech Republic

Something for the libertarian losers to put in their bongs.

At Der Spiegel, "Czeched Out: The Losers of Prague's Drug Liberalization":

The Czech Republic's 2010 decision to lower drug possession from a criminal to misdemeanor offense has turned the country into a mecca for drug users. The change has spawned a profitable sub-economy, but also come at a high social cost.

The problem has its roots in a rectangular tent made of black plastic that looks like an oversized mobile wardrobe. It's as tall as a man, almost completely odor-tight and provides space for four fully grown cannabis plants. The "Growshop" in the Prague city district of Zižkov sells the tent for the equivalent of €400 ($520), including a fan, ventilation ducts, a 400 Watt spotlight, fertilizer and a bag of potting soil. It's easy to set up this black contraption at home and start growing your own weed. Any 14-year-old can do it -- and that's the problem. The market is flooded with marijuana.

"Prices are falling," says Marek, a local dealer with a hairdo that looks like a wire wig. He has picked out a restaurant near the Charles Bridge, where he orders goulash with mashed potatoes and complains about declining profits. The dope-dealing business has seen better days, he says. He currently gets 1,500 crowns, or roughly €60 ($78), for 10 grams of weed. Regular customers -- who Marek prefers to calls "friends" -- buy on credit.

To avoid boring his "friends," he regularly brings them samples of new strains. "White Widow" is currently doing well, meaning that it gets you high as a kite. Marek stresses that his product is far better than what the competition offers. "My stuff is grown with love, not like the shit that the Vietnamese produce. They grow their weed in warehouses." The Vietnamese are the second problem. Marek says they only care about business, not quality, like the Czech growers do. They aren't devoted to the art of gardening, he claims.

Both Marek and his suppliers benefit from the fact that reefer has become an integral part of Czech folklore since the early 1990s, like pilsner beer and dumplings with sauce. Half of all Czechs between the ages of 15 and 34 have smoked pot at least once in their lives. According to statistics by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the Czech Republic ranks among the top cannabis-smoking nations in Europe, right up there with Italy and Spain.

Many years ago, the police gave up issuing warnings to everyone who took a toke on a joint. Unable to stop the practice, the government decided it should at least regulate it. Since 2010, Czech authorities have no longer treated possession of narcotics or psychotropic substances in small quantities as a criminal offense, but rather as a misdemeanor subject to a maximum fine of €600. The Czech Republic -- which borders Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Austria -- now lies like a drugged-up green oasis in the midst of narcotics laws that range from fairly strict to absolutely rigid.

An official table lists the maximum legally allowed amounts: For personal use, each individual is allowed to carry up to 15 grams of marijuana, four ecstasy tablets, two grams of crystal meth, one gram of coke or one-and-a-half grams of heroin without having to fear criminal charges. Dealing drugs is still a criminal offense, but cannabis growers, cocaine smugglers and meth labs have been earning good money again since 2010.

Critics see the new laws as a capitulation, and law enforcement agencies condemn the lax legislation. The Czech interior minister is having troubles with authorities in the neighboring German states of Bavaria and Saxony, which are complaining about drugs being smuggled over the border.

Hey, that's progress --- and it's coming to America!

More at the link.

Republican Ana Navarro on Rob Portman Conversion: Homosexual Marriage is All About Family Values

Listen to this clip featuring blithering idiot Ana Navarro blabbering like a fool about how Sen. Rob Portman's support for homosexual marriage is just really all about how Republican policy has always favored same-sex marriage, or something. Truly bizarre. And stupid. It's not even been six months yet since Romney's meltdown and GOP consultants act like bathhouse bunghole jumpers are a key conservative constituency:

Steubenville Defendants Found Guilty of Rape

At the Columbus Dispatch, "2 Steubenville football players found guilty of rape."

And folks should read Lee Stranahan, "GUILTY VERDICT IN STEUBENVILLE RAPE CASE THAT SAW ANONYMOUS TERRORIZE A TOWN."

It's a struggle to be a fair journalist trying to get to the truth in an atmosphere where being factual is a partisan issue for so many
— Lee Stranahan (@Stranahan) March 17, 2013

The Steubenville travesty has not been an obscure story. In fact, in late December and early January the story made headlines internationally and the trial this week is being covered by heavy hitters like CNN, the Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times and was featured on ESPN and 20/20 this past week. Although the Steubenville rape case story has received scant mention on conservative websites, the story has been covered extensively by mainstream media, pop culture shows and top left leaning blogs.

During the initial media maelstrom, the Steubenville rape case was featured on NPR, by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic, PolicyMic, several stories on The Atlantic Wire, The New Yorker, The Nation, Truth-out, Democratic Underground, DailyKos, Buzzfeed, Gawker, Al Jazeera, Slate, Natasha Lennard writing for Salon, a number of pieces on The Huffington Post, a tweet to 200,000+ followers by Mother Jones, articles on Raw Story, Pam Spaulding at FireDogLake, Chez Pazienza at The Daily Banter, Meagan Carpentier writing for U.K’s The Guardian extensive coverage in U.K.’S the Daily Mail. In the mainstream media, it’s been extensively discussed on CNN, CNN This Morning, Jane Valez Mitchell, Nancy Grace with special guest star Roseanne Barr, Dr. Drew, a number of segments on Anderson Cooper, Sanjay Gupta, a full hour on Dr. Phil, plus segments on ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s The Today Show.

More at that top link, at at Stranhan's Steubenville page, "The Trial’s Over: Now Can We Talk About Drinking, Hookup Culture & Social Media?"

Adam Corolla Agrees — Kids Do Better With Normal Parents and 'Opposite Sex' Marriage!

This is video is wild, "Adam Carolla on Gay Parents vs. Straight Parents."

Via Blazing Cat Fur, "Amicus Brief in Hollingsworth v. Perry Demonstrates Children Fare Better With Biological Parents in Traditional 'Opposite Sex' Marriage."

Is Snoop Lion's Transformation the Real Dope?

Snoop Dogg is now Snoop Lion, and the dude's got a reggae album coming out on April 23rd. Is he for real? The Los Angeles Times reports, "Snoop Dogg was gangsta; Snoop Lion is Rasta."

This is pretty fascinating. Bunny Wailer is not pleased:

"I had got to a point in my career where I had done it all," the performer, 41, explained between drags in the hotel suite on a blunt. "I had reached the pinnacle of rap. It was too easy. I was looking for a new challenge. I needed to speak to the people but not from a hip-hop voice — from a different angle."

Given Snoop's other recent stabs at musical rebranding, his latest iteration may strike some as little more than a countervailing persona served up via a new film and a new album. He insists it isn't an act.

"Reincarnated," a travelogue documentary that reached theaters March 15, chronicles the artist's 2012 journey to Jamaica. Shuttling from shantytown to Nyabinghi temple by minivan and inhaling industrial quantities of ganja, the Boss Dogg is shown immersing himself in reggae culture and being inculcated into the Rastafarian religion — he's instructed to ditch the "Dogg" alias in favor of the more righteous Snoop Lion by none other than reggae legend Bunny Wailer. The film, which premiered at September's Toronto International Film Festival, also captures Snoop recording an all-reggae, non-hip-hop album — his first — also titled "Reincarnated," due out on RCA Records April 23.

If his journey of self-discovery and musical rebirth is authentic, it could have far-reaching implications for one of gangsta rap's keystone figures, a hard-core stalwart (real name: Calvin Broadus) whose "Murder Was the Case" fatalism and 1996 acquittal on murder charges helped cement his street bona fides while paving the way for Snoop to become one of the most sought-out performers in hip-hop history. Some who spent time with the artist in Jamaica — including Wailer — have doubts about his transformation...

More:

With its boilerplate reggae references to "revolution," "ghetto youth," the opening of a "third eye" and frequent salutation to the Rastafarian creative force Jah, the debut Snoop Lion album (executive produced by Grammy-nominated hit maker Diplo) reflects the performer's burgeoning consciousness and apparent finesse with his adopted musical idiom. Add in guest contributions from a host of hip-hop and R&B heavyweights including Rita Ora, Drake, Chris Brown and Busta Rhymes as well as such Jamaican musical luminaries as Mavado and Collie Buddz, and "Reincarnated" provides a surprisingly satisfying pupu platter of reggae styles, referencing dancehall, dub, roots rock reggae and even rub-a-dub style electro-clash.

Not everyone associated with the project is overjoyed with the performer's transformation, however. Wailer has accused the star of "outright fraudulent use of Rastafari Community's personalities and symbolism," insisting Snoop failed to meet "contractual, moral and verbal commitments" in a seven-page demand letter that also orders him to give up using the "Lion" part of his name, demanding he pay unspecified "financial and moral support." (Snoop disputes the allegations but refuses to condemn Wailer.)

Boy, those Rastafarians don't mess around with the brand!

VIDEO: Pamela Geller at 'The Uninvited' Panel at #CPAC2013

This is nothing short of explosive. Mute the television, pull the iPod ear buds from your ears, tell your kids to take a walk, you're busy. Take 8:00 minutes and listen to Pamela. No one in American politics speaks more clearly and forcefully on the threat of stealth jihad and the cancer of political correctness stifling free speech in America.

At Atlas Shrugs, "VIDEO: PAMELA GELLER SPEAKS AT CPAC BREITBART EVENT."

And don't miss Robert Spencer's comments from the panel as well, at Jihad Watch, "Video: Robert Spencer at CPAC "Uninvited" Panel."

Amicus Brief in Hollingsworth v. Perry Demonstrates Children Fare Better With Biological Parents in Traditional 'Opposite Sex' Marriage

At the Foundry, "Social Science Confirms: Kids Need Married Moms and Dads."

(The brief is here, "AMICI CURIAE BRIEF OF SOCIAL SCIENCE PROFESSORS IN SUPPORT OF HOLLINGSWORTH AND BIPARTISAN LEGAL ADVISORY GROUP ADDRESSING THE MERITS AND SUPPORTING REVERSAL.")

And see also this Heritage report, "Marriage: What It Is, Why It Matters, and the Consequences of Redefining It."

Boy, it's all homosexuals all the time these days. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. Oral arguments are expected Wednesday, March 27th.

Top Syrian General Defects, Assad Freaks Out

At NYT, "Assad Issues a Worldwide Plea as a Top Syrian General Defects."

Also at CNN, "Syrian general apparently defects, says morale among troops at a low."

And the dilemmas of U.S. policy are discussed by Walter Russell Mead, "The Fruits of Inaction in Syria."

We should have toppled the sucker years ago, but it's too late for that now. It's going to play out. And the U.S. is going to pick of the "bad" rebels with Predator drones. Oh boy, this is lovely.

I'm Seeing Some 'Feedly' Links in My Sitemeter

Thanks to readers who are following the blog on RSS.

I'm seeing some Feedly links and I was reminded of this story I saw earlier, at Slash Gear, "500,000 Google Reader users convert to Feedly":

When one door closes, another one opens, and that statement proves very true for Feedly. After Google’s shocking announcement that it’s going to shut down its Google Reader service, Feedly’s user base has increased phenomenally. The service has already gained over 500,000 new users in just 48 hours. Feedly has done a great job in enticing Google Reader users to convert to its service, and it has launched new servers and increased its bandwidth by 10 times in order to keep up with demand.

RTWT.

It's easy to make the switch from Google to Feedly, but don't wait too long.

Oh My! Pamela Geller Smacks Down Orly Taitz at #CPAC2013

Now I would have liked to see this:

Via Atlas Shrugs, "CPAC-Snaps: The Passing Parade."

Depraved, Hypocritical Leftists Attack Conservatives for Standing Up for Conservative Principles

If libertarian "conservatives" think they're doing the GOP a favor by pushing the party toward accepting homosexual marriage as a matter of policy, they need to think again.

The leftist media went batsh*t at the news of Sen. Rob Portman coming out for homosexual marriage. This was a yawner to me, so I ignored it at the time. But now here comes the depraved homos at Think Progress with their creepy CPAC video alleging that conservatives are bigots for disagreeing with Sen. Portman's change of heart. See: "VIDEO: CPAC Attendees Blast GOP Senator Who Announced Support For Marriage Equality." (Watch the clip here.) And don't you love the headline at Towleroad?, "CPAC Attendees Blast Sen. Portman For Loving His Gay Son: VIDEO."

Actually, conservatives are not "blasting" him for "loving his son," but for abandoning conservative principles. But compare the CPAC attendees who stayed true to their values to the depraved progressive hypocrites who viciously attacked Portman for coming out for so-called "marriage equality." You'd think he'd be getting big cheers on the left for finally seeing the light, but you'd be wrong. Portman was vilified and demonized as only the left knows how. At Twitchy, "No gay-lo for Rob Portman: Many libs lash out at senator for 'evolving' on same-sex marriage."

no rob portman you're still a piece of shit, you're not suddenly cool for deciding gay marriage is ok when your son came out to you
— ＨＯＧ_ＣＲＡＮＫＥＲ６６６ (@aardvarkwizard) March 15, 2013

I hate people like this. Fuck everyone else’s child. What a douche. \\RT @politico: Rob Portman backs gay marriage after son comes out…
— Bonzo!® (@BonzoTMonkey) March 15, 2013

Rob Portman (R-OH) now in favor of gay marriage after his son comes out - before that was knowledge? Fuck 'em. Hypocritical asshole. #tcot
— Ian Hays (@iansane_) March 15, 2013

If you're an elected official who suddenly supports gay marriage because your child is gay, you are the worst kind of asshole. #Portman
— Aaron Firouz (@aaron_fury) March 15, 2013

@robportman you're still a piece of shit #sed
— dcc killaz (@dcckillaz) March 15, 2013

Indeed. 'How much icing do you think it would take to spell out “Fuck that guy”?' wonkette.com/506464/hero-se…
— Ann Somerville (@ann_somerville) March 16, 2013

Personally, I'm not impressed with Portman's change of heart, but Glenn Greenwald has a word or two for the progressives attacking him:

Portman's explanation [of a family member coming out as gay] is far from aberrational or confined to one ideological group: it's how political opinions are often shaped and how political progress is often achieved. And it's definitely the leading reason why so many people who opposed gay equality a short time ago now support it.

And for alll those libertarian "conservatives" who think they're on the right side of history, the Atlantic's Noah Berlatsky illustrates the kind of thanks you'll get from the left, "Rob Portman's Selfish Reversal on Marriage Is a Triumph for Gay Rights":

Portman ... [sees] his personal experience with gay issues in political terms. That's not because he's especially sensitive or thoughtful — there is no reason to think he is either. Rather, it's because gay rights advocates have been so successful in linking the personal and the political together that even the most unreflective career pol can't help but connect them....

[His] op-ed makes him sound like someone who, faced with a moral dilemma, has muddled through as best he can with the least thought and effort possible. The fact is, though, that most of us, most of the time, are more like Rob Portman than we are like, say, Mildred Loving, the woman whose Supreme Court case overturned the laws against interracial marriage. The marriage equality movement, like any moral movement, has been built by activists with great struggle and courage. But it's success is measured by the fact that it has framed the issues in question such that even the selfish and small-minded can, given a little push by their families, make the right choices. Portman is not an inspiring figure. But there is something inspiring in realizing that the movement has reached a point where even someone like him finds it easier to make the right choice than the wrong one.

Yay, Sen. Portman! Way to win friends and influence people on the left!

Look, voters are not fools. If they're picking candidates and parties on the basis of policies like homosexual marriage, they'll go for the truly left-wing party every time: the Democrats. The so-called conservatives at CPAC who're deluding themselves as hip and cool for supporting same-sex marriage are essentially being hammered by the progressive degenerates for whom bunghole bungee-jumping is a regular pastime.

The conference looked like a lot of fun, but considering my firm belief that legally nationalizing homosexual marriage will be a disaster for America's children, I'm glad I held off on attending #CPAC2013.

Pamela Geller Slams ACU's Suhail Khan as 'Worse Than al-Awlaki'

At Atlas Shrugs, "ENEMEDIA IN AN UPROAR OVER PAMELA GELLER'S STATEMENT ON SUHAIL KHAN'S STEALTH JIHAD."

Checking Twitter you can see how the depraved progs, including Evan McMorris-Santoro, were tracking down Pamela like a pack of hyenas:

Pamela Gellar at Breitbart's "the Uninvited" panel twitter.com/EvanMcSan/stat…
— E McMorris-Santoro (@EvanMcSan) March 16, 2013

And Pamela writes:

I knew when I said that Suhail Khan was worse than Anwar Awlaki that the enemedia would jump all over it as a "gotcha" quote, and Salon (the hopeless Alex Seitz-Wald again) and BuzzFeed jumped right on it. Of course Khan's stealth jihad is more dangerous. Awlaki is dead. Suhail is working his treachery every day, under the guise of a "conservative" mask. Anwar al-Awlaki was a moderate Muslim before he wasn't. He was praised in the New York Times. Abdurrahman Alamoudi, a friend of Norquist and Khan, was also a moderate before he wasn't. Alamoudi was Suhail's mentor before he went to prison for terror-related crimes. Alamoudi was al-Qaeda's largest secret financial courier.

Suhail Khan is tightly linked to jihadists who want to take down this country.

Here is the background: Suhail Khan Exposed.

The damage that covert jihadists do is incalculable. They have enabled Muslim Brotherhood access to the highest levels of government. They have deeply compromised our resistance to jihad. And they lull people into complacency about the jihad threat.

The left tracks down Pamela Geller because she threatens their program of Dhimmitude and treason.

Here's McMorris-Santoro's smear, "Pamela Gellar: CPAC's Muslim Board Member Is 'Worse Than Al-Awlaki'." (At Memeorandum.)

Sarah Palin Lights a Fire Under #CPAC2013!

Earlier on Twitter, Jimmie Bise argued that "Sarah Palin has upped her game." And having now watched the speech, all I can say is "no doubt."

This is freakin' amazing. Palin was on fire and brought the house down, at the clip: "CPAC 2013 - Former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK)."

Palin joked about her husband Todd buying her a gun rack for Christmas: "He's got the rifle, I've got the rack" (and she then pulled out a Big Gulp from the below the podium).

At Twitchy, "Awesome: Sarah Palin sips Big Gulp during CPAC speech; ‘Bloomberg’s not around’ [pics and video]."

And at the Hill, "Sarah Palin fires up conservative grassroots in speech at CPAC" (via Memeorandum).

Alice Goodwin at Zoo Today

Here's some pre-Rule 5, with Alice Goodwin. I'm getting the weekend emails for some babe blogging roundups, but that'll have to wait. There's a lot going on at CPAC that I want to watch and post, especially the Sarah Palin talk and the panel with Pamela Geller.

Meanwhile, enjoy the lovely Alice Goodwin:

David Bowie's New Album

An upbeat and positive review and commentary on Bowie's new album, "The Next Day," from Robert Dean Lurie, at National Review, "Throwing Shadows":

As 2013 rolled around, very few people could have reasonably expected anything new from David Bowie. Rumors of ill health had flitted about for years, and even many of his former associates had assumed he’d retired. Then, on January 8, a new single appeared on iTunes, along with an announcement of the imminent release of The Next Day. It was one of the most exquisite sneak attacks in the history of rock. And with the excitement came speculation: Which Bowie would we get this time?

David Bowie’s current image, as it turns out, is no image. He has refused all new interview requests. He has ruled out a tour. The album’s artwork consists simply of the cover of his earlier release Heroes with the singer’s face blocked out by an empty white square. At age 66, Bowie has made possibly his most outrageous move yet: He has finally gotten out of the way of his music, and in so doing has brought a little bit of mystery back into pop culture. While everybody else has a reality show, David Bowie has a white square where his head should be.

He can get away with this because The Next Day is an honest-to-God album, meant to be listened to as one piece rather than as a scattered collection of iTunes downloads. In this sense it is both archaic and forward-looking — its very existence is a sign, or a hopeful prediction, of some kind of return to craftsmanship in popular music. We’ve already seen harbingers of this in the success of Adele’s album 21 and the resurgent popularity of “roots” music among younger listeners; people are once again responding to music that sounds real. The Next Day, even with its freaked-out guitars and fuzzy synths, feels similarly authentic: It is refreshingly free of any discernible loops or electronic drums; the vocals have not been strangled by Auto-Tune; none of the musicians e-mailed their parts in from distant locales. It sounds like what it is: a small group of people working closely together in a studio, tracking much of the music live.

RTWT.

With a Speech, Cardinal Set Path to Papacy

I love this story, at WSJ, "Argentina's 'Father Jorge' Gained Late Support With His Call to Focus on Humility and Justice; Discussions Over Soup":

VATICAN CITY—It took Jorge Mario Bergoglio four minutes to convince fellow cardinals he was their leader.

Speaking in the Paul VI grand hall of the Vatican, the Argentine cardinal warned the Catholic Church against focusing too much on matters close to home—advice that came against the backdrop of a papacy that had been consumed by infighting among Vatican officials, a dwindling flock in Europe and secular trends in the West.

The 76-year-old Father Jorge, as he is known back home, said Roman Catholicism needed to shift its focus outward, to the world beyond Rome—rather than being "self-referential," he said. Its core mission was humility, dignity and justice. It should help the poor.

It was a week before the secret conclave to elect the new pontiff would begin. But the speech sowed the seeds of one of Catholicism's boldest moves—the election of a pope from the New World, a man likely to steer the church's focus toward social justice and the problems of the world's periphery, rather than on the intrigue and controversy of its central administration.

This account, based on interviews with four cardinals, lifts the curtain on the dynamic that led the church's highest officials to shun the European basin from which Catholicism has drawn most of its leaders. Just before his speech, at a dinner of English-speaking cardinals, the future pope's name had come up over a meal of soup and wine but hadn't generated a buzz. "The speech was decisive," said one voting European cardinal...

More at the link.

The New York Times also reported on this yesterday, "Snub of Reformers' Choice Seen Before Pope's Anointing."

Obama's Unprecedented Secrecy is Unacceptable in a Democracy

From David Keene and David Cole, at the Los Angeles Times, "Secrets no president should keep":

There is simply no legitimate reason to withhold from the American people the legal rules and standards under which our government operates, particularly when asserting the power to take human life. Certainly aspects of national security programs should remain secret. The evidence collected in counter-terrorism operations, information showing our intelligence agencies' sources and methods, and the strategies government agents use to intercept terrorist plots are all appropriately protected as classified information.

But with targeted killing, the cloak of secrecy has been extended to cover the very rules themselves. That practice dangerously undermines our system of checks and balances. It makes robust oversight impossible. It excludes the public from meaningfully participating in or collaborating with their government. It breeds distrust. Secret law has no place in a democracy.

There may not be much that can unite conservatives and liberals these days, but a commitment to transparent government should be something we can all agree on. Obama says he gets it; during Sunshine Week the White House blog has been highlighting an Obama initiative demonstrating his commitment to open and accessible government. The drone policy hasn't been mentioned so far.

Now Americans of all political allegiances must come together to demand that our president tell us the ground rules that govern his claimed authority to have us killed.

More at that top link.

The hypocrisy's even worse than the secrecy.

Libertarians Rising at #CPAC2013

I think this is all pretty fascinating.

From Reason.tv:

It's going to be even more fascinating to see how this all plays out politically. To be honest, to the extent that CPAC goes more libertarian it becomes more leftist. Rand Paul is a special case being a U.S. Senator who's speaking out on national security and the Constitution. I doubt he'll get so much widespread support if he launches a high-profile campaign to legalize marijuana nationwide or if he becomes Congress' most vocal advocate for legalizing homosexual marriage. Those positions are consistent with Paul's ideological persuasions, but it'll stretch the conservative movement even further should he be the one to champion those issues on the national stage, and likely as well, on the presidential nomination stage. Time will tell...

Homosexuals Infiltrating #CPAC2013

Bryan Fischer interviews Cliff Kincaid following the "gay conservative" controversy:

And my earlier comments, "The 'Gay Conservative' Oxymoron."

Also from Star Parker in 2011, "'Gay Conservative' Is an Oxymoron":

The idea of “gay conservative” is an oxymoron.

“Gay” is everything that “conservative” is not.

The foundation of the worldview that so-called “gay conservatives” embrace has far more in common with liberalism than with conservatism.

It’s a worldview that is man-centered rather than God-centered. It is a worldview that rejects eternal truths passed on from the beginning of time. Although the worldview that “gay conservatives” choose to invent may diverge from the worldview of liberals, their common ground is that they make it all up.

And it is here where “gay conservatives” and “liberals” fundamentally depart from conservatives.

Conservatives believe that there are objective and eternal truths, not of the product of any individual human mind, that are transmitted through the generations. Culture is not like HDTV or iPhones where the newest model is the best.

These eternal truths provide the light in the fog that keeps us from crashing on the rocky shores where our base instincts lead us.

“Gay” is liberal, not conservative, regardless of what their stand may be on government spending or taxes.

More at the link.

Street Performer Punches Heckler in the Face

The clip's from Surfer's Paradise, Queensland, Australia.

At the New York Post, "Human statue takes down heckler."

Toby Hayden Beat Girlfriend to Bloody Pulp, Spared Jail Time With 'Community Service'

This is mind-boggling, at London's Daily Mail, "Drunken thug who battered girlfriend in the street making her face 'explode like an airbag' walks away with community service despite the fact he was on PROBATION."

The woman, Loretta Butterworth, 22, was shocked at the magistrate who released Hayden.

'Recently I went home with a kinky man after our first date. The experience phased in and out of being consensual throughout the night. I distinctly left his apartment feeling violated and I continued to feel violated for several days after...'

This is interesting, to put it mildly, at the Frisky, "The Soapbox: On Abuse Within Kink (Or This One Time Some Really Bad Stuff Happened to Me)."

Read it all at the link. I'm fascinated by this idea of consent throughout every single kind of possible sex act. Basically, if there's one single thing you do to or with a woman while having sex that's not 100 percent agreed upon up front then you're committing rape. Stop means stop so you stop right? Perhaps. But how many men do not stop? Say, in the heat of the moment, animalistic instinct takes over, extreme sexual tension is relieved, only to be followed by guilt and recrimination over the absence of consent. Here's all the radical left's "rape" talk for you. Rape is not the kind of rape in the movies --- I'm thinking Ally Sheedy being raped in "Bad Boys" (and since I don't see it at Google I'm going off memory, but it's a brutal rape scene). No, nowadays rape is pretty much a phenomenon when a chick gets pissed at her boyfriend about something and accuses him of rape because he didn't keep asking for consent for every sideways kiss during sex. Or, whatever. Who can keep up? All these women who've been "assaulted" nowadays, right? Remember R.S. McCain's post, "Unintentional Hilarity: Feminists Ask If Julian Assange Committed ‘Rape-Rape’"?

Listen up, sweetheart: You buy the ticket, you take the ride.

Anyway, hat tip to Instapundit. He reads the Frisky website so we don't have to...

Katie Holmes Strips Down for H. Stern 'Iris' Collection Jewelry Campaign

Good for her.

At London's Daily Mail, "Katie Holmes peels off her bra to frolic on a sandy beach for high-end jewellery campaign."

John McCain Apologizes to Rand Paul and Ted Cruz

At Hot Air, "McCain: I apologize to Rand Paul and Ted Cruz for calling them “wacko birds”."

There's video at that link.

Clearly "The Maverick" see's the balance of GOP power in the Senate shifting to the young guns of the tea party. Allahpundit makes an astute observation about that:

By the way, am I misunderstanding or does he seem to think Ted Cruz, like Paul, is some sort of isolationist? I’m … not sure why. There was no one in the Senate, McCain included, who was tougher on Chuck Hagel than Cruz. When the Washington Free Beacon asked him to explain, Cruz said it’s because Hagel “has repeatedly been soft on our enemies.” Paleocons have also noticed that Cruz, despite often being lumped in with Paul on foreign policy, sounds plenty hawkish on Iran. Maverick’s likely concluded that because Cruz and Paul both speak frequently about the tea party and the Constitution and because Cruz was, after all, Paul’s wingman during the drone filibuster that they’re simpatico on foreign policy, but I suspect that’s untrue. In fact, Cruz and Paul seem to me to represent the two sides of the tea-party coin. From the beginning, Ron Paul fans have insisted that he’s the “godfather” of the movement; there are certainly tea partiers, especially the younger set, who are doctrinaire libertarians and whom Rand is trying to mobilize. But there’s another wing, which skews a bit older, that’s composed of more traditional conservatives — hawkish, concerned about “values” — who are disaffected with the GOP leadership’s squishiness and looking to rebrand themselves. The two wings overlap on spending, the core tea-party concern, and on stricter observance of constitutional limits on government, but they diverge on social issues and on foreign policy. Cruz was an ally of Paul’s during the drone debate because of that constitutional overlap, and of course because it was a chance to rebuke Obama. If a bill hit the floor tomorrow authorizing military action against Iran, though, I’m a lot less confident than Maverick that Cruz would end up on Paul’s side rather than on McCain’s and Rubio’s. We’ll find out…

I don't know. But just love watching Ted Cruz grilling all the leftists idiots up on the Hill. He's been on fire.

Smokin' Hot Panel of Conservative Women at #CPAC2013

I sat down and listened to this entire video a little over an hour ago. What a wonderful group of conservatives, "The Right View and the Real Issues."

* Kate Kieffer, Columnist & Commentator

* Kate Obenshain, Author & Conservative Blogger Divider-in-Chief: The Fraud of Hope and Change

* Katie Pavlich, News Editor, Townhall Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up

Crystal Wright, Editor & Publisher, conservativeblackchick.com

Moderator: Rachel Campos-Duffy,( Wife of Rep. Sean Duffy) National Spokesperson, The LIBRE Initiative

The conference schedule is here.

And lots more coverage at Memeorandum. I would have loved to see the panel with Pat Caddell ripping the GOP consultant establishment. That guy is incredibly plain-spoken. He gets to the heart of the issues like few others. Bob Belvedere has that, "Pat Caddell Rips the GOP a New One."

When the U.S. Kills an American Citizen

From the letters to the editor, at the New York Times:

Re “A U.S. Citizen, in America’s Cross Hairs” (front page, March 10), about the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen:

I am a United States citizen; I was born here and have lived here all of my 81 years. If I were a threat to this country’s safety, I would expect to be caught and brought to justice.

The idea that any president can kill an American citizen without a trial is abhorrent and frankly scares me more than any act of any “terrorist.”

Senator Rand Paul’s politics are not mine by any stretch of the imagination, but I applaud him for trying to make the American public aware of what those we elected are doing.

It is a disgrace.

RITA LASAR
New York, March 10, 2013

The writer, whose brother died in the World Trade Center, is a co-founder of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

More at the link.

Here's What You're Missing at #CPAC2013

A very good Fox News segment, "'The Five' Takes on Day 1 of CPAC and Say Which GOP'ers Have Them Most Excited."

Here's #CPAC2013 on Twitter.

Plus, from Robert Stacy McCain, who's now Editor in Chief at Viral Read, "#CPAC2013: Andrew Breitbart Praised as ‘Warrior’."

Now as if you needed a reason not to attend this year, from Mark Krikorian on the immigration panel yesterday:

No one speaking at #cpac2013 can bring themselves to say "illegal"

— Mark Krikorian (@MarkSKrikorian) March 14, 2013

Background here.

Legal Insurrection has some blogging, "Hundreds of CPAC Attendees #StandWithRand." As does Lonely Conservative, "Video: Allen West Addresses CPAC."

I'll have more blogging from the Left Coast throughout the day...

The Geopolitics of 'Girls'

From Daniel Drezner, "How Lena Dunham explains the world."

And see London's Daily Mail on the skanky "Girls" star herself, "Why I wouldn't want a body like a Victoria's Secret model."

Heated Exchange at Gun Control Hearing: 'I'm Not a Sixth-Grader...'

This is gold!

At the Hill, "Panel approves assault weapons ban; Cruz, Feinstein get heated."

And at the clip Wolf Blitzer interviews a whining Feinstein who blathers about how she "felt patronized." What a disgrace to the once-great State of California:

More from Bob Owens, "Assault weapons” are kind of like child pornography."

RELATED: "Dianne Feinstein Has Concealed Carry Permit."

Conflict in Syria Creates New Wave of British Jihadists

Lovely.

At Independent UK:

The bloody uprising against Bashar al-Assad is creating a new wave of jihadists in Britain, with Syria now the main destination for militant Muslims wishing to fight abroad, The Independent has learnt.

Syria has replaced Pakistan and Somalia as the preferred front line where Islamist volunteers can experience immediate combat with relatively little official scrutiny, security agencies said.

The worrying development has been taking place as extremist groups, some with links to al-Qa’ida, have become the dominant force in the uprising against the Damascus regime.

More than 100 British Muslims are believed to have gone to fight in Syria with the numbers continuing to rise. The situation presents a unique problem for Western security and intelligence services. In Syria, unlike Pakistan and Somalia, they have to keep track of jihadists who are being backed by Britain and its allies.

The Syrian rebels are drawing recruits from a variety of national backgrounds in the UK. Only a handful of those who have returned from the fighting there have been arrested and all for a specific offence: their alleged role in the kidnapping of a British freelance photographer, John Cantlie, in Idlib province last summer. Others who have been taking part in the armed struggle against the Assad regime are not deemed to be doing anything illegal.

Mr Cantlie, along with a Dutch colleague, Jeroen Oerlemans, are believed to have been abducted by a group called al-Dawa al-Islamiyya, which encouraged British and other Western volunteers to join the struggle against the Assad regime. The hostages were rescued by moderate fighters.

Abo Mohamad al-Shami, the leader of al-Dawa al-Islamiyya, was executed five weeks later, supposedly by the Farouq Brigade, a unit of the Free Syrian Army, which had become alarmed at the activities of the extremists.

But since then the Islamists, and in particular one group, Jabhat al-Nusra – which proclaims links with al-Qa’ida and has bee prescribed by the US administration as a terrorist group – have grown in size and influence largely due to supplies of money and arms from backers in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other states in the Gulf.

Continue reading.

Toronto District School Board Sends Police After Blazing Cat Fur!

An amazing development.

Read all about it at BCF: "TDSB sics police on sarcastic blogger."

The 'Gay Conservative' Oxymoron

A lot of folks on the right were perplexed with this yesterday, at Twitchy, for example, "Headdesk: Accuracy in Media writer claims, ‘There’s no such thing as a gay conservative’," and Vodka Pundit, "Gay Haters Gotta Hate."

But I've read the allegedly "hateful" piece, from Cliff Kincaid, and folks are misrepresenting what he writes (Bradley Manning is not argued to be conservative, for example, but as a member of "the homosexual movement"). See, "CPAC and the Conservatives":

The term “gay conservative” is being used by some news outlets in connection with the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and whether certain homosexual groups should be invited to appear. There is no such thing as a “gay conservative,” unless the term “conservative” has lost all meaning. But there is a homosexual movement that has its roots in Marxism and is characterized by anti-Americanism and hatred of Christian values.

Two of this movement’s members, Bradley Manning and Floyd Corkins, have recently been in the news. Manning betrayed his country in the WikiLeaks scandal, while Corkins has pleaded guilty to trying to kill conservative officials of the Christian Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.

Rather than debate whether “gay conservatives” exist or ought to have prominent speaking roles, CPAC should be sponsoring a panel on the dangers of the homosexual movement and why some of its members seem prone to violence, terror, and treason.

Continure reading.

It's a great piece, and dead-on 100 percent accurate.

And if all the folks outraged are defending GOProud, remember the group's chairman Chris Barron trashed top conservative Cleta Mitchell with what can only be described as a depraved left-wing attack. AoSHQ wrote about this recently, noting how he changed his mind on the controversy after he saw Barron's depravity. I can't find that link, although Erick Erickson sounded the alarm on this a couple of years ago.

The libertarian conservatives defending GOProud --- and attacking Kincaid --- are wrong. But the conservative movement's all messed up these days. And I don't care much about what happens at CPAC this year, in any case.

Pamela has more, "The Left on the Right."

Now Your Life's No Longer Empty...

Kansas, heard yesterday on The Sound L.A., during the last few minutes of my drive time, while picking up my son after school:

Train In Vain, The Clash at 5:30pm

Go Your Own Way, Fleetwood Mac at 5:26pm

Sympathy for the Devil, The Rolling Stones at 5:20pm

Back On the Chain Gang, Pretenders at 5:16pm

Carry On Wayward Son, Kansas at 5:10pm

California Bill Seeks Campus Credit for Online Study

I sent this out yesterday to my colleagues on the campus-wide email list, and it created quite a stir.

At NYT, "California Bill Would Force Colleges to Honor Online Classes."

California Is Doing Well? If You Say So...

From the letters to the editor at the Wall Street Journal:

Although not an Okie, I arrived in the Sacramento area as an uneducated 19-year-old in 1953. I was an airman second class (two stripes) who had finished ninth grade.

Because of the Air Force and the state of California, I received a GED, went to a junior college and received my electrical-engineering degree from San Jose State. California was in fact the land of milk and honey. Fees at SJS were less than $30 per semester. The state understood that if I made more money, it would receive more taxes. This all changed in 1975 when Jerry Brown became governor, and I beat feet.

George F. Fike
Buford, Ga.

And at that top link, don't miss the fantasy-land letter from Riley Robbins of the California Governor's Office.

Background here, "The Reverse-Joads of California."

A Bridge in the Climate Debate

Via Anthony Watts, "How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change."

This is a TED talk by Dr. Allan Savory in Los Angeles this past week, attended by our friend Dr. Matt Ridley, whose presentation we’ll look at another time. Sometimes, TED talks are little more that pie in the sky; this one is not. And, it not only offers a solution, it shows the solution in action and presents proof that it works. It makes more sense than anything I’ve seen in a long, long, time.

Fabulous Nigella Lawson Photos

I did catch the finale of "The Taste" on Tuesday, and Ms. Nigella looked phenomenal.

And here's more of the fabulous British dame, at London's Daily Mail, "Talk about attention-grabbing! Nigella Lawson stands out in multicoloured skintight dress as she launches new book in the U.S."

'Your Home Is Your Castle': Alabama Gun Owner Kills Home Intruder With One Shot

Well, it's not called the "castle doctrine" for nothing.

At Pat Dollard's.

More here: "New Details: Albertville Homeowner Shoots, Kills Intruder."

In Rare Move, Apple Goes on the Defensive Against Samsung

At WSJ:

In a rare interview a day before Samsung Electronics Co.'s 005930.SE -1.38% launch of a new flagship smartphone, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller on Wednesday played down the expected competition from the device. He also discussed how he believes products that run Google Inc.'s GOOG -0.28% Android software, such as Samsung's phone, are inferior to Apple's iPhone.

Mr. Schiller shared data on the iPhone's popularity and said Apple's own research shows that four times as many iPhone users switched from an Android phone than to an Android phone in the fourth quarter.

His remarks come as Apple has been gently suggesting similar messages in recent months as competitors such as Samsung have been gaining buzz—and market share.

Mr. Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of world-wide marketing, also said that Android users are often running old operating systems and that the fragmentation in the Android world was "plain and simple."

He added that "Android is often given as a free replacement for a feature phone and the experience isn't as good as an iPhone."

The executive said the Android devices suffer in part because different elements come from multiple companies, whereas Apple is responsible for all its mobile hardware and as well as its iOS operating system.

"When you take an Android device out of the box, you have to sign up to nine accounts with different vendors to get the experience iOS comes with," he said. "They don't work seamlessly together."

More at that top link, and at Bloomberg, "Samsung Targets Galaxy 4 at Apple’s Core IPhone Market."

RELATED: From Larry Page, at the Official Google Blog, "Update from the CEO."

Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance

This is truly amazing, via FrontPage Magazine, "The America That’s Gone":

Elaine Chao Stars in McConnell Campaign Ad

At Roll Call, "Kentucky: McConnell Wife Elaine Chao Stars in His Campaign Ad."

BACKGROUND: "The Left's Racist Attack on Elaine Chao."

Argentina's Jorge Mario Bergoglio is Pope Francis I

I was laughing this morning when I checked my text messages. Right before starting my 11:10am class my wife writes, "White smoke. New pope."

It's a very interesting selection, supposedly a new direction for the Catholic Church.

At Telegraph UK, "Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio becomes 266th Pope: Pope Francis the humble, first pontiff from the Americas":

Blinking and looking as surprised as anyone, he stepped from behind the blood-red velvet curtains and acknowledged the rapturous cheers from the thousands thronging St Peter’s Square.

With the words “buona sera” — good evening — Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a 76-year-old Argentine, became the Roman Catholic Church’s 266th pope, the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium, the first from the Americas and the first Jesuit to ascend to the throne of St Peter.

He expressed wonder that his 114 brother cardinals had looked to “the end of the world” to find a successor to Benedict XVI. Cardinal Bergoglio was an unexpected choice — he had not featured in any of the front-runner lists that were drawn up by Vatican-watchers in the days before the election.

A stunned-looking Pope Francis I, dressed in white vestments and with a crucifix around his neck, shyly waved to the crowd of tens of thousands who shrugged off the rain and cold in the square below.

The appearance of white smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney had earlier electrified Rome.

Within seconds, people were running up the avenue that leads from the River Tiber to St Peter’s Square.

“They’ve chosen, they’ve chosen,” a woman told her daughter as they hurried across rain-soaked cobbles, two small figures in a river of hundreds hurrying to the seat of the Roman Catholic Church.

Groups of young people sang and danced in front of television cameras and mobile phone networks crashed as tens of thousands of people called friends and relations.

They waved flags and shouted “Viva Il Papa” — without yet knowing who Il Papa was — as more people crammed into the square.

And from around the web, in no particular order:

* At Life News, "New Pope Francis called homosexual ‘marriage’ a ‘machination of the Father of Lies’."

* At the Los Angeles Times, "New pope: Latinos overjoyed with selection of Argentine."

* At the Wall Street Journal, "Official Text of Pope Francis’ First Speech to World."

* At the New Yorker, "We Have a New Pope: Cardinal Bergoglio Is Francis."

* At the Guardian UK, "Jorge Mario Bergoglio: from railway worker's son to Pope Francis."

* At Gateway Pundit, "Pope Francis Linked to Anti-Marxist ‘Comunione e Liberazione’ Organization."

* At National Review, "A Jesuit Named Francis!"

* At London's Daily Mail, "Did he fail to stand up to Argentina's brutal junta? Critics say Pope did little to help those who disappeared when country was under right-wing military rule."

* At the Economist, "The Vatican turns south: A modest opportunity."

* At the Canada Free Press, "Richard Viguerie: Election of Pope Francis Signals Strength of Traditional Catholic Moral Teachings."

* At the Washington Post, "Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, known for simplicity and conservatism."

* At Der Spiegel, "White Smoke: Argentinian Bishop Becomes Pope Francis I."

* At the New York Times, "The New Pope: Bergoglio of Argentina."

Chicago Gun Violence Claims 6-Month-Old Jonylah Watkins

Boy, not the gun violence narrative the left likes to talk about.

At LAT, "Chicago baby, shot with father during a diaper change, dies." Also at NYT, "llinois: Baby Is Killed in Gang Violence in Chicago."

And see the Chicago Tribune especially, "Surgery team's 'incessant battle' to try to save baby not enough."

RELATED: At Breitbart, "OBAMA'S GUN CONTROL NOT WORKING OUT IN CHICAGO," and "OBAMA: CHICAGO BLUEPRINT FOR NATIONAL GUN LAWS." Yeah, that'll work.

I Am Created Equal

I love this, at Twitchy, "New ad takes on Colo. gun-grabbers: ‘Don’t you dare tell me how to best defend myself’":

Politicians are not kings. Let me say that again. Politicians are not kings. They’re not superior to citizens and their job is not to tell us the food we can eat, the soda we can buy or how we can best defend ourselves. Who’s to tell me how many bullets are enough to defend me during a rape? One bullet, five bullets, ten bullets? How about as many as I need to stop the rape. These politicians, these bureaucrats, need to be reminded that we are all free to make our own decisions. We all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And you know, if guns aren’t right for you, don’t own one. But don’t you dare tell me how to best defend myself. I’m Laura Carno, an ordinary Colorado citizen who believes in the Constitution. Join me at IAmCreatedEqual.com. That’s IAmCreatedEqual.com. This message paid for by IAmCreatedEqual.com.

The audio's at the link.

Conservatives Marching to Oblivion

From Pamela Geller's latest, "Weekly WND Column: The Right: Marching to Oblivion":

And while I join others in applauding the largely symbolic effort of Rand Paul in filibustering against Obama’s CIA nominee, John Brennan, color me skeptical. The man spoke for 13 hours and never mentioned that Brennan supported jihad and called it a legitimate tenet of Islam. Thirteen hours on the war on the West and why targeting Americans is a bad idea and no word on the real enemy our nation faces? Talk about avoiding the 800-pound elephant in the room.

That’s what makes Brennan so dangerous; making him CIA director is like putting drones in the hands of the enemy. Remember that right after 9/11, jihadist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was applauded as a moderate and lunched at the Pentagon. Remember also that Michelle Obama and John Kerry were about to give an award to Samira Ibrahim last week, until it came to light that she is a vicious Jew-hater who applauded 9/11.

And now the same government that makes disastrous mistakes like those is going to decide who gets hit by a drone on U.S. soil? The same government that thinks “right-wing extremists” are more of a threat than jihad terrorists? As CIA director, John Brennan is so dangerous because in his warped mind, who is the enemy? So while Rand Paul had the right idea, even a broken clock is right twice a day – and don’t get me started on his position on Israel.

Rand Paul does not speak for me. And at the end of the day, what was accomplished? Brennan was confirmed. Hagel was confirmed. Kerry was confirmed. And that’s just the tip of the destroyer in the White House’s agenda. He has jacked up our deficit to an unfathomable $16 trillion, enslaving our children and grandchildren to service an impossible debt, but if we dare to implement minuscule spending cuts, he punishes the American people (no more White House tours for you!) and those who protect us.

And while Rand Paul had the right idea, it was for all the wrong reasons. If an al-Awlaki type was drinking coffee in an American coffee shop (instead of one in Yemen) and we knew that he was going to give the operational OK (via cellphone or some other means) to a homicide bomber, what would you do? If Flight 93 had hit the Capitol building and another plane was on the way to the White House, would we have shot it down?

Now, according to Stars and Stripes magazine, the military is ending its tuition assistance program for troops. So Obama is saying that it is more important to spend $750 million (just approved) on jets and tanks for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas than it is to provide education for those young men and women whom he would send in to fight the massive war against non-Muslims he is currently fomenting in the Middle East. Make no mistake that this is what is happening here.

Obama is the most profoundly immoral chief executive in the history of this nation. The enemy is in full control, and the right is DOA. As for Mitt Romney, he’s a very lovely guy, but he ran a 20th-century campaign. “Father Knows Best” was not going to defeat a vicious collectivist with a war chest rivaled only by that of Muhammad.

There’s a war raging, and the right thinks that if it doesn’t engage or doesn’t show up, then that war doesn’t exist. How irrational. If you don’t show up, you forfeit, and the right is forfeiting. Anytime someone takes a bold or brave stance against statism or collectivism, or against jihad and Shariah, they suffer withering attacks from both outside the movement and inside the movement.

I know this because I have been on the receiving end of internecine warfare on the right. I’m not at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this year. Many on the right are afraid of my message. Essentially, what they’re afraid of is the fight.

Don’t get me wrong. We see many come out in a burst of light, a supernova: Allen West, Sarah Palin, and now Ted Cruz. But we also see the right abandon these same people when the left goes after them like the jackals and the vultures they are. Did the GOP establishment have Sarah Palin’s back?

Continue reading.

Democrats Hammer Obama on Unconstitutional Drone Policy

Look, let the Dems chew each other up over this. They deserve it for their rank hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy.

At Digital Journal, "Democrats ask Obama to give the 'full legal' basis for drones."

Also at SF Gate, "Dems Barbara Lee and Mike Honda call out Obama on drone policy."

IMAGE CREDIT: Moonbattery.