Afternoon Alana Blanchard Rule 5

Oh, to be young and free again.

Via Twitter.

Previous Alana blogging here and here.

Professor Caroline Heldman Marries Occidental Sociologist Danielle Dirks

I don't see anything else on this, so I'm just going off the couple's tweets. They're beautiful. Honestly, though, I had no idea after all these years. I guess just being in the academy turns a lady homo nowadays. Well, that, and all that corrosive feminist theory, which is certain to destroy decent women sooner or later. Funny, too, but these two aren't your typical butt-ugly battle axes. (And see related, R.S. McCain on that, "Mental Illness and Radical Feminism.")

Professor Dirks' homepage is here. I slammed Professor Heldman here, four years ago, "Professor Caroline Heldman Clueless on Politics of Town Halls."

❤️❤️❤️ “@carolineheldman: Wifeys! @danielledirks pic.twitter.com/j3d0M9jTzA”
— Danielle Dirks (@danielledirks) January 7, 2014

The Left's Latest Socialist Blather — #FULLCOMMUNISM

Look, today's regressive left is nothing more than some warmed up communist movement based in Marxist ideologies of class warfare and economic redistribution.

One of the funniest memes of late is how regressives claim that such and such socialist policy proposal of the day is really a conservative idea, hatched previously, no doubt, by someone at the Heritage Foundation, or some such shit. The always idiotic Brian Beutler pulls the same lame bait-and-switch lie with his defense of self-declared communist J.A. Myerson, the dumb wannabe who posted the widely-ridiculed piece last week at Rolling Stone, at Salon, "The right’s latest freakout — and why they’re crying “communism”."

Well, the right was "freaking out" and "crying communism" because the idiot Myerson was indeed foisting off communism as the hip creed of the Millennial generation. But Beutler and people like him, including Democrats all the way to the top levels of the Obama administration (remember Anita "Mao tse" Dunn?), are always pushing their communist agendas in stealth, because they know there's literally no other way to pull off the "fundamental transformation" of America that is their bottom line.

So, give a hand to Jonah Goldberg, who does an excellent job of destroying the Beutler meme that the right was "freaking out" over nothing more than a few conservative policy proposals in leftist garb. At the Los Angeles Times, "A millennial's Rolling Stone rant offers up some tired old 'solutions'":

"In America," Oscar Wilde quipped, "the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience." And they often do it in the pages of Rolling Stone.

Last week, the magazine posted a mini-manifesto titled "Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For." After confirming it wasn't a parody, conservative critics launched a brutal assault on its author, Jesse A. Myerson.

Myerson's essay captures nearly everything the unconverted despise about left-wing youth culture, starting with the assumption that being authentically young requires being theatrically left wing.

Writing with unearned familiarity and embarrassingly glib confidence in the rightness of his positions, Myerson prattles on about how "unemployment blows" and therefore we need "guaranteed work for everybody." He proceeds to report that jobs "blow" too, so we need guaranteed universal income. He has the same disdain for landlords, who "don't really do anything to earn their money." Which is why, Myerson writes, we need communal ownership of land, or something.

One wonders why he bothered to single out landlords, since he calls for the state appropriation of, well, everything. Why? Because "hoarders blow," and he doesn't mean folks who refuse to throw away their Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets and old Sharper Image catalogs. He means successful people who "hoard" the wealth that rightly belongs to all of us.

Apparently "blowing" is an open warrant to undo the entire constitutional order. If only someone had told the founders.

In the ensuing kerfuffle, Myerson, whose Twitter hashtag is "#FULLCOMMUNISM," seemed shocked that any of his ideas sounded Soviet to his critics. Andrew McCoy, a conservative blogger, offered the specific citations for Myerson's proposals in the Soviet constitution. I suspect this was news to Myerson, but even if not, I bet he doesn't care. It is a permanent trope of the left that its ideas failed because we didn't try hard enough. This time is always different.

Obviously, this is the sort of fleeting controversy that pops up daily on the Internet like fireflies on a summer night. But that's what I find so interesting about it.

Sometimes it is hard for people to accept that there really aren't many new ideas.

I love that part about "unearned familiarity and embarrassingly glib confidence," heh.

Yeah, the dude got slapped around pretty hard on Twitter, but keep reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "#FULLCOMMUNISM: 'Rolling Stone’s five economic reforms sure sound like Marxism...'"

Universities Admitting Illiterate Athletes

I saw this yesterday, on Jake Tapper's show, "CNN analysis: Some college athletes play like adults, read like 5th-graders."

MIT's Richard Lindzen: The Unalarmed Climate Scientist

At the Weekly Standard, "What Catastrophe?":

The Earth’s climate is immensely complex, but the basic principle behind the “greenhouse effect” is easy to understand. The burning of oil, gas, and especially coal pumps carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, where they allow the sun’s heat to penetrate to the Earth’s surface but impede its escape, thus causing the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface to warm. Essentially everybody, Lindzen included, agrees. The question at issue is how sensitive the planet is to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (this is called climate sensitivity), and how much the planet will heat up as a result of our pumping into the sky ever more CO2, which remains in the atmosphere for upwards of 1,000 years. (Carbon dioxide, it may be needless to point out, is not a poison. On the contrary, it is necessary for plant life.)

Lindzen doesn’t deny that the climate has changed or that the planet has warmed. “We all agree that temperature has increased since 1800,” he tells me. There’s a caveat, though: It’s increased by “a very small amount. We’re talking about tenths of a degree [Celsius]. We all agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. All other things kept equal, [there has been] some warming. As a result, there’s hardly anyone serious who says that man has no role. And in many ways, those have never been the questions. The questions have always been, as they ought to be in science, how much?”

Lindzen says not much at all—and he contends that the “alarmists” vastly overstate the Earth’s climate sensitivity. Judging by where we are now, he appears to have a point; so far, 150 years of burning fossil fuels in large quantities has had a relatively minimal effect on the climate. By some measurements, there is now more CO2 in the atmosphere than there has been at any time in the past 15 million years. Yet since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the average global temperature has risen by, at most, 1 degree Celsius, or 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit. And while it’s true that sea levels have risen over the same period, it’s believed they’ve been doing so for roughly 20,000 years. What’s more, despite common misconceptions stoked by the media in the wake of Katrina, Sandy, and the recent typhoon in the Philippines, even the IPCC concedes that it has “low confidence” that there has been any measurable uptick in storm intensity thanks to human activity. Moreover, over the past 15 years, as man has emitted record levels of carbon dioxide year after year, the warming trend of previous decades has stopped. Lindzen says this is all consistent with what he holds responsible for climate change: a small bit of man-made impact and a whole lot of natural variability.

The real fight, though, is over what’s coming in the future if humans continue to burn fossil fuels unabated...

Continue reading.

Angry Dennis Rodman Defends Bizarre North Korea Trip

At the Boston Herald, "Raving Dennis Rodman puts a lid on it":

The Red Sox would rather not discuss Dennis Rodman’s choice of head gear after the cigar-chomping, North Korea-lovin’, face-pierced freakshow went nuts on CNN yesterday — all while sporting a black and gray “B” cap!

“I don’t have anything for you on this one,” a team spokesgal told the Track.

Not surprising. Dennis’ on-air meltdown isn’t exactly the best PR for the World Series champs!

In case you somehow missed it, Madonna’s ex-BF did an interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN yesterday and went off the rails when Chris questioned the wisdom of his latest trip to North Korea to play hoops with a band of 10 other former NBAers in honor of tin-pot dictator Kim Jong Un’s B-day.

Rodman angrily insisted that the trip was a “great idea for the world” as Cuomo questioned his bromance with KJU and whether he would press the North Korean boss on the welfare of American prisoner Kenneth Bae, who’s been held for more than a year there.

“If you understand what Kenneth Bae did. Do you understand what he did in this country? No, no, no, you tell me, you tell me. Why is he held captive here in this country, why?” ranted Rodman, who didn’t appear to know the answer to the question.

But The Worm really turned while discussing the 10 former pros — including former Celtics Kenny Anderson and Vin Baker — who were sitting behind him during the interview. All 10 looked like they’d rather be out walking KJU’s uncle-eating dogs than listening to Rodman rave.

“You know, you’ve got 10 guys here, 10 guys here, they’ve left their families, they’ve left their damn families, to help this country, as in a sports venture. That’s 10 guys, all these guys here, do anyone understand that? Christmas, New Year’s ...

“I don’t give a rat’s (expletive) what the hell you think! I’m saying to you, look at these guys here, look at them! They dared to do one thing, they came here. ... We have to go back to America and take the abuse. Do you have to take the abuse that we’re gonna take? Do you, Sir, are you going to take the abuse?”

As you might imagine, Red Sox fans were less than pleased that Rodman was wearing the Sox 
Basic Storm Grey 59FIFTY Fitted Cap ($34.99 on MLB.com) for his televised meltdown.

“Why, Dennis Rodman? Why did you wear a Boston Red Sox hat when sounding like an (expletive)hat? Why?” tweeted @DanDrezner, the Twitter handle of Tufts Fletcher School international relations professor Daniel W. Drezner.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca Retires

At LAT, "Baca lost confidence of top aides ahead of decision":

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca had something on his mind Friday and needed some advice. He summoned a top aide to his office and let him in on a secret: Baca was thinking about stepping down.

The sheriff's leadership was under attack after a string of scandals. He faced the prospect of a nasty reelection bid. But most of all, Baca said, he wondered whether his departure would help the rank-and-file move beyond the controversies of the last few years.

The aide, who got his start as Baca's driver and owed the sheriff for his rise, did not try to dissuade his boss from retiring.

Rather, he told him it was time to move on.

"I told the sheriff I was getting feedback from deputies on the front line that there's a lot of negativity, and they felt like it was impacting their ability to do their work," Assistant Sheriff Jim Hellmold said. "It was a good decision for him to step down."
Baca continued to mull over what to do over the weekend.

By Monday, he had made up his mind. The sheriff pulled his top assistants out of their offices one by one and told them.
He was done.

He called his campaign consultant and relayed the same message. That evening, Baca broke the news to the county Board Supervisors.

Baca made it official Tuesday morning in an emotional, and at times nostalgic, news conference in which he talked of his 48 years in the Sheriff's Department.

"I don't see myself as part of the future," said Baca, 71. "I see myself as part of the past."

Also, "Sheriff Baca's resignation leaves much up in the air for department."

Record-Setting Cold Hits Eastern U.S.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Bone-Chilling 'Polar Vortex' Hits Eastern U.S.: Brutally Low Temperatures Seen From Deep South Up to New England":

A record-setting cold snap in the Midwest enveloped the eastern half of the country Tuesday, with brutally cold temperatures recorded from the deep South up to New England.

Officials opened warming centers, canceled schools and grappled with strained power grids as shivering residents from the Florida Panhandle to St. Louis to New York cranked up the heat. Train and air travelers suffered continued transportation snarls. The dangerously frigid air sent people to hospitals with frostbite and contributed to multiple deaths, including in Wisconsin, Texas and Ohio, authorities said.

"Nobody is getting out of this one right now," said Bruce Terry, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, which expected Tuesday to be the coldest day of the big chill. Temperatures are forecast to begin moderating on Wednesday.

The unusually raw weather is the result of a "polar vortex," a low-pressure system of swirling Arctic-cold air that typically sits in Canada this time of year but has dropped into the Great Lakes region and New England.

While the main result of the shift was bone-chilling temperatures, narrow bands of heavy snow and blizzard conditions pummeled western New York. In the Tug Hill Plateau, a region bordering Lake Ontario, residents braced for the possibility of 80 inches of snow by Wednesday afternoon.

Hollywood Hypocrites: Leonardo DiCaprio and Richard Branson Lecture About Carbon Consumption While Plotting Trips to Space

Wow.

The hits keep coming, and this one's a doozy. Damned hypocrites, although Branson's perhaps a London hypocrite.

From Max Luke and Jenna Mukuno, at the Wall Street Journal, "Boldly Going Where No Greens Have Gone Before":

If all goes according to plan, Hollywood icon Leonardo DiCaprio will blast into space aboard the maiden voyage of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceship sometime this year, opening up a new era of civilian space travel. This development might only be remarkable as the fulfillment of a dream long predicted by futurists and technophiles, were it not for the fact that Messrs. Branson and DiCaprio are prominent environmentalist celebrities who have warned of a coming ecological catastrophe if we fail to address our carbon problem.

Mr. Branson's commitment to fighting climate change is praiseworthy: Over the years, he has consistently advocated for a broad mix of clean energy sources, including nuclear. He is founder and chief benefactor of the Carbon War Room, an outfit that has long advocated for carbon pricing and energy efficiency measures to help alleviate global warming. Mr. DiCaprio is on the board of trustees of the Natural Resources Defense Council and has decried overconsumption. "We are the number one leading consumers, the biggest producers of waste around the world," the actor said in 2008.

Private space travel doesn't seem to mesh with living green, and Mr. Branson surely anticipated that his project would raise environmentalists' eyebrows. Perhaps that's why he announced this past May: "We have reduced the [carbon emission] cost of somebody going into space from something like two weeks of New York's electricity supply to less than the cost of an economy round-trip from Singapore to London."

That would be a remarkable achievement in energy efficiency if it were true. Alas, it is not. According to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's environmental assessment of the launch and re-entry of Virgin Galactic's spacecraft, one launch-land cycle emits about 30 tons of carbon dioxide, or about five tons per passenger. That is about five times the carbon footprint of a flight from Singapore to London.

When you include the energy of the entire Virgin Galactic operation, which includes support aircraft, it is seven times more than the flight from Singapore to London. As such, a single trip on Virgin Galactic will require twice as much energy as the average American consumes each year. (These numbers were confirmed by a representative for Virgin Galactic.)

Continue reading.

Former Miss Venezuela Shot and Killed in Highway Robbery

She was a U.S. citizen and was on vacation in Venezuela.

At the New York Times, "Venezuela: Death of Beauty Queen in Robbery Rattles Country."

RELATED: At IBD, "The Killing Fields of Caracas" (from 2010, via Instapundit):

Socialism: Quick, what's the murder capital of the world: Kabul? Juarez? Try Caracas, Venezuela, a city whose dictator, Hugo Chavez, has made murder a means of extending his control.

The silent protest at Monday night's Miss Universe Pageant in Las Vegas was invisible to nearly everyone — except Venezuelans. On her final catwalk, the ranking Miss Universe, Stefania Fernandez, suddenly whipped out a Venezuelan flag in a patriotic but protocol-breaking gesture.

Fernandez waved her flag for the same reason Americans waved theirs after 9/11 — to convey resolution amid distress. Her flag had seven stars, significant because Chavez had arbitrarily added an eighth, making any use of a difficult-to-find seven-star banner an act of defiance.

Fernandez's countrymen went wild with joy on bulletin boards and Facebook, showing just how worried they are about their country. Their greatest fear is violent crime.

Obsessed Hate-Troll Walter James Casper Attacks Mad Jewess with Despicable 'Racist' Smear

I didn't even see it until I was talking to the Mad Jewess on Twitter, but she posted an hilarious smackdown of the vile hate-troll Walter James Casper III, a.k.a, Repsac3.

See, "My Buddy is Being Harassed for YEARS, Now!"

It's true.

Repsac's been stalking me and this blog for over half a decade. It started before American Power. Repsac was pissed off years ago when he was trolling me at Biobrain's blog, whining about how nobody was responding to him in the comments. It's been like that ever since, and even worse, as Repsac turned into a pathological liar who created a special blog to harass me. He recruited bloggers who attempted to have me fired at my place of employment, even posting all my workplace information with exhortations to call my administration.

Repsac's spent years in pathetic denial trying to wash away the evil. But we know now that his hatred is not only motivated by ideological intolerance but racial hatred as well. Some time back Repsac joined with the Pale Scot to push disgusting racist smears against me that were universally condemned, even by Casper's current bareback interest, Kevin, the main blogger now at the hateful stalk-blog American Nihilist.

So keep that in mind as Racist Repsac is now launching depraved attacks on the Mad Jewess, simply because she had the temerity to stand up and denounce the vile leftist trolling and harassment. He writes, ""Doug's" racist friend ... MadJewessWoman weighs in..."

Totally predictable. The very first thing Racist Repsac does is attack Mad Jewess Woman as "racist." Of course, leftists have the market on racism cornered, most recently seen with Melissa Harris-Perry's despicable attacks on Mitt Romney's black grandchild. I'm astounded sometimes at just how inhuman and horrible these people are --- and that's after being out here for years in beatdown mode on regressive evil. I'm still amazed sometimes.

And Repsac3? What to say? Everything I've ever posted about him is true. He's been repudiated for his harassment over and over again. Skye, Zilla, the Mad Jewess --- just a few people who've stood up and now look, more disgusting racist allegations and obsessive hate-trolling. And dang, Racist Repsac even stalked some dude named Evan Hurst for months, angry that the guy, who was homosexual, was ignoring him on Twitter. Racist Reppy's got it bad. The dude needs help, and bad. And the Mad Jewess ain't gonna take no shit:

@repsac3 Shut the fuck up jackass. Just look @ your blog you projective Jabba the hut looking asshat
— The Mad Jewess (@MadJewessWoman) January 8, 2014

Screw him. Screw Walter James Casper III. He's a communist and a loser troll who's been denounced repeatedly across the web but just keeps on coming back because he can't help himself. When no one likes you and your life is a miserable failure, you hunker down in hate and lash out at those with whom you disagree. And have no pity for this f-ker. He'd shovel dirt on you six feet down if he had the chance, the Beelzebub monster.

Pinko commie scum is right.

A.J. McCarron's Mom Disses Jameis Winston's Speech on Twitter: 'Am I Listening to English?'

She deleted the tweet, apparently, but not before it was favorited by hottie girlfriend Katherine Webb.

At the Orlando Sentinel, "Jameis Winston tweet: A.J. McCarron's mom apologizes."

At London's Daily Mail, "'Am I listening to English?' Fury as A.J. McCarron's mom takes to Twitter after Jameis Winston's post-game interview - and girlfriend Katherine Webb 'favorites' another insult."

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates Slams President Obama's Politicized National Security Policy

This is been the leading story all day.

See Bob Woodward, at WaPo, "Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama's leadership in ‘Duty’."

And Gates has an op-ed at WSJ, "The Quiet Fury of Robert Gates." (At Memeorandum.)

The commentary on the news shows has been blistering as well. Charles Krauthammer says Gates' rebuke of  Obama is an "indictment that rises above everything else he's done in his presidency."

Six-Year Itch: Historical Trends Point to Democrat Senate Loses in November

As I've written previously, the Dems are defending 20 seats out of 33 seats in play, and 13 of the 15 most vulnerable seats are in Democrat hands.

It's gonna be a bloodbath.

And now here comes Charlie Cook to throw some water on the leftist deniers of November Democrat doom, at National Journal, "Six-Year Itch Plagues Presidents in Midterms" (at Memeorandum):

Obviously, American voters do not have the date of each second-term, midterm election circled on their calendars to kick the party in the White House. But the novelty, energy, and excitement of newly elected presidents tends to dissipate in their second terms. We normally see a scarcity of new (good) ideas, and, to put it bluntly, a level of fatigue starts to plague the relationship between a president and the electorate. Statements, decisions, and policies from the first term can come back to haunt the administration during second terms. Certainly, “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it” might be a nominee in this category. Bad things tend to happen once a president reaches his second term, be they scandals, unpopular wars, economic downturns, or whatever. Think about playing the musical-chairs game, over and over again. The more times you play the game, the greater your chances of being the odd person left standing. We can see this in the way many mayors or governors who stay in office more than two terms often end up with unpleasant results.

RTWT.

PREVIOUSLY: "Republicans Poised for Big Gains in 2014 Midterms."

Science Denier Ron Chusid Won't Publish Comment Responding to Attack on 'Right Wing Deniers of Climate Change'

It's pretty funny that a guy attacking right-wingers for allegedly denying climate change can't answer a few simple questions on the growing number of anomalies in the left's so-called global warming consensus.

But Ron Chusid, at Liberal Values, moderates comments and he wouldn't let mine through, because that might upset the regressive narrative, or something. Here's his post, "Cold Days Confuse Right Wing Deniers Of Climate Change." And my response, "Climate Astrology: Warmists Claim Global Warming Causing Record Cold Temperatures."

Meanwhile, check out Robert Stacy McCain, "Al Gore and the Big Climate Lie."

Have I mentioned lately that @algore is a profoundly dishonest and hypocritical person? Because he is, you know.

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) January 6, 2014

HAHAHA! Al Gore new selfie! pic.twitter.com/5Yr6cmWGGg

— Taz (@jrk8664) January 6, 2014

And see this awesome interview with Steven Hayward yesterday on Larry Kudlow's show. And check out Hayward's writings on the collapsing warming consensus at the Weekly Standard, most recently, "Pay No Attention to the Bad Data: Behind the Curtain at the IPCC."

Two Black Thugs Steal iPhone, Purse, and Wedding Ring from Dying Woman at Taco Bell

Dan Riehl's not normally a PC type, but his headline is sorely lacking the racial element here, "Two teens steal phone, purse and wedding ring from finger of dying woman at Taco Bell."

Look, the race of the mofo thugs is entirely relevant. Call it what it is: a racial hate crime, black on white, and this isn't an isolated case. (SOURCE: London's Daily Mail, "Two arrested for stealing wedding ring from hand of dying woman in Taco Bell drive thru.")

Republicans Poised for Big Gains in 2014 Midterms

Larry Sabato's joined Politico as a bi-weekly columnist. He's an interesting character and has a good track record.

Here's his first installment in promised running dialog on the 2014 congressional elections, "Republicans Really Could Win It All This Year" (via Memeorandum):

As 2014 begins, the environment for the Democrats in this election year is not good. The botched, chaotic rollout of the Affordable Care Act is the obvious cause, but it is broader than that: the typical sixth-year unease that produces a “send-them-a-message” election. Fortunately for Democrats, the GOP-initiated shutdown of the federal government in October has tempered the public’s desire for a shift to the Republican side, too. “None of the above” might win a few races in November if voters had the choice....

At this early stage, the combination of these three factors [the president, the economy and the election playing field] suggests a good election year for the GOP. The president is a Democrat and his approval is weak. The economy may be improving, based on GDP growth (4.1 percent in the third quarter), but voters still don’t believe their personal economy, at least, has picked up much. Instead, the major national issue of the moment is Obamacare, which at this point is a loser for Democrats. The structure of the election in the House and Senate also bends in the GOP direction.

Well, that's all very good and circumspect. For me, in a word, it's gonna be a blowout, especially in the Senate.

BONUS LULZ: BooMan thinks the Democrats will "break even" in the Senate (whatever that's supposed to mean) and retake the House of Representatives. Got that? Retake the House of Representatives! Bwahaha!! One of the reasons I can't wait for November is because I'm relishing ramming the election results in smug Democrat faces, especially BooMan's. Like I said, it's gonna a be blowout, especially in the Senate.

The ASA Has Turned Itself Into a Pariah

At the New York Times, "Backlash Against Israel Boycott Throws Academic Association on Defensive":

NEW YORK — With its recent vote to boycott Israel’s higher-education institutions to protest the country’s treatment of Palestinians, the American Studies Association has itself become the target of widespread criticism and ostracism. It has gone from relative obscurity to prominence as a pariah of the United States higher-education establishment, its experience serving as a cautionary tale for other scholarly groups that might consider taking a similar stand on the Middle East.

Read it all at the link (via Carl in Jerusalem).

And from Glenn Reynolds, "Yes, this movement is not merely inept, it is evil. The ASA needs to be made an example of, sufficient to deter similar evil in the future."

'Harmony'

I can't remember the last time I heard this song. I was out yesterday driving the Jeep and had satellite radio set to the '70s channel. "Harmony" is the last song on Side 4 of John's 1973 album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Used to listen to that a lot when I was in junior high. Amazing.

Hello, baby hello
Haven't seen your face for a while
Have you quit doing time for me
Or are you still the same spoiled child

Hello, I said hello
Is this the only place you thought to go
Am I the only man you ever had
Or am I just the last surviving friend that you know

Harmony and me
We're pretty good company
Looking for an island
In our boat upon the sea
Harmony, gee I really love you
And I want to love you forever
And dream of the never, never, never leaving harmony

Hello, baby hello
Open up your heart and let your feelings flow
You're not unlucky knowing me
Keeping the speed real slow
In any case I set my own pace
By stealing the show, say hello, hello...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Fractures Pelvis in Ski Accident

She's no spring chicken, so I'm interested to see how her recovery's going to affect her political power and tenure.

At Der Spiegel, "Appointments Cancelled: Merkel Breaks Pelvis in Skiing Accident":

German Chancellor Angela Merkel fractured her pelvis in a skiing accident while on Christmas vacation in Switzerland, her spokesman said Monday. She has cancelled appointments and will have to spend much of the next three weeks lying down.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, 59, has cancelled many of her appointments after injuring her pelvis while cross-country skiing in Switzerland during the Christmas break.

"She fell. While cross-country skiing. We think it was at low speed," government spokesman Steffen Seibert said. He said she had suffered "heavy bruising combined with an incomplete fracture of the left rear pelvic ring." Merkel spent her Christmas vacation in the Swiss resort of Engadin.

Also at London's Daily Mail, "German Chancellor Angela Merkel breaks hip while cross-country skiing in Swiss mountains... but only realises days later."

Hip? Pelvis? Here's the skeletal image at Wikipedia. A broken hip is one of the worst injuries for elderly people. Sometimes they never recover. At 59, Merkel's not quite what you'd call elderly, but she's still. It's a dangerous injury.

Supreme Court Stays Utah Homosexual Marriage Ruling

At the New York Times, "Justices' Halt to Gay Marriage Leaves Utah Couples in Limbo" (at Memeorandum):

SALT LAKE CITY — In a move that cast doubt over the marriages of roughly 1,000 same-sex couples in Utah, the United States Supreme Court on Monday blocked further same-sex marriages there while state officials appeal a decision allowing such unions.

The development created what Utah’s attorney general called “legal limbo” for the same-sex couples who had wed in the state in recent weeks. With the state’s ban on such unions reinstated for now, many wondered whether their window to marry in Utah had closed forever.

“As remarkable and miraculous as it was, we’re still cognizant of the fact that this still is one of the most conservative states in the union,” said Michael Ferguson, half of the first gay couple to receive a marriage license in the state. “I don’t feel a sense of despair or hopelessness or anything remotely close to that. This is part of living in a civil society where we have the rule of law.”

Although Utah had warned gay couples that their marriages could be dissolved if it succeeded in its legal appeals, the state had also begun granting benefits to newlyweds. Some state employees have already applied for health insurance for their same-sex spouses. Many of the couples are planning to file joint tax returns. And parents are planning to add their new spouses as legal parents through adoption...

More at the link.

And see Paul Mirengoff for analysis, "SUPREME COURT HALTS GAY MARRIAGE IN UTAH, FOR NOW."

Plus, an interesting post at Althouse, "'The Supreme Court on Monday morning put on hold a federal judge’s decision striking down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage...'"

Enough! Stand Up to Harassment and Stalking — Block and Report Walter James Casper in 2014

Recall from last year, "Ban, Block and Report Walter James Casper III in 2013."

It's been exactly one year and this vile POS continues to stalk my blog and Twitter feed, and he continues to stalk the comments at this blog despite being banned for abuse years ago.

The leftists are on defense as their statist-collectivist project continues to go implode before our eyes. But as we saw with the widely ridiculed piece on Millennial socialism at Rolling Stone, far leftists are not shy about outing themselves as full-blown communists these days, no doubt emboldened after 5 year of the most radical president in American history.

As I pointed out last year, Walter James Casper III, a.k.a. Repsac3, is an ideological communist who uses stealth to hide his agenda, attack political enemies, and harass people online. Numerous friends of American Power have denounced Casper as hardline harasser and communist ideologue. He's basically a dirtbag and a loser.

And now I come to find out he and his blog henchmen have been stalking some of my blog allies on Twitter. People are not pleased and folks should expect an epic beatdown.

I'll update later.

Meanwhile, report Walter James Casper III to the appropriate authorities should he target you with his demonic hatred and harassment. This person is truly vile. Recall the Vox Day's comment on truly useless blog trolls:

Vox Popoli is not, and will never be, an echo chamber. There are not, and will never be, any topics that are definitively outside the scope of permissible intellectual discourse ... The only commenters whose participation I will not tolerate is those who repeatedly lie, who demonstrate proven intellectual dishonesty, and who simply refuse to admit it when someone else has publicly shown them to be wrong. If you are not at least capable of acknowledging that you could be wrong about an idea, no matter how near and dear it is to you, then you will probably be better served commenting at a place where your ideas will not be questioned or criticized.

That description fits racist Repsac3 to the letter, and that's why he was banned years ago. The POS defied my wishes and announced a "troll rights" theory to justify his obsession with this blog and his hatred of the moral clarity of American Power. He's a cancer. And the asshole still has the sickness.

More later.

And remember, never cave to these f-kers. Leftists are evil. They defy decency and reason. You must crush them with the mailed fist.

Florida State Levonte Whitfield 100-Yard Kickoff Return — #BCSChampionship

What a game.

At LAT, "BCS championship game: Auburn vs. Florida State live updates":

That seven-year Southeastern Conference stranglehold on college football's national championship has come to an end.

But it died hard.

Very hard.

Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston was outplayed by Auburn counterpart Nick Marshall for three quarters, but the Florida State redshirt freshman showed why he was considered the nation's top player, bringing Florida State back in the final minutes for a 34-31 victory in the Bowl Championship Series title game at the Rose Bowl.

A crowd of 94,208 witnessed it, and 10 times that many will say they were there.

Winston connected with Kevin Benjamin on a two-yard pass just above the outstretched arms of Auburn's Chris Davis with 13 seconds left for the game-winner.

Winston, the first freshman quarterback to lead his team to a national championship, completed 20 of 35 passes for 237 yards and two touchdowns. He also run for 26 yards in 11 carries.

His pass to Benjamin capped a furious final few minutes.

Auburn led, 24-20, after a 23-yard field goal by Cody Parkey with 4:42 left.

That lead lasted 11 seconds -- as long as it took Florida State freshman Levonte "Kermit" Whitfield to sprint 100 yards with the kickoff.

But Auburn came right back with a 37-yard touchdown run by Tre Mason to regain the lead, 31-27. Mason, a Heisman Trophy finalist, finished with 195 yards in 34 carries.

All that did was set it up for Winston's heroics.

He cooly drove Florida State 80 yards in seven plays, the big gain coming on a short pass that Rashad Greene turned into a 49-yard gain.

Green caught the ball in the right flat, split two Auburn defenders, and raced down the sideline.

Five plays later -- on the second play after an untimely Florida State penalty for delay of game -- Winston found Benjamin. Florida State got a pass interference call on the next play, however -- Davis was called for being over Green's back -- moving the ball to the two with a first down.

Top-ranked Florida State capped a 14-0 season. Auburn fell to 12-2 in the final game of the BCS era.

2014 Mazda CX-5 TV Spot Featuring Tom Sims

I just saw this commercial during the game. I wasn't even listening but recognized Tom Sims, who passed away in 2012.

Climate Astrology: Warmists Claim Global Warming Causing Record Cold Temperatures

I just left this comment at Ron Chusid's Liberal Values, "Cold Days Confuse Right Wing Deniers Of Climate Change."

No one’s denying “climate change.” What people reject is the stupid and unproven assertion that human activity is causing the earth’s temperature to increase. If so, with more than 100 billion tons of carbons released in the last 15 years, why haven’t we seen continued warming? Earth’s temperatures have been flat over that period, not rising, despite the predictions of the IPCC scientists. That’s what leftist science deniers have to answer. Are you a science denier, Ron? Because all this talk about how record cold temperatures are caused by “global warming” is basically astrology. Seriously, prove your assertions. The claims at that Quartz piece are pure speculation (and such changes in the jet stream are naturally occurring patterns independent of human activity).

At issue is this ridiculous piece at Quartz, "How global warming can make cold snaps even worse."

And indeed, conservatives are having a blast with it. At Weasel Zippers, "Climate Change “Experts” Claim Global Warming Causing Record-Breaking Cold Snap…" (Via Memeorandum.)

And check out this great roundup at Climate Depot, "Warmists Claim: ‘Global warming is probably contributing to the record cold’ – ‘Global warming can make cold snaps even worse’." And following the links, at Real Science, "Experts : Cold Used to Be Caused By Cold, But is Now Caused By Heat."

Things aren't going so well for the left's climate crackpots. When a basic theory requires an endless number of auxiliary hypotheses in an attempt to sustain the theory's original claims, it's pretty clear that the theory itself is bunk and it's time for new theoretical assumptions. The theory of anthropogenic climate change isn't being supported by recent climate events. Indeed, we're basically seeing the last gasps of a global warming fad. Soon enough folks will move onto something else. One theory (that's well established) holds that expanding economic growth more broadly, to poorer countries, will increase incomes and prosperity and promote more sustainable development. Looking at you, China.

ADDED: Blazing Cat Fur's got a great video clip, "Climate alarmists' shipwreck."

Nancy Grace's Withering Attack on Drug Decriminalization

I had CNN's Brooke Baldwin on at lunchtime (since I can't stand Shepard Smith, who's on Fox at the same hour). I see her talking with Nancy Grace, and normally I'm not going to be very interested in Nancy Grace (she seems kinda crazy after awhile). But I turned up the volume and was pleasantly surprised to listen to her. She was making a lot of sense. It's worth your time for a listen.

Wow, Nancy Grace is making too much sense on marijuana legalization, on @BrookeBCNN's show. "Do you want your cab driver on pot?"

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 6, 2014

More Maria Menounos!

I was just thinking how lovely this lady is the other day, and now here she is again at London's Daily Mail, "Stunning in stripes! Maria Menounos shows off her amazing figure in monochrome-string bikini for day two of Mexican vacation."

PREVIOUSLY: "Maria Menounos Bikini Hotness in Cabo San Lucas."

Rachel Maddow Wears the 'Ideological' Pants at @MSNBC

An outstanding piece from Eliana Johnson, at National Review, "Rachel's Show" (via Memeorandum).



Much of the report is hardly surprising, although it's truly hilarious that MSNBC's marquee ideological programs are leading the network's nosedive in the ratings. Note that she's "neither an executive nor a manager" at MSNBC, but the programmatic direction is all Maddow. And I love this quote:

Maddow ... is motivated by ideology. “If you debate for a living, you’re going to lose sometimes. Sometimes your preconceptions are wrong — that has never happened to her one time,” says a former colleague. “She is actually not that interested in reality; she is the most ideological person I’ve ever met. That is not somebody you want in charge of your programming, because she might put on a great show, but she cannot make rational decisions — her agenda is changing America. . . . She really thinks she is changing America for the better. You can’t have somebody like that in charge of your programming.”

That's unsourced, but Maddow's a pathological liar whose show is a festival of conspiracies about conservatives and the GOP. It's no wonder the network's circling the drain.

More at Weasel Zippers, "MSNBC Appoints Executive to Review Scripts Before Airtime In Bid to Stop Rash of Jaw-Dropping Gaffes…," and NewsBusters, "Suicide Prevention? MSNBC Has Appointed Executive to Review Scripts Before Airtime."

A 'Mixed Bag'? Fifty Years Later and That's All to Be Said for 'War on Poverty'?

Because the left has announced its 2014 agenda will be a "war" against economic equality, I can understand why there was little discussion of this online yesterday. But this "mixed bag" after 50 years and hundreds of billions of dollars is a telling commentary on the inability of government to socially engineer economic outcomes.

At the New York Times, "50 Years Later, War on Poverty Is a Mixed Bag":

WASHINGTON — To many Americans, the war on poverty declared 50 years ago by President Lyndon B. Johnson has largely failed. The poverty rate has fallen only to 15 percent from 19 percent in two generations, and 46 million Americans live in households where the government considers their income scarcely adequate.

But looked at a different way, the federal government has succeeded in preventing the poverty rate from climbing far higher. There is broad consensus that the social welfare programs created since the New Deal have hugely improved living conditions for low-income Americans. At the same time, in recent decades, most of the gains from the private economy have gone to those at the top of the income ladder.

Half a century after Mr. Johnson’s now-famed State of the Union address, the debate over the government’s role in creating opportunity and ending deprivation has flared anew, with inequality as acute as it was in the Roaring Twenties and the ranks of the poor and near-poor at record highs. Programs like unemployment insurance and food stamps are keeping millions of families afloat. Republicans have sought to cut both programs, an illustration of the intense disagreement between the two political parties over the best solutions for bringing down the poverty rate as quickly as possible, or eliminating it.

For poverty to decrease, “the low-wage labor market needs to improve,” James P. Ziliak of the University of Kentucky said. “We need strong economic growth with gains widely distributed. If the private labor market won’t step up to the plate, we’re going to have to strengthen programs to help these people get by and survive.”

In Washington, President Obama has called inequality the “defining challenge of our time.” To that end, he intends to urge states to expand their Medicaid programs to poor, childless adults, and is pushing for an increase in the minimum wage and funding for early-childhood programs.

But conservatives, like Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, have looked at the poverty statistics more skeptically, contending that the government has misspent its safety-net money and needs to focus less on support and more on economic and job opportunities.

“The nation should face up to two facts: poverty rates are too high, especially among children, and spending money on government means-tested programs is at best a partial solution,” Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution wrote in an assessment of the shortfalls on the war on poverty. Washington already spends enough on antipoverty programs to lift all Americans out of poverty, he said. “To mount an effective war against poverty,” he added, “we need changes in the personal decisions of more young Americans.”

Still, a broad range of researchers interviewed by The New York Times stressed the improvement in the lives of low-income Americans since Mr. Johnson started his crusade. Infant mortality has dropped, college completion rates have soared, millions of women have entered the work force, malnutrition has all but disappeared. After all, when Mr. Johnson announced his campaign, parts of Appalachia lacked electricity and indoor plumbing.

Many economists argue that the official poverty rate grossly understates the impact of government programs. The headline poverty rate counts only cash income, not the value of in-kind benefits like food stamps. A fuller accounting suggests the poverty rate has dropped to 16 percent today, from 26 percent in the late 1960s, economists say.

But high rates of poverty — measured by both the official government yardstick and the alternatives that many economists prefer — have remained a remarkably persistent feature of American society. About four in 10 black children live in poverty; for Hispanic children, that figure is about three in 10. According to one recent study, as of mid-2011, in any given month, 1.7 million households were living on cash income of less than $2 a person a day, with the prevalence of the kind of deep poverty commonly associated with developing nations increasing since the mid-1990s.

To be honest, seeing people in poverty makes me sad. But the solution is more economic growth and opportunity, and especially expanding the culture of work, marriage, and thrift. The current Democrat agenda is simply creating a deeper dependency society, seen, for example, in New York's able-bodied black men standing around outside welfare offices waiting for their federal public assistance checks, enthusiastically referred to as "Obama bucks."

Can't Get Tenure? Then Get a Real Job

Here's Megan McArdle, at Bloomberg, in a great piece:

The last few days have seen the eruption, among academic bloggers, of a tense discussion over tenure. These discussions have been going on for a while, of course, as the situation for newly minted PhDs keeps getting more dire, and the reaction of people with tenure is to tut-tut about how awful it is and say that someone should do something...

Continue reading.

The job market for new Ph.D.s in political science has sucked for a long time. I'm fortunate to have a full-time tenured job. Shoot, I'm living the life. I don't go back to school until February 3rd. It's basically a six-week paid vacation, since I'm paid over 12 months. I stay up until all hours of the morning watching movies, sleep in all day, watch football or whatever, all with no worries about publishing some hot-shot research paper or planning for some overrated academic conference. I haven't been to the APSA annual meeting in years, but considering the clusterf-k controversy over the New Orleans meeting a couple of years back, I might as well be going to a communist gathering at the MLA. (And God's wrath came down on the APSA anyway, with the meeting cancelled by Hurricane Isaac.)

(I should confess, for all the blather about the leftist and communists, I'll probably go back to APSA one of these times, when the correlation of circumstances works in my favor, including institutional conference funding and stuff like that. It's nice to get out of town, meet other teachers, etc., even if I have to avoid idiot Marxists most of the time.)

Great John Lydon Interview

Fascinating.

See, "Punk-rock legend John Lydon: Sex Pistols were banned from gigging in Scotland for being hooligans - that's an achievement."

Hey, Mick Jagger paid Sid Vicious' legal fees? Who knew?

Via Kathy Shaidle, "Looks like I don’t have to worry about the Sex Pistols playing Vegas after all…"

Megyn Kelly Interviews Debra Burlingame on Terror-Lawyer Lynne Stewart's Early Release

Astute Bloggers has it, "LEFTIST LAWYER WHO ASSISTED TERRORISTS RELEASED EARLY FROM PRISON BY OBAMA AND HOLDER."

And previously, "Terror-Lawyer Lynne Stewart Released from Federal Prison."



And here's the follow up, "Kelly File Investigation - Former Lawyer Released Early After Aiding Terrorist - Who Signed Release?"

The Costs of U.S. Retreat

At the clip, a remarkably consensus on the Middle East power vacuum among the panelists on yesterday's "Meet the Press." David Ignatius argues that some actor is going to have to stand up and fight al Qaeda. It's not likely to be the U.S. under the Obama administration, however. But a reckoning's coming. Start the video at 11:45 minutes.

And see the Wall Street Journal, "Al Qaeda revives in Iraq and Syria's contagion spreads to Lebanon" (at Google):

Americans want to forget about Iraq and Syria, especially since President Obama walked back from his bombing threat in September, but Syria and Iraq haven't forgotten America. The contagion from Syria's civil war is spilling across borders in ways that are already requiring U.S. involvement and may eventually cost American lives.

The casualties include the stability of Lebanon, which like Syria is riven by Shiite-Sunni divisions. Thousands of Shiite Hezbollah militia have joined the war on behalf of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, and the opposition is retaliating with a terror campaign inside Lebanon.

An al Qaeda affiliate took credit for the car bomb that exploded on Thursday in a residential neighborhood of Beirut that is a Hezbollah stronghold. This followed the car-bombing murder of Sunni moderate Mohamad Chatah a week earlier that had the hallmarks of Hezbollah. The Saudis recently pledged $3 billion to turn the Lebanon military into a viable counterforce to Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, our Journal colleagues report that Hezbollah has smuggled advanced antiship missile systems into Lebanon from Syria. The missiles are intended for use against Israel, which has attacked arms shipments headed for Lebanon at least five times in the last year.

The dangers are that the violence in Lebanon devolves into another civil war, or that Hezbollah provokes Israel into a response like the 2006 war. Hezbollah already has upwards of 100,000 missiles, many of them unsophisticated Katyushas, but two or three times the number it had in 2006. Hezbollah may be stockpiling higher-quality missiles in order to retaliate after an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program or on another arms shipment. This could escalate into another war.

Syria's contagion is also spilling into Iraq with the revival of al Qaeda in neighboring Anbar province. Anbar was the heart of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq after the U.S. invasion in 2003, and American soldiers paid dearly to reclaim cities like Ramadi and Fallujah. Al Qaeda was defeated when Sunni tribal chiefs turned on them amid the U.S. troop surge in 2007.

But now al Qaeda is coming back, thanks to the heavy-handed sectarian rule of Shiite Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and to the rise of jihadists in Syria. The U.S. refusal to help the moderate Syrian opposition has given the advantage to Sunni jihadists, including many from Europe and probably the U.S. too. Much of eastern Syria is now controlled by the al-Nusrah front or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and they move with ease back and forth into Iraq. Men flying the flag of al Qaeda took over large parts of Ramadi and Fallujah last week, ousting the Iraq army.

The Iraqis are promising a counterattack to retake Fallujah, but insurgencies aren't easily beaten when they have support in the local population. Many local Sunni leaders no longer trust the Maliki government, which may not be able to protect them against al Qaeda reprisals.

The U.S. recently supplied Mr. Maliki with Hellfire missiles to use against the insurgency, and he wants American intelligence and drone support. It's clearly in the U.S. interest to defeat the jihadists. If al Qaeda can operate with impunity in Anbar, it could develop safe havens from which it can plot attacks outside Iraq. As we learned from Afghanistan before 2001, that includes attacks on the U.S. 

More at the link.

Escaping the Public School System

From Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today, "Consider alternative schooling":

My daughter did most of her high school online, after spending one day in ninth grade keeping track of how the public high school she attended spent her time. At the end of eight hours in school, she concluded, she had spent about 2½ hours on actual learning.

Switching to online school let her make sure that every hour counted. The flexibility also allowed her to work three days a week for a local TV-production company, where she got experience researching and writing for programs shown on the Biography Channel, A&E, etc., something she couldn't have done had she been nailed down in a traditional school. And she still managed to graduate a year early, at age 16, to head off to a "public Ivy" to study engineering. Did she miss out on socializing at school? Possibly, but at her job she got to spend more time with talented, hardworking adults, which may have been better. (And, as a friend pointed out, nobody ever got shot or pregnant at online school.)

And buy Reynolds' new book, The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education From Itself.

'Face the Nation' Flashback: Fidel Castro Interview

El Comandante Fidel appeared on "Face the Nation" 55 years ago this month, the most "notorious" guest ever to appear on the show. And not a word he uttered was true, which is par for the course for Communists.

The part about Ed Sullivan scooping Edward R. Murrow is worth it alone.

'Cheney, like her father, is an unapologetic neoconservative who favors muscular use of American military power overseas, a policy that does not sit well with many grassroots conservatives, particularly in the libertarian-leaning West...'

That's Liz Cheney, who I love, but who's now dropping out of the Wyoming Senate race, not surprisingly.

At CNN, "First on CNN: Liz Cheney to abandon Senate bid" (via Memeorandum).

In Congress, 2014 Begins with Shrunken Ambitions

Well, it's not like Harry Reid was gonna reach across the aisle or anything. See his interview on "Meet the Press,"Reid: Republicans should extend unemployment insurance." And the Republican response, "House GOP looks to foil Dems' 2014 agenda."

At WaPo:

Back in 2009, during the heady days of hope and change, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) introduced 90 pieces of legislation. In 2013, amid gridlock and dysfunction, he sponsored just 35 bills. None of them became law.

It was a familiar pattern. Members of Congress from both parties introduced fewer bills last year than in similar legislative years over the past decade. They cast fewer votes than usual. And, as has been noted, they passed fewer laws than in any other year in recorded congressional history.

Set to begin a new session Monday, lawmakers are struggling to find optimism that 2014 will mark a pivot point for an institution whose historically low approval rating has been at or below 20 percent for three years. Last year seemed to bring a rock-bottom moment — not just in the public’s view but across the Capitol, where ambition withered among lawmakers themselves.

“Legislators give up on the process, and either before or right after they’ve done that, the people that we work for give up on the process,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a 17-year veteran of the House and the Senate. He summed up the malaise that some members of Congress feel: “Whenever anybody tells me, ‘I’m frustrated with the way the Senate and the Congress are working,’ I say, ‘I fully understand; I’m more frustrated with this than you are.’ ”

The year ended with a bright moment when bipartisan groups in the House and the Senate agreed to a budget framework for 2014 and 2015.

Rather than a reprieve, however, that modest bill presented a challenge: Can lawmakers continue to forge compromises between the GOP-controlled House and the Democrat-dominated Senate, or was the budget deal a brief flicker of comity?

“We could show the American people how you do legislation in a divided Congress, and it takes a lot of work, and you have to listen to each other, and you have to be respectful of each other, which I think, in general, has been lacking,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who co-sponsored the budget deal with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

Look, you go to legislate with the legislative institutions that you have. Republicans need to hold firm against the left's big government agenda while positioning themselves for electoral gains in November.

More at the link.

Propagandizing at the MLA

A great piece, from Jonathan Marks at Commentary.

RELATED: At Instapundit, "TOLERANT ACADEMIA: Modern Language Association’s fascist douchebags outlaw The Daily Caller from convention."

And following the links takes us to this precious piece, at the (Revolutionary Communist) Progressive Labor Party, "Modern Language Association Convention PL’ers Put Communism on the Agenda":

Party members gave papers on various facets of literary radicalism: the role played by communists in the proletarian and post-colonial literary movements; speculation about post-class society in literary works focusing on racism and sexism; debates over the “idea of communism” in current political theory. The current economic crisis, along with the dire job market faced by many humanities scholars and teachers, has many MLA members querying the legitimacy of capitalism.

That's from last January, which just goes to show, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

NFL Fans Forgo Playoff Tickets, Prefer the Couch

Well, at five below not counting the wind chill, is it any wonder?

At WSJ, "Packers, Colts, Bengals Struggle to Sell Seats Despite Soaring TV Ratings":

I can't imagine being at Green Bay today. God bless those dedicated fans.

— Madison Martin (@maddyemartin) January 5, 2014

The NFL enters the first round of playoff games this weekend with soaring television ratings, billions of dollars in network TV contracts in their pocket and a nation of football fans who can't wait to hop on their couch and watch a weekend of games.

The league has never been a more popular viewing option. There's just one problem: Fewer people want to actually attend the games.

In the latest evidence that the sports in-home viewing experience has possibly trumped the in-stadium one, ticket sales were slow for the first week of the National Football League's marquee stretch of games.

Three teams hosting games this weekend asked the league for extensions to sell more tickets for the games to avoid a television blackout in local markets, which is imposed by NFL policy if a game isn't sold out. The teams, the Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals, needed large corporate assistance to ensure the sellouts.

"This wasn't just financial, this was emotional. This game needed to be on TV for the people of Wisconsin," said Jay Zollar, the general manager of WLUK, a Fox affiliate in Green Bay, Wis. His station, along with two other Fox affiliates in Wisconsin, as well as three local businesses, decided on Thursday to purchase any remaining tickets.

More at the link.

Menachem 'Max' Stark, Slain New York City Slumlord, Had Mile Long 'Enemies List'

So that means he had it coming?

And the dude was an Hasidic Jew, at Twitchy, "‘Shame on you!’ Did the New York Post go too far with this cover story? [pic]."



And see the Post's story, "Who DIDN'T want him dead? The burnt body of slumlord Menachem "Max" Stark was discovered in the trash Friday after he was kidnapped off a Williamsburg street."

Well, the Post always takes it right up to the line, so WTF? The market will respond, yeah or nay.

Mitt Romney Accepts Melissa Harris-Perry Apology for Racist Attack on Grandchild

Twitchy has it, "‘Class act’: A gracious Mitt Romney responds to MSNBC’s mockery of his grandson; Update: Video added."

And the full interview here:

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Randy's Roundtable, "Friday Night Funnies," and Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."

CARTOON CREDIT: William Warren.

Facebook Blocks the People's Cube

It's all about homosexuals these days.

You can't make a joke anymore without bringing down the leftist thought police.

At the People's Cube, "Facebook Censors the People's Cube, Blocks for 12 Hours."

New Year's Rule 5

It's time for another Sunday roundup.

That's the lovely Jessica Davies below, via Twitter.

Fan of Glamour has more.

Soylent has "Your Morning Coffer Creamer."

And now over to Knuckledraggin' My Life Away, "Your Good Morning Girl."

At Wine, Women, and Politics, "Your Babe of the Day."

From Dave In Texas, "Wildcard Sunday Game 2."

And see Proof Positive, "Best of the Web* Linkaround," and "SF 49er's vs. Green Bay Packers- Playoffs Round One."

Ms. EBL has, "Congratulations Saints Rule 5."

American Perspective has, "When Cabin Fever Strikes, Pump It UP! (Video)."

And see Blackmailers, "Rule 5 Saturday with Adrianne Palicki."

From Doug Hagin, "DALEYGATOR DALEYBABE ALEXI LEI."

At Pirate's Cove, "If All You See……is horrible freezing cold water inundating the biosphere because someone drove a fossil fueled vehicle, you might just be a Warmist."

From Sean Linnane, "The BIRDS of STORMBRINGER."

At 90 Miles From Tyranny, "Graphic Art: Snow Trooper."

And at Odie's, "Three Dogs ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

And at the Hostages, "Big Boob Friday–Resolution Edition."

From A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, "The Friday Pin Up."

At Barking Moonbat, "Going Shopping."

More from Dana Pico, "Rule 5 Blogging: This one was easy!"

Also at Randy's Roundtable, "Thursday Nite Tart: Heather Crook."

From Drunken Stepfather, "LEA MICHELLE’S BRAZILIAN CUT BIKINI ASS OF THE DAY," and "Steplinks of the Day."

At Classy Bro, "10 Hottest Photos of Playboy Model Shelby Chesnes" (via Linkiest).

Still more at the Chive, "There’s something special about a woman’s back (30 Photos)."

And from Popaholic, "Julia Pereira’s Candid Bikini Pictures Are So Freaking Hot You’re Eyeballs Will Melt!"

Front has "Hannah Martin."

Finally, at Egotastic!, "Olga Kent Unveils the Red Bikini Wet and Wild and Nipple Ready in Miami."

BONUS: At Saberpoint, "Hysterical Laughter at the Ice-Bound Global Warming Believers."

And drop your links in the comments if I've missed you and I'll get you linked up at the next roundup!

'Before marrying Bill de Blasio, Chirlane McCray identified as a lesbian, which has become part of the progressive credentials of New York’s first family...'

Oh brother.

So, British Olympic diver Tom Daley, who's just 19, came out as homosexual in a YouTube video a few days ago, and the homo-rights industry is all aflutter at the news. One small problem, though. The dude goofed in his announcement, saying "Of course I still fancy girls." Oops! Not cool, especially if you're looking for some creds. Seriously. I just love the quote at the headline about Bill de Blasio's wife identifying as lesbian before marrying the future mayor, because on the left it's all about maintaining your perverted ideological bona fides.

At the New York Times, "Bisexual: A Label With Layers — Tom Daley Comes Out as Bisexual, Igniting L.G.B.T. Debate":

“Of course I still fancy girls.”

Those six little words, tossed off like a request to please hold the mustard ....

But the cheers were premature, or at least qualified. Despite the trending Twitter hashtag #TomGayley, Mr. Daley never used the word “gay,” and there was the matter of his still fancying girls. While many commenters embraced the ambiguity (“I don’t care if Tom Daley’s gay or bi or whatever ... He’s still fit,” one tweeted), others raised eyebrows.

Was it a disclaimer? A cop-out? A ploy to hold on to fans? Was he being greedy, as some joked? Or was he, as the video’s blushing tone suggested, simply caught up in the heady disorientation of first love, a place too intoxicating for labels?

Whatever the answer, Mr. Daley’s disclosure reignited a fraught conversation within the L.G.B.T. community, having to do with its third letter. Bisexuality, like chronic fatigue syndrome, is often assumed to be imaginary by those on the outside. The stereotypes abound: bisexuals are promiscuous, lying or in denial. They are gay men who can’t yet admit that they are gay, or “lesbians until graduation,” sowing wild oats before they find husbands.

“The reactions that you’re seeing are classic in terms of people not believing that bisexuality really exists, feeling that it’s a transitional stage or a form of being in the closet,” said Lisa Diamond, a professor at the University of Utah who studies sexual orientation.

Population-based studies, Dr. Diamond said, indicate that bisexuality is in fact more common than exclusively same-sex attraction, and that female libido is particularly open-ended. That may explain why female bisexuality is more conspicuous in popular culture, from Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” to “The Kids Are All Right” and the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black.” (That straight men may find it titillating doesn’t hurt.)

In a recent Modern Love essay in The New York Times revealing her relationship with another woman, the actress Maria Bello wrote, “My feelings about attachment and partnership have always been that they are fluid and evolving.” Before marrying Bill de Blasio, Chirlane McCray identified as a lesbian, which has become part of the progressive credentials of New York’s first family.

Male bisexuality, by contrast, is more vexed, and much of the skepticism comes from gay men. In the aftermath of Mr. Daley’s announcement, Ann Friedman wrote a post for New York Magazine’s The Cut blog predicting that male bisexuality would become more visible as gender mores evolved. “Traditional definitions of masculinity — which tend to go hand in hand with homophobia — are going through a real shake-up,” Ms. Friedman wrote. “More hetero men are tentatively admitting that they’re turned on by certain sex acts associated with gay men.”

The gay conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan swiftly countered on his own blog, The Dish, saying, “I suspect, pace Friedman’s dreams, that there will always be far fewer men who transcend traditional sexual categories — because male sexuality is much cruder, simpler and more binary than female.” He called Mr. Daley’s claim about liking girls “a classic bridging mechanism to ease the transition to his real sexual identity. I know because I did it, too.”

Keep reading.

The "It Doesn't Get Better" homo-bully Dan Savage is cited at the piece. He apparently hates bisexuals and has been accused of "biophobia."

Like I always say: It's hard out there for the freak rim-station radicals!

Oops! New York Times Goes Off Script, Claims U.S. Power Vacuum Foments Middle East Chaos

Sometimes things get so bad even the administration's official media mouthpiece can no longer spin the spin.

At the Old Gray Lady, "Absent U.S., Power Vacuum in Middle East Lifts Militants":

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The images of recent days have an eerie familiarity, as if the horrors of the past decade were being played back: masked gunmen recapturing the Iraqi cities of Falluja and Ramadi, where so many American soldiers died fighting them. Car bombs exploding amid the elegance of downtown Beirut. The charnel house of Syria’s worsening civil war.

But for all its echoes, the bloodshed that has engulfed Iraq, Lebanon and Syria in the past two weeks exposes something new and destabilizing: the emergence of a post-American Middle East in which no broker has the power, or the will, to contain the region’s sectarian hatreds.

Amid this vacuum, fanatical Islamists have flourished in both Iraq and Syria under the banner of Al Qaeda, as the two countries’ conflicts amplify each other and foster ever-deeper radicalism. Behind much of it is the bitter rivalry of two great oil powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rulers — claiming to represent Shiite and Sunni Islam, respectively — cynically deploy a sectarian agenda that makes almost any sort of accommodation a heresy.

“I think we are witnessing a turning point, and it could be one of the worst in all our history,” said Elias Khoury, a Lebanese novelist and critic who lived through his own country’s 15-year civil war. “The West is not there, and we are in the hands of two regional powers, the Saudis and Iranians, each of which is fanatical in its own way. I don’t see how they can reach any entente, any rational solution.”

The drumbeat of violence in recent weeks threatens to bring back the worst of the Iraqi civil war that the United States touched off with an invasion and then spent billions of dollars and thousands of soldiers’ lives to overcome.

With the possible withdrawal of American forces in Afghanistan looming later this year, many fear that an insurgency will unravel that country, too, leaving another American nation-building effort in ashes.

The Obama administration defends its record of engagement in the region, pointing to its efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis and the Palestinian dispute, but acknowledges that there are limits. “It’s not in America’s interests to have troops in the middle of every conflict in the Middle East, or to be permanently involved in open-ended wars in the Middle East,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, said in an email on Saturday.

For the first time since the American troop withdrawal of 2011, fighters from a Qaeda affiliate have recaptured Iraqi territory. In the past few days they have seized parts of the two biggest cities in Anbar Province, where the government, which the fighters revile as a tool of Shiite Iran, struggles to maintain a semblance of authority.

Lebanon has seen two deadly car bombs, including one that killed a senior political figure and American ally.

In Syria, the tempo of violence has increased, with hundreds of civilians killed by bombs dropped indiscriminately on houses and markets.

Linking all this mayhem is an increasingly naked appeal to the atavistic loyalties of clan and sect. Foreign powers’ imposing agendas on the region, and the police-state tactics of Arab despots, had never allowed communities to work out their long-simmering enmities. But these divides, largely benign during times of peace, have grown steadily more toxic since the Iranian revolution of 1979. The events of recent years have accelerated the trend, as foreign invasions and the recent round of Arab uprisings left the state weak, borders blurred, and people resorting to older loyalties for safety...

Shameful. Just downright shameful. More at the link.

And see Michelle Malkin, "Obama’s Afghanistan mess."

Bad Idea: Widespread Marijuana Legalization

I'm surprised by this essay, from Larry Kudlow, at RCP. I had no idea he was a recovering addict.

See, "Enough Pot Happy Talk":

There was way too much giddiness in the media about the first day of legal pot selling in Colorado. Instead of all the happy talk, I think it's time for some sober discussion and a strong dose of education about the addiction risks of smoking marijuana -- particularly among young people. It may start out as a party, but it often ends up as something much, much worse.

With the grace of God, I've been clean and sober for over 18 years -- a recovery experience that still has me going to a lot of 12-step meetings. And I hear time and again from young people coming into the rooms to get sober how pot smoking led to harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Now, this is anecdotal, and I am not an expert. And I will say that many people can control alcohol or pot or other drugs. But I am not one of them. And I am not alone.

Talk to virtually any professional drug counselor, and they will warn that pot is a gateway drug. Or listen to left-of-center columnist Ruth Marcus, who has gathered important professional evidence about the risks of pot.

Ms. Marcus reminds us that the American Medical Association recommended against legalization, stating, "Cannabis is a dangerous drug and as such is a public health concern." The AMA added that pot "is the most common illicit drug involved in drugged driving, particularly in drivers under the age of 21. Early cannabis use is related to later substance-use disorders."

The AMA also noted that "Heavy cannabis use in adolescence causes persistent impairments in neurocognitive performance and IQ, and use is associated with increased rates of anxiety, mood and psychotic-thought disorders."

I am indebted to Ruth Marcus for this information. She, by the way, thinks "widespread legalization is a bad idea, if an inevitable development."

Now, I didn't hear any of this coming from the media in its first day of reporting on legal pot sales. That's way too bad. The risks associated with pot use must be discussed frequently and soberly so that all can recognize the downside threats.

Keep reading.

Kudlow's not necessarily against legalization. He just wants a full airing of the issue. Enough with the dopey media pom-pom sections.

Bull Sends Woman Flying Into the Stands

This is lol material.

Watch at BCF, "Bull gives woman impressive lift off."

London SkyCycle

At Wired:

Cars, buses, and rogue pedestrians are all conspiring against cyclists in congested cities, forever running them down, scaring them silly or simply getting in the way. It’s something designer Norman Foster — an avid rider — hopes to alleviate with a dedicated biking highway built above London’s rail lines.

The purely hypothetical but nevertheless amazing SkyCycle would stretch 137 miles in and around the city, accommodating as many as 12,000 riders per hour on a cycling superhighway 50 feet wide. The dream calls for 200 on- and off-ramps which, according to Foster + Partners’ estimates, means nearly 6 million people will live or work within 10 minutes of an entrance. Without all those cars to weave around and lights to stop for, travel times to and from work would be reduced by up to 29 minutes.

A 137-mile 'cycling utopia' floating above London's rail lines http://t.co/59kGH9KDIO pic.twitter.com/iA90iNvvAb

— WIRED (@WIRED) January 5, 2014