An Interesting Look Back at Blogging Over 10 Years Ago

From Dave Weinberger, "What Blogging Was":

I was among the 30 bloggers given press credentials at the 2004 ... Democratic National Convention — which was seen as a milestone in the course of blogging’s short history — and attended the press conference for bloggers put on by the DNC. Among the people they brought forward (including not-yet-Senator Obama) was Walter Mears, a veteran and Pulitzer-winning journalist, who had just started a political blog for the Associated Press. I asked who he was going to vote for, but he demurred because then how could we trust his writing? I replied something like, “Then how will we trust your blog?” Transparency is the new objectivity, or so I’ve been told.

It is still the case that for the prototypical blog, it’d be weird not to know where the blogger stands on the issues she’s writing about. On the other hand, in this era of paid content, I personally think it’s especially incumbent on bloggers to be highly explicit not only about where they are starting from, but who (if anyone) is paying the bills. (Here’s my disclosure statement.)

I picked this quote because I like that discussion of ideological perspective. Frankly, transparency should be the norm for everyone in the business of transmitting information. I'm reading Thomas Patterson's latest book, Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism, and I'm fascinated at what I see as the disconnect between the world described (and advocated for) by Patterson and the world inhabited by political bloggers and citizen journalists. Tom is friend of mine and I'm thinking very hard about how it'd be possible to reconcile the two worlds as they exist. Frankly, I see Patterson looking to return to an earlier version of the mainstream model of professional journalism (say, '60s-era) but with radically improved knowledge, professionalism, and socialization. I'm more inclined towards, say, a Glenn Reynolds model of knowledge and information distribution that breaks down accepted hierarchies. Having blogged for 8 years now, I expect my epistemological frame on the credibility of "professional" journalism is quite at odds with Patterson's framework. But it's interesting. And readers know that I'm a lot softer on the mainstream press than most conservative bloggers. That's because I share Patterson's historical understanding of (and nostalgia for) the press as an institution without which citizens' deliberation would be impossible. But more on these issues later.

One other thing about the Weinberger piece is how it reminded me of the bloggers I first read regularly before starting out, especially Althouse, Dan Drezner, and Virginia Postrel. Only Althouse remains a blogger in the classic, daily-update sense. Postrel moved on from daily blogging years ago and Drezner gave it up under duress a few weeks ago. Also, Weinberger's discussion of how blogrolls functioned as social media to build blogging communities brings out a whiff of nostalgia for those earlier times.

In any case, read it all at the link. Weinberg concludes with an affirmation that, indeed, blogs continue to "live."

Wall Street Journal Illustrates Year-End Tax Changes Report with Militant Homosexuals

Another depraved example of how it's all about homosexuals these days. At the Wall Street Journal, of all places. (Well, they're pretty libertarian actually, especially on open-borders illegal immigration, which has always bugged me.)

Here's the piece, "Taxes: What's New This Time" (via Google), and the tax changes for so-called same-sex married couples is the very last section. But oh! The homosexuals had to be in your face all over the hard-copy of the newspaper:

Married same-sex couples must file as married taxpayers.

Following last year's Supreme Court decision, members of same-sex couples whose marriages are recognized under state or foreign law and who were married as of the end of 2013 must either file jointly or use married-filing-separately status.

In most cases, filing jointly will be the smart choice, because it will result in a lower overall tax bill. Members of same-sex couples who have entered into civil unions or domestic partnerships still are treated as unmarried individuals for federal tax purposes.

Hat Tip: The Mad Jewess.

Warehousing Students at New York's PS 106

Here's Twitchy, "‘Beyond tragic’: NY Post report on NYC’s ‘worst school’ will make you sick."

But go straight to the report, which is mindboggling, "No books, no clue at city’s worst school."

Sure glad this school isn't being run by a charter non-profit or an evil corporation. @BrianFaughnan http://t.co/2a7onFTIuY

— David Freddoso (@freddoso) January 13, 2014

'Lone Survivor' Tops Weekends Box Office

At USA Today, "'Lone Survivor' leaves box office shocked and awed":

Despite an R rating and glum subject matter, the true military story powers to a convincing win at theaters.

And at Hollywood Reporter, "'Lone Survivor': Texas Theater Cancels Other Film Screenings Due to Demand."

Lisa Bonchek Adams and the Politics of Blogging About Cancer

At the Atlantic, "On Live-Tweeting One's Suffering: Journalists question the ethics of cancer—of fighting it, and of blogging about it."

Also at PuffHo, "Bill Keller Criticized For Op-Ed About Cancer Patient Lisa Bonchek Adams":

@nytkeller The main thing is that I am alive. Do not write me off and make statements about how my life ends TIL IT DOES, SIR.

— Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 13, 2014

ORIGINAL STORY: New York Times columnist Bill Keller is under fire after writing an op-ed that appeared to criticize Lisa Bonchek Adams, a cancer patient blogging about her health battle.

Adams has been writing online and tweeting about her experiences fighting advanced breast cancer. In a piece entitled "Heroic Measures," Keller compared her "fierce" approach to that of his father-in-law, who he said died a "calm" death in a British hospital that emphasized palliative care. "His death seemed to me a humane and honorable alternative to the frantic medical trench warfare that often makes an expensive misery of death in America," he wrote.

Keller continued: "Her digital presence is no doubt a comfort to many of her followers. On the other hand, as cancer experts I consulted pointed out, Adams is the standard-bearer for an approach to cancer that honors the warrior, that may raise false hopes, and that, implicitly, seems to peg patients like my father-in-law as failures."

The backlash against Keller's piece on Twitter and elsewhere online was swift...

Keller's piece is here, "Heroic Measures."

That's a kinda grim piece. But remember, it's not okay to blog about cancer, according the totalitarian left.

The Guardian's already pulled a piece by Keller's wife Emma. Only the headline remains, "Forget funeral selfies. What are the ethics of tweeting a terminal illness?"

Keller's making the case for "palliative" treatment, which sounds mostly about letting the dying die without a big dramatic struggle to hang on. At this point in my life, I'd probably go the aggressive route, like Ms. Adams (although I'd be praying like never before, unlike some others I've blogged about).

'Lone Survivor' Leaves Moviegoers in Tears

Crying wasn't my emotion at seeing this flick. I think just plain stress was more like it. As I said earlier, my son and I reacted with "Intense!"

At Twitchy, "‘Was not prepared to cry that hard’: Film ‘Lone Survivor’ leaves moviegoers in tears."

Still crying bc Lone Survivor was the saddest movie I've ever seen
— Alisa Hamilton (@alisalynn06) January 13, 2014

Actually, it's not really a sad movie. The SEALs weren't pathetic or hysterical. They were professional to the very end. It's a miracle Marcus Luttrell got out of there alive. Either way, though, it's a must see flick. A fine piece of filmmaking and a reminder of why we fight. Most of all, none of it was "senseless." I'm sure Jake Tapper regrets his choice of words by now.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Completes Supersonic Test Flight

I love this ship (I just hate the political hypocrisy).

Via Theo Spark, "SpaceShipTwo's 3rd Powered Flight Soars to New Heights."


Also at Daily Mail, "Giant leap for space tourism! The moment Virgin Galactic's third test flight reaches an all time high altitude of 71,000 FEET."

Dallas Safari Club Auctions Black Rhino Hunting Permit for $350,000

I don't know.

Hunting an endangered beast like this for the preservation of the species seems counterproductive, although the rhino in question is supposed to be a "post-breeding" bull, so folks say that's okay. Or at least the government of Namibia says it's okay.

At the Dallas Morning News‎, "Permit to hunt black rhino auctioned for $350,000."

Records Show Christie Administration Canceled Meetings After Jersey City Mayor Didn't Endorse

I never did blog this story because I was in the middle of lengthy troll rights blogging as it broke. I did watch the Christie press conference, or at least the main part of it. I went back to bed as the darned thing droned on for a couple of hours.

In any case, here's an update at WSJ, "Documents Back Up Jersey City Mayor's Claim that He Was Cut Off":

Documents released Monday indicate that meetings arranged between top commissioners to Gov. Chris Christie and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop were abruptly canceled without reason last year—providing evidence of Mr. Fulop's claim that he was cut off after he decided not to endorse the governor.

The documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal through a public records request showed communications between Mr. Fulop and Christie administration staff members arranging the meetings in June and July, until the commissioners all canceled one meeting after another.

More at that top link (via Memeorandum).

ADDED: From the Other McCain, "The Christie GWB Scandal Bubble."

No Politics at #GoldenGlobes?

I forgot Amy Poehler shilled for #ObamaCare (and I'm much more interested in Tina Fey, in any case).

So this is interesting, at Twitchy, "Telling: Obama ban? Tammy Bruce notices something curious about #GoldenGlobes":

Hi @BarackObama! Amy Poehler loves #ObamaCare & had a great chance to pitch it to the world, but she didn't. Weird, huh? #GoldenGIobes

— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) January 13, 2014

#GoldenGlobes 2014: Jacqueline Bisset's Bizarre Acceptance Speech

She looked shocked and terrified at winning.

At the Hollywood Reporter, "Golden Globes: Jacqueline Bisset's 'Shit' Slips Past NBC Censors (Video)."

And London's Daily Mail, "Car crash TV as Jacqueline Bisset rambles and swears through excruciating Golden Globes acceptance speech":

The reaction on Twitter was swift and merciless, with some branding it 'bonkers' and the 'maddest acceptance speech in awards history'.

Ellen DeGeneres quipped: 'I helped write Jacqueline Bisset's speech. Did you like it?'

British TV writer Boyd Hilton wrote: 'Really hoping Bisset is still on stage silently staring when the show resumes after this ad break #GoldenGlobes'

'Bissett had such a long walk to the stage she dropped her marbles on the way. #GoldenGlobes,' Jack Guinness quipped mercilessly. Kate Walsh couldn't stand to watch and admitted: 'I ❤️Jacqueline bissett but I had to leave the room.'

Video's here as well.

#GoldenGlobes' Stature Continues to Grow

I made sure to tune into the opening duo-logue with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and they didn't disappoint.

And the casual, alcohol drenched atmosphere looks a lot more fun than the Oscars.

In any case, at the Los Angeles Times, "Golden Globes' rising sphere of influence":

Amy Poehler landed a joke about slavery, Bono paid moving tribute to Nelson Mandela, Leonardo DiCaprio launched the term "Philomania," and Jacqueline Bisset, well, one doesn't like to conjecture but, in the end, she did leave the stage under her own steam.

After 71 years, the intrinsic value of an award bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. — 85 foreign entertainment journalists with wildly differing credentials — is still the subject of much debate. But there is no denying that lately the Golden Globes has become the gold standard of awards shows.

Though the Oscars veer from horror show (the Franco/Hathaway disaster) to deadly dull back to horror show again (last year's Seth MacFarlane), viewership and respect for the Golden Globes telecast has only risen steadily in recent years.

Last year nearly 20 million people tuned in, a six-year ratings high, while critics (including this one) fell over themselves praising the quick and witty hosting of Poehler and Tina Fey who acknowledged the show's shady past. For years, the Globes ceremonies were best known for its high alcohol content, but lately it's stood out for its ability to create a space where anything can happen. Last year, it was an appearance by President Clinton and an odd non-coming-out speech by Jodie Foster.

Dick Clark Productions, which produces the Globes, and NBC quickly signed the pair for two more years, proof that the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. understands what the film academy still does not: If you want people to watch your televised awards show, you need to make it good television.

It helps that the Globes honors television along with film, which puts it in a unique position of embodying the increased cross-pollination between the two art forms. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Idris Elba were nominated in both television and film this year. More important, the producers can draw on people who know how to work on television, something Poehler and Fey capitalize on both figuratively and literally.

Like many great hosts (Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, Bob Hope), the two are successful in both genres and have no problem making fun of the long-held hierarchy. Last year they described the Globes as "the only show in which the beautiful people of film rub shoulders with the rat-faced people of TV." This year they used Louis-Dreyfus to call out the segregated seating.

"Interestingly, Julia has decided to sit in the film section," Fey said as the camera cut to the "Veep" and "Enough Said" star wearing shades and smoking an electronic cigarette.

But in recent years, television has begun out-pacing film in both popularity and critical acclaim...

Continue reading.

And Part I of the opening video is here.

Pathetic Classroom Indoctrination — Imagine: Living In a Socialist U.S.A.

The left is relentless in its push to bury the free enterprise system, and they've been emboldened by the Democrat-Socialists now in power in Washington (to say nothing of the state-media of the lamestream press).

Here's Truth Revolt, "EXCLUSIVE: Major Publisher Pitches Professors to Teach Textbook on Making USA Socialist." You can click through to the book page at HarperCollins, although it's not clear to what discipline they're marketing this book. Probably history and sociology, although no doubt some political science professors will be able to fit this into their curriculum. Here's the quote at the post:

"This anthology introduces students to the key concepts of socialism and why its proponents believe socialism can be the framework of a society that is truly fair and just, both politically and economically."

And on Facebook, Naomi Wolf blushes ecstatically:

A socialist America! Worth reading the ever-fascinating Michael Smith to learn more --  whether you are pro or con, the word is bandied about wrongly so much in this country, we need to be better educated about this vision! xxx Naomi

New York, NY
November 2, 20l3

Dear Friends,

Debby and I and Frances Goldin have a new book coming out in December.  The book was Frances' idea.  She said to us "I am 88 years old and before I die I want to do two things:  get Mumia out of prison (she is his friend and literary agent and regularly visits) and edit a visionary book on what America would be like if we didn't have capitalism."  So we did.  Harper Collins is bringing it out on January 22nd.

The book has three parts;  the first indicts capitalism, the second and largest has some twenty short non-academic chapters on how everything would be different in a socialist America from an organized democratically run economy to food, housing, medical care, education, science, sexuality, media, education, interpersonal relations, art, and the law.  Michael Ratner did an article on what he would do as Attorney General, Mumia and Angela Davis did theirs on criminal law, Michael Smith wrote on civil law.  The last part of the book has chapters on how we can get from where we are to where we want to be, that is, how a socialist transformation might unfold.

There is a lot of interest in this book and in socialism in general.  A recent Pew poll showed that 49% of people under the age of 30 had a favorable reaction to socialism.   Socialism and capitalism are the two words most looked up on the Merriam Webster online dictionary.

The book can be pre-ordered now.  Please help us get out the word. A flyer on it listing the authors is below. Thanks for your help.

In solidarity,

Michael and Debby Smith

Indeed, check the list of authors. It's not scholarship but communist advocacy, all for America's entry level college students.

I'm surrounded by this kind of indoctrination on my campus. It's all over the place and is rarely if ever questioned. I'm one of the few people who consistently challenge this garbage on campus, and I've paid the price for it among my communist colleagues (badge of honor). No matter. I intend to keep on keeping on, teaching from the perspective of American exceptionalism. Leftists hate that, but their moment is fading, thank goodness.

Millennials Reject 'Rolling Stone' Communism

So says Katherine Timpf of Campus Reform. A great interview.

And at the webpage, "Capitalism is a moral fight for millennials."



I don't think folks should get complacent about Millennials rejecting communism just yet. There's still a deep wellspring of anti-Americanism around the country, and leftists are still feeling pretty emboldened, from the White House on down. Just get a load of the "inequality crap" and you know what I'm saying. (And see, "Why Socialism Is on the Rise.")

About That #EconomicViolence Hashtag...

Doug Ross is on the case, at Director Blue, "Real #EconomicViolence, Illustrated."

And check Twitter. It started with a bunch of anarcho-communists tweeting "EconomicViolence," although some acacemic wannabes were also spreading that baloney. Well, Democrats too, but I repeat myself.

It ended up being hacked by conservatives, lol.

Pelosi, AFL-CIO, others decry #EconomicViolence; Hashtag gloriously hijacked by non-lefties http://t.co/iYyF6ucSe4

— TwitchyTeam (@TwitchyTeam) January 10, 2014

Mississippi Ends Conjugal Visits for Prisoners

This is interesting. Mississippi actually pioneered conjugal visits as a way to keep the big black chain gang mofos happy? Wonders never cease.

At NYT, "As Conjugal Visits Fade, a Lifeline to Inmates’ Spouses Is Lost":

PARCHMAN, Miss. — To spend time alone with the man she married four months ago, Ebony Fisher, 25, drives nearly three hours through the flat cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta until she pulls into a gravel lot next to the state’s rural penitentiary.

She joins her husband, who in 2008 began serving a 60-year sentence for rape, aggravated assault and arson, in a small room with a metal bunk and a bathroom. For an hour, they get to act like a married couple.

“That little 60 minutes isn’t a lot of time, but I appreciate it because we can just talk and hold each other and be with each other,” said Ms. Fisher, who is studying to be a surgical assistant.

But conjugal visits, a concept that started here at the Mississippi State Penitentiary as a prisoner-control practice in the days of Jim Crow, will soon be over. Christopher B. Epps, the prison commissioner, plans to end the program Feb. 1, citing budgetary reasons and “the number of babies being born possibly as a result.” In Mississippi, where more than 22,000 prisoners are incarcerated — the second-highest rate in the nation — 155 inmates participated last year.

Since they began here in the early 1900s, when the penitentiary was just called Parchman Farm, conjugal visits have been an unlikely barometer of racial mores and changing times both in Mississippi and in states like California and New York, where married same-sex couples can participate.

In the 1970s, new prisons often included special housing for what had come to be called extended family visits. But by 1993, only 17 states allowed conjugal visits. Mississippi is one of just five that have active programs.

In California and New York, they are called family visits and are designed to help keep families together in an environment that approximates home. Some research shows that they can help prisoners better integrate back into the mainstream after their release.

Visits in those states, and in Washington and New Mexico, can last 24 hours to three days. They are spent in small apartments or trailers, often with children and grandparents, largely left alone by prison guards. Visitors bring their own food and sometimes have a barbecue.

In New York, about 8,000 family visits were arranged last year, a figure that corrections officials say has declined. Of those, 48 percent were with spouses. The rest were with family members such as children or parents.

Studies cited by Yale law students in a 2012 review of family visitation programs showed that the programs could work as powerful incentives for good behavior, help reduce sexual activity among prisoners and help strengthen families.

Though what qualifies prisoners for the visits varies from state to state, all must have records of good behavior and be legally married. In most, prisoners in maximum security or on death row are denied the visits. Federal prisons do not allow them.

Mississippi ended its more extensive family visitations last year but left in place the hourlong visits, which since their inception a century ago have been designed more as a way to control inmates than nurture relationships.

“Conjugal visits have been a privilege,” said Tara Booth, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Corrections Department. “So in that sense, it has, as other internal opportunities, helped to maintain order.”

The notion of allowing prisoners to have sex was born here shortly after Parchman Farm opened in 1903 as a series of work camps on 1,600 acres of rich Delta farmland. Inmates, most of whom were black, were used as free farm labor in an arrangement not that far removed from slavery.

Set in the middle of the birthplace of the blues, Parchman Farm has been the subject of many songs written by classic bluesmen like Bukka White and others who did time here.

The warden at the time believed sex could be used to compel black men to work harder in the fields, according to a history on the practice produced in the 1970s by Tyler Fletcher, who founded the department of criminal justice at the University of Southern Mississippi in 1973. So black prisoners were allowed time on Sunday with spouses or, more often, prostitutes...

Well, there's your Jim Crow history lesson for the day.

Still more at the link.

Children of the Common Core!

Via Daniel John Sobieski on Twitter:

#tcot (IBD) Obama's Common Core Curriculum Teaches Kids Govt Must Be Obeyed http://t.co/Z3oHbgdIPh - pic.twitter.com/5NXg8mJ7TB
— Daniel John Sobieski (@gerfingerpoken) January 13, 2014

HBO's 'True Detective' is Almost Too Good to Be True

Says Gail Pennington, at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Mismatched police partners track a ritualistic serial killer in 1995 Louisiana — and, nearly two decades later, rehash the case — in “True Detective,” a new HBO drama that is nothing like it sounds from that description, but so much more.

The eight-part series, created by Nic Pizzolatto, succeeds on every level, with two big stars doing some of their best work, twisty plotting, super-smart writing and atmospheric directing. Only 12 days into the year, “True Detective” secures a spot as one of the best new shows of 2014.

We meet Detectives Martin Hart, played by Woody Harrelson, and Rust Cohle, a skinny Matthew McConaughey, twice in the early minutes of the first episode. In 1995, just a few months after beginning their awkward partnership, they take the lead on a gruesome case, a young woman found dead, naked and bound, in a bizarre tableau.

Meanwhile, in 2012, when Hart has lost his hair and Cohle has let his go, we meet them again, as they are interviewed by contemporary detectives working a case that is somehow similar. In a format that should have been annoying but instead is illuminating, those interviews alternate with, and provide perspective on, the original investigation, which we watch unfold.

Keep reading.

And watch the trailer, "True Detective: Official Trailer (HBO)."

The Jacksonian Tradition in U.S. Foreign Policy

Andrew Bacevich has an op-ed today at the Los Angeles Times, "The misuse of American might, and the price it pays."

Folks can read it at that link. I don't much care for Bacevich, who is the author of The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, an extremely austere version of political realism that's popular on the antiwar communist left.

What interests me here is Dave Schuler's post at Outside the Beltway that links Bacevich but elaborates with Walter Russell Mead's theory of Jacksonian foreign policy (at Memeorandum). Schuler links to Mead's article at the National Interest (Winter 1999/2000), "The Jacksonian Tradition and American Foreign Policy." That's a PDF document, but here's the web version at the archives.

It's good reading:

In the last five months of World War II, American bombing raids claimed the lives of more than 900,000 Japanese civilians—not counting the casualties from the atomic strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is more than twice the total number of combat deaths that the United States has suffered in all its foreign wars combined.

On one night, that of March 9-10, 1945, 234 Superfortresses dropped 1,167 tons of incendiary bombs over downtown Tokyo; 83,793 Japanese bodies were found in the charred remains—a number greater than the 80,942 combat fatalities that the United States sustained in the Korean and Vietnam Wars combined.

Since the Second World War, the United States has continued to employ devastating force against both civilian and military targets. Out of a pre-war population of 9.49 million, an estimated 1 million North Korean civilians are believed to have died as a result of U.S. actions during the 1950-53 conflict. During the same war, 33,870 American soldiers died in combat, meaning that U.S. forces killed approximately thirty North Korean civilians for every American soldier who died in action. The United States dropped almost three times as much explosive tonnage in the Vietnam War as was used in the Second World War, and something on the order of 365,000 Vietnamese civilians are believed to have been killed during the period of American involvement.

Regardless of Clausewitz’s admonition that "casualty reports . . . are never accurate, seldom truthful, and in most cases deliberately falsified", these numbers are too striking to ignore. They do not, of course, suggest a moral parallel between the behavior of, say, German and Japanese aggressors and American forces seeking to defeat those aggressors in the shortest possible time. German and Japanese forces used the indiscriminate murder of civilians as a routine police tool in occupied territory, and wholesale massacres of civilians often accompanied German and Japanese advances into new territory. The behavior of the German Einsatzgruppen and of the Japanese army during the Rape of Nanking has no significant parallel on the American side.

In the Cold War, too, the evils the Americans fought were far worse than those they inflicted. Tens of millions more innocent civilians in communist nations were murdered by their own governments in peacetime than ever died as the result of American attempts to halt communism’s spread. War, even brutal war, was more merciful than communist rule.

Nevertheless, the American war record should make us think. An observer who thinks of American foreign policy only in terms of the commercial realism of the Hamiltonians, the crusading moralism of Wilsonian transcendentalists, and the supple pacifism of the principled but slippery Jeffersonians would be at a loss to account for American ruthlessness at war.

Those who prefer to believe that the present global hegemony of the United States emerged through a process of immaculate conception avert their eyes from many distressing moments in the American ascension. Yet students of American power cannot ignore one of the chief elements in American success. The United States over its history has consistently summoned the will and the means to compel its enemies to yield to its demands.

Through the long sweep of American history, there have been many occasions when public opinion, or at least an important part of it, got ahead of politicians in demanding war. Many of the Indian wars were caused less by Indian aggression than by movements of frontier populations willing to provoke and fight wars with Indian tribes that were nominally under Washington’s protection—and contrary both to the policy and the wishes of the national government. The War of 1812 came about largely because of a popular movement in the South and Midwest. Abraham Lincoln barely succeeded in preventing a war with Britain over the Trent Affair during the Civil War; public opinion made it difficult for him to find an acceptable, face-saving solution to the problem. More recently, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were all haunted by fears that a pullout from the Vietnam War would trigger a popular backlash.

Once wars begin, a significant element of American public opinion supports waging them at the highest possible level of intensity. The devastating tactics of the wars against the Indians, General Sherman’s campaign of 1864-65, and the unprecedented aerial bombardments of World War II were all broadly popular in the United States. During both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, presidents came under intense pressure, not only from military leaders but also from public opinion, to hit the enemy with all available force in all available places. Throughout the Cold War the path of least resistance in American politics was generally the more hawkish stance. Politicians who advocated negotiated compromises with the Soviet enemy were labeled appeasers and paid a heavy political price. The Korean and Vietnam Wars lost public support in part because of political decisions not to risk the consequences of all-out war, not necessarily stopping short of the use of nuclear weapons. The most costly decision George Bush took in the Gulf War was not to send ground forces into Iraq, but to stop short of the occupation of Baghdad and the capture and trial of Saddam Hussein.

It is often remarked that the American people are more religious than their allies in Western Europe. But it is equally true that they are more military-minded....

*****

It is a tribute to the general historical amnesia about American politics between the War of 1812 and the Civil War that Andrew Jackson is not more widely counted among the greatest of American presidents. Victor in the Battle of New Orleans—perhaps the most decisive battle in the shaping of the modern world between Trafalgar and Stalingrad—Andrew Jackson laid the foundation of American politics for most of the nineteenth century, and his influence is still felt today. With the ever ready help of the brilliant Martin Van Buren, he took American politics from the era of silk stockings into the smoke-filled room. Every political party since his presidency has drawn on the symbolism, the institutions and the instruments of power that Jackson pioneered.

More than that, he brought the American people into the political arena. Restricted state franchises with high property qualifications meant that in 1820 many American states had higher property qualifications for voters than did boroughs for the British House of Commons. With Jackson’s presidency, universal male suffrage became the basis of American politics and political values.

His political movement—or, more accurately, the community of political feeling that he wielded into an instrument of power—remains in many ways the most important in American politics. Solidly Democratic through the Truman administration (a tradition commemorated in the annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners that are still the high points on Democratic Party calendars in many cities and states), Jacksonian America shifted toward the Republican Party under Richard Nixon—the most important political change in American life since the Second World War. The future of Jacksonian political allegiance will be one of the keys to the politics of the twenty-first century.

Suspicious of untrammeled federal power (Waco), skeptical about the prospects for domestic and foreign do-gooding (welfare at home, foreign aid abroad), opposed to federal taxes but obstinately fond of federal programs seen as primarily helping the middle class (Social Security and Medicare, mortgage interest subsidies), Jacksonians constitute a large political interest.

In some ways Jacksonians resemble the Jeffersonians, with whom their political fortunes were linked for so many decades. Like Jeffersonians, Jacksonians are profoundly suspicious of elites. They generally prefer a loose federal structure with as much power as possible retained by states and local governments. But the differences between the two movements run very deep—so deep that during the Cold War they were on dead opposite sides of most important foreign policy questions. To use the language of the Vietnam era, a time when Jeffersonians and Jacksonians were fighting in the streets over foreign policy, the former were the most dovish current in mainstream political thought during the Cold War, while the latter were the most consistently hawkish.

One way to grasp the difference between the two schools is to see that both Jeffersonians and Jacksonians are civil libertarians, passionately attached to the Constitution and especially to the Bill of Rights, and deeply concerned to preserve the liberties of ordinary Americans. But while the Jeffersonians are most profoundly devoted to the First Amendment, protecting the freedom of speech and prohibiting a federal establishment of religion, Jacksonians see the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, as the citadel of liberty. Jeffersonians join the American Civil Liberties Union; Jacksonians join the National Rifle Association. In so doing, both are convinced that they are standing at the barricades of freedom...

Continue reading.

PHOTO CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons.

Some of Beth Harris' Photos From the Red Carpet at #GoldenGlobes

From Beth Harris, sports and entertainment correspondent for the Associated Press, on Twitter.

Can't resist another of this guy. #redford #globes pic.twitter.com/oB4MUgZfcD

— Beth Harris (@bethharrisap) January 13, 2014

#emmathompson pic.twitter.com/0K54aBD5q0

— Beth Harris (@bethharrisap) January 13, 2014

Nominee #brucedern and daughter #lauradern. #globes pic.twitter.com/KofgptKdeM

— Beth Harris (@bethharrisap) January 13, 2014

An effusive #julianamarguliessays she feels like "a naughty princess" wearing black and gold. #globes pic.twitter.com/SuOKnKU7d4

— Beth Harris (@bethharrisap) January 13, 2014

#sandrabullock #globes pic.twitter.com/lksioyTRM2

— Beth Harris (@bethharrisap) January 13, 2014

Nominee #juliedelphy. "I'm the darkest horse. I know I'm going to lose but I'm happy." #globes pic.twitter.com/Fg4judEefO

— Beth Harris (@bethharrisap) January 13, 2014

#jonvoight, aka Angie's dad. #globes pic.twitter.com/r0rIxDSRk8

— Beth Harris (@bethharrisap) January 13, 2014

Nominee #stevemcqueen #globes pic.twitter.com/Nq3UFFKDcg

— Beth Harris (@bethharrisap) January 12, 2014

Nominee #jacquelinebisset pic.twitter.com/jjcDDbh4Os

— Beth Harris (@bethharrisap) January 12, 2014

#melissarauch goes yellow on carpet. #goldenglobes pic.twitter.com/vKDzEqfS9U

— Beth Harris (@bethharrisap) January 12, 2014

Golden Globes 2014: AIDS and Slavery Top Victimhood Awards

Look, I saw "12 Years a Slave" and I'll probably go see "Dallas Buyers Club" some time this week. I'm simply shocked --- shocked! --- at the rote predictability of these darned awards shows.

So AIDS trumps slavery at the #GlodenGlobes. #HierarchyOfVictimization

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 13, 2014

Golden Globes 2014: '12 Years a Slave' named best picture, drama http://t.co/nq05YNzf1u

— LAT Entertainment (@latimesent) January 13, 2014

2014 Golden Globes: Matthew McConaughey wins best actor in a drama http://t.co/ZDZ27bC7Wg

— LAT Entertainment (@latimesent) January 13, 2014

Why Socialism Is on the Rise

From Ben Shapiro, at Truth Revolt:

It took capitalism half a century to come back from the Great Depression. It's taken socialism half that time to come back from the collapse of the Soviet Union. In New York City, avowed socialist Mayor Bill de Blasio has declared that his goal is to take "dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities" -- the gap between rich and poor. In Seattle, newly elected socialist city Councilmember Kshama Sawant addressed supporters, explaining, "I wear the badge of socialist with honor." To great acclaim from the left, columnist Jesse Myerson of Rolling Stone put out a column telling millennials that they ought to fight for government-guaranteed employment, a universal basic income, collectivization of private property, nationalization of private assets and public banks.

The newly flowering buds of Marxism no longer reside on the fringes. Not when the president of the United States has declared fighting income inequality his chief task as commander in chief. Not when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said that America faces "no greater challenge" than income disparity. Not when MSNBC, The New York Times and the amalgamated pro-Obama media outlets have all declared their mission for 2014 a campaign against rich people.

Less than 20 years ago, former President Bill Clinton, facing reelection, declared "the era of big government" over. By 2011, Clinton reversed himself, declaring that it was government's role to "give people the tools and create the conditions to make the most of our lives."

So what happened?

Capitalism failed to make a case for itself. Back in 1998, shortly after the world seemed to reach a consensus on the ineffectiveness of socialist schemes, economists Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw wrote that the free market required something beyond mere success: It required "legitimacy." But, said Yergin and Stanislaw, "a system that takes the pursuit of self-interest and profit as its guiding light does not necessarily satisfy the yearning in the human soul for belief and some higher meaning beyond materialism." In other words, they wrote, while Spanish communists would die with the word "Stalin" on their lips, "few people would die with the words 'free markets' on their lips."

The failure to make a moral case for capitalism has doomed capitalism to the status of a perennial backup plan. When people are desperate or wealthy, they turn to socialism; only when they have no other alternative do they embrace the free market. After all, lies about guaranteed security are far more seductive than lectures about personal responsibility.

So what is the moral case for capitalism? It lies in recognition that socialism isn't a great idea gone wrong -- it's an evil philosophy in action...

There's more at the link, but this bit about socialism as "an evil philosophy in action" nail it.

CARTOON CREDIT: The People's Cube.

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



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

CARTOON CREDIT: "Branco Cartoon – Media Whiteout."

'They Died for Nothing?' #LoneSurvivor Marcus Luttrell Takes Jake Tapper to SEAL School

Following up on my earlier entry, "Former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell Didn't Want to Write 'Lone Survivor'."

I saw this yesterday and the story was at the back of my mind as we went to the movies last night, but I'm just now getting fully up to speed on the story.

From Twitchy yesterday, "Jake Tapper defends tense interview with ‘Lone Survivor’ Marcus Luttrell."

But you have to watch. Luttrell's clearly pained at the question, especially the idea of "senseless" deaths of his comrades. And he responds like the trained warrior he is.

Watch it, vie Ericka Anderson, "Navy SEAL from "Lone Survivor" Sets This Journalist Straight on What It Means to Protect America."

Jake Tapper: One of the emotions I felt while watching was, first of all, the hopelessness of the situation, how horrific it was. And I was torn about the message of the film in the same way that I think I am about the war in Afghanistan itself. I don’t want any more senseless American death.

Marcus Luttrell: I don’t know what part of the film you were watching, but hopelessness never really came into it. Where did you see that? We never felt like we were hopelessly lost or anything like that. We never gave up. We never felt like we were losing until we were actually dead.

Tapper: It seemed senseless. I don’t mean to disrespect in any way, but it seemed senseless — all of these wonderful people who were killed for an op that went wrong.

Luttrell: We spend our whole lives training to defending this country, and then we were sent over there by this country. So you’re telling me because we were over there doing what we were told by our country, that it was senseless? And my guys, what? They died for nothing?

Tapper: No.

Luttrell: That’s what you said. So, let me just say, it went bad for us over there, but that was our job. That’s what we did. We didn’t complain about it.

RELATED: At the San Francisco Chronicle, "The Massive Civilian-Military Divide — In Two Emails."

Sunday Roundup of the Roundups

Okay, back online so let's get things going here.

Here's yesterday's entry at Maggie's Farm, "Saturday morning links."

Also at the Political Hat, "News of the Week (January 12th, 2014)."

And see the Other McCain, "Roundup on Teachers Accused of Having Sex with Teenagers." Added: "FMJRA 2.0: Frisby."

Plus, Linkiest rounds up the links. As does John Hawkins at Right Wing News.

More at Instapundit.

And huge linkage at Proof Positive, "Best of the Web* Linkaround."

At First Street Journal, "From Around the Blogroll."

Wrapping this one up is Theo Spark, "Sunday Best..."

Added: At Dead Republican Party, "DeRP’s Views You Can Use 01.10.2014."

'Tennis Court'

Give it up for Lorde until later.

My son plugged his iPhone into the Jeep's sound system on the way home from the movie last night. I listened. She's pretty good.

Don't you think that it's boring how people talk
Making smart with their words again, well I'm bored
Because I'm doing this for the thrill of it, killin' it
Never not chasing a million things I want
And I am only as young as the minute is full of it
Getting pumped up from the little bright things I bought
But I know they'll never own me
(Yeah)

Baby be the class clown
I'll be the beauty queen in tears
It's a new art form showing people how little we care (yeah)
We're so happy, even when we're smilin' out of fear
Let's go down to the tennis court, and talk it up like yeah (yeah)

Pretty soon I'll be getting on my first plane
I'll see the veins of my city like they do in space
But my head's filling up with the wicked games, up in flames
How can I fuck with the fun again, when I'm known
And my boys trip me up with their heads again, loving them
Everything's cool when we're all in line, for the throne
But I know it's not forever
(Yeah)

Baby be the class clown
I'll be the beauty queen in tears
It's a new art form showing people how little we care (yeah)
We're so happy, even when we're smilin' out of fear
Let's go down to the tennis court, and talk it up like yeah (yeah)

It looked alright in the pictures (yeah)

Getting caught soft with the triple is it
I fall apart, with all my heart
And you can watch from your window
[laughs]
And you can watch from your window

Baby be the class clown
I'll be the beauty queen in tears
It's a new art form showing people how little we care (yeah)
We're so happy, even when we're smilin' out of fear
Let's go down to the tennis court, and talk it up like yeah (yeah)

And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
Let's go down to the tennis court, and talk it up like yeah (yeah)
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
Let's go down to the tennis court, and talk it up like yeah
(Yeah)<

Until then...

Ax-Grinding Kook Roger Shuler and 'First Amendment Questions'

The New York Times claims the case of jailed Alabama blogger Roger Shuler raises "First Amendment questions," and perhaps it does, although I doubt readers'll even get an inkling of this douchebag's full story. I highlight this because Shuler's been the subject of Robert Stacy McCain's periodic coverage on the various lunatic personalities that populate the left's "Wonderland" of conspiracies and hardcore ideological recrimination.

Here's the key essay at the Other McCain, "Roger Shuler: Another Kook Succumbs to ‘Investigative Blogger Syndrome’." And check TOM's tagged results for this idiot as well.

And now over at the Times, "Blogger’s Incarceration Raises First Amendment Questions":

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — For over six years, Roger Shuler has hounded figures of the state legal and political establishment on his blog, Legal Schnauzer, a hothouse of furious but often fuzzily sourced allegations of deep corruption and wide-ranging conspiracy. Some of these allegations he has tested in court, having sued his neighbor, his neighbor’s lawyer, his former employer, the Police Department, the Sheriff’s Department, the Alabama State Bar and two county circuit judges, among others. Mostly, he has lost.

But even those who longed for his muzzling, and there are many, did not see it coming like this: with Mr. Shuler sitting in jail indefinitely, and now on the list of imprisoned journalists worldwide kept by the Committee to Protect Journalists. There, in the company of jailed reporters in China, Iran and Egypt, is Mr. Shuler, the only person on the list in the Western Hemisphere.

A former sports reporter and a former employee in a university’s publications department, Mr. Shuler, 57, was arrested in late October on a contempt charge in connection with a defamation lawsuit filed by the son of a former governor. The circumstances surrounding that arrest, including a judge’s order that many legal experts described as unconstitutional and behavior by Mr. Shuler that some of the same experts described as self-defeating posturing, have made for an exceptionally messy test of constitutional law.

“You’ve got a situation where sometimes there’s no good guys,” said Ken White, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who writes about and practices First Amendment law.

Mr. Shuler is no stranger to defamation suits, as one might surmise from reading his blog. He started it in 2007 to document a property dispute with his neighbor that blew up into a legal war and ended with the neighbor’s lawyer becoming a part-owner of Mr. Shuler’s house, which is in Birmingham. Later, the blog branched out to expose what he alleged were the corrupt machinations of powerful figures, mostly Republicans, and with a particular animus toward former Gov. Bob Riley.

His allegations are frequently salacious, including a recent assertion that a federal judge had appeared in a gay pornographic magazine and a theory that several suicides were actually a string of politically motivated murders. Starting in January 2013, Mr. Shuler, citing unidentified sources, began writing that Robert Riley Jr., the son of the former governor, had impregnated a lobbyist named Liberty Duke and secretly paid for an abortion. Both denied it, and Ms. Duke swore in an affidavit that they had never even been alone in the same room.

In July, Mr. Riley and Ms. Duke sought an injunction in state court against such posts, citing Mr. Shuler and his wife, Carol, in defamation suits. A judge issued a temporary restraining order in September barring the Shulers from publishing “any defamatory statement” about Mr. Riley and Ms. Duke and demanding that the offending posts be immediately removed.

Such a sweeping order struck some lawyers as far too broad, and Mr. Shuler says he did not even know about it.

The Shulers refused to answer the door when officials came to serve court papers, stating their suspicions in blog posts that the visits were part of an “intimidation and harassment campaign” stemming from the reporting on another topic.

One afternoon as the Shulers drove to the local library, where Mr. Shuler had been writing his blog since they could no longer pay for their Internet connection, a member of the Sheriff’s Department pulled them over, saying they had run a stop sign. The officer then served them the papers, which the Shulers refused to accept, contending that service under such a pretext was improper.

“We were both throwing the papers out of the windows as we were driving off,” Ms. Shuler said in an interview.

The Shulers missed a hearing the next day, and the restraining order was superseded by a similarly worded preliminary injunction, which some free-speech advocates saw as a clear violation of Mr. Shuler’s First Amendment rights.

“It seems to me that the judge’s order was really way out of bounds,” said David Gespass, a civil rights lawyer in Birmingham, who was further troubled by the judge’s initial decision to keep the case under seal...

That's a long block quote, so keep reading at the link. (Ali Akbar's National Bloggers Club is cited in the next couple of paragraphs.)

Ken White, who writes the blog Popehat, has some additional quotes at the link as well. And at the blog, "Alabama Court, Roger Shuler Continue to Thwart Roger Shuler’s First Amendment Rights." Kinda funny, that. But more later either way.

Former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell Didn't Want to Write 'Lone Survivor'

My oldest son and I just got back from seeing "Lone Survivor" down at the Irvine Spectrum 21.

Walking back to the car I said to my son, "That was good." And then we both looked at each other and said simultaneously, "Intense!" I thought that was a pretty good one-word summary of a combat film that's as good as any recent war movie. "Black Hawk Down" is probably the closest comparison to (the feeling you get with) "Lone Survivor," since the number of casualties is so high in what are, in both cases, botched raids for top targets of the U.S. military.

In any case, I'll probably put up a couple of entries on this movie. I read this interview with Marcus Luttrell at the Los Angeles Times last week, "'Lone Survivor' Marcus Luttrell's devotion to duty." He didn't want to write the book on which the movie is based, but he was ordered to by his superior officers, and he realized it was better he write it himself anyways, from the genuine first person perspective, than to have someone else write a screenplay for a film  that was going to be made one way or another.

From the Times:

It's impossible to understand fully what Luttrell experienced in the Afghanistan mountains in 2005, where he and three other SEALs were caught in a disastrous firefight against a much larger Taliban force that ultimately left 19 Americans dead. Luttrell wrote about the experience in his bestselling book, "Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10," which has just been made into the movie "Lone Survivor" by writer-director Peter Berg.

It was more than a little hard for Luttrell to recount his ordeal in print. "I didn't want to write the book. I'm a private person," he said of his memoir, co-written by Patrick Robinson. He was compelled to pen it, he said, by his superiors.

"It was the Navy's idea, not mine," the 38-year-old Luttrell said. "They felt the story needed to be set straight."

His commanding officers were equally assertive in recommending that he support a movie adaptation, which opened to solid reviews in New York and Los Angeles on Friday before expanding into national release Jan. 10.

"I didn't want to do a movie," Luttrell said. "But Hollywood was going to do it with or without us. That's what came across the wire."

So Luttrell personally auditioned Berg, the veteran of "Friday Night Lights" and "Battleship." At the time, the book was being devoured throughout the movie world, and producers were beseeching Luttrell for a meeting. Berg was wrapping up his 2007 Middle East terrorism tale, "The Kingdom," and invited Luttrell to take an early look.

Berg had prepared a detailed pitch for Luttrell, but soon after Luttrell watched Berg's film he decided he liked the director's attention to detail and was done looking for a show-business partner.

"It was the little things that most people would overlook," Luttrell said of how Berg depicted the military in "The Kingdom." "How people move tactically, how they handle their weapons, their communications — there was enough in there to show me he had the wherewithal to pull it off."

The mission at the center of Luttrell's story is both heart-stopping and heartbreaking.

Dropped by helicopter into Afghanistan's Kunar province near the Pakistan border, Luttrell and three other SEALs — Matthew Axelson, Danny Dietz and leader Michael Murphy — were pursuing a Taliban leader when three goat herders, including a young boy, stumbled upon them. The film stars Mark Wahlberg as Luttrell, Taylor Kitsch as Murphy, Emile Hirsch as Dietz and Ben Foster as Axelson.

The four SEALs agonized over their options, knowing they couldn't in good conscience kill the unarmed civilians, even as they were certain that if they released the trio they would alert the enemy, likely dooming Luttrell, Murphy, Axelson and Dietz. (If the SEALs tied up the three, they likely would have died from exposure or starvation.)

Within minutes of freeing the goat herders, the SEALs were stormed by the Taliban. Axelson, Dietz and Murphy were shot multiple times and died on the battlefield, while a rescue helicopter carrying 16 Special Operations Forces was downed by a rocket-propelled grenade, killing all on board. Luttrell managed to escape the firefight seriously wounded (his injuries included a broken back and bullet wounds) but able to walk, and was taken in by a Pashtun villager, who sheltered Luttrell until American forces were able to rescue him.

Berg said he felt compelled to tell Luttrell's story largely because the sacrifices and proficiency of U.S. armed forces are taken for granted. "If you were kidnapped overseas, these guys would do everything, and I mean dying if they have to, to get you out alive," the filmmaker said.

"We just can't really take a moment to think about it — we're totally disengaged. But 'Lone Survivor' forced me to engage in the reality of these deaths, and to pay attention to how our men are dying. We need to support and understand what they are doing and what they are going through."

Continue reading.

And here's Betsey Sharkey's review, "Review: Peter Berg's fierce 'Lone Survivor' captures realities of war."

C'mon Get Happy? 'Partridge Family' Star David Cassidy Arrested for DUI — Again

Shoot, the dude's not looking so great.

And that photo at right's from his arrest last summer in New York. And now he's got another and could do time behind bars.

At London's Daily Mail, "Partridge Family star David Cassidy arrested for DUI for the third time with blood alcohol level 'more than twice the legal limit'":

David Cassidy could be facing jail after being arrested for DUI (driving under the influence) for the third time.

The Seventies heartthrob – who found fame on the Partridge Family – was stopped by police in Los Angeles on Friday after he was spotted making an illegal right turn when exiting the 405 freeway.

When the officer smelled alcohol, Cassidy, 63, was asked to take a field sobriety test which showed he was more than twice the legal limit,TMZ reports.

More at the link.

And at TMZ, "David Cassidy -- Arrested for Drunk Driving ... AGAIN!"

He was once a teenage heartthrob. Whoa, how the mighty have fallen.

More at WeSmirch.

Typical: Leftists Erupt With Anti-Semitism at Death of Ariel Sharon

This was the last thing on my mind when I saw the news, but even my own timeline was littered with Jew-hatred and Israel-bashing.

At Twitchy, "Stomach-turning anti-Semitism celebrates Ariel Sharon’s death: ‘Rot in hell you dirty Jew’."

It's the "most foul" curation Twitchy's ever done.

Ariel Sharon rest in hell u peice of jewish shit.
— Kai'Ju (@DoubleKebabRoll) January 11, 2014

Fuck, finally that Israeli jewish slut dies, Ariel Sharon. Fucking piece of filth, Hope a demon in hell makes you its fuckslave you cumslut.
— gυмвy (@AdilGumby) January 11, 2014

Ariel Sharon is dead! One less Jewish terrorist trying to ruin the world with their capitalist bullshit
— Ryan Murphy (@Murphyoo) January 11, 2014

A good Jew is a dead Jew. Burn in hell Ariel Sharon.
— Ignashevich Polya (@Innat0) January 11, 2014

Wow.

More at the Los Angeles Times, in any case, "Death of former Israeli leader Ariel Sharon met with tears and cheers."

Let's Not Kid Ourselves About Marijuana

Here's that Larry Kudlow piece from the other day, "Bad Idea: Widespread Marijuana Legalization."

And now here's Mitchell Rosenthal, at the Wall Street Journal (at Google):

Pot is always good for a giggle, and that makes it hard to take marijuana seriously. The news and entertainment media couldn't resist puns on "Rocky Mountain high" when Colorado started the year with legal sales of marijuana for recreational purposes. TV stations across the country featured chuckling coverage of long lines outside Denver's new state-licensed pot shops.

Legalizing marijuana isn't just amusing. It's increasingly popular with legislators and the public. And why not? No matter how high stoners get, they're nowhere near as scary as out-of-control boozers, right? Stoners don't brawl in bars. They're not into domestic violence.

A Gallup poll last year found 58% of Americans favoring legalization (although other surveys report more slender majorities). Decriminalization of pot possession is widespread: 20 states sanction marijuana use for medical or quasi-medical reasons, and, following Colorado's and Washington's lead, proponents of legalization are targeting Alaska and Oregon for ballot initiatives in the near future, and six other states after that.

Yet marijuana is far from safe, despite the widespread effort to make it seem benign. Pot damages the heart and lungs, increases the incidence of anxiety, depression and schizophrenia, and it can trigger acute psychotic episodes. Many adults appear to be able to use marijuana with relatively little harm, but the same cannot be said of adolescents, who are about twice as likely as adults to become addicted to marijuana. The new Colorado law limits pot sales to people 21 or older, but making marijuana available for recreational use normalizes it in society. The drug will be made more easily available to those under 21, and how long until the age limit is dropped to 18?

Adolescents are vulnerable—and not just to pot. That's how they are programmed. They make rash and risky choices because their brains aren't fully developed. The part of the brain that censors dumb or dangerous behavior is last to come on line (generally not before the mid-20s). Meanwhile, the brain's pleasure-seeking structures are up and running strong by puberty. When you link adolescent pleasure-seeking and risk-taking to marijuana's impairment of perception and judgment, it isn't surprising that a 2004 study of seriously injured drivers in Maryland found half the teens tested positive for pot.

Marijuana impairs learning, judgment and memory—no small matters during the adolescent years—and it can do lasting harm to the brain. Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has found that marijuana can damage cognitive function in adolescents by disrupting the normal development of the white-matter that brain cells need to communicate with each other.

Most disturbing is a discovery about marijuana last month at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Researchers there have found lasting changes in "working memory," brain structures critical to memory and reasoning. A source of ready recall for basic information, like telephone numbers, and solutions to everyday problems, working memory is also a strong predictor of academic achievement.

Dr. Volkow and most other experts are troubled by changing teen attitudes about marijuana. Barely 40% of adolescents now believe regular use is harmful—down from 80% two decades ago. Teen drinking and cigarette smoking have declined, and their abuse of prescription painkillers has fallen off sharply, but teen marijuana use continues to increase. The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future survey last year found that more than 45% of high-school seniors have smoked pot and 6.5% now smoke it daily (a rate that has tripled over the past two decades). At the substance-abuse programs of Phoenix House, and at similar programs across the country, marijuana is the primary drug of abuse for close to 70% of teens in treatment.

No one can say how marijuana legalization will play out. A perception of legal marijuana as safe, combined with sophisticated marketing, may well double or triple pot use. Warning of aggressive promotion, drug-policy expert Mark Kleiman, who studied potential issues of a legal marijuana market for the Seattle City Council, pointed out last year: "The only way to sell a lot of pot is to create a lot of potheads."

Still more at that top link.

Bottom line: A nation of growing stoners isn't funny.

UNC Professor Mary Willingham Receives Death Threats After Bombshell Research on College Athlete Illiteracy

I reported on this earlier, "Universities Admitting Illiterate Athletes."

And now at CNN, "Death threats and denial for woman who showed college athletes struggle to read."

Also at AP, "UNC Professor Receiving Death Threats For Revealing Athletes' Low Reading Levels (VIDEO)":

Willingham, who hasn't returned calls or emails from The Associated Press, has said in interviews that she has received death threats and hate mail. UNC police spokesman Randy Young said investigators have contacted her and "are responding appropriately."

Illiterate thugs --- black thugs especially, but you're not supposed to say that!

BONUS: Brooke Baldwin has a great follow-up with commentary from Ben Ferguson. A nice clip, "Report: College athletes behind in reading."

Ariel Sharon, 1928-2014

The big man has died.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Ariel Sharon, Israel's controversial, iron-willed former leader, dies":

JERUSALEM — Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the iron-willed army general who fought in nearly all of his nation's major wars and spearheaded Jewish settlement of Palestinian territories, then years later presided over Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, died Saturday. He was 85.

The controversial leader, who had been incapacitated since suffering a severe stroke in 2006, was moved in 2010 to his ranch in the Negev desert at the request of his family. In September he underwent abdominal surgery, but his condition worsened this month as his organs deteriorated.

Sharon's death at a hospital near Tel Aviv was announced by his son Gilad.

"That's it. He's gone. He went when he decided to go," his son said.

Sharon, often called "the Bulldozer" for his aggressive style, endured many ups and downs in his lengthy career, but at the end was lauded as one of Israel's greatest leaders.

"[Sharon] was a brave soldier and a daring leader who loved his nation and his nation loved him," Israeli President Shimon Peres said in a statement. "He was one of Israel's great protectors and most important architects, who knew no fear and certainly never feared vision. He knew how to take difficult decisions and implement them."

Yet in the eyes of many Palestinians and even some Israelis, his actions were tantamount to war crimes; he was blamed for the massacres by Israel's Lebanese allies of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in southern Lebanon in 1982 and previous attacks in Jordan.

Sharon devoted decades to the dream of establishing a "greater Israel" by seeking to populate the West Bank and Gaza with tens of thousands of Jews and exhorting them to seize the hills. But in his eighth decade, the old warrior set about dismantling some of the settlements. He withdrew settlers from Gaza and four small West Bank settlements in 2005 and declared his belief that Israel's best chance for lasting security lay in drawing defensible borders and ultimately living side by side with a Palestinian state.

The shift infuriated Sharon's right-wing supporters and led him to abandon the hawkish Likud Party for a newly formed centrist party, Kadima. Just months later, Sharon suffered the stroke, leaving much of his agenda unfulfilled. Analysts still debate whether Sharon was intending to make peace with the Palestinians or unilaterally consolidate Israel's hold on the West Bank.

Most agree that the Gaza withdrawal did not turn out as Sharon had hoped. Weeks after he was stricken, the Islamist group Hamas won Palestinian elections, and it later seized control of the Gaza Strip, breaking with the rival Fatah party.

Two years later, prompted by a resumption of Hamas rocket attacks, Israel launched a 22-day military offensive in Gaza, killing 1,200 Palestinians and drawing an international outcry. The Kadima-led government was replaced by Likud, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in 2009.

Sharon, born Ariel Scheinerman to Russian immigrants on Feb. 27, 1928, lived his life in the bloody crucible of the Israeli-Arab struggle...

Continue reading.

Also at the New York Times, "Ariel Sharon, Fierce Defender of a Strong Israel, Dies at 85" (at Memeorandum).

Reactions at Israel Matzav, Jawa Report, and the Other McCain.

House Democrats Break Ranks With the White House on #ObamaCare Vote

Something tells me that Democrats might be breaking with Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the "running on ObamaCare" thing she's been blabbering about for next November.

At the Hill:

Dozens of House Democrats broke ranks with President Obama on Friday to support legislation that would require people to be notified of security breaches under ObamaCare.

The House passed the Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act, H.R. 3811, in a 291-122 vote. Sixty-seven Democrats voted for the bill, ignoring arguments from party leaders that the bill was a "messaging" vote meant to discourage people from signing up for insurance.

The one-sentence bill says that no later than two business days after any security breach on an ObamaCare site is discovered, "the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall provide notice of such breach to each individual." Republicans said that under current law, the government is not required to notify people if their information is put at risk.

"It may shock some people to learn that there is no legal requirement that the Department of Health and Human Services notify an individual if his or her personal information is breached or improperly accessed through the Affordable Care Act's exchanges," said Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.).

The White House said it opposed the bill, arguing the government already has plans to tell people if their information has been compromised.

But that argument didn't sway a large group House Democrats, many of whom fear the problem-plagued rollout of ObamaCare will cost them at the polls in November.

It's indeed going to cost them. How badly remains to be seen.

Crestfallen Repsac3 Fails Miserably in Gambit to Flip Conservatives Against the Target of His Obsessions

Well, it was an all-too obvious attempt to make wine out of sour grapes, but hey, the drama's quite entertaining.

ICYMI, here's the background from yesterday morning, "Walter James Casper, Hate-Troll and Pathological Liar, Lamely Tries to Score Political Points With Hilarious Make-Believe Abomination."

For some reason depraved stalker Repsac3 thought he'd be able to get Robert Stacy McCain --- and perhaps other conservatives as well --- to denounce me after I suggested the idiot back the f-k off. Oh well, style points for the junior high school drama queen with this headline, "I Defy Anyone to Defend or in any way Justify This Creepy Threat by Donald Kent Douglas."

Um, not sure here, but Ima hazard that this counts as defiance:

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, @repsac3 gotta troll. http://t.co/TGo5mJBB2H via @AmPowerBlog
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) January 11, 2014

And boy, I think Ima cry after seeing poor old Reppy with the sads:

One can only tell the truth. Whether other people hear it or continue believing (or telling) lies after you do is up to them.
— J. Casper (@repsac3) January 11, 2014

Yes, one can only tell the truth --- a lesson the lying psycho hasn't learned quite yet, obviously. See, "Bwahaha! Robert Stacy McCain Eviscerates Egghead Avatar Hate-Troll Walter James Casper III."

Repsac3 has established literally a miles-deep reservoir of ill will. It's simply astounding how he convinced himself he could flip people against me. And what's even more funny is that I don't really care. Truth floats to the top. And once again, Walter James Casper's hard-left nihilism has him flailing under the waves, gasping for breath. Meanwhile, American Power's moral clarity is bursting bubbles out of the water. Poor Casper. A loser and regressive dolt. Great lulz though, heh.

'But I always thought that I'd see you again...'

Again, out driving the Jeep the other day, some James Taylor came on the 70s satellite channel.

Enjoy "Fire and Rain." It's beautiful music.

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to

I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

Won't you look down on me, Jesus
You've got to help me make a stand
You've just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way

oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

I’ve been walking my mind to an easy time
My back turned towards the sun
Lord knows the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around
Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line
To talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.

oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you, baby, one more time again, now

Thought I'd see you one more time again
There's just a few things coming my way this time around,
Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you fire and rain, now
Thought i'd see you just one more time again.

Closer Magazine Publishes Photos of French President Francois Hollande Visiting Apartment of Actress Julie Gayet

Hey, a scandal!

At Telegraph UK, "Francois Hollande faces personal and political crisis as claims of affair with actress revealed":

François Hollande considers legal action for invasion of privacy after Closer magazine reveals he spends nights with actress Julie Gayet.

President François Hollande was facing a private and political crisis after a celebrity magazine published photos it says proves he is having a "secret love affair" with a film actress almost 20 years his junior.

Closer magazine released photos it says shows the 59-year old Socialist leader and his new lover, Julie Gayet, 41, entering an apartment block a stone's throw from the Elysée Palace in Paris.

Valérie Trierweiler, the "official" first lady to whom the president is not married, recently took up residence in one of the wings of the palace.

Closer's Friday edition carried a seven-page report on the alleged infidelity, in which a man it insists is the president arrives on a chauffeur-driven scooter to spend nights in the flat.

Miss Gayet arrives separately. The pair are brought croissants by a man identified as his bodyguard the following morning.

"It's a real passion that has ... turned their lives upside down and makes them take insane risks," the magazine wrote.

The report in Closer, which angered many in Britain for publishing topless pictures the Duchess of Cambridge in 2012, sparked a furious rebuke from the president, who, however, failed to deny the liaison.

More here, "Editor of Closer defends publication of French President Francois Hollande affair allegations."

And lots of photos at London's Daily Mail, "Pictured: The sexually charged screen roles and modelling career of French President Francois Hollande's 'mistress'."

I don't see the Closer piece, but check back. This is pretty good. He's got his main squeeze holed up in her own suite at the presidential palace and then checks out for some overnight action with a movie star. Shoot, who said socialists are idiots?!!