So, I watched 'The Bachelor' With the Wife Last Night...

Haven't been watching it this season, with the Olympics and who knows what else has been on.

But last night's show was pretty good, especially the location at Saint Lucia.

Here's a recap, at the Kansas City Star, "The ‘Bachelor’ dumped again, but not by KC’s Nikki Ferrell." And at People, "Chris Harrison on The Bachelor: 'Essentially, Juan Pablo Was Dumped'."

My wife and I like Clare, and no doubt she's in love with him. He should give her the final rose and propose, but well see. (Video from earlier on the show, "The Bachelor - Juan Pablo Has a Serious Talk with Clare.")

Harriet Harman and British Labour's Ties to Criminal Paedophile Information Exchange

Well, I promised an update Sunday when I posted on this, "Britain's Leftist Apologists for Pedophilia."

Yesterday, while checking Louise Mensch's feed on Twitter, it looked like all hell was breaking loose with Britain's Labor Party, with all kinds of calls for the resignation of Shadow Deputy Prime Minister Harriet Harman.

And here's the story at London's Daily Mail, which has broken this investigation wide open, "But they still won't say sorry: Labour's Harman and Dromey finally break their silence over links to paedophile group," and "Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman expresses 'regret' over links to paedophile lobby – but STILL won’t apologise."

As usual, I tweeted a piece to Robert Stacy McCain, and then later he had this, "The UK Left’s Pro-Pedophile Past."

'Saddle Ridge Hoard' — California Couple Finds Buried Treasure Worth $10 Million in Their Backyard

What a story.

At the San Francisco Chronicle, "Gold Country couple discovers $10 million in buried coins."

Read it at the link, with photos. The coins were in mint condition. It's a tale straight out of the Old West.

Former CNN Correspondent Miles O'Brien Left Arm Amputated After Accident

Well, thank God he's alive. I always liked him. He had (has) a love for his craft, as well as science, that I always appreciated.

Saw this first at London's Daily Mail, "Former CNN journalist's arm amputated after minor injury caused by falling TV equipment developed rare complications."

And also at CNN, "Former CNN correspondent Miles O'Brien has arm amputated after accident."

And go straight to O'Brien's blog, "'Just a Flesh Wound'":

I wish I had a better story to tell you about why I am typing this with one hand (and some help from Dragon Dictate).

A shark attack would be interesting. An assassination attempt would be intriguing. Skydiving mishaps always make for good copy. An out-of-control quad copter that turns on its master would be entertaining (and would come complete with a grim, potentially viral, video).

No, the reason I am now one-handed is a little more prosaic than those scenarios.

Keep reading.

Smokin' Nina Agdal in New Accessorize Campaign

At London's Daily Mail, "EXCLUSIVE: So THAT'S what Leo DiCaprio sees in her! Nina Agdal looks incredible in new Accessorize campaign... but reveals she's partial to a burger."

She did the hot Carls Jr. ad last year, so it makes sense.

And of course, she's on the cover of the new Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, "Nina Agdal, Lily Aldridge, Chrissy Teigen Land Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover."

Comcast and Netflix Get Together and Solve Their Own Problem

I didn't quite fully understand the big deal about his story earlier, at WSJ, "Netflix to Pay Comcast for Smoother Streaming: Deal Ends Standoff, Might Serve as Precedent for Relations With Other Broadband Suppliers" (via Google). Also at the Verge, "Netflix is paying off Comcast for direct traffic access."

But Holman Jenkins has an excellent primer on the (significance of the) deal, "How the Internet Was Meant to Be":

Netflix's NFLX +1.35%  Reed Hastings routinely touted their ideal to gain leverage over downstream carriers like Comcast. CMCSA -0.74%  Then a federal court in January invalidated Washington's net-neut rules and he rushed out a statement of the obvious to reassure shareholders, saying in essence: Never mind! Comcast et. al. don't really have an economic or political incentive to block our service. Just the opposite. Consumer expectations of the Internet are set. Carriers must supply unimpeded access to every kind of web content or else.

The net-neut zealots would have been wise at this point to declare victory, if not admit they had been praying to a false god all along. Now they've been thrown into fresh confusion by Mr. Hastings's deal this week with the ultimate devil symbol, cable giant Comcast.

Mr. Hastings's agreement with Comcast does not actually violate the letter of net neutrality, but it does violate the big hazy ideal of a single vast pipe through which anonymous ones and zeros democratically and communally flow. In essence, Netflix will pay to dump its bits directly into Comcast's last-mile network, rather than by way of an Internet backbone supplier. But let's wipe away our tears. The deal is a triumph of the Internet's nonideological adaptability and flexibility.

Netflix faced a problem: stuttering video performance because of upstream bottlenecks that belied the high-speed downstream service customers are paying for. Why? At bottom, the happy equilibrium of the old two-way Internet has gone bye-bye thanks to a one-way video deluge stemming mainly from YouTube and Netflix.

Now in other newspapers you can read experts fretting that the cost of Netflix's solution will be "passed along" to Netflix's customers. This is idiotic. All businesses collect their costs from their customers or they aren't long in business. But the real question here wasn't who bears the cost. It was who bears the incentive to handle traffic efficiently.

Cogent Communications, CCOI -5.57%  a content delivery network, was getting paid by Netflix to deliver loads of content to Comcast, without any incentive to care about Comcast's capacity to receive it.

So Comcast could either accept an unlimited obligation to accommodate whatever traffic Netflix and its intermediate partners wanted to send, however inefficiently they wanted to send it—as, in fact, happened after Mr. Hastings in September decided every Netflix customer would get its new "SuperHD" feed.

Or Comcast could resist a blank check being drawn on its network in the only way available to it—by letting traffic back up at its interconnection point until Cogent and Netflix cried uncle.

A better solution was shriekingly obvious: Let Comcast and Netflix transact directly. Because Netflix would be helping to pay for the costs it imposes on Comcast, Netflix would have proper incentive to deliver its services efficiently. This would benefit Netflix customers and everybody else trying to send traffic through the backbone.

But if the net-neut crazies are flummoxed, the media are desperately confused about what just happened, saying it amounts to proof of Comcast's overweening power...

Keep reading.

RELATED: At LAT, "Comcast strikes deal to buy Time Warner Cable for $45 billion."

George Harrison's Birthday — 'Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)'

George Harrison would have been 71 today.

Check the Wikipedia entry for "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)," which I listened to on the way home at the Sound L.A.



RELATED: At Rolling Stone, "Beach Boys' Mike Love Honors George Harrison With Unreleased Track."

How the Founding Father Used to Pound Back the Booze

This is great, at Reason, "George Washington: Boozehound":

Reason TV's Meredith Bragg informed us of George Washington’s whiskey production. He didn’t tell us, however, about Washington’s alcohol consumption, which was, at times, prodigious. That consumption by Washington and his fellow founding fathers has been whitewashed—sometimes literally—from American history by the intervening Temperance movement, whose effects still drive us. For instance, the classic picture of Washington taking his farewell from his troops at Fraunces Tavern in New York—which, of course, involved a toast—was painted with a serving flask clearly visible. This container was painted out of these same pictures later, in the nineteenth century, reminiscent of Soviet photos with purged former leaders excised.

It is impossible for Americans to accept the extent to which the Colonial period—including our most sacred political events—was suffused with alcohol. Protestant churches had wine with communion, the standard beverage at meals was beer or cider, and alcohol was served even at political gatherings. Alcohol was consumed at meetings of the Virginian and other state legislatures and, most of all, at the Constitutional Convention.

Indeed, we still have available the bar tab from a 1787 farewell party in Philadelphia for George Washington just days before the framers signed off on the Constitution. According to the bill preserved from the evening, the 55 attendees drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, eight of whiskey, 22 of porter, eight of hard cider, 12 of beer, and seven bowls of alcoholic punch.

That's more than two bottles of fruit of the vine, plus a number of shots and a lot of punch and beer, for every delegate. That seems humanly impossible to modern Americans. But, you see, across the country during the Colonial era, the average American consumed many times as much beverage alcohol as contemporary Americans do. Getting drunk—but not losing control—was simply socially accepted...

RTWT (via Instapundit).

Extreme Sports Boost USA at #Sochi

Must admit I was getting a kick out of the slopestyle.

At USA Today, "Extreme sports mark changing of U.S. Olympic guard":

SOCHI - For the U.S. team, the Sochi Games signified an end of an era. Goodbye, ice queens. Hello, flippie hippies. See you later, pucks and sticks. Nice to meet you, slopes and rails.

As 17 days of competition came to a close Sunday, this much was clear: The face of the Winter Olympics no longer wears skates. Twelve of the USA's 28 medals came from freestyle skiing and snowboarding, including six of nine gold.

The U.S. Olympic team had never won a medal on every day one was awarded in the Winter Games, and through 14 days in Sochi, the Americans were poised to do that. But the men's hockey team failed to show up in Saturday's bronze medal game, losing to Finland 5-0.

If only the kids in baggy pants with a language all their own had competed in the Games' final days, perhaps the USA could have gone out with more of a bang. Instead, Russia ended this cold war with a flourish — sweeping the podium in the men's 50-kilometer cross-country ski race Sunday and winning gold in four-man bobsled to secure the top spot with 33 overall medals and 13 golds.

For decades, figure skating was the marquee event of the Games. In Sochi, the U.S. men and women figure skaters had their worst collective finish since 1936. Speedskating has been the USA's most successful winter sport. But the short-track team left with one medal and the long-track team exited empty-handed, complaining about their suits.

In contrast, the Americans dominated the action sports events — slopestyle skiing and snowboarding and halfpipe skiing — that made their debut. When the next Winter Games is held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018, Americans are again expected to be strong in the extreme sports. If more events are added to the program — perhaps big air and a team snowboard cross event — the U.S. medal haul likely will grow as well.

"When you look at the impact that adding the sports has had on the Winter Games, it's made the Games more popular from a broadcast standpoint and for the people who are here," U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun said.

Keep reading.

The Truth About the U.N.

From Danny Ayalon. It's starts out a little unfocused at the beginning, but it's good.

Rousing the Americans from their slumber

From Caroline Glick:

In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times Wednesday, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton warned his countrymen of the disaster that awaits them if President Barack Obama does not change the course of US Middle East policy.

Bolton warned that Obama’s three-pronged policy, based on three negotiation tracks with Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians and Israel, will almost certainly fail in its entirety.

In his words, “Iran will emerge more powerful, verging on deliverable nuclear weapons, while still financing and arming terrorists worldwide. [Syrian President Bashar] Assad seems likely to survive, which is bad enough by itself, but it will be compounded by the affirmation it affords Iranian and Russian strength. Israel will trust Wash – ington even less than now, and ironically, Palestinians will be even more anti-American, because Obama will not be able to deliver to them the Israeli concessions he predicted.”

Bolton concluded mournfully, “[T]he increasing danger is that only another 9/11, another disaster, will produce the necessary awakening. There is tragedy ahead for our country if we continue on this course.”

Writing for Strafor the same day, strategic analyst George Friedman explained why Bolton’s warning will be ignored by the public.

Friedman noted that in previous years, recent events in  Venezuela, Ukraine, Russia and beyond would have been the subject to intense public concern. But, he wrote, “This week, Americans seemed to be indifferent to all of them.”

Friedman argued that this popular indifference to foreign policy is not driven by ideological attachment to isolationism, as was the case in the 1930s. “It is an instrumental position,” not a systematic one, he explained. Because he sees no deep-seated attachment to isolationism among the American public, Friedman argued that their current indifference will likely end when circumstances change.

Friedman’s analysis of the American mood is probably right. And Bolton is certainly right about the dangers inherent to that mood.

Every day the US is subject to greater humiliations and challenges to its power and prestige.

Declarations from Iranian leaders rejecting the dismantling of their nuclear installations, coupled with threats to attack US installations and Israel, bespeak contempt for American power and convey a catastrophic erosion of US deterrent capabilities against Tehran.

As subjects of intense US appeasement efforts, the Palestinians are second only to Iran. And as is the case with Iran, those efforts come at the direct expense of Israel, the US’s most important ally in the Middle East.

Yet like the Iranians, the Palestinians greet US efforts with scorn. Every day Palestinian leaders pile on their incitement against Israel and Jews and their derisive condemnations of the Obama administration’s efforts to force Israel to cater to their every whim.

Since 1979, Egypt served as the anchor of the US alliance structure in the Arab world. It shared the US’s opposition to Islamic terrorism, and waged a continuous campaign to defeat the forc – es of jihad in Egypt, while remaining outside the circle of war against Israel.

When protests began in Egypt three years ago, rather than stand with its ally, Obama dumped Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and sided with the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood.

After winning a popular election, the Brotherhood immediately set about transforming Egypt into an Islamic, pro-jihadist state. And yet, the administration opposed the military’s decision to oust the Brotherhood from power last summer even though the move prevented the most strategically vital Arab state from becoming the cen – ter of the global jihad. It then cut US military aid to Egypt.

So now the military regime is renewing its ties with Russia, after ditching Moscow for Washing – ton in 1974.

AND SO it goes, throughout the world...

Continue reading.

Venezuelan Media Ignores Protests

At WSJ, "Venezuela Media Largely Ignored Protests: Free-Speech Advocates Say Black Out Points to State Intimidation (via Google):

CARACAS—As some of the biggest anti-government protests in months gathered momentum across the country earlier this week, Venezuela's largest private television networks largely broadcast soap operas and entertainment shows.

When the demonstrations turned violent in Caracas and three people died, the coverage was largely blacked out, press-freedom organizations and journalists said Friday. Government officials appeared on state television to accuse opposition leaders of instigating violence to topple the state.

One private television station offering live coverage, NTN24, based in Colombia but widely seen on cable here, was taken off the air in the midst of covering the bedlam on Wednesday. President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday explained that the plug was pulled "to defend the right to tranquility, and no one is going to come here from abroad to ruffle the psychological condition of Venezuela."

Some TV networks, among them Televen and Venevision, did offer reports later in the day. But many locals said they turned to social media during the day to fill the void and remain informed. Officials at Televen and Venevision didn't return calls seeking comment.

Free-speech advocates say that the lack of news coverage demonstrates that privately owned media outlets, particularly the country's biggest TV networks, are being intimidated by the state. Restrictions on what can be covered, coupled with the recent purchases of once-critical news outlets by buyers allied with the government, have resulted in coverage either friendly to Mr. Maduro or indifferent to his governing style, said Marianela Balbi, director of the Press and Society Institute of Venezuela, a press freedom group.

"We think that day was a point of no return for the press," said Ms. Balbi. "Quite simply what happened was that there was no information about the violence, no video images, no live coverage when this was happening in other cities, when people were being hurt, killed."

More.

Obama Consciously Engineering America's Decline

An essay at Commmentary (via Blazing Cat Fur).

And check out Megyn Kelly's interview last night with Rep. Buck McKeon, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee:


Background at NYT, "Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level."

Phyllis 'Sally' Carter Killed by Rolling Car in Horrific Parking Garage Accident

What a tragedy.

I saw Instapundit's brief post, "A BIT OF ADVICE."

Glenn doesn't link it, but here's the story at Knoxville News, "Maryville woman identified in garage fatality caused by rolling car."

It happens. Last semester I completely forgot to put my van in park AND to set the brake. I don't know what I was thinking, but the department secretary ran over to my office to ask if I owned a Honda Odyssey. I said yes and she said "You better get out to the parking lot. Your van's rolling away."

Luckily it's a flat parking lot and the van just rolled back out from the parking stall and was blocking the drive. A colleague of mine said hello to me as I was walking in the building and she realized it was my van. She called the department. What a blessing.

Weird that, especially since I always set the parking brake, but it happens.

Be careful out there. And prayers for Mrs. Carter's family.

Behind the Turmoil in #Venezuela

From Mary O'Grady, at the Wall Street Journal (via Google):

The bloodshed in Caracas over the past 12 days brings to mind the 2009 Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, where President Obama greeted Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez with a huge grin and a warm handshake. A couple of months later the State Department attempted to force Honduras to reinstall pro-Chávez president Manuel Zelaya, who had been deposed for violating the constitution.

Brows were knitted throughout the Americas. Why did the U.S. president favor the Venezuelan dictator, protégé of Fidel Castro, over Honduras, which still had a rule of law, press freedom and pluralism?

Fast forward to last Wednesday, after four peaceful student-protesters had been confirmed as having been killed by the government's armed minions. Mr. Obama took notice, pronouncing the brutality "unacceptable." That must have been comforting to hear amid the gun shots and pummeling on the streets of Caracas.

That same night the government of Nicolás Maduro —Chávez's handpicked successor—unleashed a wave of terror across the country. According to Venezuelan blogs and Twitter posts, the National Guard and police went on a tear, firing their weapons indiscriminately, beating civilians, raiding suspected student hide-outs, destroying private property and launching tear-gas canisters. Civilian militia on motor bikes added to the mayhem. The reports came from Valencia, Mérida, San Cristóbal, Maracaibo, Puerto Ordaz and elsewhere, as well as the capital.

Venezuela has promised 100,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba, and in exchange Cuban intelligence runs the Venezuelan state security apparatus. The Cubans clearly are worried about losing the oil if their man in Caracas falls. Opposition leader Leopoldo López, who heads the Popular Will political party, spent several years building a network of young recruits around the country. Last week's unrest is a testament to that organization, and it is why the 42-year-old Mr. López is now behind bars.

In Ukraine, the European Union has pressured the government to reach a compromise with the opposition. Venezuelans are getting no such help from the neighbors. Only Colombia, Chile and Panama have objected to the crackdown. The rest of the hemisphere doesn't have even a passing interest in human rights when the violations come from the left. The Organization of American States is supposed to defend civil liberties, but since Chilean Socialist José Miguel Insulza took the OAS helm in 2005, it has earned a disgraceful record as a shill for Cuba.

Venezuelans seeking change face daunting odds. The crowds in the streets of Caracas in recent days have not been significantly bigger than in many prior-year protests, including 2002, when a march in Caracas almost unseated Chávez.

This time the repression has been fierce. Besides injuries and death, hundreds have been detained and it would not be surprising if many are given long sentences. Mr. Maduro needs scapegoats for the violence he unleashed. Iván Simonovis, the former head of the Caracas Metropolitan Police, has been a political prisoner since 2004. Chávez made him take the fall for the 17 people killed in the April 2002 uprising even though video evidence points to chavista snipers. Photos of the once-fit policeman, frail and gravely ill from the inhuman circumstances of his long incarceration, are chilling.

Another problem is the division within the opposition. The governor of the state of Miranda, Henrique Capriles, represented a broad coalition of anti-chavista parties when he ran for president in 2013. But when he conceded to Mr. Maduro amid strong evidence that the election had been stolen, Mr. López and other members of the opposition broke with Capriles supporters.

Students have also been hamstrung by a communications blockade. The government controls all Venezuelan television and radio airwaves. When the violence broke out, it forced satellite providers to drop the Colombian NTN channel. Internet service has been cut in many places.

Getting the very poor on board for a regime change is a challenge. Some still see chavismo as their government, even if they have no love for Mr. Maduro and suffer from high inflation. Others don't dare speak out, for fear of losing state jobs or their lives. The barrios are terrorized by the chavista militia...

More.

Ukraine Seeks Arrest of Ousted Leader Yanukovych

At WSJ, "Ukraine Issues Arrest Warrant for Ousted President Yanukovych: Acting Government to Open Criminal Case Into 'Mass Murder' of Civilians":

BALAKLAVA, Ukraine—Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was on the run Monday from a new government, which issued an arrest warrant for him on allegations of ordering the "mass murder" of protesters on the streets of Kiev last week.

Opposition parties—who over the weekend gained control of parliament and voted to dismiss Mr. Yanukovych—now want the toppled leader held accountable for deadly clashes in Kiev that left more than 80 protesters and police dead. Ukraine's acting interior minister, Arsen Avakov, used his Facebook page Monday to deem Mr. Yanukovych an officially wanted man.

"As of this morning, a criminal case has been opened based on the mass murder of civilians," Mr. Avakov wrote in his post. "Yanukovych and some other officials have been put on the wanted persons list."

The transformation of Mr. Yanukovych from the country's elected leader to a hounded runaway has been stunning in its speed. Within four days, he has gone from an embattled Ukrainian leader negotiating with foreign diplomats to a full-fledged man on the run, the subject of swirling rumors about fanciful escape attempts via helicopter, private jet and boat.

The 63-year-old deposed president dropped out of sight after he was last publicly seen Saturday in a video, in which he denounced his removal from power as a coup and declared himself Ukraine's legitimately elected president.

Amid the hunt for the ousted leader, opposition protesters fresh from their experience in a veritable war zone on the streets of Kiev have been thrust into the task of putting together a government in the wake of Mr. Yanukovych's departure.

More.

Spanish Leftist Alba González Camacho Convicted for Threatening Political Leaders on Twitter

Well, if she was a Nazi you'd never hear the end of this.

At the New York Times, "In a First for Spain, a Woman Is Convicted of Inciting Terror Over Twitter":

 

MADRID — The line between youthful rebelliousness and something more dangerous is not always clear. But in her angry musings on Twitter, Alba González Camacho, 21, who describes herself as a “very normal girl,” sailed across it. After she posted messages calling for a far-left terrorist organization to return to arms and kill politicians, Spain’s national court convicted her of inciting terrorism using a social media network.

It was the first verdict of its kind involving Twitter posts in Spain, and the case has touched on issues of where precisely the cultural, political and legal red lines lie in a country that not long ago lived under both the grip of Fascist dictatorship and the threat of leftist terrorism.

The case is also one of a recent handful that have pushed social media into courtrooms worldwide and raised issues of the limits of speech in the ether of the Internet. In January, two people received prison sentences in Britain for posting threatening messages against a feminist campaigner. The same month, a federal judge in the United States sentenced a man to 16 months in prison for threatening on Twitter to kill President Obama.

Ms. González Camacho, a student in southern Spain, says she is unaffiliated with any political organization. But she had invoked a group known as the Grapo, which killed more than 80 people, mostly in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Spain was returning to democracy after the lengthy Franco dictatorship. Although the Grapo never officially disbanded, security officials here consider it to have long lost its operative capability.

The group’s dormancy did not matter to the judge, who accepted the prosecution’s argument, which said that Ms. González Camacho had posted “messages with an ideological content that was highly radicalized and violent,” violating an article in the Spanish Constitution that prohibits any apology for or glorification of terrorism.

One of the messages called for the murder of the conservative prime minister, Mariano Rajoy. “I promise to tattoo myself with the face of the person who shoots Rajoy in the neck,” she wrote. Another singled out Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, the justice minister, comparing him to a Nazi.

Eduardo Serra, a former Spanish defense minister, said that while far-left groups like the Grapo no longer presented any threat to Spanish society, “Terrorism is terrorism, and it just can’t be glorified.”

With no past criminal record, Ms. González Camacho was sentenced to one year in prison but will avoid jail time under a plea bargain.

She is studying to become a social worker in Jaén, in southern Spain, and declined to be interviewed, saying the case had brought her and her family enough trouble. But in an email exchange, she said that the intention of her Twitter posts was to fight “a system in which a minority lives on the back of the death, misery and exploitation of a majority,” in a country where the euro crisis has sown widespread economic despair.

“The truth is that I’m a very normal girl, who has never landed herself in any kind of problem,” Ms. González Camacho said by email. “But if I tell you everything that I’m fed up with, I would never stop.”

“I never imagined something like that could happen to me because you find a lot of nonsense on the Internet, including worse than mine,” she wrote about her conviction. “But it seems that here that the prosecution is only for those from one side — the Fascists can say whatever they want, and nothing will ever happen to them.”

Oh yeah, she's "very normal." No doubt millions of 21-year-old European sweeties would love to tattoo leftist revolutionary murderers on their faces.

But hey, crickets. She'll spend not a day in jail for her terrorist escapades. It's all just stuff on the Internet, ha!

Michelle Fields Interviews Glenn Reynolds

And they talk about the professor's recent book, The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.



And at Instapundit, "THE LEARNING CURVE: In the Weekly Standard, Jonathan Marks reviews my The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself."

Australian Television Star Charlotte Dawson Commits Suicide After Years of Abortion-Related Depression

Sad.

At the Australian, "Celebrities and friends pay tribute to Charlotte Dawson, dead at 47":

News.com.au reported that Ms Dawson’s failure to attend a lunch appointment, and a 19-hour silence from her Twitter account, alerted a friend to contact the manager of Ms Dawson’s apartment building. A security guard discovered her body, the report said.

Ms Dawson gave an insight into her life — both her troubles and the highlights — in her autobiography, released late 2012.

In the book, Air Kiss and Tell, she revealed she had had an abortion with her former husband, Olympic swimmer Scott Miller, so that he would not have any distractions in the lead up to the Sydney Olympics.

She had been looking forward to having a baby but sensed “hesitation” in Miller.

”Everything Scott had done was leading up to this moment and nothing could stand in his way, so it was decided that we would terminate the child and try again later. Who needed a developing foetus when a gold medal was on offer, eh?”

Ms Dawson wrote that she was alone when she had the termination.

In he book she wrote that this was her first experience with depression — a battle she continued to fight for the next 14 years.

Of course, baby-killing leftists won't shed a tear for this woman, and any intimation that her death was abortion-related will bring out the left's murderous daggers. See, "Fred Nile under fire for Facebook post about Charlotte Dawson abortion."

Nothing will stand in the way of the totalitarian left. No contrarian thought. No deviation from the party line. I swear they'll kill you if they could. This woman's dead now from the guilt she suffered alone for over a decade. So much for leftist compassion.

Senator Kelly Ayotte: 'It's Time to Reset the Reset' Policy With Russia

Yeah, Obama needs to "up his game," big time.

At Politico, "Ayotte: Russia reset has failed."

Yahoo Aims to More Deftly Blend Ads With Content

I think we should start a Marissa Meyer termination countdown. I can't remember any good news about Yahoo since she took over as CEO.

In any case, at NYT:

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — To Marissa Mayer, the chief executive of Yahoo, fashion magazines like Vogue and InStyle have achieved the holy grail of advertising.

“The ads in those magazines are as interesting as the photo shoots and the articles,” she said in an interview last week at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. “I miss the ads when they are not there. I feel less fulfilled.”

This year, her goal is to start making the ads on Yahoo just as compelling and just as integrated with the news and information people seek on her company’s websites and mobile applications.

One early example: Recipes from Knorr, the soup brand owned by Unilever, are sprinkled around regular articles from Yahoo writers, food magazines and blogs on Yahoo Food, the digital magazine the company started about six weeks ago.

Ms. Mayer, who oversaw Google’s signature search products for several years, also hopes to develop new search tools and ads geared to mobile users — the company’s first steps to innovate in its original business since 2010, when it began a 10-year deal to outsource search to Microsoft.

“We’re not sure that a list of links that people have to pick through is the right experience on the phone, and we’re going to start to play with context, applications, other ways to address those search needs,” she said.

Better, more useful ads would certainly make Yahoo’s 800 million monthly users and its legions of advertisers happier all around.

But for Yahoo, much more is at stake. New ad formats that go beyond the company’s traditional banner and search ads are its best hope of finding fresh sources of revenue, which it badly needs after years of decline.

Yeah, badly.

See AdAge, "Yahoo Slips Behind Google, Facebook and Even Microsoft In Online Ad Share."

Lying Scumbag Susan Rice Has No Regrets on Benghazi Statements

She's such a scumbag liar.

At LAT, "Susan Rice defends 2012 Benghazi comments, warns Russia on Ukraine."

Geopolitical Implications of Conflict in Ukraine

At Der Spiegel, "Chess in a Minefield: The Global Implications of the Ukraine Conflict":

The bloody conflict in Ukraine could trigger yet another confrontation between the West and Russia. Dominance in Europe is at stake on the geopolitical chess board. While Ukraine itself could descend into civil war.

The quote printed in SPIEGEL 33 years ago was a noteworthy one, and still sounds remarkably topical: "We have to ensure that this Soviet empire, when it breaks apart due to its internal contradictions, does so with a whimper rather than a bang." The sentence was spoken by US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger during an interview conducted in September of 1981.

This week in Ukraine, one of the core regions of that former empire, it is looking very much like a "bang." Thursday in Kiev has seen bloody violence that has cost the lives of dozens amid gunfire and brutal clashes on Independence Square. Hundreds have been wounded, many seriously. The violence comes on the heels of similar battles on Tuesday -- and mark the beginning of what could become an extended and dramatic conflict over the country's future.

Some of those who have traveled to Kiev to view the situation first hand in recent weeks are fully aware of what a "bang" looks like -- US Senator John McCain, 77, for example, a veteran of Vietnam who was shot down in 1967 and spent over two years as a prisoner of war. In December, he stood on the Independence Square stage in Kiev and called out: "People of Ukraine, this is your moment! The free world is with you! America is with you!"
In other words, the Cold War has returned and Moscow is once again the adversary. The only difference is that the weapons have changed.

It is no longer just the association agreement with the European Union that is at stake. Nor is the future of President Viktor Yanukovych, a man surrounded by rumors of corruption, the focus anymore. Rather, geopolitics has taken center stage and the question as to which power centers in Europe and the Eurasia region will be dominant in the future has become paramount. Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski once compared the region to a chess board. The players, as always, include the US, Russia, the EU and NATO.

Moscow in Checkmate

It's a chess game in a minefield. Just how explosive the country called Ukraine really is became clear from a background interview given by former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar -- a liberal reformer and friendly to the West -- in 2008, one year before his death. Those wishing to make Ukraine a member of NATO, as was the intention of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, overlook the fact that it would put Russia in an untenable defensive position, he said. The effort, he added, should be abandoned.

Brzezinski would love to have put Moscow in checkmate. In his book "The Grand Chessboard," he writes that without Ukraine, Russia "would become predominantly an Asian imperial state" at risk of being drawn into conflicts in Central Asia. But if Moscow were able to gain control of Ukraine and its resources, Brzezinski wrote, the Russian Federation would be a "powerful imperial state." He saw danger in a potential "German-Russian collusion" and in the possibility of an agreement between Europe and Russia with the goal of pushing America out of the region.

Essentially, Brzezinski's point of view is one that guides American strategy to this day: The US wants to keep Russia as far away as possible. If the Europeans get involved in Ukraine and harm their relations with Moscow, that is fine with Washington.

Indeed, US Deputy Foreign Minister Victoria Nuland's infamous "Fuck the EU" gaffe, can hardly be seen as a mistake. Rather it is a logical, if somewhat vulgar, expression of America's geopolitical stance.

Continue reading.

U.S. Medal Haul Disappoints in #Sochi

At WSJ, "Medal Tally Lags Behind Winter Games High of 37 in 2010."

Man, these Sochi games were pretty much a downer all around. I didn't watch much after the first few days. Was busy with school, although I wasn't that pumped up to turn on NBC in the evenings. I wonder why?

Ralston College President Stephen Blackwood: Mom's Sandostatin Cancer Treatment Cancelled by #ObamaCare

Well, sadly, my prediction of the left's attack on Julie Boonstra turned out to be all-too-accurate.

So let's hope the vile leftists cut just a tiny bit of slack for Catherine Blackwood, who's been fighting carcinoid cancer since the summer of 2005.

See Stephen Blackwood, at the Wall Street Journal, "ObamaCare and My Mother's Cancer Medicine":

When my mother was diagnosed with carcinoid cancer in 2005, when she was 49, it came as a lightning shock. Her mother, at 76, had yet to go gray, and her mother's mother, at 95, was still playing bingo in her nursing home. My mother had always been, despite her diminutive frame, a titanic and irrepressible force of vitality and love. She had given birth to me and my nine younger siblings, and juggled kids, home and my father's medical practice with humor and grace for three decades. She swam three times a week in the early mornings, ate healthily and never smoked.

And now, cancer? Anyone who's been there knows that a cancer diagnosis is terrifying....

Carcinoid, a form of neuroendocrine cancer, is a terminal disease but generally responds well to treatment by Sandostatin, a drug that slows tumor growth and reduces (but does not eliminate) the symptoms of fatigue, nausea and gastrointestinal dysfunction. My mother received a painful shot twice a month and often couldn't sit comfortably for days afterward.

As with most cancers, one thing led to another. There have been several more surgeries, metastases, bone deterioration, a terrible bout of thyroiditis (an inflammation of the thyroid gland), and much more. But my mother has kept fighting, determined to make the most of life, no matter what it brings. She has an indomitable will and is by far the toughest person I've ever met. But she wouldn't still be here without that semimonthly Sandostatin shot that slows the onslaught of her disease.

And then in November, along with millions of other Americans, she lost her health insurance. She'd had a Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan for nearly 20 years. It was expensive, but given that it covered her very expensive treatment, it was a terrific plan. It gave her access to any specialist or surgeon, and to the Sandostatin and other medications that were keeping her alive.

And then, because our lawmakers and president thought they could do better, she had nothing. Her old plan, now considered illegal under the new health law, had been canceled.

Because the exchange website in her state (Virginia) was not working, she went directly to insurers' websites and telephoned them, one by one, over dozens of hours. As a medical-office manager, she had decades of experience navigating the enormous problems of even our pre-ObamaCare system. But nothing could have prepared her for the bureaucratic morass she now had to traverse.

The repeated and prolonged phone waits were Sisyphean, the competence and customer service abysmal. When finally she found a plan that looked like it would cover her Sandostatin and other cancer treatments, she called the insurer, Humana, HUM +0.57% to confirm that it would do so. The enrollment agent said that after she met her deductible, all treatments and medications—including those for her cancer—would be covered at 100%. Because, however, the enrollment agents did not—unbelievable though this may seem—have access to the "coverage formularies" for the plans they were selling, they said the only way to find out in detail what was in the plan was to buy the plan. (Does that remind you of anyone?)

With no other options, she bought the plan and was approved on Nov. 22. Because by January the plan was still not showing up on her online Humana account, however, she repeatedly called to confirm that it was active. The agents told her not to worry, she was definitely covered.

Then on Feb. 12, just before going into (yet another) surgery, she was informed by Humana that it would not, in fact, cover her Sandostatin, or other cancer-related medications. The cost of the Sandostatin alone, since Jan. 1, was $14,000, and the company was refusing to pay.

The news was dumbfounding. This is a woman who had an affordable health plan that covered her condition. Our lawmakers weren't happy with that because . . . they wanted plans that were affordable and covered her condition. So they gave her a new one. It doesn't cover her condition and it's completely unaffordable...

There's still more at the link.

I think we should all say a prayer for Mrs. Blackwood. It's hard enough fighting a deadly disease like this, but on top of that you've got leftist collectivists and Democrat Party statists who think they know what's best for you, and damned if they won't make your life hell proving it. As President Blackwood remarks at the essay:

Though I'm no expert on ObamaCare (at 10,000 pages, who could be?), I understand that the intention—or at least the rhetorical justification—of this legislation was to provide coverage for those who didn't have it. But there is something deeply and incontestably perverse about a law that so distorts and undermines the free activity of individuals that they can no longer buy and sell the goods and services that keep them alive. ObamaCare made my mother's old plan illegal, and it forced her to buy a new plan that would accelerate her disease and death. She awaits an appeal with her insurer.

Will this injustice be remedied, for her and for millions of others? Or is my mother to die because she can no longer afford the treatment that keeps her alive?

Democrats don't care if she dies. Indeed, the story told here will be waved away by regressive leftists, and President Blackwood and his mother will be demonized as liars and "privileged" sponges who should be paying for their own care (which is how depraved leftists attacked cancer survivor Edie Sundby when she dared speak out against the ObamaCare monstrosity).

This is our world in America today, a grim totalitarian world of Democrat Party repression and inhuman leftist indifference and demonization. God willing the people will rise up against the Obama tyranny soon enough, at the ballot box in November, and by the bullet if that's what it takes in the end. A free people will not long tolerate the jackboot of dictatorship. Americans proved that to the world once over 200 years ago. Perhaps will see the Spirit of '76 rekindled here again soon, not unlike the protesters in Venezuela and Ukraine are doing at this very moment.

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



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

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Deja vu."

Alice Herz-Sommer, World's Oldest Holocaust Survivor, Dead at 110

An amazing life, living to 110 years. That's something else.

At the Chicago Tribune, "World's oldest Holocaust survivor, Alice Herz-Sommer, dies in UK."

And at London's Daily Mail, "World's oldest known holocaust survivor dies aged 110: Alice, who played piano in concentration camp, appeared in Oscar-nominated short film about her life."

Britain's Leftist Apologists for Pedophilia

On Twitter just now:

DAILY MAIL FRONT PAGE: How much longer can paedophilia apologists stay silent? #skypapers pic.twitter.com/F2k5LRxPJF

— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 23, 2014

And at London's Daily Mail, "The truth about Labour's apologists for paedophilia: Police probe child sex campaign group linked to three top party officials in wake of Savile scandal," and "Apologists for paedophilia: As the Mail exposes more links between senior Labour figures and a vile paedophile group, one man who was abused as a child asks them: why won't you admit you were wrong?"

Another day, another report of criminal leftist depravity. I'll update when Daily Mail has more.

BuzzFeed Alleges Breitbart/Pajamas Media Payola on Ukraine Politics

Naturally, deranged lizard blogger Charles Johnson would pick this up, via Memeorandum.

But let's go right to Rosie Gray at BuzzFeed, "Exclusive: How Ukraine Wooed Conservative Websites":

WASHINGTON — Several conservative bloggers repeated talking points given to them by a proxy group for the Ukrainian government — and at least one writer was paid by a representative of the Ukrainian group, according to documents and emails obtained by BuzzFeed.

The Ukrainian campaign began in the run-up to high-stakes Ukrainian parliamentary elections last year, and sought to convince skeptical American conservatives that the pro-Russian Party of Regions, led by President Viktor Yanukovych, deserved American support. During that period, articles echoing Ukrainian government talking points appeared on leading conservative online outlets, including RedState, Breitbart, and Pajamas Media.

The emails and documents, which include prepackaged quotes from election officials and talking points that some writers copied nearly word-for-word, offer a glimpse into how foreign governments dodge tight Justice Department regulations on foreign propaganda to covertly lobby in the United States: The payments were routed through a front group in Belgium to an American consultant, who has urged writers not to cooperate with a reporter investigating the campaign.

The model resembles a recent stealth campaign in which bloggers were paid by the Malaysian government to write favorable stories, though the Ukraine campaign appears to have involved smaller sums of money.

One of the writers who participated in the campaign, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and because of lingering qualms about the arrangement, they said, described being offered $500 for a blog post praising Ukraine’s ruling Party of Regions. The payment was arranged by George Scoville, a libertarian media strategist, and Scoville’s name was on the check, the source said.

An email from October 26, 2012 shows Scoville inviting writers to join a conference with Mikhail Okhendovskyy of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission. The call was organized by the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a Brussels-based group headed by Leonid Khazara, a former senior member of parliament from the pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. According to its website, it is a “a unique ‘Modern Ukraine’ organisation based in Brussels and operating internationally as an advocate for enhancing EU-Ukraine relations.”

In practical terms, the ECFMU exists to promote Yanukovych and the party — but its nominal independence means that its representatives in Washington do not need to register as foreign agents and make the extensive disclosures required under that program. Instead, the only evidence of its activity comes in the far more relaxed domestic lobbying disclosure law, which shows that the Brussels-based group employs two well-connected Washington lobbying firms, The Podesta Group and Mercury/Clark and Weinstock.

One email from October 29, the day after the election, shows Scoville sending out documents full of exit poll results and prepackaged statements from election observers.

“I just wanted to share the attached documents with you in case you were interested,” Scoville writes. “You’re under no obligation to write anything, but I wanted you to have this info in case you were feeling nostalgic and/or entrepreneurial :)”.

“But in all seriousness, if you could spend a few minutes today tweeting about the results using #ukrainevotes and promoting some of the pieces you wrote, that would be very helpful to us,” Scoville writes.

So far it's just the crazed lizard dolt at Memeorandum, although Boing Boing had the story a couple of days ago, so it's not like the idiot Johnson "broke" the story or anything, the f-king moron.

And hey, I'll believe this story when BuzzFeed posts all the email evidence and the name of the so-called anonymous "writer" making the allegations.

Libel-Free Adolescent Bill Schmalfeldt: 'CEASE AND DESIST'!

You gotta read this post over at the Other McCain, "Bill Schmalfeldt: ‘CEASE and DESIST’!"

The epic loser troll Schmalfeldt posted an open letter demanding that he not be libeled by WJJ Hoge or any of his commenters at Hogewash, to which I responded on Twitter, with apologies to X-Ray Spex, lol.

.@RSMcCain, Lol, Schmalfeldt's a "libel free" adolescent. http://t.co/OjjiQfKJEp

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 23, 2014

Professor Lisa Duggan and the Academic Boycott of Israel

I'm getting a kick out of this posting at Israel Matzav, "American Studies Association President-elect holding 'secret' anti-Israel conference at NYU." And following the links takes us to Elder of Ziyon, "ASA's president-elect hosting SECRET anti-Israel conference at NYU (Zionists not welcome)."

Again, it's pretty hilarious. It turns out that Lisa Duggan, who is a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU's Department of Social and Cultural Analysis (which means its a department of whatever the f-k its professors want to drone on about), has advertised an NYU American Studies Program titled "Circuits of Influence: U.S., Israel, & Palestine." (Clicking around we find Professor Duggan's also affiliated with NYU's Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, which "encourages students to question the meanings of 'male' and 'female,' as well as of sexual norms, in both Western and non-Western societies." Lulz.)

In any case, there's an Eventbrite page where you can buy tickets for the conference, although Professor Duggan's trying to keep the conference on the down low, as can be seen from her Facebook posting:



As noted at Edler of Ziyon:

The conference will have the usual obscene Israel-bashing that one would expect from the ASA,with speakers from Adalah-NY, Students for Justice in Palestine, and "Jewish Voice for Peace."

Indeed, the entire conference seems to be made up to justify the unjustifiable boycott of Israel voted on by the ASA and condemned by hundreds of colleges and universities.

Yeah, well. The same old story, blah blah.

More at Algemeiner, "NYU Prof to Head ASA, Supports Israel Boycott; NY Lawmakers Threaten to Withdraw State Aid," and "Forbes Investigative Journalist Rips NYU President Over ‘Vanilla’ Response to ASA Boycott." No surprise, but it turns out Professor Duggan's a terror-coddler. (And go right to the piece at Forbes, from NYU alumnus and Forbes Contributing Editor Richard Behar, "Open Letter to NYU's President: Why The American Studies Assn.'s Israel Boycott Makes Me Ashamed to Be An Alumnus."

Plus, at Cathy Young argued in November at Newsday:

The boycott’s agenda is to make Israel a pariah state. There has been much debate on whether the blatant double standard of such ostracism is rooted in anti-Jewish bias. The bias here is anti-Western: the Israel-hating left sees Israel as an outpost of Western and American imperialism oppressing a Third World people. However, anti-Israel animus often does overlap with anti-Semitism, as the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights recently noted.

Whatever its motive, the anti-Israel boycott is an affront to the true spirit of both political and intellectual liberalism. This movement should be opposed not only by Israel’s supporters, but also by anyone concerned with the state of the American academy.

As readers know, the public outrage and pushback over the ASA's academic boycott of Israel is ongoing, although this attempt to hold a secret "Circuits of Influence" conference is a new, troubling development. So, folks can go to NYU's page for Leadership and University Administration and follow the page links for the college president and other administrators. I'm going to send them an email in the morning and I'm encouraging readers to do so as well. Let's see if we can shine a spotlight on this secret conference the university is hosting, obviously in violation of the public trust, if not New York state law.

Added: Don't miss William Jacobson, at Legal Insurrection, "Vicious and Deceptive anti-Israel Propaganda Hate Week starts."

Hustler Magazine v. Falwell Turns 26

From Kathy Shaidle, at Pajamas:

When it comes to even the most basic conceptions of free speech and robust public debate, 1988 might as well be 260 years ago, never mind twenty-six.

Kathy's talking about Mark Steyn's ridiculous defense against the morally (and financially) bankrupt climate hoax-ster Michael Mann. Her comparison is to Hustler Magazine's Larry Flint, who prevailed in court over the obviously hapless Jerry Falwell, and she writes:

A lot has changed since 1988.

Before Mark Steyn’s first brushes with the speech-chillers in 2008, I’d naively presumed — having come of age in the seventies and eighties created by Flynt and his fellow liberals (and seen the movie version of his case win great acclaim) — that every smart, right-thinking individual still felt that way.

Instead, I heard an endless stream of idiots — some of them in positions of authority, God help us — drag out today’s cliche of choice, that “you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”

I had the pleasure of watching Steyn using his rapier wit and knowledge of American history to crush a Toronto politico who foolishly employed that tired “argument.”

Yet what struck me was how unaffected this moron was by Steyn’s evisceration; he just droned on brainlessly for another minute or so.

(Amusingly, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who coined that idiotic “crowded theater” line, also famously wrote in a pro-eugenics argument that “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Having watched David Zimmer sputter impotently and ignorantly while he questioned Steyn, I’m reluctantly inclined to agree that there really are altogether too many morons cluttering up the joint…)

Now, back to the Mann situation: one is supposedly guaranteed a jury of one’s peers, which in Steyn’s case is cause enough for pessimism.

But bear in mind that Steyn’s first judge was so stupid that she got the defendants mixed up.

In 1988, Flynt was the “liberal”/good guy and Falwell the “conservative” bad guy.

Today, in brain-dead, conformist, politically correct America, I fear Steyn will be viewed as the “Falwell” of the case even though he’s (technically) the “Flynt.”

Plus it was easy for Larry Flynt to play the outrageous, courageous “free speech” hero, and not just because he was, temperamentally, a daredevil and a brat.

In the first place, he was a millionaire many times over.

More at the link.

F-king leftist morons.

Cuba Sends Troops to Venezuela to Crush Democratic Uprising

This is fascinating, from Ezra Levant on Twitter.

While the world watches the Olympics, Cuba sends troops to put down #Venezuelan democracy uprising: https://t.co/LndgctzADI

— Ezra Levant (@ezralevant) February 23, 2014

And also at Babalú, "Turmoil in Venezuela: Violent repression continues as Cuban troops arrive to aid dictatorship."

Arribo de 4 aviones a terminal auxiliar de Maiquetía procedentes de Cuba. Imagen confiable hoy pic.twitter.com/sDHUqw3cak

— DeivisRamírezMiranda (@deivisramirez) February 22, 2014

And following the links, see Caracas Chronicles, "Gocho Uprising Update."

The Regnerus New Family Structures Study Goes to Court

Folks might remember Professor Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas. A couple of years back he was in the news with his large-N research study finding that children of homosexuals parents did less well socially and educationally than children raised by their parents in intact biological families (IBFs). The left's reaction to this wasn't just to dispute the findings. Monstrous far-left academics and their associations (professional and media) sought to utterly destroy him with professional and criminal penalties. It was a vicious spectacle. See, "Progressives Attack Professor Mark Regnerus Over Same-Sex Parenting Research."

In any case, the Regnerus study is having its day in court. See the New York Times, "Opponents of Same-Sex Marriage Take Bad-for-Children Argument to Court."

Remember, the left's response to criticism, facts, and logic is to destroy any and all opposition. They are vile, vindictive people. You're lucky if you don't have to spend time around them.

Scott Walker's Right-to-Work Legislation Has Had 'Devastating Effect' on Wisconsin's Public-Sector Unions

This is why the left seethes with burning hatred for Governor Walker.

At the New York Times, "Wisconsin’s Legacy for Unions":

Three years ago, a labor leader named Marty Beil was one of the loudest opponents of Gov. Scott Walker’s “budget repair bill,” a proposal that brought tens of thousands of protesters out to the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison in frigid February weather. A gruff-voiced grizzly of a man, Mr. Beil warned that the bill was rigged with booby traps that would cripple the state’s public-sector unions.

He gets no satisfaction from being right. Since the law was passed, membership in his union, which represents state employees, has fallen 60 percent; its annual budget has plunged to $2 million from $6 million.

Mr. Walker’s landmark law — called Act 10 — severely restricted the power of public-employee unions to bargain collectively, and that provision, among others, has given social workers, prison guards, nurses and other public employees little reason to pay dues to a union that can no longer do much for them. Members of Mr. Beil’s group, the Wisconsin State Employees’ Union, complain that their take-home pay has fallen more than 10 percent in recent years, a sign of the union’s greatly diminished power.

“It’s had a devastating effect on our union,” Mr. Beil, its executive director, said of Act 10. He was sitting in his Madison office, inside the headquarters that his union, hard up for cash, may be forced to sell. The building is underused anyway, as staff reductions have left many offices empty.

Wisconsin was the first state to grant public-sector unions the right to negotiate contracts. Before Gov. Gaylord Nelson signed that law in 1959, only unionized workers in private companies had a government-protected right to bargain collectively. But the Wisconsin idea soon spread around the country. Act 10 is an about-face, and Mr. Walker and his Republican supporters see it as a tough-minded strategy that other states can follow. History repeating itself, if in reverse.

Many labor leaders and union members are still fuming about the law. It bars public-sector unions from bargaining over pensions, health coverage, safety, hours, sick leave or vacations. All they can negotiate is base pay, and even that is limited: any raises they win cannot exceed inflation.

“I speak to union officials in other states, and I tell them, ‘Don’t be misled,’ ” Mr. Beil said. “We thought this could never happen here. But it did. You have to stay vigilant.”

Mr. Walker, who is widely viewed as a Republican presidential contender in 2016, has already emboldened other Republican-controlled states to enact measures that weaken unions and cut benefits. Tennessee and Idaho passed laws that cut back bargaining rights for public schoolteachers, while Ohio curbed collective bargaining for all state employees — though that law was repealed in a 2011 referendum. Even longtime union strongholds like Michigan and Indiana have enacted right-to-work laws that undercut private-sector unions by banning any requirements that workers pay union dues or fees. (A state judge’s decision that declared the Indiana law unconstitutional is being appealed to the state’s Supreme Court.)

Mr. Walker’s tough stance toward public-employee unions has steeled governors and mayors grappling with large unfunded pension obligations. And his criticisms of pensions have been reinforced by the turmoil in Detroit, where the often-generous and sometimes scandal-ridden pension system played a substantial role in the city’s bankruptcy.

“You’re seeing more politicians willing to stand up to public-sector unions,” said Gary Chaison, a professor of labor relations at Clark University. “Fairly or unfairly, public-sector unions are increasingly being seen as part of the problem.”

Photo Credit: Althouse (on Flickr).

OMG Bizarro Homofascist Leftists!

I'm incredulous this is even real, but see Robert Stacy McCain, "LGBT Activist Declares: ‘We Need to Start Making Their Lives a Living Hell’."

Homofascist gaystapo hatred.

But RTWT at the Other McCain.

Hockey Stick Warming Conman Michael Mann Facing Bankruptcy

Maybe the f-ker will wind up behind bars.

At iOWNTHEWORLD, "MICHAEL MANN FACES BANKRUPTCY AS HIS COURTROOM CLIMATE CAPERS COLLAPSE."

Luisa Zissman Top Tips

For Valentine's Day, actually.

But better late than never.

And more at London's Daily Mail, "'Mine are better than hers!' Luisa Zissman challenges Helen Flanagan to a 'boob-off' as she displays her prize assets in a VERY racy underwear shoot."

Ukraine Parliament Votes to Remove President Viktor Yanukovych: Sets New Presidential Elections for May 25

There's video here, from RT, "Ukrainian parliament impeaches Yanukovich," and Euronews, "Defiant Yanukovych likens opposition to Nazis."

At the Wall Street Journal, "Parliament Ousts Ukraine President: Action Comes After Yanukovych Leaves Capital and Decries What He Calls a Coup by 'Bandits'":

KIEV, Ukraine—Ukraine's parliament voted on Saturday to remove President Viktor Yanukovych and set new presidential elections for May 25. The action came hours after he left the capital and protesters took control of the city center.

Mr. Yanukovych vowed to remain in power, even as his political allies abandoned him in droves. In an interview with a TV station in Kharkiv in the eastern portion of the country, he denounced the events in Kiev as a "coup d'état" that he blamed on "bandits."

"I have no plans to leave the country and I have no plans to resign. I am the legally elected president and all the international intermediaries I've talked to (over the last few days) have given me guarantees of security. We'll see how those are fulfilled," Mr. Yanukovych said in the TV interview, speaking in Russian.

Oleksandr Turchynov, a leading opposition lawmaker, was elected speaker of parliament, which under the constitution makes him acting head of state.

Mr. Turchynov told lawmakers that Mr. Yanukovych had tried to board a plane to Russia but was turned back by border officials and had returned to the area near his hometown of Donetsk in Ukraine's east, according to the Interfax news agency. An official from the border guards later told Interfax that a plane carrying Mr. Yanukovych had sought clearance to leave Donetsk late on Saturday but was denied it because of lack of necessary permits.

In a day of fast-moving developments, Ukraine opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was released from prison and made her way to Independence Square in Kiev where she addressed a large nighttime crowd.

Speaking from a wheelchair after suffering back problems during her 2½ years in prison, Ms. Tymoshenko called for bringing Mr. Yanukovych to the square to face the people. Though widely seen as a potential presidential candidate, she gave no hints of her plans, saying only, "I came back to work."

"When snipers were firing bullets into our guys' hearts, they were firing into everyone's hearts. And if those who organized and carried it are not punished by the worst, most severe court, it will be our shame," she told the crowd.

Tens of thousands poured onto Kiev's main square on Saturday evening ahead of her speech for funerals for some of the dead protesters. As pictures of dead protesters flashed across a big screen, the crowd chanted, "Heroes never die!" and, referring to Mr. Yanukovych, "Death to the criminal!"

More.

Saturday India Reynolds Blogging — #Rule5

She's a sweet young lady.

At Egotastic!, "Thank God It’s Funbags! The Gloriously Hot India Reynolds Strips Down in the Boudoir for Hot Bodied Perfection."

Daily Kos Diarist Defends Venezuela's Socialist Strongman Maduro: Protests Orchestrated by 'Right-Wing Oligarchy'

From Ray Pensador, at the Commentocracy of Hate, "Venezuela: A Serious Threat to the Int'l Neo-Liberal Cartel Hegemony."

Okay, Marxist-Leninist much?

Via Liberty Unyielding, "Leading liberal web site claims protesters against violent socialist regime are U.S. puppets":

The Daily Kos blog is widely read and parroted by the Democratic base, to the point that I regularly read it to get a sense of what liberal legislators and liberal activists will be pushing in the weeks and months ahead. With attitudes like this, it’s no wonder the Obama administration has said little about the violence and repression in Venezuela. The President doesn’t want to offend his own political base.

Well, yeah.

Today's Democrats are the party of Fidel Castro and Occupy Wall Street.

Indeed, it's pretty hilarious that Venezuela's Maduro wants Obama to pull his chestnuts out of the fire: "After Telling Obama to Stay Out of Venezuela’s Problems, Maduro Asks Obama to Help Him." Hey, man, can you help out a fellow socialist dictator down here, bro? Thanks.

And remember, Markos Moulitsas considers Daily Kos, with all its diarists, as "the mainstream of the Democratic Party."

World's Most-Wanted Drug Lord Captured in Mexico

At NYT, " El Chapo, Most-Wanted Drug Lord, Is Captured":

MEXICO CITY — Early on Saturday, dozens of soldiers and police officers descended on a hotel-condominium tower in Mazatlán, Mexi
co, a beach resort known as much as a hangout for drug traffickers as for its seafood and surf.

The forces were following yet another tip about the whereabouts of the trafficker Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, who, to the utter frustration of American and Mexican pursuers, had eluded such raids for 13 years since escaping from prison in a laundry cart. With an army of guards and lethally enforced loyalty, he reigned over a worldwide, multibillion-dollar drug empire that supplied much of the illicit drugs to the United States even as the authorities tried in vain to find him.

This time, however, Mr. Guzmán did not slip out a door, disappear into the night or prove to be absent, as he had in so many previous attempts to apprehend him. Mexican marines and the police, aided by information from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Marshals Service, took him into custody without firing a shot and whisked him away, according to American officials...

Keep reading.

Democrat Gary Peters Threatens TV Station Licenses Over Julie Boonstra #ObamaCare Advertisement

Oh, so the left has to threaten lawsuits to silence a leukemia patient who dared speak out against ObamaCare. It's not like I didn't see this coming, or anything.

From Nice Deb, at Breitbart, "#DemWarOnWomen : Vulnerable Dem In MI Using Lawfare To Silence Cancer Stricken ObamaCare Critic."

And at Twitchy, "#WarOnWomen: ‘Obamacare bully’ Rep. Gary Peters tries to silence mom battling cancer [video]."

Democrat #waronwomen #waronspeech MT @DRUDGE_REPORT Dem threatens TV station licenses over Obamacare ad http://t.co/Fkek7cgdUB

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) February 22, 2014

SHAME! "@AFPhq: .@RepGaryPeters attacks mother battling cancer who had insurance canceled because of #ObamaCare -> http://t.co/VduOTjY67w"

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) February 22, 2014

Dems employ new #Obamacare strategy, anyone who publicly complains will have the heavy-hand of govt unleashed on them http://t.co/RlIZVNCJgv

— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) February 22, 2014

Want to see a #waronwomen? Look what @repgarypeters is doing to this mom fighting cancer, all for speaking out: http://t.co/27HsC9u6rg

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) February 22, 2014

You shouldn't be attacked for not being able to afford your high Obamacare deductibles #IAmJulie @RepGaryPeters

— Katy Abram (@katyabram) February 22, 2014

Stop the left from intimidating and threatening this innocent woman for speaking out #WeStandWithJulie @AFP http://t.co/YNbc0I9iej

— Luke Hilgemann (@LHilgemann) February 22, 2014

Like I always say, the left will stop at nothing to silence those who dare get in their way.

Yulia Tymoshenko, Former Ukraine Prime Minister, Rallies Crowd at Independence Square, Kiev (VIDEO)

This is getting to be pretty major.

At Telegraph UK, "Yulia Tymoshenko arrives in Kiev as revolution forces president from power":

Freed Yulia Tymoshenko addresses crowds in Kiev as President Viktor Yanukovych flees in face of popular uprising.

Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s former prime minister, has walked free from detention to hail the “end of dictatorship” hours after President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown by the revolution on the streets of Kiev.

From early morning protesters had advanced from their stronghold in the centre of the capital to take control of parliament, the presidency and the cabinet office.

The police melted away and offered no resistance. Mr Yanukovych himself fled the capital and sought refuge in his political heartland in eastern Ukraine.

As he made this exit, believed to have taken place under cover of darkness on Friday night, his leading opponent then headed back to Kiev.

The former prime minister, who was jailed on trumped up charges of abuse of office in 2011, was released from detention in hospital on the orders of parliament.

As she left, Ms Tymoshenko declared: “Our homeland will from today on be able to see the sun and sky as a dictatorship has ended,” she said, later adding: “I am sure that Ukraine will be a member of the European Union in the near future and this will change everything.”

Last night she touched down in the capital, marking the end of a two year ordeal of imprisonment in a tearful reunion with her daughter Eugenia, who has been at the forefront of the protest that brought down the president.

She is expected to be a contender for the presidency in a post-revolutionary election fixed for May 25.

Her release ended a dramatic day that transformed Ukraine. After a confrontation lasting almost three months - and a bloodstained week during which at least 70 demonstrators were shot dead in the heart of Kiev - Mr Yanukovych’s resolve appears to have cracked.

More here.

Also at the New York Times, "Live Video and Social Media Updates From Ukraine."

Scene here at Independence Square as Julia Tymoshenko speaks #Kyiv pic.twitter.com/JbEf84yfsT

— Paul Waldie (@pwaldieGLOBE) February 22, 2014

Tymoshenko: "Heroes never die." https://t.co/5Y0NN7AS1L pic.twitter.com/zLXujLAHMS

— Glenn Kates (@gkates) February 22, 2014

Tymoshenko: 'When snipers were shooting in hearts of our guys, those bullets will always hurt. If we don't prosecute, we should be ashamed'

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) February 22, 2014