Why is al-Nusra Front Being Relabeled as 'Khorasan'?

You know, who the f-k came up with this stupid terrorist moniker, "Khorasan"? These thugs are the al Nusra Front terrorists, a Syria-based off-shoot of al-Qaeda just a brutal as any out there. They've been in the news for years. Indeed, Clarissa Ward reported on "Khorasan" yesterday, and immediately reverted to the al-Nusra label for the bulk of her report.

It's like some Obama White House hacks started floating this idiotic "Khorason" label to scare the bejesus out of people, kinda like referring to the Sicilian mafia as "La Cosa Nostra": it just sound shadowy and sinister, although, of course, some halfway coherent bottom-dwellers would immediately recognize this group for who they are without the fascist leftist relabeling.

It's totally lame and completely unhelpful. But we've got Democrats doing PR in DC, so any half-addled dolt with a laptop can figure this stuff out.

In any case, here's the spooky report at WaPo, "Targeted by U.S. airstrikes: The secretive al-Qaeda cell was plotting an ‘imminent attack’."

CNN's Nic Robertson provides a pretty good breakdown at the clip:



More at this Ashleigh Banfield segment, "What is the Khorasan Group?"

And see especially, Thomas Jocelyn, at the Long War Journal, "US airstrikes target Al Nusrah Front, Islamic State in Syria."

Sill more, at BuzzFeed (via Memeorandum), "How 'Khorasan' Went From Nowhere to the Biggest Threat to the U.S."

U.S. Promises Long Campaign in #Syria

At the Wall Street Journal, "Syria Strikes: U.S. Reports Significant Damage in Attacks on Islamic State, Khorasan; American, Arab Warplanes Hit Targets Around Iraq-Syria Border":

WASHINGTON—The first U.S.-led airstrikes on extremist groups in Syria hit militant leaders, training camps and control centers, U.S. officials said, promising this was only the start of a long campaign.

The attacks were conducted with the aid of Arab allies, but the U.S. carried out the bulk of the raids. After the first wave of strikes, the U.S. said it conducted follow-on attacks during the day Tuesday that hit two Islamic State armored vehicles in Syria.

The U.S. and its allies unleashed more than 160 missiles and bombs on targets inside Syria, disrupting infrastructure used by the extremist groups Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked Khorasan, Pentagon officials said in the first assessments of the impact of the strikes.

While it will be days before a definitive conclusion can be drawn, U.S. officials said they believe some leaders of both Islamic State and Khorasan were likely killed in the strikes on training camps and headquarters buildings.

The expansion of the military campaign against Islamic State from Iraq to Syria carries significant risks for President Barack Obama's administration.

Mr. Obama has spent his presidency extricating the U.S. from two long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now there is the prospect of getting mired again in a protracted Middle East war.

Western-backed rebels fear U.S.-led airstrikes on Islamic State and other extremist groups inside Syria will ultimately tip the balance in the multi-sided civil war in favor of the Syrian regime that Washington opposes.

Also, Islamic State made a new threat against a Western hostage. The family of British captive Alan Henning, an aid-convoy volunteer being held by the group, said on Tuesday that they had received an audio recording of the prisoner pleading for his life.

Islamic State has released videos showing the beheadings of three Western hostages—two of them Americans—since the U.S. began airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq in early August.

U.S. officials didn't provide estimates of casualties, though local residents said many were killed, including civilians. American officials said there were no indications of civilian casualties and promised to review any such claims.

The U.S.-led strikes will continue over coming days, U.S. officials said, though they cautioned that future waves are likely to be smaller than the opening round as the campaign quickly settles into a lower, but persistent beat.

"I can tell you that last night's strikes were only the beginning," said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary...

More.

And don't miss Walter Russell Mead, "THE PARALLELS BETWEEN BARACK OBAMA AND GEORGE W. BUSH" (via Instapundit).

Still more at Memeorandum.

Bwahaha! People's Cube Just Destroys Idiot Collectivists on Obama's Disgraceful Latte Salute

This is fabulous!

Liberals are equating these pics. If you know anybody with a pet Styrofoam cup. Let me know. #tcot @michellemalkin pic.twitter.com/utPuu03IfI

— The People's Cube (@ThePeoplesCube) September 23, 2014

Progs are such losers.

There's a reason President Bush got standing ovations at West Point, and Obama not so much. And that reason goes to the core of who our current loser president is, not least of which is an America-hating coward and appeaser who earns no respect for our uniformed personnel.

PREVIOUSLY: "Barack Obama's Latte Salute."

'They're just people looking to the east...'

From the Sound L.A., yesterday morning.

The Doobie Brothers, "China Grove." What a rockin' song.

Lady
Styx
8:50 AM

Whole Lotta Love
Led Zeppelin
8:45 AM

Lay It On the Line
Triumph
8:39 AM

China Grove
The Doobie Brothers
8:35 AM

Wrapped Around Your Finger
The Police
8:22 AM

More Than A Feeling
Boston
8:18 AM

Brown Eyed Girl
Van Morrison
8:15 AM

Everybody Wants You
Billy Squier
8:11 AM

Sara
Fleetwood Mac
8:05 AM

Bad Company
Bad Company
8:01 AM

Huge Majority Supports Airstrikes Against #ISIS in Syria

A classic rally-'round-the-flag effect, at Gallup, "Slightly Fewer Back ISIS Military Action vs. Past Actions."

It may be that current public support is "slightly fewer" than previous military efforts, but remember, the U.S. has been at war continuously since October of 2001. Obama's got public support for his actions against ISIS. The trick now is not to blow it. Knocking out a few windows and demolishing a few buildings won't defeat the terrorists. The president is boxed in by his antiwar rhetoric, and if that rhetoric doesn't change, Americans will continue to be in danger.

Slightly Fewer Back #ISIS Military Action vs. Past Actions... http://t.co/7HhLopCl2Q pic.twitter.com/B0rXZzZfvB

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) September 23, 2014

Angels' Wade LeBlanc Makes Pitch for Playoff Spot in 2-0 Win Over A's

It was a great game. And a relief too. I'm worried about the Angels' pitching going into the post-season.

At LAT:

The tangled web of an injury-plagued and struggling Angels rotation grew even more convoluted Tuesday night, but for a good reason. Veteran left-hander Wade LeBlanc has thrust himself into the playoff picture.

LeBlanc, filling in for the injured Matt Shoemaker, allowed five hits over 5 1/3 scoreless innings in a 2-0 victory over Oakland that pushed the Athletics into a tie with the Kansas City Royals for the American League wild-card lead.

Combined with his 5 1/3-inning scoreless effort last Thursday against Seattle, LeBlanc, who was designated for assignment three times this season — twice by the Angels — has thrown 10 2/3 scoreless innings in two starts, allowing eight hits, striking out four and walking one.

With Shoemaker questionable for the division series because of a rib-cage strain and Hector Santiago getting shelled in his last two starts, LeBlanc has positioned himself to be considered for the playoff rotation. At the very least, he should earn a long-relief spot...

More.

Cory Rasmus, who's pitched a few games this last couple of weeks, is looking good too. Mike Scioscia needs to let him play longer.

I would have blogged more about the Angels since they clinched a playoff berth, but it's been depressing. Who knows if they'll clear 100 wins for the season, which is almost over?

The Wages of Discrimination

From Sarah Kendzior, at Al Jazeera, "As income inequality now rivals that of the gilded age, scrounging for survival has become a mainstream way of life."

"For anyone who came of age after the millennium, war and economic decline are all we have known." http://t.co/N38aSTsoKn

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 23, 2014

Freedom to Blog Update September 24, 2014: AmSpec Caves to Vexatious Asshat Brett Kimberlin

Sometimes the bad guys win. Or, sadly, sometimes the good guys cave to the bad guys.

See Popehat, "American Spectator Surrenders to Vexatious Litigant and Domestic Terrorist Brett Kimberlin."

Left-Wing Activists Hold White House 'Die In' to Support #ISIS Genocide

I'm just shaking my head as I post this. But then, these are brain-dead leftists we're talking about.

From Daniel Greenfield, at FrontPage Magazine.

Dead LAPD Officer Found Inside Thousand Oaks Home

A suicide, apparently.

At KABC-TV Los Angeles, "DEAD LAPD OFFICER FOUND IN THOUSAND OAKS RESIDENCE AFTER DISTURBANCE REPORT."

Prime Minister David Cameron Speaks to NBC's Brian Williams

I really like him, except for his Achilles heel of political correctness. Nobody's perfect, I guess.

Here, "Britain's David Cameron on ISIS: 'These People Want to Kill Us'."

USS Arleigh Burke Launches Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles

Via the U.S. Navy, on YouTube.

Europe's Anti-Semitism Rises — From the Precincts of the Islamo-Fascist Left

Something I've written about quite a bit, sadly.

At the New York Times, "Europe’s Anti-Semitism Comes Out of the Shadows":

SARCELLES, France — From the immigrant enclaves of the Parisian suburbs to the drizzly bureaucratic city of Brussels to the industrial heartland of Germany, Europe’s old demon returned this summer. “Death to the Jews!” shouted protesters at pro-Palestinian rallies in Belgium and France. “Gas the Jews!” yelled marchers at a similar protest in Germany.

The ugly threats were surpassed by uglier violence. Four people were fatally shot in May at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. A Jewish-owned pharmacy in this Paris suburb was destroyed in July by youths protesting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. A synagogue in Wuppertal, Germany, was attacked with firebombs. A Swedish Jew was beaten with iron pipes. The list goes on.

The scattered attacks have raised alarm about how Europe is changing and whether it remains a safe place for Jews. An increasing number of Jews, if still relatively modest in total, are now migrating to Israel. Others describe “no go” zones in Muslim districts of many European cities where Jews dare not travel...

Keep reading, but note: Once again, the mainstream press whitewashes Islamic anti-Semitism, raising the specter of "right-wing" parties, blah blah.

No. It's leftist Islamo-fascism that's the threat to Jews in Europe today. The media's only making things worse. And that's even more sad.

The Utter Failure of Obama

A great piece, from Bruce Walker, at American Thinker:

Barack Obama is destined to be the greatest flop in American presidential history.  He is, in every sense of the word, an utter failure.

Consider first his signature achievement, Obamacare.  Not only has Obama had to delay implementation, creating a perfect precedent for his Republican successor to do the same, but the law is more unpopular today than it has ever been according to all polling data.

Pew Research reports that 55% of Americans disapprove of Obamacare.  A clear plurality of Americans believe that they will be worse off because of Obamacare.  CBS News lists the “strongly approve” of Obamacare at 16%, while “strongly disapprove” is a whopping 47%.  Every polling organization, no matter how the question is worded, shows the same public disdain for this law.

The fear conservatives had that a new entitlement will create a permanent constituency may not happen this time, because Obamacare, unlike Social Security or Medicare, helps almost no one and hurts a lot of people.  Moreover, by foolishly rejecting a bipartisan reform, Obama and his party cannot claim broad support for his law.

This political hack, who had the power to do anything during his first two years, could think of nothing more imaginative than (1) spending federal dollars like water based upon the ancient and failed “stimulus” idea and (2) implementing an even greater failure – ask any Briton or Canadian – of nationalized health insurance simply, one suspects, because Barry had no keener mind or greater imagination than to pick up tired ideas of British Socialism eighty years old.

Obama, who “won” the Nobel Peace Prize almost as soon as he took office, is now officially a warmonger president – but one who leads from behind and rejects every attempt to form a national consensus policy, and whose utter haplessness in guiding national security is stunning.  Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Iraq – everywhere in the world, really – Obama’s foreign policy has been almost comic opera.

Obama's White House staff seems almost as incompetent as he is, as anyone who has listened to Ms. Harf for more than a minute quickly grasps.  Everyone around Obama simply reads talking points and denies, without any support at all, anything that challenges those talking points.

Has anyone around Obama, for example, confessed that the attack in Benghazi was not caused by an anti-Islamic film, and that any explanations to the contrary were simple invention?  Has Barry or his “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” ever acknowledged any failure beyond the ubiquitous and meaningless mantra “I accept full responsibility”?  Who truly trusts Obama anymore on national security issues, and who abroad relies on anything he says or any promises he makes?

Some presidencies that are successes in policy areas, like the Nixon presidency, are unwound by corruption and cover-ups.  Has any administration been as marinated in lies about important facts in investigations as this administration?  The IRS e-mail scandal surpasses anything Nixon did in Watergate.  The destruction of documents by a Hillary State Department to hide information from Congress relating to Benghazi, if true – who, really, doubts that now? – would surpass any misconduct in presidential history.

Now Barry is on the verge of doing what no president has done: leading his political party into two consecutive midterm election debacles.  Eisenhower and Nixon suffered heavy losses in their second midterms, but not their fist.  Clinton did just the opposite.  Reagan actually gained Senate seats in his first midterm, but he lost the Senate in his second midterm.

Even our worst presidents like their bright spots.  Grant was a truly noble character and a war hero whose memoirs of the Civil War remain great history.  Harding’s low-tax and pro-growth policies led to the Roaring Twenties, and Harding was a fierce champion of black rights.  Truman, a courageous combat veteran in 1918, helped birth Israel and preserve South Korea.  Nixon was brilliant, and his opening the door to China transformed the geopolitical world.  Carter was an honorable man, a graduate of the Naval Academy who served on a nuclear submarine, however dreadful the Carter presidency was.  

But Barry – has he really done anything at all?  Does Obama have the slightest ennobling quality?  Has he taken a single courageous stand on anything?  Does our president do anything at all, really, except savor the perks of office and read his notorious teleprompter?

Soon, very soon, the utter failure of Obama will be a truth known by all his countrymen.

No, no ennobling qualities. He's a disaster from the get go. Yes, it's going to be a crushing November election, but then, we'll still have two more years of this f-king Democrat Party misery.

FLASHBACK: April 27, 2009, "Worst. President. Ever."

The Incoherence of Liberal Feminism

At the Other McCain.

"Another clever young girl trying to get rich selling books to slightly-less-clever girls" http://t.co/QjzvB1KVBy pic.twitter.com/VPwhxPzyke

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) September 23, 2014

The Unfree Speech Movement

From Sol Stern, at the Wall Street Journal:

This fall the University of California at Berkeley is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, a student-led protest against campus restrictions on political activities that made headlines and inspired imitators around the country. I played a small part in the Free Speech Movement, and some of those returning for the reunion were once my friends, but I won't be joining them.

Though the movement promised greater intellectual and political freedom on campus, the result has been the opposite. The great irony is that while Berkeley now honors the memory of the Free Speech Movement, it exercises more thought control over students than the hated institution that we rose up against half a century ago.

We early-1960s radicals believed ourselves anointed as a new "tell it like it is" generation. We promised to transcend the "smelly old orthodoxies" (in George Orwell's phrase) of Cold War liberalism and class-based, authoritarian leftism. Leading students into the university administration building for the first mass protest, Mario Savio, the Free Speech Movement's brilliant leader from Queens, New York, famously said: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. . . . . And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

The Berkeley "machine" now promotes Free Speech Movement kitsch. The steps in front of Sproul Hall, the central administration building where more than 700 students were arrested on Dec. 2, 1964, have been renamed the Mario Savio Steps. One of the campus dining halls is called the Free Speech Movement Café, its walls covered with photographs and mementos of the glorious semester of struggle. The university requires freshmen to read an admiring biography of Savio, who died in 1996, written by New York University professor and Berkeley graduate Robert Cohen.

Yet intellectual diversity is hardly embraced. Every undergraduate undergoes a form of indoctrination with a required course on the "theoretical or analytical issues relevant to understanding race, culture, and ethnicity in American society," administered by the university's Division of Equity and Inclusion.

How did this Orwellian inversion occur? It happened in part because the Free Speech Movement's fight for free speech was always a charade. The struggle was really about using the campus as a base for radical politics.

I was a 27-year-old New Left graduate student at the time. Savio was a 22-year-old sophomore. He liked to compare the Free Speech Movement to the civil-rights struggle—conflating the essentially liberal Berkeley administration with the Bull Connors of the racist South.

During one demonstration Savio suggested that the campus cops who had arrested a protesting student were "poor policemen" who only "have a job to do." Another student then shouted out: "Just like Eichmann."

"Yeah. Very good. It's very, you know, like Adolf Eichmann, " Savio replied. "He had a job to do. He fit into the machinery."

I realized years later that this moment may have been the beginning of the 1960s radicals' perversion of ordinary political language, like the spelling "Amerika" or seeing hope and progress in Third World dictatorships.

Before that 1964-65 academic year, most of us radical students could not have imagined a campus rebellion. Why revolt against an institution that until then offered such a pleasant sanctuary? But then Berkeley administrators made an incredibly stupid decision to establish new rules regarding political activities on campus. Student clubs were no longer allowed to set up tables in front of the Bancroft Avenue campus entrance to solicit funds and recruit new members.

The clubs had used this 40-foot strip of sidewalk for years on the assumption that it was the property of the City of Berkeley and thus constitutionally protected against speech restrictions. But the university claimed ownership to justify the new rules. When some students refused to comply, the administration compounded its blunder by resorting to the campus police. Not surprisingly, the students pushed back, using civil-disobedience tactics learned fighting for civil rights in the South.

The Free Speech Movement was born on Oct. 1, 1964, when police tried to arrest a recent Berkeley graduate, Jack Weinberg, who was back on campus after a summer as a civil-rights worker in Mississippi. He had set up a table on the Bancroft strip for the Berkeley chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Dozens of students spontaneously sat down around the police car, preventing it from leaving the campus. A 32-hour standoff ensued, with hundreds of students camped around the car.

Mario Savio, also back from Mississippi, took off his shoes, climbed onto the roof of the police car, and launched into an impromptu speech explaining why the students had to resist the immoral new rules. Thus began months of sporadic protests, the occupation of Sproul Hall on Dec. 2 (ended by mass arrests), national media attention and Berkeley's eventual capitulation.

That should have ended the matter. Savio soon left the political arena, saying that he had no interest in becoming a permanent student leader. But others had mastered the new world of political theater, understood the weakness of American liberalism, and soon turned their ire on the Vietnam War.

The radical movement that the Free Speech Movement spawned eventually descended into violence and mindless anti-Americanism. The movement waned in the 1970s as the war wound down—but by then protesters had begun their infiltration of university faculties and administrations they had once decried.

"Tenured radicals," in New Criterion editor Roger Kimball's phrase, now dominate most professional organizations in the humanities and social studies. Unlike our old liberal professors, who dealt respectfully with the ideas advanced by my generation of New Left students, today's radical professors insist on ideological conformity and don't take kindly to dissent by conservative students. Visits by speakers who might not toe the liberal line—recently including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Islamism critic Aayan Hirsi Ali —spark protests and letter-writing campaigns by students in tandem with their professors until the speaker withdraws or the invitation is canceled...

Still more.

Everything the left touches it destroys. So it is with so called "free speech." America's campuses today are the least free places in the United States. Always resist these people. Always stand against the left, whatever you do. You'll be on the right side of decency. The leftists, not so much.

'Maybe Democratic leaders aren't finding success in expanding their liberal base because fair-minded Americans don't easily gravitate to a political party led by people whose default election tactic is to demonize its opponents..'

Well, of course, the Democrats are the party of hate.

From Tom Bevan: The End of Civil Rhetoric (via Instapundit):

It’s also true that Democrats are under pressure to rev up what appears to be a lethargic electorate or face defeat at the polls in November. It’s unfortunate that we’ve come to accept the idea that voters can only be motivated by fear and anger toward their political opponents.

Yep, that's all they've got.

Barack Obama's Latte Salute

So disrespectful, god.

Watch here.

And at Breitbart, "Obama's Disrespectful 'Latte Salute' Shocks and Offends."

The #ISIS Threat to the U.S. Homeland

Andrea Mitchell reports for NBC News, and she's taking the ISIS threat quite seriously:

Charles Krauthammer: Syria Airstrikes 'Not Significant' Militarily

Once again, the inimitable Dr. Krauthammer:

Michelle Fields Calls Out Celebrity Warming Hypocrites at New York People's Climate March (VIDEO)

Hey, classy babe Michelle Fields was batting 1.000 at the communist people's march on Sunday. She just hammered the celebrity hypocrites, Leo DeCaprio most deliciously.

Outstanding.

At Pajamas, "PJTV’s Michelle Fields: Are Climate Change Hypocrites Leonardo DiCaprio and Senator Bernie Sanders Out of Touch with Reality? (Video)."

Talking to Leonardo Dicaprio about climate change. Don't think he was happy about me bringing up his yachts & jets pic.twitter.com/3TAkP6rbjD

— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) September 21, 2014

Leonardo Dicaprio suddenly loses his hearing when I ask him about his yachts http://t.co/aAUv0RMzF2 #ClimateChangeMarch

— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) September 22, 2014

VIDEO: RFK Jr. refuses to give up cellphone to save planet... http://t.co/81EjlTGDlJ

— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) September 22, 2014

Alicia Keys Poses Nude for Peace

A fabulous woman, she posed nude and pregnant.

At London's Daily Mail, "Pregnant Alicia Keys posts nude photo of herself with peace sign painted on baby bump to draw eyes to We Are Here charity movement."

And at NPR, "Meet the Global Groups That Alicia Keys Got Naked For."

Alana Goodman and Ellison Barber Discuss the Hillary Letters

I'm a little underwhelmed, although it is new and interesting.

And hey, the ladies at the Free Beacon are doing big investigative journalism the mainstream press refuses to do. That's something.

Here, "The Hillary Letters: Hillary Clinton, Saul Alinsky Correspondence Revealed."

Bill O'Reilly Proposes Mercenary Army to Defeat #ISIS

From last night's Talking Points Memo, "Defeating ISIS and other terror groups."

And this morning, on CBS This Morning:



Also, O'Reilly's new book, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General.

Mark Zuckerberg's $10 Million San Francisco ''Fixer-Upper' Has Neighbors Pissed Off

Well, I'm sure he's telling 'em to suck it up, for the Masters of the Universe and all that.

At the San Francisco Chronicle, "Neighbors feeling squeezed by work on Mark Zuckerberg’s S.F. home":

Welcome to Fort Zuckerberg — the $10 million Dolores Heights “fixer-upper” that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife have turned into a massive construction encampment that has some neighbors feeling under siege by the Facebook founder.

Their problem goes beyond the rash of “no parking” signs on 21st Street near Dolores Street that have kept them from parking outside their own homes these past 17 months.

Dozens of construction workers, using backhoes and jackhammers, are busy installing everything from a new kitchen to bathrooms and decks — and tearing up the sidewalks for new fiber-optic cables that will connect to the home.

And it’s all being overseen by round-the-clock security.

“This is nothing short of a fortress,” said one homeowner, who asked not to be named to avoid a public kerfuffle with the new Facebook neighbors.

Assessor’s records show that contractors for Zuckerberg and his wife, UCSF physician Priscilla Chan, have taken out no fewer than 10 permits for millions of dollars in construction work to the 1920s-era home — located just a block and a half from hipster central Dolores Park.

One permit lists a $65,000 remodel of the kitchen and six bathrooms — a figure that appeared to be so small that one real estate agent called it “a joke.”

Yeah, and I'm sure he's putting some illegal aliens to work as well, further pissing off the locals. Heh, even those San Fran progs have limits on their tolerance, especially as they get their NIMBYism on.

Pro-Life Marchers Press Spanish Government During Madrid Protest

From EuroNews:

Thousands of anti-abortion campaigners have marched in Madrid accusing the Spanish government of betrayal over an electoral promise to restrict the rights of women to terminate their pregnancies.

Reports have suggested the conservatives have been considering shelving the controversial plans, even though they have an absolute majority.

The bill allows abortion only in cases of rape or serious health risk to the mother - not for a malformed foetus.

Jill Tarlov, Wife of CBS Senior Vice President, Dies After Being Hit by Bicyclist in Central Park

Man, what a way to go.

At NYT, "Woman Hit by a Bicyclist in Central Park Dies":

When the weather is fine, the main roadways in the park are filled with pedestrians, runners, in-line skaters, horse-drawn carriages, cars, pedicab drivers, leisurely bikers and racing cyclists all competing for limited space.

This last group, the racers, have come under scrutiny after the accident on Thursday.

Ms. Tarlov, who lived in Fairfield, Conn., had been in New York City shopping for a present for her daughter, according to her family.

She was walking through the park around 4:30 p.m. when she stepped into the roadway.

At the same time, Mr. [Jason W.] Marshall was coming down the street on his racing bike, the police said.

Mr. Marshall swerved to avoid a group of pedestrians, the police said, but struck Ms. Tarlov. She was rushed to the hospital and was placed on a ventilator.

Mr. Marshall, a professional baritone saxophone player who lives in Harlem, remained at the scene. He has not been charged with any crime.

Extremist Climate Change Rhetoric Heats Up as the Warming 'Consensus' Collapses

From John Fund, at National Review, "The Crumbling Climate-Change Consensus":

One reason the rhetoric has become so overheated is that the climate-change activists increasingly lack a scientific basis for their most exaggerated claims. As physicist Gordon Fulks of the Cascade Policy Institute puts it: “CO2 is said to be responsible for global warming that is not occurring, for accelerated sea-level rise that is not occurring, for net glacial and sea-ice melt that is not occurring . . . and for increasing extreme weather that is not occurring.” He points out that there has been no net new global-warming increase since 1997 even though the human contribution to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 25 percent since then. This throws into doubt all the climate models that have been predicting massive climate dislocation.

Other scientists caution that climate models must be regarded with great care and skepticism. Steven Koonin, the undersecretary for science in the Energy Department during President Obama’s first term, wrote a pathbreaking piece in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal in which he concluded:

We often hear that there is a “scientific consensus” about climate change. But as far as the computer models go, there isn’t a useful consensus at the level of detail relevant to assessing human influence. . . . The models roughly describe the shrinking extent of Arctic sea ice observed over the past two decades, but they fail to describe the comparable growth of Antarctic sea ice, which is now at a record high. . . . Any serious discussion of the changing climate must begin by acknowledging not only the scientific certainties, but also the uncertainties, especially in projecting the future. Recognizing those limits, rather than ignoring them, will lead to a more sober and ultimately more productive discussion of climate change and climate policies. To do otherwise is a great disservice to climate science itself.

Even scientists who accept the conventional scientific treatment of the subject by the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change increasingly question just how much it would help to curb emissions or to radically redistribute wealth, as activists like Klein urge us to do. Bjørn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, told me that all of the carbon-reduction targets advocated by the U.N. or the European Union would result in imperceptible differences in temperature, at enormous cost. “We would be far better off and richer if we did simple things like painting roofs in hot climates white and investing in new technologies that could help us adapt to any change that is coming,” he says. Even the U.N.’s own climate panel admits that so far, climate change hasn’t included any increase in the frequency or intensity of so-called extreme weather.

More.

PREVIOUSLY: "'The modern climate alarmism movement has been hijacked by the remnants of those who still adhere to the defunct tenets of revolutionary Marxism...'"

Why Beheading?

From Jeff Jacoby, at the Boston Globe:

ISLAMIC STATE has made the beheading of victims a key element in its campaign of terror and conquest. Most conspicuous in recent weeks have been the murders of Westerners James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and David Haines, whose severed heads and decapitated bodies have been shown in threatening videos produced by the jihadists. In the years since 9/11, other Islamist terrorist groups have circulated equally ghastly beheading videos. Among the earlier victims were journalist Daniel Pearl, businessman Nicholas Berg, and construction contractors Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong — all Americans beheaded by Al Qaeda.

Last week, meanwhile, Australian police arrested 15 suspects allegedly linked to Islamic State; they are accused of plotting to publicly behead a victim abducted at random.

Clearly the terrorists relish the horror beheading evokes in America and other Western democracies, as well as the fear it inspires among Kurds, Shiites, or other local forces standing in the path of their juggernaut. Psychological warfare is an essential element in Islamic State’s military strategy, writes Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. Even when heavily outnumbered, Islamic State has been able to leverage its reputation for implacable brutality “to dissuade Iraqi forces from ever seeking battle.” And by killing American and British hostages with such sadistic relish, it aims to intensify the desire of many in the West to wash their hands of involvement in Iraq once and for all.

But there are other ways to terrorize, other gruesome means of mass murder — suicide bombings, poison gas, hijackings. Why the emphasis on beheading?

No doubt part of the explanation is that beheadings tend to draw more attention than suicide bombings and exploding cars. Deadly though they are, car bombs and shootings have lost much of their shock value in Western eyes. It takes an unusually high death toll for a bombing in Iraq to attract as much media attention as the decapitation of a single hostage by an English-speaking Islamist wielding a knife. Terrorists crave attention, more now in the digital age, perhaps, than ever before. Islamic State and other jihadist groups have many ways to commit mass murder. But for generating a spectacle that will be noticed — and shuddered at — the world over, sawing off the head of an American journalist or a European relief worker, then uploading the video to the Internet, is hard to beat...

More.

RELATED: At LAT, "Islamic State's soft weapon of choice: social media."

Flashback: 2010's 'Progressive' Obama-Democrat 'One Nation' March Was All About Communism

Follow-up to yesterday's post, "'The modern climate alarmism movement has been hijacked by the remnants of those who still adhere to the defunct tenets of revolutionary Marxism...'" As I noted there:

And keep in mind these people aren't fringe. They're mainstream leftists, the kind of whacked out weirdos who've ventured out time and again at all the progressive, Democrat Party protests since Obama took office. The loons are the mainstream of today's left, and they have no freakin' clue.

Yep, exactly.

Remember, back in 2010 and the March for Jobs, Justice, and Peace? Well, that event sponsored by all kinds of mainstream Democrat Party groups and Obama for America-style organizations. And no surprise, it turned out to be one big Marxist revolutionary loon-fest. Here, "Progressives March on Washington for 'One Nation Working Together' — Thousands Rally in Support of Socialist Agenda."



And just think, we're more screwed today than when Obama took office. Thanks loony-prog-commie-Democrat-revolutionary-dregs!

Hackers Target Emma Watson, Threaten to Release Nude Photos

At Telegraph UK, "Emma Watson Targeted by Hackers Who Say They Will Release Naked Photos in Four Days":

The hackers are threatening to publish nude photos of Emma Watson in retaliation for her speech where she announced that she was a feminist.

The actress Emma Watson is being targeted by hackers who are threatening to publish nude photos of her in retaliation for her speech where she announced that she was a feminist.

Although the countdown does not specifically say that naked pictures will be published, the site is believed to have been made by members of the internet forum 4chan, who were behind the recent release of hacked pictures of celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton.

US website Gawker quoted posts, since deleted, that appear to show the timing of the release is no accident and that the publication of pictures would be a direct response to her speech.

One of the comments quoted says: "She makes stupid feminist speeches at UN, and now her nudes will be online."
The hackers say they will leak nude photos of the Harry Potter star in under five days time.

An image of Emma Watson wiping away a tear appears on the site beside a digital timer which is counting down the seconds until the release.

The words: "Never forget, the biggest to come thus far" are written in capital letters on the bottom of the screen.

More.

U.S. Airstrikes in Syria

Folks were tweeting the news a little while ago. And now the developing story at the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. begins airstrikes over Syria."

White House Fence Jumper Omar Gonzalez Had 800 Rounds of Ammunition in His Car

At the Washington Post, "White House fence jumper had ammunition, machete in car, prosecutors say." And at the Hill, "Prosecutors: White House fence jumper had 800 rounds of ammo in car" (via Memeorandum).

Yes, but we should feel sorry for him, because PTSD. At the Los Angeles Times, "White House intruder was an Army vet with PTSD, family says":

The intruder who scaled a White House fence and made it through the front doors was an Army veteran diagnosed with combat trauma, but authorities said Saturday the case was still under investigation.

A family member in California said Omar J. Gonzalez, 42, of Copperas Cove, Texas, near Ft. Hood, has been homeless and living alone in the wild and in campgrounds with his two pet dogs for the last two years.

“We talked to him on 9/11 and he said he planned to go to a Veterans Administration hospital to seek treatments,” said the family member, who asked that he not be identified pending completion of the Secret Service investigation.

“He’s been depressed for quite some time,” the relative said. “He’d been taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication. I suspect he stopped taking it, otherwise this wouldn’t have happened.”

More.

Actually, Barack's not pleased, PTSD or not. At US News, "Obama Concerned Intruder Got in His Family's Home."

People's Climate Demarche

An awesome leader, at today's Wall Street Journal:

Hundreds of thousands of people attended yesterday's People's Climate March in New York: http://t.co/e3cs5dHjeV pic.twitter.com/q9J29qjmZr

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 22, 2014

Tens of thousands of environmental protestors paraded through New York City on Sunday, in a "people's climate march" designed to lobby world leaders arriving for the latest United Nations climate summit. The march did succeed in messing up traffic, but President Obama won't achieve much more when he speaks Tuesday at this latest pit stop on the global warming grand prix.

Six years after the failure of the Copenhagen summit whose extravagant ambition was to secure a binding global treaty on carbon emissions, Mr. Obama is trying again. The Turtle Bay gathering of world leaders isn't formally a part of the international U.N. climate negotiations that are supposed to climax late next year in Paris, but the venue is meant to be an ice-breaker for more than 125 presidents, prime ministers and heads of state to start to reach consensus.

One not-so-minor problem: The world's largest emitters are declining to show up, even for appearances. The Chinese economy has been the No. 1 global producer of carbon dioxide since 2008, but President Xi Jinping won't be gracing the U.N. with his presence. India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi (No. 3) will be in New York but is skipping the climate parley. Russian President Vladimir Putin (No. 4) has other priorities, while Japan (No. 5) is uncooperative after the Fukushima disaster that has damaged support for nuclear power. Saudi Arabia is dispatching its petroleum minister.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon excused these truancies at a press conference last week: "In any event, we have other means of communications, ways and means of having their leadership demonstrated in the United Nations." In that case, why not do a conference call?

To understand the coldness of this brush off, global CO2 emissions increased to 35.1 billion metric tons in 2013, a new record and a 29% increase over a decade ago. Of the year-over-year carbon climb, China at 358 million metric tons jumped by more than the rest of the world combined and is responsible for 24.8% of emissions over the last five years. Over the same period, developing nations accounted for 57.5%.

What this means is that regardless of what the West does, poorer countries that are reluctant to sign agreements that impede economic progress hold the dominant carbon hand. No matter U.S. exertions to save the planet from atmospheric carbon that may or may not have consequences that may or may not be costly in a century or more, the international result will be more or less the same, though U.S. economic growth will be slower....

So the problem is so dire that we must impose huge new costs on carbon and energy production, but don't worry—you won't feel a thing. The government will create all new energy industries and wealth in a seamless transition. Caveat emptor: Supposedly professional economists who promise that scarce resources can be made scarcer at zero cost have stopped practicing economics. They have become politicians, if not as honest.

Rather than debasing economics, perhaps the climate lobby should return to the climate science and explain the hiatus in warming that has now lasted for 16, 19 or 26 years depending on the data set and which the climate models failed to predict even as global carbon dioxide emissions have climbed by 25%. Their alibi is that the new warming is now hidden in the oceans, an assertion they lack the evidence to prove.

RTWT.

'The modern climate alarmism movement has been hijacked by the remnants of those who still adhere to the defunct tenets of revolutionary Marxism...'

Heh, from Noah Rothman's conclusion, at Hot Air, "Reason Magazine actually asked climate protesters what they want to do, and it’s hilarious."

You gotta watch. And keep in mind these people aren't fringe. They're mainstream leftists, the kind of whacked out weirdos who've ventured out time and again at all the progressive, Democrat Party protests since Obama took office. The loons are the mainstream of today's left, and they have no freakin' clue.

Jessica Chastain at Salomé Screening in London

According to Just Jared:

Salome is a filmed version of the Oscar Wilde‘s controversial play, while Wilde Salome, which also screened that day, is a documentary that chronicles the challenges Al [Pacino] faced while performing in the play and simultaneously directing both features.

Well, check out Ms. Chastain on the carpet, at Egotastic!, "Jessica Chastain Yellow Dress at Salome and Wilde Salome Screening."

Muslims Facing Tomorrow: Rally for Minority Christians and Other Religious Communities in the Middle East and the Muslim World

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Muslims Facing Tomorrow Rally For Persecuted Christians - Professor Salim Mansur's Address - ISIS Is Islam."

Munich Oktoberfest

Heh, looks awesome.

Via EuroNews:

The 181st Oktoberfest is underway in Munich, following its opening amid pouring rain on Saturday.

Long ago, the festival was brought forward to September in the hope of better weather.

But come rain or shine, few care once the beer starts flowing...

Jordan Arrests 11 Islamic State Jihadists

At the Times of Israel:

Security official says suspects admit to plotting attacks in Hashemite Kingdom; Israel has indicated it will act should group reach neighboring state.

Jordan said it arrested 11 members of the Islamic State group suspected of plotting terrorist attacks inside the Hashemite Kingdom

A security source said the suspects were planning to harm high-value interests in the country and admitted to the charges against them, Israel Radio reported.

Earlier this month, Israel told the US that should the extremist group start operating in neighboring Jordan, it will not hesitate to act, according to a Channel 2 TV report which cited diplomatic sources.

The report did not specify what actions Israel might take if Islamic State started impacting upon Jordan, but Israel is wary of its eastern neighbor being challenged by the brutal terror group, and would seek to guard against further inroads that would directly threaten Israel...

More.

Why Poor Students Struggle

An interesting piece from Vicki Madden, at the New York Times.

Seems like a pretty accurate account, and race is not highlighted so much as socioeconomic background. Interesting.

White House May Check Tourists From Afar

Looks like those fence-jumpers have rattled the cage a bit.

At the New York Times, "White House May Check Tourists Blocks Away."

And background from the Washington post, "Fence-jumper makes it into the White House."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



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

Also at Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Fakers," and Theo Spark's, "Cartoon Round Up..."

CARTOON CREDIT: William Warren.

Perv-Shaming Your Bottom-Pincher is a Low Blow

Heh, you gotta love that headline, from Radhika Sanghani, at Telegraph UK.

It's about New York bartender Laura Ramadei, who named and shamed the guy who allegedly groped her. See Gothamist, "A NYC Bartender's Powerful Open Letter to the Hedge Funder Who Allegedly Grabbed Her Ass."

The accused, hedge-fund financier Brian Lederman, denies it. At the New York Post, "Hedge-funder’s defense in ‘grope’ case: I never grabbed her."

Awesome! Neocon Robert Kagan Slams Leftist Jane Harmon's Soft Power Narrative to Beat #ISIS (VIDEO)

National Review has the abbreviated clip, "Robert Kagan: Obama Administration Must Prove It’s Willing to Fight ISIS in Order to Gain Allies."

But the whole segment is good, from Face the Nation this morning. Kagan says soft power is fine and dandy, but ISIS doesn't care about soft power. If you want to beat folks like this you need to destroy them on the ground and bolster American respect around the world. Allies will flock to your banner then.

A great panel. Kagan's comments on hard power come at about 6:20 minutes.

Breaking Up with Barack — And His Friends!

Heh, via Legal Insurrection, "Ad implores women to break up with Obama."

Control of the U.S. Senate Hasn't Been This Unsteady Since the Post-Civil War Era

From Ronald Brownstein, at National Journal, "THE VOLATILE SENATE":

Instability is a constant in the modern Senate. After the 1980 election, Republicans controlled the chamber for six years (until 1986); Democrats held it for eight (through 1994); and Republicans regained control for six, until the 2000 election divided the chamber exactly 50-50. The next two years saw the parties trading the gavel (as a GOP defector provided Democrats a temporary majority) before Republicans regained control in the 2002 election. But they held that advantage only until 2006, when Democrats won the majority Republicans are now threatening.

This turbulence contrasts with the 26 years of uninterrupted Democratic Senate control from 1955 through 1980. Earlier in the 20th century, Republicans and Democrats each ran off 14-year streaks of unbroken control. From 1895 through 1912, Republicans posted an 18-year reign.

Control of the Senate hasn't been this unsteady since the decades after the Civil War. It's no coincidence that was another period, like ours, of intense economic and social upheaval as America was reshaped by reinforcing waves of industrialization, immigration, and urbanization. And yet even then, the Senate wasn't unstable for as long as it has been since 1980.

The Senate is now flipping so frequently partly because neither party can amass much of a cushion even when it gains control. From 1959 through 1980, the Democrats held a Senate majority larger than 10 seats in all but one of the 11 sessions; since then, the majority party has accumulated an advantage that large only three times in 17 sessions. These thin margins have left the governing party unable "to sustain their majority ... when things go badly," notes Brookings Institution senior fellow Thomas Mann...

More.

Brownstein should know, by the way. He's the author of The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America.

Western Survival Requires the End of Islamist Jihadism

Well, QED.

From Professor Michael Curtis, at the Commentator (via Blazing Cat Fur):

What the world needs now may be love, but more urgently it needs the end of Islamist jihadism: the greatest danger to Western civilization and values. The arrest on September 18, 2014 in Sydney, Australia of 15 alleged jihadists, local Islamic State supporters, preparing to kidnap at random innocent persons and behead them in a gruesome spectacle in the streets of Sydney, is another reminder of that urgent need.

No wakeup call is required to realize that the same kind of direct threat exists against the homeland of the U.S. It serves no purpose to minimize, as some spokespersons for the Obama Administration have done, the danger to the U.S. and Western countries of terrorist attacks.

Similarly shortsighted is the view of Daniel Benjamin, former State Department counterterrorism adviser, that public comments about the ISIS threat have been a “farce.”

It is equally pointless to relax one’s guard on the belief that there is no credible information of an impending attack on the West from IS. The world is now full of Jihadist groups, whether al-Qaeda, the Nusra Front, or the Islamic State, some of whose supporters are trained to carry out terrorist attacks in their Western countries of origin. For policy purposes, it is useful to list some of the groups to which attention should be paid.

The groups exist around the world: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP); Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrab (Aqim) in Mali; Boko Haram in Nigeria; Al-Shabab in Somalia; Taliban in Afghanistan; Ansar al-Sharia in Libya; Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia; Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia; Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines; Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis in Egypt.

Above them all is the Islamic State (IS), (formerly ISIS or ISIL), in Iraq and Syria, a ruling state, a Caliphate, as well as a terrorist organization.

It needs to be repeated that IS, a Caliphate with enormous wealth, large quantities of weapons, and an appetite for power, has ambitions to expand its territorial control in the Middle East. Under its ruthless leader the Caliph and Commander in Chief, formerly known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who claims to be descended from the Prophet, the IS is first consolidating its rule, then plans to conquer the bordering Muslim states, and then to “battle against the Crusaders” (the West).

IS has a governing structure and a functioning bureaucracy with two parts, one for Syria and the other for Iraq, each with 12 Governors, an eight-man Shura Council, the religious monitor, and a number of committees, each responsible for specific services.

Along with the ambition of IS in the Middle East, the Western individuals who have joined the ranks of IS really do pose a potential danger to their countries of origin, including the U.S. homeland. Thus, the need for a strong Western response to the threat is urgent. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has reported on his attempts to form a coalition, to enlist allies in the fight, to obtain the support of ten Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and some promises from others...

More.

Oddly enough, even if the Obama administration agreed with the analysis, to actually act on it would repudiate all the President Obama has stood for since running in 2007. He's boxed in by his own "tide of war is receding" stupidity.

Erin Andrews: America's Babe, Now More Than Ever

She's so sweet --- and smokin' hot.

At USA Today, "Erin Andrews reflects on her life in health."

Thank you @usatoday pic.twitter.com/Sxc46rt7Uw

— Erin Andrews (@ErinAndrews) September 19, 2014

BONUS FLASHBACK: "New Erin Andrews Bikini Pics!"

Capitalism vs. the Climate: Anti-Global Warming Idiots for the Revolution

Bogus data and false memes.

These people as sadly behind the times, to say nothing about behind the science. Remember, "Whatever Happened to Global Warming?"

Lolz. Clueless dolts. Literally a joke, like the "indigenous" marchers today in the Big Apple, "LOL! Climate Change March Dressed Up as Indegenious People's 'Social Justice' Protest."



Klein argues that we cannot solve "this problem" (of bogus "climate change") without a profound ideological transformation --- which is another way of saying we need a communist revolution to overthrow capitalism. Great, like that's worked out so well already.

F-king morons.

More, "Naomi Klein on the People's Climate March & the Global Grassroots Movement Fighting Fossil Fuels."

How Many Rape Reports Are False?

From Megan McArdle, at Bloomberg (via Instapundit):

If someone comes into a police station with their face bashed in, you can be pretty much certain that unless they’re a professional boxer, a crime has occurred. If a rape kit shows evidence of sexual intercourse, however, all that tells you is that … something happened. Because this is something that a lot of people do to each other voluntarily, you cannot proceed immediately to the arrest. Usually there are only two witnesses, telling different stories. Often drugs or alcohol were involved, and intoxicated people make lousy witnesses.

We don’t want that to be true. Rape is an especially heinous crime, and heinously unfair -- it is mostly something that stronger men do to weaker women. How can we pile on an extra dose of unfairness -- by failing to prosecute so many of the crimes?

Feminists would like to rectify that unfairness by treating rape accusations as presumptively true, making it easier for victims to come forward. That’s understandable. But there’s a risk that this makes it easier for false accusations to get through the system, resulting in destroyed lives for men such as Brian Banks. Men’s-rights activists would like to make it harder for innocent men to get caught in a web of lies, so they want rape accusations to be interrogated with deep suspicion. But treating rape victims as possible or likely liars may make it harder for them to go forward, leaving rapists free to stalk their next victim.

Yeah, but Glenn adds:

Thing is, all the rape-talk isn’t about getting justice for victims. It’s about stirring up female voters for Hillary, while demonizing, marginalizing, and silencing men, and about justifying policies that generate employment and self-esteem for “social justice warriors.” Given that these are generally execrable people, any policy that enlarges their power or perks should be viewed with deep suspicion.

Word.

Ambassador Samantha Power Is a Bleedin' Moron

I can hardly bear to watch this, man.

And this woman was once one of the greatest voices speaking out against Western inaction in the face of genocide.

Face it, if you're about to be ethnically cleansed by ISIS right now, you're screwed.

Samantha Power sounds like a bleeding idiot calling the Islamic State "issel." Hey don't count on Obama admin. if you're about to be killed.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 21, 2014

Face it, if you're about to be ethnically cleansed by ISIS right now, you're screwed. #IslamicState

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 21, 2014

California Drought Causes East Porterville Children to Go to School Unbathed

Now this is a bummer.

California, with the 8th largest economy in the world, and one of highest per capita income levels of the 50 states, can't even ensure that Central Valley residents have enough water.

At the Los Angeles Times, "'HI, DO YOU HAVE WATER?' IN A CENTRAL CALIF. TOWN, ANSWER IS OFTEN NO."

LOL! Climate Change March Dressed Up as Indegenious People's 'Social Justice' Protest

The New York Times reports on New York's climate change protest today, what the whacked out leftists have turned into a "people's climate" campaign. Yeah, that oughta work, lol.

Here: "Climate Change March Begins in New York City." (Via Memeorandum.)

A People’s Climate Movement: Indigenous, Labor, Faith Groups Prepare for Historic March http://t.co/hdrEyA4lBS pic.twitter.com/yGdn81HM0z

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) September 20, 2014

.@KatiePavlich Well, they've turned it into an "indigenous people's" march. They're oppressed and exploited by iPhones and shoes, lol.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 21, 2014

Obviously, some freaky leftist hangers-on attending, who don't look very oppressed.

Pretty RT "@tylerhunter23: Chewbacca pits 🙊 pic.twitter.com/KXGQYy6PeQ"

— LittleMissRightie (@LilMissRightie) September 21, 2014

See, even Leo DiCaprio is down with the little people, lol. (Remember, DiCaprio is working on bringing space travel to the masses as well, so we can forgive that he's got one of the largest carbon footprints on the planet.)

F-king morons.

Leonardo DiCaprio marches at #PeoplesClimateMarch in NYC http://t.co/J1DfrVsLgc pic.twitter.com/mu5AT0knJN

— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) September 21, 2014

Joe Green, President Mark Zuckerberg's Pro-Amnesty Lobbying Group, Ousted After 'Lack of Movement' on Immigration Reform

At Re/Code, "Joe Green Pushed Out at FWD.us."

Edged out by more innovative, energetic & cheaper worker? "Pres. of Zuckerberg Pro-Amnesty Group Resigns http://t.co/8N5Rciq3kK

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) September 21, 2014

'People had better wake the hell up' — Robert Stacy McCain on Radical Feminism

Robert's basically been writing a book on radical feminism.

And seriously, these essays demand publication to a wide readership in book format.

Outstanding.

Here: "Essential Feminist Quotes: ‘Most Women Have to Be Coerced into Heterosexuality’."

Texas Hot Momma Blocks Stalking Hate-Troll Walter James Casper III

That's the way to do it.

Disgusting Repsac's beaten down, again resorting to his pathetic cries of "racism."

Flashback: "Obsessed Hate-Troll Walter James Casper Attacks Mad Jewess with Despicable 'Racist' Smear."

And, "Bwahaha! Walter James Casper III Shouts 'Bigotry' and 'Racism' to Silence the Opposition and Claim Victory!"

Here's Texas Hot Mama:

@AmPowerBlog @rsmccain Blocked him.

— TexasHotMomma (@TexasHotMomma) September 18, 2014

She's got small children. Good on her for blocking the trolling stalker asshat, no doubt she's keeping 'em safe from Walter James "Sweety Man" Casper.

PREVIOUSLY: "Ban, Block and Report Walter James Casper III in 2013," and "Enough! Stand Up to Harassment and Stalking — Block and Report Walter James Casper in 2014."

Cowardly Obama Vows to 'Rally the World' Against Islamic State

All this multilateralism is simply a cover for appeasement and cowardice.

Here's the president's address yesterday, at the White House YouTube page: "Weekly Address: The World is United in the Fight Against ISIL."

And commentary at Truth Revolt, "'Obama: 'The World is United Against ISIL, but Calling on America' But "This isn’t America vs. ISIL'."

Anais Zanotti Bikini Snorkeling in Miami Beach

Hey, it's still summertime.

At Egotastic!, "Anais Zanotti Bikini Snorkeling Blow Holes of Intense Wet Booty Hotness."

Amid Controversy, David Cameron Plans New Powers for Scotland After Referendum

Paul Routledge writes, at the Mirror UK, "Cynical David Cameron plot behind pledge for new powers after Scottish referendum":

It woz Gordon wot won it, mobilising the hearts and minds of his fellow Scots to remain within the United Kingdom.

He halted the Nationalist juggernaut in its tracks when defeat for the Better Together campaign seemed all too possible. Thanks, Big Gordie.

Naturally, David Cameron couldn’t even bring himself to mention his predecessor’s role.

The contrast was too embarrassing Every time the Tory premier crossed the border, he lost votes.

And now he’s plotting to exploit the “No” vote to bring about eternal Tory rule in England by splitting off Scottish – mostly Labour - MPs at Westminster, handing the Conservative Party a virtually unassailable parliamentary majority.

That’s the cynical reality behind his Downing Street declaration to create a new constitutional settlement for the United Kingdom.

And that’s the challenge facing Ed Miliband as Labour’s conference delegates gather in Manchester: how to sustain and benefit from the astonishing democratic momentum set in motion by the independence referendum.

It’s impossible to know how many of the “Yes” votes were solely for divorce from the UK, and how many were against the Tories’ relentless austerity and job cuts.

Some unquestionably were a protest vote against the Coalition, in much the same way that votes for Ukip in England are a cry of defiance against the main political parties at Westminster.

In a general election, this protest will return to more normal political channels. But Ed Miliband can’t bank on it happening just like that.

In Glasgow particularly, Labour’s home ground, the 53% “Yes” for separation has to be turned into a “Yes” to getting the Tories out.

It will take a long time for Scotland to settle down. It was a different place before the referendum, and it’s even more different now.

Also from Anthony Seldon, at Telegraph UK, "Scottish referendum: Funding pledge to Scotland leaves David Cameron with the hangover from hell":

The pledge now leaves Mr Cameron with the hangover from hell. Many of his MPs have been vocal in their decrying of the pledge, and even Lord Barnett, now 90, has called his formula a “terrible mistake”, intended only as an interim measure in the run-up to planned political devolution in the late Seventies.

To some Conservative backbenchers, Mr Cameron was typically bounced into reactive decisions in promising too much to Scotland – a decision that has been called “reckless” by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. They believe that if the Prime Minister had fought a better campaign, he would never have had to make these concessions.

Significant doubts also remain over whether the proposals for further Scottish devolution will ever get through Parliament. Many voices on both Left and Right believe it is an error for such major constitutional change to be introduced with such haste. They favour the establishment of a constitutional convention to thrash out, once and for all, the appropriate powers to be granted to Scotland, as well as to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It should also pronounce on the issue of devolution to the regions such as Cornwall, Yorkshire and the North West; and to London, which has a bigger population and a larger GDP than Scotland. The problem with such conventions is that they rarely secure agreement, and certainly not in the short-term framework that domestic politics is demanding.

And the New York Times, "A Kingdom Still Whole, but Far From United":

EDINBURGH — Scotland chose decisively against independence on Thursday, but it was not a vote for the status quo in Britain.

The debate over regional and national autonomy that was set off by the Scots has just begun, and it promises a constitutional shake-up in the United Kingdom, which remains intact but by no means fixed or unchallenged.

While the outcome of the vote was met with tremendous relief from Downing Street and Buckingham Palace to Brussels and Washington, Britain was also awakening to the realization on Friday that it had agreed to grant the Scots considerable new powers to run their own affairs. Prime Minister David Cameron now faces a broader debate over the centralization of power in London, uncertainty over Britain’s place in Europe, intense budget pressures, and fissures within his own Conservative Party as he heads toward a general election campaign in the spring.

More.

Hostage Alan Henning's Family and Friends Beg for Mercy

A lot of good it's going to do. As always, I'd be surprised if Henning was still alive.

CNN reports:

VIDEO: U.S. Navy Jets Conduct Missions Against #ISIS Jihadists in Iraq

This is wicked.

From the Navy, "ARABIAN GULF (Sept. 18 and 19, 2014) F/A-18 Hornets and EA-6B Prowlers launch from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) supporting strike, surveillance and reconnaissance missions over Iraq. These missions help increase U.S. capacity to target ISIL, and coordinate the activities of the U.S. military across Iraq."

Commack High School 'Rape Prank' Goes Predictably Wrong

Mocking rape? And someone thought it was a good idea to post these photos to Twitter?

At CBS News New York:

#ISIS Offered to Exchange U.S. Hostages for Pakistani Neuroscientist and al-Qaeda Gun Moll Aafia Siddiqui

At the Los Angeles Times, "Islamic State has offered to trade hostages for imprisoned 'superstar'":

For months, Islamic State militants have engaged in a high-stakes game of deadly extortion, threatening to behead American captives they are holding in the Middle East unless their demands are met, including an end to U.S. airstrikes targeting their strongholds in Iraq.

But the price tag for the hostages' freedom has also included another prize: a diminutive, 90-pound Pakistani neuroscientist who studied at MIT before launching into a two-decade relationship with some of the best-known terrorists in the world.

The figure at the top of Islamic State's want list is Aafia Siddiqui, the wife of a key facilitator of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and a former employee of the Al Qaeda mastermind who planned them. Siddiqui is serving an 86-year sentence at a federal prison in Texas on her conviction four years ago of attempted murder for grabbing an unsecured rifle and firing on U.S. agents who were interrogating her in Afghanistan.

Siddiqui was arrested in the town of Ghazni in July 2008, having made her way onto the U.S. most-wanted list for her work with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, identified by the 9/11 Commission as the principal architect of the 2001 hijackings.

But it was her activism with Islamist groups in the United States in the 1990s that first brought her to the attention of U.S. agents. Siddiqui was active with the Muslim Students Assn. and a Muslim charity linked to fundraising for Osama bin Laden while she was studying biology at MIT, later earning her doctorate in behavioral neuroscience at Brandeis University.

Siddiqui's name as a potential trade for U.S. captives first emerged in back-channel negotiations that led to the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in May, said Joe Kasper, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine), who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

"On several occasions, both the Taliban and Islamic State have asked for either the release or extradition of Dr. Siddiqui in exchange for U.S. captives," said Kasper, who has been privy to communications with the militant networks.

More.

'Feeling hot in the desert!': Heidi Klum Flashback Photo on Instagram

At London's Daily Mail, "'Feeling hot in the desert!': Heidi Klum reminds her Instagram followers yet again that she's gorgeous with shirt-free flashback photo."

WATCH: 'Flames of War' — New #ISIS Propaganda Video Features Masked American Jihadist

The background's at London's Daily Mail, "Masked man with AMERICAN accent appears in latest ISIS propaganda film 'Flames of War'."

And at Pamela Geller's, "WATCH VIDEO *GRAPHIC* Islamic State Releases Gruesome Full-Length Film directed at America; Jihadist with AMERICAN accent appears, Hostages Seen Digging Their Own Graves."

YouTube pulled the video at Pamela's, but you can watch here at the Dutch website GrenStijl, "Flames of War - ISIS The Movie."

A slick production, considerably audacious, according to this report from CNN.

Read for Wellness

I love this.

At WSJ, "Read Slowly to Benefit Your Brain and Cut Stress: At Least 30 Minutes of Uninterrupted Reading With a Book or E-Book Helps."

Libertarians Give Rand Paul a Pass

At Politico:

Rand Paul insists he’s not an isolationist. Luckily for him, many in his libertarian base are willing to let him keep saying that.

A movement that often demands ideological purity is, for now, largely giving the potential 2016 presidential contender a pass, even as he appears to take some foreign policy positions well beyond traditional libertarian limits.

Libertarians say they’re willing to look the other way because the Kentucky Republican — the son of isolationist iconoclast Ron Paul — is their best hope for taking their views into the mainstream and all the way to the White House. In more than a dozen interviews at a libertarian conference this week in Alexandria, Virginia, many attendees said they understand if Paul, who recently came out in favor of airstrikes against militants in Iraq, has to hedge on some issues to gain broader appeal — but that they still believe he’s one of them at heart.

“He’s playing two games,” said John Walsh, a former professor of physiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. “He’s trying to position himself so he doesn’t get tripped up and ruled out [of 2016], and at the same time, maintain his anti-interventionism.”

Paul already faces deep skepticism from many establishment Republicans. They are quick to note that he once espoused isolationist-leaning views, including arguing for ending all foreign aid, including to Israel; reining in defense spending and expressing deep reluctance to intervene in the Middle East. He has since distanced himself from some of those positions — saying, for instance, that he would not support ending aid to Israel anytime soon — but hawkish members of the GOP donor class remain unconvinced.

“When people meet Sen. Paul in person, they’re impressed by him, and he exceeds the expectations they have based upon the rantings of his father,” said one Republican who works closely with hawkish GOP donors. “He can change his positions now and come across as friendly in one-on-one meetings, but he still, at some point, is going to have to explain for his previous positions. And by the way, if he actually flips to a pro-Israel or more interventionist foreign policy, he’s going to lose a lot of his base libertarian isolationist supporters.”

More.

I just can't keep up with Rand Paul's foreign policy. He's like Obama. Tryna track closely with public opinion, which is lame.

Letting in the Wrong Refugees

From Michelle Malkin:

Fresh terror busts in Australia expose a common Achilles’ heel of the West: Indiscriminate refugee policies turn free countries into breeding grounds for jihad. It’s the same game in America. Soldiers of Islam have weaponized our blind generosity against us.

In Sydney this week, authorities detained a half-dozen Muslim plotters and arrested a top collaborator in an alleged conspiracy to kidnap and behead a random Australian citizen. The accused mastermind? Afghan refugee turned Aussie Islamic State recruiter Mohammad Ali Baryalei. He and his aristocratic family were welcomed Down Under decades ago. Baryalei returned the favor by taking to the streets of Sydney to recruit and radicalize dozens of fellow Muslim immigrants or their children.

Baryalei’s minions include Australian jihadist Khaled Sharrouf, the homicidal son of Lebanese immigrants. Sharrouf is now based in Syria, where he infamously tweeted a photo of his elementary school-age son brandishing a severed human head.

The Sydney Beheading Bust comes on the heels of a separate outbreak of violence by Afghan refugees aligned with the terror group Hezbollah. In late August, Aussie police broke up a bloody riot involving members of the “420 gang” — Muslim teenage boys and young men who post sword-wielding, AK-47-toting selfies on social media. The self-described “Shia soldiers” quote Hezbollah militant imam Hassan Nasrallah online, while wreaking havoc in Sydney slums offline.

International “human rights” wags have attacked Australian officials for trying to crack down on unfettered immigration from terror-sponsoring states. Now, many of those ungrateful imports are crying “Islamophobia” as law enforcement authorities try to stop the head-choppers from spilling blood on their soil.

Australia, we feel your pain. America’s unselective and desultory asylum and refugee policies have also enabled jihadists of all stripes and blades to recruit, convert, plot, pillage, rape and kill...

Continue reading.

'Red Band Society' Ads Pulled from Los Angeles Buses After Complaints of Racism and Sexism

I saw these "Red Band Society" ads running on TV over the summer. They looked hard-edged and risque, although not something that ought to have been banned.

But then, leftist political correctness is destroying basic decency and common sense in this society, and folks can't express disagreement without being tried in the progressive court of public opinion (an Inquisition).

So this is no surprise, at the Los Angeles Times, "Metro yanks Fox TV show bus ads branded as racist, offensive to women":

An advertisement for the new Fox television show “Red Band Society” was abruptly pulled from Los Angeles Metro buses Thursday after activists complained it was racist and offensive.

The ads for the series that premiered this week show actress Octavia Spencer next to the words “Scary Bitch.” Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Marc Littman said the agency decided to remove the ad because that label “denigrates women.”

“That speaks for itself,” Littman said. “That was not acceptable.”

The ads, which have been up for five weeks, will be removed from 190 Metro buses as soon as possible, said Metro spokesman Dave Sotero.

The announcement was made Thursday at a Metro committee meeting where a few dozen protesters showed up to speak against the ads. Among them was Jasmyne Cannick, who said the nickname perpetuates negative stereotypes about black women.

“I don’t know if I find it more offensive because I’m black, or more offensive because I’m a woman,” said Cannick, 36. “I sometimes think our city forgets that there are black people that still live here and call Los Angeles home.”

 The woman is perpetually aggrieved, and milkin' it for all it's worth.

Angels 'Erupted' After Clinching AL West Title, Celebrate on Field

Awesome.

At the Los Angeles Times:

The Angels’ 5-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners had been over for several minutes, and as the Oakland Athletics began unraveling in the ninth inning of their game, the screams from the Angels’ clubhouse could be heard through the concrete walls in a tunnel.

“I wish you guys could’ve been there to see it,” Angels pitcher Matt Shoemaker said. “Everybody just erupted.”

At that point, the score was tied, and the Angels would have to wait longer. First there was a long video review, then the Rangers tacked on some more runs, and then there were some pitching changes. All the while, the Angels prepared for a celebration.

“It was just a lot of fun watching that happen,” Shoemaker said...

More.

Plus, "Photos: Angels clinch AL West title."