Federal Judge Strikes Down California's Ban on Foie Gras

Well, for once a bit of decent political news out of California.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Foie gras can go back on California menus, judge rules":

Foie gras can go back on the menu.

U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson issued a ruling Wednesday overturning California’s law banning the sale of the fatty goose liver.

“I’ve been jumping up and down for about 90 minutes,” said Napa Valley chef Ken Frank, who was not a party to the suit, but has been active in the pro-foie-gras movement.

Foie gras was outlawed in California by a bill that passed the state Legislature in 2004 and went into effect in 2012.

The ban had been challenged by the Hot’s Restaurant Group in California (which includes Hot’s Cantina in Northridge, Four Daughters in Manhattan Beach and Hot’s Kitchen in Hermosa Beach); Hudson Valley Foie Gras, a producer in New York; and a group of Canadian foie gras farmers called Association des Eleveurs de Canards et d’Oies du Quebec.

The judge ruled that the law was unconstitutional because it interferes with an existing federal law that regulates poultry products.

Last year, the courts rejected a different argument against the state ban -- that it improperly tried to regulate interstate commerce. But the new argument -- referred to by lawyers as “preemption” -- succeeded. The state could appeal Wilson’s ruling, but, for now, foie gras devotees can celebrate.

“Foie gras is legal in California and will be on my menu tonight,” said Frank, chef at La Toque restaurant. “I haven’t been without foie gras a single day since the ban went into effect, but tonight is the first time I’ve been able to charge for it.”

Frank had been sending diners complimentary servings of foie gras along with a glass of wine and a card explaining that “this is a gift and an act of political protest against a law we think is unwise."

“Tonight we’re going to tear the cards up and have a hell of a party.”

A coalition of animal rights groups, including the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Humane Society, released a joint statement vowing to appeal. “The state clearly has the right to ban the sale of the products of animal cruelty, and we expect the 9th Circuit will uphold this law, as it did in the previous round of litigation. We are asking the California attorney general to file an immediate appeal."...

Yes, because no one hates a good, righteous food-loving party as much as tantrum-throwing leftists.

Still more.

Sean Hannity Battles Islamic Hate-Preacher Anjem Choudary (VIDEO)

Following-up to my earlier entry, "Anjem Choudary: Whoever Insults Muhammed 'Kill Him'."

Watch the debate from last night's "Hannity," at the link.

Paris Attacks Weren't 'Senseless Violence'

I saw the president's comments yesterday and once again recoiled at his remarks about the "senseless violence of the few."

It's simply not "senseless violence." Indeed, the attacks were extremely methodical and drove home the message that Islam is intent to destroy the West's most important foundations. The terrorists will stop at nothing and they'll kill fellow Muslims who stand in their way, those who --- despite their faith --- stand for the rule of law against militant Islamic jihad.

So I'm glad Jonathan Tobin picked up on precisely this yesterday, at Commentar, "Paris Attack Wasn’t “Senseless Violence”":

President Obama’s condemnation of the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office today in Paris rightly referred to the perpetrators as “terrorists” and expressed solidarity with France even if it did come in a tone expressed with his usual lack of emotion. The official statement issued later also properly labeled it an act of terrorism. But the problem isn’t whether the administration is ready, as it was initially reluctant to do after Benghazi, to speak of terrorism, as it is the president’s refusal to discuss the motivation of the attackers and readiness to speak of it as the “senseless violence of the few.” This wasn’t senseless, Mr. President. Indeed, based on the administration’s past lukewarm defense of freedom of speech against Islamist attacks, it made a great deal of sense for terrorists to think they could get away with this atrocity.

Throughout the last two decades during which Islamist terrorists have been waging a war against the West, the United States government has always been properly reluctant to speak of the conflict as one between the American people and the religion of Islam. The U.S. has no argument with its millions of loyal Muslim citizens or with any faith per se. Nor does it have a brief for conflict with the many Muslim countries with which it enjoys warm relations. The arguments of both al-Qaeda and ISIS and their sympathizers, which speak of American wars “against Muslims,” are vicious libels. The wars, in which the U.S. has engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention in Bosnia before that, were waged to free Muslims. It is the terrorists who wish to silence and enslave Muslims in their nightmare vision of a new caliphate, not the Americans.

But that sensible reluctance to grant the terrorists their wish by allowing them to make this a war of Muslim versus non-Muslim should not extend to blindness about what is motivating the terrorists. As much as we may hope that Islamists don’t represent the views of most Muslims, it is ridiculous for the president or any other American official to be issuing statements (as they have at times) in which Washington pretends to be the authority on what is or is not authentic Islam. Suffice it to say that Islamists appear to have the support of tens of millions of Muslims in the Middle East as well as elsewhere and it is futile for any American president to be declaring them mistaken about their faith...

Amazing how that happens ever time as well, heh.

Continue reading.

A First-Hand Account of Terrorist Attack in Paris — #CharlieHebdo

From Claire Berlinski, at Ricochet, "First-Hand Account From The Terrorist Attack on Charlie-Hebdo":

Let me use the words I am not allowed to use on Ricochet. You motherfuckers. We will kill you. Every one of you. Believe it. #JeSuisCharlie

— Claire Berlinski (@ClaireBerlinski) January 7, 2015

I'm sorry to respond to so many messages so impersonally. I'll answer by tomorrow. For now this sums it up. https://t.co/rOkgSpZLSe

— Claire Berlinski (@ClaireBerlinski) January 7, 2015

If you've been trying to reach me, you should have a response by now. If I missed you, my apologies: Summary here. https://t.co/47zAIBxHIP.

— Claire Berlinski (@ClaireBerlinski) January 8, 2015

If I sound incoherent, it’s because I am shaken. The reasons will be obvious.

I had no intention of reporting on this from the scene of the Charlie-Hebdo massacre. I was walking up Boulevard Richard Lenoir to meet a friend who lives in the neighborhood. But the moment I saw what I did, I knew for sure what had happened. A decade in Turkey teaches you that. That many ambulances, that many cops, that many journalists, and those kinds of faces can mean only one thing: a massive terrorist attack.

I also knew from the location just who’d been attacked: Charlie-Hebdo, the magazine known for many things, but, above all, for its fearlessness in publishing caricatures of Mohamed. They’d been firebombed for this in 2011, but their response — in effect — was the only one free men would ever consider: “As long as we’re alive, you’ll never shut us up.”

They are no longer alive. They managed to shut them up.

The only thing I didn’t immediately know was how many of them had died...

Don't miss the remainder. Claire's a good woman. Really, really good.

And check the links at the Twitter embeds.

Mark Steyn: 'We will be retreating into a lot more self-censorship...' (VIDEO)

...if the rest of the Western media 'doesn't man and decide to disperse the risk' of mocking the fuck out of Muhammad.

Watch: "Mark Steyn Blasts NY Times for Not Showing Muhammad Cartoon. Mark Steyn Kelly File."

Stéphane Charbonnier Stood Up to Terror

From Pamela Geller, at Atlas Shrugs, "Charb is a War Hero."

And at Telegraph UK, "How Charlie Hebdo editor Stéphane Charbonnier stood up to terror":

Charlie Hebdo's editor Stéphane Charbonnier was among the 10 journalists killed today during an attack on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo's offices in Paris. Two police officers were also killed in the attack.

Charlie Hebdo's staple is provocation – and it pokes fun at popes, presidents as well as the Prophet Mohammed.

The satirical weekly has a history of drawing outrage across the Muslim world with crude cartoons of Islam's holiest figure.

The magazine's offices were firebombed in November 2011 after it published a spoof issue that "invited" Mohammed to be its guest editor and put his caricature on the cover.

A year later, the magazine published more Mohammed drawings amid an uproar over an anti-Muslim film.

The cartoons depicted Mohammed naked and in demeaning or pornographic poses. As passions raged, the French government defended free speech even as it rebuked Charlie Hebdo for fanning tensions.

The small-circulation weekly leans toward the left and takes pride in making acerbic commentary on world affairs through cartoons and spoof reports.

Charbonnier defended the Muhammad cartoons in 2012. "Mohammed isn't sacred to me," said Charbonnier, who used the pen name Charb. "I don't blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings. I live under French law. I don't live under Quranic law."

Islam is not alone in being singled out by Charlie Hebdo's satire. Past covers include retired Pope Benedict XVI in amorous embrace with a Vatican guard; former French President Nicolas Sarkozy looking like a sick vampire; and an Orthodox Jew kissing a Nazi soldier.

The magazine occasionally publishes investigative journalism, taking aim at France's high and mighty.

Charlie Hebdo has come under pressure ever since its 2011 Mohammed issue. Its website has been hacked. It faced a lawsuit over the prophet cartoons. Riot police once guarded its offices. Charb lived under police protection – and his bodyguard was killed Wednesday along with another officer.

Charb told Le Monde newspaper two years ago: "I'd rather die standing than live on my knees."

'Hands Up, Don't Shoot' for Real — #CharlieHebdo

Oh man, too true.

On Twitter:

THIS is what "Hands Up Don't Shoot" looks like @KurtSchlichter @GARock945 @Rene_gadeCowboy @GayPatriot @chadfelixg pic.twitter.com/rpUrMbeutk

— Appelez-moi Charlie (@WarrenPeas64) January 7, 2015

Emily Ratajkowski Tweets #JeSuisCharlie

She's really, really cool.

#JeSuisCharlie pic.twitter.com/z8kE9lkhEa

— Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) January 8, 2015

Islamist Terror in Paris — #CharlieHebdo

At the Wall Street Journal, "The jihadists target Western principles of free speech and religious pluralism":

Heavily armed gunmen on Wednesday infiltrated the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper in Paris, murdering at least 12 people, including its editor, before fleeing. The deadliest terror attack on French soil in more than a decade is a fresh reminder that the war on Islamist terror is far from won, and that jihadists are bent on eradicating the heritage of Western freedom.

Charlie Hebdo was founded in 1970, and the left-wing weekly has always been an equal-opportunity offender. Its politics and taste aren’t ours, but from Jesus to Michael Jackson and from 9/11 to the Pope, nothing has been off-limits.

That mocking spirit extended to Islam, and the paper drew the ire of Muslim fanatics for poking fun at the Prophet Muhammad. The newspaper in 2006 reprinted the Muhammad cartoons first published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. In response, the grand mosque of Paris and other French Muslim organizations unsuccessfully sued Charlie Hebdo for “racism.”

In 2011 terrorists firebombed Charlie’s offices after the announcement of a “Shariah Hebdo.” (See the cover nearby: “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing.”) A subsequent cover depicted a cartoonist passionately kissing a Muslim man with the headline: “Love Is Stronger Than Hate.” Charlie Hebdo moved to a new office, but police protection failed to stop the terrorists who on Wednesday were heard shouting “we have avenged the prophet!”

Wednesday’s massacre, following a long string of plots foiled by police in the U.K., France and elsewhere, is a reminder that jihadism isn’t a distant Middle Eastern phenomenon. There will be many more such attempts at mass murder, and authorities in the U.S. and Europe need broad authority to surveil and interrogate potential plotters to stop them.

This offends some liberals and libertarians, but imagine the restrictions on liberty that would follow if radical Muslims succeed in blowing up a soccer stadium or half a city. Men willing to execute cartoonists in Paris and 132 children at point-blank range in Peshawar in the name of religion won’t shrink from using more destructive means to impose mass casualties. Better to collect metadata and surveil some people now than deal with public demand for mass Muslim arrests or expulsions after a catastrophe.

Wednesday’s attack also demonstrates again that violent Islam isn’t a reaction to poverty or Western policies in the Middle East. It is an ideological challenge to Western civilization and principles, including a free press and religious pluralism. The murder of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists is merely the latest evil expression of a modern arc of Islamist violence against Western free speech that stretches back to Ayatollah Khomeini ’s 1989 fatwa calling for the killing of novelist Salman Rushdie...

Continue reading.

And God bless the editors for not self-censoring.

Ahmed Merabet, Paris Policeman Murdered in #CharlieHebdo Attacks, Was Muslim

Here's the passage from the Wall Street Journal report I posted earlier:

One policeman was wounded and lay on the sidewalk. Two of the gunmen got out of the car and calmly moved toward the officer, according to video footage captured by neighbors and shown on French television.

“You wanted to kill us,” one of the gunmen shouts. “No, we’re good, boss,” the policeman says, showing his empty hands.

One of the gunmen comes near and shoots him at close range. The assailant flees with his accomplice; the officer, who authorities later identified as Ahmed Merabet, dies.

Well, the officer was Muslim. At the Daily Caller, "Ahmed Merabet, Cop Killed In Paris Attacks, Was Muslim."

Ahmed Merabet, French Muslim police He was killed outside #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/Lkk25nBdcu pic.twitter.com/pXa8UPKvDP

— Negar Mortazavi (@NegarMortazavi) January 8, 2015

Sad. The great Allah not so merciful, even to his followers.

Allah Sucks

Yeah, well, would't want to beat around the bush, or anything.

FUCK ISLAM ALLAH SUCKS #Paris pic.twitter.com/Xfd3FYl8tR

— Infidel (@HeidiL_RN) January 8, 2015

Anjem Choudary: Whoever Insults Muhammed 'Kill Him'

Hey, at least he doesn't cover for murderous Islam.

At USA Today, "People know the consequences."

Freedom of expression does not extend to insulting the Prophets of Allah, whatever your views on the events in Paris today! #ParisShooting

— Anjem Choudary (@anjemchoudary) January 7, 2015

U mad? MT: "@anjemchoudary Freedom of expression does not extend to insulting the Prophets of Allah. #ParisShooting" pic.twitter.com/5h7FrCju7g

— Jessica Chasmar (@JessicaChasmar) January 7, 2015

That Charlie Hebdo Satirists Should Die for 'Offensive' Speech is an Outrage

At USA Today, "Paris slaughter can't silence free expression: Our view":

Cartoonists are not ordinarily people you'd think of as threatening. Their most dangerous weapon is rapier wit, artistically aimed to provoke thought. But for the thin-skinned, the intolerant and the arrogant, mockery stings more than an acid bath.

So on Wednesday, in an act of primitive brutality, Islamist radicals angered by the work of four cartoonists simply murdered them, along with other journalists and bystanders at the satirical Paris weekly Charlie Hebdo.

The satirists might be unlikely heroes, but they are heroes nevertheless — martyrs to that most fundamental of Western values, the right to free expression, which they chose to exercise despite threats and a firebombing just three years ago that might have muted others.

Their form of speech was not the easiest to defend. Like other satirical publications, Charlie Hebdo aims to be offensive, and it succeeds. The newspaper regularly mocks politicians and religious leaders of all types, including Catholics and Jews. Muslim radicals have been a recurring target.

A decade ago, Charlie republished a collection of Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed that had set off worldwide riots. Muslims sued for blasphemy and lost.

In 2011, a cover renamed the magazine Charia Hebdo, a play on sharia, or Islamic law, and said the issue was edited by Mohammed. The firebombing followed.

Undeterred, Charlie Hebdo set off an uproar again in 2012...

Keep reading.

One Suspect Surrenders to French Police: Two Others Remain at Large #CharlieHebdo

I saw conflicting reports on Twitter earlier suggesting that one of the jihadists had been killed.

But not according to the Wall Street Journal, "Charlie Hebdo Office in Paris Attacked by Gunmen; 12 Killed: Satirical Magazine Targeted in Past for Cartoons on Islam; Hollande Calls Shooting a Terror Attack":

PARIS—Masked gunmen stormed the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, killing at least a dozen people and decimating a newsroom that long took pride in defying the outrage—and death threats—stirred by its caricatures lampooning Islam.

The rampage shocked a nation that has been living in dread of reprisal attacks since joining the fight against Islamist insurgents in Africa and the Middle East. The attack—by gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles—triggered an outpouring of public anger at home and expressions of solidarity from around the world.

Three suspects, all Frenchmen, were identified late Wednesday, a police officer said. They are Said Kouachi, 34 years old; his brother Cherif Kouachi, 32; and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad.

Mr. Mourad turned himself in to police, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. French police released photos of the two other suspects, appealing to the public for information.

French authorities deployed a vast dragnet to search for the suspects. As part of the manhunt, special forces were mobilized Wednesday night in the city of Reims, about 100 miles east of Paris, to search an apartment, said the officer.

President François Hollande designated Thursday a day of mourning and said flags would be flown at half-staff for three days nationwide.

It is unclear whether the gunmen acted alone or were part of a broader organization. But they appeared to have planned the attack and to have been motivated by radical Islamist beliefs.

French television showed footage of two men wearing balaclavas leaving Charlie Hebdo’s offices shouting in French: “We have avenged Prophet Muhammad. We have killed Charlie Hebdo.”

The gunmen also shouted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” according to a witness cited by Paris prosecutor François Molins.

The attack adds to already high terrorism concerns in Europe at a time when France and the U.K. are fighting alongside the U.S. against Islamic State insurgents in Iraq and Syria. France has also deployed forces in the Sahara in a bid to crush radical groups there.

The shootings could reverberate more broadly across Europe, where anti-immigration politicians—including Marine Le Pen in France—are gaining popularity among voters hit by mass unemployment and a sense of social unraveling...

More.

French President François Hollande: 'This is a terrorist attack, there is no doubt...' #CharlieHebdo

The French president did not hesitate to call out the attacks for the jihadist terror that they were, unlike U.S. President Barack Hussein. See, Andrew McCarthy, at Pajamas, "Why It’s So Hard for Obama to Call Terrorism Terrorism."

#CharlieHebdo Attack Proves Islamic State Projects Terror in the West

At IBD, "Paris Attack Proves IS Can Project Terror In West":

After well-armed Muslim terrorists struck the heart of Paris, killing at least 12 and wounding another 11, the Islamic State praised the attack and promised, "More will follow." The threat should be taken seriously.

In September, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned that his country's intelligence had captured several IS fighters who revealed a plot to attack transit systems in Paris and New York.

On Wednesday, it appears they hit one target, though it was the Paris office of a magazine that lampooned Muslim prophet Muhammad and not the city subway system. Still, the administration must get serious about defeating the Islamic State before it can project terrorism here on the same scale. This was not a lone-wolf attack. It cannot be written off by our leaders and the media's PC ostriches as a "one-off" act by a "deranged" individual.

It was by all accounts a professionally planned Mumbai-style attack involving a three-man cell brandishing semi-automatic weapons and wearing commando-style vests with extra magazine clips of ammo. Shouting "Allahu Akbar," the black-clad terrorists slaughtered at least 10 journalists, including cartoonists, and two police officers — one of whom was brutally shot in the head as he lay wounded in the street.

No group has formally taken credit. But less than an hour before the attack IS posted what appeared to be a related tweet. It was a picture depicting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of IS in Iraq, with a message wishing him "Best wishes." (One witness claimed to overhear one of the terrorists say they were al-Qaida in Yemen, but that's not been corroborated.)

After the attack, another IS leader gushed: "The lions of Islam have avenged our Prophet. These are our lions. It's the first drops — more will follow," he said, speaking via an Internet connection from Syria. "Let these crusaders be scared because they should be."

What we should be is angry. Not just with the terrorists, but with our leaders who have turned a blind eye to this growing Islamofascist menace. There's no mystery to these bloodthirsty bastards. They do what they say, and they do it in the name of Islam. Take them at their word. Stop ignoring the warnings they telegraph.

Neoconservative Douglas Murray: #CharlieHebdo Attack is a Threat to Each and Every One of Us

At Londons' Daily Mail, "A threat to every single one of us: The cold-blooded outrage in Paris is about our right to be free to express ourselves":

The cold-blooded outrage in Paris is not a story about one magazine or one country – and it is not just about freedom of the Press.

It is about the right of every single one of us to be free to express ourselves. And it is high time the nations of Europe woke up to how gravely that right is under threat.

Because what happened yesterday – though the most appalling incident of its kind yet – is in many ways far from unprecedented. It is just the latest chapter in a long, concerted campaign to shut down criticism and discussion of one religion, its founder and its teachings...

Hmm... "Shut down criticism"? That sounds familiar (see here and here).

But continue reading the great Douglas Murray.

VIDEO: How the Charlie Hebdo Attacks Unfolded

Via Telegraph UK:



And see, "War on freedom: France’s worst terrorist attack in a generation leaves 12 dead and shocks the world."

Kate Moss for Vogue Italia

Quick Rule 5 break between Paris jihad blogging.

At Egotastic!, "Kate Moss. Yep, still flaunting it at forty something, for Vogue Italia."

BONUS: At London's Daily Mail, "Now THAT's life in the fast lane! Fashion icon Kate Moss kicks off 2015 modelling for motorcycle brand Matchless."

Zaid Jilani, Democrat Party 'Muslim Youth Activist', Cheers #CharlieHebdo Terrorists for 'Getting the Job Done...'

Leftists have been out of the gate with pro-jihad disinformation, exhortations, and propaganda.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Featured Muslim Youth Activist for Democratic Party Gloats Over Muslim Terror Skills."

16 Bold Covers from #CharlieHebdo

At Business Insider, via Louise Mensch:

Let's get this story trending. Absolute respect to @BusinessInsider today. http://t.co/3lMUW9zr59

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) January 7, 2015

.@BusInsiderAU BALLS OF STEEL you just put the entire Western media to shame. Aussie guts and glory FTW

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) January 7, 2015

16 bold covers from the satirical Paris magazine that was attacked today: http://t.co/LdUUziuHm3 pic.twitter.com/uf73DikV6d

— Harrison Jacobs (@Harrisonxjacobs) January 7, 2015

.@Harrisonxjacobs you, sir, are the most important voice that liberty had today, anywhere in the world. Good for you http://t.co/3lMUW9zr59

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) January 7, 2015

Paris Policeman Begs for Mercy Before Shot in Head at Point Blank Range #CharlieHebdo (VIDEO)

This is graphic.

At Live Leak, "Terrorists shoot officer in Paris during terrorist attack at Charlie Hebdo."



Via Bare Naked Islam, "FRANCE! SCREAMING “ALLAU AKBAR” and “WE HAVE AVENGED THE PROPHET,” MUSLIM TERRORISTS ATTACK CHARLIE HEBDO SATIRE MAGAZINE, MURDERING AT LEAST 12 PEOPLE."

I'll have more coverage of the attacks throughout the night.

The Dark, Dangerous Side of Marijuana

Very dark. Very dangerous.

It's a bad drug. Bad for you. It does bad things to your mind. And it leaves a trail of bad recriminations for those in the path of abusers.

From Susan Shapiro, at the Los Angeles Times, "Cannabis crazy: It doesn't just describe the move to legalize weed. It could happen to you":

I know the dark side. I'm ambivalent about legalizing marijuana because I was addicted for 27 years. After starting to smoke weed at Bob Dylan concerts when I was 13, I saw how it can make you say and do things that are provocative and perilous. I bought pot in bad neighborhoods at 3 a.m., confronted a dealer for selling me a dime bag of oregano, let shady pushers I barely knew deliver marijuana, like pizza, to my home. I mailed weed to my vacation spots and smoked a cocaine-laced joint a bus driver offered when I was his only passenger.

Back then Willie Nelson songs, Cheech and Chong routines and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High's” Jeff Spicoli made getting high seem kooky and harmless. My reality was closer to Walter White's self-destruction from meth on TV's “Breaking Bad” and the delusional nightmares in the film “Requiem for a Dream.” Everyone believed you couldn't get addicted to pot.

Turns out I could get hooked on carrot sticks. Marijuana became an extreme addiction for me. I'm not alone. Nearly 17% of those who get high as teenagers will become addicted to marijuana, according to the 2013 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that up to half of daily marijuana smokers become addicted — an estimated 2.7 million people in the U.S...

Very dark. Very bad. And of course, the "progressive" left is pushing it, and hard.

Leftists. Destroying American society, any which way they can. It's scary sometimes, man.

A City of Mourning and Demonized Police

From Dorothy Rabinowitz, at WSJ, "Shunned by cops, allied with Al Sharpton, incensed by criticism: New York’s mayor begins his second year":

As demonstrations over the grand-jury decisions in Ferguson, Mo., and New York’s Staten Island gathered momentum, Smith College President Kathleen McCartney felt herself obliged on Dec. 9 to issue a campus-wide apology. Her offense? Having said, in a message of support for the protests, that “all lives matter”—for which she became a target of enraged rebukes charging her with insensitivity and with minimizing the concerns of blacks.

What President McCartney’s instant apology said about the moral spine and leadership on the nation’s campuses today needs no spelling out. It wouldn’t be long, however, before the impact of two nonblack lives snuffed out with murderous deliberation would come blasting into the continuing carnival of staged “die-ins,” blocked highways and chanting marchers, including the contingent shouting “What do we want? Dead cops.”

Nothing more instantly transformed the atmosphere in New York than the Dec. 20 killing of police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, shot as they sat in their police car. It broke the hearts of New Yorkers, it demolished whatever shard of public sympathy was left for the marches and denunciations of the police. The murders had, in addition, caused a glaring light to be cast on the mayor of New York, whose central campaign theme when running for the office had been devoted almost exclusively to the evils, the racial bias, in the stop-and-frisk tactic practiced by the police.

Once in office, Bill de Blasio made clear his view of the police as a power that required watching and re-education. To which end he summoned Al Sharpton , the longtime race hustler whose lifetime career pressing fraudulent bias claims, inciting racial conflagrations, was apparently no deterrent to Mayor de Blasio, who described Mr. Sharpton as the nation’s foremost civil-rights leader. The general attitudes emanating from the de Blasio administration were, the police concluded, distinctly unsupportive.

The most important cause of all for that glaring light, of course, was the fact that the two police officers had been killed by an assassin inspired by the antipolice fervor of the demonstrators and by the image of police as a major danger to young black men.

The killer had attended one of the rallies. He had also made certain that there would be no mystery about his motive. He had posted online an explicit declaration of his aim to kill the police, and of the reason: “They Take 1 Of Ours...... Let’s Take 2 of Theirs #ShootThePolice.”

This didn’t prevent immediate efforts on the part of the press sympathetic to the protests, and to the mayor, to dismiss the murders of the police officers as one more case of mental disturbance. The murders had nothing to do, really, with any response to the cases of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York—or, more to the point, with any incitement by the nonstop flow of accusations by demonstrators casting the police as racists and killers.

Much like an echo of the politically driven instinct to play down acts of terrorism as the product of mental illness, family dysfunction and life’s disappointments, regular media portraits of the murderer, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, ascribed his act to a turbulent personal life and mental illness.

The idea that deranged individuals with, say, a history of disturbed relationships and a tendency to violence shouldn’t be seen as genuine representatives of a cause, an ideology, is decidedly odd if not itself a kind of deranged thinking. When the cause itself is a grab bag of pathologies, it isn’t surprising that it attracts the disturbed...

More.

Obama's Lists: A Dubious History of Targeted Killings in Afghanistan

It takes Der Spiegel to offer a hard-headed look at President Obama's criminal drone policy, or it would be criminal if it were President G.W. Bush still in office. Remember, the American MSM still gives O an epic pass.

See, "Secret Docs Reveal Dubious Details of Targeted Killings in Afghanistan":

Combat operations in Afghanistan may be coming to an end, but a look at secret NATO documents reveals that the US and the UK were far less scrupulous in choosing targets for killing than previously believed. Drug dealers were also on the lists.

Death is circling above Helmand Province on the morning of Feb. 7, 2011, in the form of a British Apache combat helicopter named "Ugly 50." Its crew is searching for an Afghan named Mullah Niaz Mohammed. The pilot has orders to kill him.

The Afghan, who has been given the code name "Doody," is a "mid-level commander" in the Taliban, according to a secret NATO list. The document lists enemy combatants the alliance has approved for targeted killings. "Doody" is number 3,673 on the list and NATO has assigned him a priority level of three on a scale of one to four. In other words, he isn't particularly important within the Taliban leadership structure.

The operations center identified "Doody" at 10:17 a.m. But visibility is poor and the helicopter is forced to circle another time. Then the gunner fires a "Hellfire" missile. But he has lost sight of the mullah during the maneuver, and the missile strikes a man and his child instead. The boy is killed instantly and the father is severely wounded. When the pilot realizes that the wrong man has been targeted, he fires 100 rounds at "Doody" with his 30-mm gun, critically injuring the mullah.

The child and his father are two of the many victims of the dirty secret operations that NATO conducted for years in Afghanistan. Their fate is described in secret documents to which SPIEGEL was given access. Some of the documents concerning the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the NSA and GCHQ intelligence services are from the archive of whistleblower Edward Snowden. Included is the first known complete list of the Western alliance's "targeted killings" in Afghanistan. The documents show that the deadly missions were not just viewed as a last resort to prevent attacks, but were in fact part of everyday life in the guerilla war in Afghanistan.

The list, which included up to 750 people at times, proves for the first time that NATO didn't just target the Taliban leadership, but also eliminated mid- and lower-level members of the group on a large scale. Some Afghans were only on the list because, as drug dealers, they were allegedly supporting the insurgents...

Keep reading.

The Cuban Archipelago

From Jamie Glazov, at FrontPage Magazine:

Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl.

—Che Guevara, Motorcycle Diaries

President Obama’s recent move to cozy up to Communist Cuba is a crucially  important moment not just diplomatically, but as a moral one in regards to human rights, dignity and justice. As we witness a Radical-in-Chief throwing an economic lifeline to a barbaric tyranny, it is our duty and obligation to shine a light on the dark tragedy of the Cuban Gulag — and to reflect on the unspeakable suffering that Cubans have endured under Castro’s fascistic regime.

Until July 26, 2008, Fidel Castro had ruled Cuba with an iron grip for nearly five decades. On that July date in 2008, he stood to the side because of health problems and made his brother, Raul, de facto ruler. Raul officially replaced his brother as dictator on February 24, 2008; the regime has remained just as totalitarian as before and can, for obvious reasons, continue to be regarded and labelled as “Fidel Castro’s” regime.

Having seized power on January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro followed the tradition of Vladimir Lenin and immediately turned his country into a slave camp. Ever since, Cuba has distinguished itself as one of the most monstrous human-rights abusers in the world.

Half a million human beings have passed through Cuba’s Gulag. Since Cuba’s total population is only around eleven million, that gives Castro’s despotism the highest political incarceration rate per capita on earth. There have been more than fifteen thousand executions by firing squad. Torture has been institutionalized; myriad human-rights organizations have documented the regime’s use of electric shock, dark coffin-sized isolation cells, and beatings to punish “anti-socialist elements.” The Castro regime’s barbarity is best epitomized by the Camilo Cienfuegos plan, the program of horrors followed in the forced-labor camp on the Isle of Pines. Forced to work almost naked, prisoners were made to cut grass with their teeth and to sit in latrine trenches for long periods of time. Torture is routine.[i]

The horrifying experience of Armando Valladares, a Cuban poet who endured twenty-two years of torture and imprisonment for merely raising the issue of freedom, is a testament to the regime’s barbarity. Valladares’s memoir, Against All Hope, serves as Cuba’s version of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. Valladares recounts how prisoners were beaten with bayonets, electric cables, and truncheons. He tells how he and other prisoners were forced to take “baths” in human feces and urine.[ii]

Typical of the horror in Castro’s Gulag was the experience of Roberto López Chávez, one of Valladares’s prison friends. When López went on a hunger strike to protest the abuses in the prison, the guards withheld water from him until he became delirious, twisting on the floor and begging for something to drink. The guards then urinated in his mouth. He died the next day.[iii]

Since Castro’s death cult, like other leftist ideologies, believes that human blood purifies the earth—and since manifestations of grief affirm the reality of the individual, and thus are anathema to the totality—mourning for the departed became taboo. Thus, just like Mao’s China and Pol Pot’s Cambodia,[iv] so too Castro’s Cuba warned family members of murdered dissidents not to cry at their funerals.[v]

The Castro regime also has a long, grotesque record of torturing and murdering Americans. During the Vietnam War, Castro sent some of his henchmen to run the “Cuban Program” at the Cu Loc POW camp in Hanoi, which became known as “the Zoo.” Its primary objective was to determine how much physical and psychological agony a human being could withstand. The Cubans selected American POWs as their guinea pigs. A Cuban nicknamed “Fidel,” the main torturer at the Zoo, initiated his own personal reign of terror.[vi]

The ordeal of Lt. Col. Earl Cobeil, an F-105 pilot, illustrates the Nazi-like nature of the experiment. Among Fidel’s torture techniques were beatings and whippings over every part of his victim’s body, without remission.[vii] Former POW John Hubbell describes the scene as Fidel forced Cobeil into the cell of fellow POW Col. Jack Bomar...

Keep reading.

President Obama gave this horrific totalitarianism a pass, one of the biggest blows to human rights in the last 65 years.

Natasha Barnard

For Sports Illustrated swimsuit, "Natasha Barnard's Sexy Outtakes."

Fireworks Factory Explodes in Columbia

At Gizmodo, "Holy Shit, This Is What Happens When a Fireworks Factory Explodes."

The Myth of 'Learning Styles' is Likely Causing Harm

A very popular paradigm. I've listened to some of my teaching colleagues expound on it at length.

But there's little evidence to support the "learning styles" hypothesis, according to Wired, "All You Need to Know About the ‘Learning Styles’ Myth, in Two Minutes" (via Instapundit).

It's Never a Good Time for a Carbon Tax

Amen.

California just got hit with a new "carbon tax," which is supposed to cost consumer an additional $2 billion a year. And it's basically a stealth tax, part of a "cap and trade" scheme that no one knows about.

We're taxed enough already.

But see the analysis at the Daily Signal, in any case.

Movement to Stop 'Manspreading' Reaches San Francisco (VIDEO)

The most imbecilic "movement" ever devised, and of course San Francisco --- Moscow by the Bay --- would be pushing it to the leading edge.

At CBS News Bay Area, "Movement to Stop ‘Manspreading’ on Transit Reaches San Francisco."

At the clip, just talking about this makes one women get up and leave, obviously not so interested in hearing men discuss opening up space for their masculine parts. And that chunky woman at the 25-second mark? Jeez, lady, take a freakin' shower!

Also at CBS News New York, "'Dude... Stop the spread, please'."

ADDED: From Dr. Helen Smith, at Pajamas, "NYC to Curb ‘ManSpreading’":

Why is one form of sexism okay and the other not? And don’t give me the crap about the patriarchy. If you shame men in this way, you are a nasty sexist who deserves contempt.

Well, that's a good start to explaining leftist hatred. These people are depraved. And it never ends.

Egyptian Bomb Disposal Officer Killed in Giza

Looks like the bomb blew the poor f-ker's head off.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Video - Bomb disposal officer killed in explosion in Giza Egypt" (GRAPHIC).

List of Demands from 'Black Lives Matter'

This is laughable.

Sandhya Somashekhar, at the Washington Post, purports to chronicle the list of "demands" from the "Black Lives Matter" protesters. See, "Oprah says protesters lack clear demands. Here’s what they do want." Ah, I don't think these "demands" are what the protests are really all about.

In any case, here's the background on Oprah's tussle with the "Black Lives" criminals, "Protesters slam Oprah over comments that they lack ‘leadership’."

Actually, Oprah didn't go far enough in dissing these thugs.

Novelist Darryl Pinckney, at the latest issue of the New York Review, indicates that the Michael Brown protesters in Missouri were looking beyond the old guard MLK-style leadership as models for the new (misnamed) "civil rights" rights movement now emerging. Ella Baker, an iconic civil rights activist of the 20th century, who was critical of top-down professionalized leadership, is considered an inspiration by the Ferguson protesters, and she was "ambivalent about nonviolence."

And if you're following along on Twitter, you know that protesters are not all about "non-violent" avenues of resistance:

It is so integral for elders to find the connections between the rad #blackbrunch organizing methods + the 60's lunch counter sit-ins.
— Sharmin Ultra (@sharminultraa) January 6, 2015

It is so necessary for elders of social movements to recognize that we don't follow their hierarchal non-collectivist respectability shit.
— Sharmin Ultra (@sharminultraa) January 6, 2015

It is so beautiful to see horizontal leadership, allies knowing their place, community safety + queer prison abolition all in one space.
— Sharmin Ultra (@sharminultraa) January 6, 2015

Our generation is talking about trans people, about the need to abolish prisons + police forces, about the need to dismantle systems.
— Sharmin Ultra (@sharminultraa) January 6, 2015

Our generation is attempting to center anti-blackness in a deeply embedded white supremacist social structure. We want to eradicate systems.
— Sharmin Ultra (@sharminultraa) January 6, 2015

It is not just about indictments. It is about eradicating entire systems whose foundation lie in private property, violence + incarceration.
— Sharmin Ultra (@sharminultraa) January 6, 2015

Dismantle. Abolish. Eradicate.

Yeah, not at all about "non-violence."

And notice how the protests are increasingly racist as well, at AoSHQ, "Protests Become Explicitly Anti-White As Black Protesters Occupy "White Spaces"-- Restaurants Where People Are Eating Sunday Brunch."

Gigi Hadid

Some afternoon Rule 5 for good measure.

At London's Daily Mail, "Sneak peek! Cody Simpson's girlfriend Gigi Hadid poses for new Guess campaign."

Also at Egotastic!, "Gigi Hadid Is Your New Sextastic Face of Guess!"

BONUS: Ms. Hadid's was also a "rookie" for Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition 2014.

Far-Left #BlackLivesMatter Protesters Launch DDoS Attack Against Weasel Zippers

If you don't consider this all-out war from the radical left, you've either got your head in the sand or you're down with left's violence and terrorism.

At Weasel Zippers, "SITE NOTE: WZ Under Attack By Radical Black Group...," and "Today #BlackLivesMatter Imploded":

In the beginning of Occupy, there were some normal, non-radical folk that came out to the protests. People were upset about bailouts and thought that this was what the protest was about. But there was a point at about two months in, where the normal people figured out what Occupy was all about, and the normal people left. What was left was the organizing radicals who were not there because of bailouts but were there for revolution, for anti-U.S., anti-capitalism.

We’re at that point today with #BlackLives Matter. It has never been about #BlackLivesMatter, anymore than Occupy was about bailouts. It is about the same thing Occupy was about – revolution and anarcho-communism. Small wonder, as the same people are behind it.

Exactly. Hey, "hands up, don't shoot!" leftists, is that so hard?

Also at the Right Scoop, "Hackers have taken down a conservative website over THIS 'BLACKS ONLY' manual for 'Black Brunch' protests!"

Be sure to click through to read the (barely legible) "communication" at the link.

Marxists Crash American Economic Association Annual Meeting, Attack 'Fantasy World of Neoclassical Economics...'

I've yet to post on the #BlackBrunch protesters, who by the looks of their Twitter feeds are violent far-left cadres pushing anarcho-communist and neo-Marxist paradigms, and so it's a timely coincidence to come across this piece on the Occupy-backed radicals attacking the economics profession in Boston, at the Washington Post, "The protesters who are trying to upend the ‘fantasy world’ of economics" (via Lonely Con):

There were leaflets, a manifesto, and this warning: “On campus after campus, we will chase you old goats out of power. Then, in the months and years that follow, we will begin the work of reprogramming the doomsday machine.”

On Friday, on the eve of the annual meeting of The American Economic Association in Boston, attended by many of the top economists in the United States, the agents of the heterodoxy had come to declare war on the profession. The small group threw their messages onto the side of the Sheraton Boston in glowing, six-foot tall letters: “BEFORE ECONOMICS CAN PROGRESS, IT MUST ABANDON ITS SUICIDAL FORMALISM.”

“The projection’s looking great,” said Keith Harrington, bearded, bespectacled, and bundled-up, as the sun set in the subzero weather.

“It’s a twelve-thousand lumen projector,” said Kyle Depew, who had schlepped the suitcase-sized thing from New York that day.

Harrington, a community organizer and videographer, once worked as a climate change activist. But after a few years he came to see that the real fight was elsewhere. “The type of activism we were doing around climate was running into systemic challenges,” he said. “We couldn’t get the types of climate change policies we need without system change, without addressing questions in economics like growth and limits to growth.”

Harrington now runs a campaign called Kick it Over, which aims to combat what it describes as “the fantasy world of neoclassical economics — a faith-based religion of perfect markets, enlightened consumers and infinite growth that shapes the fates of billions.” The project is connected with the anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, which had gestated the original idea behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. Harrington, who studied alternative economics at The New School, hopes to reform the profession from the inside, starting with the way it’s taught.

“When I was in school, I started realizing how limited was the range of economic ideas that students were exposed to in the classroom,” he said. “Neoclassicism is essentially the standard for 95 percent of the graduate departments in the country.”

Through mailing lists and word of mouth, Harrington recruited economics students from around the country to hold the campaign’s first official demonstration here, at this tweedy conference of academics. About nine students showed up at the Sheraton on Friday night to hand out fliers and smash the orthodoxy.

“We were just very disillusioned students for the first couple of years that we were taking econ,” said Jess Fuller, a senior at the University of Vermont majoring in economics and history. “We just felt it was very out of touch with reality, and there were some questions that never seemed to be answered or even asked in the first place.”

Fuller, who also works with a feminist group on her campus, says that mainstream economics doesn’t do a good enough job incorporating perspectives on gender and class.

“There is a sort of value judgment to the way economics is taught,” added Aparna Gopalan, a sophomore at Connecticut College. She recommended a book on Buddhist economics. “From that point of view, the GDP is so funny,” she said. “It makes no sense! It’s like, they’re measuring how many commodities are bought and sold in a year, but the point isn’t the commodities, you know? It’s the hours of labor.”

I don't think "about nine students" are going smash the orthodoxy quite yet, although they're amusing. However, this part reminded me of the #BlackBrunch thugs, and it's not very funny:

On Sunday, they hectored Carmen Reinhart, an economist at Harvard who studies financial crises. A few years ago, Reinhart and her colleague Kenneth Rogoff had become famous for observing a connection between high debt in a country and low GDP growth. Their paper was then the center of a controversy in 2013 when economists at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst pointed out an error in an Excel spreadsheet.

Reinhart, on Sunday, was presenting a paper on the statistics when countries were unable to pay back their debts in full.

Harrington said: “She’s continuing on her focus, which is essentially public debt, and we went in there, and we said: ‘You’re now going to be releasing a new study that’s even more massive and potentially more consequential than the last one. Have you had a graduate student go through and check your data for errors?’”

“She was just livid,” Harrington said. Using a pocket projector, he projected a slide quoting Paul Krugman on to the wall, which declared that Reinhart and Rogoff have “done a great deal of harm.”

Reinhart said that the episode seemed like a personal attack rather than an argument for other perspectives in economics. The irony of the matter, she noted, was that her talk that day concerned a non-mainstream corner of macroeconomics.

“If they understand — if they understand, which is a big if — what heterodox means, this was actually a session precisely on the alternative approaches to debt reduction, the debt relief associated with haircuts,” she said.

“If they want to say ‘we don’t like you, and we want to make it personal,’ this is not the venue for that.”

Not going to win over too many adherents with that methodology, but then they're radical leftists. Their spiel is mostly about performance hatred. A couple of "Black Live Matter" posters and they'd really have outdone themselves.

Police Arrest Fugitive Greek Communist Christodoulos Xiros

He had "absconded" while out on "leave."

Yeah, because those progressive prison furloughs sure keep those crack prisoners on the straight and narrow.

At Euronews, "Greece: Police rearrest fugitive Marxist extremist Christodoulos Xiros":

The formerly dark-haired member of the Greek Marxist guerrilla group November 17, seized by security forces on Saturday in a coastal town outside Athens, now has shoulder-length blond locks and a beard.

Serving multiple life sentences for his role in the now defunct militant group which has killed Greek, US and British diplomats, he had absconded while on leave from jail 12 months ago.

Authorities say he was armed when rearrested.

“He had altered his features. He had long hair, a beard, he was wearing glasses and carrying a gun,” Hellenic Police Chief Dimitris Tsaknakis told reporters, adding that Xiros had erased the identifying features on the weapon.

“He had 13 bullets in the magazine and one in the chamber. He didn’t resist arrest.”

Despite a one million euro reward for his capture, Xiros made a video after his escape, vowing armed action to avenge the pain of austerity cuts suffered by Greeks under international bailout programmes.

As in other European countries, including Germany and Italy, a number of violent leftist groups were active in Greece from the 1970s and 1980s and authorities have been concerned about the prospect of a resurgence during the economic crisis.

Baby Kidnapped in Long Beach Found Dead San Diego Dumpster

The horror.

At CBS News Los Angeles, "Missing 3-Week-Old Long Beach Baby Found Dead In San Diego Dumpster."

Tabitha Bliss tweeted this story last night.

Boys Won't Slap Girl in 'Social Experiment' in Italy: 'Why? Because I'm a man!' (VIDEO)

I don't know why someone thought this would be a good "experiment," but then, you can't stop watching. And of course, the boys are all well-raised. They've been taught that boys don't hit girls, as I was when I was a little boy.

At ABC News Los Angeles, "YOUNG BOYS ASKED TO SLAP A GIRL IN SOCIAL EXPERIMENT."

From the comments:

The media shouldn't be teaching children what they should be learning at home, but unfortunately a lot of parents aren't such good role models. Turn off the TV and be a better parent.

Not all the other commenters agree, sadly.

More at London's Daily Mail, "'Why not? Because I'm a man': Tearjerker video shows touching reactions of boys who are asked to slap a girl in the street."

Yes, it's a tearjerker. Such a sweet video, despite the questionable motivations of the "investigators."

Historians Against the War Defeated at American Historical Association's Annual Meeting

It's the historical association's radical BDS contingent.

Covered exceptionally well at Legal Insurrection, "American Historical Association rejects anti-Israel Resolutions."

Also at Commentary, "A Big Loss for Anti-Israel Academics" (via Astute Bloggers).

'Peaceful Protesters' Disrupt Ceremony for 100-Year-Old War Veteran

At Instapundit, "LIFE IN OBAMA’S POST-RACIAL AMERICA":

This is bullying for the sake of bullying, by racists. It is designed to intimidate, but it is likely to have the opposite effect. It has also completely undermined what looked like a substantial bipartisan consensus on police reforms.

Well, not among the Margaret Hoovers of the RINO right, but still.

More at Fox News, "'Give Me a Chance': WWII Vet's Medal Ceremony Crashed by Protesters (VIDEO)."

PREVIOUSLY: "Violent Leftists Shut Down Ron Wyden Town Hall in Portland."

State Dept Can't Explain Why Cuba Isn't Fulfilling Promises Made in Obama Deal

Video, via Washington Free Beacon.

It's doe-eyed Jen Psaki. She's so sweet and stupid. You gotta love her.

PREVIOUSLY: "Where Are Cuba's Political Prisoners?"

Kaley Cuoco Apologizes for Saying She's Not a Feminist

Another celebrity caves to the left's thought police.

At Truth Revolt, "Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting 'Apologizes' for Saying 'No' to Feminism":

Just as they did with Katy Perry and Shailene Woodley before, feminists immediately lashed out their whips to beat the 29-year-old actress back into the fold, saying she owes all her success to feminism and shouldn't bite the hand that feeds her. On Sunday, instead of sticking to her statements, Cuoco-Sweeting caved to her feminist overlords on Instagram and apologized for offending their good graces. Her apology:

In my Redbook article, some people have taken offense to my comments regarding feminism- if any of you are In the "biz" you are well aware of how words can be taken out of context. I'm completely blessed and grateful that strong women have paved the way for my success along with many others. I apologize if anyone was offended. Anyone that truly knows me, knows my heart and knows what I meant.

Eugène Delacroix, "Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi"

An art review, from Christopher Knight, at the Los Angeles Times, "Delacroix's 'Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi' as a rallying cry":

They don't make paintings like "Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi" anymore.

The slow, ruminative medium of oil paint on canvas has pretty much had it as the sharpest system for the memorable delivery of effective, politically minded propaganda. Painting has long since been replaced by the relentless, 24/7 information cycle repeated nonstop on cable television and the Internet.

Painter Eugène Delacroix, born in a small Parisian suburb in 1798, was a principal artistic pivot on which the total transformation began. It's as if the pressures of unstoppable change pushed him to raise the propaganda bar to extravagant painterly heights.

"Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi," painted in 1826, was among his first bravura masterpieces in the genre.

The allegorical painting is on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Bordeaux, France, for a small but incisive exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (L.A. and Bordeaux have been sister cities for 50 years.) The image is keyed to a tragic episode in the long war for Greek independence from Turkish rule.

Curator Leah Lehmbeck shows it with a Delacroix copy of an oil sketch by Peter Paul Rubens, one of his idols, plus the lovely little version of the "Grande Odalisque" by his chief rival, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, that LACMA acquired last year. There are also lithographs by Théodore Géricault, whose topical paintings Delacroix admired, and by Antoine-Jean Baron Gros, whose Neoclassical work he didn't. (Gros famously dismissed Delacroix's war painting "Massacre of Chios" as a "massacre of art.")

Finally, a bronze medallion by British artist Alfred Joseph Stothard portrays Romantic poet Lord Byron, who died in Missolonghi just a year before the dramatic event Delacroix's canvas commemorates. The poet gets cast in the style of an ancient Greek or Roman hero.

All these provide fractional context for Delacroix's big, melodramatic canvas. A complex story — what has been called Greece's Alamo, a site of heroic resistance fought to the death in the face of a superior military foe — is stripped to representative elements. The painter conjures a personified image of a society badly broken but not destroyed — down but not out. And he inflects the scene with a sly if subtle glimmer of ultimate redemption and deliverance.

The picture, nearly 7 by 5 feet, was painted quickly — in about two months. It is dominated by a life-size female figure whose blue cloak and white tunic employ the colors of the Greek flag to identify her as a personification of the beleaguered nation. Visually she's a cousin to Marianne, the ample-breasted symbol of the French Republic and ancestor of America's Statue of Liberty.

The rubble of a ruined city lies all around her, blood spattered on the stone block below her slipper-clad right foot. She has dropped to her knee, bent on a teetering slab.

Delacroix rendered Greece as strong and powerful, dynamic brushwork describing her garments. The vivid paint bolsters an energetic figure implied by strong limbs articulated beneath her clothing.

He learned the technique from close study of Rubens, who knew the seductive clout of tangible color. Baroque painting had largely been conceived to advance the claims of the Roman Catholic Church, beleaguered by Protestant assaults. Delacroix revived propagandistic elements of earlier Baroque style, but now he put them at the service of nationalist politics.

Delacroix's brilliance was to subsume religious imagery within this secular composition. Drawing on its memory, worldly miracles are invoked.

The white-robed figure of Greece, wrapped in blue, is part Mary of the Immaculate Conception. Spreading her arms wide, she's also part Mary lamenting the death of her son.

The stone slab on which she kneels invokes a tomb. Next to this sepulcher, the grim inclusion of a slain Greek fighter's severed arm quietly suggests the bodies of Lazarus and Christ, soon to be resurrected...

Still more.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Ellie Goulding Red Bikini in Miami

Robert Stacy McCain, not familiar with Ellie Goulding, noted approvingly back in 2012, "Kinda not-bad looking..." And then on second thought, "Wow. She could grind diamonds into sand with her pelvis."

Heh.

So, here she is, at Egotastic!, "British Popstar Ellie Goulding in a Red Bikini on a Yacht in Miami, Florida."

Abandoned America: 50 States, 50 Deserted Places

Photos of abandoned towns, at Small Dead Animals (via Maggie's Farm).

Harvard Professors Outraged by Higher Out-of-Pocket Costs Due to #ObamaCare

And it's not just higher out-of-pocket costs. Harvard employees might be excluded from using services at Harvard-run hospitals, some of the best in the country.

Get a load out of this piece, at NYT, "Health Care Fixes Backed by Harvard’s Experts Now Roil Its Faculty."

Also from Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin's:

Oh how sad: Harvard profs upset because Obamacare was only supposed to affect the rubes http://t.co/Zx8oZ8s63u
— Doug Powers (@ThePowersThatBe) January 5, 2015

Europe Hasn't Abolished Capital Punishment: Frank Van Den Bleeken, Murderer and Rapist, to Be 'Euthanized' in Humanitarian Gesture

See, for Europe's progressive left, state sponsored murder is just fine. Fine and dandy. As long as it's justified not in terms of "brutal" law and order punishment, but "compassionate" treatment of society's disadvantaged.

At Telegraph UK, "Belgian rapist and murderer to be put to death by lethal injection":

Frank Van Den Bleeken won right to euthanasia after claiming he could not face rest of life in jail.

A rapist and murderer is to be put to death in Belgium this week, despite Europe’s ban on the death penalty, after a court granted him the right to euthanasia.

Frank Van Den Bleeken, 52, is not physically ill but claims his “psychological suffering” is unbearable and that he would prefer to die than spend more of his life behind bars.

He says he has no prospect of ever being released from prison as he cannot overcome his uncontrollable sexual impulses, and that he does not wish another two or three decades in jail.

His application to die was accepted by Belgium’s Federal Euthanasia Commission in September, and over the weekend, official gave approval for him to be taken to a specialist clinic on Sunday, where he will be killed by lethal injection.

Belgium legalised euthanasia in 2002, and is one of only three countries to allow the practice, the others being the Netherlands and Luxembourg. More countries, including Switzerland and some states of America, allow doctors to assist suicide in certain circumstances.

But Belgium has seen a fast growth in the number of cases of euthanasia, and has expanded the practice beyond terminally ill adults. It can now be used in cases of intense pain and psychological distress, while last February the right to euthanasia was extended to terminally ill children, as long as their parents gave consent.

One previous inmate has been euthanased, but he was suffering a terminal illness.

Van Den Bleeken raped Christiane Remacle, a 19-year-old girl, as she came home from a New Year’s Eve party on January 1 1989, and then strangled her with one of her own stockings.

He was deemed insane and not criminally responsible. After seven years on a prison psychiatric ward, he was released, attacking three more victims, aged 11, 17, and 29, within weeks.

He was then ordered to be detained indefinitely, and has seen “the outside” only once since, for his mother’s funeral...

F-king murderous bastard. Why not just label him for what he is: a criminal sociopath who deserves the damned burning needle in his arm?

Frankly, it's just more lies. Belgian leftists are no better than the Nazis. They just turn everything inside out, discombobulating reality, but end up killing just as efficiently as the totalitarian regimes of the 1930s. They make me sick.

More at the link. Ms. Remacle's survivors are not pleased. They want this monster to rot in prison for the rest of his leftist loser life.

Hamas Cancels Online Order After Misunderstanding 'Blow-Up Dolls'

Heh, that's funny.

Via Blazing Cat Fur.

Where Are Cuba's Political Prisoners?

From Mary Anastasia O'Grady, at WSJ, "Fifty-three of those jailed by the Castros were supposed to have been freed in the Obama deal":

Who and where are the 53 Cuban political prisoners that President Obama promised would be freed by Havana as part of a deal to liberate three convicted Cuban spies serving lengthy sentences in the U.S.?

I asked the State Department this last week. State referred me to the White House. White House officials declined to provide the list of names citing “concern that publicizing it would make it more difficult to ensure that Cuba follows through, and continues with further steps in the future.”

Bottom line: The U.S. government cannot confirm that they have been released and is not certain they’re going to be released, even though the three Cuban spies have already been returned.

A government official told me that keeping the names of the 53 quiet will give Cuba the opportunity to release them as a sovereign measure, rather than at the behest of the U.S., and that this could allow for additional releases.

In other words, the Castros are sensitive boys who throw despotic tantrums when their absolute power is questioned. Asking them to keep their word is apparently a trigger.

Mr. Obama was destined to have trouble changing Cuba policy. Nixon went to China. But “Obama goes to Havana”? That sounds like stand-up comedy. A man with some humility might have prepared for the challenge. Mr. Obama did not. Now, little by little, what he says he got in the “negotiations” seems to be evaporating while what he gave away appears reckless.

The U.S. president hasn’t gone to Havana, not yet anyway. But he did use the prisoner swap to announce that he plans to unconditionally open diplomatic relations with the military dictatorship, something that the Castros have long demanded. Count that as concession one.

He said he would ease restrictions on American travel to the island and make it legal to use U.S. credit cards and debit cards in Cuba, thereby boosting revenues for the military-owned tourism industry. That’s concession two.

His promise to review Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terror sounded like he had already made up his mind. “At a time when we are focused on threats from al Qaeda to ISIL, a nation that meets our conditions and renounces the use of terrorism should not face this sanction,” Mr. Obama said.

That would complete the concession trifecta. Cuba still supports the FARC, the Colombian terrorist group, it got caught in 2013 trying to smuggle weapons through the Panama Canal to North Korea, and credible intelligence analysts say Cuba has provided Venezuela the technology it needs to falsify identities for Middle East terrorists.

If Mr. Obama is serious about selling U.S.-Cuba detente, a little less obfuscation would be nice...

Less obfuscation? Bwahaha! That's Obama's standard operating procedure! Without that, he'd do even less than the little that he already does!

Keep reading.

Greta Van Susteren: 1) Yes, Mike Huckabee is Running; 2) No, He Wasn't Forced Out at Fox News

Greta was on this morning's 'This Week' powerhouse roundtable at ABC News.

She takes the first question from Martha Raddatz, and it's interesting.

Watch: "Is Mike Huckabee Running for President?"

(I couldn't stay with it too much longer, however. Margaret Hoover's also a panelist, and she's just a disgusting RINO shill, damn.)

China's Maoists Emboldened by Xi Jinping's Traditional Communist Authoritarianism

You can see how much China's international interdependence with the U.S. is fostering democratization. Or, no wait? What? Er, well... Maybe it'll work in Cuba?!!

At the New York Times, "China’s Maoists Are Revived as Thought Police":

HONG KONG — They pounce on bloggers who dare mock their beloved Chairman Mao. They scour the nation’s classrooms and newspapers for strains of Western-inspired liberal heresies. And they have taken down professors, journalists and others deemed disloyal to Communist Party orthodoxy.

China’s Maoist ideologues are resurgent after languishing in the political desert, buoyed by President Xi Jinping’s traditionalist tilt and emboldened by internal party decrees that have declared open season on Chinese academics, artists and party cadres seen as insufficiently red.

Ideological vigilantes have played a pivotal role in the downfall of Wang Congsheng, a law professor in Beijing who was detained and then suspended from teaching after posting online criticisms of the party. Another target was Wang Yaofeng, a newspaper columnist who voiced support for the recent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and then found himself without a job.

“Since Xi came to power, the pressure and control over freethinkers has become really tight,” said Qiao Mu, a Beijing journalism professor who was demoted this fall, in part for publicly espousing multiparty elections and free speech. “More and more of my friends and colleagues are experiencing fear and harassment.”

Two years into a sweeping offensive against dissent, Mr. Xi has been intensifying his focus on perceived ideological opponents, sending ripples through universities, publishing houses and the news media and emboldening hard-liners who have hailed him as a worthy successor to Mao Zedong.

In instructions published last week, Mr. Xi urged universities to “enhance guidance over thinking and keep a tight grip on leading ideological work in higher education,” Xinhua, the official news agency, reported.

In internal decrees, he has been blunter, attacking liberal thinking as a pernicious threat that has contaminated the Communist Party’s ranks, and calling on officials to purge the nation of ideas that run counter to modern China’s Marxist-Leninist foundations.

“Never allow singing to a tune contrary to the party center,” he wrote in comments that began to appear on party and university websites in October. “Never allow eating the Communist Party’s food and then smashing the Communist Party’s cooking pots.”

The latter-day Maoists, whose influence had faltered before Mr. Xi came to power, have also been encouraged by another internal document, Document No. 30, which reinforces warnings that Western-inspired notions of media independence, “universal values” and criticism of Mao threaten the party’s survival.

“It’s a golden period to be a leftist in China,” Zhang Hongliang, a prominent neo-Maoist, said in an interview. “Xi Jinping has ushered in a fundamental change to the status quo, shattering the sky.” China’s old guard leftists are a loose network of officials and former officials, sons and daughters of party veterans, and ardently anti-Western academics and journalists. They look back to the precepts of Marx, Lenin and especially Mao to try to reverse the effects of China’s free-market policies and the spread of values anathema to party tradition. And while their direct influence on the party leadership has been circumscribed, they have served as the party’s eager ideological inquisitors.

Their favorite enemies are almost always members of China’s beleaguered liberal circles: academics, journalists and rights activists who believe that liberal democracy, with its accompanying ideas of civil society and rule of law, offers the country the best way forward.

Mr. Xi’s recent orders and the accompanying surge of pressure on political foes further dispelled initial suspicions that his ideological hardening was a feint to establish his credibility with traditionalists as he settled into power. Instead, his continuing campaign against Western-inspired ideas has emboldened traditional party leftists.

“China watchers all need to stop saying this is all for show or that he’s turning left to turn right,” said Christopher K. Johnson, an expert on China at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who formerly worked as a senior China analyst at the C.I.A. “This is a core part of the guy’s personality. The leftists certainly feel he’s their guy.”

Keep reading.

Doctrinal Maoism calls for "permanent revolution" (akin to Trotskyism, but in the historical context of China's agrarian revolution), which in turns justifies the continuation in power of the "revolutionary vanguard" of the party, who rule over the state on the basis of the "dictatorship of the proletariat."

Market liberalism threatens the Chinese Communist Party's hold on power. The irony is that indeed increasing affluence via market forces prevents a complete economic collapse and disintegration of the China system along the lines of the Soviet Union. American policy certainly hasn't called for the "rollback" of Maoism, nor is that likely any time soon. Frankly, with the Obama-Democrats we're becoming more like them rather than the other way around.

Violent Leftists Shut Down Ron Wyden Town Hall in Portland

All they want to do is shut things down.

Damn thugs overran the place, and that was it.

At Oregon Live, "Wyden town hall disrupted by 'hands up, don't shoot' protests."

And at Progs Today, "CHAOS ERUPTS As #Ferguson Protesters Shut Down Sen. Wyden Town Hall – Threaten to Beat Security Guard (VIDEO)."

As security tries to gain control and close the door, a big black mofo rams his foot inside as a door stop and threatens, "I'll Break Your Jaw Old Man!"

Well, so much for MLK-style civil disobedience. These people are violent anarcho-communists!

New Year's Sunday Rule 5

Let's get it started for 2015!

To the blogfather of Rule 5, the Other McCain, "Rule 5 Sunday: Bowls, Boobs and Other Entertainments."

Now, at Gator Doug's, "THE DALEYBABE's HOT JANIS TRUE."

A View From the Beach, "Rule 5 Saturday - Alana de la Garza - The Forever Girl."

Over at Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is a horrible fossil fueled mower causing so much heat that it snows, you might just be a Warmist."

Here's 90 Miles from Tyranny, "Morning Mistress."

At Maggie's Farm, "Saturday morning links."

Also at Knuckledragging, "Your Good Morning Girl," and "Plastic jugs is right…"

Goodstuff's has "Donna Douglas."

And Dana Pico has, "Rule 5 Blogging: Italians."

At the Hostages, "Big Boob Friday."

More at Ode's, "IT'S HETEROSEXUAL PRIDE DAY ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

A Nod To The Gods, "Sunday Random."

Also, at Drunke Stepfather, "MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ IN A WHITE BIKINI OF THE DAY."

At Egotastic!, "Anais Zanotti’s High Flying Boobage and Other Fine Things to Ogle," and "Sextastic Social Media Candids 2014: Emily Ratajkowski, Kate Upton, Selena Gomez and Much More."

The Last Tradition has "Camila Vernaglia."

Political Clown Parade has, "Dallas Cowboys Vs The NFL’s Dirtiest Player."

At Ms. EBL's, "Did someone mention Catwoman?"

At Proof Positive, "...the Obligatory NFL Cheerleaders."

More at Soylent, "Your Morning Coffee Creamer."

Don't miss Average Bubba, "Rule 5 Post: Redhead Edition…"

From Diogenes' Middle Finger, "Happy New Year from DMF."

At THAT MR. G GUY'S BLOG, "Cultural Marxism Goes Viral."

More from Rio Norte Line, "12 Things You Should Know About Contemporary Progressivism."

Finally, Crazy Uncle Bubba has, "Saturday Short Shorts!"

Drop your links in the comments if I've missed your Rule 5.

Until then...