Fox News Couldn't Kill Donald Trump's Momentum and May Have Only Made It Stronger (VIDEO)

I don't know. I think Charles Krauthammer's hot take was right on, but Trump appears to be winning the post-debate buzz.

From Joshua Green, at Bloomberg (via Memeorandum):

Judging by Thursday’s electric debate, he may have sensed his true opponent before anyone else had a clue: the network.

A few hours before Thursday’s Fox News debate, a friend of Donald Trump’s confided to me that Trump was nervous. Not about the competition—he could handle them. No, Trump worried about Fox News, and in particular, debate moderator Megyn Kelly. She’d been hammering him all week on her show, and he was certain she was out to get him. He’d canceled a Fox News appearance on Monday night, the friend said, in order to avoid her. (Trump’s spokeswoman wouldn’t confirm or deny this.)

It turns out Trump was right. His toughest opponents Thursday night weren’t the candidates up on stage, but the Fox News moderators, who went right after him—none with more gusto than Kelly.

Kelly, the whip-smart queen of Fox News’ blonde stunners, went straight for the jugular. “You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals,” she admonished Trump. “Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?”

But Trump saw her coming a mile away and cut her off. “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” he barked, drawing cheers from the crowd. When Kelly tried to point out that he had insulted more women than O’Donnell, Trump, as he would all night, steamrolled right past her. “The big problem this country has is being politically correct,” Trump practically shouted, invoking conservatives’ favorite term of disdain. “I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don't frankly have time for total political correctness and to be honest with you this country doesn't have time either.” The crowd went wild.

Maybe they were cheering because the question was apropos of something Rachel Maddow would ask, and they were, after all, Republicans. But I think they were cheering because it was clear, at that moment, that Trump was going to be Trump, and wasn’t going to heed the pundits and phonies to tone down his act. According to a report in New York magazine, even his own daughter, Ivanka, was making that case.

When it became clear last week that Trump was the Republican front-runner, everyone assumed that the big battle shaping up in Republican politics was going to be between Trump and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. But judging by Thursday’s raucous, electric debate, Trump may have sensed his true opponent before anyone else had a clue: It’s Fox News. Throughout the evening, Trump and his inquisitors battled back and forth like gladiators. Both parties emerged as huge winners. Though nearly devoid of substance, it was the most entertaining debate I’ve ever seen.

Trump led the way. His ethos—the blustering bravado and aggression—became the ethos of the whole affair. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie went bananas on Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. The crowd was roaring throughout. There was none of the stilted, awkward talk of the junior debate earlier in the evening. Political Twitter was throbbing with joy and satisfaction.

Hurling insults, Trump went after O’Donnell, political reporters, Bowe Bergdahl, China, Mexico, Japan, money lenders, and practically everyone in Washington. “Our leaders are stupid,” he said, “Our politicians are stupid.” He did stop short of calling Mexicans “rapists,” but not by much. “We need to build a wall, and it has to be built quickly,” he said. “We need to keep illegals out.”

While the moderators went after Trump, the candidates mostly shied away from him. In fact, consciously or otherwise, several echoed his points and nearly everyone tried to match his energy. Some even seemed to genuflect. “Donald Trump is hitting a nerve in this country,” Ohio Governor John Kasich said at one point. “Mr. Trump is touching a nerve because people want to see a wall being built.”

Only Paul mustered the nerve to launch a pair of (pretty weak) direct attacks. He might have regretted it. Trump dispatched him with a single, withering aside (“You’re having a hard time tonight”) that was all the more effective because it was true.

Trump’s Fox News antagonists had their moments, too. When moderator Chris Wallace invoked the four bankruptcies his companies have suffered, Trump, seeming genuinely angry, repeatedly fell back on an oddly phrased legalism: “I have used the laws of this country just like the greatest people you read about in the business section,” he said.

But it was Kelly who inflicted the deepest cut by rattling off the liberal positions Trump once held and stopping him cold with the question: “When did you actually become a Republican?” Trump’s bluster escaped him. He stammered nervously and seemed lost. “I’ve evolved on many issues over the years, and do you know who else has? Ronald Reagan,” he said feebly. “Very much evolved.” That’s as un-Trump-like a phrase as I’ve heard from him, something more befitting 2012 nominee Mitt Romney.

What’s more interesting than any Trump question or answer, though, was the larger dynamic at play...

Still more.

Trump Dominates First #GOP Presidential Debate

Donald Trump tweeted the cover photo, but there's more to the article than its cover.

See, "Trump dominates -- and likely hurt himself -- in first debate."

"@TomNocera: @DanScavino @realDonaldTrump "TRUMP DOMINANT" screams headline in today's Tampa Bay Times. #Trump2016" pic.twitter.com/A08sQFzBLR

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2015

I do think he hurt himself with centrist voters, the kind of folks that Frank Luntz interviewed last night --- to the lasting consternation of The Donald!

Donald Trump's Twitter Tirade

From Philip Klein, at the Washington Examiner, "Trump's Twitter tirade: Megyn Kelly a 'bimbo,' Frank Luntz a 'clown'."

Megyn Kelly will no doubt respond tonight on her show. Frank Luntz, on the other hand, can be seen at CBS News This Morning, "How voters responded to Trump in Cleveland GOP debate."

He's not very apologetic, heh.

Tania Ciolko Questions Candidates in GOP Presidential Debate

It happened so fact I didn't notice, but Fox News misspelled Tania's last name as "Cioloko."

But they got it right at the Philadelphia Enquirer, "Philly health-care worker queries candidates in GOP debate":

TANIA CIOLKO filmed her question for GOP candidates before the debate Thursday night, but never expected it'd be aired live and answered on national television.

"Most people I know want to work," she told the 10 presidential hopefuls. "They don't want handouts. They want the freedom and opportunity to create a living based upon their own talents." She wanted candidates to name one thing they'd do to promote small-business growth and entrepreneurship, after the nation's economy declined in the previous decade.

She posted the video to YouTube and waited.

It wasn't used during the earlier "Happy Hour" debate featuring nonprofit executive Carly Fiorina and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

She switched on the second debate.

"I was just kind of convinced after the first hour that they weren't going to air it," she said.

But they did, and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida answered.

Ciolko, reached at her home in Northeast Philly on Thursday night, said she wanted candidates to give "specific, no-spin answers."

"Don't give me laundry lists or rhetoric," said Ciolko, who described herself as a health-care analyst at a Philly area hospital, and whose last name was misspelled by Fox.

Although Rubio did rattle off several ideas for fixing the economy - including cutting taxes, fostering growth of small businesses and even repealing Obamacare - a somewhat starstruck Ciolko wasn't ready to judge the response just yet.

"I was just so blown away," she said. "Before I commit to anything on this, I want to review [the debate]."

And, she said, she hopes Democratic candidates will offer up answers, too.

"It's an important question," she said. "We all have dreams, we want to work hard and build them."

After the question aired, she thanked Rubio on Twitter and got several replies from friends.

Her phone was ringing off the hook with well-wishers Thursday night.

"Hopefully this will spark more dialogue on how we can solve this," she said.

And ICYMI, watch the video, "Tania Gail Asks Question to Candidates at #GOPDebate!"

At Katmai National Park, With Thousands of Bears Near Campground Every Summer, Visitors Must Follow the Rules

Can't be too careful with those bears. Big bears. Hungry bears, heh.

Here's video, "The Bears are Back!"

And at the New York Times, "At Katmai National Park in Alaska, Bears Rule":

Katmai National Park sprawls over four million acres in southern Alaska. So why does its only established campground allow for just 60 people per night — a limit that leads to an online booking fray every January? The answer is also one of the park’s main draws, and its primary claim to national fame: bears. Lots of them — about 2,200 at the National Park Service’s last count, with 60 or so regulars that hang around Brooks Camp every summer. In theory, you can camp elsewhere in Katmai, but the campground has an electric fence and constant activity, making it an unlikely place to find a bear too close to your tent for sleeping comfort.

By last spring, just about a year into my life as a full-time Alaskan, I had designs on spending time at Brooks Camp, long considered one of the state’s premier bear-viewing spots. Campground spots for July — peak season for viewing brown bears fishing, establishing hierarchy and practicing their version of flirting (the boys can be such pests) — can be reserved as of Jan. 5 every year, and go quickly. So by early May, having missed my window, I had long given up on making it, figuring I would have to spend another season watching the bears via webcams.

Streaming since July 2012, Katmai’s webcams, set up by Explore.org, (there are four trained on brown bear fishing areas) have turned the local bears into social media celebrities and, for their most loyal followers, the biggest incentives to board a floatplane to Brooks, where dozens of bears return each summer to bulk up on salmon in the Brooks River. (Bulk is the operative word; by November, when the bears start turning in for their long winter’s naps, the males can weigh 1,000 pounds or more.)

My Facebook feed had been lighting up with bear news for weeks — friends across the country all playing a seasonal parlor game trying to figure out if bear 32, a.k.a. Chunk, had improved his fishing skills or if bear 814, a.k.a. Lurch, was going to calm down this year, or if he would continue to intimidate other bears out of their prized fishing spots. The live streams had interrupted more than a few of my own work hours, too.

While on a spring camping trip in Denali National Park, an acquaintance casually presented a near-miraculous offer: “I reserved a camping spot for two people at Brooks Camp in July but can’t use it. You want it? I think it was about $50.” I recruited my Anchorage-born friend Tara Stevens, an experienced angler, and we were off. The virtual experience, I hoped, would soon be real.

After an Alaska Airlines flight from Anchorage to the town of King Salmon, we collected our bags stuffed with layers of clothing, rain gear, camping and cooking gear, and food, and headed to the Katmai Air Service office for the flight to Brooks Camp, which sits at the confluence of Naknek Lake and the Brooks River. After weighing in for the flight — when traveling by floatplane in Alaska, you get used to people telling you to hop on a scale — we were soon climbing skyward in a blue and white 1962 de Havilland Otter, its single engine drowning out any conversation.

Thick clouds hung overhead and even the grassy areas below looked slightly gray. Color broke through now and again — bright green roofs on a small group of buildings below, a pale aqua river threading through the glum landscape.

Twenty minutes later, we descended onto Naknek Lake, the plane bumping along on its floats toward the driftwood-strewn beach and the Brooks Camp employees waiting there. (Brooks Camp also has cabins run by a park concessionaire, Katmailand; they’re spare and pricey but a good option for the camping-averse.) Everybody on the plane, which holds 10 passengers, was a bit giddy as we rolled toward the start of the summer adventure, like the first moments arriving at sleep-away camp.

We were directed to the visitors’ center for the “Brooks Camp School of Bear Etiquette,” meant to keep visitors and the bears coexisting peacefully. Orientation started with a 10-minute film. The clothing and hairstyles were delightfully out of date, but the how-to’s still applied: Keep 50 yards from any bear; 100 yards from a bear with cubs. Move back as a bear moves closer. When hiking, stay alert and make sounds — talking and clapping — so bears know you’re there. If a bear gets too close, don’t run — it may think you’re prey. Speak to the bear in a firm but calm voice. Then start to walk back slowly. Give the bear the right of way.

After the film, a ranger rehashed some of the key points, gave us lapel pins that indicated we had been through bear school, and sent us on our way.

We loaded our gear onto a wheeled cart and headed down the trail toward the campground. Though it was about a third of a mile from the visitors’ center, that first walk seemed quite a bit longer. Thick woods were on the left and, on our right, a thinnish strip of trees blocking our view of the beach, where, it had been made clear, bears loved to wander.

“How has nobody been mauled here?” Tara asked. We kept a slightly-louder-than-normal rambling conversation going. There might have been singing.

Soon enough we rolled the cart through the campground’s electric fence, which didn’t look as if it could keep out a kitten. It was tempting to touch the fence, but I decided to trust the park service and stayed shock free.

The tent up, we headed back down the trail to grab dinner at the lodge.

But before long: “Bear in camp! Bear in camp!”

A ranger’s shout went up outside the lodge, warning people to stay or get inside. The dining room tables emptied as people ran to the windows. Two brown bears, their long claws in clear view, loped through the camp, did a few circles just feet from the lodge porch, and ran back off. I had spent plenty of time in bear country before, but the pair’s romp made it so much clearer that we were playing in the bears’ world. I got ever that much giddier about spending two nights exploring the area...

A great story.

Keep reading.

Carly Fiorina Dominates Internet Search Traffic After GOP Presidential Debate

Makes sense, "Carly Fiorina Wins GOP's 'Happy Hour' Debate Hands Down."

From Hadas Gold, at Politico, "Carly Fiorina dominates search traffic."

Charles Krauthammer Pans Donald Trump's Performance in GOP Presidential Debate

I mentioned this earlier, "Donald Trump to Megyn Kelly: 'I don't have time for political correctness...' (VIDEO)."

And now here's the video, "Charles Krauthammer gives his analysis on the debate."

Rand Paul Goes After Chris Christie on National Security in GOP Presidential Debate (VIDEO)

More debate moments like this, please!

Watch, at Fox News, "Chris Christie, Rand Paul spar over NSA — Fox News Republican Debate."

Donald Trump to Megyn Kelly: 'I don't have time for political correctness...' (VIDEO)

Watch: "Is Donald Trump part of the 'war on women'? — Fox News Republican Debate."

And at the Hill, "Trump threatens to not be 'nice' to Megyn Kelly."

Tonight's debate confirmed what people have been saying about Donald Trump for a long time. He's a blustery blowhard and a bully. Personally, I thought he did well on a lot of questions, but clearly he often grasped for details and was unable to provide hard answers. That part about a single payer national health system had me cringing. That was like dafuq?

I'll have more about Trump, that's for sure. Charles Krauthammer was especially critical in the post-debate analysis.

Tania Gail Asks Question to Candidates at #GOPDebate!

Wow, that was a trip!

Boom! Carly Fiorina Slams Iran Nuclear Agreement in GOP 'Happy Hour' Debate (VIDEO)

I think this was the high point of her performance, and it was all good.



PREVIOUSLY: "Carly Fiorina Wins GOP's 'Happy Hour' Debate Hands Down."

Carly Fiorina Wins GOP's 'Happy Hour' Debate Hands Down

Here's the instant analysis from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "If Debates Mean Anything, Fiorina’s On the Way Up":

There’s little doubt that the best performance in the second tier Republican debate came from Carly Fiorina. The former Hewlett Packard CEO showed that she had a strong command of foreign policy as well as economic issues. She’s been scoring points on the campaign trail against Hillary Clinton for months but on the stage in Cleveland she showed herself willing to also take on Donald Trump. She also managed to articulate a conservative vision that channeled GOP icon Ronald Reagan better than any of the others on the stage. Though not all of her competitors sounded as if they belonged in the junior varsity event (though some did), Fiorina was the one that had the Twittersphere saying that she ought to be invited to stay and join the top ten debate at 9pm. But the question is whether even a home run hit at 5pm before an empty arena in Cleveland can influence enough voters to get her into contention?

Anyone who’s been paying attention to the campaign so far already knows that Fiorina has been outstanding on the stump and in her limited exposure in the media. She’s confident, well spoken and understands the issues. Her political resume — one failed attempt at a Senate seat in deep blue California — is thin. But in a field where candidates like Trump and Ben Carson are taken seriously, that doesn’t seem to disqualify her. But to date Fiorina hasn’t gotten any traction in the polls.

Is it because voters agree with pundits that assume she’s running for vice president or a cabinet post in the next Republican administration? Maybe. But it’s also possible that in polls that are largely a function of name recognition (right, Mr. Trump?), she remains an obscure figure.

In 2012 the numerous GOP debates bored a lot of the public and the press as they turned into a reality show more than forums of ideas. But they also had a powerful impact on the shape of the race eliminating some candidates (Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry) and elevated others (Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum) while giving frontrunner Mitt Romney the opportunity to prove he was the best of a bad lot. Will they play the same role in 2016? Fiorina might not be the best test [case] for that proposition since it’s not yet clear how many people were watching at 5pm. But if they do, then perhaps Fiorina will shoot up in the polls. She ought to get enough of a bump into the first string on the basis of such a strong showing. That’s something that ought to scare the people who will debate at 9pm...

Well, that's what I was saying, but we'll see. We'll see.

More.

Greta Van Susteren's Interview with Carly Fiorina Ahead of GOP Debate on Fox News

I'll have more from the debate as video becomes available. Meanwhile, here's Greta's interview with Ms. Fiorina.



PREVIOUSLY: "Following Fox GOP Debate Buzz, Reposting Carly Fiorina's Book, Rising to the Challenge: My Leadership Journey."

Following Fox GOP Debate Buzz, Reposting Carly Fiorina's Book, Rising to the Challenge: My Leadership Journey

Well, if you're on Twitter, it's hands down acclimation: Carly Fiorina nailed the win at tonight's first GOP presidential debate on Fox News. I expect the buzz from tonight's performance will help her in the polls, perhaps enough to boost her into the ranks of the top tier. She should be on that stage for the prime time debates, and she handily proved it today.

She's particularly good on national security. Man, she just wowed it.

More on that later.

Meanwhile, I'm reposting her book: Rising to the Challenge: My Leadership Journey.

Bounty Hunters Target Phoenix Police Chief's House by Mistake (VIDEO)

Bondsmen were tripped up by bogus social media tips, heh.

Wrong house, lol.

Watch, at ABC News 15 Phoenix, "Bondsmen raid Phoenix Police Chief’s home."

Also from the Arizona Republic, via Memeorandum, "Bounty hunters mistakenly target Phoenix police chief's house."

The Defeat of Japan Was Anything but Inevitable. Dropping the Bomb Was the Right Thing to Do

Screw the fascist leftists attacking the U.S. for defending its interests in August 1945. The numbers from the Battle of Okinawa are enough to justify the bombing alone. And remember, women and children were being armed with bamboo spears. The home islands were prepared to fight to the last. Is that what leftists want? Is that what they would have preferred? Millions of Japanese would have died, to say nothing of the quarter-million Americans who would have been killed in the invasion.

Realism. It's what's for dinner.

An outstanding essay, from Francis Pike, at the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Rethinking ‘The Bomb’ 70 years later":

Was dropping the “A” bomb moral, and did the technology it demonstrated make American victory in the Pacific war inevitable?

In the postwar period, some commentators have averred the United States need not have dropped an atomic bomb. They argue that it was only dropped to demonstrate American power to the Soviets and that it could have been demonstrated on unoccupied land. Furthermore, it is suggested that the bombing of a civilian city was a war crime. In other words, it was an unconscionable and immoral act.

Some contemporaneous commentators such as Adm. William Leahy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Chester Nimitz, Gen. “Hap” Arnold and Adm. Bull Halsey thought the use of the atomic bomb was barbarous and unnecessary. These views are not convincing; the Japanese government in August 1945 was a very long way from accepting the unconditional surrender both President Franklin Roosevelt and his successor, Harry Truman, had demanded, and which the vast majority of Americans supported. Time and again, the U.S. military had been proved wrong in its anticipation of a Japanese surrender.

Japanese diplomats may have been keen to call time on Japan’s military adventurism but the die-hards were still intent on victory. Even after Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war, Japan’s war minister, Gen. Korechika Anami, suggested, “Would it not be wondrous for the whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower?” Japan’s ultranationalist army leaders had built a death cult that was incomprehensible to Western logic.

Waiting for American soldiers on the shores of Japan’s four main islands were 2.5 million troops plus a vast civilian reserve. Japan had assembled a force of 11,000 planes and thousands of suicide boats to thwart the American invasion and Adm. Onishi, the main architect of the kamikaze campaign, believed victory on land was possible “if we are prepared to sacrifice 20 million Japanese lives.”

As some 12,000 Americans had been killed at the Battle of Okinawa when faced with just 80,000 Japanese troops, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff realistically estimated that the conquest of mainland Japan would cost 267,000 U.S. lives. Meanwhile, the War Department estimated up to 800,000 dead – more than double the American deaths in Europe in World War II. Japanese casualties, based on the universal refusal of their troops to surrender, were estimated at 3 million dead plus 5 million to 10 million civilians.

Presented with these forbidding numbers, no president of a democratically elected country could have spurned the use of the atomic bomb. Not using the bomb would have been greeted with utter incomprehension by nearly all Americans. As Secretary of War Henry Stimson observed, “No man … could have failed to use it [the A-bomb] and afterward have looked his countrymen in the face.”

For the GIs about to ship out to Japan, it was a reprieve. As Paul Fussell, a 21-year-old officer recalled, “We were going to live. We were going to grow up to adulthood after all.”

Furthermore, with only two atomic bombs available, a demonstration could not be afforded. Lastly, while the conspiracy theorists are adamant the bomb was used as a deterrent to the Soviet Union, the reality was that at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, President Truman was urging Stalin to attack Japan so that America alone would not bear the burden of its defeat....

Keep reading.

Afghanistan: At Least Six Dead in First Major Taliban Attack Since Leadership Transition (VIDEO)

As many as nine may be dead, according to additional reports.

See the Telegraph UK, "Six dead in first major Afghan Taliban attack since power transition."

And from AFP, "Nine dead in Afghan Taliban's first major attacks since power change."

Radical Cleric Anjem Choudary Charged with Aiding Islamic State

Watch, at the BBC, "Anjem Choudary faces UK terrorism charges over Islamic State."

And at London's Daily Mail, "Radical Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary is remanded in custody after being charged with terrorism offence over 'inviting support for ISIS'."

And the latest, at Telegraph UK, "Anjem Choudary protests innocence as charged with terror offence: Preacher Anjem Choudary claims David Cameron and police are the guilty ones as he faces charge of inviting support for Isil."

This Don Lemon Interview with W. Kamau Bell is Actually Pretty Interesting

It's gets better after the opening bit about "all white guys" on the stage. This W. Kamau Bell is articulate and he makes a point: Why should a guy like him --- a black dude --- vote for Donald Trump.

Watch: "Bell on Trump: 'Campaign of rich, white dudes'."

Taylor Swift Freaks Out as Fan Tries to Grab Her Ankle During Concert in Edmonton, Canada.

Seems to me that rockers have to be ready for fans to grab them or rush them, etc. They're surrounded by bouncers, in any case. Especially Taylor Swift. Interesting that the stage area had no security barrier with bouncers separating the performers from the stage.

In any case, at CNN, "Taylor Swift gets spooked by fan during show."

Islamic State Executes 19 Girls After They Refuse to Submit to 'Sexual Jihad'

This is Obama's legacy.

The legacy of appeasement and partnership to genocide.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "ISIS executes 19 girls for refusing to have sex with fighters."

Rohnert Park Police Officer Pulls Gun on Citizen Recording Him on Cellphone Camera

This just out of control. Wow.

Watch, at Jawa Report, "Some Cops Are Bad Cops" (via Memeorandum):

I started watching this expecting another unfounded cop bashing. But, wow, this cop needs retraining or something. He does not appear fit for the job.

Atom Bomb: The Logical Outcome of Total War

From Alonzo Hamby, a review of Charles Pellegrino's, To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima, and Susan Southard's, Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, at the Wall Street Journal:

‘The bomber will always get through,” Stanley Baldwin told Britain’s House of Commons in 1932. “The only defense is in offense, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves.” Baldwin was no warmonger. His purpose was to underscore the indiscriminate horror likely to come from the air in an era of big military airplanes carrying large payloads of explosives. His declaration reflected the thinking of theorists ranging from the Italian general Giulio Douhet to the popular novelist H.G. Wells. It also acknowledged the truism that wars are ultimately between peoples and societies, not just armed forces.

War came within a few short years, and the bomber was its most feared weapon. In Europe, Germany showed the way—first in Spain with Guernica, then in Britain with the Blitz against London, Coventry, Hull and other cities. Revenge followed in the form of British and American bombers plastering German population centers with equal indiscrimination. Japanese bombers killed or wounded thousands of Chinese at Shanghai in 1932 and wreaked havoc at Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

In late 1944, Japan began to be attacked by the most formidable of the World War II bombers, the American B-29. Japan’s defenses were weak and its provisions for civilian shelters grossly inadequate. Its wood-and-paper buildings were terribly vulnerable to incendiary bombs. Few had basements to which their inhabitants could retreat. On the night of March 9, 1945, more than 300 American B-29s raided a working-class area of Tokyo that was laced with small factories. The incendiary bombs set off firestorms that laid waste to nearly 16 square miles of the city and killed approximately 100,000 civilians and left the survivors demoralized.

Other Japanese cities endured ordeals similar to Tokyo’s. Two, however, were relatively untouched—Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Their inhabitants never realized that they were being saved for a terrible new weapon. The reprieve came to an end on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, in each case with single atomic bombs that probably produced fewer deaths than the Tokyo firebombing but spread greater fear.

Charles Pellegrino’s study of Hiroshima, “To Hell and Back,” and Susan Southard’s “Nagasaki” give scant attention to the larger military and diplomatic issues of the atomic bombings. Instead they recount the ordeals of ordinary and altogether sympathetic citizens coping with a sudden, devastating event that destroyed the world they had known. The lucky were killed instantly, some simply vaporized. Others displayed mute testimony to the event. Mr. Pellegrino describes one such example, drawn from the account of a survivor: “A statue, standing undamaged, . . . was in fact a naked man. . . . The man had become charcoal—a pillar of charcoal so light and brittle that whole sections of him crumbled at the slightest touch.” Another survivor, we are told, gathers the bones of a young woman, resolves to return them to her parents and manages to catch the last train to their home—in Nagasaki.

Ms. Southard gives us similar stories and provides photographs of aged Japanese still bearing horrible physical scars from their burns. She notes that the scars could also be psychological—feelings of “bitterness and outrage,” the mockery that could come with disfigurement. For some, she writes, the “fear of illness and death never ceased.” Both authors describe the harrowing effects of radiation sickness.

The maimed survivors of each city devoted much of their lives to evangelizing against the bomb. It is easy to write off such narratives as exercises in victimology, but it is also important to understand the effects of nuclear weapons in an age when they have become vastly more powerful and have been developed by nations of dubious responsibility.

What is missing from both books is context. Neither author properly discusses the factors that went into the American decision to use the bomb. Nor do they venture an opinion on whether the bomb shortened the war. They focus on the ways the bomb affected civilians who had to cope with a catastrophe.

“To Hell and Back,” one may remember, appeared in an earlier form, in 2010, as “The Last Train From Hiroshima.” The publication of that book was suspended when the authenticity of one of Mr. Pellegrino’s sources—a man who claimed to have been on a plane accompanying the Enola Gay bomber on its Hiroshima mission—was called into question. That source and his assertions are gone from the new book. A foreword notes that he had indeed “tricked” the author, who later admitted his mistake.

In a preface to “To Hell and Back,” Mark Selden, a scholar of East Asian studies, declares that Mr. Pellegrino’s narrative “encourages us to reflect anew on the ethics and horrifying outcome of World War II strategies of massive civilian bombing, whether by Germany, Japan, or England, or by American fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

His statement reminds us that the atomic bombs were the logical outcome of a style of war taken for granted on both sides by the summer of 1945. Britain suffered heavy bombing and massive property destruction, but civilian deaths for the nation were less than 45,000. The port city of Hull (population, 320,000), roughly analogous to Hiroshima or Nagasaki, endured damage to an estimated 95% of its housing stock but lost only 1,200 civilians. Unlike Britain, Japan seems to have made little or no provision for the protection of its civilian population.

Were the bombs necessary to compel surrender? U.S. policy—laid down by Franklin Roosevelt, followed by Harry Truman and supported by most Americans—was uncompromising. The U.S. would accept only unconditional surrender, to be followed by military occupation.

In Japan, advocates of a last-ditch resistance could not promise victory but could guarantee heavy casualties for the invaders. The last battle of the war—Okinawa—made the point. Okinawa was a small island, and the U.S. possessed overwhelming ground, naval and air superiority. Even so, the battle raged from April 1 to June 21, 1945, with 92,000 Japanese troops fighting to the death and kamikaze planes inflicting significant damage on the offshore American fleet. U.S. casualties (killed and wounded) were approximately 45,000.

The experience made an impression in Washington. The Japanese home islands were next. Japan’s leaders made no secret of their plans to wage a dogged resistance that would mobilize the civilian population, right down to teenagers armed only with clubs and sticks; and the leaders clung to the fantasy of a negotiated peace brokered by the still-neutral Soviet Union. They rebuked their ambassador in Moscow for telling them that the Russians, who were moving troops to attack Japan in East Asia, would be of no help.

American military planners focused on the southernmost Japanese home island of Kyushu as a first target, to be followed by an invasion of the island of Honshu and a final campaign across the Tokyo plain in 1946. Meeting with his military chiefs in Washington on June 18, 1945, President Truman expressed his hope of “preventing an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other.” A month later, the first atomic bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert. Hiroshima and Nagasaki quickly followed.

Critics of the atomic bombings often assert that Japan was “ready to surrender.” Clearly this was not the case...

No, it was not the case, at all.

But keep reading.

Deals in Carry-On Luggage

At Amazon, Shop Amazon Launchpad - Bluesmart Smart Carry-On: The World's First Connected Luggage.

Plus, ICYMI, I'm greatly enjoying Robert O'Connell's, Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman. It's definitely worth your time!

Jill Kargman Skewers the Shenanigans of Upper East Side's Elite Mothers

At the Wall Street Journal, "An ‘Odd Mom Out’ Feels Manhattan’s Embrace."

Also at Vanity Fair, "Jill Kargman Jokes About 'Rich Mom Problems'."

Some of the Hottest Models on Instagram Party with Maxim in a Desert Oasis

Hey, I can dig it.

Watch: "Thanks for Sharing: The Girls of Instagram."

Democrats Are on the Wrong Side of History

Indeed they are.

From Kirsten Powers, at USA Today, "I've got news for Democrats. It's a baby!:

The Democratic Party shilling for barbarism — whether by politicians, liberal media outlets, union officials or unrestricted abortion advocates — is not likely to be viewed favorably by future generations. These Democrats will be remembered for demonizing the activists who lifted the veil on a previously sanitized process and for seeking restraining orders to silence truth tellers. They will be remembered for publishing dehumanizing decrees — as The New Republic did — that people stop criticizing Planned Parenthood because as a medical matter, “The term baby … doesn’t apply until birth” (that thing on your sonogram is nothing more than a “product[] of conception.”) And they will be remembered for demanding investigations into citizen journalists for meticulously exposing atrocities in our midst.

Oh my!

Clarissa Ward Reports: Britain and France Overwhelmed by Europe's Migrant Crisis (VIDEO)

Excellent coverage.

Watch, at CBS News, "Migrant crisis: France and Britain overwhelmed."

Drought-Fueled California Rocky Fire Defies Efforts to Defeat It

At the New York Times, "California Fire, Aided by Drought, Defies Tactics to Defeat It":

LAKEPORT, Calif. — As firefighters on Wednesday embarked on their sixth day of battling the largest of the many wildfire s that have flared across the state, fire officials said that the Rocky Fire, which has grown to consume nearly 70,000 acres here in the northern reaches of wine country, is still nowhere near under control and may not be until perhaps Monday.

The Rocky Fire, which was impeded slightly by humid overnight conditions, has already defied firefighters’ expectations for how such blazes typically behave, and has crossed highways, and fire lines and other barriers meant to contain it. Feeding on tinder-dry terrain and woodlands that have been parched by drought, the Rocky Fire is now 106 square miles and has forced the evacuation of 1,480 people; about 13,000 have been urged to leave their homes.

More than 3,840 firefighters are deployed across the uneven landscape of several counties, including Yolo, Colusa and Lake. They are cutting back underbrush to make fire-blocking tracts, and dropping gallons of water and flame retardant from nearly two dozen aircraft that fly through the smoky sky. But the fire is still only 20 percent contained, according to fire officials, and the flames are surging with unusual speed.

“I’ve got 30 years in, and in the last 10 years I have seen fire behavior that I had never seen in my entire career,” said Capt. Ron Oatman, a public information officer for Cal Fire, the state firefighting operation, and a longtime wild-land firefighter. For example, he said, on Saturday the Rocky Fire grew by 22,000 acres, a plot of land that computer models indicated would take about a week to burn. But that plot was consumed in five hours.

In the last three years, rain levels in California have been 24 to 30 inches below normal, according to the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, meaning the state has been missing about two years’ worth of rainfall. The drought has sapped moisture from underbrush and thick trees, dampness that would typically retard a fire.

“In this situation, we’ve had multiple years of precipitation deficit,” said Jeff Shelton, a fire behavior specialist who has been tracking the inferno for the firefighting operation. “In a single year, that can be bad on a short term, but when you stack multiple years together, there is a cumulative effect.”

The desiccated vegetation has become ideal fire fuel, Mr. Shelton said. “It’s potential energy, waiting for something to happen — and that’s exactly what we have.”

The situation has rendered even the complex computer programs the firefighters use here at the mobile command center in the County Fairgrounds in Lakeport into futile predictors of how the fire will burn...

More at that top link.

And watch, from CBS News 5 San Francisco:

Police Department Officers Shoot Pit Bull After Attack on City Worker in South Los Angeles (VIDEO)

I hope the worker wasn't hurt. And I feel sorry for the dog, although I just wouldn't own one.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Police Shoot Pit Bull After Attack on City Worker."

And it's more than one dog, at ABC News 7 Los Angeles, "LAPD OFFICERS SHOOT AT 2 PIT BULLS AT SOUTH LOS ANGELES PARK."

Thank God for the Atom Bomb

From Bret Stephens, at the Wall Street Journal, "Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t merely horrific, war-ending events. They were lifesaving":

Hiroshima

The headline of this column is lifted from a 1981 essay by the late Paul Fussell, the cultural critic and war memoirist. In 1945 Fussell was a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who had fought his way through Europe only to learn that he would soon be shipped to the Pacific to take part in Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin in November 1945.

Then the atom bomb intervened. Japan would not surrender after Hiroshima, but it did after Nagasaki.

I brought Fussell’s essay with me on my flight to Hiroshima and was stopped by this: “When we learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live.”

In all the cant that will pour forth this week to mark the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs—that the U.S. owes the victims of the bombings an apology; that nuclear weapons ought to be abolished; that Hiroshima is a monument to man’s inhumanity to man; that Japan could have been defeated in a slightly nicer way—I doubt much will be made of Fussell’s fundamental point: Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t just terrible war-ending events. They were also lifesaving. The bomb turned the empire of the sun into a nation of peace activists...

That's really worth savoring for a second. Imagine especially if we'd never defeated authoritarian Japan and the Chrysanthemum Throne?

Yeah, no nation of Japanese peace activists. And no peace.

But keep reading.

'So, Matt Yglesias is now doing pig-ignorant, Aren't-I-Daringly-Contrarian #HotTakes about events he just learned about, but which happened over 220 years ago...'

Yglesias never disappoints in the leftist-loser lulz department.

At AoSHQ, "Matt Yglesias, Intellectual."

Also, from Ms. EBL, "Sex with Robots will be 'the norm' in 50 years experts claim and some people have strange...compulsions (Matt Yglesias has issues)."

Carly Fiorina: 'I'm Not a Professional Politician...'

She's so articulate. I do hope her poll numbers improve before some of the upcoming GOP debates. She deserves to be on that stage.

At Politico, "Carly Fiorina on being left out of prime-time debate: It's a long race."

Listen to her interview with Joe Scarborough, "Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina joins Morning Joe to discuss not making the top 10 in the first GOP debate."

Underwater Search Ends for Free Diver Natalia Molchanova

She's dead.

At ABC News, "Underwater Search for Famous Russian Free Diver Natalia Molchanova Called Off."

PREVIOUSLY: "Freewater Diving Champion Natalia Molchanova Presumed Dead," and "How Far Down Can a Free Diver Go?"

AQAP's Khalid bin Umar Batarfi Issues New 'Lone Wolf' Threats Against American Cities (VIDEO)

From the SITE Intelligence Group, "AQAP Releases Video Calling for Lone Wolf Attacks, Praising Chattanooga Shooter."

And at the Chattanooga Time Free-Press, "Al-Qaida calls for more lone wolf attacks, praises Chattanooga shooter":

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula released a video calling for lone wolf attacks and praising attackers like Chattanooga shooter Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, according to SITE Intelligence Group, a jihadist monitoring organization.

The video was produced by AQAP's al-Malahem Media Foundation and released on August 4, 2015, the SITE Intelligence website stated. In the video, AQAP official Abu al-Miqdad al-Kindi (AKA Khalid bin Umar Batarfi), who was freed from a Yemeni prison in April of 2015, condemned "America France and other kufr [disbeliever] nations" that "assist and make legislations to protect those who abuse Islam and the Prophets." To that point, he stressed, "And as you put limits to freedom of expression and punish whomever goes against them, it is upon us to punish whoever transgresses out boundaries and sanctities."

In reference to Abdulazeez he said, "And the latest operation of Muhammad Abdulaziz, which occurred in the heart of American soil, is a clear evidence of that. He penetrated the base killing and injuring American marines in a blessed Jihadi operation. We ask Allah to accept him and raise his status among martyrs."

And here I thought we had al-Qaeda on the run. Hmm, I guess not.

ADDED: Flashback, "Al-Qaeda in Iraq Releases Shocking GoPro-Quality Propaganda Video."

David Horowitz: 'Obama is a Traitor. It's a No Brainer' (VIDEO)

Heh, Alan Colmes "debates" David Horowtiz. Like that's some kind of contest, or something.

Obama's worse than Hitler!

Watch: "Alan Colmes vs. David Horowitz: Is Obama a 'Jew-hater'?"

Women Get Just 30 Percent of Roles in Top U.S. Films

Obviously, we need more hot women in the movies.

But see Manohla Dargis, at the New York Times, "Report Finds Wide Diversity Gap Among 2014’s Top-Grossing Films."

RELATED: At Vanity Fair, "Amy Schumer Explains How Her Magical Jennifer Lawrence Vacation Came to Be."



Ah, yes, let's definitely have more Jennifer Lawrence in top roles, heh.

New Russian Fifth-Generation Stealth Fighter PAK T-50 at Aviadarts-2015 Air Show (VIDEO)

Here's the Russian Air Force's "Prospective Airborne Complex of Frontline Aviation" (PAK FA) at Aviadarts-2015, via Ruptly:



Nice jets.

Worrisome too.

See related, at London's Daily Mail, "The moment RAF intercept TEN Russian jets in a single mission over Baltic airspace as Putin’s sabre rattling increases."

Dana Loesch on Megyn Kelly's Show: Leftists Aren't Going to Criticize Their 'Gravy Train' Planned Parenthood (VIDEO)

Following-up from earlier, "David Daleiden: The 'Hardest Part' of Releasing Planned Parenthood Videos Was 'Reviewing the Footage of the Body Parts of the Unborn Children Themselves...'."

Plane Debris Confirmed as MH370

I can only hope this brings the beginning of some semblance of closure to the families of those lost.

It's been too long. Much too long waiting for word. Waiting for answers.

At Foreign Policy, "Malaysia Confirms Debris Comes from Missing Airliner."

At the Wall Street Journal, "MH370 Search: Plane Debris on Réunion Island Is From Vanished Malaysia Flight":

The plane debris that washed ashore on an island in the Indian Ocean last week was confirmed to be part of the Malaysia Airlines jet that went missing over a year ago, Malaysia’s prime minister said, making it the first concrete evidence of the plane that disappeared 17 months ago but leaving unanswered why it crashed.

“An international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Réunion Island is indeed from MH370,” Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in Kuala Lumpur.

French authorities, who took possession of the part because Réunion is a French territory, were more cautious about its origin. Experts examining it at a French military lab near Toulouse in southwest France have determined there is a “very strong presumption” that the part comes from the missing plane, Deputy Paris Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said Wednesday.

Mr. Mackowiak also said that the analysis of a tattered bag found near the wing part on the beach of Réunion was also underway, but didn’t announce findings.

The Malaysian announcement offered few details about the Flight 370 probe. Without taking questions, the Prime Minister vowed to “do everything within our means to determine what happened” to the Boeing 777.

French, Malaysian, Australian, Chinese and U.S. officials were present for the analysis that began Wednesday at a high-tech military lab near Toulouse in the southwest of France.

Examination of the debris now moves into a new stage, according to safety experts, as the French military technical team tries to extract clues from the part about how the plane may have crashed...

Read more.

Tennessee Movie Theater Shooting

Makes you not want to go to the movies, all these copy-cat murders.

At the Tennessean, "Police: Suspect in Antioch theater shooting dead."

And at CNN, "Cops: Shots fired at Tennessee movie theater," and "Tennessee theater shooting witness: 'It was very scary..."

So far no reports of fatalities, thank goodness.

Dominique Jane is Playboy's Miss August 2015

A lovely lady, on Tumblr.

Matthew McConaughey Shares Photo of Wife Camila Alves Obtaining U.S. Citizenship

Actually, it's McConaughey and the whole beautiful family, on Twitter.

He's a great guy, a true patriot.

Ku Klux Klan Tatoo Guy Confronted While Wearing Fubu Shoes

You know, FUBU stands for "For us, by us." The company was founded by black entrepreneurs, including Daymond John, one of the members of the "Shark Tank" on ABC.

Maybe the KKK dude doesn't like that show.

At NYDN, "WATCH: Georgia Stars and Bars proponent wears FUBU shoes at Confederate flag rally (WARNING: Contains graphic language)."

And at YouTube, "KKK member at Confederate flag rally confronted for wearing FUBU shoes."

Well, at least Stogie's not wearing FUBUs, or at least not that I know of.

Shirtless Crazy Man Claiming He's 'Tarzan' Arrested Near Monkey Exhibit at Los Angeles Santa Ana Zoo (VIDEO)

No doubt Obama's jobless recovery put him over the edge.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "AUDIO: 911 call from zoo official reporting a man seen climbing trees, saying 'he's Tarzan'."

And, "Shirtless 'Tarzan' Arrested In Bizarre Incident Near Zoo Monkey Exhibit."

UPDATE: It's the Santa Ana Zoo, not the Los Angeles Zoo.

David Daleiden: The 'Hardest Part' of Releasing Planned Parenthood Videos Was 'Reviewing the Footage of the Body Parts of the Unborn Children Themselves...'

I confess: I'm to the point where I can't actually watch these Planned Parenthood sting videos.

They're simply too graphic. And they're self-evidently too evil. It's terrible. In fact, I'm stunned at this entire discussion.

I have tremendous respect for Dana Loesch, who's been doing more than anyone else to expose this evil on a daily basis.

See Dana on Twitter, "Man behind Planned Parenthood videos tells @DLoesch the “hardest part” of undercover investigation," and on YouTube, "5th Planned Parenthood Video Dropped Today: Interview with David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress [CONTENT WARNING]."

ADDED: At Life News, "5th Shocking Video Catches Planned Parenthood Official Selling “Fully Intact” Aborted Babies."

"Shocking." Oh boy, is it ever.

The Mystery of ISIS

An "anonymous" source goes inside Islamic State, at the New York Review of Books:

In ISIS: The State of Terror, Stern and Berger provide a fascinating analysis of the movement’s use of video and social media. They have tracked individual Twitter accounts, showing how users kept changing their Twitter handles, piggybacked on the World Cup by inserting images of beheadings into the soccer chat, and created new apps and automated bots to boost their numbers. Stern and Berger show that at least 45,000 pro-movement accounts were online in late 2014, and describe how their users attempted to circumvent Twitter administrators by changing their profile pictures from the movement’s flags to kittens. But this simply raises the more fundamental question of why the movement’s ideology and actions—however slickly produced and communicated—have had popular appeal in the first place.

Nor have there been any more satisfying explanations of what draws the 20,000 foreign fighters who have joined the movement. At first, the large number who came from Britain were blamed on the British government having made insufficient effort to assimilate immigrant communities; then France’s were blamed on the government pushing too hard for assimilation. But in truth, these new foreign fighters seemed to sprout from every conceivable political or economic system. They came from very poor countries (Yemen and Afghanistan) and from the wealthiest countries in the world (Norway and Qatar). Analysts who have argued that foreign fighters are created by social exclusion, poverty, or inequality should acknowledge that they emerge as much from the social democracies of Scandinavia as from monarchies (a thousand from Morocco), military states (Egypt), authoritarian democracies (Turkey), and liberal democracies (Canada). It didn’t seem to matter whether a government had freed thousands of Islamists (Iraq), or locked them up (Egypt), whether it refused to allow an Islamist party to win an election (Algeria) or allowed an Islamist party to be elected. Tunisia, which had the most successful transition from the Arab Spring to an elected Islamist government, nevertheless produced more foreign fighters than any other country.

Nor was the surge in foreign fighters driven by some recent change in domestic politics or in Islam. Nothing fundamental had shifted in the background of culture or religious belief between 2012, when there were almost none of these foreign fighters in Iraq, and 2014, when there were 20,000. The only change is that there was suddenly a territory available to attract and house them. If the movement had not seized Raqqa and Mosul, many of these men might well have simply continued to live out their lives with varying degrees of strain—as Normandy dairy farmers or council employees in Cardiff. We are left again with tautology—ISIS exists because it can exist—they are there because they’re there.

Finally, a year ago, it seemed plausible to attach much of the blame for the rise of the movement to former Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki’s disastrous administration of Iraq. No longer. Over the last year, a new, more constructive, moderate, and inclusive leader, Haider al-Abadi, has been appointed prime minister; the Iraqi army has been restructured under a new Sunni minister of defense; the old generals have been removed; and foreign governments have competed to provide equipment and training. Some three thousand US advisers and trainers have appeared in Iraq. Formidable air strikes and detailed surveillance have been provided by the United States, the United Kingdom, and others. The Iranian Quds force, the Gulf states, and the Kurdish Peshmerga have joined the fight on the ground.

For all these reasons the movement was expected to be driven back and lose Mosul in 2015. Instead, in May, it captured Palmyra in Syria and—almost simultaneously—Ramadi, three hundred miles away in Iraq. In Ramadi, three hundred ISIS fighters drove out thousands of trained and heavily equipped Iraqi soldiers. The US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter observed:

The Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight.

The movement now controls a “terrorist state” far more extensive and far more developed than anything that George W. Bush evoked at the height of the “Global War on Terror.” Then, the possibility of Sunni extremists taking over the Iraqi province of Anbar was used to justify a surge of 170,000 US troops and the expenditure of over $100 billion a year. Now, years after the surge, ISIS controls not only Anbar, but also Mosul and half of the territory of Syria. Its affiliates control large swaths of northern Nigeria and significant areas of Libya. Hundreds of thousands have now been killed and millions displaced; horrors unimaginable even to the Taliban—among them the reintroduction of forcible rape of minors and slavery—have been legitimized. And this catastrophe has not only dissolved the borders between Syria and Iraq, but provoked the forces that now fight the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen.

This is a great piece. Keep reading.

I only disagree on the question of our ignorance. It depends on whom you rely for information. Most mainstream analysts, at least those seen in outlets like the New York Times and CNN, are leftists. They're congenitally hindered by leftist cognitive dissonance. If you read people like Victor Davis Hanson, Ralph Peters, Dennis Prager, or Robert Spencer there's no confusion on the nature of the enemy. All one has to do is take a cold hard look at the problem. And one has to call up the moral resolve to confront evil face to face.

That's the problem we have with ISIS. It's no mystery.

We Got the Neutron Bomb

Obama just finished up his big national security speech on the nuclear agreement with Iran. I just hear: "Blah, blah, blah... blah, blah..."

Meanwhile, "We Got the Neutron Bomb," with the Weirdos:

We got the neutron bomb,
We got the neutron bomb
We got the neutron, gonna drop it all over the place
Yer gonna get it on yer face
Foreign aid from the land of the free
But don't blame me
We got the neutron bomb,
We got the neutron bomb
We got the neutron, don't understand you don't know what you mean
We don't want you we want your machines
United Nations and NATO won't do
It's just the red, white and blue
We got the neutron bomb,
We got the neutron bomb
We got the neutron, that's the way it's gotta be
Survival of the fittest is the way it's gonna be
We don't want it, we don't want it,
Don't blame me
We don't want it, we don't want it,
Don't blame me...

What's the Right Way to Teach Civics?

Just teach it, for crying out loud. But teach it a lot. Make it a central part of universal education, not just something that comes up in the 8th and 11th grades. And teach it well. I've had students change majors to political science after taking my class. It doesn't happen a lot, but if you connect and make history and politics come alive, it will happen.

In any case, see Vauhini Vara, at the New Yorker.

'Let Us Live' Peace Rally in South Los Angeles — #MyLifeMatters

I meant to post on this earlier. It's such a promising story.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Spike In Shootings Prompts Peace Rally In South LA."

.@lamblock Anti-gang protest in Los Angeles: #MyLifeMatters pic.twitter.com/sLa3BIblGj

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 5, 2015

Also from Sandy Banks, at the Los Angeles Times, "#100days100nights fuels fear in South L.A."

More, "#100days100nights: Gang threats of violence on social media draw fear."

Mandy Moore and Minka Kelly in Bikinis

At Drunken Stepfather, "MANDY MOORE AND MINKA KELLY IN BIKINIS OF THE DAY."

How Far Down Can a Free Diver Go?

It's kind of freaky that I came across this story, at the New Yorker, from Alec Wilkinson, "The Deepest Dive."

Wilkinson mentions Natalia Molchanova, who as this post goes live is still missing in the Mediterranean. I blogged the story earlier, "Freewater Diving Champion Natalia Molchanova Presumed Dead."

And from his essay:

Modern free diving is a sport in which divers, on a single breath, descend hundreds of feet, into cold and darkness, and often pass out before they return. It is frequently described as the world’s second most dangerous sport, after jumping off skyscrapers with parachutes. There are eight disciplines, three of which are conducted in a pool; the rest are called deep disciplines. The pool disciplines are static apnea, which is holding one’s breath; dynamic with fins (swimming underwater as far as one can, sometimes with flippers or with a monofin, which looks like a mermaid’s tail); and dynamic without fins. The five main deep disciplines are free immersion, which involves pulling oneself up and down a rope in open water; constant weight, in which a diver wears fins and a small amount of weight; constant weight without fins; variable weight, in which a diver descends on a metal device called a sled and swims to the surface; and no limits, in which a diver rides a sled and is then pulled to the surface by an air bag. Competitions are not held in no limits or variable weight, because they are so dangerous; divers can only attempt records. No divers have died in free-diving competitions. (Death by free diving usually occurs when spear fishermen who dive alone stay down too long. A few years ago, one drowned when he speared a huge grouper that fled into a hole; the fisherman’s spear gun was tied to his wrist and he couldn’t get free.) Divers, however, have died trying to set records in no limits. The most famous case was that of a twenty-eight-year-old Frenchwoman named Audrey Mestre, who drowned in 2002, during a poorly supervised dive with her husband, when her air bag didn’t inflate, leaving her too deep to reach the surface.

The most prestigious discipline is constant weight—the diver must return to the surface with the weight that he or she wore to descend. The women’s record for constant weight is ninety-six metres, which took three minutes and thirty-four seconds. (The men’s record is a hundred and twenty-two metres.) For women, a hundred metres is a barrier something like the four-minute mile used to be, and the diver who is the first to accomplish the feat will have a prominent place in the annals of the sport. Only two women are thought to be capable of it. One is Sara Campbell, a British diver who lives in Egypt, and the other is Natalia Molchanova, a Russian who lives in Moscow. Campbell set the record of ninety-six metres in April, in the Bahamas, breaking Molchanova’s record of ninety-five, which had broken Campbell’s record of ninety. Five days after Campbell reached ninety-six metres, she dived to a hundred, returned to the surface, took two breaths, and passed out. (A safety diver caught her.) The rules governing record dives require that a diver remain conscious for sixty seconds after surfacing, so Campbell’s dive was nullified...

It's obviously a very dangerous sport.

More at the link.

Police Chiefs from Across the Nation Meet in D.C. to Discuss National Spike in Violence

A week or so back I saw the headline at the local Daily Pilot newspaper, "Serious crime surges 40% in Costa Mesa."

Orange County's economy is doing much better than statewide, and Costa Mesa is a generally affluent area in any case. So a 40 percent surge over the last year or so seemed pretty astounding. I'm convinced that California's Proposition 47 is playing a major role in the rise of crime, in Costa Mesa and elsewhere in the state. Nationwide, the Ferguson Effect is also causing a surge in crime, whereby police departments have backed off aggressive broken windows techniques amid the left's revolutionary assault on the nation's law enforcement. Frankly, things are out of control.

At CBS News Baltimore, "Police Chiefs Meet in D.C. to Discuss National Spike in Violence."

High-Tech Liquid Meals Called 'Soylent' Designed to 'Give You Everything Your Body Needs...'

Well, at least CBS This Morning mentions the origins of the name for this food drink, the 1973 science fiction film "Soylent Green."

I can't imagine a food product taking off with a name like that, but 1973's a long time ago, especially for our historically ignorant culture.

Watch: "Soylent liquid meals reimagine daily nutrition."

Plunder and Deceit is Out Today

I've got a lot of books on my plate, and I don't think I've got this Civil War bug out of my system quite yet. But I'm definitely picking up a copy of Mark Levin's new book.

Check it out, at Amazon, Plunder and Deceit.

Historian Robert Conquest Has Died

What a guy.

His books should be mandated reading for every freshman undergraduate in the United States.

He's that important a scholar.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Robert Conquest, Seminal Historian of Soviet Misrule, Dies at 98":

Robert Conquest, an Anglo-American historian whose works on the terror and privation under Joseph Stalin made him the pre-eminent Western chronicler of the horrors of Soviet rule, died Monday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 98 years old.

Mr. Conquest’s master work, “The Great Terror,” was the first detailed account of the Stalinist purges from 1937 to 1939. He estimated that under Stalin, 20 million people perished from famines, Soviet labor camps and executions—a toll that eclipsed that of the Holocaust. Writing at the height of the Cold War in 1968, when sources about the Soviet Union were scarce, Mr. Conquest was vilified by leftists who said he exaggerated the number of victims. When the Cold War ended and archives in Moscow were thrown open, his estimates proved high but more accurate than those of his critics.

Mr. Conquest also was a much-decorated writer of light verse and a figure in the “Movement” poetry of 1950s England. He continued to publish into his 90s, applying an unyielding zest to poetry and prose alike.

Born in Malvern, Worcestershire, to a British mother and an American father, he served in World War II and then in Britain’s diplomatic corps before a series of stints at think tanks and universities, largely in the U.S. In recent decades he was affiliated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, moving to emeritus status in 2007.

While a spirited combatant in academic debate, Mr. Conquest wrote for a wider audience. “The Great Terror” reached millions of readers and won him a following among leaders including Ronald Reagan. Margaret Thatcher consulted Mr. Conquest on how to deal with the Soviet Union and her former advisers said she trusted him more than any other Soviet expert.

Throughout his career Mr. Conquest kept abreast of ivory-tower squabbles “but he eschewed what he saw as the arcane and parochial nature of some academic literature,” said Mark Kramer, a professor of Cold War history at Harvard.

Mr. Conquest gleefully attacked Western revisionist historians as dupes for Stalin. The 1937-1939 Stalinist show trials, in which Stalin’s political rivals all admitted to serious crimes and were shot, shocked many left-leaning intellectuals in the West. The lurid trials set off mass defections from Communist parties in Europe and the U.S. and helped inspire anti-Communist tracts such as George Orwell’s “1984” and Arthur Koestler’s “Darkness at Noon.”

But the wider slaughter of Soviet citizens had largely gone undocumented until Mr. Conquest’s narrative. Citing sources made public during the thaw under Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as well as émigré accounts, the Soviet census and snippets of information in the Soviet press, Mr. Conquest portrayed the trials as a mere sideshow to the systematic murder carried out by the Kremlin, which routinely ordered regional quotas for thousands of arbitrary arrests and shootings at burial pits and execution cellars. The latest data show that during a 16-month stretch in 1937 and 1938, more than 800,000 people were shot by the Soviet secret police.

These executions came on top of millions of earlier deaths amid the forced famines and collectivization of Soviet agriculture, which Mr. Conquest detailed in a later book, “The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine.” Mr. Conquest wrote that Stalin summarily executed millions of people by cutting off food to entire regions, particularly Ukraine.

While the opening of Soviet-era archives sparked some attacks on Mr. Conquest, his overall narrative of the purges was confirmed. “The Great Terror” was serialized in Russian newspapers and the revelation of mass graves, such as 20,000 in the Moscow suburb of Butovo, confirmed a wholesale execution system. Since then the debate among historians has been mostly settled over the immensity of the human toll exacted under Stalin’s rule.

Though Mr. Conquest’s body count was on the high end of estimates, he remained unwavering at the publication of “The Great Terror: A Reassessment,” a 1990 revision of his masterwork. When Mr. Conquest was asked for a new title for the updated book, his friend, the writer Kingsley Amis, proposed, “I Told You So, You F—ing Fools.”

Still more.

Meir Ettinger, Grandson of Meir Kahane, is Held in Israel

Israel's religious extremists are extreme, and a serious problem.

At the New York Times, "Israeli Court Orders Meir Kahane’s Grandson Held in Crackdown on Jewish Extremists":

JERUSALEM — He has the pedigree: Meir Ettinger is the grandson and namesake of Meir Kahane, the slain American-Israeli rabbi considered the father of far-right Jewish militancy.

He has the record: For years, Mr. Ettinger has joined the radical group of Israeli settlers known as the hilltop youth in clashes with Palestinians and Israeli forces, leading to a ban on his entering Jerusalem or the occupied West Bank.

He also has the ideology: In a series of Bible-quoting blog posts that amount to a manifesto, Mr. Ettinger calls for the “dispossession of gentiles” who inhabit the Holy Land and the replacement of the modern Israeli state with a new “kingdom of Israel” ruled by the laws of the Torah.

“The key is not to seek to delay the explosion,” he wrote on July 22, “but to try to bring it on as soon as possible and on our own initiative.”

Amid politicians’ promises to crack down on Jewish terrorism suspects after the fatal firebombing of a Palestinian home on Friday, Mr. Ettinger on Tuesday became the name and face of what critics call a scourge on Israeli society. An Israeli court ordered him held for five days; the police said he was accused of conspiracy, membership in an illegal organization and “other things,” including “nationalist” crimes.

Shlomo Fischer, a sociologist at Hebrew University, said Mr. Ettinger was representative of a band of “violent activists” who “conceive of themselves as having a sort of charismatic, prophetic authority.” He likened it to the Jewish underground that plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock in the 1980s.

“He doesn’t accept the validity of Israeli law, he doesn’t accept the validity of civic morality — all the restraining factors are weakened or gone,” Professor Fischer, who is also a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, said in an interview. “When some religious, political ideal is violated, they believe that if they act as a spring to correct it or respond to it, then they have religious validity, they are duty-bound to act. Whatever it takes to correct the situation.”

It was unclear whether Mr. Ettinger was suspected of any connection to the masked men who witnesses said set fire to two homes in the West Bank village of Duma early Friday, killing 18-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsheh and leaving his parents and 4-year-old brother critically injured. That attack has been condemned worldwide and across the political spectrum in Israel, where the security cabinet on Sunday directed law enforcement agents to “take all necessary steps and to use all means at their disposal” to apprehend the arsonists and “prevent similar attacks.”

The cabinet specifically endorsed administrative detention — holding suspects for months without formal charges — a tactic used widely against Palestinians but rarely against Jews...

More.

The obvious comparison is to how Muslim society's round up their religious extremists who commit terrorist atrocities, or not.

Freewater Diving Champion Natalia Molchanova Presumed Dead

Oh, this is horrible.

At the Mirror UK, "Natalia Molchanova: Freewater diving champion missing presumed dead following practice session in Ibiza."

And at the Heavy, "Natalia Molchanova Missing: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know."

Dennis Prager on the Nuclear Agreement Between the United States and Iran

He's the best.

Watch, via Prager University, "The Iran Nuclear Deal."

Video Shows the Beginning of Saudi-Led Coalition's Ground War in Yemen

It's from Russia Today, via Foreign Policy.

Watch: "Yemen: Hundreds of Saudi tanks roll out of Aden to bolster Hadi loyalists."

University of New Hampshire's Idiotic Bias Free Language Guide

From Ezra Levant, at Rebel Media.

And see College Insurrection, "U. New Hampshire Language Guide Says the Word ‘American’ is Problematic," and "University of New Hampshire Drops Language Bias Guide."

New Emily Ratajkowski Photo Shoot by Mario Testino

At London's Daily Mail, "‘I was having a lot of fun as a sexual person’: Emily Ratajkowski displays her ample assets in racy GQ shoot as she talks men, nudity and THAT Blurred Lines video."

And at GQ UK, "Instagram's It-girl Emily Ratajkowski on the celebrity iCloud hack and Blurred Lines' similarities to Marvin Gaye."

Plus, watch the video, "Instagram's It-girl Emily Ratajkowski Shot by Mario Testino."

Vans Skateboarding Final Highlights at Huntington Beach U.S. Open of Surfing

This is way cool, although I don't know how these cats can skate without any safety equipment, man.

Outrage as City of Huntington Park Appoints Two Illegal Aliens to Civic Commissions (VIDEO)

The approving hard-copy headline at this Los Angeles Times report reads, "Huntington Park Charts Bold Path for Immigrants."

But actually, it's just one more example of how California has metastasized into one big sanctuary-state monstrosity.

At Twitchy, "Wait, wut? Illegal immigrants appointed to city council in Huntington Park, Calif."

And at CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Tempers Flare When Huntington Park Appoints 2 Undocumented Immigrants to City Commissions."

Northern California Rocky Fire Continues to Grow, Threatens Homes

At the Sacramento Bee, "In blaze near Clear Lake, strategy calls for fighting fire with fire":

MIDDLETOWN - Using fire to fight fire, crews ignited controlled burns Monday to sear brush from the path of a ravenous blaze near Clearlake that has devoured more than 62,000 acres of woodlands and forced thousands of residents to flee.

The Rocky fire, spanning parts of Lake, Colusa and Yolo counties, is the largest and most challenging of 20 active wildfires in California. Many broke out amid a week of scorching temperatures and lightning storms that ignited more than 300 blazes in numerous counties.

On Monday, fire officials said the Rocky fire still threatened more than 5,000 houses. Its unpredictability has forced authorities to issue mandatory or advisory evacuation notices for more than 13,000 residents. Twenty-four houses and 26 outbuildings have been destroyed.

Residents of the Lake County community of Spring Valley were the latest to be evacuated, with officials knocking on doors late Sunday.

Pat and Barbara Jiron grabbed important documents, treasured belongings and their beloved Chihuahuas, Little Bear and Coko, and drove to Middletown High School, where the American Red Cross had opened a shelter.

On Monday, as Pat Jiron, 77, worked on a few crossword puzzles and Barbara Jiron, 67, held a book in her lap, they reflected on the adrenaline they felt in escaping the fire.

“We drove up to the top of a hill and could see flames shooting 20, 30, 40 feet high in several spots,” Pat Jiron said. “It was so black – like a thunderhead.”

Firefighting helicopters hovered overhead as he spoke a day later. He looked afar at a growing plume of gray smoke and said, “Oh, God, that doesn’t look good.”

The Rocky fire, which began Wednesday afternoon east of the Lake County town of Lower Lake, has forced the closure of a major intrastate connector, Highway 20 between Interstate 5 in Williams and Highway 53 in Lake County.

On Monday afternoon, several spot fires leaped Highway 20 near the Walker Ridge area of Colusa County as a vast deployment of firefighters and materiel responded. “We’re working feverishly to contain it to that area,” said Steve Swindle, a Ventura County fire official acting as a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

As Cal Fire officials said the blaze was only 12 percent contained Monday, spokesman Daniel Berlant said crews were creating dozens of backfires in the hopes of destroying fuel in the path of the blaze “so the punch of the fire is slowed down enough to allow our crews to get in there and for our air tankers to drop retardant and water.”

Keep reading at that top link.

Father of 9-Year-Old Bat Boy Kaiser Carlile Speaks to Media (VIDEO)

An unbelievably sad story, at the Wichita Eagle, "Chad Carlile spoke about his son Kaiser during a press conference on Monday."

Also, "Kaiser Carlile was the spark plug behind Liberal Bee Jays baseball."

And at Memeorandum, "NBC World Series suspends use of bat boys after death of Kaiser Carlile."

Plus, at KWCH 12 News Wichita, "Teammates remember bat boy killed in on-field accident: Players rallying around Carlile family."

At 26 Percent, Donald Trump Holds 2-to-1 Lead Over Jeb Bush in Latest Monmouth University Poll

Jeez, he's got a 2-to-1 margin over his closest rivals.

Some experts are conceding that Trump could win the nomination.

At Monmouth's page, "NATIONAL: TRUMP WIDENS LEAD: GOP voters prefer two split-field debates over a “Top Ten”":

West Long Branch, NJ – Donald Trump has widened his national lead in the latest Monmouth University Poll of Republican voters and now holds a more than 2-to-1 advantage over his nearest rivals, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. The poll also found that few GOP voters like the idea of a “Top Ten” debate, with many preferring back-to-back debates with the field randomly split in half.

When Republicans and Republican-leaning voters are asked who they would support for the GOP nomination for president, Donald Trump leads the pack at 26%, with Jeb Bush (12%) and Scott Walker (11%) following behind. The remainder of the “top ten” includes Ted Cruz (6%), Mike Huckabee (6%), Ben Carson (5%), Chris Christie (4%), Rand Paul (4%), Marco Rubio (4%), and John Kasich (3%). Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry each earn 2% and Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Jim Gilmore each get 1% or less. Another 10% of GOP voters say they still are unsure who they will support for the party’s nomination.

Compared to the Monmouth University Poll released three weeks ago, Trump’s support has increased by 13 points. Walker’s support has increased by 4, while Bush and Cruz have decreased by 3 points. No other candidate’s support has changed by more than 2 percentage points, but the undecidedvote went down by 8 points...

More.

Also at Politico, "With debate looming, Trump has huge lead in new poll."

Deals on Girls and Boys Fashion

At Amazon, Shop Fashion - Girls' Clothing.

And Shop Fashion - Boys' Clothing.

Plus, I've finished Bruce Levine's, Fall of the House of Dixie, and as noted, I'm starting Robert O'Connell's, Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman.

And thanks again for shopping through my Amazon links.

Enjoy your summer reading!

Ronda Rousey's Fear of Fighting

Well, she sure didn't seem so afraid on Saturday night.

See the Independent UK, "Ronda Rousey used jibe about her father's suicide to defeat Bethe Correia."

And here's a knockout GIF, "FOR RODDY PIPER. ROWDY RONDA KO IN 34 SECONDS! #UFC190."

And watch, at Sports Illustrated:

Joe Biden Said to Be Taking New Look at Presidential Run

There's a lot of buzz on a potential Joe Biden bid for the Democrat nomination.

But we'll see. We'll see.

At Politico, "Hillary Clinton backers skeptical of Joe Biden run."

And at WaPo, "Sorry, folks: Joe Biden is not running for president."

Still more at the Atlantic, "The 2016 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet."