USC to Play Penn State in Rose Bowl 2017

I pulled my USC Rose Bowl post yesterday because I got confused about the process. (My apologies.)

But it's all clarified now.

USC will play Penn State on January 2nd in Pasadena.

Both teams have huge winning streaks. USC's got an 8-game winning streak since starting 1-3 on the season. Penn State's currently running a 9-game winning streak, so the Rose Bowl match-up promises to be one of the most exciting of the New Year's "Big 6."

See the USC Trojans sports page, "No. 9 USC Football To Play No. 5 Penn State In 2017 Rose Bowl."

And at LAT, "USC earns Rose Bowl berth, capping dramatic turnaround":

@LindseyThiry can you tell me how USC is in the rose bowl? I thought the winner of the PAC-12 goes. UW is 4 so why isn't it Colorado?

— Andrea Cajuste (@GoodLooknNSmart) December 4, 2016

After Pac-12 Champ goes to CFP, Rose Bowl takes next highest ranked team, which ended up being USC (Beat UW & CU, plus CU lost badly to UW) https://t.co/ZitiBZ96Jm

— Lindsey Thiry (@LindseyThiry) December 4, 2016

The return to the Rose Bowl culminates a stunning turnaround for USC, which lost 52-6 to Alabama in the season opener, then dropped games on the road to Stanford and Utah. The Trojans finished the season with a 9-3 record.

During that stretch, pundits speculated about Clay Helton’s job security in his first season as full-time coach, and Helton changed quarterbacks, entrusting the offense to Sam Darnold. The redshirt freshman quarterback dropped his first start to Utah on a late comeback, but he has not lost since, becoming one of the most effective quarterbacks in the nation.

USC dominated its last eight games, winning by an average margin of almost 20 points. It played in only one close game late, against Colorado, when USC turned the ball over four times. But USC still would’ve won that game by two scores if not for a late knee by JuJu Smith-Schuster, who opted to end the game rather than score an unnecessary touchdown.

USC and Penn State first met in the Rose Bowl in 1923, resulting in a 14-3 USC win. They didn't meet again until 2009 for a 38-24 USC win.

Neither team has been back to Rose Bowl since. In the interim, each team was rocked by some of the most crippling NCAA sanctions in the organization’s history — USC for its student-athletes accepting impermissible benefits, Penn State for its wide-ranging child sexual abuse scandal.

USC will make its record 34th appearance in the bowl game, where it has a 24-9 record. Penn State will make its fourth. It has gone 1-2 all-time.

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."




Also at Theo's, "Cartoon Roundup..."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Money For Nothing."

'Queering God: Feminist and Queer Theology', at Swarthmore College

The campuses will be the craziest places in America for the next four years, at least. They were already crazy, but the coming Donald Trump administration is driving these kooks off the ledge.

At the Other McCain, "Guess What Swarthmore College Will Teach Your Children for $63,550 a Year?":

"We're here, we're queer, for $63,550 a year!"

Well, it helps to have a sense of humor about things, that's for sure.

High School Romance PSA (VIDEO)

At AdWeek, "Can You Figure Out the Mystery Inside This Remarkable Ad About High School Love?"

Via Hot Air, "Video: The “Evan” high-school romance ad":

All I’ll say is that sometimes you need to tip your cap to Team Blue for an advocacy job well done.

Click through to watch. And watch it before you read the articles. You'll never figure it out ahead of time!

Seriously. Just watch, lol.

Donald Trump Can Remake the Courts

One of the most exciting things for the coming year: what's going to happen at the Supreme Court, to say nothing of the lower federal courts.

I've been attending meetings on campus, and far-leftists in the sociology department are freaking out over the Supreme Court's threat to Roe vs. Wade, "marriage equality" (as if the Court's going to roll back not one but two recent decisions guaranteeing same-sex marriage), and homosexuals ("electroshock conversion therapy").

I mean really, they've gone hysterical. It's a serious problem on my campus, and around the nation as a whole.

In any case, at the Hill, "Trump gets chance to remake the courts":

President-elect Donald Trump has a chance to stack the courts with conservative judges, thrilling Republicans who suddenly have the opportunity to remake the judicial system.

Conservatives watched with dismay as Congress confirmed 327 of President Obama’s judicial nominees, fearing it would further entrench liberal control of the courts.

Now the tables have turned.

Trump could come into office with around 117 judicial vacancies to fill, and unlike Obama in his first term, will need only 51 votes in the Senate to confirm his nominees.

Democrats eliminated filibusters for most federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments in 2013. Now only a simple majority, rather than 60 votes, is required to advance a nominee.

It was a power play that helped Democrats confirm Obama’s court picks when they held the majority. Now Republicans stand to benefit from the rule change, as there will be little Senate Democrats can do in the minority to stop Trump’s nominees.

“What goes around comes around,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) told The Hill this week.

“When you’re short-sighted and you think your majority is going to continue forever then you’re bound to be surprised when voters put you in the minority, so it counsels prudence and a longer view rather than short-term gratification.”

Republicans say Democrats only have Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to thank for the situation they will soon find themselves in.

“Here’s the irony of it: He changed the rules and we don’t want to break the rules to change the rules unlike what he did,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

“He put us in this position, and I’m sure he thought a lot about it before he did it.”

Of the 99 current judicial vacancies, 13 are openings on courts of appeals and 85 are on district courts, according to the Alliance for Justice, which is tracking the data...

Keep reading.

And see, "Trump says he'll announce Supreme Court pick 'very soon'," and "Pence details Trump’s ambitious agenda for first 100 days."

Shop Deals of the Day

At Amazon,

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BONUS: Nicholas Eberstadt, Men Without Work: America's Invisible Crisis.

Austria Dodges a Bullet: Voters Reject Far-Right Candidate Norbert Hofer (VIDEO)

I don't care who Austria elects actually, although Norbert Hofer isn't so much "far-right" as "not-leftist," and that freaks out Europe's open-borders socialists.

I do care about Marine Le Pen's election, though, and don't actually expect her to win. Leftist parties will form a common front if she makes it to the final runoff, and they'll unify and elect an anti-rightist consensus candidate that purportedly rejects the "far-right hatred."

In any case, at Telegraph U.K., "Austria election: Norbert Hofer concedes defeat as independent rival takes clear lead in the polls":

Norbert Hofer, the leader of Austria’s far Right Freedom party, has conceded defeat in the country's presidential elections.

Mr Hofer, who would have been the first far-right leader in the European Union, accepted defeat after exit polls showedMr Van der Bellen, the Green party backed candidate, with 53.6 percent of the vote.

The projection put Mr Hofer on 46.4 percent. Electoral officials said votes left to count would not affect the result, although the margins may change slightly.

Keep reading.

I imagine that margin's a little to close for comfort for a lot of leftists. It's comfortable, but not a blowout. So-called far-rightists will be emboldened to double-up on their efforts, in Austrian and around the E.U.

Chip and Joanna Gaines, The Magnolia Story

Following up, "Boycott BuzzFeed."

And more from AoSHQ, "Religons of the World and What is Acceptable."

As they say, success is the best revenge, and it turns out that Chip and Joanna Gaines have a non-fiction bestseller, at Amazon, The Magnolia Story:

Are you ready to see your fixer upper?

These famous words are now synonymous with the dynamic husband-and-wife team Chip and Joanna Gaines, stars of HGTV’s Fixer Upper. As this question fills the airwaves with anticipation, their legions of fans continue to multiply and ask a different series of questions, like—Who are these people?What’s the secret to their success? And is Chip actually that funny in real life? By renovating homes in Waco, Texas, and changing lives in such a winsome and engaging way, Chip and Joanna have become more than just the stars of Fixer Upper, they have become America’s new best friends.

The Magnolia Story is the first book from Chip and Joanna, offering their fans a detailed look at their life together. From the very first renovation project they ever tackled together, to the project that nearly cost them everything; from the childhood memories that shaped them, to the twists and turns that led them to the life they share on the farm today.

They both attended Baylor University in Waco. However, their paths did not cross until Chip checked his car into the local Firestone tire shop where Joanna worked behind the counter. Even back then Chip was a serial entrepreneur who, among other things, ran a lawn care company, sold fireworks, and flipped houses. Soon they were married and living in their first fixer upper. Four children and countless renovations later, Joanna garners the attention of a television producer who notices her work on a blog one day...

Keep reading, at Amazon.

Oakland Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire

Horrific tragedy.

In fact, it's possibly criminal.

At LAT, "Site of deadly Oakland fire is known as the GhostShip."

So far, 4 bodies have been removed from the burned Oakland warehouse as cadaver dogs are brought in to help https://t.co/TNi6iunyrB pic.twitter.com/FCs5j8UJJs

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 4, 2016

Here's why officials don't know how many people died in the Oakland warehouse fire https://t.co/ahFsbIQ8TQ pic.twitter.com/bcQgADDEP5

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 4, 2016

Don't Miss Out - Shop Today's Deals Now!

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Ph.D. Student Allegedly Murders U.S.C. Professor Bosco Tjan, Co-Director of Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center

Absolutely horrific.

Seems like we get a story like this once a year at least. Remember UCLA had the murder-suicide shooting in June.

In any case, at LAT, "USC PhD student accused of fatally stabbing professor on campus."

The person suspected of stabbing a USC professor to death on campus yesterday is a 28-year-old PhD student https://t.co/2vQDossmyN pic.twitter.com/T1mvDycZrs

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 3, 2016

The USC psychology professor who was stabbed to death on campus joined the faculty in 2001. His name was Bosco Tjan. https://t.co/2vQDossmyN

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 3, 2016

Thanks to Everyone Who's Shopped Through My Amazon Links [BUMPED]

The response has been great!

I appreciate it so much. Remember I blog as a hobby. I have a regular job, heh.

But reader support on Amazon's been so good I feel like I must be doing something right.

Thanks again.

Here's the link for ongoing savings, Cyber Monday Deals and Specials.

BONUS: Out February 17th, from Steven Hayward, Patriotism Is Not Enough: Harry Jaffa, Walter Berns, and the Arguments that Redefined American Conservatism.

Bowe Bergdahl Asks Obama for Pardon

Just wow.

That takes some gumption, but then, Bergdahl's dad (seen hugging Obama in photos) is an Islamist, so maybe it's not a long shot after all.

At the Washington Examiner, "Bergdahl asks Obama to pardon him before Trump takes office."

Previous Bergdahl blogging here.

Democrats Risk Irrelevance If They Don't Change Their Ways

At U.S. News and World Report, "The Problems With the Left: Democrats risk becoming irrelevant if they don't change their ways":

Democrats have a policy problem too: the left's disconnect with voters on issues that matter is profound. For example, President Obama gave a cover-story interview to Rolling Stone magazine that came out this week on his legacy and the "path forward." Apparently the leader of the Democratic Party didn't think the "path forward" needed to include any discussion of defeating the Islamic State group, a strong national defense or reducing the burden of $20 trillion of national debt on young people. In fact, if you look at Pew Research's list of issues that the majority of voters described the day after the election as "very big problems," almost none of them – terrorism and crime, for starters – are mentioned by him.

On immigration, Obama did admit this: "It's going to be important for Democrats and immigration-rights activists to recognize that for the majority of the American people, borders mean something." For most Americans, Obama talking about border security is a day late and a dollar short. He defended the administration's "big-heartedness" when it came to immigration policy, but added that "we tend to dismiss people's concerns about making sure that immigration is lawful and orderly." What an understatement. Democrats paid dearly on Election Day for that tendency to be dismissive of people's concerns.

Exhibit 2 of the disconnect: "When I turn over the keys to the federal government to the next president of the United States, I can say without any equivocation that the country is a lot better off: The economy is stronger, the federal government works better and our standing in the world is higher," Obama said. But, polls show the American people feel the opposite. During the interview, Obama mentioned the Koch brothers and Fox News more than he mentioned race relations, tax reform or rebuilding infrastructure. At least he didn't get into access to bathrooms or gun control.

Instead, he engaged in long discussions of climate change and legalization of marijuana – Exhibits 3 and 4 – with Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner. I had broken my self-imposed boycott of Rolling Stone to read the interview – as a UVA graduate, I'm still disgusted at the way the magazine promoted the completely false story of a gang rape at the school. So don't get me started on Obama's praise for Rolling Stone's "great work."

Exhibit 5. Democrats should be grateful for Tim Ryan's wake-up call this week. Whether it's candidate recruitment across the United States, new leadership in Washington, or a pivot to issues that really matter to voters, the Democrats have a lot of work to do. If they don't start to change – and fast – they risk going beyond disconnected to irrelevant and insignificant.

RTWT.

Boycott BuzzFeed

At AoSHQ, "Boycott Part 1: Boycott All of Buzzfeed's Advertisers. Note Them, List Them, Write to Them Telling Them You'll Never buy Their Products Again Until They Cut all Ties With Buzzfeed."

Cited there: Paul Szoldra, of Business Insider:

Crap like that BuzzFeed piece is why so many people reflexively hate the media.

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) November 30, 2016

https://t.co/tmrOCGenUA pic.twitter.com/URYfCjg6IT

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) December 1, 2016

Also at Twitchy, "BuzzFeed’s New Excuse for the HGTV Story Isn’t Fooling Anyone."

J. D. Vance TED Talk: America's Forgotten Working Class (VIDEO)

I finished the book over the weekend.

See, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

I can see why it's gotten such a buzz. I especially loved the last 60 or 70 pages, where Vance discusses his education, from Ohio State to Yale, as well as meeting his future wife. He drops a lot of sociological theory and such. I liked it.

Here's his TED talk from October. He's an interesting guy:

Splits in the 'Alt Right'

These people can just go away. Their 15 minutes are up.

Interesting take, though.

From Matt Pearce, at LAT, "The 'alt-right' splinters as supporters and critics agree it was white supremacy all along":

"When people start throwing Nazi salutes in public, it has a way of clarifying where everybody stands." https://t.co/34tOe68o69

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) November 30, 2016

When people start throwing Nazi salutes in public, it has a way of clarifying where everybody stands.

The loosely defined “alt-right” movement — made up of social-media-savvy white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, misogynists and other fringe figures who supported Donald Trump’s election — has splintered in recent weeks as less hard-core supporters distance themselves from the term.

At the same time, critics and media outlets have moved to avoid using the phrase “alt-right,” saying it’s a deceptive new term for old far-right ideologies that have traditionally been shunned in American public life.

And among die-hard fascists, the writing is on the wall.

“The alt-right is and has always been the same thing as it is right now – a white identity movement,” Andrew Anglin wrote at the Daily Stormer, a popular neo-Nazi site. “Looks like we finally have this term for ourselves. Finally.”

The shift came after a meeting of white nationalists inside the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington on Nov. 19, where members threw Nazi salutes and shouted, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”

The man they were saluting was the white nationalist who coined the term “alternative right,” Richard Spencer, who had just given an anti-Semitic speech in which he quoted Nazi propaganda and called the United States a “white country.”

One white nationalist called it “the Heil Heard Around the World.” Coverage of the Nazi salutes went viral, and public reaction was severe.

Readers denounced news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, for not portraying Spencer and his supporters in a harsher light. The left-wing investigative magazine Mother Jones, which ran a deep profile of Spencer in October, was criticized for titling its piece, “Meet the Dapper White Nationalist Who Wins Even if Trump Loses.” The word “dapper” was soon removed from the headline.

Frustration also boiled over inside the mainstream media.

One Politico editor, Michael Hirsh, resigned last week after posting Spencer’s addresses on Facebook and telling followers to "Stop whining about Richard B. Spencer, Nazi, and exercise your rights as decent Americans,” according to comments first reported by the Daily Caller.

“He lives part of the time next door to me in Arlington. Our grandfathers brought baseball bats to Bund meetings,” Hirsh wrote, alluding to Jewish Americans who attacked Nazi sympathizers before World War II. “Want to join me?” (Politico’s top editors denounced Hirsh’s remarks.)

Trump himself disavowed the alt-right in a meeting with New York Times journalists, telling them, “It’s not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized I want to look into it and find out why.”

Among the alt-right’s less hard-core associates, the coverage of the Nazi salutes has been like a light suddenly turned on in a dark room. They scattered, issuing clarifications and recriminations along the way.

Paul Joseph Watson, an editor for the conspiracy-minded site InfoWars, said in July that he was “in the alt-right,” but then denied it last week, going on to argue that two different factions of the group had emerged.

“One is more accurately described as the New Right. These people like to wear MAGA [Make America Great Again] hats, create memes & have fun,” Watson wrote on Facebook, criticizing mainstream media for focusing on Trump’s racist supporters. “They include whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos, gays and everyone else. These are the people who helped Trump win the election.

“The other faction likes to fester in dark corners of sub-reddits” — a reference to branches of the social-media site Reddit — “and obsess about Jews, racial superiority and Adolf Hitler. This is a tiny fringe minority. They had no impact on the election.”

Some white nationalists themselves have a term for the split: the alt-right versus the “alt-lite.”

White nationalists are alt-right and right-wing sites like Breitbart News and its chairman, the new White House advisor Stephen K. Bannon, are alt-lite, according to Brad Griffin, a white nationalist who blogs under the pen name Hunter Wallace at the site Occidental Dissent.

“Steve Bannon is the most important figure in the alt-lite,” Griffin wrote. “We all see Breitbart as the premier alt-lite website which has popularized a diluted version of our beliefs.”

Breitbart News, which channels a more nationalistic form of mainstream conservatism, gained notoriety over the last year both for implicitly supporting Trump’s candidacy and for Bannon’s proud announcement to Mother Jones in August, “We're the platform for the alt-right.”

Left-wing critics have called the site a front for white nationalism and anti-Semitism, which its staffers have vigorously denied...

The leftist media went batshit crazy over the "alt right" a couple of weeks ago, and leftists have glommed onto the "racist" meme like it was going out of style. And it's so stupid. It's like Paul Joseph Watson says, the genuine racists are at the fever swamps , a tiny fringe, with no influence whatsoever. But to progs you'd think we were back in the 1930s.

Perpetual Leftist Victims

Aww, isn't that precious?

Leftists are sad because their votes in the big urban strongholds and coastal enclaves "don't count."

Joan Walsh is such a loser. Eight years of attacking conservatives as flyover rubes and now the shoe's on the other foot.

I'm just all torn up about this.

Kneejerk animosity toward/dismissal of NY & CA, as if 60 million Americans are an asterisk inside an "elite" "bubble," is deep, dumb, ugly.

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) November 26, 2016

We have to change this. Our votes don't count. https://t.co/zMdpQZwx8K

— Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) November 27, 2016

Please Say 'Merry Christmas'

It's December everybody!

It's a wonderful time of year!

Merry Christmas!

From Dennis Prager, one of the better Prager University videos I've seen:

Lauren Southern: Millennials Should Embrace Tradition (VIDEO)

She's a good lady.

She name checks Charles Murray's book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.

I Voted for Hillary. And Now I'm Going to Write for Breitbart

This is interesting.

It's Greg Ferenstein, who I've never heard of.

But trying to get a handle on what makes the other side tick sounds like a plan.

At Politico, "We can’t ignore the voices that put Trump in the White House. But maybe we can persuade them."

And here's the dude's first piece at Breitbart, "Ferenstein: My Search for Data on Trump Supporters and Racism."

Donald Trump and the Emoluments Clause

This has been something of a topic, but it hit home with I was having a discussion with my department chairwoman this week.

Here's Louise Mensch, at Heat Street:

President-Elect @realDonaldTrump Addresses #Emoluments Clause, Promises to 'Leave' His Business https://t.co/gtZI6ZQ3b8

— Heat Street (@heatstreet) November 30, 2016

Also, via the Heritage Foundation, "Emoluments Clause."

Nice Lady

Heh.

Found on Twitter:

🎣 pic.twitter.com/humaz7jZvX

— Country Girls (@DownHomeGirls) November 28, 2016

Laura Ingraham Discusses Trump's Cabinet Picks and the Ohio State Jihad Attack (VIDEO)

She's so hot.

Via Fox Business News:

Amber Lee's Chilly Morning Forecast

It's been nippy this last few mornings.

I mean, I like it, but you better have a jacket with you, heh.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles, the lovely Ms. Amber:

Standing Rock is the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time

Heh.

Following-up from earlier, "Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Just Another Chance for Idiot Leftist Hijacking and Exploitation (VIDEO)."

Leftists have to constantly turn every protest into the "civil rights issue of our time," whether it's black lives matter, the latest hurricane (OMG Katrina George Bush racism!), or push-back against the war on terror's "backlash" against Muslims. You name it.

Here's one of radical left's biggest enviro-shills, Bill McKibben, at the Guardian U.K., "Standing Rock is the civil rights issue of our time – let's act accordingly":

Representatives of more 200 Indian nations have gathered at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in an effort to prevent construction of an oil pipeline that threatens the tribe’s water supply, not to mention the planet’s climate. It’s a remarkable encampment, perhaps the greatest show of indigenous unity in the continent’s history. If Trump Tower represents all that’s dark and greedy in America right now, Standing Rock is by contrast the moral center of the nation...

Amazing, but you'd think leftists actually won the election in November. This kind of demonizing rhetoric is a major reason why the Democrats lost.

The idiots aren't learning the lessons of defeat, apparently.

Cyber Monday Deals Week in Electronics

The Black Friday and Cyber Week shopping's going great!

Thanks everybody!

At Amazon, Shop Deals in TV, Video and Audio, Camera, Photo and Video, Computers and Accessories, Computer Software, Cell Phones and Accessories, Office Electronics, Musical Instruments, Electronics Accessories and More.

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Kendall Jenner Looks Spectacular at Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

Here, "Kendall Jenner looks ravishing in racy red lingerie with matching thigh-high boots and feathered wings as she takes to the runway at Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris."

Also, "The greatest show on earth! Gigi, Bella and Kendall join Angel veterans Alessandra and Adriana as a spectacular parade of the world's top supermodels kicks off the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris."

Don't Despair

This has been my message to students since the election. Don't despair. Move on with your life and enjoy the beauty. We've survived much greater challenges in the past. We'll survive four years (maybe eight) of Donald Trump.

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Democracy’s Future? Don’t Despair!"

Democracy’s Future? Don’t Despair! - by @tobincommentary https://t.co/O05jiMBJqT pic.twitter.com/GOtyVTfMZb

— Commentary Magazine (@Commentary) November 30, 2016

Deal of the Day: Sony H.ear on Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphone

At Amazon, Sony H.ear on Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphone, Charcoal Black.

Also, in blue.

And shop DSLR Cameras.

More, Nikon D3400 w/ AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR (Black).

Also, Canon EOS Rebel T6i Digital SLR with EF-S 18-55mm IS STM Lens - Wi-Fi Enabled.

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BONUS: Out January 30th, from Anthony Esolen, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture.

It's Probably Better to Stay Off Social Media Right Now

Well, I don't even check Facebook. And on Twitter I don't seem to be growing my follower count. Nobody does the "follow Friday" roundups anymore. It's pretty hateful.

@flexlibris Just send them a copy of this ;-) pic.twitter.com/hOMKe5GMw5

— Data Janitor (@abditum) November 29, 2016

Related, and this is funny, "Southern Poverty Law Center invents lucrative new hate crime: The Trump Effect."

The SPLC's a hate group, straight up.

Hailey Clauson Black Friday

She's got the right idea.

Happy #BlackFriday… now time to go back to sleep 💤💋 pic.twitter.com/ovYQwjtpVi

— Hailey Clauson (@Hailey_Clauson) November 25, 2016

And see Drunken Stepfather, "HAILEY CLAUSON’S IN HER UNDERWEAR OF THE DAY."

Adriana Lima Road to the Runway for Victoria's Secret (VIDEO)

The fashion show airs Monday, December 5th, at 10:00pm.

I'll have babe-blogging coverage through the weekend.

Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Just Another Chance for Idiot Leftist Hijacking and Exploitation (VIDEO)

I do sympathize with the Indians, but when radical leftists hijack the protests to promote their own revolutionary/anti-capitalist agenda, they lose my support.

See the idiots Neil Young and Daryl Hannah, at the Guardian U.K., "The Standing Rock protests are a symbolic moment":

Standing together in prayer to protect water displays a deeply rooted awareness of life’s interconnected nature, and of the intrinsic value and import of traditional ways. This growing movement stems from love, it is the most human instinct to protect that which we love. An eager and engaged youth are at the core of this pipeline route resistance, learning from a population of elders who pass down unforgotten knowledge.

It is an awakening. All here together, with their non-native relatives, standing strong in the face of outrageous, unnecessary and violent aggression, on the part of militarized local and state law enforcement agencies and national guard, who are seemingly acting to protect the interests of the Dakota Access pipeline profiteers, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, above all other expressed concerns. They stand against corporate security forces, the county sheriff and the national guard. Standing while being hit with water cannons, mace, teargas, rubber bullets. Standing without weapons and praying, the water protectors endure human rights abuses in freezing temperatures. Supplies arrive from all over as the social media universe shares the heartbreaking news to the world, that an American corporate media is not free to report. Thus, it is the ugliness of corporate America, seen around the world...

Right.

The "ugliness of corporate America" made both of these two big stars in their heyday. And look at them: blithering idiots. And hypocrites too. I don't see them out there schlepping it in the sub-zero temperatures with the reservation's natives. At CBS News This Morning:

Why All That Dancing in the Streets of Miami?

From Humberto Fontova, at FrontPage Magazine:

Fidel Castro jailed and tortured political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin during the Great Terror. He murdered more Cubans in his first three years in power than Hitler murdered Germans during his first six.

Fidel Castro shattered — through mass-executions, mass-jailings, mass larceny and exile — virtually every family on the island of Cuba. Many opponents of the Castro regime qualify as the longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history, having suffered prison camps, forced labor and torture chambers for a period three times as long in Fidel Castro’s Gulag as Alexander Solzhenitsyn suffered in Stalin’s Gulag.

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara beat ISIS to the game by over half a century. As early as January 1959 they were filming their murders for the media-shock value.

Fidel Castro also came closest of anyone in history to (wantonly) starting a worldwide nuclear war.

In the above process Fidel Castro converted a highly-civilized nation with a higher standard of living than much of Europe and swamped with immigrants into a slum/sewer ravaged by tropical diseases and with  the highest suicide rate in the Western hemisphere.

Over TWENTY TIMES as many people (and counting) have died trying to escape Castro’s Cuba as died trying to escape East Germany. Yet prior to Castroism Cuba received more immigrants per-capita than almost any nation on earth—more than the U.S. did including the Ellis Island years, in fact.

Fidel Castro helped train and fund practically every terror group on earth, from the Weathermen to Puerto Rico’s Macheteros, from Argentina’s Montoneros, to Colombia’s FARC, from the Black Panthers to the IRA and from the PLO to AL Fatah.

Would anyone guess any of the above from reading or listening to the mainstream media recently?

In fact, from their reactions, all that dancing in the streets of Miami’s Little Havana this week-end seems to strike some talking heads as odd, if not downright unseemly.

But prior to the big news this week-end many of those same celebrants could be found with itchy noses and red-rimmed eyes ambling amidst long rows of white crosses in Miami’s Cuban Memorial.  It’s a mini-Arlington cemetery of sorts, in honor of Fidel Castro’s murder victims.

The tombs are symbolic, however. Most of the bodies still lie in mass graves dug by bulldozers on the orders of the man whose family President Obama just consoled with an official note of condolence.

Some of those future celebrants were often found kneeling at the Cuban Memorial, others walking slowly, looking for a name. You might remember a similar scene from the opening frames of “Saving Private Ryan.” Many clutched rosaries. Many of the ladies would be pressing their faces into the breast of a young relative who drove them there, a relative who wrapped his arms around her spastically heaving shoulders.

Try as he might not to cry himself, this relative usually found that the sobs wracking his mother, grandmother or aunt were contagious. Yet he was often too young to remember the young face of his martyred father, grandfather, uncle, cousin -or even aunt, mother grandmother– the name they just recognized on the white cross.

“Fusilado” (firing squad execution) it says below the name– one word, but for most visitors to the Cuban Memorial a word loaded with traumatizing flashbacks.

On Christmas Eve 1961, Juana Diaz Figueroa spat in the face of the Castroite executioners who were binding and gagging her. They’d found her guilty of feeding and hiding “bandits.” (Castro and Che’s term for Cuban peasants who took up arms to fight their theft of their land to create Stalinist kolkhozes.) Farm collectivization was no more voluntary in Cuba than in the Ukraine. And Cuba’s kulaks had guns–at first anyway. Then the Kennedy-Khrushchev pact left them defenseless against Soviet tanks, helicopters and flame-throwers. When the blast from Castro’s firing squad demolished Juana Diaz’ face and torso, she was six months pregnant.

Rigoberto Hernandez was 17 when Castro’s prison guards dragged him from his jail cell, jerked his head back to gag him and started dragging him to the stake. Little “Rigo” pleaded his innocence to the very bloody end. But his pleas were garbled and difficult to understand. His struggles while being gagged and bound to the stake were also awkward. The boy had been a janitor in a Havana high school and was mentally retarded. His single mother had pleaded his case with hysterical sobs. She had begged, beseeched and finally proven to his “prosecutors” that it was a case of mistaken identity. Her only son, a boy in such a condition, couldn’t possibly have been “a CIA agent planting bombs.”

“Fuego!” and the firing squad volley riddled Rigo’s little bent body as he moaned and struggled awkwardly against his bounds, blindfold and gag. “We executive from Revolutionary conviction!” sneered the man whose peaceful death in bed President Obama seems to mourn.

Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets from the firing squad shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro’s theft of their humble family farm.

According to the scholars and researchers at the Cuba Archive, the Castro regime’s total death toll–from torture, prison beatings, firing squads, machine gunning of escapees, drownings, etc.–approaches 100,000. Cuba’s population in 1960 was 6.4 million. According to the human rights group Freedom House, 500,000 Cubans (young and old, male and female) have passed through Castro’s prison and forced-labor camps. This puts Fidel Castro political incarceration rate right up there with his hero Stalin’s.

It’s not enough that liberals refuse to acknowledge any justification for these Miami celebrations. No, on top of that here’s the type of thing the celebrants are accustomed to hearing from the media and famous Democrats:

“Viva Fidel! Viva Che!” (Two-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination Jesse Jackson, bellowed while arm in arm with Fidel Castro himself in 1984.)

"Fidel Castro is very shy and sensitive, I frankly like him and regard him as a friend." (Democratic presidential candidate, Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, and “Conscience of the Democratic party,” George Mc Govern.)

“Fidel Castro first and foremost is and always has been a committed egalitarian. He wanted a system that provided the basic needs to all Cuba has superb systems of health care and universal education…We greeted each other as old friends.”  (Former President of the United States and official "Elder Statesman” of the Democratic party, Jimmy Carter.)

“Fidel Castro is old-fashioned, courtly–even paternal, a thoroughly fascinating figure!” (NBC’s Andrea Mitchell.)

“Fidel Castro could have been Cuba’s Elvis!” (Dan Rather)

"Castro's personal magnetism is still powerful, his presence is still commanding. Cuba has very high literacy, and Castro has brought great health care to his country." (Barbara Walters.)

 “Fidel Castro is one helluva guy!” (CNN founder Ted Turner.)

Ohio State University Jihad Attacker Praised al-Qaeda Preacher and Slammed America on Facebook Minutes Before Launching Campus Rampage (VIDEO)

At Pamela's, "Ohio State Jihadist Praised al Qaeda Imam and Slammed America on Facebook Minutes Before Attempting to Slaughter the Infidels."

And here's the video from last night's CBS Evening News. Kinda hard by this time to ask, "Gee, I wonder what motivated the attack?"

It's the jihad, stupid.

Barrett Brown Released

Heh.

At the Other McCain, "Notoriously Crazy Felon Barrett Brown Has Been Released From Federal Prison."

I tweeted earlier:

@PatriarchTree Barrett's out: https://t.co/3AkD6TCvT1

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 29, 2016

Back on the outside for the first time in 4 years, Barrett enjoys an Egg McMuffin. #FreeBB pic.twitter.com/bLbX21ZcTJ

— Free Barrett Brown (@FreeBarrett_) November 29, 2016

Save 20% on Digital SLR Cameras

Great for under the tree!

At Amazon, DSLR Cameras.

More, Nikon D3400 w/ AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR (Black).

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Amazon Echo on Sale for $139.99 $179.99 (Plus Free Shipping)

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Hey, it's Cyber Monday [Shopping Week].

At Amazon, Amazon Echo - White.

And shop for Amazon accessories.

Have a great day!

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Kellyanne Conway and Her Family Vacation at the Ritz Carlton in Key Biscayne, Florida

The inevitable Kellyanne Conway in a bathing suit coverage, heh.

At iOWNTHEWORLD, "Were We Interested in Kellyanne Conway in a Bathing Suit?"

Lolz.

Well somebody's interested in seeing the awesome lady in her swimming attire. It looks like she's having fun, although I'm not sure if she saw the paparazzi or not.

Peter Cozzens, The Earth Is Weeping

According to Victor Davis Hanson:

Peter Cozzens reminds us that tragedy, not melodrama, best characterizes the struggles for the American West. A moving narrative, substantial documentation, and even-handed analyses explain why The Earth is Weeping is the most lucid and reliable history of the Indian Wars in recent memory.

Hey, I love VDH.

Check Cozzens, at Amazon, The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West.

David Horowitz, The Politics of Bad Faith

All this ugly ideological warfare over the tyrant Fidel reminded me of David Horowitz's book, The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America's Future.

And of course, shop Cyber Week at Amazon.

Favorite Reader Mail

I'm telling you, I've never seen this country so unhinged.

From Carlos Lozada of the Washington Post:

Now that the election is over, I've picked my favorite piece of 2016 reader mail, courtesy of Midge from upstate NY: pic.twitter.com/tv8LXIBygX

— Carlos Lozada (@CarlosLozadaWP) November 10, 2016

Justin Trudeau, Canada's Laughing Stock

I was gathering some links on Prime Minister Trudeau, and especially liked this one, from Terry Glavin, at Macleans, "Trudeau’s turn from cool to laughing stock":

To be perfectly fair, Trudeau did allow that Castro was a “controversial figure,” and nothing in his remarks was as explicit as the minor classic in the genre of dictator-worship that his brother Alexandre composed for the Toronto Star 10 years ago. Alexandre described Castro as “something of a superman. . . an expert on genetics, on automobile combustion engines, on stock markets. On everything.” As for the Cuban people: “They do occasionally complain, often as an adolescent might complain about a too strict and demanding father.”

This kind of Disco Generation stupidity about Castro has been commonplace in establishment circles in Canada since Pierre’s time, and neither Alexandre’s gringo-splaining nor Justin’s aptitude for eulogy are sufficient to gloss over the many things Cubans have every right to complain about.

Any political activity outside the Communist Party of Cuba is a criminal offence. Political dissent of any kind is a criminal offence. Dissidents are spied on, harassed and roughed up by the Castros’ neighbourhood vigilante committees. Freedom of movement is non-existent. Last year, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) documented 8,616 cases of politically motivated arbitrary arrest. For all our Prime Minister’s accolades about Cuba’s health care system, basic medicines are scarce to non-existent. For all the claims about high literacy rates, Cubans are allowed to read only what the Castro crime family allows.

Raul Castro’s son Alejandro is the regime’s intelligence chief. His son-in-law, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Callejas, runs the Cuban military’s business operations, which now account for 60 per cent of the Cuban economy. The Castro regime owns and control the Cuban news media, which is adept at keeping Cubans in the dark. It wasn’t until 1999, for instance, that Cubans were permitted to know the details of Fidel’s family life: five sons they’d never heard of, all in their thirties.

Independent publications are classified as “enemy propaganda.” Citizen journalists are harassed and persecuted as American spies. Reporters Without Borders ranks Cuba at 171 out of 180 countries in press freedom, worse than Iran, worse than Saudi Arabia, worse than Zimbabwe.

So fine, let’s overlook the 5,600 Cubans Fidel Castro executed by firing squad, the 1,200 known to have been liquidated in extrajudicial murders, the tens of thousands dispatched to forced labour camps, or the fifth of the Cuban population that was either driven into the sea or fled the country in terror.

What is not so easy to overlook is that Fidel and Raúl Castro reneged on their promise of a return to constitutional democracy and early elections following the overthrow of the tyrant Fulgencio Batista. The Castros betrayed the revolutionary democrats and patriots who poured into Havana with them on that glorious January day in 1959. The Castros waged war on them in the Escambray Mountains until their final defeat in 1965, four full years after John F. Kennedy’s half-baked Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.

After he solidified his base in Cuba’s Stalinist party–which had been allied with Batista, Castro’s apologists tend to conveniently forget, until the final months of 1958–Fidel Castro delivered Cuba to Moscow as a Soviet satrapy. He then pushed Russia to the brink of nuclear war with the United States in the terrifying 13-day Missile Crisis of 1962.

For all the parochial Canadian susceptibility to the propaganda myth that pits a shabby-bearded rebel in olive fatigues against the imperialist American hegemon, by the time he died on Friday night Castro was one of the richest men in Latin America. Ten years ago, when he was handing the presidency to Raúl, Forbes magazine calculated that Fidel’s personal wealth was already nearly a billion dollars.
In his twilight years, Castro was enjoying himself at his gaudy 30-hectare Punto Cero estate in Havana’s suburban Jaimanitas district, or occasionally retreating to his private yacht, or to his beachside house in Cayo Piedra, or to his house at La Caleta del Rosario with its private marina, or to his duck-hunting chalet at La Deseada.

Fidel Castro was not merely the “controversial figure” of Justin Trudeau’s encomium. He was first and foremost a traitor to the Cuban revolution. On that count alone, Castro’s death should not be mourned. It should be celebrated, loudly and happily.

Also, from Melissa Tweets:

Where the left, illustrated by Trudeau and Obama, fall short over and over: they just cannot admit evil exists.

— Melissa Mackenzie 🌐 (@MelissaTweets) November 28, 2016

Listen, you morally vacuous dumbbutts, there is good and evil. Castro is not a victim of his childhood. He was a psychopathic murderer.

— Melissa Mackenzie 🌐 (@MelissaTweets) November 28, 2016

Still more at Reason, "Justin Trudeau, Castro's Death, and the Power of Twitter."

Don't Blame Racists for Electing Trump

From Jason Riley, at the Wall Street Journal, "Democrats Are Obsessed With Race. Donald Trump Isn’t":

Don't blame racists for electing Trump. Blame former Obama voters. https://t.co/reEBd5KlKx @WSJopinion @ManhattanInst @FoxNews

— Jason Riley (@jasonrileywsj) November 23, 2016

Since when does a weekend gathering of “nearly 275” white nationalists in a country of more than 320 million people warrant front-page coverage in major newspapers? Since the election of Donald Trump, apparently.

The same media outlets that insisted Mr. Trump wouldn’t beat Hillary Clinton have spent the past two weeks misleading the public about why he did. Breathless coverage of a neo-Nazi sideshow in the nation’s capital—where antiracism protesters almost outnumbered attendees, according to the Washington Post—helps liberals illustrate their preferred “basket of deplorables” explanation for Mrs. Clinton’s loss.

The reality is that Mr. Trump didn’t prevail on Election Day because of fake news stories or voter suppression or ascendant bigotry in America. He won because a lot of people who voted for Barack Obama in previous elections cast ballots for Mr. Trump this time. In Wisconsin, he dominated the Mississippi River Valley region on the state’s western border, which went for Mr. Obama in 2012. In Ohio’s Trumbull County, where the auto industry is a major employer and the population is 89% white, Mr. Obama beat Mitt Romney, 60% to 38%. This year, Trumbull went for Mr. Trump, 51% to 45%. Iowa went for Mr. Obama easily in 2008 and 2012, but this year Mr. Trump won the state by 10 points. Either these previous Obama supporters are closet racists or they’re voting on other issues...

Keep reading.

For Decades, Cuban Americans Longed to Return Home. But Now That Fidel's Dead, Not So Much

The thrill is gone, baby.

At LAT, "For decades, Cuban Americans have longed to return to a post-Castro Cuba. But now that Fidel is dead, many aren't so eager to go."

Post-Election Polarization: A Nation Divided

At CNN, "A nation divided, and is it ever":

More than 80% of Americans say US more deeply divided on major issues than in past several years, CNN/ORC poll says. https://t.co/2waDHMX1Z7

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) November 27, 2016

(CNN) - After a bruising presidential election featuring the two least liked major-party candidates in recent history, more than 8-in-10 Americans say the country is more deeply divided on major issues this year than in the past several years, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. And more than half say they are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working in the US.

The poll's findings, released Sunday, also suggest a sizable minority personally agree with both parties on at least some issues, and nearly 8-in-10 overall hope to see the GOP-controlled government incorporate some Democratic policies into its agenda....

In the wake of a surprising election night loss, Democrats express greater dissatisfaction with the way democracy in the US is working than do Republicans (63% of Democrats are dissatisfied vs. 47% of Republicans), but some of the Republican Party's core supporters express deeper dissatisfaction than the GOP as a whole.

Among white evangelicals, 60% say they are dissatisfied, 62% of rural Americans say the same, and whites without college degrees, a typically GOP-leaning group which broke heavily for Trump in the recent election, are broadly dissatisfied (61% vs. 52% among whites who hold college degrees).

The sense that the country is sharply riven is near universal, with 85% saying so overall, including 86% of independents, 85% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats. It's also sharply higher than it was in 2000 when the nation last elected a president who did not win the popular vote (64% thought the nation more sharply split then).

The share who see deeper divides now tops 8-in-10 across gender, racial, age and educational divides. The biggest difference on the question comes across ideological lines, with 91% of liberals saying the country is more divided on top issues compared with 80% of conservatives.

Peak Demand? Oil Industry Anticipates Day of Reckoning

At WSJ, "Oil Industry Anticipates Day of Reckoning":

This month, European oil company MOL Group delivered a stark message to investors: Demand for fuel in its key markets is bound to fall.

So-called peak oil demand is a mind-bending scenario that global producers such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC and state-owned Saudi Aramco are beginning to quietly anticipate. But MOL has a transformation plan that is among the most explicit responses to the trend, indicating how the landscape may change for big energy providers over the next decade.

The Hungarian company is rethinking its traditional focus on fuel supply and shifting investment to petrochemicals, the key ingredient of everyday plastic products and a sector where MOL believes growth will continue even when its fuel business falters.

Although there will still be customers for its fuel, the company reckons demand will soon flatten and then start falling in its Eastern European markets around 2030. “We see that as an inevitability,” MOL Chief Financial Officer Jozsef Simola said.

Big oil players such as Exxon Mobil Corp, BP PLC and Saudi Arabia—which is leading recent efforts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to boost oil prices—are also anticipating significant shifts in demand, though there is no consensus on the timing and their moves have been gradual. They are increasing their investment in petrochemicals, pumping more natural gas, driving down costs and even diversifying into alternative energy sources like solar power.'

Last month Shell finance chief Simon Henry caused a stir when he said the company sees oil demand peaking in five to 15 years. Shell’s latest published forecasts have consumption flattening toward the end of that period.

State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. quietly issued a report in the summer predicting that China’s oil consumption—a major driver of growth in recent decades—will begin to fall by 2030, if not sooner. Global demand is expected to follow suit.

The International Energy Agency, which advises industrialized countries on energy policy, says consumption will continue to rise for decades in its most likely scenario. But that picture shifts radically if governments take further action to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius with more stringent policies like carbon pricing, strict emissions limits and the removal of fossil-fuel subsidies. If that happens, oil demand could peak within the next 10 years, the IEA says.

“The question is more a question of when, rather than if,” Dominic Emery, BP’s vice president for long-term planning and policy, told the Economist Energy Summit in London this month. BP says oil demand could fall by the late 2020s if tougher emissions laws are enacted.

Others don’t see peak demand coming so quickly. Exxon expects consumption to grow through 2040, though at a decelerating pace. Likewise, OPEC sees demand continuing to grow beyond 2040, but acknowledges new technologies and efforts to curb climate change could mean consumption peaks within the next three decades.

Still, OPEC mainstay Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of oil, is pushing its state oil company to invest heavily in petrochemical plants around the world. The kingdom is trying to diversify away from oil, publicly list Aramco to raise money for other industries, and build a new base of renewable energy.

Peak demand “will be later than the common dates that are being thrown around, but if it does happen, because we’re building multiple engines for the economy and we’re planning for an economy beyond oil, we’ll be ready,” Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Khalid al Falih, told a conference in Istanbul last month.

Timing and preparing for peak demand are critical to companies’ fortunes. Energy producers could move too fast to adapt to shifts that are still years away. Or new technologies and policies could leave them vulnerable to changes that happen sooner than expected...

Still more.

This is all very speculative, because predictions about "peak demand" depend on what happens with "climate change" and the left's "climate change" industry. Leftists want to phase-out oil. Fine. But in the decades ahead, as the worst-case-scenarios of the doomsday climate industry don't pan out, we'll see continued robust demand for petroleum consumption.

See the Los Angeles Times for yesterday's hilarious related doomsday front-page story:

Trump seems ready to fight the world on climate change, and it could cost the U.S. https://t.co/L7ayHCqXeq

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) November 26, 2016

It's the Democrats, Not Donald Trump, Who've Racialized Politics to the Point in Which Everyone Wants to Slit Each Other's Throats

Or so it seems.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Democrats, Not Trump, Racialize Our Politics."

Cyber Monday Shopping: PlayStation 4 Pro 1TB Console and Extra Controller

Go for it.

At Amazon, PlayStation 4 Pro 1TB Console + Extra Controller Bundle.

Also, DualShock 4 Wireless Controller for PlayStation 4 - Jet Black (CUH-ZCT2).

BONUS: DMC Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition - PlayStation 4, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - PS4 Legacy Edition.

'Westworld': Season Finale Trailer (VIDEO)

Watch, at the Hollywood Reporter (but careful the spoilers at the post), "'Westworld': A Closer Look at the Season Finale Trailer."

Another spoiler alert here, "'Westworld': Arnold's Identity Revealed."

It was really good. I'm enjoying this show about as much as anything I've ever watched on HBO.

Cyber Monday Deals Week is Here [BUMPED]

I'll post this link throughout the week.

At Amazon, Cyber Monday Deals and Specials.

Cuban Exiles Celebrate in Miami (VIDEO)

All you have to do is look to Miami to get the real pulse on this historic moment. Forget leftists. They can't stand true freedom.

At CBS News 4 Miami, "Cubans in Miami Celebrate, Look to Brighter Future."

Also, "Cubans on the Island Are ‘Stunned’ as Cuban-Americans Celebrate," and "Cuban People Cautiously Optimistic After Death of Fidel Castro."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies (Thanksgiving Thursday Edition)."



Also at Theo's, "Cartoon Roundup."

Cartoon Credit: A.F. Branco, "Fearing Trump's Success."

Shop Amazon Accessories

Thanks to all of my readers and visitors for shopping through my links.

I hope everybody's having a great Thanksgiving weekend.

Shop here, Amazon 9W PowerFast Official OEM USB Charger and Power Adapter for Fire Tablets and Kindle eReaders - Plus, All Kinds of Other Stuff.

Also, AmazonBasics Apple Certified Lightning to USB Cable - 6 Feet (1.8 Meters) - Black.

BONUS: From Lynne Cheney, America : A Patriotic Primer.

Also, Best Books of the Month.

USC Finishes Season 9-3 After Horrendous Start (VIDEO)

Heh.

I wrote about the horrendous start back in September, "Lane Kiffin's Revenge: Alabama Beats USC 52-6 in Season Opener."

It wouldn't be so lopsided if the teams were to meet again today. USC's now got one of the hottest programs in the country, having won their last 8 starts, culminating with a crushing victory over Notre Dame yesterday.

And last night I was rooting for Utah over Colorado so SC would win the division. They still have a chance to go to the Rose Bowl, depending on how things shake out elsewhere. And what would the New Year be without SC in the Rose Bowl?

At LAT, "USC beats Notre Dame for eighth win in a row but will not play for Pac-12 title":

After he hurdled Notre Dame’s last defender, Adoree’ Jackson had enough time as he raced down the sideline to contemplate his touchdown celebration.

It was Jackson’s third score in USC’s 45-27 win over Notre Dame on Saturday. What was the best way to mark both USC’s stunning turnaround, from a 1-3 record to one of the hottest teams in the nation at 9-3, and the best performance of Jackson’s magnificent USC career: Front flip? Or Heisman pose?

“I told them I was going to do a front flip and then do the Heisman pose,” Jackson said. “But I was so tired from the kickoff return.”

As Jackson was celebrating (he went with the Heisman pose) a sizeable portion of the fans in attendance turned their energies to more important proceedings.

And that is how a “Let’s go Utah!” chant broke out at the Coliseum, for what was probably the first time.

To win the Pac-12 South Division, USC still needed help. Utah would kick off against Colorado shortly after the game’s end. If Utah defeated Colorado, USC would win the division.

USC’s players filed out of the locker room and marched through a postgame spread quickly after the game. Then they rushed through the rain, clutching their taco bowls, to pack into dorm rooms and apartments to watch, with disappointment, as Colorado fended off Utah, 27-22.

The outcome didn’t eliminate USC from the Rose Bowl, but it did make its path more complicated. Washington, the North Division champion, is a contender for the College Football Playoff. Colorado, the South winner, is more of a longshot.

If the Pac-12 champion reaches the playoff, the Rose Bowl would select the next best Pac-12 team, most likely based on CFP ranking. Washington was ranked No. 5, Colorado No. 9 and USC No. 12 before this weekend’s games.

Some players were keeping expectations in check.

“I think we’re going to San Antonio” for the Alamo Bowl, receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster said. “But I think the Rose Bowl, we worked so hard and we deserve it.”

The Cotton Bowl also remains an option if the Trojans ascend high enough in the rankings to earn an at-large bid.

Any of the possible destinations seemed like fantasy after September, when USC began its season 1-3, shackled with two Pac-12 losses in two tries.

Saturday evidenced the team’s evolution...

More.

Harry Stein, No Matter What...They'll Call This Book Racist

Heh.

It's a good time to break this book out again — or to put on your Christmas gift-giving list!

At Amazon, Harry Stein, No Matter What...They'll Call This Book Racist: How our Fear of Talking Honestly About Race Hurts Us All.

BONUS: ICYMI, Jamie Glazov, United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror.

Record High Polarization

At Gallup:

Record-High 77% of Americans Perceive Nation as Divided... https://t.co/AdzpqZ119S pic.twitter.com/4aXy8k6KWb

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) November 21, 2016

Apocalyptic Thought in the Age of Trump

I like this piece, from Alison McQueen, at Foreign Affairs, "The Dangers of a Doom and Gloom Mindset":

Although it seems that Trump is edging the world toward catastrophe, it's important not to be too apocalyptic. https://t.co/54ssKVOQgA

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) November 27, 2016

The third response [to the election of Donald Trump] is a full-throated embrace of the apocalyptic worldview—one that divides the world into good and evil, vilifies opponents, and pushes the battle for ultimate justice to its violent consummation. This cosmic vision animated the European wars of religion. Today, its main champion is ISIS.

It is wise to note that we have already witnessed a similar level of polarization during the U.S. presidential campaign, as both nominees attacked each other using apocalyptic rhetoric. At a rally in Ocala, Florida, Trump told his supporters, “The election of Hillary Clinton would lead, in my opinion, to the almost total destruction of our country as we know it.” In Palm Beach, he called the election “a moment of reckoning” and “a crossroads in the history of our civilization.”

Clinton and her supporters met these bleak prophecies with their own messages of doom. Clinton concluded a New York Times Magazine interview with an ominous warning, “I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse.” And Slate.com maintained a “Trump Apocalypse Watch,” which used a scale of one to four horsemen to indicate the likelihood of a Trump presidency and, by extension (and only half-jokingly), the end of the world. As the campaign drew to its bitter finale, the media played on the drama. “The end is near,” announced TIME Magazine in a headline that was both reassuring and ominous.

But if both sides fail to back down from this apocalyptic standoff, we can expect deepening polarization, mutual obstruction, and the embrace of more extreme policies and tactics. When one’s opponent poses an apocalyptic threat, almost anything goes.

That is why it is vitally important that we change our mindset. We shouldn’t see Trump’s victory as a harbinger of the apocalypse. Those who oppose Trump would do better to see it as a tragedy. A tragic worldview takes its bearings from the likes of the playwright Sophocles, the historian Thucydides, the theologian St. Augustine, and the political thinker Max Weber. Despite their deep differences, these thinkers recognize the difficulty of reaching settled solutions to our deepest disagreements. They see the dangers of both hubristic certainty and passive resignation.

Further, the tragic worldview does not deny the stakes of politics, or the reality of what can be accomplished. Instead, it calls upon us to return again and again to the work of politics—what Weber called the “strong and slow boring through hard boards.” For some, like Senate Democrats and Republicans who opposed Trump, this work will involve difficult and sometimes repugnant compromises. For others, such as governors and state legislators, city police departments, and citizens, the work of politics will call for resistance and protest.

We must arm ourselves, “with that steadfastness of heart which can brave even the crumbling of all hopes,” as Weber once counseled. “This is necessary right now, or else men will not be able to attain even that which is possible today.” The tragic worldview is not a popular one. Its insistence on seeing the world as resistant to progress, unresponsive to virtuous intentions, and capricious in its rewards for goodness does not offer much consolation. But it may be the best hope.

Heh. How Leftists Respond to People Who Voted for Donald Trump

Heh.

I meant to post this earlier. So hilarious.

pic.twitter.com/6FFZdYjR0p

— Andrew Malcolm (@AHMalcolm) November 19, 2016

Kellyanne Conway Unloads on Mitt Romney — Trump Supporters 'Feel Betrayed' (VIDEO)

She's told Donald Trump how she feels about it, so it's up to the PEOTUS.

I'm for John Bolton, who's actually a real diplomat. Besides, who more to piss off the radical left than Bolton, heh?

At Politico, "Conway unloads on Romney" (at Memeorandum).

Conway: Trump backers feel "betrayed" he is considering Romney for secretary of state https://t.co/BNYC8ijfEL https://t.co/efBPUXbUd8

— CNN (@CNN) November 27, 2016

BONUS: At Althouse, "Kellyanne Conway's almost-perfect go-to answer for anything."

Leftists Still Foaming at the Mouth Almost a Month Later

It's going to be a long four years, which I hope will be long eight years, heh.

From the letters at USA Today:

Almost a month after, leftists still foaming at the mouth: America is not great: Second Look https://t.co/dsLVmVDVNW @PatriarchTree

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 27, 2016

The Electoral College was created by our elitist Founding Fathers who did not think the common man had the wisdom to vote. And now Americans are stuck with a misogynist, racist, ignorant, bigoted money grubber as president.

Therefore, I hope for the failure of Trump and his administration. I applaud any individuals who try to bring it down. He will never be my president or the president of fair-minded Americans. The idea that Trump will be president makes me ashamed to be an American.

Reba Shimansky
New York

President Barack Obama's Statement on the Death of Fidel Castro

Is this even surprising.
O's so bad even left-wing journalists have excoriated him.

On Twitter:

Obama's statement on Fidel is so anodyne that it sanitizes his atrocities and terrible place in history pic.twitter.com/jeDhI9sDbS

— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) November 26, 2016

And see Gateway Pundit, "Compare and Contrast: DONALD TRUMP vs OBAMA on Tyrant Fidel Castro’s Death."

Emily Ratajkowski in Mexico — NSFW

At the Mirror U.K., "Emily Ratajkowski flaunts her EXTREME curves as she goes topless to entertain friends with impromptu beach dance."

And at Barstool Sports, "Emily Ratajkowski Went Topless In Cancun and It Is Probably Not Safe for Your Workplace."

Definitely not safe for work.

Humberto Fontova, The Longest Romance

Now we're getting somewhere.

I think folks'll be just fine reading Humberto Fontova.

At Amazon, The Longest Romance: The Mainstream Media and Fidel Castro.

Fidel Castro jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin during the Great Terror. He murdered more Cubans in his first three years in power than Hitler murdered Germans during his first six. Alone among world leaders, Castro came to within inches of igniting a global nuclear holocaust.

But you would never guess any of that from reading the mainstream American media. Instead we hear fawning accounts of Castro liberating Cuba from the clutches of U.S. robber-barons and bestowing world-class healthcare and education on his downtrodden citizens. “Propaganda is vital—the heart of our struggle,” Castro wrote in 1955. Today, the concept is as valid to the Cuban regime as ever.

History records few propaganda campaigns as phenomenally successful or enduring as Castro and Che’s. The Longest Romance exposes the full scope of this deception; it documents the complicity of major U.S. media players in spreading Castro’s propaganda and in coloring the world’s view of his totalitarian regime. Castro’s cachet as a celebrity icon of anti-Americanism has always overshadowed his record as a warmonger, racist, sexist, Stalinist, and godfather of modern terrorism. The Longest Romance uncovers this shameful history and names its major accomplices.

#TrudeauEulogies: Twitter Goes Nuts Over Canadian Prime Minister's #FidelCastro Comments

Just crazy.

I mean, really crazy stuff.

At Blazing Cat Fur, plus some:

Justin Trudeau’s statement on Fidel Castro’s death a revisionist embarrassment https://t.co/w7e3sI9sOP pic.twitter.com/05LBfmzfZO

— Blazing CatFur (@Blazingcatfur) November 26, 2016

History's greatest monsters are given loving Canadian-style send-offs in these #TrudeauEulogies https://t.co/iTULrwK80E

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 26, 2016

.@Blazingcatfur Twitter goes nuts over Canadian PM's #FidelCastro comments. #TrudeauEulogies https://t.co/DbgZidlzNc

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 27, 2016