Bernard Cornwell, The Pale Horseman

This one's the second entry in Cornwell's the Saxon Chronicles Series.

I found one of the books while out shopping last week. Interestingly, Barnes and Noble doesn't carry the series indoors. You have to order online.

I'll build up my collection this fall. I've got a lot of other things to read right now, but this is great!

At Amazon, Bernard Cornwell, The Pale Horseman (The Saxon Chronicles Series #2).

Olivia Culpo Bikini Pics

At Popaholic, "Olivia Culpo Knocks It Out of the Park With Her Jaw-Dropping Bikini Sexiness."

She's really hot. Maybe I should be posting Ms. Olivia more often, lol.

On Twitter:

Rhode Island girl pic.twitter.com/iA2Z0tZIVo

— Olivia Culpo (@oliviaculpo) July 27, 2017

It's coming... #PLTxOliviaCulpo 😍🌹🔥🔥 @oliviaculpo pic.twitter.com/lXrKc765at

— PrettyLittleThing (@OfficialPLT) August 15, 2017

Cherry stained lip 🍒 pic.twitter.com/z2cDruZ8Eh

— Olivia Culpo (@oliviaculpo) August 17, 2017

💋🌎 pic.twitter.com/cnweBL0ant

— Olivia Culpo (@oliviaculpo) August 20, 2017

Damn..... pizza pic.twitter.com/4mUHvJRCmW

— Olivia Culpo (@oliviaculpo) August 20, 2017

Lucy Collett on Snapchat

I'm not on Snapchat.

Shoot, I'm not on Instagram or any of these other ultra hip platforms.

That's probably for the better, lol. Society's getting too dumbed down as it is.

In any case, I guess Snapchat permits nudity (whereas not so at Instagram).

At Taxi Driver, "Lucy Collett Topless on her Snap Chat."

She goes by "Lucy Vixen" nowadays apparently, and she's on Twitter as well.

'The new leaders [of the Los Angeles Times] take over a news organization with flagging morale after years of management changes on top of huge shifts in consumer behavior that have roiled the entire newspaper industry.

Following-up on my post from Monday, "Enough is Enough: President Trump's a Threat to Our Democratic Institutions."

Perhaps the new leadership at LAT will put two and two together and figure out that wall-to-wall Trump hatred isn't the ticket to a successful business model.

Of course, they won't learn a thing. My bet is the new leadership makes the same editorial mistakes as the old leadership. Leftist Los Angeles will kill its own newspaper.

See, FWIW, "Ross Levinsohn is named the new publisher and CEO of the L.A. Times as top editors are ousted."

ESPN Pulls Announcer Robert Lee from UVA Football Game Because American Politics is FUBAR

Here's Clay Travis, at Outkick the Coverage, "MSESPN Pulls Asian Announcer Named Robert Lee Off UVa Game to Avoid Offending Idiots ." (Via Memeorandum.)

I can't even any more. Like I've said before, I can't even.

And Travis was on Tucker's last night:

Lauren Southern on Removal of Confederate Statues (VIDEO)

Here's Ms. Lauren on the hysteria over the "racist" Confederate statues.

Steven Ozment, A Mighty Fortress

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Steven Ozment, A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People.

[ADDED: I put this one on order, as I'm interested in the "German barbarians" who fought against the Roman legions in antiquity, as I mentioned earlier.]

Democrat 'Nazi Hunters' Gone Wild

You gotta read this.

R.S. McCain has the post, "Robert Tracinski Kills It," linking to an article entitled "Nazi-Hunting Fantasies Have Unhinged the Left."

This Nazi-hunting hysteria's going to turn out badly for the hard-left Democrats, as it shows them to be bankrupt --- morally, politically, philosophically bankrupt. When you have to attack everyone as a Nazi no one's a Nazi, and that doesn't reflect well on the historical memory of those who perished in the Holocaust. See, for example, Matt Vespa, at Town Hall, via Memeorandum, "Howard Dean: If You Vote Republican in 2018, You're a Racist."

Jo Beth Taylor Bikini Pics

She's an Australian television personality, at Drunken Stepfather, "Jo Beth Taylor Bikini on the Beach."

Also on Instagram, of course.

Steven Pressfield, Tides of War

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Steven Pressfield, Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War.

Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

This one's a winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

At Amazon, Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel.

Fifteen #Antifa Photos You'll Never See in the Far-Left 'Mainstream' Media

From Doug Ross, at Director Blue, "15 Antifa Photos You'll Never See in Legacy Media."

"There are no words..."#Antifa pic.twitter.com/iv3LpZcto4

— Larry Elder (@larryelder) August 20, 2017

Bushnell Legend L-Series Binoculars

At Amazon, Bushnell Legend L-Series 10x42mm Binoculars (Deal of the Day: $130.99 and FREE Shipping).

Plus, check out all of Today's Deals.

Also, Hershey's 36ct. Plus 1 Bonus Bar (37 Bars Total).

And, LÖFBERG'S KHARISMA: Roast Level 4/5, Whole Bean Coffee, 400g.

More, Seiko SSB031 Men's Chronograph Stainless Steel Case Watch.

Here, Rawlings ST5 Horween Leather Official Size Football: RAWLINGS SOFT TOUCH FOOTBALL.

Still more, Mountain House Just In Case...Classic Assortment Bucket.

And, KIND Healthy Grains Granola Bars, Oats & Honey with Toasted Coconut, Gluten Free, 1.2oz Bars, 15 Count.

BONUS: Carlo D'Este, Bitter Victory: The Battle for Sicily, 1943.

Mizzou Enrollment Plunges

I wonder why?

At Instapundit, "HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Mizzou suffering brutal long-term impacts of 2015 protests."

And from Jillian Kay Melchior, at WSJ, "Mizzou Pays a Price for Appeasing the Left":

Timothy Vaughn dutifully cheered the University of Missouri for a decade, sitting in the stands with his swag, two hot dogs and a Diet Coke. He estimates he attended between 60 and 85 athletic events every year—football and basketball games and even tennis matches and gymnastics meets. But after the infamous protests of fall 2015, Missouri lost this die-hard fan.

“I pledge from this day forward NOT TO contribute to the [Tiger Scholarship Fund], buy any tickets to any University of Missouri athletic event, to attend any athletic event (even if free), to give away all my MU clothes (nearly my entire wardrobe) after I have removed any logos associated with the University of Missouri, and any cards/helmets/ice buckets/flags with the University of Missouri logo on it,” Mr. Vaughn told administrators in an email four semesters ago.

He was not alone. Thousands of pages of emails I obtained through the Missouri Freedom of Information Act show that many alumni and other supporters were disgusted with administrators’ feeble response to the disruptions. Like Mr. Vaughn, many promised they’d stop attending athletic events. Others vowed they’d never send their children or grandchildren to the university. It now appears many of them have made good on those promises.

The commotion began in October 2015, when student activists claiming that “racism lives here” sent administrators a lengthy list of demands. Among them: The president of the University of Missouri system should resign after delivering a handwritten apology acknowledging his “white male privilege”; the curriculum should include “comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion” training; and 10% of the faculty and staff should be black.

Two weeks later, a student announced he was going on a hunger strike, and the football team refused to practice or play until the university met the demands. As protesters occupied the quad, administrators bent over backward to accommodate them, even providing a power strip so they could charge phones and a generator so they could camp in comfort. A communications instructor, Melissa Click, appeared on viral video calling for “muscle” to remove a student reporter from the quad. By Nov. 9, both the president and the chancellor of Mizzou, as the flagship Columbia campus is known, had resigned.

Donors, parents, alumni, sports fans and prospective students raged against the administration’s caving in. “At breakfast this morning, my wife and I agreed that MU is NOT a school we would even consider for our three children,” wrote Victor Wirtz, a 1978 alum, adding that the university “has devolved into the Berkeley of the Midwest.”

"Berkeley of the Midwest." Ouch.

Still more.

More Than 70 Percent of Republicans Approve of President Trump's Response to #Charlotteville

I didn't check the poll, from Brad Parscale, but since leftist mass-media polls have been slamming the president's response, I'll bet this America First survey nails it.

Trump Republican approval to Charlottesville 70%+ in swing states. Only 17% disapprove. #FakeNews just pushing their agenda. #BetterDataWins pic.twitter.com/zyHvtB051O

— Brad Parscale (@parscale) August 21, 2017

Out in Paper: J. Kael Weston, The Mirror Test

*BUMPED.*

In paperback, available at Amazon, J. Kael Weston, The Mirror Test: America at War in Iraq and Afghanistan.

G.J. Meyer, The Tudors

*BUMPED.*

G.J. Meyer, The Tudors: The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty.

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

*BUMPED.*

I don't see copies of Thomas Pynchon's books when I'm out shopping at used bookstores. But he's regularly cited in jacket blurbs and his stuff comes up on Amazon, in the "what others bought" prompts, and so forth. In any case, I'll keep looking while I'm out and about.

Meanwhile, at Amazon, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow.

Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

I finally picked up my copy.

And available at Amazon, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (National Book Award Winner) (Oprah's Book Club).

Evelyn Taft's Warm-up Forecast

Well, we keep hearing it's going to warm up, but it's been so mild this summer it's crazy. I guess I shouldn't complain. No doubt we'll get a nasty intolerable heat wave in September, and I've got to be teaching. Sometimes the air conditioning in the classrooms isn't so great. You can't set the thermostat. So, students open the windows and that makes it worse by the afternoon.

In any case, school starts next Monday. I'm enjoying my last week of lollygagging, lol.

Here's the lovely Ms. Evelyn, for KCAL 9 News Los Angeles:

Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

Radical Leftists Are Never Considered 'Fringe'

Here's this, at the far-left NYT (safe link), "The Showdown Over How We Define Fringe Views in America":

Today in the United States, sweeping majorities of the public say they support fair housing laws and the ideal of integrated schools. Nine in 10 say they would back a black candidate for president from their own party, and the same say they approve of marriage between blacks and whites. That last issue has undergone one of the greatest transformations in polling over the last 50 years. In 1960, just 4 percent of Americans approved.

More than a triumph over private prejudice, these numbers reflect changing social norms. The country hasn’t extinguished racism. But society — universities, employers, cultural institutions, the military — has made clearer over time that people who hold racist views had better nurse them off in the corner.

But these norms may be fraying. Since the last presidential election, and particularly since white supremacists rallied this month, unmasked, in Charlottesville, Va., the line between acceptable and ostracized views has started to become less stark. When President Trump declined to condemn white supremacists more forcefully, he ignited a fight that at its core is about how we define norms in America: Who gets to be part of civil society, and whose views belong on the fringe?

That fight is being waged by opposing protesters across the country and by pundits daily on TV. The president’s critics fear that he is inviting white supremacists out of the corner, helping ideas that have become widely reviled in America to be redefined as reasonable opinions — just part of the discussion.

“They are explicitly trying to do that,” Tina Fetner, a sociologist at McMaster University in Ontario, said of members of white supremacist groups. Until recently, they were ignored. But now the president is repeating their memes and the distorted versions of history that prop up their views, she said. As a result, the news media is broadly covering them, too.

“This is exactly the process of how social change happens,” Ms. Fetner said. “It’s not because all of a sudden there is more racism now than there was a few weeks ago. It’s that the absolute condemnation of those most abhorrent views is crumbling away because the president isn’t fulfilling that role.”

Ms. Fetner has studied the transformation in views on gay rights and same-sex marriage. The shifts around race and gender similarly reflect not just widening acceptance of equality, but also the rising condemnation of anyone who vocally opposes it.

Polls don’t necessarily capture how people truly feel; they capture what people are willing to say to a pollster. But the idea that some people might lie in surveys illustrates how social norms work. And political scientists suspect that part of what Mr. Trump has done, through his anti-immigrant and nativist appeals, is encourage people who might have kept silent in the past about their racist views to express them in public.

“For all these years, this is a group of people that’s been very bitter about the fact that they feel like they can’t speak,” said Sarah Sobieraj, a sociologist at Tufts. “It’s not just that their policies haven’t been popular.” And then Mr. Trump says similar things, with a powerful platform, without apology.

When norms of acceptable behavior and speech start to shift, it can disturb the shared beliefs, values and symbols that make up our culture. “It’s really all of those things that we’re watching right now — they’re all up for discussion,” Ms. Sobieraj said...

This, of course, is all B.S., because it's only the alleged "alt-right" whose views are considered "fringe" and unacceptable. You never get wall-to-wall coverage of major stories like just last week when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's son stated that radical leftists are the far bigger threat today. (See the Times of Israel, "Yair Netanyahu says leftists more dangerous than neo-Nazis.")

As I've said for years, the Democrats' motto is "no enemies on the left," and that motto is now the default position of all the major actors of the institutional left. See John Fund, at NRO (via Memeorandum), "‘No Enemies on the Left’ Is Still the Mantra of Too Many Liberals."

I haven't been following politics, or blogging politics, all that much this last couple of weeks. And you can see why. We're in the middle of an all-out war on the Trump administration and his supporters, and there's no depth the leftist mass media won't sink in its campaign against truth and decency.

Radical leftists are the real threat to American freedom, prosperity, and security. And to defeat the radical left, you have to defeat all the institutions of cultural, economic, and political domination now working against traditional America. It's a cold civil war at this point, but that's just temporary. Regular folks will only take so much before they put up a fight. And as the radical left is never satisfied (as evidenced by the current leftist campaign to remove Confederate statues from the public sphere across the country), there comes a time when you have to stand up and be held to account for your values.

That's where we are today in America. There will be blood.

Faith Goldy's Statement on #Charlottesville (VIDEO)

It turns out she made a final video at the Rebel before leaving the outlet.

Following-up, "So, the Rebel Media's Having Some Problems..."

So, the Rebel Media's Having Some Problems...

Following-up from the other day, "Faith Goldy Fired from Rebel Media."

I just saw this Reuters piece, linked at Mediagazer, "Canada's conservative Rebel Media site down after service cut." And reading it I find that, in addition to Goldy, "Several other contributors have left the online publication over the past week and some prominent conservative Canada politicians have also sought to distance themselves from the site .... The defections include co-founder Brian Lilley, who according to the Globe and Media was uncomfortable with the site's increasing harsh tone and growing association with the likes of white nationalist Richard Spencer."

Oh, ahem, that's pretty major.

So, googling around I see this piece at the Daily Caller, "Rebel Media Implodes" (safe link):

It’s chaos this week at Rebel Media, one of the few conservative media resources available in Canada.

In the last week, the news service has lost at least four employees to resignation and another to a firing while Rebel founder and editor-in-chief Ezra Levant now says he is being blackmailed over alleged misuse of fundraising dollars.

And forget the November cruise where Levant promised up close and personal interaction between Rebel personalities and supporters. Norwegian Cruise Lines is no longer sponsoring the Caribbean voyage, citing the Rebel’s politics being “inconsistent” with their own vision of the world.

New Canadian Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer cancelled a Friday interview with the Rebel, citing in a statement the need to change the “editorial directions” of the news service.

The cancellation just the latest in a series of corporate rebuffs that have hurt Rebel Media’s advertising base.

The trouble all started last weekend when headline reporter Faith Goldy — fired on Thursday — was covering the Charlottesville protest. Her on-scene commentary was perceived as favorable to the white supremacists that leadership candidates in the newly-minted United Conservative Party of Alberta began to complain and insist that the party distance itself from The Rebel.

Levant sent a memo to supporters — and obtained by The Daily Caller — on Tuesday that disaowed any support for the alt-right; but it was not enough to satisfy malcontents within the organization.

Co-founder and commentator Brain Lilley quit on Wednesday. That resignation was followed by the departures of contributors Barbara Kay and John Robson.

Levant announced Thursday that provocative right-wing commentator Gavin McInnes had also left the company.

Now Levant says he is being blackmailed by former British contributor Caolan Robertson, who released a video on Thursday on YouTube that alleges Rebel Media has been conducting dishonest fundraising campaigns for the express purposes of raising money for the organization and increasing into database...

More.

And see Ezra Levant himself, at the Rebel, "Blackmail: Setting the record straight."

It's hard out there.

Pamela Geller Banned (Then Restored) by PayPal

If anyone knows it's a multi-front war over the battlespace, it's Pamela.

See, "EXCELSIOR! PAYPAL RESTORES AFDI."

.@PayPal banned me. It's like pre-war Germany. Leftists run amok. #Boycottpaypalhttps://t.co/QxQQ0XrQzi pic.twitter.com/ayUixhMW3Z

— Pamela Geller (@PamelaGeller) August 21, 2017

Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead

At Amazon, Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead (50th Anniversary Edition).

What #PresidentTrump Gets Right About #NATO

This is great!

From Professor Michael Mandelbaum, at Foreign Affairs, "Pay Up, Europe":

Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, has a point about Europe and NATO. In May, in a speech at the alliance’s headquarters, in Brussels, he told his fellow leaders that “NATO members must finally contribute their fair share.” In July, he repeated the warning in Warsaw. “Europe must do more,” he said.

European leaders may find these demands grating, especially given Trump’s unpopularity among their constituents, but they should heed them. In recent years, Europe has become a dangerous place. In search of domestic support, Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned to aggression abroad, invading Ukraine and intervening in Syria. Since any one military adventure can provide only a temporary popularity boost, Putin will always need new victims. That makes him an ongoing threat. Just when NATO has once again become necessary for Europe’s security, however, Trump’s election has thrown the future of the U.S. role in the alliance into doubt.

For these reasons, Trump is right: to strengthen NATO and encourage the United States to continue its commitment to European security, the alliance’s European members should contribute more. Just as important for European and Western security, however, is for the United States to lead other multilateral initiatives to defend the interests and values that North America and Europe have in common. Without that leadership, Europe—and the rest of the world—will be a harsher place.

OLD MISTAKES

For the two and a half decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the word that candidate Trump used to describe NATO—“obsolete”—was largely accurate. It no longer is. In 2014, Russia put an end to the post–Cold War European peace. It invaded Ukraine, backed pro-Russian politicians in eastern European countries, and has since meddled in elections in the United States and France. This renewed aggression stems from Putin’s need for public support to sustain the kleptocracy over which he presides. During his first two terms as president, from 2000 to 2008, the skyrocketing price of oil, Russia’s largest export, allowed Putin to buy popularity. But in 2014, two years after he returned to the presidency, the price of oil collapsed. He was forced to turn to the only other reliable source of support at his disposal: aggressive nationalism. That year, in response to a popular uprising in Ukraine, known as the Euromaidan revolution, that deposed the corrupt, pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, Putin launched an invasion, initially disguised as a spontaneous reaction by local forces. Russian troops seized the Crimean Peninsula and began a campaign to support pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s eastern provinces.

Putin claimed that Russia’s actions were necessary because the Euromaidan revolution stemmed from a Western plot to isolate, humiliate, and ultimately destroy Russia. The Russian public largely believed him. His approval ratings rose sharply, and then got a further boost from his intervention in the Syrian civil war on the side of the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Although Putin and his regime bear the primary responsibility for the return of war to Europe, the West, particularly the United States, has unintentionally helped bring about this dangerous state of affairs. In the 1990s, NATO expanded eastward, against the wishes of Russians across the political spectrum, even those favorably disposed to the West, and in spite of earlier assurances by Western leaders to their Soviet and, later, Russian counterparts that no such expansion would occur.

The West also pursued other policies to which Russia objected in vain, including the U.S.-led wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq and the unilateral U.S. withdrawal in 2002 from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement that had restricted the number of missile defense systems the Soviet Union and the United States could build. Together, these initiatives created a constituency for Putin’s claim, used to justify his aggressive foreign policies, that the West was pursuing an anti-Russian campaign that he was acting to thwart.

Whereas NATO expansion mobilized Russia, it tranquilized the West. To gain domestic acceptance of the policy, Western governments portrayed it as a harmless gesture of goodwill made by an organization that was transforming itself from a defensive multinational army into a benign club of democracies. Expansion, its sponsors claimed, would require no exertion or expense on the part of current NATO members. Nor would Russia object to it, they added, in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary. These false claims have left the ultimate arbiters of NATO’s fate—the voters of the alliance’s member countries—unprepared for the renewed threat in Europe and the need for increased efforts to meet it...

Keep reading.

Demonstrators in Laguna Beach Decry Racism (VIDEO)

Normally, I'd go down to these local protests and take photos for my blog. But I quit covering these things after radical leftists physically attacked me in Anaheim a few years back. Unless I have my own posse as a security detail, I can't attend. It's too dangerous (and I'm too well-known, and thus targeted).

In any case, at LAT (FWIW), "Counter-protesters swarm rally against illegal immigration in Laguna Beach":

With protesters and counter-protesters facing off in tense confrontations across the country this weekend in the wake of the deadly clash in Charlottesville, Va., activists in Orange County wanted to try something different.

An “America First!” rally against illegal immigration was scheduled for Sunday evening. Counter-protesters, including the city’s mayor, staged their own protest but scheduled it a day earlier.

“As we’re constantly reminded to act and not react, we’re also reminded not to serve the racists’ purpose and provide them with a platform to spread their hatred,” organizers of the Saturday event wrote on Facebook.

To the several hundred protesters who showed up Saturday, Laguna Beach Mayor Toni Iseman said: “Tell your friends that being here today means you won’t be dancing with the bad guys tomorrow.”

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“They want a fight; we’re not going to engage,” Iseman said.

Still, hundreds of counter-protesters showed up anyway at the “America First!” rally Sunday evening. A police spokesman estimated the crowd of protesters and counter-protesters grew to about 2,500 — only a few dozen in that crowd were there for the “America First!” rally, billed as a vigil for victims of crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

The protests remained largely peaceful, if tense and loud, for much of the evening. As of 8:30 p.m., police had made two arrests; one counter-protester was arrested after shoving a Trump supporter, another for disturbing the peace with a knife. It was not immediately clear which side the person with a knife was protesting.

Shortly before 9:30 p.m., as the protests wound down, police escorted the “America First!” group out of the area. Police declared the event an unlawful assembly and ordered the crowd to disperse.

Crowds started gathering hours before the planned protest. The modest cluster of anti-immigration demonstrators met in a circle on the beach, separated by the boardwalk and a phalanx of police officers in riot gear and on horseback from hundreds of counter-protesters chanting and drumming from the other side. Some yelled insults between the officers’ legs.

Waving signs that read “Curb your Nazism,” protesters on one side shouted, “Immigrants welcome here” and “Hey hey, ho ho, white supremacy’s got to go.”

"It's ridiculous. I don't understand this. They're the ones with all the hate," said Jesse Hernandez, who was attending the “America First!” rally. “It's just a vigil of patriots that recognize what illegal immigration has done to some Americans."

One of his fellow “America First!” protesters yelled, "We're not Nazis!" and said what upsets him the most is that people don't understand the difference between people like him and extremists. "There are no Nazis here," he said, shaking his head.

About 200 officers from Laguna Beach, Anaheim, Newport Beach and Irvine were at the rally to try to ensure that the protests would not erupt in violence. Orange County sheriff’s deputies on horseback were also separating the crowds.

Laguna Beach police spokesman Jim Cota said authorities strategized to spread protesters along the length of the beach rather than have them build toward the waterfront...

More.

Jennifer Delacruz Enjoying Summer

Following-up, "Jennifer Delacruz's Monday Forecast."

Well, since I've been lagging on my Ms. Jennifer blogging, here's a selfie from her weekend recreation activities. What a lady!

San Diego summertime ☀️🦀#SanDiegoWX pic.twitter.com/OUFub0pP7q

— Jennifer Delacruz (@10NewsJen) August 19, 2017

Jennifer Delacruz's Monday Forecast

ABC 10 San Diego uploads these weather videos quite late, otherwise I'd be posting my lovely Ms. Jennifer in the evenings.

No matter. She's the best!

Still quite mild this August, although it should clear up later today enough to view the eclipse.

Bonnie Rochman, The Gene Machine

Following-up, "The Disturbing, Eugenics-Like Reality Unfolding in Iceland."

At Amazon, Bonnie Rochman, The Gene Machine: How Genetic Technologies Are Changing the Way We Have Kids--and the Kids We Have.

The Disturbing, Eugenics-Like Reality Unfolding in Iceland

At Quartz:

Recently, a CBS news crew traveled to Iceland, producing a report titled “Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing.” As much as it sounds like it, the headline is not clickbait or hyperbole: In Iceland, nearly every women who undergoes prenatal testing and whose fetus receives a diagnosis of Down syndrome decides to end her pregnancy. Each year, according to their sources, only a child or two is born with Down syndrome in Iceland.

Up to 85% of pregnant women in Iceland choose to take prenatal testing. The specific test in question, which CBS calls the “combination test,” takes into account ultrasound images, a blood draw, and a mother’s age to determine the likelihood that a fetus has Down syndrome. (Older mothers are more likely to have babies with Down syndrome because chromosomal errors are more likely as women age.)

In essence, pregnant women in Iceland—and presumably their partners—are saying that life with disability is not worth living. It is one thing to decide that a child who will never walk, talk, feed herself, or engage with caregivers may not have a good quality of life. But children with Down syndrome do not fit this description. If a woman doesn’t want to have a child with Down syndrome, their bar for what qualifies as a life worth living is set quite high. Are babies who are born deaf destined to lead a worthwhile life? What about babies with cleft palates, which can be corrected but leave a visible scar?

Here’s the interesting thing: Down syndrome, or Trisomy 21 as it is also called, is actually one of the less severe chromosomal conditions. Unlike many other trisomies (genetic conditions in which a person has three copies of a chromosome instead of the standard two), it’s compatible with life.

People with Down syndrome have an extra copy of their 21st chromosome, which causes intellectual delays and readily identifiable facial features such as almond-shaped eyes. But the way that Down syndrome expresses itself in an individual can be highly variable. About half of babies born with Down syndrome have heart defects that require surgical correction. Some children with Down syndrome grow up to be adults who go to college and get married; others never live independently...

More.

Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl.

Alison Weir, The Six Wives of Henry VIII

At Amazon, Alison Weir, The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

Alison Weir, The Life of Elizabeth

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Alison Weir, The Life of Elizabeth.

Female Trump Voters Defend President Trump's #Charlottesville Response (VIDEO)

NYT had this last week, "Deal Breaker for Trump’s Supporters? Nope."

Interesting.

And watch, at CBS News This Morning:

Enough is Enough: President Trump's a Threat to Our Democratic Institutions

And to think, I still subscribe to this rag of a paper. Don't ask why. I mostly just read the sports and entertainment pages nowadays. I'll blog the occasional front-page story as well. But you can see my exasperation.

From the idiot editors at LAT, "Enough is Enough." (They've been running a year-long series of editorial arguing the president's not fit for office. Yeah, we have the First Amendment, but it's still treasonous. The leftist media's been mounting an attempted coup.)

MiniJello in Instagram

Here, "MiniJello is a student at the University of Delaware and her boobs are so big that she has garnered almost 100 thousand followers on Instagram!"

She' seen taking a selfie with Bill Murray, who is a cool guy, lol.

Helen Hunt Bikini on the Beach

At Taxi Driver, "Helen Hunt in Bikini While Changing on the Beach."

10 Sailors Missing as USS John S. McCain Crashes Into Oil Tanker East of Singapore (VIDEO)

At the official Pacific Fleet Headlines, "USS John S. McCain collides with merchant ship near Strait of Malacca" (via Memeorandum).

"10 sailors missing" likely means "10 sailors trapped below the water line and presumed dead," but I'll update. Either way, it's unconscionable. This is like Groundhog's Day for the Navy. It's unacceptable.

University of Texas Removes Confederate Statues

The Austin campus is the flagship of the UT system. Authorities swept down in the cover of night to seize the statues from history.

At the Texas Tribune, via Memeorandum, "UT-Austin removes Confederate statues in the middle of the night."

And at USA Today, "University of Texas removes Confederate statues from campus."

Gareth Sampson, Rome Spreads Her Wings

At Amazon, Gareth Sampson, Rome Spreads Her Wings: Territorial Expansion Between the Punic Wars.

Big Sur by Alice Hawkins VIDEO)

"Follow Highway 1 as it traces the edge of the West Coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco – the Santa Lucia mountains rising out of dense redwood forests on one side, the Pacific Ocean crashing against the craggy shore on the other – and you will find Big Sur, where a thousand-strong community lives scattered across the landscape..."

For Love Magazine:

Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

*BUMPED.*

I'm lining up some books on British history. Like Rome, it's a big subject. Besides the general history book here or there, I'll start with the Tudors and work back and forth.

For now, though, check out Robert Tombs, at Amazon, The English and Their History.

Americans Don't Trust the Media, and for Good Reason

From Sharyl Attkisson, at the Hill:

Trust in the mass media is at an all-time low. Two-thirds of Americans believe the mainstream press publishes fake news.

Yes, there’s still much good journalism to be found, if you know where to look. Yet, ask reporters who’ve been around a while,  and many will tell you that a lot of good journalism is being left unpublished. Good journalists hate what’s happening to the news.

We have only ourselves to blame...

RTWT.

David Mattingly, An Imperial Possession

At Amazon, David Mattingly, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire.

The Left Normalizing Police Hatred (VIDEO)

It's Tomi Lahren.

Look for her to get a gig at Fox News in no time, thanks to Sean Hannity's promotion especially.

Robin Fleming, Britain After Rome

At Amazon, Robin Fleming, Britain After Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400 to 1070.

Dodgers Acquire Curtis Granderson

So I saw Curtis Granderson featured at the Dodgers' Twitter feed, and I thought "Why's he putting on a Dodger jersey? Must be doing cross-team MLB promotions, or something." Then I thought, "Wait, the Dodgers traded for Curtis Granderson?" And I googled it. Yep, they snagged the dude from the Mets. Granderson's got tremendous energy and charisma. I've seen him play clutch baseball here and there, but I've never really followed his game closely. His acquisition by the Dodgers illustrates the team's intent to win the World Series, and of course Granderson's totally stoked.

Here's Bill Plaschke, at LAT, "The Dodgers' front office swings for the fences with acquisition of Curtis Granderson":

Dodger fans, @cgrand3 has a message for you. #LetsGoDodgers pic.twitter.com/Td87uPqoqN

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) August 19, 2017

.@cgrand3 is PUMPED. 👊 #LetsGoDodgers https://t.co/gOy6Wdwb9T (via MLB Fans) pic.twitter.com/ieCpEC4v1p

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) August 19, 2017

Each game, I wear my socks high in honor of #JackieRobinson. Today I did it in a @dodgers uniform -and it felt really special #LetsGoDodgers pic.twitter.com/x9xTWcpldp

— Curtis Granderson (@cgrand3) August 19, 2017

It happened again. They did it again.

Late innings, out of nowhere, a screaming line drive, a sprint toward home, dust flies, fans gasp, victory appears.

It happened again. The Dodgers’ front office did it again.

The magic of this wondrous baseball team is nearly being matched, walk-off for walk-off, by the magic of the guys who have assembled it. Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi went deep in extra innings for the second time in less than three weeks Friday night, picking up October-honed outfielder Curtis Granderson from the New York Mets for virtually nothing, and now can there be any question?

In their third season here, Friedman and Zaidi understand Dodgers fans’ anguish. They connect with their desperation. They share their hope. They get it, and they’re going for it.

Even with the team steamrollering to what might be the best regular-season record in baseball history, possibly breaking the fabled 116-victory mark, Friedman and Zaidi are still shaking things up, adding a veteran left-handed hitter, sending down former top prospect Joc Pederson, emphasizing that their only goal is one shared by anyone who has spent the last 29 years going out of their blue minds.

“We’ll take the 11 wins in October over the 116 wins in the regular season any day,” Zaidi, the team’s general manager, said in a phone interview.

Remember when everyone was worried that they were satisfied with building for the future at the expense of today? About five minutes before the July 31 nonwaiver trade deadline, with nothing big happening, folks everywhere were beginning to gripe about two guys who cared more about the process than the present.

Then, boom, they walked it off with the deal for starting pitcher Yu Darvish, who has done just enough to help the team win all three of his starts. And now, wham, they have walked it off again by acquiring Granderson, a great clubhouse guy who has 18 home runs since May 1, who can still work up some serious exit velocity against right-handed pitching, and who has played in a dozen postseason series, including two World Series.

He is a big-swinging starting outfielder against right-handers. He is invaluable bench depth on other days. He is 36, he has seen it all, he batted .389 against the Dodgers in a 2015 division series, hit three homers in the 2015 World Series, and becomes yet another gleaming chess piece that can shine under the lights.

“He has the kind of grinding mentality that plays in October,” Zaidi said...

More.

Courtney Friel Update

Following-up from eight years ago, "Courtney Friel, Political Scientist."

She's updated her Twitter profile photo, plus another pre-broadcast selfie:

#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/wHeyGqLT8T

— Courtney Friel (@courtneyfriel) August 20, 2017

Waiting on set for the Raiders/Rams game to end so that the @KTLA news at 10/11pm can commence! #KeepItFriel pic.twitter.com/G25YrOCcq0

— Courtney Friel (@courtneyfriel) August 20, 2017

New York Times Applauds Far-Left Violence

It's Glenn Reynolds, linking Power Line, at Instapundit, "THEY’RE NOT AGAINST VIOLENCE WHEN IT COMES FROM THEIR SIDE: New York Times Applauds Far-Left Violence."

Have We Crossed a Line in Media Coverage of the Presidency?

My short answer is no. As soon as a Democrat retakes the White House, we'll be back to fawning, far-left news coverage starring journalists with Democrat bylines.

But see the Los Angeles Times, "Has the Trump presidency permanently changed how the media cover the presidency?":

Here's Kate Bolduan shutting down Corey Stewart: "Stop talking. Stop talking. Stop talking for a second. You are the guest on my show." pic.twitter.com/g1GT8bYsSz

— David Mack (@davidmackau) August 17, 2017

Quick quiz: Name just one press secretary who served under President Obama or George W. Bush.

If you’re Googling for answers, congratulations, and condolences: You’re no different than most Americans.

Now ask yourself the same question about President Trump’s administration. It’s likely you’re rattling off names as spontaneously as a freestyle rapper: Spicer, Scaramucci, Huckabee Sanders.


Drop the mike. Take a victory lap. All those hours of flipping among CNN, MSNBC and Fox, watching wall-to-wall coverage of the Trump White House and everything that touches it, have finally proved useful. Addiction has it rewards.

And make no mistake, watching cable news is no longer just a casual pastime or a way to stay informed. It’s an addiction, an American epidemic that started with a gateway drug known as the Trump presidency.

Checking in with first-name commentator anchors like Anderson, Rachel or Tucker for the latest developments, drama and crises emanating from the White House is now habit, like checking your smartphone for messages, after you just checked it two seconds ago, after you just checked it three seconds before that.

And most of what we’re getting is opinion. The phrase “let’s ask the panel” has become the mantra of the 24-hour news cycle — Trump just tweeted threats to North Korea, let’s ask the panel; the Russia probe is looking into Trump family connections with Moscow, let’s ask the panel.

Pundits may argue that President Trump hasn’t accomplished much in his first six months in office (no Obamacare repeal, no Hillary incarceration, no wall other than the one Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions bangs his head on nightly), but the Showman Trump has turned cable news into a must-see spectacle that’s hard to resist.

His lasting influence could very well be altering the way in which we consume politics and news, turning coverage of how the nation is governed into a talk show about an unhinged reality show. To quote a phrase popular with the president: It seems we’ve “crossed the red line” for how we ingest news, and it’s unlikely we’ll ever be able to turn back to simpler times, when Senate hearings were C-Span fodder and press briefings an exercise in protocol.

Americans have come to rely on the continuous feed of wacky, sad and terrifying White House moments for entertainment, even if the ultimate effect jangles nerves and overloads synapses.

When Sean Spicer resigned six months into Trump’s presidency, you could almost hear the collective disappointment — “Awe. Spicey’s out! Who and what are we going to watch next? Will they be as entertaining and outlandish?” Enter Scaramucci. Hooray! Next.

The news machine is hooked on Trump’s superlatives, which are more Barnum & Bailey circus barker (“Like the World Has Never Seen!”), John Wayne (“Locked and Loaded!”) and Cersei Lannister (“They’ll be Met With Fire and Fury”) than presidential.

“What Trump Said” and “Words Matter” were the taglines that flashed on the screen during an hour of panelist prattle devoted to Trump talk last week on prime-time CNN. Everyone from the network’s outspoken star commentator Ana Navarro to former Defense Secretary William Perry to Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio deconstructed POTUS’ ultimatums to Kim Jong Un, Trump’s threat of military intervention in Venezuela, his taunting of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (give this to Trump: He’s an equal opportunity mocker; Republicans feel it as much as Democrats).

Absent from broadcasts: Actual reportage on real news, especially if it doesn’t directly concern Trump or the partisan warfare that’s distorted our world view. Even when there is real news — like the horrific violence spurred by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va. — it’s subsumed by angry debates about what the president should have said and the frightening foothold the alt-right has gained in our nation. Lots of sound and fury to be sure, but not much significance.

All Trump talk, all the time, is a ratings bonanza. Cable’s three major news networks saw double-digit ratings growth in the second quarter of this year. MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell” are up 86% in prime-time viewership compared with the same period in 2016.

CNN saw a 39% leap in viewers ages 25 to 54, and that’s after having its most-watched first quarter in 14 years. Even Fox News, which took major hits the last year with the loss of founder Roger Ailes and its star host Bill O’Reilly, saw record numbers for daytime viewership for any cable news network.e highest-rated quarter of total day viewership

So why would they ever go back to old-fashioned “boring” coverage? And would that satisfy the need for our hourly political fix?

The wall-to-wall coverage we’ve come to expect now didn’t start with the inauguration in January. It’s been unprecedented drama all the time for the last two years, ever since Trump threw his hat in the ring for the presidency...

Still more (FWIW).

And, at the video at top, "Watch CNN's Kate Bolduan shut down a Republican Senate candidate for claiming the problem is 'the violent left'."

Let's Get One Thing Clear About #Antifa

"Antifa is an Anarcho-Communist cause."

Note to CNN and the "alt-left" fake news outfits:

Let's get one thing clear. Antifa is an Anarcho-Communist cause. Those on the left who call us "patriots", step the FUCK away. #BostonResist pic.twitter.com/fXV3mgK45j

— Boston Antifa (@AntifaBoston) August 19, 2017

CNN's Hot Take on #Antifa: 'Peace Through Violence'

From John Sexton, at Hot Air.

Fuck you @CNN.
You're done. pic.twitter.com/bmcjPJVbAK

— Patty Politics (@youngblackcon) August 19, 2017

Lol. @cnn "updated" the headline to remove the claim of "peace thru violence." You can still see it on Google. pic.twitter.com/8rUARJHwmA

— Brandon Darby (@brandondarby) August 20, 2017

What the Symbols and Slogans Used by White Nationalists and Their Counterprotesters Mean

From the fake-News Washington Post, "Deconstructing the symbols and slogans spotted in Charlottesville: Each side comes to rallies armed with chants, banners, shields and flags. Here’s a closer look at the political context and history behind the words and the logos":

Deconstructing the symbols and slogans spotted in Charlottesville https://t.co/M4gI3IrCvb

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 20, 2017

As well-coordinated and meticulously organized white nationalists converged to rally in Charlottesville, they brought with them chants, banners, slurs, shields and flags. Counterprotesters, including anti-fascist groups and local residents, church groups and civil rights leaders, had their own symbols and slogans. Each of the icons spotted carried its own political context and history.

Symbols on display ranged from exact replicas of the Confederate flag to altered versions of a National Hockey League team logo. Some date from the Crusades, while others were designed in the wake of President Trump’s election. Those marching with far-right groups were generally well organized, with many wearing group uniforms and carrying shields. Those protesting in opposition were less consistent in their branding. Here’s what was seen on the streets of Charlottesville...

Keep reading.

Harry Turtledove, How Few Remain

Well, I enjoyed American War, but little did I know about Harry Turtledove and his "Southern Victory" saga, an alternative history in which the South wins the Civil War. I swear, this is just what I need right now, lol.

More about these books later.

Meanwhile, at Amazon, Harry Turtledove, How Few Remain (Southern Victory).

Anton Myrer, Once an Eagle

This book's apparently required reading in the Marine Corps, said to be one of the best books ever written on moral leadership.

At Amazon, Anton Myrer, Once an Eagle.

Stephen Kotkin, Stalin

This is one I'm really excited about. It's out on Halloween.

At Amazon, Stephen Kotkin, Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941.

Anna Funder, Stasiland

At Amazon, Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall.

Svetlana Alexievich, Secondhand Time

At Amazon, Svetlana Alexievich, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets.

Shop Today

At Amazon, Today's Deals.

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BONUS: William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932.

Steve Bannon Out

Well, this is the crazy big news at Memeorandum.

Here's the story at the Los Angeles Times, "Steve Bannon out as Trump's chief strategist."

He's not the kind of guy to sit around and pout. Apparently he was chairing Breitbart's editorial meeting yesterday, with big plans for a post-White House agenda.

See, "Steve Bannon Speaks After White House Departure: 'I'm Going to War for Trump'." (At Memeorandum.)

Wilber Smith, River God

At Amazon, Wilber Smith, River God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt (Novels of Ancient Egypt).

Alexa Ray Joel Gets Sexy (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Margaret George, The Autobiography of Henry VIII

At Amazon, Margaret George, The Autobiography of Henry VIII - With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers: A Novel.

Anya Seton, Katherine

At Amazon, Anya Seton, Katherine.

Evelyn Taft's Solar Eclipse Forecast

She's got your epic eclipse weather forecast, lol.

The lovely Ms. Evelyn, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Richard Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed

At Amazon, Richard Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization.

ICYMI: Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song

At Amazon, Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song.

Jennifer Connelly, 46, Flaunts Age-Defying Figure in Skimpy Bright Yellow Bikini

She's nice. At London's Daily Mail, "PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: Sizzling Jennifer Connelly, 46, displays her sensational age-defying figure in a bright yellow skimpy bikini as she frolics on Ibiza beach with husband Paul Bettany."

Sizzling Jennifer Connelly, 46, displays her sensational age-defying figure in a bright yellow skimpy bikini https://t.co/vsVtWJeWo8

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) August 18, 2017

British Foreign Office Warns More Terror Attacks Likely

Millions of Brits visit Spain for summer vacation, creating a target-rich environment for Islamic State jihadists.

At London's Daily Mail, "Europol chief warns British tourists they face highest threat in Europe for a generation - but there WON'T be refunds for holidaymakers who want to cancel or come home: Foreign Office warns over one million Britons to be vigilant while visiting Spain."

Further terror attacks in Spain very likely. Best keep those light off @LaTourEiffel. In defiance, absolument. https://t.co/HteJKHTRok

— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) August 18, 2017

Islamic State Claims Responsibility for Barcelona Truck Jihad Attack (VIDEO)

At the Other McCain, "Neo-Nazi Alt-Right Trump Supporter Commits Racist Terrorism in … SPAIN?"

And Hot Air, "Second Attack: Spanish Police Kill Four Terror Suspects in Town 0f Cambrils."

More at Telegraph U.K., "Live - Barcelona and Cambrils: Terrorists planned bigger attacks, police reveal amid hunt for van driver - latest news."

Faith Goldy Fired from Rebel Media

I mentioned this before. If Rebel Media reporters go too far right, hanging out with white supremacists, and so forth, that's too much for Ezra Levant. And it's too much for me.

Faith is pretty righteous. Frankly, I'm surprised she'd go and interview with the Daily Stormer, a KKK/neo-Nazi stronghold. But it is what it is. She'll land on her feet, no doubt.

I fully support this, though. Ezra's totally pro-Israel and anti-racist, just like me.!

Here's Ezra:

Paul Joseph Watson Demonetized at YouTube (VIDEO)

I was just starting to warm up to the dude, lol.

Shop Books on Fascism

At Amazon, "Fascism."

See especially, Julius Evola, Fascism Viewed from the Right.

Mark Bray, Antifa

Out September 12. And it's certainly timely.

At Amazon, Mark Bray, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist.

Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here

At Amazon, Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here (Signet Classics).

David Horowitz, The Black Book of the American Left - Volume 4

David Horowitz, The Black Book of the American Left - Volume 4: Islamo-Fascism and the War Against the Jews.

Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg, Encounters With the Contemporary Radical Right

At Amazon, Encounters With the Contemporary Radical Right.

President Trump Puts 'Shrinking Base' Before 'National Healing'

There's so much to question about this report at the Los Angeles Times. Is Trump's base really "shrinking"? It wasn't particularly big in the first place, at around 40 percent. And why are we having a "national healing" over Charlottesville? It's not that different from the police massacres in New York and Dallas, where BLM supporters hunted down to policeman for execution. It's the national double standard that we live with today, and it's what's dividing the country. That, and the Obama administration's 8-year campaign of race grievance-mongering.

At LAT, "Trump shuns healing gestures, redoubling support for Confederate memorials and slamming fellow Republicans":

President Trump, increasingly isolated, appears caught in a cycle of anger and provocation as he pushes wider the nation’s longstanding racial and cultural divide to solidify his dwindling base of populist political support.

The latest examples came Thursday: Trump further inflamed the incendiary debate over the nation’s Confederate memorials, saying American culture was “being ripped apart” by their removal; lashed out at some perceived Senate enemies; and repeated a religiously offensive myth about an American general using bullets bathed in pigs’ blood to kill Muslim terrorists.

His fusillade came throughout the day on Twitter even as critics, including in Trump’s party, implored him to instead try to unite the nation. As the restive president ostensibly vacationed at his golf club in New Jersey, his unnerved aides were left to deal with the fallout from his tweets and verbal blasts in the days since Saturday, when white separatists provoked deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va.

For Trump, the challenge of governing has grown ever more daunting since he took office in January without the usual bounce of popularity for a new president. As his support has declined, he has relied more on his most ardent supporters, who generally are white, older, nonurban and deeply conservative.

Yet by his efforts to please the hard-right activists, the president is pushing mainstream supporters further away. Polls show his job approval rating below 40%, sometimes dipping into the low 30s, and they suggest his core support — the people who say they will never abandon him — amounts to about 1 in 4 Americans.

That base, together with some more moderate voters who hoped Trump would use his impulsiveness and business instincts to shake up Washington, allowed him to eke out a narrow electoral college victory against an unpopular Hillary Clinton. But governing has been a struggle, diminishing Trump’s leverage over congressional Republicans the more they fear his unpopularity will imperil their majorities.

Trump struck back hard with his Twitter finger Thursday from early morning on, all but endorsing the Republican opponent of Jeff Flake, a GOP senator from Arizona who has criticized him, and assailing local efforts to remove monuments to Confederate heroes.

After news broke of a terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain, the president repeated a dubious myth he previously invoked on the campaign trail, to much criticism, about a general who used bullets coated in pigs’ blood to execute insurgents in the Philippines in the early 20th century​; to followers of Islam, pigs are impure.

“Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught,” Trump tweeted. “There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!”

Trump’s quick condemnation of the Barcelona carnage as a terrorist attack, and his suggestion that Muslims were at fault, came before Spanish authorities had released conclusive information. As such, Trump’s rapid response contrasted with his slowness in calling out the white supremacists in Charlottesville — blame he rescinded on Tuesday, when he said “both sides” were culpable for violence there — and contradicted his claim in that instance that he only comments on such incidents after all the facts are known.

Trump still has not called the fatal attack in Charlottesville, in which a car driven by an alleged white supremacist plowed into a crowd, an act of terrorism...

Still more (FWIW).

Save on Cuisinart MultiClad Pro Set (8-Piece)

At Amazon, Cuisinart MCP-8NW MultiClad Pro Set (8-Piece).

Plus, check all of Today's Deals.

More, Brother MFCL2700DW Compact Laser All-In One Printer with Wireless Networking and Duplex Printing.

Here, Lamicall Adjustable Universal Phone Stand.

And, JanSport Unisex SuperBreak Backpack.

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BONUS: Neal Stephenson, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel.

Diarmaid MacCulloch, All Things Made New

At Amazon, Diarmaid MacCulloch, All Things Made New: The Reformation and Its Legacy.

Christopher Kelly, The End of Empire

At Amazon, Christopher Kelly, The End of Empire: Attila the Hun & the Fall of Rome.

Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other

Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

Cullen Murphy, Are We Rome?

This is something I've obviously been thinking about, although clearly the U.S. is a vastly more powerful empire (if we're an "empire") than Rome ever was.

But still, it's what comes to mind sometimes.

At Amazon, Cullen Murphy, Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America.

#FakeNews CNN: There'll Be Questions About Whether Barcelona Attack Was 'Copycat' of #Charlottesville

This is so stupid.

Islamic State called for "truck attacks" and any attacks deploying civilian-use weapons of mass destruction. Wolf Blitzer knows this. He's just parroting left-wing talking points, which is sad, since I've respected the guy.

Watch, at Free Beacon, "CNN: There Will Be Questions About Whether Barcelona Attack Was ‘Copycat’ of Charlottesville."

This Week's Cover at the 'New Yorker'

Okay. That's it.

I'm out for the rest of the day. You'll get books, babe, and weather reports today, and then maybe back to politics tomorrow.

Our society's gone insane.

Well, shit. pic.twitter.com/cUjFDwJdUc

— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) August 17, 2017

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

Readers will find Neal Stephenson an interesting change of pace. According to Wikipedia, "His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, and baroque."

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon.

Gigi Hadid for Vogue Korea: September 2017

I didn't even now there was a Vogue Korea. I checked it on Twitter and it was all in Korean, so it figures.

Still, this is one of the hottest Vogue covers I've seen.

At London's Daily Mail, "Playing with fire! Gigi Hadid flashes toned torso in red turtleneck and black underwear...as she graces TWO covers of Vogue Korea."

Gigi Hadid for Vogue Korea, September 2017. (4) pic.twitter.com/GhFikrTRlC

— Gigi Hadid News (@GigiHadidsNews) August 16, 2017

'For marginalized communities, the power of expression is impoverished for reasons that have little to do with the First Amendment...'

Terrible. Disgusting. Reprehensible.

I saw folks retweeting this New York Times piece this morning. It's from K-Sue Park, who's a "Critical Race Studies Fellow at UCLA School of Law for 2017-2019," of course.

See, "The A.C.L.U. Needs to Rethink Free Speech." (Safe link.)

Althouse comments:

Contextual... creative... holistic... these are the subtleties that grease the way to the end of constitutional rights.

Thanks to the ACLU for standing up for free speech where it counts — when the speaker is hated.

You can donate to the ACLU here.

Click through to hit that donate button at Althouse.

Australia Senator Wears Full Burka in Parliament

At Disneyland last week I saw a woman going around the park in a full burka, specifically with the niqab, the facial veil the covers everything except the eyes. And I'm thinking, did she have to take that off to get her picture taken? You see, when you buy your park ticket now, they scan the barcode on the ticket and take your picture. So, when you leave the park or come back in, or cross over from California Adventures to the old Disneyland, they scan the barcode and your picture pops up on the handheld device. It's really awesome technology. I noticed some of the staff don't even look at the picture, but then another (older gentleman) scanned our tickets and was very carefully looking at the mug shots.

I think it's great!

But, then there's the question? Did the lady have to take off her niqab? My wife said they just probably took the photo with the niqab on, but then anyone could put on that niqab and use her ticket to get into the park, which defeats the purpose of the technology.

In any case, this piece, at NYT, got me thinking:

A senator shocked Australia’s Parliament after appearing in a full-body burqa and advocating for its ban https://t.co/abbZ99WRZA

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) August 17, 2017