American Power

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama

I'm collecting the "Rama" trilogy.

At Amazon, Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Janet Fitch, The Revolution of Marina M.

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Janet Fitch, The Revolution of Marina M. (A Novel).

Battle for Conservatism

This is good, from Jacob Heilbrunn, at the New York Review, "Donald Trump’s Brains":

A battle for the future of conservatism is being fought. Jacob Heilbrunn pays a visit to the pro-Trump camp associated with the Claremont Institute. https://t.co/qC0iw8aEoi
— The New York Review of Books (@nybooks) December 13, 2017

The Political Theory of the American Founding: Natural Rights, Public Policy, and the Moral Conditions of Freedom
by Thomas G. West
Cambridge University Press, 420 pp., $99.99

American Greatness: How Conservatism Inc. Missed the 2016 Election and What the D.C. Establishment Needs to Learn
by Chris Buskirk and Seth Leibsohn
WND Books, 272 pp., $25.95

Billionaire at the Barricades: The Populist Revolution from Reagan to Trump
by Laura Ingraham
All Points, 307 pp., $27.99

How the Right Lost Its Mind
by Charles J. Sykes
St. Martin’s, 267 pp., $27.99

The Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In the World
by Thomas O. Melia and Peter Wehner
56 pp., available at gwbcenter.imgix.net
Among the many anomalies of Donald Trump’s presidency has been the near invisibility of institutions that for many years served as a bulwark of Republican policymaking. Though many on the right like to quote Ronald Reagan’s assertion from 1981 that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” his administration in fact began its bold work with a comprehensive playbook—the twenty-volume Mandate for Leadership, published by The Heritage Foundation. It contained a variety of proposals for slashing federal income taxes, boosting defense spending, and rolling back business regulations. It was widely seen as a blueprint for the administration, and Reagan gave a copy to each member of his cabinet. A redacted paperback version even became a best seller. “Of a sudden,” Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan declared, “the GOP has become a party of ideas.”

In subsequent years, Heritage and other conservative think tanks continued to formulate sweeping proposals. It is well known that the Affordable Care Act, so reviled by Trump and other Republicans, emerged from a market-based model that was developed by Stuart Butler, the director of Heritage’s Center for Policy Innovation, and adopted in 2006 by Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts. During the George W. Bush presidency, foreign policy experts at the American Enterprise Institute, such as Richard Perle, a Defense Department official in the Reagan administration, helped shape Bush’s response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including, most notoriously, the war in Iraq.

Under Trump, however, these institutions are struggling to adjust. Though Heritage has played an important part in recommending nominations to the judiciary, including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, its actual influence on policy seems negligible, and its members have conflicting views of Trump’s nationalist agenda. Something similar can be said about a number of other conservative think tanks in Washington, including the American Enterprise Institute, which has a number of fellows such as Jonah Goldberg who are highly critical of Trump.

The result is that many neoconservatives and establishment conservatives—ranging from Eliot A. Cohen, a former adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to David Frum, author of the new book Trumpocracy, to Stuart Stevens, the campaign strategist for Mitt Romney in 2012—have vociferously united in their loathing for Trump. They see him as a sinister mountebank who is destroying true conservative principles from within the GOP and who, incidentally, threatens to exile them to the political wilderness.

A battle for the future of conservatism is in effect being fought between these anti-Trump conservatives and pro-Trump conservatives associated with the Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank based in California, which for years has been discussing the Federalist Papers, the dangers of progressivism, and, above all, the wisdom of the German exile and political philosopher Leo Strauss, who taught for several decades at the University of Chicago. For some both in and out of government, the Trump presidency is a deliverance—or at least offers tantalizing promises of an audacious new conservative era in domestic and foreign policy...

Keep reading.

Emma Roberts Shape Magazine (VIDEO)

She's a hot chick.

Watch:

Sheer Jessica Shears

At Taxi Driver, "Jessica Shears Braless in See Through Top."

Shop Deals

At Amazon, Today's Deals.

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Plus, Samsung Electronics UN65MU7000 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2017 Model).

BONUS: Stewart Patrick, The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World.

The House has to vote again on the bill, but it looks like just a formality. This is a huge victory for the White House.

At Axios, "Trump triumphant: a consequential, lasting end to 2017" (via Memeorandum):

Trump triumphant: a consequential, lasting end to 2017 https://t.co/EmNlLJRN2M pic.twitter.com/o5ZV3BSTt1
— Axios (@axios) December 20, 2017

President Trump takes a beating in the media, but he's ending 2017 on the high note of his presidency.

The big picture: You might not like his words or actions. But measured in terms of what Republican voters want and expected, he's winning on important fronts:

* The tax bill passed with almost unanimous Republican support, before the end of the year, and in keeping with mostly mainstream conservative orthodoxy. Trump won a bigger corporate tax break than either Bush ever got, and will sign the most consequential new tax law in 30 years. And he followed through on cutting taxes for most small businesses and most Americans. He did this without losing a single GOP senator — even his harshest critics.

* He failed to repeal all of Obama's health-care law. But Trump axed the individual mandate with the tax bill, and has chipped away at other parts of the law's foundation. Again, you might hate the outcome. But it's a significant step to blowing up a program most Republicans demanded be destroyed.

* Axios health-care editor Sam Baker emails: "The smaller administrative steps Trump has taken — an executive order, cuts to enrollment outreach, ending a critical stream of funding for insurers — [are cumulatively] weakening the ACA's insurance exchanges and prompting some insurers to question whether those markets are worth the trouble."
* Trump has tilted the court rightward in lasting ways. Justice Neil Gorsuch was a substantial, conservative addition to the Supreme Court. And it wasn't a one-off: The dozen new U.S. Circuit Court judges he has named is the most during a president's first year in office in more than a century.

* Trump has followed through on eviscerating regulations, many of them imposed by Obama. He has revoked 67, and delayed or derailed more than 1,500 others.

* No matter that much of it is not of his doing, the economy has grown consistently under his watch.

* ISIS is in retreat. The N.Y. Times' Ross Douthat calls it "A War Trump Won."

More.

'Nikki Haley is on track to be our Margaret Thatcher...' (VIDEO)

It's Ralph Peters, on Fox:

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (Ret.): "@nikkihaley is on track to be our Margaret Thatcher. She's really strong... She's sticking up for truth, justice, and the American way." pic.twitter.com/J2ADep1koT
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 20, 2017

United Nations Ambassador @nikkihaley issued this warning to countries planning to vote against @POTUS's Jerusalem decision. https://t.co/XA7HenCPN5 pic.twitter.com/hNM9tcLLqW
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 20, 2017

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Melissa del Bosque, Bloodlines

This looks great!

At Amazon, Melissa del Bosque, Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty.

Erin Heatherton Wears Nothing (VIDEO)

She's so dreamy.

Kate Upton for LOVE Magazine (VIDEO)

Well, no doubt the moment we've all been waiting for.

And did you know, Kate Upton's now a married woman. Yep, that lucking dog Justin Verlander nailed her down after the World Series.

At LOVE:

DUPONT, Wash. -- An Amtrak passenger train that derailed with deadly results Monday morning was traveling at more than twice the speed limit of the track, the National Transportation Safety Board reported later that night.

Bella Dinh-Zarr, a National Transportation Safety Board member speaking to reporters before midnight Monday night upon her arrival at the Sea-Tac International Airport, reported that data from the train's rear engine marked the train's speed at 80 mph. Sound Transit confirmed to SeattlePI that the Interstate 5 overpass south of Tacoma where the crash occurred carries a 30 mph speed limit.

Amtrak president Richard Anderson told reporters that positive train control — the technology that can slow or stop a speeding train — wasn't in use on the stretch of track in Washington state where the deadly derailment occurred.

Anderson spoke on a conference call with reporters and said he was "deeply saddened by all that has happened today."

NTSB crew members arrived in Seattle shortly before midnight and said their first full day of investigation would begin Tuesday.

They had yet to interview any of the train's personnel. Investigators planned to collect on-scene information preserved by local authorities for the next seven to 10 days and issue a report with their findings, possibly up to a year or more from now...

Keep reading.

Monday, December 18, 2017

Alexis Ren by LOVE Magazine (VIDEO)

She's pretty amazing.

Sunday, December 17, 2017

Feminism, 'Heterophobia', and #MeToo

This is really good, from Daphne Patai, at Minding the Campus, "'We Made This (Harassment) Law Up From the Beginning and Now We've Won."

RELATED: At the Other McCain, "The Sexual Harassment Apocalypse."

How 'White Nationalism' Picked Up Steam

Take this piece with a grain of salt. I mean, c'mon, they're relying on the Southern Poverty Law Center, for crissakes.

At USA Today, "How white nationalists tapped into decades of pent-up racism to spark a movement":

The "alt-right" movement didn't happen overnight https://t.co/0ZDeiwQWVU
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) December 17, 2017

This summer's seemingly overnight arrival of the self-described "alt-right" and white nationalist groups — marked most prominently by a deadly car attack at the August "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va. — drew worldwide headlines, but the movement simmered for decades before it burst into public view.

Underlying that shift from society's fringes to center stage is a new strategy that taps into the frustrations of white people angry at a society they say has marginalized them and a new political landscape that appears to give voice to their cause.

President Trump’s election last year became a major rallying point for white nationalists, who watched as the Republican repeatedly amplified some of their views in campaign rallies and tweets.

“It just absolutely electrified this community,” Keegan Hankes, an analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hates groups, including the KKK. “They really felt like they had someone to rally behind.”

The Charlottesville attack that heads to a grand jury Monday has done little to dim the movement. In recent months, white nationalists have orchestrated numerous controversial public appearances, fought and won high-profile legal battles with universities and dominated the airwaves.

Building on this newfound interest, white nationalists deployed tactics borrowed from the generations-old KKK and today’s far-left groups and adapted media techniques often used against them.

Kyle Bristow, a self-described "alt-right" activist and attorney for high-profile white nationalist Richard Spencer, said large corporations, the government and academia that “relentlessly” attack the nation's traditional values have only prompted the movement's growth.

“Middle America is rallying to the flag of the alt-right,” he said. “Older generations recognize that America is no longer the place that it once was or could be, and people of this generation tend to be more conservative in trying to reclaim the America that was lost."

'Proud to be white'

The movement's most prominent figure, Spencer, executive director of the white nationalist National Policy Institute, has helped the so-called alt-right dominate cable television coverage and Internet discussions for months, prompted a national debate about whether it’s wrong to be “proud to be white” and provoked liberal activists and university officials alike to anger with his speaking appearances in New York, Florida and California.

The term "alt-right" covers a loosely defined group whose far-right ideology includes racism, populism and white nationalism. It is embraced by white supremacists, who believe white people should dominate all other races, and white nationalists, who say whites are a distinct nation that needs special political and legal protections. Critics accuse white nationalists of being white supremacists in disguise and say the term "alt-right" is a euphemism to hide racist goals.

Regardless of what name they choose, exact estimates on how many people associate with the movement are difficult to ascertain. Many followers say they're reluctant to be publicly identified because they fear losing their jobs or being attacked for their beliefs.

But the Southern Poverty Law Center says the murkiness serves a purpose — it allows white nationalists to conceal whether their movement is truly a groundswell or just a highly effective but tiny group of people.

Online followings provide a glimpse of white nationalists' reach. The law center says more than 300,000 people are registered as users on the oldest white nationalist site, Stormfront, which bills itself as "the voice of the new, embattled white minority." Spencer's Twitter account has more than 80,000 followers, not all of whom necessarily connect with the movement.

White nationalists argue in online postings that the inclusiveness and diversity espoused by the country’s public school teachers, mainstream media and liberal arts universities wrongly silences their voices. They repeatedly post comments on social media that they want to say “I’m proud to be white” without reprimand and don't understand why it’s OK for someone to declare “Black Lives Matter” but not “European settlers made America great.”

Experts say the movement emphasizes free speech, while downplaying its end game: A United States run by and for white people, with minorities either marginalized or removed.

Adam Leggat, a security consultant who monitors protesters worldwide for the Densus Group, said the words are starting to translate into action. "From an outsider’s perspective what has been happening at the protest events is an extension of the polarization in U.S. politics that has been occurring over the last 10 years or so. It has been stoked by a great deal of scaremongering in some sections of the media and particularly on social media."

Online communities have played a major role in the development of modern-day white nationalist movements, and the benignly named The Foundation for the Marketplace of Ideas plays a key role in sharing those voices. The foundation lists freedom of speech, religion and equality before the law among its tenets, but adds: "We are engaged in a total war in a fight for the existence of our people, and scorched earth tactics is morally proper in this existential struggle. Arguably, it is immoral to not do everything and anything to further the interests of our people.”

Critics say that hateful agenda poses a major danger to the American values of individual freedom, equality and tolerance.

“White nationalism is inherently an ideology of violence," Hankes said. "There’s no peaceful path to that.”

Redirection, victim-blaming and other tactics

Despite lip-service to scorched-earth tactics, white nationalists today have left behind many of the deeply controversial and condemned symbols of the past in favor of more subtle messages to lure in new members.

They use many of the KKK’s tactics, such as invoking the protection of white culture and values, while studiously avoiding the white hoods, cross-burnings and torches of the past. But they’re also using strategies borrowed from left-wing groups and anarchists, including mass protests and suing anyone who responds to their taunts and insults.

More.

Friday, December 15, 2017

A.J. Baime, The Accidental President

At Amazon, A.J. Baime, The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Headless Chicken Leftists?

I'd prefer headless leftists, actually, but then I'd be like Robespierre, or something, heh.

Seriously, this is good, at CounterPunch, "The Year of the Headless Liberal Chicken."

Our in-house pundit's round-up of the year in bull goose looneyism ... https://t.co/qqvg61pkif
— Consent Factory (@consent_factory) December 10, 2017

This may be the first and last time I positively refer to something in Counterpunch, but @CJHopkins_Z23 has written a brilliant piece on the dangers of having tried to Hitlerize @realDonaldTrump and its backfiring. https://t.co/aNzESLdKW8
— Richard Klagsbrun (@KlagsbrunTO) December 13, 2017

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Native American Activists Score Elaborate Washington Redskins Name Change Hoax

And why not? Everything's fake news nowadays.

Memeorandum picked this up as if it was a real story at the Washington Post, "Native Leaders Celebrate a Victory as Washington Football Changes Mascot to the Redhawks."

Native Leaders Celebrate a Victory as Washington Football Changes Mascot to the Redhawks (Washington Post)https://t.co/BQ0XUDO0e4 https://t.co/JzFX0mVdKP
— memeorandum (@memeorandum) December 13, 2017

But see USA Today, "Native advocacy group stages elaborate Washington Redskins name change hoax":

A group of Native advocates called the Rising Hearts Coalition created an elaborate series of fake news articles and websites mirroring major outlets to make it seem like the Washington Redskins announced the organization has changed its controversial name to become the “Washington Redhawks.”

A page designed to look like an exact replica of the Washington Post declared “Native Leaders Celebrate a Victory as Washington Football Changes Mascot to the Redhawks,” but a closer look at the site’s URL reveals that it’s not a genuine article. Similar fabrications representing Sports Illustrated, ESPN and Bleacher Report articles have also been circulating around social media.

The group responsible for the hoax also launched a rebranded team website, WashingtonRedhawks.com.

Redskins owner Daniel Synder has said the team will never change its name, citing the organization’s “great tradition.” The Redskins addressed the hoax Wednesday afternoon.

In a press release, the group responsible announced it will host a press conference in front of RFK Stadium Thursday.

Today's Shopping

At Amazon, Today's Deals.

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BONUS: James Jones, Go to the Widow-Maker.

Jews Targeted in Sweden (VIDEO)

Ezra Levant, at the Rebel:

The Plot to Take Down President Trump (VIDEO)

Here's Laura Ingraham, from last night:

GOP Sees Difficulties in Trump Country

Well, I wasn't all invested in this race, but still. Alabama? A Democrat hasn't won there in 25 years?

At LAT, "In stunning 2017 defeats, Republicans see vision of difficulties in 2018":

Tonight's analysis: Democrats have learned to weaponize enthusiasm and cut a path to 2018. For Republicans, the last year has proved a reversal of fortunes: https://t.co/qbC6ulot06
— Cathleen Decker (@cathleendecker) December 13, 2017

Democrats who opened the year clashing among themselves and lamenting President Trump's election have closed 2017 with victories that demonstrated their ability to weaponize party enthusiasm and draw a template for success in a sharply competitive battle for Congress in 2018.

For Republicans, Tuesday night's stunning loss by Roy Moore in Alabama's Senate race — the first GOP loss in a Senate race there in a generation — underscored a bleak passage of time: A year that began in unified control of Washington has ended with the party bitterly split and redefined in the worst of ways, saddled with an unpopular president and a Senate candidate accused of child molestation.

The problems begin with Trump, for whom Moore's defeat represented a third straight repudiation.

The first came in September in Alabama, where Trump ambivalently backed incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, who lost to Moore in the Republican primary. Then Trump endorsed Republican Ed Gillespie in Virginia's gubernatorial race, only to have him lose by nearly double digits last month to Democrat Ralph Northam.

Finally, Trump transferred his Alabama endorsement to Moore and watched him lose in a state that has been ruby red for decades.
Even in Alabama, a state he won by 28 percentage points, Trump was unable to ease his candidate over the finish line. Exit polls Tuesday indicated one reason: Voters even in this heavily Republican state were closely split between approval and disapproval of Trump.

That's an ominous sign for Republicans heading into the midterm election. The key races next year will take place in states that are far less favorable to Trump than Alabama.

Related to Trump's broad unpopularity is the fact that his party is fractured. Those divisions began with the primary battle, which the president's former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who strongly backed Moore, helped turn into a referendum on the party's Senate leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The splits only deepened after the Washington Post published accusations that Moore had fondled and kissed girls as young as 14 when he was a local prosecutor in his 30s.

The Republican National Committee and the party's Senate campaign committee pulled its backing from Moore after the Post story. When Trump, urged on by Bannon, decided to endorse Moore, the national committee returned to support him. The Senate committee declined to follow suit.

On election night, Moore's chief strategist, Dean Young, took off not against Jones or even the typical targets, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, but against McConnell.

"I tell Sen. McConnell this: The people of Alabama are having an election tonight, and he should not overturn the people of Alabama," Young said, anticipating that a victory by Moore might be followed by a Senate Ethics Committee investigation.

On Tuesday night, it was clear that the bitter feelings among Republicans are likely to carry over to 2018 and beyond.

"The polls have been closed for 90 minutes & GOP could actually lose Senate seat. In ALABAMA," Alex Conant, a former spokesman for Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, tweeted Tuesday night. "No matter what happens next, hard to overstate what a huge political disaster this is for Moore-apologists like Trump, let alone Moore-champions like Bannon."

Moreover, in Alabama, and earlier in Virginia, Republicans found that arguments they have counted on to dispatch Democrats — that they are soft on crime, the military, immigration, guns and religion — no longer guarantee success...

More.

Hailey Baldwin Balancing (VIDEO)

At LOVE:

E.L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, E.L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel: A Novel.

Peter F. Hamilton, The Reality Dysfunction

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Peter F. Hamilton, The Reality Dysfunction (The Night's Dawn).

Danielle Gersh's Hot and Dry Forecast

This feels like October weather. I'm not complaining, but still. It's weird.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Volokh Conspiracy Moves to Reason.com

Well, I hate the paywall at WaPo. And while I'm not a huge fan of Reason, this move gives me ample reason to visit the site.

See, "Our move to (paywall-free!) Reason from The Washington Post."

Reason welcomes The Volokh Conspiracy! https://t.co/En6HDckU70 pic.twitter.com/8lqsgQuGsx
— reason (@reason) December 13, 2017

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Doutzen Kroes Jumping Rope (VIDEO)

For LOVE Advent:

Monday, December 11, 2017

Shopping Today

At Amazon, Today's Deals.

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Also, Samsung Gear VR w/Controller (2017) - Latest Edition - Note 8, GS8s, GS7s, Note 5, GS6s (US Version w/ Warranty).

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BONUS: Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugarman, No One Here Gets Out Alive.

Keaton Jones Bullying Video

He's an adorable kid and sympathetic, but the celebrity virtue signaling is out of control. At least the boy gets to do fun things. Screw all the celebs trying to score points off him.

The video's at the People piece:

Ricky Martin, Millie Bobby Brown and More Stars Rally Around Bullied Tennessee Student https://t.co/1T9L3CXQsT
— People (@people) December 10, 2017

Not sure which is more pathetic here, the kid or the celebrity tweets. The only way to deal with bullies is to find some courage and punch them in the face, otherwise it will never end. His mother did him no favours posting this. https://t.co/zxFBCxqWk6
— Pat Condell (@patcondell) December 11, 2017

Distracted by Phone, Woman Walks onto Parking Garage Elevator and Gets Run Over by Car (VIDEO)

This is crazy. She's lost in space!

Via the New York Post:

Terror Attack in New York City Near Port Authority Bus Terminal (VIDEO)

At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "New York Explosion Empties Port Authority; Suspect Is in Custody."

Michelle Malkin tweeted:

Here he is: the Bangladeshi-born Brooklyn botched bus bomber ==> https://t.co/UzZiExgeIe
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) December 11, 2017

A Brooklyn man has been arrested after allegedly detonating a homemade pipe bomb inside the Port Authority https://t.co/JdHgIez0Fe pic.twitter.com/QuNAxQRGv8
— New York Post (@nypost) December 11, 2017

And at CNN:

Expect updates.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

President Trump Watches Television: Mainstream (Lamestream) News Reporters Freak Out

What's the big deal? Trump's a former reality star host. He likes the television and entertainment, and he gets his news from the cable channels. But oh! He's an anti-intellectual boob who watches hours and hours of TV! Heaven forfend!

Here:

Trump watches four to eight hours of TV PER DAY on his “Super TiVo” — one of the great details in this well done @maggieNYT @GlennThrush @peterbakernyt story https://t.co/rw2xdMCrGn
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) December 9, 2017

Jennifer Delacruz Dry Windy Fire Warning Forecast

It was 87 degrees yesterday when I was out running errands in the early afternoon.

Oh no! Global warming!

Just kidding. It's dangerous fire weather, though.

Here's the beautiful Ms. Jennifer, for ABC 10 News San Diego:

Why the #MeToo Moment Should Be Ready for a Backlash

Heh. The backlash is coming.

At Politico (via Memeorandum).

Why the #MeToo moment should be ready for a backlash https://t.co/kYblR3sbLT via @POLITICOMag pic.twitter.com/UdHFxKkvM6
— POLITICO (@politico) December 10, 2017

Combined Army-Navy Glee Club Singing National Anthem (VIDEO)

At Red State, "AWESOME: Combined Army-Navy Glee Club Sings National Anthem."

Compare this to the bums sitting through it. https://t.co/b4Id8KmZnj
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) December 10, 2017

Wow. The combined glee club singing the National Anthem at the Army-Navy Game gave me goosebumps! pic.twitter.com/NMLtt6y8KM
— Derek (@DerekUtleyCEO) December 9, 2017

Course on Political Polarization: Jennifer Victor, Associate Professor of Political Science, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University

Here's her tweet with the readings for a class in polarization. Not a conservative tome in the bunch. Not going to ridicule her too much (some of those books are great), but I'd like to see the syllabus as well. There's a lot of excellent writing on polarization, peer-reviewed, from conservatives. Balance is more crucial than ever nowadays, but leftists don't care.

Here's her teaching page at George Mason. Don't see at particular polarization syllabus, but there are related classes.

My students and I read these 9 books this term to understand political polarization, and now I'm smarter. Thanks @chrishachen @tanehisicoates @monkeycageblog @just_shelter @cmMcConnaughy @b_schaffner and others. pic.twitter.com/aVnqA4BMmx
— Jennifer Victor (@jennifernvictor) December 8, 2017

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama

At Amazon, Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama.

The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap

An excerpt from Gerrick D. Kennedy,'s new book, Parental Discretion Is Advised: The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap.

At LAT, "The moment N.W.A changed the music world":

Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella caused a seismic shift in hip-hop when they form N.W.A in 1986. With its hard-core image, bombastic sound and lyrics that were equal parts poetic, lascivious, conscious and downright in-your-face, N.W.A spoke the truth about life on the streets of Compton, then a hotbed of poverty, drugs, gangs and unemployment. In “Parental Discretion Is Advised: The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap” (Atria: 288 pp., $26), Times music reporter Gerrick D. Kennedy traces the origins of the group that birthed the first major disruption of hip-hop during the genre’s infancy. Ice Cube once said, “Everything in the world came after this group.” In this exclusive excerpt, Kennedy details the brash arrival of N.W.A.

*****

OF THE MANY BIG BANGS that have transformed rap over the decades, N.W.A’s “Straight Outta Compton” is one of the loudest.

It was a sonic Molotov cocktail that ignited a firestorm when it debuted in the summer of 1988. Steered by Dr. Dre and DJ Yella’s dark production and Ice Cube and MC Ren’s striking rhymes, then brought to life by Eazy-E’s wicked charm, the record fused the bombastic sonics of Public Enemy’s production with vicious lyrics that were revolutionary or perverse, depending on whom you asked.

The world hadn’t heard anything like it before. Radio stations and MTV refused to add the title song to their playlists. Critics didn’t get it, couldn’t see past the language, or, worse, refused to acknowledge it as music. Politicians even launched attacks, working to great lengths to condemn the music and its creators.

N.W.A were to hip-hop what the Sex Pistols were to rock — and really, what’s more punk than having a name that dared to be spoken or written in full, and music that incensed a nation?

Red-faced and outraged Americans protested the group, police officers refused to provide security for its shows, and the FBI got involved, but that didn’t stop “Straight Outta Compton,” N.W.A’s debut album, from selling three million records without a radio single.

With “Straight Outta Compton,” N.W.A didn’t just manage to put its hood on the map, the group forced the world to pay attention to the rap sounds coming out of the West Coast. It’s an album that provided the soundtrack for agitated and restless black youth across America with its rough and raunchy tales of violent life in the inner city, expressed through razor-sharp lyrics.

“It was good music,” LA rap-radio pioneer Greg Mack said. “And the lyrics, they meant something.”

The emergence of N.W.A — who billed itself as the World’s Most Dangerous Group — in the late eighties provided a jolt to the rap industry. Public Enemy had already helped redefine the genre by ushering in aggressively pro-Black raps that were intelligent, socially aware and politically charged. But N.W.A opted for an angrier approach.

The group celebrated the hedonism and violence of gangs and drugs that turned neighborhoods into war zones, capturing it in brazen language soaked in explicitness. “Street reporters” is what they called themselves, and their dispatches were raw and unhinged — no matter how ugly the stories were.

Like the Beatles, N.W.A’s lineup was stacked with all-stars: Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and MC Ren would become platinum-selling solo rappers, while DJ Yella helped Dre break ground on a new sound in hip-hop.

They were the living embodiment of the streets where they were raised, and there was zero pretense about it. And when it came to subject matter, with N.W.A, politics took a backseat. Instead, frustrations about growing up young and black on the streets of South Central Los Angeles became the driving force behind their music.

Gangs, violence, poverty, and the ravishing eighties crack epidemic swept through black neighborhoods like F5 tornadoes. People were angry and restless, and without a flinch N.W.A documented its dark and grim realities like urban newsmen.

“Straight Outta Compton” was a flash point that spoke for a disenfranchised community and disrupted the order of those who were confronted with the voices and images of a community they’d much rather ignore. Black teens and young adults immersed in street life, yet looking for something to hold on to, flocked to the album. And so did white, suburban, middle-class teens who knew nothing about the “hood” or a life inside it, but looked to rap as an outlet for rebellion in the same way their parents gravitated toward the angsty countercultural attitudes percolating in rock music during the 1960s.

As unapologetically violent, misogynist, and problematic as their lyrics often were, the group’s harrowing depictions of urban nightmares provided a vital response to the growing disenfranchisement from the Reagan-era politics that had transformed the nation and created an economic catastrophe for metropolitan Los Angeles. N.W.A introduced an antihero. The way Melvin Van Peebles’s groundbreaking 1971 film “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” used America’s longstanding perception of black men as seething, violent hunks to politicize the image, N.W.A brought it to life by mixing reality with fantasy through its music — and the result was as terrifying as it was successful.

At its peak, Eazy’s Ruthless Records — a label he started strictly as a means to get off the streets — was the number-one independent label in the industry and the largest black-owned indie since Berry Gordy’s legendary Motown empire. Without Eazy laying down the foundation for hustlers-turned-record-executives, who knows if Death Row, Bad Boy, No Limit, or Cash Money could have existed. How would Jay-Z ever have known he could go from slinging crack cocaine to creating Roc-A- Fella had Eazy not done it less than a decade before?

More.

At least 46 Horses Dead Affter Lilac Fire Rips Through San Luis Rey Downs Training Facility (VIDEO)

What a nightmare.

At the San Deigo Union-Tribune, "Thoroughbred death toll rises to 46 from wildfire":

The number of horses killed at a thoroughbred training facility during North County’s Lilac wildfire has risen to 46, a spokesman for the California Horse Racing Board said Saturday morning.

A small number of additional horses remain unaccounted for after escaping from the facility, San Luis Rey Downs, in Bonsall, said the spokesman, Mike Marten.

The racing board previously put the number of horses killed at the facility at 35. The Lilac fire destroyed eight barns at the sprawling, 500-stall facility on Thursday.

Trainer Martine Bellocq also suffered second- and third-degree burns as she tried to rescue six horses from the facility. She was placed in a medically induced coma at UC San Diego Medical Center on Thursday.

Also at the Los Angeles Times, "At least 46 horses dead, others missing from thoroughbred facility after San Diego County wildfire":

Officials said about 360 surviving horses from San Luis Rey Downs were moved to the Del Mar Fairgrounds, and some 850 horses evacuated during the fires are stabled there.

A fundraiser for the San Luis Rey Downs horses on the website GoFundMe had raised nearly $478,000 as of Saturday afternoon.

Another 29 horses died at a Sylmar ranch overrun by the Creek fire Tuesday. There have also been reports of dead or missing horses and ponies from small farms and ranches throughout the region.

Santa Ana winds moved the fires so quickly and so unpredictably that those fleeing had only minutes to leave. In some cases, horse owners said they had to choose between saving themselves and their animals.

Some owners won't know the fate of their animals until evacuation orders are lifted and they can search their properties.

Lily Rose Depp at Chanel's Métiers d'Art Collection Party

At Chanel, "Kristen Stewart, Lily-Rose Depp, Marine Vacth, and Tilda Swinton at the ... #CHANELMetiersdArt 2017/18 show."

And at Taxi Driver, "Lily Rose Depp in Black Lacy Dress."

Starving Polar Bear

This is sad, but it's an astronomical leap to infer that humans caused this. We have climate change. There's been climate change throughout history. Radical leftists are anti-human, exploiting the death of wildlife to drive their anti-human agenda.

At USA Today, "National Geographic photographer shares emotional video of dying polar bear."

Also at National Geographic, "Heart-Wrenching Video Shows Starving Polar Bear on Iceless Land."

From photographer Paul Nicklen

My entire @Sea_Legacy team was pushing through their tears and emotions while documenting this dying polar bear. It’s a soul-crushing scene that still haunts me, but I know we need to share both the beautiful and the heartbreaking if we are going to break down the walls of apathy. This is what starvation looks like. The muscles atrophy. No energy. It’s a slow, painful death. When scientists say polar bears will be extinct in the next 100 years, I think of the global population of 25,000 bears dying in this manner. There is no band aid solution. There was no saving this individual bear. People think that we can put platforms in the ocean or we can feed the odd starving bear. The simple truth is this—if the Earth continues to warm, we will lose bears and entire polar ecosystems. This large male bear was not old, and he certainly died within hours or days of this moment. But there are solutions. We must reduce our carbon footprint, eat the right food, stop cutting down our forests, and begin putting the Earth—our home—first. Please join us at @sea_legacy as we search for and implement solutions for the oceans and the animals that rely on them—including us humans. Thank you your support in keeping my @sea_legacy team in the field.

Ivan Krastev, After Europe

Bye bye Brussels? One can hope.

At Amazon, Ivan Krastev, After Europe.

In this provocative book, renowned public intellectual Ivan Krastev reflects on the future of the European Union—and its potential lack of a future. With far-right nationalist parties on the rise across the continent and the United Kingdom planning for Brexit, the European Union is in disarray and plagued by doubts as never before. Krastev includes chapters devoted to Europe's major problems (especially the political destabilization sparked by the more than 1.3 million migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia), the spread of right-wing populism (taking into account the election of Donald Trump in the United States), and the thorny issues facing member states on the eastern flank of the EU (including the threat posed by Vladimir Putin's Russia). He concludes by reflecting on the ominous political, economic, and geopolitical future that would await the continent if the Union itself begins to disintegrate.

Madison Beer for LOVE Advent (VIDEO)

Here's the next installment:

Peter Matthiessen, At Play in the Fields of the Lord

At Amazon, Peter Matthiessen, At Play in the Fields of the Lord.

ICYMI: Rupert Darwall, Green Tyranny

At Amazon, Rupert Darwall, Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex.

Third World Dump: Los Angeles Democrats 'Help' the Homeless with Public Toilets

If you read the New York Times' piece from the other day, "End of Apartheid in South Africa?", you would have noticed that black South Africans still live overwhelming in the poverty-infested "townships," one of the key institutions of apartheid. One of the photos at the story showed rows of porta-potties spread along garbage-strewn streets.

Well, it turns out Los Angeles Democrats have a Third World hellhole to emulate.

At the Los Angles Times, "L.A. adds more public toilets as homeless crisis grows":

Los Angeles officials have debated for decades how best to provide for one of the most basic needs of homeless people.

For those camped in the 50-block skid row district, the streets have been an open-air restroom — with only nine toilets available overnight in recent months to as many as 1,800 people camped on sidewalks.

Over the years, the city would install bathrooms and then haul them away after they were commandeered for drug use and prostitution. Some in downtown also worried the restrooms would give a permanence to the homeless camps, and argued that in the lawless atmosphere of skid row, people would not use them.

But with homelessness at crisis proportions, the first new public toilets on skid row in more than a decade opened Monday.

The action represents a new consensus among many downtown interests about how to provide the essential service on skid row. The restrooms also are expected to help in the fight against a statewide hepatitis A outbreak spread by poor hygiene in homeless camps that has killed more than a dozen people in San Diego.

The Los Angeles facilities will be decidedly different from those in the past, both aesthetically and culturally.

A key will be having full-time attendants, whom activists are calling "ambassadors," to monitor the restrooms and make people feel welcome. Homeless advocates also hope to have a snack stand and a bench for resting and chatting with friends, as well as provide feminine hygiene products, which are in short supply on skid row.

The new approach comes as the border between skid row and the rest of downtown is shifting. High-end development is rising at skid row's doorstep, and the tent cities that once were largely limited to skid row are spreading to other parts of the city.

"In other places, the bathrooms might be seen as something that's going to attract certain behaviors or people," said Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council director Nate Cormier, a South Park resident. "We have so many people under those conditions, we're all looking any way we can to turn the tide and deal with the crisis."

The latest $450,000 facility is modest — eight toilets and six showers, operating four days a week, in a trailer on a city-owned parking lot sandwiched between two homeless housing and service agencies. In addition to attendants, the toilets will be monitored by a maintenance crew and security, which organizers hope will forestall the problems that so long soured skid row bathroom politics.

A January expansion will increase the number of showers and toilets and add laundry facilities, officials said.

At the formal opening Monday morning, Mayor Eric Garcetti underlined the community’s role in the project.

"It is for decades that this community has cried out for the need for public restrooms," Garcetti said at the event, which featured a bongo and guitar trio and a dozen other city and county officials. "We know here that this is one step, but it is a critical step."

The celebratory atmosphere was broken when a skid row activist who worked on the project tore up the city certificate of appreciation that Garcetti had handed him.

"It's 10 years late and three times short," General Dogon, a member of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, an anti-poverty group, said as television cameras rolled. "This ain't nothing to what we laid out and what we need."

At the photo at the piece, "Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti tours the new Skid Row Community ReFresh Spot hygiene center."

We should dump his head in a public toilet and see how he likes it, the ghoul.

Driving on the 405 Near the Getty Center

It's Elex Michaelson:

#SkirballFire It’s eerie driving on the 405 near the Getty Center. There are charred hillsides, white smoke and almost no traffic.

Much like the weekend of #Carmageddon, it appears people are avoiding the westside altogether. pic.twitter.com/yIcPxKZasa
— Elex Michaelson (@elex_michaelson) December 6, 2017

Friday, December 8, 2017

Rita Ora Bootylicious (VIDEO)

At LOVE Advent:

Rita Ora is the busy little bootylicious bee of the 2017 LOVE Advent line-up. Directed by Rankin, the British singer is the latest star to be revealed for the sexy festive tradition. Ora’s sultry performance is set to her latest single, Anywhere, with the GIF-style film setting pulses racing.

Isaac Asimov, Foundation

At Amazon, Isaac Asimov, Foundation.

Deal of the Day

At Amazon, Today's Deals.

More, Up to 40% Off Coleman Camping Gear.

And especially, Coleman 24-Piece Enamel Dinnerware Set.

Plus, Samsung Gear VR w/Controller (2017) - Latest Edition - Note 8, GS8s, GS7s, Note 5, GS6s (US Version w/ Warranty).

More, Olive Drab Green Warm Wool Fire Retardant Blanket, 66 x 90 (80% Wool) - U.S. Military.

Also, Carhartt Men's Arctic Quilt Lined Sandstone Traditional Coat.

Still more, Honeywell 360 Degree Surround Fan Forced Heater with Surround Heat Output, Charcoal Grey.

BONUS: Charles A. Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.

Economic Freedom Fighters

Katie Hopkins was tweeting about her supposed upcoming visit to South Africa yesterday, but those tweets have been taken down. Here's a blog post (attacking her) with some screen shots, "Katie Hopkins Joins Apartheid Deniers."

She tweeted:

“If you are a white farmer / former farmer in #SA and would be prepared to share your truths face to face - katie@katiehopkins.co.uk Jan 2018 … Thank you. I am hoping to inspire ‘real journalists’ to get off their sofa / WiFi to search for the stories that matter” she Tweeted. So what are these “stories that matter”?

She also engaged the Economic Freedom Fighters, and I checked them out. They're freakin' hardcore, man. From their "about" page":

Remembering Frantz Fanon who died on this day in 1961 #ForwardToDecolonization pic.twitter.com/I5Ml74OyMr
— EFF (@EFFSouthAfrica) December 6, 2017

1. The ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS is a radical and militant economic emancipation movement that brings together revolutionary, fearless, radical, and militant activists, workers’ movements, nongovernmental organisations, community-based organisations and lobby groups under the umbrella of pursuing the struggle for economic emancipation.

2. The EFF is a radical, leftist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement with an internationalist outlook anchored by popular grassroots formations and struggles. The EFF will be the vanguard of community and workers’ struggles and will always be on the side of the people. The EFF will, with determination and consistency, associate with the protest movement in South Africa and will also join in struggles that defy unjust laws.

3. The EFF takes lessons from the notation that “political power without economic emancipation is meaningless”. The movement is inspired by ideals that promote the practice of organic forms of political leadership, which appreciate that political leadership at whatever level is service, not an opportunity for self-enrichment and self-gratification.

4. The EFF draws inspiration from the broad Marxist-Leninist tradition and Fanonian schools of thought in their analyses of the state, imperialism, culture and class contradictions in every society. Through organic engagement and a constant relationship with the masses, Economic Freedom Fighters provide clear and cogent alternatives to the current neo-colonial economic system, which in many countries keep the oppressed under colonial domination and subject to imperialist exploitation.

5. The EFF is a South African movement with a progressive internationalist outlook, which seeks to engage with global progressive movements. We believe that the best contribution we can make in the international struggle against global imperialism is to rid our country of imperialist domination. For the South African struggle, the EFF pillars for economic emancipation are the following:

a. Expropriation of South Africa’s land without compensation for equal redistribution in use.
b. Nationalisation of mines, banks, and other strategic sectors of the economy,
without compensation.
c. Building state and government capacity, which will lead to the abolishment of
tenders.
d. Free quality education, healthcare, houses, and sanitation.
e. Massive protected industrial development to create millions of sustainable jobs,
including the introduction of minimum wages in order to close the wage gap
between the rich and the poor, close the apartheid wage gap and promote rapid
career paths for Africans in the workplace.
f. Massive development of the African economy and advocating for a move from
reconciliation to justice in the entire continent.
g. Open, accountable, corrupt-free government and society without fear of
victimisation by state agencies.

6. The EFF appreciates the role played by the fathers and mothers of South Africa’s liberation movement. The EFF draws inspiration from the radical, working class interpretation of the Freedom Charter, because, since its adoption in 1955, there have been various meanings given to the Freedom Charter. The EFF’s interpretation of the Freedom Charter is one which says South Africa indeed belongs to all who live in it, and ownership of South Africa’s economic resources and access to opportunities should reflect that indeed South Africa belongs to all who live in it. The EFF’s interpretation of the Freedom Charter is that which says the transfer of mineral wealth beneath the soil, monopoly industries and banks means nationalisation of mines, banks and monopoly industries.

7. The EFF’s interpretation of the Freedom Charter also accepts that while the state is in command and in control of the commanding heights of South Africa’s economy, “people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions”, meaning that there will never be wholesale nationalisation and state control of every sector of South Africa’s economy. Nationalisation of strategic sectors and assets will be blended with a strong industrial policy to support social and economic development.

8. Economic Freedom Fighters will contest political power, because we are guided by the firm belief that we need political power in order to capture the state and then transform the economy for the emancipation of black South Africans, especially Africans. The forms in which the EFF contests political power will, from time to time, be reviewed in the light of prevailing circumstances, but the primary role of mass organisation and activism, as a means to raise the political consciousness of the people, will remain the bedrock of our political practice.

9. Therefore, the EFF will be involved in mass movements and community protests that seek the betterment of people’s lives. The EFF will also associate with movements that demand land through land occupation, aimed at making the message clear that our people do need land. The EFF will support all trade unions and workers that stand up in demand of better working conditions and salaries wherever and whenever they do so. The EFF will not be bound by narrow alliance loyalties that compromise the interests of workers just because they are in a different trade union. Our pursuit of the basic demands of the Freedom Charter is above forms of organisation that the working class, and indeed black people, may fashion in the course of struggles. In other words, alliances and other forms of organisation are relevant to the extent that they maximise our march towards realising the vision outlined in the Freedom Charter.

10. The EFF is guided by revolutionary internationalism and solidarity that defined the politics of the July 26 Movement, which led the Cuban Revolutionary struggles. We will partake in international struggles that seek to emancipate the economically unliberated people of Africa and the world. We will form part of the progressive movements in the world that stand against continued imperialist domination.

Aims and Objectives:

To establish and sustain a society that cherishes revolutionary cultural values and to create conditions for total political and economic emancipation, prosperity and equitable distribution of wealth of the nation.
To attain and defend the National Integrity and Liberation of the oppressed black majority of South Africa.
To participate in the worldwide struggle for the complete eradication of imperialism, colonialism, racism and all other forms of discrimination.
To participate in, support and promote all struggles for the attainment of the complete independence and unity of African states and by extension, the African continent.
To oppose resolutely, tribalism, regionalism, religious and cultural intolerance.
To oppose oppression of women and the oppression of all other gendered persons.
To oppose patriarchy, sexism, and homophobia and any cultural or religious practices that promotes the oppression of anyone, women in particular.

Why is Everything Burning?

Arson's one of the main causes of the fires. It makes me so angry.

A good piece, at USA Today, "California fires: Why is everything burning?"

#California #wildfires: Why is everything burning? https://t.co/dJzSwZBa1A
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) December 8, 2017

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Monday, December 18, 2017

Sunday, December 17, 2017

Friday, December 15, 2017

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Monday, December 11, 2017

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Friday, December 8, 2017

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