Monday, April 16, 2018
Shop Deals
I greatly appreciate it --- it keeps me blogging!
At Amazon, Today's Deals. New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.
And especially, Roav by Anker Car Charger with FM Transmitter and Bluetooth 4.2 Receiver, SmartCharge F2 with Car Locator, Dedicated App, 2 USB ports, PowerIQ, AUX Output, and USB Drive to Play MP3 Files.
More, Survivor HK-56142 Series Fixed Blade Survival Knife, 12-Inch Overall.
Here, Rawlings Renegade Series Baseball Gloves.
And, Pioneer Bluetooth Audio Component Receiver Black (SX-10AE).
Plus, Teton Sports Mountain Ultra Tent; 1-4 Person Backpacking Dome Tent Includes Footprint and Rainfly; Quick and Easy Setup; Ready in an Instant When You Want to Get Outdoors; Clip-On Rainfly Included.
Still more, NestlΓ© Pure Life Bottled Purified Water, 16.9 oz. Bottles, 24/Case.
BONUS: Don Winslow, The Force.
Hannah Arendt, Thinking Without a Banister
And a review at NYT:
"Almost every essay in this book contains 'pearls' of Arendt’s tonically subversive thinking." https://t.co/QZzaofaVTR
— New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) April 14, 2018
Britney Spears at the GLAAD Media Awards
What an incredibly moving evening celebrating love and acceptance at the #GLAADawards! I'm so proud to be an ally of the LGBTQ community and it was an absolute honor to receive the @GLAAD Vanguard Award last night!! pic.twitter.com/8ELKkOtDc1
— Britney Spears (@britneyspears) April 13, 2018
And on Twitter.
She's happy.
BONUS:
Found my white booty shorts ππππ pic.twitter.com/CLcSChcVsm
— Britney Spears (@britneyspears) March 24, 2018
Since Apartheid Ended, A.N.C. Leaders Have Siphoned Off Tens of Billions of Dollars
That's the reality in South Africa today.
At NYT:
In the generation since apartheid ended, tens of billions of dollars in public funds have been siphoned off by leaders of the African National Congress. Will South Africa's new government confront such epic graft? https://t.co/5vUnhRuXCa
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 16, 2018
Danielle Gersh's Fine Weather Forecast
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Jennifer Delacruz Back from Vacation
I'll post it later.
Meanwhile, here's your lovely lady on Twitter:
I’m back from vacation and hanging out in the weather center! I’m tracking a Wind Advisory live right now on @10News #SanDiegoWx pic.twitter.com/ocE97rcTh9
— Jennifer Delacruz (@10NewsJen) April 16, 2018
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Today's Deals
At Amazon, Today's Deals New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.
Also, especially, Blendtec Total Blender Classic with WildSide+ Jar, Black (Certified Refurbished).
More, Pet Neat - Pet Grooming Brush Effectively Reduces Shedding By Up to 95% Professional Deshedding Tool for Dogs and Cats.
And, Samsung Gear VR w/Controller (2017) - Latest Edition - SM-R325NZVAXAR (US Version w/ Warranty).
More, SNAKE EYE TACTICAL - U.S. MARINES Knife Licensed USMC MARINES Assisted Military Knives BLACK Tactical Tanto Knife.
Here, Koffee Kult Dark Roast Coffee Beans - Highest Quality Gourmet - Whole Bean Coffee - Fresh Roasted Coffee Beans, 32oz.
Still more, Samsung UN65MU6300FXZA 65" 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2017 Model) Plus Terk Cut-the-Cord HD Digital TV Tuner and Recorder 16GB Hook-Up Bundle.
BONUS: Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.
Sitting at Starbucks While Black
At CBS News Philadelphia, "‘Internal Investigation’ Underway Following Arrest at Philly Starbucks."
Outside the Starbucks today pic.twitter.com/vcr9QstkRT— Melissa DePino (@missydepino) April 14, 2018
I'm sorry for anyone who watches this video and it fucks with their anxiety. There's no violence or death–just yet another caught-on-tape moment of black bodies being criminalized simply for being Black and I'm getting so fucking tired of it. https://t.co/qw77GAgaaO— Elon James White (@elonjames) April 13, 2018
Some will never believe it because it will force them to contend with the reality of systemic injustice, and then a lot of the fallacies their entire self worth is built upon fall apart. Easier to just go on “waiting for all the facts” forever so their world view isn’t shattered.
— EricaJoy (@EricaJoy) April 14, 2018
At at the Philadelphia Inquirer, via Memeorandum, "Video of two black men being removed from a Philadelphia Starbucks draws outrage, investigation."
I would have said something. I would've called out the cops. Or, is it the Starbucks staff? They called the cops? Starbucks sucks. I'm more and more inclined to boycott the fuckers, damn.
Angels Off to Best Start Since 1979
Angels rally for 5-4 win behind Pujols homer https://t.co/gRWCGfnFwo— L.A. Times Sports (@latimessports) April 14, 2018
#Angels come back to beat Royals, 5-4, on sac fly by Ian Kinsler. Albert Pujols HR and 3 RBI. Kinsler, Cozart three hits each. Ohtani 2 for 4. Middleton gets save. 12-3 record overall, 8-1 on the road. #AngelsMetsWS
— Jeff Miller (@JeffMillerMLB) April 14, 2018
For a team that has been so much about one player, the Angels keep winning as a group.
On Friday, they made it six victories in a row with key offensive contributions from everyone from a first-ballot Hall of Famer, Albert Pujols, to a pinch-hitter, Luis Valbuena. Five relievers strung together four more shutout innings and catcher Rene Rivera gunned down Whit Merrifield attempting to steal second for the final out.
"It's a team win tonight," starting pitcher Andrew Heaney said after a 5-4 triumph over Kansas City. "I put us in a hole early and they came back. Everybody did a great job."
And that included, naturally, Shohei Ohtani, who has dominated the game and the headlines. This time, the rookie had two hits and scored the winning run.
What's more, the legend of Ohtani and his immense popularity swelled again as the Angels apparently requested that a group of his fans at Kauffman Stadium quell its passion, for the good of the star and his team.
"I heard it," Ohtani, through an interpreter, said of the vocal support he received. "I'm thankful for the cheer. But at the plate I try to focus and block out all the noise."
A local reporter, citing security personnel, noted that someone evidently with the Angels contacted authorities to ask that the clamor be tempered.
"I was aware of that," Ohtani said. "But I wasn't the one who asked for it. I think they just did it so everyone could kind of focus at the plate. I was thankful for that."
And so went another night at the ballpark for the Angels, who improved to 12-3, matching the 1979 club for the best record in franchise history after 15 games.
That '79 group then lost four straight, something that seems unlikely for these Angels...
Emily Ratajkowski in Clear Rain Jacket
And at Harpers, "Emily Ratajkowski Just Wore Nothing but a See-Through Trench Coat and We Are Shook."
Lara Stone Luigi and Iango
And at Oh My Celeb, "Lara Stone – Red Sox magazine calendar 2018 by Luigi and Iango."
Sebastian Gorka: President Trump is Not an Interventionist (VIDEO)
I like Sebastian Gorka, in any case. He's a good guy and well spoken.
At Fox & Friends:
U.S. Launches Military Strike on Syria
#Trump says U.S. is striking #Syria over its use of chemical weapons https://t.co/jIt6Zz378q
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) April 14, 2018
Congressional Democrats blasted President Trump for circumventing Congress in authorizing U.S. strikes against Syria, calling it "unconstitutional" and questioning the strategy. https://t.co/1rJ1hBJx2S
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 14, 2018
It's as if 2009-2017 never happened. https://t.co/o5emKk1ly8
— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) April 14, 2018
Far-left conspiracy theorist Rachel Maddow suggests President Donald Trump launched the strike against Syria to divert attention away from a "catastrophic domestic scandal."pic.twitter.com/sr81UnpryL
— Ryan Saavedra πΊπΈ (@RealSaavedra) April 14, 2018
Ana Navarro Accuses Trump Of Striking Syria To Distract From Comey And Cohen News https://t.co/1lnUfGdLEr pic.twitter.com/mUixObJck2
— The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 14, 2018
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West
Hmm, I see a lot of really good non-fiction books coming out, which is going to delay my progress on my fiction book list, which is gargantuan.
At Amazon, Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy.
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Bipartisan Senate Bill to Protect Robert Mueller (VIDEO)
At Politico, via Memeorandum, "Bipartisan Senate bill to protect Mueller set to advance."
And the new video out today from Republicans for the Rule of Law, a.k.a., "Never Trumpers":
Frustrated Teacher Implores Parents to Stop 'Coddling and Enabling Their Children' (VIDEO)
And at the Other McCain, "K-12 Implosion Update."
Also at ABC News:
“Parents have become far too disrespectful, and their children are even worse.”
— ABC News (@ABC) April 11, 2018
Frustrated teacher urges parents to stop 'coddling and enabling their children' in viral Facebook post. https://t.co/fKxnxc6N1i pic.twitter.com/y0S2y4hDdD
Heidi Klum on Vacation
Laura Ingraham Blasts 'Stalinist' Leftists in Return to Fox News (VIDEO)
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Among the Abortion Extremists
At NYT:
Ross is the best columnist working at a major daily and I don’t think the second-best is particularly close. https://t.co/OHYQhpTqED
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) April 8, 2018
A few weeks ago, The Washington Post’s deputy editorial page editor, Ruth Marcus, wrote two columns explaining why, had either of her children been diagnosed with Down syndrome in utero, she would have accepted the “ghastly” nature of a second-trimester abortion and terminated the pregnancy. She conceded that people with Down syndrome can be happy and fulfilled, that both they and their parents might be understandably disturbed by the way abortion can effectively cull them from the world. But she concluded with self-acknowledged bluntness: “That was not the child I wanted.”Keep reading.
I know Marcus a little, having chatted with her amiably a few times many years ago. She seemed like a lovely person, like so many of my pro-choice friends; indeed, people who believe firmly in an absolute or near-absolute right to an abortion are effectively my people in a certain tribal way, given that I’m a Connecticut Yankee raised by Bill Clinton-voting boomers and educated in the modern meritocracy. I like these folks; I think they mean well; I try to listen to their arguments with the respect that the sincere and intelligent deserve.
But I also think that they are deceived by a cruel ideology that has licensed the killing of millions of innocents for almost 50 years. In the language that the respectable use to banish views without rebuttal, I regard them — friends and colleagues and faithful readers — as essentially extremists, for whom the distinctive and sometimes awful burdens that pregnancy imposes on women have become an excuse to build a grotesque legal regime in which the most vulnerable human beings can be vacuumed out or dismembered, killed for reasons of eugenics or convenience or any reason at all.
I am sharing these reflections in the context of the latest media war over whether a particular conservative columnist should be hired by a particular establishment publication — in this case Kevin Williamson, a National Review scribe with a brilliant pen and a long paper trail of insults and wild opinions, who was boldly hired by The Atlantic and then quickly jettisoned, after it came to light that he had not only suggested hanging as a penalty for abortion in a since-deleted tweet but also more carefully defended the idea of someday prosecuting women who obtain abortions the way we prosecute other forms of homicide...
How to Level the College Playing Field
See, Harold O. Levy with Peg Tyre, at NYT:
Campuses that are overwhelmingly populated by wealthy students amplify the voices that jeer at our higher education system and energize those who seek to destroy it. It would be a tragedy if they succeeded. https://t.co/SamBMZE8ZC
— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) April 9, 2018
The wealthy spend tens of thousands each year on private school tuition or property taxes to ensure that their children attend schools that provide a rich, deep college preparatory curriculum. On top of that, many of them spend thousands more on application coaches, test-prep tutors and essay editors. They take their children on elaborate college tours so that their children can “find the right fit” at schools with good names and high graduation rates. Enrollment strategists at these same schools seek applicants from areas where the data they buy confirms that income levels and homeownership are high.RTWT.
The colleges make efforts to open up access to low-income students while at the same time culling applications in ways that give an advantage to the very wealthy — from the persistence of legacy admissions to the back door reserved for young athletes who excel in sports that flourish in rarefied communities like lacrosse, squash, rowing and fencing. Admissions officers don’t talk much about “development” admissions, students whose applications are favored in hopes their parents will eventually endow a new stadium or dorm. Increasing numbers of prospective freshmen apply for early decision, which can give the applicant a stronger chance of getting in but closes doors for middle-income students, who often need to make their college choice by comparing financial aid packages. No wonder, then, that in a group of 38 selective colleges, including five in the Ivy League, more students came from families in the top 1 percent of the income scale than from the entire bottom 60 percent.
Creating a true meritocracy in higher education would require serious, politically daring changes to our housing policies and the tax code, neither of which seems likely in the current climate. Yet people of means (and I include myself here) are complicit in a system that seems unable to stop itself from extending privileges to the privileged. If your late-model car boasts the sticker of a prestigious college in the back window, you are participating in a system that may be good for your child but bad for our country...
Monday, April 9, 2018
Gold Box Deals
And see, especially, Torq TORQX Random Orbital Polisher Kit (9 Items).
Also, TAC FORCE Spring Assisted Opening BLACK Tactical Rescue Folding Pocket Knife NEW.
And, LG 55UJ6300 55-inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2017 Model) + HDMI 1080p High Definition DVD Player + Solo X3 Bluetooth Home Theater Sound Bar + 2x HDMI Cable + LED TV Screen Cleaner.
BONUS: Tommy Robinson, Enemy of the State.
Huntington Beach Voting to Sue California Over its Sanctuary City Laws
And at Fox News, via Memeorandum, "Has the California backlash against liberal craziness finally begun?"
Elizabeth R. Varon, Appomattox
Divided Americans Can Unite
But see Salena Zito, at the New York Post, "History Proves America Can Unite Even When Torn in Two":
How the Civil War ended tells us a lot about who we were. https://t.co/o5EfzCfwDN
— SalenaZito (@SalenaZito) April 9, 2018
APPOMATTOX, VA. — On April 9, 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee strode onto the porch of a two-story brick home and stared out at a lawn filled with Union soldiers, his Confederate staff of two, and his horse Traveler.More.
Still wearing full military dress, Lee raised his gloved hands and punched his left fist into his right palm. The sound of leather meeting leather echoed in the unsteady silence.
Then, as Lee mounted Traveler, Major Gen. Ulysses S. Grant emerged from the house onto the porch.
Now facing each other, Grant raised his hat, as did Lee. It wasn’t a salute, but clearly an acknowledgment of the moment.
As Lee turned towards the dirt road and headed east towards his troops, the 198th Pennsylvania Infantry played “Auld Lang Syne.”
The Civil War was over.
“As the sun rose that morning neither man would know by mid-afternoon the war, for all intents and purposes, would end that day,” explained Ernie Price, a park ranger and director of education at Appomattox National Park.
But by mid-morning, Lee knew the Confederate cause was finished. He sent a message to Grant to meet for the purpose of surrender, and the Appomattox home of grocer Wilmer McLean was chosen for the moment.
When they met, Grant was poorly dressed, his uniform rumpled and covered in mud from the ride the night before. Years later in his memoirs, he admitted that he had no idea what he was going to ask from Lee in the surrender.
Yet, once he sat down at a small spindle desk in McLean’s front parlor, words of reconciliation poured out.
“Grant knew that the Confederate soldiers from that moment on were going to be US citizens again,” said Price. “Instead of placing them in prisons in the North he sends them home. His reasoning is: The sooner the South’s economy rebounds, the sooner the country can reconcile, so he paroles them.”
Grant also allowed Lee’s men to keep their personal sidearms and animals, knowing they would desperately need rations to survive.
This week marks the 153rd anniversary of Appomattox, and tourists from around the world still come to the McLean home to remember this singular moment, which kept our nation whole after a bloody, brutal war. When I visited last month, parents, students and children listened to different park rangers tell the story of the two generals, and were surprised by the emotion they felt.
“I wish more people young and old would understand the gravity of this moment and apply that kind of grace in their daily lives,” said 13-year-old Mathilde Colas, with remarkable clarity, as she visited with her family. “It is certainly easier to bring people together if you are generous with your words and actions. That is what I learned most from our visit today.”
The best and the worst of our country’s past sometimes happens side by side. The journey to understand who we once were isn’t always a road to perdition. Sometimes it’s a path toward inspiration...
Danielle Gersh's Warm Weather Forecast
Here's the lovely Ms. Danielle, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:
Tehran's Advantage in a Turbulent Middle East
A must read:— Rula Jebreal (@rulajebreal) February 17, 2018
Iran among the ruins: @vali_nasr on Iran’s regional strategic calculus. https://t.co/WbZyJ6N0YZ
Over the last seven years, social upheavals and civil wars have torn apart the political order that had defined the Middle East ever since World War I. Once solid autocracies have fallen by the wayside, their state institutions battered and broken, and their national borders compromised. Syria and Yemen have descended into bloody civil wars worsened by foreign military interventions. A terrorist group, the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), seized vast areas of Iraq and Syria before being pushed back by an international coalition led by the United States.You can see why leftists love this article, heh.
In the eyes of the Trump administration, and those of a range of other observers and officials in Washington and the region, there is one overriding culprit behind the chaos: Iran. They point out that the country has funded terrorist groups, propped up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and aided the anti-Saudi Houthi rebels in Yemen. U.S. President Donald Trump has branded Iran “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” with a “sinister vision of the future,” and dismissed the nuclear agreement reached by it, the United States, and five other world powers in 2015 as “the worst deal ever” (and refused to certify that Iran is complying with its terms). U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis has described Iran as “the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.” And Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has charged that “Iran is on a rampage.”
Washington seems to believe that rolling back Iranian influence would restore order to the Middle East. But that expectation rests on a faulty understanding of what caused it to break down in the first place. Iran did not cause the collapse, and containing Iran will not bring back stability. There is no question that many aspects of Iran’s behavior pose serious challenges to the United States. Nor is there any doubt that Iran has benefited from the collapse of the old order in the Arab world, which used to contain it. Yet its foreign policy is far more pragmatic than many in the West comprehend. As Iran’s willingness to engage with the United States over its nuclear program showed, it is driven by hardheaded calculations of national interest, not a desire to spread its Islamic Revolution abroad. The Middle East will regain stability only if the United States does more to manage conflict and restore balance there. That will require a nuanced approach, including working with Iran, not reflexively confronting it.
More.
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Dakota Johnson in Tight Leggings
BONUS: At the Nip Slip, "Dakota Johnson Topless and See Through Bikini on 'Fifty Shades Darker' Set! (PHOTOS)"
Evelyn Taft's Mild Weather Forecast
Arizona Bobcat Battles Rattlesnake (VIDEO)
At Fox News 10 Phoenix:
Shohei Ohtani Makes History in Angels' 13-9 Comback Victory Over Athletics
I'm excited!
At LAT, "Down 6-0, Angels' bats awaken with homer by Ohtani and beat the Athletics 13-9":
Holy Cow. Shohei Ohtani just drove a solo HR to dead-center that splashed the water in the fake rock formation, his third HR of the season. #Angels
— Mike DiGiovanna (@MikeDiGiovanna) April 7, 2018
Shohei Ohtani: 112.4 mph. 449 feet. Incredible. #Angels pic.twitter.com/vxJbBMfdp2
— David Adler (@_dadler) April 7, 2018
This Sho is Certified Freshπ―π pic.twitter.com/GQnAgd3jaN
— Angels (@Angels) April 7, 2018
What a way to end a crazy game! pic.twitter.com/GsY5c6iILa
— Angels (@Angels) April 7, 2018
Kevin Williamson, Thought Criminal
At National Review:
The G-File is out. It is lengthy, among other things. https://t.co/nYM74LQvyc
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) April 6, 2018
An Oral History of the 1968 Columbia Uprising
At VF:
The @1968CU protests, recalls one participant, came out of a moment in time in which “it was a question of whether the country would survive a civil war” https://t.co/Ku0KhMlDi5
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) March 30, 2018
In April 1968, hundreds of students at Columbia University took over campus buildings in an uprising that caught the world’s attention. Fifty years later, they reflect on what went right and what went wrong.More.
At Columbia University in April 1968, about a thousand students forcibly commandeered five campus buildings, effectively igniting the mass student revolts of the 60s. The events that began haphazardly on April 23 soon grew into a public crescendo of awakening that changed the course of the American student protest movement. It was a year when political, racial, sexual, and cultural forces exploded into a “revolutionary volcano,” as novelist Paul Auster, then a junior at Columbia, described it. It was also the year when two widespread movements—civil rights and anti-war—combined forces to stoke a flame of youth rebellion not seen domestically in half a century.
That spring 50 years ago, Columbia’s compact, six-city-block campus on Manhattan’s bohemian Upper West Side became a petri dish, fermenting and fomenting discord that would engulf the nation. By the end of the year, American deaths in Vietnam exceeded 35,000 soldiers. Anti-war protests multiplied, the draft continued to loom like a Sword of Damocles over the lives of 27 million young men, the peaceful civil-rights movement intensified along with the increasingly militant Black Power movement, the sexual revolution and early feminism movement transformed gender roles, and the unstoppable popularity of psychedelic drugs and rock music (the musical Hair opened on Broadway that month) created an unbridgeable chasm of a generation gap. All of these movements for social change—including the conservative counterrevolutionaries—were out in full force on the Columbia campus that April.
University president Grayson Kirk “was a walking anachronism,” says Paul Cronin, editor of the new, definitive book on the Columbia student uprising, A Time to Stir: Columbia ‘68. “He was clueless and unresponsive to the attitudes, needs, and demands of his students.” It turns out that Kirk and his board of trustees, members of New York’s corporate and media elites, were as out of touch with youth culture as President Lyndon Johnson and his F.B.I. director, J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover was so threatened by what he saw at Columbia that, in May, he ordered his agency to initiate a secret counter-intelligence program, 2,000 F.B.I. agents strong, aimed at anti-war demonstrators and the New Left.
Not since the Berkeley Free Speech Movement in 1964–65 had a campus of a major university been shut down by its students. The student rumblings of 1968 started in February, when two black South Carolina State University students, protesting a segregated bowling alley, were shot and killed by state troopers in Orangeburg. (A third young black man, a high school student, was also killed, as he waited to walk his mother home from work.) In March, students at the historically black Howard University, in Washington, D.C., staged a four-day protest and sit-in. But Columbia captured the attention of the nation because of its stature as an Ivy League college situated in the media capital of the world. The protest was so large (720 students arrested), it lasted so long (a week of building occupations, followed by a month-long strike), and the police reaction was so brutal and bloody, that it was seared into the national conscience.
As tens of thousands of high-school students all over the country organize demonstrations demanding gun-control reform from politicians in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, we may now be witnessing the first full-fledged American student protest movement since the late 60s. “I got chills when I heard Emma GonzΓ‘lez speak about her generation’s fledgling movement to stop gun violence,” said former ‘68 Barnard/Columbia Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S.) activist Nancy Biberman. A lifelong housing and social-justice advocate in the Bronx, Biberman is heartened by the new wave of protest that has roused high-school students from decades of apathy. “Imagine that a student movement might emerge again and play a catalyzing role in ending the slaughter of innocent people.”
Our young people, in disturbing numbers, appear to reject all forms of authority, from whatever source derived, and they have taken refuge in a turbulent and inchoate nihilism whose sole objectives are destruction. I know of no time in our history when the gap between the generations has been wider or more potentially dangerous.
— Columbia University president Grayson Kirk, April 12, 1968
Dear Grayson, . . . You call for order and respect for authority; we call for justice, freedom, and socialism. There is only one thing left to say. It may sound nihilistic to you, since it is the opening shot in a war of liberation. I’ll use the words of LeRoi Jones, whom I’m sure you don’t like a whole lot: “Up against the wall, motherfucker, this is a stick-up.”
Yours for freedom, Mark [Rudd] April 22, 1968
Citizen's Righteous Rant Defending 2nd Amendment Goes Viral:
Citizen's Righteous Rant Defending 2nd Amendment Goes Viral https://t.co/LJ6FHzRkv3 #Video via @pjmedia_com
— Debra Heine (@NiceDeb) April 6, 2018
Friday, April 6, 2018
Trump Administration Imposes New Sanctions on Russia
And at LAT, "Trump administration announces Russia sanctions for 'attacks to subvert Western democracies'":
Trump administration announces new Russia sanctions for 'attacks to subvert Western democracies' https://t.co/Af5aAASC3j
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) April 6, 2018
The Trump administration on Friday announced new sanctions against seven Russian oligarchs, 12 companies and 17 senior government officials for a variety of acts, including what one official called “attacks to subvert Western democracies.”
“Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government’s destabilizing activities.” Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said in a news release.
Mnuchin criticized the Russian government for engaging in “a range of malign activity around the globe, including continuing to occupy Crimea and instigate violence in eastern Ukraine, supplying the Assad regime with material and weaponry as they bomb their own civilians, attempting to subvert Western democracies, and malicious cyber activities.”
President Trump has spoken of his desire to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has at times spoken warmly of him, but he has also insisted his administration has been tough on the regime...
Migration is Baloney
#Migration is:
— IOM - UN Migration (@UNmigration) April 1, 2018
• inevitable
• desirable
• necessary
this Easter, let’s not forget those who are caught in crises around the world π pic.twitter.com/e7fT1FE0D1
Bullshit. Send them home. https://t.co/I0aKw4Zyg0
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) April 3, 2018
When Leftists Take Off the Mask
If you are a MAGA or a 2A enthusiast, I legitimately do not care about your life/well-being or the lives/well-being of your family. I don't care if you can't defend yourselves against intruders or whatever. I just don't care if you live or die.
— π³️πJenny "Lazangia" Trout (@Jenny_Trout) April 3, 2018
John F. Cogan, The High Cost of Good Intentions
Nice Legs
ππππ pic.twitter.com/XxheyzKkdl
— ππ Miss_Lee ππ. (@MissLee_) April 5, 2018
Nasim Aghdam Was Angry Over YouTube 'Apocalyspe'
So the San Bruno YouTube HQ shooter was Female, foreign, a Vegan animal activist, off the rails mentally ill, didn't use an AR-15, and shot up a building in the strictest gun control state in America....how fast do you think the mainstream media is going to bury this? pic.twitter.com/oHnkSiolGv— Mindy Robinson (@iheartmindy) April 4, 2018
The website is a catalog of a woman's passion for animal rights and her anger at YouTube.Still more.
She complains of "close-minded" YouTube employees suppressing her page views and stifling her content. She gripes about a lack of revenue.
"Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!" she wrote on the site, which includes videos promoting veganism and photos of a woman in an array of outfits, including long gowns and a camouflage unitard. She speaks in Persian and Turkish.
"There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!"
It's the website investigators are looking at as they try to piece together the motive of a woman — identified as Nasim Najafi Aghdam, 39 — who stormed onto YouTube's sprawling San Bruno, Calif., campus with a 9-millimeter handgun and opened fire in a courtyard during lunchtime, wounding three people before turning the gun on herself.
The eruption of gun violence Tuesday in Silicon Valley hit a nation still reeling from recent mass shootings and gripped by a tense gun control debate.
"This is a terrible day in the United States, when once again we have a multiple-casualty situation," said Dr. Andre Campbell, a trauma surgeon at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, which is treating victims.
The shooting left a 36-year-old man in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman with serious injuries and a 27-year-old woman in fair condition. A fourth person suffered an ankle injury while fleeing.
In a tweet, President Trump thanked law enforcement and first responders, and said: "Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved."
Law enforcement sources told The Times they initially believed the shooting was a domestic incident, but San Bruno police said late Tuesday there's "no evidence" the shooter knew the victims or targeted specific people. Investigators are now focusing on the alleged shooter's grudge against YouTube.
The YouTube account tied to the website was shut down "due to multiple or severe violations" of the company's policies against spam, deceptive practices and misleading content. But it's unclear exactly when.
The website investigators are probing, titled "Nasime Sabz," translates in Persian to, "Nasim the green." YouTube videos created by an account of the same name can no longer be viewed, but the site also features videos from other sources criticizing YouTube's policies, as well as clips promoting animal rights and veganism. Instagram and Facebook accounts listed on the website were deactivated Tuesday.
Aghdam was quoted in the Los Angeles Times in 2009, speaking at an animal rights protest outside Camp Pendleton.
"For me animal rights equals human rights," said Aghdam, who at the time worked as a construction company office manager. "Just because they can't talk doesn't mean we should take advantage of them."
About two weeks ago, Aghdam vented to her family that YouTube stopped compensating her for her videos, her father told the Bay Area News Group.
Ismail Aghdam said that the family had called police to report his daughter missing Monday because she hadn't answered her phone for two days. He said he had told police she might be going to YouTube because she "hated" the company.
Police in Mountain View, Calif., say they spotted a woman who went by the name Nasim Aghdam asleep in a car in a city parking lot early Tuesday morning and notified her family.
The first reports of a shooting came in to San Mateo County dispatchers before 1 p.m.
Zach Vorhies, a senior software engineer, was sitting at his desk on YouTube's campus when he heard the fire alarm blaring.
He grabbed his electric skateboard and hurried toward an exit. Outside, he heard yelling. On a patio where tech workers often grab lunch, he saw a man lying motionless on his back, blood staining his shirt. As he stared, a police officer with an assault rifle popped through a nearby gate.
Vorhies skateboarded away.
He was one of hundreds of YouTube employees whose workday was thrown into chaos as panic spread across the technology hub south of San Francisco.
"I thought, 'This is a mass casualty event,'" said Vorhies, 37. "I was terrified."
Some employees in a meeting heard rumbling and thought there had been an earthquake. It seemed serious, not just a standard emergency drill. As they moved toward an exit, they heard that someone had a gun.
"I looked down and saw blood drips on the floor and stairs," Todd Sherman, a product manager for YouTube tweeted. After peeking around for threats, he headed down the stairs and out the front of the building.
Police in tactical vests, helmets and rifles swarmed the campus soon after, coming upon a chaotic scene as workers ran from the area. Television footage showed people filing away with their hands up...
Thursday, April 5, 2018
William J. Murray, Utopian Road to Hell
At Amazon, William J. Murray, Utopian Road to Hell: Enslaving America and the World With Central Planning.
Erick Erickson on the Cultural Revolution
Kevin Williamson has been fired by The Atlantic. Williamson is one of the great conservative intellectuals of our times. He has a keen wit and frequently engages in heterodox opinions that make his writing and thinking intriguing. For a decade he wrote at William F. Buckley's National Review until hired away last week by Jeffrey Goldberg, the Editor of The Atlantic.Keep reading.
The Atlantic fancies itself a place of intellectual diversity where the best writers across ideologies can share their views. But Williamson's hire drew burning rage from the left. Williamson's birth came from an unplanned pregnancy. Instead of aborting him, his birth mother gave him up for adoption. As you might imagine, Williamson has strongly held views on the matter of abortion. A week after hiring him, Jeffrey Goldberg bowed to the leftwing mob and fired Williamson for, in part, how he might make the pro-abortion women in the office feel.
Never mind Williamson's feelings on abortion and that he could have been aborted himself, the editor took the brave stand of worrying about the hypothetical feelings of pro-abortion women in the office. The left told us that the purges happening on college campuses were contained to the campus. Yet here we are today with one of the best voices of conservatism fired from a job for his conservative views.
It will only get worse...
And on Twitter:
More from Goldberg’s memo: pic.twitter.com/gnTi9qpDZG— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) April 5, 2018
I've publicly argued with Kevin Williamson (who's a friend) over harsh things he's written, but he is one of the bravest and most talented writers I know. The Atlantic's cutting him loose under left-wing fire is deplorable. But clarifying. Definitely clarifying.— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) April 5, 2018
If they didn’t know Kevin Williamson could be callous in pursuing his arguments, they didn’t do the most basic due diligence. And I doubt that. They were mau-maued into firing an intellectually honest writer for too much honesty.— Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) April 5, 2018
The left & @TheAtlantic are cowards.— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) April 5, 2018
They don’t believe in their liberal philosophy enough to think it can withstand opposing views.
Instead, they publicly execute Kevin Williamson as an example of what happens if you DARE challenge progressive ideology.
First Kevin. Then, you
The Left is a disaster. SHAME. https://t.co/HVtue8houo— Mollie (@MZHemingway) April 5, 2018
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Amy Chua, Political Tribes
I've been reading fiction almost exclusively, but there's some excellent non-fiction works coming out. I'll have to shift gears a little.
This looks awesome!
At Amazon, Amy Chua, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations.
YouTube Shooter Nasim Aghdam Was Mentally Ill
At the San Francisco Chronicle, the Other McCain, and other tweets:
.@PatriarchTree The YouTube HQ shooting is a sad, dark twist in a long-running saga about 'demonetization': π’ https://t.co/jZ8YUQcthR #NasimAghdam #YouTubeShooting #YouTube #SanBruno
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) April 4, 2018
After all that YouTube has done to suppress conservative videos, how ironic is it that an Iranian-American animal-rights activist resorted to terroristic violence against the company? https://t.co/EH0mP0eWH7... https://t.co/di9t7Xt3ko
— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) April 4, 2018
The YouTube shooter described herself on her now-banned YouTube page as a "vegan bodybuilder and animal rights activist,"
— Allum Bokhari (@LibertarianBlue) April 4, 2018
And yet - someone, somewhere, is almost certainly trying to figure out how to portray her as a right-winger. pic.twitter.com/Ws1UIv4U3u
YouTube shooting suspect Nasim Aghdam, who describes herself as a vegan artist, bodybuilder, and animal rights activist, often lashed out at the video platform for censoring and demonetizing her content pic.twitter.com/AsQiCz3SHB
— Brianna Sacks (@bri_sacks) April 4, 2018
Long term, without delicately balanced nutrition and extreme care, Vegans lose their mental health as their bodies use up stores of certain nutrients that are mostly only found in meat protein.
— Melissa Mackenzie π (@MelissaTweets) April 4, 2018
In over twenty years of practice, I saw one healthy vegan and even she supplemented.
I am not being flippant here, either. YouTube's demonetization policies are capricious and devastate individuals and brands who make their money there. This woman wasn't a great content producer, but others were/are and have seen their businesses ruined by them.
— Melissa Mackenzie π (@MelissaTweets) April 4, 2018
Facebook and Google have unbelievable power to destroy businesses and can do it with a stroke of an algorithm.
— Melissa Mackenzie π (@MelissaTweets) April 4, 2018
The only other organizations who have that kind of power and wield it equally capriciously is the government.
The only bigger reality the Left refuses to face than facts about guns is facts about mental health.
— Melissa Mackenzie π (@MelissaTweets) April 4, 2018
There is never an answer about these unstable individuals. In so many cases, family warn law enforcement and are helpless to protecting the community.
David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross
Michael Walsh, The Fiery Angel
Anti-Semitism and the Threat of Identity Politics
Gideon Rachman: For the past 50 years, anti-Semitism has not been a political issue in the west. But that appears to be changing.https://t.co/E0ECLVO6xy
— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) April 2, 2018
For the past 50 years, I have had the pleasure of living in a period when anti-Semitism was not a political issue in the west. But that appears to be changing.More.
Last week thousands of people marched in Paris to demonstrate against anti-Semitism after the murder of Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who, according to President Emmanuel Macron, was “murdered because she was Jewish”. That same week a smaller demonstration took place in London, to protest against anti-Semitism in the Labour party. This Sunday is likely to see the re-election of Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, who uses barely coded anti-Semitic rhetoric. Even the US is not immune. Last August saw the far-right marching in Charlottesville, amid chants of “Jews will not replace us”.
So are we reliving the 1930s? Not really. Contemporary anti-Semitism contains some loud echoes of the past — for example, the resurgence of the idea of Jews as a shadowy international network. But the new element is the way that anti-Semitism is now mixed in with bigger fights about Islam and Israel.
For the far-left, a key enemy is often Israel, which is seen as an embodiment of western racism. For the far-right, the main enemy is Islam, which it identifies with terrorism and mass immigration. Both far-left and far-right often claim to be immune from anti-Semitism — either because they are anti-racists (the left) or because they are pro-Israel (the right).
These complexities are embodied by Mr Orban. At a recent rally, the Hungarian prime minister used language laden with anti-Semitic imagery: “We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty . . . not national, but international, [and who] does not believe in working but speculating with money.”
The bogeyman of the Orban campaign is George Soros, a Hungarian-Jewish financier. But the main accusation hurled at Mr Soros by Mr Orban is that he is planning to flood Hungary with Muslim refugees. The Hungarian prime minister’s decision to build a wall to block the flow of migrants has made him a hero of the far-right in the US and Europe.
Mr Orban’s hostility to Mr Soros and suspicion of the “Islamisation” of Europe is also shared by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who paid a cordial visit to Hungary last July. There are many on the far-right who are fans of both Mr Orban and of Israel. Their common enemy, “radical Islam”, is, they argue, the real threat to Jews in modern Europe.
Many of Europe’s Jews are, however, appropriately wary of “support” from the far-right. When Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front, tried to join the march in memory of Mireille Knoll, she was kept at arm’s length by the main French Jewish organisation.
A similar ambiguity surrounds Donald Trump. Some Americans point to his links to the alt-right and reluctance to condemn the Charlottesville march. On the other hand, Mr Trump’s beloved daughter, Ivanka, has converted to Orthodox Judaism, which is not a decision normally associated with anti-Semitism. And there is no doubt that the government of Israel is much more comfortable with President Trump than with his predecessor, Barack Obama.
The far-left in Europe could use the Trump-Israel link to argue that their rage is aimed at nationalism, not Jews. But there is an obsessive quality to their hatred of Israel that is telling. Killings in Gaza are met with outrage, while deaths in Syria or Yemen barely register. Some of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that circulate in the Middle East have also leaked into leftwing politics. One of the people whom Jeremy Corbyn, the UK Labour leader, was happy to entertain at the House of Commons was Raed Salah, an Islamist leader who peddles the idea that Jews were warned to leave the Twin Towers in New York before 9/11...
This is a little too equivalent a take. I don't see Orban or European nationalists particularly anti-Semitic. In fact, the nationalist right seems to be the only faction aggressively defending Israel and the Jews. It's not the 1930s, at all. As we've seen time and again, attacks and murder of Jews is nearly a complete leftist phenomenon. Jews are leaving France because of Islamic jihad, not the National Front.
Elizabeth Hurley Posts Bikini Selfie
Bikini selfie #ElizabethHurleyBeach Sale now on: 20% off everything all weekend ππππ#VictoireBikini pic.twitter.com/CqTL2puLT9
— Elizabeth Hurley (@ElizabethHurley) March 31, 2018
Claudia Romani in the Surf in Miami
Also, at Oh My Celeb, "Claudia Romani and Melissa Lori without bikini tops at a beach in Miami."
Orange County Faces Legal Threat Over Anti-Camping Laws
Asian-Americans, pfft.
Where was where the mass Asian-American protests against the Chinese birth tourism hotels here in Irvine? There weren't any. The Feds had to come in and shut them down. See, "'Maternity tourism' raids target California operations catering to Chinese." According to the report:
More than 400 women associated with the Irvine location have given birth at one Orange County hospital since 2013, agents wrote in the affidavit. One of the women paid $4,080 out of $28,845 in hospital bills when her bank account showed charges at Wynn Las Vegas and purchases at Rolex and Louis Vuitton stores, the affidavit said.Nope, no massive protests against Chinese birth tourists committing immigration fraud and cheating local hospitals out of maternity costs. And the Asian-American community has demonstrated extremely slow assimilation into American political culture. It's half Asian-American in Irvine, and the population's large presence continues to drive Anglo-American retail institutions out of the area. The 99 Ranch Market across from my neighborhood is the anchor store for a nearly entirely Asian-American shopping center. Only the McDonald's and KFC remain from a least a half a dozen American restaurants, including Baskin Robbins, Marie Calendar's, and Subway.
In any case, here's today's front-page report on the new judicial ruling barring cities from enforcing anti-camping laws against the county's homeless --- with the photograph of Diane Rutan, gathering her things from the downtown Santa Ana homeless camp. See, "Judge threatens to bar O.C. from enforcing anti-camping laws if it can't shelter homeless":
The political crisis over homelessness in Orange County approached a crucial moment Tuesday as a federal judge raised the prospect of barring local governments from enforcing anti-camping ordinances if officials cannot create temporary shelters for hundreds being swept out of tent cities.Keep reading.
The county for weeks has been struggling to find locations to place the homeless after removing them from an encampment along the Santa Ana River. A plan to place temporary shelters in Irvine, Laguna Niguel and Huntington Beach died amid loud protests from residents last week, and the problem is expected to get worse as officials move to clear out another tent city at the Santa Ana Civic Center.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter expressed frustration at the political stalemate during a hearing Tuesday. He said he could not decide where the shelters should go, but said he could prohibit cities from enforcing laws that ban people from camping in public spaces such as parks and river ways. Carter said that without those laws, Orange County communities could become magnets for homeless people.
In essence, the judge said Orange County can't have it both ways.
"We can't criminalize homeless by citing them in one location, and citing them in another location simply for being homeless," Carter said.
Carter is overseeing a case brought by homeless advocates trying to stop the removal of the homeless encampments. He stressed that the shelters don't have to be fancy, only that they be able to serve those who have nowhere else to live.
"This doesn't have to be a nice thing," Carter said. "It just has to be humane and dignified. That will probably get us through this crisis."
The county's two armories, which provide temporary shelter for up to 400 homeless individuals during the winter, are scheduled to close this month — adding a new layer of urgency as space is limited in other shelters throughout the county. Fullerton officials requested to keep the armory in their city open, but it's not clear if that will happen.
Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Andrew Do said he is pessimistic about the county and city officials finding a solution unless Carter steps in.
"At this point, I see us — the county — and the cities being at a standstill," Do said. "With each passing day we betray our responsibility to care for all of our residents as required by law."
Residents in Irvine and other cities have said they don't want homeless shelters in their communities, which is the same argument made by neighborhoods along the Santa Ana River that prompted officials to clear out the camps in the first place.
But Carter said the situation has forced certain cities to take on a disproportionate burden. He singled out Santa Ana, home to the county's only major emergency shelter
"Santa Ana is being forced to absorb all of the homeless because they're brought to this area for assessments and services," Carter said. "It's disproportionate."
Data presented by Santa Ana during the hearing back up that claim...