Sinkholes!

Man, that's gnarly:

Mexico Baseball Game Suspended Due to Gunfire

At Astute Bloggers, "IT'S COME TO THIS: BASEBALL GAME IN MEXICO CALLED ON ACCOUNT OF GUNFIRE."

MEXICO IS A FAILED STATE.

THIS IS YET ANOTHER REASON WHY WE NEED A WALL ON THE BORDER.

WE CAN GET ONE SOONER BY VOTING GOP THIS NOVEMBER.

'I Want Candy'

A kitschy classic, from Bow Wow Wow.

(And I blame Theo Spark):

I know a guy who's tough but sweet
He's so fine, he can't be beat
He's got everything that I desire
Sets the summer sun on fire

I want candy, I want candy

Go to see him when the sun goes down
Ain't no finer boy in town
You're my guy, just what the doctor ordered
So sweet, you make my mouth water

I want candy, I want candy

Candy on the beach, there's nothing better
But I like candy when it's wrapped in a sweater
Some day soon I'll make you mine,
Then I'll have candy all the time

I want candy, I want candy
I want candy, I want candy...

Imperial Valley Press Apologizes for Sick Cartoon Villifying GOP Candidate and Iraq Vet Nick Popaditch

From editor Brad Jennings at Imperial Valley Press, "Cartoon Not Meant to Offend."

RTWT.

It's a weaselly apology, or an admission of stupidity. And while attempting genuine humility, this part toward the end still comes across as blaming:

I called Popaditch on Monday and apologized to him. He accepted that apology with much grace and didn’t appear to be that offended by the cartoon himself. We will continue to cover this race for Congress, and Mr. Popaditch has my assurance that we will be fair in our coverage of him.

Ultimately, I don’t want this to become a story about this newspaper, which has a long history in the Imperial Valley, personally attacking a candidate who happens to be a war veteran. Sadly, I see that this has been e-mailed around to partisans who are trying to make this some kind of rallying cry. I am getting calls from conservative radio and bloggers who are apparently trying to make this more than it really is. That is politics in 2010 America.

My sense is that a sincere apology doesn't condemn those who've been offended. And while Popaditch may have been a class act in accepting the apology, this kind of stuff leaves a bad taste in the mouths of activists, and if it were me I wouldn't quickly turn the other cheek.

But hey, it's hard out there for a journalist. Jennings, dude, suck it up.

Michelle has more, "Mocking War Hero Nick Popaditch: A Teachable Moment."

NAACP Leader Attacks Black Tea Partier Kenny Gladney as 'Uncle Tom'

Dana Loesch has been all over this story: "NAACP* = National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ---

(*except if they’re conservative)."

It turns out Dana was interviewed at Bill O'Reilly's. Good stuff:

'Best Hitting Supermodel' Marisa Miller at All Star Celebrity Softball Game at Angels Stadium

Hey, the All-Star Game is tomorrow --- this can't wait until the weekend roundups!

From Chris Erskine, at Los Angeles Times, "Just how many times can I get the strangely hypnotic phrase 'best-hitting supermodel' in one paragraph?"

And see, "Model Marisa Miller runs to base during the MLB All Star Game Celebrity Softball Game at Angels Stadium of Anaheim on July 11, 2010 in Anaheim, California."

And at MLB.com, "Clouds give way to stars for softball game: Hollywood well-represented for annual All-Star exhibition."

Progressives Are Communists (If You Didn't Know)

A really interesting piece at Gallup, "Americans Unsure About 'Progressive' Political Label."

It turns out that a majority of 54 percent aren't quite sure what a "political progressive" really is. And a very small percentage, 12 percent, actually self-identifies as "progressive" (with 45 percent of those identifying as "liberal" or "very liberal"). The numbers make sense to me. Traditionally, ideological discussion of the left/right continuum focuses on liberals and conservatives. But liberalism literally has become a dirty word in American politics, and for decades Democratic-leftists have been working feverishly (yet unsuccessfully) to get out from under it. Well now it turns out that self-identified socialist Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has called herself a "progressive," hence Gallup's inclusion of the measurement of progressive in its June 11-13 USA Today/Gallup poll.

What's frankly awesome about this is that Gallup recognizes that leftists use "progressive" to avoid being "pigeonholed" as outside of the mainstream. And even funnier is how Thomas Rhiel at Talking Points Memo also acknowledges the truth about leftist identification as "progressive":

For years, pundits and politicians on the left have been calling themselves "progressives" to avoid the apparent stigma of the word "liberal." But a USA Today/Gallup poll released today indicates that a majority of Americans still aren't sure what "progressive" really means.

Long-time readers of American Power will recall that I never use the word "liberal" to refer to Democratic-leftists. I've always thought "liberal" was an unacceptable bastardization of the more traditional "classical liberal," from which we draw our political heritage (in the Declaration of Independence, for example). And since around the time of the Iraq War in March 2003 --- as one who had voted Democratic my entire life --- it finally dawned on me that today's Democratic-leftists are not only not "liberal" but they're literally allied with all the anti-democratic ideologies and movements in world politics today. Of course, as I've noted here recently in my commentaries on The World Turned Upside Down, leftists adopt a righteous infallibility that disdains anti-statist ideologies as backwoods. Of course, the most irrationalist and totalitarian programs are entirely associated with the left (which of course includes its alliance with global jihad). What's unfortunate is that if the respondents at Gallup really knew what was going on they'd be distancing themselves from the "progressive" label faster than you can say "RAAAAACIST"!!

In any case, progressives today are not social and economic reformers, or those who're directed toward modernization and social improvement. They're totalitarian ideologues working for the idealized utopia that always historically ends in the terror and the gulag.

Here's a bit from David Horowitz on the bankruptcy of communism (what progressivism is really all about):

In what sense can a bankrupt idea be called “progressive”? For two centuries the socialist idea -- the future promise that justifies the present sacrifice -- has functioned as a blank check for the violence and injustice associated with efforts to achieve it. The “experiments” may have failed – so go the apologies for the Left -- but the intentions that launched them were idealistic and noble. But it is no longer really possible to hold up the socialist fantasy to justify the destructive assaults on existing societies which, whatever their faults, were less oppressive than the revolutionary “solutions” that followed their demise. The failed “experiments” of the Left and its divisive crusades must be seen now for what they are: bloody exercises in civil nihilism; violent pursuits of empty hopes; revolutionary actes gratuites that were doomed to fail from the start.

Historical perspective imposes on us a new standard of judgment. Because they were doomed from their origin and destructive by design, these revolutionary gestures now stand condemned by morality and justice in their conception and not merely in their result. If there was a “party of humanity” in the civil wars that the Left’s ambitions provoked in the past, it was on the other side of the political barricades. In these battles, the enlightened parties were those who defended democratic process and civil order against the greater barbarism that, as we now know for certain, the radical future entailed.

UPDATE: Linked at Doug Ross, Linkiest, and The Rhetorican.

Imperial Valley Press Mocks Injury of Decorated Marine Vet and GOP Candidate Nick Popaditch

Sick. But unsurprising.

At Flash Report, which, in addition to posting the offensive cartoon, links to this video of Popaditch:

Los Angeles Times has a nice summary, "Imperial Valley newspaper catches heat for political cartoon":

The Imperial Valley Press is being criticized by some readers who believe a political cartoon mocked the injuries of a decorated Iraq war veteran who is running for Congress.

The cartoon, published Saturday, shows a poster of candidate Nick Popaditch, who has a patch over his right eye. Two youths with skateboards seem perplexed by the poster

"What does that remind you of?" one says.

The other answers: "A James Bond super villain? A bald pirate? Uncle Fester with an eye patch."

Popaditch, a Marine gunnery sergeant, lost the sight in his right eye during the battle for Fallouja in Iraq in 2004. He received the Silver Star and Purple Heart and now is the Republican candidate in the 51st Congressional District, facing Democratic incumbent Bob Filner.

Among those criticizing the cartoon is Cheryl Perez, president of the Ladies Auxiliary, Military Order of the Purple Heart, unit 49, San Diego.

"I realize Nick is running for a political office and political cartoons are the norm," Perez wrote. "Attack him on his political views, not on injuries he sustained while fighting for other people's freedom and liberties. ... This is not just an insult to Nick, but an affront to every Purple Heart recipient."

Go to Popaditch for Congress 2010 for more information.

Total Solar Eclipse of July 11, 2010

I love 'em.

I used to joke around to people: "Look, it's an eclipse!"

A great slideshow at National Geographic, "Solar Eclipse Photos: Easter Island, Other Sites Darken."

The scientific information is at the NASA homepage. A couple of news clips here:

"We Will Not Be Silenced' Highlights Hopey-Changey Thuggery

I'm providing here the Fox News interview with Gigi Gaston, the long-time Democrat who's producing a powerful documentary on the Barack Obama campaign's fraud and voter intimidation in 2008. Some clips are at the homepage, "We Will Not Be Silenced." And I want to stress the Ms. Gaston is a Democrat (the biting significance of which comes across repeatedly at the interview with Alyson Camerota). This administration is thuggery on steroids. But none of it is surprising to me. I wrote about Obama's egregious violations of federal campaign law on October 2008, and while there were some other good articles about it in the MSM at the time, once "The One" was elected no one heard another words about the lawbreaking and finance scandals.

In any case, Doug Ross has a killer piece on this, "'We Will Not Be Silenced': Democrats Produce Documentary Alleging Rampant Vote Fraud by Obama Campaign vs. Hillary in 2008 Primaries."

I'll add that Ed Morrissey is not impressed, and he updates his post:

I’ve gotten a couple of testy e-mails from the producers, but after watching the clips from the still-incomplete documentary, I’m still not convinced that this somehow rises above the usual elbows and sucker punches one sees at caucuses. But more to the point, if this is all somehow true and Obama “stole” the nomination from Hillary, then why did Hillary (a) endorse Obama, (b) campaign for him, and (c) leave the Senate to take the SecState job? Are we to believe that the biggest victim of the theft is somehow playing along with it? After all, she could have easily stayed in the Senate, win re-election this year (Republicans may not even be able to beat her replacement, and geared up for a 2012 primary challenge to Obama. The fact that she didn’t should tell people that the collection of irregularities doesn’t amount to a stolen election.

Actually, Ed answered his update at the original post (the Clintons are Machiavellian). But aside from these reasonable disagreements, the portions of the clips I've watch raise a larger question of violations of democracy regardless of whether Obama "stole" the election. When black civil rights activists are turned away and Hillary Clinton supporters never saw the light of day at the precinct-level Democratic Party caucuses, it's not so much who won, but at what cost? And by now of course we've had 18 months of SEIU-Democratic hopey-changey stormtrooping, so it's about time we get a little more light on these practices. Get these f***ers out of power, sheesh!

Defeat of a 'New START Treaty' Would Not Be the End of International Relations

Tim Fernholz, at the American Prospect, adds a novel twist to the increasing progressive demands for "Senate reform." Discussing Mitt Romney's recent op-ed at WaPo ("Obama's worst foreign-policy mistake"), and citing a snarky attack on Romney by Barron Youngsmith ("Non-STARTer"), Fernholz goes on to whine about how some non-existent "extremist" right constituted by "unelected posturers" has destroyed the ability of the Senate to act on a president's negotiated international agreements:

I suppose it ought to be obvious that if our broken Senate can scarcely manage to find 60 senators to agree on anything, finding 67 is a near impossibility, even on an issue that seems to have attracted as much centrist support as this one. This is doubly true if not just unelected posturers like Romney or Sarah Palin but also elected Republican leaders decide to politicize this issue.

A situation where it is impossible for the United States to enter into formally binding international agreements is one where the president has one hand tied behind his back anytime he seeks to engage with another country, friend or foe -- how can any president assert U.S. leadership abroad if world leaders realize that there is no way his political opponents at home will allow him or her to make a deal? While the president's unfettered authority to act destructively in foreign affairs merits a rethinking of the executive's legal authorities, the reverse situation -- the inability of the president to act constructively abroad -- is just as worrisome.

Leftists are dying to get a straight majority vote in the Senate because that'll be the only way they can get their wildly unpopular Obama-Dem agenda passed in the Congress. Of course, the Senate's working exactly as it was envisioned by the Founders as a deliberative body that would place checks on the ability of the House --- the so-called "people's branch" --- to ram through policies that would threaten liberty and destroy the established layers of orderly society. The lefties are kinda pathetic, actually. Months of unbuttoned rants by Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias have been woefully lacking in building traction for reform, so now we're hearing more whiny agitation. And of course ObamaCare has by now proved to be as disastrous as conservatives originally warned, but thick-headed leftists haven't learned a thing and would now like to push through a disastrously flawed strategic arms treaty that would do nothing more than put the U.S. at risk with absolutely no downsides for Moscow.

That's just brilliant.

But the fact that it's Mitt Romney making the case against this dumb new START treaty is what really seems to stick in the craw of the neo-commies. Robert Farley takes all of this a nice chance to do some Romney-bashing:

The influence of the institutional right wing is even more pronounced on foreign policy than domestic policy because so many major political actors (both Democrat and Republican) simply don’t care about foreign policy. I suspect that Mitt Romney actually has opinions about major issues of US domestic policy, and these opinions may even be informed by some subject area knowledge. In foreign policy this is not the case, and Heritage Foundation ideologues who would have been laughed out of the Reagan administration find themselves in command of the foreign policy statements of several major GOP presidential aspirants.

I have no idea how much ghost-writing Mitt Romney solicits for his policy papers and what not. But I have read his book, and I'd bet that's more than Robert Farley can say (especially given his track record on "book reviews"). And my sense, in any case, is that the U.S. would be miles better off sticking to some of the platform proposals laid out by Romney than anything the progressive lefties are offering in furtherance of their long-held goal of U.S. capitulation to a legal regime of supranational sovereignty.

And by the way, while Fernholz might not be hip, and Robert Farley certainly should be, this notion that presidents are just all of a sudden tied down by some implacable domestic resistance to executive foreign policy autonomy is absurd. In the late-1980s Harvard's Robert Putnam offered a pathbreaking analysis on the "politics of two-level games." Basically, executives of the advanced democracies can never assume a free hand in foreign policy, since there'll always be domestic constituencies that will have to be satisfied simultaneously to foreign negotiators. There are two games being played in any international agreement, and this talk currently of some newly restrained Democratic president is a joke. Here's the Wikipedia entry on the two-level games model:

Two-level game theory is a political model of international conflict resolution between liberal democracies derived from game theory and originally introduced in 1988 by Robert Putnam.

The model views international negotiations between liberal democracies as consisting of simultaneous negotiations at both the intra-national level (eg. domestic) and the international level (eg. between governments). Over domestic negotiations, the executive absorbs the concern of societal actors and builds coalitions with them; at the international level, the executive tries to implement these concerns without committing to anything that will have deleterious effects at home. Win-sets occur when the concerns of actors at both levels overlap, a condition under which an international agreement is likely.

Flying Legends 2010

A Spitfire tailchase clip from Duxford, England. Via Theo Spark:

The Imperial War Museum is in Duxford, where the event took place. Looks awesome. And I'd love to visit soon.

Charles Johnson Now Guestblogging at Andrew Sullivan's!

Just kidding.

But close.

Dave Frum and --- wait for it! --- David Weigel are guest blogging at Dr. Andrew Forensic Gynecologist Sullivan's blog.

See AoSHQ and Robert Stacy McCain for the details.

Meanwhile, King Charles has yet another report of his growing forensic investigations into Robert Stacy McCain's so-called neo-confederate past (safe Google link here):

Sunday Afternoon at Bill Barber Park in Irvine

That's Colonel Bill Barber Marine Corps Memorial Park, actually.

I love the place. I took my youngest boy out to play for a little while yesterday afternoon.

At Colonel Barber's Wikipedia entry:

William Earl Barber (November 20, 1919 – November 30, 2002) was an officer in the United States Marine Corps awarded with the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War. With only 220 men under his command, Barber held off more than 1,400 People's Republic of China soldiers during six days of fighting. Despite the extreme cold weather conditions and himself suffering a bone fracturing wound to the leg, Barber refused an order to leave his position fearing that a retreat would trap 8,000 other Marines. Barber and his limited number of men killed over 1,000 enemy troops; only 82 of his men were able to walk away after eventually being relieved.

Below, at the heart of the facility, is the hill-top flagpole memorial. And the weather was breezy and mild:

At the base is a monument to all the service branches of the Unites States Armed Forces:

Here's the view northeast, toward Saddleback Mountain in the distance:

My boy went for walk around the baseball field (he's over on the sidewalk, at the center-left, a little black spec:

He left is Lego toys at the table for safekeeping while he was gone:

You can see my boy better here, on the play structure at center:

More blogging later!

Angel Stadium Beats Dodger Stadium, Explaining MLB's All-Star Game in Anaheim

So says Bill Plaschke at LAT, "As a beautiful place for a ballgame, Angel Stadium has it all over Dodger Stadium." I'd have to agree, as a long-time Angel fan:

This week, the baseball world brings its marquee game to its Southern California shrine.

The best players will gather at a spot that looks like a park fiesta, smells like a beach picnic, feels like a summer night.

The national attention will focus on the only Southland venue that has staged a World Series and an All-Star game in the last 21 years.

That this place is Angel Stadium is a triumph. That it is not Dodger Stadium is a shame.

Baseball has implied it, longtime baseball fans have felt it, I'm finally going to have to write it.

This week's All-Star game was awarded to Angel Stadium because it is the best ballpark in Southern California by about a 450-foot homer. Angel Stadium is everywhere, Dodger Stadium is nowhere, and for every heart that leaps, there is one that breaks.

For every person who loves the vacation that is a trip to an Angels game, there is someone who mourns the chore that a visit to a Dodgers game has become. This is a great baseball town deserving of two great ballparks, and for all the joy that comes in baseball's recognizing the flashy kid in Anaheim, there is sadness at the decline of the aging lady of Chavez Ravine.

Counting the 1989 game in the pre-renovated Anaheim Stadium, the Angels will have had two All-Star games during a time in which the Dodgers have had none, and one must ask, how is that even possible?

First, it is because the Dodgers, with baseball's third-oldest stadium, realize their limitations and have simply stopped pushing for All-Star games. Second, well, they wouldn't get one if they asked.

Baseball prefers Angel Stadium and, frankly, so do I. This, even though some of the best memories of my adult life have been laced together at Dodger Stadium.

RTWT.

Angel Stadium has been around since the 1960s, when the Angels first moved there from Los Angeles. I've spent many evenings at the park and I can't ever remember having a bad experience. It's what baseball should be. Now, if the Angels can just win another World Series we'd be really stylin!

Obama Plans Maine Vacation While Gulf Gusher Continues to Gush

At Left Coast Rebel, "Getting Close to Day 90 of the Gulf Oil Spill, Obama to Vacation in Maine."

IMAGE CREDIT: No Sheeples Here! (c/o Washington Rebel at Theo Spark's).

Al-Qaeda Affiliated al-Shabaab Kills Dozens in Uganda in Coordinated Bombing Strikes During World Cup Gatherings

At Jihad Watch, "Dozens killed in multiple bombings in Uganda, police chief suspects al-Qaeda."

And NY Times, "Bombers Strike in Uganda at World Cup Gatherings":

At least three bombs exploded Sunday in a synchronized attack on large gatherings of World Cup soccer fans watching the televised final on outdoor projection screens in this normally peaceful capital, turning a boisterous night of cheering into scenes of death and panic. The police said at least 23 people were killed, including one American, and projected that the death toll would rise.

The bombs struck at 10:30 p.m. local time in the middle of the match between Spain and the Netherlands under way in South Africa, hitting a popular Ethiopian garden restaurant and a large rugby field in a different Kampala neighborhood where more than 100 people had massed to watch the game.

Ugandan police officials said they suspected that the Shabab, a militant Islamic group in nearby Somalia, might have been behind the bombings. If so, it would be that group’s first attack beyond Somalia’s borders. But the police cautioned that it was premature to draw conclusions.

“We can’t rule anything out,” said Kale Kayihura, Uganda’s police inspector general, at the scene of one of the attacks. “This was obviously terrorism, from the way it was targeted at World Cup watchers in public places.”

Local reports place the death toll much higher. See, "Over 50 dead as three bomb blasts rock Ugandan capital Kampala, terrorist attack possible: official."

And at WSJ, "Blasts Kill 64 in Uganda": "Americans were among the casualties."

*********

UPDATE: NY Times has revised its report, "Bombers Kill at Least 50 in Attacks in Uganda Capital":

The police and witnesses said more than 50 people were killed, including some foreigners, among them at least one American.

Race-Hustling Demagoguery of Malik Shabazz

New Black Panther race-hustler Malik Shabazz attacks Michelle Malkin as a "political prostitute" in this 2007 clip from Fox News. Michelle calls him out: "You wanna call me a whore on national TV, Mr. Shabazz? The only whore on this split-screen is you..."

Bam!

See the full essay, "Whitewashing Black Racism."

Jerry Brown Fail — Or Whitman?

I just caught this on TV for the first time this morning. I love the approach, although I'm not sure I'll even vote for RINO Whitman. She's as much a Democrat as Brown is, and just a bit less fail:

FWIT, LAT has a pretty interesting --- if largely uninformative --- piece today highlighting the relationship between Whitman and Carly Fiorina. See, "Insiders detail Fiorina, Whitman's fraught history."

Arizona Immigration Lawsuit Isn't Political, Holder Says — Right. That's Why He May Launch Racial Profiling Suit As Well...

Two stories out simultaneously that ought to be good for a laugh or two.

At Bloomberg, "Arizona Immigration Lawsuit Isn't Political, U.S. Attorney General Says." But then at Fox News, "Holder Floats Possibility of Racial Profiling Suit Against Arizona."

Attorney General Eric Holder, just days after filing a federal lawsuit against Arizona's immigration law, on Sunday floated the possibility of filing another suit on racial profiling grounds.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Arizona claimed the state was infringing on federal immigration responsibilities and urged the judge to prevent the law from going into effect at the end of July. Despite some officials' claims that the law could lead to racial profiling, that concern was not cited as grounds for the suit.

However, Holder said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that the federal government was leading with its "strongest" argument in the suit filed Tuesday and would not rule out a second suit months down the road -- if the law ends up going into effect.

"It doesn't mean that if the law for whatever reason happened to go into effect, that six months from now, a year from now, we might not look at the impact the law has had ... and see whether or not there has been that racial profiling impact," Holder said. "If that was the case, we would have the tools and we would bring suit on that basis."

Well, the law "goes into effect" in about 3 weeks, so no doubt Holder & Co. are looking to get maximum political mileage out of the litigation.

More analysis on this at Outside the Beltway (via Memeorandum). And here's this at Liberty Pundits:

Yet again, whitey-hating Holder affirms that the present Arizona law has zero Constitutional defects vis-a-vis discrimination of any kind, including racial. Now he is reduced to the pathetically weak threat that “You white people in Arizona better be-a careful in how you be implementing that law cuz I’sa be-a watchin!”

But compare to David Savage, "Arizona immigration law unlikely to survive federal lawsuit."